John H. Pavelko

from the pastor


Pastor John H. Pavelko

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Date: May 11, 2008

Pentecost Sunday

from the pastor's pen

Dear Friends,

Controversy is never a good thing for a political campaign. It generates uncertainty and scares off voters. The American voter wants to hear soothing words from their politicians. They want to be told that they are doing a good job waving that flag and eating apple pie. Controversy rocks the boat. It raises red flags. The politician who generates controversy better have an enemy to blame for its cause. President Bush masterfully used Saddam Hussein. What an easy target. Bush presented the Iraqi leader as a threatening power and was reelected. The American public did not care if Bush misrepresented and distorted the facts. They were not even upset over his outright lies. They wanted to believe that Saddam could not be trusted and only George Bush and not that so-called decorated Vietnam veteran could save them.

Barack Obama's presidential campaign is awash in controversy and it will not help him get reelected. Unlike W's controversy, Obama did choose the topic for his campaign. He also does not have a convenient enemy to blame. Obama's controversy was generated by his former pastor the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright who called on God to damn America. Those are highly inflammatory words especially from a preacher. Pastors are suppose to ask for God's blessings. Pastors are suppose to offer words of hope. Pastors are suppose to comfort the people not incite animosity and a backlash of negativity.

Pastor Jeremiah Wright follows in his namesake, the prophet Jeremiah. The OT prophet brought a very controversial message to the nation of Israel. He told them that God was using the Babylonians to bring judgment against them. The people did not believe Jeremiah and paid the consequences. The subsequent conquest and exile was ugly.

Wright is closer to the truth about America than white Americans wants to admit. Since the end of World War II, the US has initiated intentional acts of violence to destabilize other political regimes in the name of national security. Those covert military operations were nothing short of terrorism. However, they were against atheistic commies so we justified them because God was on our side. Pastor Wright like the prophet Jeremiah is raising the possibility that America is no longer on God's side. Granted, he has done so with the most inflammatory rhetoric possible. We may find that rhetoric offensive but we should consider its message.

We may not agree with everything he says but we should still consider his message even with his offensive style. The US has a history of supporting governments that terroize its enemies. Our military has violated the Geneva convention with the support of the President in its treatment of enemy prisoners of war. We continue to allow corporations to maximize profits at the expense of the poor. Black men and women are still far more likely to be victims of hate crimes than whites. We may not like the message but in a neutral court of law, we would be found guilty as charged. The book of Jeremiah and the Old Testament prophets has more material that denounces the political practices and policies of this country.

Before the capital city was destroyed, Jeremiah spent some time in prison for preaching the truth. Pastor Jeremiah Wright will not spend time in prison but he has been branded as dangerous, and un-American. He has caused many voters to mistrust Barack Obama. That is too bad because his message, as uncomfortable as it is needs to be heard.

Under the Shadow of the Almighty


Pastor John

from last week

God Prays...for you

from the scriptures

OT/Acts

Acts 2:1-21 or Numbers 11:24-30

Psalm

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b

Epistle  

1 Corinthians 12:3b-13 or Acts 2:1-21

Gospel

John 20:19-23 or John 7:37-39

Preparation

  1. Read the Psalm aloud.

  2. Read the Scriptures from John

  3. Take a moment to meditate on the Scripture.

Questions for Reflection

  1. Go to the kitchen and fill a glass of water. Then bring it back to the computer.

  2. When was the most peace time in your life? Describe the situations and events, your age, responsibilities, job/school.

Studying the Text

John 7:39-43

  1. What day was it?

  2. What did Jesus do? Where do you think he did this?

  3. What happens to the person who believes in Jesus?

  4. What was he referring to?

  5. Why was the Spirit not given to the people?

John 20:19-23

  1. What day of the week was it?

  2. Where were the disciples?

  3. Why was the door locked?

  4. What happened?

  5. What did Jesus say to them?

  6. What did he show them?

  7. How did the disciples act?

  8. What did he say to them?

  9. What do he tell them that he was doing to them?


Living the Text

  1. List the times in your life when you feel that your "thirst" is quenched. What activities are you doing? What else is going on in your life?

  2. What spiritual exercises quench your thirst the most? How often do you practice them? Why don't you practice them more often?

  3. If you did not get a glass of water when I told you to go and get one. Now take a drink of that water

  4. What is Jesus sending you to do? Are you doing it?

  5. If you were not willing to get a drink of water how can you say you are willing to go where Jesus sends you?

Closing

  1. Read the Scripture lesson again and take a moment to meditate on the passage.

  2. What is God saying to you?

  3. Thank God for his presence and ask him to apply what you have learned to your life. 







 

from the news

Sip your way to salvation with Spiritual Water?

The instructions are simple: Read the Prayer ... / Drink the Water ... / Believe in God! / Believe in Yourself! 

Spiritual Water, the faith-inspired venture of two Sunrise, Fla., businessmen, offers its drinkers clearer focus, positive thinking and connection to a higher power. . . . read more (Please tell me this is joke and not for real, pleaseeeeee)


Finders of the Lost Ark

Archaeology in search of a headline, or even archaeology that's too eager to "prove the Bible," is prone to sensationalism and error. It's too much like the treasure hunting that characterized 19th-century explorers who lacked the tools of modern science and relied on observation and supposition. . . . read more

from the net

Fire in the Dark

Perhaps I want it to be my turn to be an old man dreaming dreams. I want this, of course, because I really am getting older. The other options are out. I also want the dreams promised because it is a dark time for the United States of America. How long our "year" will be I do not know, but I believe that unless there is a perceptible, exponential growth in prophesy, dreams and visions, we will die. I dream of a revolutionary Pentecost in America.. . . read more


Preachers All!

Someone has said the church is somewhat like a football huddle, the huddle that players go into at a football game.
“You know that something important is being said there, but you can’t understand a word of it, and all you can see is their rear-ends.” . . . read more


The Way We Weren’t

Are the 1950s in any way a useful model for American Christians of the twenty-first century? Would we like to go back? Would it be better, for instance, if the movie moguls returned to producing religious epics like The Ten Commandments, with their earnest depictions of the power of God? Would the renewal of prayers before football games in any way strengthen the fabric of public life? . . . read more

from history

May 5, 1925: Dayton, Tennessee, teacher John Scopes is arrested for teaching evolution in his classroom. (He volunteered to admit violating a recent statute prohibiting such teaching so that the law could be tested in court.) The resulting trial—the first "trial of the century"—led to public mockery of fundamentalist Christians, driving them into a more self-contained subculture (see issue 55: The Monkey Trial and the Rise of Fundamentalism).

May 8, 1373: English mystic Julian of Norwich receives 15 revelations (she received another the following day) in which she saw, among other things, the Trinity and the sufferings of Christ. She recorded her visions and her meditations on them 20 years later in her book The Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love (see issue 30: Woman in the Medieval Church).

May 8, 1559: The Act of Uniformity receives Queen Elizabeth I's royal assent, reinstating the forms of worship Henry VIII had ordered and mandating the use of the Book of Common Prayer (1552).

May 8, 1828: Henri Dunant, founder of the Red Cross and the Young Men's Christian Association, is born in Geneva. He won the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901.

May 8, 1895: Roman Catholic archbishop and broadcaster Fulton J. Sheen is born in El Paso, Illinois. With his ABC shows "Life is Worth Living" and the "Bishop Sheen Program," he became the most prominent American Catholic of broadcasting's golden era.

May 8, 1915: Henry McNeal Turner, the first black army chaplain in the United States, dies in Windsor, Ontario, embittered toward America for its racism. Many consider him to be the precursor of black theology for his statement, "God is a Negro.

May 9, 1983: Pope John Paul II reverses the Catholic Church's 1633 condemnation of Galileo Galilei's Copernican heliocentric theory of the universe.

May 10, 1310: In Paris, 54 Knights Templar are burned alive. The catholic church created the Templars to protect Holy Land pilgrims from bandits, but the knights' quick rise in power and wealth made them unpopular. Philip the Fair of France against them trumped up charges of blasphemy and homosexuality to convince Pope Clement to disband the order and persecute its members (see issue 40: The Crusades).

May 10, 1886: Karl Barth, the most important theologian of the twentieth century and opponent of theological liberalism and political fascism (especially under Hitler), is born in Basel, Switzerland. When asked in 1962 (on his one visit to America) how he would summarize the essence of the millions of words he had published, he replied, "Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Bible tells me so" (see issue 65: The Ten Most Influential Christians of the Twentieth Century).


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