David, Son of Jesse, Child Soldier (167)
What do we do with some of these Bible stories? If you happen to be at a place in life where you are looking for kid’s toys, you have probably seen about a hundred different versions of Noah’s ark. All the sets are brightly colored. They have fun little boats and all sorts of wonky animals. Yet if you’ve ever actually sat down and played with one of these with a child, you’ve probably found yourself in an awkward situation. Maybe you were pushing the boat across the carpet in the living room and narrating the story in a funny voice . . . and then you suddenly realized what an awful story it is. The narrative involves all of humanity, except for one family, being drowned! Almost all the animals drown. You close the cute little door on the ark with all the animals on board, Noah’s family is peaking out a portal—and the rest of humanity is screaming in terror. Most of us skip that last part. Yet for some reason the story of Noah’s ark persists in being one of the first that we tell to children: “Welcome little one to the beloved community, let me tell you about the time God killed everyone.” And we wonder why some kids hate taking baths. Continue reading “David, Son of Jesse, Child Soldier (167)”
We read it to each other as a call to worship this morning and echoed it in a hymn. What this poem does, perhaps more than any other in this part of the Bible, is display the value of confession. Confession is admitting, to ourselves first and then to others, that we have made a poor choice. It might be helpful to think of confession as “radical, personal honesty.” Often when we want to get serious about radical honesty we aim to tell others what we really think of them. Confession, though, turns this back on ourselves.
The film takes us into the story of African American women working for NASA in the middle part of the last century. As movies often do, Hidden Figures simplifies the history a little. But it does so in order to tell the story of three really smart women: Katherine Johnson, a ‘computer’ before that term referred to a machine; Mary Jackson, an aspiring engineer; and Dorothy Vaughan, a department supervisor. 
he early church. In the past two I’ve tried to show how these ancient disciples of Jesus were eccentric. They found the centre to their identity outside themselves. They believed their bodies were not their own but were intended as signs of God’s presence in the world and as descriptions of God’s character. Now we move to another chapter of I Corinthians, chapter 7. Our reading came from the second half of that chapter (vv. 29-31).
Much of our how we think of ourselves depends on the belief that we own ourselves. You can probably imagine a disagreement between a parent and a child about, I don’t know, a haircut, tattoo or a new piercing. The child pushes back against the parent’s criticism, saying “It’s my body. It’s my decision.” Or maybe it’s an argument happening at the other end of the spectrum, an elderly parent is deciding whether or not to undergo some new life-saving medical procedure. “Come on dad,” the daughter says, “this will extend your life by another five years.” The dad replies, “No, it’s my body. It’s my decision. I don’t want it.”
My sermons in the next few weeks will explore a common theme: the way in which the lives of early Christians were ‘eccentric’ in just this sense. 
This was not said to the man. The man felt slighted and so he determined to show his value to his neighbours, so he fertilized his lawn and planted some new perennials. The woman, though, was finally feeling as though she had neighbours who took her seriously. She wanted to keep it that way, so she had her driveway paved and her shabby mailbox replaced. But then the fellow built a new porch and replaced the siding on this home. The woman had dormers put in and added a picket fence. The man, then, bought some handsome carved lions for the end of his driveway. The woman decided to employ a handsome guard with a red jacket and a bearskin hat. The man bought a new car and then a second one, he threw a lavish Halloween party for the whole block. Then the woman . . . whatever. I think you’re seeing the picture I’m trying to create. It’s a picture of competition. It’s a picture defensiveness. It’s a picture of people driven by the sense that their acceptability depends on what they do. It’s a picture of competition and the sense that everything depends on getting this right and coming out on top. 
I’m reminded of the work of Jeremy Begbie, a theologian and professionally trained musician. He says that for centuries Christians have tried to think of the Trinity visually. This hasn’t been very successful. We can’t readily depict two things sharing the same space at the same time and not being muddled into something entirely different. With music, though, Begbie thinks we can do better. 
Maybe it was when you decided not to carry out a procedure because of your faith. Maybe you passed on taking a particular client because it would have violated your conscience. Or maybe the awkward moment simply snuck up on you in a conversation at the pub. I think about this every once in a while when our family piles into the car on a Sunday morning. I sometimes feel a bit conspicuous. It feels like we’re the only ones on our street heading off to church. Maybe you’ve felt this way too at some point. Maybe you even tried to find an excuse for whatever it was that could have drawn attention to your faith. You threw a soccer ball into the car so it looked like you were headed to the park or you told your colleague you weren’t actually praying—just napping a little bit. 
(I’m sure we aren’t the only ones to whom that’s happened). There was another factor at play as well—the fact that I wanted to try building one. It had been years since I had the chance to do any woodworking beyond putting up paneling and tacking together garden boxes. I sketched a few options—variations on a traditional farmhouse table—and we agreed that I would give the project a try. “Trying” in this case wouldn’t be risk free. There was the possibility of humiliating failure: the thing collapsing under the weight of Easter lunch. There was the expense: hardwood lumber isn’t cheap. There was the required time: making stuff with your own hands takes time, especially if it’s something new. 