tfl: The Flatiron Life

This Sunday we sang a hymn that struck me.  The title is “O Church of God, United”.  This hymn proclaims the truth of the One Church and the One Faith.  It also encourages Christians to confidently proclaim the Church, Faith, and Gospel.  Unfortunately, while there is one Church, my church-body, the UMC, seems to have a strangle hold on the copyright for the lyrics, and i cannot find them online.  The next time you are in a UMC I suggest you turn to #547 and give it a read.

This was the Opening Hymn for worship that lead to a Sermon titled “A Family of Acceptance” on the topic of Holy Conferencing.  Holy Conferencing is the principle that lead Wesley to create groupings of Christians below the gathering together for word and sacrament.  He created class meeting and band meetings.  The purpose of these groups were to help shore up the foundation of Christians to help prevent them from backsliding.  This was not more law or special revelation, but it is the pragmatic experience of Wesley on how to bring those given the Faith into the Church United and not have them lost on their own.

Since learning about this concept several years ago, I have thought it was essential to the whole Wesleyan Method that Methodism is supposed to be.  However when Bishops Coke and Asbury landed in Baltimore, they seem to have forgotten this part of the system, and I have never been in a UMC church that practices this in any way, discounting Sunday School.  The Chicago Temple is trying to find ways of bringing this back.  The Tomaws hope to be involved in this, and I hope this will lead to more blogging on the topic.

This all being said, I think it was a fine sermon.  I am still trying to figure out what a sermon is supposed to be.  The Methodist gathered at the Temple on Sunday learned more about Methodism, the liturgy was read, and the Lord’s Supper was served.  Outside of Absolution, I am not sure any non-believers heard about the freely given forgiveness of sins.  This is what my intuition tells me a sermon should be.

I was just reading about Bible Reading Plans and one of them is the Bible in chronological order.  As an example the description states, “Job lived sometime after the beginning of creation (Genesis 1) but before Abraham was born (Genesis 12). As a result, the Book of Job is integrated into the Book of Genesis.”

Some how this placement of Job escaped me all these years.  I always assumed Job lived during the time of the judges because the theocratic government is not mentioned.  However, I missed that the priests are not spoken of either or that his tribe is not given.  Knowing that the story is set before Abraham makes it make a lot more sense to me.

However a bit more research at the Wikipedia shows that it is not a clear cut as this.  A Christian is always wise to consult a Rabbi when it comes to the Hebrew Bible and in the case of Job the Talmud is not 100% agreed on when Job is set, placing it as early as before Abraham to late as the time of Moses .   What is clear is that I was wrong and Job makes a lot more sense to me at any of the traditional Talmudic times.

Today is 14 Nisan 5769, which means it is also Birkat Hachama, a Jewish holiday for blessing the Sun. Never heard of it? That is probably because it only occurs every 28 years.

Where does that interval come from? The rabbis tell that it takes 28 years for the heavenly bodies to realign to the position they were in on the fourth day. That was when

And God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; and the stars. (Gen. 1:16)

As a reasonable man, I don’t think I can endorse the literal truth of this holiday. However it is important to remember the power of God and the gift of Creation. It is also interesting to note that Birkat Hachama comes on the eve of Passover this year. Tradition holds that Purim and the Exodus came in such years.

Many Chicagoans celebrated this year on the beaches of our Great Lake. Here is the traditional blessing for your own use:

“Blessed are You, LORD, our God, King of the Universe who makes the works of Creation.”

Returning home from church today, Jos and I heard the end of this week’s “Speaking of Faith”. The host, Krista Tippett, can sound a little hippy-dippy, but I always learn something when I listen, although I am not a regular listener.

Today’s show was about the faith of the Founders and how it is co-opted by different groups. The guest was Steven Waldman, the author of “Founding Faith.” In the segment we heard Mr. Tippett quoted Mr. Waldman quoting Pres Washington. We were both moved by it and so I share it.

In politics as in religion, my tenets are few and simple. The leading one of which, and indeed that which embraces most others, is to be honest and just ourselves and to exact it from others, meddling as little as possible in their affairs where our own are not involved. If this maxim was generally adopted, wars would cease and our swords would soon be converted into reap hooks and our harvests be more peaceful, abundant, and happy.

It is from a letter he wrote on Christmas 1795. I cannot find a source for the letter other then Mr. Waldman’s book, so I cannot link to it.

Walter E. Williams reports it will soon be pontificated that tax avoidance is a sin.

Prof. Williams asks the Bishop of Rome

 Should the Roman Catholic Church support the welfare state? Or, put more plainly, should the Church support the use of the coercive powers of government to enable one person to live at the expense of another? Put even more plainly, should the Church support the government’s taking the property of one person and giving it to another to whom it doesn’t belong?

Catholics may be in the spotlight here, but all to often when I am at the Temple or read the Social Principles I wonder the same thing about the UMC.

Today I was surfing the TV at lunch, when I spotted Gwen Shamblin on The Tyra Banks Show. I know, The Tyra Banks Show is the most ridiculous show on television, what was I thinking? But my mother was on Gwen’s diet a good 10 years ago and I couldn’t pass up a chance to re-explore a forgotten childhood memory. As a know-it-all teenager, I thought this diet was a totally wack, holy-roller plan. Gwen comes with a Southern accent, big hair, and a flamboyant worship style: all the trademarks of the televangelist that you’re not supposed to take seriously; but as I listened to Gwen today, I thought she was on to something. The plan is really no more than AA for overeating, urging people to pay attention to their bodies’ needs, eat small portions slowly, and rely on a healthy dose of faith to get them through times of temptation. The Weighdown Workshop is sort of French Women Don’t Get Fat, which I also like, plus Bible study.

On the slightly wack side, Gwen and some of the Workshop participants seemed to suggest that, when on the verge of succumbing to temptation, God would cause something to happen to the food they were about to eat: cakes falling to the floor, chips flying out of the bag when opened, etc. Since I believe that God allows temptation so that we might exercise our free will, I think you have to expect the outcome of prayer to be a change in perspective rather than circumstances.

I have the utmost respect for people who overcome eating disorders (and I use the term broadly). Most treatment programs for other addictions teach total abstinence, with food that is just not a possibility. I think, in many ways, it takes much more strength to deal with temptations in life through moderation rather than by eliminating them altogether.