tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2180775301008421592024-02-20T01:39:05.176-08:00New Horizons by Rudolph van GraanAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03551575144204020271noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-218077530100842159.post-80978397989887112672012-09-01T22:24:00.002-07:002012-09-01T22:24:13.980-07:00That They May Be One
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<b><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">That They May Be One – John 17:1-11</span></b><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I have no
idea what motivates people to participate in the life of a church or what brings
someone to a place of worship. We are beyond the years of traditional church
attendance and, life in Southern California where I live, simply offers too
much for church attendance to be high on anyone’s Sunday agenda. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">An easy answer
may be “God”. And although that may be a general truth, it does not suffice for
even God cannot overcome one’s resistance when one turns one’s back on the
church or for that matter, on God. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">However, you
may remember a time in your life when you heard a voice and you </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.0pt;">unmistakably </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">knew that it was the voice of God. To you it
WAS the voice of God. But you may also remember times when the voices you heard
did not bring you any closer to God; instead they caused confusion and
sometimes lead to emotional distress and </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.0pt;">spiritual </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">damage.
If you ever felt this way, if you found yourself in a spiritual wilderness, you
were not alone. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">May I
comfort you with stories from the Bible: Even in those days there were many
voices. There were followers of the monotheistic and ritualistic Orthodox
Judaism, there were followers of a pantheon of Greek mythological gods and
goddesses, and there were devotees of the military regime of Rome, with its powerful
arm of imperial expansionism. Then there were smaller groups, for example the
Zealots, and the tribal and fertility religions or cults of the lands
surrounding ancient Palestine. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">It is against
this backdrop that the voice of Jesus sounded and, little by little, ordinary
folks came under the impression of a message in which they </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.0pt;">unmistakably </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">recognized the voice of God. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">So, do we
still meet God in our worship services? Do we still hear the voice of God in
our churches and our religion? Hearing the call of Christ to gather as
communities is not enough to hold us together. Our history proves that the search
for understanding and fulfillment oftentimes pulls us apart rather than binds
us together. There is great diversity among us and the glue that keeps us
together is sometimes just not strong enough. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">As a glue to
keep the community of believers together, Jesus offers a benediction prayer
before he launches his disciples into the world: “Holy Father, protect them in
your name that you have given me, <i>so that
they may be one</i>” (</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.0pt;">John
17:1-11). </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">No longer students in college, now
ministers of his message, he confirms their eligibility to serve God fully with
their lives. He passes the mantel of responsibility on to them; he caps them in
God’s grace to graduate from mere students of Jesus’ teachings to full participants in God’s works. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14pt;">Regardless of our understanding of faith or whichever
voices dominate our antennae, we are launched into this world to perform
Christ-like acts of courageous ministry in God’s name. The church may never
regain the place it once had as a prominent force in culture and society. But a
church that hears and responds to God’s voice is a force to reckon with. It
does not lie in numbers, buildings or the size of the annual budget. It lies in
Jesus’ teachings and whether we hear </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14pt;">God’s voice </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14pt;">in those teachings.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14.0pt;"> – Thank you for reading.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03551575144204020271noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-218077530100842159.post-28427638313461623592012-08-21T17:36:00.004-07:002012-08-21T17:37:38.518-07:00Unhelpful Beliefs<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">August 19, 2012 - Unhelpful Beliefs <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">True to our human nature,
we are always in search of certainty and security. We are faced with an
uncertain future; the more we try to secure our future, the more it seems to
evade us. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">If you lived 2000 years
ago in a pre-scientific world, it would be totally understandable to see the world
filled with great mysteries that were open to much speculation. Lightning, disease
and random disaster puzzled these people. Answers were invariably found in some
belief in a supernatural, mysterious world of gods and demons. Today, there are
still many examples of this thinking and worldview.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Religion can be a most
devastating and dangerous practice in any society, if left unchecked. Our own faith
tradition is rife with beliefs that may not be very helpful, some even
downright unhelpful and unjust. It behooves us as post-modern, well-informed
and thinking Christians to critically assess our own opinions and change or adjust
our thinking, should we uncover unhelpful beliefs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">I can give you this
guarantee: the more you critically evaluate your religion and faith, the more you
will uncover unhelpful beliefs and discard of them, like I have done many
times. It is easy to spot those unhelpful beliefs in the lives of others or in other
religions; it’s much harder to admit it in our own faith tradition. Some who
call themselves Christians perform terrible acts in the name of Christianity. There
is much pathology in religion and we need to be aware of this so we do not
become captives of these dangerous trends. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">As long as we remain stuck
in pre-scientific religious concepts I see no future for Christianity. But I
see tremendous hope for the church if we do what Jesus taught. He gathered his
most trusted and beloved friends and left them with a very simply commission: “Love
one another and care for the people”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Is this a useful belief, one
worth following, you might ask? “Love me, and feed my sheep” is the only
theology or dogma we need to understand. By embracing this lifestyle we are not
only saved from a first century worldview that includes “Hell and Damnation” — but
also we are saved from the inhumanity of greed, hatred and selfishness. We are
saved from our materialism. We are saved from our sometimes-sick values that
distort our relationships and break our hearts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">Life is too short and too
precious to be stuck in an unhelpful faith. Find a foundation for your faith
upon which you can truly build a meaningful life. Embrace the simple call to
love others and to take care of them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11.0pt;">That sounds like a helpful
belief, doesn’t it? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03551575144204020271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-218077530100842159.post-58397902785086528322012-08-21T15:20:00.000-07:002012-08-21T17:38:38.852-07:00Old Time Religion vs The New<br />
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Old Time Religion versus the New<o:p></o:p></div>
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Thank you for listening to excerpts from sermons that I recently
preached at the First Congregational Church of Glendale, California. The
experience of listening to a sermon in a beautiful church with stained glass
windows and high ceilings may be very different from listening to a sermon over
the Internet, YouTube or any other mode of electronic communication. These technology-driven
ways of communicating are widely used and I enjoy doing this recording with
Charles, the sound person at our church. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Theologically I see myself as progressive and liberal. My
challenge is to preach the Gospel in fresh and new ways while inspiring
individuals to search for meaning in their own lives. In my ministry I
emphasize Christian community and service, peace and justice, compassion and
love. <o:p></o:p></div>
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On August 12, I spoke about Old Time Religion versus the
New, and asked if we were not perhaps missing the point, when comparing the Old
Testament with the New. <o:p></o:p></div>
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What we need to understand is the difference between LAW and
GOSPEL. <o:p></o:p></div>
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LAW is a set of rules and regulations. It binds you, it
ensnares you and it convicts you.<o:p></o:p></div>
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GOSPEL, on the other hand, means Good News! And the gospel
liberates, forgives, pronounces God’s grace and embraces mercy and love. <o:p></o:p></div>
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This is but one of many examples of how things change, a
concept or an idea changes over time. This internal conflict between the law
and the gospel should not come as a shock or as a surprise to you. By now you
should be aware of internal inconsistencies in biblical texts AND you should possess
the theological tools to understand and interpret these seemingly contradictory
texts. We cannot act like some biblical literalists do, and pull one Bible
verse from its context only to muster public support for an opinion. The danger
is too big, and sadly it is happening just too often; it leads to
fundamentalism and extremism, and eventually to tragedy. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The theme for the next few Sundays is an expression used by
Jesus himself: you can’t put new wine in old wineskins - indeed an expression
that explains exactly that new times require new responses. If there is one
thing we need today, it is a mature and balanced response to the challenges of
our times, where we, reasonable and sensible people of faith, make our voices heard.
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Thank you for listening. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03551575144204020271noreply@blogger.com0