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.


Thursday, March 16, 2006

Jeremiah 17:5-10

Luke 16:19-31

There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments. . . and lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores. . . barren bush in the desert. . . tree planted beside the waters . . . dogs even used to come and lick his sores--these are vivid pictures of human reality.

The rich man--traditionally identified as "Dives"--put his trust in man. Lazarus had nobody but God and the dogs. But who turns out to be the fertile tree by the water, and who is the barren bush in an obviously hot spot?

We are being warned against trust in material security. And who can disagree? But who can fully live up to this vocation?

The place to begin is where you are, no point in starting at any other place. This is one of the points of the Lenten disciplines of fasting, abstinence, and alms giving. We need to give a portion of our money away more than we need to keep all of it.

Food is a pressing daily need and the temptation to eat more of it than we need is always there. By avoiding certain foods, and by not eating for periods of time, we practice our "detachment" from material security.

By voluntarily experiencing hunger we show our solidarity with those for whom hunger is a daily reality. And often, if you practice something long enough, you get good at it (or at least, better).

Put your trust in material security, ignore the poor man Lazarus at your front door with the dogs licking at his sores, and you end up a brittle old bush in a dry rocky volcanic desert waste.

Trust in God, open your heart and your pocketbook to the poor, and your life becomes "a tree planted by waters" -- fruitful, generative, and redemptive.

Francis Martin writes,

“By placing these two texts side by side we are enabled to see them both in a very particular light.

“We are thus led to see how our lack of trust in God drives us to acquire wealth for ourselves—whether this be in money, esteem, education, pleasure, or social advantage.

“This ambition blinds us to the true meaning of life and keeps us in bondage to a fear that our wealth cannot calm.

“The law of reversal means simply that things are not what they appear to be. The rich and powerful, who ignore the suffering of their brothers and sisters, are really the ones whose lives are a failure: life is not measured by this world's power.

“The poor man, on the other hand, represents the person, man or woman, who delights in depending upon God and cultivates a way of life that keeps this experience alive in some solidarity with the Lazaruses of this world.

“Such a person is 'like a tree planted by water,' bearing the fruit of compassion. While people may exclaim, 'Why this waste?' when they see the manner of such a person's life, there is hidden within it the seed of glory.”


Posted by John at 12:01 AM CST
Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Jeremiah 18:18-20

Matthew 20:17-28

The world can sometimes be a dark place, especially in the face of organized evil. Today's readings bring us face to face with the starkness of this all-too-frequent reality. Jeremiah is not a popular man. He was an affliction to the Powers That Be.

He held the rulers accountable for their actions. Since he won't shut up and get with the program, a plot is hatched to destroy him, a reminder that it is usually much easier to kill the prophet than to understand his or her message.

It rocks fewer boats and upsets fewer apple carts. People may squawk for a bit, but this too shall pass.

Jesus plainly tells his disciples -- for the third time -- "we are going to Jerusalem and I will be condemned and put to death." It's enough to make anyone want to turn around and go home in the face of this dark portent.

But Matthew continues his narrative, and jumps the topic of discussion to who will sit beside Jesus in places of honor and power, and how authority is justly exercised. He talks about servant leadership in its deepest and most spiritual sense.

The plots of organized evil, and the unjust exercise of authority are problems that plague humanity. They are best countered with prayer, servant leadership, and a refusal to cooperate with them.

We share in the sins of others when we cooperate in them by participating directly and voluntarily in them; by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them; by not disclosing or not hindering them when we have an obligation to do so; by protecting evil-doers.

Structures of sin endure because people cooperate with them and keep them going. Lent is a good time to examine our conscience regarding our willing participation in, and profiting from, structures of sin that may be causing grave harm to the common good.

Francis Martin writes,

“Today the shadow of the cross is visible. In the first reading we see something of the soul of Jesus in the prayer of Jeremiah. In the gospel we are told of the mystery of the cross, and our lack of understanding is challenged.

“Even more than his words, Jeremiah's life was a prophecy. He embraced the will and Word of God even when it led him into suffering.

“So powerful was his life that when a later author composed what we call the second part of Isaiah and included there the description of the one to come who would reconcile God's people by his suffering, the model he alluded to was Jeremiah.

“The prayer of this prophet has become the Word of God.

“For the first time in Lent we enounter one of those Old Testament texts that may be called a “sacrament” of the soul of Jesus. Jeremiah was one of those suffering just men whose life and prayer constituted an anticipated share in the fullness of grace in Jesus Christ which we all receive.

"The human pain of rejection and treachery was one of the greatest sufferings Jesus had to endure. Yet by his fidelity to the covenant we have been saved.”


Posted by John at 12:01 AM CST
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

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