tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29714735548248620072012-01-26T13:47:52.570-06:00The theological musings and commentary of an ELCA pastor.Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.comBlogger221100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2971473554824862007.post-34920825664529634462009-06-22T09:15:00.005-05:002011-01-06T23:02:53.351-06:00

As Christians, we tend to throw around the word forgiveness quite a bit, but I wonder - do we really and truly grasp the depth and difficulty behind what TRUE forgiveness is? Jesus tells us we're to forgive 70 x 7 times, which means we forgive wholly and completely. But what does this look like? On the one hand, our tendency is to go, "Fine, I forgive you, but don't ever darken my doorstep again

Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2971473554824862007.post-47416005249533327712009-04-26T12:01:00.006-05:002010-06-14T11:24:57.515-05:00

This coming Sunday is Good Shepherd Sunday: the speech Jesus gives about the thief trying to steal his sheep, but his sheep know his voice. During this week's sermon brainwave, Rolf Jacobson told a story about this farmer who raised sheep. He was at the fair and talking with this guy about his sheep. When he got home, he discovered strange tire tracks and went in and discovered his sheep were

Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2971473554824862007.post-29311637441034070552009-03-16T11:42:00.007-05:002011-01-06T23:04:39.960-06:00

I know I haven't written on this for a while, but just haven't felt the muse - until I started reading over the texts for this week. Granted, I did write a pretty in-depth paper on John 3 for my Gospel of John class several years ago, but I decided to spend some time this week really looking at the "serpent vs. cross" imagery that gets played out here. The bronze serpent story in Numbers 23 I've

Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2971473554824862007.post-31523633697789711232009-01-11T20:06:00.004-06:002011-01-06T23:05:06.593-06:00

Don't ask me how it is I always find myself in these situations where I'm having discussions with atheists and whatnot. But, I do. (I think in part it must be through facebook and the fact that I'm back in touch with people from my "past life" who were frequently not of the religious ilk) At any rate, I'm having a discussion with this atheist and just asking some basic questions about why he's

Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2971473554824862007.post-63984149409371530742008-12-13T23:26:00.009-06:002010-11-06T10:34:08.603-05:00

A friend of mine recently directed me to an article regarding an ELCA church in San Francisco, Ebenezer Lutheran, which had the following sign up: "Goddess Rosary, Wednesday 7 pm." (You can read the entire article here) While I have my own reservations about certain "feminist" language that is being imposed on biblical translation, this transcends a mere question of whether God has feminine

Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2971473554824862007.post-70812985784671530332008-12-13T10:57:00.006-06:002011-01-06T23:05:40.346-06:00

OK, this is a totally random posting... but I was sitting here discussing the lyrics of the 12 days of Christmas with my mom (yeah, that's what it's degenerated to, I'm afraid) and how I always get the last 3 totally mixed up, so I looked up the lyrics online and discovered that the symbols of the 12 days apparently actually stand for something! (I know - most of you probably know that and are

Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2971473554824862007.post-517986852498859442008-12-04T19:10:00.003-06:002011-01-06T23:06:07.090-06:00

I'm sure most of you read or heard about the man who was trampled to death at a Wal-Mart in New York. Eager holiday shoppers stampeded the store, tore doors off their hinges, and trampled the employee to death, while injuring more who were attempting to help the fallen man - all in the name of bargain shopping. The story made me sick to my stomach. For more reason than one. First, just the

Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2971473554824862007.post-42094167847722905792008-11-21T09:55:00.004-06:002011-01-06T23:06:26.334-06:00

This Sunday is Christ the King Sunday. Admittedly, my initial thought was "Egads! How do I preach this?" (Matthew 25:31-46) Sheep and goats, eternal hell, all that fun stuff. This text is always difficult for Lutheran pastor’s to preach. A former professor of mine, Karoline Lewis, illustrated it like this: As a kid, you go up to your mother or father and say, “My neck hurts when I go like this”

Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2971473554824862007.post-87605965903721708172008-11-12T10:35:00.005-06:002011-01-06T23:06:57.102-06:00

Oh goody. It's that time of year again! The articles are already pouring in about how humanist atheists are once again trying to "get rid" of Christmas. Normally, I just roll my eyes at this and go on my merry way. However, admittedly, this latest article I came across in the Lincoln Journal Star I found somewhat irritating. The article headline from the Nov. 12th Journal Star paper was entitled

Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2971473554824862007.post-21827049984702825722008-10-26T23:00:00.004-05:002011-01-06T23:13:06.479-06:00

While no one likes to receive "hate mail" in response to something they've said or written, I, personally, have found it to be a great tool for honing my arguments and delving deeper into what I believe about scripture. Recently, I received one of these caustic letters that called me an "usurper," "blasphemer," and someone who wanted to interpret scripture so that it fit my own wanton desires...

Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2971473554824862007.post-68729239239000831072008-09-30T17:21:00.015-05:002011-01-06T23:13:35.824-06:00

Ok, one particular friend of mine and I have gone over this issue many times (and that dear friend knows who she is) :-) So I fondly look forward to her two-cents on this particular topic. The "wrath of God" is something that makes the Lutherans among us rather uncomfortable. It's not something we like to think about and certainly doesn't seem to fit at times with an "always loving" God. Yet,

Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2971473554824862007.post-23523343858634171612008-09-07T15:17:00.003-05:002011-01-06T23:20:43.907-06:00

OK, I know... it's sad. I'm technically "on vacation" from the whole preaching and leading worship thing until I go through assignment and the call process, yadda yadda yadda, so one would expect I would want a break from looking at the weekly texts and spending time poring over them since I'll spend every week for the rest of my life doing this. Unfortunately, whether for ill or for good, I

Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2971473554824862007.post-91135662188200436932008-08-17T19:20:00.008-05:002011-01-06T23:23:09.956-06:00

Well, it's been a while since I've done my theology blog--mission trips and moving tend to purge my creativity for some reason. But, I'm back with just a short musing on this week's text. I didn't have to preach this Sunday, but I suppose the theologian in me can't help but think about such things when I look at the weekly readings. This week's reading was from Matthew 15, about the Canaanite

Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2971473554824862007.post-44918854834382618952008-06-18T22:21:00.006-05:002011-01-08T22:49:06.563-06:00

For a change, that's not a rote confession. It's an actual heartfelt, anguished plea to our Lord God almighty to forgive me for something horrendous that I left undone. I'm the type of person that best deals with their grief and anger and all those other emotions through writing - it's how I vent, and I have a lot to vent right now as I work through this horrific tragedy. So some of this may not

Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2971473554824862007.post-50129659060375501232008-06-18T08:14:00.007-05:002011-01-06T23:33:20.570-06:00

Let's face it... there are parts of scripture most of us find troubling--what kind of God wipes out all of humanity with a flood? What sort of God orders genocide? How can a God that seems capable of so much love and grace, also be a God of so much wrath and anger? While, on the one hand, I suppose I could use Rolf Jacobson's flippant, but very true, answer that God loves people so much that he

Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2971473554824862007.post-26817001135515433702008-05-27T11:08:00.003-05:002011-01-06T23:38:14.349-06:00

As I mentioned in a previous post - something that has always shocked and perplexed me is the anger that comes from atheists. What is it that scares them so much about the idea of God that they lash out so venomously, calling religious types "stupid" and "idiotic"? Sure - people have done a lot of bad things in the name of God. But then, a lot of people have done some bad things in the name of

Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2971473554824862007.post-36206558031435597682008-05-21T20:50:00.006-05:002011-01-06T23:39:09.905-06:00

I just finished reading an article about how Iranian President Ahmadinejad is attempting to prepare the way for the 12th Imam (Imam Mahdi, the 12th imam in a direct bloodline from the Prophet Muhammad, who the Shiite faithful believe will one day emerge from 1,000 years in hiding to save mankind and bring justice to the world. Tens of thousands of pilgrims go each year to the Jamkaran mosque near

Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2971473554824862007.post-24494301215131152882008-05-21T15:54:00.004-05:002011-01-06T23:39:56.211-06:00

Faith is a funny thing. During a heart-felt spiritual discussion with a friend of mine recently, the question arose at one point, “What do you think about the letters Mother Theresa wrote about not feeling God’s presence in her life like she used to when she first became a nun?” My response to my friend was as follows: “It gives me great comfort.” As someone who has felt called by God into the

Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2971473554824862007.post-14990843563503383292008-05-18T22:03:00.006-05:002011-01-06T23:40:12.194-06:00

Sibling rivalry is as old as, well, Cain and Abel. Anyone who has ever grown up with a brother or a sister understands the dynamics involved within a sibling relationship. It’s usually a mixture of love and resentment, competition and cooperation. Children compete for their parents’ love and approval, and usually cooperate when their conflict might result in both reaping the wrath of mom and dad.

Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2971473554824862007.post-27972759175865980762008-05-17T20:15:00.004-05:002011-01-06T23:40:37.787-06:00

Piggy-backing off my earlier posting about women in ministry a little bit, I want to concentrate more on our friend Eve, the mother of us all. Let's face it - Eve's gotten a bad rap throughout the years. And no wonder. What were the first words out of Adam's mouth when God asked why it was they knew they were naked and if they had eaten from the tree? "The woman whom YOU gave me to be with, she

Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2971473554824862007.post-66241773484623671712008-05-16T21:56:00.002-05:002009-02-23T10:46:22.009-06:00

My recent approval interview was quite interesting. One of my professors warned me about the "crocodiles" out there waiting to get me because I was a woman in ministry. On the one hand, I've always been on the look out for the crocodiles--you don't survive a career in Hollywood without constantly watching your back for sharp teeth and knives. During my years in the Hollywood scene, I had learned

Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2971473554824862007.post-55686171996557811892008-05-14T12:04:00.002-05:002011-01-06T23:42:19.320-06:00

Last night I went with a group from my congregation to see Ben Stein's film "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed." The film is a "documentary" about the treatment of scientists who have given some credence to the idea of Intelligent Design (which, for those who have negative connotations about this, it is not the belief in a literal 6-day creation nor is it even "Christian" persay, but simply

Pastor Rebeccanoreply@blogger.com1