Defining orthodoxy or heresy is a tricky business, and it depends in large measure on the views of whoever is doing the defining. For much of our lives, some of us have been branded as heretics by people who considered themselves the epitome of orthodoxy, and others of us who are more orthodox have fitted in very nicely with those who agree with us on nearly everything.

For many reasons, life gets messy. We mess it up ourselves, others mess it up for us, or it just gets messed up through no particular fault of anyone. Someone you love is engulfed by a situation over which neither of you has any control, or he or she is afflicted with a serious illness, or she or he is the victim of a stolen identity, or someone from the past has surfaced to vex him or her, and now both of you are victims of the vexing. Someone close to you spends money like water, and it results in a constant financial crisis. It’s a mess, a colossal mess. How are you going to resolve it? Is it resolvable?

It seems so counter-intuitive. WE don’t believe in everyone. We don’t love everyone. Who could believe in or love people who murder teenagers in Israel, whether the murderers are Palestinians or Israelis? Who could believe in or love a man who allegedly left his young child in a hot car to die? Who can believe in or love priests who sexually abuse children, or drug dealers who deliberately hook innocent victims on crack cocaine or pain killers or heroin, or religious zealots, who kill in the name of religion? It is not so hard to imagine that God believes in us, in you and me, because we believe ourselves to be relatively upright and righteous people, but how could God believe in some of the people we know or read about or see on television?

First, we need a very brief explanation of terms. The word “libertarian” has been around for a long time, while the word “communitarian” is of fairly recent origin. Libertarian philosophy has evolved into promoting as little government as possible and as much personal freedom and personal rights as possible. Communitarian philosophy, on the other hand, readily accepts the necessity of government, although it doesn’t necessarily see government as a panacea. It promotes the good of the whole populace as compared to the good of the individual and individual freedoms and rights. In a single but admittedly exaggerated statement, libertarianism focuses on me and communitarianism focuses on us.

Death comes to everyone and everything. All animals die, all plants die, all trees die, all people die. Even mountains die, in that over millions or billions of years they eventually erode into dust. The molecules of all dead things are reconstituted into other animate or inanimate things, and the process of life and death goes on forever. Thus everything and everyone, including you and me, shall die. It is written into the very nature of nature. Nevertheless, what is to be gained by Christians affirming death? What is to be gained by acknowledging the inevitability and even the benefit of our death?

It is very likely there have always been extremists of various sorts: religious, political, cultural, social. They are the ones who insist that their beliefs alone are acceptable, that their narrowly-defined politics alone are correct, that their strict observance of certain customs and mores are the only proper ones, that the races or sexes or social classes should always be kept apart for the benefit of what they think represents valid social cohesion.

It is only fair that I begin this sermon with a clear caveat for all of you. I am not a Trinitarian Christian, although I believe I am a Christian. I have become increasing skeptical of both the validity and the theological arguments which led to the doctrine of the Trinity. A second caveat: Many have doubted that I am a proper Christian at all, and have told me so with zeal.

Moses had a tough time trying to lead the children of Israel in the desert. Again and again they strayed from the straight and narrow in favor of the crooked and wide. It was just one thing after another for forty years. After the people crossed the Red Sea on dry land, or more likely on moderately damp land, if the story is to be believed as told, they came to the Sinai Desert. To this day, hardly anyone is able to live in the Sinai, so it is not surprising the Israelites were not thrilled to be there. But it was the only way they could get from Egypt to the Promised Land.

War is always glorified, both by those who win and by those who lose. The US lost the War of 1812, or most certainly did not win it, but to read our history books you’d never know that. We also lost in Viet Nam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, but our children and grandchildren will not be told that. Maybe our great-grandchildren will learn the truth. But even then, those wars will be glorified, because if wars can’t be glorious, then why on earth would anyone fight them? Why indeed? There’s a question well worth asking, fellow citizens!

Is faith something that either you do have or you don’t have, or is it something that you do have but maybe not enough? Is faith a constant, or is it an on-and-off reality? Does our faith sustain us through certain situations, but not through everything? Do we trust God equally all the time, or unequally some of the time?

Time and again throughout this perplexing tome, Job has demanded that God appear before him. Finally, at the beginning of Chapter 38, God does speak to Job. And in very pointed and painful language, God tells Job that he, Job, has some nerve in accusing God of causing all his troubles. God reminds Job of many of the mysteries of creation, and asks the understandably disgruntled sufferer if Job understands the intricacies of the natural order.

“If I didn’t have bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.” How often have you heard someone say that? It is an ironic statement intended to bring some humor into painful circumstances. And when bad things happen, if we can laugh, even in our sorrow, we are certainly better off.

Stuff happens. Good stuff and bad stuff. But what explains it? Can it be explained?

“There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job,” the story starts out, “and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil” (Job1:1). It is very important to keep that in mind as we go through this whole perplexing tale.

I always wondered why Yeshua chose me. Frankly, I think he could done a lot better. I was flattered; don't misunderstand. And I was very pleased. Yeshua gave a meaning to my life which had been missing ever since nature made me the last of the line in our family and the runt of the litter back there in Zippori. With Yeshua I felt for the first time in my life that I really counted for something. I didn't know for what, but surely for something --- or why else would Yeshua have made me a disciple? I still have many doubts about a proper answer to that question, but I am convinced there must be one, because Yeshua was a man who clearly knew what he was doing.

Within an hour, after we had listened to Yeshua and heard him tell about something he called the kingdom of God, which none of us really understood, either then or now, we were ready to leave everything behind, at least for a while, to follow after him. I am an especially impulsive man, and I have always jumped into things without thinking. Leap before you look; that's my motto! Speak before you think! I don't know why I'm like that, but that's the way I am.

You can say whatever yuh wanna, but Ah'm tellin' yuh: Ah ain't no traitor. Ah'm sick and tired of hearin' how Ah'm the only guy in the whole bunch who's a rat.

My name is Pontius Pilatus. My family name, Pilatus, means "Armed with a Javelin," and I think it describes me well. I have had to live with a weapon in my hand for my whole adult life.

...I was born into one of the oldest and most prestigious families in all Judea, or "Yudah," as we still prefer to call it. Besides having been born well, I also married well. My wife's father, Annas, was himself the high priest for ten years before me. Between him and me there were three others who were appointed, but none of the three lasted more than a year. I have held the highest religious office in the land now for twelve years.

...let me first introduce myself to you. I am Natan bar-Schlomo; I think you would say Nathan, the son of Solomon. My father farmed a beautiful piece of land in the Valley of Jezreel which had belonged to his father, which belonged to his father, and so on for perhaps forty generations, and now I farm the same land. It is said in our family we have belonged to this valley since the time when Gideon fought the Amalekites and Midianites on the Hill of Moreh, two hours' walk south of where we live, where the Valley of Jezreel starts to be called the Plain of Esdralon.