R U M O R S #539
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2009-02-01
February 1, 2009
KICK OUT THE DEMONS
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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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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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The Story – the perils of popularity
Rumors – to ignore God
Soft Edges – open doors
Good Stuff – the Bible in 50 words
Bloopers – did Jesus resign?
Mirabile Dictu! – try our Sundays
Bottom of the Barrel – into the hole he goes
Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – cut to the chase
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 Evelyn McLachlan.
One day the zookeeper noticed that the monkey was reading two books – the Bible and Darwin's "The Origin of Species."
In surprise, he asked the monkey, "Why are you reading both those books?"
"Well," said the monkey, "I just wanted to know if I was my brother's keeper or my keeper's brother."
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you may hear in church this coming Sunday, February 8th, which is the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany.
Isaiah 40:21-31 – This is one of those ringing passages from Isaiah that deserves to be declaimed as the great poetry it is. Especially that last verse. “. . . those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
Except that any great truth carried to us in glorious metaphor almost always has a “yes, but” attached. Living the Sabbath of my life, as are my closest friends and many of the family I love, I find those words painful sometimes. Of course I understand that they are referring to spiritual strength, but even that wavers more than most of us admit. I often think of Tom Brown, a man of great conviction and spiritual strength, who said to me a few weeks before he died, “Why does God make dying so difficult?”
The older we get, the more often we have those times of great fragility and weakness. Two weeks ago when I smacked my face on the sidewalk, I felt that visceral insecurity in the waiting room at the hospital. I was blessed with Bev by my side.
But far too many people have no one of strength and faith to believe for them, when their own faith seems to seep away.
Psalm 147:1-11, 20c – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
Sometimes we think of God as the "sugardaddy," the one who can solve all our problems for us.
2 We are the refugees.
Our homes and our spirits have been destroyed.
Across the earth we have fled seeking asylum.
God gathered us together, and gave us a second chance.
3 We are the sick, the infirm, the elderly.
God gave us nurses, and medicines,
and medicare to cover the costs that would have crushed us.
4 We are the students, the scientists, the scholars.
The more we explore our universe,
the more the mysteries we encounter fill us with awe.
6 We are the poor, the oppressed,
the people at the bottom of the pile.
We see the powerful and mighty come tumbling down,
betrayed by their own corruption.
5 When we see all this, we do not doubt the power of God.
8 Why should we doubt?
If God can make the rain fall, the grass grow,
the rivers run, and the sun shine,
9 if God can balance the needs of nature
so that both lion and lamb can live,
then surely God can also affect human affairs.
10 God does not judge by appearances.
God is not impressed by titles and positions,
nor influenced by body-building and cosmetic beauty.
In the eyes of God, a pauper matters as much as a priest,
a person on welfare as much as a president.
11 What matters is how well we hear God,
and how much we care for each other.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
1 Corinthians 9:16-23 – "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Shakespeare has Hamlet's mother Gertrude say that. This passage and others have me thinking Paul doth protest too much sometimes.
Of course, I can only guess at what kind of sniping Paul endured. People in a high profile ministry are often the target of undeserved pot shots from folks who aim at anything that moves slightly above their limited horizons.
Ralph the idealist, says that ministry is its own reward, but Ralph the realist, knows that those in ministry, especially those in professional ministry, are often highly vulnerable and need any support they can find. I know how much I appreciate the letters of support I receive from Rumors, even though my ministry is pretty well insulated from criticism.
The Story (from the Revised Common Lectionary) – Mark 1:29-39
Jim says
Since I started this story from Mark last week, I feel obligated to continue. (Corinthians offers lots to preach about, but any story as such has to be inferred behind Paul’s impassioned arguments.)
Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law – clear evidence, by the way, that the disciples were not bachelors free to take off at a moment’s notice on a new adventure. The word spreads. Crowds gather. They bring their own sick for healing. Jesus escapes, getting away by himself for prayer. Instead of going back to where he’s become a local celebrity, he moves on to new communities.
I might call this service, “The Perils of Popularity.” Because one of the greatest temptations for performers is to preach to the converted. Like a Frank Sinatra concert, we know the songs they came to hear, and we give them what they paid for.
It takes guts to break new ground, to venture into unfamiliar territory, to explore those possibly unpopular thoughts that come so insistently in the wee small hours of the morning.
What parts of my faith am I re-assessing? Do I have enough faith in my congregation to share those thoughts with them? Or will I retreat into the safe and comfortable concepts they’re accustomed to hearing?
Yes, I might offend some listeners. They might consider me to have “an unclean spirit.” That’s a risk I must take, to be faithful to Jesus.
Ralph says –
I have to keep reminding myself that Mark offers us a very condensed version of the Jesus story. Otherwise I might wonder about Jesus healing Simon’s mother-in-law and having her come and serve them, all in one sentence. Otherwise it sounds like, “you are healed now go make coffee and sandwiches.”
Of course, that’s not what the story is about. It’s about Jesus’ healing ministry. And let’s face it, we in the main-line Protestant church often have trouble with the whole idea of Jesus (or anyone else) healing people. Healing of the spirit, fine. But that pile of crutches in the corner gives us the willies.
I find I have no problem with the healing stories in the Bible. The folks who wrote down those stories believed they happened in just that way. And so I accept the story as told and ask myself what the story means to me. In this story, it’s demons they are casting out. I don’t know what the writer of Mark’s gospel meant by “demons,” but it doesn’t matter. I need to know the demons in my life and in my culture, and how I am called to deal with them.
We tend to think the modern equivalent of the demon possessed are the desperately insane – frothing at the mouth, running around naked – that sort of thing. But the New Revised Standard 2009 demons are much more subtle, sophisticated and devious than that. They go by names such as “popularity,” “acceptance,” “low self-esteem,” “ambition,” and many more.
And for such demons their exorcism demands a gospel of radical inclusion – unqualified love – humor and grace. And here, the gospel imperative is loud and clear.
For a “Reader’s Theatre” version of the gospel see below. By the way, an interesting note from Janice Watcom of Toronto, tells me that her group, which uses Rumors each week as the basis of a Bible Study, now does the “Reader’s Theatre” version each week to kick-start the discussion. They also read the children’s version of “The Lectionary Story Bible.” Says Janice, “After that kind of input, the discussion is always lively.”
Check out “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year B,” for a children’s version of each week’s lection.
There are children’s stories for every Sunday in the Revised Common 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. Click the main Wood Lake Publications website at www.woodlakebooks.com, or click on the following address which takes you directly to the “Lectionary Story Bible.”
http://tinyurl.com/2lonod
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Rumors –Ogden Nash penned this forgettable bit of doggerel back in the olden days when I was a teenager.
“Children aren’t happy
With nothing to ignore.
That’s what parents
Were created for.”
Ogden Nash had a point. Parents and grandparents are created so that children have someone to take for granted. We should be taken for granted by our kids.
It seems like only a year or so ago when I occasionally got to take Zoë to her Kindergarten class. (It was actually almost a decade ago!) I opened the door for her and she trotted off to play with her friends. She didn’t look back. Zoë hadn’t the slightest doubt that I or someone else in the family, would be there to pick her up and bring her home. There was none of the fear that child psychologists call “separation anxiety.” Most children go through a bit of that at some point, and Zoë did too. But mostly she and her brother Jake took their parents and grandparents for granted.
Which is exactly the way it should be. And so often isn’t.
Zoë and Jake are at Sunday School every week, but they will learn more about God by the way their parents and grandparents behave, than they ever will in church.
That’s why the “parent” and “grandparent” metaphors for God are so powerful. And so dangerous.
There is nothing as important as that confidence that the loving parents will be there. Always. You can count on them. You can take them for granted. You can even ignore them. It’s on that experience that their concept of God will grow.
I know that’s a heavy trip to lay on parents, but it’s true. A child’s concept of God begins with what that child experiences in love and dependability from their primary caregiver. Scary, isn’t it?
And yes, there are many, sometimes heroic tales of people who have overcome that parental deficit and found themselves in the presence of a loving, caring, accepting God.
I like to read stuff by folks we call mystics. Julian of Norwich (surprise!) is my favorite. She talks about keeping God constantly in your mind and heart.
I don’t think she means that God wants to be constantly jabbered at, much less flattered constantly. I think God is quite content when the kids (us) are playing contentedly.
Yes, there need to be those tender together times. Children need laps to sit on and adults to snuggle up to. And they certainly need someone to hold them and love them when they have fallen or are ill. Or in trouble. But there’s also lots of times to take God for granted. To ignore God.
Not that God is absent. But God is the air we breathe and the food we eat and the life we live. As a fish is not conscious of the water in which it swims, we are mostly unconscious of the holy love that surrounds us.
And I think that’s just the way God wants it to be.
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Open Doors
Our cat Joey has an obsession with doors. If a door opens, he has to dive through it.
When we got Joey, we were told he was an indoor cat. For the first few weeks, he was. Moving to a new home at the age of five traumatized him, I suppose. He slunk around under the furniture. He hid himself among the pillows on our bed.
Then one day during the summer, when our doors were open to the sunshine, he ventured outside.
Of course, the outside was a strange new world. He froze in panic. He didn’t know what to do with all this space around him, which made it fairly easy to capture him and pop him back into the house.
But that’s when his obsession started. As soon as we opened a door to go outside, a blur of orange fur flashed to freedom through our legs.
Once he was out, he was gone – until he decided that he doesn’t like the rain, the snow, the cold, the wind, or the cawing crows. Then he clawed at the door, demanding his right to return to his comfortable bed warmth indoors.
Not even a bitter winter persuaded him to change his habits. When the temperature outside hovered around -25 Celsius, when snow pelted against the house, when ice coated the deck, Joey still beat everyone else through the opening.
Except that now he shot back through the open door as fast as he had shot out of it seconds before.
I think that doors have become a kind of addiction for him. He zips through them even when he knows they go nowhere.
If we go to a storage room, in the basement, he hovers around our ankles until we put a hand on the doorknob. The door will barely be open a few inches before he’s gone through into the darkness.
I went to the garden shed the other day. An orange furball bounced off my legs in his desperate rush to get to somewhere that went nowhere. (Hmmm... he reminds me of some politicians...)
Had I changed my mind about needing that stepladder, Joey could have been trapped in the shed for days. But that doesn’t occur to him.
A friend liked to quote the old saying, “When one door closes, another one opens.” After she suffered a health setback. She went through months of unemployment.
Finally, a door opened. She got a job offer. To work in social welfare in a community in far northern Labrador where, she said later, “The adults drank booze all day and the kids sniffed gasoline.”
She lasted six months. I don’t think she ever recovered from that experience.
Rev. Bob Thompson talked about a time in his life when he found himself between pastorates. He had half a dozen offers. Some seemed promising. But none of them felt right.
“Just because a door opens,” Bob commented, “you don’t have to go through it.”
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Good Stuff – This from Jim Spinks:
The Bible in 50 Words!
God made
Eve bit
Noah arked
Abraham split
Joseph ruled
Jacob fooled
Bush talked
Moses balked
Pharaoh plagued
People walked
Sea divided
Tablets guided
Promise landed
Saul freaked
David peeked
Prophets warned
Jesus born
God Walked
Love talked
Anger crucified
Hope died
Love rose
Spirit flamed
Word spread
God remained.
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Vern Ratzlaff writes: Apropos (that's the only Latin word I know, so I use it quite a bit, sometimes correctly) of the 'Hell, Who's Calling?' sermon blooper, I heard of a Christmas pageant, where the little ones come onto the stage, each holding a letter to spell out a greeting. On this occasion, the 'HELLO' group got a little mixed up, and the last letter came onto the stage first.
Alice McDowell of Greenwood, Indiana writes: “My favorite, which didn’t happen to me but I read about it, was when the hymn ‘Jesus Shall Reign’ became, in one stroke, ‘Jesus Shall Resign.’ A sermon could be written on that impossibility.”
True, Alice, but I’m sure there were and are times when Jesus would like to do exactly that.
* The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been canceled due to a conflict.
If you’ve spotted any good bloopers in your church bulletin or newsletter, or anywhere else for that matter, please send them to me. ralphmilton@woodlake.com
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Wish I’d Said That! – "The Bible is the story of God's peoples' struggle to be God's people." source unknown via Mary from Sunny Oman
A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.
Grace Murray Hopper via Steve Giesbrecht
It's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you're fighting for.
Paulo Coelho via Jim Taylor
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “Try our Sundays!*”)
Dorothy Harrowing of Madeira Park, B.C. sends this collection of church signs.
* The best vitamin for a Christian is B1.
* Come in and have your faith lifted.
* This is a chu__ch. What is missing?
* You are not too bad to come in. You are not too good to stay out.
* Can’t sleep? Try counting your blessings.
* Aspire to inspire before you expire.
* Where will you be sitting in eternity? Smoking or non-smoking?
* Under same management for more than 2,000 years.
* Try our Sundays*. They are better than Baskin-Robbins.
(Yes, I know the ice-cream variety are spelled, “sundae.”
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Bottom of the Barrel – Fred Brailey sent a collection of laughs about children. Fred says he wants the last line in this one used at his funeral.
While walking along the sidewalk in front of his church, our minister heard the intoning of a prayer that nearly made his collar wilt. Apparently, his five-year-old son and his playmates had found a dead robin.
Feeling that proper burial should be performed, they had secured a small box and cotton batting, then dug a hole and were ready to dispose of the deceased. The minister's son was chosen to say the appropriate prayers and with sonorous dignity intoned his version of what he thought his father always said.
“Glory be to the Faaather, and to the Sonnn, and into the hole he goooes.”
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Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – Mark 1:29-39
Reader I: Whoever wrote the Gospel of Mark doesn’t mess around.
Reader II: What do you mean?
I: I mean he cuts right to the chase. He says nothing about Jesus’ birth. There’s nothing about Bethlehem or shepherds or wise men. Right away we’re into Jesus being baptized by John, then the temptation in the wilderness and the calling of the first disciples, and we’re still in the first chapter.
II: I guess you’re right. In the ten verses of today’s readings, we have several distinct incidents, and the writer of Mark doesn’t elaborate on any of them. It’s like a Reader’s Digest Condensed Book version of the story of Jesus. In the first part of the reading, Jesus cures Simon’s mother-in-law who has a fever and it sounds as if she gets right out of bed and starts making coffee and sandwiches.
I: Like I said. He doesn’t mess around.
II: So let’s read it.
(slight pause)
I: As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.
II: Now Simon's mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.
I: That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered around the door. Jesus cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. Jesus would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.
II: In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, "Everyone is searching for you."
I: "Well then. Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do."
II: And Jesus went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.
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Information and Stuff – (Read this section only if you want to know about subscribing, unsubscribing or quoting stuff from Rumors.) It would be nice if you could give Rumors a plug in your bulletin or newsletter. Please invite your friends (and even your enemies) to subscribe. There's no charge: RUMORS is free and it comes to your e-mail box every Sunday morning. Just send your friends the instructions to subscribe [below], and include an invitation to join the list ... perhaps something like this: “There’s a lively and fun newsletter called RUMORS which is available at no cost on the net. It’s for ‘Christians with a sense of humor’.” Please add the instructions to subscribe [below]. If you have a friend you think would enjoy Rumors, and you’d rather not give them the subscribing instructions below, send me an e-mail at ralphmilton@woodlake.com and give me the e-mail address of your friend. If you are using something from Rumors in your sermon, give credit only as appropriate, without stopping the sermon dead in its tracks. I am delighted when Rumors is useful in the life and work of the church. As long as it is within your congregation or parish, you don’t need permission. You are welcome to use the stuff in church bulletins or newsletters. Please say where it came from, and please invite people to subscribe to RUMORS. An appropriate credit line would be; “From Ralph Milton's RUMORS, a free Internet ‘e-zine’ for Christians with a sense of humor." ... and please be sure to include these instructions to subscribe to RUMORS: To Subscribe:* Send an e-mail to: rumors-subscribe@joinhands.com
* Don't put anything else in that e-mail
To Unsubscribe:
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* Don’t put anything else in that e-mail* If you are changing e-mail addresses, and your old address will no longer be in service, you do not need to unsubscribe. The sending computer will try a few times, and then give up..~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Please Write – If you respond, react, think about, freak-out, or otherwise have things happen in your head as a result of reading the above, please send a note to: ralphmilton@woodlake.com
Who knows, I might quote you in a future issue of RUMORS.All material is copyright © Ralph Milton.~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Preaching Materials for Februay 1, 2009
R U M O R S # 538
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2009-01-25
January 24, 2009
UNCLEAN SPIRITS
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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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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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The Story – the gods who rule our lives
Rumors – the only one who knew
Soft Edges – confessions of a has-been
Good Stuff – the sermon in the fire
Bloopers – Christian plumbing
We Get Letters – with whom can you negotiate
Mirabile Dictu! – the future starts tomorrow
Bottom of the Barrel – lose weight eating pizza
Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – Mark 1:21-28
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 Evelyn McLachlan. I first heard this joke from a rabbi the first time around. It’s a play on the slightly racist old cliché, “Some of my best friends are Jews.”
Rabbi 1: We've got to do something. Many of the young people in our synagogue are converting to the Quaker faith.
Rabbi 2: I've noticed that too. In fact, some of my best Jews are Friends!
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you may hear in church this coming Sunday, February 1st, which is the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany.
Deuteronomy 18:15-20 – This little passage is plucked out from the middle of a series of instructions about the Levites, and what they shall be given, and how to be able to tell the difference between false prophets and false. So it’s a bit out of context.
You can tell whether a prophet is of God by whether the things warned of actually happen. The writer doesn’t tell us how long you wait. A week? A year? A lifetime?
Christians have often read this as foretelling the coming of Jesus, though it’s unlikely the writer had that in mind.
It’s the phrase “speaks in the name of other gods,” (v.20) that got my attention. Because those gods are all around us. My definition of a god in this context is any thing or idea or value that you hold higher than any other. You could call them “unclean spirits” as the writer of Mark did. Or a mania, or fixation or compulsion.
The trick here is to realize that the god who rules us is not usually the god we name, but the god we honor with our actions. A good, analytical look at our charge card statement might offer some clues.
Psalm 111 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
1 The bright blue planet spins in the vast darkness of space;
let all who live on the earth rejoice.
2 Only on this one tiny orb do we know life exists;
let all who live on the earth give thanks.
3 The vision takes our breath away;
let all who live on the earth open their eyes.
4 This fragile ball bursting with life is a work of art;
let all who live on earth recognize God's goodness.
5 Foxes and field mice, humans and whales, eagles and ants –
all are woven together in a tapestry of relationships;
let all who live on the earth recognize this reality.
6 And God has delegated responsibility to us;
let all who live on the earth be mindful.
7 We must exercise care not to upset the delicate equilibrium of shared life;
let all who live on the earth understand their responsibility.
8 A tapestry cannot be reduced to a single thread;
let all who live on the earth accept their responsibility.
9 This egg floating in the dark womb of the universe is like God's own embryo;
let all who live on earth treat it as holy.
10 We share an awesome and terrible responsibility;
may God live forever.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to http://www.woodlakebooks.com/
1 Corinthians 8:1-13 – This passage is, it seems to me, is primarily directed at those of us who are in positions of leadership in the church. It’s tempting, as our understanding of our faith grows, to change our way of acting and to expect others in our community to follow us.
This has been particularly true in our changing understanding of human sexuality. Leaders in the church find themselves with a new and more open understanding, and then feel a sense of anger or confusion when others don’t quickly follow their lead or actively oppose them. But they may not have the educational background or the intellectual tools to follow our thinking.
This passage warns me that when my convictions lead to changes in the way I act or speak, I need to be very aware of how my ideas and actions are heard and seen by others in my church community. I especially need to be careful not to respond in anger or defiance or confusion.
The Story – Mark 1:21-28
Jim says
I would choose to preach on Mark this Sunday. Not because of the story – there’s very little story content in any of the RCL lections for today, and today’s reading from Mark is really just the opening movement of a symphony that reaches its finale next Sunday – but because of the paradox it contains.
The first person to recognize Jesus for who he really is turns out to be “a man with an unclean spirit.” Following Jesus’ baptism, Jesus calls the first disciples – at his initiative, though, not theirs. But in the synagogue in Capernaum, a disturbed man interrupts him: “I know who you are – the Holy One of God!”
I would want to explore what it means to have “an unclean spirit.” We tend to equate such a description with child pornographers, mass murderers, and torturers. But could it also apply to those we characterize as boat-rockers or “shit-disturbers?” People who insistently tell us the news we don’t want to hear?
Do we discount the message, if we don’t like the person it comes from?
I think I would dramatize the theme by washing my hands. Up front, in public. Just like Pilate. And I would ask whether I’m washing my hands of those I consider unclean – people with different political or theological views, perhaps – or whether I’m trying to wash away the prejudices and preconceptions that may keep me from recognizing the Holy One of God among us today.
Ralph says –
I think there’s a lot of story here. It’s a story about how people focus on the trivial sensation and miss the world-shattering news.
The thing to do is to bring the story home. To our context and our time. I’ve done that below in the Rumors essay and (I hope) in the “Reader’s Theatre” below.
Because people often miss the most important thing the preacher says. Most preachers can tell story after sad story of how people picked up on something relatively trivial in the service, and miss the most important revelation.
That is why, as the old preacher once said, “You gotta tell ‘em you’re gonna tell ‘em, then you gotta tell ‘em, then you gotta tell ‘em you told ‘em.”
The story here, as Jim points out, is that the most unlikely person recognizes who Jesus really is. So in the sermon you use the story (the one below or a better one you write yourself) and then make the same point in the argument of your sermon.
I’m not at home in my wee office, so I can’t give you the page numbers, but there are children’s stories for every Sunday in the Revised Common Lectionary, in “The Lectionary Story Bible,” by yours truly. Often two and occasionally three. The marvellous illustrations are by Margaret Kyle. Click the main Wood Lake Publications website at http://www.woodlakebooks.com/, or click on the following address which takes you directly to the “Lectionary Story Bible.”
http://tinyurl.com/2lonod
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Rumors – a story based on Mark 1:21-28
It is summer and the young preacher is taking the service while the regular minister is on vacation. And folks are impressed. He speaks clearly and well and sprinkles his sermon with bits of humor. They like that. And they nod knowingly, thinking that the young preacher will soon be in one of the prestigious pulpits in the large cities.
But they quickly forget about all that because a dirty, old, disheveled fellow in the back row starts yelling and screaming and causing a ruckus. "You can’t fool us!” he yells, “Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are! You are the Holy One of God."
A few of the stronger men move toward the noisy stranger. They will do the appropriate thing. They will escort him gently into the hall, out of sight and sound so that the church service can go on. They will give him a sandwich and a cup of coffee while they decide which of the social agencies in town could meet his needs.
Except that the young preacher doesn’t let that happen. He strides down the aisle to the back of the church and crouches down in front of the man from the streets. The man’s hands are trembling. He is breathing deeply and hard. There is firmness, gentleness and passionate intensity in the way the young preacher holds the old man’s hands and the way he looks into the confused and tired eyes.
The preacher has been well-educated in one of the best theological schools. His training included a lot of psychology. So he knows what is going on and could easily use professional language to impress the bystanders. But instead, the preacher uses language the man will understand. “Shhhhh!” the preacher whispered. Then he leans over, his face almost touching the face of the man from the streets – “It’s going to be OK. You’ve got something bad down in your craw and it needs to come out.” Then in a huge voice preacher shouts, “Evil spirit! Stop hurting this man! Come out!”
The man breathes deeply. You could hear a pin drop in the church. “We’re going to sing a song now,” the young preacher said to the old man very quietly. “Then we’ll get you some lunch. After that we can sit down together over a coffee and find out what else you need.”
As they stand around with their coffee cups after the service, the folks talk about only one thing – the way the preacher had handled a potentially embarrassing situation. None of them remembered a thing he had said in the sermon.
The young preacher stood off to one side. He shook his head in sadness and wonder. What the people had missed most of all, was that this dirty, disturbed, disheaveled man from the streets was the only one who knew anything about the call – the urging of a lovingly impatient who once had said, “Go. You are the Holy One of God.”
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Confessions of a Has-Been
The U.S. has a new president. I haven’t seen such a flood of hero-worship since the inauguration of John F. Kennedy, 48 years ago, when the nation seemed convinced that Camelot had returned.
I remember that. I also remember the Cuban missile crisis, and my utter disbelief at Kennedy’s assassination...
Obama cannot possibly remember them. He was not born in 1960.
CBC Radio Two organized a campaign to identify songs that define Canada. They called it “Obama’s playlist.”
I scanned the top 100 choices, from which a final 49 would be selected. I recognized only 20 of the artists. I looked at the rest and said, “Who?”
Given the difference in our ages, I suspect that Barrack Obama would be more familiar with the names I didn’t know than the ones I did. Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Gilles Vigneault, Moe Koffman, Stan Rogers –- all belong to an earlier era. Obama might look at them and say, “Who?”
Obama’s inauguration makes me realize how old I am becoming.
A minister told me about his father, who had been a senior official in the Canadian National Railway. He even had his own railway car.
He went into a bank in northern Ontario to cash a cheque. The young teller asked him for identification.
“Here’s my card,” he said sadly. “I used to be somebody once.”
I have that feeling too, sometimes.
To paraphrase poet William Wordsworth, “The past is too much with me.” I prefer reruns of MASH to the latest episode of Survivor. I’d rather play CDs where I can hear the singer’s words than listen to a top-40 station. I watch video of Afghanistan or Iraq, and my mind superimposes scenes from the quagmire of Vietnam.
Wordsworth wrote his poem as a lament for the materialism of 18th century, 200 years ago: “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers... We have given our hearts away...For this, for everything, we are out of tune.”
I wonder how he might describe our century!
Professor Reg Bibby of the University of Lethbridge called me a couple of years ago, to ask if I could name some movers and shakers in the United Church of Canada.
All I could think of were people who used to be movers and shakers. Most have retired. They’re shaking more than they did, but not moving as much.
An increasing number aren’t moving at all.
I know, I know, it’s an inevitable progression. Older folks must pass the baton to younger ones. Many a thriving enterprise has been run into the ground by an aging boss who refuses to release the reins.
In the stampede of technological change, simply hanging onto old ways becomes a formula for failure.
But letting go doesn’t have to mean abandoning ship. Elders still have wisdom.
And what is that wisdom? Certainly not that we’re smarter than the next generation.
Perhaps it is nothing more than recognizing that we live in more than just the present.
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Good Stuff – This is from Jim in Kingsville, Ontario. He didn’t give his last name but said he received this from Catherine in Blenheim Ontario. Perhaps, with the nose-diving economy, people in Ontario can longer afford last names.
This piece has been around in various, but is a good one to meditate on during the January/February doldrums.
A member of a certain church, who previously had been attending services regularly, stopped going. After a few weeks, the preacher decided to visit him. It was a chilly evening. The preacher found the man at home alone, sitting before a blazing fire.
Guessing the reason for his preachers visit, the man welcomed him, led him to a comfortable chair near the fireplace and waited. The preacher made himself at home but said nothing. In the grave silence, he contemplated the dance of the flames around the burning logs.
After some minutes, the preacher took the fire tongs, carefully picked up a brightly burning ember and placed it to one side of the hearth all alone then he sat back in his chair, still silent.
As the one lone ember's flame flickered and diminished, there was a momentary glow and then its fire was no more. Soon it was cold and dead. Not a word had been spoken since the initial greeting.
The preacher glanced at his watch and realized it was time to leave. He slowly stood up, picked up the cold, dead ember and placed it back in the middle of the fire. Immediately it began to glow, with the light and warmth of the burning coals around it.
As the preacher reached the door to leave, his host said with a tear running down his cheek, 'Thank you so much for your visit and especially for the fiery sermon. I shall be back in church next Sunday.'
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Nancy Best of Orleans, Ontario .was typing in the sermon title which was to be, "Hello, Who's Calling?"
But her fingers typed, "Hell, Who's Calling?"
Says Nancy, “Wow, the possibilities for that one are even more intriguing than the sermon I will likely preach!”
Ken Schrag of Pine Cree (he didn’t say where that was) writes: “Last Sunday (Baptism of the Lord), I had the baptismal font out with a pitcher of water sitting on it to use as part of the children's time. Apparently one of the children noticed this and said, ‘It looks like someone is getting sacrificed this morning!’
Carol Asher of Center Harbor, New Hampshire writes: “One of our little girls is still singing her favorite Christmas carols, and was heard joyfully proclaiming:
‘Hark! the herald angels sing... 'glory to the new-born King;
‘Peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and Santa reconciled!’”
Carol, pay attention to little girls. There’s a powerful lot of reconciliation or at least understanding needed, since we tend to confuse the two.
This from Garth Ewert Fisher: George Arthur Buttrick, a distinguished preacher and teacher of an earlier era, was at one time the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard. He sometimes told of being in a small rural church and introduced by a kindly, but not too well-informed old farmer as the Professor of Christian Plumbing at Harvard!
Stephani Keer did quite know what to make of an ad for a "five-piece monogamy bedroom set." Or the ad for a class-action suit which read, "If you were injured or killed, you could receive a large amount of money."
If you’ve spotted any good bloopers in your church bulletin or newsletter, or anywhere else for that matter, please send them to me. ralphmilton@woodlake.com
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Wish I’d Said That! – The technique of creating emergency is the greatest achievement that demagoguery attains.
Herbert Hoover via Jim Taylor
Camel: A horse put together by a committee.
source unknown via Margaret Wood
Five Jewish thinkers who changed the course of history.
Moses said the law is everything.
Jesus said love is everything.
Marx said capital is everything.
Freud said sex is everything.
Einstein said everything is relative.
source unknown via Evelyn McLachlan
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We Get Letters – Bruce Fraser of Merlin, Ontario comments on the items about organists over the past two weeks. He writes: “Sandy Millar, rector of an Anglican church in England, was talking about classically trained organists who sniff at contemporary worship songs, considering them beneath their dignity to play. He quoted what apparently is an old joke in some circles, "What is the difference between a terrorist and an organist?" Answer: "You can negotiate with a terrorist."
Bruce adds, “That hasn't been my personal experience.”
Bruce, the original joke I think, was about liturgists and came from the Roman Catholic tradition where some parishes have liturgists on staff. I’m sure you could use it with almost any individual or group.
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “the future starts tomorrow!”) This collection of wit and wisdom from Jean Gregson.
* The nicest thing about the future is that it always starts tomorrow.
* Money will buy a fine dog but only kindness will make him wag his tail.
* If you don't have a sense of humor, you probably don't have any sense at all.
* Seat belts are not as confining as wheelchairs.
* Scratch a dog and you'll find a permanent job.
* No one has more driving ambition than the boy who anxiously awaits his 16th birthday.
* There are no new sins; the old ones just get more publicity.
* There are worse things than getting a call for a wrong number at 4 a.m. It could be a right number.
* No one ever says "It's only a game" when their team's winning.
* You know you’re getting older when your happy hour is a nap.
* Be careful reading the fine print. There's no way you're going to like it.
* The trouble with bucket seats is not everybody has the same size bucket.
* In about forty years we'll have millions of old ladies running around with tattoos. And rap music will be the Golden Oldies!
* Money can't buy happiness. But somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Mercedes than in a Kia.
* After 70, if you don't wake up aching in every joint, you are probably dead.
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Bottom of the Barrel – The spaces between items of good news are too long, but here finally is a revelation by Lane Denson III that is good news for all of us who tip the scales at slightly more than our doctors prescribe.
Dale writes:
As everybody knows, well, most everybody, there are three laws of thermodynamics, but the second law, the one that expresses the irreversibility of processes, is the only one that ever gets any press. It goes like this:
Entropy always increases in any closed system not in equilibrium and remains constant for a system which is in equilibrium. Unless, of course, you're God, and you just ignore them like at Moses' burning bush.
Now that that’s perfectly clear, remember in high school physics, we learned that it takes one calorie to heat one gram of water one degree centigrade. For example, if you eat a very cold dessert (which is largely water, anyhow), the digestive cycle takes its essential calories from the only available source – body fat.
A dessert served and eaten at near freezing will shortly be raised to our normal body temperature. For each gram of dessert eaten, that process takes approximately thirty-seven calories. The average dessert portion is about 168 grams.
The second law tells us that 6,216 calories are extracted from body fat as the dessert’s temperature is normalized. (To do the math takes more column inches than we’re normally allotted here.) Anyway, allowing for the 1,200 latent calories in the dessert, the net loss is approximately 5,000. Obviously, the more cold dessert you eat, the better off you are and the faster you will lose weight, if that is your goal, which it often is during the Epiphany season and the subsequent entropy of New Year’s resolutions.
Furthermore, this process works equally well when drinking very cold beer in frosted glasses. Each ounce of beer contains sixteen latent calories, but extracts 1,036 calories in the temperature normalizing process. Thus, the net calorie loss per ounce of beer is 1,020 calories. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to calculate that 12,240 calories are extracted from the body in the process of drinking a can of beer.
Ice cream is even more beneficial, since it takes eighty-three cal/gm to melt and an additional thirty-seven cal/gm to raise it to body temperature. The results here are really remarkable. The process beats running hands down.
Unfortunately, for those who eat pizza as an excuse to drink beer, pizza (loaded with latent calories and usually served above body temperature) induces an opposite effect. Thankfully, as the astute reader surely has already reasoned, the obvious solution is to drink a lot of beer with pizza and follow up immediately with large bowls of ice cream.
Maybe we’ll get around to the first and third laws of thermodynamics during Lent. In the meantime, try to get a little more out of the Epiphany letdown than usual.
Be my guest, and add this to your new year resolutions.
Dale, that’s a fine and noble revelation. I don’t understand a word of it but I believe it totally.
And if there are any left-brained folk out there who can pick holes in that logic, we’d as soon not hear from you.
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Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – Mark 1:21-28
Reader I: We don’t have unclean spirits anymore.
Reader II: What?
I: This Bible passage. It’s about Jesus pulling an unclean spirit out of a man. How many people do you know have had unclean spirits removed? I mean, it’s not covered by any health plan I know of. Let’s stop talking about what happened two-thousand years ago! Let’s talk about what’s happening now.
II: OK. What is happening now?
I: People are struggling with the pressures to succeed. To make more money. Pressure to be the perfect mom or dad or boss or whatever. Pressure to buy more and more stuff. Pressure to wear the right clothes or drive the right car. To say the right things.
II: And what do all those pressures do to people?
I: Those pressures drive ‘em nuts, that’s what.
II: Just like unclean spirits.
I: (Confused) What?
II: Unclean spirits! It’s the pressures of life that drive you off the deep end. Read the scripture passage.
(slight pause)
I: Jesus and his friends went to Capernaum; and when the Sabbath came, Jesus entered the synagogue and taught.
II: The people in the synagogue were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
I: Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out . . .
II: "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. The Holy One of God."
I: "Be silent, and come out of him!"
II: And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.
I: The people in the synagogue were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another . . .
II: "What is this? A new teaching – with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him."
I: At once Jesus’ fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.
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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
2009-01-25
January 24, 2009
UNCLEAN SPIRITS
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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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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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The Story – the gods who rule our lives
Rumors – the only one who knew
Soft Edges – confessions of a has-been
Good Stuff – the sermon in the fire
Bloopers – Christian plumbing
We Get Letters – with whom can you negotiate
Mirabile Dictu! – the future starts tomorrow
Bottom of the Barrel – lose weight eating pizza
Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – Mark 1:21-28
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 Evelyn McLachlan. I first heard this joke from a rabbi the first time around. It’s a play on the slightly racist old cliché, “Some of my best friends are Jews.”
Rabbi 1: We've got to do something. Many of the young people in our synagogue are converting to the Quaker faith.
Rabbi 2: I've noticed that too. In fact, some of my best Jews are Friends!
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you may hear in church this coming Sunday, February 1st, which is the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany.
Deuteronomy 18:15-20 – This little passage is plucked out from the middle of a series of instructions about the Levites, and what they shall be given, and how to be able to tell the difference between false prophets and false. So it’s a bit out of context.
You can tell whether a prophet is of God by whether the things warned of actually happen. The writer doesn’t tell us how long you wait. A week? A year? A lifetime?
Christians have often read this as foretelling the coming of Jesus, though it’s unlikely the writer had that in mind.
It’s the phrase “speaks in the name of other gods,” (v.20) that got my attention. Because those gods are all around us. My definition of a god in this context is any thing or idea or value that you hold higher than any other. You could call them “unclean spirits” as the writer of Mark did. Or a mania, or fixation or compulsion.
The trick here is to realize that the god who rules us is not usually the god we name, but the god we honor with our actions. A good, analytical look at our charge card statement might offer some clues.
Psalm 111 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
1 The bright blue planet spins in the vast darkness of space;
let all who live on the earth rejoice.
2 Only on this one tiny orb do we know life exists;
let all who live on the earth give thanks.
3 The vision takes our breath away;
let all who live on the earth open their eyes.
4 This fragile ball bursting with life is a work of art;
let all who live on earth recognize God's goodness.
5 Foxes and field mice, humans and whales, eagles and ants –
all are woven together in a tapestry of relationships;
let all who live on the earth recognize this reality.
6 And God has delegated responsibility to us;
let all who live on the earth be mindful.
7 We must exercise care not to upset the delicate equilibrium of shared life;
let all who live on the earth understand their responsibility.
8 A tapestry cannot be reduced to a single thread;
let all who live on the earth accept their responsibility.
9 This egg floating in the dark womb of the universe is like God's own embryo;
let all who live on earth treat it as holy.
10 We share an awesome and terrible responsibility;
may God live forever.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to http://www.woodlakebooks.com/
1 Corinthians 8:1-13 – This passage is, it seems to me, is primarily directed at those of us who are in positions of leadership in the church. It’s tempting, as our understanding of our faith grows, to change our way of acting and to expect others in our community to follow us.
This has been particularly true in our changing understanding of human sexuality. Leaders in the church find themselves with a new and more open understanding, and then feel a sense of anger or confusion when others don’t quickly follow their lead or actively oppose them. But they may not have the educational background or the intellectual tools to follow our thinking.
This passage warns me that when my convictions lead to changes in the way I act or speak, I need to be very aware of how my ideas and actions are heard and seen by others in my church community. I especially need to be careful not to respond in anger or defiance or confusion.
The Story – Mark 1:21-28
Jim says
I would choose to preach on Mark this Sunday. Not because of the story – there’s very little story content in any of the RCL lections for today, and today’s reading from Mark is really just the opening movement of a symphony that reaches its finale next Sunday – but because of the paradox it contains.
The first person to recognize Jesus for who he really is turns out to be “a man with an unclean spirit.” Following Jesus’ baptism, Jesus calls the first disciples – at his initiative, though, not theirs. But in the synagogue in Capernaum, a disturbed man interrupts him: “I know who you are – the Holy One of God!”
I would want to explore what it means to have “an unclean spirit.” We tend to equate such a description with child pornographers, mass murderers, and torturers. But could it also apply to those we characterize as boat-rockers or “shit-disturbers?” People who insistently tell us the news we don’t want to hear?
Do we discount the message, if we don’t like the person it comes from?
I think I would dramatize the theme by washing my hands. Up front, in public. Just like Pilate. And I would ask whether I’m washing my hands of those I consider unclean – people with different political or theological views, perhaps – or whether I’m trying to wash away the prejudices and preconceptions that may keep me from recognizing the Holy One of God among us today.
Ralph says –
I think there’s a lot of story here. It’s a story about how people focus on the trivial sensation and miss the world-shattering news.
The thing to do is to bring the story home. To our context and our time. I’ve done that below in the Rumors essay and (I hope) in the “Reader’s Theatre” below.
Because people often miss the most important thing the preacher says. Most preachers can tell story after sad story of how people picked up on something relatively trivial in the service, and miss the most important revelation.
That is why, as the old preacher once said, “You gotta tell ‘em you’re gonna tell ‘em, then you gotta tell ‘em, then you gotta tell ‘em you told ‘em.”
The story here, as Jim points out, is that the most unlikely person recognizes who Jesus really is. So in the sermon you use the story (the one below or a better one you write yourself) and then make the same point in the argument of your sermon.
I’m not at home in my wee office, so I can’t give you the page numbers, but there are children’s stories for every Sunday in the Revised Common Lectionary, in “The Lectionary Story Bible,” by yours truly. Often two and occasionally three. The marvellous illustrations are by Margaret Kyle. Click the main Wood Lake Publications website at http://www.woodlakebooks.com/, or click on the following address which takes you directly to the “Lectionary Story Bible.”
http://tinyurl.com/2lonod
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Rumors – a story based on Mark 1:21-28
It is summer and the young preacher is taking the service while the regular minister is on vacation. And folks are impressed. He speaks clearly and well and sprinkles his sermon with bits of humor. They like that. And they nod knowingly, thinking that the young preacher will soon be in one of the prestigious pulpits in the large cities.
But they quickly forget about all that because a dirty, old, disheveled fellow in the back row starts yelling and screaming and causing a ruckus. "You can’t fool us!” he yells, “Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are! You are the Holy One of God."
A few of the stronger men move toward the noisy stranger. They will do the appropriate thing. They will escort him gently into the hall, out of sight and sound so that the church service can go on. They will give him a sandwich and a cup of coffee while they decide which of the social agencies in town could meet his needs.
Except that the young preacher doesn’t let that happen. He strides down the aisle to the back of the church and crouches down in front of the man from the streets. The man’s hands are trembling. He is breathing deeply and hard. There is firmness, gentleness and passionate intensity in the way the young preacher holds the old man’s hands and the way he looks into the confused and tired eyes.
The preacher has been well-educated in one of the best theological schools. His training included a lot of psychology. So he knows what is going on and could easily use professional language to impress the bystanders. But instead, the preacher uses language the man will understand. “Shhhhh!” the preacher whispered. Then he leans over, his face almost touching the face of the man from the streets – “It’s going to be OK. You’ve got something bad down in your craw and it needs to come out.” Then in a huge voice preacher shouts, “Evil spirit! Stop hurting this man! Come out!”
The man breathes deeply. You could hear a pin drop in the church. “We’re going to sing a song now,” the young preacher said to the old man very quietly. “Then we’ll get you some lunch. After that we can sit down together over a coffee and find out what else you need.”
As they stand around with their coffee cups after the service, the folks talk about only one thing – the way the preacher had handled a potentially embarrassing situation. None of them remembered a thing he had said in the sermon.
The young preacher stood off to one side. He shook his head in sadness and wonder. What the people had missed most of all, was that this dirty, disturbed, disheaveled man from the streets was the only one who knew anything about the call – the urging of a lovingly impatient who once had said, “Go. You are the Holy One of God.”
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Confessions of a Has-Been
The U.S. has a new president. I haven’t seen such a flood of hero-worship since the inauguration of John F. Kennedy, 48 years ago, when the nation seemed convinced that Camelot had returned.
I remember that. I also remember the Cuban missile crisis, and my utter disbelief at Kennedy’s assassination...
Obama cannot possibly remember them. He was not born in 1960.
CBC Radio Two organized a campaign to identify songs that define Canada. They called it “Obama’s playlist.”
I scanned the top 100 choices, from which a final 49 would be selected. I recognized only 20 of the artists. I looked at the rest and said, “Who?”
Given the difference in our ages, I suspect that Barrack Obama would be more familiar with the names I didn’t know than the ones I did. Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Gilles Vigneault, Moe Koffman, Stan Rogers –- all belong to an earlier era. Obama might look at them and say, “Who?”
Obama’s inauguration makes me realize how old I am becoming.
A minister told me about his father, who had been a senior official in the Canadian National Railway. He even had his own railway car.
He went into a bank in northern Ontario to cash a cheque. The young teller asked him for identification.
“Here’s my card,” he said sadly. “I used to be somebody once.”
I have that feeling too, sometimes.
To paraphrase poet William Wordsworth, “The past is too much with me.” I prefer reruns of MASH to the latest episode of Survivor. I’d rather play CDs where I can hear the singer’s words than listen to a top-40 station. I watch video of Afghanistan or Iraq, and my mind superimposes scenes from the quagmire of Vietnam.
Wordsworth wrote his poem as a lament for the materialism of 18th century, 200 years ago: “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers... We have given our hearts away...For this, for everything, we are out of tune.”
I wonder how he might describe our century!
Professor Reg Bibby of the University of Lethbridge called me a couple of years ago, to ask if I could name some movers and shakers in the United Church of Canada.
All I could think of were people who used to be movers and shakers. Most have retired. They’re shaking more than they did, but not moving as much.
An increasing number aren’t moving at all.
I know, I know, it’s an inevitable progression. Older folks must pass the baton to younger ones. Many a thriving enterprise has been run into the ground by an aging boss who refuses to release the reins.
In the stampede of technological change, simply hanging onto old ways becomes a formula for failure.
But letting go doesn’t have to mean abandoning ship. Elders still have wisdom.
And what is that wisdom? Certainly not that we’re smarter than the next generation.
Perhaps it is nothing more than recognizing that we live in more than just the present.
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Good Stuff – This is from Jim in Kingsville, Ontario. He didn’t give his last name but said he received this from Catherine in Blenheim Ontario. Perhaps, with the nose-diving economy, people in Ontario can longer afford last names.
This piece has been around in various, but is a good one to meditate on during the January/February doldrums.
A member of a certain church, who previously had been attending services regularly, stopped going. After a few weeks, the preacher decided to visit him. It was a chilly evening. The preacher found the man at home alone, sitting before a blazing fire.
Guessing the reason for his preachers visit, the man welcomed him, led him to a comfortable chair near the fireplace and waited. The preacher made himself at home but said nothing. In the grave silence, he contemplated the dance of the flames around the burning logs.
After some minutes, the preacher took the fire tongs, carefully picked up a brightly burning ember and placed it to one side of the hearth all alone then he sat back in his chair, still silent.
As the one lone ember's flame flickered and diminished, there was a momentary glow and then its fire was no more. Soon it was cold and dead. Not a word had been spoken since the initial greeting.
The preacher glanced at his watch and realized it was time to leave. He slowly stood up, picked up the cold, dead ember and placed it back in the middle of the fire. Immediately it began to glow, with the light and warmth of the burning coals around it.
As the preacher reached the door to leave, his host said with a tear running down his cheek, 'Thank you so much for your visit and especially for the fiery sermon. I shall be back in church next Sunday.'
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Nancy Best of Orleans, Ontario .was typing in the sermon title which was to be, "Hello, Who's Calling?"
But her fingers typed, "Hell, Who's Calling?"
Says Nancy, “Wow, the possibilities for that one are even more intriguing than the sermon I will likely preach!”
Ken Schrag of Pine Cree (he didn’t say where that was) writes: “Last Sunday (Baptism of the Lord), I had the baptismal font out with a pitcher of water sitting on it to use as part of the children's time. Apparently one of the children noticed this and said, ‘It looks like someone is getting sacrificed this morning!’
Carol Asher of Center Harbor, New Hampshire writes: “One of our little girls is still singing her favorite Christmas carols, and was heard joyfully proclaiming:
‘Hark! the herald angels sing... 'glory to the new-born King;
‘Peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and Santa reconciled!’”
Carol, pay attention to little girls. There’s a powerful lot of reconciliation or at least understanding needed, since we tend to confuse the two.
This from Garth Ewert Fisher: George Arthur Buttrick, a distinguished preacher and teacher of an earlier era, was at one time the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard. He sometimes told of being in a small rural church and introduced by a kindly, but not too well-informed old farmer as the Professor of Christian Plumbing at Harvard!
Stephani Keer did quite know what to make of an ad for a "five-piece monogamy bedroom set." Or the ad for a class-action suit which read, "If you were injured or killed, you could receive a large amount of money."
If you’ve spotted any good bloopers in your church bulletin or newsletter, or anywhere else for that matter, please send them to me. ralphmilton@woodlake.com
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Wish I’d Said That! – The technique of creating emergency is the greatest achievement that demagoguery attains.
Herbert Hoover via Jim Taylor
Camel: A horse put together by a committee.
source unknown via Margaret Wood
Five Jewish thinkers who changed the course of history.
Moses said the law is everything.
Jesus said love is everything.
Marx said capital is everything.
Freud said sex is everything.
Einstein said everything is relative.
source unknown via Evelyn McLachlan
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We Get Letters – Bruce Fraser of Merlin, Ontario comments on the items about organists over the past two weeks. He writes: “Sandy Millar, rector of an Anglican church in England, was talking about classically trained organists who sniff at contemporary worship songs, considering them beneath their dignity to play. He quoted what apparently is an old joke in some circles, "What is the difference between a terrorist and an organist?" Answer: "You can negotiate with a terrorist."
Bruce adds, “That hasn't been my personal experience.”
Bruce, the original joke I think, was about liturgists and came from the Roman Catholic tradition where some parishes have liturgists on staff. I’m sure you could use it with almost any individual or group.
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “the future starts tomorrow!”) This collection of wit and wisdom from Jean Gregson.
* The nicest thing about the future is that it always starts tomorrow.
* Money will buy a fine dog but only kindness will make him wag his tail.
* If you don't have a sense of humor, you probably don't have any sense at all.
* Seat belts are not as confining as wheelchairs.
* Scratch a dog and you'll find a permanent job.
* No one has more driving ambition than the boy who anxiously awaits his 16th birthday.
* There are no new sins; the old ones just get more publicity.
* There are worse things than getting a call for a wrong number at 4 a.m. It could be a right number.
* No one ever says "It's only a game" when their team's winning.
* You know you’re getting older when your happy hour is a nap.
* Be careful reading the fine print. There's no way you're going to like it.
* The trouble with bucket seats is not everybody has the same size bucket.
* In about forty years we'll have millions of old ladies running around with tattoos. And rap music will be the Golden Oldies!
* Money can't buy happiness. But somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Mercedes than in a Kia.
* After 70, if you don't wake up aching in every joint, you are probably dead.
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Bottom of the Barrel – The spaces between items of good news are too long, but here finally is a revelation by Lane Denson III that is good news for all of us who tip the scales at slightly more than our doctors prescribe.
Dale writes:
As everybody knows, well, most everybody, there are three laws of thermodynamics, but the second law, the one that expresses the irreversibility of processes, is the only one that ever gets any press. It goes like this:
Entropy always increases in any closed system not in equilibrium and remains constant for a system which is in equilibrium. Unless, of course, you're God, and you just ignore them like at Moses' burning bush.
Now that that’s perfectly clear, remember in high school physics, we learned that it takes one calorie to heat one gram of water one degree centigrade. For example, if you eat a very cold dessert (which is largely water, anyhow), the digestive cycle takes its essential calories from the only available source – body fat.
A dessert served and eaten at near freezing will shortly be raised to our normal body temperature. For each gram of dessert eaten, that process takes approximately thirty-seven calories. The average dessert portion is about 168 grams.
The second law tells us that 6,216 calories are extracted from body fat as the dessert’s temperature is normalized. (To do the math takes more column inches than we’re normally allotted here.) Anyway, allowing for the 1,200 latent calories in the dessert, the net loss is approximately 5,000. Obviously, the more cold dessert you eat, the better off you are and the faster you will lose weight, if that is your goal, which it often is during the Epiphany season and the subsequent entropy of New Year’s resolutions.
Furthermore, this process works equally well when drinking very cold beer in frosted glasses. Each ounce of beer contains sixteen latent calories, but extracts 1,036 calories in the temperature normalizing process. Thus, the net calorie loss per ounce of beer is 1,020 calories. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to calculate that 12,240 calories are extracted from the body in the process of drinking a can of beer.
Ice cream is even more beneficial, since it takes eighty-three cal/gm to melt and an additional thirty-seven cal/gm to raise it to body temperature. The results here are really remarkable. The process beats running hands down.
Unfortunately, for those who eat pizza as an excuse to drink beer, pizza (loaded with latent calories and usually served above body temperature) induces an opposite effect. Thankfully, as the astute reader surely has already reasoned, the obvious solution is to drink a lot of beer with pizza and follow up immediately with large bowls of ice cream.
Maybe we’ll get around to the first and third laws of thermodynamics during Lent. In the meantime, try to get a little more out of the Epiphany letdown than usual.
Be my guest, and add this to your new year resolutions.
Dale, that’s a fine and noble revelation. I don’t understand a word of it but I believe it totally.
And if there are any left-brained folk out there who can pick holes in that logic, we’d as soon not hear from you.
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Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – Mark 1:21-28
Reader I: We don’t have unclean spirits anymore.
Reader II: What?
I: This Bible passage. It’s about Jesus pulling an unclean spirit out of a man. How many people do you know have had unclean spirits removed? I mean, it’s not covered by any health plan I know of. Let’s stop talking about what happened two-thousand years ago! Let’s talk about what’s happening now.
II: OK. What is happening now?
I: People are struggling with the pressures to succeed. To make more money. Pressure to be the perfect mom or dad or boss or whatever. Pressure to buy more and more stuff. Pressure to wear the right clothes or drive the right car. To say the right things.
II: And what do all those pressures do to people?
I: Those pressures drive ‘em nuts, that’s what.
II: Just like unclean spirits.
I: (Confused) What?
II: Unclean spirits! It’s the pressures of life that drive you off the deep end. Read the scripture passage.
(slight pause)
I: Jesus and his friends went to Capernaum; and when the Sabbath came, Jesus entered the synagogue and taught.
II: The people in the synagogue were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
I: Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out . . .
II: "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. The Holy One of God."
I: "Be silent, and come out of him!"
II: And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.
I: The people in the synagogue were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another . . .
II: "What is this? A new teaching – with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him."
I: At once Jesus’ fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.
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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.~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Friday, January 16, 2009
Preaching Materials for January 25, 2009
R U M O R S # 537
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2009-01-18
January 18, 2009
THE FUNNIEST BOOK IN THE BIBLE
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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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Thanks to all of you who send me stuff for Rumors. It’s a major part of what makes Rumors fun and useful. You may not be sure if your story or joke has been in Rumors before, but send it anyway.
I may not be able to respond personally to your notes because time simply runs out on me. But I do appreciate your contributions, even when I don’t use your material.
To protect me from viruses, please be sure that you put something on the "subject" line that lets me know that you are legit. For instance, the word "Rumors" works.
And please include your name and where you’re from. Folks like to know. Thanks.
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The Story – them and us
Rumors – my poor, purple probosicis
Soft Edges – a parable of potholes
Good Stuff – a band-aid for the soul
Bloopers – angels we have heard get high
We Get Letters – it’s not just the organists
Mirabile Dictu! – your brains fall out
Bottom of the Barrel – baptizing the squirrels
Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – the funny story of Jonah
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 Evelyn McLachlan who found it on the Midrash discussion group and it was written by Carol Wagner of Berridale, Australia.
There was a priest who approached a young father prior to his baby's baptism and reminded him solemnly, "Baptism is a serious step. Are you prepared for it?"
"I think so," the man replied. "My wife has made appetizers and we have a caterer coming to provide plenty of cookies and cakes for all of our guests."
"I don't mean that," the priest responded. "I mean, are you prepared spiritually?"
"Oh, sure," came the reply. "I've got a keg of beer and a case of whiskey."
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you may hear in church this coming Sunday, January 25th, which is the third Sunday after the Epiphany.
The Story (from the Revised Common Lectionary) Jonah 3:1-5, 10, except we’re recommending that, one way or another, you tell the whole story of Jonah. The Reader’s Theatre arrangement (below) is a condensed version of the whole story.
Ralph says,
In the San Diego airport awhile ago, I found myself in conversation with one of the security people, a young man about 20 or so. And he took to ranting about the Iraqi’s in particular and Muslims in general. He dug up the very worst hearsay he could find about “them” and compared it to the “facts” about the best of “us.”
The Jonah story invites us to look carefully who “them” is in our own perspective, and who “us” is (are?) and wonder if the story invites us to love and care about “them” because God does.
A question that comes out of the Jonah story might be, “Who’s the last person I would ever talk to about my faith? For the security person in San Diego it would be any Muslim. But who would it be for me? Probably a highly skilled scientist, and I say that sitting in the same room with such a one – a scientist I love very deeply – my son Mark, who works at the highest level of optical science in large telescope development.
Attempts at discussion in the past have resulted in a draw. We agree to disagree. And so like Jonah, God calls me to places I really am not prepared to go.
Jim says –
For several weeks in this series of readings, the underlying theme seems to deal with hearing God’s call. Last week it was young Samuel. Next week it’s Peter and Andrew, James and John. This week it’s Philip and Nathaniel – and Jonah.
Good old Jonah. I could easily take an entire sermon as a time of Bible study – expounding the historical and cultural background of this story, the allegorical parallels, the exaggeration that makes it so humorous...
At the end of that sermon, the people might have a much better understanding of Jonah – both the book and the person. But would they have a better understanding of themselves? Because the essential element of this story, it seems to me, is that when we hear God’s call, we’re quite likely to react the way Jonah did. We run away. We hide.
Like Moses in the desert, we reply, “Here I am, Lord! Send Aaron!”
I would like to find someone who could be articulate and honest about the pain of being asked to go somewhere he/she didn’t want to go. Into divorce, perhaps. Or cancer. In my case, it would be the death of my son.
This can’t be an intellectual exercise – it has to come from the heart, the gut... How does my story, our story, parallel Jonah’s? How did we try to run away in denial? What was it like in the belly of despair? What made us angry? How did we rail at God? What did acceptance mean – assuming we ever reached that stage...?
It would be a gut-wrenching exercise for whoever undertakes this narrative. Which is only fair, because it wasn’t easy for Jonah either.
Psalm 62:5-12 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
Sometimes you just want to tell everyone to go away and leave you alone.
5 I don't want to see anyone.
I want to stay in bed and pull the blankets up over my head.
6 People are unfaithful two-faced phonies.
I don't want them.
I just want God with me.
7 I can't trust anyone else, any more.
No one has any honor, any loyalty.
8 The only one I can trust is God.
9 People today have no standards, no enduring values.
They flit from fad to fad like butterflies.
The upper crust are all sham and show;
the highly educated are windbags, inflating their egos.
A breeze could blow them all away.
10 Don't try to beat them at their own game.
Don't stoop to their methods. It's not worth it.
You'll only drag yourself down to their level.
11 Do things God's way, instead.
12 God doesn't compete, and God doesn't seek revenge.
God simply loves.
That's all that God expects of you and me, too.
Now I can get up and start the day.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
1 Corinthians 7:29-31 – “When the appointed time has grown short,” Paul writes. I know he was talking about the second coming of Christ and the end of the world as we know it. That’s not an issue I can really relate to.
But as we get older, we become more and more aware that our time is getting shorter. Many of us have wondered what we would do if we knew we had only a few months or years.
I’m in pretty good health for my age, but with more and more friends and colleagues dying, I’ve become much more aware of how precious the time is – whatever time I have left.
But unlike Paul, I don’t want to divest myself of things – especially those I love. I want to live as intensely and in the deepest relationships I can manage. Since my “appointed time has grown short” I want to throw myself into that “abundant life” that Jesus promised.
Mark 1:14-20 – Mark must have had a tough editor like Jim Taylor working on his book, because he cuts out all irrelevant details and moves directly to the punch line. “Come with me, and I will make you fish for people.” (Which is more accurate and inclusive, but doesn’t have quite the sonority of the KJV’s “fishers of men.”)
There’s probably wisdom in that. If we wait until we are ready – till we’ve made all the appropriate arrangements and said all the necessary farewells – we’d probably never go. As someone said, “Life is what happens while you are making other plans.”
The call will come when we are not ready. The call will come when it’s inconvenient. Like Jonah, the call will come to do something we know perfectly well is ill-considered and futile.
I am writing this issue in Tucson, Arizona where we are visiting our son Mark. I don’t have copies of “The Lectionary Story Bible,” with me so I can’t tell you what page this week’s readings are. But the Jonah story is there! So is the one about calling the disciples.
There are children’s stories for every Sunday in the Revised Common Lectionary cycle, 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.
Click the main Wood Lake Publications website at www.woodlakebooks.com, or click on the following address which takes you directly to the “Lectionary Story Bible.”
http://tinyurl.com/2lonod
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Rumors – In spite of what we read and hear in the media, Genesis is right when it tells us that God created the world and pronounced it, including us humans, “very good.” Most people are good.
A few days before writing this, I had an argument with a cement sidewalk. The score was: Sidewalk 1. Ralph 0.
I was out on a beautiful afternoon in Tucson, Arizona. The sun was shining in a warm and lovely day. There were birds singing and flowers blooming.
There was also a break in the sidewalk.
I can remember the whole thing in slow motion. I was thinking, as my feet disappeared from under me, that I should break my fall with my hands. Which I totally failed to do.
I’ve always maintained that a good, large nose is a sign of intelligence and character, among other noble virtues, and this time, my good long nose took the blow that otherwise might have mashed my forehead and resulted in concussion. At least that was the discussion I had with the emergency room doc who had a delightful sense of humor.
But my poor, purple proboscis. It’s quite thoroughly mashed and scraped. I make Rudolph look like a dim-bulb. I have two black eyes that extend all the way down my face. It’s a wonderful conversation starter.
Now the point of all this is not to get your sympathy. Well, okay, not primarily to get your sympathy.
It’s to tell you that Good Samaritans are alive and well and living in Tucson. And everywhere else. When I went down, a young couple walking ahead of me immediately turned around and came to my aid. They helped me up and offered a wad of tissue to stop the blood. The young man said his car was two blocks down the road. He would run and get it and drive me to the hospital. But at that point a middle aged man came out of a nearby house and said his car was right there beside us, and he would take me. I asked to go to son Mark’s house, two blocks away, hoping that he and Bev wouldn’t pass out when they saw me. They didn’t.
I turned around to say thanks to the man but he was already on his way to the car and only waved when I called.
And I was treated gently, kindly and competently by the staff in the emergency ward at St. Joseph’s Hospital. Even the inevitable paper work, Bev told me, was handled quickly and easily.
As I admired my face in the mirror before bed that night, I found myself deeply grateful for the Samaritans, none of whose names I know and many I didn’t even thank – for a family of love and support and friends who don’t really care how bunged up my face is.
And how wondrous it is that in the pain, God sends the joy and the hope.
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
A Parable of Potholes
As the long deep frosts of December work their way out of the ground, an epidemic of potholes erupts.
Last spring, I observed some potholes quite closely, while doing some remedial roadwork on our lane.
It seems to me that potholes illuminate some human foibles. Here in Canada, political scandals have included the Liberal sponsorship fiasco in Quebec and Brian Mulroney’s alleged Airbus payoffs. In the U.S., Richard Nixon’s Watergate, Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, the Bush administration’s refusal to admit that it was wrong about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction...
Here’s how a pothole starts.
Water seeks out a low point in the roadway. It collects there and softens the surface. Just the way that the temptation to cut moral corners, to try something shady, will find the low point in one’s ethical principles.
Enter an external pressure. For the pothole, it’s a tire. It squishes down into the puddle, and squirts disturbed water outwards.
Now, you might expect that because the pothole started as a low point, it would fill up with sediment, the way lakes do. But lakes don’t get pounded repeatedly by external forces.
When a tire drives water out, the water carries with it some sediment from the bottom.
The water will drain back into the depression. But the mud, silt, and gravel won’t. Like a wave rushing up a beach, during the moment when the water stops before it turns around, some of the debris settles out.
So every time a tire splashes muddy water out of the pothole, it digs the hole deeper.
The conclusion is obvious – the longer you leave a pothole unfixed, the worse it will get.
Which is pretty much what happened in those political scandals, isn’t it? The longer that influential people denied any wrongdoing, the longer they tried to paper over the cracks, the deeper the hole they dug themselves into.
Paradoxically, potholes become more severe when they happen in a paved road. Once that uniform hard crust is cracked, water gets through and softens the foundations underneath. Under the relentless pounding of daily traffic, the illusion of a smooth surface breaks up.
And exposes the soft underbelly of a pothole. It’s softer, spongier, weaker than the hard surface. Like Niagara Falls or any other major waterfall, the harder layer at the top protects softer layers immediately underneath it from erosion.
That geological logic means the cavity can only grow deeper. And deeper. It can’t simply spread out and blend indistinguishably into other potholes.
There’s only one solution for a pothole – fix it. And fix it now. Make amends; make repairs; make changes. Maple Leaf Foods did, when listeriosis was traced to one of their plants. Political parties, history suggests, rarely do, until the pothole has turned into a sinkhole.
Get the point? When apologies are required, make them. When boils fester, lance them. When malignancies threaten the whole body, excise them.
Putting off dealing with a problem never does deal with it.
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Good Stuff – Carl Chamberlain of Lockport, New York read my little piece about the three-wheeled philosopher, and it sparked these thoughts.
Most every Sunday my small congregation has a coffee hour after morning worship that has evolved over time into a light meal. I have watched as the experience of breaking bread together has become more an experience of Communion than what most have during the official sacrament.
I am touched by the ministry to others and themselves that emerges. There is an elderly wheel-chair bound man whose caretaker brings him to the table and others seem to naturally take turns visiting with our good neighbor Bob.
A young family has begun attending with their adopted son, now playing with the same age grand-daughter of one of our matriarchs. Two teen girls, best friends, attend different schools but get together in church every week whether their parents come or not.
There is a couple who each lost their spouse after a golden anniversary but sit together in church so they are no longer alone. There are two new widows who have not yet talked to each other but have more seasoned widows checking on them every time they worship, just to see how they are coming along.
These and more are the things I see from my pulpit on Sunday morning and from my side of my coffee cup afterward. A band-aid for the soul. The thing does little itself but offers a bit of protection from environmental threats. In doing so it provides space where healing can happen.
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – From the file:
* Our next song is "Angels We Have Heard Get High."
* The Rev. Merriwether spoke briefly, much to the delight of the audience.* Next Sunday George Vinson will be soloist for the morning service. The pastor will then speak on “It's a Terrible Experience.”
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! – -Don't use a gallon of words to express a spoonful of thought.
source unknown via Evelyn McLachlan
* The way to do a great deal for Christ is to keep on doing a little.
* Highbrows are people educated beyond their intelligence.
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We Get Letters – We ran this blooper in last week’s Rumors: “Next week’s sermon: What is hell like? Come and hear our organist.”
It prompted a note from Mike Kiebel of Portage, Minnesota who writes: “Just for the record, as an organist, I can tell you this comment does not apply exclusively to organists. I've heard the comment equally applied to pastors, preachers, nursery attendants, after-church coffee-makers, ushers, choirmasters...the list goes on!”
And of course you are right, Mike. As one who can almost claim the title of “professional church goer,” I would say that organists and pianists are, generally speaking, the least of our problems.
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “You brains fall out!”) Joan Burrows of Vancouver, BC, sends these items from church signs:
* Lying in bed and shouting “Oh God!” does not constitute going to church.
* Forgive your enemies. It messes with their heads.
* Free coffee and everlasting life. Membership has its privileges.
* Don’t be so open minded your brains fall out.
* God so loved the world enough that God did not send a committee.
* Read the Bible. It will scare the hell out of you.
* Walmart is not the only saving place.
* Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
* There are some questions that can’t be answered by Google.
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Bottom of the Barrel – This from Margaret Wood of Sarnia Ontario. It’s a new version of an old joke, and deserves a re-run.
Three churches in town were overrun with squirrels. After much prayer, the elders of the first church determined that the animals were predestined to be there. Who were they to interfere with God's will? They did nothing, And the squirrels multiplied.
The elders of the second church, deciding that they could not harm any of God's creatures, Humanely trapped the squirrels and then set them free outside of town. Three days later the squirrels were back.
It was only the third church that succeeded in keeping the squirrels away. The elders of this church simply baptized the squirrels and registered them as members of the church.
Now, they only see the squirrels at Christmas and Easter.
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Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre –The tiny portion of Jonah which the lectionary prescribes makes no sense out of the context of the whole story. The book of Jonah is a short, comedic parable and the whole story needs to be told to get the point. It’s a very short book but still a bit long for a church service. I’ve condensed it down to about 7 minutes. This wonderful little comedy needs three people to tell the story: Jonah, a narrator, and a third person who plays God and sundry other people. Jonah should be played as someone who is a little silly and self-righteous.
My understanding of the book of Jonah as a comic parable comes from Conrad Hyers assorted books, particularly “And God Created Laughter.” Which I heartily recommend.
Reader I: Do we really have to tell the story of Jonah and the whale?
Reader III: Yeah! I mean who believes all that stuff about a whale swallowing a man and then barfing him out onto the beach.
Reader II: Just hang on a minute. The story isn’t about a guy being swallowed by a fish. This is a comedy. It’s a send up. It’s a really funny story – a work of fiction – a parable that one of the Hebrew scribes wrote. Just like Jesus made up parables to make a point. The person here is trying to make a point, and uses comedy to do it.
III: OK, So what is the point?
II: The Hebrew people often thought that God was just their God. “We are God’s chosen people,” they would say. But the writer of this little comedy was trying to tell them that God even loves the people of Ninevah.
I: Why Ninevah?
II: Because the armies of Ninevah kept coming and beating up on the Hebrews. And the writer of this book is trying to tell the Hebrews that God even loves the terrible, horrible people of Ninevah. And so the writer puts together a funny little story to make a big serious point.
I: So I guess we have to read it.
II: Why not? It’s good fun, and maybe we need to hear what this story is saying to us today. You (Reader I) be Jonah. You (Reader III) be God. Well, actually God only has one line at the very beginning of the story, and then doesn’t come into the story until later, so in the meantime you get to be the captain of the boat and the sailors.
III: What are you going to do?
II: I’ll be the narrator. And you (indicating congregation) are encouraged to laugh. Remember, this is a comedy.
(slight pause)
II: Now the word of the God came to Jonah son of Amittai.
III: Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.
II: But Jonah ran away from God and headed for Tarshish – which was the most far-away place he could think of. He found a boat going in that direction. But God hurled a great wind onto the sea. Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried to his god. They threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten it for them. And Jonah? Jonah was sound asleep in his room below. The captain of the boat came and yelled at him.
III: What are you doing sound asleep? Get up, call on your god! Maybe your god will help us so that we do not perish.
II: The sailors cast lots to see who was to blame for the storm. The lot fell on Jonah.
III: Tell us why this calamity has come upon us? What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?
I: I am a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.
III: So what is it that you did? Why is your god mad at us?
I: Because I am running away from God, that’s why.
III: So what should we do to you, so that your God stops being mad at us? The storm is getting worse by the minute.
I: Pick me up. Throw me into the sea. Then the sea will quiet down for you. It’s because of me that this great storm has come upon you.
II: Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring the ship back to land. But the sea grew more and more stormy against them.
III: Please, O Lord, we pray, do not let us perish on account of this man's life. We are innocent of whatever this guy has done.
II: So they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea. Immediately the sea was calm. But God provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. And there, in the belly of the fish, Jonah prayed to God.
I: I called to you God, out of my distress. You answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.
II: The God spoke to the fish, and it spewed Jonah out upon the dry land. Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.
III: Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.
II: So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh.
I: Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!
II: And the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. When God saw what the people and the king did, how they turned from their evil ways, God had a change of mind.
III: I have changed m mind about the calamity that I said I would bring upon the people of Nineveh. I will not do it.
II: This was very displeasing to Jonah. He became angry.
I: O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. So kill me. It is better for me to die than to live."
III: Do you really have a good reason for being angry?
II: Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the Nineveh, to see what would become of the city. God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. Jonah was very happy about the bush. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint.
I: It is better for me to die than to live.
III: Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?
I: Yes, angry enough to die!
III: You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. So should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons whom I created. And a lot of animals?
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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
2009-01-18
January 18, 2009
THE FUNNIEST BOOK IN THE BIBLE
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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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Thanks to all of you who send me stuff for Rumors. It’s a major part of what makes Rumors fun and useful. You may not be sure if your story or joke has been in Rumors before, but send it anyway.
I may not be able to respond personally to your notes because time simply runs out on me. But I do appreciate your contributions, even when I don’t use your material.
To protect me from viruses, please be sure that you put something on the "subject" line that lets me know that you are legit. For instance, the word "Rumors" works.
And please include your name and where you’re from. Folks like to know. Thanks.
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The Story – them and us
Rumors – my poor, purple probosicis
Soft Edges – a parable of potholes
Good Stuff – a band-aid for the soul
Bloopers – angels we have heard get high
We Get Letters – it’s not just the organists
Mirabile Dictu! – your brains fall out
Bottom of the Barrel – baptizing the squirrels
Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – the funny story of Jonah
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 Evelyn McLachlan who found it on the Midrash discussion group and it was written by Carol Wagner of Berridale, Australia.
There was a priest who approached a young father prior to his baby's baptism and reminded him solemnly, "Baptism is a serious step. Are you prepared for it?"
"I think so," the man replied. "My wife has made appetizers and we have a caterer coming to provide plenty of cookies and cakes for all of our guests."
"I don't mean that," the priest responded. "I mean, are you prepared spiritually?"
"Oh, sure," came the reply. "I've got a keg of beer and a case of whiskey."
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you may hear in church this coming Sunday, January 25th, which is the third Sunday after the Epiphany.
The Story (from the Revised Common Lectionary) Jonah 3:1-5, 10, except we’re recommending that, one way or another, you tell the whole story of Jonah. The Reader’s Theatre arrangement (below) is a condensed version of the whole story.
Ralph says,
In the San Diego airport awhile ago, I found myself in conversation with one of the security people, a young man about 20 or so. And he took to ranting about the Iraqi’s in particular and Muslims in general. He dug up the very worst hearsay he could find about “them” and compared it to the “facts” about the best of “us.”
The Jonah story invites us to look carefully who “them” is in our own perspective, and who “us” is (are?) and wonder if the story invites us to love and care about “them” because God does.
A question that comes out of the Jonah story might be, “Who’s the last person I would ever talk to about my faith? For the security person in San Diego it would be any Muslim. But who would it be for me? Probably a highly skilled scientist, and I say that sitting in the same room with such a one – a scientist I love very deeply – my son Mark, who works at the highest level of optical science in large telescope development.
Attempts at discussion in the past have resulted in a draw. We agree to disagree. And so like Jonah, God calls me to places I really am not prepared to go.
Jim says –
For several weeks in this series of readings, the underlying theme seems to deal with hearing God’s call. Last week it was young Samuel. Next week it’s Peter and Andrew, James and John. This week it’s Philip and Nathaniel – and Jonah.
Good old Jonah. I could easily take an entire sermon as a time of Bible study – expounding the historical and cultural background of this story, the allegorical parallels, the exaggeration that makes it so humorous...
At the end of that sermon, the people might have a much better understanding of Jonah – both the book and the person. But would they have a better understanding of themselves? Because the essential element of this story, it seems to me, is that when we hear God’s call, we’re quite likely to react the way Jonah did. We run away. We hide.
Like Moses in the desert, we reply, “Here I am, Lord! Send Aaron!”
I would like to find someone who could be articulate and honest about the pain of being asked to go somewhere he/she didn’t want to go. Into divorce, perhaps. Or cancer. In my case, it would be the death of my son.
This can’t be an intellectual exercise – it has to come from the heart, the gut... How does my story, our story, parallel Jonah’s? How did we try to run away in denial? What was it like in the belly of despair? What made us angry? How did we rail at God? What did acceptance mean – assuming we ever reached that stage...?
It would be a gut-wrenching exercise for whoever undertakes this narrative. Which is only fair, because it wasn’t easy for Jonah either.
Psalm 62:5-12 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
Sometimes you just want to tell everyone to go away and leave you alone.
5 I don't want to see anyone.
I want to stay in bed and pull the blankets up over my head.
6 People are unfaithful two-faced phonies.
I don't want them.
I just want God with me.
7 I can't trust anyone else, any more.
No one has any honor, any loyalty.
8 The only one I can trust is God.
9 People today have no standards, no enduring values.
They flit from fad to fad like butterflies.
The upper crust are all sham and show;
the highly educated are windbags, inflating their egos.
A breeze could blow them all away.
10 Don't try to beat them at their own game.
Don't stoop to their methods. It's not worth it.
You'll only drag yourself down to their level.
11 Do things God's way, instead.
12 God doesn't compete, and God doesn't seek revenge.
God simply loves.
That's all that God expects of you and me, too.
Now I can get up and start the day.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
1 Corinthians 7:29-31 – “When the appointed time has grown short,” Paul writes. I know he was talking about the second coming of Christ and the end of the world as we know it. That’s not an issue I can really relate to.
But as we get older, we become more and more aware that our time is getting shorter. Many of us have wondered what we would do if we knew we had only a few months or years.
I’m in pretty good health for my age, but with more and more friends and colleagues dying, I’ve become much more aware of how precious the time is – whatever time I have left.
But unlike Paul, I don’t want to divest myself of things – especially those I love. I want to live as intensely and in the deepest relationships I can manage. Since my “appointed time has grown short” I want to throw myself into that “abundant life” that Jesus promised.
Mark 1:14-20 – Mark must have had a tough editor like Jim Taylor working on his book, because he cuts out all irrelevant details and moves directly to the punch line. “Come with me, and I will make you fish for people.” (Which is more accurate and inclusive, but doesn’t have quite the sonority of the KJV’s “fishers of men.”)
There’s probably wisdom in that. If we wait until we are ready – till we’ve made all the appropriate arrangements and said all the necessary farewells – we’d probably never go. As someone said, “Life is what happens while you are making other plans.”
The call will come when we are not ready. The call will come when it’s inconvenient. Like Jonah, the call will come to do something we know perfectly well is ill-considered and futile.
I am writing this issue in Tucson, Arizona where we are visiting our son Mark. I don’t have copies of “The Lectionary Story Bible,” with me so I can’t tell you what page this week’s readings are. But the Jonah story is there! So is the one about calling the disciples.
There are children’s stories for every Sunday in the Revised Common Lectionary cycle, 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.
Click the main Wood Lake Publications website at www.woodlakebooks.com, or click on the following address which takes you directly to the “Lectionary Story Bible.”
http://tinyurl.com/2lonod
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Rumors – In spite of what we read and hear in the media, Genesis is right when it tells us that God created the world and pronounced it, including us humans, “very good.” Most people are good.
A few days before writing this, I had an argument with a cement sidewalk. The score was: Sidewalk 1. Ralph 0.
I was out on a beautiful afternoon in Tucson, Arizona. The sun was shining in a warm and lovely day. There were birds singing and flowers blooming.
There was also a break in the sidewalk.
I can remember the whole thing in slow motion. I was thinking, as my feet disappeared from under me, that I should break my fall with my hands. Which I totally failed to do.
I’ve always maintained that a good, large nose is a sign of intelligence and character, among other noble virtues, and this time, my good long nose took the blow that otherwise might have mashed my forehead and resulted in concussion. At least that was the discussion I had with the emergency room doc who had a delightful sense of humor.
But my poor, purple proboscis. It’s quite thoroughly mashed and scraped. I make Rudolph look like a dim-bulb. I have two black eyes that extend all the way down my face. It’s a wonderful conversation starter.
Now the point of all this is not to get your sympathy. Well, okay, not primarily to get your sympathy.
It’s to tell you that Good Samaritans are alive and well and living in Tucson. And everywhere else. When I went down, a young couple walking ahead of me immediately turned around and came to my aid. They helped me up and offered a wad of tissue to stop the blood. The young man said his car was two blocks down the road. He would run and get it and drive me to the hospital. But at that point a middle aged man came out of a nearby house and said his car was right there beside us, and he would take me. I asked to go to son Mark’s house, two blocks away, hoping that he and Bev wouldn’t pass out when they saw me. They didn’t.
I turned around to say thanks to the man but he was already on his way to the car and only waved when I called.
And I was treated gently, kindly and competently by the staff in the emergency ward at St. Joseph’s Hospital. Even the inevitable paper work, Bev told me, was handled quickly and easily.
As I admired my face in the mirror before bed that night, I found myself deeply grateful for the Samaritans, none of whose names I know and many I didn’t even thank – for a family of love and support and friends who don’t really care how bunged up my face is.
And how wondrous it is that in the pain, God sends the joy and the hope.
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
A Parable of Potholes
As the long deep frosts of December work their way out of the ground, an epidemic of potholes erupts.
Last spring, I observed some potholes quite closely, while doing some remedial roadwork on our lane.
It seems to me that potholes illuminate some human foibles. Here in Canada, political scandals have included the Liberal sponsorship fiasco in Quebec and Brian Mulroney’s alleged Airbus payoffs. In the U.S., Richard Nixon’s Watergate, Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, the Bush administration’s refusal to admit that it was wrong about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction...
Here’s how a pothole starts.
Water seeks out a low point in the roadway. It collects there and softens the surface. Just the way that the temptation to cut moral corners, to try something shady, will find the low point in one’s ethical principles.
Enter an external pressure. For the pothole, it’s a tire. It squishes down into the puddle, and squirts disturbed water outwards.
Now, you might expect that because the pothole started as a low point, it would fill up with sediment, the way lakes do. But lakes don’t get pounded repeatedly by external forces.
When a tire drives water out, the water carries with it some sediment from the bottom.
The water will drain back into the depression. But the mud, silt, and gravel won’t. Like a wave rushing up a beach, during the moment when the water stops before it turns around, some of the debris settles out.
So every time a tire splashes muddy water out of the pothole, it digs the hole deeper.
The conclusion is obvious – the longer you leave a pothole unfixed, the worse it will get.
Which is pretty much what happened in those political scandals, isn’t it? The longer that influential people denied any wrongdoing, the longer they tried to paper over the cracks, the deeper the hole they dug themselves into.
Paradoxically, potholes become more severe when they happen in a paved road. Once that uniform hard crust is cracked, water gets through and softens the foundations underneath. Under the relentless pounding of daily traffic, the illusion of a smooth surface breaks up.
And exposes the soft underbelly of a pothole. It’s softer, spongier, weaker than the hard surface. Like Niagara Falls or any other major waterfall, the harder layer at the top protects softer layers immediately underneath it from erosion.
That geological logic means the cavity can only grow deeper. And deeper. It can’t simply spread out and blend indistinguishably into other potholes.
There’s only one solution for a pothole – fix it. And fix it now. Make amends; make repairs; make changes. Maple Leaf Foods did, when listeriosis was traced to one of their plants. Political parties, history suggests, rarely do, until the pothole has turned into a sinkhole.
Get the point? When apologies are required, make them. When boils fester, lance them. When malignancies threaten the whole body, excise them.
Putting off dealing with a problem never does deal with it.
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Good Stuff – Carl Chamberlain of Lockport, New York read my little piece about the three-wheeled philosopher, and it sparked these thoughts.
Most every Sunday my small congregation has a coffee hour after morning worship that has evolved over time into a light meal. I have watched as the experience of breaking bread together has become more an experience of Communion than what most have during the official sacrament.
I am touched by the ministry to others and themselves that emerges. There is an elderly wheel-chair bound man whose caretaker brings him to the table and others seem to naturally take turns visiting with our good neighbor Bob.
A young family has begun attending with their adopted son, now playing with the same age grand-daughter of one of our matriarchs. Two teen girls, best friends, attend different schools but get together in church every week whether their parents come or not.
There is a couple who each lost their spouse after a golden anniversary but sit together in church so they are no longer alone. There are two new widows who have not yet talked to each other but have more seasoned widows checking on them every time they worship, just to see how they are coming along.
These and more are the things I see from my pulpit on Sunday morning and from my side of my coffee cup afterward. A band-aid for the soul. The thing does little itself but offers a bit of protection from environmental threats. In doing so it provides space where healing can happen.
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – From the file:
* Our next song is "Angels We Have Heard Get High."
* The Rev. Merriwether spoke briefly, much to the delight of the audience.* Next Sunday George Vinson will be soloist for the morning service. The pastor will then speak on “It's a Terrible Experience.”
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! – -Don't use a gallon of words to express a spoonful of thought.
source unknown via Evelyn McLachlan
* The way to do a great deal for Christ is to keep on doing a little.
* Highbrows are people educated beyond their intelligence.
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We Get Letters – We ran this blooper in last week’s Rumors: “Next week’s sermon: What is hell like? Come and hear our organist.”
It prompted a note from Mike Kiebel of Portage, Minnesota who writes: “Just for the record, as an organist, I can tell you this comment does not apply exclusively to organists. I've heard the comment equally applied to pastors, preachers, nursery attendants, after-church coffee-makers, ushers, choirmasters...the list goes on!”
And of course you are right, Mike. As one who can almost claim the title of “professional church goer,” I would say that organists and pianists are, generally speaking, the least of our problems.
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “You brains fall out!”) Joan Burrows of Vancouver, BC, sends these items from church signs:
* Lying in bed and shouting “Oh God!” does not constitute going to church.
* Forgive your enemies. It messes with their heads.
* Free coffee and everlasting life. Membership has its privileges.
* Don’t be so open minded your brains fall out.
* God so loved the world enough that God did not send a committee.
* Read the Bible. It will scare the hell out of you.
* Walmart is not the only saving place.
* Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
* There are some questions that can’t be answered by Google.
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Bottom of the Barrel – This from Margaret Wood of Sarnia Ontario. It’s a new version of an old joke, and deserves a re-run.
Three churches in town were overrun with squirrels. After much prayer, the elders of the first church determined that the animals were predestined to be there. Who were they to interfere with God's will? They did nothing, And the squirrels multiplied.
The elders of the second church, deciding that they could not harm any of God's creatures, Humanely trapped the squirrels and then set them free outside of town. Three days later the squirrels were back.
It was only the third church that succeeded in keeping the squirrels away. The elders of this church simply baptized the squirrels and registered them as members of the church.
Now, they only see the squirrels at Christmas and Easter.
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Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre –The tiny portion of Jonah which the lectionary prescribes makes no sense out of the context of the whole story. The book of Jonah is a short, comedic parable and the whole story needs to be told to get the point. It’s a very short book but still a bit long for a church service. I’ve condensed it down to about 7 minutes. This wonderful little comedy needs three people to tell the story: Jonah, a narrator, and a third person who plays God and sundry other people. Jonah should be played as someone who is a little silly and self-righteous.
My understanding of the book of Jonah as a comic parable comes from Conrad Hyers assorted books, particularly “And God Created Laughter.” Which I heartily recommend.
Reader I: Do we really have to tell the story of Jonah and the whale?
Reader III: Yeah! I mean who believes all that stuff about a whale swallowing a man and then barfing him out onto the beach.
Reader II: Just hang on a minute. The story isn’t about a guy being swallowed by a fish. This is a comedy. It’s a send up. It’s a really funny story – a work of fiction – a parable that one of the Hebrew scribes wrote. Just like Jesus made up parables to make a point. The person here is trying to make a point, and uses comedy to do it.
III: OK, So what is the point?
II: The Hebrew people often thought that God was just their God. “We are God’s chosen people,” they would say. But the writer of this little comedy was trying to tell them that God even loves the people of Ninevah.
I: Why Ninevah?
II: Because the armies of Ninevah kept coming and beating up on the Hebrews. And the writer of this book is trying to tell the Hebrews that God even loves the terrible, horrible people of Ninevah. And so the writer puts together a funny little story to make a big serious point.
I: So I guess we have to read it.
II: Why not? It’s good fun, and maybe we need to hear what this story is saying to us today. You (Reader I) be Jonah. You (Reader III) be God. Well, actually God only has one line at the very beginning of the story, and then doesn’t come into the story until later, so in the meantime you get to be the captain of the boat and the sailors.
III: What are you going to do?
II: I’ll be the narrator. And you (indicating congregation) are encouraged to laugh. Remember, this is a comedy.
(slight pause)
II: Now the word of the God came to Jonah son of Amittai.
III: Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.
II: But Jonah ran away from God and headed for Tarshish – which was the most far-away place he could think of. He found a boat going in that direction. But God hurled a great wind onto the sea. Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried to his god. They threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten it for them. And Jonah? Jonah was sound asleep in his room below. The captain of the boat came and yelled at him.
III: What are you doing sound asleep? Get up, call on your god! Maybe your god will help us so that we do not perish.
II: The sailors cast lots to see who was to blame for the storm. The lot fell on Jonah.
III: Tell us why this calamity has come upon us? What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?
I: I am a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.
III: So what is it that you did? Why is your god mad at us?
I: Because I am running away from God, that’s why.
III: So what should we do to you, so that your God stops being mad at us? The storm is getting worse by the minute.
I: Pick me up. Throw me into the sea. Then the sea will quiet down for you. It’s because of me that this great storm has come upon you.
II: Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring the ship back to land. But the sea grew more and more stormy against them.
III: Please, O Lord, we pray, do not let us perish on account of this man's life. We are innocent of whatever this guy has done.
II: So they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea. Immediately the sea was calm. But God provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. And there, in the belly of the fish, Jonah prayed to God.
I: I called to you God, out of my distress. You answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.
II: The God spoke to the fish, and it spewed Jonah out upon the dry land. Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.
III: Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.
II: So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh.
I: Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!
II: And the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. When God saw what the people and the king did, how they turned from their evil ways, God had a change of mind.
III: I have changed m mind about the calamity that I said I would bring upon the people of Nineveh. I will not do it.
II: This was very displeasing to Jonah. He became angry.
I: O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. So kill me. It is better for me to die than to live."
III: Do you really have a good reason for being angry?
II: Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the Nineveh, to see what would become of the city. God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort. Jonah was very happy about the bush. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint.
I: It is better for me to die than to live.
III: Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?
I: Yes, angry enough to die!
III: You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. So should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons whom I created. And a lot of animals?
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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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* 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 7, 2009
Preaching Materials for January 18th, 2009
R U M O R S #536
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2009-01-11
January 11, 2009
LISTENING IN THE DARK
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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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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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The Story – a child hears the voice of God
Rumors – a three-wheeled philosopher
Soft Edges – seeing the light
Good Stuff – welcome news out of the economic crisis
Bloopers – the child knows
Mirabile Dictu! – mail carriers
Bottom of the Barrel – an atheist ponders
Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – a child listens
Stuff – (read this only if you would like to subscribe, unsubscribe or are wondering about permissions. That sort of boring stuff.)
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Rib Tickler – A pastor of (your denomination – could even be your own pastor) gets a call from a lady who wants a funeral and burial for her dog. The pastor suggests she call the church of another denomination across the street.
“I have one more question,” the woman says. “How much should I pay their minister for doing the service? I was thinking somewhere between $800 and $1,000. Would that be enough?”
“Oh,” said the minister. “You didn’t tell me your dog was a (your denomination).”
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you may hear in church this coming Sunday, January 18th which is the 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B.
The Story (from the Revised Common Lectionary) – I Samuel 3:1-10, (11-20)
Jim says –
We usually tell only the first half of this story, in which Samuel learns to hear God’s call. That leads to an assumption that all we have to do is respond, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening,” and everything will be fine.
But it won’t. Because God’s call often leads us into areas where angels would fear to tread.
So of course I would tell the story again. I would dwell on young Samuel’s wonder and amazement at being wakened in the pitch-dark night by hearing his name called – four times, repeatedly and insistently. But I would also explore how a young boy must have felt, being given bad news about his mentor, his boss, his employer. And how he must have wriggled and squirmed to avoid passing that bad news along.
After all, Eli was Samuel’s guardian. In the social values of that time, Eli had authority to beat Samuel, fire him, even put him to death. Children and slaves were property, for the master to dispose of as he wished.
Why then should we assume that responding to God’s call will be easy and/or fulfilling for us?
I could get personal, about some difficult things I have felt called to do. Because I’m a writer, it would probably be about things I felt compelled to write, to tell the truth about, even though I knew I would offend some readers.
During the sermon, would probably also set someone up to call my cell phone – repeatedly and insistently – while I’m doing something important, like preaching.
And I’ll put them off – refuse to answer, take a message, tell them to call back when it's more convenient – until I finally have to submit:
“Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”
Ralph says:
After writing the three volumes of “The Lectionary Story Bible,” I realized how few stories about children there were in the Bible. So we must not let this one pass us by.
In the congregation where I worship there’s a very high proportion of grandparents. Many of them have moved beyond the complicated necessities of child-rearing, into an openness to the voice of God coming through children.
Like many parents, I have memories of a child coming into our bedroom repeatedly because they can’t sleep and things – real or imagined – are happening in the night. They don’t understand and so they are afraid.
Children often have experiences of God and we tend to idealize those as open and honest and beautiful. Is that because we long for our own lost innocence or for our childish naïveté? Do children really have an open, uncomplicated receptiveness to the movement of the Spirit? Or is it we adults who are naïve about children?
The answer to all three questions is, “Yes and no.” But it’s important to keep them running in the back of our minds – like a computer program constantly checking for spam. Which in this case comes under the heading of “wishful thinking” or “sentimentality” or “nostalgia.” The other danger is to miss the revelation, the insight, the beauty of childlike receptiveness to the whispering of the Spirit. The idea, I think, is to listen to the voice of our children with our hearts and our eyes wide open.
The story of Eli and little Samuel might generate stories of God speaking to us through children. Like the one below from “The Spirituality of Grandparenting.”
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 – this paraphrase by Jim Taylor is for verses 13-18.
13 No wonder you know me so well, God.
Even before my mother knew I existed,
you wrote the genetic code of my cells.
14 You created my life.
15 Wombs and worlds are one to you;
they have no secrets from you;
you are the essence of all life.
16 As once you shaped the cells that formed my fingernails and my hair,
so you still guide me through the events of each day.
17 Even if I am only a fleeting thought flickering through the mind of God, I am in good company.
18 All of creation owes its existence to you, God.
I can no more imagine your thoughts than I can recall every detail of my dreams.
But you are not a dream, for when I wake, you are still with me.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
I Corinthians 6:12-20 – It would be unwise, I think, to have this passage read to a congregation without some unpacking. There are all kinds of red flags in there just waiting to be misunderstood. They get in the way of some very important insights.
Somewhere between Victorian prudery and 20th century permissiveness – between Miss Grundy and Madonna – we’ve lost the power and beauty and holiness of what can happen when people bring their bodies together in a mutual, committed relationship.
The concept of the body as a “temple” is powerful and important. Let’s not lose it in a school of red herrings.
John 1:43-51 – “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip wisely doesn’t argue the point. He says, “Come and see.”
My own experience of moving beyond my racial, gender, homophobic, regional and class prejudice has never been based on rational argument. My prejudices began to disintegrate as I got to know individual people. Because very few people, if you get to know them, really fit the stereotype. Especially if you get to know them well.
So the best response, when we encounter such attitudes in ourselves or others, is to “come and see.”
A children’s version of the story of God’s call to Samuel can be found in “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year B,” page 131. There’s also a paraphrase of those selected verses from Psalm 139 on page 49, and a story based on the John passage, on page 50.
If you are one of those poor souls who didn’t get these two books in your Christmas stocking, click the main Wood Lake Publications website at www.woodlakebooks.com, or click on the following address which takes you directly to the “Lectionary Story Bible.”
http://tinyurl.com/2lonod
Actually, those books don’t fit in a stocking anyway, unless you have unusually large feet. They’re full colour, hard cover, illustrated volumes that’ll serve you well for years and years.
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Rumors – A three-wheeled philosopher
From “The Spirituality of Grandparenting,” by Ralph Milton
Northstone, 2008, available at www.woodlakebooks.com
Bev and I were staying at Redeemer College in Hamilton, Ontario a number of years ago. It was a beautiful day and I was sitting on a chair out on the lawn, reading. I had just decided to retire from my work as publisher, but the decision raised a batch of unnamed anxieties.
Along the sidewalk came a girl on a tricycle – about six years old was my guess. We smiled at each other. Then she stopped, gave me a most intense look and asked, “Are you old?”
I’m usually quite quick off the lip, but the child’s question stopped me cold. She waited. Maybe she knew she had asked a profoundly disturbing question. Eventually, I responded. “Yes. Yes, I am.”
Then she said, “Will you play with me?”
Were the two questions connected in her mind? They were in mine. They said to me, “If you are old, I will trust you.” For her, none of the bad jokes they throw at people on their birthdays, just: “Will you play with me?” And I wanted so much to do just that, to hear more from this three-wheeled philosopher, to learn from her wisdom and to delight in the joy of her life.
But we lived in a real world, my little friend and I. So I had to say, “I would really like to play with you, but first you need to go and talk to your mom or your dad, and if one of them comes here and tells me it’s OK, then we can play.”
“My dad doesn’t live with me anymore,” she said very soberly. “I’ll ask my mom.”
She didn’t return. But she had left her gift with me.
She had changed me from a man, fearful of retirement, angry at his age with its limitations and necessities, to a man delighting in his age and its possibilities – transfigured by the candid, open, affirming trust of a child.
“Yes, I am old. And yes, I would really like to come and play with you.”
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Seeing the Light
Yesterday, Christian churches in the western world celebrated Epiphany. It’s certainly not a major festival, compared to Christmas, Easter, or even Halloween. In fact, you may not have noticed it passing by. Not many churches hold midweek Epiphany services – they usually tack the Epiphany message onto the Sunday before or after.
Epiphany is a much bigger event in the eastern world of the Orthodox churches – even if they do celebrate it 13 days later. In Ethiopia, where they call it Timkat, an emperor had an entire river diverted to flow through a specially built swimming pool, so that the whole populace could participate in a mass baptism.
Epiphany is sort of a schizophrenic celebration. It attempts to deal with two events at once. On the one hand, it recalls Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist, in the waters of the Jordan River. On the other hand, it’s commonly used to mark the visit of the Magi, the wise ones from the east.
I’m regularly amused by the things that people insist the Bible says, when it doesn’t.
I’ve written before about the Sunday school student who bet me a box of Christmas cookies that the Bible said there were Three Wise Men. It doesn’t. It merely identifies three gifts – gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
It doesn’t say they rode camels. In fact, it doesn’t say anything about how they travelled.
Nor does it say there was a star over the stable at the time of Jesus’ birth, like you see on Christmas cards. It only says that the Magi (probably astrologers, reading the signs of the Zodiac) had seen his star rising in their homelands, and had followed it.
For how long? Perhaps up to two years.
Because when Herod realized he had been tricked, he massacred every boy in Bethlehem under the age of two, to eliminate potential threats to his throne.
I still chuckle about the placard-bearing woman who accosted a TV news reporter. Waving an angry finger under his nose, she warned him: “Remember what Jesus did to Sodom and Gomorrah!”
You don’t get it? Jesus doesn’t appear in the Bible until roughly 2,000 years after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
But back to Epiphany.
If you look up the word in a dictionary, it will refer to a revelation, a sudden intuitive realization. It’s commonly described as “seeing the light.” When comic strips show a light-bulb glowing over someone’s head, they honour the notion of epiphany.
That’s why the Feast of Epiphany serves two purposes. Both the visit of the Magi and the baptism of Jesus were revelations. The visit of the Magi symbolically introduced the light of God to Gentile peoples. And at Jesus’ baptism, what’s described as God’s spirit settled on Jesus like a dove. At that point he realized – perhaps for the first time – the ministry God had in mind for him.
His light went on.
Okay – here’s your test question. What color was the dove? Are you sure? Don’t guess – better look it up!
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Good Stuff – At last, in all that financial doom and gloom, some good news. Really good news. And it generated a five-page spread in Maclean’s, a Canadian news magazine. Page 38. Titled, “The Recession That Saved Christmas.” It was written before Christmas.
The first part of the story points out that people are not spending as much money on Christmas, and in the process finding more meaning, more depth in the season. As you’d expect in a secular magazine it reflects a kind of Humanist Theology Lite perspective, but that’s ok. The point is valid.
The second half is the best part. Citing case after case, the mag points out that the county’s economic troubles stimulated an outpouring of gifts to charitable causes of all kinds. Church related and secular. As people cut back on their own spending, they seem willing to give more to folks who have less. “Donations to charitable causes are up and companies are doing more.”
Most of the time when we cite secular news sources in our sermons and other church-related communication, we are pointing to bad news. That’s valid, and there’s lots of that to go around.
But when there is good news out there, I think it’s important to note that the Spirit works in mysterious ways. Hallelujah.
Those of you who live outside of Canada or don’t subscribe can find the article on line at:
http://blog.macleans.ca/category/arts-culture/
If you’re in a hurry, you can cut to the chase on page four.
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Cheryl Perry was with the children in church last Sunday. She asked them, “Who were the first people to know that Jesus had been born?” She expected, of course, that she would hear, “The shepherds.”
But a small voice piped up, “Mary and Joseph.” Cheryl very wisely didn’t argue with that.
Mike Crockett of Cape Town South Africa was greeting an elderly man in the pew one Sunday morning. He looked up at Mike and said, "After sixty years of razor blade abuse, it seems now as if my beard is fighting back through my ears and nostrils!"
From the file:
* Next week’s sermon: What is hell like? Come and hear our organist.
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! – Humanity is the creator of history. But we are also the creature of the history we create.
Reinhold Niebuhr via Alan Reynolds
Two aphorisms about attitude.
Attitude is the mind's paintbrush. It can color any situation."
Attitudes are contagious. Is yours worth catching?
authors unknown. From someone named Jim in Kingsville, Ontario.
A sense of humor is maturity and wisdom; and there is no maturity and wisdom without a sense of humor.
George Mikes via Velia Watts
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “Mail carriers!”)
Memo:
TO: God
FROM: Dog
* Does it mean anything that “dog” is “God” spelled backwards? If so, what?
* Why do humans smell the flowers, but seldom, if ever, smell one another?
* When we get to heaven, can we sit on your couch? Or is it still the same old story?
* Why are there cars named after the jaguar, the cougar, the mustang, the colt, the stingray, and the rabbit, but not ONE named for a dog? How often do you see a cougar riding around in a car? Dog’s do it all the time. Would it be so hard to rename the “Chrysler Eagle” the “Chrysler Beagle”?
* If a dog barks his head off in the forest and no human hears him, is he still a bad dog?
* We dogs can understand human verbal instructions, hand signals, whistles, horns, clickers, beepers, scent IDs, electromagnetic energy fields, and Frisbee flight paths. What do humans understand?
* More meatballs, less spaghetti, please.
* Are there mail carriers in Heaven? If there are, will I have to apologize?
P.S. Dear God: When I get to Heaven may I have my testicles back?
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Bottom of the Barrel – Alex was an atheist. But he was an atheist with scruples.
He had an old tree in his backyard. In a bad storm it was blown over and fell on a neighbor’s house.
The atheist checked with his insurance company, and received the following response. “If the tree fell over because it was dead, it would not be covered by your insurance. But if the tree fell because of ‘an act of God’ it would be covered.”
An now Alex had a problem.
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Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – I Samuel 3:1-10, (11-20)
Reader I: I think maybe you should read today’s scripture by yourself.
Reader II: Why?
I: Because I don’t understand it. Samuel is just a kid and he gets the job of reading the riot act to Eli, his boss. His foster father. And there’s all the business about hearing God’s voice in the middle of the night. Kids are forever imagining things.
II: Why do you suppose this story is in the Bible?
I: How would I know? I didn’t write the Bible.
II: Just stop and think now. If you can figure out why the story is there, then maybe it’ll mean more to you.
I: Well, I was reading some of the other stuff that comes before and some of the rest of the story after this passage. I think it has to do with credibility. I think they’re trying to set up Samuel to be the great prophet of Israel.
II: Bingo! Eli was disgraced because he couldn’t control his kids, and Samuel took over as top dog in the prophet business. And the folks writing this want us to know what a great guy Samuel was, so they tell stories about how he was such a smart kid and even when he was just a boy, he could hear God’s voice when old Eli couldn’t.
I: Ah! So now it makes a bit of sense.
II: So let’s read it.
(slight pause)
I: Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.
II: At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was.
I: Then the Lord called, "Samuel! Samuel!"
II: "Here I am!" Then he ran to Eli, and said, "Here I am. You called me."
I: "I did not call; lie down again." Then the Lord called again, "Samuel!" Samuel got up and went to Eli.
II: "Here I am. You called me."
I: "I did not call, my son; lie down again." Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli.
II: "Here I am. You called me."
I: Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy. "Go, lie down; and if God calls you, you shall say, 'Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.'" So Samuel went and lay down in his place. And the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, "Samuel! Samuel!"
II: "Speak, for your servant is listening."
I: "See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be paid for by sacrifice or offering forever."
II: Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli.
I: But Eli called Samuel. "Samuel, my son."
II: "Here I am."
I: "What was it that God told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that was told you."
II: So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Then Eli said, "It is the Lord; who will do what seems good."
I: As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground.
II: And all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the Lord.
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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
2009-01-11
January 11, 2009
LISTENING IN THE DARK
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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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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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The Story – a child hears the voice of God
Rumors – a three-wheeled philosopher
Soft Edges – seeing the light
Good Stuff – welcome news out of the economic crisis
Bloopers – the child knows
Mirabile Dictu! – mail carriers
Bottom of the Barrel – an atheist ponders
Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – a child listens
Stuff – (read this only if you would like to subscribe, unsubscribe or are wondering about permissions. That sort of boring stuff.)
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Rib Tickler – A pastor of (your denomination – could even be your own pastor) gets a call from a lady who wants a funeral and burial for her dog. The pastor suggests she call the church of another denomination across the street.
“I have one more question,” the woman says. “How much should I pay their minister for doing the service? I was thinking somewhere between $800 and $1,000. Would that be enough?”
“Oh,” said the minister. “You didn’t tell me your dog was a (your denomination).”
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you may hear in church this coming Sunday, January 18th which is the 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B.
The Story (from the Revised Common Lectionary) – I Samuel 3:1-10, (11-20)
Jim says –
We usually tell only the first half of this story, in which Samuel learns to hear God’s call. That leads to an assumption that all we have to do is respond, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening,” and everything will be fine.
But it won’t. Because God’s call often leads us into areas where angels would fear to tread.
So of course I would tell the story again. I would dwell on young Samuel’s wonder and amazement at being wakened in the pitch-dark night by hearing his name called – four times, repeatedly and insistently. But I would also explore how a young boy must have felt, being given bad news about his mentor, his boss, his employer. And how he must have wriggled and squirmed to avoid passing that bad news along.
After all, Eli was Samuel’s guardian. In the social values of that time, Eli had authority to beat Samuel, fire him, even put him to death. Children and slaves were property, for the master to dispose of as he wished.
Why then should we assume that responding to God’s call will be easy and/or fulfilling for us?
I could get personal, about some difficult things I have felt called to do. Because I’m a writer, it would probably be about things I felt compelled to write, to tell the truth about, even though I knew I would offend some readers.
During the sermon, would probably also set someone up to call my cell phone – repeatedly and insistently – while I’m doing something important, like preaching.
And I’ll put them off – refuse to answer, take a message, tell them to call back when it's more convenient – until I finally have to submit:
“Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”
Ralph says:
After writing the three volumes of “The Lectionary Story Bible,” I realized how few stories about children there were in the Bible. So we must not let this one pass us by.
In the congregation where I worship there’s a very high proportion of grandparents. Many of them have moved beyond the complicated necessities of child-rearing, into an openness to the voice of God coming through children.
Like many parents, I have memories of a child coming into our bedroom repeatedly because they can’t sleep and things – real or imagined – are happening in the night. They don’t understand and so they are afraid.
Children often have experiences of God and we tend to idealize those as open and honest and beautiful. Is that because we long for our own lost innocence or for our childish naïveté? Do children really have an open, uncomplicated receptiveness to the movement of the Spirit? Or is it we adults who are naïve about children?
The answer to all three questions is, “Yes and no.” But it’s important to keep them running in the back of our minds – like a computer program constantly checking for spam. Which in this case comes under the heading of “wishful thinking” or “sentimentality” or “nostalgia.” The other danger is to miss the revelation, the insight, the beauty of childlike receptiveness to the whispering of the Spirit. The idea, I think, is to listen to the voice of our children with our hearts and our eyes wide open.
The story of Eli and little Samuel might generate stories of God speaking to us through children. Like the one below from “The Spirituality of Grandparenting.”
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18 – this paraphrase by Jim Taylor is for verses 13-18.
13 No wonder you know me so well, God.
Even before my mother knew I existed,
you wrote the genetic code of my cells.
14 You created my life.
15 Wombs and worlds are one to you;
they have no secrets from you;
you are the essence of all life.
16 As once you shaped the cells that formed my fingernails and my hair,
so you still guide me through the events of each day.
17 Even if I am only a fleeting thought flickering through the mind of God, I am in good company.
18 All of creation owes its existence to you, God.
I can no more imagine your thoughts than I can recall every detail of my dreams.
But you are not a dream, for when I wake, you are still with me.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
I Corinthians 6:12-20 – It would be unwise, I think, to have this passage read to a congregation without some unpacking. There are all kinds of red flags in there just waiting to be misunderstood. They get in the way of some very important insights.
Somewhere between Victorian prudery and 20th century permissiveness – between Miss Grundy and Madonna – we’ve lost the power and beauty and holiness of what can happen when people bring their bodies together in a mutual, committed relationship.
The concept of the body as a “temple” is powerful and important. Let’s not lose it in a school of red herrings.
John 1:43-51 – “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip wisely doesn’t argue the point. He says, “Come and see.”
My own experience of moving beyond my racial, gender, homophobic, regional and class prejudice has never been based on rational argument. My prejudices began to disintegrate as I got to know individual people. Because very few people, if you get to know them, really fit the stereotype. Especially if you get to know them well.
So the best response, when we encounter such attitudes in ourselves or others, is to “come and see.”
A children’s version of the story of God’s call to Samuel can be found in “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year B,” page 131. There’s also a paraphrase of those selected verses from Psalm 139 on page 49, and a story based on the John passage, on page 50.
If you are one of those poor souls who didn’t get these two books in your Christmas stocking, click the main Wood Lake Publications website at www.woodlakebooks.com, or click on the following address which takes you directly to the “Lectionary Story Bible.”
http://tinyurl.com/2lonod
Actually, those books don’t fit in a stocking anyway, unless you have unusually large feet. They’re full colour, hard cover, illustrated volumes that’ll serve you well for years and years.
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Rumors – A three-wheeled philosopher
From “The Spirituality of Grandparenting,” by Ralph Milton
Northstone, 2008, available at www.woodlakebooks.com
Bev and I were staying at Redeemer College in Hamilton, Ontario a number of years ago. It was a beautiful day and I was sitting on a chair out on the lawn, reading. I had just decided to retire from my work as publisher, but the decision raised a batch of unnamed anxieties.
Along the sidewalk came a girl on a tricycle – about six years old was my guess. We smiled at each other. Then she stopped, gave me a most intense look and asked, “Are you old?”
I’m usually quite quick off the lip, but the child’s question stopped me cold. She waited. Maybe she knew she had asked a profoundly disturbing question. Eventually, I responded. “Yes. Yes, I am.”
Then she said, “Will you play with me?”
Were the two questions connected in her mind? They were in mine. They said to me, “If you are old, I will trust you.” For her, none of the bad jokes they throw at people on their birthdays, just: “Will you play with me?” And I wanted so much to do just that, to hear more from this three-wheeled philosopher, to learn from her wisdom and to delight in the joy of her life.
But we lived in a real world, my little friend and I. So I had to say, “I would really like to play with you, but first you need to go and talk to your mom or your dad, and if one of them comes here and tells me it’s OK, then we can play.”
“My dad doesn’t live with me anymore,” she said very soberly. “I’ll ask my mom.”
She didn’t return. But she had left her gift with me.
She had changed me from a man, fearful of retirement, angry at his age with its limitations and necessities, to a man delighting in his age and its possibilities – transfigured by the candid, open, affirming trust of a child.
“Yes, I am old. And yes, I would really like to come and play with you.”
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Seeing the Light
Yesterday, Christian churches in the western world celebrated Epiphany. It’s certainly not a major festival, compared to Christmas, Easter, or even Halloween. In fact, you may not have noticed it passing by. Not many churches hold midweek Epiphany services – they usually tack the Epiphany message onto the Sunday before or after.
Epiphany is a much bigger event in the eastern world of the Orthodox churches – even if they do celebrate it 13 days later. In Ethiopia, where they call it Timkat, an emperor had an entire river diverted to flow through a specially built swimming pool, so that the whole populace could participate in a mass baptism.
Epiphany is sort of a schizophrenic celebration. It attempts to deal with two events at once. On the one hand, it recalls Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist, in the waters of the Jordan River. On the other hand, it’s commonly used to mark the visit of the Magi, the wise ones from the east.
I’m regularly amused by the things that people insist the Bible says, when it doesn’t.
I’ve written before about the Sunday school student who bet me a box of Christmas cookies that the Bible said there were Three Wise Men. It doesn’t. It merely identifies three gifts – gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
It doesn’t say they rode camels. In fact, it doesn’t say anything about how they travelled.
Nor does it say there was a star over the stable at the time of Jesus’ birth, like you see on Christmas cards. It only says that the Magi (probably astrologers, reading the signs of the Zodiac) had seen his star rising in their homelands, and had followed it.
For how long? Perhaps up to two years.
Because when Herod realized he had been tricked, he massacred every boy in Bethlehem under the age of two, to eliminate potential threats to his throne.
I still chuckle about the placard-bearing woman who accosted a TV news reporter. Waving an angry finger under his nose, she warned him: “Remember what Jesus did to Sodom and Gomorrah!”
You don’t get it? Jesus doesn’t appear in the Bible until roughly 2,000 years after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
But back to Epiphany.
If you look up the word in a dictionary, it will refer to a revelation, a sudden intuitive realization. It’s commonly described as “seeing the light.” When comic strips show a light-bulb glowing over someone’s head, they honour the notion of epiphany.
That’s why the Feast of Epiphany serves two purposes. Both the visit of the Magi and the baptism of Jesus were revelations. The visit of the Magi symbolically introduced the light of God to Gentile peoples. And at Jesus’ baptism, what’s described as God’s spirit settled on Jesus like a dove. At that point he realized – perhaps for the first time – the ministry God had in mind for him.
His light went on.
Okay – here’s your test question. What color was the dove? Are you sure? Don’t guess – better look it up!
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Good Stuff – At last, in all that financial doom and gloom, some good news. Really good news. And it generated a five-page spread in Maclean’s, a Canadian news magazine. Page 38. Titled, “The Recession That Saved Christmas.” It was written before Christmas.
The first part of the story points out that people are not spending as much money on Christmas, and in the process finding more meaning, more depth in the season. As you’d expect in a secular magazine it reflects a kind of Humanist Theology Lite perspective, but that’s ok. The point is valid.
The second half is the best part. Citing case after case, the mag points out that the county’s economic troubles stimulated an outpouring of gifts to charitable causes of all kinds. Church related and secular. As people cut back on their own spending, they seem willing to give more to folks who have less. “Donations to charitable causes are up and companies are doing more.”
Most of the time when we cite secular news sources in our sermons and other church-related communication, we are pointing to bad news. That’s valid, and there’s lots of that to go around.
But when there is good news out there, I think it’s important to note that the Spirit works in mysterious ways. Hallelujah.
Those of you who live outside of Canada or don’t subscribe can find the article on line at:
http://blog.macleans.ca/category/arts-culture/
If you’re in a hurry, you can cut to the chase on page four.
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Cheryl Perry was with the children in church last Sunday. She asked them, “Who were the first people to know that Jesus had been born?” She expected, of course, that she would hear, “The shepherds.”
But a small voice piped up, “Mary and Joseph.” Cheryl very wisely didn’t argue with that.
Mike Crockett of Cape Town South Africa was greeting an elderly man in the pew one Sunday morning. He looked up at Mike and said, "After sixty years of razor blade abuse, it seems now as if my beard is fighting back through my ears and nostrils!"
From the file:
* Next week’s sermon: What is hell like? Come and hear our organist.
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! – Humanity is the creator of history. But we are also the creature of the history we create.
Reinhold Niebuhr via Alan Reynolds
Two aphorisms about attitude.
Attitude is the mind's paintbrush. It can color any situation."
Attitudes are contagious. Is yours worth catching?
authors unknown. From someone named Jim in Kingsville, Ontario.
A sense of humor is maturity and wisdom; and there is no maturity and wisdom without a sense of humor.
George Mikes via Velia Watts
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “Mail carriers!”)
Memo:
TO: God
FROM: Dog
* Does it mean anything that “dog” is “God” spelled backwards? If so, what?
* Why do humans smell the flowers, but seldom, if ever, smell one another?
* When we get to heaven, can we sit on your couch? Or is it still the same old story?
* Why are there cars named after the jaguar, the cougar, the mustang, the colt, the stingray, and the rabbit, but not ONE named for a dog? How often do you see a cougar riding around in a car? Dog’s do it all the time. Would it be so hard to rename the “Chrysler Eagle” the “Chrysler Beagle”?
* If a dog barks his head off in the forest and no human hears him, is he still a bad dog?
* We dogs can understand human verbal instructions, hand signals, whistles, horns, clickers, beepers, scent IDs, electromagnetic energy fields, and Frisbee flight paths. What do humans understand?
* More meatballs, less spaghetti, please.
* Are there mail carriers in Heaven? If there are, will I have to apologize?
P.S. Dear God: When I get to Heaven may I have my testicles back?
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Bottom of the Barrel – Alex was an atheist. But he was an atheist with scruples.
He had an old tree in his backyard. In a bad storm it was blown over and fell on a neighbor’s house.
The atheist checked with his insurance company, and received the following response. “If the tree fell over because it was dead, it would not be covered by your insurance. But if the tree fell because of ‘an act of God’ it would be covered.”
An now Alex had a problem.
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Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – I Samuel 3:1-10, (11-20)
Reader I: I think maybe you should read today’s scripture by yourself.
Reader II: Why?
I: Because I don’t understand it. Samuel is just a kid and he gets the job of reading the riot act to Eli, his boss. His foster father. And there’s all the business about hearing God’s voice in the middle of the night. Kids are forever imagining things.
II: Why do you suppose this story is in the Bible?
I: How would I know? I didn’t write the Bible.
II: Just stop and think now. If you can figure out why the story is there, then maybe it’ll mean more to you.
I: Well, I was reading some of the other stuff that comes before and some of the rest of the story after this passage. I think it has to do with credibility. I think they’re trying to set up Samuel to be the great prophet of Israel.
II: Bingo! Eli was disgraced because he couldn’t control his kids, and Samuel took over as top dog in the prophet business. And the folks writing this want us to know what a great guy Samuel was, so they tell stories about how he was such a smart kid and even when he was just a boy, he could hear God’s voice when old Eli couldn’t.
I: Ah! So now it makes a bit of sense.
II: So let’s read it.
(slight pause)
I: Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.
II: At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room. The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was.
I: Then the Lord called, "Samuel! Samuel!"
II: "Here I am!" Then he ran to Eli, and said, "Here I am. You called me."
I: "I did not call; lie down again." Then the Lord called again, "Samuel!" Samuel got up and went to Eli.
II: "Here I am. You called me."
I: "I did not call, my son; lie down again." Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli.
II: "Here I am. You called me."
I: Then Eli realized that the Lord was calling the boy. "Go, lie down; and if God calls you, you shall say, 'Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.'" So Samuel went and lay down in his place. And the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, "Samuel! Samuel!"
II: "Speak, for your servant is listening."
I: "See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be paid for by sacrifice or offering forever."
II: Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli.
I: But Eli called Samuel. "Samuel, my son."
II: "Here I am."
I: "What was it that God told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that was told you."
II: So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Then Eli said, "It is the Lord; who will do what seems good."
I: As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground.
II: And all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the Lord.
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Information and Stuff – (Read this section only if you want to know about subscribing, unsubscribing or quoting stuff from Rumors.) It would be nice if you could give Rumors a plug in your bulletin or newsletter. Please invite your friends (and even your enemies) to subscribe. There's no charge: RUMORS is free and it comes to your e-mail box every Sunday morning. Just send your friends the instructions to subscribe [below], and include an invitation to join the list ... perhaps something like this: “There’s a lively and fun newsletter called RUMORS which is available at no cost on the net. It’s for ‘Christians with a sense of humor’.” Please add the instructions to subscribe [below]. If you have a friend you think would enjoy Rumors, and you’d rather not give them the subscribing instructions below, send me an e-mail at ralphmilton@woodlake.com and give me the e-mail address of your friend. If you are using something from Rumors in your sermon, give credit only as appropriate, without stopping the sermon dead in its tracks. I am delighted when Rumors is useful in the life and work of the church. As long as it is within your congregation or parish, you don’t need permission. You are welcome to use the stuff in church bulletins or newsletters. Please say where it came from, and please invite people to subscribe to RUMORS. An appropriate credit line would be; “From Ralph Milton's RUMORS, a free Internet ‘e-zine’ for Christians with a sense of humor." ... and please be sure to include these instructions to subscribe to RUMORS: To Subscribe:* Send an e-mail to: rumors-subscribe@joinhands.com
* Don't put anything else in that e-mail
To Unsubscribe:
* Send an e-mail to: rumors-unsubscribe@joinhands.com
* Don’t put anything else in that e-mail* If you are changing e-mail addresses, and your old address will no longer be in service, you do not need to unsubscribe. The sending computer will try a few times, and then give up..~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Please Write – If you respond, react, think about, freak-out, or otherwise have things happen in your head as a result of reading the above, please send a note to: ralphmilton@woodlake.com
Who knows, I might quote you in a future issue of RUMORS.All material is copyright © Ralph Milton.~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
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