R U M O R S # 487
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2008-02-03
THE STORY LECTIONARY
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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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If you haven’t already done so, please check out the Story Lectionary web site. It’s not for everyone, but those who use it may find it helps add vitality, interest and relevance to worship generally and preaching in particular. Just go to www.story-lectionary.com .
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Next Week’s Readings – Eve, the hero of Eden
The Story Lectionary – counter-intuitive
Rumors – the grandparent God
Soft Edges – soaring fearlessly
Good Stuff – I know who she is
Bloopers – be a dessert
We Get Letters – tweedle dee dee
Mirabile Dictu! – super-sized creation
Bottom of the Barrel – un-rigid religion
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 Seybert.
Sister Margaret had spent weeks preparing the first grade children for their first Communion, stressing the solemnity and importance of this sacrament. Much to her chagrin, during Mass on the big day, one boy in the front row was talking and giggling nonstop. Finally, unable to put up with it any longer, she whispered to the lad seated next to her, "Please go up there and tell that guy he's done enough talking and had better stop, right now!" Without question, the boy rose and walked to the front and delivered Sister Margaret' s message to the surprised priest in the middle of his sermon!
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Next Week’s Readings – Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you will probably hear in church this coming Sunday, February 10th which is (Yes, believe it!) the first Sunday in Lent.
Among other things, it means that the first material for the “Story Lectionary” is available. Go to www.story-lectionary.com . Please don’t confuse this with the Lectionary Story Bible (below) which is a resource for kidlets.
For children see “The Lectionary Story Bible” – stories for Lent 1, Year A. “God’s Beautiful Garden” (Genesis) is on page 76 and “Jesus Gets Ready” is on page 78.
Revised Common Lectionary:
Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7 – This is one of the passages that always gets my dander up. Not the passage itself, but what we’ve done with it. Our understanding of this passage has been based mostly on Augustine who read it through the lens of his guilt over his philandering. It isn’t about sex or original sin or any of that kind of stuff.
Eve, I think, is the hero of this story. It is about the human journey from childhood innocence into adult responsibility. It’s the tree “of the knowledge of good and evil” that she and the man sample, and they are not fully human until they have done that.
Humans are the only species that can conceive of a thing like morality and ethics. In the first Genesis creation story, we are told that humans are made “in the image and likeness of God.” Having a sense of what is good and what is bad, what is hurtful and what is helpful, humans can participate with God in the work of continuing creation. But first, we must leave the garden of childhood, of innocence. First we must to grow into beings that may not be that different in the physical sense from other creatures in God’s creation. But in the spiritual sense we are godlike. We can take responsibility for our actions. We have eaten of the tree of the “knowledge of good and evil” – a knowledge that brings with it pain and death as well as joy and fulfillment.
Psalm 32 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
1 A great load of guilt hangs around my neck
like a millstone strung on fine steel wire.
If someone would free me from my burden, I would be so happy.
2 That would be almost as good as never having slipped,
as good as not having failed in the first place.
3 Can you imagine what it's like never being able to stand up straight?
I have become a wasted cripple, my body bowed by tensions.
4 My bones are brittle as twigs scorched by the summer sun;
When I try to sleep, a gigantic pillow suffocates me.
5 But you gave me a second chance.
I confessed; I didn't try to hide anything.
I poured out my soul to you, and you forgave me.
You cut the string and freed me.
6 Without my millstone of guilt, I feel light as a feather.
I can float; I can rise above a torrent of troubles.
7 God, I can trust you completely, because you trusted me.
Wrapped in your arms, I feel safe as a baby, murmuring to its mother.
8 And God replies: "I will teach you my ways.
I will share my wisdom with you.
I will watch over you, and keep you safe.
9 I do not expect you to obey blindly, without understanding.
You are intelligent creatures, not sheep.
You do not need reins to guide you;
you can learn the right road."
10 The millstones of sin still burden many,
but those who trust God have been set free.
11 They shout with relief for they have been saved;
Their hearts have been scrubbed clean;
they can stand straight again.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
Romans 5:12-19 – Paul is not talking about individuals here – neither Adam nor Jesus. They are archetypes (as Paul says in verse14) of sinfulness and sinlessness. The one symbolizes all sinfulness and the other all goodness.
I have a hard time accepting Paul’s notion of a bookkeeper God who says the debt run up by humans is so huge, the only thing we can do is declare moral bankruptcy. And the only way God can be appeased is by the blood of someone who is totally sinless.
That’s not the kind of God I believe in. Not some kind of cross between Superman and Santa Claus who knows when we’ve been “naughty or nice.”
Paul’s equations assume that wrong can be undone by some kind of sacrifice. He assumes a God who has the kind of revenge mentality we see in our dysfunctional criminal justice systems.
Matthew 4:1-11 – This is one of those stories that may not be true on the outside, but is true on the inside. Like the second creation story, it is about wrestling with temptation and evil and taking responsibility for one’s actions. If we take it literally, we lose the stories power.
Jesus, I think, wrestled with those temptations every day of his earthly life, and so do we in ours. The more clearly we can take that story of Jesus and see it, not as something that was there, then, but something that is here, now, and a universal struggle in our lives, the more the story can speak to us.
Most of us in the main-line churches are in positions of economic, social and religious power. It may not seem like that most of the time. Compared to our friends and neighbors, Bev and I are not wealthy or powerful.
But compared to the ones who sleep in doorways in out city’s center – compared to the vast majority of people, especially in Africa, we are wealthy and powerful.
And, like Jesus, we make choices about how we use that power.
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Story Lectionary – In this lectionary, only one scripture is suggested for each Sunday. But preachers are encouraged to use passages relevant to the theme as additional readings or as references within the sermon. Jim Taylor, in his commentary on the week’s story will make some suggestions from time to time.
In each case, the suggested scripture is there to be downloaded in its entirety, along with supportive narration in a “reader’s theatre” format. Sometimes that supportive narration weaves a bit of a story around passages (such as this one) to put them into a story context.
Please check the web site for yourself. www.story-lectionary.com.
Matthew 6:1-18 – This story is counter-intuitive. It could give professional fund raisers the hizzy-fits. You can’t really raise decent money if you don’t make a fuss over the big donors and ignore those who contribute very little. Yes, there are exceptions, but most people want their gifts acknowledged. Not just acknowledged. Praised.
In the so-called ‘Sermon on the Mount” Jesus turns that value system on its head. The ones who give the least really give the most.
Then Jesus does it again in the Lord’s Prayer asking us to forgive those in debt to us. It would be nice if he put a limit on how much forgiving we’re asked to do. But no. This is the whole caboodle. We forgive the whole works. Not a good way to “get ahead” in life.
The Jesus ethic ran right smack up against the ethical and monetary practices of his day, just as they run right smack up against ours now.
I don’t give every nickel I own to the church, and I doubt there’s a single person in that church who would ask me to. They don’t even ask me to tithe. There’s discussion about whether a tithe should be five per-cent or three which is a bit like arguing whether a car should have one wheel or two. A tithe is 10%, and even though some of us give that amount, we have a lot left over. A lot! Way more than those folks who listened to Jesus 2000 years ago.
By the way. Jim offers an interesting version of the Lord’s Prayer from the Jewish Kaddish in the Talmud. Check out his preaching suggestions which you’ll find on the Story-Lectionary website.
The Garden of Eden story in the Revised Common Lectionary relates very directly to these verses from Matthew. It’s the story of a profligate God who gives us everything we could possibly need. But we can never really know that, until we reject all that beauty and goodness, and try to make it on our own. Until we are on the outside looking in. Like a fish out of water, we take the air we breathe for granted until suddenly it is gone.
But when we are willing to give everything we are back to God, we find ourselves in an enriched Eden – a garden of rich flavor and nutrition, that includes the salty, bitter taste of tears as well as the sweetness of laughter.
A related story may be found in the Family Story Bible: "Jesus Teaches Us to Pray," page 194.
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Rumors – My daughter Kari teases me about my visits. “You just come here to get your material,” she says.
She’s right and she’s wrong. I do get a lot of my “material” from my visits with her and Don and Jake and Zoë. And of course Kari knows that’s not why I come. She just likes to tease me about all the references to my grandchildren here in Rumors.
I get my material from my interaction with others. I am not the cerebral kind who can sift through the pros and cons of a situation and then make a brilliant pronouncement of some sort. I am not analytical and it shows. Nor am I consistent. I often contradict myself.
But in the course of life, as I meet other people – in the flesh, or in books, magazines, etc., little “aha’s” pop into my head. I’ve never had one theory of everything, but I’ve had lots of little metaphors that offer some kind of insight. One is the metaphor of God as grandparent.
It popped into my head as Bev and I were enjoying our grandchildren, that we were “playing God,” and that this is our vocation as grandparents. That insight came to me over and over when I was writing “The Spirituality of Grandparenting,” and interviewing many grandparents.
Like all metaphors, thinking of God as grandparent is incomplete. But it’s useful because it helps us grasp one aspect of who God is.
Bev and I enjoy our visits with Zoë and Jake because it means we can share some of the wonder and delight of their lives as they grow up. It is my chief role as a grandparent to delight in my grandchildren. And when there is pain, to cry with them. It’s not my job to offer them little bon mots of wisdom, even if I had some.
I like the story of the Garden of Eden because the God I see there, is a grandparent God. God knows the children must free themselves from the innocence of the garden. They cannot be mature and they cannot make moral decisions until they have tasted the forbidden fruit and developed an awareness of good and evil. To remain in the garden, in perpetual childhood – in unalloyed sweetness – is tragic. There are those who try to live in that kind of denial. I am sure God weeps when they do.
Another way to understand God, is as the parent of adult children. You love them as much as ever and you care as deeply as ever about what they do with their lives. You want nothing more than that they be happy and live to their full potential.
But you are no longer in control. You can’t keep them from messing up their lives, and when they do, you feel the pain perhaps more than they do.
You want very much to be with them in their pain and frustration, but you can only do that when they let you. You do not direct and you do not punish and you do not control.
There are many metaphors for God and none of them do God justice. All of them help us understand just a little more – appreciate the wisdom, the tenderness, and the love.
Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Soaring Fearlessly
Joan and I spent last week on the island of St. Vincent, in the far southeastern corner of the Caribbean chain. We chose it because it remains pretty much undeveloped. Most hotels have fewer than 30 rooms; beach vendors give you an extra coconut if you accidentally overpay them; there’s no international airport bringing planeloads of tourists directly from everywhere – you have to actually want to go there to get there…
We expected to spend a lazy week. We exceeded our expectations.
I spent a fair portion of each day watching a seabird circle over the over the ocean until she saw fish under the surface. Then she folded her wings and plummeted into the water like a feathered projectile, making less splash than an Olympic diver. Seconds later, she popped up again – sometimes to resume her aerial circles, sometimes to pause long enough to swallow her catch.
And I found myself envying her.
Oh, I didn’t envy the prospect of spending all day, every day, circling endlessly over the same patch of sea, hoping to consume half my weight in fish.
Rather, I envied the bird’s absence of fear. She would, of course, head for safety if a hawk or eagle neared. But she had clearly no fear of flying. She wheeled and swooped with complete confidence in her own abilities, adjusting her flight with tiny twitches of wingtip feathers.
I would love to fly. I’d love to have that sense of total control over three dimensions. But at my age, I don’t trust my reflexes that much any more. I could take flying lessons – but even if I passed, I would have a constant fear of getting into a situation where a mistake could cost not just my own life, but perhaps the lives of passengers.
We humans were not designed for flying. Only our technology enables us to exceed our natural capabilities.
And when you make a mistake in an airplane, you can’t get out and walk home.
The bird has no such fear. She cannot exceed her capabilities. Even if she makes a mistake in a tight turn, she will only fall a few feet in a flurry of feathers before she can regain her composure, spread her wings, and soar again. Natural air resistance prevents her falling faster than she can recover.
And so she soars fearlessly.
Compare that with human experience. We work like slaves for an employer we loathe, because we fear unemployment, loss of income, loss of status… Advertising implants fear to sell us cosmetics, pills, diets, dating services, household germs, dust, tutoring programs, security systems…
Politics foments fears of other parties and policies.
The entire American nation is being manipulated by fear of terrorists who may or may not exist.
Fears paralyze. We fear saying the wrong thing, wearing the wrong clothes, holding the wrong ideas. We fear relationships that go sour; we may even fear relationships that could grow too close.
Perhaps, if we could banish some of our fears, we too could soar effortlessly.
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 Kausie White:
It was a busy morning, about 8:30, when an elderly gentleman in his 80's, arrived to have stitches removed from his thumb. He said he was in a hurry as he had an appointment at 9:00 am.
While taking care of his wound, I asked him if he had another doctor's appointment this morning, as he was in such a hurry.
“No,” said the gentleman. “I need to go to the nursing home to eat breakfast with my wife.”
“Is your wife ill?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “She has Alzheimer’s.”
“Would your wife mind if you were a bit late?”
“Oh no,” he said. “She hasn’t recognized me for five years.”
"And you still go every morning, even though she doesn't know who you are?"
He smiled. "She doesn't know me, but I still know who she is."
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Carroll Morony of Colby, Kansas writes: “In last Sunday's bulletin we were promoting our upcoming Valentine Dinner. The secretary, meant to type ‘bring.’ Instead she wrote: ‘please be a dessert, chocolate or Valentine (or both)’."
Says Caroll: “Maybe our churches would be much sweeter if we took her advice?”
Lorne Buhr in Edmonton, Alberta saw a bit of delightful irony in the name, “Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir.”
Ron Schulz “loved the piece about the Lutherans, but I think there's a typo near the end. Should be 100 degrees (not 10) and 90% humidity and we still have coffee after the service (we really do).”
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! – If you promise not to believe everything your child says happens at Sunday School, I'll promise not to believe everything the child says happens at home.
Good Clean Funnies Web Site, via Wayne Seybert
Witty sayings are as easily lost as the pearls slipping off a broken sting; but a word of kindness is seldom spoken in vain. It is the seed which, even when dropped by chance, springs up a flower.
The Old Farmers Almanac, 1853, via Mary Arneson in the Sultanate of Oman
Work for Whirled Peas!
on a bumper sticker in Tucson, Arizona
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We Get Letters – Diane Lewis of Surrey, UK has a new revelation to share. She says that bachelors of both Arts and Divinity (BA, BD) are recognized as “Born Again, But Doubtful!”
And Michael Skibinski says there was a man named Rev. James Tweedle who refused a Doctor of Divinity degree. He didn’t want to be called “Tweedle DD.”
Michael, isn’t there is limerick about that?
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “Super-sized Creation!”)
This from George Brigham of Shipley, West Yorkshire, England
In the beginning God covered the earth with broccoli, cauliflower and spinach, with green, yellow and red vegetables of all kinds so Man and Woman would live long and healthy lives.
Then using God's bountiful gifts, Satan created Dairy Ice Cream and Magnums.
And Satan said "You want hot fudge with that?
And Man said "Yes!"
And Woman said "I'll have one too with chocolate chips".
And lo, they gained 10 pounds.
And God created the healthy yoghurt that Woman might keep the figure that Man found so fair.
And Satan brought forth white flour from the wheat and sugar from the cane and combined them.
And Woman went from size 12 to size 14.
So God said "Try my fresh green salad".
And Satan presented Blue Cheese dressing and garlic croutons on the side.
And Man and Woman unfastened their belts following the repast.
God then said "I have sent you healthy vegetables and olive oil in which to cook them".
And Satan brought forth deep fried coconut king prawns, butter-dipped lobster chunks and chicken fried steak, so big it needed its own platter.
And Man's cholesterol went through the roof.
Then God brought forth the potato, naturally low in fat and brimming with potassium and good nutrition.
Then Satan peeled off the healthy skin and sliced the starchy centre into chips and deep fried them in animal fats adding copious quantities of salt.
And Man put on more pounds.
Then God gave lean beef so that Man might consume fewer calories and still satisfy his appetite.
And Satan created McDonalds and the £1.00 double cheeseburger.
Then Satan said "You want fries with that?" and Man replied "Yes, and super size 'em".
God then brought forth running shoes so that his Children might lose those extra pounds.
And Satan came forth with a cable TV with remote control so Man would not have to toil changing the channels.
And Man and Woman laughed and cried before the flickering light and started wearing stretch jogging suits.
And Satan said "It is good."
And Man and Woman went into cardiac arrest.
God sighed ......... and created quadruple by-pass surgery.
And then Satan chuckled and is intent on creating a post code lottery in the National Health Service.
THE FINAL WORD ON NUTRITION
* Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
* Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
* Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
* Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
* Germans drink beer and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than us.
Conclusion:
Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is what kills you.
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Bottom of the Barrel – This is from Alan Craig of Brampton, Ontario who writes: “There is nothing religious about this one, so I don't know if it is suitable for Rumors.”
Well, Alan, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that the passion referred to here amounts to a religion. My standards for what qualifies as “religious” are not exactly rigid.
An English doctor was being shown around a Scottish hospital. Near the end of his visit, he saw a ward of patients with no obvious injuries.
He started to examine the first patient, but the man proclaimed: "Fair fa' yer honest, sonsie face / Great chieftain o'the puddin' race!"
The doctor, taken aback, moved on to the next patient, who immediately said; "Some hae meat and canna eat / And some wad eat that want it."
The next patient cried out; "Wee sleekit cow'rin tim'rous beastie /O what a panic's in thy breastie!"
"Well," the English doctor muttered to his Scottish colleague, "I see you saved the psychiatric ward for last."
"Oh, no," said the Scottish doctor. "This is our serious Burns unit!"
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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, January 30, 2008
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Preaching Materials for February 3rd
R U M O R S # 486
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2008-01-27
TINY TRANSFIGURATIONS
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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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Whoodathunkit? Rumors has busted the seven thousand mark. Exactly 7,012 subscriptions to be exact. And I can remember, when we started out nine years ago, I was ecstatic because we broke the 100 mark.
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The Story Lectionary is on-line. Type in www.Story-Lectionary.com, or google same and you’ll arrive. This is not a replacement for the Revised Common Lectionary but a supplement. It takes too long to explain here. Please go to the site and check it out for yourself.
The Story Lectionary must be scratching where preachers itch, because we’ve been getting a batch of mail from folks who tell us they are delighted.
But please make up your own mind. Take a look.
By the way, don’t confuse this with the book called, “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year A,” which is a collection of stories for children, with material for every Sunday in the cycle.
The Lectionary Story Bible is for the young. It’s a book you can buy.
The Story Lectionary is for the young at heart. It’s free on-line.
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Next Week’s Readings – the story can’t be contained
Rumors – tiny injections
Soft Edges – stacking chairs
Bloopers – hurried hilarity
We Get Letters – God rinses
Mirabile Dictu! – singing Lutherans
Bottom of the Barrel – another conspiracy
Stuff – (read this only if you would like to subscribe, unsubscribe or are wondering about permissions. That sort of boring stuff.)
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Rib Tickler – The minister had several degrees and the church board insisted these be listed after the name on the bulletin board.
So there it was. Rev. M. Jones, LLB, BA.
“What do those letters mean?” a friend asked one of the seasoned members of the church.Preview
Preview
“Well, as far as I can tell,” said the elderly member, “LLB means, ‘looks like a Bishop,’ and BA means, ‘But ain’t.’”
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you will probably hear in church this coming Sunday, February 3rd which is (yes, believe it!) Transfiguration Sunday. That means the following Sunday is (Yikes!) the First Sunday of Lent, which is when the on-line Story Lectionary begins.
There are two Transfiguration Sunday stories in “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year A,” “Moses Goes to Visit God,” page 72, based on the Exodus passage, and “Jesus on the Mountaintop,” page 74, based on Matthew. (For ordering information, see below).
Exodus 24:12-18 – This out-of-context passage about Moses’ theophany on Mount Sinai is included, because the Matthew reading about Jesus’ transfiguration is a story told to demonstrate that Jesus is not only walking in the tradition of Moses, but is, in a sense, Moses returned. Although it isn’t mentioned in this passage, Moses’ face shone, just as Jesus’ did, up on that mountain.
I’ve been to the mountain that tradition says Moses climbed. I’m not the least bit interested in speculating on whether that was an historical event or mythological. But the steps up that mountain are worn smooth by the faith of pilgrims who over the centuries have climbed the peak and found it a good place to meditate on the Moses tradition. And perhaps, like Moses, experience an encounter with God.
Psalm 2 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
(Note: Psalm 99 is an alternate)
1 What causes powerful people
to plot together for their own profit?
2 They manipulate events to preserve their own privilege.
3 They try to take matters into their own hands;
They think they are greater than God.
4 But God laughs at their vanity.
5 They will see how fast their successes fade.
They will watch their foundations crack
and their walls crumble.
6 Their empires will not last.
9 Their lofty edicts will be forgotten,
their proclamations scorned.
The world they tried to weave
will fall apart like rotted fabric.
7 But the reign of God goes on forever.
8 When the wicked ones have gone,
who will inherit their wealth?
Only the poor and broken-hearted will be left.
10 Take heed, you who pursue power at any price!
11 Serve God, not your own ambitions.
Come to God in fear and trembling.
12 Learn God's ways,
before God flicks you into eternity like dandruff from a shoulder.
The orphans adopted into God's family will have the last laugh.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
2 Peter 1:16-21 – I object to the translator’s use of the word “myths” in verse 16 as something which is false. It’s the only word we have in English to name a story, tradition, song, (which may or may not be historically true) that carries meaning for those who treasure it. We need that word for our faith discourses.
The writer (not Peter the Apostle) assumes that the readers already know the story of Jesus’ transfiguration, and wants to make sure they get the interpretation right. The writer holds the event up as core event that demonstrates Jesus’ divinity. “Hang on to this,” he seems to be saying, “until the morning, when the new days dawns.” A reference, I think, to the second coming of the Christ.
Matthew 17:1-9 – Peter’s idea to put up three “dwellings” there on that mountain was clearly a non-starter, so I find it amusing that subsequent generations have built a large church up there. It’s hard to imagine yourself into that story – the cloud overshadowing you – when you are in a fairly opulent building.
Peter, James and John, like the rest of us lead-footed mortals, always find it hard to deal with those numinous moments when something clearly happens that blows our minds with a reality far too big for our brains.
Peter, James and John were scared out of their wits, just as you and I would have been. So let’s not be too hard on them for making dumb suggestions. Those three had no idea what was going on, and neither do we know what really happened. It refuses to be contained in our neat theological categories or historical propositions. It can’t be held in church building any more than it could be contained in the booths Peter suggested.
As far as I can see, there’s only one adequate word for such an event.
“Wow!!!”
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 – Creeping decrepitude probably means that Bev and I won’t be able to do it any more, but for a number of years we were able to take part in “pilgrimages” to various parts of northern Europe, led by Drs. Lynn McNaughton and Gerald Hobbs.
The sites they led us to were places where history or mythology tells us something happened. Something changed. People were transfigured. And in the process, many of us were transfigured. Sometimes a little. Sometimes a lot.
I was transfigured a lot on the very first such pilgrimage when we visited the cell where Julian of Norwich prayed out her life. She became an anchorite because of her own transfiguration – her experience of the crucified Christ and her reflection on that in an amazing lifetime.
Last weekend, Bev and I were Victoria, on Vancouver Island, for an annual event called “Epiphany Explorations.” We were regaled by the likes of Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, Miriam Therese Winter, John Bell and others. And we reconnected with many friends and colleagues – some of whom we hadn’t seen for years. Unlike us (Ahem!) some of them had gained pounds and lost hair. Some had changed so much they didn’t recognize me.
I can’t say I came out of that having “learned” a whole lot, but those presenters did shine the light of their insight from an angle I hadn’t noticed before. But more than that, in reconnecting with the “saints” of the church, I was invigorated.
To call that weekend a “transfiguration” would be overstating things a fair bit but it was a difference of degree, I think, more than kind. A whole lot of tiny bits of transfiguration in the warm sharing of life in the corridors and the small “Aha!” experiences during the presentations add up to a fair bit of spiritual buffing and polishing.
Actually, I don’t think us humans can stand more than a few really big-time transfigurations in one life-time. There’s a very ancient tradition that says if you see the face of God you will die.
That’s one of the reasons we have a church, I think. We join ourselves to a church so that the Spirit can work mostly in tiny injections. Too big a shot of holiness could trigger an allergic reaction.
But even in blessings there is a danger. It’s all too easy for those tiny infusions of blessing to build up an immunity to the real thing.
Maybe the difference is in learning to notice – to identify those tiny transfigurations. Notice them. Reflect on them. Treasure them. Then one small experience can enrich another. And in the new math of the Spirit, the multiplication of grace is utterly amazing.
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Stacking Chairs
It was back in December, after a community event in the local hall. The potluck dinner had ended, the plates had been cleared, and the members were starting to stack the folding chairs to clear the floor.
The chairs looked as if they were all similar. But they weren’t. They didn’t quite fit together.
That’s not true. They would fit together if you jammed them down. But that tended to damage the edges of the molded plywood seats. Which, in turn, tended to leave splinters in the next user’s posterior.
“No, no, not like that,” objected a long-time member. “You have to match the colors!”
Superficially, the chairs all looked the same – plywood seats, plywood backs, metal frames...
“Look at the color of the frames,” explained the organizer. “Put the brown-painted frames with the brown frames, the gray frames with the gray, and so on.”
With that change, the chairs stacked together perfectly.
I got thinking about those stacking chairs while I was researching an article about church conflicts a few weeks ago. The article concluded with the observation that the two factions were going to have to separate.
“It’s not an ideal solution,” I commented. “But it is a realistic one.”
We have an ideal that religious people should get along with each other. They should swallow their disagreements. They should tolerate, even celebrate, their differences. They should set a model for the world on how to get along together.
But the ideal doesn’t always work. People do have differences – of belief, of style, of history.
And people would rather hang together with those who share similar views than with those who don’t.
It’s like the stacking chairs.
I know that I, for example, would be seriously unhappy in a Southern Baptist congregation. Perhaps I would be even more unhappy in a church that calls itself The Ultimate Messianic Church of Divine Jesus Christ of the Original Bible.
I just wouldn’t fit.
Of course, a black Pentecostal would probably find the worship services I attend much too repressed emotionally. And a Quaker would certainly find them too noisy.
That doesn’t make any of these variations wrong (although I might question the scholarship of the Original Bible people!) but it does suggest that an attempt to homogenize all tastes will have about as much appeal as a four-course turkey dinner put through a blender.
The “lowest common denominator” approach will satisfy no one.
Nor should my musings suggest that we exclude those who may look different, or come from different backgrounds. Like the shock treatment administered to heart attack victims, a stranger may provide precisely the spark that’s needed to revitalize a congregation stalled in the doldrums of deadly routine.
But only if the existing group is willing to listen to the new view, to try it, and to take the risk of being changed by their experience.
Like stacking chairs, we may look alike superficially. But we function more smoothly when gathered with like-minded peers.
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 – Ken Ferguson of “SteepleJack” (now Ashford) Connecticut knows of a church secretary who hurridly, typed the bulletin early Sunday morning. Perhaps too hurriedly. Last Sunday the Call to Worship read: “Dear God, we praise you with all our fearts.”
I was tempted to tell Ken about what it’s like being a senior whose intestinal trumpet calls get louder while the singing voice gets croakier. Our laughing God I’m sure enjoys this joyful noise.
In the same church, Ken tells of the hurrying Deacon who put up a notice on the outside sign board announcing the Deacon’s Public Supper. All would have been fine except he forgot the “l” in “public.”
From the file:
* …persons who are shut-in during bath weather.
* …potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 pm – prayer and medication to follow.
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! – We are not people of the book. We are people of the story.
Miriam Therese Winter
Thus the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees.
Arthur Schopenhauer via Rob Thomas
One of life's greatest mysteries is how the boy who wasn't good enough to marry your daughter can be the father of the smartest grandchild in the world. Jewish Proverb via Jim Taylor
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We Get Letters – Russell Pastuch, of Ottawa, Ontario must be old enough to remember the “good old days” when LSD was the mind-bending chemical of choice. That’s why his eyebrows went up when he read a report about the possibility of an LSD screen in the narthex of the church.
Russell. I checked. I googled. LSD in this case means a Liquid Something-or-other Doo-hicky.
April Dailey writes: “This morning, our intern, Emily Hartmann asked the children if all of them had names. All of them nodded their heads – all but little Colton. Emily had some fun with his parents in the greeting line after worship.
Wayne Seybert of Longmont, Colorado tells of a church choir that was putting on a car wash to raise money for a special trip to Bethlehem.
They made a large sign that read: “Car Wash for Choir Trip.”
On the scheduled Saturday, business was very good. But, by two o'clock the sky clouded, the rain poured, and there were hardly any customers. Finally, one of the sopranos had an idea. She printed a very large poster with the words: “We wash. God rinses!”
Business boomed.
This news clip from Robert Moore of Acton, Massachusetts who says it has great “homiletical possibilities.”
An 81-year old man in the small Chilean village of Angol shocked his grieving relatives by waking up in his coffin at his own wake, local media said on Sunday.
When Feliberto Carrasco's family members discovered his body limp and cold, they were convinced that the octogenarian's hour had come, so they immediately called a funeral home, not a doctor.
Carrasco was dressed in his finest suit for the wake, and his relatives gathered to bid him a final farewell.
"I couldn't believe it. I thought I must be mistaken, and I shut my eyes," Carrasco's nephew Pedro told the daily Ultimas Noticias.
"When I opened them again, my uncle was looking at me. I started to cry and ran to get something to open up the coffin to get him out."
The man who "rose from the dead" said he was not in any pain, and only asked for a glass of water.
Local radio also surprised listeners by making a correction to Carrasco's death announcement, saying the news had been premature.
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “Singing Lutherans!”) This was sent by John Severson. I have copyright concerns, but I’m sure it’s been shared by every Lutheran with e-mail, and it would be a shame not to let the rest of the good Christian folks read it. It’s delightfully funny, but also a love song. Would that every denomination had such a person among them.
Singing With the Lutherans
by Garrison Keillor
I have made fun of Lutherans for years. Who wouldn't, if you lived in Minnesota? But I have also sung with Lutherans and that is one of the main joys of life, along with hot baths and fresh sweet corn.
We make fun of Lutherans for their blandness, their excessive calm, their fear of giving offense, their lack of speed and also for their secret fondness for macaroni and cheese. But nobody sings like them.
If you ask an audience in New York City, a relatively Lutheranless place, to sing along on the chorus of Michael Row the Boat Ashore, they will look daggers at you as if you had asked them to strip to their underwear.
But if you do this among Lutherans they'll smile and row that boat ashore and up on the beach! And down the road! Lutherans are bred from childhood to sing in four-part harmony. It's a talent that comes from sitting on the lap of someone singing alto or tenor or bass and hearing the harmonic intervals by putting your little head against that person's rib cage.
It's natural for Lutherans to sing in harmony. We're too modest to be soloists, too worldly to sing in unison. When you're singing in the key of C and you slide into the A7th and D7th chords, all two hundred of you, it's an emotionally fulfilling moment.
I once sang the bass line of Children of the Heavenly Father in a room with about three thousand Lutherans in it; and when we finished, we all had tears in our eyes, partly from the promise that God will not forsake us, partly from the proximity of all those lovely voices.
By our joining in harmony, we somehow promise that we will not forsake each other. I do believe this: People, these Lutherans, who love to sing in four-part harmony are the sort of people you could call up when you're in deep distress. If you're dying, they'll comfort you. If you're lonely, they'll talk to you. And if you're hungry, they'll give you tuna salad!
The following list was compiled by a 20th century Lutheran who, observing other Lutherans, wrote down exactly what he saw or heard:
1. Lutherans believe in prayer, but would practically die if asked to pray out loud.
2. Lutherans like to sing, except when confronted with a new hymn or a hymn with more than four stanzas.
3. Lutherans believe their pastors will visit them in the hospital, even if they don't notify them that they are there.
4. Lutherans usually follow the official liturgy and will feel it is their way of suffering for their sins.
5. Lutherans believe in miracles and even expect miracles, especially during their stewardship visitation programs or when passing the plate.
6. Lutherans feel that applauding for their choirs would make the kids too proud and conceited.
7. Lutherans think that the Bible forbids them from crossing the aisle while passing the peace.
8. Lutherans drink coffee as if it were the Third Sacrament.
9. Some Lutherans still believe that an ELCA bride and an LCMS groom make a mixed marriage.
10. Lutherans feel guilty for not staying to clean up after their own wedding reception in the Fellowship Hall.
11. Lutherans are willing to pay up to one dollar for a meal at church.
12. Lutherans think that Garrison Keillor stories are totally factual.
13. Lutherans still serve Jell-O in the proper liturgical color of the season and think that peas in a tuna noodle casserole adds too much color.
14 . Lutherans believe that it is OK to poke fun at themselves and never take themselves too seriously.
And finally, you know when you're a Lutheran when it's 10 degrees, with 90% humidity, and you still have coffee after the service.
You hear something really funny during the sermon and smile as loudly as you can.
Donuts are a line item in the church budget, just like coffee.
The communion cabinet is open to all, but the coffee cabinet is locked up tight.
All your relatives graduated from a school named Concordia.
When you watch a "Star Wars" movie and they say, May the Force be with you, you respond, "and also with you".
And lastly, it takes ten minutes to say good-bye.
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Bottom of the Barrel – This from Glenn, who doesn’t give a family name. But then “whistle blowers” need protection when they reveal conspiracies such as this.
Glenn says this is happening “right here in our own country,” but doesn’t specify what that country might be. My close textual analysis however, reveals that he is talking about Outer Slobovia, even though the conspiracy is world-wide.
Have you noticed that stairs are getting steeper . Groceries are heavier, and everything is farther away. Yesterday I walked to the corner and I was dumbfounded to discover how long our street had become!
And, you know, people are less considerate now, especially the young ones. They speak in whispers all the time! If you ask them to speak up they just keep repeating themselves, endlessly mouthing the same silent message until they're red in the face! What do they think I am, a lip reader?
I got to thinking about the poor dear while I was combing my hair this morning, and in doing so, I glanced at my own reflection and, well – even mirrors are not made the way they used to be!
Another thing, everyone drives so fast these days! You're risking life and limb if you happen to pull onto the freeway in front of them. All I can say is, their brakes must wear out awfully fast, the way I see them screech and swerve in my rear view mirror.
Clothing manufacturers are less civilized these days. Why else would they suddenly start labeling a size 10 or 12 dress as 18 or 20? Do they think no one notices? The people who make bathroom scales are pulling the same prank. Do they think I actually "believe" the number I see on that dial? Ha! I would never let myself weigh that much! Just who do these people think they're fooling?
I'd like to call up someone in authority to report what's going on, but the telephone company is in on the conspiracy too. They've printed the phone books in such small type that no one could ever find a number in there!
All I can do is pass along this warning. There is a conspiracy. Unless something drastic happens, pretty soon everyone will have to suffer these awful indignities.
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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
2008-01-27
TINY TRANSFIGURATIONS
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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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Whoodathunkit? Rumors has busted the seven thousand mark. Exactly 7,012 subscriptions to be exact. And I can remember, when we started out nine years ago, I was ecstatic because we broke the 100 mark.
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The Story Lectionary is on-line. Type in www.Story-Lectionary.com, or google same and you’ll arrive. This is not a replacement for the Revised Common Lectionary but a supplement. It takes too long to explain here. Please go to the site and check it out for yourself.
The Story Lectionary must be scratching where preachers itch, because we’ve been getting a batch of mail from folks who tell us they are delighted.
But please make up your own mind. Take a look.
By the way, don’t confuse this with the book called, “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year A,” which is a collection of stories for children, with material for every Sunday in the cycle.
The Lectionary Story Bible is for the young. It’s a book you can buy.
The Story Lectionary is for the young at heart. It’s free on-line.
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Next Week’s Readings – the story can’t be contained
Rumors – tiny injections
Soft Edges – stacking chairs
Bloopers – hurried hilarity
We Get Letters – God rinses
Mirabile Dictu! – singing Lutherans
Bottom of the Barrel – another conspiracy
Stuff – (read this only if you would like to subscribe, unsubscribe or are wondering about permissions. That sort of boring stuff.)
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Rib Tickler – The minister had several degrees and the church board insisted these be listed after the name on the bulletin board.
So there it was. Rev. M. Jones, LLB, BA.
“What do those letters mean?” a friend asked one of the seasoned members of the church.Preview
Preview “Well, as far as I can tell,” said the elderly member, “LLB means, ‘looks like a Bishop,’ and BA means, ‘But ain’t.’”
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you will probably hear in church this coming Sunday, February 3rd which is (yes, believe it!) Transfiguration Sunday. That means the following Sunday is (Yikes!) the First Sunday of Lent, which is when the on-line Story Lectionary begins.
There are two Transfiguration Sunday stories in “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year A,” “Moses Goes to Visit God,” page 72, based on the Exodus passage, and “Jesus on the Mountaintop,” page 74, based on Matthew. (For ordering information, see below).
Exodus 24:12-18 – This out-of-context passage about Moses’ theophany on Mount Sinai is included, because the Matthew reading about Jesus’ transfiguration is a story told to demonstrate that Jesus is not only walking in the tradition of Moses, but is, in a sense, Moses returned. Although it isn’t mentioned in this passage, Moses’ face shone, just as Jesus’ did, up on that mountain.
I’ve been to the mountain that tradition says Moses climbed. I’m not the least bit interested in speculating on whether that was an historical event or mythological. But the steps up that mountain are worn smooth by the faith of pilgrims who over the centuries have climbed the peak and found it a good place to meditate on the Moses tradition. And perhaps, like Moses, experience an encounter with God.
Psalm 2 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
(Note: Psalm 99 is an alternate)
1 What causes powerful people
to plot together for their own profit?
2 They manipulate events to preserve their own privilege.
3 They try to take matters into their own hands;
They think they are greater than God.
4 But God laughs at their vanity.
5 They will see how fast their successes fade.
They will watch their foundations crack
and their walls crumble.
6 Their empires will not last.
9 Their lofty edicts will be forgotten,
their proclamations scorned.
The world they tried to weave
will fall apart like rotted fabric.
7 But the reign of God goes on forever.
8 When the wicked ones have gone,
who will inherit their wealth?
Only the poor and broken-hearted will be left.
10 Take heed, you who pursue power at any price!
11 Serve God, not your own ambitions.
Come to God in fear and trembling.
12 Learn God's ways,
before God flicks you into eternity like dandruff from a shoulder.
The orphans adopted into God's family will have the last laugh.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
2 Peter 1:16-21 – I object to the translator’s use of the word “myths” in verse 16 as something which is false. It’s the only word we have in English to name a story, tradition, song, (which may or may not be historically true) that carries meaning for those who treasure it. We need that word for our faith discourses.
The writer (not Peter the Apostle) assumes that the readers already know the story of Jesus’ transfiguration, and wants to make sure they get the interpretation right. The writer holds the event up as core event that demonstrates Jesus’ divinity. “Hang on to this,” he seems to be saying, “until the morning, when the new days dawns.” A reference, I think, to the second coming of the Christ.
Matthew 17:1-9 – Peter’s idea to put up three “dwellings” there on that mountain was clearly a non-starter, so I find it amusing that subsequent generations have built a large church up there. It’s hard to imagine yourself into that story – the cloud overshadowing you – when you are in a fairly opulent building.
Peter, James and John, like the rest of us lead-footed mortals, always find it hard to deal with those numinous moments when something clearly happens that blows our minds with a reality far too big for our brains.
Peter, James and John were scared out of their wits, just as you and I would have been. So let’s not be too hard on them for making dumb suggestions. Those three had no idea what was going on, and neither do we know what really happened. It refuses to be contained in our neat theological categories or historical propositions. It can’t be held in church building any more than it could be contained in the booths Peter suggested.
As far as I can see, there’s only one adequate word for such an event.
“Wow!!!”
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 – Creeping decrepitude probably means that Bev and I won’t be able to do it any more, but for a number of years we were able to take part in “pilgrimages” to various parts of northern Europe, led by Drs. Lynn McNaughton and Gerald Hobbs.
The sites they led us to were places where history or mythology tells us something happened. Something changed. People were transfigured. And in the process, many of us were transfigured. Sometimes a little. Sometimes a lot.
I was transfigured a lot on the very first such pilgrimage when we visited the cell where Julian of Norwich prayed out her life. She became an anchorite because of her own transfiguration – her experience of the crucified Christ and her reflection on that in an amazing lifetime.
Last weekend, Bev and I were Victoria, on Vancouver Island, for an annual event called “Epiphany Explorations.” We were regaled by the likes of Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, Miriam Therese Winter, John Bell and others. And we reconnected with many friends and colleagues – some of whom we hadn’t seen for years. Unlike us (Ahem!) some of them had gained pounds and lost hair. Some had changed so much they didn’t recognize me.
I can’t say I came out of that having “learned” a whole lot, but those presenters did shine the light of their insight from an angle I hadn’t noticed before. But more than that, in reconnecting with the “saints” of the church, I was invigorated.
To call that weekend a “transfiguration” would be overstating things a fair bit but it was a difference of degree, I think, more than kind. A whole lot of tiny bits of transfiguration in the warm sharing of life in the corridors and the small “Aha!” experiences during the presentations add up to a fair bit of spiritual buffing and polishing.
Actually, I don’t think us humans can stand more than a few really big-time transfigurations in one life-time. There’s a very ancient tradition that says if you see the face of God you will die.
That’s one of the reasons we have a church, I think. We join ourselves to a church so that the Spirit can work mostly in tiny injections. Too big a shot of holiness could trigger an allergic reaction.
But even in blessings there is a danger. It’s all too easy for those tiny infusions of blessing to build up an immunity to the real thing.
Maybe the difference is in learning to notice – to identify those tiny transfigurations. Notice them. Reflect on them. Treasure them. Then one small experience can enrich another. And in the new math of the Spirit, the multiplication of grace is utterly amazing.
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Stacking Chairs
It was back in December, after a community event in the local hall. The potluck dinner had ended, the plates had been cleared, and the members were starting to stack the folding chairs to clear the floor.
The chairs looked as if they were all similar. But they weren’t. They didn’t quite fit together.
That’s not true. They would fit together if you jammed them down. But that tended to damage the edges of the molded plywood seats. Which, in turn, tended to leave splinters in the next user’s posterior.
“No, no, not like that,” objected a long-time member. “You have to match the colors!”
Superficially, the chairs all looked the same – plywood seats, plywood backs, metal frames...
“Look at the color of the frames,” explained the organizer. “Put the brown-painted frames with the brown frames, the gray frames with the gray, and so on.”
With that change, the chairs stacked together perfectly.
I got thinking about those stacking chairs while I was researching an article about church conflicts a few weeks ago. The article concluded with the observation that the two factions were going to have to separate.
“It’s not an ideal solution,” I commented. “But it is a realistic one.”
We have an ideal that religious people should get along with each other. They should swallow their disagreements. They should tolerate, even celebrate, their differences. They should set a model for the world on how to get along together.
But the ideal doesn’t always work. People do have differences – of belief, of style, of history.
And people would rather hang together with those who share similar views than with those who don’t.
It’s like the stacking chairs.
I know that I, for example, would be seriously unhappy in a Southern Baptist congregation. Perhaps I would be even more unhappy in a church that calls itself The Ultimate Messianic Church of Divine Jesus Christ of the Original Bible.
I just wouldn’t fit.
Of course, a black Pentecostal would probably find the worship services I attend much too repressed emotionally. And a Quaker would certainly find them too noisy.
That doesn’t make any of these variations wrong (although I might question the scholarship of the Original Bible people!) but it does suggest that an attempt to homogenize all tastes will have about as much appeal as a four-course turkey dinner put through a blender.
The “lowest common denominator” approach will satisfy no one.
Nor should my musings suggest that we exclude those who may look different, or come from different backgrounds. Like the shock treatment administered to heart attack victims, a stranger may provide precisely the spark that’s needed to revitalize a congregation stalled in the doldrums of deadly routine.
But only if the existing group is willing to listen to the new view, to try it, and to take the risk of being changed by their experience.
Like stacking chairs, we may look alike superficially. But we function more smoothly when gathered with like-minded peers.
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 – Ken Ferguson of “SteepleJack” (now Ashford) Connecticut knows of a church secretary who hurridly, typed the bulletin early Sunday morning. Perhaps too hurriedly. Last Sunday the Call to Worship read: “Dear God, we praise you with all our fearts.”
I was tempted to tell Ken about what it’s like being a senior whose intestinal trumpet calls get louder while the singing voice gets croakier. Our laughing God I’m sure enjoys this joyful noise.
In the same church, Ken tells of the hurrying Deacon who put up a notice on the outside sign board announcing the Deacon’s Public Supper. All would have been fine except he forgot the “l” in “public.”
From the file:
* …persons who are shut-in during bath weather.
* …potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 pm – prayer and medication to follow.
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! – We are not people of the book. We are people of the story.
Miriam Therese Winter
Thus the task is not so much to see what no one yet has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought about that which everybody sees.
Arthur Schopenhauer via Rob Thomas
One of life's greatest mysteries is how the boy who wasn't good enough to marry your daughter can be the father of the smartest grandchild in the world. Jewish Proverb via Jim Taylor
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We Get Letters – Russell Pastuch, of Ottawa, Ontario must be old enough to remember the “good old days” when LSD was the mind-bending chemical of choice. That’s why his eyebrows went up when he read a report about the possibility of an LSD screen in the narthex of the church.
Russell. I checked. I googled. LSD in this case means a Liquid Something-or-other Doo-hicky.
April Dailey writes: “This morning, our intern, Emily Hartmann asked the children if all of them had names. All of them nodded their heads – all but little Colton. Emily had some fun with his parents in the greeting line after worship.
Wayne Seybert of Longmont, Colorado tells of a church choir that was putting on a car wash to raise money for a special trip to Bethlehem.
They made a large sign that read: “Car Wash for Choir Trip.”
On the scheduled Saturday, business was very good. But, by two o'clock the sky clouded, the rain poured, and there were hardly any customers. Finally, one of the sopranos had an idea. She printed a very large poster with the words: “We wash. God rinses!”
Business boomed.
This news clip from Robert Moore of Acton, Massachusetts who says it has great “homiletical possibilities.”
An 81-year old man in the small Chilean village of Angol shocked his grieving relatives by waking up in his coffin at his own wake, local media said on Sunday.
When Feliberto Carrasco's family members discovered his body limp and cold, they were convinced that the octogenarian's hour had come, so they immediately called a funeral home, not a doctor.
Carrasco was dressed in his finest suit for the wake, and his relatives gathered to bid him a final farewell.
"I couldn't believe it. I thought I must be mistaken, and I shut my eyes," Carrasco's nephew Pedro told the daily Ultimas Noticias.
"When I opened them again, my uncle was looking at me. I started to cry and ran to get something to open up the coffin to get him out."
The man who "rose from the dead" said he was not in any pain, and only asked for a glass of water.
Local radio also surprised listeners by making a correction to Carrasco's death announcement, saying the news had been premature.
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “Singing Lutherans!”) This was sent by John Severson. I have copyright concerns, but I’m sure it’s been shared by every Lutheran with e-mail, and it would be a shame not to let the rest of the good Christian folks read it. It’s delightfully funny, but also a love song. Would that every denomination had such a person among them.
Singing With the Lutherans
by Garrison Keillor
I have made fun of Lutherans for years. Who wouldn't, if you lived in Minnesota? But I have also sung with Lutherans and that is one of the main joys of life, along with hot baths and fresh sweet corn.
We make fun of Lutherans for their blandness, their excessive calm, their fear of giving offense, their lack of speed and also for their secret fondness for macaroni and cheese. But nobody sings like them.
If you ask an audience in New York City, a relatively Lutheranless place, to sing along on the chorus of Michael Row the Boat Ashore, they will look daggers at you as if you had asked them to strip to their underwear.
But if you do this among Lutherans they'll smile and row that boat ashore and up on the beach! And down the road! Lutherans are bred from childhood to sing in four-part harmony. It's a talent that comes from sitting on the lap of someone singing alto or tenor or bass and hearing the harmonic intervals by putting your little head against that person's rib cage.
It's natural for Lutherans to sing in harmony. We're too modest to be soloists, too worldly to sing in unison. When you're singing in the key of C and you slide into the A7th and D7th chords, all two hundred of you, it's an emotionally fulfilling moment.
I once sang the bass line of Children of the Heavenly Father in a room with about three thousand Lutherans in it; and when we finished, we all had tears in our eyes, partly from the promise that God will not forsake us, partly from the proximity of all those lovely voices.
By our joining in harmony, we somehow promise that we will not forsake each other. I do believe this: People, these Lutherans, who love to sing in four-part harmony are the sort of people you could call up when you're in deep distress. If you're dying, they'll comfort you. If you're lonely, they'll talk to you. And if you're hungry, they'll give you tuna salad!
The following list was compiled by a 20th century Lutheran who, observing other Lutherans, wrote down exactly what he saw or heard:
1. Lutherans believe in prayer, but would practically die if asked to pray out loud.
2. Lutherans like to sing, except when confronted with a new hymn or a hymn with more than four stanzas.
3. Lutherans believe their pastors will visit them in the hospital, even if they don't notify them that they are there.
4. Lutherans usually follow the official liturgy and will feel it is their way of suffering for their sins.
5. Lutherans believe in miracles and even expect miracles, especially during their stewardship visitation programs or when passing the plate.
6. Lutherans feel that applauding for their choirs would make the kids too proud and conceited.
7. Lutherans think that the Bible forbids them from crossing the aisle while passing the peace.
8. Lutherans drink coffee as if it were the Third Sacrament.
9. Some Lutherans still believe that an ELCA bride and an LCMS groom make a mixed marriage.
10. Lutherans feel guilty for not staying to clean up after their own wedding reception in the Fellowship Hall.
11. Lutherans are willing to pay up to one dollar for a meal at church.
12. Lutherans think that Garrison Keillor stories are totally factual.
13. Lutherans still serve Jell-O in the proper liturgical color of the season and think that peas in a tuna noodle casserole adds too much color.
14 . Lutherans believe that it is OK to poke fun at themselves and never take themselves too seriously.
And finally, you know when you're a Lutheran when it's 10 degrees, with 90% humidity, and you still have coffee after the service.
You hear something really funny during the sermon and smile as loudly as you can.
Donuts are a line item in the church budget, just like coffee.
The communion cabinet is open to all, but the coffee cabinet is locked up tight.
All your relatives graduated from a school named Concordia.
When you watch a "Star Wars" movie and they say, May the Force be with you, you respond, "and also with you".
And lastly, it takes ten minutes to say good-bye.
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Bottom of the Barrel – This from Glenn, who doesn’t give a family name. But then “whistle blowers” need protection when they reveal conspiracies such as this.
Glenn says this is happening “right here in our own country,” but doesn’t specify what that country might be. My close textual analysis however, reveals that he is talking about Outer Slobovia, even though the conspiracy is world-wide.
Have you noticed that stairs are getting steeper . Groceries are heavier, and everything is farther away. Yesterday I walked to the corner and I was dumbfounded to discover how long our street had become!
And, you know, people are less considerate now, especially the young ones. They speak in whispers all the time! If you ask them to speak up they just keep repeating themselves, endlessly mouthing the same silent message until they're red in the face! What do they think I am, a lip reader?
I got to thinking about the poor dear while I was combing my hair this morning, and in doing so, I glanced at my own reflection and, well – even mirrors are not made the way they used to be!
Another thing, everyone drives so fast these days! You're risking life and limb if you happen to pull onto the freeway in front of them. All I can say is, their brakes must wear out awfully fast, the way I see them screech and swerve in my rear view mirror.
Clothing manufacturers are less civilized these days. Why else would they suddenly start labeling a size 10 or 12 dress as 18 or 20? Do they think no one notices? The people who make bathroom scales are pulling the same prank. Do they think I actually "believe" the number I see on that dial? Ha! I would never let myself weigh that much! Just who do these people think they're fooling?
I'd like to call up someone in authority to report what's going on, but the telephone company is in on the conspiracy too. They've printed the phone books in such small type that no one could ever find a number in there!
All I can do is pass along this warning. There is a conspiracy. Unless something drastic happens, pretty soon everyone will have to suffer these awful indignities.
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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, January 16, 2008
Sermon Helps for Sunday, January 27th, 2008
R U M O R S #485
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2008-01-20
WHEN THE LIGHT IS BLINDING
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Motto: Trado, tradere, traditus.*
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THE STORY LECTIONARY IS HERE!
Please take a look. Go to www.story-lectionary.com. Or Google or Yahoo “Story Lectionary” and you’ll find it. Jim and Linnea and I have been working on it for months.
It begins with Lent, which comes really early this year. And we hope to post materials four weeks in advance for those of you who work ahead on your sermons.
Rather than explain the Story Lectionary here, click on the above and find out for yourself.
No, this does not mean we’re abandoning the Revised Common Lectionary. We’re adding to it. Another option.
Check it out!
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Next Week’s Readings – Isaiah reversed
Rumors – seeing the great light
Soft Edges – meetings in hell
Good Stuff – tell the word for me
Bloopers – brightly beans
We Get Letters – a German shepherd
Mirabile Dictu! – self-made man
Bottom of the Barrel – when a woman lies
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 – Church school teachers have to be particularly careful when they tell God’s story to small children.
For instance, Charlotte Sloan Cooper of Belleville, Ontario has a daughter, Bethany, who told about a classmate who was convinced that after God created the world, God went to jail.
Finally, the teacher heard the reason. “Well teacher,” said the child, “you said that God made the world in six days, and on the seventh day God got arrested.”
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you will probably hear in church this coming Sunday, January 27th, which is the 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany.
For children, “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year A,” has two stories that relate to this coming Sunday. “Singing and Fishing for God,” based on both the Isaiah and the Matthew passage, and “Simon Gets a New Job,” based on Matthew. Go to page 52. (see below).
Isaiah 9:1-4 – A number of years ago, traveling with Bev and my sister Peggy Lawrence we stopped overnight in Los Vegas. None of us are gamblers, but Peggy insisted we stop “for your own education.” She had been there for a teacher’s convention some years before.
Pegs was right. It was educational, but it was also a revelation. It was like taking a tour of hell. We wandered through several casinos. None of them were crowded. But there were people playing the slots – playing mechanically, with utterly blank faces, not in pain but also not happy. It seemed to me that if they could think of anything else to do, they would do it, but in the meantime they kept cranking those slots.
One of the casinos had a children’s area. It was full of loud music and flashing lights and in-your-face promoters who smiled with their mouths but not with their eyes. We saw one little tyke walking with his hands over his ears. We saw other children playing games that offered prizes, but not a one of them looked happy.
What if everything you ever wanted was there? Fun! Excitement! Glamour! Lights!
Would that be heaven, or would that be hell?
You can read the newspaper on the street at midnight in Vegas. They’ve reversed Isaiah. The people that walk in all this artificial light have found a deep darkness. The glare of all those florescent tubes can’t get beyond the dullness of their eyes.
Psalm 27:1, 4-9 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
4 All I ever asked for was peace and harmony.
I would love to live serenely in God's presence.
But instead of protecting me from the tragedies of life
God gives me strength to cope with them.
1 When wild-eyed beasts with slavering jaws
glare at me out of the gloom, God gives me fire;
Its flickering brightness keeps fears at bay.
5 When the fiery furnace of petty tribulation
consumes my tolerance,
God sends a cooling breeze.
When daily duties clash like ignorant armies
God raises me above the swirling dust of strife.
6 I can see clearly again.
I don't want to fight anyone.
I would rather praise the one who saves me.
7 So don't stop now, Lord.
When beasts with glowing eyes get me down,
Come to my rescue.
8 "Turn to me," you say. "Do things my way."
From the bottom of my heart, God, I have turned to you.
9 Don't turn away from me.
You are my only hope.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
1 Corinthians 1:10-18 – I have a friend who is well known in the Canadian and in the world-wide church community for her ability to mediate disputes.
I had a dream, years ago when I was still in TV work, to produce a program that would bring together people who radically disagree with each other, and then have her help them understand each other.
It would be very different from normal TV talk shows. Most TV programs that bring together people with varying viewpoints basically say to them, “All right, you hate each other, now come out scratching and clawing!” Conflict always makes more exciting television.
But I had in mind a process where people would genuinely try to understand the other. My friend would help them do that. To listen deeply. To understand.
Not in order to agree. But disagree with understanding and love. And to listen with respect.
Paul is writing to the folks in Corinth who are doing what churches have always done and still are doing. People are convinced that those who disagree with them are not just wrong – they are stupid and pig-headed and if they had any sense at all they would agree with you.
It’s our own arrogance that’s the issue. Born out of fear and insecurity in who we are and what we believe.
Matthew 4:12-23 – “Repent!” Turn around. Change your “stinkin’ thinkin’!” as the folks in AA say.
I have known a few people – perhaps half a dozen – who were comfortable in what they believe.
I’m talking about people who genuinely want to understand what others are thinking – what they believe – and why they think that way. Most of us wait until that other person takes a breath and we zoom in to set them right. Or we walk away from the conversation as soon as possible out of fear and discomfort. We are afraid of conflict. We are afraid to be shown up as wrong. Or stupid. Or uninformed.
Jesus probably had in mind a whole spectrum of repentance we need to undertake, but our fear and insecurity in what we claim to believe, is surely part it.
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 – Seeing the Great Light (from “Angels in Red Suspenders”)
Nobody organized it. I don't remember hearing it from anyone. But we got up at three in the morning. We took a large thermos of thick, hot, chokolade as we walked quietly to the beach. We knew most of our village would be there as well.
The year was 1965. We lived in the little city of Dumaguete, in the central Philippines. Two amateur Japanese astronomers, Ikeya and Seki, had discovered the new spectacular, sun-grazing comet. We soon learned it could be seen rising from the ocean just before dawn.
It was dark, as only a moonless tropical night can be dark. Our slippered feet seemed to have a strange awareness of the familiar road we couldn't see. Our eyes were on the soft black outline of coconut palms near the beach.
We walked without speaking. I held Bev's hand and four-year-old Kari clutched mine. Brave Mark, now almost six, walked very close to Bev carrying the chokolade.
"Dad! Look at the stars!" he whispered.
I had been trying to see the black road. I hadn't noticed.
"Yes, look at them, my son," I thought to myself. "Look at them with all the wonder of your almost-six-year-old eyes, because you will never see them this way again." I felt Kari's cheek against my hand.
The quiet coolness of the sea brushed our faces as we neared the beach and the soft smell of coral sea. Tiny reflections of stars sparkled on the gentle swell as it lapped the sand, blending it's rhythm with the musical Cebuano spoken by tiny groups of people we couldn't see in the darkness.
Then, from a few yards down the beach, a muted exclamation. "Sus!" A soft halo of blue-orange light had begun to trace the edge of Sikijor Island hulking on the horizon. Almost imperceptibly the halo grew, till now it was a soft-edged fan, painted with quiet orange-blue watercolor strokes upward from the island. Tiny stars sparkled through the colors, suddenly so far away, the universe given dimension by the broad tail of a comet close to earth.
I knew, or thought I knew, what comets looked like. I remembered from my childhood, inch-long pictures in a book.
But this comet rose, tail first, spreading its pale fire up and up. Soon it pained our necks to see the top straight up above our heads, a huge, half-open fan. We couldn't see it all at once, but swept our eyes up and down the gentle, orange-blue fire, so soft in places, we wished the stars would dim so we could see the fragile colors.
Far out on the sea, the shout of fisherfolk announced the first catch of the morning.
The first streaks of dawn encroached upon our comet. As if to win the race with sunlight, the bright, pale-golden coma freed itself suddenly from behind the silhouette of Sikijor Island, then stretched its paleness from horizon to the brightening black of sky above us.
And we, tiny humans gathered on that beach, applauded. We clapped our hands for our comet to hear – clapped and cheered, and then fell silent as it faded from sight before the morning sun.
For several moments we sat there, a hundred people from a tiny village, looking to each other's eyes to see reflected there our miracle. The Southern Cross flickered its benediction as it too faded in the sun.
Then someone, in a soft Cebuano said the ancient words:
When I look at your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have ordained,
who are we that you think of us –
fragile humans –
that you care for us?
And wordless, we all walked home.
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Meetings in Hell
Over a seven-day period, I attended 15 meetings.
Why didn’t I just say no? Because a few of these gatherings were for activities I enjoy – singing in the choir, for example. Some others, I had helped to organize. And still others, I suspect, I attended partly because I was afraid the others might make a dreadful mistake without me.
Regardless of reasons, by the end of that week I felt rather like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, constantly checking at my watch and muttering, “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date...”
I ran from one thing to another.
I can take a guess at what hell might be like. My hell would be an endless succession of meetings at which we dutifully take detailed records of who moved and who seconded a series of eminently forgettable decisions about important things that had to be done, except that there was no time between meetings to actually do any of those things, so the next meeting’s minutes will chronicle the things that didn’t get done because we were constantly in other meetings...
Of course, that view might be slightly affected by my experiences over the past week.
But then, whose view isn’t?
When the writers of the Old Testament talked about Gehenna, the place of eternal fire, they weren’t imagining something beyond their experience. They were describing the garbage dump in a ravine below Jerusalem, where the city’s wastes smoked and smoldered night and day.
When Dante imagined his Inferno as a lake of fire, he was probably influenced by the lava that erupted from Italian volcanoes like Vesuvius and Etna.
Most of our images of heaven, too, derive from present-life experience.
A woman named Lorraine used to drop in at my office, in Toronto. She knew exactly what heaven would be like – streets paved with gold, gates made of pearl, walls carved from precious stones... The Bible told her so.
It didn’t appeal to me, I told her.
However, those images would appeal to oppressed people, 2000 years ago. The kind of wealth that they had seen only in palaces implied freedom from oppression. They would be like kings.
Similarly, black slaves in the southern U.S. states would imagine the delights of “nuthin’ to do, but roll around heaven all day.” Heaven was the opposite of the daily hell that they lived in.
British philosopher John Macmurray noted, 50 years ago, that Jesus typically illustrated his message with examples taken from real life, situations already familiar to his hearers in their daily lives.
So Macmurray wondered what Jesus might have been referring to, when Jesus talked about “The Kingdom of God” or the “Kingdom of Heaven,” as something that was already here, but could arrive at any time.
Macmurray’s answer was friendship. Friendships already exist; new friendships can flower unexpectedly.
It’s an intriguing notion. In hell, no one is a friend. In heaven, everyone is.
Friendship can even make meetings enjoyable.
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:
This story has been circulating around the net for several years, and usually comes with one of those injunctions to pass it along to everyone. This is the first time I’ve seen it with an author’s name attached.
Tell the World for Me
by John Powell.
"We love, because God first loved us."
1 John 4:19
Some 14 years ago, I stood watching my university students file into the classroom for our opening session in the theology of faith. That was the day I first saw Tommy. He was combing his hair, which hung six inches below his shoulders. My quick judgment wrote him off as strange – very strange.
Tommy turned out to be my biggest challenge. He constantly objected to, or smirked at the possibility of an unconditionally loving God. When he turned in his final exam at the end of the course, he asked in a slightly cynical tone, "Do you think I'll ever find God?"
"No," I said emphatically.
"Oh," he responded. "I thought that was the product you were pushing."
I let him get five steps from the door and then called out. "I don't think you'll ever find God, but I am certain God will find you." Tommy shrugged and left. I felt slightly disappointed that he had missed my clever line.
Later I heard that Tommy had graduated, and I was grateful for that. Then came a sad report: Tommy had terminal cancer. Before I could search him out, he came to me. When he walked into my office, his body was badly wasted, and his long hair had fallen out because of the chemotherapy. But, his eyes were bright and his voice, for the first time, was firm.
"Tommy! I've thought about you so often. I heard you were very sick," I blurted out.
"Oh, yes, very sick. I have cancer. It's a matter of weeks."
"Can you talk about it?"
"Sure. What would you like to know?"
"What's it like to be only 24 and know that you're dying?"
"It could be worse," he told me, "like being 50 and thinking that drinking booze, seducing women and making money are the real 'biggies' in life." Then, he told me why he had come.
"It was something you said to me on the last day of class. I asked if you thought I would ever find God and you said no, which surprised me. Then you said, 'But, God will find you.' I thought about that a lot, even though my search for God was hardly intense at that time."
"But, when the doctors removed a lump from my body and told me that it was malignant, I got serious about locating God. And when the malignancy spread into my vital organs, I really began banging against the bronze doors of heaven. But, nothing happened. Well, one day I woke up, and instead of my desperate attempts to get some kind of message, I just quit. I decided I didn't really care about God, an afterlife, or anything like that."
"I decided to spend what time I had left doing something more important. I thought about you and something else you had said: 'The essential sadness is to go through life without loving. But, it would be almost equally sad to leave this world without ever telling those you loved that you loved them.'
So, I began with the hardest one...my Dad."
Tommy's father had been reading the newspaper when his son approached him.
"Dad, I would like to talk with you."
"Well, talk."
"I mean, it's really important."
The newspaper came down three slow inches. "What is it?"
"Dad, I love you. I just wanted you to know that."
Tommy smiled at me as he recounted the moment. "The newspaper fluttered to the floor. Then, my father did two things I couldn't remember him doing before. He cried and he hugged me. And then, we talked all night, even though he had to go to work the next morning."
"It was easier with my mother and little brother," Tommy continued.
"They cried with me, and we hugged one another, and shared the thing we had been keeping secret for so many years. I was only sorry that I had waited so long. Here I was, in the shadow of death, and I was just beginning to open up to all the people I had actually been close to."
"Then one day, I turned around and God was there. God didn't come to me when I pleaded. Apparently God works in a different way and on a different schedule. The important thing is that you were right. God found me even after I stopped looking.”
"Tommy," I practically gasped, "I think you are saying something much more universal than you realize. You are saying that the surest way to find God is not by making God a private possession or an instant consolation in time of need, but rather by opening to love."
"Tommy," I added, "could I ask you a favor? Would you come to my theology-of-faith course and tell my students what you just told me?"
Though we scheduled a date, Tommy never made it. Of course, his life was not really ended by his death, only changed. He made the great step from faith into vision. He found a life far more beautiful than the eye of humanity has ever seen, or the mind ever imagined.
Before he died, we talked one last time. "I'm not going to make it to your class," he said.
"I know, Tommy."
"Will you tell them for me? Will you . . . tell the whole world for me?"
"I will, Tommy. I'll tell them."
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Russ Plumley warns of falling stars in St. Catharines, Ontario. “The choir at his church sang "How Brightly Beans the Morning Star."
Russ, a long time choir member, says no one was hurt this time, but in future they will wear hard hats with their choir gowns.
Linda Clark of Burlington, Ontario typed this into a sermon: "... the ritual of asperges is a gentle sprinkling of water on the gathered people, using the branch of a spruce or fir tree which has its roots in the Roman Catholic Church."
Linda added. “I almost wished he hadn't caught it.”
Laura Baum, of southern New Mexico heard this from a priest. “At a wedding ceremony that I was performing, I raised my hand to give the final blessing. The bride misunderstood my gesture and surprised me with a high-five. Not wanting to exclude the groom, I offered him a high-five, too. I was finally able to get my blessing in, amid the laughter of the guests.”
Judith Johnson-Siebold of Waterford, New York writes: “While cleaning a storage space containing old papers I found a 2003 baptism insert in which the people were enjoined to say "Here we proclaim that all life is God's gift and theft is good."
Says Judith, “That many explain why the church is missing some spoons!”
George Brigham of Shipley, West Yorkshire, England reports seeing a list of hymns, including one which was optional. It read, “There is a Redeemer if needed."
Barry Kreider of Akron, Pennsylvania says the person telling the children’s story “was trying to explain micro-loans, e.g. Kiva.org, to children, as part of our stewardship Sunday. He asked the children, "What is a loan?"
“Wisely, one of the children answered, "It is when you are all by yourself."
Barry asks, “Isn't that the goal of such micro-loan organizations – to give those a loan so they don't feel so alone?”
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! – Speak only when it improves the silence.
folk wisdom via Evelyn McLachlan
You came into the world with nothing, and you will leave the world with nothing. But in between is Christmas!
sign in a Calgary restaurant, via Theo!
If you give me an egg and I give you an egg, we each have one egg. If you give me an idea and I give you an idea, we each have two ideas.
West African proverb, via Eduard Hiebert
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We Get Letters – A whole lot of people know a whole lot more Latin than I ever suspected. Mostly, I think, for the fun of correcting people like me who know zilch.
Douglas Lawson of Sherwood Park, Alberta writes: “The translation I took from the end of your latest posting, then worked backwards from the English to this.
"Si hoc legere scis, nimis eruditionis habes".
If this to read you know, too much of learning you have.
OK Neal of Kress, Texas wants to know: “Would the shepherd of a German church be a German Shepherd? Would the shepherd of a Canadian Church be a Canadian Shepherd?
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “self-made man!”) Jim Taylor and I share an aversion to profanity. Not so much because it’s bad, but because it is so boring. Especially when they rely on a series of over-used four-letter words that long ago lost their shock value. That’s why, I think, he sent me this list of classy insults.
* An exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, "If you were my husband I'd give you poison," and he said, "If you were my wife, I'd drink it." * A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease." "That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "on whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."
* "He had delusions of adequacy."
Walter Kerr
* "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."
Winston Churchill
* "A modest little person, with much to be modest about."
Winston Churchill
* "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."
Clarence Darrow
* "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."
William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).
* "Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?"
Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)
* "Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it."
Moses Hadas
* "He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know."
Abraham Lincoln
* "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."
Mark Twain
* "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."
Oscar Wilde * "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend – if you have one."
George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
* "Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second – if there is one."
Winston Churchill, in response.
* "I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here."
Stephen Bishop
* "He is a self-made man and worships his creator."
John Bright
* "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
Irvin S. Cobb
* "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?"
Mark Twain
* "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
Mae West
* "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."
Oscar Wilde
* "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts – for support rather than illumination."
Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
* "He has Van Gogh's ear for music."
Billy Wilder
* "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
Groucho Marx
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Bottom of the Barrel – Kausie White sends this with a note. “Girls, you are going to love this.”
One day, when a seamstress was sewing while sitting close to a river, her thimble fell into the river. When she cried out, the Lord appeared and asked, "My dear child, why are you crying?"
The seamstress replied that her thimble had fallen into the water and that she needed it to help her husband in making a living for their family. The Lord dipped His hand into the water and pulled up a golden thimble set with sapphires.
"Is this your thimble?" the Lord asked
"No."
The Lord again dipped into the river. He held out a golden thimble studded with rubies. "Is this your thimble?" the Lord asked.
"No."
The Lord reached down again and came up with a leather thimble. "Is this your thimble?" the Lord asked.
"Yes."
The Lord was pleased with the woman's honesty and gave her all three thimbles to keep, and the seamstress went home happy.
Some years later, the seamstress was walking with her husband along the riverbank, and her husband fell into the river and disappeared under the water. When she cried out, the Lord again appeared and asked her, "Why are you crying?"
"Oh Lord, my husband has fallen into the river!"
The Lord went down into the water and came up with George Clooney. "Is this your husband?" the Lord asked.
"Yes," cried the seamstress.
The Lord was furious. "You lied! That is an untruth!"
"Oh, forgive me, my Lord,” said the seamstress. “It is a misunderstanding. You see, if I had said 'no' to George Clooney, you would have come up with Brad Pitt.
Then if I said 'no' to him, you would have come up with my husband. Had I then said 'yes,' you would have given me all three. Lord, I'm not in the best of health and would not be able to take care of all three husbands, so THAT'S why I said 'yes' to George Clooney.
And so the Lord let her keep him.
The moral of this story is: Whenever a woman lies, it's for a good and honorable reason, and in the best interest of others. That's our story, and we're sticking to it.
Signed,
All Us Women
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* I give up!
courtesy of Hank Pedersen, Warwick, UK
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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
2008-01-20
WHEN THE LIGHT IS BLINDING
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Motto: Trado, tradere, traditus.*
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THE STORY LECTIONARY IS HERE!
Please take a look. Go to www.story-lectionary.com. Or Google or Yahoo “Story Lectionary” and you’ll find it. Jim and Linnea and I have been working on it for months.
It begins with Lent, which comes really early this year. And we hope to post materials four weeks in advance for those of you who work ahead on your sermons.
Rather than explain the Story Lectionary here, click on the above and find out for yourself.
No, this does not mean we’re abandoning the Revised Common Lectionary. We’re adding to it. Another option.
Check it out!
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Next Week’s Readings – Isaiah reversed
Rumors – seeing the great light
Soft Edges – meetings in hell
Good Stuff – tell the word for me
Bloopers – brightly beans
We Get Letters – a German shepherd
Mirabile Dictu! – self-made man
Bottom of the Barrel – when a woman lies
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 – Church school teachers have to be particularly careful when they tell God’s story to small children.
For instance, Charlotte Sloan Cooper of Belleville, Ontario has a daughter, Bethany, who told about a classmate who was convinced that after God created the world, God went to jail.
Finally, the teacher heard the reason. “Well teacher,” said the child, “you said that God made the world in six days, and on the seventh day God got arrested.”
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you will probably hear in church this coming Sunday, January 27th, which is the 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany.
For children, “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year A,” has two stories that relate to this coming Sunday. “Singing and Fishing for God,” based on both the Isaiah and the Matthew passage, and “Simon Gets a New Job,” based on Matthew. Go to page 52. (see below).
Isaiah 9:1-4 – A number of years ago, traveling with Bev and my sister Peggy Lawrence we stopped overnight in Los Vegas. None of us are gamblers, but Peggy insisted we stop “for your own education.” She had been there for a teacher’s convention some years before.
Pegs was right. It was educational, but it was also a revelation. It was like taking a tour of hell. We wandered through several casinos. None of them were crowded. But there were people playing the slots – playing mechanically, with utterly blank faces, not in pain but also not happy. It seemed to me that if they could think of anything else to do, they would do it, but in the meantime they kept cranking those slots.
One of the casinos had a children’s area. It was full of loud music and flashing lights and in-your-face promoters who smiled with their mouths but not with their eyes. We saw one little tyke walking with his hands over his ears. We saw other children playing games that offered prizes, but not a one of them looked happy.
What if everything you ever wanted was there? Fun! Excitement! Glamour! Lights!
Would that be heaven, or would that be hell?
You can read the newspaper on the street at midnight in Vegas. They’ve reversed Isaiah. The people that walk in all this artificial light have found a deep darkness. The glare of all those florescent tubes can’t get beyond the dullness of their eyes.
Psalm 27:1, 4-9 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
4 All I ever asked for was peace and harmony.
I would love to live serenely in God's presence.
But instead of protecting me from the tragedies of life
God gives me strength to cope with them.
1 When wild-eyed beasts with slavering jaws
glare at me out of the gloom, God gives me fire;
Its flickering brightness keeps fears at bay.
5 When the fiery furnace of petty tribulation
consumes my tolerance,
God sends a cooling breeze.
When daily duties clash like ignorant armies
God raises me above the swirling dust of strife.
6 I can see clearly again.
I don't want to fight anyone.
I would rather praise the one who saves me.
7 So don't stop now, Lord.
When beasts with glowing eyes get me down,
Come to my rescue.
8 "Turn to me," you say. "Do things my way."
From the bottom of my heart, God, I have turned to you.
9 Don't turn away from me.
You are my only hope.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
1 Corinthians 1:10-18 – I have a friend who is well known in the Canadian and in the world-wide church community for her ability to mediate disputes.
I had a dream, years ago when I was still in TV work, to produce a program that would bring together people who radically disagree with each other, and then have her help them understand each other.
It would be very different from normal TV talk shows. Most TV programs that bring together people with varying viewpoints basically say to them, “All right, you hate each other, now come out scratching and clawing!” Conflict always makes more exciting television.
But I had in mind a process where people would genuinely try to understand the other. My friend would help them do that. To listen deeply. To understand.
Not in order to agree. But disagree with understanding and love. And to listen with respect.
Paul is writing to the folks in Corinth who are doing what churches have always done and still are doing. People are convinced that those who disagree with them are not just wrong – they are stupid and pig-headed and if they had any sense at all they would agree with you.
It’s our own arrogance that’s the issue. Born out of fear and insecurity in who we are and what we believe.
Matthew 4:12-23 – “Repent!” Turn around. Change your “stinkin’ thinkin’!” as the folks in AA say.
I have known a few people – perhaps half a dozen – who were comfortable in what they believe.
I’m talking about people who genuinely want to understand what others are thinking – what they believe – and why they think that way. Most of us wait until that other person takes a breath and we zoom in to set them right. Or we walk away from the conversation as soon as possible out of fear and discomfort. We are afraid of conflict. We are afraid to be shown up as wrong. Or stupid. Or uninformed.
Jesus probably had in mind a whole spectrum of repentance we need to undertake, but our fear and insecurity in what we claim to believe, is surely part it.
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 – Seeing the Great Light (from “Angels in Red Suspenders”)
Nobody organized it. I don't remember hearing it from anyone. But we got up at three in the morning. We took a large thermos of thick, hot, chokolade as we walked quietly to the beach. We knew most of our village would be there as well.
The year was 1965. We lived in the little city of Dumaguete, in the central Philippines. Two amateur Japanese astronomers, Ikeya and Seki, had discovered the new spectacular, sun-grazing comet. We soon learned it could be seen rising from the ocean just before dawn.
It was dark, as only a moonless tropical night can be dark. Our slippered feet seemed to have a strange awareness of the familiar road we couldn't see. Our eyes were on the soft black outline of coconut palms near the beach.
We walked without speaking. I held Bev's hand and four-year-old Kari clutched mine. Brave Mark, now almost six, walked very close to Bev carrying the chokolade.
"Dad! Look at the stars!" he whispered.
I had been trying to see the black road. I hadn't noticed.
"Yes, look at them, my son," I thought to myself. "Look at them with all the wonder of your almost-six-year-old eyes, because you will never see them this way again." I felt Kari's cheek against my hand.
The quiet coolness of the sea brushed our faces as we neared the beach and the soft smell of coral sea. Tiny reflections of stars sparkled on the gentle swell as it lapped the sand, blending it's rhythm with the musical Cebuano spoken by tiny groups of people we couldn't see in the darkness.
Then, from a few yards down the beach, a muted exclamation. "Sus!" A soft halo of blue-orange light had begun to trace the edge of Sikijor Island hulking on the horizon. Almost imperceptibly the halo grew, till now it was a soft-edged fan, painted with quiet orange-blue watercolor strokes upward from the island. Tiny stars sparkled through the colors, suddenly so far away, the universe given dimension by the broad tail of a comet close to earth.
I knew, or thought I knew, what comets looked like. I remembered from my childhood, inch-long pictures in a book.
But this comet rose, tail first, spreading its pale fire up and up. Soon it pained our necks to see the top straight up above our heads, a huge, half-open fan. We couldn't see it all at once, but swept our eyes up and down the gentle, orange-blue fire, so soft in places, we wished the stars would dim so we could see the fragile colors.
Far out on the sea, the shout of fisherfolk announced the first catch of the morning.
The first streaks of dawn encroached upon our comet. As if to win the race with sunlight, the bright, pale-golden coma freed itself suddenly from behind the silhouette of Sikijor Island, then stretched its paleness from horizon to the brightening black of sky above us.
And we, tiny humans gathered on that beach, applauded. We clapped our hands for our comet to hear – clapped and cheered, and then fell silent as it faded from sight before the morning sun.
For several moments we sat there, a hundred people from a tiny village, looking to each other's eyes to see reflected there our miracle. The Southern Cross flickered its benediction as it too faded in the sun.
Then someone, in a soft Cebuano said the ancient words:
When I look at your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have ordained,
who are we that you think of us –
fragile humans –
that you care for us?
And wordless, we all walked home.
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Meetings in Hell
Over a seven-day period, I attended 15 meetings.
Why didn’t I just say no? Because a few of these gatherings were for activities I enjoy – singing in the choir, for example. Some others, I had helped to organize. And still others, I suspect, I attended partly because I was afraid the others might make a dreadful mistake without me.
Regardless of reasons, by the end of that week I felt rather like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, constantly checking at my watch and muttering, “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date...”
I ran from one thing to another.
I can take a guess at what hell might be like. My hell would be an endless succession of meetings at which we dutifully take detailed records of who moved and who seconded a series of eminently forgettable decisions about important things that had to be done, except that there was no time between meetings to actually do any of those things, so the next meeting’s minutes will chronicle the things that didn’t get done because we were constantly in other meetings...
Of course, that view might be slightly affected by my experiences over the past week.
But then, whose view isn’t?
When the writers of the Old Testament talked about Gehenna, the place of eternal fire, they weren’t imagining something beyond their experience. They were describing the garbage dump in a ravine below Jerusalem, where the city’s wastes smoked and smoldered night and day.
When Dante imagined his Inferno as a lake of fire, he was probably influenced by the lava that erupted from Italian volcanoes like Vesuvius and Etna.
Most of our images of heaven, too, derive from present-life experience.
A woman named Lorraine used to drop in at my office, in Toronto. She knew exactly what heaven would be like – streets paved with gold, gates made of pearl, walls carved from precious stones... The Bible told her so.
It didn’t appeal to me, I told her.
However, those images would appeal to oppressed people, 2000 years ago. The kind of wealth that they had seen only in palaces implied freedom from oppression. They would be like kings.
Similarly, black slaves in the southern U.S. states would imagine the delights of “nuthin’ to do, but roll around heaven all day.” Heaven was the opposite of the daily hell that they lived in.
British philosopher John Macmurray noted, 50 years ago, that Jesus typically illustrated his message with examples taken from real life, situations already familiar to his hearers in their daily lives.
So Macmurray wondered what Jesus might have been referring to, when Jesus talked about “The Kingdom of God” or the “Kingdom of Heaven,” as something that was already here, but could arrive at any time.
Macmurray’s answer was friendship. Friendships already exist; new friendships can flower unexpectedly.
It’s an intriguing notion. In hell, no one is a friend. In heaven, everyone is.
Friendship can even make meetings enjoyable.
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:
This story has been circulating around the net for several years, and usually comes with one of those injunctions to pass it along to everyone. This is the first time I’ve seen it with an author’s name attached.
Tell the World for Me
by John Powell.
"We love, because God first loved us."
1 John 4:19
Some 14 years ago, I stood watching my university students file into the classroom for our opening session in the theology of faith. That was the day I first saw Tommy. He was combing his hair, which hung six inches below his shoulders. My quick judgment wrote him off as strange – very strange.
Tommy turned out to be my biggest challenge. He constantly objected to, or smirked at the possibility of an unconditionally loving God. When he turned in his final exam at the end of the course, he asked in a slightly cynical tone, "Do you think I'll ever find God?"
"No," I said emphatically.
"Oh," he responded. "I thought that was the product you were pushing."
I let him get five steps from the door and then called out. "I don't think you'll ever find God, but I am certain God will find you." Tommy shrugged and left. I felt slightly disappointed that he had missed my clever line.
Later I heard that Tommy had graduated, and I was grateful for that. Then came a sad report: Tommy had terminal cancer. Before I could search him out, he came to me. When he walked into my office, his body was badly wasted, and his long hair had fallen out because of the chemotherapy. But, his eyes were bright and his voice, for the first time, was firm.
"Tommy! I've thought about you so often. I heard you were very sick," I blurted out.
"Oh, yes, very sick. I have cancer. It's a matter of weeks."
"Can you talk about it?"
"Sure. What would you like to know?"
"What's it like to be only 24 and know that you're dying?"
"It could be worse," he told me, "like being 50 and thinking that drinking booze, seducing women and making money are the real 'biggies' in life." Then, he told me why he had come.
"It was something you said to me on the last day of class. I asked if you thought I would ever find God and you said no, which surprised me. Then you said, 'But, God will find you.' I thought about that a lot, even though my search for God was hardly intense at that time."
"But, when the doctors removed a lump from my body and told me that it was malignant, I got serious about locating God. And when the malignancy spread into my vital organs, I really began banging against the bronze doors of heaven. But, nothing happened. Well, one day I woke up, and instead of my desperate attempts to get some kind of message, I just quit. I decided I didn't really care about God, an afterlife, or anything like that."
"I decided to spend what time I had left doing something more important. I thought about you and something else you had said: 'The essential sadness is to go through life without loving. But, it would be almost equally sad to leave this world without ever telling those you loved that you loved them.'
So, I began with the hardest one...my Dad."
Tommy's father had been reading the newspaper when his son approached him.
"Dad, I would like to talk with you."
"Well, talk."
"I mean, it's really important."
The newspaper came down three slow inches. "What is it?"
"Dad, I love you. I just wanted you to know that."
Tommy smiled at me as he recounted the moment. "The newspaper fluttered to the floor. Then, my father did two things I couldn't remember him doing before. He cried and he hugged me. And then, we talked all night, even though he had to go to work the next morning."
"It was easier with my mother and little brother," Tommy continued.
"They cried with me, and we hugged one another, and shared the thing we had been keeping secret for so many years. I was only sorry that I had waited so long. Here I was, in the shadow of death, and I was just beginning to open up to all the people I had actually been close to."
"Then one day, I turned around and God was there. God didn't come to me when I pleaded. Apparently God works in a different way and on a different schedule. The important thing is that you were right. God found me even after I stopped looking.”
"Tommy," I practically gasped, "I think you are saying something much more universal than you realize. You are saying that the surest way to find God is not by making God a private possession or an instant consolation in time of need, but rather by opening to love."
"Tommy," I added, "could I ask you a favor? Would you come to my theology-of-faith course and tell my students what you just told me?"
Though we scheduled a date, Tommy never made it. Of course, his life was not really ended by his death, only changed. He made the great step from faith into vision. He found a life far more beautiful than the eye of humanity has ever seen, or the mind ever imagined.
Before he died, we talked one last time. "I'm not going to make it to your class," he said.
"I know, Tommy."
"Will you tell them for me? Will you . . . tell the whole world for me?"
"I will, Tommy. I'll tell them."
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Russ Plumley warns of falling stars in St. Catharines, Ontario. “The choir at his church sang "How Brightly Beans the Morning Star."
Russ, a long time choir member, says no one was hurt this time, but in future they will wear hard hats with their choir gowns.
Linda Clark of Burlington, Ontario typed this into a sermon: "... the ritual of asperges is a gentle sprinkling of water on the gathered people, using the branch of a spruce or fir tree which has its roots in the Roman Catholic Church."
Linda added. “I almost wished he hadn't caught it.”
Laura Baum, of southern New Mexico heard this from a priest. “At a wedding ceremony that I was performing, I raised my hand to give the final blessing. The bride misunderstood my gesture and surprised me with a high-five. Not wanting to exclude the groom, I offered him a high-five, too. I was finally able to get my blessing in, amid the laughter of the guests.”
Judith Johnson-Siebold of Waterford, New York writes: “While cleaning a storage space containing old papers I found a 2003 baptism insert in which the people were enjoined to say "Here we proclaim that all life is God's gift and theft is good."
Says Judith, “That many explain why the church is missing some spoons!”
George Brigham of Shipley, West Yorkshire, England reports seeing a list of hymns, including one which was optional. It read, “There is a Redeemer if needed."
Barry Kreider of Akron, Pennsylvania says the person telling the children’s story “was trying to explain micro-loans, e.g. Kiva.org, to children, as part of our stewardship Sunday. He asked the children, "What is a loan?"
“Wisely, one of the children answered, "It is when you are all by yourself."
Barry asks, “Isn't that the goal of such micro-loan organizations – to give those a loan so they don't feel so alone?”
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! – Speak only when it improves the silence.
folk wisdom via Evelyn McLachlan
You came into the world with nothing, and you will leave the world with nothing. But in between is Christmas!
sign in a Calgary restaurant, via Theo!
If you give me an egg and I give you an egg, we each have one egg. If you give me an idea and I give you an idea, we each have two ideas.
West African proverb, via Eduard Hiebert
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We Get Letters – A whole lot of people know a whole lot more Latin than I ever suspected. Mostly, I think, for the fun of correcting people like me who know zilch.
Douglas Lawson of Sherwood Park, Alberta writes: “The translation I took from the end of your latest posting, then worked backwards from the English to this.
"Si hoc legere scis, nimis eruditionis habes".
If this to read you know, too much of learning you have.
OK Neal of Kress, Texas wants to know: “Would the shepherd of a German church be a German Shepherd? Would the shepherd of a Canadian Church be a Canadian Shepherd?
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “self-made man!”) Jim Taylor and I share an aversion to profanity. Not so much because it’s bad, but because it is so boring. Especially when they rely on a series of over-used four-letter words that long ago lost their shock value. That’s why, I think, he sent me this list of classy insults.
* An exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, "If you were my husband I'd give you poison," and he said, "If you were my wife, I'd drink it." * A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease." "That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "on whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."
* "He had delusions of adequacy."
Walter Kerr
* "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."
Winston Churchill
* "A modest little person, with much to be modest about."
Winston Churchill
* "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."
Clarence Darrow
* "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."
William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).
* "Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?"
Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)
* "Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it."
Moses Hadas
* "He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know."
Abraham Lincoln
* "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."
Mark Twain
* "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."
Oscar Wilde * "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend – if you have one."
George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
* "Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second – if there is one."
Winston Churchill, in response.
* "I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here."
Stephen Bishop
* "He is a self-made man and worships his creator."
John Bright
* "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
Irvin S. Cobb
* "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?"
Mark Twain
* "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
Mae West
* "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."
Oscar Wilde
* "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts – for support rather than illumination."
Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
* "He has Van Gogh's ear for music."
Billy Wilder
* "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
Groucho Marx
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Bottom of the Barrel – Kausie White sends this with a note. “Girls, you are going to love this.”
One day, when a seamstress was sewing while sitting close to a river, her thimble fell into the river. When she cried out, the Lord appeared and asked, "My dear child, why are you crying?"
The seamstress replied that her thimble had fallen into the water and that she needed it to help her husband in making a living for their family. The Lord dipped His hand into the water and pulled up a golden thimble set with sapphires.
"Is this your thimble?" the Lord asked
"No."
The Lord again dipped into the river. He held out a golden thimble studded with rubies. "Is this your thimble?" the Lord asked.
"No."
The Lord reached down again and came up with a leather thimble. "Is this your thimble?" the Lord asked.
"Yes."
The Lord was pleased with the woman's honesty and gave her all three thimbles to keep, and the seamstress went home happy.
Some years later, the seamstress was walking with her husband along the riverbank, and her husband fell into the river and disappeared under the water. When she cried out, the Lord again appeared and asked her, "Why are you crying?"
"Oh Lord, my husband has fallen into the river!"
The Lord went down into the water and came up with George Clooney. "Is this your husband?" the Lord asked.
"Yes," cried the seamstress.
The Lord was furious. "You lied! That is an untruth!"
"Oh, forgive me, my Lord,” said the seamstress. “It is a misunderstanding. You see, if I had said 'no' to George Clooney, you would have come up with Brad Pitt.
Then if I said 'no' to him, you would have come up with my husband. Had I then said 'yes,' you would have given me all three. Lord, I'm not in the best of health and would not be able to take care of all three husbands, so THAT'S why I said 'yes' to George Clooney.
And so the Lord let her keep him.
The moral of this story is: Whenever a woman lies, it's for a good and honorable reason, and in the best interest of others. That's our story, and we're sticking to it.
Signed,
All Us Women
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* I give up!
courtesy of Hank Pedersen, Warwick, UK
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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, January 10, 2008
Preaching Materials for January 20, 2008
R U M O R S # 484
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2008-01-13
January 13, 2008
THE SAINTLY CIRCLE
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Motto:
Sic Hoc Legere Sas Nimium Eruditions Habes.*
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Please put this “blog” address on your “favorites” list. http://ralphmiltonsrumors.blogspot.com/
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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IMPORTANT: Thanks for sending me your contributions to Rumors. Even if you think it probably has been seen here before, send it anyway. I enjoy reading the joke and appreciate your goodwill in sending it, even if I don’t use it in Rumors.
And please give me your name, both first and last, and where you live. Even if you’ve written to me a gazillion times before, I am of the age where forgetfulness is allowed, and I am using that privilege to its fullest.
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Next Week’s Readings – baptismal memories
Rumors – nothing fancy
Soft Edges – cultural icons
Good Stuff – the train whistle
Bloopers – bothers and sisters
We Get Letters – rev F10
Mirabile Dictu! – graven images
Bottom of the Barrel – another 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 – The Youth Group was out collecting bottles to raise money for a mission project. They encountered one of the stalwarts of the congregation working in his front yard, a man not noted for his humor or his liberality.
“Got any empty beer or wine bottles?” they asked.
“Do I look like the kind of man who would have empty beer or wine bottles?” he grumped.
“Oh, sorry,” said the youth. “Got any empty vinegar bottles?”
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you will probably hear in church this coming Sunday, January 20th, if you are using the Revised Common Lectionary. That’s the 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany, and the 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time.
Monday, January 21st is Martin Luther King Day in the USA.
For children see “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year A,” page 51 (see below).
Isaiah 49:1-7 – I quite enjoy much of the fine poetry in Isaiah – the grand sweep of words, images, ideas, metaphors. I find them invigorating. Which is quite personal, of course, and so there’s no point arguing, if it does or does not do the same for you.
Similarly, there’s no point arguing whether Isaiah was looking forward to Jesus. I think he was talking to the nation Israel but I won’t argue if you see this passage as a prophetic foreshadowing of the Christ.
What the reading does, however, is challenge the nation Israel to be more than a tiny confederation of tribes paying attention to their own stuff and looking after their own welfare. It’s a challenge to be a “light to the nations” (v.6). And whether or not the Isaiah writer had any visions of our 21st century world, we can read this in that way, and perhaps feel invigorated – challenged – led – into seeing ourselves as a “light” to the nations.
And what that means to the way we are, and the way we are seen, by the world outside the church doors.
Psalm 40:1-11 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
1 I believed I could make it on my own.
But I slipped and fell.
I sank into a morass of my own making.
2 God heard my cry.
God lifted me out of the mire
and set me safe on solid ground.
3 Like any addict who quits,
I must talk about what has happened to me.
Like a robin at dawn,
I must sing God's praises to the skies.
I will risk being a bore;
If just one person hears me,
my work has not been wasted.
4 Too many today chase false gods;
They try to multiply their own gains.
5 But the richest returns come from God.
You can't begin to count your blessings!
6 God does not want us to wear frowns or long faces;
God wants us to find childlike joy in shining drops of dew,
in whispering pine needles, in warm mud between the toes.
7, 8 Our delight becomes one with God's;
Our personalities blend.
9 So I will not keep silent;
I will proclaim my good news privately and publicly.
10 I cannot keep it to myself.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
1 Corinthians 1:1-9 – They say that every growing child needs a pat on the back. Sometimes that pat needs to be low and hard.
Here’s Paul offering the first pat on the back to the young church in Corinth. If you read beyond verse 9, you find Paul also delivering a spanking. And I find it amusing and saddening that the stuff Paul writes about is stuff we’re still dealing with in our church communities.
It’s interesting that Paul talks of the spiritual gifts the Corinthians have, but he doesn’t say those gifts will bring them health, wealth, soft wavy hair or shiny white teeth. All those spiritual gifts are given so that “you may be blameless” when Jesus returns. And Paul was expecting that to happen any day.
Most of us know ourselves well enough to know that “blamelessness” isn’t something we aspire too. We’re all implicated in the sins of a struggling world.
But those spiritual gifts are to be longed for, worked for, treasured. It is with them and through them that we can make a difference.
John 1:29-42 – Memories.
A powerful memory of a hot afternoon near one of the sources of the Jordan River. I was in Israel studying with St. John University near Minneapolis. Almost all the rest of the class were Roman Catholic priests.
I was standing in the water of the Jordan up to my knees and feeling a deep sense of connectedness to this river and the stories of faith around it. The evening before, we’d heard a moving lecture about John’s description of Jesus’ baptism. And I wanted so very badly to be baptized in that river
Why? I didn’t know. All I knew was that the desire was deep and profound.
But who would baptize me. I couldn’t ask the priests. They wouldn’t do it because I wasn’t Catholic. Besides, I’d already been baptized.
Still, I really wanted to be baptized in that river. So I lowered myself down into the water. Once. Twice. Three times.
And the Spirit of God came and rested on my shoulder. Not in the form of a dove but in a sense of fullness – of being treasured – of a strong, warm arm around my shoulders.
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 – Strange things happen on the Internet. Rumors puts me in contact with a wide range of interesting folk and some unique situations.
Some time ago I received a one-line message. “I want to be a Christian. Can you help?”
“How do I respond to that?” I asked Bev. My first instinct was simply to ignore it.
“Ask some questions first,” she said. “You can’t answer that unless you know who you are talking to.”
So I asked a few questions as gently as I could and said I would be happy to respond “when I know you at least a little.”
The response was surprising. A man wrote saying that someone with a warped sense of humor had sent that letter to hundreds of people from his computer. It was a prank and he didn’t really enjoy it. “I’ve been sent long sermons and I’ve been sent vitriol. Yours is the first response that was kind and open.”
We corresponded on and off for quite awhile. Not about becoming a Christian because the man was already a very active and caring Christian. But I enjoyed his friendship which became possible because I didn’t follow my first instincts – because I gave a “kind and open” answer to what seemed like a setup to be flamed by some crank.
On a television program some months ago I heard a “financial advisor” who had a “wonderful way of achieving both your financial and spiritual goals.” The advice was simple. Find out what you really enjoy doing, then make a career out of that, and you will succeed. As examples, the advisor offered Oprah and Bill Gates.
I don’t really identify with Oprah and Bill. But then I also have a hard time identifying with other heroes who are bigger than life. Mother Teresa, Jean Vanier, Martin Luther King. They set a level of commitment I can’t aspire to.
The same applies to biblical heroes. Moses, Ruth, Mary, Paul. Stories of exceptional saints can backfire. If you set the bar too high, people know they can’t make it and walk away. Anyway, those are not the kind of “saints” Paul was talking about (v2). He was talking about saints who are the ordinary members of the church in Corinth and they’re making a bit of a mess of things.
Bev and I often find ourselves filling in on occasional Sundays at churches up and down our valley. I remember the astonishment and joy in Bev’s eyes when we went back to a church where she had been the pastor for a number of years.
Standing up to introduce us was Hazel. Hazel had been battered and bruised by life in just about every way – physically and psychologically. She was a desperately fearful woman who could hardly manage even a very short conversation with anyone, especially a male.
Bev had spent many hours with timid, quivering Hazel. And there she was standing up in front of the congregation introducing us! “What did you do?” Bev asked one of the long-time members of the congregation.
“We did what you started,” she said. “We just kept including her.”
Nothing fancy. Just good old-fashioned human kindness and decency. Hospitality. That’s what the journey of faith is basically about.
To be worthy of the name “saints” as Paul used the term, we don’t need to do anything exceptional or different. And we don’t have to get it right every time.
We just need to keep widening the circle.
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Cultural Icons
Last Sunday, we in the western churches celebrated the festival called Epiphany – which means “revelation” or “sudden comprehension.”
Traditionally, it marks the visit of the Magi to Bethlehem, revealing that Jesus was Messiah for all nations, not just for Jews.
But if you had been in Ethiopia this week, you wouldn’t have celebrated the Epiphany. You’d have celebrated Christmas. In the year 2001.
To western eyes, the Ethiopian calendar seems, umm, well, weird. Christmas always falls on December 29, not December 25. But their December 29 is our January 7. The Ethiopian calendar also runs seven years behind our Gregorian calendar. Plus, it has 13 months.
I’m intrigued by Ethiopian customs because our new grandson will be coming from there in about two months. Ethiopians speak and write the second most-widely used Semitic language in the world, after Arabic. Their alphabet is proto-Semitic – that is, its origins precede the Hebrew script.
They also have their own unique clock. Instead of starting their 12-hour cycles at noon and midnight, they start at dawn and sunset. So if someone invites you for 3:00 o’clock, you’d better find out if they mean breakfast, or afternoon tea.
Why wouldn’t Ethiopians change, to get in step with the rest of the world?
First, I suppose, because the rest of the world doesn’t necessarily use our calendar either. The eastern churches celebrate Christmas by the Julian calendar, 12 days later than ours. Others have completely different calendars. For Islam, this is the year 1428. For Jews, 5768.
And second, because the Ethiopian calendar and clock have become cultural icons, sanctified by centuries of tradition. When that’s what you’re used to, you can’t imagine anything different.
Until 1582, the Julian calendar dominated western Europe. But it had flaws. It added an extra day every 128 years. Over time, the shortest day of the year had moved into early January. Easter lost its relationship to the Jewish Passover.
Pope Gregory introduced a revised calendar that put Christian festivals more or less back in sync with the solar year. By the time Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, Wednesday September 2 moved directly to Thursday, September 14.
All over Britain, people rioted, demanding back the 12 days stolen from their lives.
It sounds silly, today. But some Canadians were similarly upset when Pierre Trudeau decreed that we measure distance in kilometres rather than miles. I still think in inches, not centimetres.
Of course, some Christians still consider the King James Version, translated from Latin in 1611, the only true Bible. Any other translation, they insist, distorts the message of God’s revelation – even if the new translation corrects demonstrable errors.
Like the Ethiopian calendar, the King James Version of the Bible has become a cultural icon for many. It no longer matters whether it is right or wrong, accurate or flawed, culturally biased or culturally neutral. It must now carry the baggage of a particular people’s identity.
None of us like change. Especially when it affects our identity.
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 sage advice collected (or at least forwarded) by Evelyn McLachlan. * Don't brag – it isn't the whistle that pulls the train.
* Bragging may not bring happiness, but no one having caught a large fish sneaks home through the alley.
* The best remedy for conceit is to sit down and make a list of all the things you don't know.
* A pessimist is one who feels bad when they feel good for fear they will feel worse when they feel better.
* Every day holds the possibility of miracles.
* An optimist says their glass is half full; a pessimist says the glass is half empty.
* Smiles never go up in price nor down in value.
* A smile is the whisper of a laugh.
* A smile is the lighting system of the face and the healing system of the heart.
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From the folks who make Rumors possible – At Jim Taylor’s house last Wednesday, I watched him interact with his dog, Phoebe. Phoebe has soulful eyes, a lethal tail that can bruise your shin when she’s happy. And she smiles. Yes, she does.
It looks like she’s showing her teeth, but her tail is wagging at 95 whops per second.
Phoebe and Jim understand each other. Which is why the text of “The Spirituality of Pets” is so delightful. The pictures are great too.
So if you love animals, and you’d enjoy having your heart warmed a little, get the book. The better bookstores carry it. Any bookstore can order it. Or you can do it yourself.
Go to this Wood Lake Publishing web address (www.woodlakebooks.com) for this and many other delightful and useful resources. Select “Search by Title, Author," at the top left column of the site. Or phone 1-800-663-2775.
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – April Daley says she asked, during a children’s sermon, what the three gifts were, that the Magi brought. "Gold, Frankenstein and More" said one youngster.
Clyde Dean writes: “In a galaxy long ago and far away, our minister concluded his sermon with a prayer. ‘. . . and may God bless those who are sick of the congregation.’ He never did realize what he said.”
Wayne Seybert of Longmont, Colorado writes: “A note in the church news letter said, ‘Next Saturday we will have a pantry shower for our new minister and his family.’
“Which was fine, except the word ‘pantry’ was spelled wrong.”
I saw it myself in a church bulletin. “Bothers and sisters draw near.” Not a mistake. Absolutely accurate and written by an older sister. I had three older sisters, so I know.
In the same bulletin I saw a reference to a “weakly Bible study.” I’ve been to some of those.
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! – Linguistic insecurity is perhaps one of the chief motivators for
linguistic prescriptivism.
Braj B. Kachru and Cecil L. Nelson via Jim Taylor who ads, “I want you to know that this has nothing to do with me personally.”
Those who travel to a place of pilgrimage, to a holy place, may hope to experience an epiphany of some sort, but may find only that the Ganges is dirty or that Iona is wet.
Alexander McCall Smith via Gordon Verplank
If absence makes the heart grow fonder, a lot of folks must really love our church.
source unknown via Evelyn McLachlan
There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.
Gandhi via Don Sandin
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We Get Letters – Margie Dahl of Rosebud, Victoria, Australia writes: “When I was studying at theological college, there was a family that lived across the road. They loved their German Shepherd dog and had a car sticker that read ‘Love is a German Shepherd.’ One of the students found this offensive, and made a car sticker for his own car as a response. It read ‘God is love, not a German Shepherd.’ I’ve never been sure who postulated that God was a German Shepherd, but there you go!
Margaret Wood of Wick, Scotland writes: “I'm with the 15yr old [in last week’s Rumors] who doesn't want to be doing laundry on her last day on earth. Only I don't want to be ironing. Since we came to Scotland I keep hearing about all these women who iron everything or at least almost everything including underwear, towels etc.
“A professor asked me one day how the transition had been from mother to full-time-student/mother. I told him it was hard to keep up with the house work. He gave me the best piece of advice that I got in University. ‘Never have your house so clean that people think that you have nothing else to do but housework’.”
John Shearman of Oakville, Ontario writes: “My son David [who, like his dad, is clergy] has a license plate on his car that reads REV F10. At the time his wife bought it for him, F10 meant ‘Save.’ But now, F10 in Microsoft Word means, ‘Activate the Menu Bar’."
John, I don’t know what “activate the menu bar” means in computer talk, but it’s not a bad job description for a minister.
Dee Smith writes of a heartwarming Christmas pageant. “Prevented for three Sundays from having Advent worship, first by ice and power outages, then heavy snows, we rejoiced greatly to gather Christmas Eve night. The usual crowd was augmented by our city offspring and theirs descending upon us from as far away as California to our central Kansas community.
“Some grandchildren were pressed into service at the last minute to become Mary, angels and shepherds. Not enough preparation, but it would work out. It always does...or so we thought.
“The least shepherd, last to take his place on the platform, held his crook proudly – at first. But when the last of the Magi gifts had been placed near the manger, he upended his staff. Each gift in its turn became an imaginary hockey puck as our pseudo-shepherd reverted to his latent hockey player instincts.”
“Each grandparent, aunt and uncle exchanged delighted wide grins, while the teen aged narrators deftly reassembled the reverent scene, only a bit skewed now by the misplaced ‘gold, common sense and fur.’
“And so, another memorable Christmas pageant told the story that always brings marvel and surprises. What a welcome gift after some dreary winter difficulties. We lit our candles, sang Silent Night and rejoiced! Our King is born!”
Carl Chamberlain writes: “I've appreciated your Latin offers. For the word-smiths and preachers in our midst I might offer this for consideration (an oldie, but a goodie): “Eschew Obfuscation.” Needs no translation. It's in English.
David Powers of Cape Cod, Massachusetts writes: “Ralph, just a quick heads up. You're really going to hear about this week's Latin motto! No agreement in case, number and gender. And the more widely circulated original, with the subject in the plural, is sheer nonsense in Latin. For one thing, the gerund "carborundum" [plus "est," which is missing in your version] suggests an obligation, a must: it must wear down. But I think Carborundum is simply commercially available sandpaper.”
Sharyl Peterson of Grand Junction, Colorado writes about the child’s version of the Serenity Prayer: "Give me the strength to change the things I can, the grace to accept the things I cannot, and a great big bag of money." – Age 13
Says Sharyl: “It put me in mind of another version of the Serenity Prayer that I particularly like: ‘God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it's me!’" (author unknown)
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “graven images!”) Notices seen on church graveyards.
* The grave spaces in this churchyard are reserved for the dead who live in this parish.
* Owing to the fact that we no longer have a sexton, we ask that people keep their own graves tidy.
* No alterations may be carried out in this graveyard without obtaining permission from the bodies concerned.
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Bottom of the Barrel – This groaner is from Sean Robinson. It’s been around forever, but it’s clever enough to deserve a re-run.
Q.
What do you get if you cross an insomniac, an agnostic, and a dyslexic? A.Someone who stays awake at night wondering if there really is a dog.
Since that was kind of short, here’s another from Susan Fiore.
It is the end of the sixth day of Creation, and God and Satan are admiring God's handiwork. God looks around contentedly and says, "It is good."
Satan, also looking around, rubs his hands together in anticipation and says, "It IS good! Let's organize it!"
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* If you can read this, you’re over-educated!
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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
2008-01-13
January 13, 2008
THE SAINTLY CIRCLE
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Motto:
Sic Hoc Legere Sas Nimium Eruditions Habes.*
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Please put this “blog” address on your “favorites” list. http://ralphmiltonsrumors.blogspot.com/
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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IMPORTANT: Thanks for sending me your contributions to Rumors. Even if you think it probably has been seen here before, send it anyway. I enjoy reading the joke and appreciate your goodwill in sending it, even if I don’t use it in Rumors.
And please give me your name, both first and last, and where you live. Even if you’ve written to me a gazillion times before, I am of the age where forgetfulness is allowed, and I am using that privilege to its fullest.
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Next Week’s Readings – baptismal memories
Rumors – nothing fancy
Soft Edges – cultural icons
Good Stuff – the train whistle
Bloopers – bothers and sisters
We Get Letters – rev F10
Mirabile Dictu! – graven images
Bottom of the Barrel – another 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 – The Youth Group was out collecting bottles to raise money for a mission project. They encountered one of the stalwarts of the congregation working in his front yard, a man not noted for his humor or his liberality.
“Got any empty beer or wine bottles?” they asked.
“Do I look like the kind of man who would have empty beer or wine bottles?” he grumped.
“Oh, sorry,” said the youth. “Got any empty vinegar bottles?”
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you will probably hear in church this coming Sunday, January 20th, if you are using the Revised Common Lectionary. That’s the 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany, and the 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time.
Monday, January 21st is Martin Luther King Day in the USA.
For children see “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year A,” page 51 (see below).
Isaiah 49:1-7 – I quite enjoy much of the fine poetry in Isaiah – the grand sweep of words, images, ideas, metaphors. I find them invigorating. Which is quite personal, of course, and so there’s no point arguing, if it does or does not do the same for you.
Similarly, there’s no point arguing whether Isaiah was looking forward to Jesus. I think he was talking to the nation Israel but I won’t argue if you see this passage as a prophetic foreshadowing of the Christ.
What the reading does, however, is challenge the nation Israel to be more than a tiny confederation of tribes paying attention to their own stuff and looking after their own welfare. It’s a challenge to be a “light to the nations” (v.6). And whether or not the Isaiah writer had any visions of our 21st century world, we can read this in that way, and perhaps feel invigorated – challenged – led – into seeing ourselves as a “light” to the nations.
And what that means to the way we are, and the way we are seen, by the world outside the church doors.
Psalm 40:1-11 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
1 I believed I could make it on my own.
But I slipped and fell.
I sank into a morass of my own making.
2 God heard my cry.
God lifted me out of the mire
and set me safe on solid ground.
3 Like any addict who quits,
I must talk about what has happened to me.
Like a robin at dawn,
I must sing God's praises to the skies.
I will risk being a bore;
If just one person hears me,
my work has not been wasted.
4 Too many today chase false gods;
They try to multiply their own gains.
5 But the richest returns come from God.
You can't begin to count your blessings!
6 God does not want us to wear frowns or long faces;
God wants us to find childlike joy in shining drops of dew,
in whispering pine needles, in warm mud between the toes.
7, 8 Our delight becomes one with God's;
Our personalities blend.
9 So I will not keep silent;
I will proclaim my good news privately and publicly.
10 I cannot keep it to myself.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
1 Corinthians 1:1-9 – They say that every growing child needs a pat on the back. Sometimes that pat needs to be low and hard.
Here’s Paul offering the first pat on the back to the young church in Corinth. If you read beyond verse 9, you find Paul also delivering a spanking. And I find it amusing and saddening that the stuff Paul writes about is stuff we’re still dealing with in our church communities.
It’s interesting that Paul talks of the spiritual gifts the Corinthians have, but he doesn’t say those gifts will bring them health, wealth, soft wavy hair or shiny white teeth. All those spiritual gifts are given so that “you may be blameless” when Jesus returns. And Paul was expecting that to happen any day.
Most of us know ourselves well enough to know that “blamelessness” isn’t something we aspire too. We’re all implicated in the sins of a struggling world.
But those spiritual gifts are to be longed for, worked for, treasured. It is with them and through them that we can make a difference.
John 1:29-42 – Memories.
A powerful memory of a hot afternoon near one of the sources of the Jordan River. I was in Israel studying with St. John University near Minneapolis. Almost all the rest of the class were Roman Catholic priests.
I was standing in the water of the Jordan up to my knees and feeling a deep sense of connectedness to this river and the stories of faith around it. The evening before, we’d heard a moving lecture about John’s description of Jesus’ baptism. And I wanted so very badly to be baptized in that river
Why? I didn’t know. All I knew was that the desire was deep and profound.
But who would baptize me. I couldn’t ask the priests. They wouldn’t do it because I wasn’t Catholic. Besides, I’d already been baptized.
Still, I really wanted to be baptized in that river. So I lowered myself down into the water. Once. Twice. Three times.
And the Spirit of God came and rested on my shoulder. Not in the form of a dove but in a sense of fullness – of being treasured – of a strong, warm arm around my shoulders.
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 – Strange things happen on the Internet. Rumors puts me in contact with a wide range of interesting folk and some unique situations.
Some time ago I received a one-line message. “I want to be a Christian. Can you help?”
“How do I respond to that?” I asked Bev. My first instinct was simply to ignore it.
“Ask some questions first,” she said. “You can’t answer that unless you know who you are talking to.”
So I asked a few questions as gently as I could and said I would be happy to respond “when I know you at least a little.”
The response was surprising. A man wrote saying that someone with a warped sense of humor had sent that letter to hundreds of people from his computer. It was a prank and he didn’t really enjoy it. “I’ve been sent long sermons and I’ve been sent vitriol. Yours is the first response that was kind and open.”
We corresponded on and off for quite awhile. Not about becoming a Christian because the man was already a very active and caring Christian. But I enjoyed his friendship which became possible because I didn’t follow my first instincts – because I gave a “kind and open” answer to what seemed like a setup to be flamed by some crank.
On a television program some months ago I heard a “financial advisor” who had a “wonderful way of achieving both your financial and spiritual goals.” The advice was simple. Find out what you really enjoy doing, then make a career out of that, and you will succeed. As examples, the advisor offered Oprah and Bill Gates.
I don’t really identify with Oprah and Bill. But then I also have a hard time identifying with other heroes who are bigger than life. Mother Teresa, Jean Vanier, Martin Luther King. They set a level of commitment I can’t aspire to.
The same applies to biblical heroes. Moses, Ruth, Mary, Paul. Stories of exceptional saints can backfire. If you set the bar too high, people know they can’t make it and walk away. Anyway, those are not the kind of “saints” Paul was talking about (v2). He was talking about saints who are the ordinary members of the church in Corinth and they’re making a bit of a mess of things.
Bev and I often find ourselves filling in on occasional Sundays at churches up and down our valley. I remember the astonishment and joy in Bev’s eyes when we went back to a church where she had been the pastor for a number of years.
Standing up to introduce us was Hazel. Hazel had been battered and bruised by life in just about every way – physically and psychologically. She was a desperately fearful woman who could hardly manage even a very short conversation with anyone, especially a male.
Bev had spent many hours with timid, quivering Hazel. And there she was standing up in front of the congregation introducing us! “What did you do?” Bev asked one of the long-time members of the congregation.
“We did what you started,” she said. “We just kept including her.”
Nothing fancy. Just good old-fashioned human kindness and decency. Hospitality. That’s what the journey of faith is basically about.
To be worthy of the name “saints” as Paul used the term, we don’t need to do anything exceptional or different. And we don’t have to get it right every time.
We just need to keep widening the circle.
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Cultural Icons
Last Sunday, we in the western churches celebrated the festival called Epiphany – which means “revelation” or “sudden comprehension.”
Traditionally, it marks the visit of the Magi to Bethlehem, revealing that Jesus was Messiah for all nations, not just for Jews.
But if you had been in Ethiopia this week, you wouldn’t have celebrated the Epiphany. You’d have celebrated Christmas. In the year 2001.
To western eyes, the Ethiopian calendar seems, umm, well, weird. Christmas always falls on December 29, not December 25. But their December 29 is our January 7. The Ethiopian calendar also runs seven years behind our Gregorian calendar. Plus, it has 13 months.
I’m intrigued by Ethiopian customs because our new grandson will be coming from there in about two months. Ethiopians speak and write the second most-widely used Semitic language in the world, after Arabic. Their alphabet is proto-Semitic – that is, its origins precede the Hebrew script.
They also have their own unique clock. Instead of starting their 12-hour cycles at noon and midnight, they start at dawn and sunset. So if someone invites you for 3:00 o’clock, you’d better find out if they mean breakfast, or afternoon tea.
Why wouldn’t Ethiopians change, to get in step with the rest of the world?
First, I suppose, because the rest of the world doesn’t necessarily use our calendar either. The eastern churches celebrate Christmas by the Julian calendar, 12 days later than ours. Others have completely different calendars. For Islam, this is the year 1428. For Jews, 5768.
And second, because the Ethiopian calendar and clock have become cultural icons, sanctified by centuries of tradition. When that’s what you’re used to, you can’t imagine anything different.
Until 1582, the Julian calendar dominated western Europe. But it had flaws. It added an extra day every 128 years. Over time, the shortest day of the year had moved into early January. Easter lost its relationship to the Jewish Passover.
Pope Gregory introduced a revised calendar that put Christian festivals more or less back in sync with the solar year. By the time Britain adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752, Wednesday September 2 moved directly to Thursday, September 14.
All over Britain, people rioted, demanding back the 12 days stolen from their lives.
It sounds silly, today. But some Canadians were similarly upset when Pierre Trudeau decreed that we measure distance in kilometres rather than miles. I still think in inches, not centimetres.
Of course, some Christians still consider the King James Version, translated from Latin in 1611, the only true Bible. Any other translation, they insist, distorts the message of God’s revelation – even if the new translation corrects demonstrable errors.
Like the Ethiopian calendar, the King James Version of the Bible has become a cultural icon for many. It no longer matters whether it is right or wrong, accurate or flawed, culturally biased or culturally neutral. It must now carry the baggage of a particular people’s identity.
None of us like change. Especially when it affects our identity.
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 sage advice collected (or at least forwarded) by Evelyn McLachlan. * Don't brag – it isn't the whistle that pulls the train.
* Bragging may not bring happiness, but no one having caught a large fish sneaks home through the alley.
* The best remedy for conceit is to sit down and make a list of all the things you don't know.
* A pessimist is one who feels bad when they feel good for fear they will feel worse when they feel better.
* Every day holds the possibility of miracles.
* An optimist says their glass is half full; a pessimist says the glass is half empty.
* Smiles never go up in price nor down in value.
* A smile is the whisper of a laugh.
* A smile is the lighting system of the face and the healing system of the heart.
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From the folks who make Rumors possible – At Jim Taylor’s house last Wednesday, I watched him interact with his dog, Phoebe. Phoebe has soulful eyes, a lethal tail that can bruise your shin when she’s happy. And she smiles. Yes, she does.
It looks like she’s showing her teeth, but her tail is wagging at 95 whops per second.
Phoebe and Jim understand each other. Which is why the text of “The Spirituality of Pets” is so delightful. The pictures are great too.
So if you love animals, and you’d enjoy having your heart warmed a little, get the book. The better bookstores carry it. Any bookstore can order it. Or you can do it yourself.
Go to this Wood Lake Publishing web address (www.woodlakebooks.com) for this and many other delightful and useful resources. Select “Search by Title, Author," at the top left column of the site. Or phone 1-800-663-2775.
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – April Daley says she asked, during a children’s sermon, what the three gifts were, that the Magi brought. "Gold, Frankenstein and More" said one youngster.
Clyde Dean writes: “In a galaxy long ago and far away, our minister concluded his sermon with a prayer. ‘. . . and may God bless those who are sick of the congregation.’ He never did realize what he said.”
Wayne Seybert of Longmont, Colorado writes: “A note in the church news letter said, ‘Next Saturday we will have a pantry shower for our new minister and his family.’
“Which was fine, except the word ‘pantry’ was spelled wrong.”
I saw it myself in a church bulletin. “Bothers and sisters draw near.” Not a mistake. Absolutely accurate and written by an older sister. I had three older sisters, so I know.
In the same bulletin I saw a reference to a “weakly Bible study.” I’ve been to some of those.
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! – Linguistic insecurity is perhaps one of the chief motivators for
linguistic prescriptivism.
Braj B. Kachru and Cecil L. Nelson via Jim Taylor who ads, “I want you to know that this has nothing to do with me personally.”
Those who travel to a place of pilgrimage, to a holy place, may hope to experience an epiphany of some sort, but may find only that the Ganges is dirty or that Iona is wet.
Alexander McCall Smith via Gordon Verplank
If absence makes the heart grow fonder, a lot of folks must really love our church.
source unknown via Evelyn McLachlan
There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.
Gandhi via Don Sandin
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We Get Letters – Margie Dahl of Rosebud, Victoria, Australia writes: “When I was studying at theological college, there was a family that lived across the road. They loved their German Shepherd dog and had a car sticker that read ‘Love is a German Shepherd.’ One of the students found this offensive, and made a car sticker for his own car as a response. It read ‘God is love, not a German Shepherd.’ I’ve never been sure who postulated that God was a German Shepherd, but there you go!
Margaret Wood of Wick, Scotland writes: “I'm with the 15yr old [in last week’s Rumors] who doesn't want to be doing laundry on her last day on earth. Only I don't want to be ironing. Since we came to Scotland I keep hearing about all these women who iron everything or at least almost everything including underwear, towels etc.
“A professor asked me one day how the transition had been from mother to full-time-student/mother. I told him it was hard to keep up with the house work. He gave me the best piece of advice that I got in University. ‘Never have your house so clean that people think that you have nothing else to do but housework’.”
John Shearman of Oakville, Ontario writes: “My son David [who, like his dad, is clergy] has a license plate on his car that reads REV F10. At the time his wife bought it for him, F10 meant ‘Save.’ But now, F10 in Microsoft Word means, ‘Activate the Menu Bar’."
John, I don’t know what “activate the menu bar” means in computer talk, but it’s not a bad job description for a minister.
Dee Smith writes of a heartwarming Christmas pageant. “Prevented for three Sundays from having Advent worship, first by ice and power outages, then heavy snows, we rejoiced greatly to gather Christmas Eve night. The usual crowd was augmented by our city offspring and theirs descending upon us from as far away as California to our central Kansas community.
“Some grandchildren were pressed into service at the last minute to become Mary, angels and shepherds. Not enough preparation, but it would work out. It always does...or so we thought.
“The least shepherd, last to take his place on the platform, held his crook proudly – at first. But when the last of the Magi gifts had been placed near the manger, he upended his staff. Each gift in its turn became an imaginary hockey puck as our pseudo-shepherd reverted to his latent hockey player instincts.”
“Each grandparent, aunt and uncle exchanged delighted wide grins, while the teen aged narrators deftly reassembled the reverent scene, only a bit skewed now by the misplaced ‘gold, common sense and fur.’
“And so, another memorable Christmas pageant told the story that always brings marvel and surprises. What a welcome gift after some dreary winter difficulties. We lit our candles, sang Silent Night and rejoiced! Our King is born!”
Carl Chamberlain writes: “I've appreciated your Latin offers. For the word-smiths and preachers in our midst I might offer this for consideration (an oldie, but a goodie): “Eschew Obfuscation.” Needs no translation. It's in English.
David Powers of Cape Cod, Massachusetts writes: “Ralph, just a quick heads up. You're really going to hear about this week's Latin motto! No agreement in case, number and gender. And the more widely circulated original, with the subject in the plural, is sheer nonsense in Latin. For one thing, the gerund "carborundum" [plus "est," which is missing in your version] suggests an obligation, a must: it must wear down. But I think Carborundum is simply commercially available sandpaper.”
Sharyl Peterson of Grand Junction, Colorado writes about the child’s version of the Serenity Prayer: "Give me the strength to change the things I can, the grace to accept the things I cannot, and a great big bag of money." – Age 13
Says Sharyl: “It put me in mind of another version of the Serenity Prayer that I particularly like: ‘God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it's me!’" (author unknown)
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “graven images!”) Notices seen on church graveyards.
* The grave spaces in this churchyard are reserved for the dead who live in this parish.
* Owing to the fact that we no longer have a sexton, we ask that people keep their own graves tidy.
* No alterations may be carried out in this graveyard without obtaining permission from the bodies concerned.
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Bottom of the Barrel – This groaner is from Sean Robinson. It’s been around forever, but it’s clever enough to deserve a re-run.
Q.
What do you get if you cross an insomniac, an agnostic, and a dyslexic? A.Someone who stays awake at night wondering if there really is a dog.
Since that was kind of short, here’s another from Susan Fiore.
It is the end of the sixth day of Creation, and God and Satan are admiring God's handiwork. God looks around contentedly and says, "It is good."
Satan, also looking around, rubs his hands together in anticipation and says, "It IS good! Let's organize it!"
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* If you can read this, you’re over-educated!
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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
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