from the pastor's pen
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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
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from last week
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from the scriptures
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Preparation
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Read the
Psalm aloud.
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Read the Scriptures
from John
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Take
a moment
to meditate on the Scripture.
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Questions for Reflection
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Go to the kitchen and fill a glass of water. Then bring it back to the computer.
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When was the most peace time in your life? Describe the situations and events, your age, responsibilities, job/school.
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Studying the Text
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John 7:39-43
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What did Jesus do? Where do you think he did this?
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What happens to the person who believes in Jesus?
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What was he referring to?
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Why was the Spirit not given to the people?
John 20:19-23
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What day of the week was it?
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Where were the disciples?
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Why was the door locked?
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What happened?
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What did Jesus say to them?
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What did he show them?
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How did the disciples act?
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What did he say to them?
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What do he tell them that he was doing to them?
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Living the Text
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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?
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What spiritual exercises quench your thirst the most? How often do you practice them? Why don't you practice them more often?
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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
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What is Jesus sending you to do? Are you doing it?
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If you were not willing to get a drink of water how can you say you are willing to go where Jesus sends you?
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Closing
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Read
the
Scripture lesson again
and
take a moment to meditate on the passage.
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What
is God
saying to you?
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Thank
God
for
his presence
and ask him
to
apply what you have learned to your life.
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from the news
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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
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from the net
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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
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from history
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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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from the store
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