Thoughts as Summer Approaches
May 31, 2010
A gang of drunkards was rowing a country-boat along a lake. On the way they saw a shop where liquor was being served. It was getting dark and all of them were tired. They decided to stop and resume the row after relishing a drink. They got out of the boat and tied the boat safely with a rope to a tree on the bank of the lake. Then they entered the liquor shop and ordered drinks. They filled their bellies to the full with the liquor and returned to the boat with unsteady steps. They got into the boat and rowed hard, happily singing a fond melody in the ecstasy of intoxication. Hours rolled on. At sunrise, when they came back to their senses, they were surprised to find that they were still stationed near the liquor shop. They examined the boat and found that it was still bound to the tree. In the intoxicated state, they forgot to untie the boat. It could not move though they rowed hard for a full night!
A prayer group had a senior leader. He used to repeat this request in every prayer, “Lord, clean all the cobwebs entangling my life.” One day, tired of hearing this repeated request, one smart member who was to pray next, prayed aloud, “Lord, our leader has been praying every day to get his cobwebs removed. Kindly grant him the strength to kill the spider that is causing this constant trouble!” The members greeted the prayer with great applause.
This summer as your schedules begin to wind down. Be careful that you do not find yourself rowing your boat, only to find that your still tied to the tree. It may also be true that we will spend sometime cleaning out the cobwebs, when we might want to be Killing the spider.
May your journeys this summer be free and your lives uncluttered with cobwebs.
Stand with Africa & Seafarers
May 31, 2010
Stand with Africa (www.elca.org/hunger)
Stand With Africa efforts assist communities and churches in Africa in their work to overcome HIV/AIDS, banish hunger, and build peace. Stand With Africa donations given through the ELCA are allocated to Lutheran World Relief, the Lutheran World Federation, and ELCA companion churches in Africa. No administrative costs are taken from these funds.
Seafarers & International House (www.sihnyc.org)
“Real Presence … Real Mission” So what does this mean—really? It is all about Christ, His presence, His mission. We exist as an expression of that same life-giving spirit through services that foster human dignity and nurture the human spirit for the stranger we have yet to meet. It is primarily a ministry of care and support for seafarers, who spend months at sea, separated from family support and friends. Through a ministry of presence, we reach out to these seafarers in various seaports throughout the Northeast. Ours are hands of welcome and outreach to those who would otherwise feel isolated and alone. Our mission is to welcome and support these brave seafarers, to care for their physical, spiritual, psychological, and emotional needs, and to serve as a link to family and other loved ones. Whether at port, on the water, or in our guesthouse, we want to be viewed as a “home away from home.” In other words, our visits, our services, and our presence make a real difference.
However, this presence is not solely for the seafarer. We have a mission to the sojourner as well. This could be an international visitor who seeks refuge in our guesthouse. It could be a seafarer at the end of a long journey or a career in maritime work. It could be a student seeking lodging as a part of a internship project. It could be a family seeking comfort and care while a loved one receives medical treatment in a local medical center. It could be a woman-in-crisis who has lost self-worth and dignity. It could simply be an individual seeking a sense of meaning or direction for their life. We are real presence for the least, the lost, and the lonely. But there is even more—really! We represent an embodiment of Christ’s presence in Word and Sacrament ministry as a social ministry arm of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Therefore, our ministry, though ecumenical in outreach, finds its identity and mission in and through support of this larger community of faith. Our mission to the sojourner provides a meeting place or retreat center for congregational groups or individuals who meet at the guesthouse in their own spiritual journey.
Confirmation Sermon May 23, 2010
May 31, 2010
Supplies for your Journey of Faith[podcast]http://s175331839.onlinehome.us/public_html/Sermons/20100523_Confirmation.mp3[/podcast]
Counterfeit God’s: Power and Glory 5/23/2010
May 31, 2010
Counterfeit Gods:Power and Glory[podcast]http://s175331839.onlinehome.us/public_html/Sermons/20100523.mp3[/podcast]
Good Friday, April 2, 2010 The end of our Lenten Journey Day 40
April 1, 2010
I enjoyed Debra Dean Murphy’s writing so much that I found her thought on Good Friday and share them now with you as well.
Take time this day to contemplate God’s great love for you lived out in the passion.
by Debra Dean Murphy
During Lent of 2004 Mel Gibson released The Passion of the Christ, his controversial and enormously popular depiction of the last days of Jesus. Because it was Gibson’s movie (think Braveheart, Mad Max, Lethal Weapon), it was expected to be bloody, violent, and in-your-face intense. Gibson himself was clear about his intention to ratchet up the gore factor: “I didn’t want to see Jesus looking really pretty,” he said in promotion interviews. “I wanted to mess up one of his eyes, destroy it.”
Crucifixion in the ancient world was a gory spectacle. Since its purpose was to deter insurrection–to send a clear message to would-be political subversives–the brutality of this form of capital punishment was breathtaking. It’s not unreasonable to suppose that Jesus had a messed-up eye.
But it is interesting (and important) to ask why the biblical narratives do not dwell on the violence and the physical brutality. And it’s worth asking how our cinematic/cultural fascination with blood and carnage and general gruesomeness has shaped our understanding of the cross and of suffering and salvation.
Gibson was also quoted in interviews as saying that, in making The Passion of the Christ, he “wanted to be true to the gospels.” But the passion narratives in each of the four gospels are strikingly spare in their accounts of Jesus’ physical suffering and death. The synoptics say simply that “having scourged Jesus, Pilate delivered him to be crucified. When they came to the place which is called The Skull, there they crucified him.” Just a few verses later Jesus is dead.
If Gibson really wanted “to be true to the gospels,” he would have focused more on the people, the crowds especially, who are integral to the Passion story. He would have explored Jesus’ Holy Week dealings with both the powerful and the poor. The scourging and the crucifying wouldn’t have taken up much screen time.
So why is it that the New Testament handles the details of Jesus’ physical pain and suffering with a kind of no-fuss minimalism? It’s not, as many commentators have pointed out, because they thought such details unimportant. Clearly, the whole gospel story builds toward Jesus’ confrontation with the powers in Jerusalem. It’s not because the writers were squeamish about blood or because they were embarrassed by the way Jesus died. The apostle Paul boasts unapologetically in the cross of Christ.
Rather, the gospel writers seemed to sense that to fixate on the bloody details would risk endorsing a false view of what the cross of Christ accomplishes–a false view that goes something like this: An angry, offended deity demanded payment for humanity’s great debt of sin, and so Jesus had to suffer–really suffer, violently suffer–in order to appease God’s wrath and pay the debt in full.
Unfortunately, various versions of this idea have taken hold through the centuries and we’ve yet to fully shake them. We’ve all heard them in one form or another.
But they miss the mark, for the crucifixion is not the act of a wrathful Father piling condemnation on the innocent, victimized Son. As Miroslav Volf puts it, “Jesus is not a third party inserted between God and humanity to take care of human sin. He is the God who was wronged . . . God placed human sin upon God.”
“God placed human sin upon God.”
In Christ, writes the Apostle Paul, “God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” Note carefully that it’s not: Christ was reconciling an angry God to a sinful world. It’s not even that Christ was reconciling a sinful world to a loving God. Rather: God in Christ was reconciling the world to himself. As Volf says, “the One who was offended bears the burden of the offense.”
Our response to this truth, then–this gift–is profound gratitude. But when the brutality of Jesus’ death is unduly emphasized (exploited)–when our gaze lingers too long upon the messed-up eye or the bloodied brow–we are distracted from gratitude and are drawn instead into cheap voyeurism and sentimentality.
Frederica Matthewes-Green puts it this way: “It would be as odd as welcoming home a wounded soldier, and instead of focusing on the victory he won, dwelling on the exact moment the bayonet pierced the stomach, how it felt and what it looked like. A soldier might well feel annoyed with such attention to his weakness rather than his strength.”
“This is the sense we pick up in the Gospels,” Matthewes-Green goes on to say. “Jesus’ suffering is rendered in the briefest terms, as if drawing about it a veil of modesty. What’s important is not that Jesus suffered for us, but that Jesus suffered for us.”
The blood and gore in a film like The Passion of the Christ manipulate emotions and stir up misplaced pity. We can end up feeling so sorry for the beaten-up Jesus–poor guy–that we miss the point: in walking the way of suffering, Jesus compels us to do the same.
Maundy Thursday is for April Fool
April 1, 2010
Today I found this post on the web and found it to be a good devotion for me, so I share it with you.
Blessings on this Maundy (New Command) Thursday Day 39 in Lent.
Maundy Thursday is for April Fools
by Debra Dean Murphy
Is it any wonder that, since the very beginning of the Jesus movement, Christians have been suspected of doing strange, disgusting things when they gather for their sacred rituals?
Cannibalism was the charge leveled against the earliest Christians: “What do you mean you eat the body and blood of your Lord?” incredulous civil authorities demanded of those first underground believers. Their understandable horror is lost on us.
This ”fellowship meal” that Christians continue to share (sounds so benign, doesn’t it?) is rooted in denial, betrayal, a disciple’s suicide, a Messiah’s death, the body and blood of this crucified Messiah, and . . . dirty feet.
Jesus gave the mandatum–”to wash one another’s feet”–after he showed his disciples how to do it. This act of humility, he said, is not peripheral but integral to life in the reign of God. It is servant leadership learned in the doing of it.
With his enthusiasm characteristically misplaced, Peter wants the full-service wash: “my hands and head also, please!” But Peter’s foolishness provides the opportunity for Jesus to prefigure another friend’s imminent betrayal: “you are clean, though not all of you.”
Peter’s ignorant exuberance. The silent treachery of Judas. This fugitive community gathered for the last meal of a soon-to-be-condemned state criminal. Strange beginnings for a strange community, indeed.
In the midst of misunderstanding and a friend’s double-cross, Jesus sinks down to the lowliest of places to reveal not only the nature of servant leadership in the Kingdom but the very meaning of his death. Into the chaos and confusion of human existence the God of heaven stoops to dwell; into deceit and double-dealing, into the misery, fraud, and loneliness of our small lives–into this and more the Word became incarnate, and lived among us “full of grace and truth.” And the life he lived led to the death he died.
In a video segment of the popular Bible study, Jesus in the Gospels, South African theologian and Methodist bishop Peter Storey notes how fond Christians are of saying–especially during Holy Week perhaps–that “God sent Jesus to die on the cross.” But that way of putting it, says Storey, robs Jesus of his humanity, his capacity for moral choice; Jesus, on this view, is little more than a programmed robot, marching passively to a preordained fate.
God sent Jesus into the world not to die, Storey reminds us, but to love. And to those who tried to fence his love in, whose empty legalism was exposed, whose very social order was threatened–to those it became clear that to stop his loving they would have to destroy him. And so they did.
But on the night before he died, Jesus spent his love–his profligate, prodigal love–in an act of domestic servitude, washing the feet of his mystifed family of followers. This act of love was wasted on a dunce like Peter and a scoundrel like Judas and from that we know that it is wasted, even now, on cons and failures like us.
Jesus in the Grave Day 38, March 31, 2010
March 31, 2010
Jesus in the Grave
Day 38, March 31, 2010
After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body. Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews. Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. John 19:38-42
Matthew 27:61-66
Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb. The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, “Sir, we remember what that impostor said while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ Therefore command the tomb to be made secure until the third day; otherwise his disciples may go and steal him away, and tell the people, ‘He has been raised from the dead,’ and the last deception would be worse than the first.” Pilate said to them, “You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can.” So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone.
Jesus in the Grave
Jesus was buried because he was truly dead. He wasn’t in a trance or sleeping. He was dead. Now even his burial was a source of anxiety to his enemies.
It was not usual to remove bodies from the cross immediately after death. The bodies were allowed to hang, exposed to the weather, till they rotted and fell to pieces; or they might be torn by birds or beasts; and at last a fire was perhaps kindled beneath the cross to rid the place of the remains. Such was the Roman custom; but among the Jews there was more honor for the dead. In their law stood this provision: “If a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be put to death, and thou hang him upon a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shall in any wise bury him that day; that thy land be not defiled which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.”
Now Jesus was killed near the time of the Sabbath of the Passover (a kind of double Sabbath) which would have been desecrated by any unclean thing, like an unburied corpse, exposed to view. This would have been a very sensitive issue for those practicing Judaism. At any time they would have regarded themselves unclean if they touched a dead body, but on the Passover Sabbath they would have felt it to be a desecration if any dead thing had even met their eyes or rested uncovered on the soil of their city. That is why their representatives went to the Roman governor and begged that the three crucified men should be put to death by clubbing and their bodies buried before the Sabbath commenced.
It was in a new sepulcher, which Joseph of Arimathea had purchased for his own place of rest after death. No corpse had ever been placed in it before. This was a great gift for a crucified man.
The tomb was in a garden. The spot does not seem to have been very far from the place of execution. The exact place seems to be in doubt. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre includes within its precincts both the Lord’s tomb and the hole in the rock in which stood the cross; and the two are only 30 yards apart.
Christendom accepted the tradition, which dates back to the time of Constantine, and since then pilgrims have flocked to the spot from every land. It was for the possession of this shrine that the crusades were undertaken, and at the present day the Churches of Christendom fight for a footing in it.
The first picture is in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This the stone of atonement, where Jesus body was laid when it was taken down from the cross.
This is the Holy Sepulchre, the tomb of Christ.
This is the entrance to the Holy Sepulchre
The altar inside the Sepulchre.
It was the practice of the piety of former days to meditate among the tombs. Even today, everyone at some point must linger beside the graves of their loved ones; and think deeply about their own grave. In these moments the words of Jesus speak loudly, “I am the resurrection and the life.” There is only one who speaks life to the dead. His name is Jesus, the Son of God, who himself was raised from death to life.
This is a stone and groove used to seal a tomb.
This is an example of a tomb in a garden in Jesus day. The tomb is in the background. It was my last day in Jerusalem.
Jesus on the Cross Day 37, March 30, 2010
March 30, 2010
Jesus on the Cross
Day 37, March 30, 2010
After they had finished nailing him to the cross and were waiting for him to die, they whiled away the time by throwing dice for his clothes. Above his head they had posted the criminal charge against him: this is jesus, the king of the jews. Along with him, they also crucified two criminals, one to his right, the other to his left. People passing along the road jeered, shaking their heads in mock lament: “You bragged that you could tear down the Temple and then rebuild it in three days—so show us your stuff! Save yourself! If you’re really God’s Son, come down from that cross!” The high priests, along with the religion scholars and leaders, were right there mixing it up with the rest of them, having a great time poking fun at him: “He saved others—he can’t save himself! King of Israel, is he? Then let him get down from that cross. We’ll all become believers then! He was so sure of God—well, let him rescue his ‘Son’ now—if he wants him! He did claim to be God’s Son, didn’t he?” Even the two criminals crucified next to him joined in the mockery. Matthew 27:35-44
But the other one made him shut up: “Have you no fear of God? You’re getting the same as him. We deserve this, but not him—he did nothing to deserve this.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom.” He said, “Don’t worry, I will. Today you will join me in paradise.” Luke 23:40-43
Jesus’ mother, his aunt, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene stood at the foot of the cross. Jesus saw his mother and the disciple he loved standing near her. He said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that moment the disciple accepted her as his own mother. Jesus, seeing that everything had been completed so that the Scripture record might also be complete, then said, “I’m thirsty.” A jug of sour wine was standing by. Someone put a sponge soaked with the wine on a javelin and lifted it to his mouth. After he took the wine, Jesus said, “It’s done . . . complete.” Bowing his head, he offered up his spirit. John 19:25-30
Christ on the Cross was still Hated by his Enemies
The Jewish High Council had followed Jesus step by step through all the channels of his trial. Even at the cross, they do not leave, but stay right there at the cross. The Chief Priest himself is there and takes part in the mockery of Jesus.
Jesus on the Cross was an object of indifference to the World
The great majority of the great throng that surged around the cross were simple people of the world. They had heard that something was going on, they saw the growing procession, and they fell in line. It must have been quiet the spectacle. Here was Jesus hanging on the cross, robbed of his simple garments, dying in bitter agony.
There are many today who do not know God. Jesus and His cross means nothing to them. Today the Nursery School students wished that they could have Easter without the cross. How about you? Do you wish for an Easter without the cross, death and pain?
Jesus on the Cross is still an Object of Faith and Love
Judged by mere human sense the cross did not look like a victory. But taking what seems to be broken and making it a victory is God’s specialty. There were the faithful women and men at the cross that would not desert Jesus. They were filled with love, and expectation that God would do something. The Spirit of God had touched their hearts.
Today we know that Good Friday was followed by Easter. We know the victories that God has won in all the ages and in our lives with love. The greatest love of all is seen on the cross.
Inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the place where tradition has it that Jesus was crucified.
On Golgotha (Calvary) a Greek Orthodox altar, with a silver disc under it, marks the place of the crucifixion. On both sides of the altar are impressions which mark the locations where the Romans crucified the thieves together with Jesus. The bedrock beneath is the original rock of Golgotha. The rock beneath contains a large crack caused by the cosmic events which accompanied Jesus’ death.
Below is a second place that tradition says might be the place that Jesus was crucified, it’s in the Garden Tomb. By the Garden Tomb is a cliff that looks like a skull. Thus it fits the description of Golgotha ( Golgotha in Aramaic means “the place of the skull”).
Jesus on the Way to Golgotha Day 36, March 29, 2010
March 29, 2010
Jesus on the Way to Golgotha
Day 36, March 29, 2010
Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. John 19:16-17
From out of Pilate’s palace emerges a throng of Roman soldiers, members of the Jewish council, crowds of people; in the midst Jesus, bound, led by soldiers, in company with condemned criminals; His body bruised and bleeding, on His brow the crown of thorns.
Stone pavement from Jesus day, said to be where the cross was laid on his shoulders.
Chapel of the Flagellation. Crowning Jesus with the crown of thorns is one of the themes of the chapel.
Jesus on the Way to Golgotha
Hurriedly preparations were made, hurriedly the procession was started. There was a law which prescribed that ten days were to elapse after a sentence was pronounced before it could be executed, save in the case of murderers and revolutionaries. Jesus was led by Roman soldiers. Near him walked the common criminals under sentence of death. And. According to Roman custom, He was compelled to bear his own cross. No disciples, no friends were near. He treads this path alone.
As they led him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the country, and they laid the cross on him, and made him carry it behind Jesus. A great number of the people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him. Luke 23:26-27
There was a little relief for Jesus as He walked toward Calvary, but it was not the result of the compassion of the soldiers. He was relieved of the burden of the cross. Only after his body refused to bear the burden any longer. This chapel was built by Polish soldiers after WW II to commemorate Jesus falling under the weight of the cross.
The fifth station is a chapel dedicated to Simon of Cyrene who carried Jesus’ cross.
This is base of the altar from station VII, where Jesus fell a second time.
Jesus on Trial Before Pilate Day 35, March 28, 2010
March 28, 2010
Jesus on Trial Before Pilate
Day 35, March 28, 2010
Jesus was condemned, bound, like an ordinary criminal and led along the streets of the Holy City in the early hours of the morning; — he is bound for the palace of Pilate.
When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people conferred together against Jesus in order to bring about his death. They bound him, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate the governor. Matthew 27:1-2
Then they took Jesus from Caiaphas to Pilate’s headquarters. It was early in the morning. They themselves did not enter the headquarters, so as to avoid ritual defilement and to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate went out to them and said, “What accusation do you bring against this man?” They answered, “If this man were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.” John 18:28-30
The Presiding Judge.
The civil tribunal before which Jesus was tried was occupied by Pontius Pilate. Pilate was as ordinary Roman governor, having a general desire to keep up the Roman tradition of judicial fairness, but lacking the necessary firmness, and swayed by selfish considerations.
Pilate did not reside regularly at Jerusalem, but came as business, or policy, dictated. He generally came at the time of the Passover in order to keep a watchful eye on the multitudes which flowed into the city at this time.
When Jesus was brought to Pilate in the early morning hours, the Jews would not go into the palace, so that they could eat the Passover. If they went into the palace they would have been ritually unclean.
Scholars believe that Jesus was tried before Pilate on either the east side of Jerusalem (at the Antonia Fortress) or the west side of the city (at Herod’s Palace and Fortress). When Titus destroyed Jerusalem, in 70 A.D., he spared Herod’s Palace but not the Antonia Fortress.
This photograph depicts a surviving underground room, near the Antonia Fortress, which is known today as “the Prison of Christ.” No one can be sure whether that is an accurate description.
This photograph depicts an area of that Herodian fortress.
Another possible location, of the trial before Pilate, is Herod’s Palace and Fortress, located on the west side of Jerusalem, near the Jaffe Gate. Historians believe that whenever Roman Prefacts (such as Pilate) visited Jerusalem, they stayed at Herod’s Palace.
The Charges Against Jesus
Jesus had been sentenced to death by the Sanhedrin Council for blasphemy, for claiming to be the Son of God. The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has claimed to be the Son of God.” John 19:7 But this is not even mentioned in the statement to Pilate, because he was not concerned about their religious squabbles. So they gave their case a political twist.
The Judicial Deliberation
Pilate had only scorn for Jewish complaints; but from the very beginning there was something which seemed to draw him to Jesus. He takes Jesus into the inner palace for conference. Pilate was intrigued by the claim Christ made to be king. But when it came to consider the nature of Christ’s kingship, Pilate could not appreciate it.
After the most careful consideration, Pilate was able to give evidence, weighing the motives of the accusers, and the bearing and words of Jesus, that Jesus was innocent.
The Verdict Rendered
Pilates rendered the correct verdict when he proclaimed that Jesus was innocent. But he would have had to reverse the verdict of the Jewish court and it was something Pilate did not want to do. He decides to send Jesus to Herod, after his proposal to set Jesus free is met with resistance.
In the end everyone rejects Jesus and the verdict of crucifixion is pronounced upon him. He will be whipped 39 times and then led out of the city to be executed.
There are three charges against Jesus. He is charged with being a disturber of the peace. Secondly, he was charged with forbidding payment to Rome. Thirdly, Jesus was claiming to be a king.
