the church geek

Perhaps I should have taken a photo of all the empty wrappers from the Halloween candy I’ve eaten today. Instead you get this picture of fall along the Cedar River.

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Part of my one man crusade to prove that wilting and fading flowers are worthy of being photographed too. Fellow flickr friend Kimba77 inspired me with this photo.

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A picture of our vine climbing up to the shelf it sits upon.

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The text is Job 1:1, 2:1-13 but really the sermon covers the entire book of Job.

The book of Job my friends is tough stuff! I know I say this a lot in relation to any number of the scriptures I preach on. But really the book of Job is one of the most difficult books to grapple with in all the scripture.

Despite its difficulty it is an important book for us to wrestle with.

It gets to the heart of one of the most basic questions of life; the nature of suffering and evil in this world. Rabbi Harold Kushner summed it up best with the title of his famous book written just over 20 years ago called, “When bad things happen to good people.”

Job begins with the tale of God and Satan – or more literally the Accuser - conversing in the heavenly courts about the nature of faith and what motivates humans to fear God. In that conversation God points to Job as a blameless and upright man, and then allows the Accuser to test him.

The test is severe. The accuser afflicts Job with the loss of his livestock, his servants, and worst of all the tragic death of his seven sons and three daughters. Remarkably, Job responds not by cursing God, but by saying “The Lord gives and the Lord has taken away.”

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The text for this sermon is 2 Kings 5:1-15. This is one of my favorite stories in the Old Testament.

According to all accounts Naaman was a truly great man. No matter what you sent him to do – as a military commander – he got the job done. As a patriot and a citizen, there wasn’t a person more loyal to the King.

His great military success made him a popular hero in Aram. From the highest to the lowest, everyone knew the name of Naaman. He was indeed the General Schwarzkopf of the Aramean Army.

His army was fierce and powerful. Their great advances in technology and strategy confounded their enemies. In their current campaign against the forces of the northern Israeli army they were swiftly gaining ground and conquering vast amounts of territory.

Opposing armies usually took one look at Naaman’s forces, quivered in their boots, and ran the other direction.

Everybody loved Naaman. He was at the top of his game. When his superiors had questions about what steps to take next in battle or how the progress of the war was going, they knew there was only one person who would give the straight answer.

With Naaman, there was no monkey business – he said what he meant. If he said a job could be done, everyone knew it would get done. If he said there were obstacles, they knew he would come up with a good plan of attack.

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The zinnias have lost their color.

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Today’s photo, #300, was totally an experiment trying to capture the light through a prism. Not the greatest, but it was worth a try anyway.

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I haven’t taken a picture of our nearly wild roses all year and evidently its not too late as they are still blooming even this late in the fall.

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The golden sun setting on the Cedar River.

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My birthday was Tuesday, as a present my wife got me this fun little gorilla pod.

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Malibu Presbyterian Church has lost its church building in the fires sweeping through southern California. Pray for the pastor and their congregation as well as for all the folks who are being displaced as a result of these fires.

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I love the way the light was playing off this grass. This picture is much better large.

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We were at a fall festival yesterday that had a huge bonfire.

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It was a busy day, but I managed to get out for a bit anyway to take in some of the illumination of fall.

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