CCC Gainesville | Blog
Hey errbody, Sunday we begin our study of Ecclesiastes. Give a go at reading the first two chapters before Sunday.
“Ecclesiastes captures the futility and frustration of a fallen world.” –Phil Ryken
“In Ecclesiastes, God reveals to us what life is when God doesn’t reveal to us what life is.” –Tullian Tchividjian
“Ecclesiastes teaches a biblical worldview and the goodness of creation.” –Phil Ryken
9:00 & 10:30 with a lunch for students at 11:45
Surely this is a joke; a class at church on eating? A recent sermon series at Christ Community on “the mundane” included the daily practices of eating, sleeping and working. In this class, we return to the routine to find deeper meaning in the mundane.
In the richness of the Christian story, not only has God created all things, but also he has inaugurated the restoration of all things in Christ. This “all things” includes our rhythmic, daily activities. In light of this, we do well to reflect upon the mundane in light of God’s redemptive work in the world. Eating, like other things we do multiple times a day, can become almost mindless. Our bodies are designed for nutritional and caloric input, so we insert and process foods to satisfy this need. But as we will discover, what seems like a very simple act is a very personal one (and interpersonal) – and one that carries with it lots of implications and consequences. More importantly, Scripture is full of references to eating, both literal and metaphorical. And let’s not forget, eating can be extremely pleasurable. How do we make sense of such an activity? How can theological reflection help us understand eating as an act unto God and for the benefit of ourselves and others?
In this seven week class, Todd Best will facilitate a discussion of the book Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating by Norman Wirzba, Professor of Theology and Ecology at Duke Divinity School. Wirzba has offered us at least one framework for considering the theological significance of eating in his book (more details here). Please join this Opus Project reading class on Wirzba’s book at the 10:30 adult education class at Christ Community. The class starts on Sept. 15 and runs through Oct. 27.
Please order your book now through the book-seller of your choice. And for of Wirzba’s perspective, see this excerpt from an interview about the book.
Finally, please note that Norman Wirzba will be a guest at the Christian Study Center on Sept. 19. See the Study Center website for details and to hear an interview with Wirzba.
A letter from John Newton to a friend, on prayer (August 15, 1776):
I sometimes think that the prayers of believers afford a stronger proof of a depraved nature than even the profaneness of those who know not the Lord. How strange is it, that when I have the fullest convictions that prayer is not only my duty — not only necessary as the appointed means of receiving these supplies, without which I can do nothing, but likewise the greatest honor and privilege to which I can be admitted in the present life — I should still find myself so unwilling to engage in it.
However, I think it is not prayer itself that I am weary of, but such prayers as mine. How can it be accounted prayer, when the heart is so little affected — when it is polluted with such a mixture of vile and vain imaginations — when I hardly know what I say myself — but I feel my mind collected one minute, the next, my thoughts are gone to the ends of the earth.
If what I express with my lips were written down, and the thoughts which at the same time are passing through my heart were likewise written between the lines, the whole taken together would be such an absurd and incoherent jumble — such a medley of inconsistency, that it might pass for the ravings of a lunatic.
When he points out to me the wildness of this jargon, and asks, is this a prayer fit to be presented to the holy heart-searching God? I am at a loss what to answer, till it is given to me to recollect that I am not under the law, but under grace — that my hope is to be placed, not in my own prayers, but in the righteousness and intercession of Jesus. The poorer and viler I am in myself, so much the more is the power and riches of his grace magnified in my behalf.
Therefore I must, and, the Lord being my helper, I will pray on, and admire his condescension and love, that he can and does take notice of such a creature — for the event shows, that those prayers which are even displeasing to myself, partial as I am in my own case, are acceptable to him, how else should they be answered?
And that I am still permitted to come to a throne of grace — still supported in my walk and in my work, and that mine enemies have not yet prevailed against me, and triumphed over me, affords a full proof that the Lord has heard and has accepted my poor prayers — yea, it is possible, that those very prayers of ours of which we are most ashamed, are the most pleasing to the Lord, and for that reason, because we are ashamed of them. When we are favored with what we call enlargement, we come away tolerably satisfied with ourselves, and think we have done well.
Every 1st Sunday of the month at 6pm—“We must, and, the Lord being our helper, we will pray on.”
I don’t know this poet—Seamus Heaney—, but his passing trends on twitter and his poems are on NPR. Plus he’s Irish, which is awesome. And this poem makes me think of a wonderful upcoming class Christ Community is offering. Details forthcoming.
“Blackberry Picking” can be found in Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966-1996. Heaney, born in 1939, won the Nobel Prize in 1995. According to his Nobel biography, he grew up as a country boy on a farm in County Derry, northern Ireland.
Blackberry Picking
Late August, given heavy rain and sun
for a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
like thickened wine: summer’s blood was in it
leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
sent us out with milk-cans, pea-tins, jam-pots
where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
we trekked and picked until the cans were full,
until the tinkling bottom had been covered
with green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
with thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fair
that all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not.
“Blackberry-Picking,” from OPENED GROUND: SELECTED POEMS 1966 -1996 by Seamus Heaney.
Thank you, Lord.
