CHPC Blog

This is my current phrase for repentance.  I hate that for me it usually works this way.  I wish that I would look up to God naturally, because I want to, because I love to.  However, I find that my attention gets focused on the things of this world - which is another way of saying idolatry. (But that’s a different sermon and blog)

What’s on God’s wish list - Read Psalm 51 - one of the passages for this Sunday - to find that God loves a broken and contrite heart - a broken spirit.  For me having a broken spirit means to hit bottom - come to the end of my resources - and then look up to him crying out for him to rescue me and lead me into the fullness of life with him as a pastor, father, husband, friend and citizen.

How do you experience and define repentance?

This weeks look at God’s Wish List - Justice. What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)   How do you define justice that blesses God?

If you cheat in practice, you’ll cheat in the game. If you cheat in your head, you’ll cheat on the test. You’ll cheat on the girl. You’ll cheat in business. You’ll cheat on your mate. Sow a thought, reap an act. Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny.

George Munzing, “Living a Life of Integrity”Preaching Today sermon #32

“One who is faithful in little is faithful in much; One who is dishonest with little is dishonest with much.”  Jesus

We are going to try to present the passages for the upcoming Sunday sermon on the blog for discussion before and after.

This Sunday is the second Sunday of the God’s Wish List series. Because we love God we want to love the things that God loves. Just like I love my wife so I want to learn what she loves and then give that to her. I want to give to God what God loves too.

These passages today don’t tell us what God loves but tell us what God hates - a false tongue. So, God’s wish list - the truth - honesty.

Read the passages and then interact - Why do you think God’s hates lies? Why do we lie? When do you lie? When is telling the truth hard? What is the gray area when saying something that isn’t true may indeed be the right thing to do?

Proverbs 6:16 - 19: There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil, a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in a family.

Zechariah 8:16 “These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to each other, and render true and sound judgment in your courts; do not plot evil against your neighbor, and do not love to swear falsely. I hate all this, ” declares the Lord.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time.

Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace: Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.

Trusting that you will make all things right if I surrender to your will; so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with you int he next.

Rev. Reinhold Niebuhr

This is taken from a recent blog by Dr. Chris Rice, Co-Director of Duke Divinity School Center of Reconciliation - http://reconcilers.wordpress.com/

Last Thursday as I sat listening to Stanley Hauerwas preach in a chapel service here at Duke, I remembered the gift of how, in just a few minutes, a mentor can change the course of your life. It happened to me in 1998, in a coffee shop in San Francisco. After many years of ministry in Mississippi our family was headed to a new chapter in Boston. But John Alexander said, “You don’t need to go to Boston. You need to go to Duke Divinity School. I have friends there who will take care of you.” We trusted John. And we eventually landed in Durham and me at Duke.

One of John’s Duke friends was Stanley. My jaw dropped the first time I heard Stanley teach. He gave theological language to all that I learned in Voice of Calvary’s interracial Christian life in Mississippi. He helped me to see that what I learned there mattered, and it had everything to do with a kind of Christianity that takes our bodies seriously. That because Jesus and his body is risen from the dead the world changed and therefore “the way things are is not the way things have to be.” That being a Christian is about the holy journey with God of dying and being resurrected into a new world and way of life, here and now, changing our bodily practices. And so what we do with our bodies and who we do it with matters, such as the bodies of strangers who have been divided becoming intimately bound together as companions in daily life as and with the body of Christ.

“Body Matters”—that’s what Stanley preached about last Thursday in his usual frumpy blue jeans and sneakers, and uncustomary red shirt, tie, and sharp blue blazer. His text was I Corinthians 6: 12-20. His words were especially timely as in our “Journeys of Reconciliation” class we’ve been reading God’s Long Summer, stories of Mississippi Christians during the civil rights movement. One of the dominant forces was the theology of the “competency of the soul” which harmonized the purity of the souls of white parishioners with the racist practices of their bodies and enabled white churches to synchronize with segregation.

Stanley’s focus was on contemporary expressions of “the Gnostic denial of the significance of the body.” A few quotes:

“We need to begin … by asking why and how the Corinthians ended up in such a mess. I think it was Paul’s fault. Through his preaching they had become Christians. They had probably been pretty normal before Paul came along, but because of Paul their everyday worlds became unstuck.”

“… John Stuart Mill’s ‘principle of liberty’ is hard to resist. You can hear it at work in slogans we use as Christians. ‘Who am I to judge another Christian? After all when it is all said and done we are all sinners.’ ‘It is up to each of us to do the best we can by loving one another. What I eat and with whom I sleep, therefore, is my business as long as I do not hurt anyone.’ ‘To be a Christian is not to get hung up on moralistic judgments but to care about those who have less than we have. ‘”

“[Paul] thinks what we do with our bodies is more indicative of who we are than what we say we believe. “

“In good capitalist fashion the body becomes another possession I can use as I see fit. But Paul does not think there is an ‘I’ that has a body. We are our bodies. And the body we are together is one that has been bought with a price. Our bodies are, therefore, not our own to do with as we please. Rather our bodies are a resting place for the Holy Spirit. Paul even seems to think that what our bodies do and do not do makes a difference for our ability to be a holy people.”

“There is nothing quite as lonely as sex used as a substitute for intimacy.”

Last Thursday I was grateful for the gift of real bodies—for John Alexander’s body next to mine in that San Francisco coffee shop, for the body of the Mississippi church in that West Jackson neighborhood that bound me into themselves, for the body of Stanley here at Duke in that chapel service. And how taking bodies seriously can make you a holier person.

By Chris Rice

You is.

You is.
You is the was
you is the now
and you is the gonna be.

You is the word that was spoke
to make the sun shinin’ day and the starry dark night.
You is what made the fishes swim
and the cow to chew the cud.
You is what makes rain drops fall down
and the sweet corn come up outta the dirt.

You is what made most all that sees the sun and some things that don’t
Jesus, you is what made the sun shine today,
and you is what brings the clouds across the plain.
you is why I’m breathin’ and why I’m cryin’
lovin’, laughin’, livin’
Everything that’s livin’s only livin’ cause you is.

But the thing is that most a what’s livin’s broken.
and the livin’ end up dyin’ someday…
but you is dyin’ too.
least ways you did one time.

The thing is that of everything that’s dyin’ you is the only one ain’t dyin no more.
Cause you is the gonna be.
You is the livin’ again.
You is the big brother of all o’ what’s been broken, dead and gonna be livin’ again.
and count o’ that you is gonna be King of all a what was, is now, and is gonna be.
and every broken livin’ thing that sees that for you there ain’t much difference between the was, the now, and the gonna be has gotta go ahead and make you ‘is King.
cause the gonna be happened a long time before the was was even a gonna be.

So when you is born in a feedin’ trough you is already a King though none o’ the kings that was would ever think much of ya.

And when you is lovin’ the parts of us that’s broke, it hurts so bad we don’t believe in kings at all. But you is still a King that washes our dirty toes, confusin’ all our ideas about what you is.

But when you is gonna be breakin’ in next time… well kings is gonna be hidin’ cause they gonna realize that they all been doin’ is playin’ dress up and weren’t really kings at all…

not compared to what’s gonna be.

by Will on Sept 11, 2009

I promised some interaction about God healing the body.  Also, the blog allows me to say somethings that I didn’t get to say on Sunday.  But first we can talk about what did get said:

Why does God heal?  Because God loves our physical body.  He created it very good, he gave it to us, and one day he will glorify it in the new heaven and new earth.

To be quite honest I got a little uncomfortable talking about our physical bodies that way.  I’m not sure why that is exactly - maybe I’m not comfortable with my own skin either.  But I found it a novel and enriching thought to consider that God does love my body and yours.

I’m sure part of the reason I get uncomfortable is the preponderance of messages that talk only about sex and the body and physical prowess and the body.  I don’t think God’s love for our body has anything to do with that but the beauty and joy of celebrating His creation.  God saying, “I love your body.” Gives a whole new meaning.

On May 11, the Session of Winton Hills Community Church (WHCC) informed our Session that due to issues of timing and resources, they have decided to discontinue discussion of a formal merger with CHPC.

Your Session believes that through this process of exploration, both congregations have experienced growth in understanding that as Presbyterians, we are connected in ministry and committed to relationship.

So where do we go from here? As a Jubilee Community, we now have the opportunity to capitalize on new relationships for future growth in ministry together. We will indeed continue to find ways to connect, serve and celebrate together.

This summer, CHPC has invited Winton Hills to join us for such events as the Pentecostal Potluck, Galilee by the Sea and summer camps. The CHPC Exploration Team will also continue to work with WHCC to identify areas of joint mission and ministry and to develop proposals for joining hands with WHCC in reaching out into both our communities.

Pastor Drew Smith will share more about this at both services today. Additional information will be provided by members of the Exploration Team following each worship service both today and May 31 in the Fireside Room in the Barnabas Center.