Blog - Hunger

In a conversation about process theology with a Spent Dandelioner a spell back, it clicked that process holds to a God always active.

Last week, I was invited to do a Zoomed text study with a group of rostered leaders in Wisconsin. WHAT a great group.

About two years back, the State of Minnesota paid for our home to made more accessible by way of a track-run hoyer lift for my son…and for my back, as it turns out, because Karl’s way heavier now at age 18 than when the accident happened at age 3, I will tell you what.

“Mindful of the risks, we pledge ourselves to involvement in the social systems and structures, so that these become more responsive to God’s will for the world.
We will be our Lord’s advocates for the powerless, the poor, the lonely, the exploited, the deprived, the rejected.
We will resist any governmental, social, economic, or ideological force which would blunt justice or demean persons.
We will work with those who will be helpful us to respect all, care for all, and aim at freedom for all.
Thus committed, we look to Almighty God for direction.
In Jesus Christ and through the prophets, God gives us the vision of a world made new for a life of social justice and mercy, of reconciliation and peace, of promise and fulfillment.
We rely on the Spirt to give us power to do that which a faith active in love demands us.
Our hope is in God.” Mandate for Peacemaking, 1982, American Lutheran Church
Last weekend (although not by any means for the first time) I mentioned Trump and the Republican Party and GOP policies by name in some presentations I gave at a synod assembly.

Epiphany.

Luke 3:7-18

I got myself into a bit of a pickle the other day, and the reason for it (as is the case with most of my pickles [I tend to generate a lot]) started innocuously.

Here’s a word I hadn’t known before yesterday: Cleromancy.

A Reflection on James 2:1-17, 2nd Reading in the Revised Common Lectionary for the 16th Sunday after Pentecost, Sept. 9, 2018.

Dear OMG-ers,

The below was written initially as a FB post this morning, but I’m compelled to post it as a blog.

What is, therefore, our task today? Shall I answer: “Faith, hope, and love”? That sounds beautiful. But I would say–courage. No, even that is not challenging enough to be the whole truth. Our task today is recklessness. For what we Christians lack is not psychology or literature…we lack a holy rage–the recklessness which comes from the knowledge of God and humanity. The ability to rage when justice lies prostrate on the streets, and when the lie rages across the face of the earth…a holy anger about the things that are wrong in the world. To rage against the ravaging of God’s earth, and the destruction of God’s world. To rage when little children must die of hunger, when the tables of the rich are sagging with food. To rage at the senseless killing of so many, and against the madness of militaries. To rage at the lie that calls the threat of death and the strategy of destruction peace. To rage against complacency. To restlessly seek that recklessness that will challenge and seek to change human history until it conforms to the norms of the Kingdom of God. And remember the signs of the Christian Church have been the Lion, the Lamb, the Dove, and the Fish…but never the chameleon.
Call committees, when sketching out a profile for their next pastor, are awfully drawn to words like these: kind, available, comforting, pastoral, articulate, flexible, intelligent, dynamic, wise, knowledgable, organized, trust-worthy, confident.

I’m a soul and I like cake.

Dear all,

I was listening, the other day, to a man on the radio who said that he advocated “Value Based Voting.”

Below is the text of August 12th’s sermon for Springdale Lutheran.  The texts are below the sermon, and were captured at http://bible.oremus.org.

This blog is a posted version of the sermon I preached this morning at Springdale Lutheran, and in light of the events in Colorado, and in light of the day-to-day lives of so many  suffering sisters and brothers in the world.

We just returned from two weeks Florida, the children and I.

Recently I read a review of  a new book by Terry Eagleton called Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate.  A very fine survey of his life can also be found here.  The review of this particular volume was so compelling that I ran out and got it, and you should too.

So, we have not delved into the etymological well for some time, being busy with lots of good reader comments to the blog and questions!  Thanks for those, and more are always welcome!