when love comes to town

New sermon ending...

2012-02-02T13:04:00.002-05:00

You know, from time to time, my worship/sermon notes change as the week unfolds. Sometimes I throw the whole bad boy away by the time Sunday comes, other times I make refinements to the text all week long and then there are those moments when a new closing makes itself known. That happened today while I was visiting a church friend at her home.
Now, truth be told, I had a hunch that my written ending was going to change all week long - I just had no idea how it would come to pass.

So, as we were talking together about her recent trials in the hospital and the ups and downs of faith and fear she told me – and I think it is so true that I want to tell you, too - she said, “I really miss BEING in church – with the people – with the community.” She smiled and went on:

"Don't get me wrong, I love your preaching – it challenges and nourishes me on so many levels – and sometimes I get lost in the music. But what I miss the most is the people.” And before I could ask why, she added, “What I have come to experience with our people – and notice I said OUR because now this is MY church, too – is that there is a living, gentle love here that really matters.

It isn’t pushy – it doesn’t assertive itself or ask to be noticed – and it will leave you alone if that is what you need. But when you need something – and can be open to it – this living, gentle love reaches up and holds you and brings you whatever it is you need. Sometimes it is food, sometimes it is prayer, sometimes it is a ride home from the hospital, sometimes it is just being present. And that is what is so different from all the other churches I've been to– that is what the radical hospitality is all about – our people give you space to be totally you but still find a way to share their love with you gently.”

I was stunned – blessed and humbled, too – because she was talking about us – this group of saints and sinners working together to make Jesus real. Well, actually she was talking about you and me and the living presence of Jesus, too – and maybe we should add the Apostle Paul. Do you recall how he spoke of our ministry?

The Bible tells us that “Jesus came to her bedside, took her by the hand and raised her up – and as the fever left her she immediately got up and began to serve them.” I would add "with a gentle love." For this is the good news for today for those who have ears to hear.

Rethinking...

2012-02-01T22:32:00.004-05:00

From time to time, I have to confess that I've changed my mind. When Amy-Jill Levine was with us in December - and I bought a copy of the Jewish Annotated New Testament - her words (spoken and written) helped me realize that too often I haven't celebrated the abiding spirit of grace in the Old Testament. It has been there all along, of course, but in my commitment to preaching about the radical inclusivity of Jesus - fueled no doubt by some of the less thann nuanced insights of the Jesus Seminar - I have sometimes overstated the case - but now have clearly changed my mind. From the call of the Exodus to the Psalms and the poetry of the Prophets, the heart of the Hebrew scriptures resonates with the Lord's love as radical and extravagant grace.

I have changed my mind over the years, too when it comes to what I emphasize in ministry: these days the counsel of Niebuhr rings loud in my mind for he simply asks that we keep repeating the mantra, "now we see as through a glass darkly... only later shall we see face to face." Anything more is hubris - with increasingly dangerous implications, too. Some want their ministers to "speak truth to power." Others want us to fix their wounds - or take away their pain.

Today, for example, at our midday Eucharist, I found myself listening to dear friends speak of their hurt, anger, fear and heartbreak. Earlier we had listened to together to Psalm 146 in Peterson's reworking:

Don't put your life in the hands of experts
who know nothing of life, of salvation life.
Mere humans don't have what it takes;
when they die, their projects die with them.
Instead, get help from the God of Jacob,
put your hope in God and know real blessing!
God made sky and soil,
sea and all the fish in it.
He always does what he says—
he defends the wronged,
he feeds the hungry.
God frees prisoners—
he gives sight to the blind,
he lifts up the fallen.
God loves good people, protects strangers,
takes the side of orphans and widows,
but makes short work of the wicked.
God's in charge—always.
Zion's God is God for good!
Hallelujah!

After a time of silence, we said, "O what a time we live in - a time when the experts are so cruel - and the call for a clear alternative that offers the compassion of Christ is so needed." To which one wise soul added, "Yes... but never as an expert, right? More like a companion." Exactly right and that's what I mean about changing my mind in ministry: mostly it is better for me to shut up and try to listen deeply to the wisdom of my companions. I can't do it nearly well enough, but at least I am learning now that this would be the better way. Yes, there may be times to speak in a prophetic way - and from time to time I might even have an insight that is helpful - but mostly ministry for me has become an act of being present. Niebuhr was so right: now we can only see as through a glass darkly...

Tomorrow night at our jazz gig, I will have a chance to do something else that is a part of my changing mind: I will be part of a band. Not the leader - not the organizing force or MC - just the bass player and sometimes vocalist. And that has been a very important change for me. I love my band mates. I treasure their talent and ache to collaborate with them. But I have to know my place, live into it fully and honor it, all the while working closely with the drummer to keep the groove steady.

Sin is anything that separates us from God - or, to put it another way - sin is an effort to separate God from the part of creation we are holding. According to the Apostle Paul, the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23) - spiritual death. That's why we live in a society filled with people who have so much but whose spirits have withered. It's why they try to content themselves with frenzied activity about things that they know are not worthy of their lives. It's why the talk is small. It's because they cannot find life-giving holiness in any of it. But in their souls the old longing persists to find eternity in the small things that make up a life. (p. 34, The Pastor as Minor Poet, M. Craig Barnes)

Over the years my sense of self and calling has changed - and it is still changing. What's more, I know that I can get distracted or worn-out and fail to listen to the Spirit calling me towards deeper change. In this I have known spiritual death and sin. This week's reading from the poet prophet Isaiah brings it all home for in his charge to Israel, I hear a word to my own soul: those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

Have you not been paying attention?
Have you not been listening?
Haven't you heard these stories all your life?
Don't you understand the foundation of all things?
God sits high above the round ball of earth.
The people look like mere ants.
He stretches out the skies like a canvas—
yes, like a tent canvas to live under.
He ignores what all the princes say and do.
The rulers of the earth count for nothing.
Princes and rulers don't amount to much.
Like seeds barely rooted, just sprouted,
They shrivel when God blows on them.
Like flecks of chaff, they're gone with the wind...

Why would you ever complain, O Jacob,
or, whine, Israel, saying,
"God has lost track of me.
He doesn't care what happens to me"?
Don't you know anything? Haven't you been listening?
God doesn't come and go. God lasts.
He's Creator of all you can see or imagine.
He doesn't get tired out, doesn't pause to catch his breath.
And he knows everything, inside and out.
He energizes those who get tired,
gives fresh strength to dropouts.
For even young people tire and drop out,
young folk in their prime stumble and fall.
But those who wait upon God get fresh strength.
They spread their wings and soar like eagles,
They run and don't get tired,
they walk and don't lag behind.

God is the Lord of creation - so rest in this blessing.

Rest in peace Soul Man...

2012-02-01T14:07:00.002-05:00

I just saw that Mr. Soul - Don Cornelius - apparently took his life yesterday and is dead at age 75.

I always grieve when told of a suicide. I have never known such empty despair and heartache so I try never to judge or criticize. Mostly I weep and try to hold the person and their family close to God in prayer. How many times did I watch "Soul Train" and marvel at the music - or look in stunned disbelief at some of the dance moves - or wonder where in all the world such sexy dancers came from? "Soul Train" was always a joy for this white boy.

As others have noted, Cornelius introduced Black culture to middle America - and all of the races were the better for his sensitivity and commitment. Dick Clark may have helped bring rock and roll to the masses - and this was a sweet gift - but Don Cornelius helped us get funky - and that was beautiful.

So as he used to say at the close of each show: "We wish you love, peace and soul..." and God knows America needed more soul. It still does. Rest in peace, dear soul man, rest in peace.

(check it out: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/arts/music/don-cornelius-soul-train-creator-is-dead-at-75.html?partner=rss&emc=rss)

Come on up to the house...

2012-01-31T22:21:00.002-05:00

Raised up... to serve

2012-01-31T16:18:00.007-05:00

NOTE: Here are my worship notes for Sunday, February 5, 2012. For the next few weeks leading up to Lent, I will be reflecting on different aspects of our mission statement. This week I look at what it means to be a "gathered community."

To live as a person of faith is risky business. Faith asks us to move beyond our comfort zones into mission, it encourages us to place our addictions and
wounds in God’s hands in exchange for grace and it invites us to let go of our small realities so that we might live more fully within the awesome presence of God’s kingdom. “Every day,” writes Eugene Peterson, “I am asked to put faith on the line."

You see, I have never seen God. And in a world where nearly everything can be weighed, explained, quantified, subjected to psychological analysis and scientific control I am asked to persist in making the center of my life
a God whom no eye hath seen, nor ear heard and whose will no one can probe. That’s risky business…

To some this risky business seems foolish – to others it appears to be a waste of time – to some faith is just embarrassing and for still others it is downright offensive. That’s what St. Paul is saying to us in this morning’s reading from I Corinthians 4.

It seems to me that God has put us who bear his Message on stage in a theater in which no one wants to buy a ticket. We're something everyone stands around and stares at, like an accident in the street. We're the Messiah's misfits. You might be sure of yourselves, but we live in the midst of frailties and uncertainties.

You might be well-thought-of by others, but we're mostly kicked around. Much of the time we don't have enough to eat, we wear patched and threadbare clothes, we get doors slammed in our faces, and we pick up odd jobs anywhere we can to eke out a living. When they call us names, we say, "God bless you." When they spread rumors about us, we put in a good word for them. We're treated like garbage, potato peelings from the culture's kitchen. And it's not getting any better.

Faith – a life lived in the real world but guided by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ – is risky business. And that’s fundamentally why God gave birth to the church – all churches and any church – Roman Catholic or Protestant, Anglican or Orthodox – liberal or fundamentalist, traditional or post-modern.

The church is, as we say in our mission statement, a gathered community: individuals who are bound together with other individuals and God to become a gathered community. And that’s what I want to talk about with you today: what it means to be a gathered community in the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

Throughout February – in anticipation of Lent – I’ve sensed it would be wise to carefully revisit and review with you just what our mission statement tells us about how God is calling us to live into our faith. Because, you see, there is some confusion about what it means to live together faithfully as God’s gathered community. Our mission statement puts it like this:

In community with God and each other we gather to worship, to reflect on our
Christian faith, to do justice and to share compassion.

And each of those points – gathering together in community, worshipping, reflecting, doing justice and sharing compassion – matters. So I’m going to try to give some shape and form to each of these five commitments over the next few weeks so that we might deepen both our conversation about and commitment to the risky business of being Christ’s gathered community of faith
in our generation, ok?

And there are two key insights I want to emphasize for us today that come from the story of Jesus healing Simon Peter’s mother-in-law as it is recorded in the gospel of St. Mark. First, I want to explore what the Lord’s act of healing tells us about being a gathered community. And second I want to consider what this woman’s response to being healed might mean for us, too.

So what’s going on just below the surface of this story about a healing? Well, I think at least the following warrant some consideration:

+ First, it would appear that the “starting point of Jesus’ public ministry begins outside of the synagogue and in the home of a disciple” (Seasons of the Spirit, “Sustaining Ministry,” p. 150) in a place where the faithful have gathered.

+ They have not scattered to get their own fast food, they have not run off to consult their individual Smart Phones, they have not left one another behind to do their own thing: rather the set-up of this story is that the disciples have gathered together in community for a shared meal.

Now think about this out loud with me, ok? When you put on a supper for your friends – when you have guests over for either a feast or even a spontaneous pizza – what are some
of the elements that go into making this meal good? Somebody has to get the food, right? And cook it – or at least pick it up and serve it, yes?

+ What else? Somebody has to set the table – somebody has to pour the drinks – somebody has to clean up? Anything else?

+ Somebody has to enjoy the meal – and give thanks for the gathering – and unless the party is a total bust, people are talking with one another and visiting and listening and a whole lot more.

That’s the first thing that happens in Mark’s gospel – and Mark is the first written gospel, too – so it tells us that the starting point of Christ’s public ministry is a gathered community of faith. In fact, Jesus goes out of his way to gather the disciples together – calling them by name – and then inviting them beyond the synagogue into a home. This is not about a bunch of spiritual tourists – who show up from time to time – or a random collection of strangers: this is about a gathered community.

And interestingly, before the gathered community can be nourished what happens? Simon Peter’s mother-in-law is taken to her sick bed with a fever. Could it be that whenever the faithful gather in community some are in need of healing? Some are wounded? Some are afraid? We don’t know anything about her illness, just that she has been separated from the community and unable to do her work.

And she had work to do, right? She was most likely in charge of getting supper on the table – nourishing the gathered community – or at the very least making certain the food was served. So what does the text tell us Jesus did when confronted by her illness? He takes her hand and “raises her up.”

Hmmmmm… now things are getting interesting: Jesus raises her up. This is the same word – egeiro – that Mark uses at the end of his story when Mary and Salome and Mary Magdalene go to Christ’s tomb after the crucifixion and find that the tomb is empty. Chapter 16 tells us:

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so they could embalm him. Very early on Sunday morning, as the sun rose, they went to the tomb. They worried out loud to each other, "Who will roll back the stone from the tomb for us?" Then they looked up, saw that it had been rolled back—it was a huge stone—and walked right in. They saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed all in white. They were completely taken aback, astonished. He said, "Don't be afraid. I know you're looking for Jesus the Nazarene, the One they nailed on the cross. He's been raised up; he's here no longer. You can see for yourselves that the place is empty. Now—on your way. Tell his disciples and Peter that he is going on ahead of you to Galilee. You'll see him there, exactly as he said."

Are you still with me? Do you see what is being shared here about the healing Christ bringour gathered community? A healing that restores a person to their calling in the community – a healing that allows them to share their gifts and work fully – is like unto the Lord’s resurrection. One scholar put it like this: “New strength is imparted to those laid low by illness, unclean spirits, or even death, so that they may again rise up to take their place in the world.” (WorkingPreacher.org, Sarah Henrich)

This is a powerful theme, beloved: time and again Jesus goes out and gathers us together to restore us to our right place in the world. That’s one of the insights for us to embrace about being together as God’s gathered community. And the second comes by observing how Simon Peter’s mother-in-law acts after being raised up.

Mark writes that after her fever left her, immediately she got up and served them. And once again the word Mark uses is instructive: diakeno. Sound familiar? The word deacon comes from this verb – to serve – and Jesus uses it in Mark’s gospel to describe himself when he says:

You've observed how godless rulers throw their weight around," he said, "and when people get a little power how quickly it goes to their heads. It's not going to be that way with you. Whoever wants to be great must become a servant. Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. That is what the Son of Man has done: He came to serve, not to be served—and then to give away his life in exchange for many who are held hostage." The one who was laid low is raised up to… serve.

And we are called to serve in community because community is where our rough edges can be worn off. Community is where we bump into our own crankiness and selfishness and learn how to ask for forgiveness – if we’re paying attention. Community is where we are raised up to serve – a totally counter-cultural learning experience – that takes most of our lives to get right. Most of us, on our own, don’t want to become servants. Or if we do, we want to serve on our own terms. But that’s a club – not a church – not a gathered community of faith.

We have been gathered together – bound in community – raised up by the grace of God to serve. Not to get our own way – not to control or demand anything from others – not be a burden to our sisters and brothers or a pain in the butt: we have been raised up and called together to serve. “Jesus came to her bedside and took her by the hand and raised her up – and the fever left her and immediately she began to serve them.”

Let us do likewise for this is the good news for today.

credits:

1) perjoyence.wordpress.com

2) 4catholiceducators.com

3) faithinactioncass.com

4) znconline.wordpress.com

5) larrybettencourt.wordpress.com

6) trueleadershipprogramme.com

Slowing down and seeking peace...

2012-01-30T18:10:00.000-05:00

Having just returned from four days away with our kids in NYC, I was surprised that I still took a 45 minute nap today! We probably slept for 10+ hours each day that we were away, too but I was just played tonight, so I didn't fight it.

Now I am getting ready to lead part two of our conversation into Jaco Hamman's wonderful book, A Play-Full Life: Slowing Down and Seeking Peace. Last week 15 adults joined me for the start of this 10 week series and tonight we'll consider the "enemies of becoming play-full." Of particular concern is the demon "criticism" which Hamman calls "a corrupted form of playfulness" that "most often cultivates inferiority or shame." Does that ring true for you?

The fruit of this corrupted form of playfulness, he goes on to note, is not peace and justice, but frustration, fear, and inner fragmentation. What's more, corrupted playfulness can easily become part of such hurtful/harmful behaviors as addictions, eating disorders and interpersonal violence. (p. 22)

While we were away in NYC, we took in Martin Scorsese's brilliant movie, "Hugo." Not only is this a long, loving look at the beauty of the cinema, it is also a meditation on how cultivating our imagination can be a sacred act. And the restrained use of 3D made the magic of the movies come alive in delightful ways. Sitting in a darkened theatre with 300 other people was communion for me for we all willingly gave up control for a time in order to be transported beyond ourselves. We tenderly opened our senses to mystery, we let ourselves be teased and tantalized by technology and we hoped that the story teller might touch us at a deep level so that upon leaving we might be a little kinder as the result.

Being rested - and playfull with my dear family - has nourished me so that I can return to ministry refreshed. As M. Craig Barnes has written:

My job is not to create a community of Gnostics who have turned their spiritual backs on the concerns of the material world. To the contrary, my calling is to help them find the spirituality of the material. Even the fig leaves belong to God. I cannot help them see that without first enjoying the very real, material things they spend their lives fretting over. The reason I enjoy the ordinary and invite others to enjoy it is that it contains portals which invite us to experience the holiness (of life) that lies just beneath all creation. (p. 31)

And I can do this best when I am well rested. So, as one wise old monk once told me, "If you fall asleep while at prayer... maybe your prayers are being answered and what you really needed was a nap!" May God's peace grow...

Man does this make my heart sing...

2012-01-29T19:20:00.000-05:00

We just got back in from four days away with the kids - it was JUST what the doctor ordered for me - a time to rest (lots) and walk (even more) as well as soak up the beauty of my NYC family. We feasted and went to cafes, saw "Hugo" and took in some funky jazz, too. And then, just to make my heart sing, this note from a colleague who worshipped with us this morning (in my absence) was in my email-box. Blessing abound...

... so I came to your church this morning!

Eva greeted me and I learned you were in Brooklyn. I was disappointed not to see and hear you lead worship. But then it was such a great lay-led worship service with such spirit and enthusiasm, that I did not miss you because I caught your spirit and leadership! The four workshops--music, mosaic-making, meditation, and movement were inspired and we shared when we came back together. I loved the singing circle after the passing of the peace. And the invitation to sing hymns I did not know was warm and welcoming. Thanks for a great service.

Many of your parishioners came up to me during fellowship to greet me, not knowing who I was. It was fun to be incognito, but then I was found out.
What a warm and welcoming congregation, and connectional. I'll be back when you are there. Hope you had a great get-away with family.

Blessings,
Natalie

Like I said, this makes my heart SING: can't wait to share it with my church!

Heading out for a time away...

2012-01-25T23:38:00.000-05:00

I had hoped for a little break after Christmas, but you can't always get what you want, yes? So now, a month later, we are outta here for four days with the kids. It is unlikely that I will be blogging during this time ~ too much fun walking around the city and playing ~ but I will be back with you soon.

We've got a jazz gig set for the first Thursday in February at Patricks Pub in Pittsfield (show starts at 6:30 pm) as well as our Fat Tuesday Jazz and Blues Party benefit for the Christian Center on Tuesday, February 21st @ 7 pm. And then... LENT starts.

So the time is NOW to get a break... see you on the flip side. Here's one of my all time favorite tunes by the incomparable Herbie Mann...

A blues and jazz party...

2012-01-24T23:16:00.000-05:00

So we practiced a few tunes for our Fat Tuesday Blues and Jazz Party gig on Tuesday, February 21st - the day before Lent begins. More and more local bands of all varieties - alternative, Appalachian folk as well as rock and soul and jazz - are eager to be a part of the fun. It is likely we're going to have 30 musicians on stage!

Now two things strike me about this:

+ First, joy is infectious: people want to be a part of a good thing. Our Thanksgiving Eve gig was not only a ton o fun, but great music and financially successful for those needing emergency fuel assistance this winter.

+ Second, doing blues and jazz creates an opportunity for ALL types of tunes to be a part of the mix. I was fooling around with both "Jesus Just Left Chicago" a la ZZ Top as well as the country classic, "Satan's Jeweled Crown." Man, they all fit - and given some of the cats we have playing with us.... I can't wait to experience what they come up with.

It made me think of what Eugene Peterson wrote about Psalm 126:

And now, GOD, do it again ~
bring rains to our drought-stricken lives
So those who planted their crops in despair
will shout hurrahs at the harvest,
So those who went off with heavy hearts
will come home laughing, with armloads of blessings.

It is clear that in Psalm 126 that the one who wrote it and those who sang it were no strangers to the dark side of things. They carried the painful memory of exile in their bones and the scars of oppression on their backs. They knew the deserts of the heart and the nights of weeping. They knew what it meant to sow in tears.

But one of the interesting and remarkable things that Christians learn is that laughter does not exclude weeping. Christian joy is not an escape from sorrow. Pain and hardship still come, but they are unable to drive out the happiness of the redeemed.

A common but futile strategy for achieving joy is trying to eliminate things that hurt: get rid of pain by numbing the never ends, get rid of insecurity by eliminating risks, get rid of disappointments by depersonalizing your relationships. And then try to lighten the boredom of such a life by buying joy in the form of vacations and entertainment.

Well, it not only doesn't work, it also makes us angry, empty and addicted to distractions - or worse. As we talked about at last night's "play-fullness" study group, our journey through life is NOT about getting rid of pain, but embracing it in such a way as we are open to what it might teach us about compassion and trust and integrity. Each person who gathered last night wants to become more play-full. That is, open to the fullness of God's love in the midst of their real lives: ups and downs, fear and hope, wounds and and healings.

Tonight we played funny blues - a psychedelic Delta thing with 13 bars - alongside Etta James' classic, "At Last" at the same time one of our guy's brother is facing serious cancer treatment and one of our singer's momma was in surgery at age 85. We laughed and wept and sang and entered into a space of compassion that was palpable. And needs to be shared as part of the healing of the world. We are young and old, male and female, pro and amateur, classically trained and jivers and everything in-between. Join us, if you can, for our BLUES AND JAZZ PARTY ON FAT TUESDAY.

Funny how slowing down... helps!

2012-01-23T22:45:00.004-05:00

Today felt... sane. Whole. Alive. To be sure there were a number of hassles, but because I am working tenderly at really making my schedule SLOW, even the interruptions were part of the blessings. What's more, tonight our first adult study/conversation brought out a sweet collection of people eager to become more play-full in pursuit of God's peace and justice. We are reading Jaco Hamman's very insightful - and challenging - new book: A Play-Full Life: Slowing Down and Making Peace.

Writer Christian McEwen put it like this in her new book, World Enough and Time:

We live in a culture that is obsessed with speed, a culture wracked by strange illnesses and persistent low-level fatigue. “How are you?” one friend asks another, and the answer is the same, across almost all categories of age and race and class and gender: “I’m just so busy,” people tell each other, half-proud, half overwhelmed. “Really, I’m crazy-busy. How are you?” The Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, spoke of this as “the frenzy of the activist that neutralizes his/her work for peace,” or the rush and pressure of modern life that has become… perhaps the most common form of innate violence.”

Last night, after all the angst of a month of losing control of my calendar - and fretting about our annual meeting - Dianne said, "You look ten years younger man... and you are finally back after being very distant for the past month." I felt that, too and give thanks to God that I am in a more grounded place.

After a LONG sleep...

2012-01-23T10:12:00.001-05:00

(NOTE: This post grows out of my gratitude to Peter for his love, phone conversation and gentle correction. You are rockin' my man. Dianne, too, for your patience and gentle presence.)

I have been blessed: by those in my family who continue to love and help me, by the churches I have served over the past 30 years, by the musicians I have shared songs with over the last 45 years and by the friends and colleagues who have come into my life to bring wisdom, balance and hope.

I have been blessed, too, by the wounds and sorrows that have become part of my days: they have stretched my capacity for faith, deepened my commitment to compassion and grace and helped me own the gift of mostly keeping my mouth shut in times of most conflict - especially with loved ones. To be sure, there are times to speak up - and dance and play and mourn, too - but more often than not, the most loving and healing thing I have learned is to shut up and listen. And when I listen to the wisdom of my heart as it relates to my ministry in this church a few things are clear (and this after a wonderfully long sleep last night!)

+ "Little by little" - my mantra for my staff - has led us into some huge changes that seemed impossible when this ministry began. There is more faith than fear today, there is more grace than judgment, too. There is LOTS more music of every variety - from classical German hymns to Oscar Peterson jazz and U2 and Lucinda Williams - created by the whole congregation, too.

I have come to trust St. Paul's wisdom that "now we see as through a glass darkly." We can't know the totality of God's plan - today we only see a bit of the light - so as we move forward the only constant is that more change and light come into focus. More darkness, too. So one thing I have learned here is to move as gently and humbly as possible because not only is it likely that I only get a small part of what is taking place, but also that I need others to help me continue towards the light. "Little by little" - or inch by inch as Arlo sings - or peu un peu a les Quebecois!

+ There is a hunger for questioning that is alive and well here, too. A recent survey of young evangelical folk indicated that more and more 20 somethings are leaving their churches because there isn't room to ask questions. And they have a ton of questions about sexuality, justice, economics, God and how to make living with integrity in these mean-spirited times.

Two years ago, we had a banner on our building: Questions Welcome Here. But those with the most questions didn't believe us. They thought we were full of shit just like most other churches that want their dollars but not their questioning hearts. We still have a lot of work to do when it comes to showing the wider community that it really is true that "whoever you are - and where ever you are - on life's journey, you are welcome here." But... we're closer than before.

+ There is a willingness to become ever more open: we became an Open and Affirming congregation this fall. We have opened our Sanctuary doors to the community for prayer and respite every day between 11:30 am and 1 pm. We don't lock as many internal doors - literally and figuratively - as before. And we are eager to make flesh our call to be a people of radical and extravagant hospitality.

And there is a sense that we can risk failing in all of this, too. In a conversation about money and budgets yesterday, one person spoke out of fear: spending down our endowment seems terrifying - and perhaps it is. But two others - newer people to the community - said: Our ministry is not what is in the bank. Our ministry is here - within and among God's people - so open your heart to what is already here. And share it... because as a person new to the gathering what is taking place is beautiful.

Another said, "If we lose our endowment, let's be clear: we will not lose our ministry. Or God's loving presence in our lives." And still another said, "And if we do close shop, could that ALSO be of the Lord? Maybe, in the future, we will be called to be Christ's church in a new way..."

I truly am blessed to be a part of this journey towards God's amazing openness...

Thoughts after a short nap...

2012-01-22T16:51:00.002-05:00

We held our annual church meeting today ~ it was good and honest and full ~ the best any group of real people might expect. It was affirming and humbling, it was challenging and cautious; and it was a great time to gather with the congregation and talk about our goals for the next year. I was both touched by the deep affection we share for one another and how carefully people speak about their differences. Believe me, I've been in meetings (elsewhere) where people say stupid and even cruel things during church meetings.

During worship I led a discussion into the theology of our mission statement: we have been called to GATHER ~ WORSHIP ~ REFLECT ~ DO JUSTICE ~ AND SHARE COMPASSION. We are a community ~ not spiritual tourists who show up when we want something ~ we are pilgrims called to learn about and love the Lord together. During the annual meeting, however, my comments became practical and strategic. We have four goals in 2012:

+ to strengthen and deepen worship

+ to find better ways of caring for the wounded and lonely in our community

+ to become allies with others in exploring the "slow living" movements that offer an alternative to our broken politics

+ to learn how to move through our days as joy-filled evangelists who are comfortable about inviting others to share in our emerging community of faith

Now each of these goals needs time, energy and enthusiasm to ripen. What's more, these goals need to be seen as one of the ways we give shape and form to our mission in the real world. Our words must become flesh, yes?

Serendipitously, while digging through a pile of "to be read" books, I recently recovered Charles Lemert's, Why Niebuhr Matters. It is a brilliant summary of this great teacher's insights. And because Niebuhr has been one of my favorite American theologians, I found his careful analysis about love and justice in community and individuals as helpful and sobering as ever. "Love, as such, does not lead to justice. We cannot live together without a justice that includes all with whom we might join to form a communal society based on fairness that requires sacrifice... Collective action towards justice is not a native-born gift. (In fact,)Human nautre desires neither community nor justice. And when we arrive collectively at any degree of justice, we arrive exhausted by the journey and bruised by the conflict." (p.98)

Three inter-related thoughts from Niebuhr come to mind as I relect on this meeting after a short afternoon nap.

+ First, because liberal congreations do not want to acknowledge the clash between love and justice, more teaching and preaching on this theme is in order. Liberals like to believe that we can work our way through any and all problems. But Niebuhr is clear that this is naive hubris that can become dangerous. As he wrote in the Serenity Prayer, sometimes there are things that cannot be changed. That is why we must always ask God for the "grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, the courage to change the things which should be changed and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other."

Liberals are always aching for the happy ending - and sometimes it simply cannot take place - that is one truth of the Cross. Our work together is hard - sacrificial - and I suspect that I need to help our leadership team explore this truth more profoundly. I am not saying, of course, that our challenges cannot be changed; just that a little bit of Niebuhrian realism is always a good thing. Perhaps we will read Lembert's book as the new year unfolds.

+ Second, although the work of translating the love we know in our individual hearts into an authentic community of compassion and justice is hard, it is always built on a TON of joy. Krister Stendhal once wrote, "Joy is closer to God than seriousness. Why? Because when I am serious I tend to be self-centered, but when I am joyful I tend to forget myself." Thus, Niebuhr speaks of human history as ironic. Not tragic, but ironic.

Human history is the irony that we know things we cannot do; we do things we are unwilling to think... so life is not tragedy but irony, which can be shocking even when it makes us laugh with a weirdly human sort of joy. (p. 211) Finances cause some of us to lose all perspective and make decisions based on fear. I heard some of that today as we discussed spending down the endowment. There were even a few who confused part of the endowment with our ministry saying, "Well, when that money is gone we will have to close shop."

No, no, no... our ministry - our calling - is not the endowment. Our community of faith is not what is in the bank. The money can help, but we have been called to be more than a savings account - and while we may look differently if the money is depleted - that is ok, too. Because joy is God's antidote to fear and self-centered seriousness, we must be certain to feed our hearts as this year unfolds.

+ And third, we need to be careful to work on all of this with humility and a sense of humor. We are going to get at LEAST as much wrong as we'll get right. I know I will. Like Niebuhr used to teach: the human condition is always about knowing more than we can accomplish. "Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.”

What's more, as Paul taught in Romans 7, even when we can see the good we should do, we can't always pull it off.

I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.
I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

So after we spoke about our fears - and our hopes - our growth and our challenges - after we gave thanks to God for the very faithful leadership of our ministries: we affirmed an ambitious but honest budget and committed ourselves to living into these four goals. (We also noted that there is still close to 3/4 of a million dollars in other church acounts... so we approved getting a new copy machine, too because ours is over 10 years old!)

I closed the meeting with the words of St. Paul who said challenges and fear can make us weaker - or can create more room in our hearts and minds for the grace of the Lord to grow - so the time has come to decide: We can boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,and hope does not disappoint us, because hope is God’s love being poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

And then I took a short nap!

Today I...

2012-01-21T17:14:00.002-05:00

Today...

... I did not want to get out of bed ~ especially given the cold and snow.

... I heard of a treasured one's divorce ~ and wept complicated tears.

... I visited with next week's worship leader ~ and finalized details for a new "community" celebration that will happen while I am away.

... I finished my worship notes for tomorrow's Annual Meeting ~ and wrote letters to a few colleagues in my region about three key challenges facing our local churches.

... I shoveled a little snow, ate an avocado sandwich on rye bread, drank a pot of tea and went shopping for supper ~ even though I would have preferred a nap.

... I cleaned our kitchen (well, almost) ~ and drove Dianne to work.

... I practiced my bass lines for tomorrow's worship songs ~ and then read these words from the wisdom of Eugene Peterson:

God gets down on his knees among us; gets on our level and shares himself with us. He does not reside afar off and send diplomatic messages, he kneels among us. That posture is characteristic of God. The discovery and realization of this is what defines what we know of God as GOOD news ~ God shares himself generously and graciously.

For when the time was right, Jesus set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave and became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. (Philippians 2: 7-8)

The way I see it, practicing the awareness of God's grace in my ordinary life is mostly about showing up, yes? So now that today is coming to a close, I want to give thanks for it all.

(I used to listen to this album OVER and OVER back in the day ~ and today is STILL sounds damn fine!)

Pacing the cage...

2012-01-20T11:44:00.001-05:00

Old Jean Calvin was a wise old soul - an anxious old soul, too (and that causes us tons of problems today, but he had plenty to worry about) - but a truly wise old soul. One of his insights is that when we come to truly know ourselves, we also come to know the Lord. (Or at least as much of the Lord as we can know at this moment in time.) And the inverse is equally true: when we come to know God we also come to know something of ourselves.

Now most of the time I know enough about myself to "let go and let God." My inclination is to try and fix things - but most of the time I have come to know that I have neither enough wisdom, power or time to fix things - so after a period of anxiety (it varies) I am able to revert to the default mode of the Serenity Prayer.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

As Niebuhr has written elsewhere, human beings are simultaneously blessed and cursed with the capacity for introspection: it gives us just enough insight to believe that we are smarter than we really are - and that is a recipe for trouble. So, mostly I have embraced this truth as part of the human condition and know that I have to regularly repent by returning to God's wisdom that knows the difference between what I can fix and what is beyond me. In knowing myself, I come to know something of God.

What often triggers a delay in my repentance, however, is when I become overly busy with institutional tasks (not enough time for rest and reflection) or when church finances go south (and I feel judged.) Both cloud my vision and drag me down for a time - both make me resentful and exhausted - and I should know this by now: after all, I've been doing it for over 30 years. But, it would seem that I am a very slow learner... I like when M. Craig Barnes writes:

"When a church board becomes anxious about the budget that's in the red, the pastor cannot react anxiously by taking on the role of a fund-raiser who fixes the problem. What is called for are the strange poetic statements to the congregation that it needs to give its money not because the church has needs, but because we need to be givers. "Fool, this night thy should shall be required of thee; then whose shall those things be which you have provided?" (Luke 12:20 KJV in The Pastor as Minor Poet, p. 24)

Both he and Eugene Peterson help me get out of my cranky/tired rut by reminding me that MY calling is NOT to fix things. In fact, Peterson makes a huge distinction between the historic job of the pastor and running a church: one is about the cure of the soul and the other is about administration. And while I have come to discover that there is a ministry of hospitality in good administration, "reducing pastoral work to institutional duties" robs this work of joy, integrity and depth. It takes time - and quiet reflection - to be about the cure of a soul. It takes love and prayer and patience, too.

And because most of our churches are filled with problems, sometimes it is easier to get into the mode of a fixer: "It is satisfying to help make the rough places smooth."

The difficulty is that problems arrive in such a constant flow that problem solving becomes full-time work. And if the pastor is useful and does it well, we will miss how the pastoral vocation of soul cure is subverted. Gabriel Marcel wrote that life is not so much a problem to be solved as a mystery to be explored. That is certainly the biblical stance: life is not something we manage to hammer together and keep in repair by our wits; it is an unfathomable gift. We are immersed in mysteries: incredible love, confounding evil, the creation, the cross, grace, God.

Peterson concludes - and this is very helpful for me - that the secularized mind is terrorized by mysteries. "Thus it makes lists, labels people, assigns roles and solves problems. But a solved life is a reduced life."

(For these tightly buttoned-up people never take great faith risks or make convincing love talk. They deny and ignore the mysteries and diminish human existence to what can be managed, controlled and fixed... Pastors cast in the role of spiritual technologists are hard put to keep that role from absorbing everything else, since there are so many things that need to be and can, in fact, be fixed... If pastors become accomplices in treating every child as a problem to be figured out, every spouse as a problem to be dealt with, every clash of wills in choir or committee as a problem to be adjudicated, we abdicate our most important work, which is directing worship in the traffic, discovering the presence of the cross in the paradoxes and chaos between Sundays, calling attention to the "splendor in the ordinary" and, most of all, teaching a life of prayer to our friends and companions in the pilgrimage. (Contemplative Pastor, pp. 64-65)

I have been a little run down - stressed and cranky - and I know why: our annual meeting is coming up this Sunday. And while most of my leadership team is very supportive, I have still been treating some of our realities as problems to be solved and managed. I have not been in repentance/trust mode. I have not been paying attention to what God is telling me through me. But thank heaven for the Sabbath (today for me) and the chance to be still and know, yes?

My triggers about tasks and finances are not the center of the universe, neither are my worries about the specifics of ministry the totality of God's grace. They are invitations to change directions and rest in God's presence. Barnes retells a story from the life of Barbara Brown Taylor who discovered that she had been weeping on a regular basis. She writes:

I realized (in my tears) how little interest I had in defending Christian beliefs. The part of the Christian story that had drawn me into the Church were not the believing parts but the beholding parts. Behold I bring you good news of a great joy... Behold, the Lamb of God... Behold, I stand at the door and knock... Whether the narratives starred hayseed shepherds confronted by hosts of glittering angels or desert pilgrims watching something like a dove descend upon a man in a river as a voice from heaven called him, "Beloved," Christian faith seemed to depend on beholding things that were clearly beyond belief.

And so it is time to be still (some more) today and tomorrow and behold and know, too - not fix problems. For as m chosen text for preaching on Sunday says: What doth the Lord requre of thee but to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with thy God?

2012-01-19T21:32:00.000-05:00

FAT TUESDAY BLUES AND JAZZ PARTY

Tuesday, February 21st ~ 7 to 9 PM

FIRST CHURCH ON PARK SQUARE

27 East Street, Pittsfield, MA 01201

A benefit for the Christian Center's Hunger Ministry in the Berkshires

This gig is going to be GREAT: a follow-up to our Thanksgiving Eve show - it will feature local artists in a blues/jazz groove. And we'll pool our talent and love to help the oldest emergency aid ministry in the Berkshires ~ the Christian Center ~ as they keep feeding the most hungry among us. Watch for more details!

Higher ground...

2012-01-18T20:48:00.000-05:00

How can one person be so blessed? To be sure, I am almost running on empty these days, but some wonderful things are happening in my life.First, after our annual meeting at church, we're heading down to NYC to see daughter #1 and her husband for a LONG weekend. I didn't get much of a break after Christmas so this is pure R and R (rock and roll!) There will be a time for MOMA and some jazz, lots of time for the wonderful company of my sweet family and a chance to chill without any responsibilities for four days! One of my most favorite things in the whole world is to wander about a city without any plan or agenda... and see where the Spirit leads.

Second, because we had such a gas doing Thanksgiving Eve, many of the musicians who played that benefit are going to do a "Fat Tuesday Goes Blues and Jazz" party at church on Tuesday, February 21st. I just sent out the invitation last night to some folk and already they are confirming. This, too, will be a benefit - for the local emergency food center - but it will also be a whole lotta soul food for those who gather. I can't wait to bring this cast of artists back together again as they create a little taste of heaven. (More on this in the next few days...)

And third, a small group of us from the Berkshires are going down to Nashville at the end of February for a "Jazz Liturgy" workshop. My music director is one of the key presenter and we not only want to support him, but want to learn and reflect on how to take this music deeper in our context. Check it out @ http://www.scarrittbennett.org/programs/jazz.aspx

Tomorrow I will post about our up-coming annual meeting and my message for the congregation: I will try to articulate what I sense our mission statement is calling us into for 2012 in light of God's love. In reality this, too, is a blessing - as well as a challenge - and I am getting excited about celebrating what has been happening within and among us as a faith community. Just today, at our midday Eucharist, we gathered and prayed and shared before feasting on the goodness of the Lord in communion. We shed tears about some hard times and offered to give them over to God, too. It was a microcosm of what is taking place throughout the whole congregation.

I read these words earlier today: One of the reasons that people need pastors is precisely because God is always present, but not always apparent...The parish minister's soul becomes a crucible in which sacred visions are ground together with the common and at times profane experiences of human life. Out of this sacred mix, pastors find their deep poetry, not only for the pulpit, but for making eternal sense out of the ordinary routines of the congregation. (The Pastor As Minor Poet, M. Craig Barnes.)

One of the things that I am going to have to pay attention to this year is pacing ~ finding and embracing a better balance between the public and private realms of my life ~ so that I don't get worn out. I can already feel it happening around the edges ~ especially after Turkey and then Christmas ~ that's why I'm getting out of town next week after our meeting. Practicing self-care is a constant challenge for me. And now that so much is happening, it is going to take more practice and discipline than ever before.

In writing this I feel like Siddhartha in Hesse's retelling of the Buddha's tale: time and again he finds himself standing in front of the same river ~ at exactly same spot on the river bank ~ watching the water move past him. And every time he realizes he is back at the river, he simultaneously realizes how much he has changed and how much he has stayed the same. For most of my life I have often tried too hard ~ crammed too much into too little time ~ flirted with and given into the addiction of workaholism. And, while I am healthier and more balanced at 60 than I was at 25... it seems that once again I am back at the same river and the same spot.

The poet, William Stafford, speaks to this in a poem called simply, "Poetry."

Its door opens near. It's a shrine
by the road, it's a flower in the parking lot
of the Pentagon, it says, "Look around,
listen. Feel the air." It interrupts
international telephone lines with a tune.
When traffic lines jame, it gets out
and dances on the bridge. If great people
get distracted by fame they forget
this essential kind of breathing
and they die inside their gold shell...

There are so many blessings in my life ~ and that means there is also a whole new way of learning to slow down, too ~ and they often seem to be wrapped in each others arms like lovers. Christian McEwen writes in World Enough and Time, it is essential to recall that "every piece of music is made up of sound and pause, sound and pause, which is to say that it also includes silence. The trumpeter Miles Davis was praised for creating good music because he opened up the space between the notes and stepped inside."

And that seems to be enough for this day, yes?

A spirituality of radical hospitality in song...

2012-01-17T21:02:00.000-05:00

This Sunday is our church annual meeting: tomorrow and Thursday I will craft my Sunday message re: mission and challenge (I had to be away from my usual prayer and study routine to be with a dear friend today.) So tonight at band practice we worked on a tune by Mary Chapin-Carpenter that is one of the defining songs of my ministry: Jubilee.

+ It speaks of radical hospitality and grace...

+ It honors the broken places in all of us in light of God's deeper love...

+ And it is simultaneously joyful and achingly sad...

We worked on it to reflect OUR experiences at this moment ~ and our happy/sad voices ~ and wounded/joy-filled realities. After a tough and demanding day, I feel blessed and embraced by the love of God.

I sang this song at my mother's funeral ~ she was a complicated woman ~ and I give thanks to God that her suffering is now long past and healed. This is one of those "secular" songs that speaks volumes to me about God's still speaking voice.

As MLK and OWS embrace...

2012-01-16T12:57:00.002-05:00

As a part of my honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. today, I have been thinking a great deal about the connection between MLK and OWS ~ and Psalm 85 keeps coming back to my mind. (This clip is LONG ~ over 20 minutes ~ but gives honor to Dr. King in just the right way.)

One translation puts it like this:
Love and Truth meet in the street,
Right Living and Whole Living embrace and kiss!
Truth sprouts green from the ground,
Right Living pours down from the skies!
Oh yes! God gives Goodness and Beauty;
our land responds with Bounty and Blessing.
Right Living strides out before him,
and clears a path for his passage.

Another gives us:
Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven.
Yea, the LORD shall give that which is good; and our land shall yield her increase.
Righteousness shall go before him; and shall set us in the way of his steps.

For the past 20 years I have been exploring and praying over the heart of this Psalm: it tells us that in God's time there will come a reunion that erases our false distinctions about the sacred and the secular. The essence of the holy will be inter-woven throughout the fabric of our humanity. It will be a time when hesed ~ deep compassion ~ is integrated with 'emeth ~ the very words we use to honor God ~ so that our words become living flesh in acts of radical solidarity and caring. Further, tsedeq ~ healing and right relations among people ~ will be joyfully intimate with shalom ~ peace ~ as they embrace and share a lover's kiss with all creation.

Now, given my passion for midrash, that sounds a lot what is taking place right now as MLK embraces OWS (or vice versa): there is justice and compassion, peace and faith and truth swirling about in a creative,playful, deep and potentially healing way, yes? Last night, for example, Bill Moyer's new show devoted the full hour to the consequences of our current debacle born of greed ~ and concluded with some reactions from a OWS participants. Next week, the heart of his broadcast (in most locales 6 pm on Sundays) will be guided by OWS folk. For more information check it out @ http://billmoyers.com/)

Bill Moyers Journal: Bryan Stevenson and Michelle Alexander from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.For the first time in over 30 years, Americans are talking about greed and class and justice in new and healing ways. So I see something of MLK being embraced by OWS in a way that makes God's heart dance.

Thank God for poets who take God's word seriously enough to be playful...

2012-01-15T15:14:00.001-05:00

I give thanks to the Lord this day for poets who take God's word seriously enough to be playful: there are artists and musicians, dancers and painters, sculptors, photographers and word smiths who ALL know how to help us go below the surface into the realm of soul work. As M. Craig Barnes puts it: "they have been blessed with a vision that allows them to explore and express the truth behind the reality. Poets see the despair and heartaches as well as the beauty and miracle that lie just beneath the thin veneer of the ordinary ~ and they describe this in ways that recognized not only in the mind, but more profoundly in the soul."

One of the poets who accomplishes such work every week in my Music Director, Carlton Maaia II: he knows how to make the piano and organ sing, he helps those of us bred in white New England sound soulful and he empowers the cautious among us to be bold in making joy filled music. He is brilliant, humble and a ton of fun ~ and I rejoice that he has cast his lot with us as we rebuild this community of faith.

Another is my jazz mentor, Andy Kelly, who is the personification of hope: he is a killer musician and a gentle warrior for peace who knows how to welcome and include everyone in the beauty of making music. My band mates at church ~ Between the Banks ~ (Dianne, Brian, Eva, Sue, Jon and David) are another group of poets who bring light into the darkness. And ALL of them were active in worship today giving birth to something I have prayed about for almost five years: the blending of our traditional choir with the rock and jazz band! It happened this morning ~ the integration of styles, theologies, ages and sounds into one chorus of hope and praise ~ that brought blessing upon blessing and gave shape and form to a vision of what it means to be God's people.

I know that there are those who speak of growing the church by appealing to musical genres and other forms of segregation. In fact, I've been there and done that ~ and it works (to a degree.) It IS easier appealing to the lowest common denominator. But at this stage in my life I want something that feels closer to a community where MANY people gather together ~ old and young, rich and poor, male and female, gay and straight, classical musicians alongside jazz and rock hipsters ~ and all the rest. Because, as that old rascal, Clarence Jordan, used to tell the segregationist of his generation: "You know, you better get used to singing next to different kind of people now.. because as it says in the Bible, when you get to heaven ~ and I'm talking about eternity ~ there will be "a great multitude that no one can count from every nation and all the tribes and peoples and languages will be standing before the throne of the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches... all singing together: Salvation belongs to our God!" So why not integrate now?!" (Revelation 7: 9-10)

It is good and right that it happened on a day when we honored Dr. King. He was the poet par excellence of my generation. Barnes offers these words that I think are spot on:

The civil rights legislation of the 1960s was largely led by President Lyndon Johnson, who often battled a hesitant Congress to secure the passage of more just laws. He was a political realist and he did what it took to get the votes he needed. Whatever one may think of President Johnson or the other policies of his administration, clearly history has already awarded him the tribute of being a leader through this significant time.

But it fell to someone else, a poet, to inspire the nation to accept the dream of a color-blind society. Without the dream, the legislation would never have passed. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led the country into that dream only by taking us into a painful discovery of the injustice that lurked in the corners of our hearts. That was the truth behind the reality. But the white majority culture didn't accept this dream easily. The African-American community, whom Dr. King had empowered with one biblical image of freedom after another, led the rest of of to it. They began by marching in the streets, and after the nation watched them mercilessly attacked by police dogs, fire hoses and angry mobs, they marched into our hearts. But it took a realist and a truth-teller ~ a politician and a poet ~ to make it real.

Barnes concludes his introduction with words that I take to heart ~ and will drive home to my congregation next Sunday: "Pastors are not the only ones working on the Kingdom of God. But they don't help by abandoning their specific call to be poets and taking on the work of the realists and the engineers. Someone, you see, has to teach the people how to dream."

So thanks be to God for the poets among us: may they teach us how to dream!

In the name of love...

2012-01-14T15:21:00.000-05:00

This weekend is, of course, the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday in the USA. He would have been 84. We will mark this gift to the world tomorrow in worship @ 10:30 am starting off with a version of Oscar Peterson's moving "Hymn to Freedom" as well as our take on U2's "Pride in the Name of Love" and "Emancipation Blues" by Oliver Nelson.

One of the things I have cherished in the OWS movement is their counter-intuitive way of organizing and challenging the status quo. They believe ~ and they practice ~ a way of learning, teaching and building community that refuses to treat people or things as a means to an end. In a word, they turn traditional politics upside down. These words from Eugene Peterson speak to just that foolish and beautiful way of being that we so deeply ache for in our hearts.

Shalom ~ peace ~ is one of the richest words in the Bible. You can no more define it by looking up its meaning in the dictionary than you can define a person by looking up her social security number. It gathers all aspects of wholeness that result from God's will being completed in us. It is the work of God that, when complete, releases streams of living water in us and pulsates with eternal life. Every time Jesus healed, forgave or called someone (into action), we have a demonstration of shalom.

And shalvah ~ security ~ has nothing to do with insurance policies or large bank accounts or stockpiles of weapons. The root meaning is leisure ~ the relaxed stance of one who know that everything is all right because God is over us and for us ~ in Jesus Christ. It is the security of being at home in a history that has a cross at its center. It is the leisure of the person who knows that every moment... is lived under the mercy of God.

Dr. King taught us something about living into the counter-cultural shalom and shalvah of God's grace. May I embrace it and make it flesh in whatever days I have left...

The sacred silence....

2012-01-13T12:48:00.002-05:00

Looks like we'll get a chance to break out the cross country skies today cuz man, the snow is pouring out of the sky. As I've noted before, a quiet descends upon the region in a storm like this: not only are there fewer people out on the roads, but sounds are muffled and muted. A gentleness fills the air in a unique way so that for a few hours it is almost silent. Inhabited and still alive, mind you ~ not isolated or deserted ~ but more like sitting together with others for Taize or Centering Prayer. There is life pulsating in the silence, but it is experience rather than stated out loud.

This sacred silence is sometimes like worship. Eugene Peterson has noted that "worship does not satisfy our hunger for God ~ it whets our appetite. Our need for God is not taken care of by engaging in worship ~ it deepens. It overflows the hour and permeates the week. The need is expressed in a desire for peace and security. Our everyday needs are changed by the act of worship.

We are no longer living from hand to mouth, greedily scrambling through the human rat race to make the best we can out of a mean existence. Our basic needs suddenly become worthy of the dignity of creatures made in the image of God: peace and security. The words shalom and shalvah play on the sounds in Jerusalem ~ jerushalom ~ the place of worship."

Without a time in silence ~ without the embrace of the wild ~ without a walk in the woods I feel agitated and confined by worship. So, it is off to the wetlands to feel the wind and the wet, to fall on my ass repeatedly (I am not a good cross country skier) and to soak up the silence. And having been so fed, I will then be hungry for God in worship, too.

Later that same day...

Well, we got out into the sweet and sacred silence, but without the skiis as there was just too much snow. Looks like about a foot has fallen since this morning, but it is magical. Even our old dog, Casie, seemed to relish the trek. I give thanks this Sabbath for the silence and beauty, the sacred love of the Lord and a life that gives me the chance to be embraced by it all.

Now maybe a little red wine before I cook up some rainbow trout and wild rice.

Save the Nuba...

2012-01-12T18:00:00.001-05:00

NOTE: I have been asked ~ and have prayerfully chosen ~ to periodically share posts with you on my blog about special projects as part of MEDIA CHANGE BLOGGERS. (check it out @ http://bloggers.mediachange.org/) Here is the first of a series written by Jessica that invites your participation. Thank you in advance for reading and opening your heart.

Have you ever wondered what you would have done had you been alive in 1940 and was one of those who knew about the Holocaust?

Would you have been a person of action or a person of silence?

It is perhaps one of the most important issues to wrestle with. More than once in our lifetime we will find ourselves at a crossroad, one where the decision we make will reveal as much about our character as our convictions.

There is a genocide happening right now in Northern Sudan. The government is eradicating their own people. If we don’t speak up and help, no one else will. Each time North Sudan launches an attack to kill their own people, and we in the Western world remain silent, we give our permission to continue.

It is easier to overlook what is happening to our brothers and sisters in Sudan because the task feels overwhelming and thinking about it can make us feel helpless.The truth of the matter is that one person alone cannot save the Nuba People. But a community of people acting in unison can.

One of the most extraordinary acts found in humankind is when a member of the human race deliberately goes out of his/her way to help another. It is love in action. It is loving your neighbor. It is doing unto others, as you would have them do unto you.

This month, The Persecution Project Foundation has launched a campaign called Save the Nuba. In order to prevent another genocide, they need the help that only a community can offer. For those who can afford it, the need for food and medicine is desperate.

For those who have little to give, they’re asking for petitions signed, for awareness to be spread through social media (Facebook, Twitter and blogs.)

For those who are passionate about this cause, they need your help raising awareness.Will you join us in speaking up for those who cannot speak for themselves?

Please visit www.SavetheNuba.com to learn ways you can help.

Heading out this morning into the snow...

2012-01-12T10:52:00.001-05:00

Heading out this morning into the snow: pastoral visits and all the rest. It looks like there is about 3 inches so far ~ with freezing rain to follow ~ made me think of this tune we were working on at a party last week.

Hmmmm... snow is getting worse. I won't let it get me down ~ too pretty ~ but I might just revise my day, yes? To everything there is a season, yes? And this season we've missed a lot of the cold and snow, so maybe this is just a time to embrace it? Old Robert Frost, from just over the mountain, once wrote:

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

So, let's see what opening my heart wide to the first real storm of the winter might bring today? Psalm 46 says:

God is a safe place to hide, ready to help when we need him.
We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom,
courageous in seastorm and earthquake,
Before the rush and roar of oceans,
the tremors that shift mountains...
"Step out of the traffic! Take a long,
loving look at me, your High God,
above politics, above everything."

In Eugene Peterson reflection on Psalm 46 he writes:

The second command is, "be still and know that I am God. BE STILL. Quit rushing through the streets long enough to become aware that there is more to life than your little self-help enterprises. When we are noisy and when we are hurried, we are incapable of intimacy ~ deep, complex, personal relationship. If God is the living center of redemption, it is essential that we be in touch with and responsive to that personal will. If God has a will for the world and we want to be in on it, we must be still long enough to find out what it is (for we certainly are not going to learn it by watching the evening news.) Baron von Hugel, who had a wise word on most subjects, always held out that "nothing was ever accomplished in a stampede."

Already this day is becoming something of a sweet surprise... don't let it bring you down, indeed!

Ain't life grand...?

2012-01-11T16:41:00.000-05:00

This morning I literally woke up laughing. I don't know what was so funny in my dreams, nor do I recall hearing the sound of my laughter when I woke up. All I know is that when I rolled over from a deep sleep, I felt my body laughing. Then, at midday Eucharist, the Psalm we randomly selected for lectio divina was Peterson's take on Psalm 85:

God, you smiled on your good earth!
You brought good times back to Jacob!
You lifted the cloud of guilt from your people,
you put their sins far out of sight.
You took back your sin-provoked threats
and cooled your hot, righteous anger...

And now love and truth meet in the street,
Right Living and Whole Living embrace and kiss!
Truth sprouts green from the ground
and Right Living pours down from the skies.
Your goodness and beauty, Lord, shine
and our land responds with bounty and blessing.

I've been walking around with these two experiences all day... made me think of the old joke about the Zen master walking up to the hot dog vendor on the street and saying: Make me one with... everything!

Go figure... but ain't life grand?

what MLK showed me about the Lord...

2012-01-10T15:47:00.002-05:00

NOTE: Here are my worship notes for Sunday, January 15, 2012 - honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Sunday.

Today we gather to listen for the sound of the Living God as articulated and embodied in the witness and words of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was one of our nation’s most cherished and creative wounded healers.To be sure, he was also reviled and betrayed – in his day as well as our own – but I submit to you that Dr. King did more to help Americans live into our highest calling as the beloved community than any other contemporary politician, pundit, preacher or saint – and we ignore his witness only in hubris or futility.

• “Nothing in the whole world,” he once wrote, “is more dangerous than sincere ignorance or conscientious stupidity.”

• Think about that in the light of all that has taken place in our land – and in our name throughout the world – in the aftermath of September 11th and you cannot help but sense that Martin would have helped some of us see more clearly and act more boldly on behalf of that beloved community. Amen?

What’s more, because he knew how to discern what the love and witness of the Lord Jesus Christ looked like in our generation, I must confess to you today that I still cannot study either the Bible or the newspaper without hearing something of the cadence of his challenge alive and well all these 44 years after his assassination.

• I watch the debates – and read about our politics – and hear Dr. King ask: How did it come to pass that our scientific power has outrun our moral power so that we have created guided missiles and misguided women and men?

• I read the scriptures for each week in preparation for worship – and then listen to how they are butchered and manipulated by those with a narrow and ugly partisan agenda – and hear Martin say: When did we in the church forget that hatred paralyzes life, but love releases it; hatred confuses life while love harmonizes it; hatred darkens life but love illuminates it?

I wrestle with the haunting fact that in the 21st century close to 50% of Americans now live at or near the poverty level and then hear him say: All people are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. So the ultimate measure of our soul is not where we stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where we stand in times of challenge and controversy.

I still lament Dr. King’s death. I have been shaped and formed as one of the drum majors for the Lord through his testimony. And I have learned a few things about the Lord my God by his life. I was called into ministry just a few short months after his assassination. I wrote my undergraduate thesis in political science on the methods and morality of his nonviolent movement for full civil rights. I studied at Union Theological Seminary in New York City with four of the heirs of Dr. King’s legacy – James Cone, Cornell West, James Forbes and the late James Washington.

In fact, Brother Forbes – late the Senior Minister of the great Riverside Church but then a professor of homiletics – once called me into his office to ask: “Lumsden, why are you trying to get yourself killed?” And when I professed ignorance he said: “Look, man, you can neither fix nor solve all of society’s problems. What’s more you are in seminary now – so make the most of it – study with all the depth you can. And remember even Dr. King and Gandhi took some time off for reflection – you should, too – and then afterwards you can get yourself killed, ok?”

In more ways that I even know, my ministry has been given shape and form by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. So, what I want to do this morning is share with you three insights about God I have learned from the master. Specifically, I want to call your attention to what Dr. King can teach us about:

• The importance of God’s words in scripture

• The way the Lord often uses broken and wounded servants to advance the beloved community

• And why some of us are called to become fools for Christ in a world addicted to respectability

Are you with me here – three broad ideas – about words, wounds and wonder? Let’s see what the Spirit has in mind… and we begin with what St. Paul shared with us about being disciples of Christ in I Corinthians 6. He wants us to know that flesh and blood as well as words and ideas and spiritual practices have consequences, ok?

Unjust people who don't care about God will not be joining in his kingdom. Those who use and abuse each other, use and abuse sex, use and abuse the earth and everything in it, don't qualify as citizens in God's kingdom. A number of you know from experience what I'm talking about, for not so long ago you were on that list. Since then, you've been cleaned up and given a fresh start by Jesus, our Master, our Messiah, and by our God present in us, the Spirit. Just because something is technically legal doesn't mean that it's spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I'd be a slave to my whims.

Here’s the context: Paul is speaking to a mostly Gentile congregation in the greatest port of the “Roman imperial culture in Greece. It contained temples to Aphrodite and Asclepius (the god of healing) as well as centers for athletic contests, theatre and culture.” (The Jewish Annotated New Testament, p. 287) It was a happening place where competing moral and social values regularly clashed as sailors and prostitutes, merchants and day laborers, rich and poor tried to live together into the blessings of Jesus.

Like all churches, sometimes they got it right – and this delighted St. Paul – but sometimes, like all churches, they got it wrong – really wrong – and Paul was eager to help his friends make some corrections. Specifically he wanted them to know that living according to God’s grace was not license for unethical living.

• Yes, you Gentile believers are no longer bound by the Hebrew covenant and its dietary restrictions in order to have intimacy with God, but that doesn’t mean you can do or say anything you want, yes?

• Taking one another to court with mean-spirited lawsuits doesn’t show the world the unity of the Body of Christ – nor does spending time with pagan temple prostitutes – or eating up all the Lord’s Supper and getting drunk on Eucharistic wine before your poorer sisters and brothers can even get to worship. None of that helps the cause of Christ so knock it off, ok?

Of course all things are legal – and God forgives all our sins – but don’t make a mockery of God’s grace because that both weakens our testimony in the world and brings down God’s judgment on your life. Your words – and your deeds – matter: so live like it!

And I have to tell you, Dr. King treated this teaching with utmost respect. He WORKED at being one of America’s finest orators who knew how to blend scripture and politics in a healing way. But it didn’t come naturally to him: did you know that?

When he finished his doctoral course work at Boston University in 1954 and settled into the pastoral ministry of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, the word on the street was that “Dr. King was a good but not great preacher.” So he worked on this. He knew that words mattered – especially in the Black Church – where the scholar, Richard Lischer, has noted:

Life and language are so mixed together that it is impossible to describe how one emerges from the other. It is enough to say that for the black preacher the word does not function as a theoretical base for action. Rather, the word is a kind of action that cannot legitimately be separated from the struggles, temptations, suffering, and hopes of the people who live by the word. The community is carried forward by this word… for it is the soul of the church's body.

James Cone has rightly observed: Only in the pulpit – and later in the pulpit of our nation’s capital – did Dr. King lay bare his deepest and most moving commitment to God’s beloved community by showing us all how important words can truly be. In 1963, before the Lincoln Monument, King preached a sermon we know as the “I Have a Dream” speech. He had been working on it on and off for almost a year – making necessary improvisations – as he went.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free.

One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on that promissory note…

Brilliant – authentic – moving and THAT was before the age of greed of the 1980s and 90s – or the current economic and moral debacle of this generation. King knew that words matter – especially the word of the Lord – so he worked hard at writing and speaking and interpreting those words within the context of our real lives.
That’s one thing I have learned about God from Dr. King: words matter – God’s words matter – and our actions have to be congruous with what we say about the Lord – lest we merely talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. First, words…

Second, wounds: one of the most powerful truths about God that I have learned from MLK is that time and again the Lord chooses broken, wounded and troubled individuals to advance the cause. That was certainly true in Martin’s life… But equally true for Moses or St. Paul – or Mary Magdalene – or Abraham, Isaac and Jacob the very patriarchs of our spiritual predecessors.

• Think about it: Moses was a murderer who fled his actions and wandered for 40 years of obscurity before God called on him to bring Israel into the land of milk and honey. What’s more, he was terrified of public speaking – he stuttered and was ashamed but God still used him.

• What about King David – the model for the Messiah – not exactly a conservative, well-behaved family values kind of a guy, was he? And my buddy, St. Paul? A mess – ugly, demanding, self-obsessed who was hell-bent on assassinating Christians when his life was turned upside down by the Lord.

So let’s be clear: all those whom the Lord calls like Samuel in today’s Old Testament lesson – or Jesus summons in the gospel according to John – are NOT 99 and 100% pure. Most are broken – many are morally and even psychologically wounded, too – but that doesn’t mean they are junk. Or can’t be used for serving the Lord in their generation because – news flash – God is not trapped or without options when it comes to human limitations, right?

God can and wants to welcome us all into service of the kingdom – women and men – whole and broken – wise and wacky. And I give thanks to God that I learned that from Martin Luther King, Jr. too: service to the Lord is NOT a club; so you don’t have to have it all together or all figured out or even have all your wounds healed BEFORE you enter into service.

As my minister back in Connecticut told me in 1968 when I was testing my own call to ministry: “Don’t wait until you think you’ve figured it all out, ok? That will never happen. As Dr. King once said, ‘Faith is taking the first step when you can’t see the whole staircase.”

So first words – second wounds – and third wonder: Dr. King made it clear to me and so many others that sometimes the way of the Lord leaves people scratching their heads in wonder about what the devil is going on. When he was lifted into service in Alabama and his house was bombed, some people urged him to quit the movement and wondered how putting his own family at risk could be of the Lord?

• When he was jailed – or stabbed – or humiliated and knocked down by defeat, his own sense of common sense caused him to wonder whether this was all worth it?

• And in 1967, when he broke ranks with the majority of his advisers and friends and began speaking out against the insanity and immorality of the Vietnam War… almost everyone wondered if he had lost his mind.

But sometimes you are called to become a fool for Christ in the eyes of the respectable and powerful in order to be true to God. Not everyone is called to be a fool – and this calling comes in different ways – but when it comes you know that you have to give up all illusions of respectability and power in order to walk with the Lord in a deeper way. Dr. King put it like this: “Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”

• He’s talking about those who ache with Jesus for some of the last to become first – for some of our hatred to be healed by forgiveness – for some of the poverty to be filled with God’s richness and won’t quit until it happens.

• It means, as St. Paul discovered, giving up any sense that you will be liked by everyone because you won’t – and you certainly won’t be considered successful by the movers and shakers. In fact, you are likely to be hated and mocked and maybe even jailed and crucified.

Being a fool for the Lord is not easy – and nobody comes up with it on their own – it is too hard. But when this call comes, you find out that you have to respond to it for nothing else will bring you peace. Paul put it like this: We celebrate even our suffering because we know that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope and hope does not fail because hope is God’s Holy Spirit being poured out into our hearts. To be such a peaceful fool for the Lord is a special calling – a unique discipleship – and Dr. King gave it meaning and shape and form for our generation.

He challenged us - he challenged me - to be a fool for love: imperfectly, wounds, flaws, fears and all. And I give thanks to God this day for that challenge...
credits:
1) fineartamerica.com
2) beehivehairdresser.com

In the beginning, God...

2012-01-09T18:19:00.000-05:00

The writer/pastor/seminary professor, M. Craig Barnes, writes:

You cannot determine who you are by what you do. But few people believe that anymore... The biblical depiction of life begins with the words, "in the beginning God..." And it ends with a magnificent future that is also created by God. Just about everything in between also testifies to the eternal truth that life is made, redeemed and certainly blessed by God... As our theologians remind us, creation occurred "ex nihilo," or out of nothingness. This means that all things, even the dust with which humanity was created, derive their existence from God. So when we seek a different identity derived from anything other than God, we don't actually become different but only return to the nothingness we were before God created our lives. This is what gathers in the pews of church every Sunday ~ creatures who believed the serpent's lie that their identity could be changed by reaching for something other than what they were given by the Creator.

Some believed they could get a different - preferred identity - if they only got married. Others thought they just needed to find a better job or buy a better home in order to have a better life. Still others cling not to dreams but to the hurts of yesterday ~ as if they could improve the past by holding it so tightly. And all that the reach for a different source to their identity has left them with is souls filled with the primordial nothingness. Having grown exhausted reaching for a preferred self, many just give up and settle for busy or comfortable distractions that numb the emptiness of their souls.

Man, does this ring true to me! Every day I see some form of this truth in ministry ~ sometimes I recognize it in myself, too. And always the outward form is exhaustion: more and more, we are sick and tired of not being ourselves created in in image of the Lord. And like the ancient story of adam ha adama suggests: we tend to keep blaming others for our bad or even sinful choices when all God wants is to love us back into health.

One of the reasons I mostly cherish ~ but sometimes chaff ~ at living into my calling by God to serve as a pastor begins and ends with blame. Barnes notes that on a local level ~ NOT an institutional or theological level as my Celtic friend Blue Eyed Innis so carefully notes ~ complaints about ministry are usually "a veiled lament about deeper issues of the soul." So, the blessing of being a pastor in a congregation has to do with inviting and encouraging a person to journey deeper into the wisdom of the soul: it is always uncharted territory, creative, challenging and fraught with danger but also deeply rewarding when both pastor and parish are open to the direction of the Holy Spirit.

I quit a doctoral program in Spiritual Direction after 9/11 because it became clear that in my Reformed tradition, most spiritual direction in a congregation was going to take place in a group setting. And while I learned a great deal in my first year of post-graduate study in this program, it was clear that individual spiritual direction was a long way away. Today, however, I find that I am doing both group direction and, in very limited and carefully defined ways, individual direction, too ~ and both are deep blessings to me. What's more, I see the opportunity to do more of this ministry taking root and shape the longer I am in this community. (Note to self: this may be the next study/sabbatical forum, yes?)

Simultaneously, when individuals choose NOT to go inward and explore the wound or toxicity or fear of their soul ~ when they choose to stay trapped in the past and blame others (myself included) ~ well, this is the most frustrating and anguishing aspects of pastoral ministry. And through one sad mistake after another, I've learned I have only two options in these cases: 1) Shake the dust off my sandals and move on trusting that God is God so I don't have to be; and 2) Pray that all souls will be returned home to the Lord ~ just some sooner than others. I guess that implies a third and fourth option: don't take yourself too seriously, learn to laugh a little at your failures and have a life bigger than just your church!

Barnes notes that the Christian hope claims that "in Christ we recover the life we were created to enjoy. So let's be clear, we don't MAKE a living. We receive it through our participation in Christ who has brought us home to communion with the Creator." In a quiet, tender and playful way, the Bible gets it right AGAIN: in the beginning God.

Hiding all away...

2012-01-08T23:47:00.000-05:00

Do you know the old show Harry Nilsson did for TV back in 1971: The Point? I used to love it and still think of it sometimes...

It kept running through my head throughout the day as I got comments and reactions after today's worship: some folks GOT what was going on ~ they were in-synch with the music and message about being playful and grace-filled in community when it comes to the mystery of baptism ~ while other folks were perplexed and even annoyed. Who knows what they wanted or needed ~ it was just clear that today's non-linear conversation left some folk with more questions than answers ~ and they were uncomfortable.

That was, I suspect, what was supposed to happen: those who were ready to be playful found nourishment while others scratched their heads ~ or even complained a little. Now, it used to really freak me out when folks complained to me about not getting my message ~ or being disconnected from the flow of worship ~ and my insecurities ran wild. But over the years I've come to two conclusions about all of this. First, I am not really in control of worship: after the worship leaders give it their best shot, the rest is up to the Spirit.

And second, most complaints (about worship or the pastor or church finances) are really a "veiled lament about deeper issues of the soul" according to M. Craig Barnes of Pittsburg Theological Seminary. In his book about the pastoral ministry, he writes in the opening chapter of The Pastor as Minor Poet:

Since people are unaccustomed to exploring the mystery of their own souls, they will often work out their spiritual anxieties by attempting to rearrange something external. like a church's music program. But it doesn't matter how many changes they make to the environment around them. They will never succeed in finding peace for the angst of the soul until they attend directly to it. And this is why people have pastors. To be of service to the Holy Spirit, who is at work in human lives, the pastor can never reduce ministry to servicing parishioners' complaints about the church... (No we have to) invite people to look beneath their complaints to their personal loss.

And THAT is the POINT ~ the perspective ~ the reality I embrace at the close of this day. It was a rich day for us all: we reclaimed sharing joys and concerns in worship and shared some deep prayers of joy and sorrow; we sang with gusto and listened for what the Spirit was saying to the church, too. And then some of us gathered for a feast in the late afternoon and shared loved and music and stories and lots of laughter.

Barnes writes: Poets have been blessed with a vision that allows them to explore, and express, the truth behind (our) reality. Poets see the despair and heartache as well as the beauty and miracle that lie just beneath the thin veneer of the ordinary, and they describe this in ways that are recognized in the mind, but mor eprofoundly in the soul. (Most of the time) what a congregation needs is not a strategist to help them form another plan for achieving a desired image of life, but a poet who looks beneath even the desperation to recover the mystery of what it means to be made in God's image.

I give thanks to God for the chance to explore faith poetically this day... and pray that I will have another shot at doing likewise tomorrow. More than that is out of my control, yes?

Lost memory of skin...

2012-01-07T14:49:00.001-05:00

Last night I finished the troubling, nuanced, creative and insightful new novel by Russell Banks: Lost Memory of Skin. Writing in the NY Times, Janet Maslin concludes:

This book expresses the conviction that we live in perilous, creepy times. We toy recklessly with brand-new capacities for ruination. We bring the most human impulses to the least human means of expressing them, and we may not see the damage we do until it becomes irrevocable. Mr. Banks, whose great works resonate with such heart and soul, brings his full narrative powers to bear on illuminating this still largely unexplored new terrain.

(go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/books/russell-bankss-novel-lost-memory-of-skin-review.html))

The story about a young and naive sex-offender challenges our sensibilities: the 22 year old "Kid" aches for intimacy, but has only learned to experience it through Internet pornography. From the time he was 10, his mother attends only to her own sad search for pleasure rather than guiding her flesh and blood. Consequently, the Kid is allowed to let his aching impulse for love lead him into degradation and addiction - without any clue that it is happening. As Banks has said, this is a novel that explores what it means to turn our children over to the wolves of this contemporary culture. "This is a story of how a good man losses his goodness."

(go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/books/russell-banks-talks-about-lost-memory-of-skin.html?pagewanted=all)

What's more, it is a story about how we are sacrificing our humanity in a world disconnected from "skin." It is tragic that this man/child learns about love only through pornography; it is heart-breaking that he "doesn't feel real" until he sees his story being told on a computer screen. And there is the all too real indictment of the scriptures about the sins of the mothers and father being visited upon their children unto the third and fourth generation when the Kid discovers that there is more community to be found in the homeless camp for other sex offenders under the highway than any place else in our so-called healthy society.

This is an important novel - both for its critique of the still unknown consequences of our increasingly cyber-obsessed culture as well as its challenge to our all-or-nothing social norms - and I hope church groups choose to study and discuss it. I am going to find a way in 2012 to do just that - hard stuff for some "Kleenex Christians" who are scandalized by the harshness of real life. But God's grace doesn't stop at the suburbs... or polite society... or with the innocent. God's grace was born in the filth of the stable - was raised up on a Cross at the intersection of religion and politics - and comes to us at the margins of our humanity. (It made me think of the workd Radiohead has been working in a similar vein...)

We'll be reading Jaco Hamman's A Play-Full Life first... but there has to be space this year for Lost Memory of Skin, too.

Listening to your life...

2012-01-06T12:21:00.001-05:00

One of the on-going joys of the pastoral ministry is the constant surprises God brings into my life: you would think that by now ~ 30 years into this thing ~ I would know how to take the joy, horror, awe or tender acts of mercy in stride. But I don't. I regularly feel a palpable sense of mystery wash over me nearly every day.

It could begin with the loving trust of a small child or the confessions of a wizened old addict ~ sometimes it is born while making or receiving music ~ or reading the NY Times. I have discovered how really vulnerable and bewildered I am, too, when an unexpected harsh or even cruel word is shared. Or when I wake to find I am exhausted and still have miles to go before I sleep. And there are many times when the seemingly random visits, conversations and accidents of the day open my soul to the presence of the living God.

Call them epiphanies ~ appropriate for today, yes? ~ or a slipping in and out of God's kingdom, whatever analogy you prefer, I think Buechner gets it right when he notes: "The question is not whether the things that happen to you are chance things or God's things because, of course, they are both at once. There is no chance thing through which God cannot speak - even the walk from the house to the garage that you have waled ten thousand times before, even the moments when you cannot believer there is a God who speaks at all anywhere."

Yesterday, for example, three different ordinary encounters revealed to me something of the extraordinary hidden just beyond my perception.

+ First, I had a conversation with a person who has been worshipping with us for about a year. I don't know a lot about her but she was weeping during Eucharist this past Sunday. I don't know the back story but followed up just to stay in touch only to discover she is a local visual artist and poet. We spoke about prayer and the mystery of God's still speaking voice that sometimes breaks into our art. She particularly loves the abstract expressionists (like me!) So, we're going to try to collaborate on a workshop ~ or exhibition ~ or something as this New Year unfolds.

Don't get me wrong, the tears were always just below the surface in our meeting, but they neither define this artist nor shape the totality of her life. No, God's mysterious and grace-filled presence is at her core ~ and in a totally unexpected moment, this truth was revealed.

+ Second, a church leader shared with me part one of our annual evaluation process. Now sometimes this can be a real mixed bag ~ especially when there is someone with an ax to grind or even just those who aren't practiced at evaluation writing ~ and there was some of that going on here, too. So, a few times I felt my defenses quicken ~ for good and bad reasons ~ and at other times I sensed that our small and struggling community of faith is growing deeper in our awareness of God's grace.

As the conversation deepened, however, I realized that my defenses can be helpful in pointing us towards ways to solve perceived problems. "That's a blessing," I thought. "And they can also help me clarify and communicate more clearly, too." Then I heard, "You know, when you first came I appreciated your casualness ~ the way you were helping us all slow down and take stock of who we were ~ hat was fun. But as the years have progressed I've also come to see that below your casual and easy style is a deep, deep commitment to the Biblical witness of Jesus ~ and that has become very important to me and so many others." Hmmmm... another surprise.

+ And third, as I was driving home to get ready for our jazz gig, my huge bass amp shifted in the back of the Subaru and smashed the rear window. Not cracked or chipped, but totally shattered and that bad boy is history. At first, it felt like I had been rear-ended ~ and clearly my head was shaken ~ but then I realized that the crash had come from within. I felt nauseous ~ and rattled ~ and a wave of sadness washed over me because I HATE to deal with bureaucratic agencies.

So we drove in the 11F weather with the heat on high, trusted that no one would do further damage to our new/old car while we played the gig and unloaded all my gear. And then we played one of the best jazz gigs I can remember in the past 16 months: it was freakin' sweet! And the place was packed. And it felt healing and hopeful and loving and mystical all at the same time. We had some great guests sit in on guitar and later sax and trumpet ~ and once we even shifted instruments so that Benny was on drums, Jonnie was on harp and Andy was on piano for a nasty-ass, Texas-style blues take on "Rock Me Baby."

When we left, who cared that the back window was gone!?! And this morning, the glass repairman helped me work out the details so that the insurance covered the whole mess. A cornucopia of surprises and blessings all born of the ordinary. Again, Buechner writes:

God speaks, I believe, and the words he speaks are incarnate in the flesh and blood of our selves and of our own footsore and sacred journeys. We cannot, of course, life our lives constantly looking back, listening back, lest we be turned to pillars of longing and regret, but to live without listening at all is to live deaf to the fullness of the music.

Sometimes we avoid listening for fear of what we may hear, sometimes for fear that we may hear noting at all but the empty rattle of our own feet on the pavement. But BE NOT AFFEARD, says Caliban, nor is he the only one to say it. "Be not afraid," says another, "for, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. He says he is with us on our journeys. He says he has been with us since each of our joureneys began. Listen for him. Listen to the sweet and bitter airs of your present and your past for the sound of him...

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments ~ and life itself is grace.

Oh yes, I find this happening over and over again... and still I am surprised.

Tonight we played JAZZ...compared to what!?!

2012-01-05T23:53:00.002-05:00

I was driving home from church early this evening - amps and guitars in the car - when I stopped at a light and... BAM! A huge crash... seems the momentum of the car shifted the musical gear and they crashed through my back window. Shattered the whole thing out (it will be replaced tomorrow... sigh!)

So I arrived at the gig tonight a little stunned and shocked: very upsetting. But we played like a house a-fire tonight - hard core jazz - and it was soooo healing: Latin grooves and blues, Miles and Bird, hard bop and a little Coltranesque stylings, too. What a gas. What's more, it felt reassuring and blessed to hang with these guys tonight, too: just what the spiritual doctor ordered. One of my buddies asked for this tune... which we could have nailed except I didn't have the lyrics so... next time for sure!

Come away with me...

2012-01-05T10:18:00.000-05:00

Today - finally - snow is falling in the Berkshires. Sure, we had that freak blizzard in October and there has been a dusting once or twice since then, but nothing of significance. Today, however, large thin wafers are floating everywhere with a quiet grace. Snow carries with it a silence that is healing to me.

Tonight ~ in solidarity with the quiet snow ~ we'll play a jazz gig at Patrick's Pub that will mix contemporary and classic jazz with some funk and blues surprises. One of the songs that has been going through my head of late ~ and really resonates with this day ~ is the sweet Nora Jones' tune: "Come Away with Me." Tender, bluesy, spare and oh so sensual. That is what the snow this morning feels like: an invitation to drift slowly away for a time...

A play-full life is lived at the right speed...

2012-01-04T20:25:00.000-05:00

"A play-full life," writes Jaco Hamman, "is lived at the right speed." Brilliant ~ amen ~ and all the rest is commentary, yes?

It is to have enough time to live with joy and in community with others. Slowness encourages you to slow down, to savor the relationships, tastes, smells, sights and sounds of life; to touch life gently. Slowing down in a world that is racing ahead is a challenge, but so freeing! (pg. 86)

Today at Eucharist we spoke of Christ's baptism ~ and will do so again on Sunday ~ in which God called Jesus "the Beloved" simply because he showed up. He didn't DO anything before being baptized, he didn't confess his sins to John the Baptist (according to the texts) nor did he fast and pray and challenge the status quo. That all came AFTER his baptism ~ after being anointed with the blessing of being God's beloved ~ after sensing a calling born from above.

Don't get me wrong, there is work to be done ~ there are people to visit, evil to be challenged, prayers to be shared, food to be cooked and all the rest ~ but THIS is not what inspires God to love us and call us "beloved." No, that comes from God's own heart that is very different from the way most of us have been trained. Isaiah 55 puts it like this:

I don't think the way you think.
The way you work isn't the way I work.
God's Decree.
For as the sky soars high above earth,
so the way I work surpasses the way you work,
and the way I think is beyond the way you think.
Just as rain and snow descend from the skies
and don't go back until they've watered the earth,
Doing their work of making things grow and blossom,
producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry,
So will the words that come out of my mouth
not come back empty-handed.
They'll do the work I sent them to do,
they'll complete the assignment I gave them.
So you'll go out in joy,
you'll be led into a whole and complete life.
The mountains and hills will lead the parade,
bursting with song.
All the trees of the forest will join the procession,
exuberant with applause.
No more thistles, but giant sequoias,
no more thornbushes, but stately pines—
Monuments to me, to God,
living and lasting evidence of God.

"A play-full life..." ~ a faith-full life ~ an authentic and compassionate life ~ "is lived at the right speed... (where we) have enough time to live with joy and in community with others." Here's my prayer and commitment for the New Year.

The baptism of jesus...

2012-01-03T16:21:00.000-05:00

NOTE: Here are my worship notes for this coming Sunday, January 8, 2012. It is the Baptism of Christ Sunday.

“Poets don’t make arguments, they reveal mysteries.” (M. Craig Barnes, The Pastor as Minor Poet, p. 131) And I would hope you might keep that distinction in mind today as we consider what the Baptism of Christ is saying to us in 2012. Because, you see, neither the Bible nor our tradition ever fully explains WHAT is taking place during baptism and WHY it matters.

• Did you know that? Scholars and theologians clearly don’t agree; and the five major religious traditions – Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Pentecostal, Baptist and Reformed – are equally at odds with one another about the meaning of Baptism, too.

• What’s more, even the Bible itself doesn’t explain what is going on when we experience Baptism – or why it is important to us –and yet ALL denominations and religious orders agree that being baptized is an essential ingredient for faithful discipleship.

This is fascinating to me: our Holy Scriptures bring up the importance of Christian baptism six different times – check it out in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts and Romans – while the Bible only refers to the Lord’s birth and Christmas twice. Clearly the baptism of Jesus is more important that his birth but we still don’t really know why and what that means for us.

So, using the poetry of the Bible – and claiming the prerogative of a poet to play with the mysteries therein revealed – let’s see if we might discern a little more of God’s light for our generation when it comes to baptism, ok? Specifically, I want to call your careful attention to three insights:

• First, how baptism can be a reordering of our lives like the creation narrative suggest in Genesis 1.

• Second, how the baptism of Jesus offers each and all of us a chance to welcome and honor God’s grace as it is poured into our hearts.

• And third, how the blessing of being God’s Beloved empowers us to live by gratitude, faith, hope and love in a confusing and often broken world.

Are you with me? Let’s see what the poetry reveals, ok?

The Biblical story in Genesis 1 opens with the Spirit of the Lord hovering over the chaos of creation in order to give it shape and form. The words of tradition say: In the beginning – but listen to how Peterson reworks it:

First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don't see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God's Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss. God spoke: "Light!" And light appeared. God saw that light was good and separated light from dark. God named the light Day, he named the dark Night. And it was evening and it was morning — Day One.

We know this isn’t science – although it doesn’t oppose or contradict science either as the Creationist would have us believe – rather this is poetry: a carefully constructed theological poem that uses symbols and images to teach us at least two truths:

First, knowing that this poem was written by the former priests of Jerusalem while Israel was being held in captivity in Babylon – between 587 and 538 BCE – scholars now understand that this creation story was intended to bring pastoral comfort to a people in bondage, shame and fear.

• It was, in fact, a way of reassuring them that even in the darkest and most chaotic times, God’s Spirit is still present bringing light into our darkness, hope into our despair and clarity into our ignorance.

• It is to Israel, if you will, what the story of Christ’s death and resurrection is for you and me: a way of revealing God’s truest nature in spite of our feelings and the objective evidence in the moment.

What I’m trying to say is that one meaning of this poem is comfort. The prophet Isaiah – in the same period of time – put it like this in what has become one of our Advent hymns: Comfort, comfort ye my people, speak ye peace, thus saith our God; comfort those who sit in darkness, mourning 'neath their sorrows' load; speak ye to Jerusalem of the peace that waits for them, tell her that her sins I cover, and her warfare now is over. Are you still with me?

The second meaning has to do with allegory and symbolism – tools the early church utilized to great advantage – but one that our current obsession with fundamentalism has sadly lost: I’m talking about the ability to be playful and creative with poetic words so that we grow closer to God. In what I regard to be the finest contemporary scholarly challenge to narrow-minded and mean-spirited Christian fundamentalism, Jonathan Dudley’s Broken Words, he writes about St. Augustine of Hippo who lived between 354 and 430 of the Common Era.

Specifically, he notes that Augustine took the first two verses of the Genesis poem: “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters…”

… and finds a reference to the Holy Trinity in these verses, reading the ‘wind from God’ as a reference to the Holy Spirit and ‘in the beginning’ as a reference to Jesus who, according to St. John 1;1, ‘was with God (the Father) in the beginning.’ Augustine ends his exposition, in an affront to modern evangelical sensibilities, by pondering the wide number of other possible interpretations you might get from Genesis – condemning the tendency to advance only one reading to the exclusion of others.

‘Since, then, so rich a variety of highly plausible interpretations can be culled from these few words, consider how foolish it is rashly to assert that Moses intended just one particular meaning rather than any of the others. If we engage in hurtful strife as we attempt to expound his words, we offend against the very charity of God for the sake of which he said all those things.’ (p. 121)

Augustine is doing in his time what Jewish theologians have been doing for millennia and what we are invited to do now: playing with the text in a careful and loving way to make connections with our own lives and grow closer to God’s grace. It is called midrash – a Hebrew way of exploring a biblical text – that “goes beyond the simple distillation of religious, legal or moral teachings… and fills in many of the gaps left in the biblical narrative regarding events and personalities that are only hinted at… on the page.”

As Rabbi Lawrence Kushner has said: (Midrash) involves seeing the Word of the Lord in both the black letters on the page as well as all the white space around them, too.” So when we use the Genesis story in relationship to our baptism…

Could it be that baptism is one of the ways we let God’s reordering of the chaos of our lives and world become ordered?

• Could it be that here is a separating and reunion taking place in baptism that offers us clarity within life’s confusion?

• Commitment to living deeper within God’s grace rather than merely treading water? What are you thinking…?

It is my hunch that Christian baptism is partially about reordering and bringing some clarity to our chaos according to God’s grace. Because I don’t think it is just coincidence that the four times in the church year we are asked to read the stories about Christ’s baptism – and listen to the Lord’s response as “You are my beloved” – are also the bookends to what we call the two seasons of Ordinary Time.

And while this may be arcane to some, I think the wisdom of the Spirit is at work here. After Advent and Christmas come to a close with Epiphany, there are two seasons we call Ordinary Time: One is before Lent – the days between the Baptism of the Lord and Transfiguration Sunday – the Sunday before Ash Wednesday.

And then the longer Ordinary Time that takes place after Pentecost – between Trinity Sunday and the marking of Christ the King – and each of those days includes a reference to the baptism of Jesus and God’s announcement that: This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.

Baptism, it seems to me, points to the mystery of the Spirit’s reordering our lives so that we might live in more clarity and commitment: that’s my first hunch. The second is simple – and awesome – namely that what God offers to Jesus in his baptism is offered to us in ours: we are embraced by Gods grace.

• Think about this for a moment, what does Jesus do in this morning’s story according to Mark’s gospel to be called the beloved of the Lord?

• Anybody have a Bible: would you please read Mark 1: 9-11?

What does the story tell us? Did Jesus do anything besides show up at the River Jordan? Has he faced down Satan and his temptations in the desert? Has he gone to the Cross? Has he been betrayed by those who loved him? Or even begun his teaching ministry?

No, he hasn’t done anything yet – he just shows up – and upon being lifted from the water by John he hears the Lord announce: behold THIS is my beloved. And this, too, is what we are offered in our baptism: we don’t have to earn God’s love or prove our value to the Lord. We are God’s beloved just as Christ is.I’ve been touched and convinced by the way the pastor, Brian Stoffregen, puts it in his commentary noting that Biblical scholar:

James R. Edwards (The Gospel according to Mark) tells us: "As the inaugural event of Jesus' public ministry, the baptism tells us not what Jesus does but what God does to him" [p. 34]. (That means) We can say with Martin Luther when tempted to doubt, "I am baptized." (I find it interesting that he didn't battle temptation with, "I am a Christian" or "I believe.") The strength of his faith was found in his baptism – when God put his claim on him. So, too, we have the assurance through baptism of being children of God and being filled with the Holy Spirit even when it seems as though everything and everyone else is giving contrary messages, e.g., "You're a nobody." Our baptisms are not what we have done, but what God has done to us
(CrossMarks @ http://www.crossmarks.com/brian/mark1x4.htm)

• John’s baptism appears to be conditional, yes? With John you have to DO something – do you recall what it was?

• You have to confess your sins – you have to think about them and name them – and then humble yourselves for repentance.

And while that is clearly one pathway of faith, Jesus seems to offering another and different charism of baptism that emphasizes an intimate, mystical relationship with God as Father and Beloved. Without doing anything, God says to us through Jesus: you are special to me. In this, I see Jesus reclaiming his own poetic tradition for baptism:

• Do you know Psalm 139?
Oh yes, O Lord, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother's womb. I thank you, High God—you're breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration—what a creation! You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something.

• What about Psalm 84?
What a beautiful home, O Lord of Hosts, you offer: I've always longed to live in a place like this, always dreamed of a room in your house, where I could sing for joy to God-alive! Birds find nooks and crannies in your house; sparrows and swallows make nests there. They lay their eggs and raise their young, singing their songs in the place where we worship. How blessed they are to live and sing there! And how blessed all those in whom you live, whose lives become roads you travel…One day spent in your house, this beautiful place of worship, beats thousands spent on Greek island beaches. I'd rather scrub floors in the house of my God than be honored as a guest in the palace of sin.

So first, baptism is gentle and poetic reordering of our lives that empowers us by grace to move from chaos to clarity.

Second, like Jesus, God offers us this intimacy by the Spirit in baptism not by what we do but because of God’s deep love for each and all of us.

And then third, as the Beloved of the Lord, we are asked to live into the spirit of gratitude by our baptism – sharing light and clarity, hope and integrity with others – for this is one way the miracle is multiplied.

What is at stake in our baptismal vows, you see, is a deep eagerness to share in the flesh with others what Christ has shared with us: it is a promise to live lives of counter-cultural generosity and gratitude within a broken and violent world as a healing alternative to the madness. And so our liturgy of baptism asks:

• Do you renounce the powers of evil and desire the freedom of new life in Christ?

• Do you promise, by God’s grace, to follow in the way of our Savior, resisting oppression and evil and showing love and justice to others as best you are able?

• And do you promise to be a faithful member of the church, celebrating Christ’s presence and furthering his mission in the world?

We live in a world that is crazy busy: our bottom line values are greedy and self-centered, we are terrified and addicted and compulsive, we have elevated speed to the status of idolatry and are entertaining ourselves to death. In the baptism of Jesus – as in our own baptism, too – God has offered us an alternative that has always been better – the way of the Lord – salvation.

From the beginning, this alternative has offered us humanity and holiness, rest and work and play, light and darkness, balance and grace, peace and justice. In fact, the word for salvation in Hebrew – yashah – “basically means creating space, making room and living without compulsion.” (Jaco Hamman, A Play-Full Life, p. 46)

In baptism, we promise the Lord to let Christ make a space within and among us to grow and mature – to heal and nurture – to bless and forgive. It is not we who bring salvation – and healing and hope – it is God growing within us. And, THAT, beloved is what the sacred poetry reveals to us about the good news for today.

credits:
1) theautumnrain.blogspot.com
2) loc.gov
3) anglicansonline.org
4) spu.edu
5) arthistoryhousewife.blogspot.com
6) evangelicalfellowship.ca
7) nmhistorymuseum.org
8) jbu.edu
9) monkschronicle.wordpress.com

A new/old path to peace and justice living...

2012-01-02T17:06:00.001-05:00

Last night I slept for 11 1/2 hours ~ no kidding ~ and woke up FINALLY feeling refreshed and rested. Apparently this hasn't been the case since... when we were on our retreat/vacation in Montreal. Hmmm... Interestingly, two thoughts were swimming around my mind when I woke up in an odd little personal midrash on scripture and song:

+ First, I kept thinking of the words St. Luke puts into Christ's mouth in chapter 12: "Then he turned to the crowd: "When you see clouds coming in from the west, you say, 'Storm's coming'—and you're right. And when the wind comes out of the south, you say, 'This'll be a hot one'—and you're right. Frauds! You know how to tell a change in the weather, so don't tell me you can't tell a change in the season, the God-season we're in right now." I grew up with the Revised Standard Version's: "Hypocrites you can read the signs in the sky but you cannot read the signs of the times!"

+The second were the gently prophetic words from a reggae Christmas song we've been playing this season that begins: "All I really, really want for Christmas is just to be a little more conscious..."
In yesterday's NY Times, Pico Iyer, wrote a feature article in the Travel section: "The Joy of Quiet." At the heart of his essay, Iyer notes:

Has it really come to this?

In barely one generation we’ve moved from exulting in the time-saving devices that have so expanded our lives to trying to get away from them — often in order to make more time. The more ways we have to connect, the more many of us seem desperate to unplug. Like teenagers, we appear to have gone from knowing nothing about the world to knowing too much all but overnight.

Internet rescue camps in South Korea and China try to save kids addicted to the screen.

Writer friends of mine pay good money to get the Freedom software that enables them to disable (for up to eight hours) the very Internet connections that seemed so emancipating not long ago. Even Intel (of all companies) experimented in 2007 with conferring four uninterrupted hours of quiet time every Tuesday morning on 300 engineers and managers. (The average office worker today, researchers have found, enjoys no more than three minutes at a time at his or her desk without interruption.) During this period the workers were not allowed to use the phone or send e-mail, but simply had the chance to clear their heads and to hear themselves think. A majority of Intel’s trial group recommended that the policy be extended to others.

THE average American spends at least eight and a half hours a day in front of a screen, Nicholas Carr notes in his eye-opening book “The Shallows,” in part because the number of hours American adults spent online doubled between 2005 and 2009 (and the number of hours spent in front of a TV screen, often simultaneously, is also steadily increasing).

The average American teenager sends or receives 75 text messages a day, though one girl in Sacramento managed to handle an average of 10,000 every 24 hours for a month. Since luxury, as any economist will tell you, is a function of scarcity, the children of tomorrow, I heard myself tell the marketers in Singapore, will crave nothing more than freedom, if only for a short while, from all the blinking machines, streaming videos and scrolling headlines that leave them feeling empty and too full all at once.
(For the whole enchilada, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/opinion/sunday/the-joy-of-quiet.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=pico%20iyer&st=cse

Now for most of my active life over the past 45 years ~ from the time I was first drawn to peace and justice commitments in the 60s ~ I have been more drawn to the "trickster" and foolish/playful side of peace-making than the hardcore political world. My friends have often called me the Pentecostal/Zen Buddhist/Hassidic monk: a little Bob Dylan, a little Bruce Springsteen, a little Thomas Merton and a whole lotta Kathleen Norris. But now, in reading Jaco Hamman's book, A Playfull Live, I've discovered the key reason when he states:

Whoever MUST play, cannot be play-full. The Hewbrew word for salvation, yasha, bassically means creating space, making room or being without compulsion...

So as my Advent watching and waiting has made clear, this is the year to take the next step towards deepening my play-fullness so that I have time ~ and inner space ~ to be a person of peace and justice in my everyday life. This is part of what it means to live into the healing of our age - tikkun olam - to be a gentle warrior for compassion and hope. Iyer's article notes that in our day and age:

The central paradox of the machines that have made our lives so much brighter, quicker, longer and healthier is that they cannot teach us how to make the best use of them; the information revolution came without an instruction manual. All the data in the world cannot teach us how to sift through data; images don’t show us how to process images. The only way to do justice to our onscreen lives is by summoning exactly the emotional and moral clarity that can’t be found on any screen.

MAYBE that’s why more and more people I know, even if they have no religious commitment, seem to be turning to yoga, or meditation, or tai chi; these aren’t New Age fads so much as ways to connect with what could be called the wisdom of old age. Two journalist friends of mine observe an “Internet sabbath” every week, turning off their online connections from Friday night to Monday morning, so as to try to revive those ancient customs known as family meals and conversation. Finding myself at breakfast with a group of lawyers in Oxford four months ago, I noticed that all their talk was of sailing — or riding or bridge: anything that would allow them to get out of radio contact for a few hours.

Other friends try to go on long walks every Sunday, or to “forget” their cellphones at home. A series of tests in recent years has shown, Mr. Carr points out, that after spending time in quiet rural settings, subjects “exhibit greater attentiveness, stronger memory and generally improved cognition. Their brains become both calmer and sharper.”

He also writes that: "Empathy, as well as deep thought, depends on neural processes that are inherently slow. The very ones our high-speed lives have little time for." I will be sharing more thoughts about what it means for me ~ and those in my community of faith ~ to start to embrace the "slow movement" as another aspect of our baptismal vows.

+ We promise to renounce the powers of evil as we desire the freedom of new life in Christ, yes?

+ We vow, by the grace of God, to follow the way of our Savior, to resist oppression and evil, to show love and justice in our lives, yes?

Let's see where this leads...

Happy New Year...

2012-01-01T18:54:00.000-05:00

Today I read a sweet prayer for the New Year that goes like this:

May your home always be too small
to hold all your friends.
May your heart remain ever supple,
Fearless in the face of threat,
Jubilant in the grip of grace.
May your hands remain open,
Caressing, never clinched,
Save to pound the doors
Of all who barter justice
To the highest bidder.
May your heroes be earthy
Dusty-shoed and rumpled,
Hallowed but unhaloed,
Guiding you through seasons of tremor and travail,
Apprenticed to the godly art of giggling
Amid haggard news
And portentous circumstance.
May your hankering
Be in rhythm with heaven’s
Whose covenant vows
A dusty intersection with your own:
When creation’s hope and history rhyme.
May Hosannas lilt from your lungs:
Creation is not done
Creation is not yet done.
All flesh,
I am told,
will behold
Will surely behold…

And here are some graphics from the past year's collection that fall under the category: "No Comment Necessary."

(This one appeared with the caption: church officials still uncertain about birth control)

Happy New Year...

The completion of another year...

2011-12-31T12:10:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, while standing in the check-out line at the grocery store, it hit me: tomorrow is New Year's Eve! How did that happen? I've never been much of a NYE party guy - in Tucson it was a hoot to go to the Chicago Bar and hear the Rowdies ring in the year with great rock and roll - but that's about it. For most of my almost 60 years I've been chill when it comes to partying the night away like it was 1999.

(God I LOVE Prince...)

But that doesn't mean I ignore the chance to be reflective on the year, ok? And while I am often weary with all the year-end lists ~ except VH1's various retrospectives of "one hit wonders" ~ I still find that pausing to look backwards and inwards a helpful exercise of faith. In his year end words for December 31st, Eugene Peterson writes about heaven in Living the Message: Daily Reflections:

(Heaven)... is an immersion in the realities of God's rule in our lives that has the effect of reviving our obedience, fortifying us for the long haul and energizing a courageous witness. By using the stuff that is in our lives right now - places and people, sights and sounds - the invisible and visible parts of our lives are connected in a fresh way. Heaven is an affirmation and confirmation that the beauties and sanctity's of the visible creation - tree and rock, Jesus and Eucharist - are not illusions that trick us into what cynics think of as the naive, useless and silly practices of love, hope and faith, but are realities that are in strict correspondence with what has been begun in us and will be complete in us...

This is not a long (eternal) weekend away from the responsibilities of employment and citizenship, but the intensification and healing of them. Heaven is formed out of dirty streets and murderous alleys, adulterous bedrooms and corrupt courts, hypocritical synagogues and commercialized churches, thieving tax-collectors and traitorous disciples: a city - but now a holy city.

And so on this grey and damp morning in the Berkshires I think back to the realities of this year past for signs and glimpses of the holy within the human... signs of God's presence within and among us:

+ the intense, humbling and rewarding challenge of jazz immersion that gave birth to not only new musical skill and friendships but a peace-making through music tour to Istanbul.

+ the movement towards greater lay participation in our worship planning and the choice to become and Open and Affirming congregation on many levels.

+ the beginning of a regular Jewish-Christian conversation about faith and practice with three other clergy (2 rabbis/2 ministers - 2 women/2 men.)

+ the joys and sorrows of loving and standing with adult children as they mature.

+ the deepening friendships I have made with my blogger-buddies ~ and a few FB friends, too!

+ the movement of the Spirit leading another young person into full-time Christian ministry from within our community.

+ the evolution and ripening of our church band, Between the Banks, and our Thanksgiving Eve show.

+ the agony of family tragedies that have no solution except trust and prayer.

+ the on-going experience of growing into deeper love with Dianne after all these years.

+ the absurdity and blessing of caring for an aging clown dog who is still vibrant, annoying and goofy after 14 years.

+ the year of protest: from the Arab Spring to the Occupy Wall Street presence that continues to wave the banner of freedom and hope.

The poet, Mary Oliver, writes:

We shake with joy, we shake with grief.
What a time they have, these two,
housed as they are in the same body.

And so we come to the completion of another year... (this is what 2011 has felt like for me on so many levels.)

The humor and humility of Epiphany...

2011-12-30T13:26:00.002-05:00

NOTE: Here are my Sunday worship notes for the Feast of the Epiphany. They are a bit late - in theory I wasn't going to do much work this week - but some how that didn't quite work out. It was all good, but I'm going to lay low for the next few days before jumping back into things after New Year's. I just finished my reflection for Sunday worship - and I have to say that I am really grateful to Amy-Jill Levine for the opening essay in the Jewish Annotated New Testament. She writes some important words in "Bearing False Witness: Common Errors Made About Early Judaism."
Her sixth point really nailed me: "... a problem of substantially vague rhetoric re: the claim that Jesus ministers to the 'outcasts and marginals." Many pastors and teachers do not explain: cast out by whom? Cast out from what? marginal to what?" She unpacks this in a helpful fashion before concluding: "It is therefore important that pastors and teachers be more cautious when they use terms like "marginal and outcast." (p. 503) I hope I can live into this challenge and overcome some of my own unknown anti-Jewish thinking.

That said: Happy New Year to you all and I'll see you sometime next week! (BTW no graphics this week ~ sorry!)

Introduction

Today is both the celebration of New Year’s Day AND the Feast of the Epiphany – and to my way of thinking this is a fascinating combination:

• One day is filled with resolutions – personal promises and plans about how we hope to live into the New Year as better people – so the emphasis is on us – you and me – and our happiness.

• While the other speaks of a God who is so completely in charge of justice and compassion in the world – albeit it in mysterious ways – that whether we notice or not – whether we cooperate or not – whether we acknowledge it or not – the will of God triumphs over the darkness.

• One day is about the kingdom of self and the other about the kingdom of God

And I would go so far as to say that having these two celebrations on the same day lets us see in stark contrast what is at stake for living by faith. Clearly the message of Epiphany says something about the way of the Lord trumping the glitter of New Year’s Day in every conceivable way, but we can be stubborn people, yes?

• We know that most of our New Year’s resolutions will become dust by week’s end and we’ll have forgotten why we made them in the first place.

• We know, as St. Paul confessed so powerfully in Romans 7, that within ourselves we don’t have the power to do the good we desire.

What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. I need help… For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. In so many ways, my decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me?

There are whole industries built upon our willingness to delude ourselves:

• If you watch television at all, right now all the fitness gyms and clubs are saturating the airwaves with plans to help you get rid of the effects of all that pumpkin pie, egg nog and chocolate you ate over Christmas.

• And what about the political shenanigans taking place out in Iowa? Think of the billions of dollars being spent in pursuit if illusion…

So we know all of that – we know our ability to lie to ourselves and let others confuse our expectations with God’s will – we know about sin and pride – and yet… and yet… not much seems to change, right? Gertrud Mueller-Nelson is helpful when she tenderly puts it like this in her book, To Dance with God: So often we say to ourselves, “I want Christmas this year to be different…”

We want to be touched by the season – moved to a level that lies deep in us and is hungry and dark and groaning with primal need. Like the receptive fields all around us, we lie fallow and wanting… We ache to receive the Spirit – to be impregnated like the Virgin Mary – by God’s love

… only to discover that nothing has changed. We wanted it – we ached for it – we may have even prayed for it but… nothing has changed.

Well, Epiphany offers an antidote to this disappointment – especially when it falls on New Year’s Day – because in a humorous and humble way it gives shape and form to the classic definition of insanity. Do you know it?

• The classic definition of insanity is doing the same old things the same old way – over and over again – and expecting different results.

• If we want Christmas to be different – if we want our politics to be different – if we want our souls and loves to be different we can’t do the same old same old. Rather, like the Magi in the Epiphany story, after they worshipped the baby king we’re told that they returned home by a different way. They changed. They let themselves be transformed. They lived into the future in a new and different way.

So let me suggest for you three clues about moving beyond the insanity of the status quo into the humorous and humble way of Jesus made clear by the Magi, ok? They are:

• First, let’s talk about who the Magi really are and what they symbolize.

• Second, let’s play with the genuine humor and humility of these symbols for our generation.

• And third let’s see if we might grasp how WE are to return by a different way after encountering all of this, ok?

Insights

The Magi – the Wise Men – the Three Kings: who are these people and what do they symbolize? Well, right out of the gate let me tell you that the Magi are not learned and respected spiritual scholars from the orient, ok? As Amy-Jill Levine told us when she was here before Christmas, these characters are oddballs – misfits – some of the forsaken and forgotten who had NO respect in first century Palestine.

• They show up in the oral tradition like comic relief actors – they amplify the story – but in a funny way so that we get a little break from all the heavy action.

• So let’s be clear: although the Victorian sentimentality is dominate in our retelling of the Christmas story, the Magi were soothsayers and astrologists – more akin to the weirdoes on the Psychic Hotline than professors of theology at our learned universities.

• They were pagan outsiders from Persia who were searching for meaning in the tea leaves and the stars rather than the word of God – and most of Jesus’ ancestors would have rejected and neglected whatever they said…

And that is an important clue about why Matthew includes them in this story: you see, Matthew is making the case that Jesus is the natural descendent of King David – in the family and lineage of the Messiah of Israel – so he very carefully constructs a story about how blessings have come to Israel from among the least likely places. Are you with me? He wants to show his audience that deep within the Jewish experience God has raised up blessings from the least expected people and places.

Matthew begins his story with Christ’s family tree – he connects Jesus to David – which is important, but within that family tree he also has some characters that if we were writing about ourselves we’d probably edit out:

• He includes a number of women, for example, who were not Jews but helped save Israel (think of Tamar - a Gentile proselyte to Judaism - or Rahab - a Canaanite prostitute faithful to Joshua's spies)

• He also includes a couple of kings who where were tyrants and apostates – religious villains not heroes...

And Matthew does this for two reasons: first, he wants to remind the Jewish Christians he is teaching that within their own story there are already examples of blessings coming to Israel from the most unlikely places. In this, Jesus isn’t unique – rather he is yet another example of how God brings hope and light out of the worst times, ok?

And second, Matthew wants his people to know that even when there is sin and corruption – even when the kings of Israel collaborate with God’s enemies – God’s power is stronger than their actions. God uses Moses to lead the Jews from slavery to freedom – God raises up prophets to speak truth to power – God brought forth water from a rock and shared manna in the desert.

• And that is part of what the Magi are telling us: these strange souls – more like Rodney Dangerfield or Chris Rock than Bishop Tutu or Mother Teresa – are part of God’s mysterious way of bringing hope and healing to the world.

• What’s more, they know the Jewish story better than the existing King – they pay attention at a time when the existing King of the Jews, Herod , had to call in his advisors and have them explain what the Magi were talking about: do you get that? Do you see why that is important?

• This is a slam on King Herod – and King Cesar, too: the REAL king – the everlasting king – Matthew is telling us is… Jesus – who doesn’t look anything like a king. Who is a baby – helpless – innocent – in need of nurturing.

In Matthew’s telling of the story the Magi speak of tradition – in an upside down way – and they speak of God’s grace coming to the people – in an equally upside down way – and they do so with humor and humility. In this, they point us towards the kingdom of God rather than the kingdom of self – a distinction we might notice clearly today, too.

• The kingdom of God is not puffed up – full of ourselves – prideful. Rather, the kingdom of God is a community where everyone is welcome to the feast table and everyone has a part to play – and both of those elements – welcome and responsibility – are essential.

• Sometimes people want a seat at the table of grace without sharing their gifts: that is selfishness. Sometimes people want a seat at the table but want to be in control: that is pride and greed. And sometimes people want a seat at the table so that they can con and manipulate others: that is sloth and gluttony.

• See where I’m going with this: the kingdom of God turns our sins and confusion upside down and welcomes us all but also asks us to share and participate as fully as we are able.

And I have come to believe that the best way to be trained in the wisdom of kingdom living is through humor and humility. The salty old Roman Catholic, G.K. Chesterton put it like this: the test of a good religion is whether or not it can laugh at itself. And I think that is just about right: only those who are willing to engage with humility can laugh at themselves, right?

• Tyrants and bullies don’t laugh at themselves – so you don’t want them running your religion; idiots and gas bags can’t laugh at themselves either – nor can the walking wounded.

• It takes a lot of experience – and failure and reflection – to laugh at yourself – and in an oddly upside down way that’s part of what the Magi are telling us: we have a religion built on those who sometimes look and act ridiculous as they live quiet lives of faith.

• St. Paul called them fools for Christ in I Corinthians 4: It seems to me that God has put us who bear his Message on stage in a theater in which no one wants to buy a ticket. We're something everyone stands around and stares at, like an accident in the street. We're the Messiah's misfits. You might be sure of yourselves, but we live in the midst of frailties and uncertainties. You might be well-thought-of by others, but we're mostly kicked around. Much of the time we don't have enough to eat, we wear patched and threadbare clothes, we get doors slammed in our faces, and we pick up odd jobs anywhere we can to eke out a living. When they call us names, we say, "God bless you." When they spread rumors about us, we put in a good word for them. We're treated like garbage, potato peelings from the culture's kitchen. And it's not getting any better.

In fact, Paul said those who follow the way of the Cross look to be fools in the eyes of the world – those who are learned and respectable and powerful – but we who aren’t interested in the status quo, we can follow the Crucified One with humor and humility because we have been loved from the inside out by God’s grace.

In another place, Paul describes being foolish for Christ like this: We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!

And a bit later he says: Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. Don't burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don't quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help needy Christians; be inventive in hospitality. Bless your enemies; no cursing under your breath. Laugh with your happy friends when they're happy; share tears when they're down. Get along with each other; don't be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don't be the great somebody. Don't hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you've got it in you, get along with everybody. Don't insist on getting even; that's not for you to do. "I'll do the judging," says God. "I'll take care of it."

Conclusion

Epiphany invites us to be fools for Christ – to join the other sacred and holy fools including the Magi – who come to love and serve the Lord. And here’s where it all comes together, to be a fool for Christ means we know that we can’t make it happen: like St. Paul said at the outset, if we base our response to Jesus on what we can do and will and create… we will fail. Sin is just too great. That’s why the story of the Magi is good news: it tells us simply that if we just come – if we respond to the invitation and open our hearts – God will meet us – and touch us – so that when we leave… we will leave by a different path.

That is what it means to come to the table of Holy Communion. An ancient invitation brings it all together when it says: Come to this sacred table not because you must, but because you may. Not because you are fulfilled, but because n your emptiness you stand in need of the Lord’s mercy and assurance… not to express an opinion but to seek a presence… not to be in charge but to pray for the Spirit of the Lord… not as a lonely individual but with sisters and brothers who are tired and heavy laden… and are being called to the bread of life.

And that, beloved, is the good news for Epiphany for those who have ears to hear: come.

And they returned by a different way...

2011-12-28T15:26:00.000-05:00

This Sunday will mark both the START of a New Year AND the liturgical Sunday for Epiphany. The gospel text for the day has to do with the arrival of the Magi to greet the baby Jesus ~ who were not revered wise people but astrologers of left overs from the Psychic Hotline ~ and who leave Christ to go home "by a different way." They left different...

I've loved that play on words for decades and think it has something to say for our generation. And while I don't know where my conversation for Sunday will lead us (this has been mostly a down-time and non-working week and I haven't yet prepared for worship) two thoughts from Fr. Richard Rohr bear sharing.

+ First, he observes that only a religion that is able to laugh at itself is healthy.

G.K. Chesterton is a great hero among conservative Catholics, because he wrote a book called ORTHODOXY. Yet he said many things that contemporary conservatives in both our church and our politics would very much disagree with. Among the best. he said that: "The test of a good religion is whether or not it can laugh at itself." The lack of self critical thinking, the inability to laugh at oneself or one's group, the general inability to ever appreciate what is right in front of us, is for me the most unattractive thing about fundamentalists, retro Catholics, and ideological Republicans. If they have the truth, they surely are not enjoying it! Nor do they make it very attractive or desirable for the rest of us. The impossible burden of "conserving" the whole truth does not leave much time for smiling, it seems.

+ And second, only those religious people willing to risk intimacy are trustworthy.

I think that many of us men, celibate men even more, are very afraid of intimacy. I would define intimacy as the ability to mutually share one's needs, one's wounds, or one's weaknesses with another person. The sharing of our inner or interior world ("intimus" in Latin) is always a risk, usually a fear of rejection, and thus many of us never go there. It might change our self image. But I am going to make a rather absolute statement: people who risk intimacy are invariably happier and much more real people. They feel like they have lots of "handles" that allow others to hold on to them, and that allow them to hold onto themselves! People who avoid intimacy are always, and I mean always, imprisoned in a small and circular world.

These two truths resonate with me at the deepest level: I no longer trust people who can't laugh at themselves ~ and ~ I am very guarded with those who won't/can't risk being open and honest. If my own wounds have taught me anything over the years it is that everybody hurts, almost none of our wounds are unique and their weight can become a little lighter if we're willing to carefully and appropriately share them in humility.

Some of us "lead with our wounds" as one feminist used to say ~ that is, we let our brokenness define and shape us ~ when the truth is that we are bigger than the pain. Others retreat into self-pity or bitterness ~ they want somebody else to fix them ~ when healing can only come from the Lord. And still others never find God's healing grace because... they aren't really looking. They may be busy, but they aren't looking for God.

That's one of the insights of Epiphany: the Magi find the "new born king" because they were paying attention and took the time to start the search. As my theological mentors in the Grateful Dead used to say: keep on truckin!

Bring on the wonder...

2011-12-27T11:11:00.000-05:00

As is often the case here, the week between Christmas and New Year's is slow and quiet. We listen to music, read, take long walks and mostly chill. For years it seemed as if the totality of both Advent and Christmas were realized for our family in these seven days: finally we were able to enter the wisdom of the liturgy without the demands or pressures of the season. In Tucson, we actually headed out of town on Christmas morning so as to avoid any hint of "work" during this time of personal renewal and reflection.

This week will be comparably chill ~ although I was more fully embodied and connected to the rhythms of Advent and Christmas this year during worship for some wonderful reason than in times past ~ so I don't feel a need to "get away!" But I still won't really "work" much this week. It is time for a rest.

We will, however, stay connected to our community during this down time by participating in a special benefit for our friend and city council person, Pete White. His mother's house burned down the week before Christmas ~ and those who love him are hosting a benefit tonight to raise emergency funds. A ton of local musicians ~ including our church band ~ will share tunes as the emcees encourage buying raffle tickets, etc. This is one way to combine doing good with both acts of compassion and prayer. Like Fr. Richard Rohr wrote in this morning's email reflection:

Christian revelation is always pointed, concrete, and specific. Our word for that is “incarnational” or enfleshed. Walter Brueggemann calls it brilliantly “the scandal of the particular.” Christianity is not a Platonic world of ideas and theories about which you can be right or wrong, or observe from a distance. Incarnation is not something you measure or critique or analyze, but Someone you meet!

This pattern reaches its fullness in the enfleshment of the Divine in one ordinary-looking man named Jesus. We dare to believe that God materialized in human form, so we could fall in love with a real person, which is the only way we fall in love. It is almost impossible to give your life warmly for an idea, a force, an energy, or a concept. We are programmed to give our lives away to other persons.

One of the truths I have experienced over and over this Advent/Christmas-moving-towards-Epiphany season has to do with the "scandal of the particular." There are times when it is very, very hard for me to love some people ~ family, members of the congregation, neighbors ~ and that doesn't even open the door for those who are enemies or evil. (Yes, evil, too, is not an abstraction but a cruel and dangerous embodied reality.) There are times when it is equally hard to love myself. And at least half the time I fail ~ not because I want to (as St. Paul states so clearly in Romans 7), but because that's how I am ~ imperfect, cracked and always being redeemed in the flesh.

For decades I hated and feared my cracks and brokenness but now I'm learning to love them. (Well, maybe not love but at least own and try to give them a hug.) In his book, A Play-Full Life, Jaco Hamman, encourages us ~ individually and in community ~ to not only embrace the wisdom of our failures, but to let them move us towards a measure of healing. This won't happen quickly, but it won't happen at all if we avoid the scandal of our particularity. As C.G. Jung used to say, the call to feed, nurture, visit and cherish the stranger in Matthew 25 is not only social, but also deeply personal. "When did we see thee hungry and feed thee, Lord...?"

One of the things I find helpful to do during this week of quiet time, is to review the year for signs of blessings and curses ~ and then try to grasp what healing they both might be luring me towards. Like Gertrud Mueller-Nelson notes:

Emmanuel means "God is with us." Here, where myth and history intersect, he stands in our midst and we are none of us too poor, too broken, too sinful, too reject by the world to know his glories. In the very depth of our humanity we discover the power of the Sacred and every human experience is transformed. For the Word is made flesh and dwells in our midst, dwells wherever we are willing to recognize him.

So bring on the music, bring on the song... let's see where the journey towards Epiphany might lead us?

I can't see the stars anymore living here
Let's go to the hills where the outlines are clear

Bring on the wonder
Bring on the songI pushed you down deep in my soul for too long

I fell through the cracks at the end of our street
Let's go to the beach, get the sand through our feet

Bring on the wonder
Bring on the song
I pushed you down deep in my soul for too long

Bring on the wonder
We got it all wrong
We pushed you down deep in our souls for too long
I don't have the time for a drink from the cup
Let's rest for a while 'til our souls catch us up

Bring on the wonder
Bring on the song
I pushed you down deep in my soul for too long

Bring on the wonder
We got it all wrong
We pushed you down deep in our souls, so hang on

Bring on the wonder
Bring on the song
I pushed you down deep in my soul for too long.

credits:
1) donskerphotography.com
2) offgridsurvival.com
3) maidenbelle.blogspot.com

Christmas thoughts...

2011-12-25T16:28:00.036-05:00

After Christmas Eve round one ~ a loving celebrations with children and families ~ there was round two ~ with another 100 people and GREAT songs and scripture (using Brian Wren's new liturgy.) This setting of "lessons and carols" updates the theologies and speaks of God's love conceptually featuring Psalms of grace, prophetic calls for justice and a sense that in Christ God has truly taken up residence within and among us. We left worship feeling fulfilled and nourished ~ and arrived home to a mini-feast of lentil soup, potato pizza and salad greens (prepared by our sweet children!)

This morning, Christmas Day, another 60 souls braved the wilds of downtown Pittsfield to join us for carols and holy communion. We talked about the lectionary readings ~ and in particular Isaiah 52 ~ that celebrates God's grace inwardly and outwardly:

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices, together they sing for joy; for in plain sight they see the return of the Lord to Zion.Break forth together into singing, you ruins of Jerusalem; for the Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem.The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

One commentator has written:

The poet-prophet uses this transferred epithet to express the joy that lies in the message of peace. The prophet’s reference to the feet, rather than the voice or the face, draws attention to the journey of the messenger in two ways. First, the agent of God is on the move, but moves step by step. God’s purposes are slow but sure. The evidence of God’s coming may be lowly, even dirty like human feet walking a dusty road, but still God’s coming is a most beautiful event as is the news of it. These are also aspects of the Christian understanding of the incarnation of God in Jesus.

Secondly, the news of peace is coming from the mountains. The word ‘mountain’ is common in Second-Isaiah, especially as a place of rejoicing (cf. 40:9; 44:23). The levelling of mountains by God is a common metaphor to represent overcoming obstacles especially in a new exodus back from exile to the land (40:4, 12, 15; 42:15). However, the mountains of Isa. 52:7 may have a more literal meaning. Along the eastern flank of Babylonia are the mountains of Persia. It was over these mountains that the liberator of God’s people, God’s ‘anointed’ one, king Cyrus, was to come (45:1).

Cyrus is the only non-Israelite who is given the title meshiach ‘anointed’ (Messiah) in the Bible. News of his advent and his conquests reached the Judean exiles some years before they were finally free to return home. Those in exile could see God’s action unfolding in the context of imminent political events.

We prayed for those who are trapped in violence ~ noting Syria and Iraq ~ lifted up friends and loved ones trapped in addiction or plagued with grief and returned thanks for our blessings. But mostly we sang Christmas carols ~ a liturgical form of stump the band where people call out their favorites and our organist gives them a shot ~ for like the ancient prophet today felt like a day to shout and sing for joy as we celebrated the presence of God who rebuilds what is in ruins in every sense.

The kids made us breakfast after worship ~ and then it was on to sharing gifts ~ before a short late afternoon nap. Now there is more food preparation before an early evening feast and a walk about to look at the holiday lights. It has been a festival of music, joy, feasting, prayer and remembrance ~ and I am grateful.

credits:
1/2: lumsden
3: http://adventdoor.com/

Christmas Eve ~ round one...

2011-12-24T17:58:00.002-05:00

We're doing two Christmas Eve gigs tonight and round one is finished. Over 100 people showed up for our No Rehearsal/Everyone Welcome Christmas Pageant. And then we all crowded around the communion table. It was mildly chaotic and a whole lotta fun.

One little girl told her momma: can we come back here for more? And another young momma said to me, "I have never experienced a church like this before. OMG it was so much fun!" She was stunned... so I smiled and said, "Isn't that part of the blessing of Christmas? Joy?" She gave me a hug and walked off smiling. It was a great first round ~ and now we're about to practice for round two with jazz, traditional carols, folks songs for peace and a sweet new inclusive liturgy by Brian Wren.

More on the flip side...

A few words from my friends on Christmas Eve...

2011-12-24T12:35:00.000-05:00

From Blue Eyed Ennis comes two moving insights on the mystery of God's grace made flesh. The first is from Mary Oliver:
Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.

How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.

How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
"Look!" and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.

Then a restatement of the Ave Maria (from the Italian):

Woman of waiting
Mother of hope
Woman of smiles
Mother of silence
Woman of the margins
Mother of Love
Woman of rest
Mother of the journey
Woman of the desert
Mother of Breath
Woman of the evening
Mother of memories
Woman of this moment
and Mother of the past
Woman on Earth
Mother of Love
Ave Maria : Hail Mary

Ora Pro Nobis : Pray for us

From Fr. Richard Rohr comes these words that get it just about right, too:

In 1847, a parish priest in France asked a simple wine merchant in his church if he would compose a poem for the Christmas Mass. He wrote the words to the music that became O Holy Night and will be sung with great solemnity and emotion in many halls and churches throughout the world tonight. It deserves to be.

I offer this song because of one truly inspired line. It says that when God came among us in the shape and form of Jesus, suddenly “the soul felt its worth!” Yes, that is it! We cannot mirror ourselves; we all must be mirrored by another. When God mirrored us through the entrance, invitation, and eyes of Jesus, the certainty of our redemption was once and for all given and accomplished. In Franciscan eyes, we needed no further blood sacrifice to reveal God's intentions toward us. We were already saved by the gaze from the manger.

The poet goes on to sing further of “a thrill of hope” and a “new and glorious morn.” Again, well said, as poets and musicians so often do! I am sure much of the conscious or unconscious sentiment of this feast is that tonight and tomorrow, on some wonderful level, the soul finally and forever does feel its worth!

Let me close with the insights from the St. of Vermont: Frederick Buechner:

The Word became Flesh, wrote St. John, "and dwelt among us full of grace and truth." (John 1: 14) That is what incarnation means. It is untheological. It is unsophisticated. It is undignified. But according to Christianity it is the way things are.

All religions and philosophies which deny the reality or the significance of the material, the fleshly, the earth-bound, are themselves denied. Moses at the burning bush was told to take off his shoes because the ground on which he stood was holy ground (Exodus 3: 5), and incarnation means that all ground is holy ground because God not only made it but walked on it, ate and slept and worked and died on it. If we are saved anywhere, we are saved here.

And what is saved is not some diaphanous distillation of our bodies and our earth but our bodies and our earth themselves. Jerusalem becomes the New Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven like a bride adorned for her husband (Revelation 21: 2). Our bodies are sown perishable and raised imperishable (I Corinthians 15: 42)

One of the blunders religious people are particularly fond of making is the attempt to be more spiritual than God.

God's grace to you all: tidings of comfort and joy and Merry Christmas, dear friends, Merry Christmas!

Slow down you move too fast...

2011-12-23T14:34:00.001-05:00

As life would have it, I find I'm reading two books of a similar theme at the same time: World Enough and Time by Christian McEwan is subtitled, "on creativity and slowing down," and A Play-Full Life by Jaco Hamman is also subtitled, "slowing down and seeking peace." Both are inspirational in the best sense of that word ~ and both speak to what I have been discerning in my heart and life for the past five years. These texts simply articulate what the Spirit has been doing... hmmmmm. I know that both books will become fodder for my writing after Christmas, but let me share this quote from Jaco in anticipation of Christmas Eve:

One answer to the question: what did Jesus do? is, he walked. Being a peasant, Jesus rarely had the luxury of riding horses or even donkeys. He lived a slow life. A play-full life is lived at the right speed. It is to have enough time to live with joy and in community with others... Most of us live the FAST LIFE... Carl Honore calls it the velocitization of life. We want our red lights to be green; our morning commute to be congestion free so that we can speed along at seventy plus miles and hour; our air travel to be on time. We want to be able to drive up and buy what we need. We want overnight shipping of our online purchases and we seek fast processors for our computers and fast Internet access. We want many channels to surf on television; recorded television shows without advertisements breaks; constant alerts from our Smartphone; our phone directory on speed dial; our emails to be answered immediately; the stock exchange to rebound quickly; our weight loss program to show great results in seven days or less; and, of course, we want fast food.

I see myself named in almost everything in that sad list ~ and felt myself fighting against what I have embraced throughout today. Stupid ass drivers making annoying decisions on the road, sluggish pedestrians getting in my way of completing my last minute errands, controlling and manipulative traditions, lists to be made and accomplished and so much more. And over and over again I had to force myself ~ sometimes out loud in the car ~ to pray St. Paul Simon's prayer: slow down you move to fast... you got to make the morning last.

And so it goes: the call is offered and received but conversion is more about my little choices everyday rather than the big one, yes? And I am dying and being reborn in each of those little choices to slow down and pay attentin so that my life is lived at the right speed. Fr. Richard Rohr, in commenting on the Vesper antiphons for this day helps when he tells us that the O Antiphon for yesterday ~ Rex in Latin ~ means king, but not our usual understanding of king:

Jesus' kingship is not a lording it over us “as the pagans do” (Luke 22:24-27). The true Messiah will utterly redefine power and authority as servanthood (John 13:4-15), good shepherding (John 10:11-18), and uniting the group in love (John 17:20-24). Ken Wilber says that there is an authority that dominates, and an authority that protects life and growth, as exemplified by good parents. I am afraid most of the world is still waiting for this kind of authority, even in the churches. To this needed, and oh-so-desired kingship, we still say COME!

And today on the eve of the eve, the Vesper antiphon is the final invocation before the feast begins tomorrow at sunset, as is the Jewish custom. The word, of course, is from that central prophecy for Christians from Isaiah 7:14: “A virgin/maiden shall be with child, and will give birth to a son, and she will call him Emmanuel” (which means God-with-us). God-with-us is a divine promise first to Israel, and through them to all of us, of God's unilateral faithfulness to humanity and God's eternal initiative toward all that is created. That's why we Franciscans said that Christmas was already Easter! Note that in the original text in Isaiah these words are spoken to pious and foolish King Ahaz. Yahweh has told him to “ask for a sign” (7:11). Ahaz is holier than God and refuses to do so, and so Yahweh takes the initiative, admitting that old Ahaz is “trying both human and divine patience” (7:13) and gives him a totally compelling sign anyway. In other words, Yahweh is going to come as an uninvited, unrecognized, and even unexpected guest, which is pretty much the eternal pattern.

To put it even more plainly, Yahweh says I am going to be with you whether you know it or not, ask for it or not, or enjoy it or not. God is GIVEN once, and for all, and forever, to the human species and to the whole created world! That is the meaning of Incarnation, the meaning of Emmanuel, and the first and final meaning of Christmas. (Maybe without fully knowing why, we centered in on a very prophetic text when we sang and quoted Isaiah 7:14, but like so much of the Bible, the text gets even more powerful when you read it in full context.) Now read it in the context of your own life!

Lord, may it be born and nourished within and among us...

I think a change would do you good...

2011-12-23T00:05:00.002-05:00

This year we are breaking with tradition ~ a personal and professional change ~ by moving away from the traditional Kings College "lessons and carols" worship for Christmas Eve. Don't get me wrong, I love the beauty and awe of this liturgy, but the theology is outdated. It is also not real given our increasingly inter-dependent world. So, I've chosen to experiment by using Brian Wren's careful and compassionate reworking of the King's College lessons and carols with something he calls "a service of songs and scriptures" in Advent, Christmas Epiphany Liturgies and Prayers for Public Worship (check it out @ http://www.thethoughtfulchristian.com/Products/0664233090/advent-christmas-and-epiphany.aspx)

Two key differences between the old and new are important to note:

+ First, the theology of this new liturgy articulates a way of being faithful that involves co-creation. Not that God isn't God, but rather these words make it clear that we have a critical role to play in advancing compassion and justice in Christ's image. That is to say, being faithful isn't simply about right doctrine, it is also about right action. He articulates what I have noted as a generous orthodoxy - with some radical and demanding consequences. Wren puts it like this...

+ Second, the early 20th century sentimentalism of the King's College liturgy has been changed to include the harsh and sobering realities of violence. Wren also situates the words of worship in a multi-faith, post-September 11th world that is takes seriously the insights of post-modern thinking, too. For example, he makes much greater use of the Psalms and the wisdom of St. Paul, like the inclusion of Psalm 103:

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and do not forget all his benefits—
who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the Pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
who satisfies you with good as long as you live^*
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

The Lord works vindication
and justice for all who are oppressed.
He made known his ways to Moses,
his acts to the people of Israel.
The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He will not always accuse,
nor will he keep his anger for ever.
He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love towards those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far he removes our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion for his children,
so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.
For he knows how we were made;
he remembers that we are dust.

So I think a change would do us good: it is clearly the right time. I think the closing blessing brings it all home:

Go in peace.
May the love that made the stars,
be your guiding light.
May the love revealed in Jesus
be your hope and inspiration;
and may the love of the ever-present Spirit,
give you courage, joy and hope,
now and forever. Amen.

If you are in town... why not join us? (Worship starts at 7 PM with 30 minutes of stunning music that is truly eclectic: some classical hymns, some jazz, some contemporary settings of old tunes and some country/folk/gospel, too.)

credits:
1) ephphatha-poetry.blogspot.com
2) http://adventdoor.com/category/lectio-divina/
3) ibid

NOTE: for great insight and art please visit the site of the brilliant artist Jan Richardshon @ http://adventdoor.com/

Dayenu in Advent...

2011-12-21T23:39:00.000-05:00

Last night ~ at band practice ~ I experienced a little of the sounds of heaven on earth: my church band, which keeps getting tighter and more creative, worked on two songs that left me in awe. The first, Over the Rhine's incredible "Trumpet Child," features Dianne on vocals with Jon on harmonies; Carlton nails the jazz piano and our friend, Charlie, is sitting in on sax. But we also have a young trumpet player, too and "Edge" is simply all over his part leaving me full to overflowing.

Then we worked on Linda Worster's hauntingly beautiful, "Peace on Earth." And once we got the PA/guitar amp in balance, the singers' three part harmonies lifted me beyond this realm. I hope we can record this tune ~ and do it with Linda sometime soon, too ~ because it truly is heavenly. And when the singers gathered around the piano with the sax and worked out some jazz settings for Christmas carols on Christmas Eve all I could do (after moving some poinsettias) was sit and soak it all in: "this is what heaven sounds like," I kept thinking to myself, "beauty upon beauty."

Tomorrow I'll do an early morning Christmas show with some friends, follow up on details for Christmas Eve, stop by the hospital to visit a friend's mother who is slowly letting go of life, do choir practice and close the day with drinks with Andy and Sue. That sounds like a sweet way to welcome the Solstice. I'll even get a chance to see one of my daughters as she passes through town on her way to Cleveland for the holiday.

Today at midday Eucharist, when we read the Psalm 124 we all agreed it sounded like the Jewish Passover prayer: dayenu. It would have been enough...

If God hadn't been for us —all together now, Israel, sing out!—
If God hadn't been for us
when everyone went against us,
We would have been swallowed alive
by their violent anger,
Swept away by the flood of rage,
drowned in the torrent;
We would have lost our lives
in the wild, raging water.

Oh, blessed be God!
He didn't go off and leave us.
He didn't abandon us defenseless,
helpless as a rabbit in a pack of snarling dogs.

We've flown free from their fangs,
free of their traps, free as a bird.
Their grip is broken;
we're free as a bird in flight.
God's strong name is our help,
the same God who made heaven and earth.

For a moment, I felt like it would have been enough to let go of life after last night's music... but God's grace is greater and there was today ~ and tomorrow ~ and soon Christmas Eve. Dayenu!

A different type of day...

2011-12-20T20:54:00.002-05:00

Usually Tuesdays are set aside for study, prayer and writing in my semi-ordered life. But with Christmas coming this week ~ and a very different set of liturgies to celebrate ~ I'm not going to preach this year. So I embraced today as a very different type of day...

+ First, I spent time with Brian Wren's new liturgies for Advent/Christmas/Epiphany. I cherish them as they are grounded, creative, provacative and nourishing all at the same time. We will be using his "Service of Songs and Scripture - Year B" for our late worship this year. I will also be using his short Holy Communion liturgy for our midday Eucharist after the New Year. One of the Eucharistic prayers goes:

Holy One, Holy Three – Spirit, Son and Father – you unfolded time and space and created us to love and be loved, to live on this earth and tend to it for your glory. With all our heart:
We praise you and thank you.

Holy One, Holy Three – Author, Word and Breath – you chose your covenant people and revealed yourself as holy, incomparable and elusive; as liberator, judge and compassionate, forgiving love. With all our heart:

We praise you and thank you.

Holy One, Holy Three – Lover, Beloved and Source of All Love – you became human in Jesus, whose love goes beyond our limits, reaching out to good and bad alike and calling us to practice peace, mercy and kindness; to forgive as we have been forgiven; and to love even our enemies. With all our heart:

We praise you and thank you.

Holy One, Holy Three – Giver, Given and Gifting – as we share this bread and cup, we remember how Jesus died for us, bore our sins in his body on the tree, defeated the powers of this age and lives among us here and now, breaking our dividing walls and giving us good news. With all our heart:

We praise you and thank you.

+ Second, I played some music at a local nursing home with my buddy Andy. Nursing homes are sad places this time of year ~ sometimes any time of year ~ so it was a little bit of mercy to share the sounds of the season with these dear old friends.To say that it was a hard crowd to work ~ most folk were unreceptive ~ would be an understatement. And for an entertainer that is hard going. But by the end, we were able to create a groove so that some folk were up and dancing and singing along. Hard work but also soul food.

+ Third, Andy and I shared a pint ~ as good Irish men are want to do ~ and talked about the year past and the year to come. I love this guy and he has been so wonderful to me on so many levels. I have grown to care for his family, too ~ I'll have the privilege of celebrating the wedding of his daughter in August. I've played a St. Patrick's gig with his son. And, of course, shared Istanbul with Andy and his dear wife. So this was a little soul food too ~ and the Killian's Red was an unexpected bonus!

Now I'm headed off to eat Mexican with Di before band practice tonight. We're gearing up for some sweet, sweet Christmas Eve music with my church mates ~ and were blessed as well to have the Master of the Universe, the Big Man of the Saxophone himself, Charlie Tokarz joining us. It will be a joy to rehearse with these fine players and plan for this special night. What's more, I just got a note that one of our young seminarians is home from Yale and will join us tomorrow at Eucharist. Then we'll have a chance to connect ~ and spend a few hours in conversation. Dig these lyrics...

The trumpet child will blow his horn
Will blast the sky till it’s reborn
With Gabriel’s power and Satchmo’s grace
He will surprise the human race

The trumpet he will use to blow
Is being fashioned out of fire
The mouthpiece is a glowing coal
The bell a burst of wild desire

The trumpet child will riff on love
Thelonious notes from up above
He’ll improvise a kingdom come
Accompanied by a different drum

The trumpet child will banquet here
Until the lost are truly found
A thousand days, a thousand years
Nobody knows for sure how long

The rich forget about their gold
The meek and mild are strangely bold
A lion lies beside a lamb
And licks a murderer’s outstretched hand

The trumpet child will lift a glass
His bride now leaning in at last
His final aim to fill with joy
The earth that man all but destroyed

Today has been the day when Advent's waiting started to shift for me towards the deep, deep joy of Christ's gentle birth: rejoice, rejoice...

The magnificat and the 23rd day of Advent...

2011-12-19T13:57:00.002-05:00

What does it mean to pray Mary's "magnificat" in all of its radical fullness? Yesterday, during our adult Sunday School class, Amy-Jill Levine - our guest teacher - mentioned the wisdom and insight of Walter Wink's "third way of Jesus" as one clue. Some may know that Wink's insights have been influential in South Africa's struggle to oppose injustice in the most ethical way possible. He once said:

The problem of using violence (is that it) always turns you into the very thing you hate. We want so badly to oppose the palpable and flagrant evil of Bosnia and Somalia. Yet when we go in shooting and killing, etc., we find ourselves imperceptibly sucked into the very kinds of behavior we went in deploring. We find ourselves trying to get Aidid and operating as a death squad chasing him down. Before long, we are going to find ourselves engaged in ethnic cleansing. I have already heard a congressman speaking of the people of Somalia as infidels although they are God-believing Moslems. Pretty soon we dehumanize the enemy and we turn into the very thing we are opposing.

And Wink draws spiritual insight from a key teaching of the ministry of Jesus:

One of the most misunderstood passages in all of the Bible is Jesus' teaching about turning the other cheek. The passage runs this way: "You have heard that it was said, `An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, do not resist one who is evil. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also. And if anyone takes you to court and sues you for your outer garment, give your undergarment as well. If one of the occupation troops forces you to carry his pack one mile, carry it two."

This passage has generally been understood by people as teaching non-resistance. Do not resist one who is evil has been taken to mean simply let them run all over you. Give up all concern for your own justice. If they hit you on one cheek, turn the other and let them batter you there too, which has been bad advice for battered women. As far as the soldier forcing you to take his pack an extra mile, well are you doing that voluntarily? It has become a platitude meaning extend yourself.

Jesus could not have meant those kinds of things. He resisted evil with every fiber of His being. There is not a single instance in which Jesus does not resist evil when He encounters it. The problem begins right there with the word resist. The Greek term is antistenai. Anti is familiar to us in English still, "against," "Anti"-Defamation League. Stenai means to stand. So, "stand against." Resist is not a mistranslation so much as an undertranslation. What has been overlooked is the degree to which antistenai is used in the NewTestament in the vast majority of cases as a technical term for warfare. To "stand against" refers to the marching of the two armies up against each other until they actually collide with one another and the battle ensues. That is called "taking a stand."

Ephesians 6:13 says, "Therefore put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand (antistenai) in that evil day and having done all to stand (stenai)."

The image there is not of a punch drunk boxer somehow managing to stay on his feet even though he is being pummeled by his adversary. It is to keep on fighting. Don't retreat. Don't give up. Don't turn your back and flee but stay in there and fight to the bitter end.

When Jesus says, "Do not resist one who is evil," there is something stronger than simply resist. It's do not resist violently. Jesus is indicating do not resist evil on its own terms. Don't let your opponent dictate the terms of your opposition. If I have a hoe and my opponent has a rifle, I am obviously going to have to get a rifle in order to fight on equal terms, but then my opponent gets a machine gun, so I have to get a machine gun. You have a spiral of violence that is unending.

Jesus is trying to break that spiral of violence. Don't resist one who is evil probably means something like, don't turn into the very thing you hate. Don't become what you oppose. The earliest translation of this is probably in a version of Romans 12 where Paul says, "Do not return evil for evil."

(see: The Third Way @ http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/wink_3707.htm

So the question that begs asking: how much of this did Jesus learn from Mary? To be sure, the Magnificat is St. Luke's literary and/or story-telling way of linking Mary's life with that of other strong and faithful women: Think of Miriam, Deborah or Hannah singing praises to the Lord. There is also a close affiliation with the Jubilee wisdom of the prophet Isaiah running through Luke's gospel, too and Mary's song echoes themes Jesus will proclaim at the start of his public ministry.

But there is something of Christ's radically non-violent third way going on here, too that refuses to cooperate with evil or simply ignore it. When your dignity and "favor" come from God - not your power or social status but the Lord - then you can stand firm against evil without cooperating with it. You can live as the Lord's favored one ~ Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee ~ as the prayer tells us. Let's celebrate the revolutionary third way of Jesus who was born of Mary.

Another wonderful Sunday in Advent...

2011-12-18T17:40:00.000-05:00

What an incredible and wonderful Sunday to bring Advent to a close: the biblical scholar, Amy-Jill Levine was with us for our Sunday morning adult class - and after worship for conversation, too - our house was full for Advent IV and my music director debuted this afternoon with a classical festival concert with 65 voices in his choir! I am knocked out! Some of our young people from college were back, too - as well as a young Army officer - and there was a sense in church today that we're ALL going deeper into this wild, loving, gentle and totally counter cultural spirituality of Jesus.

+ We baptized a young mother and her 5 year old son this morning - both are from China -and that gave worship a whole other layer of meaning. They've been worshipping with us since they moved to Pittsfield four years ago - about the same time we arrived - and now they were ready to take another step on the road of discipleship.

+ AJ Levine really helped bring the gospel stories about Christ's birth in Matthew and Luke to life as she pointed out the humor, the politics and the challenge to live into Christ's non-violent commitment to justice. Walter and June Wink joined us, too - he is one of the most insightful, challenging and wise scholars into the politics of Jesus - and I was blessed that in his aging years he was able to be a part of this special morning.

And as is so often the case, my soul was fed with today's music - in church - and at the afternoon concert. There were 250+ people at the concert so when we sang the old Christmas carols - with 30 women doing descants - it was heavenly. I find that I am always moved to tears by both "O Come All Ye Faithful" and "Joy to the World." I don't need a hymnal - or song sheet - I just belt it out from memory - and when the high sopranos add those sweet, sweet descants... I'm a goner!

All I can do now is give thanks to God... and get ready for Christmas Eve. (Well, and have a glass of red wine and make some dinner...)

Let's have a different conversation about justice...

2011-12-17T12:14:00.002-05:00

I grow weary - and bored - when old-line liberals blather on about how local congregations do not seem to be committed to justice. To be sure, most churches have been trained for generations to "do" acts of compassion if they take the presence of Christ seriously: "When did we see thee, Lord and feed, clothe, visit and care for thee? Whenever you did so unto one of the least of these, my sisters and brothers, you did it unto me." The need to feed and clothe people is immediate - and necessary - so most churches do what we can to ease the pain and trust that the rest is up to God.

Rarely, however, do local congregations join social justice movements and become front line outposts for social change. The obvious exceptions include the radical reformers of the Social Gospel movement prior to WWI, parts of the Civil Rights struggle in the 40-60s, the anti-war movement during the Vietnam years and our current concern for eco-justice. And I think there are three natural reasons why local churches rarely move beyond the very demanding level of sharing compassion:

+ The first has to do the fact that most social justice activity in the United States is related to legislation - not consciousness raising - and religious denominations have found it more effective and efficient to work directly with politicians and their staff. This is a functional reality tied to time and resources. To be sure, there are periodic grassroots campaigns - letters, phone calls and sometime human bodies directed towards our elected representatives - but usually the push for a change in legislation takes place through educational events, lobbying and small meetings. Local congregations can choose to keep abreast of the lobbying work their national offices are pursuing - and there are very insightful websites and church publications available - still the real work generally takes place at a macro level.

+ The second reason why local churches are not more justice oriented is equally functional: local churches are at the front lines of mercy and compassion work. People in need are not directed to Washington, DC - they knock on our doors and ring our bells - because this is where hunger centers, hospice and emergency services are located. In some sense, each local congregation acts like a medieval monastery by recognizing and caring for the presence of Christ in those who are lonely and in need. We act locally and support the national church as it addresses the bigger picture.

+ And the third reason that keeps local congregations more connected to compassion than social justice is relational: pastors and active church members have been charged to build up the body of Christ. We have not been called to change the world nor have we been empowered to give most of our energies to those beyond the faith community, right? There are some who have been ordained to do that - and they ofter do that with courage and deep conviction - but that is not the calling of those who serve God in a local church. We are to find ways of being faithful in community - and communities of faith are complex and nuanced. We rarely speak with one voice. We cherish being on the journey of faith together but know that this means differing levels of maturity and commitment. And we try to cultivate a way of living with others that honors different insights, too. The metaphor of the body is rich and asks us not to try to make everyone a tongue - or a heart - or a head. Rather, the body celebrates different gifts so that we might all move together in Christ.

This was all brought to mind this morning while eating breakfast and reading the NYTimes where three different stories about local churches caught my attention:

+ Occupy Group Faults Church, a Onetime Ally (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/17/nyregion/church-that-aided-wall-st-protesters-is-now-their-target.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper) Here you can see how the very different perspectives collide in a local church that is being called to move beyond its comfort zone. I think Trinity Wall Street is missing the mark and should let the OWS set up camp on their vacant lot. Yes, this church is very used to being a source of doing the works of mercy; yes, it has been modestly supportive of the Occupy group when asked to help with gentle acts of compassion; but now they have an organic and immediate opportunity to link themselves with the most important grassroots social justice movement in America and... their vision is too narrow.

No wonder Archbishop Desmond Tutu - a man who helped his church move into action when the time was right to engage justice - wrote the following:

Sisters and Brothers, I greet you in the Name of Our Lord and in the bonds of common friendship and struggle from my homeland of South Africa. I know of your own challenges and of this appeal to Trinity Church for the shelter of a new home and I am with you! May God bless this appeal of yours and may the good people of that noble parish heed your plea, if not for ease of access, then at least for a stay on any violence or arrests.

Yours is a voice for the world not just the neighborhood of Duarte Park. Injustice, unfairness, and the strangle hold of greed which has beset humanity in our times must be answered with a resounding, "No!" You are that answer. I write this to you not many miles away from the houses of the poor in my country. It pains me despite all the progress we have made. You see, the heartbeat of what you are asking for--that those who have too much must wake up to the cries of their brothers and sisters who have so little--beats in me and all South Africans who believe in justice.

Trinity Church is an esteemed and valued old friend of mine; from the earliest days when I was a young Deacon. Theirs was the consistent and supportive voice I heard when no one else supported me or our beloved brother Nelson Mandela. That is why it is especially painful for me to hear of the impasse you are experiencing with the parish. I appeal to them to find a way to help you. I appeal to them to embrace the higher calling of Our Lord Jesus Christ--which they live so well in all other ways--but now to do so in this instance...can we not rearrange our affairs for justice sake? Just as history watched as South Africa was reborn in promise and fairness so it is watching you now.

In closing, be assured of my thoughts and prayers, they are with you at this very hour.
God bless you,
+Desmond Tutu
Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town

+ A New Kind of Catholic (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/17/us/politics/newt-gingrich-represents-new-political-era-for-catholics.html?ref=todayspaper) This is a fascinating story that explores the spiritual journey of Newt Gingrich from Lutheran to Southern Baptist to Roman Catholic.

Let me say at the outset that it is not my place to question his sincerity here: as the article makes clear, his theological evolution rings true. Besides, that is something that only God will sort out at a time and place of the Lord's choosing. No, what grabbed my attention was that Gingrich was rebaptized in his new church - and his marriage is considered valid - and he can receive the sacraments, too.

And herein lies the problem: if the direction of Newt's spiritual life had gone in the other direction - from Catholicism to the Southern Baptists - and the Baptists had insisted on rebaptizing him as a convert, my Roman Catholic sisters and brothers would be waving the bloody shirt screaming: there is only ONE baptism, ONE faith and ONE Lord our God, yes? What's more, if Newt had requested the rebaptism, why didn't the local priest and/or bishop explain that since the beginning of the church ALL baptisms are considered true and pure? (I won't even try to sort out how a twice married and divorced man is acceptable at the communion table and invited to a special audience with Pope Benedict, while Senator John Kerry or VP Joe Biden are officially prohibited from sharing Christ's grace at Holy Communion.)

Here is a whole other level of justice that rarely is discussed in any local church - respecting and honoring one an other's traditions - while engaged in honest theological debate. I have profound concerns about the unholy alliance crafted in the 1980s between the Roman Catholic bishops and the Right to Life evangelicals that are both theological and political. This cabal continues to generate social policy that weakens the common good. And given the directives of Rome, there is no place for people like me to explore these concerns with like minded Catholics. Consequently, in my town, ecumenical cooperation between Protestants and Catholics has atrophied.

+ So how do very different people of faith find a way to do justice together when we come up against something like this? A One Man War Against American Islam (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/17/us/on-religion-a-one-man-war-on-american-muslims.html?ref=todayspaper) Let's just say that our current polarization nearly immobilizes us from seeking religious allies of different traditions to combat this injustice. I know allies exist - in our music-making for peace - we found hundreds of them. But our churches seem curiously inept when it comes to solidarity around religious intolerance.

So I have come to see "doing justice" work in the local church in a very different way: today I sense that the most effective way of doing justice is to help the local congregation come to embrace and trust the counter-cultural vision of Jesus. This is slow and deliberate work. As Peterson has noted, it is subversive work. It trusts God more than self and affirms that the Spirit is leading us in ways we cannot even imagine.

Three things are implicit in subversion: One, the status quo is wrong and must be overthrown if the world is going to be livable. It is so deeply wrong that repair work is futile... Two, there is another world aborning that is livable... And three, the usual means by which one kind is thrown out and another put in its place - military force or democratic elections - are not available... Consequently, prayer and parable are the tools of the subversive pastor...

For these are tools that trust the imagination and trust the Lord, too. The Occupy people have some sense that social inequality will not be changed at this moment in time by tinkering with little laws on the national level. Our souls must be healed and challenged - our vision must be cleared from addiction and fear - and the common good must be restored to its rightful place in our national conversations. And so they, like the subversive pastor, start small - and quietly - and trust that the Spirit is stronger and wiser than all of us put together.

For a clear articulation of WHY the OWS folk are the guiding heart of this generation's quest for justice, check out Bill Moyer's work @ http://www.alternet.org/story/153349/Moyers:_Why_'We_The_People'_Must_Triumph_Over_Corporate_Power/

And that is how I see justice work being done in the local church in the 21st century. Tomorrow we are blessed to welcome Amy-Jill Levine to our local church - one of the leading Jewish scholars of the New Testament - and co-editor of the brilliant Jewish Annotated New Testament. Her presence - and shared wisdom - is another aspect of having a new conversation about doing justice, too. If you are in town, please join us at 9:15 am.

This new/old conversation is grounded in community - not lone rangers or ideology - and requires a patience and commitment that is revolutionary. It has changed - and continues to change - my understanding of ministry.