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A Prayer for Little Children

Ich bin klein, mein Herz ist rein. Soll niemand drin wohnen als Jesus allein. Amen.

Morning Prayer

Wie fröhlich bin ich aufgewacht.

Wie hab ich geschlafen so sanft die Nacht.

Hab dank den Vater im Himmel mein,

dass Du uns wollens bei mir sein.

Bleib bei mir auch diesen Tag,

dass mir kein Leid geschehen mag. Amen.

Evening Prayer

Müde bin ich, geh zu Ruh,

schliesse beide Äuglein zu.

Vater, lass die Augen dein,

über meinem Bette sein.

Hab ich Unrecht Heut getan,

sieh es lieber Gott nicht an.

Aber Christi Gnad und Jesu Blut,

machen allen Schaden gut. Amen.

A short prayer before going to sleep

(I believe it comes from Dostoevsky or

I could also check Les Miserables.)

Dear Jesus,

lay me down like a stone

and raise me up like a loaf. Amen.

Another prayer for bedtime

Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

Watch over me from heaven above,

Jesus, keep me in your love. Amen.

For a child cranky before bedtime

I’m so tired I want to cry.

Dear Jesus come near by

and hold my hand until  sleep

and your dear watch over me keep. Amen.

Saying Grace at the Table

Herr, Dir sei Dank für Speis und Trank. Amen.

Another Prayer

Vater, segne diese Speise uns zur Kraft und Dir zum Preise.  Amen.

And another

Zwei Dinge, Herr, sind Not, die gib nach deiner Huld:

Gib uns das Täglich Brot, vergib uns unsre Schuld. Amen.

Another Grace as popular in German as in English

Komm, Herr Jesu, sei Du unser Gast

und segne was Du uns bescheret hast. Amen.

In English

Come Lord Jesus, be our guest

and let these gifts to us be blessed. Amen.

Another Table Prayer

For health and strength and daily food,

we praise thy name, dear Lord. Amen.

Another

All eyes look to you,  O Lord, and you give them food in due season.

You open your hand and fill the desires of all living things. Amen.

In German

Aller Augen warten suf Dich, Herr, und Du gibst ihnen ihre Speise zu seiner Zeit,

Du tust deine Hand auf und sättigst alles, was da lebet, mit Wohlgefallen. Amen.

This one is mostly sung:
Speise, Vater, deine Kinder
Speise, Vater, deine Kinder, tröste die betrübten Sünder,

sprich den Segen zu den Gaben, die wir jetzt so vor uns haben,

dass sie uns zu diesem Leben, Stärke, Kraft und Nahrung geben,

bis wir endlich mit den Frommen zu der Himmelsmahlzeit kommen. Amen.

(My father always led the singing of this prayer. As a little child, I would sing:

“Sprich den Segen zu den Gabeln,” and I would wonder why we singled out the forks for the blessing.

I did not know the word “Gaben” back then.)

Pentecost VIII, July 26^th 2009

at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Oakland, California

2 Kings 4:42-44 Psalm 145:10-18 Ephesians 3:14-21 John 6:1-21

The Banquet of King Jesus, Sovereign of all Humankind,

Today we have the story of how Jesus feeds the five thousand according to the Gospel of John. John’s Gospel tries to get to the bottom of the good news of Jesus Christ; he tries to think it all the way through. Thus he shows that this feeding of the five thousand represents the royal nature of Jesus and that is why afterward, the people try to capture him and make him their king.

In those days the powerful often had huge banquets for the people under them. There were Roman feedings of thousands by which they wanted to prove that they were capable of providing the livelihoods for the people they ruled. In Rome someone from a patrician family gathered clients for whom they became the patrons. Today we feel that we work for the powerful, but in those days, a dignitary with authority in Rome had to give benefits to clients, who then performed duties for their patron. Thus clients would ask a patron, “What have you done for me lately?” and the patron would ask, “Have you done the duties I assigned to you?” The clients of the patron were expected to gather around the doorway of his house and praise and honor him as he stepped out to begin his day. Then the larger and larger the crowd, the more prestige and honor this patron would have. Attaining glory because of great and noble works, the patron could become a senator or consul or even a Caesar. With that all his subjects had a great deal to gain in the benefits the strongman would then be able to distribute.[1]

We often forget that Jesus, his disciples, and the crowds around him, were living in the Roman Empire. We think of him in Galilee and Judea, but the Romans called the area Palestine.

The Prophet Elisha, the Psalm, and King Jesus, the Lamb of God, all point, however, not to a human patronage system, but to the reign of God. In the words of Isaiah: “What a beautiful sight! On the mountains a messenger announces to Jerusalem, “Good News! You are saved. There will be peace. Your God is now King” (Isaiah 52:7). Only God can be that giver of grace and favor and only God should be believed in and trusted with our lives. Those who trust in flesh, that is politicians, will find that they can’t keep their promises, but it is God alone who keeps them.

Barley loaves were evidently the bread eaten by the poor. Elisha feeds a hundred prophets with twenty of these loaves of bread, along with some grain, given as an offering of the first fruit to him by a man from Baalshalishah, a town near Shechem. Elisha demonstrates that the Word of God can be trusted to come true: “give to the people and let them eat, for thus saith the Lord, ‘they shall eat and have some left.’”

Our Good Shepherd provides for us in abundance – with lush green pastures and still waters to quench our thirst. But notice how our first fruits are required. If your offering to God comes from the top, then you will always have something left over. Forget God and you will never have enough. It is an insult to God to offer only what you have left over, because in this case you usually don’t have anything left over, if you didn’t limit yourself right from the start with your offering to God. Here the fellow brought his offering to the man of God, but you can give to God by giving to the poor and needy or to the church. But your offering should always be from your first fruit and never from your left overs.

Then the words from psalm 145 come true: “the eyes of all look upon you [O Lord] and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand and fill the desires of all living things” (15-16). Notice how beforehand the psalmist praises the splendor of God’s kingdom: “Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and your dominion endures throughout all generations.”

Our unfaithfulness to God by our trust in the god of money, called Mammon, has brought this recession down upon us. “The Lord holds up those who are falling and raises up those who are bowed down” our Psalm says, but our shepherds have not protected the weak from the powerful. The staff of the shepherd keeps the strong from exploiting and taking advantage of the weak. The good shepherd uses his staff to keep the hogs from taking it all away from those who are weak and vulnerable. Anyway, I believe that our prosperity became unpleasant in God’s eyes, because we did not care about the wretched poverty of our inner cities and Appalachia in our own country, nor that poverty which stretches across Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Now thousands of us lose our health coverage every day, over 600,000 people lose their job a month, and millions are under water with their mortgages and have lost their homes, while the homeless lines of our soup kitchen are getting longer and longer. We can trust in money, but God is a jealous God and God is not mocked.

The story about Jesus feeding the five thousand is in all four Gospels and that means it is important. The Gospel of John shows that it is a royal act and that is why the people want to capture Jesus after it and make him their king. But they do not understand the height, depth, width, and breadth of the love in the kingdom of God. They want to make Jesus into their conception of a king, which is very much like a Caesar. But Jesus’ conception is to be the Christ of God, the Holy One come to be among us. He has to dwell in the hearts of the faithful: their hearts have to be his dwelling place, like the temple is the dwelling place of God – for when we are baptized in his name, it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us (Gal 2:20). Just having a job, a livelihood, our daily bread, our house with a car in the driveway, is not the whole picture of what the kingdom of God is about. His kingdom is not of this world; it is in but not of it. We live in this world, but are hearts are not to be caught up in worldly values.

The multiplication of the bread is the second of Jesus’ signs in the Gospel of John. His first sign is changing water into wine at the marriage of Cana. Thus Jesus provides for us the bread and the wine for the Holy Communion we receive in his kingdom. John presents Jesus as the King of the universe and of all the nations, but he does not want the twelve tribes of Israel to be lost, nor anybody at all. The bread stands for people and Jesus says, “gather up the fragments left over so that nothing [we could say, “no one”] is lost.” And the disciples gathered up left overs, filling up twelve baskets. John is speaking in picture language to tell us about the kingdom of God, because Jesus accepts the offering of that little boy, takes the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributes it. That means that all are provided for out of the miraculous abundance of God from the Table of the Lord.

Naturally the people had their eyes on the food and wanted more of it, so they try to capture Jesus to make him their king. In the early church, when someone who had done great things, came into a cathedral, the people sometimes captured him and made him their bishop, even against his will. Augustine avoided churches until he was captured.

Now that assault by the people who were only thinking of their daily bread, their livelihood, their jobs, houses, and prosperity, made Jesus withdraw. Perhaps even the disciples were in on it, because they too became separated from Jesus in the ensuing disarray. Sudden storms often take place on the Sea of Galilee, which in this place, is about seven miles wide. Without the strength of the Holy One from on high, they have to row by their own effort for three to four miles through the wind and the waves. Then they see the one who changed the water into wine, multiplied the loaves of bread for communion, walking on the water to them. They became really frightened as he drew near them. Were they frightened because he was the Holy One, frightened because of the raging waves of the sea, or frightened for him walking on water as if it were dry land? We do not know. But when they wanted to take him into their boat, by the power from on high, they immediately reached land near the city of Capernaum, where they were going.

The way the Holy Spirit hovered over the waters, when God created the earth and filled it with the abundance of his gifts, with more than enough food to provide for all living things; the way the Hebrew slaves walked through the Red Sea on dry land, so Jesus walked on water to rescue the little boat filled by his disciples and the way Jesus will also walk on water to save this little ship called Bethlehem, because all who receive him and believe in his name, he gives the power to become the children of God, born not of the blood or of the will of the flesh or the will of man, but of God (John 1:13).

So we do pray for our daily bread, for we really need it, but we have to put the bread of Life, Jesus Christ first. It is from Jesus that we receive the grace and favor that we can count on. Remember that we do not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. In our family reunion, we again experienced the blessings that God bestowed upon us, because my father and mother’s faith was foremost in their lives. They may have been poor as church mice, but their children, great, and great, great grandchildren are 122 strong with some more on the way. You can only receive Christ in faith, but when you do, you can’t count the blessings that you will see! Amen.

We sang the hymns: “Soon and Very Soon, We’re Going to See the King!” and “Let us Talents and Tongues Employ” which contains the line: “pass the word around: loaves abound!”

[1] For a detailed account of the Roman patronage system see James S. Ruebel, Caesar and the Crisis of Roman Aristocracy, (Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994), pages 1-19.

Some More Family Sayings, Mostly my Father’s  (After the family Reunion in Cape Cod)

“Don’t fall on your back and break your nose!”  This was a funny saying of my father’s.

„Mit Viel kommt man aus; mit Wenig hält man Haus.“

„Augenblick! Muss mir erst eine Piep stoppen!“ (My father would usually fill his pipe with tobacco before starting the car: “One moment: I just have to fill my pipe!“)

„In der Kürze liegt die Würze!“

„Er weiss nicht wo er sein Ei legen soll!“ (Someone is looking where to sit down with his food.)

„Käse schliest den Magen.“ (Cheese closes the stomach, i.e., it finishes the meal.)

„Bier nach Wein lass sein; Wein nach Bier, rate ich dir.“ (Don’t drink beer after wine; but wine after beer is fine.)

„Er bekiegt sich von innen!” (My father would say this when he saw someone sleeping: “He’s looking at himself from the inside.“)

„Der beste Mensch kann nicht in Frieden leben, wenn es den bösen Nachtbar nicht gefällt.“ (“The best person cannot live in peace, if it does not suit his evil neighbor.“)

„Und so auf ein Stutz!”  (and so all of a sudden!)

„Morgen, Morgen, nur nicht Heute, sagen alle faule Leute.”

„Wenn der ganze Schnee verbrennt, die Asche bleibt uns doch!“

“Mass media molds the minds of mediocre money makers.“ (a saying of Johnnie’s)

„Kleider machen Leute.” (“People are made by their clothes.”) (I added to that: “But I don’t hold much of people, whose clothes can already make them.”)

„Was ist denn mit meine Brille los? Sie ist doch mit Fäts beschmieret!“ (In the old days, a church had only one hymnal. The pastor would read the verses line by line and the congregation would repeat the words to learn them. Here a pastor takes off his glasses in the middle of that exercise, saying, “What’s wrong with my glasses? They are smeared with dirt.” Only to discover that the congregation is repeating his words: “What’s wrong with my glasses? They are smeared with dirt.” Mindlessly they keep repeating what he says. “No, I mean my glasses!” “No, I mean my glasses!” etc.

„Mit dem Hut in der Hand kommt man durchs ganze Land.“ (“With hat in hand, one gets through the entire land.”)(This speaks of using a conscious kind of humility, which places a person under the radar and avoids any conflicts.)

(„Sie bezahlen zu Viel zu sterben aber zu Wenig um zu leben!”) “They pay you too much to die on, but too little to live on.”

„Schuster bleib bei deinen Leisten, sonst sollst du kein Schuster heisen.” (This saying is about staying in your profession. If a cobbler starts fixing televisons instead of shoes, he will no longer be a cobbler.)

Philosophy of Religion, Diablo Valley College, Dr. Peter Krey – July 20, 2004

David Hume lays some heavy skepticism on people who believe in God. He writes in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion:

His syllogism:

Our ideas reach no farther than our experience:

We have no experience of divine attributes and operations:

I need not conclude my syllogism: you can draw

the inference yourself.

Now after the first shock of reading such an argument, the question arises whether it is valid. First, it came as a relief to notice that there were two negative premises, and Hume may have been counting on the fact that few people know the rules that determine the validity of syllogisms. None are valid with two negative premises.

But that proves too easy a solution, because the first premise really needs to be translated into a positive universal.

No ideas are thoughts that reach farther than experience.

All ideas about divine attributes and operations are thoughts that reach farther than experience.

Therefore no ideas are ideas about divine attributes and operations.

Symbolized it becomes

No I are E.   *****EAE Figure II

All D are E *****Valid Syllogism called Cesare.

No I are D. ******Conclusion

Thus the only way to disagree with Humes’ skepticism is to challenge his premises. The fact that there are a priori ideas show that they can come before experience and be independent of experience. Thus his first premise is untrue, and therefore the conclusion does not follow, nor does it need to be accepted.

Another translation of his syllogism:

All ideas are representations of experience.

No divine attributes and operations are rep. of experience.

Therefore no ideas are about divine attributes and operations.

“Fig-grow up, Fig-grow down, Fig-grow, Fig-grow all around: Halo Fig-grow, Halo!”

“Figgis Mundo!”

Children’s Sermon: Taking a plumb line out of a cloth bag filled with tools: “What do you see?”

Children: “A plumb line.” Taking a board and slanting it: “See how the plumb line is straight and the board is not? If a wall or a house is not upright, it will fall down. And if we are not upright, if we cheat or lie, we will also fall down. Herod’s Kingdom was not right and it had to come to an end. But the House of God will stand forever.”

Taking a level out of the bag: “What do you see?”

Children or adult from the congregation: “A level.”

“It’s a lot like the plumb line. But you have to hold it to the board and see if it is straight or slanted, if it is completely horizontal or not.” Hold the board horizontally and slowly let the children see it become level. “You have to watch the bubble go right between the lines. The level reminds us that we have to be fair and that all people are equal. We should play no favorites when it comes to what’s right.”

Pulling a ruler out of the bag: “What do you see?”

They answered: “A straight edge. A yardstick. A ruler.”

“Now this helps us measure things and Amos would ask, ‘Do we measure up? We want to honest and good.”

The chalk line:[1] Putting chalk on some string, we did it on the string of the plumb line: “This is a chalk line. Some one can make lines across a whole floor with it. even longer lines, too.” (We let the children snap the chalk  line and it printed a straight line on the board. We used purple chalk to make the line stand out.)

Marshall, who helped with the children sermon, said, “Now we use lasers to make lines like that. But chalk lines were used back in the time of the ancient Egyptians when they measured out and built the pyramids!”

Let me sing you a song about Amos’ tools:

Amos’ Tools

A plumb line,

God’s plumb line

makes us upright, sound, and fine.

A level,

God’s level,

to be equal and fair,

We work for justice everywhere.

A ruler,

God’s ruler,

Measure for measure,

We share the Gospel treasure.

A chalk line,

God’s chalk line,

Jesus is going to make us shine.

We’re workers,

God’s workers,

our mission true,

with love and forgiveness for me and you.

Pkrey 07/12/2009

---

[1] The English text in Amos says that the Hebrew word translated as “plumb line” is uncertain, because this is the only time the word comes up in scripture. So I turned to the text in German, to see how Luther translated it and he has “chalk line.” Marshall’s comment makes that choice of tools plausible. How far back does a plumb line go? Has anyone ever written a history of tools?

What came first, the cardinal, that is the bird, or the church officials with their red hats, who sit in the college of cardinals and elect the pope?

That is a trick question that I used to ask in my course, “Critical Thinking,” where thinking is critical. While the bird, of course, came first, it was named after the church cardinals, whose robes were bright red and who wore tall red hats.

We wanted to get this picture on a poster, but it was too large to scan.

More of Josh’s picture.

Pentecost V – July 5^th 2009

Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Oakland, California

Ezekiel 2:1-5, Psalm 123, II Corinthians 1:2-10 Mark 6:1-13

Doing Mission gives us Vision and Passion

Yesterday Nora and I came to church and realized no one would be here, because it was the Fourth of July. Hope you had a good one! We listened to the Oakland Municipal band play a concert at Lake Merritt. When they played “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” women and children did a spontaneous Fourth of July parade around the bandstand. It was delightful. Then we explored the Oakland Gardens, which were wonderful. Oakland is quite a city! Just that Nora and I then walked around the whole lake, and did our feet hurt! I couldn’t watch the fireworks because I had to complete my sermon, so here it is.

On Thursday, June 25th, 2009, Jeffrey Immelt, the chairman and CEO of General Electric, told Charlie Rose on TV that his corporation needed to have vision, mission, and passion to survive these times. Let me ask you, does Bethlehem have vision, a mission, and passion?

What is the contribution that we want to make to this, our neighborhood? Or what basic need shared by all the different neighborhoods we come from, do we want our church to address? What flag will we hoist up over our church steeple that people can rally around; a flag that designates our mission, so that we can all participate in it, support it, become involved in it, for the healing and renewal of our lives? Do we have a mission statement and can everyone say it and know the role they play in carrying it out?

I submit that we have the vision of the real presence of Christ in our midst and that we ourselves are being called by him and sent out two by two to bring our neighbors to repentance, to participate in his healing campaign, and to tell the good news of God’s love in Jesus Christ. We might not be able to drive out demons, but we can overcome bad attitudes with good faith. The gospel fills us with a hope that cannot die, even if we ourselves are getting older, have many ailments, and also face dying. But that does not take away our joy, because Christ arose and so shall we, because Christ is in us.

The vision of the resurrection of Jesus Christ makes our last days as joyful as our first, because Jesus lives! Heavy hearts that do not have this faith make any ailments and all our troubles much harder to bear. But we go on our way rejoicing, because if we suffer in a mission like his, then we will be raised up to see the beautiful vision of an eternal life like his. We too will be raised up and our present suffering and dying is not a crushing experience, but the joy of knowing that we are so close to heaven’s door that we can knock on it, and oh the vision we’ll have when it opens!

So we pray that the Holy Spirit might stir us up and give us a glimpse of a little bit of heaven even here, and it is for real, because we are worshiping in the real presence of Jesus Christ in our midst. And Jesus sends us on God’s mission: we share our healing and wholeness, our joy and hope, our love and compassion with those to whom Jesus sends us, and sharing it with them is how we ourselves receive it. Jesus does not give it to us to keep for ourselves. It’s in mission that we receive the abundant life. We are called to the mission of giving it away and that is what brings a wonderful sense of meaning to our lives. The living Christ in our midst sends us on his mission, just like we heard in the gospel lesson.

We heard the word, let us live the word and participate in this mission of Jesus. He sends us out quite vulnerable because of our compassion, but steadfast because of the increasing strength of our faith and the courage we receive from Christ. [Mission also takes place, of course, right here in worship, when Christ sends the Word right into your hearts and marvelously changes them.] Some of us might think out what more can be done for education. Supporting education in our congregation and our community could be our mission. How inspiring it was last Sunday, when the Hagar Circle handed out scholarships to young people headed for college! How can this mission be developed? What more can we do? Audrey wants to start a children’s group from the school behind our church. Who will help and support her? What a wonderful mission opened for our church with our give-a-way Saturday. It was a flea market in which everything was free. Bethlehem helped so many people that day. How can that be developed? Our healing mission: we have always had healing services. How can we reach out with healing! We have nurses in our congregation and those who have the gift of healing. We could champion healing, but also the healing of the soul that the Holy Spirit provides. The leaders of our congregation are participating in the Anti-Racism Committee of our synod. Perhaps that could be our mission. Oakland is 45 to 50 percent Black and only 5 per cent of its police force is Black. What is wrong with this picture? We might possibly want to become much more involved in this anti-racism work. Mission requires that we not only share all that we have and share of ourselves with those in need, but also bring about social change.

Christ our Lord of Life stands between ourselves and our sickness and death, shielding us from destruction, and giving us a life that shares the new life of salvation. Our mission is a saving mission for the lost, the needy, those without meaning in their lives. Right now our environment needs saving as well. Our mission cannot be all things. Because we cannot do everything is no excuse for doing nothing. We have to figure out what Christ is sending us to do, to find out what the mission of this congregation is.

Ah, we can be getting old; we can be filled with aches and pains. Like one member told me: “I’m still kicking, but not too high!” Still the sparkle in her eyes told about the victory we Christians know over sickness and death. We are about the mission of Christ and the life of Christ gives life. From him we receive a hope that creates hope, a love stronger than death, and renewal comes down from heaven and fills us.

Our faith is stronger that addictions. Even drug dealers can be converted. People can even be rescued from prescription drugs. Some doctors are addicted to anesthetics. They are used to put a patient to sleep before an operation, but they love the euphoria they feel going to sleep. It is nothing compared to the euphoria we receive from the love of Christ. But that means being about our mission.

Jesus was able to change the hearts of tax collectors and prostitutes. That means Jesus can rescue those who have succumbed to greed on Wall Street and those involved in the sex industry of today. When they catch sight of the vision of Christ their hearts become marvelously changed. Jesus showed them real love, real care, real compassion, which drew them out of their distortions of life into their genuine life inside their whole and wonderful selves.

Why does Jesus have so much trouble changing my heart, changing the hearts of a congregation entrenched in our own survival? We have to be in mission to get our hearts changed. We have to be forgiving others in order to receive forgiveness ourselves. “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us.” It is in doing the mission of Christ that the eyes of our hearts are opened, our ears start to hear crying needs, and we receive a marvelous change of our hearts.

Our lessons today are filled with those who resist the mission of Christ. Jesus goes to his hometown, Nazareth. “He didn’t leave and say, I cannot do anything; I’m just a carpenter.” Like we say, “I can’t do anything. I’m not a pastor!” Jesus stood up with authority and sent many on their missions. But the town’s people said, “Just who does he think he is?” They wanted to bring him down to size. “He’s nothing but a carpenter and he thinks he’s a rabbi! He does not know his place. How dare him educate himself beyond us!” Jesus grew head and shoulders over his family and overtook the town’s people stuck in their rut. Jesus had an authority they could not understand.

When they called him “the son of Mary,” you know, they were not giving him a compliment, but an insult. Someone was referred to by the name of his father in those days. To call him the son of Mary questioned the legitimacy of his birth. Their rejection of him made it impossible for him to do many healings or works of power among them.

A little congregation like ours has to pray for the Holy Spirit to stand us up like Ezekiel and stir us up into our mission. We have to repent as a congregation so that Christ does not shake the dust off his sandals against us, because we can be filled with resistance and want to do our own thing rather than the mission of Christ. I am preaching to myself here as well.

Remember how the Gospel helps us. It’s not the case that we cannot do anything because we are so small, or we have so little money, or we have had a series of unhelpful pastors. That has certainly weakened us. But the good news is that God can work with strength in our weakness. His grace is sufficient for mission, when we remain faithful. Look at the faith of the woman he healed from her blood-flow, which lasted so many years and no doctor could help her. Or look at Jairus, pleading for his daughter: “I believe; help my unbelief!” he cried. We can sit inside a self-complacency and even get into a rut, while the living Christ is jumping up and down, reading the riot act, trying to get it through our thick skulls, that people are dying out there who need the good news of Christ gracious forgiveness. We are called to care.

I often have felt like a weak pastor. What kind of a leader can the eleventh kiddo of a family of sixteen be, who was completely controlled by his father, except for a secret life. It took a great while for me to mature in Christ. I can’t speak about filling churches in my ministry. But I realized that the grace I received had to be shared. Christ operates in our weakness. Christ writes straight on crooked lines. A fellow pastor told me, “If Christ could use a donkey, then he can use you.” He used a stronger word for “donkey.”

Back in Coney Island, New York, Nora and I began to feel like our Thanksgiving and Christmas meals were selfish, so we cooked in the social hall and invited the homeless, the mentally challenged, and our congregation to eat with us. I drove a church bus in those days and when I was picking up all the people I stopped where the prostitutes stood and invited them to eat with us as well. Surprisingly they came for the home cooked meal.

One day I was getting ready to do a marriage and one of the prostitutes came into my office. She had a broken arm, which she held on her head to deal with the pain. She had been working in one of the stairwells of one of the buildings and when the fellow found out that she had HIV, he threw her down the stairs. She cried and whimpered that she had already lost her three children and now she had to deal with this. What an abject heap of hopeless misery she presented!

I had only a half hour before the wedding service, but I loaded her in my car, took her to one of the better hospitals, and demanded that they take care of her. They refused and the fact that a $12 porno magazine fell out of her blouse, did not help any.

I told them that I was a pastor and if I found out that they had not helped her, they would be in real trouble.

When I came back to the church, they were on the telephone demanding that I take her back. I was performing a wedding ceremony, I told them, and to come get her was quite impossible. “You know your duty!” I shouted at them over the phone.

A year or so later, I had decided to leave that parish and come to Berkeley to start graduate school. I felt very dejected and felt pretty much like a failure. While I was packing the things in my office into boxes, this lovely woman walked in, smartly dressed, handbag slung over her shoulder, smiling at me. She wanted to thank me for helping her. She had straightened out her life, gotten a job, gotten her children back, and life had become a wonderful thing for her.

I suddenly recognized her. She was the prostitute that I had taken to the hospital. She had bottomed out and changed; now she was living a new life. She pressed my hand and thanked me again and left.

I broke down and cried tears of joy and have done so many times recalling the power of God’s love to change hearts and lives and fill our old sinful hearts with a passion for the wonderful mission of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Rereading the Pentateuch, that is, the first five books of the Bible, has been incredibly rewarding, because now I can understand and grasp it with a mature reading, while in my earlier days it was merely bewildering, confusing, and unfamiliar. The Bible is the book of books because it introduces us to the God, who remained faithful and dwelt with and protected God’s chosen people. That same God so compassionately involved with them became incarnate for us in Jesus Christ.

Reading Deuteronomy chapters 1-11 has been a wonderful experience. They are like a gospel hidden away in the Pentateuch. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength” (6.5) and “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (8.3). Interestingly enough, in Hebrew the book is called Devarim or “Words.” Ah, the gospel is filled by living words and the Book of Nature is filled with the Word of God.[1] Ah, “the Word became flesh and dwelt with us.” In Hebrew, “flesh” in this sense refers to the word becoming a human being.

In chapter 12 however, Deuteronomy takes a spin into the law by means of its Holiness Code, and then problems emerge thick and fast. I woman discovered not to be a virgin by her bridegroom shall be stoned to death (22:22). No question is asked whether or not she was raped or locating the man who took away her virginity. In championing justice by means of the law, which is the real contribution of the law, here the law violates the law, since it is the men who judge her and may have been the ones who violated her.

An incorrigible son shall be stoned to death (21:18-21). No question about the bad government of the parents or about rehabilitation for a young person. This punishment could in itself well be a crime. The parents take the child to the elders: “Here is our son. Fix our problem.” The son could be the loud speaker for the problems the family is having.

“Cursed is anyone hanged from a tree” (21.23). In the case of Jesus, his capital punishment was itself the crime, it was a curse not on the innocent man, but on those who condemned him, and thank God, that he forgave us.

In the previous chapter, it gets even worse: prisoners of war might be taken in some cases, “But as for the towns of these people that the Lord your God has given you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. You shall annihilate them:” the Hittites, Amonites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, because they might lead you astray to worship other gods. What is sometimes called “holy war” is neither holy nor really a war so much as sanctioned genocide. Jesus went to Tyre and Sidon, where the Gentiles worshiped other gods, and converted them. Jesus had mercy on the Syro-Phoenician woman and showed Peter the revelation of unclean animals and bade him eat. This picture language instructed Peter to preach and baptize even the household of the Roman centurion.

That the law in the scriptures is thus relative to time, place, and historical contingencies is illustrated by this change in the instructions given to those chosen by God to further the reign of God.[2]

But sandwiched right in these instructions are those that forbid the Israelites from cutting down all the trees in a siege. A tree-hugging question follows: “Are trees in the field human beings that they should come under siege from you?” (20.19) This question is really relevant even for those companies that clear cut the forests and lay waste our land today. Christ came to bring life and life abundantly. That places capital punishment into question as well as the clear-cutting of forests and the subsequent devastation of nature.

Capital punishment is dealt out freely for too many “crimes,” even for prophets who divine by dreams. They shall be put to death if they use them to speak treason against the Lord (13.5). By your own hand you shall kill anyone who tries to entice you to worship other gods, even your wife, brother, children; and in a town that serves other gods, all the people shall be killed, even their livestock (13.6-11). We will not judge the people of that day, but for today, such an instruction would be an abomination. By means of the Holy Spirit and through healing campaigns of love and compassion, our Lord Jesus sends us to proclaim the Gospel of grace and forgiveness and would only shake the dust off his feet to recalcitrant towns.

In the old days, religion used to be the chain that held a society together and the worship of other gods was a threat to the society and held to be like treason. But Emil Durkheim has argued that now the division of labor has made humans in society need each other and religion is in a forum of freedom, in which everyone can be convinced from his or her heart about what is a true way of life and what is a false way. Jesus introduces this freedom with the reign of God and Martin Luther in the Reformation introduced the diversity of Christian expressions, in which different faiths could remain faithful. In his prohibition of crusades, he was trying to exorcise violence from religion.[3] The freedom of a Christian spells the religious freedom to become convinced of the truth from the heart without coercion.

In our Sierra Pacific Synod assembly a man stood up in the spirit of these old laws, when the equal medical and pension rights for same gender marriages was being debated and read Leviticus 20:13: “if a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death.” He failed to read verse 10 which dictates that in cases of adultery both parties should be put to death, as well as those who curse their parents (20.9), for all manner of abnormal relations, a son sleeping with a father’s wife (and of course many wives are permitted to a man), an uncle’s wife, a daughter-in-law, that prostitutes should be burnt to death (Lev. 21.9).

Now Jesus said about a woman taken in adultery (and notice, not the man, who must have been part of it!) “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone!” Why did that member of our church take account of Jesus’ approach to faith and life?

Did he never read the Sermon on the Mount? You have read of old, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek turn the other also” (Matthew 5.38-39) and “You have heard it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so shall you be children of your Father in heaven, for he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Mat 43-45).

Admittedly, the first three alterations of the law by Jesus intensify the murder, adultery, and divorce commandments, but Jesus obviously stands for an absolute Gospel and a law relative to a time, place, and the historical conditions of the day. Don’t forget how Jesus places himself and his healing mission over the Sabbath law.

Then look at Leviticus chapter 21 beyond verse 9, in which prostitutes are commanded to be burned, while Jesus claims that the righteous have no need of a physician, but the sick do. He came to save sinners and not condemn them. In the further verses of this chapter all the blemished people are listed that a priest is not allowed to draw near: the blind, the lame, someone with a mutilated face or a limb that is too long, someone with a broken foot or hand, a hunchback, a dwarf, a man with a blemish in his eye or itching disease or scabs or crushed testicles. A descendant of Aaron with any of these blemishes is not to bring the Lord’s offerings to the God’s holy altar.

Now Jesus transgressed these commandments by not only drawing near to the blemished such as these, but by touching, and healing them. Certainly the scriptures cannot be broken, but the living Word, Jesus broke them, and then he was broken on the tree for us. In this Heaven of grace that Jesus spreads out over us, we realize that we are all sinners fallen short of the glory of God, and the people that we designate as sinners, have a special place, a pride of place, in the gracious forgiveness of God. Therefore we follow our gracious Lord, by being un-self-righteous, trampling the monster of presumptuousness under our feet, all the way to the cross with our savior, Jesus.

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[1] See Psalm 19 in its good translation that I have in my Moltmann piece.

[2] See Luther’s, “How Christians should Regard Moses,” in Timothy Lull’s, Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), pages 135-148: “If I accept Moses’ [law] in one respect (Paul tell the Galatians in chapter 5 [:3], then I am obligated to keep the entire law” (page 140).

[3] See my dissertation, The Sword of the Spirit, the Sword of Iron.