Jesus Christ – Page 17 – Salvaged Faith

Moltmann Conversation – Notes from 101 w/ Danielle Shroyer

Posted on September 10, 2009Leave a comment

Moltmann 101

I. impressionistic theologian (nice analogy)

II. Life
A. Hamburg, Germany, secular parents, commune?, spent time gardening on Sunday mornings
B. Loved Einstein, mathematics, science – apathetically joined the Hitler Youth – but was a terrible soldier, German POW – learned about God in the POW educational camp
C. Struck by the power of the story when reading the bible
D. Started theological training, pastor, professor
E. Because of lack of training – not a systematic theologian – not start with doctrines

III. Method
A. Started not by a narrow focus, but through the broadest lens possible and started with eschatology – changed the method of how people understood eschatology
B. We can see doctrine in how it relates to everything else
C. Trilogy! (not intentional)
D. People wanted him to do systematics – no way!
E. Influenced by many other theologians along the way

IV. Theology of Hope
A. Came out at a time when it was a faux paux to talk about eschatology – we are rational men who shouldn’t talk about that tacky subject…. So Moltmann writes all about eschatology
B. The idea that we are too “modern” for eschatology is stupid – unhistorical historicity – you have created a way of speaking of the world that is not grounded in anything real whatsoever
C. The one thing that makes this life real is that we have a hope in something that is coming in the FUTURE
D. Promise of God always taking us towards a future horizon
E. It’s not something we tack on to the end of dogmatics, but it is the medium of Christian faith as such – the glow that suffucies everything here in the dawn of an expectant new day
F. The minute we turned to despair we instantly stop believing in Jesus – if we believe in Easter, we can’t be people of despair!
G. Why do we hope? What gives us the right to have this hope? Because the way God reveals Godself is by saying “I promise…” and God does. “I promise I will make all things new!” so we are constantly facing that future of hope
H. In America – hope has become the opiate of the masses, a joke that people who can’t get their lives together talk about: Moltmann – hope is not in any sense an opiate for the masses – it is the very thing that makes us feel like we understand the mission of God in the world!!! Hope is what makes us point at an injustice and say – that’s not right! Hope makes us people of protest, because we have not bought into the fact that this is all there is
I. Hope makes us antsy – we can’t feel settled in this world because we have to point out the things that aren’t right and say that there is a day when things will be right.

V. The Crucified God
A. Good Friday and Easter are inseperable realities – so when you talk about hope, you have to talk about what gives us that hope. IMMEDIATE response to the first book.
B. Smackdown moment: soteriology – most theologians only have the sense of thinking about what it does for “sin management” – how does it help me NOT die; cur dues homo – why did God die? However we have to work it, we just want to make sure we are good to go.
1. Moltmann comes and says – hmm, I wonder what the cross meant for God! What did God feel on Good Friday? What was it like for God the Father watch his son die?
2. completely alters the trajectory of soteriology
3. a lot of dialogue with nihilism… at the cross your faith dies, or it should, because look at what really happened
4. but this is where it actually begins Moltmann says… you have to look at Jesus on the cross, as a God who died and suffered among us. You think you understand what it means to look into the abyss? The existential abyss is nothing compared to the abyss of what it means for God to LET God die!!
5. the place where godlessness and godforsakenness comes together
6. godlessness – the killing of innocent life
7. godforsaken – a death you did not deserve
C. Theodicy – God as despot, divine child abuse, God becomes this mean judge; so, we think that is terrible and we try to step in and do something, but then we become despots ourselves and we decide who suffers where and when.
1. God SUFFERS on the cross – there is no impassable God.
2. And God is right in the middle of suffering – God isn’t on the outside listening to his son call for him and not answering, but is also there on the cross calling out not hearing a response
D. Metaphor of intersection – God being in every place “no one can love the cross, it’s awful” But in this place of the intersection, all sorts of separate things fight for one another, atheism vs. theism, death vs. life, hope vs. despair, godforsakenness vs. god-loving, divine vs. human…. All dialectical understandings of our faith collide in this moment
E. Radical break between the reality of the cross where all of these things are fighting and the resurrection. “money move – checkmate!” Because all of those things that were colliding, are answered in the cross – there is a victory! If you go all the way down into the abyss – Easter Sunday encompasses all of creation all victory, all beauty.
F. He took suffering seriously without telling us to go out and seek suffering or without condoning suffering. – this suffering happened only in context of who God is.
G. If we’re going to call ourselves theologians, everytime we come up with something we believe about God, we need to stick it at the foot of the cross – the litmus test for what we understand about Jesus, God, the world, etc.

VI. The Church of the Power of the Spirit
A. Really pastoral and practical, because he didn’t just want to talk about ideas all the time – the mission and act of the people of the faith in the world is VERY important to him = the mission of the church is what this is all about.
B. Hope is not other worldly, I talk about the future, because it’s the only time that makes the present make any sense
C. Giving bearings to the church…. I feel like we are grasping for what our bearings our, lost our sense of the way, lost our direction. I want to help provide some bearings for that course.
D. We have become a people who are too concerned with religious institutions (God, spirituality, Jesus, religion) and have stopped actually living life.
E. Wrote in the hopes that people would live the Christian life again!!! A messianic fellowship. We are the people who get together and actively wait for the coming of Jesus, for the future of God, for the coming of the new creation
F. Sunday: talk about and figure out ways to live out our future reality. And then do it!
G. Church = gathered people who anticipate and work toward coming kingdom 1) before God, 2) before others, 3) before the future…. What will the future say about the Christianity we follow? What will others say about the work we are doing? What will God think about how we are living our faith? (MISSION!!!)
H. God’s glory – the goal of the church = to glorify God. But the deal is, we glorify God by working towards God’s end goal: the redemption and liberation of all creation…. God doesn’t WANT to be glorified unless it’s by the redemption and liberation of all creation…. God doesn’t want to just be glorified for Glory’s sake.
1. Heaven and earth declare God’s glory.. when the shalom of the city is working, then the glory is there!
2. We’ve made God’s glory so far out of our cosmic realm that we don’t even know what we are talking about… but it is something that we practice and work at NOW
I. We tend to ask as theologians really dumb questions in ecclesiology – the more interesting question is WHERE is church? Our job as people of God is not to say what the church is, but to point to where the coming kingdom is. Then we aren’t about the business of protecting “the church” – so if something is happening that is a glimpse of the KOG – and it’s not in church – woo hoo!!!! Celebrate the presence of the church wherever we find it – liberates us to live in the world fully, instead of ghetto-ized Christians.
J. We don’t need to make absolute claims, or totalize belief, we just have to point to hope.

VII. Contributions to Theology Books:
A. Trinity of the Kingdom
1. theology of the social trinity… doesn’t care about the homo usia conversation or the subject conversation…
2. The New Testament talks aobut God by proclaiming in narrative the relationships of F/S/HS – relationships of fellowship open to the world. We know what the trinity is based on the narrative of the story. The story says this – so lets just read the story.
3. These relationship that we see are ones of fellowship – NOT hierarchy – that has been opened to the world.
4. Trinity in the Kingdom – because in this fellowship we are invited into the life of God in the world.
5. UNITY _ we are still monotheists! Ecumenical, pluralistic conversations
6. F/S are one – not one and the same.
7. not numerical unity, but same divine life/goal/love
8. not worried about tasks of the Trinity… in a relational sense, they don’t need work duties/job descriptions… but changing patterns. NOT STATIC
a. The spirit sends and is sent, the spirit is the one who sends Jesus into the world as the Kingdom Come.
b. Not a triangle – but a circle!!!
9. “relationship of F/S/HS is so wide that the whole creation can find space, time and freedom in it”
10. the way that we understand how God makes time space and freedom for all of us to exists and live and move and have our being.
11. perichoresis! =) round dance, mutual indwelling
a. each one always yields to the other in this dance, mutual submission.
12. Isaac Loreas? Zimsum = expanding and contracting, heartbeat of the world where the love of God are constantly expanding and contracting in this perichoretic dance and in this space we are invited and we experience life.
13. eternity breathes itself in between these relationship so as to breathe out the spirit of life.
14. ALWAYS connected to the kingdom. God isn’t just God apart from us – if that is so, in any case, we don’t know it.
15. Moltmann NEVER separates God from the world.

B. God in Creation
1. tension between immanence and transcendence
2. in creation there is a secret hiding of this tension, because God is present and indwelling – as those who have been created by this relational God, God is already present
3. in heaven – relative transcendence, on earth – relative immanence – there is a space between where we wait…. (future of hope!)
4. God is present now, and yet God is not fully present now. 1 Cor. – the promise to end all promises is that God will be all in all.
5. so now, there is this secret (God is dwelling in the world!) but not FULLY – insomuch as we see creation, we can say God is here, but in the future, God will be there even more so.
6. Panentheism – middle ground between Pantheism (God is everything) but also not so radically separate from creation that we cant’ access God here. God indwells in creation by the fact that God made it – we bear the image of the one who created us… all of the cosmos has this indelible image of God
7. World of nature bears the prints of the triune God, so we can access the idea of the day God will be God all in all.
8. $move – we got wrong the way we tell the creation story – God made these things… to get to the part where WE show up… the problem with that way of talking is that it assumes that WE are the crown of God’s creation, but we aren’t… Sabbath!!! IS =) God finished the creation, receded back into who God was and rested, rested as being God over and in creation. “the God who rests in the face of his creation does not dominate the world on this day, He feels the world, he allows himself to be affected, to be touched by each of his creatures”
9. The act of creation did in some sense change God. God could always create – but after having created, he’s different. (isn’t this the reality for parents?)
10. This is not an act of dominance – Sabbath is the eschatological place of HOPE – that reminds us why all of this creating happened. Something inherently eschatological about Sabbath… the day that we rest from our work of trying to make the kingdom come and we trust in the fact that the kingdom WILL come. 6 days we labor and we are the people of promise and on the 7th day we stop, lest we get too big for our britches and we worship God and say, we trust you are the God who will make this happen – that we trust you will make this happen.
11. the way that we recognize our relationship with the presence of God in creation. Not only do we rest in God, but on that day, God is also on the Sabbath resting in us.
12. Ecological issues in 1985 – not just about interpersonal power, but our relationship with the creation itself. Not here to gather information for dominance sake, but so that we can participate in the kingdom through the creation.
13. Jubilee – the Sabbath – when we divest ourselves of things in order to further the kingdom we show that we trust in it enough to be a part of it. The feast of redemption
14. first six days – yet not complete. Sabbath is the crowing moment (good, not complete) God is still creating after the first Sabbath
15. The Fall – he doesn’t think that any fall would take away the imprint of the Triune God that is on creation… no sense of our brokenness takes away the fact that God made us. the broken places are still held up in the life of God, and will not be left untended
16. possibility for Godforsakenness – pulls back so that there is a space for us
17. Time = the future of Christ is truly an unfinished future that is really a question mark – everything is up for debate. When we put our trust in Christ, we are trusting in the hope of the one who has always been faithful to God’s promises. Not because we know exactly what will happen, but because we trust in God.

C. The Way of Jesus Christ
1. really good Christology
2. but does Christology in a really open way… because Jesus is still on the way somewhere! All of our Christilogy has to be a theology on the move towards the coming future
3. life lived out in Christ, with Christ, out of expectation of Christ

D. The Spirit of Life (1991)
1. wholistic pnumatology – we normally put her in a tiny box. And add little tiny things we don’t understand there.
2. we feel embarrassed to talk about the Spirit.
3. The Spirit is not some thing off in some other corner, but every experience of life that is joyful is the presence of the spirit!
4. If you go out to dinner and had a good time – the spirit was there, it was life-giving =) all of life that is lived and experienced and enjoyed is done so because of God.
5. no need to separate “more” and “less” religious experiences. The spirit really did come and stay at Pentecost – no reason not to talk about the Spirit!!!
6. God is bound to creation in love = God created in love, so we are beloved. The problems start to happen when we turn away from being God’s beloved – we become miserable and aggressive and mean and angry and selfish and greedy. Because we forgot that we are beloved. “the whole misery of men and women comes from a love of God that has miscarried”
7. Spirit of Love births life to us – and all those places where that experience isn’t fully birthed is where the love of God has miscarried.
8. Full person of the Trinity – beckoning the future to come forth, showing us what it means to bring the future into the present, who makes the KOG to come in Jesus, Breath and Space…. Ruach and Ruah, (in German too!)
a. Breath calls creation into being, breathed out onto the world (valley of dry bones, creation, etc) but also Space (Ps 31) – a broad place, room to move, liberates us to live our lives with freedom – the creative passion for the possible. Downpayment for what is to come. Anytime we feel moved to do something really beautiful in the world – that’s because it’s what is coming – holds us over – keeps us in that hope – helps us protest in all the right ways.

E. Coming of God
1. homeless Shekinah – God is homeless here, so we celebrate God on the Sabbath, but this is not fully God’s home. At the coming of God, the Shekinah will become fully permanent here. When the temple was destroyed, the spirit is holding us together from Sunday to Sunday, but at the coming of God, the Shekinah will be homeless no longer
2. Four Horizons – for God’s glory, new creation, history of humans with the earth, resurrection and eternal life… we tend to do it backwards

F. Experiences in Theology
1. capped off the last books, discussed method of theology – theology is just experimenting in creativity. He just played in something that captivated his imagination.
2. through his theology, he has come into conversation with so many people that he wants to offer his thoughts – Mirror Theology (black theology for whites, feminist theology for men, etc…)

Proclaiming the Word

Posted on August 23, 2009Leave a comment

In our passage from Ephesians this morning, we hear two very important, complimentary lessons.

First – God is One. There is One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, One Spirit, One Hope, One Body, ONE!

A few weeks ago, as I first introduced these elements of worship, we looked at the very simple message that Isaiah heard proclaimed in his vision. I forgive you, I love you, and I have a job for you. It’s short, It’s simple, in some ways, It is a summary of the entire Biblical tradition. Repeat it with me. I forgive you, I love you, and I have a job for you.

All of those “ONE’s” that we just heard about – they each have to do with this core message. We are forgiven by One Lord, through our One Faith, and in our One Baptism. We experience God’s love through the One Body. And empowered by the One Spirit, we are called to One common Hope.

That call is the Second lesson for this morning. The Word of God gave each of us a gift – a task – a calling… and these gifts, though united in purpose, are as varied as we are.

At annual conference this year, our resident artist, Ted Lyddon Hatten, created a color wheel out of chairs. Each one of the 16 chairs represented a different part of the color wheel.

Now, when we talk about light and color, we may remember from our childhood that white light is made up of many different wavelengths. Blues and Reds and Greens and Yellows all come together to create what we see as white. But in certain situations, that light is broken up, it is refracted, and we see a rainbow. We see the beauty of difference in what once appeared to be unified.

The color wheel is in some ways like that. If we mixed them all together, we would get a muddled and icky brown color – but individually, if we allow them to be in relationship, to compliment one another, our pictures become more vivid and brighter and full of life.

God’s Word – rather than being black and white words on a page that never change – is alive and varied and moving among us – as different as each of these sixteen chairs and sixteen colors. And the Word of God who is Jesus Christ chose us to carry the word to one another.

As The Message translation interprets this passage: You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly… BUT that doesn’t mean you should all look and speak and act the same. Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his own gift.

In different times, in different places, and to different people, the Word of God is revealed.

In part, that’s what we saw in our children’s time today.

Each one of our senses, though different, experience the same God – they just do it in different ways.

Each sense is like a chair around this table. And when we put all of those messages together: the smells of Christmas, the taste of bread, the sight of the empty cross, the feel of cleansing water, the sounds of love – we find we have written one story: We are forgiven, We are Loved, and We have a job to do.

The One Body of Christ is a lot like this circle of chairs also. Because each of us are different people. We are each called and gifted and blessed in different ways. We each have unique and beautiful life experiences to share. Some of us have spent our whole lives working with the soil. Some of us have spent our entire lives helping and serving others. Some of us are young and have fresh eyes with which to look at the world. Some of us have experienced profound pain in our lives. Some of us work with machines, and others of us work with our minds.

And in all of those very different experiences, we have each felt the love and grace of God, although none of us in quite the same way.

Because of our difference – we are all a part of the Body of Christ. Because of our difference – we all have a seat at this table. Because of our difference – we all are called to proclaim the Word of God.

What I notice about this list of gifts here in Ephesians, is that none of these gifts call for silence. As Paul begs the people of Epheses to live up to their calling, he says that some of us are apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers… but NONE of us are benchwarmers. NONE of us get to watch. ALL of us have something to share in ministry, all of us have to build up one another up, all of us are needed. The circle of chairs isn’t complete without the Word that each of us has to offer.

When Paul writes this letter to the Ephesians, he’s locked up in jail because of proclaiming the Word. And what does he have to say as a word of encouragement: Get out there and walk – better yet, run! – on the road God has called you to travel. I don’t want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don’t want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes no where… Grow up! Know the truth that is in your heart and tell it in love. (adapted from The Message)

In many ways, that is what the Roundtable Pulpit conversations are about every Tuesday morning. It’s a chance to sit together with the scriptures and for me to hear the truth that each of you has to speak around that table. It’s an acknowledgement that even though I am the pastor, I don’t have a monopoly on the Word of God – we all have something to contribute.

It is the same spirit behind a very old tradition called Lectio Divina, or Holy Reading, that has been transformed into a new practice in some congregations. All of those who gather around the table are invited to hear the word of God, ponder it in their hearts and then speak the truths that they have received. And as we celebrate the word this morning, I want to invite you to practice this with me.

First of all, I need for all of us to find here in the sanctuary a small group of people – five or six is a good size, and make sure you are close enough to hear one another speak. Once we are all settled, I’ll have a few more instructions =)

Lectio Divina has four parts and the easy way to remember is that they all have something to do with eating. First, we take a bite of the scripture, we pay attention to a word or phrase that jumps out at us as we hear and read it. Second, we chew on that word or phrase as we hear the scripture a second time – why did it speak to us? what does it have to say? Third, we savor and celebrate the Word that has come to us by sharing it with others. Fourth, we digest the Word and make it a part of our lives.

We will go through each of these four stages together, and before each one, I will read our scripture, and then invite you to share with those around you how you would respond to the question on the screens.

Fear of the Unknown

Posted on August 19, 2009Leave a comment

This morning my husband and I were rudely awakened by a very loud rustling and movement zooming into our bedroom. The commotion stopped dead underneath the bed. As I shrieked, sure that some kind of creature the size of a racoon was surely about to attack me, I kind of halfway woke up. And then it was quiet.

A minute or two later, there was a zooming from underneath the bed to behind the bookcase – nothing has ever moved that fast in my life ever… I was a bit terrified.

Then there was nothing.

Two more minutes went by and as my husband assured me it was just the cats fighting, ZOOM! the ball of confusion split out of the bedroom, down the hall, to who knows where.

Our cat Turbo had gotten tangled in a grocery bag after he tried to get the garbage out of it. His midsection had squeezed through the handle, and now he couldn’t get it off – and he was running for his life trying to escape the terrifying rustle of very thin plastic behind him.

The faster he ran, the more noise it made, the more he was scared and the faster he ran.

When we finally tracked him down, we lifted him from behind the tv stand in the basement and pulled the bag from him. And he cowered in fear and trembling.

Now – bear with me a minute – but I wonder if the current health care reform mess isn’t a lot like that bag.

For whatever reason, the cat was curious about the bag – he wanted what was inside. But halfway through the process he got all tangled up in it, and not fully understanding what was happening, he became frightened of it.

As people who live in this country, we too are in this health care bag already. We got the government in the bag to regulate the health care industry, through the FDA, through Medicare for grandma. We got ourselves in the bag through our employeer based insurance, through not taking care of our bodies, through seeking a better quality of life for ourselves and our loved ones. Even those who don’t have health care insurance are in the bag because they find themselves in life or death situations where they have to turn to hospitals and the rest of us pay. Our faith communites are in the bag because we have vital and important words from scriptures about what it means to care for the least of these and whole chapters in the gospels where Jesus goes around healing people without asking for their HMO card.

We’re already in the bag. And the bag isn’t working. It’s tearing, it’s pulling too tightly on some parts of us. It’s broken and our relationship with the bag is broken.

So now the question is how to get out of this mess we are in. How do we make sure that people are taken care of? How do we provide quality affordable care?

So there was an initial rustle of movement – and all hell broke loose. And now we are running around like chickens with our heads cut off (or like cats stuck in a plastic bag) desperately afraid of what might happen, this bag attatched to us transformed into a crazed monster that is about to destroy the world.

Let’s chill out people. Calm down. And let’s gently figure out how to get the cat out of the bag.

Dance Like No One is Watching

Posted on August 9, 2009Leave a comment

Perhaps you have heard the story of the church on the corner of Main and Broad streets. It was stately and magnificent in structure and style. Much love and caring were shared
between the members.

One particular Easter Sunday, the seats were filled to capacity. Participants sat in pews wearing their Sunday best, smiling graciously and nodding to acknowledge each other and the guests. Everything seemed perfect.

Worship services were well under way when an unshaven man in a faded shirt came through the front door. His jeans were torn at the knees and ragged at the bottom, his sneakers tattered. His eyes searched for a seat at the rear of the room, but they were all filled. All eyes followed him as he made his way to the front of the church, still looking for a seat.

Reaching the first pew and still not finding anywhere to sit… or anyone who would make room, he folded his legs underneath himself and sat on the floor of the aisle.

Everybody was wondering who this was, but even more than that, they were wondering who was going to do something about it.. The organist began to play the opening hymn, but nobody was really listening.

A hush fell over the congregation as Mr. Sims, a stately old gentleman who had served as an usher for more than half a century, made his way slowly from the back of the church down the aisle.

Everybody knew what he was going to do. Somebody had to do something, afterall. Dressed in his usual three-piece black suit, he steadied himself with his silver-tipped cane. He walked down the aisle and he came up to the young man.

Everyone watched as the old man bent down and said: “I just want to say how good it is to have you here.” And Mr. Sims slowly lowered himself with great difficulty and sat down by the young visitor. He offered him a bulletin, and offered to share his hymnal. And they sat together, and they worshiped.

This morning – as we listen for what it means to worship God fully – to gather together and to praise our Creator – that story of the old man and the young man really speaks to me. You see, both of them took a risk to come together in the presence of God.

The young man was a stranger, coming in off the street, and even though everyone around him was dressed in their Sunday finest, he didn’t care what others thought. He didn’t care if everyone else was watching. He didn’t care if what he did by sitting there before God upset other people. He was coming to the Lord – and nothing was going to stop him.

In a similar manner, the older gentleman had just as much, if not more to lose. He was established and respected. Everyone in that church expected him to tell the young man to move, or to walk him out of the church for acting so “inappropriately.” But Mr. Sims broke with convention, broke with tradition, let go of his ways and let the Spirit guide him to the front of the church to sit down with that young man.

There is a quote, sometimes attributed to Mark Twain that goes:

Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you’ve never been hurt and live like it’s heaven on Earth

That is exactly what our older gentleman and the young guy were doing in that warm little story. And in our passage from the book of Samuel this morning – that kind of heartfelt abandon is depicted as King David leads the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem for the very first time.

For years, the ark has been in the hands of the Philistines – but to go and recapture the ark and to bring it to Jerusalem… the place David has set up as his royal city… means that David is showing how his rule with connected to the lordship, power, and presence of God.

At the outset of this journey, David does what is expected of him. He gathers thirty thousand of his best men and they go and bring the ark up out of the place it has been. One would expect a solemn and formal military processional bringing this prized possession back into the hands of the Israelites. But our scripture tells us that King David led the celebration and they praised God with all of their might with songs and instruments and drums.

In fact, the people were so caught up in their celebration, that an accident occurred. As the ark was being carried over the terrain, one of the oxen stumbled and the ark nearly fell to the ground. But a man named Uzzah instinctively reached out to grab onto the ark and lift it to safety.

Whew, we might think to ourselves… disaster averted. But just like Isaiah’s encounter with God in the temple, we are reminded about just how holy – just how other – God really is. This ark was not simply a box holding some important documents – it was a sacred object that could bring both blessing and harm. It was to be touched and handled only by those who had properly prepared, only by the Levites. Just like the King Uzziah who later is cursed for entering the temple and burning incense to God on his own, the military commander Uzzah is punished for his act. He is instantly killed as a result of touching the ark.

Here, by the side of the road, in the middle of their journey, all of the celebrations stop. David is so troubled by these occurrences, so angry at God for what has happened, that he refuses to carry the ark the rest of the way to Jerusalem. He is afraid of what will happen when God’s presence comes into his royal city. He knows the wrongs he has done in his own life and doesn’t think he will last long in the power of God. David closes himself off to the promise and power of the ark and puts it in the safekeeping of a family in a village nearby.

David’s heartfelt abandon is closed off because of the fear of being burned, of being rejected, or being found unworthy.

I think that there are many people, probably here in this room this morning, whose hearts have been closed off. People who are afraid to let God in. People who are afraid to make a fool of themselves for God because of what others might think. People who aren’t quite sure they are ready to take the risk to celebrate with all of their might before God. Am I right?

One of my favorite biblical commentators, Kate Huey writes, “Jubilation is a word we rarely use, perhaps because such a feeling has been limited for many, for the most part, to sports and, perhaps, the occasional political victory. But what if we felt deep-down-in-our-hearts jubilation over what God is doing in our lives? Would we dance, too?

Henry Brinton has compared worship… to a modern dance solo by Paul Taylor, the dancer/choreographer who “simply stood motionless on stage for four minutes….The dancing we do in church tends to be quite similar to Paul Taylor’s solo. What we do is nothing – we just stand still, hardly moving a muscle. Our worship of God involves our minds, our hearts, and our tongues, but rarely our whole bodies.”

In the book, The Soul of Tomorrow’s Church, Kent Ira Groff writes that we need to include rhythm into every worship service. He quotes Brian Wren in saying that “rhythm tries to move you bodily.” No wonder that from forever and everywhere the drum has been an instrument of healing, reminiscent of the heartbeat of God – use in primal caves, rock bands, sophisticated symphonies. The pipe organ is a wonderful instrument… but in combining many instruments in one, it decreased the participation of the many…” When we clap our hands, or tap our toes, or play along on other instruments, we are joining the whole of creation in crying out with our whole bodies – the Lord is Good.

Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you’ve never been hurt and live like it’s heaven on Earth

Just like we might be afraid to step beyond our comfort zones and truly praise God with our whole bodies… just like we might be afraid to truly welcome into our midst those who don’t look anything like us… just like we might be afraid of what will happen if we open ourselves up to God’s presence… King David was afraid of what it meant to invite God into his city. He was afraid of what might happen to himself and his reign. In many ways, he rightly understood the holy power and otherness of the Lord… but he had let his fear overwhelm his ability to truly trust God.

For three months, things went on like this, until word came to David about the blessings that had come to the family the ark had been left with. A glimmer of possibility and trust began to burn again in David’s heart and he decided to try again.

The ark was taken out of the house and after just six steps, David was so overwhelmed with joy and thanksgiving that he sacrificed a bull and a calf. And he took off his royal garments and there in front of all the people he danced before God with all of his might. He shed his fear, he shed all of the expectations people had of him, he shed his denial of God’s holiness, and he worshipped and praised with heartfelt abandon.

As the dancing proceeded back to Jerusalem and as they got close to the city gates, David’s wife Michal saw him out there. She saw him without his royal robes, dancing among the commoners. She saw him making a fool of himself, rather than maintaining his composure.

When Michal confronted David about his actions his words were clear: It was before the LORD, who chose me that I danced—I will celebrate before the LORD. 22 I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes.”

He spoke with the same spirit that Paul did when he said that we should be fools for Christ – laying it all out on the line to praise and honor the God who gives us life.

That is a very different attitude towards worship than the one espoused by Michal… or by the Pharisees that Jesus encounters in our gospel reading. They were so caught up on tradition – on doing what they were supposed to, on what was appropriate and required, that they left their heart and mind and soul and body out of worship.

But Jesus words remind us that the outward trappings are not important. They don’t make us righteous or unrighteous, worthy or unworthy. It is our hearts that matter. It is what we give to God that matters. Or as our Psalter puts it…. we should come with clean hands and pure hearts before God… that we should come bringing our full selves with the right intentions.

Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you’ve never been hurt and live like it’s heaven on Earth

Come Away With Me

Posted on July 12, 2009Leave a comment

(Adapted from an article written in the Christian Century, 1996, “Watching from the boat,” by Martin B. Copenhaver)

I read this week in an article by Martin Copenhaver, about a pastor who resigned from a suburban church where relentless demands on his time and energy were beginning to wear him down. Instead of leaving the ministry all together, he became a missionary on the coast of Maine. In this new calling, he visits small Christian communities in isolated and remote places. Most of the things that he does there are the same as what he was doing in his church near the city – he preaches, teaches, and visits the sick. But there is a huge difference in doing these things in the hustles and bustle of the city and on the coast of Maine. “Between ports of call he travels long distances by boat. Between sermons he can listen to the wind. Before teaching another class he can study the horizon. After visiting the sick he is anointed with sea spray. Interspersed with his demanding pastoral duties he takes a watery road less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

When I read the story of that pastor, I realized how much I cherish the time I have away from this church. And I know that comes off the wrong way – but I, too, need time away from this building and this work, so that I can come back refreshed and replenished… re-created by God. Any afternoon I can get away to play a round of disc golf, or during the summer to sit by the water with family, is a moment that replenishes my body and soul in the same way.

There is a reason that our word for play time – recreation – can also be said re-creation… in our play, in our rest, in our time apart, we find the strength we need to begin anew.

So much emphasis in our world today is placed on productivity – on the hours we spend working and what we make out of that time. What we never stop and recognize is that constant productivity without rest, without renewal, only leads to failure.
This is the lesson that my dad has taught me many times in small ways throughout my lifetime. He has worked with his hands repairing equipment for as long as I can remember. And the rule he tries to live by on the farm is that it is better to fix a piece of equipment once and do it right, rather than patch it up quickly and get back out in the field. In the long run – that equipment will last longer and run better when you take the time out to repair it properly.

Unfortunately, that is a lesson my dad has also taught me through bad examples. While he takes care of his equipment, he doesn’t take very good care of his own body. He doesn’t stop for as long as he needs to in order to rest and replenish his most important tool. He pushes ahead, fitting as much into his day as possible, stopping here and there for a nap before heading out into the fields once more, or before working the night shift at Quaker. And now his body is wearing out faster than it needs to. Like that pastor from the suburbs – something needs to change, or someday he will have to quit the things that he loves all together.

In our gospel lesson from Mark this morning, Jesus has something to teach us about rest – about Sabbath – about re-creation. As Copenhaver points out, “Jesus and his disciples cross the Sea of Galilee so many times that it is hard to” figure out what they are doing and why they are doing it. “Until the sixth chapter, that is, when the reason for the crossings is clear: the disciples need a break.

“The Twelve had just returned from their first mission. On that mission they discovered, perhaps to their surprise, that they could do much of what they had observed Jesus do. They were empowered to teach, preach and heal. They left on the mission as disciples, but when they returned, flushed with success, Mark refers to them as apostles for the first time. It was a new title signifying a new relationship with Jesus. No longer were they disciples with mere “learner’s permits,” unable to do anything on their own. They had been sent forth with the authority of a commission. They were apostles. When the apostles returned to Jesus they had stories to tell and victories to savor.”

I can picture a scene in which twelve children return home from the first day of school and crowd around their mother or father anxious to share all of the exciting and amazing things that had happened that day. All twelve voices are trying to speak at the same time, outdoing one another with stories, trying to worm their way into the conversation. In my house, there were just three of us children, and even our three little voices could exhaust my mother in about five minutes!

And that was only when we had Mom’s undivided attention! Other days, the phone was ringing off the hook, usually she had just gotten home from work herself and was trying to unload from her day, dinner was waiting to be made… you get the picture.
I remember a little sign that my mom had hanging up in the kitchen when we were kids, that said “take a number.” I’m not sure that we ever used the cute little numbers painted onto die-cut apples, but I remember thinking as I got older that perhaps she didn’t need to be overwhelmed by all of us at once.

The apostles return from their first missionary experience, but they too, had to take a number. Jesus was surrounded by people who needed healing, guidance, who were seeking peace, and there just wasn’t the time or space they needed to stop and debrief.

Those disciples wanted to tell him everything, but they were hot and tired and hungry and exhausted, so Jesus found a small window of opportunity and suggested that they get in a boat and seek a deserted place.

“Come away with me by yourselves… come and get some rest.”

That boat ride to the other shore was a moment of fresh air. It was the sea breeze blowing over the missionary pastor on the coast of Maine. It was the gentle wind that blows through the trees on hole 3 at the Sugar Bottom disc golf course. The apostles relaxed in the boat, took turns telling their stories, took turns listening, dug into their sacks for a piece of bread, and replenished their souls.

“When they reached the shore, however, they discovered that a crowd had followed them… The sick had run, hobbled, or been carried to meet Jesus… The people waiting for them looked like a huge gathering of baby birds, their hunger so constant that their mouths were always opened wide. It was enough to overwhelm a mere apostle. But Jesus had compassion on the crowd and began once again to feed them with his words.”

Can you imagine being in the middle of your rest and renewal, your vacation, your one day off and getting a call from the office? Having a family emergency that pulls you away? Even though it is your work, or your family, or even something that you might love… because your time of re-creation is interrupted, you get a little irritated.

If we were to continue on with our reading in the gospel of Mark this morning, the apostles did just that. As Jesus stood on the shore teaching and healing, his disciples called out from the boat – “Hey Jesus… it’s getting late! We’re in the middle of nowhere. Tell everyone to go home, get something to eat, and come back tomorrow!”

Here’s the part of the story where Jesus gets the disciples to pull a few loaves of bread and two fish out of their bags and he feeds the entire crowd with their meager offering. And it’s a wonderful story – but one we’ll save for another day.

Sensing the apostles’ fatigue, Jesus basically told them to wait for him in the boat, much as a parent might tell tired children to wait in the car while she does one more errand. All they had to do was reach into their sacks and hand over some bread – Jesus did all the rest. He realized that they just couldn’t do any more… at least not tonight.

“The sociologists call it compassion fatigue. All of us are capable of compassion on occasion. But when we’ve seen too many emotional television appeals for hunger relief or walked down too many streets crowded with human sorrow, we discover that our compassion is limited… Only God can extend constant compassion. God is the only one who never suffers from “compassion fatigue.” In the constancy of Jesus’ compassion, his kinship with this God is revealed.”

Wayne Mueller in his book, “Sabbath” puts it another way. He writes that too often, we do good badly. Sure, the disciples could have gotten out of the boat, and lent a hand. They were empowered to teach, preach and heal as Jesus did, but ministry in the name of Christ is exhausting business. They were tired and worn out, and if they had decided to help out, they could have done more harm than good.

Mueller shares a story of an experience where exactly that happened. He had been working as a part of the deinstitutionalization movement in the 1970’s. They were trying to release young people from juvenille centers and institutions and help them return to their homes. The idea was that they would be better rehabilitated living amongst their own families, rather than being locked up. It was a great idea, only very little time was taken to think about the consequences of their actions. No time was taken to listen to the families of these young people, or the communities they would return to. No teaching was done before they were sent home. Mueller writes that they didn’t even take a Sabbath day of rest to consider the implications of what they would be doing.

“Now”, he writes, “the nation is awash in lost children, some violent, many in pain… We, for our part, now rush to blame them for threatening the safety of our society, and we cannot build prisons fast enough to hold them… We were in a terrible hurry to do good, and there was no rest in our decisions. And just as speech without silence creates noise, charity without rest creates suffering.”

“John Westerhoff has remarked that atheism in the modern world is characterized by this affirmation: ‘If I don’t do it, it won’t happen.’ The apostles–even after their newfound success as teachers, preachers and healers–knew better. They waited in the boat.”

All of us who are called by the gospel and by God’s spirit need that reminder too. We need to remember that the power of God chooses to work through us, but that God also can work without us. That sometimes another person is called to respond. That sometimes we have to stand still before we can move forward. When the compassion of the apostles was spent and their ability to respond exhausted, people were fed anyway, as if with manna from heaven, and they could only watch from the boat.

And when the meal was finished, Jesus sent the disciples back onto the lake in the boat… told them to cross over to the other side, and he climbed a mountain to pray.

Even Jesus needed rest. Even Jesus needed to be replenished. Even Jesus let prayer re-create his soul.

Sabbath time is a time of blessing. We pray for strength and courage and happiness. We rest, eat, play, walk, and listen. That is the spirit of the Sabbath prayer that we heard in response to our Psalter this morning.

So today, stop. Take a deep breath. And come away with Jesus.

(I then played the music video from Norah Jones “Come Away With Me“

Christ-Colored Glasses

Posted on June 14, 2009Leave a comment

Parker Palmer is someone who often writes about life changes and how to navigate them with faith. In college, his book, “Let your Life Speak” became required reading for all students as they thought about what vocation was calling their name. And in his book, The Active Life, he writes about a moment of insight and transformation in his own life:

I took the course in my early fourties, and in the middle of that course I was asked to confront the thing I had fears about since I had first heard about Outward Bound: a gossamer strand was hooked to a harness around my body, I was backed up to the top of a 110-foot cliff, and I was told to lean out over God’s own emptiness and walk down the face of that cliff to the ground eleven stories below.

I remember the cliff all too well. It started wit ha five-foot drop onto a small ledge, then a ten-foot drop to another ledge, then a third and final drop all the way down. I tried to negotiate the first drop; but my feet instantly went out from under me, and I fell heavily to the first ledge. “I don’t think you have it quite yet,” the instructor observed astutely. “You are leaning too close to the rock face. You need to lean much farther back so your feet with grip the wall.” That advice went against my every instinct. Surely one should hug the wall, not lean out over the void! But on the second drop I tried to lean back; better, but not far enough, and I hit the second ledge with a thud not unlike the first. “You still don’t have it,” said the ever-observant instructor. “Try again.”

Since my next try would be the last one, her counsel was not especially comforting. But try I did, and much to my amazement I found myself moving slowly down the rock wall. Step-by-step I made my way with growing confidence until, about halfway down, I suddenly realized that I was heading toward a very large hole in the rock, and- not knowing anything better to do – I froze. The instructor waited a small eternity for me to thaw out, and when she realized I was showing no signs of life she yelled up, “Is anything wrong, Parker?” as if she needed to ask. To this day I do not know the source of my childlike voice that came up from within me, but my response is a matter of public record. I said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

The instructor yelled back, “Then I think it’s time you learned the Outward Bound Motto.” Wonderful, I thought. I am about to die, and she is feeding me a pithy saying. But then she spoke words I have never forgotten, words so true that they empowered me to negotiate the rest of that cliff without incident: “If you can’t get out of it, get into it.” Bone-deep I knew that there was no way out of this situation except to go deeper into it, and with that knowledge my feet began to move.

No matter how old we are, or experienced we are, or how familiar with the world we may be, there is a moment in each of our lives when something shifts – when we begin to see things in a whole new and transformed way. A moment where we let go of our fears and our old way of seeing things and suddenly the whole world opens up.

In many ways I had one of those moments at Annual Conference this year. For the most part, it was your regular old, run of the mill conference. We debated issues and voted on little keypads, we worshipped together and got to spend time with colleagues. But there were a few moments – here and there – where my world got turned upside down by the turn of a phrase or by a challenge issued forth from the pulpit or lectern, or a passage in the book that I took along with me.

After worship today, if you are able to stick around for our Administrative Board meeting, I’m going to be sharing a few of those challenges with the congregation. But for this morning – in light of our scripture readings I want to focus on just one… something that Bishop Trimble said from the pulpit…

“I don’t want you to tell me what’s impossible.”

Bishop Trimble was asking all of us to take a leap of faith, to take a risk and to step out on behalf of the God that we worship and to stop saying the word can’t. Things like…. We can’t start a ministry with the local Hispanic community because none of us know Spanish… He doesn’t want to hear it. We can’t grow our church because we live in a dying and aging county… He doesn’t want to hear it. We can’t be renewed and revitalized and transformed because we are a church that is already here and doing what we are supposed to be doing… He doesn’t want to hear it.

That last one is actually my own take on our Nicodemus story from this morning. In John’s gospel, this religious leader seeks Jesus out in the middle of the night to ask him some questions. He’s curious. He probably believes in many ways that Jesus – the young upstart that he is – has something to teach him. He’s willing to listen. But when Jesus starts talking metaphorically about being born again, suddenly this inquisitive Pharisee puts on his jaded glasses of disbelief and doubt.

What on earth are you talking about? You can’t be born again after you have grown old already? What, am I going to crawl back into my mother’s womb?

And Jesus looks him square in the eye – Don’t tell me what’s impossible.. Yes, you HAVE to be born of water and the Spirit to enter the Kingdom of God. You have to be reborn, replenished, revived by God’s grace… you have to accept the gift of life that I am offering you. All you have to do is say yes… and it’s yours. Don’t tell me what’s impossible.

Judith McDaniel suggests that this passage in John is as much about our ruts of disbelief and doubt as they are about those of Nicodemus. “we collect pennies from heaven when what is being offered is unimagined wealth… the very kingdom of God,” she writes. “Jesus is telling Nicodemus, and us, that God’s kingdom is here. The kingdom of God is not some far-off goal to be attained, for there is nothing we can do to attain it. The kingdom is present now, as a gift from God. Only God can gift us, can beget us as a totally new being in a new world.”

In other words, just take off those jaded glasses of disbelief and doubt and try these ones on for size. These Christ-colored glasses of truth and reality will open you up to the radical transforming power of God’s Spirit and I promise you… everything will be seen in a new light.

“In fact,” Emmanuel Larety writes, “to be in tune with God’s reign and presence we all need a transformative overhaul of our traditional ways of seeing and being… knowing and experiencing the world… [and] when this happens, it is as if we have begun life all over again.” (46, B-4)

As I think about what is happening in this congregation, I absolutely see signs of rebirth and awakening. And you know what the first clue was for me… Not once has someone said to me… We can’t. Not once has any committee or group or person said that we couldn’t do something – that it was impossible.

But I think that transformed way of seeing started long before I ever got here. I think that the summer before I arrived, when you were seriously contemplating with one another what the future of this church would be, you found yourselves on the side of the cliff with Parker Palmer. You were stuck dangling there by a thread, not being able to go back to the way things were before… perhaps not even wanting to, but also not quite knowing the steps to take next. And that motto from Upward Bound comes to my mind… “If you can’t get out of it, get into it.”

And so you dug your heels into it and took the leap of faith and were willing to find some way to move around on that cliff. That step of trust happened long before I got here, and in many ways, it is that transformation in the way you see and experience the world that has allowed me to do what I need to do.

So we definitely are on track for the first part of the Bishop’s challenge… and for responding to Jesus plea with us and Nicodemus from our gospel reading today. We are open to the possibility of transformation, of being made into something different. We are ready to say – Yes, Lord… Melt us, Mold us, Fill us, Use us… just send your Spirit upon us!

I think we are ready to see ourselves in a new light… but this morning, I want to extend that call just one step farther… I want to challenge us to look at the world and its people in this new light too.

That’s the challenge presented to us in our letter to the Corinthians this morning. Paul is begging his brothers and sisters not just to see themselves as transformed, but to see everything in a whole new way… For the love of Christ, Paul writes, urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them… From now one, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view… if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see everything has become new!

What Paul is saying is that if you are in Christ, if you are wearing your Christ-colored glasses, the whole world and everyone who is in it is transformed before your eyes. As John Stendahl puts it, if we see in the imagination of our hearts, ourselves, our foes, and this old world all thus transfigured by the death of Christ, will we not deal differently with each? (138, B-4)

If we are going to be transformed… if we are going to be the living Body of Christ in this community… then we have to see everything differently. We need to see that cliff we are on not as a challenge, but as an opportunity. We need to dig in our heels and dive in deep to this part of the world that we find ourselves.

This past week, we had a horrible tragedy in our community. In fact, as we were driving home from Annual Conference late on Sunday afternoon, we drove right by the house on L Avenue where the unspeakable happened. And I got to thinking about the theme of our whole conference – radical hospitality – and what it means to invite and welcome people into our midst.

As your pastor, I knew that there were people hurting in this community following this tragedy. I knew that there were people feeling forsaken who needed to be surrounded in prayer. I knew that we were lost in how to respond. And so I set up a space for prayer here in the building. And I contacted a few of the people I knew who had been personally affected and let them know about it.

I had no idea if anyone would show up. I had no idea what I could possibly say or offer – except I knew that Christ was here.

I’m not sure that anyone physically showed up. But I know people were affected by the fact that such a place even existed – that there was a place – whether they decided to come or not – where they could go. A place where people who were lost and hurting would be welcomed with open arms.

That is after all, how we started this worship service… with a cry to gather us in.

Here in this place, new light is streaming
now is the darkness vanished away,
see, in this space, our fears and our dreamings,
brought here to you in the light of this day.
Gather us in the lost and forsaken
gather us in the blind and the lame;
call to us now, and we shall awaken
we shall arise at the sound of our name.

afraid.

Posted on April 12, 20091 Comment

Three women made their way to a lonely tomb just after sunrise. The sky still had that rosy pink hue – but instead of feeling warm and comforted, they were reminded of the bloodshed only days earlier.

Never again would they look at a cross the same way again. Before, it had been a symbol of punishment, a tool used by the Romans to keep the people in line. Now, it was where their teacher had been martyred. It stood for all of his truth and goodness and they would forever remember him upon that cross.

They were journeying back to the place where they had laid his body. They were going to mourn but also to honor and glorify his broken body. They were going to say goodbye.

A million thoughts raced through the minds of those three women. Chief among them – what’s next? Would they, could they, return to their old lives? With Jesus dead, there wasn’t really any among the group of disciples who seemed ready to continue sharing his message. No, it all ended on the cross. All of their hopes and dreams, all of the promises of the Kingdom of God ended on the cross. It was finished.

They brought with them the spices and oils they would need, but as the three women neared the tomb, they began to wonder what on earth they were doing. Were the Romans who crucified their Teacher watching them? What about the Jewish leaders? And if they made it there safely, how were they going to roll back the stone covering the entrance on their own?

Despite their doubts and fears, they kept moving forward, step by step, clutching one another’s hands, until they came to place where he had been laid.

The stone… That big huge obstacle they thought they would have to overcome. It was gone. And a young man sat on the cold hard slab just inside the tomb. What was he doing there? And where on earth was the body of Jesus?

The man looked at them and the women instinctively flinched. He had a strange aura about him and was dressed in dazzling white. They were absolutely speechless.

Don’t be afraid – he whispered to them…. You’re looking for Jesus of Nazareth, but he’s not here! He has been raised, just like he promised. Go – tell the disciples and Peter that he will meet you in Galilee. He’s waiting for you!

The hearts of the women literally stopped beating for a few moments. They had come to honor a dead body and they were met by a mystery. He has been raised?! He’s… waiting for us? Was it a trap? Was it true? Could it possibly be?

It was all so completely overwhelming. They felt like they were standing in the presence of the holy – like Moses before the burning bush – like Elijah standing on the side of the mountain and hearing God’s voice in the silence… and yet nothing made sense. Nothing that was happening fit with their understanding of the world! If the massive stone could be rolled away without any human effort, if Jesus really was raised from the dead, what other assumptions and truths that they had known would be proved false? If the very power of death had been overcome, what was next? What else was going to change?

The world was turned upside down for these three women by this radically holy encounter. Terror and amazement seized them and they turn and fled from the tomb. Was it unworthiness? Was it the weight of the message that they were called to proclaim? Was it fear and awe that come from being face to face with God’s power? The world may never know. But Mary Magdelene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome said nothing to anyone… for they were afraid.

Passion Sunday

Posted on April 5, 2009Leave a comment

For about two and a half weeks now, I have been working on and reworking and tweaking our Passion Sunday worship. Last year, our format was pretty much a lessons and hymns service – where we read the scriptures and sang songs in between chunks of the reading.

I’m always torn about whether or not to really focus on Palm Sunday or to span the gammit and do the whole Passion Sunday reading. Knowing my congregation, probably only 15% of those who regularly attend worship will be at our Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services. And that is only 5% of the whole church. So if we didn’t hear the Passion story on the Sunday before Easter, the depth of the journey, the betrayal and the sacrifice would go unnoticed. And Easter just isn’t Easter if you haven’t journeyed through the cross.

But how do you tell the whole story on a Sunday morning? I’ve been reading a lot of other pastor’s litanies, and how they have put together worship and used some ideas from here and some ideas from there. The main structure that has fed into the service we will be doing tomorrow is a responsive singing of “Were You There.” The verses are not the typical ones, but each one ties into the readings that have preceded it.

What I did end up doing however, was take each of the scripture readings and put any spoken words into particular people’s voices. There is a narrator, but then there will be someone speaking the words of Jesus, of Peter, of the Disciples, of the Crowd, of Pilate, of Judas, and of Caiaphas. And then as I continued to wrestle with the text, each of those voices tell a bit of their own story and give some context to the message as we hear again the story of Christ.

I’m pretty happy with the final script, and I’m putting it all in God’s hands for tomorrow morning – praying that the spirit will be in our reading, and will help everyone present understand the Journey Through the Cross.