The Joshua Victor Theory

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.  A rapidly growing technology in our everyday lives is Voice Recognition, which tells one person’s voice from another. They say that our “voiceprint” is unique, just like our fingerprints.  The technology is rapidly being developed, even though it’s been around since the dawn of mankind. God designed our brains to be incredible information processing systems, and all of the mind-boggling “technology” of Voice Recognition is programmed into your mind, and works without you even having to understand how!  Just because it's so ordinary and common to us that we recognize so many unique “voiceprints”--we don’t ever really stop to be amazed by the huge processing and identification task that our brains go through instantaneously when we recognize, oh, that’s mom, or dad, or my sister or my friend from work or church or wherever. Not only do we need a finely tuned and worki...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Our Old Testament reading from 1 Kings is a couple of verses short, because someone took out the repetition of a question and answer between God and Elijah. The prophet Elijah meets God on Mount Horeb, another name for Mount Sinai. So what is the repeated question and answer? God asks: “ What are you doing here Elijah?” The first time God asks this, Elijah has arrived on the mountain and is staying in a cave. The second time is after God has beckoned him outside of the cave, to witness the tearing wind, the earthquake, the fire, and the gentle whisper. Then God repeats the question, in the gentle whisper: “ What are you doing here Elijah?” Both times Elijah answers exactly the same: “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to...

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Psalm 10 opens with these cries out to God, “ Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” In times of trouble, don’t you feel like God is hiding? The Psalmist cries out, “Where are you God?” “Why aren’t you helping?” “Why are you so far away?” How often have you wondered the same? Is there anyone who hasn’t, at the lowest times in their life, felt like God was hiding His face, even when we were calling out to Him in prayer? In the midst of suffering? Or when evil seemed to be rising out of control? When earthly justice failed, and there seemed no help from heaven? In these trying times, we naturally think like the Psalmist, that God is hidden or distant. This is a favorite type of scene for moviemakers, because it strikes a chord with our experience. Often they show a person in ultimate despair or loneliness, and they are crying out, but ...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Much is familiar to us in the Gospel reading today. The experience of families who wrestle with the terminal illness and the death of a child. The experience of individuals with chronic disease, incurable by doctors, growing progressively worse while money runs out. The experience of suffering and death by those inside the church community, and the isolation and loneliness of those experiencing the same outside the church community. The wish to remain invisible in the crowd, or the urgency to get Jesus’ help quickly and without delay. They are all familiar emotions to those who struggle with the daily challenges of life, with faith and prayer to God. Even the experience of being mocked for believing that death is not final, holding out hope against all despair, that Jesus can deliver us even from death. Jesus, who is at the center of it all, does not behave as the people there that day expect or necessarily...