tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36981030554726853372024-03-04T23:41:55.922-06:00The Musings of Young Pastor MattThoughts, feelings, random quotes and outbursts from a 27-year-old ordained UCC ministerMatt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.comBlogger56125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-89575327903540269902010-08-05T14:50:00.003-06:002010-08-05T14:56:19.866-06:00Moving the "musings"...Hi all,<br /><br />I've decided to move my "Musings" over to <a href="http://www.tumblr.com/">Tumblr</a>: <a href="http://youngpastormatt.tumblr.com/">http://youngpastormatt.tumblr.com/ </a><br /><br />Why, you might ask? Well, it seems like Tumblr might be a more natural fit with the form I'd like my "musings" to take: sometimes, my "musings" will be more traditional blog-like writing (like I've shared here on Blogger before), but sometimes my "musings" are simply that I want to post a quick quote from the book I'm reading at the moment, or link to another blog posting I've seen, or share a video clip. Tumblr seems like a easier and more natural fit for this in-between 'sometimes-blog-sometimes-other' format.<br /><br />So, come see me on Tumblr: <a href="http://youngpastormatt.tumblr.com/">http://youngpastormatt.tumblr.com/</a><br />And feel free to "follow" me on there (just like you do with somebody on Twitter), or Tumblr also lets you get the RSS feed, so you can subscribe with your favorite blog-reader (I use Google Reader, myself, for no better reason than that I use GMail for my email).<br /><br />Peace, all, and see you on Tumblr,<br />--Matt<div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-80397588786081441432009-08-27T18:53:00.005-06:002009-08-27T19:06:05.458-06:00A Pastoral Letter on the August 24th shooting at Kingdom Authority Church in Rockford<span style="font-style: italic;">On August 24th, 2009, Mark Barmore, a 23-year-old African American, was shot and killed by two white police officers while inside the House of Grace Day Care run by Kingdom Authority International Ministries Church in Rockford (a predominantly African American church a mere two blocks from my congregation). You can find basic news coverage of the incident and the controversies that have arisen in its wake at the website of the Rockford Register-Star: <a href="http://www.rrstar.com/">http://www.rrstar.com/</a><br /><br />The following pastoral letter was distributed to my congregation's whole-church email list and copies will be made available at worship on Sunday.</span><br /><br /><br /><p style="margin: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Calibri','Trebuchet MS',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 110%; font-style: normal; padding-bottom: 6px;"> August 27, 2009</p><br /><p style="margin: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Calibri','Trebuchet MS',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 110%; font-style: normal; padding-bottom: 6px;">Dear Friends,</p><br /><p style="margin: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Calibri','Trebuchet MS',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 110%; font-style: normal; padding-bottom: 6px;"> By now I suspect most all of you have heard or seen coverage of the shooting and death of Mark Barmore at Kingdom Authority Church this past Monday afternoon. Because of how this incident, and the reactions and controversies surrounding it, affect all of us in the Rockford community, I have had a growing sense of obligation to share some of my own reflections.</p><br /><p style="margin: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Calibri','Trebuchet MS',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 110%; font-style: normal; padding-bottom: 6px;"> As some of you may know, Kingdom Authority is a predominately African American congregation located less than two blocks from our own church facilities, in the 500 block of North Court Street. Many of us regularly drive by the brown-brick building on our way to-and-from Second Congregational, and Kingdom Authority’s pastors, Melvin and Sheila Brown, have been involved in past conversations around neighborhood concerns. A tragic incident like this anywhere in our community has deep impacts, but I know that I, for one, am all the more conscious of it given that it happened ‘in our own backyard’.</p><br /><p style="margin: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Calibri','Trebuchet MS',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 110%; font-style: normal; padding-bottom: 6px;"> I do not presume to “know the facts” about what happened any more than you probably do. As the media reports show, the various accounts from the police department and from persons present at the time of the shooting do not all agree with one another. Ultimately, it may never be possible to establish an account of exactly what happened that will be completely beyond suspicion by some in our community. </p><br /><p style="margin: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Calibri','Trebuchet MS',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 110%; font-style: normal; padding-bottom: 6px;"> I had the opportunity to attend a good portion of yesterday afternoon’s press conference at City Hall along with First Presbyterian’s pastor Bob Hillenbrand and Emmanuel Episcopal’s rector Pamela Hillenbrand. As media coverage indicated, the press conference did not provide as much in the way of answers as it did serve to highlight the variety of emotions and reactions flowing through our community. </p><br /><p style="margin: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Calibri','Trebuchet MS',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 110%; font-style: normal; padding-bottom: 6px;"> </p><p style="margin: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Calibri','Trebuchet MS',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 110%; font-style: normal; padding-bottom: 6px;"> I may not have any answers about “the facts”. But I have been impacted by the strength and emotion in the reactions around our community, and as I have thought through others’ reactions and my own, a few reflections have come to me:<br /><br /><em> First of all</em>,<em> regardless of the precise details, Monday’s incident was a tragedy.</em> It is always a tragedy when a death occurs through the use of force. Mark was a real human being and child of God, regardless of the particularities of his life journey. I have been greatly disturbed to read comments posted on internet news article feedback boards that say he “deserved what he got.” No one deserves to be killed. Even when a police officer does engage in ‘justifiable’ self-defense and rightly takes actions they think necessary, nevertheless a life is ended and that is cause for mourning. Furthermore, not only were Monday’s events tragic for Mark and his family, but also for the police officers involved, as they must deal with their own trauma and emotional strain.</p><br /><p style="margin: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Calibri','Trebuchet MS',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 110%; font-style: normal; padding-bottom: 6px;"> <em>Second, real people are hurting with real pain.</em> Of course, it goes without saying that Mark’s family and friends have been thrown into the pangs of grief. But there are also the day care children and others in whose presence the shooting occurred, and they have the emotional effects of that to process. Then, there is the community of Kingdom Authority, who must cope with their own sacred space being the location of such a tragic occurrence.</p><br /><p style="margin: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Calibri','Trebuchet MS',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 110%; font-style: normal; padding-bottom: 6px;"> But the impact and the pain of this event reaches farther than that. This event has again brought to light the tensions and distrusts between police and other authorities and the racial-ethnic communities of our society, a dynamic that is not unique to Rockford. Sure, it is true that relations among the various racial and ethnic groups in our country have improved in our time, but that does not erase overnight the long histories of systemic injustices that certain communities have endured at the hands of those in power. Even as injustices and prejudices decrease, building trust is a much longer process that requires hard work. The reactions and controversies over Monday’s shooting clearly show that those bonds of trust are still lacking in our community. Without that foundation of trust, events like this cause perceptions and suspicions that lead to a pain that is very real to those experiencing it. Regardless of whether we agree with someone’s perceptions of a situation, we must all realize that the kind of pain that arises from those perceptions is no less ‘real’ than other kinds of pain.</p><br /><p style="margin: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Calibri','Trebuchet MS',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 110%; font-style: normal; padding-bottom: 6px;"> <em>Third, race is undeniably a factor in this whole situation.</em> Let me be clear: I am <em>not</em> saying that race was a motivating factor in the actual shooting. But it is very clear that race is playing a large role in the reactions and controversies that have arisen since Monday’s events. Racially-biased accusations are now being flung about by people in both the white and black communities. Regardless of the motivations and justifications of any of the parties involved, it is hard to miss the imagery of two white police officers chasing a young black male and shooting him in front of mostly black day-care children—and hard to deny how this image could stir up memories out of the long history of racial discrimination in our country. Again, I am not saying that race was a motivating factor in the actual shooting, but as I said earlier, the emotion and pain that come out of perceptions (accurate or inaccurate) are just as real for those experiencing them as any other pain.</p><br /><p style="margin: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Calibri','Trebuchet MS',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 110%; font-style: normal; padding-bottom: 6px;"> <em>Finally, all that has happened makes it clear that we still have work to do.</em> As I mentioned, this week’s events have made it clear that relationships and bonds of trust between various parts of our community are missing. Thinking of our particular context here at Second Congregational, I am aware that we sit no more than half-a-block farther away from Kingdom Authority Church than we do from, say, Court Street United Methodist—and yet the difference in our relationship and knowledge of those two congregations is tremendous. Relationships and trust-building are two-way streets, and we must re-commit ourselves to making sure that we are doing our part. We cannot expect trust when relationship is lacking, and we cannot expect real relationship without the hard work it takes on <em>all</em> sides to make it happen.</p><br /><p style="margin: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Calibri','Trebuchet MS',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 110%; font-style: normal; padding-bottom: 6px;"> “Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me…” Our whole Rockford community finds itself in a dark valley this week. Neither answers nor healing will come overnight. But indeed, we are assured of God’s presence with all of us as we journey through this moment. But in that assurance, we must also hear God’s ever-present call to stand in solidarity with those who are hurting and in pain. We must hear the apostle Paul’s reminder that “the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body,” and that no part of the body can say to another part that “I have no need of you.” We are one body in Christ with all our Christian sisters and brothers across this whole community—and, you might say, one body in community with all people across this region—one body regardless of race and regardless of perspectives and perceptions about what occurred this past Monday. As a Christian people, part of that one body in Christ, our call is to be agents of mercy, understanding, and reconciliation—a long and hard journey, but the only one worth taking.</p><br /><p style="margin: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Calibri','Trebuchet MS',Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; line-height: 110%; font-style: normal; padding-bottom: 6px;">Yours in the journey,<br /><em>The Rev. Matthew C. Emery</em></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-79632767105903503122008-11-04T15:45:00.002-06:002008-11-04T15:50:39.391-06:00Update on Prayer RequestFriends,<br /><br />To anyone out there who saw the request I put up a couple months ago requesting prayers for my friends who were facing a major complication with their pregnancy: many thanks for your prayers.<br /><br />As for an update, Joshua Harold Ross was born August 27th, 2008, about 2 1/2 months early (28 1/2 weeks gestation). At birth, he was 2 lbs., 12 oz. He was in the neo-natal ICU, where he went through some ups-and-downs, but overall did fairly well. This past Saturday, November 1st, he got to come home!<br /><br />Your continued prayers will be much appreciated, though, as I'm sure he will continue to face some challenges due to his situation. But for the moment, things look like they have gone well given the circumstances.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-76655849467205081292008-10-12T15:50:00.003-06:002008-11-04T16:04:28.661-06:00Pastoral Prayer: Oct 12<span style="font-style: italic;">A Pastoral Prayer for October 12th, 2008, alluding to Exodus 32:1-14 (semi-continuous OT reading for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, RCL Year A)</span><br /><br /><br />Faithful God ...<br />... we give you thanks<br />that indeed you do not give up on us,<br />even when we give up on you.<br /><br />We too make for ourselves<br />golden calves<br />that we worship instead of you.<br /><br />For some of us,<br />it's money.<br /><br />For some of us,<br />it's patrioticness,<br />that leads to unquestioning allegiance<br />to our country,<br />even when you alone, O God,<br />are worthy of our allegiance.<br /><br />For some of us,<br />our golden calf is<br />our illusions of self-reliance,<br />while for others of us,<br />it is the illusion of our worthlessness,<br />forgetting that we are your beloved child,<br />formed in your image.<br /><br />But you, O God, do not give up.<br />You keep inviting us to turn back to you.<br />You keep holding out a vision of new life, of a different kind of world.<br /><br />Oh, how a vision of a different kind of world<br />is what we need in this moment, loving God.<br />We keep turning on the news<br />to a never-ending tale of woe in our world's economic systems.<br />We open our mail to find bills we struggle to pay<br />and hard-earned treasures vanishing before our eyes.<br /><br />But you, O God, run a different kind of economy--<br />it is always a bull market on the indicies of your love and grace and faithfulness.<br />You, O God, manage a different kind of investment fund--<br />an account with our names on it<br />that you continually grow with the capital of your Spirit,<br />whose dividends are an invitation to new life in you.<br /><br />O God, our refuge,<br />the economy is not the only thing about which we yearn<br />for a vision of a different kind of world.<br />We remember that our world is one<br />where 10 years ago, your beloved child<br />Matthew Shepherd<br />laid dying on a Wyoming fencepost<br />simply for who you created him to be.<br />You, O God, have given us a vision<br />where <span style="font-style: italic;">all </span>people are welcome<br />at your banquet feast--<br />pour out your power on us as we try to live more and more into that vision.<br /><br />God our healer, even as we pray and hope for a different kind of world,<br />we also pray for your work in this world.<br />We ask your healing on all who are hearing...<br />We ask your comforting touch on all who are lonely or struggling...<br />We ask your empowering touch on all who are downtrodden and in chains.<br /><br />Holy One, we pray all these things<br />by the power of your Holy Spirit,<br />that Spirit that interceeds for us with sighs too deep for words,<br />and in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord,<br />that One who <span style="font-style: italic;">was</span> your different kind of world<br />walking the face of this one,<br />the One who taught us to pray together:<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Our Father ...</span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-65183943978111196442008-08-05T07:17:00.001-06:002008-08-05T07:19:22.159-06:00Need your prayers - an updateThank you to all who have been praying for my friends and their child. <div><br /></div><div>As an update, it looks at the moment like things are headed in a positive direction. According to my friend: on Saturday, the day after the surgery, the ultrasound showed 3 cm of amniotic fluid, and on Monday afternoon it showed 6 cm, which is a good sign. ("Normal" is apparently 12 cm or above.) They are in the process of moving the mother from IV medications to oral. </div><div><br /></div><div>Although it looks like things are moving in the right direction, they are by no means anywhere near 'out of the woods' yet. Your continued prayers for all of them will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-19842850004089267482008-08-03T20:41:00.003-06:002008-08-03T20:54:24.654-06:00Need your prayersHi all (whoever it is out there that reads this!),<div><br /></div><div>I know that I haven't posted on here in quite a while, but today I've come to ask your prayers. An extremely close friend of mine and his wife are currently expecting their second child, and are right now at about 25 weeks. On Friday evening, while my friend was out of town at a conference, his wife had to have an emergency appendectomy. During the surgery, her uterus was nicked and her water broke, both of which, as one might suspect, have put the pregnancy at extreme risk. Although she did not start having contractions right away, by Saturday morning, she did. Right now, she is on I.V. medications to reduce/prevent contractions, and they are hoping that the amniotic sac will re-seal and fluids will begin reforming, but they won't know if that has happened until probably Tuesday. At this point, she (the mother) is doing ok, but what will happen to the baby--and/or what the effects to the baby will be if he/she does make it--won't be known for a number of days at the very least, and probably longer. My friend is terrified and preparing for the worst.</div><div><br /></div><div>Your fervent prayers for all of them will be much appreciated.</div><div><br /></div><div>Thanks.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-30204245328347641462008-05-21T20:12:00.008-06:002008-05-21T21:19:09.113-06:00Catechismal GemsYou know, often times among us progressive/liberal Christians, things like creeds, confessions, and catechisms get a bad rap. There are definitely folks in the UCC who are overly-gung-ho about the idea that the UCC is a "non-creedal" church. I'm not sure I exactly agree with that claim, but even if I were to give them that, I still insist that this doesn't mean we are a 'non-confessional' church. We recognize the ancient ecumenical creeds (namely the Apostles' and the Nicene) and the confessions and catechisms of the Reformation as a true part of our theological heritage--it even states this in our UCC Constitution and other foundational documents.<div><br /></div><div>I really do think that some of our historic creeds, confessions, and catechisms have some real gems of faith expression in them. I've been at a worship service where I've cried (in a good way) through saying the Apostles' Creed, and specifically the third section: "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting." I'm sure entire books could be written (probably <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">have</span> been written) on all the wonderful things about God and about us that are implied in and connected to those 27 words. </div><div><br /></div><div>Now certainly there is much in the historic confessions that I would certainly not say, or at least not say in the same way, today. In particular, I don't tend to agree with the Reformation-period Reformed confessions' tendency toward a penal substitutionary atonment theory or their extremely high view of God's providence. But those caveats don't negate the riches in them.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, over a few posts, I want to share what I think are some of the greatest 'gems' in the catechisms and other confessions of our UCC heritage. Today I begin with the Heidelberg Catechism--the primary confession from our German Reformed heritage, although it is interesting to note that an earlier version of Heidelberg (similar to, but not the same as, the version we know now) was originally intended as an attempt at a confession that both the Reformed and the Lutheran sides of the Reformation could agree to.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">1. What is your only comfort in life and in death?</span><div>That I am not my own,<br />but belong—<br />body and soul,<br />in life and in death—<br />to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. ...</div><div><br /></div><div>Because I belong to him,<br />Christ, by his Holy Spirit,<br />assures me of eternal life<br />and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready<br />from now on to live for him.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">This opening question of Heidelberg may be (in my opinion, of course) the greatest gem in all the confessional writings. </span></div><div><br /></div><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">21. What is true faith?</span><br />True faith is<br />not only a knowledge and conviction<br />that everything God reveals in his Word is true;<br />it is also a deep-rooted assurance,<br />created in me by the Holy Spirit through the gospel,<br />that, out of sheer grace earned for us by Christ,<br />not only others, but I too,<br />have had my sins forgiven,<br />have been made forever right with God,<br />and have been granted salvation.<div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">I really like this question for a couple reasons: </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">a) "True faith ... is also a deep-rooted assurance, created in me by the Holy Spirit through the gospel": the affirmation that even faith itself is not something we do or achieve, but is what God does in us, but also the movement of faith out of the realm of "knowledge and conviction" to "deep-rooted assurance"--the same move from faith as 'intellectual assent' or 'believe' more toward 'trust' that many of us in the late 20th- and early 21st- century are trying to advocate for, away from the excesses of rationalistic Enlightenment thinking;</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">b) the way it phrases "that not only others, but I too, have had...": it's so fascinating and yet so poignant how it takes for granted that I understand that others have been forgiven, made right, etc., and that the challenge, the thing that I need to come to grasp is that "I too" have these things; truly I think there is definitely truth in the way it turns that phrase--plenty of people today bear the weight of believing that others are the holy ones while they themselves can't be good enough. O sister, O brother, not only others, but <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">you too</span>, have had your sins forgiven, have been made forever right with God, and have been granted salvation. Can it get anymore Gospel than that?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">32. But why are you called a Christian?</span><br />Because by faith I am a member of Christ<br />and so I share in his anointing.<br />I am anointed<br />to confess his name,<br />to present myself to him as a living sacrifice of thanks,<br />to strive with a good conscience against sin and the devil<br />in this life, and afterward<br />to reign with Christ over all creation<br />for all eternity.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">I'm not sure I have much to say on this one; it's content seems self-evident.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">44. Why does the creed add, "He descended to hell?"</span><br />To assure me in times of personal crisis and temptation<br />that Christ my Lord,<br />by suffering unspeakable anguish, pain, and terror of soul,<br />especially on the cross but also earlier,<br />has delivered me from the anguish and torment of hell.<br /><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Part of my own 'high' Christology is that God God's-self experienced the entirety of human experience, including the absolute depths of human pain and suffering, and so stands in complete solidarity with us through all. Perhaps Heidelberg doesn't completely capture that with this question, but it at least gets at some of it.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">49. How does Christ's ascension to heaven benefit us?</span><br />First, he pleads our cause in heaven<br />in the presence of his Father.<br />Second, we have our own flesh in heaven—<br />a guarantee that Christ our head,<br />will take us, his members,<br />to himself in heaven. ...</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">This sort of goes along with the previous one (44), particularly the 'second' benefit.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">52. How does Christ's return "to judge the living and the dead" comfort you?</span><br />In all my distress and persecution<br />I turn my eyes to the heavens<br />and confidently await as judge the very One<br />who has already stood trial in my place before God<br />and so has removed the whole curse from me.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Now, I don't necessarily identify with the substitutionary atonement implied in this question, but I like the way it points to that wonderful passage from Romans 8 (here with my own interpolation): "Who is to condemn? It is [only] Christ Jesus, who [already] died [for us], yes, who [already] was raised [for us], who is [already] at the right hand of God [for us], who indeed [already] intercedes for us." </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">81. Who are to come to the Lord's table?</span><br />Those who are displeased with themselves<br />because of their sins,<br />but who nevertheless trust<br />that their sins are pardoned<br />and that their continuing weakness is covered<br />by the suffering and death of Christ,<br />and who also desire more and more<br />to strengthen their faith<br />and to lead a better life. ...<div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">This is not the feast for the perfect, but for the sinner!</span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">95. What is idolatry?</span><br />Idolatry is<br />having or inventing something in which one trusts<br />in place of or alongside of the only true God,<br />who has revealed himself in his Word.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Oh how this is not any less of a danger today, even if our choices of what to 'have' or 'invent' are different!</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">105 - 107. What is God's will for you in the sixth commandment?<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">I am not to belittle, insult, hate, or kill my neighbor—<br />not by my thoughts, my words, my look or gesture,<br />and certainly not by actual deeds—<br />and I am not to be party to this in others;<br />rather, I am to put away all desire for revenge. ...</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Does this commandment refer only to killing?</span><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">By forbidding murder God teaches us<br />that he hates the root of murder:<br />envy, hatred, anger, vindictiveness.<br />In God's sight all such are murder.<br /></span><br />Is it enough then that we do not kill our neighbor in any such way?<br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">No.<br />By condemning envy, hatred, and anger<br />God tells us<br />to love our neighbors as ourselves,<br />to be patient, peace-loving, gentle,<br />merciful, and friendly to them,<br />to protect them from harm as much as we can,<br />and to do good even to our enemies.</span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; ">Hmm... perhaps a much needed corrective on our attitudes toward others, not only individually, but as a society or nation. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">110. What does God forbid in the eighth commandment?</span><br />He forbids not only outright theft and robbery,<br />punishable by law.<br />But in God's sight theft also includes<br />cheating and swindling our neighbor<br />by schemes made to appear legitimate,<br />such as:<br />inaccurate measurements of weight, size, or volume;<br />fraudulent merchandising;<br />counterfeit money;<br />excessive interest;<br />or any other means forbidden by God.<br />In addition he forbids all greed<br />and pointless squandering of his gifts.</span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Hmm... I'm thinking of credit card interest and oil-industry profits!</span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-85739540265201486032008-05-18T11:38:00.007-06:002008-05-19T09:30:49.547-06:00Sermon: "Sacred Conversation" - Trinity Sunday - May 18, 2008<span style="font-family:georgia;">Ok, I know I haven't put a sermon up here in a while, but given this whole "Sacred Conversation on Race" thing, I thought I'd put today's sermon up--I guess to enter the blog-o-sphere conversation.<br /></span><br /><br /><br /><p style="text-align: center;" class="page_title"><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>Sermon: “Sacred Conversation”</strong></span><br /> </p><p class="mainbody_text" style="text-align: center; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><strong>A 'Sermon' for Holy Trinity Sunday, Year A</strong></p><br /> <p class="mainbody_text" style="text-align: center; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><strong><em>Genesis 1:1 - 2:4a; Matthew 28:16-20</em></strong></p><p class="mainbody_text" style="text-align: center; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><strong><em><span style="font-size:21;"><br /></span></em></strong></p><p class="mainbody_text" style="text-align: center; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><strong>By The Rev. Matthew Emery</strong></p><br /> <p class="mainbody_text" style="text-align: center; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"> Second Congregational United Church of Christ, Rockford, Illinois</p><br /> <p class="mainbody_text" style="text-align: center; margin-top: 0pt;">May 18, 2008</p><br /> <p class="mainbody_text" style="margin-bottom: 0pt;">I’m guessing that you’ve noticed, as I’ve pulled out a chair to sit down here on the floor level with you all, that I’m choosing not to occupy the traditional place of preaching here this morning. Well, what I’ve set out to do here today is not a traditional ‘sermon’ as such.<br /></p><p class="mainbody_text">The national setting of our church, the United Church of Christ, together with the folks at the National Council of Churches, which represents 35 denominations across the spectrum of mainline Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, and historically African American churches, they have invited us to use this Sunday to begin what they call a “Sacred Conversation on Race”.<br /></p><p class="mainbody_text">This comes out of some of the controversy over the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, but really it’s larger than that. This isn’t about Dr. Wright, it isn’t about Barack Obama (or Hillary Clinton or John McCain, either). This is about realities we face in this country and conversations we too often shy away from.</p><p class="mainbody_text">I want to emphasize a couple things:<br /></p><p class="mainbody_text">First, I said <em>begin</em> a sacred conversation—what I have to say today is not the end-all, be-all on the matter. I hope, as does the UCC and the National Council of Churches, that what happens today is just the beginning of us together addressing these issues of race and racism.<br /></p><p class="mainbody_text">Second, this is supposed to be a <em>conversation</em>—sure, I will have plenty to say to you myself this morning, but you have voices and views too, and together we have views and voices to share in dialogue with people in other churches and in no church. We <em>all</em> must come to the table with what we bring.</p><p class="mainbody_text">And thirdly, this will hopefully be a <em>sacred</em> conversation—a conversation that is born out of <em>mutual respect</em> for one another; a conversation that takes seriously that all of us, with our gifts and our brokenness, were created in God’s own image; a conversation where we bring <em>our</em> own views, yes, but also one where we try to listen for God’s views, for the voice that God is still speaking amidst our lives; and a conversation where we seek out what our calling—our vocation, our job—might be in response to what happens.<br /></p><p class="mainbody_text">All right—so, were does a sacred conversation on race and racism begin? Well, I’m inclined to think that such a conversation has to begin with truth-telling, <em>authentic</em> truth-telling, and <em>first</em>, authentic truth-telling about <em>ourselves</em>. I don’t think we can come to something like this simply by stating our views about concepts <em>in abstract</em>. And I really don’t think we can come with just our feelings about <em>other</em> people. We gotta start with <em>ourselves</em>, our <em>real</em> selves and <em>our</em> experiences—both the good and the bad. So that’s where I’m going to begin—I want to model the work of truth-telling about ourselves by being vulnerable and open with you about experiences.my own</p><p class="mainbody_text">To begin with this truth-telling about <em>my</em>self, I might start by saying that I <em>want</em> to be on what most people would consider the ‘good’ side of things. I <em>want</em> to not be racist and I <em>want </em>to believe that I am not racist. Going further, though, I <em>want</em> to be an ally to people of color, be they Black or Latino or Arab or Asian. I <em>want</em> a person of color to know not only that I don’t have prejudices against them and that the communities that I am a part of would welcome them, but that I want to be an advocate on their side.</p><p class="mainbody_text">But, you know, if I were to just leave you there, that wouldn’t be truth-telling. The truth is that it just ain’t that easy, folks. These things I’ve said may be what I want, but to borrow some words from the apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans “For I do not do the good I want, [and] the evil I do not want is what I do.”<br /></p><p class="mainbody_text">The truth is, no matter how much I <em>hate</em> racism and want to be an ally to people of color, I still catch myself thinking things and doing things that reflect the ever-so-subtle prejudices in our society. For instance, I know that I have caught myself—not all the time, but occasionally—locking my car doors when driving through a poor black neighborhood. And I can ask myself, ‘now would I have just done that if this were just as poor a neighborhood that was mostly white?’ And the answer, quite frankly, <em>I don’t know</em>. Maybe. <em>Probably not</em>.<br /></p><p class="mainbody_text">Or, as another example, when I’m getting out of my car here at the church and I see someone walking toward me that looks a bit disheveled or poor, maybe seeming like they’re drunk or on drugs—does the question ‘are they going to ask me for money?’ come quicker to my mind if that person is Black or Latino than if they are white? <em>I don’t know</em>; sometimes probably yes. And I <em>hate</em> that—working here at the church, I of all people know that we get just as many white people in here asking for money as black or Latino—and yet I know I still every once in a while have those thoughts, and I hate that. I hate that about myself, and I hate what our society has done to me that causes that.</p><p class="mainbody_text">I want to widen my truth-telling, though, beyond these more obvious things. In some ways, those were the easy things to see. What’s a lot harder to get at is how as a white person I bring certain assumptions to things that come out of what’s called “white privilege”—the things those of us who are white can assume and count on that, for the most part, people of color just can’t take as givens. First I want to do so by way of a story of an experience I had while I was in seminary.<br /></p><p class="mainbody_text">My second year in seminary, I was part of a program that had 15 of us seminary students working part time in one of three different UCC churches in Chicago—a fairly poor black church, a sort of economically-in-the-middle Puerto Rican church, and a fairly affluent white church. I myself was working at the Puerto Rican church. As part of this program, the 15 of us students also took half of our academic coursework together, drawing on what was going on with our work in these three churches as part of our ‘source material’ for the classes.<br /></p><p class="mainbody_text">Oh, and I need to point out that of our group of 15 students, 4 of us were white, 1 of us was an international student from the Philippines, and the other 10 of us—fully 2/3s of the class—were black.<br /></p><p class="mainbody_text">One of the classes we did together was called “The Bible and Economic Ethics” and early on in the semester, our professors—who were both white, I should add—had asked us to read a book titled <em>What are they saying about Scripture and Ethics</em>? The class day came for us to discuss the book, and for the first 45 minutes or so of the 3-hour class, we had a good discussion on what was presented in the book, but something seemed a little odd that morning, almost like there was an ‘elephant in the room’, so to speak. Really, that whole time, it had only been the professors and the 4 white students and the Philippino student talking. Finally, one of my African American classmates had the courage to speak out and name the ‘elephant in the room’, and over the remaining 2 hours of class many of us had our eyes widely opened to a new reality.</p><p class="mainbody_text">You see, in the book we were discussing, in one of the chapters the author talked about how a field called “liberation theology” had affected the conversation around scripture and ethics. Liberation theology, which came into serious view starting in the late 1960s, is a way of talking about theology and ethics that starts from the assertion that God is on the side of the poor and marginalized and oppressed. There are different kinds of liberation theology, drawing on the experiences of different groups of poor or marginalized or oppressed people—there’s Latin American liberation theology, black liberation theology, Asian liberation theology, feminist liberation theology, and even lately gay liberation theology. Really though, the two kinds that are recognized for starting the whole liberation theology movement in the late 60s were Black liberation theology and Latin American liberation theology.<br /></p><p class="mainbody_text">Anyway, in this chapter about liberation theology, the author mentioned these two roots—Latin American and Black—and then went on to basically dismiss Black liberation theology as not as interesting or fruitful for his exploration and pretty much never talked about it again. My black classmates couldn’t believe their eyes. In that class, they told us that for many of them, this was the first time in their lives that they were in a serious academic setting where they as African Americans were in the majority—remember, they made up fully 2/3s of our class—and yet, yet again they had been asked by white professors to study something that dismissed their experience, one of their most prominent theological traditions. The white people got to set the agenda yet again--and these are liberal, progressive, social-justice minded people at a UCC seminary, and still this kind of thing happened. And we white students just played along—we didn’t question it; we had to wait for them to bring up the issue. As I remember, one of us white students—it may have even been me—asked why someone didn’t speak up earlier. But you see, as they then pointed out, as a white person, and especially as a white male, I have been enculturated to believe that of course I should speak up, and of course I’ll be listened to when I do. Black people, women, people with disabilities don’t have that luxury. Too often, and sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly, they are told to keep quiet, and when they don’t, too often they aren’t listened to.</p><p class="mainbody_text">This whole story is just one piece, one example, of what white privilege can mean. As a white person, if I’m in a store somewhere and I get treated poorly by the clerk, I almost never have to ask myself the question of whether they treated me that way because of my race. A Black woman or a Latino man faces that gnawing question in the back of their mind <em>every</em> time. Sure, the clerk may have very well been a jerk who treats everyone badly. But they don’t know that. And it’s those sorts of back-of-your-mind questions that can eat away at your soul.<br /></p><p class="mainbody_text">So, I’ve done a little bit of truth-telling about <em>myself</em>, but to tell the truth about myself also includes the groups and communities that I’m part of—which includes this congregation and this city of Rockford. Together, we too have some good things to say. I’ve mentioned before, but I think this congregation is to be commended for taking the risk a few years ago to build the activity center, and to invite in the kids of this neighborhood—who for the most part do not look like us.<br /></p><p class="mainbody_text">But to tell the harder truths, we also have to admit that we can be very quick to judge when something goes a little bit wrong. Like when the window by the parking lot got broken in to. Like when we wonder why some of the parents aren’t more involved, when in reality some of them are single parents working two or three jobs just to stay afloat—and, I know, not <em>all</em> of them, some of them do have issues with drugs or alcohol and the like, and I’m not giving them a pass. But gosh, we can be awfully quick to judge. Like when we criticize for things maybe not being kept quite as tidy or clean as we’d like—even though our community of Rockford doesn’t exactly set any good expectations, when we <em>let</em> the streets and infrastructure of downtown and the West and South sides decay and crumble while we spend plenty of money building streets for subdivisions of expensive houses out on the far East side—we’re not exactly keeping their places tidy either. And even in the sentence I’ve just said, I’ve fallen into a tendency that we sometimes get caught in here, of talking about “us” and “them”. Many of us, and I’m not excluding myself here, sometimes get caught talking about how we do so much for ‘them’, the neighborhood kids, and not enough for <quote> “our” kids—forgetting that when we decided to stay downtown after the ’79 fire, we were making the decision that the ‘neighborhood kids’ <em>are</em> ‘our’ kids.</p><p class="mainbody_text">Ok, so I know I’ve spent quite a bit of time here talking about some of the harder truths about myself and about us together when it comes to race and racism. I guess if I can get across nothing else today, I want to say that this stuff is <em>hard</em>. There aren’t any easy answers. We can’t just say something that will erase 400 years of history. We can’t just imagine that ‘not being racist’ changes the inequalities that creep around the shadows of our society, like the reality of white privilege and decades of educational and economic inequalities. Myself, I’m not going to wake up tomorrow and never again occasionally have those thoughts in my mind about the disheveled guy walking up to me in the church parking lot.<br /></p><p class="mainbody_text">Where is there hope? Where is there hope? Well I have to say, from my experiences in seminary in particular, that there may be few other things that I find myself turning to God about than this one, throwing myself on God’s throne of mercy, pleading for the Holy Spirit to come and work within me and within all of us. The story I told about that book in my seminary class, that was definitely not the only time our group had conflict that involved race that year. Voices got raised. Tears were cried. And yet somehow in the end, we still managed to be in community with one another, to care for one another. Looking back on those times, I have no explanation of how we were able to do it, other than by God’s providence and Christ’s grace and the Spirit’s power.</p><p class="mainbody_text">Really, I shouldn’t be surprised by that. When it comes right down to it, this has a whole lot to do with what the Holy Trinity is all about. I can’t explain the Trinity, and I’m not going to try, but what I do know is that by speaking of God as Trinity, we’re recognizing that community—and not just community, but community with both diversity and unity at the same time—this is inherent, central, to God’s being. And if we all are created in the image of God, as our Genesis story proclaims, then this sort of community is inherent to us too as humans. In the ‘Creator – Redeemer – Sustainer’ community, in the ‘Father – Son – Spirit’ community, in the ‘Compassionate Mother - Beloved Child - Life-giving Womb’ community, we have a glimpse of a true diversity community and we have the promise this possibility is in us, too. The creation story is all about God bringing order out of chaos, and in continuing to engage in truth-telling and join with others in sacred conversation, we join with God in bringing order and beauty into the chaos of this world. We join with God in creating the sort of community that indeed <em>is</em> God. And so, may almighty God, the blessed and holy Trinity, pour out power and grace and mercy upon us for the work set before us. </p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-649020490820350992008-04-16T07:57:00.000-06:002008-04-16T14:04:17.033-06:00Daily Journal - April 16<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p><span/><span style='font-style: italic;'>Today's Reading: Jeremiah 23:1-8 </span><br/> Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord. Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the Lord. (vs. 1-4) <br/> <br/> <span style='font-style: italic;'>Other readings:<br/> </span>Matthew 20:17-28 (Jesus came to serve) and Psalm 100 (We are the sheep of God's pasture) <br/> <br/> <span style='font-style: italic;'>Hymn:</span> "Gather Us In" by Marty Haugen <br/> <span style='font-style: italic;'>Prayer: </span><span>O God, we confess that religion can be divisive and leaders more contentious than compassionate. Banish fear, engender healing, and restore trust to those who have been damaged by religious manipulation. </span><br/> <br/> <span style='font-style: italic;'>Reflection<br/> </span>It is so interesting that this reading from Jeremiah would come up in the daily lectionary this week, given how well it connects in with something that has happened this week here in my congregation. </p> <p>My sermon this past Sunday, which I will post at some point, was titled "Gatekeeping". I worked off of Jesus' statement in the John 10:1-11 reading that "I am the gate". I said that, if Jesus is the gate, then perhaps that means that we, the Church, are the gatekeepers. I played that two different ways: first that, in fact, we have all too often made ourselves into gatekeepers trying to slam the doors shut, keeping people from an experience of God, from entering into the realm that Jesus opens. But then, also, even as we repent of that kind of gatekeeping, perhaps we are being invited, called, into another kind of gatekeeping, into being the kind of gatekeepers that see someone coming down the road and call out to them, 'hey, let me hold this door open for you.' Perhaps 'usher' is an image we better connect with this than gatekeeper, but either way, we the Church are <em>supposed</em> to be the ones <em>inviting</em> people to enter through the Jesus gate. </p> <p>In talking about being this kind of welcoming, ushering sort of gatekeeper, about being an "open-gate community", I mentioned that we in the United Church of Christ have been at the forefront of opening the gates of the church to gay and lesbian people, who for too long have had to deal with far too many of that 'other' kind of gatekeeping Christians (the gate-closing ones). I later received an email from a individual for whom this past Sunday was their second time visiting our congregation, and they wrote to thank me for my sermon, because they had been waiting 35 years to come to a church where they were welcome.</p> <p>So, thanks be to God, that I have the privilege of being among those of whom Jeremiah says "I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them," at least in as much as I get to be so and do so for anyone who walks through the doors of this community and finds welcome. And thanks be to God that people do indeed find a home and a place to journey with God, that "they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed". And long we still await that day when "nor shall any be missing", because indeed, we know that many, many folks have still not found that place where the gatekeepers are doing their real jobs, the hold-the-door-open, welcoming-in, ushering job. </p> <p>Oh, and I just <em><strong>love</strong></em> Marty Haugen's "Gather Us In":</p> <blockquote> <p>Here in this place the new light is streaming, now is the darkness vanished away; see in this space our fears and our dreamings brought here to you in the light of this day. Gather us in, the lost and forsaken, gather us in, the blind and the lame; call to us now, and we shall awaken, we shall arise at the sound of our name.</p> <p>We are the young, our lives are a mystery, we are the old who yearn for your face; we have been sung throughout all of history, called to be light to the whole human race. Gather us in, the rich and the haughty, gather us in, the proud and the strong; give us a heart, so meek and so lowly, give us the courage to enter the song.</p> <p>Here we will take the wine and the water, here we will take the bread of new birth, here you shall call your sons and your daughters, call us anew to be salt for the earth. Give us to drink the wine of compassion, give us to eat the bread that is you; nourish us well, and teach us to fashion lives that are holy and hearts that are true.</p> <p>Not in the dark of buildings confining, not in some heaven light years away--hear in <em>this</em> place the new light is shining, now is the kingdom, and now is the day. Gather us in and hold us forever, gather us in and make us your own; gather us in, all peoples together, fire of love in our flesh and our bone. </p> <p>(Marty Haugen, copyright (c)1982 GIA Publications, Inc.) </p> </blockquote> <p><br/> <span style='font-size:78%;'>Daily lectionary readings from <span style='font-style: italic;'>Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings</span>, ©2005 Consultation on Common Texts. Hymn suggestions and prayer for the day from <span style='font-style: italic;'>Bread for the Day 2008: Daily Bible Readings and Prayers</span>, ©2007 Augsburg Fortress.</span></p></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-672095386177714762008-03-26T16:48:00.001-06:002008-03-26T16:51:21.903-06:00My Book LibraryYou may have noticed not too long ago the appearance of the "Random Books from my library" section in the right-hand column on this page. <br /><br />I'm using this pretty cool site called LibraryThing to catalog my library of books. I'm still working my way through, probably only a little over half-way done (certainly not yet to 2/3rds). <br /><br />You can see my whole library at:<br /><a href="http://www.librarything.com/catalog/emerymat">http://www.librarything.com/catalog/emerymat</a><br />and my LibraryThing profile at:<br /><a href="http://www.librarything.com/profile/emerymat">http://www.librarything.com/profile/emerymat</a><br /><br />Check it out!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-49286827971336256812008-02-21T10:15:00.002-06:002008-02-21T11:11:53.362-06:00Daily Journal: February 21st<span></span><span style="font-style: italic;">Today's Reading: Psalm 95</span><br />O come, let us sing to the <span class="sc">Lord</span>;<br /> let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! <br /><sup style="display: none;" class="ii">2</sup>Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;<br /> let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! <br /><sup style="display: none;" class="ii">3</sup>For the <span class="sc">Lord</span> is a great God,<br /> and a great King above all gods. <br /><sup style="display: none;" class="ii">4</sup>In his hand are the depths of the earth;<br /> the heights of the mountains are his also. <br /><sup style="display: none;" class="ii">5</sup>The sea is his, for he made it,<br /> and the dry land, which his hands have formed. (vs. 1-5)<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Other readings:<br /></span>Exodus 16:1-8 (Israel complains of hunger in the wilderness) and Colossians 1:15-23 (Christ, the reconciliation of all things)<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Hymn:</span> "Let All Things Now Living"<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Prayer: </span><span>Creating God, give us eyes this day to see the wonder of what you have made. Help us to appreciate this awesome beauty in everything that lives and breathes and moves around us.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Reflection<br /></span><br />Giving thanks to God for creation is perhaps a little bit difficult this time of year in the upper Midwest, as we are in that point of the winter when we are all <span style="font-style: italic;">very</span> sick of cold and ice and snow, and yet we know that spring is still a bit too far off. This winter here in Rockford, when we're not suffering through single-digit or even sub-zero temperatures, we're getting overly-generous amounts of snow (or occasionally ice, even) dumped upon us. <br /><br />But alas, it is still a creation that supports and sustains all life, include our own, and for that we are thankful to God. Perhaps in our complaining about this year's winter weather, we are inching ever too close to the whining Israelites in the wilderness that we find in the Exodus reading given for today. <br /><span class="main"><span class="main"></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Daily lectionary readings from <span style="font-style: italic;">Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings</span>, ©2005 Consultation on Common Texts. Hymn suggestions and prayer for the day from <span style="font-style: italic;">Bread for the Day 2008: Daily Bible Readings and Prayers</span>, ©2007 Augsburg Fortress.<br /></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-66483723353606312752008-02-20T11:53:00.004-06:002008-02-20T12:26:55.455-06:00On Bible Versions/TranslationsSo I have been a die-hard fan of the NRSV for as long as I can remember. (For those who might read this that don't know what NRSV stands for, it is the "New Revised Standard Version" translation of the Bible.) I think this is probably reflective of the fact that I have been a "mainliner" my whole life--the NRSV is by far the preferred translation among clergy, publications, scholars, and other resources in most mainline Protestant denominations. It's one of the few recent English translations whose translation committee was not dominated by evangelicals. (Other notable exceptions would be the New Jerusalem Bible, which is Roman Catholic, and the Revised English Bible, which is British--and these are both translations I appreciate as well, especially the REB.)<br /><br />In the last year or so, though, as I've been doing a lot more work with high school youth and 8th-grade confirmation students, I've been finding that the reading level of the NRSV is simply too complicated for many of my youth. Now, it is the case that some of my high schoolers struggle some with reading, but I think the NRSV may be a bit challenging for most high schoolers, particularly the 8th, 9th, and 10th grade levels.<br /><br />So, I've been exploring the idea of finding an easier-to-read translation and getting a new set of Bibles for our youth room and confirmation classroom. This has been perplexing, as there aren't great options. Do I forsake much of biblical language and poetry and go with an overly-simplistic translation like the CEV? Do I go with one of the evangelical translations that clearly has theological biases--some even come right out and state their theological biases in their forwards, like the <span style="font-size:100%;">"</span><span style="font-size:100%;">Holman Christian Standard Bible"? I definitely don't want to go with a complete paraphrase like The Message, or even the almost-complete paraphrased New Living Translation. What to do, what to do...<br /><br />Well, in the midst of all this, I came across this brand new audio Bible called "Inspired by... The Bible Experience". Check out the website: <a href="http://www.zondervan.com/tbe">http://www.zondervan.com/tbe</a> This audio Bible is a really high quality production, and its reading is really engaging. I thought, 'hey, maybe this is an answer, to utilize something like this so as to not challenge their reading abilities so much, but also to add the really engaging presentation it offers.<br /><br />So, this new audio Bible uses the text of the TNIV, the Today's New International Version. For those who don't know, this is a recent revision of the practically-ubiquitous NIV translation that was released in 1979. In part because of the marketing power of Zondervan, the NIV has become the most widely-available and most-purchased English translation out there. I've kinda had a bias against the NIV for a long time. Part of this is because I preferred the language of the NRSV, and I resented how dominant the NIV has become while the NRSV has to practically fight its way to get one or two copies onto a bookseller's shelf. The NRSV is probably a more 'accurate' translation than the NIV. And, the NRSV was a more inclusive-language translation. <br /><br />This new revision, though, the TNIV has addressed much of the inclusive language issue that you find with the NIV. There are some places where they've fixed some things to be more 'accurate'. And, given that this TNIV seems to be quite a bit easier of a reading level than the NRSV in many places, it's actually fairly amazing how much of a 'traditional' biblical-language sound it still manages to maintain. Now, I am still conscious of the fact that this is primarily an evangelical translation, although the committee at least is truly interdenominational, spanning all of the different denominational/theological traditions. I will still probably find myself 'watching' things in comparison to the NRSV, but I think I'm actually coming to like this TNIV.<br /><br />So, Monday I went ahead and purchased this audio bible I'm talking about, along with a print TNIV that goes along with it (it has references at the top of each page to which CD and Track numbers to go to). Having surveyed everything for the past couple of days, I'm pretty sure I'm going to go ahead and get some of these TNIVs for our youth room and confirmation classroom. It was time for new Bibles there anyway, as we had some paper-back NRSVs that are practically falling apart, and the rest were old RSVs!<br /></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-7472688098558534022008-02-20T11:34:00.002-06:002008-02-20T11:53:24.388-06:00Daily Journal: February 20th<span>Ok, so sorry again for the long delay. I have been partaking of the daily Lent devotional emails from http://www.uccvitality.org/ which have been pretty good, and also based on the RCL Daily Lectionary.</span><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />Today's Reading: John 7:53-8:11</span><br />The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery; and making her stand before all of them, they said to him, ‘Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’ They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ (8:3-7)<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Other readings:<br /></span>Ezekiel 36:22-32 (God will renew the people) and Psalm 128 (God promises life)<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Hymn:</span> "Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling"<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Prayer: </span><span>Forgiving God, how is it that we are so ready to condemn others even when we are obviously convicted of wrongful behavior ourselves? Help us to refrain from questioning your mercy and imposing our own moral judgments on the lives of others.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Reflection<br /></span> First, and this isn't a reflection so much, but I think it is interesting to note simply that this story, the famous "let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone" story, is considered by most scholars to not have been an original part of the Gospel of John. The footnotes in many Bibles indicate that many ancient sources lack the passage, some have the passage at this location, and some have this passage at other locations, such as following John 7:36, John 21:25 (which is simply after the end of the gospel), or even after Luke 21:38. It's clearly a well-known and, for the most part, well-liked story; I'm not sure what to make of this detail of textual criticism, or whether it is even important to 'make' anything of it.<br /> I think the lesson/teaching we get from this story is an important one. Even for me, as one who is not often caught up in trying to make judgments of personal morality against other people, certainly this story may have something to say to me when I find myself too easily criticizing the efforts or work of another. <br /> In the UCC's email Lent devotional today, David Powers offers a very poignant question, I think: "<span class="main"><span class="main">But Jesus simply bent down and wrote with his finger in the dust. Was he stalling for time as he considered what to do? <span style="font-weight: bold;">Or was he offering a moment of grace by doing and saying nothing?</span>" This is an important word to hear for those of us, myself often included, who can get caught in the addiction to the need to "do something".</span></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Daily lectionary readings from <span style="font-style: italic;">Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings</span>, ©2005 Consultation on Common Texts. Hymn suggestions and prayer for the day from <span style="font-style: italic;">Bread for the Day 2008: Daily Bible Readings and Prayers</span>, ©2007 Augsburg Fortress.<br /></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-25203378278215058322008-01-31T16:25:00.000-06:002008-01-31T16:46:53.091-06:00Daily Journal: January 31st<span style="font-style: italic;">Today's Reading: Psalm 2</span><br />I will tell of the decree of the <span class="sc">Lord</span>:<br />He said to me, ‘You are my son;<br /> today I have begotten you. <br />Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,<br /> and the ends of the earth your possession. <br />You shall break them with a rod of iron,<br /> and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.’ <br /> <br />Now therefore, O kings, be wise;<br /> be warned, O rulers of the earth. <br />Serve the <span class="sc">Lord</span> with fear,<br /> with trembling kiss his feet,<br />or he will be angry, and you will perish in the way;<br /> for his wrath is quickly kindled.<br />(vs. 7-12)<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Other readings:<br /></span>Exodus 6:2-9 (God promises deliverance through Moses) and Hebrews 8:1-7 (Christ, the mediator<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Hymn:</span> "Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus"<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Prayer: </span><span>Almighty God, creator and ruler of the universe, the powers and divisions of this world melt away before your glory. We humbly thank you for calling us your children and showing us that nothing can separate us from your love.</span><span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Reflection<br /></span> There's a double-play with psalm language like this, "[The Lord] said to me, 'You are my son; today I have begotten you.'" We can read this as though it refers to Christ--which is I suspect the reading implied by the lectionary gurus, with this being the Psalm specified for the Transfiguration, when Jesus' status as God's beloved son is again proclaimed by the voice from heaven. This sort of 'christological' reading of the Psalms is more typical of the Lutheran tradition than it is of the Reformed. Then, on the other hand, we can read the psalm as though we ourselves are speaking/praying this language. 'I, Matt, will tell the decree of God: God said to me, "You, Matt, are my child, today I have begotten you.'<br /> I think there can be a danger in tending too hard one way or the other on this. To empower people to pray the psalms as their own, this can be a great and gospel-bearing thing. On the other hand, it can be too easy to always claim God's blessing for ourselves (see, for instance, that whole 'Prayer of Jabez' hooey). Of course, if we open up <span style="font-style: italic;">all</span> the Psalms in our voice, then there is great diversity--sometimes we are the blessed ones, and sometimes we are in the pit. <br /> The message that we are God's beloved children, it can be disheartening to think about still how many people in our world need to hear that simple gospel message. And, in large part, this is because of the way that Christians have distorted the gospel over the years. I'm not even just focusing on conservative/evangelical/fundamentalist types here. For a good part of the 20th-century, even the liberal mainline churches turned the central message of Christianity into moralism. You were a good Christian if you were a good citizen, a "good" person. I'm sorry, but I thought the central message of Christianity--the reason it's <span style="font-style: italic;">good</span> news--was about <span style="font-style: italic;">God's</span> grace, and what <span style="font-style: italic;">God</span> did through the cross, and <span style="font-style: italic;">God</span> incorporating us into Christ, and all that. Not so much about us and how <span style="font-style: italic;">good </span>we can be. And I don't care if your form of works righteousness is that of the fundamentalists (the conservative moralisms against sexuality, drinking, swearing, etc.), that of the old liberal mainline (being a good upstanding citizen and a good person), or that of the social justice / progressive style liberals (working for justice, not buying things from unfair labor or from eco-insensitive production, etc.). All three forms are still works righteousness, if you've come to think any of it is a measure of how 'good' a Christian you are. There are days when I think conservatives and liberals alike need Martin Luther to come nail some theses on their doors.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Daily lectionary readings from <span style="font-style: italic;">Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings</span>, ©2005 Consultation on Common Texts. Hymn suggestions and prayer for the day from <span style="font-style: italic;">Bread for the Day 2008: Daily Bible Readings and Prayers</span>, ©2007 Augsburg Fortress.<br /></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-85487132432690260412008-01-29T16:21:00.000-06:002008-01-29T16:57:24.458-06:00Daily Journal: January 29thSo, I'm doing really well with this <span style="font-style: italic;">daily</span> thing, aren't I?<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Today's Reading: Philippians 2:12-18</span><br /> Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.<br /> Do all things without murmuring and arguing, so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world. It is by your holding fast to the word of life that I can boast on the day of Christ that I did not run in vain or labour in vain. But even if I am being poured out as a libation over the sacrifice and the offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you— and in the same way you also must be glad and rejoice with me.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Other readings:<br /></span>Judges 7:12-22 (God leads Gideon to victory) and Psalm 27:7-14 (Take courage in God)<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Hymn:</span> "Rejoice in God's Saints"<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Prayer: </span><span>Father of light, through the ages your prophets, saints, and martyrs have taught us by their lives of dedication. Shine through us, too, that we may make a difference in the lives of others, encouraging them in your word.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Reflection<br /></span><br />The line in the Prayer, "Shine through us, too, that we may make a difference in the lives of others, encouraging them in your word" strikes me today. Probably because we did our annual "Snow Camp" winter retreat weekend with the middle- and high-school youth this weekend, and I do hope that indeed these things make a difference. Actually, I feel pretty good about this one that it in fact did.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Daily lectionary readings from <span style="font-style: italic;">Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings</span>, ©2005 Consultation on Common Texts. Hymn suggestions and prayer for the day from <span style="font-style: italic;">Bread for the Day 2008: Daily Bible Readings and Prayers</span>, ©2007 Augsburg Fortress.<br /></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-40027071688509466502008-01-21T13:19:00.000-06:002008-01-21T13:43:29.832-06:00Daily Journal: January 21My apologies folks for my week or so hiatus.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Today's Reading: Psalm 40:6-17</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Sacrifice and offering you do not desire,</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> but you have given me an open ear.</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Burnt-offering and sin-offering</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> you have not required. </span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Then I said, ‘Here I am;</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> in the scroll of the book it is written of me. </span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I delight to do your will, O my God;</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> your law is within my heart.’ </span><br /><p>I have told the glad news of deliverance<br /> in the great congregation;<br />see, I have not restrained my lips,<br /> as you know, O <span class="sc">Lord</span>. <br />I have not hidden your saving help within my heart,<br /> I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;<br />I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness<br /> from the great congregation. <br /></p><p>Do not, O <span class="sc">Lord</span>, withhold<br /> your mercy from me;<br />let your steadfast love and your faithfulness<br /> keep me safe for ever. <br />For evils have encompassed me<br /> without number;<br />my iniquities have overtaken me,<br /> until I cannot see;<br />they are more than the hairs of my head,<br /> and my heart fails me. <br /></p><p> Be pleased, O <span class="sc">Lord</span>, to deliver me;<br /> O <span class="sc">Lord</span>, make haste to help me. <br />Let all those be put to shame and confusion<br /> who seek to snatch away my life;<br />let those be turned back and brought to dishonor<br /> who desire my hurt. <br />Let those be appalled because of their shame<br /> who say to me, ‘Aha, Aha!’ <br /></p><p> But may all who seek you<br /> rejoice and be glad in you;<br />may those who love your salvation<br /> say continually, ‘Great is the <span class="sc">Lord</span>!’ <br />As for me, I am poor and needy,<br /> but the Lord takes thought for me.<br />You are my help and my deliverer;<br /> do not delay, O my God.</p><p><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >(The italicised part is the section offered in Bread for the Day)</span><br /></p><span style="font-size:78%;"></span><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />Other readings:<br /></span>Exodus 12:1-13, 21-28 (The passover lamb) and Acts 8:26-40 (Philip teaches about the lamb)<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Hymn:</span> "Lord of Glory, You Have Bought Us" by Eliza S. Alderson (1818-1889)<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Prayer: </span><span>Life-giving God, when we consider the sacrifice you have made to bring us back to you, the reality brings us to our knees. How can you love us this much? You have redeemed us, and we are truly yours forever.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Reflection<br /></span><br />I'm finding myself without a lot to say today, which seems to happen more often when the reading for the day is the Psalm reading. Hmm... probably something to think about there.<br /><br />Today's selection of readings, the psalm featured above and also the additional readings listed, are supposed to be in some way a 'reflection' back on this past Sunday's (yesterday's) readings--particularly the gospel reading from John. I preached yesterday--I should be able to put the sermon up tomorrow--and I was interested in how most of the folks reflecting/commenting on the John passage seemed to weigh in much more heavily on one half of it or the other: either the first half, where the emphasis is the title of Jesus as "Lamb of God" (this being the only place in the Bible where that language is used so directly), or on the second half of it, where it would seem the emphasis is on the disciple's question "Where are you staying?" (actually more like "Where do you abide?") and Jesus' invitation-as-response "Come and see." I myself was guilty of this in my sermon, as I pretty much didn't address the whole Lamb of God issue at all, other than exploring the action dynamics of John yelling things every time Jesus comes near (you can see what I mean when I get the sermon up here). As much as I am one within the UCC who thinks that UCCers are far too hesitant to deal with issues of Christology, and generally speaking tend to have far too low of a Christology, in this case, given the two possible emphases here, even I am inclined to think that in today's context, the issue of where Jesus 'abides' (a more accurate translation of what we read as 'staying') and the gospel news of Jesus' invitation to "Come and see" are probably more important that christological titles. Although perhaps this is because I'm not entirely sure what to make of the 'Lamb of God' title, or I'm a bit hesitant around it because I worry about how one uses this language with run-of-the-mill non-theologian laypeople without descending into bad sacrificial substitutionary atonement sorts of theologizing. But, on the other hand, I still think it's important language.<br /><br />But anyway, all this has been interesting because it's been pretty apparent that most of the Lutheran commentators and resources have focused on the Lamb of God part than the 'Come and see' part. (Some people will be very impressed at this point that I've found something in which I'm actually <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> going along with the Lutherans!) <br /><br />Well, anyway, none of that was really so much about today's readings, hymn, or prayer, but oh well!<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Daily lectionary readings from <span style="font-style: italic;">Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings</span>, ©2005 Consultation on Common Texts. Hymn suggestions and prayer for the day from <span style="font-style: italic;">Bread for the Day 2008: Daily Bible Readings and Prayers</span>, ©2007 Augsburg Fortress.<br /></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-14641771468604510732008-01-12T12:22:00.000-06:002008-01-12T13:01:07.503-06:00Daily Journal: January 12th<span style="font-style: italic;">Today's Reading: 1 Samuel 7:3-17</span><br /> Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Jeshanah, and named it Ebenezer; for he said, ‘Thus far the <span class="sc">Lord</span> has helped us.’ So the Philistines were subdued and did not again enter the territory of Israel; the hand of the <span class="sc">Lord</span> was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. The towns that the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel, from Ekron to Gath; and Israel recovered their territory from the hand of the Philistines. There was peace also between Israel and the Amorites.<span style="font-size:78%;"> (Verses 12-14, as given in <span style="font-style: italic;">Bread for the Day</span>)</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />Other readings:<br /></span>Acts 9:19b-31 (Barnabas introduces Saul/Paul in Jerusalem) and Psalm 29 (The voice of God upon the waters)<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Hymn:</span> "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing"<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Prayer: </span><span>Almighty God, you grace us with strength in the midst of turbulent days, and where you are, peace abides. Grant us the wisdom to recognize your presence in others, that we may never exclude others who also call you Lord.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Reflection<br /><br /></span>Well, first of all, I guess this gives a clue finally to the ponderous lyrics at the beginning of the second verse of "Come, Thou Fount...": "Here I raise my Ebenezer: 'Hither by thy help I've come'". That would be a recasting of verse 12 in this passage, where Samuel set up a stone and named it Ebenezer, "for he said, 'Thus far the Lord has helped us.'"<br /><br />The point in the text--at least as implied by the prayer of the day--is that God provided peace for the Israelites. It's a little troublesome to me, though, because when you read through the whole passage for today (I only have verses 12-14 above, following the lead of <span style="font-style: italic;">Bread for the Day</span>), the "peace" seems to be simply that the Philistines were scared witless to attack the Israelites because "the <span class="sc">Lord</span> thundered with a mighty voice that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion; and they were routed before Israel. And the men of Israel went out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines, and struck them down as far as beyond Beth-car." (v. 11) It would seem to be the sort of peace of the Cold War--not so much a "real" peace, but a peace based in the fact that either side was afraid to attack the other. Of course, 'history is always told by the victor', and I think that applies even to (perhaps especially to) biblical history, and the Deuteronomistic history in particular (1st Samuel is part of a larger section of the Bible known as the "Deuteronomistic History", extending from Joshua through the end of 2nd Kings, excluding Ruth and arguably including the book of Deuteronomy; it is so named because biblical scholars believe these history-telling books come out of the same tradition or community as the writer of Deuteronomy). So, in this case, as long as Israel is not being attacked, or not losing, from Israel's perspective there is peace.<br /><br />This is perhaps the classic error in American history, and especially that chunk from the end of the Cold War until 9/11. In America during this time, the overall concern for "world peace" was, in my estimation, pretty low--we, after all, were not getting attacked and lived in little fear of being attacked. So for us there was already peace. As my own seminary Hebrew Bible professor, Dr. Ken Stone, pointed out in a <a href="http://www.ctschicago.edu/pdf/Convocation2006-KenStone.pdf">Convocation address</a> the semester after I graduated, one of the things in our present context that the Deuteronomistic history may best do is shine back a not-too-flattering reflection on our own actions (he was speaking specifically of the book of Judges, but it could apply to much of it). This is particularly true of our all-too-often desire to claim God's blessing upon our country or our actions--or at least to say that if we are not getting attacked, for instance, it is because of God's protection (and thus, if we are, that God has removed that protection). Here I share some interesting quotes from Dr. Stone's address:<br /><blockquote>[D]o those of us who are committed to fostering peace in our world need to consider the possibility that the normalization of violence in the book of Judges, a book that associates violence with both God and the people of God, has some complicated but nevertheless real relationship to the conflicts that continue to rage among branches of the Abrahamic traditions?</blockquote><blockquote>[O]ne way of reading difficult biblical texts is precisely to read them as a mirror. If we read Judges as a mirror, we may find in it, first of all, not an occasion for condemnation of either the text or our neighbor, but rather an occasion for critical self-reflection. That is to say, in a world of conflict, how do we, who long for justice, find ourselves acting just like these judges? Where do we see, in the book of Judges, reasons for caution about our own worst tendencies, particularly those of us who, as Christians, wish to heed Jesus’ command in Matthew 7:1-2 not to judge?</blockquote><blockquote>For the case of Jephthah, in particular, may suggest to us that being involved in a just cause and being used by the spirit of God are no guarantees against doing terrible and foolish things. Indeed, Jephthah’s story indicates that those involved in just causes and acting under God’s spirit are quite capable of sacrificing persons close to them while refusing to take responsibility for their own harmful acts. </blockquote>I encourage you to read the whole address (follow the link above).<br /><br />But that academic tangent aside, where does that leave us with the claim in today's prayer of the day, that God "grace[s] us with strength in the midst of turbulent days, and where [God is], peace abides." What kind of peace is this? A 'personal' peace? A 'real' peace? A respite from hate and violence? What are the signs of God's peace breaking into the world already?<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Daily lectionary readings from <span style="font-style: italic;">Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings</span>, ©2005 Consultation on Common Texts. Hymn suggestions and prayer for the day from <span style="font-style: italic;">Bread for the Day 2008: Daily Bible Readings and Prayers</span>, ©2007 Augsburg Fortress.<br /></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-68520638833377037162008-01-11T11:18:00.000-06:002008-01-11T11:52:51.989-06:00Daily Journal: January 11th<span style="font-style: italic;">Today's Reading: Acts 9:10-19a</span><br /> Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, ‘Ananias.’ He answered, ‘Here I am, Lord.’ The Lord said to him, ‘Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.’ But Ananias answered, ‘Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.’ But the Lord said to him, ‘Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.’ So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.<br /> For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus,<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />Other readings:<br /></span>1 Samuel 3:10 - 4:1a (Samuel receives the word of God at Shiloh) and Psalm 29 (The voice of God upon the waters)<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Hymn:</span> "Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Sound"<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Prayer: </span><span>O God of truth, your light will always banish darkness. Let us never be afraid to speak your word in the face of opposition, for it is your power--not ours--that will save your children, through Christ our Lord. Amen.</span><span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Reflection<br /><br /></span>As I think I mentioned a couple days ago, I've been reading through <span style="font-style: italic;">Unbinding the Gospel: Real Life Evangelism</span> by Martha Grace Reese. The areas of new nember welcome/inclusion and 'evangelism' are supposed to be one of the 'focus areas' of my particular position as associate pastor. It also so happens that I've been prepping for our next set of "Inquirers' Classes" or "New Member Sessions" (I recommended the former name to our Membership Board about 6 months ago or so, to encourage the idea that people should be able to come to these sessions to learn more about our congregation <span style="font-style: italic;">before</span> they have to decide if they want to officially join).<br /><br />So, it is striking to me that today's scripture reading would be given the title/tagline "Ananias receives Saul into the church". In the passage, the actual 'joining' of the church is mentioned fairly quickly: "Then he got up and was baptized". There are certainly people in my congregation who think the new member joining process should be as quick, easy, and non-involved as possible--as few 'classes' as possible, as soon after someone inquires as possible, and so forth. This applies to people being newly baptized too. I'm not casting any particular judgment on those in the congregation with this thought, as their attitude reflects what was in fact the practice here at my church for many, many years. I've been told by someone who joined maybe 15 to 20 years ago that there weren't <span style="font-style: italic;">any</span> sessions/classes for new members when they joined. <br /><br />But it may be easy to miss in this passage from Acts that Saul/Paul has most definitely had a significant, life-altering encounter with the risen Christ. Now, I don't believe anyone is probably going to have such an encounter in new member classes, regardless of how many we have or what we include. But we do believe, as Reformation Christians (this is my term that groups together the Reformed and Lutheran traditions), that God / Christ are encountered in the life, work, and witness of the gathered people of God, in the Word and Sacraments proclaimed and celebrated amidst a real-life worshiping assembly. So, I'm not sure the impulse to have people join the membership at the earliest possible moment, maybe even if they've only been here a couple times, is the best idea. And, it would seem anecdotally that we have seen some evidence in our own congregation. Due to a variety of factors, about a year ago we waited some 7 or 8 months between inquirers/membership classes. Most of the folks that joined in that class had already been attending here some 4 to 6 months, and were already becoming integrated and committed into the life of the congregation. We've seen a much higher "retention" rate (new members remaining active) with that class than with many others over the past 4 or 5 years.<br /><br />The narrative of Saul's conversion together with this text makes me think about what we in the churches are doing that will lead people into a Saul-like encounter with the risen Christ. Sure, theologically we claim this can/does happen in Word and Sacrament, but practically speaking, there is a lot of what passes for mainline Protestant worship, things that <span style="font-style: italic;">look</span> like Word and Sacrament, that do everything <span style="font-style: italic;">but</span> provide an encounter with the Gospel and with the risen Christ. Or, for those who come to us having already had some call/encounter, can we reach out like Ananias and heal the blindness/brokenness they come with, thereby opening them up to the full life that God has called them to? Can we be the hands of healing and transformation, even if God or others have already worked the call / encounter?<br /><br />Aside from reflecting on the mechanics of how we welcome new members and new Christians, though, there is something else of challenge in today's reading. Ananias complains to the Lord because he knows of "how much evil [Saul] has done to to your saints in Jerusalem". This is the last guy we should go healing! And yet God affirms that "he is an instrument whom I have chosen". We have a hard time believing that those with whom we disagree might be being used by God. Conservatives have a hard time with the claim that liberal-progressives or gay clergy or any host of others could be ones God is using. But we liberal-progressives have a hard time seeing that God might use our opponents, too. Of course, in the story, Saul undergoes a conversion, so the claim is not that God was using him as an instrument <span style="font-style: italic;">while</span> he was still persecuting. Is the lesson not so much that God may be using our opponents, but instead that by the grace of God, the door for transformation is always open?<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Daily lectionary readings from <span style="font-style: italic;">Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings</span>, ©2005 Consultation on Common Texts. Hymn suggestions and prayer for the day from <span style="font-style: italic;">Bread for the Day 2008: Daily Bible Readings and Prayers</span>, ©2007 Augsburg Fortress.<br /></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-24292000755298773322008-01-10T12:33:00.000-06:002008-01-10T13:22:37.541-06:00Daily Journal: January 10th<span style="font-style: italic;">Today's Reading: Psalm 29<br /></span>Ascribe to the <span class="sc">Lord</span>, O heavenly beings,<a href="javascript:void(0);" onmouseover="" class="thinspace"><sup style="display: none;" class="fnote">*</sup></a><br />ascribe to the <span class="sc">Lord</span> glory and strength.<br /><sup style="display: none;" class="ii">2</sup>Ascribe to the <span class="sc">Lord</span> the glory of his name;<br />worship the <span class="sc">Lord</span> in holy splendour.<br /><p> <sup style="display: none;" class="ii">3</sup>The voice of the <span class="sc">Lord</span> is over the waters;<br />the God of glory thunders,<br />the <span class="sc">Lord</span>, over mighty waters.<br /><sup style="display: none;" class="ii">4</sup>The voice of the <span class="sc">Lord</span> is powerful;<br />the voice of the <span class="sc">Lord</span> is full of majesty.<br /></p><p> <sup style="display: none;" class="ii">5</sup>The voice of the <span class="sc">Lord</span> breaks the cedars;<br />the <span class="sc">Lord</span> breaks the cedars of Lebanon.<br /><sup style="display: none;" class="ii">6</sup>He makes Lebanon skip like a calf,<br />and Sirion like a young wild ox.<br /></p><p> <sup style="display: none;" class="ii">7</sup>The voice of the <span class="sc">Lord</span> flashes forth flames of fire.<br /><sup style="display: none;" class="ii">8</sup>The voice of the <span class="sc">Lord</span> shakes the wilderness;<br />the <span class="sc">Lord</span> shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.<br /></p><p> <sup style="display: none;" class="ii">9</sup>The voice of the <span class="sc">Lord</span> causes the oaks to whirl,<a href="javascript:void(0);" onmouseover="" class="thinspace"><sup style="display: none;" class="fnote">*</sup></a><br />and strips the forest bare;<br />and in his temple all say, ‘Glory!’<br /></p><p> <sup style="display: none;" class="ii">10</sup>The <span class="sc">Lord</span> sits enthroned over the flood;<br />the <span class="sc">Lord</span> sits enthroned as king for ever.<br /><sup style="display: none;" class="ii">11</sup>May the <span class="sc">Lord</span> give strength to his people!<br />May the <span class="sc">Lord</span> bless his people with peace! </p><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Other readings:<br /></span>1 Samuel 3:1-9 (Samuel, a boy, says "Here I am") and Acts 9:1-9 (Saul on the road to Damascus)<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Hymn:</span> "Before You, Lord, We Bow" by Francis Scott Key<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Prayer: </span><span>God, you called the young boy Samuel from his sleep, and you called Saul, the persecutor, out from his darkness--and their lives were never the same. Teach us to recognize your voice, and make us bold in following your commands.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Reflection<br /><br /></span>I'm finding myself without a lot to say in this journal today. The psalm reading, which is the psalm for this coming Sunday, was selected because of the "voice of the Lord is over the waters" phrase--it is the Baptism of Our Lord this Sunday, after all. I do love that voice upon the waters language, and I love a song by Marty Haugen that echoes it:<br /><blockquote>Wind upon the waters, voice upon the deep,<br />rouse your sons and daughters, wake us from our sleep,<br />breathing life into all flesh, breathing love into all hearts,<br />living wind upon the waters of my soul.</blockquote>What does it mean for God's voice to be upon the waters? We as Protestants--well, us non-Lutheran, non-Anglican Protestants, anyway--have for too long domesticated, ignored, or lost faith in the sacraments. So what would it mean if we truly believed God's voice, God's word, was upon, within, amidst the waters of baptism?<br /><br />It seems that the other readings for today all have the theme of hearing God's voice. In my own experience, though, the hearing of God's voice is one of those areas where Luther's (and others) 'hiddenness of God' is very applicable. When I was sensing the call to pursue seminary and ordained ministry, I definitely thought that it would be much easier of God sent emails or made phone calls, rather than trying to make me figure out why I had a knawing in my stomach and a lump in my throat whenever I thought about the issue of ministry. I think we can never actually be sure it is God's voice we're hearing, and yet we still have to act on the voice we hear, deciding whether it is God's or not. I'm sorta Bonhoeffer-ian here--in an actual instance of ethical decision-making, we can never know (or at least never be sure) what the right choice is, and yet we still must choose, and throw ourselves upon the mercy of God.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Daily lectionary readings from <span style="font-style: italic;">Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings</span>, ©2005 Consultation on Common Texts. Hymn suggestions and prayer for the day from <span style="font-style: italic;">Bread for the Day 2008: Daily Bible Readings and Prayers</span>, ©2007 Augsburg Fortress.<br /></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-8366982540936028682008-01-09T10:40:00.000-06:002008-01-09T11:38:19.045-06:00Daily Journal: January 9th<span style="font-style: italic;">Today's Reading: Luke 13:31-35<br /></span> At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, ‘Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.’ He said to them, ‘Go and tell that fox for me, “Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem.” Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”<span class="thinspace"> </span>’<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Other readings:<br /></span>Micah 5:2-9 (One who is to rule Israel) and Psalm 72 (Prayers for the king)<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Hymn:</span> "When Twilight Comes" by Moises B. Andrade, tr. James Minchin<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Prayer: </span><span>God of the ages, your word is at once powerful and gentle, ancient and new. Your children pull together and tear apart, loving each other and causing each other pain. Gather us under your wing, O Lord, and renew us.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Reflection<br /><br /></span>I must confess that among my first thoughts in reading today's text has to do with the killing prophets theme and last night's results from the New Hampshire primary. Yes, I am a Barack Obama supporter, and no, not just because he's UCC (although that certainly adds to it). Up until about a month ago or so, I was sort of non-committal about the whole thing: yeah, maybe leaning toward Obama, but not all that strongly, and not with any particular dislike of Mrs. Clinton. Quite frankly, I found Obama's speech at our UCC General Synod this summer a bit disappointing. Something changed, though, in December, and I came to have a certain distaste form Mrs. Clinton's campaign and became increasingly electrified by how I perceived Obama. I really think if we want substantial change in our country, Mrs. Clinton is just too establishment for that to happen. (Now, that said, if she wins the nomination, I'll still vote for her, just not with the same fervor as I would Obama.)<br /><br />Now, I want to be clear that Obama is not the messiah and Mrs. Clinton is not Herod. But I can't help feeling a certain parallel from the prophet getting killed to the potential for Obama's campaign to fail. Mrs. Clinton is not Herod in this case, rather "the system" is--the 'establishment', the American electorate that buys into fear about a potential terrorist attack and the question of whether someone like Obama would not have enough experience in that event, and all the other factors that contribute to "the system". 'Jerusalem' is the system: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!" And this is <span style="font-style: italic;">all</span> the prophets, lest anyone think I'm reducing this all to electoral politics or trying to make Obama the prophet extraordinare (which he's not--remember, I was actually disappointed in his General Synod speech, and while I think he's the best choice, I'm not expecting any divine miracles if he gets elected).<br /><br />I'm not really sure what to make of Jesus' statement that "it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem."<br /><br />The 'gospel, as well as the judgment of 'the law', in this passage seems to be Jesus expressing his desire: "How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under wings, and you were not willing!" How do we hold on to that promise, that Jesus wants to gather us in? How do we communicate--evangelize--that gospel message to the un-churched / potential new Christians?<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Bread for the Day</span>'s suggested hymn, "When Twilight Comes" by Moises Andrade echoes the language from today's reading in it's first and second verses.<br /><blockquote><br />When twilight comes and the son suts, mother hen prepares for night's rest.<br />As her brood shelters under her wings, she gives the love of God to her nest.<br />Oh! what joy to feel her warm heartbeat and be near her all night long;<br />so the young can find repose, then renew tomorrow's song.<br /><br />One day the Rabbi, Lord Jesus, called the twelve to share his last meal.<br />As the hen tends her young, so for them he spent himself to seek and to heal.<br />Oh! what joy to be with Christ Jesus, hear his voice, oh! sheer delight,<br />and receive his servant care: all before the coming night.<br /><i>(Moises B. Andrade, tr. James Minchin, tr. ©James Minchin, admin. Asian Institute for Liturgy & Music)</i><br /></blockquote><br />For a while now, I think we in the liberal/progressive Mainline have been uncomfortable with language like "Oh! what joy to be with Christ Jesus, hear his voice, oh! sheer delight". I have often shared that discomfort. For me, the discomfort is partly a reaction to evangelicalism, and their tendency to use a lot of so-called 'personal relationship' language and 'Jaezzuss' language. But I also think this discomfort is to our detriment. Indeed, it should be good and joyful to be with Jesus, the one who loved us before we could love. Sometimes our 'head' religion has gotten in the way of the response of our hearts. Over the last few years, I have become a little more comfortable with this kind of language. It's interesting to note how some of this same more emotively connective language permeates a lot of those old 16th, 17th, and 18th century Lutheran chorales, albeit in some different kind of verbiage: "Jesus, priceless treasure, source of purest pleasure, truest friend to me: ah, how long I've panted, and my heart as fainted, thirsting, Lord, for thee!" or "Lord, thee I love with all my heart; I pray thee, ne'er from me depart; with tender mercy cheer me. Earth has no pleasure I would share, yea, heav'n itself wer void and bare if though, Lord, were not near me." I don't know if its simply been some maturing in my faith, or my exposure to this latter kind of language (again, thanks to the Lutherans!), some combination thereof, or something else entirely that has lowered my resistance to more emotive, relational faith language.<br /><br />Sure, there's the danger of descending into maudlin sentimentality, but for those of us in mainline Reformed tradition churches, with our typically intellectual Theo-centric expressions, we benefit, I think, from opening ourselves a little more emotional Christo-centric language. God is relational and compassionate, after all, and we as humans are emotional, relational, and embodied beings.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">O Christ Jesus, I believe, help my unbelief. Help me to love you and trust in your promises. Open me, all that I am, to you. Amen.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Daily lectionary readings from <span style="font-style: italic;">Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings</span>, ©2005 Consultation on Common Texts. Hymn suggestions and prayer for the day from <span style="font-style: italic;">Bread for the Day 2008: Daily Bible Readings and Prayers</span>, ©2007 Augsburg Fortress.<br /></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-77289022420564849822008-01-08T12:05:00.000-06:002008-01-08T12:20:54.000-06:00Daily Journal: January 8th<span style="font-style: italic;">Today's Reading: Ephesians 4:7, 11-13<br /></span>But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Other readings: <br /></span>1 Kings 10:14-25 (Solomon's splendor) and Psalm 72 (Prayers for the king)<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Hymn:</span> Lord, You Give the Great Commission<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Prayer: </span>Sustaining Lord, you equip each of us with specific gifts for the building up of your kingdom. Grant us the wisdom to identify these gifts in ourselves and others, that your church may be empowered for service in your name. Amen.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Reflection</span><br />What an interesting juxtaposition to think about the 'gifts' for ministry we have been given right next to the story of the magi bringing their 'gifts' to the Christ child. It really is a reminder--one we need often--that all the gifts we have to bring were in fact gifts given to us first. We pastors are sometimes just as much in need of that reminder as anyone, perhaps more so. I want to think that <span style="font-style: italic;">I</span> am capable, <span style="font-style: italic;">I</span> am good at what I do, <span style="font-style: italic;">I</span> am gifted. Well, indeed, I am "gifted", but not in the way we normally say that, rather I have received great gifts--everything, really--from God.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Daily lectionary readings from <span style="font-style: italic;">Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings</span>, ©2005 Consultation on Common Texts. Hymn suggestions and prayer for the day from <span style="font-style: italic;">Bread for the Day 2008: Daily Bible Readings and Prayers</span>, ©2007 Augsburg Fortress.<br /></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-15285358518040552652008-01-08T11:43:00.000-06:002008-01-08T12:05:03.852-06:00Why I want to some daily journals<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"></span>So, I've been reading <span style="font-style: italic;">Unbinding the Gospel: Real Life Evangelism</span> by Martha Grace Reese, and one of her strongest emphases, particularly in part two of the book, is on the critical importance of prayer--within the congregation, on the part of the pastors and evangelism leaders, and all around. This is connected to the idea the way churches operate and do evangelism is connected to a "trinity of relationships": individuals' relationships with God, relationships between church members, and relationships with people outside the church. Although she tries to describe it as a "trinity" of interdependence, it is clear from what she says that there is a certain priority to the 'relationships with God' part: stronger relationships with God will contribute to better relationships between church member, which in turn will help with relationships with people outside the church.<br /><br />Importantly, she writes, "If we pastors don't talk about our lives with God, if we don't have substantial prayer lives, it is not likely that members of our churches will develop much of a spiritual life, either. If members are not afire with love for God, it is inconceivable that they will do much to share their faith."<span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /></span></span></span>So, I figure I'm going to try to be more intentionally disciplined in doing some sort of daily (or at least rather frequent) "devotional"/reflectional scripture reading and prayer. And, as much as I have usually been resistant to "journalling" through my school life, I figure trying to be committed to doing a regular daily blog post might actually keep me disciplined.<br /><br />My 'discipline' or guide for at least a while is going to be based on the fairly new Daily Lectionary of the Revised Common Lectionary. While the Revised Common Lectionary has been out since 1992, it was only in 2005 that the Consultation on Common Texts finally released <span style="font-style: italic;">Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings</span>. The readings for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are intended to reflect back upon Sunday's readings (esp. the gospel reading) and Thursday, Friday, and Saturday's readings are meant to be in preparation for the coming Sunday. There are two readings for each day, as well as two psalms each week (one for Mon - Wed and a different one for Thurs - Sat).<br /><br />Augsburg Fortress (I love the Lutherans!) has taken this daily lectionary and prepared a devotional book called <span style="font-style: italic;">Bread for the Day<span style="font-style: italic;"> 2008: Daily Bible Readings and Prayers</span></span>. On each day's page, they give the text of one of the readings, list the other readings, and also provide a hymn for the day and a prayer for the day. It's really quite neat, and so I'm going to work with that.<br /><br />I'll let you know the reading(s) for the day, give the hymn and prayer, and then share some reflections, prayers, or whatever comes to me to share with you. Some days my reflections might be a bit more prayerful/devotional and other days they might be a bit more intellectual/theological in nature, but indeed the intellectual can be a prayer path too.<br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-57032713215396446672008-01-08T11:27:00.000-06:002008-01-08T11:40:14.434-06:00“What Child is This?” - A Sermon for the 4th Sunday of Advent, Year A“What Child is This?”<br />A Sermon for the 4th Sunday of Advent, Year A<br /><br /><ul><li><a href='http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=66813320'>Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19</a> -- <i>'Let your face shine, that we may be saved.'</i></li><li><a href='http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=66813406'>Romans 1:1-7</a> -- <i>Called to mission by the gospel of Christ</i></li><li><a href='http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=66813457'>Matthew 1:18-25</a> -- <i>Joseph is told that Mary will bear a son, a savior</i></li></ul>By The Rev. Matthew Emery<br />Second Congregational United Church of Christ, Rockford, Illinois<br />December 23, 2007<br /><br />Now, I’ve titled this sermon “What Child is This?”, but something tells me <i>that</i> was probably not Joseph’s first question. Just because Matthew is rather brief and to the point in telling this story, that shouldn’t let us miss the real scandal and drama here.<br /><br /> “When Mary … had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” So, imagine yourself in Joseph’s place here. You’re engaged to this young woman, and you haven’t <i>quote</i> “lived together”—and now, all of a sudden, she’s <i>quote</i> “found to be with child”. In other words, the two of you have not had sex and yet somehow Mary’s pregnant. I myself have never been in this position, but I’m inclined to think that Joseph’s <i>first</i> question was probably less “what child is this” and more “<i>who’s</i> child is this”? I mean, if we think this situation would be a little scandalous <i>today</i>, how much more so in a society 2,000 years ago where not simply your relationship, but your entire honor and status as a man, could be ruined by such a turn of events.<br /><br /> As if life weren’t already getting complicated and strange enough for Joseph, pretty quickly—while Joseph is figuring out how to minimize the damage—this angel shows up. The angel seems to have the answer, though, to the question of <span style="font-style:italic;">whose </span>this child is: “The child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” Huh? Now it seems like we’ve moved from the realm of daytime soap-opera drama into an episode of Dr. Who. The Holy Spirit? God has made her pregnant?<br /><br /> As Stanley Hauerwas, one of Pastor Mike’s favorite teachers, points out though, this shouldn’t be so surprising to us. If we affirm that God created the whole world, the whole universe, without needing our involvement—and we do affirm this as Christians, even if we don’t all agree on how God creates—then creating a single new baby certainly is not outside the realm of possibility. (Hauwerwas, 34)<br /> <br /> Hauerwas goes on, though, to say to us “What should startle us, what should stun us, is not that Mary is a virgin, but that God refuses to abandon us.” (Ibid.) Like the angel speaking to Joseph in the story, Hauerwas’s observation moves us from the question of <span style="font-style:italic;">who’s </span>this child this to <span style="font-style:italic;">who </span>this child is. This child is God coming to us in human flesh. This squirming little embryo in Mary’s uterus is the clear statement in cells and blood, flesh and bone that ‘God refuses to abandon us.’ <br /><br /><br /> I will admit that I have been at the mall and in other stores a number of times recently—and, no, I’m still not entirely done with my Christmas shopping yet. Of course, in some of these places they have been playing holiday music since well before Thanksgiving. Some of these songs are, shall we say, more annoying than others. While there are many candidates to pick on, the song “A Holly, Jolly Christmas” struck me yesterday as both fairly annoying and so utterly disconnected from this story in Matthew, or really anything else biblical about Jesus’ coming. I mean, imagine this scene in a movie: Joseph finds out his supposedly-virgin fiancé is pregnant, starts making plans to break off the engagement, and then this angel shows up, saying that the child is God’s. Then maybe some other hosts of heaven show up in the background and break into song: [<span style="font-style:italic;">singing</span>] “oh by golly have a holly, jolly Christmas this year”.<br /><br /> Obviously, that is not the scene Matthew paints. No, the angel shows up to tell Joseph that this child is from the Holy Spirit. And then the angel goes on, not to some maudlin, sentimental “holly jolly Christmas”, but to say not only that this is a sign, a proof, that ‘God refuses to abandon us’, but that this child will save his people from their sins. As one commentator puts it, “If Jesus is Immanuel [—God with us—] then we realize we don't have to go anywhere to meet him other than the hurly-burly reality of our Monday mornings and our Thursday afternoons. We don't have to go find him in some other realm because he has already found us in exactly this realm and this world. Immanuel is God-with-us in the cancer clinic and in the Alzheimer’s ward at the local nursing home. Immanuel is God-with-us when the pink slip comes and when the beloved child sneers, "I hate you!" Immanuel is God-with-us when you pack the Christmas decorations away and, with an aching heart, you realize afresh that your one children never did call over the holidays. Not once. Immanuel is God-with-us when your dear wife or mother stares at you with an Alzheimer's glaze and absently asks, "What was your name again?"”(Calvin CEP, n.pg.) And I say, there’s a reason these angels that appear to announce Jesus’ birth keep having to say “do not be afraid”. This is big stuff, stuff of life and death, hope and salvation, fear and redemption.<br /><br /> I suspect Joseph was still a bit perplexed. Perhaps he was even more confused after this angel had shown up than before. Maybe he was satisfied with this apparent answer to whose this child was. Or at least he dared to trust the angel dream enough that he didn’t follow through on his plans to dismiss Mary quietly. But, even with that, I bet he was still wondering about this other question, ‘what child is this?’ It’s like the contemporary gospel song by Mark Lowry, recorded by dozens of others, that asks of Joseph’s counterpart “Mary, did you know?”<br /><br /><blockquote>Mary, did you know<br />that your Baby Boy would one day walk on water?<br />Mary, did you know<br />that your Baby Boy would save our sons and daughters?<br />Did you know<br />that your Baby Boy has come to make you new?<br />This Child that you delivered will soon deliver you.<br /><br />Mary, did you know<br />that your Baby Boy will give sight to a blind man?<br />Mary, did you know<br />that your Baby Boy will calm the storm with His hand?<br />Did you know<br />that your Baby Boy has walked where angels trod?<br />When you kiss your little Baby you kissed the face of God?</blockquote><br />Joseph and Mary may not have known all these things, but as Christians, we <span style="font-style:italic;">do </span>know the rest of the story. We have been invited in to the whole story of Jesus the Christ, that same gospel of God that Paul wrote about to the Romans: God’s promises through the prophets, Jesus’s as truly human as a son of David and truly God as shown in his resurrection, the gifts of grace and discipleship that is offered to each of us and all of us as we people called to belong to Christ. We get to follow one who gave sight to the blind and water to the thirsty. We get to know the inside scoop on the One who came that we may have life, the One who came—and still comes—to save us from our sin. We hear the psalmist cry to God “let your face shine upon us and we shall be saved” , and then we get to give our witness, our testimony, back in response, “we <span style="font-style:italic;">have seen</span> his glory … full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)<br /><br /> Indeed, we do get to know the rest of the story. We do get to bear witness to the world to something more, something life-giving, something about what child this is that we celebrate. Knowing the story, we trust in the One who welcomed the outcast and advocated for the poor. Knowing the story, we have the privilege of being the ones who long for and await Christ’s coming again, the ones who have hope in the promise that God’s reign is in fact coming to transform and renew this world. <br /><br />And yet, even we ourselves are invited to learn the story ever and ever again. We are called to be one standing with Joseph asking ‘what child is this?’. Even knowing the story, we can join in yet another Christmas song—<span style="font-style:italic;">we</span> are <span style="font-style:italic;">still </span>the voice that sings:<br /><blockquote><br /> <i>(singing)</i>I wonder as I wander, out under the sky,<br /> how Jesus, the Savior, did come for to die:<br /> for poor ord’n’ry people like you and like I;<br /> I wonder as I wander, out under the sky.<br /></blockquote><br /><small><br />Citations: [1] Stanley Hauwerwas, Matthew, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2006). [2] From the comments on Advent 4A, 23 December 2007, on the “Center for Excellence in Preaching” website of Calvin Theological Seminary: http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/thisWeek/index.php; accessed 22 December 2007.<br /></small><div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-72455016889998732532008-01-08T11:16:00.001-06:002008-01-08T11:27:17.368-06:00"Christ the King?" - A Sermon for the Christ the King (OT 34), Year C“Christ the King?”<br />A Sermon for the Christ the King / 34th Sun. in Ordinary Time, Yr C<br /><br /><ul><li><a href='http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=66812657'>Jeremiah 23:1-6</a>--<i>Coming of the shepherd and righteous Branch who will execute justice</i></li><li><a href='http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=66812792'>Luke 23:33-43</a>--<i>Jesus is crucified between two thieves: you will be with me in paradise</i></li></ul><br />By The Rev. Matthew Emery<br />Second Congregational United Church of Christ, Rockford, Illinois<br />November 25, 2007<br /><br />I hope that I am not the only one here who has figured out that today is filled with more than just a little irony. Irony—something unexpected or, more precisely, something exactly opposite what we expect. First of all, the turkeys have been eaten and the stores have been filled with their “Black Friday” shoppers, and yet it is not Advent yet. Only those few years when Thanksgiving is not the last Thursday in November does this happen. Rather, instead of being the First Sunday of Advent, the beginning of a new year in the church’s calendar, we are today at the culmination the year, Christ the King Sunday. Each year we journey through Jesus Christ’s birth, his life and ministry, his death and resurrection, and here at the end of it all, we celebrate that Christ reigns with God over all creation. As the cycle begins anew next Sunday, we will remember our longings for Christ to come again as we move toward remembering his first coming at Christmas.<br /><br /> The fact that today is Christ the King, or Reign of Christ, Sunday instead of the beginning of Advent is really only a little piece of today’s irony, though. It strikes me as far more unexpected that on a day titled Christ the King, we would find ourselves amongst the crowds at the place called The Skull, standing at the foot of the cross. I don’t think we’ll find too many royal history books that will commemorate Queen Elizabeth’s reign by picturing her on her deathbed. So I think this image of Christ the King as the tortured and almost dead Jesus hanging between criminals on the instrument of the Empire’s oppression is rather ironic, to say the least.<br /><br /> But, of course, hearing the story of the crucifixion today is not the only irony. The crucifixion itself is ironic. It is foolishness and a stumbling block wrote the apostle Paul in his first letter to the Corinthian church. The leader of the movement just isn’t supposed to get killed. And more, even, the body hanging on that cross is the one we believe and proclaim to be God in the flesh, and what kind of God goes through that whole mess?<br /><br /> The scene as Luke tells it is filled with all kinds of signs and words of royalty, but all of them too are given in irony. Perched on his central high throne, Jesus has companions seated at his right hand and his left. The plaque above his head proclaims his title, “the King of the Jews.” Luke makes no mention of a crown of thorns, but earlier in the story, Herod’s soldiers had given Jesus an elegant robe as they mocked him and led him away.<br /><br /> The royal figures in the story—or, well, the ones with king-like power—they too are victims of the irony of the situation. Caiaphas, the recognized leader of the Jewish people, the chief-est of chief priests, he probably didn’t like being occupied by the forces of Rome much more than anyone else, but the price of resistance was way higher than the cost of compromise. If this Jesus guy stirred things up, there could have been a revolt and many people could die. As renowned preacher Barbara Brown Taylor put it, “No matter how he did the arithmetic, it came out the same: better that one person should die than many. … Caiaphas was stuck between a rock and a hard place. He was just doing his job.” <br /><br /> Pilate, the official representative of the Roman Empire, the de facto king, in a sense, he didn’t have it much better. He didn’t even want to get involved. But there was no sense in letting Rome think he couldn’t keep control. If killing Jesus would keep the rest of the people quiet, so be it. He too “was stuck between a rock and a hard place. He was just doing his job.” <br /><br />God has been challenging this kind of bad leadership all along. A few hundred years earlier, the kings of Judah, whether stuck between a rock and a hard place or not, had clearly not succeeded in just doing their job. Judah fell to the Babylonian Empire, and the people were led off in exile. In the words of Jeremiah, we here God’s judgment on them: “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture. … It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the Lord.” <br /><br />Of course, the kings of Jeremiah’s time were not the first to exhibit bad leadership, to do evil in the sight of God. And the Caiaphas’s and Pilate’s and Herod’s of Jesus time were not the last. While we may not have anyone titled “King” in our society today, there is still a whole mysterious complex of multi-national corporations and economic policies and government leaders and citizen apathy that works to scatter people all around. The economics of the world today force people to migrate from place to place to find work, and then when they get somewhere, we punish them for being there “illegally”. We “improve” neighborhoods by pushing poor people somewhere—anywhere—else: we have UCC brothers and sisters in a congregation I worked at in Chicago who, for some of them, have seen their community pushed around to three different neighborhoods by the forces of ‘gentrification’. <br /><br />Like the kings of Jeremiah’s time, we have not attended to the flock of God’s people as we turn a blind eye to war refugees from Iraq and genocide victims from Darfur … or even right here whenever we fail to actually welcome someone into our community when they’re not enough like us or because they might change us. We may not have kings, but we certainly have all the trappings of their misdeeds.<br /><br /> The cross that stands at the center of today’s passage from Luke stands as judgment on all of this. In their own time, it betrayed the farce that was the so-called power Caiaphas and Pilate held. In our time, it still betrays all the hands at which the innocent are killed—whether they die physically or simply die inside. It pronounces judgment on all who scoff and mock like the soldiers and first criminal, the ones who look into the face of pain and torture and say “save yourself.” And it casts its dark shadow over all of us who, like the people in Luke’s telling of the story, stand by watching while our leaders do evil and get away with murder.<br /> <br /><br /> Judgment is not the only word we hear from this cross, though. In the midst of the darkest hour, in the voice of one in deepest despair, we hear two signs of a new kind of kingship. We hear the words of mercy and of promise to the outcast. “Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” With the signs of earthly kingship standing around him in irony and mockery, Jesus still has one royal prerogative to exercise, the power of pardon. In contrast to the rulers who condemn the innocent, forsaking their power to pardon, Jesus takes it up, asking forgiveness for his executioners. Luke’s gospel is filled with Jesus offering forgiveness and restoration, and that word still sounds forth at the end. Luke’s gospel is also the story of one who stands with the marginalized, welcoming them into a new community—and this sign of Jesus’ reign sounds forth too. “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” To the outcast and to the guilty, even torture and death cannot erase the promise. For the criminal hanging next to Jesus, it was more than he had even asked for, the fulfillment of God’s promise way back in Jeremiah’s time that “I myself with gather the remnant of my flock … and I will bring them back to their fold.” For us, it is the very hope upon which we stand: the promise that the one in whom we put our faith, the one we have been joined to in our baptisms, that he invites us today into a new kind of kingdom, his kingdom.<br /><br /> The Crucified One as the king at whose cross-shaped throne all other kings’ power is proven false? The reign of one who speaks mercy and promise? Ironic? Perhaps, but God wouldn’t have it any other way.<br /><br />Let us pray.<br /><br />O God, our true life,<br />to serve you is freedom,<br />and to know you is unending joy.<br />We worship you, we glorify you,<br />we give thanks to you for your great glory.<br />Abide with us,<br />reign in us,<br />and make this world reflect your divine majesty,<br />through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord,<br />who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,<br />one God, now and forever.<br />Amen.<br /><small><i>(Prayer of the Day for Christ the King C from </i>Evangelical Lutheran Worship<i>, copyright 2006 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, admin. Augsburg Fortress.)</i></small><div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3698103055472685337.post-39378367077625878132008-01-04T11:52:00.000-06:002008-01-04T11:54:04.053-06:00Too FunnyI found this quote rather humorous for some reason:<br /><br />"[A]s many have noted, the only one among the early Republican frontrunners with a history of just one wife was the Mormon, Mitt Romney..."<br /><br />--Jim Wallis, SojoMail, January 3rd, 2008<div class="blogger-post-footer"><i>Any original material in this post is copyright © Matthew C. Emery; all rights reserved. Any quoted material, may be copyrighted by its respective owner.</i></div>Matt Emeryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02569877472660488383noreply@blogger.com0