Hi all,
Here is the actual sermon for this Sunday. May it open doors for someone.
I am using only the text from Mark but here is a link to all of the texts for this day: http://members.sundaysandseasons.com/planner_rcl_view.php?event_date_id=950
via con Dios,
Pr. J
2-1-2009, Epiphany 4B
Salem-Luther Memorial Parish, Parrottsville, Tennessee
Mark 1:21-28
The gospel reading pictures Jesus and his disciples in Capernaum where he taught in the synagogue when the Sabbath came. That much was to be expected of him. Earlier in Mark Jesus had been baptized by John. He has already openly begun a mission of his own, proclaiming the good news of God. He has chosen at least a few disciples, Simon, Andrew, James, and John, to follow him and to be something like apprentice rabbis, or that’s how they would have perceived it, and now, as a recognized, although still somewhat inexperienced and relatively unknown rabbi, he begins teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum. It is the first time in Mark that Jesus appears in any leadership role in the synagogue. I imagine that on this occasion it would have seemed somewhat like the experience of a new, young pastor, straight out of seminary, who is preaching for the first time before the congregation that is going to decide whether or not to issue a formal call to that pastor. The congregation was curious, but probably didn’t expect much beyond what they were used to getting, especially from new, young, inexperienced rabbis.
The synagogue worship would have proceeded as usual with no hitches. A crowd of men would have stood in the main area of the synagogue, old men would stay seated on benches along the side walls. A crowd of women and young children would have been separated from them by a screen that would let them see and hear what happened, but they were not allowed to join in. And, this will come into play soon, the main doors of the synagogue were left open, a common practice, so that those who were not allowed into the synagogue, Gentiles and sinners, otherwise known as the unclean, could stand outside and listen to the rabbi teach. Jesus himself, as the teacher, probably did not even lead the liturgy or prayers. Someone else, another rabbi, was normally appointed to do that while another taught. But then there came the moment that the whole synagogue experience centered upon. The teaching moment. This was the whole purpose of the synagogue to begin with: more than worship and prayer, it was meant to be a place for the teaching of the word of God in the local community.
One of the scrolls was brought out. Mark does not say which. Maybe it was the scroll of Isaiah that Jesus read from in Nazareth. Maybe it was something else. It would have been written in Aramaic, not the same as Hebrew, and, depending on the scroll, it would not necessarily have read the same way as our familiar Old Testament. What ever it was, Jesus would have read from it. Then the scroll would have been reverently put back in its cabinet, and the whole assembly, including Jesus would have sat down to hear the new teacher teach upon the word of God. Everything would have been business as usual up to that moment.
Whatever it was that Jesus said when he was teaching, it left the listeners speechless, but in a good way. Usually when you see the New Testament say someone was astounded or amazed, the Greek text uses a word that means they were kind of knocked off their seats and couldn’t find any words to express themselves and did not know what to say. The young, new, inexperienced rabbi Jesus has knocked the listeners in the synagogue off their seats. It’s a good thing they were already sitting on the floor, or they would have fallen off their chairs onto their rumps. He has completely amazed them by going far beyond their expectations. He does not speak like a young, new, inexperienced rabbi. He doesn’t even speak like the rabbis they’re used to hearing. He speaks with authority. I just wish the Gospel of Mark told us, even briefly, what it was he said.
But there’s more!
Almost as if it were an after thought, Mark has someone with an unclean spirit come into in the synagogue. It didn’t take much to have an unclean spirit back then. Those people in the synagogue believed anything could make a person unclean and they believed much of that was caused by unseen and unclean spirits, and unclean spirits were a dime a dozen and lurking behind every corner and hiding under every rock. Much of the fall and winter, as you have learned, I go about my business with a stuffy nose. They would have said I had an unclean spirit that was causing my stuffy nose. And if it turned into a cold or the flu, then watch out! The unclean spirit is raging! And worse yet, people would believe that the unclean spirit would make me unclean. And since they believed this uncleanness was contagious I would be barred from the congregation, ruthlessly judged for allowing myself to have an unclean spirit to begin with, banned from contact with certain people, forbidden to go to certain places and gatherings, and pronounced unacceptable to God. And this condition of being unclean would persist long after my cold and stuffy nose went away on its own. It would last indefinitely. Perhaps my entire life. The only way to rid oneself of this impossible burden was to throw oneself on the mercy of the system and sacrifice whatever was demanded by Law and Tradition in terms of time, money, property, self-respect, and dignity. Many of the people could not have complied with Law and Tradition back then even if they had wanted to. They were condemned by circumstances to bear the label “sinner” their whole life and all of the stigma that came with that title. But who in their right mind wanted to be unacceptable to God? You couldn’t win for loosing back then.
Jesus understood that. He knew that the last thing people needed when they were being weighed down by the burdens of Law and Tradition was to have more Law and Tradition heaped onto their already breaking backs. He knew that people needed the compassion of God. But the man branded as having an unclean spirit did not know that. Probably among the large crowd of people forced to stand outside the synagogue because of their uncleanness and listen as best they could through the open doors, he heard just enough to convince him that Jesus has come bearing the judgment of bitter God. He was panicking. He was hysterical with fear. His end truly is near!
If Jesus is the Holy One of God then surely he has come to destroy us who are unclean! Law and Tradition will demand that! That is the justice of God! If God is just then God will send Jesus to do this to us! There is no way out! If the time is NOW and the kingdom has come near and Jesus has authority then we - are - doomed! AAAAAUUUGGGGHHHHH!!!! In a panic he forgets all about Law and Tradition that keep him out on the street and runs into the synagogue, hysterical, and shouting, “Jesus of Nazareth - what do you want with us? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are - the Holy One of God!
“I sense some amount of impatience in Jesus’ voice as he speaks to the hysterical man in the synagogue because Jesus basically says to him, “SHUT UP!” And the raving man is silenced. The only thing unclean about this man is what a sick, pathological religion has done to him with it’s Law and Tradition: it has turned him into a babbling, sniveling, neurotic wreck of a human being who expects nothing but the worst punishment from God for the least offense; if anything’s demonic, that is it. Jesus puts an end to that with very few words and restores this man’s stolen humanity.
And they were all amazed. No one had ever done this before. Not even the prophets had done this! They kept asking one another: what is this? A new teaching! With authority! Even the unclean spirits obey him!
This was the first impression that Jesus left on Capernaum and one gets the sense that the people of Capernaum now believe that nothing can stand in the way of Jesus. After that word spread. Jesus gives us a new teaching. He teaches with authority! He commands, and we are made clean! Law and Tradition gives us judgment, condemnation, and contempt! Jesus has authority. Jesus gives us the compassion of God!
This is the Good News of God.
Today there are many people outside of our faith communities. Branded “unclean”, they bear the stigma of judgment, shame, and contempt. As with the unclean spirits of Jesus’ day, it does not take much to brand someone as unclean these days. One mistake, and you’re out. One error of judgment, one disagreement, one argument with the wrong person, and too easily the stereotypes and labels and names are applied, and they can last a lifetime. I think there are many people who are waiting to hear what really comes out of our faith communities. Will they hear Law and Tradition, judgment and condemnation for the least offense? Many do. Or will they hear about Jesus who gives us the compassion of God?
We confess Jesus as the Holy One of God and his word in response to us is one that liberates us, frees us from judgment, lifts the burdens of guilt and shame off our breaking backs, and restores to us our humanity, dignity, and self-respect. He speaks a single command, and we find that we are no longer sinners before God, but are now acceptable to God for his sake. The stigma, the shame, the stereotypes, the names, the labels are removed once and for all and forevermore, and we are given a new name: Child of God, and we are made heirs of God’s eternal kingdom.
No wonder his fame spread in Galilee. How much you want to bet his fame can spread in Parrottsville also?
Peace be with you.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Spirituality - here's mine, what's yours?
I added several links today to some sites about contemplative prayer. There is a lot more available on the internet, just google "contemplative prayer." Contemplative prayer is something I have mentioned at least once in sermons here in Parrottsville, though I first encountered it about eleven years ago in the Hudson valley of New York. Anyone interested in deepening their spirituality may be interested in this form of prayer, although there are other forms of prayer that may be better suited to one's own spirituality.
Let's talk spirituality.
Lutherans are notorious for lacking spirituality. I'm not sure why that is. Perhaps we have substituted other things for spirituality, such as liturgy or confessional theology. And yet liturgical worship has a spiritual dimension, and the confessional theology of the Lutheran church, for my money - speaking as a former Southern Baptist, beats anything else hands down.
Or perhaps it is just another aspect of the same problem we have as modern American Christians who would prefer to be like Jonah, and run from God, rather than be like Simon and Andrew who left their nets when they were given the call to follow by Jesus.
Lutherans (and Christians in general) should develop their spirituality. I find contemplative prayer helps me with mine. (Alas - there is no contemplative prayer group that I can find so far in eastern Tennessee.)
Members of the Lutheran churches of Parrottsville, what's your spirituality? Corinne Ware is a professor of Ascetical Theology at the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest at Austin, Texas. She has a book out called Discover Your Spiritual Type. (You can find it at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Discover-Your-Spiritual-Type-Corinne/dp/1566991498).
Dr. Ware describes four spiritual types in her book:
Type 1: God is revealed and we seek to understand him.
Type 2: God is revealed and we seek to emotionally feel him.
Type 3: God is a mystery and we seek to emotionally feel him.
Type 4: God is a mystery and we seek to understand him.
Which type are you? Do you see God as revealed or as a mystery? Do you seek to understand God rationally or feel God emotionally? Are you some cross between different types, and if so, can you say which types?
I am a hybrid Type 1 (the Theologian) and its direct opposite, Type 3 (the Mystic). About 2/3 rational theologian-historian, 1/3 non-rational mystic. (You mean to say you never knew this about your pastor? As my late friend Big Old Bill used to say, "Why, even the most casual observer off the street could see this!") How else could I come up with some of the things I say, anyway? Once someone understands another's spirituality then they can see how another understands God, Jesus, the Bible, the call to discipleship, mission, and a whole host of other things. Once someone understands THEIR OWN spirituality, then they begin to understand their own relationship to God better, their own uniqueness as a spiritual being, their own place as a contributing and constructive member of the faith community.
I think many people do have some sort of spirituality, but that it is not very developed and may be very neglected. Part of our call to mission in Parrottsville is to develop our spirituality. Take the time to acknowledge your own spirituality. Take the time to develop it. Be flexible enough to accept that other people have different, sometimes exactly the opposite spirituality that you have, be willing to celebrate this incredible gift of God and know that this is how God relates directly to you and to others.
Thanks be to God.
Pr. J
Let's talk spirituality.
Lutherans are notorious for lacking spirituality. I'm not sure why that is. Perhaps we have substituted other things for spirituality, such as liturgy or confessional theology. And yet liturgical worship has a spiritual dimension, and the confessional theology of the Lutheran church, for my money - speaking as a former Southern Baptist, beats anything else hands down.
Or perhaps it is just another aspect of the same problem we have as modern American Christians who would prefer to be like Jonah, and run from God, rather than be like Simon and Andrew who left their nets when they were given the call to follow by Jesus.
Lutherans (and Christians in general) should develop their spirituality. I find contemplative prayer helps me with mine. (Alas - there is no contemplative prayer group that I can find so far in eastern Tennessee.)
Members of the Lutheran churches of Parrottsville, what's your spirituality? Corinne Ware is a professor of Ascetical Theology at the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest at Austin, Texas. She has a book out called Discover Your Spiritual Type. (You can find it at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Discover-Your-Spiritual-Type-Corinne/dp/1566991498).
Dr. Ware describes four spiritual types in her book:
Type 1: God is revealed and we seek to understand him.
Type 2: God is revealed and we seek to emotionally feel him.
Type 3: God is a mystery and we seek to emotionally feel him.
Type 4: God is a mystery and we seek to understand him.
Which type are you? Do you see God as revealed or as a mystery? Do you seek to understand God rationally or feel God emotionally? Are you some cross between different types, and if so, can you say which types?
I am a hybrid Type 1 (the Theologian) and its direct opposite, Type 3 (the Mystic). About 2/3 rational theologian-historian, 1/3 non-rational mystic. (You mean to say you never knew this about your pastor? As my late friend Big Old Bill used to say, "Why, even the most casual observer off the street could see this!") How else could I come up with some of the things I say, anyway? Once someone understands another's spirituality then they can see how another understands God, Jesus, the Bible, the call to discipleship, mission, and a whole host of other things. Once someone understands THEIR OWN spirituality, then they begin to understand their own relationship to God better, their own uniqueness as a spiritual being, their own place as a contributing and constructive member of the faith community.
I think many people do have some sort of spirituality, but that it is not very developed and may be very neglected. Part of our call to mission in Parrottsville is to develop our spirituality. Take the time to acknowledge your own spirituality. Take the time to develop it. Be flexible enough to accept that other people have different, sometimes exactly the opposite spirituality that you have, be willing to celebrate this incredible gift of God and know that this is how God relates directly to you and to others.
Thanks be to God.
Pr. J
SESLYO Assembly
The older members of our Salem youth group went to the Southeastern Synod Lutheran Youth Organization Assembly in Talladega last weekend and had a great time. Our own Ashlyn Neas is now the President of SESLYO while another member of our youth group - Whitney LaFollette - is on the SESLYO board for 2009 and will be headed for the Synod Assembly later this year. I'm short on details right now - what am I, gossip central? - but this is great news. Many thanks to Leslie and Shiela for taking four kids to Talladega and back!
Thoughts for the 3rd Sunday after Epiphany - Simon and Andrew
Here's some thoughts on Simon, Andrew, and the Gospel text for January 25. Most of what I say here I said in the sermon for that day. I could say even more along these lines, and probably will, as we deal with the issue of doing mission in Parrottsville, Tennessee.
Texts: Mark 1:14-20, with a passing reference to Jonah, so also see Jonah 3:1-5, 10.
If the Gospel according to Mark had been written like a modern novel, 600 pages long, written with a flourish and full of descriptive passages about the scenes and people, then the seven verses of today’s reading would fill a couple of chapters, at least. Everyone’s questions about events would be answered. Why did Jesus wait until his cousin John was arrested before he began to proclaim the good news of God? What was going on in his mid when he did that? Why was he passing by the Sea of Galilee? Just who were Simon and his brother Andrew and why did Jesus cal them, of all the people he could have called? What was going through their heads as they left their nets to follow Jesus to become fishers of people? And who the heck is Zebedee, and his sons James and John, and why did Jesus call them, when he could have called anyone?
Those are all good questions, and there are only partial answers to some of them scattered throughout Church tradition and no answers to the rest, but, alas, they are not questions that this gospel is concerned with. If we could hop into our handy dandy time machine and zip back to the time and place where the gospel of Mark was being written and ask the writer (maybe a Roman guy named Marcus as I suspect, or maybe a Jewish Palestinian guy named Marqu as others think) just why everything isn’t spelled out in the story, then he’d probably say something like, “Why would anyone want to know that stuff to begin with? That’s not important! I want people to get the important stuff. The rest can wait until later.” And then later never comes and the rest of the story is never written.
But we do get some good basic points from these few lines:
- Jesus proclaimed the good news of God and what is that? It is that the time is fulfilled - NOW, and the kingdom of God has come near NOW; it did not wait for us to repent and it did not wait for us to make any decisions about accepting it or inviting it or asking it to come into our lives. It simply came near of its own accord; that is - of God’s own will, not ours. And so in response Jesus calls people to repent NOW – that is, turn your heart around and trust in the good news;
- Jesus called disciples telling them to follow him, Simon, Andrew, James, and John;
- and that he would make them fishers for people.
We do not know the time frame for the events related in the verses. Those who do Bible studies with me learn fast that the Gospel writers were not concerned with keeping accurate track of time. Mark is no exception. It could have been a few years after John was arrested. Or it could have been only weeks. But we do know the setting: the Sea of Galilee. For some reason the local people called it by a poetic name, Yam Kinneret, the Sea of the Harps.
There beside the sea Mark presents Jesus just casually passing by when he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net in the sea. Simon is the one who will later be known as Peter, the Rock. His home was in the city Tiberias on the south western shore of the lake. There Jesus found him and his brother, Andrew. They would have been catching a fish known as a tilapia, even today in restaurants in the area it is called “St. Peter’s Fish.”
The story keeps things simple. “Follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fish for people.” They left their net and followed him.
I would hate to be Andrew. His name is Greek. It seems to mean more or less “The Other Guy.” Reminds me of the Bob Newhart Show about ten, twelve years ago. Remember Larry and his brothers? Remember how Larry used to introduce himself and his brothers? “Hi, I’m Larry. This is my brother Daryl. This is my other brother Daryl.” Can you picture this scene in Mark now? Jesus calls Simon. “Hey, Simon, follow me! And bring the other one, too!” How would you like to be known to Jesus as nothing but “The Other Guy?” May as well be Simon‘s brother “Hey-You.” “Hi, I’m Jesus. This is my disciple Simon. And this is the Other Guy.” Kind of reinforces for you that Jesus is calling ordinary everyday people to follow him.
These were just fishermen, blue collar workers, just two ordinary guys trying to make a living day in and day out in a little fishing boat. But Jesus saw that they still had all the necessary skills to be disciples: They were good at casting nets and catching things.
So Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people." He will transform Simon and Andrew. He will turn them into fishers of people - this is the way it will be! And when he said, "Follow me," then Mark presents tham as immediately leaving their nets.
Simon and Andrew could have been like Jonah and tried to hide from the call to do mission. That is to say, they could have been like many American Christians today. They could have procrastinated. They could have said, "Sounds interesting. The concept is intriguing. Let's take it to a committee and vote on it, say next Thursday?" - and when next Thursday comes it gets tabled indefinitely. They could have debated Christ's call into oblivion. They could have been cynical. They could have had attitude. They could have been apathetic. They could have said, "Yah, right. Who do you think you're foolin'." Or, “I’ve got things to do, ask me again later,” and later never comes. These are the attitudes toward receiving the call to mission that can kill churches in a heartbeat, and then people wonder why their congregations are dying as if it were a great mystery. Been there and seen it done in New York.
I was talking with my friend Warren this past week. Warren is a Roman Catholic deacon in upstate New York. One of the things we talked about, for the umpteenth time, is the rampant apathy and cynicism spreading in congregations both Protestant and Catholic (and, to hear Rabbi Dan tell it, also spreading in the synagogues). If you could ever be a part of our conversations you would hear just how harmful this is not only to congregations but also to the faith life of the individual believers. Modern American Christians might not have bothered to leave their nets like Simon and Andrew.
Simon and Andrew left the only profession in which they could claim to be experts and followed Jesus not knowing exactly where they were going or exactly what their mission would be. Now Jesus would give them a new occupation. Now he would make them experts at fishing for people. That would be their new mission.
Today the call to follow Jesus is still there. It hasn't gone anywhere. The time for following Jesus, the time to repent and believe in the Good News is still NOW, as we go about our daily lives and business.
We mark off the days on our calendars as we try to make a living day in and day out. We are aware that we are growing older. It seems that time has a way of slipping past us. We can't throw out a net and catch it. We end up wondering how the weeks and months went by so fast. But God doesn't seem to pay much attention to calendars. Time doesn't slip past God. Unlike the writer of the Gospel of Mark, who seemed to have no sense of timelines and let the passage of time slip away as he wrote the story of Jesus, God is able to catch time and make it stand still. Imagine living in a world where you never have to worry about time. That's what the kingdom of God would be like. Jesus tells us the kingdom has come near. Jesus himself has brought it near to us, so now we live in the shadow of that special time of God, that timeless moment that never ever ends in which Jesus speaks to us with the authority of God, commands us to follow, and says that he will make us all fishers of people, even though we're not much different from those first disciples who were mending their nets by the sea.
Like Simon, James, John, and Andrew, we can answer his call. We can follow Jesus. We can let him make us into fishers of people, let him guide us so we tell others about his call and bring other people into the Kingdom, and make more fishers of people.
We can listen to him when he speaks with authority and everyday we can let him transform our lives for the better as we become more and more the children of God. We can trust Jesus to do that because for our sake he was crucified and died. A big part of the Good News of God which Jesus tells us to believe says that God gave his only Son on a cross to die so that we could have new life, a life made eternal through the blood of Jesus.
We remember that in baptism, in which we walk through his death and rising in the baptismal service. In baptism we were buried with him in a death like his, and through baptism we are raised with him to a new life. In this new life we are healed. We are forgiven. Our sins are forgotten. We become children of God because of Jesus who died and was raised for us. Because of Jesus NOW the kingdom of God has come near to us and we have the opportunity now, today, to live in that timeless eternal, special time of God.
Thanks be to God.
Texts: Mark 1:14-20, with a passing reference to Jonah, so also see Jonah 3:1-5, 10.
If the Gospel according to Mark had been written like a modern novel, 600 pages long, written with a flourish and full of descriptive passages about the scenes and people, then the seven verses of today’s reading would fill a couple of chapters, at least. Everyone’s questions about events would be answered. Why did Jesus wait until his cousin John was arrested before he began to proclaim the good news of God? What was going on in his mid when he did that? Why was he passing by the Sea of Galilee? Just who were Simon and his brother Andrew and why did Jesus cal them, of all the people he could have called? What was going through their heads as they left their nets to follow Jesus to become fishers of people? And who the heck is Zebedee, and his sons James and John, and why did Jesus call them, when he could have called anyone?
Those are all good questions, and there are only partial answers to some of them scattered throughout Church tradition and no answers to the rest, but, alas, they are not questions that this gospel is concerned with. If we could hop into our handy dandy time machine and zip back to the time and place where the gospel of Mark was being written and ask the writer (maybe a Roman guy named Marcus as I suspect, or maybe a Jewish Palestinian guy named Marqu as others think) just why everything isn’t spelled out in the story, then he’d probably say something like, “Why would anyone want to know that stuff to begin with? That’s not important! I want people to get the important stuff. The rest can wait until later.” And then later never comes and the rest of the story is never written.
But we do get some good basic points from these few lines:
- Jesus proclaimed the good news of God and what is that? It is that the time is fulfilled - NOW, and the kingdom of God has come near NOW; it did not wait for us to repent and it did not wait for us to make any decisions about accepting it or inviting it or asking it to come into our lives. It simply came near of its own accord; that is - of God’s own will, not ours. And so in response Jesus calls people to repent NOW – that is, turn your heart around and trust in the good news;
- Jesus called disciples telling them to follow him, Simon, Andrew, James, and John;
- and that he would make them fishers for people.
We do not know the time frame for the events related in the verses. Those who do Bible studies with me learn fast that the Gospel writers were not concerned with keeping accurate track of time. Mark is no exception. It could have been a few years after John was arrested. Or it could have been only weeks. But we do know the setting: the Sea of Galilee. For some reason the local people called it by a poetic name, Yam Kinneret, the Sea of the Harps.
There beside the sea Mark presents Jesus just casually passing by when he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net in the sea. Simon is the one who will later be known as Peter, the Rock. His home was in the city Tiberias on the south western shore of the lake. There Jesus found him and his brother, Andrew. They would have been catching a fish known as a tilapia, even today in restaurants in the area it is called “St. Peter’s Fish.”
The story keeps things simple. “Follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fish for people.” They left their net and followed him.
I would hate to be Andrew. His name is Greek. It seems to mean more or less “The Other Guy.” Reminds me of the Bob Newhart Show about ten, twelve years ago. Remember Larry and his brothers? Remember how Larry used to introduce himself and his brothers? “Hi, I’m Larry. This is my brother Daryl. This is my other brother Daryl.” Can you picture this scene in Mark now? Jesus calls Simon. “Hey, Simon, follow me! And bring the other one, too!” How would you like to be known to Jesus as nothing but “The Other Guy?” May as well be Simon‘s brother “Hey-You.” “Hi, I’m Jesus. This is my disciple Simon. And this is the Other Guy.” Kind of reinforces for you that Jesus is calling ordinary everyday people to follow him.
These were just fishermen, blue collar workers, just two ordinary guys trying to make a living day in and day out in a little fishing boat. But Jesus saw that they still had all the necessary skills to be disciples: They were good at casting nets and catching things.
So Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people." He will transform Simon and Andrew. He will turn them into fishers of people - this is the way it will be! And when he said, "Follow me," then Mark presents tham as immediately leaving their nets.
Simon and Andrew could have been like Jonah and tried to hide from the call to do mission. That is to say, they could have been like many American Christians today. They could have procrastinated. They could have said, "Sounds interesting. The concept is intriguing. Let's take it to a committee and vote on it, say next Thursday?" - and when next Thursday comes it gets tabled indefinitely. They could have debated Christ's call into oblivion. They could have been cynical. They could have had attitude. They could have been apathetic. They could have said, "Yah, right. Who do you think you're foolin'." Or, “I’ve got things to do, ask me again later,” and later never comes. These are the attitudes toward receiving the call to mission that can kill churches in a heartbeat, and then people wonder why their congregations are dying as if it were a great mystery. Been there and seen it done in New York.
I was talking with my friend Warren this past week. Warren is a Roman Catholic deacon in upstate New York. One of the things we talked about, for the umpteenth time, is the rampant apathy and cynicism spreading in congregations both Protestant and Catholic (and, to hear Rabbi Dan tell it, also spreading in the synagogues). If you could ever be a part of our conversations you would hear just how harmful this is not only to congregations but also to the faith life of the individual believers. Modern American Christians might not have bothered to leave their nets like Simon and Andrew.
Simon and Andrew left the only profession in which they could claim to be experts and followed Jesus not knowing exactly where they were going or exactly what their mission would be. Now Jesus would give them a new occupation. Now he would make them experts at fishing for people. That would be their new mission.
Today the call to follow Jesus is still there. It hasn't gone anywhere. The time for following Jesus, the time to repent and believe in the Good News is still NOW, as we go about our daily lives and business.
We mark off the days on our calendars as we try to make a living day in and day out. We are aware that we are growing older. It seems that time has a way of slipping past us. We can't throw out a net and catch it. We end up wondering how the weeks and months went by so fast. But God doesn't seem to pay much attention to calendars. Time doesn't slip past God. Unlike the writer of the Gospel of Mark, who seemed to have no sense of timelines and let the passage of time slip away as he wrote the story of Jesus, God is able to catch time and make it stand still. Imagine living in a world where you never have to worry about time. That's what the kingdom of God would be like. Jesus tells us the kingdom has come near. Jesus himself has brought it near to us, so now we live in the shadow of that special time of God, that timeless moment that never ever ends in which Jesus speaks to us with the authority of God, commands us to follow, and says that he will make us all fishers of people, even though we're not much different from those first disciples who were mending their nets by the sea.
Like Simon, James, John, and Andrew, we can answer his call. We can follow Jesus. We can let him make us into fishers of people, let him guide us so we tell others about his call and bring other people into the Kingdom, and make more fishers of people.
We can listen to him when he speaks with authority and everyday we can let him transform our lives for the better as we become more and more the children of God. We can trust Jesus to do that because for our sake he was crucified and died. A big part of the Good News of God which Jesus tells us to believe says that God gave his only Son on a cross to die so that we could have new life, a life made eternal through the blood of Jesus.
We remember that in baptism, in which we walk through his death and rising in the baptismal service. In baptism we were buried with him in a death like his, and through baptism we are raised with him to a new life. In this new life we are healed. We are forgiven. Our sins are forgotten. We become children of God because of Jesus who died and was raised for us. Because of Jesus NOW the kingdom of God has come near to us and we have the opportunity now, today, to live in that timeless eternal, special time of God.
Thanks be to God.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Prayer of St. Francis
Lord, make us intruments of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let us sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is discord, union;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and
it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen
Where there is hatred, let us sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is discord, union;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and
it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen
Prayer by Thomas Meron
Thomas Merton Prayer
MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face may perils alone.
Amen.
Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore, I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face may perils alone.
Amen.
Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
Prayer in time of change
Hi all,
This is a prayer for congregations in time of change. It was written by Jackie Jefferson and Warren Dorsch at St. John Vianney Catholic Church in Churchtown, Town of Claverack, New York. I just posted a link to their website. SJV is a very ecumenical Roman Catholic congregation of the Albany Diocese. Warren is a Deacon and Jackie is a Pastoral Associate. I worked with them beginning in 2005 at my former congregation St. Thomas Lutheran in Churchtown. The prayer Jackie and Warren wrote can be found at their website. I brought it with me down here to Tennessee and have used it on occasion at the Lutheran Parish of Parrottsville. Its a very good prayer for us all right now as our whole nation is going through a time of major changes. I think the prayer of St. Francis would also be a good one ot post right now so I'll do that also.
Pr. J
Our Parish Prayer
Prayer in Time of Change
Beloved Jesus, anoint us to do your will. May the joy of your dwelling in us draw us closer to each other. Expand our vision to recognize your plan; warm our hearts by the flame of your Love; open our lips so that we can speak your Word; extend our arms so that we can embrace each other as your people; speak to us so we can discern the role you have for us, your Body, your Church. Fill us with your Holy Spirit, empowering us to become vital expressions of growth in your changing Church. Your Kingdom is now! Help us to discover and live your will.
Amen.
This is a prayer for congregations in time of change. It was written by Jackie Jefferson and Warren Dorsch at St. John Vianney Catholic Church in Churchtown, Town of Claverack, New York. I just posted a link to their website. SJV is a very ecumenical Roman Catholic congregation of the Albany Diocese. Warren is a Deacon and Jackie is a Pastoral Associate. I worked with them beginning in 2005 at my former congregation St. Thomas Lutheran in Churchtown. The prayer Jackie and Warren wrote can be found at their website. I brought it with me down here to Tennessee and have used it on occasion at the Lutheran Parish of Parrottsville. Its a very good prayer for us all right now as our whole nation is going through a time of major changes. I think the prayer of St. Francis would also be a good one ot post right now so I'll do that also.
Pr. J
Here is Warren and Jackie's prayer:
Our Parish Prayer
Prayer in Time of Change
Beloved Jesus, anoint us to do your will. May the joy of your dwelling in us draw us closer to each other. Expand our vision to recognize your plan; warm our hearts by the flame of your Love; open our lips so that we can speak your Word; extend our arms so that we can embrace each other as your people; speak to us so we can discern the role you have for us, your Body, your Church. Fill us with your Holy Spirit, empowering us to become vital expressions of growth in your changing Church. Your Kingdom is now! Help us to discover and live your will.
Amen.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Some thoughts on the Baptism of Our Lord
I know a car dealer in Hudson, New York. He used to work for Buick and then Buick-Pontiac, but he’s since gone independent. He spends a lot of time collecting jokes on the internet, and sends every one of them to me. You have to understand that he has a thing about blondes, maybe because his wife and daughter are blondes, and so he has lots of blonde jokes. This is one of them (of course, feel free to change “blonde” to anything you want):
This blonde wanted to go ice fishing. She'd seen many books on the subject, and finally getting all the necessary tools together, she made for the ice. After positioning her stool, she started to make a circular cut in the ice. Suddenly, from the sky, a voice boomed, "THERE ARE NO FISH UNDER THE ICE." Startled, she moved further down the ice and began to cut yet another hole. Again from the heavens the voice bellowed, "THERE ARE NO FISH UNDER THE ICE." Now worried, she moved away, clear down to the opposite end of the ice. She set up her stool once more and tried again to cut her hole. The voice came once more, "THERE ARE NO FISH UNDER THE ICE." She stopped, looked skyward, and said, "IS THAT YOU, LORD?" The voice replied: "THIS IS THE HOCKEY RINK MANAGER. PLEASE LEAVE THE BUILDING!"
We have a voice in the Gospel reading, but it’s not the hockey rink manager. Supposedly, it’s a voice that “came down from heaven,” as if from the sky.
Jesus has come to his cousin John to be baptized in the Jordan River, because, as he is quoted as saying in the gospel of Matthew, it is appropriate to do this in order to “fulfill all righteousness.” In other words, he’s going to do things right and above board from the start, beginning with a baptism. So he has his cousin baptize him just as John has baptized many others.
At one of the spots where John baptized in the Jordan the water is very shallow, about knee deep. You could literally walk across the Jordan at that point and barely get wet. John would have had people come out into the water and keel in it, and then would have scooped up the water with his hands or with some small vessel of clay and poured it over the person.
It’s too bad we don’t know more about the baptismal practices of the Jews back then; we could fill in a lot of the gaps in the story of this particular baptism. It appears John was not baptizing converts to Judaism. The people he baptized were already Jews. They already believed in God. They didn’t need to be converted. But John offered them something they weren’t easily getting from the official temple religion: repentance and the forgiveness of sins. That’s exactly what Jesus offered people. It makes some sense that he would join those particular people in that particular baptism, so he could be one with them, and to do it openly in public, so that people would see it and would know that he was right there with them from the very beginning, right where they were, and sympathized with them and would claim them as his brothers and sisters.
Having had water poured over them by John, those baptized would have stood up in the river and at that point something would have been said; we know that much. We know that a few decades later in Christian baptisms the baptized would stand after having water poured over them and they would shout out to the sky! One can still find pictures from the first century down in the catacombs of Rome that show these baptismal scenes. Occasionally you can come across these pictures in various books about early Christianity. There you’d see that sometimes the baptized person is just standing in a knee-high tub of shallow water but still looks dripping wet. And always the baptized is standing there with arms outstretched and looking upward with mouth wide as if shouting out. There is evidence to indicate that they called out to the sky they said only one word: Abba, Father.
Perhaps the baptism of Jesus was like that. Perhaps Jesus stood after having the water poured on him, stretched out his arms and looked upward, and shouted out just one word: Abba, Father. It was, after all, what he taught his disciples to call God.
And then in response there came a voice.
I am convinced that John said something to each person he baptized. I don’t know what he said, but I’m sure he said something to each person in the tradition of the rabbis. One can easily imagine John saying something reaffirming and empowering like, “You are a son, … you are a daughter of God. With you God is well pleased.”
But when Jesus came up from the water we are told there was a voice, said to be a voice from heaven, that said, “You are my Son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
I doubt it was the hockey rink manager.
The modern day Christian is confused about what to do with this text. Voices, as a rule, just do not come down from the sky. It doesn’t happen. Not in the real world. So one ends up either thinking one’s own religion is just nuts and either stops taking one’s own church seriously or worse, just walks away from it, been there and done that myself back in the ‘80’s; or -
one flies off to the other extreme, discards one’s brain at the church door and insists that audible disembodied voices really do come out of the clouds, and usually along with that one will insist that if you do not believe this way then God has a very hot place reserved for you when you die. And that, too, is just nuts. And that's exactly the reason I walked away from my former denomination back in '82, but that's another story.
Unfortunately those are pretty much the two options the average Christian ends up with if one makes the mistake of reading the text "literally" with no awareness, or worse, with contempt of Jewish tradition. So, if you don’t want to believe your church is nuts or you do not want to believe that you’re nuts, then there is hope for you, because there is still another option.
If you were Jewish and you read this text then you just might say, “Oh, yeah! No problem! I know what that voice is! That’s the bat kol! Happens all the time in Jewish tradition. Don’t you Christians know anything? Let’s go discuss it over a bagel…”
Well, maybe it doesn’t happen all the time in the Jewish experience, but it happens enough. "Bat kol" are the Hebrew words that mean, literally, “daughter of a voice.” NOT to be confused with the Holy Spirit, which is "Ruach ha-Kodesh" in Hebrew. Say that one nine times fast. I dare you.
The daughter of a voice happens a lot in Hebrew experience. You find it in the Old Testament – for example, the still, small voice in the night that Samuel heard calling his name was bat kol and Elijah seems to have experienced the bat kol on Mt. Horeb. You find it in the Talmud, that collection of the teachings of the Rabbis from the time of Jesus and the early church. Sometimes it is said to be quiet and whisper. Sometimes it is said to sound like a little girl, after all, it is a "daughter." Sometimes it is said to shout out and sound like thunder. And it is not uncommon to find it said that it was a voice that came down from heaven into the midst of a gathering of rabbis and Pharisees and announced that God is well pleased with one or another of them. Sound a little bit familiar?
But this is not the time to start teaching Talmud to you, even though Rabbi Dan kept telling me I really needed to become a rabbi. Actually he gave me two choices, two paths I could follow in life. He said I should either become a rabbi, or that I needed to become bishop of the Upstate New York Synod. Now, how he came to this conclusion I have no idea; sometimes rabbis say the most amazing things. Anyway, I said I’d never make a good rabbi because I would never really be kosher, and anyone who really wanted to be bishop of the Upstate NY Synod had to be certifiably nuts - and that I do not need or want. So, thanks, but no thanks.
With all due respect to my friend the rabbi, our central concern as Christian disciples is Jesus, who heard the classic daughter of a voice itself at his baptism. For my money, the voice that came from heaven was part of a spiritual experience that Jesus had at the moment of his own baptism in which he, and perhaps no one else at that time, heard a voice say, “You are my Son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.” It may have been whispered. It may have sounded like a little girl. Or it may have sounded like thunder to Jesus. But however it was heard it expressed the will of God and it identifies for us the one who is the Son of God in whose name we baptize today.
I think our world is in need of such a voice today. I’ve seen it said in some Jewish discussion on the internet including rabbis and lay people that the bat kol, the daughter of a voice, is still speaking today, but that many people aren’t listening, and so we have all the troubles that we have in the world today. There may be something to that.
In this very troubled world we need to listen for God speaking to us. We need to be quiet for once, stop all our incessant chatter and all our frenetic activity, calm ourselves, slow down, and start listening. There’s even an entire ancient mode of Christian prayer based on just being still and quiet and listening for God. It’s called contemplative prayer. Another thing we got from the ancient Jews, by the way.
Today we have a great need as a society and a great need as individuals to be quiet for once, to put our egos on hold, look to the sky and, with our ancient brothers and sisters in Christ shout “Abba!” and then ... listen.
This Epiphany season let us listen for God’s direction, perhaps as a still, small voice, a quiet whisper; listen for God’s guidance, perhaps as a child’s voice; listen for words that are reaffirming and empowering, perhaps resounding like thunder; listen for a voice from heaven that might be spoken through the mouth of another, the Good News of God that tells us that we, too, are a son or daughter of God, redeemed by Jesus, who once was baptized in the Jordan and died on a cross for one and all; Jesus, with whom God is well pleased.
Thanks be to God.
Pr. J
This blonde wanted to go ice fishing. She'd seen many books on the subject, and finally getting all the necessary tools together, she made for the ice. After positioning her stool, she started to make a circular cut in the ice. Suddenly, from the sky, a voice boomed, "THERE ARE NO FISH UNDER THE ICE." Startled, she moved further down the ice and began to cut yet another hole. Again from the heavens the voice bellowed, "THERE ARE NO FISH UNDER THE ICE." Now worried, she moved away, clear down to the opposite end of the ice. She set up her stool once more and tried again to cut her hole. The voice came once more, "THERE ARE NO FISH UNDER THE ICE." She stopped, looked skyward, and said, "IS THAT YOU, LORD?" The voice replied: "THIS IS THE HOCKEY RINK MANAGER. PLEASE LEAVE THE BUILDING!"
We have a voice in the Gospel reading, but it’s not the hockey rink manager. Supposedly, it’s a voice that “came down from heaven,” as if from the sky.
Jesus has come to his cousin John to be baptized in the Jordan River, because, as he is quoted as saying in the gospel of Matthew, it is appropriate to do this in order to “fulfill all righteousness.” In other words, he’s going to do things right and above board from the start, beginning with a baptism. So he has his cousin baptize him just as John has baptized many others.
At one of the spots where John baptized in the Jordan the water is very shallow, about knee deep. You could literally walk across the Jordan at that point and barely get wet. John would have had people come out into the water and keel in it, and then would have scooped up the water with his hands or with some small vessel of clay and poured it over the person.
It’s too bad we don’t know more about the baptismal practices of the Jews back then; we could fill in a lot of the gaps in the story of this particular baptism. It appears John was not baptizing converts to Judaism. The people he baptized were already Jews. They already believed in God. They didn’t need to be converted. But John offered them something they weren’t easily getting from the official temple religion: repentance and the forgiveness of sins. That’s exactly what Jesus offered people. It makes some sense that he would join those particular people in that particular baptism, so he could be one with them, and to do it openly in public, so that people would see it and would know that he was right there with them from the very beginning, right where they were, and sympathized with them and would claim them as his brothers and sisters.
Having had water poured over them by John, those baptized would have stood up in the river and at that point something would have been said; we know that much. We know that a few decades later in Christian baptisms the baptized would stand after having water poured over them and they would shout out to the sky! One can still find pictures from the first century down in the catacombs of Rome that show these baptismal scenes. Occasionally you can come across these pictures in various books about early Christianity. There you’d see that sometimes the baptized person is just standing in a knee-high tub of shallow water but still looks dripping wet. And always the baptized is standing there with arms outstretched and looking upward with mouth wide as if shouting out. There is evidence to indicate that they called out to the sky they said only one word: Abba, Father.
Perhaps the baptism of Jesus was like that. Perhaps Jesus stood after having the water poured on him, stretched out his arms and looked upward, and shouted out just one word: Abba, Father. It was, after all, what he taught his disciples to call God.
And then in response there came a voice.
I am convinced that John said something to each person he baptized. I don’t know what he said, but I’m sure he said something to each person in the tradition of the rabbis. One can easily imagine John saying something reaffirming and empowering like, “You are a son, … you are a daughter of God. With you God is well pleased.”
But when Jesus came up from the water we are told there was a voice, said to be a voice from heaven, that said, “You are my Son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
I doubt it was the hockey rink manager.
The modern day Christian is confused about what to do with this text. Voices, as a rule, just do not come down from the sky. It doesn’t happen. Not in the real world. So one ends up either thinking one’s own religion is just nuts and either stops taking one’s own church seriously or worse, just walks away from it, been there and done that myself back in the ‘80’s; or -
one flies off to the other extreme, discards one’s brain at the church door and insists that audible disembodied voices really do come out of the clouds, and usually along with that one will insist that if you do not believe this way then God has a very hot place reserved for you when you die. And that, too, is just nuts. And that's exactly the reason I walked away from my former denomination back in '82, but that's another story.
Unfortunately those are pretty much the two options the average Christian ends up with if one makes the mistake of reading the text "literally" with no awareness, or worse, with contempt of Jewish tradition. So, if you don’t want to believe your church is nuts or you do not want to believe that you’re nuts, then there is hope for you, because there is still another option.
If you were Jewish and you read this text then you just might say, “Oh, yeah! No problem! I know what that voice is! That’s the bat kol! Happens all the time in Jewish tradition. Don’t you Christians know anything? Let’s go discuss it over a bagel…”
Well, maybe it doesn’t happen all the time in the Jewish experience, but it happens enough. "Bat kol" are the Hebrew words that mean, literally, “daughter of a voice.” NOT to be confused with the Holy Spirit, which is "Ruach ha-Kodesh" in Hebrew. Say that one nine times fast. I dare you.
The daughter of a voice happens a lot in Hebrew experience. You find it in the Old Testament – for example, the still, small voice in the night that Samuel heard calling his name was bat kol and Elijah seems to have experienced the bat kol on Mt. Horeb. You find it in the Talmud, that collection of the teachings of the Rabbis from the time of Jesus and the early church. Sometimes it is said to be quiet and whisper. Sometimes it is said to sound like a little girl, after all, it is a "daughter." Sometimes it is said to shout out and sound like thunder. And it is not uncommon to find it said that it was a voice that came down from heaven into the midst of a gathering of rabbis and Pharisees and announced that God is well pleased with one or another of them. Sound a little bit familiar?
But this is not the time to start teaching Talmud to you, even though Rabbi Dan kept telling me I really needed to become a rabbi. Actually he gave me two choices, two paths I could follow in life. He said I should either become a rabbi, or that I needed to become bishop of the Upstate New York Synod. Now, how he came to this conclusion I have no idea; sometimes rabbis say the most amazing things. Anyway, I said I’d never make a good rabbi because I would never really be kosher, and anyone who really wanted to be bishop of the Upstate NY Synod had to be certifiably nuts - and that I do not need or want. So, thanks, but no thanks.
With all due respect to my friend the rabbi, our central concern as Christian disciples is Jesus, who heard the classic daughter of a voice itself at his baptism. For my money, the voice that came from heaven was part of a spiritual experience that Jesus had at the moment of his own baptism in which he, and perhaps no one else at that time, heard a voice say, “You are my Son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased.” It may have been whispered. It may have sounded like a little girl. Or it may have sounded like thunder to Jesus. But however it was heard it expressed the will of God and it identifies for us the one who is the Son of God in whose name we baptize today.
I think our world is in need of such a voice today. I’ve seen it said in some Jewish discussion on the internet including rabbis and lay people that the bat kol, the daughter of a voice, is still speaking today, but that many people aren’t listening, and so we have all the troubles that we have in the world today. There may be something to that.
In this very troubled world we need to listen for God speaking to us. We need to be quiet for once, stop all our incessant chatter and all our frenetic activity, calm ourselves, slow down, and start listening. There’s even an entire ancient mode of Christian prayer based on just being still and quiet and listening for God. It’s called contemplative prayer. Another thing we got from the ancient Jews, by the way.
Today we have a great need as a society and a great need as individuals to be quiet for once, to put our egos on hold, look to the sky and, with our ancient brothers and sisters in Christ shout “Abba!” and then ... listen.
This Epiphany season let us listen for God’s direction, perhaps as a still, small voice, a quiet whisper; listen for God’s guidance, perhaps as a child’s voice; listen for words that are reaffirming and empowering, perhaps resounding like thunder; listen for a voice from heaven that might be spoken through the mouth of another, the Good News of God that tells us that we, too, are a son or daughter of God, redeemed by Jesus, who once was baptized in the Jordan and died on a cross for one and all; Jesus, with whom God is well pleased.
Thanks be to God.
Pr. J
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Email fixed
Good news! The email address has been corrected, so now if you click on the button in the profile that says CONTACT you should get the right email address which is salemchurch@wildblue.net.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
This is our synod's logo.
Salem Lutheran is a congregation of the Southeastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Southeastern is geographically the 2nd largest synod in the ELCA.
You can link to Southeastern Synod here: www.elca-ses.org and to ELCA here: www.elca.org.
And if you want to locate an ELCA congregation anywhere you do so here: http://www.elca.org/ELCA/Search/Find-A-Congregation.aspx.
Peace be with you, Pr. J
Salem's address and weekly schedule
Address: Salem Lutheran Church 3001 Salem Rd., Parrottsville, TN 37843
Office phone: 423-623-8086
Office hours: Monday - Thursday, 9 am - 12 pm
Pastor's office hours: Tuesday-Thursday, 10 am - 12:30 pm (subject to change as needed)
Sunday School: 9:45 am year-round
Church service (Holy Communion): 10:45 am
Office phone: 423-623-8086
Office hours: Monday - Thursday, 9 am - 12 pm
Pastor's office hours: Tuesday-Thursday, 10 am - 12:30 pm (subject to change as needed)
Sunday School: 9:45 am year-round
Church service (Holy Communion): 10:45 am
Welcome and email correction
Hi and welcome to the Salem Lutheran blog. First things first: I need to correct our email address. It is: salemchurch@wildblue.net, NOT @wildblue.com. I'm trying to get the change made in the blog profile, but it hasn't shown up yet. Thanks to Rich Miller at the ELCA church-wide office in Chicago for his suggestion to create a church blog in lieu of a website. If you had looked for our old website (the link was on our profile at elca.org) you would not have found it. The website seems to have disappeared, although the front page of the old website can still be seen at www.discovercockecounty.com/_parrot/church/pvsalem.htm.
You can look here for info about Salem Lutheran Church in the shadow of the Smokey Mountains - worship times, events, photos, etc., etc., etc. And maybe some ramblings by me and other members of Salem.
And maybe it goes without saying but keep posts clean and appropriate or I will have to remove them.
Peace be with you, Pr. J
You can look here for info about Salem Lutheran Church in the shadow of the Smokey Mountains - worship times, events, photos, etc., etc., etc. And maybe some ramblings by me and other members of Salem.
And maybe it goes without saying but keep posts clean and appropriate or I will have to remove them.
Peace be with you, Pr. J
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