Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Preaching Materials for November 2, 2008

R U M O R S # 525
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2008-10-26

October 26, 2008

WHO OWNS THE PROMISED LAND?
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Motto:
"A merry heart doeth good, like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones." (Proverbs 17:22 KJV)
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Every week I get a gentle letter or two from folks wondering about my health – since their last issue or two of Rumors didn’t arrive. That will undoubtedly happen at some point, but so far neither Jim nor I have missed an issue.
Or they plaintively ask, “Why did you take me off your mailing list?”
On virtually all of those cases, the problem is a “spam filter.” And that’s a problem that can only be dealt with at your end. All of them have ways of putting things on their “approved” list – and all of them seem to have a slightly different way of dealing with the issue.
If, for some reason, you should miss an issue of Rumors, why not put the Rumors blog on your “Favorites” list. I post Rumors there the same time as I post Rumors to that big computer that sends them out to all 7,455 of you.
The blog address is: http://ralphmiltonsrumors.blogspot.com/
Thanks for your cooperation and understanding. You really are a marvelous bunch of people.

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Next Week’s Readings – the Promised Land story from another point of view
Rumors – crossing the Jordan
Soft Edges –
Good Stuff – curing victimitis
Mirabile Dictu! – punishment
Bottom of the Barrel – suffering fools
Stuff – (read this only if you would like to subscribe, unsubscribe or are wondering about permissions. That sort of boring stuff.)

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Rib Tickler – Seems the Sunday School class was looking at the second creation legend. They heard how Eve was created out of Adams rib.
Some time later, young Scott complained of a pain in his side. “What’s the matter?” asked the teacher. Scott looked up somewhat woefully. “I think I’m going to have a wife!”
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Next Week’s Readings – If your church uses the Revised Common Lectionary, these are the readings you will probably hear in church this coming Sunday, November 2nd, which is Proper 26 [31].

The Story – Joshua 3:7-17 (4:1-9) – The verses in brackets are not in the lectionary. I added them because the RCL stops in the middle of the story. If you can’t tell the whole story, why tell any of it?
This legend says (3:10) that God kicks out the tribes that were already living there in this promised land. It strikes me that aboriginal people in many parts of the world would be identifying with those dispossessed tribes and thinking how Europeans marched in thinking it was their God-given right to occupy their land. Maybe we need to tell this story from their point of view.
In the fourth chapter, Joshua asks for one representative of each tribe to bring a stone with which to build a memorial to this great event. We’re told the stones are still there, under the water of the Jordan. To me, such a memorial tells us that a community – the ancient Israelite community or our country or our contemporary church – has its strength in diversity. Different kinds of people with different talents and traditions are what give us our strength. We could even act this out as part of the “sermon,” asking different kinds of people to bring forward a stone, or some other symbol, to represent their gift.
Don’t waste your time trying to explain the stopping of the river. The story is about a time of transition for the Hebrews. They moved from wilderness into the Promised Land and in the process sent the aboriginal people who lived there into the wilderness. The legend is about a tribal God who is only concerned about the welfare of those tribes.
We have (I hope) a wider vision, of a God who is the god of all peoples. Which makes the occupation of the promised land a much more complicated legend.

Psalm 107:1-7, 33-37 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
Facing fears
2,3 All around the world, millions of people will attest –
1 God is good. God will not let you down.
17 Sometimes that is hard to believe.
Hatred robs black South Africans of hope.
The bias of international mass media makes Palestinians feel despised and rejected;
they hide their faces from us.
Weapons of war maim women and children in Sarajevo.
Poverty pursues refugees from Sri Lanka,
and starvation those from Mozambique.
18 Fear and despair crushes them.
19 But God gives them the strength to continue.
20 God seals the raw wounds in their souls;
God holds them gently in the terrors of their night.
21 They do not doubt God's saving grace.
22 Listen to them! Hear their story.
Hear, and believe, and rejoice.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com

1 Thessalonians 2:9-13 – This is part of a letter Paul sent to the Thessalonian church. If it seems to you that Paul is “talking down” to the folks just a bit, you are probably right. But that’s the way it was generally done. There was always a status difference between the teacher and the student. Try to get beyond that and try to see what there may be for you in the passage. The passage might also lead us to thinking about people in our congregational or denominational communities that have provided the kind of inspiration Paul brought to the Thessalonians?”

Matthew 23:1-12 – This controversy has been bubbling around in the Christian Church since day one. To what extend do the personal moralities and ethical practices of clergy affect the validity of their priestly functions? Including preaching.
It raged in the medieval church. Can an immoral priest preside at communion? The debate was almost exclusively around sexual morality and it still is, to a large degree. It depends on where you draw the line.
I know a lot of clergy. In fact, I’m married to one. Not a single one of them has – nor would they claim to have – a clean slate. All have sinned and fallen short. Does that invalidate everything they say in the pulpit?
No, it doesn’t, says Jesus. All of us, lay and clergy, know a lot better than we do. All of us need to help each other live up to our own moral and ethical standards.
The last verse is the most radical in this reading. It happens over and over in the Bible, this wonderful inversion, so that Bill Gates finds himself waiting on customers at Radio Shack, and Susie Nobody is no longer slinging hamburgers at MacDonald’s, but is running Microsoft.
It isn’t the sort of thing that happens a lot in our own experience, but that’s how things work out in God’s mind. Furthermore, if those folks with seven figure salaries are climbing to the top of their anthill over the backs of underpaid children in third-world sweatshops, God notices.

A children’s version of the Joshua reading is in “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year A,” page 229. It is called, “The People Claim the Promised Land.” A story based on the reading from Matthew’s Gospel, “Jesus Turns Things Upside Down,” is on page 26.
If you don’t already own this book, click the main Wood Lake Publications website at www.woodlakebooks.com, or click on the following address which takes you directly to the “Lectionary Story Bible.”
http://tinyurl.com/2lonod

Note: In some congregations where the first scripture reading is often done by a child, or done while the children are still in the sanctuary, they have been using “The Lectionary Story Bible” rather than the regular Bible rather than a regular translation. The idea, I think, is that not only will the children understand more easily, but even adults might get it.

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Rumors – The maple tree in our back yard has lost most of it’s leaves. Half a dozen still hang bravely in the autumn breeze. Other trees are gold and russet and glorious.
There’s a sweet sadness that I feel each autumn – “a feeling of sadness and longing / that is not akin to pain / but resembles sorrow only / as the mist resembles the rain.” (Longfellow)
You are reading this just as Bev and I come home after a long sea voyage to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. It’s hard for me not to think of the joys and pains of aging, because that’s the daily realty in which I live.
Some years ago, Paul Williams sent me a “Prayer for Senility,” which is based on the Serenity prayer by (I think) Paul Tillich. “God grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked, good fortune to run into the ones I do, and eyesight to tell the difference.”
Seeing myself as an old man is a bit like standing there in the middle of the Jordan with Joshua, laying down a rock that represents who I was and who I am. And then moving away from the river into a conflicted land of promise – if I am able to accept the gifts of grace in age that God offers.
I remember a week at Naramata Centre studying “The Seven Tasks of Creative Aging,” led by Robert Raines who has authored a book of the same name.
Bob Raines has a good sense of humor, and he’s been around long enough that he takes himself quite lightly. So I could certainly say that the course was fun – lots of it – but it was also hard work. At the end of it I was wiped.
The toughest part of the week was dealing with forgiveness. I thought it’d be a piece of cake. Like many in the group, I went in thinking I didn’t really have much forgiving to do. Not me, no, I wasn’t carrying around any unresolved angers.
But then Bob shared some of his stuff, and we went into small groups and found ourselves talking about things we had never really brought to consciousness. Surprise! Most of us discovered dark spots down there that needed a good shot of Draino followed by liberal doses of TLC.
In my knee group at least, every one of us found ourselves blind-sided by unresolved anger at someone who had hurt us or hurt someone we loved. I thought I’d done my forgiving long ago, then discovered there needed to be more scrubbing of the soul. And some of the wise ones told me that is normal, because you can hardly ever let go of all of it in one piece.
Bob talked at some length about how Jesus emphasized forgiveness – limitless forgiveness. I had thought that meant I was called to forgive the same person or persons over and over. Which I guess it does. But I it also means that I’ve got to do the same piece of forgiving over and over until I get all the residue of resentment scraped out of my soul.
Jim Taylor once remarked that we don’t change as we get older. We are the same person we always were. Only more so! But who is that person I always was.
Half way through the Robert Raines event, I found myself looking out the window at the fall colors, which seemed to me more spectacular than usual that year. I remembered learning that leaves don’t change color at all. In fall, the green chlorophyll is leached back into the sap of the tree, and the leaves reveal their true color.
A serendipitous thought that I reflect on every autumn.
Here, now, on the other side of the river – in the autumn of my life – I am finding my true self.

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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor


If you have comments or questions about Jim’s column, write to him directly at jimt@quixotic.ca. Jim also does another weekly column called “Sharp Edges” which is published in our daily newspaper. It has a stronger political-social justice content. If you’d like to receive Sharp Edges, send Jim a note at the address above. Or go to Jim’s web page at: http://edges.canadahomepage.net/index.php . Click on Sharp Edges or Soft Edges or whatever else you might like to read.

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Good Stuff – this from Velia Watts of Edmonton, Alberta
Curing Victimitis
Watch your thoughts; they lead to attitudes.
Watch your attitudes; they lead to words.
Watch your words; they lead to actions.
Watch your actions; they lead to habits.
Watch your habits; they form your character.
Watch your character; it determines your destiny.
Anonymous

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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – from the file
* The monthly seniors’ lunch will take place on Wednesday. It will be gin with lunch at 12:15 followed by card games.
* Good Christians all, rejoice, with heat and soul and voice!
* The pastor will preach his farewell message, after which the choir will sing, "Break Forth Into Joy."

If you’ve spotted any good bloopers in your church bulletin or newsletter, or anywhere else for that matter, please send them to me. ralphmilton@woodlake.com

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Wish I’d Said That! – I am more and more convinced that our happiness or our unhappiness depends far more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves.
Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt via Velia Watts

Life is like a B-picture script. It is that corny. If I had my life story offered to me to film, I’d turn it down.
Kirk Douglas

Peace and love are always in us, being and working; but we are not always in peace and love.
Julian of Norwich

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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “punishment!”) Velia Watts of Edmonton, Alberta, got this from her friend David Mar. She doesn’t tell us who David blames it on.
Punishment
* The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.
* I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian.
* She was only a whisky maker, but he loved her still.
* The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.
* No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.
* A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.
* Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other, 'You stay here, I'll go on a head.'
* A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass.'
* A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
* The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.
* The man who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.
* A backward poet writes inverse.
* In democracy it's your vote that counts. In feudalism it's your count that votes.
* Don't join dangerous cults: Practice safe sects!

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Bottom of the Barrel – It seems that John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was once in the English city of Bath. The community was infamous for its disregard of all things religious and moral. One day, Wesley and the mayor of Bath were striding toward each other on a narrow wooden sidewalk.
Upon seeing the noted evangelist, the mayor said, "Step aside, Sir. I do not suffer fools lightly." The ever-sagacious John Wesley replied, "Of course, Sir." and stepped into the gutter. Then as the mayor walked by, he added, "I do it all the time."

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Information and Stuff – (Read this section only if you want to know about subscribing, unsubscribing or quoting stuff from Rumors.) It would be nice if you could give Rumors a plug in your bulletin or newsletter. Please invite your friends (and even your enemies) to subscribe. There's no charge: RUMORS is free and it comes to your e-mail box every Sunday morning. Just send your friends the instructions to subscribe [below], and include an invitation to join the list ... perhaps something like this: “There’s a lively and fun newsletter called RUMORS which is available at no cost on the net. It’s for ‘Christians with a sense of humor’.” Please add the instructions to subscribe [below]. If you have a friend you think would enjoy Rumors, and you’d rather not give them the subscribing instructions below, send me an e-mail at ralphmilton@woodlake.com and give me the e-mail address of your friend. If you are using something from Rumors in your sermon, give credit only as appropriate, without stopping the sermon dead in its tracks. I am delighted when Rumors is useful in the life and work of the church. As long as it is within your congregation or parish, you don’t need permission. You are welcome to use the stuff in church bulletins or newsletters. Please say where it came from, and please invite people to subscribe to RUMORS. An appropriate credit line would be; “From Ralph Milton's RUMORS, a free Internet ‘e-zine’ for Christians with a sense of humor." ... and please be sure to include these instructions to subscribe to RUMORS: To Subscribe: * Send an e-mail to: rumors-subscribe@joinhands.com
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* Don’t put anything else in that e-mail * If you are changing e-mail addresses, and your old address will no longer be in service, you do not need to unsubscribe. The sending computer will try a few times, and then give up. .~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Please Write – If you respond, react, think about, freak-out, or otherwise have things happen in your head as a result of reading the above, please send a note to: ralphmilton@woodlake.com
Who knows, I might quote you in a future issue of RUMORS. All material is copyright © Ralph Milton. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Preaching Materials for October 16, 2008

R U M O R S # 524
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2008-10-19

October 19, 2008

YOU’VE GOT TO BE TOUGH TO BE OLD

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Motto:
"A merry heart doeth good, like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones." (Proverbs 17:22 KJV)
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IMPORTANT: I really appreciate your notes, and Rumors is the richer for them. To protect me from viruses, please be sure that you put something on the "subject" line that lets me know that you are legit. For instance, the word "Rumors" works. And please give us your name and where you’re from. Folks like to know. Thanks.
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Next Week’s Readings – looking into the promised land
Rumors – cat food and crumpets
Soft Edges –
Mirabile Dictu! – for the birds
Bottom of the Barrel – what did Moses really want?
Stuff – (read this only if you would like to subscribe, unsubscribe or are wondering about permissions. That sort of boring stuff.)

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Rib Tickler –Two brothers, aged 8 and 10, were always playing pranks and getting into mischief.
Their parents decided to send the boys to talk with the pastor of their church, a Bible-thumping, God-fearing, pulpit-pounding preacher. The 8-year-old had the first appointment. The pastor glowered at him. "Young man, Where is God?"
No response from the terrified boy.
"Young, man,” he bellowed, “where is God?"
In terror the boy leaped from his chair, ran home, vaulted up the stairs to his bedroom, and hid.
The 10-year-old, hearing the noise, ran into his younger brother's bedroom and found him shivering in the closet.
"What happened?" he said, starting to get scared himself.
"Oh, man, we're in deep trouble," said the 8-year-old. "God's missing, and they’re trying to pin it on us."

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Next Week’s Readings – If your church uses the Revised Common Lectionary, hese are the readings you will probably hear in church this coming Sunday, October 26th, which is Proper 25 [30]

The Story (from the Revised Common Lectionary) Moses sees promised land
Deuteronomy 34:1-12 – Moses had vision, and not just good eyesight. I’ve been to the top of Pishgah. It was a clear day and I could see a lot, but I couldn’t see anywhere near all of what Moses apparently saw. People of vision can see beyond seeing.
Bev tells me that Herbert O’Driscoll once told a group of Christian educators that our generation wouldn’t get through the wilderness to the promised land. “We were devastated,” she says. But then she remembers that we are often called to look beyond what we can see. When I give money to cancer research, or spend time with my grandchildren, or struggle with others in my church to discern the direction we should be going – it’s not my own personal future I’m working for.
This is a good story for the gray heads that populate our pews. Being creatively old takes a lot of concentration when we make long-term plans because we need to keep telling ourselves, “This isn’t for me!” Moses probably hoped to get into the “promised land” but he couldn’t have expected to spend much time there. At 120 he still had “all his vigor,” which I think means he didn’t need the assorted masculine aids that assault us daily in our e-mails.
I find it hard, as I look forward to my 74th birthday, not to become more and more selfish. The old body needs more and more maintenance, and the memorial services Bev and I go to are our friends and colleagues who seem to be dying at a fairly regular rate.
So here we stand, looking out to a future we will not inhabit, pondering the meaning of our lives and listening to God’s call to lead us into the week, the month, the year, the decade, whatever time we have left.

Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
Note: This paraphrase is of verses 1-12.
1 Lord, your lantern hangs before our tent.
2 Its circle of light illuminates this brief stopping place. We do not know where we are going; We barely know where we have been. We keep our hats handy, always ready to move on.
3 Perhaps the next campsite will be like this one; perhaps it will not. Only you have an overview of our journey.
4 We are here such a short time. We arrive, we unpack, we explore our environment, And then we are gone again.
5 May the good earth be not harmed by our passage. May we be no more dangerous to our planet than a dream
6 that flits across the mind and leaves no mark. Like a firefly, bright and brief, we flicker against the darkness, and then vanish into your warm and holy night.
9 Like clouds driven before a storm wind, our days scud by; Without a sigh, the last light of the sun winks out in the west; You drive the wind, you scroll the sun; You govern the going of our lives.
10 What does it matter how long we live? Sometimes it seems too long; Sometimes it seems as short as the flit of a butterfly's wings...
11 And then we are judged.
12 It's not how long we live that matters. But how well.
13 Do not leave us alone in the darkness. Lord. Take pity on us in our pathetic emptiness.
14 Light up our days with love, and let us frolic in the sunshine of your smile.
15 Make our summers as long when we were children; make the long winter nights as brief as a memory.
16 Let us see your inner nature; lead us into the warm circle of your arms.
17 Be good to us; shape our attitudes as a potter forms clay. Help us become what you envisioned, when you first thought of us.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8 – Paul can be very hard to understand sometimes, but in this passage, he seems to be much more personal. Rather than sharing his ideas or his convictions, he lets us see who he is. That kind of giving can be very costly.
I’ve had experiences, and probably you have too, when I’ve tried to share myself and had it turned back against me. Many clergy, when they have shared personal struggles with their parishioners (one to one, or from the pulpit) have felt the pain when their personal confession was turned against them.
Sharing ourselves is very risky. But it is essential if we want to communicate our faith rather than simply our opinions.

Matthew 22:34-46 – Jesus could obviously “think on his feet.” There are a number of accounts in the Gospels of Jesus in a verbal contest with his detractors, and Jesus wins every one of them.
Today’s reading ends at verse 46, but I suggest you go beyond that to read the first three verses of chapter 23.
The point is clear. Those religious leaders have all the right answers. Pay attention to them. But take it one step further and “walk the talk.” Because when all is said and done, a lot more is said than done. I don’t think God gives a hoot about my opinions. God cares about me and my life.

For children see “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year A,” page 226 where you’ll find a story based on the Deuteronomy passage, “Moses Sees a New Land.” And there’s a story based on the gospel reading, “The Most Important Things,” on page 228.
To buy a copy of this book, click the main Wood Lake Publications website at www.woodlakebooks.com, or click on the following address which takes you directly to the “Lectionary Story Bible.”
http://tinyurl.com/2lonod

Note: In some congregations where the first scripture reading is often done by a child, they have been using “The Lectionary Story Bible” rather than the regular Bible. The idea, I think, is that not only would the children understand more easily, but even adults might get it. And the child doing the reading might not stumble around so much.

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Rumors – A year or two ago, Bev and I took ourselves down to the local hockey arena where they had a big “Senior’s Festival.”
The place was jammed. Our small quota of geriatric energy was used up trying to elbow our way from one display to the next, and then we couldn’t get near enough to see anything without pushing and shoving.
So I didn’t see anything in particular, but I did come away with some general impressions. There are a whole bunch of people out there hoping to make a buck on the aches and pains and problems of seniors – everything from various prosthetics to herbal remedies to motor homes. And “Financial Advisors” everywhere. Every one of those entrepreneurs was well aware that they were selling to the wealthiest, healthiest, longest living bunch of seniors in history.
A few generations back, prospectors headed for the Klondike yelling, “There’s gold in them thar hills!” Now these same prospectors are setting up booths and buying up mailing lists yelling, “There’s gold in them thar pills.” In the parking lot, after we finally escaped the madding throngs within, was a large RV with a bumper sticker. “We’re spending our children’s inheritance.”
There are lots of seniors with lots of money. There are also lots of seniors living on tea and toast and the occasional can of cat food. There were none of the second kind at that exhibit, which suited the exhibitors just fine. Poor seniors also don’t get all the wonderful discounts offered through the Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP). Bev and I are not poor seniors, so we joined and now we get their magazine.
You can tell right off that the CARP mag is not for the little old lady living on tea and toast. They want seniors who can read an add about 10% off on a cruise, starting at $20,000 without choking or laughing. The CARP mag has ads for expensive potions and prosthetics to help you look half your age, and ways to make sure the tax department doesn’t get its hands on your money. CARP should change its name to CARRP, the Canadian Society for Rich Retired Persons.
Lest you think this is sour grapes, you need to know that Bev and I will have a nice, comfortable retirement. We won’t go on a lot of those cruises (though as you read this, we are on one celebrating our 50th), and I don’t worry at all about how much money the tax department gets – now, or when I die. But we won’t be eating cat food either.
I noticed something else at that exhibit and in the CARP magazine. Everything was focused on the idea of making our own lives easier, more fun, more secure, more healthy – and there’s nothing wrong with that. But there’s wasn’t anything pointing in the other direction. Outward, to somebody else or forward to those who will come after us. Nothing for those seniors who’d like to do more in their retirement than take up space and spend money.
The older I get, the greater is the temptation to think only about myself –on my arthritic knees, on the interest rate I get on my savings. Or, how long it is till happy hour when I can have my first drink.
I am genuinely bothered, not so much by what seniors are doing, but by what they don’t do. Their lives become so narrow. “Why should I bother recycling stuff,” they mutter. “I won’t be around long enough to worry about the problem.”
I wish more of us could stand on that mountainside with old Moses just before he died. A hundred and twenty years old they said he was. I wish we could raise our eyes from our own knees and our own flabby body, and look up, beyond our own lifetimes, over the horizon, and dream a future that is not ours.
I wish more of us had a vision of what life might be in the future for those we love and care about and for folks in other parts of the world whom we’ve never heard of. It may be OK to spend our children’s inheritance, but let’s not destroy their legacy.

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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor


If you have comments or questions about Jim’s column, write to him directly at jimt@quixotic.ca. Jim also does another weekly column called “Sharp Edges” which is published in our daily newspaper. It has a stronger political-social justice content. If you’d like to receive Sharp Edges, send Jim a note at the address above. Or go to Jim’s web page at: http://edges.canadahomepage.net/index.php . Click on Sharp Edges or Soft Edges or whatever else you might like to read.

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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – from the files
* The Rev. Charles Solomon will be coming to our parish for a week’s stay at the Rectory. Anyone wishing to have him for a meal during this week, ask the Rector, please!”
* The sudden gust of wind caught everyone by surprise. Hats were blown off, and copies of the Rector’s speech and other rubbish were blown all over the site.
* We have been so fortunate with both our choir director and organist. Both have been given appointments that will take them from us.

If you’ve spotted any good bloopers in your church bulletin or newsletter, or anywhere else for that matter, please send them to me. ralphmilton@woodlake.com

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Wish I’d Said That! – The class distinctions proper to a democratic society are not those of rank or money, still less of race, but of age.
W. H. Auden

Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.
Groucho Marx

Our whole life is in three – we have our Being, then our Increasing and finally our Fulfilling. The first is Nature, the second is Compassion, and the third is Grace.
Julian of Norwich

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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “for the birds!”)
How the Birds Formed a Church
A flock of birds decided to form a church. So they called a meeting and the duck stood up and said, “I think we should require baptism by immersion. It’s the only way we can get their pocketbooks wet.”
But the rooster said, “No, we should baptize by sprinkling. Many people dislike the embarrassment of getting wet all over.” So the argument went on.
The parents said, “I don’t think baptism is the most important thing. What we need is a good program.” All the birds cheered for everyone knows that a church can’t build a reputation for itself without a good program.
Then the mockingbird said, “What about the choir? We must have a good choir, and don’t forget the organ!”
“Oh,” said the thrush, “we don’t want an organ. A piano is much better.” But the titmouse didn’t want a musical instrument at all. And the sparrow said, “It would be just as well to throw out music.”
The goose stood up and said, “What we really need is a preacher who is good with young people. If you don’t attract young people, the other churches will gobble them up for sure.”
But the starling said he thought it was better that the preacher be a good mixer. And the blue-jay figured if the minister could lay off preaching about sin and stuff that almost anyone would do. We just need a preacher who is popular among the townsfolk.
But the real wrangle came over the budget. Some thought that everyone should tithe, if they could afford it. Others thought they should do away with collections and have faith.
So finally the owl arose and smoothed his feathers. Everyone grew quiet for they knew that he had great wisdom. “Brothers and sisters,” he said, “all these things are secondary. What we need is sincerity. Yes sir,” repeated the owl, quite pleased with himself. “Above everything else, we must all be sincere – even if we don’t mean it.”
So they formed a church. And it really was – for the birds.

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Bottom of the Barrel – When God asked Moses where he would like the "Promised Land" to be, Moses became very excited.
Instead of allowing Aaron to speak for him (as he usually did), he tried to answer himself. "Ca .. . Ca . . . Ca . . ." he stammered on and on. God got tired of waiting and presumed that he was trying to say “Canaan.”
Poor Moses was trying to say "Canada!"

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Information and Stuff – (Read this section only if you want to know about subscribing, unsubscribing or quoting stuff from Rumors.) It would be nice if you could give Rumors a plug in your bulletin or newsletter. Please invite your friends (and even your enemies) to subscribe. There's no charge: RUMORS is free and it comes to your e-mail box every Sunday morning. Just send your friends the instructions to subscribe [below], and include an invitation to join the list ... perhaps something like this: “There’s a lively and fun newsletter called RUMORS which is available at no cost on the net. It’s for ‘Christians with a sense of humor’.” Please add the instructions to subscribe [below]. If you have a friend you think would enjoy Rumors, and you’d rather not give them the subscribing instructions below, send me an e-mail at ralphmilton@woodlake.com and give me the e-mail address of your friend. If you are using something from Rumors in your sermon, give credit only as appropriate, without stopping the sermon dead in its tracks. I am delighted when Rumors is useful in the life and work of the church. As long as it is within your congregation or parish, you don’t need permission. You are welcome to use the stuff in church bulletins or newsletters. Please say where it came from, and please invite people to subscribe to RUMORS. An appropriate credit line would be; “From Ralph Milton's RUMORS, a free Internet ‘e-zine’ for Christians with a sense of humor." ... and please be sure to include these instructions to subscribe to RUMORS: To Subscribe:* Send an e-mail to: rumors-subscribe@joinhands.com
* Don't put anything else in that e-mail
To Unsubscribe:
* Send an e-mail to: rumors-unsubscribe@joinhands.com
* Don’t put anything else in that e-mail* If you are changing e-mail addresses, and your old address will no longer be in service, you do not need to unsubscribe. The sending computer will try a few times, and then give up..~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Please Write – If you respond, react, think about, freak-out, or otherwise have things happen in your head as a result of reading the above, please send a note to: ralphmilton@woodlake.com
Who knows, I might quote you in a future issue of RUMORS.All material is copyright © Ralph Milton.

Preaching Materials for October 19, 2008

R U M O R S # 523
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2008-10-12

October 12, 2008

THE AGONY AND THE ECSTACY
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Motto:
"A merry heart doeth good, like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones." (Proverbs 17:22 KJV)
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Do you have maladjusted, troublesome, annoying friends? Get them to subscribe to Rumors. Soon they won’t be your friends anymore.

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Next Week’s Readings – the face of God
Rumors – head in the clouds, feet on the ground
Soft Edges –
Good Stuff – three books of God
We Get Letters – she’s moved to heaven
Mirabile Dictu! – swine empathy
Bottom of the Barrel – when Luther hit his thumb
Stuff – (read this only if you would like to subscribe, unsubscribe or are wondering about permissions. That sort of boring stuff.)

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Rib Tickler – This from John Severson. It’s really only funny in the US where the “how will I pay for this?” question arises in this way.

A man suffered a serious heart attack and had an open heart bypass surgery. He woke up from the surgery to find himself in the care of nuns at a Catholic Hospital.
As he was recovering, a nun asked him questions regarding how he was going to pay for his treatment. “Do you have health insurance?”
"No,” the man croaked. “No health insurance."
“Do you have any money in the bank?”
"No money in the bank."
"Do you have a relative who could help you?" asked the nun.
"I only have a spinster sister. She is a nun."
The nun bristled. "Nuns are not spinsters! Nuns are married to God."
“Alright, already!” croaked the patient. "Send the bill to my brother-in-law."
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Next Week’s Readings – If your church uses the Revised Common Lectionary, these are the readings you will probably hear in church this coming Sunday, October 19th, which is Proper 24 (29)

The Story (from the Revised Common Lectionary) The Face of God – Exodus 33:12-23
There are two good story themes in this passage. The fear of going it alone. And the euphoria and terror of seeing the face of God.
A beautiful, new hospice was opened in our community a few weeks ago. It will bring many blessings to those who are dying – the most important (in my mind) is the way it encourages loved ones to be with the dying person in their final hours. There’s a playroom inside and a playhouse outside for children, among many things. And volunteers who will stay with someone who is not blessed with family. No one should take the journey into death alone.
The Hebrew tradition, which is apparently in other cultures as well, is that if anyone sees the face of God, they will die. Those traditions probably have their roots in this legend that swirls around us with its ancient ambiguities and questions.
There’s a Buddhist saying; “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.” In other words, if you meet someone who claims to know all, see all, understand all – it’s probably a demon.
Two blessings God gives us humans. We cannot see God face to face. We cannot know the future. Either one, at the very least, would drive us mad.
And that kind of knowledge is not at all the same as a strong and lively faith.

JIM: YOU COULD USE THE STORY FROM “WIND IN THE WILLOWS” THAT YOU DID IN “EVERYDAY GOD” ABOUT THE CREATURES SEEING THE FACE OF THE GREAT GOD PAN.

Psalm 99 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
Though we have climbed earth's highest mountains, the peaks remain as inhospitable to our life as outer space. Ancient peoples saw these fearful heights as the habitation of the gods.
1 Like a halo of holiness, the spirit of God envelops the earth.
In the stillness of space, God's spirit gives life;
let us acknowledge our insignificance.
In the emptiness of infinity, God's spirit creates life;
let us acknowledge our interdependence.
2 Look up if you would see God;
raise your sights beyond your repetitive routines.
3 But do not attempt to face God as an equal--
Fling yourself face down on the earth
Before the creator of the heavens.
4 Almighty God, you love to do right.
In your dealings with your creation, you are always fair.
5 We humans grovel before your greatness.
Humbly, we kiss the humus from which you fashioned us.
You are holiness itself.
6 The humus holds the recycled cells of those who came this way before us;
Step by step they searched for you, until you found them.
7 By the pillar of fire and the whispering breeze,
by bonfire and whirlwind, by prophecy and parable,
you showed them your way.
8 Because they tried to follow you, you forgave them their failings;
But those who laid traps for them, you did not tolerate.
9 So pledge allegiance to our God!
Gather at the foot of the mountain, where even the rocks reach up towards our God.
Our God is holiness itself.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 – What Paul is talking about here is sometimes called “Lifestyle Evangelism.” The most powerful witness we have is our own lives. If what we proclaim doesn’t match what we live, it will at leas fall flat and possibly drive people away from the gospel.
But often we take that too far. We avoid talking about our faith except in circumstances like a Bible study group or if we are preaching. Sam Keen, in one of his books, says that while the vast majority of Americans claim to be Christian, only about 1% have ever talked about their faith with another person.

Matthew 22:15-22 – I was confused about this passage as a child. “Render unto Caesar” is what I heard from the old King James Bible. But the only meaning of the word “render” that I knew of was in the purifying of lard when we processed the pigs in the fall. What would Caesar want with a bunch of lard?
I’m always a little uncomfortable with these stories of how the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus, and he turns the tables and makes them look silly. “Look! See how our guy beat your guys!” One-up-man-ship. It seems inconsistent with the personality of Jesus I find in the rest of the gospel stories. You don’t show God’s love and justice by putting other people down, even (especially) when they deserve it.
But the question – what belongs to the Empire and what belongs to God was a huge question then as it is a huge question now. Or to phrase it in modern terms – what does God’s justice and concern for all creation demand and what does the free market economy demand?

There’s a children’s version of the Exodus story, “Moses Sees God,” in “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year A,” page 222, and of the Matthew story, “Trouble for Jesus,” on page 224.
If you don’t already own this book, click the main Wood Lake Publications website at www.woodlakebooks.com, or click on the following address which takes you directly to the “Lectionary Story Bible.”
http://tinyurl.com/2lonod

Note: In some congregations where the first scripture reading is done by a child, they have been using “The Lectionary Story Bible” rather than the regular Bible. The idea, I think, is that not only would the children understand more easily, but even adults might get it.

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Rumors – It’s about that business of seeing God, face to face. Moses, at least in the Hebrew tradition, was the greatest prophet, bar none. He asked to see God’s full glory, but all he got to see was the deity’s derrière. Too much glory is not good for people.
In the farwell narrative it says that Moses knew God face to face (Deuteronomy 34:10), but who says the Bible is consistent? Anyway, these stories come from the time when God was a tribal deity – before being promoted to God of all creation.
The stories of the rich and famous are littered with the lives of people who struggled for fame and glory, and when they got it, it destroyed them. Every person climbing that kind of ladder should have a colonoscopy once a year. Among other things, the procedure puts you radically in touch with your humanity and fragility. Enduring a colonoscopy is a different experience than signing autographs.
We need both. We need to know we are treasured. Valued. Special. Unique. Important. We can encounter God. We can speak with God the way Moses did. We can actually see God, though not directly.
We also need to know that we are “a dime a dozen” and if we disappeared it wouldn’t even show as a blip on the timeline of civilization.
When St. George the Knight with the red cross on his shield, rides home after conquering the fearsome dragon, the people along the way shout glad hosannas and his path is with fragrant blossoms strowed. (“Strowed” being the past-pluperfect subjunctive – or whatever – of “strewn.”) When St. George reaches the door and calls, “Honey, I’m home!” the fair princess Uma calls, “Hurry up and get in here. The cat just ate a bird and then barfed it up on the kitchen floor.” He doesn’t even get to take off his hot, itchy armor first, much less visit the bathroom.
Always both-and. The fair princess Uma will let her George know that she loves him, values him and is proud of his accomplishments. But right now he needs to get down on his knees and clean up the mess.
Grandchildren do a great job of this. Here’s a blurb I wrote about a decade ago after the folks at St. Stephen’s in Edmonton hung a doctorate around my neck.

Arriving home from Edmonton with my shinny new doctorate in hand, I hit terra firma with a refreshing thud a day later. “How’s Dr. Milton,” said daughter Kari at the door. She was impressed.
But Jake and Zoë? It’s the same old grandpa they see. “I’m going to nursery school,” announces Zoë, who knows what is important and what is not. And Jake offers a new song called “Grandpa’s Whiskers,” sung to the tune of “You’re In the Army Now.”
“They’re always in the way,
The cows eat them for hay,
They cover the dirt
On Grandpa’s shirt;
They’re always in the way.”
Plus assorted verses about Grandma dreaming of Shredded Wheat, etc. And after the song, they climb on my lap to show me their latest treasure.
Knights named St. George and Grandpas named Dr. Milton need the help of children to understand what is fundamentally important and what is not.

We are created “in the image and likeness of God.” The same God who pronounced all creation, including us, to be “very good!’ also reminds us, “you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Thanks be to God!

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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor


If you have comments or questions about Jim’s column, write to him directly at jimt@quixotic.ca. Jim also does another weekly column called “Sharp Edges” which is published in our daily newspaper. It has a stronger political-social justice content. If you’d like to receive Sharp Edges, send Jim a note at the address above. Or go to Jim’s web page at: http://edges.canadahomepage.net/index.php . Click on Sharp Edges or Soft Edges or whatever else you might like to read.

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Good Stuff – In the Christian tradition there are three "books" about God.
The first is autobiographical, written by God, we call it creation. It is so big, and we are such integral components we find it hard to get the whole picture.
The second is biographical, written by a close relative, we call it incarnation. It is smaller and easier to read but is so radical we still find it difficult to get the real picture.
The third is a compilation of anecdotes, stories, history, poetry, recollections, observations and reflections written by his followers, We call them Scripture, and treat them as one unit. It is such a culturally conditioned composite we still find it difficult to get our minds around.
We need to be multi lingual, multi cultural, multi temporal, multi radical to even begin reading these books about God.
Robert Dummermuth, Australia

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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – From the file:
* When parking on the north side of the church, please remember to park on an angel.
* Will the last person to leave please see that the perpetual light is extinguished.
* You cannot serve both God and Merman.

If you’ve spotted any good bloopers in your church bulletin or newsletter, or anywhere else for that matter, please send them to me. ralphmilton@woodlake.com

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Wish I’d Said That! – I wake up in the morning and don’t know whether to save the world or savor it, and this makes it hard to plan my day.
E.B. White

We want to simplify our lives, but we don’t want to be inconvenienced.
source unkown

Where God calls you, is where your deep gladness and the world’s deep needs, meet.
Fred Buechner

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We Get Letters – Mike Glover of Mirfield, Yorkshire, England found this genuine epitaph in Edgerton Cemetery.

Here lies Josie Madigan
She died aged 57
She spent her lifetime moving house
And now she's moved to heaven

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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “swine empathy!”) With all the effort to use inclusive language to include women, it’s time we developed some politically correct ways to describe men.
A few samples.
* He does not have a beer belly; He has developed a Liquid Grain Storage Facility.
* He is not quiet; He is a Conversational Minimalist.
* He is not stupid; He suffers from Minimal Cranial Development.
* He does not get lost all the time; He discovers Alternative Destinations.
* He is not balding; He is in Follicle Regression.
* He is not a redneck; He is a Genetically-Related American.
* You do not kiss him. You become Facially Conjoined.
* He does not get falling-down drunk; He becomes Accidentally Horizontal.
* He does not act like a total ass; He develops a case of Rectal-Cranial Inversion.
* He is not short; He is Anatomically Compact.
* He does not have a rich daddy; He is a recipient of Parental Asset Infusion.
* He does not constantly talk about cars; He has a Vehicular Addiction.
* He does not have a hot body; He is Physically Combustible.
* He is not unsophisticated; He is Socially Malformed.
* He does not eat like a pig; He suffers from Reverse Bulimia.
* He is not a bad dancer; He is Overly Caucasian.
* He does not hog the blankets; He is Thermally Unappreciative.
* He is not a male chauvinist pig; He has Swine Empathy.

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Bottom of the Barrel – The Study Group leader was giving the folks a bit of background on the 16th century reformer, Martin Luther.
“Luther nailed his 95 theses ...”
“Feces?” asked Jennifer.
“No, theses! Luther nailed his 95 thesis to the church door in 1517, and according to the record he hit his thumb with the hammer.”
“I’ll bet nobody wanted him around after that,” said Jennifer.
“Why not?” said the surprised leader.
“Because nobody likes a sore luther.”

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Information and Stuff – (Read this section only if you want to know about subscribing, unsubscribing or quoting stuff from Rumors.) It would be nice if you could give Rumors a plug in your bulletin or newsletter. Please invite your friends (and even your enemies) to subscribe. There's no charge: RUMORS is free and it comes to your e-mail box every Sunday morning. Just send your friends the instructions to subscribe [below], and include an invitation to join the list ... perhaps something like this: “There’s a lively and fun newsletter called RUMORS which is available at no cost on the net. It’s for ‘Christians with a sense of humor’.” Please add the instructions to subscribe [below]. If you have a friend you think would enjoy Rumors, and you’d rather not give them the subscribing instructions below, send me an e-mail at ralphmilton@woodlake.com and give me the e-mail address of your friend. If you are using something from Rumors in your sermon, give credit only as appropriate, without stopping the sermon dead in its tracks. I am delighted when Rumors is useful in the life and work of the church. As long as it is within your congregation or parish, you don’t need permission. You are welcome to use the stuff in church bulletins or newsletters. Please say where it came from, and please invite people to subscribe to RUMORS. An appropriate credit line would be; “From Ralph Milton's RUMORS, a free Internet ‘e-zine’ for Christians with a sense of humor." ... and please be sure to include these instructions to subscribe to RUMORS: To Subscribe:* Send an e-mail to: rumors-subscribe@joinhands.com
* Don't put anything else in that e-mail
To Unsubscribe:
* Send an e-mail to: rumors-unsubscribe@joinhands.com
* Don’t put anything else in that e-mail* If you are changing e-mail addresses, and your old address will no longer be in service, you do not need to unsubscribe. The sending computer will try a few times, and then give up..~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Please Write – If you respond, react, think about, freak-out, or otherwise have things happen in your head as a result of reading the above, please send a note to: ralphmilton@woodlake.com
Who knows, I might quote you in a future issue of RUMORS.All material is copyright © Ralph Milton.

Preaching Materials for October 12, 2008

R U M O R S # 522
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2008-10-05

October 5, 2008


WISE SAWS AND MODERN INSTANCES
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Motto:
"A merry heart doeth good, like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones." (Proverbs 17:22 KJV)
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The Story – golden calves
Rumors – Will Shakespeare’s world astage
Soft Edges –
Bloopers – prayer and medication
Mirabile Dictu! – more or less specific
Bottom of the Barrel – courage
Stuff – (read this only if you would like to subscribe, unsubscribe or are wondering about permissions. That sort of boring stuff.)

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Rib Tickler – A boy was watching his father, a pastor, write a sermon. "How do you know what to say?" the boy asked.
"God tells me," said Rev. dad.
The boy looked thoughtful. "Then why do you keep crossing things out?"
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you may hear in church this coming Sunday, October 12th, which is Proper 23 [28].

The Story (from the Revised Common Lectionary)
Golden Calves – Exodus 32:1-14

JIMS BLURB

I can’t imagine it myself, but I saw a movie once about a man who had an affair with another woman on his wedding night.
Maybe that’s what God feels like. God has just made a covenant with these people, and what do they do? They make themselves a golden calf. Well, as Yogi Bera apparently said, “A verbal agreement isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.”
What is most interesting is that Moses argues with God. “This is not good PR,” Moses tells God. “What will the neighbors think?” And God pays attention.
The Hebrew people have always had a marvelous, open relationship with God. They still do. They argue with God, and God listens! God can have a change of mind and heart. Astounding!
It’s tempting to land with both feet on the Hebrew people for making that golden calf. But God is rumbling away up on top of that mountain, and they need something close by they can devote themselves to.
So do we. Often it’s a church building. God is way off in the distance – in the past – in the mind of the preacher – in the faith of our grandparents – so we need something we can touch and manipulate.
Or to get even more personal – a nice house in which we can invest our energy – or a car. Or a career. Or perfect kids.
In the end, it turns out we don’t have a shortage of golden calves. What we have is leaders on their theological and ecclesiological mountaintops in touch with an abstract and distant God while the rest of us muddle along making such golden calves as we can manage, to give our lives some sense of meaning.

Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
Making Choices in Harmony with God's Plan – A collection of character sketches.

A fawning lackey grovels for favor.
1 Congratulations, Lord. You have achieved your goals magnificently.
2 But who am I to brag about your achievements?
I'm only a small cog in your mighty machinery.
4 Still, don't forget me.
I may be small, but I played a part in your success.
5 If it's all right with you, I'd like to share in some of your glory.
3 You should reward those who didn't rock your boat,
those who didn't break down under pressure,
those who didn't foul up the process.
4 When you hand out the bonuses, please remember me.

The confession of a corporate sinner
6 We have made bad decisions;
we have pursued harmful policies.
We sold our country and our culture to curry favor with our competitors;
we traded our birthright for a mess of promises.
It seemed expedient at the time.
19 Our companies making war equipment profited from the misery of helpless people.
20 We have written God into our constitution
and written God out of our culture.
21 We have no room for God in economics and politics.
22 We have forgotten what God has done in the past;
we have assumed that God will not act against us in the future.

23 Now God is angry.
Please God, do not destroy us.
I am no Moses, but I can plead with you too.
Remember that we are your children, and you love us.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com

Philippians 4:1-9 – This is Paul writing to the Philippian church, where some of the folks were disagreeing with each other. Nothing like that ever happens in our churches today, right?
Reflecting on this passage could help us think and pray our way out of those kinds of situations. Paul’s guidelines might help us work through our conflicts.

Matthew 22:1-14 – This parable is a real head-scratcher. On first reading, it makes the king, and by extension, God, into some kind of a monster.
It’s an analogy. Every one of the characters stands for something else, which I don’t have the space to get into. The “wedding robe” in verses 11-14, I think is the “robe of righteousness,” i.e. faith in Jesus as the Christ, that true Christians were to put on.
You could spend all day reading commentaries on this passage. Or we could do some creative wondering whether we’re in or out of the banquet, and what kind of a spiritual robe we’re wearing.

A children’s story based on the Exodus passage, “The People Do a Bad Thing,” may be found in “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year A,” page 216. A story based on the Mathew passage, “The Best Bar Mitzvah Party,” is on page 220.
If you don’t already own a copy of this book, click the main Wood Lake Publications website at www.woodlakebooks.com, or click on the following address which takes you directly to the “Lectionary Story Bible.” Year A and Year B are now available. Year C will be published next spring.
http://tinyurl.com/2lonod

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Rumors – As my good friend Willie used to say:
All the world’s a stage,
and all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances,
and [each one in their] time plays many parts.

I’m thinking about Willies wise words, because while you are reading this, Bev and I are on a cruise to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. And a few weeks ago we took a tour of the bright new hospice that just opened in our community.
Such events tend to focus the mind. In Willie’s chronology, I think I am at the stage of the “justice.” I have the “fair round belly,” which my doctor says I need to loose, and I’m working on the “eyes severe.” I had my beard, as well as my thinning hair trimmed, but I’m not sure it has the “formal cut” Willie had in mind. But, without a doubt, I am “full of wise saws and modern instances.”
Family and friends have heard all my “wise saws and modern instances” ad nauseum, and are doing their part to keep this graying curmudgeon from getting totally out of hand. So do various friends, and folks I have never met, specifically you folks who read RUMORS.
Often, when I take off on rhetorical balloon flights, someone comes along to let some of the tepid air out.
My sweeping generalizations last week about the mistake folks on “the far right and on the far left” make when reading biblical stories are a case in point. Said one reader: “Moderates never miss the point? Only the far right and left? I think you took a silk purse from a sow's ear and construed hogwash.”
It’s true. People in the middle and all the way along the spectrum make all kinds of mistakes. I would have been much more correct if I had said something like, “I am a storyteller. Reading the Bible with that set of spectacles, it seems to me the folks on the far right and the far left are missing the point because the point is inside the story.”
But I could be wrong. It’s happened before, believe me. More likely, there is truth and error in all positions – the far right, the far left, the middle, and all points in-between.
My family and my friends have been urging me to put my mind in gear before my mouth starts running. And my bride of 50 years has learned how to intervene when I become utterly insufferable. I may still be proud and overbearing and a pain in the patushe, but Bev will take me to see my grandkids, Jake and Zoë, and they’ll haul me back to earth.
Then, from our little spot here on this fragile, blue planet, my grandchildren and I will look up at the sky, to read the stories in the clouds and listen to the twinkle of the stars.

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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor


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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – From the file:
* Thursday night – Potluck Supper. Prayer and medication to follow.
* Title of a hymn book section: "Hymns suitable for burial.
* Today's Sermon: “How much can a person drink? with hymns from a full choir.'

If you’ve spotted any good bloopers in your church bulletin or newsletter, or anywhere else for that matter, please send them to me. ralphmilton@woodlake.com

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Wish I’d Said That! – Whenever someone does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest of motives.
Oscar Wilde

I never know how much of what I say is true.
Bettle Midler

Memory is what makes you wonder what you forgot to do.
source unknown, via Evelyn McLachlan.

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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “more or less specific!”)
Here are several very important but often forgotten rules of English which should be scrupulously observed when writing sermons, newsletter articles, shopping lists, or whatever.
This little list has been around Rumors at least once before, but I found it in the barrel and thought it deserved another go-round.
* Avoid alliteration. Always. * Prepositions are not words to end sentences with. * Avoid clichés like the plague. (They’re old hat.)
* Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc. * Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary. * It is wrong to ever split an infinitive. * Contractions aren’t necessary. * Foreign words and phrases are not apropos. * One should never generalize. * Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous. * Be more or less specific. * Understatement is always best. * Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement. * Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake. * The passive voice is to be avoided. * Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms. * Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
* Don’t never use no double negatives.

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Bottom of the Barrel – Seems the Oxford philosophy exam “normally requires an eight page essay answer, studded with source material, quotes and analytical reasoning.
But one student handed the following back and aced the exam :
Oxford Examination Board 1987 Essay Question:
1.1a What is courage? (50Marks)
Answer: This is courage.

If you don’t get it, go lie down for awhile and it’ll come to you.

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Information and Stuff – (Read this section only if you want to know about subscribing, unsubscribing or quoting stuff from Rumors.) It would be nice if you could give Rumors a plug in your bulletin or newsletter. Please invite your friends (and even your enemies) to subscribe. There's no charge: RUMORS is free and it comes to your e-mail box every Sunday morning. Just send your friends the instructions to subscribe [below], and include an invitation to join the list ... perhaps something like this: “There’s a lively and fun newsletter called RUMORS which is available at no cost on the net. It’s for ‘Christians with a sense of humor’.” Please add the instructions to subscribe [below]. If you have a friend you think would enjoy Rumors, and you’d rather not give them the subscribing instructions below, send me an e-mail at ralphmilton@woodlake.com and give me the e-mail address of your friend. If you are using something from Rumors in your sermon, give credit only as appropriate, without stopping the sermon dead in its tracks. I am delighted when Rumors is useful in the life and work of the church. As long as it is within your congregation or parish, you don’t need permission. You are welcome to use the stuff in church bulletins or newsletters. Please say where it came from, and please invite people to subscribe to RUMORS. An appropriate credit line would be; “From Ralph Milton's RUMORS, a free Internet ‘e-zine’ for Christians with a sense of humor." ... and please be sure to include these instructions to subscribe to RUMORS: To Subscribe:* Send an e-mail to: rumors-subscribe@joinhands.com
* Don't put anything else in that e-mail
To Unsubscribe:
* Send an e-mail to: rumors-unsubscribe@joinhands.com
* Don’t put anything else in that e-mail* If you are changing e-mail addresses, and your old address will no longer be in service, you do not need to unsubscribe. The sending computer will try a few times, and then give up..~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Please Write – If you respond, react, think about, freak-out, or otherwise have things happen in your head as a result of reading the above, please send a note to: ralphmilton@woodlake.com
Who knows, I might quote you in a future issue of RUMORS.All material is copyright © Ralph Milton.

Preaching Materials for October 5, 2008

R U M O R S #521
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2008-09-28

September 28, 2008

HEARING THE STORY
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Motto:
"A merry heart doeth good, like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones." (Proverbs 17:22 KJV)
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Do you know someone who should be receiving Rumors? There’s a blurb at the bottom of this e-mail that you can simply copy and mail to said friend. Along with your glowing reports of the sheer and utter brilliance of what they will receive.

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Next Week’s Readings – a troublesome allegory
Rumors – poor old Pericles
Soft Edges –
We Get Letters – you’re next
Mirabile Dictu! – a comfy mattress
Bottom of the Barrel – the sound of music
Stuff – (read this only if you would like to subscribe, unsubscribe or are wondering about permissions. That sort of boring stuff.)

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Rib Tickler – This tidbit could have a hundred different punch lines. Put in the name of your own denomination where I’ve put mine.
A kindergarten teacher asked the students to bring something that was related to their religion to class. At the appropriate time, she asked the children to come forward and share with the rest of the students.
The first child said, "I am Muslim and this is my prayer rug."
The second child said, "I am Jewish and this is my Star of David."
The third child said, "I am Catholic and this is my rosary."
The final child said, "I am United Church and this is my casserole."
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Next Week’s Readings – If your church uses the Revised Common Lectionary, these are the readings you will probably hear in church this coming Sunday, October 5, 2008 which is Proper 22 [27].

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20 – The legend has it that Moses carried the tablets containing the Ten Commandments down the mountain. That’s what Charlton Heston did in the movie – although his tablets were made of Styrofoam. The legendary Moses must have had the muscles of an Olympic weight-lifter. Is there such a thing as spiritual sterioids?
Everyone says they obey the commandments Moses dragged down that mountain, but very few (me included) can recite all ten. And the ones we remember, we get wrong. Such as; “Humor they father and they mother.”
The verses left out of the reading are elaborations on the commandments. Apparently the folks who designed the lectionary thought we had a short attention span. They were probably right.
In spite of what some folks claim, the gospel of Christ doesn’t make these commandments unnecessary. It is true, that if you genuinely love God, you don’t need commandments, but few of us are able to live in that love consistently. And we need rules for some very practical reasons.
Living without some rules would be like suggesting that we need no traffic laws. Everyone will simply be polite and considerate. Can you imagine the gridlock? Can you imagine a four-way stop intersection where there is no rule about who goes first? Can you imagine a family with no ground rules?
So we need rules. In fact we live by far more rules than we realize. The trick, I suppose, is to have as few rules and possible, and make those really, really simple. Of course, that would put a lot of lawyers out of business.

Psalm 19 -- paraphrased by Jim Taylor
Feeling Anger
1 Quarks and electrons, crystals and cells;
stems and trunks and limbs and bodies--
2 on the land, in the water, in the air--
the elements of the universe wait to expand our understanding.
3 Rocks have no words, nor do cells have syllables,
4 yet their message can be read anywhere.
Even the fiery stars,
5 racing at unimaginable speeds through space,
6 yield their secrets to those willing to probe the limits of God's universe.
7 And what do they find?
An underlying harmony, a delicate equilibrium
built on the value of every thing,
living or inanimate, past, present, and future.
8 There are no exceptions.
No one is above the law of interdependence.
9 Life dies and becomes new life;
spirit and flesh are one.
My fate is inextricably linked to yours,
and our fate to the trees and insects.
10 This is the beginning of wisdom.
It is better than wealth, more valuable than possessions.
11 Awareness of it will change you forever.
12 But we are too often blind;
we close our ears to the voices of the winds and the waves, to the insights of the rocks and the plants.
13 God, keep us from thinking we know it all;
human minds cannot encompass eternity;
an assembly of facts does not equal truth.
14 Keep us always open to wonder, to beauty, to mystery,
O greatest of mysteries.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com

Philippians 3:4b-14 – Here’s Paul bragging about his “credentials.” But then he says he regards them all as “rubbish.” I think the original Greek word referred to something more smelly.
The only validity Paul has is his faith in Christ, and his struggle to live that faith. It’s a tough job, and I find it comforting that even St. Paul had trouble getting it right.
It begs the question – what credentials do we have to talk about matters of faith?

The Story – Getting It Right -- Matthew 21:33-46

JIM’S BLURB

Some Christians read this parable as an allegory – that the tenants are the Jews, but they didn’t produce for the landowner and killed his slaves (i.e. prophets) and even his son (i.e. Jesus).
So God took the “vineyard” away from them and gave it to us, the Christians.
That may well have been the original intent of the story, in which case we shouldn’t try to turn it into something else. The problem is, some pretty rank anti-Semitism has been, and still is justified by this parable.
OK, so for the sake of argument, let’s just accept that understanding of this story. The Jews messed up their mandate. Have we Christians done any better? You’d have a tough sell trying to convince me of that.
Are we all tarred with the same brush? Because some Jews and some Christians have mangled their mandate, are all of us guilty?
And is God’s love contingent on getting our theology right?
Ralph Milton

A children’s version of the story of the Ten Commandments is found in “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year A,” page 213. A paraphrase of Psalm 19 is on page 215. The story based on the reading from Matthew is on page 216.
If you don’t already own a copy of “The Lectionary Story Bible,” click the main Wood Lake Publications website at www.woodlakebooks.com, or click on the following address which takes you directly to the “Lectionary Story Bible.” Year A and Year B are now available. Year C will be out next spring.
http://tinyurl.com/2lonod

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Rumors – Before creeping decrepitude and escalating costs made us stop, Bev and I would find ourselves in Ashland, Oregon, at the Shakespeare festival every two or three years.
We saw many, many memorable performances. One that I particularly enjoyed was “Pericles.” If you are a Shakespeare aficionado, you’ll know that it’s not one of Willie’s best. The plot might have been dreamed up by a 13-year-old romantic.
Some scholars claim it’s only the last part that the old bard wrote himself. Or that someone else wrote the thing and Shakespeare just tarted it up a little. Reading it before the performance, I was underwhelmed. If we hadn’t already bought the tickets, I don’t think I’d have gone.
Talk about making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. The theatrical artists in Ashland had this old sot dribbling tears into his gray beard. An Elizabethan soap opera was turned into a moving parable of family love.
Rather than cynically picking the play apart, as I did in my reading, those actors put themselves fully into the story and were able to find the power and meaning and tenderness that was there under a plot that strains your credibility to the breaking point.
Those who have ears to see and hear, will receive the gift.
From time to time (Probably way too often!) you’ve heard me express my impatience with the way some biblical scholars, those on the far right and those on the far left, miss the point of the holy story.
Pericles is not scripture, by any stretch of the imagination, but my approach to it missed the point of it all, in the same way. Any half-baked scholar can pick all kinds of holes in Pericles.
It’s an old Greek legend, and not a very good one either. Shakespeare’s telling is full of anachronisms. But those artists in Ashland stopped my nit-picking, took me inside the story, and it spoke to my heart first, and then later on in reflecting on it, to my mind.
Biblical scholars on the far right and on the far left make the same basic mistake. They focus on the history, one side claiming it is all historical fact and the other side claiming hardly any of it is. The argument is interesting, but it’s a side issue. And if we focus on those questions, we tend to miss the voice of God speaking to our hearts first, then secondly to our minds, from deep inside the story.
If we let the story into our hearts, let it soak into our psyche, then we can go back and consider, if we really must, how much is history and how much is not. Our answer to the historicity question may enrich, but it will not alter, our encounter with God who speaks to us from deep inside the story.
It feels dangerous to do that. You are no longer in control when you park your analytical anxiety and just allow yourself to move inside a story. It takes trust. Trust in the story. Trust in the storyteller. It takes courage too – courage to sell everything you have. In the end, you may find the pearl of great price. Or you may not.
The story told in Matthew of the master and the servants in the vineyard can easily lead us into futile argument about the relative faithfulness of the Jewish and Christian communities. Inevitably we compare the best of our own tradition with the worst of the other’s.
Possibly the story might work for us if we allow it to speak to our own lives – about our tending of the vineyard of the life God has given us.
That could be interesting. And frightening!

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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor


If you have comments or questions about Jim’s column, write to him directly at jimt@quixotic.ca. Jim also does another weekly column called “Sharp Edges” which is published in our daily newspaper. It has a stronger political-social justice content. If you’d like to receive Sharp Edges, send Jim a note at the address above. Or go to Jim’s web page at: http://edges.canadahomepage.net/index.php . Click on Sharp Edges or Soft Edges or whatever else you might like to read.

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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – from the file
* The Passing of the Peach. . .* Church of Fatter Day Saints ...* Evangelical Fee Church ....
If you’ve spotted any good bloopers in your church bulletin or newsletter, or anywhere else for that matter, please send them to me. ralphmilton@woodlake.com

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Wish I’d Said That! – There is no limit to what can be accomplished if it doesn't matter who gets the credit.
Ralph Waldo Emerson via Evelyn McLachlan

For certain people, after fifty, litigation takes the place of sex.
Gore Vidal

Just as God courteously forgives our sin after we change our ways, so also does God want us to forgive our sin instead of falling into a false meekness that is really a foul blindness and weakness due to fear.
Julian of Norwich

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We Get Letters – Dave Towers writes: A friend told me that when he was younger he hated going to weddings.
It seemed that all his aunts and the grandmotherly types used to come up to him, poke him in the ribs and cackle, telling him, 'You’re next!”
They stopped after he started doing the same thing to them at funerals.

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Mirabile Dictu! – This is also from Dave Towers, who advises us to “read slowly. It may take a while for the light to shine.”

* Arbitrator: A cook that leaves Arby's to work at McDonalds
* Avoidable: What a bullfighter tried to do
* Bernadette: The act of torching a mortgage
* Eclipse: What an English barber does for a living
* Eyedropper: A clumsy ophthalmologist
* Heros: What a guy in a boat does
* Misty: How golfers create divots
* Paradox: Two physicians
* Pharmacist: A helper on the farm
* Polarize: What penguins see with
* Relief: What trees do in the spring
* Rubberneck: What you do to relax your wife
* Selfish: What the owner of a seafood store does
* Sudafed: Brought litigation against a government official

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Bottom of the Barrel – Somebody sent this to me. In the mix-up with malfunctioning computers the name of that person got lost (John Seveson, maybe?). But rather than feeling guilty, I am claiming a “senior’s moment.”
Maybe it’s just as well I can’t remember. Whoever sent this, should hang his/her/its head in shame.

Bob and Betty Hill were vacationing in Transylvania. Driving along a twisted road late at night, the car went out of control and slammed into a tree.
Bob Hill is dazed. He looks over at Betty. She’s unconscious.
Summoning every bit of strength he has, Bob picks Betty up and carries her to a tiny farmhouse where he sees a light.
He knocks on the door and soon a small, bent-over man answers.
Bob can hardly talk by now, but he blurts out, “My name is Bob Hill and this is my wife Betty Hill. We need help!”
At that, Bob collapses on the floor. “Master!” yells the bent-over man. “These people need help!”
Down the stairs comes a distinguished looking man, with grey hair and a well-trimmed beard. He kneels down beside the couple and checks first one pulse, and then the other. “They are both dead,” he says to the bent-over man. “We’ll take them into the town in the morning.”
With that, the man goes back upstairs. He picks up his flute and begins to play a slow, haunting melody. The bent over man sits down on a chair and stares at the two corpses.
As the music floats down from above, the bent-over man notices something. Bob Hill is moving. Just a little, but he is moving. And then Betty Hill begins to move. Just a little, but she is moving.
“Master! Master!” yells the bent-over man. “The Hills are alive with the sound of music.”

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Information and Stuff – (Read this section only if you want to know about subscribing, unsubscribing or quoting stuff from Rumors.) It would be nice if you could give Rumors a plug in your bulletin or newsletter. Please invite your friends (and even your enemies) to subscribe. There's no charge: RUMORS is free and it comes to your e-mail box every Sunday morning. Just send your friends the instructions to subscribe [below], and include an invitation to join the list ... perhaps something like this: “There’s a lively and fun newsletter called RUMORS which is available at no cost on the net. It’s for ‘Christians with a sense of humor’.” Please add the instructions to subscribe [below]. If you have a friend you think would enjoy Rumors, and you’d rather not give them the subscribing instructions below, send me an e-mail at ralphmilton@woodlake.com and give me the e-mail address of your friend. If you are using something from Rumors in your sermon, give credit only as appropriate, without stopping the sermon dead in its tracks. I am delighted when Rumors is useful in the life and work of the church. As long as it is within your congregation or parish, you don’t need permission. You are welcome to use the stuff in church bulletins or newsletters. Please say where it came from, and please invite people to subscribe to RUMORS. An appropriate credit line would be; “From Ralph Milton's RUMORS, a free Internet ‘e-zine’ for Christians with a sense of humor." ... and please be sure to include these instructions to subscribe to RUMORS: To Subscribe:* Send an e-mail to: rumors-subscribe@joinhands.com
* Don't put anything else in that e-mail
To Unsubscribe:
* Send an e-mail to: rumors-unsubscribe@joinhands.com
* Don’t put anything else in that e-mail* If you are changing e-mail addresses, and your old address will no longer be in service, you do not need to unsubscribe. The sending computer will try a few times, and then give up..~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Please Write – If you respond, react, think about, freak-out, or otherwise have things happen in your head as a result of reading the above, please send a note to: ralphmilton@woodlake.com
Who knows, I might quote you in a future issue of RUMORS.All material is copyright © Ralph Milton.

Preaching Materials for September 28th, 2008

R U M O R S # 520
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2008-09-21

September 21, 2008

WATER FROM A ROCK

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Motto:
"A merry heart doeth good, like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones." (Proverbs 17:22 KJV)
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Do you know someone who should be receiving Rumors? There’s a blurb at the bottom of this e-mail that you can simply copy and mail to said friend. Along with your glowing reports of the sheer and utter brilliance of what they will receive.

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Next Week’s Readings – bread in the desert
Rumors – the wish book
Soft Edges – repeating patterns
Mirabile Dictu! – born to be wild
Bottom of the Barrel – pass me the juice, Bruce
Stuff – (read this only if you would like to subscribe, unsubscribe or are wondering about permissions. That sort of boring stuff.)

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Rib Tickler – The village pastor was known for his weakness for trout. He loved trout and he loved to fish. “But not on Sunday!” he preached in the sermon.
The next day one of his members presented him with a fine string of fish. "I guess I ought to tell you, parson, that those trout were caught on Sunday."
The minister hesitated, gazed appreciatively at the speckled trout. And he accepted the gift.
"The fish aren't to blame for that," he said piously.
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Next Week’s Readings – If your church uses the Revised Common Lectionary, these are the readings you will probably hear in church this coming Sunday, September 28th which is Proper 21 [26].

September 28, 2008
Exodus 17:1-7 – water from a rock
Matthew 21:23-32 – parable of the two sons
I’m really tempted to preach on Matthew’s Parable of the Two Sons. We had two children – a son and a daughter, not two sons – who fitted the pattern perfectly. One typically promised to help, and disappeared. The other had other things to do, but came out and helped rake the yard anyway.
I suspect everyone else has family members, or friends, who fit the pattern too. They can fill in their own blanks.
But I think I need to keep on telling the Moses story – he is such a dominant figure in the Bible. In the past weeks, Moses saves the Hebrew people’s firstborn from death; he provides quail and manna to banish starvation; he makes the Red Sea split apart; now he produces water out of a solid rock.
Explanations are irrelevant – these are miracles; they need to be treated as miracles, not as events that need explanation. If your child runs out on the street after a ball, and a car slams to a stop just in time, you don’t ask for explanations about antilock brake systems or sticky tires. You thank God and call it a miracle.
When we demand explanations – be they scientific, social, or psychological – we miss the point. Miracles are signs of God’s grace, things that ought not to happen, but they do. Don’t try to understand them; accept them; be grateful.
Jim Taylor

The Story: Expectations vs. reality – Exodus 17:1-7
The Israelites wanted out of Egypt. So God, working through Moses, helped them get out. But once they were out, they began bellyaching. Expectations turned sour in the face of reality.
Each of us can tell similar stories, about when the reality didn’t live up to the advertising. Or how the relationship went sour once the “honeymoon” was over. Both Canada and the US are in the middle of national election campaigns. The safest prediction I can make is that after the elections are over, the reality will not live up to the promises.
Which is true of almost all advertising. The product seldom lives up to the hype. Like herb tea – the smell is better than the taste.
Years ago at a wedding Bev said to the couple, “You have promised each other that your commitment is ‘for better and for worse.’ I can’t promise you that it will get any better than this. But it will get worse.”
Jim Taylor sometimes asks aspiring authors, “Do you want to write a book or do you want to have written a book?” In other words, is it the glory and honor you are looking for, or are you interested in doing the hard, sometimes exhausting job of writing that a book requires?
If you’ve ever been in a leadership role, or followed a leader, you’ll know how initial dreams and expectations tend to dry up in the desert of reality. Most often, God’s call is not to be a triumphant warrior riding into spiritual battle. The call is to keep on, living faith bit by bit and day by day. Hanging in there, through 40 years in the wilderness.
Crossing the Red Sea, finding manna and water – those are the easy parts.
The toughest call to answer is God’s call to faithfulness.
Ralph Milton

Psalm 78:1-4, 15-16 – We all need family histories. No one is so poor as the person with no roots.
1 If I say, "Once upon a time," everyone knows a story is starting.
2 I do not know the meanings of my stories;
I merely pass them on as they were passed to me.
3 Only you can decide what they mean to you.
4 This is our story. This is where we came from.
When you hear this story, you must also tell it,
so that others may also know where they came from.
5 Our story is not limited to our own lives.
We belong to a long line of travelers, snaking in single file through history;
We bear with us the beliefs, the convictions, the experiences
bequeathed to us by those who passed this way before.
From Abraham and Sarah, from Rachel and Jacob, from David and Bathsheba, from Mary and Jesus, we learn our family story.
6 Only by knowing where we have come from can we know where we are going.
7 Only by knowing who we are can we know that God is with us.

12 Once upon a time, we were slaves.
We were exploited for economic growth, and held captive by capital.
13 But God freed us from the prisons of our past.
God flung open our minds, and let us see new possibilities.
14 By signs and symbols, God led us to new life.
15 In arid canyons of crisis, God showed us how to drink deeply of life.
16 In barren wastelands of despair, God gave us joy.

Philippians 2:1-13 – Whenever a passage really bothers me, I know (from long experience) that I should pay particular attention. Here, it’s the 5th verse that gets me. “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”
What is this? Some kind of brain transplant? I’m told I need to see things the way Jesus saw them, but how can I do that?
I’m Ralph, not Jesus!
And that’s the cop-out. If I work at it, I can learn to see things the way Jesus did, or at least I can if I can get my mind and heart into Jesus’ values. Never fully. It’s always a struggle.
This passage is about faithfulness in the struggle. I may be on my hands and knees but I need to make sure my nose is pointed in the right direction.

Matthew 21:23-32 – The group confronting Jesus in the passage was basically saying, “Who the heck do you think you are? What right have you got to talk like this?”
Which is not an unreasonable question, or it would not have been unreasonable if they had genuinely wanted an answer. They were mostly trying to put Jesus on the spot, so he put them on the spot. Not a very productive exchange.
Their question is valid. Where do we get our authority? For instance, what gives me the right to impose this electronic rag on 7,500 people every week?
What gives a preacher the right to stand in the pulpit every Sunday?
The answer seems weak, but there it is.
We are called. God help us, we are called.

For a children’s version of the Exodus story see “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year A,” page 209, “We Want a Drink. The Matthew passage called, “The Sister and the Brother” is on page 211. If you don’t already own this book, click the main Wood Lake Publications website at www.woodlakebooks.com, or click on the following address which takes you directly to the “Lectionary Story Bible.” Both Year A and Year B are now available.http://tinyurl.com/2lonod

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Rumors – Yes, I know. It is only September. It is too early to be doing Christmas stuff. Except that it isn’t.
There’s only 138,240.397 shopping minutes left! I’ll bet you didn’t know that!
Christmassy stuff is already appearing in the stores. And the biggest symbol of all arrived more than a month ago. The Wish Book.
It is possible that some of you living in the underdeveloped part of the world, beyond the pale of higher civilization, may not know the Wish Book. It’s a catalogue. A Christmas catalogue. And it arrives while we are still sitting on the beach sipping cold sodas!
It brings back memories of my grandkids, when they were small, flipping through the huge toy section and absolutely, desperately wanting every single thing they saw.
It works. The Wish Book does exactly what it is intended to do. Sell to the kids, but in such a way that they can poke the parents’ guilt buttons. Mom and dad must know that they will not be “good parents” unless they buy everything the child asks for. Advertisers will tell you they are simply offering information so that the customer can make up his/her mind. Piffle!! Hogwash.
Advertising is about manipulating the emotions so that the customer feels a desperate need to acquire the items in question. They work on our fear. They sell fear, in the form of guilt. The message of the advertising is clear. We will not be acceptable, responsible, or loved, unless we buy. We will not make the grade as parents (or grandparents) in the eyes of our children, in the eyes of our friends, in our own eyes. Not even God’s eyes unless we buy.
And like all addictions, the consumerist addiction constantly needs a bigger and bigger fix, because it never fully satisfies. Advertising can never deliver the acceptance, the fulfillment, the joy it promises. The solution of course, is to buy even more.
It’s a bit like the politicos out there on the hustings saying in effect, “We didn’t deliver on our promises last time, but we will this time. We promise. Just vote for us again.”
It’s not surprising that Christianity has such an uphill battle to gain credibility. The Christian faith has a central concept called Grace, which says you are acceptable, responsible and loved, just as you are. It’s a gift. Free. No charge. You don’t have to buy anything or vote for anyone. Grace is there for you, whether you want it or not. Whether you believe it or not.
Christmas isn’t coming. It is here. It’s not too early to start working on it. There is water in the wilderness of Christmas hype. It is possible to put on the mind of Christ in a way that helps us receive the real gift of Christmas.

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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Repeating Patterns
We human beings are perverse creatures.
In summer, we long for cooler temperatures; when autumn comes, we bundle up and recall summer with nostalgia.
As an introvert, I find crowds exhausting. An uninterrupted string of meetings leaves me edgy, almost angry. But give me a few days of twiddling my thumbs or fussing with Sudoku puzzles and I get restless, bored, fretting for something useful to do.
And then there’s e-mail...
For years, I’ve ranted about unsolicited e-mail, commonly called spam. Because I post my columns to web pages on the Internet, I invite readers to contact me with their comments. That means providing an e-mail address. Nasty things called “web crawlers” scour those web pages for combinations of letters that look like e-mail addresses. They find mine; they add it to their databases; I get spam.
Lots of spam. Several hundred pieces a day, in fact.
And I hated it.
Then my friend Ralph Milton told me about a program called Cloudmark. It costs about $40 a year. And it works spectacularly well! It checks incoming mail against its own vast database, somewhere. If I flag something as unwanted, it adds that sender and subject to its database.
In the beginning, it missed occasionally – it let through perhaps one spam message a day. More recently, it has only failed me once.
So of course, the volume of mail reaching my inbox has decreased dramatically.
And now I’m feeling neglected.
I open my e-mail program, and I’m disappointed that I have no messages waiting for me. I keep going back to the program, hoping something new has come in.
Strange, isn’t it?
But not unusual. At various times of crisis in my life – losing a job, the death of our son or a parent, tense times in our marriage – I’ve wondered if I can stand one more shattering experience. And yet those have been the times when I have become most conscious of God’s presence in my life. Unhappy circumstances have forced me to re-assess my values, re-think my standards, re-evaluate my relationships...
At such times, I have felt what former United Church moderator Dr. Bob McClure referred to as a hand in the small of my back, pushing me where I didn’t necessarily want to go.
Then the crises pass. I coast along comfortably. Life is good.
And one day, I wonder why I haven’t heard from God for some time.
According to the biblical book of Deuteronomy, Moses warned the Hebrew slaves out in the desert that this cycle would repeat through history, over and over. “Because you believe in me,” God told them (if I may paraphrase a much longer speech in chapter 8), “you will prosper. When you prosper, you will forget about me; you will think you succeeded because of your own efforts. Then misfortune will fall upon you, and you will turn to me again.”
In a perverse sort of way, I find that comforting. I’m not the only one who’s had this experience.

If you have comments or questions about Jim’s column, write to him directly at jimt@quixotic.ca. Jim also does another weekly column called “Sharp Edges” which is published in our daily newspaper. It has a stronger political-social justice content. If you’d like to receive Sharp Edges, send Jim a note at the address above. Or go to Jim’s web page at: http://edges.canadahomepage.net/index.php . Click on Sharp Edges or Soft Edges or whatever else you might like to read.

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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – from the file
* The Advent Retreat will be held in the lover level of St. Mary's Cathedral.
* The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new tithing campaign slogan last Sunday: "I Upped My Pledge – Up Yours!"
* The choir will disrobe for the summer months and join us in the pews.

If you’ve spotted any good bloopers in your church bulletin or newsletter, or anywhere else for that matter, please send them to me. ralphmilton@woodlake.com

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Wish I’d Said That! – Live your life in such a way that when your feet hit the floor in the morning, Satan shudders and says, 'Oh shoot! She's awake!!'
from somewhere on the internet, via Jim Spinks

Uncontrolled anger lashes out; controlled anger is a powerful force for change.
Jim Taylor via Cliff Bolt

After all is said and done, there's a lot more said than done.
source unknown, via Evelyn McLachlan

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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “born to be wild!”) These biblical theme songs via Evelyn McLachlan.
* Noah: "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head"
* Adam and Eve: "Strangers in Paradise"
* Lazarus: "The Second Time Around"
* Esther: "I Feel Pretty"
* Job: "I've Got a Right to Sing the Blues"
* Moses: "The Wanderer"
* Jezebel: "The Lady is a Tramp"
* Samson: "Hair"
* Salome: "I Could Have Danced All Night"
* Daniel: "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"
* Esau: "Born To Be Wild"
* Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: "Great Balls of Fire!"
* The Three Kings: "When You Wish Upon a Star"
* Jonah: "Got a Whale of a Tale"
* Elijah: "Up, Up, and Away"
* Methuselah: "Stayin' Alive"
* Nebuchadnezzar: "Crazy"

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Bottom of the Barrel – John Severson should be hiding under the bed after sending this one.
Two elderly Jewish men, Sid and Al, are sitting in an Oslo restaurant one day. Sid asks Al, 'Do you know of any people of our faith born and raised in Norway?'
“I don't know,” says Al. “Let's ask our waiter.”
When the waiter arrives, Al asks, 'Say Ole, are there any Norwegian Jews in Oslo?'
'I don't know sir,’ says Ole. ‘I ask the cooks.'
He returns from the kitchen after a few minutes and says, 'No sir, the cooks say there is no Norwegian Jews.'
Al isn't satisfied and asks, 'Are you absolutely sure?' Ole's waiter, realizing he is dealing with foreigners replies, 'I check once again, sir!' and goes back into the kitchen.
While the waiter is away, Sid says, 'I find it hard to believe that there are no Jews in Norway. Our people are scattered everywhere.'
Ole returns and says, 'Sir, the head cook Thor say there is no Norwegian Jews.'
'Are you certain?' Al asks again. 'I just can't believe there are no Norwegian Jews!'
'Sir, I ask everyone,' replies the exasperated Ole, 'All we have is Orange Jews, Grape Jews, Prune Jews, Grapefruit Jews and Tomato Jews.

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