April 27th, 2008 – Understanding Our Connectedness

The Gospel lesson, John 14:15-21, was particularly moving and roused our hearts:

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he abides with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them are those who love me and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and reveal myself to them.

Susan talked about the Bible being God’s letter of love to us and demonstrated an aspect of the last line in the Children’s Time by sealing an envelope, that had the name of individual listening, in another envelop and enclosing that in another envelope. This was a representation of us living within Jesus and then God’s love.

Pastor Dayle preached on our interconnectedness. We celebrated Earth Day this week and the sermon affirmed the Holy Spirit as sustainer and nurturer and also how she connects us. Toni, for one, talked in the Adult Education hour after the first service about how important defining the feminine side of the Holy Spirit was to her.

Our hearts moved to those who don’t feel welcome, connected, especially in church. Creator is moving to change this. As Pastor Dayle, said many churches do not do this well. We want to practice more radical hospitality and there are several efforts underway to do just that.

We talked about the Gospel lesson in Adult Education. There were beautiful moments during the hour. There are times where people feel comfortable with the black and white, right and wrong answer. Diane brought up how that eliminates the grace / grays of God’s world.

Linda talked about the eyes of love we have towards each other that she particularly experiences as people come up for communion. I believe we all knew exactly what she was talking about.

Larry, alluding to one effort we are making in structuring new small groups, gave an interesting analogy for that kind of connection and the electronic structure of atoms. He talked first about the weak Ionic bond completely transferring an electron to reach the two electron goal each atom wants in the bond and ended with the diamond covalent structure, which is the strongest and involves 18 atoms. “Maybe 18 is a perfect size for small groups” he concluded.

Levels of connection were high this Sunday.

April 9th, 2008 – The New Man Book Discussion

Tonight there were searching questions and insights. Will started us off asking Nicholl’s definition of Good, Truth and Knowledge.

Once again these questions cut to the heart of the material we were reading. Nicholl writes about a reversal that must take place where truth comes first to help us know what is Good and then Good must come first because truth without Good misses the “mark” (this is the Greek word for sin as translated by Nicholl).

Greg talked about this passage and how much of church history, when the focus is on Truth rather than Good not only misses the mark but misses the point of what the church is here to do.

Debi brought up the devaluation of the word “good” now. When college students use “good” to describe something it is frowned upon as a mediocre description. This was also something we talked about last week when using the word “good” felt boring.

The next chapter we discussed brought this into focus. The author described two types of righteousness, the righteousness of the Pharisees and the righteousness Jesus extolled. The righteousness of the Pharisees was an external righteousness; playing by all the rules, getting to heaven by good works.

The righteousness Jesus extolled is completely different. Rules may need to be broken, healing on the Sabbath, breaking the purity rules of Leviticus to help the half-dead victim in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. This was tough talk and a tough concept because probably something inside all of us longs for simple answers and to follow a rule book without questioning.

We moved into interesting “side” conversations that were more about the book in general. We had a long discussion where we compared ourselves to ancient people because of a remark Nicholl had made about the ancient language modern man is no longer acquainted with now.. Greg and Mary talked about how this did not mean they were smarter than we were but there were connections we no longer explore and explanations we no longer accept.

Myth and metaphor are discounted as knowledge in favor of scientific knowledge and the what can be proved in the physical world.

This book group continues to be impressive week after week. Everyone reads the material and everyone participates in the discussion and it is lively. Marvis talked about how she needs silent time to think about the ideas this book presents and I believe she was speaking for us all. Janet and Eileen agreed that this is a different level of material than they have read in a while.

Unfortunately there was work I needed to do prevented me from attending choir practice tonight.

April 6th, 2008 –Road to Emmaus and Recognizing Jesus in the Stranger


The gospel for the third Sunday of Easter is the celebrated account of the disciples of Emmaus ( Luke 24:13-35).


Two disciples go from Jerusalem after the death of Jesus and to the nearby village of Emmaus. Jesus joins them somewhere along their journey, walks and talks with them about the scriptures, but the disciples did not recognize him.


They were not looking for Jesus in the stranger. The two disciples were filled with their own thoughts and stories. We read “their faces were downcast “and “we hoped he would redeem Israel”.


Pastor Dayle preached about what changed when their eyes were open and they recognized Jesus when he broke bread. These disciples changed their destination and went back to Jerusalem instead of Emmaus.


Today we walk our own road to Emmaus. Jesus can walk and talk with us in many ways. Many times we may not see him filled with our own expectations and perceptions of who Jesus should be and the form Jesus should take in our lives. He can go past if we do not invite him in, and our eyes will remain closed.


Still Jesus walks with us, particularly when we feel hopeless. It can be a Resurrection moment when our eyes are open.


The Adult Education hour continued an Emmaus journey for some of us. Ruth shared a story about strength she felt from a member of the congregation. Larry was impressed that thiswas the story of followers like us and very few Bible stories are told from that perspective.

Linda was focused on Jesus being recognizable for an instant and then vanishing from sight. She talked about how important it was for her to act when the moment presented itself. Hesitate and the moment disappears. We talked about how icons can help us remember.

Later, Gretchen wrote me about the story of Emmaus was a strong statement about the hospitality theme the RIC team is currently focused on and how Come Let Us Worship God, the hymn that called us to worship, is an anthem for welcoming with its “Welcome everyone to the love of God".

April 2nd, 2008 – The Marriage at Cana and Climbin' Higher Mountains

So much can be held in the heart during a life. I talked about marvel when I talked about the book group last week as we started an overview of Maurice Nicholl’s The New Man.

We moved into Chapter 3 this week, The Marriage at Cana, and the connection this group within the Creator congregation made with one another astounded me. I can truly say I did not expect the intense, inclusive reactions everyone expressed to be shared by the entire group and yet the talk was all about the clarity and deep meaning they were finding as they read this book.

Will asked questions this evening that I have asked for years; “Are there books like this that can serve as guides for reading the Bible that are generally accepted?” and “Why have I never heard Nicholl’s way of finding the meaning in the description of a miracle or in a parable in the sermons I have listened to?”

We talked about different paradigms of the church as we have experienced it. Marcus Borg, in his book The Heart of Christianity, defines the earlier (or existing) and the emerging paradigms of Christianity.

Both of these paradigms seem part of the fabric of the faith for us. For some of us it is the church of our youth and what we now experience in church.

In the existing paradigm the Bible’s origin is a divine product with divine authority. The interpretation is literal-factual, the Bible’s function is the revelation of doctrine and morals and the emphasis is on an afterlife and what to believe or do to be saved.

In the emerging paradigm the Bible’s origin is a human response to God. The interpretation is historical and metaphorical, the Bible’s function is metaphorical and sacramental and the emphasis is transformation in this life through relationship with God.

The New Man is an expression of the emerging paradigm. In our discussion a previous book we read, Brian McLaren’s The Secret Message of Jesus, was also a book from the emerging paradigm. Bridging the differences between the existing and emerging views can be difficult and we went over that difficulty as well in our discussion.

The Marriage at Cana, as Nicholl describes it, can be meaningful in a different way when the marriage is thought of as an inner union of higher and lower levels, This union allows the miracle to occur of changing water into wine, moving one level of truth into another level of truth.

We had new people joing the discussion and those added voices brought more to our discussion.

We thought we would be able to get through two chapters in the discussion but we only talked about Chapter 3. Next week is Chapter 4.

The choir practice was comfortable. We practiced new songs for the season but many were familiar to the choir from years past. Climbin' Higher Mountains was exciting to practice and we sang a different arrangement of Healing River then most us know. This arrangement definitely resonated with us.

We celebrated Peter's birthday with cake and ice cream with the youth after practice was finished. It was a good time to socialize and to enjoy the fun of being together.

March 30th - This I Believe

Before I write about the subject that is the title of this blog I thought it is strange how what you volunteer to do for worship changes your perception of worship.

I think there are those who appreciate the music but may not reflect back on the songs after worship. Yet when I play guitar and or sing to contribute to music there is a heightened awareness of what is working and what is not.

For the first service Mary did Altar Care set up and asked for my help. Suddenly I was at a loss trying to remember all the details. Which chalices shold be used, which side of the altar does the wine go on versus the grape juice, whether the bread was there were all concerns that seemed to be of more pressing concern than usual.

The anxiousness had settled by Pr. Dayle's sermon Certainly a powerful experience we shared at this worship was discussing what we believed in with one another during the sermon. Pr. Dayle invited us to do this. She talked about how on Morning Edition on NPR there is a segment called This I Believe where people talk about where there deepest faith resides.

All of us stumbled a bit for words in our group. Diane discussed her faith that moved from a belief that the world is changing for the better to more skepticism at times. Scott talked about his strong, optimistic faith in the power of God to change the world. I tried to express the feeling of floating on a faith. Sometimes I felt myself sinking but afterwards always found myself buoyed up to float once again. Mary expressed her faith as it is expressed in the Creed.

Everyone appeared energized by these expressions. I wondered about both the unity and the diversity of our expressions of faith. This will certainly not be the last time we share our faith with one another.