The Whole Body Grows

For some reason, Kileen (a swimming coach) and I have been watching mostly the swim races during the Olympics. We could talk about the amazing feats of the individual athletes like Katie Ledecky and forget about the community of people behind the scenes that helped them get there. We could talk about 58 year old Zhiying Zeng who made her Olympic debut in table tennis, or ping pong. We could talk about the opening which many citizens of our nation were offended because they didn't know the history of the Olympics and Greek mythology. And then were offended again to find out that Christianity wasn't at the center of the world games that preceded Christianity by 8 centuries. Let us talk about the hundreds of athletes who are the best from their countries who compete at the highest level and whether they win or lose, they congratulate and console each other, showing how to be humble and how to be compassionate and loving their neighbor. The love and respect and camaraderie among the athletes is truly a joy to behold.

For far too long, most denominations of churches, including ours, have put a premium on numbers. How many numbers are in the worship service each Sunday, how many members or families does the church have, what is the budget? As a career minister, I often pay attention to those more than I should. What we should be focusing on more is how we are following in the footsteps of Christ, where is the Spirit leading us in this day, this week, or this year? The questions we should be focusing on more is who is our neighbor and how can we help, and how is God asking us to grow?

Paul writes in this letter using the word, "one", in verses four through six, seven times. He emphasizes that we are one, in God we are one, and there is no separate categories. Paul often gets characterized as misogynic as there are verses in his letters that denigrate women. However, he is talking about both men and women in saying that we are all part of one body in these verses. I would like to take us back to the beginning here in the two creation stories of Genesis. In the first poem of the seven day creation story, humans are created together, male and female, with no distinction. In the second creation story centering in the Garden of Eden, to find a helper, the human is put to sleep. The word that has been translated from Hebrew, miṣ·ṣal·‘ō·ṯāw,, for generations has been referred to as a rib. However, in all other instances where that word is used in the Bible, it has been meant half. So instead of man being put to sleep and, using a rib, woman was created; the human was put to sleep and man and woman were created, fully half of each other. Paul, here, is talking about both men and women that: 'some are called to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastor and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of minister, building up the body of Christ.'

In a country which has more people identifying themselves as non-religious than any faith community, it is important that we continue to grow in our love of neighbor and of God. It is necessary for us to be able to show and articulate why worshiping and following and loving a God who we claim as creator and sustainer is a good foundation upon which to build our lives. We do this not so people can go to heaven, but that the world may realize the kingdom of heaven that is present and growing. Paul writes to the churches in Asia Minor not to be swayed by every new doctrine and thought. We hold fast in covenant to a relationship with God, Jesus, and the Spirit. We hold fast to a covenant to a relationship with each other, with all humanity, and with all the world. Just as the Olympic athletes train and grow for their events, we, as Christians, train and grow for the events that we require us to do justice, to heal and be compassionate, and proclaim the good news of God's great love for the world.

Let us continue to grow as a church in our faith, our ministries, our evangelism, and in our following of Christ through prayer, worship, and service. Let us hold fast to the God of love. Amen.

Nothing Outside Contaminates

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...

Selling Out

Last Fall, I read a book called, "A History of Burning." It is a multi-generational story about a family that migrates from India to Uganda for hopes for a better future to help the British build a railroad, whose children through education secures a government job, but then Uganda throws off their colonial oppressors and gains independence and turns against the Indians who live there, and they have to migrate again and start all over in Toronto, Canada. It is a sad story of colonial power of the British Empire bringing in foreign cheap labor to build their infrastructure that leaves out the local population. And once Uganda gets independence, the corporations still control much of the economy and fosters division between the Ugandans and Indian to keep the country unstable. It is a triumphant story of human determination in the face of adversity, but only a few make it. One of the first paragraphs in a Wikipedia search about Africa told me that Africa is politically unstab...

You Will Be My Witnesses

The first time I served communion as a licensed minister in Fargo, ND, I picked up the tray of cups and proclaimed, "This is the cup of the new covenant!" And then I remembered we serve the bread first, panicked, and said, "Which comes after the bread!" The next time, months later, I served communion, I took the cover off the communion cups, and the altar table was stone, and I timed it perfectly, and purely accidentally, so the cover spun on the table, and you would hear it go, "whew, whew, whew" faster and faster. Sitting near the front was a couple that worked closely with me in the youth groups, each time when I began and messed up, they were bent over, hands covering their faces, taking great humor in my mistakes. In my first church in Walker, MN I messed up just about every baptism, including one time putting the head right on my lavaliere mike and the baby started crying into mike, and I almost dropped the baby when switching it around in my arms....

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