Comments on Shuck and Jive: Embracing Change: A Sermon

@eclectic Good point. The point of the apocalypt...

2009-11-18T15:58:14.674-05:00

@eclectic

Good point. The point of the apocalyptic is exactly that. As crappy as things look, ultimately, we are invited to look beyond it...

While I am certainly not an advocate of self-castr...

2009-11-18T15:46:53.033-05:00

While I am certainly not an advocate of self-castration, I tend to think that the early Christian thinker most in tune with the future was Origen.

Origen did not see a terrifying apocalypse in which all unbelievers would be annihilated. He did think in the terms of the revelation of his day, but he looked beyond it to an optimistic future. Apocalyptic upheaval was a transient thing, part of natural human existence.

Origen instead saw a future in which, ultimately, even the Devil himself would be saved.

We've had enough apocalyptic experiences in human history that I am skeptical of any claim that the next one is the very last.

I'm glad I took the time to read this sermon. ...

2009-11-17T21:32:33.073-05:00

I'm glad I took the time to read this sermon. This statement says it all:

"He was a critic of Empire but the kingdom would come not dramatically by supernatural intervention or apocalypse but by gradual moral improvement. "

Jesus' times don't sound too different from the times we're living in now, eh?...There are many critics of the American Empire and they are working towards changing the hearts of men and women.

@SeaRaven, deja vu a week from Sunday. I'll h...

2009-11-17T20:52:05.619-05:00

@SeaRaven, deja vu a week from Sunday. I'll have to find another angle!

@Chris, thanks for that!

Man, I wish you were my pastor! The undertones of ...

2009-11-17T17:52:12.848-05:00

Man, I wish you were my pastor! The undertones of every church I have encountered is a literal, apocolyptic theolgy with no room for anything else.

Hi John. Great teaching sermon. I hope folks lik...

2009-11-17T11:25:18.517-05:00

Hi John. Great teaching sermon. I hope folks liked it. Can't wait to see what you will do with Luke.

I think that is exactly the intent of Mark. It is...

2009-11-15T20:28:23.637-05:00

I think that is exactly the intent of Mark. It is to encourage them in the midst of collapse that Jesus had "predicted it" in advance and is present with them via resurrection through the struggle.

I wonder if the author of Mark 13 wrote quite exag...

2009-11-15T16:52:37.801-05:00

I wonder if the author of Mark 13 wrote quite exaggeratedly of cataclysmic upheaval intentionally, knowing even then how upset we get by the smallest changes - in their time perhaps it was a new and more restrictive rule set by the Romans, in our time a change to the way Facebook is presented.

It could have been his way of giving people hope to deal with these changes after the fact - after upheaval and massive change due to war, or a great storm, or famine - so they could say "Well, that wasn't SO bad".