Song of Solomon 2:8-13 James1:17-27 I read a wonderful little story this past week, about something that has happened in the past and might possibly still be happening today. The story goes that when a Navy man served on board a submarine, his wife, if he had a wife, was permitted to send him messages – but only short messages. They were limited to eight words. That’s pretty short. And they were censored, if needed. You can just forget about privacy. But the Navy wives had a secret: The Song of Solomon. They would send messages like SOS 1:2, which counted as only one word. The husband knew that this meant Song of Solomon, chapter 1, verse 2, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine!” These wives were sending coded messages and some of them were pretty steamy. So, that’s one […]
Continue readingMonth: August 2021
The Hard Stuff
John 6:56-69 We Presbyterians like to think of ourselves as intellectual Christians. We place a high value on our doctrine, often making reference to what Calvin had to say about this or that. We insist that our pastors be well-educated because we enjoy a good challenging sermon. In fact, the common criticism that you hear of Presbyterians is that we love the Lord our God with our whole mind – and we stop there. Never mind the heart, soul, and body. Hence our nickname, the “frozen chosen.” And perhaps because of the way we embrace the intellectual things, we often find ourselves in an uncomfortable position with the scriptures. For instance, what in the world do we do with these words Jesus said in this chapter of John? Would you like my honest opinion? At the risk of offending you, I will say I think we sometimes are a little […]
Continue readingQUEST, Part 4: RETURNING HOME
Psalm 36:5-9 John 15:1-17 I have heard that if you want to really get the feel of a place you need to stay there at least three weeks. One or two weeks feels like a vacation away from your real life, but sometime during that third week your perspective shifts. You begin to feel like a resident, a local. When I was in college I spent a month in Oxford, England and that happened to me. I came home from that month away and looked at everything with new vision. I became a tourist in my hometown. An obnoxious tourist, actually. I was critical of everything, I rolled my eyes at the naivete of my loved ones. I was 19 and insufferable. I have grown up since then, but still, when I return home from a journey there is always a sense of seeing things differently. I spent three weeks […]
Continue readingQUEST, Part 3: REFLECTION
Isaiah 65:17-25 Revelations 21: 22-26 I often hear people complain about the Old Testament. They say that it is full of nothing but violence and ugliness. I just want to point out this beautiful passage from Isaiah is part of the Old Testament. People, including me, also say that the book of Revelation is chock full of awful stuff. But then you have this exquisite passage from chapter 21. It is true, in the Old Testament and in Revelation, and perhaps even in the gospels, we wade through a lot of hard stuff, awful stuff – and then we get to this place of breathtaking beauty. Kind of like life, at times. There is a lot of awful and painful stuff in the world, stuff that is hard to look at. Yet, if we remain present, we may get to hope. These two passages we read today are preceded by […]
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