Read Matthew's story of Jesus calling his Disciples. (Mt 4:18-19. Jesus says, "Come, follow me and I will send you out to fish for people."
ing Jesus. I am following comfort, glory, vanity, power, money, desire, my vision of good instead of following Jesus. There is a singular focus, "Follow me." That means I must move from where I am, change my path, and keep Jesus in my sight. I do that through prayer, worship, and study. Prayer being the most essential.Daily Devotion
“For three sins of Ammon,
even for four, I will not turn back my wrath”
One of the great things about the Old Testament prophets is that they generate the image of God who is universal. The pagan gods were very local, but the God of Israel had a vision of the whole world. The pagan gods battled one another, so the Sumerian gods battled the Philistine gods. How do we know who won? The country who won, so the proof was that our country wins, so our gods are stronger.
Israel has a God who is concerned about Israel, but that favor is not exclusive. In this passage, God lays out judgment against Damascus, Tyre, Gaza, Edom, etc. He uses the same refrain, “For the three sins of ____ even for four, I will not turn my back” Then, Amos lays the charges and allegations against each country; the brutality of war, enslaving other peoples, etc. War may be justified, but slaughter is not justified. Then there is a judgment of Judah, but the longest judgment is against Israel. Israel has denied justice, abused the poor, they worship at pagan altars, and God will bring judgment against them Amos says.
God demands justice for the whole world not just one locale. The notion of having a battle between Allah and God betrays the notion of Amos. It is not a battle between faiths, because God is universal. There is not a cosmic struggle in Amos, because Amos knows that the pagan gods are not real. They are just stones or pieces of wood, they are not living. The God of Israel is a living God, and to be reminded of that Israel does not have images of God. Win may take this for granted that God is universal, but in the world of the Old Testament such a witness expressed a wild and radical vision of God.
I encourage you pray for a place in the world where God’s justice and mercy needs to be realized? Darfur, Rwanda, the US-Mexican border with drug wars, the people who are enslaved right now.
Where are places in the United States God’s justice and mercy needs to be shared? New Orleans, our Valley, people who are unemployed and underemployed.
Will you pray for those people and places today?
Daily Reflection
Amos 1:1 The words of Amos, one of the shepherds of Tekoa—what he saw concerning Israel two years before the earthquake, when Uzziah was king of Judah and Jeroboam son of Jehoash was king of Israel.
Background:
Amos was a shepherd from Tekoa. Tekoa is south of Bethlehem and Jerusalem. As a Shepherd, he was not a priest but a layperson. Isaiah who is contemporary to Amos was a priest. Amos’ ministry was not a long ministry, but what he said was so significant that people recorded it. Amos did the work and then returned to Tekoa probably to shepherd.
Amos seems to be preaching to Israel which is the northern kingdom which has Bethel as its holy place. Amos was from Tekoa in Judah, the southern kingdom. I wonder what it must have been like to be Amos to preach as an outsider? He said things significant enough that people listened and he spoke so forcefully that the priests of Israel ask him to go away.
He identifies his time of ministry as two years before the earthquake. That is similar to us in places where there have been natural disasters, we mark time by before and after the crisis. Before 9/11 and after 9/11. When I use that term, you know life before 9/11 and after. In New Orleans there is pre Katrina and post Katrina. San Francisco and Northridge have quakes that jog memory. I wonder how this earthquake influenced this message? Was that the reason somebody collected Amos’ words?
Amos was jogged out of his life as a shepherd to speak to people?
Has God called you out of your normal routine to do a task?
I am trying to think of those moments, but perhaps I don’t have one. It would demand putting down the schedule to allow God room to work. It would mean that I would have to be open to that? Are you?
I think being a parent might be one of those, but unlike Amos…I had to take the adventure home. So, that is not exactly like Amos. I am thinking…what about you?
Daily Reflection
Joel 3:10 Beat your plowshares into swords
and your pruning hooks into spears.
Let the weakling say,
"I am strong!"
The Bible can be unsettling and Joel 3:10 creates a bit of disequilibrium. I know that we are to beat our swords in plowshares that is written in Isaiah 2:4. However, Joel goes the opposite way. Did you catch that? Read it again. I never realized that until today.
This is not a prophetic call for peace, but a call to arms.
It makes my stomach turn, my image is of machetes being gathered in Rwanda. A thing of harvest being used to shed blood.
Caedmon’s Call has this song, “The Lord is a warrior. The Lord is mighty in battle. The Lord is a warrior. The Lord of hosts is he.” Hosts is an old way of saying army. The 'heavenly hos't is a heavenly army. When Amy and I are driving, she automatically by passes the song. I flip it back, so it is a CD disagreement. I like to sing along to the song. Amy stumbles upon the image while I just listen to the tune.
The Caedmon’s song brought us to a conversation. There are images of war in the Bible and we have to come to terms with that. "Plowshares are beaten into swords," I am not overly excited with that image. What do you do when you encounter something in the Bible that upsets your apple cart? Do you discount it? Do you wrestle with it?
My friends who are of peacemakers, Joel turns Isaiah’s image of peace on its head. That great image, “let the weakling say I am strong” is not an interior mending of what is broken, but a battle cry. The Prophet calls Israel to arms. Won’t sing that hymn on the Sunday of peace during Advent!!!!
What do you do with that image being turned upside down?
Are you willing to go down to the Jabbok River and wrestle with God or angels? (Genesis32:22-32)
The maturing of faith is when we encounter something that challenges our assumptions and we change. I tell folks, argue with God but allow God always to win. It is in the striving and losing where we are blessed. Today, I know that swords can become plowshares and plowshares can become swords. Now, I need to go to Exeter, CA to meet the guys at “the foundry” and ask what it takes to beat a plowshare into a sword and sword into a plowshare. I do not embrace this revelation, but I accept it.
Daily Reflection
Joel 2:28 “I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,…
30 I will show wonders in the heavens
and on the earth,
blood and fire and billows of smoke
This is the text that Peter uses on Pentecost. That is 50 days after Easter (pente=5 in Greek) Joel calls the people to repent and this is God’s response.
On the side of Rocky Hill at 5:15 AM last Saturday a meteor, a shooting start illuminated the night. It looked so close that we could touch it that it would have landed at the foot of Yokohl Valley on the other side of the hill. The group I was running with all, “Oohed” and “Ahhed.” When we regrouped up on the top of the hill, we talked about the experience of the meteor with childlike astonishment and wonder.
Monday, I learned that a group 30 miles away saw the same thing and they felt that they ‘oohed” and “ahhed” the same experience. I told folks, I guess that meteor if it would have landed on the earth would have landed in Utah. A friend then said, “What was God trying to say with it.” I said, “It was 5:15 AM, probably just good morning. Only off balance people are up at that time.”
When we see things in the sky, eclipses, meteors, comets…it catches our attention. It reminds me that the universe is larger than me, a change in my myopic perspective. The Hebrews without the knowledge of planets, leftover comet debris, and the wider expanse of heavens saw these as signs of God. They were abnormal.
In Joel, it is not the heavens that represent the harbinger of the Day of the Lord, it is the people. “I will pour out my Spirit on all my people.” In the midst of outpouring of the Spirit and the day of the Lord is the notion that God does this for people. Redemption begins with people, you and me.
As we partner with God, it begins with people. We may look to the heavens hoping for a sign. People in LA, I am sure are seeing God’s coming in the smoke. As people waited. some saw it in Katrina. It was the wrong view, the view is here and now. Where is God at work in the person in front of us? Then we know where God is at and that is why I believe this is the ‘Day of the Lord.’
Questions:
What is God doing in your life?
What is God doing in the lives around you?
Will you partner with God in what He is doing?
Are you afraid to do so? Are you unaware? Or, hopeful?
Daily Reflection
Disciples of Christ-Visalia
August 31, 2009
Joel 1: 11 Despair, you farmers,
wail, you vine growers;
grieve for the wheat and the barley,
because the harvest of the field is destroyed.
12 The vine is dried up
and the fig tree is withered;
the pomegranate, the palm and the apple tree—
all the trees of the field—are dried up.
Surely the people's joy
is withered away.
Background:
Joel tells the story of a locust plague. Some folks think that the locust plague is an allegory, a symbol of a great army. I do not think so. I think initially that the story was about locusts and as time went people who edited Joel’s writings starting seeing the menacing armies of the north like locusts. As they edited the texts, the texts had this view point. We can differ on this interpretation and that is alright, but living in the Valley the notion of hardship for agriculture makes sense. Living in a large city might give us a different perspective.
Reflection:
I have lived in the Valley for two years now and one of the most shocking scenes for me is the uprooting of an orchard. From my car it catches me by surprise but on those morning when I run down a road through an orchard the lack of trees shocks my senses. The greenness of the trees is gone and all that remains is the dirt. My understanding is that the orchard is intentionally uprooted for many good reasons. The trees matured and are no longer producing in quality or quantity. The trees may have become diseased. They maybe uprooted to put in another crop. The shock to the system is all that remains. Across the Valley on the west side there are whole fields and orchards barren due to the lack of water, towns with 40% unemployment and a drought of Biblical proportions, bees dying, bugs destroying the citrus, and on and on.. The loss of an orchard opens the landscape and the sandy light brown dirt shows no life or is filled with choking weeds. What once bore life now lies fallow.
There is this line out of Joel and I thought about the crops of the Valley. Apples, palms, vines, pomegranates, they are all within a view miles of the house. (Maybe not the palms, but there are palm trees in the neighborhood.)
There is also this impending threat about farming in California. There is a drought. Milk Prices plummet and herds are sold off to make hamburger. There is a threat of a foreigner, an outside force that cannot be controlled. The joy of farming, a way of life, becomes chore not joy. Of course, when there is prosperity things are easy to enjoy, and when the cycle goes down it is difficult. People leave the farm were foolish or unlucky. In the midst of such difficulty, life becomes apocalyptic. So, a drought, locusts, or an army to the north can shake the confidence of folks who live by the land. But, one can live in a city and feel the same thing. It can be Apples and PC’s, homes, oil fields drying up, or a sea once teeming with shrimp now has boat riding high in the water, because they do not bear a load. For those who are facing their own plague of locusts, a drought in their own life, a time when the sweetness of joy has become ashes Joel has a word.
Questions:
Are you in a drought now?
Do you have an impending Army overlooking you?
Will you trust God’s hesed (steadfast love) to water you and to see you throw the swarm?
Daily Reflection
Guido Climer
14:1Return, Israel, to the LORD your God.
Your sins have been your downfall!
2 Take words with you
and return to the LORD.
Say to him:
"Forgive all our sins
and receive us graciously,
that we may offer the fruit of our lips
This begins Hosea’s last chapter.
In recovery there are moments when folks who are part of a group leave. They leave many times because they either feel they have it together and don’t need a group. Or, they leave, because they see no other way than to give into the addiction. There are times when folks leave and then they return. Within recovery they are welcomed back. There are many times huge amounts of shame, because the path lead to pain. Everybody said, “we suggest you keep stepping this way.” But they could not or would not listen to the suggestions.
They are welcomed back with grace that is true, authentic and beautiful, because that person who has left has now said, “I cannot do this alone.” They are seeking to be whole and be healed. So a return is a painful and beautiful thing. Painful because the time away was painful. Beautiful because the reuniting is filled with grace. Everybody knows that it could have been them, but by luck, work, and God.
The story of faith is about staying the path, but for many of us it is about coming back to the path of faith. Our journeys sometimes lead to dark places where we hurt ourselves and others. Sometimes, we try to hurt God by our actions. God does not recoil from the pain, but comes to the lowest point to meet us to bring us back. Hosea is about that. God calls Israel a whore. That is strong language.
I love the last line in this verse.
"May we offer the fruit of our lips."
Last night, I heard a story of person who talked about his move to faith. He had gone far away from God and he met God in the lowest place he could find. There he was saved. I understand that. I came to experience Jesus at that lowest moment. I savored the fruit of his lips, the good words he shared.
Bill Mallonee sings, 'fruit from his lips,' ( good words)
“That Holy Life should count for something Those blessed words be recalled Remember Bill who it is who really loves you. To be loved is the best of all”I am not into creeds, but the Apostles’ creed says,
“Jesus descended into hell.” That is how far Jesus will go for you.
May you know today this fierce and courageous God who is willing to wade through deep ickiness of your life to say, “You are my people and you are loved” May you offer to Jesus and the world, 'the fruit of your lips.'
Daily Reflection
Disciples of Christ-Visalia
Hoesa 11: 8 "How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, Israel? …..
…..My heart is changed within me;
all my compassion is aroused.
9 I will not carry out my fierce anger,
nor will I devastate Ephraim again.
For I am God, and not a human being—
the Holy One among you.
I will not come against their cities.
Theologians talk about whether or not God demands payment for sin. This is conversation is called atonement theory. Traditionally, Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Why? There had to be a sacrifice. In the cosmic balance for God to still be God, he had to ask for payment for our sins. Here is this scripture where God has laid out his accusations against Israel. Israel is found guilty and should be punished. Then God says, “How can I? I am not human, but I am God.” God breaks that balance.
When we think about justice, do we view justice from the point of view of God or from our own sense of justice? I will be talking about this, this weekend. But with the atonement, that divine algebra never really made sense to me. I sang the songs and the songs were good. However, as I thought about it…I don’t want Jesus to die for me. Those sins are mine and nobody should die for what I have done. I feel a little better about going against the grain of Christian tradition, because of this scripture. “I am God, not a human being.” It may make sense that somebody needs to pay the debt, but God owns, creates, and sets the rules if he does not need a sacrifice why does he need Jesus to stand in for me. I do not want God to die. I would gladly take the place of Jesus to let Jesus live. These were thoughts I had as a kid. They still linger, no theology class really worked through them. .
Here is this line, God cannot punish. Why? He loves Israel. Can God punish me ultimately? How strong is God’s love for me? I am not saying that there is not a serious consequence to our sin, but ultimately where is that. In this story, God would let us off the hook on earth to judge us on the last day. I don’t think that is what is happening here. I might be a heretic, but OK.
The whole of Hosea is a love song of a jilted lover. God moves between rage to compassion. As I know the stories of Jesus, that heart of God beats to the rhythms of love. What I know of God from Genesis, Hosea, and Jesus is this. God created me. God loves me. God wants the best for me. He went so far to reach me as to leave the throne of heaven and come to earth as Jesus. When the world needed to be punished for killing God, Jesus said, “Forgive them they don’t know what they are doing?” What does God want? He wants those centurions nailing him to the tree. He desperately wants you and me. He will do anything for that, even if that means breaking the cosmic scales. For that kind of God who loves that much, I need to give my life to Him.
This idea of steadfast love, Hesed. Means that God’s love endures forever. God’s love endures all things. Does ‘all things’ mean my sin?
Do you believe that God really loves you?
If you do, how will you live that out in your life?
If you don’t, what will prove it to you? Can I help you experience that steadfast love?
How can you give you life to God who forgives all my sins, even the ones you will not speak out loud to anyone?
Will you give your life to that God who so loves you that He comes to you?
Daily Reflection
August 26, 2009
Disciples of Christ-Visalia
Hosea 8:14
Israel has forgotten his Maker
and built palaces;
Judah has fortified many towns.
But I will send fire on their cities
that will consume their fortresses."
In our age of homeland security, talk of border fences, and defense there is this ancient reading.
Israel had built cities that were strongly defended. Jerusalem was upon a high plateau protected behind strong walls. God says, “Those fortified cities will not be defensible.”
As I was growing up we kept the front door unlocked. My dad said, “Why lock the door, if they want they will get in. If we lock the door, they will bust the door and we will have to buy a new one.” We invest in a great deal of security in our lives at home, in cars, on-line with our identity, etc. How many times have you had a virus on your computer? Have you ever had something stolen from you? These things happen and there is no way that we can defend ourselves totally and completely; whether it is border protection, TSA at the airport, home, or the computer. I am not advocating no defense, but what I am sharing is the Biblical principal if you put your faith in a wall…then that wall that is dead is your God. You can add software, security systems, guns or any other machine.
In Hosea’s time, the folks were putting their faith in the security of their defenses and that belief God would save his people all the time. They were special. They were safe and saved by their status and their walls. They forgot that ‘specialness’ demands obligation of doing the right thing.
It is not walls that protect us or provide salvation.
We who are special in the eyes of God have an obligation to act with justice and have mercy on all. When we act the Gospel out, Imans in Kenyan help hand out Bibles, witch doctors put up their totems, and enemies become friends. When we act out the Gospel, we gain trust. When we act out the Gospel, we have as secure protection as any big wall or mighty fortress.
We are not guaranteed protection anywhere in this world, but we have a choice to live in fear behind walls or to live in fierce love and courageous mercy of Jesus Christ.
How will you live courageously this week?
What the things you protect behind walls of fear?
Disciples of Christ-Visalia
August 24, 2009
Guido Climer
Hosea 2:8
Israel, she has not acknowledged that I was the one
who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil,
who lavished on her the silver and gold—
which they used for Baal.
Background:
Hosea is the first of twelve minor prophets. They are minor not due to their importance, but due to the length of their books. These 12 prophets starting with Hosea and ending with Malachi are the last twelve books of the Old Testament. Hosea is called by God to marry a prostitute, because God says Israel is a whore. God wants to have a holy theatre of sorts to prove his point, so Hosea obliges. His life will mirror God’s life. Hosea and Gomer, his wife have a son Hosea calls Jezreel. This is more holy theatre to remind the people of Israel God will punish them for an action done in the valley of Jezreel. They have a daughter and she is named ‘Not Loved,’ because God does not love Israel anymore. Today, we punish awful parenting like that, but this is ancient history.
Reflection:
Then this line, I find the most painful story, Hosea 2:8. Have you ever given a gift and then somebody use it a way that you find repulsive? Give a child an heirloom of an old leather bomber jacket from the Korean War and he leaves it a high school dance. Frustration courses through the body. A college student graduates and takes his graduation gifts the envelopes stuffed with money and spends it in Vegas. Is that why the money was given? Bring a nice cheese as a gift and you find it two weeks later molded on your friend’s counter? Have you ever received a gift without respect or charity?
It was the last day of classes my senior year. We had two options that night to go out to the University Pub and drink bad beer as we had all year or we could go to the Texas Rangers’ and watch Nolan Ryan pitch. We had seen Nolan pitch before and it was awesome. But this was the last day of classes and it was a time to party!!! We arrived at a friend’s room and heard the final two outs of Nolan Ryan’s complete game no hitter. Given the gift of free time, guilt free, we chose to offer to seductive Baal our treasure. When people talk of Nolan Ryan’s no hitters, I am reminded of my foolishness.
There are moments when I do this all the time. I choose not to make a phone call, because it might be difficult. I choose to avoid people out of fear. I choose what is tangible over the wildness of the unexpected. I choose to miss opportunities to enjoy life because of the fear of something different, the anxiety of inconvenience, or the security of familiarity. Do you miss opportunities to enjoy God’s blessings because you take comfort?
Question
How have you wasted the gifts God gave you?
How will you live this week fully embracing opportunities to delight in God’s creation, nature, people, and your life?
This past Sunday I was in Kansas City and was able to attend Catholic mass with my god daughter. One of the highest honors in my life is to be a godfather, because it breaks the rules a bit. Rob and Susanne asked me to be a godfather despite me being a Protestant minister, or maybe because I am. I did not ask why, but just took the honor.
The godparents promise to raise their god child in the Catholic faith. We took that seriously, but had a lapse when she had first communion. Ouch, we moved to CA and it would mean a Sunday's vacation and trekking the whole familia to KC, a costly trek.
So, I told my goddaughter that I had one goal and that was to go to mass with her. There are things about the Roman Catholic church that have changed since Pope John Paul II died. The KC diocese that was very progressive and downright liberal is now very conservative. The whole idea of an altar as opposed to a table really bothers me and that whole transubstantiation thing bothers me as well. The bread and wine are symbols not miraculously body and blood. However, I am a godfather and my task is to raise a good Catholic girl. So, I recite creeds and do not take the Eucharist because I need to honor the tradition.
So we sat in the KC cathedral on Sunday and I talked to her about the service. I pointed out the baptistery, "I remember, you were covered with water. That means you were made a part of God's family." I pointed out the altar that is artistically shows bushels of wheat under the top and I said, "THey have wheat because this is KC where wheat is a very staple of life. I come from the place where grapes are the staple. On Sunday when you take communion, when I break the bread I will think of you with the wheat. When you take the wine, remember me with the grapes. God will unite us when share in the table." I know it is a table to me, but she got it.
It is hard at times to do things that I don't fully believe, but I do this act of being a god father because it is important for her to be raised rightly with compassion and mercy not with mere rightness. So, I try to display that and I hope that in my actions of god father teaching her a faith I don't fully believe she will learn how to have tolerance, honor others, and how important love is in the world. That is a faith that we can all hold upon to.
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