conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

graduation picture

Frank Yamada took this picture. Bad hair day for me, but these things happen.

voyages and graduations and suchlike matter

To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today Seabury is graduating yet another class of students...M.Div, MTS, and DMin folk shall walk, share the eucharist with all gathered, and sing. It should be a good time.

This morning I was reminded that today is the feast day of St. Brendan. How fortuitous.

Yep...Today is about journeys. Wandering and milling about in the name of God. Some of us live lives as if we were cast adrift at sea. Some of us have direct flights with no stopover at O'Hare. We are on a journey...a pilgrimage. Today our journeys end and begin again. A ministry colleague reminded me that these times are bittersweet. True enough.

and the mental flailing begins

We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
- Albert Einstein

Some day I will have to learn how to enjoy my small successes...like finishing the thesis. Not to be cruel to myself, but I woke up this morning with a small war going on in my brain. One voice was crying out "There is more to write! There is more to write!" Another voice was responding "It's done! Caloo! Callay! It is done! Hooray!" I am elated and anxious all at once. I half expect the thesis adviser to call me at any moment to tell me that there is something else I need to do. I am a mite frustrated with my brain right now. Ah well...It's PTSD...Post-Thesis Stress Disorder, a common affliction around this time of year.

So, today is a less frantic day than I had anticipated. I have been given a great gift. It seems that I am not preaching Sunday after all. Yes, I wrestled with this. It's Trinity Sunday. I love Trinity Sunday. I want to cue up cool science fiction themes when Trinity Sunday comes along. Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, The Holy Trinity (cue theme music)! I was reading Arturo's post (ala Jorge) on "a strange and colorful orthodoxy." But then I received an e-mail from someone who attends Community Church. Their parents are coming in to visit. Their father is a pastor working in an academic setting. He knows what it is to finish a thesis and then entertain one's friends for graduation in the same week. So, he offered to preach. We discussed some interpretive things online and I said "Thank you." It is a great kindness...though it feels strange to not preach on Trinity Sunday. If my brain continues to flail about for the rest of the week as it has been the last 12 hours, no sermon would come anyway. I will simply have to get over myself.

Anyone know how to do that?

other things to obsess about
1. the title "suburban abbot"
2. desert monastics
3. why I have not been to see the mandoguru in two months
4. American Sign Language and liturgy
5. The University of Chicago Divinity School's "Bridge" program
6. badminton
7. croquet
8. Inter-congregational celebrations in Wilmette

That should hold me for a while. Pray that I am less cranky today than I was yesterday. Yeesh.

seabury folk, attend!

Friends have started to arrive. Jane Ellen is here. Luke and Susie are on the way. Lovely. Graduation and the ensuing madness will be great fun.

and now for the good news...

The thesis is done.
Done.
Fini.
That's all he wrote, folks!

Thanks for all the good karma, the prayers, the general kind thoughts etc. I appreciate it all greatly. Keep it coming!

roger williams is blue like jazz: part, the fifth

Tony and I agreed that what God wants us to do is sit the bench in humility and turn the other cheek like Gandhi, like Jesus. We decided that the correct place to share our faith was from a place of humility and love, not from a desire for power.
- Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz (p. 116)

This past Sunday our study group met and it seems that all of us were deeply touched by the chapter on confession. It seems that Miller and his friends set up a confession booth at a college festival. Students would come and the Christians who hosted the booth would confess their sins and the Church's sins to the students who came in. I wish we would have explored this more...and if there was any sense that we could do something similar somehow. What would it look like for our congregation to apologize for the sins of the Church...even the ones we have worked so hard to distance ourselves from. Such an act is in part a claim of ownership of things like the Crusades and African slavery in the US...not to mention the genocide of the native Americans and various other things some of us have done in the name of God. There's a long list.

The wisdom in the passage I have quoted touches on this somewhat. There must be a stated intention of humility and love. This is not to clean the slate so that we can be influential...or powerful, to use Miller's word. It's not to increase the number of people on the roles. It is simply the act of confession, plain and simple. Such an act is to humble ourselves before God.

I suggested that this is also the purpose of having a confession in the liturgy. We don't usually do this. I bring one in during Lent and sometimes in Advent. But that's about all. Corporate confession is a rare thing in Baptist life. Though, I wish it were not. It can be an opportunity to do exactly what Miller is talking about...or at least it can lay the ground work for such a profound confession.

been busy

Wang Zhenyao of the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs said 11,922 people have died in the quake centered in Sichuan province.
- www.cnn.com

The natural disasters in the Pacific basin and Asia are unbelievable. Myanmar and China are struggling under the weight of these two events. And, as I understand it rain is predicted for the Burmese peninsula. That's what they need. Rain. Pray for them.

I submitted yet another draft of the thesis yesterday. Graduation is Friday, people. So, this is much closer to the wire than I had anticipated. It appears, however, that I simply cannot follow directions. Astounding, I know. It's the citations and bibliography that have been slowing me down. Little periods, semi-colons, parenthetical citations in the midst of a foot note...and all of them have to be formatted in a specific way. Details. Tiny details. They are important. I get it. I'm not denying it. But I have very few healthy brain cells to begin with. To burn a few out on semi-colons is still somewhat maddening.

I should hear this morning if there are any other changes I have to make...crazy bibliography stuff. Sigh.

pentecost poem

April 26-May 6, 1988

No doubt the light has shined on our proceedings
But light alone falls short of what we’re needing.
Give us fire.

Sufficient, not illumination lacking,
Flow thoughts, juxtapositions, logic’s trackings.
But we need fire.

Fire, not just inspiring fresh ideas;
Fire, not merely bright’ning this arena
Where words are strung together with precision---
Syntax and tense and text display cohesion---
O, Give us fire!

Ignite a flame that kindles in our minds
And burns the rotting wood; mount in its path
A holocaust to cool sophistication.
Fire will warm, but not to warmth confine,
Fire that destroys, consumes and yields to wrath
The smallest tinder-twig of resignation.
O God, Your fire!

With friction of the Word and Wind entreat
And sear with fiery tongue and glowering heat
To melt our will, all hard and ice-encrusted;
To forge an alloy with no threat of rusting
Burnished in the white-heat, flames out-thrusting:
Living fire.

No sacrifice, however erudite,
Will ever be consumed by only light.
Give us fire.

Jaime Potter-Miller. ©1988. Songs of Quiet Trust 1994-1995, United Theological Seminary. Dayton, Ohio.

Y'all have a good day. I'm going to grab a cuppa.

pentecost sermon

The Spirit, Freely Given

How do we know how to receive?
How do we know what it is to receive love?

These are the questions that have been haunting me this week as I have prepared for this sermon.

Do we really know how to receive love?
How do we learn to do this?

The scripture readings this morning are about the Holy Spirit, God’s abiding presence in the Church…and the Church’s responsibility to share that Spirit with the entire world. It is the Feast of Penecost. The scriptures are very clear that God gives Love. God pours out God’s Holy Spirit upon all gathered. They suddenly understand one another’s languages. They suddenly speak languages that they had never known. It’s a miracle!

When I read this passage, however, I am struck with the ease with which the followers of Jesus receive the Holy Spirit. There is almost an involuntary quality to how they receive God. It’s like they are possessed. But what we are witnessing here is not possession. The Holy Spirit does not possess us. We receive the Holy Spirit. It arrives, and we have to receive it. We receive God’s Love.

Who were these men and women who received the Holy Spirit? And what did they know that I don’t know about receiving it? Because sometimes I think I just don’t know how to receive love.

The Holy Spirit is God’s Love, a Comforter, Advocate and Guide…a wind…the breath of God with a mother’s voice saying, “I love you. Be made new.”

Perhaps the hardest thing about love is learning to receive it.

True love, divine love, is a free gift…no strings attached. You cannot buy it. You cannot earn it. It is simply Given. All you can do is receive it. And though it sounds so very simple, it is the hardest thing about Love…even God’s Love.

Sometimes I get greedy with love. I want to be the only one to receive a certain kind of love. As a young boy I may have said that my mother’s love is only for me. It is not for my little brother. I would invent ways to be her favorite. I would compete with my brother for my mother’s affection.

We still do this as adults. I sometimes might find myself competing with the cast of one of Trish’s shows for her attention. It’s entirely unnecessary, but in a fit of insecurity I might just get greedy.

We also compete for accolades and acknowledgements. We strive to outdo one another in greatness. We compete, plain and simple. And the winner receives love. The loser…well…Have you heard about the lonesome looser?

Somehow we think that we can earn love. We can purchase it with deeds and smarts. It’s social Darwinism. Those who evolve (succeed, produce, etc) are the ones rewarded. Love does not work this way. God’s love does not judge in this way. God’s love sees us all as equal. God pours out love upon all.

Pride, too, can be a barrier to receiving love.

I am a pastor! What do I need with love? I give! I do not receive. I am ordained! I received One Big Infusion of Love. Ah well…with pride…

We can shut ourselves off somehow…thinking we don’t need love…or the Holy Spirit, or in the end even God. We look at our lives and our accomplishments and believe we have it all. Or our giving becomes a form of control and it’s not love at all. We can give to keep people at a distance. We give so that we do not have to receive. It is a form of judgment. “Those poor people out there. They are not like me. I should give to them.”

Often this is because we are hiding some wound of our own. We don’t want people to come too close to see where we are broken. So we toughen up and give to distract from our own brokenness.

Maybe it feels safer somehow to give than receive. It is certainly less vulnerable. But in then end…this kind of giving is not even about love. It’s about ego…and a need for self-importance. Jesus always ranted against pride…Religious pride, economic pride. Jesus said that we are measured by our weakness. Blessed are the meek, the lowly…but woe to those who think they have it all.

Another barrier to receiving love is shame. We think of ourselves as unworthy to receive Love. We are not beautiful enough. We are not tall enough. We are not talented enough. We are not smart enough. The list can go on, and on, and on. Somehow we can think that we simply are not enough…something in us is deficient.

This shame can be institutionalized as well. It becomes our various “-ism’s.” Racism. Sexism. Social Darwinism. That one goes both ways, doesn’t it?

We can be abused and shamed by one another. We can be told we are 3/5ths a person, or no person at all for so long that we come to believe it. So we lock ourselves up, shut ourselves off from everyone. We harden our hearts. We define ourselves by shame. And we cannot receive love. We shame one another. We injure one another so horribly sometimes that Love becomes impossible.

We create leper colonies. We create entire social structures where people are permanently outcast. Jesus, he moved among the outcasts, he slaves, the women. He gave God’s love freely to all…no such judgment existed for him…no such shame.

Receiving love can be so very difficult. Seeing beyond competition, pride and shame so that we can receive something freely given is harder than it looks.

The congregation in Corinth struggled through this. Paul is writing to them because it seems that they have lost a little perspective. They have forgotten some basics about the nature of God and how God gives. They have, it seems, begun to rank the gifts of the Spirit. And it shows that they may very well have forgotten what it means to receive...to receive something freely given.

“Oh! Bob has the gift of teaching. He’s so much cooler than Frank. Frank is just a prophet.”
“Well, I heard that Agnes speaks in tongues!”
“No way! Well, she has Bob and Frank beat hands down.”
“Yeah, those guys should learn their place.”

The Spirit, says Paul, is poured out upon each person equally. There may be different gifts, but no one gift holds primacy over another. To rank them is a trap. It’s competition, pride and shame institutionalized...and an ecclesiology founded on pride, shame and greed is no ecclesiology at all. It’s simply not the Church.

In so doing, they make it harder and harder to receive. They make it impossible to Love.

Paul says that the nature of the Holy Spirit, the nature of God, is to give and love equally and freely.

How is this so? How is this possible?

It’s a matter of focus. The focus of Love is The Giver. God is the Giver of Love. Christ is the Bearer of Love. The Holy Spirit is Love Breathed Out Upon All. We, strangely, are not the focus of Love. That love is not meant to build up any one of us more than another. The love is for the Common Good. Love, the Holy Spirit, the gifts that God offers are for the building up of all. There are no pedestals. There is only God’s unity and God’s peace.

Pentecost is often called the Birthday of the Church. This might be a nice excuse for a party. But I think that focusing on this might be a bit of a mistake. To focus upon the Church is not the point of Pentecost. The point of Pentecost is to focus on how all the world is receiving the Love of God all the time…and may not even know it.

There are people out there who cannot receive love. Systems and relationships pin them down. Pride and competition rule their lives and they cannot receive Love. The Holy Spirit and the gifts that come with it are for the building up of the entire world…for the common Good. We, we are to be witnesses to God’s Love poured out equally. To receive Love is to recognize this truth…to uphold the weak, the weary, the burdened, and the oppressed…the poor.

Learning to receive love is learning that Love is for all…

Receive now the Love of God. Amen.

le baptiste hokey pokey

I even went so far as to become a Southern Baptist for a while, until I realized that they didn't hold 'em under long enough.
- Kinky Friedman

This morning we ABC types in the ABC-Metro Chicago region will gather to talk and plan and eat carbohydrates. Generally speaking this is a good time. I like my colleagues in ministry. Somehow we seem to uphold one another pretty well. We are a diverse group ethnically and theologically. And we honor a certain creativity...I don't know quite how to explain it yet. I'll get there some day. Suffice it to say that they think I have something to offer the Church. That's a terrifying notion to be sure.

Each of these gatherings is an opportunity to discuss what is going on in the region (summer camp, for example) and broader issues important to many of us. This morning we'll talk about racism and "the prophetic preaching voice." I'll let you know how it goes.

I turned in yet another draft of the thesis yesterday. I'm at the altar of Kate Turabian now. Citations, people. Get the citations right the first time. Unless you have some research assistant willing to go back to the library for you, get it right the first time. Oy. Veh. Yuk!

So, it continues apace. It's truly done. I'm walking "sans asterisk" next week. What joy.

See you all later on. The sermon is complete. I'll post it Sunday morning. Until then, enjoy your weekend as you are able.