Reverend Righteous Rants

When I was a student at Grove City College I was a guest on the Sunday night college radio comedy show. Or rather, my alter ego, Reverend Righteous, “supported” the Christian college’s policies and the rules of Student Affairs office. Recently I found some scripts of those live broadcasts…

A Word for Our Sponsor

Say Christians, looking for good clean fast food? Visit Jesus McChrist, Land of the Gold Crosses. This week featuring Jonah and Whale Fish Patty.

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Smuggling

Friends, I have been inspired. Yes, brothers and sisters after listening to last week’s Chapel on smuggling Bibles into Russia, I, Reverend Righteous, am organizing a trip to smuggle in popcorn poppers. Although popcorn poppers are not banned in Russia, they must be registered with Soviet Affairs, (a Godless commie plot) 

Now that they have Bibles I will bring them popcorn. Anyone wishing to be a teen-aged popcorn smuggler sign-up outside GeeDuck and I’ll get in contact with you. 

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Triumph!

Yes, friends, say hallelujah, Grove City College has won over the Devil’s plans once again. The Devil caused a power failure bringing darkness to North women’s hall Friday. His satanic plan was clear. When innocent girls sign good Christian boys in for intervisitation and an evening of registered popcorn popping, the Devil, hiding in the darkness, would overcome them forcing them to hold hands before marriage! Fortuantely, this evil was forseen and innervisitation was cancelled. 

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Imponderables

Did Adam have to sign Even in on an intervisitation sheet? If so, who worked the buzzer desk?

Did God allow Adam to walk on the grass in the Garden of Eden?

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Florida = Hell

I find ignorant people here admiring the alleged “suntans” of those who went to Florida for Spring Break.

Tans are the Wrath of God! You heathens who went to Florida are lucky you were not totally consume by hellfire for your wicked deeds in Florida. Did you not see the Devil dancing at Big Daddy’s or driving his red convertiple on the strip? 

O Wicked ones, you have felt the burning of the body for your sins, will you wait until it is too late to repent and condemn your soul to eternal tanning in hell? Be warned…there is NO coppertone in Hell!

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Sunday Night Fever

Forsake the Devil’s discos. Send for my new record: Sunday Night Fever containing the complete soundtrack of evening vespers. Containing such hits as:

If I Can’t Have Jesus How Deep Is Your Faith? • Fifth of Beautitudes • Jesus Talking
More Than A Man • Night Prayer • You Should Be Praying • Disco Hellfire
I Gotta Put On My Processional Shoes • Staying Alive in the Faith

Act now and recieve a letter from Paul!

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Hell Pie

I have heard about the pie throwing in Chapel. Most of you dismiss this as a harmless prank. It is not! It is a sign of coming tribulation! The end of the world is heralded by great disasters floods, plagues, etc. but the worst of these is shaving cream pies.

Throwing pies is the work of the devil himself. It was the devil that threw the pie in chapel. In an open attempt to destory the sacredness of a slide show and turn true Grove City Christians into slaves of the devil bring the church of God to its knees by throwing these hell pies.

Punishment should be of the severest nature. Death would not be enough. This terrible person should be forced to sit through an entire week of all the Key lectures.

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Hell Lawns

Reverend Righteous has heard some gumbling about the new Tri-Fuel plant conduits wasting energy and our tuition by melting the snow off the lawns. Could Grove City College be that wasteful? NO! My brothers it is hellfire, Yes, the hellfire of the devil is hearing the lawns of GCC, God’s Country Club.

Yes, because of the nefarious deeds of the student body (such as using illegal coffeepots and Godless popcorn poppers) The Devil has chosen GCC as a priority target. 

Consider these events: the closed Chapel is NOT HEATED but the mud outside the Gee IS HEATED. Who but the EVIL ONE could have done this!

Heed my warning, Beat the devil. Pledge God this winter.

The Top Ten Ways You Know Its Time To Go To Church

10. You haven’t heard enough crying babies and snoring men this week
 9. You want to sleep with strangers
 8. You just can’t get any good organ music on your radio
 7. You have nothing to eat for breakfast
 6. You need an excuse for a Sunday morning drive
 5. You need more guidance than the newspaper horoscope provides
 4. You’re getting way too much sleep on Sunday morning
 3. Why watch preachers on T.V. when front line seats are available free!?
 2. Your children’s only religious practice is Trick or Treat
 1. You’re sick of O.J.’s testimony and you want to hear the truth for a change

By members of the High School Sunday School class, Aubrey Barnes and Mandy Mahoney at Ottawa Presbyterian Church in Ottawa, Ohio. 1996. Christy Ramsey is to blame for the class activity.

A Medal for Humility

Medal for Humility

Medal for Humility
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

 Micah 6:1-8 

Some of the Beatitudes are tough. How are those that mourn blessed? Or the persecuted? Sometimes we take a trip on the denial river and guess that the blessings are after the sadness…that the tragedies and heartbreaks of this life will bring greater goodness, and blessings in the future. A heavenly insurance check to pay us back for the disaster in our life. For some, this brings comfort in sorrow, but for many, it is a cruel dismissal of the pain and discount of the sorrow they are suffering.

This confusion is only made worse by the alternative translation for the theological challenges of our day replacing “blessed are” with “happy are”. We strongly suspect we are not blessed in these situations, but we are sure we are not “happy”.

One of the top salespeople in an office I worked in, Elliot, was constantly on the phone with customers. Every conversation, several times, I would hear him repeat his signature phrase, “You’re good. You’re good.” Often, he was on the phone because there as a hiccup, a mistake, or a downright disaster. But Elliot was there, telling them, “You’re good.” He didn’t mean the situation was good, or that the customer was a good person, but that the situation was contained and controlled, and, most importantly, he was with them so it was going to turn out okay.

Blessed, Happy can mean a good place, not a place without sorrows and strife, but a place where God was too along with sorrows and strife. “Good with God are the poor” You are right where you are supposed to be and God is right there as well. You are in God’s care and You’re good to being there.

How can we get into God’s place, where we’re good to be. We want to buy a shortcut or get a good price on God’s favor. Micah rejects this transactional mindset by exaggerating what price God requires. Not just a container of precious oil but rivers of it. Not just one ram which one could spare from a herd but a thousand rams, more than anyone would be able to sacrifice. It is never enough. Humbling huh? Focusing on the quick fix price instead of the long term problem is not an option.

What are we do to then?

Exactly.

Micah wants us to realize we can’t buy God’s favor with gifts or rituals. The only thing is to live in a relationship with one another in mercy, mourning, righteousness, mercy, peacefulness, and solidarity amidst persecution. And God says we are blessed, happy, or maybe even “You’re Good.”

Micah tells us how we are good with God.

Do Justice

It isn’t rules and lawbooks, and certainly not about revenge. Doing justice is being right with one another. Fitting. Where folks have what they need to live. Mother Seton taught that we should “live simply so others may simply live”

As we get more people on this planet who look to be great consumers like we Americans, this would be good to reflect on. Living simply as a matter of justice so that others may simply live is much closer to Micah’s mind than calling other God’s children “illegals”, so we don’t have to consider them as people we are connected to by God’s justice, but God’s desire that we live and do what is right for all the folks.

Love Kindness

The Rev. Mr. Fred Rogers of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood tells us “There are three ways to ultimate success: The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind.”

The word Hasid is way to hard to translate, even using two words. Loving-kindness. It is love in a relationship that helps and binds us to another person. A good marriage of partners helping one another. I think a good support group or counseling or true old friends. Where folks are accepted, loved, heard, and encouraged just as they are.

Maybe the Reverend Fred was thinking of Micah’s world when he said: “Imagine what our neighborhoods would be like if each of us offered, as a matter of course, just one kind word to another person.”

Walk Humbly

I got a medal for humility…the first time I wore it they took it away. We believe that pride, like wearing a medal, is the opposite of humility. But the word in Micah 6:8 for the kind of walk we are to have with God is not a walk of shame.

My son Robert has a good kind and faithful way about him. Where most children yearn for the independence of walking free of the hands of a parent from an early age. Robert held our hand almost into middle school. Sometimes it was just palm-to-palm touching. We told him he didn’t have to; thinking he would be relieved of the limitations and emboldened by our trust, but he said, “I like touching your hand…because I can feel your speed.” He wanted to walk with us and touching helped him feel our speed so he could stay beside us.

Humble is not just finding the lowest place in the hierarchy of privilege and obligation. Humble is also an acknowledgment that we are not all things all by ourselves. Humble is being mindful of others, of our place in the larger web of relationships.

The word translated as “humbly” in Micah 6:8 could also be rendered as carefully or mindfully. Walk with the awareness that you are with God. Walk mindfully with care with God. Put out your hand so you can feel his speed.

We Are The World

We Are the World

a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey

Sermon from Worship Service Mary 26, 1985
at First Presbyterian Church in Rochester, Indiana.

Get the vintage PDF here!

Acts 2:1-13

Today, most Christian churches are celebrating Pentecost, the last major Christian holiday that hasn’t been discovered by the advertising and sales agencies. At Advent and Christmas, we celebrate Jesus Christ coming into the world, at Pentecost we celebrate Jesus Christ going out into all the world. Listen to this description of events at the first Pentecost recorded in Acts 2:1-13. This the story of the day the worldwide Christian church was born.

This speaking in foreign languages or ”in tongues” as the King James and Revised Standard versions translate this section is not a ”heavenly” tongue that is understandable only by those given the gift of interpretation. It is a gift that allows me to hear someone and understand another pers0n and enables that person to hear and understand me no matter what language we speak. It is like having an instantaneous translator whispering the translation into your ears.

Due to this new understanding, all were amazed and confused saying to one another, ”What does this mean?”. 0ur reading from Acts 2 tells us about a new, amazing thing that happened, the gift of the spirit and the birth of the Christian church. What happened? Does this describe it? ”Behold, they are one people and one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do, and nothing that they propose to do will be impossible for them.” I think that is a very good summary of what happened that Pentecost.

The only problem is that this quote is not about the Pentecost experience in Acts. It is not even in the New Testament! It is in the Bible, in Genesis chapter 11, in the story of the tower of Babel. God says this to himself right before he confuses the one language of humankind into many tongues and separates humans into different peoples.

Pentecost is the reversal of Babel. Where at Babel humankind was separated by language, at Pentecost all were united by language. Pentecost brought down the barriers of different language erected by Babel in Genesis Chapter 11. At Babel, the Bible tell us that human language was confused and humans were divided. Here, in the New Testament, all humanity is united with one language. They can understand one another no matter what their nation is, no matter what their language is.

In Acts 2 all the people HEAR. This is usually the proof text for glossolalia, speaking in tongues, but the emphasis here is not on speaking but on HEARING. This not a new kind of babbling but is Babel in reverse! Now all understand, hear each other. The Spirit of God, the master builder laid the foundation of the church against the rubble of Babel. While human selfish, power-hungry efforts to build leads to confusion, God’s sacrificing, power-giving efforts to build leads to hearing, to understanding. The birth of the church occurs in the context of listening to one another. As Christians our birthright is listening and hearing each other.

Pentecost is God’s vision for the church, united together. Not that everyone exactly alike, but that all different types, races, nationalities, political and economic beliefs, are united by God’s Spirit understanding one another as well as if they all were our own brothers and sisters.

On Pentecost there came the newness promised by Jesus that replaced the old way of relating of to God. Following Jesus as a disciple had ended but had given birth to the church. The loss of the personal relationship as Jesus’ disciple was real. Yet only by this loss, was the possibility of the good that is the church able to become real.

When we choose the spirit, we lose the other choices. We must put aside our pride and individual distinctions. I becomes we. We say good-bye to rivalry, to power-plays, to privileges we get because of our economic status, our race, our nationally, or our sex. We lose much, so we can gain the fruits of the Spirit.

I think this is why people were afraid of the change that happened during that first Christian Pentecost. The newness was so overwhelming they couldn’t accept it, they mocked it as the drunken result of new wine, and they refused to believe such a thing could happen by being confused and perplexed. For they were losing something, they were losing their identity as Parthians, Medinan, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Asians, Egyptians, Libyan, and even Jews, becoming united as new members citizens of Christ’s land, Christians. The gain was great and good, but the loss is still real.

I like to think the song ”We Are the World” captures a piece of the Pentecost spirit, the spirit of all humankind joined together. There are some that laugh and mock that idea. They jeer at the efforts of others in advancing God’s will that all people live together in one big family, all different, but all caring for one another and understanding each individual. In the first century, they say they were filled with new wine, drunk. Such a vision of peace was possible to only to one drunk. Today they might insist that pea -c· e is possible only if the ”other guy” changes first or that peace among all people is the responsibility of someone else, government, the church, or even rock and roll stars. Friends, there is no other guy, we are the world, we are the children of God who have been called since Pentecost almost two thousand years ago to live together as one people.

The World must come together as one. This is the promise offered by Jesus Christ to all those who repent and are baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sin into God’s great big family. Make the change, let us realize that a change can only come in this world when we all stand together as one faithful people having taken the name of Jesus Christ.

We Are The World

Written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie

There comes a time when we heed a certain call
When the world must come together as one
There are people dying
And it’s time to lend a hand to life
The greatest gift of all

We can’t go on pretending day by day
That someone, somewhere will soon make a change
We are all a part of God’s great big family
And the truth, you know,
Love is all we need

Send them your heart so they’ll know that someone cares
And their lives will be stronger and free
As God has shown us by turning stones to bread
So we all must lend a helping hand

When you’re down and out, there seems no hope at all
But if you just believe there’s no way we can fall
Let us realize that a change can only come
When we stand together as one

CHORUS

We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let’s start givingThere’s a choice we’re making
We’re saving our own livesIt’s true we’ll make a better day
Just you and me