Our first lesson for this coming Sunday is the last three-quarters of the Fourth Suffering Servant Song from Isaiah. For the life of me, I cannot imagine why the lectionary framers cut out the first part, but whatever, eh? I've printed the whole song below. Every Christian will perceive that the song refers to Jesus; or rather, that Christian theology was tailored precisely to match Jesus to the song. At my theological seminaries, though, Lutheran Seminary Gettysburg and Episcopal Seminary Virginia, I learned to first discern what was in the mind of the writer, and that is obvious, or almost but not quite obvious, because the rabbis don't necessarily agree!  Jewish tradition identifies the suffering servant variously as Moses, who suffered throughout the wilderness journey; with other suffering but faithful prophets and kings; and with Israel herself, Jacob, Israel, Joseph, the nation of God's people Israel.  In the context of Isaiah, it's evident that the suffering ser

  The John Brown story this morning, and its song, which I remember from childhood, stir awareness of Moral Certitude as the most dangerous of selfish, evil sins. Someone said that most to be feared is a Christian rising from his knees determined to go forth and carry out the will of God.  So entrenched are we in our certainties that we cannot see ourselves for what we are. We were certain that slavery was right. We were certain that racial segregation was right. We were certain that homosexuality was evil. We were certain that interracial marriage was an abomination - - in my day in my South for a black boy to date, or even flirt with, a white girl would have been cause to gather a lynching party. We are certain that abortion is wrong v. we are certain that for government to tell women that they cannot make their own decisions about their own bodies is wrong. We are certain that ours is True Religion. In a nation of immigrants that include our own forebears, we are certain that immigr

  Born September 1935, so coming up on my 90th Thanksgiving next month, soon followed by my 90th Christmas and 90th New Years Day! Count them: Looking around, Life is Good, and I'm in no hurry. In fact, I could wish everyone as satisfactory a moment to moment, hour to hour, day to day retirement as mine, with interesting memories and few regrets. If I could change anything, what might it be? Well, I couldn't if I would, I can't so I won't go there.  There were Times when I might have been nicer, or firmer, or more assertive or less, or acted on impulse instead of restraint or vice-versa, but some of those Times doubtless would have been Frost's two roads diverging in a yellow wood where, if I'd taken the other decision, I wouldn't be here in 7H typing my nonsense this autumn 2024 October morning. Every decision sets one's road to the next choice, doesn't it.  Ships zigzagging? No, they do it purposefully, I did it haphazardly. After I decided, as a c

  Not that we've lived there in forty years, 1984-2024, but it's great to see Penn State relatively high in the CFB rankings this morning. When we moved to Pennsylvania early summer of 1976, the state hero was Joe Paterno, who ended up serving as head coach for 46 years. Is that a record? Every restaurant in Harrisburg where Paterno had eaten proudly had his autographed photograph hanging in the front lobby. Believe me, I only asked, "Who's that?" once. And I remember: we were with new church friends at a really nice restaurant on the west bank of the Susquehanna River, and as we were leaving I saw the coach's picture. That would have been now 48 years ago, who would have thought! We loved our Pennsylvania years, and easily could have ended up staying there. No sooner had we moved into our new house on the Conodoquinet Creek - - creekside they call it there, like bay-front or gulf-front here - - than Linda scouted out and found our new church.  We tried out tw