According to this, I’m very white. But I suppose that’s okay. Stuff white people like

Dozens upon dozens of tourists, all talking loudly about recently acquired cheap counterfeit merchandise.

The lectionary text from April 8, 2008   Acts 7:51-8:1a | Psalm 31 | John 6:30-35

Sometimes you shout the truth and the people you’re trying to save start to stone you. The truth, we are learning, will set you free – free to participate in Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. Free to follow Stephen. Easter is less than a month past and already we are hearing of Stephen being stoned to death. Stoned to death.

Sometimes you weep and get angry at the shouting that goes against everything you hold dear. You just want to cover your ears and scream, “Stop!” But listen a little closer. What are you closing your ears to? Though it may be painful maybe we don’t ever cover our ears to the anger and the hurt that causes people to shout, to rush at us and drag us away. Hunger and thirst can drive a person crazy and we stand with the bread of life, the bread from heaven. We commit our soul to the Lord and then with open ears and open hands we listen and offer food from heaven. When we submit to God, when we take the bread and the wine, what we will become of us is not up to us.

Today was our volunteer appreciation trip to Shea Stadium. Slightly chilly but fun none the less.

The lectionary text for April 25 1 Peter 5:5-14 | Psalm 89 | Matthew 16:15-20

Jesus appeared to the Eleven and said to them:
“Go into the whole world
and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved;
whoever does not believe will be condemned.
These signs will accompany those who believe:
in my name they will drive out demons,
they will speak new languages.
They will pick up serpents with their hands,
and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them.
They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

Then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them,
was taken up into heaven
and took his seat at the right hand of God.
But they went forth and preached everywhere,
while the Lord worked with them
and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.

Matthew 16:15-20

I love the daily readings because they make you think about parts of Scripture that you would rather turn into allegory. The Gospel reading is one of those parts. It talks about the proof of faith being stuff I’ve never done, like driving out demons and speaking new languages. I try to avoid picking up snakes and drinking deadly things at all costs. And I’m pretty sure that most everyone doesn’t do this stuff either. We come together to be made more like Christ, to remember his life, death and resurrection. Does becoming more like Christ mean we should be able to do miracles? No, that’s silly, we now prove our faith through apologetics and reason and the scientific method. We give people tracts or the Case for Christ book if we bother to evangelize at all. It’s much easier that way.

Thankfully the 1 Peter periscope is included in today’s readings. It reminds us that God opposes the proud but bestows favor on the humble. Maybe our pride gets in the way. Maybe we don’t like things like snake handling and casting out demons because it reminds how humble and fragile our body and souls are. Maybe we don’t like speaking in tongues or new languages because we are smart enough to communicate God’s will and message on our own, thank you very much! Miracles also mean that God could intervene and doesn’t for some reason, and what ever that reason is, is very little consolation when you’re the one without the miracle. So I don’t know what to say except that together we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God and that we proclaim what we do know about the goodness of God. And someday God may show us how we are to drive out demons, speak new languages, pick up serpents, drink poison and heal the sick because I think that would be really great to walk in this world fearless of demons, serpents, poison, sickness and miscommunication.

My life group when out to eat tonight at a great Chinese place on Bowery, Congee. We had a lot of great food including some things I’d never tried before: duck tongue, thousand year old eggs, and chicken feet. I also had my first pinkberry experience.

I decided to go with the picture of pinkberry, rather than the chicken feet. Google chicken feet and you’ll understand why.

The daily lectionary text for April 1 Acts 4:32-37 | Psalms 93 | John 3:7-15

I was offering advice to a friend the other day, it was kind of a cliché, and she called me on it and asked if that is what I did in a similar situation and I had to pause and consider, had I ever followed that advice and did it turned out well?

Jesus says, “we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen.” The validity of our testimony is directly linked to what we have experienced. That is why Jesus is teaching Nicodemus about salvation and the Spirit in metaphors of birth and wind, because he has only experienced earthly things.

Reading from Acts shows the church growing at an enormous pace, through the message of Christ crucified and risen, and a community were no one was in need. What a witness they had, think about what they had experienced!

What do you know, what have you seen? Our witness depends on our authenticity. People will want to know if it works for us. Have you experienced the power of the resurrection? Some things Christians are unable to explain except in metaphors based on earthly experience. Some will be obvious and easy, like full stomachs and warm clothes. We can live with the same kind of generosity, love, and hope that that community of believers had. We have access to the same power that change Joseph the Levite to Barnabas, ‘the son of encouragement’, can change us from who we are to people know for the manifestations of the gifts God has given us for the good of the community.

Maybe we miss out by only being named at birth and not named for how others experience God through us. Through belief in the Christ was have eternal life, we have been reborn and that experience becomes both our testimony and our identity.

The trees are full of new leaves and flowers.  The tulips and hydrangeas are everywhere making even Bryant Park smell nice.  The ice cream trucks and fruit venders seem to have sprung up with the leaves. Doors and window are rolled up and the sidewalks are filled with resturants’ tables.  No doubt about it - New York is lovely in the spring.

Not only in my Ipod, but live in Tribeca! I saw Chris Bathgate last night and he was fantastic live. If you like indie-folk, and who doesn’t, he could be coming to a city near you and definitely worth the $8.

Thanks to some unseasonable warm weather my time at the cabin in the woods was lovely. I’m still coming off the relaxed vacation mode, and fighting off the hurry up and yell mode as long as possible. What does one do in a cabin in the woods by yourself with no tv and no internet? Well, I carried fire wood and burned it to stay warm (increasing my carbon footprint by an exponential amount I’m sure), read some stuff I had planned and some Agatha Christie that I hadn’t, went hiking, and enjoyed a Ricky Skaggs and Bruce Hornsby concert (they were not at the cabin, I had to go to Troy to see them). All in all it was exactly what I needed - time and space to myself.

I’ve got a big decision coming up - where I’ll be after August - and so I spent time in prayer about that. God has been so faithful to me in the past and I fully expect that to continue, sometimes our choices are between two good things and so I could use all the wisdom I can get.