Date: 3/3/2004
Time: 10:06:03 AM
Jesus addresses the age-old question of whether people deserve the seemingly random calamities that happen to them. The short answer is no, but the key to our peace is using the present moment to throw ourselves upon God's grace.
Date: 3/3/2004
Time: 10:12:00 AM
"Look, Mom! No hands!" shrieks the little boy, gaining premature confidence on his bicycle. One no sooner hears these words than one anticipates the sound of a falling bicycle and the subsequent wailing.
"Falling" and "felling" seem to be standard fare for the day as we are reminded of the false confidence of our ancestors. Paul reminds the Corinthians that, despite their consumption of spiritual food and spiritual drink from the spiritual rock, God was not pleased with the Israelites, "and they were struck down in the wilderness." He becomes yet more explicit when he calls to mind that "twenty-three thousand fell in one day" as a result of their sexual exploits.
"Beware false confidence and putting Christ to the test" seems to be the caution of Paul. "If you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall."
Jesus, however, seems to be addressing false confidence of another sort among his hearers. "Beware of interpreting the fall of others as the judgment of God on them," he seems to say. When the tower of Siloam fell and eighteen were killed, "do you think that they were worse offendeers than all the other living in Jerusalem?" he chides.
He points to the contrary. At the "near felling" of the unproductive fig tree, he recalls the intervention of the merciful gardener, who urges the tree owner to let it stand until he has nurtured it fully.
The prayer of the day reminds us of the one who has intervened on our behalf--who has "broken into our troubled world"--so that we might be bearers of fruit and avoid the fall of the falsely confident.
Date: 3/4/2004
Time: 6:35:26 AM
- May you grow like an onion with your head in the ground. Some nuggets for your sermon. - Many people use mighty thin thread when mending their ways - Repent equals opportunity. -Repentance is not a fruit problem; it is a root problem. It is the root of who we are that is a problem in God's eyes. Richard Jensen - Baptism is no mere bath. Taken from Sermon Fodder for Lent 3C Lindy
Date: 3/4/2004
Time: 2:56:16 PM
If I were preaching on this text, I will have to hook the portrayal of Pilate from "The Passion of The Christ" in. (Please don't start another flame war on the movie). Many people disagree with the toning down of Pilate, making him into a philosopher discussing "What is truth." Here, we have another portrayal of Pilate, a bloody record. Linking the two, we could be reminded ourselves that human nature is a mixture, no one is purely good or bad. And if Pilate had deep-seated question about truth, there are hopes for many people, including us as well.
But focus on Pilate would be missing the point of the text. The people who told Jesus about Pilate's massacre would probably want to hear Jesus's commentary on His political/social stance. But Jesus cleverly turn his response into spiritual implication instead. Not only that, but the thrust of his point was repeated twice "Unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did." Jesus turned the probe light away from Pilate, away from the victims, onto the people who asked the questions.
"Unless you repent, you will all perish!" As God in the flesh, on a mission; Jesus understood the grave implication of sin. The judgement of sin is far more severe than the violent whipping and the torturous cross He endured. Unfortunately, we don't often see His point, therefore Jesus endured the most excruciate death so that we human-being can relate somewhat of the serverity of the judgement. (Early church father Athanasius had argued that the main point of the incarnation Jesus have to die for mankind, even death because of old-age.)
"...you will perish *as they did*": Our human nature often measure ourselves according to the trend of social norm. Most of the time, religious church goers will often have a satisfaction of knowing that we are better, because we follow Christ, because we are not dying of AIDS, because our family have not been broken apart like our neighbors. Even so, according to Jesus, without repentance, we will perish "just as they did". Just because of we follow a relatively higher moral path, we may be more likely to reap the reward for living according to God's moral law. But judging our eternal reward based on the current temporal reward may blind us from the real issue of sin.
In the next part, Jesus pushed the envelope some more with the parable. The ealier part focused on the negative (bad things come to people who do bad stuff), but this part Jesus turn on the heat on the positive (bad thing will come to people if they don't produce good stuff). It's funny that in order to produce good stuff, we will have to put up with more "manure", not the kind of chemically-produced like what we have today, but the literal dirty stuff produced by humans and animals back then. Yuck.
Oh, how tough it is for me to follow this. I can handle the negative exposition from Jesus so far in dealing with myself. But to put up with more "manure" in order to bear fruits? No wonder my life has not been producing the fruits He wanted.
Coho, Midway City
Date: 3/6/2004
Time: 12:33:05 PM
Repent: "to change the way you look for happiness"
Parable: faith in God shows in our living
If we love Jesus, then we will love who Jesus loves and find happiness in service to others. If there isn't a worshipping heart within us, or a servant one, then the Holy Spirit has wasted its energy. My husband told me a story during last year's track season in which a young man came to practice in sneakers, not track shoes. Another young man who wore the same size was approached by the coach to share his track shoes with the young man who wore sneakers and obviously couldn't afford anything else. His mother overheard the coach's request and had a fit! "My son will not share," she exclaimed...then gladly took her place in her pew at worship the following Sunday. I love the television commercial where the guy with the American dream bemoans, "How do I do it? I'm in debt up to my eyeballs, or ears, or whatever." The average American lives 10% beyond his or her income and gives less than 2% to charity or the church. We claim to be a servant church, but do we have a worshipping, servant heart? Do we have faith in Jesus' recipe for happiness? Just what do our actions reveal about who our god is? Someone recently commented about all of the little blue plastic Walmart bags in our area's landfills. Many years from now someone will wonder about this "Walmart" everyone loved. Another friend told me that if we'd put a coffee bar in our lobby and let people take their latte's into worship we'd have better attendance. Either that, or move the worship service to the golf course. We could sing "Holy, Holy, Holy" and "There Is A Green Hill Far Away," bless the golf carts and the golfers, serve beer and subs for communion, and, well...not inconvenience anyone. It seems we're trying to serve God and the world at the same time. I believe Jesus said that's not possible. Last week we were challenged to look at the role fear plays in preventing us from keeping up the good work. It didn't cut Jesus' ministry short and it shouldn't threaten ours. Comfort pleases the self; service and purpose serve God and others. Where does most of our time, energy, money go...comfort or purpose? Repent, anyone? revdlk in nebraska
Date: 3/6/2004
Time: 5:39:33 PM
Sorry to interrupt the thread, but I just want to thank Kathy in Fort Wayne for pointing out my error, last week. It was indeed a nightingale in Oscar Wildes story. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Have a fruitful week everyone. Hope it produces more delay before God puts the axe to the fig tree.
Regards, KGB in Aussie
Date: 3/6/2004
Time: 6:07:16 PM
Opps, forgot to give credit for def. of repent: Daily Reading for Contemplative Reading by Father Thomas Keating. I know I also need to spend time thinking about the patience of the gardener in the parable before I write. revdlk
Date: 3/6/2004
Time: 6:39:22 PM
Musing - I remembered all the talk about "the real meaning of Christmas."
This year, I'm going with "the real meaning of Easter" as my theme for Lent, the idea being (of course) that unless we "observe a holy Lent," we cannot truly know fullness of joy in celebrating the resurrection.
One colleague here tells his folk not to bother showing up for Easter unless they participate in the Triduum. He has a point!
Thanks to everyone for the blessed inspiration each week.
Frandy
Date: 3/7/2004
Time: 11:48:20 AM
I'm looking at Luke 13:1-9 in a new light. It's an interpretation I haven't heard before, so I'm wondering what you all think...
I've always read this passage in a personal sense (we each are the tree, we each must repent.) Now, to me it makes more sense to read it in a corporate sense (Israel is the tree, Israel as a nation must repent or die.)
The message I now read is that Jesus (the Gardener) has made a bargain with God (The Land Owner.) Jesus is making an effort (through his ministry) to save the useless tree (of Israel.)
Israel must repent or be destroyed by the Romans.
Jesus is unsuccessful in his attempt to save Israel, and Israel is destroyed. (According to Josephus) thousands of Galileans are slaughtered by the Romans with swords (like the Galileans killed by Pilate, it's not just the evil who are killed.) Later more than a million are killed in Jerusalem, many of them dying in the rubble of collapsed buildings (like those in the tower, those killed are not just the worst offenders.)
Like the Galileans, killed by Pilate for resisting Roman rule. Israel was destroyed for their armed rebellion against the Romans. (They lived by the sword, so they died by the sword.)
In the end (despite the gardener's best efforts) the tree was "cut down and thrown onto the fire."
This all seems so very clear to me. It can't be a new reading, and yet I don't remember hearing it expressed. (What do you think?)
One Tom of many
Date: 3/7/2004
Time: 2:47:19 PM
Coho,
Humans and animals still produce that stuff now, and we still use--at least the animal-produced stuff. Believe me, I know. I live in Iowa, and often, we can smell it!
Laughing with pleasure!
Michelle
Date: 3/7/2004
Time: 4:59:20 PM
I think I'm glad I'm not on Lectionary during Lent this year.
Date: 3/7/2004
Time: 6:34:26 PM
Dear One Tom of many: A provocative interpretation, but at the end of it, I have to say, "So? And?" In other words, what will the people to whom you're preaching get from that interpretation, interesting though it may be? Was Israel was a more sinful nation than others, and deserved to be crushed? Did God expect more of Israel, and since Israel didn't live up to those expectations, the nation was destroyed despite Jesus's best efforts to save it? Does that mean God ignores Jesus's work for mercy? If so, we're all doomed! Are you advocating that nations adopt theocracy in order to avoid such divine punishment?
I think you always have to think ahead to the existential effects of your sermon: What will it mean to the people sitting in your pews? Should they feel superior to Jews? (God forbid!) Should they adopt some attitude of works-righteousness, because if Jesus can't effectively do the work of mercy to save, we'd better get out there and save ourselves?
Fresh interpretations can lead you down interesting paths - but sometimes those paths don't go anywhere good.
LF
Date: 3/7/2004
Time: 7:05:05 PM
LF,
What is the good of reading the Bible if we choose to ignore what it tells us? (or if we pretend that it says something it does not, for the sake of an uplifting sermon?)
There's nothing that different about this reading from many of in the Old Testament. (For example) in Genesis 18, Abraham argues with "the Lord" on behalf of Sodom, eventually getting "the Lord" to agree that if there are even ten righteous men in the city, Sodom will be spared. (There aren't, and it isn't.)
The biggest difference here is that this time, it's Jesus, rather than a mere man who is bargaining with God for the lives of the righteous.
Luke, seems to me, to be reminding his readers that Jesus (like the prophets before him) had warned Israel (repeatedly) to repent or the entire nation would suffer.
How does this speak to us today? (If our government does not repent, our entire nation will suffer? If we live by the sword, we will die by the sword? [The righteous along with the evil?])
(Please, offer me a more likely interpretation of what Jesus is saying.)
One Tom
Date: 3/8/2004
Time: 4:44:01 AM
There are many outside the church who think that what we proclaim inside the church is a big, steaming load of BS, or what I prefer to call "holy manure." Are those people any worse than the people who sit in our pews -- no, but (as Jesus points out) unless we repent (move towards God) we will all perish just as they do. The test of our faithfulness (but not the pre-condition for our salvation) is, "are we bearing fruit?" If we are not bearing fruit, then we need to "work our roots with holy manure" so that the conditions are right for us to bear fruit that feeds others. Otherwise, what is the difference between those who profess to follow Jesus and those who do not, if we do not bear fruit?
As pastors, what "holy manure" do we need to work into the roots of our congregations? Where are they deficient in what they need in order to be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ? The answer is bound to be different for each congregation!
An OLD joke: did you know that ministers are just like manure? All piled up together in one place they really stink, but if you spread them over the land they can do a lot of good!
OLAS
Date: 3/8/2004
Time: 6:00:44 AM
One Tom of Many,
Your corporate interpretation does add an interesting twist, but if it were meant to be particularly corporate, I don't think Jesus would have spoken of one tree in an orchard, but of an entire orchard of trees.
If we carry your new simile to its end, it doesn't quite work, because Israel is as much of a nation now as it was during the time of Jesus (even apart from the imposed nation of Israel). The people were under Roman occupation then, and were not an independent nation. The only real difference I see is the missing temple.
However, more dangerous in your interpretation is the idea it plants that Jesus is the gardener who tries to save the nation of Israel, but fails. I do not believe Jesus would have failed if that had been his purpose. Rather, Jesus came not to save a political nation, but the entire creation. He came to be the light to the nations that Israel had ceased to be.
Israel was expecting a political Messiah. Instead, God sent one to love all nations, one who would be merciful even to those of us who are slow to grasp the reality of that love. For this I give thanks.
Michelle
Date: 3/8/2004
Time: 7:50:27 AM
Thanks Michelle,
However, consider Romans 11:17-32 in which Paul tells the Gentile converts that they are like a shoot which has been grafted onto the root of a broken tree (all singular.)
One Tom
Another possible message for today; war is perversely indiscriminate. The recent war in Iraq was promoted as a war against evil (personified by Saddam Hussein.) During the war, thousands of innocent civilians were killed, but Hussein was not.
Date: 3/8/2004
Time: 8:19:16 AM
Try to get a bit more animated in the pulpit this week and show me that this stuff is really exciting to you.
One of your parishioners who keeps falling asleep as you try to show me how smart you are...
Date: 3/8/2004
Time: 8:29:16 AM
I'm sorry, I don't mean to dominate the discussion. A week ago, my interpretation went like this:
13:1-2 Don't assume that because something bad has happened to someone that they did something to deserve it (see Job.) Sometimes, things just happen. 3 You must all repent 4 (See 1-2 above.) 5 You must all repent 6-9 Time is running out. You must all repent.
The problem I've always had with this interpretation is that it seems to contradict itself. i.e. "These are simply random events, but if you don't repent, a random event will happen to you too!" I've had to work hard to rationalize it. (i.e. if we repent, we will have eternal life in Heaven, if we don't we will die without hope of resurrection.)
Then, this weekend, I saw it. It all seemed so obvious!
Luke is generally assumed to have been written a few years after the fall of Jerusalem. This was an extremely traumatic event, and certainly Luke would have tried to explain why it had happened. (Just as American authors today are trying to explain why the events of 9/11/2001 happened.)
We wouldn't pussyfoot around Luke 21:5-6, pretending Jesus wasn't talking about the temple being destroyed. So, just because this week's prophesy is in parable form, should we ignore its obvious interpretation? (Within a few decades, many of Jesus' audience would die exactly as the others had!)
One Tom (who talks too much)
Date: 3/8/2004
Time: 9:59:25 AM
Repent means to turn around. Turn your life around. The people of Israel had not changed anything about their lives after these traumatic events had happened. They had probably wept over their loss and, in some cases, over their part in bringing it all about. They no doubt swore things would change, that God would find them repentant, thought about how they would change, but the next week, when the smoke had cleared, it was back to the way things had been all along. With the fall of Jerusalem, with the Exile, and with 9-11 and with any national disaster of any kind, people go through this exact same process. We talk a lot about becoming better at paying attention to our faith, of changing, of making this event be a real catalyst in our lives. Too soon we forget and revert, rather than repent in the long term.
This is the history of God's people since Creation. It continues to be God's intention that we will do better.
Date: 3/8/2004
Time: 10:07:02 AM
To "One of your parishioners..."
What do you mean by "try to show me how smart you are..." Are you speaking generally, or to a specific one among us? Constructive criticism works best if the intended recipient cannot shrug it off as intended for someone else.
Date: 3/8/2004
Time: 10:11:06 AM
Sleepy Parishoner,
Worship is a multi-faceted event. Not only should the Preacher and Music leaders be prepared to do their best work, the worshippers should come to worship ready to participate as well, which includes active listening. We would all hope the Spirit of God would touch your ears, your heart and your brain to connect with whatever is being said. If, perhaps, the worshippers concentrated on what is positive in the service, rather than on what they wish would be different, the experience would improve for all.
Date: 3/8/2004
Time: 10:11:28 AM
Sleepy Parishoner,
Worship is a multi-faceted event. Not only should the Preacher and Music leaders be prepared to do their best work, the worshippers should come to worship ready to participate as well, which includes active listening. We would all hope the Spirit of God would touch your ears, your heart and your brain to connect with whatever is being said. If, perhaps, the worshippers concentrated on what is positive in the service, rather than on what they wish would be different, the experience would improve for all.
Date: 3/8/2004
Time: 11:13:26 AM
Greetings- Something caught my attention in the corporate interpretation of this passage by One Tom and responses by LF and Michelle. I am currently "struggling" with the tension between our individual issues and our corporate issues.
In systems thinking and group therapy, one's individual issues cannot be totally separated from one's system, be it family, workplace, church or other. We are not created as isolated lone rangers, but participants in various communities. How do we influence others and how do they influence us? Obviously, conversion and discipling are mostly individual focuses, but there is often the need for system, structural corporate change as well. Is there a cart and horse progression with individual change happening before the system?
In my own life, I tend to lean this way. Passionate spirituality and individual spiritual growth will raise the health of the congregation. Yet, I also realize that the language in our church carries our culture, ie, how we live our lives. Many of our churches want to "grow" by meeting institutional needs (members have to do their duty) and bypass the call to minister to the needs of individuals. We need to repent and change our language to focusing on the organism and not the organization. (note Natural Church Development thinking here)
Maybe, using the language of the text, is the tree affected by the rest of the vineyard? As disease can spread among trees, so it can among humans. (And disease seems to travel so much more rapidly than health!!!)
Having said all this, I think I am going to look at the both/and implications of this text. Individuals do need to repent. So do communities of faith. These both happen as together we learn to abide in Christ (cf. Isaiah's "seek the LORD while he may be found."
Grace and peace, Prophet in PA
Date: 3/8/2004
Time: 11:30:04 AM
I am struck by verse 4: "Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them--do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?" I instantly had a mental picture of the World Trade Center coming down on September 11, and all the questions about God and faith that surfaced for many people after that event. We recently watched "Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero" for an adult discussion class at church.
There are people who have interpreted the events of 9/11 as being an indication that God has deserted this country because of some sort of national failing - they like to focus on "kicking God out of the schools," pornography on the internet, etc. But if that is the case, were they paying the price for the sins (if you look at it that way) of the nation? Where does that leave Christ's atoning sacrifice on the cross?
I'm also thinking about the Isaiah 55 reading for this week, which is one of my favorites, and as well the saying of Jesus that "the rain falls on the just and the unjust."
Not sure where I'm going with all this though!
RevMary
Date: 3/8/2004
Time: 11:37:29 AM
Reflection on fruit: not all fruit tastes the same. We live in an age where artificial irrigation, the use of pesticides and artificial fertilizers are common. The result: a mass produced tomato tastes like water, whereas many home grown tomatoes burst with flavor. What kind of fruit do we produce? Does any kind of fruit please God (even the tasteless one with the poison sitting under its skin)?
Date: 3/8/2004
Time: 1:02:24 PM
On the idea that the "current events" reported to and by Jesus were things that "just happen to happen," the instance with the Galileans was probably not a random act on the part of the Romans. Especially due to the acts of the Zealots in that region, Galilean equaled troublemaker or even terrorist. The Romans loved having the Fortress Antonia (named by Herod the Great for Mark Anthony) for their barracks because it was situated outside the northeast corner of the Temple with towers tall enough to see what went on inside the Temple Courtyards. This may not have been such a random act. Were these Galileans worse than other Galileans? Worse than same, maybe. Worse than all, no. The reporter may have been using an instance where known "bad guys" were involved to prove that bad things happen to bad people. Jesus replied with the story of the Tower of Siloam to illustrate that it wasn't necessarily so. Mike in Soddy Daisy, TN
Date: 3/8/2004
Time: 2:39:28 PM
FWIW: I've just checked Wesley's commentary on the passage, it's worth a read:
http://bible.crosswalk.com/Commentaries/WesleysExplanatoryNotes/wes.cgi?book=lu&chapter=013
(Wesley does not suggest that Jesus was unsuccessful in saving Israel.)
One Tom
Date: 3/8/2004
Time: 3:26:22 PM
The past two weeks of Lent, I've talked about temptation and how rebellious we are, in the context of God's covenant. For me this week's gospel will be a chance to talk about our illusion that somehow there is some piece of us that really is good enough to squeak us past the pearly gate. That's how I take all the "you will perish just as they did" talk--whatever the reason for those deaths, you're in no position to comment, for you are sinful enough to deserve that same fate.
I don't generally beat people about the head with how guilty they are, but Lord knows we need to hear it sometime. I may pull up Wesley's words--something about our utter depravity and how we are able to do "no good thing." This condition is the context in which we receive the grace of God. That's what for me makes it ok to go after people a little bit--everyone's in the same depraved boat, everyone, yet God is still gracious and merciful (insert Isaiah text here).
Looking forward to all your good ideas this week!
Laura in TX (revgilmer--it's the Rio Grande Valley, nearly as far possible from Texarkana!)
Date: 3/8/2004
Time: 6:32:32 PM
Three Biblical strategies for dealing with the problem of human suffering:
(1) Bad Things Happen to Bad People. This is the strategy favoured by the prophets - it is their pastoral and theological answer to the exile to Babylon. When the people tried to grapple with being kicked out of the Promised Land, and asked their religious leaders, "Why are we suffering?" the response was: Bad Things Happen to Bad People. In other words, they were paying the price of their corporate guilt for the sin (injustice and apostasy) of their nation. Calling the nation to repentance, as a response to widespread suffering, is a time-honoured Biblical strategy.
(2) Bad Things Happen to Good People. Job is the obvious example. The pastoral and theological theme is about God's sovereignty and mysterious will. A lot of people who suffer find comfort in the idea that "God is teaching me something" through suffering. (But it's abusive to dictate that from the outside: to tell another person that "God is teaching you something through your suffering.") Another classic Biblical strategy.
(3) Bad Things Happen to Everybody - It's What You Do With Your Life That Counts. This is the way I understand our Gospel reading. It seems to me that Jesus does not interpret suffering with strategies (1) or (2). The Galilean rebels whom Pilate ordered slaughtered while they were at worship might have been considered "bad people" - but no worse than anyone else. The people accidentally killed in the tower collapse might have been considered "innocent bystanders" - but they were no better than anyone else.
When Jesus keeps saying, "Unless you repent, you will perish as they did" I read it to mean something like this: "You're all going to die. No one gets out of this alive. Bad things happen to everyone: the good, the bad, the indifferent. Unless you repent, and live in line with the kingdom of God, you will waste your single, precious life. Unless you repent, you will live and die a meaningless life, having worked for that which does not satisfy. Face it, the axe is lying at the root for everyone, so bear good fruit in the meantime."
One Tom: I found your response to me to be both uncharitable and untrue. I do not suggest "ignoring the Bible" nor was I recommending preaching an "uplifting" sermon. Please read more carefully, and perhaps with a more humble and open spirit. On the plus side, you've spurred my thinking about this, which hopefully will bear good fruit in my sermon. So, for spreading manure on me (!!) thank you... I guess. : )
LF
Date: 3/8/2004
Time: 11:04:18 PM
LF is closer to the truth, for me.
How often do we still say, when tragedy strikes. "What did I do wrong?" or "I must be being punished." We simply do not accept tragedy as being divinely permitted.
The Jews believed that tragedy was a direct result of sin. Hence, how they treated lepers, the lame, the blind, the deaf, etc.
This is hinted to in John 9:1 "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?"
A person's tragic death was therefore associated with punishment.
This was an ideology that was ok, while it only involved individuals. The difficulty was associated with multiple deaths. To be true to their philosophy, they had to blame the people upon whom the tower fell, We would probably blame the architect or the engineer.), or the Galileans. (Didn't Pilate order the massacre?)
Hence the reference in Luke, when Jesus is attempting to point out to the crowds, where their true punishment really stems from.
It is derived from not leading the lives, that God desired of them. (I think there is a need to read this passage in relation to the entire chapter 12) In this he speaks about the righteousness of the Pharisees and lawyers, and illicits the reasons, why their "good" lives, are not according to the will of God.
And I think this exchange is helpful though, in offering some explanation, for the reason why Sodom and Gomorrah were considered to be totally evil cities. In their particular case, the entire population had sinned therefore the whole city was destroyed.
What would that ideology make of the recent earthquake in Iran, or Sept 11th.
Jesus in the parable relates that God has one simple desire. That we love one another, as he shows his love for us, by giving us life. If we do this, then every person's life is not a tragedy, but a joyous celebration of the life, they have brought to others.
This is, after all why we call this good news.
Regards to all for a fruitful week.
KGB in Aussie.
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 4:49:56 AM
I would like to add this to the discussion:
Ezekiel 23 28 For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will deliver thee into the hand of them whom thou hatest, into the hand of them from whom thy mind is alienated: 29 And they shall deal with thee hatefully, and shall take away all thy labour, and shall leave thee naked and bare: and the nakedness of thy whoredoms shall be discovered, both thy lewdness and thy whoredoms.
Since God's first law is about Love of myself as God and as neighbor so that I can love God and my neighbor as myself, Matthew 22:36-40
then my first sin is to hate myself as any neighbor since it results in me hating my neighbor as myself. 1 John 2:9-10. 3:4, 14-15; 4:7-8, 20.
So God is the one who makes the SAME bad things I hate and therefore fear: Job 3:25, 1 John 4:18: happen to me to get me to repent and love the bad things and to love the bad people who He sends to do it to me because I am sinning in my heart by hating anyone as myself.
So in summary: More bad things tend to more happen to people who hate whoever and whatever: these are bad people: all we have to do is ask them, if they survive, if they hate who and what happened to them. They take the events in the sin-of-Hate attitude.
Good things also hardly happen to bad people: their attitude of hate tends to halve and diminish the good.
Bad things hardly happen to good people, but when they do happen to people who are in Love of themselves as all others: these are good people: for them to set the example as to how in Love to handle bad people and bad things.Psalms 34:19. 1 corin 13:7-8. Their Love halves the bad: 2 corin 12:9-10. Of course people who hate bad people associate bad things ONLY with bad people and so would have to then incorrectly assume that a bad thing happened to a person because the person was bad as in John 9:1-3.
More good things happen more to good people. Their love then doubles up and magnifies the good. John 11:25-26. Matthew 25:29.
So it is because Jesus knew that most people hate themselves as others that he called on them to repent of that primary sin so that they could avoid the very thing they hated from happening to them.
Love & Respect, Gordon
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 5:20:33 AM
Michelle, your comment about the smell of manure made me think of the comment i heard about the environmental effect of these huge pig farms that are going up even near cities - Bob Dylan had the answer: "it is blowin' in the wind". sorry it may not add much to your thinking on sermons, but hopefully it will give you a smile. deke of the north
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 6:08:52 AM
It almost sounds like Jesus is saying, "This is your last chance."
Sally in Ga
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 6:24:58 AM
Thank you, One Tom, for the insights - and to LF and Michelle who responded. I took yesterday off and your discussion, on top of other grains of wheat I gleaned, really got me to thinking!
Here goes!
1) the problem, as one early post indicated, isn't in the fruit; it's in the root
2) we demonstrate which god we serve by our actions - and deeper still, our thoughts and attitudes and prejudices.
3) a fig tree is an individual - with individuals' sins
4) a fig tree is also a group, or nation, or community, or whatever - where the sins of individuals (and not necessarily the "kicking God out of school" or "ordination of homosexuals" variety) has undue influence.
Just a thought ...
Sally
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 6:31:09 AM
Last post ...
To the sleepy parishioner:
I understood your post as addressed to the "everypreacher" (akin to the literary everyman). Here's MY problem, as addressed to the "everycongregant."
It's my nature to be animated, but when I get too animated for your staidness, you criticize me for being "theatrical."
We're not here to entertain any more than we're here to give a college lecture. However, I feel fairly safe in saying this, we all have a passion for Christ and desire to communicate the message the Holy Spirit has given us. Maybe it's less about style, or being a laugh a minute, than it is about form.
So ... can't we all just get along???? the leading and following of worship is a two-way street.
Sally in GA
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 6:37:06 AM
Sorry, one more ...
Gordon, my brother (I presume) ... I love your passion for love.
I also still, after all this time, don't understand the "so what?" I understand your descriptions of the problem (we don't love ourselves, thus not God or anyone else ...) and have no argument there! I still have yet to hear you say anything about how our congregants can STOP feeling this way simply by describing the same thing over and over regardless of the circumstances or scripture.
God has given you a valuable insight. But so far, that's all it is. An insight. Insight without action is pointless (and I daresay, self-hating).
Sally in GA
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 7:07:00 AM
Dear Friends,
Anyone know what Morganite is? If you are from Morganton, North Carolina you do! Morganite is the treated waste of Morgantonians. You can buy it real cheap at the county dump and use it to mulch just about everything. Could it be that we need more of the untreated spiritual waste from our own towns to make us grow? Spread that thought around your spiritual roots. (Eeeuuwwwwww)
Grace and peace, Mike in Sunshine
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 7:15:58 AM
Jesus cites two examples of sudden death. A tower falls on some bystanders. Pilate orders the massacre of worshippers, possibly religious protesters. Sin and punishment were central concerns in Jesus' time. It was assumed that when calamities befell people, it was because they were greater sinners than those spared. Jesus, however, is not interested in notions of the relativity of sin and evil. For Jesus, all of humanity is in need of repentance. To repent is to turn around, to reverse direction, to acknowledge the presence and action of God's goodness in the world. Without repentance, says Jesus, "You will all perish as they did" (Lk 13.3). Luke follows this severe message, this warning, with Jesus' parable about divine mercy. We learn from this placement of the stories that justice and mercy go together.
The gardener in the parable asks the owner to give a second chance to this plant that has not yet produced any fruit. The gardener knows things are not right with the plant and that it needs a change of conditions. It needs nurture and food in order to flourish. While there is no guarantee that the plant will become productive, the gardener wants to do everything possible to help it. God, it seems, has a green thumb, reviving what others count as dead and coaxing the wayward to repentance.
The plant in this parable is as good as dead. Even in times of hopelessness, God is present...and so, therefore, is hope. Though the first part of this passage is a challenging call to repentance, we are left with an image of God's mercy. As part of your Lenten reflection in keeping with this season's themes of God's presence and guidance, look for the ways that God is turning over the soil, watering and feeding the plant, in your life and the life of your community.
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 8:28:09 AM
Coho, Midway City. . .thanks for the connections you've made between this passage and modern day situations (AIDS etc. . .). I also thought of making a connection between the tower of Siloam and the Twin Towers. Was this a judgement of God? Even today, some would ask that question. Jesus' reply if placed in this context is stark. Canadian in Scotland.
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 8:51:19 AM
One Tom of many. . .I think your approach follows the allegorical method of interpretation which is stimulating if we continue to bear in mind the importance of historical-criticism. Can we be confident that these things are a theologising of the destruction of Jerusalem? The two events - the mixing of blood with sacrifice and the falling of the tower - are events which we cannot flesh out through external historical sources. I think we need to be careful not to press the images too hard (ie - Gardener as the Jesus who failed - could it not be an image of grace that prevails?). The overall point of this text is the paradox/tension between God's judgement and grace. Fred Craddock has excellent comments on this point in the Interpretation series. Canadian in Scotland.
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 8:55:18 AM
Some beginning musings manure - Miracle Grow - relationship with God - prayer, action, production NSHB
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 10:05:05 AM
I haven't done a serious study of the fall of the Tower of Siloam, but one source says it was taken apart on the outside in order to rescue the inside. They took away some of the stones from one place in order to protect doors and other entryways somewhere else, and it just sort of collapsed.
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 11:01:07 AM
One Tom of Many,
Hm,interesting thought. Lately I've been feeling that too little of my preaching is relevant to the whole body of Christ. Too much of it focuses on individual behavior. Could we (the church)hear this in this way?
Max in NC
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 1:08:16 PM
I am troubled by this text this Sunday. I believe with all my heart that those who die in a terror attack or from natural causes are no more or less guilty than I am - but still why they and not me? Am I more repentant than they are? I don't think so. What is really going on in this reading?
What does it mean to 'truly repent' of your sins? What does metanoia have to do with the issue of impending 'judgment' when the judgment is not caused by anything except in the wrong place and the wrong time?
Help!
tom in ga (another one)
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 1:31:36 PM
A story taknn from Robert Fulghum "It Was on Fire when I Lay Down On It"
A Mna found a horse in the forest and took it home with him. Unfortunately for the man, the horse was the property of the king. The king had the man arrested for stealing his horse and was going to have the man put to death. The man explained what had happened and said that he would gladly take his punishment, but did the king know that he could teach the horse to talk? And wouldn'tthe king's guest be impressed with a king who had a talking horse. So the king gives him a year to teach the horse to talk.
The man's friends think he is nuts. But he says "Who knows? In a years time the king might die, or I might die, the world might come to an end, the king might forget. But maybe, just maybe, the horse will learn to talk!" One must believe that anything can happen.
Even a resurrection from the dead-both Christ's and ours.
grace and peace;
revgilmer in Texarkana
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 1:40:29 PM
Now we jump over to the Gospel lesson from Luke 13, which is the exact same spiritual lesson as Paul is describing in 1st Corinthians 10. Jesus is confronted by antagonists who very innocently ask him about these Galileans who were slaughtered by Pilate. The direction the questions are pointing is toward the commonly held belief of the day, that any tragedy or suffering was the direct result of your sinfulness or having displeased the gods. We’ve seen these questions before; When the World Trade Towers were attacked the religious fanatics, just like these in Luke 10, said: “Isn’t because we’re so sinful? Isn’t this tragedy a sign of America’s moral decline. We got rid of prayer in school and the Ten Commandments, and so now God is punishing us for being so sinful.” In John 9:2 Jesus is asked if a man’s blindness is because he was a sinner or because his parents were sinners. In the book of Job, 8:20, Job’s friends are sure that Job’s suffering is due to sinfulness. “Surely God does not reject a blameless man or strengthen the hands of evil doers?” they question. Some misled Christians even take this philosophy to the extreme that they refuse to help people who are poor and suffering because to do so might interfere with God’s punishment upon them. We equate being poor and outcast with being lazy and sinful. American Christians carry the stench of a pagan morality that says that since we are blessed with material wealth and health, that we must be right with God. But Jesus rejects this direct causal correlation between tragedy and sinfulness, between success and blessing, because he detects a moral manipulation underneath it. The reason why we’re so quick to accept that someone else’s tragedy must have been caused by their wickedness, is because we can then reason backwards from that belief to say that since I have not suffered tragedy, therefore I must be in a state of righteousness and blessing from God. We’re taking refuge in our status as the nominally blessed and saying that it’s an indication that we’re on the right side of God. It’s the very same impulse that was driving the Corinthians. An arrogant assumption of righteousness based upon blessings we’ve received from God.
To which Jesus says: “Look out now!”
BS in NM
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 1:55:21 PM
To those of you who are asking baout repentance;
I don't remember the issue (and I can't find it) but Timothy f. Merill was writing in his column "The Back Page" found in "Homiletics; A Journal for Preaching" that we have so weakened the word "repent" that we should go back to its real meaning- not repentance, but revolution.
Something about that thought seems important to me
If anyone finds the article, would you please let me know here?
revgilmer in texarkana
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 2:03:30 PM
oops! ignore my last post.
I had the wrong reference (it was William Willimon in Pulpit Journal quoting John Howard Yoder)
it was the wrong greek word- euangelion, not metanoia
I think i'm going home now and get some much needed rest! (maybe I need to get a Snickers )
revgilmer in texarkana
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 2:28:35 PM
I keep playing with Jensen's comment about how the sin of the Fig tree is not producing "Bad Fruit" but rather producing no fruit at all.
I think I am going to deal with the sin of Complacency. I find myself, sadly, not wanting to care or do anything. I find myself finding the world winning out when I fear to take a stand that might get me in trouble.
I know this following Poem or Prayer or statement has experienced much change throughout the internet, and every place I go they state, "This is the real one." This one seems to be mostly historically accurate:
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a communist; Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a socialist; Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a trade unionist; Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-- because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me-- and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Perhaps the sin I hold is so far from producing Bad Fruit, but not producing anything at all. Perhaps I need to risk, and just trust the food that is feeding me at the Altar. Perhaps the bread and wine that feed me.. perhaps the water that give me roots will also let me sing out.
I have been asked to be present at a public rally of PFLAG and Gay/Straight Alliance of University of Alaska (SE). Not to speak. Just to be a presence there. And I find myself scared. I have a gay brother. I am fully supportive. And yet, here I sit, wondering. Not wanting to act. Wanting to stay still.
Perhaps I need to risk. Scary as that happens to be. I might fall. I will fall. But how can I be picked back up again if I never move.
Some thoughts from Juneau...
RevJohn in Juneau
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 2:43:03 PM
RevJohn in Juneau
I had a boss in the secular field who used to say 'Do something, even if it's wrong' whenvever he found employees standing around doing nothing that looked like work, but they were on the time clock.
I'm certain Jesus would prefer us to not intentionally do anything wrong, but you are correct to say that laisse faire doesn't work in the Christian world, either.
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 3:36:07 PM
Sorry, one more ...
Gordon, my brother (I presume) ... I love your passion for love.
I also still, after all this time, don't understand the "so what?" I understand your descriptions of the problem (we don't love ourselves, thus not God or anyone else ...) and have no argument there! I still have yet to hear you say anything about how our congregants can STOP feeling this way simply by describing the same thing over and over regardless of the circumstances or scripture.
God has given you a valuable insight. But so far, that's all it is. An insight. Insight without action is pointless (and I daresay, self-hating).
Ok Sally in GA,
Let me try again...here!
HOW you and your congregants can STOP being self-hating which leads to hating others as self is for YOU first to:
1. Mark 1:14-15: Repent of ever hating yourself as any words and their opposites. Matthew 5:43-48. 22:36-40. 7:12. John 1:1. 6:63. 1 John 3:4. 4:20. Acts 2:38-40.
Then believe in Love for yourself as all words. Romans 10:9-10. John 15:9
2. Teach yourself with God's help to THINK and SAY the words "I love myself as good and as bad, as just and as unjust, as rich and as poor, for better and for worse, as well and as ill, as everything and its opposite, as Pointed and as pointless!" smile See John 6:44-45. Also Matthew 12:34-37, Romans 8:28, 35-39, 2 corin 12:9-10, Philippians 4:8-13 and Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 for more opposites.
3. Teach your congregants Steps 1 to 3.
Then you will be able to say with me:
I love myself as pointed and pointless so that I can take WITH LOVE any person's description of me as pointless, and then love the describer back as pointless too since it takes one to know one, and thena sk them to help me be full of points!
When I see me as pointless, I am only self-hating if I hate myself as pointless! Me hating myself as pointless means that I will hate you as myself when I see you as pointless.
When you see me as pointless, I am self-hating to you, and you do hate me as yourself ONLY IF you already hate yourself as pointless, or hate being pointless.
But there is a point in pointlessness! So the pointlessness of insight without action is that the insight of self-Love does NOT point at others initially, but at myself to begin with! Then as that Love-pointed insight works inside on the inner man of me first by preparing my attitude of mind with Love for everything, I first of all take the sin-beams of hate for myself as any word out of circulation in my heart.
Love is like a newly-begotten baby or newly-planted seed: at first nothing visible is being done OUTSIDE, but all is being connected and done invisibly INSIDE! So it then looks as if: What's the point?
But then, automatically, all subsequent thoughts and speech and deeds are in Love: I can then think and speak and do in Love. ephes 4:15-16. 1 Corin 13:1-3.16:14.
Then having prepared myself with Love for myself as all others and so with Love for all others as myself, I am ready to help all others love themselves as all words so thay can love all others as themselves, and am pre-paired to be called in Hate and to take in Love all the words and names I already love me as so that I can NOT be offended by being called any name such as pointless! smile See Psalms 119:165
The secret of self-Love is that loving yourself does NOT initially involve DOING any deed: it only involves THINKING with my mind and SAYING with my mouth as per Romans 10:9-10: I love me as all words and their opposites! That is HOW we first bring ALL THOUGHTS into the captivity of Christ. 2 Corin 10:5. That is HOW we put mind in gear before putting words in mouth or actions in hand! It is like being a child all over again: this time an adult-child with ALL Love and NO Malice, john 3:1-8, 1 corin 14:20: taking Love all in BEFORE giving it all out!
We are infinitely more human BEINGS than human DOINGS!
The doings will automatically be done.
Okay?
Please ask me for it if you think I left anything out at all!
Hope that helps to assuage your concerns that this insight is still in its no-action stage! smile
I am in GA too: so if you want some IWAIL: Insight With Action In Love, I am willing to come to your church for a public examination by you and all! smile
Just say the word! smile
All Love and Respect,
Gordon
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 4:07:36 PM
tom in ga!
You wrote:
"I am troubled by this text this Sunday. I believe with all my heart that those who die in a terror attack or from natural causes are no more or less guilty than I am -"
But HOW are you as guilty as they?: by what you both have DONE or by WHAT attitude of hate you both have for yourself as bad and so for bad people as yourself?
"but still why they and not me?" God's choice. Romans 9:11-24, especially verse 16.
"Am I more repentant than they are? I don't think so." CORRECT.
"What is really going on in this reading?" What is going on in in HOW you are reading it: In Love or in Hate. LUke 8:18
"What does it mean to 'truly repent' of your sins?"
That depends on what sin is to God:
If Love is the law, matthew 22:36-40, 7:12
and sin is the transgression of the law, 1 john 3:4
then to hate any word is the first sin! John 15:25. 1 john 2:9-11; 3:14-15. 4:7-20.
So we repent of the sin of hating any word by loving all words. Titus 1:15.
"What does metanoia have to do with the issue of impending 'judgment' when the judgment is not caused by anything except in the wrong place and the wrong time?"
Metanoia has to do with the issue of the sin of hate for yourself as any word in impending 'judgment'
because the self-condemnatory judgment is not caused by anything except the sin of hate for yourself as any words, and is therefore, for instance, about the hate of yourself as wrong, and therefore is about the sin of hate for self in being in the wrong place/state and being in the wrong place/state at the wrong time. se philippians 4:11-13
"Help!"
Just love self as right AND as wrong, as perfect AND as IMperfect, as weak AND as strong, as all words AND their opposite,
and your Love would then be right and perfect and strong at all times. Please see Matthew 5:48. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. Proverbs 17:17.
Then your judgment of yourself would be as righteous and as merciful and as self-forgiving as God's is of you: In Love of you BOTH as saint AND as sinner! John 7:24.
Then you cd not help but also WITH LOVE judge all others: as yourself: FORGIVINGLY AT ALL TIMES! matthew 7:1-5. 18:15-35. 1 Corin 11:31. 2 corin 13:5.
love and respect, gordon in ga [another one]
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 5:17:56 PM
Repentance is a turning around, but what about perish? At first I assumed it meant to die, given the examples of sudden death of the Galilians and the 18 killed by the Tower of Siloam. butas I read Brian Stoffrogen's notes (www.crossmarks.com), he indicates that perish (appolumi) is also used figuratively or spiritually as lost or dead. For those who want to save their life WILL LOSE it,... LUke 9:24-25 parable of lost son, lost coin, and lost sheep. Stoffrogen then goes on to say: "How should the word be understood in our text? I don't think that Jesus implies that if someone is not repentant, that they will die an untimely death as the people inthe illustrations. I would be more inclined to think that what is destroyed or lost is the relationship between God and humanity." that has given me some new insight into this text. We want a nice and easy answer to why bad things happen to people - they were evil/sinful therefore they died at an early age... but we know that's just not true. Possibly what this text is saying ishtat there is no one to one connection between sin and what happens to us in our life. That doesn't discount a certain amount of cause and effect aspect of life, but it's just not that simple that all tht happens is purely cause and effect. LA in VT
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 6:23:52 PM
Re: Perish:
Romans 2 4 Or do you despise the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?
Since our ability to repent is granted by God, Christ is really saying:
Unless God gave us the ability to repent of the sin of self-hate by loving ourselves as He loves us, we would all perish.
Therefore, since God WILL give repentance to us all, all will be saved:
Romans 11 26 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:
GH in GA
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 7:49:28 PM
A young couple at my church just lost their first born in the 8th month of pregnancy this afternoon. Please keep them in your prayer (you can refer to them as Sera's parents in your prayer). And keep me in prayer too, as I attempt to minister to them.
Coho, Midway City
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 8:00:39 PM
Coho,
I am up late preparing for a funeral myself, and saw your post. You and the family are in my prayers.
Michelle
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 8:57:42 PM
Coho:
You and Sera's parents are in my prayers as well. I lost a child midway through pregnancy, and the grief was deep. Just be with them and cry with them.
Laura in TX
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 9:21:32 PM
tom in ga wrote:
>>What does it mean to 'truly repent' of your sins? What does metanoia have to do with the issue of impending 'judgment' when the judgment is not caused by anything except in the wrong place and the wrong time?
I agree that this is a confusing text. It seems like maybe Jesus is using one thing to prove another. The examples of the random bad things hitting people just like us (just as bad or just as good) become sort of a pointer toward the calamitous death of the soul that happens when we don't repent. "You think those people who had the tower fall on them were bad, but you are sinful, and the death your sin will cause will be just as bad." I don't know if that makes any sense.
As I roll all of this over and over, I just keep coming back to the thought that the examples just prove how hopeless our situation is without relying on the grace of God. I too wonder about repentance--the only people I know who truly repent are ones who are about to kill themselves drinking or something, when the stakes are very high. The rest of us just kind of learn a little bit each year and try to be a little better than we used to be, keep it between the lines, and that feels like all the success we can hope for. I sure don't know that I could stand up and say that I have "truly" repented enough to make Jesus happy.
So I sit with the discomfort of that, the reality of that, and then I read Isaiah and dare to trust in the mercy of God's grace. It is in the hopelessness of my condition that that grace takes on meaning. I don't mean that as a cop-out, but as honesty, a tension that I hope will continue to produce growth in me. But it is only in the removal of my illusions about myself that growth can come.
Laura in TX
Date: 3/9/2004
Time: 10:15:11 PM
So, "Unless you repent, you will die without having repented, just as those others who died without warning"?
Too circuitous?
Michelle
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 3:38:58 AM
Dear RevJohn in Juneau,
Greetings! Just a note of encouragement: The fruit God is looking for in you and on you is Love: Love is the first fruit, so the Holy Spirit must be The Tree of Love. Galatians 5:22-23.
And the Love-tree is the special kind of tree that also produces all the other fruits in Love: joy in Love, sadness in Love, peace in Love, war in Love, longsuffering in Love, short-suffering in Love, and etc!
see?
Love is shed abroad by the HS in our hearts: romans 5:3
That Love is oozing from every word in your post! So there! You ARE prodcing THE real fruit! You are okay!
Do you not love God and you and your gay friends and whoever else? That's the fruit!
No fruit means no Love in heart. No talent is no Love. Love is the talent of talents. Love is the Coin of the realm. The sin of the man who buried his one talent was hate of himself as a person who takes something for nothing! His sin was NOT that he produced nothing: his sin was that he hated himself as a nobody and thief and hard-man, and in that sinful attitude hated Christ and in the sinful attitude produced nothing! Those who produce nothing but love in heart are more productive than those who produce everything but do so in Hate of nobodies and of nothing! see? See Luke 18:9-11.
Now if you do hate whoever, then just repent of that and love them in your heart.
Then that Love will tell you when to take a stand in Love or when in Love to NOT take a stand. Eccles 3:1-8.The Love of Jesus is the basis of the Wisdom of Solomon. Matthew 12:42.
Taking a stand or not is irrelevant: any act is just that: putting on an act: only Love in your heart is relevant and makes all action and all inaction genuine.
ok?
I love you!
Love and respect, gordon
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 4:33:02 AM
More encouragement:
The sin of the Fig tree is NOT in producing "Bad Fruit" and is not in producing no fruit at all, but the sin of hate for being fruitless and so in hating the fruitless or the barren woman or barren desert or etc as myself.
The sin of Complacency is the sin of hating the lax, the lazy and the complacent. When I hate being complacent and lazy and lax, I will have a hard time being content and relaxed since being contented and relaxed and lazing in the sun on vacation makes me look as if I am complacent and lax, and vice versa, and in Hate of being lax and complacent, I can't bear to even look so. Romans 4:17. 1 corin 13:7-8. Then of course, I will also hate those who are lax or complacent or look so as myself. philippians 4:11-13. 1 corin 13:1-3. Those who hate being lax can not re-lax or take vacations and laze in the sun! smile
First they came for the communists, and in hate of being taken away and in hate of being a communist I did not speak out-- because to me I was not a communist: luke 18:9-14;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out in Love-- because I was not a socialist; ephes 4:15.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out in Love-- because I was not a trade unionist; Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out in Love-- because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me-- and in hate of myself there was no one left to speak out in Love for me.... not even me. i corin 9:18-22. isaiah 58:6-7
So the sin I hold is not only the sin of hate for myself as bad in producing Bad Fruit, but also my sin of hate for myself as barren in not producing anything at all. matthew 5:43-48
I need to risk loving myself as barren and fruitful, as all words and their opposites, and just trust the food of Love that is being fed me at the Altar of Love. matthew 12:34-37
Perhaps the bread of Love and wine of Love that feed me.. perhaps the water of Love that give me roots in Love will also let me sing out. yes.isaiah 55:1
I have been asked to be present at a public rally of PFLAG and Gay/Straight Alliance of University of Alaska (SE). Not to speak. Just to be a presence there. And I find myself scared which is okay if i love being scared: proverbs 1:7, but is not if I hate being scared: 1 john 4:18.
I have a gay brother. I am fully supportive in Love of myself as gay and as straight. And yet, here I sit, wondering. Not wanting to act which is okay in Love but not okay of I hate being inactive. Wanting to stay still is ok in Love of being still and doing nothing, but not okay if I hate doing nothing abd jhate being a nobody! Exodus 14:13: standing still in Love is ok!
Perhaps I need to risk loving me as God loves me: john 15:9. Scary as that Love of myself happens to be. I might fall IN LOVE! I will fall in Love. Those who hate falling fall in hate! But how can I be picked back up again in Love if I never move in Love and have my being in Love and so be-have in Love! Acts 17:28-29.
Some thoughts from gordon in atlanta...to RevJohn in Juneau
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 4:49:06 AM
Sometimes less is more! I think Jesus is merely asking, "Are better than any other humans"? Digging to deep in the first area can be dangerous as it leads to too much interpetation. To focus on His meaning, look at the parable. The main point is to grow or die!
Roger in Pa.
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 4:50:01 AM
Sometimes less is more! I think Jesus is merely asking, "Are better than any other humans"? Digging to deep in the first area can be dangerous as it leads to too much personal interpetation. To focus on His meaning, look at the parable. The main point is to grow or die!
Roger in Pa.
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 5:33:36 AM
Michelle: circuitous? I think that's the whole point! Rather existential, ain't it?
Sally
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 5:46:07 AM
Gordon,
I wasn't asking, but thanks anyway, bro
Sally
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 5:58:11 AM
I'm going to follow-up on this past Sunday's theme: It was the covenant God made with Abram that he would have children of his own issue ... I considered my average-age of 70 + congregation and thought of the promise of children to them, then, of course, translated it into a congregational theme. What to do when it looks like you'll be the last generation. (sorry, wanted to put it in context)
I used the theme of a few years ago, "No barren churches," and pondered the dilemma when you really have been faithful and still are barren. It's demoralizing. So, there must be something else.
This is the something else - it's not about being good, it's not about being religious, not about being planted in the ground, in the right spot
the problem, as one early post indicated, is in the roots ... with healthy roots, we'll produce healthy fruit. I think I'm going to be bold and say it more directly this time: maybe we'd do well to look at how we can improve our roots - and when I try, or anyone tries, someone comes along and says, "we don't do it that way here," or "we can't afford it," or "we don't want the liability," or "I don't approve," or "we have a policy against that." (I'm not inventing - these are frequently said in the church I serve).
Are the roots planted in religion but tended by earthly concerns? Yes!
Thus, there is no real separation between religious and non-religious people. Good and bad fall on whomever, as does prosperity and famine.
Sally in GA
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 6:20:46 AM
Karma: what comes around goes around. You sow evil you reap evil. You plant goodness you enjoy goodness. This is one of many tenets of faith of Buddhism and Hinduism where Christianity differs.
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 6:21:01 AM
This my first posting. Please bear with me. It seems that Jesus in his comments regarding the Galileans and the Tower of Siloam is offering a new way of thinking about God. Rather, than affirm thinking of God in terms of reward in punishment, he says repent. Could he be saying turn away from that way of thinking about God or that image of God? He then offers the parable of the fig tree. It seems the problem of the fig tree is not about fruit but roots - perhaps roots drawing "life" or "faith" from that old way of thinking of God. The gardner - I take the gardner to be Jesus - then promises to nourish the roots and give the tree life. This Jesus does with his death on the Cross. The "so what" factor to me is God is a God of life who gives us life through our Savior, Jesus Christ. The degree to which we insist he he is a God of retribution is the degree to which we blind ourselves to the life he offers - in every situation.
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 6:28:08 AM
To the Karma writer, don't forget kismet, which is fate. We don't buy that either.
Corn Country
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 6:33:35 AM
First Posting person. Just a minor quibble. The idea of repentance is not new with Jesus. The OT prophets had been trying hundreds of years BC to get the people to repent of their sins (idolatry, mostly) and return to God. And then, John the Baptist's entire preaching theme was repentance, turning away from sins.
CARL
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 6:38:26 AM
Here is something else to chew on. This insight is not my own, but gleaned from Hanson and Oakman 1998, "Palestine in the Time of Jesus"
P. 105 "The story about the languishing fig tree symbolizes the elite stranglehold under which Jesus' society has fallen."
Hanson and Oakman relate the struggle of the peasant to reclaim control of agricultural production from the elite estate owners. Peasant operated vineyards/orchards used to supply the needs of individual families. However, lands were increasingly being turned into farms that grew not figs for the peasant class, but olives and grapes for the rich estate owners (Luke 12:18, 13:6).
P. 106 "Elite decisions have led to social sickness, and fig trees languish."
My question is... How would this type of reading change the way we preach this text? Coming from an area in which corporate farms are pushing out the smaller family farms, this could be very prophetic and revolutionary.
Just musing... RB in PA
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 7:12:07 AM
More cultural info from Palestine...
Luke 13:6 The fact that the man had a fig tree denotes that he wasn't necessarily a poor farmer, but a landowner from the city who had tenant farmers work his land. If he was a true Israelite, he would have expected a lapse of nine years to occur before a decision of the fruit bearing capability to be established: three years for growing and nurturing, three years where he is forbidden to harvest fruit (Lev. 19:23), and three years when he could come and reap harvest of his crop. So, we can assume that Jesus is talking about an established tree (a nine year old) that has not born any fruit. Sounds like a few congregations I have known.
It is also interesting that cutting a fig tree down was not the usual method of destruction. Trees were dug up in Palestine if they were unproducing, not cut off at the roots. Is this an editoral faux pas or a glimpse of hope of resurrection?
RB in PA
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 7:37:07 AM
In seminary we used to kid one another about who would be the best at going to the “barren trees” and bringing “manure.”
Last fall our congregation sent 10 heifers (through HPI) to our companion congregation of the Pare people in Tanzania. We heard from the pastor there that over forty families applied for a heifer. What is amazing is the main reason that people want a heifer. We assumed it was for milk; but the reason is the manure. The peasant farmers need the manure to replace the nutrients in the soil in order to carry out their subsistence farming.
Manure is a scarce and valuable resource. I am humbled by that whenever I step into the pulpit.
Pr. del in IA
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 7:42:58 AM
RevJohn in Juneau. I loved the idea of addressing complacency. It really fits with my congregation. Thanks for the insight. NSHB
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 7:58:35 AM
Earlier, revdlk in nebraska posted, Repent: "to change the way you look for happiness."
revdlk in nebraska, that sentence has become my theme for the week, but not quite in the way your parable which followed illustrated. Don't get me wrong--it's good; it just didn't catch my imagination.
Then again, I'm not really sure where I'm going with this. On Ash Wednesday, a young man in our community who was born without fingers on his hands, but has two lobster-claw-like fingers on each hand, and who is very independent, was in a car accident and has severely crippled one of his feet, which may or may not return to normal. When I visited him at home a week later (he is not a member of the church, but very loosely connected), he said, "Today was a good day."
To me, that was a statement of faith.
Even though it's only Wednesday, I'm panicking, and desperately need help!
Many thanks. Sybil in Kansas
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 7:59:08 AM
Earlier, revdlk in nebraska posted, Repent: "to change the way you look for happiness."
revdlk in nebraska, that sentence has become my theme for the week, but not quite in the way your parable which followed illustrated. Don't get me wrong--it's good; it just didn't catch my imagination.
Then again, I'm not really sure where I'm going with this. On Ash Wednesday, a young man in our community who was born without fingers on his hands, but has two lobster-claw-like fingers on each hand, and who is very independent, was in a car accident and has severely crippled one of his feet, which may or may not return to normal. When I visited him at home a week later (he is not a member of the church, but very loosely connected), he said, "Today was a good day."
To me, that was a statement of faith.
Even though it's only Wednesday, I'm panicking, and desperately need help!
Many thanks. Sybil in Kansas
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 9:11:10 AM
I am a farmer as well as a minister. Two things strike me about the fig tree passage. The fig tree was growing in a vineyard. A vineyard is a field of grapes. In the ideal farm the fig tree would not be there but because of historical circumstances the fig tree was growing there as an anomaly. The owner was looking for a unique contribution from a fig tree in a field of grape vines. Manure constantly gets a bad rap. You put wholesome and nutritious food into your mouth. The body extracts from that food the nutrients it can harvest for its own use and expels the rest, along with spent microorganisms and metabolic waste products resulting from the proper functioning of your body. Give manure some respect. There are more benefits to be gained from the God-given food we eat than what our human bodies are capable of achieving. Harry
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 9:25:57 AM
Coho
My wife and I lost a child during pregnancy, and the pain is still there (this was in 1992). I am so grateful for some of my minister friends who ministered to me at that time. At a time like this, all you can do is hold the parents and listen and cry with them.
Who do you have to hold yourself in this very tough time?
my deepest prayers are with you
revgilmer in texarkana
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 10:58:23 AM
Coho: I can find little to say except to share my sadness with you and the young couple. May God bind every broken heart.
LF
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 11:53:12 AM
Wow. only mid-week and it's all been said! Oh well, here's my little musing: I get a hunch that one thing said by Paul (other forum) and Jesus (here) speaks to mortality. Guess what? EVERYONE DIES. Don't know when, by what means, nor especially for what sort of higher reason/purpose/justification (if any). Just plain everybody dies. This cannot be stopped (...now Jesus does delay the death of a Lazarus here, and a few young lads there...)
What strikes me is that in one's dying there are some options for HOW news is received or rememberred by the community: Will one be rememberred for the circumstances by which death came (tragic accident, rampant tyrant, sexual promiscuity, etc.) or will one be rememberred for the life lived (fruits of service, faithfulness, relationship...) [Does Mel's movie leave society remembering Jesus' means of death...or his life legacy?-good criteria by which to measure "The Passion of The Christ" as well as our preaching!]
Here, it's the parable of a determined gardener bring about the latter that speaks of God's Grace towards ensuring a memorable legacy rather than simply a graphic termination.-how do you think this'll preach for Lent #3?
Perry in Kitchener/Waterloo
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 11:53:25 AM
Wow. only mid-week and it's all been said! Oh well, here's my little musing: I get a hunch that one thing said by Paul (other forum) and Jesus (here) speaks to mortality. Guess what? EVERYONE DIES. Don't know when, by what means, nor especially for what sort of higher reason/purpose/justification (if any). Just plain everybody dies. This cannot be stopped (...now Jesus does delay the death of a Lazarus here, and a few young lads there...)
What strikes me is that in one's dying there are some options for HOW news is received or rememberred by the community: Will one be rememberred for the circumstances by which death came (tragic accident, rampant tyrant, sexual promiscuity, etc.) or will one be rememberred for the life lived (fruits of service, faithfulness, relationship...) [Does Mel's movie leave society remembering Jesus' means of death...or his life legacy?-good criteria by which to measure "The Passion of The Christ" as well as our preaching!]
Here, it's the parable of a determined gardener bring about the latter that speaks of God's Grace towards ensuring a memorable legacy rather than simply a graphic termination.-how do you think this'll preach for Lent #3?
Perry in Kitchener/Waterloo
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 12:11:08 PM
A scientist once approached God and said, "You know what, God, we don't really need you anymore."
God replied, "Really. Why do you say that?"
The scientist answered, "We can now do everything you can, even create human life."
God answered, "That's interesting. Human life--out of dirt?"
"Yes."
"Okay," said God,"let's have a human-making contest."
"You're on." replied the scientist picking up a handful of dirt.
"Wait,wait," cried God,"get your own dirt!"
I came across this uncredited story in another church's newsletter, and I couldn't help but think about it with this week's gospel.
It would seem to me that the reason the tree (if you take that to be us) bears no fruit is because there is inherently something wrong with it.
A tree's main purpose in life is to produce (oxygen,fruit, seeds, more trees,etc), if it is not doing that than something is wrong.
So, we (sinners in this life)are not doing what we were created to do. We have sucked nutrients (what we want) from our God, challenged God's authority, demanded God to fix it or we'll walk away, and we have produce nothing in return. This is the wrong.
Perhaps repenting, at its root, is the realization that we are not doing that for which we were created. Without God, to nourish and sustain us, we will indeed perish.
PG in IL
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 1:24:26 PM
Didn't John the Baptist say that the Messiah was coming with an axe in hand to chop down the tree? (of Israel)? Here Jesus is stopping the axe from falling.
We often see God as one who controls all the bad things in life. Why me, God? Jesus is saying that is not a sign of God, what is a sign is when a tree is given longer time, when mercy is shown, when hope is given. That's a sign of God. They are often harder to see and even harder to recognize.
RB In CA
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 1:48:21 PM
Somebody else may have already said this.
Fig trees only produce when they are well cultivated. If they are neglected, they die. (Westminster Dictionary of the Bible)
My own take:
Israel is a vineyard, God is the vineyard owner, as per other parables, OT and NT alike. God planted something different (a fig tree) in this vineyard - not Jesus himself, but what Jesus was teaching. It was not bearing fruit, it was being rejected or ignored. God wanted to take it away perhaps to plant another fig tree somewhere else (Gentiles?), but the gardener, Jesus, said, No, let it go one more year. Then, if nothing else works to make Israel faithful, then it can be taken away from them.
Jesus' ministry was 3 years in length and nothing much changed, but the Church started to really take hold in the 4th year after his Baptism.
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 2:03:39 PM
PG in IL -
That's really a fine interpretation. The only thing I wonder is, what good would it do the gardener to give it special attention for one more year? Wouldn't it simply suck up more nutrients and still not bear fruit?
Perhaps the focus of this parable isn't so much about the fig tree as it is about the mercy of the gardener. Just like the parables of the good shepherd, the woman who lost the coin and the Prodigal's father aren't focused on the sheep, coin or the son. The parables are most powerful when we focus on the diligence, faithfulness and love of the shepherd, woman and father.
Also - speaking towards another line of thinking expressed earlier in the week. I think there is a difference between temptations and trials. Luther says in the catechism regarding the petition in the Lord's Prayer (lead us not into temptation) that "God tempts no one to sin, but we pray in this prayer that the devil, the world and our sinful self may not decieve us and draw us into false belief, depair, and other great and shameful sins. And we pray that even though we are so tempted, we may still win the final victory."
Psalm 23 tells us that "God leads us in right paths for his name's sake". In other words, God's reputation is on the line if he doesn't do a good job in leading and directing us - leading us away or out of temptation.
In other words, bad things do happen to people unfairly - we cannot look at such things as towers falling and say, "Look at that - God is punishing those people." There are far too many, then, that go unpunished - i.e. the fig tree. But because bad things do happen to people unfairly, we must live our lives daily in good relationship with God and those God has given us to love. And, if we are given another day to live and love, it's not because we deserved it, but because by God's grace, God gives us another chance - another chance to love and another opportunity to be loved.
Tigger in MN
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 2:06:08 PM
PG in IL -
That's really a fine interpretation. The only thing I wonder is, what good would it do the gardener to give it special attention for one more year? Wouldn't it simply suck up more nutrients and still not bear fruit?
Perhaps the focus of this parable isn't so much about the fig tree as it is about the mercy of the gardener. Just like the parables of the good shepherd, the woman who lost the coin and the Prodigal's father aren't focused on the sheep, coin or the son. The parables are most powerful when we focus on the diligence, faithfulness and love of the shepherd, woman and father.
Also - speaking towards another line of thinking expressed earlier in the week. I think there is a difference between temptations and trials. Luther says in the catechism regarding the petition in the Lord's Prayer (lead us not into temptation) that "God tempts no one to sin, but we pray in this prayer that the devil, the world and our sinful self may not decieve us and draw us into false belief, depair, and other great and shameful sins. And we pray that even though we are so tempted, we may still win the final victory."
Psalm 23 tells us that "God leads us in right paths for his name's sake". In other words, God's reputation is on the line if he doesn't do a good job in leading and directing us - leading us away or out of temptation.
In other words, bad things do happen to people unfairly - we cannot look at such things as towers falling and say, "Look at that - God is punishing those people." There are far too many, then, that go unpunished - i.e. the fig tree. But because bad things do happen to people unfairly, we must live our lives daily in good relationship with God and those God has given us to love. And, if we are given another day to live and love, it's not because we deserved it, but because by God's grace, God gives us another chance - another chance to love and another opportunity to be loved.
Tigger in MN
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 2:06:23 PM
I have enjoyed the spirited discussion that is going on this week. The text is taking me in a different direction than where the conversation has been, so I apologize for the tangent.
I have been thinking about other places in the Gospels that use "tree and fruit" language and have been comparing those to our text. First we find "Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." (Luke 3:9 & Matthew 3:10) Then there is Jesus, "No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; for each tree is known by its own fruit;..."(Luke 6:43-44 & Matthew 7: 16-20) In those two instances the two synoptics are congruent. Next we find Matthew 12:33, "Either make the tree good and its fruit good; or make it bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit", this closly alines itself with Jesus' pervious statement but what I find as interesting is the Aorist, Active, Imparitive used in the greek 'poiesate' that is translated as 'make'. We then have the "I am the true vine" found in the farewell discorse of John (15:2-16) and then there is our text for this week. The difference that I am seeing, is that in our text, as opposed to the other texts, we have a good tree not bearing fruit at all. If a tree is to be known by its fruit, how is this tree known? It is known by the gardner. I am hoping for feed back on this question: "Does this text speak to you as sanctification?"
I mean we have the landlord (God the Father) we have the gardener (God the Son) and we have the manure (God the Spirit) all activly working to bring about a change (repentance) in the tree (us) so that we may bear good fruit (good works).
"For good works do not precede faith, nor is sanctification prior to justification. First the Holy Spirit kindles faith in us in conversion through the hearing of the Gospel. Faith apprehends the grace of God in Christ whereby the person is justified. After the person is justified, the Holy Spirit next renews and sanctifies him, and from this renewal and sanctification the friuts of good works will follow. (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, Article III. Righteousness paragragh 41) To this we can then added, "Seen from the vantage point of Christology, our justification, redemption, sanctification and perfection are all accoplished in Christ and, as a matter of fact, they all mean the same thing." (Faith Victorious, Lennart Pinomaa p46) I see this text as speaking to sanctification: does any one else?
Well, I guess that brings me to the: "So and What". God is not done with us yet. Even though we are sinful, because of the gift of faith in Christ and by the grace of God, we can know that we are sinners in need of a savior. In knowing we are sinners we can turn to God (repent) and through God's grace through faith in Christ find forgivness of sins, so we can then, by the power of the Holy Spirit, bear the fruit of Christian lives of love and service. Grace and Peace, Badlands Paul
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 2:25:58 PM
I will add these words, as well, to my previous post:
And, in other words, good things happen to people unfairly as well – we cannot look at some people and say, “Look at that – God is rewarding those people.” There are far too many, then, that go unrewarded (in our eyes). But because good things happen to people unfairly, we still must live our lives daily in good relationship with God and those God has given us to love. And, if we are given another day to live and love, it’s not because we deserved it, but because by God’s grace, God gives us another chance – another chance to love and another opportunity to be loved.
Tigger in MN
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 6:18:57 PM
The county coroner belongs to our church. During my sermon this past Sunday his cell phone rang. We later learned it would be to pronounce a 17 year old girl dead at the scene of a car accident. The parents, other relatives and about 600 high school students are wondering why. I think Jesus would tell us that is was not a punishment. She is no worse than any of us. But we do need to know that at any moment we can lose our lives and we need to have a right relationship with the Lord. PH in OH
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 6:35:05 PM
Karma: what comes around goes around. You sow evil you reap evil. You plant goodness you enjoy goodness. This is one of many tenets of faith of Buddhism and Hinduism where Christianity differ not and are the same:
Galatians 6 7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
Hosea 8 7 For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.
Hosea 10 12 Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 6:35:57 PM
Karma: what comes around goes around. You sow evil you reap evil. You plant goodness you enjoy goodness. This is one of many tenets of faith of Buddhism and Hinduism where Judaism and Christianity differ not and are the same:
Galatians 6 7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
Hosea 8 7 For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.
Hosea 10 12 Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.
Date: 3/10/2004
Time: 11:46:54 PM
To One Tom of many: Your interpretation of 3/7/04 really rings true to my ear, and I think your defense of this interpretation is excellent.
I wonder if there is supposed to be any connection between the disaster sayings and the parable. Maybe the parable should be in a new paragraph. (Maybe not.)
At any rate, I'm thinking that the point of the parable is that, even when I am a fruitless, "pointless tree(ie., a sinful human being), I can count on Jesus to intercede on my behalf and obtain forgiveness for me/us. Perhaps it is the intercession of Jesus that is the point of this parable. Or maybe a better way to say this would be that the point of the parable is Jesus (who interceeds for us) and not us. What does it mean that Jesus interceeds for us? If we are the fruitless tree, then if we are going to be saved, it will be by grace (intercession of Jesus) alone and not by the fruit we bear. Maybe this parable is about justification (or better, Jesus who justifies sinners.)
Why for one year? If the parable is about Jesus who justifies sinners, maybe that's just part of the setting of the story which reflects a common practice of that day (I don't know this, of course.) If a parable has primarily one point, maybe by dwelling on the one year we turn it into an allegory and miss the one point.
Maybe the point of the parable is: Don't worry about what is happening to others; look at Jesus and see what He is doing. That, of course, can produce in us faith in Him. Maybe that's the purpose of the parable.
What about bearing fruit? Maybe forgiveness is the manure that stimulates growth (justification before sanctification? Perhaps too systematic for Luke's way of thinking, but it simplifies things for me.) Perhaps the best fruit in our lives, however, is produced by gratitude for the forgiveness/grace we have received and not by obedience to law or the command to produce fruit (ie., love/loving acts.) Just a thought: If the fruit is faith and not works, that would have an impact on how we present this parable! In any case, ultimately the gardener/Jesus is responsible for the growth, so we come back to Jesus being the point of the parable.
I admit, that's a lot of maybes, so what do you colleagues think? Please?
LB in MN
Date: 3/11/2004
Time: 3:39:33 AM
Where is Eric this week? I miss his posts.
Repent means to re-think. To reconsider our position or our association with things (especially our relationships) so that they realign with how God thinks.
Like John the Baptist and all the prophets before him, Jesus also, asks us to re-think our understanding of purpose. There are some heavy quesions imposed by this passage.
Why are we really here? Is it to die a seemingly worthless death? Don't ALL people die? Not just bad people! So do we lose our goodness through death?
Is life simply a continuous tragedy of death without any good "rhyme or reason".
It helps I think to remember that God's purpose for creating us, is totally contained within community. We are not meant to be independent creatures, we are interdependent. We rely on each other for sustenance and support. The image of the divine in us is the capacity we have to love, as God loves.
I am reminded, by this passage, of Paul's exhortation in 1 Corinthians 3 where he explains that each person adds a different dimension to each others spiritual development. One plants another waters, but it is God who gives the growth.
The whole purpose of the fruit is to ensure the continuation of the species. It is from the seed of old, that the new plant is derived.
Our life is not fruitful, if we consider our meaning is totally associated with self. Love cannot exist in that environment. It is this that we are required to repent about, otherwise our death will be a tragic waste of effort on God's part.
Our life will have been totally and utterly squandered if we do not participate, in each other's welfare and well-being. If we simply do everything we can to avoid tragedy, we are nothing more than selfish. Love requires risk, and this is the tragedy that Jesus saw about most people's life.
There are an awful lot of words on this site this week. I'm sorry I've added more to them. I hope they prove fruitful.
Regards,
KGB
Date: 3/11/2004
Time: 5:50:45 AM
I've posted a new children's sermon on that page for anyone who's interested.
Michelle
Date: 3/11/2004
Time: 6:29:00 AM
Tigger in MN--
Thanks for the continued thought process on my sermon. Perhaps the point of giving us one more year is the mercy you pointed out.
I don't know much about fig trees, but I do know when I lived in Texas, the pecan trees often had several weak producing years in a row before the conditions were right for a boom crop.
Perhaps Jesus asking for one more year is asking for mercy for us in hopes that we'll finally recognize what we are called to do and produce.
Thanks to all who contribute--this website is a real blessing for us first call pastors.
Date: 3/11/2004
Time: 6:45:26 AM
One Tom of many,
I wonder if anyone has thought about applying this passage using the church as the fig tree? It goes along with Paul in Romans 11. I'm going to use it as an encouragement for people not to be passive and apathetic fruitless disciples but to "get in the game".
Lewis
Date: 3/11/2004
Time: 8:32:42 AM
I’m getting a late start this week, but here are my initial thoughts:
Sermon title – Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they are not out to get you.
After being very clear and direct about not blaming other people for their tragedies (Jesus does this very directly in John 9:2) I want to say that just because Grace abounds and the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike, we may still have need for repentance. We don’t want to throw out the repentance baby with the Grace bath water. Grace allows us to look at repentance without fear and with the confidence that even when we deserve to be cut out, God would prefer to turn our shit into the manure of new life.
Steve in Wyoming
Date: 3/11/2004
Time: 8:37:00 AM
Vulgarities? Please spare us.
Date: 3/11/2004
Time: 9:40:55 AM
Steve in WY -
To me, that's a given. Grace by definition is freely given at God's will, not ours. We cannot expect it - if we do, it's not grace. We appeal/beg to God for mercy and grace - and hopefully in that process, we are repenting. The point is that God is merciful. He doesn't dole out punishment as we deserve all the time - which for some, isn't how they view God. They see God as punishing them for all kinds of sins through bad things that happen. It's to these kind of people that Jesus seems to be addressing.
Tigger in MN
Date: 3/11/2004
Time: 10:11:40 AM
To Rev in Juneau,
Maybe you're fear is being directed in the wrong place. You say that you are afraid to go to this event, but the greater fear is to be a loving brother and not tell your brother that he is lost in lust. The Bible clearly tells us that the wages of sin are death and you quietly sit by and encourage your brother's path. Shame on you if you convince yourself, or be convinced that homosexual behavior is God's will. I pray that you open your mouth up and teach Him what God really says. I keep you guys in my prayers.
Fred in SF
Date: 3/11/2004
Time: 10:21:00 AM
Wow!--What a *lot* of ideas flowing this week! Hopefully I can put the various puzzle pieces together into something that *works* for Sun.!
I did notice, however, more than the usual number of unsigned posts this week. What's up w/ that? Please sign your names so that we can all get to *know* each other--even a little bit--and more easily follow the various trains of thought. I also think the "sleepy parishioner's" post was rude and uncalled for, and I am thankful for those who responded directly. I will refrain.
Heidi in MN
Date: 3/11/2004
Time: 11:36:42 AM
The thing that's been popping up in my mind off and on all week is that Luke is also the "Rich Fool" guy. His is the only gospel to contain that parable (which really isn't a parable proper, but that's another discussion altogether).
Recall that it wasn't the wealth that made the man a fool but that he'd ignored the Source of his life and it was being demanded of him while he went off eating, drinking and being merry. After, of course, tearing down his old barns and building new ones. He fooled himself into thinking that because he was thriving he was living.
The sin of this fig tree is that it's fooling itself that because it's living it's thriving. It's not producing fruit.
I got a great quote just now by Rev. Dr. Wiley Stephens: this tree, and we often fall prey to "...the danger of presumed spiritual security."
Rather than viewing life as a birthright, or not examining it at all, our lives are to be viewed as gifts from God, Stephens posits, to be used for God and lived for the moment.
(and now back to me) ... so I'm thinking that it's the spiritual sloth that tells us that towers only fall on bad people, or that the liberals caused the 9-11 attacks, or that conservatives are out to take over the world and create a global theocracy. Rather, Jesus' warning is that we are simply living rather than living ~for God~.
I have a fig tree outside a window in my parsonage. I'd just as soon get rid of it, frankly, and would like to wring the neck of the predecessor who planted it. Each year, the leaves fall off and come back, but the fruit rots before it ripens, or the squirrels & bugs get it (I don't care; I don't like figs that aren't in Newtons). I plan to chainsaw it down (I love chainsawing things down) and be done with the thing. It's overgrown, in the way, and ugly. Perhaps the extension of Jesus' unfruitful parable?
Sally in GA
Date: 3/11/2004
Time: 11:46:05 AM
Mike in Sunshine:
I laughed when I read what "Morganite" is. I'd first thought of the religious sects like "Millerites" and "Hutterites."
Sally
Date: 3/11/2004
Time: 11:49:14 AM
I just occurred to me that someone might take this too literally, and believe because she is not able to have children (produce fruit), she is therefore in disfavor. I know that's stretching it, but, people tend to stretch things when they hit close to home.
Michelle
Date: 3/11/2004
Time: 12:08:59 PM
What is all this?
The Lessons were going along well this Lent. First we dealt with Jesus' Temptations; and then we dealt with Jesus' lament over the city of Jerusalem. Well, all that was fine and good.
But now!!!
Now I have to decide whether or not repentance is for me? You got to be kidding! I am not a drunk, or a womanizer (oh, I don't mean I don't lust from time to time), I pay my bills (oh, my I am beginning to sound like the Pharisee); but what I am trying to say is that I have no reason to repent of my sins. What sins! Sure there are people I don't always get along with, but that is between me and my therapist. After all I am not perfect! Now I am told that I must confession my sinfulness, turn around (I thought I was going in a pretty good direction). I have never been at the bottom, so there is no coming up. Why does this Third Sunday in Lent have to focus on ME? Well, I have some re-"leaf", the parable says I have a little more time to get it right, maybe next year, oh, actually I have three years before Year C is upon me again, to finally know what I am to do.
tom in ga
Date: 3/11/2004
Time: 12:17:49 PM
Can anyone tell me who said, "There is nothing you can do to make God love you more. And nothing you can do to make God love you less." I think it was someone notable. I am going with God's mercy and second chances on this one. Lots of different directions this week. This tree is healthy and producing! Thank you and blessings LGB
Date: 3/11/2004
Time: 1:17:41 PM
Sally in GA:
It's so funny that you would mention an actual fig tree--at my last church we lived in a house with three big fig trees against the back fence, trees that gave off figs like crazy. I don't like them off the tree, (I cook them down with lots of sugar!), but my husband and young son would stand back there and just eat them, one after the other. I do remember pear trees and peach trees in my childhood that either gave bad fruit or none at all, and how frustrating that was to me--the thought of what could have been, compared with the joy of having such a wonderful, fruity tree right in my own yard.
Thanks, tom in ga, for putting our dilemma in such a colorful fashion! Thank heavens for three year cycles.
Laura in TX
Date: 3/11/2004
Time: 1:34:34 PM
Tom in GA--
I hope you're being sarcastic in your last posting. It seems that way, but I would like to add my two cents that that seems to be the typical thought process of some people in the church.
The fact is we are all sinners! There is no scale that says my sin is worse or better than any others. Do we contribute to a national government who gives weapons and help to the countries who can give us goods? Don't we support industries that pay the lowest wage possible to people working in foreign factories in unsafe work conditions so that we can get cheap products at Walmart and the like.
I think one of the other major lessons Jesus is conveying this week is to really stop and look at our own sins before we judge those whose sins may seem more obvious (murder, etc.)
RevJuneau- I have a lot of thoughts about the homosexuality issue which I won't go into here, except to say "presence" is a wonderful thing, but uncomfortable presence is noticable. If you plan to go to the PFLAG event, perhaps you should speak with the person who invited you about your qualms. Every gay person or family member of a gay person I have met appreciates open and honest dialog about questions and fears.
Fred in SF-- We are all lost in lust, sin, etc. Whether homosexuality is a sin in God's eyes or not, we have all fallen short and been less than repentent.
Date: 3/11/2004
Time: 1:44:05 PM
Michelle - I preached that last week (God's promise to Abram) and I happen to know a few women in the church who've not had children, and one who lost a son. I simply made clear that this was what they USED to think and made sure that wehn I drew the analogy to our church that it was an analogy. I've never had problems like that, but I've also not had ultra-literalists in my churches, either.
If someone is THAT sensitive, though, I doubt there's much you could do to avoid it. We can only be responsible for so much. (gee, I sound like tom in ga).
Sally
Date: 3/11/2004
Time: 2:29:34 PM
Maybe I missed it in the long lists of posts, but I don't see anyone picking up the images of the OT readings with this one. As I read this text, I am struck by the images of water in Isaiah 55 and Psalm 63. I'm working on the idea of "Thirsty for righteousness", or the thirst for the sustaining, strenghtening, loving power of Christ. Remember John 4 & 6 where Jesus refers to himself as the living water. As he tells the woman at the well, When we drink for His Living Water we will never thirst again. Isn't that what repentance is all about, turning from consuming things and relying on things other than Christ?
When we repent we turn from those things which choke our spiritual growth. We turn 180 degrees from our spiritually non-productive selves. When we accept the grace and love of God in Christ Jesus, we want to sink our roots deeply into the living water of Christ so that we might produce the fruit of His Spirit.
Repentance puts us on the right path toward being fully satified (Ps 63:5 & Isa 55).
Steve in NC
Date: 3/11/2004
Time: 2:32:46 PM
just some last minute thoughts
in the Old Testamnet, the image of barrenness (sp?)is used to show the power of God to bring new life. Just wondering if there might be something there.
revgilmer in texarkana
Date: 3/11/2004
Time: 8:01:40 PM
This is my first posting also. I have gleaned much from your discussions for a long time and really appreaciate all the different approaches. (You will all probably come to know me by my terrible spelling - I'm assuming there is no spell check associated with this and so I will appologize in advance... ~:-)
First, to Fred in SF: I'm very sorry and disappointed that you used Rev John in Juneau's example of his conflict about complacency versus the risk of disapponting others as a vehicle to judge the issue (homosexusality) and thus him and his brother. It seems that you missed the point of an example that can relate to all of us who are torn between our call to be prophetic witnesses for God and the reality of trying to discern if a certain issue is a "hill we are willing to die on." Unless I am mistaken, the ethos of this supportive community (DSP contributors)is Christian love. For me, that includes being accountable to each other, but being very careful not to fall into the onious role of judging our brothers and sisters who are willing to risk making themselves vulnerable to each other in what is usually assumed to be a safe place. It has seemed to me that this is one of the reasons this site is so helpful in being able to learn from one another and gain insights that can lead us to becoming better witnesses to the love of God. I was hurt and offended by your response (and it has nothing to do with my stance on homosexuality or anything else.) I assume you are a faithul person from whom I can learn a great deal, I just hope and pray that in the future you will consider leaving the judgement to God...
OK, now that I have that off my chest, I would like to weigh in on the parable. I, too am taking the path of Jesus being the one to plead for mercy for our sakes. He agrees to be the one to do all the work to try to insure that "we" the barren tree produces fruit. In doing that, he is taking the risk, paying the price (giving himself up for our sins) and risking his own reputation with the land owner if his efforts don't "pay off" in order to spare the tree. Jesus sacrificed his reputation with all of the "powers that be" - (or were) at the time of his crucifixion by being hung on a cross like a common criminal in order to buy us more time - in fact all the time in the world - eternity...
Could that also be part of the point of the first five verses? We will all die physically, and how it happens won't have anything to do with judgement. But there is more to the story, and it is Good News! If we repent and change our course, understanding that God is love, incarnated in JC and then live accordingly, we will have eternal life - a promise that can take us beyond the concern of physical death and the judgement we are so inclined to link to it. My only problem with that is it assumes that the others who died in the trajic episodes did not repent and therefore missed eternal life - and we can't know that... so I suppose it would work against itself.
I'm confusing myself now - anyone care to help me decide whether this interpretation is salvagable with some tweaking or if I should just cut bait and stick with the sermon I've prepared with a more traditional understandings?
Peace, Chris in Limbo
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 4:30:26 AM
KGB asked, "Where is Eric this week? I miss his posts."
Thanks for noticin' me, as Eeyor would say (or not noticin' me, actually).
I've not been around because I'm extremely busy dealing with the hospitalization, discharge, and re-location (from assisted living to more hands-on care) for an elderly, never-married uncle who is the last surviving member of my parents' generation in our family. I am his financial conservator and medical decision-maker, and trustee of his estate. What makes all this more than usually time consuming is that he is in Southern California, and I am in Ohio -- a three-hour time difference and an all day trip!
Also, I've decided to preach a series on the Lord's Prayer during Lent so while I am making some nodding references to the lessons of the lectionary, I am not focusing on them.
Y'all have a great Sunday.
Blessings, Eric in OH
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 5:32:20 AM
To Sleepy Parishoner, Perhaps you are sleepy because you have the players in the worship service confused. I like to share this with my PPRC and Worship Committees-- Most people in the pews view the players as follows: God is the prompter, The preacher is the entertainer, The congregation is the audience, But in actuality: God is the audience, The preacher is the prompter, and The congregation is the entertainer. In other words, you will get out of worship what you put into it. I challenge you to rethink your idea of worship--it's purpose is to focus on God, and not on yourself and what you get from it. "rev"ing for Jesus in NC
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 5:42:19 AM
Two thoughts on the eve of Sunday:
A few summers ago I attended a Southern Baptist Church in North West Georgia during my vacation. As I entered the church I was welcomed and as I said something like "how are you?" the response came back "I am blessed!" Also, all of us have heard the statement, and sometimes we have made this statement ourselves "What I am facing is not as bad as what other people must face."
Now I am thinking about these comments in relationship to our reading this Sunday. Are there people who honestly think that they are more "blessed" than others; or that "are worse off" than we are?
It seems to me that you cannot judge the inner liife of a person by their exterior. We are all blessed, and we are all in the same boat as the person who is worse off. We can never be too cocky about our relationship with God. Salvation is a promise and not a brand-name. We must live lives open, constantly turning toward the one who brightens our days even in the midst of sickness and death. To be repentant is to know that we are home with God, blessed, and renewed like a little child.
tom in ga
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 5:45:28 AM
Chris - I think it'll work well. It'll be fresh for many listeners.
4 what it's worth ...
sally
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 5:47:28 AM
Eric - I'd noticed you missing, too (that sounds like "me, too, me too!"), and I'm sorry to hear that you have this drama going on in your life. I hope you can get your uncle settled down and all are comfortable.
Sally
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 6:39:12 AM
In the paper today is a small article in the sports section that might be useful to some.............. Davis Love III found a way to erase contentious memories from the Match Play Championship, donating his $700,000 from finishing second to his local church. "It hits you that there are more important things than golf," Love said Thursday. Love lost to Tiger Woods in the final match at La Costa two weeks ago, a Sunday that turned sour when he was heckled by a fan during a pivotal stretch of the 36-hole match. The fan kept saying "No Love" as he prepared to play, and Love finally confronted him on the fifth tee.
Another Ohio guy
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 7:45:28 AM
"rev"ing for Jesus in NC, Soren Kierkegaard would sure like it that you use his casting list for worship service! He was right on!
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 7:47:43 AM
Hi,
I would like to address the issue of individual versus community that has been discussed earlier this week. In the first paragraph below is a summary of a report on individual and group behavior with a challenge concerning the reductionist view. The second paragraph tells a bit more about the source of all this. This is a rather academic comment on the matter and hand and I know it will not be of interest to all. There are reports of a paradigm shift for genetics and molecular biology that stem from research on the social groups of bees and ants. At a recent conference, Jennifer Fewell of Arizona SU reported, “Within each social group, or network, individuals develop associations and communications systems. The behavior of individual insects is directly affected by the behaviors of and communications with other insects…. ( phenotypes are behaviors which have a genetic origin)…When you change the behavior of a social group, ‘you can change phenotypes’…” The current model of biology…is based on a reductionist view of the world…The reductionist model holds that any behavior can be explained by reducing it to behavior at a lower level. … The network model allows, instead, for emergent behavior that cannot be explained fully from a reductionist perspective. As an example, network theory says consciousness may be an emergent phenomenon with a reality beyond the network of neurons on which it depends… ‘Does this mean that it is possible to have a conversation about an nonphysical reality?”
Harold G. Koenig, MD is a one of the nations leading researchers on Spirituality and Health and is a professor a Duke. He is the Editor-in-Chief of “Science and Theology News” the magazine from which the above was quoted (see March 2004, Vol. 4, No. 7, p. 10; article by Rebecca Booker). For those who are interested in the connect between science and theology, you may go to http://www.stnews.org/ for references.
In summary, One Tom of Many said, “I've always read this passage in a personal sense (we each are the tree, we each must repent.) Now, to me it makes more sense to read it in a corporate sense (Israel is the tree, Israel as a nation must repent or die.) …Israel must repent or be destroyed by the Romans.” To which I respond, the connection between the community and the individual is stronger than some of realize. We do need to call our church as a community to respond to nourishment of Jesus, and we (individually and communally) must produce good fruit or we (individually and communally) will suffer judgment.
Leon in NC <><
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 9:28:39 AM
I wish the story went like this:
Davis Love III, in Love of his competition and in Love of those against whom he was contending and in Love of finishing last, which is what second is to first, found a way to erase the contentiousness of a fan during the Match Play Championship, by giving all of his Love to the fan who had No Love for Love.
The fan kept saying "No Love" as he prepared to play, and Love, who understood that the fan only had no Love for him because he had no Love for himself, finally with Love confronted the fan on the fifth tee by saying: "Love you more!"
"It hits you that Love is more important than all other things including golf," Love said Thursday. Love lost to Tiger Woods in the final match at La Costa two weeks ago, a Sunday that he kept sweet and prevented from turning sour when he was heckled by the fan during a pivotal stretch of the 36-hole match. Love refused to blame the fan for any loss of concentration, and then donated his $700,000 from finishing second to his local church.
So with Love, Love 111 was the winner even though he finished last.
Another Love guy,
gordon
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 9:49:32 AM
Leon in NC et alia,
The tree represents not only the individual but also the community: the tree represents both. It is not 'either or,' but 'both and.'
God will always with Love spare the individual in Love in particular, and with Love chastise the community which is in Hate at large: the community at large being just a lot of individuals. Noah and his family vis a vis the world.
God will also spare the community at large which is in Love, and chastise the individual in hate. Jonah vis a vis the Ninevites.
In summary, One Tom of Many said, “I've always read this passage in a personal sense (we each are the tree, we each must repent.) Now, to me it makes more sense to read it in a corporate sense (Israel is the tree, Israel as a nation must repent or die.) …Israel must repent or be destroyed by the Romans.”
The only word missing is 'also' as in:
"I've always read this passage in a personal sense (we each are the tree, we each must repent.) Now, it ALSO makes more sense to read it ALSO in a corporate sense (Israel is the tree, Israel as a nation must repent or die.)"
So putting it all together in Love, Israel and I must repent of the sin of Hate, or we will be both destroyed by the Romans.
I am Israel and Israel is me.
Acts 2 38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
39 For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the LORD our God shall call.
40 And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying,
Save yourselves [in Love] from this untoward generation [of hate].
"For ’tis a sign of Love, and Love to Richard Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world." The Tragedy of King Richard the Second, Act V. Scene V.
Love and respect, Gordon
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 9:56:56 AM
I had my sermon pieces pretty well put together like this
1. some evil and suffering is caused by the malice of human beings, individually and corporately
2. some evil and suffering just seem to happen- i.e. natural disasters (nowadays, we would launch an investigation into the safety of the Siloam tower, but they didn't think that way then)
3.Jesus says that neither group are worse sinners than anyone else- they did not suffer this fate on account of their personal sins
4. but Jesus reminds us of the judgment- that we are all in desperate need of a relationship with God-creating a sense of urgency (Fred Craddocks' comments in the Interpretation volume on Luke are helpful here- how the preacher cannot really avoid the severity of God)
5. and yet there is always the one who yearns to give us grace -the image of the gardener who tells the landholder to give him a year to fertilize the tree before he cuts it down- (Craddock is helpful here again when he points out that God's severity and judgment are always in conversation with each other)
and then I log on to Aol late yesterday afternoon and my heart breaks with the news out of Madrid -during the morning rush hour, several commuter trains and the central hub are rocked by explosions- 190 dead, 1200 injured- so much destruction that 40 coroners are called in to try and identify the remains (what a terrible word)of those killed- and Jesus' words "Do you think...they were worse sinners" "Do you think...they were worse offenders" take on a whole new meaning for me- as does that urgency I talked about above. Still, in the words of one of Cranmer's prayers in The Book of Common Prayer- "We are to have a good hope for all."
grace and peace;
revgilmer in texarkana
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 10:04:51 AM
Can anyone tell me who said, "There is nothing you can do to make God love you more. And nothing you can do to make God love you less." I think it was someone notable. I am going with God's mercy and second chances on this one. Lots of different directions this week. This tree is healthy and producing! Thank you and blessings LGB
FAVORITE QUOTES "There is nothing you can do to make God love you more, and there is nothing you can do to make God love you less." (David Seamands, Healing for Damaged Emotions)
"There is nothing you can do to make God love you more, and there is nothing you could ever do to make God love you less." Virginia Mollenkott
'There is nothing you can do that will make God love you less. There is nothing you can do to make God love you more. God's love for you is infinite, perfect and eternal.' Desmond Tutu, South African bishop
Love and Respect,
gordon
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 10:16:41 AM
revgilmer in texarkana!
Perfect!
Can I make it even more perfect as in 'a more perfect union'? smile
1. ALL UNNECESSARY evil and suffering is caused by the SIN OF Malice of human beings, individually and corporately
2. some evil and suffering just seem to happen BECAUSE THEY ARE NORMAL: FOR EVERY UP THERE IS AN AUTOMATIC DOWN - i.e. natural disasters (nowadays, we would launch an investigation into the safety of the Siloam tower, but they didn't think that way then)
3.Jesus says that neither group are worse sinners than anyone else- FOR ALL WHO SINFULLY HATE suffer this fate on account of the SAME personal sins of Mailce/Hate
4. but Jesus reminds us of the judgment- that we are all in desperate need of THE relationship OF LOVE with God - creating a sense of urgency (Fred Craddocks' comments in the Interpretation volume on Luke are helpful here- how the preacher ALSO cannot really avoid the severity of God)
5. and yet there is always the one who yearns to give us grace - the image of the gardener who tells the landholder to give him a year to fertilize the tree before he cuts it down- (Craddock is helpful here again when he points out that God's severity and judgment AND LOVING-MERCINESS are always in conversation with each other)
and SO then I log on to Aol late yesterday afternoon and my heart breaks IN LOVE with the news out of Madrid -during the morning rush hour, several commuter trains and the central hub are rocked by explosions- 190 dead, 1200 injured- so much destruction that 40 coroners are called in to try and identify the remains (what a terrible word) of those killed- Ezekiel 23:28,
and Jesus' words "Do you think...they [who hated] were worse sinners" "Do you think...they [who hated] were worse offenders" take on a whole new meaning for me- as does that urgency I talked about above.
Still, in the words of one of Cranmer's prayers in The Book of Common Prayer- "We are to have a good hope IN LOVE for all."
love and respect,
gordon
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 10:19:01 AM
Chris-
Thanks for stating so well and with such integrety that we DO need to hold each other accountable for our actions - and for reminding us of the need to be faithful to our call to "Love one another."
We get enough judgement from the world at large, we don't need to dish it out to each other.
I like your ideas for trying to tie the two parts of the Gospel together more closely - I need to chew on it a while, but I think it has a lot of merit.
Brad in Mi
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 10:19:32 AM
revgilmer The Scripture that keeps coming to me during these days is not from this present lectionary, but from Isaiah 6:5 (paraphrased) And I said, woe is me, for I am a woman of unclean lips and actions and I live among people of unclean lips and actions"
Shalom
bammamma
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 10:43:48 AM
LGB, "There is nothing you can do to make God love you more. And nothing you can do to make God love you less."
I saw something very similar to this in Philip Yancey's "What's So Amazing About Grace?"
Peace to you all, Sinclairic
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 11:53:55 AM
On the topic of the individual not being separate from the community, it seems to be that Todd Bertuzzi did not act in isolation. He reflected the values and expectations that the hockey world has created. In that sense, it is not only him who needs to repent. It is not only he who is in the wrong.
I like the phrase: "We are loved unconditionally, but not without expectation."
My wife reminds me that is our goal with our children. We love them unconditionally, but not without expecation.
Jesus, as a prophet, is perhaps saying to the people, that there is an expectation that they are to bear fruits (love, mercy, justice, service, forgiveness, peace??). Results matter - maybe more for the people than for God.
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 12:01:05 PM
opps - pushed the wrong button.
So the parable is about a prophetic word - expectation - repentance - and it is about mercy.
My problem is in the "one year." Is this said in the same way as farmers use the term "next year's country?" Here they accept the fact that they keep farming in the hope that next year will be the year that the potential of the farm is realized. Or is "one year," a statement about the limits of God's mercy? Is there a deadline? Is there a point of no return? Is that just the way wayward actions work? Is this what makes listening to a prophet so difficult?
Brent in Pincher
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 12:32:22 PM
Speaking of the "one year," does anyone know if the Seder meal still includes the line, "Next year in Jerusalem"?
Michelle
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 1:04:02 PM
Michelle asks
Speaking of the "one year," does anyone know if the Seder meal still includes the line, "Next year in Jerusalem"?
It is either the last line or very, very close to the end.
revgilmer in texarkana
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 1:14:19 PM
This talk about the golfer Love reminds me of a Christian game from the 1970's called Social Security. The object of the game was to come in last with the least amount of loot. It was a great teaching tool for young youth, and opened their eyes to ways to be charitable.
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 2:24:38 PM
Exactly.
Of Todd, it may be correctly said:
He hated the guy he hit exceedingly; so that the Hatred wherewith he hated him was greater than the Love wherewith he loved him. 2 Samuel 13:15.
He reflected the values of Love for the Home Team and Hate for Visitors, and expectations that the hockey world of the same mores of Love for the Homeies and Hate for Vistors has created. Matthew 6:24.
In that sense, it is not only him who needs to repent. It is also all of us worldwide with the same double-minded value of Love-for-One and Hate-for-the opposite-one who are in the wrong attitude and in need of repentance. James 1:8.
We are loved unconditionally by God and without any expectation for Love from us in return to God as His NEED..since He is already supplying His Own need of Love by loving Himself unconditionally.
Luke 6 35 But love ye your enemies, and do good IN LOVE, and lend IN LOVE, HOPING FOR NO LOVE IN RETURN;
and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the CHILDREN of the Highest: for he is kind OUT OF EQUAL LOVE unto the unthankful and to the evil.
So too when we love others and God unconditionally: we do NOT expect any Love in return as our need since we are already loving ourselves and supplying ourselves with our need of Love.
But God WANTS it and we WANT it: Why? For their benefit. Love-returned matters more for the people than for God, more for others than unconditional Lovers because
Unconditional Lovers, including God, only WANT Love in return for benefit of others: for when those others return Love to God and us, it MUST mean that they are already loving themselves.
That Love is the only essentially WANTED expectation... and then an expectation for the benefit of others.
Then, ALL other expectations are optional and a free choice.
Jesus, as a prophet, is saying to the people, that the ONLY expectation is that they are to bear the fruit of Love itself,
which then automaticlly bears other fruit at the right time and at the right time bear NO fruit.
That Love is the ONLY fruit-result that matters.
John 21: Do you love me? The correct answer is in 5 words: Yes Lord I love you.
The wrong answer is: Yes Lord I love you. Look what I have DONE in obedience to you! Matthew 7:21-23.
So any fruit-results with Hate for lack of fruit misses the point. Luke 18:9-14.
Any lack of fruit-result in Hate of those with fruits also misses the point. Luke 19:20-26.
Love and Respect,
gordon
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 4:51:03 PM
Who do we see as the tree? Are the sex-trade workers and addicts of the Vancouver downtown eastside the tree? Are they fruitless? Or do we just assume they have no fruit to bear?
Are we the tree? Do we ignore they bigger issue of poverty/addiction/injustice...and focus on the symptoms and point from the comfort of our easy chairs and say "well, they should just do this...or they should do that, that would fix the problem." Isn't that a bit fruitless?
Also, Jesus tells the gardener to tend the tree for a year...dig around it and put manure on it. At first it seems like Jesus is pretty much giving the gardener to cut the tree down - after all if it doesn't bear fruit next year it is bound for the fire....HOWEVER...think about tending something for a year, carefully and lovingly caring for something for a year, nurturing it and helping it to be healthy and grow would definitely make me think twice about cutting it down. I think that after tending it for that period I would be more likely to keep trying, to keep working. In that way I would continue to be fruitful and there would continue to be hope that the tree itself would be fruitful.
Just a couple of things I am tossing around in my head.
Erin in BC
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 5:29:16 PM
I am still toying with the idea that the fruit of the tree is faith, not actions. Am I way off base on this? Has anyone run across this idea in their research? O haven't. I can't believe I'm the only heretic around, but then...LB in MN
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 6:08:30 PM
LB - I don't think your idea is heretical at all, but I also don't think it's an either/or issue. Can REAL faith exist without action? The whole idea of "living out our faith" is, I think, critical. In fact, that seems to relate to all of the frustrations we seem to have with our complacent congregations. Perhaps the issue is more one of where do we start...? We can start acting out of love for our brothers and sisters in Christ, even if we don't feel that convinced of it -and then watch our faith grow the more involved we get, often to our great surprise! Or we can start from faith and be motivated into a more loving life. Either way it seems important to address both. Perhaps I'm getting a little to Jamesian here but that's my two cents worth.
Chris in Limbo
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 6:45:39 PM
I'm trying to figure out a way to use figs in worship... maybe give some out at the beginning of the sermon for people to taste. Anyone ever try something like that? Any other ideas?
DGinNYC
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 7:00:52 PM
If you want a good laugh, click on www.godhatesfigs.com. I found it while trying to find information about figs on the net (to no awail)...
DGinNYC
Date: 3/12/2004
Time: 10:07:55 PM
I am still toying with the idea that the fruit of the tree is faith, not actions. Am I way off base on this? Has anyone run across this idea in their research? O haven't. I can't believe I'm the only heretic around, but then...
LB in MN,
Faith is the fruit of the tree!
And faith works by Love! Love is what makes Faith work. Galatians 5:6.
So the fruit of the tree is faith in Love or the faith of Love. Faith in Love is the faith we have even when there is no faith nor hope in anything else. So that even when we are weak in faith, then are we strong in the faith in Love. 2 corin 12:9-10. Infinitely more important than Love for Faith is the Faith of Love.
Which makes the tree the Tree of Love, whose first-fruit is Love. Galatians 5:22.
By the way, Lovers are heretics in an all-hating world. shakespeare
love and respect, gordon
Date: 3/13/2004
Time: 12:39:52 AM
I read something this morning in a book of reflections on the psalms by Eugen Peterson where he writes ... "it is sin, not suffering that kills"
We look for reasons for suffering, which can distract us from examining our lives and repenting from our sin.
Rev Ev in UK
Date: 3/13/2004
Time: 1:53:17 AM
Hey, I know that Wednesday is late for some of you, but what can I do ?
I've really been struggling with this ... and looking up the commentaries ...
I have something to offer from Robert Capon
he talks about the Jesus as the vinedresser ... interceding with the owner saying "Let it be" in greek aphes ... aphes is also the word Jesus uses on the cross ... forgive ...
So, maybe Jesus is saying about the fig tree (representing Israel or whatever) 'Let it go for now' because he knows that in his own death he will provide the manure that will lead to the life of resurrection .... in fact Jesus is in no dount that the tree will bear fruit ... but it won't come from Israel's repentance, but from his own obedience and sacrifice.
If anyone's still out there ... What do you think.
Rev Ev in UK
Date: 3/13/2004
Time: 6:10:49 AM
Gerald B. Kieschnick, President of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, said the following in a recent newsletter. Though he is speaking of "truth" rather than "sin" I find it appropriate to at least part of our discussion this week.
Michelle
... they order their lives according to their own personal, subjective truth. That truth says that, in a pluralistic society, there are many truths, one no better than the others, and to each his own. There can be other forms of marriage—not just one—and to each his own. It is the inner self, not the God of the Bible or centuries of tradition, law or custom, that decides what is right for each person. Tolerance and “justice,” not faith and obedience to God’s Word, are the new virtues. Anyone suggesting otherwise, especially the “religious right” (as we are frequently called), is criticized and dismissed as being intolerant, if not hateful.
quoted from a letter by Gerald B. Kieschnick
Date: 3/13/2004
Time: 6:39:40 AM
Leon in NC - thank you for the input! It reminds me of the book, "The SEcret Life of Bees." And the metaphor of the queenless hive. They don't know what to do and will eventually die - they have no direction and they have no reproductive source.
Like last week's mother hen gathering a brood under her wings, this week, we look at our inability, without a Reproductive Source, to bear fruit.
And I'm sticking with the evangelistic side, that the fruit of a disciple is another disciple.
Rather than the simple allegories of who we are in the parable, and who God is, perhaps we're all, in part, or in turn, gardeners, the man, Galileans, Pilates, etc.
Sally in GA
Date: 3/13/2004
Time: 6:43:12 AM
You've got a child in the terrible two's or the terrorizing 3's. Nothing you do seems to be leading that child toward righteousness or even calm. You are at your wits end. Do you toss the kid out? Of course not. You continue to nurture and love that child, and eventually something happens that you recognize as worth all the effort. It takes enormous amounts of patience and hope, coupled with indescribable love, to see it through, but one day you know it will happen.
Jesus shows patience and hope, coupled with indescribable love, with us both corporately and individually. When somebody else might consider us not worth the effort because we're just taking up space and air, Jesus says to let him keep trying. Something good might just come of it.
Date: 3/13/2004
Time: 8:26:31 AM
To Rev Ev in UK, concerning "If anyone's still out there ... What do you think."
I think that's terrific! It really pulls everything together for me. I wish I had thought of that. I'm not familiar with Robert Capon; could you share the title of his work?
To Gordon: "Faith is the fruit of the tree! And faith works by Love! Love is what makes Faith work. Galatians 5:6." Thank you, Gordon, for the terrific balance your comment opened up for me. A long time ago someone wrote a book entitled "Faith Active in Love," which sounds like the same thing you're saying. Love and respect back at ya!
To the unsigned comment about two and three year old children: Super illustration!
To everyone else: Thank you all, you've turned one of my least favorite passages into one of my favorite. You people are terrific! LB in MN
Date: 3/13/2004
Time: 10:42:35 AM
LB - I don't think your idea is heretical at all, but I also don't think it's an either/or issue. Can REAL faith exist without action? The whole idea of "living out our faith" is, I think, critical. In fact, that seems to relate to all of the frustrations we seem to have with our complacent congregations.
Perhaps the issue is more one of where do we start...? We can start acting out of love for our brothers and sisters in Christ, even if we don't feel that convinced of it -and then watch our faith grow the more involved we get, often to our great surprise! Or we can start from faith and be motivated into a more loving life. Either way it seems important to address both. Perhaps I'm getting a little to Jamesian here but that's my two cents worth.
Dear Chris in Limbo,
Real faith is simply faith in real Love only because faith works by Love, Galatians 5:6, Love being real and whole and perfect and unconditional only when we love both opposite conditions, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, matthew 5:48,
and therefore can only exist both with faith AND with NO faith, and can only exist both with action AND with NO action.
Love carries its own faith and its own hope and its own Love IN itself:
Love loves itself.
Love believes in Love: Love has faith in Love.
Love hopes in Love: Love has hope in Love.
Therefore in Love for both opposite instances, there is
a time to have faith and a time to have doubt or no faith: I have faith in Love that JC is coming back and I in Love have NO faith as to what day or hour he is coming back. Matthew 24:36, 42. Proverbs 18:13, 17. And since God is Love, because I always have faith in Love, I always have faith in God.
A time to have hope and a time to have no hope: I have hope in Love that I will be saved from the fiery furnace and lion's den up until I am cast into it, at which time I in Love have no hope in being saved FROM either, Romans 8:24, Daniel 3:17-18; 6:5-23, but THRU it; and yet even when hopelessly in the furnace and in the den and NOT knowing if God would save me even THRU it, and even if he did NOT save me at all, even then I still have hope in Love and, since God is Love, have hope in God! 2 corin 12:10.
A time to act in Love and a time in Love to not act, Exodus 14:13, 2 Thess 3:10: In Love we know when to not just stand there but do something and give someone some food to eat, AND we know in Love when to not just do something but stand there still and NOT give someone any food to eat.
Times to act in Love and times to react in Love. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.
So the only correct option is to start exactly where God commands us to start:
With Faith in Love: matthew 22:26-40: which means first loving myself as all others, which means to lvoe myself as all words and their opposites, so that I automatically love all others as myself.
Then in that unconditional Love, and out of that unlimited Love in heart for ourselves as all others and for all others as ourselves,
we think all thoughts in Love, and speak all words in Love, and act all acts and do all deeds in Love.
And starting there shows that only your second option is right:
"Or we can start from faith and be motivated into a more loving life."
Acting of out a Love that we are not sure of is the wrong way to start and certain to be wrong and to end up wrong: it puts ONE set of actions as the basis of unsure and insincere Love, and so automatically mis-introduces Hatred as the basis of the opposite set of reactions, and therefore simultaneously re-assigns and relegates the opposite actions as also the basis of Hate, matthew 6:24:
rather than have the same Love as the basis of all actions and all reactions: God wants the one Love for all thoughts, words and deeds to come BEFORE any thought and any word and any deed so that all thoughts will be in Love, 2 corin 10:5
all speech would be in Love, ephesians 4:15-16, and so also all pure and all sound, titus 1:15. 2 timothy 1:7.
and all deeds and all inactions would be in Love. 1 Corin 16:14. 2 Corin 10:5.
Example of misuse of Hate: I love to relax and I hate to work, and so I am in my predisposed double-minded sinful attitude [Matthew 6:24; James 1:8] of Love for one and Hate for the others even BEFORE I relax or work: then work can only re-get me into 'MORE' of my hateful attitude, and I have to relax to be loving in attitude.
Example of how it should be: I love to work and I love to relax and so am in my preprogrammed righteous single-minded and single-hearted attitude and spirit of Love before either: so both work AND relaxation then can ONLY re-get me into 'more' of the loving attitude I was in to begin with, and therefore NO thing and NO one can get me out of Love since I have predetermined my set-of-mind, my mindset and attitude of heart to BE what God wants it to be for my sake!
Hope that helps.
love and r, gordon
Date: 3/13/2004
Time: 10:45:42 AM
LB - I don't think your idea is heretical at all, but I also don't think it's an either/or issue. Can REAL faith exist without action? The whole idea of "living out our faith" is, I think, critical. In fact, that seems to relate to all of the frustrations we seem to have with our complacent congregations.
Perhaps the issue is more one of where do we start...? We can start acting out of love for our brothers and sisters in Christ, even if we don't feel that convinced of it -and then watch our faith grow the more involved we get, often to our great surprise! Or we can start from faith and be motivated into a more loving life. Either way it seems important to address both. Perhaps I'm getting a little to Jamesian here but that's my two cents worth.
Dear Chris in Limbo,
Real faith is simply faith in real Love only because faith works by Love, Galatians 5:6, Love being real and whole and perfect and unconditional only when we love both opposite conditions, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, matthew 5:48,
and therefore can only exist both with faith AND with NO faith, and can only exist both with action AND with NO action.
Love carries its own faith and its own hope and its own Love IN itself:
Love loves itself.
Love believes in Love: Love has faith in Love.
Love hopes in Love: Love has hope in Love.
Therefore in Love for both opposite instances, there is
a time to have faith and a time to have doubt or no faith: I have faith in Love that JC is coming back and I in Love have NO faith as to what day or hour he is coming back. Matthew 24:36, 42. Proverbs 18:13, 17. And since God is Love, because I always have faith in Love, I always have faith in God.
A time to have hope and a time to have no hope: I have hope in Love that I will be saved from the fiery furnace and lion's den up until I am cast into it, at which time I in Love have no hope in being saved FROM either, Romans 8:24, Daniel 3:17-18; 6:5-23, but THRU it; and yet even when hopelessly in the furnace and in the den and NOT knowing if God would save me even THRU it, and even if he did NOT save me at all, even then I still have hope in Love and, since God is Love, have hope in God! 2 corin 12:10.
A time to act in Love and a time in Love to not act, Exodus 14:13, 2 Thess 3:10: In Love we know when to not just stand there but do something and give someone some food to eat, AND we also know in Love when to NOT do something but stand there still and NOT give someone any food to eat.
Times to act in Love and times to react in Love. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.
So the only correct option is to start exactly where God commands us to start:
With Faith in Love: matthew 22:26-40: which means first loving myself as all others, which means to lvoe myself as all words and their opposites, so that I automatically love all others as myself.
Then in that unconditional Love, and out of that unlimited Love in heart for ourselves as all others and for all others as ourselves,
we think all thoughts in Love, and speak all words in Love, and act all acts and do all deeds in Love.
And starting there shows that only your second option is right:
"Or we can start from faith and be motivated into a more loving life."
Acting of out a Love that we are not sure of is the wrong way to start and certain to be wrong and to end up wrong: it puts ONE set of actions as the basis of unsure and insincere Love, and so automatically mis-introduces Hatred as the basis of the opposite set of reactions, and therefore simultaneously re-assigns and relegates the opposite actions as also the basis of Hate, matthew 6:24:
rather than have the same Love as the basis of all actions and all reactions: God wants the one Love for all thoughts, words and deeds to come BEFORE any thought and any word and any deed so that all thoughts will be in Love, 2 corin 10:5
all speech would be in Love, ephesians 4:15-16, and so also all pure and all sound, titus 1:15. 2 timothy 1:7.
and all deeds and all inactions would be in Love. 1 Corin 16:14. 2 Corin 10:5.
Example of misuse of Hate: I love to relax and I hate to work, and so I am in my predisposed double-minded sinful attitude [Matthew 6:24; James 1:8] of Love for one and Hate for the others even BEFORE I relax or work: then work can only re-get me into 'MORE' of my hateful attitude, and I have to relax to be loving in attitude.
Example of how it should be: I love to work and I love to relax and so am in my preprogrammed righteous single-minded and single-hearted attitude and spirit of Love before either: so both work AND relaxation then can ONLY re-get me into 'more' of the loving attitude I was in to begin with, and therefore NO thing and NO one can get me out of Love since I have predetermined my set-of-mind, my mindset and attitude of heart to BE what God wants it to be for my sake!
Hope that helps.
love and r, gordon
Date: 3/13/2004
Time: 10:46:47 AM
LB - I don't think your idea is heretical at all, but I also don't think it's an either/or issue. Can REAL faith exist without action? The whole idea of "living out our faith" is, I think, critical. In fact, that seems to relate to all of the frustrations we seem to have with our complacent congregations.
Perhaps the issue is more one of where do we start...? We can start acting out of love for our brothers and sisters in Christ, even if we don't feel that convinced of it -and then watch our faith grow the more involved we get, often to our great surprise! Or we can start from faith and be motivated into a more loving life. Either way it seems important to address both. Perhaps I'm getting a little to Jamesian here but that's my two cents worth.
Dear Chris in Limbo,
Real faith is simply faith in real Love only because faith works by Love, Galatians 5:6, Love being real and whole and perfect and unconditional only when we love both opposite conditions, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, matthew 5:48,
and therefore can only exist both with faith AND with NO faith, and can only exist both with action AND with NO action.
Love carries its own faith and its own hope and its own Love IN itself:
Love loves itself.
Love believes in Love: Love has faith in Love.
Love hopes in Love: Love has hope in Love.
Therefore in Love for both opposite instances, there is
a time to have faith and a time to have doubt or no faith: I have faith in Love that JC is coming back and I in Love have NO faith as to what day or hour he is coming back. Matthew 24:36, 42. Proverbs 18:13, 17. And since God is Love, because I always have faith in Love, I always have faith in God.
A time to have hope and a time to have no hope: I have hope in Love that I will be saved from the fiery furnace and lion's den up until I am cast into it, at which time I in Love have no hope in being saved FROM either, Romans 8:24, Daniel 3:17-18; 6:5-23, but THRU it; and yet even when hopelessly in the furnace and in the den and NOT knowing if God would save me even THRU it, and even if he did NOT save me at all, even then I still have hope in Love and, since God is Love, have hope in God! 2 corin 12:10.
A time to act in Love and a time in Love to not act, Exodus 14:13, 2 Thess 3:10: In Love we know when to not just stand there but do something and give someone some food to eat, AND we also know in Love when to NOT do something but stand there still and NOT give someone any food to eat.
Times to act in Love and times to react in Love. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.
So the only correct option is to start exactly where God commands us to start:
With Faith in Love: matthew 22:26-40: which means first loving myself as all others, which means to lvoe myself as all words and their opposites, so that I automatically love all others as myself.
Then in that unconditional Love, and out of that unlimited Love in heart for ourselves as all others and for all others as ourselves,
we think all thoughts in Love, and speak all words in Love, and act all acts and do all deeds in Love.
And starting there shows that only your second option is right:
"Or we can start from faith and be motivated into a more loving life."
Acting out of a Love that we are not sure of is the wrong way to start and certain to be wrong and to end up wrong: it puts ONE set of actions as the basis of unsure and insincere Love, and so automatically mis-introduces Hatred as the basis of the opposite set of reactions, and therefore simultaneously re-assigns and relegates the opposite actions as also the basis of Hate, matthew 6:24:
rather than have the same Love as the basis of all actions and all reactions: God wants the one Love for all thoughts, words and deeds to come BEFORE any thought and any word and any deed so that all thoughts will be in Love, 2 corin 10:5
all speech would be in Love, ephesians 4:15-16, and so also all pure and all sound, titus 1:15. 2 timothy 1:7.
and all deeds and all inactions would be in Love. 1 Corin 16:14. 2 Corin 10:5.
Example of misuse of Hate: I love to relax and I hate to work, and so I am in my predisposed double-minded sinful attitude [Matthew 6:24; James 1:8] of Love for one and Hate for the others even BEFORE I relax or work: then work can only re-get me into 'MORE' of my hateful attitude, and I have to relax to be loving in attitude.
Example of how it should be: I love to work and I love to relax and so am in my preprogrammed righteous single-minded and single-hearted attitude and spirit of Love before either: so both work AND relaxation then can ONLY re-get me into 'more' of the loving attitude I was in to begin with, and therefore NO thing and NO one can get me out of Love since I have predetermined my set-of-mind, my mindset and attitude of heart to BE what God wants it to be for my sake!
Hope that helps.
love and r, gordon
Date: 3/13/2004
Time: 10:50:03 AM
Hi Rev Mary. I think you hit on it when you said that some people are explaining 9/11 by saying that it's God's punishment because America is forsaking God.
"Explain" is the key word for me. If a person can explain a catastrophy they can somehow extracate themselves from the (victems or defendant in this case) individuals and therefore eliminate having the same fate.
The intent is to free us from this person(s)guilt so as to justify ourselves --- so that we don't have to change (our life-style) a thing. (spelled repent).
The arrogent assumption that since I'm not a failure or a convict or a (.........) must mean that I'm OK. This explains our aversion from those people who meet with ruin and end up on the street as homeless or end up in prison as convicts.
Also, it feels good in some ways that calamity happens to someone else; it makes reading the newspaper a delicious event, especially when someone of Martha Stewart's stature hits the skids. The fact that some Galilleans (and everyone knows what halfbreeds they are...snicker, snicker) met with disaster, made the headlines in Jesus' day and people were discussing this over coffee.
This is great for bonding, you know, but Jesus intervenes in this seemingly innocent game of lynch mob mentality and (maybe)defends the victems. After all, he is from Galillee and will end up being snickered at by many people in Jerusalim very soon.
Jesus always seems to take the side of the underdog.
Anyway, Jesus went even deeper and focused on producing fruit. The fruit of the Spirit, of course, is love and (.......); all of which is designed to strenghen the ties that bind us to each other and to God no matter what happens. Instead of creating distance from those who we deem guilty, Jesus says that our life is to be spent on drawing closer, (he lay down his life for the guilty, the harlot...) like he drew close to us.
Now for the heresy. I think that by explaining what Jesus did on the cross is another way of distancing ourself from Jesus himself. "Jesus died for our sins." By saying that, we explain it all. Nothing more needs to be said or done. We don't need to draw close to a life that identified itslef with the lowely, and was willing to fall beneath the boots of society, be 'snickered at' (which, by the way, may be the greatest fear we have), called a blasphemer, etc. and to die a horrible death. If we don't distance ourself in some way, albiet theological statements like atonement/dieing for sins, etc. we must think about changing our way of life to be willing to also suffer for others, even those we don't agree with --like Jesus did. In so doing, we may be ministering 'A cup of water to Jesus himself.'
Thanks, Steve in NC, for tying this in with the OT. Thirsting for living water.
My late musings,
Steve in KS
Date: 3/13/2004
Time: 10:56:17 AM
ooops! sorry about those threepeats! I was attempting to correct after posting. My deepest apologies for being so dumb! Any body have any dung to dung me with? smile
love and respect, gordon
Date: 3/13/2004
Time: 11:41:56 AM
Dear Steve in KS,
Thanks you.
People, including victims, victimisers and bystanders, can ONLY explain AWAY a catastrophe and can somehow ONLY extricate themselves from the (victims or defendant in this case) individuals and therefore eliminate having the same fate BY making CERTAIN ACTIONS a sin!
The intent is to free us from this person(s)guilt IN BAD ACTIONS so as to justify ourselves IN OUR DIFFERENT GOOD ACTIONS--- so that we don't have to change (our GOOD life-style) a thing. (spelled repent of our attitude-of-hate-style).
But no one can explain away any catastrophe when they make the sin what God made it: the ATTITUDE OF HATE IN THE HEART for anybody: the victims and for the victimisers! This forces us all to examine out own hearts to look for ANY sin of Hate in our own hearts for any victims, for any victimiser and for any bystanders, chief of whom is God, who stood by and let it happen!!
We can't hate al qaeda for hating us and at the same time condemn al qaeda for hating the USA without condemning our own selves! Ezekiel 23:28
We are condemning ourselves when we hate racists for hating people of any color!
We can't hate martha as a liar without condemning ourselves for hating when God tells us that Hate is the spirit of telling lies. John 8:44. ephes 4:15.
We can't hate Satan for hating us without condemning oursleves for hating him, not to mention God telling us to love our enemies: matthew 5:43-48. ephes 6:10-12, 1 Peter 5:8-9.
This true definition of what sin is makes even victims wise up as to WHY it happened to them and so NOT blame anybody but GOD and themselves, and so to to see God in their victimisers and in their victimization! Job 1:21-22. So it forces even victims to examine their hearts!
It is only when the arrogant assumption is made that IT IS OKAY TO HATE FAILURES OR CONVICTS OR LOSERS or LIARS OR TERRORISTS OR any names or words and so since I'm not a failure or a convict or a (.........) as other men are as per Luke 18:9-14 that it must mean that I'm OK.
This can only be explained by our PRIOR aversion IN HATE in our own hearts for OURSELVES AS those people who meet with ruin and end up on the street as homeless or end up in prison as convicts. Isaiah 58:6-7
How many people HATE being homeless, as distinct from NOT wanting to be homeless, and so can NOT but HATE the homeless as themselves?
How many people LOVE being homeless so that they can love the homeless as themselves, as a distinct question from WANTING to be homeless?
Do we love the snickerers? By the way, haters laugh in Hate of those who get hurt and so laugh with joy at those who get hurt. So that snickering is in Hate: Wrong snickering is laughing in Hate! Proverbs 24:17-18. Obadiah 11-14.
God laughs in Love of those who get hurt and so laughs with sadness at those who do get hurt! God's laughing is snickering in Love. Ezekiel 18:23-32. Proverbs 1:26-30
So notice that if we hate snickerers, we hate God! 1 John 4:20.
Hope that hepls.
In Love and respect of myself as all the bad Galilean guys so that I HAD to repent of my sinful attitude of hating any bad guys,
gordon
Date: 3/13/2004
Time: 11:58:50 AM
LB in MN!
So glad it helped you! Loved how you said it too: the terrific balance that comment opened up for you.
Yep, someone once said that 100% equal Love for each pair of opposites gives our minds the ability to fly on two pre-balanced wings! Without 100% equal Love for the two wings and two edges of each word, we are 'flying' on one broken crippled wing, and trying to use the s-word of the Word with just one blunted edge! Hebrews 4:12! As you know, the Word is supposed to cut BOTH ways: Me and you!
Thanks for your encouragement!
And hey, it takes one terrific one to know one! smile
Love and Respect back at ya!
Gordon
Date: 3/13/2004
Time: 12:56:56 PM
Hi, I am the fig tree. My life has been stinking for some time now. I know I smell. It is good news to hear that some of this crap that has happened in my life might produce something other than an odor. I have been the victim of evil - my own and others. Thankfully, nothing as bad as Pilate did, but I wondered where God was in all of it. And I know the reality of things falling on me and others, and I wondered where God was in all that also. Still do. Anyway, I wanted you to know I will be sitting out in the pew listening to you tomorrow. Even though I know better, I will sit there with my childish understanding of God, you know - God should reward me for doing good and the bad things of life must be because I deserved them. Give me another insight. I don't expect you to have all the answers, so share some of your own personal struggles with the craziness of life as well. Speaking of crazy, thanks for taking on this "foolishness of preaching." How in the world can anyone say in a brief sermon all that needs to be said about this text? You can't, so be kind to yourself.
pewsitter
Date: 3/13/2004
Time: 1:18:19 PM
Want to bet that when next year comes and if the fig tree is still not doing what it was created to do that it would be given another year. Then another. Then another.
If God really cut us down when we disappointed him and didn't produce fruits, we'd have never made it into the 2nd century AD. Humanity would have been stopped in its tracks. But the good news is that God continues to give us new chances, over and over and over again. And those chances are given in hopes that we will be thankful and put some action into our gratitude by honoring God and one another.
Date: 3/13/2004
Time: 2:35:31 PM
"If God really cut us down when we disappointed him and didn't produce fruits, we'd have never made it into the 2nd century AD." Boy, isn't that right! Of course, if the cutting down of the tree refers to the one time final day of judgement when Christ comes again, then we are truly living in the Day of Grace, but we really don't know when that Day/year will end. That thought puts "hustle in my bustle."
By the way, a special word of thanks also to Badlands Paul and Tigger of MN for helping me see this text in a new light. And I bet I've forgotten someone else. Sorry. Thanks to all for an exciting time! LB in MN
Date: 3/13/2004
Time: 3:48:49 PM
Hi Pewsitter,
I am just sharing, ok?
Like you, I used to hate stenches and stinkers. Then God showed me that my first sin was to hate stinkers and stench: for to hate stinkers is to first have a stinking attitude towards myself and so towards others as myself.
see?
Think about it please: if to hate stench is the first sin, then when I am hating stenches, I have TWO stenches: the stench of my stinking attitude, and the stench.
see?
Then if i hate stenches, my only goal is to get rid of the stench in Hate of it. So even after I get rid of the physical stench in myself or others and we were all now smelling sweet, I wd still have the stench of hate in my heart....that wd be immediately activated when the next stench wafted along.
Do you follow?
God wants me to love myself as a stench and as a stinker
so that my LOVE will always be sweet: I will always have the odor of the sweet-smelling attitude of Love!
And so that I can love all stinkers as myself, and love all stenches as myself, and so be able to lvoe stinkers and stenches as myself.
And so help others to love themselves as stink so they wd auto love me when I was stink or when they think I am stink!
And so I wd never get offended if someone called me stink since that wd be a word I already loved me as,psalms 119:165, and so I wd be able to understand that anyone who hates me as stink MUST be also hating themselves as stink and so cd NOT help but hate me as themselves. So rather than getting mad, I wd get sad that they hated themselves and so help them to lvoe themselves as stink by admitting that they were right that I was stink to them.
So if you hate smelling stink because of the stench you are, your Hate is distorting and over-smelling how smelly you are to yourself and how stink others are to you.
Then in Love of being both clean and dirty, you will realise that God made us out of dirt and it is impossible to keep dirt clean! smile And that we are supposed to stink but never supposed to hate being stink! So physical stinking/stench is normal, Hate for physical stinks is abnormal.
So you may ask: If we are to lvoe being stink, why shd we ever get rid of the stink? Good question!
We get rid of the stink to be clean but never to love ourselves MORE as clean! By loving ourselves unconditionally as clean and as dirty, we don't love oursleves more for being clean nor less for being dirty. We love ourselves equally under all conditions and so know when to be dirty and when to be clean. So it is out of Love for being dirty that we choose to be clean. But now since we love being dirty too, we are no longer frustrated over getting dirty again, and we are never again impressed with being clean physically nor ever again depressed over getting dirty! Romans 14:14.
We are now ONLY impressed with OUR CLEAN HEART of pure Love, Psalms 51:10,
and we are now ONLY depressed by any dirty stench of Hate in our hearts, but now wheich we can easily clean up with the soap and water of Love! Malachi 3:1-3. ephes 5:26-29.
Then you would write what you wrote like this:
Hi, I am the fig tree trying to be all in Love. My life has been stinking with the stench of Hatred for stenches and stinkers for some time now.
I know my attitude of Hate smells.
It is SUCH good news to hear that by loving ALL of this crap that has happened in my life WILL produce something other than a physically sweet odor: the sweet smell of sweet Love. Romans 8:28, 35-39.
I have been the victim of evil - my own and others and God's - Deut 32:39, Isaiah 45:7-8, Leviticus 26 and Deut 28,
but my greatest evil was to hate that evil since I did not realise that the evil sin of hate is what makes good evil and normal evil twice as evil!!
Thankfully, nothing as bad as Pilate did but I had the same sinful attitude of Hate Pilate had!
And in hate for the bad guys and for bad things, I wondered where God was in all of it: to me he was NOT in it since i loved him as ONLY good and therefore reasoned he could NOT be doing me bad too! And I know the reality of things falling on me and others, and I wondered where God was in all that also. Still do. He was IN ALL of it! Notice how Jesus did not ask Pilate nor any human to take away his crucifixion: He talked to God about it! Matthew 26:39. And he told Pilate so too: you have NO power over me except it was given to you from above! John 19:10-11.
Anyway, I wanted you to know I will be sitting out in the pew listening in Love to you tomorrow. Even though I think I know better, I will sit there with my childlike understanding in Love of God, you know - God should reward me for the GOOD LOVE of myself as good and as bad! Doing good is neither here nor there! And the bad things of life must be for 3 reasons: because I deserved them when I used to hate them, Ezekiel 23:28, because they were normal and because God knew that with my Love for them I could handle and bear them. 1 corin 13:7-9. Psalms 34:17. 2 tim 3:12.
Give me another insight: that's it: just ONE insight: be in Love of yourself as all words and their opposites so you can SEE and Understand it all.
I don't expect you to have all the answers,
so share some of your own personal struggles with the craziness of life as well. Just did! smile
Speaking of crazy, thanks for taking on this "foolishness of preaching" in Love of being wise and a fool, and in Love of being sane and insane! 1 corin 1: 25-31. Here is some Godly humor on that: If where ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise, then is it not wise to be a fool where ignorance is bliss? smile And, if I thought that you were insane, and you agreed with me, would that not mean that you were sane since you agreed with me, and that I was insane since I agreed with you? smile See why loving yourself as each word and its opposite is the most important thing?
How in the world can anyone say in a brief sermon all that needs to be said about this text? In ONE word: Love! Galatians 5:14.
You can't if you are in hate of any word, so be kind to yourself by loving yourself as kind and as unkind. Psalms 18:25-27.
pewsitter in Love,
gordon
Date: 3/13/2004
Time: 6:00:39 PM
Hi all...very late this week (it has been incredibly busy!) so I suspect no one else will even see this. Just a "thank you" to everyone for a very fruitful (yes...pun intended) discussion. I have appreciated it.
I am preaching about grace and second chances this week. Several postings mention the need to focus on repentance, too. I appreciate that and believe with all my heart that true repentance can only come AFTER experiencing the grace of God. I will talk about my experiences with grace and pray that the Spirit will lead each of us to recognize our need to repent.
Peace, Beth
Date: 3/13/2004
Time: 7:48:11 PM
Beth:
I saw your post, and it was a good one! I am among the truly desperate most weeks!
Laura in TX
Date: 3/14/2004
Time: 7:41:14 AM
Thank you for those of you who pray for Sera's parents and for me. We were able to shine the hope in Christ ressurection among 100s of non-believer at the memorial service. Thanks for your support (even you won't get to read this, I will look you up when we arrive home in heaven...)
Coho, Midway City
Date: 3/15/2004
Time: 5:48:17 AM
Gordon: I am trying to understand what you say, not argue with you; so I ask questions, like this one: Do you think it would it be fair to say that love and forgiveness often merge into each other, so that to love oneself is the same as to forgive oneself? To hate oneself is to not forgive oneself? - LB in MN
Date: 5/10/2004
Time: 1:21:40 PM
It talks about the righteous and the wicked. Just like 9/11 there were many wicked but few righteous. This is just an suggestion. Jesus is partialy taking about the Jews here because he mentions in the first sentence "A man had a fig tree(Israel, Jerusalem and in OT), planted in his vineyard ( John 15)and he went to look for fruit on it (The results of the Word of God). This message by the Lord is talking about repentance to all Children of God and unbelievers. We must repent daily and never have an empty tree that's throw in the fire, but a tree full of good fruit (Gal 5:22-23)
I pray for you that the LORD will help you with knowledge, wisdom and understanding in his Precious Word. And use you as his intrustment for his glory.