From our Song and Service
A Light to the Heights worship
Sunday, February 28

Bible Reading: Philippians 3:17-4:1 Luke 4:1-13


Videos:

Embrace Life

from a Sussex, UK safety campaign YouTube post




Jesus says he wants to gather us to safety like a hen gathers her brood. God is not in the crash but in the protection in the midst of the crash.

______________________________________________________________

Snowball Olympic commercial from Coca-Cola

In a fun way, watch how our hero stands firm, or focuses only on his goal, not letting an assumed threats from others stop him from getting the sugary drink.

______________________________________________________________

Tank Man of Tiananmen

from YouTube




How many times would you step in front of a tank? Just the day before the BCC reported tanks crushing protesters to death. To this day, no one knows who the man was or what became of him after being taken away into the crowd.

______________________________________________________________

Holiday for Love CBS TV Movie

Scene not available for embeding but here is the link to the clip at WingClips, (a new window will open).

Holiday for Love / Christmas in My Hometown on WingClips

Dueling responsibilities or citizenships are illustrated here between work and love or business and hometown. How do we decide between valid demands? What conflicting demands could happen by being a citizen of heaven and of earth? How can they be resolved?

A Sacred Cookbook My daughter's fourth grade class baked a cake as an exercise in following directions. They literally added two eggs to the prepared mix as instructed, without taking them out of their shells. I have followed carefully a tragically incomplete recipe, where the lack of a key ingredient ruined entire batch. (My bread came out as cracker colored bricks.) Preparing good food is an art enhanced by skill gained by instruction and practice. Ingredients are transformed by influence of other ingredients and the process of mixing them in different ratios and order. The caress of heat and the patience of time combine to make the separate, unrelated items into a harmonious whole.

Proper preparation techniques and full inclusion of all ingredients are necessary not only in creating edible food , but also in preparing soul food from our sacred cookbook, the Bible.

Too often folks offer me an ingredient found in the Bible, often quoting me the place in the recipe where it can be found, and telling me it is good to eat as is, because it is in the recipe! It is like giving me yeast and telling me it's bread.

When I kindly and gently suggest there is more to the Bible baking then collecting items on a grocery list by shelf and aisle number, they accuse me of not believing in cake because I decline to put candles on a pile of flour covering eggs still in their shell.

May folks give as much respect to the Bible as they do cookbooks: searching out all the ingredients, removing the shells, mixing the flavorful and nutritious elements responsibly, warming them in love, and enjoying them in good time.

Hope you find the Joy of Cooking and are fed both in body and spirit!

Bible Warning Label

...So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given to him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures.-2 Peter 3:15b-16

The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

This work by J. Christy Ramsey is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

From our Song and Service A Light to the Heights worship Sunday, February 21

Bible Reading: Luke 4:1-13

Videos:

Marshmallow Test

from YouTube post



How do these children resist temptation?
In which ones do you see yourself?
Watch the red haired girl's unique way of dealing with temptation.
How does this remind you of Jesus waiting to eat bread when he was hungry?


______________________________________________________________

“One Thousand Dollars” scene from 3:10 to Yuma

Scene not available for embeding but here is the link to the clip at WingClips, (a new window will open).

3:10 To Yuma on WingClips

Is the farmer/guard (man in chair by the window) tempted by the offer of the criminal? What stops the guard for accepting the temptation of the bribe? How does community help us resist temptation?

How does this scene compare to Jesus being tempted to have all the power in the world by making a deal with the devil.



______________________________________________________________

Tiger Woods Apology

from itnnews on YouTube

We only watched the first minute of this portion.




What should have stopped Tiger Woods but did not according to him?
How is this related to the devil tempting Jesus to defy the law of gravity and the boundaries of human beings?

What This Place Needs.. This is my final post on The Doorpost Film Project's 20 minute film called, The Butterfly Circus.The story of how Will, a sideshow "gimp", born without arms or legs, becomes admired instead of scorned. The film is set in the time of the Depression. One bleak scene lingers over glimpses of a shanty town of destitute people. The master of the circus proclaims, "What this place needs is a little wonder!" Then the circus characters in colorful costumes emerge and engage the people in a parade of joy and confidence while giving them tickets to more wonder at their show.

Watching, our hero, Will, believes that the circus stars have been blessed while "God has turned his back" on him alone. But the movie audience is allowed to see the prior struggling steps of those now dancing. Through flashbacks, the despair of the performers former lives are revealed to exceed even the gloom of Depression camp they now divert into delight.

If you look for "wonder" in the Bible you will find that most of the references belong to the worst time in the history of God's people: when they were slaves in a foreign land. Yet it is also the most glorious time. For thanks to God's wonders they were able to leave slavery and begin their journey to the promised land of milk and honey.

How to get of out of depression camp? Seek wonder in the world: where aspirations instead of infirmities are celebrated. Where we see each other as "magnificent" instead of repugnant. Together we can leave the despair of slavery of the worse and in wonder journey to the promise land.

Out of Wonder

When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labour on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.- Deutronomy 26:6-9

The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

This work by J. Christy Ramsey is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

You Won't Recognize Him This Sunday we consider again The Butterfly Circus. This short film is the story of how Will, a sideshow "gimp" becomes a star attraction. The title includes "Butterfly". Yet a butterfly only appears at the end of the film. In the film a child is confused when his captive caterpillar is replaced by a cocoon. He is encouraged by his mother who tells him that the the caterpillar is in the cocoon and he "won't recognize it" when it comes out.

The child was reassured by this revelation. He could have been alarmed if he assumed the transformation into something unrecognizable was a monster to be feared instead of beauty to be welcomed. I think it was his mother's calm, happy tones that filled the prediction with wonder instead of terror.

I would like the church to be a place where calm happy tones reassure the confused to welcome the wonder of transformation instead of fleeing the threat of change. Where we happily expect each person to become a new creation. A place where caterpillars have a safe, calm cocoon to become a butterfly.

Butterfly Bible

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!-2 Corinthians 5:16-17

The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

This work by J. Christy Ramsey is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.