Dan's Marinations

 It began purely as mental exercise to work through my own thoughts and loss.  My mother had recently died quite suddenly in January 2022, and about the same time I was starting to teach a Bible Study on Revelation.  I began writing out in prose form the outline that I had used to teach this Biblical book.  I was in essence fleshing out the bare bones that an outline represents.  I had no thought of publishing, no idea how long it would be, I just wrote.  It was more an effort in self-therapy than any sort of intentional book project. Some nights I wrote for a couple of hours, others just a half hour or so, and some nights nothing.  I had no thought that this might be something that I would someday publish so I did not footnote as I went.   As I went along, the project took on a bit of a life of its own.  It had been some years since I had written anything "serious" or "heavy" and I found myself very gradually shifting my writing style....

I had planned on working on my weekly sermon some yesterday afternoon, but got sucked into the news watching the train wreck unfolding in Washington.  Even this morning eighteen hours later, I find that I cannot put mental energy into a sermon without first putting together some comments about yesterday.  On January 6, congress meets to count the electoral votes in an action that is largely ceremonial.  Any idea that congress is a final arbiter of presidential elections is misguided.  Every four years they meet on January 6, count the electoral votes, and nobody even knows or notices.  That congressional proceedings from yesterday were even being shown on every cable news network is a sign that things are "going off the rails" so to speak. Technically we live in a republic rather than a democracy, meaning that  we elect people who will form a government and represent us in said government.  Our practices for how that works are spelled out partially in ...

"...With liberty and justice for all," that is how the Pledge of Allegiance ends.  We have all said it so many times that it is by rote.  Unfortunately, events of the last several months have shown that we as a society are far from that ideal.  In late February Ahmaud Arbery was gunned down in the street in Georgia by two white men.  His only crime was that he went for a run, something that I have done thousands of times.  His killers were close associates of the local district attorney, so the D.A. called it justifiable on the grounds that they were supposedly attempting a citizens arrest.  This would have stood had not a video of the event gone public.  Justice for Arbery demands that his killers be brought to trial.  Fortunately, the video did go public creating such a public outcry that charges were filed against the killers.  On the other hand it should not have taken a video going public for charges to be filed. Just over a week ago, ...

Believe it or not, Lent is almost here.  It seems as if it was just yesterday that Christians around the world had gathered in churches for Christmas Eve services.  With the beginning of Lent we begin to look toward the holiest time of the year for our faith- the events surrounding Jesus' death and resurrection.  All four Gospels devote far more attention to Jesus' road to Jerusalem and the cross.  Paul wrote that he "resolved to know nothing but Christ and him crucified."  If you're not familiar with Lent, it is the forty days leading up to Easter.  The term "Lent" is not found in the Bible, but the broader church has observed it as a practice for over 1800 years.  In the very early church, in the days when it was a persecuted faith, Easter was already the most important celebration of the church.  From the earliest days, new believers were baptized on Easter Sunday.  Those who had renounced their faith in the face of persecution, or who h...

In less than six weeks, I'll lace up the shoes for marathon #9 in Washington, DC for the Marine Corps Marathon.  I've been looking to this race now for several months, and have had decent, but not great training so far.  When I have had poor runs, it is because of weakness between my ears more so than weakness in my legs.  I write this now as much for myself as it is for the reader.  For most of my "un-illustrious" career as a runner the one thing that I had in spades was mental toughness.  Not so this time around.  Perhaps it is a lack of confidence because I haven't run one in over four years now.  Perhaps it is a factor of experience, and I can't approach it with the blissful ignorance I did many years ago.  Perhaps it is age, and the creeping reality that I'm not as fast or as strong as I used to be.  Golfers as they hit their forties are well known for getting "the yips."  The four foot putt for par that used to be routine years ear...

Today is Maundy Thursday in the Christian calendar, the day that Christians around the world remember the Last Supper that Jesus ate with his followers.  In churches world over, whether they be grand cathedrals and basilicas, house churches in closed societies, or little white churches by the side of the road we'll gather tonight and celebrate the Lord's Supper, and in some cases follow Jesus' example by having a foot-washing. There is a curiosity about this day that can be easily missed, however.  The Synoptic Gospels are clear that this last meal with the disciples is the Passover meal, what is sometimes called a Seder meal.  This was the meal described in great detail in Exodus 12.  The Passover lambs were sacrificed and their blood smeared on the doorposts of the Israelite homes so that when the "the destroyer" (Exodus 12:23) passed through the land of Egypt, they would be spared the awful last plague- the death of all first-born.  These lambs were to be r...

How do we face adversity?  Do we try to avoid it?  Do we embrace it like a challenge to be overcome?  A one-time marathoner I know has said that the best way to handle the inevitable pain that creeps in during the last 4-5 miles is to welcome it like an old friend.  "There you are (knee pain/sore hips/cramping calf muscle) I was expecting you.  I'm glad you came along for the last few miles."  I confess that in the eight marathons I've completed I never had the ability to welcome the arrival of pain like that! Isaiah's third servant song, which we find in chapter 50 refers to the servant of the Lord setting his face like flint.  It's easy to picture rock-jawed Hollywood action heroes here.  One can imagine faces like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, or Matt Damon who seem impassive in the midst of explosions all around them; who deliver a bare-knuckled beating on their opponents- whether they be boxers, aliens, or general all-purpose v...

Have you ever been there?  Have you ever felt like everything you've done was just wasted effort?  You've poured yourself into a person.  You've counseled, worried, and prayed until you're out of breath and words, but he (or she) does the same stupid things over and over.  You preach or teach every Sunday, but never seem to see the changed lives for which you long.  I want you to imagine such thoughts in the mind of Jesus.  Hold on preacher!  Jesus was/is the Son of God Almighty.  How can Jesus who was the true and living Word of God ever have such thoughts?  To put on my theologian hat for a moment, those sentiments are very true.  On the other hand, Jesus was very, very human as well.  In order to save us from our sins he had to be both divine and human. Try to imagine what is going through Jesus' mind in those tumultuous days between his "triumphal" entry into Jerusalem and his eventual crucifixion on Friday.  He's spent a...

The Lord's Servant Students of Isaiah have noted that this long, multi-faceted book has four different "servant songs" or passages about the servant of the Lord.  Now as we sit 2,700 years after Isaiah's era, it's very difficult to know exactly who or what he was referring to in these songs.  We can't know for sure if he was intending to refer to a servant ruler of his own day or to someone yet to come.  As Christians though, we legitimately look at these songs and see in them a beautiful portrait of Christ.  One of the remarkable things about the prophets of old is that they could envision things they could not understand. These four "servant songs" are found in Isaiah 42, 49, 50 and 52-53.  Certainly one can know the story of Jesus' atoning death and resurrection without having opened Isaiah.  Just read the Gospels.   We see the story told four times, slightly differently yes, but the same story nonetheless.  These poignant and majestic...

Ask folks what comes to mind when they think of Revelation (not Revelations by the way) and what will they say?  Perhaps the Anti-Christ, perhaps the four horsemen of the apocalypse; or perhaps they will think of the seemingly incessant turmoil and violence in the Middle East.  Images of destruction, "Hell on Earth," dragons and devils, angels and demons may come to mind.  It may be the end of the book with its glorious image of the New Jerusalem coming down to earth.  Far too commonly folks read Revelation about the same way they regard Tarot Cards or a daily horoscope.  It becomes simply a book about telling the future.  I argue that reducing the book to simply a means to tell the future effectively renders impotent one of the most powerful parts of scripture. Yes, Revelation does refer to Christ's return, but it is also much more than that.  The trouble with Revelation is that too often we listen to what others say about the book rather than act...

Beginning this week I'll be starting a series of sermons on the names of God that we can find in scripture.  As we read our English translations (NRSV, NIV, ESV, etc.) this may seem to be sort of a short endeavor.  After all there's just "God" and "Lord" that our Bibles use isn't there.  The reality is quite different, though.  The ancient Hebrews actually used many different names or titles in referring to God. To understand this consider culture and language.  The language of the Old Testament is Ancient Hebrew.  Hebrew is at once earthy, bizarre, picturesque, and straightforward.  This is the language God used for his first communication with humanity.  Hebrew is indeed bizarre in that it is read from right to left and that the individual letters look like they may have come from Mars.  The language is also earthy and picturesque.  A couple of examples illustrate this.  The main Hebrew word for "glory" in the Old Testament is k...

Last week Pope Francis set the religious world abuzz by commenting that he didn't like the traditional phrasing for the Lord's Prayer, known in Catholic circles as the "Our Father."  He took issue with the phrase "lead us not into temptation."  He strongly preferred a new adaptation of the prayer adopted by French bishops that reads,   “et ne nous laisse pas entrer in tentation.”  This translates into English as "let us not enter temptation."  The Pope's comments about what is certainly the most famous prayer recorded in scripture center on what is implied in the version that most of us recite in our worship services each week.  If we pray "lead us not into temptation," does that not imply that God can and does at times lead us into temptation?  Pope Francis' strong preference for the new version adopted for use in French churches results from its use of more passive wording, removing the thorny question of whether God does in fac...

A few months ago I preached a series of sermons on spiritual urban legends.  Some of these are sayings that are assumed to be from the Bible, but really aren't, such as "God helps those who help themselves."  Others, like "God needed another angel," "Heaven gained another angel" are simply spiritual sounding cliches that at best are untrue and at worst are devastating.  If I preach another series of sermons on this topic, certainly another spiritual urban legend to take to the woodshed would be the well-worn and over-done cliche, "Christianity is relationship not religion." Bloggers, preachers, and writers frequently say that Christianity is not a religion, but is a relationship.  One blogger wrote this:   " Religions are man made, and are based on trying to get to God through rules and regulations and works."  Compared to this definition of religion our faith is a genuine relationship with the person Jesus Christ.  Our faith is i...

Of Racism and Hate... In the wake of the violence in Charlottesville this past weekend much has been posted on social media about what happened up there.  One comment in particular caught my attention.  One of my good friends from high school had posted a thoughtful response to Charlottesville, and that led to many, many comments and what was, by Facebook standards, a reasoned conversation in the many comments that it engendered.  Even where the posters didn't agree, their comments to each other were remarkably restrained and civil.  One comment caught my attention:  "we do not have a racism problem in this county." I know the county of which he speaks and, unfortunately, unless the residents there have overcome original sin it, like every other county in the country, has some degree of racism.  I've seen it and heard it.  As a white male born in the South, there is some racism present that I would not recognize because I haven't been the target of...

In the past month I've been doing a series of sermons on urban legends, spiritual myths.  Each week I have taken apart a common cliche that Christians use, that is commonly held to be true and even scriptural, but which is anything but Biblical or Christian.  I planned out the sermons several months ago, but hesitated about it right up until the last.  Am I ever glad I didn't second-guess myself out of doing them!  These sermons have been great fun to prepare and have sparked me to think about something larger within Christendom and American culture. The first four sermons took on the following sayings that are very commonly accepted, but which are not Biblical:  "God needed another angel," "Everything happens for a reason," "God won't give you more than you can handle," and "God helps those who help themselves."  None of them are in the Bible, and to one degree or another represent wretched theology. They represent an attempt to un...

In recent weeks the Revised Common Lecionaary has featured texts that feature the two main factions of first-century Judaism- the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  With that in mind I thought I would take an opportunity to describe who these groups were and how they related to Jesus' ministry.  Additionally, looking at them offers an opportunity for a critique of our contemporary church. So who were these two groups?  The Pharisees are mentioned dozens of times in the New Testament and are a frequent foil in Jesus' ministry.  Because they are so freqently depicted as opponents of Jesus' ministry, they have have gotten a "bad rap" historically.  In reality they  were about the best of Judaism.  They realized that the world in which they lived was corrupt and evil, and their agenda was to try live righteous lives in that corrupt world without being stained by it.  Other Jewish groups- the Essenes and the Zealots shared that basic world-view but came t...

  בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ׃  So begins Holy Scripture in the Hebrew Text, in English "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."  Genesis begins with two creation stories that seem to be complimentary.  This week our church is hosting its Summer Art Camp and creation will be the main theme of it.  In connection with that I will be preaching on the first of the creation stories next Sunday.  As I do from time to time, I thought I would address some things related to creation that won't fit neatly into one sermon. One of the questions that many ask in considering the Genesis 1 creation account is when?  How old is the earth?  Bishop James Ussher in the Church of Ireland back in the mid 1600s is famous for dating creation to 4004 BC.  He did this by simply adding up the ages of all the ancient patriarchs mentioned in the genealogies of Genesis, and by assuming the days of creation in Genesi...

This summer I'll take some time to preach from the Old Testament books of Ezra and Nehemiah.  In case you're not too familiar with them, they are essentially an ancient Hebrew version of a dystopian novel, except that in this case the story is true.  George Orwell and Aldous Huxley got the the genre going earlier in the twentieth century with A Brave New World , Animal Farm , and 1984 , but in recent years novels and movies of similar theme have become very popular.  The Hunger Games  and Divergent series of books and movies are perhaps the most famous of them.  This type of novel is set in a future post-apocalyptic world, and features heroes and heroines who struggle against overwhelming odds to maintain or to rebuild some sort of normal existence. The apocalypse that was in the background for these two books was the destruction of Jerusalem in 586/587 B.C. by the Babylonians and the subsequent exile of most of the residents of the kingdom of Judah. ...

We have all heard people say, "our church is a family."  When stated of their own church, it is said as a matter of pride.  When spoken by a newcomer, or someone who is not a member, it is understood to be a high compliment.  The idea of family often inspires thoughts of love, acceptance, fellowship. In fact, it is true that churches should be places of love, acceptance, and fellowship. With that as an introduction, allow me to play Devil's advocate.  We should not envision, or aspire for our churches to be a family!    "There are just so many people here now that I don't know."  "Our church is changing so much."  "I don't feel like we're one church anymore."  These statements belie an unspoken fear that a church has too many newcomers.  So begins the call for things to be done that would promote unity, that would promote nostalgic feelings of family.  How can it be a family if there are all those people I haven't known for ...

In the coming weeks we will be baptizing several infants.  We look forward to these days in worship; they are among the happiest occasions in the life of any church.  Unfortunately, it is a part of our Christian heritage that few things divide us as much as baptism.  Even though all Christians would believe with the Apsotle Paul that there is, "One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all," we don't live it out very well. Some churches insist upon believer's baptism, and do it only by immersion.  Others immerse infants, some pour water on believers, and many who baptize infants do it by sprinkling.  Ideally, all Christians would be of like mind about this very important sacrament.  In fact we don't even agree with the term "sacrament."  Many Baptist churches, prefer not to use the term "sacrament" and use the terms rite or ordinance instead.  Given the many differences we have over baptism, what do we do as United Methodists, a...