WELCOME TO CHINZY AL'S COMIC RACK

CHINZY AL'S COMIC RACK

 Many know that I  collect comic books.  When I was a kid in the sixties, I bought and traded comics to build up my collection. I purchased comics from many places. One of the places I bought comics was from the corner store two blocks from my grandmother's house in Hillyard, Spokane, Washington.

              I don't remember the name of the store, I only know that everyone who shopped there called it Chinzy Al's. 
              I don't know the owners real name, or where the "Chinzy Al" moniker came from  ( I heard it first from my aunt Emily Teeters, who we all called "Aunt John" ( don't know where that nick-name came from either, but I digress).
             I do know that the Chinzy adjective fit.   He never liked kids in the store unless they were going to buy something- right away. 
             Which made it difficult for kids who wanted to buy candy, bubble gum cards, or comics but didn't have a lot of money to spend.  So we would  take some time  looking over the wares to decide what to get.  Comic book buyers had a particular hard time, because "Chinzy Al" would often yell at us for "wasting" time looking through the comic books to decide what to buy.  He would often say things like, "You want to read it, buy it!",
So we had to spin the racks and judge what comic books we wanted, pretty much based on the covers.

                I remember for example, buying this comic book based only on the cover.  That's because I had already read the previous two issues so knew what the story was about.

                Anyway, the corner stores with the  spinner racks are pretty much gone now.  Instead we have the comic book store.  But  what is unfortunate is that we have all  become "Chinzy Als".  We have put comics in plastic bags, and even had them sealed, and expect people to buy comics based solely on the covers.
               So I thought I would have some fun with that memory.  From time to time, I am going to stick on this website a selection of comic book covers.  All comics in the group will have been published about the same time, and were likely on the stands at the same time.  I would like my readers to judge which ONE comic book they would buy if they could only afford one- based solely on the cover, and let us know.  
                I welcome your votes on which one you would buy and I would like to hear  your reason.  Also, if you have a story about any of the posted comics, feel free to share that story too.  After a week or so, I will share with you the comic I bought off the stands that month, and which ones I had to leave behind (sob!).
If you have scans of any comic covers for the selected month, you are welcome to send them too, and I will try to include that issue on Chinzy Al's Comic Rack.
                  First, a note about comic book dates.  The dates on the covers of comics indicated when the comic was to be pulled off the stand.  So, comic books were often found on the racks 2,3,or 4 months before the date listed on the cover.  So, Christmas themed and other comics on the stands in December may be dated in January February or March of the subsequent year.
                   For our first selection of  books on Chinzy Al's Comic Rack, we will have comics with a cover date of  February 1962.

SERMON : EVEN OSAMA BIN LADEN HAD A MOM

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER SERMON  May 8, 2011

When I say  to someone that the bible has two parts, most people will nod their head.  But they will almost certainly think that the parts I am referring to are the “Old Testament” and the “New Testament”.

But when a Lutheran says the Bible has two parts, we are referring to a way of interpreting scripture,  We divide passages of the Bible as either Law or Gospel.

The first lesson today is a good example of how we can distinguish between Law and Gospel because it contains both.

Let’s take a look at Acts 2:36-41

Peter, shortly after Pentecost,  speaking to the strangers gathered around him and the other disciples, accuses them all of complicity in a murder.   Specifically he says:

 God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

Imagine the audacity of that statement.  .  It would be equivalent to today someone accusing you of  being involved in a terrorist attack

This would not be a recommended way to win people to Christ today,  and more likely it would get people to throw things at you.

This is the Law part of the Bible                                                                            

O and by the way, Happy Mother’s Day.!

Why must we have a Mother’s Day?

How could we be so thoughtless and unappreciative of our mothers, the one that bore us, and gave us life, that we would have to set aside a certain day to remember them?

 Shouldn’t we honor and praise God for our mother’s each and every day of our lives. That is what the  Fourth Commandment demands of us; that we honor our Father and our Mother each and every day.  Instead, we make it easy on ourselves, and think that we can give our mother’s a couple of hours on the first Sunday of May, and think that is enough!.

What I have just done is the same thing that Peter did  with his words to the crowd.  His words came from the holy Spirit and were done to elicit a particular response from the people in the crowd.  His words and mine, were designed to “cut to the heart”.

That is what the Law does.

What does this mean, being cut to the heart.   Today we would say that the Law convicts us. Here is the way that Rev. Adrian Dieleman explains it.

To say or do something with conviction does not mean you say or do it because you know it is the right thing to do.  To say or do something with conviction is to say or do it because you are aware of your own sin.

 “When you are cut to the heart, you find God to be so pure and holy and glorious that His presence terrifies you. When you are cut to the heart, you are overwhelmed by your sense of sin and shame and guilt. When you are cut to the heart, God and hell become overpowering realities. When you are cut to the heart, you don't want God to be close but you don't want Him to be far away either; His presence scares you but His absence scares you even more. You feel repelled – because of the darkness of your sin. And, you feel attracted – because He is the light. Like the Pentecost crowd, you may not know where to turn or what to do.”

And that is where  Peter revealed to them the other part of the Bible, the Gospel, the good news, the Kerygma.  What must you do. Repent and be baptized, because God has  forgiven you your complicity in Christ’s death. God has forgiven you all your sins.-  for Christ’s sake!.

Now, not everyone who hears that they are complicit in the death of Jesus will respond in the same way   Acts 5:33 But they, when they heard this, were cut to the heart, and determined to kill them.

When a murderer is exposed,  he may either confess it, deny it or justify it..  This week we found out about the death of Osama Ben Laden.  He was a murderer who justified his murder of others. For most of us, the news of his death made it a day for some celebration. 

This was a man who not only is responsible for the death’s of thousands of people, but  also for a lot of  troublesome changes and expense in our government and our lives.  And I confess that I too felt some satisfaction in knowing he is dead. 

Yet, Jesus tells us to pray for our enemies?  We must  remember that Jesus died for the sins of all, including Ben Laden.  And we should feel sorrow that Ben Laden did not repent his sins, and is lost.  And if we cannot do that, it is a sign that we too need to repent of our sin, that we would rejoice in any persons death and damnation is a sign of our own sinfulness.

Even our very reasonable ,human desire to take joy in the death of  a mass murderer is a sin. But again, if we are convicted of sin, and our response is repentance, we are then ready to receive the good news.  God forgives us our weaknesses and failures.  That promise is for us who are, in Peter’s phrase, a long way off, in both time and space.

But if we compare ourselves to Ben Laden or Hitler to minimize our sinfulness, we deceive ourselves.  Each sin, no matter how apparently innocuous or harmless, adds to the pain Christ suffered on the cross.,  But we can take comfort in this, because that is the path to forgiveness.

On the cross, Jesus did not ask his Father to forgive everyone,  He asked God the Father to forgive those involved in his crucifixion.

As Lutherans, we acknowledge, like Luther himself, that the  Jews alone were not responsible for Christ’s crucifixion.  Each sin of ours is another cut or bruise unto the body of Jesus.  We are accessories to his murder.  We have blood on our hands.  But God has forgiven us.  In the waters of baptism, the tell-tale blood on our hands is washed away and we are made pure and clean again.

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:7). Amen.