Buzz King: Grace & Joy thru Scripture

I once spoke to a young woman whose father had just died in a bike vs. car accident.  She told me that while her father had deep faith, she could not believe the "myths" in the Bible.  She read to me from Matthew, about the faithful being able to move mountains.  In this episode, we look at some of the Bible stories that are difficult to interpret literally, like the Creation story.  We consider why the literalist view is actually harmful and not simply misguided.  We consider the depth of the Bible and how a non-literalist view can indeed allow us to "move mountains".

I once spoke to a woman who was struggling to show true empathy for her mother, who was an alcoholic and had given this woman many terrible childhood memories.  She felt that there was no way she could care for her now very sick mother - and she wished God could send an angel to come from Heaven and care for her mother for her.  We look at angels in the Bible, in particular, in the Book of Daniel.  We see God send these heavenly beings to rescue people.  We also consider how this woman with the sick mother solved her dilemma of trying to show genuine love for someone she couldn't help but resent.

I once spoke to a young schizophrenic man who talked to me outside, after it had rained.  I was about to sit down on a very wet bench when he did something very kind.  We look at the Gospel of Luke, the Gospel that has a number of unique parables in it, including the Good Samaritan.  We look at the traditional interpretation, and we look at a more theological interpretation.  Then we look at the impact that this schizophrenic man had on me.

When I was a professor, I once had a French student accuse me of Xenophobia, of giving her a bad grade simply because she was French.  I was quite worried that this could explode into a serious problem, as universities want students to be happy and do not want claims like this making their way into the press.  I ended up putting my mother on the phone and letting her talk to this student.  The interesting part is that my mother was French.  We look at the Book of James.  We examine whether it was truly Jesus' kid brother who wrote it, and what it teaches us about dealing with problems, and interacting with people who are suffering.

When I was a young guy, I bought my first car with a steering column lock.  It locked up on me - with a key in the ignition - as I was taking a freeway curve at 75 miles an hour.  I went off a small cliff.  Yes, I said a quick prayer to God.  We look at Jeremiah, Isaiah, and a Psalm to learn just what we should be doing with our lives BEFORE we turn to God for help.

I once spoke with a man who had been undergoing treatment for cancer, but who was at the end of effective treatments.  It was time to let go, and as he put it, welcome the Kingdom of God.  But he had an adult daughter who was going through an extremely difficult time - and he wanted to be there for her.  So he had decided to continue treatments so that he could live a bit longer - even though he would suffer.  We look at the issue of "theology", what it is, and what it means to truly understand Scripture and what it tells us about God and our relationship to God.  We see how this man's understanding of theology ended up impacting his final decision about remaining alive.

I picked citrus with migrant workers when I was a boy.  They were paid partly by being given food in the field, which they insisted on sharing with me - who wasn't supposed to get any of that food.  They also picked the tops of my trees, to keep me safe.  We look at the Book of Lamentations, and a passage that focuses on the harsh impact on children as a result of the Babylonian invasion and slaughter.  We consider just what it means to be giving, especially to children, and who are most likely to give.  We also consider how my mother thanked the men who fed me.

I once visited a recently retired reverend whose wife had just left him and who was terminally ill with heart disease.  We talked about Paul's thorn in his side, and how this reverend was unable to handle the huge thorn in his side.  We consider the way that God created us: imperfectly, with imperfect lives.  We see that humility is the product of suffering, and that it has a number of major benefits, ones that greatly outweigh the benefit of having our thorn removed.

I once got to know a young woman who was an addict and who required a series of high risk surgeries.  Because someone slipped her drugs the night before one particular surgery, the outcome was horrific.  We look at the Book of the Covenant in Exodus and some words of advice to a new king in Proverbs - and then we consider the issue of how our society does or does not protect vulnerable people.

My father's father was a burglar in World War I and served in the trenches for two years.  He came back home very mentally ill and lived on the street in Quebec for the rest of his life.  My dad's mother raised my father alone.  When she was close to death, she gave me the only thing she had from her childhood, a cherished possession.  In doing so, she taught me a lesson that we see in Paul's writings and in the words of Jesus.

I once ditched a boring "team building" academic meeting to hang out for a bit with a bunch of jail prisoners.  One of them was a man who had been incarcerated for sleeping in the snow on someone's private property.  He was planning a Bible study session with the rest of his Christian inmates.  In this podcast, we look at Paul, who also proselytized while in prison - and quite successfully.  We see what this means when it comes to living not for the things of this world, but for the joy of God's world.

Quantum physics tells us that we understand very little about the physical matter that makes up the universe, the way we proceed through time, and the nature of events in the universe.  We consider Tony the ant, who lives in an anthill, bringing carrying huge crumbs of unidentifiable organic material back to the anthill.  The most important and powerful people who live in this world, who live in the Kingdom of People, are like Tony the Ant when he manages to bring back a piece of pure dark chocolate.  It is a blazing success that, in the greater scheme of the universe, is incredibly minor.  What truly matters is what we do in the Kingdom of God.  We consider what this means, how to accomplish it, and what the Bible says about the way God wants us to live in the anthill.

We look at Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, and at how I managed to get BuzzKing.com as my domain.  We see that Proverbs and Ecclesiastes both tell us about the importance of having a good name.  They also tell us that it is important that we, as believers, remember that we represent the Church at all times.  We need to protect our good name - and the good name of the Church.  We also see that there comes a time - at death - when all that we might have obtained by corrupting ourselves in this life disappears, and all that is left is our name. 

I once sat with a woman in her nineties who was on comfort care.  Her adult children could not be there because they were out of the country, so I was with her.  She ended up telling me why she had no fear whatsoever of death - and it had to do with Easter.  We take a bit of a biblical survey, looking at both the literal version of the Easter story, and at the more personal side of the resurrection story.  We see that getting caught up in defending the resurrection from a scientific perspective misses the true gift of Easter to each of us personally.

Luke tells us that Jesus died at a place called The Skull, from which we derive the Latin word Calvary.  I once saw a skull of a Pueblo Indian.  The goal of the display was to show us that the Pueblos ground corn with sandstone, and so when they ate cornmeal, they also chewed on grit, thus wearing down their molars.  But to me, the skull reminded me that real people - long dead - once lived in those cave dwellings.  Jesus chose his death at The Skull to tell give us the most important advice ever offered humanity, and he backed it up with Old Testament references.