Scottish highland bagpipe music is divided into two primary types, ceòl beag, “little music” or “light music” which are the bagpipe tunes played by pipe bands and for highland dancing, such as marches, strathspey, and reels; and ceòl mòr, “great music” called piobaireachd (pronounced pea-brach) which is the “classical” music of piping, which is very sonorous—and some say, boring. Canntaireachd was developed as a method for verbally notating piobaireachd. (It’s pronounced can-cher-ach or can-ter-ach with a rolled T, a very rolled R, and a German final CH.) I was fortunate when I was 17 to attend a two-week intensive piping school taught by the College of Piping from Glasgow, held at a YMCA camp in the California redwoods. There I learned about canntaireachd, although I can’t say I learned it. I did learn some piobaireachd, though—as well as a Goon Show episode called “The Macreekie Rising of ’74“, from one of my bunkhouse mates who had the whole episode memorized. (And yes, that is me in the picture, age 23.)

First, here’s an explanation of bagpipe music, written for fiddlers but comprehensible to most musicians, which explains doublings, throws, birls, grips, leumluaths, taorluaths, and crunluaths, as some of the explanations of canntaireachd won’t make sense without them. http://www.potomacvalleyscottishfiddle.org/public/the_pipers_corner/

(By the way, I think a key to Scottish Gaelic pronunciation is that you only say about half of the letters in a word. So piobaireachd is pibroch, taorluath is turlua, and crunluath is crunlua. The final CH is like a German ch, and Rs following hard vowels are very rolled.)

Here’s a simple canntaireachd explanation from Teach Yourself Bagpipes by Lindsay Davidson – Piobaireachd: http://www.teachyourselfbagpipes.co.uk/cant.html

And here’s a detailed canntaireachd explanation with charts for all of the vocalizations of the notes, grace notes, doublings, throws, birls, grips, leumluaths, taorluaths, and crunluaths: http://svenax.net/site/canntaireachd/

Here are some videos of folks doing canntaireachd.
Cantarrach – Gaelic tradition – YouTube - good intro.
Tim Britton: Scottish chanting with audience drone • Sondheim Center in Fairfield, Iowa – YouTube
Struan Robertson’s Salute Canntaireachd – YouTube
Visual Canntaireachd 3: Hihorodo hiharara – YouTube - this one has a visual system although not the same on I was exposed to by the College of Piping.

Thanks for a chance to share some of my odd musical knowledge.

The Tale of the Three Little Penguins

Once there were three little penguins who decided to leave home and make their way in the world. The first little penguin decided to build his house of icicles, so he built it and moved in. The second little penguin decided to build his house of snow, so he built it and moved in. The third little penguin wanted a much stronger house and he decided to build his house of great big blocks of solid ice, so he built it and moved in.

The first little penguin heard a knock on his door. “Who’s there?” he said. “It’s the big bad walrus!” came the answer; “Little penguin, little penguin, let me come enguin!” The first little penguin said “Enguin?” and then called in a louder voice “Not by the feathers on my chinny-chin-chin!” The big bad walrus then roared, “Then I’ll snort and I’ll blort and I’ll blow your house in!” And he snorted, and he blorted, and HE BLORTED, AND HE SNORTED and he blew the house in. As the icicles crashed down, the first little penguin waddled off as fast as his little feet could carry him to his brother’s house of snow. And the big bad walrus waddled after him in pursuit.

The second little penguin then heard a knock on his door. “Who’s there?” he said. “It’s the big bad walrus!” came the answer; “Little penguin, little penguin, let me come enguin!” The second little penguin said “Enguin?” and the first little penguin said “Enguin?!”. The second little penguin then called in a louder voice “Not by the feathers on my chinny-chin-chin!” The big bad walrus then roared, “Then I’ll snort and I’ll blort and I’ll blow your house in!” And he snorted, and he blorted, and HE BLORTED, AND HE SNORTED and he blew the house in. As the snow blew away, the two little penguins waddled off as fast as their little feet could carry them to their brother’s house of big blocks of ice. The big bad walrus waddled after them in pursuit.

The third little penguin then heard a knock on his door. “Who’s there?” he said. “It’s the big bad walrus!” came the answer; “Little penguin, little penguin, let me come enguin!” The third little penguin said “Enguin?” and the second little penguin said “Enguin?!”and the first little penguin said “Yeah, he said that at my house, too.”. The third little penguin then called in a louder voice “Not by the feathers on my chinny-chin-chin!” The big bad walrus then roared, “Then I’ll snort and I’ll blort and I’ll blow your house in!” And he snorted, and he blorted, and HE BLORTED, AND HE SNORTED AND HE SNORTED, AND HE BLORTED…and he suffered a pulmonary embolism and he died. The three little penguins waited in the house of big ice blocks but after a while they had not heard anything else, so they opened the door and peeked out. The first little penguin turned to his brother the third little penguin and said “Ewwww! There’s a huge rotting walrus on your doorstep!”
THE END.

The Tale of Penguin Little

Penguin Little came running up excitedly to the rest of the penguins and yelled, “THE SNOW IS FALLING, THE SNOW IS FALLING!” The other penguins just stared at him and said “So?”
THE END.

Let me start by saying I was pretty sure I could stand up here and talk about my mom without crying, but…I could be wrong.

Greta Trygstad was our mom. But she was much more that that. She was many things to many people. To her mom and dad, she was Peanut, the littlest kid, who needed a special boost now and then to grow up healthy and whole. She was a loyal and good friend; if Greta was your friend, you had a friend for life. She married a man who by nature was a gentle man, but it was her love that knocked off the rough edges and made him a gentleman. To that man—our Dad—she was the love of his life, and his #1 supporter in his careers. To her church, she was a pillar of LWML, and Vacation Bible School, the maker of Chrismons, and many other things. To Cub Scouts, she was a Den Mother. To PTA, she was a leader and a publicity chair. To her San Dieguito High classmates, she was one of the folks that held them together and brought them together. She was an artist, a craftsman, a wordsmith, and a chef. She worked tirelessly for children and adults with special needs, and for anyone who’s life she could make better.

She was not just mom to me and my brother and sister. She was mom to all our friends, who would come to her for help even when we were not around. She was mother to our neighborhood, for all the kids who needed a mother. She was the mother to stray young Marines, and young employees of our Dad’s, and grandmother to some of their children. She welcomed and fed anyone who crossed her threshhold. She let her whole family—parents, siblings, children, and adopted children—know that they were always welcome for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, along with any strays any of us wanted to bring. And we brought friends, neighbors, classmates, shipmates, convicted murderers, all kinds of folks. Mom believed as Jesus did that a table was to be shared with all.

Greta—our mom—wasn’t perfect. She let her politics be swayed by demagogues. She loved wine, and occasionally would imbibe to much. She smoked too much. But her flaws were minor, and the care she had for others far outweighed them. She lived her life selflessly, never failing to put others ahead of herself. We are so lucky to be her children, because she raised us to be selfless, to be unprejudiced, to put others ahead of ourselves, and to raise our children to be the same. In many ways, we all wish we could be her.

Mom had great sayings. When me and all the neighborhood kids starting getting on her nerves, she would look at us with a smile and say, “Why don’t you kids take a box of measles and go play on the freeway?” She used to want to go hunting naugas…you know, the animals that naugahide comes from. We had a car that used to audibly say “The door is ajar.” She would argue with it: “No, it’s not a jar; it’s a door.” If things were the same, it was always “six of one, half dozen of the other.” Once mom went to buy some underwear for our dad; the clerk asked if she wanted white or nude. She told him “Nude? No, white. My husband is so modest he goes into the next room to change his mind.” And puns. Greta NEVER missed an opportunity to make a pun. It’s rubbed off on us; if you look at me and my sons, you’ll see that in our family, family ties means family…ties. I really wanted to stand up here and remember her entirely in puns, but despite my genetic disposition to punning, I was never near as good as punning as mom–and I though it might be too much pun-ishment for all of you.

Greta was a woman of faith. Before we settled here at Faith Lutheran when I was eight, she used to take me to Sunday School at the Base Chapel wherever my dad was stationed. And her faith was a faith of action. She believed that when Jesus ascended to heaven, he left all of us to be his hands and feet, and she took that charge seriously. Mom’s belief in the Gospel of Jesus was never an intellectual or emotional exercise, but was was rather a call to her personally to act on His behalf.

I honestly have no way to wrap this up. I did write something out here, but I could stand up here and talk about Greta Trygstad—our mom—for hours. But I don’t think I’m saying anything to you about our mom that you don’t already know. We love her. We will all miss her. Thank you all for being with us today to remember her life.

Greta’s Obituary (San Diego Union-Tribune).
Slide show presentation of Greta’s life in pictures, as shown before her service and at the meal following.
Or you can download the video (582,826 KB).

The scripture reading before the sermon is 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13.

Who?

This must be one of the most commonly asked questions in history. Anytime something needs doing, a job needs filling, a vacuum of power arises, or you need someone, the same question always comes up: Who? Who will do it? Who can we send? Who will run? Who will save us? Who will be my friend?

Who?

The people of Israel said “Who?…Who will be our King?” They didn’t have a king, but all the folks around them did, so they decided they just had to have one too. And the Lord answered their prayers; He told his prophet Samuel to anoint Saul to govern his people. Saul looked the part of a king. He was a tall man, a full head taller than everyone else. By the time of our story today, he was a war hero as well. He seemed to be everything the people thought a king should be. (Based on height alone, he could have been a university president, who as a group are far taller than the general population.)  But he was as it turns out, disobedient. And disobedience in Israel’s history seems to be God’s biggest pet peeve. So, the scripture tells us, “…the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.”

Now, let’s just take a brief aside here to recognize the danger of the phrase, “the Lord regretted…”. This only happens twice in our scripture. The only other instance is prior to the great flood of Noah when God decides to destroy most of humanity and try creation again. But we have to ask, does saying that God can regret mean the Lord is fallible?
We would like to offer a firm, No.
It means we are. God intended humanity to be good and holy, but they chose to turn against God. God knew what Saul was capable of as a leader, but Saul let Him down.

And now we find ourselves asking: Who? If not Saul, then who?

The Lord sent the prophet Samuel (whom we met two weeks ago) to Bethlehem, to anoint a new king. A small village, certainly not the place one would expect to find a king. He couldn’t even come in the open; after all, he used to be the ruler of the people of Israel. He came to make a sacrifice, as a subterfuge. He didn’t even know who to select, but he knew it was one of the eight sons of Jesse, who seemingly had many kingly virtues. But often God does not work the way we think he will. He doesn’t choose the obvious. He doesn’t choose those we expect.

These four young people on the screen share something in common, other than their age. I wonder if we can guess what it is? What do you think?

{actually take answers} They are all United Methodist Clergy.

Rev. Justin Hancock is also a Deacon from the North Texas Annual Conference. Justin lives with Cerebral Palsy, but his ministry is not restricted to disability advocacy. Justin lives in Dallas in a Missional Wisdom Foundation New Monastic Community. That’s a lot of words to say; it means he lives in a house with his wife and several other young Christians to try and model the earliest Christian communities. They practice their faith together through hospitality, shared meals, a pattern of worship and prayer, and acts of justice in their neighborhood. Justin previously served as the director of the Texas Tech Wesley Foundation, currently works with African refugees in Dallas, and is one heck of a preacher.

These faces are the rising leaders of our church. While they may not look like your typical Methodist circuit riders, they are each filled with a passion for Christ’s life giving love, gifted with skills for leadership, and have been called out, examined, set apart, and anointed to guide the ministry of the church.

But how would you genuinely feel if one of these young people had just been announced as the new pastor of this congregation? Would you trust them to lead our spiritual life together? What assumptions would get in the way?

David was not the right choice in Samuel’s eyes. Despite his many faithful years of service as God’s priest, Samuel assumed God would want the tallest, oldest, and most handsome of Jesse’s sons be serve as Israel’s new king. But no, God is not interested in what is on the outside, how the world sees the next king. God is sick of unfaithfulness. The Lord chooses instead the son with the most faithful heart. And in so doing, God shows us that our character, what is on the inside, is of much greater importance to God than how the world sees us.

Perhaps a more important question about our four clergy persons; If you had been introduced to any of these young people in a setting outside of church, would you have assumed them to be a Christian? Would you have sought to be their friend? Would you feel drawn to ask them their stories with an open heart, ready to receive the fullness of their character, experiences, brokenness, and gifts?

One of the largest challenges to peace, justice, and the flourishing of God’s kingdom is our reluctance to lay aside our assumptions. We categorize to make sense of the world, but when we do so we see with human eyes. Rarely do we entertain the spiritual and emotional effort to set aside our worldly lenses, and see one another through God’s eyes.  When Samuel selects Jesse’s oldest son first, the story says, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

For our modern era we might read that, “Do not look upon his appearance, or race, their gender, or sexuality, her weight, tattoos and piercings, or his differently abled body. For the lord does not see as mortals see. The Lord looks on the heart.”

So who might we be missing in our churches, because we fail to see one another’s hearts? Who may be already among us that has potential, and maybe even desire for leadership in ministry, but whom we have assumed was not interest, or not capable. Who is not at the table as we plan for the future of our ministry together? Who are our neighbors, beyond what we see as we drive to and from the church? Who is God calling? Who has God anointed?

[Ray: I am preaching today because our clergy are in Aurora, participating in the pride parade.] (Naperville delivery only. Blair may have delivered a variant of this line.) The first pride parade was held in 1970, one year after the Stonewall Riots. The goal of the march, and the gay liberation movement it stemmed from, was to flip the stigma of homosexuality and non-binary gender expressions, into a public celebration of diversity. Due to societal and legal pressures, LGBTQ persons often led double lives to participate in “everyday” life. But how could society come to accept LGBTQ people if they were hidden? Pride events developed to allow people to show their true selves. I would say to share with honesty and authenticity their God-given belovedness. Nearly 50 years later, the LGBTQIA+ community is still fighting stigma. And “good Christian people” are mostly to blame for perpetuating their rejection.

Pride is still necessary because the church fails to see LGBTQIA+ through the eyes of God. The church fails to see their hearts, distracted by the apparent gender of the person they are holding hands with. Our church fails to acknowledge God’s ability to “regret” and change the course of God’s own plan to select new leaders for a new era. Leaders that may not look like, act like, sound like, love like, we think they ought to.

Pride, then, is a holy act of resistance. It dares the world to drop assumptions and see the fullness of individuals as they were made by God to be. It dares us to push back against the stigma placed upon each of us, whatever that shame may be, and share our own authentic selves with our beloved community. Pride dares each one of us to be the children of God together, without reservation, seeing one another’s hearts as God does.

[Blair: I recognize our congregation is not the congregation I grew up in. We are not a reconciling congregation. We are not openly affirming and we together in this sanctuary are of mixed mind about LGBTQIA+ inclusion in the church, and the contextual reading of scriptures that reference human sexuality. But I want us all to know this as we consider our identity as a congregation and how we will move forward into this next chapter of our history; there are already Gay men, Lesbian women, Transgender people, Queer, Intersex, Asexual and even more diversity of sexual orientations, gender identities, and expressions of love, in our midst. And furthermore, they have always been here. LGBTQIA+ identities are not new inventions. We may have more complex names and definitions, but Queer people have been amongst you throughout the history of this church. 10% of the population at any time is expected to be outside the heteronormative identity. These people are, and have always been in our midst. I choose to believe we have already seen them with the eyes of God; accepting them and loving them, and celebrating their gifts. But as long as we remain ambiguous about our stance on LGBTQIA+ inclusion, there will be people who will never risk the walk into our sanctuary for fear of rejection and being forced back into the closet. As our denomination considers our options of unity or disunity in 2019, the Bishops have promised congregations will not be forced to take a vote on whether they will be welcoming of LGBTQIA+ members and clergy. But there is no way we get to the other side of February 2019 and don’t at least have to talk openly about where we will stand. The sooner we begin to have these conversations among ourselves about who we will accept in our pews, on our altar, and in our pulpit, the better off we will be as our denomination faces this massive shift.] (Ontario delivery only)

[Blair: More than anything,] I pray our church and our communities would embrace God’s challenge to see with divine eyes every person in our midst. Because if we continue to keep our spiritual vision shut, we run the danger of missing who God has already called in our midst. Who God may be gathering together to enrich our faith community. Who God may have already anointed to lead us into the next chapter of our life as the Body of Christ. And until we are willing to see, find, love, every single who, the Body of Christ will not be complete.

Let us pray.

Promises. Everybody makes promises. We make promises to ourselves, often on New Years Day: “This year, I’m gonna lose 40 pounds.” “This year, I’m gonna not watch so much TV.” And some people get a little ridiculous: “I will not bore my boss by with the same excuse for taking days off. I will think of some more excuses.” or “I will find out why the correspondence course on “Mail Fraud” that I purchased never showed up.” Comedian Pete Holmes has the best formula for resolutions: “Forgot to make resolutions? Just write out everything you did last night and at the beginning add the word ‘stop.’” Simple, easy promises that all too often people do not take very seriously.

Fathers make promises. The promise of a parent is far more serious than a resolution. After church today, John and Lynn and I are heading up to the Warrenville Community Center to help present “Mary Poppins: The Broadway Musical.” Most folks probably think this show is about Mary Poppins, but actually it’s not. It’s about George Banks, the father of the family living at 17 Cherry Tree Lane. It’s about unfulfilled and even unexpressed promises of a father to his family, and Mary Poppins freeing George to be a full father to his children. Every Dad makes promises, and today on Father’s Day we thank our fathers for following through on those promises: the promise of love, a home, a family, and a launchpad to allow us to leave that home and family to make it in the world.

God our father also makes promises, and our Epistle today explains the fulfillment of promise: “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.” What is the promise? That the Messiah, God’s own Son, would free us from adherence to the law as a means of salvation. This is God’s launchpad for us, allowing us to leave home and make it in the world.

Heirs according to the promise. Merriam Webster’s Dictionary tells us that an heir is someone who “one who receives or is entitled to receive some endowment or quality from a parent or predecessor.” We are the heirs because God is our Father. Presbyterian theologian R.C. Sproul tells us that until Jesus used the term, God was never referred to as “Father” in Judaism. Dr. Sproul tells us that “A few years ago, a German scholar was doing research in New Testament literature and discovered that in the entire history of Judaism—in all existing books of the Old Testament and all existing books of extrabiblical Jewish writings dating from the beginning of Judaism until the tenth century A.D. in Italy—there is not a single reference of a Jewish person addressing God directly in the first person as Father.” But Jesus changed all this. He not only addressed God as Father, but told his followers that we should do this as well. God acknowledged that his creation of humanity made him our Father, co-equal with his Son as his children, and as heirs to his promise.

God’s covenant originally was with his chosen people, the people of Israel, but in St. Paul’s letter to the Christians in Galatia, he makes to very clear that all are his children, for “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female…” We recognize this at Wesley with our welcoming statement: “God, as known to us in Jesus Christ, welcomes all. So do we. All people of any race, ethnic identity, gender, sexual orientation, age, ability, economic status, or life situation are welcome here.” Because God is our Father, we are heirs, and just like a loving father, He loves all of us. Love is a remarkable commodity, because as every parent knows, it is one of the only things you can’t run out of. Everything else we need to make a household run—milk and butter and gas for the car, and the money to pay for it all—is finite, but love is limitless. There is never a reason to parcel or ration love.

Today in our society there is a lot of hate. As hate is the reverse side of love, it also seems to be without capacity or limits as well. Hate is manifestly evident in treating people that God has made as somehow less than others, in telling them, for example, that even thought God created them as gay that “The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” It is the Law that tells us this, but the Epistle lesson tells us that “…the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.” All means all. Everyone. No exceptions.

Hate results in terrible consequences, like the deaths in Orlando last week. Hate saps us, it tires us, it drags us down. And while I cannot imagine a single positive outcome from hate, an awful lot of people sure seem to spend a lot of time and energy on hate. Some folks hate all liberals because they want to come into their homes and take their AR-15 assault rifles. Some folks hate the National Rifle Association, because they want terrorists to be able to buy AR-15 assault rifles. Some folks hate anyone different than themselves: not their race, not their religion, not their gender, not their gender preference, not their nationality. And other people just hate bigots. Demagogues play off of our hate, and can even lead people blinded by their hate to make choices that they otherwise would never make.

As people of God, as heirs to the promise, as brothers and sisters who have been told that we all are equal, neither Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, there is no room for hate. And the only correct answer, the only real antidote to hate…is love. We need to love as a parent. As a father—and I know pretty much every father shares this experience—there are days where you may not like your child very much. But you still love them. Let’s face it, all of us are pretty unlovable sometimes, and God loves us anyway. SO I know it’s a stretch, but as His heirs, God expects us to love with the same disregard for the likeability of those who are subjects of our love. We can’t do this on our own—we have to draw on God’s infinite store of love to strengthen us and allow us to love as He would have us. The only cure for hate is love.

In the words of the popular hymn, “With God as our Father, brothers all are we. Let me walk with my brother in perfect harmony.” So let us all walk with each other as brothers and sisters, together as heirs to the promise, and go forth as our Father would have us, to love. Amen.

“Last week it came out that Lenovo was installing a bit of software called “Superfish” as a default bloatware on a bunch of its “consumer” laptops. The software tried to pop up useful alternative shopping results for images. But in order to work on HTTPS-encrypted sites, Superfish made use of a nasty (and horribly implemented) “SSL hijacker” from Komodia, which installed a self-signed root certificate that basically allowed anyone to issue totally fake security certificates for any encrypted connection, enabling very easy man-in-the-middle attacks. Among the many, many, many stupid things about the way Komodia worked, was that it used the same certificate on each installation of Superfish, and it had an easily cracked password: “komodia” which was true on apparently every product that used Komodia. And researchers have discovered that a whole bunch of products use Komodia, putting a ton of people at risk. People have discovered at least 12 products that make use of Komodia. (Read more…)”

This is sort of the perfect storm at the intersection of ethics and cyber security, as it is behavior that has compromised/breached the security of Lenovo’s systems, and the two other companies involved refuse to even acknowledge that what they are doing is nothing short of a cybersecurity disaster, but from an ethical perspective, is just plain WRONG. It is an amazing demonstration of the kind of hubris that we see in so many corporations today, complete with”ignore and deny” followed by “circle the wagons” and quickly descending to plain old fingerpointing. Only after being raked through the coals in the press did the lead player fess up and take responsibility, and the other players, the ones with the irredeemably broken business model, are still in the the deny everything and hope it will go away mode. Here’s how this went down in the trade AND popular press, in approximate chronological order…

Lenovo Joins the Malevolent Side of the Online Advertising Industry - Gizmodo
Lenovo’s Superfish nightmare is a sign that marketing tech has gone too far – Venturebeat VB News
Lenovo CTO Admits It ‘Messed Up’ Allowing Major Security Hole Onto PCs - re/code
The biggest takeaway from ‘Superfish’: We need to push for “No OS” buying option.- Reddit /r/technology
Superfish admits installing root certificate authority to show ads on secure sites – The Next Web
Lenovo backpedals on Superfish adware, says it’s working to ‘restore trust’ - Mashable
Here’s How to Remove the Ghastly Superfish Adware From Lenovo Laptops - Slate
How to remove the dangerous Superfish adware preinstalled on Lenovo PCs - PCWorld
Lenovo CTO admits company ‘messed up,’ publishes Superfish removal tool - PCWorld
Lenovo finally admits its sleazy adware ploy put its own customers at risk of being hacked – BGR
Lenovo’s Superfish security snafu blows up in its face – C|NET
Here’s How To Get Rid Of That Nasty Superfish Vulnerability On Your New Lenovo Laptop - Consumerist
Lenovo has just released an automatic Superfish removal tool - The Verge
Bravo! Windows Defender, McAfee updates fully remove Lenovo’s dangerous Superfish adware – PCWorld
Lenovo Releases Tool To Remove The Sketchy Exploitable “SuperFish” Garbage It Pre-Loaded On Laptops – TechCrunch
Microsoft has updated Windows Defender to root out the Superfish adware - The Verge
Windows Defender destroys Superfish – Slashgear
Department of Homeland Security urges Lenovo users to remove Superfish - Mashable
U.S. Government Urges Lenovo Customers to Remove ‘Superfish’ Software – Entrepreneur
US government urges Lenovo users to remove Superfish, but the software maker denies security risk – The Next Web
CEO says Superfish is safe as US issues alert to remove Superfish from Lenovo PCs – PCWorld
Lenovo CTO admits Superfish put users at risk, talks damage control – Mashable
Lenovo slapped with lawsuit over dangerous Superfish adware – PCWorld
Or, just read the Techdirt complete Superfish coverage

Everybody has heard of “Pharisees” and “Sadducees,” and most Christians have a vague awareness that they were some sort of division within Judaism at the time of Jesus. These two groups represented philosophical, theological, liturgical, and cultural differences in Judaism during an era in Jewish history commonly referred to as the Second Temple period. This dates from the return of the nation of Israel from the Babylonian captivity when they re-built the temple, until the Romans destroyed the Temple in about 70 AD. So lets get some context here: who were these people?

The Sadducees were the priestly class, and most of the aristocracy and the wealthy among the Jews were members of this group. They placed strong emphasis on formal worship at the temple, in the role of the priests in offerings and atonement, and in strict and formal adherence to the Torah. Because the Babylonians did not allow a restoration of the royalty of Judah when the Jews returned from their captivity, this element stepped up to fill the power void, so temporal power and wealth also came to the Sadducees. Many of common folk of Judah saw the rebuilding of the temple as something foisted on them by foreigners, the Babylonians, and consequently they didn’t quite trust the Sadducees.

The Pharisees represent a different strain of Judaism, one that grew out of their exile of the nation in Babylon. Since there was no temple there, the common people among the Jews gathered to worship in assemblies—in Hebrew called a beit knesset, but you’re probably more familiar with the Greek term: a synagogue. They collected and began to write down the oral interpretations of the Torah, a document which in time became known as the Talmud. In many senses the Pharisees were very egalitarian, as they valued learning of the Torah and the Talmud most of all, and elevated their most learned men to the position of teachers, with a title of Rabbi. Despite their exile “only” lasting seventy years, for most Jews it produced profound changes in how their faith was expressed.

Sometimes the most fun in learning a little history is being able to see how it has shaped the world we live in today, and learning a bit about the Pharisees and the Sadducees is no different. Did you ever wonder why there’s been no truly strong move in the reborn Israel of the modern day to rebuild the temple? (I mean, of course, apart from the fact that the second holiest shrine of Islam happens to occupy the site…) And did you ever ponder why, despite the return of Judaism to Jerusalem, there are no Jewish priests—particularly in light of the important role they played in the stories of ancient Israel and Judah, and even in the life of Jesus? When the Romans destroyed the temple and once again exiled the Jews from their homeland, with no temple there was nowhere for the priests to perform their priestly duties. Consequently the Sadducees disappeared as a tradition in the Jewish faith, and they’re just not around to press for a restoration of the priesthood. But the rabbinical tradition of the Pharisees, created in exile, was built to order to survive in exile. So those we know as Pharisees in the stories of Jesus became what is now modern Judaism.

Our story today opens with Jesus responding to a group of Pharisees. They had heard that Jesus had responded to a group of Sadducees who had come to him with a question about resurrection—since the Sadducees didn’t believe in physical resurrection—and the Jesus had answered their question in a manner very different from what any of them had expected. So a Pharisee identified to us in the text as a lawyer asked Jesus a very rabbinical question: “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” This is the type of question rabbis routinely ask of each other and their students in an honest attempt to explore the depths of the law, but the intent here was to pose the question in such a way as to ensure that any answer he might give could be interpreted as being wrong. (Sounds like a classic lawyer kind of trick to me; I’ll bet this one was a litigator.) But Jesus doesn’t respond with one of the Ten Commandments. The version of the Ten Commandments I grew up with, from the King James version of the Bible, are a veritable litany of “Thou Shalt Nots.” But instead of picking any of those, Jesus reaches into other two other parts of the law to sum up the intent of all of those commandments in a far more positive manner.

Jesus starts off with a slight rewording of a verse—Deuteronomy 6:5—that was so familiar to his listeners that it is part of a scripture passage that even has a name: Jews call this verse the Shema from the first word of the phrase “sh’ma Yisrael.” The entire Shema is Deuteronomy 6:4-9 “⁴ Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. ⁵ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. ⁶ Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. ⁷ Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. ⁸ Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, ⁹ and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” This passage is often the first verses a Jewish child learns; today it is said twice daily in Jewish prayers, and probably was then as well. The most pious Jews in the time of Jesus wore small boxes on their foreheads and their arms, known as phylacteries, containing these verses as an physical expression of verse 8 “Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead.” So this was mighty familiar territory.

But Jesus changes one word of this oh so familiar phrase: he says “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Might becomes mind, expressing that this is something you have thought about, and that you have not only committed your heart and soul to, but your reason and intellect as well. I wonder if John Wesley may have considered this when  he propounded the four sources as a basis of theological and doctrinal development that we now know as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral: scripture, tradition, experience and reason?

Jesus then followed this verse with part of another verse from the Law: Leviticus 19:18 “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”

He sums the two passages up by concluding, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  His second verse and his conclusion are very similar to a quote from Rabbi Hillel, who said when asked to by a Gentile to explain the Torah to him, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.” This sometimes even leads to accusations that Jesus plagiarized Hillel.

But Hillel only restates the Golden Rule; even in their day it had been around for long time. Jesus, on the other hand, attempted to show through the primacy of love, that instead of worrying about doing things wrong—the “Thou Shalt Nots…”—that by living our life in love, love for our God, for our neighbor, and for ourselves, we could not but help but to live out the law. Thanks to the death and resurrection of Jesus, we no longer have to count on adherence to the law for our salvation, but instead are called to live our lives as He would have us as a response to the grace we have been granted. And we see that Jesus also made living in the light of His grace far simpler than rote observance of ten lines written on stone tablets: enabled by our faith in Him, all we have to do is love.

At the risk of being facile, I think an easy summary of what Jesus said we should do can come from the words of Paul. No, not Saint Paul; but rather Paul McCartney:

All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need

May you go and love: love God, love your neighbor, and love yourself. Illuminated by the grace of your Savior and empowered by your faith, love is all you need. Amen.

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The Spaffords and their four daughters booked passage on the steamship Ville de Havre sailing from New York. Spafford was delayed in Chicago by business, but told his wife and daughters to go ahead and planned to join them later. For some reason that he was unable to explain, at the last moment he changed their stateroom from amidships to near the bow of the vessel. Anna and the girls sailed, and halfway to Europe an English sailing ship collided with their ship amidships. Had they been in their original stateroom, all would have been killed. As it was, Anna and the four little girls were cast into the inky black sea. She frantically tried to save them but although she briefly grasped the hem of the nightgown of one of them they all slipped away. Anna was found floating unconscious on a piece of wreckage and was rescued. The ship had sunk in minutes and of the hundreds aboard, only forty-seven were rescued.

Back in Chicago, Spafford received a heart-rending telegram of only two words: “Saved Alone”. He immediately sailed for Europe. As he was enroute, the captain of the ship he was sailing on called him to the bridge. Pointing to the chart, the captain told him that they were just passing the spot where the Ville de Havre had gone down. As Horatio walked the deck in his sorrow, his faith was all that sustained him. It nearly moves me to tears each time I contemplate the depth of his loss. But he was overtaken by a feeling of peacefulness as he realized that he would see his daughters again in heaven. As he watched the waves rolling on the ocean he recalled the words of Isaiah 66:12, “For thus says the Lord, I will extend peace to her like a river…” and penned the words that have come down to us as one of our most enduring hymns:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows, like sea-billows, roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,

Chorus
It is well, it is well with my soul!
It is well with my soul,
It is well, it is well with my soul!

My sin, O the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part, but the whole,
Is nailed to His Cross, and I bear it no more;
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

How many of us could deal with our grief as Spafford did? He clearly expressed the confidence of his salvation, and the peace and solace that this assurance gave him. He had the ability to say that whatever his lot, it was well with his soul. While I know that the Lord can offer us such an assurance, I also know that despite my faith, I don’t know that I would be able to have such peace in my heart in the face of such tragedy.

Sure, I know I should. But faith is a difficult thing, it’s a gut-level matter for each of us between you and God. In our Old Testament lesson today, Moses has the opportunity to talk directly with God. God puts him in the cleft of the rock and covers Moses with His hand as He passes by, but Moses gets to see the Lord’s back. We are asked to believe without such proof, a belief that is only possible because of a measure of grace that God grants each of us, for we are called to believe without hearing His voice or seeing His passage. Fortunately the core of our faith, the strength, the very essence, is the same for each of us as that which Horatio Spafford felt. This power to believe is drawn directly from God, if only we will surrender to His will in our lives and allow His hand to touch us and fill us with the same faith that calmed the raging seas of sorrow in Spafford’s heart. He is there to sustain us when it seems like the pain is too much to bear. His love for us is such that we are called the Children of God; He cares for us just as a parent cares for a child. You always want to shield your children from pain and sorrow, but when that’s not possible you want to be there to comfort them and “restore their soul”.

God grants this faith to each of us, if only we will take it and use it. Horatio Spafford did. There’s much, much more to his story. As Saint Paul said of the Thessalonians in our New Testament lesson today, “And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers…” After their return to Chicago and the birth of two more daughters, the events of the preceding years led Anna and Horatio to reexamine the course of their lives. They decided to move their family to Jerusalem to get closer to Jesus, to be—as the Thessalonians were—imitators of Jesus and the Apostles. So along with several other families who accompanied them from Chicago, they moved into a house in the Old Quarter, between Herod’s Gate and the Damascus Gate, and dedicated themselves to a life of helping the poor of Jerusalem. This settlement became known as “the American Colony” and grew over the years. Several excellent books chronicle the growth and faith of the Colony, including “Our Jerusalem” by their daughter Bertha, and the Nobel Prize-winning historical novel “Jerusalem” by Swedish author Selma Lagerlof, which chronicled the lives of a group of her countrymen that joined the Spaffords and the American Colony to do the Lord’s work. Even today the original house in the Old Quarter of Jerusalem is the Spafford Children’s Center, still caring for the poor of Jerusalem, and well into the 20th century was run by Anna Lind, a grandaughter of Horatio and Anna Spafford. The Center still reaches out to people of all faiths, has four trustees that are great-grandchildren of the Spaffords, and has a staff that includes Christians, Muslims, and Jews—all working together to extend to Lord’s compassion to the poor.

Horatio Spafford’s faith moved him not only to praise but to action. Ours should to. Our actions may be as simple as a child’s quarter in the offering plate, or, just as the Spafford’s efforts invited others to join them in the Lord’s work, we can invite the new neighbor down the street to come join us in worship. (Did you know that the number one reason people try a new church is because someone invited them?) Just as the American Colony in Jerusalem helped the poor of that city, the United Methodist Church as a body does a great deal to help both those who are poor in earthly goods and those who are poor in spirit we all can help. The measure of faith that God grants to each of us not only sustains us in our times of trial but moves us to action to do the work of His kingdom on earth. It is my prayer today that each of us can feel the faith that God grants to us in full measure, the faith that truly can allows us to say “it is well with my soul”, the faith that allows us to echo the words of Horatio Spafford:

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
It is well with my soul,
It is well, it is well with my soul!

Let’s join together in singing Hymn 377, “It is Well With My Soul”. As you sing it, contemplate the faith God granted the man who could view his sorrow and loss and still say “it is well with my soul”, and remember that God grants that same faith to each of us if only we will allow it to fill our lives. Amen.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/