Here and Now

I wish I had done it...but I didn't. Michael made a comment on his blog about boring, bland Jesus - check out this video by RealLivePreacher - his "Communion Wafer Taste Test". http://www.reallivepreacher.com/node/819 Real Live Preacher “If this is a symbol for who we are, it’s really a tragic one because it sort of like looks fancy and nice but there’s no nourishment there at all. Pause. Empty and hollow. I pray that’s not what we’re about. Communion was supposed to have been something better than that.” Wish I had said that...

I have 169 U2 songs on my computer. I set the media player to randomly play the songs - I started with the live version of 40 from the "Under a Blood Red Sky" album - the very next song shuffled? 40 from the "War" album... What are the odds? Well, about 1 in 168, I guess. But it struck me as funny. Friday night Lori and I watched a show called Numbers - it was about randomness. The thing that makes "random" play not truly random in my media player is that it will never repeat the same song. While there might not be a discernable "pattern" (there shouldn't be, though our minds often - maybe even always - seek patterns in randomness) it isn't truly a random selector - the pool of possible songs goes down with each song played. I now have a 1 in 165 chance of pulling the third version of 40 I have as the next song... But I can be assured, that the first two versions played will never play again in this "randomized" shuffl...

No, really, is this what really happens? So it IS a series of tubes...

I love reading Brian McLaren. I don't think he's the greatest author that ever lived, or that his ideas are all that earth shattering. But he knows how to put words together. And I'll pay 21 bucks for 15 chapters of someone who knows how to turn a phrase (it's helpful if the phrase is somehow relevant, too, of course...). In The Secret Message of Jesus page 34 he writes: Is it possible that the message of Jesus was less like an advertising slogan -- obvious and loud -- and more like a poem whose meaning only comes subtly and quietly to those who read slowly, think long and deeply, and refuse to give up? McLaren's primary message in the book is that the Kingdom of God (or Kingdom of Heaven) isn't just someday, pie in the sky, when we get to heaven, but it's right here, right now. Not all that earth-shattering. I "discovered" that in seminary. But what a great image. Jesus' true message like a poem... We have way too much bumpersticker the...

At the risk of embarassing myself, here's Sunday morning's sermon: October 15, 2006 Hebrews 4:12-16 “Sin Boldly” – M. Luther Do you remember the news January 2nd? There was an explosion at the Sago mine in West Virginia. January , 1:29 AM CNN news online ran this headline: Family members say 12 miners found alive DO you remember that? And then just hours later the miscommunication was corrected: 12 dead and ONE still alive. Joy turned to sorrow, people were angry and hurting and feeling lost. The pastor at the Sago Baptist church tried to encourage people to turn to God in their sorrow. One man yelled, swearing, “What do you mean? What can God do for us now?” And a woman cried out in her grief, “Where is God when we need Him? Is He really there?” We may slip from our assurance that God is present with us – especially in our Job-like moments when we are hyper-aware of the struggle and the pain and the fallen world around us. But the Bible gives us a quiet assurance that God is h...

Did you know that Timothy means "Honor God"? Yeah, I thought you did. Did you know that Paul cites Timothy as a co-sender in six letters? Yep. Can you name them? Me either... (I looked it up, though - there they are, all six...) Yeah, yeah, okay. It's all good. Timothy is a good letter to wretsle with right now for me. I can't explain why exactly, though undoubtedly I'll delve into the maybes, but a lot of what I'm reading Biblically is about sin. Now, before you tell me that you can't swing a dead cat in the Bible without hitting a sin passage (wait, um...that metaphor really doesn't work, does it? Well, youknowhatimean....), let me say that while the Bible DOES talk a lot about sin, I'd suggest that it talks a lot more about redemption and restoration and discipline (in the learning sense, not in the woodshed sense). But I'd been reading an awful lot about how sin is bad. Okay, I know that. Even the most liberal of theologians is going to say...

Okay - this isn't even remotely theological...except... I have a new weekly addiction. I HAVE to check out www.postsecret.blogspot.com I can't help myself. And invariably, I'm depressed, bumfuzzeled and entertained all in the space of about 5 minutes. Don't go there. I'm not kidding. If you're anything like me you'll check it out every Monday or Tuesday... But if you do go there... See, here's the premise. People send in these anonymous "secrets." This is a blog of peoples' confessions - all anonymous. People write the most horrifying and most innane things. If even one in ten is true (and I bet it's higher than that) then there is some terrifying stuff going on in peoples' lives. So, why can we confess to the world anonymously, but not to the people we supposedly love personally? And how about to God? I yelled at Rachel the other day. She was whining, yes, but I was having a psychotic moment (well, not clinically, or a...

From my online class. I was responding to someone's comment about not having communion every week because it becomes rote and not meaningful...and a question about how to make communion "more rich" for the congregation... RE: More Richly vs. More Frequently I'm not sure I've ever understood the argument that more frequent equals rote/boring/etc. If that is the case, why even have worship every week? I mean, doesn't it just become rote? Why have music every week or a sermon? Ah, those elements vary week to week, so they're "new" every week... Yes, but... That may only be an argument against using the exact same liturgy every time you celebrate communion. What if we sang the same hymns every week, heard the same scripture every week, heard the same music, prayers, sermon, children's message, etc. week after week after week? Would we get bored? Probably. But let's not throw it all away (as "modern" "contemporary...

I have to write my thoughts on communion for my online class and I thought I'd run them up this flagpole and see if anybody has any opinions... (If it matters, I'm going to try to make a video using this as the "script" for a voiceover - but I might not have time so I might just have to submit this as a paper...) Holy Communion – a Benchmark William R. Beatty October 2, 2006 Sunday afternoon – World Communion Sunday, no less – my three-year-old daughter picked up a little board book about Easter. She flipped through the pages, came to a page with a cross on it and held it up for me to see. She said, with awe in her almost whispering voice, “Jesus died on the cross for us.” Elie doesn’t really know what that means, but she knows that it is important. She knows, too, that it is holy. When we talk about Jesus and the cross we speak with reverence – this is never the subject of a joke or spoken of casually. Jesus’ sacrifice, that which we remember in Holy...