Thursday, September 22, 2011

Let us pray.

Dear Lord, I have asked you, and I ask you again, to grant me a pulpit, Father. Let my words be a blessing to those who hear them and a joy, even, as they remember them, and perhaps only a brief interruption to their day.

Amen.

My text is from the 33rd chapter of the book of Ezekiel

The word of the Lord came to me: "Son of man, speak to your countrymen and say to them: 'When I bring the sword against a land, and the people of the land choose one of their men and make him their watchman, and he sees the sword coming against the land and blows the trumpet to warn the people, then if anyone hears the trumpet but does not take warning and the sword comes and takes his life, his blood will be on his own head. Since he heard the sound of the trumpet but did not take warning, his blood will be on his own head. If he had taken warning, he would have saved himself. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes the life of one of them, that man will be taken away because of his sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for his blood.'"

The Book of the Lord.

News, they say, is extraordinary events happening to ordinary people, or ordinary events happening to extraordinary people.

Blowing away two billion dollars of your employer's money seems to qualify.

On the other hand, giving up a 70 thousand dollar a year contract because you feel called by God to get on an airplane and fly to Hawaii to finish writing a book, well that happens every day. And then, of course, when you're in Hawaii, and you run out of money, and your computer is stolen, and your surfboard is stolen, and you've just lost everything and you're living in a homeless camp, well, I mean, of course you don't go back to the good paying job. You pray, you have dreams about being on an airplane, departing, about being in a place you're told in the dream is Juneau, Alaska, so you get on the plane and you fly away, of course. It happens every day. And then, once you're in Juneau, Alaska, you still have no money, you're living under a tarp on Mt. Roberts, but you're still praying, and you begin preaching, well that's the most ordinary thing imaginable. It happens all the time. Really nothing newsworthy about it in the least.

If you feel called to condemn the wickedness and the immorality of a capitalist society that has turned to money instead of God, to condemn the hypocrisy of a religious right that picks and chooses which of its commandments it wants to obey - and then runs out and votes Republican!

Well, truly, there are other ways of making your voice heard that do not require going to the Marine Park every Sunday afternoon and preaching, and then posting those sermons on the front page of freesoft.org.

Other ways of ensuring maximum media coverage... if you want to make a statement...

Smashing airliners into skyscrapers comes to mind.

Amen.