‘If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death.’

 

"Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" "No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

 

‘If a priest’s daughter defiles herself by becoming a prostitute, she disgraces her father; she must be burned in the fire.’

 

There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ " ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. "Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go. "Which of the two did what his father wanted?" "The first," they answered. Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him.

 

‘For the generations to come none of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God. No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed; no man with a crippled foot or hand, or who is a hunchback or a dwarf, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores

 

When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!"

 

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.

 

I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves about on the ground. I am the LORD, who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.

 

"Do not call anything impure that God has made clean."

 

"I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me."

 

But these are written that you may believe  that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

 

And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.

 

AMEN

 

Raven goes out

and never comes back

black over water

flying, flying, flying

eye’s ahead

so far gone

till the world is new

wet and reborn

 

settle on Bran’s hill

and nevermore leave again

tread Yeoman Warder’s shadow

while crown and tower stand

and faithful dove flies

white overhead

 

 

In the New Testament Paul says that "we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles" (1 Cor. 1:23). This was paraphrased by the great missiologist Leslie Newbigin in his ground-breaking book Foolishness to the Greeks by which he meant "the Gospel is foolishness to the Greeks" – the Greeks being the pagan, unbelieving world outside of Judeo-Christian sensibilities. It is foolishness because it is not understood and goes against the nature of this world which is ruled (for the time being) by darkness. Darkness has always struggled to understand light as it says in John 1:5 "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood it." Even within ourselves our very dark nature struggles to understand the light of Christ’s Spirit within and the battle often rages on.

 

I think as much as the gospel is foolishness to the world in the sense that the world does not understand it, the world is often foolishness to those of us who purport to have the gospel. I was almost 30-years-old when I became a Christian and I was every bit the worldly person you could find…now, less then 10 years later (you do the math) I find I am confused and paranoid about the very things I used to embrace. I wonder if this confusion, this lack of understanding can impede communication with the world? Is it a wall of cultural prudishness or is it a wise conservativeness? If it is a wall then it is false and needs to be torn down as Paul writes in Ephesians because it is a "dividing wall of hostility" and Christ will not stand for it. If it is wisdom it needs to be nurtured.

 

Clearly discernment is required here. Things are usually not as clear cut as we would like and I think this question is no different…I think the answer is that a bit of both exist in our lives…a very real and wise caution with the world mixed with an unhelpful, cultural prudishness/snobbery that needs to be cleansed away.

 

 

Well – I can’t believe that I am actually excited about a cookbook but there you go. I’m sure it has more to do with my love of eating. Our MAC cookbooks came out the other day and today I decided to make Summer Borcht – the single best thing about Mennonite food I have found so far. I improvised a bit (added a little pepper, salt, kept the skins on the potatos, used deer sausage, some vinegar). It turned out REALLY good. I know this because I had some actual Mennonites come over and try it (well, descendants of Mennonites). It occurs to me that a Christian Cookbook makes sense…so much of our symbolic celebratory life revolves around meals (Lord’s Supper, Passover etc.). I’m glad we put one together.

In other news I went to hear DD and BF singing as part of the Prairie Singers presentation entiitled Songs of Lent & Liberation. It was quite incredible. The acoustics in the Emmanuel Mennonite Church are spectacular. I hope they sell (or give away – HINT) a recording of the event. It started with the old Greek Kyrie Eleison and worked its way through to the end with some great Negro Spirituals and a South African reconciliation song.