Emmanuel: God With Us...Within Us...

 So God invested some special power in some special individuals in the First Testament.   Like when the spirit of the Lord entered into Samson and he tore apart a lion with his bare hands.  (Judges 14:3).  But it is more than a superhero with a fancy haircut.  A what with a what?  Judges 13-16 records his story.

But God is also someone who empowers the arts.  Bezalel was the chief architect of the tabernacle, the wandering house of God as the people wandered during the Exodus.  He was assisted by Oholiab, a master of carpentry, weaving, and embroidery (Exodus 38:23).  To read the second half of the Book of Exodus is to read about their work, inspired by the spirit of the Lord, to build a house for the Lord.  This was when the Ark of the Covenant was made (see "Raiders of the Lost Ark" for an outsized, mythological considertion of THAT artifact).

The spirit of the Lord also blessed kings.  When Samuel anointed David (1 Samuel 16:13-14), the spirit came upon him.  The spirit was also upon Saul, David's predecessor, but that spirit came and went with the attitudes of the man.

The spirit triggered the powers of prophecy that we find in the First Testament.  Isaiah claims that power explicitly (Isaiah 61:1), sharing what God has told him to share.

So, there is nothing new in Acts 2 in terms of what the spirit is.  We find many examples across the Old Testament.  What is new is Jesus.  First, the Spirit comes as Jesus among us once Jesus has returned to heaven (John 14).  Secondly, the Spirit accelerates that which is latent within us.  Those are the joys and the gifts of the Spirit that we can find in Paul's letters.  Last Thursday was Ascension Day, the day Jesus returned to heaven.  We are in a ten day period of quiet, perhaps fearful contemplation, by Jesus' followers.  They are waiting for something, something big.

It is nothing less than the birth of the Church.  And it comes with the universal and permanent expression of God's Holy Spirit upon them and, to this day, upon us.  

So there you go.  Questions?  I would be delighted to try and answer. 

Peace,

Pastor Peter

Why I Miss Newspapers

There are moments when I am not speaking as Pastor Peter, the minister and nice guy, blah de blah.  There are moments when I need to vent.  Like now.  

There are a lot of reasons why I miss newspapers.  The weekend Sunday color comics for example.  Black ink leeching onto my skin for another.  

Getting to the point especially.

I have defaulted to the Google's feed for my news stories.  Yes, that probably reduces the quality of my life, but that's another story.  But it makes me long for newspapers.

They got to the point.  After the Headline, they had one paragraph, maybe 1-3 sentences to get my attention and get me reading.  So the necessary stuff was in the opening.  If I wanted to read on, there were literal paragraphs to follow, if I was so inclined.

But now I have to click.  So the headline was "Final Notice: Dollywood, Dolly Parton's Theme Park, Suspends All Operations Without Refund."  I have been to Dollywood, more than once.  I like Dollywood.  I am a big fan of Dolly Parton, I love her album of rock songs.  I love Beyonce's cover of Jolene, but I love Dolly's more.  So this caught my attention.  It blew my brain to find out she wrote the theme music to the various rides.  I want to go back just to the blacksmithy 'make your own' part.

Not only did I have to click, but I had to scroll.  A teaser is dropped in the first paragraph, something about 'unsafe conditions', before an extended introduction extolling the virtues of the park.  The park is virtuous, get on with it!  What happened in Tennessee!!  Why is Dollywood gone??

It's not gone.  It's weather.  It is safety for guests and crew.  It is a necessary precaution in the face of conditions in the Southeast.  It took too many scrolls to get to the point.  "Final Notice"??  Makes it sound like "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot".  

What the Heaven Are You Talking About?

“God is love” and “To God be the Glory”.  I believe these to be the “objective” truths of our faith.  These are the presuppositions of our Lord Jesus in giving us the whole law in the call to love God and love neighbor.  I believe that Jesus, in laying down His life for us, is providing the ultimate demonstration of God’s love while showing us the ultimate Glory of the Lord, power over evil and death and all their minions.

I believe that if the whole world would embrace these truths, we could abolish war, poverty, hunger, climate destruction, pollution, all the evils of the world.  

But we cannot because we are broken.  And God will not impose goodness upon us, we must choose the Lord.  Which has led to people of manipulative spirit to seek to use our God (often in cruel and divisive ways) to advance their own causes and has led people of good intentions to act in unloving (often cruelly and divisively) ways to ‘advance the kingdom of God’.

So this is what I believe and I believe I can’t force them to believe for their own good and I have to respect them and the dignity of their beings because they, like me, are created in the image of God.  That is the point of view from which I am to act, to speak, and even to think.  But, but, but what about the ‘thought police’ and the novel ‘1984’ and Big Brother trying to control everything?

What about Jesus saying in the Sermon on the Mount that, in my heart, if I have hatred for my sibling, I have already committed murder?  Yah, but nobody knows.  Well, except God.

So no politicking, no fear-mongering, no hatred, no ‘othering’ (making an enemy out of some others because of some characteristic of their being or personality), no intimidation, no trickery, no sinful motivations like money or power, no manipulation, no power play, no power promising, no coopting of divine authority for our own…

So what am I left with?  Preaching universal love and forgiveness?  (God’s love is universal, we are all God’s children.  God’s forgiveness is universal, there for the taking).  And to God be the glory, so there’s nothing left for me?  Maybe that’s the whole point, take off the pressure.

This is what in heaven I am talking about?

 

Peace,

Pastor Peter

What Is The Bible Telling Us for This Week? 1 John 5: 9-13, Poking at the text.

So the Bible says we receive human words, but that God's words are greater.  

That leaves humanity in the DIRT, because can we even begin to measure how much GREATER God is than God's created humanity, notwithstanding that we are FALLEN humanity?

The reason is that the words of God are the words God has spoken in regards to God's Son.

The passage says 'testimony', which makes it sound like a trial.  Maybe it is.  But God's greater words than our own are in regards to Jesus.

It is not about knowing the words, but believing them, if we believe in the Son of God. 

Ok, God speaks better than us, God's words are in regards to Jesus, but they are not 'out there in the ether'.  God speaks to our hearts, God's truth is within us (more about this at Pentecost I would think).

But there is a flip side to this.  Those who do not believe in God have made our God a liar by NOT believing the words God has given us about God's Son.

But wait a moment, this is not some objective truth?  It is an internalized truth.  Not to believe in God is to make God a pretty gi-normous liar.  When I say 'internalizing', this is believing in what God has to say.  To believe makes God a truth teller about Jesus.  Not to believe makes God a liar about Jesus. 

What are these words of God?  God has given to us eternal life, and that life is in the Son.

God's greater words than those of humans are that we have eternal life in God's Son.

The result?  Those who have the Son have life, those who do not, do not have life.

To have the Son is to have the word of the Son, to believe it, having it in our hearts, from God, in the sure and certain knowledge that God has a superior word to our own, and having the Son is having eternal life.  Turn our hearts and backs on that and God is made a liar, and eternal life is not to be had.

This is why John is telling us who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that we KNOW we have eternal life.

It seems the people John is writing to have the part down about believing in Jesus, but have questions about whatn then comes of that.

So, in 1 John 5: 9-13, we are offered the greater testimony, witness, word-whatever works as the term for communication-that the Son, that Jesus is the basis of eternal life, not something we know, but somethig we internalize, we believe in with our hearts.  

Letter Writing and the Bible

Our Sermon Series has included Prayer, Theology, Contemplation, and Missions; is going to include Worship and Evangelism; all drawing on lectionary readings from the first letter of John.  1 John, with its associated 'books',  2 John and 3 John make up his trio.  It is written by the author of the Gospel of John and the book of Revelation.  What's a lectionary?  That's another post.  Today, the focus is on the single largest type of literature (by number of books) in the First Testament.  It is the 'epistle', the letter written by an apostle.  

 Paul is our big letter writer in the New Testament.  Romans to Philemon (and Hebrews?...fodder for another post, or maybe an old one...) are his, or attributed to him (again, another post).  They are different from the other letters, like John, because Paul's are named for their addressees, whether congregations or individuals.  

James, Peter, John, and Jude are the other letter writers, named for the authors.  It seems they are listed in that book order not because of importance as Apostles but on the lengths of their respective works.  Of John's three letters, the second is addressed to an unnamed lady and the third to Gaius, both with John calling himself 'the elder'. 

The first letter just gets into it.  "We declare to you what was from the beginning..."  He gives us a broad base of his beliefs, a powerful witness.  Best clues as to who the audience is come in the last chapter.  John says, "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life."  Then he closes with "Little children, keep yourself from idols."

It is one thing to have a gospel, a gathered narrative that has a purpose around our Lord Jesus Christ.  Every gospel has its own focus and personality, but it is all about Jesus.  What do we do with letters?

Reverse engineering maybe.  I take this term mostly from military applications.  A piece of enemy tech is obtained and then deconstructed, engineered in reverse, to figure out how it works.  That works with letters too.

We have half the correspondance.  But these are not letters that discuss the weather or how the family is faring.  This is 'religio-business' correspondance, which required an investment is time, but also in writing materials, papyrus (maybe) and ink-all hand made, luxury items.  Then, it needed to be sent.  There was no general postal service, just an Imperial system based in the military.  So every word was valuable.  So, I am saying these letters were pricey enterprises, so their authors got to the point.

And they were a response.  So, when John  says 'keep yourself from idols' and it closes the letter, the last line, I believe we can assume there is an issue with idols.  When he writes 'to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know you have eternal life', that the question of eternal life is a 'thing'.  

Which is why, I believe, 1 John has lent itself to exploring the thoughts, words, and actions of the faith as we express our Love for God and our Love for Neighbor.  That is what John is exploring in his letter.  Maybe not in an explicit manner like this series of sermons, but definitely in how the faith is expressed and lived.

The story of Jesus, the story of His death and resurrection, the story of our salvation, it is all implicit to the entire text.  John does not need to tell it again (he can refer folks to his gospel for more information).  

Will we be able to construct the full backstory behind the letter?  No.  But that is okay.  The Bible was written at specific times in the past, to their present circumstances, with an eternal message.  The message does not change, but the circumstances do.  Understanding that is why the Bible continues to be relevant today.  It also mitigates against unloving interpretation that seeks to impose previous circumstances on the present day.

How can it do that?  Well, as we like to say, it is 'the Word as inspired by God.'  That's a 'church-ish' way of saying "God did it."  To read these letters to best effect means we need to understand what they are as literary pieces and why they were written.  I hope this helps make reading these books in the bible more accessible.  

As always, I am delighted to try and answer questions, and still learning when I get them wrong.

Peace,

Pastor Peter