ExtraChristy - Podcast J. Christy Ramsey

Finish Finish a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING Audio from worship at the 11 AM Worship Service October 9, 2022 via Zoom at Valley Presbyterian Church, Bishop,CA edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.  2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18    Sermons also available free on iTunes I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Fight, finish, and I’m going to go with fidelity because I can’t remember unless they all start with the same letter. So fight, faith, and fidelity. Those three things is what Paul lifted up. Or whoever wrote 2 Timothy. If you want to start an argument with anybody, just go up and say, “As Paul says in 2 Timothy.” Oh, my gosh, they all yell at you. Paul didn’t write 2 Timothy. That was somebody else, and the letter uses a totally different vocabulary I had one guy in seminary that said, “Well, you see, Paul had that shipwreck. And when he had a shipwreck, he hit his head. And when he hit his head, his whole vocabulary changed. And so that’s why 2 Timothy doesn’t match up with the rest of the letters.” I thought it was a stretch, but whatever. Whatever this was, this was somebody trying to say, or Paul saying, what Paul was like on the very last days, month of life. He had lost the first appeal. He had already been there. And it looks like where he’s sitting now he’s going to go off to be killed by empire for going against the king, going against – meddling with politics. Oh, my gosh. And so at this time he sort of looks back over his life, according to this author of 2 Timothy, and he says these three things. Instead of being upset or angry or depressed or giving up or regrets, instead he says three things: Fight, fidelity, finish. Now, you can say the good fight is that he did it according to the rules, that he had the umpire with him all the way, the officials said he was okay, he counted the mats, he didn’t cheat and all that. I don’t think so. I think the good fight is something worth fighting for. Something that is worth fighting for is a good fight. John Lewis, a politician and a great leader of our country, talked about getting in, not fighting, he talked about getting in good trouble. He talked about good trouble, to get in good trouble. You could always tell John Lewis because when everybody else was out marching ready to get beaten up, bloodied, and tear-gassed, and they were in their work clothes for getting beaten up, bloodied, and tear-gassed, John Lewis was the guy in the suit. He came, he was serious. And John Lewis was saying that if you see unfairness, if you see injustice, if you see someone being oppressed, you have a moral obligation to speak up, to walk, to shout, to call attention, to shout, to sit down, to demonstrate, all the things you can do to make that right, in fact, to get in good trouble. Good trouble. Trouble that is worthwhile for getting into. John Lewis, at the end, he had a book come out. And it kind of reminds me of 2 Timothy, you know, because it was a collection of his thoughts and essays. He’s supposed to have been involved, I don’t know much involved it was, at the very end of his life. And the last book came out, it said: “Carry On.” Carry on. And his idea was that he would have a book, the last book of his life, to pass the torch to the next people, maybe some sitting here, to work for the good of the people, good of the country. Carry on. Fight the good fight. Stand up, speak out, get in the way. Get in trouble. Good trouble. I think that’s what Paul got in. He got in some good trouble. I also want to talk about keeping the faith. Now, keeping the faith could be also, could be that you preserved, that you persevered through all your life, that you didn’t renounce Jesus, that you kept the faith. And, you know, kind of a personal inside yourself, all to yourself. But I like to think it’s more like fidelity, you know, kept th

Believe Believe a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING Audio from worship at the 11 AM Worship Service August 14, 2022 at Valley Presbyterian Church, Bishop,CA edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.  Luke 16:19-31    Sermons also available free on iTunes I want to talk to you about truth. And why we can’t believe it. Why we have so much trouble with it. Now, again, I must warn you in these times that if you think truth and lie is political, you get another political sermon today. Hopefully it’s not as long. But if you think that truth is a good thing for Christians to consider when we follow the guy, the savior, the son of God that calls himself, what?, the way, the truth, and the life, well, then this is a faithful sermon. I mean, after all, truth is Jesus’s middle name. We should be able to talk about that as Christians. What is going on in this scripture? Is this the weirdest scripture ever? Is it true? Ooh. That’s a tough one. If you’re saying, Christy, is it true, is this a transcript of a conversation between heaven and hell and between Abraham and the rich man who has no name, and Lazarus, who doesn’t say a word in the whole darn story, is that true? Is it a transcript? Did Fox News have a reporter there transcribing everything? Was it on a podcast? Was it captured by a secret recording device? Is there video? If there’s video, didn’t happen. If you say all that about being true, well, I don’t know. If you’re saying, Christy, is this a roadmap to heaven and hell? Is this a way to figure out how we could go with heaven and hell? Can we measure the actual chasm? How deep is it? How wide? Can we sing about it deep and wide or what? Is it true that way? I’m not so sure. And maybe even step back further, and you say, Christy, Christy, is this all about heaven is a place where those who have a lot get tormented, the rich get tormented, and those that have suffered get comfortable, so it’s okey-doke, the great wealth inequality and divide today, because after all it’ll get all sorted out in the afterlife? Is that what this scripture’s about? Now, most preachers will tell you that the whole thing is on the last one, that even if someone would rise from the dead, they would not believe them. Jesus is kind of predicting what would happen when he comes back from the dead and people don’t believe him. But I don’t know if Jesus was really thinking about that when he told the story. What is true in this story? Strangely, I think what is true is the last line, that people don’t believe based on evidence, based on what they see and what they know. They do it the other way around. We don’t take a whole bunch of little evidence and then come up with the truth. We don’t do that as a people, as a species, as human beings. We don’t do that. We’re not like a whole bunch of scientific instruments and measurements and rulers and spectrographs and that we figure out what is true. We’re not like the James Webb Telescope where we look out, we take those photons and assemble them into galaxy and the truth of the universe. We don’t do that. There is a book called Noise that just came out, and it’s by a really big thinker named Daniel Kahneman. Here’s what he said on Science Friday in July. We have the wrong idea about where beliefs come from, our own or those of others. We think we believe in whatever we believe because we have evidence for it. Because we have reasons for believing.   Reasons. When you ask people, why do you believe that, they are not going to stay silent. They’re going to speak. They’re going to give you reasons that they are convinced explain their beliefs. But actually the correct way to think about this is to reverse it. People believe in reasons because they believe in the conclusion. The conclusion comes first for us humans. And the belief in the conclusion in many cases is largely determined by

Barns Barns a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING Audio from worship at the 11 AM Worship Service July 10, 2022 at Valley Presbyterian Church, Bishop,CA edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.  Luke 12:13-21    Sermons also available free on iTunes   If greed is your politics, this is a political sermon. I hope it’s not a political sermon, and that greed is not your politics. Because you may think from the beginning that the sermon is about or the scripture’s about Jesus said I’m not going to be a divider or an arbitrator. I’m not going to be your financial counselor or your family intervention specialist. I’m not, just like with Martha and Mary the last time I preached about telling the other sibling to do what I want, well, I’m not going to tell you and your brother how to get along with money. But later on Jesus says to everybody, he really knew what that was about. It wasn’t about fairness or judicial process or financial planning or any of that stuff. It was about greed. And he tells the story about a man with the land that produces very well, and what does he do about it. Now, some people will hide their greed, not so much in dividing their inheritance among their brothers, but they will say this. Have you ever heard this? Have you said it? Don’t raise your hand if you did because it’s a bad thing. If you said “The church needs to run like a business.” You ever hear that? “We have to run the church like a business.” Or “We have to run the country like a business.” That is usually a cover-up for greed. Because what is the business, then, if you say the church, or the country, or the nonprofit, or the family has to run like a business? Who’s the customer? What’s the product? Who do you serve? Well, yeah, if you’re running a government like a business, well, then you have the product of governmental services and graft and corruption and all that. And you give it to the highest bidder, the one who will pay you the most, and the rest of you forget about it. You know, hey, if you want some government services, how about giving some money? You know, this is a business. I’m not in it for my health. The same thing with the church. Running a church like a business, that usually means I’ve given a lot of money to this church, and I’m not getting a lot back. You’ve got to run like a business, you know, take care of your paying customers. That’s not with the church is about. The church is one of the only institutions that exist primarily for those outside the institution. And that’s not very business-y. 12 Step has this tradition, as well. 12 Step’s tradition, you probably wonder in a 12 Step group, any of the recovery groups, you may say to yourself, hey, what’s a recovery group for? Well, it’s for those folks that go, those poor folks that go to the recovery group to recover. That’s their purpose, their meaning, and their mission. I mean, they’re the paying customers; right? No. It says right in every recovery group the tradition is that their number one purpose is for those that are still suffering. That’s not very business-y. It’s for the other people, not the customers. It’s not so much the problem with money or with riches. You say, oh, well, he’s just all against the riches. He’s all about terrible awful things. But no, it’s not about that. It’s about who does that serve? Who is it for? The little zing right at the end, you know, man, those things you have prepared, who will they be for? You know, that is a good question to ask before you die. All these things that I have prepared, who are they for? Who is my life for? Who are my riches for? What am I here for? Warren Buffett, who we talk about, has a philosophy. He’s one of the world’s, I don’t know what number he is, he’s like eighth or something. He’s getting up to $100 billion. He says his money is not his. And he

Choices Choices a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING Audio from worship at the 11 AM Worship Service June 12,2022 at Valley Presbyterian Church, Bishop,CA edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.  Luke 10:38-42    Sermons also available free on iTunes You know, it occurs to me that everybody is pro-choice, as long as it’s their choice. Everybody agree with me? I’m pro my choice all the time. It’s those other people with their choices that’s a problem, not me. We’ve got problems with being pro-choice. And I’m not talking about the political thing, although I could because if politicians can say “thoughts and prayers,” I can say “laws and policies.” It’s only fair. Stay in your lane, politicians. Go do some laws and policies, leave the thoughts and prayers to the professionals. No, we have trouble with the pro-choice movement, not of our own choices, but of others’ choices. And today’s Juneteenth, and we’ll be talking about that in a little bit. And that’s a lot about choices. We look at all the choices that are coming up before us. Well, maybe. Folks will use the Lord, lies, and law to make their choices the choices for everyone. Lies, the Lord, and law. Look what Martha did. She comes right out, now, does she go to Mary saying, Mary, Sister Mary, how about giving me a hand? Give Mary the choice. No, she goes to the Lord and says, “Jesus, you make her do what I want.” You know that’s the best kind of sermons, best kind of religion. What is that? The kind that make other people do what we want. I mean, it’s the next best thing to being God, if we can get Jesus on our side to make other people do what we want. And more and more people are saying that. You know, they want to take away choices of other people and say there’s only one way to heaven, and that’s my way. That’s a narrow road, and I’m at the head of the line. The rest of you, get back there in single file. We have so much trouble with choice now. And when people make choices, no, we don’t choose his choice, we like our own. We’re have trouble with other people’s choices. Huge issues and troubles with some choices and some with not. Do you know there’s people that – all the kids have left, mostly. I think there’s one back there sleeping. But you know, the big thing now is supposedly drag queens are a threat to our children. Suppose that. Well, I want to tell you, I don’t know, I haven’t done a particular scientific study, but I am pretty sure that, comparatively, men in dresses are a lot safer for children than men in camo. Why don’t we outlaw dressing in camouflage and carrying guns instead of outlawing high heels and sparkly nice dresses? How many drag queens have gone into a school and killed children? And I’m saying zero. You know, we’re only talking about the old trans- and not all drag queens are transsexual, but we’re only talking about 0.6 of the population. 0.6, and we’re all bent out of shape. What do we care what somebody else wears? I’ll tell you why. We don’t know how to treat them. I mean, should we oppress them? I mean, they look like a woman. They should be oppressed, then; right? Well, but they’re a man. We’re just all confused, us men, us white lorded-over men. I mean, that’s the real problem. We don’t know whether or not to oppress them. So we go ahead and do it anyway. Choices. You can’t choose to dress that way. Can’t choose. I’m old enough to remember the big deal about long hair on men. Can’t tell whether it’s a boy or a girl. I go, why is that so important to you? What are you planning? What does that mean? I don’t know. It’s a little strange. Choices. Now, there’s a lot of folks that will tell you about this scripture. It is a little confusing scripture. Jesus is kind of cryptic here. He’s talking about debtors’ choice and best part. What does that mean? You know, som

What Does It Mean What Does It Mean a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING Audio from worship at the 11 AM Worship Service May 8,2022 at Valley Presbyterian Church, Bishop,CA edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.  Acts 2:1-21   Sermons also available free on iTunes Right about below the middle there, you see that, all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” That’s Acts 2:12. For many years I had that as my license plate, ACTS212. And people, you know, what does this mean, amazed and perplexed. And people would come up to me, and they would point at my license plate, and they would say, “What does this mean?” And I said, “Exactly.” Yeah, they didn’t laugh either. But I enjoyed it. It was fun for me. It was self-referential. They’d look at that, were confused and perplexed, and they said, “What does this mean?” And I said, “You’re absolutely right. You got it. What does this mean?” What a great attitude to go through life. I mean we have here a wonderful, amazing occurrence where everything is turned upside down. Have any of you had anything like this in the last two years? You know, where you thought you knew what was going on, but now things are closed, things are changed, you can wear a mask, you can’t wear a mask, you’d better wear a mask, get a vaccine, not a vaccine, oh, my gosh, spinning all around. You’ve got to bleach down everything. Oh, no, it’s breathing. Oh, my gosh, everything’s messed up. The government’s going to give you money to not go to work. Well, that used to be bad. I heard that was bad earlier. That was a bad thing. No, everybody’s going to – oh, okay. I don’t understand. We’re going to give you loans, but you don’t have to pay them back. Well, that’s not really a loan, is it? I don’t think. Everything’s turned upside down. Everything’s crazy. Just like here. And you know, you look at all these residents of Mesopotamia and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, and you just say, oh, my gosh, I’m glad I didn’t have to read scripture today. That’s one of the worst scriptures to – you don’t like someone in your church, and you’re a pastor, you say, “Hey, would you like to do the scripture for Pentecost?” “Oh, why, thank you, that’s quite the honor.” Oh, yeah, quite the honor. Then they get to the Acts, and they go, “Oh.” The strange thing besides the strange words here, if we were in the crowd, if we were reading the scripture when it originally was written, we would say, hold on there. Those people have been gone for centuries, for generations. In here, they said there are people here where nations haven’t existed for generations, for hundreds of years. How could there be people from nations that aren’t around anymore? Peoples that have been exterminated, that have been extinct, wiped out. They’re in the list. Amazing things. And it’s not just because of that, but because everybody hears in their own language. Now, you may think, well, you know, the Pentecostal church, I know what that is, that’s where everybody gets up, and they start speaking the heavenly language no one can understand but angels. Well, sure. But that’s not this. This is the opposite of that. It’s not about the teaching. The only tongues that we talk about are tongues of fire, not tongues in your mouth. The miracle here is the miracle of listening, of understanding, that everybody, no matter where they’re from, no matter what time they’re from, no matter what country they’re from, whether they’re Jews or not Jews, everybody hears in their own native language the almighty powers of God. It’s a reversal of Babel. Remember Babel back in Genesis, a great story back there, in that when people got together and said we’re going to make a name for ourselves, we’re going to build up this great big tower all the way to heaven. And then whe

Straining to Forget Straining to Forget a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey DOWNLOAD A LIVE RECORDING Audio from worship at the 9:30 AM Worship Service April 3,2022 at Lee Vining Presbyterian Church, Lee Vining,CA and given that same day at 11 AM at Valley Presbyterian Church, Bishop, California Both Services were via ZOOM™ edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine. Philippians 3:4b-14   Sermons also available free on iTunes “Morning, Swimmers. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on a bit. Then eventually one of them looks over to the other and says, “Why did that oldster call us ‘swimmers’?” And the other fish said, “Don’t worry about that. What the heck is water?”  (From the 2005 commencement speech at Kenyon College by David Foster Wallace.) We don’t think of society that we swim in all our lives. It’s invisible to us. Even though it’s all around, supporting us, hemming us in, up and down and all around. And Paul doesn’t think about society when he talks about his position in life. Paul’s terms are remote and romanticized. Pharisee? What’s the educational requirements of the Pharisee? Who is a Pharisee? What is a Pharisee? We might think we know, but we don’t. A medical procedure done on the eighth day? What does that matter? And what is the Benjamin tribe? Why does that make a difference? You know, you want to know, what does Paul sound like today? Well, I thought about it. And here’s my intro letter to the Presbyterians. If anybody has confidence in being a preacher, it’s me. I was assigned male at birth and, bonus, identify as male. I’m a cisgender person, a heterosexual in a heteronormative culture. I can say who I love in any state, and I can hold hands with my beloved in public. I can tell a grade schooler in Florida that Betty Lynn is my wife, and I love her. And my marriage is just marriage, not straight marriage. And it’s recognized by hospitals, courts, insurance, and yes, the all-important wedding RSVP. I’m a citizen from birth of the United States of America, of the Cleveland Browns people; a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant born of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. I’m not in danger of exile from the only country I’ve known because I was brought here as a child. Nor am I told sharply to “Speak American” when I use my native language, even though it is more native to this land by 15,000 years than the King’s English brought here by colonizers. As to the law, I am a proud 48-year holder of a driver’s license and an insurance card. I hold the same country’s passport for the last 40 years. I’ve never been a refugee, an alien, or a migrant. I have a health insurance plan group number and have added recently a vaccine card with, yes, four shots recorded. My papers are so legit, I don’t need to show them when I use a check or credit card. As to zeal, ha-ha, I am a high school, Presbyterian College, and Presbyterian Seminary graduate, first-time passer of all five Presbyterian ordination examinations, an ordained Presbyterian pastor licensed to wed in four states and bury in all 50, recently elected by my Presbytery to Stated Clerk. My religious holidays are federal holidays, and work and school closings and seasonal greetings follow my religious calendar. 93% of Americans celebrate my religion’s Christmas with me. How many times did you remember to wish others a Ramadan Mubarak this week? As to righteousness under the law, no felonies, not even a misdemeanor. A clear background check and a credit score above 750. Graduate of the Sheriff’s Academy. Not so much me, but thanks to my whiteness, I can drive at night. I can sit on a porch. I can jog any road, stand on a corner, and barbecue at a park without vigilantes or police involvement and a criminal record. This is just normal for me. Maybe it’s normal for you. It’s a sea I live unaware that there is water all around me, holding me up. What is t