excerpt from my sermon

There are those who speak of the Love of God as a source of comfort, and there is no doubt that our only comfort is to be found in the Father’s Love. Yet, there is something more to this Love, something horrible. Horrible because this Love sees us for who we really are. To stand in the presence of God’s love is to be stripped of all your defenses. We stand bare before the Father and are forced to see ourselves for who we really are, utterly broken sinners. Our sin is deep and it is dark, not those safe little sins like losing your temper when someone cuts you off or white lies for the sake of keeping the peace. If we take seriously the words from the Sermon on the Mount then we are all at best murders and adulterers. I stand before you as a chief among sinners. My sin is not minor or easily managed. This is a reality I try to forget with greater and greater sophistication the older I get. So I do my best to avoid this Love, to manage the penetrating stare of God, to keep Him at a distance. Yet, this Love of His cannot be managed or ignored. His Love is one that consumes. The mystics understand this is way that the systematic theologians cannot. The mystics know God as one who is relentless and ruthless in His Love. God will not allow anything to stand in me that will separate me from Him so I am consumed by His purifying fire. Love does not leave me broken or in despair. Love heals me and makes me whole, but first love must break me. His Love accepts me in my darkness, but transforms me guiding me into the light …

#@%! Cancer...

I've found it very hard to be an effective RD the last couple days. My Dad is currently fighting cancer and at the moment seems to be on a down swing. The gravity of this situation is really starting to hit me and it makes it really hard to care about the stupid choices many of my students are currently making. Here is my Dad, fighting desperately for his life while some students that I know are doing things that put there lives in danger. I'm really fighting the apathy I see peeking around the corner. I understand that God works in both of theses situations. And I appreciate that about God. Still it is so tough to swallow. So I pray. I pray for healing and I pray for grace. I pray for peace and I pray for strength. I pray these things for my parents and I pray them for all those who feel despair.

If you want to check our my parent's blog for updates the site is:
http://jimsjubilantjourney.blogspot.com/

why sundays are no fun

I take notes every Sunday, something I picked up in the E-Free Church. Initially they were a way of paying attention. Now as you can see the doodles are the only thing that keep me from falling asleep. I find myself taking more notes on the preacher and less notes of the sermon. Can anyone out there feel my pain?

jesus loves me this i know

Recently in my candidacy interview I was asked what I felt I had learned in seminary. Here is the short summary of my answer:
1. God is good
2. Life is hard
Most of my life is spent living between the two, and it is only because of #1 that I can bear #2.

godson's 1st birthday

O God, you have taught us through your blessed Son that
whoever receives a little child in the name of Christ receives
Christ himself: We give you thanks for the blessing you have
bestowed upon this family in giving them a child. Confirm
their joy by a lively sense of your presence with them, and
give them calm strength and patient wisdom as they seek to
bring this child to love all that is true and noble, just and
pure, lovable and gracious, excellent and admirable,
following the example of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Amen.



Into your hands, O God, we place your child Caleb. Support him
in his successes and in his failures, in his joys and in his
sorrows. As he grows in age, may he grow in grace, and in
the knowledge of his Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

egypt

I wrote this is in response to an encounter at work. As I edited it I found myself changing it from a reflection to a theological treatise, trying to smooth it out and make it neat and systematic so I stooped editing. Forgive the errors, but they are there to in order to preserve the original motive for writing.


Just about everyday I end up at the Silk House. Some days I work other I just come to feed my caffeine addiction that ironically started because of my work at the Silk House. Across the street is another business that feeds another kind of addiction, a crack house. A woman, a crack addict and prostitute, can be seen coming and going almost every day. Some days I wonder how different we are, each feeding our addictions. You can tell she was once beautiful, once innocent, but the years have been cruel. Her beauty is nothing more than a faint reflection of what was, and what could have been.
From time to time she stops in to buy a coffee, I find my reaction to her conflicted. As an employee I watch the tip jar and keep and eye out for theft, she has stolen before. As a seminarian I find myself grasping to do something more. That some how the countless hours of study, exegesis, and theology means I have something to offer her. I find myself lost as to what to do. I want her to know she is something more, that God loves her. Yet, I wonder is if these words can be heard through her drug-addled mind.
So I do the only I can. I treat her like any other customer. I ask her what she would like. I try to look her in the eye and ignore the teeth rotted away from the drugs. I wish her a good day when she leaves. Because in these walls I can for a moment offer her the gift of being just like any other customer. We all have addictions and broken hearts, it is just that not all our wounds are so close to the surface. I suppose that my work as a priest will be something like this. That for a few hours I get to remind people that they are something more than their wounds and addictions. We are not defined by what is broken, but by what is healed. That in our darkest places Christ breaks through with hope. With the promise that someday we will be as He see us.
Free of the stain
Free of the curse
Free of the pain
As she leaves I recognize the hollow nature of my wishing her a good day. She is leaving to take drugs that she will later do unspeakable things to pay for. My only response is to pray that someday she will come in like any other customer. That addiction will be broken and childhood wounds healed. That she would encounter a power stronger than her addiction, stronger than any burden from her past. That Jesus would break through and she is made whole. For now I do the only thing I can pour coffee, pray and wish her a good day.

what would luther say?

a mortal sin?

read here

brian walsh quote

“The point is that one of the central ways in which we answer the questions, ‘how do we live?’ is by answering the question, 'what are the contours of our hope?’