Those Who Can

Family serves many purposes.  One of them is a form of external memory much like many organisms use.  There is a story I have heard so many times I think I can remember it.  I was sleeping over my grandfather's house and asked a fateful question, "when am I gonna be boss?"  It was in response to his statement that he was the boss.  As the story goes i was promptly picked up.  That part of the story always seemed odd as I was rarely promptly picked up in my memory as a child in the 70s.

Something foreign to me now.  I'm not much to boss people around.  Most people don't really listen.  I feel like I'm a follower, which is why I feel comfortable with Jesus.  My standards certainly raised it is a difficult thing in life to find people worthy of following.

There is a certain truth to the fact that most people are lost in life.  I would argue much of what we do almost performance art.  I certainly feel that way in our garden.  Yesterday I picked up bags of trash down on the beach with my daughter.  The garbage in the dumpster not as important as the pictures of people involved inspiring more people to be involved.

We should be further along in taking care of our environment.  Maybe the end of the beginning, but not much further along.  

The phrase "He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches" from George Bernard Shaw's drama series 'Man and Superman' written in 1903  has survived the test of time to become a consistent irritation to teachers far and wide.  I would like to offer it this morning in juxtaposition to our scripture.  The quote in context, from a section titled:

"EDUCATION - When a man teaches something he does not know to somebody else who has no aptitude for it, and gives him a certificate of proficiency, the latter has completed the education of a gentleman. A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. The best brought-up children are those who have seen their parents as they are. Hypocrisy is not the parent’s first duty. The vilest abortionist is he who attempts to mould a child’s character. At the University every great treatise is postponed until its author attains impartial judgment and perfect knowledge. If a horse could wait as long for its shoes and would pay for them in advance, our blacksmiths would all be college dons. He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches."

Matthew 22:34-46
Amplified Bible

34 Now when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced (muzzled) the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 One of them, a lawyer [an expert in Mosaic Law], asked Jesus a question, to test Him: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Here we find Jesus continuing to be tested by these religious authorities.  Last week we spoke about giving unto Caesar what has Caesar's mark.  We were beautifully reminded by Pastor Wilma that we all have been made in the image of God, have the mark of God, and need to give unto God what has God's mark.

Jesus is in many ways most himself in these passages and time in his ministry.  The Sadducees were stumped by this concept that the God of Abraham has meaning in the past and the present and the future tense.  A God of the living.  The Pharisees must have been much like me laughing at their closed minded political opponents.  They thought they would show everyone.  The progressives in this story. The Pharisees were the most like Jesus — believing in resurrection, angels, and spreading their message among the common people

37 And Jesus replied to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself [that is, unselfishly seek the best or higher good for others].’ 40 The whole Law and the [writings of the] Prophets depend on these two commandments.

He had given them their answer but then Jesus did something unexpected.  Which is his thing.  He had a question for them.  Now we know they liked his answer.  In Mark we surprisingly find more detail to this story: 

Mark12 32-34:32 The scribe said to Him, “Admirably answered, Teacher; You truthfully stated that He is One, and there is no other but Him; 33 and to love Him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to [unselfishly] love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 When Jesus saw that he answered thoughtfully and intelligently, He said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that, no one would dare to ask Him any more questions.

Jesus had answered all the questions asked.  The different authorities had more questions I am sure, but my impression is they really didn't want to risk hearing his answers.  They were holding onto something fleeting.  Jesus offered something eternal.  This stumbles us as well.  Jesus has questions for us as well.

41 Now while the Pharisees were [still] gathered together, Jesus asked them a question: 42 “What do you [Pharisees] think of the Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed)? Whose Son is He?” They said to Him, “[a]The son of David.” 43 Jesus asked them, “How is it then that David by the inspiration of the Spirit, calls Him ‘Lord,’ saying,

44
‘The Lord (the Father) said to my Lord (the Son, the Messiah),
“Sit at My right hand,
Until I put Your enemies under Your feet”’?

45 So then, if David calls Him (the Son, the Messiah) ‘Lord,’ [b]how is He David’s son?” 46 No one was able to say a word to Him in answer, nor from that day on did anyone dare to question Him again.

The Pharisees like Don Juan in Man and Superman:  

"If the really impressive books and other art-works of the world were produced by ordinary men, they would express more fear of women's pursuit than love of their illusory beauty. But ordinary men cannot produce really impressive art-works. Those who can are men of genius: that is, men selected by Nature to carry on the work of building up an intellectual consciousness of her own instinctive purpose. Accordingly, we observe in the man of genius all the unscrupulousness and all the "self-sacrifice" (the two things are the same) of Woman. He will risk the stake and the cross; starve, when necessary, in a garret all his life; study women and live on their work and care as Darwin studied worms and lived upon sheep; work his nerves into rags without payment, a sublime altruist in his disregard of himself, an atrocious egotist in his disregard of others. Here Woman meets a purpose as impersonal, as irresistible as her own; and the clash is sometimes tragic."

For one the female form for the other the law, the old news.

all the unscrupulousness and all the "self-sacrifice"...sounds something like David to me.  No one is able to say a word to him in answer.  I don't have an answer, but we can dare ask questions because we want answers..

Too often people see Jesus and religion as a dead end.  Here we find eternity.  The sound of one hand clapping.  Grace is the answer to the question. Grace is the question of the answer.  This is not jeopardy.

We live our lives with stories, but mostly partial ones..."He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches."  In a certain way we hold this truth to be self evident.  I sure did and until recently I didn't even know where it came from.

God helps those who helps themselves is something I had assumed was somewhere in the bible.  It's not.  That probably from the ancient Greeks and more the Gods help those who help themselves.  Neither here nor there.  We at once see teachers as less, but the most common thing our savior is called is teacher.

We need to finish our stories and we do this with questions.  Why didn't people ask more questions: they didn't dare to.  Was this the intent of our lord?  I don't know, but I believe Jesus would stay and answer questions with more questions and we would be led were we are being led.

There is one destination if many different ways to travel.  

In Luke 20 45-47 we have this bit added to the end of the story:

45 And with all the people listening, He said to His disciples, 46 “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes [displaying their prominence], and love respectful greetings in the [crowded] market places, and [b]chief seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets. 47 These [men] who confiscate and devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense [to appear devout] offer long prayers. These [men] will receive the greater [sentence of] condemnation.”

Today we might look in the luxury boxes of our otherwise emptied stadiums with questions.

And in Mathew 23 we continue with the 8 woes where Jesus continues to let them have it.  We find ourselves in the end of the beginning of Jesus' ministry.  We are heading to the stories we are most familiar with.  Here we are with an unfamiliar savior.

Often we wonder what it might have been like to be able to ask Jesus questions.  What we find is people given the opportunity quickly found they didn't want the answers.  Certainly those in authority quickly didn't want to hear those things they knew.

“How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me, a [a]Samaritan woman, for a drink?

“Sir, [b]You have nothing to draw with [no bucket and rope] and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?

Are You greater than our father [c]Jacob, who gave us the well, and who used to drink from it himself, and his sons and his cattle also?”

“Sir, I see that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place where one ought to worship is in Jerusalem [at the temple].”

“I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ—the Anointed); when that One comes, He will tell us everything [we need to know].”

Back to school impressions?  Good kids have all this pent up good.  Bad kids don't know what to do.  Now there are no good kids or bad kids, but teachers seemed to revel in letting the good roll.  Usually in school you have to force greater participation.  After seven months, for a bit anyways, you don't.

Not good kids or bad kids.  We often take shortcuts with our language.  There are kids who ask questions and kids who don't have any questions.  This is what I am talking about with these words.  Children should be curious.  Kids who ask questions are easier to teach.  Rare genius perhaps, but really more security.  Authority should welcome questions as Jesus did.

The authorities of various stripes had real issues with what Jesus was saying because it undermined their security.  In the retelling of this story in several gospels we get these nuisances and this real excitement of those around.

People actually understood much better what Jesus was talking about then.  Not two thousand years old but as new as a bolt of lighting to their world.  We are left to take this good news not as old news but alive.  A God of the living.  We need to study really to understand the joy of the gospels in their context.  We are lucky if we find joy from these stories, but we are making ourselves even more secure to understand the context and the viral nature of Jesus' message.

In our modern world we think we are so connected.  Things have always went viral.  For the same reasons they do today.  A guy having a tough moment with his ocean spray on tik tok spikes the sales of fleetwood mac in Australia.

Now, here you go again
You say, you want your freedom
Well, who am I to keep you down
It's only right that you should
Play the way you feel it
But listen carefully, to the sound
Of your loneliness
Like a heartbeat, drives you mad
In the stillness of remembering what you had
And what you lost
And what you had
And what you lost
Oh, thunder, only happens when it's raining
Players, only love you when they're playing
They say women, they will come and they will go
When the rain washes you clean, you'll know
You'll know

On Friday I worked with a fifth grader who I remember her first day of kindergarten.  About my third class since this change in life that brings us here to zoom today.  It was hard for me to leave with no warning in March and it is hard for me to return in October with no real assurance from my employer of the future.  In that moment though I knew I was in the right place and right time.  I knew it was harder for her.  As I thought of what I brought that young child I realized she brought it for me too: normalcy.  Just a taste.  We were supposed to do twenty minutes we did forty good minutes.

We read about sword masters in Japan.  This father told his son he had no skill to be a sword master like him.  The son wanted nothing more than to be a sword master like his father.  He found his way and returned to his father as a sword master.  His father was again disappointed.  First that his son had no talent.  Then that he did not see his sons talent.  What did it mean?  Can't make people happy.  Maybe.

But the real reason for sharing the moment is to say I didn't have a question for a moment.  I was secure..  Seven months had swirled around and I found myself in familiar place and I was doing.

Let us Pray

Marquette.edu 

PRAYER FOR EDUCATORS

Jesus Christ, Lord of all learning, You sat in the midst
of the teachers and doctors, hearing their words and
questioning their conclusions.

Encourage all of us who teach Your people.
Help us to understand our place as mentors and figures
of authority. May we stand tall as teachers of human
dignity and purpose.

Give us grace to fill the emptiness we often experience
and the endurance to serve what may seem to be futile.
Let us enjoy with You the reward of a person made
whole, made wise through Your lasting intercession and
love. Amen.

17. 2 Th. 2:16-17 - Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.

Nottingham 10.25.20

agreement all around

From Shelby county Tennessee

Made to remember and forget

I read ten books by Carlos Castaneda

I remember a few things

Better to walk with nothing in you hands

A revelation at the time I never found quarrel with

And one more thing:

There is agreement all around

Always found this so

Down a diversity of roads

Separated by oceans

Love that line

You can be wrong

Agreement all around

A Don Juan I had never heard about

Not a superman

A law of entropy derived from experience

None of the math but showing all the work

Balkan Peace Team

 There is this place I stayed one time for a week,  The cook had learned cater to people in Romania working with nuns.  She had a small garden in her backyard that looked more like a forest path.  A larger garden was a short drive away.  It seemed she didn't buy anything.  Seven days thirty-five different greens just in the salads.  Didn't seem possible.  Gathered from around the world.  Away in the Netherlands.

I had worked in the Balkans a number of years.  Both Bosnia and Serbia.  Bought a bus ticket from Nis to Bonn.  If you live on the Balkans you take busses.  Don't miss them.  The bus driver asked if I was going exactly, as they say in southern Serbia, to Bonn.  Headed to the next country they showed me a better way.

That first day I knew I had never eaten that way.  There are many good ways to eat, but not many ever ate this good.  Within seven days we all changed.  Not in some metaphysical way only that we could not see.  We all knew ourselves well enough to know we were physically different.  Different things went in and different things came out.  Enough of a change that people started to almost complain.  You can't complain about perfection is what I told her.

Never did and never will eat so well.  A lost continent.   

Before

  So I thought what I would preach today, contrary to what I have been preaching: something not so practical.  Kind of a wonder.  Sharing something that I have thought about.  We are a religion of stories.  And our faith is mostly the stories we tell ourselves.

In the beginning we are faced with a difficult story for us to understand.  We find Adam and Eve in Eden and this tree they are not supposed to touch.  My first question as a child was why something to not be touched would be created.  We know the story of our fall.  We ate the fruit and found this new awareness.

This story is difficult because we find it difficult to understand why God would think this expanded awareness was bad.  Everything in me told me curiosity was something inspired by God.  Knowing more could be bad?  We are forced to come to some sort of understanding with the first stories of our religion.

In truth we can think more or less about them, but we need some sort of accommodation if that is only to ignore the difficulty.  In my youth I did not see anyway to understand what God was hiding from us in plain site,  I searched for more answers and found I certainly wasn't the only person to wrestle with these questions.  Entire new movements of Christianity developed to wrestle with this difficulty.

The Gnostics as they were called believed in a secret knowledge.  There must be more to the story.  They went as far as to make new Gods.  In their theology there was a better God who had placed that tree there.  They saw the God of genesis as the bad God keeping us from the true reality of the world.  As a scientifically minded person this was unsatisfactory for me.

Occam's razor tells us that if two explanations are competing the simpler one is more likely to be true.  More likely may seem a thin thing to place a journey upon, but this is a faith journey.  Creating more Gods and more stories did not seem to be the answer for my confusion.

Religion gets nervous when we struggle.  Many an alternate theory has been burned over the years, but luckily God doesn't get nervous when we struggle.

 I had reached an impasse.   I had similar difficulties identifying God the Good news with the God of the Old News.  God seemed different.  Destroyed the world more than a few times.  I am counting our exit from Eden as destruction of the world as well.  Could we have been different.  What was God thinking.

Today I can tell you were I have arrived.  I have learned to see the one God of the bible.  That was my first step after years of study and practice.  It is easy to see difference, but when you look close it is easy to see the identifying things of God.  We learn of God.  We can see the story as a love story.  Time after time.  Scheme after scheme.  Failure and redemption.

But this story starts with God keeping something from us or so it would seem.  Today I look at this story through one lens.  God didn't want us to partake of the fruit.  God's motivation is love.  This was loving and in character to our creator.  

No we have some familiar aspects to our creation story.  There is an idea that as we fell into sin we might also be stuck forever.  God also kicked us out for our Good.  No that doesn't mean you can kick out your kids for their good.  Unlike God, you don't know everything that is for their Good.

It is kind of the same logic of not needing another God.  We don't really need another.  Why.  There is more to our God than we could ever comprehend.  But at this point we can rest assured the intentions God has for us are good.

I don't know maybe the Angels were not so different from us.  Perhaps they were in a garden with a tree and they didn't eat.  Again from my scientific mind intelligence seems to be destructive on the whole.  We have all these wonderful and sublime things.  We have the unspeakable all around us.  Having a big crisis in my family I look around and saw crisis is the norm.

Maybe all this awareness and intelligence in the end doesn't serve us well.  I guess I don't really believe in us at this point.  I wonder if intelligent life destroys itself all the time.  In a universe with billions of galaxies perhaps the Angels were the only ones to take the short-cut.  Little speculation but most things with God and Angels is.

There is an answer to this.  We may have failed, but God still believes in us.  Sure many times God has come close to ending this grand experiment, but the destination is not in doubt.  There is something redeeming about us because we have a redeemer.

So right here now lets look through this lens to our scripture today:

Matthew 21:33-46

Amplified Bible

Parable of the Landowner

33 “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a wall around it and dug a wine press in it, and built a tower, and rented it out to tenant farmers and went on a journey [to another country]. 34 When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his [share of the] fruit. 35 But the tenants took his servants and beat one, and killed another, and stoned a third. 36 Again he sent other servants, more than the first time; and they treated them the same way. 37 Finally he sent his own son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son and have regard for him.’ 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This [man] is the heir; come on, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’ 39 So they took the son and threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40 Now when the owner of the vineyard comes back, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to Him, “He will put those despicable men to a miserable end, and rent out the vineyard to other tenants [of good character] who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons.”

42 Jesus asked them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

‘The [very] [a]Stone which the builders rejected and threw away,
Has become the chief Cornerstone;
This is the Lord’s doing,
And it is marvelous and wonderful in our eyes’?

43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to [another] people who will produce the fruit of it. 44 And he who falls on this Stone will be broken to pieces; but he on whom it falls will be crushed.”

45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was talking about them. 46 And although they were trying to arrest Him, they feared the people, because they regarded Jesus as a prophet.

Traditionally and conventionally we look at this as a prophesy from the psalms specifically verse 42: ‘The [very] [a]Stone which the builders rejected and threw away,

Has become the chief Cornerstone;
This is the Lord’s doing,
And it is marvelous and wonderful in our eyes’?

This familiar parable is comforting in many ways.  We often find rejection in this world.  As painful as rejection can be it can lead to entirely new places that we can't even identify.  In many ways this is like the old and new testament I saw as a child.

These were such different places they didn't seem to be talking about the same thing.  Yet it also can be reassuring for us today in new ways.  We can see God as the builder and humans as thrown away.  Thrown away from Eden to be sure.  Yet we are still in the heart of God's creation story today.  

It is reassuring to know the greater context of this parable.  Something was being taken away, but it was offered then freely to all.  Tore down the tent to build a larger one.

As our psalm today says : 80:14 Turn again, O God of hosts; look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine,  80:15 the stock that your right hand planted.

It has been a long road.  It has been one road.  Where we are going is the important thing.  We didn't have to do many things, but this awareness we gained we lost our way.  We see other creations of God's doing different things.  We can talk about angels again, but how about slime mold?

Did you know slime mold remembers.  Even the simplest forms of God's creation:  This is the Lord’s doing,  And it is marvelous and wonderful in our eyes.  I will save you today my slime mold stories, but just to say single cell organisms have robust systems of memory.  They don't however have agendas.

In the end this might be all there is to this long walk.  We took on this awareness and we found these agendas.  I would be ready to say all of human achievement was for nothing if not for one thing: God.

I have spoken to you how science finds no light at the end of the tunnel for now.  They only see the heat death of the universe.  Rather telling that the same people at a loss to describe the beginning are happy to tell you the end.  I hope you understand that I am saying even intelligence and awareness as well may have no light at the end, but God.

Yes God kicked us out of Eden and said some kind of mean things on the way out.  Maybe God knew what we would do or Maybe God gives all creations this test in some way.  For all I know we may be the only failures.  Perhaps the cosmos is riddled with failure more than likely.  But God didn't give up on us.  

As parents we can hope to be the same.  I have a daughter that I am very proud of, but I believe and hope that if she had made all the wrong decisions my feelings would not be different for her.  This I can understand.  I rather wonder.  

Isaiah has something of an answer for us in his fifth chapter verse 7: 

5:7 For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry! 

 What could we do to lose the love of God?

The Vineyard of the Lord.  What about our vineyard.  You know we have grapes growing all around us don't you?

Earlier in Chapter five Isaiah says:

5:1 Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.

5:2 He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

We have gone a little wild it is true at Nottingham.  We reach our two hundredth anniversary with trepidation.  Did those fist members expect two hundred years.  Well I don't think we expect two hundred years.  But if it is the will of God there will be.

We wonder what  should be our focus.  Well the buildings around us continue to fall.  We find ourselves with new opportunities and new hope.  I walked into the building and gasped as I saw the abandoned house next to our church finally down.  I have done many things and served many roles at church.  I have never gasped.  There is this thing that has stuck with me my whole life: an attraction to the novel.  I've never gasped on my way into the building and I know I haven't by my own reaction to myself.

Remembering that we are created in God's image I think now God too has a love of the novel.  May not have loved everything we have done but there is new things that happen.  Creation creating I would guess something God notices.

The really interesting thing about the buildings being demolished next to us is that we have a real opportunity to open ourselves to the neighborhood.  For too long we have been at the end of the street.  This new green space will actually open up our church to the neighborhood.

When the neighborhood had great strength it wasn't as important that we were at the end.  In the current struggles of the neighborhood we can be that balm in Nottingham.  There is a balm in Nottingham.

I see green space.  I see wide paths.  I see a larger garden with vines planted and tended.  Not to just look pretty but give people a real chance to learn skills in a real Ohio industry.  To work close with Chateau Hough which is a re-entry program at its heart.  If you don't know them I recommend you look them up.

Where we are headed also informs us where we have been.  This is probably the real reason I have grown more comfortable with God and this story of creation.  I see where we are and where we could go.  Intentions are much more powerful than we think.  If we know anything about God it is intention.  People ask why the world is a mess if God is in charge.  Not a hard thing to understand.  People involved.  Always say to those who ask why there is evil is why is there good when that is a lower percentage occurrence.

― John of Damascus offered this view: Had God kept from being made those who through His goodness were to have existence, but who by their own choice were to become evil, then evil would have prevailed over the goodness of God. Thus, all things which God makes He makes good, but each one becomes good or evil by his own choice. So, even if the Lord did say: 'It were better for him if that man had not been born,' He did not say so in deprecation of His own creature, but in deprecation of that creature's choice and rashness.”

― John of Lennon said:

“Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.”

Let us pray

(from the Canticle of the Creatures- Attributed to St. Francis of Assisi)

All praise be yours, My Lord
through all that you have made.

And first my lord Brother Sun, who brings the day...
How beautiful is he, how radiant in all his splendor!
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Moon and Stars;
In the heavens you have made them, bright and precious and fair.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air...

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Water,
So useful, lowly, precious and pure.

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom you brighten up the night...

All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Earth, our mother,
Who feeds us...and produces various fruits
With colored flowers and herbs...

Praise and bless my Lord, and give him thanks,
And serve him with great humility.

We ask our hearts to be as open as our green space.

In Jesus' name

Amen

Nottingham 10-4-2020

 

Before

 In a series the story takes shape

Across mediums and medias

We are people of the camera

We watch movies to be shown

The camera can tell us what is important

What life never had we never had not

We make no sense and try to remember that we did

Our memory misses what we missed

The Theologian's Task

 Our theme for today comes from:

Isaiah 51:1

51 “Listen to Me, you who pursue righteousness (right standing with God),
Who seek and inquire of the Lord:
Look to the rock from which you were cut
And to the excavation of the quarry from which you were dug.

For many people it can be a stumbling block when we talk about righteousness, myself included, but I  hold on to this idea of right standing with God.  Somehow sounds more of an obtainable goal.   Semantics are funny as words that mean the same thing can have different feelings.  Like similar thoughts with their different feelings we navigate difficult waters.

In Our church we often look to the quarry were we were dug. This is a very good theme for us as we are in the thick of preparations for the two hundredth anniversary of our congregation.  Look to the rock from which you were hewn another translation says.  We are hewn from Jesus to be sure, but as well the Bluestone we find all around.

Euclid Bluestone is a very nice rock to work with.  It often breaks itself apart in useful shapes.  It also has a less appealing quality that I find endearing: it rusts.  We had mill stones and sidewalks made from this stuff, but very few buildings considering how much we have available around here.  The few buildings build around here of Bluestone are easy to spot: they rust.

The idea that rocks can rust has always amazed me.  Somehow I held on to the wonder I first found when I learned this fact.  The things I knew that rusted were all man made.  So rocks rust if they have iron.  My amazement was never tempered when I learned another phrase that feels different.  Oxidation.  Something oxygen does something less interesting.  Rocks rust sometimes and give themselves away.

Isaiah says in 51:6
Amplified Bible
6
“Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
Then look to the earth beneath;
For the heavens will be torn to pieces and vanish like smoke,
And the earth will wear out like a garment
And its inhabitants will die in like manner.
But My salvation will be forever,
And My righteousness (justice) [and faithfully fulfilled promise] will not be broken.

The earth will wear out, not something people mention the bible says.  If we come together as a human race and make the world a better place.  Or even if we do the worst of sins and keep treating the earth the same: the earth will wear out.

This then the rock we are hewn from traveling across a medium sized galaxy.  This rock rusts as well or was oxidized if you like.  We find here the heart of the human experience.  The tendency to find the entire universe in a few lines of scripture is quite the challenge to preachers.  The roads we trod go on forever.

During a recent Angel bible study we are finishing this week, I came across some words I found quite simpatico from someone I haven't always found so: "Therefore let us remember not to probe too curiously or talk too confidently," John Calvin continued, "The theologian's task is not to divert the ears with chatter, but to strengthen consciences by teaching things true, sure, and profitable."

To my mind the best a sermon can do is teach all three: true, sure, and profitable.  It is what brings God to our attention.  There is self preservation involved here.

The scientist often faces similar obstacles seeing the entire universe in a few grains of sand.  And while the theologian and scientist may be the same person they see things in different ways.

Brian Greene, a scientist and author of the Elegant Universe has a new book, "Until the end of time."  He brings this idea home to me in the first paragraph of his new book, "In the fullness of time all that lives will die.  For more than three billion years, as a species simple and complex found their place in earth's hierarchy, the scythe of death has cast a persistent shadow over the flowering of life.  Diversity spread as life crawled from the oceans, strode on land, and took flight in the skies.  But wait long enough and the ledger of birth and death, with entries more numerous than stars in the galaxy, will balance with dispassionate precision.  The unfolding of any given life is beyond prediction.  The final fate of any given life is a foregone conclusion."  

As scientist we probe curiously and talk confidently, but we don't find any answers that have any meaning.  Dispassionate precision if only.  Things may be true and they may be sure, but they may not be profitable.  Science leads us down the most amazing passageway, but there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

51:1 “Listen to Me, you who pursue righteousness (right standing with God),

Who seek and inquire of the Lord:
Look to the rock from which you were cut
And to the excavation of the quarry from which you were dug.

There are many answers ahead of us to be found but there are as many behind us to be learned.  What motivates the scientist motivates the theologian.  I would argue that we should use every tool available.  I can be the theologian and I can also be the scientist.

Isaiah continues in:51:2

Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you; for he was but one when I called him, but I blessed him and made him many.

This is also the rock from which we were cut.  We can look to the justification of Abraham to understand our own standing.  

We find Paul telling us in

Romans 4

Amplified Bible
4 What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather humanly speaking, has found? [Has he obtained a favored standing?] 2 For if Abraham was justified [that is, acquitted from the guilt of his sins] by works [those things he did that were good], he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed in (trusted, relied on) God, and it was credited to his account as righteousness (right living, right standing with God).” 4 Now to a laborer, his wages are not credited as a favor or a gift, but as an obligation [something owed to him]. 5 But to the one who does not work [that is, the one who does not try to earn his salvation by doing good], but believes and completely trusts in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is [b]credited to him as righteousness (right standing with God)

Right standing with God; believe and completely trust

We look to the past and we see greater challenges than we face now.  I wonder if they had less of an idea of the challenges that faced them.  They had no idea.

Scientist have recently figured out ways to test for micro-plastics in human tissue.  Everywhere we have been able to look so far we have found this micro-plastic contamination.  There is more unknown in science than known.  There is more unknown than known in religion.   Could we have contaminated our planet too much already.  Scientifically we will see.  

Isaiah has is own answers:

51:3 For the LORD will comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places, and will make her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.

51:4 Listen to me, my people, and give heed to me, my nation; for a teaching will go out from me, and my justice for a light to the peoples.

51:5 I will bring near my deliverance swiftly, my salvation has gone out and my arms will rule the peoples; the coastlands wait for me, and for my arm they hope.

51:6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and those who live on it will die like gnats; but my salvation will be forever, and my deliverance will never be ended.

We are coastlands.

He will comfort all her waste places.  That brings me these images.  I was reminded recently that blood stains concrete.  Had a bit of a run in with my sister's dog and some uncontrolled dogs.  I go by this spot often now and see the blood stains in the concrete.  In Bosnia I walked a street and saw stains, but didn't really necessarily believe them.  The thing that is overwhelming is all her waste places will be comforted.  It almost seems like it would take too long.  Scientists will tell you these places have been wasted thirteen billion years or so.  Perhaps we do have time.  Human brains can't really process such large numbers.

The best example is a million seconds vs a billions seconds.  Think about that for a second.  A million seconds 12 days.  A billion seconds 31 years.  A trillion seconds you might wonder as we are getting closer to having trillionaires.   A trillion seconds 31,688 years.  It is not only man's heart that is flawed.

Science and religion serve import roles.  My grandfather had this to say:

"Accurate observation is the first step. Scientists try to make their descriptions complete by gathering all the facts they can, but the mere gathering of facts is not enough. The facts must be organized, and as new facts are gathered they must be related to what is already known.
In religion we respect tradition and authority from the past, especially as this authority comes to us in Scripture, in science we begin with doubting tradition and questioning authority, we demand facts supported by observation.

Scientific observation must always be an experience that can be shared, but religious experience is intensely personal. The experience of Paul on the road to Damascus is an event of inescapable importance to the beginnings of Christian Religion, but it was an experience that came to Paul alone. The men who were with him did not share the experience, and no other person---on the Damascus road or any other road---has exactly duplicated the experience.

The conduct of experiments is a feature which completely separates scientific from religious method. You cannot set up an experiment in religion. Religion is a matter of individual, personal relationships, and in these relationships the controlled condition of experiment are impossible. When we attempt to include God in the experiment the situation becomes silly."

"Teaching things true, sure, and profitable"  We in the end are faced with this concept of forever. "but my salvation will be forever."  A scientist will talk of heat death and see no light at the end of the tunnel.  This maybe be true or we may find more facts.  We do not know.  We search for new facts with the faith that what we have done before we will do again.

We have moved what we know forward.  We find ourselves, "But wait long enough and the ledger of birth and death, with entries more numerous than stars in the galaxy, will balance with dispassionate precision.  The unfolding of any given life is beyond prediction.  The final fate of any given life is a foregone conclusion."  That scientific idea to me has become more than it should.  The final fate of any given life.  We have a halting problem.

The simplest description of this dilemma is: In computability theory, the halting problem is the problem of determining, from a description of an arbitrary computer program and an input, whether the program will finish running, or continue to run forever.  

We can make a prediction for any given life, but can we be sure that every life ends?  With each new one there is new possibility.    Given time new possibility can take us anywhere.  We may be back to semantics but these words feel right.  Before Jesus came and sent us the holy spirit the final fate of any given life was a foregone conclusion.

Almost like a mutation the Messiah gene perhaps.  Something that we had not seen before.  Something that all signs seemed to point towards.  Why it took thirteen billion years at least I don't know.  How many more it will take I'm not sure.  

Scientist and theologians in the end come to this question of death.  This balancing with or without passion.  Separating the goats and the sheep.  We seem lost in ourselves and scared of death.  Here is where we find our profit today: the balance sheet has passion.  "wait long enough and the ledger of birth and death, with entries more numerous than stars in the galaxy, will balance with dispassionate precision."  Where is the fun there, the struggle there, what is the reason there.  A million seconds a billion seconds a trillion seconds.

We find an entire universe in a few phrases.  There is a reason or there is not.  Faith is the choice to believe that all these things we know along with the things we don't equal something of value.  Balance with passionate precision.  

I will share one last thought of my grandfather's in closing:

"It would seem from what has been said that scientific method and religious method are so different that we cannot hold them together, but we must remember that it was the Christian civilization that gave birth to the natural sciences.

Christian civilization garnered the philosophy and the geometry of Greece, the astronomy of the whole ancient and medieval worlds, the arithmetic and algebra of the Indians and Arabs, as well as the religion and ethics of the Hebrews. Natural science and it's offspring technology and medicine are the gifts of Christian civilization to mankind.

Let us be very hesitant in using the phrase, "the Bible says",---it takes careful and prayerful study to interpret correctly the message of the Bible.

And having read, studied, and interpreted the Bible----remember "it is better to be a sermon than to preach one."

Let us pray

Almighty God, giver of every good and perfect gift: teach us to render unto thee all that we have and all that we are, that we may praise thee, not with our lips only, but with our whole loves, turning the duties, the sorrows, and the joys of all our days into a living sacrifice unto thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Amen


Nottingham August 23, 2020

Bosqueena

You end up without breath from beauty

You find yourself and look

You feed your soul and body

And you still get hungry

That color was all the rage in ninety five

I was corrupted

Am not a fair judge

I know this

I did not understand right away

Even as I saw right away

Nothing is hidden

I found myself exposed

It was a long road I drive around in circles

Through the mountains along the shore

Always more ways than the sign says

People just don't go that way

We went that way and arrived one piece

Time after time never once not miraculous

Each time we arrived 

Watched the trees grow

I worked the first women's conference after war

Paper was needed and someone to bring it

We went to different bus stops with the same names

We could not agree where we were

they came down the long road to Sarajevo

I was usually passing through along for the ride

That's the way my little love what happens when a Bosnian loves

We joked but no one was laughing

Bosnia has this type of humor

Oppression cooks