Five Minute Friday :: Same

• Five Minute Friday :: Same Linkup

The word "same" invites comparisons: same old; all the same; same store sales.

• Same days.
• Same dreams.
• Same disappointments.


One of these things is not like the others so the others must be the same. Right?

Is it legitimate to compare? Sometimes it isn't, but at times it is. Sometimes it's necessary. It can be reassuring or disheartening. It can measure progress. It can decide if something matches or not. In many cases, that difference just is, with no particular value assigned. This flower is brighter than that flower, but it's the same kind of flower—not better, not worse, though you may prefer one to the other.


I immediately wondered are you still the same if you have the gospel in your life?

•…the gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation.
Romans 1:16

• If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; behold! Everything has become new!
2 Corinthians 5:17

• Since you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is. I love how the KJV says, "If ye then be risen with Christ." For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. KJV again: "Ye are dead."
Colossians 3:1, 3

For the apostle Paul, the Good News, the Gospel, is death and resurrection.

Are you still the same when you have the gospel in your life?

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Five Minute Friday :: Like

• Five Minute Friday :: Like Linkup

Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation… Colossians 1:15

To like a person, food, activity, or place goes beyond simple preference of one over another: you want it, gravitate to it; you choose it, connect with it. That's the verb "like," but the adjective like compares objects, ideas, people—and food, too. How similar or different is one to the other? Exactly the same or almost identical? Some common features? What are the differences?

Particularly chapter 1 of the letter to the church at Colossae brings us the pre-existent and still regnant Christ who fills and rules the entire cosmos, who subverts empire, inverts the political, social, economic, and religious status quo, who is the image and the reality of God parallel to In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. (John 1:1) Colossians 1:15 announces, "Christ is the image of the invisible God"; in John 14:19 Jesus tells us, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father."

Imperial Rome and its colonies were full of coins stamped with the emperor's image. The Roman Caesar supposedly was the son of a god, bestowing on him a slice of divinity. Formal church history locates the confession of Jesus as fully human and fully divine in the Definition of Chalcedon from the ecumenical council that convened in the year 451, but four centuries earlier, the pastoral letter to the church at Colossae declares Jesus divine.

How do you picture something that's invisible, that can't be seen? Do you remember Genesis 1:27 tells us God created humanity (us!) in the divine image—imago Dei?

Early Christians believed Jesus was fully imprinted with God. A slice of divinity? No! The whole entire thing—For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell! Colossians 1:19

This scripture that describes Jesus as God's authoritative presence and the actual ikon / icon / image / likeness of the invisible God is so relevant to our contemporary political and economic concerns. In terms of the first century's (and this twenty-first's) status quo, these words from Colossians are seditious and subversive! They proclaim the person, power, and rule of Jesus Christ in terms that only are supposed to belong to the emperor. If Jesus is supreme, then caesar isn't. If (because!) Jesus is supreme, than the US government isn't. Samsung isn't. Amazon isn't, nor is Shell.
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This FMF is edited, contracted, and expanded some from several posts on my weekly lectionary blog, urban wilderness.

Porch Story • November • Autumn 2019

• Porch Story host Kristin's month of November 2019

• As meteorological autumn ends, I'm linking to Emily P Freeman's blog

• desert spirit's fire! September 2019 highlights

• desert spirit's fire! October 2019 Features



• For November, Reboots Podcaster Tracy L Winchell offered a participatory 30 Days to Gratitude 2019; instead of Facebook updates like many do during November (I'm still on FB sabbatical) I tweeted several times a day. First gratitude was realizing though ideally I would have done an analog version in a notebook with a pretty cover because nothing compares to your ideas, thoughts, or drawings going from head to heart to hand to paper, it felt good to tweet to the world and to accompany some of those tweets with a picture.

• Did four fall weeks of intentional gratitude change my life? No—because I still need to work on moderating my constant habit of rationalizing what's going not badly because things always could be so much worse; and yes, because noticing and noting those things that form the micro-infrastructure of our days helped me acknowledge it's okay and it's necessary to keep doing so. Sensory stuff like colors, scents, tastes, flavors, and sounds can make the difference that lets you (me, anyone) keep on keepin' on. Fresh berries on my morning cereal; streaming music while I'm working; actually stopping to smell the roadside flowers; admiring a color palette I just created.

• The gratitude challenge also confirmed I need to find ways to make life changes that will lead to more participation in the greater good.



• Every week I download Creative Market's design asset freebies; with pictures from my camera, phone, or my artistic/design ventures always a major aspect of my monthly updates, I'm including my own photoshopped version of a fun camera from a Creative Market vendor.



• Another Saturday trip to the nearby Torrance Farmers Market! Their fruits and veggies always look soooo good... these peaches come from the previous peaches seller.



• For All Saints, church sponsored a Saturday evening showing of the movie COCO; our Sunday morning display included some cultural pieces from Latino/a culture.



• With judicatory office complex no longer having an on-campus school, the amazing kids' art I used to photograph no longer is there, but here's a lovely Wild Rose I might – or might not have noticed – during the days of Window Art.



• As a gift for being on the launch team for Brent Bill's latest book, Beauty, Truth, lIfe, and Love: Four Essentials for the Abundant Life, Brent sent me a hard copy of Finding God in the Verbs: Crafting a Fresh Language of Prayer, co-written with Jenny Isbell.



• The church's year of grace concluded with a celebration of the Reign of Christ. This interpretation of the cosmic Christ of Colossians 1:17 is one of my all-time faves of my own liturgical art.



• Lunch at Subway a few times a week has become a savory habit that reminds me whatever's going on or not, some sensory pleasure truly can improve the situation. I particularly love the fresh local veggies at all the LA area Subways, and I always add most of the salad bar to my sandwiches.



• My fifth Thanksgiving Day at church! Fifth Thanksgiving Day in LA! One of the families has amazing gardens of every kind—flowers, veggies, ornamental plants. Here's a sample of the table centerpieces created with succulents from their place.



• Beanie Baby Tom Turkey is one of my regular Thanksgiving blog illustrations.

• Theo Therapy Dog enjoyed dinner with us; his mom was flute and vocal soloist for before-dinner worship.




• Thanksgiving Table setting and dinner sampler

Five Minute Friday • Near

I've been playing and working catch-up, but I had to Five Minute Friday this week because Kate Motaung's near prompt aligns with my preparation for introducing the Gospel according to Mark on Sunday. Everyone already knows Mark's gospel quite well, but with the start of a new Revised Common Lectionary year B that's Mark's year, I needed to create a quick overview. I'm also Friday Fiving because of the beautiful illustration Kate provided; I took the liberty of decorating her banner photo for my header.


A few minutes ago on urban wilderness I blogged a short overview of the Gospel According to Mark I'll use to open my adult SS class session tomorrow. Similar to many people today, back in those days of the Ancient Near East (love that ANE terminology!) people tended to think of God far away, unapproachable, distant, and uninvolved. Or if they believed God was a little closer, they imagined God contained and protected in a space or place like the Jerusalem temple they'd worked so hard to build. Particularly as we've studied a pericope or selection from one of the four gospels each week, we've been discovering and uncovering a God who's anything but distant and far away, anything but unapproachable and uninvolved in creation—and in our own sometimes difficult lives and pressing concerns, in our joys and everyday routines! Especially as God self-reveals in Jesus of Nazareth, God has drawn near to earth, to creation. So near that God has chosen to live as one of us, as a human, in a body formed from stuff of the earth. But paradoxically, God-with-us, close-to-us still is the God of the Hebrew scriptures who fills heaven and earth, who remains free, elusive, and can't remotely be contained in space or in time. But you already knew that!

Given that humans tend to be more mimetic than thoughtful, the temple concept partly imitated gods of other ANE religions that mostly were gods for a certain place. Not only Mark but all the gospels reveal God so near that in Jesus God becomes and lives as part of creation—yet we find actual "near" vocabulary more in the deutero-Pauline theology of Ephesians and Colossians than elsewhere in scripture. In any case, as another Advent dawns, literally breaks open this week, let's remember God's abiding passion for all of us. God incarnate as a baby in the Bethlehem manger. God embodied in each of us so we can live as God's presence very near to our neighbors, friends – and enemies.

disclaimer: I wrote this very quickly in a little less than five minutes, but unlike most weeks, I found too many discrepancies and discontinuities, and In the interest of overall coherence, I edited so it would make sense, so this represents closer to fifteen minutes than to five.

November 2016 Highlights

• For my November review, I'm joining Kristin Hill Taylor's Things from November Three Word Wednesday, and Emily P. Freeman's Things We Learned this Fall. Yay!



• Día de los muertes, in Grand Park DTLA, closely followed by

• All Saints Sunday at LCM—I didn't take pictures. It was a wholly Holy Day.



• It's about time I shared photos of the citrus tree in the church yard. Almost ripe fruit makes it especially delightful.



• I always enjoy passing 11022 Santa Monica Blvd on my way to church for SS and worship, and to observe the milkweed interim pastor planted a few months ago. I've pictured milkweed planter boxes every week, and need to compile a photographic timeline.

• In a super exciting 10-inning game, Chicago Cubs finally won the MLB World Series against Cleveland Indians 4-3 on Wednesday 02 November 2016. If that had been the Boston Red Sox I'd have had a heart attack as the game progressed, but I know how Shytown fans felt, since I had the same anxiety and elation in 2004 when Boston won the World Series.



• Kids at the school the judicatory offices and 1^st ELCA Glendale share the campus with made these pumpkins I more than noticed when I was there for the Green Faith Team meeting. Cute scarecrow! I check out the windows every time I'm at synod offices.



• Annual National Sandwich Day USA happened on Thursday 03 Nov; I got a 6-inch SOTD at Subway, and a second 6-inch of my choice to celebrate and donate to the company's program and cause to feed hungry humans.

• Tuesday, 08 November was election day USA and included voting for the next POTUS. Exciting to get to vote for a women for head of state / head of government, and Hillary won the popular vote, but due to the USA still having the Electoral College, it still looks as if the other candidate will be sworn into office come January.

Additional not pictured new to me experiences included:

• Hotdogs from a vendor at the edge of Grand Park. I typically avoid hotdog carts because they never have mayonnaise, but this one did, so I got my bacon-wrapped wiener with grilled onions, cilantro, and mayonnaise.

• Pollo Campero, new to me fast food, focused more on cuisine from Guatemala and El Salvador with a Peruvian accent than on Comidas Mexicanas. The site explains, "We don't just serve sodas and tea, we serve Horchata, Jamaica and Tamarindo," which is close to a given around here, but their pride tells the story of their success!

• Not sure if it truly was a never before, but we have after worship brunch at church every week, and a couple weeks ago a newly baptized guy prepared an irresistible meal of Lebanese food. I said to him, "This is Mediterranean! I've had this kind of food many times!" He replied, "Of course." So I had to check out a map to find Lebanon.

• I almost cannot believe I finished leading our adult SS class in Luke's whole, entire, Revised Common Lectionary Year C on Christ the King/Reign of Christ Sunday.

• On Reign of Christ / Christ the King, interim pastor bestowed on me a life scripture verse from the second reading for that day. Although I've chosen several verses on my own, I never started or finished a formal confirmation study course, when sometimes the pastor – sometimes the confirmand – chooses a verse to ponder all their lives long, so I was excited when Pastor Peg offered bible verses to anyone who asked:

Colossians 1:11

• May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.

Two more illustrations and a wrap(up):



• Another Thanksgiving Day feast at church; very thankful that for the second year in a row I could invite people to dinner. Maria created all the gorgeous flower arrangements!



• On the first Sunday of Advent the church began a new year of grace (we are the church!) and started emphasizing readings from the gospel according to St, Matthew, aka RCL year A. Interim pastor presented me with a nativity-related gift and a thank you note:

• "Advent 2016

Dear Leah,

You have led us through Luke, the gospel that gives us this image of the Nativity. We now enter the Year of Matthew and are grateful you are our guide in Advent Study!

Thank you & God's blessings,
♥ LCM"

• I designed a group of Advent grunge graphics for my Facebook design page and this blog featuring snippets from the first readings that each Advent Sunday in year A are from 1^st Isaiah; the Nativity design still needs finishing touches.

• When Francisco Sepúlveda, familia and cohorts ventured into Las Californias, they never dreamt of a month like November 2016 I've only highlighted, but that's what can happen when you live in LA and you have several gigs. Stay tuned to this (occasional) frequency for next month...

• For time is a river rolling into nowhere
We must live while we can

So time is a river rolling into nowhere
I will live while I can
I will have my ever after

Steve Winwood, "The Finer Things"

fave verses friday 5

Today on Rev Gal Blog Pals Songbird hosts a fave verses friday 5; here's my play. What, only 5? Only in the interests of time, I'll limit myself to 5 only.

Beginning with one that's on my blog sidebar—this walk alongside the God of the Covenants is no ascetic path but one that fully savors the fruits and passions of creation, yet daily answers the call to love, justice and righteousness:

Jeremiah 22:15-16

"...Did not your father eat and drink
And do justice and righteousness?
Then it was well with him.
He pled the cause of the afflicted and needy;
Then it was well
Is not that what it means to know Me?"
Declares the LORD.

Colossians 1:17—I love the Cosmic Christ!



2 Corinthians 5:18



1 Timothy 4:10



Isaiah 28:17

I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line.

Reign of Christ: Colossians 1:17

Oh, I so love the cosmic Christ of Colossians! This is one of my favorite texts and also one of my faves of all my graphic art.

summer conversation 4

4. A Eucharistic community: the Welcome Table

John 1:1, 3 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.

John 12:24 ...unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

1 Corinthians 11:23-24 ...our Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me."
And what about "this is my body"?
And "this cup is the new covenant in my blood"?
The bread points to nourishment in that same self-giving of God
At work in my body, that is in me.
And the cup points to the new community drawn together and nourished
In my blood, that is in God's total self-giving in my death.

–Paul G. Hammer–

You choose to be made at one with the earth;
the dark of the grave prepares for your birth.
Your death is your rising, creative your word;
the tree springs to life and our hope is restored...

–Fred Kaan–
In Saxon English, the Lord provided the loaf, the bread, the essentials for sustaining life. We are baptized into the biography of the baby born in Bethlehem, House of Bread. In the Eucharist, we celebrate the ultimate earth day, a feast of justice and reconciliation for all creation, that brings together the ground's fruitful yield along with the labor of farmers, vintners, truckers, grocers, bakers, sellers, weavers and potters, carpenters and contractors.

Revelation 21:1-2a Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth…and I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem.

Who is this Lord of the Church, this Jesus?

Consider Jesus' lifestyle of justice and inclusion along with Jesus' command "do this!"

backtracking:

1. A baptized community: Water and the Word

Galatians 3:28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus...

Who is this Lord of the Church, this Jesus?
Consider Jesus' relationship to creation, Jesus' stewardship of all life.

2. Spaces, places, locations...

1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd spaces, (4^th?) places in cyberspace; the liminal, the marginal and the central; thresholds, edges and centers; insiders, outsiders, strangers and friends

Romans 13:8 Owe no one anything else except to love one another...

Who is this Lord of the Church, this Jesus?

Consider Jesus' sense of home and geography.

3. Jesus, us, culture, counter culture

Colossians 2:15 Having made hash of the rulers, the powers and the principalities and having been victorious over them, Christ then made a public spectacle of them!

Who is this Lord of the Church, this Jesus?

Consider Jesus' awareness of his own culture and the customs of others.

© leahchang

summer conversation 3

3. Jesus, us, culture, counterculture

Continuing awareness of the interdependence of all creation…

In Jesus of Nazareth God became incarnate within a particular culture, geography and historical time. And Jesus accepted death! How much more countercultural does it get?

Contexts, worldviews: natural, economic, ethnic, symbolic, class, linguistic, religious around us and within us shape us and limit where we go, what we think about, the options open to us. An individual becomes a person by becoming embedded in a textured, interwoven history of experiences shared with others. Insiders, outsiders, strangers and friends…

Contextualizing ministry, evangelism and worship. For Martin Luther, worship and hymn-singing in the vernacular was one of the marks of the true church; there are many vernaculars besides the linguistic.

1 Corinthians 12:4-7 There are diversities of gifts but the same spirit, and different kinds of ministries and ways to serve, yet the same Lord. Although there are many various types of activities and enterprises, the same God is active and works in all of them, and each person receives gifts of the Spirit for the good of the entire community.

Christus Victor: an atonement model moving away from a focus on guilt and condemnation under the law to emphasizing freedom and victory of Christ, in Christ.

Colossians 2:15 Having made hash of the rulers, the powers and the principalities and having been victorious over them, Christ then made a public spectacle of them!

Also consider 1 Corinthians 15:54-57 and…

Hebrews 2:14-15 Therefore, since the children shared in the blood and the flesh and Christ shared in the same things, that through death he might destroy the one having power over death - that is, the devil - and he might free all those who by their fear of death were bound to slavery throughout their lives.

Let the river run, let all the dreamers wake the nation. Come, the New Jerusalem. Carly Simon, "Let the River Run"

Who is this Lord of the Church, this Jesus? Consider Jesus' awareness of his own culture and the customs of others.

Next week: 4. A Eucharistic community: the Welcome Table

An inclusive meal and a feast of justice and righteousness accomplished on earth for all creation. Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Then I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem…

© leahchang