Thursday, August 22, 2019

TEN YEARS OF REFLECTIONARY - A Look at Hebrews (Park)

Originally published Wednesday, August 19, 2009


Purity and Justice: You can't have one without the other


Let me take some liberties here, and suggest a helpful distinction between the conservatives and liberals, in the U.S. today. How timely, too, with us in the midst of a heated debate over health care.

On one hand, you can boil everything about the liberals down to the word: "justice." They love to talk about equality and fairness. They take the Declaration of Independence concepts "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and apply them to the idea that the rich should not be the only ones that get to do this! How can you pursue happiness without some money? And there are way too many wealthy people with ill-gotten gains; does this not strengthen their case that the poor should have access to some of America's bounty?

The Constitution defines the role of government, among other things, as to ensure the "welfare" of the American people. On this alone hangs their point that everything they have promoted has been constitutional. And, truth be known, they have a point.

The conservatives, on the other hand, are adamant about punishing crime. And they put a lot of stock into the need for people to choose lifestyles that align with traditional values. You cannot have freedom, where people push the limits too much on what is ethical or moral. The conservatives hold that the pursuit of happiness must be attended by a check on our own behaviors. We must act unselfishly, spiritually even - and we must not slide into lifestyles and behaviors that have been deemed immoral for hundreds of generations! They warn us: go down that path, and you will lose your freedom! Freedom comes with a price! And a free people must also be a virtuous people.

It is hard to argue against their points, as well.

But God wants it both ways. He wants justice, with purity. He wants fairness, with self-controlled behavior. He seems to be urging us to go for the highest standards of behavior (did not the Sermon on the Mount make this clear?) Not only pure behaviors, but pure thoughts as well!

If we check our appetites, control our passions, choose the spiritual over the fleshly, deny the satisfaction of our basic impulses and delay gratification; then He is faithful to even out the playing field for us. Yes, he'll bless us indeed! But we too have a responsibility to act as holy vessels well-prepared to commune with a holy and loving Creator.

You always loved justice and hated lawlessness.

The Old Testament taught us this lesson, over and over again. God loves us, and wants us to have a fair and equitable community. He wants love to prevail. There should be no advantage of one person over the other. Even the aliens in our midst, are to be treated as royalty!

But this just society is also a clean one. The people within are self-controlled, aspiring to be as pure as the angels. We have a role-model, who is Christ the Lord. He put others before Himself. The completely selfless person has no room for giving in to selfish passions.

Sunday, August 18, 2019

TEN YEARS OF REFLECTIONARY: Becoming Family (Park):

Originally published August 17, 2009

A Reflection on Hebrews and Titus

There are probably some practical reasons why the early church met in people's homes. Perhaps it was to help stay under the radar screen of the Roman armies, let alone the Scribes and Pharisees! They did not yet have any kind of budget. All the money raised was used to feed widows, orphans, and to pay for missionary journeys.

It was not yet the era of the medieval gothic cathedral. There was no such thing as spires, steeples, vestries, narthexes, and vestibules. The idea of an "altar" in the church, had not caught on.

No parking lot, no organ, no praise band area, no Sunday School booklets. No payroll, no hospital visitation, no paid clergy, no youth leader.

They pretty much were forced to meet in people's homes.

And I think that's a good thing. It's good that God chose this period in history to begin His Church. For here was the perfect time and place, to lock into place the radical notion that a religious experience can happen anywhere, most notably in a person's home.

To Philemon . . . and the group that meets at your house.

Paul addressed this letter to a Church, a group of believers that met in the home of the man named Philemon.

In the midst of our vast modern culture of global churches and missions; in a time when people expect the Church to be a sanctuary where they can get away; in an era when the home itself is a place of fear and dread on the part of way too many people - God calls us back to the idea of the Church as Home, and the Home as Church.

In our homes, let us worship Christ. And in our Church, let us act more like we are at home with one another. Your Christian fellow-believer is your brother and sister. Now what does it mean to be a brother, or a sister? Do you treat them as such?
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To see the original post, go here

Thursday, August 15, 2019

He Has . . . (Park)

He has . . . 

 - From Luke 1

In the Lectionary, we never get too far from the Christmas story. Everything ties back to the first Advent of the King of Kings . . . His entrance into the human time-line of history; and how He experienced a full life, just as we do.

But now, today, it is a third of the year away from Christmas, and we celebrate the Feast of the Virgin Mary. Jesus' mother is now entering her third trimester. Her physical state can no longer be hidden, if ever it was.

She that will forever be known as "The Virgin" now appears, on the surface, anything but.

Did she go about proudly, like a woman of the early 21st Century; (or really, like ANYBODY in the 21st Century?). Or are we to assume that, in the spirit of a virginal attitude during the peak of Rome's power, the attitude of chastity went hand-in-hand with modesty?

Did people mock her? Did she keep to herself? Did she go about her daily routine? Did she insist to others, that she had not yet consummated her marriage to Joseph?

I have learned that the original Hebrew word for "virgin" actually referred, technically, to "a young, unmarried woman." In their culture, "unmarried" also meant that one was a virgin as well.

I wonder if there is any place in the year 2019, for anyone to be impressed that a virgin could give birth. Is anybody impressed that a virgin could still marry? How much do we really care about this? Even in the most evangelical and conservative church, our words and deeds fly in the face of any ethic around moral purity. The headlines, over the past two weeks, even seem to mock the idea.

Mary rejoiced in her state. In Scripture, Social Justice is the partner to moral purity. You can't have one without the other. And Mary, in the Luke passage, states that God already has brought down the proud, and elevated the poor.

How is it that God has done this, already? Does anybody really believe God "has" leveled the playing field?

Mary had seen the end from the beginning. She experienced history's greatest miracle.

And that gave her all the credibility she needed, to be able to affirm: "God has done everything He said He would do."

Mary had crossed over into the eternal realm. She had seen a vision. She had been given enlightenment. Her faith had opened her eyes.

And she had seen it - - - she saw the completion of God's plan.

God has made all things right.

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

Respect - Edited from 8/12/09 (Park)

Ten Years of The Word and the Real World

We know that the Christian is supposed to be humble. We know that others will try to break us, to get us to renounce our faith. They will do everything from teasing, to avoidance, to gossiping, and all the way up to emotional and even physical abuse, to get us to lose our cool so that we lash out to someone else with angry words.

They would love to get one of us drunk, or to hear us gossip, slander someone else, tell a lie, rebuke our parents.

There is a virginity that has nothing to do with sex. The world and all its non-virgins have as a primary goal, to fill its ranks with as many former virgins as possible. Whatever guilt exists within the hearts of the formerly chaste, is temporarily mitigated by erasing the purity of others.

We are a fallen race. There is no argument here. Look around you! We all have problems . . . even the best of us! There is a problem on earth, and within humanity, and we see its results in sin and death.

We are lowly, and low. We love to try to keep others down in the ditch with us! It's so hard to climb out of our rut. When people change their lives for the better, and lift themselves to higher ground, it sure gets lonely down in the rut.

So we tear down others. We put them down. We tease. We gossip. We stir the pot with words and deeds that divide us from one another. We join political parties. We define ourselves by what we are not (I'm not one of them!), versus what we are (children of God).

Don't let anyone look down on you.

Listen to Paul. We are not doormats.

I look at my life, and wonder how I have ended up so close to where I started. What happened to the potential? The gifts? The talents? Where is the evidence that God provides handsomely for His own?

In my case, it has always been a weird need to be liked by everybody. The end result, however, is that fewer and fewer people respect someone like that. You let people put you down, because you want to be nice. But that just empowers them more. We become doormats that people think they can push around.

And it is hard to follow God's plan when you're a doormat.

Expect . . . no, demand, respect from others. Be kind to them. Love them. But make sure they know that you are a child of God, possessing a high form of dignity.

First published August 12, 2009. Edited in 2019. The original post can be accessed here

Sunday, August 11, 2019

Dead?

Therefore from one person, and this one as good as dead, descendants were born . . . 

 - From Hebrews 11

My study of my ancestry has introduced me to a fascinating man: Adam T Darr. He is my Great-Great-Great uncle, the namesake of his father, Gottlieb Adam Darr, who emigrated to the US with his wife, Christina, and only child at the time, Catherine. 

Adam T. Darr was a high profile citizen of the town of West Newton, Pennsylvania. He was a veteran of the Civil War. A politician. A leader of the local Methodist Church. A Mason. He sold insurance, and was postmaster for a time. He served on the Fire Board. He was a model citizen, a Booster. 

He reminds me of a lot of the uncles that I have known in my life. I believe that, since I got to know so many elders whose lives intersected my own, that I can know something about Adam Darr, who I never knew. Because . . . the same DNA runs through all of us and many personality traits are shared. 

Adam Darr married late in life. He and his wife, Mary, never had children. But their home, on Vine Street, became as lively a home, filled with the laughter and play of children, as any conventional family of four, or more. 

When his brother-in-law died, leaving his sister, Lucille, and her two children alone, Adam and Mary welcomed them into their home, where they stayed forever. His nephew, John Obley, and his sister, Elizabeth, were thus raised in the home of Adam and Mary Darr. They became his kids as much as the kids of their mother. 

Later, John Obley, too, grew up. His sister never married . . . but John did, to the former Lena Kite. They inherited the home of Adam Darr, and had but one daughter, Olive. Olive, keeping with the pattern, married late and had just one son, Jack, who married late, but has no children. I met him two summers ago.

But John and Lena Obley, keeping in the spirit of the family's DNA, took in her niece when she became a widow, and her three daughters, who therefore grew up as sisters to Olive . . . and the three of them left a progeny of several dozens of descendants. 

Thus was the family of Adam Darr, with no biological children  of his own, sustained and increased through the passage of time. 

The Bible seems to indicate that the adopted child is more precious than a biological child, in some ways. Because, you see, an adopted child is chosen. But your blood relatives . . . you're stuck with. And, out of the two forms of child-rearing, you get to practice two kinds of love, both equally valuable and needed. 

As I look at the problems in the world today . . . and the problem of gun violence, particularly that perpetrated upon mobs of strangers, I can't help but think about the two forms of love: Love you're stuck with, and love you choose. It is the absence of both, that is so devastating to the healthy development of young people, particularly young men. 

We do not take care of the people we're stuck with. And we do not choose to love, as we should. 

You end up with a preponderance of people that have been rejected in one way or the other. And the only response is bitterness, anger, violence. 

Notice me!!!

I mean . . . what else would you expect?

So once again, we see the truth of Scripture borne out among us. 

We must love the ones we're with. And we must choose to love many others. 

Of course, when Abraham was promised a family as the stars of Heaven, God was not talking about adoption. There's a lot to be said about being fruitful and multiplying . . . there are so many geniuses and great men and women still to be born!

But it's the spirit of adoption . . . for God adopted us . . . that's so wonderful. I think of my distant Uncle Adam, and realize that he modeled something that . . . if more of us did it . . . maybe a lot of society's problems would go away.  

Adam Darr lives on, in the hearts and souls of his many adopted descendants. 

Wednesday, August 7, 2019

Blessed Is (RV)

Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord

 - From Psalm 33

I have blogged about this one before. There is so much to notice in Psalm 33. But this opening line always becomes my go-to.

There's a certain relevance to the phrase in Psalm 33:1. It has a distinct memory for me.

I can remember, as a kid, waiting up long enough for a local TV station to sign off for the night. Or to wake up early enough to see the sign-in.

At the end of the TV station day, there would be maybe a couple commercials. But there would be some kind of announcement, with text displayed on the screen. An announcer would read the station-identification, the call letters and channel number, the owner of the station and network. And then there would be a a tone, or perhaps a little musical ditty. It would then go to a screen with several colorful stripes, like the rainbow colors, with a single tone sustaining throughout the night. Or it might go to a "snow" screen, with the sound of intense interference, "fuzzy" noise. This would be the look of TV during the wee hours.

It made sleepless nights even more lonely, or even ominous. You might have been passing the time watching the late late show . . . but then this would happen. It magnified the effect of you being alone, isolated, and a little too alert to the sounds and anomalies of the dark, early morning.

Back then, people knew that if 11:59PM were Tuesday, that 12:01AM would be Wednesday. It's not like today, where a station might list it's programming for, say "Monday night." The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon would run from 11:30 to 12:30, say, Monday nights; followed by the Late Show with whomever, at 12:30. But again, more and more all the time, they continue with it being "Monday Night Programming," rather than "Tuesday morning" programming.

It's a little case of people not really dealing even the simplest of realities.

The Tonight Show would always be followed with a local late movie, often a horror movie, almost always a B-grade, or semi lame film. This would take you to 2:30 or 3:00AM. And then the station would sign off.

You could come back, at probably 5:00PM, and stations would begin to sign back on, with a "GOod morning," and the routine of station identification announcements.

But there was something common to both the sign off and the sign on, for almost every channel (of which there were no more than five, in the Sixties):

Before signing off, or the first thing when signing on, they would play The National Anthem, over a background, usually of the American flag, or possibly, a film of the US Armed Forces, and scenes of historical landmarks.

Each day had a distinct beginning, and end . . . and it all pointed back to a common heritage; it focused on what brings us all together. What unites us. What reminds us to keep each other's backs.

I remember one of the Detroit or Lansing-Jackson stations, and maybe at least one station from Rochester New York. Over the image of the flag, as the Star Spangled Banner played, were the words "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord," with the tag "Psalm 33:1".

This one little thing has stayed with me all these years.

Is a nation really blessed, whose God is the Lord?

Are we really that much different now, than in the 1960s?

In the 1960s, did television stations sign on and off, with a Scripture verse and the National Anthem?

Do little thing like that make a difference?

I guess we'll find out.

Thursday, August 1, 2019

Vanity (RV)

 . . . because sometimes one who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it. 

 - From Ecclesiastes 1

The second Yahoo Dictionary definition of "vanity" is as follows:

the quality of being worthless or futile.

I was always heavily influenced by Scriptures like this one, and others, like the one that says something about the people being "like ants." Or how in the Final Days, knowledge will be increased, people will be going to and fro. 

It just seems like so much of what we do is so pointless. If we focused on only what had a point, we would have no war . . . no divorce . . . we'd probably cure all sorts of diseases. We'd probably wipe out hunger. God might even relent and just send Christ early. 

I couldn't bare to work for bosses that were so obsessed with the dollar. And this means . . . all of them. As the Gen Xers grew up, with all their idealism, and became promoted over me, I found that even they were materialists that thought of others as pawns to be used for their own advancement. 

This is the "vanity" spoken of by Solomon. 

By I found myself today, in disagreement with Solomon. I don't mind doing all the work, and leave it to others that did not do the hard of starting an enterprise. Because, you see . . . the work is such a distraction of what has a point, of what really matters. 

I want to build up an enterprise, or business, or charity, or ministry . . . call it what you will . . . that will enable people to do what's important, what has a point. 

There is lots of money floating around the economy, some of it doing not much of any good. I just want to tap into it, help re-route it, and get it to people that can simply live their lives, doing good, and not having to burden themselves, to the grave, with vain pursuits. 

Solomon was called the wisest man of all time. Yet he observed that we spend our time racing around doing nothing . . . nothing really. 

But if I can create something that helps launch a career, build a resume, put smiles on a face, help young people gain an edge and succeed . . . especially the ones without the advantages of a wealthy child . . . then there is nothing vain about it.

If you must engage in vain work, let the outcome be to give others some relief from it.