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 14, 2006

Isaiah 1:10, 16-20

Matthew 23:1-12

Isaiah really knows how to win friends and influence people: "Hear the word of the lord, Princes of Sodom!" Where can you go from there?

He heads right on over to "Listen to the instruction of our God, people of Gomorrah!" When we hear "Sodom and Gomorrah," we often think of sex, but there was more to their crimes than that: they also oppressed the poor.

In the forty-ninth and fiftieth verses of the sixteenth chapter of Ezekiel we read, "And look at the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters were proud, sated with food, complacent in their prosperity, and they gave no help to the poor and needy.

?Rather, they became haughty and committed abominable crimes in my presence; then, as you have seen, I removed them."

Isaiah says: "Put away your misdeeds! Cease doing evil! Learn to do good! Make justice your aim! Redress the wronged! Hear the orphan's plea! Defend the widow!"

(Note that "widow" in the Old Testament refers to any woman with children, but without a husband and "orphan" refers to any child without a father.)

The Lord, through Isaiah, is talking about single mothers with children.

Jesus tells us that the greatest among us must be the servant of all. He warns of the dangers of religious and political hypocrisy -- of the tendency of those who rule to do so unrighteously. "They preach but they do not practice.

?They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people's shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them."

Therese Mueller writes,

“Spring occupies a very important place in the life of the tiller of the soil; as far as humans are concerned, spring decides what the crop will be. Similarly in the life of grace, Lent holds an almost decisive position (Lent is but another word for spring).

“The more carefully we put away the deeds of winter, the 'dead' weeds, the deeper we plow in order that the new seed may find a well-prepared soil enriched with the good deeds of fasting and prayer, the more shall we enjoy the vigorous plants that will spring up and the abundance of the harvest.”

Bernard Lonergan has written,

“Conversion is existential, intensely personal, utterly intimate. But it is not so private as to be solitary.

"It can happen to many, and they can form a community to sustain one another in their self-transformation and to help one another in working out the implications and fulfilling the promise of their new life.

"Finally, what can become communal, can become historical. It can pass from generation to generation. It can spread from one cultural milieu to another.

“It can adapt to changing circumstances, confront new situations, survive into a different age, flourish in another period or epoch.”


Posted by John at 12:01 AM CST
Updated: Friday, March 10, 2006 3:21 PM CST
Monday, March 13, 2006

Daniel 9:4-10

Luke 6:36-38

Alexander Schmemann has written,

“Christianity is not reconciliation with death. It is the revelation of death, and it reveals death because it is the revelation of Life. Christ is this Life.

“And only if Christ is Life is death what Christianity proclaims it to be, namely the enemy to be destroyed and not a “mystery” to be explained. Religion and secularism, by explaining death, give it a 'status,' a rationale, make it 'normal.'

“Only Christianity proclaims it to be abnormal and therefore, truly horrible.

“At the grave of Lazarus Christ wept, and when his own hour to die approached 'he began to be sore amazed and very heavy.'

“In the light of Christ, this world, this life are lost and are beyond mere 'help,' not because there is fear of death in them but because they have accepted and normalized death.

“To accept God's world as a cosmic cemetery which is to be abolished and replaced by an 'other world' which looks like a cemetery ('eternal rest') and to call this religion, to live in a cosmic cemetery and to 'dispose' every day of thousands of corpses and to get excited about a 'just society' and to be happy!--this is the fall of man.

“It is not the immorality or the crimes of man that reveal him as a fallen being; it is his 'positive ideal'--religious or secular—and his satisfaction with this ideal.

"This fall, however, can be truly revealed only by Christ, because only in Christ is the fullness of life revealed to us, and death, therefore, becomes 'awful,' the very fall from life, the enemy.

“It is this world (and not any 'other world'), it is this life (and not some 'other life') that were given to man to be a sacrament of the divine presence, given as communion with God, and it is only through this world, this life, by 'transforming' them into communion with God that man was to be.

“The horror of death is, therefore, not in its being the 'end' and not in physical destruction. By being separation from the world, and life, it is separation from God. The dead cannot glorify God.

“It is, in other words, when Christ reveals Life to us that we can hear the Christian message about death as the enemy of God. It is when Life weeps at the grave of the friend, when it contemplates the horror of death, that the victory over death begins.”

Thomas Merton has written,

“St. Gregory Nazianzen speaks of the Christian as an 'instrument played by the Holy spirit.' The aim of asceticism is to keep this instrument in tune. Mortification is not simply the progressive control of instinct by deadening the appetites of the heart.

“That is too crude a view. It is rather like the tightening of a violin string. We do not just go on twisting the twisting until the string breaks. That would not be sanctity, but insanity.

“No: what we must do is bring the strings of the delicate instrument, which is our whole being, to the exact pitch which the Holy Spirit desires of us, in order that the Spirit may produce in us the exquisite melody of divine love that we were created to sing before the face of our heavenly Father.”


Posted by John at 12:01 AM CST
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

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