On Authourity
We swim with questions about what is truth, what is fact, and what is authoritative. What is real news that has authority, and what is fake news? There are many people who claim authority, and not all of them are worthy of it. Few wield it, and fewer still are good at articulating what is necessary to have it. Part of the problem is we have culturally dismantled the term. We use the word “authority” now only in a vestigial sense. It is long divorced from any real meaning or moral weight.1 For all of our postmodern mistrust of authority, and for all of our self-righteous rejection of all things hierarchical and institutional — we are breathtakingly silent when it comes to defining exactly what it is that we are throwing out with our bath water. Therefore, for a...
Read MoreShishmaref FAQs
1.Bless you! Did you just sneeze? (How do you pronounce Shishmaref?) It’s like shish-kabob but with mar ef at the end. Sh- as in Shine; -ish- as in Danish; -mar- as in March; -ef as in effluvium. Shh-ish-mah-ref. 2.Can you see Russia from your house? (Where is Shishmaref?) No. We cannot see Russia from our house. Actually, the best view from the parsonage is facing the wrong way anyway. Our bay windows look across the bay (living up to their name in a way most bay windows can only dream of) and southward toward the mainland. However, even if we were pointed at the sea, we are not close enough to Russia to see it. Sarichef Island, where sits Shishmaref, is off the coast of the Seward Peninsula of Alaska. (A name I cannot seem to pronounce correctly. I always want...
Read MoreAll Other Ground is Shishmaref
I chose the words for my title very carefully. It is a good title. I like it because of the positivity I hear in it. This ground, this place is not just our ground. It is not just the ground of 600 Inupiat people, who have lived here for generations on the edge of the world. It is all of our ground, because the things happening here matter for all of us. The climate change that immediately threatens the way of life in Shishmaref, is the same climate change that is a threat to all other ground as well. The only difference is, we see our homes toppling into the ocean. We can look at our fourth sea-wall and how thin and fragile a barrier it is between us and the melting stormy northern seas. But Shishmaref is not the only ground sinking into the ocean. For our...
Read More-So Much for Clarity-
It’s NaPoWriMo! And I’m writing poems again, here’s my day one. — 00 Be the 1st to vote.Share...
Read MoreGod’s Grace Is At Work Despite This
My quick and dirty Lutheran Response to the Daily News headline “God Isn’t Fixing This” and its condemnation of prayer as useless platitudes. — The profoundness of misunderstanding that has to go on for such a headline to run is near unapproachable. This misunderstands God, Prayer, Action, and the whys and hows of all three. First about prayer: the idea that prayer is somehow divorced from action is at stake here. Prayer is labeled as “platitudes” and it is implied that real action is necessary instead. But if prayer is truly platitudes and some sort of mystical thing divorced from reality, I would never do it. In fact, that would mean I have never prayed ever in my life. But this is not prayer. It is not true that prayer does not build...
Read MoreFarewell Sermon For Trinity
Grace and peace be unto you from God our Father, and our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, Amen. I must say, I could not have been given a better text to preach my last sermon on for this congregation here in Robesonia. This is a text where everyone gets food! Not only that but there’s plenty of leftovers to take home. If there is one thing I have learned about Berk’s County, it is how important food is to all of you. But sharing food with the multitudes is not just important here at Trinity, it is a story central to sharing the Gospel itself. The feeding of the multitudes we hear today from John is such a central story in the New Testament that it is included six times in the four Gospels. For those of you counting, that means two of our Gospels tell the story...
Read MoreAn Image for the Kingdom
Grace and Peace be unto you from God our Father, and our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, Amen. “With what can we compare the kingdom of God? What parable shall we use for it?” What images come first to your mind when you think about God’s kingdom? In this weekend’s first reading from Ezekiel we get an image of a great cedar which God raises up from a sprig on top of a mountain. Cedars grow nearly 130 feet tall, (to give you a common everyday frame of reference, that’s about six and a half T-rexes tall.) these are huge majestic trees with birds that nest in their tall lofty branches. It’s a big deal, and God puts one on top of a mountain. Shall we use that image for the kingdom of God? But why stop with only six and a half T-rexes? This is GOD’S...
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