Faith, Grace, and Hope

Easter Sunday Luke 24:13-35 If God had a clock, what would it look like? What would God’s desk calendar look like? I’m not just  thinking about marking the passing of time; I’m thinking more about the scope of time. Most of us are familiar with a 24-hour clock. We’ve seen or we’ve been people with five-year-journals or planners. 2 nd Peter says that for God, one thousand years is like a day and a day is like one thousand years.  God’s concept of time is what I would call the “Long Now”. When humans talk about the Long Now, they are discussing time in ten thousand year increments. They work to think on a grand scale about time, about people, about medicine, about the care of the earth. The Long Now is a shift toward thinking that’s not just about investing or retirement, but for a reality that we cannot even imagine, for a time and a people or a planet, long after we are forgotten on this plane of existence. I find the Long Now fascinating, but I’m even more intr...

I've recently been working with confirmands on the Apostle's Creed. The culmination of our learning was to write a statement of faith of our own. I was asked, of course, about how long it needed to be. I replied that it didn't matter how long it was, so much as that it covered the person's understanding of God. I said it could be a haiku, for that matter, as long as it did the job. Thus, I challenged myself to write my own faith statement in 17 syllables. Here it is: Source of all being Bringing forth life in season Theopneustos : all grace.  Theopneustos = God-breathed.

Dear Pastor- At our next Bible study, could you say a little something about your understanding of "God-breathed" and the relationship of that phrase to scripture? - Inquiring Minds Want to Know Dear IMWTK- Firstly, it's unlikely that I'll ever say a "little" something regarding anything related to the Bible, but I will try to contain myself. When I look to the word theopneustos , I find the word and the concept awe-inspiring. Theo for God and  pneustos  for breathed means a vision of how God moves and exists that includes bringing creation into existence. Theopneustos  makes me think of the Spirit, as the Breath of God, moving over the void at the beginning of all things. Out of disorder and emptiness, creation was birthed and shaped. God's whole self poured out in breath (Spirit) and then in Word ("Let there be..."). Thus, the reality of theopneustos  has existed since before any human was present to interpret it. That being said...