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.


Saturday, March 11, 2006

Deuteronomy 26:16-19

Matthew 5:43-48

Today Moses calls Israel to obedience to its covenant with God and the importance of following God's laws. Matthew continues to report Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and challenges us regarding our relationships with problem people, especially our enemies.

These have been the common themes in our readings.

Repent and follow God's commandments -- which is to say: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the sick and imprisoned, pray for your enemies, do good to your enemies, be reconciled with your neighbor.

Ignoring God's laws seems to have no good long-term outcomes for individuals or societies.

These readings for Lent teach us that our relationship with God is greatly affected by our relationships with our neighbors. Those relationships should be framed with justice, peace, and reconciliation.

There is no getting away from this. The Word of God is clear. That these are not easy sayings to hear is obvious, that we are constantly falling short of these standards is reality. What's the bottom line for Jesus?

"So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect." Not much room to maneuver on that one.

Dorothy Sayers has written,

“'The Kingdom of Heaven,' said the Lord God, 'is among you.' But what, precisely, is the Kingdom of Heaven? You cannot point to existing specimens, saying, 'Lo, here!' or 'Lo, there!' You can only experience it.

“But what is it like, so that when we experience it we may recognize it? Well, it is a change, like being born again and re-learning everything from the start. It is secret, living power—like yeast. It is something that grows, like seed. It is precious like buried treasure, like a rich pearl, and you have to pay for it.

“It is a sharp cleavage through the rich jumble of things which life presents: like fish and rubbish in a draw-net, like wheat and tares, like wisdom and folly; and it carries with it a kind of menacing finality.

“It is new, yet in a sense it was always there—like turning out a cupboard and finding there your own childhood as well as your present self; it makes demands.

“It is like an invitation to a royal banquet—gratifying, but not to be disregarded, and you have to live up to it; where it is equal, it seems unjust.

“Where it is just, it is clearly not equal—as with the single pound, the diverse talents, the laborers in the vineyard, you have what you bargained for.

“It knows no compromise between an uncalculating mercy and a terrible justice—like the unmerciful servant, you get what you give; it is helpless in your hands like the King's Son, but if you slay it, it will judge you; it was from the foundations of the world; it is to come; it is here and now; it is within you.

“It is recorded that the multitude sometimes failed to understand.”


Posted by John at 12:01 AM CST
Friday, March 10, 2006

Ezekiel 18:21-28

Matthew 5:20-26

Sin harms our relationships with God and our neighbor. Sometimes it even destroys them. It creates "structures of sin" that hurts the community. Even in this destruction, however, there is a message of hope.

God rejoices when the wicked repent and change their ways of living. What you did yesterday cannot be undone, what you might do tomorrow is yet to be determined.

What you are doing right now, however, is where your free will cooperates with God's grace to produce repentance and metanoia -- a fundamental change in the way you live.

Jesus talks to us about violence and as usual he goes directly to the heart of the problem. Don't kill -- and beware of your interior anger, because that's where murder begins. Go and be reconciled.

Active verbs are used, this is not a message suggesting "be a couch potato." The life of conversion in Christ Jesus goes on forever, it does not stop.

Paul Tillich has written:

“There is a section of life which is nearer to us than any other and often the most estranged from us: other human beings. We all know about the regions of the human soul in which things look quite different from the way they look on its benevolent surface.

“In these regions we can find hidden hostilities against those with whom we are in love. We can find envy and torturing doubt about whether we are really accepted by them.

“And this hostility and anxiety about being rejected by those who are nearest to us can hide itself under the various forms of love: friendship, sensual love, conjugal and family love.

“But if we have experienced ultimate acceptance this anxiety is conquered, though not removed. We can love without being sure of the answering love of the other one.”

Jacques Maritain has written:

“The conviction each of us has, rightly or wrongly, regarding the limitations, deficiencies, or errors of others does not prevent friendship between minds.

“In such a fraternal dialogue, there must be a kind of forgiveness and remission, not with regard to ideas—ideas deserve no forgiveness if they are false—but with regard to the condition of one who travels the road at our side.

“Every believer knows very well that all will be judged—both oneself and all others. But neither one nor another is God, able to pass judgment. What each one is before God, neither the one nor the other knows.

“Here the 'judge not' of the gospels applies with its full force. We can render judgment concerning ideas, truths, or errors; good or bad actions; character, temperament, and what appears to us of a person's interior disposition.

But we are utterly forbidden to judge the innermost heart, that inaccessible center where the person day after day weaves his or her own fate and ties the bonds binding him or her to God. When it comes to that, there is only one thing to do, and that is to trust in God.

“And that is precisely what love for our neighbor prompts us to do.”


Posted by John at 12:01 AM CST
Thursday, March 9, 2006

Esther C 12, 14-16, 23-25

Matthew 7:7-12

Francis Martin has written,

“Today the Word of god instructs us on the efficacy of intercession. In the first reading we learn that the secret of intercessory prayer is an honesty and purity of heart before God.

“In the gospel we hear Jesus urge us to ask, seek, and knock urgently, counting on the mercy of God.

“There is a mystery about intercession. Even if we do not pray very much, when we are in need our instinct is to turn to God and cry out to him.

“When things are going well and we have the leisure to reflect on the reality of the prayer of intercession and petition, we wonder why there is such a deep instinct in the human heart to pray: surely we are not going to force God to change his mind.

“But when are we closer to the truth? Is it when we call out to God and somehow hope for a change and even experience his action in our lives, or when we think that asking God for things is in bad taste and we ought only to accept whatever comes?

“Since the answer to this question lies in the heart of God, our best approach is to listen to the Word of God and then reflect on what we have learned.

“We are told in the Scriptures to ask God for things, confident that God will never refuse to hear us—and confident too that he will give us what is best. God wants to have a dialogue with us and to be intimate with us. This is a mystery of love and freedom.

“In thus asking for things of God, we are not to treat him as a benevolent stranger but as a Father. We are not thus “forcing” God; we are interacting with his freedom, which surrounds our own and protects it.

“God's freedom is beyond our understanding, but this much is clear: he can yield to our requests, even stir us up to ask, without compromising his freedom.

"God wants us to pray, to ask, and to intercede, first, so that we will grow in intimacy with him and, second, so that he can accede to our requests.

“Because intimacy takes time, he sometimes does not answer our prayer right away, so that we will continue to come to him and get to know him.

“Thus we see that our basic instinct to pray to God in need is wiser than our rationalizing about God's sovereign will and freedom. This is precisely because, in his sovereign freedom, he wills to be asked and to answer our prayers.

“He delights in interacting with us. We do not force him; he wants to do what we ask, because he wishes more than anything else to be in a relationship of love and trust with us.”


Posted by John at 12:01 AM CST
Updated: Wednesday, March 8, 2006 2:53 PM CST
Wednesday, March 8, 2006

Jonah 3:1-10

Luke 11:29-32

Alexander Schmemann has written,

“The basic disease is sloth. It is that strange laziness and passivity of our entire being which always pushes us 'down' rather than 'up'--which constantly convinces us that no change is possible and therefore desirable.

“It is in fact a deeply rooted cynicism which to every spiritual challenge responds 'what for?' and makes our life one tremendous spiritual waste. It is the root of all sin because it poisons the spiritual energy at its very source.”

Thomas Merton has written,

“The true self-denial of the Christian is not a conquest of self by self, but a dying to self in order to live to God in Christ. This is the great question that preoccupied St. Paul—the problem of seeking salvation by the works of the law instead of by grace.

“Our salvation is not to be found in asceticism alone but in the cross of Christ. Self-denial, however rigorous, lacks all Christian meaning apart from the cross and resurrection of Christ.

“This is why Lent is a season of mortification and renouncement: not just because Christians discovered that a little fasting in springtime was good for their constitutions, but because their fasts, renunciations and almsdeeds had an essential part to play as signs of a full participation in the Easter Mystery.”

Madeleine L'Engle has written,

“There is only one purpose for punishment, and that is to teach a lesson. And there is only one lesson to be taught, and that is love. Perfect love banishes fear; and when we are not afraid, we know that love which includes forgiveness.

“When the lesson to be learned is not love, that is not punishment; it is revenge or retribution. Probably the lesson of love is the most terrible punishment of all—an almost intolerable anguish—for it means that the sinner has to realize what has been done, has to be truly sorry, to repent, to turn to God. And most of us are too filled with outrage at rape and murder to want the sinner to repent. We want the sinner to feel terrible, but not to turn to God and be made whole and be forgiven.

“And so we show that we do not know the meaning of forgiveness any more than Jonah did in his vindictive outrage at the people of Nineveh.”

Elie Wiesel has written,

“Teshuva [in Hebrew, repentance, from shuva, 'to turn'] means an act of consciousness, of awareness, of willingness to take sides and responsibility for the future. One cannot modify the past, but one is given the power to shape the future.

“It all depends on individuals and the community; they can, if they wish, foil destiny and celebrate free choice. The lesson in Jonah is that nothing is written, nothing is sealed: God's will itself may change. Even though punishment has been programmed, it may be cancelled. Therein lies the beauty and the grandeur of Jewish tradition: Every human being is granted one more chance, one more opportunity to start life all over again. Just as God has the power to begin, we have the power to continue by beginning again—and again.”


Posted by John at 12:01 AM CST
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

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