Archive for November, 2007

THERE WILL BE PEACE AND SECURITY IN MY DAYS Part III

Friday, November 30th, 2007

III. THERE WILL BE PEACE AND SECURITY IN MY DAYS

This selfish response captures the tragedy of a Hezekiah figure. He was willing to sacrifice the future of his children for the pleasure of a moment. The cause of the exile and loss of Jerusalem, this preacher concedes, is complex. But for this text, however, it is clear that the primary cause for Judah’s destruction lies with Hezekiah’s cavalier cooperation with evil superpowers. Hezekiah forgot, for a moment, in whom he trusted, in whom he believed, in what he hoped, and upon whom he counted. He forgot everything in his eagerness to purchase his own desperate years of peace and power. Hezekiah is a study of a state of mind that resists change, fights against progress, for the sake of complacency. The Hezekiah attitude can kill a nation . . . or a church.
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THERE WILL BE PEACE AND SECURITY IN MY DAYS Part II

Thursday, November 29th, 2007

II. THE VOICE OF RELENTLESS, NON-NEGOTIABLE THEOLOGICAL REALISM

Walter Brueggemann offers what I find to be the most intriguing commentary on our morning scripture. The king of Babylon sends a diplomatic mission to Jerusalem (vv. 1-2). The mission likely intends to establish an alliance in which Judah would be the subservient junior partner, Bruggemann postulates. Judah would function as a “buffer zone” for Babylon against Egypt.

Hezekiah is delighted to receive the ambassadors–what else could he do? He shows to the representatives of Babylon everything that might have been a state secret. He exhibits the finances of his realm and his defense system. What a foolish man Hezekiah is! Showing his enemies his money and military potential!
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THERE WILL BE PEACE AND SECURITY IN MY DAYS

Wednesday, November 28th, 2007

“The prophet may be right. The future may be bad, but it does not concern me.”

Isaiah 39: 1-8
December 5, 1993
The Second Sunday of Advent

I. THE PAST HAS BECOME THE PRESENT

Eli Reed, an African-American journalist and photographer, laments the grim future he saw for America during the L.A. Riots. “The past has become the present and perhaps the future,” he laments. Speaking to whites, Orientals, and black Americans, “Racism is claiming another generation.”

Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., in his book Hazardous Waste in America, sounds an alarm about the disposal of hazardous wastes. The disposal of wastes has arguably become the most significant environmental problem of our day–as any Somerset County resident will tell you. Rural America–like around our homes–has borne the brunt of the hazardous waste problem. Land is cheap and sparsely populated. So, tainted needles from a Manhattan hospital end up in a Nanty Glo landfill! The ultimate destruction of farmland and ground water will cost billions of dollars . . . and how much are our lives worth?
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THE WAY OF PEACE THEY DO NOT KNOW Part V

Tuesday, November 27th, 2007

V. THERE IS A WAY TO PEACE

There is a way to peace in v. 8: in ancient Israel, it is the Torah commandments. To us it is the knowing of and the living of the Word of God, in all aspects of our lives.

In vv. 5-6a Isaiah utilizes two compelling images for the society of which he is a part. First, the powers-that-be are hatching eggs of poisonous snakes. Next, they are weaving a deceptive weaving of social order and social protection that simply does not exist. In the final analysis, though, nothing can stop the Assyrians but old fashioned repentance.

Which is were I must leave us today . . . There is no peace in the land as the Bible defines it. But there is hope. Great hope. . . If we are willing to repent from our sinful, selfish ways and let God take over. Stand on the Word of God. Then there will be peace in the land!
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THE WAY OF PEACE THEY DO NOT KNOW Part IV

Monday, November 26th, 2007

IV. THE WAY OF PEACE THEY DO NOT KNOW

This brings us to the heart of our oracle: the way of peace they do not know. They offer military protection, they build great cathedrals, everyone is guaranteed a decent income, but there is not justice. No shalom. Shalom is a Hebrew word that implies “health, wholeness, life.” They have provided folk 2.5 cars in every driveway, three color TV’s, and security . . . but they have mortgaged our souls in the process.

First Church, during the Advent season, I challenge you to ask yourself: What is most important to me? What have I given up to get it? Will it last forever? Isaiah’s world is smooth, clean, and peaceful–or so it seems. But at what price? Is there justice in the land?
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THE WAY OF PEACE THEY DO NOT KNOW Part III

Friday, November 23rd, 2007

III. SIN CAUSES GOD’S ABSENCE

In vv. 2, 6-7, at the beginning and end of the section, destructive conduct is treated in most general terms: it is “sin” that causes God’s absence. But it is not Isaiah’s nature to be “general” for very long. He quickly becomes uncomfortably specific.

For one thing, his community is shedding blood (v.3), innocent blood (v.7). There are deeds of violence (v.6). Isaiah ties each sin, as it were, to an image of a body. This anthropomorphic metaphor carries us through the rest of his discussion. There are, then, “fingers of iniquity” and mouths “full of utterance of lies.”

The sins can be categorized in this way: actions which destroy and words that slander.
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THE WAY OF PEACE THEY DO NOT KNOW Part II

Wednesday, November 21st, 2007

II. THE LAND IS IN SHAMBLES

At the beginning of our text this morning, we meet a Jewish community that is in severe crisis. In these times of uncertainty and disarray, Isaiah’s community is engaged in self-destructive behavior (this discussion is informed by Professor Walter Brueggemann’s and Mrs. Vera White’s study of Isaiah entitled From Despair to Hope).

From the beginning of his discussion, Isaiah makes it clear that the disarray is not God’s fault. The failure of his religious community to offer healthy alternatives to the secular society around him is, without a doubt, the result of individuals in that community. Culpability is never a doubt in Isaiah’s discussion: clearly the religious community is responsible for its own misery. Not the economic forces, not the Assyrians or the Egyptians, not Satan–Isaiah’s community is responsible for its own chaos.
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THE WAY OF PEACE THEY DO NOT KNOW

Tuesday, November 20th, 2007

“They do not know the way to peace”–Isa.59:8
Isaiah 59:1-8
First Sunday of Advent
November 28, 1993

I. FINALLY COMES THE POET

After the seas are all cross’d, (as they seem already cross’d)
After the great captains and engineers have accomplish’d their work,
After the noble inventors, after the scientists, the chemist, the geologist, the ethnologist,
Finally comes the poet worthy of that name,
The true son of God shall come singing his songs.
–Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
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Great Books: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court

Tuesday, November 6th, 2007

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Mark Twain (1835-1910), was born in Florida, Missouri, but grew up on the Mississippi River in Hannibal, Missouri. He happily lived as a river pilot on the Mississippi River until the Civil War ended river traffic. In 1861, after deserting the Confederate army, Twain moved west. It was in the West that he wrote “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County.” Throughout his life Twain enjoyed entertaining Americans with his whimsical writings; but below the surface, Twain was a complicated, and, many felt, a bitter man. At the end of his life, Mark Twain said, “Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.

The protagonist, Hank Morgan, whose name the reader does not know until the end of the novel, was the chief foreman at a firearms factory in Hartford, Connecticut. He was constantly inventing innovative ways to make firearms. Supervising more than a thousand men had also taught Morgan how to handle people; however, he had a fight with a bully named Hercules who hit him in the head with a crowbar.

When Morgan awoke, he was lying under an oak tree. A man clothed in metal and colorful cloth took Morgan captive to the man’s home in Camelot. Morgan had been captured by Sir Kay of King Arthur’s Roundtable. He was presented before a court led by Merlin, the nefarious magician. Merlin quickly decreed that Morgan should die at noon, June 21, A.D. 528. Morgan remembered that on June 21, A.D. 528 a total eclipse of the sun would occur. This might be his salvation!

The appointed day came and Morgan was to be burned at the stake. While the fire grew around him, Morgan stood with his hands pointing toward the sun. The world became dark! Morgan, then, released the “spell” and of course he was released. He subsequently replace the irascible Merlin as Arthur’s adviser, and the unhappy magician was cast into prison.

Though he was now the second most powerful person in the kingdom, Morgan missed many things from the 19th century. He, therefore, began to recreate the 19th century in the 6th century! His only opposition was from the Roman Catholic Church.

Three years passed. Sir Sagramor, challenged Morgan to a duel. To prepare himself for the encounter, Morgan decided to go on a quest. He had many great adventures. During this quest, he once again shamed Merlin by causing a dry well to hold water again (something Merlin could not do).

He and King Arthur, pretending to be common people, traveled all over the kingdom and they were horrified at the plight of the common people.

Because of a misunderstanding he and Arthur were condemned to die. At this point, Morgan found a telephone, informed Camelot of what was happening, and received the reassurance that five hundred knights would rush to London. At the last moment, Lancelot with his five hundred knights saved Morgan and Arthur. They were riding bicycles!

Morgan was still faced with a duel against Sir Sagramor. Morgan easily lassoed him and pull him from his horse. After Merlin stole Morgan’s lasso Morgan shot Sagramor with a homemade pistol.

Arthur instituted great social changes. Morgan married and Sandy his wife had a little girl. Morgan took his family on vacation, and, while he was away, Sir Lancelot lead a revolt and destroyed much of Camelot.

They dug trenches and put up electric fences. Thousands of enemy knights were killed but Morgan was stabbed. An old woman tried to nurse Morgan. The nurse was a disguised Merlin!

A poisonous gas given off by the rotting corpses killed everyone – except Morgan. Morgan was able to sleep for thirteen hundred years – until he work up once again in his own 19th century.

Great Books: A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

Monday, November 5th, 2007

Few authors are as well know, and well read, as Charles Dickens.

When Dickens was twelve, his father, John, was imprisoned for debt, an event that Dickens considered the most terrible experience of his life. Removed from school and put to work in a blacking (shoe-dye) factory, he lived alone, ashamed and frightened, in a lodging house in North London. It is from this experience that most of Dickens’ novels arose.
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