Jeffrey C. Long

Nearly everyone growing up since the 1960’s with a television is familiar with the music. He was the composer and performer of the music from the Charlie Brown television shows. I have owned the Charlie Brown Christmas album for quite some time. But I recently discovered that his music is available on emusic.com a music service I subscribe to. Just downloaded a couple more albums. It’s interesting how certain music places me right back in the place where I first heard it. For the rest of my life, listening to Jazz Impressions will put me right back in Albany where I was at my church conference last weekend. Clicking on that link will send you to a page where you can listen to samples by clicking on the little speaker. Enjoy

It’s interesting to look back and see all the stuff I’ve written. More in me then I thought. Though not much lately. Seth Godin had something interesting to say about blogging.

A lot of people have blogs. But most people don’t.

I think you should. Even if you only have one post in you.

Having a blog is pretty daunting, especially if you don’t like blank paper and are the sort of person that hates falling behind. I can imagine that the idea of posting 50 or 300 times a year is a little bit nuts for many people.

But what if there’s just one thing you need to say, but you can say it clearly and well and in a way that hasn’t been said before? What if you’ve got one great blog post inside of you, and, even better, you’re willing to update that post as you learn more and gain more insight?

An entire post about a certain kind of fossil. Or the misuse of a certain word. Or about a key difference between two kinds of bluetooth…

Why not?

What do you have to say? Are you saying it? How could you if you wanted to? There’s lots of places you could, for free. There’s vox.com if you like the traditional blog approach that I use. Another possibility is tumblr.com if all you have is links and quotes and pictures to show. Maybe you want to tell the world what you are doing this very moment. Give twitter.com a look.

What do you have to say? How you gonna say it?

I’m currently listening to a fabulous book called “The assault on reason,” by Al Gore. Insightful to be sure, but he is an amazing writer. I plan to write about it but in the meantime, I thought I’d make people aware of what it is about. This is his description of the book from his blog. Hope it inspires a few people to give it a look.

In the months following the release of An Inconvenient Truth, I began to focus on why our democracy has been so slow to deal with the climate crisis. The unwillingness to solve this problem is not only the result of a lack of political will, but it has also been caused by the emergence of a new political environment dangerously hostile to reason, knowledge, and facts. In the long-term, this poses a threat to the very basis of American democracy: the ability of a well-informed citizenry to use the rule of reason to hold government accountable. This Assault on Reason is the focus of my new book. When George Bush launched his preemptive war in Iraq, more than 70% of Americans believed Saddam Hussein was linked to the terrorists who caused 9-11. After the 2004 election, when asked what stuck in their minds about the campaign, voters in Ohio named two ads playing to the fears of terrorism paid for by the Bush Campaign. One pattern that has held true since 2001 is that this White House is less interested in openness and truth than any previous administration. We are facing so many long-term challenges, from the climate crisis and the war in Iraq to health care and social welfare. To solve these problems and move forward we need to reverse the damage done to our democracy. We have little time to waste. My goal in The Assault on Reason is to explore why our public forum now welcomes the enemies of reason. More importantly, the book focuses on what we can do together, individually and collectively, to restore the rule of reason to our democracy.

A few weeks ago, I discovered that my kids dig 80’s music, the music of my youth. So, I set out to make a mix CD for them. I was pleasantly surprised that they were listening to it in the car, and that my eldest daughter stole it from the car. So I’ve made my second mix disc and have started work on mix disc three. When I was in my 20’s and 30’s, I never would have believed that the day would come that my music would be played on the classic rock CD and that my children would want to listen to the music I grew up with.

Back when we lived in Soap Lake, I was shopping in Walmart one day and discovered that they were selling video games that were nothing but a joystick. The video game was built into the joystick instead of in a console. But the cool thing about it was that the games were the arcade games I’d grown up with. We bought the first one which had PacMan, Galaxian, RallyX, DigDug and Bosconian. Then we got the one with Ms. PacMan, Galaga and Pole position. Mind you, these are not replicas of the games. These contain the original software that drove the video games. I never would have believed when I was pumping quarters into these games as a teenager that the day would come that I would hold in my hand two joysticks containing 10 of my favorite arcade games, never to pump a quarter again.

When I first moved to Idaho begin pastoring, I lived alone while my wife sold the house in Soap Lake. Having a lot of time to myself, I subscribed to Dish Network. Among other channels, I discovered the SciFi channel. Very soon Friday became SciFi friday when original episodes of Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica were played one after the other. Then monday they played reruns of Stargate. Throughout the week there were movies. As a teen, waiting years for the next Star Wars or Star Trek movie, I never would have believed that the day would come that I would have an entire channel devoted to my favorite movie and television genre: science fiction.

I never would have believed any of these things. What a wonderful world.

As the self-declared hard drive prophet of doom, I must remind you all again of the importance of backing up your hard drive. There are two types of people in the world. Those whose hard drive has crashed and those whose hard drives will fail.

In the interest of saving your bacon. Go to http://mozy.com. There you can install a little program that will automatically back up things like your contacts, calendar, email, passwords, photos and your documents folder to the internet. Free for 2gigs of backup. Awesome! Don’t come crying to me when you lose your documents and pictures of your newborn baby.

The following sermon was preached on April 15th, 2007 at Filer Mennonite Church. Illustrations and quotes were taken from the book “Why Forgive” and from the article “The forgiveness factor,” Copyright © 2004 Christianity Today.

In a documentary on the Holocaust, a leader of the Warsaw ghetto uprising talked about the bitterness that remains in his soul over how he and his neighbors were treated by the Nazis: “If you could lick my heart,” he says, “it would poison you.”

Researchers are finding that this Holocaust survivor’s sentiment is not necessarily metaphorical. While the biblical practice of forgiveness is usually preached as a Christian obligation, social scientists are discovering that forgiveness may help lead to victims’ emotional and even physical healing and wholeness.

Radhi Al-Mabuk, Robert Enright, and Paul Cardis published a study in 1995 (Journal of Moral Education, Vol. 24, No. 4) examining forgiveness education with college students who judged themselves to be deprived of parental love. The college students who underwent the more rigorous forgiveness program had “improved psychological health,” including improved self-esteem, hope, and lowered trait anxiety.

In a different study in 1997, Enright and Catherine Coyle sought to determine whether men who identified themselves as hurt by an abortion could benefit from a “structured process designed to facilitate forgiveness.”

The processes involve 20 separate steps, including confronting anger, a willingness to consider forgiveness as an option, acceptance of the pain, and the participant realizing that he has needed others’ forgiveness in the past. After leading their subjects through this process, researchers found significant decreases in clients’ anxiety, anger, and grief.

When Lewis Smedes a theologian set out to write a general book on the theological aspect of forgiveness, he soon discovered that “almost everything that was written about forgiveness was about how God forgives sinful people and how they can experience his forgiveness.”

Today’s text said “Whoever’s sins you forgive, they are forgiven them. Whoever’s sins you retain, they have been retained.” John 20:23

At first read this sounds like Jesus is giving the disciples the authority to absolve people of their sins against God. In fact, the practice of confession in the Catholic church is taken from this passage. And yet there is not a single incident in the New Testament of the disciples forgiving people’s sins. John Gill in his commentary on John calls the idea that we would be absolving people of their sins blasphemy.

Instead, what I think that this passage is talking about is the offering of forgiveness to each other for their sins against us or others.

This is a quintessential Christian practice. Jerry Cook thought forgiveness so important to the church he made it one of the three core elements in his book “Love, acceptance and forgiveness.” Jesus made it a central ingredient of the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 18:23 “Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared this…

a king decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. 24 In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars.[k] 25 He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt.

26 “But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’ 27 Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt.

28 “But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars.[l] He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment.

29 “His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it,’ he pleaded. 30 But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.

31 “When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. 32 Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ 34 Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.

35 “That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters[m] from your heart.”

You might be struggling today with forgiving someone. Someone in the church. Someone in your family. A friend. It might be something that happened years ago. Or only moments ago. So we’re going to look at forgiveness today. First we’ll look at a couple myths about what people think forgiveness is. Then what forgiveness actually is. And finally some steps you can take if you are struggling to forgive someone.

Prayer. Lord, you forgave me. You forgive me. You forgave _us_. You forgive _us_. Teach us Lord to forgive each other. To forgive our family. Members of our church. Our friends. Open your word to us Lord. Amen.

[Read more →]

1Sa 16:1 And YHWH said to Samuel, How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go. I will send you to Jesse of Bethlehem. For I have seen a king for Me among his sons.

1Sa 16:2 And Samuel said, How can I go? If Saul hears, he will kill me. And YHWH said, Take a heifer of the herd in your hand with you and say, I have come to sacrifice to Jehovah.

1Sa 16:3 And call Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do. And you shall anoint for Me whomever I name to you.

1Sa 16:4 And Samuel did what YHWH said, and came to Bethlehem. And the elders of the town trembled at his coming and said, Do you come peaceably?

1Sa 16:5 And he said, Peaceably. I have come to sacrifice to YHWH. Sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice. And he sanctified Jesse and his sons, and called them to the sacrifice.

1Sa 16:6 And it happened as they came in, he saw Eliab and said, Surely YHWH’s anointed is before YHWH.

1Sa 16:7 But YHWH said to Samuel, Do not look on his face, nor on his height, because I have refused him. For I do not see as man sees. For man looks on the outward appearance, but YHWH looks on the heart.

When John Barrier walked into his bank to cash a $100 check and he asked the receptionist to validate his parking ticket. Even after mentioning that he was a “substantial depositor,” Barrier’s request was refused.

Barrier felt his appearance—dirty construction clothes—contributed to his treatment. He thought the bank manager looked at him like he’d “crawled out from under a rock.” Barrier contacted bank headquarters with his complaint. When no one returned his call, he started emptying his account, $1 million at a time.

According to Barrier, “If you have $100 in a bank or $1 million, I think they owe you the courtesy of stamping your parking ticket.”

Elisa Tinsley, “Bank gets $2M Lesson,” USA TODAY (2-21-89, p. 1A)

We all have a tendency like Samuel or this bank teller to judge people based on external factors. We do it when we think poorly on the man using food stamps to buy a bag of cheetos at the store or look up to the well dressed successful businesswoman. A new TV show celebrates the lead character named “Ugly Betty” but I can tell you when I was in high school all of the popular students were good looking.

[Read more →]

Romans 10:5-13

For Moses writes about the righteousness of the law, “The one who does them will live by them.” 6 But the righteousness which is of faith says this, “Don’t say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down); 7 or, ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.)” 8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth, and in your heart;” that is, the word of faith, which we preach: 9 that if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart, one believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.”

12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich to all who call on him. 13 For, “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Lent is the 40 days prior to Easter. The word Lent originally referred to the forty hours of total fast which preceded the Easter celebration in the early Church. The main ceremony on Easter was the baptizing of the new believers on Easter Eve. The fast was for the new believers to prepare to receive baptism.

The reason that they chose a forty day period was because the Bible uses the number 40 often. Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness; the forty days and nights Elijah spent walking to Mt. Horeb; in the story of Noah, God makes it rain for forty days and forty nights (they were in the ark for much longer); Jonah in his prophecy of judgment gave the city of Nineveh forty days grace in which to repent. the Hebrew people wandered forty years traveling to the Promised Land; finally the forty days Moses spent on Mount Sinai with God.

Exodus 15:11 recounts the words of Moses when he led the Israelites across the Red Sea safely away from the Egyptian army

Who is like you, Yahweh, among the gods?

Who is like you, glorious in holiness,

Fearful in praises, doing wonders

Moses knew that Yahweh was a holy God.

None of the gods is like Him

There is no person who is like Him.

Fearful

Does wonders

But as a holy God, he demands righteousness of us.

righteousness means that we put ourself under, conform to the claims of someone who has higher authority then us. the opposite of righteous is lawless.

so God’s demand is that we put ourself under him, conform to his claim upon our lives, which means that we are to live up to his standard of holiness.

pretty tough road.

[Read more →]

Today is the second sunday of lent. Which is a time of rehearsal of the basics of our faith. Also a rehearsal of the foundational stories of our faith.

Today we are looking at the story of God’s promise to Abram that he would multiply his descendents like the stars of the sky.

One of the questions that is important to ask is how are we to use these stories in our own life.

Will God do the same things for us that he did for Abraham? or for Solomon? or Paul?

A common way that people use the stories of the Bible is to Apply promises that were made to specific people in specific situations to themself.

So, Because God gave Abraham and Sarah a child in their old age does that mean that He is going to give a barren couple one as well.

Because Jesus healed a blind man does that mean that He is going to heal the young man who was deaf in the church I grew up in.

Because God blessed Jabez, enlarged his territory and kept him from pain does tha mean that He is going to do the same for me.

I don’t think so. Instead, we discover first from these stories that the God who has been faithful in the past is going to be faithful in our present. He is going to do a unique work in you just as he did a unique work in the life of Abraham, the blind man and Jabez.

Second, we learn from these stories who we are and where we’ve come from.

Moses told this story because it told Israel _who_ _they_ _were_. They were children of a promise.

The Church tells the story because it tells us _who_ _we_ _are_. We are children of a promise.

In this case, we are the fulfillment of the promise made by God to Abram that He would multiply his seed.

In the story today we learn that God was not simply promising Abram that He was going to multiply his seed. He was demonstrating using this promise to demonstrate to Abram’s that He was Abram’s shield and reward. And so we learn from this story that as heirs of this promise, He is our shield and reward as well.

[Read more →]

Just a reminder that if you haven’t recently, take some time out to backup your computer. I just backed up my itunes library to a second hard drive. I’m proud to say that I have 63gigs of music. Goodheavens! Not on my main drive. My archive. Anyway. I have two back ups. One to an external hard drive that includes a bootable clone of my main drive. And the other is my music library. Then I also have a backup to DVD my documents folder and my applications folder. Finally, my addressbook, calendar, password library and preferences are all backed up to an ftp. I’ve been bit hard by harddrive crashes so I take it all seriously.

Wisdom on the subject is that there are two types of people in the world: 1). those whose hard drives have crashed. and 2). those whose hard drives _will_ crash. In any event, be prepared. Backup!