Way back when I was in Seminary, I had a lot of expectations. There were the ones that you would think future pastors would have, but there were also some others that you might not think of. Most of those revolved around my long commute to get to campus, about 2.5 hours.
Based on the scripture reading for this post, Mark 5:2-13, would you have been uncomfortable in that same situation? You might be tempted to give the Jesus Juke answer, and that might be true looking back on it after some time has passed, but how would you feel in the moment?
Have you ever walked into an old room that you haven't been in in a while, or that no one has been in in a while? What's it smell like? What does it look like? Are their signs of life there? Are you worried about what signs of life you might find, like the creepy crawly kind?
One of my favorite stores to go to is Dollar Tree. Partially, I like that I know how much everything costs, but there are also some things that I always know are there. One of them is this kids toy that has a spinning disk. You slide the disk down this thing that looks like Harry Potter's wand, and then you lift it back up off it it, and the disk takes off and will spin across the room.
I was listening to a podcast on the rise and fall of Enron recently. If you don't remember, they were one of the world's largest companies, and dealt primarily with all the different ways you might produce power.
Do you remember some of the silly games that we used to play when we were kids? There are a couple that I remember that were always fun to play, mostly because you could get knocked around, fall down, and sing silly songs.
Names are a hard thing aren't they? Sometimes they can be the best part of ourselves, the thing that we are known by, but sometimes they can be the thing that gets in our way.
Our scripture reading comes from Numbers 22, and is a strange one. Start by re-listening to the story after you read it. Click on the video to listen.
Back when I was learning how to type, I was in one of the first classes that learned using a computer and not a typewriter. Back then, we were using Windows 3.1. Do you remember what that was like? There was no taskbar, not start button, just a screen with a bunch of icons on it.
I want to start this post off with a question. What is one of the biggest lies that we’re told today? I know that’s a fairly wide category, but what do you think?
Have you ever been derailed from a good head of steam? You know, those times when you are laying into someone because they’ve done something wrong, or your kids have done the thing that you told them not to, or someone at work has now caused you to fix a mistake that you shouldn’t have to be fixing? Ever had one of those experiences?
Oh Jonah
This is what I think of when I start to look at Jonah’s story.
Oh Jonah.
I look at him and what he does, and because I’m reading the story and know the things that are going on around him, I want to cringe on his behalf. Because he doesn’t seem to get it.
This is a message that I've wanted to preach for a long time, but I didn't have all of the pieces of it that I thought I needed, until now. And all of this starts with one word that I first heard in a hymn.
