5.22.2013

It’s Wednesday night and time to go to prayer meetin’ with bassist Charles Mingus.  Can you guess that he was raised in the Pentecostal-Holiness tradition?

If this doesn’t want to make you pray, I don’t know what will.

Side note - I was the only kid in my high school walking around in a Charles Mingus t-shirt.

5.21.2013

Holy Spirit-Fire-Gospel-Jazz-“Better Git It In Your Soul”-Music to celebrate Pentecost…all week long.

Here’s the Wynton Marsalis Septet playing “Holy Ghost” at the Northsea Jazz Festival in 1993.  You can find this cut on the two CD-set “In This House, On This Morning”, which is full of churchified-jazz.  Will Smith, the pianist does an extra long intro in this clip which will recalibrate the deeper recesses of your soul.  Oh yes!

Happy Pentecost everyone.  And to celebrate the Holy Spirit, we are going to bring some Spirit-filled music all week long.  Sometimes you just need to move beyond words to what words can’t express.  Jazz Weekly puts in a good word about faith and gospel’s influence on jazz.    On the left you will also find an article by George Harris on God’s Greatest Hits. 

For starters, here’s Cyrus Chestnut doing Blessed Quietness.  Cyrus learned the keys in his families’ baptist church in Baltimore.  His gospel influence is apparent to anyone who listens to the Nutman.

5.18.2013

Tomorrow is Pentecost, the day churches celebrate the giving of the Holy Spirit.  So, tomorrow I will preach on the Spirit, who is very much at the core of Christianity.

Stanley Haurwaus, who teaches at Duke University and who TIME magazine once called “the best theologian in America” wrote,

“Theology is the delicate art necessary for the Christian community to keep its story straight.”[1]

I would like to think that is what we are doing in this sermon series on the core of our faith.  Christianity is not all about doctrine, belief and theology.  But we do need to pay attention to what we believe and think in order to keep our story straight.

Here is a small excerpt of tomorrow’s sermon:

The God who has revealed himself in the Bible, who we worship, and who calls us to a relationship with himself, is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

We have a fairly good sense of God our Heavenly Father, the Creator, the One who is over all the world.  We pay a lot of attention to Jesus Christ, the Son, our Lord, Savior and Redeemer.

But the Holy Spirit?  We can be pretty unsure about him, his whereabouts and what difference, if any, he makes to us.  We might have a vague understanding of him at best.

But the Spirit is not a side dish to Christian faith, or an optional add on.  He is at the core of Christianity.

Do you know why the Holy Spirit is so hard for us?  Because he is invisible.  He is immaterial.  He has no substance or matter.  That is what spirit means.

Of the three persons of the Trinity, the Spirit seems to be the hardest for us.

Because he is immaterial we can’t put him in a box, or control him.  He can’t be measured, captured or owned.  I can’t point him out to you.

We see waterfalls, mountains, the ocean, stars and galaxies and say, there is God the Creator, the Father.  We have stories and accounts of Jesus’ in the Gospels which make him so tangible to us and history.

But the Spirit?

Jesus told Nicodemus that the Spirit blows where he wills.[1]  You can’t see him coming or going.  You can only see the effects of his presence, the way you see the effects of the wind on trees and the like, but can’t actually see the wind.

I believe he is in this room, in us and around us right now.  He is moving through these words and in your ears and hearts, and that probably isn’t the half of it.  But I can’t quantify or manifest him.

He is so subtle, so elusive.  We can’t conjure up formulas to receive him or make him go and do what we want as we want.

Maybe this is why many Christians remain ignorant, or apathetic, or frustrated when it comes to the Holy Spirit.  Or some just say that he really isn’t necessary.

5.15.2013

People sometimes will say, “All people are basically good.”  On the one hand that is correct in that the vast, vast majority of people aren’t committing crimes or causing terror.  I trust the people sitting in our church on Sunday.  If I left my wallet on a chair, I would not worry about it being taken.  And everyday we see people all over the world doing innumerable acts of kindness, love and good.

Christian faith recognizes that we are all capable of doing good, but also that sin and evil still reside in us.

In Romans 7, Paul owns his sinfulness and seems to suggest that he just can’t do anything the way he wants.  In his commentary on Romans, Jim Edwards helpfully explains:

We must hasten to add that Paul does not say that humanity is all bad and can do no good.  All people are capable of some good, and many are capable of great good.  What Paul does say is that no one does the good that he or she wills to do.  Whatever good one does, it is less than one ought to (and could) have done.  Notice that Paul says nothing of character or convictions.  Strong convictions and noble character are not enough.  Sin is active disobedience, the failure to do the will of God as it is revealed in the law.  This is not in the least diminished for Christians, but actually compounded, for Christians know better than others what is expected of them, and hence they are made increasingly aware of their shortcomings in doing it.”

“Total Depravity” is often attributed to John Calvin’s read on how human sinfulness has infected us.  Thus, it has become part of the Reformed theological perspective.  Total Depravity doesn’t mean we are as evil as we can possibly be.  Even the worst person on the face of the earth can be capable of some good.  Total depravity means our entire person is corrupted by sin.  Sin touches and infiltrates every part of our lives.  There is not some small corner that is untouched by my corrupted nature.

Thus, we need Christ for our whole person.  We need his grace and mercy to seep into every crack and crevice of who we are.  There is no part of me that I can say, “Well, I really don’t need redeeming there, so Jesus, you can just move along.”

We need the whole Savior for our whole being!

5.14.2013

This edit got left on the floor from last Sunday’s sermon “In God’s Image”“.

I recently read a review of a new book of fiction called “The Humanity Project”.  In this novel an elderly woman, who is fed up with all the suffering and brokenness in her community, begins a charitable foundation in hopes of making things different.  The foundation is called the Humanity Project.

She enlists a public health nurse who regularly comes to check on her to run this foundation.

The Humanity Project is about making things better. 

The elderly woman who starts this whole attempt wonders what would happen if you managed to give everybody what they needed.  She concludes that people would still probably act badly because people are naturally self-centered and awful.  Nevertheless, she tries anyway.

But while the Humanity Project takes on poverty, violence and alienated youth, little gets changed.

There are some revealing comments on the human condition.  One character in the novel says, “Human nature is not the best investment the market has to offer.”

One young activist insightfully says, “We need to be saved from ourselves.”  And then another person observes, “If we were made in God’s image, it remained to be seen if He would still recognize us.”[1]

 This novel hits on the very themes Christianity addresses.  And Christianity’s answer to all of these statements is “yes”.  Except that it no longer remains to be seen if He would recognize us.

He has and does still recognize us, loves us, and has come to reclaim us in Jesus Christ.

God knows who we are.  He has identified us as his precious people and stopped at nothing to search for us and find us.  He is the father looking on the horizon, waiting for the prodigal to come home  He has tagged us as his beloved who he so desires to have back.

5.12.2013

I was asked to share the blessing for all mother’s that I gave in both of our morning worship services today.  It was really inspired by something from a blog called The Messy Middle, and an open letter to pastors that was written a couple of years ago.  One of our followers shared it with me, and I just took it and formed it for the spirit of our church and worship.

On this Mother’s Day we acknowledge and bless…

Those who gave birth to their first child this year,

Those who may have lost a child this year

To those who pour out their lives for their children every day, doing all the daily work that demands so much of you,

To those who may have experienced loss through miscarriage or failed adoption,

Those who walk the hard path of infertility,

To those who have close relationships with their children and those who have experienced disappointment and heartache,

To those who lost their mothers this year,

To those who experienced abuse at the hands of your own mother,

To single moms who might long to be married,

To foster moms, mentor moms and spiritual moms,

To step-moms, to those who are or will soon become empty-nesters, to those who are pregnant and expecting,

To those whose children are with them today, and those whose children are far away,

To all of you, may the peace and blessing of God uphold, surround and fill you.

You are loved.

5.9.2013

Maybe instead of trying to think out way into the Trinity (which is responsible for more than one migraine), we need to live in it and experience it.  This hymn might help us do this.

Here is a prayer called “St. Patrick’s Breastplate” which was attributed to to St. Patrick of Ireland, one of the great missionaries of the church (not just a fictional character who gives us an excuse to have parades and drink).

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ’s birth with His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of cherubim,
In the obedience of angels,
In the service of archangels,
In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In the prayers of patriarchs,
In the predictions of prophets,
In the preaching of apostles,
In the faith of confessors,
In the innocence of holy virgins,
In the deeds of righteous men.

I arise today, through
The strength of heaven,
The light of the sun,
The radiance of the moon,
The splendor of fire,
The speed of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of the sea,
The stability of the earth,
The firmness of rock.

I arise today, through
God’s strength to pilot me,
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s shield to protect me,
God’s host to save me
From snares of devils,
From temptation of vices,
From everyone who shall wish me ill,
afar and near.

I summon today
All these powers between me and those evils,
Against every cruel and merciless power
that may oppose my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man’s body and soul;
Christ to shield me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that there may come to me an abundance of reward.

Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.