Vanasõna

 Does anyone know what the early Christians were known as before they split from their Jewish cousins? They were known as followers of the way, those who followed Jesus. I am not claiming that all religions are the same or that there is a one-to-one correlation between them, although when I was a spiritual counselor in South Dakota, when I did fifth steps for our First Nation brother and sisters, they would often talk about the red road, which meant they were trying to get their life back on track and renew their relationships with all their living relatives, two-legged and four-legged alike. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told us that being a disciple is a hard thing to accomplish and the road, "straight is the path and narrow the way."  Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in his book, "The Cost of Discipleship" about this young man who went away grieving because although he wanted to follow Jesus, he couldn't because Jesus asked him first to give away all of his poss

 In the book, Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer, wanted to go into botany to answer the question, "Why do asters and golden rod look so beautiful together?" She was quickly set straight by her professors and advisors that botanists do not worry about beauty, that is not science. With science, the goal is to isolate the thing being studied and take it apart to see how it works and what are its basic components. This is part of the wisdom from below. Science has given us a great many things and science has given us the illusion of control and of separation.  The wisdom from below argues who is the greatest as shown in the gospel story this morning. We have the Fortune 500 companies which in a decade or two, it will be the Fortune 10, controlling all aspects of business. In the 1990's, there were 40 major banks, now there are 4 and they are too big to fail. We have our food system controlled by 4 major companies, but thank God Cargill is here in Minnesota so we can re

 I apologize that I have to start my sermon this way, but it can't go unrebuked. During the Presidential Debate, it was said by a candidate that in Springfield, OH, Haitian refugees are eating peoples' dogs, cats, and pets. This is a perfect example of how a tongue, how words can start a forest fire. There have been bomb threats to schools in that town and other incidents of threats made against the Haitian community, and, as this wild and crazy lie is still being told, innocent people are going to suffer all the more. Whether or not the candidate actually believes this, it is race-baiting and un-Christian in every single way to promote such vitriol and fear-mongering.  The author of this letter, probably James, shows wisdom in these short verses. It focuses on the what we say and how we say it, can cause great harm. As we have talked about the words and ideas behind the Doctrine of Discovery and Francis Bacon's postulating that the world is simply material and nothing more

 In Rachel Maddow's book "Blowout", she talks about the oil industry and how, around the world, corporations give millions of dollars to dictators so that the flow of oil will not be stopped and there is very little regulation to keep the environment and the people healthy. She lifts up the country of Equatorial Guinea whose government official who is head of the forestry bought Michael Jackson's glove at an auction for over one million dollars while their citizens are being suppressed from free elections and living wages. We condemn that there are slaves mining lithium in Congo to make batteries for our electric cars, which is an evil system. Either way, the poor of the world suffer. In Louisiana, corporations are trying to use the overturning of the Chevron Act by the Supreme Court this summer to say the Environmental Protection Agency has no right to regulate their industries in Cancer Alley which would only further damage the human bodies and the environment surro

 First we start with the human traditions, not all of humanity, but Western civilization under the Doctrine of Discovery that basically states that any European explorer (especially from countries that were still Roman Catholic) coming upon any land and people that weren't Christian were able to claim the land and people in the name of their king and country. This created human traditions of enslavement and taking what isn't theirs which is still happening today in Sudan with diamonds, the Congo with lithium, and Palestine with natural gas. We continue to the 1980's were the wealthy were given massive tax cuts and the unions were routinely broken up and laws were put in place to make it very hard to create one in the 'Right to Work' states. Our human traditions have created once again a wealthy class that if they lost 90% of their wealth, they would still be the most wealthy people in the world.  It probably started with philosopher Francis Bacon who helped begin th

 When I was in Ipswich, SD, there was an American Baptist pastor whom I met regularly with who preached through whole books of the Bible rather than just following the Revised Common Lectionary. He was preaching on Ephesians over months and we talked about this passage. I wondered what the modern day equivalent of putting on the whole armor of God would be today. He was a Marine before becoming a pastor so he contacted the American Legion and borrowed some of their stuff. The whole package was a mannequin dressed in camouflage, sitting behind a sandbag wall with an M-60 pointed at the congregation as the modern day sword of truth. A mutual friend did pulpit supply there and when he saw this, he threw out his prepared sermon and preached against violence and the glorification of weapons.  Paul preached that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, the Christ, in Ephesus, modern day (Turkey), where they were a very (diverse) group of people. They came from many different backgrounds and spoke