Month: November 2012

The man who began his letter by identifying himself as a slave …
‘Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ’ …
and who has at times in his epistle called his readers to be …
‘slaves of justice’ …
comes to the heart of his correspondence by writing …
‘For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,
but you have received a spirit of adoption …’

Slaves of Christ, even slaves of justice, but for those very reasons, not captivated by a spirit of slavery.

Obviously the apostle is playing with this (and many other) metaphors in this letter.

Read more Wine Before Breakfast – On slaves, bastards, adopted children and Jamie Howison

There is something powerfully ironic about Leonard Cohen’s song, “Anthem.”

Anthems tend to be declarations of faith, of nationhood, of victory.

But Cohen’s anthem borders on lament.

Instead of evoking a memory of past glory that sanctions an optimistic hope,
the artist sings:

The birds they sang at the break of day
“Start again”, I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what has passed away
Or what is yet to be

Read more Wine Before Breakfast – Broken Offerings, Refugees and “Offering Tuesday”

There have been a number of amazing musical moments in my life.

Moments when the joy fills the room, even as the artist leads us into deep places of pain.

Often enough, those moments happen on Tuesday mornings.
There is something about the Wine Before Breakfast bandhood that finds a way to reach deep into our souls; something that gives us voices to sing – even at 7.22 in the morning!

In my life the WBB band stands in a rich tradition of artists whose music they will often bring into our worship. Artists that I have had the good fortune to enjoy performing live:
Leonard Cohen, Bruce Cockburn, Josh Gritter, EmmyLou Harris, Daniel Lanois, Van Morrison, U2 and Bob Dylan.

And it is a Dylan concert that this week’s music will conjure up for me.

It was the late 70’s and Dylan had ‘got religion.’ In fact, the show that he was touring was nothing less than a gospel revival! And there he was on the stage of Massey Hall singing:

Read more Wine Before Breakfast – “Gotta Serve Somebody” and Getting Wet

Standing in grace,
sharing God’s glory,
boasting in suffering,
and hope that does not disappoint.

This is the language we meet as we turn to Romans 5 tomorrow at WBB.

Grace, glory and hope. Sounds good.

But what’s suffering got to do with it?

Well it seems that Paul figures that if there is going to be grace, glory and hope,
and if all of this is going to be anything more than
cheap grace, fading glory and false hope,
then we’re going to need to think about suffering.

Read more Wine Before Breakfast – Grace, Glory, Suffering and Hope