conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

it's raining this morning

Worship styles are one of the most significant reasons that people choose to join a given congregation. Correspondingly, they are central to the identity of most congregations.
- Alban Institute

Galena was lovely. It was just the break I needed...though, per most usuals, I could have used an extra week or two. That will come in time. When I get a chance this week, I'll download (upload?) some photos for you all to see.

Galena is a lovely little Victorian town. That's what they have preserved at least. U.S. Grant lived there for a time. It was once a thriving lead mining town and boomed somewhat leading up to and during the war. Now, it's a tourist town with about 3,500 residents. Rolling hills, history and several good golf courses seem to be the main draw right now. Trish and I may go back. We're trying to see what would bring us back beside "the pretty."

There's a little shopping area with the requisite overprices merchandise. But it's quaint. So, we walked around a bit on Saturday. We actually went into Dubuque, IA for dinner that night. If you are ever in Dubuque, go to dinner at Pepper Sprout. Now, that was a great place to dine. Seasonal menus, local produce, reasonable high end prices and great service all made for a lovely evening.

Trish and I stayed at The Captain Merry Inn. It's a spa and B&B. Very posh. One can visit Galina and spend much less. But the spa...the spa...We arrived at 1:30 on Friday, just in time for our pedicures and such. Heh. Yes, I got a pedicure. My toes have been painted with a lovely color named "Charisma" after Charisma Carpenter. All the colors were named after an actress or yound female celebrity. Trish is currently wearing "Paris." So, I gravitated to the Buffy alumae and then to a garish shade of magenta. My toes are, well, pretty. HA!

Pictures to follow.

I also received a deep tissue massage. I was a noodle for about three hours afterward. Trish suggested I should get one a month and not one every six years. I am tempted to agree. Hmmm.

So, Galena was great. Maybe we'll go again. We'll do a little more research on what's offered around the area such as hiking and the like. It's beautiful country there along the Mississippi. I loved the hills. Chicago does not do hills. Alas.

Today I'm writing. The final draft of The Thesis (now with upper case T's) is due tomorrow. I'll spend some time today polishing my draft and send the final out to my adviser and reader (By the way, my reader was in Galena when Trish and I were! So surprising! Thankfully she did not ask about the thesis but instead said "Hey, I hear great things about Community Church now that you are there." Now, that was kind.) tomorrow morning.

Y'all be good. I'll see you around.

home

We're back.

not preaching on sunday

Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, 'We have seen the Lord.' But he said to them, 'Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.'

My wife and I are going out of town for a couple of nights of quiet. We're headed to Galena. Neither of us have been. Being the thoughtful sort (ha!) I have booked us at a place with a spa. I see a massage in my near future. Decadent? Yes. It is. What's your point?

So, I will not be preaching at Community Church this Sunday. In stead, a friend of mine will be our guest. It should be a lot of fun. She's a good preacher. Slide on by CCW this Sunday and find out who it is. She's preaching on the place of doubt in our lives of faithfulness. I'll look forward to listening to it when I return from our sojourn to the Land of Bed and Breakfasts.

I'm still ruminating on disillusionment, forgiveness, and our life together as church. Thank you for your comments. I appreciate the concern for my emotional, spiritual and theological well being. All are likely facets to my exhaustion. And, fortunately, I anticipated this to some degree and scheduled myself to be away from CCW this weekend. It was the right move it seems.

Disillusionment is a gift. Forgiveness is the reason for community. Our life together as a church depends upon these realities to be healthy and true to the Gospel of Christ. Thomas is witness to this as well...somehow he exemplifies the desire for faith to become flesh, real, true. Faith cannot be a distraction from reality, but firmly grounded in life. A spiritual life is an embodied expression of God.

It's supposed to snow this afternoon. It should amount to just a couple of inches and likely be gone by tomorrow afternoon. Ugh. More snow? Yay. The good news is that I am going to have a meal with a good friend from seminary who is in town from West Virginia and then this afternoon I'll sit down with another friend and watch a couple of bad movies with another friend. It should be a good day.

I hope you all have a great day.

musing again

I awoke this morning a little more sluggishly than normal for me. I'm usually the kind of person who hops out of bed and gets right into the day. I like a cup of coffee and maybe something to snack on right away. If I had newspaper delivery, I would read a paper in the morning. Often, I find myself online.

This morning the alarm went off at 6am. It actually woke me up. That almost never happens. I'm usually in bed waiting for it or down the hall reading and waiting for it. I hit snooze...three times. Then I struggled to get up and feed the cats. They were looking hungrily at my toes. It seemed wise to get up and offer them an alternative. But once the cats were fed I went straight back to bed. No coffee. No reading. Just bed. Trish and I stopped at a local 'Bucks for caffeine on the way to the train station.

I'm at the office now. I've done some work and I'll leave for a breakfast "meeting" shortly. I'm not sure if I can call it that since we have so much fun. But there it is.

Easter has exhausted me. And there is much more going on than Holy Week. Much more. Palm/Passion Sunday has extra significance to me now as well because of John's passing that morning. And now I find myself asking a question. How many of us come to Christ as people in mourning? I imagine it's more than I realize. Seldom do people seek out a spiritual center when their life seems complete.

This is the message of Palm Sunday. "Hosanna! Our life is now complete because the Savior is here to rescue us."

"Not so." says Jesus. "I cannot rescue you, but perhaps we can all be saved."

Yeah. Palm Sunday gets to that place somehow. "Hosanna" quickly becomes "Crucify!"

This is the thing that I am wrestling with again. A while back, Megan has asked me to post my definition of salvation. And I keep thinking I have one. Then something comes up, something that asks me to shift the definition of salvation just a little. Salvation is an unspecific virtue and occurrence. It's not a formula. It's a relationship. And thus it is fluid...slippery and often elusive. And it is often confused with rescuing...and some kind of euphoria.

Jean Vanier wrote:

Too many people come into community to find something, to belong to a dynamic group, to find a life which approaches the ideal. If we come into community without knowing that the reason we come is to discover the mystery of forgiveness, we will soon be disappointed.

I need to get going to my meeting. My thoughts are more scattered and incomplete than usual today. So, bear with me in this post.

God created us to give and receive love. That love is often communicated in acts of forgiveness. When we receive forgiveness we receive love. When we actively forgive, we actively love. And this kind of love is sometimes impossible without the intervention of God's own grace.

*sigh*

Yeah. That's what I am chewing on this morning. Time for toast.

teasing the massive?

Hat tip to Heidi for this one. Wow. Okay...it's a little free and easy, but I got a chuckle out of it.

coy mistress

Yes. We had a lovely Holy Saturday Tea Party this year. This was our first. As one would expect, people wore hats to this tea party. One should. It's spring. Never mind the snow on the ground!

This is my wife. She's lovely in her hat.

monday videoblog: does he ever stop talking?

monday videoblog: does he ever stop talking?

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easter sermon: indeed, no partiality

Sermon: Easter Sunday Year A 2008
The Community Church of Wilmette
March 23, 2008

Ps. 118:1-2, 14-24
Acts 10:34-43
Mt. 28:1-10

Indeed, No Partiality

The theological is in the news once again. If we are going to have to see it in the news, I want you all to know a little something about what theology is behind all of the hubub. Today is Easter Sunday. Today we make the most profound theological statement available to us as Christians.

Alleluia! The Lord is Risen!
The Lord is Risen, indeed! Alleluia!

Once again the theological is in the news.
Jeremiah Wright, the now retired pastor of Trinity UCC in Chicago, preached a sermon following the horrific attacks on September 11, 2001 that has come back to haunt him and the presidential candidate he loves so well, Senator Obama.

Have you all heard this news?
Do you know the words from the sermon?
Take a listen.

“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no. God damn America – that's in the Bible – for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”

Wow! Holy cow. And some of you think I preach politics. I have absolutely nothing on Jeremiah Wright. He goes toe-to-toe with the government every Sunday. Every time he stands in the pulpit, he swings for the fence. He's not playing around. He's not polite. He's not interested in making anyone comfortable.

So, once again, the theological is in the news.
And this is what I think you do need to know.

Jeremiah Wright is a student of a theological movement.
That movement is called Liberation Theology,
and more specifically Black Liberation Theology.

Liberation Theology has been one of the most influential schools of theological thought in the last 100 years. Essentially, Liberation Theology states that Jesus has a preference for the poor, the oppressed, the outcast and the left behind. This is not so much a new theological idea as it is a refocusing of the Church's message in developing countries. With this language, the poor and the oppressed, those burdened within any system such as the bone crushing poverty of Central America, Africa, or the inner cities of the United States, class-ism, sexism, or racism, have found theological language. They have found language so that they as members of the Church can speak truth to power, to join with Peter's words that “truly, God shows no partiality.”

At the same time in the United States there was the development of Black Theology and the Civil Rights Movement. In the midst of the Civil Rights Movement, new theologies were expressed. They were needed! “Separate but equal” is simply not a sustainable theology for the Church. People like Jeremiah Wright were trained as ministers, as pastors, in the thick of this theological exploration, in the marriage of the two streams of thought.

Liberation Theology and Black Theology became aware of one another in a significant way in 1973 with the publishing of Gustavo Gutierrez’s work Liberation Theology and the publishing in Spanish of a defining work of Black Theology, James Cone's book, A Black Theology of Liberation. James Cone says:

“Christians can never be content as long as their sisters and brothers are enslaved. They must suffer with them, knowing that freedom for Jesus Christ is always freedom for the oppressed.”

That is the essential message of his work. And he's aggressive about these ideas, prophetic in tone. The Jesus he proclaims is a subversive. In the spirit of Christ-like solidarity, Cone will go so far as to say that Jesus is a black man. It's not an historical claim. It's a theological claim. This is how Cone challenges us. Wright is no different.

Does this scandalize us? Maybe it does. Maybe it pushes all kinds of buttons for us. But being faced with the reality of oppression is extremely difficult. And facing the reality that we are culpable is almost impossible. Being faced with the very human indignation and outrage is too much to bear for many of us...especially from the pulpit.

But James Cone and Jeremiah Wright are not alone. Not in the least.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the famed theologian and member of the resistance movement against Hitler in World War II Germany said:

“We are members of a body, not only when we choose to be, but in our whole existence. Every member serves the whole body, either to its health or to its destruction. This is no mere theory; it is spiritual reality. And the Christian community has often experienced its effects with disturbing clarity, sometimes destructively, and sometimes fortunately.”

Jurgen Moltmann, a German liberation theologian says:

“If we believe the crucified Christ to be the representative of God on earth, we see the glory of God no longer in the crowns of the mighty but in the face of the man who was executed on the gallows. What the authorities intended to be the greatest humiliation – namely the cross – is thus transformed into the highest dignity. It follows that the freedom of God comes to earth not through crowns – that is to say through the struggle for power – but through love and solidarity with the powerless.”

Can we begin to see what is happening here? People, Germans, African-Americans, male, female, gay and straight, are attempting to locate the center of the Christian community. They are trying to unearth what connects us, and how we can respond within that connection...how we respond to violence, to division, to oppression...How we learn to apologize, plain and simple...and how we call one another out. Can we identify ourselves as oppressors? Can we identify ourselves as the oppressed? And how often is it that we find ourselves to be both?

We so often find ourselves in the middle...struggling with practical considerations...succeeding in systems that leave some people impoverished or ourselves stuck in the rut of keeping up with the Joneses. We give our children over to the mercy of some program. We can get so wrapped up in success and surviving that we forget the purpose of life in the first place: liberation.

This is how we can name where we all live, succeed and struggle.

And this is where we discover that the only thing that will help us find liberation and solidarity with the creation God loves so well is the Resurrection of Jesus the Christ. The Resurrection must liberate us. We have to allow it to liberate us. We have to make that choice. We have to make room for Resurrection in our own lives.

Resurrection does not exist outside of time. It's not some far off reality, some pie in the sky vision. Resurrection is much more than Jesus simply getting up on the third day, some medical marvel or a historical puzzle to be solved. Resurrection is liberation. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ tells us something about God. The entire New Testament...the whole of the Bible, really, tells the story of liberation.

God wants our liberation. God wants us to be free from all that binds us; that would keep us from Christ, from God, from one another. This is the liberation that God wants for all humanity. Resurrection is not for someone else. It's for you and me. It's for everyone.

Resurrection is liberation for the oppressed.
Resurrection is the end to injustice.
Resurrection is liberation from cruel poverty.
Resurrection is liberation from cruel affluence.
Resurrection speaks truth to power.
Resurrection is in solidarity with the powerless.
Resurrection asks for mercy where we might want vengeance.
Resurrection proclaims violence to be a lie.
Resurrection is the addict making amends,
listing wrongs, and begging forgiveness.
Resurrection is impractical, impolite, and confusing.
Resurrection is admitting our mistakes,
and the role they played in the injustices we have experienced.
Resurrection is apologizing to our children, our spouses, and our friends.
Resurrection is the end to isolation...to segregation,
to all that would bind us, enslave us, imprison us,
and keep us from God's fire-y, world creating Love.
Resurrection is the liberation of the entire world.
And there is no end to Christ's Resurrection.

Resurrection shows no partiality.
Christ's Resurrection is an act of forgiveness so profound that its effects echo through the centuries even to this day.

It encompasses every act of hope, love, charity and peace.

Today we gather. We gather and profess the Truth. We gather and proclaim a mystery.

Alleluia! The Lord is Risen.
The Lord is Risen, indeed! Alleluia!

palm sunday and a blog fast

The children of the church have been "enjoying" a media fast this Lent. Each family was to choose a week in which there would be no home internet or TV use. Astounding. This was the kids' own idea. In solidarity I have chosen this week to mark my fast. There will be no Monday videoblog. I will not be checking e-mail at home...only at the office. I will not be blogging, myspace-ing or facebook-ing all week. There. I said it.

It's been a huge week. One of the Girls has been in full swing. I've had very little sleep...getting home at 2am will do that to a guy. And...

Well, John died. John is our choir director's husband. He had been wrestling with liver cancer for many months. He passed away this morning at 4:00am. I'm a little overwrought. The choir is as well. What a day to shout "Crucify him!"

Indeed...Hosanna, loud Hosanna!

Today is Palm Sunday...the proud beginning to a miraculous end. We'll finish our service in the middle of the story though. Christ's death is a difficult place to reside. But it's the middle of the story. It's the middle of the story. The story is not done.

I'll see you all after Easter. May God bless you and your families. Peace and all good things be yours.

sets

Here are the set lists for the gigs this weekend. We make lists. But sticking to them is always iffy. C'mon out tonight.

OotG St Pat’s week 2008
Set List A

Sea Medley
Johnny Jump Up
Molly Malone
Foggy Dew
Whiskey in the Jar
Little Beggarman
Orange and the Green
Finnegan’s Wake
God Save Ireland
Irish Rover

OotG St Pat’s week 2008
Set List B

Jug of Punch
You’re Gonna Miss Me
As I Roved Out
Water is Wide
Cobbler
Spanish Lady
Fiddler’s Green
Grandpa’s Rules
You Are My Sunshine
Wayfaring Stranger
Armageddon
All for Me Grog
I Wanna Be Sedated

OotG St Pat’s week 2008
Set List C

The Medley
Reilly’s Daughter
Sam Hull
Isn’t It Grand
Devil’s Daughter
Badly Bent
Sweet Child O’Mine
Big Strong Man
Wild Rover
Fields of Athenry
Irish Soldier Laddie
Hills of Connemara
Monto
Parting Glass

OotG St Pat’s week 2008
Audibles

Britches Full of Stitches
Soldier’s Joy
She Moved Through the Fair
Dark as Dungeon
Seven Drunken Nights
Greensleeves
Black Velvet Band
Gambler
Whistling Gypsy Rover
Women and Men
The Cape
Roller Derby Queen
Paddy’s Sicknote
Stir It Up

thinking thoughts

It is very easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements in comparison with what we owe others.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

The great message that we have to carry, as ministers of God's word and followers of Jesus, is that God loves us not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love and has chosen us to proclaim that love as the true source of all human life.
- Henri Nouwen

I am not preaching this weekend. It's Palm and Passion Sunday, so we have a long reading from Matthew to share with the congregation. I've distilled it into a "script" of sorts like is often done. The voice of the crowd that asks for Jesus' blood is given to the congregation. Someone will read the words of Jesus. Someone will read Peter and assorted other roles. It should be good. Reading the entire narrative will be powerful and , honestly, will take a good bit of time. So, there's no reason for me to preach. It should be a good way to begin our Holy Week. Well, that's my hope.

So, I've been working on my thesis, playing with the band and reading two little books that are rocking my world. I am teaching a two week class on Bonhoeffer's Life Together and I am loving it. Bonhoeffer was an amazing person, challenging, opinionated, frustrating, and devout to the end. I have read this little book so many times and it always surprises me. The group of folk from CCW chewing on it with me are insightful. They struggle somewhat with his dialectic theology. At first he seems to contradict himself, but really, he's trying to hold center. But this mode of theological thinking is unusual to encounter these days. So, we struggle.

It's good stuff. The overall focus and hope I have is to begin a conversation about what our own life together as a congregation, as families, or as individuals might look like. What structures, disciplines, habits are needed to craft a holy life together? So, I'm thinking deep thoughts about that.

The other book I am reading is Henri Nouwen's In the Name of Jesus. It's a book about Christian leadership. I recommend it if you have not read it. One need not be a pastor to get something good from it. I am going to get the moderator of the church to read it and then decide if I want to get the Council to take it on as a shared study this year. The book is very short...But it is so powerful.

In pastoral ministry, it is so easy to get caught up in all the business models of institutional life. And no wonder. They are fun! They can be inspiring. They are full of energy and have measurable victories when successful. Who would not want that? I love measurable. Don't you? 12 keys here. 12 steps there. These are great notions for running a church. But Nouwen's little book is the core to the true identity of any leader of the church. And little of it is measurable in the ways that Fast Company would have us desire.

All things must come from a desire to give completely of oneself...as Christ, in the name of Christ, as the Body of Christ. The posture of a church is sacrifice and not survival or success. So much of what I read now is about churches moving from survival to success. And it always trips me up somehow. It always seems...I don't know...mistaken in this one aspect of Christian faith. Should we even use the word "Success?" Christian faith is about sacrifice...about giving away what we have, about offering ourselves up to what God would have us do. Sacrifice leads to resurrection. Right? Well, that's what Holy Week is all about. Anyway...

How does a church do this? How does it embody sacrifice? How does a person (lay or ordained) called into leadership in a church do this? These are the questions I am beginning to ask myself right now. This is the vision (sorry Dietrich) that I am wrestling with.

As Bonhoeffer might reframe it: How am I being called to die for Christ? How are we as a church being called to die? "When Christ bids [someone] come, he bids [them] to come and die."

mandodoxy: last night's fun

The ideal space for traditional music is a room...
- Ciarran Carson, Last Night's Fun

One gig down and three more to go. Last night was fun, but I am a little wiped and a little frustrated. But first with the fun...

The Red Line Tap is a great venue for what we do. The usual Tuesday night band, Sexfist (a.k.a. The Henhouse Prowlers) are great fun and really gifted players. Serving as their opening act was a little heady, actually. I totally dug it. The sound guy (Yes, a sound guy! Thank you, Jesus!) kept everything working perfectly. The small (Thanks be to friends!) Tuesday night crowd was kind and even enthusiastic on occasion. And we got to try out two new tunes. That's a good thing. We added "The Orange and the Green" and "Whiskey in the Jar" to our list of tunes. There are a few more in the hopper, but they aren't ready for public consumption quite yet.

The 9:00 show started right on time. That is to say that it started at 9:30. In Mandodoxy, nothing is ever on time. Chronos is out of a job when the band is supposed to play. Kairos, on the other hand, is the way anything happens in Mandodoxy. We live in between. Even the crowd must know that music is sound and silence...and waiting for just the right moment. I was so excited. I found kairos to be a struggle. But the moment came and we played our set to open the evening's frivolity. Lovely.

Sadly, we did not play as well as I would have hoped. Somehow our rehearsals did not knock off the rust as much as I had thought. There was much rust last evening. I'm told that we sounded good and that people enjoyed themselves. This is all that matters. I know. But I am still wallowing in the rustiness...my own and the band's together.

These things happen.

I borrowed this quotation from Last Night's Fun for a reason. I wanted to remind myself of what it takes to make good traditional Irish music. A room. The beer, the whiskey, and the people all come with the room, of course. But all you need is a room. I have to get past the stage and into the room. This is the spacial equivalent to chronos and kairos. I was stuck on stage. I need to remember the room.

Sexfist asked us to stick around and play a tune or two with them. So, up on this tiny stage were 10 guys playing away. Tom, our singer, stood up at the mic and just let the sound (enormous sound) just wash right through him. He could not stop moving...marching in every tune. I hope we get a chance to play with them again. That was quite remarkable.

We play again this Friday at Duke's. I hope you'll come out to hear us. It should be a good time. Duke's is a small place, intimate. I think it is a great room. Saturday we'll be at the Town Hall Pub. Now that is a fine room. Last St. Pat's the place was swaying with pints uplifted to God in a slurred salute to life and all it's glory. I hope to see you there.

Sexfist

signs of our ideas

Here is something for you to mull over related to the panel discussion a couple of weeks ago.

not all fifteen

I experience rather than understand it. Here, then, without any arguing, I embrace the truth of God in which I may safely rest content. Christ proclaims that his flesh is the food, his blood the drink, of my soul. I offer him my soul to be fed with such food. In his sacred supper he bids me take, eat, and drink his body and blood under the symbols of bread and wine: I have no doubt that he truly proffers them and that I receive them.
- John Calvin, Institutio 1543

The alarm went off at 5:00am this morning. The first news story was about the space shuttle. Night launches are very cool. Well, in my half-dozing state, I also heard a a jet flying overhead...So, I spent the first moments of my morning trying to figure out why they were launching the shuttle from O'Hare. Some days just begin this way...just a little off kilter.

Yesterday's thesis-ing went well. I wrote twelve new pages. It was not the fifteen that I had hoped, but I'm pleased. I need another 15 or so to fit within the parameters of the thesis guidelines. This should not be a problem. And, honestly, I'm trying not to get caught up in thinking about the length. It takes as long (or as short) as it takes to say what I need to say about John Calvin's pneumotology. Right? Right. Wow.

I find the whole subject interesting. I want to learn more about the Humanism that arose in the Sixteenth Century. There are a couple of good biographies about Calvin that focus upon this aspect of his thinking. I think it is an essential facet to his personality and philosophy and, perhaps, has been ignored in some theological scholarship. And, in the case of my thesis, I think that Calvin's humanist focus is what makes his use of Chrysostom so interesting.

When I submitted my first draft many months ago, my adviser gave it back to me saying something like "There are six good scholarly articles in this draft. Ten of the pages you have written are your thesis." Ah well. Heh. One of the strains that I had to remove was about Calvin's humanism. I find it hard not to be distracted by it. Yesterday, in the midst of all that writing, I kept having to remove passages about Erasmus and humanism, and virtues such as eruditio. Ah, my life is such a trial!

Tonight is the first of four gigs that One of the Girls (myspace)has lined up in celebration of the Feast of St. Patrick. Four bars. Twelve hours of playing and singing and wearing of the kilt. I'm really looking forward to it. If you are in Chicago, please come on by. We would love to see you.

This, of course, adds a certain amount of stress to the week. I have a thesis to finish by Friday, four concerts, a church to love and a sermon to write. Wait. Hold that. No sermon. No, ma'am. I have no sermon to write. This Sunday is Palm/Passion Sunday. We will have a long-ish reading of the Passion of Christ in lieu of a sermon. Various people will read. It will be good to hear the voices of other people in the worship space and not my own. Plus, I am not sure I'll have the energy to preach on Sunday. I will be coming off a gig at the Town Hall Pub. That means arriving home at 2am or so. Wow. Ugly.

I feel a little like I am copping out. But it's not an uncommon practice in churches on Palm Sunday. We'll see how it goes. Easter (and the related celebrations) is so early this year! Oy. There's also a book study Wednesday evening. We are reading Life Together by Bonhoeffer. We'll discuss the book and enjoy some snacks this week and the next. Get a copy here.

Well, that's what I have before me this week. Trish has the car tonight and tomorrow. She has rehearsals out in the western suburbs the next several weeks. So, I'll be car free as well. Huzzah!

It should be a great week. I'm actually excited about it.

it begins tomorrow night

Five pages into my day...Boy howdy, did Calvin have a thing for purity.

monday videoblog: the baptist hokey pokey

monday videoblog: the baptist hokey pokey



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The First Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia
The First Baptist Church of Washington, DC
Alban Institute
One of the Girls

sermon: founded upon tears

This post has been edited per very helpful comments. This is why I share. Thank you, all. And, yeah, it still needs a little tweaking.

Sermon: The Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year A 2008
The Community Church of Wilmette
March 9, 2008

Romans 8:6-11
John 11:1-45

Founded upon Tears

The church of God is founded upon tears.

This is one of the truest things I can say about the church. It is founded upon the tears of Christ. It is upheld by the tears of the followers of Christ. And how often I forget this truth. I become distracted by other things…

Today’s passage from John is fraught with distractions for me. John has chosen to write it in such a way as to force us, to compel us to ask theological questions. He puts theology in the mouths of those around Jesus.

Martha says, “I know that [Lazarus] will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” This is a stoic confession of faith, a correct statement. It covers her grief and in this way it upholds her.

She also says, “I know that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

Martha is the bearer of the theological in our story. As usual, Jesus will make statements, faith claims if you will, about himself and the nature of his ministry. He is the messiah, the one sent by God to bring God’s light into the world. There is to be no doubt of Jesus’ self-understanding. And Martha too must speak this truth…if for no other reason than John wants us to know this truth about Jesus. She speaks truth in theological language.

Mary also has some theology of her own. She laments with Martha, “Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died.”

“Lord, if you had been here…” this is the Mary’s lament. Lament is a kind of theology. This is the same Mary who had poured oil on Jesus’ feet. She loves him deeply and completely. And she is lamenting his absence, his apparent unwillingness to act. She laments. She weeps. Martha weeps. So many wept that day.

And so too does Jesus. He weeps in response to the expressions of grief all around him. He is “disturbed.” He is undone. He cries.

Today’s passage from John is fraught with distractions. Doctrinal statement after doctrinal statement is offered to us as readers. There’s nothing wrong with doctrine in general. It has its place. I think that this is part of what John wants us to know in this passage this morning. Theology has its place.

The church of God is founded upon tears.

Tears are the context for the whole ministry of Jesus. Right in the middle of our story we have this verse: “Jesus began to weep.” The King James says it better. “Jesus wept.”

Jesus wept. God wept. The light bearer, the messiah, the one who brings hope into the world, the one who bears God’s own Love, weeps. The entire doctrinal position offered by John in the words of Christ’s followers like Martha (and Jesus himself) resides in the context of the tears of Jesus the Christ. The lament belongs in this context. The outrage and fear, the utter disappointment in God belongs in these tears.

The power of the church lies in the tears of Christ. This is the home of Christian compassion. This is what we have to offer the world. They are signs of great compassion, of a deep and abiding divine love for the whole world. It’s the deepest truth we possess. For from these tears spring action. From these tears spring resurrection, justice, and renewal.

Christian action brings an end to death. It stands upon compassion and brings life out of death. This is a way to know if God is at work in what we do. Such action is the fruit of our tears.

This is also a way to give context to our own passions, our own struggles and our own beliefs…Do they move human beings from death into life. Can they overcome darkness? Do they bring light?

Mary and Martha are sisters. As in the other story told of their relationship with Jesus, they offer expressions of deep faith…hand in hand, in need of one another, in love with one another. Both loved by God as witnessed in Jesus’ love for them.

There Marys and Marthas in our congregation. Do you know who you are? Do you know that God embraces you; that you are washed in the compassionate tears of Christ?

There are Marys and Marthas in our village. Do we know these people in our village, our neighborhoods, or on our cul de saqs? Do we know the Marys and Marthas? And is there something hopeful, life giving that we can share with them? Perhaps it’s our tears, our compassion for them, and our own vulnerability.

Tears are a gift of the Holy Spirit. They are a spiritual gift. Many in the history of the church have understood tears shed in compassion to be an echo of the waters of baptism…Tears are salvific. They bring life out of death. They move us to action. And that is resurrection. Resurrection, movement from death into life, is a choice we can make.

That choice is offered to us every day. Do we choose life or do we choose death? Do we choose compassion or isolation? Do we choose love of do we choose hatred? Do we choose to do what builds up? Or do we choose to do what tears down.

Do we even realize how distracted we’ve become?

In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he too spells out what this choice means. He speaks in terms of spirit and flesh. Paul is describing the same tenuous existence that we all share, that discovery of what brings death and what brings life. He is urging the people in Rome to choose what brings life out of death, and not to get caught up in the things that are not life giving.

It’s a constant choice standing before us every day. It’s not a choice that we make once and hope that it sticks. Jesus’ ministry was a series of life-giving choices. The miracles that the people who followed him remember for us are all moments where life was chosen and death was abandoned.

Such moments were deemed miraculous. And the miraculous still exists. Perhaps we have forgotten what to look for. Perhaps we have become distracted by other things, and other concerns. We have confused surviving with life bringing. We have cut ourselves off from compassion somehow with busy-ness or things, achievements.

Do we want our names up in lights?
Do we want to be popular?
Bigger. Better. Best.

These are the questions we skate around here at Community Church as we seek to renew ourselves. We struggle with the right language. How do we convey what it means to grow into Christ? How do we convey our anxiety about our numerical smallness as we articulate our desire to grow?

Maybe there is a lesson for us in this scripture this morning.
Maybe the questions we need to ask ourselves can shift a little bit now.

How can we bring light into one another’s lives?
How can we bring life out of what brings death here in Wilmette?
We are called to give voice to what brings life here in Wilmette.
We are called to give voice to God.
We are called to uphold Wilmette and all our communities with compassion.

If you weep…

The church of God is founded upon tears.

If you step outside these walls and weep with the world, then God will be made known. Life will be revealed. Death will be no more.

This is resurrection life.
This is a life of the Spirit.
We can offer no greater gift.

Thanks be to God.

it seems to me...

Here's some exciting stuff from my thesis. I love his commentary on the letter to the Romans. He just cracks me up.

Chrysostom though that Paul used the expression, “likeness of death,” for death, as he says in another place, “being made in the likeness of men.” But it seems to me that there is something more significant tin the expression; for it not only serves to intimate a resurrection, but it seems also to indicate this – that we die not like Christ a natural death, but that there is a similarity between our and his death; for as he died in the flesh, which he had assumed from us, so we also must die in ourselves, that we may live in him. It is not the same, but a similar death; for we are to notice the connection between the death of our present life and our spiritual renovation.

...The temptation to put words in Calvin’s mouth here is very strong. He was so conversational in tone “But it seems to me…” He borrowed Chrysostom’s idea and took it to where he wanted to go.

This, perhaps sadly, completely intrigues me. Calvin works very hard to understand the nature of humanity both through the lens of Christ and without the benefit of Christ. Without the resurrection, he often states, we are depraved. Such an ugly word! But it reveals much about how Calvin understands the power of Christ and the renewal of the soul through the Holy Spirit. The distance from death (in sin) to resurrection is that vast! Purity, people. He was all about purity. Wow...yeah. Do with that what you will. But I don' think that Calvin would like my potty mouth.

Have a great weekend.

gushee speaks

This is from the Associated Baptist Press.

Opinion: The battle for power
and the spirit of Christ
By David Gushee

(ABP) -- In various ways I have been trying to pry open some space between our Christian understanding of the mission of the church and the work of earthly politics -- without creating such a gulf that we retreat entirely from civic engagement.

One of my foundational “anti-texts” for this emphasis is the statement by Jerry Falwell just after George W. Bush defeated John Kerry in 2004: “The church won the 2004 election. Don’t let anyone tell you any differently.” My burden is to help Christians come to understand how desperately wrong that kind of statement is at a theological and ecclesiological level.

Perhaps a shift to the other side of the political world -- the current struggle between Sens. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.) for the Democratic presidential nomination -- can help illuminate my meaning.

We have in this contest quite a rare situation in recent American politics. Not since 1976 have two candidates from the same party endured such a long-fought race for their party’s nomination. There is no sign that this contest will end soon. It may last until the Democratic convention.

There is something amazingly primal about this struggle. Both of these people really, really, really want to be president of the United States. Who can say what drives them? Surely it is some combination of personal ambition, moral ideals, policy goals, life experiences, and psychological attributes. Surely it is a mix of the thirst for power and significance combined with the desire to make this country and the world a better place.

All other Democratic candidates in this race have been defeated. Just two remain. Their policy differences are relatively trivial. Therefore they have to manufacture picayune campaign issues to argue about. Each day their contest continues makes the ultimate victory of either one in November a bit less likely. But those who think either one of them will step aside now for the good of the party do not understand human nature.

It’s like a cage match. Hillary and Barack are locked in a cage, and neither can leave until the other lies defeated on the canvas. If the survivor ends up a bloody mess and in no shape to take on Arizona Sen. John McCain, will it have been worth it? Is it better to go down in history as the (losing) Democratic nominee than never to have been that nominee at all?

In the long weeks that remain until the next major primary in late April, both of these candidates locked in their cage will have to decide how dirty they will fight. How dirty, how mean, how low, will they go -- in what they say about each other openly, in what they signal to their surrogates that they want them to say, in what promises they offer to superdelegates, and in what they do about the remaining disputed issues, such as what to do about Florida and Michigan’s lost primaries? Will either unilaterally “disarm,” even if it costs them the nomination? Not likely.

Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave -- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

He also said, “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” And Paul said that Christ Jesus “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant.” He also said, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Look not only to your own interests, but to the interests of others.”

Greg Boyd is right when he argues that there is something fundamentally different about this “power-under” Kingdom compared to the kingdoms of this world. It is true that the earthly kingdom centered in Washington, D.C., holds power that affects the well-being of all humanity, and therefore the decisions made there do have significance and relevance to the Reign of God. But the scrap for earthly power, with all of its vanity, pride, ambition, anger, low blows, and verbal (sometimes physical) violence, can never be identified with the mustard seed advance of the peaceable Kingdom of God.

I look back over these words of analysis related to the fight for power between Barack and Hillary. I think of the recent history of Baptists in the South. And I understand a little more clearly how deeply damaged our people became by the importing of the tactics and spirit of the earthly kingdom into institutions commissioned by Christ to advance the Kingdom of God.

No wonder some among us can identify the work of the church with the election of a favored politician. The difference between these two kingdoms had been lost long before.

-- David Gushee is distinguished university professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University. www.davidpgushee.com.

I find this whole line of thinking compelling. Truly. But I still cannot imagine it playing out. I know. I must be short sighted. But then again, that may be the whole point. I can see what does not work. Gushee is right in his estimation. And it will take the literal and figurative act of God to realize it. This is the kind of thing that reminds me that we live in an approaching Kingdom of God and not the fully realized Kingdom of God. Welcome to sin. We all miss the mark.

in concert

early thesising

Here's one:

The Father’s sermons were lectures and pregnant with exhortation to right Christian act and ethos. Calvin considered Chrysostom a humanist. At the very least, he viewed him through a humanist lens thusly attributing to Chrysostom humanist motivations for his interpretation and homiletics.

monday videoblog: talking about talking

monday videoblog: talking about talking



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Thanks again to Columbia College and Carly Flagg-Campbell for allowing me to come out and talk about talking. Yeah. How many times can one use the world "talk" in a single videopost? Many. Oh, and it's longer than usual...of course.

just because...

Larry and Jorge have both taken this test recently. I've taken it before, but I thought I would join in the game. Here I am. Not surprising...

Here's a useful comparison or two.

Go here to take the test yourself. The Monday videoblog approacheth!

lovely

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

sermon: free to see

Sermon: Fourth Sunday of Lent, Year A 2008
The Community Church of Wilmette
March 2, 2008

Psalm 23
John 9:1-42

Free to See

The thing that is most surprising to me is this:
The man who had been blind since birth,
the same man who had been begging outside their walls
for years,
their neighbors’ son,
is someone that they did not recognize.

All this talk about sight, gaining it, healing it, and,
for the Pharisees at least, losing it,
and it is so easy to miss this simple little point:
Before Jesus had come along and healed the man
no one knew who he was. And no one cared.

I love a trial scene as much as the next guy,
and this one in John’s gospel is pretty famous
all things being equal. Someone who has received
grace is being blamed for it…being blamed for being healed.
He was healed on the wrong day.
And he wasn’t supposed to be healed at all.
It was not supposed to be possible.
No one had ever done it before.

And this presents a familiar problem for the Pharisees.
It’s familiar to me at least. I hear old complaints in my mind.
Doesn’t he know his place in society?
Doesn’t he know that he’s not supposed to get better?
Doesn’t he know how to stay anonymous?
And why won’t he tell us who is to blame?
Who sinned? This man or his parents?

This is the trouble with some types of blindness.
Yes, there are types of blindness.
You can be blind from birth, it seems.
And you can be blinded later on in life.
Perhaps you were injured or you got sick.
And you can be blind to grace.
Yes, you can be blind to grace.
The trouble with that last one is this:
you have to choose it…choose spiritual blindness.

To be blind to grace is the fruit of the choices we make.
This is the kind of blindness that the Pharisees have in this story.
And you don’t have to be a Pharisee to be blind to grace.
No point in blaming them. Or keeping them in Their Place.
“I am so glad I am not a Pharisee!
I would hate to be blind to grace.”
We all spend some time in life being a Pharisee.

Once upon a time in the Church, so scholars tell us,
this passage from John was used to instruct new Christians.
It was part of pre-baptismal training.
There was a lesson that the early leaders
in the church were trying to teach people
who wanted to follow Jesus.

The man born blind would show up in artwork
in early places of worship, in catacombs and house churches.
And that artwork would be above the baptistery.
You were blind but now you see.
Grace has visited you and now we wash you clean.
Go to the pool called Siloam. Amazing grace.
The church has been singing that song for a long time,
even before it was written it seems.

It’s a lesson we need to learn again and again…
As a people and as individuals. We sometimes
become blind to those around us who are in
the greatest need. We are blind. And it is a blindness
we choose. There was money in slave trading. And
there was just enough moral ambiguity about slavery
and people from Africa (Weren’t they born slaves?)
that good people chose blindness and traded other human beings
for money. But then, as the song says,
God can intervene and the scales can fall off their eyes.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound…

That sound is the voice that comes out of darkness
and offers Light to the blind.
Jesus comes over and puts a little mud on our eyes
and sends us off to be washed in a pool.

The early church wanted people to remember this story.
Being a Christian did not make you popular.
People might want to put you on trial or something.
Maybe it was the Romans. Or maybe they just wanted
to kick you out of the synagogue. That happened too.
And this story serves as a warning, and a lesson.
It was an apologetic, a story meant to explain to
the new Christian and their Jewish family exactly
what was going on. Someone was gaining their sight
and someone else was losing it.

Obviously, the early Christians had their opinion about
who was losing what. Obviously.

But today I find myself wondering if I too am blind.
Am I blind to the pain that is all around me?
Am I blind to poverty…no matter what Bono says?
And why would I choose such a thing?

It occurs to me that I must be afraid.
I must be afraid of what I will see. And what I will see
is my own culpability, my own sordid
and sad Acquiescence. I will see that I have sold out.
I sold out a long, long time ago.

I was probably just having fun, walking down some street
in downtown Richmond, or maybe Chicago.
I was proud of myself, happy with my life and simply stopped
seeing. I stopped seeing the other people and I
stopped seeing myself as part of the problem or part of the solution.
I likely said something like “It’s just how things are.”

Dave Matthews sings about this problem in his song, “Bartender.”
He sings about self-knowledge.
It’s a song about Communion and his own wealth. Yes, Dave
Matthews sings about Communion and his own wealth.
His wealth is considerable. And so too is his need for Grace.

Bartender, please
Fill my glass for me
With the wine you gave Jesus that set him free
After three days in the ground

I'm on bended knees, I pray
Bartender, please

When I was young, I never think about it
Now I can't get it out of my mind

I'm on bended knees
Father, please

Oh, and if all this gold
Should steal my soul away
Oh, sweet mother of mine
Please redirect me in this gold...

Bartender, you see
The wine that's drinking me
Came from the vine that strung Judas from the Devil's tree
His roots deep, deep in the ground

Bartender, you see
The wine that's drinking me
Came from the vine that strung Judas from the Devil's tree
His roots deep, deep in the ground

In the Ground...

I'm on bended knees
Oh, Bartender, please

I'm on bended knees
Father, please

When I was young, I never think about it

He was unthinking…choosing blindness.
And suddenly he sees. He sees himself and where he is.
He sees what his life has become. God has washed his eyes clean.
And this is what I fear.
This is the fear that I have of God’s Grace.
And this is why so often I choose blindness.
Grace reveals to me my own sin, my own choices,
And there is no one else left to blame.
There is no system, no government, and no parent.
(Who sinned? This man or his parents?
Freud must have loved this story.)

But there is Good News. There is a light in the darkness.
There is a way Through the valley of the Shadow of Death
And he comes…he comes with the simplest of things in
His hands, mud, water, bread, wine and a gathering of friends,
a new family of God’s own children.
Jesus comes. And he puts a salve on our eyes.
He whispers to us…
“Go to the pool and be washed.
I love you.
Be free…free to see.”

Thanks be to God.