Gates of Hades Does Not Prevail

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ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

Gates of Hades Does Not Prevail

by Matt Hughes 

Dateline: Philippi, WV , Aug. 27, 16:13:20

Saturday, Josh Kristy joined his old group, Son of Man, in a Battle of the Bands. A Kristy follower, who asked to not be identified, told me he, Kristy, and several others were on their way to visit an old Kristy friend, Ms. Sarah Rhea, here in Philippi, when they heard a radio ad announcing Son of Man would play at the Barbour County Fairgrounds Battle. Kristy then asked, “Who are they saying the Son of Man is?”

When Kristy was told that John, Paul, and the Prophet brothers, Eli and Jerry, were named, my source confided that Kristy “went sort of nuts, demanding, ‘Who do you say I am then?’”

My source also said that their response was to all look at one another and then stare at the floor. Simon Johnson finally exclaimed, “You’re the bomb! Man, you are the whole package! You are the one who makes the whole thing come alive. You totally bring it with the Kingdom of Dodd and the Nu-Food way, man. You are up there, like, the Son of the highest, man, living on the edge.”

Johnson’s response sort of chilled the moment, but the atmosphere among the group remained tense. When they got to Ms. Sarah Rhea’s place in Philippi, she revealed to them what she had planned. With the help of Candy Trey, Kingdom of Dodd event planner, Rhea organizes the Battle every year. After Kristy had told her that he would be in Philippi the same weekend, she and Trey convinced Son of Man members to join the Battle.

The Gates of Hades has been the dominant band in the area for years. Its heavy grunge sound has amplified local sentiments, but some who have chafed at the anarchistic nihilism welcomed Rhea's true expansion of the competition this year. Kristy and Son of Man played jazz fusion blues. A new R&B band, Keys to the Kingdom, formed by other Kristy followers, also competed. “We’re not the Days of Noah yet,” Jimmy Alphy said, “but, Simon C. here has the sticks, and the band’s got chops. We provide a lotta fun.”

The competition started at 5pm Friday. The many notable bands included Country Jonah and the Fish, VA Ninevah’s Fudge, Big Mose and the Pharaohs, NC CAG and the Luminaries, Roman and the Centurions, The Children in the Marketplace, Sappho and the Love Nymphs, Cleopatra’s Asp, Wisdom, Hosea, Centaur of the World, Amos and the Crooners, JC and the Sonshine Band, Samson and the Nazareens, and the Wiseguys.

Throughout the Battle of the Bands, The Gates of Hades continued to have a strong following, but, in the end, they could not prevail against Keys of the Kingdom. When Simon Johnson came forward to receive the prize, Kristy shook his hand and said, “You rock. You’ve been righteously churched on solid stuff, but don’t tell anyone I said so.”

Lost Sheep of Israel Matthew 15:10-28

This text is really disturbing to me each time I read it. So, let me begin today by saying, “Blind people don’t lead blind people unless they know where they are going. Let me say that again, just in case you didn’t get it the first time. Blind people don’t lead blind people unless they know where they are going.

If you have two or more blind people in an area, and they do not know where they are going, they do something called exploration. While they are exploring the area, they will be in communication with one another talking about what they are encountering. Now it is possible that they may all end up in a pit, but that is not a result of leadership, that is a result of poor communication.

Before I say anything more, Jesus is not talking about blind people when he is speaking of blind guides. We will encounter this language again in Chapter 23, and, then as now, Jesus is not talking about blind people. He is making a statement about faithfulness and people’s inability to perceive God’s vision and leading in the world. I personally believe that Jesus’ terminology is unfortunate, but, Jesus is a man of his time, and we have to deal with it. Even the dirt of Jesus’ time rubs off on him.

The greater issue of the day is defilement. What is it? Where does it come from? As I considered this issue in the text, I was reminded of a joke:

The story is told. A day came in heaven when Satan thought that he might finally have the upper hand over Jesus and his attending goodie people so Satan approached the heavenly throne and said, “I believe that I have finally infiltrated the very fabric of the world and that I am ready to take full control. You see I have given bits of information to the people over the years and now they have created this network of computers and programs that are so cleverly interfaced that even you cannot fully understand the genius of my plan. That tree of knowledge thing back in the garden? Well that was just a warm up for what I have planned for this generation. Why all of the knowledge of the world can be accessed in a matter of minutes if you just know the right key combinations. Indeed, the people may not be as wise as you are, Lord, they may be wiser. What do you think about that?”
God curled her hair around her finger for a while; she pursed up her lips; she wrinkled her forehead and then asked, “So why have you come here today to tell me this? There seems to be a weakness in your plan somehow.”

Satan hedgingly replied, “I just need a little time without your interference to make it all work. What do you say?”

God said, “I can’t imagine why I would agree to such a plan”.

Satan challenged, “I’ll bet that I can enter more data on more people on earth in less time than anyone you can choose”.

God asked, “Why should I enter data in a computer when I already have the book of life at my disposal?”

Satan cajoled, “Humor me. It’ll be fun, and if I lose, I promise I’ll leave the world alone.”

God considered Satan’s request. She asked, “How long are you thinking this contest will take?”

Satan challenged, “You seem to be fond of three days as a time of interfering in my business, so let’s say three days.”

God agreed, “Okay, I’ll send Jesus to your little competition.”

Well the time came. Satan was jumping with excitement when Jesus arrived. At the moment the starting bell sounded, Satan pulled out a flash drive and started downloading information he had stored earlier. Jesus smiled and started entering information on creation beginning with Adam and Eve, then working his way down through history.

At the end of the first day, Satan had more than twice as much information entered than Jesus. Satan was gleeful. Jesus smiled. At the end of the second day, Satan had more than 6 times more information than Jesus. Satan was prancing around claiming certain victory. As the time on the third day near the end, a power surge ran through the entire network, and Satan’s computer crashed. When Satan restarted his computer, he discovered all of his information on computer science, astrophysics, nuclear physics, wall street finance, and all of the busy people making money was gone.

Satan cried out in frustration, “I can’t believe it! I have lost everything! We’ll have to start again.”

Jesus just smiled.

God disagreed with Satan. “Well, it appears that you have lost, Satan. Jesus seems to have much more information entered than you have.”

Satan, very angry, shouted, “How can that be? The same power surge hit his computer.”

God, smiling very broadly, remonstrated, “That is true, but you see, Jesus saves. By the words of your mouth and the intent of your little contest over power, you have been de-filed.”

So, what does it mean to be defiled? Of course, it does not mean that you have lost all of the information on your computer. Rather, you have lost status, that you are no longer able to be part of the philos, the brotherhood of eating companions; you are not able to have a place at the table because you have become unclean, undesirable, unworthy of social recognition, deserving of being shunned, or put aside. No longer can you speak to and for others because you are untrustworthy.

“Where does this come from?”, Jesus asks. Jesus says that it comes from the heart, the source of evil intent, that place from which plans of murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, and slander arise. All of these are part of the Ten Commandment prohibitions and actions we are not to be involved with. More than that, when these activities arise in our midst, we are to decry them; that is, we are to stand up in God’s name to oppose them.

This opposition has its consequences apparently, because, in the aftermath of the Pharisees’ offended-ness (is that a word?), Jesus leaves town for less controversial climes. He goes out to the edges of the region, to Tyre and Sidon, into the stronghold of Roman power, into the unclean world, the defiled world, into the world of the lost sheep of the House of Israel.

Here Jesus and his disciples meet a woman from the area. Now we have seen Jesus in all kinds of situations with other unclean people. You will remember back in Chapter 9 when Jesus saw the crowds and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. You will remember Jesus sending his disciples out to “heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, and cast out demons;” he sent those disciples out to the “lost sheep of Israel”. You will also remember that, before the feeding of the 5000, a couple of weeks ago, Jesus looked at the crowd and he had compassion on them. So, we are expecting a particular attitude and behavior from Jesus when the Canaanite woman cries out for mercy because her daughter is tormented by a demon.

We are not prepared for the shunning response that is presented here. We are not prepared to hear Jesus speaking to his disciples, as if this woman doesn’t exist, saying, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.”

When I first read this passage this week, I read it the way I had always read it, but today I believe that I was wrong. I believe that Jesus is ignoring this woman and speaking to his disciples over her in order for them to understand that they have a hand in this ministry that they are about. Ministry is not a spectator sport.

In a sense, Jesus is telling his disciples that their mission and ministry hasn’t changed. They have been sent out to these lost sheep, and they continue to be sent out to these lost sheep. Yet, in the midst of her bleating for mercy, in the midst of her cries, their response is not to listen to her but rather to beg Jesus to send her away. They are much more interested in being ministered to rather than ministering to.

But this woman refuses to be ignored. She comes before Jesus and bows down. She blocks his way; she gets in his face. She bows down before him like the disciples in the boat; she worships him and says, “You have got to help me.”

Jesus responds to her by saying, “It defiles the bread for the children when it is thrown to the dogs.”

And then the transformative moment comes. This woman responds, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs get to eat the crumbs that fall from the master’s table.”

This is where context matters. We have just witnessed the feeding of the 5000 where all were filled, and they gathered up the crumbs that were left over. How many baskets were filled? Twelve! Twelve baskets of crumbs were gathered up—certainly enough for the rest of the world. If five loaves and two fish could feed 5000 men besides women and children, then there must be enough crumbs for this woman and her child, don’t you think?

So, we hear Jesus say, “Your faith is amazing! Your faith is great! Let your desire come true. Let your daughter be healed.” And she was.

The question for us today is why all of this defilement? Why is it that Jesus looks like a bad guy all of a sudden? Who are the lost sheep of the House of Israel? We need more context!

We know that Scripture interprets Scripture, and so we look to some of the other texts we have today to help inform us. Our passage from Isaiah comes to us from the beginning of what we call Third Isaiah. The first part of Isaiah, chapters 1-39, deals with the fall of Israel and Judah. It covers the destruction of the temple and the enslaving deportation of the people to Syria and Babylon. The second part of Isaiah, chapters 40-55, concerns itself with a new understanding of who God is in the midst of exile and what that means for God’s people. This last part of Isaiah is about returning home and building up God’s people with this new understanding of who God is.

These three parts address the dispersing of God’s people throughout the world. The ten northern tribes of Israel fell first, and those people scattered throughout the Syrian empire. We know that they traveled into Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East, but the records of their exact whereabouts were lost or destroyed. They are the original lost sheep of the House of Israel.

We know about the people who were taken into slavery, but what of the people who were left behind? We have no record of what happened to them. They too are lost sheep of the House of Israel.

In this third part of Isaiah, when the people are returning to their homeland, God is welcoming them and those foreigners who have entered the land over the years, but the people have a different idea. In the 9th chapter in Ezra, we read this awful, awful story of how the people created a community of ins and outs. The people who came home, they were in. The people who were living there, they were out; but they weren’t out before some of the returning people had intermarried, so some of the people sent away were wives and children of those who were in. Those people who were exiled by the returning Jews also became the lost sheep of the House of Israel.

As a matter of fact, by the time you get to Jesus’ time, there are a number of people who are part of the temple and are considered to be the righteous ones. These are the true inheritors of the House of Israel. Paul is one of them. He states that he was born a Jew, of the tribe of Benjamin, instructed as a Pharisee, in all ways considered to be righteous by the law, zealous for the Lord even to persecuting the early Christian community. But something has happened. Christ has entered into his life. He was blinded on the road to Damascus, and, although his leadership is not blind, he most likely has low vision afterwards. Yes, everything has changed.

In today’s reading, we hear Paul concluding his discussion concerning the status of Jews and Christians. He has said in Christ the world is different because Christ has come to us, Christ has acted for us, and we have a new relationship in Christ that cannot be broken. No longer do we need to be part of the first covenant community in order to be saved. Christ has changed the way. This is a new way of thinking, but this new way of thinking does not mean that God’s word is not trustworthy and true. God’s word to that first covenant community, that community that passed through the waters of the Red/Reed sea, that community who wandered in the wilderness for forty years, those people who entered the promised land, is still true. Those who know God through that first covenant are still saved by that covenant. God’s promises are steadfast and enduring--those whom God has covenanted with will always be part of God’s family.

A professor of mine in seminary once said, “We should be very careful about making sure that the Jewish people of the world remain safe. We should do what we can to lift them up and to affirm them in their relationship with God, because Scripture says that if the Jewish people are in some way exterminated, if the promise to the Jewish people that they will be like the sands of the shore can be broken, then the promise that comes to us through Jesus can also be broken, and God’s word and promise is no longer trustworthy. We need each other and we need to affirm each other proclaiming what God has done.

For Paul, and the early Gospel writers, if you are in some way related to those who are part of that first covenant community or of the new Christian community, but not a part of either of these communities, then you are one of the lost sheep of the House of Israel. So, now we see this woman, who is one of those related to the first coming to that promised land, to Canaan. This Canaanite woman is actually one of the people the disciples were sent out to find. She is one of the people that Jesus is actually looking for, and there she is, right in front of him. It is not Jesus who is confused here. It is the disciples who are still without understanding. It is the disciples who have forgotten who they have been sent out to serve. And so, it is the disciples, not the woman, who is being tested, and they have failed.

We come this day, not always remembering all of the information that we have before us, not remembering all of the works that God has done for us. We forget that we have this information saved for us, and saved to us, saved in us, so that in our following of the one who sends us, we might go into the world hearing the cries of the people, to hear the cries of the mothers whose children are tormented with demons. All of this information that we have been given prepares us for being able to expose and address those demons in the world. This information prepares us for being able to proclaim that Christ has redeemed us, that Christ has saved us. This saving information, that has been imparted to us, inputted into us, continues to inform us, to work among us, to lead us, teaching us to listen and understand the cries of pain.

We cannot be defiled. We may participate in defiling activities that reduce God’s presence for others. We may even indulge in evil intentions on our own, but there is always time to repent, to turn our lives around, that is, to turn to Christ, and bow down in worship, crying for help—help for ourselves and healing for our children who are tormented by demons—for as the heart is capable of evil, it is also capable of love and honesty. Let us always walk with the knowledge of the potential danger of evil within us as we practice the ways of the one we would follow, the one who calls us in the midst of the storm, the one who has the true vision of where we need to go and the authority to lead us there, with the confidence of Christ’s love in our lives. In his saving ways, we will not be defiled.

HOUNDS OF HELL HAIL HAINTS

THE ANGELUS TRUMPET

The Unexpurgated Source for Alternative Bible Facts

HOUNDS OF HELL HAIL HAINTS

by Matt Hughes 
Dateline: Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia, August 20, 15:10:28
Josh Kristy knows his Kingdom of Dodd (KoD) followers well. After particularly rough sailing last week, it was too soon to take them on a sea cruise. Kristy, having changed the itinerary by adding several market fairs in the Blue Ridge Mountain area, has them on the road again.

Trouble started when an old woman, Ella Therran, of Cana, VA, started making noise about Kristy entering the region of demons. She disclosed to them that her daughter, Aimeri Kaw, in therapy for many years, hounded by historic haints and multiple anti-social behavioral issues, was institutionalized until recently at UVA psych facilities in Charlottesville. Therran contends the government released her daughter and other mentally unstable people into the general population in November without proper care and treatment when they closed needed facilities “in order to save tax dollars and creating building opportunities for resort speculators and foreign business interests. You know business and profits always trump community need.”

One of Kristy’s followers, known only as Thad, admitted, “We noticed Ella Therran around Charleston, W VA, but she wasn’t really a problem until we got to Beckley. We tried to move her along as gently as we could at first, but she continued to come back, hounding us, warning ‘Beyond this point there be demons.’ She went on-and-on, squawking like a wounded goose, about Aimeri Kaw and her anti-social demons—including her racist, classist, genderist, sexist, and anti-Semitic rants. She is very concerned about her [Kaw’s] separatist, White-supremacist tendencies. At first, Therran was informative, raising the alarm concerning her daughter’s demons, but eventually she was just annoying. She kept getting in the way of doing business.”

Simon, a fellow Cananaean, said, “I’ve known of Ella Therran for many years. The troubles with Aimeri in Cana are legendary: At an early age, she had a real superiority complex. She didn’t think that anyone was fit to be in her company. It was like the rest of us were put on the earth just to serve her and to satisfy her every whim.

“As [Aimeri] got older, she became a bully, more devious, manipulating people for her own self-interest. With mendacious stupidity, she can ruin your faith with her casual lies. Finally, her actions were causing great harm. People were being arrested, imprisoned, and even dying because it entertained her. Eventually she was committed.

“Yes, Ameri Kaw is beautiful; some might call her statuesque, but she’s always a woman to me. She has had some shining moments, but much of her history is really sad. When she is enthralled by her demons, spewing vituperative hate language, she not only demeans herself, but she defiles all of the people she comes in contact with.”

Whether by design or coincidence, after doggedly following Kristy’s route, before getting to Fancy Gap, at Chances Creek, Ella Therran finally got the opportunity to confront Kristy. She pleaded with him to use his KoD resources to bring healing closure to Kaw’s demonic possession. After a short discussion, Kristy agreed to KoD investment in the trials of Therran’s daughter, seeking freedom from her haints. He allowed, “Of course, the most important thing that has happened today is that the demons have been exposed. Now the healing can begin. With KoD fashions and our Nu Food diet, with a dash of mercy, she should begin to detoxify and be free from her demons in time.”

Jesus Wants Us to Walk with Him Matthew 14:22-33

I have to tell you that I come to you today deeply disturbed. You see, I finished writing my sermon yesterday morning at 10:30. It was a good sermon. I was happy with it. I thought that I understood the gospel message, and I even thought that I had communicated the gospel message effectively.

After the sermon, I made a couple of phone calls, got cleaned up, and went to a family wedding in the afternoon. We stayed for the reception, talked with family, ate a good meal, had fun, and got home a little later than we had planned.

I went over the sermon again to make sure that I was still satisfied, wrote up the prayers of the day for a couple of weeks, and went to bed. When I got up this morning, I turned on the radio to listen to the news, and I knew that my sermon was no longer appropriate.

(Pause) I don’t even know where to begin now. Well, let’s do it this way.

We are in the midst of a series of stories in Scripture starting with Jesus telling that the Kingdom of Heaven is like…. Jesus presented several different models of what that kingdom might look like, and we explored some of them together. We visited with Herod at his birthday party and witnessed the beheading of John the Baptist and the passing of the torch from John to Jesus as the Kingdom of Heaven ministry entered the world in a new way. We saw Jesus go off to be by himself, to consider the consequences of the ministry he is embarking on. Clearly, the implications of this ministry are that suffering and even the loss of life is possible, even probable. Certainly, this ministry cost John his life.

And we saw the people, for one reason or another, leave the cities and follow Jesus out into the wilderness where they enter into a new faith community relationship of caring- and eating-fellowship. Following this new community formation, Jesus sends his disciples away in a boat on the sea, he dismisses the crowds, sending them back to the places from which they have come, and then he completes what it is that he was going to do in the first place—Jesus goes up onto the mountain to pray.

The rest of this story looks almost like a common ghost story, a story one might tell around a campfire at Boy Scout or Girl Scout camp or, maybe Bible camp, or around the fireplace on a dark and stormy night. As such we often treat this story in a disbelieving way.

We make jokes about it. You know the joke about the three guys who go out fishing? Yes, two of them get out of the boat and run back and forth between the boat and shore without any trouble, but the third person drowns because he doesn’t know where the stepping stones are?

When I was over in the Holy Lands in the mid 90’s, a company was contracting to build a concrete runway that would go out into the sea of Galilee, six inches below the surface, so that they could re-enact this story of Jesus walking on the water.

Yes, we say that this account in the Gospel of Matthew is just a ghost story, and we don’t need to believe it. We are more sophisticated; we are more knowledgeable; we are more intellectually advanced than the people of that time; and we do not suffer from the same superstitious nonsense of the first century. We are not otherwise occupied or consumed with ghosts in our lives. Scientifically, we can prove that the surface tension of water is not great enough to support the mass and weight of a human being.

Yet, we have plenty of ghosts in our lives today. We have all kinds of ghosts that haunt us. My mom was plagued by one of the most destructive ghosts, the ghost of woulda-coulda-shoulda. She suffered under the torments of “If only I had …, the “I should have done this, or that”, or the self-recrimination ghost of “I should have said that” and “I wish I had had the courage to say….” Indeed, she spent a great amount of her life regretting what she had not done. There were times that these ghosts prevented her from seeing all of the things she had accomplished.

Today, we, with the disciples, sit, in our boat in terror, crying out, “It’s a ghost!” We find ourselves unable, too frightened, to get out of our boat to do what is needed—walk to Christ on the water. We let the ghost of “What would the neighbors think or say” get in the way of acting. Yes, we all live with ghosts that come and challenge us to dare not get out of the boat and walk on the sea, even as we see Jesus there, beyond our safety zone, calling us to, “Come. Come out onto the seas of chaos; dare to tread upon those seas; and enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, into the new way of living, into the new way of knowing the world, where people stand up for God’s word in our world.”

Last night when I went to bed, I was pleased with my sermon. But, when I woke up this morning, I heard what had been going on in Charlottesville and our national inability to address that kind of anger, and I was dismayed. This has got to stop! It has to end! How hard is it to say, “This cannot be?”

We cannot continue to quietly stand by in a world that promotes the privilege of some at the expense of others. We cannot continue to support the behavior of people who put fire to sanctuaries. As I think about the mosque where arson recently damaged the study of the imam and the low level of ire it generated, I wonder whether the response would have been different if the fire had been set in the Crystal Cathedral? I can only imagine what the coverage across the country would have been and the furor and the finger-pointing resulting from an incident like that. Yet somehow, because it is a mosque, the coverage is dropped early in the news-cycle. This has got to stop! It has to end! How hard is it to say, “This cannot be?”

Sixty-five years ago, when white supremacists bombed the 16th Avenue Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing children in the basement, there was greater awareness of that event in Europe than there was in our own country. Certainly, the news was released here, but it was glossed over as part of the greater civil unrest of the time. We cannot continue to let behaviors like this go without our notice and our care. This has got to stop! It has to end! How hard is it to say, “This cannot be?”

We cannot continue to pass and support laws that oppress targeted communities; that put these people at a disadvantage, placing people in a legal system that says It is easier to go to jail, to admit guilt for something you didn’t do, and thereby surrender your rights as an individual, than to stand up for them, simply because you can’t afford the legal representation that might vindicate you. After all, the sentence of the lesser crime is shorter than the consequences of the crime you are being charged with should you be convicted. Besides that, the public defenders’ office is over-burdened, the court system is over-scheduled, and waiting for trial may actually take longer than going to jail in the first place because you don’t have enough money to make bail. Plead guilty. It makes the whole system move more smoothly. This has got to stop! It has to end! How hard is it to say, “This cannot be?”

We are in a world that allows bullying comments to be thrown around even at national levels without concern for the consequences to the people. This has got to stop! It has to end! How hard is it to say, “This cannot be?”

Indeed, the storms of war rage around us, the storms of discontent rage within us, and we are terrified. So, we have found safety in a boat and are afraid to acknowledge the one we see is the one we claim and cling to in faith because the implications of this ministry are that suffering and even the loss of life is possible, even probable. Instead we claim the one standing in the distance is a ghost, not our savior.

From our reading today, we hear that Peter, seeing Jesus walking on the sea, says, “If it is you, then command me ….” That little word if is so big in this reading today. I know I bring up Greek often, but today this word in Greek makes a big difference. This word in Greek is ean, and it can be translated in two ways—if and since.

This week, in particular, I think that we need to pay attention to the fact that those who translated the NRSV version of the Bible, the one we are reading from, have chosen to translate ean as if. But, this if statement, concerning who Jesus is, is a weak statement. It says, “I’m not sure who Jesus is. Therefore Jesus, you must do something to prove to me that you are worthy of my trust. Until then, I am going to sit here safely in my boat until you prove to me that you are God.”

But, if ean is not if, but since, then we hear Peter’s statement differently. “Since it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” Using if, rather than since, in how we translate ean, captures our crisis of faith in the world today. We, like Peter, continue to challenge God, saying, “If you are the son of God, then, ….” “If you have importance in my life, ….” How different our lives might be if we were able to say, “Since it is you, then ….”

We are challenged in this time and place to consider who this Jesus is who calls to us to come. We are challenged to claim him, to cry out to him; to go out onto the waters, onto the waters of chaos; to bring a voice of reason and calm, to bring a rational voice, into the decision-making conversation process; to bring some sanity back into the world we live in. It is into this world of chaos that Jesus says, “Come”, and it is important that we hear and heed Christ’s call because we live in a world of hate and hyperbolic angst. Okay, that last is just me, I mean to say exaggerated fear.

We need to claim the one who is standing out beyond our safety zone, who continues to call us out, understanding that yes, when you confront power, there may be consequences, some of them may even be life-threatening. Yet, it is the place Christ continues to call us, calls us to take those first few steps.

Imagine the difference between if and since as we take those first few steps out of the boat. If our statement is if, then we are still wondering if it is Jesus, and we will be looking to ourselves for confidence, but, if our statement is since, claiming Christ in our lives and walking on those chaos waters, yes, then, when those mighty winds blow and we can see the wind of God’s creating kingdom in the world, we may know fear, and we may hesitate and sink. We may cry out, “Lord, save us!” But, we cry out with the assurance and knowledge that Jesus’ hand is there to grasp us and hold on to us and raise us up—even as we doubt—for this is our story. We can cry out in confidence because we have been in these waters before. We have been to the baptismal font. We have drowned and died to our sinful selves. We have been raised up in Christ. Christ’s hand has already reached out to hold us before we dared to come to Jesus walking on the waters. That saving hand is tested, and it is ours in all crises.

“Since it is you, Lord,” we ask, “where is it that you want us to go?”, no longer wondering whether this is the Christ. “Since it is you, Lord, we are willing to get out of our boats of safety to walk on the waters, those waters that create new life, new ways, new walks.”

So, we come, come to this place, claiming Christ as our savior and claiming our own willingness and desire to stay safe in our boat. We come saying, “Forgive us, renew us, and lead us, so that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways, to the glory of your holy name.”

And, when we find the courage to step out onto the waters, we will find a new boat to get into. The winds will calm, and we will find ourselves on the lands of Gennesaret with a new ministry ahead of us, where the people will gather and say, “If we can only touch the fringe of his cloak, we might know new wholeness.”

Today I tell you that Christ has called us out onto the waters of chaos, the waters of discontent, to show us the possibilities of the kingdom of heaven and he is getting into the boat with us for the sake of the kingdom. But this is not the boat of fear and uncertainty. It is a new boat of confidence and courage—a new boat, with a new direction, and a new way to go. Indeed, we are heading for shore, and it is right outside our door.

May we know the peace and the love and the support of the one who continues to call to us, “Come”, and may we have the courage to get out of our boats and go.

Entries Flood Poetry Contest / The Three Hour Cruise

THE ANGELUS TRUMPET

The Unexpurgated Source for Alternative Bible Facts

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

Entries Flood Poetry Contest 

by Matt Hughes 
Dateline: Gennesaret, August 13, 14:22:33

The Trumpet's recent poetry contest received numerous entries. It was not too difficult though to pick the top poet. Peter Heide submitted all entries we received. While we may publish others at some future date, today we chose his major opus.

The Three-Hour Cruise

Peter Heide

Come gather ‘round

To hear a tale,

A tale of a faithful trip,

That sailed away from the wilderness,

Aboard a tiny ship.

Aboard a tiny ship.

Peter was a mighty fisherman,

With Andrew, James and John.

Twelve apostles got in to the boat,

For a cruise, three hours long,

A cruise, three hours long.

The weather started getting rough;

The tiny boat was tossed.

Then Jesus, he came walking through.

They thought he was a ghost;

They thought he was a ghost.

With death cries, the disciples wailed.

Christ said, “It’s me; don’t fear.”

Then Peter said, “Command me, Lord,

To walk on waters clear,

To walk on waters clear.”

Jesus said, “Come, join the walk

Of heaven’s kingdom fair,

Upon the waters, in the wind,

New creation, now to share;

New creation, now to share.”

So, Peter walked on waves that day

Until God’s wind, he spied,

And then he sank and flailed away.

He thought that he would die;

He thought that he would die.

“Lord, save me, now! Peter cried;

Help a drowning man.”

So, Christ reached out and raised him up.

He took him by the hand.

He took him by the hand.

They then got into the boat.

The wind then ceased to blow.

The apostles all, did worship Christ.

God’s Son, you are, we know;

God’s son, you are, we know.

The ship went aground on the shore

At Gennesaret’s foreign land,

With Thaddaeus, and Philip too,

Thom, Judas, and the other James,

Simon Cananaean,

Matthew, and Bartholomew—

The whole disciple band.

(Ending verse)

So this is the tale of the faithful trip,

Of the apostles’ hard, hard time

Crossing the Sea of Galilee,

In mariners’ ancient rhyme.

Our Savior, and apostles too,

Our faith and doubt address,

And show God’s saving baptism—

God calls and marks us, blessed.

From sin, and doubt, and faithlessness,

And life’s uncertainty,

Forgive us, Lord, and save us

For all eternity.

So, join us here each week, my friends;

Receive God’s word and grace.

Come hear the story of God’s love;

Join in our songs of praise.

The Tale of Two Banquets Matthew 14:13-22

When I tell you that today is the miracle of the Feeding of the 5000, what do you think of? You may think of the fish and loaves being multiplied. You may think of the abundance of the meal and the leftovers, twelve baskets full.

These are important things to remember, but this week when I read the story of what I am now thinking of as the Tale of Two Banquets, I was again struck by the words at the very beginning of this passage, “When Jesus heard this”. And then, almost immediately following Jesus’ hearing, we read, “When the crowd heard it.”

I couldn’t help but go back to read what it was that Jesus and the crowd heard. What Jesus and the crowd heard was that another banquet had just taken place where a series of events led to the tragic death of John the Baptist by beheading. After reading of the other banquet, it just kept crashing in on all of my thoughts concerning the banquet in the Wilderness.

No longer was I able to think of the abundance of the wilderness meal by itself, nor the provisions for the meal, nor the place of the meal. What struck me this past week was the account of the meal that isn’t included in this year’s readings, that is, the preceding meal, that of Herod’s birthday celebration and how that affects our understanding of this amazing feeding of thousands.

How Matthew ties these two meal events together seemed incredibly poignant to me. His telling of this feast at Herod’s birthday party and the Feast in the Wilderness is unlike the accounts of these events in the other Gospels, and I had not really thought of the consequences of that joining until this last week. Matthew intends us to read these two stories together in order to fully appreciate what Jesus was doing out there in the wilderness, in that deserted place.

The first meal Matthew describes came from the source of power and plenty. It was a birthday celebration; it was a time of great decadence. Herodias’ daughter danced for the company assembled, and then, following the dance, she requested the head of John the Baptist on a platter. After a short pause, Herod acquiesced, “Go ahead. Do it.”

Now, by all standards, this meal was disgusting. It was a meal of Roman delicacies celebrating wealth and power. Yet in spite of all that was there, it was a time of never-ending, insatiable appetite—of wanting more and more. Even the dance was not enough. Herod’s offer of a reward was not for the dance that Herodias’ daughter completed. Rather Herod was trying to bribe this young girl to continue. Moreover, Herod’s pledge to give Herodias’ daughter anything she wanted was not just for more dancing, but as reward for hoped for obscene activity. Herodias, even knowing what Herod’s intent was, advised her daughter to request a perversion of a delicacy of the time.

You see, the roasted head of a sheep served whole was a delicacy. In fact, it is very possible that a roasted sheep’s head might have been served at this meal already. But, instead of the sheep’s head, Herodias’ daughter asked for the head of John the Baptist to be served on a platter.

It was not the brutality of beheading John the Baptist that caused Herod to pause; it was the request to have the head served that caused Herod’s pause. Yet, acceding to the violence and cruelty of the Roman culture, Herod granted her wish. From that place of power, this horrifying thing took place.

Some outside sources say that it is because John the Baptist’s life is of such little consequence to those at this party that, after beheading him, the soldiers just threw John’s body over the wall. It is this discarded body that John’s disciples found and quietly took away to bury.

Our Scripture reading today continues from that earlier story. When Jesus heard this—when Jesus heard about the palace banquet and the death of John the Baptist, Jesus got into a boat and sought solitude. The ministry of John was over. A torch had been transferred; the baton had been passed from one of the runners to the next in the relay. It was time to recognize that going forward the ministry was going to have consequences, even life-threatening consequences. It was time for Jesus to consider what those consequences might mean and what his response to those consequences would be. This consideration was not to be done lightly, so Jesus went off to a place by himself.

When the crowd heard it, about the palace banquet and the death of John the Baptist, they followed on foot. We do not know whether they left out of fear because they were followers of John the Baptist and therefore feared their lives were in danger, or whether they went to the wilderness to grieve, or whether they went to organize a grass-roots movement to oppose the power of Herod and Rome. What we witness in Matthew is thousands of people who also went into the wilderness, and Jesus, when he got out of the boat, encountered this crowd that needed healing. Some were sick, and Jesus had the therapy they needed, and he took the time to care for them.

Matthew begins to describe the second banquet by saying that after Jesus spent time with the people, the time had come to eat. It was as if the dinner bell had rung. Now it was time for five thousand men plus all the women and children with them to eat. It is possible that the size of this crowd could have been as many as ten thousand, twelve thousand, maybe even as many as twenty thousand people. No wonder the disciples said, “Send them into the villages to buy their own food.”

But instead of sending the people away, Jesus did something remarkable. Reading the Greek this week, I was struck by how really remarkable the words describing it are. Listen to them carefully: “Looking up to heaven, Jesus took the bread and the fish, blessed them and broke them and gave them to his disciples and his disciples to the crowd.” Did you hear it? “He gave the bread and the fish to his disciples, and his disciples to the crowd.”

Earlier in Matthew, John had been given to the people of Herod’s party in a very perverted and deadly way. But here, the disciples were given to the crowd as living servants for the administration of the gifts that God has given God’s people. This reminds us of God’s gift of the manna showering down on the people in the wilderness during the Exodus.

As Herod’s banquet continued to create greater cravings, so now, we read that the crowd in the wilderness has been filled to overflowing. From Jesus, the disciples serve a meal where all ate and were satisfied.

This crowd could have become an army of revenging rebellion, but Jesus showed them compassion. He touched their lives in a way that gave healing, and he fed them. Yes, Jesus healed them; he soothed them; and then he sent them back into the world from which they had come satisfied, no longer a potential army of malcontents who would wreak revenge for the loss of their leader John the Baptist. With the new leadership of Jesus, these people would travel from this place of desert wilderness into the beginnings of a kingdom of heaven ministry.

Yes, on the one hand, Herod’s meal was a banquet of individual power, but, on the other, this banquet in the wilderness was a meal of empowerment. This meal changed the way the people thought about power. Jesus demonstrated for them that power is not something to be held alone but something to be shared.

This shift in thought changed their world. It changed the way they thought about power as they returned home. No longer were they a grieving, vengeful people reacting out of fear; these people had encountered the source of life, the giver of food, in the wilderness, the one able to satisfy the needs of life, the one in whom there is wholeness. These people were now able to go into the world to preach the good news they learned of God’s kingdom, the kingdom of loving wholeness and caring peace.

As I consider what Jesus was doing in this meeting with the crowd, I can’t help but think about how that story would read today in our current atmosphere of tension and polarity. In a climate of adversarial contention, this story might be very different. How easy it would have been to turn that crowd into a militant, destructive mob. Can you imagine what a political leader might do with a militant group who was primed for violence today? We might find ourselves confronted with leaders who, instead of calming the people, want to hold power unto themselves and stir up the crowds to support them and their agenda. The whole idea that power is something to be shared for the benefit of all rather than the profit of a few continues to be very foreign to many in our current world. We have been seduced into Herod’s world, but Christ’s banquet of forgiving wholeness is still waiting for us in these wilderness days. Christ’s meal is still available to us for healing and peace.

Are you beginning to see what I see? We live in this world that says, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But this story tells us that from the wholeness of even a little, breaking is necessary. Unless the bread is broken, people cannot eat. It is the very breaking of the bread and the fish, the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup, that brings us wholeness. It is the breaking of Christ’s body that gives us the wholeness and healing that we need in order to live each day. In this “broken wholeness meal", we receive a commission of sharing teaching, leading us into the holy, therapeutic, caring work of Christ himself.

Beyond this, we live in a culture that tempts us to believe that individualism and personal effort will win the day. We sing with gusto, “I did it my way,” forgetting the community and the needs of the community God has given us. We live in an individualistic world that encourages each of us to, “Pull yourself up by the boot straps.” I don’t know if any of you have ever tried it, but, if you have boot straps, and you start pulling on them, you are not pulling yourself up, you are pulling yourself down, down to your feet in the bondage of the boots. One quickly discovers that one is not lifted up by pulling on boot straps but by the action of those around us who have the power to lift us up. And in acknowledging this world around us that reaches out to lift us up, we begin to encounter the benefits of this wilderness meal received in community and the buoyant experience of one another’s company.

Think about it. Thousands returned from this meal thinking of the world differently. And the continued miracle of this meal is that we continue to be fed from this meal and we are sent into the world with the same gift these thousands received so many years ago.

Today, some will argue about how this miracle happened. But frankly, I am not concerned about whether people had brought small amounts of food into the wilderness for themselves and Jesus’ act of generosity convinced them to be generous too or whether Jesus’ actions of prayer, blessing and breaking actually did the feeding. What impresses me is that, in this deserted wilderness place, in this place of desolation and grief, in this place of anger and fear, Christ’s presence brings a sense of wholeness and peace into the midst of a violent and perversely broken world.

So, it is through this brokenness that we come to know the wholeness of God’s world, the fullness of the kingdom of heaven, the way of peace for ourselves and the world.

May we, in these days, know that peace again.

JEAN BAPTISTE EXECUTED--THOUSANDS RALLY

THE ANGELUS TRUMPET

The Unexpurgated Source for Alternative Bible Facts

JEAN BAPTISTE EXECUTED--THOUSANDS RALLY

by Matt Hughes 
Dateline: Galilee, August 6, 14:01:22

WARNING: This article contains graphic images. Reader discretion advised.

Moral depravity continues to be the subject of the day. From the newly completed palace of Capri, where our emperor has taken up residence with his beloved minnows, to Herodium, where leaks recently revealed Herod’s apparent pederasty, aristocratic culture and royal deportment continue to decline. According to sources inside Herod’s palace, a new low in perverted, lewd and lascivious behavior was established yesterday.

At Herod’s birthday celebration and feast, he and a few select guests, royally sated with local delicacies, were entertained by Herodias’ daughter with dancing that can only be described as salacious. In the midst of the debauchery, the highly titillated Herod offered the nubile tiny dancer anything he had for her continued favor. Not knowing what to ask for, she consulted her mother and returned with a request for a most disgusting delicacy—not the head of a sheep like the one the guests had just consumed at the table, but the head of Jean Baptiste on a platter.

This request revealed the whereabouts of Baptiste. He had been held incognito in an unused cistern under the palace courtyard flagstones. Baptiste’s public remonstrations decrying the moral and ethical deprivations of the tetrarch’s lifestyle and political collusion with Roman corruption led to an earlier arrest, confinement, and conviction of sedition and subversive malcontention. Sentencing was expected this coming week, but this favor accelerated the sentencing process and produced an expedited execution.

When his body was thrown over the palace wall, Kingdom of Dodd (KoD) Baptiste groupies were alerted. They buried him in a brief but solemn ceremony.

KoD’s Josh Kristy said, “When I heard the news, I just had to get away. We had been raising money for Jean’s defense hoping to get an open hearing. We always knew that he might be tried secretly, but this? We certainly didn’t expect an execution like this. Everyone at KoD is shocked.”

After the news was publicly released, a crowd estimated between five- and twelve-thousand fled to the wilderness where they had first met Baptiste. At the seaside, they gathered in memory of his passionate endorsements of KoD’s NU-Food and fashions.

Candy Trey, KoD’s Party Co-ordinator, was with the crowd as they came to the wilderness refuge. She quickly organized a few speakers and even got Kristy, who was on his private boat on the sea, to join the crowd for a short, requiem meet-and-greet. Following his words of remembrance, Kristy told the people to sit down for a simple meal of NU food fishwiches and water.

Looking into the sky, Kristy said something to his entourage, and suddenly parachutes, displaying the KoD logo, appeared with cargo nets of Nu-Food products and even some samples of Baptiste’s favorite KoD hemp sandals.

One of the crowd, Haley Oojah said, “It was amazing! Josh Kristy just looked up, and then he, like, raised his hands, like he was directing someone, and then the packages just started falling out of the sky. We were so hungry and thirsty after being out there all day, and, like, no one had thought about bringing anything with them. I mean, we just heard the news about poor Jean, and we all knew where we had to go. If it weren’t for the Kingdom of Dodd, we could have perished out there, you know? It was like…a miracle.”

Because of Trey’s quick thinking, Kristy’s calming presence, and the resources of KoD, what could have been an angry, mob response culminated in a peaceful out-pouring of love for the former KoD spokesperson Baptiste.

Kristy said, “We’ve been trying to tell people for quite a while that KoD can make a difference in the lives of everybody. Jean truly believed that, and today we proved our point. I believe that Jean would have been proud of what we did today.”

Following the peaceful rally, Kristy put his KoD staff on his private boat for a short cruise and then sent the mourners home. No unlawful incidents were reported.

The Kingdom of Heaven is Like... Matthew 13, 31-33. 44-52

“The kingdom of heaven is like…” How would you complete that sentence?

In today’s readings, we have several different images for what the kingdom of heaven is like. Solomon dreams of a kingdom of heaven with wisdom to rule; Paul, in his letter to the Romans, dreams of a kingdom of heaven that is in the process of being born; and Jesus presents various images of what the kingdom of heaven may be like—a mustard seed, yeast, treasure in a field, a pearl of great value, a net full of fish—from which the good and the bad can be sorted.

At first glance, these many images of the kingdom of heaven contradict what we have heard in the past weeks. Wasn’t there a parable concerned with the path, the rocks, the thorns and the good soil? Didn’t we just hear last week that the weeds were the children of the evil one and that the devil is the one who plants the seeds? Shouldn’t we be concerned about the weeds in our fields or where the seeds of our ministry fall? Shouldn’t we be seeking a world of stability rather than become the source of corruption and deceit? If heaven is where we are going, then shouldn’t these images be more orderly and fulfilling? Can’t Jesus make up his mind?

All these images have subversive overtones to them. Today especially, these readings remind us that the kingdom of heaven is not about the “there and then” world of living in the fullness of God’s presence. Rather, it is about how the world here on earth has been changed from the time of Jesus’ baptism when the heavens were opened.

The boundary between heaven and earth allowed us to say who is “in” and who is “out” because we thought we understood who God had “chosen” as God’s people for inclusion. But, with the boundary opened at Jesus’ baptism and the in-breaking of God’s kingdom presence among us, we realize we can’t know the ultimate choosing; that choice is now God’s alone. We are reminded that all that God has created and continues to create is God’s kingdom, but Matthew, who was probably Jewish, honors the Jewish tradition of not saying God’s name. Matthew uses a euphemism or substitute word referring to God when reporting what Jesus said. So, in the Gospel of Matthew, we hear Jesus say, “kingdom of heaven” while Jesus is reported as saying “kingdom of God” in the other Gospels.

Regardless, the language of these parables and dreams in today’s readings is not for an afterlife; rather each refers to welfare of God’s people here and now. Solomon dreams of a kingdom ruled with wisdom rather than power and wealth.

Paul, writes to the center of power in his time saying, not only that change is needed, but that the authority of Rome is about to encounter something new as the earth groans in labor giving birth to something other than Roman authority—Christ’s resurrection hope and life. The people are groaning inwardly as they await the adoption into a new way of living that is not Roman. The Holy Spirit, not the emperor, is now watching over the people, praying for them with sighs too great for words, and then Paul pushes the dream of the kingdom to include God’s intent that all should be saved. Those whom God has chosen, the social dead of his world, God also calls; and those whom God has called, God makes right through the dying and rising of Christ. Those whom God has saved through the death and resurrection of Jesus, God loves; and there is nothing that can separate us from that love!

In the face of Roman power, Jesus says that the kingdom of God is like an invasive weed that will eventually dominate the field with a new population. In the midst of the Roman world, the yeast of Jesus’ followers will mix into the culture around them until the culture and social order of the world has been completely changed.

In the field of the world, an empty tomb was found, and the followers of Jesus discovered that the Roman power of death was not the final answer. The resurrection is the pearl of great value that is worth great sacrifice for this “new world” kingdom that cures the sick, raises the dead, cleanses the lepers, and casts out demons, even the demon of imperial lordship. No longer will the people belong to human authority. Instead, the pledge, the creed of the people, becomes, “Jesus is Lord.”

And that net that is cast into the sea? Well, the constricting entrapment of Roman authority, the empire that includes most of the known world, the empire that thinks that it has the right to determine good and bad, that power has been given over to the divine agents of God. The determination of goodness and corruption is given to the angels with God’s authority. It is outside of human governmental legalism. These are powerful dreams and visions of what the kingdom of heaven is, not what it is going to be, and they challenge the Roman authority of the Caesars.

Today these readings continue to challenge us. We are challenged to consider the treasure we have, to consider the cost of the pearl of great value. What sacrifice are we willing to make in order that our treasure or our pearl is worth giving all that we have in order for the kingdom of heaven to gain reality in our world? How are we, like mustard or yeast, going to infiltrate our culture? How does that vision challenge the powers of the world? How does that vision change us?

I cannot give the answer to these questions, in part, because these parables raise more questions than there are answers. What I can say is that these parables help us remember who and whose we are, that the kingdom of heaven is part of our lives. I can also assure you that we have been raised up in the faith and hope of the resurrection and we have been trained to think of our lives in the context of that faith and hope. We are not the scribes or writers of the story that has been written, but we are the writers of the faith story that will be told in the future so I ask you to join in the dream of Christ’s kingdom imaginings. What will the kingdom be like? How will you complete the simile language of the modern parable for our world? What are we willing to do to make that dream come true? How are we going to share that dream outside our doors?

Now it’s your turn to complete the sentence. “The kingdom of heaven is like …”