It feels very weird to have it be still winter on the calendar and have the air conditioning on in the house because it's very warm and humid outside. I'm wondering if we'll have a snow storm for Mother's Day?
We, as a nation, are out of Iraq. Thanks heavens. I really believe we need to get out of Afghanistan as soon as possible and not get into a war with Syria or Iran. I never agreed with the war in Iraq and we accomplished our immediate mission in Afghanistan very quickly but never withdrew.
Recent arguments about the offensive comments of Limbaugh and Maher are troubling. People defend both of them and I really do not understand how or why anyone can defend either of them. They are both very crass individuals and neither is worthy of defense. Of course, they are both incredible wealthy being crass so they have nothing to lose.
Peyton Manning is one of if not the greatest quarterback in the history of the NFL. I have no idea what his future holds and if he'll be healthy enough to play. However, having said this, it is difficult to imagine him playing for a team other than the Colts. I hate the fact that he'll probably retire as a member of some other team. It just seems so wrong on so many levels.
I wish I liked basketball. People who like basketball have so much fun in March. It's just not very interesting to me.
Is it just me or are most of the 'issues' being debated right now in the Presidential debates, not really issues. I was listening to a former speech writer for Condi Rice speaking about this. She is a young woman, a life long Republican, and she's bewildered by the people running for office and feels she has no one she can really vote for with any sense of confidence. She sounded like her choice would be to either not vote or vote for an independent person from neither party.
Our two political parties seem to forget that elections are won or lost based on 20% of the population who tend to be independent, centrist, pragmatists.
Melissa Harris-Perry, a professor, has one of the best talk shows on the weekend. She's on MSNBC at 10AM. Cool and intellectual conversations take place. There is no yelling and no name calling and a great deal of respect given to everyone at the table. I hope this catches on.
One thing is for sure. Having college basketball play off rounds in Louisville really generates excitement in the downtown!
Lastly, Jeremy Sapp and JR Stuart are in "Tuesdays with Morrie" at St. Marks. Wow. Brilliant play with two brilliant performances by two very, very fine actors.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Sunday, March 11, 2012
A Remarkable Covenant I: Being God’s People
A Remarkable Covenant I: Being God’s People
Text: Genesis 17:10-16
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
March 11, 2012
Within the Bible there is the concept of covenant that occurs time and time again. There are minor covenants and three very major covenants.
Covenants are things we make and use all the time without necessarily calling them covenants. A covenant is an agreement between two parties.
If you go out for pizza and you pay for the pizza you are making a covenant that if you give the person money, that person will give you the pizza.
When we purchase a car or a house, we sign a contract that is, in essence, a covenant. If we get married or committed to someone, that is a covenant. When we join churches, it is a covenant. And God has made covenants with us; and we make covenants back, to God.
The Bible has minor covenants that were made with God and people such as Noah and David. There are also agreements, covenants, made between people. There are, however, three over-arching covenants in the Bible. This week I will examine the first of the three, between God and Abraham.
To do this, however, first we need to ponder God and how we view God.
First, we need to see how people viewed God back in Abraham’s day.
In the time of Abraham people perceived the concept of God very differently than we do now. For most people in that era, gods were considered to be regional and functional. There were gods for the sun, the moon, the sea, the sky, the moon, the earth, for war, for love, etc. Cultures saw gods as being tied to distinct geographic areas and were limited to certain powers.
Suddenly, into this mix enters God making a covenant with Abraham. The revelation of God was that there was only one God and the God of Israel was the one God, and God was making a covenant to Abraham and his descendants. God was going to be their God and they were going to be God’s people.
This first major covenant between God and God’s people had one amazing thing taking place. God was, in essence, announcing to the world that God was bigger than they had ever conceived.
The amazing thing about all of this, however, was that people still struggled with how they perceived God. As a result, in Hebrew, there were a multitude of names for God with often different meanings.
These included:
Elohim - strong One, divine
Adonai - Lord, indicating a Master-to-servant
El Elyon - Most High, the strongest One
El Roi - the strong One who sees
El Shaddai – literally, God of the Mountain,Almighty God .
El Olam - Everlasting God
Yahweh - LORD “I Am,” meaning the eternal self-existent God.
People took the concept of multiple gods and gave all those qualities to the one God of Israel. God became one God with many names most of which came from the attributes people saw in God.
In contemporary times we don’t always have a vast array of names for God, but people maintain a vast array of theological opinions about God.
For some, God is a cosmic judge looking to condemn people for every and anything they perceive to be wrong. This past week a minister in Minnesota preached a sermon about the tornadoes in Indiana and said that this was a lesson to everyone about repenting from their sins. God is perceived as an angry and cosmic judge.
Others see God as a something of a cosmic puppet-master controlling each and every aspect of our lives with detailed plans laid out for us each and every day of our lives. We’ve probably all heard sermons or people speaking about God having an explicit plan for their lives from who will be in their family, where they will live, and what kind of career they will have.
For some God is a cosmic Santa Claus waiting for our prayers, and seeking, diligently to provide for our every want or need. Much of what we read and hear about with the prosperity Gospel is based on this. If we pray hard and have faith, then all our dreams will come true.
Others see God as a cosmic observer who sits back and simply watches the universe do its thing with no intervention. God listens to prayers, but does not act until, perhaps the end of life or the end of time. God is something of a removed observer.
Some see God as one who creates, observes, gently guides, and allows life to take place. God is a combination of passive and active, but generally allows life to take place without a great deal of intervention.
All of this, of course, has the addition of the character and personality of God. Some see God as angry and vengeful; others as loving and kind; others as a being with an amazing sense of humor who finds our efforts to be, if nothing else, amusing and entertaining.
Now that I have laid a whole host of things about God, we are left with the fact that God made a covenant with Abraham, and upon this covenant much has been built. It also forces us to ponder what it is we believe about God and what attributes we believe are important about God.
I have three. The first is that God is transcendent.
The word transcendent implies that God is ‘out there,’ great and almighty. God is one who is beyond perception, independent of the universe, and “other” when compared to us. In fact, the word ‘holy’ is, at its core, ‘other.’
It means, in essence, that God is magnificent beyond our perception, comprehension, and understanding. No matter how hard we try, we cannot truly understand God.
In the movie O God there is a wonderful scene between God and Jerry, with God being played by George Burns and Jerry being played by John Denver. Jerry and God are standing in Jerry’s bathroom and God is standing there and they are chatting. Jerry asks, “Is this how you really are?” and God’s response is, “No, if I came as I really am, you couldn’t have gotten it.” This is statement of a transcendent God. God is so beyond our compression we could not stand in God’s presence and fathom what we are experiencing.
On the other hand, God is also immanent. An immanent God, is one which exists within — within us, within the universe, etc. — and, hence, very much a part of our existence. God as immanent is God looking like George Burns in Jerry’s bathroom. When we sing hymns like “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” that is a reference to an immanent God, one who is our friend. When we attend a funeral and sing “In the Garden,” pondering images of God walking and talking with us, that is a vision of an immanent God.
These are the first two but you may be thinking, “Hey, wait a minute. A view of God as transcendent and a view of God as immanent are opposites.” Yes, they are, and that is part of what makes God, God. God is both greater than we can imagine, and here in our midst. The fact that we can’t perceive it is part of the magnificence of God.
The last attribute of God that really moves me is that God is Eternal. I usually begin prayers with the phrase, “Eternal God,’ because it’s an image I love.
Many scientists say that the first dinosaurs walked the planet 542 million years ago. To give you a point of reference, Jesus lived 2000 years ago and Abraham lived around 4000 years ago.
This means, if we repeated the 2000 years between the time of Jesus and us, here and now, we’d have to repeat it 271,000 times with Abraham’s time needing to be repeated 135,500 times! Geologists tell us that the earth began to take its shape 4.5 billion years ago which means that the era between Jesus’ time and our time would be repeated 2.2 million times and change. The average 80 year old person would live their life over again better than 56 million times.
I’m throwing all these numbers out because I think it gives some perspective on what the word “Eternal” really means. God as Eternal means that God is God in every age and every era. Philosophers tell us that God’s eternity is not linear, year to year, like ours, but one moment. The formation and destruction of the earth is one moment, to God. The dinosaurs and the year 2525, from the song, are one moment. Our sins and Jesus dying on the cross for sin are simultaneous.
Going back to the covenant between God and Abraham, there is something amazing and mind-blowing to acknowledge. This God, this one God, this God who is so magnificently ‘out there,’ this God who is so lovingly ‘in our midst,’ and this God who is God for all eternity, chooses to make a covenant to people, literally and profoundly simply, being our God. It is, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” It is magnificent and it is beautiful.
I am reminded of one of my all-time heroes in Christianity, Thomas Aquinas. He was a Dominican Friar in the 13th century, very much a Pre-Reformation Reformer who spent half his time being charged with heresy. He was for theology and philosophy what Galileo was for astronomy, Newton was for science, and Einstein was for math----brilliant beyond brilliant. He was an amazingly prolific and profound writer. Yet, later in his life he had a profoundly intimate experience of God and he stopped writing stating that, compared to God, everything he had ever written, was little more than straw.
This God, this God of all eternity, this God of distance and closeness, this God who can render geniuses silent, is the God of the covenant with Abraham and now with us.
Text: Genesis 17:10-16
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
March 11, 2012
Within the Bible there is the concept of covenant that occurs time and time again. There are minor covenants and three very major covenants.
Covenants are things we make and use all the time without necessarily calling them covenants. A covenant is an agreement between two parties.
If you go out for pizza and you pay for the pizza you are making a covenant that if you give the person money, that person will give you the pizza.
When we purchase a car or a house, we sign a contract that is, in essence, a covenant. If we get married or committed to someone, that is a covenant. When we join churches, it is a covenant. And God has made covenants with us; and we make covenants back, to God.
The Bible has minor covenants that were made with God and people such as Noah and David. There are also agreements, covenants, made between people. There are, however, three over-arching covenants in the Bible. This week I will examine the first of the three, between God and Abraham.
To do this, however, first we need to ponder God and how we view God.
First, we need to see how people viewed God back in Abraham’s day.
In the time of Abraham people perceived the concept of God very differently than we do now. For most people in that era, gods were considered to be regional and functional. There were gods for the sun, the moon, the sea, the sky, the moon, the earth, for war, for love, etc. Cultures saw gods as being tied to distinct geographic areas and were limited to certain powers.
Suddenly, into this mix enters God making a covenant with Abraham. The revelation of God was that there was only one God and the God of Israel was the one God, and God was making a covenant to Abraham and his descendants. God was going to be their God and they were going to be God’s people.
This first major covenant between God and God’s people had one amazing thing taking place. God was, in essence, announcing to the world that God was bigger than they had ever conceived.
The amazing thing about all of this, however, was that people still struggled with how they perceived God. As a result, in Hebrew, there were a multitude of names for God with often different meanings.
These included:
Elohim - strong One, divine
Adonai - Lord, indicating a Master-to-servant
El Elyon - Most High, the strongest One
El Roi - the strong One who sees
El Shaddai – literally, God of the Mountain,Almighty God .
El Olam - Everlasting God
Yahweh - LORD “I Am,” meaning the eternal self-existent God.
People took the concept of multiple gods and gave all those qualities to the one God of Israel. God became one God with many names most of which came from the attributes people saw in God.
In contemporary times we don’t always have a vast array of names for God, but people maintain a vast array of theological opinions about God.
For some, God is a cosmic judge looking to condemn people for every and anything they perceive to be wrong. This past week a minister in Minnesota preached a sermon about the tornadoes in Indiana and said that this was a lesson to everyone about repenting from their sins. God is perceived as an angry and cosmic judge.
Others see God as a something of a cosmic puppet-master controlling each and every aspect of our lives with detailed plans laid out for us each and every day of our lives. We’ve probably all heard sermons or people speaking about God having an explicit plan for their lives from who will be in their family, where they will live, and what kind of career they will have.
For some God is a cosmic Santa Claus waiting for our prayers, and seeking, diligently to provide for our every want or need. Much of what we read and hear about with the prosperity Gospel is based on this. If we pray hard and have faith, then all our dreams will come true.
Others see God as a cosmic observer who sits back and simply watches the universe do its thing with no intervention. God listens to prayers, but does not act until, perhaps the end of life or the end of time. God is something of a removed observer.
Some see God as one who creates, observes, gently guides, and allows life to take place. God is a combination of passive and active, but generally allows life to take place without a great deal of intervention.
All of this, of course, has the addition of the character and personality of God. Some see God as angry and vengeful; others as loving and kind; others as a being with an amazing sense of humor who finds our efforts to be, if nothing else, amusing and entertaining.
Now that I have laid a whole host of things about God, we are left with the fact that God made a covenant with Abraham, and upon this covenant much has been built. It also forces us to ponder what it is we believe about God and what attributes we believe are important about God.
I have three. The first is that God is transcendent.
The word transcendent implies that God is ‘out there,’ great and almighty. God is one who is beyond perception, independent of the universe, and “other” when compared to us. In fact, the word ‘holy’ is, at its core, ‘other.’
It means, in essence, that God is magnificent beyond our perception, comprehension, and understanding. No matter how hard we try, we cannot truly understand God.
In the movie O God there is a wonderful scene between God and Jerry, with God being played by George Burns and Jerry being played by John Denver. Jerry and God are standing in Jerry’s bathroom and God is standing there and they are chatting. Jerry asks, “Is this how you really are?” and God’s response is, “No, if I came as I really am, you couldn’t have gotten it.” This is statement of a transcendent God. God is so beyond our compression we could not stand in God’s presence and fathom what we are experiencing.
On the other hand, God is also immanent. An immanent God, is one which exists within — within us, within the universe, etc. — and, hence, very much a part of our existence. God as immanent is God looking like George Burns in Jerry’s bathroom. When we sing hymns like “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” that is a reference to an immanent God, one who is our friend. When we attend a funeral and sing “In the Garden,” pondering images of God walking and talking with us, that is a vision of an immanent God.
These are the first two but you may be thinking, “Hey, wait a minute. A view of God as transcendent and a view of God as immanent are opposites.” Yes, they are, and that is part of what makes God, God. God is both greater than we can imagine, and here in our midst. The fact that we can’t perceive it is part of the magnificence of God.
The last attribute of God that really moves me is that God is Eternal. I usually begin prayers with the phrase, “Eternal God,’ because it’s an image I love.
Many scientists say that the first dinosaurs walked the planet 542 million years ago. To give you a point of reference, Jesus lived 2000 years ago and Abraham lived around 4000 years ago.
This means, if we repeated the 2000 years between the time of Jesus and us, here and now, we’d have to repeat it 271,000 times with Abraham’s time needing to be repeated 135,500 times! Geologists tell us that the earth began to take its shape 4.5 billion years ago which means that the era between Jesus’ time and our time would be repeated 2.2 million times and change. The average 80 year old person would live their life over again better than 56 million times.
I’m throwing all these numbers out because I think it gives some perspective on what the word “Eternal” really means. God as Eternal means that God is God in every age and every era. Philosophers tell us that God’s eternity is not linear, year to year, like ours, but one moment. The formation and destruction of the earth is one moment, to God. The dinosaurs and the year 2525, from the song, are one moment. Our sins and Jesus dying on the cross for sin are simultaneous.
Going back to the covenant between God and Abraham, there is something amazing and mind-blowing to acknowledge. This God, this one God, this God who is so magnificently ‘out there,’ this God who is so lovingly ‘in our midst,’ and this God who is God for all eternity, chooses to make a covenant to people, literally and profoundly simply, being our God. It is, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” It is magnificent and it is beautiful.
I am reminded of one of my all-time heroes in Christianity, Thomas Aquinas. He was a Dominican Friar in the 13th century, very much a Pre-Reformation Reformer who spent half his time being charged with heresy. He was for theology and philosophy what Galileo was for astronomy, Newton was for science, and Einstein was for math----brilliant beyond brilliant. He was an amazingly prolific and profound writer. Yet, later in his life he had a profoundly intimate experience of God and he stopped writing stating that, compared to God, everything he had ever written, was little more than straw.
This God, this God of all eternity, this God of distance and closeness, this God who can render geniuses silent, is the God of the covenant with Abraham and now with us.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
What I Learned in a Decade
What I Learned in a Decade
Text: Isaiah 55:10-12
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
February 26, 2012
Today, after Worship, we are having lunch and a party next door. If I say that I learned ‘nothing’ in the last decade, we could end Worship early and go have fun. That would be a bad idea, on one hand, because when people come to Worship, they expect to actually have a Worship Service, but additionally, it would be very untrue. I have learned a good deal in the last decade, some of which I’d like to share with you this morning.
In many ways the most critical role a pastor plays is as a preacher. Preaching is a 15 minute event on Sunday mornings to the average person. For those of us who are ministers, and who take preaching seriously, preaching is the most time consuming thing we do each week. It requires reading, praying, thinking, feeling, and writing. A professor at Lancaster Theological Seminary, in a sermon, once said that theologians think about everything all the time. That is acutely accurate and pretty much summarized preaching. Life is one long sermon illustration.
In today’s scripture, from Second Isaiah, the prophet is speaking about preaching from God’s perspective. God sends rain and snow down from Heaven to water the earth. That water does not return until the earth has been nourished and brings forth plants which generate the energy that puts moisture back in the air. Today’s choir anthem is based on this text and it is my favorite anthem of all. It is a powerful statement about preaching. Preaching means something.
Eugene Peterson in his book, The Pastor: A Memoir tells a wonderful story about his son, Leif.
Leif said to him one day: Novelists only write one book. They find their voice, their book, and write it over and over. William Faulkner wrote one book. Charles Dickens wrote one book. Anne Tyler wrote one book. Ernest Hemingway wrote one book. Willa Cather wrote one book.” I wasn’t quite sure I agreed, but he obviously knew more about the subject than I did, so I didn’t say much. A few days later, he said, “Remember what I said about novelists only writing one book? You only preach one sermon.” I protested. “I don’t repeat myself in the pulpit. I work hard on these sermons. Every week is new, the world changes, the lives of these people are changing constantly. And each sermon is new, these scriptures personalized into their language and circumstances. I live with these scriptures; I live with these people. My sermon is a way for them to hear their stories integrated into God’s story, or God’s story integrated into their stories. Either way it’s a story in the making—new details every week, new in the telling, new in the making.”.
Not long after that, after Worship, they were having lunch and Leif said:
“Well, Dad, that was your sermon. I’ve been listening to that sermon all my life. Your one sermon, your signature sermon.”
When they were taking their son back to the airport his son said he was changing churches as he was tired of the church he was attending. About three months later they asked him if he had found a new church and his response was, ““No. I tried a bunch of them but I’m back at First Church. None of those other pastors had found their sermon.” After his son told him this, Peterson got it, he understood.
The art of preaching, I think, for most of us, is finding that sermon. Not all that long ago I was thinking that there are things I say a lot, themes that run through many of my sermons. I was not able to articulate what that was until someone shared what Peterson had said, and until I read this section in Peterson’s book. One of the things I’ve learned in the last decade about preaching was this. I found my sermon.
The second thing I have learned is the spiritual gift of hospitality.
In traditions shaped by the Bible, hospitality is a moral imperative. There is an expectation that God’s people are people who will welcome strangers and treat them justly and well runs throughout the entire Bible. This theme begins in Genesis and runs through every book of the Bible in a variety of ways. Calling ourselves a people of God demands that we offer hospitality.
St. Marks has taught me about the gift of hospitality in ways that I never saw before.
In my first church, a congregation where I received 10 years experience in 19 months, there was a festival called Hartslog Day that took place every year. My church was on the main road in a downtown with only two roads. Right next door to our church was a United Methodist Church. There was a debate in the Church Council about having our doors open so people could use the rest room. There was one over-riding question in the room: What were the Methodists doing? If they were keeping their doors open, we’d have to so as not to look too bad. If they were staying locked, we could. The goal of the group was to keep the building closed.
I was furious and argued that it didn’t matter what any other church in town was doing. We had to do the right thing because it was the right thing. They argued back that all their visitors would run up the water bill and may steal the bathroom tissue.
It turned out the church next door was more hospitable than our church was so the doors were kept open. Several years ago when withdrew from the United Church of Christ because they felt the denomination was too welcoming. Hospitality was something that church struggled with. Actually, gaining 10 years experience in 19 months demonstrates there were other struggles as well.
St. Marks, on the other hand, demonstrates incredible hospitality. When we made a concerted effort to assure everyone was welcome, people left. That was difficult on everyone, but people hung together. Hospitality is a spiritual discipline we do not take lightly, even if it means we have had bathroom tissue stolen and higher water bills.
Yesterday was the Neighborhood Health Fair. Hundreds of people came and were treated with dignity and respect and were served in a variety of ways. It was hard to do, but Hospitality is a spiritual discipline we do not take lightly.
Our Clothes Closet is now up the road as our renovation is taking place. With the help of Central Christian Church, we are able to keep this ministry going. Hospitality is a spiritual discipline we do not take lightly.
The Soup Kitchen is moving across the street next week as our renovations keep going forward. We cannot stop feeding the hungry as Hospitality is a spiritual discipline we do not take lightly.
While I have always understood the importance of hospitality, St. Marks has made me realize who crucial it is as a spiritual discipline.
Hospitality is often confused as being about rules as to how to do things. Do we shake hands well? Offer coffee? Greet people nicely? All of these things are important, but they are not the core of hospitality. Hospitality is a spiritual discipline that is a way of being.
One of the core things in Judaism is the Law, but often people don’t realize that the concept of Jewish Law was not so much about the rules, but about a way of being. The Hebrew word for law is Halakhah which is translated as either a way of being of a path that one walks. It is not translated as RULES, but attitude.
I believe this has been something we have learned together. Keeping one’s rest rooms open or welcoming people comes from a way of being, a path a church is on more than a set of rules for hospitality.
In the recent newspaper article by Dale Moss about our Clothes Closet he said that we were a smaller church with the heart of a mega-church and that is because of the heart of hospitality that drives us. It is something we have grown into together.
So these are two things I have learned in a decade. It is about finding my sermon and growing together in a spirit of hospitality.
If you’ve been here a long time you’ll know that there is usually always a third thing. But this time, in this sermon, the third point is going to be left blank. It will be for all that we have to learn from one another in the future.
.
Text: Isaiah 55:10-12
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
February 26, 2012
Today, after Worship, we are having lunch and a party next door. If I say that I learned ‘nothing’ in the last decade, we could end Worship early and go have fun. That would be a bad idea, on one hand, because when people come to Worship, they expect to actually have a Worship Service, but additionally, it would be very untrue. I have learned a good deal in the last decade, some of which I’d like to share with you this morning.
In many ways the most critical role a pastor plays is as a preacher. Preaching is a 15 minute event on Sunday mornings to the average person. For those of us who are ministers, and who take preaching seriously, preaching is the most time consuming thing we do each week. It requires reading, praying, thinking, feeling, and writing. A professor at Lancaster Theological Seminary, in a sermon, once said that theologians think about everything all the time. That is acutely accurate and pretty much summarized preaching. Life is one long sermon illustration.
In today’s scripture, from Second Isaiah, the prophet is speaking about preaching from God’s perspective. God sends rain and snow down from Heaven to water the earth. That water does not return until the earth has been nourished and brings forth plants which generate the energy that puts moisture back in the air. Today’s choir anthem is based on this text and it is my favorite anthem of all. It is a powerful statement about preaching. Preaching means something.
Eugene Peterson in his book, The Pastor: A Memoir tells a wonderful story about his son, Leif.
Leif said to him one day: Novelists only write one book. They find their voice, their book, and write it over and over. William Faulkner wrote one book. Charles Dickens wrote one book. Anne Tyler wrote one book. Ernest Hemingway wrote one book. Willa Cather wrote one book.” I wasn’t quite sure I agreed, but he obviously knew more about the subject than I did, so I didn’t say much. A few days later, he said, “Remember what I said about novelists only writing one book? You only preach one sermon.” I protested. “I don’t repeat myself in the pulpit. I work hard on these sermons. Every week is new, the world changes, the lives of these people are changing constantly. And each sermon is new, these scriptures personalized into their language and circumstances. I live with these scriptures; I live with these people. My sermon is a way for them to hear their stories integrated into God’s story, or God’s story integrated into their stories. Either way it’s a story in the making—new details every week, new in the telling, new in the making.”.
Not long after that, after Worship, they were having lunch and Leif said:
“Well, Dad, that was your sermon. I’ve been listening to that sermon all my life. Your one sermon, your signature sermon.”
When they were taking their son back to the airport his son said he was changing churches as he was tired of the church he was attending. About three months later they asked him if he had found a new church and his response was, ““No. I tried a bunch of them but I’m back at First Church. None of those other pastors had found their sermon.” After his son told him this, Peterson got it, he understood.
The art of preaching, I think, for most of us, is finding that sermon. Not all that long ago I was thinking that there are things I say a lot, themes that run through many of my sermons. I was not able to articulate what that was until someone shared what Peterson had said, and until I read this section in Peterson’s book. One of the things I’ve learned in the last decade about preaching was this. I found my sermon.
The second thing I have learned is the spiritual gift of hospitality.
In traditions shaped by the Bible, hospitality is a moral imperative. There is an expectation that God’s people are people who will welcome strangers and treat them justly and well runs throughout the entire Bible. This theme begins in Genesis and runs through every book of the Bible in a variety of ways. Calling ourselves a people of God demands that we offer hospitality.
St. Marks has taught me about the gift of hospitality in ways that I never saw before.
In my first church, a congregation where I received 10 years experience in 19 months, there was a festival called Hartslog Day that took place every year. My church was on the main road in a downtown with only two roads. Right next door to our church was a United Methodist Church. There was a debate in the Church Council about having our doors open so people could use the rest room. There was one over-riding question in the room: What were the Methodists doing? If they were keeping their doors open, we’d have to so as not to look too bad. If they were staying locked, we could. The goal of the group was to keep the building closed.
I was furious and argued that it didn’t matter what any other church in town was doing. We had to do the right thing because it was the right thing. They argued back that all their visitors would run up the water bill and may steal the bathroom tissue.
It turned out the church next door was more hospitable than our church was so the doors were kept open. Several years ago when withdrew from the United Church of Christ because they felt the denomination was too welcoming. Hospitality was something that church struggled with. Actually, gaining 10 years experience in 19 months demonstrates there were other struggles as well.
St. Marks, on the other hand, demonstrates incredible hospitality. When we made a concerted effort to assure everyone was welcome, people left. That was difficult on everyone, but people hung together. Hospitality is a spiritual discipline we do not take lightly, even if it means we have had bathroom tissue stolen and higher water bills.
Yesterday was the Neighborhood Health Fair. Hundreds of people came and were treated with dignity and respect and were served in a variety of ways. It was hard to do, but Hospitality is a spiritual discipline we do not take lightly.
Our Clothes Closet is now up the road as our renovation is taking place. With the help of Central Christian Church, we are able to keep this ministry going. Hospitality is a spiritual discipline we do not take lightly.
The Soup Kitchen is moving across the street next week as our renovations keep going forward. We cannot stop feeding the hungry as Hospitality is a spiritual discipline we do not take lightly.
While I have always understood the importance of hospitality, St. Marks has made me realize who crucial it is as a spiritual discipline.
Hospitality is often confused as being about rules as to how to do things. Do we shake hands well? Offer coffee? Greet people nicely? All of these things are important, but they are not the core of hospitality. Hospitality is a spiritual discipline that is a way of being.
One of the core things in Judaism is the Law, but often people don’t realize that the concept of Jewish Law was not so much about the rules, but about a way of being. The Hebrew word for law is Halakhah which is translated as either a way of being of a path that one walks. It is not translated as RULES, but attitude.
I believe this has been something we have learned together. Keeping one’s rest rooms open or welcoming people comes from a way of being, a path a church is on more than a set of rules for hospitality.
In the recent newspaper article by Dale Moss about our Clothes Closet he said that we were a smaller church with the heart of a mega-church and that is because of the heart of hospitality that drives us. It is something we have grown into together.
So these are two things I have learned in a decade. It is about finding my sermon and growing together in a spirit of hospitality.
If you’ve been here a long time you’ll know that there is usually always a third thing. But this time, in this sermon, the third point is going to be left blank. It will be for all that we have to learn from one another in the future.
.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Love and Disclaimers
Ever notice how we LOVE to use disclaimers to give ourselves breaks from really loving others.
I’ve often thought about this and how easy it is to become disrespectful of others. I’ve done it, and I’m sure most everyone has done it.
I love the use of disclaimers, like using disclaimers make things okay.
Sometimes we’ll say something like, “With all due respect,” and then show a complete lack of respect for a person; presuming of course, by saying, ‘with all due respect,” made it okay.
Or, “I don’t mean to offend you, but,” and then they offend you.
Or, “I really shouldn’t be saying this, but,” and then they say it.
My favorite, of course, is when people say, “I say this in all Christian love,” and then they eviscerate whoever they were speaking to.
The premise of course is this. If you say a disclaimer, you can be as disrespectful as you want to be. This is, of course, completely bogus. Love is patient and kind. Patience and kindness demands we be respectful of others. It doesn’t matter if they are a spouse or partner, child, friend, relative, classmate, church-mate, stranger on the street. Paul’s words yell out to us to be patient and kind. It means that whoever we meet in life, whoever we interact with, is a person we must treat with respect. That is what the mandate of love means.
Maybe we need to be cautious about how we use the word, 'but.'
Okay, that's all. I didn't mean for this post to be so personal, but....
I’ve often thought about this and how easy it is to become disrespectful of others. I’ve done it, and I’m sure most everyone has done it.
I love the use of disclaimers, like using disclaimers make things okay.
Sometimes we’ll say something like, “With all due respect,” and then show a complete lack of respect for a person; presuming of course, by saying, ‘with all due respect,” made it okay.
Or, “I don’t mean to offend you, but,” and then they offend you.
Or, “I really shouldn’t be saying this, but,” and then they say it.
My favorite, of course, is when people say, “I say this in all Christian love,” and then they eviscerate whoever they were speaking to.
The premise of course is this. If you say a disclaimer, you can be as disrespectful as you want to be. This is, of course, completely bogus. Love is patient and kind. Patience and kindness demands we be respectful of others. It doesn’t matter if they are a spouse or partner, child, friend, relative, classmate, church-mate, stranger on the street. Paul’s words yell out to us to be patient and kind. It means that whoever we meet in life, whoever we interact with, is a person we must treat with respect. That is what the mandate of love means.
Maybe we need to be cautious about how we use the word, 'but.'
Okay, that's all. I didn't mean for this post to be so personal, but....
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Ash Wednesday Meditation
Every year this day, Ash Wednesday, rolls around and we begin the season of Lent. This is a season of 40 days plus Sundays that we remember Jesus’ 40 days in the desert preparing for his ministry to the world.
The number 40 in the Bible is a very symbolic number about testing.
When it rained and Noah took to the ark, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights.
When Moses went to the mountain to receive the 10 Commandments he stayed there for 40 days.
The Israelites wandered through the desert for 40 years.
And Jesus went into the desert for 40 days to prepare for his ministry. In each and every time, the number 40 was a time of testing and, in so many ways, a time of preparation for a new life on the other end.
Lent is ultimately about three things.
It is a time of repentance.
In verse 3 of Psalm 51 it says:
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
Most of us are aware that we sin. In our heart of hearts we all know what we do well and where we fall short. Lent is a time to really reflect on this and try and grow away from sin. Often we look to turn away from sin, but often it’s easy to turn back. Growing away from sin often seems to a better way to approach it. It’s taking one step at a time toward a new life. Lent is a season of repentance.
Lent is also a season for renewal and renewal is a part of living a life of ongoing conversion. How can we make ourselves better?
Maybe it’s reading more or praying more or taking up a new hobby. Or exercising more. I heard something recently that was sort of a unique way of looking at things. We have become a society well versed in energy conservation----but that energy conservation is not what you are thinking. We conserve our OWN energy. We rarely ever have to run and even don’t have to walk very much any longer. Maybe one step we can make is to begin to use more of our energy and make ourselves move more. I know it’s something I’m planning on doing.
Lastly, Lent is a time of community. It is a time to get together, pray and study and spend time with your family of faith. It is a time to love deeply and grow together.
I watched a video on the Internet about Ash Wednesday and it had a clever little thing in it. It said that the classic American hero is the Lone Ranger. He is alone. He is self-made, and he is independent. The classic biblical hero, however, is Tonto. Tonto is part of a tribe, community minded, and dependent.
We often like to think we are clever, self-made, and independent, but when we do so we leave God out of the picture.
There’s a wonderful story set in the future when a group of scientists approach God and tell God that God is no longer needed. They scientists have figured out how to make human beings from the dirt, just like God did.
So God said, “Okay, make a person for me out of dirt.”
The scientists said, “Well, we need some dirt.”
To which God replied, “Create your own.”
This is the season we are beginning. It is a season of repentance, renewal, and community. It is also a season of dirt. The dirt, the ashes remind us that we are dust, and fully reliant on God.
The number 40 in the Bible is a very symbolic number about testing.
When it rained and Noah took to the ark, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights.
When Moses went to the mountain to receive the 10 Commandments he stayed there for 40 days.
The Israelites wandered through the desert for 40 years.
And Jesus went into the desert for 40 days to prepare for his ministry. In each and every time, the number 40 was a time of testing and, in so many ways, a time of preparation for a new life on the other end.
Lent is ultimately about three things.
It is a time of repentance.
In verse 3 of Psalm 51 it says:
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
Most of us are aware that we sin. In our heart of hearts we all know what we do well and where we fall short. Lent is a time to really reflect on this and try and grow away from sin. Often we look to turn away from sin, but often it’s easy to turn back. Growing away from sin often seems to a better way to approach it. It’s taking one step at a time toward a new life. Lent is a season of repentance.
Lent is also a season for renewal and renewal is a part of living a life of ongoing conversion. How can we make ourselves better?
Maybe it’s reading more or praying more or taking up a new hobby. Or exercising more. I heard something recently that was sort of a unique way of looking at things. We have become a society well versed in energy conservation----but that energy conservation is not what you are thinking. We conserve our OWN energy. We rarely ever have to run and even don’t have to walk very much any longer. Maybe one step we can make is to begin to use more of our energy and make ourselves move more. I know it’s something I’m planning on doing.
Lastly, Lent is a time of community. It is a time to get together, pray and study and spend time with your family of faith. It is a time to love deeply and grow together.
I watched a video on the Internet about Ash Wednesday and it had a clever little thing in it. It said that the classic American hero is the Lone Ranger. He is alone. He is self-made, and he is independent. The classic biblical hero, however, is Tonto. Tonto is part of a tribe, community minded, and dependent.
We often like to think we are clever, self-made, and independent, but when we do so we leave God out of the picture.
There’s a wonderful story set in the future when a group of scientists approach God and tell God that God is no longer needed. They scientists have figured out how to make human beings from the dirt, just like God did.
So God said, “Okay, make a person for me out of dirt.”
The scientists said, “Well, we need some dirt.”
To which God replied, “Create your own.”
This is the season we are beginning. It is a season of repentance, renewal, and community. It is also a season of dirt. The dirt, the ashes remind us that we are dust, and fully reliant on God.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
The Power of Negative Thinking
Years ago one of the most popular books was written by Norman Vincent Peale, and it was entitled, The Power of Positive Thinking. Years later, another minister, Robert Schuler wrote about possibility thinking which was, in essence, an updated version of Peale’s positive thinking. The most current offshoot of this in religion has been instances of the prosperity Gospel which gives a sense that if you have faith and are positive, you will be successful. Positive thinking is, if nothing else, a popular concept.
It’s difficult to say, however, that positive thinking has much power. In fact, it often seems like it’s quite the opposite. Negative thinking, getting people to be negative appears to be the path of power.
Some years ago, when Bill Clinton was the American President his administration was watching events in Russia with a sense of horror. Boris Yeltsin, the non-Communist President was behind in the polling to his opponent who was an avowed Communist. The fear was that if Yeltsin lost the election Russia would become a Communist country again----and no one wanted that. A decision was made.
Clinton sent a group of political advisors to Russia to run Yeltsin’s campaign. They essentially kept Yeltsin from view and ran a brutally negative campaign against his opponent. Yeltsin began to rise in the polls-----so much so that he began to make speeches again only to see his poll numbers collapse. They kept him from view and ran their negativity against Yeltsin’s opponent. When the election was over, Boris Yeltsin who, by any stretch of the imagination was not a good President, was re-elected. It had nothing to do with his skill or talent, but only the skill and talent of those who tore his opponent down. It was an example of the power of negative thinking.
There is great power in negative thinking. Negativity wins elections. Often the secret of winning elections is not so much promoting how good your own candidate is, but how bad the opponent is. There is no need for honesty either. Most people, when given negative information, tend to believe it and are willing to overlook little things like facts.
Being fair, let’s look at the two previous Presidents. President George W. Bush was given the label of being less than intelligent. He was mocked for this and often taken lightly. Truthfully, he didn’t speak well, but there are well spoken fools and mumbling geniuses, so that doesn’t tell us much. There is something, however, that may give an indication of his intelligence. He graduated from Yale University and then received a graduate degree from Harvard University.
Yale and Harvard are two of the most academically challenging universities in the nation and he graduated from both of them. Pass this information on to people and they will make a comment that either Yale and Harvard are bad schools or Bush was ‘passed’ because of his Dad. Despite the fact that he went to these two universities and graduated, his intelligence is still challenged because of negativity pointed in his direction.
Then there is President Barack Obama. A significant number of people believe that he was born in Africa. The so-called ‘birther’ movement became a real and significant movement of which there are still a large number of people. He provided a document of live birth, typically given from Hawaii and produced newspaper birth announcements. Not good enough. He finally produced a long form sent to him specially from Hawaii and it showed, TA DA, that he was born in Hawaii. Despite proving it he is still considered to be a foreign born President by many.
It is widely thought that he is Muslim. His father was a non-practicing Muslim but there is no evidence Obama ever was. There is evidence, however, that he was Baptized and married at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago by Jeremiah Wright. Whether one approves of Wright or not, Wright is a United Church of Christ minister and, if one takes the time to read some of his book and listen to most of his sermons, a very committed Christian. Obama is a Christian but popular opinion often seems to be otherwise. Like Bush, this is still challenged because of negativity point in his direction.
Sadly, within Christianity this kind of negativity is also rampant. It is breathtakingly easy to bash people who are not like us. It is easy for people who are not Roman Catholic to bash Catholics for what they perceive Roman Catholics to believe, as opposed to what they really believe. It is easy for people who are Mainline Protestant to bash people who are unlike them and very easy for Evangelical Protestants to bash other Protestants. There was a recent debate on whether members of The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints were Christians or not. Many Mormon theologians were shouted down by people who did not really want to hear what was being said about Mormonism. Facts have no relevance in the face of negativity.
Negativity has power that even facts cannot overcome. Negativity is ecumenical and bipartisan. No matter what one’s religious background or lack thereof, or no matter what one’s politics happen to be, trashing ‘other’ is acceptable and popular and has great power.
But power can be fleeting. Power is having the ability to coerce people to do what you want them to do. If you coerce people to love tenderly it’s a positive thing; if you coerce people to hate with a passion, it’s a negative thing. But all power is external. Power is given over to people or to ideas by others. By us. If people respond to negative thinking and are willing to be negative, no matter what the facts may indicate, they give in to power that is hurtful and often destructive. The only way to make negative thinking powerless is to cease giving in to it.
The change begins by listening and listening some more, and doing research beyond what we normally presume. The change begins by not maintaining our thoughts contrary to evidence. The change begins within our own hearts and minds. It is a challenge for everyone. In all honesty, it is a challenge for me, too. But it’s a challenge worth taking on.
It’s difficult to say, however, that positive thinking has much power. In fact, it often seems like it’s quite the opposite. Negative thinking, getting people to be negative appears to be the path of power.
Some years ago, when Bill Clinton was the American President his administration was watching events in Russia with a sense of horror. Boris Yeltsin, the non-Communist President was behind in the polling to his opponent who was an avowed Communist. The fear was that if Yeltsin lost the election Russia would become a Communist country again----and no one wanted that. A decision was made.
Clinton sent a group of political advisors to Russia to run Yeltsin’s campaign. They essentially kept Yeltsin from view and ran a brutally negative campaign against his opponent. Yeltsin began to rise in the polls-----so much so that he began to make speeches again only to see his poll numbers collapse. They kept him from view and ran their negativity against Yeltsin’s opponent. When the election was over, Boris Yeltsin who, by any stretch of the imagination was not a good President, was re-elected. It had nothing to do with his skill or talent, but only the skill and talent of those who tore his opponent down. It was an example of the power of negative thinking.
There is great power in negative thinking. Negativity wins elections. Often the secret of winning elections is not so much promoting how good your own candidate is, but how bad the opponent is. There is no need for honesty either. Most people, when given negative information, tend to believe it and are willing to overlook little things like facts.
Being fair, let’s look at the two previous Presidents. President George W. Bush was given the label of being less than intelligent. He was mocked for this and often taken lightly. Truthfully, he didn’t speak well, but there are well spoken fools and mumbling geniuses, so that doesn’t tell us much. There is something, however, that may give an indication of his intelligence. He graduated from Yale University and then received a graduate degree from Harvard University.
Yale and Harvard are two of the most academically challenging universities in the nation and he graduated from both of them. Pass this information on to people and they will make a comment that either Yale and Harvard are bad schools or Bush was ‘passed’ because of his Dad. Despite the fact that he went to these two universities and graduated, his intelligence is still challenged because of negativity pointed in his direction.
Then there is President Barack Obama. A significant number of people believe that he was born in Africa. The so-called ‘birther’ movement became a real and significant movement of which there are still a large number of people. He provided a document of live birth, typically given from Hawaii and produced newspaper birth announcements. Not good enough. He finally produced a long form sent to him specially from Hawaii and it showed, TA DA, that he was born in Hawaii. Despite proving it he is still considered to be a foreign born President by many.
It is widely thought that he is Muslim. His father was a non-practicing Muslim but there is no evidence Obama ever was. There is evidence, however, that he was Baptized and married at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago by Jeremiah Wright. Whether one approves of Wright or not, Wright is a United Church of Christ minister and, if one takes the time to read some of his book and listen to most of his sermons, a very committed Christian. Obama is a Christian but popular opinion often seems to be otherwise. Like Bush, this is still challenged because of negativity point in his direction.
Sadly, within Christianity this kind of negativity is also rampant. It is breathtakingly easy to bash people who are not like us. It is easy for people who are not Roman Catholic to bash Catholics for what they perceive Roman Catholics to believe, as opposed to what they really believe. It is easy for people who are Mainline Protestant to bash people who are unlike them and very easy for Evangelical Protestants to bash other Protestants. There was a recent debate on whether members of The Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints were Christians or not. Many Mormon theologians were shouted down by people who did not really want to hear what was being said about Mormonism. Facts have no relevance in the face of negativity.
Negativity has power that even facts cannot overcome. Negativity is ecumenical and bipartisan. No matter what one’s religious background or lack thereof, or no matter what one’s politics happen to be, trashing ‘other’ is acceptable and popular and has great power.
But power can be fleeting. Power is having the ability to coerce people to do what you want them to do. If you coerce people to love tenderly it’s a positive thing; if you coerce people to hate with a passion, it’s a negative thing. But all power is external. Power is given over to people or to ideas by others. By us. If people respond to negative thinking and are willing to be negative, no matter what the facts may indicate, they give in to power that is hurtful and often destructive. The only way to make negative thinking powerless is to cease giving in to it.
The change begins by listening and listening some more, and doing research beyond what we normally presume. The change begins by not maintaining our thoughts contrary to evidence. The change begins within our own hearts and minds. It is a challenge for everyone. In all honesty, it is a challenge for me, too. But it’s a challenge worth taking on.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Being Definitive About God (or lack thereof) is a Risky Business
This past week has put God in the news.
Magician, comedian, and entertainer, Penn Jillette wrote a column in which he firm states, ‘there is no God.’ His premise, of course, is that belief in God is irrational and because of all the evil done in God’s name, it places the responsibility of evil on God without blaming on a non-existent entity. He states that such things as forgiveness come to us because of human charity or forgetfulness and that when people suffer we do not need outside explanations as to why things like this happen. Needless to say, if one has faith in God, Mr. Jillette’s statements can be seen as a personal affront.
Former Pennsylvania Senator, Rick Santorum, who is a current Presidential candidate first bashed Mainline Protestantism and then stated that President Obama’s theology is a phony theology. Considering that when President Obama has spoken of faith his theology has sounded very much Mainline Protestant and very United Church of Christ, which makes sense since his church background was in the United Church of Christ. Needless to say, if one is a Mainline Protestant and, more specifically, a member of the United Church of Christ, Mr. Santorum’s statement can be seen as a personal affront.
Having said this, I cannot say that I am going to lose any sleep over the fact that neither Mr. Jillette nor Mr. Santorum agree with my theological worldview. Mr. Jillette sees me as believing in little more than a fairy tale and Mr. Santorum seems me as having a phony theology. They are both entitled to their opinions as I am entitled to my opinion. I will also not attack either of their theological worldviews for the same reason I don’t believe they had any right presuming mine is a fairy tale of phony. Religious faith, it seems, has some rationality with a great sense of irrationality. And irrationality is not always a bad thing.
In Carl Jung’s personality type functions judgment is either seen as Thinking or Feeling. Thinking is often seen as objective, totally rational, and fact based. Feeling is often seen as subjective, personal more than rational, and on values. While theology is a rational subject it often uses faith, which is actually more irrational, as its starting point. Theology often attempts to articulate what faith cannot.
In stating this, I am not stating that only crazy irrational people have faith. Many people of faith are highly educated and can articulate, theologically, very serious issues concerning faith. The thing about faith is, however, is that it ultimately boils down to personal values. It always does. At some point, all people of faith come to that spot in the third Indiana Jones movie when all he can do is to step out in faith. That ‘leap of faith’ is a reality.
Which brings me to my point----No one can be definitive about God. We cannot even be definitive about a lack of God. Jillette says that you cannot prove a negative which is true; but with God you cannot prove a positive either. If one believes in God, and I do believe in God, that last step always needs to be a step out in faith. We can reason our way to a limited understanding of God, but we cannot definitely prove that God exists and we cannot prove God’s definitive will or worldview on anything. There is no one of any particular religion or denomination of any particular religion who can speak definitively about God. Christians claim that the only one who could ever do that was Jesus Christ as God’s Son, who was, according to our faith, God Incarnate. Anyone who believes they totally understand the totality of Jesus by reading the Gospels is missing the key point of the Gospels. Much of Jesus is beyond our comprehension.
To me, as a Christian Minister, this is good news. I like and appreciate a God who is beyond human understanding. To me, a God who I can totally understand is not worth having as a God. God is bigger and wiser, and better than any of our projections. That is, in my mind, a good thing.
For Mr. Jillette my faith in God is only a fairy tale and he is entitled to his opinion. Mr. Santorum believes my faith to be phone and he is entitled to his opinion. People who disagree with them, however, are also entitled to their opinions without ridicule as being fools or phonies.
Magician, comedian, and entertainer, Penn Jillette wrote a column in which he firm states, ‘there is no God.’ His premise, of course, is that belief in God is irrational and because of all the evil done in God’s name, it places the responsibility of evil on God without blaming on a non-existent entity. He states that such things as forgiveness come to us because of human charity or forgetfulness and that when people suffer we do not need outside explanations as to why things like this happen. Needless to say, if one has faith in God, Mr. Jillette’s statements can be seen as a personal affront.
Former Pennsylvania Senator, Rick Santorum, who is a current Presidential candidate first bashed Mainline Protestantism and then stated that President Obama’s theology is a phony theology. Considering that when President Obama has spoken of faith his theology has sounded very much Mainline Protestant and very United Church of Christ, which makes sense since his church background was in the United Church of Christ. Needless to say, if one is a Mainline Protestant and, more specifically, a member of the United Church of Christ, Mr. Santorum’s statement can be seen as a personal affront.
Having said this, I cannot say that I am going to lose any sleep over the fact that neither Mr. Jillette nor Mr. Santorum agree with my theological worldview. Mr. Jillette sees me as believing in little more than a fairy tale and Mr. Santorum seems me as having a phony theology. They are both entitled to their opinions as I am entitled to my opinion. I will also not attack either of their theological worldviews for the same reason I don’t believe they had any right presuming mine is a fairy tale of phony. Religious faith, it seems, has some rationality with a great sense of irrationality. And irrationality is not always a bad thing.
In Carl Jung’s personality type functions judgment is either seen as Thinking or Feeling. Thinking is often seen as objective, totally rational, and fact based. Feeling is often seen as subjective, personal more than rational, and on values. While theology is a rational subject it often uses faith, which is actually more irrational, as its starting point. Theology often attempts to articulate what faith cannot.
In stating this, I am not stating that only crazy irrational people have faith. Many people of faith are highly educated and can articulate, theologically, very serious issues concerning faith. The thing about faith is, however, is that it ultimately boils down to personal values. It always does. At some point, all people of faith come to that spot in the third Indiana Jones movie when all he can do is to step out in faith. That ‘leap of faith’ is a reality.
Which brings me to my point----No one can be definitive about God. We cannot even be definitive about a lack of God. Jillette says that you cannot prove a negative which is true; but with God you cannot prove a positive either. If one believes in God, and I do believe in God, that last step always needs to be a step out in faith. We can reason our way to a limited understanding of God, but we cannot definitely prove that God exists and we cannot prove God’s definitive will or worldview on anything. There is no one of any particular religion or denomination of any particular religion who can speak definitively about God. Christians claim that the only one who could ever do that was Jesus Christ as God’s Son, who was, according to our faith, God Incarnate. Anyone who believes they totally understand the totality of Jesus by reading the Gospels is missing the key point of the Gospels. Much of Jesus is beyond our comprehension.
To me, as a Christian Minister, this is good news. I like and appreciate a God who is beyond human understanding. To me, a God who I can totally understand is not worth having as a God. God is bigger and wiser, and better than any of our projections. That is, in my mind, a good thing.
For Mr. Jillette my faith in God is only a fairy tale and he is entitled to his opinion. Mr. Santorum believes my faith to be phone and he is entitled to his opinion. People who disagree with them, however, are also entitled to their opinions without ridicule as being fools or phonies.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Radical Hospitality
I haven't been blogging enough and think I need to get back to doing so. Bear with me.
I have been working on a sabbatical grant proposal through Lilly. The process has been really good for me. I determined I wanted to develop a them of hospitality and spirituality. My goal is to visit several Benedictine monasteries and spend time there learning about their hospitality and spirituality. St. Benedict saw a great spiritual benefit in hospitality and the monasteries all extend hospitality to visitors----and have done so since their inception.
Churches ought to be places of hospitality. Sometimes we do so by providing nice places to sit, some places offer coffee or snacks, the temperature is comfortable, and the bulletins are readable. All good things. Oh, and someone shakes your hand and says, "Hi! Welcome!"
But do we really welcome people? I have been told that my church is RADIAL and that I belong to a RADICAL denomination and that RADICAL label is usually always about one thing. We welcome everyone. Period. Slam dunk. And some of the 'everyone's' happen to be gay. This makes us radical and unusual because we accept everyone as they are and don't feel a need to 'fix' people who really don't have any desire or reason to be fixed. We accept people as they are and extend radical hospitality to everyone.
This is what makes us radical or odd or unusual. I wonder why, however, we are so unusual. I have been lectured, over the years, by people angry that we, I, am promoting sinful behavior. Of course, all the lecturers were, like me, sinful people also. I never felt and do not feel we promote sinful behavior. We simply promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ which embraces and loves everyone. We extend radical hospitality even though it's really not all that radical. We are simply doing what Jesus asked us to do.
I have been working on a sabbatical grant proposal through Lilly. The process has been really good for me. I determined I wanted to develop a them of hospitality and spirituality. My goal is to visit several Benedictine monasteries and spend time there learning about their hospitality and spirituality. St. Benedict saw a great spiritual benefit in hospitality and the monasteries all extend hospitality to visitors----and have done so since their inception.
Churches ought to be places of hospitality. Sometimes we do so by providing nice places to sit, some places offer coffee or snacks, the temperature is comfortable, and the bulletins are readable. All good things. Oh, and someone shakes your hand and says, "Hi! Welcome!"
But do we really welcome people? I have been told that my church is RADIAL and that I belong to a RADICAL denomination and that RADICAL label is usually always about one thing. We welcome everyone. Period. Slam dunk. And some of the 'everyone's' happen to be gay. This makes us radical and unusual because we accept everyone as they are and don't feel a need to 'fix' people who really don't have any desire or reason to be fixed. We accept people as they are and extend radical hospitality to everyone.
This is what makes us radical or odd or unusual. I wonder why, however, we are so unusual. I have been lectured, over the years, by people angry that we, I, am promoting sinful behavior. Of course, all the lecturers were, like me, sinful people also. I never felt and do not feel we promote sinful behavior. We simply promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ which embraces and loves everyone. We extend radical hospitality even though it's really not all that radical. We are simply doing what Jesus asked us to do.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Too Wonderful to Be Silent---Sunday's Sermon
Too Wonderful to Be Silent
Text: Mark 1:40-45
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
February 12, 2012
It was 1873, and Dr. Armauer Hansen of Norway had astounding news for the world: leprosy was caused by a bacterium (Mycobacterium leprae). Until then, the disease was thought to be from a curse or sinful ways. The disease was renamed and called Hansen’s disease and is now readily treated----but it rarely afflicts people.
Modern medicine knows that leprosy is spread when an untreated infected person coughs or sneezes (but not by sexual contact or pregnancy). However, leprosy is not very contagious; approximately 95% of people have natural immunity to the disease. People with leprosy who are treated with medication do not need to be isolated from society. (Historically, people with leprosy were sent to "lepers' colonies" on remote islands or in special hospitals.)
In Jesus’ day, however, leprosy was a cursed disease.
People were isolated and shunned by society.
People suffered greatly because their nerve endings died and they couldn’t feel anything, making them prey to all sorts of parasites, etc.
They were also condemned by society because leprosy was seen as a curse which was a punishment for sin, dreadful sin. A person afflicted with leprosy was perceived as a horrible sinner----at least to the people around them. There was never any thought that it was a random affliction and had nothing to do with the moral conduct of a person.
So it is that a leper comes to Jesus begging to be healed. Jesus is moved with compassion and heals the man and tells him to go give thanks to God according to the prescriptions of Moses. But Jesus also has a warning----don’t tell anyone who healed you.
Two things were at stake because a healing like this was going to cause a huge response.
For one, any chance of Jesus going anywhere quietly was going to end. People would swarm him, asking for help.
Secondly, there were going to be questions. Lepers were sinners. Lepers were recipients of God’s harshest judgment. No compassion was in order towards lepers. They were outcasts to society----they were the people no one loved----they were God’s most hated people. Who did Jesus think he was to offer compassion?
But...
The man who is healed cannot hold it in. He announces to the world that Jesus had healed him. When the news is too wonderful to be silent he can’t do anything except share it with the world.
There are all sorts of lessons in this story of Jesus healing the leper.
The first lesson is about the overwhelming generosity and compassion of Jesus. Jesus loved people first and foremost. On occasion, sometimes we get it.
Here's a story about Fiorello LaGuardia who was mayor of New York City during the worst days of the Great Depression and all of W.W.II. He was adored by many New Yorkers who took to calling him the "Little Flower," because he was so short and always wore a carnation in his lapel.
He was a colorful character -- he rode the New York City fire trucks, raided city "speak easies" with the police department, took entire orphanages to baseball games, and when the New York newspapers went on strike, he got on the radio and read the Sunday funnies to the kids.
One bitterly cold night in January of 1935, the mayor turned up at a night court that served the poorest ward of the city. LaGuardia dismissed the judge for the evening and took over the bench himself. Within a few minutes, a tattered old woman was brought before him, charged with stealing a loaf of bread. She told LaGuardia that her daughter's husband had deserted her, her daughter was sick, and her two grandchildren were starving.
But the shopkeeper, from whom the bread was stolen, refused to drop the charges. "It's a real bad neighborhood, your Honor," the man told the mayor. "She's got to be punished to teach other people around here a lesson."
LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the woman and said, "I've got to punish you. The law makes no exceptions. Ten dollars or ten days in jail."
The fine, by today’s standards, would have been in the neighborhood of $165.00 which, for a person with no money, is an impossible amount.
But even as he pronounced sentence, the mayor was already reaching into his pocket. He extracted a bill and tossed it into his famous hat, saying, "Here is the ten dollar fine which I now remit; and furthermore I am going to fine everyone in this courtroom fifty cents, eight dollars in today’s money, for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. Mr.Bailiff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant."
The following day, New York City newspapers reported that $47.50, a bit more than $775.00 in today’s money, was turned over to a bewildered woman who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving grandchildren. Fifty cents of that amount was contributed by the grocery store owner himself, while some seventy petty criminals, people with traffic violations, and New York City policemen, each of whom had just paid fifty cents for the privilege of doing so, gave the mayor a standing ovation.
Someone beautifully said:
"Sympathy sees and says, 'I'm sorry.'
Compassion sees and says, 'I'll help.'
When we learn the difference, we can make a difference. When we learn the difference, we begin to understand Jesus.
Jesus reached out with great compassion, a compassion filled with justice, but always a justice based on love.
A second lesson is about the leper. He has to share the good news with people. He is so filled with gratitude for what Jesus had done for him, that he began to proclaim it to anyone and everyone who would hear him.
I think, at times, our approach to the issue of faith and gratitude to God is an attitude that response to God is good, response to God is appropriate, but we shouldn’t get carried away.
Think about this for a second. Who have you shared your faith with of late?
If you like it here at St. Marks, have you invited someone to come with you----or is that getting carried away?
If you saw someone you didn’t know sitting in the pews around you, did you talk to them, and get to know them as a brother or sister in Christ, or is that getting carried away?
If you like St. Marks, and so many people tell me they love their church, who have you invited lately, or shared with friends and family about how much you love your church?
Ponder something for a moment. If you eat at a good restaurant do you tell people about it? Do you invite friends and say, “Hey let’s go to dinner there?” Of course!
Or, if you see a great movie, do you tell everyone? Of course.
Or if you love football, do you tell everyone that you love football and that you love your favorite team? I know I do. I drive people crazy talking about the Giants, but you already know that. Of course, sports’ fans always love to talk about their teams.
My point is, of course, that we share excitedly about so many things in our lives but often we don’t share much about church.
Here, however, in the Gospel of Mark is an opposite example. Jesus does not want this man he healed to share this news. For Jesus there were all sorts of reasons for not wanting the leper to share often reasons beyond our comprehension.
But for this man who was healed by Jesus this was too wonderful to be silent. He HAD to share the good news.
The lessons of this story are two-fold.
One is about the goodness and love of God; the other is the fact that the news is too wonderful to keep silent. Let us rejoice in God’s goodness; and share that Good News with others.
Text: Mark 1:40-45
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
February 12, 2012
It was 1873, and Dr. Armauer Hansen of Norway had astounding news for the world: leprosy was caused by a bacterium (Mycobacterium leprae). Until then, the disease was thought to be from a curse or sinful ways. The disease was renamed and called Hansen’s disease and is now readily treated----but it rarely afflicts people.
Modern medicine knows that leprosy is spread when an untreated infected person coughs or sneezes (but not by sexual contact or pregnancy). However, leprosy is not very contagious; approximately 95% of people have natural immunity to the disease. People with leprosy who are treated with medication do not need to be isolated from society. (Historically, people with leprosy were sent to "lepers' colonies" on remote islands or in special hospitals.)
In Jesus’ day, however, leprosy was a cursed disease.
People were isolated and shunned by society.
People suffered greatly because their nerve endings died and they couldn’t feel anything, making them prey to all sorts of parasites, etc.
They were also condemned by society because leprosy was seen as a curse which was a punishment for sin, dreadful sin. A person afflicted with leprosy was perceived as a horrible sinner----at least to the people around them. There was never any thought that it was a random affliction and had nothing to do with the moral conduct of a person.
So it is that a leper comes to Jesus begging to be healed. Jesus is moved with compassion and heals the man and tells him to go give thanks to God according to the prescriptions of Moses. But Jesus also has a warning----don’t tell anyone who healed you.
Two things were at stake because a healing like this was going to cause a huge response.
For one, any chance of Jesus going anywhere quietly was going to end. People would swarm him, asking for help.
Secondly, there were going to be questions. Lepers were sinners. Lepers were recipients of God’s harshest judgment. No compassion was in order towards lepers. They were outcasts to society----they were the people no one loved----they were God’s most hated people. Who did Jesus think he was to offer compassion?
But...
The man who is healed cannot hold it in. He announces to the world that Jesus had healed him. When the news is too wonderful to be silent he can’t do anything except share it with the world.
There are all sorts of lessons in this story of Jesus healing the leper.
The first lesson is about the overwhelming generosity and compassion of Jesus. Jesus loved people first and foremost. On occasion, sometimes we get it.
Here's a story about Fiorello LaGuardia who was mayor of New York City during the worst days of the Great Depression and all of W.W.II. He was adored by many New Yorkers who took to calling him the "Little Flower," because he was so short and always wore a carnation in his lapel.
He was a colorful character -- he rode the New York City fire trucks, raided city "speak easies" with the police department, took entire orphanages to baseball games, and when the New York newspapers went on strike, he got on the radio and read the Sunday funnies to the kids.
One bitterly cold night in January of 1935, the mayor turned up at a night court that served the poorest ward of the city. LaGuardia dismissed the judge for the evening and took over the bench himself. Within a few minutes, a tattered old woman was brought before him, charged with stealing a loaf of bread. She told LaGuardia that her daughter's husband had deserted her, her daughter was sick, and her two grandchildren were starving.
But the shopkeeper, from whom the bread was stolen, refused to drop the charges. "It's a real bad neighborhood, your Honor," the man told the mayor. "She's got to be punished to teach other people around here a lesson."
LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the woman and said, "I've got to punish you. The law makes no exceptions. Ten dollars or ten days in jail."
The fine, by today’s standards, would have been in the neighborhood of $165.00 which, for a person with no money, is an impossible amount.
But even as he pronounced sentence, the mayor was already reaching into his pocket. He extracted a bill and tossed it into his famous hat, saying, "Here is the ten dollar fine which I now remit; and furthermore I am going to fine everyone in this courtroom fifty cents, eight dollars in today’s money, for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. Mr.Bailiff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant."
The following day, New York City newspapers reported that $47.50, a bit more than $775.00 in today’s money, was turned over to a bewildered woman who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving grandchildren. Fifty cents of that amount was contributed by the grocery store owner himself, while some seventy petty criminals, people with traffic violations, and New York City policemen, each of whom had just paid fifty cents for the privilege of doing so, gave the mayor a standing ovation.
Someone beautifully said:
"Sympathy sees and says, 'I'm sorry.'
Compassion sees and says, 'I'll help.'
When we learn the difference, we can make a difference. When we learn the difference, we begin to understand Jesus.
Jesus reached out with great compassion, a compassion filled with justice, but always a justice based on love.
A second lesson is about the leper. He has to share the good news with people. He is so filled with gratitude for what Jesus had done for him, that he began to proclaim it to anyone and everyone who would hear him.
I think, at times, our approach to the issue of faith and gratitude to God is an attitude that response to God is good, response to God is appropriate, but we shouldn’t get carried away.
Think about this for a second. Who have you shared your faith with of late?
If you like it here at St. Marks, have you invited someone to come with you----or is that getting carried away?
If you saw someone you didn’t know sitting in the pews around you, did you talk to them, and get to know them as a brother or sister in Christ, or is that getting carried away?
If you like St. Marks, and so many people tell me they love their church, who have you invited lately, or shared with friends and family about how much you love your church?
Ponder something for a moment. If you eat at a good restaurant do you tell people about it? Do you invite friends and say, “Hey let’s go to dinner there?” Of course!
Or, if you see a great movie, do you tell everyone? Of course.
Or if you love football, do you tell everyone that you love football and that you love your favorite team? I know I do. I drive people crazy talking about the Giants, but you already know that. Of course, sports’ fans always love to talk about their teams.
My point is, of course, that we share excitedly about so many things in our lives but often we don’t share much about church.
Here, however, in the Gospel of Mark is an opposite example. Jesus does not want this man he healed to share this news. For Jesus there were all sorts of reasons for not wanting the leper to share often reasons beyond our comprehension.
But for this man who was healed by Jesus this was too wonderful to be silent. He HAD to share the good news.
The lessons of this story are two-fold.
One is about the goodness and love of God; the other is the fact that the news is too wonderful to keep silent. Let us rejoice in God’s goodness; and share that Good News with others.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
It Takes a Church (Sermon Sunday January 29, 2012
It Takes a Church
Text: 1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
January 29, 2012
You may have come to Worship this morning and listened to the scripture reading about consuming the meat sacrificed to idols and were bewildered. You have never been confronted with worrying about eating food sacrificed to Zeus, Apollo, or Baal. It doesn’t really seem to apply to us very much.
Underlying all of this was a complex issue.
In Corinth there were many temples to idols and people made animal sacrifices to those idols. The temples would then sell the meat to people to consume in a meal or something like that. For followers of the idols the meat was sacred; for others it was merely good meat. People often sacrificed their finest to the idols and so the meat sacrificed to the idols was merely a delicious commodity. So there was the question. Was eating this food a sin?
Many of the Christians in Corinth availed themselves of this. Many things in life change, but people’s love of a good steak hasn’t changed all that much over the centuries.
The problem was, for some within the Christian community, this had become a problem. They saw Christians eating this fine meat and they thought that the people were somehow sinning by worshiping multiple gods. So Paul was presented the problem. Is it a sin to eat this meat that was sacrificed to the idols?
His answer is a brilliant one. Since people had the knowledge that these idols were false idols and since people weren’t worshiping those idols, theoretically they were doing nothing wrong. They were merely enjoying a fine cut of meat. However....
If the people in the community were scandalized by this, if people in the church family didn’t have the knowledge or understanding of this, and if it threatened people’s faith, Paul goes on to say, don’t eat the meat that had been sacrificed to the idols. It was, he states, the responsibility of the strong to support the weak. The church was a family and everyone was responsible for the well being of one another.
There are several lessons in all of this. The first lesson is this. It takes a church to raise a Christian.
There is an old African proverb that says it takes a village to raise a child. This imagery became somewhat controversial because Hillary Clinton used this proverb as a title for her book and the concept became politicized. I will leave that issue up to everyone to discuss among yourselves or debate over lunch.
However, whatever your opinion is about children and villages, please note that it takes a church to raise a Christian. In 2000 years of Christianity, this hasn’t changed very much.
St. Paul wrote this letter to the people in the city of Corinth around 55 AD. The Christian Church of that era bore very little resemblance to the Christian Church of now.
Any organization of the Christian Church would not come until the beginning for the 4th century, almost 250 years later. Early Christianity did not have much of a structure, no real hierarchy, or organization. There was no set way to Worship, there were no hymnals and the New Testament didn’t exist. In fact, the Gospel of Mark, the first Gospel to be written, was actually not even written yet when St. Paul wrote these words. Whenever Christians of our era compare themselves to Christianity of that era, we need to do so recognizing the world and the Christian Church was vastly different.
But there was a constant and it was the need for a community, a family of believers. People needed to take care of one another then, and they need to take care of one another now. The people who are strong in faith are responsible for the people who are weak in faith. That is Paul’s point. We may be people strong in faith, but we are responsible for the well-being of those who are weaker than we are.
It is one of the reasons we raise children in church. It’s interesting to note something.
Several years ago someone wrote to an advice column written by Billy Graham. They said that their 18 year old daughter was going away to college. The parents confessed that they had not paid much attention to their daughter and had not done a really good job raising her. What, they asked, could they do now to assure that their daughter would do well and conduct herself well, when she was out of the nest.
Billy Graham’s answer was really pretty jolting. He said, “Nothing.” They had missed their opportunity to do this. It was now too late and their only hope was to pray that their daughter had learned good values along the way.
One of the reasons we raise children in church is because it is a place where values are taught and lived out. It takes a church to raise a Christian. If we want to live out our Baptismal promises, however, and if we want children to grow up with the values we can teach in church, then it’s important that we see the value of it taking a church to raise a Christian.
And, of course, Paul’s point is this. We are responsible for one another, in church, and responsible for not doing things that negatively impact the faith of others. Which goes back to the food sacrificed to idols.
If the people in the community were scandalized by this, if people in the church family didn’t have the knowledge or understanding of this, and if it threatened people’s faith, Paul goes on to say, don’t eat the meat that had been sacrificed to the idols. It was, he states, the responsibility of the strong to support the weak. The church was a family and everyone was responsible for the well-being of one another.
The second aspect of this is a lesson from St. Paul to know what we are about as a church.
The Christian Church exists and has always existed for one reason. We exist to bring people to Christ. Our Mission Statement about reaching up, out, beyond, and within is built on the premise of bringing people to Christ. Every church in the world, if it’s remotely faithful, exists to bring people to Christ. When we forget this, we forget who and what we are. The world of commerce has taught us huge lessons.
Eastman Kodak, a historic blue-chip American company, recently filed for bankruptcy. The problem is that the company failed because it didn’t adapt to the digital age. Ironically, it was Kodak who developed digital photography but they failed to capitalize on it because they forgot who and what they were.
The problem with Kodak is that they were the leading manufacturer of film. Eastman Kodak thought they were in the yellow film box business. In truth, they were in the picture business and people stopped buying film because most of the cameras on the market were digital. Kodak fell so far behind in making digital cameras that they got crushed. The forgot who and what they were.
They weren’t the first to make this mistake. In the late 1800s, no business matched the financial and political dominance of the railroad.
Then a new discovery came along — the car — and incredibly, the leaders of the railroad industry did not take advantage of their unique position to participate in this transportation development. The automotive revolution was happening all around them, and they did not use their industry dominance to take hold of the opportunity. They couldn’t figure out why people would ride in a car when they could ride on a train instead. They forgot their real purpose----transportation.
In the 1980’s one company in the United States was primed to be the largest manufacturer of computers and software. If I told you that you had to guess, there would be three probably answers over and over again. They would be Microsoft, Apple, and IBM. Microsoft and Apple benefited from the mistake of this company and IBM completely missed the boat.
The company that was primed, however, was Xerox. They had developed the graphic interface system that became the underpinning for the Windows operating system and the Mac operating system. They developed a Word Processing software with a design that was ‘what you see is what you get,’ along with the machines to run it.
They, however, got rid of it because they saw themselves just as a copy machine company instead of a document producing company.
Which brings me back to a point of this lesson.
Paul was making a point that, as a people of Jesus Christ, our priority is to win disciples for Christ. It is not about pushing the envelope of our lives, but living our faith as an example for others. When we cause scandal for others, just so we can have fun, we are missing the point.
This passage is not about Zeus, Apollo, or Baal or even just the people in Corinth. It is not just a lesson for a people in a church vastly different from our’s, but a lesson for all generations, reminding us the joy of being together, but also, more importantly, the responsibility of being a family of faith who never loses sight of who and what we are about.
Text: 1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
January 29, 2012
You may have come to Worship this morning and listened to the scripture reading about consuming the meat sacrificed to idols and were bewildered. You have never been confronted with worrying about eating food sacrificed to Zeus, Apollo, or Baal. It doesn’t really seem to apply to us very much.
Underlying all of this was a complex issue.
In Corinth there were many temples to idols and people made animal sacrifices to those idols. The temples would then sell the meat to people to consume in a meal or something like that. For followers of the idols the meat was sacred; for others it was merely good meat. People often sacrificed their finest to the idols and so the meat sacrificed to the idols was merely a delicious commodity. So there was the question. Was eating this food a sin?
Many of the Christians in Corinth availed themselves of this. Many things in life change, but people’s love of a good steak hasn’t changed all that much over the centuries.
The problem was, for some within the Christian community, this had become a problem. They saw Christians eating this fine meat and they thought that the people were somehow sinning by worshiping multiple gods. So Paul was presented the problem. Is it a sin to eat this meat that was sacrificed to the idols?
His answer is a brilliant one. Since people had the knowledge that these idols were false idols and since people weren’t worshiping those idols, theoretically they were doing nothing wrong. They were merely enjoying a fine cut of meat. However....
If the people in the community were scandalized by this, if people in the church family didn’t have the knowledge or understanding of this, and if it threatened people’s faith, Paul goes on to say, don’t eat the meat that had been sacrificed to the idols. It was, he states, the responsibility of the strong to support the weak. The church was a family and everyone was responsible for the well being of one another.
There are several lessons in all of this. The first lesson is this. It takes a church to raise a Christian.
There is an old African proverb that says it takes a village to raise a child. This imagery became somewhat controversial because Hillary Clinton used this proverb as a title for her book and the concept became politicized. I will leave that issue up to everyone to discuss among yourselves or debate over lunch.
However, whatever your opinion is about children and villages, please note that it takes a church to raise a Christian. In 2000 years of Christianity, this hasn’t changed very much.
St. Paul wrote this letter to the people in the city of Corinth around 55 AD. The Christian Church of that era bore very little resemblance to the Christian Church of now.
Any organization of the Christian Church would not come until the beginning for the 4th century, almost 250 years later. Early Christianity did not have much of a structure, no real hierarchy, or organization. There was no set way to Worship, there were no hymnals and the New Testament didn’t exist. In fact, the Gospel of Mark, the first Gospel to be written, was actually not even written yet when St. Paul wrote these words. Whenever Christians of our era compare themselves to Christianity of that era, we need to do so recognizing the world and the Christian Church was vastly different.
But there was a constant and it was the need for a community, a family of believers. People needed to take care of one another then, and they need to take care of one another now. The people who are strong in faith are responsible for the people who are weak in faith. That is Paul’s point. We may be people strong in faith, but we are responsible for the well-being of those who are weaker than we are.
It is one of the reasons we raise children in church. It’s interesting to note something.
Several years ago someone wrote to an advice column written by Billy Graham. They said that their 18 year old daughter was going away to college. The parents confessed that they had not paid much attention to their daughter and had not done a really good job raising her. What, they asked, could they do now to assure that their daughter would do well and conduct herself well, when she was out of the nest.
Billy Graham’s answer was really pretty jolting. He said, “Nothing.” They had missed their opportunity to do this. It was now too late and their only hope was to pray that their daughter had learned good values along the way.
One of the reasons we raise children in church is because it is a place where values are taught and lived out. It takes a church to raise a Christian. If we want to live out our Baptismal promises, however, and if we want children to grow up with the values we can teach in church, then it’s important that we see the value of it taking a church to raise a Christian.
And, of course, Paul’s point is this. We are responsible for one another, in church, and responsible for not doing things that negatively impact the faith of others. Which goes back to the food sacrificed to idols.
If the people in the community were scandalized by this, if people in the church family didn’t have the knowledge or understanding of this, and if it threatened people’s faith, Paul goes on to say, don’t eat the meat that had been sacrificed to the idols. It was, he states, the responsibility of the strong to support the weak. The church was a family and everyone was responsible for the well-being of one another.
The second aspect of this is a lesson from St. Paul to know what we are about as a church.
The Christian Church exists and has always existed for one reason. We exist to bring people to Christ. Our Mission Statement about reaching up, out, beyond, and within is built on the premise of bringing people to Christ. Every church in the world, if it’s remotely faithful, exists to bring people to Christ. When we forget this, we forget who and what we are. The world of commerce has taught us huge lessons.
Eastman Kodak, a historic blue-chip American company, recently filed for bankruptcy. The problem is that the company failed because it didn’t adapt to the digital age. Ironically, it was Kodak who developed digital photography but they failed to capitalize on it because they forgot who and what they were.
The problem with Kodak is that they were the leading manufacturer of film. Eastman Kodak thought they were in the yellow film box business. In truth, they were in the picture business and people stopped buying film because most of the cameras on the market were digital. Kodak fell so far behind in making digital cameras that they got crushed. The forgot who and what they were.
They weren’t the first to make this mistake. In the late 1800s, no business matched the financial and political dominance of the railroad.
Then a new discovery came along — the car — and incredibly, the leaders of the railroad industry did not take advantage of their unique position to participate in this transportation development. The automotive revolution was happening all around them, and they did not use their industry dominance to take hold of the opportunity. They couldn’t figure out why people would ride in a car when they could ride on a train instead. They forgot their real purpose----transportation.
In the 1980’s one company in the United States was primed to be the largest manufacturer of computers and software. If I told you that you had to guess, there would be three probably answers over and over again. They would be Microsoft, Apple, and IBM. Microsoft and Apple benefited from the mistake of this company and IBM completely missed the boat.
The company that was primed, however, was Xerox. They had developed the graphic interface system that became the underpinning for the Windows operating system and the Mac operating system. They developed a Word Processing software with a design that was ‘what you see is what you get,’ along with the machines to run it.
They, however, got rid of it because they saw themselves just as a copy machine company instead of a document producing company.
Which brings me back to a point of this lesson.
Paul was making a point that, as a people of Jesus Christ, our priority is to win disciples for Christ. It is not about pushing the envelope of our lives, but living our faith as an example for others. When we cause scandal for others, just so we can have fun, we are missing the point.
This passage is not about Zeus, Apollo, or Baal or even just the people in Corinth. It is not just a lesson for a people in a church vastly different from our’s, but a lesson for all generations, reminding us the joy of being together, but also, more importantly, the responsibility of being a family of faith who never loses sight of who and what we are about.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Honor and Shame and A Poor Choice
There is a video which has surfaced with is alleged to have several Marine urinating on the bodies of killed Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. It is unconfirmed, at this time, that these were, in fact, Marines. Most people are hoping this is not the case, but that may just be hopeful thinking at this time.
Our military does, for the most part, an amazing job. Many of them suffer grievously for being placed in harm's way and even after they come home they often suffer trauma. They deserve our utmost respect and gratitude. The vast majority of those who serve our country in uniform do so in a way that makes and keeps us proud.
The Marine Corps has had a long and incredibly proud history. I have had the privilege of knowing many people who served in the Marines. No branch of the military seems to inspire more loyalty than the Marines. The are the proud and the few..deservedly so.
And then this video showed up.
Combat and war inspire hate. Engaging in mortal combat is not a dispassionate event. Combat is personal with people aiming and shooting at one another. The combination of fear and violence and mortal combat inspires hatred in most human beings. That hatred often continues when white flags of surrender are waved or even upon the death of one's enemy. We have cringed seeing the bodies of our troops desecrated and now we cringe again. It appears like American soldiers are desecrating the remains of their enemy.
It's bad and I wish the Marines, if if turns out they were Marines, had thought about their brothers and sisters in arms. They have raised the temperature of battle and inflamed people against them and against their colleagues.
In the Middle East, among those we are fighting, there is a world view of honor and shame. We can be humiliated and often overlook it, but their culture does not. It is a culture rooted with an ancient concept of honor and shame. Their is nothing worse than being dishonored and being shamed. Nothing. By bringing shame to the bodies of their enemy, these soldiers have brought shame to the people they fight. It was a bad decision and a bad move.
We can only pray for peace to prevail and for God's grace to remind us to never demean others. Even our enemies.
Our military does, for the most part, an amazing job. Many of them suffer grievously for being placed in harm's way and even after they come home they often suffer trauma. They deserve our utmost respect and gratitude. The vast majority of those who serve our country in uniform do so in a way that makes and keeps us proud.
The Marine Corps has had a long and incredibly proud history. I have had the privilege of knowing many people who served in the Marines. No branch of the military seems to inspire more loyalty than the Marines. The are the proud and the few..deservedly so.
And then this video showed up.
Combat and war inspire hate. Engaging in mortal combat is not a dispassionate event. Combat is personal with people aiming and shooting at one another. The combination of fear and violence and mortal combat inspires hatred in most human beings. That hatred often continues when white flags of surrender are waved or even upon the death of one's enemy. We have cringed seeing the bodies of our troops desecrated and now we cringe again. It appears like American soldiers are desecrating the remains of their enemy.
It's bad and I wish the Marines, if if turns out they were Marines, had thought about their brothers and sisters in arms. They have raised the temperature of battle and inflamed people against them and against their colleagues.
In the Middle East, among those we are fighting, there is a world view of honor and shame. We can be humiliated and often overlook it, but their culture does not. It is a culture rooted with an ancient concept of honor and shame. Their is nothing worse than being dishonored and being shamed. Nothing. By bringing shame to the bodies of their enemy, these soldiers have brought shame to the people they fight. It was a bad decision and a bad move.
We can only pray for peace to prevail and for God's grace to remind us to never demean others. Even our enemies.
Sunday, January 08, 2012
Taking the Plunge: Baptism (Sermon for 1/8/12
Taking the Plunge: Baptism
Text: Mark 1:4-11
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
January 8, 2012
Several years ago I was at an ecumenical clergy meeting and one of the ministers in the group announced that he had never been Baptized.
The group was, needless to say, quite surprised. Here, after all, was an ordained minister, a man who had Baptized many people, who presided at weddings and at funerals, a man who was a leader within the Christian community.
And he had never been Baptized. His parents were not church goers and he had never gone to any kind of church until he was in college. He joined a church and became involved and no one ever asked him if he had been Baptized. As time went on he decided he wanted to attend seminary and was interviewed extensively and asked 1001 questions, but was never asked if he had been Baptized. He went to seminary and was ordained three years later, again, without anyone ever discussing Baptism with him. And, in every church he ever served, lots of questions asked, but never asking him if he had been Baptized.
So here he was, years later, the pastor of a church, and he had never been Baptized. And he shared this information with a group of clergy.
The group all decided that we had to Baptize him.
Some of us wanted to sprinkle some water on him and say the words--after all, that was a part of our tradition. The Roman Catholic priest in the group wanted to pour water, as was the Roman Catholic tradition.
There were a couple of ministers from the Church of the Brethren. They wanted to immerse him, facing forward. Two Baptist ministers in the group wanted to immerse him falling backwards, as was their tradition.
We laughed a lot and remarked on how we all had different baptismal traditions--some we somehow missed something.
Our colleague left the meeting and was not Baptized. We were too busy debating on how Baptisms should be done, that we never got around to Baptizing our colleague. I look back on this, some 27 years later and think about how we had failed our colleague and friend so badly.
Sadly, that is what Baptism is often about. Several years ago I was called by a member of the clergy in another state where a person who grew up at St. Marks was now attending. The pastor of this church wanted to know the exact wording of the Baptism performed by Rev. Trnka in 1980 would have been because if Rev. Trnka had not used the precise wording, the Baptism didn’t count and the person would have to be Baptized----correctly this time.
My thought was, really? This is all Baptism means? We have to get the method and the words exactly right in order for it to count?
We debate on how to do it and when to do it, to the point that we miss exactly what Baptism actually is all about. Let’s look at what some of these things really are about.
The first is about submission to God.
Now I say this, take a breath and a pause, because we in the United Church of Christ are not noted for being great submitters. We generally answer theological questions by starting, “Well, in my opinion….” Submission does not come easily for us but when we look at this passage, we note something that is incredibly profound. Jesus submitted to John the Baptist in order to be Baptized. It is an action of God submitting to a person. Jesus did it again when he washed the disciples’ feet. God submitted to people in order to serve people.
And God invites us to submit to His will. This, of course, requires time, patience, prayer, and study. A lot of what passes for God’s will is our own wills that we give God the credit or the blame for. Not everything that we say or anyone says is God’s will is really God’s will.
I’ve used examples like this before, but it’s worth repeating.
When we lived in Ohio there was a bakery in town with wonderful jelly doughnuts. I’d often say to myself, if it’s God’s will for me to have a couple of jelly doughnuts today, there will be a parking space open in front of the bakery. In every case I wanted jelly doughnuts there was a space open. It often took three or four trips around the block for God’s will to show forth, but it always did.
And that is often how we deal with God’s will. WE want something, WE desire something, and WE do everything we can to make it happen. And then we give God the credit….or the blame. God’s will is something we all grapple with a great deal and we need to learn to submit to it when it requires us to change and grow. Sometimes God’s will is not consistent with our own desire or our own will. Submission is something we need to learn and grow into.
The second aspect of Baptism is about cleansing. It is a time of cleansing us of our sins and our short-comings.
There’s a great story about a church, a Roman Catholic Church, where the pastor, Father Jones, was celebrating his 10 Anniversary as the pastor of the church. They planned a nice dinner and one of the speakers at the dinner was one of the state’s two Senators who was a member of the church and was flying home from Washington to help honor the pastor.
There were several people scheduled to speak with the Senator being first. However, his flight was delayed so he had not yet arrived when people began to speak. After a while, the pastor spoke. He said:
“When I arrived here one of the first things I did was listen to confessions from people. The first person who came into the confessional told me that he had cheated on his wife repeatedly during their marriage; he had embezzled money from two businesses, and double-crossed his partners in another business. I was wondering what kind of place I had come to. It turns out, whoever that first person was, turned out to be an exception and that the church was filled with wonderful people.”
Everyone applauded and it was all fine. After a little while, the Senator finally got there and was invited to speak. He stood up and said:
“I have always had a special place in my heart for Father Jones. He doesn’t know it, but he and I have always had a special bond. I was the very first person to go to confession to him although I’m sure he’s long since forgotten.”
Reality is, most of us aren’t as bad as this Senator, but we all struggle with issues, short-comings, and sins and the reality of life is that we all want and all need to be forgiven of sin.
There have been parts of church history where people waited until the end of their lives for the cleansing action of Baptism. Their aspiration was to have their sins forgiven without having to make any changes in their lives. They wanted the forgiveness aspect of Baptism without the submission-----whereas both are significant.
Baptism is a reminder that this cleansing God gives to us is not a one-time thing, but something we ought to seek over and over again. We don’t need to come to the water for forgiveness, but come to God praying for forgiveness. We don’t need to confess to any person, but we need, on occasion, simply to come before God’s presence and unburden ourselves. Baptism is an ongoing reminder that God offers us cleansing and we need to avail ourselves of this. No one is perfect and God’s grace offers us forgiveness every day.
The last thing is this. Baptism gives us a gift that most people seem to miss or ignore. Baptism gives us a family; a group of people who claim us as one of their own.
I have noticed something about myself over the years I have lived. Whenever something good happened to me, I had to talk to my family and whenever something painful or difficult took place, I had to talk to my family. Families gather for celebrations such as weddings, and heartaches such as funerals. We need people who love us around us in joyful and difficult times of life.
When we are Baptized we are Baptized into a family of faith. And it’s not just the family of faith where we are Baptized; it is a family of faith that stretches to all the ends of the earth. Baptism is a reminder that we are part of something far bigger and far greater than ourselves.
We are part of a family that has lived in this house for many years. The DNA of the people of faith, who have founded this church and whose memory and spirit live with us, is something we are bound too. It is a family that stretches into every church in every nation, both far and close by. It is a bonding to a family of faith that goes back to the apostles, and to Jesus standing in the river, submitting to John the Baptist. St. Paul says it so beautifully in Galatians when he says:
27As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.”
Baptism reminds us we are not alone. We have family and nothing is more beautiful than that.
Baptism is a rare and special gift to us from God. Let’s move beyond petty debates, and celebrate it is a chance to submit to a magnificent God, be cleansed from the times we fail, and delight in being part of God’s family.
Text: Mark 1:4-11
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
January 8, 2012
Several years ago I was at an ecumenical clergy meeting and one of the ministers in the group announced that he had never been Baptized.
The group was, needless to say, quite surprised. Here, after all, was an ordained minister, a man who had Baptized many people, who presided at weddings and at funerals, a man who was a leader within the Christian community.
And he had never been Baptized. His parents were not church goers and he had never gone to any kind of church until he was in college. He joined a church and became involved and no one ever asked him if he had been Baptized. As time went on he decided he wanted to attend seminary and was interviewed extensively and asked 1001 questions, but was never asked if he had been Baptized. He went to seminary and was ordained three years later, again, without anyone ever discussing Baptism with him. And, in every church he ever served, lots of questions asked, but never asking him if he had been Baptized.
So here he was, years later, the pastor of a church, and he had never been Baptized. And he shared this information with a group of clergy.
The group all decided that we had to Baptize him.
Some of us wanted to sprinkle some water on him and say the words--after all, that was a part of our tradition. The Roman Catholic priest in the group wanted to pour water, as was the Roman Catholic tradition.
There were a couple of ministers from the Church of the Brethren. They wanted to immerse him, facing forward. Two Baptist ministers in the group wanted to immerse him falling backwards, as was their tradition.
We laughed a lot and remarked on how we all had different baptismal traditions--some we somehow missed something.
Our colleague left the meeting and was not Baptized. We were too busy debating on how Baptisms should be done, that we never got around to Baptizing our colleague. I look back on this, some 27 years later and think about how we had failed our colleague and friend so badly.
Sadly, that is what Baptism is often about. Several years ago I was called by a member of the clergy in another state where a person who grew up at St. Marks was now attending. The pastor of this church wanted to know the exact wording of the Baptism performed by Rev. Trnka in 1980 would have been because if Rev. Trnka had not used the precise wording, the Baptism didn’t count and the person would have to be Baptized----correctly this time.
My thought was, really? This is all Baptism means? We have to get the method and the words exactly right in order for it to count?
We debate on how to do it and when to do it, to the point that we miss exactly what Baptism actually is all about. Let’s look at what some of these things really are about.
The first is about submission to God.
Now I say this, take a breath and a pause, because we in the United Church of Christ are not noted for being great submitters. We generally answer theological questions by starting, “Well, in my opinion….” Submission does not come easily for us but when we look at this passage, we note something that is incredibly profound. Jesus submitted to John the Baptist in order to be Baptized. It is an action of God submitting to a person. Jesus did it again when he washed the disciples’ feet. God submitted to people in order to serve people.
And God invites us to submit to His will. This, of course, requires time, patience, prayer, and study. A lot of what passes for God’s will is our own wills that we give God the credit or the blame for. Not everything that we say or anyone says is God’s will is really God’s will.
I’ve used examples like this before, but it’s worth repeating.
When we lived in Ohio there was a bakery in town with wonderful jelly doughnuts. I’d often say to myself, if it’s God’s will for me to have a couple of jelly doughnuts today, there will be a parking space open in front of the bakery. In every case I wanted jelly doughnuts there was a space open. It often took three or four trips around the block for God’s will to show forth, but it always did.
And that is often how we deal with God’s will. WE want something, WE desire something, and WE do everything we can to make it happen. And then we give God the credit….or the blame. God’s will is something we all grapple with a great deal and we need to learn to submit to it when it requires us to change and grow. Sometimes God’s will is not consistent with our own desire or our own will. Submission is something we need to learn and grow into.
The second aspect of Baptism is about cleansing. It is a time of cleansing us of our sins and our short-comings.
There’s a great story about a church, a Roman Catholic Church, where the pastor, Father Jones, was celebrating his 10 Anniversary as the pastor of the church. They planned a nice dinner and one of the speakers at the dinner was one of the state’s two Senators who was a member of the church and was flying home from Washington to help honor the pastor.
There were several people scheduled to speak with the Senator being first. However, his flight was delayed so he had not yet arrived when people began to speak. After a while, the pastor spoke. He said:
“When I arrived here one of the first things I did was listen to confessions from people. The first person who came into the confessional told me that he had cheated on his wife repeatedly during their marriage; he had embezzled money from two businesses, and double-crossed his partners in another business. I was wondering what kind of place I had come to. It turns out, whoever that first person was, turned out to be an exception and that the church was filled with wonderful people.”
Everyone applauded and it was all fine. After a little while, the Senator finally got there and was invited to speak. He stood up and said:
“I have always had a special place in my heart for Father Jones. He doesn’t know it, but he and I have always had a special bond. I was the very first person to go to confession to him although I’m sure he’s long since forgotten.”
Reality is, most of us aren’t as bad as this Senator, but we all struggle with issues, short-comings, and sins and the reality of life is that we all want and all need to be forgiven of sin.
There have been parts of church history where people waited until the end of their lives for the cleansing action of Baptism. Their aspiration was to have their sins forgiven without having to make any changes in their lives. They wanted the forgiveness aspect of Baptism without the submission-----whereas both are significant.
Baptism is a reminder that this cleansing God gives to us is not a one-time thing, but something we ought to seek over and over again. We don’t need to come to the water for forgiveness, but come to God praying for forgiveness. We don’t need to confess to any person, but we need, on occasion, simply to come before God’s presence and unburden ourselves. Baptism is an ongoing reminder that God offers us cleansing and we need to avail ourselves of this. No one is perfect and God’s grace offers us forgiveness every day.
The last thing is this. Baptism gives us a gift that most people seem to miss or ignore. Baptism gives us a family; a group of people who claim us as one of their own.
I have noticed something about myself over the years I have lived. Whenever something good happened to me, I had to talk to my family and whenever something painful or difficult took place, I had to talk to my family. Families gather for celebrations such as weddings, and heartaches such as funerals. We need people who love us around us in joyful and difficult times of life.
When we are Baptized we are Baptized into a family of faith. And it’s not just the family of faith where we are Baptized; it is a family of faith that stretches to all the ends of the earth. Baptism is a reminder that we are part of something far bigger and far greater than ourselves.
We are part of a family that has lived in this house for many years. The DNA of the people of faith, who have founded this church and whose memory and spirit live with us, is something we are bound too. It is a family that stretches into every church in every nation, both far and close by. It is a bonding to a family of faith that goes back to the apostles, and to Jesus standing in the river, submitting to John the Baptist. St. Paul says it so beautifully in Galatians when he says:
27As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.”
Baptism reminds us we are not alone. We have family and nothing is more beautiful than that.
Baptism is a rare and special gift to us from God. Let’s move beyond petty debates, and celebrate it is a chance to submit to a magnificent God, be cleansed from the times we fail, and delight in being part of God’s family.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Letter from Queen Elizabeth
To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II:
by Jorge Rodriguez on Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 10:54am
In light of your immediate failure to financially manage yourselves and also in recent years your tendency to elect incompetent Presidents of the USA and therefore not able to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. (You should look up 'revocation' in the Oxford English Dictionary.)
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas , which she does not fancy).
Your new Prime Minister, David Cameron, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.
Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated sometime next year to determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
1. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour,' 'favour,' 'labour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix '-ize' will be replaced by the suffix '-ise.'Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary'). (I love that one)
Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as ''like' and 'you know' is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as U.S. English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter 'u'' and the elimination of '-ize.' ' (I love that one too)
3. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.
4. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can't sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you're not ready to shoot grouse.
5. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
6. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.
7. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.)
8.You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.
9. The cold, tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. New Zealand beer is also acceptable, as New Zealand is pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British Commonwealth - see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.
10. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.
11. You will cease playing American football. There are only two kinds of proper football; one you call soccer, and rugby (dominated by the New Zealanders). Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).
12. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America . Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the Australians (World dominators) first to take the sting out of their deliveries.
13. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.
14. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).
15. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 p.m. with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.
by Jorge Rodriguez on Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 10:54am
In light of your immediate failure to financially manage yourselves and also in recent years your tendency to elect incompetent Presidents of the USA and therefore not able to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. (You should look up 'revocation' in the Oxford English Dictionary.)
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas , which she does not fancy).
Your new Prime Minister, David Cameron, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.
Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated sometime next year to determine whether any of you noticed.
To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
1. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour,' 'favour,' 'labour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix '-ize' will be replaced by the suffix '-ise.'Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary'). (I love that one)
Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as ''like' and 'you know' is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as U.S. English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter 'u'' and the elimination of '-ize.' ' (I love that one too)
3. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.
4. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can't sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you're not ready to shoot grouse.
5. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.
6. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.
7. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.)
8.You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.
9. The cold, tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. New Zealand beer is also acceptable, as New Zealand is pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British Commonwealth - see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.
10. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.
11. You will cease playing American football. There are only two kinds of proper football; one you call soccer, and rugby (dominated by the New Zealanders). Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).
12. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America . Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the Australians (World dominators) first to take the sting out of their deliveries.
13. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.
14. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).
15. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 p.m. with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Becoming the Light----Being a Voice of Hope
Becoming the Light----Being a Voice of Hope
Text: Isaiah 61:1-4
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
December 11, 2011
Last week I said in my sermon that there were three prophets named Isaiah and last Sunday the sermon was based on a passage from Second Isaiah. In First Isaiah the people were living well but not focusing on God----and they were going to be in serious difficulty.
In second Isaiah, the people were in captivity and the prophet offered words of hope. Now, in Third Isaiah their captivity is over and they return home, but their homeland has been devastated. Over the span of years three different prophets named Isaiah have witnessed people who were unfaithful and subjected to being conquered; a conquered people in need of hope; and now a people in a kingdom in need of being rebuilt.
It is amazing how this prophet begins and the words he uses:
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
The words, in many ways, are timeless words. They are repeated by Jesus as he comes home to Nazareth and unrolls the scroll and reads these very words to the people in the town in which he was raised. He has come and he brings something God has brought to every generation of people who have had faith. Hope.
Isaiah comes full circle. The people had sinned and God sent the prophet to bring warning, but a warning edged with hope. After the people had fallen into captivity, God sent the prophet to bring words of comfort filled with hope. And again, now they are home in a shattered land and God, once again, assures them that God is present and God’s hope is alive and well.
As Christians, as people in St. Marks, we have a part in this. We too are asked, like all Christians, to be a message of hope to the world. The world we live in is unlike the world of the Isaiahs in so many ways, but so very much like their world too.
There have been times when things were good, but we weren’t paying attention to God.
There were times when we felt exiled.
There are times when we have ventured home to find things broken.
And there is one prevailing message that is always there. It is the message of hope and a challenge on how we can be the light of hope to others.
The first way we become voices of hope is learning to see the past as prologue to something else.
For me, Christmas has changed. When I was a child I was irrationally in love with Christmas, the colored lights, the smells, the bells, the carols, and the giving and receiving of gifts. It was, for me, the most exciting day of the year. Okay, I really LOVED receiving gifts. I grew up in a largely Jewish area of New Jersey and had many Jewish friends. I heard that Chanukah last for eight days and the idea of eight days of presents sounded good. I told my parents I wanted to convert to Judaism. When my Dad, a very good evangelist it turns out, told me I generally received more than eight gifts, my faith in Christianity was restored.
Then when we had small children at home it was that exciting again. The joy of watching my children experience such fun and such joy at Christmas and the gleeful wonder they had, much as I had when I was young, was invigorating.
My children are now adults and while they find Christmas to be exciting and fun, it is different. Then the thoughts of Christmas past, and I think of my Grandmother, my parents, my in laws, and so many loved one’s who are no longer with us and I feel the sense of loss. But that past is, in many ways, a prologue of hope.
Jesus came into the world on Christmas and that story, and the retelling of that story from generation to generation reminds us that Christmas is always bigger than ourselves, our lives, and our memories. In many ways, however, it is the journey we make through our lives, and the reflection of life past and present that enables to truly see, understand, and embrace the specialness of Christmas. It is a story of hope.
A second thing is this. It is putting things into perspective and keeping faith as rational as possible in an often irrational world.
Every year, at this time, there is a declaration that there is a ‘war on Christmas.’ This so-called war on Christmas always seems to revolve around the fact that some stores and some people use the expression, “Happy Holidays” instead of Merry Christmas. Where I grew up, with a large percentage of the population was Jewish, this was a common practice so no one would be rude to one another, but that is now deemed to be the war on Christmas.
The thing about this is that people use this to demonstrate that this is persecution against Christianity.
I have often thought this perception is insulting to Christians who were persecuted over the centuries.
Picture this. You are a modern day Christian and you are taken in a time machine to ancient Rome where you have a chance to talk to a person who is about to go into the Coliseum to fight a hungry lion bare handed. The person knows they are about to die, brutally, in front of a cheering crowd and be eaten by the lion. They are going to die, barbarically, because of their faith in Jesus Christ.
And it is your job to tell them about persecution of Christians in 21st century America where you are able to attend Worship without fear, read your Bible any place you want, but are forced to listen to Happy Holidays in some stores.
I don’t know about you, but I’d feel profoundly foolish. Talk about perspective.
Hope is often about perspective. When we keep things in perspective, we become voices of hope in an often irrational world.
A third way we are a voice of hope is keeping Jesus in the center of things.
I used to live in a town in New Jersey that had an awesome town square. At Christmas, every year, they decorated the square elaborately, and in the center of the square was Santa Claus. Way off to the side of the square, hardly noticeable was a crèche scene. In that town, at that time, when you went to the square, you knew who was the center of Christmas, and it was not Jesus.
Many people, every year, clamor about keeping Christ as the center of Christmas, and, of course, we should. But before we ever get to Christ being the center of Christmas, we have to make Christ the center of Christianity. Often this is not the case. Perceptions of Jesus are often the center of Christianity, not so much Christ.
We have a tendency to make things the way we want to make them.
When I was in college I used to make a collect phone call home every Tuesday evening. For those people here, who are old enough to remember what ‘collect phone calls’ were, the routine was always the same. I’d dial and say that I was making a collect phone call from John Manzo.
Something about my last name, ‘Manzo’ must be really difficult. It is pronounced just as it is written, but it has been botched over the years. Pretty much every telephone operator botched it, and 90% of the time, my parents would hear that they had a ‘collect phone call from John Manville.”
So one day I decided it was easier to join this so I said, “I am making a collect phone call from John Manville.” The operator said, “Wow, that sure is a common name!”
I was stunned because, I figured THEY had made it a common name.
To my point, however, Jesus often becomes what we want Jesus to be as opposed to who and what Jesus actually was and is. Jesus’ name is often invoked by people excusing us from being less than charitable to others; less than loving to one another; killing one another; stealing from one another; or not taking care of one another.
Part of the problem is that we often view Christianity or the Christian Church as a source of hope. We are, can be to the extent we don’t allow ourselves to get in the way of Christ, but when we begin by too finely filtering Jesus, or adjusting Jesus to fit our own needs, we become impediments to hope as opposed to bringers of hope. The only true source of hope is Christ himself.
The words of this third Isaiah are these:
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
They are words Jesus himself used to proclaim who he was to his home town, and what he was about. They are, in and of themselves, amazing words of hope to be embraced by each and every generation of believers.
Text: Isaiah 61:1-4
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
December 11, 2011
Last week I said in my sermon that there were three prophets named Isaiah and last Sunday the sermon was based on a passage from Second Isaiah. In First Isaiah the people were living well but not focusing on God----and they were going to be in serious difficulty.
In second Isaiah, the people were in captivity and the prophet offered words of hope. Now, in Third Isaiah their captivity is over and they return home, but their homeland has been devastated. Over the span of years three different prophets named Isaiah have witnessed people who were unfaithful and subjected to being conquered; a conquered people in need of hope; and now a people in a kingdom in need of being rebuilt.
It is amazing how this prophet begins and the words he uses:
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
The words, in many ways, are timeless words. They are repeated by Jesus as he comes home to Nazareth and unrolls the scroll and reads these very words to the people in the town in which he was raised. He has come and he brings something God has brought to every generation of people who have had faith. Hope.
Isaiah comes full circle. The people had sinned and God sent the prophet to bring warning, but a warning edged with hope. After the people had fallen into captivity, God sent the prophet to bring words of comfort filled with hope. And again, now they are home in a shattered land and God, once again, assures them that God is present and God’s hope is alive and well.
As Christians, as people in St. Marks, we have a part in this. We too are asked, like all Christians, to be a message of hope to the world. The world we live in is unlike the world of the Isaiahs in so many ways, but so very much like their world too.
There have been times when things were good, but we weren’t paying attention to God.
There were times when we felt exiled.
There are times when we have ventured home to find things broken.
And there is one prevailing message that is always there. It is the message of hope and a challenge on how we can be the light of hope to others.
The first way we become voices of hope is learning to see the past as prologue to something else.
For me, Christmas has changed. When I was a child I was irrationally in love with Christmas, the colored lights, the smells, the bells, the carols, and the giving and receiving of gifts. It was, for me, the most exciting day of the year. Okay, I really LOVED receiving gifts. I grew up in a largely Jewish area of New Jersey and had many Jewish friends. I heard that Chanukah last for eight days and the idea of eight days of presents sounded good. I told my parents I wanted to convert to Judaism. When my Dad, a very good evangelist it turns out, told me I generally received more than eight gifts, my faith in Christianity was restored.
Then when we had small children at home it was that exciting again. The joy of watching my children experience such fun and such joy at Christmas and the gleeful wonder they had, much as I had when I was young, was invigorating.
My children are now adults and while they find Christmas to be exciting and fun, it is different. Then the thoughts of Christmas past, and I think of my Grandmother, my parents, my in laws, and so many loved one’s who are no longer with us and I feel the sense of loss. But that past is, in many ways, a prologue of hope.
Jesus came into the world on Christmas and that story, and the retelling of that story from generation to generation reminds us that Christmas is always bigger than ourselves, our lives, and our memories. In many ways, however, it is the journey we make through our lives, and the reflection of life past and present that enables to truly see, understand, and embrace the specialness of Christmas. It is a story of hope.
A second thing is this. It is putting things into perspective and keeping faith as rational as possible in an often irrational world.
Every year, at this time, there is a declaration that there is a ‘war on Christmas.’ This so-called war on Christmas always seems to revolve around the fact that some stores and some people use the expression, “Happy Holidays” instead of Merry Christmas. Where I grew up, with a large percentage of the population was Jewish, this was a common practice so no one would be rude to one another, but that is now deemed to be the war on Christmas.
The thing about this is that people use this to demonstrate that this is persecution against Christianity.
I have often thought this perception is insulting to Christians who were persecuted over the centuries.
Picture this. You are a modern day Christian and you are taken in a time machine to ancient Rome where you have a chance to talk to a person who is about to go into the Coliseum to fight a hungry lion bare handed. The person knows they are about to die, brutally, in front of a cheering crowd and be eaten by the lion. They are going to die, barbarically, because of their faith in Jesus Christ.
And it is your job to tell them about persecution of Christians in 21st century America where you are able to attend Worship without fear, read your Bible any place you want, but are forced to listen to Happy Holidays in some stores.
I don’t know about you, but I’d feel profoundly foolish. Talk about perspective.
Hope is often about perspective. When we keep things in perspective, we become voices of hope in an often irrational world.
A third way we are a voice of hope is keeping Jesus in the center of things.
I used to live in a town in New Jersey that had an awesome town square. At Christmas, every year, they decorated the square elaborately, and in the center of the square was Santa Claus. Way off to the side of the square, hardly noticeable was a crèche scene. In that town, at that time, when you went to the square, you knew who was the center of Christmas, and it was not Jesus.
Many people, every year, clamor about keeping Christ as the center of Christmas, and, of course, we should. But before we ever get to Christ being the center of Christmas, we have to make Christ the center of Christianity. Often this is not the case. Perceptions of Jesus are often the center of Christianity, not so much Christ.
We have a tendency to make things the way we want to make them.
When I was in college I used to make a collect phone call home every Tuesday evening. For those people here, who are old enough to remember what ‘collect phone calls’ were, the routine was always the same. I’d dial and say that I was making a collect phone call from John Manzo.
Something about my last name, ‘Manzo’ must be really difficult. It is pronounced just as it is written, but it has been botched over the years. Pretty much every telephone operator botched it, and 90% of the time, my parents would hear that they had a ‘collect phone call from John Manville.”
So one day I decided it was easier to join this so I said, “I am making a collect phone call from John Manville.” The operator said, “Wow, that sure is a common name!”
I was stunned because, I figured THEY had made it a common name.
To my point, however, Jesus often becomes what we want Jesus to be as opposed to who and what Jesus actually was and is. Jesus’ name is often invoked by people excusing us from being less than charitable to others; less than loving to one another; killing one another; stealing from one another; or not taking care of one another.
Part of the problem is that we often view Christianity or the Christian Church as a source of hope. We are, can be to the extent we don’t allow ourselves to get in the way of Christ, but when we begin by too finely filtering Jesus, or adjusting Jesus to fit our own needs, we become impediments to hope as opposed to bringers of hope. The only true source of hope is Christ himself.
The words of this third Isaiah are these:
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
They are words Jesus himself used to proclaim who he was to his home town, and what he was about. They are, in and of themselves, amazing words of hope to be embraced by each and every generation of believers.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Friday, October 07, 2011
Movements and Mayhem
Not too long ago we had the Tea Party rallies. They were an organized, ‘grass-roots’ movement that was heavily promoted on Fox News and bashed by MSNBC. They were people rallying against taxation. At first, most politicians on the right, were incredibly wary of them. A few joined with them and many give the Tea Party credit for the Republican wave of 2010 and the blame for the budget standoff.
Now we have the Occupy Wall Street movement. It is difficult to say if they are organized as of yet or if they are truly grass roots. They are, however, being promoted by many at MSNBC and bashed by Fox News. At first, most politicians on the on left were wary of them but not they are beginning to cozy up. It’s impossible to say where this movement will lead, if it continues.
I was thinking of these movements and mayhem. People on either side do not like to be compared, but they have a lot more in common than anyone involved would like to admit.
The first thing is this. People are not happy with the direction the country is moving in. Unemployment is high and investments are down. The disparity between those who have and those who do not have has widened. Speaking locally, our Soup Kitchen is more crowded than every before, the Health Fair will be crowded, and we are giving away more clothing than ever. Many people who are employed would consider themselves under-employed. They have jobs that pay too little and many folks are over-qualified for the jobs they are seeking. Our foreign policy and the war on terror remain question marks as they have for many years.
The second thing is this. Our political system is broken. The two parties are further apart than ever before. In New Albany the Sherman Minton Bridge remains closed. As this bridge connects two different Congressional districts, served by people of opposing parties, there was a question: Have John Yarmuth and Todd Young spoken to each other? When queried their answers were the same. “Our offices have spoken to each other.” Neither of these men have bothered to speak directly. Rules are used to stall political process and neither party will budge.
If people are unhappy and the political process is broken people take to the streets. The people taking to the streets may not agree how to solve problems, they they agree on two things: they do not like the state of the nation and they do not trust elected officials. Politicians of both parties may sneer at the ‘other group,’ but they ought to sneer at themselves in the mirror. Much of the blame falls at their feet.
Often these movements turn into mobs and create mayhem. When this happens, things happen.
In my lifetime I never expected the Soviet bloc and the Soviet Union to collapse. Mobs brought them down.
Algeria. Same thing.
Egypt. Same thing.
In the 1770's an English King scorned mobs as well and thought they would come to nothing. He was breath-takingly wrong.
Political leaders on both sides may need to open their eyes and ears and hearts because the movements afoot may not bring good tidings to them.
Frighteningly, I don’t know if they bring good tidings or bad tidings to any of us, Tea Party or Wall Street occupation alike.
Now we have the Occupy Wall Street movement. It is difficult to say if they are organized as of yet or if they are truly grass roots. They are, however, being promoted by many at MSNBC and bashed by Fox News. At first, most politicians on the on left were wary of them but not they are beginning to cozy up. It’s impossible to say where this movement will lead, if it continues.
I was thinking of these movements and mayhem. People on either side do not like to be compared, but they have a lot more in common than anyone involved would like to admit.
The first thing is this. People are not happy with the direction the country is moving in. Unemployment is high and investments are down. The disparity between those who have and those who do not have has widened. Speaking locally, our Soup Kitchen is more crowded than every before, the Health Fair will be crowded, and we are giving away more clothing than ever. Many people who are employed would consider themselves under-employed. They have jobs that pay too little and many folks are over-qualified for the jobs they are seeking. Our foreign policy and the war on terror remain question marks as they have for many years.
The second thing is this. Our political system is broken. The two parties are further apart than ever before. In New Albany the Sherman Minton Bridge remains closed. As this bridge connects two different Congressional districts, served by people of opposing parties, there was a question: Have John Yarmuth and Todd Young spoken to each other? When queried their answers were the same. “Our offices have spoken to each other.” Neither of these men have bothered to speak directly. Rules are used to stall political process and neither party will budge.
If people are unhappy and the political process is broken people take to the streets. The people taking to the streets may not agree how to solve problems, they they agree on two things: they do not like the state of the nation and they do not trust elected officials. Politicians of both parties may sneer at the ‘other group,’ but they ought to sneer at themselves in the mirror. Much of the blame falls at their feet.
Often these movements turn into mobs and create mayhem. When this happens, things happen.
In my lifetime I never expected the Soviet bloc and the Soviet Union to collapse. Mobs brought them down.
Algeria. Same thing.
Egypt. Same thing.
In the 1770's an English King scorned mobs as well and thought they would come to nothing. He was breath-takingly wrong.
Political leaders on both sides may need to open their eyes and ears and hearts because the movements afoot may not bring good tidings to them.
Frighteningly, I don’t know if they bring good tidings or bad tidings to any of us, Tea Party or Wall Street occupation alike.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Love Wins: Sunday's Sermon
Love Wins
Text: Matthew 20:1-16
September 18, 2011
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
Text: Matthew 20:1-16
September 18, 2011
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
Monday, September 12, 2011
A Conversation
I don't know who reads this or not. I've been wondering if there would be interest in having a theological conversation on my blog. A respectful theological conversation. I am unconcerned if you are a Christian or not, or a believer or not to participate in this. It can be a respectful forum of exchanging ideas, beliefs, feelings, and thoughts.
I will put up a topic tomorrow. Please let me know either on here or via Facebook if you'd like to participate in this.
Thanks,
John
I will put up a topic tomorrow. Please let me know either on here or via Facebook if you'd like to participate in this.
Thanks,
John
An Observation about Infrastructure
There is nothing more boring than infrastructure. No one really likes talking about it and over the decades no one has really worried about funding it. There is nothing sexy or glamourous about fixing sewage systems, water mains, roads, and bridges.
As a result infrastructure is largely ignored. It’s sort of like having to replace the roof or commodes in our homes. No one really wants to do it. People would prefer to spend money on other things than they do replacing the leaking water heater.
That is until it’s a bad leak and the basement is flooded. Or the roof really gets bad and destroys the living room. Then it’s ‘what were we thinking when we didn’t...’
Whether people want to admit it or not, the American infrastructure is rotting. The WPA built things in the ‘30's during the Great Depression. The interstate highway system was built in the ‘50's and ‘60's. Since then we’ve done virtually nothing. Cities are dealing with water mains built by people in the WPA and many highways and bridges are much the same. Things are not being replaced and things are not being maintained properly.
Sometimes I think in our worries about our problems outside our borders, we miss that we have a huge problem that is destroying our nation from the center in. We have a rotting infrastructure.
Recently, in Louisville, there were two major water main breaks near the University of Louisville. They were old, antiquated systems that had not been properly maintained. In the region the Sherman Minton Bridge is closed indefinitely plunging the region into chaos. Commuters now have to face the daily nightmare of getting over the river each day. The three bridges we had were inadequate and now there are two. Inspections have been put off on them because, well, we cannot reduce the traffic flow any more than we have.
Why don’t we address infrastructure? The answer is always the same. We can’t afford it.
The President recently outlined ‘some’ of this but carefully avoided using the word infrastructure. It has become a dirty word. Perhaps, instead of avoiding the word, he should have used the word, emphatically, and explain how our nation’s infrastructure is rotting away. And use those words: rotting away. It is rotting away.
People try to dismiss this and say it’s overstated and everything is really okay. It is not overstated and it is not okay. Our infrastructure is rotting away. If you want to know if it’s okay ask commuters sitting in bumper to bumper traffic because of a closed bridge if things are okay.
Ask people who have no water or sewage if it’s okay because water mains have broken.
Ask commuters in St. Louis if the detours they have to take around sections of rotted interstate if things are okay.
But we can’t afford it. Fine.
But ask this question instead. Can we afford not to?
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Manuscript of Sermon for September 11, 2011
491 and Counting
Text: Matthew 18:21-35
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
September 11, 2011
As I was preparing to write this sermon I began to wonder what I was doing a year ago on September 11th. I don’t remember. But I do remember where I was and what I was doing ten years ago on this date. Most of us do. It is a day etched in our memories and our hearts.
There are days that always remain etched in our hearts and minds. I remember my wedding day and the days my children were born vividly. I also remember the days my parents and in-laws died. We remember days of joy and days of sadness.
September 11th is a day of so many memories for us. It is a day of shock, of sadness, of anger, and a day of terror.
It was a blatant act of hatred and terrorism and filled with innocent victims.
The people on the planes that had become instruments of death and destruction; and one heroic band of passengers who sacrificed their lives to protect others.
There were the people in the buildings many of whom talked to loved ones and said tearful good byes waiting to die. So many of their remains were never found.
And there were the amazingly heroic fire fighters and police officers who, despite overwhelming odds, went into the buildings that people were fleeing, in an attempt to save lives before losing their own lives.
And since that day, in a war against terrorist thousands of soldiers have lost their lives and so many have been wounded and disabled for life. And so many families have suffered the loss. Additionally, our economy has been devastated paying to carry on this campaign against terrorism.
And it should not be forgotten that there has been a death toll, so often dismissed as collateral damage, of so many people in far off lands who have been killed, wounded, and/or lost their homes. War is not just about soldiers, but is also about those caught in the crossfire and who have the misfortune of having their homes and their lives in the midst of battlefields.
So we remember that day ten years ago which impacted all of our lives so much.
As we gather in the presence of God at Worship today, we encounter an interesting passage from the Bible.
Within a large sector of Christianity there is something called the Revised Common Lectionary. Mainline Protestant churches have the option of using it and you’ll find that many do. I for one, sometimes use it and sometimes I don’t use it. This Fall, however, I decided to focus on it.
Beside mainline Protestant churches the Roman Catholic Church uses it as well. Chances are good, if you were attending either a Roman Catholic Church or a mainline Protestant church, the Gospel passage would be the same today.
The Lectionary goes on a three year cycle that was set decades ago and set for decades from now, so today’s Scripture reading was set long before September 11, 2011.
And it’s this. How many times should we forgive?
Peter asks a question and it is a good question. Peter often comes off as clueless but there are many times he is the one apostle who has a grasp on what Jesus is saying.
It would be inaccurate to say that in first century Judaism there was no concept Fo forgiveness. Jesus however was saying it was larger and bolder than ever before. Peter gets this and so his question of asking seven times was bold. To forgive someone seven times was remarkably generous.
But Jesus is radical. The answer is seven times seventy. If you take him literally it means that we forgive others 490 times. However Jesus seems to be speaking figuratively so it seems more like 491 and counting. As most of us would not count slights that high forgiveness is more or less an unlimited gesture.
Jesus goes further. He tells a parable about a slave who seeks forgiveness from the king for a debt and receives it. However, when this same slave will not forgive a fellow slave for that debt, the forgiven slave is now condemned. Jesus is not speaking of forgiveness as optional; it is part of our faith. It is something we profess every time we say the words in Jesus’ prayer, “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”
And this is the Scripture of the Revised Common Lectionary for today.
These are words of grace on a day when we remember an act of pure evil, of terror, and ponder how the world has changed as the result of the evil. They are not words of political leaders or commentators, or even of any member of the clergy. They are, in the words of Tony Campolo, ‘red letter words,’ the words of Jesus.
And this text is really difficult on a day like today.
One scholar within the United Church of Christ who really does a wonderful job wrestling with Scripture texts is Kate Matthews Huey who works in the national office of our denomination. In her reflection this week she cited Thomas Long, a professor in Atlanta, "We know too well that the little boat in which we are sailing is floating on a deep sea of grace and that forgiveness is not to be dispensed with an eyedropper, but a fire hose."
It’s a great image because our impulse is to dispense grace and forgiveness carefully and judiciously and rarely as an eye dropper drips sparingly. But Jesus dispenses grace with a fire hose and tells us to do so as well.
But here is the dilemma. When we think of September 11th and the horror of the day and the sheer evil of the day ideas like forgiveness and grace do not come to mind. Instead we generally think of revenge, retribution, and justice. Truthfully, on the day Osama Bin Laden was killed most of us did not mourn his death.
But then there are the words of Jesus talking about forgiveness and grace.
We can probably talk about all of what this means politically and theologically, and I really don’t want to get political. As for the theological, there is something also very personal about this.
At Floyd Memorial Hospital there is a wonderful little chapel. I often use it after visiting people to pray and reflect. It is a nice quiet space and it’s usually empty when I get there.
About a month ago I went in the chapel and a man was sitting in there. I sat down and began to read and pray Psalms which is my usual endeavor. Soon, another man came in and they both took out Islamic prayer rugs and began to pray. They were both physicians at the hospital and both appeared to be of Middle Eastern origin.
Truthfully, I had a horrible thought; a thought that embarrassed me at the time and still does. Images of September 11th danced in my mind and I wondered----and my thoughts all danced with the word ‘terrorists’ in my mind.
And, as I watched them pray another thought came to mind. These were both doctors who healed people in our community each and every day. And they were pious men who were praying out loud in a public chapel something I would be reluctant to do. I left that chapel that day filled with shame and it caused me pause.
Living lives of faith is difficult.
The twentieth century German theologian, Pastor, author, and martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, wrote of a world where the will of God would one day lead to a world reconciled to love, justice, and peace, and where oppression would end. He left Germany in 1938 to get away from Nazi oppression but returned because he believed, as a person of faith, he could not run away from evil. He returned and spent his last years in a concentration camp and was executed for his belief.
He said that there is a cost and joy of discipleship that all people must grapple with. Those words, his words, are forever remembered in our United Church of Christ Statement of Faith, always reminding us that being people of faith is never easy and will always force us to ask difficult questions.
Diana Butler Bass, a modern day theologian and author made one very simple observation about how we, as Christians, deal with this day. She said, perhaps the day is best approached in silence. It is a day that should be met with a pause; with a time of somber and sober reflection.
There is the well known story in the Bible of the woman caught in adultery. She is taken before Jesus and he is asked what should be done. Jesus’ action was very simple. Before he said a word, before he came to any conclusion, he got down on the ground and began to write. Her sin and their judgment caused him to pause and be silent.
So in the midst of today, I ask you to do one thing to remember this day. Take some time during the course of this day and take pause and be silent and sit in God’s holy presence.
Text: Matthew 18:21-35
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
September 11, 2011
As I was preparing to write this sermon I began to wonder what I was doing a year ago on September 11th. I don’t remember. But I do remember where I was and what I was doing ten years ago on this date. Most of us do. It is a day etched in our memories and our hearts.
There are days that always remain etched in our hearts and minds. I remember my wedding day and the days my children were born vividly. I also remember the days my parents and in-laws died. We remember days of joy and days of sadness.
September 11th is a day of so many memories for us. It is a day of shock, of sadness, of anger, and a day of terror.
It was a blatant act of hatred and terrorism and filled with innocent victims.
The people on the planes that had become instruments of death and destruction; and one heroic band of passengers who sacrificed their lives to protect others.
There were the people in the buildings many of whom talked to loved ones and said tearful good byes waiting to die. So many of their remains were never found.
And there were the amazingly heroic fire fighters and police officers who, despite overwhelming odds, went into the buildings that people were fleeing, in an attempt to save lives before losing their own lives.
And since that day, in a war against terrorist thousands of soldiers have lost their lives and so many have been wounded and disabled for life. And so many families have suffered the loss. Additionally, our economy has been devastated paying to carry on this campaign against terrorism.
And it should not be forgotten that there has been a death toll, so often dismissed as collateral damage, of so many people in far off lands who have been killed, wounded, and/or lost their homes. War is not just about soldiers, but is also about those caught in the crossfire and who have the misfortune of having their homes and their lives in the midst of battlefields.
So we remember that day ten years ago which impacted all of our lives so much.
As we gather in the presence of God at Worship today, we encounter an interesting passage from the Bible.
Within a large sector of Christianity there is something called the Revised Common Lectionary. Mainline Protestant churches have the option of using it and you’ll find that many do. I for one, sometimes use it and sometimes I don’t use it. This Fall, however, I decided to focus on it.
Beside mainline Protestant churches the Roman Catholic Church uses it as well. Chances are good, if you were attending either a Roman Catholic Church or a mainline Protestant church, the Gospel passage would be the same today.
The Lectionary goes on a three year cycle that was set decades ago and set for decades from now, so today’s Scripture reading was set long before September 11, 2011.
And it’s this. How many times should we forgive?
Peter asks a question and it is a good question. Peter often comes off as clueless but there are many times he is the one apostle who has a grasp on what Jesus is saying.
It would be inaccurate to say that in first century Judaism there was no concept Fo forgiveness. Jesus however was saying it was larger and bolder than ever before. Peter gets this and so his question of asking seven times was bold. To forgive someone seven times was remarkably generous.
But Jesus is radical. The answer is seven times seventy. If you take him literally it means that we forgive others 490 times. However Jesus seems to be speaking figuratively so it seems more like 491 and counting. As most of us would not count slights that high forgiveness is more or less an unlimited gesture.
Jesus goes further. He tells a parable about a slave who seeks forgiveness from the king for a debt and receives it. However, when this same slave will not forgive a fellow slave for that debt, the forgiven slave is now condemned. Jesus is not speaking of forgiveness as optional; it is part of our faith. It is something we profess every time we say the words in Jesus’ prayer, “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”
And this is the Scripture of the Revised Common Lectionary for today.
These are words of grace on a day when we remember an act of pure evil, of terror, and ponder how the world has changed as the result of the evil. They are not words of political leaders or commentators, or even of any member of the clergy. They are, in the words of Tony Campolo, ‘red letter words,’ the words of Jesus.
And this text is really difficult on a day like today.
One scholar within the United Church of Christ who really does a wonderful job wrestling with Scripture texts is Kate Matthews Huey who works in the national office of our denomination. In her reflection this week she cited Thomas Long, a professor in Atlanta, "We know too well that the little boat in which we are sailing is floating on a deep sea of grace and that forgiveness is not to be dispensed with an eyedropper, but a fire hose."
It’s a great image because our impulse is to dispense grace and forgiveness carefully and judiciously and rarely as an eye dropper drips sparingly. But Jesus dispenses grace with a fire hose and tells us to do so as well.
But here is the dilemma. When we think of September 11th and the horror of the day and the sheer evil of the day ideas like forgiveness and grace do not come to mind. Instead we generally think of revenge, retribution, and justice. Truthfully, on the day Osama Bin Laden was killed most of us did not mourn his death.
But then there are the words of Jesus talking about forgiveness and grace.
We can probably talk about all of what this means politically and theologically, and I really don’t want to get political. As for the theological, there is something also very personal about this.
At Floyd Memorial Hospital there is a wonderful little chapel. I often use it after visiting people to pray and reflect. It is a nice quiet space and it’s usually empty when I get there.
About a month ago I went in the chapel and a man was sitting in there. I sat down and began to read and pray Psalms which is my usual endeavor. Soon, another man came in and they both took out Islamic prayer rugs and began to pray. They were both physicians at the hospital and both appeared to be of Middle Eastern origin.
Truthfully, I had a horrible thought; a thought that embarrassed me at the time and still does. Images of September 11th danced in my mind and I wondered----and my thoughts all danced with the word ‘terrorists’ in my mind.
And, as I watched them pray another thought came to mind. These were both doctors who healed people in our community each and every day. And they were pious men who were praying out loud in a public chapel something I would be reluctant to do. I left that chapel that day filled with shame and it caused me pause.
Living lives of faith is difficult.
The twentieth century German theologian, Pastor, author, and martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, wrote of a world where the will of God would one day lead to a world reconciled to love, justice, and peace, and where oppression would end. He left Germany in 1938 to get away from Nazi oppression but returned because he believed, as a person of faith, he could not run away from evil. He returned and spent his last years in a concentration camp and was executed for his belief.
He said that there is a cost and joy of discipleship that all people must grapple with. Those words, his words, are forever remembered in our United Church of Christ Statement of Faith, always reminding us that being people of faith is never easy and will always force us to ask difficult questions.
Diana Butler Bass, a modern day theologian and author made one very simple observation about how we, as Christians, deal with this day. She said, perhaps the day is best approached in silence. It is a day that should be met with a pause; with a time of somber and sober reflection.
There is the well known story in the Bible of the woman caught in adultery. She is taken before Jesus and he is asked what should be done. Jesus’ action was very simple. Before he said a word, before he came to any conclusion, he got down on the ground and began to write. Her sin and their judgment caused him to pause and be silent.
So in the midst of today, I ask you to do one thing to remember this day. Take some time during the course of this day and take pause and be silent and sit in God’s holy presence.
491 and Counting Sermon for September 11, 2011
491 and Counting
Text: Matthew 18:21-35
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
September 11, 2011
Text: Matthew 18:21-35
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
September 11, 2011
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