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December 27, 2007
Melanie @ 7:11 pm
as the holidays approached, my blogging fell apart! Keep reading through the transformation journal, and I hope to be back to writing more regularly about the scripture readings soon! Advent is a very busy time in the church, and preparations for Christmas Eve services are huge! Blessings to you all during these 12 days of Christmas. Please keep the families and friends of John, Pauline, Dick and Doug in your prayers, as they grieve the loss of these people in their lives. There is a time for every season under heaven, and it’s difficult when a time we equate with birth becomes a time of death as well.
December 10, 2007
Melanie @ 11:06 pm
Pious people sometimes drive me nuts, because sometimes they seem fake. We don’t get that impression with Boaz. His piety seems real, natural, and just a part of who he is. He didn’t have to treat Ruth as anything other than a resident alien whom he was required to allow glean from his fields, along with the rest of the resident aliens in the area. Instead he takes a compassionate interest in her, having heard what she did for her mother-in-law. One good turn deserves another… it’s nice when things in life follow that way.
-Melanie
December 6, 2007
Melanie @ 9:55 pm
to me is the beginning sentence of Matthew 7. “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.” It’s so easy to fall into the mindset of seeing only the logs in other peoples eyes, and thinking we have barely a splinter in our own. Of course, we don’t see it this way with people we love, but think of someone you really have a bone to pick with. Then it seems more likely that we see the problems as theirs without our own role in it. I connected this teaching from chapter 7 to the chapter 13 parable of the weeds amond the wheat. The workers immediately wanted to pull up the weeds from the wheat, but the master said, hold off. The master determines the what is weed, what is wheat, when it gets pulled, and what is done with it, not the workers. This is a good reminder, as I think of the conversations I’ve had with people where either I or they have said, “If I was the President, I would do this…” or “If I was in charge of that program, I would do that…” and how confident we are that we’d do something much better than the actual person trying to do the work. Some days we need the mantra, “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged.”
-Melanie
p.s. Safe travels tonight with this next round of snow!
December 3, 2007
Melanie @ 6:32 pm
I’m happy to have a break from the Hebrew Scriptures to explore Matthew this week. Yesterday’s scripture reading offers a description of Jesus’ birth - I encourage you to compare Matthew and Lukes versions - they are both unique. Matthew’s version isn’t used as much, perhaps because it has rather violent undertones as Jesus’ family flees to Egypt.
In Matthew chapter 5, we are ambushed with a series of lessons from Jesus that one after another, challenge the way we usually look at things, perhaps even our instinctual way of looking at things. The one most challenging to me is the last challenge he puts forth, to love our enemies. He has a point, it is easy to love those who love you. It’s a lot harder to love those who are hateful, hurtful, or malicious towards you. It would be a lot easier to avoid those who don’t like you. Everytime I read this, I get a knot in my stomach, because the list of people who I don’t feel like loving pops up into my head, and I have to struggle with the question of how to live out this challenge from Jesus. I do try to love those who are hard to love, but my humanness makes it a continuous struggle. But we are called to struggle and keep trying.
-Melanie
December 1, 2007
Melanie @ 5:33 am
So I’m looking forward to reading Matthew next week. I’m a little tired of the judges and their tendency towards violence in the name of God. Delilah was seduced by money, Samson seduced by love, the people seduced by the power. In the end, most of them met a violent end, although we don’t know what happened to Delilah. Did she take the money and run? Or was she sick with herself afterwards like Judas was? There is physical strength, the power of beauty, and the desire for power. None of these are bad in and of themselves, but when they are not connected to a moral strength, they can lead to such destruction. Perhaps this story reminds us that it has always been a challenge to hold both ideals - physical and moral strength - together. We often seem to value physical power and strength without giving equal time and attention to the ethical implications of our actions.
-melanie
November 29, 2007
Melanie @ 12:49 am
Funny thing how Gideon built an altar and called it “The Lord is Peace”, which he follows up with a sword and a war cry of “For the Lord and for Gideon!” I’m not a fan of the whole idea of dressing up the violence of war with nice, fanciful terms like peace. I remember visiting a military base and learning about nuclear weapons, being told that one of them was called the “peacekeeper”. I was young, so I may remember my details inaccurately, but I thought they said it would only take 7 or 8 to blow up the whole world, and we had 4 or 5 times that many in our possession. I’m not sure that’ s a true peacekeeper as much as it is a fear-instiller. The other issue I have is that these people went to war in the name of God, but even more than that, in the name of another human being. Gideon must have been some character - testing and retesting God, then getting others to fight in God’s name, but also his own. The thing I most take from this passage tonight, is to beware of making gods of ourselves, which was the same thing Gideon was ironically trying to instill in the people. Perhaps he replaced the worship of baal with worship of the self?
What do you think? Am I being too hard on Gideon? He was, after all, trying to respond to God’s call…
-melanie
November 15, 2007
Melanie @ 2:06 am
Woe to you. That’s often the word from the prophets in the Old Testament. The irony is, when someone tells you to watch out, they what you are doing is going to hurt you, do we ever really listen? Usually we just get upset, more set in our ways, convinced that the person we are dating really is good, that the work we are doing really is ethical, that the drinking isn’t really addiction. I kind of feel sorry for the prophets, because they were set up for failure. They gave the warnings, but no one listened. Because we seem to always have to learn for ourselves, not from others mistakes. It’s sort of like AA can do wonders for people, but only when they realize they need it for themselves.
Which makes Jonah so different from Micah. The people actually listened to Jonah, which he wasn’t expecting, and then he was annoyed when they did listen and change their ways! I’m not sure who had the harder time of things.
There’s something to be said for telling people we care about our concerns about the decisions they are making that are harmful in their lives. We have an obligation to do that, but we also have to accept that they will still make their own choices, whether we agree with them or not. And somehow, as painful as it is, we just love them the best we can.
-Melanie
November 11, 2007
Melanie @ 3:58 am
Joshua is alive! I heard a sermon on this once, by Otis Moss and I will never forget it. Moses got to see the promised land, even if he didn’t get to step foot in it. And he could have been bitter about it, but instead, he laid his hands on Joshua and blessed him with wisdom so that he could lead the people. How wonderful it is when those who have gone before us lay their hands on us and bless us to go forward. It doesn’t always happen that way, so when it does, it is indeed a holy and sacred thing.
What blessings do you have to pass on to others to carry forward?
-Melanie
November 7, 2007
Melanie @ 9:44 pm
In the Bible it talks about the impossibility of trying to serve two masters at once - God and wealth. I think things are harder now than they were before - we are torn to serve three, four, five, maybe more masters at the same time! It’s stressful watching the frenetic pace of people trying to serve God and money. But now it seems we have to serve our jobs as master if we want to keep them in an age when people are getting laid off. We have to serve our homes if we want to keep them from falling a part. The greatest master trying to cajole me into service is my calendar. My life revolves around my calendar, and what it says I need to be doing at any particular moment of the day! If we only had to deal with God and wealth, that would seem like nothing compared to the many masters out there today! But when it comes down to it, money seems to be the one that is hardest to set aside. It’s hardest to orient ourselves towards God when the big, flashy gold calf and dollar signs are shining off in our periphery. I know my weakness. That’s probably why I choose to have my gifts to the church and other non-profits taken directly out of my bank accounts. If I didn’t intentionally offer them as a priority, knowing that no matter what, each month my gifts will go to God through the church, if I waited until the end of the month, I’m pretty sure there would not be much left for God. What do you do to keep other masters from taking the place of God? Any ideas? Insights to share?
-Melanie
November 5, 2007
Melanie @ 7:20 pm
The concern here seems to be with priorities. Hearing something and doing it are two different things. Hearing Moses say “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” is one thing, doing it is another! God seems to get the human heart in terms of its needs. When things are rough, we hold on to God with all our hearts. But when things are going well, we might start putting our priorities and allegiances with other things. Moses says, “Take care that you not forget the Lord”. The challenge is to remember God at all times, not just the rough ones. Hearing/doing, remembering/forgetting - these are the daily challenges we face! And some days we fare better than others. All we can do is give it our best effort, and keep this commandment before us - writing it on our hearts and our minds.
-Melanie
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