HOMILETICS

September-October Issue of HOMILETICS online!

Even as John Calvin's 500th birthday is celebrated, Homiletics announces the publication of the September-October issue online.

Here's the Table of Contents:

September 6 , 2009: Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
My Paparazzo Profile
You can hire someone to take photos of you all day long. It’s a vanity thing. So what would your portfolio look like?

September 13, 2009: James 3:1-12
Good Gossip
There’s no such thing a good gossip. Right? Not according to one sociologist.

September 13, 2009: Mark 8:27-37 
Oaths and Offices
The swearing-in last January of President Obama had a few minor problems. Peter’s confession of the Christ is likewise flawed.

September 20, 2009: Mark 9:30-37
One with the Son
The 1980, the Oscar-winning movie, Fame, is being released September 25, but this time, nearly 30 years later, it’s a new version with a new cast. 

September 27, 2009: Psalm 124
Safe Surrender
When law enforcement officials developed a program by which fugitive non-violent offenders could turn themselves in, they asked local churches if they’d be willing to offer a place of safe surrender.

September 27, 2009: James 5:13-20
Any Among You Sick?
Homiletics offers a service of healing.

October 4, 2009: Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12
The Christ Who Names Us
We’re not making this up. It’s the udder truth: Cow give more milk when their handlers call them by name and treat them nice.

October 11, 2009: Psalm 22:1-15
The Bulls of Bashan 
The psalmist feels surrounded by bulls. For many these days, it’s a familiar feeling.

October 11, 2009: Hebrews 4:12-16
The Sword of the Lord

In case you haven’t noticed, middle school boys, high school boys, college boys, and many males in the 24-45 demographic, love swords, and many of them are sword collectors.

October 11, 2009: Mark 10:17-31
The Hoarder  
When a man in the UK died recently, authorities found his house so full of trash that the only way to get around was through an elaborate series of tunnels that ran through the filth.

October 18, 2009: Job 38:1-7(34-41)
Job, the Submission Wrestler
Submission wrestling is actually a specific genre of the sport. It might involved kicking, screaming, grappling and hooking, but when all is sweated and done, someone submits.

October 18, 2009: Mark 10:35-45 
Three Cups of Humble Tea 
Greg Mortenson’s best-selling book is the basis of this discussion of what constitutes greatness.

October 25, 2009: Mark 10:46-52
The Problem of Presbyopia
Near-sightedness is not a new problem. But now there’s a new solution. It’s the application of light. What a concept!

Bern-EE, Bern-EE, Bern-EE, or The Redemption of Bernie Madoff

If you were in Denver in the late 80s, you knew who Bernie Kosar was.

Bernie had the misfortune of being an excellent quarterback, an ascending star in the football pantheon at the same time as an even brighter star eclipsed all others: John Elway.

When Elway engineered his “drive,” Kosar was the opposing quarterback—the signal-caller for the Cleveland Browns.

Bernie and Schottenheimer would come to town and invariably be ahead in the fourth quarter, before Elway, hitherto unable to do much offensively, would snatch another victory from the jaws of defeat.

Before the outcome was even final, fans would take up the chant. “Bern-EE, Bern-EE, Bern-EE!” And the screaming would follow Bernie when he sloughed off the field and slink beneath the South stands in old Mile High Stadium.

This memory came back to me as I watched television and read print and online versions of the recent sentencing of Bernard Lawrence Madoff, 71, “Bernie,” to federal prison for 150 years. No parole in federal prison. He’ll die there. From the penthouse to the outhouse said one wag.

And, although perhaps it’s a bit gruesome — like cheering at a public execution — a lot of people are jeering, “Bern-EE, Bern-EE, Bern-EE.” Understandably, public opinion not only thinks he got what he deserves, but that when this life is over, if there is any further accounting, Bern-EE’s got some ‘splaining to do to his Maker.

But—while Madoff may spend the rest of his life in prison—these years could be the best years of his life. Perhaps there’s a way for him to use his considerable influence and skills to make some reparations. There’s always a path to redemption.

I am reminded of the New Testament Bernie Madoff: A short little guy, Zacchaeus.

When this felon had his “Come-to-Jesus” meeting, he had a change of heart, returned the principal he had stolen from his clients, and paid them back—on top of that—fourfold.

The public at the time didn’t think too much of Jesus socializing with “Bernie” Zacchaeus. But in the end, Zacchaeus made good. He was a changed man.

The same can happen with Madoff. It will take years for an unforgiving public to believe that the change is real and not self-serving, but these years in prison could be the redemption of Bernie Madoff.

Why Do Women Do It?

It’s been about a week since Mark Sanford gave a rambling explanation about his whereabouts in Argentina, and revealed that he had been utterly willing to throw away a promising political career, a marriage, a meaningful relationship with his four boys—for the love of a woman a continent away.

He’s not the first of people of his rank and prominence in public life, of course, to do so. One count has almost 30 people in the last 20 years or so who have similarly taken this risk. The list includes a sitting president, speaker of the house, presidential candidates, evangelical pastors, and so on.

One question that has been posed to me when I’ve been in conversation with people about Sanford’s affair, is: “Why do men do it?” Why are men willing to throw it all away when they’ve got to be aware of the huge potential for loss and suffering? They’ve got to be out of their minds.

Many answers: First, they are out of their minds. These decisions are not rational decisions. Sanford, for one, clearly was gripped by a passion that was not simply erotic, but one that touched the deepest part of his soul and heart. He was experiencing a passion, an emotion that perhaps he had never felt before. It was utterly transforming and exhilarating. He could not let that go.

Another is that these men, often charismatic leaders, are vulnerable to temptation and the opportunity to yield to temptation beyond our understanding.

Another explanation is that these men, most in professions of service, find their emotional reserves tapped beyond belief. The stress is incredible. And too often they find comfort and release not with the person who has been with them throughout their life’s journey, but with a third person profoundly removed and disconnected from any of it.

But my question is not why do men do it—we can come up with answers to that question. But why do women do it? Why does a woman with two teenage sons of her own agree to take up with the Governor of South Carolina? Why does a woman agree to consort with a presidential candidate (Edwards, Hart)? Why does a married staffer agree to have a liaison with a senator from Nevada? And so on.

Is it the need for validation? The need for a thrill and more excitement in their lives? Is it the need for understanding? The need for an escape from the mundane? The need to be noticed?

I don’t know.

I do know that these highly public embarrassments involve both genders.

This is not a male problem. Or a female one. It’s a human problem.

One suspects that most of us are practicing functional atheists. Sanford alluded to God and to his faith, as have others caught in this situation. We really do not believe in a God who holds us accountable, a God to whom we must answer some day. We don’t. We believe in a “buddy” God, who is loving and forgiving, and who’ll simply say, “Aw shucks, you’re only human,” and let it go at that.
We’re a people, ironically, who will work in a live of public service to improve and better the lot of others, but who are also willing to hurt and maim the people we love the most.

Go figure.

A Week of Deaths

First Ed McMahaon, then Farah Fawcett, and now Michael Jackson.

All dead at ages 86, 62, and 50 respectively. Icons of the 70s and 80s. McMahon was know and beloved as Johnny Carson’s sidekick for over 30 years on The Tonight Show. He developed the role of “the second banana” into an art form—and no one did it better, nor has his success been duplicated. Most late night performers these days prefer to go it alone.

Fawcett, known for her iconic poster that in the 70sn could be found in just about every bedroom of teenage boys and for her role as one of “Charlies’ Angels, died of cancer.

And Michael, died just yesterday of cardiac arrest in Los Angeles.

And then my grandpa (seen here).

He died 52 years ago at the age of 79—of cardiac arrest. I mention him because I just self-published this week a biography of his life, which I added to an edition of his 1952 Daily Diary. He wrote diaries for the last ten years of his life, and I am working now on the other years, and am close to publishing, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, and 1957.

He lived far away from the spotlight of Hollywood in a little village in northeastern Iowa. A railroad man, he was a widower the last 15 years of his life, didn’t own a car, and spent his last years walking about town visiting the shut-ins, participating in various committees and boards in his community church, and riding along with his pastor on hospital calls and the like.

In my book, he was a great man. But the world never knew him. But God did.

The psalmist says that there is value in “numbering our days.” It’s good for us when the news confronts us with notable deaths to stop and ask ourselves just what exactly is the content and context of our own lives. All flesh withers as the grass in the field, or disappears like a wisp of smoke in the wind. Our time is limited.

Most of us will pass from this world to the next without newspaper headlines to announce the event. But our lives matter. They matter to those among whom we live. How then should we live?

God spoke to the prophet Micah revealing the answer: “Do justice, love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.”

A life like that—a life my grandpa lived—is not a life lived in vain.

Protected by the Covenant

Visiting my son in Parker, Colorado, I was driving around the other day, and noticed signs posted at various locations throughout the community which read: “A Covenant-Protected Community.”

I am always looking for sermons.

Now, I knew I had found one: The Church as a Covenant-Protected Community.

I would start with what people might not like about communities like this. True, they prevent the neighbors from repairing their cars on the sidewalks, or painting their house neon green, or hanging the wash from the upstairs windows.

But covenants can also be restrictive. They value uniformity or standards. You must ask permission from the ruling body of the homeowner’s association to do anything that either breaks covenant or goes beyond the provisions of the covenant.

But the covenant in these communities is designed to “protect,” not harass. It’s purpose is to preserve value—indeed increase it. It’s goal is to protect the neighborhood from our neighbors whose behavior and values fly in the face of good fiscal and aesthetic sense.

So in what sense is the church a “covenant-protected” community?

Jumpin’ George

Presidents are in the news again these days.

Of course, the sitting president is always in the news. It comes with the job. Obama was indeed a sitting president when he nailed a pesky housefly with one swift swat during an interview. The execution got more coverage—surprise—than the content of the interview itself. (PETA registered its complaint.) During the interview Obama good-naturedly mentioned that there’s one television network for whom he just can’t do anything right. Most observers think he was referring to FOX News.

Back in Texas, George Dubya is beginning to comment for the first time on some of the current administration’s policies. But he must have smiled to hear Obama complain about FOX News. Welcome to the White House! Bush spent eight years with not just one network for whom he could do nothing right, but at least four: ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, not to speak of other media outlets. So if Obama has only one cantankerous network to deal with for the next four years, he might count his blessings.

Finally, just a note to give it up for George H.W. Bush. About two weeks ago, Bush turned 85 and celebrated his birthday by sky-diving in tandem with a military jumper whose job it was not make sure the former one-term president didn’t break a leg on landing.

He says he plans on doing it again on his 90th birthday.

I wouldn’t bet against him.

He’s a man who isn’t afraid to take a leap.

God's Day

Today is Father’s Day, and all across America, dads are getting a pair of black socks, or a set of screwdrivers, or a flat-screen television. On dad’s day, we stop to intentionally say to dad, “Hey dad, we love you—in case we haven’t said that before.”

As Father’s Day, this Sunday is not on the liturgical calendar, but it could be, because the most common metaphor for God in Scripture is that of a father.

It used to be popular to dismiss this metaphor as dated and not particularly helpful—many complaining that so many fathers had failed so miserably as dads that the metaphor was more hurtful than helpful.

This complaint of course missed the point—as so many politically correct complaints frequently do. If “father” is a metaphor that’s used in Scripture, our task as students of Scripture is to understand what “father” meant when the Scriptures were written so that we can understand in what way ancient worshippers of God understood God. If they thought it was helpful to explain God as being a “father,” just what did that mean to them?

I am not going to answer that question, but since we often refer to God as our “heavenly father,” we might call this day, not only Father’s Day, but God’s Day.

One would hope that God would have more than one day of the year in which we acknowledge God’s love, care, protection and faithfulness. But it never hurts to explain to your dad why you think he’s so cool, and why you appreciate him.

So let’s have a moment with Abba—and tell God why we love him.

It’s the least we can give God.

After all, he doesn’t really need another cordless drill.

Father, let our faithful mind
Rest, on thee alone inclined;
Every anxious thought repress,
Keep our souls in perfect peace.
--Charles Wesley

The Unforgiving God and the Unforgiving Person

USA Today allots almost a half page every Monday to a discuss of religion and religious issues. This is great. USA Today understands the important role religion plays not only in our culture, but in the global community. Religion is a strong color in the fabric of geo-political life and USA Today rightly provides some specific space in which these issues can be discussed. Good for them.

Last Monday, Andrew Newberg writes a piece called “This is your brain on religion.” He reviews the general premise of other research which suggests that “religion and spiritual practices generally have a positive effect on one’s physical, emotional and neurological health.” I am not sure what he means by “neurological” health, but I can give him that. He goes on to say that his work at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Spirituality and Mind has also revealed that spiritual practices such as meditation and prayer, “also reveal significant improvements in memory, cognition and compassion while simultaneously reducing anxiety, depression, irritability and stress.”

So being religious is a good thing, right?

Not so fast, says Newberg.

Newberg is associate professor of radiology and psychiatry—an interesting marriage of disciplines—at Penn (I’m not sure how this credentializes him as an observer and scholar of religious phenomena), and he argues that “religion’s influence on people depends very much on how they view their God.” He says that when people “view God as loving, forgiving, compassionate and supportive, this more likely results in a very positive view of themselves and the world around them” (my emphasis). But, on the other hand, when God “is viewed as dispassionate, vengeful and unforgiving, this can have deleterious effects on one’s physical and mental health” (emphasis mine).

Then he explains: “The research is clear: if you ruminate on negative emotions, they activate the areas of the brain that are involved in anger, fear and stress … [these] negative emotions can spill over into outward behaviors that generate fear, distrust, hatred, animosity and violence toward people who hold different or opposing beliefs.” With this I cannot argue. Even Jesus said that the actions we do with our hands is derived from the state of affairs in our hearts. So, no offense, but Penn’s research on this is old news.

I don’t have a degree in radiology, but here’s my take on this. Newberg offers a provocative proposition, but it’s flawed in at least one respect. It is not necessary—nor does it happen—that people view and worship God as either a) loving and forgiving, OR b) unloving and unforgiving. It is common to state this dichotomy in terms of the Old Testament God versus the New Testament God. It is quite possible to believe that God is both loving—that is, God shows mercy, and that God can also be unbending—i.e., God exacts justice. These apparently opposing views of God can in fact be held in compatible tension with each other. I wouldn’t want it any other way. The God of Scripture is not my buddy, as Kenneth Woodward, former Religion editor at Newsweek once told me.

I am sure that if I obsess about negative emotions that I might do some bad things. But my defense is not “God made me do it.” Or, “My view of God made me do it.”

Newberg’s Lion King view of positive religious influence is nothing more than hakuna matata: “Don’t worry; be happy.”

Newberg talks about the “negative side of religiosity and spirituality” and wonders how we can “guard against” these things. But what is negative for Newberg—God as a God who is holy, who expects obedience, who has promised that judgment will visit the unrighteous—is not negative for me. The God who is all of those things, is also the God who has offered liberation, forgiveness, mercy and love.

This is a good discussion. In this case, however, I think it’s too easy to say that bad behavior can be traced to a particular view of God.

Bad people do bad things. And someday, God’s going to get them.

And that’s good.

Youth At Large

I'm in Parker, Colorado, visiting family. Stepson, Taylor Williams, Director of Student Ministries at Parker Evangelical Presbyterian Church is headed out with a group of teens on Tuesday for the Boston area where they'll spend the better part of two weeks working in impoverished neighborhoods to offer a helping hand to those in need--painting, construction, clean-up and much more.

Taylor's team is only one of thousands of church groups this summer that will be leaving hometowns to travel out of their home states to get down and dirty helping others.

You say, "Why go far away to do what probably could be done next door?"

Because the travel experience itself is a part of the ministry with these kids--and this is an experience that will stay with them for the rest of their lives, and someday their children will likewise pay it forward a generation down the line.

So let's pray for all of these young people. They are the Church at work. They are our Faith At Work.
Godspeed!

Not a Citizen of the World

Did you catch Newt Gindrich’s emphatic declaration at the …. He made a big point of saying: “I am NOT a citizen of the world.”

By which he meant in the strongest possible terms that he was, in fact, a citizen of the United States of America.

He went on to say: “I think the entire concept is intellectual nonsense and stunningly dangerous!"

What a great opportunity for Christians everywhere to agree with the former speaker of the House of Representatives, TIME’s “Man of the Year” (1995) and architect of the erstwhile “Contract With America”!

I am NOT a citizen of the world. I am a citizen of another world. Check it out. Hebrews 11.

Here we could talk about what that means exactly.

Then we could discuss the obvious reality that our feet are planted on terra firma somewhere. So, while not a citizen of the world, I am certainly a resident of the world.

So there you go. A full blown sermon, thanks to Newt.

Thanks, Newt!

Pledging Loyalty

This Sunday also happens to be Flag Day and my sister’s birthday.

Thousands of churches have flags in their sanctuary, and I can’t for the life of me understand why.

The U.S. flag ought to be in government buildings, banks and schools, but not in churches.

What about the Christian flag?

What about it? What possible service does this flag render? It came into being over 100 years ago and today, it, too, can be found in tens of thousands of churches. Again. Why?

Here is a brief liturgy for the Christian flag—from one of many Web sites about the Christian flag:

THE AFFIRMATION OF LOYALTY TO THE CHRISTIAN FLAG
The Affirmation of Loyalty to the Christian Flag is a sacred commitment. Let the congregation celebrate its loyalty to the Christian flag and the Cross which it bears by extending to it appropriate recognition and honor.

The minister or lay person will proceed as follows, saying:
1. Let us stand facing the Christian flag.
2. Let us repeat the Affirmation of Loyalty in unison.
“I affirm my loyalty to the Christian Flag and to our savior whose cross it bears, one spiritual fellowship under that cross, uniting us in service and love.”
3. Let each person conclude the Affirmation with a slight but positive nod to the Flag. The congregation may now sing one or more verses from a hymn of its choice, such as “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus,” or other appropriate selection.
4. Let us now participate in our Christian Fellowship by holding hands in an inclusive chain from person to person and pew to pew during the concluding prayer. The minister or lay person presiding will offer here a brief appropriate prayer, marking the conclusion of this celebration of the Affirmation of Loyalty to the Christian Flag.

Say what? Pledging loyalty to the Christian flag is a sacred commitment. I never knew that. A “slight nod” to the Flag? That’s just crazy.

Get these flags out of our worship space.

And preach something about who and what is worthy of our loyalty.

God Nation

I’ve been traveling through the Republic of Texas the past couple of days, lingering in Katy, Texas, to attend a high school graduation.

Katy is a small town west of Houston, but it is also a football giant. Since 1997, Katy High School has brought home five state championships including back-to-back championships in 2007 and 2008.

We came in two vehicles, both large pickups and parked in a vast lot that surrounds the Leonard Merrell Center. It soon filled up with trucks. Give a third world country the armored vehicles, guns and live ammo in this parking lot alone on this hot Saturday afternoon, and it could sustain a small war for at least eight months.

I walked into the large arena where the graduation ceremony was held. The place soon became a sea of red. The ceremonies began, and soon I began to hear a reference that became a common refrain. This was not just Katy I was passing through: this was Katy Nation!

The crowd pledged allegiance to the flag, but it also pledged allegiance to the TEXAS flag, and the words “Under God” were mentioned in both cases. This is Texas, and this is not by any stretch of the imagination Obama country. While attending a “tea party” last April 15, Govenor Rick Perry uttered the sentiments of many Texans when he suggested that Texas just might want to secede from the Union. They came into the union in 1845, but left it in 1861. They might want to do it again, he said, although that probably would not be a wise thing, he added.

This is Katy Nation! Speakers made frequent reference to Katy being a “nation,” and it struck me as a curious use of the word, because I have heard or read the word "nation" used in this manner before. Fox News sometimes refers to itself as Fox Nation, and professional sports teams are often mentioned in “national” terms, as is Cardinal Nation, Redleg Nation, Clips Nation and so on. But there’s also Golf Nation, and Gadget Nation, and Panhandle Nation (Texas again). Katy Nation actually has a Web site, and it’s also the title of a book, Katy Nation: Where Football Gets Real.

I thought it was interesting that at the beginning of the ceremony the class president led us all in a moment of silence to remember the past, present and future of the current graduating class of Katy Nation, 2009. Clearly, in days of yore, this is the moment that Reverend so and so of First Baptist Church would have delivered an inspiring and long-winded invocation. The inclusion of this “Moment of Silence” and the exclusion of an Invocation was a reminder that Katy Nation had no doubt in the past lost a battle or two with the ACLU or some other legal entity so beloved in these parts.

I could probably turn this “nation” business into a sermon about the people of God, especially if my text was 1 Peter 2:9-10 (which doesn’t bob up in the RCL until Easter 2011): But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Once you were not a people,
   but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,
   but now you have received mercy.

The denotative meaning of “nation” is “a large body of people, associated with a particular territory, that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to seek or to possess a government peculiarly its own,” and other meanings refer to the “the territory or country itself” and “an aggregation of persons of the same ethnic family, often speaking the same language or cognate languages.”

The word comes to us through Middle English and Anglo-French, originally from the Lation nation meaning birth or race.

We of the God Nation, then, are a “large body of people,” indeed the citizens of God Nation are scattered throughout the globe. People of God Nation are “conscious of their own unity,” and they also “see to possess a government peculiarly its own.” Unfortunately too many people of God Nation think the government they should possess is the United States government and Congress, which misses the point entirely. God Nation is an “aggregation of persons of the same ethnic family,” and they speak the same language or cognate languages.” Again, this is a metaphor—the ethnicity referred to here has nothing to do with biological and genetic material, but rather the divine nation which empowers and enables us to speak our language, the language of good news, of redemption, forgiveness, salvation and love.

I’m still in Katy Nation as I write this, headed for church soon, but down here, when you attend a graduation ceremony, or a football game, it’s very spiritual. And as you know, football in these parts is a religion, and not just religion. It’s organized religion.

Augustine’s Ousia

It’s Trinity Sunday in a few days, and I know this has got to be every preacher’s dream come true. It’s an opportunity to dust off those Greek phrases we only use once a year, and toss them into our sermon as though we really know what we’re talking about.

When you’re talking Trinity and looking for some patristic guidance, your thoughts naturally go to Augustine who gave us De Trinitate, or On the Trinity, comprised of more than a dozen “books.”

Augustine was one of the first to abandon the traditional Greek nomenclature when discussing the Trinity, i.e. ousia and hypostases (one essence, three substances, according to the Chalcedonian formulation—but I could be wrong about that), and preferred instead the Latin essentia and personae, i.e., one essence, three personas or persons.

But the back story is that Augustine labored on this work for about 15 years, and then someone stole his manuscript! And he had not taken the precaution of having the monks in the scriptorium copy his work, backing it up as he went along.

So what would you do? Fifteen years down the drain! It’d be like Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead losing Principia Mathematica and having to start all over. And explaining the Trinity is the far greater task, believe me.

Augustine writes about this mishap and you can read his letter here. But here’s an excerpt:

I began as a very young man, and have published in my old age, some books concerning the Trinity, who is the supreme and true God. I had in truth laid the work aside, upon discovering that it had been prematurely, or rather surreptitiously, stolen from me before I had completed it, and before I had revised and put the finishing touches to it, as had been my intention. For I had not designed to publish the Books one by one, but all together, inasmuch as the progress of the inquiry led me to add the later ones to those which precede them.

He went on to explain much, and obfuscate even more, but he did leave us with some nifty metaphors including the lover, the loved and the love that binds them together; or the eye, the impulse or will that moves it so that it sees its object, and the form the object takes in the eye.

So that we have Augustine’s On the Trinity is a testament to the bishop of Hippo’s incredible resolve.

And that’s precisely the spirit we need to have when approaching the Trinity. It is mystery. But a sermon on the Trinity is important because it lifts up before us, not the necessity of understanding a mathematical puzzle that not even Einstein himself could unravel but an ineffable God who created us, who saved us, and who now empowers us.

Leno Moves On

Perhaps the most famous jaw in show business has moved on to other things, leaving  television’s most famous and longest running show.

The Tonight Show lives on. Jay Leno moves on.

Before Leno, there were two, well, maybe three, hosts of the Tonight Show since the dawn of the television era: Steve Allen, Jack Paar, and Johnny Carson. I think for sheer comic genius, Steve Allen was the best; Jack Paar was urbane and acerbic, and Carson a great comedian in his own right, became known for some of his trademark routines and sketches. “It was so hot in L.A. today …” “… you take the 405 down to the Slauson cutoff … cut off your slauson and …” He and sidekick Ed McMahon went at it for over thirty years doing Carnac the Magnificent, and a host of other characters.

Leno could never match Carson’s 30 plus years and it was clear that he wasn’t going to try. I felt he was not as comfortable with the monologue as was Carson, but of all of the four who have occupied TTS chair, he was the most “human,” if that means anything. There is a basic nice-guy quality to Leno that exceeds that of his predecessors. As he pointed out during his last show while introducing his wife Mavis to the audience, “I still have the same wife I had when I started this show 17 years ago.” Or something like that. He also introduced 68 kids who were born during his tenure on the show to parents associated with the show, including the 17-year-old Hannah, born shortly after taping began. He began his show, as he said, when his hair was black and the President was white. And he couldn't have done it, he said, without help from Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, Michael Jackson and George W. Bush.

Leno seems to understand that he and his life are more than TTS. He has other interests, and his wife Mavis is certainly an activist on a number of issues.

So it’s good to see how this transition, in the works for about five years, was finally pulled off. Leno will be back on television to be sure, but I have the feeling that he’s excited to be moving on, secure in the knowledge that he had a successful run, especially in light of critics who said that Carson was virtually irreplaceable.

His is a good example for pastors—indeed people in all walks of life—to remember that one’s profession does not equal, necessarily, one’s vocation. To the extent that we can remember that, we’re more likely to live a balanced, healthy, and happy life.

Calvin Is Dead

Calvin is dead. He died on this date, 445 years ago at the age of 54.

Calvin is the cover on the print version of the July-August issue of Homiletics. This is because 2009 is the quincentennial  anniversary of his birth, born as he was on July 9, 1509.

Calvin wasn’t that old when he died, although living to one’s fifties was an achievement in those days. Still,  Luther had lived until 62, and Calvin’s good friend, William Farel, was at least 80 when Calvin died. And it’s not like he was active in his last year of life. His last public appearance was in February of 1564. He’d been preaching, when he had a coughing attack so severe he was bringing up blood and couldn’t continue.

His death at the age of 54 might be a cautionary tale for preachers who suffer from Calvin’s affliction: working too hard, too long, under too much pressure, without properly delegating responsibilities while laboring under the misapprehension that your participation in crucial to the success of the cause. He was a driven man, says one writer, an over-achiever, a classic Type A, alpha male if there ever was one.

We know a lot about Calvin’s medical history, because he himself, provides us with considerable details including his intestinal parasites—which often rendered him anemic—and a persistent problem with hemorrhoids—which explains why in later years he didn’t travel so much. In his early life he loved to travel and go horseback riding. Later—not so much. He suffered from gout, which in Calvin’s day was often thought to be a rich man’s affliction—too much red wine, and expensive foods. He’d  get kidney stones from time to time and found that he could induce the passage of a stone if he went horseback riding—which presented a medical catch 22: Do I irritate my hemorrhoids or pass the stone? He suffered from persistent pulmonary tuberculosis which caused severe pain in his chest, and he often brought up blood. He also had migraine headaches, so he would fast to get rid of them. His eating habits were irregular. In his later years he was described as a skeleton covered with skin. He probably died of septicemia, or blood poisoning. By all accounts he was lucid until the end, doing some writing, (but never again—after the February episode—preaching from his Genevan pulpit), summoning local pastors and leaders to his house and offering final words of instruction.

So how did this man get anything done at all? Clearly the man needed a good HMO and a personal trainer.

He died almost intestate with only 225 crowns to his name.

On this day, 445 years ago, he remarked on the words of the apostle Paul, “The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to be. . . . . . ,” at which point the Calvin legend, puffed by his successor Theodore Beza in whose arms he died, claims he breathed his last.

The very next day, Calvin was in the ground in a plain coffin in the town cemetery outside of town.
Check out Homiletics, July 5, 2009, for our tribute to Calvin’s life and theology, and be sure to read Travis McMaken’s Preaching Calvin column’s in both the May-June and July-August issue.

What To Do With All that Hot Air of Yours

Reports came out last fall that by this spring, there'd be a car on the streets of France and possibly New Zealand which runs on air.

Here's a blurb about it from one site (search the Web for "air pod" or "L'air pod" and you will get a lot of hits):

While outfits like Lightning and Tesla are attempting to make eco-friendly cars sexy, MDI is taking things in a completely different direction. The recently-made-official Airpod looks practically nothing like anything seen on American roadways today, which is probably why it's apt to hit the streets of France and New Zealand first. The oddly shaped automobile will reportedly reach a top speed of 70kmh (44mph) and cruise 100-kilometers (62 miles) on just $2. The secret? A minuscule compressed air-powered engine on each of the rear wheels, both of which get instructed by the car's joystick (Atari fans, rejoice!). We're told that reloading the engine with hot air takes less than two minutes, and if all goes well, the first of the urban vehicles will hit the cobblestones in the spring of 2009.

I don't know how the fool thing works. It runs on air. Compressed air I think. So do you have to go to the filling station and grab an air hose, fill up your tires and while you're at it, fill up a tank of compressed air too? Or does it just work on any air? Is humidity a factor? Does it require a lot of hot air? If so, I am pretty sure I know a good source.

The car is steered by a joy stick, not a steering wheel. Will I need to pass a special driver's license test before rolling out on the streets in one of these glorified balloons? Is that the way it works: You blow up the balloon and then let go, and the little thing just scurries all over?

I don't know what to make of this, really. It just seems like a car needs fuel, and I can't wrap my head around air being fuel, or that I can get a lot of energy out of this machine and it only costs me the air I breathe.

Seems like it should cost me a lot more.

Good Citizens-R-Us

Harvard University professor, Robert Putnam and University of Notre Dame scholar David Campbell argue in their book, American Grace: How Religion is Reshaping our Civic and Political Lives, that people with a strong faith-system make better citizens and better neighbors—and, since America is more religious than most countries—that should be a good thing. We should be a nation of good citizens and good neighbors.

Putnam and Campbell say, according to a report from Religious News Service, that “their studies found that religious people are three to four times more likely to be involved in their community. They are more apt than nonreligious Americans to work on community projects, belong to voluntary associations, attend public meetings, vote in local elections, attend protest demonstrations and political rallies, and donate time and money to causes—including secular ones.”

Well maybe. The other thing Putnam says is that the generation growing up behind older Americans are “vastly” more secular. And chances are, these kids aren’t going to grow a faith as they grow older.
So what does that mean? That 30 years from now, we’re going to be a nation of unruly citizens and grouchy neighbors?

Many would argue that, Putnam’s research notwithstanding, we’re already there.

I think I agree with Putnam’s central thesis. It should be true of Christians, clearly.

Justin Martyr made a similar argument to the Emperor, saying in effect, “You have nothing to fear from us. We are good citizens”

But Christians also know how to protest when government is bad. That’s what good citizens do. No, said Justin, we’re not going to bow the knee to your image, but we will pay our taxes.

The key, say Putnam and Campbell, is the influence of church, synagogue or mosque. People who are a part of faith communities tend to get involved. It’s just a bit different if someone from church asks you to help out at the food bank, than say, if the same request was made by your bowling team.

Obama’s Open Mind

Okay, I guess I will weigh in on the Obama speech at Notre Dame.

First, I really can’t get all worked up about it. If you are a single-issue voter, as evidently many pro-lifers are, then perhaps this is the battle you choose to fight.

But how can it be strange for a major U.S. educational institution to invite THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES to give the commencement address? Surely the president might have something to say unrelated to the abortion debate in this country that would be worth listening to.

According to a TIME survey, “Three-quarters of Catholics either approve of or offer no opinion on Notre Dame's decision to invite Obama, and the same percentage of U.S. bishops have opted to stay out of the fight.”

Maybe the silent majority has it right here. Ho hum. Obama is our president, and he’s accepted an invitation to speak at Notre Dame. Bully for Notre Dame. Maybe next year Harvard will invite Sarah Palin to speak at its commencement.

Nah.

Obama’s clever. He knew that he’d have to acknowledge the controversy.  He said, according to one source, that "no matter how much we want to fudge it ... the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable." He went on to urge the graduating class to have  “open hearts, open minds” and to use “fair-minded words.”

I think Obama is sincere.

But I gotta tell you: Usually when I hear someone urge someone else to have an open mind on a particular subject, what the person really means is: “Please take some time to explore all the reasons why you should believe as I do.”

Perhaps this is what Bishop Samuel Aquila of the Catholic Diocese of Fargo, N.D., had in mind when he discussed the controversy surrounding President Obama's commencement address when he appeared  appeared Thursday (May 14) on Fox News' “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.” "Certainly NARAL or Planned Parenthood would never invite (Pope) Benedict XVI, much less extend an award to him. And essentially, Notre Dame is ignoring their Catholic identity and who they are, their Catholic character, by giving an award to him." (And speakin of the pope, doesn't Obama in this photo look like a Catholic prelate? All he needs is a crozier and a funny hat.)

Having an open mind is not necessarily a virtue. I think Obama knows this. His concern is that we forge a way to continue the discussion without demonizing those who disagree with us. To have an open mind is just a polite way of saying that you have a hole in your head. And, as someone has observed, if you have an open mind, someone’s sure to come by and drop a lot of nonsense into it.

The Bible doesn’t call on us to have an open mind, but an understanding mind. We should be people who know what we believe and why—and leave it there.

The final word comes from George Bernard Shaw—someone who was a fer piece from the kingdom himself, but he understood the fallacy of the “open mind”: “The open mind never acts: when we have done our utmost to arrive at a reasonable conclusion, we still must close our minds for the moment with a snap, and act dogmatically on our conclusions.”

The Shaq on Performance Enhancing Drugs

Shaq on his Twitter feed today: "Confession I admit to taking performance adhancing cereal....Frosted Flakes mixed with Fruit Loops and Bananas. Pls dnt judge me."

Funny. You remember Shaq, right? The big basketball guy. The Big Aristotle, Big Daddy, the Big Agave, the Big Cactus, Big Shaqtus, the Big Galactus, the Big Baryshnikov and so on.

Performance enhancing drugs. You can’t read the sports pages these days without reading about P.E.D.

But you can also read the gospel lection for this Sunday, where Jesus talks about the biggest P.E.D. of all.

Love. The Big Love. Big Jesus Love. The Homiletics commentary reads in part:

First, it is the greatest love because it comes to expression in the greatest act of giving, the giving of his own life (see also 10:11, 15, 17). Second, Christ’s love creates a relationship of openness in which he discloses everything he has heard from his Father. Finally, it is a productive love because his love that chooses and appoints his disciples brings forth their production of abiding fruit and their reception of whatever they ask (see also 15:7). Hence, in order to love others like Jesus has loved them, the disciples will be asked as Jesus was to reveal what they have seen and know (15:27), and may even be asked to give their lives (15:20; 21:18-19) all so that they might give out love to others.

A little love can go a long ways to boosting one’s performance.

Smash Your Cooking Pots and Sink Your Boats

Here’s a short sermon series idea for you: A study of the “make no provision” texts of the NT. Or “Give no occasion” texts. Roughly the same meaning.

I did a quick search. I found rather quickly the well-known “make no provision” text of Romans 13:14 — “Make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.”

Then, you go to 1 Corinthians 10:32:  “Give no occasion to stumbling, whether to Jews, or Greeks, or the assembly of God.”

Then, to 1 Timothy 5:14: “Give no occasion to the adversary for reviling.”

Finally, to 2 Corinthians 6:3: “Giving no occasion of stumbling in anything, that our ministration be not blamed.”

There might be other such references of course. But this will get you going.

These texts essentially argue that part of Christian living is to put the chocolate, or alcohol, or crème puffs under lock and key and throw away the key.

All of us understand—or must understand—that there are certain things we just don’t fool around with. These “things” might differ from person to person (“All things are lawful”) although doubtless you have a list of the absolutes: these vices, habits, behaviors have no place in the life of a professing Christian.

So, the NT argues, you “give no occasion,” or “make no provision.” You burn your bridges behind you. You have committed your life to following Christ, and Christ is your leader, and he calls you to leave behind the stuff that might bog you down.

A reference to Chinese folk lore might help here: In 207 BC, a Chinese rebel, Xiang Yu fought a decisive battle against the troops of the Qin Dynasty. It was a peasant rebellion, the first of its kind, and Yu, although of noble birth, joined them as a deputy commander-in-chief.

As the decisive battle loomed, it became apparent that the battle would be fought near the Zhang river in northern China. The head commander, Song Yi refused to attack, because he was afraid his peasant soldiers would not be able to prevail against the well-trained Qin soldiers.

A standoff ensued that lasted 46 days. The weather had turned bad and the peasants began to complain. Xiang decided that it was time to act. He killed Song and took control of the army. He led the army across the Zhang river and then he issued a most startling and unusual command to his peasant troops:

“Po fu chen zhou.” (Sounds like: Poe fu shun joe)

Translated it means: Smash your cooking pots, and burn your boats.

The meaning was clear. “We now have no means to retreat. There is no way to survive and eat again unless the enemy is defeated. We are now committed. This is the path we’ve chosen.”

Yu and his peasant army were victorious and that victory led to the ultimate collapse of the Qin dynasty.

So—when we face the journey before us, when we come up against our foe—moral, spiritual, or otherwise, perhaps Xiang Yu’s advice—not to speak of the Word of God—is helpful.

“Smash your cooking pots and burn your bridges.” Retreat to our former life must be removed as an option.

The July-August issue of Homiletics in now online

The July-August issue of Homiletics in now online.

The cover story is CALVIN, 500 years old July 9. Inside you’ll find a July 5 treatment of Calvin that you can work into a Sunday sermon. The Preaching Column likewise features Calvin, the second of a two-part series by Ph.D. candidate (Princeton Theological Seminary) Travis McMaken.

Also: Five of the gospel lections in July and August are taken from John chapter 6. So we developed a five-part series to help you preach from this chapter of John in the late summer.

There’s much more including “G-Force,” “Genes and Grace,” “The Art of Gratuitous Praise,” “The Compliment Machine,” and “The Liquid Armor of God.”

A Mother’s Face

I got an e-mail from a subscriber wondering where our Mother’s Day material was located for the May-June issue of Homiletics.

Well, gulp, we didn’t include any material to help pastors cook up a Mother’s Day reflection this year.

Actually, we have only offered a special treatment for Mother’s day twice in the past 20 years: 2005, and 2003 (“Wisteria ” [May 8] and “Your Family: How It Works” [May 11].

But—I do have a suggestion if you’d like to have a sermon this Sunday on the Mother’s Day theme. Consider the case of Connie Culp.

Five years ago Culp, a mother of two, was shot in the face by her husband, who then turned the gun on himself. He survived and went to prison.

Culp also survived, and went to prison—a prison of nightmarish proportion. She clung on to life, but the attack completely demolished her face, shattering her nose and cheeks, the roof of her mouth and one eye. Shotgun pellets were embedded deep into her skull. It was awful. Neighborhood children thought she was a monster.

She went through 30 operations to repair what could be repaired. And then, last December, in a 22 hour operation, a team of doctors replaced her face with bone, muscles, nerves, skin and blood vessels from a woman who had just died. 

Yesterday, she went public with her new face.

Your heart goes out to her. She’s a mom, and her heart is just as big and loving as it ever was. You have to wish her the best.

I am sure that the face that we see today of Connie Culp does not in itself give us an idea of her true face, except that it surely testifies to her courage, perseverance and sense of optimism.

And it could raise the question for us: What does the face of a mother look like?

Think of some biblical moms, like Hannah. Or Mary boxing Jesus by the ears after his dalliance in the temple, but a mom who treasured her moments with her son and “kept all these things in her heart.”

Think of moms in history, like Monica, the mother of Augustine. What that woman went through. Or, Susannah Wesley.

And then think of—perhaps—some moms in your own congregation.

What are the striking features we see on these faces?

And because, no doubt, your congregation will consist of women who are not moms, and because you’ll have dads listening too, ask if there is some way in which the features we see on the face of these moms, should not be features we all endeavor to emulate.

Mine That Bird

This little reflection should be filed under “Never, never, never give up.”

It was the most astonishing finish in the Kentucky Derby in memory. I think on only one other occasion has a horse at such long odds (50-1) won the race.

I’m not sure how often a horse that has been dead last finishes first, but it can’t be often. The track announcer mentioned Mine that Bird only once early on and that was to note that the nag was in last place. The name didn’t come up again until the very end when Mine that Bird shot through the pack to win easily.

If the race had been another half mile, Mine That Bird would’ve lapped the field. Incredible finish.

So here’s the deal: Do you feel like you’re struggling and can’t seem to make any progress? You’re getting nowhere fast, and you’re never going to be a winner?

Do you feel like you’re at the back of the pack and all you can see ahead of you is about 20 horses’ as----, er, rear ends? If you like what you see, well you can just stay there.

But if you’d prefer not to have your face in other people’s business, what are you going to do?

You’re going to move to the inside rail, and start running like God made you to run, that’s what you’re going to do.

Sure, you can feel the crack of the whip a little. And sure, it stings.

But compared to the thrill of victory, it’s nothing.

Calvin at 500

It could only be of interest to theologians and the residents of Grand Rapids, Michigan, wherein is located the liberal arts institution Calvin College: the year 2009 is the quincentennial year of the crusty Genevan reformer’s birth.

And if that isn’t a reason to have a party, someone’s not trying.

The next issue of Homiletics which you should have in your hands in about three weeks, and which should be online in about three days, features John Calvin. We plastered his picture, pointy beard and all on the cover.

This is the year of Calvin. There’s a lot of buzz in the theological corridors of the academy and Presbyterian-land. Calvin scholars have had their calendars full with speaking engagements for about three years out.

When I made the decision to do something about Calvin in Homiletics, I turned to the lone Presbyterian on our writing team, the Reverend Henry G. Brinton, Senior Minister at Fairfax Presbyterian Church in Fairfax, Virginia. Henry doesn’t have the pointy beard, and isn’t at all as grumpy as Calvin reportedly was, but he knows a thing or two about Calvin. I asked Henry to write something for pastors across America that would help them share with their congregations the importance of Calvin and the enduring thrust of Calvin’s theology that can still inform and strengthen our faith today.

This he did. Also, in the same issue, a bright young Ph.D. candidate at Princeton Theological Seminary, Travis McMaken, give us in the Preaching Column, the second of his essays on Calvin, the emphasis in this second piece being on Calvin’s theology (the first essay focuses on his life).

Henry’s not making a living off of Calvin, but close to it. His most recent article about Calvin appears today, Monday, May 4, 2009, in USA Today. You can read it here.

Finally, a couple of Calvin quotes:

“Man with all his shrewdness is as stupid about understanding by himself the mysteries of God, as an ass is incapable of understanding musical harmony.”

“I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels”

“Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a day; set him on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life.”

Five Things to Tell Your Congregation About the Swine Flu

It’s all over the news, and people are talking about it, and they’re worried: the Swine flu, or H1N1, it’s technical name.

You may to carve out some time in worship tomorrow to provide words of reassurance and guidance for your congregation.

That’s why Homiletics is offering some thoughts to help you get started in your thinking. Five Things to Tell Your Congregation about the Swine Flu. It’s a quick read. Your pastoral instincts will surely kick in. You will immediately think of a few more things you might say, and change the title to Seven Things You Need to Know About the Swine Flu. Or Eight. Or Four.

Also, check out the current lesson of The Wired Word which deals with the Swine flu threat. Go to www.thewiredword.com.

Finally, Senior Writer, Bob Kaylor, says that the response to his column on “Sermonizing Sex” has been huge. There’s still time to write him to request more information if you think you might want to do a series of sermons on summer sex, I mean, do a summer series about sex. Write him at: bkaylor@parkcitychurch.org.

Bob also has a full-blown sermon about the Swine Flu threat. If you want to read it for gleanings you might pick out for your own work, write him at e-address above. Bob’s a sharing kind of guy. He’ll send it to you.

Five Things to Tell Your Congregation about the Swine Flu

1. Strike a balance: Understand the difference between panic and prudence.
On Thursday, Vice President Joseph Biden said on the "Today" show that he's advised his family to stay away from airplanes and subways – precautions, said one source “that outstripped any official government recommendation and sounded alarmist rather than cautious coming from the vice president of the United States.” Later Biden back away a smidgen from this panicky advice. Don’t forget that according to the CDC, every year more than 200,000 people in the United States are hospitalized with the flu, and about 36,000 people die.

2. Remember your mother’s advice
Wash your hands (“These you call clean? Go back and use soap and let me see them again!”). Cover your mouth when you cough and sneeze. Don’t send a sick child to school, but do send them to the doctor. 

3. Be a non-anxious presence for others who worry and fear.
Christians bring peace, not panic, to crisis situations.

4. Don’t blame the pig; eat the pig.
Eat bacon and pork sausage. Yes. Yes. Yes. Maybe salads, fruits and vegetables are healthier food choices, but you get the idea. U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, posted a Twitter tweet, saying:  "U can't get swine flu fr eating pork. Eatup. Regardless of epidemic."  True enough, but when people get afraid, they tend to blame something or someone. Don’t use this as an excuse for racism, or to make pariahs out of any one ethnic group or nationality.

5. Ask yourself how you might help if a crisis arises.
Christians are people who –loving their neighbors as themselves—pitch in to help when help is needed.

A Lesson from Dead Batteries

Sunday afternoon, I took a long bike ride—about 18k—which is long for me, and stopped at a beautiful municipal garden. I had taken a few pictures along the way, and now as I meandered through stands of trees and among the flower beds, I continued to shoot.

Then the batteries (two AA batteries) went dead.

Most frustrating thing.

Here you are on this beautiful journey, seeing all this neat stuff, and you can’t take pictures cause the batteries are dead, and you were fool enough not to pack some spares in your man purse. (This pic is of me on another trip.)

After I stopped fuming, I started to think about this need to record events.

I think men are more into this than women. Jeanie could probably go to Maui and spend a week on the beach, diving, hiking, and laying around, and not take a single photo. Me—I’d have the underwater camera, take pictures of the hotel room, swimming pool, girls in grass skirts, volcanoes, waiters, and hold the camera at arm’s length for self-shots of me on the beach looking like a beached white whale.

Do photos and journals (I do a lot of journaling, too) somehow memorialize the event, or immemorialize it? Does a photo provide some kind of historic proof that I was there, I experienced this thing, this ramps up the significance of the thing?

I think I want the camera because I see it as an aid to remembering. I look at the photo five years later and the memories wash over me all and make the experience come back—not like it was first experienced, but at least in a softer, but real way that gives me pleasure.

Sometimes, the memories are so beautiful they bring pain, like Van Auken says, the “pain of beauty.” You know what he means: that which is so breath-taking, rare and pure that its sheer magnificence just makes your blood thin, and your heart ache.

The problem with the need to record while in real time, is that you can sometimes miss the life that is happening to you. Jeanie just breathes deeply and lets life just soak her spirit to the marrow.

Sometimes I miss stuff. I hate my man purse. I can never find anything in that fool thing, and while I’m fumbling around looking for batteries, or a camera, or a cloth to clean the lens—or while I’m figuring out what setting to use, and so on—the sun has already set on the horizon, or the swan in the pond has swum out of view, or the child has run away.

And I can only think of what might have been.

So Sunday, the batteries went dead—but in a sense I came alive. I sat longer. I thought more. I saw more.

The writer in Ecclesiastes urges us to “Remember your Creator.” You’d think I could do that better with a camera than without.

But now I’m not so sure.

Next time out, I will have my camera and I will have spare batteries. But I will also shoot less and observe more.

Maybe I will give the camera to Jeanie.

Nah.

Children of the Recession at Risk

Economic hard times hit many people hard. Retirements are postponed. Resumes are dusted off. And children are at risk.

Babies are shaken violently. A three-month old has fractured ribs from abuse that occurred in the home. A nine-year old kid with diabetes no longer gets proper treatment for his conditions.

This is just some of the anecdotal evidence reported by Boston area hospitals—who knows what the data from other large metropolitan area are—but it’s clear that when times get tough, adults too often take it out on the kids, or the children are innocent victims in ancillary ways of the economic downturn.

The Child Protection Team at Boston’s Children’s Hospital said that typically it handles 1,500 cases of the type identified above per year. Last year, the figure rose to 1,800. It’s reported that abuse cases are running 20% above average. In Illinois, the Department of Child and Family Services also report that abuse cases are running above average. The story is the same in New York and Seattle.

Globally, every three seconds a child dies of malnutrition as the global food crisis deepens. The volatility of food prices coupled by or triggered by climate-related events are even more serious in a world-wide recession. And the poor are affected the most. With soaring food prices, availability of crop land affected by the credit squeeze, violence often erupts.

“Suffer the little children,” Jesus said.

He might have also said, “The little children suffer.”

It’s enough to break your heart.

Baseball Seasn’s Upn Us—Let the Blppers Begin!

I’ve decided t type this pst withut using the letter—hw d I say it, r type it?—well, yu can prbably figure it ut. 

This is entirely to hnr the Washingtn Natinals, sme f whm tk the field in ur natin’s capitl wearing unifrms bearing the team name NATINALS. (Just Ggle the wrd t find stry nline.)

A huge typ! This is the kind f thing that quickly becmes a part of baseball lre.

Yu have to feel srry fr the bz wh failed t ntice the prblem.

As an editr, I sympathize, believe me. I have cringed n many ccasins when I’ve fund a typ where there shuldn’t have been ne—nt that there’s a gd place fr any typ.

Interesting timing fr us at Hmiletics, because we have a piece cming ut for September cneected t an Ephesians text abut sme serius typs. Just went t printer. I will add this nline.

Anyway, there’s perhaps nthing like a typ that reveals the human cnditin.

The Bible says that we humans are srt f csmic, ntlgical typs: Gd “repented” that we humans were ever created.

I dn’t think Gd thinks that nw, but it wuld make an interesting discussin.

Prayer for the Planet

Let this beautiful planet be filled with loving kindness.

Let this beautiful planet be well and healthy.

Let this beautiful planet be filled with loving kindness.

Let this beautiful planet be well and healthy.

Let this Mother Earth be filled with great joy, peace and understanding.

Let this beautiful planet, our home, be filled with good will and the will-to-love.

And so it shall be.

--from the oneprayer.org Web site.

Life Is Good

Here are thoughts as I get ready for this coming Sunday, wondering what in the world I’m going to preach about. What follows is sort of like Timothy Merrill thinking out loud.

Reading the e-zines, blogs, and watching the news for the past week, and I am thinking: “Wow, there’s so much going on.”

I was irritated when I read a article written by a seventh-grader about the Black Plague (14th-century) and the lesson he said he drew from their study of this in class is that we should “trust science over religion.”

Man! How does a student get that idea from studying about the Black Plague? These students are hearing something goofy from someone. My question is, “What wisdom, exactly, was science offering the victims or potential victims of the bubonic plague back in 1349 AD or whenever, that could have saved thousands of lives?” "Science" didn't have a clue. Then there's the question of what "science" is in the 14th century. Anyway, this kid’s conclusion is just so wrong on so many levels as it relates to that particular event, that it boggles the mind. And the teacher … It’s scary, really.

But the news … the Somali pirates on the high seas … the dramatic rescue … what a great feeling it is to be RESCUED! Of course, one has to be in imminent danger for a rescue to take place, and that’s no fun. Have you ever had an experience when you felt you were “rescued” in a very literal, physical sense, or an emotional, psychological, spiritual/religious sense?

Then there’s the recent uptick in deadly mass homicides. It’s hard to believe we Americans are willing to live in such a violent culture. That we’re willing to ban smoking, but we’re not willing to ban guns. We’re willing to go to work, send our children to school, knowing that someone could decide that this is the day to slaughter a dozen or so innocent people. I don’t get it.

And the tea parties on April 15! No taxation with representation! Protests against a tax code that’s bigger and more boring than the Bible, but as some wag observed, at least the Bible has some good news. No good news in the tax code.

And, finally, there's the "NEver-Been-Kissed" Susan Boyle,the overnight singing sensation from the UK whose performance on the show "Britain's Got Talent" even wowed Simon Cowell. Sort of a UK slumdog, she sang "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables, and absolutely stunned the audience, and the YouTube clip has been seen by millions around the world. What a great story!

So, I’m a preacher with a Bible in one hand and my laptop in the other, wondering what do I preach about this Sunday. Then I remember Homiletics, and our story for this Sunday, the Second Sunday of Easter, Cycle B, is called “Life is Good” and it’s based on the NT text, Acts 4:32-35.

The material starts out this way:
Life is good.
You may disagree, but Life is Good is a registered and trademarked expression by the Life is Good people for whom, life is good.
Perhaps you have seen the emblematic smiling face of Jake on a Life is Good T-shirt or coffee mug or Frisbee. No, not the yellow Smiley plastered on novelty merchandise in the 70’s and later copped by Wal-Mart as the price rollback symbol. The Life is Good logo is a stick figure named Jack who wears a black beret, beatnik sunglasses, and flashes a giant Cheshire cat grin. Jack is often posed in any number of activities that bring simple pleasure to life — hiking, surfing, flying a kite, walking the dog.

And the material ends this way:
Life always seems to have plenty of difficulty and suffering to spread around. What we need is a group of people around us to shoulder the burdens of life with. We need people who will draw us toward interdependence and away from individualism, isolationism, and consumerism. We need biblical community.
That’s the good life.

Hope all of this helps.