R U M O R S # 546
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2009-03-29
March 29, 2009
FIRST TELL THE STORY
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Motto:
"A merry heart doeth good, like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones." (Proverbs 17:22 KJV)
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The Story – the passion story as told by Mark
Rumors – the call to be authentic
Soft Edges – when the lights go out
Bloopers – Easter on a Saturday
We Get Letters – late for her own funeral
Mirabile Dictu! – scoop the litterbox
Bottom of the Barrel – the tree planter was sick
Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – Mark 14:1-15:47
Stuff – (read this only if you would like to subscribe, unsubscribe or are wondering about permissions. That sort of boring stuff.)
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Rib Tickler – The young preacher was talking to the wise old preacher. “Can you give me any advice on preaching?” the young one asked.
“Yes,” she said. “You need a beginning, a middle and an end.”
“But every sermon has a beginning and a middle and an end,” objected the young preacher.
“True. The trick is to make the middle as small as possible, so the beginning and the end are really close together.”
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you may hear in church this coming Sunday, April 5th, which is the sixth Sunday in Lent usually observed as Palm/Passion Sunday.
Isaiah 50:4-9a – Most Rumors readers, both lay and clergy, are leaders in the church. Which means that the very first sentence of this passage is directed at us. “The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher.”
The leadership instincts and skills we have are a gift, which we have received so that we “may know how to sustain the weary with a word.” But the most essential skill of the leader is to listen. God who “wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.”
Psalm 31:9-16 – – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
9 Be kind to me, God. I'm really in trouble this time.
I'm blinded by misery, I've got the shakes all over.
10 I spend my days hating myself, my nights despising others.
I have turned into a spineless blob, with bones made of jelly.
11 No one talks to me or visits me;
I huddle in my gloom like the dust balls under my dresser.
12 No one even thinks of me any more;
I am pushed aside like yesterday's newspaper.
14 I have no one to turn to but you.
You are my only friend, the only one I can count on.
16 Do not turn away from me too.
Wrap me in the warmth of your arms, and comfort me now.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
Philippians 2:5-11 – Mike Schwartzentruber writes (Aha!!!, April 16, 2000): “There is a tale about a king who decided that he couldn’t be a good king without getting ‘down and dirty’ with his people.” This had to be for real. No special treatment of any kind. “After living life as a peasant and experiencing their hunger, poverty and degradation, he just couldn’t be the same kind of king anymore.
The passage reads like a poem or a song. It’s about a God who identifies with humanity – radically and completely, and is ready to bear the consequences this involves.
Mark 14:1-15:47 or Mark 15:1-39, (40-47) – A Reader’s Theatre version of this passage was sent out to all of you last Tuesday, to give you a bit of lead time. I am delighted at the response, with many letters coming in saying that the Reader’s Theatre in general and this bit of lead time in particular, were appreciated.
In case you missed it, that Reader’s Theatre rendition is below.
A children’s version of Mark’s passion narrative may be found in “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year B” beginning on page 93. I know that in some congregations, worship leaders read these stories to the children while they are in church, knowing that the adults will be listening too, and therefore understand the passages better when they are read later in the service.
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
The Story (from the Revised Common Lectionary) – the Passion story as told by Mark.
Jim says –
This may sound like a cop-out, but I don’t see any need to look for supplementary stories this Sunday. The whole story is there in the Mark reading (14:1-15:47) for Passion Sunday. And it is one of the most compelling, gripping, evocative stories ever told. There’s tragedy, conspiracy, courage, betrayal, loyalty, awe, the supernatural, the mundane...
So forget sermonizing. Tell the story. Sure it’s long, so get a few extra voices. Either alternate sections between two or more readers, or get enough people to read the parts of various characters in the drama.
Personally, I’d use a contemporary translation/paraphrase, such as Eugene Peterson’s “The Message.” But any modern translation – the New Revised Standard Version, the New International Version – will suffice.
Of course, people have heard this story before. (One year, I attended the world-famous Passion Play at Oberammergau in the Bavarian Alps. At lunch break, I overheard the couple seated behind me. “Haven’t I read this story somewhere?” one of them wondered.) But our liturgies typically fragment the biblical narrative into such small bits that many people probably have never heard the whole story in a single coherent sequence. Trust me, they’ll be riveted by it.
Ralph says –
Some years ago I was listening to a sermon on John 3:16 – “God so loved the world…etc.” The most well-known verse in the Bible. The minister kept mentioning John 3:16, but didn’t tell us what that verse said. I whispered to Elaine, a friend sitting next to me. “Do you know what John 3:16 says?”
“No,” she whispered. “I have no idea.”
Shortly after that whispered exchange, the minister did tell us what John 3:16 said, but that was five minutes into the sermon, and the content of that five minutes was totally lost on half the congregation because they had no idea what the minister was talking about.
Among the common mistakes writers (like me) and preachers (like me) make is assuming people know their Bible. There are a few who do. But mostly they don’t. So there isn’t a whole lot of point preaching about Jesus passion and death if they don’t know the story.
Which is why you are getting this harangue from both Jim and I.
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Rumors – A few days ago, I was just getting ready to step into the shower when the phone rang. Bev answered, then brought the cordless phone to me in the bathroom. So there I was, folds and bulges and blotches all hanging out, talking to a woman I knew only slightly. It seemed downright indecent. Or embarrassing anyway. She, of course, had no idea why I kept trying to end the conversation.
Some years ago I stayed in a hotel that had a telephone in the bathroom. What I do in the bathroom is no secret. But it is private. And it seems an invasion of privacy to have a phone ring when you are on the throne meditating on the infinite. Or whatever.
But far worse than that. It’s happened to all of us. You are right in the middle of a really good conversation with friends when the phone rings. It’s a telemarketer telling you your mortgage is overdue or your credit card has some terrible thing wrong with it.
My son Mark has a much healthier attitude toward telephones. He lets it ring four times, then his answering machine kicks in. If he hears the voice of somebody he wants to talk to, he picks up the phone.
Not me. I scramble to find the phone and I almost always regret it. Some day I’ll break my neck because our phone is one of those cordless things and we keep losing it.
Even if I come home dead tired and the phone rings, I answer it. Why has this machine such power over us? Who can possibly understand why somebody would bring a cell phone on a picnic or to the beach? I hope it’s not a true story but I heard of a guy who answered his cell phone while making love.
In a waiting room somewhere, I read an absolutely authoritative article on witchcraft. It said: “If you know the name of the charm or the curse, it can’t have any effect on you.”
Jim Taylor and I were talking about this over lunch last Wednesday. Should we bring Rumors “up-to-date” by tarting it up with formatting and pictures and little Google ads up and down the right side of the page?
I told Jim about the depressed thoughts that ran through my head during my little sojourn in the hospital two weeks ago. I was wondering what life would be like as an invalid, unable to do much of anything. Then I got the results of the angiogram saying my heart was just fine and I could go back to denying the reality of my age.
On a TV set in the restaurant, a group of young people were doing a song of some sort. Mercifully, the sound was off, but we watched one of those fast-paced things with zooms and flips and frenetic visual effects.
“That’s not us,” we agreed. Whatever it is we are called to be at this point in our lives, it has to be authentic. So Rumors will come in the plain vanilla text format it’s always come in.
Whatever else may be in our call to ministry, as a bare minimum, we are certainly called to be authentic.
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
When the Lights Go Out
In a world where everything seems too big and too complex for any one person to affect – even if that person is the president of the United States – it’s tempting to assume that there’s nothing any of us can do. So we might as well forget about trying to build a better world, and just enjoy our friends and/or families.
As Peggy Lee sang, long ago, “If that’s all there is... then let’s break out the booze, and have a ball.”
But there is something each of us can do. There always is.
For example, we had such an opportunity yesterday evening, when Earth Hour rolled around the world.
Earth Hour started just two years ago, in Sydney, Australia. Some two million homes and businesses turned out their lights for one hour.
Last year, Earth Hour went global. Over 50 million people turned out their lights for an hour. The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Rome’s Coliseum, Sydney’s Opera House, even the Coca Cola billboard in Times Square went dark.
This year, the organizers expected to have a billion people switch off. Nearly 2000 cities signed on, in over 80 different countries.
Each of the earth’s 24 time zones is about 1000 miles wide. If everyone took part, astronauts in the space station would watch a 1000-mile swath of darkness sweeping around the planet as all the lights winked out.
That probably didn’t quite happen. Not yet, anyway. But a billion participants would significantly dim the blaze that radiates into space from Western Europe and North America. Utility companies would see a sudden dramatic drop in power usage.
Sure, cynics will say, the lights went on again at 9:30. But perhaps not all of them. Perhaps a few people enjoyed seeing the stars again. A few may have relished the cozy glow of candles, or of a fireplace, in a darkened room.
A few might even have discovered that darkness is not a demon to be driven back by glaring lights. It is, after all, in the darkness of the earth that seeds germinate. In the darkness of the night we draw close to each other. In the darkness of sleep our bodies regenerate for a new dawn.
Switching off lights for just one hour won’t stop global warming. Nor will it end poverty, or cure corruption in high places.
But it might demonstrate to the corporate elites who manipulate countries and financial systems for their own advantage that people are not simply pawns to be manipulated.
Likewise, it might remind us that we are more than puppets dancing on invisible strings. We can act together, when we want to.
Earth Hour is a symbolic act. And as every world religion knows, symbols have enormous power – whether or not they produce measurable results.
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Pat Hughes of Millet, Alberta writes about a blooper she typed into the bulletin. "Remember your baptism and be good," is what she typed. “It was supposed to be 'glad', but we thought being good was fine too.”
Pat also noted a report about a list of members of a women’s group. It went on to say that those on the list “ate the seven members who are unable to participate.”
Pat wonders if they tasted good, but I doubt it. Us seniors tend to be a bit stringy and tough.
Sharyl Peterson of Grand Junction, Colorado, says she’s been asked by long-time church members "what day of the week is Maundy Thursday going to be?" and "is Easter on Sunday this year?"
Sharyl is seriously considering having “Maundy Thursday on a Wednesday and Easter on a Saturday.
Karl Olsen of Freeland, Washington, writes that recently a lector read one of the Ten Commandments as "...you shall not cover your neighbor's wife..."
You must agree Karl, that new revised commandment is easier to manage than the old one.
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 sweat the petty things. Don’t pet the sweaty things.
source unknown, via Dave Towers
The basis of happiness is the love of something outside self.
William George Jordan via Sandra Friesen
God, keep your arm around my shoulder and your hand over my big mouth!
source unknown, via Norah Kerr
You are constantly becoming. Honor all that you have been, all that you are, all that you will be.
Lisa Engelhardt via Mary in Oman
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We Get Letters – David Shearman of Owen Sound, Ontario, called my attention to an error I should have caught before it went out. It was the fun lines around the name of the artist van Gough. Specifically, this line.
* His Italian uncle...................................Day Gogh
It is, of course, an ethnic slur against people of Italian origin, and I apologize. I knew that, and I should have noticed it. I’m sorry!
A very different reaction came from Janet Cawley of Vancouver, BC. She says, “You forgot the crooner cousin, ‘Bing Gogh.’ (Sorry, couldn't resist!)”
Mark Brantley-Gearhart of Snyder, Texas sends this story.
Suzanne's funeral procession came to a stop in the cemetery. The family had opted to bury her remains at 10:00 a.m. and to hold the memorial service at 10:30 at the church.
That close schedule was thrown into chaos when the funeral director opened the back door of the hearse to find that it was empty! Red faced, he made a call on his cell phone and confirmed that the casket had been left behind at the funeral home. Not sure how the family would take the news, I broke it as gently as possible.
Her nephew quipped, "Now, isn't that the epitome of being late to your own funeral?"
The family was still laughing when the hearse returned with the casket.
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “scoop the litterbox!”)
This from Laura Baum – The Creation Story (as told by the Cat)
On the first day of creation, God created the cat.
On the second day, God created a human to serve the cat.
On the third, God created all the animals of the earth to serve as potential food for the cat.
On the fourth day, God created honest toil so that humans could labor for the good of the cat.
On the fifth day, God created the sparkle ball so that the cat might or might not play with it.
On the sixth day, God created veterinary science to keep the cat healthy and the human broke.
On the seventh day, God tried to rest, but still had to scoop the litterbox!
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Bottom of the Barrel – This from Wendy W-K, who didn’t provide anymore name than that.
Two employees of the public works department in (your town) worked hard all day. One would dig a hole and the other would follow behind and fill the hole in.
They worked up one side of the street, then down the other, then moved on to the next street, working furiously all day without rest, one digging a hole, the other filling it in again.
An onlooker was curious, and asked them why they were doing this.
The hole digger wiped his brow and sighed, 'Well, I suppose it probably looks odd because we're normally a three-person team. But today the tree planter called in sick.'
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Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – Mark 14:1-15:47
Note: Because this passage is so central to our Christian story, and because it is much longer than the lections on most Sundays, there are four readers. Like all reader’s theatre presentations, each reader should rehearse her/his part several times out loud, and the entire presentation should be rehearsed together a number of times. Readers should work hard to make their role interesting and lively, without hamming it up. And reader’s should “pick up their cues,” i.e. ensure that there is no pause at all between one speaker and the next. This helps quicken the pace of the presentation and makes it more lively and interesting.
Reader I is the narrator and may be either male or female. It is the key part, and should be given to the most capable actor in the group.
Reader II speaks the various women’s parts.
Reader III is Jesus.
Reader IV: speaks the various men’s parts.
(DURATION: ABOUT 15 MINUTES)
I: THIS is our story.
II: This IS our story.
III: This is OUR story.
IV: This is our STORY.
I: This is our story – the final chapter in the life of Jesus. Without this story, and the story that follows this on Easter Sunday morning, nothing else in the Christian story makes sense. It is a painful story. But without this painful story, the resurrection story which we will hear next Sunday, the joy of resurrection simply isn’t there. So listen. Listen carefully, and weep.
The story of Jesus’ final hours, as it is told in the gospel of Mark.
(SLIGHT PAUSE)
It was two days before the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him.
IV "But not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people."
I: While Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head.
IV: "Why was the ointment wasted in this way? This ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor."
III: "Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her."
I: Then Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went to the chief priests in order to betray Jesus to them. When they heard it, they were greatly pleased, and promised to give him money. So he began to look for an opportunity to betray him.
On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, his disciples said to Jesus:
II: "Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?"
IV: Yes, where should we eat our Passover meal?
III: "Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, 'The Teacher asks, Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?' He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there."
I: So the disciples set out and went to the city, and found everything as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal.
When it was evening, he came with the twelve. And when they had taken their places and were eating, Jesus spoke to them.
III: "Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me."
I: The disciples began to be distressed.
IV: "Surely, not I?"
II: Surely, not I?
III: "It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the bowl with me. For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that one not to have been born."
I: While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it, gave it to them.
III: "Take; this is my body."
I: Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it.
III: "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."
I: When they had sung the hymn, Jesus and the disciples went out to the Mount of Olives. Again, Jesus spoke to them.
III: "You will all become deserters; for it is written, 'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.' But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee."
I: Peter was horrified.
IV: "Even though all become deserters, I will not."
III: "Truly I tell you, this day, this very night, before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times."
IV: "Even though I must die with you, I will not deny you."
II: Same here. I will never deny you.
I: They went to a place called Gethsemane.
III: "Sit here while I pray."
I: Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be distressed and agitated.
III: "I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake."
I: And going a little farther, Jesus threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.
III: "Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want."
I: Jesus came and found the three disciples sleeping.
III: "Simon Peter, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour? Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."
I: Again Jesus went away and prayed, saying the same words. And once more he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they did not know what to say to him. Jesus came to the disciples a third time.
III: "Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Enough! The hour has come; the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand."
I: Immediately, while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, arrived; and with him there was a crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders. Now Judas had given them a sign.
IV: "The one I will kiss is the man. Arrest him and lead him away under guard."
I: So when Judas came, he went up to Jesus at once.
IV: "Rabbi!"
I: Then Judas kissed Jesus. Then priests and scribes laid hands on him and arrested him. But one of those who stood near drew his sword and struck the slave of the high priest, cutting off his ear.
III: "Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me as though I were a bandit? Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not arrest me. But let the scriptures be fulfilled."
I: They took Jesus to the high priest; and all the chief priests, the elders, and the scribes were assembled. Peter had followed him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest; and he was sitting with the guards, warming himself at the fire.
Now the chief priests and the whole council were looking for testimony against Jesus to put him to death; but they found none. For many gave false testimony against Jesus.
IV: "We heard him say, 'I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.'"
I: But their testimony did not agree. Then the high priest stood up.
IV: "Have you no answer? What is it that they testify against you?"
I: But Jesus was silent and did not answer.
IV: "Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?"
III: "I am; and 'you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power,' and 'coming with the clouds of heaven.'"
IV: "Why do we still need witnesses? You have heard his blasphemy! What is your decision?"
I: All of them condemned him as deserving death. Some spit on him, they blindfolded him, and struck him.
II: "Prophesy!"
IV: Yeah. Prophesy. Who just hit you?I: While Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the servant-girls of the high priest came by. When she saw Peter warming himself, she stared at him.
II: "You also were with Jesus, the man from Nazareth."
IV: "I don’t know what you are talking about."
I: And Peter went out into the forecourt. Then the cock crowed. And the servant-girl, on seeing him, spoke again to the bystanders.
II: "This man is one of them."
IV: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
I: Then after a little while another one of the bystanders pointed at Jesus.
II: "Certainly you are one of them; for you are a Galilean."
I: But Peter began to curse.
IV: "I do not know this man you are talking about."
I: At that moment the cock crowed for the second time. Then Peter remembered what Jesus had said to him.
III: "Before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times."
I: And Peter broke down and wept.
I: As soon as it was morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council. They bound Jesus, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate, who was the Roman Governor.
IV: "Are you the King of the Jews?"
III: "YOU say so."
I: Then the chief priests accused him of many things.
IV: "Have you no answer? See how many charges they bring against you."
I: But Jesus made no further reply, so that Pilate was amazed. Now at the festival Pilate used to release a prisoner for them, anyone for whom they asked. A man called Barabbas was in prison with the rebels who had committed murder during the insurrection. So the crowd came and began to ask Pilate to do for them according to his custom.
IV: "Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?"
I: Pilate realized that it was out of jealousy that the chief priests had handed him over. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas for them instead.
IV: "Then what do you want me to do with the man you call the King of the Jews?"
II "Crucify him!"
IV: "Why, what evil has he done?"
II: "Crucify him!"
I: So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas for them; and after flogging Jesus, handed him over to be crucified. Then the soldiers led him into the courtyard of the palace. They clothed him in a purple cloak; and after twisting some thorns into a crown, they put it on him.
II: & IV: "Hail, King of the Jews!"
I: They struck his head with a stick, spit on him, and knelt down in mock homage to him. They stripped Jesus of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.
The soldiers compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross. It was Simon of Cyrene. They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha – the place of a skull. The soldiers offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take it. And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take. It was nine o'clock in the morning when they crucified him. The inscription on the top of the cross said: "The King of the Jews."
And with him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed shouted insults at him.
II: Hey you! You said you would destroy the temple and build it in three days. If you could do that, save yourself, and come down from the cross!"
IV: Yeah! If you’re the King of the Jews, jump down from that cross.
II: "Isn’t it amazing. He saved others. He can’t save himself.
IV: If you’re the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe."
I: When it was noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. Then Jesus cried out with a loud voice!
III: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
II: "Listen, he is calling for Elijah."
I: Someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and started to gave it to him to drink.
II: "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down."
I: Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.
(SLIGHT PAUSE)
And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. Then the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way Jesus breathed his last.
IV: "Truly this man was God's Son!"
I: There were also women looking on from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. These women used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee. There were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem.
When evening had come, and since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.
Then Pilate summoned the centurion, and asked him whether Jesus was dead. Finding that he was indeed dead, Pilate granted the body to Joseph. Then Joseph bought a linen cloth, and taking down the body, wrapped it in the linen cloth, and laid it in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock.
He then rolled a stone against the door of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses saw where the body was laid.
(ALL ACTORS STAND IN PLACE WITH EYES CLOSED. COMPLETE SILENCE FOR A FULL TWO MINUTES. THIS MIGHT BE FOLLOWED BY AN APPROPRIATE GOOD FRIDAY HYMN, SUCH AS “BENEATH THE CROSS OF JESUS.”
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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, March 27, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Preaching Materials for March 29th, 2009
R U M O R S # 545
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2009-03-22
March 22, 2009
GOD WITH SKIN ON
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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.
The Story – Jeremiah’s gift
Rumors – inundated and overwhelmed
Soft Edges – gifts received and given
Bloopers – preparing hell
We Get Letters – folk literature
Mirabile Dictu! – Winnie Bay Gogh
Bottom of the Barrel – owning hell
Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – a little bit nuts
Stuff – (read this only if you would like to subscribe, unsubscribe or are wondering about permissions. That sort of boring stuff.)
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Rib Tickler – The old timer didn’t know he had just won a million in the lottery. His friends asked his minister to break the news to him gently. “We’re afraid old Zeke might have a heart attack,” they explained.
“Ever won anything Zeke?” the minister asked cheerfully. She thought a bit of small talk about winning things might be a good opener.
“Nope.”
“What would you do if you won a million in a lottery, Zeke?”
“Don’t know, exactly,” said Zeke. “But for sure, I’d give at least half of it to the church.”
And the minister had a heart attack.
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you may hear in church this coming Sunday, March 29th, which is the Fifth Sunday of Lent.
The Story (from the Revised Common Lectionary) – Jeremiah 31:31-34
For a Reader’s Theatre version of this passage, scroll down to near the bottom, just after “Bottom of the Barrel.”
Jim says –
I’m afraid that I have passed my “best before...” date. I’m not sure when it happened – just that it has happened. I don’t have the energy I had in my twenties, the commitment I had in my forties, and I don’t even seem to have all the memory cells I had in my sixties.
I’m on the downhill side of life. I might be here for another two years, or another twenty, but I certainly will not be starting a whole new professional career. My time, as the song says, is running low.
And when the flame finally burns down, I shall want someone with me. Someone to hold my hand, to stay near me as I take life’s final step into death. I will not want information or theory about companionship, or community, or caring. I will not want doctrinal assurances or dogmas I must swallow to be saved. I will want the real thing.
That, it seems to me, is also Jeremiah’s message. All the doctrine and dogma in the world cannot replace a real relationship. When it really matters, I won’t care a whit about Virgin Births and Immaculate Conceptions, about whether Jesus is the same as God or merely of the same substance as God, about whether wafers can become flesh and drops of water can vaccinate against hellfire...
All I’ll want is to feel God there with me, holding my hand.
Ralph says:
Context. This dramatic passage makes more sense if you know that it was an oracle addressed to the Hebrew people while they were in Babylon. The prologue to this prophecy has God telling Jeremiah to write a book with all of God’s words, which include the promise “that I will bring them back to the land that I gave to their ancestors.” (30:3).
Jeremiah is speaking to Hebrews who are an enslaved minority – who are wondering “how can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”
It’s a question that is being asked by every mainline denomination that I know anything about.
Because for years we’ve been struggling to be “in the world but not of the world.” We’ve managed the first part but generally flunked out on the second. That was also the story for the Hebrews in Babylon. They were seduced by the dominant culture. When they were finally allowed to go back to Israel, a lot of the Hebrews stayed on in Babylon, because the living was good.
When Bev was still in parish ministry, we’d do a little drama around Jeremiah. I’d dress up in my Jeremiah suit (a generic gown that worked for almost anything biblical) and interrupt her sermon, yelling and screaming about people who had sold out to the dominant consumer culture. Jeremiah would smash a pot at the foot of the chancel (use an unfired pot which doesn’t generate sharp edges) and catalogue their apostasy. But the Jeremiah skit would end quietly and intimately with verses 33 and 34 of this passage.
And Bev’s sermon would conclude with a few passionate and pleading words about what it might mean to have God’s word written on our hearts.
Psalm 51:1-12 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
(Psalm119:9-16 is listed as an alternate)
In spring, when the frost came out the ground and turned our back yard into gooey mud, our children came in filthy and half frozen. We popped them into a tub full of hot water, and washed them pink and clean again.
1 Scrub me clean, Lord.
Rub me down gently;
By your touch, show how much you love me;
Flush away my failures;
2 Sponge away the stains of constant compromise;
Help me clean up my act.
3 You don't have to tell me –
I know too well what I have been doing.
4 I know I have let you down;
I have betrayed your trust in me.
You warned me; you have every right to be angry.
Don't blame yourself because I blew it;
5 I was born this way.
How can I help it; I'm only human.
6 So wash out my mouth, and rinse out my heart.
New life starts on the inside, with knowing myself.
7 Scrub my spirit clean,
and swirl my soiled nature down the drain;
Let me step out fresh and sparkling.
Mend my fractured spirits;
Turn a blind eye to my faults
and cherish the scars where I have fallen down.
10 A fresh start begins with a pure heart, O God,
So let me share your spirit.
11 I do not want to be cut off from you;
I do not want to live without you.
12 Take me back into your good graces.
Help me, Lord, for I really want to please you.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
Hebrews 5:5-10 – This is a hard passage for us to relate to, unless we take the time to understand the theology and the imagery behind it. It was a theological treatise written to Jewish Christians who had suffered more than a little persecution, and must have been wondering if this prophet Jesus was worth all the hassle.
But the writer tells them that yes, Jesus understands what they are going through, and digs into the Hebrew Scriptures for the story of Melchizedek. Jewish Christians would have known about him and what being a high priest was all about.
We don’t have that background. We can’t even pronounce his name. (A couple of years ago I heard a lector pronounce it “Mezzz-mezz-milk duk) If we read this to the congregation without unpacking it, we’ll only get them more confused.
Or, more likely, bored.
John 12:20-33 – John presents us with a very different kind of Jesus than we find in Matthew, Mark and Luke. In those biographies, Jesus speaks in simple language and down-to-earth parables. John has him sounding like and over-educated theologian.
Nobody likes to hear bad news, and so the followers of Jesus didn’t want to hear about him dying. In this passage, Jesus uses the visits of Jews from Greece as an opportunity to tell them again about what lay ahead. Like Jeremiah, Jesus gives them a word of hope by using the imagery of a seed that falls to the ground and dies in order that it can burst up through the ground when the cold of winter is past.
There are children’s versions of the Jeremiah passage and the gospel in “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year B” which clarify the two key metaphors in these passages. On page 89 you’ll find a story called “Written on Your Hearts” and on page 90 a story called “A Seed Planted in the Ground.”
If you don’t already have the first two volumes of “The Lectionary Story Bible,” click the main Wood Lake Publications website at www.woodlakebooks.com, or click on the following address which takes you directly to the “Lectionary Story Bible.”
http://tinyurl.com/2lonod
The last volume, Year C, will be published in a few months.
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Rumors – He was scurrying around the choir area and the organ a few moments before church was to begin. Finally, he picked up a batch of papers and a look of relief came over his face. It was the sermon.
This was David Martyn number of years ago, when he was the pastor in our church. And I’m pleased to report that he had the grace to laugh at himself, and we laughed with him, because we’d all been there.
Years ago, when I was a news reporter at a Calgary radio station, I was relaxing with my head back on the chair for a few minutes before I was to go on the air with the major evening newscast. In those days, that was 15 minutes of solid reportage. 30 seconds before air time, I went to pick up my copy and it was gone. I scurried around frantically. Finally, I rushed into the studio to make some kind of apology – “Due to circumstances beyond our control, etc.,” – and there was my news copy, on the desk in front of the mike, exactly where I had put it.
Another time, I was recording a series of commentaries for the CBC, Canada’s major radio network. The producer came into the studio. “Ralph,” he said. “You are reading that stuff far too smoothly. Make a little mistake now and again. Let people know you are human. People admire you if you do things perfectly. They’ll love you if you make a little goof now and again.”
I almost always have problems with John’s Gospel. The Jesus that John presents to us seems to be so high and lifted up and cerebral that I find it hard to make contact. And that statement will no doubt get me some e-mails from people who tell me I shouldn’t feel like that. I’ve tried not to. But every time I read a passage like this one, it feels to me as if Jesus is way up there and out of reach.
This is true, if you must know, even though I spent a major hunk of time studying the Gospel of John. In Israel no less. And wrote several dreadfully boring and irrelevant papers about it. That experience only made it worse.
The Jesus I find in John is quite different from the Jesus I find in the other three Gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
When I read John, I feel like the child, who on a dark night with lots of thunder, kept running from her room to climb into bed with her mom. “It’s alright dear,” her mother would say. “God is there in your room with you. You don’t need to be afraid.” But the child came running in to mom anyway.
“I need someone with skin on,” she said.
The older I get, the more times I misplace things the way David did that morning. More and more I am like the proverbial grandfather who scurries around looking for the spectacles that are perched on top of his head. I need a God with skin on, one who knows about major suffering and pain yes, but also one who locks the keys in the car, who can’t remember the name of a friend of 30 years, who makes tea biscuits without baking powder that turn out like golden brown hockey pucks. In other words, the big stuff and the small stuff.
It’s all there in those four gospels – yes, including the gospel of John – the big stuff and the small stuff. I might not be able to see that reality, if it were not for friends who, without knowing they are doing it, show me something of what Christ was like.
They were doing it all this last week. I was inundated and somewhat overwhelmed by the responses to last Sunday’s Rumors where I wrote about my little heart attack the week before. E-mails by the bushel. All of them expressing kindness, gentleness, love, understanding.
God with skin on.
My deepest thanks to all of you.
PS: I’m feeling just fine, and stronger and healthier than before that little incident.
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Gifts Received and Given
All artists struggle to express the inexpressible.
I wince every time someone says, at a funeral or memorial service, “Words cannot express my grief...” I know they will spend the next half hour failing to express it.
To get away from vague abstractions, storytellers resort to stories, and poets to poetry. Composers play with melody and harmony, choreographers with movement.
Artists and sculptors try to turn that inexpressible idea or emotion into concrete images. We see reality with our eyes; we touch it with our hands. But painters and sculptors subtly alter that reality, to help us perceive hidden dimensions that we would otherwise have missed.
Jim Hayes first fell in love with painting when he was still a kid mowing a neighbour’s lawn. But he didn’t take it seriously until 22 years ago, when his wife Jan enrolled him in art classes. “Tonight,” she said, pushing him out the door.
For years, he painted for only himself, and his friends. Then he got talked into entering a public exhibition.
“It’s intimidating to have strangers view your work,” Hayes admitted. “You realize how insignificant you are.”
But at the same time, he says, “It’s a beautiful feeling to be anonymous – just to watch a person’s face as they enter their own journey into that painting.”
You have to see a progression of an artist’s paintings, over the years, to get a sense of what he’s trying to express – “allowing the spirit to emerge,” Hayes says. He started, as many do, looking at landscapes. Then he looked into them. And then almost through them.
His color palette shifted – from conventional, to greens, to reds, to...
His focus shifted. Early paintings detailed everything; later ones resemble natural vision – some elements precise and clear, others misty, implied, peripheral...
“Movement,” he says. “We’re always moving on. We’re on a journey.”
For him, it’s also a journey of faith, a constantly unfolding exploration of awe. He describes a desire “to paint the majesty of Creation” – even his tone conveys the capital C.
Hayes is a loyal Roman Catholic; he credits church and art for getting him through the death of his daughter Tiffany in a car accident.
“Don’t allow me to be angry,” he recalls praying. “I can’t be that kind of person.”
So he turned to art as therapy. And as salvation.
“I stared at the canvas for over two hours,” he says of his first painting after Tiffany’s death, “before I could make that first brush stroke.” What emerged, eventually, was a visual testament to an unquenchable free spirit rising out of darkness.
Hayes and eight other prominent artists have donated paintings to the Lake Country Rotary Club, to be auctioned off at their Gala Night Out, Friday March 28. Hayes painted morning mists on Kalamalka Lake.
I wondered why he would just give $1900 away. “Rotary does great things,” he explained. But that wasn’t quite enough. So he added, referring to his talent, “It was a gift. Gifts must be passed on.”
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – This from either Nathan or Rachelle Luitjens. The e-mail didn’t say which.
Seems pastor Frank Smith decided to tackle the subject of hell in a sermon. When it came out in the bulletin it said, "Next week's sermon: Hell, A Place Prepared by Frank Smith"
from the file:
* The Ascension turns our thoughts to the supreme joy of everlasting immorality in Heaven.
* This being Easter Sunday, we will ask George Jackson to come forward and lay an egg on the altar.
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! – A special week. Dennis Languay in Saint-Lambert, Quebec sent this batch of “Christian One Liners.” Rather than “fritter them away” (a favorite expression of my dad’s) one at a time over several weeks, I decided to give you the “whole meal deal.” Some are not new, but they are all good.
* Don't let your worries get the best of you. Remember, Moses started out as a basket case.
* Some people are kind, polite, and sweet-spirited until you try to sit in their pews.
* Many folks want to serve God, but only as advisers.
* It is easier to preach ten sermons than to live one.
* God didn't create anything without a purpose, but mosquitoes come close.
* When you get to your wit's end, you'll find God lives there.
* People are funny; they want the front of the bus, middle of the road, and back of the church.
* Opportunity may knock once, but temptation bangs on the front door forever.
* Quit griping about your church. If it was perfect, you couldn't belong.
* We're called to be witnesses, not lawyers or judges.
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We Get Letters – Rumors regular April Dailey works hard to “bring home the bacon,” but on her way home recently, she came within inches of running over a stray pig. Perhaps the metaphor was becoming a bit too literal.
This hoary chuckle came from Jim Spinks. It brought back memories of a man named S.J. Wiley, a fine Irish preacher of the old school, who told this story (with a number of added flourishes) as if it had happened to him personally. That was more than 30 years ago.
“The graveside service just barely finished. Newly interred was a woman noted for her sharp tongue. As the preacher pronounced the final blessing, there was a massive clap of thunder, followed by a tremendous bolt of lightning, accompanied by even more thunder rumbling in the distance. “An old man, the woman’s husband, looked at the pastor and said, “She has arrived.”
So I wrote back to Jim wondering if this had really happened to my friend S.J., or whether it was part of that folk literature that develops out of stories circulating on the internet.
Jim writes, “A quick Google search of the first 13 words showed 601 references to the same line. Whatever the origin, it seems to be approaching the calibre of legend. Or is it Apocrypha?”
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “Winnie Bay Gogh!”) This from Jim Taylor who says, “These aren't religious, but then not everything you publish is.”
Wrong! I have a highly scientific, objective and error-free litmus test for whether or not something is religious. If I read it and mutter or yell or groan something that involves a reference to a deity, then it’s religious.
This is so religious, it should be made part of our creed.
Or something!
After much careful research it has been discovered that the artist Vincent Van Gogh had many relatives.
Among them were:
* His obnoxious brother...............................Please Gogh
* His dizzy aunt.....................................Verti Gogh
* The brother who ate prunes..........................Gotta Gogh
* The brother who worked at a convenience store.......Stop’n Gogh
* The grandfather from Yugoslavia.....................U Gogh
* The brother who bleached his clothes white..........Hue Gogh
* The cousin from Illinois............................Chica Gogh
* His magician uncle..............................Wherediddy Gogh
* His Mexican cousin..................................Amee Gogh
* The Mexican cousin's American half brother..........Grin Gogh
* The nephew who drove a stage coach ..............Wellsfar Gogh
* The constipated uncle ..............................Kant Gogh
* The ballroom dancing aunt...........................Tan Gogh
* The bird lover uncle................................Flamin Gogh
* His nephew psychoanalyst............................E. Gogh
* The fruit loving cousin.............................Man Gogh
* An aunt who taught positive thinking................Wayta Gogh
* The little bouncy nephew............................Poe Gogh
* A sister who loved disco............................Go Gogh
* His Italian uncle...................................Day Gogh
* And his niece who travels the country.......Winnie Bay Gogh
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Bottom of the Barrel – A rancher’s son, a banker’s son, and a minister’s son were arguing about which of their dads was the wealthiest.
The rancher’s son said that his dad owned 1000 head of cattle.
The banker’s son said, “That is nothing. My dad loaned your dad the money to buy them.”
The minister’s son said, “That is nothing. My dad owns hell.”
“Nobody owns hell,” said the other two boys.
“Well, my dad does,” said the minister’s son. “The other night he came home and told my mother that the Church Board gave it to him.”
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Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – Jeremiah 31:31-34
Reader I: I love the prophet Jeremiah. He was a little bit nuts, but he cared so very deeply for his own people, and for the God who loved them.
Reader II: Jeremiah fumed and fussed. Smashed pots in front of people. Walked around naked sometimes. Got thrown into jail. He was willing to try anything to get people to pay attention to God’s call to faithfulness.
I: It didn’t work all that well. The Hebrew people were taken as prisoners to Babylon. And Jeremiah went with them.
II: The Hebrews were treated well in Babylon. In many ways, life was better there than it had been back in Israel. There was good food. Nice clothes. Good entertainment.
I: But Jeremiah could sense it. There was a rotten core inside of all that. And the more thoughtful Hebrews were wondering, “how can we sing the Lord’s song in this strange land?”
II: Does that sound familiar? We’ve been enjoying the good life in this country. Most of us here in this church have seen our standard of living go up and up in our lifetime. Even with this economic recession, most of us are doing just fine.
I: But there are thoughtful Jeremiah’s among us too, who are asking, “Can we sing God’s song” in this midst of our affluent lifestyle? Do we need a whole new way of being faithful? Is the economic recession God’s way of calling this to our attention?
II: So this is our passage. It is Jeremiah struggling to speak God’s words to the Hebrews who are living very comfortably in Babylon.
(SLIGHT PAUSE)
I: The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
II: It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt – a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband.
I: But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
II: No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the Lord," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
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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
2009-03-22
March 22, 2009
GOD WITH SKIN ON
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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.
The Story – Jeremiah’s gift
Rumors – inundated and overwhelmed
Soft Edges – gifts received and given
Bloopers – preparing hell
We Get Letters – folk literature
Mirabile Dictu! – Winnie Bay Gogh
Bottom of the Barrel – owning hell
Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – a little bit nuts
Stuff – (read this only if you would like to subscribe, unsubscribe or are wondering about permissions. That sort of boring stuff.)
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Rib Tickler – The old timer didn’t know he had just won a million in the lottery. His friends asked his minister to break the news to him gently. “We’re afraid old Zeke might have a heart attack,” they explained.
“Ever won anything Zeke?” the minister asked cheerfully. She thought a bit of small talk about winning things might be a good opener.
“Nope.”
“What would you do if you won a million in a lottery, Zeke?”
“Don’t know, exactly,” said Zeke. “But for sure, I’d give at least half of it to the church.”
And the minister had a heart attack.
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you may hear in church this coming Sunday, March 29th, which is the Fifth Sunday of Lent.
The Story (from the Revised Common Lectionary) – Jeremiah 31:31-34
For a Reader’s Theatre version of this passage, scroll down to near the bottom, just after “Bottom of the Barrel.”
Jim says –
I’m afraid that I have passed my “best before...” date. I’m not sure when it happened – just that it has happened. I don’t have the energy I had in my twenties, the commitment I had in my forties, and I don’t even seem to have all the memory cells I had in my sixties.
I’m on the downhill side of life. I might be here for another two years, or another twenty, but I certainly will not be starting a whole new professional career. My time, as the song says, is running low.
And when the flame finally burns down, I shall want someone with me. Someone to hold my hand, to stay near me as I take life’s final step into death. I will not want information or theory about companionship, or community, or caring. I will not want doctrinal assurances or dogmas I must swallow to be saved. I will want the real thing.
That, it seems to me, is also Jeremiah’s message. All the doctrine and dogma in the world cannot replace a real relationship. When it really matters, I won’t care a whit about Virgin Births and Immaculate Conceptions, about whether Jesus is the same as God or merely of the same substance as God, about whether wafers can become flesh and drops of water can vaccinate against hellfire...
All I’ll want is to feel God there with me, holding my hand.
Ralph says:
Context. This dramatic passage makes more sense if you know that it was an oracle addressed to the Hebrew people while they were in Babylon. The prologue to this prophecy has God telling Jeremiah to write a book with all of God’s words, which include the promise “that I will bring them back to the land that I gave to their ancestors.” (30:3).
Jeremiah is speaking to Hebrews who are an enslaved minority – who are wondering “how can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”
It’s a question that is being asked by every mainline denomination that I know anything about.
Because for years we’ve been struggling to be “in the world but not of the world.” We’ve managed the first part but generally flunked out on the second. That was also the story for the Hebrews in Babylon. They were seduced by the dominant culture. When they were finally allowed to go back to Israel, a lot of the Hebrews stayed on in Babylon, because the living was good.
When Bev was still in parish ministry, we’d do a little drama around Jeremiah. I’d dress up in my Jeremiah suit (a generic gown that worked for almost anything biblical) and interrupt her sermon, yelling and screaming about people who had sold out to the dominant consumer culture. Jeremiah would smash a pot at the foot of the chancel (use an unfired pot which doesn’t generate sharp edges) and catalogue their apostasy. But the Jeremiah skit would end quietly and intimately with verses 33 and 34 of this passage.
And Bev’s sermon would conclude with a few passionate and pleading words about what it might mean to have God’s word written on our hearts.
Psalm 51:1-12 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
(Psalm119:9-16 is listed as an alternate)
In spring, when the frost came out the ground and turned our back yard into gooey mud, our children came in filthy and half frozen. We popped them into a tub full of hot water, and washed them pink and clean again.
1 Scrub me clean, Lord.
Rub me down gently;
By your touch, show how much you love me;
Flush away my failures;
2 Sponge away the stains of constant compromise;
Help me clean up my act.
3 You don't have to tell me –
I know too well what I have been doing.
4 I know I have let you down;
I have betrayed your trust in me.
You warned me; you have every right to be angry.
Don't blame yourself because I blew it;
5 I was born this way.
How can I help it; I'm only human.
6 So wash out my mouth, and rinse out my heart.
New life starts on the inside, with knowing myself.
7 Scrub my spirit clean,
and swirl my soiled nature down the drain;
Let me step out fresh and sparkling.
Mend my fractured spirits;
Turn a blind eye to my faults
and cherish the scars where I have fallen down.
10 A fresh start begins with a pure heart, O God,
So let me share your spirit.
11 I do not want to be cut off from you;
I do not want to live without you.
12 Take me back into your good graces.
Help me, Lord, for I really want to please you.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
Hebrews 5:5-10 – This is a hard passage for us to relate to, unless we take the time to understand the theology and the imagery behind it. It was a theological treatise written to Jewish Christians who had suffered more than a little persecution, and must have been wondering if this prophet Jesus was worth all the hassle.
But the writer tells them that yes, Jesus understands what they are going through, and digs into the Hebrew Scriptures for the story of Melchizedek. Jewish Christians would have known about him and what being a high priest was all about.
We don’t have that background. We can’t even pronounce his name. (A couple of years ago I heard a lector pronounce it “Mezzz-mezz-milk duk) If we read this to the congregation without unpacking it, we’ll only get them more confused.
Or, more likely, bored.
John 12:20-33 – John presents us with a very different kind of Jesus than we find in Matthew, Mark and Luke. In those biographies, Jesus speaks in simple language and down-to-earth parables. John has him sounding like and over-educated theologian.
Nobody likes to hear bad news, and so the followers of Jesus didn’t want to hear about him dying. In this passage, Jesus uses the visits of Jews from Greece as an opportunity to tell them again about what lay ahead. Like Jeremiah, Jesus gives them a word of hope by using the imagery of a seed that falls to the ground and dies in order that it can burst up through the ground when the cold of winter is past.
There are children’s versions of the Jeremiah passage and the gospel in “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year B” which clarify the two key metaphors in these passages. On page 89 you’ll find a story called “Written on Your Hearts” and on page 90 a story called “A Seed Planted in the Ground.”
If you don’t already have the first two volumes of “The Lectionary Story Bible,” click the main Wood Lake Publications website at www.woodlakebooks.com, or click on the following address which takes you directly to the “Lectionary Story Bible.”
http://tinyurl.com/2lonod
The last volume, Year C, will be published in a few months.
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Rumors – He was scurrying around the choir area and the organ a few moments before church was to begin. Finally, he picked up a batch of papers and a look of relief came over his face. It was the sermon.
This was David Martyn number of years ago, when he was the pastor in our church. And I’m pleased to report that he had the grace to laugh at himself, and we laughed with him, because we’d all been there.
Years ago, when I was a news reporter at a Calgary radio station, I was relaxing with my head back on the chair for a few minutes before I was to go on the air with the major evening newscast. In those days, that was 15 minutes of solid reportage. 30 seconds before air time, I went to pick up my copy and it was gone. I scurried around frantically. Finally, I rushed into the studio to make some kind of apology – “Due to circumstances beyond our control, etc.,” – and there was my news copy, on the desk in front of the mike, exactly where I had put it.
Another time, I was recording a series of commentaries for the CBC, Canada’s major radio network. The producer came into the studio. “Ralph,” he said. “You are reading that stuff far too smoothly. Make a little mistake now and again. Let people know you are human. People admire you if you do things perfectly. They’ll love you if you make a little goof now and again.”
I almost always have problems with John’s Gospel. The Jesus that John presents to us seems to be so high and lifted up and cerebral that I find it hard to make contact. And that statement will no doubt get me some e-mails from people who tell me I shouldn’t feel like that. I’ve tried not to. But every time I read a passage like this one, it feels to me as if Jesus is way up there and out of reach.
This is true, if you must know, even though I spent a major hunk of time studying the Gospel of John. In Israel no less. And wrote several dreadfully boring and irrelevant papers about it. That experience only made it worse.
The Jesus I find in John is quite different from the Jesus I find in the other three Gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
When I read John, I feel like the child, who on a dark night with lots of thunder, kept running from her room to climb into bed with her mom. “It’s alright dear,” her mother would say. “God is there in your room with you. You don’t need to be afraid.” But the child came running in to mom anyway.
“I need someone with skin on,” she said.
The older I get, the more times I misplace things the way David did that morning. More and more I am like the proverbial grandfather who scurries around looking for the spectacles that are perched on top of his head. I need a God with skin on, one who knows about major suffering and pain yes, but also one who locks the keys in the car, who can’t remember the name of a friend of 30 years, who makes tea biscuits without baking powder that turn out like golden brown hockey pucks. In other words, the big stuff and the small stuff.
It’s all there in those four gospels – yes, including the gospel of John – the big stuff and the small stuff. I might not be able to see that reality, if it were not for friends who, without knowing they are doing it, show me something of what Christ was like.
They were doing it all this last week. I was inundated and somewhat overwhelmed by the responses to last Sunday’s Rumors where I wrote about my little heart attack the week before. E-mails by the bushel. All of them expressing kindness, gentleness, love, understanding.
God with skin on.
My deepest thanks to all of you.
PS: I’m feeling just fine, and stronger and healthier than before that little incident.
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Gifts Received and Given
All artists struggle to express the inexpressible.
I wince every time someone says, at a funeral or memorial service, “Words cannot express my grief...” I know they will spend the next half hour failing to express it.
To get away from vague abstractions, storytellers resort to stories, and poets to poetry. Composers play with melody and harmony, choreographers with movement.
Artists and sculptors try to turn that inexpressible idea or emotion into concrete images. We see reality with our eyes; we touch it with our hands. But painters and sculptors subtly alter that reality, to help us perceive hidden dimensions that we would otherwise have missed.
Jim Hayes first fell in love with painting when he was still a kid mowing a neighbour’s lawn. But he didn’t take it seriously until 22 years ago, when his wife Jan enrolled him in art classes. “Tonight,” she said, pushing him out the door.
For years, he painted for only himself, and his friends. Then he got talked into entering a public exhibition.
“It’s intimidating to have strangers view your work,” Hayes admitted. “You realize how insignificant you are.”
But at the same time, he says, “It’s a beautiful feeling to be anonymous – just to watch a person’s face as they enter their own journey into that painting.”
You have to see a progression of an artist’s paintings, over the years, to get a sense of what he’s trying to express – “allowing the spirit to emerge,” Hayes says. He started, as many do, looking at landscapes. Then he looked into them. And then almost through them.
His color palette shifted – from conventional, to greens, to reds, to...
His focus shifted. Early paintings detailed everything; later ones resemble natural vision – some elements precise and clear, others misty, implied, peripheral...
“Movement,” he says. “We’re always moving on. We’re on a journey.”
For him, it’s also a journey of faith, a constantly unfolding exploration of awe. He describes a desire “to paint the majesty of Creation” – even his tone conveys the capital C.
Hayes is a loyal Roman Catholic; he credits church and art for getting him through the death of his daughter Tiffany in a car accident.
“Don’t allow me to be angry,” he recalls praying. “I can’t be that kind of person.”
So he turned to art as therapy. And as salvation.
“I stared at the canvas for over two hours,” he says of his first painting after Tiffany’s death, “before I could make that first brush stroke.” What emerged, eventually, was a visual testament to an unquenchable free spirit rising out of darkness.
Hayes and eight other prominent artists have donated paintings to the Lake Country Rotary Club, to be auctioned off at their Gala Night Out, Friday March 28. Hayes painted morning mists on Kalamalka Lake.
I wondered why he would just give $1900 away. “Rotary does great things,” he explained. But that wasn’t quite enough. So he added, referring to his talent, “It was a gift. Gifts must be passed on.”
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – This from either Nathan or Rachelle Luitjens. The e-mail didn’t say which.
Seems pastor Frank Smith decided to tackle the subject of hell in a sermon. When it came out in the bulletin it said, "Next week's sermon: Hell, A Place Prepared by Frank Smith"
from the file:
* The Ascension turns our thoughts to the supreme joy of everlasting immorality in Heaven.
* This being Easter Sunday, we will ask George Jackson to come forward and lay an egg on the altar.
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! – A special week. Dennis Languay in Saint-Lambert, Quebec sent this batch of “Christian One Liners.” Rather than “fritter them away” (a favorite expression of my dad’s) one at a time over several weeks, I decided to give you the “whole meal deal.” Some are not new, but they are all good.
* Don't let your worries get the best of you. Remember, Moses started out as a basket case.
* Some people are kind, polite, and sweet-spirited until you try to sit in their pews.
* Many folks want to serve God, but only as advisers.
* It is easier to preach ten sermons than to live one.
* God didn't create anything without a purpose, but mosquitoes come close.
* When you get to your wit's end, you'll find God lives there.
* People are funny; they want the front of the bus, middle of the road, and back of the church.
* Opportunity may knock once, but temptation bangs on the front door forever.
* Quit griping about your church. If it was perfect, you couldn't belong.
* We're called to be witnesses, not lawyers or judges.
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We Get Letters – Rumors regular April Dailey works hard to “bring home the bacon,” but on her way home recently, she came within inches of running over a stray pig. Perhaps the metaphor was becoming a bit too literal.
This hoary chuckle came from Jim Spinks. It brought back memories of a man named S.J. Wiley, a fine Irish preacher of the old school, who told this story (with a number of added flourishes) as if it had happened to him personally. That was more than 30 years ago.
“The graveside service just barely finished. Newly interred was a woman noted for her sharp tongue. As the preacher pronounced the final blessing, there was a massive clap of thunder, followed by a tremendous bolt of lightning, accompanied by even more thunder rumbling in the distance. “An old man, the woman’s husband, looked at the pastor and said, “She has arrived.”
So I wrote back to Jim wondering if this had really happened to my friend S.J., or whether it was part of that folk literature that develops out of stories circulating on the internet.
Jim writes, “A quick Google search of the first 13 words showed 601 references to the same line. Whatever the origin, it seems to be approaching the calibre of legend. Or is it Apocrypha?”
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “Winnie Bay Gogh!”) This from Jim Taylor who says, “These aren't religious, but then not everything you publish is.”
Wrong! I have a highly scientific, objective and error-free litmus test for whether or not something is religious. If I read it and mutter or yell or groan something that involves a reference to a deity, then it’s religious.
This is so religious, it should be made part of our creed.
Or something!
After much careful research it has been discovered that the artist Vincent Van Gogh had many relatives.
Among them were:
* His obnoxious brother...............................Please Gogh
* His dizzy aunt.....................................Verti Gogh
* The brother who ate prunes..........................Gotta Gogh
* The brother who worked at a convenience store.......Stop’n Gogh
* The grandfather from Yugoslavia.....................U Gogh
* The brother who bleached his clothes white..........Hue Gogh
* The cousin from Illinois............................Chica Gogh
* His magician uncle..............................Wherediddy Gogh
* His Mexican cousin..................................Amee Gogh
* The Mexican cousin's American half brother..........Grin Gogh
* The nephew who drove a stage coach ..............Wellsfar Gogh
* The constipated uncle ..............................Kant Gogh
* The ballroom dancing aunt...........................Tan Gogh
* The bird lover uncle................................Flamin Gogh
* His nephew psychoanalyst............................E. Gogh
* The fruit loving cousin.............................Man Gogh
* An aunt who taught positive thinking................Wayta Gogh
* The little bouncy nephew............................Poe Gogh
* A sister who loved disco............................Go Gogh
* His Italian uncle...................................Day Gogh
* And his niece who travels the country.......Winnie Bay Gogh
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Bottom of the Barrel – A rancher’s son, a banker’s son, and a minister’s son were arguing about which of their dads was the wealthiest.
The rancher’s son said that his dad owned 1000 head of cattle.
The banker’s son said, “That is nothing. My dad loaned your dad the money to buy them.”
The minister’s son said, “That is nothing. My dad owns hell.”
“Nobody owns hell,” said the other two boys.
“Well, my dad does,” said the minister’s son. “The other night he came home and told my mother that the Church Board gave it to him.”
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Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – Jeremiah 31:31-34
Reader I: I love the prophet Jeremiah. He was a little bit nuts, but he cared so very deeply for his own people, and for the God who loved them.
Reader II: Jeremiah fumed and fussed. Smashed pots in front of people. Walked around naked sometimes. Got thrown into jail. He was willing to try anything to get people to pay attention to God’s call to faithfulness.
I: It didn’t work all that well. The Hebrew people were taken as prisoners to Babylon. And Jeremiah went with them.
II: The Hebrews were treated well in Babylon. In many ways, life was better there than it had been back in Israel. There was good food. Nice clothes. Good entertainment.
I: But Jeremiah could sense it. There was a rotten core inside of all that. And the more thoughtful Hebrews were wondering, “how can we sing the Lord’s song in this strange land?”
II: Does that sound familiar? We’ve been enjoying the good life in this country. Most of us here in this church have seen our standard of living go up and up in our lifetime. Even with this economic recession, most of us are doing just fine.
I: But there are thoughtful Jeremiah’s among us too, who are asking, “Can we sing God’s song” in this midst of our affluent lifestyle? Do we need a whole new way of being faithful? Is the economic recession God’s way of calling this to our attention?
II: So this is our passage. It is Jeremiah struggling to speak God’s words to the Hebrews who are living very comfortably in Babylon.
(SLIGHT PAUSE)
I: The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
II: It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt – a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband.
I: But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
II: No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the Lord," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
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Information and Stuff – (Read this section only if you want to know about subscribing, unsubscribing or quoting stuff from Rumors.) It would be nice if you could give Rumors a plug in your bulletin or newsletter. Please invite your friends (and even your enemies) to subscribe. There's no charge: RUMORS is free and it comes to your e-mail box every Sunday morning. Just send your friends the instructions to subscribe [below], and include an invitation to join the list ... perhaps something like this: “There’s a lively and fun newsletter called RUMORS which is available at no cost on the net. It’s for ‘Christians with a sense of humor’.” Please add the instructions to subscribe [below]. If you have a friend you think would enjoy Rumors, and you’d rather not give them the subscribing instructions below, send me an e-mail at ralphmilton@woodlake.com and give me the e-mail address of your friend. If you are using something from Rumors in your sermon, give credit only as appropriate, without stopping the sermon dead in its tracks. I am delighted when Rumors is useful in the life and work of the church. As long as it is within your congregation or parish, you don’t need permission. You are welcome to use the stuff in church bulletins or newsletters. Please say where it came from, and please invite people to subscribe to RUMORS. An appropriate credit line would be; “From Ralph Milton's RUMORS, a free Internet ‘e-zine’ for Christians with a sense of humor." ... and please be sure to include these instructions to subscribe to RUMORS: To Subscribe:* Send an e-mail to: rumors-subscribe@joinhands.com
* Don't put anything else in that e-mail
To Unsubscribe:
* Send an e-mail to: rumors-unsubscribe@joinhands.com
* Don’t put anything else in that e-mail* If you are changing e-mail addresses, and your old address will no longer be in service, you do not need to unsubscribe. The sending computer will try a few times, and then give up..~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Please Write – If you respond, react, think about, freak-out, or otherwise have things happen in your head as a result of reading the above, please send a note to: ralphmilton@woodlake.com
Who knows, I might quote you in a future issue of RUMORS.All material is copyright © Ralph Milton.~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Preaching Materials for March 22nd, 2009
R U M O R S # 544
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2009-03-15
March 15, 2009
AMAZING GRACE
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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 note: You may have Rumors send to your e-mail address every Sunday morning. No charge. Just send me your e-mal address, and I'll add your name to the list. ralphmilton@woodlake.com
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The Stories – 10,000 gerbils
Rumors – thank you
Soft Edges – a flawed premise
Bloopers – outgrown children
We Get Letters – double crosser
Mirabile Dictu! – keep off the grass
Bottom of the Barrel – keep the cow
Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – two for the price of one
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 Eva Stanley of Maple Creek, Saskatchewan.
After the service a young couple asked the minister about joining the church. The minister hadn't met the husband before. “What church are you transferring from?” she asked.
A bemused, slightly pained look came over the young man’s face. “I am transferring from the Municipal Golf Course," he said.
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you may hear in church this coming Sunday, March 22nd, which is the fourth Sunday of Lent, sometimes called “Laetare (rejoice) Sunday because it focuses upon God’s grace.
The Stories – Numbers 21:4-9 and John 3:14-21 – Jim says –
I think I can do more with the Exodus story than the John story – despite John 3:16 being so widely quoted. The serpent-on-a-pole story sounds a bit like “a hair of the dog that bit you” – curing a hangover by having another drink. In this case, to cure the ills caused by poisonous snakes, hold another poisonous snake aloft.
I suppose I’d have to explain that this is the origin of the Caduceus, the symbol of the medical profession – two snakes coiled like DNA around a pole. Moses' use predates the usual attribution to the Greek god Hermes’ staff.
But for me, the main point of this story is not the supernatural healing but the reaction of the Hebrew people. When the going gets tough, the tough don't get going – they turn against their leaders. Moses had saved them from the Egyptian pursuers; he had found them water; he had provided manna; he had even dared argue with God on their behalf. But still they blamed him for their misery.
So I would bring in a newspaper. I would read parts of it aloud, as if I were at the breakfast table – political leaders getting knifed by the voters who elected them, CEOs under fire from disgruntled shareholders, superstars scapegoated for their team’s losses... I doubt if I’ll have a shortage of items.
And I would ask how much we’ve changed, in 3500 years. Who are we scapegoating – in this country, this city, this congregation...?
Ralph says:
The story I’m working with is the Gospel passage, John 3:14-21. That’s the second half of the story of Jesus and Nicodemus. It’s what Jesus says to Nic following the “you must be born again” or “born from above” statement. The passage is incomplete when it’s disconnected from the story in 3:1-13, but that happens on Trinity Sunday and doesn’t include verses 14-21. It’s a story that bears repeating, so I’d suggest we use the whole passage, 3:1-21.
John 3:16 is probably the most widely known single verse in the Bible. I can’t think of it without remembering the poor man who spent his life going to sporting events so he could hold up his John 3:16 sign for the TV cameras. My friend Ian Macdonald, who has a quirky sense of humor, once suggested a variation on this theme. Go to a big sports event and when the folks are all in the bleachers, release 10,000 gerbils with John 3:16 spray-painted on their backs.
When I worked with the National Council of Churches out of New York in the 60s, I had a fellow come into my office looking for funding for his pet project. He wanted to go to Formosa, and release thousands of helium balloons with the gospel of John attached to them. The on-shore winds would take them over Communist China and when the balloons burst, the poor, unsuspecting Chinese would be beaned by a Bible.
The powerful insight in this passage are in the phrases, “God so loved,” and “God gave.” They may well be the core phrases in John’s Gospel, just as “God created” is the key phrase in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
Facing fears
2, 3 All around the world, millions of people will attest –
1 God is good. God will not let you down.
17 Sometimes that is hard to believe.
Hatred robs black South Africans of hope.
The bias of international mass media
makes Palestinians feel despised and rejected;
they hide their faces from us.
Weapons of war maim women and children in Sarajevo.
Poverty pursues refugees from Sri Lanka,
and starvation those from Mozambique.
18 Fear and despair crushes them.
19 But God gives them the strength to continue.
20 God seals the raw wounds in their souls;
God holds them gently in the terrors of their night.
21 They do not doubt God's saving grace.
22 Listen to them! Hear their story.
Hear, and believe, and rejoice.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
Ephesians 2:1-10 – Verses 8 and 9 always get to me. In the world of commerce, the more rare a commodity is – gold, grain, oil, real estate – the more the price goes up. But as always, the Christian Gospel turns that on its head. Nothing is more available, and nothing is more precious, than the gift of God’s amazing grace.
You can find the story, “The Visit of Nicodemus” written for children (but useful also for adults) in “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year B,” page 129. And there’s another take on that story, this time using verses 14-21 as the core, on page 87. The story about the snakes in the wilderness didn’t make the cut. Too bad.
I get a lot of comments from worship leaders saying they read the passage from the Story Bible in the worship service – for the children, yes, but more for the adults – who then understand the NRSV much better when the passage is read to them later in the service.
If you don’t yet have “The Lectionary Story Bible” click the main Wood Lake Publications website at www.woodlakebooks.com, or click on the following address which takes you directly to the “Lectionary Story Bible.”
http://tinyurl.com/2lonod
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Rumors – I thought it was a bit of heartburn. I headed for the bathroom medicine cabinet and popped a few antacid tablets. Then I began to feel a bit dizzy with a strange warmth around my neck.
The next thing I knew I was lying on the floor, my head on the bathroom scale (No, I didn’t check to see how much it weighed!) and I was looking up at Bev who was talking to the 911 dispatcher.
Two days later, as I walked toward the elevator from the hospital cardiac unit, the duty nurse walked with me. She gave me a big hug and wished me well. And I thanked her for her tender care, as I had thanked all the other generous care-givers in the hospital.
You don’t want to hear all the details of what happened in that interval. The angiogram is not a painful process, but also not my first choice of recreational activities. I want to share the sense of profound gratitude for the grace and care that I experienced.
Throughout it all, there was Bev, still caring for and loving the geezer she’s been married to for half a century. And family. And friends.
And people in the hospital. The hospital is understaffed, underfunded, and short of space. I spent the first night in the corridor. But the people themselves – the nurses, doctors, and other staff – are kind, caring and gentle.
I am also profoundly grateful to a Baptist minister named Tommy Douglas who entered politics so he could bring about a universal medical care system in Canada. At no point did Bev and I need to worry about whether we could afford an air-ambulance ride to Vancouver for a by-pass operation. Or whether our medical plan would cover the angiogram. Or the multiple blood tests. Or two nights in hospital.
Our national health plan suffers from the neglect of governments who are more interested in roads than in public health – more concerned about the 2010 Olympics than about the education of our children.
But the system itself works. It does not need replacing. It is so very much superior to the profit-based system which I encountered in the US when I fell on my face in January. For that I am profoundly grateful, (for the medical system, not for mashing my nose) and for which I thanked God many times during those two days of lying in bed waiting for another test or procedure.
So yes, I had a small heart-attack a week ago last Thursday. Emphasis on small. The arteries are all clear, with a tiny bit of gunk in a couple of places. And I have a bruise on my groin the size of a dinner place because they had a hard time getting the bleeding to stop after the angiogram. But the cardiologist said, “You have a healthy heart. Now we just need to make sure you don’t have a more serious event.”
That healthy heart is full of joy and gratitude. For family, friends and medical care givers. For a faith in God who stands by our side and holds our hands through all of life, but especially in times like this.
I’m also thankful for you.
Yes you.
Individually and collectively.
Because some 7,735 of you receive Rumors and do me the honor of reading my words. So I have the graceful gift of a vocation.
“By amazing grace I have been saved through faith, and this is not my own doing. It is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8)
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
A Flawed Premise
A few weeks ago, I wrote a column about the rise of evangelical atheism.
If I understand them correctly, these atheists claim that we don’t need God to be moral. We humans are intelligent enough to recognize the difference between good and bad, kindness and cruelty, altruism and selfishness...
I argued that we do not naturally know that one is better than the other. Small children don’t, for example. They’re as likely to resolve disagreements by swatting a playmate with a two-by-four as by cooperating.
And if we really all believed instinctively that peace is preferable to war, would we still have so many wars?
I contend that we only consider one set of behaviours better than another because we have been taught to value mercy, compassion, and forgiveness. By our religious tradition. Which believes that those values were inspired by a merciful, compassionate, and forgiving God.
While world religions differ in many respects, they all (more or less) espouse those values.
I got a pile of mail in response. Without exception, those who disagreed visualized God as a harsh judge, an austere tyrant who punished wrongdoers. In their view, God is a big stick, a means of terrifying people into being good to avoid eternal punishment. Which hardly makes goodness a voluntary choice.
So let me respond – I do not believe in that kind of God. I do not believe that God punishes us, any more than gravity selectively punishes people foolish enough to step off a cliff. People make mistakes; mistakes have consequences. You don’t need a God to impose those consequences as punishment for their actions.
If organized religion – be it Christianity, Islam, or Judaism – has portrayed a God who forces us to do good by threatening us with punishment, as the atheists attest, then religion has indeed done us a massive disservice.
But I won’t condemn religion. Perhaps, during what historians call the Dark Ages, during other periods of ignorance and bigotry, the threat of eternal damnation may have been the only way to impose morality. Or it may simply have reflected a culture that functioned that way.
But that’s not the only portrayal of God.
Christianity claims that God was fully revealed in an individual, Jesus of Nazareth. When I read the gospels, I find not one instance of Jesus imposing punishment. He got angry. He voiced harsh criticisms. But when his disciples urged him to rain fire on an inhospitable village, he refused.
He even forgave those who put him to death.
Such a Jesus seems to me to be incompatible with the atheists’ image of a God who zaps sinners with thunderbolts or consigns them to endless torment.
In the churches that I know, the common theme is that God is love. God’s love is like the foundation of a house, the solid underpinning that supports all the rest of the structure, regardless of its unique shape.
I don’t object to people arguing that God is unnecessary. That’s their option. I do object to people arguing that God is unnecessary because they know only a distorted idea of God.
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Clyde Griffith of Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, writes: “So, the sign in front of the church said: ‘Outgrown Children's Exchange Saturday.’
“And I got to thinking . . . .”
From the file:
* The bishop will preach here next Sunday and his wife will open our annual garden fête on the following Sunday. On both occasions I hope to be away on holiday.
* The vicar wishes it to be known that since the flock is quite scattered in many parts of the city, it will be some time before he can visit them all. This will no doubt be appreciated by them.
If you’ve spotted any good bloopers in your church bulletin or newsletter, or anywhere else for that matter, please send them to me. ralphmilton@woodlake.com
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Wish I’d Said That! – 'If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.'
Mark Twain via John Severson
A good sermon leaves you wondering how the preacher knew all about you.
a church sign board, via Ken Powell
How come the waiter gets 15% and God only gets 10% (if that)?
a cartoon, via Jim Spinks
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We Get Letters – Neil McRae sends along a Peanuts cartoon in which Charlie Brown is lying in bed. He tells Snoopy, who is on the bed with him, “Sometimes I wonder, if I had my life to live over again, what would I do. Then a voice comes to me and says, ‘Boy, now there’s an original thought.’”
Tammy Rider of Rochester, Minnesota writes: “My Mom phoned, saying that she was wearing two of her favorite crosses to church this morning. “Does this make me a double-crosser?” she asked.
“Probably,” I said. “Have you taken a bath?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” I said. “Because otherwise you’d be a dirty double-crosser!”
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “Keep off the grass!”)
This cruel and unusual punishment courtesy Theo Reiner in Calgary.
* The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.
* He acquired his size from too much pi.
* A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.
* The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.
* No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.
* Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.
* Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
* Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
* Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other, “You stay here; I'll go on a head.”
* A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center: 'Keep off the Grass.'
* A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
* The man who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.
* When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.
* Don't join dangerous cults. Practice safe sects!
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Bottom of the Barrel – This came from Jane Ho and Stephani Keer. A ninety-eight year-old Mother Superior from Ireland was dying, so the nuns gathered around her bed, trying to make her last journey comfortable.
They gave her some warm milk to drink, but she refused. Finally, one of the nuns took the glass back to the kitchen. Remembering a bottle of Irish whiskey received as a gift the previous Christmas, she opened the bottle, and poured a generous amount into the warm milk.
Back at Mother Superior's bed, she held the glass to her lips. Mother drank a little, then a little more, and before they knew it, she had drunk the whole glass down to the last drop.
"Mother Superior," the nuns asked with great earnestness. "Please give us some wisdom before you die."
She raised herself up in bed and with a pious look on her face, said, "Don't sell that cow!"
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Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – Note: You are welcome to tweak, change, alter, fix or do anything else to these Reader’s Theatre offerings – whatever you need to do to suit your congregation and/or your theology. And there’s no need to explain or give credit or do anything else that interrupts the flow of the service.
Numbers 21:4-9
John 3:14-21
Reader I: I got a giggle out of the scripture passages today.
Reader II: Which one?
I: The one from the Hebrew Scriptures, where the people start yelling at Moses. “We have nothing to eat! And we hate the food!”
II: Yeah! And in the same passage, people are bitten by snakes, and then they are cured of snake bite by looking at an image of a snake.
I: We get to read two passages today, right? I mean, we should, because there are pretty good stories in both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures.
II: The first story is from the book of Numbers.
I: Why is it called “Numbers?”
II: (SLIGHTLY ANNOYED) I have no idea, and it doesn’t matter.
I: Sorry.
II: Do you remember the story of the Hebrew people being saved from Egypt? All that business about the plagues and crossing the Red Sea. Well, now they are out in the wilderness and the troubles start. So they send a committee to go and yell at Moses.
II: You start.
I: OK. (SLIGHT PAUSE) From Mount Hor they set out by way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. They spoke against God and against Moses.
II: "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water. And we detest this miserable food."
I: Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. Then the people came to Moses again.
II: "We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us."
I: So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord spoke to Moses.
II: "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live."
I: So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.
(SLIGHT PAUSE)
II: The passage from the Christian Scriptures refers back to the story of Moses and the snakes. I guess that means the early Christians read the Old Testament.
I: That was their Bible. They didn’t have any of their own scriptures at first.
II: This passage from John also has the most famous words of the whole Bible. John 3:16. “God so loved the world. Loved enough to give an only child. And whoever believed in that child of God would have eternal life.”
I: Hey, remember that guy who used to go to all the sports events, and flash a big sign for the TV cameras that said “John 3:16” on it? I guess he thought God wanted him to do that.
II: This passage from John is the second half of a larger story. It’s about a big-time lawyer who goes to visit Jesus. Nicodemus. He sneaks in there late and night because being seen with Jesus – a wild preacher from the boonies – well, it wouldn’t have been good for his reputation.
I: And Jesus tells him, “Nic, you’ve got to change your whole way of thinking. You can’t just tweak the software a little. You’ve got to install a whole new operating system, and then reboot.”
II: “Born again,” is the phrase Jesus used. Or “born from above.”
I: And then Jesus goes on to explain to Nicodemus just exactly what he is talking about. So here’s the passage from the Gospel of John. The whole thing is Jesus talking to the lawyer.
(SLIGHT PAUSE)
II: Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. (READER II MIGHT HOLD UP A FINGER OR POINT OR DO SOMETHING TO CALL ATTENTION TO THIS NEXT VERSE.)
I: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
II: "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
I: Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
II: And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.
I: But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God."
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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
2009-03-15
March 15, 2009
AMAZING GRACE
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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 note: You may have Rumors send to your e-mail address every Sunday morning. No charge. Just send me your e-mal address, and I'll add your name to the list. ralphmilton@woodlake.com
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The Stories – 10,000 gerbils
Rumors – thank you
Soft Edges – a flawed premise
Bloopers – outgrown children
We Get Letters – double crosser
Mirabile Dictu! – keep off the grass
Bottom of the Barrel – keep the cow
Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – two for the price of one
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 Eva Stanley of Maple Creek, Saskatchewan.
After the service a young couple asked the minister about joining the church. The minister hadn't met the husband before. “What church are you transferring from?” she asked.
A bemused, slightly pained look came over the young man’s face. “I am transferring from the Municipal Golf Course," he said.
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you may hear in church this coming Sunday, March 22nd, which is the fourth Sunday of Lent, sometimes called “Laetare (rejoice) Sunday because it focuses upon God’s grace.
The Stories – Numbers 21:4-9 and John 3:14-21 – Jim says –
I think I can do more with the Exodus story than the John story – despite John 3:16 being so widely quoted. The serpent-on-a-pole story sounds a bit like “a hair of the dog that bit you” – curing a hangover by having another drink. In this case, to cure the ills caused by poisonous snakes, hold another poisonous snake aloft.
I suppose I’d have to explain that this is the origin of the Caduceus, the symbol of the medical profession – two snakes coiled like DNA around a pole. Moses' use predates the usual attribution to the Greek god Hermes’ staff.
But for me, the main point of this story is not the supernatural healing but the reaction of the Hebrew people. When the going gets tough, the tough don't get going – they turn against their leaders. Moses had saved them from the Egyptian pursuers; he had found them water; he had provided manna; he had even dared argue with God on their behalf. But still they blamed him for their misery.
So I would bring in a newspaper. I would read parts of it aloud, as if I were at the breakfast table – political leaders getting knifed by the voters who elected them, CEOs under fire from disgruntled shareholders, superstars scapegoated for their team’s losses... I doubt if I’ll have a shortage of items.
And I would ask how much we’ve changed, in 3500 years. Who are we scapegoating – in this country, this city, this congregation...?
Ralph says:
The story I’m working with is the Gospel passage, John 3:14-21. That’s the second half of the story of Jesus and Nicodemus. It’s what Jesus says to Nic following the “you must be born again” or “born from above” statement. The passage is incomplete when it’s disconnected from the story in 3:1-13, but that happens on Trinity Sunday and doesn’t include verses 14-21. It’s a story that bears repeating, so I’d suggest we use the whole passage, 3:1-21.
John 3:16 is probably the most widely known single verse in the Bible. I can’t think of it without remembering the poor man who spent his life going to sporting events so he could hold up his John 3:16 sign for the TV cameras. My friend Ian Macdonald, who has a quirky sense of humor, once suggested a variation on this theme. Go to a big sports event and when the folks are all in the bleachers, release 10,000 gerbils with John 3:16 spray-painted on their backs.
When I worked with the National Council of Churches out of New York in the 60s, I had a fellow come into my office looking for funding for his pet project. He wanted to go to Formosa, and release thousands of helium balloons with the gospel of John attached to them. The on-shore winds would take them over Communist China and when the balloons burst, the poor, unsuspecting Chinese would be beaned by a Bible.
The powerful insight in this passage are in the phrases, “God so loved,” and “God gave.” They may well be the core phrases in John’s Gospel, just as “God created” is the key phrase in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
Facing fears
2, 3 All around the world, millions of people will attest –
1 God is good. God will not let you down.
17 Sometimes that is hard to believe.
Hatred robs black South Africans of hope.
The bias of international mass media
makes Palestinians feel despised and rejected;
they hide their faces from us.
Weapons of war maim women and children in Sarajevo.
Poverty pursues refugees from Sri Lanka,
and starvation those from Mozambique.
18 Fear and despair crushes them.
19 But God gives them the strength to continue.
20 God seals the raw wounds in their souls;
God holds them gently in the terrors of their night.
21 They do not doubt God's saving grace.
22 Listen to them! Hear their story.
Hear, and believe, and rejoice.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
Ephesians 2:1-10 – Verses 8 and 9 always get to me. In the world of commerce, the more rare a commodity is – gold, grain, oil, real estate – the more the price goes up. But as always, the Christian Gospel turns that on its head. Nothing is more available, and nothing is more precious, than the gift of God’s amazing grace.
You can find the story, “The Visit of Nicodemus” written for children (but useful also for adults) in “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year B,” page 129. And there’s another take on that story, this time using verses 14-21 as the core, on page 87. The story about the snakes in the wilderness didn’t make the cut. Too bad.
I get a lot of comments from worship leaders saying they read the passage from the Story Bible in the worship service – for the children, yes, but more for the adults – who then understand the NRSV much better when the passage is read to them later in the service.
If you don’t yet have “The Lectionary Story Bible” click the main Wood Lake Publications website at www.woodlakebooks.com, or click on the following address which takes you directly to the “Lectionary Story Bible.”
http://tinyurl.com/2lonod
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Rumors – I thought it was a bit of heartburn. I headed for the bathroom medicine cabinet and popped a few antacid tablets. Then I began to feel a bit dizzy with a strange warmth around my neck.
The next thing I knew I was lying on the floor, my head on the bathroom scale (No, I didn’t check to see how much it weighed!) and I was looking up at Bev who was talking to the 911 dispatcher.
Two days later, as I walked toward the elevator from the hospital cardiac unit, the duty nurse walked with me. She gave me a big hug and wished me well. And I thanked her for her tender care, as I had thanked all the other generous care-givers in the hospital.
You don’t want to hear all the details of what happened in that interval. The angiogram is not a painful process, but also not my first choice of recreational activities. I want to share the sense of profound gratitude for the grace and care that I experienced.
Throughout it all, there was Bev, still caring for and loving the geezer she’s been married to for half a century. And family. And friends.
And people in the hospital. The hospital is understaffed, underfunded, and short of space. I spent the first night in the corridor. But the people themselves – the nurses, doctors, and other staff – are kind, caring and gentle.
I am also profoundly grateful to a Baptist minister named Tommy Douglas who entered politics so he could bring about a universal medical care system in Canada. At no point did Bev and I need to worry about whether we could afford an air-ambulance ride to Vancouver for a by-pass operation. Or whether our medical plan would cover the angiogram. Or the multiple blood tests. Or two nights in hospital.
Our national health plan suffers from the neglect of governments who are more interested in roads than in public health – more concerned about the 2010 Olympics than about the education of our children.
But the system itself works. It does not need replacing. It is so very much superior to the profit-based system which I encountered in the US when I fell on my face in January. For that I am profoundly grateful, (for the medical system, not for mashing my nose) and for which I thanked God many times during those two days of lying in bed waiting for another test or procedure.
So yes, I had a small heart-attack a week ago last Thursday. Emphasis on small. The arteries are all clear, with a tiny bit of gunk in a couple of places. And I have a bruise on my groin the size of a dinner place because they had a hard time getting the bleeding to stop after the angiogram. But the cardiologist said, “You have a healthy heart. Now we just need to make sure you don’t have a more serious event.”
That healthy heart is full of joy and gratitude. For family, friends and medical care givers. For a faith in God who stands by our side and holds our hands through all of life, but especially in times like this.
I’m also thankful for you.
Yes you.
Individually and collectively.
Because some 7,735 of you receive Rumors and do me the honor of reading my words. So I have the graceful gift of a vocation.
“By amazing grace I have been saved through faith, and this is not my own doing. It is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8)
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
A Flawed Premise
A few weeks ago, I wrote a column about the rise of evangelical atheism.
If I understand them correctly, these atheists claim that we don’t need God to be moral. We humans are intelligent enough to recognize the difference between good and bad, kindness and cruelty, altruism and selfishness...
I argued that we do not naturally know that one is better than the other. Small children don’t, for example. They’re as likely to resolve disagreements by swatting a playmate with a two-by-four as by cooperating.
And if we really all believed instinctively that peace is preferable to war, would we still have so many wars?
I contend that we only consider one set of behaviours better than another because we have been taught to value mercy, compassion, and forgiveness. By our religious tradition. Which believes that those values were inspired by a merciful, compassionate, and forgiving God.
While world religions differ in many respects, they all (more or less) espouse those values.
I got a pile of mail in response. Without exception, those who disagreed visualized God as a harsh judge, an austere tyrant who punished wrongdoers. In their view, God is a big stick, a means of terrifying people into being good to avoid eternal punishment. Which hardly makes goodness a voluntary choice.
So let me respond – I do not believe in that kind of God. I do not believe that God punishes us, any more than gravity selectively punishes people foolish enough to step off a cliff. People make mistakes; mistakes have consequences. You don’t need a God to impose those consequences as punishment for their actions.
If organized religion – be it Christianity, Islam, or Judaism – has portrayed a God who forces us to do good by threatening us with punishment, as the atheists attest, then religion has indeed done us a massive disservice.
But I won’t condemn religion. Perhaps, during what historians call the Dark Ages, during other periods of ignorance and bigotry, the threat of eternal damnation may have been the only way to impose morality. Or it may simply have reflected a culture that functioned that way.
But that’s not the only portrayal of God.
Christianity claims that God was fully revealed in an individual, Jesus of Nazareth. When I read the gospels, I find not one instance of Jesus imposing punishment. He got angry. He voiced harsh criticisms. But when his disciples urged him to rain fire on an inhospitable village, he refused.
He even forgave those who put him to death.
Such a Jesus seems to me to be incompatible with the atheists’ image of a God who zaps sinners with thunderbolts or consigns them to endless torment.
In the churches that I know, the common theme is that God is love. God’s love is like the foundation of a house, the solid underpinning that supports all the rest of the structure, regardless of its unique shape.
I don’t object to people arguing that God is unnecessary. That’s their option. I do object to people arguing that God is unnecessary because they know only a distorted idea of God.
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Clyde Griffith of Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, writes: “So, the sign in front of the church said: ‘Outgrown Children's Exchange Saturday.’
“And I got to thinking . . . .”
From the file:
* The bishop will preach here next Sunday and his wife will open our annual garden fête on the following Sunday. On both occasions I hope to be away on holiday.
* The vicar wishes it to be known that since the flock is quite scattered in many parts of the city, it will be some time before he can visit them all. This will no doubt be appreciated by them.
If you’ve spotted any good bloopers in your church bulletin or newsletter, or anywhere else for that matter, please send them to me. ralphmilton@woodlake.com
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Wish I’d Said That! – 'If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.'
Mark Twain via John Severson
A good sermon leaves you wondering how the preacher knew all about you.
a church sign board, via Ken Powell
How come the waiter gets 15% and God only gets 10% (if that)?
a cartoon, via Jim Spinks
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We Get Letters – Neil McRae sends along a Peanuts cartoon in which Charlie Brown is lying in bed. He tells Snoopy, who is on the bed with him, “Sometimes I wonder, if I had my life to live over again, what would I do. Then a voice comes to me and says, ‘Boy, now there’s an original thought.’”
Tammy Rider of Rochester, Minnesota writes: “My Mom phoned, saying that she was wearing two of her favorite crosses to church this morning. “Does this make me a double-crosser?” she asked.
“Probably,” I said. “Have you taken a bath?”
“Yes.”
“Good,” I said. “Because otherwise you’d be a dirty double-crosser!”
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “Keep off the grass!”)
This cruel and unusual punishment courtesy Theo Reiner in Calgary.
* The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.
* He acquired his size from too much pi.
* A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption.
* The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.
* No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery.
* Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.
* Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
* Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
* Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other, “You stay here; I'll go on a head.”
* A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center: 'Keep off the Grass.'
* A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
* The man who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran.
* When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion.
* Don't join dangerous cults. Practice safe sects!
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Bottom of the Barrel – This came from Jane Ho and Stephani Keer. A ninety-eight year-old Mother Superior from Ireland was dying, so the nuns gathered around her bed, trying to make her last journey comfortable.
They gave her some warm milk to drink, but she refused. Finally, one of the nuns took the glass back to the kitchen. Remembering a bottle of Irish whiskey received as a gift the previous Christmas, she opened the bottle, and poured a generous amount into the warm milk.
Back at Mother Superior's bed, she held the glass to her lips. Mother drank a little, then a little more, and before they knew it, she had drunk the whole glass down to the last drop.
"Mother Superior," the nuns asked with great earnestness. "Please give us some wisdom before you die."
She raised herself up in bed and with a pious look on her face, said, "Don't sell that cow!"
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Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – Note: You are welcome to tweak, change, alter, fix or do anything else to these Reader’s Theatre offerings – whatever you need to do to suit your congregation and/or your theology. And there’s no need to explain or give credit or do anything else that interrupts the flow of the service.
Numbers 21:4-9
John 3:14-21
Reader I: I got a giggle out of the scripture passages today.
Reader II: Which one?
I: The one from the Hebrew Scriptures, where the people start yelling at Moses. “We have nothing to eat! And we hate the food!”
II: Yeah! And in the same passage, people are bitten by snakes, and then they are cured of snake bite by looking at an image of a snake.
I: We get to read two passages today, right? I mean, we should, because there are pretty good stories in both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Scriptures.
II: The first story is from the book of Numbers.
I: Why is it called “Numbers?”
II: (SLIGHTLY ANNOYED) I have no idea, and it doesn’t matter.
I: Sorry.
II: Do you remember the story of the Hebrew people being saved from Egypt? All that business about the plagues and crossing the Red Sea. Well, now they are out in the wilderness and the troubles start. So they send a committee to go and yell at Moses.
II: You start.
I: OK. (SLIGHT PAUSE) From Mount Hor they set out by way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. They spoke against God and against Moses.
II: "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water. And we detest this miserable food."
I: Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. Then the people came to Moses again.
II: "We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us."
I: So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord spoke to Moses.
II: "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live."
I: So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.
(SLIGHT PAUSE)
II: The passage from the Christian Scriptures refers back to the story of Moses and the snakes. I guess that means the early Christians read the Old Testament.
I: That was their Bible. They didn’t have any of their own scriptures at first.
II: This passage from John also has the most famous words of the whole Bible. John 3:16. “God so loved the world. Loved enough to give an only child. And whoever believed in that child of God would have eternal life.”
I: Hey, remember that guy who used to go to all the sports events, and flash a big sign for the TV cameras that said “John 3:16” on it? I guess he thought God wanted him to do that.
II: This passage from John is the second half of a larger story. It’s about a big-time lawyer who goes to visit Jesus. Nicodemus. He sneaks in there late and night because being seen with Jesus – a wild preacher from the boonies – well, it wouldn’t have been good for his reputation.
I: And Jesus tells him, “Nic, you’ve got to change your whole way of thinking. You can’t just tweak the software a little. You’ve got to install a whole new operating system, and then reboot.”
II: “Born again,” is the phrase Jesus used. Or “born from above.”
I: And then Jesus goes on to explain to Nicodemus just exactly what he is talking about. So here’s the passage from the Gospel of John. The whole thing is Jesus talking to the lawyer.
(SLIGHT PAUSE)
II: Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. (READER II MIGHT HOLD UP A FINGER OR POINT OR DO SOMETHING TO CALL ATTENTION TO THIS NEXT VERSE.)
I: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
II: "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
I: Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
II: And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.
I: But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God."
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Information and Stuff – (Read this section only if you want to know about subscribing, unsubscribing or quoting stuff from Rumors.) It would be nice if you could give Rumors a plug in your bulletin or newsletter. Please invite your friends (and even your enemies) to subscribe. There's no charge: RUMORS is free and it comes to your e-mail box every Sunday morning. Just send your friends the instructions to subscribe [below], and include an invitation to join the list ... perhaps something like this: “There’s a lively and fun newsletter called RUMORS which is available at no cost on the net. It’s for ‘Christians with a sense of humor’.” Please add the instructions to subscribe [below]. If you have a friend you think would enjoy Rumors, and you’d rather not give them the subscribing instructions below, send me an e-mail at ralphmilton@woodlake.com and give me the e-mail address of your friend. If you are using something from Rumors in your sermon, give credit only as appropriate, without stopping the sermon dead in its tracks. I am delighted when Rumors is useful in the life and work of the church. As long as it is within your congregation or parish, you don’t need permission. You are welcome to use the stuff in church bulletins or newsletters. Please say where it came from, and please invite people to subscribe to RUMORS. An appropriate credit line would be; “From Ralph Milton's RUMORS, a free Internet ‘e-zine’ for Christians with a sense of humor." ... and please be sure to include these instructions to subscribe to RUMORS: To Subscribe:* Send an e-mail to: rumors-subscribe@joinhands.com
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* Don’t put anything else in that e-mail* If you are changing e-mail addresses, and your old address will no longer be in service, you do not need to unsubscribe. The sending computer will try a few times, and then give up..~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Please Write – If you respond, react, think about, freak-out, or otherwise have things happen in your head as a result of reading the above, please send a note to: ralphmilton@woodlake.com
Who knows, I might quote you in a future issue of RUMORS.All material is copyright © Ralph Milton.~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Preaching Materials for March 15, 2009
R U M O R S # 543
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2009-03-08
March 8th, 2009
MURPHY’S LECTIONARY LAW
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Motto:
"A merry heart doeth good, like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones." (Proverbs 17:22 KJV)
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IMPORTANT: I really appreciate your notes, and Rumors is the richer for them. To protect me from viruses, please be sure that you put something on the "subject" line that lets me know that you are legit. For instance, the word "Rumors" works. And please give us your name and where you’re from. Folks like to know. Thanks.
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The Story – even if we cower in the corner
Rumors – we didn’t go up the mountain
Soft Edges – thinking like a duck
Bloopers – message inside
We Get Letters – a slough (slow) slough (slew)
Mirabile Dictu! – a sign of bad memory
Bottom of the Barrel – too cold and wet
Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – the ten thing-a-mes
Stuff – (read this only if you would like to subscribe, unsubscribe or are wondering about permissions. That sort of boring stuff.)
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Rib Tickler – The pastor was talking to the children during their time in the worship service. “Where can we find the Ten Commandments?” the pastor asked.
There was a pause. Then a nine-year-old responded. “In the Yellow Pages!”
“Well, yes,” said the quick-thinking pastor. “I wonder if those pages in the Bible turned yellow because nobody’s used them for such a long time.”
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you may hear in church this coming Sunday, March 15th, which is the Third Sunday in Lent.
The Story (from the Revised Common Lectionary) Exodus 20:1-17
Jim says –
If I got started on the Ten Commandments, it’s likely to turn into a rant about fundamentalists who believe that engraving the Ten Commandments on everything from coffee cups to court houses will somehow straighten out drug dealers, pedophiles, gays, serial killers, porno flicks, and embezzlers. So I would rather go with John’s story of Jesus in the Temple. The clearing of the Temple is a great story – provided we don’t turn it into an allegory about the Resurrection. That interpretation obviously came later.
What we need to imagine is the disciples’ reaction when they see their leader lose his temper. They’ve gone to the Temple, expecting an act of piety. And Jesus blows his cool. Everything they’ve taken for granted – the money changers, the sacrifice pushers, the innocent victims – he treats as desecration of a holy place. Jesus starts kicking over tables, smashing cages, yelling, screaming...
Bluntly put, Jesus has a temper tantrum.
I know how my congregation would react if I started smashing chalices, breaking candelabra, dumping the font, overturning the communion table, and hurling synthetic flowers at their heads. They’d be in shock.
So, I’m sure, were the disciples. First they’d try to calm Jesus. Then they’d try to restrain him. Finally, as cattle and merchants stampede for the exit, they'd cower in the corners, expecting an Air Force attack helicopter to start firing missiles.
The chaos probably resembled Wall Street after the Dow-Jones takes another 500-point beating. That's probably another place that would have infuriated Jesus.
And I would say that as followers of Jesus, we are not called to defend the status quo. It is not enough to comfort the afflicted. We’re also called to afflict the comfortable – to kick tables and butts, to free doves and prisoners, to dump ill-gotten gains and outdated dogmas...
Even if it makes some people cower in the corners.
Ralph says –
It must be a variation of Murphy’s Law. When we have a good story-telling lection in the Hebrew Scriptures, we also have one in the Christian Scriptures. When we have nothing much in the way of a story in one, we find the same thing in the other.
I tend to go with the Hebrew Scriptures because they have a kind of earthy power to them. And because people know about the Ten Commandments.
They may have no idea what those commandments say. But they’ve heard there is such a thing and that they are important.
I remember being told by a young man that he obeyed the Ten Commandments. But he couldn’t name one. Many people would summarize them as, “Be nice and don’t get into trouble with the law.”
Many church members know the ones about adultery and murder. But they don’t know that at the top of the list is the core commandment. “You shall have no other gods before me.”
So here’s a story we could work on. The year is 3,500. 15 hundred years into the future. Archeologists are digging down through the dust of a volcano that erupted very suddenly and buried our area in dust. The archeologists discover our church, right here, and all of us sitting in neat rows just as we are now. Nicely petrified.
Archeologists know that the things we keep on or near our bodies are the ones most important to us. In fact, it’s those things which will tell people, 15 hundred years from now, what we really believe.
So what do the archeologists find?
I’d go through my wallet, while inviting them to go through theirs. Or at least think about what’s in their wallets and purses.
Credit cards. Health care cards. Driver’s License. Money.
Then I would read them the précis of the academic paper the archeologists would publish, titled, “Religious Beliefs and Practices of Early Canadians.”
Psalm 19 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
Feeling Anger
1 Quarks and electrons, crystals and cells;
stems and trunks and limbs and bodies –
2 on the land, in the water, in the air –
the elements of the universe wait to expand our understanding.
3 Rocks have no words, nor do cells have syllables,
4 yet their message can be read anywhere.
Even the fiery stars,
5 racing at unimaginable speeds through space,
6 yield their secrets to those willing to probe the limits of God's universe.
7 And what do they find?
An underlying harmony, a delicate equilibrium
built on the value of every thing,
living or inanimate, past, present, and future.
8 There are no exceptions.
No one is above the law of interdependence.
9 Life dies and becomes new life;
spirit and flesh are one.
My fate is inextricably linked to yours,
and our fate to the trees and insects.
10 This is the beginning of wisdom.
It is better than wealth, more valuable than possessions.
11 Awareness of it will change you forever.
12 But we are too often blind;
we close our ears to the voices of the winds and the waves,
to the insights of the rocks and the plants.
13 God, keep us from thinking we know it all;
human minds cannot encompass eternity;
an assembly of facts does not equal truth.
14 Keep us always open to wonder, to beauty, to mystery,
O greatest of mysteries.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
1 Corinthians 1:18-25 – We’ve got to watch how we use words. I love this passage, because it speaks to me of another way of knowing. Not better than the way of logic – of science. Different. And it is a truth that comes to us – not instead of or as a replacement for – but in addition to the truth we find through disciplined investigation.
It’s easy to read this passage as a broadside against academia, but I don’t think that was the intention. Paul was no academic slouch himself. But he realized that the truths which give our lives meaning, purpose, joy, fulfillment, are those that come to us through story, song, poetry, beauty.
“Worship God in the beauty of holiness,” says the psalmist. And in this passage Paul adds, “Worship God in the holiness of beauty.”
John 2:13-22 – The writer of John puts the story right at the beginning of the Jesus saga. That doesn’t tell us much about the chronology of events in Jesus’ life. It tells us instead that the confrontation in the temple defined the relationship between Jesus and the authorities. Now we know who’s on which side.
The temple cleansing story shows what happens when a business model infects the church. The people who come are thought of as customers from whom you gain as much wealth as the traffic will bear. Prices and practices are based on how much people will pay. Church policy is based on what will bring in the largest number of people and generate the highest givings.
In that kind of practice, those who make the policy and those who give in to it are both complicit.
“The Ten Commandments” story, in a children’s version, is in “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year B,” page 84. Within that story is a simplified version of the commandments that might be helpful to an adult audience as well.
There’s also a cleansing of the temple story based on John’s telling. It’s on page 86.
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 – We Didn't Go Up the Mountain.
There were three of us, all with the same ailment. Knees that hurt, and could not have handled the hike up to the top of Mt. Sinai. The rest of our study group went with our instructor to the top, where they would talk about Moses, live themselves into that theophany, and take the time to pray and thank God for the gift of law.
This was a graduate course on biblical archaeology through an American university.
The three of us waited down below, a Lutheran professor, a Roman Catholic nun and me. And we felt a bit of anger at our knees for failing us, when we wanted so much to go up that mountain to remember Moses and the Ten Commandments.
The ugly bulk of St. Catherine's Monastery hunkered down just below us. Just above, the caves of countless generations of monks who came to pray their lives out in this desolation. "Why?" I wondered. "Why would anyone want to do such a thing? I couldn't imagine spending a night in such a place, much less half a lifetime."
"There must have been a call," said the nun.
"Tell me about 'call'," I asked. "Protestants don't know much about that."
I was wrong. The Lutheran professor did. He had a deep, powerful sense that God called him to a vocation of teaching, of drawing creativity into the lives of students. And the nun too, but her call was to be a really good administrator at her convent.
"If you really stop and listen," said the nun, "God tells you. Go. Do. It's not very complicated."
"I can just imagine Moses, sitting right here on this rock," said the professor. "Somewhere over there is the noisy Hebrew camp. Probably just a few dozen folk, if truth were known. Like that family of Bedouins we saw just down the road. But Moses has had it with their bellyaching and pettiness, and comes out here to think. This would be a great place to think."
We stopped talking for a while and listened to the sound of silence.
I looked up toward the mountain where our group by now would be, and I went there with them in my imagination. And there, I heard the holy voice of God speaking deeply to the human heart of Moses. "There really is only one source of love and power in this world, Moses. That's the hardest thing there is to learn. I am your God. I will lead you out of slavery to the gods of war and wealth. I will lead you into life in all its fullness."
The shadows gathered round the Moses mountain and our group came straggling down the slopes. They walked in silence.
Clyde, a youthful seminarian came to me and placed a small red rock into my hand. "I brought this down for you," he said. "I'm sorry you couldn't come."
"Thanks," I said. "How was it?"
His eyes filled with tears. "It's just another mountain," he said. "But you know, the stones up top are worn smooth by the knees of people praying there. And I really could hear God talk to me up there. I didn't hear words. But I knew, with everything I was, that God was the source of power and love, and that I was being called into that ministry."
"I know," I said. "I could hear it all the way down here. I'll keep this stone to remind me."
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Thinking Like a Duck
A vicious north wind came howling down the valley the other day. First it created a froth of whitecaps out on the lake. Then the waves evened out into long swells racing southwards until they smashed onto the shore in a welter of foam.
But I noticed, as I strolled onto the shore trying to keep just out of range of the flying spray, that spring must be just around the corner. The ducks had gathered in big flocks, 40 or 50 at a time, starting the annual pairing ritual that eventually produces a lot of little ducks.
They bobbed up and down in the water, just beyond the point where incoming waves crested and crashed.
And I wondered why ducks don’t get seasick.
I would, if I went up and down like that.
Of course, I don’t cope well with rough seas. Back in the days when steamships shuttled across the Atlantic, I’ve spent most of a voyage draped over the ship’s lee rail. I don’t know why people commonly describe this affliction as not having a “strong stomach” – I can hurl breakfast as far as anyone!
But I realize, even as I ponder ducks’ imperviousness to mal de mer, that I’m guilty of “anthropomorphism” – attributing human characteristics to animals, plants, objects, natural forces, symbols, or abstract ideas. "Anthropomorphism" comes from two Greek words: anthropos, meaning human, and morphe, meaning shape or form.
Anthropomorphism probably reaches its extreme in films like Bambi and The Lion King, where wild creatures think, feel, and act as if they were humans.
Which doesn’t imply, by the way, that animals can’t really think or feel. I’m sure they do. Dogs feel abandoned when their owners leave them behind. Cows certainly feel fear when they’re herded towards a slaughterhouse.
But we shouldn’t expect animals to reflect our reasoning processes. A macaw may have the intelligence of a five- or six-year-old child – a macaw can learn to spell words, for example – but it can never share human experience, any more than we can share a parrot’s experience.
Very few humans – aside from airplane pilots – think intuitively in three dimensions. We are earth-bound creatures. We deal with length and width, but not with up and down. Even in our tallest buildings, the floors we walk on are flat. Our horizons are always level.
But every bird thinks in three dimensions. Even penguins, although their vertical dimension is in water, not air.
Perhaps that’s why ducks don’t get seasick. Up and down is as natural for them as it is unnatural for us.
So anthropomorphizing will always be flawed. And yet we have no choice. We have nothing but our own experience with which to imagine another creature’s experience.
Perhaps the important thing is not that we can ever understand how a duck or a deer feels, but that we make the attempt. It may be the ultimate effort to follow Jesus’ injunction to “love your neighbour as yourself” – even if the neighbour isn’t another human.
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Larry Knutson saw an announcement about an event to welcome a new pastor. Among the things requested was “non-perishable food items to fill the pastor’s panty.”
Carle Boyke didn’t see this in a church bulletin. But he laughed anyway. “Dinner Special – Turkey $2.35; Chicken or Beef $2.25; Children $2.00.”
Dave Towers reports that “My neighbours at Messiah Lutheran church have the following on their sign: ‘Sign Broken. Message Inside.’”
If you’ve spotted any good bloopers in your church bulletin or newsletter, or anywhere else for that matter, please send them to me. ralphmilton@woodlake.com
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Wish I’d Said That! – If you want to feel rich, just count all the things you have that money can't buy.
source unknown via Kausie White
In just two days, tomorrow will be yesterday.
source unknown via Jim Spinks
God's true name is unpronounceable because God is Welsh.
source unknown via Evelyn McLachlan
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We Get Letters – Kathleen James-Cavan of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan has a friend, Alison West who hails from Slough, UK, and she “most assuredly will tell you the "ough" rhymes with "ow" as "cow" not the "o" in "slow," Vauxhall drivers notwithstanding.
“She likes to say that indeed we have a ‘slough of Despond’ (as in Pilgrim’s Progress) (rhymes with cow) at the bottom of our hill here in Saskatchewan – not a ‘slough’ (as in "oo") the way I like to say it!”
Rona Orme of Bedford Road, Northampton, UK writes: “I am sure lots of other folks from this side of the pond will have told you by now that the town ‘Slough’ is pronounced to rhyme with ‘Ow – that hurts!’”
Well, Kathleen, Alison and Rona, here I need to take a stand on high moral principle, ethical standards, and the fine, noble democratic principles on which my country was founded, and maintain that the muddy hole I used to swim in as a boy was a “slough” as in “slew” and I would have been laughed out of the metropolis of Horndean, Manitoba, if I had pronounced it “slough” as in “cow.”
There comes a time when you just have to take a stand!
Bob Warrick of Brisbane, Australia writes: “When I read, ‘Francois Theron of Willow Park, South Africa, writes: ‘In a town nearby I spotted a sign next to a scrap yard. Body Parts Sold Here,’ it reminded me of the time in Singapore airport when I heard an announcement so very clearly about someone's 'lost body parts'. It intrigued me as to what some folk did in airports, till I realized it was a lost 'boarding pass'.”
Jim Spinks in Kingsville sends this little story, but doesn’t indicate whether this is something that happened in his family, or whether it’s a yarn he’s just passing on to us.
“My dad told me that he knew as early as their wedding what marriage to my mom would be like.
“It seems the minister asked my mom, "Do you take this man to be your husband?" "’I do,’ she said. “Then the minister asked my dad, ‘Do you take this woman to be your wife?’ “And my mom said, ‘He does.’”
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “raise my hand!”)
Somehow or other, I’ve managed to lose the name of the person who sent this. My apologies and thanks.
The sender said he or she got it from Steven Wright, who once said: “I woke up one morning, and all of my stuff had been stolen and replaced by exact duplicates.” His mind sees things differently than most of us do, to our amazement and amusement.
Here are some of his gems:
* I’d kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
* Borrow money from pessimists – they don’t expect it back.
* Half the people you know are below average.
* 82.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
* A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.
* A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
* If you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain.
* All those who believe in psycho kinesis, raise my hand.
* The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
* I almost had a psychic girlfriend, but she left me before we met.
* If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
* Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
* When everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.
* Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
* Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.
* Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.
* If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
* A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
* Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.
* The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.
* To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.
* The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
* The sooner you fall behind, the more time you’ll have to catch up.
* The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.
* Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just don’t have film.
* If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work?
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Bottom of the Barrel – This from Jim Spinks. You can substitute your favorite cold and/or wet spot for “Ontario” below.
A curious fellow died one day and found himself waiting in the long line of judgment.
As he stood there he noticed that some souls were allowed to march right through the pearly gates into Heaven. Others though, were led over to Satan who threw them into the burning pit.
But every so often, instead of hurling a poor soul into the fire, Satan would toss a soul off to one side into a small pile. After watching Satan do this several times, the fellow's curiosity got the best of him.
"Excuse me, Prince of Darkness," he asked. "I couldn't help wondering, why you are tossing those people aside instead of flinging them into the Fires of Hell with the others?"
"Oh those" Satan groaned: "They're all from Ontario. They're still too cold and wet to burn."
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Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – Exodus 20:1-17
* Note: The paraphrase of the commandments contained in the text below are adapted from “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year B.”
Reader I: Do you believe in the Ten Commandments?
Reader II: Of course. Doesn’t everybody?
I: No. Do you?
II: I just told you. Of course, I believe in the Ten, ah, thing-a-mes. Commanders, or whatever.
I: OK. Name them?
II: Well, Ah….Um…..I can’t list them off, just like that.
I: OK. Then name one of them.
II: Ahhhhh…..Oh, I know. “Don’t steal stuff.”
I: Very good!
II: (STAGE WHISPER) Would you stop embarrassing me in front of all these people. Please!
I: Alright. Here’s what we’ll do. You read the passage about the Ten Commandments. And after each one, I’ll put it into simple words for you.
II: Fair enough. So. We are reading Exodus 20:1-17.
(SLIGHT PAUSE)
Then God spoke all these words:
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.
I: “Don’t live your life as if there are any other gods. I am the only one. Remember, whatever is most important to you, that is your god.”
II: You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
I: No substitutes. Don’t act as if anything else is God. Like money, or position, or fame. Even happiness.
II: You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
I: Be careful how you use my name. When you speak my name, you must mean what you are saying.
II: Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work – you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.
For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.
I: Work the other six days of the week. Rest on the seventh day and use it to recharge your spiritual batteries.
II: Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
I: Treat your mother and your father with respect. Be good to them.
II: You shall not murder.
I: Don’t kill anyone. Ever.
II: You shall not commit adultery.
I: Only have sex with someone with whom you have made a spiritual commitment.
II: You shall not steal.
I: Don’t steal.
II: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
I: Don’t tell lies about anyone.
II: You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
I: Don’t wish you had things that belong to other people.
(SLIGHT PAUSE)
II: You know, those make sense.
I: And those Ten Commandments were written several thousand years ago.
II: So don’t let anyone ever tell you the Bible is outdated.
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Information and Stuff – (Read this section only if you want to know about subscribing, unsubscribing or quoting stuff from Rumors.) It would be nice if you could give Rumors a plug in your bulletin or newsletter. Please invite your friends (and even your enemies) to subscribe. There's no charge: RUMORS is free and it comes to your e-mail box every Sunday morning. Just send your friends the instructions to subscribe [below], and include an invitation to join the list ... perhaps something like this: “There’s a lively and fun newsletter called RUMORS which is available at no cost on the net. It’s for ‘Christians with a sense of humor’.” Please add the instructions to subscribe [below]. If you have a friend you think would enjoy Rumors, and you’d rather not give them the subscribing instructions below, send me an e-mail at ralphmilton@woodlake.com and give me the e-mail address of your friend. If you are using something from Rumors in your sermon, give credit only as appropriate, without stopping the sermon dead in its tracks. I am delighted when Rumors is useful in the life and work of the church. As long as it is within your congregation or parish, you don’t need permission. You are welcome to use the stuff in church bulletins or newsletters. Please say where it came from, and please invite people to subscribe to RUMORS. An appropriate credit line would be; “From Ralph Milton's RUMORS, a free Internet ‘e-zine’ for Christians with a sense of humor." ... and please be sure to include these instructions to subscribe to RUMORS: To Subscribe:* Send an e-mail to: rumors-subscribe@joinhands.com
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* Don’t put anything else in that e-mail* If you are changing e-mail addresses, and your old address will no longer be in service, you do not need to unsubscribe. The sending computer will try a few times, and then give up..~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Please Write – If you respond, react, think about, freak-out, or otherwise have things happen in your head as a result of reading the above, please send a note to: ralphmilton@woodlake.com
Who knows, I might quote you in a future issue of RUMORS.All material is copyright © Ralph Milton.~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Ralph Milton’s E-zine for people of faith with a sense of humor
2009-03-08
March 8th, 2009
MURPHY’S LECTIONARY LAW
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Motto:
"A merry heart doeth good, like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones." (Proverbs 17:22 KJV)
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IMPORTANT: I really appreciate your notes, and Rumors is the richer for them. To protect me from viruses, please be sure that you put something on the "subject" line that lets me know that you are legit. For instance, the word "Rumors" works. And please give us your name and where you’re from. Folks like to know. Thanks.
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The Story – even if we cower in the corner
Rumors – we didn’t go up the mountain
Soft Edges – thinking like a duck
Bloopers – message inside
We Get Letters – a slough (slow) slough (slew)
Mirabile Dictu! – a sign of bad memory
Bottom of the Barrel – too cold and wet
Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – the ten thing-a-mes
Stuff – (read this only if you would like to subscribe, unsubscribe or are wondering about permissions. That sort of boring stuff.)
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Rib Tickler – The pastor was talking to the children during their time in the worship service. “Where can we find the Ten Commandments?” the pastor asked.
There was a pause. Then a nine-year-old responded. “In the Yellow Pages!”
“Well, yes,” said the quick-thinking pastor. “I wonder if those pages in the Bible turned yellow because nobody’s used them for such a long time.”
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Next Week’s Readings – These are the readings you may hear in church this coming Sunday, March 15th, which is the Third Sunday in Lent.
The Story (from the Revised Common Lectionary) Exodus 20:1-17
Jim says –
If I got started on the Ten Commandments, it’s likely to turn into a rant about fundamentalists who believe that engraving the Ten Commandments on everything from coffee cups to court houses will somehow straighten out drug dealers, pedophiles, gays, serial killers, porno flicks, and embezzlers. So I would rather go with John’s story of Jesus in the Temple. The clearing of the Temple is a great story – provided we don’t turn it into an allegory about the Resurrection. That interpretation obviously came later.
What we need to imagine is the disciples’ reaction when they see their leader lose his temper. They’ve gone to the Temple, expecting an act of piety. And Jesus blows his cool. Everything they’ve taken for granted – the money changers, the sacrifice pushers, the innocent victims – he treats as desecration of a holy place. Jesus starts kicking over tables, smashing cages, yelling, screaming...
Bluntly put, Jesus has a temper tantrum.
I know how my congregation would react if I started smashing chalices, breaking candelabra, dumping the font, overturning the communion table, and hurling synthetic flowers at their heads. They’d be in shock.
So, I’m sure, were the disciples. First they’d try to calm Jesus. Then they’d try to restrain him. Finally, as cattle and merchants stampede for the exit, they'd cower in the corners, expecting an Air Force attack helicopter to start firing missiles.
The chaos probably resembled Wall Street after the Dow-Jones takes another 500-point beating. That's probably another place that would have infuriated Jesus.
And I would say that as followers of Jesus, we are not called to defend the status quo. It is not enough to comfort the afflicted. We’re also called to afflict the comfortable – to kick tables and butts, to free doves and prisoners, to dump ill-gotten gains and outdated dogmas...
Even if it makes some people cower in the corners.
Ralph says –
It must be a variation of Murphy’s Law. When we have a good story-telling lection in the Hebrew Scriptures, we also have one in the Christian Scriptures. When we have nothing much in the way of a story in one, we find the same thing in the other.
I tend to go with the Hebrew Scriptures because they have a kind of earthy power to them. And because people know about the Ten Commandments.
They may have no idea what those commandments say. But they’ve heard there is such a thing and that they are important.
I remember being told by a young man that he obeyed the Ten Commandments. But he couldn’t name one. Many people would summarize them as, “Be nice and don’t get into trouble with the law.”
Many church members know the ones about adultery and murder. But they don’t know that at the top of the list is the core commandment. “You shall have no other gods before me.”
So here’s a story we could work on. The year is 3,500. 15 hundred years into the future. Archeologists are digging down through the dust of a volcano that erupted very suddenly and buried our area in dust. The archeologists discover our church, right here, and all of us sitting in neat rows just as we are now. Nicely petrified.
Archeologists know that the things we keep on or near our bodies are the ones most important to us. In fact, it’s those things which will tell people, 15 hundred years from now, what we really believe.
So what do the archeologists find?
I’d go through my wallet, while inviting them to go through theirs. Or at least think about what’s in their wallets and purses.
Credit cards. Health care cards. Driver’s License. Money.
Then I would read them the précis of the academic paper the archeologists would publish, titled, “Religious Beliefs and Practices of Early Canadians.”
Psalm 19 – paraphrased by Jim Taylor
Feeling Anger
1 Quarks and electrons, crystals and cells;
stems and trunks and limbs and bodies –
2 on the land, in the water, in the air –
the elements of the universe wait to expand our understanding.
3 Rocks have no words, nor do cells have syllables,
4 yet their message can be read anywhere.
Even the fiery stars,
5 racing at unimaginable speeds through space,
6 yield their secrets to those willing to probe the limits of God's universe.
7 And what do they find?
An underlying harmony, a delicate equilibrium
built on the value of every thing,
living or inanimate, past, present, and future.
8 There are no exceptions.
No one is above the law of interdependence.
9 Life dies and becomes new life;
spirit and flesh are one.
My fate is inextricably linked to yours,
and our fate to the trees and insects.
10 This is the beginning of wisdom.
It is better than wealth, more valuable than possessions.
11 Awareness of it will change you forever.
12 But we are too often blind;
we close our ears to the voices of the winds and the waves,
to the insights of the rocks and the plants.
13 God, keep us from thinking we know it all;
human minds cannot encompass eternity;
an assembly of facts does not equal truth.
14 Keep us always open to wonder, to beauty, to mystery,
O greatest of mysteries.
From: Everyday Psalms
Wood Lake Books.
For details, go to www.woodlakebooks.com
1 Corinthians 1:18-25 – We’ve got to watch how we use words. I love this passage, because it speaks to me of another way of knowing. Not better than the way of logic – of science. Different. And it is a truth that comes to us – not instead of or as a replacement for – but in addition to the truth we find through disciplined investigation.
It’s easy to read this passage as a broadside against academia, but I don’t think that was the intention. Paul was no academic slouch himself. But he realized that the truths which give our lives meaning, purpose, joy, fulfillment, are those that come to us through story, song, poetry, beauty.
“Worship God in the beauty of holiness,” says the psalmist. And in this passage Paul adds, “Worship God in the holiness of beauty.”
John 2:13-22 – The writer of John puts the story right at the beginning of the Jesus saga. That doesn’t tell us much about the chronology of events in Jesus’ life. It tells us instead that the confrontation in the temple defined the relationship between Jesus and the authorities. Now we know who’s on which side.
The temple cleansing story shows what happens when a business model infects the church. The people who come are thought of as customers from whom you gain as much wealth as the traffic will bear. Prices and practices are based on how much people will pay. Church policy is based on what will bring in the largest number of people and generate the highest givings.
In that kind of practice, those who make the policy and those who give in to it are both complicit.
“The Ten Commandments” story, in a children’s version, is in “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year B,” page 84. Within that story is a simplified version of the commandments that might be helpful to an adult audience as well.
There’s also a cleansing of the temple story based on John’s telling. It’s on page 86.
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 – We Didn't Go Up the Mountain.
There were three of us, all with the same ailment. Knees that hurt, and could not have handled the hike up to the top of Mt. Sinai. The rest of our study group went with our instructor to the top, where they would talk about Moses, live themselves into that theophany, and take the time to pray and thank God for the gift of law.
This was a graduate course on biblical archaeology through an American university.
The three of us waited down below, a Lutheran professor, a Roman Catholic nun and me. And we felt a bit of anger at our knees for failing us, when we wanted so much to go up that mountain to remember Moses and the Ten Commandments.
The ugly bulk of St. Catherine's Monastery hunkered down just below us. Just above, the caves of countless generations of monks who came to pray their lives out in this desolation. "Why?" I wondered. "Why would anyone want to do such a thing? I couldn't imagine spending a night in such a place, much less half a lifetime."
"There must have been a call," said the nun.
"Tell me about 'call'," I asked. "Protestants don't know much about that."
I was wrong. The Lutheran professor did. He had a deep, powerful sense that God called him to a vocation of teaching, of drawing creativity into the lives of students. And the nun too, but her call was to be a really good administrator at her convent.
"If you really stop and listen," said the nun, "God tells you. Go. Do. It's not very complicated."
"I can just imagine Moses, sitting right here on this rock," said the professor. "Somewhere over there is the noisy Hebrew camp. Probably just a few dozen folk, if truth were known. Like that family of Bedouins we saw just down the road. But Moses has had it with their bellyaching and pettiness, and comes out here to think. This would be a great place to think."
We stopped talking for a while and listened to the sound of silence.
I looked up toward the mountain where our group by now would be, and I went there with them in my imagination. And there, I heard the holy voice of God speaking deeply to the human heart of Moses. "There really is only one source of love and power in this world, Moses. That's the hardest thing there is to learn. I am your God. I will lead you out of slavery to the gods of war and wealth. I will lead you into life in all its fullness."
The shadows gathered round the Moses mountain and our group came straggling down the slopes. They walked in silence.
Clyde, a youthful seminarian came to me and placed a small red rock into my hand. "I brought this down for you," he said. "I'm sorry you couldn't come."
"Thanks," I said. "How was it?"
His eyes filled with tears. "It's just another mountain," he said. "But you know, the stones up top are worn smooth by the knees of people praying there. And I really could hear God talk to me up there. I didn't hear words. But I knew, with everything I was, that God was the source of power and love, and that I was being called into that ministry."
"I know," I said. "I could hear it all the way down here. I'll keep this stone to remind me."
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Soft Edges – by Jim Taylor
Thinking Like a Duck
A vicious north wind came howling down the valley the other day. First it created a froth of whitecaps out on the lake. Then the waves evened out into long swells racing southwards until they smashed onto the shore in a welter of foam.
But I noticed, as I strolled onto the shore trying to keep just out of range of the flying spray, that spring must be just around the corner. The ducks had gathered in big flocks, 40 or 50 at a time, starting the annual pairing ritual that eventually produces a lot of little ducks.
They bobbed up and down in the water, just beyond the point where incoming waves crested and crashed.
And I wondered why ducks don’t get seasick.
I would, if I went up and down like that.
Of course, I don’t cope well with rough seas. Back in the days when steamships shuttled across the Atlantic, I’ve spent most of a voyage draped over the ship’s lee rail. I don’t know why people commonly describe this affliction as not having a “strong stomach” – I can hurl breakfast as far as anyone!
But I realize, even as I ponder ducks’ imperviousness to mal de mer, that I’m guilty of “anthropomorphism” – attributing human characteristics to animals, plants, objects, natural forces, symbols, or abstract ideas. "Anthropomorphism" comes from two Greek words: anthropos, meaning human, and morphe, meaning shape or form.
Anthropomorphism probably reaches its extreme in films like Bambi and The Lion King, where wild creatures think, feel, and act as if they were humans.
Which doesn’t imply, by the way, that animals can’t really think or feel. I’m sure they do. Dogs feel abandoned when their owners leave them behind. Cows certainly feel fear when they’re herded towards a slaughterhouse.
But we shouldn’t expect animals to reflect our reasoning processes. A macaw may have the intelligence of a five- or six-year-old child – a macaw can learn to spell words, for example – but it can never share human experience, any more than we can share a parrot’s experience.
Very few humans – aside from airplane pilots – think intuitively in three dimensions. We are earth-bound creatures. We deal with length and width, but not with up and down. Even in our tallest buildings, the floors we walk on are flat. Our horizons are always level.
But every bird thinks in three dimensions. Even penguins, although their vertical dimension is in water, not air.
Perhaps that’s why ducks don’t get seasick. Up and down is as natural for them as it is unnatural for us.
So anthropomorphizing will always be flawed. And yet we have no choice. We have nothing but our own experience with which to imagine another creature’s experience.
Perhaps the important thing is not that we can ever understand how a duck or a deer feels, but that we make the attempt. It may be the ultimate effort to follow Jesus’ injunction to “love your neighbour as yourself” – even if the neighbour isn’t another human.
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Bloopers, Boggles, Typos and Stuff – Larry Knutson saw an announcement about an event to welcome a new pastor. Among the things requested was “non-perishable food items to fill the pastor’s panty.”
Carle Boyke didn’t see this in a church bulletin. But he laughed anyway. “Dinner Special – Turkey $2.35; Chicken or Beef $2.25; Children $2.00.”
Dave Towers reports that “My neighbours at Messiah Lutheran church have the following on their sign: ‘Sign Broken. Message Inside.’”
If you’ve spotted any good bloopers in your church bulletin or newsletter, or anywhere else for that matter, please send them to me. ralphmilton@woodlake.com
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Wish I’d Said That! – If you want to feel rich, just count all the things you have that money can't buy.
source unknown via Kausie White
In just two days, tomorrow will be yesterday.
source unknown via Jim Spinks
God's true name is unpronounceable because God is Welsh.
source unknown via Evelyn McLachlan
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We Get Letters – Kathleen James-Cavan of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan has a friend, Alison West who hails from Slough, UK, and she “most assuredly will tell you the "ough" rhymes with "ow" as "cow" not the "o" in "slow," Vauxhall drivers notwithstanding.
“She likes to say that indeed we have a ‘slough of Despond’ (as in Pilgrim’s Progress) (rhymes with cow) at the bottom of our hill here in Saskatchewan – not a ‘slough’ (as in "oo") the way I like to say it!”
Rona Orme of Bedford Road, Northampton, UK writes: “I am sure lots of other folks from this side of the pond will have told you by now that the town ‘Slough’ is pronounced to rhyme with ‘Ow – that hurts!’”
Well, Kathleen, Alison and Rona, here I need to take a stand on high moral principle, ethical standards, and the fine, noble democratic principles on which my country was founded, and maintain that the muddy hole I used to swim in as a boy was a “slough” as in “slew” and I would have been laughed out of the metropolis of Horndean, Manitoba, if I had pronounced it “slough” as in “cow.”
There comes a time when you just have to take a stand!
Bob Warrick of Brisbane, Australia writes: “When I read, ‘Francois Theron of Willow Park, South Africa, writes: ‘In a town nearby I spotted a sign next to a scrap yard. Body Parts Sold Here,’ it reminded me of the time in Singapore airport when I heard an announcement so very clearly about someone's 'lost body parts'. It intrigued me as to what some folk did in airports, till I realized it was a lost 'boarding pass'.”
Jim Spinks in Kingsville sends this little story, but doesn’t indicate whether this is something that happened in his family, or whether it’s a yarn he’s just passing on to us.
“My dad told me that he knew as early as their wedding what marriage to my mom would be like.
“It seems the minister asked my mom, "Do you take this man to be your husband?" "’I do,’ she said. “Then the minister asked my dad, ‘Do you take this woman to be your wife?’ “And my mom said, ‘He does.’”
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Mirabile Dictu! – (Latin for “raise my hand!”)
Somehow or other, I’ve managed to lose the name of the person who sent this. My apologies and thanks.
The sender said he or she got it from Steven Wright, who once said: “I woke up one morning, and all of my stuff had been stolen and replaced by exact duplicates.” His mind sees things differently than most of us do, to our amazement and amusement.
Here are some of his gems:
* I’d kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
* Borrow money from pessimists – they don’t expect it back.
* Half the people you know are below average.
* 82.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
* A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.
* A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
* If you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain.
* All those who believe in psycho kinesis, raise my hand.
* The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
* I almost had a psychic girlfriend, but she left me before we met.
* If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
* Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
* When everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.
* Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
* Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.
* Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.
* If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
* A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
* Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.
* The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.
* To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.
* The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
* The sooner you fall behind, the more time you’ll have to catch up.
* The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.
* Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just don’t have film.
* If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work?
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Bottom of the Barrel – This from Jim Spinks. You can substitute your favorite cold and/or wet spot for “Ontario” below.
A curious fellow died one day and found himself waiting in the long line of judgment.
As he stood there he noticed that some souls were allowed to march right through the pearly gates into Heaven. Others though, were led over to Satan who threw them into the burning pit.
But every so often, instead of hurling a poor soul into the fire, Satan would toss a soul off to one side into a small pile. After watching Satan do this several times, the fellow's curiosity got the best of him.
"Excuse me, Prince of Darkness," he asked. "I couldn't help wondering, why you are tossing those people aside instead of flinging them into the Fires of Hell with the others?"
"Oh those" Satan groaned: "They're all from Ontario. They're still too cold and wet to burn."
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Scripture Story as Reader’s Theatre – Exodus 20:1-17
* Note: The paraphrase of the commandments contained in the text below are adapted from “The Lectionary Story Bible, Year B.”
Reader I: Do you believe in the Ten Commandments?
Reader II: Of course. Doesn’t everybody?
I: No. Do you?
II: I just told you. Of course, I believe in the Ten, ah, thing-a-mes. Commanders, or whatever.
I: OK. Name them?
II: Well, Ah….Um…..I can’t list them off, just like that.
I: OK. Then name one of them.
II: Ahhhhh…..Oh, I know. “Don’t steal stuff.”
I: Very good!
II: (STAGE WHISPER) Would you stop embarrassing me in front of all these people. Please!
I: Alright. Here’s what we’ll do. You read the passage about the Ten Commandments. And after each one, I’ll put it into simple words for you.
II: Fair enough. So. We are reading Exodus 20:1-17.
(SLIGHT PAUSE)
Then God spoke all these words:
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.
I: “Don’t live your life as if there are any other gods. I am the only one. Remember, whatever is most important to you, that is your god.”
II: You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
I: No substitutes. Don’t act as if anything else is God. Like money, or position, or fame. Even happiness.
II: You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
I: Be careful how you use my name. When you speak my name, you must mean what you are saying.
II: Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work – you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.
For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.
I: Work the other six days of the week. Rest on the seventh day and use it to recharge your spiritual batteries.
II: Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
I: Treat your mother and your father with respect. Be good to them.
II: You shall not murder.
I: Don’t kill anyone. Ever.
II: You shall not commit adultery.
I: Only have sex with someone with whom you have made a spiritual commitment.
II: You shall not steal.
I: Don’t steal.
II: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
I: Don’t tell lies about anyone.
II: You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
I: Don’t wish you had things that belong to other people.
(SLIGHT PAUSE)
II: You know, those make sense.
I: And those Ten Commandments were written several thousand years ago.
II: So don’t let anyone ever tell you the Bible is outdated.
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