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Text of the page (random words):
woe to you scribes and pharisees hypocrites for you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven for you do not go in yourselves and when others are going in you stop them the scribes and pharisees as we remember are the people who are so concerned with their status they love to be greeted with respect in the grocery store or in bass pro shop love to have the best seats at parties and in church they demand much from others but won t belittle themselves with tasks which could be considered below them and in so doing they are locking people out of the kingdom of heaven because the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who sees all of her workers as equally valuable equally worthy of respect even though they didn t all show up at the same time she is unhindered in her generosity by the fact that many of them have been standing around idle all day long unhindered by fulltime or part time unhindered by veteran or rookie unhindered by anything resembling a title or distinguishing mark the kingdom of heaven values people not because they are producers or because they are popular not because of their position on the totem pole but because they are people this is why paul can say with such boldness in a hyper nationalist status conscious world that there is no longer greek or jew male or female circumcised or uncircumcised slave or free but that christ is all and is in all someone must ahve unlocked the kingdom of heaven for paul and he now sees the world as a citizen of the kingdom of heaven no longer saul of tarsus that person upon encountering this jesus was blinded you remember and then given new sight and a new name new citizenship in the kingdom of heaven the kingdom of heaven always acknowledges what is true about a person regardless of what the totem pole says and what is true about every person that you will ever meet is that christ is all and christ is in all or as matthew lays it out for us here in our text contrary to the world of titles and totem poles we have one teacher and we are all brothers and sisters we are all students for this reason because the kingdom of heaven is radically and scandalously unbiased and egalitarian we who are citizens of the kingdom of heaven are not to be called rabbi walking out of the pulpit or reverend we re not to be called doctor or judge or father or mother because we all of us have one teacher and we have one instructor we have one parent and we have one judge we re not to be titled in this way because in addition to misinterpreting our place in god s world titles that buy into the totem pole system of social hierarchy too easily become the latch a latch with which i can and do lock people out of the kingdom of heaven and what jesus suggest is that we aren t just locking those people without titles out but that whenever we lock anyone out of the kingdom of heaven for any reason that we have locked ourselves out as well maybe this is what jesus means when he says that it is harder for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle this is not a statement in the end about money but about the easily exploited status and power that so often comes along with money and confused his disciples ask who then can enter the kingdom of heaven and jesus response is this with man this is impossible but with god all things are possible according the rules of the world that is run by human beings we must lock the door because certain people are not welcome in our world but according to our passage today when we lock the door for any reason we have locked ourselves outside we have blinded ourselves to the world as god sees it blinded ourselves to the world that values people because they are people not because they have earned our respect and left to our own devices it would be impossible to escape our blindness but we are not left to our own devices we have a god who has chosen to reveal truth to us in this jesus we have a god who has seen our latch and has raised us a key that our scales might fall off and that our latch might be shed and that we might enter and see as god sees and as paul began to see how will you shed your latch people will call me reverend people will call you doctor or boss madam sir or ma am mother and father but just as jesus way doesn t allow for valuing possessions or paper over people neither does it allow our positions to name us or shame us if you have a title you have a latch if you have money you have a latch if you have the respect of even one person you have a latch we all have latch how will you shed yours i can t answer this question for any of you but we can choose to be a community of people that is committed to opening the door to the kingdom of heaven for all who would seek it we can be that kind of community the gospel of matthew flows well together in a number of ways and i don t think that it is coincidental that jesus uses language of keys and gates when he gives the responsibility for starting the church over to his disciples on this rock i will build my church and the gates of hades will not prevail against it i will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven we all have a latch but we have also all been given the key for we have one teacher one key and we are all sisters and brothers in the kingdom of heaven thanks be to god amen posted in uncategorized wild goose synchroblog more like linkroblog july 6 2011 1 comment other bloggers participating this month with reflections on the festival or on the wild goose on the move anna snoeyenbos wild goose festival a spirit of life revival lee smith goose bumps opportunities everywhere for offense a fair and objective review ryan hines 30 years later controversy at wild goose karyn wiseman flying with the goose kyla cofer i went to the wild goose fest and came back in love brian gerald murphy born again again at wild goose chris lenshyn chasing the wild goose cherie at renaissance garden wild goose return deborah wise wild goose chasing custodianseed every day they eat boiled goose martin at exiles in ny greenbelt and the wild goose kerri at practicing contemplative waterfowl in my life allison leigh lilley chasing the wild goose and catching the wild goose thanks and first thoughts abbie waters jessica a fable steve knight why wild goose festival was so magical tammy carter visual acuity and flying michelle thorburg hammond i heart jay bakker and peter rollins matthew bolz weber remembering wild goose paul fromberg celebrating interdependence day david zimmerman wild goose festival a recap dan brennan u2 the wild goose and deep freedom mike croghan the wild goose is not safe john martinez the table callid keefe perry gatekeeping the goose eric elnes the inaugural wild goose festival recovering something lost shay kearns the power of a t shirt apologizing to over the rhine and public vs private part one glen reteif duck duck goose peterson toscano i ve been goosed what i carried into wild goose and what i blurted out at wild goose seth donovan about more than the gays tsmith what i ll take from wild goose dale lature wild goose reflection steve hayes wild goose chase minnow grace response christine sine encounters with a thin space jeremy myers giving up the wild goose chase robert thoughts on the inaugural wild goose anna woofenden slippery slope reflections wendy mccaig loosing the goose joey wahoo into the wild posted in uncategorized back from the wild goose fest june 30 2011 17 comments this past weekend i was in shakori hills nc until a few months ago i had never heard of shakori hills and apparently neither had a number of north carolinians in any case shakori hills is a little farm town in north eastern nc that is complete with pigs well water wi fi service and at least for the weekend and bunch of pinko lefty practitioners of christian spirituality we slept under the stars and didn t shower we sat around camp fires drinking cheap alcohol and playing songs that we d written in critique of the church followed by two hundred year old hymns we made statements and asked questions about the church creeds that would elicit fire from the eyeballs of the guardians of orthodoxy david bazan sang us to sleep with his perfectly broken low range melodies laying forth haunting inquiries of our god when job asked you the question you responded who are you to challenge your creator well if that one part is true it makes you sound defensive like you had not thought it through enough to have an answer or you might have bit off more than you could chew these were my people for four days shakori hills nc felt like heaven with a broken ac unit and maybe it was at the very least it was a glimpse of hope for the future of the church in an increasingly post denominational post structural america it took me a while to get over the initial sense that i was at a christian conference i couldn t help but scan the crowds for goatees and fanny packs and while the stereotypical christian conference elements were there the fanny packs were touting things like organic local harvest bread and the goatees were spewing fiery declarations that equal rights around sexual orientation should be understood as a justice issue in line with racial discrimination and gender inequality we wandered around the campgrounds together meeting new friends and running into old having our minds stretched and prodded by the likes of irish theologian peter rollins and episcopal priest paul fromberg conveniently enough peter and paul were my two favorite presenters of the weekend totally a coincidence collectively though not together they explored ideas about christology the eucharist belief and doubt what does it mean when we say things as part of a ritual that we actually don t agree with or believe if god is love what is god not are we simply trying to seduce a god who is revealed to be a fake when the temple curtain is ripped in two and if so what implications does that have for our worship my mind is taken to the fifth chapter of amos 21 i hate i despise your festivals and i take no delight in your solemn assemblies 22 even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings i will not accept them and the offerings of well being of your fatted animals i will not look upon 23 take away from me the noise of your songs i will not listen to the melody of your harps 24 but let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream if god will not be seduced but rather is love this text seems like it has a lot to teach us like it has a lot to teach me this is the beginning i process my experiences at the pace of a three toed sloth and those questions are the ones i have been sitting with along with bazan s lyrical genius and to tell you the truth i m left with doubt upon climbing into bed last night it felt as if the existential prosecutors had planned an ambush under my sheets as i listened to david question god over and over i started or rather continued to question god i even believed that this was all a farce a human need that we fulfill by creating god in our brains that real enlightenment ceases to need the self motivating creation that we mistakenly name the creator this doubt will upset people it will not be exciting for my committee on preparation for ministry to read it will make my mother and father sad it will discredit peter paul and david in the eyes of much of the church this doubt really terrifies me and this doubt really is me and it really is you believe it or doubt it you can t have one without the other in my opinion this is why the wild goose festival is critical to our future as practitioners of christian spirituality because if true faith in the god of israel who is the god of all people and all things is going to continue it must continue amidst great doubts indeed faith can only be true if it is holding hands with doubt may we never be ashamed of our doubts a great thank you to the appropriately named peter paul and david and to the rest of the crew of people who made the 1st annual wild goose festival a reality in such a way that our true reality was laid naked before our very eyes may we never again be ashamed of our nakedness grace peace love faith hope and doubt to all posted in musings uncategorized tags belief christian spirituality church doubt love theology wild goose sermon romans 5 15 6 2 may 3 2011 leave a comment posted in uncategorized the wonder of salvation april 22 2011 leave a comment then he said jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom he replied truly i tell you today you will be with me in paradise luke 23 42 43 there is this really beautiful thing about the stories and letters and poems in this book but i don t find the beauty at its purest in intense academic study and i don t find beauty by reading the bible like a newspaper trying to extract from its pages without bias every detail of every story no what is beautiful about this book are often its holes the questions that simply refuse to be answered in the text and whether we want to or not whether we think that it is heretical or not this book simply does not allow us to engage it without the use of our imagination without the use of these two words that open so many doors i wonder and here in luke s telling of the story of the cross i wonder what the next line of dialogue would have been what did the criminal think how might he have responded here we have this menace to society who is literally in the process of being executed for crimes against humanity i know you ve all probably experienced this before it s as if once he had crossed the threshold of opening his mouth more ended up coming out of it than he had intended to actually say it is only after the other criminal has begun hurling insults at jesus that the co crucified finds the courage to speak the criminal s first words are spoken to the other thief in defense of jesus do you not fear god we have been condemned justly we are getting what we deserve but this man has done nothing wrong and then i imagine he turns his head or maybe he doesn t maybe he s too ashamed of himself even to look jesus in the eyes in either case our nameless criminal has opened the floodgates and out come the words that i doubt he had intended to speak but once he had started addressing the crucified king more intimately than anyone else ever does in any of the gospel stories simply calling by his first name jesus remember me not get me down from here not jesus save me because certainly that would be too much to ask for a sinner such as he was remember me when you come into your kingdom and then this dying condemned criminal receives the grace of becoming the last human being to whom our lord speaks before giving up his spirit wonder at these words with the condemned truly i tell you today you will be with me in paradise the text simply moves on here as if there was no response given maybe he was awestruck maybe luke just chose to...
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