Timothy Merrill

If Your’re Orthodox in Moscow, Da! Not so Orthodox? Nyet!

Since the fall of communism the Russian Orthodox Church has slowly risen from the ashes of the Soviet-style, officially atheistic government of the cold war era.

Today, more than 70% of the Russia’s population identify themselves as Orthodox, up double-digits from a decade ago. In part this is due to the former President Putin’s unabashed identification with the church, and his willingness to openly express his faith.

It’s not problem to be orthodox in Moscow these days.

It’s a huge problem to be heterodox, read a Protestant, in Moscow today. Some leaders of the Orthodox church are openly hostile, according to Charles Levy who done research on the subject. Said Rev. Aleksei Zorin, “We deplore those who ar led astray—those Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baptists, Pentecostals, and many other who cut Christ’s robes like bandits, who ripped apart Christ’s holy coat.”

In many cases, Protestants must resort to worshipping behind closed doors in private homes. Even then, one is at risk. In Stary Oskol, a few dozen Methodists huddled in a small apartment to worship, only to attract the attention of the FSB, the news KGB. It wasn’t long before the group was identified as a “sect” and shut down.

The Russian constitution guarantees religious freedom. But as in the case of many young governments, what is written on paper is not always experienced in life. Putin himself argues that his country is a country of free religious expression.

The problem of free religious expression is at least two-fold. One: The Russian Orthodox Church has such strong ties to the cultural and nationalistic ethos of the country, that it’s clearly a leg up on everybody else. You might liken it to the civil religion that was Christianity in pre-1960 America. You’re an American: of course you’re a Christian. Today in Moscow, it’s “You’re Russian: Of course you’re orthodox.” And if you’re not, and if you’re religious, you must be a member of a sect, like Presbyterianism.

Second: Russians tend to view religious institutions or “sects” as primarily extra-Russian, i.e. as faith that are not native to their homeland, and thus, being of foreign extraction, are suspicious.

The Russian experiment in opening up its culture to free religious expression is another example of how difficult it is, to tear away the husk of cultural accretions, to borrow Harnack’s metaphor, and find the essence of what it means to be a Christian, or a church, or both worshiping freely within a given political sphere. The Ruskies are still working on it. I believe they’re going to get there.

But they’re not there yet.

For more, click here.

Evangelical Manifesto Just Released

An Evangelical Manifesto has just been released within the past four hours. You can read it here.

There’s a long list of charter signers including people such as Leith Anderson, Jim Wallis, Mark Noll, Erwin Lutzer, Bob Buford, Leighton Ford, Jack Hayford, Max Lucado, John Ortberg, Ronald J. Sider, Miroslav Volf, et al. Other signatories have also signed, and the web site invites other interested parties to sign as well.

The 20-page, double-spaced document is occasioned by the “confusions and corruptions that attend the term Evangelical.” Describing themselves as followers of the “narrow” way, the reaffirm that Evangelicals are: “Christians who define themselves, their faith, and their lives according to the Good News of Jesus of Nazareth.” This is followed by seven “foundational” (not fundamental) theological positions, which for Evangelicals will not come as a surprise.

The manifesto argues that E’s should “be distinguished from two opposite tendencies to which Protestantism has been prone: liberal revisionism and conservative fundamentalism.” The liberal version of the faith is such a weakened one as to be scarcely recognizable as Christianity. It has suffered, says the Manifesto, several “losses, “ i.e. a loss of the authority of Scripture, a loss of community and continuity (tearing itself from believers around the world and in history), a loss of stability, a loss of credibility, a loss of identity. Liberals have become “kissing Judases,” that is, “Christians who betray Jesus with an interpretation.”

Fundamentalists, on the other hand, came into being as a reaction to the modern world, and tend to “romanticize the past … radicalize the present, with styles of reaction that are personally and publicly militant to the point where they are sub-Christian.”

The Manifest then devotes more ink to confessing the sins of E’s than it did on describing the sins of Liberals and Fundamentalists. This section begins: “We confess that we Evangelicals have betrayed our beliefs by our behavior” and then rattles off 12 grevious errors, including “lives and lifestyles that are shaped more by our own sinful preferences and by modern fashion and convenience. The Manifesto acknowledges that E’s quickly denounce the sins of others, but turn a blind eye to their own sins; their care of the earth has been “negligent,” they’ve not “demonstrate[d] unity and harmony of the body of Christ,” they’ve been “seduced by the shaping power of the modern world, exchanging costly grace for convenience,” they’ve fallen into anti-intellectualism by encouraging a “false hostility between science and faith,” they’ve become “cheerleaders for those in power,” and too often they “have tried to be relevant” but instead have “succumbed to the passing fashions of the moment.” And more.

This litany is followed by a call to action, which is followed by a discussion of the public square. The right of all people of all faiths to have a voice in the public square is affirmed. It should be a “civil” square, not the sacred or naked square: “Our commitment is to a civil public square, a vision of public life in which citizens of all faiths are free to enter and engage the public square on the basis of their faith, but within a framework of what is agreed to be just and free for other faiths, too. Thus every right we assert for ourselves is at once a right we defend for others. A right for a Christian is a right for a Jew, and a right for a secularist, and a right for a Mormon, and a right for a Muslim, and a right for a Scientologist, and a right for all the believers in all the faiths across this wide land.”

Finally, the document deplores “the striking intolerance evident among the new atheists.” They also acknowledge that the presence of the Internet means that faith expressions not really aimed at anyone, can be read by anyone, anywhere. The document concludes by calling on scholars and journalists to “abandon stereotypes, and adopt definitions and categories in describing us and other believers in terms that are both accurate and faith and with a tone that you in turn would like to be applied to yourselves.

Invoking Luther, the document concludes, “Here we stand. Unashamed and assured in our own faith, we reach out to people of all other faiths with love, hope and humility. With God’s help, we stand ready with you to face the challenges of our time and to work together for a greater human flourishing.”

The Myanmar Cyclone

The tragic events in Myanmar are unfolding now before the eyes of the world. Reports are still trickling in. One news release I saw said that more than 100,000 may be dead.

In any event, this is a major catastrophe and thankfully Myanmar's neighbors in the global village want to help. Unfortunately, the Myanmar government is not eager to either ask or help.

This Sunday, we must pray for the people of Myanmar, and be in contact with our denominational centers to see how we can be of practical assistance.

This is Pentecost Sunday.

A great wind blew disaster, death and disease in mega-sized doses in this already strife-torn country.

On Sunday we celebrate the day "a mighty wind" brought power and energy to a small band of people who then proceeded to "turn the world upside down."

The wind has left in Myanmar. But the Spirit-wind that blows in the Church is still an active, living breath, the very breath of God. Let the people in Myanmar feel its comforting breezes.

Pentecost: What More Can We Say?

This coming Sunday is Pentecost Sunday. It's one of those Sunday every preacher has that falls in the category of a "What-More-Can-Be-Said?" sermon. Other such Sundays are Christmas Sunday, Palm Sunday, Easter.

All I know is that the Acts text is probably the one text Homiletics has done more work on than any other text in the RCL. We're in our 20th year of publishing Homiletics, and I counted 14 separate treatments of this text. That means that 14 out of the last 20 years, we've found something to say about Acts 2:1-21.

This is what we do: We try to give the preacher a fresh approach to this awesome, powerful text. In checking the web site I found that to discuss this text we talked about the Beaufort scale, muggles, missionaries, fields of dreams, bug buildup, Holy spirit holes, globalization, language problems in the European Union--and more!

But I got to tell you, I LOVE what's coming up this Sunday. We all know about wind farms. But where does the wind blow the strongest and most frequently? Not on the ground, let me tell you.

Rather, the wind is blowing--really blowing--40,000-45,000 feet in the air.

Fine. How does one harness that energy? Well, you have to go to where the wind is blowing, that much I'll tell you. Check out Homiletics for this week. "Catching the Wind" is a must-read.

July-August Issue Online

This is an alert for Homiletics subscribers: the July-August issue is now available online. The print version should be in your hands in about three weeks.

Once again, I am excited about the new issue. The cover story, 2K Paul, discusses--in this the jubilee year of the apostle Paul's birth--the influence of Paul upon the first-century shaping of the Christian faith.

You'll also find sermon ideas based on the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the HBO show, Big Love, the "new language" movement, and something called the Venus Rosewater Dish.

We also continue to close gaps in our coverage of RCL texts, this time dealing with four first-time texts: Exodus 1:8-2:10 (the story of baby Moses), Genesis 28:10-19a (Jacob's vision of the ladder), Genesis 29:15-28 (Jacob and his four wives ), and Romans 11:1-2a, 29-32.

Check it out: Homiletics

The Language of Jesus is Fading Fast

The scholarly consensus is that the language of Jesus was Aramaic.

Probably the only time you’ve heard Aramaic is when you saw The Passion of the Christ, and
even then, according to people who do still speak Aramaic, it was hard to understand because of the accents of the actors speaking the language.

Aramaic speakers are a dwindling group these days, and found primarily in Syria — in small villages like Malula and Jabadeen and Bakhaa. You can find it still in some monasteries where the Lord’s Prayer might be recited to visiting tourists.

But it’s disappearing fast, and many residents of these villages rue its demise. Yona Sabar, a professor of Semitic languages at the University of California, Los Angeles, thinkgs that these small villages represent a sort of “last of the Mohicans” of Western Aramaic.

For more, see Robert W. Worth, “Language of Jesus is still alive, but fading,” International Herald Tribune, April 23, 2008, 5.

I was struck by the concept that the language of Jesus is fading, because that idea alone screams "sermon!" Aramaic is disappearing, but that’s not the only language Jesus spoke, and it’s seems to be fading just as fast.

Zimbabwe Crisis

I am passing on what pastor colleague James Berger has shared with me and others. He got an e-mail--well, read on (for a brief bio of Berger, see my April 3, 2008 post, "Dith Pran Remembered"), the rest of this post is his:

The letters are tacked together in an e-mail, and passed along the international network. My copy came from a church member born in South Africa, and married to a woman from Zimbabwe. He asked me to read them and forward them to as many people as possible, and to any one who had the power to help. They tell the stories of the people of Zimbabwe who voted against the dictatorial president Robert Mugabe. Mugabe and the ZANU-PF party lost the parliamentary election on March 29. In response, he has persecuted the opposition party members. On April 25 the results of a recount confirmed his party’s defeat. In response the army fanned out to arrest the opposition party (MDC) members. You can read the story from The NY Times here.

Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, was the breadbasket of Africa. Mugabe, now 84, has run the country for 28 years, during which time it has slid into poverty and squalor. The letters I received spoke of truckloads of young, armed men descending on settlements, high on drugs and alcohol and carrying AK-47s. The terror in the emails is palpable.

I hesitate to use the name of the writers of the letters for fear it could cause his or her arrest. The first letter says:

“I ask that you all pray for us in the way that you know how, and let me know that you are thinking of us and sending out positive vibes... that's all. You can't just be in denial and pretend/believe it's not going on.

”To be frank with you, it's genocide in the making and if you do not believe me, read the Genocide Report by Amnesty International which says we are - IN level 7 - (level 8 is after it's happened and everyone is in denial).

“If you don't want me to tell you these things-how bad it is-then it means you have not dealt with your own fear, but it does not help me to think you are turning your back on our situation. We need you, please, to get the news OUT that we are all in a fearfully dangerous situation here. Too many people turn their backs and say — oh well, that's what happens in Africa. This Government has GONE MAD and you need to help us publicize our plight — or how can we be rescued? It's a reality!”

The second letter ends:
“The reaction of our neighbors to the terror and tragedy unraveling Zimbabwe is beyond all under standing. South African president Thabo Mbeki emerged from an hour long meeting with Mr Mugabe saying: ‘There is no crisis in Zimbabwe.’ Fourteen African heads of state met for 12 hours in Zambia and emerged saying: ‘Election results must be released expeditiously.’ Of course we don't know what went on behind closed doors but it seems like quiet diplomacy has again been the convenient smoke screen for Africa’s Big Men. It is no comfort whatsoever to mums who can’t find enough food for our families. It is no comfort to frightened men whispering on crackly telephone lines about men with guns on an opposition witch hunt. It is no comfort to farmers trying to grow food but faced with drugged, drunken youths who want what they've got.

“Zimbabweans voted for change a fortnight ago, the MDC announced that it had been achieved but day by day that change is being painfully, brutally stripped away. Until next week, love N.”

Tomorrow’s lectionary text from I Peter 3:8 says, “Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing. It is for this that you were called—that you might inherit a blessing.” These letters challenge us to find the way to live that promise from scripture, and make a difference in the world. Take the time to email your Representative and your Senators. Respond with your suggestions for how the Church can facilitate the peace and reconciliation of nations.

--Rev. Dr. James R. Berger, Fort Myers, Florida

Fashion Advice, Part II: Smart Casual

You may recall that a while ago, I think back in February or so, we discussed Queen Elizabeth II's recent emergence as a fashion icon. No need to rehash that now.

But now I return to the topic because my own fashion sense was recently challenged.

Jeanie and I were issued a fancy invitation to a sleek poolside reception at the St. Regis Hotel just last week. It was an affair to welcome some visiting bigwigs associated with Jeanie's employer. So naturally, she dragged me along.

What was interesting to both of us, however, were the instructions at the bottom of this black invitation with apricot lettering: Smart Casual.

We were to dress casually smart.

So what's that? We're all nervous thinking we might show up dressed in stupid casual. On the other hand, we don't want to appear in stupid formal, or casual formal.

We decided that for me, I'd wear dress slacks with a dress t-shirt and a jacket. That's all I could figure out.

But of course, this curious instruction got me to thinking about the dress codes the apostle Paul mentions in a few of his invitations to Christian living...the grandest soiree of them all.

I decided that "smart casual" says a lot about how we should behave in the world. Casual, i.e. without self-righteous religious air and pretense, but "smart," or at least wise, careful to express the virtues that really matter.

Be casual: that is, be real.

Be smart: that is, don't do stupid things.

All in all, the affair went okay. I did have one problem. The reception was at 4 p.m. But at 10 a.m. I had run an 8K charity event, in the sun. But because there was a breeze, I flipped my baseball cap around backwards.

Later, I discovered that I now had this huge protrator-looking design blazoned in deep red on my balding pate. People at the reception whispered condolences to my wife; they thought I'd had a frontal lobotomy or something.

I pretty much looked stupid/ridiculous.

I Am Getting Turned Off. Are You?

I am thinking about getting turned off. I’m referring to Annual Turnoff Week which this year starts Monday, April 21. Ends April 27.

The idea is to turn off the TV and use the free time for other activities.

Organizers hope that people will realize the extent to which TV robs families and children of valuable time and activities which could enrich their lives.

This is not a movement that says TV is bad. The argument is that too much TV is bad.

I think this is something that a pastor, as a shepherd of souls, should be interested in.

Here’s some Fast Facts:
Americans watch an average of more than four hours of TV a day.
The American Academy of Pediatrics urges parents to avoid electronic media for children 2 years of age and under.
40% of families always or often watch TV while eating dinner.
By age 18, American children will have seen an average of more than 200,000 acts of violence, including 16,000 murders on TV.
Virtually all 3,500 research studies over 40 years show a link between watching media violence and comitting acts of real violence.
The proportion of overweight children has doubled since 1980 due, in part, to sedentary leisure time activities such as watching TV & playing video games.

What can be done in one’s screen-free time?
Listen to music
Paint, draw, sculpt.
Read a book, magazine, or newspaper.
Play board games, cards, or charades.
Cook dinner or bake cookies with friends or family.
Talk to your friends & family
Play Frisbee, soccer, softball, basketball, tag, or tennis.
Swim, ride your bike!

For more information, go to: www.tvturnoff.org, or www.screentime.org and select Take Action/Program in the task bar across the top of the page, and Turnoff Week in the drop down menu.

Got Any Bitter People in Your Church?

Got any bitter people in your church?

The reason I ask, as you probably already know, is that Obama thinks that bitterness causes people to turn to religion. And often, religious people go to church.

So, when you're preaching Sunday, and look out upon your flock, the sound you hear from the sheep could be bleating bitterness.

Obama's helping us to remember a cardinal rule of preaching: know your audience.

Problem is: How do you know whether your church members are bitter, as Obama suspects they are?

Well, the bulge in their vest pocket might be one clue. And I am not talking about a fat wallet. That's one thing people don't have right now. That's why they're bitter, Obama says. They don't got no money.

No, I'm not talking about their wallet, but about the gun in the shoulder holster. These people are not only bitter and poor; they bitter and packing. That could be lethal.

Anyway, with this bitterness stuff in the news, maybe it's time for a sermon on bitterness. So, pull out a few notes and get to work.

And come Sunday, might not hurt to preach from behind some bullet-proof glass.

You Don’t Have to Boil the Ocean

I’m posting this Tuesday morning. You’ve got maybe 10 hours or less to get your taxes filed, if you haven’t done so. And that doesn’t leave much time for boiling the ocean.

Boiling the ocean is what we pastors attempt to do—all the time. It’s an expression I just ran across.

Apparently it’s used a lot in business-geek-speak. It refers to those whose reach exceeds their grasp, to those whose ambitions are, well, too ambitious. Biting off more than one can chew. Attempting the futile, the unreasonable, pursuing the lost cause, to dream the impossible dream. Boil the ocean.

One source I read said that according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) there are 275 million cubic miles of ocean out there. and according to Michio Kaku, professor of theoretical physics at City University of New York, "It would take a lot of energy" -- 4.7 x 1026 joules, give or take. "It would probably require more energy than all the fuel on earth."

So, slow down. Get real this week. What can you do? What’s reasonable? What’s your next step?

I don’t know about you, but forget the ocean. I’m going to boil a pot of water.

Coffee’s brewing.

Then, after a cup or two, then, maybe I’ll boil the ocean.

Assault with a Deadly Hedgehog

Hey, did you read about this guy in New Zealand who got mad at a 15-year kid, and—finding a hedgehog nearby, picked it up and threw it at the youngster?

The prickly beast hit the lad in the leg causing a large, red welt and a number of puncture wounds.

The perp was Willian Singalargh, 27, who was arrested and charged with “assault with a weapon,” in this case a hedgehog.

Singalargh’s actions are regrettable. But, can we laugh about this a little?

What do you do when you’re angry, upset, or lost your way, or not sure what to do next?

You throw a hedgehog, that’s what!

Here’s what I mean: Jim Collins, as you may know, talks about the hedgehog in his book Good to Great in a chapter that I think is called “The Hedgehog Principle.” He says that the cool thing about a hedgehog is that it only knows ONE THING. That one thing is: When the fox comes around I better curl up into this little ball, and the fox won’t eat me cause of my prickly skin.

The fox is fast, sleek and sexy. But the hedgehog survives because it is always true to the ONE THING it knows.

So when you’re floundering, don’t throw something at a kid. But go ahead and grab your hedgehog and give it a heave. Attack with the hedgehog! Return to the ONE THING you know to be true—about yourself, your life, your method of working, your approach to problems, whatever.

Perhaps you don’t know what your ONE THING is. Better find out.

Never know when you’re going to need a hedgehog.

G.I.F.T.S.

I just met some extraordinary middle school students: Emily, Kimber, Vinay, and Jonas. They’re in 8th-grade.

These kids, in just the space of 90 days, have created a non-profit charitable organization, set up a web site to promote their vision, and were sent by their school to the Global Issues Network Conference in Beijing, April 4-6, 2008, from which they’ve just returned. (See www.helpingmigrants.wikispaces.com.)

Their new organization is G.I.F.T.S. (Giving Individuals a Future to Succeed). Their concern is labor migration, in which desperate people move from one country to another looking for job opportunities. Usually these are the people who fall into 3D employment, i.e. doing Dirty, Degrading and Dangerous jobs. GIFTS wants to help them find the skills and jobs into their own countries so that relocation and 3D jobs can be avoided.

The Global Issues Network conference was energizing for them. They heard from the famed Dr. Jane Goodall, Austin Gutwein of Hoops-of-Hope, and Jean-Francois Rischard, author of High Noon: 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them.

Listening to these kids I realized again how powerful a vision and dream can be. Our young people, if given a dream, or inspired to dream dreams, will turn the world upside to achieve them.

Cannot the church do more?

I think the church is trying. I hear this all the time. Kids need socializing time, they need to do fun things, but if that’s all the youth program has to offer, young people will tune out. This generation is the first generation that will never remember a time when they weren’t aware that their habitat is seriously threatened and that life may not be sustainable unless actionable steps are taken to reverse trends.

Support your congregations efforts to empower young people, to minister to the whole person.

Save the young people; save the world.

Dith Pran Remembered

The pastoral career of the Rev. Dr. James R. Berger like many a pastor has been an odyssey. He is currently the pastor of Hope United Church (Presbyterian Church USA) in Fort Myers, Florida, but he spent 23 years as a mission pastor in Alaska, then to the Bahamas with the Church of Scotland returning to the States in 2002. Berger started his ministry at Beverly Hills Presbyterian Church, 90210 in 1975.

Jim serves on the Editorial Board of The Wired Word as do I and we were discussing the recent death of Dith Pran. I asked him to write a few words. Here's what Jim has to say:

Dith Pran was a photojournalist from Cambodia, who survived the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge in the mid-1970’s. He died of cancer in New Jersey last week.

Mr. Dith was the local partner to The New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg. As the Khmer Rouge gained control of the country, as many as two million Cambodians were killed, a third of the population. Mr. Dith stayed to cover the story until taken prisoner in 1975. He was sent to the countryside with millions of others, working as virtual slaves. He escaped to Thailand in 1979. Mr. Schanberg’s account of Dith’s ordeal became the basis for the movie, The Killing Fields.

His fame provided him with the eminence to act for the rights of his people, and for an end to genocide throughout the world. The Dith Pran Holocaust Awareness Project spreads word about the Cambodian genocide, and fights against genocide everywhere.

“One time is too many,” he said. His hope was that others would continue his work to end genocide. “If they can do that for me,” he said, “my spirit will be happy.”

Source: The New York Times, 03/31/2008

I keep coming back to his story, one of courage and recovery, of overcoming the horror of the Khmer Rouge, to becoming a NY Times photographer. It leads me to ask, “What is it within human beings that will perpetrate such horrors over and over again?” Whether on a mass scale, or just a few lives, “One time is too many.” Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians during World War 1; the Jews and other “inferior races” during World War 2; the peoples of Russia under Stalin; Cambodia; Darfur -- the names become too commonplace.

The hope is voiced in Revelation 21 of the new heaven and the new earth, where there shall be, “No more sickness, crying or pain; for all those former things are past and gone.”

Come quickly, Lord Jesus.

World Wide Web to be Closed for Spring Cleaning

Between March 31 and April 2, the World Wide Web will be closed for cleaning. Five Japanese-built, multilingual Internet-crawling robots will remove "electronic flotsam and jetsam."

April Fools! This is actually a fool's joke from 1997. If you want to check out the 10 BEST APRIL FOOLS HOAXES, see what WIRED magazine has to say at this link: http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/magazine/16-04/st_best.

It's a long way to Sunday and April 1 will recede fast, but this is preachable stuff--what is really foolish anyway? See 1 Corinthians 1, for starters.

Cigs and Cellulars

Maybe you read about this. It just strikes my fancy--which is itself an antiquated little expression that, well, strikes my fancy.

In a leading newspaper in the U.K., Dr. Vini Khurana--who is reputed to be one of the world's top neurosurgeons--says that there's a growing body of evidence that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer.

The risk is potentially more deadly than lung cancer caused by cigarette smoking.

So you can quit smoking, but if you're talking on that mobile all day, after a few years, you could have cancer on the brain.

Or, you could quit using your cell phone, and take up cigarettes again, preferring--if you got to die--to lose your wind while you'r dying and not your wits.

Or, you could keep smoking and keep talking and lose both your brain and your breath.

Personally, I am glad for this report. And I fervently hope some crusader will begin to mobilize those who were born to be activitists, and get them on this new bandwagon, i.e. banning the use of cell phones in public places. New legislation should be enacted immediately, so as to protect us from ourselves, and to save millions of dollars that will inevitably be spent on curative and surgical treatments for the impending tsunami of brain cancer incidents we can begin to expect. It's a cost-benefit analysis if nothing else.

I demand that using one's cell phone in restaurants and bars, on buses or any form of public transporation, in banks, post office and public schools, in elevators, grocery stores, civic buildings, courtrooms, office buildings--be banned and severe financial penalties imposed for violations.

Further, I demand that all advertising for cellular phones on television be banned, and that print advertising for cell phones be monitored to ensure that cell phone companies are not pandering to unthinking children and adolescents.

In addition, I demand that a label be affixed to every cell sold in the U.S. that says: "WARNING: Some Neurosurgeon in the UK says that using this cell phone will addle your brain in 10 years."

I tell you. I've got a new cause.

All for the public good, to be sure.

The common weal.

Grace (Eventually)

Love Lamott. She's got a new book out. I caught this blurb from Religious News Service (RNS) and thought I would pass it on.

NEW YORK -- The carpet guy, as Anne Lamott calls him in an essay, cheated her out of $50 for a moldy church rug she returned to his store. She cursed and threatened him. Later, Lamott realized the absurdity of it all, that she too had misbehaved in their little feud. She sent daisies and an apology note. Lamott views the incident, recounted in one of 24 essays in her best-selling book, “Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith,” as an example of how grace often comes unannounced. Her point, however, wasn't about him: “I've got to keep my side of the street clean,” she said. Lamott is widely adored, especially in liberal circles, for her best-selling books on faith, writing and motherhood. Through essays touching on her Christian faith, her church, her son, her past drug and alcohol excesses, her life story is well-known to millions of readers she has never met.

Selig Sind

Last week, holy week, was the week from hell, if I may use the expression. But it was pretty awful.

I was feeling pressure with some publication deadlines in advance of some post-Easter vacation time, Jeanie and I had three hour chorus rehearsals for Brahm's Requiem every night except Tuesday. My bike was stolen. I accidentally failed to retrieve a debit card from an ATM machine and so the machine, thinking I had walked off, which I had, ate it. I had to sit in a dentist's chair for another installment on my root canal crisis. And then on Saturday afternoon, I had a major, major computer event. Pretty sickening. It was an awful, painful death, after which Jeanie and I left for the concert hall to sing the Requiem. Fitting.

After the performance the chorus and orchestra were happily mingling in the back stage hallways. Someone asked me, "How's your wife?"

I said, "What do you mean?"

She said, "She fainted during the sixth movement." I was on the far end of the stage left, and JEanie was on the far end stage left, so I could not even see her during the performance.

So I rushed around trying to find the dressing room and found my little petunia, wilted and droopy, sitting on a chair. I got her outside for some fresh air.

What a week.

I woke up on Easter Sunday morning however with hope. He is risen! It was a new day, a new life, a new beginning.

And then I recalled that Brahm's Requiem begins with "Selig sind..." and ends with "Selig sind..."

"Blessed are ..."

I can live with that.

This Isn't So Easy

It's Monday morning, the day after Easter.

Two-thousand years ago, a small band of disciples are just beginning to get excited. The word has spread: He is risen!

The hard part's over, right? Jesus is alive! Great things are going to happen now! Hey--they look at each other--"That was easy!"

That was easy. It's a marketing tool for the office supply chain, Staples. The big red button. You get good service or a problem is solved. You hit the button. That was easy!

The reading for this coming Sunday suggests something else. Jesus' words to his disciples before the cross and in the post-Easter season is not, "This is easy" but: "This might hurt."

Jesus called on his disciples to also take up their cross.

The disciples are going to be jolted once again. It's not going to be easy.

In fact it might hurt--a lot. Sometimes, that's the nature of discipleship.

There is more in Homiletics for this Sunday. Take a look.

A Slightly Puzzling Reglious Celebration

I'm in Shanghai, China, right now and I picked up a copy of the only English language paper in town. the Shanghai Daily News, when I saw a front page blurb about an article inside.

The blurb read: "Easter Egging It: Chocolate eggs, rabbits and buns ... that's what will be on the minds of people celebrating Easter."

That sounded interesting, so I turned to C8 inside to find the following headline: "A Slightly Puzzling Religious Holiday."

The article began by noting that most of the country's 1.3 billion people don't have a clue about Easter.

The story then developes some history about puzzling Easter traditions, like the egg, the Easter hare, hot-cross buns, and more. While all of these traditions developed out of a religious ethos, today, the religious context has been lost for most people.

That's why, for millions of Chinese, Easter is a "slightly puzzling religious celebration."

Here's your lead for the sermon tomorrow. It's puzzling to millions of Chinese--and perhaps millions of other non-Christians around the world. Is it any clearer for us? Can we who are Christians make sense of this?

Then you, the preacher, can proceed to try.

The Pressured Christian

I had a conversation a couple of days ago with Dr. Michael Thompson, author, educator and child psychologist. He's the New York Times best-selling author of Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys, as well as Best Friends, Worst Enemies, a book about powerful childhood issues such as popularity and social cruelty.

He's also the author (with Teresa Barker) of The Pressured Child: Helping Your Child Find Success in School and Life.

Thompson told the story of the parents of a Grade 9 boy whose parents thought he was unorganized. They sought Dr. Thompson’s help.

He asked the dad if he himself was “organized.”

The dad replied, “Yes, I am.”

Thompson then asked him: “Well, when did you get organized?”

The father replied: “Well, when I was a junior in college.” Ah!

Thompson acknowledged that some anxiety can be helpful in the learning process but constant pressure is not helpful. Moreover, the pressure that parents place on children is now equalled by the pressure parents exert on teachers to ensure that teachers are providing the education the parents want and need their child to have.

In fact, children are looking for experiences that make them feel that they’re achieving developmentally and that they’re as competent as they can be. In short, they’re looking for:

Connection
Recognition
A sense of mastery

Generally, these feelings do not come from report cards. They know that the report card is not who they are.

THE PRESSURED CHRISTIAN

The idea that kids deal with a lot of pressure to succeed--from peer, parents and teacher--leads us to ask how the "pressured Christian" responds when faced with day-to-day issues such as unethical business practices in his or her place of employment; expectations for service and ministry in church; family obligations; fidelity, love and trust in relationships; career paths; spiritual and devotional life. What are the stressors? How do Christians deal with them? How should we cope? Is this the nature of the Christian life: facing pressure and responding in a way that's consistent with our core Christian beliefs?

I suspect that Christians, like children, are looking for: Connection, Recognition and a Sense of Mastery. That is, Christians need connection and community to thrive and grow spiritually and emotionally toward a wholeness that enables them to deflect pressure or channel it wisely. They also need Recognition, that is, their particular skill-set must be affirmed and authenticated by the ChristBody in order for them to function and serve effectively. When you are affirmed in what you're doing, handling pressure is a piece of cherry pie. Finally, they need a sense of mastery. Christians can handle the pressures of life when he or she has gained control of themselves. This is the right kind of control, the kind of control or self-discipline about which the apostle Paul offer spoke. We're not talking about control over others, but the ability to discipline oneself. When a Christian is able to exercise restraint, discipline, control, then that Christian may find not only that pressure is easier to handle, but that some stressors don't even show up for work. Self-discipline and mastery can do that.

This could be a sermon series.

N.T Wright on the Resurrection

Easter's only a few days away, so I thought I would revisit my conversation with N.T. Wright while he was lecturing at Harvard about 18 months ago. The interview was published in Homiletics (and I think I referenced it here in this blog somewhere). Just think of this as a little primer on the meaning of the resurrection before facing the Easter crowds who--if they're looking for anything--are looking for a good resurrection.

HOMILETICS: Let’s start with the resurrection. You say in one of your books that there really hasn’t been any new evidence in the past generation or two to dispel the notion that when people die, they stay dead. So what accounts for the increased levels of discussion concerning the resurrection?

WRIGHT: The word “resurrection” has commonly been used by Christians for many years now to mean effectively, “life after death.” So that when people read the Easter story they think, “Isn’t that wonderful? Jesus died, then he was raised, then he went to heaven; well, we’ll die, we’ll go to heaven and that’s pretty much the same thing. And they miss the whole point of the bodily resurrection, which has to do with “new creation,” because most Christians — and indeed many Jews in the modern world as John Levison has argued in his new book — don’t actually have in their minds a picture of what resurrection really is, which is: a new bodily life after a period of being bodily dead.

In other words, resurrection is not life after death, it’s life after, life after death. We’re talking about a two-stage post-mortem reality. A time of being bodily dead, and then — if you want to talk about going to heaven, then that’s what’s going on at that point. But then, the new heavens and new earth that were promised will form the theatre or stage within which we’ll be given new bodies to live within God’s new world.

To me, the almost amusing thing is that this was absolutely common coinage in Christianity until probably the early 18th century in Western Europe, at least. You can see it on tombstones and the way that people wrote about their future hope on tombstones.

Somewhere in the late 18th and particularly through the 19th century, this got completely overtaken by a platonic hope for simply going to heaven, and the word “resurrection” simply became a metaphor for that hope of going to heaven — which now is all that most Christians think about.

HOMILETICS: But it was also the Jewish understanding of resurrection in the ancient world.

WRIGHT: Absolutely, but not just a Jewish understanding, because the meaning of “resurrection” was clear. In the ancient pagan world, the Greco-Roman world, if someone mentioned “resurrection” — anastasis in Greek — people knew that that meant someone who is already well and truly dead coming back into a bodily life of some sort, and they knew that that didn’t happen.

HOMILETICS: So when you say that the resurrection is a “historical” problem or issue, is this what you mean? Getting back to an understanding of the word itself?

WRIGHT: Well, yes. If you say “Did Jesus rise from the dead?” and then suggest that that means, “Is Jesus still around spiritually somehow having left his body behind in the tomb?” — that’s a notion that one can understand; the ancients would have words for that — ancient Jews, ancient Hebrews, ancient Greeks would have had a word for that. But they wouldn’t have used the word “resurrection.”

HOMILETICS: So if you want to describe that position, fine. Just don’t use the word “resurrection.”

WRIGHT: Exactly. If what you mean is that you “sense his presence still with you,” “His call continues,” whatever. Exactly. Say, then, that “His call continues and I sense his presence with me.” We’ve got language to say that. The word “resurrection” does not mean that in the ancient world.

So it’s quite clear what the early Christian claim was. The early Christian claim was that Jesus was well and truly bodily alive again after a short period of being well and truly bodily dead and that they knew that this totally broke the mold. Many Jews in that day did believe in resurrection, but they didn’t believe that one person was going to be raised before all the rest. That’s a totally radical innovation. Nobody was expecting that.

We are Smarter than Me

Just a few random thoughts to get of my desk on this beautiful Saturday morning:

First, ran across this book which I have not read except for the back cover: WE ARE SMARTER THAN ME. It continues the discussion of Wikinomics and The Wisdom of Crowds. I am waiting for some big name Christian writer on the speaking circuit to write a book: WikiChurch, but hasn't happened yet, although Homiletics did a piece called "Wiki-Christianity" in 2006 (November 12). Lots of stuff going on in business and education with wikis--it's really phenomenal.

Anyway, for pastors who work in covenant with a community, and who often--let's face it--think that ME IS SMARTER THAN WE, I thought this might be a good read, but I can't guarantee it. I think it's focus is to take what The Wisdom of the Crowds has done, and to show how the business community can actually make crowd-wisdom affect the profit margin.

Second item: I just learned that my friend, Tim Cargal, who has a Ph.D. in New Testament from Vanderbilt and writes NT exegesis for Homiletics, and who is also pastor of Northwood Presbyterian Church in Silver Spring, Maryland, has written another book, and it sounds very interesting: Hearing a Film, Seeing a Sermon: Preaching and Popular Movies (Westminster John Knox Press, 2007). Haven't read this book either, but I would love to, and will.

Third item: Remember the post I wrote a while back about Barack Obama's comment that a person's relationship with his pastor can be a tricky thing? Or something like that? Well, it's gotten even trickier. It's too bad. And it's too bad for the United Church of Christ which is not populated by pastors who think like Jeremiah Wright. And, while we're at it, I don't know what Geraldine was thinking when she spouted off about Obama. She's a politician. She knows the power of her words. She knows the media isn't going to provide context for her comments. What was she thinking? I am not a Clinton or Obama or McCain supporter yet. But it would be nice if Clinton and Obama could please have a discussion without having to deal with all the fools and buffoons in their entourage.

Speaking of entourages--and the problems CLinton and Obama are having with theirs, Homiletics did a piece called "Entourage Energy" coming up in June, 2008. The idea came up after reading a piece in Mental_Floss by Harry, Lou and Todd Tobias. “7 entourages that changed the world.” Mental_Floss (September-October 2007, 35-39). Fascinating piece. Homiletics looks at some of the problems Jesus had with his own entourage (The Mental_Floss article includes "Jesus & Co." as one of the seven entourages that changed the world.)

Fourth item: Eliot Spitzer scandal. Unbelievable. Ted Haggard. Or consider the case of David Vitter, a father of four and a Senator from Louisiana, who gets himself involved with a sleazy escort service. Or Michael Vick, a talented quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, arrested for running a dog-fighting operation in rural Virginia. Or Lisa Nowak, the married NASA astronaut who makes a marathon drive from Houston to Orlando to confront her romantic rival. Or Bill Clinton — Rhodes scholar, six-time governor of Arkansas, and President of the United States — who has an affair with an intern in the Oval Office. These are all highly intelligent, rational, people. What's going on? Homiletics did a piece about this. It's coming up April 20. Called "Hot Faith, Cool Faith," and it looks into the psychology of this. These people get themselves worked up into a hot emotional state and do things that in their cool emotional state--the state we're in when we're reading about this and wondering how people so smart can be so stupid--they would never do.

Final item: Louis de Cazenave, France's oldest man, a First World War veteran who refused a medal and spoke powerfully about the horrors of war, has died at 110, leaving--in France--just one veteran alive from the conflict. de Cazenave died at his home in the Auvergne region in central France on Sunday, the government said. His death was a reminder of the 1.4 million French who had lost their lives in the 1914-18 war. According to REUTERS, Cazenave survived both the Battle of the Somme in 1916 and the Second Battle of the Aisne a year later, two of the bloodiest episodes of the "war to end all wars".

I found this sad, for some reason. I guess because almost 100 years after the "war to end all wars," there's more warring than ever. Perhaps someday, someday, the world will observe the passing of a man who is the last survivor of something called "war." A poppy for you, Louis. Repos dans la paix.

Guess that's it.

Wishing you a meaningful Palm Sunday. I assume you're going to pick up the palm branches from the florist today--don't forget--for the children's procession tomorrow.

Trying to be helpful.

May-June Issue of HOMILETICS is Online

FYI, if you're a Homiletics subscriber, you'll find the next issue now online.

The cover story focuses on the Hagar-Ishmael allegory and is called COLD NEST MOTHERS. But there's a huge chunk of more great material. This issue looks at two books, too; one that's been out a while, The Art of Woo by G. Richard Shell and Mario Moussal, and one that's more recent and attracted a lot of attention in the secular press, The Year of Living Biblically, by A.J. Jacobs. Both of these treatments take us to th biblical text for the day in a way that will grab the attention, if not the hearts, of your congregation.

There's a look at a movie, too: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The text is the Great Commission in Matthew 28. We call it: "The Kingdom of the Crystal Commission." In this same installment you'll find a great commissioning litany written by 16-year old from Hinsdale, Illinois. The whole installment and this litany will work well for those of you commissioning youth people on upcoming mission trips, but could work with other contexts as well.

Favorites? I hate to say, but I love "Catching the Wind" for Pentecost Sunday which looks at harnassing wind where the wind is blowing, like 50,000 feet in the air. Sometimes, if the wind isn't blowing where you are, you've got to go to where the wind is blowing.

Another favorite is "Ballast in Your Bottom," a look at the research the robotic engineers are doing using turtles as a research subject. The problem with robots is that once they fall, they have a devil of a time getting back up. So, how do turtles do it? How do we get back up once we've fallen.

Anyway, take a look. It will get your homilietical juices going!

Holy #$%#$#%&! The Church Accepts Dropping Blasphemy Laws

We’re in the U.K. now, understand. Here, blasphemy has been some kind of misdemeanor since well before Disraeli was making fun of Lord Acton. Now they’re about to be repealed, and although Church leaders have signaled that they’re willing to accept the inevitable, they urge caution and hope that repealing the laws won’t result in a rise of religious hatred and abuse against the Anglican church. PM Gordon Brown himself has said he wants to consult the CoE before coming to any decisions himself.

Sounds funny to hear that the Church is dropping it’s resistance to repealing a blasphemy law, doesn’t it? It puts the Church canoodling in the same bed with atheist and Oxford professor Richard Dawkins, et al. Eeeeww! $%$(&*(8@#4!!! But, understand, that to be anti blasphemy laws, is not the same as being pro-blasphemy. To be blasphemous, I think, is choice that consensual adults ought to be able to make in the privacy of their homes, or indeed, in the public square where we routinely bow, in passing, to the god of Free Speech.

The only people around these days who believe in blasphemy laws are extremist Muslims. And as Salmon Rushie knows (he is among the supporters of the move to drop the laws—surprise), in the muslim world, if you blaspheme you could be put to death--and they don't seem to see the irony.

The issue has generated considerable debate: One blogger wrote — “The Church of England has already promoted the greatest blasphemy of all time when it allowed the 'ordination' of women. That it should agree to the elimination of the law of blasphemy comes as no surprise, for they have completely lost the plot to the atheists.”

Said another: “Why is it perfectly fine for everyone to have a go at Christianity but mention a minority religion and it's hell to pay? This is nothing more than the secularists pushing their agenda again, they can believe or not what they like but IF they wish to pursue this course then it should apply equally to all religions and not just be anti-Christian in bias.”

On a related matter, in southern California—of all places—while the Brits are dropping laws against blasphemy, one municipality is adopting cussing laws. South Pasadena’s just gone through its first NO CUSSING WEEK, and it plans to observe such a week the first week of March every year. Town leaders are hoping that people will make an effort to be more civil.

“That's one of the purposes of this,” Mayor Michael Cacciotti said of his city's proclamation designating the first week of March as No Cussing Week. “It provides us a reminder to be more civil, to elevate the level of discourse.” [from CNN]

Well, I think both ideas are good ones. No point having a law that’s not being use or has no legal force. And quaint little laws like the one in South Pasadena are indeed good reminders. And it feels good to think there are people out there who foul language as a problem.

Christians, of all people, are people of the Word, and the gracious word, seasoned (says Paul). The text is Colossians 4:6: “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone.” And, of course, there’s James 3.

Three-Star Christians

Guy Martin (seen here), the chef at Paris restaurant, Le Grand VeFour, can’t be happy.

His restaurant, in business for 200 years with patrons including Napoleon and Victor Hugo, was denied Michelin’s third star, and demoted to two-star status.

The Michelin Guide accepts no advertising so that there is no possibility of a conflict of interest. It’s the most prestigious restaurant rating guide in France at least. Eateries are judged on the basis of the products and cooking as well as the style of the food, dependability and consistency. Anonymous inspectors dined at Le Grand VeFour, located at 17 rue de Beaujolais (which I found amusing), 10-12 times over a two year period and decided that the consistency just wasn’t there, not enough to warrant Three-Star status.

Hmmm.

I’m a preacher. So I’m wondering what kind of a Christian is a Three-Star Christian, and what would one need to do, or not do to, to lose a star … in one’s crown, as it were, to mix metaphors.

According to one report, chef "Martin's classic dishes include foie gras raviolis with truffle cream sauce, as well as hazelnut and milk chocolate pastry with caramel ice cream and a touch of sea salt."

That sounds good, and it probably looks good. And it'd probably cost me a year's pay to buy dinner for four with entrees like that.

But all that stuff didn't cut the mustard with Michelin's venerable inspectors. Mere presentation isn't everything.

Michelin’s rubrics include: products, cooking, style, dependability and consistency. That’s a five point sermon right there.

Speaking of Sweaters: D1NT

Speaking of sweaters, Debbie Tenzer, the founder of Do One Nice Thing , or D1NT, is asking us to send sweaters to Baghdad.

If her name sounds familiar to Homiletics readers, you shouldn't be surprised. We profiled her in the September-October 2007 issue ("D1NT" 16-20). D1NT released the following press release:

February 27, 2008 – Debbie Tenzer, founder of DoOneNiceThing.com, a website that encourages people to do one nice thing every Monday, announced today: "We are launching 'Sweaters for Baghdad' – a project to send sweaters to U.S. Chaplains for needy Iraqis."

Iraq is experiencing one of the coldest winters ever, and U.S. soldiers want to help families there. Volunteer service members, led by their Chaplains, are requesting warm clothing from home so they can give it to Iraqi families who are freezing.

Tenzer said, "Most of us have an extra sweater or sweatshirt that we can spare. By sending it to the Chaplains, we can help Iraqi families and support our soldiers too. Handing out our sweaters will help soldiers strengthen bonds of trust with the local people. Plus, Iraqis will know that people all over America care about them."

A sweater does not have to be new. Any size or style is fine as long as it is clean and in good condition.

"This is a great project to teach charity and empathy to children. They outgrow their clothing so quickly anyway. How about encouraging them to choose one of their own sweaters to give? They can make a colorful thank-you note for our soldiers too and include it with their sweater," Tenzer added.

Packages should be sent directly to the Chaplains in Iraq at:

MNC-I Chaplain, Attn: Hearts for Baghdad, Unit 42014, APO AE 09342

Photos and more information are available on www.DoOneNiceThing.com.

Mr. Rogers: The Sweater Saint

In case this got by you ...

Homiletics has a great piece for Maundy Thursday called "Thursday Theology." You will want to check it out as you prepare for Holy Week coming up three weeks from today.

But, if you're looking for another angle, here you go:

Mr. Fred "Welcome-to-my-Neighborhood" Rogers, who died of cancer five years ago, would have been 80 years old on March 20--Maundy Thursday.

This event is being marked in many circles by inviting people everywhere to wear sweaters--sort of a trademark of his. I guess you could put on a pair of those nifty tennies he wore, too.

I could easily meet with my congregation on this very special evening during Holy Week by sitting on an ottoman, slipping on a sweater and my shoes and launch into a very casual conversation of just what keeping the commandments of Jesus is all about.

"Do you know what a 'commandment' is, boys and girls?"

Perhaps the thrust of the conversation would be how to be a "Sweater Saint." What are the core values that Mr. Rogers, himself an ordained Presbyterian minister--if memory serves--embraced? How do they match up with those of JEsus himself?

Might also talk about the nature of a sweater itself as a symbol of community: it's a garment of warmth and comfort, and it's made by "knitting." See apostle Paul to examine the "knitting" metaphor a little more. (Yes, I know he was talking about joints, ligaments and bones.)

Might also talk about sweaters coming in all sizes and styles, and colors ...

Do you have a Women's Circle in your congregation? Knitters? If they get those needles flying, they could have 50 sweaters knitted up in no time!

Or you could invite everyone to wear a sweater to the service--but not tell them why. Then provide a patch that says "Sweater Saint" to give to everyone as a discipleship reminder.

No?

Just some thoughts.

Trying to help.

There Will Be Power in the Blood

Are you surprised that Daniel Day-Lewis walked away with Best Actor and that his film, There Will Be Blood, soaked up the attention last night at the Oscars?

Powerful movie, and if I am preaching this Sunday, the title of my sermon is the title of this blog: There Will be Power in the Blood.

This fountain of a movie filled with blood flows two ways. First, it shows that when the core values of love, honor, loyalty, respect and charity are sacrificed on the altar of avarice and selfishness, well, there will be blood. Lots of it. Never been a sacrifice yet without bloodshed. So the sermonic point being nailed down here is that if we persist in our sinful ways, there will be blood.

The second direction in which the blood flows, however, is from the cross. Since humankind is indeed a Little Boston spewing gushers of avarice, selfishness, gluttony, lust and anger and more, there was blood, and it flowed from Calvary.

Fortunately, it's helpful to remember during Lent, that there's power in the blood.

One scene to mention in your sermon: When Plainview (Lewis) has an epiphany in the Church of the Third Revelation and accepts Jesus as his Savior. Of course, it was under duress.
"I am a sinner!"
"I am sorry Lord!"
"I want the blood!"
"I was lost but now I'm found!"

A powerful moment in the movie--to see a sinner "get saved" like that.

Obviously it didn't take.

Question: What needs to happen for a good "getting saved" to really take?

Homiletics' Senior Writer at Pastor's Convention

FYI:

The Senior Writer of Homiletics, Rev. Bob Kaylor, PArk City, Utah, says he's going to be at the National Pastor's Convention in San Diego, February 26-29, and would like to meet interested Homiletics subscribers outside the doors after the morning general session.

Go to lunch or something.

If you're interested.

He's the thirty-something baldish guy pictured here.