July 18, 2010 Number 22 Balaam and his Donkey

Balaam is the story about spiritual direction in a surprising and funny way.  How can others help us listen to God who is trying to direct us.  And is there really a talking donkey in the Bible?  Oh my, shades of Shrek!  

• Coming alongside through all of life
• Staying away from the dangers on the road with us – helping us see the world as it really is. 
• Sometimes speaking for God when the other is ready to hear. 

That is a good friendship.  But any ass can do it, right?

A Prayer of Thanks

On Friday, the last procedure that removed a stent from my kidney ended a two month long struggle with a kidney stone.  Thankfully I was able to work through most of it, but always through the fog of medications.  The last procedure was like turning off a switch of pain and I could stop the pain medication at once.  I am grateful to the doctors who helped and all the health professionals that guided the process.  I am grateful to the wise souls who have been through this themselves who offered good guidance.  And I am indebted to all those who’s prayers sustained me in a very difficult time. 

The spiritual work of a kidney stone, as in many other health issues, is patience.  The preferable way for them to come out is on their own and so the best way is to wait, even if, as was the case for me, it doesn’t come out on its own.  

July 11, 2010 Luke 19 Zacchaeus

Actually, today we didn’t do Zacchaeus at all.  My kidney stone kept me from participating in the service and Gerhardt Drumm  was able to step in suddenly and preach.  I heard great things about this sermon, but it was hard not to preach.  (I expected to be doing great two days after having my kidney’s lasered, which turned out to be a long way from the truth.)  Anyway thanks to Gerhardt.

Little big theme again.  This is a short story so easy to get the whole thing.  Zacchaeus has been robbing the people of Israel for a long time, getting rich off injustice and betrayal.  But it is to him that Jesus comes and in his transformation is a transformation of the whole town.

This story is about changing our lives when we don’t like what we have become and is probably a great story for anyone who is carrying around some choice they have made that we aren’t too proud of.  

July 4, 2010 Joshua 6 Battle of Jericho Joshua and Rahab

First of all, dump what you think you know about Rahab, images colored not only in the misogyny of the time but also because this woman represents an option that the Bible will simply not choose.  Who is this spy the helps open the door to the Land of Promise to the newly and aggressively arriving Israelites?  The way that is chosen so many years ago is one of tremendous violence.  But the story tells of one person in a city which is growing more and more afraid, who overcomes fear, welcomes the aliens, gets to know them enough to help understand and help.  It suggests a very different approach than making everyone in a town an enemy and idolater and an evil that must be completely destroyed. 

We will explore the acts of faith and surprise that open the doors to a land of promise even for us.  We cannot read this story without paying attention to a conflict that is still going on in the exact same landscape, and I can’t help but wonder that the choice to demote the place and power of Rahab in this story is perhaps a part of the decisions that have created so much violence for so long. 

This also shows something of the complexity of our scriptures.  The Bible in this case just doesn’t eliminate the story, but incorporates a very different choice in with the ones that were actually made.  

June 27, 2010 1 Samuel 17 David and Goliath

Today we were treated to stories told by different members of the congregation.  Faye, as David, Chuck, as Saul, and Ginny, as Goliath, told this very familiar story from three perspectives.  We also had the kids in Sunday School making stones with words of hope and faith written on them that members of the congregation could take home. 

One of the great themes of the Bible (not the only one) is that little can be big when God is present.  The huge hero Goliath and the little tiny shepherd boy meet on the field of battle.  Is David just the dumb kid with God on his side, or is there more going on in the story?

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?