Ponderings on a Faith Journey, Pastor Bob Cornwall

A Reflection on Psalm 30
How do I find joy in the midst of suffering?  Where do I see God present in the midst of difficulties, whether illness or death or difficult moments of life?  Little slogans like “when life gives you lemons make lemonade” simply don’t work.  It puts the onus on the individual, and if you can’t overcome on your own your difficulties, then surely there’s something wrong with you.  Wasn’t that the message of Job’s friends?  But then, thinking of Job, did Job find joy in the midst of his suffering?  Such questions need to be kept in mind as we reflect on this Psalm that the lectionary has chosen for this Sixth Sunday of Epiphany. 
Psalm 30 appears to have been written for the dedication of a Temple, to celebrate the victory of God, who provides the opportunity to build an altar where thanksgiving can be offered.  Israel’s history was one full of death and resurrection.  Three Temples were either built or rededicated -- Solomon’s, the Post-Exilic Temple, and the same Temple rededicated after the Maccabean revolt, which reclaimed the Temple after its desecration by Antiochus Epiphanes.  It is a Psalm of Thanksgiving that reflects recognition of having emerged from difficult times.  It also invites us to give thanks for being restored from illness.      This Psalm is a beautiful and powerful Psalm, but it’s also a challenge to us.  It is an invitation to find one’s hope in God, but it can easily be taken as a simplistic suggestion that don’t worry, be happy, because God will take care of everything.  We know that life is much more complex than that.
As we read this passage, verse 6 stands out to me: 
When I was comfortable, I said, “I will never stumble.”  Because it pleased you, LORD, you made me a strong mountain. But when you hid your presence, I was terrified.  (Ps. 30:6 CEB)
The first sentence, suggests to me a sense of overconfidence that comes upon us during good times.  “When I was comfortable,” when I’m prosperous, I declare “I will never stumble.”  It’s difficult to imagine difficult times when everything is going well.  But, how easy it is, during such moments to begin to think – I did this.  I’m okay, because I’ve worked hard.  The Psalmist, however, wants to remind us to be careful about such self-confidence – it was the LORD who had has made me a strong mountain.  
The last phrase carries this message much deeper.  The Psalmist declares:  “when you hid your presence, I was terrified.”   This translation seems to grab me more than either the NIV or NSRV, which use the word dismay.    I’m dismayed when a friend I hoped was coming to a party doesn’t show up, but that’s different from being terrified that God might not be present, that God isn’t looking out for us.  As I hear this word in this context, I can imagine a person finding themselves discovering that they have over extended themselves, looked down, and see that the bridge is out and they are standing a thousand feet in the air with nothing to catch them.  That’s not just mere dismay – that’s terror.  When you realize that your security blanket has been ripped out from around you, you realize that you cannot depend on your own devices, there is great terror.  But, the Psalmist doesn’t leave us in that position.  We may have discovered that we can no longer trust in our own devices, but the Psalmist gives us words to cry out to God, begging for mercy, reminding God that there’s nothing gained from spilled blood or from ending in Sheol.  Dust can’t offer thanks or proclaim God’s faithfulness – so have mercy on me.
As the Psalm comes to a close in verses 11-12, the passage that caught my eye as I was looking at the lectionary and deciding what to preach.  “You changed my mourning into dancing.”  What a powerful image.  I was grieving, living in despair, and then God turned it all around I end up dancing for joy.  From funeral clothing (sack cloth) to festive clothing.  How do we move from one to the other?  What is the requirement?  Is emphasizing finding joy in the midst of difficult times making light of such realities? 
J. Clinton McCann, in his commentary on the Psalms, writes:
In short, suffering need not be an indication of the absence of God for those who take refuge in God (Ps. 2:12).  The existence of suffering does not negate the good news that life is a gift from God.” 
The point is not that we ignore suffering or that we might be completely freed of physical suffering/sickness, but that we can be aware of God’s presence in all aspects of life, and “this awareness engenders thanks, praise, and dancing” (New Interpreter's Bible: 1 & 2 Maccabees, Job, Psalms (Volume 4), 797).   
                Can we find joy in life, even if things don't get sorted out how we wish?  That is, do we wait for healing on our own terms, or are we able to find hope in the midst of difficult times?  Job gets most of what he'd lost back -- different children to replace the ones he lost.  But what if that doesn't happen for us?  Is it  possible to move from mourning to dancing in that case?    

In case you're wondering, the issue at hand really isn't fluoridation, but rather the kinds of issues that seem to get a rise out of folks.  Right now the Katherine Sebelius's ruling that health insurance carriers must provide contraception is being used to rally Catholic troops by their bishops, though to what end is not clear.  Republican pundits and politicians seem to be on the band wagon as well, declaring that somehow this ruling is anti-religion or anti-Christian.  Not sure how this is true.  The government isn't making anyone use contraception, it just says that if you are an institution offering health insurance (the exceptions being churches), then you need to offer the services.  This affects Catholic institutions such as hospitals and universities that have church connections, but the majority of employees of the institution are likely not  Roman Catholic.  This really is only a matter of fairness in my mind, but what really baffles me is the inconsistency of the Catholic Church at this moment.  They're getting all hot and bothered about this topic, one on which a large majority of Catholics seem to differ with their bishops upon, but don't seem at all concerned about how Roman Catholic presidential candidates are stepping all over other parts of the Catholic Social Teaching.  Anyway, I'll turn you over to Martin Marty and he'll help guide the discussion about contraception and our national political debate!  Really, I don't think the next election is going to be won or lost on this issue, as Peggy Noonan apparently suggests -- but I'll let you be the judge. **********************************
Sightings  2/6/2012 
Fluoridation -- Martin E. Marty  Sighting national debates over the religious and judicial implications having to do with fluoridation of water would draw little notice. Such was not always the case. At last mid-century, when the pile of letters to the editor of The Christian Century might thin out for a few weeks, we editors would play games. From our experience, we’d ask, what subjects  that we might take up would draw numerous vehement Letters to the Editor to inform and entertain readers? The top two at that time were “antivivisection” and “fluoridation.”            We could have added any number of others that had to do with the collision of interests pitting “the common good” versus “individual freedom,” especially freedom of religion. Pasteurization of milk, vaccination, and chlorination of water were among them. Beyond the needs of the body but dealing with the body politic have been vast numbers of others: the military draft, Sabbath and Sunday laws, and compulsory flag-salutes were or are among them. Often small religious groups best raise conscience matters. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Scientists, Scientist, Seventh-Day Adventists, Latter-Day Saints, the Amish. None of the issues could be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction, so majorities of voters or legislatures or justices ruled. This means that they used “coercion against conscience,” driving some citizens to inconvenience and prison. There were often accommodations and compromises along the way. Somehow the republic survived.            Peggy Noonan in her Wall Street Journal column addressed this winter’s hot issue. In Washington “a bomb went off that not many in the political class heard, or understood.” She referred to the Health and Human Services ruling that “Catholic institutions—including charities, hospitals and schools” will be forced to cover with insurance some procedures with which their church and many or most members disagree. Why she turns sectarian and parochial and reduces this worthwhile and troubling controversy to Catholicism alone, it is hard to tell. Or maybe it isn’t, because Catholics vastly outnumber the religious groups mentioned above. They have clout and have to be noticed, and this Saturday’s column was an attempt to rally the troops.            More Noonan judgment: “In other words, the Catholic Church was told this week that its institutions can’t be Catholic anymore.” The columnist then cheers, for intra-church political reasons, since their need to react will unify Catholics, “long split left, right and center.” Why this HHS ruling? “There was no reason. . . none. Except ideology.” That also over-narrows the case. People on the other side, many of them Catholic, favored the ruling as an issue of justice. They may have been wrong, but they at least help make possible something better than a reduction to sectarian and ideological self-interest.            To turn this to something more positive: what if we agreed that this controversy is too important to waste by such reduction? We live in a republic where not all electoral outcomes, legislative acts, or judicial decisions will satisfy the consciences of all conscientious people and interests, religious or not. Recognizing that, citizens have taken many courses: non-violent or violent resistance, compromising, negotiating, living with a world not entirely of one’s own making or politicking. Seeking immediate and total political advantage is tempting; Ms. Noonan gleefully, if I read her right, argues that this single decision has determined the outcome of elections a year from now, and foresees new power for the 77.7 million Catholics in this land. 
References
Peggy Noonan, “A Battle the President Can't Win,” Wall Street Journal, February 3, 2012. http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html

Martin E. Marty's biography, publications, and contact information can be found at www.memarty.com.
 ----------    Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

It's a Chrysler commercial.  It's designed to catch your attention and hopefully buy a Chrysler product.  But, like last year's Super Bowl commercial, it's much more than that.  Featuring Clint Eastwood, who starred in a powerful movie that was filmed in Detroit -- Gran Torino -- the ad speaks of the turn around in Detroit that has been led by a resurgent auto industry.  Detroit is far from finished in its recovery, but there are signs of good things happening.  There is a new sense of optimism and desire to turn things around.  There are signs that the metro-Detroit area, while still struggling, is ready to join together to move forward.
You can't hold down America -- that's the message.  Chrysler and GM -- and if they'd gone down so would have Ford -- almost died, but they are on the move again.  Unemployment in Michigan has dropped from over 11% to close to 9% and dropping, largely due to a resurgence in the auto industry.  Some folks, including the leading contender for the GOP nomination, said let them fail, the President, however, chose to "bail them out."  Seems to have worked!
I struggle with overt patriotism, not because I don't love my country, but because it often proves hollow and triumphalist.  We have a hard time acknowledging the dark side of our history.  That said, I do believe that there is in the American spirit, largely due to the diversity present in our nation, that is difficult to keep down.  
So maybe this is half-time in America.  The Giants were down at half-time, but dramatically won the game.  Is this a metaphor for America?  
Watch and meditate upon this powerful Super Bowl ad that everyone will be talking about for some time!





 Ad is taken from the Detroit Free Press

1 Corinthians 9:16-23


Rene Descartes declared these famous words – in Latin of course – Cogito ergo sum.   That is, “I think, therefore I am.”   According to this famous philosopher the ability to reason and to think defined human identity.  Many people, especially today, would find his definition rather limited, because it seems to exclude a lot that makes us who we are.     But who are you?  What makes you, you?   
I can’t answer this question for you, but I can say something about my own identity.   I do like to think, but I’m more than my ability to reason.  
I am a middle-aged, well-educated, middle-class European-American male, who has been happily married for going on twenty-nine years and who is a father of one adult child who also happens present in the room.  My maternal grandfather was an immigrant from Holland, while ancestors on my father’s side came to Massachusetts’s Bay Colony not long after its establishment.  I’m a Christian, a pastor, a historian, and a writer.  I was born in LA and grew up in Northern California and Oregon.  Except for a short period spent in Kansas, before we moved here, I lived my entire life on the West Coast.   I’ve been an Episcopalian, a Pentecostal, a Presbyterian, and a Baptist.   I’m a San Francisco Giants fan, and I like the music of Neil Young and Miles Davis.  Of course, I enjoy all things Star Trek and Big Bang Theory.  I love pizza, Mexican food, and of course, I like pie!!   I could add to this list but you’‘d get really bored!  
Last week I asked the question: Who is Jesus?  This week our scripture asks a related question: Who are you in Christ?   That is, what difference does Jesus make to who you are as a person?     
Paul answers this question in terms of his vocation.  He declares:  I preach the gospel, not out of choice, but out of obligation.  Therefore, I have no reason to boast, and the reward I receive comes from the fact that I preach without charge.  As you can see this is a very dangerous passage for those of us who preach and get paid, but I think we understand the point.
What Paul is most concerned about is that the good news of Jesus gets preached.  This is his passion and it defines his identity to such an extent that he says that he’ll do whatever is necessary to recruit Jews and Gentiles, strong and weak, into the body of Christ.  Therefore, he will become “all things to all people, so that I can save some by all possible means”  (1 Cor. 9:22).   What guides him in this course of action is the Law of Christ, which Jesus identifies as having two planks:  love God with all your being, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. 
Paul has offered his answer to the question of who he is in Christ?  But the question for us is: who am I in Christ?  What is Christ compelling me to be and to do?    
Knowing who you are as a person helps answer the question of who you are in Christ.  Paul has a strong sense of purpose.  Perhaps that Damascus Road experience imprinted on him a sense of calling that he couldn’t get away from.  
Although you may not have had a Damascus Road experience, or like Augustine heard a voice saying to you:  “Pick it up and Read,” which led you to pick up Paul’s letter to the Romans, perhaps a still small voice has spoken to you, inviting you to respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and you have responded – Here I am, send me. 
As we think about this question of identity in Christ, I’d like to suggest four possible markers of identity.  Although I’m not a fan of using acronyms and acrostics in sermons, I think that the words Disciple, Inclusive, Sharing, and Healing are good defining words of Christian identity.  So, when you think of your identity – think DISH.  
I realize the word DISH has no theological meaning, but maybe it will help us remember this definition of our identity: We are Disciples of Jesus who seek to be inclusive of all people as we share the good news of Jesus Christ and engage in healing ministry.  
We are DISCIPLES of Jesus
We are disciples of Jesus, which means that we are marked by our allegiance to him.  As the revelation of God for us, he defines who we are and what we do through his life and teachings.  We may not have had the luxury of personally walking with Jesus, but the gospels serve as our guide, and the Spirit of God empowers us to live this life of discipleship in the world. 
Who Seek to be INCLUSIVE of all people
It’s possible that I’m stretching this phrase “all things to all people,” but I hear in it a call to be inclusive of all people. Exclusive groups build walls and set rigid criteria for membership, while inclusive groups focus on people.  They put out the welcome mat and treat people with honor and respect, whether they are rich or poor, male or female, young or old.  Ethnicity is not a barrier nor is what we consider to be disability.         
An inclusive community is hospitable, open minded, willing to learn and grow, to forgive, and when necessary to forget.  Although it is open, it’s also tethered to Jesus.  Like astronauts taking a walk in space, in our freedom we remain tethered to the gospel.  An inclusive community focuses on what holds us together rather than on what divides us.  Now as we know, this isn’t easy.  As one of our own pointed out in a meeting this past week: “Worship is easy, Church is hard.”      As we  SHARE the good news of Jesus
As disciples of Jesus who form an inclusive community of faith, we are called to share the good news in all its forms.  In his sermon in the synagogue at Nazareth, Jesus defined the good news as a word to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed, and the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18-19).  This is a message of reconciliation that can change lives and liberate our creativity and imagination.  
We may not have a program for every issue, but we can love people with the love of Jesus. The world outside these walls isn’t looking for an institution to join, it’s looking for a community that loves God and loves all that God loves.   
      I remember going with high school friends to a bible study, not because I felt separated from God or because I was looking for answers to questions.  I went because I was lonely and needed a place to belong.   I found that and more, and it changed my life.  I’ve continued to grow and change over the years, but that was an important starting point on a very interesting journey with Jesus. And engage in HEALING Ministry
Healing has a variety of definitions and as followers of Jesus we may be engaged in a variety of healing ministries.  It can mean touching bodies, minds, spirits, and relationships.  Healing means to making whole that which is broken, and our focus as God’s people is engaging in ministry that leads to reconciliation and wholeness in all of its dimensions.   
On one occasion when I was making a pastoral visit at a nursing home a woman wheeled herself into the room I was visiting.  She asked me:  Are you a minister?  I said yes.  And when I told her the name of the church, she told me that many years before she had been a member of that church, and from that day on I became her pastor.  What’s more, through her I gained the opportunity to minister to her friends in that nursing home.   Isn’t it amazing what God does when we’re just out and about in the community?  Without expecting it, we can become instruments of God’s healing presence.  
As disciples of Jesus we’re called to include the excluded, share the good news, and be God’s instruments of healing.  We don't have a magic wand that can instantly take care of everything, but if we walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, things will happen.
And as we hear from Isaiah, when we get tired God is there to lift us up and empower us:    Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard?  The LORD is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He doesn’t grow tired or weary. His understanding  is beyond human reach, giving power to the tired and reviving the exhausted. Youths will become tired and weary, young men will certainly stumble; but those who hope in the LORD    will renew their strength;  they will fly up on wings like eagles;  they will run and not be tired; they will walk and not be weary.  (Isaiah 40:28-31 CEB).   Who are you as a disciple of Jesus Christ?  What is your calling?  What is your passion?  Where is God leading you?  What is, that is, your identity?  
Preached by: Dr. Robert D. Cornwall Pastor, Central Woodward Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Troy, Michigan Fifth Sunday after Epiphany February 5, 2012

What did Jesus look like?  Any answer to this question must, of course, be rather incomplete since we have no likenesses available to us.  And, no, the Shroud of Turin, which is surely a fake, doesn’t count!   Despite our lack of an accurate picture, most of us have some image in mind.  It may be a Sunday School picture or a painting hanging in one of the world’s great art museums.  It might inspire reverence or indifference. Even if God is invisible to our sight, Christian theology has always understood Jesus to be God’s revelation in human flesh.  To use the words of the Gospel of John, Jesus is the Word of God who became flesh” (John 1:14).  The theological term for this belief is incarnation.  To envision Jesus as God’s revelation in the flesh requires some imagination.   Our pictures of Jesus often take on cultural manifestations.  We often imagine Jesus as one like us, perhaps taking on our own ethnic or even gender identity.  Of course, the historical Jesus, the Jesus who lived an earthly life was a 1stCentury CE era Jewish peasant who came from the region of Galilee.   This is what we sometimes call the scandal of particularity.  Whatever our imaginations conjure up, history requires particularity.    Despite the particularity of Jesus’ historic personage, most pictures of Jesus, at least in the Western World, where Christianity became the dominant religious faith, have taken on a rather European cast.   Therefore the Jewish Jesus was transformed into what appears in most pictures, including the famed Sallman’s Head of Jesus, as a northern European man – with long blond hair, light complexion, and often with blue eyes.   He may even have a halo for good effect.  Of course other images have emerged over time, especially as Christianity has spread to non-European regions.  There is no one true picture of Jesus.   The universality of his message might even suggest that we would be best served by not pursuing a truly “historical” picture of Jesus.  There is value to such a decision, but considering the fact that Christianity has had a history of persecuting Jews and forgetting the Jewishness of Jesus, it is good to be reminded of this historical identity.  As I joined a group from my church last Sunday at the DIA, where we took in the special exhibit of“Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus,” this question of Jesus’ historic personage was brought into focus.   Like many artists of his day (17th Century), Rembrandt took on religious subjects, including pictures of Jesus.  What made him unique for his day was that Rembrandt sought to capture the Jewishness of Jesus in some of his paintings.  One of the things we learned while at the exhibit was the Rembrandt lived for a number of years in the Jewish section of Amsterdam (Amsterdam was one of the few places in Europe where Jews experienced some safety).  It was during this period that Rembrandt chose to use a young Sephardic Jew as his model, and as a result, created a series of pictures that casts Jesus as a truly Jewish man.  Of course this isn’t the true image of Jesus, which remains elusive, but it is a reminder of Jesus’ true humanity, his true historic context.  All of our images stand under the judgment of this reality.  Jesus was, Christian theology insists, one of us.  He was, however, also a figure of history.  Taking in an exhibit like The DIA’s helps keep these questions in balance. So I close this brief reflection with a few questions.  Who is Jesus?  Does one’s image or picture of Jesus have any theological implications?  What do our images say about us?   
Originally posted at Troy Patch

Isaiah 40:21-31
1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Mark 1:29-39
Revive Us Again
            The old revival hymn declares:
Revive us again;
Fill each heart with Thy love;
May each soul be rekindled
With fire from above.
The hymn calls forth the reviving presence of God to rekindle the embers of our souls, so that we might be empowered to live our lives fully before God and in the world.  It is a fact that life, especially the life of faith can be thrilling, but also draining.  We cannot hope to be effective servants of God dependent upon our own strength.  When the embers are close to going out, we pray that God would rekindle them.  Indeed, we see in Jesus an example of one who gave his all, and found it necessary to turn to God in moments of quiet to receive again the empowering presence of the Spirit. 
As we tend to the scripture passages that the lectionary lays before us on this fifth Sunday after Epiphany, as we continue to contemplate the revelation of God in Jesus, we ask ourselves, how God’s presence revealed in us?  Where do we find strength, especially when we encounter moments of difficulty?  What do we hear from these passages of Scripture that will speak hope to our lives and the lives of those most vulnerable in our society as well?
When we turn to Isaiah 40 we hear the words of a prophet of the exile.  This prophet speaks to a people feeling abandoned and lost.  They have lost hope that their voices will be heard.  They also must bear with the voices of their conquerors, which laugh at them and deride them for their perceived weakness.    Where is God, they ask?  It’s not easy being in such dire straits. 
The prophet, however, brings a word from God that speaks directly to their experience of suffering.  He asks them:  Don’t you know?  Haven’t you heard?  Have you not understood?  From the very beginning God has inhabited this earth, the inhabitants of which can be numbered like the locusts.  Trust and see, because those who mock you and repress you, God will make them useless.  They will be like the plant that is scarcely rooted, so that when the breath of God breathes upon them, they will dry up and be blown away in the wind like straw.  No one, God says can be compared to me – so take strength in this message, in this good news.  When you feel as if God has forgotten you, when it seems as if God is neglecting you, don’t forget that God is everlasting and will not grow weary or tired.    
God isn’t limited by our understanding of things.  When we’re ready to give up and go home, God gives power to the tired and revives the exhausted.   Indeed, even though the young will tire and grow weary, those “who hope in the Lord will renew their strength; they will fly up on wings like eagles; they will run and not be tired, they will walk and not be weary” (vs. 31).  The road that the exiles find themselves on is long and difficult, but if they hope in the Lord, they won’t be disappointed. 
Such a confidence, of course, requires an eschatalogically inclined vision of reality.  To borrow from Bonhoeffer’s Ethics, we can envision the penultimate finding its completion in the ultimate.  This vision, however, isn’t mere “heavenly sunshine” that we’ll enjoy in the sweet bye and bye, it is a vision of the ultimate that is both hidden and makes its presence felt in the penultimate.   It isn’t a rejection of the present, but a vision of what can be as the world is transformed into the likeness of ultimate vision of God.  Patience, however, is required, because all of this takes time.  Still, we needn’t lose hope for there is strength to be found in the one who will cause us to fly as on the wings of eagles and run and not tire.
Paul has reason to be weary.  The Corinthian Church is anything but docile.  It’s a constant challenge, but Paul sees potential in this church.  He comes to them willing to challenge them and push them, because he comes not of choice but out of obligation.  If he doesn’t preach he’s in trouble with God.  But, because he is accountable to God, and preaching out of obligation – “here I stand, I can do no other” – he is free to speak the word of God to them without fear.  That is, he won’t take advantage of the financial benefits that he can, with good conscience, avail himself of.  But this decision frees him to speak as he must.  He has moral authority he wouldn’t otherwise have. 
Paul’s message is apt, because those of us who are employed by the church, and who have families to support, know that we must be careful about what we say.  Challenging those who hold power isn’t easy, and can be dangerous, but Paul is freed from such fear.  The same can be said for Jesus.         While Paul may be free from economic constraints, he is constrained by his mission, which is to gain recruits for the gospel.  Thus, to Jews he is one under the Law.  He follows its guidelines, not because they are ultimate, but because they provide a foundation for a relationship.  As for Gentiles, who have not been under the Law, he’s not compelled to bring them under the Law.  The elite and the weak, the Jew and the Gentile, he will do what is necessary to recruit them, to bring them into the fold, so that they might experience wholeness in Christ.  He is all things to all people, so that at least some will be saved.  Whatever he does, he does for the sake of the gospel.  He is committed and compelled by God’s calling.  What do you feel compelled to be and do in response to God’s calling?  What kind of freedom do you feel, that will let you take the risk of proclaiming the gospel of healing and hope to the world?
Finally we come to Mark’s gospel.  Jesus has been to the synagogue in Capernaum, and while there “all hell broke loose.”  There was chaos as a result of his preaching and his encounter with the demoniac.  Now, probably exhausted by this encounter, he joins Simon and Andrew, together with James and John, in a visit to the house of Simon and Andrew.   When they arrive they discover that Simon’s mother-in-law is ill with a fever, so Jesus goes to her, raises her up by the hand, and the fever leaves.  Free of her sickness, she begins to serve them. 
Now, this little scene should raise questions in our minds.  Did Jesus heal her simply because the men were tired and hungry and wouldn’t get fed as long as the mother-in-law was sick?  It’s a rather odd account.  The whole scene seems a bit self-serving.  Jesus may not have made bread from stones in the wilderness to sate his hunger, but here he heals a woman so she can serve him.  We shouldn’t make too much of this, but notice needs to be taken.
Remember from the previous passage, where Mark reports that word had spread throughout Galilee that Jesus was an authoritative teacher and healer?  (Mk. 1:28).    Perhaps that message, spread without the help of Facebook or Twitter, is explanation for why at sunset the whole town was gathered at Simon’s door, bringing to Jesus the sick and demon-possessed amongst them.  We’re told that Jesus tirelessly, with the power of God sustaining him, heals the sick and throws out demons.  But this time he doesn’t let the demons speak, because they recognized him, and he didn’t want them revealing his identity.  Is it a matter of the revelation or the one making the revelation that is at issue here?  It could be either one.  
Jesus is a healer and a teacher, but he is also a man of prayer.  He recognizes that he can’t go it alone, and so he goes to a deserted place to pray, early in the morning, before sunrise.  Clergy who believe they can work 24/7 need to heed this example.  Jesus works hard, and then he takes time away to be in prayer and to rest.  When the disciples track him down, and tell him hey, everyone’s looking for you, he doesn’t go back to Capernaum.  No, he goes in another direction.  He’s not a settled pastor.  He’s an itinerant preacher.  He’s not going to set up shop in Capernaum; he’s going to follow his calling and go from town to town, preaching the good news.  That is, he says, why he came.  Thus, he went from synagogue to synagogue, preaching and throwing out demons.  In this, he too finds freedom to speak, challenging the status quo.  How might we hear this calling in our own settings, especially we who are settled in for the long haul? 
Revive us again, O Lord, so that we might run and not grow tired, walk and not grow weary.  Revive us again, O Lord, so that we might serve in freedom.  Revive us again, fill each heart with the love of God, so that inflamed by the Spirit, the good news of God’s realm might be made known – in word and in deed.     

The church I pastor once sat on Piety Row (Woodward Avenue) in Detroit.  When the church became too small to inhabit the cathedral-like building they sold it to a large African-American Baptist church, which continues to own it.  But not all buildings on Piety Row were so fortunate.  Some are gone and some lie vacant, crumbling into decay.  Robert Powers asks the question what happens to such structures when congregations move out and are not embraced by a new congregation.  Some fall into ruin, while others are torn down to make way for something else.  He asks the question -- why can't these often grand buildings be used for something else so that the building can be preserved, even if used for a different, non-sacred purpose?  Take a read and consider the question of post-sacred uses of religious edifices. **************************
Sightings  2/2/2012 
Reuse or Replace:  What Becomes of Religious Structures When Congregations Move On? -- Robert Powers
 In late December, the City of Chicago issued an emergency demolition permit for the Anshe Kenesseth Israel building, a grandiose former synagogue in the city’s downtrodden west side. Built in 1913, Anshe Kenesseth rose in a well-to-do neighborhood with a strong Jewish presence. By the early 1960s, however, the neighborhood’s demographics had shifted. The Jews had moved out, and their building was sold to the Friendship Baptist Church, one of a handful of Chicago churches to open their doors to Martin Luther King, Jr. The Friendship congregation eventually built their own church, and passed the AKI building to the Shepherd’s Temple Baptist Church in 1983. Unable to afford the massive and aged building, that congregation left in 1997. 
Now severely deteriorated after fourteen years of vacancy, AKI faces demolition. It will leave behind only a vacant lot—an all-too-common fate for urban churches in America. The restlessly mobile nature of American society has created a slew of cast-off religious buildings over the decades, raising the question of what should be done with vacant religious structures.  Many congregations opt to find buyers who will convert their former churches to new uses. In Chicago, numerous church buildings have had new floors inserted to convert them into apartment buildings. In St. Louis, the Catholic Church has disposed of its unneeded buildings in a variety of ways, selling them off as retirement homes, rehearsal spaces, theaters, and banquet halls. Many were sold to new congregations.  But when a church goes on the market, it becomes real estate, and location, as the cliché tells us, is everything. Though church buildings are commonly occupied by new congregations, they are rarely in the same economic strata as their predecessors. These churches of lesser means often inherit a building in need of extensive and costly repairs.  A structure like Anshe Kenesseth Israel, standing in Chicago’s largely impoverished North Lawndale neighborhood, does not have much of a fighting chance on its own. Derelict neighborhoods in cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis are dotted with magnificent churches standing vacant and abandoned, some to the point of collapse.  With abandonment being such a common problem for older churches, one might expect that outgoing congregations would be eager to see their buildings put to new use, but memory and money often dictate otherwise. In 2005, a lovely neighborhood church in St. Louis was demolished so that housing could be built on the site—and  so that former parishioners would not have the memory of their church sullied by seeing it put to some other use. And last year in this column, Martin E. Marty gave an account of the preservation battle over Union Avenue Methodist Church in Memphis, whose dwindling numbers could no longer support their sizeable turn-of-the-century building; it was sold to CVS, who razed the building and replaced it with a common corner drug store.  Amid discussion of preserving or demolishing Union Avenue Methodist, there was no mention of what seemed to me the most obvious solution: putting the CVS in the church building. The wide-open floor space of a church sanctuary could easily accommodate the retail store. The neighborhood would have retained a local landmark and gained the services of the convenience store. The drugstore would get a monumental presence and the goodwill of the locals, as CVS did in Chicago when it opened a location in a grand and historic banking hall.  With so many churches endangered by sheer lack of resources, it can be disheartening to see others lost to economic demands or a distaste for repurposing a former religious space. Monumental religious buildings are integral parts of their community, shaping neighborhoods for the better, and remain a vital presence even after their congregations have departed—and so I continue to hope that Anshe Kenesseth Israel may yet be granted a reprieve. 
References   Photographs of Anshe Kenesseth Israel, the Chicago synagogue threatened with demolition, can be found here.
More information on St. Aloysius Gonzaga Church in St. Louis, demolished for housing in 2006, can be found here.
Martin E. Marty, “Memphis Church Preservation,” Sightings, January 24, 2011. 
Robert Powers documents and writes about historic architecture on his website Built St. Louis and on his blog A Chicago Sojourn. He received his Masters of Architecture from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

I don't know Mitt Romney's heart, so I can't say for sure what he meant when he said that the "Very Poor" aren't a priority  for him.  In context he was saying that there's a safety net that will catch the poor and the rich do well, and so the focus should be on those in the middle.  President Obama also speaks of strengthening the middle class.  
But, the "gaffe" does speak volumes, not only of Romney's views, but those held by many of us in America. Ultimately, do we really care about the very poor?  
Romney's problem is that his own wealth insulates him from the realities of so many Americans.  His father grew up poor, but he didn't.  He may not have inherited his wealth, but his father was able to give him the foundation educationally, socially,  culturally, and economically that allowed him to succeed.  His father was, in many  ways, a self-made man, but it's difficult to say the same about Romney.  That tone-deafness underlines what has the tinge of a "Freudian slip" to it.  
But Romney's lack of concern for the poor is shared fairly widely.  In fact, I think that we all are stained by a lack of concern for those most at risk.  I live fairly well as a middle class professional.  I've been on the edge at times, but there was always someone somewhere who helped sustain me.  And I had the benefits of an education that helped me in life.
So, politics aside -- where do the poor really fit in our sense of God's realm?  What responsibility do we have for them?  Giving food to the hungry is helpful.  Teaching skills so that the poor can get jobs is helpful.  But at the end of the day, there are systemic and structural impediments that place a ceiling on the opportunities for many if not most who are poor.  The cycle of poverty is difficult to escape.  It's not about food stamps versus pay checks.  Many, if not most, Americans who are on food stamps have jobs, it's just that those jobs don't pay enough to provide enough food for the family.  
So, how do we change the system?  How do we work toward truly leveling the playing field at a time when the income disparity between the richest and the poorest is growing exponentially.  And it's not just a Mitt Romney, but look at athletes and movie stars.  The minimum salary for a major league baseball player is about $350,000 -- about what Romney made from speeches last year.   Top players are making 15 million and up per year.  They can get that kind of money because professional sports is big business.  They get their share, but the owners make their share.  
It may seem unseemly, but its reality.  So how do we make a real difference, especially at a time when the safety net that Mitt Romney speaks of is under duress?   Or in the words of Ebenezer Scrooge -- "are there no prisons?  Are there no poor houses?"   Is this the good news Jesus spoke of?

I am reading Jennifer McBride's The Church for the World: A Theology of Public Witness.  In this book McBride is attempting to lay the foundation for a non-triumphalist engagement by the church in the public square.  She's using the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer as her theological starting point.  As I've long been an admirer and reader of things Bonhoeffer, this book has been of great interest to me.  
As I've heard some talk in some circles about Christmas Christians and Easter Christians, a discussion of Christ's engagement with/in the world that takes into consideration his incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection seems relevant.  Taken from Bonhoeffer's unfinished book Ethics, which he was writing while engaging in the resistance to Hitler, Bonhoeffer speaks of the need to keep all three together.  She writes:
The incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ constitute the threefold Christological pattern of this-worldly reality, for they correspond to God's acceptance, judgment, and reconciliation of this world.  Bonhoeffer writes in Ethics, "In becoming human we recognize God's love towards creation, in the crucifixion God's judgment on all flesh, and in the Resurrection God's purpose for a new world."  God's belonging wholly to humanity rests in the unity of the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection such that making any of the three absolute distorts the picture of the world portrayed by the life of Christ.  Isolating a theology of affirmation based on the incarnation will lead to uncritical support of the status quo; a narrow theology of the crucifixion will leave the world judged and condemned; and a theologia gloria confined to the resurrection will foster a triumphal idealism disconnected from the church's culpability in present realities of sin and injustice.  (p. 103) It's easy to pick one of these three elements and focus upon one or the other.  Liberals like incarnation, while many conservatives pick the cross, and of course it's easy to choose a theology of glory and skip all the worldly stuff.  But that's not Bonhoeffer's vision.  If we, who are Christians, are to be present in the public square how does this threefold pattern enable us to do so in a faithful manner?   

The latest church-state flap centers on a government ruling that all health plans, including those offered by the Catholic Church must off access to contraception.  Martin Marty takes up the controversy that focuses on a perceived government intrusion into church affairs, while from a state side it appears to be a matter of justice.  Now, as Marty points out this is largely a Catholic issue -- one might say a Catholic Bishops issue, since apparently 98% of Catholic women ignore church teaching and use birth control.  As an example of this, my wife taught for a number of years in a Catholic school, and she reported how the Catholic teachers were upset that their health coverage didn't include access to contraception.  But, the question raised is important -- where does the line between church and state get drawn?  Take a read, offer your thoughts.  Is this an infringement on church rights or is this an effort to extend justice to all?     *********************************
Sightings  1/30/2012   Government, Religion and Contraception -- Martin E. Marty
 “To hell with you!” is the message of the government to churches. So reasoned or charged Pittsburgh Catholic bishop David Zubik last week. He was reflecting on new federal rules that would force employers to include access to contraception (and sterilization) in health-insurance coverage for employees. “To hell with you!” is an ever more frequently uttered response to such governmental measures by a mix of citizens who resent having to deal with changes in health-care financing and insurance policies. In the bulls-eye that targets hell, Health and Human Services and its Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, are frequently issued one-way tickets to hell. Catholic Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of Phoenix is most vocal and frontal among condemners of those Catholics who more or less side with Sebelius.  Michael Clancy in Saturday’s The Arizona Republic notes that “The Roman Catholic Church is the only significant denomination opposed to contraception.” We could find others, depending on how one defines “significant.” But in the press, it has become a Catholic issue, a designation that not all people in politics and government cherish. Some ponder: why is it a Catholic issue if, as we read in numerous polls, only two percent of Catholic women of child-bearing age oppose and do not use contraceptives?  Can we start over in the civil controversy over contraception? Before hell gets too crowded we might do well to get the hell out of here, meaning out of the current debates, the first inspired by Hosanna Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and now by the HHS ruling. One may rue Bishop Olmsted’s approach to these controversial issues and still agree with him that much is at stake in what he calls an “alarming and serious matter.” It “impacts the church in the United States and threatens the fundamental right to religious liberty.” Must it?  David Skeel in The Wall Street Journal was accurate in observing that after several decades in which church/state issues had dealt chiefly with religious symbols and practices in the public square, in the coming decade the fights and uncertainties will have to do with the ways in which federal and state regulations would inject government into religious affairs. Such issues are easily exploited by political factions and interests on all sides, but they cannot easily be wished away. Did the government in the current case act brutally, as its opponents claim? Or is the government simply seeking to help assure justice to citizens of all religious and non-religious sorts?  Citizens of all sorts? The Arizona Republic quotes Jan Olav Flaaten, the Lutheran pastor who directs the Arizona Ecumenical Council, who observes that “most religious groups are not concerned that the government overstretches in church-state relations” on this front.  He added that he could think of no other group than Catholics that had issues with contraception.” In most surveys that we have seen, about 98 percent of Catholic women of child-bearing age tell the poll-taker that they use contraceptive birth control devices and pills, whatever official church teaching and the bishops may say. The Catholic population is very little different from the rest of the population. Still, Catholic consciences and power have to be reckoned with. Can the controversy get off to a better start?             References
David Skeel, “On Religious Freedom, Years of Battles Ahead,” The Wall Street Journal, January 27, 2012. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204573704577184762102923798.html
Michael Clancy, “Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted: Defy Feds on Birth Control,” The Arizona Republic, January 28, 2012.http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2012/01/27/20120127phoenix-bishop-defy-feds-birth-control.html#ixzz1kwyw7T5X    Martin E. Marty's biography, publications, and contact information can be found at www.memarty.com.
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In this month’s Religion & Culture Web Forum Jonathan Wyn Schofer explores both how late ancient rabbinic narratives understand human vulnerability in relation to the environment, and the ethical instruction inspired by this understanding. Schofer proposes that "contemporary environmental ethics can learn much from considering these perhaps exotic rituals and stories," which "portray people as entrenched in natural processes."
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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

9 At noon on the following day, as their journey brought them close to the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. 10 He became hungry and wanted to eat. While others were preparing the meal, he had a visionary experience. 11 He saw heaven opened up and something like a large linen sheet being lowered to the earth by its four corners. 12 Inside the sheet were all kinds of four-legged animals, reptiles, and wild birds. 13 A voice told him, “Get up, Peter! Kill and eat!”   14 Peter exclaimed, “Absolutely not, Lord! I have never eaten anything impure or unclean.”  15 The voice spoke a second time, “Never consider unclean what God has made pure.”  (Acts 10:9-15 Common English Bible.) In this passage of scripture, Peter has a vision that will expand his understanding of God's realm.  It is a vision that opens up the gospel (the Good News of God's reign) to Gentiles.  Those who had been deemed unclean, were now clean.
The Christian Church (broadly speaking) has long struggled with what it means to be inclusive.  We struggle with boundary issues -- just like every religious community.  I think that there have been times when the church, or parts of the church, have been on the right side of the question and many times when it has not been.
I want to risk the interpretive rules for a moment by thinking out loud what it means for the church to be a truly inclusive community without loosing its core principles and ideals.  What have we declared unclean that God has perhaps, through the Spirit, declared clean?
There are a number of areas where we struggle with a changes in the way the world exists.  Here are some areas we must examine as people of faith:

• Our relationships with people of other faith traditions.  Where do they stand in our estimation and our perception of God's estimation.  I have long been involved in interfaith work and attended last night a special event in Detroit called the World Sabbath for Religious Reconciliation.  How do we engage in this work?

• I'm reading a wonderful book by Amos Yong called  The Bible, Disability, and the Church: A New Vision of the People of God.  He asks us to consider how the church can be truly inclusive of those who are disabled -- whether this physical, emotional, or intellectual.  We don't have a very good record on this, and its not just making sure we have ADA compliant facilities -- it's the way we think and speak of people whom society deems less able to participate fully in the community.

• And of course there is the question of gender.  There are still too many places in the church where women are hindered from using their gifts for the glory of God.

• And then the ever controversial issue of including those who persons who are Gay and Lesbian.  Society is changing.  There is greater acceptance of the presence of homosexuals in our communities, but there is still a stigma.  There are still barriers.  But do we hear a word from the Spirit of God, speaking to us, as the Spirit spoke to Peter, inviting us to consider persons that have traditionally been excluded as fully included in the body of Christ?  That is the word I have been hearing for some time. And I'm seeing others also hear this vision.  I believe my congregation is seeing this vision.   

How is God expanding your vision of inclusion?  I realize that not everyone is at the same place.  But what do we hear from this passage from the Book of Acts?  What is it saying to us in this time and place?   How might we expand the circle of inclusion?

Mark 1:21-28

Jesus walks into the synagogue at Capernaum, immediately heads to the pulpit, and without so much as asking for permission from the synagogue leaders,  starts preaching.  After that, the place falls into chaos.  
That’s because, no sooner had Jesus started preaching, when suddenly, a man stood up in the sanctuary, and started shouting Jesus.  The man, whom Mark says was possessed by an evil spirit, screamed at Jesus, demanding to know what Jesus would do with “us?”    Are you going to destroy us?  After all, “I know who you are.”  Yes, “you are the holy one of God.”
   Picture yourself in such a congregation.  How would you have responded to all of this commotion?  Would you have been amazed and shaken, as Mark suggests was the case for this congregation?  I expect that like us, this congregation liked things to be done “decently and in order.”  What would you make of both the preacher and the respondent to this preacher?  Would you call the police?
As Mark tells the story, the congregation was first amazed at Jesus’ authoritative teaching, contrasting his teaching with that of the religious leaders.  In hearing this story we must be careful not to read into it an anti-Jewish bias, while recognizing in Jesus a message that is both prophetic and challenging to our own religious and cultural sensibilities.  
There is in this story, a question posed to us – who is this person and how should I respond?    
Although they were amazed at the teaching, they were also shaken by the encounter with the man possessed with evil spirits.  They watch breathlessly, as Jesus demonstrates his authority over the demon by “harshly” demanding that the spirits be silent and then to come out of the man.  We’re told that at that moment, the evil spirit shook the host and with a scream left the man’s body. 
As the people in this congregation, people like you and like me, tried to make sense of the scene, they asked a question: “What’s this?”  What’s happening here?   Surely, we would be asking the same kinds of questions!
Then Mark writes: “Right away the news about him spread throughout the entire region of Galilee.”  Even without Facebook and Twitter, news spread quickly about this new teacher.    
The question of the hour wasn’t just:  What happened here?   A more important question was: Who is this person who has turned everything upside down?   How would you have responded to him and the chaos that he stirred up in that congregation?   What would you be thinking?
We might not be the most formal congregation in the world, but we like things done decently and in order.  That’s why we have a bulletin that lays out the service so that everyone knows where they need to be and do at the appropriate moment.  There’s a time for prayer and a time for song, a time for preaching and a time to gather at the table.  Just so everyone knows their place, the names of the person doing each job is noted.   Sometimes we make adjustments, but there is still a sense of order to our responses to the needs of the moment.  We’re not used to the kind of commotion Jesus caused in that congregation.  
What would happen here if some somebody walked in off the street and headed to the front, took the microphone – probably from the preacher – and starting talking – without permission?   I know I’d be a bit concerned, and I expect the Elders might be  concerned as well.  But then to complicate things, what if someone got into a frenzy, stood up, and started arguing with this strange preacher?   Wouldn’t we also ask the question: “What’s this?”  
I expect that this story could raise a deeper question in our hearts and minds.  As we ask the question: Who is Jesus?  We also ask a related question: What does this Jesus who always seems to be disturbing the status quo want from me?   
Albert Schweitzer, a famous doctor, missionary, organist, and bible scholar, wrote a book more than a century ago about the “search for the historical Jesus.”  He concluded that at the end of the search, the people seeking after the historical Jesus end up looking down into a well and seeing their own reflection.  When they asked who Jesus was, they ended up with a person who looked just like them and thought just like them.  In the end this “historical Jesus” served to validate their own ideas and ideologies.  
So, is Jesus nothing more than a reflection of our own imaginations?   
Last Sunday a group of us went to the DIA and took in the “Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus” exhibit.  Although the exhibit focused on Rembrandt’s paintings of Jesus, the exhibit placed his perspectives in the context of other artistic creations.   
What stood out for me was the revelation that Rembrandt used a young Sephardic Jew living in Amsterdam as his model for Jesus.  This made him unique, because most artists of that day portrayed Jesus as a good northern European man.  This Euro-centric vision of Jesus can be seen in the picture on our bulletin this morning.  For most  Europeans then, and probably most European and American Christians today, Jesus looks like  a good blue-eyed blonde European male – with long hair and a beard!  Rembrandt, however, turned things upside-down by trying to portray Jesus in a way that reflected his Jewish humanity.  
So, who is the real Jesus?  How does he affect the way you live and think?  Does he make you uncomfortable, as he made the attendees of this synagogue?   Does he challenge your sense of identity?  How do you experience his call to discipleship?  Would you be willing to drop everything, like Andrew and Simon, James and John, and follow him on a journey that often is uncomfortable and challenging?
In an earlier presidential election cycle, a candidate said that Jesus was his favorite philosopher.  Unfortunately, no one asked him why Jesus was his favorite teacher of wisdom.  What was it about Jesus that informed his world view?   What difference would the teachings of Jesus make in the way he would lead the nation?  
Many of us have a rather domesticated view of Jesus.  He’s our savior and our friend, but not much more.  We tend to ignore what Peter Gomes,  the late chaplain at Harvard, called “The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus.”  We know that the gospel must have been scandalous to some, because it upset enough people, that Jesus ended up dying on a cross.     But, what is it about the gospel that can be truly scandalous? 
In Mark, the scandal begins here, in the synagogue at Capernaum, where Jesus’ teaching and actions amaze and shakes up the people.   In Luke’s gospel, Jesus preaches in his home congregation, and causes such a stir that they the people not only chase him out of the synagogue, but they also try to throw him off a cliff (Luke 4:28-30).  
So, who is this Jesus, who causes such a scandal? 
Many years ago, back when I was but a youth, The Doobie Brothers had a hit song.   Maybe you remember it – “Jesus is Just alright with me.”  Is Jesus just all right?  Is he nothing more than a domesticated savior whom I turn to when I need him, but who I ignore the rest of the time?  Is he nothing more than a religious symbol that is useful in supporting an agenda?  Or is his message of God’s realm, a message that is expressed in his words and in his actions, something that changes the way we look at life and live our lives in this world?
     Yes, who is this Jesus?  And when he steps into our midst, what happens to us and to our world?   
Preached by:
Dr. Robert D. Cornwall
Pastor, Central Woodward Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Troy, Michigan
4th Sunday after Epiphany
January 29, 2012

THE HYPHENATEDS: How Emergence Christianity is Re-Traditioning Mainline Practices.  Edited by Phil Snider; Foreword by Phyllis Tickle.  St. Louis:  Chalice Press, 2011.  Xxii + 162 pages.

         It’s no secret that Mainline Protestantism has experienced significant decline over the past fifty years.  If you’ve been to a typical Mainline church you’ll likely notice that those present are relatively order than the general population.  Many pundits have put this branch of the Christian community on a death watch.  Although the theology and social views (especially on issues such as homosexuality) of this brand of Christianity would seem to position it well to attract younger generations (GenX and Millennials), such has not been the case.   Despite attempts to contemporize worship and become less traditional, these churches (my church) continue to struggle. 
Despite the apparent downward trend, there are signs of hope springing up here and there.   This doesn’t mean that the present rate of decline won’t continue for the foreseeable future (with such a large percentage of membership being over 65 this is inevitable), but not all is gloom and doom.  There are examples of new and interesting forms of church life emerging.  These forms of Christian community track with the theology and even some of the traditions of existing Mainline Christianity, but they seem to be metamorphosing into new forms and expressions that may in the end look very different from what we know as Mainline Protestantism today. 
                Phil Snider, a Disciples of Christ pastor, with Emergent inclinations has gathered together a set of essays written by other Emergent-inclined Mainliners.  The Emergent Church movement had its birth among younger evangelicals who found the theological and social constraints of evangelicalism problematic.  As they “moved left,” they began to encounter younger Mainline Protestants who also were on a journey toward something new and engaging.  They are not, Snider insists, “abandoning the traditions that have shaped them; rather they are attempting to faithfully appropriate their beloved traditions in new and innovative ways.”  They are, he suggests, seeking to retradition the church so that new life can emerge (p. xvi) As a result of these conversations a new breed of Mainliner developed – a hyphenated Emergent-Mainliner.   Thus we have Presby-mergents, Luther-mergents, [D]mergents, Angli-mergents, and more.                       The book, which carries a foreword by Phyllis Tickle and an afterword from Doug Pagitt, contains essays from thirteen Emergent Mainliners.   In their essays they express appreciation for their varied traditions, hopes for a new way of being church, anger at the way church is practiced, and critique.   Some of the writers, including Carol Howard Merritt and Nadia Bolz-Weber are widely known, while other names may be new to many readers.  There will be essays that one finds resonating, and others that do not.  Each reader may respond differently to the perspective of a given author. 
                In my reading I found several of the essays especially poignant.  The first essay of the book is written by Bolz-Weber, an Emergent Lutheran pasturing in Denver, and carries the title “innovating with integrity.”  She expresses the desire of many Mainliners who wish to push boundaries, to innovate, but wish to remain true to the core values and theologies of their tradition.  She writes: The core holds the history, the tradition, and the money.  It includes the ecclesial structures, the traditional churches that have existed for generations . . . The innovative edges then are emerging churches, multicultural ministries, and any ministry being established outside the structure of the ELCA, especially by seminaries and laity in response to their context.  (p. 5) The question that flows from this continuum of core and innovative edge is whether there is sufficient respect at both ends, but especially at the core, for the other.  Are the voices of the Millennial Generation, for instance, being heard?  In a similar fashion, Stephanie Sellers, an Episcopalian, raises the question of how to balance freedom and order in a church that has valued tradition and order.  Going forward, however, how does it allow sufficient freedom to contextualize itself so as to be present in and with a new generation?
                Sometimes structures, which have served church and clergy well, have conspired to shut down innovation.  Elaine Heath, a United Methodist, notes that the principles of guaranteed appointments have made it difficult for Methodists to engage in the kind of bi-vocational ministries that allow for a more incarnational presence.   You can serve as a bi-vocational pastor, but such an appointment does not allow one to have the same voting privileges as full-time clergy (ordained elders), or to serve as a district superintendent or bishop.  So, if you are an innovative, missional, creative, bivocational local pastor who is good at planting and leading emerging faith communities on the margins of society, you will never become a district superintendent, never become a bishop, and never be able to offer to the ailing UMC at large the ecclesiological medicine it needs in order to become healthy again. (p. 33) There is in this vein at times deep anger at the way the structures are laid out and how they may conspire against innovation and even radical Christianity – as seen in Christopher Rodkey’s “Satan in the Suburbs,” which offers what seemed to me to be a diatribe against the church and its use of ordination to control. 
                Some of the essays, such as Carol Howard Merritt’s explore the cultural terrain of emergent/mainline ministry, while Matt Gallion, a graduate student in religious studies explores postmodern philosophy, which has been a key component of the emergent conversation.  Gallion calls on emergent Mainliners to face the truth that if it is to “radically enact or incarnate transformative change – as it purportedly desires to do – then it will have to face its overwhelming similarities to classical liberalism and move beyond them” (p. 89). 
                These essays that I’ve highlighted offer a taste of what can be found in this very important book for the Mainline Protestant church.    I didn’t agree everything I read and I didn’t find equal value in every essay.  That is to be expected from a collection of essays.  However, this is, as Doug Pagitt suggests, a family conversation.  The idea of being hyphenated reminds us that there is often discomfort in bringing together different families, to form a new family identity.   Pagitt writes of the feeling among many Mainliners attracted to the Emergent Conversation – their family of origin is too important to let go of the name. This is, in my opinion, where the hyphenateds of the emerging church world find themselves.  They recognize they are in a new relationship, but they also know where they came from.  They want to be fully in the emerging family, but as a product of another family.  (p. 156).                 How all of this will work out is unknown.  Will one of the family names get dropped over time, or will this new hyphenated identity enrich the broader Christian conversation?  As Matt Gallion notes, this new identity must be more than simply repackaging traditional liberalism.  It can’t be another gimmick to grow a dying church.  It must contribute something of value to the realm of God. 
One thing that can be said for the convergence of the emergent church movement, which has evangelical origins, and the Mainline, is that the ethnic and gender representation has been broadened.   One of the criticisms of many Emergent gatherings is that the stage is dominated by white males.  In this conversation, a significant portion of the contributors are women (six of thirteen), some of whom are persons of color. 
As a Mainline Pastor who has been engaged in this conversation, though I am of a generation older than most of the participants, I am grateful to Phil Snider and to Chalice Press, for making this volume available to the church.  May it stir a conversation that can lead to transformation of the church so that it becomes flexible and innovative enough to engage the world that exists and will exist, even as it seeks to be true to its core. 

On back to back Fridays, Cheryl and I took in a movie.  We saw War Horse a week ago and then yesterday we went to see Red Tails.  Both are war movies, though they focus on two different wars.  Both are moving and well made movies.  Both have famous producers/directors who have made blockbuster movies -- Spielberg and Lucas.  The two movies tell different sides of the story of wars.
When we went to see War Horse, we actually thought we would see Sherlock Holmes, but I had mixed up the times, and so we "accidentally" saw War Horse.  It was much different than I expected, and I was deeply moved by the story that focuses on a horse and his master.  Joey is a beautiful horse, fit for racing, but ends up owned by a family that needs a plow horse.  When the family suffers financial hardship, Joey is sold to the military, and becomes the cavalry horse for a British officer.  We see the war essentially through the eyes of Joey, who becomes the property, at least momentarily of a British officer, a couple of young German soldiers, a young French girl, then again the German army (pulling massive guns), and then miraculously is saved from "no-man's land" between the German and British trenches by the shared efforts of a British and a German soldier.  In the end the horse ends up with the British, and ultimately to Albert, his original master, who is now a soldier.  It is a story of loyalty, bravery, and serves as a witness against the glory of war.


I had focused on the loyalty angle as I was watching the movie, but reading a reflection on the movie by Psychologist Richard Beck, I was introduced to another side of the story.  As Beck points out in the course of the movie, the lines between "us" and "them" are blurred.  Joey becomes the symbol, Beck suggests, of the "war horse" that all participants become.
In all this we begin to see that Joey isn't the only warhorse in the film. Joey is a symbol of something much darker. The first warhorse in the film is actually Albert's father. And Albert soon follows. Everyone, German and British alike, is found to be a "warhorse." And we leave the film thinking that the real enemy isn't the man in the other trench. We're all just warhorses, we come to realize. The real enemy is war itself.
Red Tails offers a different kind of story.  War isn't the enemy, necessarily, in this movie.  Instead, the enemy is prejudice.  This is the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, an all-black fighter wing that distinguished itself with gallantry and success during World War II.  At a time when the U.S. Military still considered African Americans unfit for duty, these men proved themselves to be brave and competent, becoming one of the most decorated units in the Army Air Corp.  
Red Tails is the story of highly skilled and determined men who are fighting for a nation that refuses to recognize their full humanity.  This is not just the story of a war, but about a struggle for dignity.  And in the course of the movie, we see how this struggle emboldens, empowers, and yes, liberates young men from the bonds of an American culture that was then deeply entrenched with bigotry.  And ultimately, it is the efforts of these young men that lead Harry Truman to desegregate the military, which leads ultimately to the process of desegregation in America.   The Red Tails not only helped win a war, they helped set in motion societal changes that changed the face of America. 
You will likely watch these two movies with different sets of lenses.  One calls us to recognize the horror that is war.  The second movie calls us to recognize that military service often calls forth from human beings their best, and their efforts can have a salutary effect on humanity.  War remains hell, but out of the pit of hell comes something good.  
After watching both movies, we must recognize that war remains with us, and that the opposing sides in these conflicts -- the soldiers in the trenches -- are human beings.  We must also recognize that as much as the efforts of these young men served to change the way Americans understood race, bigotry remains part of our national fabric.    Thus, gratitude must be expressed to Spielberg and Lucas, people who know how to entertain us, for telling stories that challenge heart and mind.
 

In 2011 we observed the 400th anniversary of the Authorized or King James Version of the Bible.  The KJV reigned supreme for more than 300 years, with true challengers emerging only in the mid-20th century, as new understandings of translation theory and new textual discoveries began to make themselves felt.  There are a few folks left that not only prize the KJV, but hold tightly to its authoritative status.  It's as if good old King James I was God incarnate.  But even most conservative Christians today embrace modern translations.
It's possible that we've reached the point of translation saturation, but new translations continue to emerge, giving the reader of Scripture more and more choices.  For the past twenty years or so, I've been using the New Revised Standard Version.  It is a well-attested scholarly translation that takes into consideration contemporary concerns about gender inclusion.  It retains a strong sense of formality that resonates well when read publicly, but the success of the New International Version has pointed to the need for a translation that is even more contemporary in its feel, while being more reflective of the ethos of the Mainline Protestant community.  It is good to remember that theology does influence translation!
For this reason the publication of the Common English Bible is a welcome addition.  It is accessible while seeking to steer close to the original texts.  I have been using the New Testament for more than a year, and more recently had the opportunity to start using the Old Testament.  I'm not a biblical scholar in the professional sense, so those more adept with the languages can offer their own assessment, but I find this to be a most excellent text.  
From the website we learn that the purpose of this Translation is as follows:
The Common English Bible is not simply a revision or update of an existing translation. It is a bold new translation designed to meet the needs of Christians as they work to build a strong and meaningful relationship with God through Jesus Christ.   A key goal of the translation team was to make the Bible accessible to a broad range of people; it’s written at a comfortable level for over half of all English readers. As the translators did their work, reading specialists working with seventy-seven reading groups from more than a dozen denominations review the texts to ensure a smooth and natural reading experience. Easy readability can enhance church worship and participation, and personal Bible study. It also encourages children and youth to discover the Bible for themselves, perhaps for the very first time.  The translators and the team of readers that offered response to the translation before publication straddles a cross-section of denominational traditions.  This cross-section is seen in the publishers that cooperated in its production:   
The Common English Bible Committee meets periodically and consists of denominational publishers from the following denominations: Disciples of Christ (Chalice Press); Presbyterian Church U.S.A. (Westminster John Knox Press); Episcopal Church (Church Publishing Inc); United Church of Christ (Pilgrim Press); and United Methodist Church (Abingdon Press). Abingdon Press is the sales distribution partner for the CEB. As part of an ongoing CEB Blog Tour, of which I've been a participant, the publishers of the Common English Bible have empowered bloggers to offer a free Bible to readers.  I've been remiss in making the offer of late, so if you're interested -- give your name in the comments and I'll be in touch and we can pass on the information to the CEB folks!
You can, of course, get a copy from Amazon as well -- just follow this link:   CEB Common English Thinline Bible Bonded EcoLeather Burgundy

Deuteronomy 18:15-20
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28
Hearing God’s Message
            How does one know the voice of God?  What helps one discern when God is speaking and when God isn’t?  These are important questions, as people of faith desire to know what God is up to and what God would have us do.  We needn’t embrace a deterministic world view to concern ourselves with such questions, for in our prayers we do desire to enter into conversation with God.  Sometimes we have difficulty with this need because the voice we hear seems to be different from what we expect. 
Our ability to hear God’s voice and sense God’s presence is that we now live in a de-enchanted world – our view of the world, in the words of Rudolph Bultmann, has been demythologized.  It has been laid bare and we find it difficult to find underlying meaning and purpose.  It appears to many people, that we are alone in this world.   It’s true that there are still remnants of an older worldview that clings to extreme supernaturalist views of the world, but that world continues to shrink. 
We want to believe, with the ad writers of the United Church of Christ that “God Still Speaks,” but how will we hear that voice?  How will we recognize the prophet that arises from our midst so that we might heed that voice?  Will we be amazed and even disturbed by the words and actions of those who bring this word into our midst, a word that often unsettles the status quo? 
            With these questions in mind we come to the lectionary texts for this Fourth Sunday of Epiphany.  The Gospel of Mark guides our journey, seeking to reveal to us a Jesus that we sometimes can’t get our heads around.  As the title of a Peter Gomes book puts it – the Gospel of Jesus is often scandalous.  So, as we tend to these texts, from Deuteronomy, from 1 Corinthians, and from the Gospel of Mark, how do they help us hear the message of God? 
            The reading from Deuteronomy raises an interesting point.  According to this text, the people have asked Moses to ask God to provide them a prophet, a spokesperson, once Moses is gone, so that they can hear the message of God without having to risk encountering God face to face.  They find it difficult to listen to God’s voice and look at the fire of God.  It has become apparent to them that to encounter God “face to face” is too overwhelming.  To do so would lead to their deaths.  Do we feel the same way?  Do we have this striking sense of God’s presence that is so overwhelming that we shrink back, or is ours a domesticated God, one that is easily handled?  Are we feeling the need for a mediator?  Or can we handle it on our own?   If we live in a de-enchanted world with a demythologized gospel, then do we have anything to fear from being in the presence of God?   Have we relegated God to being the “man upstairs,” a sort of feeble grandpa who we trot out on special occasions or entreat when we need a few bucks to tide us over?  Sometimes it seems as if there is no fear of staying too long in the presence of God, and I wonder – is this a good thing?    
            The good news for the Israelites is that the LORD God hears their pleas and promises a prophet who will arise from among the people.  This person will receive the words of God and tell the people what God had commanded.  Anyone who doesn’t heed this word will be held accountable.  There is a catch, however, as God will hold accountable the person who “arrogantly speaks a word in my name that I haven’t commanded him to speak.”  In other words, choosing to speak on behalf of God is a dangerous calling – be sure you are hearing correctly! 
            The Corinthian letters are, I believe, important voices in the modern world.  They speak to a church living in a deeply pluralistic setting.  Paul must help them navigate their context.  We may not embrace all the we find here, but it is a reminder that we live in a world full of diverse voices, not all of which are in sync with the desires and purposes of God.   In this particular passage, Paul speaks to Christians who believe that they have reached the pinnacle of spirituality.  They believe they have sufficient knowledge (gnosis) to make them immune from any temptation to follow after competing voices.  Paul speaks of this “knowledge” as leading to arrogance, an arrogance that stands contrary to the love that is God.  In this situation, the issue is eating meat sacrificed to idols.  These Christians seem to have demythologized their context, and since the best meat in town is to be found at the local temples, why not dine there?   After all, these so-called gods are empty idols.  They have embraced the message that there is but one God, and therefore all other “gods” are mere idols.  Paul’s view is a bit less de-enchanted.  Yes, there is but one God, and these idols, are mere statues, but there are spiritual realities that they need to take into account.  But more importantly, they need to be aware of their brothers and sisters whose world view is much less de-enchanted.  For them to dine at the Temple could lead them into worshiping this other deities, leading them away from their encounter with God through Christ. 
Paul acknowledges that knowledge (gnosis) is good, but knowledge can puff up with disastrous consequences.  Therefore, focus instead on love of your brother and sister who may not be as “strong” as you are.  Recognize that your freedom could cause them to stumble.  Is that steak so delicious that you feel it necessary to destroy their faith to have a taste?  What if you’re freedom leads some of your brothers and sisters to worship false gods?  Is it worth it?  Paul suggests that such arrogance is a sin against Christ, because it is a sin against one’s brother or sister.  Thus, Paul decides that if food causes the downfall of a brother or sister then he won’t eat meat again. 
            This is an important text because it affirms the importance of community.  I should take into account my sister or my brother in the faith when I choose to act.  My freedom in Christ is circumscribed by my love of neighbor.  Having said this, I need to acknowledge the danger of legalism.  Unfortunately, I’ve seen too many examples of people using this text to limit freedoms.  Don’t have a beer; don’t go to a movie, etc.  So, freedom should be circumscribed by love, but freedom should not be circumscribed by legalism.  I realize that in my current context as pastor of a Mainline Protestant church, my situation is different than it was years ago when I was involved in a rather conservative Pentecostal context.  But that experience is a reminder that legalism is also a threat to our ability to hear the voice of God.  But, the key here is to keep our own behavior formed by love of neighbor.
            Finally we come to Jesus’ visit, with his disciples, to the synagogue at Capernaum.  Something to note here is the use of adverbs like immediately and suddenly.  Mark’s account of Jesus’ ministry is an active one.  Jesus doesn’t saunter up to the synagogue and have a seat; instead he enters the synagogue immediately and begins to teach.  And events don’t just emerge slowly, they happen suddenly, such as when a person with an evil spirit stands up in the synagogue and screams at Jesus – accusing him of coming to destroy the demonic spirits.  
            Such is the nature of this encounter that the people are amazed and shaken.  Wouldn’t you be in a state of shock if someone came to church and just strode up to the pulpit and began preaching?   As a pastor, I’d surely ask some questions about why a person would do such a thing.  I don’t care if this preacher teaches with such authority that the people are amazed – there’s such a thing as decency and order.  It would be nice if this preacher would give me a chance to sit down and discuss when and where this conversation should take place. 
Added to this preacher breaking into the service and demanding the pulpit, you have the additional frenzy caused by the demoniac who stands up and shouts at Jesus.   Yes, everyone would be in shock.
            But the story is complex.  Jesus has come to the synagogue and has begun teaching, but the demons not only fear being destroyed, but they inadvertently identify Jesus – you are the holy of God, they declare.  When Jesus hears their affirmation, he silences them.   There’s something odd about Jesus’ power encounters in Mark – he’s not eager to receive the witness of these entities.  And yet, this encounter serves to affirm the message – there’s something unique about Jesus.  He has a new teaching – the gospel of the reign of God – but he also has power over unclean spirits.    As you would expect, the news spreads quickly.  Soon the entire region of Galilee has heard the news.  There is a new prophet in town, and he seems to have the power of God within him. 
            As we hear this text, it calls forth from us a response:   Who is this person?   What is he? What do I make of him?  It was a question asked then and it’s again being asked.  We in the Mainline Protestant community, especially those of us engaged in interfaith work, this question is central.  Historic Christian teaching insists that Jesus is the unique revelation of God.  No one comes to the father, except through Jesus.  There are increasing numbers of people in the church today who are uncomfortable not only with an exclusivist message, but even one centered on Jesus.  So, who is Jesus?  How does he speak and embody the realm of God for us?
            As we ask these questions about Jesus, as they are raised by the text, we need to acknowledge that there is present in this passage the possibility of anti-Jewish sentiment.   Jesus’ teaching is contrasted with the scribes (legal experts – CEB).  And there’s the presence of the demoniac in the synagogue.  Yes, we need to be wary of expressing perspectives that would denigrate the Jewish people, even as we seek to hear God’s voice in the person and message of Jesus of Nazareth.
            As we listen for God’s voice this Fourth Sunday of Epiphany, what are you hearing?  Is it a surprising message?  A challenging one?  Does it make you feel uncomfortable?   
Read the texts for the week from  the CEB, click on texts above.