Found in Translation

I thought I had some odd jobs before I worked with the tree people

Did not think work could get stranger 

There are certain statistics that are easy to collect that no one has interest

We talked every week until we had work

The office emptied and filled out of the wood work

The older women showed up so we talked

The younger women started to drive

They would come yell at me cause I would let them

She said she did not ask for all these hardships

I told her no one made her come 

Harun was better than a translator he reminded her "ha"

That was the noise she made he was there

In Kakuma they tell stories

Oppression builds community

Eid al-Adha

Because we can be different things.  I want to start with something different.  A transcendental thought. 

"But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time." RW Emerson

Now what is a transcendental thought?  Transcendentalism is a 19th-century school of American theological and philosophical thought that combined respect for nature and self-sufficiency with elements of Unitarianism and German Romanticism.

I consider myself a Transcendentalist among other things, Walt Whitman one of my favorites.

"He is the Answerer,
What can be answer'd he answers, and what cannot be answer'd
he shows how it cannot be answer'd.
...The words of the true poems give you more than poems,
They give you to form for yourself poems, religions, politics, war,
peace, behavior, histories, essays, daily life, and every thing
else,
They balance ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes,..."

A second idea I want to talk about an informal survey I did this last week among people I came across.  I asked a number of people if they knew what the big Muslim holiday was last week.  I wonder some of you may know.  When I was younger I would assume if  I knew something everyone knew that something.  It took me a long while to learn that not everyone had the interest I had.

Complete disclosure I only know because I served in a Muslim country for the global board of ministries for several years.  Also it is funny to me that we know so little of other people's holidays.  In Islam there are really two big holidays.  The first comes at the end of Ramadan which is the month of fasting.  Makes complete sense to have a holiday after a month of sacrifice.

Interesting at this holiday they give to the poor.  As a young man far from home and family working in the war in Bosnia I was seen as poor so my student's parents would always send me baklava.  Funny how people in the midst of war but in their family can see you the UNPROFORac who came to keep their peace as poor.  I was happy to receive their blessing in any case.

Later in Cleveland when I worked with Muslim refugees it was this holiday that helped them through the year.  Established families in Cleveland would come to the refugee enclave and just give.  Pay rent you name it - was a celebration of sacrifice and joint struggle as I saw it.

But it was the second big holiday that occurred last week.  I think we should know each others holidays.  What they celebrated was something we celebrate.  Abraham willing to sacrifice his son to God.  In a real sense it is what brings us here today.

Pastor Roland Moore, the last elder to serve Nottingham in an official capacity preached last night about a personal relationship with God.  Well it was Abraham's personal relationship with God that brings us here and what they celebrated last week.

Eid al-Adha

This important Muslim festival lasts four days and marks the moment when Ibrahim was willing to sacrifice Ismael, his son, for Allah. Today, most Saudi families celebrate Eid al-Adha by dressing up in their finest clothing, saying special prayers, and slaughtering lambs to share their meat with everyone.

In my time in Bosnia I would see lambs on balconies in the city in preparation for the holiday.  This holiday had a different feel.   My friends couldn't really explain their religion too well.  Many had just recently turned to religion.  Believe me war will make you do that.

I didn't have much better luck.  They asked me what happens if you do something wrong.  I thought about it and said, "well they have to forgive you."  We went in circles like that.

Overall, there are about 2.3 billion Christians in the world and 1.8 billion Muslims. World Jewish population approaching 15 million including my two nephews.  We are the people of Abraham.  It is strange that we know so little of each other.  

One thing I have always believed is the relevance here of Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 Amplified Bible

9 Two are better than one because they have a more satisfying return for their labor; 10 for if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and does not have another to lift him up. 11 Again, if two lie down together, then they keep warm; but how can one be warm alone? 12 And though one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

I believe God has plans on plans.  I have this idea that if God wants to speak to people in different ways then that is how it will be.   There are things we will never know in this life, but patterns are key I think.  The pattern here is we don't know much about the other.  I guess it isn't surprising.  With these two lenses we will look at our scripture today.

John 6:1-21 Amplified Bible

6 After this, Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. 2 A large crowd was following Him because they had seen the signs (attesting miracles) which He continually performed on those who were sick. 3 And Jesus went up on the mountainside and sat down there with His disciples. 4 Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was approaching. 5 Jesus looked up and saw that a large crowd was coming toward Him, and He said to Philip, “Where will we buy bread for these people to eat?” 6 But He said this to test Philip, because He knew what He was about to do. 7 Philip answered, “Two hundred denarii (200 days’ wages) worth of bread is not enough for each one to receive even a little.” 8 One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to Him, 9 “There is a little boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what are these for so many people?” 10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down [to eat].” Now [the ground] there was [covered with] an abundance of grass, so the men sat down, about 5,000 in number. 11 Then Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given thanks, He distributed them to those who were seated; the same also with the fish, as much as they wanted. 12 When they had eaten enough, He said to His disciples, “Gather up the leftover pieces so that nothing will be lost.” 13 So they gathered them up, and they filled twelve large baskets with pieces from the five barley loaves which were left over by those who had eaten. 14 When the people saw the sign (attesting miracle) that He had done, they began saying, “This is without a doubt the promised Prophet who is to come into the world!”

15 Then Jesus, knowing that they were going to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountainside by Himself.

16 When evening came, His disciples went down to the sea, 17 and they got into a boat and started to cross the sea to Capernaum. It was already dark, and Jesus had still not come [back] to them. 18 The sea was getting rough and rising high because a strong wind was blowing. 19 Then, when they had rowed three or four miles [and were near the center of the sea], they saw Jesus walking on the sea and approaching the boat; and they were [terribly] frightened. 20 But Jesus said to them, “It is I (I Am); do not be afraid.” 21 Then they were willing to take Him on board the boat, and immediately the boat reached the [shore of the] land to which they were going.

A couple of points.  The total number of people may have exceeded 10,000. The disciples did not have enough money to buy so much food, and the small villages in the area would not have had a sufficient quantity of bread to sell to them.  Kind of reminds you of impossible problems we face today.

There was once a German and Bosnian talking about their lives.  The German said I make about one thousand marks and my expenses about nine hundred marks and I manage to put away 0ne hundred marks.  The Bosnian replied I make one hundred marks and my expenses are nine hundred and I don't know how I get through the month.  Jesus never stopped feeding the multitudes.

Many times we have the how.  The woman who grabbed Jesus' robe was healed because power came out.  The little girl got up because Jesus told her, that was the how.  Here in John we are told what happened but we don't know how.

Was Jesus bringing bread from nowhere which I am confident he could.  Was he just seeing what was there that everyone else missed.  I guess my question is was this a hard or easy miracle.  I don't think it was the hardest, but the impact was certainly the greatest.

This here was revolution and everyone there knew it.  "But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time."   Everybody there was there and everything everyone had was on offer.

Jesus knew John tells us.  Then Jesus, knowing that they were going to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountainside by Himself.  This is the heart of the story.  This Jesus walking on water was because Jesus saw a better revolution possible that included us.  These people would have easily thrown off Roman rule.  Well that is what I believe is the reason Jesus left.  He had other fish to fry.

Why was this revolution.  Well in our celebration of our two hundred anniversary as a congregation we have talked often about the first class at Nottingham.  Now I want to talk more about schools.  I mentioned earlier that I like to consider myself in the tradition of the transcendentalists.  The root is to transcend.  I have also mentioned casually that I consider myself a communist.  I know that is trigger word for many people.  People who understand very little.

When I studied international relations we did not call ourselves communists anymore.  We are historical structuralists that is we believe there is a structure to history.  We started in small bands in caves and such places.  We built towns.  Then cities.  We were feudal for a long time.  Then came the capitalists which it is true set us free from Kings.  God told Israel long time ago don't bet on kings.  Few listen.

A communist is a academic who believes that there is something that comes after capitalism.  This in contrast to theories supported in the 1990s in New York specifically about the end of history.  Pre 9/11 America was so quaint.  Again we call ourselves historical structuralist because we think there is a structure to history.  Jesus tells us there is one.  In this scripture imagine Jesus had to beat it so the first revolution would not go.

Again what was so revolutionary.  Everyone had.  No one lacked.  Sure people who call themselves communists have lacked.  Lenin was a Bolshevik, he didn't trust the people.  Bolshevik means majority and they ruled as authoritarians.  They wanted to skip history.  Lenin thought he could speed up history.  He might have been able to.  People don't know the last few years of his life he had a bullet in his neck.  He told everybody don't let Stalin rule.  I'm not sure what else he could have done.

His brother was a revolutionary who was killed.  Lenin went to work every day.  The world is complex.  God has plans on Plans.

Our world today is losing its way in so many ways.  In Haiti gun men came into the presidents house and killed the president.   Michel-Rolph Trouillot, a Haitian anthropologist who died in 2012, wrote: “History is the fruit of power, but power itself is never so transparent that its analysis becomes superfluous. The ultimate mark of power may be its invisibility; the ultimate challenge, the exposition of its roots.”

What I personally find distressing is their in no speculation really about motives.  In 1994 when we sent troops to help we signed contracts.  Big contracts for such a small place.  There are ripples from 1994 I am sure and there is exploitation by elites.  Someone was trying to reform. 

 Matthew 5:11 Amplified Bible

11 “Blessed [morally courageous and spiritually alive with life-joy in God’s goodness] are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil things against you because of [your association with] Me.

This is not a political message.  I don't want you to be a communist, but I do want to understand the schools of thought that believe history and History with a big H have a structure.  Mostly because one of those that shows us is Jesus.  Why was it so revolutionary.    Now [the ground] there was [covered with] an abundance of grass, so the men sat down, about 5,000 in number. 11 Then Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given thanks, He distributed them to those who were seated; the same also with the fish, as much as they wanted. 

We don't have any how here, but what do we know?  Everyone there present, above time .  Then Jesus, knowing that they were going to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountainside by Himself.

We marvel at the how and it tells us Jesus is Lord, but we don't have a how here.  Did Jesus find more in us or just give us.  Well yes: We know where John started.  

John 1:1 Amplified Bible

1 In the beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself.

It is interesting to wonder when these people realized that their king had left.  I guess it is also a question of how many of them kept Jesus as their king in the second revolution of Jesus: the new covenant. Many I imagine, but they would tell people they knew Jesus when.  They were ready to take over the world before anyone else.

I don't mean to dismiss the end of the scripture but I almost feel like walking on water gets too much hype as it were.  If there was a preview of a movie of Jesus' life you could do worse then him walking on water.  You wouldn't show him sneaking away from the first revolution.  I think Jesus saw exactly where they would take him, but Jesus was thinking about you and me and the other.   

I think it is very cool that Jesus pulls the plug on the first revolution.  I am a man but I have been something else is how I described it to my son.  It isn't so hard to be a man cause I have been something else.  I have been a boy.  It is hard to be a boy because you have never been something else.  We love to talk about how God knows the number of hairs on our head, but seldom remember the same is true for our worst enemy.  It is a simple faith.  It is a complex world.

We read something else today in Ephesians 3:14-21 from the Amplified Bible again.  And I will try to tie these schools and classes and children of Abraham together.

14 For this reason [grasping the greatness of this plan by which Jews and Gentiles are joined together in Christ] I bow my knees [in reverence] before the Father [of our Lord Jesus Christ], 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name [God—the first and ultimate Father]. 16 May He grant you out of the riches of His glory, to be strengthened and spiritually energized with power through His Spirit in your inner self, [indwelling your innermost being and personality], 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through your faith. And may you, having been [deeply] rooted and [securely] grounded in love, 18 be fully capable of comprehending with all the saints (God’s people) the width and length and height and depth of His love [fully experiencing that amazing, endless love]; 19 and [that you may come] to know [practically, through personal experience] the love of Christ which far surpasses [mere] knowledge [without experience], that you may be filled up [throughout your being] to all the fullness of God [so that you may have the richest experience of God’s presence in your lives, completely filled and flooded with God Himself].

20 Now to Him who is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly more than all that we dare ask or think [infinitely beyond our greatest prayers, hopes, or dreams], according to His power that is at work within us, 21 to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen

This is not a political message.

"But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time." RW Emerson

 They were going to come and take Him by force to make Him king.  Well I will say this we didn't all reject him thank God.  We may not be the most intelligent creature on the planet in the end, but everybody there knew.  And really everybody who hears the story can imagine.  There is no how.

We look for patterns and seeing here and eating here.  There is more to this story.  There is 10,000 people left behind.  The disciples were frightened we hear.  What were all these people.  I imagine they had much to talk about.  I imagine they never forgot that day.  I imagine they saw more in their community then they did before.  Did God give it or make it or did they find it, well yes.  It is a complex world, but it is a simple faith.

Let Us Pray

Eternal God, Creator of the universe, there is no God but You. Great and wonderful are Your works, wondrous are your ways. Thank You for the many splendored-variety of Your creation. Thank You for the many ways we affirm Your presence and purpose, and the freedom to do so. Forgive our violation of Your creation. Forgive our violence toward each other. We stand in awe and gratitude for Your persistent love for each and all of Your children: Christian, Jew, Muslim, as well as those with other faiths. Grant to all and our leaders attributes of the strong; mutual respect in words and deed, restraint in the exercise of power, and the will for peace with justice, for all. Eternal God, Creator of the universe, there is no God but You. Amen.

Reprinted from the World Council of Churches

Benediction 

Help us to remember it is the hairs on all the heads that are counted.

It is the hungry.  It is the poor.  It is the outcast.  It is the politician.

It is the other.  It is the thief.  It is the judge.

Help us to be focused on your will and do our part.

As we pray for all

In the name of Jesus our Lord, Amen

Nottingham UMC 7-25-2021

Frenzy 1.2

 It his hard to decorate a set to look two thousand years old.  I think the only thing familiar would be the faces.  We have a distinct lack of imagination.  Frenzy is a word that does well to hold the kernel of my message for you today.  There was a frenzy of activities and priorities that we have no relationship or experience.  Parts of the world still eat with the seasons not all of it is lost, but certainly most of it.  We have experts who can tell us what they did and what they had, but they are little better than the tabloid reporters digging through the trash.  The trash of the past is our best source of information on the distant past.

We can make fire many ways, but we will never know what it is to know one way to make fire.  The past is as lost as the future.  We can do things they did but our enjoyment comes from novelty.  For them it was survival.  Were they right?  Well we are here.

Life involved fewer faces.  Less reading.  Less writing.  Less sharing of information.  It took a long time.  If your food had a face you knew it.  Figured so much out.  I've heard a pretty good description of bravery as the first person to look at a lobster and say I am gonna eat that.  Several scientific areas of investigation point to a bottle neck in human history.  They talk of a scientific eve along a shore in Africa.  Where we learned the abundance of life at the tides.  Maybe why we get prune hands?   Better grip they say.  

There is more in the past than will fit in the bible.  There is not much room 

We are in a frenzy 1.2.  We have a comforter that was sent to us.  A new covenant.  A new testament and a new life.  We see so many faces.  We read all the time,  We write almost as much.  We share information.  It still takes a long time. If your food had a face you don't know it.

We look today at a passage from Mark and see there are things that don't change.  I usually like to break things apart and show simplicity in the heart of each piece, but today I want to do something different and take this whole passage as something that it doesn't seem to be: a whole.

There are two stories here that seem mixed together.  We know Mark doesn't add lots' of extra to his narrative and when we find him doing things that at first seem confusing we must watch for the sign posts to find then illumination.  If this section was a beetles song they might have called it revolution 12.  Some of you may know Revolution 9 off their white album that repeats numbers.  Listen for them repeating hear in Mark 5:21-43 from the Amplified Bible

21 When Jesus had again crossed over in the boat to the other side [of the sea], a large crowd gathered around Him; and so He stayed by the seashore. 22 One of the synagogue officials named Jairus came up; and seeing Him, fell at His feet 23 and begged anxiously with Him, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death; [please] come and lay Your hands on her, so that she will be healed and live.” 24 And Jesus went with him; and a large crowd followed Him and pressed in around Him [from all sides].

25 A woman [in the crowd] had [suffered from] a hemorrhage for twelve years, 26 and had endured much [suffering] at the hands of many physicians. She had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but instead had become worse. 27 She had heard [reports] about Jesus, and she came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His outer robe. 28 For she thought, “If I just touch His clothing, I will get well.” 29 Immediately her flow of blood was dried up; and she felt in her body [and knew without any doubt] that she was healed of her suffering. 30 Immediately Jesus, recognizing in Himself that power had gone out from Him, turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched My clothes?” 31 His disciples said to Him, “You see the crowd pressing in around You [from all sides], and You ask, ‘Who touched Me?’” 32 Still He kept looking around to see the woman who had done it. 33 And the woman, though she was afraid and trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. 34 Then He said to her, “Daughter, your faith [your personal trust and confidence in Me] has restored you to health; go in peace and be [permanently] healed from your suffering.”

35 While He was still speaking, some people came from the synagogue official’s house, saying [to Jairus], “Your daughter has died; why bother the Teacher any longer?” 36 Overhearing what was being said, Jesus said to the synagogue official, “Do not be afraid; only keep on believing [in Me and my power].” 37 And He allowed no one to go with Him [as witnesses], except Peter and [a]James and John the brother of James. 38 They came to the house of the synagogue official; and He looked [with understanding] at the uproar and commotion, and people loudly weeping and wailing [in mourning]. 39 When He had gone in, He said to them, “Why make a commotion and weep? The child has not died, but is sleeping.” 40 They began laughing [scornfully] at Him [because they knew the child was dead]. But He made them all [b]go outside, and took along the child’s father and mother and His own [three] companions, and entered the room where the child was. 41 Taking the child’s hand, He said [tenderly] to her, “Talitha kum!”—which translated [from Aramaic] means, “Little girl, I say to you, get up!” 42 The little girl immediately got up and began to walk, for she was twelve years old. And immediately they [who witnessed the child’s resurrection] were overcome with great wonder and utter amazement. 43 He gave strict orders that no one should know about this, and He told them to give her something to eat.

Mark is doing something unlike himself here and putting in everything.  He is holding up a sign to show what many of us spend our entire life trying to express.  We have a broad ranging discussion to have about the story, but did you hear Talitha kum - the little girl was twelve.  The woman was healed after twelve years of hemorrhaging.  We are going to depart for a discussion of this sign Mark is holding up for us.   

There are twelve pairs of cranial nerves that come out of the human brain.  We count twelve months each year.  The keyboard on our computers have had twelve function keys for the simple reason that they were designed by people not computers.  In all those years those twelve function keys have found little use.   

The Ancients knew Jupiter as a wandering star with a twelve year cycle.  Few today take notice, but was not always so.  

 

We can find numbers everywhere, but twelve Mark is reminding us has a special relationship to Jesus and his apostles and his form of perfect governance focused on service not domination.  The original twelve tribes of Israel.   Abundant life that these two outsiders are returned.  

How do I know they were outsiders?  Talitha kum they were both female and the heart of these stories tied together with the twelve and the abundant life our lord and savior brings us.  Mark is not the reporter that Luke was and these numbers no simple coincidence.  Perhaps more than not Mark is described as a spartan writer, but to my sensibility he is the most poetic and we simply forget the scope of what he is saying in the number twelve.  He made the sublime and inexpressible reality of our world into a number: 12.  A poetic heart to be sure.  We could continue forever talking about the number twelve.  In my mind he wrestled not unlike Jacob to form his Gospel into words.

She had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but instead had become worse.  This world of ours I find even today the cure can be worse than the ailment.  The first time I had a tooth removed I was stuck by how brutal the procedure was in such a modern polite setting.  Nothing had prepared me for the barbarity.  

We often pray for our doctors to work God's will and see more good than bad I hope.  We still are born.  We still die.  We just saw the largest reduction in life expectancy in my life.  "We have not seen a decrease like this since World War II. It's a horrific decrease in life expectancy," said Steven Woolf of the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine.  Somehow the world doesn't seem so modern.

Three months times four seasons gives us our year.  There is something infinitely correct about God's rule.  We often count on ourselves and find ten numbers.  But God and abundant life equals twelve.  Old math we have forgotten and yet remember.  People who hate new math also hated old math.  It was rather enjoyable to tell a room full of fourth graders most adults don't know math.  It is surprising to them.

We often approach our gospels as just stories.  But they are something more like the scene of a crime.  Real struggle and blood and sweat and tears and certainly all the emotions we have.  But lets take a closer look at our story in this frenzy 1.0.  Jesus was still with them and we envy them, but the truth was as Jesus said, it would be better when he left.  He would send the Holy Spirit. 

We listened to Pastor Wilma talk last week about excitement they had out in the boat and here we began the story as they cross again the water.  Didn't do much good as crowds gathered around him again and kept him near the seashore.  Things happen that people don't expect all the time.  We don't have trouble understanding why these people would respond so strongly to Jesus.  We in fact respond strongly to Jesus.  Even those who hate God the most respond strongly to Jesus.

There is something we all share across all of human history and that is a sense that there is something missing.  That there should be some meaning.  As the only animal as far as we know to make this leap it is ironic that we are an animal that does so much wrong.

There is a simple humble wisdom that has a response to this:

2:23 For God created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of his own eternity,
2:24 but through the devil's envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his company experience it.

This passage is from the wisdom of Solomon. This is a uniquely Methodist response. This book comes from the Septuagint a Greek translation of the Old Testament not accepted generally by protestants.  It is part of our liturgical calendar today and I had to look twice for the wisdom of Solomon.

It is easy to see the problems we create and it is easy to lose hope that things will change.  Twelve years of hemorrhaging will make you think many things.  Being at the point of death at twelve just is not fair.  It evokes in us innocence.  We can all understand something of losing a child at twelve.  In the Jewish tradition not yet adult but so close.  A promise it would seem not delivered.  Too great to fathom is the mind of God.  But there is no just death at twelve.  The Wisdom of Solomon says there really is no just death, but Moses seeing the promise land but not entering does not seem as cruel.  I think of Martin Luther King Jr and believe he got a similar glimpse of something we still have not seen.

At my age Martin had been dead a decade.  Cruelty and grace are relative experiences for everyone.  Here we have a synagogue official Jairus begging for his twelve year old daughter's life.  What we know was this crowd was all in for Jesus.  The leaders of the town who gave them direction had seen the direction.  Jairus wasn't asking Jesus for an appointment he was essentially accosting him upon the shore.  He had just arrived.   What is interesting is that Jesus heard him.  Do you think this was because Jesus knew he was important?  Maybe because the people let him pass because he was important and he got to Jesus first?  I think it was because of Talitha kum - the little girl was twelve.  The things for Jesus to do are uncountable, in this time and place we have a story of what he did.

As Jairus gets his request out and the entire crowd presses up on Jesus.  The people who had the best chance of understanding Jesus where mystified again.  

Again a woman of no name.  We might call her the hemorrhaging woman we know so little of her.  The excitement we understand, her crisis we might imagine, but we fail miserably.  You see this sense.  We know what they were doing here in this crowd, but what were they doing with Jesus out upon the water.  What were they doing all those regular days.  Well one women was hemorrhaging and surviving somehow in this society that had we can say issues with blood and women.

Blood libel is a very old anti-Semitic story that lives today in the Q stories we hear about today.  It is born from confusion and hate and ignorance and this woman surely knew them well for twelve years.  When I hear incredible stories I often wonder about their parents.  Well our twelve year old girl in this story had a parent who knew what time it was, did not discriminate on the source of hope and found it.  Lead it would seem his community to it.  Demonstrated it.  Lived it.

My favorite parent story is of famous female scientists from the past, majority had a scientist as a Dad.  About the only way through then was to have a cool Dad.  Still comes in handy.

The hemorrhaging woman I can only guess had a supporting family or even a more harder to understand story.  Again we know what they are doing, but we don't know what they were doing while Jesus was upon the water.  How could they survive?  How do we survive is what leads me to God.

When you have no value in society how do you survive?  Actually it is the most creative space in the world.  It is where people really have something to talk about.

They both saw their chance.  Talitha kum - the little girl was twelve and the hemorrhaging woman.  One in her innocence was protected by the ideal of parental love looking everywhere and not dismissing anything.  When you do this you must answer for yourself what then is this man Jesus.  The other with her own fear surely a long time companion reached for his cloak.

The twelve were surely stunned when Jesus asked who touched me, but she was even more.  Healed already and ready to make her exit.  Surely he would not notice one more hand upon his cloak and really as the twelve point out, how could he.  He felt the power leave.  This power something of its own  mind.  Great is the mind of the lord.

And the woman, though she was afraid and trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth.  Healed she was still afraid, why did Jesus make such a point to find her, for us as well as her?  She was still in the shadows.  The leader was still pleading for his daughter.  She had been healed.  He wanted her to know , "“Daughter, your faith [your personal trust and confidence in Me] has restored you to health; go in peace and be [permanently] healed from your suffering.”   She was healed and happy to leave, but Jesus wanted to set her free.

Emotions are what keeps us from acting, but also what makes us act at other times.  In all times and all places where there have been and will be people: nobody wants to be an outsider.  

We know what the father is doing, but not what he was doing.  Crisis we understand something of the past.  Hard we understand something of the past.  Loss we understand something of the past.  What I am doing right now would make no sense to someone of the past.  We think of this as a one way street, but it goes both ways.  We would be quite useless to our ancestors.  

Mark gives us a story out of time and place and out of female.  What our world has made outside.  Even today women make 77 cents on the dollar for reasons we can not agree upon.  I know one thing those reasons come from the past.  I also know they are wrong.  How?  I know how Jesus feels about outsiders.  Might call it route 12.  Mark has clear sign post for us to go where we are all together in a crowd pressing against Jesus and we find abundance where people saw scarcity.

Let Us Pray

Lord help us to see those who are not seen.

He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Isaiah 53:3

Help us share your power to heal and make whole our community and our families.

In our struggles thank you for allowing us to press on all sides.

Amen

Benediction

As we leave here from the inside seek those on the outside

Tell them they belong

Show them they belong

Help them belong 

through the grace of our loving God we belong

Amen

Nottingham UMC 6/27/2021 

Doors Make You Forget

We arrive more than we leave
What sets the stage fade out fade in
What is most important is where you are
The way your brain thinks

Past experience does not guarantee anything
We are prepared or we would have not made it here
Risk has accessed our ancestors well

There is one quality all doors share
They make you forget
What they are

Why they are is us
It is something simple we often miss
You forgot what you came for
Because your brain is on your side

This poem was inspired by an article or is it articles that keep reappearing.   There is an interesting phenomenon to me in the information age.  Interesting things often bubble back to the surface and make us pay attention again.  I'm not sure when I first came across this idea of doorways making us forget, but I remember my response to it.  

When things really make sense to me they have a certain feel for me.  I guess secure would be the best root to build words for a description of this feeling.  They however would fall short.  I love to say you can always count on numbers, why I love math so much aside from all it has given us, but you can't always count on people and even less so words.

When I searched recently on the internet I found an article By Tom Stafford 8th March 2016, here is a bit of it:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160307-why-does-walking-through-doorways-make-us-forget

"It’s known as the “Doorway Effect”, and it reveals some important features of how our minds are organised. Understanding this might help us appreciate those temporary moments of forgetfulness as more than just an annoyance (although they will still be annoying).

These features of our minds are perhaps best illustrated by a story about a woman who meets three builders on their lunch break. “What are you doing today?” she asks the first. “I’m putting brick after sodding brick on top of another,” sighs the first. “What are you doing today?” she asks the second. “I’m building a wall,” is the simple reply. But the third builder swells with pride when asked, and replies: “I’m building a cathedral!”

Maybe you heard that story as encouragement to think of the big picture, but to the psychologist in you the important moral is that any action has to be thought of at multiple levels if you are going to carry it out successfully. The third builder might have the most inspiring view of their day-job, but nobody can build a cathedral without figuring out how to successfully put one brick on top of another like the first builder....The Doorway Effect occurs because we change both the physical and mental environments, moving to a different room and thinking about different things. That hastily thought up goal, which was probably only one plate among the many we’re trying to spin, gets forgotten when the context changes.

It’s a window into how we manage to coordinate complex actions, matching plans with actions in a way that – most of the time – allows us to put the right bricks in the right place to build the cathedral of our lives."

But as I looked closer it was an article from 2011 in scientific American I think that I saw first.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-walking-through-doorway-makes-you-forget/

The French poet Paul Valéry once said, “The purpose of psychology is to give us a completely different idea of the things we know best.” In that spirit, consider a situation many of us will find we know too well: You're sitting at your desk in your office at home. Digging for something under a stack of papers, you find a dirty coffee mug that’s been there so long it’s eligible for carbon dating. Better wash it. You pick up the mug, walk out the door of your office, and head toward the kitchen. By the time you get to the kitchen, though, you've forgotten why you stood up in the first place, and you wander back to your office, feeling a little confused—until you look down and see the cup...The doorway effect suggests that there's more to the remembering than just what you paid attention to, when it happened, and how hard you tried. Instead, some forms of memory seem to be optimized to keep information ready-to-hand until its shelf life expires, and then purge that information in favor of new stuff. Radvansky and colleagues call this sort of memory representation an “event model,” and propose that walking through a doorway is a good time to purge your event models because whatever happened in the old room is likely to become less relevant now that you have changed venues. That thing in the box? Oh, that's from what I was doing before I got here; we can forget all about that. Other changes may induce a purge as well: A friend knocks on the door, you finish the task you were working on, or your computer battery runs down and you have to plug in to recharge.

Why would we have a memory system set up to forget things as soon as we finish one thing and move on to another? Because we can’t keep everything ready-to-hand, and most of the time the system functions beautifully. It’s the failures of the system—and data from the lab—that give us a completely new idea of how the system works."

The idea that when we walked into the cave the only way we could possibly survive is to be completely aware.  Or aware enough.  A pass fail system. Given our own limitations the only way we could possibly survive is to forget.

We find ourselves at the door: Pentecost.  Science and religion don't always agree, but they both tell a story of the limitation of our biology.  One gives purpose while the other sees survival as the only one.  To be scientific is to be aware and observant and use relevant information.  To be religious is to believe that there is purpose to it.

Pentecost is exciting so much so the disciples must tell the people it is too early for them to be drunk.  

We know the story well and we find ourselves here each year usually dressed in red telling this story.  If you did a poll of people and asked what they thought were the most important church holidays today would be well down the list, but for the Church today is really everything.  The birth and death of our savior was not the beginning of the church, but when the promised holy spirit arrived. 

We go through this door and we tend to forget.  It is all we need to remember. We all know this, but we are often about surviving, when we need to be more about our purpose.

Jesus speaks of this story in the future tense in John 16, 5-11.

We read from the Amplified bible:

 

The Holy Spirit Promised

5 “But now I am going to Him who sent Me; and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts [and taken complete possession of them]. 7 But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the [a]Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor—Counselor, Strengthener, Standby) will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him (the Holy Spirit) to you [to be in close fellowship with you]. 8 And He, when He comes, will convict the world about [the guilt of] sin [and the need for a Savior], and about righteousness, and about judgment: 9 about sin [and the true nature of it], because they do not believe in Me [and My message]; 10 about righteousness [personal integrity and godly character], because I am going to My Father and you will no longer see Me; 11 about judgment [the certainty of it], because the ruler of this world (Satan) has been judged and condemned.

Science has convicted our biology we just all don't care to know.  The limitations are real.  The question is what options remain.  Jesus continues in verse 12-15 and he assures us that with the holy spirit ultimately we are able to hear the truth.  We, you and I can bear it.  To say forgive them who do not yet know.

12 “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear [to hear] them now. 13 But when He, the Spirit of Truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth [full and complete truth]. For He will not speak on His own initiative, but He will speak whatever He hears [from the Father—the message regarding the Son], and He will disclose to you what is to come [in the future]. 14 He will glorify and honor Me, because He (the Holy Spirit) will take from what is Mine and will disclose it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are Mine. Because of this I said that He [the Spirit] will take from what is Mine and will reveal it to you.

This next year of our church maybe when you go to the next room and you forget why you are there, maybe instead of feeling you are not good enough, you will think: I do need God and understand the limitation of you.  

There is another story I love which I remember an equally resounding reaction to.  You may have heard this, I'm not sure where or when I heard this but it was long ago.  The goiter.  I often reference this story to understand myself.  When the thyroid gland doesn't work well quite often the brain will arrive at a simple solution: make a bigger thyroid gland.  Seems reasonable.  As results show a lack of results the brain continues with its course of action.  The goiter can grow quite large and to a young person can leave a lasting impression, but it was more the brain believing it had a solution.  Perhaps there was a positive impact I don't really know, but what I had was an understanding that the brain could believe in a solution and do things to make matters worse.

When the international community tries to intervene in the world they can believe in a solution and do things to make matters worse.

They say when people show you who they are you should believe them.  Well when the brain showed me who it was I believed it.  I wasn't ever mad at the limitations of my biology.  I think Antonio Gramsci put it best, "My practicality consists in this, in the knowledge that if you beat your head against the wall it is your head which breaks and not the wall - that is my strength, my only strength."  Well as much as I love him, I believe I have other strengths, but my practicality starts in the same place.

So what happens if we don't see the limitations of our biology?  In most cases we fail to see a need or place for God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit.  Antonio was a communist, he believed in community.  We believe in community plus.

Sometimes we go the other way and do this thing I haven't really been able to describe, but will take a chance here: we try to out Christian each other.  A blessing is only as blessing when it is received.  I don't mean to give an answer to behavior I find myself involved in some as well.  In an effort to not be mean we can be too nice.  

We can be too nice to ourselves and not see our limitations, where would God be needed then.  Here we again find what people don't really like about old time religion anymore: We are a culture of me.  We don't like to talk about limitations.  We make trophies all one size.  People don't teach limitations.  We teach the sky is the limit and it is empty above.

What ever you believe there is more above than below.

Let us Pray

Come, thou Holy Spirit, come:

And from thy celestial home send thy light and brilliancy.

Come, thou father of the poor,

come who givest all our store,

come the soul's true radiancy.

Come, of comforters the best, of the soul the sweetest guest,

sweetly and refreshingly.

Come, in labour rest most sweet,

shade and coolness in the heat, comfort in adversity.

Thou who art the Light most blest,

come fulfill their inmost breast, who believe most faithfully.

For without thy Godhead's dower,

man hath nothing in his power, save to work iniquity.

What is filthy make thou pure,

what is wounded work its cure,

water what is parched and dry.

Gently bend the stubborn will,

warm to life the heart that's chill,

guide who goeth erringly.

Fill thy faithful who adore,

and confess thee evermore,

with thy sevenfold mystery.

Here thy grace and virtue send,

grant salvation in the end, and in heaven felicity. Amen.

(Latin Hymn, 13th century)

Benediction 

Go out into God’s world filled with the spark of the Holy Spirit. Let love guide your actions. Listen for the Spirit of Truth. Spread the peace of Christ and remind everyone you meet that each one is a beloved child of God. Amen.

https://teaandtheology.com/pentecost-benediction/

Nottingham UMC May 23, 2021

Doors Make You Forget

We arrive more than we leave

What sets the stage fade out fade in

What is most important is where you are

The way your brain thinks

Past experience does not guarantee anything

We are prepared or we would have not made it here

Risk has accessed our ancestors well

There is one quality all doors share

They make you forget

What they are 

Why they are is us

It is something simple we often miss

You forgot what you came for

Because your brain is on your side

Confidence

 22 years ago I had this confidence

Between

In a very real sense the meaning of life for life is in evaluating.  This is not something unique to humans.  Life has been playing with the odds for a very long time.  From our point of view nothing seems very likely, but placing value on the roles we each play is what is difficult.  We do this worse than anything else we do.   People ask why God allows evil all the time, but seldom wonder where the good came from.  Well that is just God, huh.

The people we think are the most important are often the least important.  I am not just going to attack Hollywood and sports here as people often find them an easy target.  There is a great deal of honesty in each endeavor.  Not every person has opportunity, but among those who do man do they.  When I hear the phrase, "I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills."  I am transported to a time and place separate from everything else connected to that phrase.  Between with me and my younger sister, we watched that movie many times together.  Home box office quite the novelty then. 

I was indignant when the wizard's streak came to an end for no good reason, when Quarterback Bernie Kosar said Newsome showed a 'lot of class' by not insisting he come in to keep his streak alive.  'He just showed what a great team player he is,' Kosar said.

Early in the final period, the 78,765 fans -- realizing Newsome had been held without a catch -- began chanting 'Ozzie, Ozzie,' but to no avail.

'It was very humbling,' Newsome said of the chanting. 'The only remorse I have about it (not going back into the lineup) is that the fans were disappointed.'

Kosar would become my favorite player, he always played the odds.  If there was press coverage outside and no safety to one side you never had to wonder what he would do with the ball.  What he lived for. 

Ozzie would continue to disappoint us fans directing Baltimore to a super bowl.  I'm a big fan of objective evaluation and the creative endeavors have these and flaws like anything else, religion included.  Good test takers love tests.

Well today we are gonna go a little deeper; what is good.  We will read John 10:11-18 from the Amplified Bible and break it into two at the I am statements.  The fourth of the I am statements in John.

Our scripture begins:

11 I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His [own] life for the sheep. 12 But the hired man [who merely serves for wages], who is neither the shepherd nor the owner of the sheep, when he sees the wolf coming, deserts the flock and runs away; and the wolf snatches the sheep and scatters them. 13 The man runs because he is a hired hand [who serves only for wages] and is not concerned about the [safety of the] sheep.  

My first thought here was to how we would define a good shepherd.  Would someone who was in charge of a flock and lost his life defending his flock be good?  We may well build a statue to his bravery and loyalty, but would his friends in that small village think of him as a good shepherd?  The owner of the flock happy to have his possessions protected needs a new shepherd.  The next one hired who lived to retire and raise and sell more animals than others they would remember as the good shepherd.  We wouldn't talk about his bravery or his loyalty.  We are strange creatures.

One thing to remember here is Jesus doesn't say that the good shepherd is willing to lay his life down, "lays down his life."  The funny thing to me is that being a hired man is dangerous even if you have not concern about the sheep.  Agricultural work in general is in the top ten most dangerous jobs even today in our own country.  Divided into several categories more than one makes the top ten.  Agricultural managers in which I would include shepherds is more dangerous than being a policeman.

Do you think Jesus knew this when he told this parable? 

Yuval Noah Harari in his book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humanity, put it this way: “This is the essence of the Agricultural Revolution: the ability to keep more people alive under worse conditions."

Everything to everyone

Something to someone

Between no one seems to wander

We organize most things in these two ways.  Innovative programs always innovate so much they sometimes don't really do anything.  It is not easy to sell an idea and sell yourself.  We try to be everything to everybody.  Other programs get stuck and never grow, but they do real things for real people.  

I worked for a youth program that liked to quantify the impact they had on their clients.  They took grades before the children joined the group and grades after they had been in the group.  They found what they thought was significant improvement and liked to highlight these "facts" to their donors.  Not every kid made it through the program for one so the data from the go was kind of silly, but they made it real out in the world.

Now I don't argue that they did not do good, but what made them successful was their ability to market themselves.  I find it hard there in between.  Doing good should be enough and we like to know we are doing good.  Our church garden sponsor and summer lunch sponsor have innovated nothing over the last decade, but have done real work for real people.

Here is the revolution of the ministry of Jesus in a few notions.  What has value is what remains because it has value.  It isn't a hard bargain to make.  Trading nothing for everything.

 

We continue in verse 14:

14 I am the Good Shepherd, and I know [without any doubt those who are] My own and My own know Me [and have a deep, personal relationship with Me]— 15 even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father—and I lay down My [very own] life [sacrificing it] for the benefit of the sheep. 16 I have other sheep [beside these] that are not of this fold. I must bring those also, and they will listen to My voice and pay attention to My call, and they will become one flock with one Shepherd. 17 For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My [own] life so that I may take it back. 18 No one takes it away from Me, but I lay it down voluntarily. I am authorized and have power to lay it down and to give it up, and I am authorized and have power to take it back. This command I have received from My Father.”

There are many good things here to talk about but first we find our grounding for our lesson today.  Jesus said, "No one takes it away from me, but I lay it down voluntarily."  We love to blame the wolves.  No one takes it from him, huh?  

We love, or I know I love the concepts Jesus describes in this scripture.  Reminds me as a parent that hesitation and concern I had before I was a parent.  How would I recognize them as they would change so much.  Would I know their voice.  As a father knows a child, a child knows a father.  One thing about babies they pay attention.  There is something parental and symbiotic here Jesus is talking about.

Jesus separates himself and intricates himself into everything.  It can often seem impossible to stand up to the example Jesus has given us, but here again is Jesus telling us in a real way that it is the easy way.  Giving up our lives for the sheep seems an idea so foreign to us.  We imagine a Good Shepherd is prepared to lay his life down.  The Shepherd determined to lay his life down we might offer a few mental health days.

Here is what we often miss: We are not giving up anything of value.  We can give up our life for God and find transcendent good all around.  When we give up our life for God we give up more than we realize.  We leave baggage behind we didn't know we were carrying.  We find new strength where we only had weakness.  It's a good deal, the deal of several millennial.  

In the simplest form of Christian thought evil isn't created by God, but a by product of the creative process.  Many great minds have debated these details.  They have not come to much of a conclusion.  I find myself returning to this question of good and how Jesus explodes all our notions of everything.  We like to talk often about the context of the scriptures and how what Jesus said was always better understood by those he was speaking directly to.  The nice thing in this scripture Jesus is talking directly to us. 

John 10:16 again from the Modern English Version

16 I have other sheep who are not of this fold. I must also bring them, and they will hear My voice. There will be one flock and one shepherd. 

We often think of those people lucky enough to be in the presence of Jesus.  It is something here that Jesus was talking to them about us.  I laugh as people debate exactly who Jesus was talking about, who was he not, huh!  We hear his voice.  What is more we find it easy to tell what isn't of Jesus.  The only grey area people find are the ones they want to find.  Again here Jesus talks about giving up our life for God.  

There is an intricate ministry telling people that their life is so valuable that it cannot be given up, this people call devil.  We remember the context in this chapter as Jesus had just spoke the third I am statement.

John 10 Amplified Bible

9 I am the Door; anyone who enters through Me will be saved [and will live forever], and will go in and out [freely], and find pasture (spiritual security). 10 The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance [to the full, till it overflows].

We are called by Jesus to lay done something voluntarily that has no value for something that is abundant and eternal.  The best those great minds can figure is that people are too lost in sin to see this simple reality.  Should not be such a struggle.  There really is no reason.

As we avoid between do we think of this?  We find so many reasons.

In 1 John 3:16-24 in Amplified Bible we read of a way forward, a way to evaluate:

16 By this we know [and have come to understand the depth and essence of His precious] love: that He [willingly] laid down His life for us [because He loved us]. And we ought to lay down our lives for the believers. 17 But whoever has the world’s goods (adequate resources), and sees his brother in need, but has no compassion for him, how does the love of God live in him? 18 Little children (believers, dear ones), let us not love [merely in theory] with word or with tongue [giving lip service to compassion], but in action and in truth [in practice and in sincerity, because practical acts of love are more than words]. 19 By this we will know [without any doubt] that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart and quiet our conscience before Him 20 whenever our heart convicts us [in guilt]; for God is greater than our heart and He knows all things [nothing is hidden from Him because we are in His hands]. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not convict us [of guilt], we have confidence [complete assurance and boldness] before God; 22 and we receive from Him whatever we ask because we [carefully and consistently] keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight [habitually seeking to follow His plan for us].

23 This is His commandment, that we believe [with personal faith and confident trust] in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and [that we unselfishly] love and seek the best for one another, just as He commanded us. 24 The one who habitually keeps His commandments [obeying His word and following His precepts, abides and] remains in Him, and He in him. By this we know and have the proof that He [really] abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us [as a gift].

We give up our lives we lead for ourselves.  We have all lead to varying degrees and we still lead them some days, but we have learned something of great value that we can tell everyone.  Down by the river of the water of life we will not regret what we gave up.  

Let Us Pray,

Almighty and most merciful father, we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed to much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done. We have valued what has no value.  But thou, O lord, have mercy upon us. Spare those who are penitent, according to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord. And Grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous and abundant life, to the glory of thy holy name. Amen.

Benediction

He calls to Us today "Do you love me?" if our answer is "yes Lord you know I do." than he says to us "feed my sheep".

Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel---heal the sick---feed the hungry---comfort the comfortless, educate the uneducated, do all these things and more then you will be feeding my sheep. Amen

4/25/2021 Nottingham UMC