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I have a question for you to consider today:
If you did not need a job or a wage in order to live, what would you do with your time? This may be a silly question for those of you who are already retired… but what would you have done in young adulthood if you didn’t need a job to support yourself? Would you have pursued the same career? Would you pursue a career at all? How long would you have spent basking in the nothing-ness of your days before you got bored? Would you have pursued art? Or music? Tried to write a story that lived in your head? Would you cook or read or volunteer your time? Or would you cultivate your garden and tackle all of those DIY projects that you promised yourself that you would do, “once I have energy”? In the 1970’s, it was predicted that we would only work 20 hours a week at our jobs based on the steady increase of productivity in the workplace. Technology was improving, allowing humans to do less work. And so, it followed, we would be able to work less and pursue whatever artistic and creative endeavors we so desired. But this vision of the future is not the version future we ended up with. Instead, work has expanded to the size of time that we allow it to. Cell phones mean that we are accessible 24/7, laptops and tablets mean we can carry work with us wherever we go, and a desire for metrics means that there is always another computer program to enter in data into to see if we are maximizing our time and resources wisely. We traded a future of creative leisure for an obsession with hard work and productivity. While Artificial Intelligence could be trained to do menial tasks that humans dislike doing, it is instead being trained to do creative work, like creating art or writing movies, that humans would otherwise enjoy doing. When I first read the predictions from the 1970’s compared to our workplace culture today, I felt like Kristen Bell’s character in The Good Place when she finally realizes that the supposed heaven she was in was actually the Bad Place. (Sorry for the spoiler if you haven’t seen this fantastic show!) But this realization is why I have come to love Labor Day and I love preaching about rest and how Christians and activists fought and died so that we could have a 5-day workweek with 2 days of rest. And it is why I go on and on about the importance of rest (and not feeling guilty about resting) - but there is one more part to my yearly soapbox: Life is about more than just work. Life is meant to be enjoyed. So, what would you do if you had leisure time? What would you do if you were to do something purely because you enjoy it? And I hope you get some time this weekend to do just that. Blessings, Pastor Chris As we come to the end of the “That’s NOT in the Bible!” sermon series, I am sad to report that I was not able to include everything Biblical misconception. I touched upon the topics that I thought were the most important. Some topics were chosen because of their moral implications and other topics were chose because the Christian imagination has added in details that were never there to begin with. And to be fair, I chose not to preach on a few topics because there wasn’t enough to say about these mix-ups and misconceptions. So, here is a list of Honorable Mentions of what is NOT in the Bible:
Blessings, Pastor Chris If you have been inside my office and looked on my bookshelf, you will notice a collection of objects. Some of them are souvenirs from trips I have taken. Other things are gifts that I have been given. While some objects have sentimental value only, other objects I have kept because they are beautiful. More than one has a story behind them. But one thing is for sure: with one look at my bookshelf and you can tell that I enjoy collecting unique and odd things. The same could be said about my brain: I have an odd collection of information that I have learned over the years. Even as a child, I had a penchant for remembering odd facts, like that a hippopotamus’s sweat is blood-red and people have mistaken a sweating hippo for a bleeding one. My mother used to tell me that I had a “bank of random information” that was liable to spit out a piece of trivia at any given moment. I don’t always remember where I learn these facts… but I know that odd nuggets of information stick in my brain like a ketchup stain on a white shirt.
This “bank of random information” is my only explanation for the onslaught of odd facts in Sunday’s sermon. In case you were wondering, here is an article that explains what a bacculum is and why the Hebrew might imply that Eve was made from one. I’ll be honest with you all, I am not sure where I first heard this theory… it may have been in a seminary textbook, or it may have been from this book: The Uncensored Bible: The Bawdy and Naughty Bits of the Good Book. What I do know is this: there is a lot more I could say about the first three chapters of Genesis. In case you want to hear a longer discussion, here are the videos from our Tuesday morning Bible Study where we discuss many of these topics in greater detail:
With all of this contextual information that presents us with a slightly different narrative than we expect, it is fair to wonder, “How are we able to make sense of the story in scripture at all?” Another way to ask this is, “Do I need a seminary degree to understand the Bible, or is my plain reading of the text enough?” This question is at the core of what we will be discussing this coming Sunday - and the simple answer is… it’s complicated. With two Sundays left in this series - strap in! - because there is a lot more random pieces of information heading your way! Blessings, Pastor Chris At the moment, the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France are in full swing.
Day by day we are seeing more videos and news clips of the stunning abilities of individuals and the human body. While the Olympics, at its heart, is a competition and every person is striving for a metal, it is also a beautiful display of the beauty of humanity. It is hard not to marvel and just how much these athletes can do. I know that the full range of emotions is also on display as people try their best (which is miles beyond what I could even attempt) and still fail to win. We see both joy and grief in these competitions, but I cannot help but to see beauty through it all. On my grumpier days, I can be heard saying to my friend Melissa, “Mel, I hate people! People are the worst! Why do we have to deal with people!?” She reminds me that a person is often lovely: it is just collectively that people can be awful. Other days, it is the other way around. Other days, she is grumpy at people in general and I am the one to remind her that people can also be wonderfully kind and full of surprises. It is on our grumpier days that I like to think about the beauty of the Olympics. On my grumpy days, I ask God, “Why do you pay attention to us at all? We are horrible to each other! Why do you even love and care about us?” And then I watch the wonders of the human that God designed, and I am floored by the beauty of God’s creation. On those same days, I will get caught off-guard by a stranger offering a compliment, and I will see the kindness that God instilled in our hearts. Other days, it is the hug of a family member… and I wonder how anyone could want to do away with humanity. Yes, hell can be other people… but so is our paradise. It seems like the greatest contradiction: other people can be our greatest pain and the source of our comfort. In the end, watching the Olympics doesn’t make me want to attempt ANYTHING they are doing on screen, but it does make me want to make something beautiful. It makes me want to create so that this world is more beautiful because of me and my work. The question is, what will you do to make this world beautiful? Blessings, Pastor Chris |
AuthorPastor Chris Hallam earned her degree at Princeton Theological Seminary and moved to Michigan to become a pastor. Also trained as a studio artist and graphic designer, with an interest in pop culture and social science, her passion is thinking creatively about the future of the church. Archives
October 2024
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