Sobering Up
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
For November 15, 2020:
Sobering Up
by Ron Love
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
To accentuate the drama of their sermon preachers love to say that this is the worst time in the history of our country. This reflects a nostalgia for the “good ol’ days,” which an informed person knows weren’t that good, and it presents a narcissistic approach to the future if the congregation, and for that matter, the entire nation, would only listen to and heed the words thundered forth from the pulpit. The message is simple: think as I think; believe as I believe, act as I act, and then redemption will be on the horizon. It is a sermon that causes parishioners to sit on the edge of their pews in anticipation, that is, until they walk out of the sanctuary into the reality of life.
In the 1980s I was the pastor of Marion Center United Methodist Church in Marion Center, Pennsylvania. This rural crossroads community is located about 60 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. At that crossroads on opposing corners we had two gas stations; on the other opposing corners we had a bank and a traditional country store. The community was also located an hour away from any hospital or other medical facility. So, the town fathers decided to build their own medical clinic and hire their own doctor.
The physician they hired was a young man just out of medical school. Marion Center was a certainly a good place for him to start his career, and more certainly the only the salary that town could afford. As the physician was a devout outspoken Christian in this Bible belt community where the inerrancy of the Bible could not be questioned, he, in a way, became a pseudo-messiah. As a devout Christian all of his medical diagnosis could never be questioned, they could not be challenged, and it would be sacrilege to seek a second opinion. How simple and secure it is to live in as unquestioning environment.
The 1980s was also the height of the AIDS epidemic. Coming out of the shadows of the 70s, AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), caused by HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), was clearly understood. Or, so I thought.
One afternoon I was sitting in the office of this Christian physician who told me the only proper way to administer Holy Communion was with the common cup. He then told me that everyone who had AIDS should drink from the cup first, with the rest of the congregation drinking after them. This, he said, was our Christian witness. This, he said, demonstrated that the power of the Holy Spirit will protect all believers. The physician was sincere but uncompromising in this theological position.
As a man of science, as a man who understood germs, as a man who understood contagious diseases — he was drunk. He had a clouded mind, he allowed baseless scriptural principles to place him in the same dark abode of unbelievers. Though, as Marion Center’s medical messiah he sallied forth unquestioned and unchallenged.
We have made some advances regarding social issues in the last decades, but we have made unparalleled progress in our scientific advances. Yet, with our understanding of the cosmos, evolution, human anatomy, climate, and any other area of scientific discoveries, we are still drunk Christians living in darkness, as all the Bible stories are unquestionably true. It truly baffles me how we can live in this disconnect.
I attended a Sunday school class at Highland Park United Methodist Church on Second Loop Road in Florence, South Carolina. The teacher was a physician, specializing in internal medicine. As a Christian he had the admiration of the class, especially because he displayed Christian symbols and pictures on the walls of his waiting room.
One Sunday he lectured that the Creation story, particularly the account of Adam and Eve, was accurate. Since it was recorded in the Bible, he unequivocally maintained that was exactly how man and woman were formed. An educated man of science held this position; yet, somehow, for him, there was no place for evolution, zoology, paleontology, archeology, anthropology, or any other scientific discipline that would persuade him differently. He was a blind man drunk in his uncompromising belief in the inerrancy of the Bible.
I could fill pages with stories such as these.
Remember James Irwin? He was a NASA astronaut with the Apollo 15 moon mission. In 1971 Irwin spent over 19 hours on the surface of the moon, exploring its complexity and rock formations. Irwin was a true scientist who had a commanding understanding of the cosmos. Yet, what did this brilliant and educated scientist due upon retirement? Beginning in 1973 he set out to locate Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat in Turkey. His reading of the Bible convinced him that is where the ark came to ground.
I followed Irwin’s exploration as I found it as much intriguing as preposterous. We are only told in the Bible that water covered the land and all died who were not on the ark. How deep was that water? I would surmise that it would have to top the Himalayas Mountains, which were formed prior to the creation account in Genesis. This would mean to me that the ark floated in sub-zero temperatures in an atmosphere so deprived of oxygen that it could not support the life of any creature aboard the ark. One may admire Irwin’s dedication and commitment, but he was diffidently inebriated when it came to understanding the scriptures.
The reason why Christians are drunk and live in the same darkness as their counterparts — the unbelievers who live in darkness — is because Christians have never matured beyond a second grade Sunday school education of the Bible. What we learned in children’s Sunday school is repeated throughout our adult lives. You are aware of the platitudes: when a child dies God needed an angel in heaven; when life becomes unbearable God will never give us more than we can endure; when unfathomable tragedy strikes, we are told that God has a plan for us.
In this scientific age it is time that we accept the Bible as a book of theology, as it was intended, rather than approaching it as a verbatim dictate from God.
It has always been my contention that the reason high school and college students leave the church is because, in school, they are studying micro-biology and quantum physics, and the deepest theology they get in church school is that “Jesus loves me for the Bible tells me so.” This may be so, but it hardly answers the question of Covid-19.
Part of this is due to with a lack of exposure to a sober Christian message.
Instead, with Joel Osteen, we are bombarded with the theatrical presentation masking as worship, coupled with a gospel message that does not challenge but only offers rewards — the Prosperity Gospel.
Pat Robinson’s wife was pregnant prior to their marriage but this has never hindered him from denouncing everyone else’s immorality, or passing judgement that the societal acceptance of homosexuals is causing hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, and terrorist bombings.
Why read a provocative book like God and the Pandemic: A Christian Reflection on the Coronavirus and Its Aftermath by New Testament scholar N.T. Wright, when we can breeze through unchallenged, having all our misconceptions affirmed by reading The Shack by William Young. In The Shack God is an African-American woman, Elouisa, and Jesus is an Asian-looking handyman and maintenance worker. These character descriptions are acceptable but what is sacrilege is the loss of reverence as God and Jesus are portrayed as everyday homebodies. Jesus even clears the dinner table and washes the dishes.
Heresy enters into the book as a simplistic non-theological answer to the problem of suffering is presented. Mack, the father of a kidnapped and murdered daughter, sees his dead daughter, Missy, playing behind a glass window surrounded by a beautiful garden. Though Missy can’t see her father, Mack can see his daughter. In other words, Mack is able to see into heaven, thanks to Elouisa. Since the book was a bestseller, one can only surmise that this is the Jesus that Christians want. This is a far cry from Wright who calls the Beatitudes a mission statement, “Blessed are those who go out and make peace.”
Let us hope that the Christians you pastor will stumble out of the bar and into the chapel.
Over the centuries we have made some progress regarding social issues, but perhaps it will be decades, perhaps centuries, until we can declare that we have accomplished our goal of equality. In many ways we are not as physically brutal as we been in the past, but we have gained nothing on being emotionally brutal to minorities and the disenfranchised.
Jared Kushner is the son-in-law of President Donald Trump, and the president’s senior White House advisor. Kushner is proud of all the Trump administration has done for Africa-Americans; in fact, Kushner says, Trump has done more than any president since Abraham Lincoln.
Unfortunately, according to Kushner, the Trump policies have failed because Blacks have not taken advantage of the great and wonderful Trump programs. These programs and policies, initiated by Trump, will eliminate all the obstacles that Blacks must overcome if they desire to be successful. In the view of the Trump administration, Blacks have no desire to accept the gifts that these policies provide. Kushner said, “One thing we’ve seen in the Black community, which is mostly Democrat, is that President Trump’s policies are the policies that can help people break out of the problems that they’re complaining about. But he can’t want them to be successful more than they want to be successful.”
I grew up in the 1950s in a segregated mill-town of Lorain, Ohio. As a child of the midwest I have heard what Kushner implied many times before. Kushner implied what our Lorain rednecks expressed with more straightforward rhetoric; that is — “Blacks are lazy!” That is what the chief advisor to the President of the United States really believes.
Don’t pretend otherwise. Kushner made no mention of systemic racism. There was no mention of lack of employment opportunities. There was no mention that black workers are underpaid. There was no mention of a lack of educational opportunities. There was no mention of single-parent families. There was no mention of the lack of public transportation. There was no mention of food deserts. There was no mention that healthcare facilities are too distant to travel to.
According to Kushner, as reflective of his-father-in-law, the simple fact is that Blacks are lazy. Kushner seems to be drunk with bigotry. Kushner lives in the darkness of unbelievers. Kushner has no light to shine upon the social issues of our day.
Whether you are a Republican or Democrat, it must be confessed that President Donald Trump is a vulgar uncouth individual. Trump is a racist, homophobic, bigoted, and misogynist president.
Other presidents have shared these same demonic views. The names of many presidents could be cited, but the names of Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson will suffice. Their views parallel Trump in so many ways, but these two previous presidents only spoke like that behind closed doors. Their views certainly did influence policy decisions, but their views did not pollute a nation. In fact, most of their views were only known years after they left office when secret White House recordings were made public.
Trump has raised the bar to a new level of persecution, though.
Trump is different. He will post his racist ideas on Twitter or promote them at a rally, while standing behind a podium bearing the presidential seal. Before him stands thousands of drunken Christians who hear his bombastic rhetoric — but do they really listen? The followers enjoy that tough talk. They enjoy his stage theatrics. They cheer his new patriotism. They relish his mandate for law and order. They live in the promise of a better tomorrow — a Trump tomorrow. They salivate at being guilt free, as Democrats and the Chinese are the cause of all our social ills. They march to the new machoism of not wearing a facemask. And most importantly, the only truth that can been entertained comes from the lips of Donald Trump as everything else is either “fake” news or a “hoax.”
My two brothers (older and younger) are a good cross section of how Trump has infected our nation. I was sitting by the side of my brother’s pool in Orlando, when, to my consternation, the conversation turned to politics. I spoke no more than a half sentence expressing my concerns about Trump, when each brother took an ear and started screeching (screeching is the correct word) at me. Their message, Trump made it clear he would attack anyone who criticized him. I guess, in the concept of trickle down, all Republicans can verbally assault a Trump critic. You should be able to recall the original Trump quote when he said, “When somebody challenges you, fight back. Be brutal, be tough.” I agree that the president has the right to defend himself, but the defense must be one of diplomacy, not antagonism.
My older brother is a microcosm of a Trump supporter. He spends hours each day on the internet. One would think that he would spend time on Republican websites in order to enter into a meaningful dialogue. No, he is drunk. He spends hours trolling Democratic websites in order to argue and to accentuate just how misguided and vile Democrats are. Engaged in these constant confrontations with his political opponents, I can only imagine the anger that resides within him, and then lingers long after the last click of the mouse.
In last week's installment of The Immediate Word Dean Feldmeyer related in his article a visual representation of Christians who live in darkness, and perhaps, have no desire for light. He wrote:
There’s a house in my community with a big 4’X4’ sign in the front yard that says, simply, “Trump” in big letters then, below that, “Make liberals cry again.”
Nothing about why he’s a good president and will continue to be one. Nothing about what he plans to do, specifically, to rid us of the coronavirus. Nothing about the economy or national security or economic relief or education or healthcare.
It’s as though, for the people in that house, it’s not just about politics. The whole point of the election, for them, is not to win so America can be made better, but to win because in doing so, they can hurt the people with whom they disagree.
To be fair, the Democrats are not angelic. They do hold some extreme positions, especially on abortion and gun control, that should be challenged. The difference is that the Democrats are being civil in their causes, where the Republicans demean and denounce anyone who is not a white male.
White male?
Lindsay Graham is the Republican senator representing South Carolina, the state where I reside. Graham is also one of the most outspoken supporters of President Donald Trump. Graham boasts of being a Southern Baptist. Though I think he is beyond being a drunk Christian, I think he has actually passed out from intoxication. To the minorities in South Carolina Graham said, “If you are a young African American, an immigrant, you can go anywhere in this state. You just need to be conservative, not liberal.” To the women of South Carolina Graham said, “I want every young woman to know there's a place for you in America if you are pro-life, if you embrace your religion, and you follow traditional family structure. That you can go anywhere, young lady.” This does not sound like a very inclusive message. If we go beyond hearing to listening, what Graham is really saying is that only conservative Republicans are welcome in the Palmetto State.
What is even sadder is what Graham never said. He never placed a travel restriction on white males. I guess white males can wander the state as they please. It is Blacks and women who are not welcome by this drunken Southern Baptist.
But, actually, as I am a white male, I am not allowed on the bar stool with Graham and Trump. I might be a white male, but I am not one of them. Why? Because I have the birth defect of Asperger’s, which is on the autism spectrum. When I become overwhelmed, I have anxiety attacks. This can happen in public or in the privacy of my own home. I shake violently. I talk fast. I ramble. I may even bang my head with my hands. It is very embarrassing.
This week I had an anxiety attack while on a Zoom conference call with my The Immediate Word colleagues. They were kind. They were understanding. They were accepting. Yet, the attack was so embarrassing that I have written them countless emails apologizing for my behavior. Silly, is it not? My colleagues felt no need to receive an apology; but, somehow I always feel the need to apologize for my birth defect.
Perhaps this is because over 70 million Americans, 48% of the population, are laughing at me. Trump supporters.
Do you recall the political rally held on Tuesday, November 24, 2015, in South Carolina? Serge Kovaleski is a journalist for the New York Times. Kovaleski has arthrogryposis, which visibly limits flexibility in his arms. During the event Kovaleski began to shake uncontrollably. From the podium Trump began to imitate him and laugh at him, and then Trump said, “Now, the poor guy — you've got to see this guy.” I saw that. That was me. Trump was laughing at me. Trump was making fun of me. Trump’s 70 million like-minded supporters are laughing at me. Do you wonder why I seldom leave my home?
This is the toxic environment that Trump has created.
Flag waving followers who postulate the slogan of Make American Great Again, drunken Christians, who consider God and America as being one and the same, follow a leader who demeans everyone whom he considers inferior. These Christians promote a racist, homophobic, bigoted, and misogynist nation. They live in the same darkness that Paul challenges all Christians to forsake.
These Christians who are no longer a light unto our nation applaud Trump’s denouncement that POWs are not heroes. A nation where soldiers who died in Vietnam are fools because there was nothing in it for them. Soldiers who sustained a rocket attack only have a “headache.” Trump supporters who surround the Biden campaign bus, intimidating them, are, in Trump’s assertion, just protecting Biden’s campaign staff. It is okay to grope a woman’s gentiles if you have money. Adultery is acceptable, especially if you can pay hush money. The list is endless.
Trump said in his last debate that it is acceptable for one person to die if it means we can end our nation’s restrictions and reopen our economy. Trump said, “We have to open our country. You know I've said it often — the cure cannot be worse than the problem itself, and that's what's happening, and he wants to close down. He'll close down the country if one person in our, in our massive bureaucracy says we should close it down.” I would think that Trump is referring to a black man or a Latino immigrant as the one who should die, which is implied by that statement. The man who refers to 2 Corinthians as Two Corinthians, and places his offering envelope in a communion plate as it is being passed, has no meaning of the cross. If he did comprehend the message of the cross, he would accept the burden of carrying it to Calvary, not a Democrat, not a woman, not a minority, but Trump himself.
Democrats and Republicans alike still place myth over fact as we are too lazy to mature beyond our second grade Sunday school lessons.
Paul says we are to be sober, not drunk.
Sobriety requires clear thinking.
Sobriety requires educated thinking.
Sobriety requires critical thinking.
Our lectionary reading refers to the Apostle Paul’s immediate return of Christ. In fact, Paul expected it to occur in his lifetime. Two millennium later we are still waiting, but Paul’s message has remained timeless.
Regarding those who do not anticipate the return of Christ, (with some actual considering the message of Jesus and Paul to be foolish) they live in darkness. For Paul “darkness” not only means wickedness, but also to a realm and power that denounces the Christian message. According to Paul those who live in darkness are asleep. Paul cautions that before these skeptics go to sleep, they drink until they are drunk.
I have battled with alcohol. It is not something that I am proud of, but it is a part of my life story that I cannot deny. I have been able to abstain since June 2020, and I truly hope I can continue this path of sobriety. There are many reasons why I drank. Let us be cautious here: Christians interpret “reasons” as “excuses.” I consider the main reason I drank to be because I have Asperger’s, which is on the autistic spectrum. I also suffer from General Anxiety Disorder, which means I am constantly nervous. In fact, my daily nerves are so severe that they can cause me physical pain. To numb the pain, I self-medicated with alcohol.
Alcohol is not a good “medicine.” It leaves my body numb, to the point that I am unable to feel anything. This of course prevented me from being aware of both my own emotions and the emotional state of others.
Alcohol also clouded my thinking. I was unable to process information. I could not concentrate. I lacked the ability to think critically. As my mind went into a comatose state, the only thing I could manage is to watch mindless movies all day.
Using Paul’s analogy, this is why I chose to describe Christians in our present society as being drunk. They lack the ability to feel. They lack the ability to think. There are, of course, exceptions to this, but in to over simplify, the Christians in our society have drank themselves into sleep — they have drank themselves into darkness.
And their theological drunkenness prevails.
My grandparents were born in the 1890s. Horse and buggy transportation. Outhouse. No electricity. No telephones. No television, in fact, no radio. Since then we have gone to the moon and beyond; but our theology has remained stagnant, uninformed. We still use the same 1890s platitudes to answer difficult, and possibly unanswerable, theological questions.
Absent of any substantial change these nonsensical platitudes have been passed down from generation to generation, family member to family member, friend to friend, Sunday school class to Sunday school class, and from “educated” pastors from their pulpits, decade after decade.
You have heard them all: God needed an angel in heaven. God will never test you beyond what you can endure. In this tragedy God has a plan for you. It was God’s purpose. When I get to heaven, I am going to meet Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and my parents. The Bible is infallible. She’s in a better place now. God allowed it. God already knows what you are going to do, even before you do it. God is Holy, even one sin, just one, will keep you out of heaven. God knows the day and hour that you will die.
Instead of answering these hard theological questions, it has always appeared to me that Christians are apologizing for God, when God needs no apology.
It would appear that I am writing an essay with two parallel messages — theological and sociological. A careful reading of what Paul wrote demonstrates that they coexist. Paul was speaking of being prepared for the immediate return of Jesus; therefore, all Christians must be vigilant. All Christians must be sober. Christians must be involved in society preparing for the coming of Jesus. Only those who live in darkness, only those who are asleep, only those who are drunk, refuse to become involved. For Paul, our response is a moral imperative.
We do not prepare our country by having a stagnant and irrelevant theology. We only prepare society by presenting a theological position that is mature and authentic. We use this mature theology to bring light into darkness. To awaken those who are asleep. To institute a temperance movement.
Drunken Christians, who refuse to acknowledge that they are theological alcoholics, must join this temperance movement. We must acknowledge how our numb feelings and clouded minds allowed Trump to prevail in 2016 and during the four years following. Christians voted for Trump in 2016 because they wanted a “disrupter,” someone who would “drain the swamp.” Instead they got chaos.
New Testament scholar N.T. Wright, in his book God and the Pandemic: A Christian Reflection on the Coronavirus and Its Aftermath, acknowledged that Christians cannot approach the coronavirus with the shallow conviction that God is trying to teach us a lesson, one innocuous belief among so many. The Christian approach to the coronavirus is to become involved. This is why Wright put forth as the foundation for Christians to practice the Beatitudes, which he considers to be a mission statement, a call to action, a call to become involved. According to Wright the Beatitudes declare that “God’s kingdom is being launched on earth as in heaven, and the way it will happen is by God working through people of this sort.” Wright went on to write, “The answer is that God does send thunderbolts — human ones.”
Donald J. Trump is a virus who has caused a plague to engulf our nation. Though he will soon be leaving office, having been defeated by Joe Biden, the Trump virus will continue to infect us for years, decades, and maybe generations. This is the nature of a virus, once unleashed it is almost impossible to restrain.
A virus seeks a dormant host that, once infected, becomes hostile. The Trump virus did not seek a biological host, but a social host.
Since antiquity a woman who was having her menstrual cycle was ostracized from the community. She was unclean. She had to perform a number of purification rites. Slowly, as we came to a better understanding of biology and became a more civilized society, attitudes toward this natural monthly occurrence began to change. Yet, any student of evolution, physiology, psychology, and sociology realize that this attitude of being “unclean” can linger within us, even when dormant.
Trump, both disturbed and angered by the questions asked by Megyn Kelly of Fox News, made a derogatory comment regarding Kelly. Trump said, “You can see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.” As much as his campaign tried to convince the public that Trump didn’t say what he said, the word “wherever” can only refer to a woman menstruating. The Trump virus once again anchored itself to a dormant position once dispelled by science, and reintroduced it as an insulting and demeaning comment.
It is a well-established fact that the way to contain and defeat the coronavirus is to social distance, wear a face mask, and wait for a vaccine.
There is no vaccine to protect us from the Trump virus. We need to avoid social distancing and join together as a community who condemns racist, homophobic, bigoted, and misogynist attitudes. We need to remove our facemask and speak openly and forcefully, not with the language of an immature theology but with a language that reflects that we are educated adults.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:
Matthew 25:14-30
Multiplying the Yield
Among the people and places that understand turning a small amount into something much larger, like the figures in the parable, is the community of gardeners in Detroit. The once-devastated city is home to urban farms and, now, even an “agrihood.” Local farmers and residents have taken vacant land and multiplied its possibilities. “Within the city of Detroit, home to nearly 1,400 community gardens and farms, there is one officially designated agrihood, Michigan Urban Farming Initiative. The nonprofit in the North End neighborhood, just north of the recently gentrified Midtown area, calls itself America’s First Sustainable Urban Agrihood. It was founded in 2012 and gained its development designation in 2016. Co-founder Tyson Gersh said at the time, “Over the last four years, we’ve grown from an urban garden that provides fresh produce for our residents to a diverse, agricultural campus that has helped sustain the neighborhood, attracted new residents and area investment.” They’ve received corporate support from Target, BASF, and General Motors. The Michigan initiative is a 3-acre farm focusing on food insecurity in one of Detroit’s historic communities that was once home to a thriving Black middle class. Now the median home value is under $25,000, and about 35% of the residents are homeowners.” The farm’s manager, Quan Blunt, grew up in the Detroit area, and spent time in India in the Peace Corps doing work on food insecurity. He brought his expertise back to Detroit, which is often described as a “food desert.”
The benefits spread out beyond the farm itself. “With a trip to the farm, one can see that the grass is neatly manicured, even at abandoned property near the area. Community members can use our tools, our lawnmower,” Blunt says. “Whenever we get large numbers of volunteers [for the farm], we go first to the block club president to see what she needs done. The goal here is to strengthen the community.” At MUFI, produce is free to all. The farm is open for harvesting on Saturday mornings.” The talents have been multiplied many times over.
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Matthew 25:14-30
Giving Money Away
I always wonder how surprised the servants were when the landowner gave them ten talents, or five, or even one. They know he’s a harsh man — surely they’re wondering what the catch is. On Free Money Day, there’s no catch. Every September 15, people are encouraged to give money away, either in person, or digitally, or by leaving money for someone to find. The givers ask the receivers to give half of the money to someone else. The effort “aims to raise awareness and start conversations about the benefits of economies based on sharing, as well as offer a liberating experience to inspire more critical and creative thinking about our relationships with money and how we can have new types of economic activity. It’s an opportunity to get money flowing more readily in our society: A chance to inspire greater generosity, rather than shaming people into action. A chance to experience how good it can feel to give, and a moving reminder that we’re all in this together.”
As a former trader at Lehman Brothers says, “Our relationship with money has become dysfunctional as it has become an end in itself. It’s time to rethink money and by the simple act of giving some away, we will start to reconnect with the original purpose of money: to connect ‘human gifts with human needs’.” Unlike the landowner who gives away the talents, here nothing is expected in return, and no one needs to be nervous about what happens next.
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Psalm 90:1-8, (9-11), 12
Counting Our Days
Professional advocates for meditation, like Jon Kabat-Zinn, call it mindfulness, just as the psalmist calls it counting our days. Paying attention to the life that’s rushing past us is what both are urging us to do. As Kabat-Zinn says, “How you pay attention in your life actually can change your life and your biology and your brain.” He adds that sometimes life wakes us up to our inattention. If “things are going in a direction that you describe for yourself as desirable — in other words, your 401(k) is increasing in value every year and so forth — it just seems like, yes, all is right with the world. And you can pay your mortgage payments and maybe buy a bigger house and on and on and on that this is the way it’s supposed to be. And we tell ourselves that this is the way it’s supposed to be. And then there are these rude awakenings that happen sometimes. It doesn’t have to be the collapse of the economy or the stock market. It can be as simple as, you know, something happening to one of your family members or yourself.”
Echoing the psalmist, he says, “So when you hear the word “mindfulness,” if you’re not in some sense automatically hearing the word “heartfulness” you’re misunderstanding it. And mindfulness in any event is not a concept; it’s a way of being. And it’s a way of being awake. It’s not a big deal; it’s just that we’re never taught that this is part of the human repertoire. So what does wakefulness mean? It means resting in a kind of awareness that is so stable that it’s not thrown off by the comings and goings of events within the field of awareness. So that you lose your balance when things go this way and things go that way, but you actually stay grounded when things go your way, as we put it.” Or, as the psalmist would say, so that we might gain a wise heart.
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Psalm 90:1-8, (9-11), 12
Counting Our Days, part two
“Teach us to count our days,” the psalmist prays, knowing that when we remember the limits on our lives, we value our time more. Joan Halifax recalls that her grandmother had a natural gift for this spiritual work, long before the world of hospice and palliative care. She was a “kind of village woman. You know, this was part of the life of many of our grandmothers. And her compassion was extraordinary, and also her resilience. She was not a sentimental person. She was very grounded and extremely skillful and just being present for difficulties.” Her influence shaped the work that Joan Halifax does now, and she says, “I became a person very much involved, not only in direct care of dying people and of their communities, of their families, but also in training health care professionals in compassionate care of the dying.” She says that learning to number our days is essential to living fully. We “have this vision of hopefully dying peacefully at a nice old age, but most of us probably won't. So the situation one encounters so often of a person in their 20s, 30s, 40s, or a child who is trying to come to terms with, you know, what happened? Why me? This isn't right; it's out of the natural order of things. And do you know something? There is no answer. So this is where this experience of listening, you know, of being able to be present when these impossible questions are asked, knowing there is no good answer but seeing if you can look past the need for an answer to a deeper truth, which is really beyond words.”
This kind of awareness adds life to our days, she says. “You know, I sit with dying people a lot. I'm around a lot of suffering. Does it bring me down? No. Does it bring me up? No. It's as it is. You know, there's a kind of frankness to this way that I approach life. I feel so lucky that I've had so many years — what is it now? — 35 years of sitting with dying people. And I still feel that I am in the presence of a mystery, and it's a deep privilege, and that it also gives me so much to appreciate in my life. I mean, to be personal, I had a bath the other day, and just this sort of wave of gratitude passed over me as I realized, ‘I can enjoy this bath right now’."
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From team member Dean Feldmeyer:
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Hypocrisy Writ Large
He made free use of Christian vocabulary. He talked about the blessing of the almighty and the Christian confessions that would become the pillars of the new government. He assumed the earnestness of a man weighed down by historic responsibility. He handed out pious stories to the press, especially to the church papers. He showed his tattered Bible and declared that he drew the strength for his great work from it as scores of pious people welcomed him as a man sent from God. His name was Adolph Hitler. (Today in the Word, June 3, 1989.)
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1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Truth In Advertising?
Companies who pride themselves in their honesty may want to take another look at their practices:
We call the boards 2X4’s because they’re two inches thick and four inches wide, right? Wrong. They’re actually 1 5/8 inches wide and 3 5/8 inches wide. The two by four measurement is taken before the bark is shaved off of the board.
The weight of the “quarter pound burger” is usually somewhere around 2 ½ - 3 ounces. The quarter pound measure was taken before it was cooked.
We call the piece of paper 8 ½ X 11 because it’s eight and a half inches wide and eleven inches long. But, in actuality, it stopped being that several years ago. Measure it carefully and you’ll discover that, in most cases, the page is actually 1/16 of an inch shorter than advertised on each side. It doesn’t seem like much until you multiply it by the billions of pages the paper manufacturer makes in a week and how much money they’re saving by shaving that 1/16 of an inch off each page.
A pound of coffee? Check the can. You’ll probably discover that it hasn’t been a pound in years. It’s probably 12 oz. or, in some cases 11 1/2. Same with a pound of bacon.
Open a large package of fresh chicken that you bought by the pound and you’ll probably discover that the chicken is lying on a piece of thick, cotton-like material that is soaked in water adding anywhere from 4-8 oz. to the weight of your chicken.
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Hypocrisy Costs Lives
The HMS Titanic was advertised as the biggest, fastest, safest ship to ever sail the oceans. But, in fact, the advertising was riddled with lies.
Investigations after the great ship was lost at sea with 1,500 souls, showed that the workmanship was slipshod, the materials with which she was built were second rate, and things that should have been done to ensure safety were left undone all in the name of expediency and profit.
Probably the greatest symbol of the “Titanic Myth” was the fourth smokestack or funnel that extended from the ship into the air above. It was a total fake. Three of the four funnels were actual smoke stacks that carried smoke and steam from the engines out of the ship. The fourth was an empty dummy added for no other reason than to give the look of the ship a pleasant symmetry with “better lines.”
(The Last Days of the Titanic: Photographs and Mementos of the Tragic Maiden Voyage, by Edward Eugene O'Donnelland, E. E. O'Donnell, and Frank Browne.)
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Judges 4:1-7
The Women Who Never Got Credit
Judges 4:1-7
The Truth Of The Big-Eyed Waifs
The subject of Tim Burton’s “Big Eyes,” Margaret Keane was the painter who created “the big-eyed waifs” — pieces of art that became wildly popular in the 1960s. Her husband, Walter Keane, convinced her that they would make more money if he put his name on the paintings. Years later, she claimed in court that he threatened to kill her if she ever went public with their secret.
Eventually, Margaret divorced her husband and told a radio host the truth in a 1970 interview. She challenged Walter to a live painting contest to prove she was really the artist; he didn’t respond.
Then, in 1986, she took him to court. According to a People Magazine article at the time:
“Margaret, 58, and Walter, 70, hadn’t laid eyes on each other for nearly 20 years when they walked into federal court in Honolulu last month. They proceeded to have at it in an often heated 3½-week trial. Margaret acknowledged that she had gone along with Walter’s claims during their marriage, but only because he threatened to kill her and her daughter by a prior marriage if she revealed the truth. At the behest of her attorney, Margaret sat before the jurors and in 53 minutes painted a small boy’s face with those unmistakable outsize orbs. The painting, Exhibit 224 of the trial, may be her greatest artistic triumph.”
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Matthew 25:14-30
Investments Good and Bad
Charles Francis Adams, 19th century political figure and diplomat, kept a diary. One day he entered: "Went fishing with my son today — a day wasted." His son, Brook Adams, also kept a diary, which is still in existence. On that same day, Brook Adams made this entry: "Went fishing with my father — the most wonderful day of my life!"
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Matthew 25:14-30
10 Worst Investments Ever
Mybanktracker.com has compiled what they consider to be the worst financial investments ever. Starting with the worst, let the buyer beware:
1. Timeshares
You’re buying one week per year in a condo that’s going to be sold 51 more times. Take your investment, multiply it times 51 and ask yourself if the condo is really worth that.
2. Race horses
After purchasing a thoroughbred, you have to board, train, shod, groom, hot-walk, medicate, and feed it, not to mention, find a jockey to ride it before your half-ton steed ever makes it onto the racetrack. That’s about a $60,000 tab a year.
3. Restaurants
To start your own, you need to be far more than just a good cook, or even a great cook. In fact, cooking has little to do with restaurant success. You have to be able to manage and juggle all kinds of moving parts, including the lease, pricing, spoilage, the wait staff, vendors, permits, location, marketing. About 60 percent of all new restaurants go out of business the first year.
4. Penny stocks
A penny stock is a loose term for any stock that is not a blue-chip stock. The problem with these stocks is they are loosely regulated, lack track records and histories, are highly illiquid, meaning they’re hard to trade and are usually traded by boiler room, hard pressure sales people who also trade in lies and unfulfilled promises.
5. Stock in the company you work for
Aubrey McClendon, former chief executive of Chesapeake Energy Corp., tied up most of his personal fortune in his company’s stock. Today, he’s no longer chairman, although he founded the company. He lost about $2 billion. A little is okay; a lot, is not.
6. Buying a house beyond your means
If you get in over your head, you could very well end up with a house that sucks up all of your disposable income in the form of a down payment, monthly mortgage payments, insurance, taxes and maintenance costs. Ilyce Glink, author of 100 Questions Every Homeowner Should Ask, says that homeowners should expect to spend between $2,000 and $10,000 annually on home repairs.
7. Staying invested in all cash
The Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator gives grim evidence of how inflation can eat away the value of your money. The $100,000 you buried in the back yard in 2000 so you could buy your dream house is worth only about $51,000 today in buying power. The $100,000 you bury today will be worth about $1,371 less this time next year.
8. Home improvement tools
It might sound cool to own your own power washer or rug shampooer, but have fun storing it, not to mention paying for those and other home improvement tools, which can cost five times or more to operate.
9. Marijuana
While weed may offer some great investment potential, it’s too early in its development for safe, sound investments. After the 2020 election, recreational use of pot is legal in only 11 of our 50 states. It’s still a misdemeanor in some and a felony in others. And it’s still a federal crime in all 50 states. Do you really want to invest in something that’s a crime?
10. Investments in anything you don’t understand
Many people still don’t know what caused the Great Recession, but chances are they’ve heard words such as “swaps,” “derivatives,” “collateralized,” and “structured,” associated with the great collapse. As for playing the stock market, if you don’t know the difference between a stop and stop limit order or the difference between an in the money option and out of the money option, then simply stay away from these confusing investments.
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From team member Tom Willadsen:
Judges 4:1-7
Déjà vu all over again
The beginning of this text, “The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord…” recalls Yogi Berra’s famous line, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”
* * *
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Remember last week? Encourage each other…
Paul’s message to the Thessalonians in last week’s lesson told them to grieve differently from those who are not in Christ. Paul concludes this week’s lesson reminding Christians to encourage one another. “Encourager” is a spiritual gift that appears in some translations as “Exhorter.” This is an often overlooked Christian virtue. If you want to bring a change to your congregation, appoint three anonymous encouragers. Charge them to say encouraging things to at least three people each week. This strategy works best when coffee hour is possible; it’s harder to be an encourager in the age of Covid.
* * *
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Take care if you refer to last week’s reading from 1 Thessalonians! In that reading those who were asleep were what we would call dead. In today’s reading those are asleep are asleep — presumably in their beds. They’re out of it, unable to function, just as disabled as people who are drunk. There’s sleep and there’s sleep. Lots of potential fodder for jokes about boring pastors here, and how difficult it is to keep awake... that is, alert.
* * *
Matthew 25:14-30
…about that Protestant work ethic…
It’s hard to make a case for Sabbath observance based on today’s gospel reading. A talent is an enormous amount of money, 20 years’ wages for someone in first century Palestine. Jesus is clearly using Monopoly money to make whatever point he’s trying to make.
Note that both of the first two slaves were entrusted with “many things.” Both had doubled their master’s money. Both were given even more to do. The slave who played it safe — or opted out of the whole charade, depending on your point of view — was called both “wicked” and “lazy.” Americans equate those two character flaws. The top two things Americans believe about “the poor” is that they are lazy and stupid. Of course they should be expelled from society and have the little they have taken from them! We’re much better off rewarding those who work hard, by giving them more work. This is an upside down reading of the usual interpretation of the parable, but what exactly was Jesus trying to convey anyway?
* * *
Psalm 90:1-8
You may want to refer to TIW’s October 25, 2020 edition. A portion of Psalm 90 was part on that day’s lectionary.
The first five verses of today’s reading are the basis for Isaac Watts’s beloved hymn “Or God, Our Help in Ages Past.”
The ephemeral nature of grass in verse 5 is an echo, or foreshadowing, of Jonah 4. In that text the prophet rejoices, briefly, in the shade of a castor bean plant which the Lord appointed, afforded him as he waited for God’s fireworks to waste Nineveh. When God was merciful to Nineveh, after having appointed a worm to attack Jonah’s beloved plant, causing it to wither and die, thus exposing Jonah to the hot wind, Jonah was angry enough to want to die. Plants can have that effect on people.
* * * * * *
WORSHIP
by George Reed
Call to Worship:
Leader: O God, you have been our dwelling-place in all generations.
People: From everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Leader: A thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past.
People: Our days are like grass that flourishes and then fades away.
Leader: So teach us to count our days
People: that we may gain a wise heart.
OR
Leader: Let us worship the God who knows each own of us.
People: We offer our praises to the God who created us.
Leader: God knows us and loves us completely.
People: We are awed by the love that embraces us.
Leader: Let us share that love with others this week.
People: We will spread God’s love to our neighbors.
Hymns and Songs:
Come, Thou Almighty King
UMH: 61
H82: 365
PH: 139
AAHH: 327
NNBH: 38
NCH: 275
CH: 27
LBW: 522
ELW: 408
W&P: 148
AMEC: 7
All Creatures of Our God and King
UMH: 62
H82: 400
PH: 455
AAHH: 147
NNBH: 33
NCH: 17
CH: 22
LBW: 527
ELW: 835
W&P: 23
AMEC: 50
STLT: 203
Renew: 47
O God, Our Help in Ages Past
UMH: 117
H82: 380
AAHH: 170
NNBH: 46
NCH: 25
CH: 67
LBW: 320
ELW: 632
W&P: 84
AMEC: 61
STLT: 281
Breathe on Me, Breath of God
UMH: 420
H82: 508
PH: 316
AAHH: 317
NNBH: 126
NCH: 292
CH: 254
LBW: 488
W&P: 461
AMEC: 192
Let There Be Peace on Earth
UMH: 431
CH: 677
W&P: 614
Be Thou My Vision
UMH: 451
H82: 488
PH: 339
NCH: 451
CH: 595
ELW: 793
W&P: 502
AMEC: 281
STLT: 20
Renew: 151
My Faith Looks Up to Thee
UMH: 452
H82: 691
PH: 383
AAHH: 456
NNBH: 273
CH: 576
LBW: 479
ELW: 759
W&P: 419
AMEC: 415
Open My Eyes, That I May See
UMH: 454
PH: 324
NNBH: 218
CH: 586
W&P: 480
AMEC: 285
Lord, Speak to Me
UMH: 463
PH: 426
NCH: 531
ELW: 676
W&P: 593
Lift Every Voice and Sing
UMH: 519
H82: 599
PH: 563
AAHH: 540
NNBH: 457
CH: 631
LBW: 562
ELW: 841
W&P: 729
AMEC: 571
STLT: 149
O How He Loves You and Me
CCB: 38
Renew: 27
Our God Reigns
CCB: 33
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who wields the greatest power in love:
Grant us the grace to see the power of love
and to choose it over force and coercion;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you are true power and that power is love. Help us to identify ourselves with you and your power rather than the brutish forces of this world. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our attraction to the power of this world.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You are all powerful and you are love and yet we can’t seem to understand that love really is power. We are tempted and deceived by the so called power of this world which is based on force and violence. We say we are followers of Jesus but we look a lot more like citizens of Rome. We don’t comprehend the power that changes hearts instead of merely outward behavior. Call us back to you and to your love that we may truly live as your children. Amen.
Leader: God is love and is always ready to welcome us back into that love. Receive God’s grace and share it with others that we may all know we are God’s children.
Prayers of the People
We offer our worship and praise to you, O God, Lover of all creation.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You are all powerful and you are love and yet we can't seem to understand that love really is power. We are tempted and deceived by the so called power of this world which is based on force and violence. We say we are followers of Jesus but we look a lot more like citizens of Rome. We don't comprehend the power that changes hearts instead of merely outward behavior. Call us back to you and to your love that we may truly live as your children.
We give you thanks for all the ways in which your love is shown to us. We thank you for the beauty of creation and its abundance that supplies all our needs. We thank you for those in our lives who reflect you love as they care for us. We thank you for Jesus who showed us how to live in your love among others.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for all your children in their need. We pray for those who do not know that they are loved because the circumstances of their lives seem to say they are not worthy of love. We pray for those in poverty and want; those who are surrounded by violence; those who are ill or dying and those who are grieving. We pray for those who are alone and struggling with their loneliness.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Today we heard about Deborah. She was a great leader of God’s people but we don’t often hear about her. That is true of a lot of folks. They serve and do what is needed but they seldom get noticed. The person who puts the flowers in the church; the people who clean it; the person who washes our clothes. We may know they do it but we seldom take the time to thank them. Let look for opportunities to thank people who don’t usually get thanked this week.
* * * * * *
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Take Five! What Will You Do With God’s Gifts?
by Chris Keating
Matthew 25:14-30
Prepare ahead of time:
As you retell the story, help the kids understand that the master (boss) may seem to have been greedy and mean, but that he was actually giving the servants large amounts of money. Five talents was more money than the average person in Jesus’ time would earn in a lifetime. Even a single talent was an incredible amount of money.
Ask the children to imagine how the servants might have felt. They were not given the money as a personal gift, but instead were asked to take care of it while the master was gone. In this way, the servant’s fear is understandable. Remind the children that God gives us all that we need — and sometimes even more than we need.
Ask them, “Would you like to take part in a challenge?” Each child will get an envelope with five one-dollar bills. Tell them you are giving them this money. They can choose how they want to spend it. However, there is one rule to this challenge. That rule is that they are to use the money to help someone else so that they can help multiply God’s gifts.
For example, five dollars might not buy many things that we want. But five dollars can buy a lot of food for people who are hungry. Read through the list you have collected from the food pantry. How many items could they buy with their five dollars? How much more could they buy if they combined their money? Would they be willing to take a risk this week, and see how the money could grow?
Some ideas:
They could go together as a group to shop for food for a food pantry;
They could purchase personal care items for a homeless shelter;
They could purchase gift cards for children in foster care.
Two children could buy a book for a child in a homeless shelter.
As you give them the envelopes, tell them you will be checking with them next week to see how they helped God’s love grow.
Close by using this prayer for children regarding stewardship from the Episcopal Diocese of Washington:
Jesus, we love you and we know you love us. Everything we have is a gift from you. Thank you for play time and for our growing bodies. Thank you for our laughter and our joy. Help us to give some of our time and some of our money back to you. When we think of giving something away to someone who needs it, help us to give two and not just one. Amen.
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The Immediate Word, November 15, 2020 issue.
Copyright 2020 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
- Sobering Up by Ron Love — Christian, you are as drunk with clouded thinking as those drunks who live in the darkness that you vehemently condemn.
- Sermon illustrations by Mary Austin, Dean Feldmeyer and Tom Willadsen.
- Worship resources by George Reed.
- Children's sermon: Take Five! What Will You Do With God’s Gifts? by Chris Keating — Hidden inside Jesus’ parable of the talents is a message about taking risks and multiplying grace.
Sobering Upby Ron Love
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
To accentuate the drama of their sermon preachers love to say that this is the worst time in the history of our country. This reflects a nostalgia for the “good ol’ days,” which an informed person knows weren’t that good, and it presents a narcissistic approach to the future if the congregation, and for that matter, the entire nation, would only listen to and heed the words thundered forth from the pulpit. The message is simple: think as I think; believe as I believe, act as I act, and then redemption will be on the horizon. It is a sermon that causes parishioners to sit on the edge of their pews in anticipation, that is, until they walk out of the sanctuary into the reality of life.
In the 1980s I was the pastor of Marion Center United Methodist Church in Marion Center, Pennsylvania. This rural crossroads community is located about 60 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. At that crossroads on opposing corners we had two gas stations; on the other opposing corners we had a bank and a traditional country store. The community was also located an hour away from any hospital or other medical facility. So, the town fathers decided to build their own medical clinic and hire their own doctor.
The physician they hired was a young man just out of medical school. Marion Center was a certainly a good place for him to start his career, and more certainly the only the salary that town could afford. As the physician was a devout outspoken Christian in this Bible belt community where the inerrancy of the Bible could not be questioned, he, in a way, became a pseudo-messiah. As a devout Christian all of his medical diagnosis could never be questioned, they could not be challenged, and it would be sacrilege to seek a second opinion. How simple and secure it is to live in as unquestioning environment.
The 1980s was also the height of the AIDS epidemic. Coming out of the shadows of the 70s, AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), caused by HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), was clearly understood. Or, so I thought.
One afternoon I was sitting in the office of this Christian physician who told me the only proper way to administer Holy Communion was with the common cup. He then told me that everyone who had AIDS should drink from the cup first, with the rest of the congregation drinking after them. This, he said, was our Christian witness. This, he said, demonstrated that the power of the Holy Spirit will protect all believers. The physician was sincere but uncompromising in this theological position.
As a man of science, as a man who understood germs, as a man who understood contagious diseases — he was drunk. He had a clouded mind, he allowed baseless scriptural principles to place him in the same dark abode of unbelievers. Though, as Marion Center’s medical messiah he sallied forth unquestioned and unchallenged.
We have made some advances regarding social issues in the last decades, but we have made unparalleled progress in our scientific advances. Yet, with our understanding of the cosmos, evolution, human anatomy, climate, and any other area of scientific discoveries, we are still drunk Christians living in darkness, as all the Bible stories are unquestionably true. It truly baffles me how we can live in this disconnect.
I attended a Sunday school class at Highland Park United Methodist Church on Second Loop Road in Florence, South Carolina. The teacher was a physician, specializing in internal medicine. As a Christian he had the admiration of the class, especially because he displayed Christian symbols and pictures on the walls of his waiting room.
One Sunday he lectured that the Creation story, particularly the account of Adam and Eve, was accurate. Since it was recorded in the Bible, he unequivocally maintained that was exactly how man and woman were formed. An educated man of science held this position; yet, somehow, for him, there was no place for evolution, zoology, paleontology, archeology, anthropology, or any other scientific discipline that would persuade him differently. He was a blind man drunk in his uncompromising belief in the inerrancy of the Bible.
I could fill pages with stories such as these.
Remember James Irwin? He was a NASA astronaut with the Apollo 15 moon mission. In 1971 Irwin spent over 19 hours on the surface of the moon, exploring its complexity and rock formations. Irwin was a true scientist who had a commanding understanding of the cosmos. Yet, what did this brilliant and educated scientist due upon retirement? Beginning in 1973 he set out to locate Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat in Turkey. His reading of the Bible convinced him that is where the ark came to ground.
I followed Irwin’s exploration as I found it as much intriguing as preposterous. We are only told in the Bible that water covered the land and all died who were not on the ark. How deep was that water? I would surmise that it would have to top the Himalayas Mountains, which were formed prior to the creation account in Genesis. This would mean to me that the ark floated in sub-zero temperatures in an atmosphere so deprived of oxygen that it could not support the life of any creature aboard the ark. One may admire Irwin’s dedication and commitment, but he was diffidently inebriated when it came to understanding the scriptures.
The reason why Christians are drunk and live in the same darkness as their counterparts — the unbelievers who live in darkness — is because Christians have never matured beyond a second grade Sunday school education of the Bible. What we learned in children’s Sunday school is repeated throughout our adult lives. You are aware of the platitudes: when a child dies God needed an angel in heaven; when life becomes unbearable God will never give us more than we can endure; when unfathomable tragedy strikes, we are told that God has a plan for us.
In this scientific age it is time that we accept the Bible as a book of theology, as it was intended, rather than approaching it as a verbatim dictate from God.
It has always been my contention that the reason high school and college students leave the church is because, in school, they are studying micro-biology and quantum physics, and the deepest theology they get in church school is that “Jesus loves me for the Bible tells me so.” This may be so, but it hardly answers the question of Covid-19.
Part of this is due to with a lack of exposure to a sober Christian message.
Instead, with Joel Osteen, we are bombarded with the theatrical presentation masking as worship, coupled with a gospel message that does not challenge but only offers rewards — the Prosperity Gospel.
Pat Robinson’s wife was pregnant prior to their marriage but this has never hindered him from denouncing everyone else’s immorality, or passing judgement that the societal acceptance of homosexuals is causing hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, and terrorist bombings.
Why read a provocative book like God and the Pandemic: A Christian Reflection on the Coronavirus and Its Aftermath by New Testament scholar N.T. Wright, when we can breeze through unchallenged, having all our misconceptions affirmed by reading The Shack by William Young. In The Shack God is an African-American woman, Elouisa, and Jesus is an Asian-looking handyman and maintenance worker. These character descriptions are acceptable but what is sacrilege is the loss of reverence as God and Jesus are portrayed as everyday homebodies. Jesus even clears the dinner table and washes the dishes.
Heresy enters into the book as a simplistic non-theological answer to the problem of suffering is presented. Mack, the father of a kidnapped and murdered daughter, sees his dead daughter, Missy, playing behind a glass window surrounded by a beautiful garden. Though Missy can’t see her father, Mack can see his daughter. In other words, Mack is able to see into heaven, thanks to Elouisa. Since the book was a bestseller, one can only surmise that this is the Jesus that Christians want. This is a far cry from Wright who calls the Beatitudes a mission statement, “Blessed are those who go out and make peace.”
Let us hope that the Christians you pastor will stumble out of the bar and into the chapel.
Over the centuries we have made some progress regarding social issues, but perhaps it will be decades, perhaps centuries, until we can declare that we have accomplished our goal of equality. In many ways we are not as physically brutal as we been in the past, but we have gained nothing on being emotionally brutal to minorities and the disenfranchised.
Jared Kushner is the son-in-law of President Donald Trump, and the president’s senior White House advisor. Kushner is proud of all the Trump administration has done for Africa-Americans; in fact, Kushner says, Trump has done more than any president since Abraham Lincoln.
Unfortunately, according to Kushner, the Trump policies have failed because Blacks have not taken advantage of the great and wonderful Trump programs. These programs and policies, initiated by Trump, will eliminate all the obstacles that Blacks must overcome if they desire to be successful. In the view of the Trump administration, Blacks have no desire to accept the gifts that these policies provide. Kushner said, “One thing we’ve seen in the Black community, which is mostly Democrat, is that President Trump’s policies are the policies that can help people break out of the problems that they’re complaining about. But he can’t want them to be successful more than they want to be successful.”
I grew up in the 1950s in a segregated mill-town of Lorain, Ohio. As a child of the midwest I have heard what Kushner implied many times before. Kushner implied what our Lorain rednecks expressed with more straightforward rhetoric; that is — “Blacks are lazy!” That is what the chief advisor to the President of the United States really believes.
Don’t pretend otherwise. Kushner made no mention of systemic racism. There was no mention of lack of employment opportunities. There was no mention that black workers are underpaid. There was no mention of a lack of educational opportunities. There was no mention of single-parent families. There was no mention of the lack of public transportation. There was no mention of food deserts. There was no mention that healthcare facilities are too distant to travel to.
According to Kushner, as reflective of his-father-in-law, the simple fact is that Blacks are lazy. Kushner seems to be drunk with bigotry. Kushner lives in the darkness of unbelievers. Kushner has no light to shine upon the social issues of our day.
Whether you are a Republican or Democrat, it must be confessed that President Donald Trump is a vulgar uncouth individual. Trump is a racist, homophobic, bigoted, and misogynist president.
Other presidents have shared these same demonic views. The names of many presidents could be cited, but the names of Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson will suffice. Their views parallel Trump in so many ways, but these two previous presidents only spoke like that behind closed doors. Their views certainly did influence policy decisions, but their views did not pollute a nation. In fact, most of their views were only known years after they left office when secret White House recordings were made public.
Trump has raised the bar to a new level of persecution, though.
Trump is different. He will post his racist ideas on Twitter or promote them at a rally, while standing behind a podium bearing the presidential seal. Before him stands thousands of drunken Christians who hear his bombastic rhetoric — but do they really listen? The followers enjoy that tough talk. They enjoy his stage theatrics. They cheer his new patriotism. They relish his mandate for law and order. They live in the promise of a better tomorrow — a Trump tomorrow. They salivate at being guilt free, as Democrats and the Chinese are the cause of all our social ills. They march to the new machoism of not wearing a facemask. And most importantly, the only truth that can been entertained comes from the lips of Donald Trump as everything else is either “fake” news or a “hoax.”
My two brothers (older and younger) are a good cross section of how Trump has infected our nation. I was sitting by the side of my brother’s pool in Orlando, when, to my consternation, the conversation turned to politics. I spoke no more than a half sentence expressing my concerns about Trump, when each brother took an ear and started screeching (screeching is the correct word) at me. Their message, Trump made it clear he would attack anyone who criticized him. I guess, in the concept of trickle down, all Republicans can verbally assault a Trump critic. You should be able to recall the original Trump quote when he said, “When somebody challenges you, fight back. Be brutal, be tough.” I agree that the president has the right to defend himself, but the defense must be one of diplomacy, not antagonism.
My older brother is a microcosm of a Trump supporter. He spends hours each day on the internet. One would think that he would spend time on Republican websites in order to enter into a meaningful dialogue. No, he is drunk. He spends hours trolling Democratic websites in order to argue and to accentuate just how misguided and vile Democrats are. Engaged in these constant confrontations with his political opponents, I can only imagine the anger that resides within him, and then lingers long after the last click of the mouse.
In last week's installment of The Immediate Word Dean Feldmeyer related in his article a visual representation of Christians who live in darkness, and perhaps, have no desire for light. He wrote:
There’s a house in my community with a big 4’X4’ sign in the front yard that says, simply, “Trump” in big letters then, below that, “Make liberals cry again.”
Nothing about why he’s a good president and will continue to be one. Nothing about what he plans to do, specifically, to rid us of the coronavirus. Nothing about the economy or national security or economic relief or education or healthcare.
It’s as though, for the people in that house, it’s not just about politics. The whole point of the election, for them, is not to win so America can be made better, but to win because in doing so, they can hurt the people with whom they disagree.
To be fair, the Democrats are not angelic. They do hold some extreme positions, especially on abortion and gun control, that should be challenged. The difference is that the Democrats are being civil in their causes, where the Republicans demean and denounce anyone who is not a white male.
White male?
Lindsay Graham is the Republican senator representing South Carolina, the state where I reside. Graham is also one of the most outspoken supporters of President Donald Trump. Graham boasts of being a Southern Baptist. Though I think he is beyond being a drunk Christian, I think he has actually passed out from intoxication. To the minorities in South Carolina Graham said, “If you are a young African American, an immigrant, you can go anywhere in this state. You just need to be conservative, not liberal.” To the women of South Carolina Graham said, “I want every young woman to know there's a place for you in America if you are pro-life, if you embrace your religion, and you follow traditional family structure. That you can go anywhere, young lady.” This does not sound like a very inclusive message. If we go beyond hearing to listening, what Graham is really saying is that only conservative Republicans are welcome in the Palmetto State.
What is even sadder is what Graham never said. He never placed a travel restriction on white males. I guess white males can wander the state as they please. It is Blacks and women who are not welcome by this drunken Southern Baptist.
But, actually, as I am a white male, I am not allowed on the bar stool with Graham and Trump. I might be a white male, but I am not one of them. Why? Because I have the birth defect of Asperger’s, which is on the autism spectrum. When I become overwhelmed, I have anxiety attacks. This can happen in public or in the privacy of my own home. I shake violently. I talk fast. I ramble. I may even bang my head with my hands. It is very embarrassing.
This week I had an anxiety attack while on a Zoom conference call with my The Immediate Word colleagues. They were kind. They were understanding. They were accepting. Yet, the attack was so embarrassing that I have written them countless emails apologizing for my behavior. Silly, is it not? My colleagues felt no need to receive an apology; but, somehow I always feel the need to apologize for my birth defect.
Perhaps this is because over 70 million Americans, 48% of the population, are laughing at me. Trump supporters.
Do you recall the political rally held on Tuesday, November 24, 2015, in South Carolina? Serge Kovaleski is a journalist for the New York Times. Kovaleski has arthrogryposis, which visibly limits flexibility in his arms. During the event Kovaleski began to shake uncontrollably. From the podium Trump began to imitate him and laugh at him, and then Trump said, “Now, the poor guy — you've got to see this guy.” I saw that. That was me. Trump was laughing at me. Trump was making fun of me. Trump’s 70 million like-minded supporters are laughing at me. Do you wonder why I seldom leave my home?
This is the toxic environment that Trump has created.
Flag waving followers who postulate the slogan of Make American Great Again, drunken Christians, who consider God and America as being one and the same, follow a leader who demeans everyone whom he considers inferior. These Christians promote a racist, homophobic, bigoted, and misogynist nation. They live in the same darkness that Paul challenges all Christians to forsake.
These Christians who are no longer a light unto our nation applaud Trump’s denouncement that POWs are not heroes. A nation where soldiers who died in Vietnam are fools because there was nothing in it for them. Soldiers who sustained a rocket attack only have a “headache.” Trump supporters who surround the Biden campaign bus, intimidating them, are, in Trump’s assertion, just protecting Biden’s campaign staff. It is okay to grope a woman’s gentiles if you have money. Adultery is acceptable, especially if you can pay hush money. The list is endless.
Trump said in his last debate that it is acceptable for one person to die if it means we can end our nation’s restrictions and reopen our economy. Trump said, “We have to open our country. You know I've said it often — the cure cannot be worse than the problem itself, and that's what's happening, and he wants to close down. He'll close down the country if one person in our, in our massive bureaucracy says we should close it down.” I would think that Trump is referring to a black man or a Latino immigrant as the one who should die, which is implied by that statement. The man who refers to 2 Corinthians as Two Corinthians, and places his offering envelope in a communion plate as it is being passed, has no meaning of the cross. If he did comprehend the message of the cross, he would accept the burden of carrying it to Calvary, not a Democrat, not a woman, not a minority, but Trump himself.
Democrats and Republicans alike still place myth over fact as we are too lazy to mature beyond our second grade Sunday school lessons.
Paul says we are to be sober, not drunk.
Sobriety requires clear thinking.
Sobriety requires educated thinking.
Sobriety requires critical thinking.
Our lectionary reading refers to the Apostle Paul’s immediate return of Christ. In fact, Paul expected it to occur in his lifetime. Two millennium later we are still waiting, but Paul’s message has remained timeless.
Regarding those who do not anticipate the return of Christ, (with some actual considering the message of Jesus and Paul to be foolish) they live in darkness. For Paul “darkness” not only means wickedness, but also to a realm and power that denounces the Christian message. According to Paul those who live in darkness are asleep. Paul cautions that before these skeptics go to sleep, they drink until they are drunk.
I have battled with alcohol. It is not something that I am proud of, but it is a part of my life story that I cannot deny. I have been able to abstain since June 2020, and I truly hope I can continue this path of sobriety. There are many reasons why I drank. Let us be cautious here: Christians interpret “reasons” as “excuses.” I consider the main reason I drank to be because I have Asperger’s, which is on the autistic spectrum. I also suffer from General Anxiety Disorder, which means I am constantly nervous. In fact, my daily nerves are so severe that they can cause me physical pain. To numb the pain, I self-medicated with alcohol.
Alcohol is not a good “medicine.” It leaves my body numb, to the point that I am unable to feel anything. This of course prevented me from being aware of both my own emotions and the emotional state of others.
Alcohol also clouded my thinking. I was unable to process information. I could not concentrate. I lacked the ability to think critically. As my mind went into a comatose state, the only thing I could manage is to watch mindless movies all day.
Using Paul’s analogy, this is why I chose to describe Christians in our present society as being drunk. They lack the ability to feel. They lack the ability to think. There are, of course, exceptions to this, but in to over simplify, the Christians in our society have drank themselves into sleep — they have drank themselves into darkness.
And their theological drunkenness prevails.
My grandparents were born in the 1890s. Horse and buggy transportation. Outhouse. No electricity. No telephones. No television, in fact, no radio. Since then we have gone to the moon and beyond; but our theology has remained stagnant, uninformed. We still use the same 1890s platitudes to answer difficult, and possibly unanswerable, theological questions.
Absent of any substantial change these nonsensical platitudes have been passed down from generation to generation, family member to family member, friend to friend, Sunday school class to Sunday school class, and from “educated” pastors from their pulpits, decade after decade.
You have heard them all: God needed an angel in heaven. God will never test you beyond what you can endure. In this tragedy God has a plan for you. It was God’s purpose. When I get to heaven, I am going to meet Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and my parents. The Bible is infallible. She’s in a better place now. God allowed it. God already knows what you are going to do, even before you do it. God is Holy, even one sin, just one, will keep you out of heaven. God knows the day and hour that you will die.
Instead of answering these hard theological questions, it has always appeared to me that Christians are apologizing for God, when God needs no apology.
It would appear that I am writing an essay with two parallel messages — theological and sociological. A careful reading of what Paul wrote demonstrates that they coexist. Paul was speaking of being prepared for the immediate return of Jesus; therefore, all Christians must be vigilant. All Christians must be sober. Christians must be involved in society preparing for the coming of Jesus. Only those who live in darkness, only those who are asleep, only those who are drunk, refuse to become involved. For Paul, our response is a moral imperative.
We do not prepare our country by having a stagnant and irrelevant theology. We only prepare society by presenting a theological position that is mature and authentic. We use this mature theology to bring light into darkness. To awaken those who are asleep. To institute a temperance movement.
Drunken Christians, who refuse to acknowledge that they are theological alcoholics, must join this temperance movement. We must acknowledge how our numb feelings and clouded minds allowed Trump to prevail in 2016 and during the four years following. Christians voted for Trump in 2016 because they wanted a “disrupter,” someone who would “drain the swamp.” Instead they got chaos.
New Testament scholar N.T. Wright, in his book God and the Pandemic: A Christian Reflection on the Coronavirus and Its Aftermath, acknowledged that Christians cannot approach the coronavirus with the shallow conviction that God is trying to teach us a lesson, one innocuous belief among so many. The Christian approach to the coronavirus is to become involved. This is why Wright put forth as the foundation for Christians to practice the Beatitudes, which he considers to be a mission statement, a call to action, a call to become involved. According to Wright the Beatitudes declare that “God’s kingdom is being launched on earth as in heaven, and the way it will happen is by God working through people of this sort.” Wright went on to write, “The answer is that God does send thunderbolts — human ones.”
Donald J. Trump is a virus who has caused a plague to engulf our nation. Though he will soon be leaving office, having been defeated by Joe Biden, the Trump virus will continue to infect us for years, decades, and maybe generations. This is the nature of a virus, once unleashed it is almost impossible to restrain.
A virus seeks a dormant host that, once infected, becomes hostile. The Trump virus did not seek a biological host, but a social host.
Since antiquity a woman who was having her menstrual cycle was ostracized from the community. She was unclean. She had to perform a number of purification rites. Slowly, as we came to a better understanding of biology and became a more civilized society, attitudes toward this natural monthly occurrence began to change. Yet, any student of evolution, physiology, psychology, and sociology realize that this attitude of being “unclean” can linger within us, even when dormant.
Trump, both disturbed and angered by the questions asked by Megyn Kelly of Fox News, made a derogatory comment regarding Kelly. Trump said, “You can see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.” As much as his campaign tried to convince the public that Trump didn’t say what he said, the word “wherever” can only refer to a woman menstruating. The Trump virus once again anchored itself to a dormant position once dispelled by science, and reintroduced it as an insulting and demeaning comment.
It is a well-established fact that the way to contain and defeat the coronavirus is to social distance, wear a face mask, and wait for a vaccine.
There is no vaccine to protect us from the Trump virus. We need to avoid social distancing and join together as a community who condemns racist, homophobic, bigoted, and misogynist attitudes. We need to remove our facemask and speak openly and forcefully, not with the language of an immature theology but with a language that reflects that we are educated adults.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:Matthew 25:14-30
Multiplying the Yield
Among the people and places that understand turning a small amount into something much larger, like the figures in the parable, is the community of gardeners in Detroit. The once-devastated city is home to urban farms and, now, even an “agrihood.” Local farmers and residents have taken vacant land and multiplied its possibilities. “Within the city of Detroit, home to nearly 1,400 community gardens and farms, there is one officially designated agrihood, Michigan Urban Farming Initiative. The nonprofit in the North End neighborhood, just north of the recently gentrified Midtown area, calls itself America’s First Sustainable Urban Agrihood. It was founded in 2012 and gained its development designation in 2016. Co-founder Tyson Gersh said at the time, “Over the last four years, we’ve grown from an urban garden that provides fresh produce for our residents to a diverse, agricultural campus that has helped sustain the neighborhood, attracted new residents and area investment.” They’ve received corporate support from Target, BASF, and General Motors. The Michigan initiative is a 3-acre farm focusing on food insecurity in one of Detroit’s historic communities that was once home to a thriving Black middle class. Now the median home value is under $25,000, and about 35% of the residents are homeowners.” The farm’s manager, Quan Blunt, grew up in the Detroit area, and spent time in India in the Peace Corps doing work on food insecurity. He brought his expertise back to Detroit, which is often described as a “food desert.”
The benefits spread out beyond the farm itself. “With a trip to the farm, one can see that the grass is neatly manicured, even at abandoned property near the area. Community members can use our tools, our lawnmower,” Blunt says. “Whenever we get large numbers of volunteers [for the farm], we go first to the block club president to see what she needs done. The goal here is to strengthen the community.” At MUFI, produce is free to all. The farm is open for harvesting on Saturday mornings.” The talents have been multiplied many times over.
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Matthew 25:14-30
Giving Money Away
I always wonder how surprised the servants were when the landowner gave them ten talents, or five, or even one. They know he’s a harsh man — surely they’re wondering what the catch is. On Free Money Day, there’s no catch. Every September 15, people are encouraged to give money away, either in person, or digitally, or by leaving money for someone to find. The givers ask the receivers to give half of the money to someone else. The effort “aims to raise awareness and start conversations about the benefits of economies based on sharing, as well as offer a liberating experience to inspire more critical and creative thinking about our relationships with money and how we can have new types of economic activity. It’s an opportunity to get money flowing more readily in our society: A chance to inspire greater generosity, rather than shaming people into action. A chance to experience how good it can feel to give, and a moving reminder that we’re all in this together.”
As a former trader at Lehman Brothers says, “Our relationship with money has become dysfunctional as it has become an end in itself. It’s time to rethink money and by the simple act of giving some away, we will start to reconnect with the original purpose of money: to connect ‘human gifts with human needs’.” Unlike the landowner who gives away the talents, here nothing is expected in return, and no one needs to be nervous about what happens next.
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Psalm 90:1-8, (9-11), 12
Counting Our Days
Professional advocates for meditation, like Jon Kabat-Zinn, call it mindfulness, just as the psalmist calls it counting our days. Paying attention to the life that’s rushing past us is what both are urging us to do. As Kabat-Zinn says, “How you pay attention in your life actually can change your life and your biology and your brain.” He adds that sometimes life wakes us up to our inattention. If “things are going in a direction that you describe for yourself as desirable — in other words, your 401(k) is increasing in value every year and so forth — it just seems like, yes, all is right with the world. And you can pay your mortgage payments and maybe buy a bigger house and on and on and on that this is the way it’s supposed to be. And we tell ourselves that this is the way it’s supposed to be. And then there are these rude awakenings that happen sometimes. It doesn’t have to be the collapse of the economy or the stock market. It can be as simple as, you know, something happening to one of your family members or yourself.”
Echoing the psalmist, he says, “So when you hear the word “mindfulness,” if you’re not in some sense automatically hearing the word “heartfulness” you’re misunderstanding it. And mindfulness in any event is not a concept; it’s a way of being. And it’s a way of being awake. It’s not a big deal; it’s just that we’re never taught that this is part of the human repertoire. So what does wakefulness mean? It means resting in a kind of awareness that is so stable that it’s not thrown off by the comings and goings of events within the field of awareness. So that you lose your balance when things go this way and things go that way, but you actually stay grounded when things go your way, as we put it.” Or, as the psalmist would say, so that we might gain a wise heart.
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Psalm 90:1-8, (9-11), 12
Counting Our Days, part two
“Teach us to count our days,” the psalmist prays, knowing that when we remember the limits on our lives, we value our time more. Joan Halifax recalls that her grandmother had a natural gift for this spiritual work, long before the world of hospice and palliative care. She was a “kind of village woman. You know, this was part of the life of many of our grandmothers. And her compassion was extraordinary, and also her resilience. She was not a sentimental person. She was very grounded and extremely skillful and just being present for difficulties.” Her influence shaped the work that Joan Halifax does now, and she says, “I became a person very much involved, not only in direct care of dying people and of their communities, of their families, but also in training health care professionals in compassionate care of the dying.” She says that learning to number our days is essential to living fully. We “have this vision of hopefully dying peacefully at a nice old age, but most of us probably won't. So the situation one encounters so often of a person in their 20s, 30s, 40s, or a child who is trying to come to terms with, you know, what happened? Why me? This isn't right; it's out of the natural order of things. And do you know something? There is no answer. So this is where this experience of listening, you know, of being able to be present when these impossible questions are asked, knowing there is no good answer but seeing if you can look past the need for an answer to a deeper truth, which is really beyond words.”
This kind of awareness adds life to our days, she says. “You know, I sit with dying people a lot. I'm around a lot of suffering. Does it bring me down? No. Does it bring me up? No. It's as it is. You know, there's a kind of frankness to this way that I approach life. I feel so lucky that I've had so many years — what is it now? — 35 years of sitting with dying people. And I still feel that I am in the presence of a mystery, and it's a deep privilege, and that it also gives me so much to appreciate in my life. I mean, to be personal, I had a bath the other day, and just this sort of wave of gratitude passed over me as I realized, ‘I can enjoy this bath right now’."
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From team member Dean Feldmeyer:1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Hypocrisy Writ Large
He made free use of Christian vocabulary. He talked about the blessing of the almighty and the Christian confessions that would become the pillars of the new government. He assumed the earnestness of a man weighed down by historic responsibility. He handed out pious stories to the press, especially to the church papers. He showed his tattered Bible and declared that he drew the strength for his great work from it as scores of pious people welcomed him as a man sent from God. His name was Adolph Hitler. (Today in the Word, June 3, 1989.)
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1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Truth In Advertising?
Companies who pride themselves in their honesty may want to take another look at their practices:
We call the boards 2X4’s because they’re two inches thick and four inches wide, right? Wrong. They’re actually 1 5/8 inches wide and 3 5/8 inches wide. The two by four measurement is taken before the bark is shaved off of the board.
The weight of the “quarter pound burger” is usually somewhere around 2 ½ - 3 ounces. The quarter pound measure was taken before it was cooked.
We call the piece of paper 8 ½ X 11 because it’s eight and a half inches wide and eleven inches long. But, in actuality, it stopped being that several years ago. Measure it carefully and you’ll discover that, in most cases, the page is actually 1/16 of an inch shorter than advertised on each side. It doesn’t seem like much until you multiply it by the billions of pages the paper manufacturer makes in a week and how much money they’re saving by shaving that 1/16 of an inch off each page.
A pound of coffee? Check the can. You’ll probably discover that it hasn’t been a pound in years. It’s probably 12 oz. or, in some cases 11 1/2. Same with a pound of bacon.
Open a large package of fresh chicken that you bought by the pound and you’ll probably discover that the chicken is lying on a piece of thick, cotton-like material that is soaked in water adding anywhere from 4-8 oz. to the weight of your chicken.
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Hypocrisy Costs Lives
The HMS Titanic was advertised as the biggest, fastest, safest ship to ever sail the oceans. But, in fact, the advertising was riddled with lies.
Investigations after the great ship was lost at sea with 1,500 souls, showed that the workmanship was slipshod, the materials with which she was built were second rate, and things that should have been done to ensure safety were left undone all in the name of expediency and profit.
Probably the greatest symbol of the “Titanic Myth” was the fourth smokestack or funnel that extended from the ship into the air above. It was a total fake. Three of the four funnels were actual smoke stacks that carried smoke and steam from the engines out of the ship. The fourth was an empty dummy added for no other reason than to give the look of the ship a pleasant symmetry with “better lines.”
(The Last Days of the Titanic: Photographs and Mementos of the Tragic Maiden Voyage, by Edward Eugene O'Donnelland, E. E. O'Donnell, and Frank Browne.)
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Judges 4:1-7
The Women Who Never Got Credit
- The man who invented Monopoly did not invent Monopoly. In 1903, Elizabeth Magie designed a game called “Landlord’s Game” to protest “big monopolists” like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller.
- More than three decades later, a man named Charles Darrow claimed a nearly identical “version of it as his own,” and sold his game to Parker Brothers. Darrow made millions for the game we know today as Monopoly, while Magie’s creation earned her around $500.
- Rosalind Franklin was working as a research associate at King’s College London in the biophysics unit in 1951 when she and her student Raymond Gosling discovered that there were two forms of DNA, a dry “A” form and a wet “B” form. A colleague named Maurice Wilkins showed her Franklin’s discovery to competing scientists James Watson and Francis Crick, without Franklin’s permission and the duo used Franklin’s findings as a basis for their DNA model and won a Nobel Prize for it in 1962 — four years after she died.
- Alice Guy made over 100 films in the early 1900s before marrying the manager of the production studio she worked for, a man named Herbert Blaché. She became the first female film studio owner opening Solax Studios in 1910. Ironically, her name would eventually be erased and her husband would get the credit for her visionary work in film. He opened a studio after she did, convinced her to merge companies and to let his name be at the forefront. The First One Hundred Noted Men and Women of the Screen, published in 1920, dedicated a page to Herbert Blaché’s legacy, making no mention of Guy. Lowrey did so kindly mention a few of her films — she just falsely credited them to Blaché.
Judges 4:1-7
The Truth Of The Big-Eyed Waifs
The subject of Tim Burton’s “Big Eyes,” Margaret Keane was the painter who created “the big-eyed waifs” — pieces of art that became wildly popular in the 1960s. Her husband, Walter Keane, convinced her that they would make more money if he put his name on the paintings. Years later, she claimed in court that he threatened to kill her if she ever went public with their secret.
Eventually, Margaret divorced her husband and told a radio host the truth in a 1970 interview. She challenged Walter to a live painting contest to prove she was really the artist; he didn’t respond.
Then, in 1986, she took him to court. According to a People Magazine article at the time:
“Margaret, 58, and Walter, 70, hadn’t laid eyes on each other for nearly 20 years when they walked into federal court in Honolulu last month. They proceeded to have at it in an often heated 3½-week trial. Margaret acknowledged that she had gone along with Walter’s claims during their marriage, but only because he threatened to kill her and her daughter by a prior marriage if she revealed the truth. At the behest of her attorney, Margaret sat before the jurors and in 53 minutes painted a small boy’s face with those unmistakable outsize orbs. The painting, Exhibit 224 of the trial, may be her greatest artistic triumph.”
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Matthew 25:14-30
Investments Good and Bad
Charles Francis Adams, 19th century political figure and diplomat, kept a diary. One day he entered: "Went fishing with my son today — a day wasted." His son, Brook Adams, also kept a diary, which is still in existence. On that same day, Brook Adams made this entry: "Went fishing with my father — the most wonderful day of my life!"
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Matthew 25:14-30
10 Worst Investments Ever
Mybanktracker.com has compiled what they consider to be the worst financial investments ever. Starting with the worst, let the buyer beware:
1. Timeshares
You’re buying one week per year in a condo that’s going to be sold 51 more times. Take your investment, multiply it times 51 and ask yourself if the condo is really worth that.
2. Race horses
After purchasing a thoroughbred, you have to board, train, shod, groom, hot-walk, medicate, and feed it, not to mention, find a jockey to ride it before your half-ton steed ever makes it onto the racetrack. That’s about a $60,000 tab a year.
3. Restaurants
To start your own, you need to be far more than just a good cook, or even a great cook. In fact, cooking has little to do with restaurant success. You have to be able to manage and juggle all kinds of moving parts, including the lease, pricing, spoilage, the wait staff, vendors, permits, location, marketing. About 60 percent of all new restaurants go out of business the first year.
4. Penny stocks
A penny stock is a loose term for any stock that is not a blue-chip stock. The problem with these stocks is they are loosely regulated, lack track records and histories, are highly illiquid, meaning they’re hard to trade and are usually traded by boiler room, hard pressure sales people who also trade in lies and unfulfilled promises.
5. Stock in the company you work for
Aubrey McClendon, former chief executive of Chesapeake Energy Corp., tied up most of his personal fortune in his company’s stock. Today, he’s no longer chairman, although he founded the company. He lost about $2 billion. A little is okay; a lot, is not.
6. Buying a house beyond your means
If you get in over your head, you could very well end up with a house that sucks up all of your disposable income in the form of a down payment, monthly mortgage payments, insurance, taxes and maintenance costs. Ilyce Glink, author of 100 Questions Every Homeowner Should Ask, says that homeowners should expect to spend between $2,000 and $10,000 annually on home repairs.
7. Staying invested in all cash
The Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator gives grim evidence of how inflation can eat away the value of your money. The $100,000 you buried in the back yard in 2000 so you could buy your dream house is worth only about $51,000 today in buying power. The $100,000 you bury today will be worth about $1,371 less this time next year.
8. Home improvement tools
It might sound cool to own your own power washer or rug shampooer, but have fun storing it, not to mention paying for those and other home improvement tools, which can cost five times or more to operate.
9. Marijuana
While weed may offer some great investment potential, it’s too early in its development for safe, sound investments. After the 2020 election, recreational use of pot is legal in only 11 of our 50 states. It’s still a misdemeanor in some and a felony in others. And it’s still a federal crime in all 50 states. Do you really want to invest in something that’s a crime?
10. Investments in anything you don’t understand
Many people still don’t know what caused the Great Recession, but chances are they’ve heard words such as “swaps,” “derivatives,” “collateralized,” and “structured,” associated with the great collapse. As for playing the stock market, if you don’t know the difference between a stop and stop limit order or the difference between an in the money option and out of the money option, then simply stay away from these confusing investments.
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From team member Tom Willadsen:Judges 4:1-7
Déjà vu all over again
The beginning of this text, “The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the Lord…” recalls Yogi Berra’s famous line, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”
* * *
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Remember last week? Encourage each other…
Paul’s message to the Thessalonians in last week’s lesson told them to grieve differently from those who are not in Christ. Paul concludes this week’s lesson reminding Christians to encourage one another. “Encourager” is a spiritual gift that appears in some translations as “Exhorter.” This is an often overlooked Christian virtue. If you want to bring a change to your congregation, appoint three anonymous encouragers. Charge them to say encouraging things to at least three people each week. This strategy works best when coffee hour is possible; it’s harder to be an encourager in the age of Covid.
* * *
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Take care if you refer to last week’s reading from 1 Thessalonians! In that reading those who were asleep were what we would call dead. In today’s reading those are asleep are asleep — presumably in their beds. They’re out of it, unable to function, just as disabled as people who are drunk. There’s sleep and there’s sleep. Lots of potential fodder for jokes about boring pastors here, and how difficult it is to keep awake... that is, alert.
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Matthew 25:14-30
…about that Protestant work ethic…
It’s hard to make a case for Sabbath observance based on today’s gospel reading. A talent is an enormous amount of money, 20 years’ wages for someone in first century Palestine. Jesus is clearly using Monopoly money to make whatever point he’s trying to make.
Note that both of the first two slaves were entrusted with “many things.” Both had doubled their master’s money. Both were given even more to do. The slave who played it safe — or opted out of the whole charade, depending on your point of view — was called both “wicked” and “lazy.” Americans equate those two character flaws. The top two things Americans believe about “the poor” is that they are lazy and stupid. Of course they should be expelled from society and have the little they have taken from them! We’re much better off rewarding those who work hard, by giving them more work. This is an upside down reading of the usual interpretation of the parable, but what exactly was Jesus trying to convey anyway?
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Psalm 90:1-8
You may want to refer to TIW’s October 25, 2020 edition. A portion of Psalm 90 was part on that day’s lectionary.
The first five verses of today’s reading are the basis for Isaac Watts’s beloved hymn “Or God, Our Help in Ages Past.”
The ephemeral nature of grass in verse 5 is an echo, or foreshadowing, of Jonah 4. In that text the prophet rejoices, briefly, in the shade of a castor bean plant which the Lord appointed, afforded him as he waited for God’s fireworks to waste Nineveh. When God was merciful to Nineveh, after having appointed a worm to attack Jonah’s beloved plant, causing it to wither and die, thus exposing Jonah to the hot wind, Jonah was angry enough to want to die. Plants can have that effect on people.
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WORSHIPby George Reed
Call to Worship:
Leader: O God, you have been our dwelling-place in all generations.
People: From everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Leader: A thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past.
People: Our days are like grass that flourishes and then fades away.
Leader: So teach us to count our days
People: that we may gain a wise heart.
OR
Leader: Let us worship the God who knows each own of us.
People: We offer our praises to the God who created us.
Leader: God knows us and loves us completely.
People: We are awed by the love that embraces us.
Leader: Let us share that love with others this week.
People: We will spread God’s love to our neighbors.
Hymns and Songs:
Come, Thou Almighty King
UMH: 61
H82: 365
PH: 139
AAHH: 327
NNBH: 38
NCH: 275
CH: 27
LBW: 522
ELW: 408
W&P: 148
AMEC: 7
All Creatures of Our God and King
UMH: 62
H82: 400
PH: 455
AAHH: 147
NNBH: 33
NCH: 17
CH: 22
LBW: 527
ELW: 835
W&P: 23
AMEC: 50
STLT: 203
Renew: 47
O God, Our Help in Ages Past
UMH: 117
H82: 380
AAHH: 170
NNBH: 46
NCH: 25
CH: 67
LBW: 320
ELW: 632
W&P: 84
AMEC: 61
STLT: 281
Breathe on Me, Breath of God
UMH: 420
H82: 508
PH: 316
AAHH: 317
NNBH: 126
NCH: 292
CH: 254
LBW: 488
W&P: 461
AMEC: 192
Let There Be Peace on Earth
UMH: 431
CH: 677
W&P: 614
Be Thou My Vision
UMH: 451
H82: 488
PH: 339
NCH: 451
CH: 595
ELW: 793
W&P: 502
AMEC: 281
STLT: 20
Renew: 151
My Faith Looks Up to Thee
UMH: 452
H82: 691
PH: 383
AAHH: 456
NNBH: 273
CH: 576
LBW: 479
ELW: 759
W&P: 419
AMEC: 415
Open My Eyes, That I May See
UMH: 454
PH: 324
NNBH: 218
CH: 586
W&P: 480
AMEC: 285
Lord, Speak to Me
UMH: 463
PH: 426
NCH: 531
ELW: 676
W&P: 593
Lift Every Voice and Sing
UMH: 519
H82: 599
PH: 563
AAHH: 540
NNBH: 457
CH: 631
LBW: 562
ELW: 841
W&P: 729
AMEC: 571
STLT: 149
O How He Loves You and Me
CCB: 38
Renew: 27
Our God Reigns
CCB: 33
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELW: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day/Collect
O God who wields the greatest power in love:
Grant us the grace to see the power of love
and to choose it over force and coercion;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We praise you, O God, because you are true power and that power is love. Help us to identify ourselves with you and your power rather than the brutish forces of this world. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially our attraction to the power of this world.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You are all powerful and you are love and yet we can’t seem to understand that love really is power. We are tempted and deceived by the so called power of this world which is based on force and violence. We say we are followers of Jesus but we look a lot more like citizens of Rome. We don’t comprehend the power that changes hearts instead of merely outward behavior. Call us back to you and to your love that we may truly live as your children. Amen.
Leader: God is love and is always ready to welcome us back into that love. Receive God’s grace and share it with others that we may all know we are God’s children.
Prayers of the People
We offer our worship and praise to you, O God, Lover of all creation.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You are all powerful and you are love and yet we can't seem to understand that love really is power. We are tempted and deceived by the so called power of this world which is based on force and violence. We say we are followers of Jesus but we look a lot more like citizens of Rome. We don't comprehend the power that changes hearts instead of merely outward behavior. Call us back to you and to your love that we may truly live as your children.
We give you thanks for all the ways in which your love is shown to us. We thank you for the beauty of creation and its abundance that supplies all our needs. We thank you for those in our lives who reflect you love as they care for us. We thank you for Jesus who showed us how to live in your love among others.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for all your children in their need. We pray for those who do not know that they are loved because the circumstances of their lives seem to say they are not worthy of love. We pray for those in poverty and want; those who are surrounded by violence; those who are ill or dying and those who are grieving. We pray for those who are alone and struggling with their loneliness.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ who taught us to pray together saying:
Our Father....Amen.
(Or if the Our Father is not used at this point in the service.)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Today we heard about Deborah. She was a great leader of God’s people but we don’t often hear about her. That is true of a lot of folks. They serve and do what is needed but they seldom get noticed. The person who puts the flowers in the church; the people who clean it; the person who washes our clothes. We may know they do it but we seldom take the time to thank them. Let look for opportunities to thank people who don’t usually get thanked this week.
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CHILDREN'S SERMONTake Five! What Will You Do With God’s Gifts?
by Chris Keating
Matthew 25:14-30
Prepare ahead of time:
- A current list of the most needed items at a local food pantry. Price each of those items (e.g., $1 for a packet of tuna fish or a can of soup; $4 for a jar of pasta sauce, etc.)
- Envelopes with five one dollar bills for each child (if this is a crunch to the budget, consider approaching a few folks in the congregation for donations. Explain that their gift will be helpful in teaching important lessons on stewardship.)
As you retell the story, help the kids understand that the master (boss) may seem to have been greedy and mean, but that he was actually giving the servants large amounts of money. Five talents was more money than the average person in Jesus’ time would earn in a lifetime. Even a single talent was an incredible amount of money.
Ask the children to imagine how the servants might have felt. They were not given the money as a personal gift, but instead were asked to take care of it while the master was gone. In this way, the servant’s fear is understandable. Remind the children that God gives us all that we need — and sometimes even more than we need.
Ask them, “Would you like to take part in a challenge?” Each child will get an envelope with five one-dollar bills. Tell them you are giving them this money. They can choose how they want to spend it. However, there is one rule to this challenge. That rule is that they are to use the money to help someone else so that they can help multiply God’s gifts.
For example, five dollars might not buy many things that we want. But five dollars can buy a lot of food for people who are hungry. Read through the list you have collected from the food pantry. How many items could they buy with their five dollars? How much more could they buy if they combined their money? Would they be willing to take a risk this week, and see how the money could grow?
Some ideas:
They could go together as a group to shop for food for a food pantry;
They could purchase personal care items for a homeless shelter;
They could purchase gift cards for children in foster care.
Two children could buy a book for a child in a homeless shelter.
As you give them the envelopes, tell them you will be checking with them next week to see how they helped God’s love grow.
Close by using this prayer for children regarding stewardship from the Episcopal Diocese of Washington:
Jesus, we love you and we know you love us. Everything we have is a gift from you. Thank you for play time and for our growing bodies. Thank you for our laughter and our joy. Help us to give some of our time and some of our money back to you. When we think of giving something away to someone who needs it, help us to give two and not just one. Amen.
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The Immediate Word, November 15, 2020 issue.
Copyright 2020 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
