Quotes for Today--from 11 by Leonard Sweet

Anyone who doesn't need company is either greater than a man, and is a God, or lesser than a man, and is a beast
Aristotle, as quoted by Thoman Aquinas


The church is a community of people on a journey to God.
Larry Crabb

To journey without being changed is to be a nomad
To change without journeying is to be a chameleon.
To journey and be transformed by the journey is to be a pilgrim
Mark Nepo

In the beginning is relation.
Martin Buber

On Religion by John Caputo

I picked up one of the books that was on my "order from the library", and it is a fun book to write. Written by the man who is the foremost interpreter of Derrida to America, Caputo here does some intelligent deconstructing of religion as a means of preserving the truth of the religious impulse. Very interesting and very accessable for a theology book.

Here are some quotes:

"Religion is for lovers"

"The opposite of a religious person is a loveless person" (he means this in a way that is meant to be inclusive of people from non-institutional religious structures).

"There is no merit in loving moderately" (4)

"Love is not a bargain, but an unconditional giving; it is not an investment, but a commitment come what may" (4)

"The religious sense of life is tied up with having a future"(9)

"Religion...is for the unhinged" (he means unhinged as a positive virtue)

"Religion on my telling is a pact or covenant with the impossible" (15)

I have been made a question unto myself (Augustine)

Non-Knowing is the inescapable element in which decisions are reached, which intensifies their passions (19)

The people of the impossible are also the impossible people (32).

Book Lust

Occasionally, instead of buying all the books I want, I simply make lists of books I want, and then try ways to get a hold of them through the library. Sometimes, I have discovered I really dont want to read the book as much as I want to have it with me to open, to touch, to smell, to hold, and to skim. After a brief fling with the said book, I no longer have any interest in her anymore. Making my lists of books is my way of controlling my book lust. Unfortunately, much like a drunk going to a bar and trying to say they are in recovery, I seem to always find myself in a bookstore moaning and holding my newest book interest next to me.

Here are a couple of books that caught my eye. If they sound interesting to you use the search engine on the right to order the book and give me a little kickback.

THE LIST

John Calvin--On Prayer
Richard Rohr--Everything Belongs
Bob Roberts Jr.--Glocalization
The Spirit of Silence
Judiasm and Justic
Reel Spirituality
The Next Christendom*-Jenkins
Jesus and Buddha--parallel sayings
Front Porch--Myers
Organic Community--Myers
Remarriage After Divorce in Today's Church
Seek and You Will Find--Taize Community
Leading with a Limp--Allender
Listening to the Beliefs of the Emerging Church
Evangelism after Christendom
Dream Talk--Wilson
Soul Graffiti--Scandrette
Simplicity, The Freedom of Letting Go
The Speed of Trust--Covey
Happiness Myth
The Leadership Challenge
Mind the Light--Bill
Encounter the Other--Vanier
Sharing Sacred Stories
Peril in Paradise
Body Language--Pease
The Orgin of Satan--Pagels
A Peculiar People
Queen Bees and WannaBees--Wiseman
Importance of Being Foolish--Manning
Banker to the Poor--Yunnus
Offices Series...Tickle
Metamorpha--Strobel
The Questions of Jesus--John Dear

Board Games
Smart Ass
Argue
Electronic Guestures
Would You Rather
Stratego
Axis and Allies
Battleship

Posters
Einstein quotes
Jesus Rocks

Did you know there is a board game called:
The Journeys of Paul: A Historical Strategy Game?

A Few Quotes from THE JESUS WAY by Eugene Peterson

The American way with its penchant for catchy slogans and stirring visions denegrates the local, and its programmatic ways of dealing with people eroded the personal, replacing intimacies with functions. The North American church at present is conspicuous for replacing the Jesus Way with the American way. (p.5)

It didn't take long for Christian brothers and sisters to develop consumer congregations...Given the conditions prevailing in our culture, this is the best and most effective way to develop large and prosperous congregations. Americans lead the world in showing people how to do it. There is only one thing wrong: this is not the way Jesus brings us into conformity with the life of Jesus and brings us in the way of Jesus' salvation. This is not the way in which we become less and Jesus becomes more. This is not the way our sacrificed lives become available to others in justice and service. The cultivation of consumer spirituality is the antithesis of the sacrificial "deny yourself" congregation. A consumer church is an anitchrist church. (p.6)

Quotes for the Day

Some of the most comforting words in universe are "me too."
Rob Bell

Lust promises what it can't deliver
Rob Bell

Quote of the day

To be a disciple is to share in a lifestyle where the cross is the culmination.
John Howard Yoder

Quote for the Day

The only one's that are afraid are the one's that think they are alone.--
St. Catherine of Siena

NT Wright Quotes from Evil and the Justice of God

the relentless quest for sexual pleasure--and sex, of course, is a way of laughing in the face of death (26)

the self-contradictory state of affairs--increased demands for truth and increased difficulty in discerning it--is the result of a slow-growing but now all-pervasive culture of suspicion. (31)

The more imperitive left over from low-grade existentialism (that one should be true to one's deepest self) collides with the postmodern claim that one's deepest self is a fluid, unstable thing (31)

you can't escape evil in postmodernity (as opposed to modernity), but you cannot find anyone to blame either. (32)

It is possible for humans to be taken over by evil, to believe a lie and then live by it, to forget that it is a lie and make it the foundation of one's being.

NT Wright quotes

I am reading Evil and the Justice of God by NT Wright. He is talking about Job right now and he says this and I wonder what all of your responses would be. It will help be familiar with the story of Job from the Hebrew Scriptures, since both quotes are discussing the theology of that book:

"We are invited to look at Job's torment, and his questions with the priviledged knowledge that this is not a contest between Job and God (who, knowing himself to be innocent believes God to have made a terrible blunder) and his would-be comforters (who, confident that God doesn't make mistakes assumes somehow Job must be guilty) think it is. It is also not--not straighforwardly--a contest between God and Satan, as a dualist might imagine. No, it is a contest between Satan and Job. Satan is trying to get Job in his power, to demonstrate that humans are not worth God's trouble, while Job for his part continues to insist both that God ought to be just and that he himself is in the right" (p.69)"

...and in response why Job starts over in life on earth instead of going to heaven after his trials..

"The question is about God's moral governance of this world not about the way in which we should leave this world behind and find consolation in a different one. That is the high road to Buddhism, not to biblical theology." (p. 70)

Quotes from Stardust Universe by Jakob Dylan

"We were born to stumble and to yearn in a stardust covered universe, where you will find troubles, but you will not be the first."

"You've got to slow your engines when God is in pursuit"

"...stardust universe. Where the end is certain but it will not be rehearsed."

A Deliverer

Please follow along with me as I look at our screen and read our Scripture text for this morning.
(Turn and read Matthew 2:13ff with fine art)

This morning I want to take you on a different kind of journey as we look at what God has to say to us this morning. I want to take you through my process of discovering what exactly this short story seems to be about. For some of you this may feel more like Bible study than your normal preaching fare, and that is ok.

This method also means that you are going to have to pay careful attention, because we are going on a journey to discover what God has to say to us together, and like a good detective story or mystery, each thing we will learn will help us build toward our ultimate discovery of just what God seems to be saying to us through this text.

Are you ready?? I hope so.

I originally felt led to do this sermon because of a Christmas song I was listening to. Bruce Cockburn was the person I heard it from, but I am sure several other people sing the song as well. The song that really captured my heart was “Mary had a Baby”. It is a Negro Spiritual about the birth story of Christ and the deliverance of slaves to freedom through the underground railroad. Toward the end of the song it talks about coming out of Egypt. Over the last month I have pondered, what has Christmas to do with deliverance? And what role does Jesus’ impromptu road trip to Egypt have to do with the overall message of the Good News of Jesus Christ.

So I started exploring Matthew 2:13-26.

One of the most interesting things that we notice as we start looking over the passage are these Old Testament quotations that Matthew 2. There are three of them in the passage that we have chosen.

Out of Egypt I called my Son—From Hosea 11
Rachel Weeping in Rama for her children who are no more—Jeremiah 31
The passage that says Jesus will be from Nazereth—Isaiah 11



As we dig deeper we notice that these quotes are very significant for a number of reasons. Throughout Matthew 1-4, Jesus is presented to us as Israel personified. Israel is referred to as the Son of God in several places in Scripture including the one quoted here from Hosea. In fact, as you dig into the geneology in Chapter 1, it is organized in triplets of fourteen, to personify the three stages of Israel’s history—the period of the patriarchs, the period of the kings, and the period of the exile.

The implication from Matthew is clear. The history of the people of God is like a funnel. And slowly all of his people who are faithful has been slowly whittled down to a remnant of one. And when I use the word remnant, I don’t mean to use this word like we do in sewing circles where it is the scrap left over. I mean to use the word like we would understand it in Luke Skywalker Star Wars or Frodo Baggins in the Lord of the Rings. Where there is only one who is worthy to stand for us all, one worthy to represent us all, one able to save us. And in the history of that universe that one that stands for us all is Jesus. In other words, what we see here is that Jesus, by fulfilling the prophecies, by going into exile, by being delivered from the sword of Herod and the pain of exile, and by doing so in faithfulness to the instructions of God, proves himself worthy to be our deliverer. Our messiah.

Its interesting isn’t it? That the cross shows up so quickly in the story of Jesus. We tend to think of the manger and the early years of Jesus as some peaceful, blissful experience. Yet, as we see here, Jesus is a marked man from early on. He begins his life as a refugee and as the focal point of a brutal massacre. Mark Lackey was gracious enough to do our little powerpoint scripture reading at the beginning of this message, and it was interesting. We kept looking at pictures of the violence that Jesus was born into, and it took a long time to find the right picture. Couldn’t have too much nudity. Couldn’t look too violent. Might offend people’s sensibilities.

Jesus as our deliverer has no such qualms. He is born a middle eastern peasant is a barn full of manure with animals in a ruckus over a screaming woman trying to find anyplace with any sort of shelter and privacy to give birth. Far away from home because of the government made them traverse over rocks and around robbers to go register themselves to give Rome more money in taxes and tribute.
From the cradle to the cross he is surrounded by thieves and murderers, and the masses longing and seeking for something to hold on to.

Our time is no different. We need a deliverer too.

And whether it is in Bethlehem or Colorado Springs, God has no qualms in looking at our messy, confusing lives and entering into them in an effort to deliver us.

We tend to think that we have to have ourselves and our churches all cleaned up before we can be “God’s people”. And we look at our lives, and sometimes at our church and wonder why it is full of so many sinners. We wonder why there are so many people with wrongheaded ideas and sinful lives.

I remember struggling to build a young adult ministry in a previous church. We had a number of launches and restart. Finally, one time we caught fire with a core group of about six people. Half of them were related to one another. One of them was a former member of my youth group. And I will be direct with you…there lives were not where they needed to be. They were recovering drug addicts, mothers who had their children out of wedlock, racists, they were belligerent drunks who got into fights on the weekends and who called me to help deal with drugged up friends at 2 in the morning. And sometimes they helped out at church to do their court ordered community service.

As I tried to get other people involved in joining this group I found we had another struggle. And it had nothing to do with the rough and tumble lives they lived the rest of the week. It had to do with the fact that our core group could not get through our meal and bible study without a smoke break in between.

As we went this went from a concern of mine to a concern by some of my young adults and their parents that were involved in the church. And I shared my plight with a mentor of mine. And as I finished sharing she said something very wise. She said, God calls us to be fishers of men, and yet so often we expect the fish to leap into the boat of the church cleaned up and ready to go. But, she said, if we follow Jesus’ command to be fishers of men we should expect it to be difficult, messy, smelly work full of people who have all sorts of problems and in needs of all kinds of deliverance.

I would add to what my mentor said. It is about time you as a church become more real and honest about how you are here at First Baptist. You are a people desperately in need of deliverance. And it about time we become the kind of church that enthusiastically welcomes other people, like me and hundreds like me, who need deliverance as much as you do.

I need a deliverer. So do you. Even though things look bleak, we are called to have the hope that Jesus is preparing to deliver us. That is the first thing we learn when we look at the flight of Jesus.

Who Said It? Jesus or someone else?

This is a quiz I am developing for Sunday school in a couple of days. Tell me which quotes you think are from Jesus, and which quotes you think are from someone else. Write them down. The answers appear in the comment section once you have taken the quiz. See how you do, and then tell me how you did.

1.The Truth shall set you free

2.The Soul of a man is immortal and imperishable

3.The unexamined life is not worth living

4.Love never claims, it ever gives

5.He who does not love God does not know God, for God is love

6.I have come that they may have life

7.What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose their soul

8.From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs

9.The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak

10.Over the soul God will not suffer any man to rule, only he himself will rule there

11.Both heaven and hell are within us

12.The kingdom of God is within you

Quotes rumbling through my head about creation

It is not possible to love an unseen God while mistreating God's visible creation .
(John Woolman, Journal as quoted in Sept 2006 Christianity Today, page 112)

All creation is a song of praise to God.
(Hildegaard of Bingen)

Every natural object is a conductor of divinity
(John Muir)

Quotes from Dead Christian Leaders

It is a serious waste to let a day go by without allowing God to change us.
Richard Rolle

If you put up with yourself, why not put up with everyone else?
Guigo I

The best teachers are trouble and affliction. these alone give us understanding.
John Foxe

I have seen a fraction of God's glory, and it is awesome
Bernard of Clairveaux

Our bodies have one fault, the more we cater to them the more they want.
Teresa of Avila

Fire tests iron; temptation tests an honest person. Sometimes we dont't know what we can do until temptation shows us who we are.
Thomas a Kempis

Sin is the only empirically provable Christian doctrine
Reinhold Neibuhr

Inconceivable!

Last weekend, while laid up in the house with a knee injury my friend Jen brought over some movies and we watched the movie "An Inconvienient Truth" featuring former Vice President Albert Gore Jr.

In spite of the surprising outakes from Futurama, it was a worthwhile movie to watch. It is especially valuable as a DVD because you can talk to each other and to Al (even though he is not listening) about what is being said. We both thought that Al's personal story was a rather lame insertion into the documentary and wish he would not have included it.


He makes the very clear argument that global warming is not in any way even debated in scientific circles, but rather it is assumed as a known fact. Statistically he shows how this bears out. For the most part I agree with him here, except that the scientific world can be elitist and often does not accept divergent opinions in its most elite magazines. What I found ironic is that after this they show him in some gas guzzling, high emisssions vehicle lecuring us about global warming. This seemed a little hypocritical to me.

The arguments about the melting of ice caps was also compelling as you watched ice melting into the ocean. Gore showed how glaciers kept time in years like trees, and how scientists can notice the significant difference in the health of the ice in Antartica after the Clean Air Act was passed.

I catalogued a few quotes here from the movie that I thought were good and well-researched.

Since the movie, I have been rethinking the relationship between the Christian faith and the environmental movement, and hope to share more in the next few days.

Some thoughts on discipleship--From THE GREAT OMISSION

I have been reading a little of this book today to help and keep me grounded in my very active and busy week. As I read through the first few chapters there were some fanstasic quotes. I would like to share a few with you:



"Disciples of Jesus are people who do not just profess certain views as their own but apply their gorwing understanding of life in the Kingdom of the Heavens to every aspect of their life here on earth. In contrast, the governing assumption among 'professing Christians' is that we can be 'Christians' forever and never become disciples." (xi)

"Most problems in contemporary churches can be explained by the fact that members have never decided to follow Christ." (5)

The disciple is one who, intent on becoming Christ-like and so dwelling in his 'faith and practice' systematically and progressively rearranges his affairs to that end.(7)

"Concerned to enter that radiant life we each must ask, 'Am I a disciple or only a Christian by current standards?'" (11)

"there is absolutely nothing in what Jesus himself or his early followers taught that suggests you can just decide to enjoy forgiveness at Jesus's expense and have nothing more to do with Him." (13)

"Can we seriously imagine that Jesus were Lord if he were not smart?" (19)

George W Bush quotes--just for fun

Our president does sound intelligence challenged at times. See last weeks interview with Brian Williams for a quick reference. But once in a while he comes out with some Yogi Berra like wit. I wanted to take a few moments to celebrate some of the more serious and more fun sayings of our current president. Please share your favorite.



Some folks look at me and see a certain swagger, which in Texas is called "walking."

When I take action, I'm not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It's going to be decisive.

Well, I think if you say you're going to do something and don't do it, that's trustworthiness. (OK I was mean with this one)

To those of you who received honours, awards and distinctions, I say well done. And to the C students, I say you, too, can be president of the United States.

Senator Kerry has been in Washington long enough to take both sides on just about every issue.

One of the common denominators I have found is that expectations rise above that which is expected.

It's going to be the year of the sharp elbow and the quick tongue.

I'm hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure.

I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace.

I believe the most solemn duty of the American president is to protect the American people. If America shows uncertainty and weakness in this decade, the world will drift toward tragedy. This will not happen on my watch.

If you're sick and tired of the politics of cynicism and polls and principles, come and join this campaign. (that one was kinda mean too)

Quotes from Leaving Church by Barbara Brown Taylor

When I first saw this book I picked it up in the bookstore and started reading away at it, and I could not put the book down. So I ordered it from Amazon and am now almost through with it. It is a brilliant book about a persons call from the world into ministry, from ministry into church, and from the church into the world as professor and a chaplain to the world. Strange as it may seem from the title, I have felt more of a tug into vocational ministry after reading this book, not less. Although, it does arouse my latent dreams of someday being a professor and a writer.


Does anyone ride in a car without one day wanting to steer it? (xiii)


The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself--
William Faulkner

I distrust people who know well what God wants them to do, because it always coincides with their own desires--Susan B Anthony

The effort to untangle human words from the divine seems not only futile to me but unecessary, since God works with what is (p. 26)

I went to seminary the way some people sail around the world. On no particular timetable I let the wind carry me. (p.31)

Strange travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God--Kurt Vonneget

When I wake up in the morning, I can't decide whether to enjoy the world or change the world. It makes it to plan the day--EB White

I do not know how male clergy begin their jobs, but I begin mine by cleaning (60)

You never enjoy the world aright until the sea floweth through your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars; and percieve yourself to be the heir of the whole world..."--Anglican Priest Thomas Traherne

They eye with which I look at God is the same eye with which God looks at me--Meister Ekhart

True bliss is never more than a hair away from sorrow (97)

People of the Book risk putting the book before people (Arun Ghandi)

God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by subtracting--Meister Eckhart

If you are serenely to bear the trial of being unpleasing to yourself, then for Jesus you will be a pleasant place of shelter--121--Terese of Lisieux

Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake--Wallace Stevens

The world for which you have been so carefully prepared is being taken away from you, by the grace of God--Walter Bruggemann

More quotes from fellow bloggers

Erin's quote from Dorothy Day

The Jesus of Our Day (on a Harley)

Chandra's poetry

Buck's comic strip

Footprint's in the Sand revisited

Baby blog of Gretchen

Becca's poem

Not as dumb as we want them to be

The Lord and His Prayer quotes

"Heaven and earth are to interlocking arenas of God's good world" (24)

"How can the Prince of Peace defeat evil if he has to abandon Peace in order to do so?" (27)

"Thy Kingdom Come: to pray this means seeing the world in binocular vision. See it with the love of the creator for his spectacularly beautiful creation; and see it with the deep grief of the creator for the battle-scarred state in which the world now finds itself. (31)

Jesus waited until his followers asked him for a prayer; and the reason they asked is becuase they saw what he was doing. Something tells me there is a lesson there. (35)

Scripture is full of stories of people who brought their deep natural longings into the presence of God, and found them answered by being taken up within his purposes. (43)

Instead of forgiveness, our generation has been taught the vague notion of "tolerance" (50)

Jesus was called to throw himself on the wheel of world history, so that, even though it crushed him, it might start to turn in the opposite direction (69)