HOMILETICS

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.

Me and My Man-Purse

I’ve lost my driver’s license twice in the last 12 months.

The first time, my wallet got lifted from my hip pocket while crowding on to a subway train.

The second time, I left it on the back seat of a taxi.

I am forever forgetting my keys or leaving them somewhere.

I have left my camera in stores, on top of toilet tanks in restaurant restrooms, in homes of friends, at church and a myriad of other places.

And let’s not start talking about my cell phone.

A couple of weeks ago I realized that drastic measures needed to be taken. My wife suggested some sort of experimental brain surgery that sounded really scary involving, as it did, a cranial saw and long needle-like probes. Only because I hate going to hospitals did I agree to a recourse even more drastic.

I bought a man purse.

A murse, as some people call it.

It’s really a beautiful accessory when you think about it. Nice deep brown genuine leather, with a long strap so it fits over my shoulder and hangs at my waist real nice.

The advantage is that now I only have to remember one thing: my murse.

Inside I have my camera and extra batteries, a bunch of pens, my Moleskin notebook, my keys, breath mints, a little change bag and more.

There’s a nifty little pocket for my cell phone, and best of all secret compartments where I can hide money and stuff, and there’s a flap where I can drop my keys and retrieve them quickly.

So far, my murse has been working beautifully for me; now I wish I had gotten it a lot sooner. I just love it.

Now, all I need is a pair or two of matching shoes, and perhaps a scarf.

My wife says that she has some swatches I can look at if I want.

Still, there are times when I wonder what’s happening to me.

I’m thinking maybe I accidentally took some of Jeanie’s estrogen pills she leaves lying around.

There Probably IS a God

There Probably is Not a God.

That’s the slogan of an agnostic, if not atheistic, movement strong in Europe and UK, and the slogan’s evidently plastered all over the UK.

And now, thousands of people have signed Certificates of De-Baptism renouncing whatever paltry miserable faith they ever claimed to have. How many authentic, serious, committed baptized Christians do you think have recanted and abandoned their God? Probably—let’s see… Hmmmmm.

Zero.

But I digress.

We're at Easter. This is the pivotal moment in history when everything changes.

This is the Sunday morning when we can say to our congregations: There probably IS a God.

And stronger: There is a God.

And stronger: There is God.

And stronger: God! He is Risen!

And, think about it, thousands upon thousands of people around the world on this Sunday—a Sunday in which new converts traditionally are baptized—will be baptized and receive a Certificate of Baptism from their parish priest or their pastor.

It is a symbol of their new life, a fresh hope, and a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

As for the “de-baptized,” on this Easter Sunday, they have, um … themselves … and Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.

Not to be uncharitable, unchristian, and unloving, but good luck with that.

Shear Thursday

Shear Thursday. Otherwise known as Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday.

This Holy Week observance was probably the first of several to be observed, primarily as a means of honoring the institution of the first Eucharist—pre-Augustinian references confirm this.

Holy Thursday, as it is officially known in the Catholic Church, also became an opportunity for foot-washing ceremonies, and at the last service of the day, was terminated in tenebrae, and the altar stripped of vestments, and the host removed from the sanctuary, often taken out into the streets, and brought back for the Good Friday service the following day.

This day of Holy Week was often referred to as Maundy Thursday, the word coming from the Latin mandatum meaning commandment, and was a reference to the new commandment Jesus gave at the Last Supper to “love one another.”

Holy Thursday is seldom referred to as Shear Thursday anymore. It used to be called that in some circles because the faithful would often shear facial hair on this day in preparation for Good Friday and Easter. Sort of a penitential ritual, as it were.

This ritual is no longer common, but “shearing” remains a common way of marking change, or promoting change. At my wife’s school, some of the male students in the local Habitat for Humanity club agreed to let the teachers shave their heads bald as billiard balls if the students raised x amount of dollars in their fund-raising effort.

The students did, and the teachers got out their shears and went to work.

Shear Thursday. I really don’t have much hair left to shear. It hasn’t been sheared off; it’s simply fallen off. I do have some facial hair, but not much. Maybe I will shave it off.

But think about it: Holy Thursday is the day when it all comes together for Jesus. He’s not going to get another night of sleep. It’s over. He’s going to have his last meeting with the Twelve, he’s going to be betrayed by one of his own hand-picked men, he’s going to be arrested, he’s going to be beaten up pretty bad, interrogated, abandoned by just about everyone.

On this Thursday, he’s a dead man—crucified man—walking to his resurrection, via a nasty, nasty trek up to Golgotha and a ghastly death on a cross.

On this Thursday, he’s a sheared man, stripped of everything: the esteem of others, and the love of friends and family. There's a perception that his mission is lost, and virtually naked he will die, and most will think that it was all for nought.

And worse, he himself on the cross considered the most awful thought of all: that he had been sheared of God’s love for him. God, he was tempted to conclude, had in fact “forsaken” him.

It’s an awful thing to lose everything. But to lose God—that must have been crushing.

After Jesus died, there arose in the early church a tradition in which Christians thought it a virtue to share in the sufferings of Christ. Some even sought to die as Jesus died; some sought martyrdom.

I suspect that sort of devotion isn’t high on our list these days—sharing in the suffering of Christ.

But on Shear Thursday, it might be a subject to revisit.

Holy Work

Went to Palm Sunday service at Trinity Congregation.

At the end of the service, the Reverend Elyn McGinnis pronounced the benediction.

She’s Episcopalian.

Episcopalians have this whole liturgy thing pretty well down cold.

But she messed up the benediction.

She raised her robed-laden arms out over the congregation and blessed us as “you go forth into Holy Work, er… Holy Week, may you…”

Well, I didn’t hear much after that. I think the good Reverend is on to something.

Shouldn't we all be sending our congregations out into Holy Work?

That’s what the church is about, right? The holy work of confession, repentance, service, good works, religious obligations, feeding the poor, visiting the widows and orphans, advocating for justice and peace, protecting the innocent, bringing good news to the captives, shining light into darkness, filling the void with hope, bring warmth to the cold, encouragement to the downcast.

Sounds like holy work. Sometimes it's dirty work, but it's always holy work.

And when we’re doing holy work, sorta makes every week a holy week, right?

Next Week Is Not the Most Holy Week of the Year

Sunday is Palm Sunday and it marks the beginning of what Christians call Holy Week.

So what does this—exactly—mean?

To call something holy is to imply that the something is set apart, or consecrated, or sanctified for a specific purpose.

We say this is holy week, but let’s get real: do we really care?

We’re lucky to get 10% of our congregations out for a Maundy Thursday service. About the same for a Good Friday service. Most churches will not observe both.

Of course, Easter Sunday, is arguably the biggest Sunday of the year. No argument there.

Many reasons for this indifference, no doubt. In the Protestant tradition, we lost many of the traditions. We are not so keen on the practices of religious obligations. Sure, it’s holy week, but the Catholics and the Orthodox got it covered. We’ve got other things to do.

The most holy time of the year for most Christians is not Holy Week, but the entire month of December.

This is a season when Christians—following the cultural lead—set apart time, energy and enormous financial resources, to observing the holidays, i.e. holy days. Every day we’re thinking about some aspect of this observance: Christian cards, caroling, Christmas parties, shopping, gifts, family gatherings, the Christmas dinner, vacations, trips, and if we can we will get to Christmas Eve service.

Ironically, most church do not have a service at all on Christmas Day! And some, a few years ago, when Christmas Day fell on a Sunday, even CANCELLED their Sunday services so people could observe the day with their families! Lord have mercy.

Christmas is about the birth of a baby. Lots of excitement and joy there, to be sure.

Holy Week is about the suffering and death of a Savior. Okay. Whatever.

So we’re in Holy Week within hours. Might want to ask your congregations just what they think is holy about this week, and how—in what sense—they plan to make this a truly holy week.

My guess is that there will be a lot of hemming and hawing.