Tag Archives: lectionary

Hold your head up & avoid the counsellors.

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This morning, on the nation, one of the geologists from GeoNet stated that the series of aftershocks in Christchurch would continue for a considerable time. He could not put a limit on this. The government has indicated that parts of the city need to be “retired” and new homes built on more stable ground. What is holding everyone up is the difficulties in finding stable ground. In the meantime, the Rose window, in the Anglican church, is destroyed, and the Dome of the Catholic Cathedral is being demolished.

At this time, it’s quite hard to consider the word. Today’s reading is again about the end times:

Luke 21:20-28

20“When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. 21Then those in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those inside the city must leave it, and those out in the country must not enter it; 22for these are days of vengeance, as a fulfillment of all that is written. 23Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days! For there will be great distress on the earth and wrath against this people; 24they will fall by the edge of the sword and be taken away as captives among all nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

25“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. 26People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. 28Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

A large amount of the discourse that has occured around this earthquake locally is about how people are exhausted and distressed and need (“the government” pronounced “gummit” in New Zealand) to provide a lot of counsellors. But there is simply no data that counsellors will help. The forest plot below is from a Cochrane review that supports this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, counselling does not help. Seeing that the troubles we have are symptoms of the age when the Gentiles are continuing to trample the temple (it is currently a mosque) helps. But keeping our head up, and working for our neighbours, being righteous and doing good is what is needed.Not counselling. Not emphasising emotions, but increasing courage. For this period of distress will pass, unless we choose to continually live in it.

 

Throw away your techniques.

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This is completely counter intuitive. The ancients used rhetoric, frequently.

Paul is saying that he is throwing all his training and technique away.

1 Corinthians 2:

1When I came to you, brothers and sisters I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. 2,For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. 4My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

via Daily Lectionary Readings — Devotions and Readings — Mission and Ministry — GAMC.

I quote Alte a lot. In part it is because this woman has both a germanic mother (for rigor) and a classical catholic training. She teaches rhetoric, and does it well.

This is from her outline essay on this topic.

We use this classical structure, divided into parts, to guide our audience through our speech, to make our speech as persuasive as possible, and to ensure the completeness of our argument. Whether an argument is correct (logical and true), rather than complete or persuasive, is not within the scope of rhetoric.

The parts are: exordium, narratio, partitio, confirmatio, refutatio, peroratio. In modern writing instruction, these are often condensed into introduction (exordium and narratio), body (partitio, confirmatio, refutatio), and conclusion (peroratio). The introduction and conclusion generally appear only once, while the body may appear once or be repeated for subtopics. The classical rhetorical writers and orators (such as Cicero and Quintilian) have disagreed on the precise number, and the order of the subparts is not always consistent, but that is a good general list of the various parts.

Paul was both a Roman Citizen and a trained Rabbi. His education would have included studying rhetoric — it was a standard topic — as well as how to argue the Torah using rabbinical techniques. He was the most theologically equipped of the apostles: he had studied with the best (Gamaliel) , at the best place place (Jerusalem). And he threw it away.

It seems that he did not want technique to sway people but the spirit. Today is Pentecost. We need to look behind the polish of our ceremonies and the tricks of speech that move us emotionally and discern what is truth, and what  is the work of the Holy Spirit.

Kirk today: Mission or Church.

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North Amsterdam, morning, 2008

I attend a congregation that commenced as a mission. B@tch was set up as a non traditional place, deliberately in a school hall — to meet people where they are. Today the leader commented that we have moved from doing mission to being church. He was referring to Paul’s speech to Athenians and his use of a cult of “the unknown God”.

Now there is a need for mission. There is also a need for church. But… there is a need for confidence. I’m repeating an exercise from the sermon for two parts of today’s lectionary: the promises in the text are in bold.

1 Peter 3

13Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? 14But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, 15but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; 16yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame.

John 14

15“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever. 17This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

18“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 20On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

I firmly believe that the Church — which is hidden within various congregations of all kinds of flavours from missional to high church, from radical to conservative — is not ours. It is God’s. And God has preserved us from the abuses we placed on it. There is no difference in this from the promises we have that we will be kept by Christ. For we abuse our own bodies and relationship with Christ.

There is a need for church. We need to meet together, to break bread, and to encourage each other to go out and do good. There is a need for all congregations to evangelise. But most of the work we are called to do is outside of the church. It is in our homes, at work…

… And on the internet. Traffic here is picking up — which (since I do get thing wrong at times) frightens me. But we are commanded not to fear. And we need to be in the marketplace of ideas: the postmodern consensus has fallen apart and there is a great risk we will revert into some form of medieval rigidity (either green/pagan or muslim) and deny the use of reason. The Church was the incubator of the scientific model, and we may end up being (again) the preserver of knowledge.

And the greatest irony is that the Roman and Presbyterian Church are now having to preserve books and words defined as sexist: Even paternoster, qui es in caelum has been criticised as wrong because the prayer is Our father, which art in heaven…

It’s getting ridiculous. The correct response to the baroque demands of the secular state is not fear. It is laughter, and non compliance.

Our work in this life.

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I was quite dyspeptic this morning, and put a fairly sarcastic quote on the web page. The comments I added added salt to the wound. The post is down — even though (in my non dyspeptic moments I find progressives irritating to dangerous, I should not be quite that rude.

Paul today talks about what he need to do. And this is a challenge.

Colossians 3

5Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry). 6On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. 7These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life. 8But now you must get rid of all such things — anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. 9Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices 10and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. 11In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!

When one looks at this list of things Paul has divided them into three parts.

  1. Internal Attitudes. Paul is not talking about civil crimes here. He is talking about actions and thoughts that are not of Christ. He is not talking about adultery, theft, or perjury — he is talking about unmarried sex, lustfulness, anger… and greed. Most of us deal with these thoughts daily. We may give in to them, or we may be blind to our sin. We literally may have a log in our eye — on say greed — and not be aware of it.
  2. Interpersonal harm. Or harm between each other and our neighbour. The terms used here are wrath, gossip, malice. I crashed through this earlier today (which is why the post is down and not going back up). I think being untrue about one another — either by malicious and false gossip or the soft lie of an excuse fits in here. One of the wiser practices the Romans stopped in Vatican II was the confessor — who could tease out what was going on in one’s life.
  3. Stigma and judgment. Paul includes within the church the enemy (Barbarian and Sycthian), Imperial subjects who hated each other (Jew and Greek) and people of all status (slave and free). We tend to deal with people in these categories. By labels.

But the person is not the label. The file is not the territory. And we daily need to take up our cross and deny ourselves indulgences here. For we cling to our desire, our wrath, our greed and our sense of self-importance.

And that does not glorify God.

 

On the notes I write.

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Dalrock once said that this blog is hard to categorize. He’s right. Some people blog on a theme. I don’t. I tend to blog about:

  • The lectionary
  • Church and Christian life
  • Behavioural science, psychology and psychiatry.
  • Politics from a conservative & liberterian position
  • Local and international news.

The postings are generally what I think is interesting this day. That would be the “brightness” in the title. This contrasts with my fairly pessimistic view of the future from an economic and political point of view. Like many Presbyterians, I do not see human beings as some form of angelic being that is perfectable. I see anything good as coming out of the grace of God. We have a reputation of being dour and bleak for a reason. Hence the word “Dark”.

I generally start with part of the lectionary. This is from today:

1 John 3:11-18

11For this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 12We must not be like Cain who was from the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. 13Do not be astonished, brothers and sisters, that the world hates you. 14We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another. Whoever does not love abides in death. 15All who hate a brother or sister are murderers, and you know that murderers do not have eternal life abiding in them. 16We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us — and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. 17How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?

18Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.

via Daily Lectionary Readings — Devotions and Readings — Mission and Ministry — GAMC.

In my younger years I studied this — including reading it in Greek. Every time I read this I’m challenged. This piece leaves me dumb: it challenges me on if I am truly caring for those around me practically.

This piece is not about feelings, it is about getting results. But… it damns anyone who does nothing or sits and talks instead of acting. Blogging… a form of talking… can lead to this. The people I respect most are doing and reflecting on what they do: whether it is Alte home schooling challenging kids or Cameron raising money by being pummeled in Charity Boxing matches, or Daegus being a student in the People’s Republic of Toronto — they are acting to make change for the good.

About half the time I post on the lectionary.

The rest… is driven by the news, or what people are writing elsewhere.

This place is eclectic. I can’t see that changing.

Opposition comes with obedience.

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Michael Coren has stated that the only acceptable and politically correct hate speech is against Catholics. He is incorrect. It is against those Christians who take their faith serously: many are Catholics, but not all.

John 16

29His disciples said, “Yes, now you are speaking plainly, not in any figure of speech! 30Now we know that you know all things, and do not need to have anyone question you; by this we believe that you came from God.” 31Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? 32The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. 33I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!”

via Daily Lectionary Readings — Devotions and Readings — Mission and Ministry — GAMC.

Alte, when talking about preparing for the coming economic collapse, describes herself as an optimist. Despite having a huge mortgage, and being at home with two kids (with special needs). The optimism comes from her faith. She expects opposition. She expects her comments to be hijacked.

And so should we. If we do good, it will come.

Three dangers, no four

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There are three or four dangers here.

  • The danger of listening to reason and ignoring the suppositions behind it. It one supposes there is no need to invoke the deity — G_d is not on the playing field — the Bible is mere supersition, and is treated with contempt.
  • The Danger of listening overmuch to authority. I am responsible for my walk next to G_d (which is very intermittent). I cannot rely on the life of any pastor, any saint.
  • The Danger of ritual and tradition, no matter how beautiful, obscuring the need to rely on Jesus. This is the danger of religion, and it is real: If I keep Kosher, do not use a computer, live as a Mennonite… I am holy. (I am not holy. Only G_d is holy. I stumble towards my aspirations.) Our salvation relies on the cross.
  • There is a fourth problem. We can take on the rituals and prohibitions of the world. We can become too Green, to concerned with Social Justice — in the end because we think we can manage that which we cannot (I am speaking of the climate, on abolishing evil and inequality). We should do good, but the rituals of atonement such as carbon credits — add little, and, like the indulgences in Luther’s time, need to be condemned.

Colossians 2:8-23

8See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ. 9For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10and you have come to fullness in him, who is the head of every ruler and authority.

16Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths. 17These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18Do not let anyone disqualify you, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, dwelling on visions, puffed up without cause by a human way of thinking, 19and not holding fast to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.

via PC(USA) – Devotions – Daily readings for Friday, April 23, 2010.

You see a person’s characther if they have power.

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Over history, people have returned to religion when times are bad. These times will come and have come.

1 Peter 4

7The end of all things is near; therefore be serious and discipline yourselves for the sake of your prayers. 8Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. 9Be hospitable to one another without complaining. 10Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received. 11Whoever speaks must do so as one speaking the very words of God; whoever serves must do so with the strength that God supplies, so that God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ. To him belong the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.

12Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed. 14If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you.

(The religion matters here — the burden for a green is much, much higher than a Muslim. And the burden on a Muslim is hard. Jesus’ burden is light). The real test is not when times are bad, but when you can say this:

Psalm 92

10But you have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox;you have poured over me fresh oil.

11My eyes have seen the downfall of my enemies;my ears have heard the doom of my evil assailants.

Let us who have pray for protection from pride, from boasting in our power, for the powerless and poor see pride and boasting as a luxury. We are all dependant on G_d. The current circumstances are — in the long haul — ephemeral, for we do not survive a centurey (except rarely). And the economic,political  and moral  climate we are in changes from decade to decate.

Our job is to be faithful and bring glory. Even though are best is tarnished, we are continue in this.

via PCUSA – Devotions – Daily readings for Today.

Jesus and rubbish.

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I want to reflect on two parts of today’s readings.

Mark 3:7-19a

7Jesus departed with his disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him; 8hearing all that he was doing, they came to him in great numbers from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon. 9He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him; 10for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him. 11Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, “You are the Son of God!” 12But he sternly ordered them not to make him known.

via PC(USA) – Devotions – Daily readings for Monday, March 1, 2010.

One of my sons has been playing Civilisation and Grepolis. He commented that you wanted one culture, one set of morals to win in the game. Neal Ferguson, in his history of the long war (or short century, 1914 — 1990)  pointed out that the areas of greatest ethnic conflict were those where the groups were admixed.

The Boederlands were mistrusted. They had limited education. There was no prestige. Jesus was from there, and he is moving in power. But when the spirits opposing hims have to admit this, he silences them. He has been to the desert and he will not allow the cheap and spectacular to be the hallmark of his ministry. (To my Pentecostal friends, he heals. Thank G_d. However, he does not bang thr drum about it.

1 Corinthians 4:8-10

8Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Quite apart from us you have become kings! Indeed, I wish that you had become kings, so that we might be kings with you! 9For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, as though sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to mortals. 10We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute.

Paul was a Roman Citizen. He knew the protocol of the triuph. After the General, the slaves, the booty, the army… came the leaders. In shackles. They were led, from the froum, to the strangler. Paul is putting himself in the position of maximal shame. He is identifing himself with rubbish.

The world’s fashion is to say we should have self esteem and be at the front. (Interestingly, those with high self esteem do less weel than those without high self esteem).

And we preach triumph and prosperity. Here and now. Have we become fashionable, instead of faithful?

Worry.

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This is a time of fear and worry. Many in America have lost their jobs: thousands of factories have closed in China, and the unions are desperately fighting to keep the conditions for workers — as unemployment climbs — in Europe.

The governments are borrowing. And people want bread they have not earned. From today’s reading… Paul says “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.” We worry about what we cannot control. We should make it our concern to deal with what we can control.

John 6:41-51

41Then the Jews began to complain about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 43Jesus answered them, “Do not complain among yourselves. 44No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. 45It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. 46Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48I am the bread of life. 49Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.’

via PCUSA – Devotions.