This is an audio version of Mike Murphy‘s Friday rumblings. This is a regular post on Facebook that I’ve turned into a podcast. I decided Mike’s words needed a wider audience. You may agree or disagree with what he says, but there is certainly much food for thought contained here. You can friend Mike on Facebook for the printed version or read it below.

Rumblings. 11.24.23

1. “The secret of the Muppets is 

they’re not very good at what they do.

Kermit is not a great host,

Fozzie is not a good comedian,

Miss Piggy is not a great singer,

None of them are actually good at it, 

but they freaking love it!

and they’re like a family, 

and they like putting on the show,

and they have joy,

and because they have joy,

it doesn’t matter that they’re not good at it.

We should all be Muppets!”  ~ Brett Goldstein, who played Roy Kent on Ted Lasso

In a world gone crazy, finding joy and being joyful is both a gift to ourselves and to others. There’s already far too much sadness being passed around. Joy, we’ve got to find the joy.

2. “The Bible is not a Christian owner’s manual  but a story – a diverse story of God and how his people have connected with Him over the centuries, in changing circumstances and situations.” ~ Pete Enns, The Bible Tells Me So

The Bible is far more than  “basic instructions before leaving earth.” The Bible certainly does have its share of ‘do this and don’t do that’ passages but why settle for such a utilitarian approach to reading scripture? 

The Bible, as I understand it, is a set of writings produced by a variety of writers, over a long period of time.  Some parts of it are simple to understand but there’s a whole lot that’s challenging and complicated. Sometimes the writing is gorgeous, other times it’s clunky. Its content is both delightful and terrifying. It lifts us up and it also brings tears to our eyes. It changes moods on a dime. Check out the psalms if you doubt that. It takes us into the depths and the heights of faith. It seeps into our hearts, souls and minds. It chronicles the history of both the faithful and the skeptical. It compels us to ask questions and it’s not all that surprising to discover that the answers are oftentimes shrouded in a bit of mystery.

And our personal response to the Bible, what should it be? Eugene Peterson wrote: “You’re supposed to be honoring the Message, not writing graffiti all over it.” 

3. I’m reminded of the words of A. Lincoln who famously said at Gettysburg “…now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether this nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure…” 

Today, we are still  at war with ourselves. It’s a civil war that’s testing us and tearing at us. We all have decisions to make regarding where we stand and why. We also need to choose how we will engage with others, especially those we disagree with.  

4. “God of My Life,

I’ve heard it said that

you won’t give me more 

than I can handle. 

That is patently false –

I can’t count how many

struggles have gotten

the better of me.

But this I know to be true:

You bear all of my  

afflictions with me.

You feel each cut, bruise,   

and scar – not because

you must but freely,  

as an act of love. 

Thanks to you, I am  

not defeated!”

     Donald K. Nelson, ad gloriam Dei

5. Providing security and protection for people who feel threatened is a big bucks industry these days. Why? There’s lots of reasons for it but I do know that, in the political arena, those who stand tall and push back hard on that guy with the orange hair and limited vocabulary are rightfully fearful that a segment of  MAGA faithful will come after them with a vengeance. So, they have to find ways of protecting themselves and their families. 

MAGA loyalists are threatening people. And what does the MAGA leader do? Pick three. 

1. Asks them to stop
2. Nothing. 
3. Blames the victims and calls them names. 
4. Makes fun of Joe Biden for being old.

6.  “Every storm runs out of rain.” – Maya Angelou

I’m impatient. I want our culture wars storm to run out of rain like right now. Right now ain’t going to happen is it? 

But I can still pray my hopes and speak them out loud. It doesn’t sound like much but it’s all I got. I choose to believe that God hears my prayers.

7. Late night hosts  always have a humorous take on what’s going on in the world. We need that.

“And then after her  show in Argentina, Taylor Swift comes offstage, and Travis Kelce is there. She runs towards him, jumped into his arms, and then he ran her back 57 yards for a touchdown. It was incredible.” ~ JIMMY KIMMEL

8. “The crisis within the US church has almost nothing to do w/ being liberal or conservative; it has to do w/giving up the faith & discipline of our baptism & settling for a common, generic US identity that is part patriotism, part consumerism, part violence & part affluence.” ~ Walter Brueggemann

“If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”  ~ Stephen Colbert

I’ve been thinking that perhaps it’s time to recruit and train a new brand of ‘missionary’ who will commit  to living among, befriending, and having winsome conversations about life, faith, meaning and purpose with Christian Nationalists, secular MAGAites, nominal mainliners, anti-faith progressives, and smug liberals. The need is great, the work will be hard (earning the right to be heard is never easy) and in some ways could be dangerous. 

9. “Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior…. We mysteriously find ourselves willing to pick up litter in the street, or let others go first in traffic….

You breathe in gratitude, and you breathe it out, too. Once you learn how to do that, then you can bear someone who is unbearable. My general-purpose go-to mystic Rumi said, “There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground,” and bearing the barely bearable is one of the best.

When we go from rashy and clenched to grateful, we sometimes get to note the experience of grace, in knowing that we could not have gotten ourselves from where we were stuck, in hate or self-righteousness or self-loathing (which are the same thing), to freedom. The movement of grace in our lives toward freedom is the mystery. So we simply say “Thanks.” Something had to open, something had to give, and I don’t have a clue how to get things to do that. But they did, or grace did.” ~ Anne Lamott

10.” You can pray until you faint, but unless you get up and try to do something, God is not going to put it in your lap.” ~ Fannie Lou Hamer

Civil rights activists like Hamer understood that faith and works are not mutually exclusive. They are part of the whole – both essential to the ongoing work of the Kingdom of God. 

“You can no more show me your works apart from your faith, than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand and glove.” ~ James 2, MSG