A Pastor in the Parish

Ministry and Incarnation

2012-01-02T23:18:00.000-05:00

The past month has been incredibly hectic. As I wrote a few weeks ago, I am starting a new call. December was busier as I tried to get everything in order before I had finished as pastor. As if getting ready for Christmas wasn't enough, I also was making sure the parish record was in order and all that sort of stuff. Then there were the people who really wanted me to do one or another pastoral task before I left...

So during December, I had three baptisms and five First Communions... not to mention two memorial services. Granted those folks didn't arrange this task with me when I announced I was leaving... but it was just extra stuff. At any rate, I do not think I have had such a cramped month in my eight plus years serving St. Paul.

There was a part of me that wondered if I was doing something wrong by acquiescing to these requests. After all, there was no need to rush. A perfectly competent pastor would be serving as an interim after I left. There was nothing special about me doing it. Performing the baptisms or instructing the First Communicants did not require me. There was a part of me that worried about creating inappropriate expectations about pastors.

But then my last Sunday came. That Sunday was Christmas day. I was emotional from the get-go. I climbed into the pulpit to set up my recorder and manuscript. As I went up the steps, I realized that this day was the last day I would climb into the pulpit as pastor. During the announcements, when I asked the small crowd to bear with me if I got emotional, I teared up. Once the liturgy got going I was fine. While there are many who decry the liturgy, I find great comfort in it. This day the familiarity acted like a friend walking with me through grief. I didn't shed one tear as I preached and we sang and prayed together. Until we came to the Eucharist, of course. There I saw the families whom I would not commune again as pastor. I would not stand again behind that rail to proclaim gracious gospel words "The Body of Christ given for you." When it came time for me to commune with the worship assistant and acolytes, tears could not be held back any longer. I sobbed.

Body and blood met me graciously. I wanted to do nothing but cling to them as long as I could, knowing the service would all too soon after that meal. And at some point my mind, in its emotional state, made a connection between the incarnation and ministry. God the Father didn't just use an ephemeral spirit when humanity needed saving. God sent Jesus to dwell in flesh, to live with us as one of us. God doesn't use some disembodied persona to serve congregations either. As imperfect as we are, pastors are flesh and blood creatures who form deep and abiding relationships with the people in our congregations.

Pastoral ministry is inherently incarnational. The people whom I served wanted me to do those last few pastoral tasks not because I was somehow special. They wanted me to do those tasks, baptizing and communing them because I was a particular embodiment of the gospel for them. I was the one they had to come to know who spoke the gospel. It was not mere sentimentality that had them wanting me to do these things before I left. The pastor builds a relationship with the people over the years of service, and this relationship is rooted in the relationship that Christ forms with us in the incarnation.

While it was a challenge for me, and no service would have been easy as my last, I found that Christmas was an incredibly appropriate day as my last. I am thankful for my time at St. Paul and the relationships we shared there. I am also thankful for the relationship begun in and by Christ that is an embodied relationship because he was incarnate.

The Decorated Pastor... like a gingerbread house

2011-12-12T13:52:00.001-05:00

Unfortunately I forgot my recorder yesterday so I did not get my sermon recorded, but something else happened. The leader of the youth group asked if I would come to the meeting since it would be my last opportunity. I agreed and then she told me to wear something I wouldn't mind getting messy. I was thinking paint, maybe a pie in the face. Nope.

I have heard of people who were decorated. People of distinction in various arenas. Now I can say that I too have been decorated. The youth group decorated me like a big gingerbread house. As a farewell, I am pretty sure it will be one of, if not the most memorable farewell. The youth had a blast. I am sure they will remember it for much of their lives. After all, it isn't every night when they get to cover their pastor's face in icing. (NOTE: in the event that you think this might be something you'd like to do, a word of caution... After a few minutes, my eyes were starting to be irritated by the icing. A little burn was developing. Buy a cheap pair of swim goggles and decorate around/over them.)

Here are a couple of videos that were taken. In the first one, the youth were trying to erect the gingerbread house on my face. In the second, they had given up and just went to smearing my face and hair with icing and candy decoration.

After I went and cleaned up from this, they also sat down with me to give me a book of photos and comments. In the end, I cried. A wonderful evening with them.

Smashing Ice with Rob Bell

2011-12-07T23:06:00.001-05:00

Back on Nov. 25, I saw Rob Bell in Pittsburgh for his "Fit to Smash Ice" Tour. I had seen some of his stuff online and on DVD. I had never read any of his books, although Love Wins is sitting on my shelf in my reading queue. I went partly to experience him live and continue to feel out what his draw is. I wanted to see what his delivery was like and what sort of people came out to see him. I am not a fan per se, but I do think he gets some things brilliantly right even though he gets some things just as wrong. And here he was in Pittsburgh on the night after Thanksgiving when I would be at my parents' house just north of Pittsburgh. My wife and I could attend and we would have free babysitting. So we went.

The crowd was small compared to the hall we were in. The Carnegie Library Music Hall in Munhall, PA is a medium-size hall, but the crowd only filled about half of the lower level. Mostly everyone was young and white, although a few older couples were there... older even than my wife and I. It seemed like a church group was in attendance since one couple (coincidentally the only African-American couple, I think) walked in close to the beginning and half of the people in front of us all waved and greeted them. A group of four young folk in the row in front of me had note paper out. One young man had even separated his paper into three areas: inspire, offend, confuse. The young woman next to him just wrote almost constantly during the time.

The lights went down and a woman's voice came over the speakers and told the story of Joshua Sloacum, the first man to circumnavigate the globe solo. (An account of Sloacum's story can be read here.) At the end of Sloacum story, we hear the phrase "fit to smash ice," although it was not clear to me why Bell had used that phrase. Sloacum's story is great, but even now, the connection that Bell wants us to make is not immediately apparent. I am all for telling stories and letting people make connections, but Sloacum's story might be a little too unclear.

After the story, the lights came back up, Bell came out on stage and began telling stories. He is a gifted story-teller. He said that this tour was because he had a bunch of stories that his wife was tired of listening to and he needed to go tell them to someone else... which is likely true, but it is not the real reason for Bell's tour. More on that later. Bell went two hours without a script, although he did have what I assume was a one-page outline. More impressively he went two hours without a drink of water.

Bell's main theme throughout the time was vocation. He talked mostly about his own life and weaved his own story with the biblical narrative. He does an impressive job also with using Jewish midrash and stories throughout as well. It is clear that Bell takes serious the tradition that scripture and its stories come out of. The audience paid attention. Clearly everyone who was there was rapt. With the exception of the young woman in front of me, who never seemed to stop writing, everyone listened closely. His stories were so personal, it felt at times like we were all just sitting around a room sharing. At times we laughed a great deal. His stories had great characters. The one about the jawbone of the ass and the border crossing was hysterical.

Near the end, Bell rang truer about the reason for his tour than just having to tell this great group of stories. As he talked about vocation (although he never used that word), he got to encouraging people to do what brought them joy. He had talked about God not using perfect people but real screw-ups at times. That he could work with. He might not be the smartest, best read person out there but he was engaged in something that spoke to him. And then he made a veiled reference to the controversy over his book Love Wins. If someone in the audience knew nothing about Bell before he or she came to the tour that night, that part might have gone under the "confuse" section of the page of their notes. But I did. In essence, Bell has gone out on tour in apologetic mode. Not in the way of saying "sorry." In the way of defending his own right to be there. He was going to keep on doing what he has been doing. Writing and speaking about God and people's lives. He simply was not going to let other people's opinions stop him.

Now, for him, that works. Even though there are areas where I disagree with him, I know that during that night, I heard him speak the gospel. He has clearly worked at allowing God to form him. Some of the stories he told were about his early years of being a pastor and how bad he was at some things. And this part of the talk was where he wove it well with God's story. There was much that evening that edified and uplifted me. It was a good evening. I heard in his story a connection to my story and I gave thanks that I shared in the task of speaking about God to others that their lives might be transformed.

However, some of the way he talked about vocation was problematic. And it isn't just him. There are some who talk about vocation as if God creates us to do one particular thing in our lives. And I am just not sure that is so. Plus whether or not something brings us joy might not be the best measure to use when we evaluate and discern what we should be doing. It might be too easy to be those folks on the audition weeks of the reality television shows who might love what they are doing, but are just plain bad at it. Very often they have deluded themselves into thinking that they are great, because they love what they are doing. And we are taught from very early on that we should do what we love.

Now if we are not good at what we do, and God has created us to do one thing and one thing only in our life, then we are in trouble. I think we are created as multi-faceted people who can do a number of things. We will not always find joy in what we have to do. Such is the power of sin. Bell described the power of sin in his evening but interestingly enough never used that particular word. And it was clear that he had worked toward a level of excellence in his writing and preaching because he is far better at it now than when he began. I am think he would agree here, but to hear him at the end, I think there might be many who would have heard what he said and wondered why things were not going the way they thought things should despite their doing what brought them joy.

When we speak of vocation, it is important I think to understand that we are engaged in a communal process of discernment. If I had pushed forward with being a physicist, and physics the subject brings me great joy, then I would have had likely ended up in a full-blown depression, because it was the doing of physics that I did not like. But God created me with a number of ways to live. Even when I considered becoming a pastor, I realized that I had to ponder other possibilities as well. In other words, I needed a "Plan B." So I thought about it. I laid out two possibilities. Go to seminary. Go to culinary school and open a brew pub. Both were appealing. I had worked in restaurants since I was fifteen. I had some well-developed albeit amateur skills in the kitchen and I had made some good beers as a home brewer. However, I also had some important people tell me what a good pastor they thought I would be, that I had gifts and talents for Word and Sacrament ministry. I love what I am doing, but if the door to ministry had closed (and believe me there was a real possibility that that could have happened), I still had something else to do that would have been enjoyable and that I could do well.

In the end, I suppose this reality that we are not just created to do one thing in life makes me wonder about that opening story of Bell's about Joshua Sloacum. In that story was I supposed to identify with Sloacum? Or ultimately with the ship? I think the way Bell tells the story, we are supposed to think we are Sloacum who took the crap of his life and became great. But I think more and more we are the ship. Sloacum basically rebuilt the ship from a rotting pile of timbers into something magnificent. I think we might be rebuilt several times during out life. And the hand that transforms us takes us to places we might never have imagined. God has a way of calling his followers to places they never could imagine. That ship went around the world. Sloacum captained it. I think we are the ship being captained through various channels and oceans, being refitted when necessary, by a hand who loves us. It won't always be easy but that is why God never abandons us.

2nd Sunday of Advent -- Good Beginnings

2011-12-05T10:54:00.001-05:00

Reading:

Mark 1:1-8

We read the beginning of Mark's gospel as he sets the stage for the story of Jesus, who is himself the good news.

An excerpt:

This story is meant from its outset to pull its readers and listeners into it… The story is clearly bigger than itself. We might mistake the opening verse as nothing more than an introductory verse if we translate it as “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” We are so familiar with “gospel” as a literary genre, we might forget that at its heart the word means “good news.” And we need to get rid of the “about Jesus Christ.” Those six Greek words require some interpretation… but to pull us into the story, the good news can’t just be “about” Jesus the Messiah. And one way to interpret and translate those words is to read it “The good news who IS Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” The good news is precisely Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God is on the scene.

Read it here.

Or listen to it.

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1st Sunday of Advent -- Apocalypse and Revelation

2011-12-01T14:32:00.001-05:00

Reading:
Mark 13: 24-37
Advent is a season to ponder Christ's return in glory. No longer hidden, Christ's glory will be revealed for all to see.

Unfortunately I had no manuscript for this sermon. I just went off of some notes, so here it is to listen to.

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Scooby-Doo, Monsters and Real Life

2011-12-01T11:14:00.001-05:00

A friend of mine, Ralph Hanson, shared a link on Facebook to an incredibly interesting column over at the Comics Alliance. In the column, Chris Sims answers questions weekly. Last Friday he was asked, "Q: On Scooby-Doo, do you prefer the monsters to be real or people in costumes? -- @heythisisbrian"

Chris' answer is fascinatingly brilliant. In short, he says that the monsters on Scooby-Doo must be people masquerading as monsters because the world is full of bad people who lie to kids using superstition to scare them. Scooby Doo teaches them that the best thing to do in the face of fear from superstition is to think.

Read the whole article: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/11/25/ask-chris-81-scooby-doo-and-secular-humanism/#ixzz1fIgZmUDV

Taken to its logical end, then there are some who might put me in the frightening children with mythic stories. After all, if all the bad monsters out there are nothing more than bad people wearing masks, what do we do about all that talk about God and Satan and scary stuff?

I admit it is a good thing to encourage others so that they might stand up and face down the powers that lie. And it is interesting that Sims paraphrases Chesterton when he says, "Scooby Doo has value not because it shows us that there are monsters, but because it shows us that those monsters are just the products of evil people who want to make us too afraid to see through their lies, and goes a step further by giving us a blueprint that shows exactly how to defeat them." (Chesterton's quote: Fairy tales do not give a child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.)

Religion might bring about people who attempt to scare others with tales of fear and punishment and demons and angels, but there are just as many out there in the world seeking to scare and lie using rational arguments, or technically, rational-sounding arguments, yet they still seek the person's own interests.

It is important, I think, to remember that fear-mongering saves no one in the arena of faith. If we protest at the notion of forced conversions at the business end of a weapon, then conversions due to threats of eternal damnation are at least as bad. Simply put, fear of punishment does not build faith. Only the gospel builds faith. And as faith grows, so grows the proper fear of the Lord.

And faith is the important piece. Sims puts Shaggy and Scooby as the cowards who always buy into the lie about monsters. And for Scooby-Doo, the monsters must be fake. Sims' argument is good. However, in the real world, what do we do about real monsters and more importantly, monstrous powers? The monstrous power of sin ensures that there is a never-ending stream of monsters for the world to deal with. if reason is the answer to ridding the world of sin and brokenness, then why does all of the brokenness still exist? And even when we continue to unmask the perpetrators and find human beings who molest children, who get rich by cheating the poor and elderly, who are so inwardly curved that they give not one whit about anything other than their own desires. Then we need faith to strengthen us to speak to the monstrous powers that insidiously integrate themselves with humans so we see no masks.

Scooby-Doo wants to show there are no monsters, just pretenders. Real life points again and again to the reality that sin makes monsters of plenty of us. Reason is needed to think through the situations. But faith, a faith in a good and gracious God, is needed just as surely so that we know that even when we fail to rid the world of monsters and their powers, this God will be there to finish it.

Nativity Sets: The good, the bad, the kitschy

2011-11-30T11:15:00.001-05:00

Ok... no good ones... but over at Mark Oestreicher's blog, he posted his list of the 27 worst nativity sets he has found. They are amazingly bad.

One person's comments showed a Star Wars nativity set... it is fantastic. Wrong but fantastic.

The bacon/sausage one is clearly my favorite.

Thanksgiving Service 2011 -- Praise and Thanksgiving

2011-11-26T10:09:00.001-05:00

Reading:
Luke 17:11-19
The story of Jesus healing the ten lepers, but only the Samaritan returning is often used as a morality lesson for giving thanks. The story though is more about Jesus' identity. Our praise and thanksgiving is rooted in that identity.

Listen to it.

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Christ the King Sunday -- Power and Rulers

2011-11-22T11:25:00.001-05:00

The text from Ezekiel 34 has the Lord railing against the leaders of Israel for their selfish outlook. Jesus echoes the refrain of judgment as he tags the leaders of the nations for their treatment of the "least of these."

Here is an excerpt:

The bigwigs in Israel are clearly not looking out for the best of all but just themselves. Now I realize that much of the discussion so far has been of rich and poor, rather than dealing with rulers… and Ezekiel is dealing with rulers… but one of the stark realities that the Occupy movement is attempting to bring to light is precisely the notion that money is power. The Supreme Court has ruled that campaign contributions are protected free speech. Today to be rich is to wield power that most of us have no access to. Ezekiel’s opening of chapter 34 is a brief theological summary of politics. Those who wield political power is an opportunity to exercise righteousness. They can be a part of ordering a community that is based on mutual love. But in the end they reject that opportunity and seek their own good. And the sheep are then subject to forces that treat them as prey. The flock scatters.

Or read it here.

Or listen to it.

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22nd Sunday after Pentecost -- The Joy of the Kingdom

2011-11-22T11:20:00.001-05:00

I'm a little behind on posting this sermon, I know. But here it is.

In telling the parable of the talents, Jesus nears the end of his eschatological discourse. Here he focuses on judgment and narrow thinking of one servant. The servant thinks from a scarcity viewpoint. The life of a disciple is one of joy, Jesus teaches us. And there is more joy to come.

An exccerpt from my sermon:

The focal point for Jesus is the perspective the servants have toward the talents. The third servant is afraid because of the view he has of the Master and the talent. For this servant, the talent could only be lost or used up. The talent becomes then, not a gift, but a possession. He views the talent through a lens of scarcity. The other two servants on the other hand see the talents not as possessions, but as the gifts they were meant to be. Securing the gifts would be to lose them. These two servants then use the talents in that spirit… gifts that are meant to be given.

Read the whole thing here.

Or listen to it.

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Final Things: Leaving a Call and Eschatology

2011-11-17T10:57:00.001-05:00

So the word is out... I am leaving my call at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Morgantown, WV at the end of this calendar year and will be beginning a new call as the chaplain at the Lutheran University Center in Pittsburgh. As the calendar goes this year, that means my last Sunday will be Christmas Day. I begin January 1, 2012 a the campus ministry, although there is no service that day since the campuses around the chapel will not be in session.

I have been struck more by the things that are ending. I keep running into "final things": the last newsletter, the last calendar review... soon it will be last Thanksgiving service then last midweek Advent service and sooner or later, last service. I have been surprised by the grief. While I am excited about the new possibility I am moving through lots of little deaths. This congregation was my first call. It was where I was formed as a pastor at least as much as seminary formed me. This congregation is where my family was started. My oldest was six months old when I began. I now have three children, the youngest of which is almost 17 months.

But I reflected on the upcoming readings for the lectionary... Christ the King and Advent... all eschatological readings that put these in a new context for me. I wrote these reflections up as my final newsletter article...

Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

These last few weeks of 2011 arefull of final things for me. They havecome much more quickly than I thought they would have. I continue being surprised with final thingsI do as the pastor of this congregation. Today Barb and I sat down to go over the church calendar for the lasttime. Little by little final things willarise and will be taken care of and then, they will slip out of my hands, nolonger under my control. I currently live in what feels like a dividedexistence. I have something new to lookforward to but I must pass through plenty of little deaths in the meantime. The current time has to come to an end beforethe new begins.

Much of the grief from the littledeaths of these final things comes from our shared existence. We have much to look back upon andcelebrate. We have lived together andshared in the God’s mission for over eight years now. It is hard to imagine that notcontinuing. Maybe no pastor leaving hisor her first call can ever imagine the end, but instead it must be livedthrough. If I had not actually livedthrough pastors leaving the congregation to which I belonged, maybe I wouldhave no hope. The fear of final thingsand the little deaths associated with them might keep me from ever leaving acongregation.

But the liturgical year arises atthe right time to feel my ears with of the truly final things. Here at the end of the liturgical year, withthe new liturgical year about to begin in Advent, I read over and over thestories of the end God will bring about. Passages that can be scary and mysterious and so very oftenmisunderstood abound in this time. Wehear of the Son of Man coming on the clouds at the end. We hear of final judgment and wrath. And while many preachers might harness thesestrangeness to motivate using fear, I hear over and over words of hope.

No matter how great a loss ofcontrol we might feel, these passages that deal with the end of the worldcontinue to proclaim one thing again and again. We are not in control, but God is. God has taken a world full of deaths, both great and small and is workingto end it. God has begun this work withthe creation of a covenant people, out of whom came Jesus the Messiah, the oneanointed to save and redeem this fallen world. Jesus came and fully accepted an end that led to death so that the powerof death might be ended forever. We nowlive in that time between the times, when the fallen world and the new worldlive in juxtaposition. We continue tosee death and grief around us. Yet wealso see the power of Jesus being made real as people are raised to new livesthrough the proclamation of the gospel. Webegin to see the new world through the lens of faith as we step out and trustthe promises that are made to us in the waters of baptism.

The realization that God haseverything under control as this world moves through the deaths around us, is ahelp for me in many things. I am able tostand confidently by a grave and proclaim that this body will rise again evenin the midst of my tears. I can sit withpeople who have been given a diagnosis of a terminal illness and still pray forhealing and comfort. Right now, I canface all of these little deaths, all of these final things in my time as pastorhere, and trust that God will be working through the midst of it all to bringabout something new even now for us all. Most importantly, I know that this little death, this final leaving isnot the end. One continued image we willhear again and again through the eschatological passages, these passagesdealing with the end, is the gathering around the throne of all of God’sfaithful people, people washed in the blood of the lamb. Once again, Jesus’ death ends the power ofdeath so that we might be gathered even after death.

I cannot express in words how muchI will cherish my time here at St. Paul. It was a definite challenge when I arrived. But even knowing now what I had to go through,if I could go back, I would still choose to serve this congregation again. St. Paul is a congregation full of specialpeople in a special town with an incredibly special purpose. I have had a great time serving thiscongregation as we worked together proclaiming the good news of JesusChrist. I am a better pastor because Ihave served here. I continue to trustGod will be with this congregation through all things, because that’s thepromise that we hear again and again in scripture.

Nothing is quite so final as God’sfinal things. Thanks be to God.

Obedience and Scandal: Football, Military, Church

2011-11-10T13:51:00.000-05:00

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor and theologian made a connection in the life of faith between believing and obeying. To believe is to obey. To obey is to believe. There is an inherent trust in the act of obedience. The practices and habits of developing the virtue of obedience will also likely tie people very closely to the ideals of the organization but also to the structure of the organization itself.

There are a number of organizations that seek to develop obedience. This has become clearest unfortunately in the aftermath of scandals. The church, the military and football programs, most recently and horribly at Penn State University. These organizations seek to develop obedience because trust or faith are important aspects of the life of these organizations.

The church seeks to develop obedience to God and this can hardly be accomplished without some structure around it. Whether there is a distinct authoritative structure or a less authoritative structure, as people develop their obedience to God, they become enmeshed in the structure itself.

The military seeks to develop obedience so that the organization may move smoothly even in times of great stress and crisis.

College football programs seek to develop obedience so the players will perform at an incredibly high level. People I have spoken with who have played top level college football say that in those programs the coach's word is akin to the word of God.

I have pondered the situation at Penn State, and have been surrounded by the sex abuse scandal in churches (when I was serving my internship, I ended up going to court to support a refugee member of the congregation and it happened to be the same day that the John Geoghan was having one of his first hearings in the Cambridge courthouse). I am convinced that the issue is our understanding of authority. Clearly the priests who abuse children, as well as Jerry Sandusky allegedly, have misunderstood their authority and taken advantage of it. But what about Joe Paterno?

I had been placing his failure to do more in the light of hearing allegations from a graduate assistant/former player who said something about a close friend he has known for quite a while. Joe reported what he needed to and nothing more. It boggles all of our minds as to why Joe did not do more. Part of it might be due to his friendship with Sandusky, but I think there is more, but not necessarily with any nefarious intent on Joe's part.

Joe served Penn State for decades in a position where he wielded incredible authority. If football coaches speak with a god's authority, then Joe has existed in a position where he does not wonder if people will do what needs to be done. They just do it. I have heard of tales where Joe was able to bar then President Spanier from the locker room and the board backed him up. Joe speaks and players, coaches, and just about everybody else listen.

Except of course the administrators who are not part of such an environment where obedience is unquestioned. They are less worried about obedience and try to cover up any scandal so the school is not tarnished. Many steps were taken but not proper ones. The administrators misunderstood their authority to be a subordinate authority to the government and believed they could save the school's reputation. If they understood their authority properly they would have hopefully done what was required. They mistook their authority to be greater than what it was and in the end the institution was rocked by a far greater scandal and they are going to pay a price as well.

None of this reflection should be understood as an excuse for the inaction by Joe or the cover-up by the administration, campus police and likely others. There is surely something to be learned here for organizations that exist with structures of authority and obedience. Soldiers cannot simply rely on "we were just following orders" anymore. Football coaches and priests cannot understand their authority outside of the particular relationship each holds with its institution. And when their institution must interact with others who do not hold such a high view of obedience and authority, they must not take for granted that everyone will share the same perspective.

All in all, the authority of any human being cannot own the obedience of any other when it seeks to thwart justice. In the end, while many questions have been raised and much needed conversation will take place, not everyone will receive the appropriate human justice. We can trust that God's authority will eventually be heeded when judgment is executed.

In the meantime, I will pray for all involved: the Penn State community, the perpetrators and the victims.

Zombies are Us

2011-11-08T08:44:00.004-05:00

I have recently begun watching AMC's series, The Walking Dead on Netflix. I can only watch it in moderate amounts. No blasting through episodes one after the other. It is not because they are scary... well, not in the normal sense. The walking dead are gross and creepy. What scares me is the surviving community of humans. They live on the edge of devouring themselves...

I wrote a reflection on the show, "Are You What You Eat?," for Mediation, a blog at The Other Journal.

And I ran across an interesting book on zombies over at Google Books. Zombies are Us: Essays on the Humanity of the Walking Dead by Christopher Moreman and Cory James Rushton. Interesting looks at humanity and zombies.

All Saints' Sunday -- A Vast Multitude

2011-11-07T11:10:00.002-05:00

John the Seer reports his vision of a vast multitude gathered around the throne praising God, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb!" People from all over, gathered into one body for one purpose.

An excerpt from my sermon:

John gives us a vision of a crowd, a multitude so big no one could count them all and despite being gathered and praising God and the Lamb, they were from every nation, tribe and people, all speaking different languages. While the many are gathered into one, one people singing the praise of God, the differences are not seen as competitive or destructive. Rather, the unity is constructive and mutually reinforcing. Each person gathered around the throne is freed to be uniquely the person they were made to be. One biblical scholar has written regarding this passage, “Gathered around the divine throne, the tongues of all creatures are loosed to find their own peculiar parts in the cosmic song.”

Read the whole thing here.

Or listen to it:

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All Saints' Sunday and Revelation

2011-11-02T11:31:00.002-04:00

As I prepare for All Saints' Sunday this week, I am focusing on the text of Rev. 7:9-17 as the basis of my sermon. The gospel text, the Beatitudes, were done in depth earlier this year when the lectionary went through the Sermon on the Mount. I read those texts in close conversation with Bonhoeffer and Hauerwas. I feel like I have gone over those texts rather fully for my preaching and I am afraid that I might just be repeating myself even with the lesser festival to add a different context.

At the same time, I have an intriguing commentary on my shelves that has seen little use. Revelation by Joseph Mangina is part of Brazos' Theological Commentary series. And while I would not say that I am preaching on the Revelation text solely because I have a fairly new and mostly unread commentary, it is certainly part of why I am choosing to preach on this text.

In the introduction Mangina addresses approaches to interpreting Revelation. He points out that in the Middle Ages, most readings looked at this strange book as an account of Church history between the first and second comings of Christ, even if great latitude was allowed with chronology. Figures in the symbol-rich book then had to be named. Numerous people were attributed characters, whether the angel of the eternal gospel in chapter ten, or the beast in chapter thirteen. Mangina points to this sort of reading as decoding interpretations, which are contrasted with actualizing interpretations, where the spirit of the text is sought to be conveyed rather than hard and fast identities and meanings. Likewise, interpretations will depend on whether the preacher is past-, present- or future-oriented.

In a wonderful paragraph following this discussion, Mangina writes:

What this [vast array of interpretive possibilities] tells us is that we must not be obsessed with hermeneutics. If this work is indeed holy scripture, a great gift of God to the church, then we need not worry about how to bridge the gap between the first century and the twenty-first; the Spirit is perfectly capable of overcoming any gap that may exist. It would be surprising if a book that names God as the one "who is, and who was and who is to come" (1:4) did not have something to say about the past, present and future alike. The question of time is secondary to the question of God. The same holds true for our obsession with codes. No doubt the Apocalypse has its share of puzzles, from the identity of Jezebel and the Nicolatians, to the curious sequences of seven and of ten kings, to the mysterious number of the beast himself. No doubt we would like to know more about such matters. Now doubt wrestling with them may sometimes help us to become better, more attentive readers. But no amount of hermeneutical prowess will save us if we do not approach the Apocalypse as a witness to God's action on behalf of his world, as the revelation of Jesus Christ, and as an instrument of the Holy Spirit in opening our minds and hearts to the things that God has done and is doing in our midst. (Revelation, p. 29--emphasis original)

Reading the book of Revelation as a witness to God's action on behalf of his world is definitely helpful, especially as we we look to the lives of people who continue to witness to God's activity.

Reformation Sunday -- Abiding in the Word

2011-11-01T14:22:00.001-04:00

Jesus said to the Jews who believed in him, "If you abide in my Word, you are truly my disciples." Following Jesus is more than just creating a checklist to be followed or knowing doctrine backward and forward.

An excerpt:

When Jesus says “you shall know the truth and the truth shall you free,” again he is not talking about propositional truths. He is once again pointing to his own reality. In chapter 14, Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life…” Jesus opens a new way of knowing truth, a relational knowing where truth comes and dwells with us. Jesus encounters people who are inquisitive about him “Where are you dwelling?” they ask him. “Come and see,” Jesus answers. He doesn’t ask them if they have it all figured out beforehand. Jesus doesn’t ask us if we have it all figured out before he claims us. Jesus claims us hoping that over time as we come to know him, we will work on figuring it out. Jesus comes to us first. That is the heart of our transformation. That is the heart of our being made right with God, the heart of our justification.

Read the whole thing, here.

Or listen to it.

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Lead Us Not Into Temptation Facebook

2011-10-28T11:30:00.000-04:00

Since Facebook has begun running many ads on users pages and not just the little ones along the side, but in the newsfeed and up on the top, I have been getting seriously concerned. Routinely I get ads with barely clothed women on them. They're falling out of their bikinis, tugging off their bottoms. Today I saw one that apparently involved video. I surely am not clicking on it to find out.

Here are two examples:

They are problematic on several fronts for me. One, if I am at home and check my Facebook messages or see if something is going on, I do not really want to have to explain to my eight-year old why those are on there. We have one family computer that sits in a common room. This is not really something I feel that I should have to explain to a young boy.

Two, the first ad looks as if it comes from Facebook itself. I have said numerous times that I am surprised that Facebook allows it layout to be so blatantly copied. If they are licensing the layout to this ad company, shame on them. It is also clear that the second is trying to weakly copy youTube's layout.

Three, I cannot opt out or report these ads the way I can opt out of those little side ads. There is no little "x" that appears when I roll over these ads.

Finally, I know of nothing that I have done to warrant seeing such ads on my page. I know that Facebook targets specific activity, but I cannot determine what is this trigger. One friend wondered if it is simply because I am a male in a city with a university. My internet monitoring program (X3Watch -- made by XXXChurch) keeps listing my Facebook page as a questionable site. I wonder if it is because these ads are somehow linked there.

These ads are bordering on porn. I am fairly certain, although I have not verified it, that the video one, is a link to porn not just meeting young women. I will not be surprised if someday Facebook begins targeting porn ads to particular users. The more we live in a filter bubble, the more likely this becomes.

I realize that many could say, "Well quit using Facebook. Just turn it off." It is not so easy. Facebook has become an important communication tool in my ministry. I am not choosing to view these, nor is it just random. Somehow Facebook is targeting these to me for whatever reason. If others want them, that is their problem. I do not need Facebook throwing them out there to invade my page and my home.

Lead us not into temptation Facebook.... lead us not into temptation.

19th Sunday after Pentecost -- Commanded to Love

2011-10-27T13:42:00.001-04:00

Reading:

Matthew 22:34-46

Jesus faces his final challenge from religious authorities before his death. Here Jesus gives his summation of the Law. Love God and love neighbor. The whole law and prophets hang on the commandment to love.

An excerpt:

Humans are far too likely to love God unreservedly if and only if that God is in their image. Sin finds an entry point into this reality when humans desire to put themselves in the place of God. Humans, according to the Small Catechism, are then unable on their own power to rightly fear, love and trust the God who made them, let alone their neighbor. We find it far too easy to turn inward. To let our neighbors starve while we hoard our resources. We find it far too easy to chase after false images of the true God, trusting in subordinate powers, like the government or the invisible hand of the market or power or money or human reason or even our selves.

Or read it here.

Or listen to it.

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An Interview with Leymah Gbowee

2011-10-21T10:06:00.000-04:00

I ran across an interview with Leymah Gbowee, a recipient of the most recent Nobel Peace Prize and a Lutheran woman. The whole interview can be read at Reader's Digest. It is from the October 2011 issue.

Her peace-making efforts flow out of a sense of what God has done for her. Two responses to Dawn Raffel's questions:

Where do you get your courage?
My faith. I have come to one conclusion: All that I am, all that I aspire to be, all that I was before, is by the grace of God. There are so many women in Africa, and outside Africa, who are more intelligent than I am.

You put yourself in danger too.
Leadership is standing with your people. People say you have to live to fight another day, but sometimes you have to show you are a true leader. If those women were out in the blazing hot sun protesting, I, who put the group together, should be out there, too, instead of sitting in a very boring conference.
Out on the street, we danced! Women parked their cars and joined us. The military could not believe it, because the king sent armored vehicles. But we danced in their faces. Sometimes I do fear death, and I fear for my children. But the one thing I have never been afraid of is standing before important people and speaking my mind. I represent women who may never have the opportunity to go to the UN or meet with a president. I’m never afraid to speak truth to power.

I think I might find her memoir, Mighty Be Our Powers, and give it a read.

18th Sunday after Pentecost -- Death and Taxes

2011-10-20T11:27:00.001-04:00

Jesus is tested by religious leaders regarding paying taxes to Rome. Jesus does not answer their question but reframes the debate, looking at God's sovereignty over the world instead. Ultimately Jesus fulfills both sides of his clever statement "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's."

I am indebted to my colleague and former classmate Matt Musteric for the emphasis on the passion.

An excerpt:

And now Jesus reframes the entire debate by uttering the line “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” The reality that we all too often fail to face is what in the world belongs to God and what belongs to the emperor? The quickest way to answer is to quote the 24th psalm, although there are plenty other verses that could support that. Psalm 24:1 reads “The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.” Put simply, God made it all and it all belongs to him. Therefore to be faithful to Jesus’ words, we owe everything to God. Everything that is, except for the idolatrous coinage that makes some false claim on the truth. That can be sent back to the Emperor where it belongs.

Read the whole sermon here.

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17th Sunday after Pentecost -- Saying Something While Saying Something Else

2011-10-11T13:34:00.003-04:00

The parable of the wedding feast closes off a series of parables that seem to be Jesus' answer to the question from religious leaders "By what authority are you doing these things and who gave you the authority?"

An excerpt of my sermon:

Now Jesus is not just telling these parables to continue his teaching which was interrupted by the challenge of the religious leaders. He is saying something while saying something else. In the first, Jesus tells the parable to show the challenge he presents to the rule of the religious leaders. Jesus tells them that their authority is disappearing because they are the second son who pays lip service to the father, but does not do his will. Tax collectors and prostitutes will enter the Kingdom before them because they have heard the invitation to repentance and obeyed. The religious leaders are afraid to even take a stand on where John’s baptism came from.

Read the whole thing here.

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Liberian Lutheran Leymah Gbowee Lauded

2011-10-07T15:27:00.003-04:00

One of the Nobel Peace Prize winners is Leymah Gbowee, a Lutheran woman from Liberia. The Lutheran reported:

Gbowee, a peacemaker, activist and mother of five, led an interreligious group of thousands of women to defy warlords, government officials and male relatives to carry their country out of a long, bloody civil war to peace and democracy in 2003. She is a member of the Lutheran Church in Liberia. Her home congregation, St. Peter Lutheran in Monrovia, was the site of a July 30, 1990, massacre of 600 people.

Blessed are the peacemakers.

Read the whole article at The Lutheran.

16th Sunday after Pentecost -- Commitment and Relationship

2011-10-05T11:52:00.001-04:00

In the reading from Philippians (3:4b-14), Paul highlights his achievements as Jewish man. Paul also turns and counts these reasons for boasting as nothing when compared to Christ's actions toward him and his own subsequent response.

An excerpt:

We want possibilities and choices, but ultimately life lived in potentiality is not life. Life is lived in actuality. When we make new commitments, build new relationships there is a distinct break with the past. And it can be unnerving. Plenty about the old life of possibility seems safe and familiar. We like it. We know it. It can bring a sense of security. But the new relationship, while bringing risk and uncertainty, can bear unimagined fruit, even with the loss of possibility.

Read the whole sermon, here.

Or listen to it.

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D to the O to the H... DOH!

2011-10-03T11:12:00.000-04:00

For the past few months, we have been writing our own prayers of the people instead of just using the prayers out of the Sundays and Seasons resource. During the latter half of the summer, Jono, our Project Connect immersion experience student was writing them (and well I might add). When his time ended, I picked up writing them again. This past Sunday, I realized that my writing left something to be desired. One of my petitions said,

Compassionate God, sustain all who suffer withyour promise of new life. Strengthenthose who are oppressed, heal those who are ill, comfort those who areafflicted.

I didn't pick the problem up when I wrote it. I didn't pick the problem up when it was prayed in our service on Sunday morning. I picked it up when I prayed it at the evening service at the Lutheran Campus Ministry at WVU.

The problem is that first line. I realize that everything hangs on whether you suffer FROM or WITH something. We generally suffer FROM diseases and ailments, but we can indeed suffer WITH them as well. So it struck me as odd when I prayed "sustain all those who suffer with your promise of new life." I suppose my intent was to pray "Sustain with your promise of new life all those who suffer." That would have been better writing.

Maybe it struck me as odd because we had just read in Philippians (3:10), "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death," where the promise of the resurrection is linked with suffering. Perhaps unintentionally, I prayed for all of us who suffer with this promise that brings suffering.

We want Christ but maybe not any suffering, even though the way Paul writes they go together. Luther marked suffering as a mark of the church. This mark, this verse, is a challenge to us who live comfortable lives. It is awfully easy to rationalize taking the path of least resistance... even when we are usually fairly faithful.

So maybe my prayer was right. Unintentional... but right.

15th Sunday after Pentecost -- Fathers and Sons

2011-09-29T11:17:00.003-04:00

The first reading and the gospel reading last Sunday both dealt with issues of fathers and son. Two sons who were less than model sons, and three generations of men. In that latter tale in Ezekiel, God makes it clear each person is judged on his or her own merit not on what family they are born into. Righteousness trumps inheritance.

An excerpt:

You see, back in the Ten Commandments, when God declares the first commandment, “You shall have no other gods,” God also says, “I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.” For much of the history of Israel, it was understood that to follow the Torah, or not, was to have consequences not just for the one who kept the Law, or not, but for later generations as well. As people who belong to a culture that is almost exclusively centered on the individual, we might find the notion that subsequent generations pay for the sins of former sins incredibly offensive. Nonetheless there is the reality that there are ways that sin is communal. Precisely as fathers form their children, sin can be formed in successive generations. We know that there are genetic patterns that can be passed down from father to child in things like addictions. Destructive and abusive behaviors can be passed down just through repeated behavior. But also, we see that some things that are begun decades before can have devastating consequences for later generations. When we understand ourselves to be part of a community extended through time, this perspective is not all that difficult.

Read the whole thing here.

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Pastoral Duties to the Deceased

2011-09-22T13:32:00.001-04:00

A friend of mine recently wrote a blog titled "When Do You Cease Being Someone's Pastor?" This question has nothing to do with people and voting membership or when they cease attending worship. Charlie deals with the question of pastoral duties at the time of death.

Very often I think folks generally think that the pastor is there for the living, not the one who has died. It is true that it is holy ground to speak the gospel in those times surrounding the death of loved ones. Charlie also raises the issue that as pastors we have duties to those who have died as well. He writes:

What I'm saying is that I still have certain duties to a member of my congregation after they die. I am to comfort those who loved them with the word of the Gospel. I am to pray (along with the deceased!) for the welfare and eternal salvation of those who survive. Finally, I am to give Christian burial to the deceased. I am to proclaim what Jesus did for them in their earthly life. I am to proclaim what is still coming. I am to lay to rest the person's body... the body baptized into Christ's death and resurrection.

I am the person's pastor until they are in the ground. That's when my duties to them cease... not before.

If we only think of the pastor as necessary to speak to the living with no duties to the deceased, then we are likely to not care who officiates at funerals. Now I admit, I have more flexibility with ecumenical partnership than my LCMS friend. However, the notion that any pastor will do, or other eulogies can supplant the place of the pastor's sermon is a great misunderstanding of the role of the pastor and the pastor's place in the community of faith. Charlie gives several good examples of these sorts of situations.

Thankfully nothing like this has happened to me. But Charlie's question is important in many ways.

Lesser Lament For the Lectionary

2011-09-21T09:57:00.002-04:00

I love the lectionary. Really I do. To have a three-year cycle of readings that leave me with a plethora of preaching opportunities is pure gold as far as I am concerned. I simply do not know what I would do if I were part of a tradition that did not take advantage of the lectionary. Trying to come up with sermons week after week where I needed to pick the texts would likely result in me preaching on my favorite topics. I love that by using the lectionary, I am forced to address texts that I might otherwise avoid. And by using those texts, week after week, year after year (I am now in my third trip round the lectionary preaching weekly with almost eight years under my belt as a pastor), I have come to love those texts that force me to wrestle with law and gospel, our situation and God's good news in Jesus.

That being said, sometimes I wish the lectionary was not so chopped up. It is the very nature of the lectionary to give us self-contained stories, units of the text that can be read independently and still make sense. Pericopes, we call them, from the Greek word that means to "cut around." We cut the stories out of the larger flow of the book that they are in. Ultimately the pericope is chosen because the larger framework would be too long. And sometimes that's workable. Trying to take the full Sermon on the Mount in could be overwhelming in one sitting. That allows the preacher to deal with various themes and issues in a series of sermons.

But some weeks, it proves much more difficult to cut apart texts. It seems to me this week is one of those weeks. The Revised Common Lectionary appoints Matthew 21:23-32. Jesus is tested by religious leaders when they ask by what authority he does these things and what then gave him that authority? Jesus and his opponents have a standoff, but then Jesus continues with three parables. Two sons and their father. Workers in a vineyard whose greed leads them to murder the son of the owner. A wedding banquet for a son where the father's invitation is ignored by many. Each of these parables deals with a father and sons, and a response to said father's authority.

This larger narrative flow will be lost as we stretch those parables over three Sundays. In our setting, one reality that we must face is that when regular church-going is defined as once or twice a month, how many will be able to hear the full flow of the narrative? Another issue that we must face is the episodic nature of other entertainment. We digest a great deal of entertainment. Very often, particularly with sitcoms, there is little narrative flow between episodes. Sometimes there might be a recurrent theme but it is almost never necessary to know that to watch an episode. Even in most dramas, each episode is crafted to be watchable without a large investment. Only occasionally do serials, that is shows with an ongoing storyline between episodes, succeed.

The lectionary plays into the independent storyline and we are likely to miss larger arguments. For Matthew, these parables are not just serial images, but a continued and sustained proclamation of who Jesus is. Now as preacher, I am stuck. When my focus in drawn to this defense of Jesus' identity, do I try to preach each story? Or do I wait a few weeks and try one big sermon that tries to encompass the whole argument? It certainly depends on my own situation. I suppose if I cannot shake the question of authority and the overall flow of Matthew's gospel, I wait. And certainly I must wait. It is easier to point back to previous readings than point forward. If I point forward, folks might not be familiar with the text, but even worse, I might dig myself a hole by taking any good preaching material from those following weeks.

This entire dilemma could be resolved if the lectionary were read in larger chunks, but that is unlikely. Our attention spans are shorter. Television has changed us so that our attention spans are right about that twelve to fifteen minute block of show in between commercials. C'est la vie. I won't trade in the lectionary any time soon. I do love it. And thankfully whether I wait or just preach each text, I do get four texts to choose from every week. And they are each beautiful and wondrous and challenging in their own right.

14th Sunday after Pentecost -- Jonah

2011-09-18T22:32:00.000-04:00

After finally arriving at Nineveh, Jonah reluctantly delivers the judgment against that great city. But when God shows mercy on Nineveh, Jonah is angry enough to die. God's mercy can be scandalous when it gets extended even to our enemies.

An excerpt from my sermon:

Then again the Lord tells Jonah togo to Nineveh. This time he goes. And when he gets to Nineveh, Jonah walks mostof the way to the center of the city and preaches the shortest sermon on record. Eight words “Eight days more and Nineveh willbe overthrown.” It is lacking on so manylevels. While many might rejoice if Igave a sermon of eight words, Jonah does the bare minimum, living by the letterof the law and certainly not the spirit. He does exactly what God wants him to do and tell Nineveh that God isgoing to destroy them because of their wickedness. Well he doesn’t tell Nineveh exactly that GODwill do it… he just says that it will be overthrown. And now having fulfilled his duty he goesoutside the city to sit and wait and watch the fireworks begin.

Except that they don’t. because somehow someone heard him and hisweak proclamation… and the story tells us that “the people of Nineveh believedGod.” This proclamation goes viral. The people start talking and spreading thenews. They consecrate a fast. Soon the king himself issues a decree thatpeople should repent… that even the animals should repent. AndGod sees that people have turned from their evil ways and God relents frompunishing. God extends not justice butmercy upon Nineveh. And this has Jonahreally angry now. After all, THIS isNineveh. These aren’t God’s people. They aren’t special. They are not the ones that the Lord has madea covenant with. These are the enemiesof that people. Jonah is so angry,because God is “slow to anger and abounding in love.” “Mine first!” he objects.

Or read the whole thing here.

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13th Sunday after Pentecost -- 9-11 and Forgiveness?

2011-09-15T12:29:00.000-04:00

Not having preached over a few previous Sundays, I lost track of posting my sermon to both my podcast and blog. Finally I am getting a round to posting it.

The gospel text, Matthew 18:21-35 is the classic text of Peter asking Jesus how often he should forgive a brother or sister who sins against him. Jesus turns everything over and gives us the parable of the Unforgiving Servant, which requires us when talking about forgiveness to refocus our understanding. We are not primarily the one sinned against, and can therefore dole out forgiveness as we choose. We are first and foremost the one forgiven. That is the primary lens with which we should view forgiveness. The stakes are ratcheted up a little higher on this day when we also remember the 10th anniversary of 9-11.

Here is an excerpt:

And I fear that with this parable there are those who are looking at the attacks and speaking about a forgiveness that lets attackers off scot free. This is not, by the way, me calling out for vengeance, but justice. I refused to rejoice when bin Laden was taken down. But the question of forgiveness implies repentance and transformation. We cannot simply throw out some blanket statement of forgiveness without doing some work first.
Forgiveness is hard work. We have to pray for it after all. We have various notions about forgiveness that are in fact wrong. Forgiveness is not just about forgetting and letting things go. Forgiveness is not about hearing the words “I’m sorry” and replying with “Oh, it’s okay.” We have tried those approaches in other heinous acts and they did not work out so well.

Read the whole thing here.

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The Postmodern Pat Robertson

2011-09-15T11:41:00.000-04:00

Maybe in an attempt to gain traction with a younger audience, Pat Robertson, it seems, has gone postmodern on us. Evidently on a Q&A session on the "700 Club" Pat told a caller that divorce in the case of a spouse having Alzheimer's is just fine. After all, Alzheimer's is "a kind of death." (read one report here)

Seriously, who would have thought that Pat Robertson would end up here? He focused on the phrase in wedding vows "until death do us part." Robertson redefines Alzheimer's from a subjective standpoint. Alzheimer's is in fact NOT a kind of death, but a tragic illness. The portion of the marriage vows that he should have turned to was about promising to be faithful "in sickness and in health." That's appropriate.

I suspect Pat will start catching flack, and come out and try to make some explanation or such, and it will all pass away quietly. I can only hope that this will be the final move making Robertson irrelevant as a voice for Christianity in the United States.

I cannot help but think of one woman in my congregation who faithfully stood by her ailing husband for years, getting help from the congregation until he did in fact, truly die. Her example of faithfulness is an example of the gracious faithfulness of God who stands by us all even when we are not the most loveable. When we are in fact sinful. That same woman continues to this day, a number of years after the death of her husband, to advocate for spousal caregivers of Alzheimer's patients. She perseveres for those who are still engaged in the struggle and need support to remain faithful to their mariage vows. Thank God that she did not listen to Pat Robertson.

An Evening with My Wife and "The Guys"

2011-09-12T12:31:00.001-04:00

The other night my wife and I had an adult evening together. I would call it a date but it didn't end the way all of our official dates end, with a stop at the supermarket. Nonetheless, we had an evening together with dinner out, followed by a staged reading of the play "The Guys" by Anne Nelson. The play was put on by the Vintage Theater Company, directed by Jason Young and starring the two-member cast of John and Linda O'Connor. John is a professor of theater at Fairmont State and Linda does some costuming there as well. In addition, Jason Young is a Fairmont State alum. The Fairmont State connection is important since my wife is a professor there as well. If there had been no Fairmont State connection, we likely would not have gone at all, and I would have been poorer for it.

The play centers around the week following 9-11 in New York City. An editor, Joan ends up helping Nick, the captain of a fire company, write eulogies for some of the men from his company. It seems ultimately the playwright is seeking to see what she could contribute to the situation. All the talk of the tools of fireifghters, most notably near the end, points us to see her tools at use. Clearly there was a sense that 9-11 belonged to some in New York more than others. Some voices were quieted because they were not nearly affected as badly as others. The obvious reality is that everyone is affected but some don't feel they have a right to speak their distress because they might not have lost people close to them. The play was written relatively soon after 9-11 (background can be read here) but still after ten years this play still speaks to people seeking to make sense out of the tragedy and wondering what they might contribute.

Throughout the play however, I have to say, as engaging as the story and performances were, my mind was caught in a parallel process. I had known nothing about the play when I arrived except it had something to do with 9-11. When Joan sat down with Nick to begin crafting eulogies, I did not see Joan and Nick. Instead I saw myself reflected up there. I saw an important part of the funeral sermon. The crucial part of the funeral sermon, of course, the proclamation of the gospel, was not there. But the proper narration of one's life was there. Nick was awed when Joan could take his words that were hesitant at first but really flowing toward the end, and create a piece that portrayed the essence of another's life. Joan simply works with Nick's words. Pastors simply work with others' lives to distill and reflect. The one part we pastors get to do though is show how the person's story intertwines with God's story. And our exposure is usually not just a couple hour interaction with another person. Our funeral preparation begins in a way with our first encounter with a person in our congregation.

The task though is always eased by others. Nick never imagined he would have to do so many eulogies so closely together. His ability to reflect is stopped by the overwhelming immensity of his task. Joan serves as a catalyst for Nick. She becomes a release for him. She knows the right questions to ask to aid the reflection and words so that Nick has something true to say. Speaking the truth is important. Joan even prompts him when the picture of one of the guys seems too perfect. Overly perfect images never ring true.

Joan also realizes that this task has an effect on her. That she bears some of the pain and trauma that Nick bears. This scene spoke with real truth. Writing funeral sermons, I know, hits me in strange ways. Joan comments that writing those eulogies made an impression on her like a thumbprint in clay. The only difference I might say is that for us writing funeral sermons for congregation members, people with whom we have an ongoing relationship, their impression upon us has been made and we feel the loss of that relationship. We miss the pressure of another upon us. But severe tragedies do also come upon us and affect us when a person dies tragically.

I could not help but see much of our task as preachers here in this play. The tools of our trade being words that help make sense of life, death and the promises of God. When I have written sermons that speak to the person's life while intertwining it with God's story, they have had the most profound impact on people. Joan writes in a way that helps Nick's story show that these guys lives have intertwined with his and the firehouse and provides a great glimpse into the work of preachers and funeral sermons. I think all preachers should see this play if they can.

Happy are they who...

2011-08-25T15:00:00.000-04:00

well.... don't seek happiness.

Not that folks should be unhappy, but happiness is as one's primary goal in life is misdirected. I finally got around to reading my July/August issue of The Atlantic Monthly and found the article "How to Land Your Kid in Therapy" to speak to our situation. As a parent I fear often that I am too hard on my kids. And while this article is not a call to become parental tyrants, the idea that we as parents have to make our children happy all the time might be devastating to them in the long run.

There are plenty of things that we do in our lives that bring us happiness. But happiness is not the primary goal of such activity. Trying to provide for our child's happiness by constant praise, or navigating the troubled waters our children find themselves in, might even have more to do with the parents not wanting to let go than anything else. One notion that was raised as a possibility for parents not wanting to let go was the nature of community and most people's removal from it.

“There’s a difference between being loved and being constantly monitored,” Dan Kindlon told me. And yet, he admitted, even he struggles. “I’m about to become an empty-nester,” he said, “and sometimes I feel like I’d burn my kids’ college applications just to have somebody to hang around with. We have less community nowadays—we’re more isolated as adults, more people are divorced—and we genuinely like spending time with our kids. We hope they’ll think of us as their best friends, which is different from parents who wanted their kids to appreciate them, but didn’t need them to be their pals. But many of us text with our kids several times a day, and would miss it if it didn’t happen. So instead of being peeved that they ask for help with the minutiae of their days, we encourage it.”

This article was a very sobering look at a number of issues that face not just the world but the church as well, particularly as wee seek to teach virtues that have nothing to do with common conceptions of happiness and instead have much to do with suffering and discipleship. Yet throughout the history of the church many have found happiness precisely in those endeavors. Happiness perhaps resides in the wrestling and the overcoming.

10th Sunday after Pentecost -- Sacrifice

2011-08-23T23:01:00.000-04:00

After laying a theological foundation that re-orients the identity of God's people, Paul turns to the living out of that identity. Paul uses the language of sacrifice but turns it so that it is rooted in the life of Christ rather than death.

An excerpt from the sermon:

But why do we Christians so easily accept notions of sacrifice? For Christianity the final sacrifice of death was that of Jesus. In the midst of the sacrificial system set up in Israel, Jesus was raised up to be God’s final answer to sin and death. God did not make the hard decision of having another pay, but chose to put himself on the line in the person of Jesus, his Son. And Paul makes much of this clear in Romans. Paul begins with the complete power of sin in the world. Sin holds everyone captive. Jew, Gentile, everyone both inside and outside of God’s chosen people. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” he writes in chapter 3. But that also means that all are placed in right relationship with God (that is, God undoes the power of sin) in Jesus, whom God has put forward as the sacrifice once and for all.

Read the whole thing here.

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Barna Group and the State of the Church

2011-08-19T00:16:00.000-04:00

Recently, George Barna's research group put out a report that looked over the past twenty years and marked some significant changes. Relating to six key religious behaviors, they found:

Bible reading undertaken during the course of a typical week, other than passages read while attending church events, has declined by five percentage points. Currently an estimated 40% of adults read the Bible during a typical week.
Church volunteerism has dropped by eight percentage points since 1991. Presently, slightly less than one out of every five adults (19%) donates some of their time in a typical week to serving at a church.
Adult Sunday school attendance has also diminished by eight percentage points over the past two decades. On any given Sunday, about 15% of adults can be expected to show up in a Sunday school class.
The most carefully watched church-related statistic is adult attendance. Since 1991, attendance has receded by nine percentage points, dropping from 49% in 1991 to 40% in 2011.
The most prolific change in religious behavior among those measured has been the increase in the percentage of adults categorized as unchurched. The Barna Group definition includes all adults who have not attended any religious events at a church, other than special ceremonies such as a wedding or funeral, during the prior six month period. In 1991, just one-quarter of adults (24%) were unchurched. That figure has ballooned by more than 50%, to 37% today.

Barna also continues on in a six-part series that outlines the State of the Church, which covers many differences including generation, gender, racial, ethnic and so on. It is interesting and raises some issues for mission.

Begin with Part One of The State of the Church here.

9th Sunday after Pentecost -- Table Manners

2011-08-16T14:49:00.000-04:00

Jesus encounters a Canaanite woman who won't take "No!" for an answer. Jesus ignores and insults. He abuses theology. Jesus' behavior is difficult to stomach here. But his behavior is, seemingly, for the benefit of his disciples who simply want him to send her away. Yet the woman is persistent, enlarging the picture of Jesus' mission for his disciples.

An excerpt:

When Jesus sends us away, he sends us away from the realm of sin and death. Too often our choice is to keep people there. We ignore or insult or abuse scripture to keep from extending the grace shown to us by Jesus. Grace is not a commodity that will run out. It flows out of Jesus’ identity as the messiah, the one who comes to humanity to set us free. He becomes sin so that we might become righteousness.

Read the whole sermon here.

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Hauerwas, America's God, and the Church

2011-08-10T15:21:00.000-04:00

I saw that Brian McLaren had a quote by Stanley Hauerwas over on his blog. That quote had a link to a longer column over at ABC's religion page titled "The Death of America's God."

In typical fashion, Hauerwas points to the reality that the faith most Americans have is deeply shaped more by our political notions, than who Jesus is. Hauerwas wrote:

Protestantism became identified with the republican presumption in liberty as an end in itself. This presumption was then reinforced by an unassailable belief in the commonsense of the individual. As a result, Protestant churches in America lost the ability to maintain those disciplines that are necessary to sustain a truly free people - people who are capable of being a genuine alternative to the rest of the world.

For those who are familiar with Hauerwas, this sort of writing is nothing new. I did find however his discussion about marriage to be interesting. He begins writing about how the notion of liberty plays itself out. Human beings are presumed to be rational creatures with the ability to make "free choices." The problem as Hauerwas sees it, is when accountability is brought into the equation. We want accountability and responsibility, but at the same we demand that we know what we "know what we are doing." He says that most Americans do not think someone should be held accountable for something if they do it when they do not know what they are doing. And here is where marriage becomes problematic, he says. He writes:

But the problem with such an account of responsibility is that it makes marriage, among other things, completely unintelligible. How could you ever know what you were doing when you promised life-long monogamous fidelity? That is why the church insists that your vows be witnessed by the church, because the church believes it has the duty to hold you responsible to promises you made when you did not know what you were doing.

I am not sure I agree with Hauerwas' suppositions. I think most Americans want to hold others accountable for things even if they did not know what they were doing. But if we ask individuals if they should be held accountable when they did not know what they themselves were doing, then maybe. But his discussion rings true as I consider some friends who just could not see themselves ever getting married. One discussed it with me after a break up with his long-time live-in girlfriend. He could not ever see committing to one woman because he just didn't know what else was out there. In other words, he wanted to know what he was doing before he made a decision where didn't know what he was doing. I am fairly certain that my friend will never marry... or he might once he realizes the hopelessness of his situation.

Hauerwas' column is not as clear as it could be and he likely preaches to the choir. But he is on to something here. Watching the incommensurability of political discourse in America today, it is clear that the three antithetical threads he names in America are beginning to fray. An April survey by Public Religion Research Institute showed that most Americans believed Christianity and capitalism to be at odds with one another. Several prominent Congressmen and Congresswomen who claim to be Christian also espouse Ayn Rand's atheist philosophy. Hauerwas is clearly on the right track.

8th Sunday after Pentecost -- In the Boat

2011-08-08T13:18:00.000-04:00

Jesus walks on water and draws a deep resonance with things that God the Father has done. This text clearly shows that what God does, Jesus does and highlights Jesus' relationship with God. Thus when Jesus calls us out of our relative safety we can trust that all is well and we will be looked after no matter what might happen.

Here is an excerpt from my sermon yesterday.

While it seems daunting, uncertainty for the church is nothing new. Routinely the church has had to face fear and uncertainty. Even with Jesus around the disciples found themselves fearful. Not only do Jesus’ disciples have to fear authorities, both political and religious, but at times it even seems like Jesus placed them in a position to be fearful. Today’s gospel reading has the disciples being forced into a boat to go across the sea. The NRSV says that Jesus “made the disciples” get into the boat. The word is incredibly forceful. Forced or compelled work perhaps better. Jesus feeds the multitude, then ships his disciples off and he goes away to pray.

Or read the whole thing here.

Or listen to it below.

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Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread...

2011-08-04T21:10:00.003-04:00

I saw a friend on Facebook share an article from the StarTribune about truckers. The author of the article had a great opening.

Let me tell you a little about the truck driver you just flipped off because he was passing another truck, and you had to cancel the cruise control and slow down until he completed the pass and moved back over.

His truck is governed to 68 miles an hour, because the company he leases it from believes it keeps him and the public and the equipment safer.

The truck he passed was probably running under 65 mph to conserve fuel. You see, the best these trucks do for fuel economy is about 8 miles per gallon. With fuel at almost $4 per gallon -- well, you do the math. And, yes, that driver pays for his own fuel.

The author Dan Hanson writes incredibly well about this particular driver, Harold, and his situation. Read the whole article here. The article is a great reminder about the reality of truck drivers' lives... and our own self-centeredness.

And it is a great illustration for the daily bread petition of the Lord's prayer. When Luther explains in the Small Catechism what is meant by daily bread, he says:

Everything that belongs to the support and wants of the body, such as meat, drink, clothing, shoes, house, homestead, field, cattle, money, goods, a pious spouse, pious children, pious servants, pious and faithful magistrates, good government, good weather, peace, health, discipline, honor, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.

I always take the opportunity to explain to my confirmands that this means we are praying for the migrant farm workers, the stock boys in the supermarket and yes, even the truck drivers who are hauling goods all over the country. This article is just one more piece of evidence that supports my position. The men and women who are engaged in trucking are not just obstacles in our path, but human beings with real lives who are engaged in providing our daily bread.

Pastor Dad and the Eucharist... Again

2011-08-01T22:24:00.002-04:00

This past Sunday, after the service as I was greeting people, two visitors introduced themselves to me. One of the visitors was a pastor and the other a pastor’s wife. The pastor’s wife had commented on watching my wife with our three kids. I commented as usual that my wife bore a great burden on Sunday morning. The pastor’s wife though was one of the first who mentioned my burden in having to push them out of my mind at times. And this is certainly true. A couple of weeks ago though I could not perform such a separation and I needed to reflect quickly on my feet.

The practice at our congregation is that people come forward to the rail and kneel to receive the sacrament. Our oldest chose the pew the rest of them sit in as I am up front. He chose for them the front row immediately under the pulpit, whichhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif means that my family is the first in the congregation to receive the sacrament since I start on that side. For the longest time, he has been the first in line to receive the sacrament. But my middle child, my five-year old son (whom I wrote about last year here), has started the struggle with his older brother as to who will be first. If I had chosen to name the boys Jacob and Esau, it would have been appropriate. I have seen near wrestling matches recently as they strove to be the first.

I have tried to explain to them that there is no “first” at God’s table. But a couple of weeks ago I nearly lost it. They had been pushing my buttons all morning, starting with getting ready in the morning to misbehaving during the children’s sermon to antagonizing each other in the pew during my sermon (which of course was directly below me since they sit directly beneath me in the pulpit). So when the wrestling match began, the pastor in me was not what responded. Rather the dad reacted.

It is our practice to withhold whatever is the currency that holds sway. If we have to take away television, computer or handheld games, we do. Sometimes if the offense is egregious enough, they might lose all three. That morning I told them I had had enough. My oldest tried arguing with me, but I wanted none of that at the altar rail. And I was about to tell them that they lost the sacrament. Something stopped me. Just before I levied that discipline, which I would have felt obliged to keep if I said it, I paused. Was this offense worth excommunicating my kids?

Now let me be clear, I do think there is a place for withholding the sacrament. Public, egregious and unrepentant sins have no place in the community. We do not sin so that grace may abound. Excommunication is meant to be a evangelical tool to bring about repentance and amendment of life. It is not shunning and exclusion, but a means to reach out anew with the proclamation of the gospel. But I would think about it in connection with something severe like abuse or extra-marital affairs. Two brothers elbow jockeying? Hardly. Not without warning and conversation first at least.

So I pulled back from the brink. I told them to stop and that if they kept it up they would get served last. They stopped. I communed them, after I communed their mother and sister. This past Sunday, after a week off since we were on vacation, I called them to me before we left the house. I reminded them of the respectful behavior we should exhibit when taking the sacrament. And THIS time, I did tell them, that if there was a problem there would be no sacrament for them. The middle child still misbehaved during the children’s sermon, acting out and making loud noise seeking attention. But when we celebrated the Eucharist, all was quiet. All was still. Jesus’ presence calmed the boys, and the dad. A mystery to be sure.

Motorcycle Ride to Orlando

2011-07-28T22:09:00.004-04:00

y colleague in Morgantown, the chaplain at the Lutheran campus ministry at West Virginia University is riding his motorcycle to the 2011 churchwide assembly in Orlando. He is also using the trip down to help raise funds for the campus ministry. The proposed budget cuts funding to campus ministry nearly forty percent. Synodical funding is growing ever tighter.

Together we put together this video as a promo piece. The ministry of word and sacrament is vital to the college community. Please watch the video and pledge for the 1000 mile trip. You can find the link to pledge on the campus ministry's website: http://lutheranmountaineer.org/

Michele Bachmann, Politics, the Anti-Christ, and the 8th Commandment

2011-07-18T10:50:00.002-04:00

Last week a parishioner emailed me a link to an article that talked about presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann leaving her Lutheran church because of its anti-Catholic stance. My parishioner thought it might be important to point out what kind of Lutheran Bachmann was. Around here (in West Virginia, that is) Lutherans are a tiny minority, but in that group they are overwhelmingly ELCA Lutherans, with a handful of LCMS congregations scattered throughout the area. Being the sole Lutheran congregation in Morgantown, I am accustomed to Lutherans of various traditions walking through the door, including some from WELS, the denomination that Bachmann has recently left. Some folks come from these traditions and stay. Some come, abide with us for a while but ultimately move on to something else because of various pressures. Still, few people know the variety of Lutherans that are out there.

I have puzzled over the Bachmann migration. I am in personal agreement with the position that pope is not the anti-Christ. But I cringe at the thought that perhaps this migration is motivated more by political reckoning. After all, it is reported that Bachmann and her family has been worshipping on and off at a local evangelical church over the past two years. I doubt that their stance toward the Pope is significantly more charitable. Maybe it is, but even if not, it is simply not an official public stance.

Clint Schnekloth offers a very nice analysis of Bachmann from a Lutheran standpoint over at Lutheran Confessions. He upholds the spirit of the eighth commandment. Despite some apparent political disagreements hinted at in his post, he sets those aside for a reflection that seeks the best possible interpretation both of Bachmann and her former denomination. It is a refreshing moment in a blogosphere full of snarkiness and vitriol, fueled only by politicians' and other public figures' own nastiness in an attempt to gain power and influence.

5th Sunday after Pentecost -- Schrödinger's Weeds

2011-07-17T22:48:00.002-04:00

Jesus tells the parable of the wheat and the weeds as part of his discourse of parables. In this parable Jesus addresses the question of evil in the world and God's patient response. The promise is that God will indeed judge the world. But God's judgment is not like ours. God's judgment brings mercy and transformation in Christ.

An excerpt:

We want to bring about justice. We want to say perhaps that a woman who clearly showed horrible judgment in lying to the police about the death of her young daughter but was not convicted by an earthly court, should somehow pay. We are so certain of her guilt because of what we have been shown by the media and certain personalities. It seems wrong. And yet, God will say, “wait.” The reality is, God will judge every single person. Every single one of us will face God’s judgment of our lives. Like every single one of us might want to do to some other person about something or other, God will speak the word “guilty” to every single one of us. Our lives are weedy. In moments of brutal honesty, we know that. We are not what we could be. We do not do the things that lead to life. We choose the path of slavery and death, again and again. And yet, despite knowing that we all will hear the verdict “guilty,” God waits.

Read the whole thing here.

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Sowing Among Weeds and Thorns

2011-07-14T15:28:00.002-04:00

This past Sunday, we heard the parable of the sower from Matthew 13. My sermon touched upon the strangeness of the sower, who doesn’t seem to care where the seed is cast. It is extravagant and wasteful to our eyes. Why not focus efforts to where they will receive a higher rate of return. I used the image of a picture I took on a hike, of a tree growing out of a granite boulder. God sows the seed of the gospel in ways that seem foolish. Most importantly God sows the seed of the gospel in the life and death of Jesus. Couldn’t a more effective method have been devised? Evidently not… at least not to God. God loves the world so deeply and passionately, that he used the greatest and fullest expression he could find so that we might know that love, even if it causes us to ponder greatly this mystery.

Now having preached this message about God’s love for all, after the service I was approached by two people who needed assistance. Well, I had been approached by one of the people, Pete, a local homeless man, before the service, but after a brief conversation I asked him to wait until after so I could attend to the things that needed to be cared for. The other person was a woman, Mary with her young daughter Jasmine. (Note: I have changed their names here.) Two further pictures could not have been painted. Pete looked every part of a person living homeless. Unshaven, dirty pants, poor speech, couldn’t sit still. Mary on the other hand sat there with her daughter through the whole service. Brought Jasmine up for the children’s sermon, and came forward for Communion. I merely thought she was a visitor. She was but she needed help.

I was thoroughly impressed by the way the congregation responded to both of them. People welcomed and greeted both. They reached out and engaged them in conversation. I had numerous people tell me about these folks who needed help. One of our teenagers had even approached Pete, although she didn’t know what to do when he told her to stay away. Nonetheless I was pleased that the reaction from many was one of welcome and hospitality.

I talked with each one in turn. I had to spend a little more time with Mary first, since I knew part of Pete’s story already from our brief encounter prior to worship. Mary had come to town from out west about a week before, following a man. When she realized things weren’t going to be any better here than they were out there she knew she had to go home, but she lacked resources. Pete was looking to get to North Carolina because his uncle had died. Of course, he had no way to get there.

Pete told me of people he knew in town, one other pastor, Pastor Mike, in particular, and he gave me the name and number of his brother in North Carolina so I could call them. I called them both. I knew the other pastor and I figured I knew who this guy was since Pastor Mike and I had spent a good deal of time talking as we waited for our kids to be dismissed from the same primary school. I was right. Pastor Mike had reached the end of his rope in dealing with Pete. Pete’s family, when I got through to them, wanted nothing to do with him due to drugs, theft and violence. Pete was no saint. And yet here he was… a patch of rocky ground. How would I sow the seed of the gospel there?

Mary seemed more like a plant being choked by weeds and thorns. After telling me her needs, when I was ready to move on helping her, providing her with gas money to get back home, she abruptly blurted out, “How do I find happiness?” If Mary was putting on a con, it was the most convincing con job ever. Never in all of my time here have I had any person who needed help wonder about this. She spoke of her bad decisions, and the way she kept making them. Her unhappiness was compounded by the poor relationship with her pastor since he had excluded her from the sacrament, telling her she was not forgiven for having a child out of wedlock. That she asked about happiness is no surprise. All of her relationships were ruptured and falling apart. Her question might seem like a dream for some pastors, seeing themselves as gurus with the opportunity to impart some gem of wisdom and pull her from despair. It terrified me. I had nothing. Nothing, except of course, Jesus. I replied, “I have no easy solution Mary. The best I can tell you is that happiness has to do with life with Jesus.” Upon further reflection, I realize part of my fear. I did not have, and would never have since she was leaving, any long-term relationship where we could discuss and discern where happiness was coming from in her life. Happiness comes from relationship with God and neighbor.

Pete was more difficult. He was demanding and ruffled my feathers. Nevertheless my own words from my own sermon echoed in my ears. It was Sunday and I could not help him get a bus ticket right then. He asked about a hotel room for the night. I told him I could not do both. He wanted a room. Of course the first hotel we stopped at was booked. The second had one. I gave him a gift card for a local restaurant so he could get some food before he was allowed to get into his room. Throughout the night he called the church about a dozen times. At eleven o’clock at night he called me on my cell phone from a nearby drug store where he wanted to get some food. He had the cashier call me to vouch for him, to say I would pay. I did not and I was none too pleased. On Monday the saga with Pete continued and culminated in the police being called to warn him about trespassing and harassment. Very rocky ground indeed.

Yet one thing that I told Mary holds true in both cases. Mary felt terrible that she had to ask for help and wondered how she might be able to pay us back. Pete thought if he did some tiny odd jobs around the church or for parishioners he could earn the help we might provide. I told Mary that it was not necessary for her to repay us. I said, “We help others so that they might have a concrete grasp of the way God loves them.” For Mary, this brought her to tears. I don’t know if Pete would ever understand. Before Mary left, she gave me a hug as we stood beside the gas pump. Pete left the following day by cursing at us.

Yet as I said in my sermon, we sow the seed of the gospel as an act of faith. We trust that God will not let it come back empty, that our labor will not be in vain. As such it means we must take the long view. When we share the gospel with others, we should not expect grand conversion stories to spring out of them. We plant seeds and it might take a while to germinate… and maybe it never does, but we continue on, sometimes appearing wasteful and foolish using resources on the likes of Pete and Mary. Oftentimes we might think we are being hustled and conned and we should have some sort of guard in place to protect the resources we have. But we share with others not because they look like good investments, but because God loves them no less than he loves us. And our actions help make that love known… hopefully, sooner or later. I pray we all might sow God’s love so extravagantly as the sower.

-------------------------------

This post also served as my newsletter columm for my congregation's August newsletter. We have been focusing on the spreading of the gospel. We do so in many ways.

4th Sunday after Pentecost -- A Tree Grows in Granite

2011-07-11T21:53:00.004-04:00

The parable of the sower takes a common image of farming and gives a strange twist. The sower casts seed about seemingly wastefully. The sower gives an image of God's abundance when it comes to spreading the gospel and our act of faith when doing so, trusting that the seed will not return empty.

Speaking of a photo I took on a hike, of a tree growing out of the middle of a granite boulder, I wrote:

Imagine if trees were a little more discriminating at where they dumped their seeds… it would keep us from having to deal with the unnatural sight. Trees aren’t supposed to grow out of rocks. The parent tree should know that. After all, we don’t see farmers scattering their seed all over the place with no thought as to where the seed might fall. No, they take great care to plant only in well-prepared places. Well, most farmers do… not the one Jesus was talking about today though. Jesus opens his “day of parables” in the 13th chapter of Matthew with the parable of the sower. The picture Jesus paints with his parable is of a sower who casts about his seed even more inefficiently than the parent tree in New Hampshire did. This sower makes no distinction about where he casts his seed. The path. Rocky ground. Among thorns… and finally on good soil. It doesn’t matter to him. This sower is just casting it all around.

Or read the whole sermon here.

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3rd Sunday after Pentecost Sermon -- True Freedom

2011-07-06T11:53:00.002-04:00

On the eve of our nation's celebration of independence, the lectionary appoints a reading that can be heard as bondage, but taking on Christ's yoke is our true freedom.

An excerpt:

Perhaps then it seems ironic that today, the day before our Independence Day, that we hear Jesus words, “Take my yoke upon you....” The yoke is of course an implement that shackles two beasts together for labor. Hardly a vision of independence. This image seems to play right into the hands of all of the critics of Christianity (or any religion for that matter), that it exists to control and oppress people, that it refuses to allow people to think for themselves. The word “religion” doesn’t help us here. That word comes from the Latin root “ligare” which means “to bind.” Religion might bind us to a deity but at the same time it binds us from our true desires. From obtaining what we really want. Our pursuits of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are thwarted by the presence of this yoke. After all, religious adherents are not all that likely to live and let live. There are numerous examples of religion being used to advance various agendas, demonizing others, and even instilling horrendous violence. Is Jesus’ statement here then the smoking gun that critics of Christianity are looking for?

Read the whole sermon here.

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ELCA video contest entry over at Living Lutheran

2011-06-30T11:46:00.002-04:00

Since May, the video contest over at Living Lutheran has been working away in my mind. I finally finished it last night. I talked with some folks here in the congregation who gave some good advice for putting together a video. The hardest part was getting everything into ninety seconds.

Here is our video.

If you would like, you can view and vote for it here.

I think this video will be important on a number of levels even if we do not win any prize money (which is highly likely since there are a number of good videos there). After all, this format is easily viewed by people and it should help them see and understand a portion of our ministry here. Plus we can also feature it on our website so others can see what we are doing.

The Dilemma of Ethics

2011-06-22T09:57:00.002-04:00

In the July/August 2011 issue of Discover, Kristin Ohlson writes about some research being done about ethics through neuroscience ("The End of Morality"). At the heart of the research, cognititve scientists Joshua Greene and Fiery Cushman took scans of subjects' brains while they were working through true ethical dilemmas. These dilemmas were the sort anyone who has ever taken an undergraduate philosophical ethics course would be familiar with. Each dilemma offers only two options, neither of which is an easy choice. For example, they used the trolley dilemma, where the subject is asked to imagine an out of control trolley hurtling down the track toward five people. But then the subject sees a switch that will divert the trolley to another track where it will miss the five, but will kill another person on that track. Or a variation where the subject is standing on a ledge above the track. Beside him or her, there is a person large enough that if he is pushed onto the track he will stop the trolley but will be killed in the process. The study asks if it is justifiable to kill one for the sake of more? Do you push one to his death to save five? Do you let the five die because of the one?

Joshua Greene sees our moral choices not based on anything other than the machinations of the brain. He talks about our brains being at war between the two options presented. One option is always a utilitarian option, that is, the greatest good for the greatest number. This option is best represented by John Stuart Mill's philosophy. The other option is best represented by Immanuel Kant who believed that moral laws were untouchable. As such there were lines that cannot be crossed, like "It is always wrong to kill" meant the five would die in the trolley scenario.

The research is fascinating. There are literally two different portions of the brain at war with one another when working through these decisions. The older portion of the brain seems to be the one that holds to the hardline of the moral truth. It takes significantly more time and energy to utilize the portion of the brain that is making the decision to kill one instead of five. Reason was trumping instinctual, emotional behavior it seemed. For Greene this was telling. He said, "You have these gut reactions and they feel authoritative, like the voice of God or your conscience." But they are not, Ohlson writes. "These powerful instincts are not commands from a higher power, they are just emotions hardwired into the brain. Our first reaction under pressure--the default response--is to go with our gut. It takes more time and far more brain power to reason the situation out."

Whether in academic situations or even in casual conversation among philosophically-minded friends, these dilemmas are common. They can provide great consternation and heated debate. This consternation and debate is precisely why philosophers want to reduce situations to do-this-or-do-that scenarios. Never is there any freedom to think about any other possibilities. They create an inherently strained situation where we are damned no matter which option we choose.

And this is precisely the dilemma of ethics. Not the dilemma of the situation, mind you, but the dilemma of ethics itself. Is ethics about discovering which is the right choice and which is the wrong choice? If so, then ethics is doomed. For if nothing else, these manufactured situations show the brokenness of our existence. Neither choice is right nor wrong. But both are sinful since they show the broken relationships that we must endure in this fallen world. In every scenario we are pitted against competing goods, goods that would not be a problem if the power of sin would not be present to divide and separate us and even our thought processes.

Do we treat ethics as a series of manufactured scenarios where we pretend to choose right from wrong? Or do we treat ethics as something else? If we try to reduce everything to the unsolvable, we give sway to the power of sin and place ourselves under its sway. After all, the fruit that Adam and Eve eat is from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. When we use these scenarios to make decisions we are playing God. Perhaps that is their draw. We feel like we are in control and the only entity that can make something happen.

But what if ethics were something else entirely? What if ethics were about the character of an individual, or more precisely, an individual within a particular community? The philosophers talk as if humans come to these situations untutored, blank slates that have yet to be written upon. This of course is not the case. We all come having been shaped in one way or another by, at the very least, the world around us. In reality, our actions are shaped by many things. Fire fighters don't simply react to their situations. They train and drill so that rather than reacting to a scenario, they respond with the training given to them.

Our lives can be shaped by the communities that we belong to. For Christians, the primary shaping and forming should be done by the Church (I will not go into here if that is actually happening). The Church should form its people to respond in ways that are faithful to the life of the Trinity, into which we are brought and which is testified to in scripture. And maybe instead of wondering whether we should push another person off the ledge, we would lay down our lives instead?

Holy Trinity Sunday -- Individuals and Fellowship

2011-06-20T15:36:00.002-04:00

Despite living in a hyper-individualized society, the Triune God lives in a compete and perfect community and opens up this life to us fallen human beings.

An excerpt:
God continues to bring us into this fellowship. In the waters of baptism, we are washed in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. God’s grace flows like abundant streams of water washing all of us unclean and self-centered humans. The Trinity refuses to ask what is in it for him. The Trinity worries not about what it gets but what it gives. The Trinity abounds in gracious love and true community and it welcomes us into that community.

You can read the whole sermon here.

Or listen to it.

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Pentecost Sermon -- Rivers of Living Water

2011-06-14T23:17:00.002-04:00

This Pentecost Sunday, I chose the alternate gospel reading. Rather than hearing of the traditional flames of the Holy Spirit, we heard instead Jesus speak of the Holy Spirit bringing forth rivers of living water.

An excerpt:
In the midst of daily life, as we look around, we can see that sin, like a drought, or pollution, or the twisting of the proper order of things abounds, creating the scarcity out of the abundance that God gives. And we are set at war with one another. We want what is ours. We fight, nation against nation, state against state. Communities and individuals are pitted against one another. All because of what is perceived as a zero-sum game. Scarcity does that to us. If someone else has a resource it means we don’t. If they have one, they we have a lack of it. This vision drives much of our thinking, our public policy, and our interactions with others. The resource could be actual natural resources, like water, coal, oil, wind, trees and so on. Or it can be other good gifts that God gives us: family, sex, occupations, education, the political governances we have and more. But often we camouflage the gifts and create conflicts, twisting these signs of beneficent providence, of good gifts God means for us to use and share as a sign of what God desires for the whole world.

Read the whole sermon here.

You can listen to it as well:

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The Revelation of Jesus -- Apocalypse Now But Not Yet

2011-05-31T09:45:00.002-04:00

The 6th Sunday of Easter's text in John 14, as well as in 1 Peter, led to some further reflection of the failed prediction of the rapture on May 21. Nonetheless, Jesus promises to return and reveal himself to us. We live in the tension of Jesus being present to us now though mediated in Word and Sacrament until the time he reveals himself once and for all.

An excerpt from my sermon:

Of course the temptation for Christians throughout the ages is to be so focused on the eternal life somewhere far away in heaven that this life gets ignored. We lose sight of the reality that God cares deeply for this world and so these messages point us to the work for us to do here and now. But we must always walk in the midst of the tension that the way Jesus is revealed to us now, mediated through the Word and sacraments, is less than the fullness that we are promised. Yes, Jesus stands alongside the poor and helpless, among the suffering, and that should compel us to act for them. But our actions should always be seen as signs that point to the great day when Christ comes again to usher in his kingdom when all of those ways that sin is made known are wiped away. Hunger will be no more. Poverty will be no more. Suffering will be no more. Death will be no more.

The full sermon can be read here.

It can be listened to here:

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Kids listen... even to the gospel

2011-05-20T09:29:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, my five-year old and I were playing the rhyming. I pick a word, and he says a word that rhymes with it. Then he picks a word and I rhyme. I am thankful that when he threw out the word "bucket" my censor kicked and I didn't blurt out the first thing that came to mind, AND that my wife shortly thereafter rescued me with "Nantucket."

But then we were cruising along.

"door" -- "floor"
"power" -- "sour"
"why" -- "fly"
Then I said "pen" and he replied with "sen."

"That's not a word, buddy. It needs to be a word."
"Yes it is."
"No it's not."
"Uh-huh!" And then he threw out a quickly rambled sentence in which the only word I really recognized was "bath-tized." (For some reason baptized comes out bath-tized, which is ok for me right now)
"What was that?"
"Sen. you know, like when people are bath-tized."
"Ummm..... no, I still don't know what you mean."
"Oh yeah," he said, "I guess you have to die because of it."
THEN it hit me... Sen was really SIN.
"OH! You mean sin!"
"Yeah, that's what I said! When you are bath-tized, your sen is washed away."
"Sin, buddy, sin [emphasizing the "i" sound]
"Oh, ok..." and then we were off to something else.

A brief encounter with the gospel because kids listen and will repeat at the most unexpected moment. Thanks be to God.

Rapture or Resurrection? Enjoy May 22

2011-05-19T10:22:00.006-04:00

Back in Advent, for our mid-week service I spent two evenings on a discussion of the rapture and some scriptural reflection. In the midst of all of this hub-bub with Pastor Camping, I felt it was appropriate to pull this out again. You can listen to both sessions and more at my podcast.

Here is the second session that discusses the meaning of passages that are often lifted up by proponents of the rapture.

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Post edited because of broken link... all is fixed and working now. audio is now working.

The Summer of Superheroes

2011-05-18T22:13:00.001-04:00

My post over at The Other Journal's Mediation Blog: Apocalypse and Messiahs.

An excerpt:

Many of these superhero films contain hallmarks of the apocalyptic genre: fantastical creatures, the natural world gone awry, messiahs and anti-messiahs, ultimate battles between good and evil. Thanks to CGI animations, the evil can come to life and produce the breath-taking moments of suspense when the hero is brought to the dark edge of existence, only to break through in triumph and victory. The apocalyptic finds its way into our consciousness through a medium that seems custom made for it.

2nd Sunday of Easter sermon

2011-05-06T23:13:00.002-04:00

Beginning a new thing this week... sharing my sermons here rather than just keep them on my podcast.

I will include an excerpt, and a link to the whole text, plus embed the mp3 file to listen.

Our inheritance is that we are given a share in God’s very life. And this life is not something that is inaccessible to us now. We are given a share of it even now. This new life has begun to take root in us, as it has in Naomi.

The new life is the constant and eternal love of God made known in Jesus. The resurrection signals that this new life is the life God has desired to give us from all eternity. So we don’t see anything “new” but something unchanging which can only seem entirely new as our lives are so corrupted by the power of death around us.

Here is our living hope that God’s love for us has not changed, has not wavered, despite our seeking after other new and innovative gods which we believe might serve us better. The new life given us in the resurrection is the life that lasts and does not change. So God changes us that we might enjoy it eternally with him.

Read the whole sermon here.

Listen to it now.

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Fear Itself, Early Reflections

2011-04-28T11:49:00.003-04:00

Having read the first issue of the limited series "Fear Itself" and the one-shot "Fear Itself: Sin's Past" I posted an early reflection on the series over at The Other Journal's blog, Mediation, titled "Gods, Sin, and Fear Itself."

Unvirtuous Abbey and Unicorn Theology

2011-04-27T13:05:00.002-04:00

Here is a great guest post by Unvirtuous Abbey (on Twitter @UnvirtuousAbbey ) over at Two Friars and a Fool, "Unicorn Theology and Unplugging Your Head" They deal with the problems the Church deals with on both the left and the right ends of the spectrum.

As I prepare a sermon series on 1 Peter, I appreciated greatly the author's response to folks who would ask what he did for a job. "Advance scout to the alien fleet."

Them bones, them bones, them dry bones...

2011-04-08T10:07:00.002-04:00

Preparing for the sermon on Sunday, and preaching on the Ezekiel 37 text, and I read Jenson's commentary on the passage.

For it has come to this: Israel as a whole and as such (37:11) is--as Ezekiel so often threatened--well and truly dead, a strewing of remains no longer even skeletal, so definitely of the past that the bones have separated and preserve no personal identities--no one can even point and say, "Alas, poor... I knew him well." The word of Gen. 2:17 has finally been fulfilled: the clash between God's will and human will for his human creatures, by which alone they live, and their refusal to follow that will, has been worked out in the history of Israel and has come to its inevitable conclusion.
Is then what the Lord here shows Ezekiel what it appears to be, the irreversible end of Israel's history with the Lord? And that is, of the bearer of the Lord's history with all humanity? Can Israel rise again? Indeed, can humanity, dependent for its specific being on the Lord's presence in history, live as what it was created to be? The Lord puts the question to Ezekiel: "Son of a man, what do you think? Can the dead live again?"
Ezekiel has no answer; this knowledge is beyond a son of man. But Ezekiel does know that the Lord is the giver of life; our passage is pervaded by a reminiscence of the Lord's first vivification of humankind (Gen. 2:7). And he knows that therefore the Lord can answer the question yes or no as he chooses. So he throws the question back.
For answer he receives an implicit yes: a command to prophesy life to the dead. Even in the nonbeing of death bones can hear him, because the word given the prophet is the same word that gives being and life in the first place, that addresses precisely "things that are not" (1Cor. 1:28). Thus Ezekiel is to do nothing less that speak the dead back to life (Exek. 37:4-6): we arrive at the extreme possibility of the prophets' general assignment "to pluck up and to pull down... to build and to plant" (Jer. 1:9-10). In this vision, Ezekiel speaks as commanded and the dead are raised (Ezek. 37:7-10).
Ezekiel, Robert Jenson, Brazos Press, pp. 281-282, 2009

The question for us preachers is the same addressed to Ezekiel, I think. As we address our congregations the question resonates, "Can these bones lives?" Can the people tired out and worn down by competing messages that seek to divide our loyalty and drive us from the source of life, can they find the true life promised by God, even if it is a penulitmate life now, but to be ultimately fulfilled in Jesus "I am the resurrection and the life" for the resurrection on the last day.

When we prophesy or preach, do we bring God's Word, the word that vivifies ( I love that word), or just hot air that dries us out even more?

Can we help people see God's Word as life giving in a dry and desert land? Can we see Lent as the oasis that brings God's life-giving will to us that we are raised to new life now and ultimately at the end of time?

A Church for All People

2011-04-04T10:07:00.005-04:00

I love the liturgy. I love that it has been the primary locus not just of our worship but our theology as well. Lex Orandi Lex Credendi after all. The form of our worship has been around long enough that I am not a fan of muddling around with it. Innovation is not a positive term in my vocabulary when it comes to the liturgy. If someone feels the need to alter the form of the liturgy, I think there better be a very good reason. All too often, it has been my experience that when pastors and lay leaders want to change up the liturgy they have no guiding vision except that they want to try something new. To me simply being "new" is not good enough. Chasing "new" leads us down the rabbit hole always chasing the newest white rabbit that crosses our path.

In addition, there are far too many times when it seems that those who want to change the liturgy have agendas, are weak in preaching, and prefer style over substance. This statement is not meant to be overly general. It is not true in all cases, but I have seen few instances to the contrary.

But I continue to seek out what others are doing. I do think there are ways and models of worship that don't fit my vision. So when my wife and I were in Milwaukee recently, I looked around for a church that was fairly close. When I looked over my options, I decided that we would go and worship with the folks at All Peoples' Church. Their website simply promoted their Hip Hop Easter Vigil. But their worship tab also talked about what their worship was like. Now THIS was intriguing, even though it departed from the traditional liturgy (sort of). All Peoples' was clearly defined and I loved that they let folks who might come visit what to expect.

The service did look fairly typical in many respects. We gathered with some singing, and fantastic singing it was. There was praying. People freely shared joys and concerns which were all then lifted up by worship leader in extemporaneous prayer at its best. The prayer leader managed to lift up what people had shared (he had been LISTENING!) and his prayer included appropriate imagery and avoided the downfall of many who pray off the cuff. There was not any numerous repetitions of "Lord" nor the dreaded word "just." Unless we are describing God the word "just" just doesn't belong. I cringe when I hear "Lord, we just want to thank you Lord for just being with us Lord through all things Lord..." I know we are given the Lord's name to call upon at all times, but quantity of invocation does not make our prayers any stronger.

Nonetheless that was NOT at all an issue here. The leader did a phenomenal job even though I would not have classified him as a great speaker. He did however do a great job in praying. Praying is not about eloquence. I believe when we are praying corporately the one who wraps the prayers up should have first and foremost been listening. It was clear the leader had done that.

The service then moved into a testimonial. Being an urban congregation there was a wonderful mix of African Americans and whites gathered together. The African American tradition was strong in this congregation and the testimonial spoke to that. A large man stood up and spoke about a transforming event, namely the sermon of the previous week. And he talked about how he experienced God moving in his life to raise him up to new life (my take on his words, I do not want to put words in his mouth). But I was also intrigued then to hear the sermon since he referenced the previous sermon being a piercing word to him.

So then we did move to the reading and the sermon. The pastor had deviated from the lectionary and instead of hearing the woman at the well text appointed for the day, we heard 1 Kings 24, a dry passage to be sure. But Pastor Steve brought it to life as he unpacked the theme of exile and the cross. It was a rousing and energetic sermon that was full of the gospel. There was no choice here of style over substance. Clearly everything here was rooted in the substance of the gospel.

Then after a sermon whose length many congregations would have balked at, the whole church broke for education. The kids went to Sunday School and the adults all moved to a section of the sanctuary for bible study. Well that day they were hearing of their fruits of their partnership with a mission congregation in El Salvador. That congregation was celebrating its fifteenth anniversary that very day and All Peoples' was celebrating with it. What was interesting was that not one adult left the church. No one sneaked away. They all stayed. The presenter was seemingly more concerned with the time she was taking than the congregation was. When we had finished up with the study, everyone came together again to celebrate Communion.

All in all we were there over two hours. And despite the non-traditional flavor of the service, it all felt right in that place. It all felt genuine. It felt faithful to the gospel as it reflected the people gathered there. It lived up to its name. It was a church for All People.

"I arise today..." the Lorica of St. Patrick

2011-03-17T10:27:00.002-04:00

I will admit it... the commonly sung St. Patrick's Breastplate has always made me a little nervous. The opening line "I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity" always seemed inappropriate as a baptismal hymn. The action in baptism is exactly the opposite, God in Jesus Christ binds himself to us. I see a large number of people quoting snippets from this hymn all over Facebook and I figured I would quote the actual source material.

Patrick's Lorica (the Latin word meaning "breastplate") is one of three surviving writings of his: Patrick's Confession, this Lorica, and The Letter to Coroticus. The last of these is a denunciation of the British king who raided the Irish coast and slaughtered a number of Christian converts as they were being baptized. Patrick lived and served in dangerous times. Numerous times he was jailed. He faced opposition from druids as well as Pelagian heretics. His Lorica is then an invocation seeking God's protection in his work. This invocation seems much more appropriate for a baptism than the hymn version. I will grant however, that the invocation of God, seeking his protection is in fact a "binding" of God as one would bind a breastplate upon one's body.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ's birth and His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion and His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection and His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of cherubim,
In obedience of angels,
In service of archangels,
In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In the prayers of patriarchs,
In preachings of the apostles,
In faiths of confessors,
In innocence of virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven;
Light of the sun,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of the wind,
Depth of the sea,
Stability of the earth,
Firmness of the rock.

I arise today
Through God's strength to pilot me;
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's hosts to save me
From snares of the devil,
From temptations of vices,
From every one who desires me ill,
Afar and anear,
Alone or in a mulitude.

I summon today all these powers between me and evil,
Against every cruel merciless power that opposes my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of women and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.

Christ shield me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that reward may come to me in abundance.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through a confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation
From Lives of Saints, ed. Joseph Vann, 1954, John J. Crawley & Co. pp 119-121

McLaren addressing Bell on Hell: An insight into Dogma

2011-03-02T12:34:00.003-05:00

I have been confused and amused at the maelstrom swirling around Rob Bell's new book Love Wins (even before it has been released!). The extremely violent reaction against Bell by a number of conservative pastors and theologians arises because Bell considers that the place of Hell in theology might not be as important as once thought.

I have wondered why glancing at numerous books on my shelves by Lutherans (and Roman Catholics, and United Methodist, and Anglicans, and ... well you get the picture) no one seems to deal with hell. It just isn't that important. There are plenty of folks that I have heard in Lutheran circles who simply believe that hell does not exist. I don't want to go there, but hell is not a cornerstone of my preaching to be sure.

I ran across Brian McLaren's post on his blog about Rob and the "kerfuffle" (McLaren's word, not mine). There McLaren writes:

What's quite pathetic, as I see it, is that many critics won't even begin to get Rob's real point. (I've read the book, so I'm not just going by conjecture....) It's not that he's being given a multiple-choice test between a) traditional exclusivism and b) traditional universalism, and he's choosing b) instead of a). Rather, it's that Rob has come to see that the biblical story is bigger and better than a narrative about how souls get sorted out into two bins at the end of time.

I think McLaren uses theology very well here. Theology is not about promulgating a clear line in the sand about beliefs, but instead theology (or dogma to be more specific) is about helping to elucidate the good news.

The Danish Lutheran Regin Prenter in his book Creation and Redemption points out that our word dogma comes mainly out of two matrices, one legal the other philosophical. In the philosophical usage, dogma points to a "well-founded and certain knowledge of truth". In the legal usage, dogma is an "authoritative command." The legal sense of dogmatic theology certainly seems to have won the day in the history of Christianity and certainly here in the response against Bell. But Prenter points to the philosophical use of dogma. Prenter writes,

We may with equal justification take the philosophical connotation as our point of departure. Instead of dogmas, understood as the authoritatively established doctrinal statements, we may prefer to speak of the dogma, meaning the basic insight into the essential content of the Christian message, an insight which is immediately given in and with faith in the truth of the message, but which cannot be directly equated with faith, inasmuch as the faith which contains the insight is itself more than the insight. ...

Stricly speaking, there is but one dogma, because there is only one divine revelation. The dogma is therefore always christological or--what is really the same thing--trinitarian. Through the dogma light from God's revelation is thrown upon the sinner's way from death to life, from condemnation to salvation. This light comes from God the Father, who is the source of revelation. It is mediated by the Holy Spirit, who is the power of revelation among sinners. And it shines upon Jesus Christ, who is the content of revelation. Most concisely stated, the dogma is: Jesus is Lord, Kurios Iesous (1Cor. 12:3)
Creation and Redemption, pp. 4-5

Dogma then is about spinning out the core of the Christian faith, most notably Jesus. Hell is not so important unless we begin to see that the power of God in Christ Jesus lays waste to the power of hell. Bell seems to be heading down this path, that Jesus and God's desire in him is stronger than the power of Hell, both in reality and in our preaching.

I look forward to reading Bell's book.

The God who does not multi-task: Sermon for the 8th Sunday after the Epiphany

2011-02-28T15:05:00.002-05:00

So due to a rampaging illness that left my wife and oldest child incapacitated for a day, I had to stay home caring for them instead of being at church hanging out in the pulpit. In addition I was not feeling all too well myself, so I was not sure that I would not succumb to this intestinal disaster myself.

So I forwarded my mostly done sermon to my congregation's president and she passed it on to my lay assistant that day, who performed very well in reading it.

I am putting forward my sermon's text as it was read (read it here or in the box below).

The only thing I wish is that I had had more time to develop the notion at the end that Christ was not a multi-tasker, but remained singularly focused on God's desire. That is the good news after all, as we contemplate the Sermon on the Mount. That the demands of the sermon are based on the person giving them. The devotion he calls for is the devotion he lives. In our union with Christ in the waters of baptism, our old selves die so that the new self might be raised up and live in the power of Christ as he calls us.

Loyalty and the Facebook Effect

2011-02-25T17:03:00.001-05:00

A colleague of mine who serves a campus ministry and I were having lunch one day, when he recounted the experience of two college students who went to a retreat for young adults considering the possibility of going to seminary. Both had had positive experiences, but there were two moments that had us both raise an eyebrow. Well, technically, only one experience had us raise an eyebrow. The other one was all too common for us even react to anymore. One of the attendees, a newcomer to the Lutheran family, had an opportunity to ask a theologian a question in a forum-type setting. No one had any questions so he finally put one forward. He asked about the right administration of sacraments and who might be excluded from the sacrament. Later in a small group, someone ranted about the guy who asked that question, without realizing that “the guy” was sitting in the small group. Anyway, the notion that some people might be excluded from the sacrament was offensive to the one, but this attitude is nothing new. “God loves everybody” is the defense. That is not in question, but deeper reflection about the nature of the community and our union with Christ in the waters of baptism and hence the nature of God’s love for us is required.

Anyway, the experience that got our conversation moving was when the other student merely inquired about the possibility of attending a non-Lutheran seminary. His experience was that he was given dagger stares from other participants. This puzzled the both of us. While we are great supporters of the Lutheran seminary system, we do think there are times when folks could attend other schools, either because they want more of an academic track or because of some other restriction. No problem (as long as they attend their Lutheran year at a Lutheran seminary, but this requirement is likely to sidetrack the following discussion so I will let it lie).

We puzzled over the strong loyalty shown to Lutheran seminaries. After all, everything we read about the millennial generation is that denomination loyalty is ebbing. Why this strong reaction? (I will grant that the reaction was only perceived and did not actually reflect the reality of the situation, but I trust this young man’s perception usually so I will trust him here.) My colleague wondered if the situation of the millennials was misread in some way or perhaps this is a subset of the generation that does not actually follow the general trend. I disagreed. I wondered if it was not something more akin to what I dubbed at the time a “Facebook effect.”

Loyalty passed down from a communal system is possibly of less value to millennials than a self-selected loyalty. The issue then is not that millennials are not loyal but are fiercely loyal to something of their own choosing, such as when folks hit the “Like” button on Facebook. Now on Facebook people can hit “Like” on a great number of things very easily so everything they like is not necessarily a fierce loyalty. However some of the things that people “Like” will be very close to their sense of identity. And as my pastoral care professor (at a Lutheran seminary no less) said, “the closer something is to our identity, the more emotional people are about it, the stronger the reaction toward it…” For a group of pre-seminary students making the choice to attend seminary would I imagine be close to one’s identity as it will be a defining mark of one’s service and formation for years to come.

Preaching and Being Called

2011-02-08T08:32:00.002-05:00

In the February 8, 2011 issue of Christian Century, Wil Willimon wrote an insightful (as if he might write anything else) article, entitled "Voice Lessons", on preaching. He relates his experience of preaching and teaching others how to preach to the movie The King's Speech. The two situations are analogous. Willimon writes about the task that Lionel Logue, the speech therapist who help King George, is charged with.

Logue helped George to see that a nation desperately needed its king to say the right thing in the right way. We who are preachers speak because we have been enlisted, because no one else can say what must be said, because we are called to serve God through words.

The task Willimon reminds us is not to "speak what's on our heart" but to speak the Word of God. This task is where faith is built. Over the past seven years, week in week out, I have wrestled with this task of proclaiming the gospel. I preached in the pulpit. I left the pulpit. I had manuscripts. I went without them. I tried preaching somewhat didactically. I tried being more story-oriented. Now, after seven years, I find myself somewhere near where I started but not quite. I have returned to the pulpit. I have re-acquired the manuscript. I focus more on kerygmatic sermons. And I take the task more seriously, because I heard some blessed voices that challenged me to take the preaching task more seriously. Willimon's article is a blessed reminder for me still. Willimon writes:

We preachers speak not because we need to get something off our chests but because God wants to say something to God's people.... Left to my own devices, I might say what I'm really thinking--but the church could care less about what I'm thinking. The pressing question: "Is there any word from the Lord?"

It is a task that we preachers are called to. I routinely tell young adults who are considering serving in public ministry that there are times I know God called me because I never would have chosen it. Sometimes this comment is met with laughter, and it is funny, but it is also deadly serious. It is not without fear and trepidation sometimes that I climb up into my champagne flute pulpit. Or with butterflies in my stomach as I descend, because I recognize that something has happened. The Word of the Lord came to me... and the congregation I serve in that sermon. It is not a task I would routinely choose. I might choose to get up and tell stories and entertain. But this task is something else. To encounter the gospel and its connection to the world that my parishioners inhabit is something I am compelled by being called.

Willimon's article is a good reminder for all of us, lay and ordained alike, but mainly for those who are called to the task of preaching. To stand before a congregation and proclaim the Word is a gift given to us by God in which God is made known and present.

The Lutheran Chronicle

2011-02-07T10:05:00.002-05:00

I love that there are sites which serve as nothing other than compilations of blogs. I discovered a new one when I was looking through my stats. If you have a blog and don't have a blog counter that collects some stats, I would highly recommend it. I have used two blogpatrol.com and statcounter.com. Both are free and help show where people are coming from.

And the other day I saw The Lutheran Chronicle pop up on my stats. I checked it out and it is fantastic. This compilation of blogs is very broad. Solid Lutheran blogs from across the Lutheran spectrum -- ELCA, LCMS, WELS and others-- are presented. Nice presentation of the blogs too. A regular updating of the blogs shows the masthead of each blog and the first few lines of each new post. The Lutheran Chronicle is easy to scan and read topics that interest you. If possible, each blogger is identified as to which family of Lutheranism it stems from. Some are not identifiable and so have no notation.

The Lutheran Chronicle is not just a feed of blogs though it has some other nice features, like Lutherans on Twitter and in its own words "the only single searchable database of WELS, ELCA, LCMC and LCMS churches in the United States." Being the only Lutheran church in our county, I am glad to see such a database.

I am convinced that while significant differences separate the various Lutheran branches, we could all spend some time reading what they have to say. It can only help us keep the Eighth Commandment, because I find much of what others have to say edifying whether I agree with them or not.

Power Failure Over at Lutheran Confessions (a review)

2011-02-06T07:31:00.003-05:00

The best book reviews always seem to make me want to read the book being reviewed... or avoid it entirely. Sure I am trusting in the reviewer's sense. So the best reviews require that I have engaged in some sort of conversation with the reviewer and not just take swallow whole his or her word. This conversation is not always a direct face-to-face conversation. Reading the person's works for a while help, I think, give a sense of where he or she is coming from.

So I have a deep desire to pick up Power Failure by Albert Borgmann, which Clint Schneckloth reviews over at Lutheran Confessions. He has a great sense of Lutheran identity and theology. I trust his review because of the writing that I have read. Ironically, his writing and our subsequent conversation is done via the very medium that is being critiqued, the technology and subsequent manifestations of social media. But as he points out the technology is not to be rejected outright, nor overcome by a frontal assault to transform it, nor embraced without reserve. There is a call to develop practices around technology and social media. As a virtue ethicist, I am all for it. I want to read Borgmann's book. And I want to keep reading Clint's work too... including the second part of the review which is yet to come.

What Is It About the Church and Sexual Malfeasance?

2011-02-03T12:18:00.002-05:00

The folks over at Church Marketing Sucks tweeted a statistic, and linked to a blog that had the link to the full article, that claims an astounding percentage of laypeople in the United Methodist Church (UMC) have experienced or witnessed sexual harassment or misconduct. The survey done by 6000 United Methodists claims the following.

Half of all laywomen and one-third of laymen witness or are victims of some degree of sexual harassment or misconduct in their congregations, from inappropriate comments by the pastor or laity in leadership to physical assault and stalking.
77 percent of United Methodist clergywomen and 50 percent of clergymen say laity have violated their boundaries through unwanted sexual behavior or comment.
Half the people who make sexual misconduct complaints at the local church level say the pastor or laity in leadership routinely “trivialize” their concerns.

Now there is something that makes me wonder about how well a study that polls 6000 members truly reflects the approximately 8 million member UMC. In addition I have no details on how the study was carried out, nor have I seen the questions that were asked. Clearly there are issues that might be going on here that could invalidate the reliability of these numbers. And that would be a shame. For if these numbers are even remotely accurate, any discrediting of the study could harm the basic message: the Church harbors some severely messed up people and we all need to pay attention.

In light of the Roman Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal, I have had numerous conversations with people who feel excessive pride in being protestants without all of the problems that the celibate priests cause. In fact, I tend to think that a number of people eye the priests as oddities before any sex abuse issues are spoken of because the notion of celibacy just seems so unnatural. Then when the sex abuse scandal breaks they feel vindicated because clearly these problems would not exist if the Roman Catholic church would just allow their priests to marry and have sex. But if the UMC study is right, the problem is NOT priestly celibacy. I have argued that looking within the general Protestant category, the percentage of those who harrass or abuse is likely the same as in the Roman Catholic church. Many scoff at my assertion. They point to the numbers of priests who were shown to be moved around and placed time and again in positions of trust.

In this case, I am thankful for such a hierarchy that maintains an adequate bureaucracy so that records exist. Many Protestant bodies have no hierarchy at all to which they are accountable. If a pastor abuses someone and feels the heat, he or she is free to pick up and move before anything comes up. Then of course the pressure from leaders in the congregation kicks in. Rather than seeking justice, they want to avoid shame or guilt and all the negative publicity that might come about because of it. So they try to sweep it under the rug or "trivialize" the incident or any myriad of ways of avoiding dealing with it.

After a person is harmed by a leader, rather than work through it like the body of Christ should, we too often burden the victim with questions of "What about grace?" or "Aren't you supposed to forgive?" Of course grace and forgiveness are important. But so is repentance and justice. The short term gain of avoiding the issue and keeping up the facade of everything being perfect will sooner or later make way for the long term loss of the witness for what kind of community we are.

I do hope the numbers in this UMC study are valid. Not because I want there to be that big of a problem. I want them to be valid so that our eyes are opened and we can begin to look at the beam in our own eyes. I want Christians to acknowledge the power of sin in the world and in our own churches and realize we participate in the system of brokenness just like every human being does. Don't think the devil only prowls around like a roaring lion over there, but be aware of the lions here in our midst.

Sermon on the Mount, Bonhoeffer and Discipleship

2011-02-02T10:39:00.002-05:00

As I was preparing for last Sunday's encounter with the Beatitudes, I read Hauerwas' commentary on Matthew. He drew so much from Bonhoeffer that I turned back to Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship. I know I read it in seminary, but that was about ten years ago. I am reading it differently this time, or at least new things are popping out at me. Bonhoeffer's insistence on the Sermon being about the community called and gathered around Jesus is challenging and freeing for Jesus does not proscribe what we must be, he simply describes us.

Commenting about the upcoming gospel reading about the community being the salt of the earth, Bonhoeffer writes:

"Ye are the salt." Jesus does not say: "You must be the salt." It is not for the disciple to decide whether they will be the salt of the earth, for they are so whether they like it or not, they have been made salt by the call they received. Again, it is: "Ye are the salt," not "Ye have the salt." By identifying the salt with the apostolic proclamation the Reformers robbed the saying of all its sting. No, the word speaks of their whole existence in so far as it is grounded anew in the call of Christ, that same existence which was the burden of the beatitudes. The call of Christ makes those who respond to it the salt of the earth in their total existence.

Of course, there is another possibility--the salt may lose its savour and cease to be salt at all. It just stops working. Then it is indeed good for nothing but to be thrown away. That is the peculiar quality of salt. Everything else needs to be seasoned with salt, but once the salt has lost its savour, it can never be salted again. Everything else can be saved by salt, however bad it has gone--only salt which loses its savour has no hope of recovery. That is the other side of the picture. That is the judgment which always hangs over the disciple community, whose mission it is to save the world, but which, if it ceases to live up to the mission is itself irretrievably lost. The call of Jesus Christ means either that we are the salt of the earth, or else we are annihilated; either we follow the call or we are crushed beneath it. There is no question of a second chance.
-Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, 1995 Touchstone Books, pp. 116-117

Challenging words for a tradition so hyper-sensitive to notions of works righteousness. Images that Bonhoeffer uses there at the end distress us. Given his situation when the established church accommodates itself to the prevailing culture and then ultimately gives in to Nazi control, whatever the disciples thought they were, by attaching themselves to something other than Christ, adhering to cultural and social mores, their salt had been leached out. They had become something other than salt.

But our saltiness is not supported by our own effort. If it is the call of Jesus that makes us salt, then the community gathered around Jesus will never lose its saltiness completely for Jesus sustains it. We must place our hope in Christ and trust in his preservation of us. Even in the midst of Nazi control, the Church never departed from Germany, the salt remained, giving us the witness of the Confessing Church. Some portion of the community remained to give witness to Jesus and therefore BE salt. Wherever Jesus is, his community will be, and there, we will taste salt.

"Baptism cannot be shipwrecked"

2011-01-10T10:18:00.002-05:00

Yesterday's festival of Baptism of Our Lord reveals more about Jesus than us, but it is a time to reflect on our baptism into Christ. A passage from Luther's Large Catechism speaks to our own baptism in light of God's work.

This I say lest we fall into the opinion in which we were for a long time, imagining that our Baptism is something past, which we can no longer use after we have fallen again into sin. The reason is, that it is regarded only according to the external act once performed [and completed]. And this arose from the fact that St. Jerome wrote that repentance is the second plank by which we must swim forth and cross over after the ship is broken, on which we step and are carried across when we come into the Christian Church. Thereby the use of Baptism has been abolished so that it can profit us no longer. Therefore the statement is not correct, or at any rate not rightly understood. For the ship never breaks, because (as we have said) it is the ordinance of God, and not a work of ours; but it happens, indeed, that we slip and fall out of the ship. Yet if any one fall out, let him see to it that he swim up and cling to it till he again come into it and live in it, as he had formerly begun.
Thus it appears what a great, excellent thing Baptism is, which delivers us from the jaws of the devil and makes us God's own, suppresses and takes away sin, and then daily strengthens the new man; and is and remains ever efficacious until we pass from this estate of misery to eternal glory.
For this reason let every one esteem his Baptism as a daily dress in which he is to walk constantly, that he may ever be found in the faith and its fruits, that he suppress the old man and grow up in the new. For if we would be Christians, we must practise the work whereby we are Christians. But if any one fall away from it, let him again come into it. For just as Christ, the Mercy-seat, does not recede from us or forbid us to come to Him again, even though we sin, so all His treasure and gifts also remain. If, therefore, we have once in Baptism obtained forgiveness of sin, it will remain every day, as long as we live, that is, as long as we carry the old man about our neck.

The full text of Luther's discussion of baptism in his Large Catechism can be read at the online Book of Concord. May God keep us, children born of water and Spirit, faithful to our calling.

Twelve Days, Twelve Glorious Days of Christmas

2011-01-05T17:52:00.001-05:00

Here it is, the twelfth and final day of Christmas. I know for most of us the blowout celebration on the 25th (and likely the eve before) had us spent. These twelve days, including the New Year's celebration has us recovering and looking for some sense of normalcy and quiet. I for one with three kids in the house and crazy traveling to see family following the hectic work days for me, have left me with a sense of longing for peace and quiet.

But the twelve days have been a glorious celebration. I have seen friends and family. I even had some time to myself. I do feel like we have been celebrating all along. And this continued sense of celebration led me ponder one of the great Christmas mysteries. The meaning of the song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas."

Granted, the song doesn't really rank up there with the mystery of the Incarnation, but whenever I hear it, I do wonder about it. A few years ago, I stumbled upon a website that made the claim that this song was a secret catechetical tool for outlawed Catholics in France. Each verse was meant to symbolize some element of doctrine. The "True Love" is God. The "partridge in a pear tree" is Jesus Christ on the cross. The "two turtle doves" are the old and new testaments. The "three french hens" are the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The "four calling birds" are the four gospels. The "five gold rings" are the Pentateuch. And so on and and so on. Of course, there are no real anchors between the symbol and the meaning. So "three calling birds" could be the theological virtues of 1 Corinthians 13, faith, hope and love, rather than the Trinity. It is analogous to trying to bind meaning to the four candles on the Advent wreath. Hope, peace, joy, love. Or alternatively, prophecy, Bethlehem, Shepherds, Angels. Sometimes we inherit practices and traditions upon which we feel we must tie meanings even though multiple meanings could be assigned.

However, the bigger mystery for me is not about the meaning, but the gifts themselves. How many do we get? It sounds like I have been influenced by my seven-year old, I know. The first day the true love gives me a partridge in a pear tree. But on the second day? Do I just get two turtle doves? OR do I actually get what the song says. I have had this debate with people from time to time and they think I am crazy. The song, however says, "On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree." I find the "AND" to mean that on the second day, I get two turtle doves AND a partridge in a pear tree. Therefore on the second day, I have received a total of two turtle doves and TWO partridges in their respective pear trees. On the third day then I receive three french hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree. So for the three days of Christmas I will have received in total, three French hens, four turtle doves (two doves twice) and then three partridges in pear trees.

On the twelfth day of Christmas I will have received in total from my true love:

12 times -- a partidge in pear trees
11 times -- two turtle doves
10 times -- three French hens
9 times -- four calling birds
8 times -- five gold rings
7 times -- six geese a'laying
6 times -- seven swans a'swimming
5 times -- eight maids a'milking
4 times -- nine ladies dancing
3 times -- ten lords a' leaping
2 times -- eleven pipers piping
1 time -- twelve drummers drumming

Thus the grand total at the end: Twelve partridges in twelve pear trees, twenty-two turtle doves, thirty French hens, thirty-six calling birds, forty gold rings, forty-two geese, forty-two swans, forty maids, thirty-six dancing ladies, thirty leaping lords, twenty-two piping pipers, and twelve drumming drummers.

What grand, gracious and generous gifts from my true love! This would be a glorious Christmas indeed. And in this scheme, the holiday grows every single day. No massive explosion that quickly tapered away to nothing. No. This giver builds upon every day.

Maybe then the true love IS God. For if this reckoning of the song IS true, and I think that it is, I cannot help but hear the echoes of the first chapter of John's gospel. "And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. .... From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace." (John 1:14, 16)

Twelve glorious Christmas days to reflect on the mystery of the gift of the Incarnation, that God the Son might become flesh and dwell among us. And it grows leading to even more abundant gifts as Christ dwells with and in us. And now the celebration of the Incarnation need not end, even if our season of Christmas does.

One last time to everyone, Merry Christmas!!!

The Story, the whole Story and nothing but the Story

2010-12-24T12:38:00.002-05:00

As I sit here, with my festival service sermon finished, I fret over the emphasis on sin and brokenness. Is it a buzzkill? Shouldn't it be all warm and fuzzy? But I fret over all gospel and no discussion of why it is gospel at all. Do we ignore the reality in which we live? If the current life isn't shown to be lacking in every area that God desires, why do we even need Jesus?

Last night as I sought to refine my sermon I read through Regin Prenter's Creation and Redemption. There I read, "The unity of God and man in the incarnation means that through the man Jesus Christ, in his human death and in the restoration of his human life through the resurrection, God completes the work which he began when he created man in his own image. There God's life-giving and life-sustaining mercy reaches its culmination. This is the only way in which the unity of God and man in the incarnation has any meaning."

And while glancing over at Living Lutheran, I found Pastor Erma Wolf's post on the very same topic... sort of. There she wrote:

While this last song didn’t sound at all like a Christmas carol to my non-Lutheran friends (“But it talks about death!” they objected), it fit perfectly with our children’s programs that began, always, with the story of Adam and Eve falling into sin.

To be Lutheran meant telling the Christmas story, the WHOLE story, from the very beginning. It meant, and still means, telling the real reason for the season: that God had to act to save us from our sins, and that, in the words of another unlikely Christmas song from the South, “I Wonder as I Wander,” that “Jesus the Savior did come for to die.”

And so I sang, then and now, these words:

I was in bondage, sin, death and darkness;
God’s love was working to make me free.
Jesus my Savior himself did offer,
Jesus my Savior paid all I owe.
Therefore I’ll say again, God loves me dearly,
God loves me dearly, loves even me.

Read her whole post here.

And thus I am reminded that we must tell the whole story of what God is up to and how we ever got here in the first place.

Christmas, Community, & Meaning over at Mediation

2010-12-23T11:16:00.005-05:00

I have started writing for/with another blog, Mediation, over at The Other Journal. Mediation is a blog that "is dedicated to fostering creative dialogue at the intersection of faith and culture by situating this general discussion within the increasingly pervasive arena of electronic media."

I am pleased to be part of the rotation over there, and it will not be stopping my writing here either. My first post "Christmas, Community & Meaning" is up now.

Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax!

Charlie Brown Christmas in a Box -- Exchange it!

2010-12-20T12:02:00.007-05:00

I was out shopping the other day, a mix of personal and charitable. I was enjoying buying German holiday treats like lebkuchen and speckulaas, and I was also picking up canned goods for our congregation's Christmas food basket ministry that we do around all the holidays for a couple of local programs. It was a good day, fun AND fulfilling at the same time. I turned the corner and entered an aisle with several non-food items, gifts and the like, when I saw the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree in a box for sale. I was stunned. I snapped a photo and sent it on to Twitter calling for folks to place it in the "Horribly ironic Christmas decoration" category.

It should not come as a surprise that the Charlie Brown Christmas special is a favorite or mine. Not only is it the only special that centers Christmas on Jesus by reading Luke 2, it also captured a dissatisfaction with the growing commercialization of Christmas forty-five years ago. Now this post is not a rant about the "true meaning of Christmas." After all, Christians themselves participate in a bevy of rituals around Christmas time, not all of which are explicitly Christ-centered. They are ways to celebrate. What motivates us to celebrate is multi-faceted. And when Christians celebrate, others join in, even if they are not as seemingly pure as ours are... whatever that could mean. Christians at any rate over the past few centuries made an effort themselves to strip Christ away so the society around us could partake in the values that we saw in Jesus, but just based on reason alone. Christianity opened the door to this way, and tried to instill values and ethics based on a Christ-less Christianity.

But I do wonder about this tree. Without a distinct understanding of Jesus and his story, I don't know if the tree makes any sense. Under orders from Lucy to get a Christmas tree for their Christmas play, "a big, shiny, aluminum tree" she barks, Charlie Brown goes, but he cannot look past the only real tree on the lot, a miserable-looking tree that is copied almost exactly in the fake tree in the box. The reality that gets overlooked, I think, in this scene is that the tree is supposed to be like that. The tree that Charlie Brown cannot take his eyes off is a miserable tree. He does pick a lousy tree. And if I were trying to sell fancy aluminum trees (Did they really makes those back in the 60's? I suppose folks will ask if we really made and sold fiber optic trees fifty years from now), I imagine that the only real trees I would have around would be the miserable and pathetic real ones with gaps in the branches and a warped trunk, so people would be motivated to buy my modern, perfect and fake trees.

The tree that Charlie Brown picks is not at all suitable for a celebration of the birth of Jesus. This tree is not at all suitable for anything, not even bearing a bulb when after being criticized by his friends for choosing such a tree, he drags the tree home and tries to place one little ornament on it. Charlie Brown's efforts are miserable. But his friends do ultimately show pity on him. They follow him and find the tree abandoned in the snow. They use the award-winning decorated doghouse of Snoopy to transform that tree into a real beauty.

My friend Phillip over at Said Another Way had commented to me a few years back that this scene is a wonderful image of the Blessed Exchange of which Luther spoke. Luther comments in a sermon:

Is not this a beautiful, glorious exchange, by which Christ, who is wholly innocent and holy, not only takes upon himself another’s sin, that is, my sin and guilt, but also clothes and adorns me, who am nothing but sin, with his own innocence and purity? And then besides dies the shameful death of the Cross for the sake of my sins, through which I have deserved death and condemnation, and grants to me his righteousness, in order that I may live with him eternally in glorious and unspeakable joy. Through this blessed exchange, in which Christ changes places with us (something the heart can grasp only in faith), and through nothing else, are we freed from sin and death and given his righteousness and life as our own.
Luther, M. (1999, c1959). Vol. 51: Luther’s works, vol. 51 : Sermons I (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.). Luther’s Works (51:III-316). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.

The tree is us. We are imperfect and not at all suitable for any celebration of Jesus' birth. But we are real. We are not artificial marvels perfected by technology, which removes our blemishes. We living human beings with whom Christ trades places. I just don't know if buying a fake Charlie Brown Christmas tree fits... a perfectly reproduced fake Christmas tree. The tree can be a reminder of the Blessed Exchange, but I do think it gets missed. Instead we turn the special into a lesson about being compassionate toward one another. Not a bad thing at all. A most certain improvement over the way we are most likely to treat one another without any assistance. But how great that the compassion we show to others is firmly rooted in the compassion the Father shows us in Jesus.

We don't need to be self-righteous, as people on both sides of the "Christmas wars" are. But we can be present in the celebrations for others keeping our eyes out for a moment to share the good news present in this holiday, and at the same time looking for God's compassion to transform us, remembering that Christ has given us the gift of his very self.

Pearls Before Swine...

2010-12-14T15:03:00.004-05:00

I check in on the guys over at the comic strip, Pearls Before Swine. I was very surprised at the comics yesterday and today... introducing Father Gus, a "real authority" on religion.

From yesterday,

and today.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring...

Saint Nicholas... emphasis on the Saint

2010-12-06T12:41:00.003-05:00

I was awoken this morning by shouts of joy coming from my two boys, ages seven and four. They had found presents under the tree, left there by Saint Nicholas. My wife and I had instituted the celebration of this day as a way to temper the Santa Claus fever that runs rampant this time of year. December 6 is the big gift giving day in Germany, along with other countries. Gifts come from Saint Nick on this day. On Christmas day, gifts that appear come from the Christkind, the Christ-child. How successful we have been on that front still remains to be seen. But we have followed this tradition for several years now and we will continue on.

Because we have gone this route, I am always drawn to stories of Saint Nicholas, images of him, churches that bear his name and so on. Saint Nicholas is one very popular saint. Something I read a while back and cannot lay my hands on right now claimed that there were more churches named after Saint Nicholas than any other figure. In some ways, this move is surprising since very little is actually known. Most of what passes around comes from legend. But we do know a few things.

He was a bishop in Myra, a city of Lycia in Asia Minor. We know that he was at the Council of Nicea in 325. There we get the tale that he slapped the heretic Arias and was saved from any discipline because all the other bishops had experienced a vision of Mary and Jesus, where Mary pleaded for the bishops to excuse Nicholas' actions since they had been done in zeal for her son.

The red robe is the bishop's robe. His symbol is three bags of gold due to the story where a poor man was faced with the possibility of selling his daughters into prostitution because he was too poor to provide a dowry. Nicholas, having inherited wealth from his parents at a young age and vowing to use it to for charity, slips three bags of gold into the bedroom window of the daughters, thereby providing the necessary money for the dowry.

A 1953 work, Lives of Saints (not Butler's mind you), put together by Franciscans, speak of Nicholas being imprisoned under the persecutions of Diocletian, after being chosen to be the Bishop of Myra. He was released only after Constantine ascends the throne and establishes Christianity as a legal religion of the empire.

This same work gives a nice account of Nicholas' work in the wider world.

Nicholas was also the guardian of his people in temporal affairs. The governor had been bribed to condemn three innocent men to death. On the day fixed for their execution Nicholas stayed the hand of the executioner and released them. Then he turned tot he governor and reproved him so sternly that he repented. There happened to be present that day three imperial officers, Nepotian, Ursus, and Herpylion, on their way to duty in Phrygia. Later, after their return, they were imprisoned on false charges of treason by the prefect and an order was procured from the Emperor Constantine for their death. In their extremity, they remembered the bishop of Myra's passion for justice and prayed to God for his intercession. That night Nicholas appeared to Constantine in dream, ordering him to release the three innocent officers. The prefect had the same dream, and in the morning the two men compared their dreams, then questioned the accused officers. On learning that they had prayed for the intervention of Nicholas, Constantine freed them and sent them to the bishop with a letter asking him to pray for the peace of the world.
Lives of Saints, ed. by Fr. Joseph Vann O.F.M., 1953, p. 39

In this time where merchants are begging for our money, and airwaves are filled with vapid Christmas specials that speak about the "spirit of Christmas" in terms of universal values like peace, and giving, and family, and the like, we have the stalwart Nicholas. One of the things we must remember about universals is that they really only mean something when immersed in the concrete reality of the particular. How the particular carries the universal makes all the difference. In the Christmas specials, the universals are left open for each to carry however he or she chooses.

Nicholas' life points to the universals played out in a particular worldview. His encounter with Arias at the Council of Nicea earned him the title of Confessor. He defended orthodoxy because he understood that all of these universal values obtain their maximum value from Jesus Christ. What does "peace" mean apart from the peace offered in Jesus, true God and true human. If Arias was right, that notion of peace would mean something else. Giving and charity are rooted first in who Jesus is, as the one who is sent from the Father.

Saint Nicholas would be most surprised at what his image has become. His particular life has been turned into something else. This is a day to remember what his actual life meant. If you have kids, break out the Veggie Tales' DVD about Saint Nicholas. It is a good introduction for kids about St. Nick. And pray for the peace of Christ in all the world, giving thanks for Nicholas' example.

Comfortable Lives and Advent

2010-12-01T22:07:00.003-05:00

Tonight, at our midweek Advent service, we sang the hymn "Comfort, Comfort, Now My People" which allowed us to join the prophet Isaiah who said,

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. ²Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.³A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. ⁴Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. ⁵Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 40:1-5)

The time of Advent is a favorite of mine. The reflection of the coming of Jesus to usher in the fullness of the Kingdom is a great source of hope for me. But all too often, Advent is short-circuited. We turn it into just a holding pattern for Christmas. We use it as a preparatory season for Christmas and we shop and consume and buy and spend. We fill our lives with a massive amount of luxuries that make our lives comfortable. Are we able to hear the words of Isaiah in the glare of our iPads? with our earbuds cranked up? bellied up to the all-you-can eat Chinese buffet?

And believe me when I use the first person plural, I mean it... it is not just a rhetorical device. I struggle with my desires and my relatively comfortable life. My home. My blackberry. High-tech athletic gear. Video games. Means and ability to buy quality, organic, local food at the farmer's market. My attempts to rationalize greater consumption. When I face it all I have to admit, I have a very comfortable life.

Do our comfortable lives interfere with our hearing the hope in the return of Christ? Can we hear that the lives we believe are comfortable are in fact not. Is this a reason we more often than not we think about Advent as nothing more than a pre-Christmas warm up? Where is the urgency in praying "Amen! Come Lord Jesus!"?

The coming of Jesus at the end of time is not just about our eternal life. There are real and concrete realities for our us and our world. Jesus' birth, death, resurrection and return all point to a cosmic upheaval that will transform the world into a truer and deeper reality where the world and us along with it are made into the people God has always meant us to be. This Advent I would hope we are all given a glimpse of that vision, so that we might see the power sin has over us, and turn to desire God's vision for real and abiding life, rather than the vision presented to us in high-def.

Passing the Peace --Encountering the World

2010-11-24T13:10:00.002-05:00

I read a really touching account of passing the peace over at the Christian Century. A Lutheran pastor, Cheryl Walenta, wrote of passing the peace with someone who has less than perfect personal hygeine. Here is an excerpt.

When the time comes to share the peace, I shake hands with everyone I can find, but Smokey is nowhere to be seen. Whew. My clean hands are safe. As I make my way back to my seat, however, he appears and grabs my hand before I have the chance to check whether he left the sanctuary in order to wash his hands. Smokey begins his ritual: a secret handshake so secret that no one knows how to do it. Smokey leads the way: never explaining, only teaching with his actions. He grabs my hand and pulls it toward him, then pushes my hand away, and then he twists my arm up and down until we're each supposed to snap our fingers. I guess this might look really cool if I knew what we were doing, but I don't. I just look confused. On this particular day, Smokey lifts our grasped hands high above his head, and then twirls himself underneath.
I have to laugh.

(Read the whole article, here.)

Just one more example that highlights the idea that when we pass the peace, we are not simply greeting one another and welcoming them. When we pass the peace, we think that the peace of Christ is something that can actually be shared with others. Walenta receives Christ's peace in a place she expects it least, and where she has some anxiety about going. Jesus urges us to keep awake, and be ready... so at least we might recognize him as he shares his peace.

Science Trumping Religion? Let's Talk about Sin

2010-11-18T10:18:00.003-05:00

Over at Faith & Reason, Cathy Lynn Grossman has an excellent post raising some questions about science and religion, particularly in light of some recent conversation at the Faith Angle seminar where Elaine Howard Ecklund, a sociologist, and Barbara Bradley Hagerty, NPR religion reporter, had a conversation.

Grossman's post highlighted a few things, most notably (but not surprisingly to me), about 50% of the 1700 scientists Ecklund had surveyed were religious. Hagerty, having written a new book Fingerprints of God, highlights the findings of neurologists that call into question the authority of religious experience.

In the midst of these conversations, the sticking point I continue to come to, Grossman also lifts up. What about sin? In so many ways, genetics is looked to as the final word. Some scientists hold that because of genetics completely takes away our free will, since we are nothing more than pre-programmed responses hardwired into us. The other extreme takes genetics to be a vision of how God created us. Grossman highlights this position in connection with homosexuality. This argument is often used but supporters of gay rights or relaxed stances toward biblical authority regarding gays and lesbians.

So we are left with two options, genetic determinism (you will simply respond to the world around you as your genes dictate) or genetic creationism (your genes portray a vision of who God made you to be). Neither position takes into account the full reality we face. The first takes away the problem of sin, at least individual sin. No longer do we have to call out "The devil made me do it," but now we may excuse ourselves by calling out "My genes made me do it!" As the end of the post says, there is already some movement in our legal system that begins to allow this thinking where one offender was acquitted since as the juror said "a bad gene is a bad gene." In this case the manifestation of individual sin is removed. But I would imagine, for most people, the concept of sin is distasteful. We are after all really good for the most part, right?

The second option (and please know I have made up those labels... I don't know if they appear elsewhere) fails to discern the reality of the brokenness of our genetic makeup. I am NOT saying that homosexuality is a manifestation of brokenness, but what I am saying is that by saying homosexuality is a matter of being wired that way, we fail to distinguish why the baby born with the genetic markers for a fatal condition is not also created that way by God. In the long run, this position creates a God who gives people death sentences.

The reality to face is the presence of sin. But we must tread with caution. First I do not understand sin as an individual moral category. That is, when we start discussing sin we do not jump immediately to our transgressions. First and foremost, we must talk about the understanding of the universal brokenness that permeates creation. Sin should be seen as the primal rupture in relationships; relationships between the human being and God, human being and other humans, the human being and creation, and finally the human being and his or her self. Our individual transgressions are manifestations of these broken relationships. In a fallen world, where sin is a power that holds sway over us, we must realize that any scientific study of the world around us is a study of this fallen world. As circular as this sounds, it points to the very cold, hard reality that our genes reflect this fallenness, but maybe not the complete fallenness. Some genes, we find are necessary for life. Some genes, should we have them, will bring death. The relationship with creation, through our selves, is broken.

The power of sin is much more universal than we might think. It is far more than just our misdeeds. So we must, I think, read Paul's words from Romans "the wages of sin is death" in the light of this cosmic power that takes root in the very fabric of our genetic makeup. We should not then place all of our hope in the genetic science around us. We can neither simply negate sin nor embrace it through genetics. As we near the season of Advent, when we hear of the cosmic struggle that will take place in the coming of Christ, where sin and brokenness finally are done away with, and the Reign of God is established, let us ponder the person of Christ. Through him will all things be perfected. Our resurrected bodies will be free of any and all brokenness. Our view of genetics then must rest in some eschatological tension between what is and what will be. Genetics does not determine our end. Christ does. Genetics does not guarantee our identity. Christ does.

Iraqi Christians -- Living in Fear, Bearing Witness to Christ

2010-11-16T12:42:00.004-05:00

This morning I was awakened by my oldest son, who was not feeling well. He needed something from a nearby pharmacy, so I left at about 5 a.m. While I was on the way there I was able to listen to the BBC World Update on our public radio station. The BBC was running a story about Christians in Iraq. I found the story, now transcribed on the BBC site. You can read the whole story here.

The basic gist of the story though is that in the aftermath of the bombing of the Catholic cathedral in Baghdad, the Archbishop Athanasios Dawood is urging Iraqi Christians to flee. At the same time the Syriac Catholic Bishop of Baghdad, Ignatius Metti Metok is urging his flock to remain. He said,

My people say to me, 'You want us to stay after what's happened? It could happen again, and who's going to protect us?' We tell them, the Church is against emigration, we have to stay here, whatever the sacrifices, to bear witness to our faith. But people are human, and we can't stop them leaving.

I imagine that the majority of folks hear the Bishop's stance as ludicrous. Stay in harm's way rather than get the hell out of Dodge. But the bishop roots the position in the faithful witness of the Church. In the midst of fear, the Church does not turn tail, but remain present to testify to the presence of the crucified and risen one, over whom death no longer holds dominion.

Another thing to consider is what damage an Iraqi Christian exodus might do to the witness of the Church. At the end of the article, there is a brief statement that violence is not only being targeted toward Christians but also Shia Muslims. About two days after the attack at the cathedral about 90 Shia Muslims were also killed. If Iraqi Christians leave, or are even urged to leave by Iraqi Bishops and other Christian leaders, then it seems that the underlying message there is "Let the murderous Muslims take it out on their own!" I fear that the emigration would bear witness to the all too prevalent notion that Muslims are less than human and reinforce the message that this struggle is about Christians versus Muslims.

How instead might Iraqi Christians remain and live out the "Love your neighbor" command as their neighbors are experiencing violence as well? The cruciform life is lived at the intersection of loving God and neighbor. As we live with our neighbors, even those who hate us, we are called to love them and bear witness to the God who has is at work reconciling the world through Christ.

Grace and Modelling the Life of Christ

2010-11-09T09:59:00.002-05:00

So once again over at Brian McLaren's blog, a link was posted to an article about Jay Bakker. Jay Bakker, if you have not heard of him is the son of the infamous Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, whose lives rocked the televangelist world when Jim confessed to an affair and then financial misappropriation in their ministry PTL. This article "God Loves Jay Bakker," chronicles Jay's life as the fall from the royalty, into addiction, to a new understanding of grace that is having him lead the charge against what some folks call "traditional" Christianity, but I think "established" Christianity might be a better word. "Established" is more reflective of what happens when Christianity gets entangled with the institutions of power in this world. To use the phrase "traditional" too easily allows us to throw far too much away, leaving us with neither the bath water nor the baby.

I heard Jay Bakker speak at National Youth Gathering in New Orleans. The venue did not suit his strengths, nor the format. He even mentioned how hard it was for him to speak for twelve minutes. I agree. Giving him a longer spot might have helped his focus. But of all the speakers there, he was one of the most Christ-centered speakers even if unfocused. The article does a nice job however of stating his position.

The problem with Christianity these days, as Bakker sees it, is not that it conflicts with our modern understanding of science—the Richard Dawkins critique—but that it conflicts with our contemporary views of morality. “The younger generation is just like, ‘This seems contradictory to people I love. Why are certain people being ostracized?’ I read about Jesus, and then I’m told that we should vote this way, but it seems like Jesus wasn’t for war. It doesn’t even seem Jesus liked war. How does ‘Blessed is the peacemaker’ become ‘Our God, our Jesus wants us to kill people?’ How does ‘Blessed are the poor’ become ‘We shouldn’t put money into tax issues that help them’?”

Bakker is certain that if Christianity actually modeled itself on the life of Christ, then these contradictions would disappear, leaving behind the most basic tenets: Jesus was resurrected, and he died for our sins. “There’s just something about the idea of grace and the life of Christ,” he says, “ that I can’t get away from.” The rest of Protestant Christianity, however, he’s basically prepared to ditch—a stance that pushes him beyond the far liberal wing of the Evangelical Christian community and into what is known as the “Emergent” ministry.

I would agree with much of what Bakker says. But I am also cautious. When we regard the life of Christ as our model, we must be on guard for the legalism that can creep in. If we fail to do what Jesus would do, some might say we fail. Of course, it does matter how one interprets Christ's life. Established Christianity might think Jesus is working to build the Kingdom through the institutions of this world. But it might not. Established Christianity might say that Jesus' aims were spiritual and we should eschew all earthly dealings. I think neither of these is accurate.

The very real question for us is not what Jesus would do, but what Jesus is doing in us now. Modeling our lives after Jesus is an issue of sanctification, not justification. It is done in response to the relationship that the crucified and risen Lord has begun in us through his initiative. We do not strive to do as Jesus did so that we might have a relationship with him. We strive to follow Jesus in the grace he has already showered upon us.

Politics and Religion, Not As Usual

2010-11-02T13:48:00.003-04:00

Brian McLaren, a pastor and writer to whom I have been paying more and more attention recently (and whose phrase "pro-testify" from his book Generous Orthodoxy, I used in my sermon on Reformation Sunday) has an interesting post today on his blog. He cites a recent study that shows young people's disaffection with the church comes most notably in response to politics. The two hot button topics he lists are homosexuality and abortion. He quotes the study:

So, why this sudden jump in youthful disaffection from organized religion? The surprising answer, according to a mounting body of evidence, is politics. Very few of these new "nones" actually call themselves atheists, and many have rather conventional beliefs about God and theology. But they have been alienated from organized religion by its increasingly conservative politics.

But a majority of the Millennial generation was liberal on most social issues, and above all, on homosexuality. The fraction of twentysomethings who said that homosexual relations were "always" or "almost always" wrong plummeted from about 75% in 1990 to about 40% in 2008. (Ironically, in polling, Millennials are actually more uneasy about abortion than their parents.)

This split might seem strange that homosexuality is more accepted and abortion less so. But maybe... just maybe, there is a common thread here. That a person's a person no matter how small (to channel my inner Horton). On a day where we are faced with an even more caustic political atmosphere, maybe the younger folks are pointing to a shift in politics- and religion-as-usual.

All Saints Reflection

2010-11-01T10:19:00.001-04:00

Chris Duckworth over at Lutheran Zephyr has a very nice reflection on All Saints' Day, All Souls' Day and the hope we have in Christ. A good paragraph is the following.

A strong belief in the soul's eternal dwelling in heavenly paradise weakens our church's expectant hope for Christ's return. If we all just go to heaven upon death, why bother believing in a second coming or a resurrection of the dead? What need is there for any other work of God? Indeed, such a view of heaven - that our life's goal is to have our souls transported to a disembodied spiritual realm - leads us to care less for our bodies and for the created world, and to shrug our shoulders at our Lord's promise to come again and remake the world, to join heaven and earth in a new creation. "Thy Kingdom come," we pray, and in the creed we confess, "We believe in the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come." But these commitments are largely disregarded by the belief in heaven as a disembodied spiritual realm and final destination for souls.

Read the whole piece here.

Youth Ministry and Gore

2010-10-29T16:51:00.002-04:00

I have been reading (and enjoying greatly I might add) the book Relationships Unfiltered by Andrew Root, professor of youth and family at Luther Seminary. I saw an offer to be sent the book free, and I rarely pass up a free book offer, so I wrote him. In a nutshell, his book is about being truly incarnational with youth, not merely trying to influence them. Of course he points out that being incarnational means suffering with the youth since the incarnation is always connected with the crucifixion.

In his fifth chapter, he recounts a story about a five-year old Millie who asks the great question, "Why is it a good thing that Jesus died?" He then goes on a nice discussion of the cross and points out that it is not about torture. I suspect that in the coming Halloween weekend, there will be a number of youth who are subjected to hell houses or terrible accounts of the crucifixion in an attempt to influence them to accept Jesus as their savior. Root's following paragraphs are an excellent answer to this practice.

When talking about the crucifixion with adolescents, it's always tempting to emphasize the torture of the cross. I have sat through "cross night" camp talks in which the speaker sketches in gruesome detail where the nails were placed, how they punctured the skin, and how painful the event was, providing a kind of forensic examination of how Jesus died. This how is supposed to be so shocking and emotionally stirring that kids are supposed to (and some do) crumble with appreciation and then follow with commitment. But the how of blood and guts in the crucifixion misses the essential good news (and for that matter, intrigue) of the cross.

The power of the crucifixion is not in the blood but in the person. The power of the crucifixion is not in how it happened or how bloody it was; rather the power of the crucifixion rests in who is found on the cross. If it is only about the blood and not the person, then logically those who have suffered more bodily injuries and severe deaths than Jesus (and there are many; remember Jesus was only on the cross for a short time) could vie for the status of savior too. But the crucifixion is not a story of gore and torture. It's a story of who God is, a story about the depth and of this God's love for us and desire to be in relationship with us, to share our place. The power of the crucifixion is in the proclamation that the one who is suffering and dying in shame, pain and isolation is the fullness of God. It's the assertion that the beaten man, dying alone, is the fullness of God, that he bears the fullness of our humanity, entering completely into the horror of death, which is the destiny of us all. The crucifixion is not primarily about blood, but about a person, about relationship. The cross is about sharing our place so completely that God takes on suffering and death.
Unfiltered Relationships, pp. 80-81

Ritual, Comfort and Starbucks

2010-10-27T13:15:00.002-04:00

The other day I was with my middle child (the one I wrote about here) shopping in Target. I got him to go with me on my errands by promising his after-school snack would come from the snack bar there. They also have a Starbucks in this store and I got a cup of coffee. While we were sitting there enjoying our repast, I spied the sign pictured there to the left.

"Take Comfort in Rituals" it says. How interesting I thought. As a liturgically-minded pastor, I was a little surprised. In the midst of the worship wars, when we talk about worship services, ritual seems to be out. And yet here is Starbucks trying to sell ritual. And there are rituals for coffee. My morning routine is very much a ritual. And it is multi-sensory. It engages my body and my mind. And there are some mornings when I do take great comfort in that ritual. Of course, Starbucks seems to be trying to sell its VIA instant coffee line... evidently you can have instant ritual.

But there are a number of people who would decry ritual as inauthentic to the Christian experience. I get this all the time from some who assume that just because the actions are scripted, and the form almost never changes, that it becomes meaningless. Folks can just go through by rote memory and never think about it at all. I will give them that just because we go through a ritual does not make the ritual effective just by doing it. Nonetheless ritual does bring comfort.

A few months ago, I sat at the bedside of a dying member with his wife. We went through the rite of Commendation of the Dying. After we prayed the rite, the wife said, "Do you know how much comfort that liturgy brings?" For her, I think, the ritual said things that she would not have been able to put into words at that moment. But she could assent to them. She could trust in those words because she trusted in Jesus' promise to be in our midst.

A couple of years ago, a family had been assigned to acolyte our Maundy Thursday service and the mother of the acolytes did not know what to expect. I explained that we would have corporate confession and forgiveness along with personal absolution along with washing of the feet the Eucharist. Being her first service with corporate confession and personal absolution, she was astounded by the power of the absolution. She recounted to me that she FELT forgiven. The power of ritual I think is that Christ acts concretely in its midst. We don't have to guess that we are forgiven. Christ, through the voice and laying on of hands of the pastor, has told us so and touched us through it.

If we trust in Christ and his promises, we can take great comfort in rituals because they bring the gospel to life. In a post-modern age we should not be shunning ritual but embracing them all the more. They are at times mysterious and say more through physical action than we might ever realize. They speak the truth more efficiently than we ever could with words. When we extend our hands in the midst of the Sunday service and bid others "The peace of the Lord be with you," it would take us ten minutes to explain what we are doing. But by engaging in this ritual time and again, we learn deep down that the peace which comes from the Lord Jesus is something that can be extended and given to others.

I hope Starbucks is right. I hope ritual, real ritual, is on the rise. We can engage with our bodies, our minds, our whole beings, the promises of the Lord and in turn trust in him.

U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey

2010-10-21T13:18:00.002-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, I went to my Tuesday evening bible study after having dealt with the death of a parishioner. The bible study had diverged for a few weeks to look at early church councils, notably Nicea, Constantinople and then Chalcedon. But I had not had the time to pull stuff together for that meeting since all of the discussion of beings and essences, like and similar, Arius and Athanasius, take a fair bit of care. Not only did I not have the time that day to bring it all together, I was spent.

But I had earlier that day, found the full survey, questions and all from the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey done by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (executive survey: here; Full wording of questions and topline results, here). The big takeaway that the media reported was the amount that atheists knew about religions and how little some Christians knew, sometimes about their own denominations beliefs. I had been digging around to see exactly what the questions were, and what the details of the actual survey-taking were. So the others in the bible study were willing to look at the whole survey. We thought there were some very interesting things within.

It had been reported that over 3400 had taken the survey. True. 3412 respondents answered. And that is amazing since this survey appears to have been administered completely over the phone. This survey was not a trivial set of questions. Along with the 32 content questions, there were a great deal of questions about demographics and religious life. We estimated that the survey could have taken thirty to forty-five minutes to take. While over 3400 people took the survey, we wondered how many people were called and refused to take part given the length. To us this question matters, since the number reported is not just a random sampling of America, but a distribution of Americans who want to take this time to talk about religion... over the phone.

Of course this goes to the question of the reported results, specifically about religious knowledge of atheists and agnostics. Only four percent of the respondents identified themselves as atheist or agnostic. Out of 3412, then somewhere around 135 people are being lifted up here. I am sure that researchers will say that it is likely a proportionate number of Christians hung up or refused to take the survey. Could be. But if one is atheist, I wonder why they would want to take this much time talking about religion. Is this the average run of the mill atheist? Or those of a more militant stance seeking to show what they know?

I won’t dispute the general shape of the results since it is my experience that many atheists do know a good deal about religion. Most know exactly what they are denying. I do wonder though if the disparity is as great as reported. And then as I preached in my sermon the Sunday following the release of the results (which can be heard here), knowing about religion is not the same as knowing God.

Baptism

2010-10-17T22:07:00.008-04:00

Long weeks usually mean little time for blogging. This past week was one of those weeks. But the week ended really well. I presided at my daughter's baptism this morning. A parishioner snapped a couple shots with her phone and sent them to twitter.

It was a great morning. Bright and sunny. Full of family. Most importantly however, Jesus showed up, just like he promised he would.

Halloween and the Law

2010-10-08T16:57:00.003-04:00

A neighbor on our street always does a huge Halloween display. Among his decorations are tombstones. Despite living on the same street and seeing his makeshift graveyard for six years now, this morning I saw it in a new light. The fake headstone in the picture here caught my attention this morning. In the midst of lots of "R.I.P" stones was one front and center. "Your time will come."

Everyone expects creepy and scary decorations at Halloween. Everyone expects skulls and skeletons, zombies and mummies, blood and gore galore. And it becomes comic. Or tamed, what with the softening of the classic creature, the vampire.

But if I had set up a bunch of signs in my front yard that said, "For the wages of sin is death" people would think I am a religious zealot (ok, I am, but not the way most folks expect). My neighbor's signs however, get to proclaim the reality of the law. As fallen human creatures we will die. Spooks and spirits aside, perhaps the real reason cemeteries give people the willies is at the very basic level they simply remind us of this reality of our existence.

Saint Francis, He's Not Just For Animals Anymore

2010-10-04T14:02:00.002-04:00

Ah, the beloved Saint Francis... someone once told me that Saint Francis was a Lutheran saint. Not, mind you, that he was a forerunner to the Lutheran tradition in Christianity, but that he was a saint every Lutheran could love. After all, he loves those little critters, and how can we get upset with that, right?

On this day when so many folks are blessing animals, as I did yesterday, that Saint Francis' legacy is much bigger than just him out there preaching to the birds. And it must be said that I have a friend who upon hearing that I am blessing animals tells me that preaching to the birds was actually a social commentary on wealthy family who were somehow connected to bird names.

It is important to remember Francis as one who gave up everything. He came from a wealthy family where his father was successful in dealing cloth. After spending a year as a prisoner of war suffering from disease, he returns home more reflective and devout. His conversion comes in 1207, after which he rejects his wealthy and comfortable lifestyle. He embraces poverty and the mendicant life-style in order to imitate Christ. His father, not at all pleased with his son's decision, dragged him before the bishop to have Francis renounce any claim on his father's fortune. Francis gladly did. St. Bonaventure, Francis' most prominent biographer and significant member in the development of the Franciscan order, wrote about this moment,

A true lover of poverty, Francis showed himself eager to comply; he went before the bishop without any delay or hesitating. He did not wait for any words nor did he speak any, but immediately took off his clothes and gave them back to his father. Then it was discovered that the man of God had a hairshirt next to his skin under his fine clothes. Moreover, drunk with remarkable fervor, he even took off his underwear, stripping himself completely naked before all. He said to his father: "Until now, I have called you father here on earth, but now I can say without reservation, 'Our Father who art in heaven' [Matt 6:9], since I have placed all my treasure and all my hope in him" When the bishop saw this, he was amazed at such intenser fervor in the man of God. he immediately stood up and in tears drew Francis into his arms, covering him with the mantle he was wearing, like the pious and good man he was. He bade his servants give Francis something to cover his body. They brought him a poor, cheap cloak of a farmer who worked for the bishop. Francis accepted it gratefully and with his own hand marked a cross on it with a piece of chalk, thus designating it as the covering of a crucified man and a half-naked beggar. (from "The Life of Saint Francis" by Saint Bonaventure)

Francis heard a call from God to lead a radical lifestyle in response to Christ's command. Francis's legacy is surely something for us to hear in a time of overabundant possessions (even in a time of recession).

We may also be used to hearing the prayer "Lord make me an instrument of thy peace," and the saying "Preach the gospel at all times. When necessary, use words." both attributed to Francis. And of course we may sing "All Creatures of Our God and King" which is a hymn based on Francis' "The Canticle of Brother Sun." But I found in an anthology of Christian Spirituality two beautiful prayers by Francis.

St. Francis' Prayer Before the Crucifix

Most High,
glorious God,
enlighten the darkness of my heart
and give me, Lord,
a correct faith,
a certain hope,
a perfect charity,
sense and knowledge,
so that I may carry out your bold and true command.

and an untitled prayer that comes from Francis' "A Letter to the Entire Order"

Almighty, eternal and mercifucl God,
grant us in our misery [the grace]
to do for you alone
what we know You want us to do,
and always
to desire what pleases You.

Thus,
inwardly cleansed,
interiorly enlightened,
and inflamed by the fire of the Holy Spirit,
may we be able to follow
in the footsteps of Your beloved Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ.

And,
by Your grace alone,
may we make our way to You,
Most High,
Who live and rule
in perfect Trinity and simple Unity,
and are glorified
God all-powerful
forever and ever.
Amen.

Hmm... I don't know... maybe Francis was Lutheran after all. May the witness of his discipleship inspire us all to respond to our Lord's call in faithful response to the grace bestowed upon us.

(Excerpt from Bonaventure's biography, and both prayers, taken from the most excellent anthology, Invitation to Christian Spirituality, edited by John R. Tyson, pages 162-165, Oxford University Press, 1999)

Lutheran Ethics, Jonathan Rundman and Piracy (of the Musical Sort)

2010-10-04T10:21:00.003-04:00

I received an email about the new Journal of Lutheran Ethics issue and read with great interest Jonathan Rundman's piece titled, "Thieves in the Temple: Intellectual Property, Use of Media, and the Law (Not Yet) Written on Our Hearts." Rundman deals with the all too common issue of piracy and people's disregard for what belongs to others and their livelihood. What is nice is to see is that Rundman does not hammer on the seventh commandment "You shall not steal." Instead he goes to vocation. Rundman writes,

Perhaps the Lutheran understanding of vocation might be a helpful angle. We believe that God gives everyone different gifts and skills and passions, and in following those paths we can live out a life of service. Whether you are a bus driver, computer programmer, soldier, or bishop, your daily work becomes a beautiful and holy calling. Now, it is pretty easy to see church workers, teachers, and doctors in this light, and it is clear to us that we want to honor their work. Sometimes, though, we need a reminder that musicians, camera operators, editors, electricians, and factory workers are personally impacted when we drag 300 songs over from our friend's hard drive or when we buy a bootlegged DVD on the street corner.

The digital age does make our lives easier, but also ethically murkier. It is a complicated discussion to have with folks, and I have it often dealing with copyright issues. Rundman's reflection could help us all to think about the effects of our actions on others.

Living Lutheran -- new website

2010-10-01T21:11:00.003-04:00

The other day, I was looking at my web statistics and I kept running across this website domain, Living Lutheran. I tried to click on the link to see what it was, and the site was not really up and running. I couldn't get to the site. But this didn't surprise me since "temp" was part of the URL.

But then yesterday (I think yesterday, but it could have been before that) I tried that link again and up pops the beta site of Living Lutheran. It seems to be a good mix of stories and blogs and other resources that point to what it means to be a Lutheran living out one's faith... at least an ELCA Lutheran.

I am not a huge fan of the layout, but the content looks good. Check it out.