What’s in your wallet? I just came across three raffle tickets I bought from my mother-in-law in Louisiana. The drawing was on April 30th. Since I haven't gotten a check in the mail, I'm assuming someone else won the money. There were three Hoosier Lottery tickets, all losers. What I usually say when I hold a fist-full of losing tickets is, "I never win anything." But that's not true.
Almost every night I lie down in bed and watch the late news on a TV I won in a free drawing. And a few years ago, my wife and I won an $800.00 trip to Florida, because we bought $10 worth of raffle tickets to support our sons' Little League team.
What I remember most about those winning experiences is this. I was thrilled AND disbelieving. In fact, when the announcer called my name, I still remember hearing myself say things like: that's incredible; I can't believe it; I never win anything; and, are you sure. Has anything like that ever happened to you?
Now I certainly don't mean to imply that my trivial experiences at winning prizes is at all as significant as what Luke tells us in the 24th chapter of his Gospel - BUT, it's as close as I can come to echoing, or sharing that feeling. Remember the scene? The disciples are locked in an upper room; their leader tried, convicted, executed and buried. Will the authorities hunt them down next? Suddenly, Jesus appears in their midst; up the stairs without a sound; through the locked door without a knock; and, into their hearts with a simple, "Peace be with you." The disciples experienced more than an emotional double-take - in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering. Can you feel it?
And frankly, on any given day, if the truth be told, it would be a lot easier to talk about my own state of wondering and disbelieving than my joy as a witness for Christ. In my wondering, I wonder if you sometimes feel that way too. Where does this statement of the risen Jesus, "You are witnesses of these things," leave us? More importantly, where does this statement of the Risen Christ find us?
Here's another piece of paper I came across the other day. It’s a prescription for a series of visits for physical therapy, following neck surgery. Now, I suspect that these physical therapists listed here are pretty darn good. I say that because the neurosurgeon who prescribed the visits is one of the best in the country. And, despite his eyewitness testimony to their skills, I'm here to tell ya that this stuff didn't work!
It didn't work because this paper never got translated from prescription to description. This prescription was never filled. I never acted on it. And though it plainly says do the exercises on him and teach him to do the exercises for himself, the prescription does not describe either my attitude or my behavior toward my own healing. You ever been there?
"I'm tough." I said to myself. The surgeon was terrific. He did a good job. Got everything lined back up just right. No need to bother havin' to learn to describe my activities any new way. Just be a little more careful. Don't carry such heavy things for awhile, and when ya do, follow all them rules for proper lifting techniques.
Problem is, the prescription wasn't issued to increase my toughness. It was delivered to increase my strength. The prescription was rendered so that the muscles that took on some extra work could be relieved as the repaired muscles got stronger, resumed their rightful place. But that doesn't describe what happened. See the difference?
As far as my neck goes, and the pain I still feel pretty regularly, I never made the connection between prescription and description. So now I spend a lot o’ days just tryin' to tough it out on my own. And since I committed to personal toughness over shared strength, I gave myself a prescription that makes me describe my attitude and behaviors in a new way. Can't do much liftin' any more. Don't even drive too long cuz I can get
pretty cranky as the pain wears on.
And the prescription from the trained and licensed physician who folks travel allover the country to strengthen them? I still carry it around - unfilled. Reminds me that I'm tough.
Some of us do that same way with our faith. We say this statement Jesus made, "You are witnesses of these things," is some pretty serious prescription. Looks like ya gotta be pretty tough to pull this off. And we spend a lot of our lonely days and not a few of our sleepless nights makin' ourself tough - for Jesus.
Seems like we go out of our way to turn most everything we read in the Bible away from a description and into a prescription that's just too tough to swallow. Ya gotta be tough to:
• take up Jesus' cross everyday - I'll just pick one my own self
• stop along the road and help the wounded - I'll just say a prayer
• forgive somebody 70 x 7 - I'll just not talk to them anymore
• give more o' my money to the church's mission - I'll just give the same as I did last year
• reconcile with my brother or sister before I go to the altar - maybe those folks would be better if they just toughened up on their own like I do.
You ever done mental gymnastics with Scripture; spend time turnin' the Bible on its head? But that's not what faith is. Faith isn't toughen in' up on your own. Faith isn't relyin' on yourself. Faith is more elastic than that. Faith isn't about carryin' around a prescription that somehow gets heavier and heavier the more we carry it all by ourselves. Faith isn't a rigid superhuman, precise adherence to God's laws.
Faith doesn't require that we close off our minds and harden our hearts to that joy that leaves us still disbelieving and still wondering. Faith is abandoning to God all our human disarray. Our: steeling ourselves against our own pains in the neck; writing the prescriptions for ourselves and everyone else; and deciding who gets in and who's excluded.
Faith is the simple acceptance of a relationship with God. We aren't made holy by strict obedience to codes, or toughenin' ourselves up to carry more and more prescriptions. Rather, our strength comes by trusting - alone and together -that stunning promise that God can be experienced in our lives. Trusting that God's gonna send some witness to come along and testify to the Risen Jesus by breaking themselves open and pouring themselves out. And it's OK, if in our joy at:
• hearing that promise, cuz somebody finally says, "You can count on me"
• feeling that promise, cuz somebody we never expected keeps us from falling
• seeing that promise, cuz somebody who said they'd never leave us alone hangs in there
we're still wondering and disbelieving. God's used to it.
God knows how tough it is for us to let God make us strong. God's got strength enough to deal with that. Listen to a few verses of the litany faithful Jews pray from the Haggadah, the order of service, for the Passover Meal. The prayer is called Dayenu! -Enough!
Had he brought us out from Egypt
And not executed judgment against them
It would have been enough! Dayenu!
Had He given us their possessions,
And not divided the sea for us,
It would have been enough! Dayenu!
Had He sustained us in the wilderness forty years,
And not fed us manna
It would have been enough! Dayenu!
Had He brought us to Mount Sinai,
And not given us Torah
It would have been enough! Dayenu!
Had He brought us into the land of Israel
And not built the Temple for us,
It would have been enough! Dayenu!
But all that it wasn't enough. Not for this God. God knows how tough it is for us to turn prescriptions into descriptions. So God sent Jesus to Share Plenty Good News. Good News means something quite different from the weight of an impossible ideal; something more glorious than the oppression of a prescription forever beyond our ability to fill it on our own.
Good News means God in Christ bearing me along from within. Christ the motive-power carries me on. Christ giving my whole life a wonderful poise and lift, turning every burden into contentment. "To this we are witnesses. And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong."
Compared with the strength of this Good News, the religion which trusts everything on toughened up examples instead of joy that honors disbelieving and still wondering is pitifully immature.
Call it whatever you want to - what you call it matters little - to be a joyful, disbelieving, still wondering witness to the Good News of our forgiveness and acceptance by the God of Jesus Christ, is to realize that our creed is not something we have to toughen ourselves up to carry. It's something by which we are lifted and carried. This is what it means to be described as a witness. It's not a prescription. It's a release and a liberty - a life so strong it carries an endless song at its heart. It means seeing within you, as long as life here lasts, the carrying power of Love Almighty; and underneath you, when you come to die, the touch of everlasting arms. Dayenu! That's Enough!
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Holy Isn't a Four Letter Word
Watching friends relish their newborn child is standing - no walking -on holy ground! I'm awed more by what I see and hear than by what I know. The miracles of fertilization, gestation, and birth remain mysterious. Despite the logic we've discovered, or imposed, on the science of all this, we haven't begun to fathom either life's magic or its mystery.
All that I "know" about how life comes to be and what it means fades when I see my friends transform before my eyes. Once talented, wise, independent, dedicated, knowledgeable, amusing young professionals are now, simply, Mom and Dad. They are quick to remind me that the shift is neither simple, nor automatic.
These new parents are traveling deep within the mystery. So deep, that they seldom have time to reflect on either where they've been or where they're going. They each experience the rhythms of their private, personal, professional and "couple" life changing radically. There's too little unclaimed time between every four hour feedings, frequent diaper changes, too short cat-naps. Feelings of unfamiliarity, inadequacy and exhaustion sap the energy required to name and claim the transformations as wonderful. Emotions can, as so many of us are taught, feel like "enemies," A new parent's grief over their own former-life "lost" can stir up feelings of guilt, especially when a new-born hasn't yet learned to be a "good" baby!
New parents can over-stretch their physical, mental and emotional bounds trying to become who and what the culture says they need to be for their child. In the blink of an eye, such over-stretching can overtake any of us.
Life's events, like Gloria’s mother's day breakfast with her son, Jeff's college graduation, Elna’s death, my Anna's Confirmation, John's 50th ordination anniversary, David’s camping trip, can be experienced as another in a series of disconnected episodes, where stories cross accidentally. Or they can be named and claimed as moments of encounter inside the grand story of a God who sent Jesus to forever alter what cross truly means.
True wonder, and the mystery of becoming alive, dwells in the holy ground deep within, where self and universe intersect. Where Holy Spirit has been fertilizing, gestating and birthing all along. Since before time began. Since before each of us began to knit in our mother's womb. Since last we felt joyful, exhausted, awe-struck, cheated, grieved, comforted, overwhelmed, or loved. Since bed-time last night when wonderful sleep closed our eyes. Since this very transforming morning when miraculous rising gifted us with a new day and gifted a new day with us!
Watching the disciples who God calls and gathers here relate to the unfolding wonder of their lives is walking on holy ground. I'm awed more by what I see and hear than what I already know. The miracles of acceptance, faithfulness, forgiveness and new life are mysterious and unpredictable. Despite the logic we've discovered, or imposed, upon this near and present life-giving God, we have yet to fathom either God's wombing love for us, or the mystery of life in God's unfolding kingdom.
All that I "know" about how God dwells within us – alone and together -fades when I see us - you and me - transform before my eyes! Once strangers, we're now sisters and brothers. Formerly unknown travelers, we're now disciples together. The transition is neither simple nor automatic. We work hard to make time for gathering, weekly, to break the bread. We labor to stay faithful to the apostles' teachings. We struggle mightily to say, and mightier still to listen to, the prayers.
At times we over-stretch. The civil culture would have us evade our emotions. The church culture would have us measure our journey's progress in more worldly ways - try to become a "good," “growing” congregation.
Holy wonder - the mystery of becoming alive in the God whose story includes cross - as person of faith and as community of believers - is neither event nor episode. Holy in, with, and under this God is grace, call, and a genuinely, lovingly shared response to each momentous encounter of new birth.
All that I "know" about how life comes to be and what it means fades when I see my friends transform before my eyes. Once talented, wise, independent, dedicated, knowledgeable, amusing young professionals are now, simply, Mom and Dad. They are quick to remind me that the shift is neither simple, nor automatic.
These new parents are traveling deep within the mystery. So deep, that they seldom have time to reflect on either where they've been or where they're going. They each experience the rhythms of their private, personal, professional and "couple" life changing radically. There's too little unclaimed time between every four hour feedings, frequent diaper changes, too short cat-naps. Feelings of unfamiliarity, inadequacy and exhaustion sap the energy required to name and claim the transformations as wonderful. Emotions can, as so many of us are taught, feel like "enemies," A new parent's grief over their own former-life "lost" can stir up feelings of guilt, especially when a new-born hasn't yet learned to be a "good" baby!
New parents can over-stretch their physical, mental and emotional bounds trying to become who and what the culture says they need to be for their child. In the blink of an eye, such over-stretching can overtake any of us.
Life's events, like Gloria’s mother's day breakfast with her son, Jeff's college graduation, Elna’s death, my Anna's Confirmation, John's 50th ordination anniversary, David’s camping trip, can be experienced as another in a series of disconnected episodes, where stories cross accidentally. Or they can be named and claimed as moments of encounter inside the grand story of a God who sent Jesus to forever alter what cross truly means.
True wonder, and the mystery of becoming alive, dwells in the holy ground deep within, where self and universe intersect. Where Holy Spirit has been fertilizing, gestating and birthing all along. Since before time began. Since before each of us began to knit in our mother's womb. Since last we felt joyful, exhausted, awe-struck, cheated, grieved, comforted, overwhelmed, or loved. Since bed-time last night when wonderful sleep closed our eyes. Since this very transforming morning when miraculous rising gifted us with a new day and gifted a new day with us!
Watching the disciples who God calls and gathers here relate to the unfolding wonder of their lives is walking on holy ground. I'm awed more by what I see and hear than what I already know. The miracles of acceptance, faithfulness, forgiveness and new life are mysterious and unpredictable. Despite the logic we've discovered, or imposed, upon this near and present life-giving God, we have yet to fathom either God's wombing love for us, or the mystery of life in God's unfolding kingdom.
All that I "know" about how God dwells within us – alone and together -fades when I see us - you and me - transform before my eyes! Once strangers, we're now sisters and brothers. Formerly unknown travelers, we're now disciples together. The transition is neither simple nor automatic. We work hard to make time for gathering, weekly, to break the bread. We labor to stay faithful to the apostles' teachings. We struggle mightily to say, and mightier still to listen to, the prayers.
At times we over-stretch. The civil culture would have us evade our emotions. The church culture would have us measure our journey's progress in more worldly ways - try to become a "good," “growing” congregation.
Holy wonder - the mystery of becoming alive in the God whose story includes cross - as person of faith and as community of believers - is neither event nor episode. Holy in, with, and under this God is grace, call, and a genuinely, lovingly shared response to each momentous encounter of new birth.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Take the Bet: Vote Your Christian Values
You don't have to be able to read tea leaves, or interpret the star charts to see it coming. It's possible, already, to predict the narrow focus of the upcoming mid-term elections. In fact, if you were a betting soul, you might make a profit if you wagered that most issues of interest to voters will be argued under this broad banner, "family values."
We'll likely hear politicians say that school restructuring, tax reform, health care costs, improvements in the criminal justice system, road construction, economic development, and homeland security all relate to values.
At one level that's on target. If the economic pie is only so big, it's our shared values that help us decide how big, or small, to cut the pieces.
But there's more to value here than slicing and dicing. Do we value the so-called free market system where legacy, birth-right and luck rule? (That's a clever use of Darwin's “law of the jungle" that most backers of Intelligent Design often decry.) Or is there another value-set available, offering a more wise and just option?
Clearly, I'm not the first “preacher" to call on believers to vote-their-values. That's because I believe that who we say we are as Christians, and what we do and say in the name of Jesus, is a very public matter.
Standing in, with, and under the banner, "Christian,” means going public with our on-going relationship with God. The God, in Jesus - who I speak to and listen for today - is not the same God who I asked to prove "his' love by giving me answers to a math test for which I had not studied.
It's necessary to say, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13). It's just not sufficient. The value of that truth must be balanced with these others: Sing to the Lord a new song (Psalm 98); From this time forward I will make you hear new things (Isaiah 48); For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth...(Isaiah 65); See, I am making all things new (Revelation 21).
Jesus' values in favor of the poor and oppressed were spoken out and acted out in the public square. That's why Jesus' words and deeds made big differences in the lives of individuals, families, communities, social institutions, cultures, and the world. His followers, still speaking and acting as he did, can take the wager and bet on receiving the grace necessary to fend off the powers and principalities that stifle the dignity and worth of ALL those who live and vote in the world that God is still eager to create anew, save again, and, bless once more!
We'll likely hear politicians say that school restructuring, tax reform, health care costs, improvements in the criminal justice system, road construction, economic development, and homeland security all relate to values.
At one level that's on target. If the economic pie is only so big, it's our shared values that help us decide how big, or small, to cut the pieces.
But there's more to value here than slicing and dicing. Do we value the so-called free market system where legacy, birth-right and luck rule? (That's a clever use of Darwin's “law of the jungle" that most backers of Intelligent Design often decry.) Or is there another value-set available, offering a more wise and just option?
Clearly, I'm not the first “preacher" to call on believers to vote-their-values. That's because I believe that who we say we are as Christians, and what we do and say in the name of Jesus, is a very public matter.
Standing in, with, and under the banner, "Christian,” means going public with our on-going relationship with God. The God, in Jesus - who I speak to and listen for today - is not the same God who I asked to prove "his' love by giving me answers to a math test for which I had not studied.
It's necessary to say, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13). It's just not sufficient. The value of that truth must be balanced with these others: Sing to the Lord a new song (Psalm 98); From this time forward I will make you hear new things (Isaiah 48); For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth...(Isaiah 65); See, I am making all things new (Revelation 21).
Jesus' values in favor of the poor and oppressed were spoken out and acted out in the public square. That's why Jesus' words and deeds made big differences in the lives of individuals, families, communities, social institutions, cultures, and the world. His followers, still speaking and acting as he did, can take the wager and bet on receiving the grace necessary to fend off the powers and principalities that stifle the dignity and worth of ALL those who live and vote in the world that God is still eager to create anew, save again, and, bless once more!
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Grace Is Not a Bargain!
All across the city pastors are using the story of the rich young man (Mark 10:17-34) as a basis for an annual “stewardship” sermon. In many churches, autumn is the season for Stewardship Sunday. Stewardship is the euphemistic word many preachers use because they find it difficult to talk, cleanly, about money as necessary for engaging in efficient mission and for performing effective ministries.
You can bet your bottom dollar, if you compare notes with your friends, some will tell you their preacher spoke of a new commandment Jesus issued to the rich man. Oh, they won't be talking about verse 19, where Jesus says, "You shall not defraud..." they'll be talking about reading between the lines, where some preachers hear Jesus say, "Thou shalt ante up!"
So much of religion is about answers to questions no one ever asks and blind faith in answers that are both incomprehensible and irrelevant. Even more “good” religion is about rules and leaving your brain at the door. It's about repeating the right creed, performing the right cultic acts, and living out the right ethical code. Ever since the 4th century, when the Emperor Constantine saw a vision of a military shield emblazoned with the cross, and the inscription, "By this sign you shall conquer," Christianity and culture, Christianity and government, have been joined at the hip.
In service to the empire, theologians who were baptized into the life of the Christ who said, "Love your enemies," have concocted the theory of the just war. In service to the empire, pastors who were baptized into the life of the Christ who said, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all," have erected membership rules to separate and sort insiders from outsiders. In service to the empire, Christians who've been baptized into the name of the Christ who answered the question, "Who can be saved?" by saying, "For mortals it is impossible," have constructed some very curious God-talk. If they bother to talk about salvation at all, rather than saying something about what God has done for them, they say things like:
• I've decided to follow Jesus
• I gave my life to the Lord
• I made Jesus my Lord and Savior.
So much of what’s peddled as “good” religion stands on a simple-minded bargain that goes like this: "Keep the faith, be good, obey the rules, God will bless you and life will treat you well." But what happens when the hollow promise of that bargain is revealed for the fraud that it is?
What happens when the bottom falls out of your life? You're suddenly confronted with suffering you can't understand; or you're experiencing a tragedy you simply can't bear? Worse, what happens when you're overcome with the feeling that you're not quite as good as you think you are?
It's religion in service to the empire that causes us to misunderstand and to misrepresent that what stands at the center of Christian faith is not a symbol of worldly success, but of suffering and rejection - the cross. Christian discipleship means adherence to the person of Jesus, and therefore submission to the law of Christ, which is the law of the cross. Paul wrote, in 1 Corinthians 1 …we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Look what happens when we prefer the world's power to God's power in the cross of Christ.
I went to a banquet where I was handed - on a silver platter, if you will - a chance to witness to what it's like to live life on the foundation of Christ and to dwell in the security of God's gracefulness toward me. Since the banquet benefited a religious charitable organization it seemed reasonable to assume that everybody in attendance was open to some God-talk. I was wearing a name tag that identified me as Reverend Jeff. So it also seemed reasonable to assume that people with the unfortunate luck of the draw to find themselves seated next at a table with a Reverend would at least tolerate, if not expect, to hear a little God-talk.
Here I was, sitting with five strangers, trying to make some polite, how-do-you-do banquet talk. This was my chance to let these folks know:
• what my life is founded on
• the direction my life is oriented toward
• where my security comes from.
But did I ask these folks:
• what's God been doing in their lives lately
• when they knew God sent their mate to them
• how their work testifies to God's gifts to them
• where God's calls them to minister in the Kingdom?
Uh-uhh! In keeping with religion's service to the empire, I behaved like the kind of civil reverend our culture reveres.
I didn't meddle. I asked each person, in turn, what they did for a living. I made heroic efforts to expand wealth-making networks, “Oh you have a teacher's license but you can't find a teaching job? Well I heard that both the Westfield -Washington and the Hamilton school districts are scooping up every male elementary teacher they can find. I've got friends up there. Would you like me to get you their names?"
That's exactly how this revered rich man approaches Jesus. Life, the rich man says, even a life deeply immersed in faith's way of living, is a transaction. Life, even a godly life, is about:
• achieving security on our own
• establishing our self-assurance
• earning our self-sufficiency.
Now one danger of living this way, living self-secured, self-assured, and, self-sufficient, is that it cuts us off from grace. When you stand here, just so sure that whatever needs to be done, you can do it. Whatever you need, you can supply it. With enough money or education or ability or goodness, you'll be able to secure your own future. With investments or larger barns, we'll be able to relax. We will be somebody.
Cut-off from grace, life becomes an achievement earned or a product purchased, rather than a gift gratefully received and shared. God becomes unnecessary, or becomes simply another product to be used for personal goals. Resources become tied to identity. We become what we own, know, or produce. Riches become gods, and the foundation of our identity and security.
When persons are valued for their exchange in the marketplace, the result is insecurity and competitiveness. If our worth is based on what we know, or own, or achieve, we're always going to be insecure, because our value will always depend on what is uncertain and temporary. Then we'll spend all our days looking for some "good" teacher to validate us from the outside in - not the inside out - but rest assured - we won't be looking for - or finding - Jesus. Instead of loving one another, sharing with one another, nurturing another's well-being, we’ll compete with one another, use one another, abuse one another and discard one another. The rich man had put his life together this way.
Meeting a rabbi who lived life as grace - as a gift to be received, celebrated and shared - a gift available without price - threatened the essence of the rich man’s being. Faced with the rabbi’s world, where life is all gift, left the rich man with no earning power. In the economy of Jesus’ God, the coin of the realm is sharing, humility and thanksgiving. The rich man only traded in hoarding, self-sufficient arrogance and smug pride. So, a now shocked, rich man, went away grieving.
Peter, more than a little perplexed, asked, "Who then can be saved?" Jesus answered, "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible." Life is a gift to be humbly and joyfully received, not a thing to be purchased or a prize to be earned.
It's really hard for folks attached to things, rather than in relationship with people, to enter the new life God offers. With people you either love 'em or leave 'em. But money and things offer many more options. Money and things cause us to shift our priorities away from other people. If security and worth are rooted in our achievements and our stuff, achieving more and maintaining and increasing resources become our driving motivations. We can't let up. We can't relax. We can't give sacrificially - we can only give out of our excess. Giving on any other terms threatens our security and our sense of worth.
The Bible is clear. We simply cannot know the God of Jesus Christ, the God whom Jesus identifies as the only One who is good - and so good to all - apart from relationships with the poor and the powerless. God has chosen the poor, the least, the most vulnerable, those whom the world considers "the weak" as special friends.
A distinguishing characteristic of the God of the Hebrew Scriptures is that Yahweh hears the cries of the poor and takes decisive action to defend the orphans and widows and immigrants. God chooses relationship and intimacy with the slaves, the nobodies, to deliver divine liberation and salvation. In Jesus Christ, God comes closest to us in vulnerability and poverty.
God's special friendship with the poor is not a rejection of the rich, but it is one of the clearest signs God's given to us that life is not in riches. Life is in God's grace. So if you say you're:
• believing a creed that says only this grace gives identity and worth
• practicing cultic rituals that say only this grace gives identity and worth
• behaving by a code that says only this grace gives identity and worth
please answer this question: How much money and how many things can you afford to put between yourself and that grace?
How we struggle to answer that question, alone and together, doesn't identify whether or not today is stewardship day. But how that grace transforms us - freely and powerfully - each day, and how we share that grace - generously and powerfully - every day - does define whether or not we're disciples of Jesus Christ.
You can bet your bottom dollar, if you compare notes with your friends, some will tell you their preacher spoke of a new commandment Jesus issued to the rich man. Oh, they won't be talking about verse 19, where Jesus says, "You shall not defraud..." they'll be talking about reading between the lines, where some preachers hear Jesus say, "Thou shalt ante up!"
So much of religion is about answers to questions no one ever asks and blind faith in answers that are both incomprehensible and irrelevant. Even more “good” religion is about rules and leaving your brain at the door. It's about repeating the right creed, performing the right cultic acts, and living out the right ethical code. Ever since the 4th century, when the Emperor Constantine saw a vision of a military shield emblazoned with the cross, and the inscription, "By this sign you shall conquer," Christianity and culture, Christianity and government, have been joined at the hip.
In service to the empire, theologians who were baptized into the life of the Christ who said, "Love your enemies," have concocted the theory of the just war. In service to the empire, pastors who were baptized into the life of the Christ who said, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all," have erected membership rules to separate and sort insiders from outsiders. In service to the empire, Christians who've been baptized into the name of the Christ who answered the question, "Who can be saved?" by saying, "For mortals it is impossible," have constructed some very curious God-talk. If they bother to talk about salvation at all, rather than saying something about what God has done for them, they say things like:
• I've decided to follow Jesus
• I gave my life to the Lord
• I made Jesus my Lord and Savior.
So much of what’s peddled as “good” religion stands on a simple-minded bargain that goes like this: "Keep the faith, be good, obey the rules, God will bless you and life will treat you well." But what happens when the hollow promise of that bargain is revealed for the fraud that it is?
What happens when the bottom falls out of your life? You're suddenly confronted with suffering you can't understand; or you're experiencing a tragedy you simply can't bear? Worse, what happens when you're overcome with the feeling that you're not quite as good as you think you are?
It's religion in service to the empire that causes us to misunderstand and to misrepresent that what stands at the center of Christian faith is not a symbol of worldly success, but of suffering and rejection - the cross. Christian discipleship means adherence to the person of Jesus, and therefore submission to the law of Christ, which is the law of the cross. Paul wrote, in 1 Corinthians 1 …we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Look what happens when we prefer the world's power to God's power in the cross of Christ.
I went to a banquet where I was handed - on a silver platter, if you will - a chance to witness to what it's like to live life on the foundation of Christ and to dwell in the security of God's gracefulness toward me. Since the banquet benefited a religious charitable organization it seemed reasonable to assume that everybody in attendance was open to some God-talk. I was wearing a name tag that identified me as Reverend Jeff. So it also seemed reasonable to assume that people with the unfortunate luck of the draw to find themselves seated next at a table with a Reverend would at least tolerate, if not expect, to hear a little God-talk.
Here I was, sitting with five strangers, trying to make some polite, how-do-you-do banquet talk. This was my chance to let these folks know:
• what my life is founded on
• the direction my life is oriented toward
• where my security comes from.
But did I ask these folks:
• what's God been doing in their lives lately
• when they knew God sent their mate to them
• how their work testifies to God's gifts to them
• where God's calls them to minister in the Kingdom?
Uh-uhh! In keeping with religion's service to the empire, I behaved like the kind of civil reverend our culture reveres.
I didn't meddle. I asked each person, in turn, what they did for a living. I made heroic efforts to expand wealth-making networks, “Oh you have a teacher's license but you can't find a teaching job? Well I heard that both the Westfield -Washington and the Hamilton school districts are scooping up every male elementary teacher they can find. I've got friends up there. Would you like me to get you their names?"
That's exactly how this revered rich man approaches Jesus. Life, the rich man says, even a life deeply immersed in faith's way of living, is a transaction. Life, even a godly life, is about:
• achieving security on our own
• establishing our self-assurance
• earning our self-sufficiency.
Now one danger of living this way, living self-secured, self-assured, and, self-sufficient, is that it cuts us off from grace. When you stand here, just so sure that whatever needs to be done, you can do it. Whatever you need, you can supply it. With enough money or education or ability or goodness, you'll be able to secure your own future. With investments or larger barns, we'll be able to relax. We will be somebody.
Cut-off from grace, life becomes an achievement earned or a product purchased, rather than a gift gratefully received and shared. God becomes unnecessary, or becomes simply another product to be used for personal goals. Resources become tied to identity. We become what we own, know, or produce. Riches become gods, and the foundation of our identity and security.
When persons are valued for their exchange in the marketplace, the result is insecurity and competitiveness. If our worth is based on what we know, or own, or achieve, we're always going to be insecure, because our value will always depend on what is uncertain and temporary. Then we'll spend all our days looking for some "good" teacher to validate us from the outside in - not the inside out - but rest assured - we won't be looking for - or finding - Jesus. Instead of loving one another, sharing with one another, nurturing another's well-being, we’ll compete with one another, use one another, abuse one another and discard one another. The rich man had put his life together this way.
Meeting a rabbi who lived life as grace - as a gift to be received, celebrated and shared - a gift available without price - threatened the essence of the rich man’s being. Faced with the rabbi’s world, where life is all gift, left the rich man with no earning power. In the economy of Jesus’ God, the coin of the realm is sharing, humility and thanksgiving. The rich man only traded in hoarding, self-sufficient arrogance and smug pride. So, a now shocked, rich man, went away grieving.
Peter, more than a little perplexed, asked, "Who then can be saved?" Jesus answered, "For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible." Life is a gift to be humbly and joyfully received, not a thing to be purchased or a prize to be earned.
It's really hard for folks attached to things, rather than in relationship with people, to enter the new life God offers. With people you either love 'em or leave 'em. But money and things offer many more options. Money and things cause us to shift our priorities away from other people. If security and worth are rooted in our achievements and our stuff, achieving more and maintaining and increasing resources become our driving motivations. We can't let up. We can't relax. We can't give sacrificially - we can only give out of our excess. Giving on any other terms threatens our security and our sense of worth.
The Bible is clear. We simply cannot know the God of Jesus Christ, the God whom Jesus identifies as the only One who is good - and so good to all - apart from relationships with the poor and the powerless. God has chosen the poor, the least, the most vulnerable, those whom the world considers "the weak" as special friends.
A distinguishing characteristic of the God of the Hebrew Scriptures is that Yahweh hears the cries of the poor and takes decisive action to defend the orphans and widows and immigrants. God chooses relationship and intimacy with the slaves, the nobodies, to deliver divine liberation and salvation. In Jesus Christ, God comes closest to us in vulnerability and poverty.
God's special friendship with the poor is not a rejection of the rich, but it is one of the clearest signs God's given to us that life is not in riches. Life is in God's grace. So if you say you're:
• believing a creed that says only this grace gives identity and worth
• practicing cultic rituals that say only this grace gives identity and worth
• behaving by a code that says only this grace gives identity and worth
please answer this question: How much money and how many things can you afford to put between yourself and that grace?
How we struggle to answer that question, alone and together, doesn't identify whether or not today is stewardship day. But how that grace transforms us - freely and powerfully - each day, and how we share that grace - generously and powerfully - every day - does define whether or not we're disciples of Jesus Christ.
Monday, October 23, 2006
The Church of Your Dreams
Have you had occasion to be in a group where the focus of conversation was: tell me your wildest dream? This so-called “ice-breaker” tactic to evoke conversation often occurs within groups looking to focus on “change.” What would we have to do to: get different results; expand our market; keep our employees; fire-up or staff, etc. It’s a strategy to free people from “censoring” their own thoughts. It promotes a nonjudgmental framework and encourages a safe, dynamic conversation.
Our urban pastors’ group met this past week. Our focus is to find new ways to be and do church within in a metropolitan region, not just inside a city. So we’re looking at how we need to change the way we lead congregations, adjust our preaching and deepen the relationships among the members in these 12 congregations. It’s a tall order. I’m not sure how good we are at this design process, but we’re learning a lot and we’re having some fun.
Part of our difficulty is wrapping our heads, as well as our hearts and emotions, around what church is. Sometimes churches, or congregations, take on the trappings of institutions. We have constitutions, bylaws, boards, budgets, incomes and expenses, staff, contracts for services.
At other times, churches look like voluntary organizations. We choose a mission statement. We identify a vision and articulate core values to guide our way toward achieving the vision. We have members, programs and services, and patrons or clients.
Lately, it’s become fashionable for churches to look like mini-malls. Those churches see themselves as competitors in the bazaar. They have target markets and boutiques to attract a variety of consumers – most former regulars at churches that have closed or resist making changes. They have niche products geared to an array of customers. They offer multiple levels of affiliation available to an array of shoppers.
Of all the things that institutions, organizations and stores don’t do well, two stand out. These are, reinventing themselves, and going out of business, or dying.
Now the latter isn’t hard. Institutions, businesses and stores die all the time; churches too. Often it’s sad and painful. Usually it’s avoidable, or at least it was at one time if folks there had been open to doing the primary mission instead of maintenance of the status quo. That just takes a little stretching, like doing old things in new ways, doing new things in old ways, and even doing new things in new ways.
It’s not completely impossible for institutions, organizations and even churches to reinvent themselves. Anybody here live through the polio epidemic? How did we fund the research to find a cure for polio? Right, the March of Dimes. Did they go out of business when Dr. Salk invented his vaccine? No, they reinvented themselves and refocused their fund-raising and research efforts on finding cures for a broad range of birth defects.
That was doing a new thing in an old way. Now they’re into internet giving. That’s doing an old thing in a new way. My guess is stretching like that has made them more open to doing a new thing in a new way. They may already be doing that and I just haven’t heard about it yet.
Here in Indiana, Ivy Tech, a postsecondary vocational school, has morphed, finally, into a rather comprehensive community college system. They now offer dual credit enrollment for high school drop-outs, retrain laid off workers, and obtain contracts from businesses to upgrade employees’ knowledge and skills, as well as humanities courses with transferable credit to many of the state’s baccalaureate degree granting institutions.
Our group of 12 pastors is working hard to think outside the box. In the beginning, we seemed more eager to think wildly outside somebody else’s box rather than our own. I told a pastor serving within one of the city’s “old” first-ring suburbs he should reach out to all the Spanish-speakers who live nearby. I offered that another ought to “swap” locations with his congregation’s cemetery. The graveyard’s location is more prime than is the site of the worship center, and, I ventured, the view of the occupants of the former would remain, essentially, unchanged! Not to be outdone, a colleague suggested we should sell our building, move into a strip mall on a busier street, and use our “new” and significant assets to fund mission instead of scrapping to pay bills each month.
At our meeting this past Thursday and Friday, I think we experienced a break through. Now I know you’ll think I’m nuts, but we had the breath through because we broke down some of our doctrinally theological language. We really do talk about that kind of stuff, because we take our vocation from God and our calls from the congregations we serve very seriously.
We were talking about Luther’s definition of church. He said it boiled down to this: where the Gospel is preached boldly (his word was purely) and the sacraments administered rightly. In part, it’s those two adverbs, boldly and rightly, that led to our insight.
But before we unpacked them, and what they mean for living the definition, I spoke up. I said those features, preaching Gospel and administering sacraments may be necessary, but they are not sufficient. Of course, all eyes were on me because you don’t sound like your dissing Luther in that group without paying a price.
I had to explain quickly what I meant. If we let Luther’s phrase become a slogan instead of a distinctive characteristic of our identity as humans who are Christian, there’s a danger we’ll cease to be a body and become an organization.
When that happens, then the Gospel becomes a product we peddle, and the sacraments become a service we sell. If that weren’t bad enough, we peddle what we got and sell what we have, primarily, to and for ourselves.
That’s where those adverbs, boldly and rightly, come in. To preach the Gospel, boldly, is to preach it the way Jesus did; to those who need to here it, in the places where they are. Of course that means we preach it here, but only so it can be lived, heard and shared out there. To administer the sacraments rightly, means to share them the way Jesus and his first followers did, offering baptism and communion to everyone so they can unlearn sin and learn holiness. Of course that means we do sacraments here, but only so their effects can be lived, seen and shared out there.
In short, we become disciples in here, with Gospel and sacraments, so we can become apostles out there, with Gospel and sacraments.
We are the Body of Christ, who is in the world. That means we do some organizational things like establish constitutions and bylaws. We also do some institutional things like buy and maintain property. We do some voluntary association things like pledge our time and money so we can offer programs and services with and for our neighbors and ourselves. We may even do some marketing things like purchase ads in newspapers, print brochures, mail newsletters, and set up a blog site. And, believe, me, we try to do all those activities boldly and rightly as well. See, the institutional, organizational and commercial things we do, are put in the service of the church’s mission to call, gather and equip us (as disciples), so we can be witnesses (as apostles) of God for us, in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.
There really is no other reason to be here you know. Even if you want to say, you’ve only heard the Gospel preached timidly, here. If you need to say, you’ve only experienced the sacraments imperfectly, here. You have to have heard enough to believe and seen enough to trust that you don’t need to be here to still be in the running to have a seat at either Jesus’ right or left, when Jesus brings us all into his glory. Jesus has already become your ransom. You are free. If you can hold onto that, you are likely, sufficiently discipled.
The conversations you’ll have out there, that allow you to take your rightful role as bold preacher and fitting sacrament-izer will likely begin much the way James and John approached Jesus. Someone will come to you, selfishly, and ask you to get them a God-sized favor, grant them a God-sized wish, and give them the God-sized gift they want. Here are three things you can do.
Your first task is to recognize the bondage they’re in, because you’ve been, at least, that selfish. Your second task is to offer to bring them into relationship with a people who can help them begin to unlearn sin and learn holiness. Your third task is to assure them that everyone they meet here has not yet completed the second task. Each of us is, all of us are, still on the discipling way desperately trying to unlearn sin and waiting on God to keep learning us into holiness.
I’m trusting, too, that you’ll tell them, that you’ve found this place and the people who shape it, including yourself, are more open to mission than we are opting for maintenance. If you tell them the whole truth, you’ll say we’ve been reinventing ourselves since at least the mid-30’s when we stopped praising God in Danish and began worshiping God in English. You can tell them that, here, conflict is an opportunity for us to cherish the living faith of the dead, not hang onto the dead faith of the living. You can tell them that we’re both proud and fond of our past, even as we’re faithful to our future.
You can testify to them that you know we are and do church here, because, in your new freedom, you find God is still eager to make you anew, still present enough to get you through, and always powerful enough to bring you over into the ways of God’s will and work.
I’m hoping you can also tell them that everyone in here is a servant to each. You won’t have to tell them that we’re also all slaves of all those out there. They’ll already know that because you, having been ransomed by a living, loving Christ from the death sentence you used to live under, have made your mind completely available to them and your heart thoroughly open to them.
They might begin to wonder if, indeed, this is not a church beyond their wildest dreams!
Our urban pastors’ group met this past week. Our focus is to find new ways to be and do church within in a metropolitan region, not just inside a city. So we’re looking at how we need to change the way we lead congregations, adjust our preaching and deepen the relationships among the members in these 12 congregations. It’s a tall order. I’m not sure how good we are at this design process, but we’re learning a lot and we’re having some fun.
Part of our difficulty is wrapping our heads, as well as our hearts and emotions, around what church is. Sometimes churches, or congregations, take on the trappings of institutions. We have constitutions, bylaws, boards, budgets, incomes and expenses, staff, contracts for services.
At other times, churches look like voluntary organizations. We choose a mission statement. We identify a vision and articulate core values to guide our way toward achieving the vision. We have members, programs and services, and patrons or clients.
Lately, it’s become fashionable for churches to look like mini-malls. Those churches see themselves as competitors in the bazaar. They have target markets and boutiques to attract a variety of consumers – most former regulars at churches that have closed or resist making changes. They have niche products geared to an array of customers. They offer multiple levels of affiliation available to an array of shoppers.
Of all the things that institutions, organizations and stores don’t do well, two stand out. These are, reinventing themselves, and going out of business, or dying.
Now the latter isn’t hard. Institutions, businesses and stores die all the time; churches too. Often it’s sad and painful. Usually it’s avoidable, or at least it was at one time if folks there had been open to doing the primary mission instead of maintenance of the status quo. That just takes a little stretching, like doing old things in new ways, doing new things in old ways, and even doing new things in new ways.
It’s not completely impossible for institutions, organizations and even churches to reinvent themselves. Anybody here live through the polio epidemic? How did we fund the research to find a cure for polio? Right, the March of Dimes. Did they go out of business when Dr. Salk invented his vaccine? No, they reinvented themselves and refocused their fund-raising and research efforts on finding cures for a broad range of birth defects.
That was doing a new thing in an old way. Now they’re into internet giving. That’s doing an old thing in a new way. My guess is stretching like that has made them more open to doing a new thing in a new way. They may already be doing that and I just haven’t heard about it yet.
Here in Indiana, Ivy Tech, a postsecondary vocational school, has morphed, finally, into a rather comprehensive community college system. They now offer dual credit enrollment for high school drop-outs, retrain laid off workers, and obtain contracts from businesses to upgrade employees’ knowledge and skills, as well as humanities courses with transferable credit to many of the state’s baccalaureate degree granting institutions.
Our group of 12 pastors is working hard to think outside the box. In the beginning, we seemed more eager to think wildly outside somebody else’s box rather than our own. I told a pastor serving within one of the city’s “old” first-ring suburbs he should reach out to all the Spanish-speakers who live nearby. I offered that another ought to “swap” locations with his congregation’s cemetery. The graveyard’s location is more prime than is the site of the worship center, and, I ventured, the view of the occupants of the former would remain, essentially, unchanged! Not to be outdone, a colleague suggested we should sell our building, move into a strip mall on a busier street, and use our “new” and significant assets to fund mission instead of scrapping to pay bills each month.
At our meeting this past Thursday and Friday, I think we experienced a break through. Now I know you’ll think I’m nuts, but we had the breath through because we broke down some of our doctrinally theological language. We really do talk about that kind of stuff, because we take our vocation from God and our calls from the congregations we serve very seriously.
We were talking about Luther’s definition of church. He said it boiled down to this: where the Gospel is preached boldly (his word was purely) and the sacraments administered rightly. In part, it’s those two adverbs, boldly and rightly, that led to our insight.
But before we unpacked them, and what they mean for living the definition, I spoke up. I said those features, preaching Gospel and administering sacraments may be necessary, but they are not sufficient. Of course, all eyes were on me because you don’t sound like your dissing Luther in that group without paying a price.
I had to explain quickly what I meant. If we let Luther’s phrase become a slogan instead of a distinctive characteristic of our identity as humans who are Christian, there’s a danger we’ll cease to be a body and become an organization.
When that happens, then the Gospel becomes a product we peddle, and the sacraments become a service we sell. If that weren’t bad enough, we peddle what we got and sell what we have, primarily, to and for ourselves.
That’s where those adverbs, boldly and rightly, come in. To preach the Gospel, boldly, is to preach it the way Jesus did; to those who need to here it, in the places where they are. Of course that means we preach it here, but only so it can be lived, heard and shared out there. To administer the sacraments rightly, means to share them the way Jesus and his first followers did, offering baptism and communion to everyone so they can unlearn sin and learn holiness. Of course that means we do sacraments here, but only so their effects can be lived, seen and shared out there.
In short, we become disciples in here, with Gospel and sacraments, so we can become apostles out there, with Gospel and sacraments.
We are the Body of Christ, who is in the world. That means we do some organizational things like establish constitutions and bylaws. We also do some institutional things like buy and maintain property. We do some voluntary association things like pledge our time and money so we can offer programs and services with and for our neighbors and ourselves. We may even do some marketing things like purchase ads in newspapers, print brochures, mail newsletters, and set up a blog site. And, believe, me, we try to do all those activities boldly and rightly as well. See, the institutional, organizational and commercial things we do, are put in the service of the church’s mission to call, gather and equip us (as disciples), so we can be witnesses (as apostles) of God for us, in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.
There really is no other reason to be here you know. Even if you want to say, you’ve only heard the Gospel preached timidly, here. If you need to say, you’ve only experienced the sacraments imperfectly, here. You have to have heard enough to believe and seen enough to trust that you don’t need to be here to still be in the running to have a seat at either Jesus’ right or left, when Jesus brings us all into his glory. Jesus has already become your ransom. You are free. If you can hold onto that, you are likely, sufficiently discipled.
The conversations you’ll have out there, that allow you to take your rightful role as bold preacher and fitting sacrament-izer will likely begin much the way James and John approached Jesus. Someone will come to you, selfishly, and ask you to get them a God-sized favor, grant them a God-sized wish, and give them the God-sized gift they want. Here are three things you can do.
Your first task is to recognize the bondage they’re in, because you’ve been, at least, that selfish. Your second task is to offer to bring them into relationship with a people who can help them begin to unlearn sin and learn holiness. Your third task is to assure them that everyone they meet here has not yet completed the second task. Each of us is, all of us are, still on the discipling way desperately trying to unlearn sin and waiting on God to keep learning us into holiness.
I’m trusting, too, that you’ll tell them, that you’ve found this place and the people who shape it, including yourself, are more open to mission than we are opting for maintenance. If you tell them the whole truth, you’ll say we’ve been reinventing ourselves since at least the mid-30’s when we stopped praising God in Danish and began worshiping God in English. You can tell them that, here, conflict is an opportunity for us to cherish the living faith of the dead, not hang onto the dead faith of the living. You can tell them that we’re both proud and fond of our past, even as we’re faithful to our future.
You can testify to them that you know we are and do church here, because, in your new freedom, you find God is still eager to make you anew, still present enough to get you through, and always powerful enough to bring you over into the ways of God’s will and work.
I’m hoping you can also tell them that everyone in here is a servant to each. You won’t have to tell them that we’re also all slaves of all those out there. They’ll already know that because you, having been ransomed by a living, loving Christ from the death sentence you used to live under, have made your mind completely available to them and your heart thoroughly open to them.
They might begin to wonder if, indeed, this is not a church beyond their wildest dreams!
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Insiders and Outsiders
A while back I heard a presentation by the Rev. Dr. Emmanuel Granston. Dr. Granston emigrated from Ghana in the mid-70's. At the time he was one of only two African American ELCA pastors with a doctorate in scriptural studies. And he’d been redeveloping urban congregations serving African American neighborhoods for over 20 years.
Following his presentation there was some time for questions and answers. I only remember two. The first questioner asked Pastor Granston why some church officials find his urban mission strategies and ministry practices to be so controversial. Pastor Granston responded with a Ghanaian proverb: The one, who's out front cutting the path to the goal, cannot himself see how crooked those following behind perceive the path to be.
The second question was my own. I commented that the most intense conversation among our members concerned my idea that our congregation ought to identify "standards for membership." I went on to say that of the several ID cards I carry in my wallet indicating I belong to such-and-such a group, most carry with them requirements of belonging. For example: my voter's registration expires if I don't vote in two consecutive elections; my library card is revoked if I don't return the books I borrow.
What would happen, I asked Pastor Granston, if we said, members of First Trinity will:
• attend worship regularly, i.e., 3 out of 4 Sundays
• participate in a process to identify their spiritual gifts and covenant to use one or more of these gifts – not in church work -but in the work of the church - out in the world
• take part in a congregational ministry
• covenant to growth giving in stewardship.
Pastor Granston said he thought I might be onto something by identifying the marks, or characteristics, of what a member of a discipling community might look like. But where, he asked, in my laundry list was: grace; where was the liberating Good News of the Gospel; where was Jesus; how was I not using the law as a club to achieve - Gospel?
What I took to be a new conversation in Baltimore had already taken place long ago at a house in Capernaum. We hear this in Mark 9:38-50. That's where Jesus was teaching the disciples when John came rushing in like Chicken Little screaming that the sky was falling: Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he was not following us (v38).
It seems that as different as our world today might be from Jesus' world, the circumstances he exposes are familiar. Just like the disciples, we modern humans divide the world into insiders and outsiders. When people belong to a cause or an organization expect them to "put in their time" before they're accepted as members; and once we let them inside, we expect them to follow certain rules.
After all, membership means that individuals are committed to the goals of the group - not just seeking personal glory. For instance, people aren't allowed to teach, serve as law enforcement officers, or perform various other disciplines without first being trained by masters in their field. Likewise, in the church, some believe that longtime members of a parish are more trustworthy and faithful - especially if they have "done their time" on various church committees.
Conversely, when we see someone who doesn't fit our neat mold of a faithful Christian member - someone who does ministry in unfamiliar, unprecedented ways – we automatically view them with suspicion. Like the disciples we conclude, "They're not doing it our way. There must be something wrong with them." But, in this text, Jesus says to us, "Your way? I've got news for you. If they are doing it in my name, they are doing it my way, and I choose to call them allies and friends."
Now we see the problem: we've made discipleship about doing things "our way," when it is supposed to be about being like Jesus and being with Jesus. We've done this because personally we're not very fond of Jesus' Way. So we've tried to improve on the way Jesus does things.
Our worldly perceptions cause us to stumble over Jesus, the Outsider Messiah, who:
• eats with sinners
• challenges us to let adulteresses escape stoning
• asks Samaritan women to fetch him water
• heals people on the Sabbath.
Jesus seems to let people gain membership too easily, "Whoever is not against us is for us." His standards seem too loose, too flexible, and too generous.
In truth, we really are offended (scandalized) by the kind of Messiah whom Jesus genuinely is. Therefore we have a hard time doing deeds in his name with much integrity, because we don't really "believe in him" (v. 42).
To be scandalized by Christ (to stumble over his claim on us) is a double-edged sword. We forget where Jesus found us. Look, if the God of Jesus was such a straight and narrow kind of God, where would you be today? You think this church looks pretty empty? What would it be like if in order to belong here you could never have: hoarded your money; made a racist remark; told a lie; cheated on your taxes; lusted in your heart; used gossip to slay someone's reputation?
When we forget that it was, "while we were yet sinners" that this God came for us - not at us - when we forget that Jesus cut what must have looked like a pretty crooked path to come fetch us, then we choose the old familiar ways - to live, to be church, to do ministry – over serving in Jesus' name. And when we make that choice, the sword's second edge cuts us off. We exclude ourselves from Jesus' kingdom, where the hallmarks of belonging look like this:
• the world calls ya ugly names, but here you're sister - brother
• sinners get another chance here, not rocks thrown at their head
• first time visitors get a bigger welcome than the founders
• different gifts aren't just tolerated, they're celebrated.
Jesus seems to say, “If you insist on making your own way, then hell is what you deserve. If you insist on promoting your own self-interest instead of following me, then finally you will be the outsider -outside of my kingdom. But, fair warning: "It would be better to live life with only one eye, one foot, and one hand - lame and blind - than burn in hell," he says. At least if you are lame and blind you still have a chance at entering the kingdom.
In Jesus' day if people wanted a picture of what Hell was like they could look to a place called “Gehenna" – a garbage dump outside the walls of Jerusalem. If one wanted to know about humiliation and cruel death (something akin to drowning with a millstone around your neck) they could go to another place outside the city walls called "Golgotha." The walls of Jerusalem kept insiders (clean, righteous, and alive) in, and outsiders (unclean, unrighteous, dead) out.
We've become much more sophisticated, these days. The Gehenna’s we construct - the trash heaps where we discard people we call outsiders - look so much more sanitary. We call them:
• sentencing guidelines that impose longer jail terms on urban crack cocaine than on suburban powdered cocaine
• urban school systems where we arm guards with guns rather than arm teachers with resources.
We've become much more sophisticated these days at constructing Golgothas which deliver to whole hosts of outsiders a slow, tortuous death. They look so much more benign. We call them:
• welfare to work programs that lead to part-time jobs without benefits
• banking laws for a global economy which perpetuate red-lining and frustrate urban dwellers' climb into economic self-sufficiency.
Jesus told his followers three times in Mark 9 and 10 that he would soon be an outsider (suffering and dying at the hands of insiders); he also told them that he would conquer death. But telling them did no good. What saved them and what saves us -who are scandalized by
Jesus' Way - is that Jesus actually went to Gehenna for us and died the death we had coming to us. Jesus intervenes on our inevitable Golgotha-death, and turns it inside-out, giving us life in its place. Suddenly, preserving the world's status quo about insiders and outsiders is not half as important as living life in Christ. We need not fear being outside God's grasp – Gehenna cannot touch us now that we have been spirited into Christ's kingdom.
Kindled by life in Christ, we no longer have any reason to view "outsiders" with suspicion. On the contrary, we're encouraged to have salt and fire in ourselves and to practice peace with one another. But this peace-full lifestyle is not by any means passive - it's fiery and salty. And fire and salt change whatever they touch. We fiery/salty followers are encouraged to serve others with an act as simple as offering "a cup of water to drink" (v. 41); or we may choose something as daring as a rescue operation to Gehenna (call it preaching the Gospel to sinners), so that others who have "stumbled" may yet come out alive.
The only way we can reckon the pathway Jesus cuts toward the Kingdom goal as crooked is to stay back tending campfires and hoarding the salt. But up close, traveling along with the leader, trusting that the fire can be carried from where it was once lit to where it ought to shine in the darkest of corners; trusting that the salt preserves and nourishes us for the journey's long-haul, we'll not only see deeds of power routinely, we'll perform, each one - alone and together - deeds of power, regularly and gracefully!
Following his presentation there was some time for questions and answers. I only remember two. The first questioner asked Pastor Granston why some church officials find his urban mission strategies and ministry practices to be so controversial. Pastor Granston responded with a Ghanaian proverb: The one, who's out front cutting the path to the goal, cannot himself see how crooked those following behind perceive the path to be.
The second question was my own. I commented that the most intense conversation among our members concerned my idea that our congregation ought to identify "standards for membership." I went on to say that of the several ID cards I carry in my wallet indicating I belong to such-and-such a group, most carry with them requirements of belonging. For example: my voter's registration expires if I don't vote in two consecutive elections; my library card is revoked if I don't return the books I borrow.
What would happen, I asked Pastor Granston, if we said, members of First Trinity will:
• attend worship regularly, i.e., 3 out of 4 Sundays
• participate in a process to identify their spiritual gifts and covenant to use one or more of these gifts – not in church work -but in the work of the church - out in the world
• take part in a congregational ministry
• covenant to growth giving in stewardship.
Pastor Granston said he thought I might be onto something by identifying the marks, or characteristics, of what a member of a discipling community might look like. But where, he asked, in my laundry list was: grace; where was the liberating Good News of the Gospel; where was Jesus; how was I not using the law as a club to achieve - Gospel?
What I took to be a new conversation in Baltimore had already taken place long ago at a house in Capernaum. We hear this in Mark 9:38-50. That's where Jesus was teaching the disciples when John came rushing in like Chicken Little screaming that the sky was falling: Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he was not following us (v38).
It seems that as different as our world today might be from Jesus' world, the circumstances he exposes are familiar. Just like the disciples, we modern humans divide the world into insiders and outsiders. When people belong to a cause or an organization expect them to "put in their time" before they're accepted as members; and once we let them inside, we expect them to follow certain rules.
After all, membership means that individuals are committed to the goals of the group - not just seeking personal glory. For instance, people aren't allowed to teach, serve as law enforcement officers, or perform various other disciplines without first being trained by masters in their field. Likewise, in the church, some believe that longtime members of a parish are more trustworthy and faithful - especially if they have "done their time" on various church committees.
Conversely, when we see someone who doesn't fit our neat mold of a faithful Christian member - someone who does ministry in unfamiliar, unprecedented ways – we automatically view them with suspicion. Like the disciples we conclude, "They're not doing it our way. There must be something wrong with them." But, in this text, Jesus says to us, "Your way? I've got news for you. If they are doing it in my name, they are doing it my way, and I choose to call them allies and friends."
Now we see the problem: we've made discipleship about doing things "our way," when it is supposed to be about being like Jesus and being with Jesus. We've done this because personally we're not very fond of Jesus' Way. So we've tried to improve on the way Jesus does things.
Our worldly perceptions cause us to stumble over Jesus, the Outsider Messiah, who:
• eats with sinners
• challenges us to let adulteresses escape stoning
• asks Samaritan women to fetch him water
• heals people on the Sabbath.
Jesus seems to let people gain membership too easily, "Whoever is not against us is for us." His standards seem too loose, too flexible, and too generous.
In truth, we really are offended (scandalized) by the kind of Messiah whom Jesus genuinely is. Therefore we have a hard time doing deeds in his name with much integrity, because we don't really "believe in him" (v. 42).
To be scandalized by Christ (to stumble over his claim on us) is a double-edged sword. We forget where Jesus found us. Look, if the God of Jesus was such a straight and narrow kind of God, where would you be today? You think this church looks pretty empty? What would it be like if in order to belong here you could never have: hoarded your money; made a racist remark; told a lie; cheated on your taxes; lusted in your heart; used gossip to slay someone's reputation?
When we forget that it was, "while we were yet sinners" that this God came for us - not at us - when we forget that Jesus cut what must have looked like a pretty crooked path to come fetch us, then we choose the old familiar ways - to live, to be church, to do ministry – over serving in Jesus' name. And when we make that choice, the sword's second edge cuts us off. We exclude ourselves from Jesus' kingdom, where the hallmarks of belonging look like this:
• the world calls ya ugly names, but here you're sister - brother
• sinners get another chance here, not rocks thrown at their head
• first time visitors get a bigger welcome than the founders
• different gifts aren't just tolerated, they're celebrated.
Jesus seems to say, “If you insist on making your own way, then hell is what you deserve. If you insist on promoting your own self-interest instead of following me, then finally you will be the outsider -outside of my kingdom. But, fair warning: "It would be better to live life with only one eye, one foot, and one hand - lame and blind - than burn in hell," he says. At least if you are lame and blind you still have a chance at entering the kingdom.
In Jesus' day if people wanted a picture of what Hell was like they could look to a place called “Gehenna" – a garbage dump outside the walls of Jerusalem. If one wanted to know about humiliation and cruel death (something akin to drowning with a millstone around your neck) they could go to another place outside the city walls called "Golgotha." The walls of Jerusalem kept insiders (clean, righteous, and alive) in, and outsiders (unclean, unrighteous, dead) out.
We've become much more sophisticated, these days. The Gehenna’s we construct - the trash heaps where we discard people we call outsiders - look so much more sanitary. We call them:
• sentencing guidelines that impose longer jail terms on urban crack cocaine than on suburban powdered cocaine
• urban school systems where we arm guards with guns rather than arm teachers with resources.
We've become much more sophisticated these days at constructing Golgothas which deliver to whole hosts of outsiders a slow, tortuous death. They look so much more benign. We call them:
• welfare to work programs that lead to part-time jobs without benefits
• banking laws for a global economy which perpetuate red-lining and frustrate urban dwellers' climb into economic self-sufficiency.
Jesus told his followers three times in Mark 9 and 10 that he would soon be an outsider (suffering and dying at the hands of insiders); he also told them that he would conquer death. But telling them did no good. What saved them and what saves us -who are scandalized by
Jesus' Way - is that Jesus actually went to Gehenna for us and died the death we had coming to us. Jesus intervenes on our inevitable Golgotha-death, and turns it inside-out, giving us life in its place. Suddenly, preserving the world's status quo about insiders and outsiders is not half as important as living life in Christ. We need not fear being outside God's grasp – Gehenna cannot touch us now that we have been spirited into Christ's kingdom.
Kindled by life in Christ, we no longer have any reason to view "outsiders" with suspicion. On the contrary, we're encouraged to have salt and fire in ourselves and to practice peace with one another. But this peace-full lifestyle is not by any means passive - it's fiery and salty. And fire and salt change whatever they touch. We fiery/salty followers are encouraged to serve others with an act as simple as offering "a cup of water to drink" (v. 41); or we may choose something as daring as a rescue operation to Gehenna (call it preaching the Gospel to sinners), so that others who have "stumbled" may yet come out alive.
The only way we can reckon the pathway Jesus cuts toward the Kingdom goal as crooked is to stay back tending campfires and hoarding the salt. But up close, traveling along with the leader, trusting that the fire can be carried from where it was once lit to where it ought to shine in the darkest of corners; trusting that the salt preserves and nourishes us for the journey's long-haul, we'll not only see deeds of power routinely, we'll perform, each one - alone and together - deeds of power, regularly and gracefully!
Monday, October 16, 2006
Is Your Public Grammar Graceful?
Most of us grew up with Mama's who helped us understand that there are two kinds of manners. We had "at home" manners and “company” manners. We might get away with elbows on the table at home, which was never allowed in restaurants or at grandma's house.
What happens if we allow ourselves to have two kinds of grammar about our relationship with God? We all know folks full of faith and religion - at church - but let 'em get out of the parking lot; let 'em get into the workplace, at home or at school; and the name o' Jesus never crosses their lips. When we don't name the name of Jesus in public - our faith may be a mile wide, but it's only an inch deep!
Many folks, who say they're Christians, but speak with two kinds of grammar, suffer from an identity problem. Oh, they know WHO they are; they just forget to tell other people WHOSE they are! They can recite Bible verses; proclaim doctrines, and even utter grace over a holiday meal, but the story of God's love, in Jesus, is always about ancient history, and never about God present and active in their own day-to-day lives.
The challenge to Christians is to be able to declare publicly what they believe, out of our own experience, not out of our book learning. It's the difference between saying, "I know
ABOUT Jesus" and "I KNOW Jesus."
When, out of the blue, something good happens to you do you say, "This is my lucky day," or do you say, "God always has a ram in the bush!" (Genesis 22:13-14) When we speak a public grammar of grace we “enflesh” and make present the power of God, both in our own heart and in the ears of another. This power is the power to transform lives and change the world’s manners.
The way we talk shapes how we behave. The world doesn't need more church members who speak nicely and do random acts of kindness. This sort of grammar reduces the power of God to just another language of rehabilitation - competing with all the other feel-good messages the world tries to lay on us.
What the world does need is more disciples of Jesus; believing actors whose words and deeds tell powerful testimonies of God's nearness, forgiveness, and love. And who, as disciples, work for justice and fairness; act out messages of hope and transformation.
If your message is muddled, if your behavior is befuddling, maybe it's been too long since you did what those first disciples of Jesus did. Maybe it's been too long since you met weekly to: hear God's bible word; study the teachings of the apostles; and dine at a table where the bread is passed and the wine is poured in the name of Jesus.
First Trinity is a place where Jesus teaches the grammar of grace. Come see! The place is full of learners just like you!
What happens if we allow ourselves to have two kinds of grammar about our relationship with God? We all know folks full of faith and religion - at church - but let 'em get out of the parking lot; let 'em get into the workplace, at home or at school; and the name o' Jesus never crosses their lips. When we don't name the name of Jesus in public - our faith may be a mile wide, but it's only an inch deep!
Many folks, who say they're Christians, but speak with two kinds of grammar, suffer from an identity problem. Oh, they know WHO they are; they just forget to tell other people WHOSE they are! They can recite Bible verses; proclaim doctrines, and even utter grace over a holiday meal, but the story of God's love, in Jesus, is always about ancient history, and never about God present and active in their own day-to-day lives.
The challenge to Christians is to be able to declare publicly what they believe, out of our own experience, not out of our book learning. It's the difference between saying, "I know
ABOUT Jesus" and "I KNOW Jesus."
When, out of the blue, something good happens to you do you say, "This is my lucky day," or do you say, "God always has a ram in the bush!" (Genesis 22:13-14) When we speak a public grammar of grace we “enflesh” and make present the power of God, both in our own heart and in the ears of another. This power is the power to transform lives and change the world’s manners.
The way we talk shapes how we behave. The world doesn't need more church members who speak nicely and do random acts of kindness. This sort of grammar reduces the power of God to just another language of rehabilitation - competing with all the other feel-good messages the world tries to lay on us.
What the world does need is more disciples of Jesus; believing actors whose words and deeds tell powerful testimonies of God's nearness, forgiveness, and love. And who, as disciples, work for justice and fairness; act out messages of hope and transformation.
If your message is muddled, if your behavior is befuddling, maybe it's been too long since you did what those first disciples of Jesus did. Maybe it's been too long since you met weekly to: hear God's bible word; study the teachings of the apostles; and dine at a table where the bread is passed and the wine is poured in the name of Jesus.
First Trinity is a place where Jesus teaches the grammar of grace. Come see! The place is full of learners just like you!
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Gardening This Side of Eden
If you were to walk through our Courtyard garden you'd probably notice the absence of intruding weeds. I thought that was because the volunteer work crews who prepared the beds did such a great job removing the old growth prior to setting in new plants. WRONG!
On a recent “field trip” into the Courtyard with a youth bible study class - we were planting tulip and daffodil bulbs in response to Matthew 6:28 ...consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin... - I learned the deeper truth. The reason there are so few weeds is that the work crews installed a fabric barrier to keep weeds from pushing up through the topsoil. Not a bad thing.
But the unseen barrier intended to prevent unwanted sprouting up, hindered firmly our putting anything down! Planting bulbs to reinforce a truth about God's love and care - and the futility of our worry in the face of grace - turned into nearly impossible work. Work we weren't equipped for. Tablespoons were no match for the fabric's thickness.
Without making a conscious choice our focus shifted from casual and delightful planting, to fierce and furious assault with all manner of misplaced tools - like screwdrivers, scissors, paring knives and fingernails. Some of the kids threatened to give up the effort. But two adult leaders, Carl and Pastor Chuck, wise gardeners, encouraged us to embrace the new challenge with patience, diligence, respect for our misplaced tools, and some graceful-humor.
Visible barriers are much in the news lately. Terrorism continues to be a barrier to a free Iraq, as well as safe and easy travel here at home. Religious dogmatism plagues our politics and clogs our courtrooms.
But it's the unseen barriers that keep challenging people of faith to fend off worry and embrace grace. Poverty continues to firmly hinder families from putting down deep roots in our neighborhood. Domestic violence remains a barrier to our children's flourishing into adulthood, especially our young black males. Racism, even twelve weeks after President Bush signed the ingeniously titled Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization of 2006, is still a barrier to full-bloomed rights and civility.
Most of us keep finding ingenious ways to lay a thick barrier between our talk of faith and our walk of faith. And some of us keep assaulting internal and external barriers with all the wrong tools, like: moving out of the city, embracing a prosperity “gospel,” and fleeing into the anonymity of mega-churches!
The truth is, God has equipped us to move - to be led is more accurate - gracefully, through every barrier and into Kingdom fruitfulness. Matthew's Jesus goes on to say, “But strive first for the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” God is ready, willing and able to entice and to equip each of us to join God in the possible work God never tires of, or worries about - creating again, saving anew, and blessing once more.
And God keeps penetrating this garden we call First Trinity - as a means of grace - with wise gardeners, miracle growers. They encourage us not to give up, teach us to embrace each new challenge, and invite us to delight in both the hard work and the promised new blooms that God grows when we keep on Sharin' Plenty Good News!
On a recent “field trip” into the Courtyard with a youth bible study class - we were planting tulip and daffodil bulbs in response to Matthew 6:28 ...consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin... - I learned the deeper truth. The reason there are so few weeds is that the work crews installed a fabric barrier to keep weeds from pushing up through the topsoil. Not a bad thing.
But the unseen barrier intended to prevent unwanted sprouting up, hindered firmly our putting anything down! Planting bulbs to reinforce a truth about God's love and care - and the futility of our worry in the face of grace - turned into nearly impossible work. Work we weren't equipped for. Tablespoons were no match for the fabric's thickness.
Without making a conscious choice our focus shifted from casual and delightful planting, to fierce and furious assault with all manner of misplaced tools - like screwdrivers, scissors, paring knives and fingernails. Some of the kids threatened to give up the effort. But two adult leaders, Carl and Pastor Chuck, wise gardeners, encouraged us to embrace the new challenge with patience, diligence, respect for our misplaced tools, and some graceful-humor.
Visible barriers are much in the news lately. Terrorism continues to be a barrier to a free Iraq, as well as safe and easy travel here at home. Religious dogmatism plagues our politics and clogs our courtrooms.
But it's the unseen barriers that keep challenging people of faith to fend off worry and embrace grace. Poverty continues to firmly hinder families from putting down deep roots in our neighborhood. Domestic violence remains a barrier to our children's flourishing into adulthood, especially our young black males. Racism, even twelve weeks after President Bush signed the ingeniously titled Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization of 2006, is still a barrier to full-bloomed rights and civility.
Most of us keep finding ingenious ways to lay a thick barrier between our talk of faith and our walk of faith. And some of us keep assaulting internal and external barriers with all the wrong tools, like: moving out of the city, embracing a prosperity “gospel,” and fleeing into the anonymity of mega-churches!
The truth is, God has equipped us to move - to be led is more accurate - gracefully, through every barrier and into Kingdom fruitfulness. Matthew's Jesus goes on to say, “But strive first for the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” God is ready, willing and able to entice and to equip each of us to join God in the possible work God never tires of, or worries about - creating again, saving anew, and blessing once more.
And God keeps penetrating this garden we call First Trinity - as a means of grace - with wise gardeners, miracle growers. They encourage us not to give up, teach us to embrace each new challenge, and invite us to delight in both the hard work and the promised new blooms that God grows when we keep on Sharin' Plenty Good News!
Friday, October 13, 2006
Off the List, Still On the Hook
It’s great when leaders go out on a limb. Risk-taking in high places always gets me cheering. Whether it’s Jesse Jackson negotiating with Hezbollah, or our Indianapolis mayor, Bart Peterson, establishing a Task Force to reduce violence in our city, I appreciate thinking and acting “outside the box.”
Risk-taking demands a clear perception of reality. Risk-takers combine that view with an insight into a different, better future. Risk-takers share a vision in ways that inspire others to join in bringing about the new reality. Speaking the truth and suggesting a path toward a different future exposes the leader to both criticism and failure. But there is a hidden, greater risk.
In the case of the Mayor’s Anti-violence Task Force, the hidden risk is that we who are left off the Blue Ribbon list will make a bad decision. There’s a chance we’ll decide we have no role shaping the vision, no duty to join the march, and no stake in the outcome. We don’t see ourselves at the ceremony unveiling the Blue Ribbon Report. It’s doubtful, too, that we see ourselves losing the next election if the Task Force fails.
The Mayor looks for concrete, proven strategies that can be implemented quickly and without high cost. People of faith ought to hear in that message a call for the roles, responsibilities and tasks in which we are experts.
We’re masters at Sharin’ Plenty Good News! That means, first, we can pray God’s wisdom be delivered to Task Force members in huge doses. It also means that we can encourage one another, especially young persons, to attend the public hearings the Tasks Force hosts.
Most importantly, the charge to identify and implement low-cost, effective strategies means two more things for us. First, we get to re-claim our identity as “ambassadors for Christ.” Second, we get to reassert our role to spread the Good News that the reconciliation God offers us in Christ is available for free to: each member of each household, every resident on every street, the entire city, and all persons for whom Christ has made the supreme sacrifice.
Each of us has a personal liberation story to share. There are none of us who does not have a graced encounter with the Risen Christ to boast about. Paul makes it clear, in 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, that we are “on the hook” to speak and act in ways that deliver God’s reconciling appeal to all people, through us.
We who have been reconciled to God in Christ and live in the new creation are the most powerful, concrete, low-cost, effective architects and builders of God’s vision for a new reality. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for those whom you’ve put on the list, and for putting all of us back on the hook!
Risk-taking demands a clear perception of reality. Risk-takers combine that view with an insight into a different, better future. Risk-takers share a vision in ways that inspire others to join in bringing about the new reality. Speaking the truth and suggesting a path toward a different future exposes the leader to both criticism and failure. But there is a hidden, greater risk.
In the case of the Mayor’s Anti-violence Task Force, the hidden risk is that we who are left off the Blue Ribbon list will make a bad decision. There’s a chance we’ll decide we have no role shaping the vision, no duty to join the march, and no stake in the outcome. We don’t see ourselves at the ceremony unveiling the Blue Ribbon Report. It’s doubtful, too, that we see ourselves losing the next election if the Task Force fails.
The Mayor looks for concrete, proven strategies that can be implemented quickly and without high cost. People of faith ought to hear in that message a call for the roles, responsibilities and tasks in which we are experts.
We’re masters at Sharin’ Plenty Good News! That means, first, we can pray God’s wisdom be delivered to Task Force members in huge doses. It also means that we can encourage one another, especially young persons, to attend the public hearings the Tasks Force hosts.
Most importantly, the charge to identify and implement low-cost, effective strategies means two more things for us. First, we get to re-claim our identity as “ambassadors for Christ.” Second, we get to reassert our role to spread the Good News that the reconciliation God offers us in Christ is available for free to: each member of each household, every resident on every street, the entire city, and all persons for whom Christ has made the supreme sacrifice.
Each of us has a personal liberation story to share. There are none of us who does not have a graced encounter with the Risen Christ to boast about. Paul makes it clear, in 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, that we are “on the hook” to speak and act in ways that deliver God’s reconciling appeal to all people, through us.
We who have been reconciled to God in Christ and live in the new creation are the most powerful, concrete, low-cost, effective architects and builders of God’s vision for a new reality. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for those whom you’ve put on the list, and for putting all of us back on the hook!
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Believing in God is Risky Business
I've been paying attention lately not only to what Jesus says, but also to how he says it. It's dawned on me that what's important about what Jesus says goes beyond the content of the message. An important part of Jesus' message is the way Jesus delivers his message.
Jesus seldom, if ever, begins his message with words like:
• My Mom said something strange to me at a wedding the other day
• I was in this living room when the ceiling suddenly fell in
• or a funny thing happened at the well when I went for a drink.
Jesus never seemed to star in his own stories. And I wonder if that's because Jesus wasn't, as politicians say, "on message." Rather, it was because Jesus was IN the message. That's different from that huge billboard on U.S. 31 in Kokomo that says, "Jesus is the answer." Whenever I see that billboard my first thought is always, "What's the question?"
Why do we insist on deciding which are the questions to which God is the answer? Why don't we ever seem to get to those days when God will write a new law in our hearts? Maybe it's because we don't want to go there; or more accurately, we believe we can get their on our own, under our own power.
As long as our definition of freedom is a statement that says, "Freedom is doing what I want, when I want;" - instead of a question that asks, "What would I do with freedom if I had it;" we'll not only not arrive - we'll never even set out on the journey. As long as we keep saying that life gives us a God problem; instead of asking what it means to live life with a God Abba, we'll always be afraid to jump in and never do more than dip our toes at the water's edge.
Jesus was never interested in giving a history lesson, scoring intellectual points, winning the political argument, or prevailing in the theological debate. He only wanted to liberate people from sin - which means - MISSING THE MARK. Jesus wants to move us from self-center, which is DEAD CENTER, to LIFE CENTER.
What Jesus offers is something new. Into the sameness of our self-made security; into the tried and trueness of our traditions, Jesus offers us hearts that are ever-new. Discipleship with Jesus is never a once and for all proposition. See? The old order - the order that says God's laws control our behavior, but also allow us to control God's behavior, always says: "Sure, I believe in God." By which we really mean, "OK, I can live in a universe where God exists." But the new order, the order of new hearts that beat by continuing in Jesus' Word, keeps asking: what does it mean, now - today - that you believe in God?
If I ask you, “Does God exist;” there are a thousand faith-escaping ways for you to say “yes" to that question. But if I ask you, “Do you believe in God” - if you've given your heart to God; you can only say "yes" by risking your life.
Jesus, in the message of the cross - the message of God's coming for us with a broken open and poured out love - offers us a new way of seeing God; hearing God; living in God; and, loving by God - that's the Good News. And it's not, no matter what world or culture says, that there's no better way - there just is no other way - to overcome: every misplaced question; every misguided answer; and, become the humanity God intends us to be.
Jesus seldom, if ever, begins his message with words like:
• My Mom said something strange to me at a wedding the other day
• I was in this living room when the ceiling suddenly fell in
• or a funny thing happened at the well when I went for a drink.
Jesus never seemed to star in his own stories. And I wonder if that's because Jesus wasn't, as politicians say, "on message." Rather, it was because Jesus was IN the message. That's different from that huge billboard on U.S. 31 in Kokomo that says, "Jesus is the answer." Whenever I see that billboard my first thought is always, "What's the question?"
Why do we insist on deciding which are the questions to which God is the answer? Why don't we ever seem to get to those days when God will write a new law in our hearts? Maybe it's because we don't want to go there; or more accurately, we believe we can get their on our own, under our own power.
As long as our definition of freedom is a statement that says, "Freedom is doing what I want, when I want;" - instead of a question that asks, "What would I do with freedom if I had it;" we'll not only not arrive - we'll never even set out on the journey. As long as we keep saying that life gives us a God problem; instead of asking what it means to live life with a God Abba, we'll always be afraid to jump in and never do more than dip our toes at the water's edge.
Jesus was never interested in giving a history lesson, scoring intellectual points, winning the political argument, or prevailing in the theological debate. He only wanted to liberate people from sin - which means - MISSING THE MARK. Jesus wants to move us from self-center, which is DEAD CENTER, to LIFE CENTER.
What Jesus offers is something new. Into the sameness of our self-made security; into the tried and trueness of our traditions, Jesus offers us hearts that are ever-new. Discipleship with Jesus is never a once and for all proposition. See? The old order - the order that says God's laws control our behavior, but also allow us to control God's behavior, always says: "Sure, I believe in God." By which we really mean, "OK, I can live in a universe where God exists." But the new order, the order of new hearts that beat by continuing in Jesus' Word, keeps asking: what does it mean, now - today - that you believe in God?
If I ask you, “Does God exist;” there are a thousand faith-escaping ways for you to say “yes" to that question. But if I ask you, “Do you believe in God” - if you've given your heart to God; you can only say "yes" by risking your life.
Jesus, in the message of the cross - the message of God's coming for us with a broken open and poured out love - offers us a new way of seeing God; hearing God; living in God; and, loving by God - that's the Good News. And it's not, no matter what world or culture says, that there's no better way - there just is no other way - to overcome: every misplaced question; every misguided answer; and, become the humanity God intends us to be.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
October's Other Famous Italian
Getting lots of play in this era of new age spirituality is an Italian guy! I'm generally in favor of that, especially when its not someone whose present day leanings make my heritage cringe - like Justice Antonin Scalia.
The swarthy brother to whom I'm referring has a more checkered past. No, it's not Christopher Columbus. This brother lived over 800 years ago, and his claim to fame was - at first - his misunderstanding God's word to him. Something I can definitely relate to.
Francis of Assisi - when you're really famous your last name doesn't matter - moves from backyard gardens and fish ponds each October when scores of area churches host occasions to bless pets. That's not a bad strategy for outreach, but it doesn't do much for my idea of communal prayer.
I do wonder what might happen if a gathering of God's faithful were to use such an occasion to unpack one of Francis' most famous sermons. Legend says Francis one spoke this: Preach the Gospel always. When necessary, use words.
When Francis finally got his ears and heart in the .same place, he understood that when God said, "Rebuild my church," God meant much more than the repair of a particular building. Moved by that great grace, Francis took to radically reforming what it meant to be a follower of Jesus, rather than a follower of church rules.
Francis not only gave his possessions away, he gave his ambition, his agenda, and his heart, mind and soul to join God's purpose to create, to save, and to bless ALL creatures of our God and King. Francis was a friend of animals because he was a friend of God. And as God's friend, Francis saw and joined God's desire to continue extending unfettered relationship and belonging to everyone he met.
Francis didn't just pray, "Lord make me an instrument of your peace," he talked and walked into that generous, privileged place every day.
Francis didn't just pray, "It's in dying that we're born to eternal life," he moved through death's threshold, boldly leaning into Jesus' promise from morning until night, day by day. Now that's an October surprise to live by!
The swarthy brother to whom I'm referring has a more checkered past. No, it's not Christopher Columbus. This brother lived over 800 years ago, and his claim to fame was - at first - his misunderstanding God's word to him. Something I can definitely relate to.
Francis of Assisi - when you're really famous your last name doesn't matter - moves from backyard gardens and fish ponds each October when scores of area churches host occasions to bless pets. That's not a bad strategy for outreach, but it doesn't do much for my idea of communal prayer.
I do wonder what might happen if a gathering of God's faithful were to use such an occasion to unpack one of Francis' most famous sermons. Legend says Francis one spoke this: Preach the Gospel always. When necessary, use words.
When Francis finally got his ears and heart in the .same place, he understood that when God said, "Rebuild my church," God meant much more than the repair of a particular building. Moved by that great grace, Francis took to radically reforming what it meant to be a follower of Jesus, rather than a follower of church rules.
Francis not only gave his possessions away, he gave his ambition, his agenda, and his heart, mind and soul to join God's purpose to create, to save, and to bless ALL creatures of our God and King. Francis was a friend of animals because he was a friend of God. And as God's friend, Francis saw and joined God's desire to continue extending unfettered relationship and belonging to everyone he met.
Francis didn't just pray, "Lord make me an instrument of your peace," he talked and walked into that generous, privileged place every day.
Francis didn't just pray, "It's in dying that we're born to eternal life," he moved through death's threshold, boldly leaning into Jesus' promise from morning until night, day by day. Now that's an October surprise to live by!
Sunday, October 08, 2006
An Unadulterated Jesus
Imagine, for a minute, that you were King of the world, or Queen of the world. You control it all. Your word is law. Your wish is everyone’s command. Your heart’s desire rules.
Is there anything you’d change? Would you:
• end world hunger
• stop all wars
• raise the minimum wage
• forgive the debt of third world countries
• abolish N / B / C weapons
• offer universal health care coverage
• restrict gun ownership to protect school children & teachers
• hand out antiviral medications to people with AIDS for free?
As you think about a lengthening “to do” list, when would you decide you need to make laws protecting the sanctity of marriage? What actions would you prescribe?
Despite a long list of social issues that still oppress and marginalize millions of Americans, the State’s interest in protecting the sanctity of marriage seems to be a high priority. As of November 2005, nearly 29 million Americans, in 19 states have voted on a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage. And more voters in more states will have that same opportunity in four weeks.
Let’s suppose that’s the right thing to do – define marriage as the union between one man and one woman. Should we stop there? What about establishing a suitable age for marriage and a proper bloodline boundary? Should we stop there? Could we argue that common: race, ethnicity, religion, intelligence, genetic traits, income and education levels, are helpful for protecting the sanctity of marriage? What about shared hobbies and tastes in music, fitness, and diets? Where should we stop?
The goal, say the politicians, is to protect the sanctity of marriage. So, do we set boundaries at the beginning, or do we put up barriers that prevent marriages’ ending? We could say you can’t get a new marriage license until you’ve been single one month for every year of your prior marriage. Or, how about a law saying a divorced spouse can’t marry someone else unless his or her first spouse is also ready to enter another marriage?
Maybe this is all too much for either the King or the Queen of the world. Apart from what we hear Jesus say in Mark’s Gospel (10:2-16), what say we see what the Bible says? When we ask, "What does the Bible say about divorce?" we come up with a number of different answers.
• Moses says that you can divorce a wife (Dt 24:1)
• In Ezra, it is the sign of a good husband to divorce his foreign (unbelieving) wife (Ezra 10:2-3, 44)
• Paul says that it is the sign of a good spouse not to divorce his or her non-believing spouse (1 Cor 7:12-13)
• Paul also says that divorce is permitted in some instances -- when an unbelieving partner requests it (1 Cor 7:15)
• Joseph, a "righteous man," felt believed it was his obligation to divorce Mary (because he thought the child she carried had been fathered by another) (Matt 1:19).
I’m not hearing lots of clarity.
What if, instead, we ask, “What does the Bible say about marriage?” Well, of course, we get first, and early, the piece we read, and which Jesus quoted from Genesis 2. We also get Genesis 20, where, fearing for his well-being, Abraham claimed his wife, Sarah, was his sister. 1 Kings 11:1-3 tells us:
1 King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter
—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. 2 They were from nation
about which the LORD had told the Israelites, "You must not intermarry with them,
because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods." Nevertheless, Solomon
held fast to them in love. 3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three
hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. (NIV)
Not much help, huh? How about the New Testament? Well, there’s Paul’s saying that wives areto be subject to their husbands and Peter’s charge that husbands have authority over their wives. Maybe we need to regroup. How did we get here, or better, how do we get out of here? Where is here?
Mark is usually good about providing locations as Jesus journeys toward Jerusalem. At this point Jesus is back in the territory of Judea, not far from the Jordan, where Herod ruled. The same Herod who beheaded John the Baptist for preaching that Herod should not have divorced his wife and married his brother’s wife, Herodias. Are bells goin’ off?
Who’s asking the original question; why might they be asking it? Mark says the Pharisees are testing Jesus. They ask, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” Jesus says, “What did Moses, as in the author of Torah, the book of the Law write?” And they told him. They already knew the answer. More bells?
We heard, in Mk 3:6, that the Pharisees began plotting, with the Herodians, to destroy Jesus, because he healed a man on the Sabbath. What’s going on here is more of the same. If Jesus says what John says, Herod will do the Pharisees’ dirty work. But Jesus doesn’t go there.
Jesus’ offers, instead, two observations. First, God’s vision for humanity sees both oneness and harmony between male and female (husband and wife) as image of God. Second, humans always seem to find a way to put a wall between our hearts and God’s desires. Jesus calls that, in Greek, sklerocardia, hard-heartedness. We get arteriosclerosis from the same root word.
Once alone with the disciples, Jesus speaks of remarriage as adultery. Matthew says Jesus preached on this topic in the Sermon on the Mount (5:27-28). You remember,
27"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery. 28But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
There’s not much more to say. Not many believers I know would disagree with that ideal vision of marriage. Likewise, not many believers I know would say we’ve found a sure cure for sklerocardia. We bring much the same hard-heartedness to most other insights about living in the Kingdom God that Jesus proclaimed. We still find it extremely hard to:
• love our enemies
• forgive one another
• be generous with our wealth
• do good to those who hurt us
• and on, and on.
Our hard-heartedness is a topic Jesus’ speaks to often. It comes again next week when the rich young man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. After saying that he’s kept all the commandments, including not committing adultery, Jesus seems to say that’s not a sufficient claim. Jesus also refuses to condemn the woman caught in adultery, and, yes, I remember Jesus telling her to go away and not to sin anymore. But I still don’t hear, either, Jesus saying, “If you do, I will condemn you.”
Where does that leave us? It should, I hope, cause us to stop parsing sin. Again, from Matthew’s Gospel, “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Matt 7). What hard-heartedness are we holding when we say Tammy Wynette and her seven marriages is a worse sinner than Enron executives are? Are the 18,270,000 citizens who voted to ban gay marriage more righteous than the 7,830,000 who voted for the rights of gays and lesbians to marry?
The key here, I think, is in verses Mk 10:13-16, the episode with Jesus’ overzealous, hard-hearted disciples and the parents of these children. “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."
Remember the status of children in the first century. They aren’t the dear cherubs we dote on today. Children caused spouses to work less efficiently, strained resources, crowded your house, and after all that, many died before puberty became a personal issues or a public problem, just about the time they might begin returning something on your investment.
Children are completely dependent, of little worth, and less value. These are they whom Jesus takes up compassionately in his arms, touches tenderly with his hands, and blesses anew and again with that belonging breath God breathed into the man made from clay, and the woman drawn from the clay-man’s rib.
These, taken, touched and blessed, to such as these belong the Kingdom of God. Jesus invites us to see ourselves as dependent on God, and God’s mercy alone, for our status, our worth, our value, our belonging and our becoming.
Inside that reality, protecting the sanctity of marriage begins with protecting the sacredness of life. That means standing against systems and structures that use oppression and injustice to deal death to dreams and destruction to opportunities. Protecting the sacredness of life begins with protecting the holiness of personhood. That means giving clear witness that who we are when we build up relationships and what we do to preserve relationships comes by our will and desire to live in all of God’s grand vision. The world has little interest in any of that.
But here, together, here, where the clear vision of God in a Word that reconciles us to the whole truth about ourselves – that our hearts are hard until God gives us a new heart - here, in the Meal that restores our souls for the journey - here, in the cross and resurrection that redeems us, here, where the clear vision of God collides with the walls of our personal and collective sklercardia, God offers us, again, our unearned place under God’s rule, where the least are taken up, the lost are touched, and the under-valued are blessed with dignity and worth as children of God.
What say, we all vote “Yes” to that holy truth, in the world, for the world, where God is King of all, for all, with more than a check-marked ballot, but with heads, hearts, hands and feet, everyday?
Is there anything you’d change? Would you:
• end world hunger
• stop all wars
• raise the minimum wage
• forgive the debt of third world countries
• abolish N / B / C weapons
• offer universal health care coverage
• restrict gun ownership to protect school children & teachers
• hand out antiviral medications to people with AIDS for free?
As you think about a lengthening “to do” list, when would you decide you need to make laws protecting the sanctity of marriage? What actions would you prescribe?
Despite a long list of social issues that still oppress and marginalize millions of Americans, the State’s interest in protecting the sanctity of marriage seems to be a high priority. As of November 2005, nearly 29 million Americans, in 19 states have voted on a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage. And more voters in more states will have that same opportunity in four weeks.
Let’s suppose that’s the right thing to do – define marriage as the union between one man and one woman. Should we stop there? What about establishing a suitable age for marriage and a proper bloodline boundary? Should we stop there? Could we argue that common: race, ethnicity, religion, intelligence, genetic traits, income and education levels, are helpful for protecting the sanctity of marriage? What about shared hobbies and tastes in music, fitness, and diets? Where should we stop?
The goal, say the politicians, is to protect the sanctity of marriage. So, do we set boundaries at the beginning, or do we put up barriers that prevent marriages’ ending? We could say you can’t get a new marriage license until you’ve been single one month for every year of your prior marriage. Or, how about a law saying a divorced spouse can’t marry someone else unless his or her first spouse is also ready to enter another marriage?
Maybe this is all too much for either the King or the Queen of the world. Apart from what we hear Jesus say in Mark’s Gospel (10:2-16), what say we see what the Bible says? When we ask, "What does the Bible say about divorce?" we come up with a number of different answers.
• Moses says that you can divorce a wife (Dt 24:1)
• In Ezra, it is the sign of a good husband to divorce his foreign (unbelieving) wife (Ezra 10:2-3, 44)
• Paul says that it is the sign of a good spouse not to divorce his or her non-believing spouse (1 Cor 7:12-13)
• Paul also says that divorce is permitted in some instances -- when an unbelieving partner requests it (1 Cor 7:15)
• Joseph, a "righteous man," felt believed it was his obligation to divorce Mary (because he thought the child she carried had been fathered by another) (Matt 1:19).
I’m not hearing lots of clarity.
What if, instead, we ask, “What does the Bible say about marriage?” Well, of course, we get first, and early, the piece we read, and which Jesus quoted from Genesis 2. We also get Genesis 20, where, fearing for his well-being, Abraham claimed his wife, Sarah, was his sister. 1 Kings 11:1-3 tells us:
1 King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter
—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. 2 They were from nation
about which the LORD had told the Israelites, "You must not intermarry with them,
because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods." Nevertheless, Solomon
held fast to them in love. 3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three
hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. (NIV)
Not much help, huh? How about the New Testament? Well, there’s Paul’s saying that wives areto be subject to their husbands and Peter’s charge that husbands have authority over their wives. Maybe we need to regroup. How did we get here, or better, how do we get out of here? Where is here?
Mark is usually good about providing locations as Jesus journeys toward Jerusalem. At this point Jesus is back in the territory of Judea, not far from the Jordan, where Herod ruled. The same Herod who beheaded John the Baptist for preaching that Herod should not have divorced his wife and married his brother’s wife, Herodias. Are bells goin’ off?
Who’s asking the original question; why might they be asking it? Mark says the Pharisees are testing Jesus. They ask, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” Jesus says, “What did Moses, as in the author of Torah, the book of the Law write?” And they told him. They already knew the answer. More bells?
We heard, in Mk 3:6, that the Pharisees began plotting, with the Herodians, to destroy Jesus, because he healed a man on the Sabbath. What’s going on here is more of the same. If Jesus says what John says, Herod will do the Pharisees’ dirty work. But Jesus doesn’t go there.
Jesus’ offers, instead, two observations. First, God’s vision for humanity sees both oneness and harmony between male and female (husband and wife) as image of God. Second, humans always seem to find a way to put a wall between our hearts and God’s desires. Jesus calls that, in Greek, sklerocardia, hard-heartedness. We get arteriosclerosis from the same root word.
Once alone with the disciples, Jesus speaks of remarriage as adultery. Matthew says Jesus preached on this topic in the Sermon on the Mount (5:27-28). You remember,
27"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery. 28But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
There’s not much more to say. Not many believers I know would disagree with that ideal vision of marriage. Likewise, not many believers I know would say we’ve found a sure cure for sklerocardia. We bring much the same hard-heartedness to most other insights about living in the Kingdom God that Jesus proclaimed. We still find it extremely hard to:
• love our enemies
• forgive one another
• be generous with our wealth
• do good to those who hurt us
• and on, and on.
Our hard-heartedness is a topic Jesus’ speaks to often. It comes again next week when the rich young man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. After saying that he’s kept all the commandments, including not committing adultery, Jesus seems to say that’s not a sufficient claim. Jesus also refuses to condemn the woman caught in adultery, and, yes, I remember Jesus telling her to go away and not to sin anymore. But I still don’t hear, either, Jesus saying, “If you do, I will condemn you.”
Where does that leave us? It should, I hope, cause us to stop parsing sin. Again, from Matthew’s Gospel, “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Matt 7). What hard-heartedness are we holding when we say Tammy Wynette and her seven marriages is a worse sinner than Enron executives are? Are the 18,270,000 citizens who voted to ban gay marriage more righteous than the 7,830,000 who voted for the rights of gays and lesbians to marry?
The key here, I think, is in verses Mk 10:13-16, the episode with Jesus’ overzealous, hard-hearted disciples and the parents of these children. “I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it."
Remember the status of children in the first century. They aren’t the dear cherubs we dote on today. Children caused spouses to work less efficiently, strained resources, crowded your house, and after all that, many died before puberty became a personal issues or a public problem, just about the time they might begin returning something on your investment.
Children are completely dependent, of little worth, and less value. These are they whom Jesus takes up compassionately in his arms, touches tenderly with his hands, and blesses anew and again with that belonging breath God breathed into the man made from clay, and the woman drawn from the clay-man’s rib.
These, taken, touched and blessed, to such as these belong the Kingdom of God. Jesus invites us to see ourselves as dependent on God, and God’s mercy alone, for our status, our worth, our value, our belonging and our becoming.
Inside that reality, protecting the sanctity of marriage begins with protecting the sacredness of life. That means standing against systems and structures that use oppression and injustice to deal death to dreams and destruction to opportunities. Protecting the sacredness of life begins with protecting the holiness of personhood. That means giving clear witness that who we are when we build up relationships and what we do to preserve relationships comes by our will and desire to live in all of God’s grand vision. The world has little interest in any of that.
But here, together, here, where the clear vision of God in a Word that reconciles us to the whole truth about ourselves – that our hearts are hard until God gives us a new heart - here, in the Meal that restores our souls for the journey - here, in the cross and resurrection that redeems us, here, where the clear vision of God collides with the walls of our personal and collective sklercardia, God offers us, again, our unearned place under God’s rule, where the least are taken up, the lost are touched, and the under-valued are blessed with dignity and worth as children of God.
What say, we all vote “Yes” to that holy truth, in the world, for the world, where God is King of all, for all, with more than a check-marked ballot, but with heads, hearts, hands and feet, everyday?
Friday, October 06, 2006
God's Courage Is Not in Short Supply
Ever since September 11, 2001 the words “bravery” and “courage” are spoken out loud once again. That’s a good thing. But since we use those words, almost exclusively, to pay tribute to rescue workers and soldiers, real heroes, we sometimes forget what Jesus said to his disciples during their last meal together, "Be of good courage, for I have conquered the world" John 16:33.
Courage is a word that Paul frequently heard from the Lord, and spoke boldly to his believing companions. Paul understood clearly that what Jesus stood on and stood for required courageous acts. So Paul, and others whom God called to be early followers of The Way, took courage and en-couraged one another.
Since so few of us take the daily risks that rescue workers and soldiers do, we may not think that what we do, and how we do it, requires courage. Or, if we think of ourselves as needing courage, we think we have to dig deep within ourselves and "tough it out on our own."
But I'll bet that if you take five minutes to name three people you know, a cousin, a co-worker, and a friend, you'll be able to see at least seven acts of courage. You may know someone who is raising children alone; "How on earth does he do that?" You may see someone who, each day, struggles through the unexpected loss of a loved one; "I don't see how she carries on." You may know someone who keeps a home, gets to work, goes to school, keeps up with friends and volunteers in the community; "How can one person keep all that up?"
Because you're able to spot courage, naming it and claiming it when you see it, look in the mirror. I'd be willing to bet that God has given you power to not only make a difference in the world, but to join Jesus in making a new world. That's what's happening at First Trinity.
Like Paul and those early disciples, people who worship here are not only hearing a word of courage, we're sharing and en-couraging one another. That's not only making a difference in how we speak to God, it's making a difference in how we hear from God. There are very few heroes in our midst, but the courage displayed by those who wait on the Lord comes in a variety of amazing "packages." And that's a good thing.
It would be our honor to share and celebrate God's gift of courage to you.
Courage is a word that Paul frequently heard from the Lord, and spoke boldly to his believing companions. Paul understood clearly that what Jesus stood on and stood for required courageous acts. So Paul, and others whom God called to be early followers of The Way, took courage and en-couraged one another.
Since so few of us take the daily risks that rescue workers and soldiers do, we may not think that what we do, and how we do it, requires courage. Or, if we think of ourselves as needing courage, we think we have to dig deep within ourselves and "tough it out on our own."
But I'll bet that if you take five minutes to name three people you know, a cousin, a co-worker, and a friend, you'll be able to see at least seven acts of courage. You may know someone who is raising children alone; "How on earth does he do that?" You may see someone who, each day, struggles through the unexpected loss of a loved one; "I don't see how she carries on." You may know someone who keeps a home, gets to work, goes to school, keeps up with friends and volunteers in the community; "How can one person keep all that up?"
Because you're able to spot courage, naming it and claiming it when you see it, look in the mirror. I'd be willing to bet that God has given you power to not only make a difference in the world, but to join Jesus in making a new world. That's what's happening at First Trinity.
Like Paul and those early disciples, people who worship here are not only hearing a word of courage, we're sharing and en-couraging one another. That's not only making a difference in how we speak to God, it's making a difference in how we hear from God. There are very few heroes in our midst, but the courage displayed by those who wait on the Lord comes in a variety of amazing "packages." And that's a good thing.
It would be our honor to share and celebrate God's gift of courage to you.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Changed "Priests" Change Worship and Church
The time between worship services at Christ Church, Zionsville was set aside for a conversation among our members who attended this pulpit exchange event, adults from Christ Church, and me. It was a good opportunity for us to get to know each other in a small-group, semi-formal setting. (No matter how relaxed, I find Q & A sessions to be not quite informal.)
Someone offered that “all the advice” he’s read about how to grow churches, by attracting new members, suggests the veterans will have to change more than a few practices to make new-comers feel welcome. What, the questioner wanted to know, is First Trinity prepared to do to make that happen?
I’m not completely pleased with my response. I recall rambling on about ministry in a multi-cultural setting. But there were a few points worth thinking about more thoroughly.
I noted, first, that worship needs to be relevant to those in attendance. Relevant is much different than trendy. Trends follow fads, like using power point computer presentations during the sermon. Relevant means that what’s done at worship must connect with those who would worship God. Somehow, the “natural” ways they speak, act, dress, sing - or not, have to have a place of honor if their worship is to be authentic and genuine (both a gift to them [from God], and a gift from them [to God].
Second, I said, while worship “forms” might be new / different, and / or unfamiliar, the point of worship is all about giving God thanks and praise for the ways God keeps making us new (creating); getting us through (saving); and, bringing us over (blessing) - over into the ways of God’s will and God’s work. Who we worship and why we worship isn’t new at all. That is, this is what God has been doing from the beginning, and what God will keep doing forever. (That’s what we mean when we say that God is unchanging, always the same.)
Of course, change always involves both loss and gain. Often, the gain is less easy to see. Sadly, especially in communities of faith - and particularly about worship - the gain is measured against some “cost-benefit analysis” that’s personally owned rather than broadly shared.
I heard a DJ tell his audience, “You really need to hear the sounds we’re playing during the noon hour. Just tell the folks you had church on the radio today.” Well, you can have a lot of experiences over the radio - meditation, entertainment, uplift, powerful praise, but you cannot have church - and you definitely cannot have worship.
Looking at the latter, worship is the public activity / work of the community of faith who are called, gathered and equipped by the Holy Spirit. Radio, even in a crowded room lacks both of these. In its place a community offers God thanks for all who God has been and all that God has done in the week just past. In a second counter-cultural move, those gathered thank God - in advance – for who God will be and what God will do in the week ahead.
I’m eager to be led by God’s Spirit to find folks who are being called by God to explore how worship might happen among homogenous groups – like jazz musicians; 20 – 30 something’s into hip-hop; poets; even public intellectuals. These folks, either maintaining their focus identity, or mixing it up, have much to teach about how God wants us to join God’s work in our everyday worlds, fueled and fed by our gathering together in worship.
Luther believed that the work of a pastor’s "priesthood" is easy. Folks expect us to break-open the Word and speak a prayer. The harder “priesthood” to make real occurs in worldly settings, by those who hold regular jobs. Luther said it something like this: The shoemaker’s awl (needle) is his Gospel (text); his sanctuary is his shop.
Once we’ve changed the way we worship together, changing how we BE and DO church together will be quite natural.
Someone offered that “all the advice” he’s read about how to grow churches, by attracting new members, suggests the veterans will have to change more than a few practices to make new-comers feel welcome. What, the questioner wanted to know, is First Trinity prepared to do to make that happen?
I’m not completely pleased with my response. I recall rambling on about ministry in a multi-cultural setting. But there were a few points worth thinking about more thoroughly.
I noted, first, that worship needs to be relevant to those in attendance. Relevant is much different than trendy. Trends follow fads, like using power point computer presentations during the sermon. Relevant means that what’s done at worship must connect with those who would worship God. Somehow, the “natural” ways they speak, act, dress, sing - or not, have to have a place of honor if their worship is to be authentic and genuine (both a gift to them [from God], and a gift from them [to God].
Second, I said, while worship “forms” might be new / different, and / or unfamiliar, the point of worship is all about giving God thanks and praise for the ways God keeps making us new (creating); getting us through (saving); and, bringing us over (blessing) - over into the ways of God’s will and God’s work. Who we worship and why we worship isn’t new at all. That is, this is what God has been doing from the beginning, and what God will keep doing forever. (That’s what we mean when we say that God is unchanging, always the same.)
Of course, change always involves both loss and gain. Often, the gain is less easy to see. Sadly, especially in communities of faith - and particularly about worship - the gain is measured against some “cost-benefit analysis” that’s personally owned rather than broadly shared.
I heard a DJ tell his audience, “You really need to hear the sounds we’re playing during the noon hour. Just tell the folks you had church on the radio today.” Well, you can have a lot of experiences over the radio - meditation, entertainment, uplift, powerful praise, but you cannot have church - and you definitely cannot have worship.
Looking at the latter, worship is the public activity / work of the community of faith who are called, gathered and equipped by the Holy Spirit. Radio, even in a crowded room lacks both of these. In its place a community offers God thanks for all who God has been and all that God has done in the week just past. In a second counter-cultural move, those gathered thank God - in advance – for who God will be and what God will do in the week ahead.
I’m eager to be led by God’s Spirit to find folks who are being called by God to explore how worship might happen among homogenous groups – like jazz musicians; 20 – 30 something’s into hip-hop; poets; even public intellectuals. These folks, either maintaining their focus identity, or mixing it up, have much to teach about how God wants us to join God’s work in our everyday worlds, fueled and fed by our gathering together in worship.
Luther believed that the work of a pastor’s "priesthood" is easy. Folks expect us to break-open the Word and speak a prayer. The harder “priesthood” to make real occurs in worldly settings, by those who hold regular jobs. Luther said it something like this: The shoemaker’s awl (needle) is his Gospel (text); his sanctuary is his shop.
Once we’ve changed the way we worship together, changing how we BE and DO church together will be quite natural.
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Getting Cross-Ways with Conventinal Wisdom
Conventional Wisdom (CW) is a term coined by the economist John Kenneth Galbraith. He meant the phrase to describe certain ideas or explanations that are generally accepted as true. So-called Conventional Wisdom may be either true or false. Many urban legends are accepted as true based on CW. Often, urban legends are little more than rumors. For example, that the USPS is halting production of African Heritage stamps, or KFC no longer uses chicken and now fries up genetically altered life form.
Conventional Wisdom can be a barrier to new ideas and explanations. Meaning, despite new and different information CW gets “set in concrete.” In the end, CW can make us closed-minded. What we already know is convenient, appealing. CW often creates energy, an opposite force, which hangs onto the old belief, sometimes to the point of absurd denial of the new information. We’ll hang onto CW at all costs, often doing silly things to do that.
Last week I fell victim to a bit of CW. You know what a fan I am of politics. When I heard that both New York Congressman Charlie Rangel and California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi criticized Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for calling George Bush the devil himself, I refused to believe it. I was sure these two rabid partisans would be jumping for joy that an outsider had done their dirty work for them. It wasn’t until I went on-line and read their criticism myself in the Washington Post that I could trust the report. Wait. It gets better.
Charlie Rangel was a perfect gentleman. He said, “No one comes to my country, in my district, from another country and criticizes my president.” I was shocked. However, my faith in CW was restored when I read what Ms. Pelosi said, “She said, Chavez thinks he’s a new Simon Bolivar, but he’s just a thug.” To me it looked like an Italian thing – maybe we’ll have to send her to charm school!
This text from Mark’s Gospel (Mark 9:34-37) is riddled with CW the Holy Spirit wants us to see. Some of it Mark put there because of his own experience. Some is based on testimony of Jesus’ early followers. A little is there, likely, because Mark needed to address issues going on his own church community. But much of the CW that still operates here does so because we keep bringing it. We need to sort all that out. If we don’t, we’ll miss the wisdom, the new and contrary ideas, that Jesus intends we hear and bring to bear in our own church and in our own worlds today.
Notice that the disciples ignore Jesus’ second prediction of his passion and death. Earlier we heard Peter challenge this very same prediction (Mk 8:27-38). We also heard Jesus call Peter out in front of a whole crowd and the other disciples, for arguing his CW against Jesus’ new wisdom. So we shouldn’t be surprised to hear the disciples ignore Jesus’ second prediction and change the subject.
Their new subject - which of us will sit in what high and mighty places - operated out of their CW. If Jesus is messiah, when he rules, they rule. They have created an opposing force, an alternative story, which ends differently than Jesus’ sees it.
To get them to let go of their old CW and adopt his new
vision, Jesus tells them, as plain as possible, a new rule. He says, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” He has their attention, but he must have seen a whole lot of blank stares. Maybe stares that betrayed a feeling like, “Yeah, Riiiight.”
Not flinching, Jesus meets force with force. He grabs up the lowest life form he can find - a child - and says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
I didn’t misspeak. I said Jesus scooped up the lowest life form he could find. That’s our CW that’s keeping us from seeing Jesus’ new vision. Our culture values children. This early Middle Eastern society did not. Children were lower in this honor / shame culture than either shepherds or lepers.
Oh, their bible said children are a blessing, but their CW said children were a burden. Kids couldn’t work. When you had them, you worked harder to feed them. You knew your investment might never pay off since they couldn’t be counted on to stay healthy, or alive. If you had a girl-child, you needed to make sure you had money for a dowry. If you had a boy-child, just about the time he became productive he got his own wife, made more babies. You needed to work harder and get a bigger house. You also had to pray that they would not turn you out when you got too old to take care of yourself.
Jesus is launching extremely innovative wisdom, Kingdom vision. If we’re willing to give up our CW, we might just see it.
We’ve been trained to see, hear, read and believe the Bible as
a “how to” manual. It’s really a “why for” manual. Before the Bible is about anything at all, it’s about God. It’s only about us as we are objects of God’s love. It’s God’s love and regard for us that makes us subjects, otherwise we’re no different than any other creature, loved but not aware of it. We’re made in God’s image. The Triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit living and loving in its own holy community has made us in God’s image.
Let’s face up to our CW that keeps us misunderstanding a why for book for a how to book, in the order Mark gives it to us.
Look at Jesus’ new rule, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Let’s admit that, at best, we turn this life orientation into a proverb, sometimes. Since it’s spoken to the apostles, some folks think it only refers to church leaders. Often, when we get passed that, we hear it as referring only to individuals. But it’s clearly spoken to Jesus’ first gathered community. We’ll do this personally, alone, only to the extent that we do this together. And if Jesus thought we could pull this off, individually and alone, he wouldn’t have spoken it to the group.
Let me show how our CW is operating here. When was the last time you heard this verse quoted, and the speaker meant it to be anything but a joke? Have you ever been to a church meeting and heard a member say, “I’d like to add an item to the agenda: how can this congregation be last of all and a servant of all”?
Jesus' embrace is another jolt to our CW. What Jesus is doing, by embracing a lowly child, is what God has been doing since God stooped to meet us in the mud. What Jesus is doing is the rest of God’s story, suffering for us, staying with us, embracing us, even when we stray, fall into sin, miss the mark. Stooping to us; suffering for us; staying with us, it’s the servanthood of the God who chooses to be the servant of us all.
The only thing that can keep you from seeing, hearing and accepting Jesus’ Kingdom vision is your CW. Claim your shame. Let go of your conventions. Lay hold to your lowliness. Let go of your wisdom. Then Jesus has you right where he wants you, deep in the arms of his redeeming embrace.
Be so welcomed there that you can not only say Jesus’ name, but also speak in Jesus’ name. Speak to someone a welcome in Jesus’ name and let them meet the God who stoops to you, suffers for you, stays with you.
That’s what becomes the “how to,” the identity and relationship we have as image of God, children of God. That’s when the text describes the reality, the vision, the true wisdom that God’s desire prescribes for all God’s people. It’s a life orientation that will always put us crossways with the world’s CW and it’s God’s best way - our only way - into the only greatness that matters.
Conventional Wisdom can be a barrier to new ideas and explanations. Meaning, despite new and different information CW gets “set in concrete.” In the end, CW can make us closed-minded. What we already know is convenient, appealing. CW often creates energy, an opposite force, which hangs onto the old belief, sometimes to the point of absurd denial of the new information. We’ll hang onto CW at all costs, often doing silly things to do that.
Last week I fell victim to a bit of CW. You know what a fan I am of politics. When I heard that both New York Congressman Charlie Rangel and California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi criticized Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for calling George Bush the devil himself, I refused to believe it. I was sure these two rabid partisans would be jumping for joy that an outsider had done their dirty work for them. It wasn’t until I went on-line and read their criticism myself in the Washington Post that I could trust the report. Wait. It gets better.
Charlie Rangel was a perfect gentleman. He said, “No one comes to my country, in my district, from another country and criticizes my president.” I was shocked. However, my faith in CW was restored when I read what Ms. Pelosi said, “She said, Chavez thinks he’s a new Simon Bolivar, but he’s just a thug.” To me it looked like an Italian thing – maybe we’ll have to send her to charm school!
This text from Mark’s Gospel (Mark 9:34-37) is riddled with CW the Holy Spirit wants us to see. Some of it Mark put there because of his own experience. Some is based on testimony of Jesus’ early followers. A little is there, likely, because Mark needed to address issues going on his own church community. But much of the CW that still operates here does so because we keep bringing it. We need to sort all that out. If we don’t, we’ll miss the wisdom, the new and contrary ideas, that Jesus intends we hear and bring to bear in our own church and in our own worlds today.
Notice that the disciples ignore Jesus’ second prediction of his passion and death. Earlier we heard Peter challenge this very same prediction (Mk 8:27-38). We also heard Jesus call Peter out in front of a whole crowd and the other disciples, for arguing his CW against Jesus’ new wisdom. So we shouldn’t be surprised to hear the disciples ignore Jesus’ second prediction and change the subject.
Their new subject - which of us will sit in what high and mighty places - operated out of their CW. If Jesus is messiah, when he rules, they rule. They have created an opposing force, an alternative story, which ends differently than Jesus’ sees it.
To get them to let go of their old CW and adopt his new
vision, Jesus tells them, as plain as possible, a new rule. He says, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” He has their attention, but he must have seen a whole lot of blank stares. Maybe stares that betrayed a feeling like, “Yeah, Riiiight.”
Not flinching, Jesus meets force with force. He grabs up the lowest life form he can find - a child - and says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
I didn’t misspeak. I said Jesus scooped up the lowest life form he could find. That’s our CW that’s keeping us from seeing Jesus’ new vision. Our culture values children. This early Middle Eastern society did not. Children were lower in this honor / shame culture than either shepherds or lepers.
Oh, their bible said children are a blessing, but their CW said children were a burden. Kids couldn’t work. When you had them, you worked harder to feed them. You knew your investment might never pay off since they couldn’t be counted on to stay healthy, or alive. If you had a girl-child, you needed to make sure you had money for a dowry. If you had a boy-child, just about the time he became productive he got his own wife, made more babies. You needed to work harder and get a bigger house. You also had to pray that they would not turn you out when you got too old to take care of yourself.
Jesus is launching extremely innovative wisdom, Kingdom vision. If we’re willing to give up our CW, we might just see it.
We’ve been trained to see, hear, read and believe the Bible as
a “how to” manual. It’s really a “why for” manual. Before the Bible is about anything at all, it’s about God. It’s only about us as we are objects of God’s love. It’s God’s love and regard for us that makes us subjects, otherwise we’re no different than any other creature, loved but not aware of it. We’re made in God’s image. The Triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit living and loving in its own holy community has made us in God’s image.
Let’s face up to our CW that keeps us misunderstanding a why for book for a how to book, in the order Mark gives it to us.
Look at Jesus’ new rule, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Let’s admit that, at best, we turn this life orientation into a proverb, sometimes. Since it’s spoken to the apostles, some folks think it only refers to church leaders. Often, when we get passed that, we hear it as referring only to individuals. But it’s clearly spoken to Jesus’ first gathered community. We’ll do this personally, alone, only to the extent that we do this together. And if Jesus thought we could pull this off, individually and alone, he wouldn’t have spoken it to the group.
Let me show how our CW is operating here. When was the last time you heard this verse quoted, and the speaker meant it to be anything but a joke? Have you ever been to a church meeting and heard a member say, “I’d like to add an item to the agenda: how can this congregation be last of all and a servant of all”?
Jesus' embrace is another jolt to our CW. What Jesus is doing, by embracing a lowly child, is what God has been doing since God stooped to meet us in the mud. What Jesus is doing is the rest of God’s story, suffering for us, staying with us, embracing us, even when we stray, fall into sin, miss the mark. Stooping to us; suffering for us; staying with us, it’s the servanthood of the God who chooses to be the servant of us all.
The only thing that can keep you from seeing, hearing and accepting Jesus’ Kingdom vision is your CW. Claim your shame. Let go of your conventions. Lay hold to your lowliness. Let go of your wisdom. Then Jesus has you right where he wants you, deep in the arms of his redeeming embrace.
Be so welcomed there that you can not only say Jesus’ name, but also speak in Jesus’ name. Speak to someone a welcome in Jesus’ name and let them meet the God who stoops to you, suffers for you, stays with you.
That’s what becomes the “how to,” the identity and relationship we have as image of God, children of God. That’s when the text describes the reality, the vision, the true wisdom that God’s desire prescribes for all God’s people. It’s a life orientation that will always put us crossways with the world’s CW and it’s God’s best way - our only way - into the only greatness that matters.
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