June 20, 2010 Genesis 6 – 7 Wiping Out the Earth Noah

The world has messed itself up beyond redemption and God decides to start all over again.  One family and two of every living creature are called into the safety of an ark which will float above the waters of chaos.  From the faith of Noah, the whole world is recreated. 

This is the second of the stories that we tell from the book of Genesis this summer is about how God is in relationship to the whole world.  The old way is that everything is broken into different camps all messing with each other.  Noah recreates the world where everything starts off in “my” (my ancestor’s) boat.  If we didn’t get it the first time, then we punch it that we are all family.  But the story also says that we aren’t perfect.  We don’t start as blessed mud breathed the breath of life into us but with all our faults and failings.  We aren’t going to be perfect, we are who we are.  What does it mean to claim everyone as family in all our faults and failings.  And God in the middle of all that.  That is the rainbow, the wild diversity of color and promise right in the middle of the rainstorm. 

And in the midst of that is our responsibility to the earth, not because God set us in charge of it, but because it is part of the family too, everything coming out of the same boat. 

The ark is the image of the covenant, not the rainbow – the rainbow reminds us of the ark.  We are all in the same boat together, God, every other person, and the whole world.  Somehow or another we have to figure out how to make it all work together and God is in the midst of that.  

June 13, 2010 Genesis 2 Adam and Eve

This morning we are taking on one of the great stories of all time.  Adam and Eve are the first people created in this great story.  Placed in an ideal situation, they find themselves with one prohibition that they cannot resist.  Any idiot who has read or heard any kid’s story from the beginning of time knows what is going to happen when there is only one thing not to do.  There is no suspense and no drama.  The story is as old as time.  But the two punishments (hard work and bearing children) are  two of the very things we value most in life.  What is this story really all about?

The story is about how God is in relationship to us in the midst of crucial times in our live, this time when we have our first sexual experience.  No going back and life moves from childhood to adulthood in a big hurry.  So, in that sense, what does the story say is God’s covenant when life gets complicated and we have to face our own decisions?  

The Structure of Genesis

All Summer we are going to be telling some of the great stories in the Bible, but probably not the way you expect.  Most of us have never graduated from the kids versions of the stories and most of the time from the kid’s versions of the use of these stories.  Certainly the list will make for some great storytelling for the children, but the stories were told and compiled for adult and their meanings and uses are often very adult. 

Here is the list

• ·         June 6, 2010  Judges  6      Gideon
• ·         June 13, 2010  Genesis 2   Adam and Eve
• ·         June 20, 2010  Genesis  6 – 7   Wiping Out the Earth  Noah
• ·         June 27, 2010  1 Samuel 17   David and Goliath
• ·         July 4, 2010  Joshua 6  Battle of Jericho  Joshua and Rahab
• ·         July 11, 2010  Luke 19   Zacchaeus
• ·         July 18, 2010  Number 22   Balaam and his Donkey
• ·         July 25, 2010  Ruth
• ·         August 1, 2010  1 Kings 16-2 Kings 2    Elijah
• ·         August 8, 2010  Vacation Bible School Presentation
• ·         August 15, 2010  Esther
• ·         August 22, 2010  Daniel 6   Daniel In the Lion’s Den
• ·         August 29, 2010  Matthew 14   Peter Walks on Water, sort of.
• ·         September 5, 2021  Acts 9   Paul’s Conversion

It makes sense to say a word about the Book of Genesis because we will follow two stories in it in the next weeks. 

Genesis is not a history book nor a science lecture, but an exploration into ways and contexts that we are in covenant with God.  Over and over this covenant takes the shape of a three-fold relationship: our relationship to God, to other people, and to the earth itself.  Each context shapes this covenant a little differently.  

My own sense of this is that the first stories are about the times in our lives where God is in covenant with us:

• ·         Birth, Genesis 1
• ·         Puberty which meant getting into the world back then, Adam And Eve
• ·         Our work, Cain and Abel
• ·         Our organizing done in the middle of life:  Tower of Babel
• ·         And finally, our Death, in the story of the Akedah, Abraham sacrificing his son (which in my opinion is barbaric no matter how you look at it, unless it is looking at that way God asks for everything of value back at the end of our lives.  This story is a transition moment where it looks like Abraham loses not only everything of value to himself, but also everything that God had promised.  But, if we are lucky to live long enough, that is what happens. 

The bulk of the book is looking at the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of the faith and showing the contexts of where God is in relationship to human beings.

• ·         Noah: the second creation story is about God in relationship to the whole world.
• ·         Abraham and Sarah create a new nation with God and has to deal with other nations around him. 
• ·         Isaac and Rebecca (here Rebecca is the key character, not Isaac.  She is the mover of the covenant and the one who most responds to God’s call.  This one is about family and God’s covenant in family.
• ·         Jacob -- and the story is so much about Jacob, this isn’t a “patriarch story” – is about how God is in covenant with an individual working out their own stuff inside and out.
• ·         The story of Joseph moves inward further.  How is God involved in our interior landscape, our dreams.  And in the development of covenant inside, we see connection to individual, family, nation, and among nations in the world sphere, because this will be the story that sets up a new ark (called Egypt) where the people are kept until they are recreated once again in the next story, Moses.  

Happy Easter

Well, we got through Holy Week.

So many people helped this week go so well.

We started of with the Adult Sunday School taking parts in the Palm/Passion Sunday drama from Luke.  We read most of the end of the gospel while Melanie and Rebecca stripped the church bare of all adornments and draped the cross at the end.

Wednesday a few of us gathered in the chancel of the church to remember Maundy Thursday, the remembrance of the last supper.  Bread and juice and grapes and conversation and story in an odd setting for most of us.

Friday, the Eel River Ministerial Association (we decided to stop calling it CLEMP because that name sort of precludes others from joining in) hosted a non-traditional Good Friday service.  Instead of remember Jesus death, we used the time to guide the community through a time of remembrance for people who are suffering.  We had readings for hunger, homelessness, victims of racism and family abuse, drug addiction and joblessness.

And finally today we had Easter to a full house.  Uri Schulevitz's wonderful book, The Treasure, helped both the children and adults discover the treasure that Jesus starts appearing in us and the whole world comes alive in God's presence.  What a delight to have the children on the floor during worship drawing where they find treasures in their lives.  Sherri making the already fun choir anthems come to a new life.  Three younger members and three older member reading scriptures of praise back and fort after Melanie read the Easter story.  Velma leading singing and Pam keeping us moving along with her great piano playing.  I think we would all like to be a kid sitting on Faye's knee as she reads stories.  And a host of others welcoming, feeding and flowering the congregation.  A great day.

What would Jesus say to you to get you to follow?

I was stretching today to a time when I knew a whole lot more about music and conducting than I do now.  What would draw me away from something that I loved and still love so much?  Answer for me, a call to what I loved about making music and to a world that made a difference somehow.  My mentor, Dennis, ignited my own passion and loves into a context that filled my world with hope.  So many people are afraid God will call them to what they fear, but my experience is that God calls us to what we love most, using the gifts we value most, in a context that startles us into hope.

I used one of my favorite pieces of music, the fourth movement of Brahm's German Requiem.  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RetKt6RgleAhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RetKt6RgleA , or a wonderful recording of The Sixteen doing a version with a few voices and piano, much slower than I am used to but with marvelous scope http://www.lala.com/#album/1657606138214280278http://www.lala.com/#album/1657606138214280278). I didn't leave music and conducting, I changed the setting. I may never conduct the Brahm's Requiem, and there is a lot of stuff in the ministry that I don't do that well either. But, I can help people hear the symphony of God's Presence in almost all of their lives, can help a church work together to play a bit of that music, and can help people hear in the old Masters a bit of the Gospel they may not hear now or maybe have never heard before.


That is the word that God speaks to us when we are called.


It is what I find so special about Volunteers in Mission, or Habitat for Humanity, or the folks making food in our kitchen for people living on the Riverbank. "Hey, I like building things. Come build houses for people who would otherwise never have a stable place to live" "I love to cook. Come feed the world." "I love to host parties. Come and throw a Thanksgiving Feast for my fragile ones."


People who invite us into mission tell us that there is so much hope in the world and our gifts matter. And when the world is suddenly filled with hope, anything can happen.


What word might God speak to your heart that will call you to a new life that changes the world?

The Gypsy Rover

We sang the Gypsy Rover in church on Sunday and talked about the soul and had a great time reading Isaiah 60 with everyone with loud uproar.  Kaye whistled in church, and we had a bunch of new folks.  And we played with Twelve Days of Christmas -- the legend about it being a code of some kind appears to be wrong, so we just had fun making up our own ideas for what all the images might mean.

For those of you who haven't come across him, C.G. Jung, who was a disciple of Freud, is one of the great gifts to the church in the last century.  He and his followers have looked deeply at the language of image and dreams, and especially the collective archetypes that govern much of our life journey.  When we look at the insights this field of study has given to anyone dealing with spirituality in the last seventy five years, we can't thank him enough.

On Sunday, we used the story of the Gypsy Rover to highlight some important points about the journey of the soul.  This particular myth describes vividly the awakening of the soul that often happens during our teenage years, the loss of the soul as human being concentrate on developing some mastery of the concrete world in the formative working years, and something of the mess that occurs when people begin to discover in later years a deep hole where the soul used to be.  This can begin a discovery process in the last half of life that can lead to a deep sense of peace and creativity -- where a whistle of spirituality can turn into the music and richness of a full life.  This growth only occurs if we learn new things about our lives and walk in those places we have not gone before.

There are piles of books written by C. J. Jung and his followers.  A great one to start with is his autobiography Memories, Dreams and Reflections (written around 1956 but reprinted constantly since it was first written).  For books looking into deeper meaning of stories and myths see books by Robert Johnson (like "He" or "She").

Christmas

Wow!  Busy as usual and no blogs for the entire Advent season.

Check out the website if you are interested in an end of the year reflection.  I preached on it and presented a paper which is in the church to help guide through the process.  But, if you want to find it, I put it online on the website.  My reflection is based on a weekly spiritual report I learned from the Church of the Saviour in Washington DC and have been doing myself for decades now (that is included).  The yearly reflection is a list of some of the things I use as guides for my reflection, a reflection on basic needs in my life, a reflection on the three basics of the spiritual journey (poverty, chastity and obedience) and some other questions I have found helpful.  Remember Ted's Rule for the Spiritual Journey #457 is guilt is worthless -- our reflections cannot be motivated or result in guilt.  Growth is built on a desire to follow God's call in our lives.

Advent was good this year.  We focused on three stories that help guide our paths through preparing for the Christ to enter our lives.  We looked at Zechariah and thought about what it means to be silent before the work of God in our lives.  We looked at John and  his call to sharing as a way to prepare for the revolution that is incarnation.  Finally, we thought about Mary and what it means to ponder or think deeply about our lives.

Christmas was a grand intergenerational service telling the story and singing the songs.  There were as many Teddy Bears as people and a wonderful time of light in the building and in our lives.

I am grateful for all the people who helped make it such a great season.  We also raised $1,800 in the Christmas offering and a huge pile of school supplies for the special education class in Miranda.  Well done everyone.