A Fresh Perspective

I love the story that is told about young Teddy Rooselvet. Some if not many of you have heard me tell this before. (By the way, the reason I will tell stories 2, 3, and 4 times is because good stories need to be remembered and retold in different contexts.) As a little boy he had this fear about going to church. When his mother inquired he told her that he was afraid of something called the “zeal.” He said he heard the minister read about it from the Bible.   He imagined “the zeal” was something like a wild animal or dragon hiding in wait in the hallways or under the pews at church.   Using a concordance his mother looked up the word zeal and when she read to him John 2:17 in the AV he told her that was what he heard. The text is about Jesus’ protest in the Temple where he turned over the tables of the money changers and drove out the animals. The text reads, “And his disciples remembered that it was written, ‘The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.” He was afraid the z...

The story begins with the phrase: “The Lord appeared to Abraham.” But what is not clear is how the Lord appeared. The text says that Abraham saw three men standing near him. Three strangers wandering over to his tent in the heat of the day. Three travelers. But then when Abraham speaks the text says “My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant.” Then he proceeds to offer the strangers rest and refreshment. He welcomes them and extends hospitality urging them to stay for a while and be refreshed, which hospitality they accepted. There is a lot of ambiguity here. Three men show up in front of his tent and in this encounter Abraham experiences God. Maybe so much is left out because when any of us experience God it is always a matter of faith. Such encounters are always ambiguous. Such encounters only make sense to the one who has the experience and can always be interpreted in other ways. Stories like this prepare us for the Christian teaching of incarnation where ...

Not all churches who follow the lectionary observe Trinity Sunday. And I have to admit I have avoided this too. Today, however, I have decided to focus my sermon on it. The word Trinity does not appear in the New Testament and there is no attempt by any biblical writer to try to define or describe the Trinitarian language that they utilize as in the passages we read today. Which makes sense, because how can you explain what is unexplainable. This is why so many churches avoid Trinity Sunday. Let me offer a caveat as we begin. God – the Divine, Ultimate Reality – is beyond language and beyond our limited, finite capacity to understand. So whenever we attempt to define God, we automatically limit God. Trinitarian language is a way of talking about the God – the Divine Reality – that we have experienced through Jesus and the Spirit. When we start to literalize these images, as many Christians tend to do unfortunately, is when we start edging up to idolatry. Here’s the problem: W...

Writer Robert Roberts tells about a fourth grade class that played “balloon stomp.” In “balloon stomp” a balloon is tied to every child’s leg, and the object of the game is to pop everyone else’s balloon while protecting your own. The last person with an intact balloon wins. It’s a game rooted in the philosophy of “survival of the fittest.” In this particular fourth grade class balloons were relentlessly targeted and destroyed. A few of the less aggressive children hung shyly on the sidelines and, of course, their balloons were among the first to go. The game was over in a matter of seconds. The winner, the one kid whose balloon was still intact was the most disliked kid in the room.  But then, says Roberts, a second class was brought into the room to play the game, only this time it was a class of mentally challenged children. They too were each given a balloon. They were given the same instructions as the other group, and the same signal to begin the game. This time,...