Rev. Don Erickson

  We now turn to the story of Abraham (formerly known as Abram) and Sarah (formerly Sarai).  Abraham and Sarah first appear with the names Abram and Sarai in Genesis 11. At the end of that chapter, we are given Abram’s genealogy. Abram is the son of Terah. We are not given the name of Abram’s mother. What does this tell you? If you haven’t learned already, it tells you that the book of Genesis derives from a patriarchal culture. It’s the fathers that count most. The mothers are barely if at all mentioned. In Genesis 11, there is no mention of a mother, not to mention the name of a mother. No daughter is mentioned by name. In fact, the first time a woman is named is with Sarai in verse 29. Even here, she is named as Abram’s wife.  Abram, the son of Terah and an unnamed mother, had two brothers, Nahor and Haran. Haran dies at a younger age but not before he has two children - a son named Lot and a daughter named Milcah. We’re not sure when Haran dies, but it is thankfully before his daug

  INT. LIBRARY MEETING ROOM – DAY Ian in a leather jacket and black jeans sits in the corner of an empty meeting room reading a book that sits on his lap, the cover hidden at this point. Ian turns a page and Leah walks in. Ian looks up. LEAH  (hiding her surprise) Hi, there!               IAN Hi, how’s it going?               LEAH Terrific! She goes to and moves a podium to face the room.               LEAH I’m supposing you’re here for the Students for Social Justice meeting?               IAN Sure am. Leah walks over to Ian to introduce herself. Ian stands up to do the same.               LEAH I’m Leah.               IAN (placing the book down to stand) Ian. Good to meet you. Ian sits back down, grabs the book. The book’s title shows: “A Testament of Hope: the Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr.” The cover includes an image of Dr. King. He begins to read again.               LEAH          (feigning upset) So, you’re the one!    

  Sometimes, it all comes down to the meaning of a single word. We see this in the Bible a lot. Especially because of the translation process. Unless one reads ancient Hebrew and Greek, we read the Bible thanks to English translations. Our passage from Mark 7 is a great example of how one word and our understanding of that one word can make all the difference in the meaning of the text we are reading. In Mark, a gentile woman, a Syrophoenician, begs Jesus to cast a demon out of her daughter. To this Jesus says, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." Did Jesus just equate this desperate gentile mother to a dog? Apparently so. The mother responds to the claim. She says, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." This smart and cutting retort somehow moves Jesus. "For saying that, you may go--the demon has left your daughter." Still, we are left with t

We often imagine God as naturally preferring homogeny. God created one people with one language, the thinking goes, and God was good with that from the start. This thinking, as our story from Genesis 11 shows, is overly simplistic. God does want unity, as in comm unity. But homogeny and unity are not the same thing. The Tower of Babel story points to a reality beyond homogeny. God prefers unity in diversity, not homogeny. As we come to Genesis 11, we see one people with one language living together. The chapter begins by describing the reality in the wake of the earth’s beginnings. The whole earth had one language (11:1) and there was one people (11:6). They lived and moved together. Verse 2 indicates this people migrated west to “the land of Sinar and settled there.” Together, they built a city with a tower reaching into the sky. Despite their success and diligence, there seems to be some anxiety surrounding what will occur. They feel the need to “make a name for themselves” – they l

What we need is a 2nd Reformation. I do believe that we are on the precipice of it. And with that reformation, things will change. As they must. Thinking about this, I’d like to do a little bit of envisioning, imagining what a 2nd Reformation might look like.  To do this, I’ll keep it simple and highlight three. These three focuses derive from the three realities of the Trinity. And yes, the Trinity will be key to the new reformation. So, here we go. The first huge reform that the next great awakening will bring us is a new way of talking about God. One of the least helpful ideas Christianity promotes is its view of God. You’ve heard it before, I'm sure. God as the Big Man upstairs. The Big Guy in the sky. The Old Man with the long flowing white beard. We wrongly see and offer up a God as a being like us, albeit a supreme being.  The 2nd Reformation will correct this. Now, we don’t need to go beyond the Christian faith to bring about this correction. The Christian faith, properly u

One of my job duties, one that doesn’t get seen by folks, is to be aware of the sociological trends when it comes to the church in our society. In other words, I often ask myself and seek to answer these questions: what is happening in American religious culture and how does what happening effect us as a local body? Local churches don’t exist in a vacuum. I get asked what can we do to make the church grow? Often, the pastor is expected to have some answers in this regard. But sadly, there are no easy answers. No magical remedy in our day and age. Some churches do a lot right and do not grow numerically. Others don’t try all that hard and grow. There are examples of both. As much as church consultants make a living helping churches to grow, no failsafe, secret recipe for church growth has been found. In fact, studies tell us that church consultants may boost growth a bit initially, long term not so much. The reason this is so seems clear to me – the cultural shift we are now experiencin

You know the story. God sees “his” creation and that it’s a disaster. Genesis 6 begins with human beings being beyond dastardly. Verse 5: “the people on earth were very wicked… all the imaginings of their hearts were always of evil only.”  Its not just humans that are so dastardly, though. The whole earth is and all living beings are, according to verses 11 and 12: “The earth was corrupt before God, the earth was filled with violence. God saw the earth, and, yes, it was corrupt; for all living beings had corrupted their ways on the earth.”  As if to reiterate the dark reality, God communicates to Noah what his divine eyes sees: “The end of all living beings has come before me, for because of them the earth is filled with violence.” Violence is mentioned twice in chapter 6. Cain tapped into a kind of black hole for earthly existence. Cain’s violence begat more violence. No surprise. That’s what violence does. To use lingo from Star Wars again, Cain’s act, his full and complete emersio