Pondering Unanswerable Questions
Did Jesus Have to Die?
Text: Mark 11:1-11
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
March 28, 2010
Palm Sunday
The word ‘if’ is a big word.
On December 7th, 1941 radar operators detected a large number of airplanes traveling east toward Pearly Harbor. They were expecting a small number of planes flying west from California and determined that this blob of planes to be nothing. What would have happened IF they had correctly read their radar and ordered the many fighter planes into the air to defend Pearl Harbor?
In 1939, England and France declared war in Germany after Germany had invaded Poland. The vast majority of the German Army’s resources were in the eastern part of Germany and stretched out into Poland. This left a large expanse of Germany very vulnerable to attack. Many military historians have speculated that had France and England invaded Germany from the west during this time period, the war could have been over very quickly. What would have happened IF this happened?
In the Book of Jonah, there is, of course, the story of Jonah being told to preaching in Nineveh. He doesn’t want to go because the people of Nineveh are pretty horrible people. He runs from God by taking a boat, but God causes a great storm. He is thrown overboard, swallowed by a large fish, and belched onto shore by this fish. Right near Nineveh. Jonah gives pretty much the world’s worse sermon and the people of Nineveh, including the king, repent from their sins and turn their lives over to God.
What would have happened IF Jesus’ preaching and teaching had changed so many hearts that people fell down and worshiped Jesus, much like the people of Nineveh, and never crucified Him?
It forces us to ask the question: Did Jesus have to die?
It is, of course, always a rhetorical question. Jesus did die. The early Christian Church had to deal with the reality of Jesus’ death and the theology of Christianity was written and embraced around the fact that Jesus did die on the cross. But there is always that question: did Jesus have to die?
In ancient Jewish tradition, it was taught that the only way to atone for sin was through a blood sacrifice. Lambs were slaughtered at the first Passover and throughout the history of Judaism, up to and just beyond the time of Jesus, if people wanted to repent of sin, they brought an animal to be sacrificed, in their behalf, unto God.
The early Christian Church adopted this as the reason Jesus died on the cross. Jesus’ death on the cross was a difficult thing to rationalize or explain. The early leaders of Christianity studied the Old Testament and Judaism intently to determine an answer.
The most compelling argument is made in Isaiah 53. It reads, in part:
Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. 5But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. 6All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. 9They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. 10Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain.
Isaiah, who wrote the Four Songs of the Suffering Servant, prophesies about one who will suffer and be crushed because of God’s will.
On the other hand, there is a compelling argument about God.
There is an old philosophical riddle: Can God create a rock that is so great that God cannot move the rock? You may be surprised to learn this, but this is actually an answerable question. And the answer is ‘no.’ The one thing God cannot do is create something greater than God Himself. God is perfection and cannot be improved. The only limitation to God’s power is that God cannot create something greater than Himself.
So, did God have to follow ancient Jewish traditions?
Did God have to fulfill the prophesy of Isaiah?
People in Jesus’ day believed that the Messiah would be a new David who conquered the Romans or a new Moses would you lead them to a new Promised Land. They cited Scripture to validate their positions and God did not fulfill their expectations.
Frankly I think you can make an argument that Jesus didn’t have to die on the cross. Had people embraced him and crowned him King or whatever, then the story changes.
But.
Maybe this is the wrong question to be asking and it always has been the wrong question to be asking. I say this for one simple reason. Jesus died on the cross.
Today is Palm Sunday and to be perfectly honest, I have always found Palm Sunday to be one of the most difficult Sundays in the church year. It is, on one hand, joyful and celebratory; Jesus enters Jerusalem in triumph. A crowd is there to cheer him on. All is good in the world. Except, we know how the story continues. Jesus will be arrested and Jesus will be crucified. The celebration of Palm Sunday quickly turns to horror.
We can speculate all we want to about what had to happen or did not have to happen. The speculation does not matter one bit. Jesus died on the cross.
There's a marvelous story about Jesus' choice that has been around for a long time.
The legend goes that Jesus entered into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and the crowds went wild and welcomed him with glee.
On Thursday morning, however, he was approached by many people who were the leadership in the Temple. They told him that he was causing a major disruption and that the Romans would not tolerate this for long. They suggested to him that he had to leave the city or face the consequence of the cross.
Jesus talked to the apostles, prayed, and decided to leave on Friday. On Friday afternoon, as they were leaving the city of Jerusalem, Jesus looked and saw Golgotha, and saw crosses up there and men hanging from them. And Jesus said, "Wow, that could have been me."
And Peter said, "It sure could have been, Mister."
Ever notice something about that story? We never call Jesus, Mister. We call Jesus, Lord, because he didn't leave the city, but accepted the cross.
All too often I hear people almost dismiss the cross because they simply chalk it up to God's will and that Jesus had no choice.
Pontius Pilate's executing Jesus is often perceived like he's an innocent pawn of God who had no choice in crucifying Jesus.
Even Judas, the one who betrayed Jesus, is often ‘let off the hook' because he is so often portrayed as an innocent pawn of God who had no choice.
The reality is quite different.
What if Jesus had left Jerusalem. He could have let the cup pass from him and abandoned Jerusalem.
Pilate could have let Jesus go.
Judas could have remained faithful and loyal to Jesus.
They made choices that changed the world. Jesus accepted death on the cross; Pilate executed Jesus, and Judas betrayed Jesus.
Sometimes I think saying this was all predestined diminishes the impact of what took place; but speculating on it, ultimately gets us nowhere other than into a needless debate.
And the reason is simple. Jesus died on the cross.
The poet John Donne wrote a poem: Good Friday 1613: Riding Westward.
Donne, who was a priest in the Church of England wrote about riding his horse westward while the crucifixion was taking place in the east. He was writing about turning his back on the cross, turning his back on Christ. Turning his back on everything that was taking place.
The week we have before us gives us opportunities to turn eastward, to turn towards the cross and embrace what Jesus did for us. Easter is a day of joy to be celebrated next Sunday. Let us use these final days, before Easter, to walk the path of Christ, and to not debate the what if’s but allow the what happened to touch our hearts and souls.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Facing East
When I was a sophomore in college I took a class in 17th Century English Literature. It was one of my best college classes and it was taught by an English professor I knew and thought the world of.
My favorite poet was John Donne and my favorite Donne poem was this:
GOOD-FRIDAY, 1613, RIDING WESTWARD.
by John Donne
LET man's soul be a sphere, and then, in this,
Th' intelligence that moves, devotion is ;
And as the other spheres, by being grown
Subject to foreign motion, lose their own,
And being by others hurried every day,
Scarce in a year their natural form obey ;
Pleasure or business, so, our souls admit
For their first mover, and are whirl'd by it.
Hence is't, that I am carried towards the west,
This day, when my soul's form bends to the East.
There I should see a Sun by rising set,
And by that setting endless day beget.
But that Christ on His cross did rise and fall,
Sin had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for me.
Who sees Gods face, that is self-life, must die ;
What a death were it then to see God die ?
It made His own lieutenant, Nature, shrink,
It made His footstool crack, and the sun wink.
Could I behold those hands, which span the poles
And tune all spheres at once, pierced with those holes ?
Could I behold that endless height, which is
Zenith to us and our antipodes,
Humbled below us ? or that blood, which is
The seat of all our soul's, if not of His,
Made dirt of dust, or that flesh which was worn
By God for His apparel, ragg'd and torn ?
If on these things I durst not look, durst I
On His distressed Mother cast mine eye,
Who was God's partner here, and furnish'd thus
Half of that sacrifice which ransom'd us ?
Though these things as I ride be from mine eye,
They're present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them ; and Thou look'st towards me,
O Saviour, as Thou hang'st upon the tree.
I turn my back to thee but to receive
Corrections till Thy mercies bid Thee leave.
O think me worth Thine anger, punish me,
Burn off my rust, and my deformity ;
Restore Thine image, so much, by Thy grace,
That Thou mayst know me, and I'll turn my face.
Donne was a priest in the Church of England. He grew up in a Roman Catholic family but this was also a tumultuous time in England (and in Europe) where there was great violence between Catholics and Protestants. King James I, whose mother had been the Roman Catholic Mary, Queen of Scotts, was Protestant and demonstrated his Protestantism by fierce persecution of Roman Catholic believers. It was, in many ways, a sad time.
In this midst of this, Donne writes a poem about riding westward in Good Friday. And he writes:
O Saviour, as Thou hang'st upon the tree.
I turn my back to thee but to receive
Corrections till Thy mercies bid Thee leave.
O think me worth Thine anger, punish me,
Burn off my rust, and my deformity ;
Restore Thine image, so much, by Thy grace,
That Thou mayst know me, and I'll turn my face
As Jesus was hanging from the tree/cross, Donne turned his back on Christ in the east, and was journeying west. He is begging for forgiveness as he flees so that he might turn his face back to Christ, and back to the crucifixion.
Lent is almost to an end. Palm Sunday is this coming Sunday and this will be followed by gathering around the Table of the Lord on Maundy Thursday night, and gathering to remember the Passion of Christ, on Good Friday----all leading to the celebration of Easter.
Don’t ride westward, but turn to God this Holy Season.
My favorite poet was John Donne and my favorite Donne poem was this:
GOOD-FRIDAY, 1613, RIDING WESTWARD.
by John Donne
LET man's soul be a sphere, and then, in this,
Th' intelligence that moves, devotion is ;
And as the other spheres, by being grown
Subject to foreign motion, lose their own,
And being by others hurried every day,
Scarce in a year their natural form obey ;
Pleasure or business, so, our souls admit
For their first mover, and are whirl'd by it.
Hence is't, that I am carried towards the west,
This day, when my soul's form bends to the East.
There I should see a Sun by rising set,
And by that setting endless day beget.
But that Christ on His cross did rise and fall,
Sin had eternally benighted all.
Yet dare I almost be glad, I do not see
That spectacle of too much weight for me.
Who sees Gods face, that is self-life, must die ;
What a death were it then to see God die ?
It made His own lieutenant, Nature, shrink,
It made His footstool crack, and the sun wink.
Could I behold those hands, which span the poles
And tune all spheres at once, pierced with those holes ?
Could I behold that endless height, which is
Zenith to us and our antipodes,
Humbled below us ? or that blood, which is
The seat of all our soul's, if not of His,
Made dirt of dust, or that flesh which was worn
By God for His apparel, ragg'd and torn ?
If on these things I durst not look, durst I
On His distressed Mother cast mine eye,
Who was God's partner here, and furnish'd thus
Half of that sacrifice which ransom'd us ?
Though these things as I ride be from mine eye,
They're present yet unto my memory,
For that looks towards them ; and Thou look'st towards me,
O Saviour, as Thou hang'st upon the tree.
I turn my back to thee but to receive
Corrections till Thy mercies bid Thee leave.
O think me worth Thine anger, punish me,
Burn off my rust, and my deformity ;
Restore Thine image, so much, by Thy grace,
That Thou mayst know me, and I'll turn my face.
Donne was a priest in the Church of England. He grew up in a Roman Catholic family but this was also a tumultuous time in England (and in Europe) where there was great violence between Catholics and Protestants. King James I, whose mother had been the Roman Catholic Mary, Queen of Scotts, was Protestant and demonstrated his Protestantism by fierce persecution of Roman Catholic believers. It was, in many ways, a sad time.
In this midst of this, Donne writes a poem about riding westward in Good Friday. And he writes:
O Saviour, as Thou hang'st upon the tree.
I turn my back to thee but to receive
Corrections till Thy mercies bid Thee leave.
O think me worth Thine anger, punish me,
Burn off my rust, and my deformity ;
Restore Thine image, so much, by Thy grace,
That Thou mayst know me, and I'll turn my face
As Jesus was hanging from the tree/cross, Donne turned his back on Christ in the east, and was journeying west. He is begging for forgiveness as he flees so that he might turn his face back to Christ, and back to the crucifixion.
Lent is almost to an end. Palm Sunday is this coming Sunday and this will be followed by gathering around the Table of the Lord on Maundy Thursday night, and gathering to remember the Passion of Christ, on Good Friday----all leading to the celebration of Easter.
Don’t ride westward, but turn to God this Holy Season.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Hate
Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 4:8
God is love. Simple words that bring about a simple thought. God is love. It does make one wonder, however, if God is love, who is hate. Hate seems to have become an increasingly popular commodity these days.
We all remember during the Presidential Campaign of Barack Obama when his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, let lose. Sadly and tragically, he let lose with a barrage of hate statements. His statements, and the man himself, proved to be indefensible.
Every day Rush Limbaugh gets on the radio and lets loose a torrent of hatred toward those he disagrees with. Glenn Beck does likewise. Keith Olbermann, from the other perspective, does so as well. Hate.
Of late, in the health care debate, there was lots of hatred generated.
At a tea party rally in Columbus, Ohio several taunted and humiliated a man who was sitting on the ground with a sign that said he had Parkinson’s disease. One of the Tea Party protesters leaned over the man and sneered: “If you’re looking for a handout, you’re in the wrong end of town.” Another threw money at the man, first one bill and then another. Pure hate.
Rep. John Lewis, well noted person in the civil rights movement was called the “N-Word,” as he walked toward Congress. Usage of racial slurs is a sign and symbol of hatred.
Barney Frank was taunted because he was gay. Hate.
Another person was spit on. Hate.
John Boehner, it is stated over and over again, has fried brains from his tanning salon. Hate.
A blogger in my town referred to the President and Speaker of the House as Hussein Odumbo and Botox Pelosi. Hate.
We like to diminish things and say that these are all isolated incidents. They really aren’t. The hate-mongers show up every day and every night on radio and television. The demonstrations have incidents like the one recorded in Columbus, Ohio, that appear to be isolated until you read the signs. Lots of hate in those signs.
The recent Health Care legislation was an amazing display. In observing the House the other night, contempt and disdain were two auras in the air. There was lots of harsh language, a plethora of lies and half truths, and hate. Hate.
We want to blame hate on others. We like to blame hate on the talk show hosts, on the columnists, on the politicians, and on the sign holders. Yet, everyone is to blame. When we turn on the radio or television and listen to the hate talk, we have complicity in their words and actions. When we find ourselves using slurs or referring to others or the opinions of other people as ‘stupid,’ we are part of the problem. Many of the people outraged when President Obama is called a Socialist were very fast to call President Bush a Fascist. (Of course, there are the people who call President Obama both a Socialist and a Fascist; but that’s a bit like saying he’s a square and a circle at the same time.)
There is a solution to all of this hate that can be quickly summarized.
Hate: Don’t do it! I'm not sure who hate is, but God is love; and God does not call people to hate one another.
God is love. Simple words that bring about a simple thought. God is love. It does make one wonder, however, if God is love, who is hate. Hate seems to have become an increasingly popular commodity these days.
We all remember during the Presidential Campaign of Barack Obama when his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, let lose. Sadly and tragically, he let lose with a barrage of hate statements. His statements, and the man himself, proved to be indefensible.
Every day Rush Limbaugh gets on the radio and lets loose a torrent of hatred toward those he disagrees with. Glenn Beck does likewise. Keith Olbermann, from the other perspective, does so as well. Hate.
Of late, in the health care debate, there was lots of hatred generated.
At a tea party rally in Columbus, Ohio several taunted and humiliated a man who was sitting on the ground with a sign that said he had Parkinson’s disease. One of the Tea Party protesters leaned over the man and sneered: “If you’re looking for a handout, you’re in the wrong end of town.” Another threw money at the man, first one bill and then another. Pure hate.
Rep. John Lewis, well noted person in the civil rights movement was called the “N-Word,” as he walked toward Congress. Usage of racial slurs is a sign and symbol of hatred.
Barney Frank was taunted because he was gay. Hate.
Another person was spit on. Hate.
John Boehner, it is stated over and over again, has fried brains from his tanning salon. Hate.
A blogger in my town referred to the President and Speaker of the House as Hussein Odumbo and Botox Pelosi. Hate.
We like to diminish things and say that these are all isolated incidents. They really aren’t. The hate-mongers show up every day and every night on radio and television. The demonstrations have incidents like the one recorded in Columbus, Ohio, that appear to be isolated until you read the signs. Lots of hate in those signs.
The recent Health Care legislation was an amazing display. In observing the House the other night, contempt and disdain were two auras in the air. There was lots of harsh language, a plethora of lies and half truths, and hate. Hate.
We want to blame hate on others. We like to blame hate on the talk show hosts, on the columnists, on the politicians, and on the sign holders. Yet, everyone is to blame. When we turn on the radio or television and listen to the hate talk, we have complicity in their words and actions. When we find ourselves using slurs or referring to others or the opinions of other people as ‘stupid,’ we are part of the problem. Many of the people outraged when President Obama is called a Socialist were very fast to call President Bush a Fascist. (Of course, there are the people who call President Obama both a Socialist and a Fascist; but that’s a bit like saying he’s a square and a circle at the same time.)
There is a solution to all of this hate that can be quickly summarized.
Hate: Don’t do it! I'm not sure who hate is, but God is love; and God does not call people to hate one another.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Sermon---Sunday March 21, 2010
Pondering Unanswerable Questions
Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?
Text: Genesis 1:24-31
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
March 21, 2010
There is a philosophical concept of circular cause and consequence. It speaks of arguments that go around in circles making resolution difficult.
A graduate cannot find a job because every job requires experience; and if no one gives a person experience, how can they ever find a job?
An actor cannot join the actor's union unless he has played a role in a union film, but a non-union actor cannot get a role in a union film because he isn't in the union.
Remember when CD players first came out? People would not purchase them because they didn’t have CD’s to play on the players; and they wouldn’t purchase CD’s because they didn’t have a player.
Life moves around in circles. And then there is the most famous one of all. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
You may have looked at this sermon title this morning and decided that the title was a joke or I was being frivolous or trying to be humorous. The reality is that the subject of the chicken and the egg is a topic that has been discussed over and over again through many centuries. The philosopher Aristotle weighed in three centuries before Jesus was born and the scientist Stephen Hawking has weighed in during the modern era.
People have weighed in and it still remains an unanswerable question that is actually a small question in terms of the largest question it represents. How did the universe and each of us get here in the first place? Some will say that there is an easy and definitive answer to the question.
Some will say Genesis tells us everything we need to know.
Others will say Evolution tells us everything we need to know.
We’d all be delighted if the questions could be answered so simply; for many people they are-----but the reality is that the world we live in is still debating from whence we came and has been doing so for a very long time. While so many people like to try to make this unanswerable question have an easy answer, there really is no way to do so.
For one, while many people who call themselves creationists and evolutionists like to say that you must believe in one or the other, the reality is that there really is no way to not embrace both.
We believe that God is the Creator of the universe; science teaches us that the universe and everything in it has evolved and is evolving. These are not mutually exclusive things----in fact, they dance with each other.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French philosopher, theologian, and scientist, wrote in the early portion of the 20th century and concluded that believe both in God as a Creator and in evolution was the right answer. He did not see a conflict. He said that God created life and God’s creation was living and breathing, and never stagnant. It was always in the state of flux and change and constant movement. He wrote of people in relationship to each other:
We are one, after all, you and I. Together we suffer, together exist, and forever will recreate each other.
For Teilhard, to deny God as a Creator was to deny God’s greatest attribute; but to deny the evolutionary process of the universe and each of us was to deny God’s creative power and genius.
Much of the debate over creation and evolution is not a theological debate. A great deal of it is a political debate; but it is a political debate based on something holy and good. It is a debate based on the premise that someone is right and someone is wrong. The problem with the debate is that it is debated by people who are not so much interested in learning truth or embracing the truth as much as making political points.
Today, as a people we have celebrated the dedication of a beautiful little child unto God. Merideth’s favorite story in the Bible is the story of the walk to Emmaus. Her favorite part of that narrative is when Luke speaks to us about their hearts burning inside of them. Their hearts burned from their love of Jesus Christ and their encounter with the risen Christ. In Emma’s name that story will always be shared.
In this beautiful child we have a story of Jesus remembered and loved, as she is loved by her parents and family. If I would now say that we should have a debate about Emma being a beautiful baby, or debate about her parents’ love for her, or even Merideth’s favorite Bible text you’d look at me like I had two heads and say that this was NOT a subject of debate. Which, of course, would be true.
But we do this with God’s creation all the time. Creation is a gift of magnificent beauty and mystery and we ought not tarnish it by having debates on how the universe came to be.
My second point is that this also defeats the purpose of Genesis.
Many centuries ago the Jews were in captivity and listened to pagan creation narratives. What they heard over and over again was that the universe and the world around us was an accident without design, and the waste of something much larger. To the Jews of that era, this was not something they believed in.
Genesis was written, not as a scientific response to the world around them, but as a theological and faith based response. Genesis had two major points.
The first was that the universe and each of us did not come about by accident or by random chance, but came as the result of the design of a Creator.
The second was that the universe, and each of us, were good. The words are repeated over and over again. “God saw it; and it was good.”
Sometimes things don’t go as we expect and get turned around.
A man and a woman were riding along in a car and they were pulled over by a police officer who told the man, who was driving, “Sir, your brake light is out.”
“The man said, “I’m sorry officer but it must have just gone out. I’ll have it fixed right away.”
To which his wife said, “It’s been out a month. I told you to get it fixed!”
And the husband responded loudly, “Would you please be quiet, you foolish woman!”
The policeman said, “Sir, you were also going about 10 miles an hour over the speed limit.”
The man responded, “I’m sorry officer, I just have just gotten a heavy foot. I never speed.”
To which his wife responded, “You’re always speeding. I told you to slow down!”
And the husband responded loudly, “Would you please be quiet, you foolish woman!”
The police officer said, “And, sir, I noticed you are not wearing your seatbelt. I have to cite you on that as well.”
And the man responded, “Officer, please, I just took it off to get my wallet out of my back pocket.”
And his wife responded, “You never wear a seatbelt. I told you you’d get in trouble some day!”
And the husband responded loudly, “Would you please be quiet, you foolish woman!”
The police officer said, “Ma’am, is he always this nasty to you?”
She smiled and so, “No officer. He’s usually very, very nice. He only gets nasty when he’s had too much to drink.”
That story ends abruptly and most of us can figure out what happens next. But the story is not what we’re really expecting it to be.
Much the same can be said about Genesis. Genesis is often debated as a science book; in fact people often like to view it as a science book, overlooking one tiny detail. Genesis is in the Bible and should be treated as a document of faith. It is not a book written to tell us HOW creation came to be, but WHY creation came to be. Like so many of the unanswerable questions, HOW creation came to be is often the wrong question. Psalm 8, where our Call to Worship derives asks a much better question: “Why do you, O God, love us so much?”
The story of creation is not a story about politics of even science. It is ultimately a narrative of faith; a creator God who creates a universe in motion, and creates a universe that is good, and creates people in His own image and likeness.
The creation story is ultimately a story about love. Teilhard de Chardin said it well when he said:
Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, humanity will have discovered fire.
Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg?
Text: Genesis 1:24-31
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
March 21, 2010
There is a philosophical concept of circular cause and consequence. It speaks of arguments that go around in circles making resolution difficult.
A graduate cannot find a job because every job requires experience; and if no one gives a person experience, how can they ever find a job?
An actor cannot join the actor's union unless he has played a role in a union film, but a non-union actor cannot get a role in a union film because he isn't in the union.
Remember when CD players first came out? People would not purchase them because they didn’t have CD’s to play on the players; and they wouldn’t purchase CD’s because they didn’t have a player.
Life moves around in circles. And then there is the most famous one of all. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
You may have looked at this sermon title this morning and decided that the title was a joke or I was being frivolous or trying to be humorous. The reality is that the subject of the chicken and the egg is a topic that has been discussed over and over again through many centuries. The philosopher Aristotle weighed in three centuries before Jesus was born and the scientist Stephen Hawking has weighed in during the modern era.
People have weighed in and it still remains an unanswerable question that is actually a small question in terms of the largest question it represents. How did the universe and each of us get here in the first place? Some will say that there is an easy and definitive answer to the question.
Some will say Genesis tells us everything we need to know.
Others will say Evolution tells us everything we need to know.
We’d all be delighted if the questions could be answered so simply; for many people they are-----but the reality is that the world we live in is still debating from whence we came and has been doing so for a very long time. While so many people like to try to make this unanswerable question have an easy answer, there really is no way to do so.
For one, while many people who call themselves creationists and evolutionists like to say that you must believe in one or the other, the reality is that there really is no way to not embrace both.
We believe that God is the Creator of the universe; science teaches us that the universe and everything in it has evolved and is evolving. These are not mutually exclusive things----in fact, they dance with each other.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French philosopher, theologian, and scientist, wrote in the early portion of the 20th century and concluded that believe both in God as a Creator and in evolution was the right answer. He did not see a conflict. He said that God created life and God’s creation was living and breathing, and never stagnant. It was always in the state of flux and change and constant movement. He wrote of people in relationship to each other:
We are one, after all, you and I. Together we suffer, together exist, and forever will recreate each other.
For Teilhard, to deny God as a Creator was to deny God’s greatest attribute; but to deny the evolutionary process of the universe and each of us was to deny God’s creative power and genius.
Much of the debate over creation and evolution is not a theological debate. A great deal of it is a political debate; but it is a political debate based on something holy and good. It is a debate based on the premise that someone is right and someone is wrong. The problem with the debate is that it is debated by people who are not so much interested in learning truth or embracing the truth as much as making political points.
Today, as a people we have celebrated the dedication of a beautiful little child unto God. Merideth’s favorite story in the Bible is the story of the walk to Emmaus. Her favorite part of that narrative is when Luke speaks to us about their hearts burning inside of them. Their hearts burned from their love of Jesus Christ and their encounter with the risen Christ. In Emma’s name that story will always be shared.
In this beautiful child we have a story of Jesus remembered and loved, as she is loved by her parents and family. If I would now say that we should have a debate about Emma being a beautiful baby, or debate about her parents’ love for her, or even Merideth’s favorite Bible text you’d look at me like I had two heads and say that this was NOT a subject of debate. Which, of course, would be true.
But we do this with God’s creation all the time. Creation is a gift of magnificent beauty and mystery and we ought not tarnish it by having debates on how the universe came to be.
My second point is that this also defeats the purpose of Genesis.
Many centuries ago the Jews were in captivity and listened to pagan creation narratives. What they heard over and over again was that the universe and the world around us was an accident without design, and the waste of something much larger. To the Jews of that era, this was not something they believed in.
Genesis was written, not as a scientific response to the world around them, but as a theological and faith based response. Genesis had two major points.
The first was that the universe and each of us did not come about by accident or by random chance, but came as the result of the design of a Creator.
The second was that the universe, and each of us, were good. The words are repeated over and over again. “God saw it; and it was good.”
Sometimes things don’t go as we expect and get turned around.
A man and a woman were riding along in a car and they were pulled over by a police officer who told the man, who was driving, “Sir, your brake light is out.”
“The man said, “I’m sorry officer but it must have just gone out. I’ll have it fixed right away.”
To which his wife said, “It’s been out a month. I told you to get it fixed!”
And the husband responded loudly, “Would you please be quiet, you foolish woman!”
The policeman said, “Sir, you were also going about 10 miles an hour over the speed limit.”
The man responded, “I’m sorry officer, I just have just gotten a heavy foot. I never speed.”
To which his wife responded, “You’re always speeding. I told you to slow down!”
And the husband responded loudly, “Would you please be quiet, you foolish woman!”
The police officer said, “And, sir, I noticed you are not wearing your seatbelt. I have to cite you on that as well.”
And the man responded, “Officer, please, I just took it off to get my wallet out of my back pocket.”
And his wife responded, “You never wear a seatbelt. I told you you’d get in trouble some day!”
And the husband responded loudly, “Would you please be quiet, you foolish woman!”
The police officer said, “Ma’am, is he always this nasty to you?”
She smiled and so, “No officer. He’s usually very, very nice. He only gets nasty when he’s had too much to drink.”
That story ends abruptly and most of us can figure out what happens next. But the story is not what we’re really expecting it to be.
Much the same can be said about Genesis. Genesis is often debated as a science book; in fact people often like to view it as a science book, overlooking one tiny detail. Genesis is in the Bible and should be treated as a document of faith. It is not a book written to tell us HOW creation came to be, but WHY creation came to be. Like so many of the unanswerable questions, HOW creation came to be is often the wrong question. Psalm 8, where our Call to Worship derives asks a much better question: “Why do you, O God, love us so much?”
The story of creation is not a story about politics of even science. It is ultimately a narrative of faith; a creator God who creates a universe in motion, and creates a universe that is good, and creates people in His own image and likeness.
The creation story is ultimately a story about love. Teilhard de Chardin said it well when he said:
Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, humanity will have discovered fire.
Monday, March 08, 2010
Fine Article and Some Comments
The following article comes from Charles Currie, a United Church of Christ minister.
What About Jesus And Holy Scripture Scares Glenn Beck?
Posted by: Rev. Chuck Currie on March 8, 2010 at 2:01PM EST
Scripture tells us that God has a simple request of humanity:
He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8 NRSV)
Radio personality Glenn Beck doesn't like that kind of talk:
On his daily radio and television shows last week, Fox News personality Glenn Beck set out to convince his audience that "social justice," the term many Christian churches use to describe their efforts to address poverty and human rights, is a "code word" for communism and Nazism. Beck urged Christians to discuss the term with their priests and to leave their churches if leaders would not reconsider their emphasis on social justice.
"I'm begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"
Later, Beck held up cards, one with a hammer and sickle and other with a swastika. "Communists are on the left, and the Nazis are on the right. That's what people say. But they both subscribe to one philosophy, and they flew one banner. . . . But on each banner, read the words, here in America: 'social justice.' They talked about economic justice, rights of the workers, redistribution of wealth, and surprisingly, democracy."
Beck's attempt to compare the modern Christian church to Russian Communists or German Nazis is nothing but a cheap ploy meant to divide Americans along religious lines.
What is Beck trying to do here? He continues to espouse a political philosophy that ignores the needs of those Jesus called "the least of these in society," argues that as stewards of creation humanity can do whatever it wants with the Earth, and justifies wars that most Christians across the globe condemn.
Clearly, he sees Christians as a threat to his political agenda.
Holy Scripture is filled with teachings from God about justice and God condemns those who create governments and socities that benefit the wealthy at the expense of the needs of the poor and homeless:
13The Lord rises to argue his case; he stands to judge the peoples. 14The Lord enters into judgement with the elders and princes of his people: It is you who have devoured the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. 15What do you mean by crushing my people, by grinding the face of the poor? says the Lord God of hosts. (Isaiah 3:13-15 NRSV)
The church universal - when we have been at our best - has always been about social justice, about uplifting the needs of those lost and left behind.
Roman Catholics in Poland fought off Communism. African-American churches in the United States led the Civil Rights Movement. Mainline Christian Churches, in partnership with many others, have fought to stop wars and to help people living in poverty lift themselves up. Evangelicals have joined together in common cause with other people of faith to fight global warming.
Jesus himself explains what is at stake:
35...I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” 37Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?39And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?”40And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,* you did it to me.” 41Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” 44Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” 45Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” (Matthew 25:35-45 NRSV)
Glenn Beck might pay special attention to verse 41 of this passage the next time he condemns the justice work of Christian churches.
It is a critique on Glenn Beck telling people that they ought to leave churches which preach social justice. Rev. Currie's comments are outstanding on stand on their own merit. I just had a thought or two I want to add.
Many churches engage in social justice ministries. My own church, St. Marks United Church of Christ, does. Our church takes very literally Jesus' commands to feed the hungry; we have a weekly Soup Kitchen. No one is charged. We take literally the command to clothe the naked; we have a Community Clothes Closet where we give clothing and blankets away to people. No one is charged. We take, very literally, I might add, those many passages where Jesus welcomes those who are unwelcome. We welcome everyone. What is ironic is that we take these strongly stated and oft repeated ethical teachings of Jesus and live them by word and deed, pretty much literally; and we are called a liberal church because of it. Who'd have thunk it?
Glenn Beck is entitled to his political opinions. When he begins preaching what he's preaching with this, he is telling people to defy the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Any person who tells people to defy the central core ethical teachings of Jesus, is not a person I would ever choose to listen to.
What About Jesus And Holy Scripture Scares Glenn Beck?
Posted by: Rev. Chuck Currie on March 8, 2010 at 2:01PM EST
Scripture tells us that God has a simple request of humanity:
He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8 NRSV)
Radio personality Glenn Beck doesn't like that kind of talk:
On his daily radio and television shows last week, Fox News personality Glenn Beck set out to convince his audience that "social justice," the term many Christian churches use to describe their efforts to address poverty and human rights, is a "code word" for communism and Nazism. Beck urged Christians to discuss the term with their priests and to leave their churches if leaders would not reconsider their emphasis on social justice.
"I'm begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"
Later, Beck held up cards, one with a hammer and sickle and other with a swastika. "Communists are on the left, and the Nazis are on the right. That's what people say. But they both subscribe to one philosophy, and they flew one banner. . . . But on each banner, read the words, here in America: 'social justice.' They talked about economic justice, rights of the workers, redistribution of wealth, and surprisingly, democracy."
Beck's attempt to compare the modern Christian church to Russian Communists or German Nazis is nothing but a cheap ploy meant to divide Americans along religious lines.
What is Beck trying to do here? He continues to espouse a political philosophy that ignores the needs of those Jesus called "the least of these in society," argues that as stewards of creation humanity can do whatever it wants with the Earth, and justifies wars that most Christians across the globe condemn.
Clearly, he sees Christians as a threat to his political agenda.
Holy Scripture is filled with teachings from God about justice and God condemns those who create governments and socities that benefit the wealthy at the expense of the needs of the poor and homeless:
13The Lord rises to argue his case; he stands to judge the peoples. 14The Lord enters into judgement with the elders and princes of his people: It is you who have devoured the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses. 15What do you mean by crushing my people, by grinding the face of the poor? says the Lord God of hosts. (Isaiah 3:13-15 NRSV)
The church universal - when we have been at our best - has always been about social justice, about uplifting the needs of those lost and left behind.
Roman Catholics in Poland fought off Communism. African-American churches in the United States led the Civil Rights Movement. Mainline Christian Churches, in partnership with many others, have fought to stop wars and to help people living in poverty lift themselves up. Evangelicals have joined together in common cause with other people of faith to fight global warming.
Jesus himself explains what is at stake:
35...I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” 37Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?39And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?”40And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,* you did it to me.” 41Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” 44Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” 45Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” (Matthew 25:35-45 NRSV)
Glenn Beck might pay special attention to verse 41 of this passage the next time he condemns the justice work of Christian churches.
It is a critique on Glenn Beck telling people that they ought to leave churches which preach social justice. Rev. Currie's comments are outstanding on stand on their own merit. I just had a thought or two I want to add.
Many churches engage in social justice ministries. My own church, St. Marks United Church of Christ, does. Our church takes very literally Jesus' commands to feed the hungry; we have a weekly Soup Kitchen. No one is charged. We take literally the command to clothe the naked; we have a Community Clothes Closet where we give clothing and blankets away to people. No one is charged. We take, very literally, I might add, those many passages where Jesus welcomes those who are unwelcome. We welcome everyone. What is ironic is that we take these strongly stated and oft repeated ethical teachings of Jesus and live them by word and deed, pretty much literally; and we are called a liberal church because of it. Who'd have thunk it?
Glenn Beck is entitled to his political opinions. When he begins preaching what he's preaching with this, he is telling people to defy the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Any person who tells people to defy the central core ethical teachings of Jesus, is not a person I would ever choose to listen to.
Sunday, March 07, 2010
Sunday's Sermon 3-7-10
Pondering Unanswerable Questions
Can We Really Prove God Exists?
Text: 1 Corinthians 2:9-16
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
March 7, 2010
This week is the third Sunday in Lent and I’ve already frustrated everyone by pondering two unanswerable question on God’s will and why bad things happen to us. Today I want to ponder that age old question on the existence of God.
There would be three major ways to attempt to prove that God exists.
The first attempt would be Biblical and theological. One can read quotes from the Bible about the existence of God and make the claim that because the Bible tells us that God exists, and the Bible is truthful, than God exists.
There is, of course, a slight problem with this. If you don’t believe in God, you don’t believe the Bible is truthful because to make it truthful would require God. The Bible is a great book for a countless number of reasons, but one has to have faith already before one can totally believe it; or one has to be inclined towards that faith.
Chances are, if you’ve stayed overnight in a hotel or motel someplace, you have found a Bible in the room. Mostly likely it was placed there by an organization called The Gideons. The Gideons have a worldwide ministry of publishing the Bible and putting them in the hands of people. One of their most famous ministries has been putting the Bible in hotel rooms and many a person has come to faith reading a Bible printed by the Gideons. They credit the Gideons for helping them to discover God in the Bible. The stories are powerful and good; but people had to be fertile ground for that faith to grow for that faith to grow. We need to have faith, or be open to faith, to embrace God from the Bible.
The second way of attempting to prove the existence of God is through reason; most notable through philosophy.
In the early portion of the Middle Ages philosophers attempted to prove the existence of God by way of reason. People like St. Anselm of Canterbury, St. Bonaventure, and St. Thomas Aquinas all wrote proofs for the existence of God. Their proofs were well reasoned concepts that used logic to prove that God existed.
Aquinas, someone I have always admired, believed that faith and reason walk hand in hand and that both reason and faith exist in God. Faith he believed, has nothing to fear from science and reason as long as faith, science, and reason are consistent with their own principles.
The problem is, reason and logic can and do come up short.
The philosopher Aristotle who lived around 350 BC became popular in the early part of the 12th century in Europe. Aristotle was Greek, but his teachings had never circulated through Europe, but he was highly regarded in the Islamic world. He works were discovered during the Crusades and he became very popular in western Europe. He wrote extensively on natural science and ethics and his writings and teachings were embraced. No one had written on the subject of natural science like Aristotle had.
Aristotle, however, used strictly reason to determine his conclusions. No one had ever thought of doing an experiment. One logical conclusion Aristotle came to was that if you dropped two items, one heavy and one light, from the same height, the heavier object would hit the ground first. This teaching held true for almost 1900 years before Galileo dropped two balls from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and disproved Aristotle’s theory. Logic, it was realized, can be flawed.
Then, of course, there is science.
When electricity was harnessed, Thomas Edison believed that electricity best worked using a direct current. A man named George Westinghouse believed that you needed an alternating current. Both were scientists and both proved their were right. And they both were. While alternating current is used more often than direct current, both proved the other one right and wrong; something science usually doesn’t do.
For centuries people debated about light. Was it a particle. People proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt that light was a particle.
Conversely, others said it was a beam. People proved, beyond shadow of a doubt, light was a beam. They discovered, as time went on, that both were right. Light was both.
Science proves things beyond a shadow of a doubt except for when it can’t.
All have tried to prove God exists or God doesn’t exist. There are philosophers who are people of faith, agnostics, and atheists. Reason hasn’t given us a definitive answer. There are scientists who are people of faith, agnostics, and atheists. Science hasn’t given us a definitive answer. And theologians all have faith in something, but faith is all over the lot.
But, as often happens with pondering unanswerable questions, perhaps the issue isn’t proving that God exists, but having faith in God.
St. Paul wrote:
"What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him"--
10these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God's except the Spirit of God.
Later, St. Paul reminds us that the three greatest spiritual gifts are faith, hope, and love.
Take note. Faith is a spiritual gift-----it is a higher gift than the gift of knowledge.
It is easier to know something than to believe in something. It is easier to have knowledge than it is to have faith.
What makes God beautiful and difficult is that God does not allow God’s existence to be proved definitively. Our acceptance of God must be an act of free will and must be an act of faith. Thomas Aquinas observed that people can reason themselves almost to God, but not all the way. To truly embrace God, people must take a leap of faith.
If you’ve ever watched trapeze artists they are, in so many ways, the greatest example of faith.
When they swing through the air they have to let go; and when they let go, they do not know if the other swing and the other person will be there. At the moment they let go, things are not lined up. Everything is in motion and everyone is in motion. When the person let’s go of his or her swing, they are doing so without knowledge. All they have is faith.
St. Paul tells us that faith in God is a gift from the Holy Spirit. Faith in God is not about proving God; it is about letting go and believing in God. It is that simple and that difficult.
Ultimately faith is much like hope and love. It is not a rational decision of the mind, but an opening of our hearts.
Belief in God is not, ultimately the ability to reason or prove that God exists. The greatest minds in history have not been able to prove what the open hearts of people can embrace. The Peter O’Toole character in the movie “Creator,” said it best. We move forward with well informed blind faith.
This Lent is a reminder to us that we can reason our way to God all we want; but the only way to really embrace God is to open our hearts in faith.
Can We Really Prove God Exists?
Text: 1 Corinthians 2:9-16
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
March 7, 2010
This week is the third Sunday in Lent and I’ve already frustrated everyone by pondering two unanswerable question on God’s will and why bad things happen to us. Today I want to ponder that age old question on the existence of God.
There would be three major ways to attempt to prove that God exists.
The first attempt would be Biblical and theological. One can read quotes from the Bible about the existence of God and make the claim that because the Bible tells us that God exists, and the Bible is truthful, than God exists.
There is, of course, a slight problem with this. If you don’t believe in God, you don’t believe the Bible is truthful because to make it truthful would require God. The Bible is a great book for a countless number of reasons, but one has to have faith already before one can totally believe it; or one has to be inclined towards that faith.
Chances are, if you’ve stayed overnight in a hotel or motel someplace, you have found a Bible in the room. Mostly likely it was placed there by an organization called The Gideons. The Gideons have a worldwide ministry of publishing the Bible and putting them in the hands of people. One of their most famous ministries has been putting the Bible in hotel rooms and many a person has come to faith reading a Bible printed by the Gideons. They credit the Gideons for helping them to discover God in the Bible. The stories are powerful and good; but people had to be fertile ground for that faith to grow for that faith to grow. We need to have faith, or be open to faith, to embrace God from the Bible.
The second way of attempting to prove the existence of God is through reason; most notable through philosophy.
In the early portion of the Middle Ages philosophers attempted to prove the existence of God by way of reason. People like St. Anselm of Canterbury, St. Bonaventure, and St. Thomas Aquinas all wrote proofs for the existence of God. Their proofs were well reasoned concepts that used logic to prove that God existed.
Aquinas, someone I have always admired, believed that faith and reason walk hand in hand and that both reason and faith exist in God. Faith he believed, has nothing to fear from science and reason as long as faith, science, and reason are consistent with their own principles.
The problem is, reason and logic can and do come up short.
The philosopher Aristotle who lived around 350 BC became popular in the early part of the 12th century in Europe. Aristotle was Greek, but his teachings had never circulated through Europe, but he was highly regarded in the Islamic world. He works were discovered during the Crusades and he became very popular in western Europe. He wrote extensively on natural science and ethics and his writings and teachings were embraced. No one had written on the subject of natural science like Aristotle had.
Aristotle, however, used strictly reason to determine his conclusions. No one had ever thought of doing an experiment. One logical conclusion Aristotle came to was that if you dropped two items, one heavy and one light, from the same height, the heavier object would hit the ground first. This teaching held true for almost 1900 years before Galileo dropped two balls from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and disproved Aristotle’s theory. Logic, it was realized, can be flawed.
Then, of course, there is science.
When electricity was harnessed, Thomas Edison believed that electricity best worked using a direct current. A man named George Westinghouse believed that you needed an alternating current. Both were scientists and both proved their were right. And they both were. While alternating current is used more often than direct current, both proved the other one right and wrong; something science usually doesn’t do.
For centuries people debated about light. Was it a particle. People proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt that light was a particle.
Conversely, others said it was a beam. People proved, beyond shadow of a doubt, light was a beam. They discovered, as time went on, that both were right. Light was both.
Science proves things beyond a shadow of a doubt except for when it can’t.
All have tried to prove God exists or God doesn’t exist. There are philosophers who are people of faith, agnostics, and atheists. Reason hasn’t given us a definitive answer. There are scientists who are people of faith, agnostics, and atheists. Science hasn’t given us a definitive answer. And theologians all have faith in something, but faith is all over the lot.
But, as often happens with pondering unanswerable questions, perhaps the issue isn’t proving that God exists, but having faith in God.
St. Paul wrote:
"What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him"--
10these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God's except the Spirit of God.
Later, St. Paul reminds us that the three greatest spiritual gifts are faith, hope, and love.
Take note. Faith is a spiritual gift-----it is a higher gift than the gift of knowledge.
It is easier to know something than to believe in something. It is easier to have knowledge than it is to have faith.
What makes God beautiful and difficult is that God does not allow God’s existence to be proved definitively. Our acceptance of God must be an act of free will and must be an act of faith. Thomas Aquinas observed that people can reason themselves almost to God, but not all the way. To truly embrace God, people must take a leap of faith.
If you’ve ever watched trapeze artists they are, in so many ways, the greatest example of faith.
When they swing through the air they have to let go; and when they let go, they do not know if the other swing and the other person will be there. At the moment they let go, things are not lined up. Everything is in motion and everyone is in motion. When the person let’s go of his or her swing, they are doing so without knowledge. All they have is faith.
St. Paul tells us that faith in God is a gift from the Holy Spirit. Faith in God is not about proving God; it is about letting go and believing in God. It is that simple and that difficult.
Ultimately faith is much like hope and love. It is not a rational decision of the mind, but an opening of our hearts.
Belief in God is not, ultimately the ability to reason or prove that God exists. The greatest minds in history have not been able to prove what the open hearts of people can embrace. The Peter O’Toole character in the movie “Creator,” said it best. We move forward with well informed blind faith.
This Lent is a reminder to us that we can reason our way to God all we want; but the only way to really embrace God is to open our hearts in faith.
Monday, March 01, 2010
Sunday's Sermon 2-28-10
Pondering Unanswerable Questions
Why Do Bad Things Happen?
Text: Job 42:1-6
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
February 28, 2010
In late 1944 and early 1945 Allied Armies began to liberate Nazi Concentration Camps. The world began to witness the horror of these death camps. Around the world people began to ask the question the victims in the camps had been asking for years. Why did God allow this to happen?
In August of 1969 the police found a crime scene unlike any they had ever seen. Sharon Tate and a group of friends had been murdered in a rather barbaric fashion. Shortly afterwards, another couple was murdered in the same fashion before gang members, led by a man named Charles Manson were arrested. People asked: Why did God allow this to happen?
In March 2009, Bernie Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 felonies and admitted to turning his wealth management business into a massive Ponzi scheme that defrauded thousands of investors of billions of dollars. People asked: Why did God allow this to happen?
Every day wonderful, beloved people get sick and eventually die. People are killed in horrible accidents and children and babies lose their lives. People ask: Why does God allow this to happen?
There is an unanswerable question that we ponder. Why do bad things happen?
The definitive answer is this. I don't know. To be perfectly honest, as a minister, if there was any one question I wish I knew the answer to, it is this one. It is the question I am asked, in a wide variety of forms, mostly personal forms, why did this happen to me?
Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People was a best selling book written by Rabbi Harold Kushner. The book was a well done Bible study on the Book of Job; Job is the definitive example of a good person to whom bad things happened. It is an excellent book, but many people find it lacking because he really doesn't give you an answer.
I did some searching on the subject and one person did come up with a definitive answer. His answer was this. There are no good people so bad things never happen to good people. But to say his answer is a bad answer is falling way short. It's a dreadful answer.
There is a dictum that needs to be lived by in attempting to answer this question of why bad things happen. The dictum is this. It has to be an answer given in the presence of the burning children at Nazi Concentration Camps. Cheap answers when young innocents are being gassed is blasphemous. It has to be an answer given in the presence of parents who have lost their young son or daughter. When innocent children die, an answer like, "They never were really good in the first place," is an obscene answer.
So how do we even venture answering the question? With care and without being definitive.
When I dare even approach this question, there are things that do come to mind that begin to give us some insights.
The first venture is this. God has blessed people with a free will. Or maybe God has cursed people with a free will. Or both.
In the history of the world some of the greatest acts in humanity came as the result of people exercising their free will and doing something great; conversely, some of the most heinous acts in human history occurred because people exercised their free will for something dreadful.
Most of us, if asked, would choose having a free will ten times out of ten times. We cherish the ability to act freely. We love freedom and we love free will.
But, like freedom, free will comes with a cost. It means that there will be people who choose evil over good. Our world will always be filled with evil people. It also means, at times, we will choose evil over good; we will choose to sin rather than to be righteous. Sometimes bad things happen because people have used their free will to make those bad things happen.
The second thing is this. Life happens and in life there is good and bad; there is evil and justice, there is joy and there is sorrow.
In John 10:10 it reads:
I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
Schlitz Beer company, for years, advertised their beer with the motto that people ought to ‘live life with all the gusto they could get.' I guess the point was, that the way people live life is filled with joy, enthusiasm, and Schlitz Beer.
Often, when people read the words of John 10:10, I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full, they read the words as if they were listening to a beer commercial. Jesus was not a beer commercial, however. Far from it. His words are best interpreted in light of the words of Ecclesiastes 3:
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under Heaven:
2a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
6a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
The author of Ecclesiastes, a man named Qoheleth, was not an optimist. His statement about time is not a statement about enthusiasm or joy, but a pretty blunt
statement about life. There will be good times and there will be bad times. There will be a time to be born and a time to die. For everything good, there will be something bad; and for everything bad, there will be something good and we have, in his thoughts, no control over either the good or the bad.
And then Jesus says the words, "I have come that you may have life and have it to the full." When we look at the words of Jesus in the context of Ecclesiastes, we have everything BUT a beer commercial. We have, at its core, very difficult words to digest. I have come that you may have life to the full; that you may have joy and grief----to the full. There you will laugh and weep, profoundly. There will be life, and there will be death and there will be no exceptions.
Life happens. And not everything in life that happens is good. Not everything in life is sweet and kind and nice. The reality is that much of what happens in life is painful and difficult. God is strongly telling us that we are not promised only good things; we are promised the good and the bad, the joyful and the sorrowful. Perhaps it's best seen that it isn't what happens that is of the most importance; it is what we do with what happens.
The last thing is this, and it relates directly to the Scripture reading this morning.
Listen again to some of Job’s words:
"I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
3'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?'
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
The Book of Job is an amazing book. It essentially begins with a bet between God and Satan. Is there one person so good that no matter what you do to him, he will not turn away from God. God bets on Job and Job does not turn away from God, so Satan loses the bet.
But Job does begin to question: Why did this happen to me?
Three of his friends listen to his questions and laments for quite a while and say nothing. Ultimately their answer is the same one I found on the Internet. The problem is that you, Job, are probably not really good and are being punished. The debate carries on with Job insisting that, no, he did nothing wrong.
A fourth friend enters the dialogue and even though you are sure this friend will be truly wise, his counsel is the same. Job must have done something to deserve God’s wrath. Job knows that he didn’t and insists on his innocence.
The, finally, in Chapter 38, God enters the conversation. And God REALLY enters the conversation with the words:
Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:
[2] "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
[3] Gird up your loins like a man,
I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
And Chapters 38, 39, 40,and 41 are a relentlessly blistering series of questions that God gives to Job until we read Job’s response:
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
God’s response to Job is simple and somewhat earth shaking. The answer is that the only way to know the answer to this question is to be God, and God reminds Job that he, Job, is not God. But, in reminding Job that Job was not God, God is also reminding Job that Job, like all of us needs God.
Often people find the Beatitudes, teachings of Jesus in the Gospel, to be mystifying. Why are we blessed when we are poor in spirit, or mourn, or suffer? The answer is that when we are poor in spirit, or in grief, or suffering in any way, we are reminded of our need for God. In 2nd Corinthians 13, St. Paul reminds us that God’s power is strongest in us when we are weak. The more we recognize our weakness, the more we can embrace God’s strength.
So, why do bad things happen? This is, in reality, not a question we can really answer. Ultimately, in the end, it may be actually the wrong question to ask ourselves. Perhaps instead of asking the question ‘why do bad things happen?’ we would be better served by asking the question “How do we deal with bad things happen to us?”
Helen Keller was deaf, mute, and blind and became one of the most accomplished and celebrated Americans of all time not because she lamented why these bad things happened to her, but she inspired people by how she dealt with those things.
Out of the horror of the Holocaust grew the nation of Israel and a greater understanding, worldwide, on the seriousness of deal with hate.
Ultimately, as Christians, the horror of the crucifixion turned into the glory of the resurrection and the spread of the Gospel.
Do bad things happen? They do and they can be and often are devastating to us on so many levels. But let us that while not knowing the why’s of things, we also can live with the confidence and faith that when we are at our most hurt and most vulnerable, God is there for us in rich and special ways.
Why Do Bad Things Happen?
Text: Job 42:1-6
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
February 28, 2010
In late 1944 and early 1945 Allied Armies began to liberate Nazi Concentration Camps. The world began to witness the horror of these death camps. Around the world people began to ask the question the victims in the camps had been asking for years. Why did God allow this to happen?
In August of 1969 the police found a crime scene unlike any they had ever seen. Sharon Tate and a group of friends had been murdered in a rather barbaric fashion. Shortly afterwards, another couple was murdered in the same fashion before gang members, led by a man named Charles Manson were arrested. People asked: Why did God allow this to happen?
In March 2009, Bernie Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 felonies and admitted to turning his wealth management business into a massive Ponzi scheme that defrauded thousands of investors of billions of dollars. People asked: Why did God allow this to happen?
Every day wonderful, beloved people get sick and eventually die. People are killed in horrible accidents and children and babies lose their lives. People ask: Why does God allow this to happen?
There is an unanswerable question that we ponder. Why do bad things happen?
The definitive answer is this. I don't know. To be perfectly honest, as a minister, if there was any one question I wish I knew the answer to, it is this one. It is the question I am asked, in a wide variety of forms, mostly personal forms, why did this happen to me?
Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People was a best selling book written by Rabbi Harold Kushner. The book was a well done Bible study on the Book of Job; Job is the definitive example of a good person to whom bad things happened. It is an excellent book, but many people find it lacking because he really doesn't give you an answer.
I did some searching on the subject and one person did come up with a definitive answer. His answer was this. There are no good people so bad things never happen to good people. But to say his answer is a bad answer is falling way short. It's a dreadful answer.
There is a dictum that needs to be lived by in attempting to answer this question of why bad things happen. The dictum is this. It has to be an answer given in the presence of the burning children at Nazi Concentration Camps. Cheap answers when young innocents are being gassed is blasphemous. It has to be an answer given in the presence of parents who have lost their young son or daughter. When innocent children die, an answer like, "They never were really good in the first place," is an obscene answer.
So how do we even venture answering the question? With care and without being definitive.
When I dare even approach this question, there are things that do come to mind that begin to give us some insights.
The first venture is this. God has blessed people with a free will. Or maybe God has cursed people with a free will. Or both.
In the history of the world some of the greatest acts in humanity came as the result of people exercising their free will and doing something great; conversely, some of the most heinous acts in human history occurred because people exercised their free will for something dreadful.
Most of us, if asked, would choose having a free will ten times out of ten times. We cherish the ability to act freely. We love freedom and we love free will.
But, like freedom, free will comes with a cost. It means that there will be people who choose evil over good. Our world will always be filled with evil people. It also means, at times, we will choose evil over good; we will choose to sin rather than to be righteous. Sometimes bad things happen because people have used their free will to make those bad things happen.
The second thing is this. Life happens and in life there is good and bad; there is evil and justice, there is joy and there is sorrow.
In John 10:10 it reads:
I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
Schlitz Beer company, for years, advertised their beer with the motto that people ought to ‘live life with all the gusto they could get.' I guess the point was, that the way people live life is filled with joy, enthusiasm, and Schlitz Beer.
Often, when people read the words of John 10:10, I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full, they read the words as if they were listening to a beer commercial. Jesus was not a beer commercial, however. Far from it. His words are best interpreted in light of the words of Ecclesiastes 3:
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under Heaven:
2a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
6a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
The author of Ecclesiastes, a man named Qoheleth, was not an optimist. His statement about time is not a statement about enthusiasm or joy, but a pretty blunt
statement about life. There will be good times and there will be bad times. There will be a time to be born and a time to die. For everything good, there will be something bad; and for everything bad, there will be something good and we have, in his thoughts, no control over either the good or the bad.
And then Jesus says the words, "I have come that you may have life and have it to the full." When we look at the words of Jesus in the context of Ecclesiastes, we have everything BUT a beer commercial. We have, at its core, very difficult words to digest. I have come that you may have life to the full; that you may have joy and grief----to the full. There you will laugh and weep, profoundly. There will be life, and there will be death and there will be no exceptions.
Life happens. And not everything in life that happens is good. Not everything in life is sweet and kind and nice. The reality is that much of what happens in life is painful and difficult. God is strongly telling us that we are not promised only good things; we are promised the good and the bad, the joyful and the sorrowful. Perhaps it's best seen that it isn't what happens that is of the most importance; it is what we do with what happens.
The last thing is this, and it relates directly to the Scripture reading this morning.
Listen again to some of Job’s words:
"I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
3'Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?'
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
The Book of Job is an amazing book. It essentially begins with a bet between God and Satan. Is there one person so good that no matter what you do to him, he will not turn away from God. God bets on Job and Job does not turn away from God, so Satan loses the bet.
But Job does begin to question: Why did this happen to me?
Three of his friends listen to his questions and laments for quite a while and say nothing. Ultimately their answer is the same one I found on the Internet. The problem is that you, Job, are probably not really good and are being punished. The debate carries on with Job insisting that, no, he did nothing wrong.
A fourth friend enters the dialogue and even though you are sure this friend will be truly wise, his counsel is the same. Job must have done something to deserve God’s wrath. Job knows that he didn’t and insists on his innocence.
The, finally, in Chapter 38, God enters the conversation. And God REALLY enters the conversation with the words:
Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind:
[2] "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
[3] Gird up your loins like a man,
I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
And Chapters 38, 39, 40,and 41 are a relentlessly blistering series of questions that God gives to Job until we read Job’s response:
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
God’s response to Job is simple and somewhat earth shaking. The answer is that the only way to know the answer to this question is to be God, and God reminds Job that he, Job, is not God. But, in reminding Job that Job was not God, God is also reminding Job that Job, like all of us needs God.
Often people find the Beatitudes, teachings of Jesus in the Gospel, to be mystifying. Why are we blessed when we are poor in spirit, or mourn, or suffer? The answer is that when we are poor in spirit, or in grief, or suffering in any way, we are reminded of our need for God. In 2nd Corinthians 13, St. Paul reminds us that God’s power is strongest in us when we are weak. The more we recognize our weakness, the more we can embrace God’s strength.
So, why do bad things happen? This is, in reality, not a question we can really answer. Ultimately, in the end, it may be actually the wrong question to ask ourselves. Perhaps instead of asking the question ‘why do bad things happen?’ we would be better served by asking the question “How do we deal with bad things happen to us?”
Helen Keller was deaf, mute, and blind and became one of the most accomplished and celebrated Americans of all time not because she lamented why these bad things happened to her, but she inspired people by how she dealt with those things.
Out of the horror of the Holocaust grew the nation of Israel and a greater understanding, worldwide, on the seriousness of deal with hate.
Ultimately, as Christians, the horror of the crucifixion turned into the glory of the resurrection and the spread of the Gospel.
Do bad things happen? They do and they can be and often are devastating to us on so many levels. But let us that while not knowing the why’s of things, we also can live with the confidence and faith that when we are at our most hurt and most vulnerable, God is there for us in rich and special ways.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Churches and Tax Exemption
Organizations that are seen as non-profit organizations that have, as a mission, a goal to serve the community are given tax-exempt status. When donations are made to these organizations, these donations are tax deductible. Churches, because they are churches, also receive this. Part of the presumption is that the churches are a benefit to the community by serving the spiritual and hopefully temporal needs of many people within the community.
In the IRS code, Section 501 3C it states:
Section 501(c)(3) organizations are restricted in how much political and legislative (lobbying) activities they may conduct. For a detailed discussion, see Political and Lobbying Activities. For more information about lobbying activities by charities, see the article Lobbying Issues; for more information about political activities of charities, see the FY-2002 CPE topic Election Year Issues.
Churches are, by design and intent, not political organizations. They do not exist to dictate to the population on how to vote and who to vote for. A church, by design, does not see the government as its authority, but God. The church can and should speak TO the government on issues of justice and ethics, but not for the government.
Churches can have positions on issues. Within American Christianity different denominations and churches have contrary issues to one another. Issues such as capital punishment, abortion, LGBT rights, etc., may have churches standing in opposition to one another. American Christianity is very much a group divided and no group can claim that they have the ‘Christian’ answer to anything. They have, and are entitled to their opinion, but no one speaks for anyone else.
But as mentioned before, churches and do have positions on issues. They may not, however, make those positions translate into anything that resembles, “Vote for...”
They also cannot make any candidate of any party their de facto favorite candidate. In preaching, ministers may say how they feel about, let’s say, capital punishment, but never take the next step to say that they are going to vote this way or that way because of this-----and encourage others to do likewise.
Well, they can do this, but if they do this, they are subject to lose their tax exempt status. Ministers can have opinions on a wide variety of subjects, but we are not allowed to preach to the congregation, leading people to believe that XYZ is the ‘candidate of choice,’ for this church.
In reality, people to not attend church to hear political speeches or sermons. If they want to hear about politics, they can stay home and watch the news. Frankly, if they come to church to listen to a political lecture, they are leaving church needing a sermon. Jesus did not ‘play nice’ with the political authorities of his day and I suspect he wouldn’t ‘play nice’ now. Jesus would never be invited to speak at either party’s convention. Both our major parties would hear blistering comments on their policies and their antics.
I read many people concerned about churches and their tax exemption status. Frankly, if churches want to be political organizations, let them be. But do not allow them to use the word ‘church’ in their name, because they are no longer churches, and remove their tax exempt status. Political organizations are fine and churches are fine. They don’t belong in the same place.
In the IRS code, Section 501 3C it states:
Section 501(c)(3) organizations are restricted in how much political and legislative (lobbying) activities they may conduct. For a detailed discussion, see Political and Lobbying Activities. For more information about lobbying activities by charities, see the article Lobbying Issues; for more information about political activities of charities, see the FY-2002 CPE topic Election Year Issues.
Churches are, by design and intent, not political organizations. They do not exist to dictate to the population on how to vote and who to vote for. A church, by design, does not see the government as its authority, but God. The church can and should speak TO the government on issues of justice and ethics, but not for the government.
Churches can have positions on issues. Within American Christianity different denominations and churches have contrary issues to one another. Issues such as capital punishment, abortion, LGBT rights, etc., may have churches standing in opposition to one another. American Christianity is very much a group divided and no group can claim that they have the ‘Christian’ answer to anything. They have, and are entitled to their opinion, but no one speaks for anyone else.
But as mentioned before, churches and do have positions on issues. They may not, however, make those positions translate into anything that resembles, “Vote for...”
They also cannot make any candidate of any party their de facto favorite candidate. In preaching, ministers may say how they feel about, let’s say, capital punishment, but never take the next step to say that they are going to vote this way or that way because of this-----and encourage others to do likewise.
Well, they can do this, but if they do this, they are subject to lose their tax exempt status. Ministers can have opinions on a wide variety of subjects, but we are not allowed to preach to the congregation, leading people to believe that XYZ is the ‘candidate of choice,’ for this church.
In reality, people to not attend church to hear political speeches or sermons. If they want to hear about politics, they can stay home and watch the news. Frankly, if they come to church to listen to a political lecture, they are leaving church needing a sermon. Jesus did not ‘play nice’ with the political authorities of his day and I suspect he wouldn’t ‘play nice’ now. Jesus would never be invited to speak at either party’s convention. Both our major parties would hear blistering comments on their policies and their antics.
I read many people concerned about churches and their tax exemption status. Frankly, if churches want to be political organizations, let them be. But do not allow them to use the word ‘church’ in their name, because they are no longer churches, and remove their tax exempt status. Political organizations are fine and churches are fine. They don’t belong in the same place.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Sunday's Sermon
Pondering Unanswerable Questions
Can We Know God's Will?
Text: Colossians 1:9-12
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
February 21, 2010
Money is tight and you do not have any money to purchase groceries this week. The man walking in front of you has a $100.00 slip out of his pocket and fall to the ground. He does not know he has lost it and no one has seen you pick it up. Is it God’s will for you to keep the money because of how things took place?
You really like lemon filled doughnuts at Krispy Kreme and, by chance, you are passing a Krispy Kreme. Is it God’s will for you to buy the doughnut?
There is a person you know whose life and lifestyle you don’t approve of. You decide to tell them exactly how you feel about them and their lifestyle choices. You tell them God has told you to talk to them. Was it really God’s will for you to talk to them?
You are married or in a committed relationship and you meet someone in church who you find very attractive. One thing leads to another and you become intimate and both of you determine, because you met in church, God has called you together. Was this really God’s will?
God’s will. I’m beginning this Lenten Series on Pondering Unanswerable Questions with the question: Can we know God’s will?
If I give an absolute answer to this, ‘yes’ or ‘no’ then the question is not really an unanswerable question. It is actually an amazingly complex question.
On one hand, if we believe in divine revelation, if we believe that God is still speaking as the United Church of Christ states, and if we believe that God does call people in life, if we believe the Bible is the living Word of God, then there is a sense that we do have some ability to know God’s will.
On the other hand, it seems like there is great mystery about God’s will. In this letter to the Colossians, St. Paul was praying for people unceasingly that they might be filled with God’s knowledge. God’s will, Paul seems to be implying, is something that comes only through lot of prayer and an amazing sense of obedience. Additionally, there are so many mysteries in life that we struggle with that it’s very difficult, maybe impossible, to say we have a good grasp of God’s will.
One of my favorite quotes is from Pierre Teilhard de Chard in, who was a French theologian and philosopher. He said:
He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend must have a long head or a very short creed. --
Teilhard, who rarely was simple, has a moment of stark simplicity with this. Either our brains are massive, far more massive than usual, or, our foundation of belief is too small. In essence, if we believe we can fully comprehend the will of God, than our view of God does not have a big enough God.
There are observations to be made about grappling with God’s will and they are all pretty difficult things with which to grapple.
My first observation is this. When people speak about God’s will, our society has cheapened God’s will.
Abraham Lincoln, a man who struggled with faith, probably said some of the best things about God’s will ever stated.
After the second Battle at Bull Run in 1862, a crushing defeat for the Union, Lincoln said:
The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God can not be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party -- and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose.
In his second Inaugural Address he said:
Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully.
Political leaders rarely speak like this now. Often we hear leaders speak with a complete certainty on what God is telling them to do. Preachers don’t either.
We now have people preaching that God has spoken to them and told them to tell people that if they have real faith in God they will have a big house, a Mercedes, and all good things will come their way and they say this in spite of Jesus’ repeated warning that if we faithfully follow him we were sure to be crucified with him.
Sometimes churches have conflicts and disagreements and people say that if a church was a real church they wouldn’t have conflicts and disagreements. It presumes that someone in the church has a really clear understanding of God’s will and the other one doesn’t.
The will of God is often cheapened by culture, society, and even the church. It is much easier to profess God’s will than to totally understand it.
My second observation is that just because things happen, doesn’t make them God’s will.
Things happen. Good things happen, mundane things happen, and bad things happen. Things happen.
Not everything that happens is God’s will.
Some years ago in the small town I was serving, there were a rash of teen suicides. It was horrible. The clergy in the town met with groups of young people and parents doing pastoral care with a great effort to try and assure these tragedies would not occur any longer.
In a group discussion, one woman said that God had called the young man who committed suicide, home. It was, I’m sure, her way of coping. But she didn’t like my response when I said that God didn’t tell this boy to commit suicide. I believed in my heart of hearts that God embraced the boy, and forgave the boy, and welcome the boy to his side, but God didn’t will this young man to die. God fixed a broken life and healed a devastating wound, but God did not make the boy kill himself.
The fact that things happen does not make those things God’s will. Much of life is lived outside of God’s will. Tragedies, sins, crimes, etc., may happen, but they don’t happen because God willed them. They happen because we live in an imperfect, often broken worlds.
The third thing is this. We need to be careful not to confuse God’s will with our own will. Sometimes different people decide that Christianity as it exists is not an adequate expression of what they believe it ought to be. As a result, people end up being victimized by bad religion.
To me, one of the real tragic stories in the news has been of Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina. Comedians speak of his ‘hiking the Appalachian’ trail and find great humor in it and many people have jumped on him politically. He did have an affair and we can say that was wrong but the story is not a story that is funny or even political. It’s actually rather tragic.
Sanford belonged to a group called The Family. This group is led by a man named Doug Coe and the organization has been around for decades. It attracts people in Washington, D.C. from both parties and promotes Jesus Christ. It is often misrepresented as conservative Christianity, which it is not. It really isn’t Christian. While they read the same Bible as all other Christians, and while they pray the same prayers, there is a distinct difference. Coe promotes an idea of Jesus plus nothing. Part of this is that people empty themselves of everything leaving only Jesus----which, again, at face value is good, but it also leaves out the core of Christianity. Participants in this group believe that Jesus is speaking directly to them, unfiltered by anyone or anything else. The Bible is there’s to interpret however they want. As a result people’s own ambitions and desires become “God’s will.”
In reading about this group and Sanford, who I think is, at his core, a very good man, he embraced his own thoughts, feelings, and, frankly, lustings, as God’s will. And it cost him dearly.
In the mid 1950's an Evangelical and Reformed (which became the United Church of Christ), Pastor in Van Wert, Ohio withdrew from the denomination and started his own movement called The Way International. Victor Paul Wierwille determined that the Christian Church had lost its way in the first century and that God had sent him to redefine what God had meant all along. Thousands of people joined The Way International, generally classified as a cult, which still exists today.
Wierwille, from all accounts, had himself quite a life and the people around him enjoyed a great many luxurious excesses in the name of God’s will.
People get victimized by all of this. When we presume because we want something or will something, and pray about it, it means it’s God’s will. It may not work like that, however.
I have read numerous times that the way to determine if it’s God’s will or our own will is this. If somehow our life is made far better, more profitable, more comfortable, and gear around our own wants, then it’s probably our will at work. If our life is made more difficult, we are called on to make sacrifices, and our desires are far from met, it’s probably God’s will.
God’s will. Can we know God’s will? It is, in many ways, an unanswerable question. There are times and portions of God’s will we can truly know, but we need to always remain humble enough to recognize there is much we never know.
Teilhard de Chardin was right: He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend must have a long head or a very short creed. --
Can We Know God's Will?
Text: Colossians 1:9-12
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
February 21, 2010
Money is tight and you do not have any money to purchase groceries this week. The man walking in front of you has a $100.00 slip out of his pocket and fall to the ground. He does not know he has lost it and no one has seen you pick it up. Is it God’s will for you to keep the money because of how things took place?
You really like lemon filled doughnuts at Krispy Kreme and, by chance, you are passing a Krispy Kreme. Is it God’s will for you to buy the doughnut?
There is a person you know whose life and lifestyle you don’t approve of. You decide to tell them exactly how you feel about them and their lifestyle choices. You tell them God has told you to talk to them. Was it really God’s will for you to talk to them?
You are married or in a committed relationship and you meet someone in church who you find very attractive. One thing leads to another and you become intimate and both of you determine, because you met in church, God has called you together. Was this really God’s will?
God’s will. I’m beginning this Lenten Series on Pondering Unanswerable Questions with the question: Can we know God’s will?
If I give an absolute answer to this, ‘yes’ or ‘no’ then the question is not really an unanswerable question. It is actually an amazingly complex question.
On one hand, if we believe in divine revelation, if we believe that God is still speaking as the United Church of Christ states, and if we believe that God does call people in life, if we believe the Bible is the living Word of God, then there is a sense that we do have some ability to know God’s will.
On the other hand, it seems like there is great mystery about God’s will. In this letter to the Colossians, St. Paul was praying for people unceasingly that they might be filled with God’s knowledge. God’s will, Paul seems to be implying, is something that comes only through lot of prayer and an amazing sense of obedience. Additionally, there are so many mysteries in life that we struggle with that it’s very difficult, maybe impossible, to say we have a good grasp of God’s will.
One of my favorite quotes is from Pierre Teilhard de Chard in, who was a French theologian and philosopher. He said:
He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend must have a long head or a very short creed. --
Teilhard, who rarely was simple, has a moment of stark simplicity with this. Either our brains are massive, far more massive than usual, or, our foundation of belief is too small. In essence, if we believe we can fully comprehend the will of God, than our view of God does not have a big enough God.
There are observations to be made about grappling with God’s will and they are all pretty difficult things with which to grapple.
My first observation is this. When people speak about God’s will, our society has cheapened God’s will.
Abraham Lincoln, a man who struggled with faith, probably said some of the best things about God’s will ever stated.
After the second Battle at Bull Run in 1862, a crushing defeat for the Union, Lincoln said:
The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God can not be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party -- and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose.
In his second Inaugural Address he said:
Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully.
Political leaders rarely speak like this now. Often we hear leaders speak with a complete certainty on what God is telling them to do. Preachers don’t either.
We now have people preaching that God has spoken to them and told them to tell people that if they have real faith in God they will have a big house, a Mercedes, and all good things will come their way and they say this in spite of Jesus’ repeated warning that if we faithfully follow him we were sure to be crucified with him.
Sometimes churches have conflicts and disagreements and people say that if a church was a real church they wouldn’t have conflicts and disagreements. It presumes that someone in the church has a really clear understanding of God’s will and the other one doesn’t.
The will of God is often cheapened by culture, society, and even the church. It is much easier to profess God’s will than to totally understand it.
My second observation is that just because things happen, doesn’t make them God’s will.
Things happen. Good things happen, mundane things happen, and bad things happen. Things happen.
Not everything that happens is God’s will.
Some years ago in the small town I was serving, there were a rash of teen suicides. It was horrible. The clergy in the town met with groups of young people and parents doing pastoral care with a great effort to try and assure these tragedies would not occur any longer.
In a group discussion, one woman said that God had called the young man who committed suicide, home. It was, I’m sure, her way of coping. But she didn’t like my response when I said that God didn’t tell this boy to commit suicide. I believed in my heart of hearts that God embraced the boy, and forgave the boy, and welcome the boy to his side, but God didn’t will this young man to die. God fixed a broken life and healed a devastating wound, but God did not make the boy kill himself.
The fact that things happen does not make those things God’s will. Much of life is lived outside of God’s will. Tragedies, sins, crimes, etc., may happen, but they don’t happen because God willed them. They happen because we live in an imperfect, often broken worlds.
The third thing is this. We need to be careful not to confuse God’s will with our own will. Sometimes different people decide that Christianity as it exists is not an adequate expression of what they believe it ought to be. As a result, people end up being victimized by bad religion.
To me, one of the real tragic stories in the news has been of Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina. Comedians speak of his ‘hiking the Appalachian’ trail and find great humor in it and many people have jumped on him politically. He did have an affair and we can say that was wrong but the story is not a story that is funny or even political. It’s actually rather tragic.
Sanford belonged to a group called The Family. This group is led by a man named Doug Coe and the organization has been around for decades. It attracts people in Washington, D.C. from both parties and promotes Jesus Christ. It is often misrepresented as conservative Christianity, which it is not. It really isn’t Christian. While they read the same Bible as all other Christians, and while they pray the same prayers, there is a distinct difference. Coe promotes an idea of Jesus plus nothing. Part of this is that people empty themselves of everything leaving only Jesus----which, again, at face value is good, but it also leaves out the core of Christianity. Participants in this group believe that Jesus is speaking directly to them, unfiltered by anyone or anything else. The Bible is there’s to interpret however they want. As a result people’s own ambitions and desires become “God’s will.”
In reading about this group and Sanford, who I think is, at his core, a very good man, he embraced his own thoughts, feelings, and, frankly, lustings, as God’s will. And it cost him dearly.
In the mid 1950's an Evangelical and Reformed (which became the United Church of Christ), Pastor in Van Wert, Ohio withdrew from the denomination and started his own movement called The Way International. Victor Paul Wierwille determined that the Christian Church had lost its way in the first century and that God had sent him to redefine what God had meant all along. Thousands of people joined The Way International, generally classified as a cult, which still exists today.
Wierwille, from all accounts, had himself quite a life and the people around him enjoyed a great many luxurious excesses in the name of God’s will.
People get victimized by all of this. When we presume because we want something or will something, and pray about it, it means it’s God’s will. It may not work like that, however.
I have read numerous times that the way to determine if it’s God’s will or our own will is this. If somehow our life is made far better, more profitable, more comfortable, and gear around our own wants, then it’s probably our will at work. If our life is made more difficult, we are called on to make sacrifices, and our desires are far from met, it’s probably God’s will.
God’s will. Can we know God’s will? It is, in many ways, an unanswerable question. There are times and portions of God’s will we can truly know, but we need to always remain humble enough to recognize there is much we never know.
Teilhard de Chardin was right: He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend must have a long head or a very short creed. --
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Finding Redemption
Beyond golf, beyond Nike, beyond so many other endorsements and commercial opportunities lost, there stood before the world a man today hoping for a second chance with his wife and family.
Tiger Woods gave his speech today and it was a good one. For people who said it was too controlled, too unemotional, look at the speaker. Tiger Woods is not an outwardly emotional man. Today he was just a real guy apologizing to the world and to his family for incredibly bad behavior.
Tiger Woods seems like he ventured into golf like a super man and into life like a 14 year old boy amongst a lot of girls who said ‘yes,’ way too quickly. He was totally in control of the sporting aspect of his life, and demonstrated the restraint of a middle school boy in another part of his life. The superman and the boy crashed into each other and it was ugly.
Many people are upset because he didn’t answer questions. Good for him. Those answers are between he and Elin, he and his therapist. People want to know more because there is a voyeuristic ghoulishness to so many of us. Tell us the gory, sexy details!!! So do many clamor and Tiger ignored them. Good for him.
Good for defending his wife and children and mother. Good for his mother who, as disgusted as she was, stayed there for her son, and embraced him lovingly at the end.
And, good for Elin for not being there. What they have to grapple with is meant for behind closed doors. Her body language and facial expressions would have been analyzed for the next decade. Her dignity is more important than our analysis.
Tiger Woods did something admirable. He apologized. He said he was sorry and he didn’t follow it up with, “But....” When people stick that ‘but’ into apologies, those apologies turn into rationalizations. Tiger did not rationalize but more confessed.
He is a man hoping to find redemption. The first step was apologizing. He did the first step well. The next step is living the apology. Finding redemption begins with words, and is lived by living those words.
I hope and pray he is able to.
Tiger Woods gave his speech today and it was a good one. For people who said it was too controlled, too unemotional, look at the speaker. Tiger Woods is not an outwardly emotional man. Today he was just a real guy apologizing to the world and to his family for incredibly bad behavior.
Tiger Woods seems like he ventured into golf like a super man and into life like a 14 year old boy amongst a lot of girls who said ‘yes,’ way too quickly. He was totally in control of the sporting aspect of his life, and demonstrated the restraint of a middle school boy in another part of his life. The superman and the boy crashed into each other and it was ugly.
Many people are upset because he didn’t answer questions. Good for him. Those answers are between he and Elin, he and his therapist. People want to know more because there is a voyeuristic ghoulishness to so many of us. Tell us the gory, sexy details!!! So do many clamor and Tiger ignored them. Good for him.
Good for defending his wife and children and mother. Good for his mother who, as disgusted as she was, stayed there for her son, and embraced him lovingly at the end.
And, good for Elin for not being there. What they have to grapple with is meant for behind closed doors. Her body language and facial expressions would have been analyzed for the next decade. Her dignity is more important than our analysis.
Tiger Woods did something admirable. He apologized. He said he was sorry and he didn’t follow it up with, “But....” When people stick that ‘but’ into apologies, those apologies turn into rationalizations. Tiger did not rationalize but more confessed.
He is a man hoping to find redemption. The first step was apologizing. He did the first step well. The next step is living the apology. Finding redemption begins with words, and is lived by living those words.
I hope and pray he is able to.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
A Blasphemous Project
The Conservative Book (aka Bible) Project.
Who knew? A revisionist Bible is in the works.
http://conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project
They write:
As of 2009, there is no fully conservative translation of the Bible which satisfies the following ten guidelines:
1. Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias
2. Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other feminist distortions; preserve many references to the unborn child (the NIV deletes these)
3. Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity[4]; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level[5]
4. Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms to capture better the original intent;[6] Defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words that have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle".
5. Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction[7] by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots";[8] using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census
6. Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.
7. Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning
8. Exclude Later-Inserted Inauthentic Passages: excluding the interpolated passages that liberals commonly put their own spin on, such as the adulteress story
9. Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels
10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word "Lord" rather than "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" or "Lord God."
There should be one thing made clear. There is no such thing as a conservative Bible or a liberal Bible or a moderate Bible. There is only the Holy Bible. Period. When one decides to slant the Bible to fit a political agenda, it is no longer a Bible. Hence, I will not call this a Bible. It’s the Conservative Book Project.
First, some things need to be said about the Bible.
The Bible is compilation of books from the Hebrew Scriptures often referred to as the Old Testament, and a compilation of books from the early Christian Church often referred to as the New Testament. Through long periods of discernment, study, prayer, and a belief in divine revelation, leaders with Judaism created a corpus of Scripture as did leaders within early Christianity. The only major revision of the New Testament was made at the time of the Protestant Reformation when Martin Luther dropped Old Testament books with no sources in Hebrew. Martin Luther wrestled with other books and wrestled with parts of other books, but did not make revisions to manuscripts.
Often people within Protestant churches believe that the ‘Roman Catholic Bible’ has books in it that refer strictly to Roman Catholicism. Not true. The books that remain are Old Testament books, mostly Wisdom Literature, that have comparable information and teaching to other books. Luther’s determination was strictly language.
Bible translations, real translations, have been produced by scholars who painstakingly translate the original Hebrew and Ancient Greek into our modern languages, in our case, English. How translations come to be may vary.
Some translations tend to be more literal in terms of the fact that they will try to line the words up as exactly as they can. If you have ever taken a foreign language, you know that translations are difficult to do literally while retaining the smooth flow of the language. Most very literal translations have very little circulation. They are not easy or fun to read.
Most translations attempt to translate the ancient languages with complete accuracy, while making the wording smooth in modern English. The goal is to accurately take the words of the early manuscripts and make them intelligible to the modern era.
Some translations have their own little flair to them. The Jerusalem Bible and its following up The New Jerusalem Bible use the Hebrew names for God, such as Yahweh, in the Old Testament which is amazingly good in doing Bible study. I think it is by far and away the best translation of the Old Testament available. The New Revised Standard Version is noted for not using exclusive pronouns and nouns where the meaning is definitely for everyone. If something is meant for everyone as brothers and sisters, the words brothers and sisters are used instead of just brothers. The usage of inclusive language is meant to convey the meaning of the text in a contemporary form.
There are even paraphrased books like “The Message” which are really wonderful, but don’t call themselves the Bible but paraphrases of the Bible. They are not biased, however, and well done.
The Bible is not liberal or conservative and was never meant to be. It is the Bible. Translations are not done with a liberal or conservative bias but with a real dedication to maintaining the text. If you want to read the bias, read the footnotes. The footnotes are where the bias shows up.
The Conservative Book Project is not going to be a translation of the Bible. It is a revision of the King James Version of the Bible. The King James Version is an old translation that was a landmark and a masterpiece in its day. The language has changed and translators have a better grasp of the nuances of the ancient languages now, so there are better translations available than the King James Version. But, having said that, the King James Version is a notable translation and to just ‘revise’ it is disgraceful. To revise it and call it a Bible is sinful.
The Conservative Book Project is not going to be the Bible. It is being edited to exclude things some people do not agree with. And to exclude ‘liberal wordiness’ by not using the name Yahweh is a major HUH? Liberal wordiness to call God by God’s Hebrew name? This is making use of the words liberal and conservative just to use the words.
I might add that there is nothing conservative about the Conservative Book Project. Nothing. No person who is a conservative and also a Christian would ever contemplate extracting things from the Bible. Frankly, I can’t think of anyone, liberal, conservative, moderate, or otherwise believing in extracting things from the Bible. No doubt everyone wishes there were things not in the Bible that are; there are things that make everyone uncomfortable, but to have the hubris to extract things from the Bible and change words to suit a political perspective is blasphemous.
The Bible, as the Bible, does not support a political bias. Actually, if one was honest, the Bible, as the Bible, often confronts political perspectives. The Bible does go after our human frailty and our human perspectives. Jesus was incredibly confrontational. He attacked the status quo with vim, vigor, and glee to the point that it got him killed. The Bible often is a great comfort when we hurt; it is often a great giver of affliction when we become arrogant. The Bible stands for itself as a lamp unto God.
Every person who has read the Bible with the eyes of a person of faith has had their heart and mind and gut tugged at. Every person has come to a realization that the life they live is a life imperfectly lived. Every person has been uncomfortable and wanted to disagree with Jesus. The Bible is a constant reminder to all of us that God has questions for us and challenges for us that are difficult to confront.
One group of people decided they had the hubris to call the Bible biased and decided to revise it to their perspective.
Years ago, Thomas Jefferson decided there were parts of the Bible he didn’t like either. He removed large sections of it and tried to pass it off as the Jeffersonian Bible. He was widely condemned for it. It was a disgrace.
And it still is.
Who knew? A revisionist Bible is in the works.
http://conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project
They write:
As of 2009, there is no fully conservative translation of the Bible which satisfies the following ten guidelines:
1. Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias
2. Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other feminist distortions; preserve many references to the unborn child (the NIV deletes these)
3. Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity[4]; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level[5]
4. Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms to capture better the original intent;[6] Defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words that have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle".
5. Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction[7] by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots";[8] using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census
6. Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.
7. Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning
8. Exclude Later-Inserted Inauthentic Passages: excluding the interpolated passages that liberals commonly put their own spin on, such as the adulteress story
9. Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels
10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word "Lord" rather than "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" or "Lord God."
There should be one thing made clear. There is no such thing as a conservative Bible or a liberal Bible or a moderate Bible. There is only the Holy Bible. Period. When one decides to slant the Bible to fit a political agenda, it is no longer a Bible. Hence, I will not call this a Bible. It’s the Conservative Book Project.
First, some things need to be said about the Bible.
The Bible is compilation of books from the Hebrew Scriptures often referred to as the Old Testament, and a compilation of books from the early Christian Church often referred to as the New Testament. Through long periods of discernment, study, prayer, and a belief in divine revelation, leaders with Judaism created a corpus of Scripture as did leaders within early Christianity. The only major revision of the New Testament was made at the time of the Protestant Reformation when Martin Luther dropped Old Testament books with no sources in Hebrew. Martin Luther wrestled with other books and wrestled with parts of other books, but did not make revisions to manuscripts.
Often people within Protestant churches believe that the ‘Roman Catholic Bible’ has books in it that refer strictly to Roman Catholicism. Not true. The books that remain are Old Testament books, mostly Wisdom Literature, that have comparable information and teaching to other books. Luther’s determination was strictly language.
Bible translations, real translations, have been produced by scholars who painstakingly translate the original Hebrew and Ancient Greek into our modern languages, in our case, English. How translations come to be may vary.
Some translations tend to be more literal in terms of the fact that they will try to line the words up as exactly as they can. If you have ever taken a foreign language, you know that translations are difficult to do literally while retaining the smooth flow of the language. Most very literal translations have very little circulation. They are not easy or fun to read.
Most translations attempt to translate the ancient languages with complete accuracy, while making the wording smooth in modern English. The goal is to accurately take the words of the early manuscripts and make them intelligible to the modern era.
Some translations have their own little flair to them. The Jerusalem Bible and its following up The New Jerusalem Bible use the Hebrew names for God, such as Yahweh, in the Old Testament which is amazingly good in doing Bible study. I think it is by far and away the best translation of the Old Testament available. The New Revised Standard Version is noted for not using exclusive pronouns and nouns where the meaning is definitely for everyone. If something is meant for everyone as brothers and sisters, the words brothers and sisters are used instead of just brothers. The usage of inclusive language is meant to convey the meaning of the text in a contemporary form.
There are even paraphrased books like “The Message” which are really wonderful, but don’t call themselves the Bible but paraphrases of the Bible. They are not biased, however, and well done.
The Bible is not liberal or conservative and was never meant to be. It is the Bible. Translations are not done with a liberal or conservative bias but with a real dedication to maintaining the text. If you want to read the bias, read the footnotes. The footnotes are where the bias shows up.
The Conservative Book Project is not going to be a translation of the Bible. It is a revision of the King James Version of the Bible. The King James Version is an old translation that was a landmark and a masterpiece in its day. The language has changed and translators have a better grasp of the nuances of the ancient languages now, so there are better translations available than the King James Version. But, having said that, the King James Version is a notable translation and to just ‘revise’ it is disgraceful. To revise it and call it a Bible is sinful.
The Conservative Book Project is not going to be the Bible. It is being edited to exclude things some people do not agree with. And to exclude ‘liberal wordiness’ by not using the name Yahweh is a major HUH? Liberal wordiness to call God by God’s Hebrew name? This is making use of the words liberal and conservative just to use the words.
I might add that there is nothing conservative about the Conservative Book Project. Nothing. No person who is a conservative and also a Christian would ever contemplate extracting things from the Bible. Frankly, I can’t think of anyone, liberal, conservative, moderate, or otherwise believing in extracting things from the Bible. No doubt everyone wishes there were things not in the Bible that are; there are things that make everyone uncomfortable, but to have the hubris to extract things from the Bible and change words to suit a political perspective is blasphemous.
The Bible, as the Bible, does not support a political bias. Actually, if one was honest, the Bible, as the Bible, often confronts political perspectives. The Bible does go after our human frailty and our human perspectives. Jesus was incredibly confrontational. He attacked the status quo with vim, vigor, and glee to the point that it got him killed. The Bible often is a great comfort when we hurt; it is often a great giver of affliction when we become arrogant. The Bible stands for itself as a lamp unto God.
Every person who has read the Bible with the eyes of a person of faith has had their heart and mind and gut tugged at. Every person has come to a realization that the life they live is a life imperfectly lived. Every person has been uncomfortable and wanted to disagree with Jesus. The Bible is a constant reminder to all of us that God has questions for us and challenges for us that are difficult to confront.
One group of people decided they had the hubris to call the Bible biased and decided to revise it to their perspective.
Years ago, Thomas Jefferson decided there were parts of the Bible he didn’t like either. He removed large sections of it and tried to pass it off as the Jeffersonian Bible. He was widely condemned for it. It was a disgrace.
And it still is.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Lent from Clueless Christian
I’ve never known much to do about Lent. I know this sounds crazy since I am a member of the clergy and all that wonderful stuff, but Lent has always befuddled me. I’m something of a clueless Christian at Lent.
Lent is based upon the Bible telling us that Jesus spent 40 days and nights in fasting and prayer in the desert before beginning his earthly ministry. We are invited, as Christians, to do likewise. We are challenged to, in some way, make a time of sacrifice and reflection during the Lenten Season.
Some folks give things up for Lent. Preferably the ‘giving up’ is based on giving up something we like. Many people give up soda, or ice cream, or chocolate. Rarely does it seem that people give up things like brussels sprouts with some sense they are making a sacrifice. At least that’s what everyone tells me when I say that I’m giving up brussels sprouts.
I’ve often wondered if this ‘giving something up’ is a good idea. Actually, in all honesty, I have resisted it. I’ve always thought it was more important to take something else on. The problem often occurs, however, that I never get around to adding anything and I never give anything up and so Lent ends up being relatively hollow.
So this year, I’m thinking it’s a good year to give something up. I’m still thinking about what it is. It has to be something significant, but something I can truly live without. The thought process is hard at work. I shall not allow Lent to get past me this year.
Conversely, there are things to take on. I’ve decided to challenge myself doing a sermon series on pondering unanswerable questions. If people come to these looking for answers, I’ll be pretty clear. They are unanswerable questions. They really are. Lent also seems to be a good time to get off my hindquarters and get myself into some sort of shape. Even bad shape would be an improvement att his point.
One thing to note. If you’re one of those people who wrestles and struggles with Lent, please know you’re not alone. Even the ‘pros’ do!
Lent is based upon the Bible telling us that Jesus spent 40 days and nights in fasting and prayer in the desert before beginning his earthly ministry. We are invited, as Christians, to do likewise. We are challenged to, in some way, make a time of sacrifice and reflection during the Lenten Season.
Some folks give things up for Lent. Preferably the ‘giving up’ is based on giving up something we like. Many people give up soda, or ice cream, or chocolate. Rarely does it seem that people give up things like brussels sprouts with some sense they are making a sacrifice. At least that’s what everyone tells me when I say that I’m giving up brussels sprouts.
I’ve often wondered if this ‘giving something up’ is a good idea. Actually, in all honesty, I have resisted it. I’ve always thought it was more important to take something else on. The problem often occurs, however, that I never get around to adding anything and I never give anything up and so Lent ends up being relatively hollow.
So this year, I’m thinking it’s a good year to give something up. I’m still thinking about what it is. It has to be something significant, but something I can truly live without. The thought process is hard at work. I shall not allow Lent to get past me this year.
Conversely, there are things to take on. I’ve decided to challenge myself doing a sermon series on pondering unanswerable questions. If people come to these looking for answers, I’ll be pretty clear. They are unanswerable questions. They really are. Lent also seems to be a good time to get off my hindquarters and get myself into some sort of shape. Even bad shape would be an improvement att his point.
One thing to note. If you’re one of those people who wrestles and struggles with Lent, please know you’re not alone. Even the ‘pros’ do!
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Love----Sunday's Sermon
Love
Text: 1 Corinthians 13
February 14, 2010
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
Today is Valentine’s Day and it seems most appropriate to talk about love.
Valentine’s Day is one of those days when if you have people who love you in life, it’s great; and if you don’t, it’s a day that sets people off ranting. It can be a sweet day if you have a special someone to share it with; or a day when people might be reminded, almost cruelly, that, at the moment, they don’t have a special someone. If business is good, Valentine’s Day can be a great day for people who sell flowers. If you’ve ever lost a loved one near Valentine’s Day the purchasing of flowers is twice as expensive making the experience all the more painful.
And, of course, if you go out to eat on Valentine’s Day there are always “Valentine’s Day Specials,” which promise to cost more than average.
So, now that I have everyone suitably depressed about Valentine’s Day, we can start the sermon.
We have all heard the words of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. Most people, if there was a poll as to favorite piece of Scripture, would probably include 1 Corinthians 13 and the 23rd Psalm in their list. It is a Scripture used often at weddings and even at funerals. The words of St. Paul, about love, are classic and beautiful words. There is a cosmic elegance to the words he uses them and Paul’s statements about love are universally true. We know those words and we strive to live those words. To really get what St. Paul is driving at, however, we need to see what he is saying in context, something we rarely do with this passage.
The Corinthian church was a mess. It was a church badly divided and highly conflicted. There were theological, political, and economic divisions that were seriously dividing the church. Paul’s letter was a letter with one main agenda. His goal was to get people re-connected with one another, or, maybe better said, even connected in the first place. His premise was to unite a divided church.
In the course of his letter he writes of spiritual gifts and that everyone has some spiritual gifts to offer. There are, however, three that everyone needs to have, faith, hope, and, most importantly, love. 1 Corinthians 13 is a statement on the spiritual gift of love.
Paul’s words on love are universal words. They are not words specifically for people in committed relationships to each other, but they apply. They are not words specifically for parents and children, but they apply. They are not words specifically for friendship, but they apply. The words of Paul apply to people as community of faith or individually. They are words meant on interacting with family, friends, neighbors, and even strangers. They are even words meant for interacting with people we may not like.
There are three points that St. Paul is making that I want to focus on. The first aspect of love that is an over-riding aspect is that love is respectful of others.
If we read the words from verses 4-7 this becomes readily apparent:
4Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
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.
A second thing is this. Love, real love, is humble in nature.
Whenever I used to read this passage I used to wonder about a part of it that seemed to be disconnected from the rest of the chapter:
9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly,£ but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
Paul is making an observation about our ability to know. His observation is this. Our ability to know is very limited. We see as in a mirror, dimly. He goes on to reference things from the perspective as a child and as an adult.
Sometimes Sunday School teachers hear some interesting perspectives from children.
A Sunday School teacher was describing that when Lot's wife looked back at Sodom she turned into a pillar of salt, when Bobby interrupted. "My mommy looked back once while she was driving," he announced, "and she turned into a telephone pole."
Another Sunday School teacher said to her children, "We have been learning about how powerful the kings and queens were in Biblical times. But there is a higher power. Who can tell me what it is?" Tommy blurted out, "I know, Aces."
Lot again... A father was reading Bible stories to his young son. He read, "The man named Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of the city, but his wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt."
His son asked, "What happened to the flea?"
These are amusing and we laugh at the funny questions children ask about God and the Bible. But, ponder this. These children are us compared to God. The knowledge we have is feeble. In the Book of Job, when Job wants to know why all these terrible things happened to him, God’s response to Job was to humble Job. We do not stand on equal footing with God.
The last thing I want to add to this are also words of St. Paul. Paul says that love never ends. Love is known by its endurance.
Giacomo Puccini was the great composer of operas like Madame Butterfly, La Boheme. He was rather young and contracted cancer, but he chose to spend his last days writing his final opera, Turandot, arguably, his most polished piece.
When his friends and disciples would say to him, “You are ailing, take it easy and rest.” He would always respond, “I’m going to do as much as I can on my piece and it’s up to you, my friends, to finish it if I don’t.”
Well, Puccini died before the opera was completed. Now his friends had a choice. They could forever mourn their friend and return to life as usual or they could build on his melody and his genius and complete what he had started.
They chose the latter.
So in 1926, La Scala Opera House in Milan, Turandot was performed for the first time. The famous Arturo Toscanini conducted.
In the middle of second act, Toscanini stopped everything, turned around with tears welling up in his eyes, and said to the crammed opera house,” This is where the maestro ends. He wept.
But then, after a few moments, he lifted his head, smiled broadly, and said, “And this is where his friends began,” raising the baton, and he finished the opera.
The legacy of the love and friendship of others helped finish the opera. Their love of their friend, and his love of them had a sense of endurance to it.
Ultimately, we are told to love everyone as brothers and sisters in Christ because we are not wise enough not to. If we want any chance of understanding God, at all, we need to learn to stand humbly before each other and love one another and do so with endurance.
Today is Valentine’s Day, a day about love. So let’s do it and love one another as Christ loves us.
Text: 1 Corinthians 13
February 14, 2010
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
Today is Valentine’s Day and it seems most appropriate to talk about love.
Valentine’s Day is one of those days when if you have people who love you in life, it’s great; and if you don’t, it’s a day that sets people off ranting. It can be a sweet day if you have a special someone to share it with; or a day when people might be reminded, almost cruelly, that, at the moment, they don’t have a special someone. If business is good, Valentine’s Day can be a great day for people who sell flowers. If you’ve ever lost a loved one near Valentine’s Day the purchasing of flowers is twice as expensive making the experience all the more painful.
And, of course, if you go out to eat on Valentine’s Day there are always “Valentine’s Day Specials,” which promise to cost more than average.
So, now that I have everyone suitably depressed about Valentine’s Day, we can start the sermon.
We have all heard the words of St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. Most people, if there was a poll as to favorite piece of Scripture, would probably include 1 Corinthians 13 and the 23rd Psalm in their list. It is a Scripture used often at weddings and even at funerals. The words of St. Paul, about love, are classic and beautiful words. There is a cosmic elegance to the words he uses them and Paul’s statements about love are universally true. We know those words and we strive to live those words. To really get what St. Paul is driving at, however, we need to see what he is saying in context, something we rarely do with this passage.
The Corinthian church was a mess. It was a church badly divided and highly conflicted. There were theological, political, and economic divisions that were seriously dividing the church. Paul’s letter was a letter with one main agenda. His goal was to get people re-connected with one another, or, maybe better said, even connected in the first place. His premise was to unite a divided church.
In the course of his letter he writes of spiritual gifts and that everyone has some spiritual gifts to offer. There are, however, three that everyone needs to have, faith, hope, and, most importantly, love. 1 Corinthians 13 is a statement on the spiritual gift of love.
Paul’s words on love are universal words. They are not words specifically for people in committed relationships to each other, but they apply. They are not words specifically for parents and children, but they apply. They are not words specifically for friendship, but they apply. The words of Paul apply to people as community of faith or individually. They are words meant on interacting with family, friends, neighbors, and even strangers. They are even words meant for interacting with people we may not like.
There are three points that St. Paul is making that I want to focus on. The first aspect of love that is an over-riding aspect is that love is respectful of others.
If we read the words from verses 4-7 this becomes readily apparent:
4Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
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.
A second thing is this. Love, real love, is humble in nature.
Whenever I used to read this passage I used to wonder about a part of it that seemed to be disconnected from the rest of the chapter:
9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly,£ but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
Paul is making an observation about our ability to know. His observation is this. Our ability to know is very limited. We see as in a mirror, dimly. He goes on to reference things from the perspective as a child and as an adult.
Sometimes Sunday School teachers hear some interesting perspectives from children.
A Sunday School teacher was describing that when Lot's wife looked back at Sodom she turned into a pillar of salt, when Bobby interrupted. "My mommy looked back once while she was driving," he announced, "and she turned into a telephone pole."
Another Sunday School teacher said to her children, "We have been learning about how powerful the kings and queens were in Biblical times. But there is a higher power. Who can tell me what it is?" Tommy blurted out, "I know, Aces."
Lot again... A father was reading Bible stories to his young son. He read, "The man named Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of the city, but his wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt."
His son asked, "What happened to the flea?"
These are amusing and we laugh at the funny questions children ask about God and the Bible. But, ponder this. These children are us compared to God. The knowledge we have is feeble. In the Book of Job, when Job wants to know why all these terrible things happened to him, God’s response to Job was to humble Job. We do not stand on equal footing with God.
The last thing I want to add to this are also words of St. Paul. Paul says that love never ends. Love is known by its endurance.
Giacomo Puccini was the great composer of operas like Madame Butterfly, La Boheme. He was rather young and contracted cancer, but he chose to spend his last days writing his final opera, Turandot, arguably, his most polished piece.
When his friends and disciples would say to him, “You are ailing, take it easy and rest.” He would always respond, “I’m going to do as much as I can on my piece and it’s up to you, my friends, to finish it if I don’t.”
Well, Puccini died before the opera was completed. Now his friends had a choice. They could forever mourn their friend and return to life as usual or they could build on his melody and his genius and complete what he had started.
They chose the latter.
So in 1926, La Scala Opera House in Milan, Turandot was performed for the first time. The famous Arturo Toscanini conducted.
In the middle of second act, Toscanini stopped everything, turned around with tears welling up in his eyes, and said to the crammed opera house,” This is where the maestro ends. He wept.
But then, after a few moments, he lifted his head, smiled broadly, and said, “And this is where his friends began,” raising the baton, and he finished the opera.
The legacy of the love and friendship of others helped finish the opera. Their love of their friend, and his love of them had a sense of endurance to it.
Ultimately, we are told to love everyone as brothers and sisters in Christ because we are not wise enough not to. If we want any chance of understanding God, at all, we need to learn to stand humbly before each other and love one another and do so with endurance.
Today is Valentine’s Day, a day about love. So let’s do it and love one another as Christ loves us.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
What Christianity Isn't
Every so often I am astounded.
I have received e-mails from my denomination today about assisting the people of Haiti. As I write this, there is aid being collected by people all over the country. A large number of people doing this are people of faith. The faith they have, no matter where they fall on the theological spectrum, is about caring for others as Jesus would want us to. This is what Christianity is.
In this You Tube clip from Pat Robertson speaking about Haiti, we learn what Christianity is not. I am not sure what religious tradition Robertson is now, but it's obvious that he's given up Christianity.
I have received e-mails from my denomination today about assisting the people of Haiti. As I write this, there is aid being collected by people all over the country. A large number of people doing this are people of faith. The faith they have, no matter where they fall on the theological spectrum, is about caring for others as Jesus would want us to. This is what Christianity is.
In this You Tube clip from Pat Robertson speaking about Haiti, we learn what Christianity is not. I am not sure what religious tradition Robertson is now, but it's obvious that he's given up Christianity.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
A Decade of Linguistic Change
Well, as the decade comes to an end our language and culture has changed. A lot.
Language has changed and perhaps the greatest, to start, is with cell phones. It used to be a big deal to have a car phone, then a cell phone. Now we not only have cell phones, but smart phones. Blackberries, I-phones, Droids, have all hit the market. People are walking around with computers in their pockets that are more powerful than desktop computers were a year ago. These new phones send out e-mail, keep our contacts, keep our schedule, take pictures, take videos, allow us to surf the web at high speeds. It boggles the imagination.
Our language is no longer the same in a lot of areas.
Green is no longer just a color but a lifestyle.
Cougars are no longer just cats. I’ll leave that alone.
Tween. Now a major market is going advertising to tween girls.
De-friend. Don’t like someone on your Facebook----de-friend them. You can de-friend and they won’t even know.
Tweet. The thing you do in Congress when the President is giving a speech. Or in class during a boring lecture. Alas, I suspect some people have tweeted in church during a boring sermon. Alas, people in my church wouldn’t know what a boring sermon was.
Truthiness. Is knowing something to be true despite all evidence to the contrary. If you believe it, it’s true.
Palinize. To bluster, to speak without saying anything of substance. To Randomly repeat talking points regardless of the questions given to you.
Staycation. Being off from work but staying at home.
Chillax. A combination of chilling out and relaxing.
Tea-baggers. Hmm, I’m not going to even go near this one because some folks would be a tad surprised...
Hiking the Appalachian Trail. To have an affair.
Having a wide stance. A handy explanation as to why you were playing footsie with the guy in the next stall.
Obamacare. A mythical idea that Obama had an idea for healthcare.
Death panels. To palinize using truthiness about something that existed in obamacare.
Liberal Facists. Akin to jumbo shrimp, little giants, and Microsoft Works.
Marrying Opposites. Marrying a person of the opposite sex.
Viral Videos. Videos on You Tube that were seen by millions.
U. S. Americans. People who don’t have maps.
Octomom. A potential love interest for Jon Gosselin.
EVOO. An overly perky way of saying extra virgin olive oil.
Snarky. Making wise-cracks. Being a smart derriere.
Pulling a Favre. Retiring, than un-retiring, than retiring, than un-retiring all the while showing up in different places.
To pull a TO. To talk your way off a football team.
Then more in the world of technology.
Apple seems to have:
I-Macs
I-Pods
I-Phones
I-Pay too much
I-break down too much
I-yay-yay-yay
Microsoft has its own language.
Microsoft Works. Still doesn’t.
Microsoft Word. Still promises the world. WordPerfect still delivers it.
XP. Windows, finally works well.
Vista. Correcting the mistake of making XP work well.
7. The jury is still out.
Finally, Happy New Year!!!
Language has changed and perhaps the greatest, to start, is with cell phones. It used to be a big deal to have a car phone, then a cell phone. Now we not only have cell phones, but smart phones. Blackberries, I-phones, Droids, have all hit the market. People are walking around with computers in their pockets that are more powerful than desktop computers were a year ago. These new phones send out e-mail, keep our contacts, keep our schedule, take pictures, take videos, allow us to surf the web at high speeds. It boggles the imagination.
Our language is no longer the same in a lot of areas.
Green is no longer just a color but a lifestyle.
Cougars are no longer just cats. I’ll leave that alone.
Tween. Now a major market is going advertising to tween girls.
De-friend. Don’t like someone on your Facebook----de-friend them. You can de-friend and they won’t even know.
Tweet. The thing you do in Congress when the President is giving a speech. Or in class during a boring lecture. Alas, I suspect some people have tweeted in church during a boring sermon. Alas, people in my church wouldn’t know what a boring sermon was.
Truthiness. Is knowing something to be true despite all evidence to the contrary. If you believe it, it’s true.
Palinize. To bluster, to speak without saying anything of substance. To Randomly repeat talking points regardless of the questions given to you.
Staycation. Being off from work but staying at home.
Chillax. A combination of chilling out and relaxing.
Tea-baggers. Hmm, I’m not going to even go near this one because some folks would be a tad surprised...
Hiking the Appalachian Trail. To have an affair.
Having a wide stance. A handy explanation as to why you were playing footsie with the guy in the next stall.
Obamacare. A mythical idea that Obama had an idea for healthcare.
Death panels. To palinize using truthiness about something that existed in obamacare.
Liberal Facists. Akin to jumbo shrimp, little giants, and Microsoft Works.
Marrying Opposites. Marrying a person of the opposite sex.
Viral Videos. Videos on You Tube that were seen by millions.
U. S. Americans. People who don’t have maps.
Octomom. A potential love interest for Jon Gosselin.
EVOO. An overly perky way of saying extra virgin olive oil.
Snarky. Making wise-cracks. Being a smart derriere.
Pulling a Favre. Retiring, than un-retiring, than retiring, than un-retiring all the while showing up in different places.
To pull a TO. To talk your way off a football team.
Then more in the world of technology.
Apple seems to have:
I-Macs
I-Pods
I-Phones
I-Pay too much
I-break down too much
I-yay-yay-yay
Microsoft has its own language.
Microsoft Works. Still doesn’t.
Microsoft Word. Still promises the world. WordPerfect still delivers it.
XP. Windows, finally works well.
Vista. Correcting the mistake of making XP work well.
7. The jury is still out.
Finally, Happy New Year!!!
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Festivus Airing of Grievances
Festivus Airing of Grievances.
Festivus, December 23rd, is the traditional day of airing grievances. Here are mine:
I object to all the discussion of ‘Obamacare.’ There is no such thing. He never developed a plan and allowed the Congress to do this. Whatever we end up with from all this so-called debate is a plan sewed together by a bunch of special interests. Obama deserves no credit for anything other than signing whatever is passed. Any blame is certainly fine to go his way as he didn’t lead very much on this.
I object to Congress, in general. It doesn’t matter which party is in power; they are all a bunch of grifters looking to see who will buy them off.
I object to Rush Limbaugh being seen as anything other than comic relief and as a parody of himself.
I object to any more coverage of Tiger Woods, Carrie Prejean, and expecially Michael Jackson.
I object to people referring to anyone other than Frank Sinatra as the King of Pop.
I object to Facebook randomly changing on days of the week that end with ‘day.’
I object to Troy Aikman covering NY Giants games as he cannot hide his contempt for the Giants.
I object to Mountain Dew as anything other then proof that horses can have diabetes.
I object to the Vatican moving forward to making Pius XII and John Paul II saints. Pius’ actions during World War II in reference to the Jews is beyond being a monster, and John Paul II’s lack of action on pedofile priests was criminal. I would, however, support making John XXIII and Paul VI, saints.
I object to Sarah Palin for a whole host of reasons.
I object to people who think that Tom Brady is better than Peyton Manning.
I object to the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL, Notre Dame football, Duke basketball, and the Yankees.
I object to Fox News continuing their coverage of a non-existing war on Christmas.
I object to whining. There is way too much whining in this world.
I object to slow drivers who are constantly in my way. (I object to me for whining about this.)
I object to McDonalds for advertising that they serve edible food.
I object to people who order Thanksgiving dinner at drive through windows and people who are doing hostile takeovers of other companies while at the ATM.
I object to clueless people who try and use the self-check outs at the grocery store and do not have a clue as to what they are doing.
I object to TV situation ‘comedies’ that are not funny.
I object to mean people.
I object to intentional ignorance.
I object to people who seek to change science and history to justify their positions.
Lastly, I object to all people, this year, who do not want peace on earth and good will towards all.
Festivus, December 23rd, is the traditional day of airing grievances. Here are mine:
I object to all the discussion of ‘Obamacare.’ There is no such thing. He never developed a plan and allowed the Congress to do this. Whatever we end up with from all this so-called debate is a plan sewed together by a bunch of special interests. Obama deserves no credit for anything other than signing whatever is passed. Any blame is certainly fine to go his way as he didn’t lead very much on this.
I object to Congress, in general. It doesn’t matter which party is in power; they are all a bunch of grifters looking to see who will buy them off.
I object to Rush Limbaugh being seen as anything other than comic relief and as a parody of himself.
I object to any more coverage of Tiger Woods, Carrie Prejean, and expecially Michael Jackson.
I object to people referring to anyone other than Frank Sinatra as the King of Pop.
I object to Facebook randomly changing on days of the week that end with ‘day.’
I object to Troy Aikman covering NY Giants games as he cannot hide his contempt for the Giants.
I object to Mountain Dew as anything other then proof that horses can have diabetes.
I object to the Vatican moving forward to making Pius XII and John Paul II saints. Pius’ actions during World War II in reference to the Jews is beyond being a monster, and John Paul II’s lack of action on pedofile priests was criminal. I would, however, support making John XXIII and Paul VI, saints.
I object to Sarah Palin for a whole host of reasons.
I object to people who think that Tom Brady is better than Peyton Manning.
I object to the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL, Notre Dame football, Duke basketball, and the Yankees.
I object to Fox News continuing their coverage of a non-existing war on Christmas.
I object to whining. There is way too much whining in this world.
I object to slow drivers who are constantly in my way. (I object to me for whining about this.)
I object to McDonalds for advertising that they serve edible food.
I object to people who order Thanksgiving dinner at drive through windows and people who are doing hostile takeovers of other companies while at the ATM.
I object to clueless people who try and use the self-check outs at the grocery store and do not have a clue as to what they are doing.
I object to TV situation ‘comedies’ that are not funny.
I object to mean people.
I object to intentional ignorance.
I object to people who seek to change science and history to justify their positions.
Lastly, I object to all people, this year, who do not want peace on earth and good will towards all.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
You Are Invited
You are invited to Worship with us this Christmas Eve at St. Marks United Church of Christ in New Albany.
Worship is at 4:30PM & 10:30PM: No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here.
Worship is at 4:30PM & 10:30PM: No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Sunday's Sermon December 20th
From God Forsaken to God is With Us
Text: Micah 5:2-5a
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
December 20, 2009
Last week I talked about the prophet Zephaniah and how so little is known of him. Today we have Micah. Micah is a bit more popular than Zephaniah, but not much. The two most famous passages from Micah are Micah 6:8 which came to some awareness when Jimmy Carter quoted the passage in his Inaugural Address in 1977, and when Matthew quoted him in the passage we read from today:
"But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days" (Micah 5:2)
Bethlehem was the city from which David came and that pretty much summarized Bethlehem. It was a nowhere, godforsaken place with one claim to fame. David was from there. In Jesus’ day, Bethlehem was such a place that it inspired Nathaniel to ask in John’s Gospel, “Can anything good come from Bethlehem?” Bethlehem was a godforsaken place.
If you’ve ever heard of Hoboken, New Jersey, Hoboken is a city that has some interesting parallels to describe what Bethlehem would have been perceived like back then.
Hoboken is one square mile, actually two square miles of you include the fact that one of those square miles is in the Hudson River. It is one square mile and has about the same population as New Albany. It is cramped, crowded, and loaded with narrow,
one- way streets. When they were looking for an incredibly dumpy, dreary place to film the movie, On the Waterfront, they chose Hoboken.
If you are from New Jersey and are dealt a hand of cards and have absolutely NOTHING, you have a Hoboken straight. In the 19th century, in New York, Hoboken was seen as such a lousy place to be from, that if you were from Hoboken, people called you a ‘hobo,’ because Hoboken was such a nothing place, you really had no place you were from. The name caught on and a ‘hobo’ became a term for a homeless person. In recent years, Hoboken has had something of a resurgence, a famous Manning brother lives there, but, if you’re from the east coast, it has a certain folklore attached and it’s not a great folklore to have.
There is one thing, however, that always kept Hoboken on the map. The King of Pop, the real King of Pop, Frank Sinatra was born and raised in Hoboken. People from there will tell you that he was from there, but once he left, he left. I guess being king of the hill and top of the heap in Hoboken is not something highly aspired to.
Back to Bethlehem. Bethlehem is now a great tourist attraction, but at the time of Jesus’ birth, it was the Hoboken of the Middle East. It had one claim to fame. David was born there. Other than that, zip. And like Old Blue Eyes, he didn’t venture back.
But Jesus was born in Bethlehem. It went from this godforsaken place, this ‘nowhere,’ this town that made people wonder if anything good can come from there, to the most important city on the planet. God is with us, Emmanuel, is born in Bethlehem and the world changes forever. And, to this day, this one time godforsaken city is one of the most beloved cities in the world.
This exaltation of Bethlehem is a very God thing. God seems, repeatedly, to lift up those overlooked.
In Jewish tradition the birthright was always passed on to the oldest son. Always. No exception. But God made exceptions. Isaac was not the oldest son. Jacob was not the oldest son. Joseph was not the oldest son. David was not the oldest son. The most unlikely, the most overlooked, are exalted.
“But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days" (Micah 5:2)
God, it seems, was and is serious about lifting up the lowly, the downtrodden, or the left out. The entire story of Jesus is about a God who did not just want to stay "out there" but who moves into the neighborhood, a neighborhood where folks said, Nothing good could come, or some godforsaken place. The story of Jesus is a story of a Savior who hung out with society’s rejects and the one’s no one would listen to and gave them a voice.
This is a Messiah who was born in a smelly stable, in a godforsaken town, in the midst of a genocide by a lunatic King.
The Jesus born in Bethlehem, in the godforsaken town in the midst of death and chaos and filth came with a simple message of love that we, over the centuries, often miss.
Sometimes when I listen to preachers speak of this angry God who is looking to smite people and portray Heaven as the exclusive domain of people with theological certitude which agrees, of course, with the preacher my thought is often simple. God is not a monster. God is not one who holds human beings in contempt or disgust or even dismay. God loves people so much that the even the godforsaken are sought out and embraced. The people who are the Bethlehem and the Hoboken of this world are sought out and loved and blessed.
It’s often interesting how we exclude people. Years ago I learned a lesson about language. Growing up and learning the English language, I was taught that words like “Men, or mankind” meant everyone. Often people would refer to ‘brothers,’ and say this meant everyone. Perhaps, theoretically, this is true. But often women said they felt left out. In recent years people, often especially in churches, tend to use language that intentionally includes everyone. At the end of Worship we’ll sing an old, favorite Christmas Carol that always began with the words “God rest ye merry gentlemen.” The problem, of course, is that it’s about everyone and not everyone feels included. So it’s slightly adjusted to say ‘gentle folk.’ Some will say that this is an insult to the English language. Some will say it’s dumb. But if we have a Savior who came for everyone, if we have a God who chose the most forsaken place for His Son to be born in order to make a point about including everyone, is it important to protect the integrity of the language or the dignity of people? And is it ever dumb to welcome everyone?
Christianity has always had an interesting relationship with leaving women out.
The first person who said ‘yes’ to embracing the word becoming flesh was a woman. A girl really. When God wanted the greatest miracle ever to take place in the history of the world, He chose a woman.
When Jesus was raised from the dead who did he appear first to? A woman. Christianity has mis-used words written by St. Paul in a specific time and a specific place to exclude women, and people, to this day, make the women in our midst appear to be almost the godforsaken people. But, thankfully, less and less.
I often think this time of the year is a time when we celebrate women in our midst; a celebration of one woman’s amazing courage in midst of a chaotic world. God blessed what others overlooked.
Which brings us again, back to a quirky thing about Bethlehem.
Micah prophesied the Messiah would come from Bethlehem. The Messiah was born in Bethlehem and Bethlehem did not welcome him. Luke’s words just hang there, “There was no room at the Inn...”
The Messiah had come to a godforsaken place; a place people wondered if anything good could come from, and even in the pit of humanity, the worst city on earth, the Messiah was not made welcome.
We are, ourselves, often like this. We are willing to embrace the Jesus we want, the Messiah on our terms, the Jesus in our image, but we struggle with the Jesus God sent.
We are willing to embrace the words and deeds of Jesus we like and agree with; less so the words and deeds we take exception to. Thomas Jefferson once revised the Gospels to exclude portions he didn’t like. I read the other day that a group is retranslating the Bible because, as an example, they didn’t like the words, “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.” They felt those words were too filled with grace so they are removing them and claiming that Jesus probably wouldn’t have said them.
Bethlehem is this place that is a reminder to us of some special things as we soon celebrate the birth of the Messiah.
God can bless the most godforsaken places and embrace the people we might not necessarily choose to embrace-----especially the people we ought to embrace. Bethlehem reminds us of this. And it also reminds us that it is more than being a godforsaken place; it is being a place that has an open heart to welcome the Messiah in their midst.
Text: Micah 5:2-5a
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
December 20, 2009
Last week I talked about the prophet Zephaniah and how so little is known of him. Today we have Micah. Micah is a bit more popular than Zephaniah, but not much. The two most famous passages from Micah are Micah 6:8 which came to some awareness when Jimmy Carter quoted the passage in his Inaugural Address in 1977, and when Matthew quoted him in the passage we read from today:
"But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days" (Micah 5:2)
Bethlehem was the city from which David came and that pretty much summarized Bethlehem. It was a nowhere, godforsaken place with one claim to fame. David was from there. In Jesus’ day, Bethlehem was such a place that it inspired Nathaniel to ask in John’s Gospel, “Can anything good come from Bethlehem?” Bethlehem was a godforsaken place.
If you’ve ever heard of Hoboken, New Jersey, Hoboken is a city that has some interesting parallels to describe what Bethlehem would have been perceived like back then.
Hoboken is one square mile, actually two square miles of you include the fact that one of those square miles is in the Hudson River. It is one square mile and has about the same population as New Albany. It is cramped, crowded, and loaded with narrow,
one- way streets. When they were looking for an incredibly dumpy, dreary place to film the movie, On the Waterfront, they chose Hoboken.
If you are from New Jersey and are dealt a hand of cards and have absolutely NOTHING, you have a Hoboken straight. In the 19th century, in New York, Hoboken was seen as such a lousy place to be from, that if you were from Hoboken, people called you a ‘hobo,’ because Hoboken was such a nothing place, you really had no place you were from. The name caught on and a ‘hobo’ became a term for a homeless person. In recent years, Hoboken has had something of a resurgence, a famous Manning brother lives there, but, if you’re from the east coast, it has a certain folklore attached and it’s not a great folklore to have.
There is one thing, however, that always kept Hoboken on the map. The King of Pop, the real King of Pop, Frank Sinatra was born and raised in Hoboken. People from there will tell you that he was from there, but once he left, he left. I guess being king of the hill and top of the heap in Hoboken is not something highly aspired to.
Back to Bethlehem. Bethlehem is now a great tourist attraction, but at the time of Jesus’ birth, it was the Hoboken of the Middle East. It had one claim to fame. David was born there. Other than that, zip. And like Old Blue Eyes, he didn’t venture back.
But Jesus was born in Bethlehem. It went from this godforsaken place, this ‘nowhere,’ this town that made people wonder if anything good can come from there, to the most important city on the planet. God is with us, Emmanuel, is born in Bethlehem and the world changes forever. And, to this day, this one time godforsaken city is one of the most beloved cities in the world.
This exaltation of Bethlehem is a very God thing. God seems, repeatedly, to lift up those overlooked.
In Jewish tradition the birthright was always passed on to the oldest son. Always. No exception. But God made exceptions. Isaac was not the oldest son. Jacob was not the oldest son. Joseph was not the oldest son. David was not the oldest son. The most unlikely, the most overlooked, are exalted.
“But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days" (Micah 5:2)
God, it seems, was and is serious about lifting up the lowly, the downtrodden, or the left out. The entire story of Jesus is about a God who did not just want to stay "out there" but who moves into the neighborhood, a neighborhood where folks said, Nothing good could come, or some godforsaken place. The story of Jesus is a story of a Savior who hung out with society’s rejects and the one’s no one would listen to and gave them a voice.
This is a Messiah who was born in a smelly stable, in a godforsaken town, in the midst of a genocide by a lunatic King.
The Jesus born in Bethlehem, in the godforsaken town in the midst of death and chaos and filth came with a simple message of love that we, over the centuries, often miss.
Sometimes when I listen to preachers speak of this angry God who is looking to smite people and portray Heaven as the exclusive domain of people with theological certitude which agrees, of course, with the preacher my thought is often simple. God is not a monster. God is not one who holds human beings in contempt or disgust or even dismay. God loves people so much that the even the godforsaken are sought out and embraced. The people who are the Bethlehem and the Hoboken of this world are sought out and loved and blessed.
It’s often interesting how we exclude people. Years ago I learned a lesson about language. Growing up and learning the English language, I was taught that words like “Men, or mankind” meant everyone. Often people would refer to ‘brothers,’ and say this meant everyone. Perhaps, theoretically, this is true. But often women said they felt left out. In recent years people, often especially in churches, tend to use language that intentionally includes everyone. At the end of Worship we’ll sing an old, favorite Christmas Carol that always began with the words “God rest ye merry gentlemen.” The problem, of course, is that it’s about everyone and not everyone feels included. So it’s slightly adjusted to say ‘gentle folk.’ Some will say that this is an insult to the English language. Some will say it’s dumb. But if we have a Savior who came for everyone, if we have a God who chose the most forsaken place for His Son to be born in order to make a point about including everyone, is it important to protect the integrity of the language or the dignity of people? And is it ever dumb to welcome everyone?
Christianity has always had an interesting relationship with leaving women out.
The first person who said ‘yes’ to embracing the word becoming flesh was a woman. A girl really. When God wanted the greatest miracle ever to take place in the history of the world, He chose a woman.
When Jesus was raised from the dead who did he appear first to? A woman. Christianity has mis-used words written by St. Paul in a specific time and a specific place to exclude women, and people, to this day, make the women in our midst appear to be almost the godforsaken people. But, thankfully, less and less.
I often think this time of the year is a time when we celebrate women in our midst; a celebration of one woman’s amazing courage in midst of a chaotic world. God blessed what others overlooked.
Which brings us again, back to a quirky thing about Bethlehem.
Micah prophesied the Messiah would come from Bethlehem. The Messiah was born in Bethlehem and Bethlehem did not welcome him. Luke’s words just hang there, “There was no room at the Inn...”
The Messiah had come to a godforsaken place; a place people wondered if anything good could come from, and even in the pit of humanity, the worst city on earth, the Messiah was not made welcome.
We are, ourselves, often like this. We are willing to embrace the Jesus we want, the Messiah on our terms, the Jesus in our image, but we struggle with the Jesus God sent.
We are willing to embrace the words and deeds of Jesus we like and agree with; less so the words and deeds we take exception to. Thomas Jefferson once revised the Gospels to exclude portions he didn’t like. I read the other day that a group is retranslating the Bible because, as an example, they didn’t like the words, “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.” They felt those words were too filled with grace so they are removing them and claiming that Jesus probably wouldn’t have said them.
Bethlehem is this place that is a reminder to us of some special things as we soon celebrate the birth of the Messiah.
God can bless the most godforsaken places and embrace the people we might not necessarily choose to embrace-----especially the people we ought to embrace. Bethlehem reminds us of this. And it also reminds us that it is more than being a godforsaken place; it is being a place that has an open heart to welcome the Messiah in their midst.
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