Blogging Towards Sunday, December 6, 2009

Malchi 4:1-4 | Luke 1:68-79 | Luke 3:1-6

Advent is a time of preparation, anticipation, staying awake - not in view of decorating our house, making a list and checking it twice or waiting up for the jolly old guy in red; as much as it is about a future-oriented hope, expectation and active waiting.  The texts this week remind us to hunger and thirst as God does: for justice, for a reign in which the oppressed and the oppressors live together in peace, in which the lion and lamb lay together, a pardoxal reversal of the world as we know it. But how does it come?

It's not a new word, it's the Word that God has spoken from prophet to prophet, from age to age.  But  how does it come?  What's up with God taking so long?  Or maybe it's just an empty promise, a metaphorical response to the presence of Evil in our world.

Happy Thanksgiving ! | ?

In general at Thanksgiving we're ready for a good laugh, the chance to relax and be with family and friends, to eat, but most of all it's the time together that we remember: watching a game or a parade, the smells while hanging out in the kitchen, the post-dinner clean-up, the late-night snacking.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

The World is Just Awesome

I saw this video on a friend's Facebook page.  Yes it's a fun advertisement and also found it to be an interesting response to last week's lectionary text from Mark 13 and an invitation to reflect upon how we react and engage the world in which we live.  Definitely more my style than the choice of flight and withdrawl that might be more expressed in the 2012 film, or the emerging fear of apocalyptic destruction and judgment looking forward to auspicious date December 21, 2012 in the Mayan calendar.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

Evangelism: has it seen its day?

This American Life had a recent very interesting interview about evangelism as a scam, a basic bait-and-switch pattern that the church didn't learn from imitating Jesus, but rather shamelessly adopted from corporate America.  The interview with Jim Henderson is interesting and worth a listen [link].

He also has an interesting movement being spearheaded through his site: offthemap.com

and a great video that you can use for your own stuff on vimeo:



The Spiritual Discipline of Serving from Recycle Your Faith on Vimeo.

Thanks to Matt for the connection.

Blogging Towards Sunday November 15

Mark 13:1-8; 1 Samuel 2:1-10

A Day of Memory : November 11th

I spoke this morning in the town of Vernouillet at an inter-religious ceremony commemorating November 11th, end official end of WW1.  The theme of "solidarity for peace" - quite a French theme and experience, and one that has been poignant for today.  It began with the moderator introducing me (I spoke with a Priest, Rabbi and Almost Imam [sounds like the beginning of a joke]) as the newbie and an American.  He began crying, expressing his gratitude for the Americans who came and died in Europe twice in 30 years for freedom.  Moving and unexpected.

Bumper Sticker of the Week

Can Virtual Church Be Literally Fulfilling?

CNN recently posted a breaking news video entitled "Is virtual worship fulfilling?" [LINK to the video report]. [LINK to lifechurch.tv]  Interesting video that asks a question that's been being discussed for several years in certain corners and sub-populations of the church community.

I found striking the commentators remarks towards the beginning.  It's high ceilings, windows and everyone together - those are the things that remind her of church.  In an age of transformation and redefinition of most of our experiences in daily life because of technological advancement, our approach to pluralism and cultural diversity and the global market-place, church - religious community and experience - also needs to be redefined, or does it?

Blogging Towards Sunday, November 8th 

Mark 12:38-44

Familiar text that we often regulate to a stereotypical reading that glorifies the generosity of a poor widow, I suspect that we are so blinded by her extreme example that we become incapable of living into the generous way of life Jesus is calling us to.  She gives all that she has, 2 coins (lepton, worth about 1/64th of a day's wage for a typical worker).  The coins weren't worth much, or anything in the day.  Yet it's all she has.  So she gives it by faith and in faith.  Whereas the scribes make themselves known and visible by their actions and supposed generosity, she enters into the worship space and lives our her faith without seeking attention and glory.  Faithfulness in action.

It's a great story.  Yet often we've read it saying that it's a horrible excuse to deprive the poor even more, or a vain attempt to say that we, the good and faithful Christians, are like the widow and others are like the scribes.  I suspect the text is more than just a black and white comparison between the scribe and the widow as examples of faithfulness.  It's an invitation to recognize that the scribes weren't just blinded by their ambition, they were blinded to the fundamental meaning of the Torah.   It's a juxtaposition between the ambiguity of institutions and systems and the demands of faithfulness.

Bumper sticker of the week

Thanks to Uncle Andrew for this find.

If you see a good one email it to me.

The Politics of Jesus

I found a crazy picture on Facebook the other day, portraying Jesus as the Savior of the United States of America.  Ironically he's surrounded only by Americans (I guess he didn't save anyone else), of whom the drastically large majority are white or Anglo-European Males. [Click on the photo for a larger version]

Bumper Sticker of the Week

Blogging towards Sunday, November 1

Mark 12:28-34

Simple words, often taken for granted.  Jesus may have not been the first to pronounce this 'abbreviation' of the commandments.  It was a hot topic in his day among religious scholars and leaders: which of the 613 commandments given by Moses have priority over the others?  Philo of Alexandria, Josephus and Hillel all spoke on this.  Yet here Jesus equates these two commandments: Love of God and love of Neighbor.  They aren't to be confused and yet they can't be separated.  One can't simply be a mystic, talking of love of God, abandoning oneself to the divine and invisible without caring and committing to the concrete, the here and now, the pertinence of those with whom we live.  One can't simply be an activist, taking up every cause because we all are created equal with the same rights.  Love of neighbor has to be more than that.  Those two together are the greatest, the essential, the unavoidable.

Clean Energy: what's broken with America

I finished reading the book "Hot, Flat and Crowded" by Thomas Freidman this past week.  It's an energetic  wake-up-call of a read challenging America (and the larger world) to get with it, to let good science speak louder than politics, to look long-term for solutions to our current economical and environmental problems instead of to short-term political gain by those running for office in the next 2-4 years and/or  financial gain by multinationals.  Newsweek recently ran an other clear and concise article on the impasse in which we sentence ourselves entitled "Clean energy should trump politics"

You have to wonder why is it that we repeatedly let politicians cower in the wake of screaming plebite citizens who have barely graduated high school and demand that we drill in the oceans, burn coal like crazy and keep gas cheap all to keep them happy today?  What about their children?  My children?  While we let states filled with oil and coal dictate our national policy, or even continue to allow Detroit - awash in bail-out money - insist on keeping the status quo in order to sell their gas-guzzlers, or ignorant MSNBC or FOX news driven fans shape our national energy policy, while we turn a deaf ear to PhDs formed and working in that field?

Community Empowerment

saving the dimond post office

For the past 5 months efforts have been underway to act in view of preventing the closure of the Post Office in Oakland's Dimond District near the corner of MacArthur and Fruitvale.  Scheduled to close for financial reasons, in light of the larger financial balance sheet problems of the US Postal Service, the fight was organized around the character of the neighborhood, desiring to ensure that it continues to be a place of vibrancy, presence and exchange and continues to grow in that direction.  It's a testament to the fiery community organizing power and passion of Oakland, in particular to the Oaklanders that call the MacArthur corridor, from the Dimond to the Laurel, home.  Here's some online media blitzes on it (sorry couldn't find any bloggers covering it):

Article in SF GATE

Bumper Sticker of the Week

I'm not sure if I find this funny or tragic: probably both.

Blogging Towards Sunday October 25, 2009

What's the real miracle? [article]

Mark 10:46-52

This passage comes at the conclusion of a long section in Mark (chapters 8-10) which begin with another encounter with a blind man and address the notion of discipleship: what does it mean to follow Jesus?  What does it cost?  At the conclusion of this central part of this gospel is another healing: Bartimaeus the Blind Beggar becomes Bartimaeus the Free Follower.

Blind, he has only begging as a career option.  In being healed, despite his obvious marginalization by society manifested in the ways the crowds tell him to "shut up" when Jesus passes by and he cries for help, he re-enters society not on his knees but on his feet.  Jesus makes him whole: meaning that he's healed, not just his eyes, but his relational place in society, his relationships with his family, his self-view as unimportant and forgettable.  He leaves behind what is quite possibly the only way he ever knew to make a living: begging.  He gets up and walk forward, step by step after the One that not only invites him to a knew life but who also makes it possible in all its various levels.

Blogging Towards Sunday, October 18

Leadership Vacuum in the Church

Mark 10:35-45

There's been a ton of recent brouhaha about President Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.  Some saying he hasn't done enough.  Others wondering who else could have been nominated, recognizing an apparent leadership vacuum in the world of those working to and for peace.  This recent picture from the Economist raising the issue - is Obama already great before he's done anything? [article] Are we so desperate for models of authentic, sincere and effectively world-transforming leadership that we reward those that seem to have promise?