March 2012 Newsletter Article

I have found myself listening to more classical music this year.  It started with listening to classic Christmas Carols on the radio, and now Mindi and I find ourselves tuning back to the classical station.  My expertise is within theology, church, and Bible, among other passions; however music education is limited to my grade school years.  While I have a rudimentary understanding of the written notes, some of the history (for I know the term classical itself is misleading), and I have been exposed to great performances, I am no expert.  This is truly one of the reasons I enjoy music, the mystery.

As a minister and theologian, during Lent we are preparing for the celebration of the greatest, life changing, world changing event: the Resurrection!  We have many terms, theologies and explanations for how the Cross and Empty Tomb, save us all from death and sin.  It is great to explore, wonderful to delve deeper into these ideas—some that were present with the early followers of Jesus, and many that were developed at various times during our history.  I believe each has validity, for looking at the cross itself from one angle, the other side may not be visible, but it certainly still exists.  And it is difficult to imagine that the human mind can completely see the full meaning of the cross, for it is God’s ways of saving us, a God whose love surpasses all understanding.

When a piece of beautiful music is heard by my ears, I know my heart is moved even if I do not have a complete understanding of how it was created and preformed.  It still moves me.  I encourage exploring different and known theologies of the cross; I am a great proponent of greater education on all levels.  However, during Lent I also turn inside to open myself up for the glorious and mysterious power of the Cross and Resurrection, that has changed my life and will continue to change.  

As a church we are also discerning God’s vision for our specific congregation, and there will be events to participate in the coming months, leading to a strategic plan next fall.  It is a journey of heart and head, but it is the proven process to discern the mystery of God’s wonderful composition, sending His Son, for our specific locale.

Inevitable Resurrection

Transfiguration Sunday.  I am not blogging on this sermon for this article I wrote was the majority of the message.  Enjoy and be challenged.  Blessings, JC

http://dmergent.org/2012/02/15/pacifying-the-inevitable-resurrection/

Deep Within

2 Kings 5:1-14; Mark 1:40-45

Naaman was not happy when Elisha told him what would clean him of his ailment. The scripture actually says he is angry and says, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would have his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy!”  Naaman even continues his statements of anger by comparing his nation’s rivers to the Jordan.  I cannot help but point out that this man’s anger does not seem congruent with his quest.  He wants to be healed and actually travels for this cure to his enemy’s king, and then onto their prophet, yet he believes he knows how the healing should occur.  Naaman goes as far to say “…that for me..” now that is arrogant. Now the servants were quite wise and understood he was willing to seek an audience with the king of Israel and thus would have done anything the prophet suggested, why was he not willing do something he perceived was too easy.  Of course we know that he was made clean, because of there were people without any power leading Naaman to the healing power.

Naaman was his own biggest enemy.  He knew how the healing had to take place, or so he thought.  And even when he heard what the prophet said, he could not get over his ego.  His healing was desired because of his own ego and self care.  That should have a place, just as most of us check a mirror before the house, we care about ourselves.  The unnamed slave girl was moved by compassion to tell of the prophet in Samaria, that could heal.  At least I believe that to be true as she is not freed, receive any credit, or even named in the story.  Being moved to help because of compassion is what the Gospel lectionary is about.

In the Gospel of Mark, it is reported that Jesus is moved to compassion, and the word used is splagchnizomai.  To be moved to compassion from one’s gut.  A term for compassion used twelve times in the synoptic Gospels in reference to Jesus, or by Jesus in a parable.  It is a Greek term the root of which means gut, but specifically the inner organs of a sacrificed animal. 

Jesus is moved to heal not from His ego, but from His sacrifice.  If we want to share the Gospel, we most not think like Naamon and believe we know how, but to look deep within and act out of sacrificial compassion, in response to the grace we can never repay. 

Holy Everywhere

Isaiah 40:21-31; Mark 1:29-39

Jesus touches Simon Peter’s mother-in-law to heal her.  He crosses a very strong line, and He implies that is to be done not only for individuals but in the synagogues, the religion as well. The healing was a miracle, but the touching was against the rules of ancient Judaism.  So even if it was good, full of love, it broke the law to touch the unclean. 

We as Christians are not immune to these lines as well.  How we worship, what we think,  we set up lines as well. 

We need to learn from young children who can see the image on a coloring sheet and yet color away with their hearts intent.  If the page is a picture of a bunny they will color across all the lines and say it is a bunny.  It is not that the lines are not important but they are not meant to contain, that which is “unsearchable” as Isaiah says in verse 28.

Let us be like the children, like Jesus, and cross over boundaries and lines to touch others with our crayons of love. 

Is not the cross and empty tomb the ultimate crossing of the boundary?

Love Builds for God

1 Corinthians 8:1-13; Mark 1:21-28

Paul writes about being vegetarian, because the churches in the Gentile cities most meats were prepared in a temple in honor of an idol.  Of course Paul and others are quite aware there really are not other gods or idols, and thus the meat is fine to eat.  However, Paul realizes that knowledge does not transfer smoothly to new believers, or believers whose family still worships at the pagan temples.  As they discover the reality of the one true God through Jesus at the table, they may slip as Paul explains again in Galatians:

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods. Now, however, that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits? How can you want to be enslaved to them again? (4:8-9)

Paul sees this as an issue, but it is not knowledge that ultimately works to keep people focused on Jesus, it is love.  Knowledge puffs, but love builds.  Paul writes latter about maturing in the faith and you will notice knowledge is not mentioned:

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. (13:11-13)

Not only is it love that is more important we do not see clearly until face to face.  Which brings me to the Gospel scripture.  If we think we have the correct knowledge, we may be just puffed up.  In this scene with Jesus according to Mark it is not those following Jesus, those listening to Jesus, it is the unclean spirit that recognizes Jesus as the “Holy One of God.”  This is a humbling reminder that Love is what builds up God. 

February 2012

As a boy in elementary school, I would sometimes tussle with other boys. Generally we would not hurt each other, but sometimes it would result in a visit to the nurse’s office. One such incident I hit my head against the cement wall. It hurt some but I felt I was fine, however, the teacher did not believe me, but who would argue with a teacher that was allowing you to go to the nurse’s office and miss some of class, as we were just coming in from recess. The nurse examined me and asked questions. I was determined to be fine, diagnosis “boy.”

However, the last question posed was, “Are you seeing double?” My response worried her, as I stated, “No more than usual.” See I was seeing double often while reading and I just trained an strained myself to read both images simultaneously. The nurse concerned and curious, did some tests and discovered what I thought was normal; I saw double. What I also remember about her is she did not make me feel stupid for thinking that seeing double was normal and she did not make me nervous about this situation.

I went to the optometrist, and I must say that was an exciting experience. It was explained to me that everyone has a focal point in which when you get closer to the eyes, one will see double, but generally it is centimeters from the nose, not an arm’s length. This doctor prescribed intense exercises. I had various contraptions and ditto papers and spent one to two hours a day strengthening my eyes, so my focal point would be in a normal range. I was committed because reading which I greatly enjoy was much easier with only one image.

I share this story to emphasize the importance of the visioning process we are just starting here at First Christian Church of Durant. We are a great and loving church and God has a vision for us. The question is what is that vision? We cannot be church without doing the work that is necessary so we can truly sate and follow the Divine’s Vision for us as a local congregation. If we simply continue thinking we are, without exploring it, we will find we have poor vision. So please continue to pray for the visioning process and I encourage you to look to the programs and events the team will bring forth in the coming year, so we can do the work together to have vision and grow.

Let us pray as the Psalmist shares in Psalm 86:11:

Teach me your way, O Lord,

that I may walk in your truth;

give me an undivided heart to revere your name.

In Christ’s Service,

Pastor JC

Time Fulfilled

1 Corinthians 7:29-31;  Mark 1:14-20

Paul writes some provocative statements to the Corinthians.  He is not advocating immoral behavior, he is emphasizing that this world has changed with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  Time has been fulfilled, as Jesus states in this passage by Mark, and emphasized by the immediacy of the first disciples to follow Jesus.  Time has changed.

Originally time was determined by the sun.  This is clearly stated in Genesis with the creation of the first day.  The Jewish people of Jesus’ day, and today, determine the day based on the end of the day.  That is when the sun goes down the day ends, thus the next day does start, hence Sabbath starts at sundown on Friday.  For the original followers of The Way (Jesus) who were Jewish, they would go to the Temple, or a synagogue, or perhaps down by the river in a Gentile city, to worship the one true God, listening to the Torah and the prophets.  They would keep the Sabbath as well if they were able, but on Sunday morning they would be truly back to work (it would had been their Monday). These first Jewish followers of Jesus, would get up early on Sunday, before work and without an alarm clock, to celebrate the resurrection with communion, hymns, baptisms, and worship.  They would do this as the sun rose.  It was like an extra day to their week, empowering them for their work and their lives.  There was an idea that the perfect creation will finally go to the eighth day with the resurrection at the end of all time.  However, the early Christians were understanding that time had changed and the fulfilling morning of worship and sharing His meal was the eighth day. 

I love sunrises, and having been a baker and pastry chef I have seen many.  My favorite still was when I was a teen.  I knew there was a snow storm coming the next Sunday morning.  With 3-4 inches already on the ground it would be wonderful to get up early to watch the sun rise with the snow falling.  So up early I got, and trekked up to the top of a cliff at the edge of the woods.  I took a thermos of hot cocoa and was buddled up.  I found a log to took in behind to protect me from the wind and settled in.  Then it occurred to me I would really not see the sun through the snow.  It was still the most amazing sunrise, so quiet, both the woods and the town below, save the wind.  A few times I could make out a perfect white ball through the clouds. It felt like hours I was there, and it was a while since I remember dusting an inch of snow of myself when I departed.  I treasure that sunrise that I never saw.

Everyday the sun rises, even if we do not see it.  And it is equally true that everyday God’s Son Rises, even if we do not see it.  When Jesus tells us time has been fulfilled he wants us to act as if we are starting the eighth day.  Paul makes it quite clear that the new age started and our actions should match that of the kingdom of God. 

However, we do not live in a kingdom, nor is their one person or power that really has the power on us anymore.  Today we live where our cultures have power over us.  Cultures we choose, and cultures that sneak into our subconscious.  The culture of America, the culture of TV, the consumer culture, the culture of Rock music, the culture of drugs, the culture of politics, the culture of one’s family etc.  Some are very powerful.  Some more powerful than we want to admit.  So I believe time has been fulfilled by the culture of God being near.  We need to live as if we live in the culture of God, and not simply wait to live in heaven, for time has been fulfilled.