What time does worship begin?

As an ongoing struggle to combat the enslavement many American are in to the power of the almighty clock, worship is a protest against this constant master. Why?

Because no matter what local church you are at, no matter what time is noted above the "attempt at humor but often highly inappropriate and offensive" sign outside your church building (can we get rid of this please!), worship does not begin at 11am.

Worship began eons ago and we just happen to join in that ongoing worship at 11am on Sunday.

If we were to meet at the river at 11am and jump in for a swim, our actions did not "start" the flow of the river. Rather the river has been there long before and will be there long after our actions.

We just join into the flow of it for a time.

Bibliolatry and John 1

Reading the opening verses of John's gospel, I am reminded how incredible the incarnation is. That is just how amazing it is that in Jesus is what a life full of God looks like - Jesus is God incarnate.

As great as the Bible is, let us be very clear, the Bible is not the greatest revelation of God. John is very clear that the greatest way we know God is not through scriptures but through the Word made flesh (aka - Jesus).

The UMC has a tradition of holding the scriptures as one of the four corners of the quadrilateral. You may have heard it before that the UMC "does" theology using scripture, tradition, experience and reason. But again, for clarity sake, these four sources, even if they are combined, are not even close to being on par with the Word made flesh.

So while we read the Word, let us not be confused. John is not talking about the written words on a page. John is not talking about the Bible. John in not talking about any scripture at all. John is talking about Jesus Christ.

We do not worship the Bible. We worship Christ, whom we understand to be the Word made flesh.

In our efforts to better understand Jesus, let us not forget that the Bible is but a finger pointing to the moon that is Christ. Do not confuse the finger with the beauty and complexity of the moon.

Bees see the world differently. They will go to hell...

As you know, bats rely on ultrasonic waves in order to understand the world.  In fact is is all they can use to understand the world.  If you were to ask a bat about what they "see" they would describe it rather differently than the way you and I would "see" something as we use a small bit of ultraviolet light to "see".  

Bees on the other hand use ultraviolet light, but they see differently than humans do.

What humans see and what bees see.

Snakes use infrared light.

 

A tick picks up on butyric acid and temperature, while ghost fish picks up on electrical fields. 

We have this assumption that if human beings were given the "proper" information then they will "see" the correct and most logical conclusion.  So people on different sides try to lay out arguments so that others can "see" where they are coming from in order to come to the same "logical" conclusion.  When the other person does not come to the same conclusion, they are idiots, or wrong, or going to hell (the punishment is related to your level of religiosity it seems).  

But no one thinks bees and bats and snakes are going to hell because they do not see the world like we do.

So just two things: 1) who is to say that there is more out there to be seen and we just cannot observe it yet (we did not even know that these animals "see" the world differently until very recently and with the use of technology) and 2) bees, bats, and snakes see the world differently - that does not mean they are idiots, wrong or going to hell.