conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

a midday reflection: sermonating

A rabbi once said that any religion that doesn't talk about your genitalia or your pocket book is not worth your time. Jesus wants us to recognize the cost. He wants us to know that life following him does not necessarily make things easier. It's not really about self-improvement like so many present day spiritualists might insist. It's not about finding ourselves. It's about the exact opposite. It's about losing ourselves.
~ from my present sermon draft

I like to read (a lot) and have spent much of the last few years reading about the church in the US. What is changing in the culture? What has been happening in the lives of congregations? It's been highly educational and, in the end, helpful in my role as a pastor of a maine line congregation. One thing has frustrated me, however, and I have said it before. What do we do? No one has been talking about what we do in response. You see, "worship in a coffee shop" is not actually the answer to that question.

I was speaking to Phyllis Tickle about this at a conference last year (Name dropping is our friend on the internet.). She agreed and said that many of the people she knows on the speaker circuit (Diana Butler Bass, Doug Pagitt, etc) are trying to step away from the present conversation and move forward. We've spent most of the last decade saying "everything is changing!" Now, let's talk about what we can do.

So, to contribute to that conversation, I offer these three books. They are only a start. And, if you are trying to answer the question "How do we make it like it was in [random date here]?" you may be asking the wrong question. Still, there is great hope.

You can order Carol Howard Merritt's book, Reframing Hope from Alban here. I reviewed it a couple of days ago. You can read Jim Somerville's little book, When The Sand Castle Crumbles here. I love the story he tells. When the castle crumbles, you go swimming! You can download Chris Smith's book, Growing Deeper here. Also, Chris will be at Community Church of Wilmette next Thursday evening to talk about ways of being more involved in our communities.

Again, this is just a start. There is a lot of work to be done and a lot of conversation to be had. The future may indeed be uncertain, but as Jim suggests, fear not. Christ is the same from day to day, in love with God's creation. Perfect love casts out fear, my friends.

My sermon this Sunday is a reflection of this. Jesus admonishes the dinner party again about what they want to hold on to. Family. Friends. Property. We want to be defined by these things, but once again Jesus says "Hey. Fine. Do what you want, but those things are not substitutes for the Kingdom." It's a rough passage, but if we do not recognize that following Christ is difficult, that living into The Kingdom (justice, mercy, love of the poor, etc) is going to ask a lot of us, then, well...our efforts may not actually amount to much after all (See: Luke 14:34-35). But there is always hope and God's generous and sacrificial love.

worth reading: landon whitsitt

Give it a go:

If we are to try and view the church as similar to Wikipedia what does it mean to assert that the Church has a “neutral point of view”? I think it means two things:

1) The church is not the place to “experiment” with theology or practice. Now, this might be oft putting to some, but this is not to say that other practices cannot be explored nor that theological exploration is not done. This is only to say that, when it comes the church, what we’re doing is passing on something equivalent to the “verifiable” information the Wikipedia is interested in.

The Open Source Church will never say “We have the Truth” but it will say “Here is what we have found to be reliable over many times and places.” It’s not “Believe this or you go to Hell” but “If you want the Abundant Life, here’s what we have found to be helpful.”

Of course, the *fun* occurs when you and I begin discussing what exactly has been reliable over the ages. More often than not, we will find that we do not list the same things, which leads to the second point…

2) There will be space in the Open Source Church for different understandings to exist side by side. A classic example is the understandings of atonement, or how and why Jesus’s death and resurrection is the basis of our salvation. Some would say that God was paying the Devil a ransom, while others would say that Jesus was taking the punishment that we should have had to endure for violating God’s laws. Still others say that Jesus’ death set us free from being bound to ourselves.

Which one is the “Truth”? From an open source viewpoint, they all are and they all will exist side by side int he church. We, of course, must demonstrate how these understandings and other practices are reliably conforming us to the image of Christ, but once that bar is past its just like “Kiev/Kjiv.”

Landon Whitsitt is writing.

discernment in transition

Times of transition that invite discernment and probe self-knowledge are invitations to prayer. Centering prayer is especially helpful because our minds are exhausted from examining all the possibilities. In centering prayer one attempts to get behind their thoughts to attend to a deeper presence. Reflecting and understanding are useful, but deep knowing happen at the heart level, where our spirits and God’s Spirit commune in ways beyond words.
~ Kim Seidman, An app for discernment, please?

I don't know much, but there are a couple of things that I am learning slowly to depend upon while the terms and definitions of life seem to change at will around me. I have learned that the relationships I have with family and friends are priceless. (Note: they are also expensive...count the cost, but it's worth it) I have also learned that prayer is everything.

Life is always in flux. Transition, moving, change, etc are really the norm. If it's not our place of business it's our families and other relationships. It's always something. How do we stay grounded and conscious in times of transition? Prayer.

Now, some might want to say, "Sure. For you. You are a pastor. You are supposed to be praying. We [lawyers, doctors, candlestick makers] don't have time. Prayer is a luxury." Yeah. I know. Maybe you don't struggle with this particular demon, but I hear it all the time in ministry. We don't make time to pray. We don't make time to meditate. Even we pastors (gasp! horrors!) have the same problem. Prayer is misperceived as unproductive or luxurious. In this recent blogpost from Duke Divinity, I found a challenge to my own usual frustrations or malaise about prayer.

Questions of “who am I” or “who are we” are easily bypassed or ignored in times of transition. Anxiety is high in uncertainty, and often we just want to make a decision already. It is satisfying to know where we are going and plot out how to get there. But sometimes leaders are tasked with holding a space for important questions to linger.

I found this little article to be a helpful reminder of the place and importance of such disciplines. You don't have to be a Buddhist monk or a Carmelite nun to do this. It is a skill that must be developed, but it's one for which all human beings are equipped.

Rose Mary Daugherty, in her latest book “Discernment,” writes that once a person is reunited with their God-given sense of identity, they are better equipped to make decisions about who they are in God. She invites readers to move away from considering questions of right and wrong when it comes to discerning God’s will. When we are operating in freedom from our relationship with God, we can listen “to the deep wannas of our life.” God created each us with particular likes and dislikes, gifts and challenges. God will be with us on whatever path we choose.

In times of transition, we must make room for silence and prayer. We must make room for intentional reflection and wait for the still small voice of God to speak to our hearts. Otherwise we just may lose ourselves in the chaos and transitions of this life.

sermon: nomads and infidels

What does it look like? How do you do it? Such are the practical questions that often follow readings like ours today. The call of Paul in his open letter to the Hebrews and Jesus’ proclamation of radical, status reversing Kingdom community in Luke may sound good to some of us, but how do we do it and what does it look like?

Well, this morning I offer you a passage from a Chicago Tribune article about Jane Addams. The 150th anniversary of her birth approaches and the city of Chicago, the Hull-House museum, and Rockford College, her alma mater, are all preparing their celebrations.

[Jane] Addams was born Sept. 6, 1860, to a wealthy family in Cedarville, Ill. Most people today think of Addams as the patron saint of social work, a Victorian do-gooder who helped the working poor of the industrial Near West Side...

"We like to sanitize iconic heroes. Jane Addams was radical and fought against norms of the time," said [Lisa] Lee, [director of the Hull House museum]. "She believed in a common good, in which we all had a stake in each other's future.

"No one is more relevant than Jane Addams," Lee said.

Because of her pacifism and social activism, the FBI compiled a huge dossier on Addams and considered her one of the most dangerous women in America, Lee said.

"She was one of the most loved and hated women in America," said Evanston author Louise Knight, whose book "Jane Addams: Spirit in Action" will be published in September in conjunction with the anniversary.

In 1889, at age 29, Addams used her inheritance to open Hull House, the first settlement house in the United States, in a circa 1856 mansion at 800 S. Halsted St. It was a neighborhood community center - before there really were community centers, Knight said — that helped immigrants put down roots in a new country and sought to bridge the class divide.

Hull House eventually grew to a 13-building complex that housed cultural programs, like the dance classes [Angela] Rinaldi [83] attended as a girl, child care, English classes, job training programs, a dining room, free medical and dental clinics, and a bath house. Union workers were allowed to organize there, and Hull House was one of the few places in the country at the time that taught sex education, Lee said.

Within a few years, Hull House became internationally famous, as did its founder, drawing thinkers, authors, artists and political activists to its premises.

"What Addams faced in the late 1880s was not unlike what we are dealing with today," Lee said. It was a time when most of Chicago's population was born in other countries. "Some saw it as an immigrant problem, while Addams saw it in terms of the challenge and beauty of democracy," she said.

Another anniversary is also in the forefront of the minds of many Americans. Yesterday was the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. If you have been paying attention to the news, you know that people are now fighting over it…what are its claims and who are they for and how should they be honored. I won’t pick sides this morning, but can we simply agree that America still has some work to do before the fullness of this vision is realized. Some days I’m just not sure that the waters of that justice and righteousness have actually reached many of us. We may hear their roar and witness their tulmult, but many of us are still as dry as a bone and many more are thirsty.

Jesus knows this. Jesus sees us waiting in line or jockeying for position. Jesus sees us getting in one another’s way trying to secure the best seat, competing for the right seat, the place we deserve to be in for whatever reason we have in our minds…Jesus sees us holding one another back in the name of fairness and some other vague kind of so-called justice…In the name of polite society, of proper order, and in the name of honor. So, Jesus calls us into another life that he called the Kingdom of God.

He could only describe this kingdom by parables. He could only provide the scaffolding for us to climb. So much of the work of revealing the kingdom is left to us. The doors are always open, says Jesus, but the one thing I can tell you is that you cannot get there from here. The present social order doesn’t have room for the Kingdom. If you want the kingdom, you have to be willing to lose your faith in the society you have been given. You have to become infidels to the honor of this world. And you have to be ready to move. You have to be a nomad, unearthed, uprooted, and unbound.

No longer citizens of this world’s order, Nomads and Infidels make up the populace of the Kingdom of God.

Martin Luther King was a nomad. He wandered across this nation prophesying to the Kingdom of God. Rare was the moment where he could sit still. Eventually he was no longer from any one place, he came to represent all the cities and towns of America. He called to all the states, north, south, east and west in his hope that some would see the Kingdom and that some, even if only a few, would help bring about justice and righteousness.

Jane Addams was an infidel. Many of her peers derided her. Her government tracked her every move and considered her “dangerous.” She was a pacifist, a Catholic spiritualist, and a woman willing to give everything away, all that she deserved, owned, and gave her status in this country. She was not faithful in the way many would have hoped. She did not keep her proper place. She was an infidel to the system of haves and have-nots. She was, instead, faithful to the Kingdom, the Kingdom of God from Luke’s Gospel and Paul’s letter to the Hebrews.

A Baptist preacher from Atlanta and a Catholic laywoman from Chicago are trying to show us what it means to live faithful lives, what it means to step outside of ourselves and work for more than the preservation of our known way of life.

Many of you have seen the quotation: “It is not enough to leave Egypt; one must enter the Promised Land.” John Chrysostom, a fourth century preacher gave us those words and they are no less true for us today as they were then. King and Addams knew these words. They lived these words.

We have been meeting this summer to discuss the future of our congregation of God’s Church. We’ll meet again on September 10 and 11. A few times I have been asked my thoughts about certain ideas. I have tried to be supportive and helpful. I want nothing but the best for this congregation. Please know how proud I am of you all. You have worked so hard. You have done so much. I want to encourage you to continue that work. And I want to offer you one more thought: we are God’s children, called, gathered, and sent into the world to proclaim the Kingdom of God. No more. No less.

We are called to be nomads and infidels. We are not here to preserve this world order, but to bring about the Kingdom. My challenge for you is just that – whatever it may look like, whatever it may demand of us, may our next steps be Kingdom steps. No matter what the form. No matter what the cost. May we be nomads and infidels for God.

Amen.

revelation bloopers?!

a new book: reframing hope

Carol Howard Merritt (blog)has written another book. Fans of her last book, Tribal Church, will like this volume as well. It has the same style, passion, and pastoral sensitivity as Tribal Church. For those of us who enjoyed that previous book but could not use it (My context is an affluent suburb. There are few people under the age of 40 to be found.), this book is a welcome addition.

Reframing Hope is not about the Emergent Movement. It is about how the cultural shifts that our country is experiencing effects mainline Protestant churches and how we might best respond, as she suggests, with hope. Surely things are changing, but that does not mean our institutions must limp along, struggle or worse, die. They need to reframe things. Merritt says:

“The act of reframing acknowledges the need for a new view at the same time as it recognizes the strength in our traditions. It allows us to look at the past with fresh eyes. Instead of slipping into value judgments—setting up dichotomies between the old and the new, the elder and the younger, the stable and the adaptable—reframing allows us to recognize possibilities simply because we are looking at our situation from a different perspective.”

So much of the conversation around generational theory, congregational change, and leadership can involve judgment, blaming, and various false dichotomies. She tries to lead us past these while at the same time naming the real changes that have come about and naming the need for traditional mainline churches to change, no, reframe the way they work. Its a helpful perspective.

In the first chapter, she writes about authority and how it is more communal or “flattened” than it once was thought to be. Leadership, too, will thus change. There is still leadership, but it functions differently as leaders relate differently to those in their churches.

The diffusion of authority is sweeping like a wind over our landscape. In the shifts that are taking place, we feel the breath of the Holy Spirit, blowing through conversations, relationships, and connections.

More simply, we move from a pyramidal authority structure to a network structure. Real leadership happens in relationship and shared discovery.

Chapter two is about how community then is reshaped. Mentoring and sharing in the journey of faith becomes more important in the network that is a congregation. There is no desire of the expert to come and proclaim. No, the new generation wants someone to walk with them, to share what they know and discover the will of the Holy Spirit together. She also does an excellent job reminding us that there has not been a dwindling interest in community. It just comes about differently. In an increasingly technological world, an increasingly fragmented world, people are in deep need of life giving community. A congregation may be uniquely prepared to offer such community. It is a way of witnessing to Christ’s own hospitality to the stranger. Those of us in older congregations need not fear a loss of community. We simply need to respond in ways that younger generations recognize. We must walk with them. Even our denominational structures can assist in this though they too may need to refocus and reframe things.

Chapter three is about the tools we use to make community, to communicate with one another. In a congregation with various age groups, we may find that we have to use a variety of means from physical visits to Facebook comments. A pastor, a community for that matter, must be flexible and mindful of what means of community reaches whom. It’s also important to recognize that age is playing less and less a role in this as 60 year old professionals are texting their young grand children with the handheld computer they now need for their businesses. Technology is changing the way ministers structure their pastoral time. and can change the way congregational members connect with one another. The institutions in some cases have “gone wireless.” There are, as she well enumerates, dangers to this. Information, even if incorrect (perhaps especially) travels at the speed of Twitter. Again, mindfulness is the key here. Still, this should not stop us.

In spite of its dangers and the divide, being a part of the online conversation is an advantage for many of us. In the years to come, as our congregations shift, as we engage a younger generation of members who are more conversant with technology and used to the ubiquitous nature of the Internet, then the network may become more of an expectation. Right now, this is a wonderful opportunity for us to reach out. We can engage in the dynamic conversation, learn to use new tools to connect in a new time.

If these first chapters are about how community is formed and reframed, or how communication happens in the life of a congregation, then the next four chapters are about what we communicate and where that story leads us. The message, says Merritt, is essential. Chapter four she speaks of the power of our personal stories of faith, the power of testimony.

The best journalists, sociologists, environmentalists, and other bearers of fact and information often present their ideas within the warm, comfortable robe of a story. This gives the reader not only the details of a situation but also a setting in which to imagine it. She has a chance to smell, touch, taste, and listen to the information, and with those base senses engaged, she is more able to connect with the raw data, and more likely to remember it. The same dynamics are true in our congregations. Narrative is important for creating change, communicating faith, and building community.

In short, we must embrace our authentic experiences and tell the stories. We can step beyond our denominational quarrels and allow our own stories to change us. Merritt does a wonderful job of reminding us of the power of the Biblical narrative and invites congregations to add their own stories of redemption, grace, salvation and God’s own revelation to the mix. This will change the way we read scripture and even, perhaps, in how we preach.

In chapter five she reminds us of the truth of Christ’s proclamation in the synagogue and the here-but-not-quite nature of the Kingdom. The internet, she says, is fraught with examples of people trying to live out a call for justice. Movement after site after blog exists for the purpose of making the world a better place to be in. It’s not that people are not speaking of justice. It’s simply that we need to enter into the conversation. It’s good news! Throughout this book Merritt reminds us that these realities are opportunities. It is good news and we simply must find ways to participate. People want to do something.

With this increased knowledge comes a heightened sense of responsibility. It is part of the epiphany of the face: when we come face-to-face with another human being in need, we see God in that person, we understand we are traveling together, and we are compelled to reach out to her.

One of the greatest gifts our churches can pass along to a new generation is our long tradition of commitment to social justice that is best encapsulated in this notion of the reign of God.

We can partner with the new efforts to shape the world. We can embrace new technologies and ways of communicating. We can participate. It’s that simple. It’s a choice.

Chapter six focuses on ways that our congregations can rediscover our own liturgical and spiritual traditions the wonders and value of creation. Environmentalism, green economics, sustainable technologies are more than simply a fad, but are needed innovations to protect the future of our planet. Congregations can, as she demonstrates, discover powerful ways to participate and support these efforts. We can rediscover natural theology, an embodied spirituality. It doesn’t stop there. How we use our buildings, refurbish them when we can, are also witnesses to God’s call for the faithful to be good stewards. Again, this is a way of participating in the movements already afoot in our world. What are we waiting for?

Finally, Merritt comes to the subject of spirituality and the disciplines of the church. It can be challenging to rediscover the various disciplines and practices of prayer and meditation, scriptural study or lectio divina but in a world craving spiritual nurture, a way out of consumerist culture and struggling to find embodied ways to connect to our souls, these disciplines and practices are welcome and needed. People are seeking direction and our congregations have much to offer.


Again and again Merritt shows us how the changes that we face in our present context are opportunities. We will have to reframe how we do things, finding a new way to see the connections that already exist. She writes:

The landscape has changed all around us. To some it feels like a desert - dry and barren, inhospitable, unable to sustain the next generation. Yet our common biblical story reminds us that we have a God that brings salvation to people who wanted in the driest deserts. With a bit of divine imagination we will see the wells full of living water, as Hagar and Ishmael did. With a bit of divine imagination, we will see the milk and honey flowing all around us.

This is a wonderful book. Carol Howard Merritt has given us a treatise on how a congregation can perceive these times optimistically. These are not threatening times for a congregation. These are opportunities for the life of any church that is willing to have Hope.

nomads, infidels, and hospitality

I am spinning a little lately. It happens. Sometimes when I sit down to write a sermon I have to spend several hours sifting through all the other thoughts and feelings that come up. Usually this is because I have spent energy suppressing those thoughts and feelings. I sometimes use Facebook as a steam valve, but I am not always successful. My mind is not a steel trap. No, sir. My mind is an old pressure cooker.

This week's scripture lesson is about hospitality. It's a challenge to the haves/have-nots structure that we're all so fond of/used to. If one were to try to make a social system from this parable, then you'd have a riot on your hands. "No, your own merit matters nothing. No, stop using those bootstraps. No, just because it's yours and you earned it does not mean you get to keep it." It also infringes on our sense of privacy. Jesus says to invite the poor to dinner. In your house. It's good stuff. Hospitality to strangers and the needy is a tough discipline.

The trick is (Is it really just a trick of the mind?) for me to think of myself as a nomad. Landless. It's a curious endeavor because I have spent most of my life thinking otherwise. A college friend once exclaimed "You're landed gentry! Holy shit!" when we were talking. I mean, not me personally, but the family has a long history in Virginia and, well...fuck it. Suffice it to say that sometimes a strong sense of place gets in the way of hospitality.

Place can be anything...land, civic identity, cultural or class identity...It can be anything at all. What Jesus and maybe even Paul seem to be getting at is that hospitality trumps that kind of identity. And by extension, our sense of stability (Note: a monk might take a vow of stability.) is also challenged. Stability might not be about the sense of place but really about a vision of godly neighborliness no matter where or how we live.

Faithfulness, in the end, might not be about staying put, but knowing when to give way.