Lord Have Mercy

My oldest son and I were talking about the war in Gaza today, when he made the most profound observation: "Dad," he said, "If there is only one human race, then all wars are really just a Civil War, a war against ourselves, like a family trying to hurt itself." I was deeply moved by the great insight. Perhaps this is why nearly all faiths have always seen children as being far closer to truth than most adults.

Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers. Now, more than ever, we need some of these peacemakers around. Last night, the Fourth Day of Christmas was the Commemoration of the Holy Innocents, the remembering of the young male children who were massacered by Herod in an attempt to destroy the baby Jesus. On the Commemoration of the Innocents, we are encouraged to pray for children endangered by neglect, abuse, poverty, war, and abortion. Surely among these would be the children of Gaza and Israel. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayers.

In Christ,

Eddie Bromley, pastor of Grace Church, United Methodist Congregation

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Thoughts Upon Tract Two

The event necessitating the writing of Tract Two was that “The Legislature has lately taken upon itself to remodel the dioceses of Ireland;” At first thought, this hardly seems like a topic relevant to us today; but, Father Newman was writing to challenge the government for infringing upon the rights of the Church to be the Church. Newman recognized what all champions of freedom have understood, that governments have a strong tendency to begin pushing aside all competing institutions of authority, in order to make more and more space for their own insatiable hunger to control the lives of people in every arena of life.

Whatever the sphere, be it family life, moral decision making, education, public and private assembly of people, all governments have a tendency to be viciously jealous of any other body to guide and direct the lives of people. In the most extreme cases, governments even become unwilling to even let individuals make decisions concerning the direction of their lives.

The Church, as the prophetic witness of God, must guard against and warn of intolerable incursions by the government into public and private spheres, in which the government has no right to interfere. In the West, Judeo/Christian mores have led the people of our culture to construct means for checking this tendency in governments. The Magna Carta limited the authority of the throne of England. And the Declaration of Independence confined government to a still smaller role.

When a government begins to intrude into spheres where it has no business being, there is a tendency for that government to begin thinking of itself as the conveyor and creator of rights, rather than the guardian of unchallengeable rights given to us by the God of all creation.

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote these words:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness”

Padre Newman was right to raise a strong objection to what he saw as an intrusive encroachment upon the rights of the Church. We today need to be just as vigilant. The government has ruled against private property, extending imminent domain beyond its constitutional intent. Senate Democrats would like to muzzle the voice of dissent through the so called Fairness Doctrine. In some states, churches have been penalized for not conducting their business according secular sentiments and the freedom of peaceful assembly has been challenge by gay-rights activists, seeking to take control of groups like Boy Scouts of America. Freedom can continue only in a context where competing domains and spheres of influence and authority are allowed to stand in tension and/or complementation to each other. In our desire or the governments desires to bring all spheres into uniformity, the freedom and integrity of all is compromised and eventually lost.

Father Newman writes, “When the Nation interferes with the rights and possessions of the Church, it can with even less grace complain of the Church interfering with the Nation.” A free society can only survive in the context of a carefully limited government with carefully defined roles to play. Constitutional law is the only guarantee of such an arrangement; but, all citizens, civic and private interests groups, families and communities, and especially the Church must act as guardians of the freedom that flourishes only insofar as governments are maintained in their divinely appointed bounds.

Conversations with an Atheist: part one

Conversations with an Atheist – part one
“God and Science”


Rev. Dr. Eddie Bromley Grace Church 4 January 2009
Genesis 1 and Genesis 2:1-4
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Genesis 1
The Account of Creation
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.[a] 2 The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.
3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. Then he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day" and the darkness "night."
And evening passed and morning came, marking the first day.
6 Then God said, “Let there be a space between the waters, to separate the waters of the heavens from the waters of the earth.” 7 And that is what happened. God made this space to separate the waters of the earth from the waters of the heavens. 8 God called the space “sky.” And evening passed and morning came, marking the second day.
9 Then God said, “Let the waters beneath the sky flow together into one place, so dry ground may appear.” And that is what happened. 10 God called the dry ground “land” and the waters “seas.” And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, “Let the land sprout with vegetation—every sort of seed-bearing plant, and trees that grow seed-bearing fruit. These seeds will then produce the kinds of plants and trees from which they came.” And that is what happened. 12 The land produced vegetation—all sorts of seed-bearing plants, and trees with seed-bearing fruit. Their seeds produced plants and trees of the same kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 And evening passed and morning came, marking the third day.
14 Then God said, “Let lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. Let them mark off the seasons, days, and years. 15 Let these lights in the sky shine down on the earth.” And that is what happened. 16 God made two great lights—the larger one to govern the day, and the smaller one to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set these lights in the sky to light the earth, 18 to govern the day and night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And evening passed and morning came, marking the fourth day.
20 Then God said, “Let the waters swarm with fish and other life. Let the skies be filled with birds of every kind.” 21 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that scurries and swarms in the water, and every sort of bird—each producing offspring of the same kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 Then God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply. Let the fish fill the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And evening passed and morning came, marking the fifth day.
24 Then God said, “Let the earth produce every sort of animal, each producing offspring of the same kind—livestock, small animals that scurry along the ground, and wild animals.” And that is what happened. 25 God made all sorts of wild animals, livestock, and small animals, each able to produce offspring of the same kind. And God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, “Let us make human beings[b] in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.”
27 So God created human beings[c] in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
28 Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”
29 Then God said, "Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food.30 And I have given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—everything that has life.” And that is what happened. 31 Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good! And evening passed and morning came, marking the sixth day.

Genesis 2
1 So the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed. 2 On the seventh day God had finished his work of creation, so he rested[a] from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from all his work of creation.
4 This is the account of the creation of the heavens and the earth.
L: The Word of God for the people of God.
P: Thanks be to God
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A number of ideas found in this sermon came from Anthony Flew’s wonderful book, There is a God: How the world’s most notorious atheist changed his mind. I highly recommend this book to any interested in the relationship between faith and science.

Has science eliminated humanity’s “need” for God?

Oxford Biologist, Richard Dawkins says “yes.” According to Dawkins, religion provided an explanation of the world to primitive people; however, we are not primitive anymore. We have learned a great deal about the nature and origins of our universe and ourselves, thus, we have no further need of the “god-hypothesis.” The word God, in his view, has lost all of its explanatory power.

In this sermon, I want to take this charge head on and offer some rebuttals to the claim that science has eliminated our need for God. But, before I do this, we need to look at the Scriptures together; because, for Christian people this is our starting place. For any atheists we may have here today, this may not sit well with you. That’s okay. We are not asking you to accept our beliefs because the Bible says you should. I will try to make an appeal to any atheists or agnostics we may have with us today on other grounds; but for the Christians here today, I want to start with the Scriptures. So, let’s talk about the creation stories found in Genesis.

Let’s talk about What Genesis does and doesn’t say

The Protestant Reformation taught us that all Christians should read and seek to understand and apply the Bible to their lives. Reading Scripture is not just something for priests and pastors to do. That said we need to know that the Protestant idea is that Christians should seek to understand the Bible for themselves not by themselves.

This means we should always read the Word of God in the context of the whole Body of Christ, taking into consideration how the various parts of the Bible have been understood throughout the centuries. This is of course a huge task and one that cannot be done perfectly or completely. But, we should read the Scriptures in light of all the guidance we have available to us personally. This means being a student of the Word, being diligent to read the Bible with the best spiritual and intellectual capacities we have.

I have sought to do this very thing all of my life as a Christian. And as I have studied the book of Genesis, I have learned that there have historically been a number of ways in which it has been read and understood by the Church. Sure, some have read the first creation account of Genesis and come to the conclusion that our world was made in 7 24-hour days. But other important teachers in the Church, both ancient and modern, have read an understood the account in another way. Which brings us to an important topic that often comes up when discussing the Bible and specifically the creation accounts.

Are we to read these accounts literally?

G. K Chesterton, the great Christian writer of the early 20th century was once asked if he read the Bible literally. He answered by saying, the Bible says that King Herod was an old fox; but, I don’t take that to mean he had pointy ears and a fluffy tail. Yes, I believe the Bible to be completely truthful and reliable; yet I don’t take this to mean that when reading it I am not required to giving what I am reading a great deal of thought. When we read the Bible, we need to give attention to type of writing we are dealing with: the Bible contains poetry, stories, legal writing, history and many of genres of writing. Different parts of the Bible were written at different points in time, by different human authors and for various different audiences. All of this must be taken into consideration when we study the Bible.

And yet, I say all of this while holding on to a very high view of the Scriptures. I believe what the Church says when it tells us that Bible is God’s message, it is His Word, fully reliable and containing all that is needed for living the life of faith. And it is precisely because of this high view of Scripture that Christians have always felt appropriate to ask hard questions of our God’s Word. So as we look at Genesis one together we notice a number of things about the creation account.

First we see that we may or may not be dealing with literal 24-hour days.

The Hebrew word for day used in Genesis one is the word “Yom” and can mean simply a 24 hour day. However it can mean an indefinite period of time, such as when someone says, “Back in mom’s day girls didn’t act like that.” When used in this way, our English word means simply a period of time. The Hebrew word “yom” can be used this way too.

When you first read Genesis one, each of the seven days mentioned have an evening and a morning, the usual way of speaking of a normal day from Jewish point of view, and so you might think that the creation account all happens in 7 normal, 24-hour days. But upon closer inspection, another possibility comes into view.

[Make the below a PP slide]

DAY ONE DAY FOUR
The Heavens and the earth Moon and Sun


DAY TWO DAY FIVE
The Seas and the Skies Water Creatures and Flying Animals


DAY THREE DAY SIX
Dry Land and Vegetation Animals and People

[end pp here]

If by word day we mean how long it takes for the world to be spin in relationship to the sun, it really is difficult to understand what we are to mean by day for the first three days of creation, since we do not even get a sun until the fourth day. This would be our first hint that Genesis one may have something to tell us other than the time frame in which God created the world.

Instead, Genesis one is showing us how God created our world in such a way that each piece fits. God first creates a place for the stars, sun, and moon to belong; then he creates in day-four the stars, moon, and sun. In day two he creates seas and skies, and then in day five makes animals suitable to each environment. The whole point being that God has created our world with love and care, each piece having a place.

Folks like Dawkins hate and mistrust the Faith because they think that it is a show stopper when it comes to science. Dawkins says the following:

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence. Richard Dawkins

“I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.” Richard Dawkins

“One of the things that is wrong with religion is that it teaches us to be satisfied with answers which are not really answers at all.” Richard Dawkins

A launching pad for the scientific endeavor

Far from being incompatible with science, Judeo/Christian faith provided the perfect context in which science could bud and grow because our faith teaches us to expect the world to make sense. A Biblical world view encourages us to assume that our world will make sense because it has been put together by marvelous creator. The Jews and Christians believed this, but not all ancient people did.

Many in the ancient world believed there world to be a dark confusing world of chaos, in which some parts of the cosmos were ruled by some gods and other parts ruled by other gods. They believed that some information was forbidden for man to know. Stories like Prometheus giving the technology of fire to human kind taught the ancients that there were some avenues of information into which we should not look.

We should not be surprised that Science would come to bloom in Western culture, because as Christianity and Judaism made their way into the West, they encountered thinkers like Plato, who believed that our world has a logical order to it. Christianity and Judaism affirmed this notion, saying; yes our world is orderly and can be understood, because an orderly creator has made it so. Biblical faith is not something we believe in spite of the evidence. It is trusting what God has told us about our world; and far from letting us down, believing that our world has been logically ordered by a loving creator has created the context in which scientific exploration has soared.


All good and well; but having provided the context for science to grow and flourish, does a mature scientific culture have any longer a need for God? Has science replaced our need for faith?

The vital question science can never answer: Should we do it?

Science plays an indispensible role in helping us to answer questions about how things work, but it fails miserably along the question of whether or not something should be done. It fails, not because scientist are not moral people, but simply because science does not provide any help in answering questions about whether something should be done.

Science has helped us to split the atom, but cannot help us distinguish the moral difference between splitting the atom for heating homes and splitting the atom for the purpose of eliminating 100,000 people.

Science has helped us decode the genome, but is useless in answering questions about whether it is right or wrong to clone people for medical testing.

Science has provided a number of technologies that have made our lives easier and more convenient, but offers us little in the way of reflecting on what responsibility we may have in monitoring the impact some of these technologies may have on the environment.


For all of these questions and more, Science needs the faith in helping to sort through the ethical side of technical issues.

Please here me; I am not saying that Christians and Jews are the only people with the moral tools for sorting through these ethical issues. But people like Richard Dawkins have certainly tried to exclude people of faith from the conversation. The ethical issues of our day involve and concern the human race, and unfortunately Dawkins and others would exclude the communities of faith from the conversation, thus disenfranchising 90 percent or more of all the people in our world. I believe this would be both an unnecessary and foolish thing to do, asking communities with thousands of years of collective wisdom to back out of the conversation and let technicians do all of the important decision making about what should and should not be done. This is an especially foolish thing to do, when science provides absolutely nothing in the way of tools for deciding these types of questions.

All that science can answer is how something can be done, not whether or not it should be done.

Difficult questions

Science loves a good question. And, I want to be careful in how I make the next point. Sometimes Christians and Jews fall into the trap of making a “god-of-the-gaps” by trying to prove the existence of God by finding a question science cannot yet answer, such as how did animals come to have eyes; “betcha can’t explain that one.” And once the scientist comes up with an answer, the believer says, well “I betcha can’t explain this.”

God does not need the gaps in our understanding in order to have a place to exist. For Christians and Jews, God is the Reason for existence itself. When we speak of God, we mean that a that the most real reality of existence itself if a personal being, whom we refer to as God. For Judaism and Christianity, a Personal being is what is most fundamentally real.

Atheist would want to answer by saying, we don’t need a personal God to explain what we know about reality. But, contrary to popular opinion among atheists, science is simply incapable of wrapping things up so neatly, and putting a little bow and this completely airtight explanation of things.

The myth goes a little something like this: All you need a matter, plus energy, plus a lot of time and presto, you have yourself an organized universe, well equipped with life and everything. In fact, this explanation lacks a lot. For example, in the earliest days of evolutionary biology it was assumed that a cell was very simple and thus, for a starting point, it did not seem much of a jump to move from inorganic material to a living cell. We now know that a cell is vastly more complex than a modern factory.

So to mock Christian scientists, one atheist has called the Intelligent Design movement the “Wow Man! Cells are so complex” movement. But in fact, they are rather complex; making the explanation of how we get from inorganic material to a living cell much more difficult.

Laying all that aside, we need to face how mathematically improbable it is to get to life to evolve by chance. To illustrate the point, we need to look at what Gerry Schroeder calls the monkey theorem.
[The monkey theorem] refers to an experiment conducted by the British National Council of the Arts. A computer was placed in a cage with six monkeys. After a month of hammering away the monkeys produced fifty typed pages but not a single word. Schroeder noted that this was the case even though the shortest word in the English language is one letter (I or a). A is a word only if there is a space on either side of it. If we take it that the keyboard has thirty characters, then the likelihood of getting a one-letter word is 30 times 30 times 30, which is 27,000. The likelihood of getting a one-letter word is one chance out of 27,000. Schroeder then applied the probabilities to a Shakespearean sonnet. All sonnets are fourteen lines long, with approximately 488 letters.
Mathematically, it becomes so improbable that you would get a sonnet by chance, that if you were to fill the universe with computers, each working since the beginning of our universe, you would still not have one sonnet by chance. (Page 76-77 of Flew’s book). Why is this important, because the protein sequences needed for even the simplest life form are vastly more complex than a sonnet by the Great Bard.

Dawkins and others try to work around this problem, because given enough time, the improbable becomes probable. This is not helpful for two reasons. First, modern astronomers and physicist tell us our universe has not been around forever but has been around 10-16 billion years; which is not enough time to solve our dilemma. Second, if our universe had been around forever, you have the mathematical problem of answering how we ever got to this point in the story because the time before now would be infinity.

All this is said, not to say that Dawkins and others haven’t done a great deal to reveal much about the nature of life. I am not a scientist, but I have read most of Dawkin’s scientific work. Having read it, I can’t honestly say that evolution doesn’t explain a great deal. I could not debate Dawkins on this subject; but having read his work, I did not walk away doubting what the Bible says about creation. If anything my reaction was, if this is the mechanism by which God created life on earth, I am all the more amazed at the work of God’s hands.

But science is still a long ways away from offering an adequate explanation of life, especially one based on the proposition that it all happened by chance. Dawkins would say that it is not really by chance, but the very properties of our physical reality are such that inorganic matter will become simple life and simple life will become complex life. If this is so, ought not we to be more amazed that this would be the case.

But alas, there are questions to which science will never have an answer:

Questions it can never answer

What is real beauty? What makes life worth living? What is the purpose of life? What can bring peace and fulfillment? Does all of this really matter?

Colossians 1:15ff

15 Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,[e] 16 for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see— such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. 17 He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.

What Christians can do to influence the direction and science and mathematical fields.

1. Encourage educational progress in the sciences and in mathematics.
2. Encourage young Christians who have an aptitude in the sciences to pursue them as a vocation.
3. Be a part of the cultural conversation.
4. Educate yourself about advances in science and math.
5. Make a commitment to being a life-long learner.

What If Jesus Meant What He Said?

20 December 2008
In Matthew 7:26, Jesus says of his own words, “Anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand.” What if Jesus meant what he said? What if he really expects us to hear and obey him?

We read the towering words of our Lord and then seek to console ourselves with the thought that no one could ever really do what Jesus says. And since no one could possibly live out the teachings of Jesus, we don’t have to worry a lot about them.

But what if he meant for us to take his teachings seriously? I know that I am begging the question in this week’s devotion, but I cannot help but wonder how we might read the Gospels differently if we were to ask of the words we read, what if the Lord really wants me to obey this?

This I believe is lot more than simply asking, “What Would Jesus Do;” though that question still remains. It is matter of believing Jesus’ words to be words of life. It means finding life’s very purpose and meaning in the words our Lord taught us.

Eddie Bromley, pastor of Grace Church, a United Methodist congregation

Meeting Carry Grant

Is That It ?


Rev. Dr. Eddie Bromley Grace Church 28 December 2008
Luke 2:8-35 and Mark 6:1-6
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Luke 2:8-35
The Shepherds and Angels
8 That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. 9 Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. They were terrified, 10 but the angel reassured them. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. 11 The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! 12 And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.”
13 Suddenly, the angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.”
15 When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
16 They hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. 17 After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. 18 All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished, 19 but Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. 20 The shepherds went back to their flocks, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. It was just as the angel had told them.
Jesus Is Presented in the Temple
21 Eight days later, when the baby was circumcised, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel even before he was conceived.
22 Then it was time for their purification offering, as required by the law of Moses after the birth of a child; so his parents took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord. 23 The law of the Lord says, “If a woman’s first child is a boy, he must be dedicated to the Lord.”[a] 24 So they offered the sacrifice required in the law of the Lord—“either a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.”[b]
The Prophecy of Simeon
25 At that time there was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon. He was righteous and devout and was eagerly waiting for the Messiah to come and rescue Israel. The Holy Spirit was upon him 26 and had revealed to him that he would not die until he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. 27 That day the Spirit led him to the Temple. So when Mary and Joseph came to present the baby Jesus to the Lord as the law required, 28 Simeon was there. He took the child in his arms and praised God, saying,
29 “Sovereign Lord, now let your servant die in peace, as you have promised. 30 I have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared for all people. 32 He is a light to reveal God to the nations, and he is the glory of your people Israel!”
33 Jesus’ parents were amazed at what was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them, and he said to Mary, the baby’s mother, “This child is destined to cause many in Israel to fall, but he will be a joy to many others. He has been sent as a sign from God, but many will oppose him. 35 As a result, the deepest thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your very soul.”
Mark 6:1-6
Jesus Rejected at Nazareth
Jesus left that part of the country and returned with his disciples to Nazareth, his hometown. 2 The next Sabbath he began teaching in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. They asked, “Where did he get all this wisdom and the power to perform such miracles?” 3 Then they scoffed, “He’s just a carpenter, the son of Mary[a] and the brother of James, Joseph,[b] Judas, and Simon. And his sisters live right here among us.” They were deeply offended and refused to believe in him.
4 Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his relatives and his own family.” 5 And because of their unbelief, he couldn’t do any miracles among them except to place his hands on a few sick people and heal them. 6 And he was amazed at their unbelief.

L: The Word of God for the people of God
P: Thanks be to God!
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Where would God do something great and amazing?
This is a question I would like you to consider. If God were going to do something earth-shaking, history making where might He do it?
Christmas is easy to love; after all, it is about the birth of a baby, and only an old Scrooge would be able to resist getting a little misty-eyed over holiday that celebrates the birth of a little baby. So we’re glad to come with the shepherds, the wise men, and the angels to Bethlehem, because we all love looking at new little babies.
But if we take it even the least little bit seriously that God intended to change the world this way, we might be inclined to ask, “Is this it.” Is this really the way God intends to right all that is wrong about the world? Is God’s plan really going to be successful making the nations of this world his kingdom by sending a little baby? You have got to be kidding. Is this really it? A little peasant couple in an almost refugee-like setting in a backwards little town at the far edge of the empire; this is how God intends to get the job done?
We could almost believe the story if were at least had happened in place of more notoriety, someplace less…well, common.
But, what happens when something great and beautiful turns up in a very common place?
Joshua Bell emerged from the Metro and positioned himself against a wall beside a trash basket. By most measures, he was nondescript—a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money and began to play.
For the next 45 minutes, in the D.C. Metro on January 12, 2007, Bell played Mozart and Schubert as over 1,000 people streamed by, most hardly taking notice. If they had paid attention, they might have recognized the young man for the world-renowned violinist he is. They also might have noted the violin he played—a rare Stradivarius worth over $3 million. It was all part of a project arranged by The Washington Post—"an experiment in context, perception, and priorities—as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste. In a banal setting, at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?"
Just three days earlier, Joshua Bell sold out Boston Symphony Hall, with ordinary seats going for $100. In the subway, Bell garnered about $32 from the 27 people who stopped long enough to give a donation.
Video: Joshua Bell Playing in a Washington D.C. Metro Station
If the Christmas story seems a little hard for us to believe, imagine how hard it was for those who had lived as neighbors to Jesus and his family to have believed.
The people of Nazareth had known Jesus his whole life. They had known his earthly parents. Their kids had played with Jesus and his siblings, their fathers had done business with Joseph, and the women had talked together as they worked with Mary. That a local Jewish boy from the neighborhood would make good was easy enough to believe, but that he would be the Messiah? No way.
Nothing blinds us to something really special like being familiar with it.
Linda Dupree writes:
As the only English teacher in a small rural school, I had the mixed pleasure of teaching my own three sons. They begged me not to call on them in class, use them as examples, or tell any family stories—to which I agreed. On the first day of class, they each invariably would choose a seat in the far corner and refused to make eye contact. I left them alone. But making it to the high school English class was a rite of passage for the rest of the students, who were eager to participate in Mrs. Dupree's class. I watched as my children began to see me through the eyes of others. One day my oldest asked me in puzzlement, "Mama, do they know who you are?" I'm sure he was referring to the fact that I was "just" a mother. To which I responded, "Son, do you know who I am?"
Linda H. Dupree, Goldonna, Louisiana

My wife, Stacy recently had a similar experience. A couple-friend of ours has six children, two biological and four foster children. Five of them are special needs children. So, as you can believe, the couple very seldom has any time alone. Baby sitting is especially hard to come by due to the nature of the situation. But, since Stacy is a Physician’s Assistant, our friends feel comfortable leaving the children with us, knowing that Stacy would be able to handle anything medical that might come up.
But the children do not know Stacy as a Physician’s Assistant. They know her as Aunt Stacy or Mrs. Stacy. They know her as someone dear to the family not as someone with an expertise in medicine.
Recently when we were baby-sitting these children, one of them started to develop a bad cough; Stacy went into the cabinet and found a medicine that would be suitable for the child. Not recognizing the medicine as one she would normally take, the child said, “You had better call mommy first and make sure it’s a good idea to give me that medicine.”
Objecting the Idea of Incarnation
The word incarnation literally means to put flesh one, to become human. It is the central teaching of the Christian Faith, that the Divine, Eternal Son of God, set his glory aside and became human about 2000 years ago in Israel.
A lot of people have a real problem with this teaching and they raise a lot of objections like, why didn’t the Lord become a female instead of a male? Why didn’t he become African instead of Jewish? Why didn’t he become white or Chinese? Why Israel? Why not someplace more central like Rome or some place more populated like India? Why 2000 years ago? Why not sooner or later?
But to raise the objections is to raise an objection to the whole idea of God becoming human. If God was going to become one of us, the Lord had to be either male or female, he could not be both. He had to be of some ethnicity, for there is no such thing as a non-ethnic person. He had to be born somewhere at sometime, if he were to become a real human being. In order to become a real human being, which was crucial to his mission, he could not born at all places in all centuries. The Incarnation had to happen some particular place at some particular time.
We have trouble with the particularity of the Incarnation not just because we don’t expect things like that to happen in ordinary places; we have trouble with the Incarnation because we don’t expect things like that to happen.
The extraordinary event catches us completely off guard. Though the following story hardly compares to the Lord becoming human, a story told by the great actor Cary Grant shows us just how unprepared we are for special things to occur.

The great star of the silver screen, Cary Grant once told how he was walking along a street and met a fellow whose eyes locked onto him with excitement. The man said, "Wait a minute, you're ... you're--I know who you are; don't tell me--uh, Rock Hud--No, you're ..." Grant thought he'd help him, so he finished the man's sentence: "Cary Grant." And the fellow said, "No, that's not it! You're ..." There was Cary Grant indentifying himself with his own name, but the fellow had someone else in mind.
John says of Jesus, "He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him" (John 1:10 NIV). And even when Jesus identified who he was--the Son of God--the response was not a welcome recognition, but rather the Crucifixion.
Robert F. Simms, Boone, North Carolina. Leadership, Vol. 11, no. 4.
Gene Weingarten, "Pearls Before Breakfast," The Washington Post (4-10-07); submitted by Stephen Nordbye, Charlton, Massachusetts


So come with me this Christmas to a little ordinary town on the far edge and backwaters of the Roman Empire, and I will show how God started the revolution of Kingdom through the birth of a little bitty, ordinary looking baby!

On The Light Side - Music Games All the Rage

This year, my boys are begging Saint Nick for Guitar Hero or Rock Band for their WII. Thanks to these games, playing the air guitar has never been so much fun. Spending several hours comparing the two games, and spending even more time trying to find them, I thought of at least two other adaptations that game makers should consider for some untapped specialty audiences.

The first is Poka Band. Players in this game would spend time aquiring the skills to play the accordian on beat learning to play Slavic and Polish wedding gigs. Hits would include the Chicken Dance.

The second would be Folk Heroes on Tour. By playing enough gigs to gain a following and entourage, a player could go on to become the most famous Folk Singer in the world, playing in a Star Bucks for an audience of 15!

Well, I hope one of these ideas might help some aspiring game designer to make it big and to design the next million selling game

Tract Number One: Apostolic Succession

The issue at stake in Tract Number One has to do with the question, on what is the Clergy’s authority based? Is it based on popularity and the spirit of the times? Father Neman saw a great danger in clergy basing their authority upon how their message is received by the people of their community:

We know how miserable is the state of religious bodies not supported by the State. Look at the Dissenters on all sides of you, and you will see at once that their Ministers, depending simply upon the people, become the creatures of the people. Are you content that this should be your case? Alas! can a greater evil befall Christians, than for their teachers to be guided by them, instead of guiding?

No doubt, a great danger lies in a pastor basing their authority upon the accolades given in response to his/her preaching. And the pressure to give into this temptation is all the greater since the dawn of satellite and pod casted preaching, coming from the pulpits of highly acclaimed authors and great speakers. Any given Sunday, in any given church, a pastor will find at least a few of their congregants comparing his/her preaching to that of some famous preacher. Thus, the congregation becomes sermon critics, grading the skill and delivery of their clergy-person, instead being the people God, receiving a word from the Lord.

However, I think Bishop Newman would have been surprised to see the shape of the Church in countries where the Faith is “supported” by the state. Take Finland and Sweden for example. In these countries, a pastor is permitted to deliver only the state sanctioned version of the gospel. Even Scripture must toll the party line. Any slip up might result in the State “having” to remove such an un-submissive clergy person.

On whom or what then does our authority lie? On our call? Yes, but some pastors take this to mean that their call is something that is only between them and God; thus, this places their call beyond the critique of and accountability to the Church. They alone are allowed to say what has and hasn’t been declared by the Lord. What a dangerous position this places both the clergyperson and Church in, as the clergy person becomes an autonomous authority over all.

Some would go so far as to claim Paul for this model, citing Galatians as their proof text for being above the judgment of other clergy and the Church body. In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul says he no longer views Christ according to a human point of view.

Sometimes you will hear Biblical scholars explain this verse by saying, “At one time Paul had been a man of historic facts and data; but he had now left that behind. He no longer cared about historic facts, like the life of Jesus. He now cared about spiritual matters.”Paul, they’ll say, was a man of the Spirit, who was not worried about the historic roots of the faith. Often they will cite Galatians 1:11-12, where Paul says, “I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.”It is true, Paul did not get his commissioning from human sources, and it was not text books, or historical witnesses who first made him aware of who Christ is. Neither did Paul’s authorization come from other people. In these ways and more, Paul was a man of the Spirit. But, Paul, this man of the Spirit, is also quick to tie his direct personal experiences back to the historic roots of the faith, saying in verse 18 “Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days.”Why are both parts of chapter one important here? Paul is making it clear that he too is a divinely appointed Apostle; as much as Peter, James, or John. He is an emissary of Christ not of the Apostles. He wants to be clear that he is not under their authority, but under Christ’s authority. But, he also being careful to show how his gospel is not something different from or foreign to the gospel being preached by the other apostles. What Paul received directly from Christ is the same historic faith the other Apostles received directly from Christ.

Thus, clergy are not free to do and say any ole thing they like from the pulpit. Paul wasn’t and wasn’t claiming to be. He knew that our authority is a received authority, given not first of all as a gift to us, but as a gift to the Church. Thus our authority is based upon the faith once and for all delivered to the Saints (Jude). It is not our prerogative to stand behind the pulpit and preach our doubts. It is not within our authority to question and refute the Church and her doctrine. Our authority has been vested in us, loaned to us, only in so far as we remain faithful to and accountable for preaching this Faith and this Faith alone.

The success of preaching, thence, is not to be judged upon skill or delivery, or popularity, but upon fruitfulness and fidelity. “Creative fidelity” is only another term for infidelity and apostasy among the ranks of the Clergy. Our authority remains legitimate only in so far as we remain in connection to that unbroken line of men and women who have both faithfully received and are faithfully handing on this Faith delivered once and for all to the Saints; or as Newman rightly called it, Apostolic succession.

Horton Hears a Who

This weekend, my children and I purchased and watched Horton Hears a Who. The writers did a great job interpreting this classic Suess story and the visual elements were were crisp and vivid, leaving one with the impression of watching something live and real. Aside from this, I found the sour kangaroo character to be terrific. In fact, I would say this character reminded me of Richard Dawkings, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris all rolled into one. Here are just two of sour kangaroo's quotes:

'If you can't see, hear or feel something it doesn't exist. And believing in 'tiny imaginary people' is just not something we do — or tolerate here in the Jungle of Nool. You will do nothing of the sort."

"You will not breathe a word of this lie to anyone else. Especially the children. I do not want you poisoning their minds with this nonsense. Our community has standards, Horton, If you want to remain a part of it, I recommend you follow them. Oh, and have a nice day."

A militant atheist could not have said it better.

Eddie Bromley

Life After Divorce

Some folks recently requested that I make this sermon available again. I hope it is of some help to someone - Eddie

Life after Divorce
Rev. Eddie Bromley Grace Church 5 Aug 2007
Matthew 19:1-12
______________________________________________________

Matthew 19
Discussion about Divorce and Marriage
1 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went down to the region of Judea east of the Jordan River. 2 Large crowds followed him there, and he healed their sick.
3 Some Pharisees came and tried to trap him with this question: “Should a man be allowed to divorce his wife for just any reason?”
4 “Haven’t you read the Scriptures?” Jesus replied. “They record that from the beginning ‘God made them male and female.’[a] 5 And he said, ‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’[b] 6 Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together.”
7 “Then why did Moses say in the law that a man could give his wife a written notice of divorce and send her away?”[c] they asked.
8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted divorce only as a concession to your hard hearts, but it was not what God had originally intended. 9 And I tell you this, whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery—unless his wife has been unfaithful.[d]”
10 Jesus’ disciples then said to him, “If this is the case, it is better not to marry!”
11 “Not everyone can accept this statement,” Jesus said. “Only those whom God helps. 12 Some are born as eunuchs, some have been made eunuchs by others, and some choose not to marry[e] for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.”


1. What does this passage teach us about divorce?

I want to make it clear; I do not believe that there are parts of the Bible that we are free to ignore. I have high view of Scripture and do not believe that we as believers can simply pick and choose the verses we like. That said; I do believe that context is very important in understanding any passage, especially one as painful and difficult as divorce.

So let’s look together at this passage in context. In the Judaism of the 1st century, there were two different philosophies on divorce. One prominent Rabbi taught that a man could divorce his wife for any reason what so ever. If she cook the same meal twice in roll, that was enough to let her go – to dismiss her from being your wife.

The other philosophy was lot more strict. It said a man could only divorce his wife if she committed adultery. Nothing less than marital infidelity could be grounds for a divorce.

Now notice, that Jesus seems to be siding with this latter idea. However, there is good reason to believe that Matthew has softened Jesus’ words here; we see this in the reaction of his followers. When asked which side Jesus was on, his answer seems to really shock them. This would not be the case had Jesus simply had taken one of the common sides of the day. They would have simply found out that Jesus sided with the more strict interpretation. Jesus says something entirely different from either prominent position of the day and his followers are simply shocked.

Matthew may not be the culprit here. Our English translations may be. In context, according to Greek, Jesus is saying one is only permitted to divorce if the marriage was never valid in the first place. This is simply touch for those who have questioned Jesus on the topic, and their response is, “If this is the case, it is better not to marry!”
Reading the English translation, it seems as if Jesus is saying sexual unfaithfulness was the only condition under which divorce was permissible. If this was the case, it unclear why his disciples would have been surprised by his answer; after all, this was one of the standard positions of the day. Jesus says, marriage is meant to be permanent.
Remember that we are talking about a very male dominated society, both among Jews and Romans. Divorce was a male prerogative and Jesus is striking at the heart of this assumed right. Jesus is telling men they do not have a right to treat women like things. Women are not things to be used. They are people to love.
This message is still vitally important in a culture where people are used and treated as some kind of commodity.
But Jesus goes on to say some really tough things about divorce, including the fact that to divorce and remarry is akin to adultery. What are we to make of this?


2. God hates divorce not divorced people

"I hate divorce," says the LORD God of Israel Malachi 2:16

God intends for marriage to be a life-long commitment. God intends for marriages to be life giving and life affirming relationships. God intends for marriages to be a blessing to those who are married. Marriage spiritually binds two people together in such a way that whenever you break the two apart, it can never be a clean break. Divorce damages people and leaves us and our former spouse spiritually, emotionally, and often times financially broken. Thus, God hates divorce because of what it does to His children.

Divorce is a sin. One definition of sin is missing the mark that was intended. Whenever a marriage fails to produce a healthy setting for both the husband and the wife, it has fallen short of what God intended for it to be. No one who has ever been divorced has to be told about divorce being a marriage that falls short of being what it was intended to be.

But, is it ever right for a Christian to divorce?

3. The moral dilemma

Let me describe a moral fallacy that many of hold in our mind. The fallacy is believing that in moral choices we are always dealing with the choice between right and wrong. This is not always the case. Many times, the choice is not between right and wrong, but between bad and worse. Not all bad options are bad to the same degree. Divorce may be wrong, but staying in a poisonous relationship may be worse.

At this point, some of you may be accusing me being a moral relativist. This is not case. I believe firmly in right thaand wrong. I would never counsel someone to divorce simply as an easy way out. But, I would counsel someone to consider divorce if staying in the marriage would lead to something much worse.

Let me give you a biblical example of what I am talking about. In Joshua 2, two Israelite spies are forced to hide in the home of Rahab to escape from the enemy soldiers. When the soldiers knock at Rahabs door and ask her if she has seen the two spies, she says no. The Bible commends her for protecting the two men’s lives. So, was lying not a sin in that case? Yes it was. But betraying the lives of the two men would have been a worse sin. Whoever said, all sin is the same in the eyes of the Lord, did not get it from the Bible.

Read Matthew or Isaiah and you will see clearly that some sins are worse than others. Divorce may be bad, but there are certainly things worse.

But this still leaves the question, what about life after divorce? After all, Jesus says some pretty strict things about divorce. Yes, he does. But read the Gospels. Jesus says some pretty tough things about lying, about gossiping, about getting angry easily, about be jealous and about being petty. Jesus says some pretty tough things about sin. He doesn’t excuse it or let us off the hook for sinning. It is very clear that sin has put us in eternal peril. It condemns us to an eternity in hell, without hope or a way out.

And just when we really begin to realize this about ourselves, Jesus surrenders his life into the hands of his enemies and is led to the cross to die for hopeless sinners like you and me. And where there was no hope and no way for us, he makes a way through Calvary.


4. God makes us new.

Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! -2 Corinthians 5:17

Churches that would treat divorce as some kind of unforgivable sin, or treat divorced people like 2nd class Christians need to reexamine what they really believe about the Cross. If the Son has set you free, you are free indeed. You are a new creation, with a new beginning.

Shame is unbecoming of a Christian, because there is now therefore now condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Punishing ourselves for our past sins, feeling bad, or forfeiting our right to a future is to slap Jesus in the face and to say that his death on the cross was not payment enough for that sin. Friend, Jesus has paid for it all. He has paid it in full. You have been reborn to a new hope and new calling; and there is life beyond divorce.