Jesus, John and Daniel Striped Tiger

The following is the text of a message delivered during worship by ESR student Travis Etling on September 22, 2015. 

(Daniel and Travis)

Part I.

Description of Cornville

I want to start this morning with a story.  And before I tell the story, I want to give you the context for the story – because I was paying attention in my biblical studies classes and I know that context is everything!  I also want to minimize or at least contextualize my own questionable behavior in this story. 

     The context for this story is a sheep ranch in Cornville Arizona circa 1984; which is where I grew up - from early grade school through early high school.  Let me paint a quick picture for you.  First of all, there is no corn in Cornville.  Local legend has it that the founders of the town were named Coen.  When the clerk recorded the name of the town over the phone, she assumed the Coen’s were saying “corn” with a southern accent.  This is a highly dubious explanation I know, but that’s the story.

     Cornville is in the high desert.  There are rugged mountains, scrubby trees like mesquite and juniper.  Cornville is in the Verde Valley, which means “green valley” in Spanish so it’s not your typical desert scene – no sand dunes or saguaro cacti – its actually quite green depending on the year.  There is quite a bit of surface water.  Our property was sandwiched between an irrigation ditch along the top of the ten acre pasture and the Oak Creek river which ran along the bottom of our ranch.  The pasture was actually flood irrigated - which is why there is no more water in the Western United States.  Actually the golf courses in Nevada and Phoenix probably have more to do with that.  Anyway, you have a sense of the physical landscape – rugged but also lots of room to run and play and grow gardens and raise sheep – really very idyllic. 

God’s Holy Presence

ESR student Deb Geiger shared the following message during ESR worship on September 8, 2015.
          

(A picture of the group, with Deb second from the left on the bottom row)

My name is Deb Geiger, for those of you who don’t know me. I am from Michigan where I attend the First Congregational United Church of Christ in a small farming community. We have been going on mission trips to Appalachia for the last 5 years. It has been a great pleasure and we now have many friends down there with whom we enjoy connecting year after year. We believe that prayer and time spent opening up to what God has for us on this trip, as well as working on self -awareness prior to heading off, leaves us open and tender to God’s presence. Thus we spend a lot of time preparing to leave, which we believe is crucial to the success of our trips. We pray ahead of time for who will be able to join us. As the group begins to form we ask them to pray for one another and the journey itself, as well as the people we will be working with when we get to Tennessee. This includes the Morgan Scott Project through whom we work in addition to the homes and hearts we repair. Our congregation is also praying for us as we go on this journey, then they too are part of the mission trip – we remain connected through prayer. I think that one of the reasons we particularly felt covered in God’s Holy presence this trip was the addition of my Call and Discernment class praying while we were gone.

Why Social Conditions Matter to the Pope

Below is an excerpt from an article co-authored by ESR Associate Professor of Theological Studies Grace Ji-Sun Kim and Rev. Jesse Jackson that originally appeared on The Huffington Post. 

We Christians tend to focus on personal piety. When dealing with others, we become legalistic and concentrate on dos and the don'ts, mostly of other people. We delight in creating 11th commandments like, "thou shall not drink nor smoke" instead of treating each of these as a medical issue, which they are.

Piety and expressions of personal holiness are important. We praise piety but piety is personal, not communal. Piety did not free the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. They had to convincingly plead genuine hardship and demand freedom before they could march out of slavery.

God is not only concerned about personal piety but with the social condition in which we find ourselves. During the prosperous kingdoms of Judah and Israel, the prophetic message to the people of Israel who had gone astray was not to increase their piety. It was a call to eschew luxury (Amos 6:4-6) do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. Indeed the prophets routinely criticized the people for putting personal piety ahead of addressing oppression and doing justice.

Jesus preached piety, but only when it was rightly connected with right behavior, as taught by the Torah. His ministry, described in the gospels, focused on the social conditions in which many people found themselves. His concern centered on people who were poor, hungry, and cast out. He sought to meet their needs and to critique the systems which ignored their needs.

We see similarities to Jesus in the latest actions of Pope Francis. He has preached changes to the discourse of Christianity by challenging the idolatry of symbols, material wealth. He has preached a concern for those in need and those who are oppressed. Many are familiar with his radical acts of compassion that are symbolic and tangible. In one striking example, the Pope washed the feet of 12 prisoners, men and women from different parts of the world on Maundy Thursday.

The Pope is not concerned about the status quo. He challenges the status quo.

In his statements and actions, Pope Francis reveals a commitment to emulate the earthly ministry of Jesus. This is particularly clear in the Pope's focus not only on the condition of humanity's inner selves, but even more so on the conditions in which so much of humanity lives.

To read more, please visit the original article here. You can find more articles from Grace at her Huffington Post archive page here.