Complicated…

Deke really could not find a better word to describe “Dread” than that which the seemingly omnipotent being had used to describe himself. On the one hand, he seemed utterly vain and sadistic, creating Ravenloft for his own amusement, while on the other hand, Dread seemed fairly just, imprisoning some of the most foul and wicked beings in that dreadful realm. He seemed to have power supassing that even of the “gods” of Faerun, but he said that even he was a created being, albeit chief among them. Who created Dread? Did that creator have a Creator? So many questions…

Deke tapped his finger twice on the bar and the well-trained barkeep knew to bring him another pint of ale, his eighth.

Never had Deke felt so powerless, so insignificant, so powerless. Even when his father had been murdered by Darksparkle, he felt that he could do something; he thought that he was in control of his own destiny. Now he wasn’t so sure. Had Dread known about Cain’s bargain before Cain offered it to him? If so, then there was really nothing Deke could do. Knowledge is power. If Dread was truly omniscient, then he was omnipotent and there was nothing Deke could do to save Cain. But Deke really had no way of knowing whether Dread knew his current thoughts. Could he really pay attention to everything at once?

Cain had not fully solved the problems in Faerun. It seemed as if Cain had pruned the weeds without getting to the root, for Womai was still alive and well, far more powerful than Bloodborne and far more malevolent. However, Womai had not yet destroyed the free peoples of Faerun either. Deke had always been willing to sidetrack his larger quest for the sake of his comrades, as he had left the party with Cain to recover Drakesbane during the campaign against Muhrann. Deke had no hesitation as to what he should do. The only question was how…

Deke tapped his finger on the table but the barkeep was nowhere to be found. He groggily rubbed his eyes and staggered to his feet in the dark, empty room.

Now for it! At some point during the night, perhaps while he was passed out Deke had found his solution. It was certainly something he had to do before he sobered up and his wisdom kicked in…

Deke slowly lumbers up to the battlements and cries into the dead of the night:

“ALL RIGHT DREAD! IF YE LIKE TO MAKE DEALS ‘N PLAY GAMES, I’VE GOT ONE FOR YA! YOU WANNA BE AMUSED? TRY THIS ON FOR SIZE! GIMME A CHANCE TO REDEEM CAIN! PULL ME AN’ TRYTO AN’ JONATHAN INTO YOUR SADISTIC LITTLE REALM! PUT US TO THE TEST! IF WE PASS, YOU RELEASE CAIN TO US, BUT IF WE FAIL, I SHALL BE FORFEIT TO YOU; FOREVER YOUR SLAVE! CAN YOU HEAR ME DREAD?! IF YOU WANT SOME EXCITEMENT, I’VE GOT A BELLY FULL!”

“Amateur,” thought Deke as he gazed in the dark at the corpses of the elite Tristadi bodyguards, and, more specifically, at the field plate armor it had taken himself and Zynthoid all of five seconds to breach. “Look at this! No range of motion, an (h)uge gap between the breastplate and the epaulettes. Any fighter worth his weight in mutton could exploit this. Shabby…”

“Speaking of shabby,” Deke remembered that he had two handprint-sized holes in the shoulders of his chain mail. His shoulders were still a little tender from his odd supernatural encounter. “I guess I’ll be doing some mending during my watch,” he muttered. Deke had saved the material he removed when he shortened the suit of mail and would use it to mend the small holes left by the handprints.

He had woken up a little early for his watch and decided to take a walk to wake himself up.

With little else to do, Deke had taken up his armorsmithing in earnest during the years he spent in Ravenloft. He had used his engineering knowledge to build his own forge and had masterfully crafted armor that turned his town’s militia from a ragtag band of broadsword fodder into a formidable defensive force. It was a lonely existence, and had caused Deke to become increasingly like his taciturn ancestors. He would spend days simply drawing up designs for the perfect suit of armor, the amount of crumbled paper in the corner amounting daily to a month’s wages for a member of the Leneasa town guard, where his adventuring career began. During this time he had finally begun to see the wisdom of the words his father, Ebanezar, spoke to him when he was but a wee lad.

“Deke, ye cannah survive in battle on offense alone. Ye can kill yer opponent with a wee pebble if ye place it right, but it dannah matter much if ye doonah live to see the next battle. Learn weapons ahnd yull burn brightly but not fer long; learn defense ahnd yull be tellin’ this to yer wee great-great-grandson.

He thought back to that day.

His father was caught by surprise by the raid of the drow, and didn’t have the opportunity to get back home for his shield and armor. He grabbed two bastard swords from fallen comrades and assailed Darksparkle. Though he did a great deal of damage to the evil invader, a cheap, poisoned dart got the best of him. He became sluggish; his attacks became fewer and further between until Darksparkle finally cleaved his head from his shoulders with his vorpel blade. Would that dart have hit him if he were properly armed? Doubtful… Would Darksparkle have gotten the best of him if he were wearing his armor and using his shield? Also doubtful.

But on that day, Deke was too shocked, too angry to think clearly. He grabbed the bastard swords from his father’s body and went out for looking for revenge. Perhaps he was also suicidal from all that happened to him. He knew his style of combat was foolhardy, he knew he would not live to see his children, much less his great-great- grandchildren, but he fought this way nonetheless, nearly dying several times without using his brain, needlessly rushing into battle hoping he could kill them before they killed him. Reckless… Foolhardy… Maybe Isharra was right. Deke was one-dimensional…

The time alone without adventuring gave Deke thousands of hours to reflect upon the past and to self-consciously form a combat philosophy. He had never been adequately armored. Even the magical field plate he wore before he came to Ravenloft restricted his range of motion more than he would have liked, as he would often curse under his breath when he took a hit he would have otherwise dodged. There had to be a way for Deke to protect himself. “That’s why Jonathan never got hurt,” he would think, “nobody could touch him.” Deke remembered back to his dream and to that polyhedral armor that nearly any direct blow would glint off of without harming the wearer. As Deke analyzed that armor, he realized that it was simply a fancy alteration on plate armor, and would still limit his range of motion. He thought of ways he could preserve the range of motion without leaving vulnerable soft spots in the armor, often frustrating himself with the apparent paradox. He had to craft armor that would perfectly suit his unique abilities and idiosyncrasies, for the perfect style of armor for Deke would be an annoying hindrance to Cain and fail to take into account the subtleties of mounted combat that would better suit Jonathan and Zynthoid. Armor had to be crafted to the individual user in order to be of optimal use. The armor Deke had worn was not crafted to suit him. A master armorer does not mass-produce generic armor to collect dust on shelves but crafts armor to suit specific, wealthy clients. Weight was not an issue, as Deke could don lead armor weighing 300 pounds, without even being affected by the weight, but he needed the range of motion to take advantage of his agility. Could he make something that protects better than full plate, but grants the mobility you would find with studded leather or chain? It seemed like a pie in the sky dream, but when you have a lot of time and enough motivation, the impossible becomes improbable, and the improbable becomes reality. The mithril Sash of the Martyr his father had given him provided a model for…

SASH OF THE MARTYR! The thought of his most prized possession jolted him back to reality. He had no idea where it was. He hadn’t had it the whole time in Ravenloft and had no idea where it could be now. He had kept hope, a fleeting wisp of hope, the whole time in Ravenloft that it would mysteriously reappear in his possession when he returned to Faerun. If he ever returned to Faerun… Now that he had returned, without the sash, the last vestige of hope fled from him. He wanted to cry but knew he could not. “Spare your tears, dwarf,” Cain would callously and coldly admonish him, the way he did when Deke pleaded for the opportunity to fight Darksparkle that first time. Deke could not cry; he refused to cry, but had to vent his emotion somehow.

Rage…

Deke let out a primal yell that surprised even himself and kicked the lifeless body of the Tristadi bodyguard so hard it flew five feet into the air and landed with a muffled thud in the tall grass a full fifteen feet away. After a minute, Deke came to his senses, as his heart rate subsided and the adrenaline became diluted within his bloodstream. He looked at his hands and saw his own blood. In his rage he had rent his chain shirt with such force that it removed some of the skin from them. The shirt was now but a long flat sheet of mesh, lying on the ground next to him. He soberly picked up his chain shirt and returned to camp. It was now time for his watch, and he would now need to spend all of it mending his shirt, all the while reflecting on how this new power Rhal Afar had granted would affect him.

Who is like You, O LORD?  Indeed, to ask the question is to answer it.  For You alone are from everlasting to everlasting.  You alone are uncreated, One God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity.  You keep Your covenants eternally.  They shall endure long after heaven and earth pass away.  You alone are able to perfectly remember mercy in Your justice, to redeem Your elect, to conform them to the image and likeness of Christ, and to build the church.

Let us shout for joy and be glad, for You are unrelentingly faithful to Your people.  With a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, You delivered Your people from slavery in Egypt and parted the Red Sea that they were able to cross on dry land.  You vanquished Og of Bashan and Sihon of the Amorites.  You redeemed Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba.  Though their sins were like scarlet, you have made them white as snow.  You ordained the random arrow that slew Ahab from before the foundations of the earth and converted Nebuchadnezzar.  Is anything impossible with You?  Grant us faith to more continuously believe it!

Let us say continually, “Let the LORD be magnified, Who has vanquished sin and Satan, Who has bound the strong man and is now plundering his house through the foolishness of preaching to prove that it is by His hand and not by the false wisdom of man.”  Let us extol You, O LORD, for You are taking us, a ragtag bunch of misfits and outcasts, quarrelsome, petty, and bloodthirsty, and building us into a glorious and spotless bride.  You alone can accomplish this, for You raise the dead to life.  Like Jacob, we are limping toward glory against all odds because You have commissioned it.  You are building Your church and the gates of Hell shall not stand against it.  Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember Your name O LORD, our God.

And our tongues shall speak of Your righteousness and of Your praise all the day long, for these tongues belong to sheep who have been redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, and nobody can snatch us out of His mighty hand.  It is in His name that we dare to approach Your throne Almighty Father, through the Holy Spirit, amen!

Today I preached my second sermon at Christ Church of North Carolina.  I preached on Proverbs 11:1 and the title of the sermon is “Weights and Measures: Just and Unjust.”  In it I deal with such issues as honest business dealings, fraud, fiat money, and a basic overview of Christian economics.

Feel free to listen to the sermon, provide feedback, and share it with anybody whom you believe may benefit from it.  Like any endeavor you need a lot of practice at this to get good at it.  I’ll probably need to preach a hundred sermons before I come into my own.

The sermon audio can be downloaded here.

The manuscript of the sermon in PDF format can be found here.

While you’re at it, check out the Christ Church sermon archives page here.

Like all things at michaelduchemin.com, you are free to distribute these under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 unported license.

PDF of sheet music here

Piano accompaniment here

Soprano part here

Alto part here

Tenor part here

Bass part here

As with all material published on this site, you may freely copy, distribute, and even sell this hymn for a profit under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

“Yahweh plays with dragons, and growing up into the glory and wisdom of the sons of God means growing up to play with dragons: Like Father, like son.”

I wrote the whole sermon out in manuscript form and deviated from it some when I preached it.  Apparently my pages got out of order somehow and pages 3 and 4 were at the very back of the stack.  I’m very thankful for all the people who were praying for me and for the warm reception I received from everybody afterward.  Feel free to listen to the sermon, provide feedback, and share it with anybody whom you believe may benefit from it.  Like any endeavor you need a lot of practice at this to get good at it.  I’ll probably need to preach a hundred sermons before I come into my own.

The sermon audio can be downloaded here.

The manuscript of the sermon in PDF format can be found here.

While you’re at it, check out the Christ Church sermon archives page here.

Like all things at michaelduchemin.com, you are free to distribute these under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 unported license.

Well, what did my Master do?  What did His servants do during the early days of the church that are recorded in inspired history?  When Lazarus died, Jesus wept.  Jesus, who understands the Father’s glorious plan better than anybody, wept.  Jesus, who knew that he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead just a few moments later, wept.  Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life, wept.  What about Paul, the hero of reformed and Calvinistic churches?  Did he always preach (or write, for that matter) in a calm, cool, collected manner?  Did he lecture?  Nay, he often preached with tears.  He even provided an apologetic for them: “For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears; not that ye should be grieved, but that ye might know the love which I have more abundantly unto you. (2 Cor 2:4).”

Indeed, God is sovereign.  If he decrees that I shall break down in tears, no passage or illustration is safe.  He can use the leprosy passages in Leviticus to bring me to my knees.  He is sovereign over my emotions; I am not.  I am but a servant; the Lord will feed his sheep as He sees fit.  I must seek to be a faithful servant of Christ.  If I maintain my composure–if I am in my right mind–let it be for the glory of Christ and His gospel!  If I am to be a fool and choke back tears in public, let me be a fool for the sake of Christ and His gospel!  If He sends tears, let them be a drink offering and a thank offering, poured out before his throne.  Only let Him feed His sheep.  He must increase; I must decrease.  Here I am, Lord, send me.  Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.

But I am an American evangelical.  I have seen tears abused for wicked and manipulative pretexts by peddlers of the gospel.  Ginning up crocodile tears to pad your wallet or to make a name for yourself is an abomination.  God is not mocked; He will judge, and then the tears of those hucksters will be real.  But should the counterfeit tears of the televangelist cause us to fall into the other ditch?  There is good reason to oppose the syrupy, squishy, evangellyfishy, Jesus-is-my-boyfriend treacle that we see around us, but we need to follow scripture rather than reacting against the prevailing error.  There is a certain aspect of American reformed and Calvinist culture that operates as if our bodies only exist to take our brains to and from church.  I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t been influenced in some way by this.  We are Christians, not Vulcans.  Christianity is incarnational.  Both of these ditches have latent Gnostic assumptions and both of them are inconsistent with the Incarnation.  If you think you can do theology without it erupting into doxology, your theology is wrong.  Period.  I don’t care how many fat books with small type you’ve read.

It’s still a few weeks until I preach.  I may find as I write the sermon that the illustration doesn’t fit with my overall theme, or that it distracts from it.  The Lord may take me in another direction.  That would be a valid reason to exclude it.  A fear of looking foolish is not valid.  As for now, it stays in.  I’ll just make sure to wear my glasses instead of my contact lenses when I preach.

Our Father, we thank You for wondrous love that raised us out of the very dust of death.  You did not withhold Your Son, Your only Son Jesus, whom You love, but sent our great Redeemer to rescue us and turn Your well-deserved wrath away from us .  We praise you for the obedience of our Good Shepherd Who laid down His life for us, the sheep of His pasture.  No one took it from Him, but He laid it down of His own accord.  We rejoice that the grave could not hold Him, and that in Him neither will it be able to hold us.

Let us come and behold the works that have been wrought by you!  You have made great desolations in the earth.  You make wars cease to the ends of the earth; You break the bow and cut the spear in two; You burn the chariot in the fire.  You smote Pharaoh and Sennacherib with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.  You shattered Sihon and Og with a rod of iron.  You crushed the serpentine heads of Sisera and Abimelech under Your foot, using godly women to accomplish the feat for Your glory.  You avenged the betrayals of Ahithophel and Judas.  You outwitted Ahab, and hanged Haman on his own gallows.  So shall all Your enemies perish!

You are a consuming fire.  You broke out against the sacrilege of Nadab, Abihu, and Uzzah.  You struck down Ananias and Sapphira and caused Simon Magus to perish with his money, but You did not consume the bush when you spoke to Moses, neither did you consume your servants Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego when they were cast into the fiery furnace.  In your mercy, you rescued Joseph out of the miry depths of the dungeon and delivered Daniel out of the den of the lions.  Who is like you, O Lord?  You alone are worthy of our praise, which we offer to you in Jesus’ name through the power of the Holy Spirit, both now and forevermore, world without end.  Amen.

Blog changes

Last night I decided to redesign the look of my blog and rename it.   It is now called “Of the Way” which is a possible English translation of my last name.  I borrowed the structure of Chris Pearson’s press row theme and customized it.  I created the banner myself in GIMP while Shelley (an accomplished graphic designer and proprietor of Purple Line Design) only mocked my profound lack of skills a little bit.

Life

In the past couple of months we’ve gone on a couple of long-weekend trips.  Memorial Day weekend we decided on a whim to go see Shelley’s brother’s Jake’s family and her sister Amy in Carbondale, IL.  I got home from work and Shelley jokingly mentioned going to see them.  I thought it would be an adventure, and within a couple of hours we were on the road.  We drove all night and arrived at about 8:0o Saturday morning.  Janelle had a ball playing with her cousins and we thoroughly enjoyed the visit.

Because we’re gluttons for punishment, we took another “ground red-eye” trip (departing at 6:oo p.m. and arriving at 10:00 a.m.) a couple of weeks ago to visit my family in New Hampshire.  The visit went well.  My mom’s side of the family had a reunion, so I was able to see nearly all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins.  The night before we went back home, my grandparents came over and we played forty-fives.  The return trip was brutal.  We got to Cary at 3:30 a.m. and slept in the driveway of our friends’ vacant home.  Then I had class for the Study Center at 6:30 a.m. and work at 8.

Speaking of the Study Center, I just completed my first year there.  My last class was this past Wednesday.  I am very thankful to Christ Church of North Carolina for their investment in me.  The average cost (tuition and fees only) for an independent seminary’s M-Div program was $12,267 per year (and they are cheaper than university-affiliated and college affiliated seminaries).  I paid $300 plus books, which is about 2.4% of the average seminary.  Christ Church obviously didn’t profit monetarily from this.  I am grateful for the work of Gene Liechty, Dell Cook,  and especially Gregory Soderberg, who serves as the director of the study center.  All of these people worked for far less than the going seminary professor rate.

I am scheduled to preach my first sermon on Sunday August 1, 2010 on Psalm 148.  I’m not especially nervous in terms of the public speaking aspect of it, but I am a bit daunted by the weight of the responsibility.  The session of Christ Church is calling upon me, a sheep, to feed the sheep.  Who is sufficient for these things?  May the Holy Spirit provide illumination that I may speak truth in the sight of God in Christ and that I might be used as an instrument to feed the sheep of His pasture.