It is very likely there have always been extremists of various sorts: religious, political, cultural, social. They are the ones who insist that their beliefs alone are acceptable, that their narrowly-defined politics alone are correct, that their strict observance of certain customs and mores are the only proper ones, that the races or sexes or social classes should always be kept apart for the benefit of what they think represents valid social cohesion.

It is only fair that I begin this sermon with a clear caveat for all of you. I am not a Trinitarian Christian, although I believe I am a Christian. I have become increasing skeptical of both the validity and the theological arguments which led to the doctrine of the Trinity. A second caveat: Many have doubted that I am a proper Christian at all, and have told me so with zeal.

Moses had a tough time trying to lead the children of Israel in the desert. Again and again they strayed from the straight and narrow in favor of the crooked and wide. It was just one thing after another for forty years. After the people crossed the Red Sea on dry land, or more likely on moderately damp land, if the story is to be believed as told, they came to the Sinai Desert. To this day, hardly anyone is able to live in the Sinai, so it is not surprising the Israelites were not thrilled to be there. But it was the only way they could get from Egypt to the Promised Land.

War is always glorified, both by those who win and by those who lose. The US lost the War of 1812, or most certainly did not win it, but to read our history books you’d never know that. We also lost in Viet Nam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, but our children and grandchildren will not be told that. Maybe our great-grandchildren will learn the truth. But even then, those wars will be glorified, because if wars can’t be glorious, then why on earth would anyone fight them? Why indeed? There’s a question well worth asking, fellow citizens!

Is faith something that either you do have or you don’t have, or is it something that you do have but maybe not enough? Is faith a constant, or is it an on-and-off reality? Does our faith sustain us through certain situations, but not through everything? Do we trust God equally all the time, or unequally some of the time?

Time and again throughout this perplexing tome, Job has demanded that God appear before him. Finally, at the beginning of Chapter 38, God does speak to Job. And in very pointed and painful language, God tells Job that he, Job, has some nerve in accusing God of causing all his troubles. God reminds Job of many of the mysteries of creation, and asks the understandably disgruntled sufferer if Job understands the intricacies of the natural order.

“If I didn’t have bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.” How often have you heard someone say that? It is an ironic statement intended to bring some humor into painful circumstances. And when bad things happen, if we can laugh, even in our sorrow, we are certainly better off.

Stuff happens. Good stuff and bad stuff. But what explains it? Can it be explained?

“There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job,” the story starts out, “and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil” (Job1:1). It is very important to keep that in mind as we go through this whole perplexing tale.

I always wondered why Yeshua chose me. Frankly, I think he could done a lot better. I was flattered; don't misunderstand. And I was very pleased. Yeshua gave a meaning to my life which had been missing ever since nature made me the last of the line in our family and the runt of the litter back there in Zippori. With Yeshua I felt for the first time in my life that I really counted for something. I didn't know for what, but surely for something --- or why else would Yeshua have made me a disciple? I still have many doubts about a proper answer to that question, but I am convinced there must be one, because Yeshua was a man who clearly knew what he was doing.

Within an hour, after we had listened to Yeshua and heard him tell about something he called the kingdom of God, which none of us really understood, either then or now, we were ready to leave everything behind, at least for a while, to follow after him. I am an especially impulsive man, and I have always jumped into things without thinking. Leap before you look; that's my motto! Speak before you think! I don't know why I'm like that, but that's the way I am.

You can say whatever yuh wanna, but Ah'm tellin' yuh: Ah ain't no traitor. Ah'm sick and tired of hearin' how Ah'm the only guy in the whole bunch who's a rat.

My name is Pontius Pilatus. My family name, Pilatus, means "Armed with a Javelin," and I think it describes me well. I have had to live with a weapon in my hand for my whole adult life.

...I was born into one of the oldest and most prestigious families in all Judea, or "Yudah," as we still prefer to call it. Besides having been born well, I also married well. My wife's father, Annas, was himself the high priest for ten years before me. Between him and me there were three others who were appointed, but none of the three lasted more than a year. I have held the highest religious office in the land now for twelve years.

...let me first introduce myself to you. I am Natan bar-Schlomo; I think you would say Nathan, the son of Solomon. My father farmed a beautiful piece of land in the Valley of Jezreel which had belonged to his father, which belonged to his father, and so on for perhaps forty generations, and now I farm the same land. It is said in our family we have belonged to this valley since the time when Gideon fought the Amalekites and Midianites on the Hill of Moreh, two hours' walk south of where we live, where the Valley of Jezreel starts to be called the Plain of Esdralon.

Have you ever wondered what your life would be like if you had been born in a different country than the United States of America? I realize a very small percentage of you were born elsewhere. So I would say to you few Chapelites who were born in foreign countries, have you ever wondered what your life would be like had you been born not where you were born or in the USA, but somewhere else? What if we all had been born in Cambodia or India or Albania or Nigeria or Upper Volta or Peru or Guatemala? How different would our lives be?

Christian people, you need to understand that Paul is addressing a crucial issue for what Christianity is and should be. It is not a religion based on religious laws, but rather on faith in God as He is made known to us through Jesus Christ. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Mt. 5:17). The spirit of the law gives life to us; it results in an ethic of love. The letter of the law results in a deadening of life, and turns human existence into an enormous and lethal list of do’s and don’t’s. Legalism destroys what the laws of the Bible are intended to nourish. Having personally been so adversely affected by this is his early years, Paul ferociously attacked in his later years the very foundation of legalism when he wrote to the Galatians.

There appears to be a contradictory principle which Paul is explaining here. Do you want to be free from financial concerns? Then be generous in what you give away to others. If you are a skinflint, you will always be plagued by concerns over having enough assets to sustain you, but if you contribute to others with liberality, you will always have more than enough. Tight-fisted stewards of God’s resources plant their seeds sparingly, while openhanded stewards plant their seeds bountifully. Cautious planters reap little for themselves, while courageous planters reap much.

The 12th chapter of I Corinthians is a litany of what the apostle Paul calls “spiritual gifts.” The most widely-known of these gifts are ones that most mainline Protestants personally observe the most rarely, either by doing them or seeing them. They are speaking in tongues, interpreting the strange words uttered when someone “in the Spirit” speaks in tongues, and the gift of healing.

Last week I noted that the first-century Christians in the Greek city of Corinth were an obstreperous bunch. They were boisterous, exuberant, enthusiastic, and unpredictable. Cumulatively, Paul spent several months or a few years visiting them from time to time. Apparently he found them to be a loveable if also confounding collection of humanoids. Something happened among the Corinthians which has happened on infrequent occasions throughout the two-thousand-year history of the Church of Jesus Christ. They practiced what are often described as charismatic gifts or gifts of the Spirit or spiritual gifts. A large and growing branch of Christianity is called Pentecostalism which is noted for these gifts.