... religion and science...

I have submitted this post to the Raytown Nexus online newspaper.

Every Thursday at noon I go to Breakfast & Lunch Lovers and have what I used to call Soul Talk. I recently changed the name to I’m Here to Listen because really the time is meant for me to hear from you, the people of Raytown. I want to know what is on your hearts and minds. As a pastor, this is a large part of my job – understanding where people are in their life journeys. Another reason I changed the name was because of the perception that I wanted to shove Christianity down people’s throats. As much as I’d love every person to become a Christian, the goal is to hear, to listen, and to develop relationships. If that leads someone to Jesus Christ, fantastic!

I promote these events through the group on Facebook, Raytown Unleashed. One individual passionately engaged me and told me they didn’t have time to talk about the state of their soul because they believed in facts. This person was under the impression that I believe God creates thunder. God is not Thor or Zeus, and does not create thunder… well, not in the way the ancients believed the gods did. There is this misconception in society that Christians do not believe in science or facts. I, along with many Christian pastors and Christians in general, do believe in science. I take medicine prescribed to me by my doctors because they have been proven to help heal illnesses. I believe that God gives us a variety of gifts. Doctors and scientists looking for cures for disease are gifted a certain aptitude for discovering remedies for disease.

I cannot deny science is real. I also cannot deny scientific theories such as the Big Bang Theory. The misconception is that all Christians believe that God created the universe within an earthly week. I don’t think it is wise to confine God to such human restraints. It is quite possible that God did such a thing; I can’t rule it out at all! But, it is the immensity of the universe and the energy that we cannot see or fathom that actually led me to a belief in God in the first place. It expanded my mind to think about things outside myself. Sometimes we think science has all the answers (and it does have a lot!) and we narrow our thinking just like religion used to do. Yes, religion and Christianity still do this, but I believe there is room for a God that is larger than any of us can imagine. The realm of God is as immense as our expanding universe and exceeds our human understanding.

If you want to read more about my journey of becoming a pastor in the United Methodist Church, stay tuned. I will share my journey with all of you over the next several months.

Peace to all!

Angie

Campus Pastor

Raytown Chapel Church

...they made his spirit bitter...

They. They, he, she, people...

Sometimes they make our spirits bitter. They make us speak harsh words.

As if we don't have any control over our lives.

If only they would act a certain way my life would be better. Would it really? How much control are we so willingly putting into other people's hands?

I've done it. Moses certainly did it. The Israelites complained to him for leading them into the wilderness to die. They no longer trusted their leader. And what did Moses do? He turned around and complained to God. Moses, like so many of us, fell victim to "they." Because of his distrust, he ended up not getting to witness the promised land. They. (psalm 106:32-34 for the curious)

What chance do we have then of having complete control over our lives? Well, we have to first realize that we are made of God's essence and we need to trust in God in order to find wholeness in our lives. When we don't trust, we rely only on ourselves; and it only gets us so far. This happens in crises most of the time. When I was battling depression in my twenties, I truly believed that I could program my life in such a way that would lead me out of my weariness. What it did was cause distraction. Once the distraction was gone, I fell apart. The time away from the distraction made me aware that something was missing, which I often filled with other imperfect people.

God didn't make us into partial human beings who need to be made whole by others. We are already whole and our relationships bring abundance to our lives. Trusting in God first is paramount for well lived lives.



Note: this is not to suggest that I think we will negativity into our lives. People disappoint us all the time, and others are seriously hurt by other people.

Children who experience abuse have no control over that. However, we as people have a responsibility to respond to children who have endured trauma even if they don't figure out how to address it until they become adults. We must be able to trust God first in order to enter into healing relationships with others.

re-framing God's claiming

One of the things that Dr. Mike Graves often mentioned in his preaching class was the importance of preaching against the text. Most often Christian pastors preach from the New Testament. This testament is all about how God is at work through the redeeming work of Jesus Christ.
From time to time, we need to preach from the Hebrew texts because they are an important part of our history and how we have arrived where we are now as a religious institution.

The older texts can be hard to read and are unfortunately almost always read out of context.

Today I finished Psalm 105. It is primarily a psalm remembering the Israelite's exodus out of Egypt, however, the main body of it is couched between sections of praise.

Verse 44 caught me off guard because it was in the context of praising God.

"God gave them the lands of the nations, and they took possession of the wealth of the peoples..."

It's lines like these that justify modern people to take lands from others.It's lines like these that justify our inclination to want to build walls between peoples, or not take care of the broken and wounded.

In truth, the Bible does say God gave the land to the Israelites - but God also exiled the Israelites from the land because they were not upholding the law God set before them. If you look at the whole of Psalm 105, the psalmist is remembering the grace that God gave FIRST to the Israelites. The psalm ends with a reminder to keep God's statutes. It's really a warning embedded in praise.

Praise God, keep God's commandments - don't mess up. The Hebrews, like us, had such a hard time following the law that God had to come in the body of Jesus Christ to rectify the world.

I don't think God is in the habit of testing us with spiritual warfare, but God certainly wants us to grow closer in relationship with God through Jesus Christ. So in Jesus, God simplified the laws to two:

Love God - Love Neighbor.

Simple. How hard can it be? Terribly! We continue mess it up even though we know that keeping these two commandments lead to abundant life! We mess up and then often go a step further and justify our actions by choosing select passages that support them.

One thing I do know about God - when we as humans think we can outsmart God, God acts. At the heart of all that we do, everyone, regardless of religion should aim to love each other. It just makes good sense.

...give thanks to the lord, call on her name...

As a rule, when I speak about God I refrain from applying gender.

For the past two years, I have been transcribing the Psalm into journals. I don't do this every day because there is a lot of Bible to read! I have never been good at memorizing Scripture so this practice has allowed me to feel the Scriptures. It has helped in the sermon writing process because I can more easily identify with the emotional side of what is often a highly academic endeavor. The process reminds me that God may be all-knowing, but God is also all-emotional!

Today I transcribed the first 11 verses of Psalm 105. Normally I write word-for-word what is in the New Revised Standard Version translation. I decided at verse 3 to replace all he, his, him, with she, hers, her. I was surprised by the feelings that arose in me. I caught myself saying things, like...

"A woman would never say, "...the word that he commanded. It sounds so harsh! Women aren't harsh!"

Truthfully though, that's asinine! As I woman I command, I judge... I can be harsh. We all can be.

But going back I see that this particular psalm mixes what I perceive to be soft (feminine words-not that they are) and hard (masculine words-not that they are). I may have to go back and look at the other chapters I have transcribed. Perhaps this will be my next endeavor when I finish this more than two-year task.

But check out this verse - you'll see what I mean, I hope:

He is mindful of his covenant forever, of the word that he commanded.

Now read it like this:

She is mindful of her covenant forever, of the word she commanded...


It is reminiscent of how I interact with my daughter. I am mindful of her well-being, the promise I've made to God to protect her and love her, but at the same time, I have to be a disciplinarian - which often seems harsh and ugly. The verse though is nurturing while being authoritative.

This is our God - a nurturer with expectations for our well-being because she loves us.