Luke 7:11-17
Rev. Bryan Travis Hooper

In Jesus’ day, a widow was a person in great jeopardy. Women were dependent on the men in their lives for their basic needs and for their social standing. A widow had already left the safety of her father’s home and entered the home of her husband, but now her husband was gone from her too. The Bible is full of laws designed to protect women in this situation, so that the widow becomes an image of a person on the margins of society, at risk of slipping off the edge. (more…)

Our book group had its first meeting last week and we had a lively discussion of the book that we read, Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia.

The book was not for the faint of heart.  It describes three generations of Cuban women who are increasingly distanced from each other by culture, politics, violence and abuse.  Garcia does a wonderful job of telling their stories using a shifting perspective, flashbacks and dream sequences.  Magic also plays a role, though it seldom generates the desired results.

One key theme in the book is the pain of alienation, especially in the context of the family.  As these women, who are intimately related to each other, grow more distant from each other, they develop deep longings and passions that can not be resolved.  Perhaps it is the passions that drive them apart in the first place.  Whatever the case, all of these women are seeking something – something that simply can’t be found.

I think they face a spiritual crisis.  The longing they express, and the disastrous choices they make chasing their unresolved passions, speaks of an internal emptiness that is rooted in their sense of dislocation.  They don’t really know where they belong – pre-revoutionary Cuba, America, post-revolutionary Cuba, New York or Florida.  They are tattered, frayed people, struggling to piece together something that will give them a cohesive life.

In one way or another, this is a struggle we all engage in.  Where do we belong?  For us, as Christians, the final answer is that we belong to our God.  God for us is the defining location of our lives; our final place of rest.  With our lives “rooted in God’s love,” we can overcome our internal conflicts with the ample, satisfying grace of our God.

Maybe the characters in Garcia’s novel couldn’t imagine such a thing.  And yet, one wonders how their lives might have been different if they had firmly established their lives in the deep reservoirs of God’s unending love.

Luke 7:36-8:3
Rev. Bryan Travis Hooper

I once attended a dinner party uninvited.  I went with a friend, who assured me that it would not be awkward.   We are all friends, he said.  When I arrived at the party, things got awkward quick.  The host of the party, though polite, could not conceal her surprise at my presence.  As we entered the house, another chair was placed at the table for me, but I noticed that each place had a plate with a little card on it, with the name of the invited guest who was to sit there.  It got worse.  Though there was plenty of food for everyone, the host had prepared thoughtful gifts for all her invited guests.  She had even put together a little parlor game, sort of an ice breaker, that had considered all the guests except for those who arrived uninvited.   (more…)

 Despite a rainy start, the weather cleared and the Discover Farmington Avenue Day event on June 9 was a great success. At the church we served free hot dogs and beverages on the lawn (see picture), held a rummage sale which raised about $800 for our hunger programs, and welcomed visitors to our sanctuary where Nancy Robbins played the organ and piano and church members were available to answer questions. 

Luke 7: 11-17
Rev. Bryan Travis Hooper
In Jesus’ day, a widow was a person in great jeopardy.  Women were dependent on the men in their lives for their basic needs and for their social standing.  A widow had already left the safety of her father’s home and entered the home of her husband, but now her husband was gone from her too.  The Bible is full of laws designed to protect women in this situation, so that the widow becomes an image of a person on the margins of society, at risk of slipping off the edge. (more…)

I ask you, Lord Jesus,
To develop in me, your lover,
an immeasurable urge toward you,
an affection that is unbounded,
a longing that is unrestrained,
a fervour that throws discretion to the winds!
The more worthwhile our love for you,
all the more pressing does it become
Reason cannot hold it in check,
fear does not make it tremble,
wise judgement does not temper it.

Richard Rolle

We are reluctant to speak of God in the same kind of passionate terms that seem second nature to Richard Rolle.  Our modern minds have a hard time with a personal, passionate God.  We prefer a God that fits into metaphysical categories: “the Ground of Being,” “the Prime Mover,” “The Source.”  

But Rolle, and the Bible for that matter, tend to speak of God in very personal ways: as  Lover, as Father, as a passionate King, as a caring Mother.

I admit that the idea of a personal God makes me a bit nervous.  Does God have feelings? Does God get angry? Disappointed? Furious?  And I am really nervous when I see how fundamentalists of whatever religious identity turn God into an agent for their personal agendas.  It’s hard to imagine “The Source” might get angry and act out violently.  But a personal God can all too easily be cast in our human image.

And yet I’m confronted with the fact that “the Ground of Being” doesn’t really excite me.  Making God abstract reduces God to a concept – a lifeless idea that floats above the realities of our human existence.  I reluctantly embrace a personal God, a Lover, a Father, a Mother – because such a God seems more real, more relevant, more available.  And also because the Bible seems consistent in it’s many images of God on this point: that God is passionate, jealous even, and quite personal, however unsatisfying that might be for our modern intellects.

Rolle’s prayer above can only be made to a passionate God, who cares deeply for us, longs to be in communion with us, and urges us to come a little closer.  Can we embrace the image of ourselves as passionate “lovers of God” as Rolle seems to do?

John 16: 12-15
Rev. Bryan Travis Hooper

One of the most mysterious and strangest characters in the Bible is the Holy Spirit. At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry it is the Holy Spirit that descends upon Jesus like a dove at his baptism and later drives Jesus out into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. And at the end of Jesus’ ministry, the Holy Spirit rains down on the disciples at Pentecost, empowering them to speak in foreign tongues. We tend to associate the Holy Spirit with odd phenomenon, because whenever the Holy Spirit shows up, strange things seem to happen. (more…)