More Quotes from God in Pain

Day by day, he invites us to follow him—not Marduk, not Batman, not Caiaphas or Pilate, but him—the one who would not resort to violence, not even to save his own life—the one who fought back by refusing to fight back and who replaced the myth of redemptive violence with the truth of indestructible love. Here, then, is another way to redeem the world: not by killing off the troublemakers but by dying to violence once and for all. Because he did, we can. He died to show us how. We live to show him we got the message.

Today we look on the one whom we have pierced. More important, we listen. To the silence. To the howl. What is the gospel, in the land at the foot of the cross? When God is silent, people of faith cry out. When people of faith cry out, it is God who speaks. Amen.

Barbara Brown Taylor, God in Pain: Teaching Sermons on Suffering, 109, 114

Quotes

相隔近一年未曾更新的網誌，不妨就再次以書摘開始吧！當自己有過幾次宣講的經驗後，再次品嚐Barbara B. Taylor的講章集，果真有不一樣的感受。但相同的部分，是為當中詞語所震懾。那種泫然欲泣的滋味，是被上主話語觸摸的靜默無語（speechless / silence）。深願自己能繼續朝此邁進，邀請聽眾一同前來，觀看生命之道的豐盛意象（image）。

Without romance, we might never bind ourselves to one other person and learn how to negotiate a life together. Without romance, we might never decide to bear children and find out what it means to give our life for the life of another. It is a kind of trick in which the object of our desire is swapped in midair. We reach for our illusions. What we lay hold of is the truth. It can be shocking, sometimes, but it is also salvific, because without the ideal, we might never grasp the reality. So I have this budding theory that romance is how life gets us where life needs us to be. And by extension, that the romance of ordination is how God tricks us into servanthood.

But that was not the only choice they had. Instead of surrendering themselves to their fear, they could surrender themselves to God. They could deny the panic-stricken voice inside of them—the one that kept ordering them to play it safe—and listen for that other voice instead, the one that says, “Wake up. Follow me. Do not fear.” That voice has never promised safety. It has always promise life. It has never offered freedom from pain. It has only offered freedom from fear.

It is how God works, now and forever—not by protecting us from death but by bringing us back to life again—because life, not death, is God’s will for us. Every moment of our lives carries the seeds of that truth. Those who miss it are of all people most to be pitied. And those who believe it? Our hope shall never die. Amen.

Barbara Brown Taylor, God in Pain: Teaching Sermons on Suffering, 48, 59, 75
all emphasized by me.

the WORD Leaps the GAP

For Richard Hays

At the heart of all your words is silence.

In the night of the world you hear bells

Chiming. It is silence you hear. You sense

Peace underneath earth’s noise, wells

Of stillness far down under the daily slog

Through wetlands of knowledge, your life,

The tramp through swamps of books in heaps, log-

Piles, bogs of words, teeming, sweaty … And rife

Too with truth for those hearing beneath the buzz

Of ceaselessly concatenating syllables

The Origin, the Source who IS, who does

Unheard his work, generating multiples

Of being, infinitely, in silence.

His Word you hear. You hear inside night

Melodies mute to most ears, intense

Notes populating scores of starry light.

These you share with us in love, wise guide

To many, to me old friend most dear, seen

Too seldom in the long years, alas, this side

Or that of the ocean, yet in heart near, keen

Brother, in Christ mated long ago,

The night you sang to welcome Christopher to earth,

With joyful, wild chords greeting him: “Hello!” －

Young father exulting at your new son’s birth.

Then Sarah, much-loved daughter － girl! － breaking

On life’s stage － her heart, like yours, like Judy’s,

Set to range God’s wide creation seeking

That place － hers － to plant her tent, send melodies

Skyward, dance, deploy her lively art.

And Chris himself is father now. The years swing

Swiftly. Walk now with Judy to the end,

Listening to the silence. Sing to God, to us. Sing.

And you shall hear Him one day speak: “Welcome, friend.”

By George Hobson, July 2006, 

in the WORD Leaps the GAP: Essays on Scripture and Theology of Richard B. Hays, ix-x.

同場（重複）加映海斯院長的就職宣講：I Have Set Before You Life and Death

A Free Book of Dr. Rev. Somerville

When the Sand Castke Crumbles, Jim Somerville

Dr. Rev. Somerville是一位我十分喜愛其宣講的牧者，他最近出了一本小書，有提供線上免費閱讀，分享給喜歡讀講章的同好們。