It was great to pick up the phone this morning and hear from our Lutheran walkers. They have been moving right along!
12/1-6 A went 7.25 miles and W logged 5.
12/7-13 the each hiked 8.25 miles. Wow! That's gettin' on down the road.
So . . . 12.25 + 16.50 = 28.75 miles from those two. Hoorah!
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Typo
Sometimes spell check does not save me from myself.
Exhibit A from the service this morning:
I printed out the words to a hymn that fit the theme for the day (John the Baptist's warning to prepare) perfectly. It was called "On Jordan's Bank the Herald's Cry"
Here's how it came out:
On Jordan’s Bank the Herald’s Cry
Coffin/Chandler
On Jordan’s bank the herald’s dry
Announces that the Lord is nigh;
Come then and hearken, for he brings
Glad tidings from the King of Kings.
The Herald's DRY??? The Baptist is dry? That's not right. Unless maybe he was a SOUTHERN Baptist. ARGG.
Exhibit A from the service this morning:
I printed out the words to a hymn that fit the theme for the day (John the Baptist's warning to prepare) perfectly. It was called "On Jordan's Bank the Herald's Cry"
Here's how it came out:
On Jordan’s Bank the Herald’s Cry
Coffin/Chandler
On Jordan’s bank the herald’s dry
Announces that the Lord is nigh;
Come then and hearken, for he brings
Glad tidings from the King of Kings.
The Herald's DRY??? The Baptist is dry? That's not right. Unless maybe he was a SOUTHERN Baptist. ARGG.
Sermon - Dec. 7
Isaiah 40:1-8
Mark 1:1-11
A Christmas Worth Waiting For #2 – Warning
You heard about the city boy that moved out in the country, didn’t you? Yep. Called up the township and asked them to move the deer crossing sign that was out by his house. Said too many deer had been getting hit out there. He didn’t think it was a very good place for them to cross.
It’s deer season. But for weeks and weeks, it’s been deer collision season. Every year, estimates are that there are 1.5 million deer/car collisions. (Insurance companies say 1.5 billion dollars of damage. Remember when that seemed like a lot of money?) Illinois ranks #3 nationally for these close encounters of the bad kind.
And do you know what every one of the 1.5 million drivers involved in those crashes say? “It came out of no where! There wasn’t any warning!” In spite of the thousands of deer crossing signs, it still seems like we’d like more warning of dangerous situations and impending hazards.
Well – the Second Sunday in Advent is traditionally “Warning” Sunday. It is the Sunday that we read about crazy old John the Baptist, out there by the Jordan, shouting that people had better REPENT! REPENT! The Lord is on His Way! Straighten up and FLY RIGHT! Or You’ll be Sorry when He gets here!
And always, this catches those of us who have spent our weekend putting up a tree and decorating, shopping or reading the Christmas story to our children – a bit by surprise. We’re focused on the sweet baby Jesus – and then come to church and hear about a man wearing camel’s hair and eating bugs and telling the crowds that human beings are terrible sinners and we better shape up.
John the Baptist is an important part of Advent – because in order to experience Christ entering our lives in a new way this season, we need to be warned about the things that might prevent that from happening.
This sermon is about the difference between a threat and a warning. Threat is when someone says that they are going to hurt you because they don’t like what you are doing. A warning is when someone says that there is danger up ahead and you can avoid it or prepare to meet it. A threat is hateful. A warning is given out of love.
Warnings and the need for them:
My grandmother, as a very young woman, received a warning in a dream. It was a warning that about warning – sort of a meta-dream where meaning is interwoven and rich. In this dream, which she received as a young mother, she saw her toddler son – her first born child – playing in the yard, and then, she dreamed that he was headed toward an open well. And she called to him, but he just turned and looked at her and kept on going. In the dream, her shouts to turn around were not heeded, and he fell down the hole and she lost him. When she awoke, she felt that she had been warned about the importance of having her children pay attention to her warnings. I remember her telling me, she didn’t like disciplining them, but God had showed her that she had to in order to protect them.
Warnings are about love and protection and guidance and the deep desire for the person being warned to avoid danger and live well.
God’s advent warnings are like that:
The warning in Isaiah – we are like flowers of the field. Our time is limited. Life is fragile and breathtakingly short.
Make straight the paths! There is crookedness in every single one of us. There are mountains we have made out of molehills and valleys we do not wanted lifted into the light. Christ’s coming is for the purpose of reunion, and we have put up some pretty big obstacles in his way.
God wants us to avoid the danger of wasting out lives on meaningless trivia, of wasting our energy on holding grudges. God warns us of the dangers of putting our trust in the riches or popularity or fame. Those are dangerous things. Those are wells, down which perfectly beautiful children of God may, indeed, fall. Children have been lost this way before. But God does not want to lose YOU.
Coming to the table, in some traditions, used to be a time for straightening things out in our lives. It used to be that if you had a bad grudge, this was the time to resolve it. If you had a debt to pay, or an apology to offer, the table was the warning to get that done so that you could receive the sacrament. The rite of “Penance” in the RC church is still practiced. We Protestants have a slightly different take. We understand that table as a way to become Christian enough to deal with the problem. We need grace BEFORE we can turn our lives around, make the apology, mend the relationship, fix the behavior or whatever we need to do to get right with God and one another. So the table shouldn’t be avoided. Neither should it be approached without caution. Be warned! This meal can and should change you from the inside out!
John the Baptist’s warning is out of love for the people, that they should prepared to receive the Christ when he comes. God wants to warn us that our hands need to be free to receive the precious Christ. Our hearts need to be unconflicted and ready to love. Our lives need to have enough space in them for prayer and fellowship. Prepare yourselves. The warning is our time is limited and God’s coming is not on our timetable. Don’t be caught like a deer in the headlights!
Head the Baptist’s warning:
Prepare the way of the Lord.
Mark 1:1-11
A Christmas Worth Waiting For #2 – Warning
You heard about the city boy that moved out in the country, didn’t you? Yep. Called up the township and asked them to move the deer crossing sign that was out by his house. Said too many deer had been getting hit out there. He didn’t think it was a very good place for them to cross.
It’s deer season. But for weeks and weeks, it’s been deer collision season. Every year, estimates are that there are 1.5 million deer/car collisions. (Insurance companies say 1.5 billion dollars of damage. Remember when that seemed like a lot of money?) Illinois ranks #3 nationally for these close encounters of the bad kind.
And do you know what every one of the 1.5 million drivers involved in those crashes say? “It came out of no where! There wasn’t any warning!” In spite of the thousands of deer crossing signs, it still seems like we’d like more warning of dangerous situations and impending hazards.
Well – the Second Sunday in Advent is traditionally “Warning” Sunday. It is the Sunday that we read about crazy old John the Baptist, out there by the Jordan, shouting that people had better REPENT! REPENT! The Lord is on His Way! Straighten up and FLY RIGHT! Or You’ll be Sorry when He gets here!
And always, this catches those of us who have spent our weekend putting up a tree and decorating, shopping or reading the Christmas story to our children – a bit by surprise. We’re focused on the sweet baby Jesus – and then come to church and hear about a man wearing camel’s hair and eating bugs and telling the crowds that human beings are terrible sinners and we better shape up.
John the Baptist is an important part of Advent – because in order to experience Christ entering our lives in a new way this season, we need to be warned about the things that might prevent that from happening.
This sermon is about the difference between a threat and a warning. Threat is when someone says that they are going to hurt you because they don’t like what you are doing. A warning is when someone says that there is danger up ahead and you can avoid it or prepare to meet it. A threat is hateful. A warning is given out of love.
Warnings and the need for them:
My grandmother, as a very young woman, received a warning in a dream. It was a warning that about warning – sort of a meta-dream where meaning is interwoven and rich. In this dream, which she received as a young mother, she saw her toddler son – her first born child – playing in the yard, and then, she dreamed that he was headed toward an open well. And she called to him, but he just turned and looked at her and kept on going. In the dream, her shouts to turn around were not heeded, and he fell down the hole and she lost him. When she awoke, she felt that she had been warned about the importance of having her children pay attention to her warnings. I remember her telling me, she didn’t like disciplining them, but God had showed her that she had to in order to protect them.
Warnings are about love and protection and guidance and the deep desire for the person being warned to avoid danger and live well.
God’s advent warnings are like that:
The warning in Isaiah – we are like flowers of the field. Our time is limited. Life is fragile and breathtakingly short.
Make straight the paths! There is crookedness in every single one of us. There are mountains we have made out of molehills and valleys we do not wanted lifted into the light. Christ’s coming is for the purpose of reunion, and we have put up some pretty big obstacles in his way.
God wants us to avoid the danger of wasting out lives on meaningless trivia, of wasting our energy on holding grudges. God warns us of the dangers of putting our trust in the riches or popularity or fame. Those are dangerous things. Those are wells, down which perfectly beautiful children of God may, indeed, fall. Children have been lost this way before. But God does not want to lose YOU.
Coming to the table, in some traditions, used to be a time for straightening things out in our lives. It used to be that if you had a bad grudge, this was the time to resolve it. If you had a debt to pay, or an apology to offer, the table was the warning to get that done so that you could receive the sacrament. The rite of “Penance” in the RC church is still practiced. We Protestants have a slightly different take. We understand that table as a way to become Christian enough to deal with the problem. We need grace BEFORE we can turn our lives around, make the apology, mend the relationship, fix the behavior or whatever we need to do to get right with God and one another. So the table shouldn’t be avoided. Neither should it be approached without caution. Be warned! This meal can and should change you from the inside out!
John the Baptist’s warning is out of love for the people, that they should prepared to receive the Christ when he comes. God wants to warn us that our hands need to be free to receive the precious Christ. Our hearts need to be unconflicted and ready to love. Our lives need to have enough space in them for prayer and fellowship. Prepare yourselves. The warning is our time is limited and God’s coming is not on our timetable. Don’t be caught like a deer in the headlights!
Head the Baptist’s warning:
Prepare the way of the Lord.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Wednesday/Thursday
Late to the Gym, I only walked two miles on Wednesday. I was really glad to get the word at choir that two of the singers had walked 16 miles, between them. And their dog had walked twelve! I think we should count the dog-miles. And my theological justification is this: The camels are the ones that actually walked the miles for the wise men. So I think we should recognize the contributions of animals to the Christmas story, too!
16.5 (from Tuesday) + 28 from choir members and their dog + 2 from me = 46.5 miles logged so far.
16.5 (from Tuesday) + 28 from choir members and their dog + 2 from me = 46.5 miles logged so far.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Throne Room Humor
In the New Yorker, there's a cartoon of a medieval king, surrounded by knights and lords. The caption is "I like relaxing in my favorite chair." Wish I'd had it for the bulletin yesterday.
You Got to Serve Somebody
Reign of Christ Sunday - November 23
Matthew 25: 31-40 (?)
Bob Dylan had it right when he wrote the song, “You Got to Serve Somebody”. Human beings have a throne shaped hole in our hearts, and our lives seem less than vital and fully alive, until we get something or somebody on that throne, until we have a center to our lives that we worship and adore, we’re always a little bit lost. That inner throne is, I believe, a gift from God, intended to bring us into relationship with the Divine.
And there’s no doubt that when lives go horribly wrong - (I’m not talking difficult, here. Difficult is part of the package. Pain, sorrow, loss, all that. By "wrong" I mean abuse, addiction, bullying, body -and -spirit -killing wrong) – When things get ugly and hateful - it is because the wrong thing got put on the throne.
That throne is meant for Christ to occupy. That is the throne for Jesus. We know that. We want Christ there, reigning in our hearts. And that’s a very good thing.
I don’t think there is a person here this morning (though I guess you might surprise me) who doesn’t long to gather around that throne and worship Christ. We want to bow humbly to the magnificent presence, bring him good gifts, made with our own hands. He want to honor Christ, use our best language and our best behavior, and bask in the reflected glory of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We’d be content to sit at his feet and share his perspective, looking down on the world below in love. Like James Bond in those 007 movies: At His Majesty’s Service! Yes!
Yes. We’d love to serve Christ the King.
But strangely enough, His Majesty’s service doesn’t happen in a royal throne room. Jesus himself reminds us that service does not consist of saying, “Lord, Lord!” , with loud prayers of praise and self abasing expressions of piety.
Serving this King looks like sharing a meal at a soup kitchen,
welcoming an immigrant,
buying a coat for a kid from the trailer park,
outfitting a room for a homeless woman trying to get off the streets,
visiting Alzheimer’s patients in nursing homes and drunk drivers in jail.
Christ the King says, When you do these things, you do them to me. He doesn’t say, "When you do these things, I look down from my throne and smile approvingly." He says, “You serve me. I am enthroned in those poor, sick, hungry, cold, imprisoned ones.”
On the Sunday in which we recognize and celebrate the Reign of Christ – this scripture reminds us that we worship a King who, above theological correctness or pious behavior or public declarations of religious fealty – is honored in acts of compassion shared with the least of God’s children.
Praise to the Christ. Long may he reign in our hearts and our lives.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Giant Purses Save
Now we know:
Of course, I've always maintained that there are worse things than dying, and carrying a portfolio sized bag might just be one of those things, for me.
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