Saint Matthew United Methodist Church

Category: Friday Word

  • The Way

    Max Brennan
    Categories:

       The Disney organization criticized the Florida war on gay people.
       And a certain governor declared war on Disney.
       But Disney seems to be winning. The governor is no match for The Mouse.
       Just after the governor announced he may, for spite, build a prison right nest to Disney World, the Disney people announced a new LGBTQ event at the theme park.
       The Mouse is roaring.
       God bless The Mouse!
       This is really the last hurrah, you know.
       Prejudice is aging.
       Younger generations are free from the old hatreds and fears.
       It’s mostly older church folk still being nasty to the neighbor, mostly those raised on “inerrantism.” 
       That’s the belief that the Bible is without error, cover to cover. All scripture carries the same authority. Deuteronomy is as important as Matthew.
       So, you can choose your image of God from a thousand years of writings.
       Choose the God we know in Christ who loves even his enemies or choose the God who hates and kills the Amalekites.
       Inerrantists can be as ugly as they want to be. 
       An inerrantist reading of the Bible can make people meaner than they would be without the Bible.
       Sadly, many young people who reject the old hatreds also reject the Church and Jesus Christ.
       They think Christians are ignorant and unkind.
       We must let them know better: Christians who truly know The Lamb—are on the side with The Mouse.

    +++
    Listen, our Meet‘N’Talk for readers of this “Little Box” is coming—Sunday, May 7, 10:00 a.m. Drop me an e-mail if you’ll be here. Let’s get together.     

  • The Wall Is Down

    Max Brennan
    Categories:

    When President Trump went to Israel to celebrate moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, he took a couple of preachers with him.
    He took one who says Mormons, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Catholics (and bunches of Methodists and Presbyterians) are all going to hell.
    That’s Robert Jeffress of Dallas.
    He took another one who says Hitler was doing God’s will when he put Jews in the gas ovens.
    That was John Hagee.
    Jeffress did the opening prayer. Hagee did the closing.
    “Now why,” folks ask, “did he take those two preachers?”
    Most people don’t know the answer.
    He moved the embassy mainly to please them.
    The president’s base of fundamentalist followers applied the pressure for the move.
    They want to “speed up” the Second Coming.

    Moving the embassy, they believe, will do that.
    They believe when Jesus comes back, he will take up residence on earth and rule the world as king from Jerusalem.
    I’m not sure why the Lord would want to do that. He is King of the universe—the power that drives all existence.
    Why would he want to be an earthly king—in Jerusalem, or Chicago, or even Azle?
    Bad theology here.
    And something else bad.
    Someone has broken down the wall between Church and state and religious folk are calling the shots in Washington.
    And their religion ain’t nothing like my religion.
    “Put prayer back in schools,” people holler.
    Whose prayers? Mine? Or John Hagee’s?
    We don’t pray to the same kind of God.
    The president wants a wall. I hope he will rebuild the one between Church and state.

  • Body and Soul

    Max Brennan
    Categories:

    ….I am not talking abortion here. And I am not talking politics. I am talking relationship between body and soul.

    ….Legislators are introducing “personhood” bills in some states. These declare that an egg and sperm become a person at the moment of conception. There is a problem with this: It’s wrong.

    ….These legislators are actually (although inadvertently) agreeing with materialists and atheists who say that all we are is physical material. All that we are, they say, comes from that union of sperm and egg. Our “personhood,” our “self,” all grows out of that physical, material union. (more…)

  • First Blog

    Max Brennan
    Categories:

    The song says the world doesn’t need another mountain. It has enough.
    I wonder if the world also has enough blogs?
    It probably does. But here’s another one.
    And the world has never gotten a blog from me before. This is the first one.

    In future blogs, I will be sharing stories with you about how God works in the world. And I will be telling you that GOD DOES WORK! (more…)