VOL. 6, NO. 37

Scripture:                                                                                                                                                                                      Leviticus 26

Rain in its season

 

1.          Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the LORD your God.

2.          Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the LORD.

3.          If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands,

4.          I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit.

5.          Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.

6.          I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove savage beasts from the land, and the sword will not pass through your country.

Colossians 3

Put on the new self

1.          Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

2.          Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.

3.          For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

4.          When Christ, who is your  life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

5.          Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.

…

8.          But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.

9.          Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices

10.      and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

…

12.      As God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

13.      Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

14.      And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

15.      Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.

W

SEPTEMBER BLUE SKIES

      Something new is taking place this week. The leaves have taken on a different color; the sky has turned September Blue which is different than Summer Blue; even the air feels different.

      The staff is back from a short holiday; we are putting events on the calendar, new families are coming to the preschool.

      I made a short list of the places I have been in the last four months – it includes some things I could see coming, and some things that I didn’t anticipate a year ago.  We’ve seen our family.  I had a few hours in the hospital that I really don’t remember that well. I went to some spiritual places this summer. I find something renewing about the soil, the landscape, and the spiritual fragrance of the Holy Land that lingers even into our own time.

ELEVEN TIME ZONES

      Coming home from Israel, I traveled through eleven time zones. Flying from East to West, I had eleven hours of “do-over clock time.” Wouldn’t it be great to be able to spread those eleven hours out over your life time, and make a second attempt at some of the decisions you have made!  Would we have acted differently?

      Sometimes looking backward can be painful. The scars on our bodies are a roadmap of places we have been. No one escapes without some stitches. 

RESETTING TIME

      But our scripture today is about resetting time. A decision to follow Christ offers a new start every day, a prospect that promises to eclipse even the most unpleasant memory.

 

      A new start begins with forgiveness for old starts. Forgive the past. Live, learn and move on. We need not only to forgive the past for bad luck, but for good luck. By its very nature, luck is not something that we have earned.

      When you ask God to forgive your sins, God resets your internal life-experience clock. 

      But before you can forgive others, you need to forgive yourself. Old habits die hard, but a life lived in pursuit of God's will can turn even harmful habits into distant memories. We are always resetting time.

      Forgiveness about how we look at time.

·        Time is not something that is used up and lost.

·        Time is ceremonies, celebrations, sunrises and sunsets. Time is life itself, from a human standpoint.

      In Christ, when we are no longer racing against time, we are progressing with time.

      Resetting time is discovering a never ending parade of sunrises.

      Resetting time sometimes means we have to change our environment. Throw away reminders of past mistakes. Stop going to old haunts if they tempt you to return to your old nature. Avoid relationships that encourage looking backward. Instead, develop new relationships that can help you see the future.

      The irony is that the new life you hope for will also include new uncomfortable moments – new errors of judgment, wrongly chosen paths, misspoken words. So Christians are always resetting time.

MIKE MULLIGAN AND HIS STEAM SHOVEL

      Now let’s be more concrete:

·        Two familiar children’s stories illustrate contrasting views of time. In Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, the protagonists, who are a white man and a machine, are in a race against time to finish making a cellar within a designated number of hours. If they succeed they will be rewarded.

ANNIE AND THE OLD ONE

·        In the Navajo story of Annie and the Old One, the completion of the blanket means that Annie’s grandmother will die. When the granddaughter tries to postpone that time, the grandmother admonishes her for trying to interfere with the natural rhythms of life and death.

      These two stories convey very different messages about the relationship between people and nature: The construction of a new building, which is celebrated in Mike Mulligan, destroys the plants and animal habitats on the building site; weaving a blanket, on the other hand, involves using natural materials but does not damage the environment.

      We all grew up in particular cultural contexts, but often we do not "see" our cultures because we take them for granted and assume that everyone lives - or should live - the way we do. As we become more conscious about the values and priorities that guide our decisions, we can see other cultural contexts in a more authentic and respectful way. This broader perspective also enables us to envision possibilities beyond the mainstream U.S. cultural preoccupation with the exploitation of natural resources and individual and material success.

CELLULAR REGENERATION

      Every minute of every day your body is renewing itself. Human bodies have about 100 trillion cells. Each day, millions of cells in our bodies die and new ones replace them. The quality of the new cells determines our health in the future. Your cells are affected by the foods you eat, the water you drink, the air you breathe, sunshine and anything that gets into your body through the skin. Exercise, rest, your environment and stress can also affect the quality of these cells and the health and strength of your body.

      The frequency at which these cells are replaced differs in various types of bodily tissues. Some tissues regenerate very quickly and some take years. Except for our brain and certain parts of the nervous system, we actually regenerate a new body every seven years. Most of our cells are replaced within that time.

      When you were seven years old, you had a very different body from when you were first born. When you were fourteen, you were in another new body. Hormones influenced you and helped you to grow taller and more like a young adult than a child. By the time you were twenty-one you were in an adult body. This body was totally different from the one you were born with or the one you will have when you are seventy years old.

IT’S HAPPENING ALREADY

      So when Paul wrote about resetting time, we realize it is already happening. It’s a built in process.

      You get one body, you get one earth, a generous supply of sunrises, and some beautiful sunsets. Take care of everyone of them.

      Respect your environment.

      Be well.

      Be well through proper nutrition, pure water, fresh air, sunshine in moderation, a healthy environment, exercise, rest and relaxation, stress reduction and a positive mental attitude.

YOU ARE NOT A STEAMROLLER.

      In our scripture Paul urges disciples to reset time by living as God’s people.

 

·        Time is not something that is used up and lost.

·        Time is ceremonies, celebrations, sunrises and sunsets. Time is life itself, from a human standpoint.

      You don’t need to approach life as if you were a steamroller.

      Don’t steamroll other people, don’t steamroll your family, don’t steamroll the environment, don’t steamroll people who need your time.

      Instead think of your life as a tapestry woven by hand, arrayed in colorful patterns of fine material. You are made more interesting with the passage of time. The stitches you earned are part of your fabric.

      Reset time. Live in wellness.

Wellness is not merely the absence of
infirmity, symptoms or disease.

In wellness one feels energized and
feels good to be alive!

Even if you feel less than perfect health,
you still have the power to
improve your wellness.

 

 

  Dr. John H. Cushman

Presbyterian Church of the Roses

2500 Patio Court

Santa Rosa, CA 95405

September 10, 2006