Monthly Archives: June 2010

He Was A Teacher First

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I was working on an education piece but I first want to express my thoughts about John Wooden’s death at the age of 99 on Friday (June 4, 2010).

I do not remember when it was that I became interested in John Wooden. It was probably, as I wrote in my review of his last book (John Wooden – A review of “A Game Plan for Life – the power of mentoring” by John Wooden and Don Yaeger), back in 1968 when I bought his book on coaching basketball, Practical Modern Basketball, and I was harboring some thoughts of going into coaching.

But over the years, as I read about him and what he had done, I began not only to respect him but also to admire him. Not just because of his coaching record and all the titles but because of what transpired after the game was over. Before John Wooden became a coach, he was a teacher and it was as a teacher that he honed his skills as a coach.

When you listen to all that is said about Coach Wooden, listen to what his players said. You will not hear much about basketball or winning but you will hear about what he taught them. And it is what he taught them that we should be remembering Coach Wooden on this weekend.

But, you know, it is sad to think that if he were coaching basketball today, he may not have the same success that he is receiving all the accolades for today.

How many coaches today would be able to say to a star player that their hair was too long and it had to be cut if they expected to stay on the team? How many coaches today would last if their vocabulary did not include the words victory and winning and doing it right now? How many coaches would survive if they sacrificed a number one ranking to make a point about the need to stay focused? (I recall reading one time that the 1974 UCLA team, in the midst of the 88-game winning streak, became overly self-confident and head strong, to the point that they felt that they could win no matter what. When the time came and the pressure was on the players, Coach Wooden refused to call a time out and bring them back into focus. As a result, they lost at Notre Dame, lost two conference games and the national semi-final game to North Carolina State. If a coach were to do that today, the odds are that he or she would be fired before the sun rose the next day.

But the players, to a man, know that though they came to UCLA to play basketball, they left with a degree and an education; because John Wooden was a teacher first.

And there are lessons to be learned from this master teacher, lessons that we need to be learning but are apt to ignore. We really need to contrast how it was that John Wooden taught his players with the manner in which we teach today.

We teach for the moment when we should be teaching for tomorrow and, more importantly, the day after tomorrow, for the future.

I have no doubt that Coach Wooden was a fierce competitor. But he recognized that success does not come immediately but rather over time. It took him many, many years to build what has become know as the Pyramid of Success but there are many people today who seem to think that owning a copy of this pyramid will bring them success.

We teach by giving the answers to the questions when we should be teaching our students how to get the answers. (In light of our current fascination with testing, this will be very difficult.)

We simply give out the information as information when we should be utilizing it and expressing it in real-life terms. The most important part of a UCLA basketball game was the practices that preceded the game, not the game itself. Each game was organized and there were drills to be run at a specific time and with a specific speed. The drills started off simply but increased in speed and complexity with practice concluding with what was essentially a full court game. The actual game was nothing compared to the practices that lead up to the game. (How many practice players do you know who were drafted #1 in professional basketball – Swen Nater was recruited to play basketball at UCLA in his junior and senior year. He never started a game but, according to Bill Walton, was the toughest center Walton ever played against.)

We can test our students all we like but if all we do is simply set it up so that they repeat or parrot what they were told, they will have learned nothing. On the other hand, if we work on the basics and we expand the basics and we culminate the process with real-life problems, then what transpires outside the classroom and after graduation will seem quite easy by comparison.

John Wooden also taught us the need to listen, the need to think, and the need to change when it was appropriate (look at what happened when Wilt Chamberlain pointed out that you handled things, not people; upon hearing that, Coach Wooden went to his basketball textbook and changed all the references to “handling your players” to “working with your players”).

He himself admits that it was his own stubbornness that prevented him from implementing the 2-2-1 zone press that so devastated basketball in 1964 and 1965. But he listened to Jerry Norman and Norman’s analysis of the press in light of the players on the 1963-64 team and the result was 30 victories, no defeats, and the first of ten national titles.

We live in a world where success is called for immediately, where learning is instant, and the measure of success is determined right now. It is a world where the individual counts most of all.

Coach Wooden pointed out many times that it is what you learn after you have learned everything that is important. He pointed out that working together can accomplish far more than going it along. He taught us all that success comes later and you look back at it, not to it. He also pointed out that success is far more than the number of victories in life and that life cannot be measured in terms of wins and losses. The lessons of life are there to be learned; in this day and age, I hope that as we celebrate the life of John Wooden, we take the time to reflect on what he taught us. After all, he was a teacher first.

Here is a compilation of pieces I have written with references to John Wooden:

  • Sermon/message given on 22 November 1998 – “Who Shall Lead us?” – speaking about the attitude of the players in 1974 (posted 5 June 2010)
  • Sermon given on 30 July 2000 – It’s The Little Things – in which I spoke of why Coach Wooden taught his players how to put on their socks and shoes (posted 12 July 2009)
  • Sermon given on 15 January 2006 – “Hearing God’s Call”– about a player who wasn’t a good practice player but was a fine basketball player
  • Sermon given on 24 August 2008 – “Building On the Rocks” – about the Pyramid of Success
  • 10 December 2008 – “Is It The Water?” – “Drink deeply from the good books”
  • 10 May 2009 – Two Things To Think About – John Wooden’s definition of success
  • 9 October 2009 – John Wooden – A review of “A Game Plan for Life – the power of mentoring” by John Wooden and Don Yaeger

“Who Shall Lead Us?”

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This was the message I gave at the Neon (KY) United Methodist Church for Christ the King Sunday, 22 November 1998.  The scriptures for this Sunday were Jeremiah 23: 1 – 6, Colossians 1: 11 – 20, and Luke 23: 33 – 43.

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I am posting it this weekend because of the references I made to Coach John Wooden and a piece that I will post later on my thoughts about this great man.

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As I first read the Old Testament reading for today, I thought the leadership struggle in the Republican Party. Now matter what the reasons were, I think that Newt Gingrich lost his job as Speaker of the House because he let the power of the office overtake the responsibility of the office.

And as this year comes to an end, President Clinton is also finding out what happens because he has apparently allowed the power of the office to go overtake the responsibilities. Like you, I disapproved of what President Clinton has done but I am not sure if what this country needs right now is the spectacle that the Republicans in the House of Representatives seek.

In Jeremiah, God spoke to the leaders of Israel about what happens when one lets the power of the office to overcome the responsibilities of the office.

“Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord. Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people: “Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done,” declares the Lord. “I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and increase in number. I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing,” declares the Lord.

God was angry with the Israelite leaders because time after time the leadership succumbed to the temptations of power and used the power of the office for their own personal gain rather than for good of the country.

But the scripture’s for today are not about power. After all, not many of us are going to reach positions of power. Rather, the focus on the scriptures is about sin and how we allow it to direct our lives. Each day we face decisions that can takes closer to God or farther away from him.

It is not unusual for us to face a situation that only we can solve. We have to be careful when we begin to think beyond that simple solution and begin to believe that we can solve all problems like the one we just solved. When that happens, we are as apt to fail as we are to succeed.

In the early 1700’s, John and Charles Wesley came to America fully expecting to be successful missionaries. They had studied, they understood or at least they thought they understood what Christianity was. Because of their studies, they felt they knew the right method for obtaining salvation. Yet, in 1738 they returned to England feeling that the whole time they were in America was a complete failure. This feeling was such that Charles Wesley was severely ill for the first few months he was back in England.

In the 1970’s, UCLA had the premier basketball program in the country. Coach John Wooden, who I admire as a leader and a teacher, understood that success was not guaranteed but something that you had to continually work for. But during the 1973 – 1974 his team lost four games, including the semifinal game in the NCAA national tournament. It may have been that North Carolina State was the better team that day in 1974, but as Bill Walton later pointed out, the attitude of the UCLA players had a lot to do with the outcome. Instead of practicing and preparing for the game, the Bruins felt that the game was theirs because they were the best. As a result, they lost the game.

Each day we face countless temptations. How we deal with them says a lot about our relationship with God. When we seek to push the limits of power beyond what is acceptable, this relationship gets strained. At the beginning of Eden, there was a peace in the world and mankind was at peace with God. But sin destroyed that peace and God sought countless time to restore that peace. Yet, like the kings of Israel, we are not always willing to allow our relationship with God to be the primary presence of our lives.

John and Charles Wesley returned to England in 1738 after their missionary service in Georgia feeling as if they were failures. Prepared as they were with the understanding that one cannot find peace in life outside Christ, neither Wesley felt that they had truly found the Peace of Christ. Despite their training, despite their background, neither Wesley was willing to say that they trusted the Lord. The turmoil in their lives after they came back can be directly related to that lack of trust in the Lord.

We are not alone when it comes to facing temptation. Jesus constantly faced the temptation of using his power as the Son of God for his own use. As he started his ministry, he was tempted by Satan to use his powers for his own good rather than for the good of the people he came to save. As he hung on the cross, he heard the taunts of those around him who did not understand his mission. If he were to have saved himself, then his mission would have been a failure.

As Henry Emerson Fosdick wrote,

First, then, our own experience suggests that power is always accompanied by the temptation to misuse it, and that the greater the power, the more self-restraint it requires to use it aright. Great temptations keep company with great powers. The little man fighting his little battles wishes that he were the great man so that the more easily he might overcome them; but when he understands the great man he sees that storms circle around his higher altitudes that make the petty battles of the lower level seem insignificant. The acorn seedling may be impeded by a few dead leaves, but it never will shake in the grip of the tempest until it becomes an oak. The analogy of our experience at once suggests that our Lord was tempted not less but more than we are. Haggard and hungry in the wilderness, as Tintoretto painted him, he was facing temptations that our puny powers can hardly imagine. “If thou art the Son of God, command that these stones become bread”; “If thou art the Son of God; cast thyself down”; “All the kingdoms of the world. . . if thou wilt worship me” His masterful powers were met by masterful temptations. (From The Manhood of the Master by Harry Emerson Fosdick)

On the day that Christ was crucified, two criminals were executed as well. One only saw power in its earthly form; he could only see Christ’s power as saving himself. The other saw Christ as his savior; he knew that the ultimate goal of a place in paradise could be his if he accepted Christ.

We see much the same choice today. Now, we may not feel that we are in a position of power but there are times when we do feel lost. There may even be times when we feel like those hanging on the crosses.

Only after Aldersgate, that moment in time when John Wesley accepted Christ as his personal Savior, could John Wesley know that he was truly saved.

“I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation. And an assurance was given me, that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

Only when he accepted Christ was John Wesley able to understand the direction his life was to take.

After my return home, I was much buffeted with temptations, but cried out, and they fled away. They returned again and again. I as often lifted up my eyes, and he “sent me help from his holy place.” And herein I found the difference between this and my former state chiefly consisted. I was striving, year, fighting with all my might under the law, as well as under grace. But then I was sometimes, if not often, conquered; now, I was always the conqueror.

But we do know that even in those darkest times, when we feel alone and lost, Christ is still there. Paul told the people in Colossians that Christ was our representative before God. By dying for our sins, by dying on the cross, Christ made it possible for us to have peace with God.

Today we celebrate Christ as the King. We see that in all his power and glory, all that was his from the beginning of creation, he still thought enough of us to die for us on the cross.

We are lost in this world of sin. We often face two choices. We can take the choice of this earthly world, allowing the temptations we face to lead us. The gains we make this way may give us momentary satisfaction but will not give us what we really want. But, when we accept Jesus as our Savior, when we follow Jesus, then as Paul wrote in Colossians, “he rescues from the dominion of darkness and brings us into the Kingdom”.

Jesus will lead us but we must first accept him as our Savior.

“Where Are Your Manners?”

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This is the message that I presented on the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost, 13 June 2004, at Tompkins Corners UMC.  The Scriptures for this Sunday were 1 Kings 21: 1 – 21, Galatians 2: 15 – 21, and Luke 7: 36 – 8: 3.

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Believe it or not, the commentary this past week that accompanied the ceremonies and trappings of President Regan’s funeral suggested that there is a word found in most dictionaries yet absent from use in today’s society. That word is civility.

Whether we disagreed with President Regan’s political philosophy or not, it seemed that most politicians back then agreed to disagree but not hate each other while he was president. Today, in politics and just plain society, it seems that is no longer the case. We may disagree with someone but the disagreement has gone beyond simple disagreement and is fast becoming hatred for those opposed to contrary views.

Even in our own daily lives, we disagree to the point of utter contempt for the other person. If you do not move fast enough when the light changes from red to green, the person behind you is apt to honk their horn. If you are waiting to make a left-hand turn on a busy two-lane road, the person behind you is apt to pass on the right (a maneuver that I was taught in drivers’ education to be illegal). Despite efforts to the contrary, people use their cell phones inappropriately and in the wrong places. It has gotten to the point where ministers have to remind the congregation to turn off the ringers during funerals and weddings.

Manners and etiquette, the very essence of civility, have disappeared from the fabric of our society. We have forgotten what we were taught as children about manners and respect. But we should also remember that manners, etiquette, respect, and civility is not just items to be learned; they are a part of one’s life. Things learned but not used are often forgotten.

Jesus comes to the house of Simon the Pharisee. Simon has invited him there, perhaps in hopes of gaining some insight into the new theology that Jesus is teaching. Now, in typical fashion for the day, Jesus and his disciples were walking and the roads of Galilee were very dusty.

The basic rule of hospitality then was that the host offers water and a towel to any visitors so that they may wash the dust off their feet. For whatever reason, Simon ignores this very basic tenet of hospitality. But an uninvited guest, a woman no less, shows Jesus the hospitality that the real host does not.

Now this particular story is told in all four of the Gospels. This story is the source of the legend that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. Luke does not name the woman, though at the conclusion of the reading he does introduce Mary Magdalene to us. It is noted that the woman in this story is described as a woman of the city. This implies that she was a prostitute. But there is no way that you should connect the unnamed woman in this story with the character of Mary Magdalene later introduced. To say otherwise is to engage in unwarranted and unnecessary gossip, an act not reflective of one’s manners.

The issues of good hospitality, manners, etiquette, and perhaps just common sense are the essence of this story, but not in the way one might expect. By implication, Simon, a Pharisee, should be honest and good and a respectable image of religiosity. He should, by training and social position, be the one to show the good social graces. The unnamed woman in the story is first and foremost a woman. That means that she should not even be there. In this society, women and children were excluded from the social gatherings of the day. Any women present would have been maids, shuttling quickly in and out with the various courses for the dinner. And because this particular woman is identified as a woman of the city, the implication is that her character is not the best in the world. If, by either implication or fact, she was in fact a prostitute, then she may very well have known many of the men who were present at that dinner. But this is first of all random speculation on my part; but if it were true, she may have known one or two of the men present and they certainly would not have wanted her there.

This woman is forward, uninvited, outrageous in her behavior and breaking every known rule of social behavior for men and women in that time and place. But it is also clear that everyone there, including Jesus and even her, recognize that she is a sinner.

But against that backdrop, the person who shows the appropriate hospitality to Jesus is this woman. Simon apparently did not welcome Jesus into his home the way a true host would have. And one has to wonder why not? Could it be that Simon saw Jesus, not as the Messiah but rather as just an interesting person?

Because Simon is identified as a Pharisee, we know that he is bright, curious, and interested in religious ideas. He has invited this itinerant and untrained rabbi to dinner, perhaps to hear Jesus’ views on any number of topics and to exchange ideas.

But Simon does not need Jesus; he has no need for a Savior or a Messiah. Secure in his own beliefs and his station in life, he sees Jesus only as a means of adding to his own life, his own spiritual and secular interests. He can now brag to his friends that Jesus has been a guest in his home. It is interesting to note that even today there are those in our society, our churches and seminaries who see Jesus as an interesting person to know. For these people, Jesus is someone to brag about but not someone who is truly a part of their daily life.

But the woman in this story is not one of those people. She needs Jesus not to round out her personal spirituality as Simon did but rather so she can be a whole person, so that she can be the human being that she is. So she focuses everything on Jesus and nothing on herself. Her act of washing Jesus’ feet becomes an act of cleansing her soul. ("Living the Word" by Michael Lindvall, The Christian Century, 1 June 2004.)

We have to ask ourselves this morning where Jesus is in our lives. Is He part of our life or is He just there where we can bring Him out when we need Him? Consider the reading from the Old Testament for today.

Ahab is king but he is still obligated to follow the law. He cannot simply take Naboth’s land. But his wife, Jezebel, conspires through malicious gossip, to have Naboth killed. And with Naboth dead, Ahab can take the land that he wanted in the first place.

But even if Ahab was not unconcerned or unaware of how it took place, the crimes that took place were part of his conscience. We are told that Ahab has lost all sense of God’s law, the basic teaching of which is love for God and for one’s neighbor. Ahab’s worship of idolatry (mentioned earlier in 1 Kings 18: 18) shows that he has no love for God; the story today shows that he has no love for his neighbor. Because he never was in a genuine relationship with God, he ultimately loses all that he sought and gained.

It is not a matter of manners that should dictate how we treat others. For how we treat others is a reflection of how we treat God. Paul writes that the only thing that will save us is our faith, not our works or adherence to the law.

Ahab gave up the law and paid the price. Those who despise God’s mercies, who only see God in a peripheral manner, will do likewise. Those whose obedience to the law blinds them to the plight of others will find themselves on the outside looking in when it comes to salvation. Paul points out that those who know the law know that no person can be declared righteous or be justified in their actions simply by obedience to the Law of Moses. What knowledge of the Law does or rather should do is convince individuals of their own personal spiritual deadness in sin outside faith in Christ.

We celebrate communion today because it is that one symbol of Christ’s sacrifice for us that shows we are no longer dead to sin in this world. Through communion, Christ lives on in us. And it is that presence which should be reflected in our lives today.

We need to be reminded that we are not the hosts at this table today; we are the ones who have been invited. And the invitation is through God’s grace, not through our social stature, or our attainment of social graces. We are reminded that by our sins, we are not even worthy of eating the crumbs that fall to the ground.

Yet we live in a society and at a time when those invited to Christ’s table try to say who should come to the table. Today’s Pharisees say that because someone is a sinner, they cannot come to this table.

The room where Jesus had dinner with Simon was closed to the woman in the story. But because she was so moved by her love for Christ and her desire for repentance, she found a way to enter the room and express her thoughts. Jesus responded in kind, with love and compassion, saying, "Your sins are forgiven; your faith has saved you, go in peace."

In a world where manners are a lost part of society, we have to ask ourselves who we are today? Shall we be like Simon, more interested in Christ as an ornament in our live but not willing to put Him in our life. Shall we treat others with contempt simply because of something they said or did? Or shall we come to this table, with an open heart and mind, professing our sins and asking for God’s grace and forgiveness?

We are reminded that we come to this table at the invitation of Christ, not by our own volition. We have no right to come to this table except that Christ has invited us. We come as sinners but we leave as forgiven people, with Christ in our hearts. We leave as new persons, showing the presence of Christ in our lives and how we treat others.

“Traditions”

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This is the message that I presented on the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost, 14 June 1998, at the Jenkins United Methodist Church (Jenkins, KY) and the Whitesburg United Methodist Church (Whitesburg, KY).  The Scriptures that I used for this Sunday were Genesis 25: 19 – 34, Galatians 2: 15 – 21, and Luke 7: 36 – 8: 3.  The Epistle reading and the Gospel reading are from the lectionary but I am not entirely certain why I used the reading from Genesis as the Old Testament reading.  I think, in retrospect, that I used A Guide to Prayer (Job and Shawchuck) in preparing for this Sunday and misread the lectionary choices for this Sunday.

Also, at the time, the Whitesburg church was my home church and I was filling for the pastor while he was at Annual Conference.

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When I start working on a sermon for a given date, the first thing I do is to look in the lectionary for the scripture readings for that particular Sunday. As I read these scriptures, one each from the Old Testament, the Gospel, and the Epistle, I try to think of a title for the sermon which best explains my understanding of the scriptures. That is why this sermon was initially titled “The Price of Our Dues.”

But as things developed during the past week and as I read and studied the scriptures I found that a better title and a better approach was “Traditions”. It seems to me that the new catch phrase for politics in the 1990’s is “traditional family values”. This has an interesting ring to me, at least, when I consider some of the traditions that my family has.

We all have traditions, things that have been part of our lives but for which the basis is long ago forgotten. It is also a part of the family tradition to note my grandfather ran away from home when he was young, lied about his age, and joined the Merchant Marines. After a period of time, he then joined the United States Army using this falsified data.

Now, there are no written records other that a few lines in his diary which can confirm this story. That he was in the Merchant Marine is undoubtedly true, based on what he later wrote. But his real age (for the Army records disagree with what he wrote) and any other items about his family background are lost because my grandfather never had a birth certificate.

That is why we have to be careful about traditions. Sometimes the reasons for them are lost and we only do them because what we have always done. In my family, we traditionally had steak on Saturdays and chicken on Sundays. Don’t ask me why, that was they way it was.

The idea of tradition always played a strong part in Jesus’ ministry. But it was not the upholding of tradition, but rather the reversal of tradition that was the focus.

In the Israelite society of Jesus’ day, the only way to salvation was through adherence to the law. Yet, the reasons for the laws and traditions often times got lost in the maze of time and the result was that the many of the laws were so intrinsic, so complex, and often contradictory as to make adherence impossible or at least impractical. People sought Jesus because they could see that His offer of salvation through the grace of God was a much better and clearer alternative to what tradition had to offer. Jesus also forgave individuals of their sins, something never done before and something never thought possible.

But now people were seeking out Jesus. Remember the women in the crowd who sought only to touch Jesus’ cloak (Mark 5: 25 – 34):

And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “?”If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. The woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” (Mark 5: 25 – 34)

Also remember the paralytic lowered into the room where Jesus was by his friends who took the roof off the building in order to accomplish the task.

A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard the he had come home. So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door , and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bring to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowed, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and , after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” (Mark 2: 1 – 5)

People sought out Jesus because they knew that He did offer an alternative to the life that society was forcing them to accept. It may have been out of curiosity or it may have been an attempt to entrap him that Simon the Pharisee asked Jesus to come to his house for dinner, as we read in today’s Gospel reading.

Now, at a traditional dinner, it was the host’s responsibility to provide water so that the guests could wash their feet. It is clear from Jesus’ comments

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet.

that Simon didn’t do this nor had he offered the traditional greeting kiss or perfume usually offered to the honored guest.

And the presence of this woman was also very much against tradition. Normally, the only women present at such a dinner would have been the servants and this woman, with her social status, would have never been allowed inside the room. Yet she was there, unveiled and with her hair down, both non-traditional, washing Jesus’ feet with her tears.

As he had done before, Jesus forgave this woman of her sins, not because she was washing his feet but because her faith was strong enough to overcome the resistance of society. Needless to say, the other guests, with their view of life tied to the traditional ways, were shocked.

But why should they be shocked? After all, in an ironic twist, most of those people present probably were aware of what had happened between Esau and Jacob, the sons of Isaac.

The Old Testament reading for today, Genesis 25: 19 – 34, tells the story of Jacob and Esau, the twin sons of Isaac. Esau grew up and became a skillful hunter but one day, after an apparently unsuccessful hunting trip, he came home starving.

He was so hungry that he begged his brother Jacob for something to eat. In reply, Jacob asked Esau to sell him the birthright. In traditional society, the birthright included the inheritance rights for the first-born. And in Esau’s case, such inheritance included the covenant promises of a mighty nation that Isaac, his father, had inherited from his father Abraham. Some would say that Jacob was a schemer and a trickster to but it was by God’s choice that he, Jacob, came to own the birthright of the Israelite nation. Had God chosen to follow tradition, then it would have been Esau that would have been the father of the Israelite nation but that was not to be the case and, and in the end, Esau was left with nothing.

God’s plan for us is not based on tradition. Nor is it so rigid a plan that it can never offer any hope. If God’s will as strict as the law, then there would be no need for salvation because, once we have broken the law, we would have died in sin. As Paul wrote As he wrote in Galatians 2: 21, “I do not set aside the graced of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” (Galatians 2: 21)

That is why God sent Jesus for us. Because God wanted to show everyone that it wasn’t tradition that promised salvation but God’s grace. Time and time again, Paul writes that is by our faith in Jesus that we are saved, not by our following the laws and traditions. For us today, the path to salvation is through Christ. Yes, we need to live a godly life; yes, we need to follow the law, both spiritual and man-made. But until such time as we accept Christ as our own personal savior, nothing is accomplished.

What saves us is not our adherence to a rigid code of laws or traditions whose origins are lost in time; it is our faith in Christ. The woman in the Gospel reading today was forgiven, the woman in the crowd and the paralyzed man were all healed not because of anything they did but because of their faith. The tears the woman shed as she washed Jesus’ feet that day were tears of joy, of knowing that she was forgiven.

For us, it is the same. As we go through life, facing each uncertain day, remember the third verse of “Amazing Grace” , “Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come; ‘tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.”

In 1 John 4, John writes of discerning from whom life’s instructions come; to make sure that what you hear comes from God and not some where else. It is tempting in life to see the path to take as a series of laws and traditions but in trying to stay on that path we often stumble. Yet, when we accept Christ as our Savior, when we understand that it is our faith in Christ that our sins are forgiven, the path becomes an easy one and a more fruitful one.


“What Is Truth?”

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Here is the message that I presented at Tompkins Corners UMC for Trinity Sunday, 6 June 4. The Scriptures for this Sunday are Proverbs 8: 1 – 4, 22 – 31; Romans 5: 1 – 5; and John 16: 12 – 15.

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It is highly ironic that on this day when the United Methodist Church celebrates "Peace with Justice" Sunday, the world is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings at Normandy. For my family, at least, there is also the irony that but for an ulcer, the landings themselves would be more than just a major note in history.

In 1943, my grandfather, a Colonel in the Army, was on leave and in the States for my father’s graduation from Cornell. As he prepared to return to the island of Aruba in the Caribbean where he was commander of the Army base, the Army decided that he had completed his overseas tour and he needed another assignment. This new assignment ultimately was to be commander of an Infantry Regiment that would be part of the Normandy invasion forces. During this period, his ulcers flared up and, because he could not eat GI food, he was retired for physical disability in the line of duty in March 1944. But for that, I suppose today’s celebrations would have a far different meaning for my family and myself.

But we have to be careful about the celebrations that take place. We must make sure that these celebrations are for and about those who served and sacrificed so that others could be free today. If we are not careful, these celebrations could easily, if they have not done so already, turn into a celebration of war.

And that would be a dishonor to all who, civilian and military, sacrificed their lives in World War II and all previous wars and to what freedom is all about. War is about ignorance. People go to war because they fear what they do not know. People go to war because they are not willing to learn about others and find out how they think or act or do things. People go to war because their leaders tell them lies and distort the truth, making it seem as though they must fight for what is theirs. Wars are fought because people are convinced that they know the correct way to do things and no one else does.

We need to be reminded that the United Methodist Church has a long heritage of opposition to war going back to John Wesley in the 18th century. "War", John Wesley said, "is a ‘monster’ that cannot be reconciled to ‘any degree of reason or common sense’ — a monster bringing miseries to the warriors and to all those in the warriors’ path. Wesley also said that, "war is too often caused by national leaders, who in disregard to their people, fail to find more creative ways of settling disagreements."

There are those who say that war is inevitable, a result of two competing visions or forces. One historian, Victor David Hanson, has concluded that war is the natural state of mankind. (Newsweek, 31 March 2003)  There are those who say that some wars are justified, that sometimes one must go to war in order for good to triumph over evil. But no war can ever be justified; for wars cause destruction and death, wars bring suffering.

No matter how hard we try, the only inevitable thing in war is that someone is going to die. And one death by unnatural causes is one death too many. The ancient Greek philosopher Herodotus once said, "Nobody is stupid enough to prefer war to peace. Because in times of peace children bury their parents, whereas, on the contrary, in times of war parents bury their children."

We may find ourselves in war, simply because there are no other alternatives. The forces that bring war may be so great that combat, death, and destruction must come. But such a response must always be the last one, the one that we are forced to make when there are no alternatives.

We must work to insure that this choice is never forced upon us. That means that we must work to eliminate those factors of life that cause war: racism, poverty, greed, corruption, must be eliminated. We must work as strongly for peace as we seemingly do for war.

The problem is that we do not truly understand what peace is. We think of peace in terms of not being at war. We lived through the period of time known as the "Cold War" thinking we were at peace. Even the B-52 bombers that stood as sentinels against the Soviet Union wore the slogan of the Strategic Air Command, "Peace is our profession", on their noses. But this peace was only the product of an understanding that if the other side were to attack, we would attack in kind, leaving the world a desolate and dead planet. This theory that our forces would counter other forces was known as mutually assured destruction. The acronym for this theory, MAD, was very much appropriate.

But peace is not the absence of war; it is the establishment of conditions that prevent wars from ever happening. We speak of the peace dividend whenever a war is ended; it is the transformation of a war economy to the production of goods used in peacetime. But weapons are still manufactured and sold; if we cannot buy them for our own country, we find some country that will. And the causes of war, racism, poverty, greed, corruption all remain to fester and inflame those who are its victims.

It comes as a surprise to people but the motto of the Central Intelligence Agency is a quote from the Bible, specifically John 8: 32, "and you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." These words of Jesus actually refer to freedom from the bondage of sin through obedience to Christ but are quite apropos for today. Freedom is ultimately found by the knowledge of truth, both within us and within our groups. In knowing what the truth is, we are able to make choices and forced to rely on others to tell us how to think and act.

Wisdom, the subject of the reading from the Book of Proverbs for today, is our ability to gain the truth, to find it and use it. In Chapter 7 of the Proverbs the attention was on the fool and the traps used to catch him or her. In Chapter 8, there is a shift to praising wisdom. Wisdom is not limited to a select few but rather, as the writer of Proverbs suggests, open to all who seek it. Wisdom cannot be hidden through privacy or deception, available to only a select few. The words of wisdom can be trusted and the offer of grace found through wisdom is often beneficial. The words of truth given through wisdom contrast with the lies of wickedness; wisdom will ultimately deliver on the promises made and not simply tease the reader or listener with offers of better things to come. The value of wisdom goes beyond the simple value of gold or silver; it is impossible to pay for wisdom with gems or other desirable things. Wisdom is the ultimate in priceless objects, inestimable in value. In the Old Testament, wisdom acted as God’s dynamic word; in the New Testament, Jesus is the personification of wisdom and the Word of God.

Understanding what we are required to do, to really know what the truth is does require a great deal of wisdom. It requires that we act and think for ourselves, in other words, we search for the truth. There are those who would naturally not want us to think for ourselves, to act without their guidance. In the very act of acting independently, of thinking for one’s self, we begin the great act of dissent.

And dissent is the one thing many organizations, especially churches, do not want. Dissent is stifled simply because it runs counter to the wishes of the leaders or power brokers. I find it interesting that there are those who fear the liberal voice within a church, so much so that they are willing to finance such opposition. The New York Times two weeks ago reported about a foundation that is privately funding many conservative and fundamentalist Christian organizations. While they did not directly support or finance the "divorce decree" presented at last month’s General Conference in Pittsburgh, they did put the text on the proposal and the author’s speech in support of the proposal on their website.  ("Conservative Group Amplifies Voice of Protestant Orthodoxy", Laurie Goodstein and David D. Kirkpatrick, The New York Times, May 22, 2004.)  And one report from the same General Conference indicates that those who supported the more conservative positions that were presented but failed are looking to prevent more liberal delegates from attending the next General Conference in 2008. (From Connections, June 2004, Barbara Wendland, publisher and editor)

The stifling of dissent, be it at large meetings such as General Conference or at small meetings such as the local church, is one reason why church membership is declining. People will simply not come to churches where they find that their voice will note be heard. The Gospel tells us that Jesus will look for the single sheep, yet people encounter situations where their thoughts and words are pushed to the back, simply because it is a different thought or they say something different. Why should someone want to come to such a place? I will argue that one reason is that they see in churches today autocratic and rigid bodies, not willing to accept new or fresher ideas. In too many churches today, dissent or the presentation of an alternative viewpoint is simply not welcome. It is almost as if the majority view of the congregation is the only idea that will be accepted.

In some cases, this must be true. If the congregation votes to install a covered walkway from the parking lot to the church entrance or to buy a new organ to replace the venerable but worn-out pump organ first purchased in 1865, then that is the will of the church and there can be no dissent. And I state this knowing full well that our own literature, the flyer that we give to visitors, states just that situation.

Members of this congregation wanted to purchase a bell but the trustees objected, stating that the building costs must be met first. But this congregation voted to purchase a bell, collected the money and installed the bell over the opposition of the trustees. It is also noted that the trustees refused to ring the bell. But we ring the bell to mark the start of the services each Sunday and we were reminded at our meeting with Dennis Winkleblack two weeks ago that the trustees serve at the will of the church council and the congregation.

I will however disagree with the idea that the majority of the congregation can determine the meaning of the Gospel. The Gospel message is the one part of the church that cannot be determined by a majority vote; it must be determined by one’s own conscience. This has happened in churches past and I know that many preachers who have gone against the will of the majority when it comes to preaching the Gospel have run into trouble. Those who saw in the Gospel that we are all the same in God’s eyes (remembering Paul’s words that there is no Jew or Gentile, no slave or free) would clearly run into opposition from those who felt that the Bible gave credence to the separation of races. But it is the people who hold to the belief of inequality that must change their views, not the preacher. For the Gospel makes no distinction between individuals in their beliefs, no matter how hard one may try. A preacher must present the message, as the Holy Spirit guides him or her, not by the wishes of the congregation. Did not Jesus say in today’s Gospel reading that it would be the Holy Spirit who would come and guide us in our understanding?

The truth is that being a Christian requires us to be a dissenter. It requires that we look at the Gospel message and apply it to the settings around us, not let the settings around us determine what the Gospel message will be. It means that you cannot stand back and let injustice triumph over justice; you cannot stand back and let evil triumph over good and righteousness.

Many times you will be in the minority, only because the majority are people who take no action and do not want to be bothered. But always remember what happened to the early disciples in Acts.

When they heard [that the apostles had disobeyed the high priest’s order], they were enraged and wanted to kill them. But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, respected by all the people … said to them, "Fellow Israelites, consider carefully what you proposed to do to these men. … If this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail, but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. In that case you may even be found fighting against God!" (Acts 5: 33 – 39)

What I fear will happen, if it hasn’t happened already, is that people who want to dissent or make their voices heard will stop coming to church and seek God elsewhere. This means that churches will be filled with those who seek softness and comfort over salvation and power over servanthood. And should I fear this outcome? Remember that when Jesus came, He often dissented with the majority view. He sought to bring the disenfranchised into the church, he sought to give voice to the poor and the oppressed; yet today, those same views are quickly pushed to the back or even outside the church. To paraphrase a common phrase of the conservative evangelicals, "Where would Jesus be in today’s church?"

Our faith comes not from reading of the words of the Bible; it comes from our belief in Christ as our Savior. Because of our faith in Jesus Christ as Savior, we are saved and at peace with God. Yes, this peace with God often brings suffering here on earth. Paul was very clear in his letter today that we are going to suffer for our faith and for what we do. But the rewards that we receive will ultimately outweigh what we must endure here on earth.

We are asked to be God’s representatives through Christ here on earth and it is often an uneasy task. We live in a world that lives by Exodus 21: 23 -25, "that if any harm follows [whatever action was taken against you], you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe." (Exodus 21: 23 – 25)  It is a world in which for every action taken against us, we seek an equal but opposite reaction.

But we forget that Jesus said to us, "You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away." (Matthew 5: 38 – 42)

It is tough being a Christian because we are asked to do what we do not want to do. And when we try and fail we often seek other ways, fearing that Christ is not who He said He was, is and will always be.

But the truth is that there is one God, worshipped by many and worshipped in many different ways. The truth is there is one Son, sent by the one God to die on the cross and be resurrected so that we would gain our freedom from sin and death. The truth is that there is a Holy Spirit that enables us to be the representatives of Christ on earth. Through the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit we find the strength, the power, and wisdom to meet the demands of this world and seek a better, more peaceful world.

Our prayer this day should be like the one given by the Reverend Bob Edgar, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ gave at a General Board of Church and Society event during the recent General Conference.

"May God bless you with discomfort…

At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with discomfort…

At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless you with tears…

To shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain to joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness. . .

To believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done AMEN (A Franciscan Benediction, printed in Connections, Number 140, June 2004, Barbara Wendland, publisher and editor)

“Wisdom and Truth”

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Here is the message that I presented at Walker Valley UMC for Trinity Sunday, 10 June 2001. The Scriptures for this Sunday are Proverbs 8: 1 – 4, 22 – 31; Romans 5: 1 – 5; and John 16: 12 – 15.

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One of the more fascinating tidbits of information that I have picked up in my life is that the motto of the Central Intelligence Agency is John 8: 32, "And you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8: 32)

In picking this statement as its motto, the CIA said that we need to know as much information about other governments and what their intentions are so that we can take the proper counter-measures and remain free. It is very much like Thomas Jefferson’s statement "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." (Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Col. Charles Yancey, January 6, 1816)

Our whole life is about finding truth in the things around us. From early on, we are constantly asking questions which speak to our desire to know things about our world and our lives, "Why is the grass green? Why is the sky blue?" As we get older, we seek the answers to deeper questions, "Why am I here? What meaning is there to my life? How can there be a God if there is so much hatred and injustice in this world?"

It is against that backdrop of seeking knowledge and truth that the writer of Proverbs reminds us about our own human nature. Proverbs is about the frailty of the human character. A quick scan of this book gives us a convincing array of descriptions of human nature and behavior: foolishness, wickedness, adulterous behavior, evildoers, stupidity, those that scoff at others, crooked and other illegal actions, and laziness. Don’t look for praise of the human species in Proverbs.

The wisdom in Proverbs comes from the fact that the writer understood that there is delicately intertwined labyrinth of good and ill within the human soul. In the selection for today, Wisdom assumes human ignorance but then proceeds to show us that the human heart, mind and soul are capable of great and delightful things.

Wisdom has it right: Human behavior as a race is potentially delightful, creative, compassionate, humble, pure, good-humored, just, honorable, and good. But such things are not given, not an automatic profile of humanness but rather something that must be learned, heard, studied, heeded, practiced, and lived.

This plays out well when we think about our own lives. Our own desire to seek a better live, to find the good in all around us, to understand the world in which we live is what drives our desire to seek an inner peace in our lives. According to Jack Miles, the author of God: The Biography, American culture has always encouraged tolerance and experimentalism.

Like explorers standing at the mouth of some vast, complex unknown river yearning to find its source, or astronomers searching the heavens for clues to invisible transmissions, we cannot help but be aware that the world around us is still mysterious, complex, and unfathomable. And if the world in which we live is mysterious, how much more can God be?

The doctrine of the Trinity can itself be seen as the product of a restless theological mind. How can there be one God with three different revelations? Like mathematicians seeking to solve Fermat’s Last Theorem (the one where he wrote in the margin of a book that he had found an elegant solution to a simple algebraic expression but then never wrote down the solution), church thinkers have struggled and wrestled with this concept for over four hundred years.

It is a difficult concept for us to understand because there has been on other way to express what God means to us than by saying, "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." And if you thought that the controversies between members of the church were new, you need only to go back to the days of the early church, to 451 when the Nicene Creed was first written. This creed was the result of the controversy and established the Orthodox Christian affirmation of a triune God, God in three persons, or three manifestations, three expressions: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Even before that time, Paul was trying to explain the mystery of the Trinity. He attempted to do that in the selection from Romans that we read today. In 2 Corinthians 13: 14, Paul expressed it as "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you." (2 Corinthians 13: 14)

Our own personal experience with God can be adequately stated only in this Trinitarian terminology. We can’t explain the Trinity, but we can affirm, with Christians across the ages, that God is our Father in heaven; our Savior, the Son of God who died for our sins; and our Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the living Lord who dwells within us and interacts with our own spirits.

There is God beyond us, God transcendent, God whose name was regarded as so sacred by the ancient Hebrews that they would not speak it and substituted an Aramaic word whenever they encountered the sacred name in the Scriptures. This God beyond us we refer to as Father, Creator of heaven and earth.

Until we know God as Father, we experience a deep sense of restlessness in our lives. The uneasiness is there because we have alienated ourselves from the One who created us in his image to have fellowship with Him. Just as rebellious sons and daughters destroy their relationships with their parents, so also do we break our relationship with God through sin. We have no peace until we know God as Father again. The word "peace" is derived from a verb that means to bind together again that which has been separated.

There is God among us, the Word became flesh, the very revelation of God in human form, Jesus Christ the Son, who redeemed us from sin. It is through our Lord Jesus Christ that we have peace with God, because it is by him that we gain access to, as Paul wrote in Romans, "the grace in which we stand." (Romans 5: 2) It is our experience with God as the Savior-Son that is the beginning point in our knowledge of the Trinity.

When Paul gave his Trinitarian benediction (2 Corinthians 13: 14), he began with "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ." This was because of his own personal experience. He did not personally know the God he thought he was serving as Saul the Pharisee until the day on the road to Damascus. But when he met Jesus and trusted Him as his Savior, he found peace with Father-God.

And finally, there is God within us as individual Christians and within the community that is the church: God the Holy Spirit, who sustains us personally and corporately. None of us have seen the risen Christ, but we have experienced the presence of God within us and within the church.

The immediate presence of God in our lives is through the Holy Spirit. In actuality, the Spirit is the main player in the whole matter of our personal experience of and with God. It is the Spirit that teaches us, illumines our minds, and authenticates to us the reality of God as Savior and as Father.

It is the Spirit that delivers to our lives the salvation experience from beginning to end. He enacts the new birth; he gives us assurance that we are God’s children and works through our tribulations to teach us patience, and through our patience to transform our character, and through the experience of proven character to enhance our hope in the glory of God. Meanwhile, it is through the Spirit that our lives are infused with God’s love.

Proverbs reminds us that there is a certain folly to life when we seek to find the answers to our questions outside God. It is only by coming to God that the peace we seek in our lives is accomplished. And it is only through Jesus Christ that we can come to God. And our lives come to a full circle when we allow the Holy Spirit to be a part of our lives, empowering us to experience the presence of God within us and within the church.

Within and Without

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Here are my thoughts for this past Sunday, Trinity Sunday, 30 May 2010. The Scriptures for this Sunday are Proverbs 8: 1 – 4, 22 – 31; Romans 5: 1 – 5; and John 16: 12 – 15. 

I was asked the other day to address the spiritual and mental aspect of what I believe. And I cannot think of a better Sunday in which to do this. As it turns out, this was a very difficult piece to envision, let alone write. It should be viewed as the beginning of the discussion and not just a commentary on the way things are.

It isn’t that it is Trinity Sunday, the Sunday when the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are brought together. Nor is it that this is also Peace with Justice Sunday in the United Methodist Church.

It is a combination of things that make it appropriate and necessary to speak about what we are thinking when we speak of religion, Jesus Christ, or Christianity.

But to do so, you have to first ask yourself what do you believe? You may say that you don’t need to believe in Christ to do good or to seek justice or peace. And that’s fine with me as long as you codify what it is you believe. There are those who say that they have no need for Christ or God in their lives. But that begs the question of how do you know what good is or what evil is? Where do you get your sense of justice?

What drives a person to do good, to seek justice, or to work for peace? Is this something within our genes or do we have something that cannot be quantified, something that we might call the soul?

When we began to evolve as conscious, sentient beings we began to seek reasons for what occurred in our lives. From this came our concept of gods; there were gods for the rain and the sun, gods to bring health and gods that would bring death, and gods for fertility, good crops, and just about everything imaginable. We attribute much of what we observed in our natural word as the work of gods. And as we began to discover the physical reasons of things, the need for such gods began to decline. But this development never reached into the area of right and wrong, good and evil. And our ancestors began to understand that there might be something that couldn’t be quantified using these ideas. And from that, comes the idea of a Supreme Being.

Now, this is a very difficult idea for many to even formulate in their minds. One of the leading arguments against God is that He cannot be quantified, that His existence cannot be proved. But then again, neither can good or evil. For many people, this inability to identify God or explain the nature of good and evil in physical terms is the reason that they feel they have no reason for the church today.

The church today must deal with this, if for no other reason that if it cannot justify the existence of God, of the nature of good and evil, then it has no business being open. But by the same token, this attempt at justification is as much a personal search as it is a corporate search.

At some point, each person must look at what they believe and ask where those beliefs came from. “Oh, this is what I have been taught” might be one response and that’s a good reply. But where is the justification that what you are taught is correct? Where is the internal mechanism that tells you to accept that what you are taught is the right response? If we had the time and if this were the place, we might begin to look at Carl Jung and the collective unconscious belief in a god/supreme being.

Now, I know that this is perhaps far too simplistic an approach for this topic. There are people who have no concept of good and evil even though they have been taught right from wrong. We call these individuals sociopaths or psychopaths. Sometime people never hear the message because it doesn’t exist in the subconscious or unconscious mind. That is why psychology exists.

What makes people bad and do evil things even when they have been taught that the things they do are not acceptable to society? What makes a good Christian do a horrible heinous act against another human being?

That is why so many people have a difficult time with accepting God as a presence in their lives. They see the acts of violence and the acts of inhumanity and wonder how God can allow that to happen. They see a mother or father abuse their children just as they were abused as children and wonder when the cycle of violence will stop. And quite frankly, I don’t have those answers. I don’t think anyone does.

You could say that it was genetic, that we are born with the ideas of good and evil incorporated in our genes (and I know that some people believe this). But if that were the case, then what we do and what we say for the entire span of lifetime is decided for us before we even begin to live our lives and nothing we can do can change the outcome. If that is the case, then there is no need for Christ in our lives and we need not have a God or gods.

But if this idea of good and bad is ethereal in nature, if it exists as an idea that must be taught and reinforced repeatedly, then we have a choice to accept the idea or not.

Sometimes there will be a conflict between what you are taught and what you see in this world. You learned in high school that “all men were created equal” but you go out into a world where they are not created equal. And again, one problem that the church has today is that many preachers and denominations make religious pronouncements that run counter to what transpires in the world. They also teach you their beliefs and that their explanation is the only answer.

So what do you do? If you have no faith system to fall back on, you are in trouble. Similarly, if there is a conflict between what you have been taught and what you think, you are in trouble.

The problem is that many faith systems don’t allow for such conflict. You either believe as you were taught or you don’t; and if you don’t, you will lead a condemned life.

But such ideas are man-made and someone else’s interpretation of what was written and translated over the years of the church. The burden of the proof falls on each individual, not someone else. You have to be open to hear the ideas, you have to be ready for the insight that comes from a study and an appreciation of the ideas.

In the Gospel reading for today, John records Jesus as speaking of the time when the Spirit will come and bring the Truth of the message. I have always said and I believe that the acceptance of the Holy Spirit, our own private Pentecost, is a mind-changing thing, the beginning of a new consciousness.

Now, the cynic or the critic will say that these words in the Gospel are someone’s interpretation. And they may be. But the words that Jesus speaks in John are part of a heritage found in the reading from Proverbs today.

The words of Proverbs are part of the wisdom literature in the Bible. The author of Proverbs speaks of wisdom being in existence long before the real world began and being a part of the creation process. Again, this speaks to me of the new consciousness that comes when one first accepts Jesus Christ and then allows the Holy Spirit to transform your life.

It is not an easy thing to do. We are so caught up in the language and thoughts of today that we cannot accept this notion of change. And many times, people do not accept the change (“this is the way it has always been and this is the way it will always be”).

Paul speaks of justification through faith. But it is faith that is born in us through the Holy Spirit. It is a difficult thing to accept because it takes time and, in a culture where we want instant faith, it is not something easily accepted today.

That’s why I asked the question about what you believe? Where inside you does a sense of good and evil lie? Where inside you is what you believe?

As the writer of Proverbs pointed out, it was there inside you from the day you began. And it lies there within you waiting to be released. But there needs to be something that will release and awaken that nature of your life. It will come from hearing the words of Christ. For some, this is a new message, different from what they have heard in the past. For others, it is a message that has been heard from childhood but heard today with new hears and a new desire to hear.

The challenge today is two-fold. First, we must, no matter upon what basis we believe, seek justice and work for justice. But we must also take the life within us and let the Holy Spirit empowered that life and make the life on the outside that others will see and will know why you seek peace and work for justice.