R U M O R S # 482
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2007-12-30
December 30, 2007
CAMEL SICKNESS
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Motto:
Id quot circumiret, circumveniat.*
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I post each issue of Rumors on that blog so that you can access it any time. And if an issue of Rumors goes missing, you can go and find it there.
Thanks.
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Next Week’s Readings – preserving status and privilege
Rumors – the magi – we have seen the face of love
Soft Edges – acting in unison
Bloopers – more than a dram or two
Mirabile Dictu! – beery work
Bottom of the Barrel – reunion
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 – One of the joys of the Christmas season is that we have children coming to church who have not yet been totally indoctrinated.
Peggy Neufeld tells the story of a Sunday school teacher who said to her children, "We have been learning how powerful kings and queens were in Bible times. But, there is a higher power. Can anybody tell me what it is?"
A hand went up quickly. "Aces!"~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you will probably hear in church this coming Sunday, January 6th, if you are using the Revised Common Lectionary. This is Epiphany Sunday.
Isaiah 60:1-6 – You see, the problem is that irrelevancies pop into my head long before anything else. I mean, how is “thick darkness” (v.2) different from “thin darkness”? And what would it smell like to be covered by a “multitude of camels” (v.6)? I mean, I’ve encountered those beasts, close up and personal!
The passage is in the lectionary because of the reference to “gold and frankincense” in verse 6 (right after those smelly camels) and therefore a connection to Matthew’s story of the Magi.
But the most useful phrase is probably in verse 4 – “Nations shall come to your light.” Is our light incandescent – in that it uses a lot of energy and burns out quickly, or florescent that burns long and brightly and cool? Which must a sermon illustration of some sort.
The passage seems to be telling me that my spirituality should be attractive and bright – a spirituality that people will notice and feel drawn to. But the line between that and spiritual exhibitionism is very fuzzy.
Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
Politicians who get caught playing hanky-panky and businessmen who make bad investments that we (through our governments) bail out for billions of dollars – such people outrage us, because they fail to follow the standards they expect of us.
1 If only powerful people could be more like you, God.
2 They would apply the same standards to their own lives that they demand of those who depend on them.
3 Then office environments would help employees enjoy working;
press releases would tell the truth;
industrial wastes would not defile the world.
4 Powerful people would selflessly serve their constituencies;
they would not exploit for short term profit
those who have less money, less power, and less influence.
5 Such people would earn our long-term loyalty;
they would deserve to prosper.
7 Their radical example would make others reconsider their own attitudes.
10 All the world would recognize this remarkable approach;
11 all the world would come to see how it is done.
12 Amazing–people in positions of power
who do not manipulate events for their own benefit;
they do what they do for the least of their customers;
13 they treat single mothers, natives, immigrants, and teenagers
as people of worth,
not merely as potential consumers.
14 For them there are no mass markets;
every individual is precious as a person.
6 We need that kind of leadership.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
Ephesians 3:1-12 – The book of Acts and Paul’s own writings tell us that he never saw Jesus in the flesh. Which is one of the reasons his writing is helpful to us, because neither have we.
Paul seems not at all interested in the life and teachings of Jesus. His one reference to the life of Jesus is his recounting of the origins of the Last Supper (1 Corinthians 11:23-25). I’m sure he must have heard some of the stories of Jesus from the other apostles, but he doesn’t mention them. It’s only Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection that interest him.
He addresses the central question – the question only humans can ask. “What’s it all about?” “Does our life have any meaning?”
Paul helps us get a small peek through the curtain of death to help us see what’s on the other side. It’s through Paul we can know that there is beauty and meaning and purpose and love on the other side. And it’s our job to live with that consciousness.
Matthew 2:1-12 – (See “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year A,” page 42.)
The legend of the Magi has grown over the years to the point where our popular representation of it has only a lose connection to the story as Matthew told it.
Which is fine with me. Because the details, whether there is any historical basis to the story or not, are about people of the highest possible status coming to worship and bring expensive gifts to a low, low status baby. And we need to tell the story over and over again to get that fundamental idea into our heads.
But it’s also about the powers represented by Herod – people who are determined to preserve status and privilege at any cost. And just how far that power lust will go is there in the story of the slaughter of the innocents, which the lectionary had us reading last Sunday when it properly belongs after the visit of the magi. Go figure.
The Christmas story without that excruciatingly painful story becomes a sweet tale without much connection to reality. It is warm fuzzy story about poor but noble parents who had a beautiful baby who was born in a nice sanitary stable among contented beasts. The shepherds came to admire him and the magi came to bring him expensive gifts, and he lived happily ever after.
There are children’s stories for every Sunday in the Lectionary, in “The Lectionary Story Bible,” by yours truly. The marvellous illustrations are by Margaret Kyle. There’s at least one story for each Sunday, usually two, and occasionally three. Go to the main Wood Lake Publications website at www.woodlakebooks.com .
Or copy this address into your browser to get directly to the page about this book.:
http://www.woodlakebooks.com/search_results.taf?site_uid1=14958&hallway_uid1=14961&search_id=&catalog_uid1=&link_type_uid1=&person_id=&u_currency_id=127
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RUMORS – I am writing this issue of Rumors on Boxing Day, December 26th, having just taken daughter Grace to the bus depot, and still basking in the warmth of the last few days.
I received three wonderful gifts this Christmas. The greatest was all my kids and grandkids together, being family. The big dinner was Christmas Eve, when Zoë and Jake traditionally chose the menu. For years it’s been Kraft Dinner, but this time it was hamburgers – a sign of creeping teenage-itis. Then we all went to church and worshipped together as we heard and sang that ancient tale.
The other two were gifts of kindness and thoughtfulness, symbolized by the gift of a donation made to Naramata Centre on my behalf. That’s a Christian training centre where Bev and I and our family have experienced much growth and joy over the years.
The other was a goat. From “one old goat to another” said the card. That was from Bev and it was the donation of the price of a goat to help a third-world family. This was done through the 10,000 Villages organization.
So here I am on the day after Christmas and nothing surfaces that I want to write to you about in this space.
Anyway, I’d much rather share my “Aggada” on the visit of the Magi.
The Magi – we have seen the face of love."
"I don't feel well."
"Breath deeply, Caspar, and keep your eye on the horizon. You'll feel better." There was a hint of impatience in the old man's voice. This conversation had been repeated every day for a month.
"It's all right for you, Melchior," the younger Caspar moaned. "You're used to these ghastly beasts. Why aren't we riding horses? They don't sway like camels and they don't stink like camels."
"Stop complaining," Balthasar joined the conversation. "Get down and walk for awhile, if you must. We're on a journey to find God's chosen one, and you can't talk about anything except your queasy insides."
Caspar was silenced but he wasn't convinced. He was the junior member of the trio of Magi, on a long journey of faith from their comfortable home in Persia to . . . Caspar had no idea where to.
Months before, he had stood with the older astrologers in the clear night of the desert, gazing at the stars, studying their movements, until one day they all agreed, there was a sign.
"Do you see it," Melchior said breathlessly. "Mesori, or Sirius, the dog star is rising with the sun. Do you see its brilliance?"
"Mesori!" Caspar said the words with excitement. "The name means 'birth of a prince.'"
"It is said by the wise ones of many nations that a king will be born in Judea."
"Then we must go and search for this king," said Balthasar. "We must go now and pay homage to this king of all kings."
So here they were, trekking across the desert on camels that gave Caspar motion sickness. They had been underway for a month now, and it seemed to Caspar that the only thing that kept them going was grim determination. Caspar would have turned and headed home long ago, but he didn't know the way back. Besides, alone in the wilderness, he would soon have been robbed and killed by a passing brigand. So Caspar commanded his camel to kneel, got off, and walked for awhile. It helped a little, but Caspar could think of a thousand things he would rather be doing.
Melchior's annoyance had melted into indulgent concern. "Patience, young Caspar," he said. "Tomorrow we will be in Jerusalem. There we will ask their sages for advice on where to search."
"I'm not looking forward to Jerusalem," said Balthasar. "We must be wary of King Herod. He is a sick and jealous tyrant. I have heard that in his jealousy, Herod killed two of his wives and three of his sons."
"Caesar Augusutus of Rome has said that it is safer to be Herod's pig than to be Herod's son." A disgusted smile crossed Melchior's face. Caspar shuddered a little, partly from the cold evening air, partly in anticipation of the visit to Jerusalem.
Oozing charm, Herod entertained the astrologers lavishly. He brought in his best astrologers as consultants, and determined that this new and great king was to be born in the city of David.
"Great David's greater son is to be born in Bethlehem, the least of the cities of Judah," one of the Jewish astrologers pronounced, after much consultation and searching of ancient texts.
"But there are no noble families in Bethlehem from which a king might be born," Herod protested.
"Some of the ancients have written that God's chosen one will be of humble birth," one of the sages replied.
Herod harrumphed a few times. "Well, sages have been mistaken before and may well be mistaken again." Herod was being elaborately indulgent. "So for tonight, rest awhile, and tomorrow go and find this young child that is born. And if...when you find the child, come and tell me so that I may go and worship him also."
A servant led the three astrologers to their quarters. As soon as the door was closed, Melchior whispered with fear and urgency. "We must go now. Tonight!. We will wait until deep in the night. Then we will go so that we reach Bethlehem at dawn."
"Why?" Caspar asked.
"Bethlehem is only one or two hours from here. We must go and find the child before Herod does." Caspar saw the fear and concern in the two older men. They had not been fooled by Herod's pretense.
It was several hours past midnight when they left Jerusalem – pushing, whipping their reluctant camels. "There must be many newborn children in Bethlehem," said Caspar. "How will we know which is God's chosen one?"
"Look!" Balthasar's whisper was almost a shout. A star had arisen in the east just as the first red glow of the sun brightened the sky. "And it's right over that house. There. That one on the hillside. Do you see it? It is Mesori leading us to the prince. To God's chosen one."
A few more whips against the camels flank and they were there. "Is anyone home?" Caspar called as he knocked on the door.
A frightened and somewhat pale man appeared at the door. "We have come in search of God's chosen one," said Melchior. "The sages, and God's star have led us here."
"A child has been born here," Joseph said cautiously. "He is a child like any child. But you may come and see him."
There was a long, full, silence as the wise and wealthy astrologers looked at the child that was any child and all children, at the mother who was any mother and all mothers, at Joseph who was any man and all men.
Caspar was the first to kneel. Before the child he placed a small bag of gold. "The gift of gold is for thee, O infant king."
Balthasar knelt beside him. "I bring thee frankincense, a sweet perfume, for thou art God's high priest."
Old Melchior was the last to kneel. His eyes filled with tears as he said, "And I must bring thee myrrh, to prepare thy body for burial. Because thou art chosen of God, many who fear and hate thee will seek to kill thee."
The look of fear crossed Joseph's face again. Melchior motioned him to follow. "Farewell, and God be with you," he said to Mary.
Outside the old man whispered urgently to Joseph, who them moved quickly back into the house. Balthasar was already on his mount. "On your camel, Caspar," Melchior commanded. "We must leave quickly."
"Couldn't we stay, just for an hour or so. I hardly got a look at the baby, and besides, I'm tired."
"Evil is strong, Caspar!" Melchior spoke with sadness. "Evil is strong and when God sends such a gift of love into the world, evil will try hard to destroy it. Evil lives in the hearts of the Herods and all like him who put their trust in wealth and power. Evil cannot live in the presence of love, and so always seeks to destroy it."
"But we have seen the face of God's love," said young Caspar. "I saw it in the face of that child. That child is God's chosen one, don't you think."
The old man smiled broadly through his fear. He reached out and gave the younger man a gentle hug.
(Yes, you are welcome to use this story in your church this Sunday. Change, adapt, fix – do what ever you need to do.)
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Acting in Unison
It’s holiday time, and I’m visiting Sharon and Katherine in Edmonton. So I resorted to the “old column barrel” for this one, which first ran in January 2000.
A flock of Bohemian waxwings descended on our mountain ash tree. Though I’m not sure that “flock” is the right word. “Flock” sounds so pastoral, so placid, so sheep-like. These birds showed up more like sharks feeding. Or like tow trucks converging on a highway accident.
One minute, the tree was loaded with bright red berries. The next, it stood bare naked and shivering in the winter wind. The waxwings left two – count’em, two – berries on the whole tree.
And then, just as suddenly as they arrived, the waxwings lifted off en masse. They circled in the sky a couple times. And they were gone.
The strange thing, to me, was that they didn’t seem to have a leader. Granted, one Bohemian waxwing looks pretty much like another from a distance. And I didn’t have much chance to get into conversation with any of them. But it didn’t look as if one bird landed on the tree, and then called to the others, “Hey, come on, you guys! This stuff is good!” They all arrived at once; they all left at once, as if a single mind motivated them.
When they left, they swirled around in the sky, forming and re-forming the constantly changing patterns in a kaleidoscope. First one bird was in front, then another. But they all wheeled and turned together as if they weren’t thirty, or forty, or fifty separate birds at all, but one bird, governed by a single collective mind.
One of my favorite biblical passages comes in Paul’s letter to the Christian church at Philippi. “Let the same mind be in you,” he wrote, “that was in Jesus Christ.”
Put in more colloquial terms, he was saying, “If Jesus is the head of the church, then all his followers should be so much like him that you even think like him.” We would all be like-minded.
Paul might be a little dismayed if he could see today’s Christian churches squabbling with each other. Some battles involve actions that matter in people’s lives today. Others, unfortunately, simply rehash abstract points of theology from past centuries that make no difference to anyone standing in a line at the only grocery store cashier who’s open.
I don’t suggest that all members of a faith group should become little robots, mindlessly listening for instructions from their master’s voice (like the RCA terrier seen on old vinyl record labels). Bland uniformity can be as boring as vanilla pudding.
But think of the impact that a group could have on society if an entire group could act quickly, decisively, and consistently. Compare the effect of one person alone… with a congregation of a hundred people… with an entire denomination of a million… with an international body of a hundred million…
With a true collective consciousness, we could act more like that flock of waxwings. No, not stripping mountain ash trees. But sharing the same ideals, the same values. And then changing the world.
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 – Somebody identified only as “db” writes: “Here's a blooper we caught just in time. Re Joseph:’and it came to him in a dram’.”
And I have it on reliable authority that a single letter in a word might have needed more than a dram or two, if it had made it past the proof-reading stage. It seems that a feature of the Christmas Eve service was to be “Panis Angelicus,” except that the typist has used an “e” rather than an “a” in the first word of that title.
Barry Groh of Salisbury, Maryland spotted a blooper right here in Rumors – a most unusual occurrence, I assure you. Barry says I wrote: “That takes me back to the second creation legend, Genesis 2:17, where Adam is told not to eat of the three ‘of the knowledge of good and evil’.”
So Barry wants to know, “What is the third?? If good and evil are two, what is the third?”
Well it’s obvious, Barry. There was Adam and Eve and the snake. That makes three. Right?
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! –
Some Methodist birds in the wood
Sang hymns whenever they could.
They were always in doubt
What the words were about,
But they thought it was doing them good.
Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Idolatry is having anything as an ultimate concern other than the well-being of the whole universe.
source unknown
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “beery work!”) A delightful Yuletide gift from John Cameron who sent along a wild collection of “spoonerisms.” These are transpositional gaffes where the first letters of some of the words are swapped.
These delightful mix-ups are attributed to the Rev. William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930), even though the poor man was really responsible for only one or two. The only one the Reverend Doctor admitted to was in announcing the hymn, “Conquering Kings Their Titles Take.” He said, “Kinkering Congs . . .
The legend might have been contained except that Spooner taught at New College, Oxford. His occasional “clerical errors” got the rumors going, and soon the students started inventing them.
Here’s the list that John sent.
* The phrase "a well-oiled bicycle" sounds quite innocuous, when Rev. Spooner said it, the phrase came out "a well-boiled icicle"
* He reprimanded one student for "fighting a liar in the quadrangle"
instead of "lighting a fire in the quadrangle"
* Another student "hissed my mystery lecture." To the latter he added in disgust, "You have tasted two worms."
* One of his more famous phrases was when he raised a toast to Her Highness Victoria. Instead of toasting the "Dear old Queen" he said "Three cheers for our queer old dean!"
* During WWI he reassured his students, “When our boys come home from France, we will have the hags flung out.”
* And he lionized Britain's farmers as "noble tons of soil."
* His goofs at chapel were legendary. “Our Lord is a shoving leopard," he once intoned. * He quoted 1 Corinthians 13:12 as, "For now we see through a dark, glassly..."
* Officiating at a wedding, he prompted a hesitant bridegroom, “Son, it is now kisstomary to cuss the bride."
* And to a stranger seated in the wrong place: "I believe you're occupewing my pie. May I sew you to another sheet?"
* Did Spooner really say, “Which of us has not felt in his heart a half-warmed fish?" he certainly could have – he was trying to say half-formed wish.
* At a naval review Spooner marveled at “this vast display of cattle ships and bruisers."
* To a school official's secretary: “Is the bean dizzy?"
* Visiting a friend's country cottage: “You have a nosey little crook here."
John, my favorite spoonerism involves an announcer on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation at the end of a church service who may (or may not) have said, “Next week, the sermon will be titled, ‘Cast thy broad upon the waters. This is the Canadian Bread Corping Castration.”
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Bottom of the Barrel – John Severson writes, “I think I've head this one before – but maybe not from Rumors.”
John, it has been on Rumors before, but it’s good enough to run again.
The Carpenter's Son
One day Jesus was out for a walk, strolling near the walls surrounding heaven, when he heard an old man's voice call from the other side.
"Hello? Hello?"
"Who is it?" Jesus replied.
"Just a poor, old carpenter searching for his son," the old man replied.
Jesus' heart leapt with joy and he called out, "Joseph?"
The old voice answered back, "Pinocchio?"
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* Translation: “What goes around, comes around.”
Why is that a motto for Rumors?
Because I knew how to spell all the words.
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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.~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Friday, December 21, 2007
Preaching Materials for December 30th, 2007
R U M O R S #481
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2007-12-23
December 23, 2007
THE MANGER UNDER THE CROSS
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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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Greetings and thanks to all of you who receive (and occasionally read) Rumors each week. From you I receive joy and friendship and a sense of leaning into God’s dream for my life. So thank you.
May this Christmas be full of joy and hope – a time when you experience God’s gift of Emmanuel.
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Next Week’s Readings – Emmanuel in context
Rumors – the manger under the cross
Soft Edges – out of darkness
Good Stuff – the child of hope in us
Bloopers – bears of joy
We Get Letters – while shepherds quaffed
Mirabile Dictu! – hereinafter the “Claus”
Bottom of the Barrel – a holiday groaner
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 Wayne Donelly.
A ten-year old, under the tutelage of her grandmother, was becoming quite knowledgeable about the Bible.
Then one day she floored her grandmother by asking, "Which Virgin was the mother of Jesus? The Virgin Mary or the King James Virgin?"
(Wayne, this story is obviously old. A modern child would have reflected our changing morality and asked about the “New Revised Standard Virgin.”
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you will probably hear in church this coming Sunday, December 30th, if you are using the Revised Common Lectionary. It is the First Sunday after Christmas.
Isaiah 63:7-9 – We tend to read this as referring to Jesus, but the writer is using “the Lord” (Adonai) as pseudonym to avoid using the word God, which Hebrews would have considered blasphemous.
It was God who showed mercy to Israel – who lifted her up with tenderness and compassion. It wasn’t some celestial pyrotechnics that saved them, but God’s actual presence among them (v.9).
This is one of the gifts of the Hebrew faith – a teaching that surfaces again and again in the various writings – that God is not some absentee landlord who demands certain payments and services, but a living presence in us and among us.
And that living presence was most powerfully and specifically shown to us through the Bethlehem baby.
Psalm 148:1-14 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
The shortest day of the year has passed; the days are growing longer again.
1 Come and join the joyful dance of life!
Celebrate each moment of increasing light!
2 When the sun comes out after the snow,
when the south wind blows the blizzards away,
all of creation creeps out of its caves
to soak up the welcome warmth.
3 All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
4 All things wise and wonderful...
5 The Lord God made them all.
6 God created their characteristics and personalities;
8 The rain falls, the wind blows,
the frost forms its delicate traceries,
just as they should.
Rain does not rise, nor frost burst into flames –
they know their form and function;
The Lord God made them all.
7 So join the joyful dance of life.
The fish of the sea can shimmy;
9 Peaks and ridges march in royal ranks;
trees wave and grasses weave;
10 Cattle can stomp and marmots can whistle,
Chickens can cheep and porcupines bristle;
11, 12 The whole earth throbs with the pulse of life;
The drums of life pound their passionate rhythm.
Princes and popes, outlaws and outcasts,
all races, all colors, all ages, all species,
swirl together like galaxies glowing in a summer night.
13 In God's great dance of life, there are no wallflowers;
Every piece of creation has a part to play.
14 We humans live and die;
our communities come and go, our empires rise and fall;
But God's great dance of life goes on.
Thank God!
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
Hebrews 2:10-18 – It’s just as well I didn’t become a lawyer, because I have a hard time with this kind of convoluted reasoning. I’m sure it makes sense if you can follow it. It’s based on the idea that only a “perfect sacrifice” is acceptable to God, which rules out anything you or I may say or do because our motives are always mixed.
The word “perfect” in verse 10, say the notes in my Bible, mean “to make complete – to bring to maturity.” Which doesn’t help a whole lot; because words like “complete” and “mature” are absolute terms and I doubt any human can achieve them.
But then “atonement” theology doesn’t sit well with me. The essence of Christmas for me is that it is pure grace. Pure gift. The gift of life and hope and meaning. Not something that God needed, but exactly what we needed. And still need.
Matthew 2:13-23 – The Christmas we celebrate is mostly Luke’s Christmas. Matthew contributes only the Magi, and their story takes us into the bleeding underside of Christmas which we try really hard to ignore.
But if Christmas is the time when we mark God’s break into human life – Emmanuel, God-with-us – we need to know that it involves not just sweet little babies, but screaming parents and blood-soaked infants and the terror of King Herod who lives and reigns now as always.
The gift of God’s presence brings with it the hunted, haunted look of mothers and fathers who live with fear and despair. The gift of Emmanuel comes to us in the bloody pain and suffering of innocents – in the bloody pain and suffering of crucifixion.
There’s a bundle of great resources on the Wood Lake Books website, including “Seasons of the Spirit” curriculum – which has material for all ages in the church. A few moments poking around on that site could be very fruitful. Go to the website at:
www.woodlakebooks.com
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Rumors – A number of years ago I wrote a book called “Angels in Red Suspenders.” It’s done quite well, than you, and is still available. But in the process, I’ve learned a few things about angels. And people.
The gurus who know about such things tell me the angel fad has died off. All the angels have gone back to heaven, so any talk of a sequel is off.
There’s an angel in the story of the holy family, the flight to Egypt, and the slaughter of the innocents. Angels in the Bible are not the feathery-winged blond teenagers in white nightgowns we see depicted on Christmas cards, and not even Raphael’s bored babies.
The first thing angels say is “Fear not!” and there’s good reason for that. Biblical angels tend to have messages that turn lives upside down. Their news is not necessarily good. A trip on foot across the desert with a new baby is not the kind of excursion travel agents package for the tourist trade.
The thing I totally failed to communicate in my book, even though I said it quite explicitly, is that some angels are good and some are bad. Talk show hosts and reviewers missed that totally, as did most of the readers I spoke to.
Perhaps we should have had one of those bat-winged medieval angels on the cover. The ones with horns and a long arrow-tipped tail. That would have been just as accurate as the dove-winged toddler the designers put there, but of course, that would have stopped the sale of books dead in its tracks. Nobody buys books about evil angels.
We don’t want to hear the bad stuff. Especially at Christmas. The way to deal with death is to pretend it doesn’t happen. Many seniors I know have raised avoidance to a fine art, tiptoeing along the surface of life with a string of distractions to keep them from thinking about the reality of sickness and death. And when it comes to them, and it always does, they are totally unprepared.
The last thing we want to hear about on this Sunday after Christmas is babies dying and Jesus becoming a refugee. Christmas should be an escape from pain. Right?
Wrong! All joy exists in the context of pain and struggle. The birth of Jesus in the stable was not one bit less painful than the birth of any other baby, and the utter exhaustion shows in the face of Mary and Joseph even as they experience the joy of new life and hope.
No one goes looking for pain and death, and no one enjoys it. But those who have known the dark night of the soul also know the joyful morning of God’s love. Dawn comes to those who have known the darkness and resurrection to those who have suffered crucifixion.
That’s why, in our churches, the manger should always be located under the cross.
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Out of Darkness
Friday is the winter solstice. All around the world, religions have given this day – the shortest day of the year – special significance.
Even societies with limited numeric abilities could determine this day. At the solstice approached, the noon shadow cast by a pole, a spire, or a peak grew steadily longer. And then it started growing shorter again.
And once they had identified the solstice, they could build monuments to help mark the cusp of the year.
In Britain, an ancient civilization built Stonehenge, oriented towards the sunset.
Across the Irish Sea, another civilization looked to the sunrise instead. They built a tunnel deep into the heart of an artificial hill. At Newgrange, priests huddled inside the cavern, waiting for the first morning light to penetrate the length of the tunnel into their inner sanctum.
In Central America, Mayan priests used elaborate geometry to coordinate three overlapping calendars.
Almost without exception, civilizations have attached mythical overtones to the winter solstice.
In the high Andes, Inca priests attached an imaginary rope to a hitching post, to anchor the sun before it could slip any lower in the sky. The Incas built houses and temples out of cut and shaped stone. But the hitching post was carved from solid bedrock – the only thing strong enough to hold the sun in place.
In Persia, the longest night marked the peak of strength for the evil god Ahriman. The next day, the good god, Ahura Mazda, the Lord of Wisdom, began winning the battle of good and evil again.
The Slavic peoples took their belief further. They believed that at the solstice the god Hors was actually killed by the forces of darkness. The next day, Hors was resurrected. Some Bulgarians still perform a chain-dance called a horo or khoro.
In Scandinavia, where winter nights are particularly long, the Norse lit a Yule log. As long as it gave warmth and light, for anywhere from three to twelve days, they feasted.
It’s probably no coincidence that our society celebrates Christmas around the same time of year – whether or not Jesus was really born on December 25.
“Much of our custom developed in the northern regions of Europe where Christmas Day fell during the darkest part of the year,” my friend Ralph Milton wrote in his weekly e-newsletter Rumors (write ralphmilton@woodlake.com to subscribe).
I liked his thoughts so much, I’m paying him the ultimate compliment of a writer – I’m using his words instead of my own.
“Christmas comes when things have gotten about as bad as they can be. Darkness rules. The specter of starvation lurks in every corner.
“Into this desolation and darkness a baby is born. A helpless infant who cannot survive an hour without warmth – without a mother’s breast, a father’s arms.
“The child is born just as the days begin to get longer. There is hope again. Spring will come.”
Perhaps every religion finds its own way to symbolize the return of hope in the midst of darkness.
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 Christmas meditation was sent to us and written by Connie St. Hilaire
In these days of darkness, as the sunlight decreases daily, we understand the despair of our ancestors who feared the loss of light and life.
In these days of darkness, as wars are waged in hundreds of places on our tiny globe, we wonder if peace is ever possible.
In these days of darkness, as our own government is troubled, we worry about who will care for the homeless, the sick, the luckless.
In these days of darkness, as corporations make record profits but continue to underpay, downsize, and relocate, we fear the loss of the middle class, the heart of America.
Whether we consider the Christmas story to be fact or fiction, we can each appreciate its universal symbolism.
Like Joseph, who among us has not needed shelter from the elements or from tyranny or from loneliness and been shut out?
Like Mary, who among us has not needed a miracle of acceptance and love from those around us when every evidence said we are to be shunned?
Like Jesus, who among us has not been tempted to exchange our sense of self for the goods of this world?
Like the wise men, who among us has not sought the one with the answer, the source of truth, often spurred only by a dream and directed only by a compass of belief in our light?
Like the lamb, who among us has not wished for a shepherd to look for us when we were lost and to rejoice with us when we were found?
As December 25 approaches and we notice the sunlight increasing, may we remember the lessons of the darkness. It is the nature of humankind not to trust change until the increase in the light indicates a trend over time. It is a miracle, given the violent nature of humans as we fear the unknown in the darkness, that there is ever any peace in the light.
It is the individual in collectivity that staffs the government and the corporations and can effect change, just as each atom of the sun contributes to the light that gives us life.
It is the star of faith in ourselves that guides us on a path to discovering the divine child inside ourselves.
It is the child of hope in us that suffers, questions, teaches, and redeems us. It is the light of love that we shine on the world that overcomes the darkness.
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Richard Glover of Waitakere, New Zealand was out carol singing at a hospital. All went well, except as they left one of the wards, a caroler called back, “See you next year!”
Kerry Brewer tells of an interesting suggestion in their bulletin last Sunday. It reminded folks that “the voice of God is still speaking in our hearts and asking us to be bears of joy in our world’."
Kerry says the bulletin didn’t specify whether “they would be actual bears or teddy bears.”
Jim Taylor writes: At a church in Calgary, the reader came to Matthew 3:9, which says, "Do not presume to say of yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor.' For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children of Abraham."
There must have been a flaw in the letter "n" because what the reader said, aloud, was "God is able from these stories to raise up children..."
Which is exactly the point, isn’t it Jim? That’s why the “Story Lectionary” goes live in mid-January.
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! – You don't have to go looking for love when it's where you come from.
Werner Erhard via Velia Watts
There is little joy in owning anything that is not shared.
source unknown via Evelyn McLachlan
Awareness of the treasure of the present moment puts us in the presence of God wherever we are.
source unknown
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We Get Letters – Stephani Keer writes: “Of all the variations on ‘While Shepherds Watched,’ my favourite remains: ‘While shepherds quaffed their scotch by night . . .’"
Evelyn McLachlan saw this in the magazine Christian Century quoting Bradley Schmeling. "When I first began preaching, I wanted each sermon to be a powerful and transformative experience. I wanted it to be exegetically and theologically sound, even while it was painting new pictures and inspiring new metaphors. I wanted people's lives to be changed and the reign of God to come. Now, after almost 20 years of ministry, I just want to have it done by Friday."
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “hereinafter the ‘Claus’!”)
The Night Before Christmas (the legal description), which pulsed from the pen (a/k/a/ a laptop) of one James Taylor proving that he is after all a closet lawyer.
Whereas, on or about the night prior to Christmas, there did occur at a certain improved piece of real property (hereinafter “the House”) a general lack of stirring by all creatures therein, including, but not limited to a mouse.
A variety of foot apparel, e.g. stocking, socks, etc., had been affixed by and around the chimney in said House in the hope and/or belief that St. Nick a/k/a/ St. Nicholas a/k/a/ Santa Claus (hereinafter “Claus”) would arrive at sometime thereafter.
The minor residents, i.e. the children, of the aforementioned House were located in their individual beds and were engaged in nocturnal hallucinations, i.e. dreams, wherein visions of confectionery treats, including, but not limited to, candies, nuts and/or sugar plums, did dance, cavort and otherwise appear in said dreams.
Whereupon the party of the first part (sometimes hereinafter referred to as “I”), being the joint-owner in fee simple of the House with the party of the second part (hereinafter “Mamma”), and said Mamma had retired for a sustained period of sleep. (At such time, the parties were clad in various forms of headgear, e.g. kerchief and cap.)
Suddenly, and without prior notice or warning, there did occur upon the unimproved real property adjacent and appurtenant to said House, i.e. the lawn, a certain disruption of unknown nature, cause and/or circumstance. The party of the first part did immediately rush to a window in the House to investigate the cause of such disturbance.
At that time, the party of the first part did observe, with some degree of wonder and/or disbelief, a miniature sleigh (hereinafter “the Vehicle”) being pulled and/or drawn very rapidly through the air by approximately eight (8) reindeer. The driver of the Vehicle appeared to be and in fact was, the previously referenced Claus.
Said Claus was providing specific direction, instruction, and guidance to the approximately eight (8) reindeer and specifically identified the animal co-conspirators by name: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen (hereinafter “the Deer”). (Upon information and belief, it is further asserted an additional co-conspirator named “Rudolph” may have been involved.)
The party of the first part witnessed Claus, the Vehicle and the Deer intentionally and willfully trespass upon the roofs of several residences located adjacent to and in the vicinity of the House, and noted that the Vehicle was heavily laden with packages, toys, and other items of unknown origin or nature. Suddenly, without prior invitation or permission, either express or implied, the Vehicle arrived at the House, and Claus entered said House via the chimney.
Said Claus was clad in a red fur suit, which was partially covered with residue from the chimney, and he carried a large sack containing a portion of the aforementioned packages, toys, and other unknown items. He was smoking what appeared to be tobacco in a small pipe in blatant violation of local ordinances and health regulations.
Claus did not speak, but immediately began to fill the stockings of the minor children, which hung adjacent to the chimney, with toys and other small gifts. (Said items did not, however, constitute “gifts” to said minors pursuant to the applicable provisions of the U.S. Tax Code.)
Upon completion of such task, Claus touched the side of his nose and flew, rose and/or ascended up the chimney of the House to the roof where the Vehicle and Deer waited and/or served as “lookouts.” Claus immediately departed for an unknown destination.
However, prior to the departure of the Vehicle, Deer and Claus from said House, the party of the first part did hear Claus state and/or exclaim:
“Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!” Or words to that effect.
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Bottom of the Barrel – Peggy Neufeldt
A man goes to his dentist because he feels something wrong in his mouth. The dentist examines him and says, "that new upper plate I put in for you six months ago is eroding. What have you been eating?" The man replies, "All I can think of is that about four months ago my wife made some asparagus and put some stuff on it that was delicious...Hollandaise sauce. I loved it so much I now put it on everything –- meat, toast, fish, vegetables, everything." "Well," says the dentist, "that's probably the problem. Hollandaise sauce is made with lots of lemon juice, which is highly corrosive. It's eaten away your upper plate. I'll make you a new plate, and this time use chrome." "Why chrome?" asks the patient. To which the dentist replies, "It's simple. Everyone knows that there's no plate like chrome for the Hollandaise!"
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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.~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2007-12-23
December 23, 2007
THE MANGER UNDER THE CROSS
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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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Greetings and thanks to all of you who receive (and occasionally read) Rumors each week. From you I receive joy and friendship and a sense of leaning into God’s dream for my life. So thank you.
May this Christmas be full of joy and hope – a time when you experience God’s gift of Emmanuel.
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Next Week’s Readings – Emmanuel in context
Rumors – the manger under the cross
Soft Edges – out of darkness
Good Stuff – the child of hope in us
Bloopers – bears of joy
We Get Letters – while shepherds quaffed
Mirabile Dictu! – hereinafter the “Claus”
Bottom of the Barrel – a holiday groaner
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 Wayne Donelly.
A ten-year old, under the tutelage of her grandmother, was becoming quite knowledgeable about the Bible.
Then one day she floored her grandmother by asking, "Which Virgin was the mother of Jesus? The Virgin Mary or the King James Virgin?"
(Wayne, this story is obviously old. A modern child would have reflected our changing morality and asked about the “New Revised Standard Virgin.”
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you will probably hear in church this coming Sunday, December 30th, if you are using the Revised Common Lectionary. It is the First Sunday after Christmas.
Isaiah 63:7-9 – We tend to read this as referring to Jesus, but the writer is using “the Lord” (Adonai) as pseudonym to avoid using the word God, which Hebrews would have considered blasphemous.
It was God who showed mercy to Israel – who lifted her up with tenderness and compassion. It wasn’t some celestial pyrotechnics that saved them, but God’s actual presence among them (v.9).
This is one of the gifts of the Hebrew faith – a teaching that surfaces again and again in the various writings – that God is not some absentee landlord who demands certain payments and services, but a living presence in us and among us.
And that living presence was most powerfully and specifically shown to us through the Bethlehem baby.
Psalm 148:1-14 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
The shortest day of the year has passed; the days are growing longer again.
1 Come and join the joyful dance of life!
Celebrate each moment of increasing light!
2 When the sun comes out after the snow,
when the south wind blows the blizzards away,
all of creation creeps out of its caves
to soak up the welcome warmth.
3 All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
4 All things wise and wonderful...
5 The Lord God made them all.
6 God created their characteristics and personalities;
8 The rain falls, the wind blows,
the frost forms its delicate traceries,
just as they should.
Rain does not rise, nor frost burst into flames –
they know their form and function;
The Lord God made them all.
7 So join the joyful dance of life.
The fish of the sea can shimmy;
9 Peaks and ridges march in royal ranks;
trees wave and grasses weave;
10 Cattle can stomp and marmots can whistle,
Chickens can cheep and porcupines bristle;
11, 12 The whole earth throbs with the pulse of life;
The drums of life pound their passionate rhythm.
Princes and popes, outlaws and outcasts,
all races, all colors, all ages, all species,
swirl together like galaxies glowing in a summer night.
13 In God's great dance of life, there are no wallflowers;
Every piece of creation has a part to play.
14 We humans live and die;
our communities come and go, our empires rise and fall;
But God's great dance of life goes on.
Thank God!
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
Hebrews 2:10-18 – It’s just as well I didn’t become a lawyer, because I have a hard time with this kind of convoluted reasoning. I’m sure it makes sense if you can follow it. It’s based on the idea that only a “perfect sacrifice” is acceptable to God, which rules out anything you or I may say or do because our motives are always mixed.
The word “perfect” in verse 10, say the notes in my Bible, mean “to make complete – to bring to maturity.” Which doesn’t help a whole lot; because words like “complete” and “mature” are absolute terms and I doubt any human can achieve them.
But then “atonement” theology doesn’t sit well with me. The essence of Christmas for me is that it is pure grace. Pure gift. The gift of life and hope and meaning. Not something that God needed, but exactly what we needed. And still need.
Matthew 2:13-23 – The Christmas we celebrate is mostly Luke’s Christmas. Matthew contributes only the Magi, and their story takes us into the bleeding underside of Christmas which we try really hard to ignore.
But if Christmas is the time when we mark God’s break into human life – Emmanuel, God-with-us – we need to know that it involves not just sweet little babies, but screaming parents and blood-soaked infants and the terror of King Herod who lives and reigns now as always.
The gift of God’s presence brings with it the hunted, haunted look of mothers and fathers who live with fear and despair. The gift of Emmanuel comes to us in the bloody pain and suffering of innocents – in the bloody pain and suffering of crucifixion.
There’s a bundle of great resources on the Wood Lake Books website, including “Seasons of the Spirit” curriculum – which has material for all ages in the church. A few moments poking around on that site could be very fruitful. Go to the website at:
www.woodlakebooks.com
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Rumors – A number of years ago I wrote a book called “Angels in Red Suspenders.” It’s done quite well, than you, and is still available. But in the process, I’ve learned a few things about angels. And people.
The gurus who know about such things tell me the angel fad has died off. All the angels have gone back to heaven, so any talk of a sequel is off.
There’s an angel in the story of the holy family, the flight to Egypt, and the slaughter of the innocents. Angels in the Bible are not the feathery-winged blond teenagers in white nightgowns we see depicted on Christmas cards, and not even Raphael’s bored babies.
The first thing angels say is “Fear not!” and there’s good reason for that. Biblical angels tend to have messages that turn lives upside down. Their news is not necessarily good. A trip on foot across the desert with a new baby is not the kind of excursion travel agents package for the tourist trade.
The thing I totally failed to communicate in my book, even though I said it quite explicitly, is that some angels are good and some are bad. Talk show hosts and reviewers missed that totally, as did most of the readers I spoke to.
Perhaps we should have had one of those bat-winged medieval angels on the cover. The ones with horns and a long arrow-tipped tail. That would have been just as accurate as the dove-winged toddler the designers put there, but of course, that would have stopped the sale of books dead in its tracks. Nobody buys books about evil angels.
We don’t want to hear the bad stuff. Especially at Christmas. The way to deal with death is to pretend it doesn’t happen. Many seniors I know have raised avoidance to a fine art, tiptoeing along the surface of life with a string of distractions to keep them from thinking about the reality of sickness and death. And when it comes to them, and it always does, they are totally unprepared.
The last thing we want to hear about on this Sunday after Christmas is babies dying and Jesus becoming a refugee. Christmas should be an escape from pain. Right?
Wrong! All joy exists in the context of pain and struggle. The birth of Jesus in the stable was not one bit less painful than the birth of any other baby, and the utter exhaustion shows in the face of Mary and Joseph even as they experience the joy of new life and hope.
No one goes looking for pain and death, and no one enjoys it. But those who have known the dark night of the soul also know the joyful morning of God’s love. Dawn comes to those who have known the darkness and resurrection to those who have suffered crucifixion.
That’s why, in our churches, the manger should always be located under the cross.
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Out of Darkness
Friday is the winter solstice. All around the world, religions have given this day – the shortest day of the year – special significance.
Even societies with limited numeric abilities could determine this day. At the solstice approached, the noon shadow cast by a pole, a spire, or a peak grew steadily longer. And then it started growing shorter again.
And once they had identified the solstice, they could build monuments to help mark the cusp of the year.
In Britain, an ancient civilization built Stonehenge, oriented towards the sunset.
Across the Irish Sea, another civilization looked to the sunrise instead. They built a tunnel deep into the heart of an artificial hill. At Newgrange, priests huddled inside the cavern, waiting for the first morning light to penetrate the length of the tunnel into their inner sanctum.
In Central America, Mayan priests used elaborate geometry to coordinate three overlapping calendars.
Almost without exception, civilizations have attached mythical overtones to the winter solstice.
In the high Andes, Inca priests attached an imaginary rope to a hitching post, to anchor the sun before it could slip any lower in the sky. The Incas built houses and temples out of cut and shaped stone. But the hitching post was carved from solid bedrock – the only thing strong enough to hold the sun in place.
In Persia, the longest night marked the peak of strength for the evil god Ahriman. The next day, the good god, Ahura Mazda, the Lord of Wisdom, began winning the battle of good and evil again.
The Slavic peoples took their belief further. They believed that at the solstice the god Hors was actually killed by the forces of darkness. The next day, Hors was resurrected. Some Bulgarians still perform a chain-dance called a horo or khoro.
In Scandinavia, where winter nights are particularly long, the Norse lit a Yule log. As long as it gave warmth and light, for anywhere from three to twelve days, they feasted.
It’s probably no coincidence that our society celebrates Christmas around the same time of year – whether or not Jesus was really born on December 25.
“Much of our custom developed in the northern regions of Europe where Christmas Day fell during the darkest part of the year,” my friend Ralph Milton wrote in his weekly e-newsletter Rumors (write ralphmilton@woodlake.com to subscribe).
I liked his thoughts so much, I’m paying him the ultimate compliment of a writer – I’m using his words instead of my own.
“Christmas comes when things have gotten about as bad as they can be. Darkness rules. The specter of starvation lurks in every corner.
“Into this desolation and darkness a baby is born. A helpless infant who cannot survive an hour without warmth – without a mother’s breast, a father’s arms.
“The child is born just as the days begin to get longer. There is hope again. Spring will come.”
Perhaps every religion finds its own way to symbolize the return of hope in the midst of darkness.
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 Christmas meditation was sent to us and written by Connie St. Hilaire
In these days of darkness, as the sunlight decreases daily, we understand the despair of our ancestors who feared the loss of light and life.
In these days of darkness, as wars are waged in hundreds of places on our tiny globe, we wonder if peace is ever possible.
In these days of darkness, as our own government is troubled, we worry about who will care for the homeless, the sick, the luckless.
In these days of darkness, as corporations make record profits but continue to underpay, downsize, and relocate, we fear the loss of the middle class, the heart of America.
Whether we consider the Christmas story to be fact or fiction, we can each appreciate its universal symbolism.
Like Joseph, who among us has not needed shelter from the elements or from tyranny or from loneliness and been shut out?
Like Mary, who among us has not needed a miracle of acceptance and love from those around us when every evidence said we are to be shunned?
Like Jesus, who among us has not been tempted to exchange our sense of self for the goods of this world?
Like the wise men, who among us has not sought the one with the answer, the source of truth, often spurred only by a dream and directed only by a compass of belief in our light?
Like the lamb, who among us has not wished for a shepherd to look for us when we were lost and to rejoice with us when we were found?
As December 25 approaches and we notice the sunlight increasing, may we remember the lessons of the darkness. It is the nature of humankind not to trust change until the increase in the light indicates a trend over time. It is a miracle, given the violent nature of humans as we fear the unknown in the darkness, that there is ever any peace in the light.
It is the individual in collectivity that staffs the government and the corporations and can effect change, just as each atom of the sun contributes to the light that gives us life.
It is the star of faith in ourselves that guides us on a path to discovering the divine child inside ourselves.
It is the child of hope in us that suffers, questions, teaches, and redeems us. It is the light of love that we shine on the world that overcomes the darkness.
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Richard Glover of Waitakere, New Zealand was out carol singing at a hospital. All went well, except as they left one of the wards, a caroler called back, “See you next year!”
Kerry Brewer tells of an interesting suggestion in their bulletin last Sunday. It reminded folks that “the voice of God is still speaking in our hearts and asking us to be bears of joy in our world’."
Kerry says the bulletin didn’t specify whether “they would be actual bears or teddy bears.”
Jim Taylor writes: At a church in Calgary, the reader came to Matthew 3:9, which says, "Do not presume to say of yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor.' For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children of Abraham."
There must have been a flaw in the letter "n" because what the reader said, aloud, was "God is able from these stories to raise up children..."
Which is exactly the point, isn’t it Jim? That’s why the “Story Lectionary” goes live in mid-January.
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! – You don't have to go looking for love when it's where you come from.
Werner Erhard via Velia Watts
There is little joy in owning anything that is not shared.
source unknown via Evelyn McLachlan
Awareness of the treasure of the present moment puts us in the presence of God wherever we are.
source unknown
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We Get Letters – Stephani Keer writes: “Of all the variations on ‘While Shepherds Watched,’ my favourite remains: ‘While shepherds quaffed their scotch by night . . .’"
Evelyn McLachlan saw this in the magazine Christian Century quoting Bradley Schmeling. "When I first began preaching, I wanted each sermon to be a powerful and transformative experience. I wanted it to be exegetically and theologically sound, even while it was painting new pictures and inspiring new metaphors. I wanted people's lives to be changed and the reign of God to come. Now, after almost 20 years of ministry, I just want to have it done by Friday."
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “hereinafter the ‘Claus’!”)
The Night Before Christmas (the legal description), which pulsed from the pen (a/k/a/ a laptop) of one James Taylor proving that he is after all a closet lawyer.
Whereas, on or about the night prior to Christmas, there did occur at a certain improved piece of real property (hereinafter “the House”) a general lack of stirring by all creatures therein, including, but not limited to a mouse.
A variety of foot apparel, e.g. stocking, socks, etc., had been affixed by and around the chimney in said House in the hope and/or belief that St. Nick a/k/a/ St. Nicholas a/k/a/ Santa Claus (hereinafter “Claus”) would arrive at sometime thereafter.
The minor residents, i.e. the children, of the aforementioned House were located in their individual beds and were engaged in nocturnal hallucinations, i.e. dreams, wherein visions of confectionery treats, including, but not limited to, candies, nuts and/or sugar plums, did dance, cavort and otherwise appear in said dreams.
Whereupon the party of the first part (sometimes hereinafter referred to as “I”), being the joint-owner in fee simple of the House with the party of the second part (hereinafter “Mamma”), and said Mamma had retired for a sustained period of sleep. (At such time, the parties were clad in various forms of headgear, e.g. kerchief and cap.)
Suddenly, and without prior notice or warning, there did occur upon the unimproved real property adjacent and appurtenant to said House, i.e. the lawn, a certain disruption of unknown nature, cause and/or circumstance. The party of the first part did immediately rush to a window in the House to investigate the cause of such disturbance.
At that time, the party of the first part did observe, with some degree of wonder and/or disbelief, a miniature sleigh (hereinafter “the Vehicle”) being pulled and/or drawn very rapidly through the air by approximately eight (8) reindeer. The driver of the Vehicle appeared to be and in fact was, the previously referenced Claus.
Said Claus was providing specific direction, instruction, and guidance to the approximately eight (8) reindeer and specifically identified the animal co-conspirators by name: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen (hereinafter “the Deer”). (Upon information and belief, it is further asserted an additional co-conspirator named “Rudolph” may have been involved.)
The party of the first part witnessed Claus, the Vehicle and the Deer intentionally and willfully trespass upon the roofs of several residences located adjacent to and in the vicinity of the House, and noted that the Vehicle was heavily laden with packages, toys, and other items of unknown origin or nature. Suddenly, without prior invitation or permission, either express or implied, the Vehicle arrived at the House, and Claus entered said House via the chimney.
Said Claus was clad in a red fur suit, which was partially covered with residue from the chimney, and he carried a large sack containing a portion of the aforementioned packages, toys, and other unknown items. He was smoking what appeared to be tobacco in a small pipe in blatant violation of local ordinances and health regulations.
Claus did not speak, but immediately began to fill the stockings of the minor children, which hung adjacent to the chimney, with toys and other small gifts. (Said items did not, however, constitute “gifts” to said minors pursuant to the applicable provisions of the U.S. Tax Code.)
Upon completion of such task, Claus touched the side of his nose and flew, rose and/or ascended up the chimney of the House to the roof where the Vehicle and Deer waited and/or served as “lookouts.” Claus immediately departed for an unknown destination.
However, prior to the departure of the Vehicle, Deer and Claus from said House, the party of the first part did hear Claus state and/or exclaim:
“Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!” Or words to that effect.
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Bottom of the Barrel – Peggy Neufeldt
A man goes to his dentist because he feels something wrong in his mouth. The dentist examines him and says, "that new upper plate I put in for you six months ago is eroding. What have you been eating?" The man replies, "All I can think of is that about four months ago my wife made some asparagus and put some stuff on it that was delicious...Hollandaise sauce. I loved it so much I now put it on everything –- meat, toast, fish, vegetables, everything." "Well," says the dentist, "that's probably the problem. Hollandaise sauce is made with lots of lemon juice, which is highly corrosive. It's eaten away your upper plate. I'll make you a new plate, and this time use chrome." "Why chrome?" asks the patient. To which the dentist replies, "It's simple. Everyone knows that there's no plate like chrome for the Hollandaise!"
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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:
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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.~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Preaching Materials for December 23, 2007
R U M O R S # 480
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2007-12-16
December 16, 2007
OUT OF THE DARKNESS, CHRISTMAS
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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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May you have a blessed and joyous Christmas!
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Next Week’s Readings – a healed femur
Rumors – into the darkness, a baby is born
Soft Edges – restoring the original
Good Stuff – prayers answered
Bloopers – rusting in Jesus
We Get Letters – lead on oh kinky turtle
Mirabile Dictu! – God is like hair spray
Bottom of the Barrel – a ministerial clone
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 –
T’was the night before Christmas
When all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring,
‘Cause nobody had no spoons.
Annony mouse
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you will probably hear in church this coming Sunday, December 23rd, if you are using the Revised Common Lectionary. It is also the Fourth Sunday of Advent. The night before, the 22nd, is the winter solstice, the longest night of the year.
Isaiah 7:10-16 – The early Christian church had a great habit of looking back at the Hebrew Scriptures and seeing themselves there. Which is fine with me. We do it all the time. I only have my 2007 bifocals through which to read anything in the Bible.
This Isaiah passage is where the writer of Matthew found the quote given in 1:23, about the virgin who would conceive a son called Emmanuel. And please, let’s not get into gynecological discussions, or textual arguments about Mathew misquoting. The point of that story in our Christian tradition is to indicate that the child Jesus was “God with us,” and the virginity legend is the way the early Christians made that point. The Hebrew way of doing theology was to tell stories.
I found myself intrigued by the phrase “by the time he knows how to refuse evil and choose the good.” That takes me back to the second creation legend, Genesis 2:17, where Adam is told not to eat of the three “of the knowledge of good and evil.”
Eating the fruit of that tree, and learning “the knowledge of good and evil” is what made them human. If they had not eaten of that tree, our ancestors would have remained in the garden of perpetual childlike innocence, like all the other animals God created. The human had to leave that innocence and learn morality and ethics in order to be made in the image of God.
I read somewhere that a paleontologist had been asked how we could tell from the ancient bones when a primate had evolved into a human. The answer was, “when we find a healed femur.” Meaning, I think, that others had provided food and protection for this individual until the femur healed.
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
If plants had feelings, how might they feel when that first frost hits? Perhaps we too have seasons we need to survive.
1 Listen to me, God.
You are warm, while you leave us to freeze!
2 Stir yourself to save us.
Shine some light into our darkness;
Send some warmth our way!
3 Bring back the sun;
Give us a chance to live again!
4 Are you angry with us?
We cannot survive winter on our own.
5 Bitter blasts come down out of the north.
Frost burns our faces.
6 We hang our heads in shame;
We wilt away.
7 Bring us back to life again, God.
17 Let the sun warm the earth again,
so that our stems can grow tall and straight,
and our blossoms lift their faces to the sky.
18 Take away this winter of our discontent, Lord,
and we will not let you down.
Give us life, and we will give you glory.
19 Send spring quickly, O creator.
Let your garden grow again!
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
Romans 1:1-7 – Those first six verses in the NRSV are all one sentence. Be sure to take a breath if you are reading it from the lectern. It’s impolite for lectors of pass out in church.
It’s also a capsule statement of Paul’s theology. If you worked through that, phrase by phrase, it could take months. Maybe years.
Which is also the problem with the passage. It is so compacted – so dense – that reading it out loud to the folks on Sunday morning is probably counter-productive. Especially on December 23rd when many in the church are the Christmas-Easter crowd. It would simply reinforce the idea that most of what we talk about in church is gobbledygook.
Doing stuff in church that goes sailing over the heads of the people in the pews is, at best, useless. I think it throws up barriers to the faith and keeps people from encountering the Spirit.
Matthew 1:18-25 – Paul tells us not to put stumbling blocks in the way (Romans 14:13) of those who are searching for a faith to make their life whole. This whole passage is about the virgin birth. I have no problem with the passage, because I see it as the early church’s way of signaling the uniqueness of Jesus.
So we have a problem with the crowd that gathers for church on this shortest day of the year. Some will be upset if we challenge the literalness of the virgin birth. Others are offended at the very concept. They find the idea of the “immaculate conception” implies that normal conception is dirty. Sinful. Would a loving God make a dirty, sinful act necessary for the propagation of our species?
This is one of those Sundays when I get to do a bit of preachifying. I think I’ll invite folks to see the inside of the story. What is the story about? What is it saying to us right now?
But I don’t think it’s good enough to just ask a bunch of rhetorical questions. I’ll need to come clean and tell people what the story means to me.
There’s a bundle of great resources on the Wood Lake Books website, including “Seasons of the Spirit” curriculum – which has material for all ages in the church. A few moments poking around on that site could be very fruitful. Go to the website at:
www.woodlakebooks.com
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Rumors – Years ago, a Filipino colleague told me about his visit to Canada. “Canadians are obsessed about the weather. When they greet you, they talk about the weather. If you turn on the radio, you hear a weather forecast.” In the Philippines, the weather is mostly quite predictable and boring. But in Canada, it can literally mean the difference between life and death.
Not only that, the nights are so long and the days are so short. You wake up in the dark, and it’s dark again in the late afternoon. Cold and dark.
I remember the prairie snow storms. There would be several every winter, where the thermometer would dive to -20C in a 30 mile an hour wind. And I remember the fear when loved ones didn’t return home on time.
It was not courtesy – it was survival – that mandated a light in the window whenever a storm was blowing outside. Technology and the move to the cities, and possibly global warming, means that the effects of winter are less severe. But winter comes and bites us just often enough to keep us remembering. And Bev and I live in the southern part of Canada. The further north you go, the worse it gets.
Bev suffers from SAD. Seasonal Affective Disorder. They used to call it “cabin fever.” It’s from the lack of sunlight. But it affects all of us. Bev and I are fortunate because we can run off to Tucson, Arizona to spend a month with our son.
I mention all this because much of our custom and theology around Christmas was developed in the northern regions of Europe where Christmas Day fell during the darkest part of the year.
Christmas comes when things have gotten about as bad as they can be. Darkness rules. The specter of starvation lurks in every corner. Death is everywhere. Disease eats at your bones.
It is into this desolation and darkness that a baby is born. A child. A helpless infant who can not survive an hour without warmth – without a mother’s breast. God breaks through the darkness and death and pushes into the flickering light of a tiny cabin. Or manger. Often the same place because the warmth of the cattle was needed inside the cabin. Of course the child sleeps in a manger. It’s the only soft and warm place in the house.
The child is born just as the days begin to get longer. There is hope again. Spring will come. The sun will again warm the earth even though there is not a shred of evidence to support that promise.
If our hope can hold through to Easter, when the buds will again sprout through the frozen earth, we will live. Spiritually and physically. The sun will be warm again. The birds will return.
And the voice of the dove will be heard in the land.
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Restoring the Original
The art world is starting to go through the same discussion that has torn the religious world for several centuries.
Consider Rembrandt’s famed painting, called the Night Watch. Rembrandt did not originally paint a night scene at all. The dark moody colours result from well-intentioned attempts to protect the painting by varnishing it.
Similar things have happened to other great paintings. French inventor Pascal Cotte used his cameras to define the paint layers under the surface of the “Mona Lisa.” He found that in his first version of the world’s most famous painting, Leonardo da Vinci’s model had eyebrows and lashes; her face was wider and her smile more expressive.
Cotte then turned his cameras on da Vinci’s 1490 “Lady with Ermine.”
He discovered that over-zealous “improvers” had repainted da Vinci’s original blue-grey background with solid black. The black “grossly disfigures the painting,” said Jacques Franck, art historian at UCLA.
Cotte’s infrared and ultraviolet camera scans also revealed more vivid colors in the Lady’s lavish red-and-blue dress, and warmer contours to her flesh.
So now the question becomes -- should these paintings be restored to their original vision? Or should they be left as we have come to know them?
Some art experts fear that Cotte’s discoveries could inspire ruinous attempts to remove later accretions from old masterpieces.
One side will argue, “Art should be seen as the artist originally envisioned it!”
The other side will reply, “This is the form we have come to love. It inspires us as it is. It has become part of our culture. We must not change it.”
Exactly the same arguments have afflicted religious scholarship.
As scriptures were copied, by hand, over the centuries, variations crept in. As they were translated from language to language, interpretations crept in. Just like retouching on paintings.
Islam solved the translation problem by decreeing that the Qur’an is authoritative only in Arabic. But that doesn’t eliminate the risk of narrow interpretations.
For the English-speaking world, the best known Bible is the King James Version, translated by a committee in 1611.
Over the last century, scholars have re-translated the Bible from texts that were not available to the King James committee. They’ve tried to bring the historic picture out from behind the accumulated varnish of centuries. By translating original Greek and Hebrew texts into the brighter colors of contemporary language, they have tried to restore the vigour and vitality of the original.
The scholars of the Jesus Seminar have gone so far as to define which brush strokes came from Jesus himself, and which were added by later assistants.
But many traditionalists insist it doesn’t matter what the originals said -- the text as it has come down to us has inspired billions of Christians. To correct it, to enhance it, even with the best of intentions, could destroy people’s faith.
The theological world remains split on this issue. I don’t expect the art world to achieve consensus any quicker.
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 Don Sandin – which he received from a friend.
My husband and I had been happily married (most of the time) for five years but hadn't been blessed with a baby.
I decided to do some serious praying and promised God that if I could have a child, I would be a perfect mother, love it with all my heart and raise it with God’s love in my heart.
God answered my prayers and blessed us with a son. The next year God blessed us with another son. The following year, God blessed us with yet another son. The year after that we were blessed with a daughter.
My husband thought we'd been blessed right into poverty. We now had four children, and the oldest was only four years old.
I learned never to ask God for anything unless I meant it. As a minister once told me, 'If you pray for rain, make sure you carry an umbrella.'
I began reading a few verses of the Bible to the children each day as they lay in their cribs. I was off to a good start. God had entrusted me with four children and I was going to do it right.
I tried to be patient the day the children smashed two dozen eggs on the kitchen floor searching for baby chicks. I tried to be understanding when they started a hotel for homeless frogs in the spare bedroom, although it took me nearly two hours to catch all twenty-three frogs. When my daughter poured ketchup all over herself and rolled up in a blanket to seehow it felt to be a hot dog, I tried to see the humor rather than the mess.
In spite of changing over twenty-five thousand diapers, never eating a hot meal and never sleeping for more than thirty minutes at a time, I still thank God daily for my children.
While I couldn't keep my promise to be a perfect mother – I didn't even come close – I did keep my promise to raise them in the Word of God.
I knew I was missing the mark just a little when I told my daughter we were going to church to ‘worship’ God, and she wanted to bring a bar of soap along to 'wash up' Jesus, too.
Something was lost in the translation when I explained that God gave us everlasting life, and my son thought it was generous of God to give us his 'last wife.'
My proudest moment came during the children's Christmas pageant. My daughter was playing Mary, two of my sons were shepherds and my youngest son was a wise man. This was their moment to shine.
My five-year-old shepherd had practiced his line, “We found the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes.” But he was nervous and said, “The baby was wrapped in wrinkled clothes.” My four-year-old 'Mary' said, “That's not 'wrinkled clothes,' silly. That's dirty, rotten clothes.”
A wrestling match broke out between Mary and the shepherd and was stopped by an angel, who bent her halo and lost her left wing.
I slouched a little lower in my seat when Mary dropped the doll representing baby Jesus, and it bounced down the aisle crying, 'Mama-mama.'
Mary grabbed the doll, wrapped it back up and held it tightly as the wise men arrived. My other son stepped forward wearing a bathrobe and a paper crown, knelt at the manger and announced, “We are the three wise men, and we are bringing gifts of gold, common sense and fur.” The congregation dissolved into laughter, and the pageant got a standing ovation.
“I've never enjoyed a Christmas Program as much as this one,” laughed the pastor, wiping tears from her eyes. “For the rest of my life, I'll never hear the Christmas story without thinking of gold, common sense and fur.”
“My children are my pride and my joy and my greatest blessing,” I said as I dug through my purse for an aspirin. “And maybe their gift to all of us is the gift of laughter.”
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Theo Reiner of Calgary spotted this in Pagosa Springs, Colorado: “Hymns to be sung during distribution of Communion "Savior of the Nations, Come if needed” Theo thinks that might be good?
Rod and Doris Gist saw a note in a church bulletin at Sioux Falls, South Dakota. “I believe in shepherds, that they often hear songs of grace and glory not heard by those who lead busier, nosier lives.”
Lois Bly tells this one on herself. “Typing the bulletin for a children's Christmas service I wrote: ‘Jesus, our brother, strong and good, was numbly born in a stable rude’.”
Well, said Lois, “some of us are numb!” Christina Berry of Silver Lake, Minnesota, typed this into a bulletin. “A Welcoming and inviting ministry...integrating our past and future...rusting in Jesus...”
Unfortunately, she caught it before it went to press.
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! – "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can."
by John Wesley via Don Sandin
You can't control the wind, but you can adjust your sails. Yiddish proverb via Jim Taylor
Wrinkles are receipts for living. source unknown, via Evelyn McLachlan
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We Get Letters – Sharyl Peterson writes: “My Uncle Harold was a really wonderful, loving man, who never had children of his own, but faithfully taught Sunday School to the littlest kids for many years.
“One year, his kindergarteners were to take part in the All-Sunday-School Christmas Pageant. As he prepared them for their part, they all sang out lustily, ‘Hark! Harold's angels sing’!”
Wilma Houston White of Santa Ana, California writes: “Our family's favorite is: “Lead on, Oh Kinky Turtle” (Lead on, O King Eternal). Kinky Turtle became a catch phrase for any incomprehensible thing that we were forging ahead to do without really understanding why.
Marie Zettler writes: When I read "forgive us our Christmases..." it reminded me of my granddaughter, Sabrina. When she was three, her favourite Christmas carol was "God Rest Ye, Merry, gentlemen." She would sing lustily "..... to save us all from Santa's power when we were gone astray."
Marie! Your granddaughter gets an “A” in theology. Also sociology.
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “God is like hair spray!”) “Deck the halls with advertising,” wrote Stan Freeburg some years ago. “Now’s the time for merchandizing. Profit never needs a reason. Get the money, it’s the season. Fa la la, etc.
In that spirit here’s a bit of theology that’s a bit on the flaky side, but it might offer a chuckle, and who knows, it might start someone thinking.
God:
. . . is like BAYER ASPIRIN ... God works miracles.. . . is like a FORD ... God’s got a better idea.. . . is like COKE ... God’s the real thing.. . . is like HALLMARK CARDS ... God cares enough to send the very best.. . . is like TIDE ... God gets stains out that others leave behind.. . . is like GENERAL ELECTRIC ... God brings good things to life.. . . is like SEARS ... God has everything.. . . is like SCOTCH TAPE ... Invisible, but you know God is keeping things together.. . . is like DELTA ... God’s ready when you are.. . . is like ALLSTATE ... You’re in good hands with God.. . . is like VO-5 HAIR SPRAY ... God holds through all kinds of weather.. . . is like DIAL SOAP ... Aren’t you glad you have God. Don’t you wisheverybody did?
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Bottom of the Barrel – Evelyn McLachlan can be relied on to provide a Christmas groaner.
“The pastor who was badly overworked. Her husband worried about her and decided on a really fine Christmas gift.
Snipping a lock of her hair in the middle of the night, he took it to a medical clinic and had a clone made. It was like the pastor in every respect – except that the clone used extraordinarily foul language.
The cloned pastor was exceptionally gifted in many ways. She could preach a fine sermon and do fine pastoral visiting, but whenever she got irritated, she would let fly with a string of expletives worthy of Richard Nixon. Finally, the original pastor decided to get rid of her clone.
But how? Wouldn’t it look like murder? The best thing, she decided, was to make the clone's death look like an accident. So the pastor lured the clone onto a bridge in the middle of the night and pushed her off.
Unfortunately there was a police officer who happened by at that very moment. She was arrested and charged with making an obscene clone fall.
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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.~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2007-12-16
December 16, 2007
OUT OF THE DARKNESS, CHRISTMAS
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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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May you have a blessed and joyous Christmas!
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Next Week’s Readings – a healed femur
Rumors – into the darkness, a baby is born
Soft Edges – restoring the original
Good Stuff – prayers answered
Bloopers – rusting in Jesus
We Get Letters – lead on oh kinky turtle
Mirabile Dictu! – God is like hair spray
Bottom of the Barrel – a ministerial clone
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 –
T’was the night before Christmas
When all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring,
‘Cause nobody had no spoons.
Annony mouse
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you will probably hear in church this coming Sunday, December 23rd, if you are using the Revised Common Lectionary. It is also the Fourth Sunday of Advent. The night before, the 22nd, is the winter solstice, the longest night of the year.
Isaiah 7:10-16 – The early Christian church had a great habit of looking back at the Hebrew Scriptures and seeing themselves there. Which is fine with me. We do it all the time. I only have my 2007 bifocals through which to read anything in the Bible.
This Isaiah passage is where the writer of Matthew found the quote given in 1:23, about the virgin who would conceive a son called Emmanuel. And please, let’s not get into gynecological discussions, or textual arguments about Mathew misquoting. The point of that story in our Christian tradition is to indicate that the child Jesus was “God with us,” and the virginity legend is the way the early Christians made that point. The Hebrew way of doing theology was to tell stories.
I found myself intrigued by the phrase “by the time he knows how to refuse evil and choose the good.” That takes me back to the second creation legend, Genesis 2:17, where Adam is told not to eat of the three “of the knowledge of good and evil.”
Eating the fruit of that tree, and learning “the knowledge of good and evil” is what made them human. If they had not eaten of that tree, our ancestors would have remained in the garden of perpetual childlike innocence, like all the other animals God created. The human had to leave that innocence and learn morality and ethics in order to be made in the image of God.
I read somewhere that a paleontologist had been asked how we could tell from the ancient bones when a primate had evolved into a human. The answer was, “when we find a healed femur.” Meaning, I think, that others had provided food and protection for this individual until the femur healed.
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
If plants had feelings, how might they feel when that first frost hits? Perhaps we too have seasons we need to survive.
1 Listen to me, God.
You are warm, while you leave us to freeze!
2 Stir yourself to save us.
Shine some light into our darkness;
Send some warmth our way!
3 Bring back the sun;
Give us a chance to live again!
4 Are you angry with us?
We cannot survive winter on our own.
5 Bitter blasts come down out of the north.
Frost burns our faces.
6 We hang our heads in shame;
We wilt away.
7 Bring us back to life again, God.
17 Let the sun warm the earth again,
so that our stems can grow tall and straight,
and our blossoms lift their faces to the sky.
18 Take away this winter of our discontent, Lord,
and we will not let you down.
Give us life, and we will give you glory.
19 Send spring quickly, O creator.
Let your garden grow again!
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
Romans 1:1-7 – Those first six verses in the NRSV are all one sentence. Be sure to take a breath if you are reading it from the lectern. It’s impolite for lectors of pass out in church.
It’s also a capsule statement of Paul’s theology. If you worked through that, phrase by phrase, it could take months. Maybe years.
Which is also the problem with the passage. It is so compacted – so dense – that reading it out loud to the folks on Sunday morning is probably counter-productive. Especially on December 23rd when many in the church are the Christmas-Easter crowd. It would simply reinforce the idea that most of what we talk about in church is gobbledygook.
Doing stuff in church that goes sailing over the heads of the people in the pews is, at best, useless. I think it throws up barriers to the faith and keeps people from encountering the Spirit.
Matthew 1:18-25 – Paul tells us not to put stumbling blocks in the way (Romans 14:13) of those who are searching for a faith to make their life whole. This whole passage is about the virgin birth. I have no problem with the passage, because I see it as the early church’s way of signaling the uniqueness of Jesus.
So we have a problem with the crowd that gathers for church on this shortest day of the year. Some will be upset if we challenge the literalness of the virgin birth. Others are offended at the very concept. They find the idea of the “immaculate conception” implies that normal conception is dirty. Sinful. Would a loving God make a dirty, sinful act necessary for the propagation of our species?
This is one of those Sundays when I get to do a bit of preachifying. I think I’ll invite folks to see the inside of the story. What is the story about? What is it saying to us right now?
But I don’t think it’s good enough to just ask a bunch of rhetorical questions. I’ll need to come clean and tell people what the story means to me.
There’s a bundle of great resources on the Wood Lake Books website, including “Seasons of the Spirit” curriculum – which has material for all ages in the church. A few moments poking around on that site could be very fruitful. Go to the website at:
www.woodlakebooks.com
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Rumors – Years ago, a Filipino colleague told me about his visit to Canada. “Canadians are obsessed about the weather. When they greet you, they talk about the weather. If you turn on the radio, you hear a weather forecast.” In the Philippines, the weather is mostly quite predictable and boring. But in Canada, it can literally mean the difference between life and death.
Not only that, the nights are so long and the days are so short. You wake up in the dark, and it’s dark again in the late afternoon. Cold and dark.
I remember the prairie snow storms. There would be several every winter, where the thermometer would dive to -20C in a 30 mile an hour wind. And I remember the fear when loved ones didn’t return home on time.
It was not courtesy – it was survival – that mandated a light in the window whenever a storm was blowing outside. Technology and the move to the cities, and possibly global warming, means that the effects of winter are less severe. But winter comes and bites us just often enough to keep us remembering. And Bev and I live in the southern part of Canada. The further north you go, the worse it gets.
Bev suffers from SAD. Seasonal Affective Disorder. They used to call it “cabin fever.” It’s from the lack of sunlight. But it affects all of us. Bev and I are fortunate because we can run off to Tucson, Arizona to spend a month with our son.
I mention all this because much of our custom and theology around Christmas was developed in the northern regions of Europe where Christmas Day fell during the darkest part of the year.
Christmas comes when things have gotten about as bad as they can be. Darkness rules. The specter of starvation lurks in every corner. Death is everywhere. Disease eats at your bones.
It is into this desolation and darkness that a baby is born. A child. A helpless infant who can not survive an hour without warmth – without a mother’s breast. God breaks through the darkness and death and pushes into the flickering light of a tiny cabin. Or manger. Often the same place because the warmth of the cattle was needed inside the cabin. Of course the child sleeps in a manger. It’s the only soft and warm place in the house.
The child is born just as the days begin to get longer. There is hope again. Spring will come. The sun will again warm the earth even though there is not a shred of evidence to support that promise.
If our hope can hold through to Easter, when the buds will again sprout through the frozen earth, we will live. Spiritually and physically. The sun will be warm again. The birds will return.
And the voice of the dove will be heard in the land.
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Restoring the Original
The art world is starting to go through the same discussion that has torn the religious world for several centuries.
Consider Rembrandt’s famed painting, called the Night Watch. Rembrandt did not originally paint a night scene at all. The dark moody colours result from well-intentioned attempts to protect the painting by varnishing it.
Similar things have happened to other great paintings. French inventor Pascal Cotte used his cameras to define the paint layers under the surface of the “Mona Lisa.” He found that in his first version of the world’s most famous painting, Leonardo da Vinci’s model had eyebrows and lashes; her face was wider and her smile more expressive.
Cotte then turned his cameras on da Vinci’s 1490 “Lady with Ermine.”
He discovered that over-zealous “improvers” had repainted da Vinci’s original blue-grey background with solid black. The black “grossly disfigures the painting,” said Jacques Franck, art historian at UCLA.
Cotte’s infrared and ultraviolet camera scans also revealed more vivid colors in the Lady’s lavish red-and-blue dress, and warmer contours to her flesh.
So now the question becomes -- should these paintings be restored to their original vision? Or should they be left as we have come to know them?
Some art experts fear that Cotte’s discoveries could inspire ruinous attempts to remove later accretions from old masterpieces.
One side will argue, “Art should be seen as the artist originally envisioned it!”
The other side will reply, “This is the form we have come to love. It inspires us as it is. It has become part of our culture. We must not change it.”
Exactly the same arguments have afflicted religious scholarship.
As scriptures were copied, by hand, over the centuries, variations crept in. As they were translated from language to language, interpretations crept in. Just like retouching on paintings.
Islam solved the translation problem by decreeing that the Qur’an is authoritative only in Arabic. But that doesn’t eliminate the risk of narrow interpretations.
For the English-speaking world, the best known Bible is the King James Version, translated by a committee in 1611.
Over the last century, scholars have re-translated the Bible from texts that were not available to the King James committee. They’ve tried to bring the historic picture out from behind the accumulated varnish of centuries. By translating original Greek and Hebrew texts into the brighter colors of contemporary language, they have tried to restore the vigour and vitality of the original.
The scholars of the Jesus Seminar have gone so far as to define which brush strokes came from Jesus himself, and which were added by later assistants.
But many traditionalists insist it doesn’t matter what the originals said -- the text as it has come down to us has inspired billions of Christians. To correct it, to enhance it, even with the best of intentions, could destroy people’s faith.
The theological world remains split on this issue. I don’t expect the art world to achieve consensus any quicker.
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 Don Sandin – which he received from a friend.
My husband and I had been happily married (most of the time) for five years but hadn't been blessed with a baby.
I decided to do some serious praying and promised God that if I could have a child, I would be a perfect mother, love it with all my heart and raise it with God’s love in my heart.
God answered my prayers and blessed us with a son. The next year God blessed us with another son. The following year, God blessed us with yet another son. The year after that we were blessed with a daughter.
My husband thought we'd been blessed right into poverty. We now had four children, and the oldest was only four years old.
I learned never to ask God for anything unless I meant it. As a minister once told me, 'If you pray for rain, make sure you carry an umbrella.'
I began reading a few verses of the Bible to the children each day as they lay in their cribs. I was off to a good start. God had entrusted me with four children and I was going to do it right.
I tried to be patient the day the children smashed two dozen eggs on the kitchen floor searching for baby chicks. I tried to be understanding when they started a hotel for homeless frogs in the spare bedroom, although it took me nearly two hours to catch all twenty-three frogs. When my daughter poured ketchup all over herself and rolled up in a blanket to seehow it felt to be a hot dog, I tried to see the humor rather than the mess.
In spite of changing over twenty-five thousand diapers, never eating a hot meal and never sleeping for more than thirty minutes at a time, I still thank God daily for my children.
While I couldn't keep my promise to be a perfect mother – I didn't even come close – I did keep my promise to raise them in the Word of God.
I knew I was missing the mark just a little when I told my daughter we were going to church to ‘worship’ God, and she wanted to bring a bar of soap along to 'wash up' Jesus, too.
Something was lost in the translation when I explained that God gave us everlasting life, and my son thought it was generous of God to give us his 'last wife.'
My proudest moment came during the children's Christmas pageant. My daughter was playing Mary, two of my sons were shepherds and my youngest son was a wise man. This was their moment to shine.
My five-year-old shepherd had practiced his line, “We found the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes.” But he was nervous and said, “The baby was wrapped in wrinkled clothes.” My four-year-old 'Mary' said, “That's not 'wrinkled clothes,' silly. That's dirty, rotten clothes.”
A wrestling match broke out between Mary and the shepherd and was stopped by an angel, who bent her halo and lost her left wing.
I slouched a little lower in my seat when Mary dropped the doll representing baby Jesus, and it bounced down the aisle crying, 'Mama-mama.'
Mary grabbed the doll, wrapped it back up and held it tightly as the wise men arrived. My other son stepped forward wearing a bathrobe and a paper crown, knelt at the manger and announced, “We are the three wise men, and we are bringing gifts of gold, common sense and fur.” The congregation dissolved into laughter, and the pageant got a standing ovation.
“I've never enjoyed a Christmas Program as much as this one,” laughed the pastor, wiping tears from her eyes. “For the rest of my life, I'll never hear the Christmas story without thinking of gold, common sense and fur.”
“My children are my pride and my joy and my greatest blessing,” I said as I dug through my purse for an aspirin. “And maybe their gift to all of us is the gift of laughter.”
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Theo Reiner of Calgary spotted this in Pagosa Springs, Colorado: “Hymns to be sung during distribution of Communion "Savior of the Nations, Come if needed” Theo thinks that might be good?
Rod and Doris Gist saw a note in a church bulletin at Sioux Falls, South Dakota. “I believe in shepherds, that they often hear songs of grace and glory not heard by those who lead busier, nosier lives.”
Lois Bly tells this one on herself. “Typing the bulletin for a children's Christmas service I wrote: ‘Jesus, our brother, strong and good, was numbly born in a stable rude’.”
Well, said Lois, “some of us are numb!” Christina Berry of Silver Lake, Minnesota, typed this into a bulletin. “A Welcoming and inviting ministry...integrating our past and future...rusting in Jesus...”
Unfortunately, she caught it before it went to press.
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! – "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can."
by John Wesley via Don Sandin
You can't control the wind, but you can adjust your sails. Yiddish proverb via Jim Taylor
Wrinkles are receipts for living. source unknown, via Evelyn McLachlan
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We Get Letters – Sharyl Peterson writes: “My Uncle Harold was a really wonderful, loving man, who never had children of his own, but faithfully taught Sunday School to the littlest kids for many years.
“One year, his kindergarteners were to take part in the All-Sunday-School Christmas Pageant. As he prepared them for their part, they all sang out lustily, ‘Hark! Harold's angels sing’!”
Wilma Houston White of Santa Ana, California writes: “Our family's favorite is: “Lead on, Oh Kinky Turtle” (Lead on, O King Eternal). Kinky Turtle became a catch phrase for any incomprehensible thing that we were forging ahead to do without really understanding why.
Marie Zettler writes: When I read "forgive us our Christmases..." it reminded me of my granddaughter, Sabrina. When she was three, her favourite Christmas carol was "God Rest Ye, Merry, gentlemen." She would sing lustily "..... to save us all from Santa's power when we were gone astray."
Marie! Your granddaughter gets an “A” in theology. Also sociology.
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “God is like hair spray!”) “Deck the halls with advertising,” wrote Stan Freeburg some years ago. “Now’s the time for merchandizing. Profit never needs a reason. Get the money, it’s the season. Fa la la, etc.
In that spirit here’s a bit of theology that’s a bit on the flaky side, but it might offer a chuckle, and who knows, it might start someone thinking.
God:
. . . is like BAYER ASPIRIN ... God works miracles.. . . is like a FORD ... God’s got a better idea.. . . is like COKE ... God’s the real thing.. . . is like HALLMARK CARDS ... God cares enough to send the very best.. . . is like TIDE ... God gets stains out that others leave behind.. . . is like GENERAL ELECTRIC ... God brings good things to life.. . . is like SEARS ... God has everything.. . . is like SCOTCH TAPE ... Invisible, but you know God is keeping things together.. . . is like DELTA ... God’s ready when you are.. . . is like ALLSTATE ... You’re in good hands with God.. . . is like VO-5 HAIR SPRAY ... God holds through all kinds of weather.. . . is like DIAL SOAP ... Aren’t you glad you have God. Don’t you wisheverybody did?
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Bottom of the Barrel – Evelyn McLachlan can be relied on to provide a Christmas groaner.
“The pastor who was badly overworked. Her husband worried about her and decided on a really fine Christmas gift.
Snipping a lock of her hair in the middle of the night, he took it to a medical clinic and had a clone made. It was like the pastor in every respect – except that the clone used extraordinarily foul language.
The cloned pastor was exceptionally gifted in many ways. She could preach a fine sermon and do fine pastoral visiting, but whenever she got irritated, she would let fly with a string of expletives worthy of Richard Nixon. Finally, the original pastor decided to get rid of her clone.
But how? Wouldn’t it look like murder? The best thing, she decided, was to make the clone's death look like an accident. So the pastor lured the clone onto a bridge in the middle of the night and pushed her off.
Unfortunately there was a police officer who happened by at that very moment. She was arrested and charged with making an obscene clone fall.
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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.~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Sermon Helps for Sunday, December 16th, 2007
R U M O R S # 479
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2007-12-09
December 9th, 2007
WHO IS THE LEAST?
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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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Next Week’s Readings – pious stonewalling
Rumors – the last, best gift
Soft Edges – exploiting our weakness
Good Stuff – dad’s empty chair
Bloopers – souses are invited
We Get Letters – how many chapters?
Mirabile Dictu! – gracious hostility
Bottom of the Barrel – grooooaaaannnn!
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 family was living at the hectic pace experienced by so many at this time of the year. One day, close to Christmas, was especially bad.
The small daughter in the family seemed to be constantly in the way of mother and father. Finally, in exasperation, she was put to bed.
She knelt to say her prayers, and perhaps became confused, as she prayed, “Forgive us our Christmases, as we forgive those who Christmas against us.”
On the other hand, maybe she wasn’t confused at all!
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you will probably hear in church this coming Sunday, December 16th, if you are using the Revised Common Lectionary. It is the third Sunday of Advent.
Isaiah 35:1-10 – I made a mistake. I started reading Isaiah 34 and almost lost my lunch.
I normally associate Isaiah with the theme of caring for the poor and downtrodden. That’s not exactly what chapter 34 is about. It’s about how God is going to slaughter everybody except the Israelites so that all the neat things promised in chapter 35 can happen. Chapter 34 has all the gory details.
So can we give ourselves the poetic promise of chapter 35 by disconnecting it from chapter 34? Is the God of Isaiah a bloodthirsty tribal deity or a gentle, caring, creative loving parent who is deeply in love with the children?
The answer, I think, is “yes.” The God of Isaiah is both. The Hebrew scriptures tell us what the Hebrews wanted most. They assumed that God must want the same thing.
So yes, the writer of Isaiah believed that God was going to wipe out everyone the Israelites didn’t like, and shower all the good stuff on the good people. Them.
Has our understanding of God changed since then?
Luke 1:47-55 the “Magnificat” – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
(Psalm 146:5-10 is an alternate reading)
My body grows round with wonder;
my soul swells with thanksgiving.
For God has been so good to me;
God did not say, "She's just a girl."
Once I was a slip of a girl,
but now I am a woman,
one who can bring forth new life.
In all generations, I am blessed.
How could anyone miss it –
this new life in me is divine.
It is holy.
God grants new life to all who have not lost a child's wonder;
they will be born again, and again, and again.
God watches over them;
God's fierce love fills predators with sudden fear.
The miracle of birth levels our human differences:
tough men become tenderly gentle,
learned professors blurt out baby talk,
even politicians fall silent in awe.
But the small and helpless are wrapped warmly in soft blankets;
they are held lovingly in caring arms;
they drink their fill with eyes closed.
The rich, for all their wealth and status, can go suck lemons.
That is how God deals with all of God's faithful people,
all who do not put their faith in themselves.
So God has always done,
so God will always do,
from Sarah's miracle, to mine.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
James 5:7-10 – By the time this epistle was being penned, the writer needed to urge the tiny Christian communities to “just hang in there. Jesus is coming. Yes. For sure. Soon. So be patient!”
The little Christian community had grown enough to be threatening to the established authorities, both Jewish and Roman. It felt pushed from both sides. Which is why James says, “Cool it folks! It’s all going to happen. In the meantime, don’t draw attention to yourself by squabbling among yourselves. Get along. If necessary, agree to disagree until Jesus comes back. Then you can decide who had it right and who got it wrong.”
Matthew 11:2-11 – Each time I see this passage, it’s verse 11 that leaps out at me. “Yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” Perhaps that’s because Jesus has always been, what a ten-year-old called “a turner-upside-downer.”
Which is spot on. He did and does take the values that run our lives and turn them on their head, which is why he wound up being crucified when he walked the earth and why he is studiously ignored today.
Over coffee at church last Sunday, a friend talked to me about the over-reaction to things religious he was experiencing. Being fair and open to all religions seemed to boil down to carefully avoiding the mention of any religion. That’s a little like saying that because there are inequities and injustices involved in the world-wide distribution of food, we will stop distributing all food.
Behind the pious stonewalling of things religious in our public life and educational institutions lies a reason much deeper than a concern of religious equality. We really don’t want our consciences poked by the call of any of those religions. All of them, at their best at least, have within them the call for justice, for peace, for a deeper and fuller and more meaningful relationship with God. It’s also why those of us in the ecumenical Christian church manage very successfully to keep Jesus locked up tight inside our church buildings.
We don’t want a “turner-upside-downer” messing around with what we do. We don’t want to be told that the pathetic African child dying of AIDS may rank higher in God’s realm than we do.
There’s a bundle of great resources on the Wood Lake Books website, including “Seasons of the Spirit” curriculum – which has material for all ages in the church. A few moments poking around on that site could be very fruitful. Go to the website at:
www.woodlakebooks.com
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Rumors – It’s an interesting path – this business of growing older. In a few weeks I will be older than my father was when he died three years past the allotted three-score and ten. Doesn’t bother me a bit.
He never smoked and he never drank. Well, there’s a slight amendment to the drinking bit. Near the end of his life, the doctor prescribed a shot of brandy each evening. It would be good for his heart. “Absolutely not,” said dad.
The doctor then wrote out a prescription. “This will cost you three times as much but you can get it at the pharmacy. It’s exactly the same thing as the brandy, except that it’ll taste awful.”
Well, dad watched his nickels, that’s for sure. So he got the brandy, but by golly he took it on a tablespoon and hated every bit of it. Which probably undid the positive effects of the brandy right there.
I am not my dad. I don’t have his “stick-to-it-iveness” (his favorite word). I quit smoking 20 years ago and booze has never been a problem. But the fact that I’m telling you this story probably means that the concern is bubbling away somewhere in the back of my cranium. As any shrink will tell you, “A strong denial is as good as a confession anytime.”
As I move along on this journey, the symbols of mortality accumulate. A year ago last summer it was a pacemaker. This fall it’s the finger. A suspicious scab excised and sent to the pathologist. “Probably nothing,” said my doctor.
When Jesus was talking to the folks about John the Baptist, he dropped that comment: “Yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” I’m not John the baptizer and I am not my dad, but I’m probably not “least in the kingdom” either.
Or am I? Exactly who is this “least” person?
In my book, “The Spirituality of Grandparenting,” my little coda says that the last, best gift we grandparents can leave our grandchildren is how to give up things. Little things. Big things. And finally, life itself.
Of course I will die. I don’t think the “when” question bothers me much, but the “how” is something I think about a lot. It’s not something we usually get to choose.
Along with others from our church, I am right now walking a friend through his final days. He would not have chosen the angry dementia that is troubling him.
Perhaps he’s that “least” one. Perhaps that’s the moment – the time when we have no vestige of power or control left – when we become once again like that babe in the Bethlehem stable – that is when we finally achieve greatness.
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Exploiting Our Weakness
I opened up my e-mail program one Saturday morning recently. As usual, the overnight spammers had filled my mailboxes with messages that I normally delete en masse.
This time, out of morbid curiosity, I decided to analyze what I had received.
There were 72 unsolicited messages.
One of them was a plea for saving great whales. Two others promoted a right-wing religious agenda.
And the rest?
The “subject line” of eight consisted of incomprehensible strings of nonsense characters.
Nine wanted to sell me a watch – replica Rolexes, mostly.
Six offered me cheap software, probably pirated in China.
Five dealt with money, either hot stocks or on-line gambling casinos.
Thirteen marketed pharmaceutical products – below market price, without a prescription, suitable for weight loss, etc.
By far the biggest group – 28 of the total 72 messages – dealt with sex. Four offered Viagra or Cialis or some other erection-enhancing pill. Three assured me that something called a “Personal Puss” was better than the real thing. Twenty told me that I needed a bigger penis, or more sperm to ejaculate. And one assured me that bigger breasts would enhance my sex life.
And that’s just one morning’s sample.
As we head into the Christmas season, it feels particularly offensive.
It’s a typical mix of messages, though. Some days I get more financial stuff – occasionally even an impassioned plea from Nigeria, written entirely in capital letters, inviting me to help free some dictator’s ill-gotten gains from a Swiss bank account – and some days more sex or software.
But the common factor is always self-centeredness. Anyone else exists only to be impressed by my wealth, my possessions, or my sexual prowess.
I worked in the advertising industry for six years. We commonly claimed that advertising does not shape public opinion – it merely reflects people’s values back to them.
If so, I’m depressed.
I’m depressed that there are so many vultures out there willing to exploit our weaknesses. I’m equally depressed that there must be people who respond to these appeals.
Spam “will only end when people stop buying diet pills, herbal highs, and sexual performance enhancers,” said Dave Rand, of Internet security firm Trend Micro.
It’s easy to blame computers for the proliferation of spam. But as Rand said, "This is a human problem, not a computer problem."
The products promoted by spam are no different from the rare-animal spleens and gizzards favored as aphrodisiacs in Asia, or the snake oil peddled in the American west.
Perhaps it’s always been this way...
Experts say that the way to cure spam is not to respond at all. Delete, delete, delete…
But that will work only if everyone does it – and I do mean everyone.
Because spammers send out millions of e-mails. Even if only a tiny percentage respond, they still make a profit. Which encourages them to send more spam.
Somehow, the whole world needs to say, and to believe: “I am a child of God. I am more than my money, my possessions, or my hormones.”
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 Don Sandin:
Dad's Empty Chair
A man's daughter had asked the local minister to come and pray with her father. When the minister arrived, he found the man lying in bed with his head propped up on two pillows. An empty chair sat beside his bed.
"I guess you were expecting me," said the minister.
"No, who are you?" said the father.
The minister told him his name and then remarked, "I saw the empty chair and I figured you knew I was going to show up."
"Oh yeah, the chair," said the bedridden man. "Would you mind closing the door?"
Puzzled, the minister shut the door.
"I have never told anyone this, not even my daughter," said the man. "But all of my life I have never known how to pray. At church I used to hear the pastor talk about prayer, but it went right over my head."
"I abandoned any attempt at prayer," the old man continued, "until one day four years ago, my best friend said to me, "Johnny, prayer is just a simple matter of having a conversation with the Lord. Here is what I suggest. 'Sit down in a chair; place an empty chair in front of you, and in faith see the Lord on the chair. It's not spooky because he promised; 'I will be with you always'. Then just speak to him in the same way you're doing with me right now.' "
"So, I tried it and I've liked it so much that I do it a couple of hours every day. I'm careful though, if my daughter saw me talking to an empty chair, she'd either have a nervous breakdown or send me off to the funny farm."
The minister was deeply moved by the story and encouraged the old man to continue on the journey. Then he prayed with him, anointed him with oil, and returned to the church.
Two nights later the daughter called to tell the minister that her dad had died that afternoon. "Did he die in peace?" he asked.
"Yes, when I left the house about two o'clock, he called me over to his bedside, told me he loved me and kissed me on the cheek. When I got back from the store an hour later, I found him dead."
"But there was something strange about his death. Apparently, just before Daddy died, he leaned over and rested his head on the chair beside the bed. What do you make of that?"
The minister wiped a tear from his eye and said, "I wish we could all go like that. Let me tell you about your father . . ."
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Ruth Dudley spotted this in a note sent to the clergy in our rural deanery: “Our Christmas lunch is fast arriving and it would be good if you can confirm that you are coming. Remember that souses are invited too.”
Velia Watts of Edmonton, Alberta reports: “A British poll of 100,000 people found some strange last requests from people planning their funerals, including: “bury me naked,” “put a mobile phone in the coffin,” “bury me with my pet,” and lastly, “make sure I'm, you know, really dead” (which probably explains the mobile phone request).
David Powers of Shaker Heights, Ohio spotted this interesting announcement. “Come and make your bid heard at our annual Silent Auction.”
Says David, “The silence could be deafening!”
Pauline Liemgme adds a few more titles to the mis-heard hymns collection:
"Good Mrs. Murphy all my life will surely follow me" (Goodness & mercy all my life)
"Pity mice and Plicity" (Gentle Jesus meek & mild, look upon this little child. Pity my simplicity)
"Gladly my cross-eyed bear" (Gladly my cross I'd bear)
"Give us the promises of crust" (Give us the promises of Christ).
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! – It's ironic that people pray for the poor and the sick, and then complain when the government does anything to help them.
William Sloane Coffin via Susan Fiore, AOJN
That’s the problem with eternity, there’s no telling where it will end.
Source unknown via John Cameron
Imagination is more important than knowledge. attributed to Albert Einstein
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We Get Letters – Wayne Sawyer of Thomaston, Maine, writes: “The ‘gravy’ discussion in Rumors reminded me of another great Easter hymn, with a wonderful image of Jesus bathing in a gravy boat on the Easter dinner table. ‘Low in the gravy, lay Jesus, my savor’.”
This for Canadians only, who understand what winning the Grey Cup (football) means to the city of Regina. The rest of you can slap your foreheads in disgust knowing that such things could never happen in your country.
Trev Quinn of Regina saw this on the sign board in front of a Regina Church.
"And he took the cup and gave thanks. Mat.29: 27."
Trev writes: “I didn't recognize the quotation, so I headed home and looked it up. Matthew only has 28 chapters! Yeah RIDERS!!!
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “gracious hostility!”) This list of bulletin bloopers has been around for some time and came around this time via Bill McSeveney. In fact, I think this particular list originated with Rumors a few years ago. Doesn’t matter. I’m repeating it, because it is very useful to use as an ice-breaker at a Christmas party.
* The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.
*The sermon this morning: "Jesus Walks on the Water." The sermon tonight: "Searching for Jesus."
* Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.
* Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say "Hell" to someone who doesn't care much about you.
* Don't let worry kill you. Let the Church help.
* Miss Maddison sang "I will not pass this way again," giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.
* For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
* Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.
* Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.
* A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.
* At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What Is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice.
* Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.
* Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.
* Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.
* The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility.
* Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM – prayer and medication to follow.
* The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.
* This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.
* Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B.S. is done.
* The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the Congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.
* Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door.
* The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.
* Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.
* The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new campaign slogan last Sunday: "I Upped My Pledge – Up Yours."
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Bottom of the Barrel – This from Carl Boyle, who must accept full responsibility. I’m just a humble scribe who passes this stuff along.
“A motorway walks into a pub one day. He goes up to the bar and orders himself a drink. He just sits down when in walks a strip of tarmac. “The motorway sees the tarmac and starts to panic so he jumps over the bar and ducks down so it won't see him. The barman looks down at him and says, "What's the matter with you? Why are you hiding? You've got six lanes and two hard shoulders. Why are you frightened of a piece of tarmac? “The motorway replies, "You don't know him like I do. He's a cyclepath."
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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.
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Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2007-12-09
December 9th, 2007
WHO IS THE LEAST?
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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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Next Week’s Readings – pious stonewalling
Rumors – the last, best gift
Soft Edges – exploiting our weakness
Good Stuff – dad’s empty chair
Bloopers – souses are invited
We Get Letters – how many chapters?
Mirabile Dictu! – gracious hostility
Bottom of the Barrel – grooooaaaannnn!
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 family was living at the hectic pace experienced by so many at this time of the year. One day, close to Christmas, was especially bad.
The small daughter in the family seemed to be constantly in the way of mother and father. Finally, in exasperation, she was put to bed.
She knelt to say her prayers, and perhaps became confused, as she prayed, “Forgive us our Christmases, as we forgive those who Christmas against us.”
On the other hand, maybe she wasn’t confused at all!
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you will probably hear in church this coming Sunday, December 16th, if you are using the Revised Common Lectionary. It is the third Sunday of Advent.
Isaiah 35:1-10 – I made a mistake. I started reading Isaiah 34 and almost lost my lunch.
I normally associate Isaiah with the theme of caring for the poor and downtrodden. That’s not exactly what chapter 34 is about. It’s about how God is going to slaughter everybody except the Israelites so that all the neat things promised in chapter 35 can happen. Chapter 34 has all the gory details.
So can we give ourselves the poetic promise of chapter 35 by disconnecting it from chapter 34? Is the God of Isaiah a bloodthirsty tribal deity or a gentle, caring, creative loving parent who is deeply in love with the children?
The answer, I think, is “yes.” The God of Isaiah is both. The Hebrew scriptures tell us what the Hebrews wanted most. They assumed that God must want the same thing.
So yes, the writer of Isaiah believed that God was going to wipe out everyone the Israelites didn’t like, and shower all the good stuff on the good people. Them.
Has our understanding of God changed since then?
Luke 1:47-55 the “Magnificat” – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
(Psalm 146:5-10 is an alternate reading)
My body grows round with wonder;
my soul swells with thanksgiving.
For God has been so good to me;
God did not say, "She's just a girl."
Once I was a slip of a girl,
but now I am a woman,
one who can bring forth new life.
In all generations, I am blessed.
How could anyone miss it –
this new life in me is divine.
It is holy.
God grants new life to all who have not lost a child's wonder;
they will be born again, and again, and again.
God watches over them;
God's fierce love fills predators with sudden fear.
The miracle of birth levels our human differences:
tough men become tenderly gentle,
learned professors blurt out baby talk,
even politicians fall silent in awe.
But the small and helpless are wrapped warmly in soft blankets;
they are held lovingly in caring arms;
they drink their fill with eyes closed.
The rich, for all their wealth and status, can go suck lemons.
That is how God deals with all of God's faithful people,
all who do not put their faith in themselves.
So God has always done,
so God will always do,
from Sarah's miracle, to mine.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
James 5:7-10 – By the time this epistle was being penned, the writer needed to urge the tiny Christian communities to “just hang in there. Jesus is coming. Yes. For sure. Soon. So be patient!”
The little Christian community had grown enough to be threatening to the established authorities, both Jewish and Roman. It felt pushed from both sides. Which is why James says, “Cool it folks! It’s all going to happen. In the meantime, don’t draw attention to yourself by squabbling among yourselves. Get along. If necessary, agree to disagree until Jesus comes back. Then you can decide who had it right and who got it wrong.”
Matthew 11:2-11 – Each time I see this passage, it’s verse 11 that leaps out at me. “Yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” Perhaps that’s because Jesus has always been, what a ten-year-old called “a turner-upside-downer.”
Which is spot on. He did and does take the values that run our lives and turn them on their head, which is why he wound up being crucified when he walked the earth and why he is studiously ignored today.
Over coffee at church last Sunday, a friend talked to me about the over-reaction to things religious he was experiencing. Being fair and open to all religions seemed to boil down to carefully avoiding the mention of any religion. That’s a little like saying that because there are inequities and injustices involved in the world-wide distribution of food, we will stop distributing all food.
Behind the pious stonewalling of things religious in our public life and educational institutions lies a reason much deeper than a concern of religious equality. We really don’t want our consciences poked by the call of any of those religions. All of them, at their best at least, have within them the call for justice, for peace, for a deeper and fuller and more meaningful relationship with God. It’s also why those of us in the ecumenical Christian church manage very successfully to keep Jesus locked up tight inside our church buildings.
We don’t want a “turner-upside-downer” messing around with what we do. We don’t want to be told that the pathetic African child dying of AIDS may rank higher in God’s realm than we do.
There’s a bundle of great resources on the Wood Lake Books website, including “Seasons of the Spirit” curriculum – which has material for all ages in the church. A few moments poking around on that site could be very fruitful. Go to the website at:
www.woodlakebooks.com
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Rumors – It’s an interesting path – this business of growing older. In a few weeks I will be older than my father was when he died three years past the allotted three-score and ten. Doesn’t bother me a bit.
He never smoked and he never drank. Well, there’s a slight amendment to the drinking bit. Near the end of his life, the doctor prescribed a shot of brandy each evening. It would be good for his heart. “Absolutely not,” said dad.
The doctor then wrote out a prescription. “This will cost you three times as much but you can get it at the pharmacy. It’s exactly the same thing as the brandy, except that it’ll taste awful.”
Well, dad watched his nickels, that’s for sure. So he got the brandy, but by golly he took it on a tablespoon and hated every bit of it. Which probably undid the positive effects of the brandy right there.
I am not my dad. I don’t have his “stick-to-it-iveness” (his favorite word). I quit smoking 20 years ago and booze has never been a problem. But the fact that I’m telling you this story probably means that the concern is bubbling away somewhere in the back of my cranium. As any shrink will tell you, “A strong denial is as good as a confession anytime.”
As I move along on this journey, the symbols of mortality accumulate. A year ago last summer it was a pacemaker. This fall it’s the finger. A suspicious scab excised and sent to the pathologist. “Probably nothing,” said my doctor.
When Jesus was talking to the folks about John the Baptist, he dropped that comment: “Yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” I’m not John the baptizer and I am not my dad, but I’m probably not “least in the kingdom” either.
Or am I? Exactly who is this “least” person?
In my book, “The Spirituality of Grandparenting,” my little coda says that the last, best gift we grandparents can leave our grandchildren is how to give up things. Little things. Big things. And finally, life itself.
Of course I will die. I don’t think the “when” question bothers me much, but the “how” is something I think about a lot. It’s not something we usually get to choose.
Along with others from our church, I am right now walking a friend through his final days. He would not have chosen the angry dementia that is troubling him.
Perhaps he’s that “least” one. Perhaps that’s the moment – the time when we have no vestige of power or control left – when we become once again like that babe in the Bethlehem stable – that is when we finally achieve greatness.
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Exploiting Our Weakness
I opened up my e-mail program one Saturday morning recently. As usual, the overnight spammers had filled my mailboxes with messages that I normally delete en masse.
This time, out of morbid curiosity, I decided to analyze what I had received.
There were 72 unsolicited messages.
One of them was a plea for saving great whales. Two others promoted a right-wing religious agenda.
And the rest?
The “subject line” of eight consisted of incomprehensible strings of nonsense characters.
Nine wanted to sell me a watch – replica Rolexes, mostly.
Six offered me cheap software, probably pirated in China.
Five dealt with money, either hot stocks or on-line gambling casinos.
Thirteen marketed pharmaceutical products – below market price, without a prescription, suitable for weight loss, etc.
By far the biggest group – 28 of the total 72 messages – dealt with sex. Four offered Viagra or Cialis or some other erection-enhancing pill. Three assured me that something called a “Personal Puss” was better than the real thing. Twenty told me that I needed a bigger penis, or more sperm to ejaculate. And one assured me that bigger breasts would enhance my sex life.
And that’s just one morning’s sample.
As we head into the Christmas season, it feels particularly offensive.
It’s a typical mix of messages, though. Some days I get more financial stuff – occasionally even an impassioned plea from Nigeria, written entirely in capital letters, inviting me to help free some dictator’s ill-gotten gains from a Swiss bank account – and some days more sex or software.
But the common factor is always self-centeredness. Anyone else exists only to be impressed by my wealth, my possessions, or my sexual prowess.
I worked in the advertising industry for six years. We commonly claimed that advertising does not shape public opinion – it merely reflects people’s values back to them.
If so, I’m depressed.
I’m depressed that there are so many vultures out there willing to exploit our weaknesses. I’m equally depressed that there must be people who respond to these appeals.
Spam “will only end when people stop buying diet pills, herbal highs, and sexual performance enhancers,” said Dave Rand, of Internet security firm Trend Micro.
It’s easy to blame computers for the proliferation of spam. But as Rand said, "This is a human problem, not a computer problem."
The products promoted by spam are no different from the rare-animal spleens and gizzards favored as aphrodisiacs in Asia, or the snake oil peddled in the American west.
Perhaps it’s always been this way...
Experts say that the way to cure spam is not to respond at all. Delete, delete, delete…
But that will work only if everyone does it – and I do mean everyone.
Because spammers send out millions of e-mails. Even if only a tiny percentage respond, they still make a profit. Which encourages them to send more spam.
Somehow, the whole world needs to say, and to believe: “I am a child of God. I am more than my money, my possessions, or my hormones.”
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 Don Sandin:
Dad's Empty Chair
A man's daughter had asked the local minister to come and pray with her father. When the minister arrived, he found the man lying in bed with his head propped up on two pillows. An empty chair sat beside his bed.
"I guess you were expecting me," said the minister.
"No, who are you?" said the father.
The minister told him his name and then remarked, "I saw the empty chair and I figured you knew I was going to show up."
"Oh yeah, the chair," said the bedridden man. "Would you mind closing the door?"
Puzzled, the minister shut the door.
"I have never told anyone this, not even my daughter," said the man. "But all of my life I have never known how to pray. At church I used to hear the pastor talk about prayer, but it went right over my head."
"I abandoned any attempt at prayer," the old man continued, "until one day four years ago, my best friend said to me, "Johnny, prayer is just a simple matter of having a conversation with the Lord. Here is what I suggest. 'Sit down in a chair; place an empty chair in front of you, and in faith see the Lord on the chair. It's not spooky because he promised; 'I will be with you always'. Then just speak to him in the same way you're doing with me right now.' "
"So, I tried it and I've liked it so much that I do it a couple of hours every day. I'm careful though, if my daughter saw me talking to an empty chair, she'd either have a nervous breakdown or send me off to the funny farm."
The minister was deeply moved by the story and encouraged the old man to continue on the journey. Then he prayed with him, anointed him with oil, and returned to the church.
Two nights later the daughter called to tell the minister that her dad had died that afternoon. "Did he die in peace?" he asked.
"Yes, when I left the house about two o'clock, he called me over to his bedside, told me he loved me and kissed me on the cheek. When I got back from the store an hour later, I found him dead."
"But there was something strange about his death. Apparently, just before Daddy died, he leaned over and rested his head on the chair beside the bed. What do you make of that?"
The minister wiped a tear from his eye and said, "I wish we could all go like that. Let me tell you about your father . . ."
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Ruth Dudley spotted this in a note sent to the clergy in our rural deanery: “Our Christmas lunch is fast arriving and it would be good if you can confirm that you are coming. Remember that souses are invited too.”
Velia Watts of Edmonton, Alberta reports: “A British poll of 100,000 people found some strange last requests from people planning their funerals, including: “bury me naked,” “put a mobile phone in the coffin,” “bury me with my pet,” and lastly, “make sure I'm, you know, really dead” (which probably explains the mobile phone request).
David Powers of Shaker Heights, Ohio spotted this interesting announcement. “Come and make your bid heard at our annual Silent Auction.”
Says David, “The silence could be deafening!”
Pauline Liemgme adds a few more titles to the mis-heard hymns collection:
"Good Mrs. Murphy all my life will surely follow me" (Goodness & mercy all my life)
"Pity mice and Plicity" (Gentle Jesus meek & mild, look upon this little child. Pity my simplicity)
"Gladly my cross-eyed bear" (Gladly my cross I'd bear)
"Give us the promises of crust" (Give us the promises of Christ).
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! – It's ironic that people pray for the poor and the sick, and then complain when the government does anything to help them.
William Sloane Coffin via Susan Fiore, AOJN
That’s the problem with eternity, there’s no telling where it will end.
Source unknown via John Cameron
Imagination is more important than knowledge. attributed to Albert Einstein
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We Get Letters – Wayne Sawyer of Thomaston, Maine, writes: “The ‘gravy’ discussion in Rumors reminded me of another great Easter hymn, with a wonderful image of Jesus bathing in a gravy boat on the Easter dinner table. ‘Low in the gravy, lay Jesus, my savor’.”
This for Canadians only, who understand what winning the Grey Cup (football) means to the city of Regina. The rest of you can slap your foreheads in disgust knowing that such things could never happen in your country.
Trev Quinn of Regina saw this on the sign board in front of a Regina Church.
"And he took the cup and gave thanks. Mat.29: 27."
Trev writes: “I didn't recognize the quotation, so I headed home and looked it up. Matthew only has 28 chapters! Yeah RIDERS!!!
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “gracious hostility!”) This list of bulletin bloopers has been around for some time and came around this time via Bill McSeveney. In fact, I think this particular list originated with Rumors a few years ago. Doesn’t matter. I’m repeating it, because it is very useful to use as an ice-breaker at a Christmas party.
* The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.
*The sermon this morning: "Jesus Walks on the Water." The sermon tonight: "Searching for Jesus."
* Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.
* Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say "Hell" to someone who doesn't care much about you.
* Don't let worry kill you. Let the Church help.
* Miss Maddison sang "I will not pass this way again," giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.
* For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
* Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.
* Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.
* A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.
* At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What Is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice.
* Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.
* Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.
* Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.
* The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility.
* Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM – prayer and medication to follow.
* The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.
* This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.
* Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B.S. is done.
* The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the Congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.
* Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door.
* The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.
* Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.
* The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new campaign slogan last Sunday: "I Upped My Pledge – Up Yours."
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Bottom of the Barrel – This from Carl Boyle, who must accept full responsibility. I’m just a humble scribe who passes this stuff along.
“A motorway walks into a pub one day. He goes up to the bar and orders himself a drink. He just sits down when in walks a strip of tarmac. “The motorway sees the tarmac and starts to panic so he jumps over the bar and ducks down so it won't see him. The barman looks down at him and says, "What's the matter with you? Why are you hiding? You've got six lanes and two hard shoulders. Why are you frightened of a piece of tarmac? “The motorway replies, "You don't know him like I do. He's a cyclepath."
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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.
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