Ministers launch petition to stop Bush library

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Christmas Faith

I recently called my relative, the one I've mentioned helping out during health problems in the past 6 months. I said, "Will you be lonely being alone this Christmas?" She said, "It will be OK. Jesus was born."

This was both her simple and deep expression of faith.

May God bless her and you this Christmas.

Not a Happy Christmas Story

When I read a news article telling about some sexual indiscretion or alleged misconduct by a person I have no connection to, my reaction is to think in two dimensional terms: How stupid. How could he? How could this person let his urges get the best of him and ruin his career and hurt those around him?

Of course, it is easy to be judgmental. And if I’m in an honest mood, it is too easy to list any number of things that I’ve decided to not do again....for which the resolution lasted all of 15inutes.

In the context of sin in general, I believe that all sins separate us from God, and all sins are forgiven by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. So I am no better when I sin than somebody who does a “big” sin. And I am no better or worse when I am forgiven than any other person loved by the Lord.

But it is true that many sins and actions have consequences that are devastating and long lasting for the sinner and for those around him/her.

Maybe I drive drunk only one time with a horrible result. Maybe someone shoots a gun in the air for joy but the bullet hits a child.

The context of my thoughts: A respected mentor to a person I care about has admitted sexually inappropriate behavior. The news reports state that it wasn’t illegal behavior. The mentor had to resign his position.

Now the people around him have complex emotions to deal with. His institution is tainted in some people’s eyes. And other people he was a mentor to may have some of this reflected on them. All his good work is tainted by one action.

My thinking on this matter is no longer simplistic. This doesn’t mean that I excuse this behavior. But I know that God forgives.

May God work peace in the hearts of all affected by this situation.

is Sunday your Sabbath? What do you do?

The news story about the Lutheran woman who won a case because she didn’t want to be forced to work on Sundays interested me. Here are some thoughts that have been swirling in my mind regarding when we worship and if there are alternatives provided for worshipers. Don’t expect any logical conclusions or logical progressions of ideas here. Hey, I’m Lutheran; I live in the “tension” and in “the question.”

When I was a child, the pastor preached from the pulpit that women shouldn’t work, and people shouldn’t work on Sundays. Well, his wife was a nurse. When they needed her income because their boys would soon be going to college, she went to work. And being a nurse, she often had to work on Sundays. Of course, that was explained away as being one of those necessary jobs.

And, of course, when I was a child, most stores weren’t open on Sundays. Or evenings. People actually had to plan better. And the economy wasn’t as vigorous. I really don’t know how families got their business done. Dad would have taken the car to work, and by the time he was home, mom could shop, but many of the stores were closed.

Sunday worship was a given. Most churches I was aware of had at least two services on Sunday morning, so there was some choice and flexibility. Large churches had many Sunday services.

In the area where I currently live, most of the churches have only one Sunday morning service. My church has toyed with the idea of an alternative worship time for years, but there were always arguments against this, such as the pastor’s preaching not being as fresh, the organist had too far to drive to do it twice; we would lose the “sense of family” which one service provided. [Wednesday evening Lenten services are attended by a committed group of about 50 people.]

Meanwhile, the local Catholic Church with a priest who is already stretched by serving churches in two towns has provided a Saturday alternative mass for years.

And the culture has changed. The Big Box stores opened on Sundays.
The local stores have to be open at least a few hours on Sundays to keep from losing too much business. More restaurants are open on Sundays. Lots of people have developed a tradition of going out to eat after Sunday services. And we pick up groceries of the way home from church, as well. At the grocery store close to church, they have a predictable “Lutheran Hour” as well as a “Baptist Hour.”

We used to have a Sunday School class at church for teens. Now the conventional wisdom is that “they have to work on weekends.”

And people travel more on weekends.

Last year my pastor said to me, “People don’t go to church as much as they used to.” We all know that. But the next weekend, as I was eating in a restaurant on a Sunday morning because I was on my way to my daughter’s concert at a Lutheran College, I suddenly had this light bulb moment. Christians are contributing to this cultural change of people not attending church “because they have to work on weekends.”

That begs several questions for me: Are we commanded to worship on Sundays? Is an alternative worship time acceptable (to God) Biblically? Do our churches serve our populations by providing an alternative worship time?

Two other notes: While surfing some other Lutheran blogs, I ran across opinions about worshiping on other days being wrong. This made me wonder about doctrine of various churches on this point.

I recently received a book in the mail from an acquaintance called, “Ten Commandments Twice Removed” by Shelton and Quinn. This apparently has Seventh Day Adventist overtones, but doesn’t overtly say so. It does promote worship during the OT Sabbath day. On the back cover it says, “Is our defense of the Ten Commandments triggered simply by a sentimental interest of Christian culture? Is it possible the Church stands before God as guilty as our government for discarding the Decalogue?”

The danger of spiritual isolation

Haggard and the Challenge of Finishing Well

"In his book The Making of a Leader, Dr. Robert Clinton of Fuller Seminary notes that few leaders finish well…including less than 30% of leaders in the Bible! Even many of the biblical figures who did finish well--Jacob, Moses, Aaron and David, to name but a few--experienced significant moral lapses in mid-race that undermined their ministries......."

Seven Deadly (Inward) Sins

The situation of Rev. Haggard somehow made me think of the Seven Deadly Sins, which I was able to look up on Ask.com, see below. "Sin" is not listed in two encyclopedias I consulted.

The ancient Christians came up with this list that is certainly relevant in any era. It is interesting to me that it isn't exactly a parallel to the Ten Commandments, although several of these are are about "coveting" what others have. Luther's explanations of the commandments explain not only what we are NOT to do, but also what we are TO DO. In that way, I find them a good summary to think of when I confess my sins of omission on Sunday mornings.

The short explanation of the Seven Deadly Sins, as listed below, shows that each has a spiritual dimension. They are sins that happen primarily within ourselves, in our own minds and hearts and spirits. In a superficial sense, they don't hurt other people, at least not in the short run.
I am also struck by the correspondence of these sins to the values that are encouraged in contemporary American culture. They may, in some respects, be the fuel of our economy. These Sins can put us on an unhealthy treadmill we can't escape, and which leaves us no time for Sabbath and spiritual reflection.

How do our American churches encourage these "values?"

Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.

Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.

Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.

Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.

Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.

Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.

Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.

Vatican Against Hanging Saddam

The Catholic beliefs on the sanctity of life extends to Saddam Hussein, who was condemned to be hanged.

Enjoying church???

While I was gone again this past week, I ran across a local opinion newspaper called the Reader Weekly (www.readerweekly.us). Unfortunately, they are behind in posting to the web. I do love well written opinion pieces. This newspaper is definitely full of opinions, and they don't slant to the right! It would probably go up in flames if touched by a Christian-right-Republican. It was interesting, none-the-less.

One article, by Paul Ryan, was entitled, "Nobody enjoys church, not even God." Basically, the guy doesn't like anything about traditional church services. And who ever said that we all have to have the same taste in anything? His concluding paragraph says, in part, "The main problem with church services is they just don't inspire me.....If I'm going to attend something meant to enlighten me, I'd sure as hell better feel at least partly enlightened when it's done. Instead, I just sit there bored, feeling guilty every time I check my watch.....Some church leaders would have us believe that it's our fault for not being interested but is it really? It's not my job to make church relevant. Relate to me, or I'll just stay home and watch football...."

Which begs the question, "why do people attend church anyway?"

I guess I attend both to worship (what I do) and to be fed (what comes to me) through the service. Each week the percentage of each probably varies. Sometimes I attend out of habit, sometimes because there is something special going on, and sometimes I really do want to be there to worship. A Catholic friend of mine says she would tell her kids when they complained about having to attend church, "If you don't have one thing to give thanks for from this past week, well, then you have a sad life."

But who can blame the writer, or any person who has a less-than-deep understanding of the "worship" service for feeling as he does? Perhaps this is why there is a segment of the American Christian church that uses entertainment type music and preaching and other "attractions." Maybe it is meant to hook people with the secular-type goodies, and then give a dollop of the Word of God, but maybe don't be too challenging with what part of the word is preached.

I saw a church ad in the Rochester, Mn newspaper last week for a church which stated, "We are not seeker sensitive and not purpose driven." Now that made me wonder if they are insensitive and without purpose.

Last weekend I attended the church of a relative. It is an old fashioned type of Lutheran Church. The songs dragged on and I could hardly hear anybody singing but us. The liturgy was scant (that is what is in their book.) And the preacher gave a very basic sermon based on Jeremiah 11:18-20 titled, "It's in the Lord's Hands." I felt like he was talking to me and the others as if we were in 2nd grade. The whole theme was how God takes care of His people. If this had been in my own church, you can bet I'd have found a chance to ask the pastor, "But what about ____ and ____???"

Well, as soon as we got up to leave, I said to my companion, "I don't think he could preach that sermon the Sunday after someone in his congregation was murdered." My companion responded, "And not after the Tsunami." That was not the Word of God one could fall back on during hard times.

Quite frankly, I did my best to listen well, to sing praises, to participate during the liturgy, but I didn't feel all that worshipful during those draggy hymns, nor was I fed or inspired.

Hmmmm, why attend church?

DOUBT

stolen saying:

Faith Needs Doubt Like Children Need Love

Idealism and do questions have answers?

Here is an interesting discussion by Julie Bogart about looking back at Christian gatherings where she heard messages about Christian idealism and how the young listeners should go out and change the world.

Perfectionism

Ashley Judd is quoted here
as saying, "A wonderful pastor once told me, 'Perfectionism is the highest order of self-abuse,"' she tells the magazine. "So now I try to remind myself that if I engage in perfectionism, I am abusing myself. Period."

This interested me because I read once in a Christian women's magazine that women who are perfectionistic housekeepers never feel good enough. This can be a spiritual problem, because if one "isn't good enough" then it is hard to accept true Grace and feel forgiven.

How do you react to the quote and the concept from that magazine?

Like a Mustard Seed

"What shall we say the kindom of God is like?....It is like a mustard seed.....when it is planted, it grows and becoms the largest of all the garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade."

People in farm country know that the mustard is a weed. It is from the family Cruciferae, so named because their 4 petals form a cross. There are 138 species in our area.

We don't know which species Jesus had in mind, but we don't have one here that grows into a bush.

Our pastor pointed out that Jesus often turned conventional wisdom up side down, and in this case, we could conclude from the context of the previous section of the Gospel of Mark that Jesus may have been saying, "The kingdom of God is like a weed." The seed sprouts and grows even though the farmer doesn't know how.

We need to plant the good seed, but God through the Spirit grows it, and then we need to be ready for the harvest.

There ARE good people!

My son, who lives in a big city, just called to tell me that he lost something valuable on Friday and it was turned in today, so he can go and reclaim it. 

Da Vinci Code

We had a discussion on the Da Vinci Code at church this evening, led by the pastor and by a man who used to be an English teacher who has read and researched some of this same material.

The pastor took the approach that rather than say this book was good or bad, true or false, let's discuss it and use it as an opportunity to learn about the history of the church. Most of the time was spent on early church history and the early Christian writings and how that became the canon, and how Dan Brown used this as fact or fiction in the book.

I think the pastor had an interesting approach. The first topic of discussion was what do we believe. So people contributed several central Christian beliefs and the pastor listed them. Later when some topics came up that were, perhaps, written up as truth in the novel, but may be just from Brown's imagination, the pastor asked, "if these things were true, how would that change our core beliefs?" The answer was clear: our beliefs would remain the same.

The pastor also made an interesting point about Mary Magdalene: If you take a more women-centered view of the Bible than has been traditional, then she is the apostle to the apostles (rather than a nobody or a prostitute.) But if she indeed married Jesus and bore his child, as the book's theme proposes, then she is a notable person because of her husband. In other words, she is "elevated" not for feminist reasons.

"What Price Revenge?"

Out of the Middens, who obviously knows something of the Bible but is perhaps not a current believer, ponders the Biblical statement "Vengeance is mine" in her posting what prive revenge

Knowing Jesus...In our "Hearts" or in our "Head"

 

Or both?

 

I believe that God made the whole of us, so that if we are engaging only part of our being in our faith journey, then we are missing the whole of the Gifts that God has given us, although each person's gifts will be a bit different. 

 

The problem with too much emphasis on the feelings (so called-heart knowledge) is that when we have down times, we might think we've strayed from being saved, i.e. we don't "feel" saved.  And the bigger problem with that, from a Lutheran point of view, is that we put the emphasis on what we have "done" or "felt" or a "decision we've made" rather than on what Jesus accomplished 2000 years ago. 

 

The problem with too much emphasis on the confessional type of faith, perhaps "head knowledge," is when it doesn't move beyond that.  At its worst, it is saying we are saved because we say we're saved just because we say the creed on Sundays.  At its best, a Confessional faith carries us through the down times of blah feelings of our faith because we Know (head knowledge based on the Bible) we are saved because of what Jesus did 2000 years ago.

 

I learned this last point in a very real way during a difficult time in my life.  I couldn't pray or truly participate in worship, but I learned that the Holy Spirit truly did dwell in me since the time of my baptism, just as I had been taught in the Lutheran Church.  I was "still saved" even though I wasn't able to put anything "into" this faith at that time.

 

Jesus did the work...so what is our response?  That is where others will see what this means to us.  Are we grateful?  Joyous?  Serving others?  Maybe these are the things that really make a difference between the head and heart knowledge.  This Lutheran message is a big deal.  Do we act like it is a big deal?  Not that these actions save us.   

 

 On the other hand, if we've come to faith because of hearing some preaching of the "feelings" of faith, that is still real faith, because faith comes from God.  And the Lutheran confessional way can help people like this who have down times.

 

Luther encouraged a daily decision to live in our baptismal covenant.    These are the thoughts, actions, prayers and feelings that we have based on our response to the Gospel message.  One of my favorite verses is 1 Peter 3:15.    It implies that there is outward evidence, perhaps joy, of the "hope that you have."   It goes on to mention "good behavior in Christ." 

 

 

I hope this clarifies my "feelings" and "thoughts" on my faith.  I think the verse from 1 Peter shows that somehow we tell others by the way that we live it out, not by theology.

 

Discussion prompted by God’s Upside Down Kingdom at http://frombelow.wordpress.com/

Invaders

The other day my husband joked with me when I made a slightly negative comment about the sea of yellow dandelions in our yard, “If they were considered flowers, you’d think they were pretty.”

Today I was doing yard work that included trying to clip out an invasive perennial plant that has grown in, around, and behind my favorite early summer perennials. I did not plant that invasive plant; it just showed up and started taking over about 12 years ago, spreading more each year. At this point in the season, it is as tall as my favorite plant, which will grow at least another foot in the next month. But my favorite is on the verge of blooming now. I want to see the flowers!

My choices to defeat the invader: fully dig out the whole garden, thereby having everything have to start over as a small plant; weed-whack in-between the “good plants,” likely whacking a couple of the good stalks in the process; treating with a kill-everything spray judiciously, (yeah right); and/or clip out the major stalks of the invader just to keep it shorter than my preferred plant.

But isn’t this plant also one of God’s plants? His Creation?

And isn’t this how we deal with people that we consider “other?” Or evil? Are they not also God’s creation?

Or shall we see the invader as sin and spin a metaphor on how we deal with sin in our midst? Or the threat of sin… How do we keep our kids away from sin and sinful things away from our kids? Do we just keep our plants/our kids in the “green house” away from everything, including God’s rain and wind? Do we whack out the offending things/people/places/entertainment and, in the process, smack the kids or the kids’ spirits as well?

Help, I need a plant prophet.

How does God act in this world?

a new life emerging pointed out this powerful article The fragile mortality of God by Julie Bogart this morning. I have to agree with one of the over-all points that we often have to come up with our own theology to explain God and our relationship to/with God. There are so many contradictions and questions in the usual explanations about God and God's actions/non-actions in the world. Can we explain away the contradictions? Can we live in the tensions of the paradoxes? Does God really stir His/Her finger in the pot that is the earth? This article lays out some hard issues that I don't always want to think about.

Why it is hard for non-Christians to take (our) religion seriously.

Out of the Middens makes some pointed comments about the role of Christian faith in the lives of some prominent people in the US.

Lay, Mister Lay, Lay

Good questions

http://justjosmidden.blogspot.com/  Out of the Middens asks some good questions about the current political games, excuse me, climate that is going on.  Someone I know called their congressmen's answering machines 'cause you can't get through to the real people, and said that this tax cut was immoral.