What Did You Learn In Church Today?

Faith & Science Conversation
145

One feature that seems to be different in most (all?) Asian cultures, compared to the European or USA, is that the focus is in groups, not individuals. You are not seen as an individual but as a representative of a group. What you do or how you dress is not just your way, it is something that may bring honor or shame to the group where you belong. People are expected to make their choices for the group, not so much for themselves.

Overall, the value of an individual is less in a Buddhist culture. If an individual dies, what does that matter? The person just reincarnates to another phase of life. And the person is anyway not much more than an illusion.

The missionary claimed that some level of indifference regarding the health and life of humans stems from the Buddhist worldview. He told that around 5000 children die yearly because of poor air quality in the wider region of Asia but that does not cause strong reactions because according to that worldview, these children just move to their next incarnation.

And how about being a sinner? Well, if you have been born as a human instead of a rat or cockroach, that shows you cannot be a bad person.

2 Likes
146

We had a project where we studied how the invasive alien plants affected the vegetation and fauna within the patch that they had taken. It seemed that the strongest impact came through the toxic chemicals that these plants contained and released. The toxic chemicals were one of the key reasons why these plants were so successful - very few herbivores could eat the toxic plants and the toxic chermicals that the plants released to the ground inhibited the germination and growth of the natural competitors (allelopathy). Dense growing form that blocked much of the light during summer was another factor that inhibited the germination and growth of the competitors.

Patches of the invasive alien plants had an increased number and cover of other alien species. Apparently, the other alien plant species were better adapted to live with the invasive alien plants than their native competitors.

Despite the toxins and a lowered diversity and abundance of animals within the patches, litter did not accumulate beneath the alien plants. Some of the toxins possibly evaporated or were transformed in the dead plant material and earthworms took care of the withered leaves.

2 Likes
147

That’s one of the few benefits of scotchbroom: the seed pods decay rapidly and add nutrients. The problem is that the seeds themselves just lie there waiting for the right growing condition!
Their big detriment is that their roots chase the water table, so every time there’s a drought native plants die off because the scotchbroom draws water from deeper than the native plants. That makes an issue for planting native species: to an extent the scotchbroom provides shade for the young plants, but has to be killed and cleared enough to allow the young plants to get water.

2 Likes
148

Our sermon today was on John 14, which promises the Holy Spirit, and follows the description of how Judas would betray, Peter would deny, and the disciples misunderstood who Jesus was, yet out of those flawed human beings, God worked to produce his good and perfect will. and how he still uses us through the Spirit living in us to continue those good works.

I tend to get a bit cynical and falter in hope and love these days for many reasons, and it was a good word for me to hear.

2 Likes
149

Interesting day at church yesterday. Sermon was by the president of 21Wilberforce, Wissam al-Saliby, regarded the international work they do regarding religious persecution.

In Sunday School, had a sad discussion with a friend whose daughter, who is a neurobiologist involved in ALS research, is moving to Europe along with most of the other people in her circle as research opportunities had withered away here. At least Europe and Asia are still funding research. The brain drain away from the US is real.
The lesson was on Romans 5:1-11, and the study of how our trials can ultimately lead to hope was encouraging to me, as for many reasons, the last few weeks have been tough.

Finally, Saturday night we hosted about 20 5th graders at our house for hot dogs and smores and various games that involved smashing pumpkins. For one game, I hung pumpkins on a rope and they used a baseball bat to smash the pumpkin piñata. Nothing in them but pumpkin guts, but they loved it. It was sprinkling rain, but their joy, enthusiasm, and energy was contagious. Hopefully, I caught a little of it.

4 Likes
150

English bible translation choices can and have led to mischief in some of our fundamental understandings! This morning in church, our pastor (who was out sick) shared a written message with us that she largely borrowed from another pastor (as you’ll see credited in the opening sermon notes below). It was over the passage in John 9 where the man blind from birth is healed. The following is a sharing of the opening of that sermon followed by some of my own quotes/summaries from the rest of it.

(credit to Catherine Theil Lee, whose sermon I’ve borrowed heavily from. https://chapelhillmennonite.org/2018/02/spit-and-mud/)

“Everything happens for a reason.”

That is the title of a book by Kate Bowler, a professor of history at Duke Divinity. Everything Happens for a Reason (and Other Lies I’ve Loved) is a favorite of mine. At the age of 35 Kate was diagnosed with stage IV cancer, which she has been living with for the last 11 years. Her book is a memoir of her journey through her illness. She strikes me as a thoughtful, vulnerable, profound and delightfully hilarious person.

Kate’s book includes a helpful appendix of “Things you should never say to anyone who is terminally ill.” There are some good ones. “Everything happens for a reason” is number five on the list of other painfully well-intentioned blunders of speech. Along with the terminally ill, I imagine she would include people who have any other kind of serious illness. Or have experienced trauma. Or death.

Or were born blind.

…The rest below is just my mix of quotations/summaries from the rest of her sermon.

Our modern English Bibles give us this: (John 9:3-4) “…he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. (4) We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day…”.
(My own emphasis added on the phrase in question).

Here’s the thing! Jesus didn’t actually say that! Since Greek is very sparse with its words, sometimes English filler is added in to smooth things out. And the words “…he was blind so that…” are just such added filler. And that’s significant! Because it makes it sound like Jesus is now doing exactly the thing that his disciples and everyone else are always so keen to do: explain people’s suffering - giving the reasons behind it. But what the Greek text actually says is this:

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned. But so that the works of God might be revealed…” and it goes on.

In other words, Jesus refuses to enter into our whole mess of wanting everything explained and just steps up to: “Let’s be about the works of God so that they might be revealed!”

But of course, being in love with our own reasoning or understandings and being desperate to “make sense out of life” - we’ll happily run with inserted English phrases of things that it looks like Jesus probably never even said!

So that was new to me. And as if that weren’t enough, we were reading / discussing the “pearls before Swine” passage of Matthew in our Sunday school this morning too - and we encountered Dallas Willard’s correction on how that passage is normally used, which I also found inspirational and making much more sense! Maybe I can say more about that in another post if there is interest. But I’ll stop here for now.

5 Likes
151

that is brilliant, and addresses some difficult questions I’ve had. I’d like to read more on both. Dallas Willard is one of my favorites, too. Thank you.

152

The Willard writing we discussed in Sunday school came from our “Following the Call” compilation of writings from a lot of authors. The bit I referenced from Willard apparently came from Willard’s “Divine Conspiracy” book.

It’s essentially this: the command not to throw your pearls before “swine” is not a command to refrain from sharing with some lesser or “unworthy” class of people who aren’t “good enough” to be able to recognize your pearls for what they are. Quite the opposite in fact. Just as God sends rain and sunshine on both the righteous and unrighteous, we are to be kind to and serve everybody. But in this case it isn’t even a matter of there being a “righteous” group and an “unrighteous” one. (We are all in the latter category anyway if we really wanted to press that.) No - it’s a matter of not giving people what they don’t need. Animals have no way of digesting pearls. A dog or a wolf has no use for your load of Bibles - but they may have a use for you! You, after all, are at least edible to them whereas your “pearls” are not. So the warned of “attacks” are just a warning of what happens when you don’t listen to people or figure out what it is they actually need. If all you have for them is your own unsolicited advice that you think is so valuable, they may in frustration end up just turning on you since you aren’t telling or giving them anything useful. We may feel that what we have should be useful to them, but so often our “pearls” that seem so timely and valuable to us are only shared with them condescendingly, with a heap of pride and judgement thrown in on the side. So it is no wonder that things offered in such a way end up trampled.

2 Likes