Snow Hill News Blog

Psalms for the Week

Consider reading, reflecting and commenting on Psalm 23 and Psalm 89.

The Plumbline and the Platter

If you are reading the texts for this coming Sunday, consider spending a extra time with Amos 7:7-15 and Mark 6:14-29. Look for the relationship.

Psalm for the Week

Sometimes we learn from reading. More often we learn from watching then doing. Watch children learn to tie shoes. They carefully watch the movements of the parents' hands. Over and again they watch. Then once they capture the actions they reproduce them.

Surely you can think of what you have learned by watching the hands of others.

This week, read Psalm 123. Pay particular attention to these words,

Behold, as the eyes of the servants look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the LORD our God,
til he has mercy upon us.

Long Walks - Psalm 130

Walking is good for the heart. Keeping the heart rate up is the key to a good walk. Sometimes we add weights. Other times we walk uphill or downhill to push our bodies harder. At least once annually Jewish families would make the trek to Jerusalem. A series of songs were written for the long journey. Eugene Peterson titled his little book on these songs, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. One of the texts for this week is Psalm 130 - one of these "songs of ascent." Take the time to read Psalm 130 each day the rest of this week. Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Thoughts for Compassion Sunday

Reading this morning I came across a quote by Walter Brueggemann, an Old Testament Professor and author of note. From his book, The Prophetic Imagination,

Jesus in his solidarity with the marginal ones is moved to compassion. Compassion constitutes a radical form of criticism, for it announces that the hurt is to be taken seriously, that the hurt is not to be accepted as normal and natural but is an abnormal and unacceptable condition for humanness. In the arrangement of "lawfulness" in Jesus' time, as in the ancient empire of Pharaoh, the one unpermitted quality of relation was compassion. Empires are never built or maintained on the basis of compassion. The norms of law (social control) are never accommodated to persons, but persons are accommodated to norms. Otherwise the norms will collapse and with them the whole power arrangement. Thus the compassion of Jesus is to be understood not simply as a personal emotional reaction but as a public criticism in which he dares to act upon his concern against the entire numbness o his social context.

Discuss

Shaping Us Toward Sunday

I recently added a podcast with some thoughts about the Scriptures for the upcoming Sunday worship. You can listen here.

Thinking about Us - Shaping Us Toward Sunday

A few things come to mind when reading the first eight verses of Romans 12. Currently our Deacons are reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s, Life Together. A few of our men and me read Life Together a few years ago. I was struck by Bonhoeffer writing about community. He offers something of a dialectic wherein he  talks of the need for community and at the same time the need for solitude. This tension expresses the way in which certain needs are met as one commits to the way of Jesus.

My favorite section in the early going of Life Together is Bonhoeffer's reference to a person joining a given community. He describes the pre-conceived expectations for the community as a “wish dream.” Since the person entering the community has no contextual understanding of its history, purpose and ethos, it is difficult to account for the discontent when the “wish dream” seems unfulfilled.

Bonhoeffer will note the necessity of the shattering of the wish dream. In order for the dynamic of the community to posses any real transformative effect, the wish dream must be shattered. Only then may a person experience the shaping of the person he or she will become resultant in “life together.”

I could not help but think of this little book as I read through the text repeatedly this week. If we concede that at least one of Paul’s projects in Romans is to demonstrate how two people, ethnic groups, become one in Christ, then there is little doubt we need to underscore the role of “self thinking” in community. So, when Paul writes, “a person should not think more highly of himself than he ought to think,” we may immediately grasp the change in thinking described in verse 2 having at least in part its context in human relationships.

The question, "How should we live," cannot be answered in isolation.

Clean Hands and Crumbs - Shaping Us Toward Sunday

   Early on in my experiences on the Internet I wrote a piece and made reference to a friend. Now I thought I wrote clearly, if not cleverly. My words did not impugn my friend or question him … at least that is what I thought.
    I received an email from Steve who wondered just what I meant by the article. I quickly replied I meant nothing ill toward him. My explanation helped.
    The incident drove home to me the reality that technology may be good, but nothing replaces real-time conversation - even if by phone. Something is missed in type - voice inflection, intensity and mood. Each reader may interpret what is written according to their own frame of reference. And, this certainly creates the potential for relational fracture.
    Reading this week over at Theoblog I could not help but agree with Johnson, who when reading the Gospel text from Matthew, found it hard to do so aloud. Jesus responds to a Canaanite woman with such a terse reply that Johnson suggested were this the only story he had of Jesus he would not think much of him.
   

Jump Out of the Boat - Shaping Us Toward Sunday

Who in their right mind would jump out of a boat? Sure were we needing to cool off from a hot day of fishing, we just might jump in for a swim. Yes, in order to prepare to ski or tube we would surely jump in. But, in the wee hours of the morning with not so much as a flashlight would you really? Add in the event that you would consider walking on water and not swimming, how would that work for you?

We have a set of beliefs that make the thought of walking on water outside the pale. Water, after all, is not a solid. Stepping out onto it would mean "sinking." We may not drown but we certainly could not stand. Regardless of your size, human buoyancy only means we could float not walk. These right beliefs function to inform our actions. So, given the reality we cannot walk on water, what would possess Peter to jump out of the boat and attempt to walk.

Could it be Peter was more interested in believing in the right way. He saw Jesus and trust meant that despite his right beliefs it was right to follow him out on the water. Peter believed in the right way. His actions demonstrated a relational trust that transcended his understanding of physics.

Yes, Peter eventually did what the rest of us do. He looked around and believed what he saw and it overtook his believing in the right way. In no way does this illustration mean right beliefs are not important. But, it does mean that believing in the right way places primacy on the relationship with Jesus as the pattern for life rather than my conceptual framework of the way the world is. Jesus challenged Peter's understanding of the way the world is. And, for a few moments Peter saw it Jesus' way.

For the next number of years, I would suspect Peter would surely be looking to re-assert believing in the right way as his norm. His relationship with Jesus continued to work to undermine Peter's "right beliefs" and bring them into conformity with believing in the right way - the Jesus way.

"You do it." - Shaping Us Toward Sunday

(Shaping Us Toward Sunday, is designed to be a weekly feature here on the Snow Hill website. The Spirit of God shapes us in a variety of ways not the least of which is through the Scriptures as the people of God gather. Short notes on one or more of the readings for the coming Sunday will offer an occasion to meditate on how God may be shaping us together. It is hoped this particular piece will prompt us to spend more time preparing for they ways God speaks to us as a gathered faith community.)

I am hopeful I find the rhythm to post a regular "Shaping Us Toward Sunday" weekly. Here is a thought in anticipation of this coming week and the texts for Sunday.

Personal productivity represents one of the banes of many a managers' existence. Interruptions, task-overload, and overwhelmed senses often get in the way. Many have found David Allen's GTD (Getting Things Done) "art" quite helpful in breaking through the barriers to slashing through those long "to do" lists.

Key is the understanding "you must get something done." Now that would seem obvious but our high stress lives often keep us so overloaded our first hurdle is, "Where do I begin?" Once we get off to a good start the feeling of actually looking at a completed lists allows us to enjoy greater creativity and less stress. We still must answer the call to "do it." Nike's mantra, "Just Do It" really does convey the same thing.

When it comes to a life lived after the order of Jesus, or the Jesus way, we cannot outsource "getting things done." We cannot expect others to do it for us. There really is the need to get up and get after it - even if we cannot do it by ourselves.

The Gospel text for Sunday contains a line from Jesus that borders on the "You do it." Rather than give into the limited imagination of the disciples as they address reality, Jesus tells them not to send them away but feed them - "You do it."

One of the consequences of living in a consumer culture is that even when it comes to getting things done in the Kingdom of God we often have the idea it is easier to hire someone else to get it done. Getting our own hands engaged and dirty does not fit our equation. Yet, rather than hire someone to do what we are all in it together to do, Jesus tells the disciples, "You do it."

We certainly understand our own limitations. And, that may well be part of the lesson. But one thing is sure, trusting God and moving out to get it done is more often met with reaching the goal than sitting on the sidelines telling someone else to do it. Stories abound in churches where it is complained something is not getting done. The proper response is to get up and do it. For, as my mentor often said, those who complain about it seldom have done anything to help the matter.

Jesus calls us to take up our cross and follow him - to do it. Here in the text he illustrates how this works when the task seems to great. Get out there with what you have and see if God won't with you, "get it done." And yes, we may say "through you." But since we like to talk about continuing the mission of God, joining Him in his work, it is not bad to say something like, "God will get it done with you." Too often we have simply let people out by saying, "God will get it done with or without you." Here he tells the disciples, "You do it."

So ...