tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12928477321084358552024-02-18T21:29:30.624-08:00A Word in the WorldAn online conversation with the Bible readings for the upcoming sunday worship.Will Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-25833212762006522592011-03-02T12:22:00.000-08:002011-03-02T16:32:49.575-08:00On Entering the Kingdom of Heaven<span class="Apple-style-span" ><div><i>"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?' Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.' Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell - and great was its fall!" Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes. </i></div><div><br /></div><div>One of the most enjoyable things about the Christian community (in the widest sense) is that we share our faith with men and women who lived thousands of years ago, and use (mostly) the same holy texts to serve as a guide in our spiritual practice. Although we are nearly two thousand years away from the words that were written in the New Testament (and even more than that for the Old Testament!), we have fellow sojourners who were much closer in time (and worldview) that have recorded many of their connections and interpretations. Often, these readings are quite different from the connections and conclusions I'd come to on my own simply because folks don't read in the same way now as they did in the first few centuries of Chistianity.</div></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >This week, however, there's nothing novel about the connection that Justin Martyr and Origen (who wrote in the second and third century respectively) make between this week's reading from Matthew 7 and a later portion of Matthew's Gospel - it's just that I wouldn't have thought to go there. Given that Matthew 7 is the conclusion of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, the natural tendency for me would be to reflect on what Jesus has said already rather than look ahead to what he will say. And as we've seen over the last several weeks, what Jesus has said hasn't always been easy to understand! Now he's talking about who will enter the kingdom of heaven, so things sure aren't getting any easier:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i>"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven."</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >The obvious question is, "What does it look like to do the will of the Father?" Jesus just finished saying that describing him as "Lord" isn't enough by itself. He then tells us that prophesying, casting out demons in his name, and working miracles aren't sure signs either. These things were (and are) so often considered signs of God's power and blessing that it must have been astonishing to hear the miracle-worker himself turn the tables! And to top it off, he doesn't actually give his listeners an answer! As with so many of his teachings, the listener is called on to reflect.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >This would be a suitable enough place to conclude. Jesus has just finished some very difficult teachings and now calls on his hearers to struggle with the most difficult parts. An yet, since the connection that Justin and Origen make to Matthew 25 doesn't make the process any easier, it seems to me that it's well worth looking at:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i>"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for 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, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.' Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' And 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.' Then 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; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I 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.' Then 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?' Then 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.' And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."</i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >The otherworldly (angels and demons; eternal punishment and eternal life) and paternalistic (Father; Lord; King) elements in this passage don't make this an easy read for modern ears, but the teaching offers tremendous insight into what Jesus believed to be the will of God: compassion. And not just pulled heartstrings, but actually doing something for those who are hungry, thirsty, alone, naked, sick, or imprisoned. There's a bit (okay, maybe more than a bit) of cognitive dissonance for when I embrace a man calling on me to be sacrificially compassionate... <i>or else! </i>but dwelling on that would be an excuse for me to ignore the ways in which I (and the society in which I live) ignore or even exploit the very people Jesus is talking about. Dealing with that is much more difficult.</span></div>Scott Reynoldshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05735545121522530577noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-81366428378441331412011-02-23T22:58:00.001-08:002011-02-23T23:00:35.138-08:00February 23, 2011 – First Things First –‘action’ and ‘faith in God’<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">As I read the bible passage and your note Will my first thoughts are of the simple phrase that I have heard on and off over the years – ‘let go and let God’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">For me that phrase is another way of conveying the message in the passage <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘<span style="color: #010000;">For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can worry about a lot of things, or want something we don’t have – does worrying over it help?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No. Lifting up the need to God in prayer and remembering that God knows our needs is an issue of faith. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Putting worry aside isn’t that easy, if it were, none of us would be anxious about a thing in life! Right!!</span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #010000; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I do think that there has to be a balance in life, and priority. It is easy to assume ‘let go and let God’ should be interpreted as a call to forego ‘agency’ or ‘action’ in your life, for ‘complacency’ or ‘inaction’ because ‘God will take care of it’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another interpretation, and my own approach to that balance and priority is to put God first and ‘let God’ lead you, which allows you to ‘let go’ and move forward in faith.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="color: #010000; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">Verse 34, “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today” speaks to me about living for today, and the present circumstances and dealing with issues as they arise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, do I just confine my thoughts to living today, and not worrying about my future?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I read this passage as a call to not let worry consume my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I did, I would probably be stuck in inaction….waiting for the worry to be over……..<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, faith is needed.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="color: #010000; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">In the church I don’t think that we can approach the growth of the church community simply worrying about the finances, and forgetting about the spiritual health and wealth of our congregation members.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think that if we look after the spiritual ‘wealth’ of our congregation so that they can engage in the work that we are called to do as a congregation then opportunities to tend to and provide for the financial health and wealth of the congregation will emerge. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, faith is needed.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="color: #010000; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: large;">The ‘consider the lilies of the fields’ passage isn’t calming at all or simply a matter of sitting back to ‘smell the roses’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where do ‘action’ and ‘faith in God’ start and end……or intersect….or are they on a continuum?</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="color: #010000; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: large;">Deborah</span> </span></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></div>Will Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-91289482723043286442011-02-23T15:41:00.000-08:002011-02-23T15:41:58.057-08:00First Things FirstWe are coming to the end of our series, "The Heart of Christianity" based on the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew's gospel. This week we hear the oft-quoted, "Consider the lilies of the fields..." passage. <a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Matthew+6:24-34&vnum=yes&version=nrsv">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Matthew+6:24-34&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</a> Here's one that speaks pretty much directly to our market driven mad mad world. "You can't serve God and wealth." "Don't worry about what you will eat or drink, or what you will wear." "Seek first the Kingdom of God..." and everything else will be ok. So how do we actually do this? Am I supposed to just not pay attention to RRSP season? Is this a simple "don't worry- be happy" message or is there more to it.<br />
Some would say that this is a question of balance. If you get too obsessed with material things, then your life will become materialistic. But if you aschew material things, your life can become unmanagable. It is a question of balance.<br />
However, I think it is a question of priority. Seek first! Seek first and foremost that you have your heart in the right place, that when push comes to shove, you will choose a light hold on stuff and a firm hold on God. I am guessing that I will run out of money before I run out of time in this life, and I am hoping that having lived well, all will, indeed be well. <br />
And what about our communities of faith. Do we "seek first" to pay off the mortgage, to deal with the deficit, or do we seek first to be in line with our calling and trust that, with enough commitment, the mortgage and the deficit will not sink us. This is hard stuff for us personally and for us as churches. Sorry folks. No simple message of "Don't worry, be happy" here.Will Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-34296521135466785962011-02-23T14:57:00.000-08:002011-02-23T14:57:50.937-08:00Monday on WednesdaySo you will notice that Sun day's sermon is not archived yet. This is because there was no "sermon" on Sunday. There was however a great celebration of the ministry at Northwood in all it's diversity and colour. I will post the link to the introduction to that celebration based on the "Bread not Stone" quote from Matthew's Sermon on the Mount. It is genuine nourishing bread we seek to offer and share here at Northwood. Sometimes literally, sometimes metaphorically, but always genuinely. Now the task is to find a way that the children of Libia get a renewed diet of bread not stone.Will Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-12040898388683645462011-02-16T21:50:00.000-08:002011-02-16T21:50:37.645-08:00<sup class="ww"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">So it is Wednesday and I am posting my tuesday post giving you scriptures to think about and offering my first thoughts for the coming week. We comtinue our look at the Sermon on the Mount but this week we step out of order because at Northwood we are gathering as a community for our annual meeting. I have "cherry picked" a set of teachings from later in the sermon for us to hold alongside our work as a community, Matthew 7:7-14. Here it is:</span></sup><br />
<em><strong><sup class="ww"><span style="font-size: x-small;">7</span></sup>“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. <sup class="ww"><span style="font-size: x-small;">8</span></sup>For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. <sup class="ww"><span style="font-size: x-small;">9</span></sup>Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? <sup class="ww"><span style="font-size: x-small;">10</span></sup>Or if the child asks for a <nobr><a class="FAAdLink" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1292847732108435855#" id="FALINK_2_0_1"><span style="color: #f35b00;">fish</span></a></nobr>, will give a snake? <sup class="ww"><span style="font-size: x-small;">11</span></sup>If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him! </strong></em><br />
<em><strong><sup class="ww"><span style="font-size: x-small;">12</span></sup>“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets. <sup class="ww"><span style="font-size: x-small;">13</span></sup>“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. <sup class="ww"><span style="font-size: x-small;">14</span></sup>For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it. </strong></em><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Clearly Matthew is gathering disperate bits of teaching and stringing them together, not because they form a thematic whole but more likely because they were seen as authentic to Jesus and bearing the mark of the master. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">For me, here is where the Sermon on the Mount shows Jesus' teaching style- the master of the one line zinger. The golden rule, the narrow gate, standing at the door and knocking, give bread not stone. These are the kinds of one liners that you can walk around with in your pocket, folk wisdom to orient your days around. And on the annual meeting day, we ask, how is it that we are offering bread, and not stone? How is it that what we offer at Northwood is a reflection of the genuine generosity of God. Are we taking the narrow way or the "Broadway?" </span>Will Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-51402669313987552032011-02-15T09:02:00.000-08:002011-02-15T09:02:36.084-08:00An ethic of the heart... and a little fireI asked Scott on Sunday evening, "So what are your thoughts on the sermon from this morning?" Basically, he agreed with my biblical analysis and thought I stepped back from the more gut churning parts of Jesus' message. Fair comment. Take a look at the scriptures, the sermon and see what you think. Upon reflection I gave little air time to the provocative way Jesus was speaking. "If your hand offends, cut it off?" Really? "Consigned to hte fires of hell?" Really? <br />
Yes, Jesus is saying following the rules is not enough. Not nearly enough! Having utterly righteous intentions is where he is going and he bates his opponents with wild speach. Yes, he is saying look to your heart for true righteousness, but he is saying it with a kind of fire in his eye that might be a little scary.Will Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-12085670441058540502011-02-11T10:21:00.000-08:002011-02-11T10:21:42.193-08:00"Litany" by Billy Collins recited by a 3 year old!!! AmazingEarlier in the week I posted Billy Collin's poem "Litany." Here it is recited by a three year old. Oh to have such young and supple grey matter!!! In wonder and awe...<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVu4Me_n91Y"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVu4Me_n91Y</span></a></span></div>Will Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-74802812197395809182011-02-11T10:06:00.000-08:002011-02-11T10:07:48.258-08:00Dan's Prayer page beginsLook up... way up... to the top of the page where you will find Dan Hearty's "Prayers with the Choir." Each week Dan writes a prayer to begin the choir practise. I have found them gentle, whimsical, and in the ebb and flow, sometimes whirlwind of life, grounding. Prayer is an intimate thing and public prayer a risky thing. These prayers ring with Dan's authentic voice, and I am grateful that he is willing to share them so freely with you.Will Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-26600181605694053132011-02-10T13:11:00.000-08:002011-02-10T13:11:25.331-08:00"The Heart of Christianity: re-writing the rules"Let me put a few situations out into the mix. Deborah wrote yesterday, "what internal framework do we each use as tools to sort through ‘sticky situations’ and make the ethical choices? Are those frameworks similar or very different? What part does experience play in helping us to set ethical boundaries?" Great question Deborah, and we only know for sure what our framework is as we expeirence, and pay attention not so much to how we would like to be making choices but how we are actually doing so.<br />
It seems to me Jesus is re-interpretting the ancient rules, re-working the way rules are applied and choices are being made. "You have heard it said...., but I say...." And I believe everyone must to do exactly that. We all "hear it said" that some things are right and some things are wrong, and at a certain point we have to finish the sentence for ourselves (But I say ...). Yes Deborah. Experience, along with scripture, tradition, reason, and a whole lot of conversation teaches us what we wil say, and do. <br />
Hmm... Brings to mind a prayer. "May the words of my mouth, the meditations of our hearts, and the actions of our lives be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer."Will Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-14926097219621110532011-02-08T14:14:00.000-08:002011-02-08T14:14:00.673-08:00First Thoughts for Sunday Feb. 13thThis is the third week in a five week series based on the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5-7, called "The Heart of Christianity." We are exploring the core of the open hearted way of Jesus as Matthew gathered it together in this amazing collection. Today we read the rest of chapter 5, verses 21-48.<br />
<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Matthew+5:21-37&vnum=yes&version=nrsv">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Matthew+5:21-37&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</a><br />
<a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Matthew+5:38-48&vnum=yes&version=nrsv">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Matthew+5:38-48&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</a><br />
There is a common, fairly cynical perception out there that most politicians lack integrity. They say one thing during election time and do another the rest of the time. Often Christians are accused of something similar kind of hypocracy, holding strong convictions on Sundays that we can't live up to in the rest of life. I have a friend who once said, "Of course I'm a hypocrite, and I know it. I'm a Christian." Jesus set the ethical bar really high, and none of us attain it. That is why grace is so important.<br />
This week, we see just how high he set that ethical bar. This is his arguement to those who say he is watering down the law. He picks a series of hot button issues: anger and conflict, lust and sex outside of marriage, divorce, punishment (eye or an eye and all that), treatment of enemies. Each time he lays out the common teaching, and then offers his approach, and each time, his approach does two things: it sets the bar higher, and it sets the bar inside the person, in your heart and mind. <br />
So Jesus' ethics are not about meeting the letter of the law, the outer requirements, but meeting the spirit of the law, the inner requirement. That makes ethics a spiritual practise. <br />
At first reading, these teachings feel harsh, unrealistic, super-human. There is no way I can measure up. But is it a question of "measuring up" or a question of the inner world lining up with the outer world? What do you think?Will Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-39534210509962140952011-02-08T13:25:00.000-08:002011-02-08T13:25:08.310-08:00Monday's look backOk, perhaps this is tuesday's look back, but here it is with a little add on.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><strong>The Heart of Christianity: Who are you?"</strong></div>"You are the salt of the earth... you are the light of the world."<br />
Who tells you who you are? Do your parents? Does your boss? How about your teacher, or your children, your spouse? Does the market tell you that you are not enough? Does anyone tell you that you are too much? Who tells you who you are?<br />
Jesus gathered with his friends and said, you are not what they will try to turn you into. You are not what they will paint you out to be. You are who God says you are. You are salt, invisibly within, perserving, taste-giving. You are light, making visible what can't be seen, giving light to darkness. <br />
The Heart of Christianity is an identity given not by anyone, even ourselves, but given by God, and that is such a good thing.<br />
Here is an addendum, a lovely stroll down a slightly different path. Billy Collins writes about our identity, the things we are and the things we are not in "Litany." Check out the Youtube link as well<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">You are the bread and the knife, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">the crystal goblet and the wine. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">You are the dew on the morning grass </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">and the burning wheel of the sun. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">You are the white apron of the baker</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">However, you are not the wind in the orchard,</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">the plums on the counter, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">or the house of cards. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">And you are certainly not the pine-scented air. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">There is just no way you are the pine-scented air. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">It is possible that you are the <nobr><a class="FAAdLink" href="http://www.creekcats.com/pnprice/winegoblet.html#" id="FALINK_2_0_1"><span style="color: #1c7dff;">fish</span></a></nobr> under the bridge, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">maybe even the pigeon on the general's head, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">but you are not even close</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">to being the field of cornflowers at dusk. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">And a quick look in the mirror will show</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">that you are neither the <nobr><a class="FAAdLink" href="http://www.creekcats.com/pnprice/winegoblet.html#" id="FALINK_1_0_0"><span style="color: #1c7dff;">boots</span></a></nobr> in the corner</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">nor the boat asleep in its boathouse. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">It might interest you to know, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">that I am the sound of rain on the roof. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I also happen to be the shooting star, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">the evening paper blowing down an alley, </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">I am also the moon in the trees</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">and the blind woman's tea cup.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">But don't worry, I am not the bread and the knife. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">You are still the bread and the knife.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">You will always be the bread and the knife,</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow-- the wine. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times;"></span> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVu4Me_n91Y"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVu4Me_n91Y</span></a></span></div></span></div>Will Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-65137688543855730192011-01-04T13:31:00.000-08:002011-01-04T13:31:57.880-08:00Happy New YearGreetings Word in the World followers,<br />
<br />
We have made it through a season of Celebration and we begin a new year. In our Scripture readings each Sunday that means that we are into the season of Epiphany this Sunday and looking for insight.<br />
<br />
In September we launched this blog style bible discussion format as something of an experiment. The goal was to engage with people in discussions rooted in scripture but branching into our lives in the world. We had hoped that the online format would engage people who could not attend a bible study at the church, and that the format would inspire a different kind of reflection.<br />
<br />
So, here we have a new year and an opportunity to look at this experiment anew. We would love your feedback on ways of doing online biblical discussion that would not only meet your needs but would engage others in reflection and discussion. What works well? What doesn't? What changes would enrich both the format and the content.<br />
<br />
Over the next two weeks we will review this experiment and make changes. Please consider and offer feedback. I will be back with my biblical reflections on January 18th.<br />
<br />
Peace, WillWill Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-70583809459160078922010-12-07T12:52:00.001-08:002010-12-07T12:52:39.173-08:00Dec. 7, 2010<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" filled="f" id="_x0000_t75" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" stroked="f"><stroke joinstyle="miter"></stroke><formulas><f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"></f><f eqn="sum @0 1 0"></f><f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"></f><f eqn="prod @2 1 2"></f><f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"></f><f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"></f><f eqn="sum @0 0 1"></f><f eqn="prod @6 1 2"></f><f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"></f><f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"></f><f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"></f><f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"></f></formulas><path gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect" o:extrusionok="f"></path><lock aspectratio="t" v:ext="edit"></lock></shapetype><shape id="_x0000_i1025" style="height: 351pt; width: 468pt;" type="#_x0000_t75"><imagedata o:title="Desert Blooming" src="file:///C:\Users\Will\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image001.jpg"></imagedata></shape></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution”</span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Tuesday, December 7<sup>th</sup>, 2010</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This week’s readings are the stuff of revolution, and Mary the mother of Jesus is the most radical of them all. We are making our way through Advent and sinking deeply into the visions of change that are found in both the Hebrew prophets and the gospels. It is all about change.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Background on this weeks readings:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Isaiah 35:1-10</span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Isaiah+35:1-10&vnum=yes&version=nrsv"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Isaiah+35:1-10&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</span></a></span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span>Here is another of Isaiah’s great visions of the restoration of Israel after the Babylonian Exile. Isaiah is in three sections and although this is part of the second section, scholars suggest that it was probably originally within the last section, which is filled with hopeful visions of the restoration of the nation.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But this vision does not begin in the nation. Rather it begins in the wilderness. The desert sands are the first to feel the relief of God’s blessing. Water in the wilderness was such a strong image of relief for a desert dwelling people. But then the prophet moves to the personal: those with weak hands, feeble knees, fearful hearts. There will be relief for the returning exiles. And finally after another poetic description of relief for the land, he turns to the nation. A highway, the Holy Way will be built, and it will be a safe way for everyone to stream to Zion. </span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">James 5:7-10</span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=James+5:7-10&vnum=yes&version=nrsv"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=James+5:7-10&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</span></a></span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span>In Advent, the readings often flip from waiting for the ancient vision of restoration to be fulfilled, to the early Christians waiting for the return of Jesus. Here, in James we have the latter, in a message of patience. Unlike some of the more wild apocalyptic approaches, James takes a much more evolutionary approach to waiting. As a farmer waits for the crop to be ready to harvest, so it is as we wait for Christ. There is a slow, evolving process going on- one of maturing, growing, ripening. And then, according to James, the time will come when Christ shall return. But in the meantime, use the farmer’s kind of patience.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Luke 1:47-55</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+1:39-56&vnum=yes&version=nrsv"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+1:39-56&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</span></a></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And in our gospel reading, I have chosen the optional reading from Luke which includes Mary’s Song, the Magnificat. As the story is told, Mary has received an angelic visitation during which she was told that she is pregnant, and that this child would be especially blessed by God. Her cousin Elizabeth has also become pregnant in a miraculous way, and Mary goes to visit her sister. When she arrives, the child in Elizabeth’s womb leaps and Elizabeth, in a moment of ecstasy, pronounces Mary blessed among women. The reading for today is a revolutionary poem Mary is said to have spoken. </span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It may feel odd that these people seem to speak in poetry and ecstatic pronouncements, but remember, this is epic story telling, and this particular reading is very reminiscent, if not quoting from Hannah’s song (1 Samuel 2:1-10) when she has discovered she is miraculously pregnant.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But hear also the content of the song. This is political stuff, and the stuff of revolution. The poor are lifted the powerful dethroned and (my favourite line) the proud are scattered in the imaginations of their hearts. The hungry are given good things and the rich are sent away empty handed. </span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Some thoughts</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 18pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">These readings have always been come of the most inspirational texts in the Bible for me. I am a big picture person and I like change, so I am inspired by these visions of change. Frankly I struggle to imagine Mary waxing so poetically when she greets her sister, but as the gospel writers told the story, the visions inspired by the coming of Jesus harkened back to the ancient visions both of returning exiles and of ancient mothers of the faith like Hannah. Clearly Jesus, his teaching, his presence, and the way his life bore witness to God’s liberation and life for us all touched a deep chord <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of longing for change in everyone, and continues to touch that chord in us. Imagine how things could be different.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 18pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I am particularly drawn to the way Isaiah grounds the vision for change in the earth. The very creation will be different. Imagine if you were a returning exile coming home from the north, and you see the desert blooming. What would that do to your heart and mind? What kind of hope and joy would that evoke in you? What kind of hope and joy does it evoke in you today?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Starter questions:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">All these readings speak to our longing for things to be different. What changes do you long for? In your life? In your community? In the world?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mary’s vision is one of revolution in which the hungry, poor, broken find restoration, and the rich, well fed and whole are taken down a few pegs. How does this vision strike you? Do you believe in revolution?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3.</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">James talks about change in a more gentle way, using the image of farming. The evolutionary way. How has God worked in your life so far? Through revolution or evolution?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Further Exploration</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 18pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Just for kicks, here is the latest link for the Advent Conspiracy.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 18pt;"><a href="http://www.adventconspiracy.org/"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://www.adventconspiracy.org/</span></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"></b></div>Will Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-70297820898523308172010-12-01T00:06:00.001-08:002010-12-01T00:06:54.881-08:00Nov. 30, 2010<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“An Antidote for Nostalgia”</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Tuesday, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>November 30, 2010</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We move into the readings for the second Sunday of Advent. We light the candle of peace. Then we hear another reading from the prophet Isaiah, and catch our first glimpse of the prophet John the Baptist. If the hope is to gentle us towards the warm and fuzzy Christmas feeling, we are heading in the wrong direction. These readings have sharp edges. Handle them with care or they will bite you. We want to get to the place of peace and serenity, but to get there this week we need to pass through some harsh biblical territory.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Background on this weeks readings:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Isaiah 11:1-10</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Isaiah+11:1-10&vnum=yes&version=nrsv"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Isaiah+11:1-10&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</span></span></a></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Here we have the biblical basis for what the Quakers called “the peaceable kingdom”- a vision of a world in which natural enemies would be friends, wolves and lambs, lions and fatlings, children and snakes. The prophet envisions a day when we are not in the grip of our least redeemable instincts, but rather can rise above our impulses and live in harmony, peace, compassion. And for Christians it has been easy to imagine the child in this passage as a reference to the child of Bethlehem. Read Jesus into this passage and it is a short jump from Isaiah’s peaceable kingdom to Jesus’ Kingdom of God, and the motley community that gathers around the table of grace.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Romans 15:4-13</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Romans+15:4-13&vnum=yes&version=nrsv"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Romans+15:4-13&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</span></span></a></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This harmonious community is hard to achieve and the early church was no closer to the it than we are today. Wherever there are differences in ability, gift, power, intellect, interest, political convictions, religious beliefs and inclination, there will be differences of opinion and conflict. Paul, in an attempt to call people to draw on their deeper character, and rise above these differences between the Jews and gentiles of the church in Rome, sees Christ as the image of this beloved community way of being.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Matthew 3:1-12</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Matthew+3:1-12&vnum=yes&version=nrsv"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Matthew+3:1-12&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</span></span></a></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And then there is John the Baptizer- the wild man of the wild land, living on locusts and wild honey, preaching that you can’t get to beloved community, to a peaceable kingdom unless you let go of a few things. “Repent!” Change your ways. And those who expect that whatever beloved community God is creating has a place for them in it by heredity and not by heart have another thing coming. </span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Matthew believes that the one to usher in the new realm of peace had someone ahead of him “preparing the way.” The seeds of this new way needed fertile ground, and John was the tiller of the ground. There is great debate about the relationship between John and Jesus, and whether or not they actually had the same vision, but clearly, as Matthew and others looked back on it, John’s stirring call for “metanoia” (turning around), <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>repentance, having a thorough change of heart and mind tilled the ground for Jesus’ arrival. </span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Some thoughts</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>John’s was not a gentle approach. He was not a diplomat. He was the disruptive presence at the dinner party, the one nobody wants to sit beside because he is likely to say things that are embarrassingly true, and say them in a way that makes everyone uncomfortable. He comes across like a sour tonic, good for you but hard to swallow. As I think about what the peaceable kingdom requires in the real world, I am beginning to question the value of my gentle approach and my good liberal upbringing. Some churches are dying of this very way of being. I think they call it terminal niceness. Maybe there is a time when the only way to the peaceable kingdom is through a rough and tumble turning around. </span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I am also thinking about metanoia, the greek word used here for repentance, turning around. In what ways do we as individuals, as churches, as communities, and as a global community, need to turn around, do an about face, change our ways?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Starter questions: </span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What is your response to the vision of Isaiah? Do you believe that we can rise above our more predatory impulses and find the way of peace? Where have you seen it happen? What does it take?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What do you think of John’s approach? Have you known any disruptive people who have brought a prophetic word of truth that was uncomfortable? How do you respond? Have you ever done that yourself?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3.</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What needs to “turn around” in your life in order to make the peaceable kingdom a reality?</span></b></div>Will Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-32558073541379845042010-11-24T00:16:00.000-08:002010-11-24T00:16:12.285-08:00"Waky Waky!"<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Tuesday, November 24, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2010</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The First Sunday of Advent</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Keep Awake”</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Welcome to the first Sunday of Advent, and the beginning of our journey towards Bethlehem. We begin a movement that has a destination, a birth, something new on the horizon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At Northwood the theme for the season is “Journey toward Bethlehem.” Like most journeys we go on, there is the going there and the getting there. The going there is all about the process, the way. The getting there is all about the arrival, the destination.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My hope is that through this season we can be a people on the way, paying attention to moments in the journey in which we encounter the Holy. I also hope that our journey is shaped by our destination- that the fact that the presence of God is found in a child, born in the backwaters of Judea shapes us. </span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The lectionary has us begin this journey not so much with visions of that first coming but with hopes of a second one. </span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Background on this weeks readings:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Isaiah 2:1-5</span></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Isaiah+2:1-5&vnum=yes&version=nrsv"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Isaiah+2:1-5&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</span></a></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span>The prophets’ hope is ever-present in the season of Advent, so we begin with Isaiah. This is first Isaiah speaking from a time before the fall of Jerusalem but after Assyria has taken over control of the northern kingdom of Israel. So clearly they were living in the shadow of potential impending disaster. </span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Isaiah speaks to the dreams of the people for restoration. But it is not exactly harkening back to glory days here, but rather a dream of a time when God will teach the people, and adjudicate their differences. Jerusalem will not as much be a seat of power for Israel but a seat of justice and reconciliation for God. And because people will submit their quarrels to God’s judgements, the instruments of war will become the instruments of re-building (swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not a bad place to begin the Advent journey.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Romans 13 :8-14</span></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Romans+13:8-14&vnum=yes&version=nrsv"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Romans+13:8-14&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</span></a></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span>Paul is speaking clearly from a place of expectation that Christ will return at any moment. So it makes total sense that if the end of the present age is about to take place and a new age is about to dawn in which everything will be changed, then be in the moment. Be ready. Be awake. This was no philosophical or spiritual practise of “living in the moment.” No this was rooted in the expectation that something really big was about to change everything.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I am struck by his use of “stay awake!” Wakefulness is a very active posture of expectation. There is a sense of alertness here that I believe leads us into Advent well. Are we really awake to God’s imminent presence, an in-breaking of love and hope at any moment? Or are we more asleep than awake?</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Matthew 24 :36-44</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Matthew+24:36-44&vnum=yes&version=nrsv"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Matthew+24:36-44&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</span></a></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Picking up on the awake theme, we have Matthew’s version of the apocalyptic expectation that God is about to bring in the new age. Be awake. Be ready. The new age is about to dawn. </span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>These are startling images in understanding how God makes God’s way from the background to the foreground of our lives. There is no gentle dawning here. This is Noah waiting for the clouds to tear open and all heaven to fall. God is pulling a break and enter on our lives. I am thinking that perhaps these less gentle approaches to jostling us out of our habitual busyness and over-consumption may be exactly what is needed today. Happy advent folks! Are you catching the good news in this?</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Some thoughts</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I have never found the apocalyptic expectations within the gospels to be very compelling during Advent. Expecting the incarnation, the birth of God in this world, and expecting the second coming, whatever you think that might mean, are very different things. However, the eagerness and even edginess of the call to wakefulness is compelling to me. I think we in the comfortable western church don’t actually expect much. We might even hope not much will happen. Another <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christmas. Same old same old. So we start to fall asleep to the wonder of God in the world. I was talking to someone today who finds the church really frustrating because people don’t engage. People have such low expectations of the church and the faith. </span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What would it look like for us to wake up? What would be different if we honestly woke up to the very real presence of God? And what would it take to wake us up?</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Further explorations:</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Here’s a youtube clip for the Advent Conspiracy for this year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These always jostle us awake a bit.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3Wllpq0wBU&feature=fvst"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3Wllpq0wBU&feature=fvst</span></a></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div>Will Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-8070062428096408522010-11-18T13:55:00.000-08:002010-11-18T13:55:52.338-08:00No pot luck conversation todayFor those of you interested in coming to the face-to-face gathering over supper tonight, it has been cancelled. I am home sick today. I'd love to hear your thoughts though, so post away.<br />
Peace, WillWill Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-20624588100117611752010-11-18T13:54:00.001-08:002010-11-18T13:59:00.967-08:00Nov. 18, 2010<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXEQg0VN5GWq0neRCDzp5onC_xBWOozcq-UGs08RbA9ij24lIpcdCqr1LH9iADksJAhQRCZ-QSdeXKx-buhNteQISklSomjYzHr-lPP75bCqLOgcSNAbOSvlj0QR7D5esBtkuvcErKvVU/s1600/giving.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="188" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXEQg0VN5GWq0neRCDzp5onC_xBWOozcq-UGs08RbA9ij24lIpcdCqr1LH9iADksJAhQRCZ-QSdeXKx-buhNteQISklSomjYzHr-lPP75bCqLOgcSNAbOSvlj0QR7D5esBtkuvcErKvVU/s320/giving.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Wednesday, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>November 17, 2010</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It would appear that preparing a post for Monday or even Tuesday is a challenge. Sorry for the lateness this week. We are preparing at Northwood to wind up our 5 week focus on Stewardship with our Celebration Sunday. We have not followed the Ecumenical Lectionary this week but instead have chosen two readings that draw our attention to the way we receive and the way we give. </span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Background on this weeks readings:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Micah 6:6-8</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Micah+6:1-8&vnum=yes&version=nrsv"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Micah+6:1-8&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</span></a></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The prophet Micah lived in that prophetically rich time period after the fall of the Northern kingdom of Israel to the Assyrians, and before the fall of the Southern kingdom of Judah to the Babylonians. He had watched as the previously rich Israel crumbled. His is a voice speaking from the margins of Judean power in the rural area southwest of Jerusalem, speaking to the centre of power in Jerusalem. He, along with Hosea, Amos, and Isaiah, fiercely challenges the steady drift of the social and economic order within the nation mostly revolving around the temple. In today’s reading the prophet lays out an argument between God and the people. “Look back and see all I have done for you, and you simply offer burnt offerings in the temple but miss-treat and neglect the poor. Then we hear what is acceptable worship to God: “Seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.”</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Matthew 5:13-16</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Matthew+5:13-20&vnum=yes&version=nrsv"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Matthew+5:13-20&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</span></a></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Sermon on the mount is what John Wesley, founder of called “The Little Canon.” Here Matthew gathers core teachings of Jesus. This is the first of the five sections of teaching in Matthew which are said to parallel the five books of Moses. Jesus, in Matthew, is the new Moses, the new Covenant making prophet. </span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We are just reading the first part of the sermon on the mount, the section in which, after the blessings within the beatitude, Jesus turns to his core circle of friends and disciples and says, “You are the salt of the earth…” This feels very personal, very direct, and very challenging. These words echo down the years within the Christian community and call out for a response from us. </span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Some thoughts and questions</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This being celebration Sunday, the main question is, after five weeks of reflection on the ways that we pour ourselves out for the sake of the gospel both within the church and beyond its walls, how are we salt? How are we light for the world? In what ways do we practise radical gratitude, courageous giving. How do we shape our lives around these words: Seek justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. If indeed this is the kind of worship God really wants, what needs to shift in our lives to make it so?</span></b></div>Will Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-23441861865176452202010-11-09T13:12:00.001-08:002010-11-09T13:12:44.217-08:00November 9, 2010<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Tuesday, November 9, 2010</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This week marks the 4<sup>th</sup> week of our “Celebrate Stewardship” congregational program. Although I haven’t said much about this here, it has been somewhat of a lens I have brought to my thoughts on Sunday. This week will be no different. We are also coming close to the end of the Christian year, this being the second to last Sunday. The lectionary takes none of this into account. Instead, as we near the end of the year, the lectionary has us contemplating thoughts of the end of things.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Background on this weeks readings:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Isaiah 65:17-25</span></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Isaiah+65:17-25&vnum=yes&version=nrsv"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Isaiah+65:17-25&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</span></a></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span lang="FR" style="mso-ansi-language: FR;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span>The biblical text of Isaiah was likely written over about 150 years starting from before the exile in Babylon (700ish BCE), through the time of exile and into the time when the people of Israel returned in around 520 BCE. Scholars talk about three sections with three different corresponding voices within the text. Today’s reading is the latest part (Third Isaiah) written after the people had returned. It is hopeful<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as it imagines God performing a great restorations of the fortunes of the people and a time of deep and lasting peace with the nation of Israel leading the way.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Today we hear the oft-quoted section including “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox, but the serpent, its food shall be dust.” This echoes an even more familiar section of Isaiah, chapter 11. I love the vision, although a practical side of me resonates with Woody Allen who once said, “It’s one thing for the lion and the lamb to lie down together. It’s another thing to get the lamb to stop shaking.” Still, a hopeful vision for a people trying to rebuild their lives and their nation.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2 Thessalonians 3 :6-13</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=2+Thessalonians+3:6-13&vnum=yes&version=nrsv"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=2+Thessalonians+3:6-13&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</span></a></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Speaking of the practical side, in 2 Thessalonians we hear a very stern Paul talking to the practical realities of the church. The theological side of the question is, “If Jesus is coming back momentarily, then why do we have to weary ourselves with work? Sit back and relax. The end is coming. Yet, somebody has to do the dishes. Somebody has to put food on the table. I am guessing Paul got some complaints from those who were keeping things going on a practical level, that others were sitting back expecting it all to be over soon. Paul’s response: Yes, Christ is coming soon, but you also have to keep living in the meantime.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Luke 21:5-19</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+21:5-19&vnum=yes&version=nrsv"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+21:5-19&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</span></a></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We have been following Luke’s version of the story of many weeks now and we are nearing the end. In this little section of Luke, referred to as “The Little Apocalypse,” Jesus is moving through the streets of Jerusalem predicting its ultimate end. Written as Luke was, after the fall of the second temple in 70 CE, the original readers of Luke would have found some comfort in these words based so thoroughly on Mark’s gospel (Mk. 24:1-3). </span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The apocalyptic view of the world expects the end of the present age and the creation of a new world order in which the corrupt present rulers are overthrown and God takes charge. But once again, in practical terms, that process of the end of one age and the beginning of another is a messy one. When empires crumble, it is messy. Jesus’s words reflect this, and the faithful are called to hold on, bear witness to the good news and know that “by your endurance you will gain your souls.” When all hell breaks loose, it is not cleverness, creativity, popularity, strength, but endurance that matters.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Some thoughts</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I am not totally Trinitarian about things, but three themes emerge for me in these readings. First, I think about the interplay of a vision for life, and the practicalities in which we live. In Isaiah it was a glorious vision of peace, but like in Haggai last week, the reality was somewhat less than glorious. The temple just didn’t compare to the previous version. Crops were hard to grow after all this time. The people were not cohesive like they used to be. It was tough to hold on to the vision while bearing the realities. In the early church, you had the great hope of Christ’s return and the practical realities of living. And in the gospel reading, the foundations were shaking. How to hold on to hope in the midst of Roman rule.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Which brings me to the foundation shaking that goes on in Isaiah, Thessalonians, and in Luke. Actually in today’s world. I believe we live in a time of huge foundation shaking. Institutions like the church are shaken to the core these days, but in a bigger way too. Global warming, the end of fossil fuel abundance, the ever growing disparity between rich and poor, the rise of the information economy, she shakiness of global capitalism among other things. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I heard one scholar say that Jesus did not try to bring down the Roman empire. He was all about trying to live faithfully in the midst and despite it. Maybe that is our task as foundations shake. Living faithfully while the foundations shake.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Finally all three readings give the sense that the vision of God (peace, community, the Kingdom of God) has already come but is also not yet here, and we live with both realities. Here in Surrey, I see both the green shoots of inter-racial, inter-cultural community all around me and the joy of that reality. I also see gangs, drugs, poverty, homelessness, and racial and cultural divides that have yet to be bridged. The endurance Jesus calls for is both an endurance of vision (keep your eye on the prise) and a practical endurance (put one step in front of the other). </span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Starter questions:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Am I right about the foundations shaking? Where do you see this?</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I am curious if my read on Jesus not taking aim at the Roman Empire is actually right, or whether I come to that after 47 years of not making headway against the empires of this world. Thoughts?</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3.</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Where is the crossing points of vision and practice in your life?</span></div>Will Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-41987602523736665652010-11-02T13:09:00.001-07:002010-11-02T13:09:25.205-07:00November 2, 2010<div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Hope Behond History”</span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Background on this week’s readings:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Haggai 1:15(b)-2:9</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Haggai+1:15-+2:9&vnum=yes&version=nrsv">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Haggai+1:15-+2:9&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</a></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>After the time of exile in Babylon, and after the King of Babylon, Cyrus, allowed the Jewish people to return to their land, they returned. Cyrus had also encouraged them to re-build the temple, and following on the words of prophets like Isaiah, they had great hopes for a complete renewal.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>They returned, and their land, their capital, Jerusalem, and their nation were in ruins. The rebuilding did not go easily. It was hard work, and the results were not what they had dreamed. They was discouraged. </span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>To them, Haggai speaks a word of encouragement.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=2+Thessalonians+2:1-17&vnum=yes&version=nrsv">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=2+Thessalonians+2:1-17&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</a></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A main theme within of both first and second Thessalonians is the question, “why is it taking so long for Christ to return?” The early Christians believed that a new day was to dawn upon them with the return of Christ in which the present powers (namely Rome) and the religious underpinnings of it would be banished. This was expressed in a variety of ways, and in Thessalonians, it has an apocalyptic flavour. Christ will return after great suffering and a new just and peaceful day will begin.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So the church was stuck in between. Christ had not yet returned but they believed it was imminent. So how do you live a “normal” life in the meantime? And why is it taking so long? Paul had explained that Christ would return and given then some tips on how to live in the meantime, but as time went on, they doubted, and they listened to others saying he had already returned and they had missed it. In this part of 2 Thessalonians, Paul reiterates his main point, Christ will return, and urges them to hold fast to this hope, and live well in the meantime.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Luke 20:27-38</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+20:27-38&vnum=yes&version=nrsv">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+20:27-38&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</a></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Over the last number of weeks we have been following Jesus as he makes his way toward Jerusalem, teaching and interacting with people along the way. Now he has arrived and is teaching in <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the temple in Jerusalem- the religious, social and political centre of Jewish life and teaching. He has just driven the sellers and money changers out of the temple area and the religious and political leaders are looking for a way to dispose of him. The air is charged.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In today’s reading the Sadducees (pronounced “sad-you-sieze”) take a run at him around teachings of resurrection. They offer an absurd scenario about a woman whose husbands die successively seven times. The question they pose is “in the resurrection, whose wife is she.” </span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">To be clear, the resurrection is not the same as the modern idea of the afterlife. In Jewish mythology, we live in the present age, and at some divinely appointed day, a new age would be ushered in, and the dead would be raised. As with the modern ideas of afterlife, not all Jews imagined this the same way, and the Sadducees didn’t believe in it at all. But clearly, they are trying to trip Jesus up. This is partly about the teachings around resurrection, which Jesus addresses. More importantly in Jesus’ mind, this is about who is in charge when we enter the mystery of life beyond this life. Here Jesus speaks clearly: “God is God not of the dead but of the living, and for God, they are all alive.” </span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Some thoughts</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">My mind goes down two paths as I reflect on these readings together. Firstly, when things are not what we had hoped they would be, when “things just ain’t what they used to be, or ain’t what they ought to be”, where do we find strength, courage and hope. For the returning exiles, the glory days of the previous temple are clearly over and they don’t have the resources to rebuild to the same extent. The early Christians were hanging on hoping for Christ to return and a new age would dawn. But it was taking so long!</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Our neighbours to the south head to the polls today in mid-term elections and the great hopes that Obama would usher in a new day are flagging along with the economy. There is disappointment, sometimes bordering on disillusionment. Things ain’t what they used to be nor are they what they ought to be. These readings speak to this situation in life. What do they say to you?</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I also have in mind that Remembrance day is coming up and in church on Sunday we will remember those past and present who have offered, risked and given their lives so that their families, friends and nations could have a lasting peace. They went into the chaos and fear of battle trusting that it was for a greater cause. Along with their gear they were issued bibles. There is a sense in which they all knew that they faced uncertainty and they would be relying a greater help to get them through. When the foundations are shaking, when life is in the balance, where do you reach for something spiritually solid? </span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I struggle with notions of an interventionist God, one who will swoop in and change my life arbitrarily, especially if I have asked for it. That feels like a Santa Claus notion of God. Yet I also believe God cares about what happens in life, in the course of history. God to me is both in history and beyond it, somehow.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Starter questions:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Where have you found sources of strength when things have not worked out the way you had hoped? What has helped you to “stand firm and hold fast?”</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">When the foundations are shaking, when life is in the balance, where do you reach for something spiritually solid?</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">How do you make sense of a God who cares about life and the course of history when things are not unfolding in life-giving ways?</span></div>Will Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-16560141640720099992010-10-27T12:15:00.000-07:002010-10-27T12:15:21.314-07:00A note from WillHi folks,<br />
Thanks for logging into "A Word in the World." As you know, I am in ministry at Northwood United Church in Surrey and as pastoral minister, things come up. Last week you will have noticed that I was at a leadership training event, and so I posted some material from that. This week we are grieving the loss of one of our long time members, and are holding another family through the loss of their 30 year old son and brother. <br />
This is all to say that I have not had a chance to prepare the blog this week, and I won't get to it. Sorry. One of those weeks.<br />
However, they say farmers are "next year" people, ever hopeful for a new crop and a better year. Ministers are "next week" people, ever hopeful for a saner week.<br />
Grace and Peace to you,<br />
WillWill Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-13627337010574322762010-10-19T23:13:00.000-07:002010-10-19T23:13:38.273-07:00October 19, 2010, Poems from a Leadership Course<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Tuesday October 19, 2010</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Greetings friends ,</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This is a different week this week. I will not be posting the regular readings for the coming Sunday as I will not be leading worship on Sunday. Rather I am spending the week with a group of 40 clergy who have gathered with the Very Reverend Peter Short, former Moderator of the United Church of Canada. We are spending 5 days together renewing our practise of leadership in the church we love so much- the church we believe God loves so much. We have been here since Sunday evening and will be here til Friday. It is an honour to spend that much time with the wise counsel of Peter Short and the wise and compassionate presence of colleagues who have committed their lives to this crazy and beautiful endeavour of ministry in the church.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So instead, I offer you two poems I have gleaned from our sessions. The first comes from a session in which Peter was suggesting that courageous leadership comes from us when we are deeply and courageously who we are called to be. Unfortunately we humans spend a significant portion of our lives seeking to be someone God never created us to be. So our task really is to unleash ourselves in the world. He offered this poem by Billy Collins, Poet Laureate of the United States, as a playful place to start:</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Litany</span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“You are the bread and the knife,</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Crystal goblet and the wine...”</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">-Jacques Crickillon</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You are the bread and the knife,</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The crystal goblet and the wine.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You are the dew on the morning grass</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And the burning wheel of the sun.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You are the white apron of the baker,</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And the marsh birds suddenly in flight.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">However, you are not the wind in the orchard,</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The plums on the counter,</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Or the house of cards.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">maybe even the pigeon on the general’s head,</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But you are not even close</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">To being the field of cornflowers at dusk.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And a quick look in the mirror will show</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">That you are neither the boots in the corner</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It might interest you to know,</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">That I am the sound of rain on the roof.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I also happen to be the shooting star.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The evening paper blowing down as alley</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I am also the moon in the trees</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And the blind woman’s tea cup.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But don’t worry, I’m not the bread and the knife.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You are still the bread and the knife.</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You will always be the bread and the knife,</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Not to mention the crystal goblet and—somehow—the wine.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The work of ministry is both the interior work of the soul and the exterior work of being that living soul, compassionately, courageously, helpfully, truthfully in the world. There is spade work, homework, planning work, gathering work, all kinds of work. But there is also listening work, listening to the stirrings of the spirit within the soul, hearing the voices we are given to guide us. Here is another Billy Collins poem called “The Night House”:</span></div><div align="center" style="text-align: center;">Every day the body works in the fields of the world<br />
Mending a stone wall<br />
Or swinging a sickle through the tall grass-<br />
The grass of civics, the grass of money-<br />
And every night the body curls around itself<br />
And listens for the soft bells of sleep.</div><div align="center" style="text-align: center;">But the heart is restless and rises<br />
From the body in the middle of the night,<br />
Leaves the trapezoidal bedroom<br />
With its thick, picture-less walls<br />
To sit by herself at the kitchen table<br />
And heat some milk in a pan.<br />
<br />
And the mind gets up too, puts on a robe<br />
And goes downstairs, lights a cigarette,<br />
And opens a book on engineering.<br />
Even the conscience awakens<br />
And roams from room to room in the dark,<br />
Darting away from every mirror like a strange fish.</div><div align="center" style="text-align: center;">And the soul is up on the roof<br />
In her nightdress, straddling the ridge,<br />
Singing a song about the wildness of the sea<br />
Until the first rip of pink appears in the sky.<br />
Then, they all will return to the sleeping body<br />
The way a flock of birds settles back into a tree,</div><div align="center" style="text-align: center;"><br />
Resuming their daily colloquy,<br />
Talking to each other or themselves<br />
Even through the heat of the long afternoons.<br />
Which is why the body-the house of voices-<br />
Sometimes puts down its metal tongs, its needle, or its pen<br />
To stare into the distance,<br />
<br />
To listen to all its names being called<br />
Before bending again to its labour.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I am grateful for the opportunity to both learn and lead in this event, and will return refreshed and renewed next week. Meanwhile, grace and peace. Will</span></div>Will Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-73575418335713384732010-10-12T12:36:00.000-07:002010-10-12T12:36:01.968-07:00Oct. 11-17, 2010- "Never Give Up"<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Tuesday October 12, 2010</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj2BXJhFT1DZsHQ4rcxJFsbMdZeAAsLRjz_QtoCCRTV0CabyX7qBlw9qtfhod6Vx5IZugPK5yjlzdxYgjexlBmmJvHQuV2rpprPvFHi-LSnP4nasOYov3-b-X2pp6u5AHDJ-0qXngeKY4/s1600/never-give-up-caricature.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ex="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj2BXJhFT1DZsHQ4rcxJFsbMdZeAAsLRjz_QtoCCRTV0CabyX7qBlw9qtfhod6Vx5IZugPK5yjlzdxYgjexlBmmJvHQuV2rpprPvFHi-LSnP4nasOYov3-b-X2pp6u5AHDJ-0qXngeKY4/s320/never-give-up-caricature.jpg" width="264" /></a></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I love this cartoon. This week we hear of Jacob wrestling with... not sure who. Do we go with that message or that of Jeremiah who encourages the faithful with rich images of a covenant, written on the heart? We also hear the writer of Timothy shouting across the centuries, “stay on message!” And we experience one of Luke’s classic parables of Jesus, the persistent widow and the unjust judge. Let’s take a look.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Background on this weeks readings:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Genesis 32:22-31</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Genesis+32:3-31&vnum=yes&version=nrsv">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Genesis+32:3-31&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</a></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This is one of the classic stories of Genesis with the classic manipulator, Jacob. He is still on the run trying to avoid Esau, whose blessing and birth-right he had stolen. The night before he will be forced to face his past, Jacob sends his family and belongings on ahead and stays behind to spend the night “wrestling ‘til daybreak.” This feels like a story of archetypal proportions. Think about the features: main character on the run from his past, his brother, wrestling with a stranger who brings a blessing in the end, battling with no clear winner and no clear loser, from which he emerges both blessed and wounded, limping forward to face what he must face. Let go of history folks. This is all of us in every time and place. It is about you.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Jeremiah 31:27-34</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Jeremiah+31:27-34&vnum=yes&version=nrsv">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Jeremiah+31:27-34&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</a></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We have been working our way through Jeremiah these last weeks. The hard tones of earlier give way now to softer, more hopeful tones. Where in Chapter 1 Jeremiah was talking about foreign nations being set over Israel to “pluck up and pull down, to destroy and to overthrow,” now it is time to “build and to plant.” In the past injustice, oppression and brokenness cycle down the generations. “Parents eat sour grapes and children’s teeth are set on edge.” How is that for an image of brokenness passed on.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But the hope lies in the covenant, newly written not on stone but on the human heart. Here we find Jeremiah pointing to the way, in mature faith, the covenant relationship with God becomes no longer something externally imposed and legally understood, but accepted from within and understood intuitively. People will live by the covenant because it has become so a part of them that they can do no other. </span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">2 Tiimothy 3:14- 4:5</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=2+Timothy+3:14+-+4:5&vnum=yes&version=nrsv">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=2+Timothy+3:14+-+4:5&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</a></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Do you sense the urgency in this letter? Although there is some dispute about who actually wrote this letter, it has a clear personal tone, and feels like a letter of advise from a veteran Paul to a younger worker. How about the image of “people having itchy ears,” following the latest new fad-doctrine that comes their way. Sound familiar to anyone? If the theme is, “never give up,” the call here is, “stay on message, hold fast to the core of the faith!” Presumably this would not be difficult for those with the covenant written on their hearts. </span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Luke 18:1-8</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+18:1-8&vnum=yes&version=nrsv">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+18:1-8&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</a></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Here is a classic parable from Luke that comes from the same storehouse of great story from which we get “The Prodigal Son,” “The Good Samaritan,” and others. In this one, “The Persistent Widow and the Unjust Judge,” Luke hands us interesting introduction and conclusion words that are worth paying attention to.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The parable is basic. A widow needs justice, and calls for it persistently from a judge who doesn’t give a rip about her or God. Yet for the sake of peace and quiet, he gives her her due. If that’s how he acts in his unfaithfulness, how much more ready do you think God, who cares deeply for us all will hear and respond. The introductory words tell us what to look for. This is about the need to pray and never give up. But the concluding words are striking. If God showed up today, would there be faith on the earth?</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The temptation is to look at this as a parable about the faithfulness of God. But the introductory and concluding words point us back upon ourselves.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Some thoughts</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif";"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I am sure you have experienced a disagreement in which you, or someone else, likely because they have decided that the outcome is not worth the argument, say “whatever.” Often there is a tone that goes with the word. “Whatever!” It usually means, I care about it but I am just not going to argue about it any longer. Often it means someone has just let go of something that was precious to them. Sometimes, if it becomes a regular way of dealing with disappointment, “whatever” can become an indication that someone has lost their heart. What used to matter doesn’t matter anymore. </span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>That is a sad state. The world needs us to care, to persist in the things that matter. This way of faith is not easy and can involve no small measure of disappointment. How do we deal with our disappointment? Do we swallow it and carry on? Do we, like the widow, push back and insist. Do we cave in, say “whatever,” and walk away. None of the great human achievements have taken place without disappointment along the way, and if you are Jacob, without coming away with a wound and a limp. How is it for you?</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Starter questions:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Have you ever had a wrestling night as you have come face to face with your life? What came out of that night for you? Wounds? Blessings? Were you limping? Stronger?</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In Timothy, Paul seems to be clear what is core and what is fluff- the stuff of itchy ears. For you, what is the core faith (written on your heart) that is worth holding fast to, and what experience do you have of itchy ears?</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The picture of the persistent widow banging on the judges door sticks with me. Do you see this in the world? Where? Do you ever feel like you are banging on God’s door and not getting a response? What would Luke say to this?</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div>Will Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-62370262699629305032010-10-05T00:14:00.000-07:002010-10-05T00:14:18.551-07:00Oct. 4 - 10, 2010 "Remember and be thankful"<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Monday, Oct 4, 2010</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This week in Canada we celebrate Thanksgiving. Of all the festivals of the year, this is one of my favourites. It comes at harvest time, the earth is winding down for another season and the colours are gorgeous on the mountains. You can feel the coolness of the coming winter, and the air has a freshness that you can taste. It all inclines the heart towards gratitude.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This is also the festival that more than any other acknowledges our humanity, our limits, and our dependence on the creation and the creator. We have so much to be thankful for, and most of it had nothing to do with us.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Background on this week’s readings:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="FR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: FR;">Deuteronomy 26:1-11</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="FR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: FR;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Deuteronomy+26:1-11&vnum=yes&version=nrsv">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Deuteronomy+26:1-11&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</a></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span lang="FR" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: FR;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">So to get a good sense of this reading you need to imagine yourself with Moses on the east bank of the Jordon River. That is the setting for the entire book of Deuteronomy. It is written as his final speech to the people after they have wandered in the desert for 40 years and are about to cross over into the promised land. And Deuteronomy is cast as a final speech. Moses will not go with them, so these are his parting words. So as he opens, he says, when you get there, there are a few things you need to remember. And this particular section is about remembering to bring the first fruits of the gifts of the land to God, remembering your story of liberation, and kindling within a humble gratitude. The assumption is, it will be tempting to think that you did this on your own. Remember.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Psalm 100</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Psalm+100&vnum=yes&version=nrsv">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Psalm+100&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</a></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Here we have a pretty standard simple ancient song of praise to God, set in the place of worship. As in Deuteronomy, we are told to remember God, behold who God is, know that God made us, and that we belong to God. I get the sense that both here and in Deuteronomy, these writers kind of expect that human beings will forget God and start to think that they made themselves. Hmmm.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Philippians 4:4-9</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Philippians+4:1-13&vnum=yes&version=nrsv">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Philippians+4:1-13&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</a></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>You need to know that this is one of my favourite passages in the Bible. I have many, but this is near the top. It is one of the most elegant, loving and gentle sections in the entire works of Paul that we have. Paul had a special relationship with the church in Philippi. He was there from their very beginning, they had cared for him, and in their struggles, he had returned the favour. He was their spiritual mentor and here we see why. He is appealing to the very best in them and he knows that they will respond. He sounds just so very confident as he proclaims that “The God of peace will be with you.” That’s a promise.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">John 6:25-35</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=John+6:24-35&vnum=yes&version=nrsv">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=John+6:24-35&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</a></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The gospel reading for this Sunday is a real shift of gears from the other readings. This is vintage John, all multi-levelled and cryptic. Everything here has at least two meanings and you can never seem to get a straight answer out of Jesus. “When did you get here?” they ask, and he can’t even tell them that without talking about signs, and working for enduring food. They see that he is talking in riddles and they want some kind of verification that he knows what he is talking about. Give us a sign like Moses did with the manna? With this he launches into talk about bread. But bread means more than bread to him. Nothing is just what it seems but it packed with encoded meaning. Metaphors abound. Even he himself is not just himself, but is bread.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Some thoughts</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I had a load of top soil delivered this past weekend, and today was the day to shovel it into the various different garden beds. It was a cooler day today and as I got deeper into the pile of pungent rich soil, there was a smell that emerged from the pile that was nothing short of the smell of fertility. The soil steamed with every shovelful. This was not lifeless dirt I was dealing with but soil, alive with the process of breaking down and building up, of decomposing and re-composing. I am not much of a gardener, but I know that my shovel was messing with a process that was more powerful than me. Life is so much bigger than me.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My parents gave be a rose bush last summer. I was not ready for it. I left it for a while because I didn’t know where to plant it. So finally, after neglecting it for too long, I took a guess, dug a hole, threw in some bone meal and some potting soil and planted it where I think it will go. It is a climbing rose, and I have nothing for it to climb on. I went out the other day, and it has exploded, heading off in all directions, literally covering ground. This thing has a plan to take over my little part of the world and it is surely not waiting for me to tell it what to do. </span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Moses wants us never to forget where we have come from, the psalmist wants us to remember who made us and to whom we belong, Paul wants us to contemplate the goodness of things, and gives us a promise that if we do that, we will find peace, and in John’s gospel Jesus is pointing to the deeper meaning underneath everything.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As you celebrate Thanksgiving, can you stop and behold what you have, and seek the deeper meaning God has placed in it?</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Starter questions:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In Deuteronomy, Moses is pointing us to the ancient story of liberation as the base upon which an offering of gratitude is made. What is the story of God in your life upon which your offering of gratitude rests?</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
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</div>Will Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-80265374461864365102010-09-27T11:10:00.000-07:002010-09-27T11:10:52.298-07:00"Short History of Nearly Everything"I just created a new page (above) consisting of the entire introduction to Bill Bryson's recent book, "A Short History of Nearly Everything." What is faith? Science, pursued with wonder and curiosity can be the fertile ground where mustard seeds of faith take root. Enjoy, WillWill Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1292847732108435855.post-56319132819567555612010-09-27T10:58:00.000-07:002010-09-27T10:58:39.813-07:00Sept. 27 - Oct 3, 2010 "What is Faith?"<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Monday September 27, 2010</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></b>Someone asked me a while back, what is faith? That may seem like a such a basic question, but it is a good one. Is it the same as belief? Is it the opposite of doubt? Is it trust? If I have faith in God, what do I do when doubt creeps in? And where does it come from, how do you get it? Surely you’ve heard of people losing it. What then? All of the scriptures for Sunday touch on it. Let’s take a look.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></b></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Background on this weeks readings:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Psalm 137- “By the waters of Babylon...”</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Psalm+137&vnum=yes&version=nrsv"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Psalm+137&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</span></a></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>You have surely heard the song, “By the waters of Babylon...” Well here’s where it comes from. This is a lament set in the time after the devastating experience of 587BCE. In that year the Babylonian army swept into Jerusalem, destroyed the city, the temple and everything that the Hebrew people held dear, and took all the leaders, skilled labourers and others into exile in Babylon. They were a people in exile, serving their conquerors. They were devastated. Had they been abandoned by God? The centre had not held. “How could we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” And in the last few lines of the psalm, their lament turns to revenge. Anyone ever felt that rise within? Anyone ever seen it in the world? Have they lost their faith?</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2 Timothy 1:1-14 “Faith lies within us. How does it get there?”</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=2+Timothy+1:1-14&vnum=yes&version=nrsv"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=2+Timothy+1:1-14&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</span></a></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2 Timothy+1&version=MSG</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>You might try reading this from “The Message” (above second url) paraphrased by Eugene Peterson. Here the writer writing in the name of Paul writes to Timothy urging him to hold fast to the faith he has been given, and has shown in his life and vocation. This is a tender appeal rooted in both a love of Timothy and a deep respect for the way faith has been planted and grown in him. This reading offers a respect <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>for the way faith comes to us, settles in us, emerges in our lives. Our mothers and fathers in faith are part of that, and there is some greater mystery at work.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Luke 17:5-10</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+17:5-10&vnum=yes&version=nrsv"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Luke+17:5-10&vnum=yes&version=nrsv</span></a></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So, here’s the thing. This gospel reading contains two parts. In the first part Jesus responds to the disciple’s plea to “increase our faith,” as if faith were some kind of commodity and more is better. Jesus responds with the assurance that they have a tiny but powerful grain of faith (a mustard seed), and as grandma used to say, “a little dabb’ll do ya.” Then he moves to the image of slaves and a master. Here he seems to be addressing the disciples expectation that faith has external rewards, that acting in faith will get them something. But as any parent will tell you, at a certain point maturity requires that the choices we make have internal rewards, that the rightness of them be enough, that living in faith is the very thing that makes living in faith rewarding.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Some thoughts</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What is faith? In a chapter in his book “The Heart of Christianity,” Marcus Borg talks about several ways of conceiving of faith. These include faith as assent to beliefs and doctrines, faith as engaging in religious practises, and faith as trusting in a relationship. The mustard seed faith that Jesus identifies in the disciples seems to be the trust kind. Trust is such a critical element in any relationship, and faith conceived as trust means everything to a Christian life. We know this in our families, in our marriages, in our vocational work, when trust is shaken, everything gets shaken, and when trust is gone, it is hard to get it back. Faith in a God who is somehow with us- faith in a world that God inhabits, that trust is at the core of the Christian Way.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But as the psalm writer shows, and Paul alludes to, “holding fast”, is not always easy. Despair creeps in during hard times. Trusting in the essential goodness of life does not protect us from suffering, even devastation. </span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So why trust when there are no guarantees? And the evangelical atheists of today would say, why trust a God for whom science has no empirical evidence, and why follow a religious system which, when pushed, so often turns violent (Psalm 137)? Our response to these questions goes to the very heart of our faith. How would you respond?</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Starter questions:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 54pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Who are the people who have demonstrated faith to you? What difference did it make in their lives? Who are your “mothers and grandmothers” (2Timothy) in the faith?</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 54pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In Psalm 137 the lament is deep and soul wrenching. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How has your faith fared in soul wrenching times?</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 54pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3.</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">How do you live well without guarantees in life? Does trusting in God, in a “more” as Borg would say, make a difference to the quality of character you bring to life? How? </span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt 54pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">4.</span><span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Some would discredit a pursuit of faith with science or by pointing at violent parts of the bible or violent practitioners of faith? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do you respond?</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Further Exploring:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I am going to try to post the introduction to Bill Bryson’s recent book, <u>A Short History of Nearly Everything</u>. Great book. Buy it. Read it. Wonder at how deeper scientific knowledge can instil wonder and faith.</span></div><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span></span></span>Will Sparkshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05382609230452207654noreply@blogger.com4