ougomonitsya--
inner stillness: when everything is all the same to you, and you live for the day, and you are not dreaming and waiting
John R. Harrison, Pastor

jrharr@lycos.com
Pomme de Terre United Methodist Church
Hermitage, Missouri
Church Links

Pomme de Terre United Methodist Church

Ozarks North District

Missouri Conference

United Methodist Church

The Upper Room



Recent Sermons

"An Understanding Mind"--1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14

"A New Bread"--John 6:35, 41-51

"Looking for Justice" --2 Samuel 11:26-12:13a

"The Arrogance of Power" --2 Samuel 11:1-15

"Joining the Club" --Ephesians 2:11-22



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Some Books I'm
Trying to Read
Seeds of Sensitivity: Deepening Your Spiritual Life by Robert J. Wicks


May I Have This Dance?
by Joyce Rupp


Jesus, the Gift of Love,
by Jean Vanier


Communion, Community, Commonweal: Readings for Spiritual Leadership by John S. Mogabgab


The Cloud of Unknowing,
edited by William Johnston


The Ascent of a Leader,
by Bill Thrall, Bruce McNicol, and Ken McElrath


Handbook for the Soul,
by Richard Carlson and Benjamin Shield


Loyalty to God: The Apostles' Creed in Life and Liturgy,
by Theodore W. Jennings, Jr.


Tuesday, March 7, 2006

Isaiah 55:10-11

Matthew 6:7-15

Cyprian of Carthage wrote, in the third century,

“When we pray, we are not to pray for ourselves alone.

“We do not say, 'My Father, who art in heaven' or, 'Give me this day my daily bread'; we do not ask for our own trespasses alone to be forgiven; and when we pray that we may be delivered from evil, we are not praying only for ourselves either.

“Our prayer is for the general good, for the common good. When we pray, we do not pray for our own single selves; we pray for all God's people, because they and we are one.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel has written,

“Prayer takes the mind out of the narrowness of self-interest, and enables us to see the world in the mirror of the holy. For when we betake ourselves to the extreme opposite of the ego, we can behold a situation from the aspect of God. Prayer is a way to master what is inferior in us, to discern between the signal and the trivial, between the vital and the futile, by taking counsel with what we know about the will of God, by seeing our fate in proportion to God. Prayer clarifies our hope and intentions.

“It helps us discover our true aspirations, the pangs we ignore, the longings we forget. It is an act of self-purification, a quarantine for the soul. It gives us the opportunity to be honest, to say what we believe, and to stand for what we say.

“For the accord of assertion and conviction, of thought and conscience, is the basis of all prayer.

“Prayer teaches us what to aspire to. So often we do not know what to cling to. Prayer implants in us the ideals we ought to cherish. “Redemption, purity of mind and tongue, or willingness to help, may hover as ideas before our mind, but the idea becomes a concern, something to long for, a goal to be reached, when we pray: 'Guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking guile; and in the face of those who curse me, let my soul be silent.'”

Caesarius of Arles wrote, in the sixth century,

“Let it not be enough for you that you hear the divine lessons in church, but read them for yourselves at home or look for others to read them and willingly listen to them when they do. “Although through the mercy of God you frequently and devoutly hear the divine lessons throughout the entire year, still during these days we ought to rest from the winds and the sea of this world by taking refuge, as it were, in the haven of Lent and in the quiet of silence to receive the divine lessons in the receptacle of your heart.

“Devoting ourselves to God out of love for eternal life, during these days let us with all solicitude strive to repair and compose in the little ship of our soul whatever throughout the year has been broken, or destroyed, or damaged, or ruined by many storms, that is, by the waves of sins."


Posted by John at 12:01 AM CST
Monday, March 6, 2006

Leviticus 19:1-2, 11-18

Matthew 25:31-46

Mark Searle has written,

“...it...comes as something of a shock to hear Lent described...as 'this joyful season.' “For those of us conditioned to imagine Lent as a grim, unpleasant time, the temptation will be either to shrug it off as poetic license or to associate it with a mother's attempt to persuade a child to take its medicine.

“But there is always C. S. Lewis. In his account of his youth and its journey of faith, Surprised by Joy, written in 1955, Lewis gives us an inveigling definition of joy as 'an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any satisfaction.'

“Here, perhaps, is something we can latch onto as we confront the notion of Lent as a 'joyful season.'

“Lent, in this perspective, is a time for eschewing pleasure in order to be surprised by joy, that unsatisfied desire more desirable than any satisfaction. Conversely, it is a time for recognizing the habit we have of seeking satisfactions that dull the deepest longing of the heart; the habit of having to have and not wanting to want.

“'The very notion of joy,' writes C. S. Lewis, 'makes nonsense of our common distinction between having and wanting. There to have is to want and to want is to have.'

“Lent would then be a time for discovering what it is we really want, the heart's desire, the restlessness which for Augustine is a symptom of our being made for something we can never possess. Paradoxically, knowing that longing brings joy.

“Joy, no more than happiness, cannot be pursued for its own sake: It is the elusive fruit of a desire which is for something we can never possess, whether God or our neighbor. 'All the value of joy lies in that of which joy was the desiring.'

“As Augustine says at one point, 'startled into self-forgetfulness, I again tasted joy.' We cannot set out to make Lent joyful. It offers joy, however, to those whom exercises of piety and works of charity 'startle into self-forgetfulness.'”

Leo, in the fifth century, wrote,

“...as we are about to celebrate that most eminent of all mysteries, in which the blood Jesus Christ has wiped away all our sins, let us first of all prepare to offer the sacrifice of mercy, so that what we have been given by the goodness of God, we may ourselves show to those who have trespassed against us.

“We must show more liberal bounty toward the poor and those who suffer from all kinds of affliction in order that many voices may give thanks to God and that the relief of those in need may support our fasts.

“Indeed, no other devotion of the faithful is more pleasing to the Lord than that which is directed toward the poor.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote,

“We die when we refuse to stand up for that which is right. We die when we refuse to take a stand for that which is true. So we are going to stand up right here...letting world know that we are determined to be free.”


Posted by John at 12:01 AM CST
Saturday, March 4, 2006

Isaiah 58:9-14

Luke 5:27-32

Thomas a Kempis wrote in the fifteenth century,

“What do you seek here, since this world is not your resting place? Your true home is in heaven; therefore remember that all the things of this world are transitory. All things are passing, and yourself with them.

“See that you do not cling to them, lest you become entangled and perish with them. Let all your thoughts be with the Most High and direct your humble prayers unceasingly to Christ.

“If you cannot contemplate high and heavenly things, take refuge in the passion of Christ, and love to dwell within his sacred wounds. For if you devoutly seek the wounds of Jesus and the precious marks of his Passion, you will find great strength in all troubles.

“And if people despise you, you will care little, having small regard for the words of your detractors.

“Christ himself was despised by his people, and in his direst need was abandoned by his friends and acquaintances to the insults of his enemies. Christ was willing to suffer and to be despised; and do you presume to complain?

"Christ had enemies and slanderers; and do you expect all to be your friends and benefactors? How will your patience be crowned if you are not willing to endure hardship? Suffer with Christ, and for Christ, if you wish to reign with Christ.”

Isaac Watts wrote this hymn in the eighteenth century:

“When I can read my title clear to mansions in the skies, I'll bid farewell to ev'ry fear and wipe my weeping eyes.

“Should earth against my soul enagage, and fiery darts be hurl'd, then I can smile at Satan's rage, and face a frowning world.

“Let cares like a wild deluge come, and storms of sorrow fall, may I but safely reach my home, my God my heaven, my all.

“When we've been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise, than when we first begun.

“This world is not my home, this world is not my home, this world's a wilderness of woe, but heaven is my home.”

Martin Buber has written that,

“In the hundred and nineteenth psalm, the psalmist says to God: 'I am a sojourner on the earth, hide not your commandments from me.'

“Concerning this verse Rabbi Barukh said: 'The one whom life drives into exile and who comes to an alien land has nothing in common with the people there and not a soul to talk to.

'But if a second stranger appears, even though that person may come from quite a different place, the two can confide in each other, and live together henceforth, and cherish each other.

'And had they not both been strangers, they would never have known such close companionship. That is what the psalmist means: "You, even as I, are a sojourner on earth and have no abiding place for your glory. So so not withdraw from me, but reveal your commandments, that I may become your friend."'"

Posted by John at 12:01 AM CST
Friday, March 3, 2006

Isaiah 58:1-9

Matthew 9:14-15

Theodore the Studite in the eighth century wrote,

“How right Paul is to exclaim 'Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world!'

“For that supreme wisdom, which flowered on the cross, proved that the proud boasting of worldly wisdom was folly. The beauty of all the good gifts which grew on the cross cut out the shoots of evil.

“Throughout history the most wonderful events have been only the symbols and foreshadowings of this cross. Consider them, if you are anxious to learn.

“Did not God decree that Noah should escape from drowning in the flood with his sons and their wives and every animal in a tiny wooden boat?

“And what of Moses' staff? Was it not a symbol of the cross?

“Now it changed water into blood; now it devoured the false snakes of the magicians; now by the power of its touch it divided the sea; now it made the waves of the sea flow back together, drowning the enemy and saving God's true children.

“Aaron's rod was another symbol of the cross. On a single day it blossomed and showed him to be the true priest.

“Abraham too foreshadowed it, when he bound his son Isaac and placed him on a pile of wood. By the cross death was killed and Adam restored to life. In the cross every apostle has gloried; by it every martyr has been crowned and every saint made holy.

“We have put on the cross of Christ, and laid aside the old. Through the cross we have joined Christ's flock, and are granted a place in the sheepfold of heaven.”

Rosemary Haughton writes that,

“Pictures of the temptation of Jesus often show him in a bleak and barren place, the only living being among bare, gloomy rocks. Mark's reference to animals reminds us that the reality was probably quite different.

“We may imagine Jesus sitting among rabbits and wildflowers perhaps visited at night by a lion and in the morning by birds who came to investigate this new, and so quiet, dweller in their wilderness.

“Not only human beings, but through them all created things, are called into the communion made possible when the power of the spirit in Jesus broke through barriers of possessiveness and lust for power.

“Satan's plausible suggestion is that if we want good things we must make sure we keep them to ourselves. Someone else might take some. But Noah's ark is the sign that we can only be saved together.

“Those who refuse untidy and unpredictable intimacy, clinging to their right to control and manipulate, drown in the water which they cannot control. This water is the water of life, and life is the spirit that grows and flows and bears up the ark on its buoyant surface.”


Posted by John at 12:01 AM CST
Thursday, March 2, 2006

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Luke 9:22-25

Nobody is beating around the bush today. Moses is telling people to choose life, not death, and Jesus says everybody that wants to follow him must take up his cross every day!

The Cross is so holy for us, the impact of these words is easily missed. We haven't actually seen somebody crucified in real life. But in Roman Palestine, it was a common occurrence.

Given its gruesomeness, to lie down calmly and voluntarily on a cross and then let somebody hammer nails into your hands and feet would have been an utterly horrifying thought to the Jews and the Gentiles of Roman Palestine.

We aren't so different. Sure, we'll take up the cross, as long as it is pretty, and perhaps made of gold or silver to wear around our neck. But big, grubby, wooden crosses, that are heavy to bear and fraught with trouble? We will go to great pains to avoid seeing such. We put on our special invisible spectacles that allow us to evade sights we really don't want to see. We define away to nothingness unpleasant truths, unwanted sights, unwelcome sounds.

Social problems are not for us to concern ourselves. They're the problems of somebody else.

Meanwhile back at the Jordan River, Moses lays it right on the line for the nation. Life and prosperity or death and doom. Those are your choices. There is no column "C." There is no "all of the above are acceptable."

If you obey God's commandments, fine. If not, how many different ways can you spell trouble? We think that some issues are pretty clear-cut, but then there are others that we would like to hide from. We look for rationalizations and excuses.

And today, all across the world, we are paying the price for ignoring God's principles.

It is not too late to turn things around. We can choose life and reject death.

We can follow Jesus, even if that means doing something as unpopular as taking up a really big and particularly grubby cross, that perhaps is disguised as some thorny social issue.

These aren't decisions that we can make "once and for all" and then we don't have to worry about them anymore. Jesus said, "take up his cross daily." It's a call to becoming more intentional about life, the universe, and everything.

As if, your life has purpose and meaning, because it does, derived from the purpose and meaning of our very existence as human persons, children of the most high God.

The work of following Jesus very often is a heavy cross to bear, both for those who bring the Word and for the communities who are called to receive the Word. But Moses and Jesus, both of whom love us dearly, tell us the plain unvarnished, non-rationalized truth. There are no other alternatives! Life or death? Blessing or cursing? Survival or annihilation?

And what's the point to anything if we gain the whole world, but lose our souls?

Posted by John at 12:01 AM CST
Updated: Thursday, March 2, 2006 12:45 AM CST

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