The Word Alone

Dietrich Bonhoeffer observes in Life Together, "(Avoid) the net of self-centered introspection....There is no more time to observe ourselves in meditation than there is in Christian life as a whole. We should pay attention to the Word alone, and leave it to the Word to deal effectively with everything....If you seek God alone, you will gain happiness..."

So we absorb the Word in all the words.

Starting on Thursday, September 27, 7 p.m., at the church we will begin to read the words and the Word with the help of our Bibles and copies of the new Transformation Journal. We will pray and study--and so we will also grow in love toward God and toward our neighbor. Please count this as an invitation to join this form of Covenant Discipleship group. We will study and discuss the important things in life. All are welcome. I will help to guide the study. Perhaps together we will "gain happiness" and learn to "leave it to the Word..." Please call or e-mail me if you would like to join the group.

Heavy, Dude.

Thinking of Crop Walk, I learned this week that US citizens make up 4% of the world's population and 7.3% of the weight of the world's people. Now, that's heavy.

By the way, our first Super Wednesday meal is Wednesday, September 26, 5:30-6:30 p.m. What made me think of that? We're serving pizza and the fixin's. Please invite friends, family and neighbors. Everyone is welcome, and we can spread the heaviness around, dudes and dudettes.

Hummingbird

Admiring a hummingbird's whirring exertion while on a North Shore retreat, I happened to be watching when that winged blur of effort paused at a white petunia, and drew from the heart of the flower. That blossom had five red, nail-shaped "wounds". I thought of how intensely we work ourselves--and of how much we need to drink from the Gospel, even if we must do it on the fly. "Look at the bird of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them"(Matthew 6:26).

"Go Sin Some"

Tomorrow morning, Sunday the 9th of September, we're going to have a fine Johnny Cash-like singer, and I'll be preaching about the spiritual journey of Mr. Cash, who died four years ago this week. Cash started his career as the prodigal son, became a penitent and later a prophet.

It's a great story, partly legend and partly fact, but one of the things that caught my attention was the notion that when Cash first auditioned in the1950s with Sam Phillips as a performer, he wanted to be a Gospel singer. Phillips listened a bit, then told Cash, "Go home and sin some, then come back and maybe I'll be able to use you."

Well, apparently Cash took him seriously. His appeal and his message always had something to do with the murky mix of rebel, regret and religious fervor. And somehow he twanged our nerves and touched our hearts. He also warned us for fifty year, directly and indirectly, about our culture,our politics, and the risks we faced of becoming--overly and overtly violent and self-focused.

If you have the time, listen to some of Cash's recordings. Don't miss some of his later songs either! The "man in black" had a lot that he wanted to say in his songs. If you're up tomorrow by 9:30, come on to service and hear a bit of Johnny Cash' music and his life.

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