Here and Now

Here are a couple of pieces I did for Ash Wednesday: First, a "children's message" (I'll try to post the picture here soon...) Today is ASH WEDNESDAY – what does that mean? Tonight those people who come back for our worship service will have a cross marked on their forehead with ashes and oil. That’s weird.... But – you know Easter is coming, right? it’s a little more than six weeks away. Tonight we start a special time in the church called LENT. The idea of LENT is to really think about how we live – how we treat other people – how we treat the world around us – and how we treat God. Has anybody in here done anything wrong in the past year? Boy, I have. You know, I don’t like to admit it, but I’ve done stuff that I shouldn’t have done TODAY. God says that’s sin, right? If you wanted to make a picture of sin, what would it look like? Here’s mine. It’s black and yukky and I don’t like to look at it... I wish there was some way I could get rid of it... And there is. I c...

For lack of a better place to put it, here's the manuscript that I preached from yesterday morning: February 18, 2007 Luke 9:28-45 “Seeing the Elephant With New Eyes” A few months ago Bill [Starr, our Senior Pastor] talked about the old story of the blind men and the elephant – how six men, blind from birth, are brought to experience and elephant and each touching one part of the elephant concludes that he knows all of what an elephant is by that one part – the one who touches the side decides that elephants are like walls, the ear, like a fan, the tusk, like a spear, the trunk, like a snake, the leg, like a tree and the one who grabs the tail concludes that an elephant is very much like a rope. John Godfrey Saxe wrote the most famous Western version of this story and ends his poem with these stanzas: And so these men of Indostan, disputed loud and long, each in his own opinion, exceeding stiff and strong, Though each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong! So, oft i...

Okay - last Sunday the lectionary took us to Luke's "Sermon on the Plain" and Jesus said that the poor and the hungry and the weeping are blessed and then he said, and I'm quoting here: Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. Okay - I get that there's a special blessing on us when people hate us and talk about us behind our backs and gossip about us and all that - because of our faith in Christ . And I understand why: the world hated (and hates) Jesus and the religious didn't (and don't) even understand Him... But... What about when people hate me, exclude me, revile me and defame me...just to be mean? I mean, what about the people who snipe behind my back and mock me...just because they're...um...jerks? I'm messy. People make fun...

Bill Starr and I were praying before worship this morning and while I was praying I had a realization about worship. And, as with my best realizations, it's connected with my relationship with my family. It seems like, no matter what happens, if I say "I love you" to my wife or either of my daughters, their immediate response is to say "I love you" back. Surprised? Okay, me either. But here's the thing. I was just going around the Sunday School classes and I stopped in on the singing time with the little ones (preschool and kindergarten). Both of my daughters were in there. Elie was misbehaving. She didn't see me come in so when I said (in Father voice, of course), "Eliana Renee stop that" well - I surprised her and scared her. She didn't expect me to be there and she certainly didn't expect me to see her misbehaving. She ran to her teacher, buried her head in her arms and began to cry... Not really what I was hoping for, of c...

I was just in Bible study - with a bunch of pastors - studying the book of Daniel. We read chapter 8 today. Another chapter with visions that nobody understands. We finished reading it (we go around the table, each reading a few verses...) and nobody said ANYTHING. It was so uncomfortable. You see, this is a group of people who are never at a loss for words - they can always pull something out of a passage that we've read (even if it isn't remotely related) and talk for...well, for a long time (occupational hazard, I realize). But not today... There was a ram, with two horns, and then this one horned goat comes charging up and smashes the ram and its horns fall off (the ram, that is) and then later the goat's horn falls off and four new ones grow. And Daniel is told what all this means - but by the end of the chapter he's exhausted and sick and so amazed by what he's seen (for the end times, the vision says) that he can't understand it. And neither could...

How long has it been since Mother Teresa died? Okay, I checked - a little over 8 years (September 5, 1997). It seems like she's popping up everywhere I look recently. Why? Dunno. Well, maybe I do know...but I don't like what I think I know... So...she's haunting me...or, rather, her work, her committment, her life is affecting me... And, truthfully, I don't like it one bit... A couple weeks ago I was getting ready for worship and I came across one of her most famous quotes, which I think is still one of the most profound statements to come out of the 20th century: We can do no great things, just small things with great love. Did you know, though, that that wasn't a sentence spoken in isolation? We so tend to reduce Christianity to bumper sticker slogans that we might be tempted to believe that she, indeed, just rattled off these great one liners (of course, we do the same to Jesus...so why am I surprised?) Here's the context, as best as I can assemble it...