NOAH Movie

Noah is a great movie, especially on the big screen. But it isn’t a Bible translation. This explanation has been added to the website: noahmovie.com 

The film is inspired by the story of Noah. While artistic license has been taken, we believe that this film is true to the essence, values and integrity of a story that is a cornerstone of faith for millions of people worldwide. The biblical story of Noah can be found in the book of Genesis.

Release

I like to think of it as fan fiction, not a part of the sanctioned canon, but one with characters, locaitions and themes from the official story by the original creator combined in a interesting and challenging way.

The movie struggles with great questions of life. Nationalism, capitalism, ecology, violence, survival, loyalty, family are woven into seeking God’s will for creation and humanity. If you go with a checklist of Bible facts, you’ll miss the beauty and challenge of the flim. (I do admit I was counting the clean animals.) 

A good filim for our time. How do you follow God when the world is ending? How does one survive and provide for family? Does God and Good ever conflict? 

Definately see the movie. Warning! This is not a Sunday School tale of cute stuffed animals in a basket boat of a smiling happy family covered with rainbows. It is harsh, violent and depressing. Wiping out humanity for evil is not a good start for feel good movie.

After the flim, you will read and hear the Bible account with a different understanding. I know I will appreciate the rainbow even more now that I have seen the flood.

A Top Ten for Transfiguration Sunday

A few years back, (okay over a decade!) I posted a version of this list in ECULAUGH on EcuNet conference system.

Top Ten Ways Peter Knew It Was Moses And Elijah

Talking With Jesus At The Transfiguration 

10. Elijah keeps asking if someone can make him a little cake. 1 Kings 17:13

  9. Moses kept parting Peter’s hair. Exodus 14:21

  8. That bright cloud of smoke? Elijah’s fiery chariot! 2 Kings 2:11

  7. Moses’ recommendation of smiting the Romans with a plague gives him away. Exodus 8:1-2

  6. Elijah makes sarcastic remarks about the quality of the disciples’ camp fire. 1 Kings 18:25-27

  5. Moses keeps wandering off. Numbers 32:6-13

  4. Elijah has a “Here Comes TROUBLE” t-shirt on. 1 Kings 18:17

  3. Elijah keeps shushing everyone so he can hear the silence. 1 Kings 19:11-13

  2. Moses complains Letterman never paid him a dime for his Top Ten idea. Exodus 34:27-28

  1. Heaven is the only place people really use those stick on name tags. 

Is It Wise to Give to the Poor?

from flickr.com Micah68. Some rights reserved. Used by permission

Here is a recording of the message given at Lake Tahoe Community Presbyterian church on January 12, 2014. We examine just how wise those wise men were.

Download a recording of the message (right click and save for later listening.)

Based on Matthew 2:1-12.

Looking Behind

A proud mother showed me her phone with a New Year’s Eve video of her daughter skating. It was cute watching the child’s face and form as she worked on her skating rhythm and balance. As I admired her daughter’s skating, the Mom commented: “I’m not a good skater but I skated backwards to take the video. My daughter worried that I would fall, but I told her it would hurt if I fell, but she was worth it.”

A skating child video is cute, but when you look at what you cannot see: a unsteady, backward skating, adoring mother, it is beautiful as well.

I hope when you enjoy what is in front of you, you are also aware and thankful for those behind the scenes.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.

You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.

You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.

You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

Psalm 139:1-5 NRSV

Are Dreams Real?

from Matthew 1:18-25

(Click to listen to this message.)Dreams are the only time I get to be with my brother Ric. He will have been gone 30 years ago next month. Every now and then, he visits me in my dreams. He is real then. The fights are long past and only the familiar remains. I can feel his love and his kindness and wake up comforted.

Are dreams real? Did Ric really come to visit me? Or was it just a dream? How do we know something is real? Havelock Ellis points out that “Dreams are real while they last, can we say more of life?” As the riddle about a tree falling in a deserted forest, that asks if there is a sound if there is no one there to hear it points out, reality is biased toward what is observed. If no one experiences an event…did it happen, and how many witnesses does it take to make a reality? Some of you are way ahead of me, we have recording devices and scientific methods to determine what happens even without observations. Sure. I’m a big fan of tech and science…but somewhere along a line someone will observe the recording, publish the theory, open the box with the cat. Until that happens…

Can your outlook, your thinking, your perception change reality? Well it depends. There is a thought experiment proposed by David Foster Wallace in a commencement address at Kenyon College in 2005, we have video with a bit of it with added graphics here…

 << Video since removed >>>

What is your default dream setting? Joseph had a dream. Marry Mary, settle down in his hometown, do some carpentry, raise a family. Maybe some volunteer work. Go to Jerusalem for Passover. A nice quiet respectable life. But Mary turns up pregnant. There can only be one explanation, and he wasn’t the answer to that question. There was only one thing to do, return the pregnant girl and get a new one.

Then he had a dream. Now here is a tough Bible question. At least for us sophisticated post-industrial scientific American Christians…did an angel REALLY visit Joseph? If you say “Yes!” then dreams are real. For the angel came to Joseph in a dream. I know a mystery wrapped in an enigma tied with a riddle.

Today Dreams are dismissed. Even in the Hebrew Scriptures, Joseph of the Old Testament, Joseph brothers call him “The Dreamer” because he had dreams of being more powerful than his older brothers…yet by faithfulness and God’s grace he lived into his dream. Martin Luther King told the nation about his dream and moved a nation to greater justice and equality. Nelson Mandela dreamed of a South Africa that was at peace with itself. In a Long Walk to Freedom, wrote “A Winner is a Dreamer Who Never Gives Up.” He lived his dream and it took decades in prison for reality to catch up his dream.

A dream changed Joseph default setting of pregnant woman needs to be quietly shunned to one of most honored of women, a favor instead of a curse, a joy instead of sorrow. Private shame to Savior of the world.

You can choose your dream now and every day. How? Start with the Lord’s Prayer, you know the part that goes “Thy kingdom come…” Mediate, consider, and if you dare quietly pray… Thy dream come, for kingdom of God is more like the dream God has for humanity than an area of land of God’s control. God’s is more interested in how much area he has in your hearts and minds…your dreams.

I submit to you that the measure of reality of Ric visiting me in a dream, the reality of who you are standing in line with at the checkout, the reality of an angel in a dream thousands of years ago, is measured not by ectoplasm detectors, NSA records of metadata, nor biblical archeology and scholarship. The measure of whether something is real, is the effect that it has. If I am brought peace and feel love when Ric visits in dream and am patient and kind to others in turn, that’s real. If I can build up community instead of tear down individuals in a checkout line that’s real. If angel changes man who quietly puts away a pregnant fiancee in need of love and care into one who sacrifices to make scandalous respectable, protecting the vulnerable, and caring for a child not your own…it doesn’t get any realer than that.

God’s dream about humanity is already real in Jesus, we just have to choose to live it.

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(Here is a recording of this message to download.)