Fat Tuesday...

As many of you know, tonight we'll be doing a FAT TUESDAY BLUES AND JAZZ PARTY at church.  It will be a fund raiser for the Christian Center - the oldest non-profit human service organization in the Berkshires - and their new Executive Director will be with us. I am so glad to do this gig for the Center: they are on the front line of fending off hunger and homelessness.

But there is another mission taking place tonight, too: building community among some of the area's musicians. The idea for this event came from the gathered musicians themselves after Thanksgiving Eve who all said, "When are we going to do this again?!?" And in the wake of Whitney's death, I want to own the importance of building loving trust among artists; all too often, artists are left to fend for themselves. It is a lonely walk, so this gig - with all its good vibes and sweet music - is a little bit of soul food.  And the way each musician works so hard to bring out the best in the others is... well... time within the kingdom of God.

Some of the area's finest jazz/blues players are going to be with us - all giving up their time and talent - mostly to share the joy of creating something bigger and more beautiful than ourselves.  I am grateful to them all - and honored to host this event. 

Dig it if you can:  the groove starts @ 7 PM.

I crisscrossed with Monk
Wailed with Bud
Counted every star with Stitt
Sang "Don’t Blame Me" with Sarah
Wore a flower like Billie
Screamed in the range of Dinah
& scatted "How High the Moon" with Ella Fitzgerald
as she blew roof off the Shrine Auditorium
                    Jazz at the Philharmonic

Feeling at peace...

This morning I had a LATE breakfast with my daughter - scones and hot tea and lots of conversation - and that was a treat.  The rest of the week is FULL, but I have a peace about it that feels right:

+ Tonight I lead a conversation into the PLAY-FULL life group

+ Tomorrow there is the Inter-Faith group annual meeting, getting ready for our Fat Tuesday gig and then the actually Blues and Jazz Party in which 24+ musicians will be making music to raise funds for the local hunger center

+ Wednesday is Ash Wednesday - worship at both 12:10 pm and 7 pm - and ashes to burn and prepare along with cleaning up after Fat Tuesday

+ Thursday there will be meetings and maybe even a little sermon preparation

+ And after worship on Sunday - the first Sunday of Lent - we're off to a Jazz and Liturgy workshop for 5 days in Nashville

And yet it all feels right and focused and gentle, hmmmm...?  Peterson writes that one of the sacred insights for living fully into the paradox of suffering and celebration is nourishing a sense of waiting and hope. "They are at the center of Psalm 130:  I wait for the Lord, my soul waits and in God's word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord!"

The words wait and hope are connected with the image of the watchmen waiting through the night for the dawn.  The connection provides important insights for the person in trouble who asks, "But surely, there is something for me to do!?!" The answer is yes, there is something for you to do, or more exactly there is someone you can be: a watchman. A watchman is an important person, but he doesn't do very much.  The massive turning of the earth, the immense energies released by the sun - all that goes on apart from him. He does nothing to influence or control such things: he is a watchman.  He knows the dawn is coming; there are not doubts concerning that. Meanwhile he is alert to dangers, he comforts restless children or animals until it is time work or play again in the light of day...

... the Christian's waiting and h oping is based on the conviction that God is actively involved in his creation and vigorously at work in redemption. Waiting does not mean doing nothing. It is not fatalistic resignation. It means going about our assigned tasks, confident that God will provide the meaning and the conclusions. It is not compelled to work away at keeping up appearances with a bogus spirituality. It is the opposite of desperate and panicky manipulations, of scurrying and worrying.

And hoping is not dreaming. It is not spinning an illusion of fantasy to protect us from our boredom or our pain. It means a confident alert expectation that God will do what God has said he will do. It is imagination put in the harness of faith.

There are demands to stand and deliver this week - and throughout the season of Lent - even in a small faith community.  But the key is to engage them all in a playfull way so that it is possible and natural to wait and hope, yes?

Wishing he were here...

So, dude, we're practicing for our Fat Tuesday Blues and Jazz Party tonight - a totally hot gig with some of my favorite people/artists/musicians playing smokin' blues and jazz - when in comes this video from brother Vince (a killer San Francisco artist) of my flesh and blood brother at a recent poetry reading. 

Freakin' jumpin' Jack Kerouac Batman - we were channeling the same groove tonight in different places - groovin' on the spirit of Bop and Blues and everything North Beach but in a totally bi-coastal way.  Check it out... my brother Phil going to town in the great Jazz Mecca by the sea (that's Pacific, man.)

Damn, but I wish me brother where here on THIS coast for Fat Tuesday:  I am truly wishing he were in the house but loving this gift via the blessings of technology.  We'll do it up right and share some Tom Waits' in his honor.

a few signs say so much...

This past week I came across a few pictures/signs that seem to capture something of the mood of America these days.  The first evoked a number of challenging comments on Face book.  And while it doesn't get the whole story right, it does point out the greater similarities that exist between some of our so-called enemies and  the way our governments operate at this moment in time. To be sure, I believe that some differences cannot be overcome - and that human sin is very real in the realm of politics - and some problems cannot be overcome by more education.  Still... there is a lot to be said for getting to know one another and people-to-people diplomacy.

The next one builds on this theme and is equally interesting - especially having just finished Deborah Scroggins fascinating book:  Wanted Women - Faith, Lies and the War on Terror - the Lives of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Aafia Siddiqui.



Meanwhile, back home there were two postings that point to the weird contradictions that are all too alive and well in contemporary American life and religion.  The first, of course, involves the hyperbole re: religious freedom and contraception.  Funny that 98% of Roman Catholic women use some form of contraception but the good old boys still refuse to see the light.  I don't begrudge the Roman Catholic bishops their theology - nor Mr. Santorum his ethics - but I refuse to cede any ground that suggests that they possess a monopoly on moral conduct or insight into the sacred.

Same goes for those who love to quote portions of the Scripture out of context to support this or that narrow bias or hatred.  This one is truly worth 1000 words...

When it all comes down to the real nitty gritty, here is how I want to be judged and known...

Sermon ending changes... again

Funny what happens with more study... time.. and prayer!  For my sermon notes on "Jesus and Justice" I have found the need - once more - to change the conclusion.  So, here goes... The set up is that theologian, Douglas John Hall, has just seen a sign - in a Protestant church, no less - that says:  "Don't just do something, sit there!" and he writes:

This, I believe, is the first requirement for any Christian person or congregation or denomination today that wants to find a way into the future. Thought—original, deep, critical, theological thinking—is the conditio sine qua non—the condition without which the Christian movement will not find its way into the uncertain future. Another word for the kind of thought of which I am speaking is the much-misunderstood word “theology.” Ours is a time when theological reflection may be the most important thing Christians can do if they are earnest about their future (and concerned about justice.)

That is what was so intriguing, effective and important about the Occupy Wall Street movement:  from the start they were committed to gathering people together to reason and reflect in community about our current crisis.  They were not interested in demonizing others or polarizing society around real or imagined enemies. Rather they understood that first, more than anything else, to do justice requires that we think and pray and talk carefully about our common life together.  To use the words of America’s greatest moral and ethical theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, to make the gospel of Jesus Christ effective in our public realm, the church must bring together both spiritual vigor and social intelligence before it acts – but act it must.

The tragedy of most churches, Niebuhr insisted, is that we cultivate a spirituality by divorcing ourselves from the realities of the common good.  “Yesterday,” he once wrote, “church leaders discovered that the church may be an ark in which to survive during a flood. Today, however, we have become so enamored of this special function that we have decided to turn our ark into a home on Mount Ararat and live in it perpetually.”  Rather than offer both a diagnosis as well as a plan for healing the wounds that hurt us all, Niebuhr taught, we get sidetracked and afraid. Conservative congregations then convict men and women of only their secondary sins, “while the liberal church is unable to convict anyone of any sin at all because of our romantic view of human nature.”  

And I have to tell you that I think old Reinie was right:  American Christians are just not very good about bringing spiritual vigor and social intelligence together when it comes to doing justice.  Sometimes we act like we self-righteous windbags trying to bully one another into silence or action; and at other times we revert to a pious sentimentalism that wonders out loud, like Rodney King did after the LA riots:  Why can’t we just all get along? 

·         One polarity arrogantly and naively acts as if they have a monopoly upon wisdom – whether liberal or conservative – and that turns most people off; while the other romantically insists that if we just practiced the Golden Rule individually the kingdom of God would be right around the corner.

·         The result is that most churches come to an impasse about doing justice because we act like “substituting benevolence for justice is the best we can achieve.”  And the fundamental reason for this impasse is because we define Christian love only in terms of personal not social relations.

And THAT is why Douglas John Hall urged us to sit there before hurrying up to do something:  we need to totally rethink what the justice of Jesus is all about.  I believe that the old way of doing politics is exhausting and over – stick a fork in it – it’s done!  What we need to do now is bring a Christian anthropology into our politics – reclaim the deep importance of both sin and grace – in shaping public policy for the common good.  We need to renew our prophetic critique against greed and corruption and arrogance in light of the Lord’s humbling and transforming Cross. 

And we need to relearn the essential ethical foundation of the Christian life that always lives in that odd land between sentimentality and cynicism.  Like life in another so-called Dark Ages, much of this has been lost, only kept alive in the private libraries of the clergy or remote monastic orders.  But we need a renaissance of thinking about the common good.  

·         So let me propose that we do some serious theological reflection – and I mean starting with brother Niebuhr’s wisdom – and let that become part of our adult education ministry and mission of First Church.

·         After my current series on Monday night’s is over after Lent, let’s take the next few months to review and digest the works of one of our own, Reinhold Niebuhr, so that we reclaim both a common language for doing justice as well as a deeper wisdom about how Christianity offers authentic healing options to a shallow and sick American culture.

If we do that, if we bring spiritual vigor and social intelligence back into the conversation, then we might be ready to do something - something that resembles the justice of Jesus.  And that, beloved, is where I find the good news for today.

Reflections on Jesus, justice and compassion...

NOTE:  Here are my worship notes for Sunday, February 19, 2012.  They conclude a series re: living the mission statement of First Church: In community with God and each other we gather to worship, to reflect on our Christian faith, to do justice and to share compassion.

Today is the Feast of the Transfiguration – one of the 12 major feast days set aside in the wider Church for us to ponder something of the sacred mystery of God that is revealed to us in Jesus Christ – in this case the revelation to three key disciples that Jesus was simultaneously human and divine.  The story tells us that:

Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain.  And when they arrived his appearance changed from the inside out, right before their eyes, so that his clothes shimmered, glistening white, whiter than any bleach could make them. Elijah, along with Moses, came into view, and together were in deep conversation with Jesus… and when they were done… a light-radiant cloud enveloped them, and from deep in the cloud, a voice: "This is my Son, marked by my love: Listen to him."

And there is a whole lot happening in those 8 short lines for us to explore, yes?  Let me suggest a few of the highlights:

+ Jesus pulls aside an inner circle – Peter, James and John – those who were maybe a little more focused than the others on kingdom concerns to become witnesses of what was about to happen.

+ And where did this inner circle go? Up a high mountain – probably Mt. Hermon at the borders of Israel, Lebanon and Syria – the northern most tip of the Promised Land and the highest point in the region.

And why are mountains important symbols and clues for us in the unfolding stories of the Bible?  What other things have taken place on mountains?

+ The 10 Commandments were given to Moses on a mountain top, right?  The heart of the covenant for God’s people was revealed on a desert mountain.

+ The Sermon on the Mount offers another elevated revelation for God’s people: here is the distillation of Christ’s ethical and spiritual insights about the Lord that Jesus shared with his people.

And don’t forget that Jesus himself often went to a lonely mountain top for solitude and prayer, right?  So first there is the calling together of the best and the brightest; second there is a reminder that something significant is about to happen because the action is taking place on a mountain.  And third there is that totally wild and mystical meeting on the mountain top between Jesus, Moses and Elijah that results in God proclaiming:  this is my Beloved – marked by my love – listen to him!

Amy-Jill Levine writes in the commentary to the Jewish Annotated New Testament that Moses and Elijah, “…represent the covenant of Torah – Moses – and the prophetic denunciations of corruption and idolatry – Elijah – respectively.”   They are the law and the prophets: Moses, who spoke to the Lord God face to face (and was similarly enlightened and transfigured) and Elijah, who was taken up into heaven in a whirlwind of chariots and horses of fire… represent those who stand in God’s presence and communicate the word of the Lord to God’s people in time.

And what were these cats are doing up on that mountain?  Holding a theological conversation of mind-blowing proportions with Jesus:  Hmmmmm given the symbolic gravitas of everything that has been gathered together here, it is probably safe to conclude that we’re supposed to give this story a TON of attention, don’t you think?

+ I mean Jesus AND Moses and Elijah:  here is an invitation to grace as well as the law and the prophets – forgiveness, covenant and the call to justice – all together at the same time.

+ And just so that we don’t miss the point, when this colloquy is completed, what do the disciples hear from the Lord God on the mountain top?  This is my beloved – marked with my love – listen to him.

And where have we heard those words before in Christ’s story, do you recall? They are proclaimed in each of the Synoptic Gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke - after Christ’s baptism by John in the River Jordan.  When Jesus comes up out of the symbolic waters of death, God’s voice is hear announcing:  this is my beloved with whom I am well pleased. And Luke goes on to use this phrase – my beloved son – again in one of the parables:  I will send my beloved son and maybe they will listen.

So are you still with me?  Do you grasp both the context and symbolic importance of what’s taking place in this short story? Something BIG is happening on this mountain:  God has brought together all the heavy hitters – Moses and Elijah in conference with Jesus – because do you remember what Christ told us at the start of his ministry when asked about the significance of the law and the prophets?  In Matthew 5:17 Jesus said:  Don’t think I’ve come to abolish the law and the prophets; rather I have come to… what? 

+ To fulfill them – to fill them full – just like he filled the vats of water full of wine at the first miracle at the wedding in Cana.

+ This mountain top meeting is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets – the marriage of grace, compassion and justice – in the one we will come to call Lord and Savior.

The transfiguration of Jesus, you see, points to Christ’s resurrection: it unites our sacred stories with his; it brings together tradition and covenant with the call to prophetic justice and grace; and it invites us to know that in Jesus Christ the holy has been married to the human.  It is the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise that God’s will may be done on earth as it is already being done in heaven.  In fact, in this mountain top encounter we have the realization of the ancient dream the poets once sang about in Psalm 85:

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.

And that brings me the heart of what I want to share with you today:  why Transfiguration Sunday matters to us at First Church.  As you may recall, I have been working my way through the five key components of our mission statement as preparation for entering Lent.  Together we have thought about what it means to be:

·         Called together as God’s people in community.

·        Called together as God’s people who reflect on our Christian faith and worship the Lord together as community.

And now I want to share a few insights about what it might mean for us to be called together as God’s people to do justice and share compassion with the world in community:  Together – in community – for reflection and worship – justice and compassion: this is our mission.  I rather like the way theologian, Douglas John Hall, has stated it when he writes:

The object of God’s love… is not first the church; rather it is the world. “For God so loved the cosmos – the world – not the church…And the central point of being the church is to engage in mission… that constitutes the most basic reason why the church must exist… (He adds) Of course, the church needs to have periods of retreat from the world, to recover its own identity through study and prayer, to renew its courage and all the rest. But precisely in these times of renewal, the church must learn once more that it does not exist for its own sake. A church that hived off itself and was content to be a comfortable “fellowship” would contradict in the most flagrant way the whole message of the New Testament. (Why Christian, p. 139)

Now tell me your reaction to this statement – what are you thinking and feeling – about Hall’s declaration that the whole point of the church is mission? What does that mean to you?

What it says to me is that everyone is called to mission – but not everyone is called to do the same thing – right?  All of us have been called together – so each can play a part in strengthening the community – that is an essential.  But then, some have been called to help us reflect and study, others have been called to deepen worship while still others have been called to be do justice and share compassion. 

Each and all of those callings are mission:  those who go to the river clean-up and those who teach Sunday School – those who sing in the band and choir and those who serve as liturgists – those who write letters to Congress and those who pray for the well-being of creation.  Each and all are mission.  And that’s one important truth about mission:  there is NO one size that fits us all.  Are you down with that?  Do you hear me?

Now let me share two other truths with you about our justice and compassion mission because I think they need clarity:  what does God say to the disciples at the very end of the Transfiguration story? This – Jesus – is my beloved – marked with my love – listen to him.  So I think it is absolutely essential to listen to Jesus in scripture whenever we try to construct a justice or compassion ministry for our generation. You see, Jesus has a unique and creative take on doing justice and sharing compassion in the world. Again, the words of Douglas John Hall are instructive: Jesus was not a utopian or a revolutionary exhorting people to build a new world order; rather he invited and urged them to participate in the new life that God was already creating in their midst.

We confess as much every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer:  thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  God’s kingdom, you see, is already here – within and among us – and we are invited to enter and live into the costs and joys of being disciples and kingdom people right now.  So when it comes to doing justice in the spirit of Jesus, three passages of scripture keep calling me to listen to Jesus over and over again.

The first are the Lord’s words from the Cross:  Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.  This speaks to me of Christ’s willingness to sacrifice his will for the well being of others; God’s justice, it would seem, is rarely about me – it is not about my politics or self-interest or my needs or wounds – rather it is about healing and renewing and restoring others to the fullness of God’s image.  So first I sense the justice of Jesus is about sacrifice.

Second, are the words Jesus read when he announced his public ministry in Luke 4:  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind and to let the oppressed go free.  For God has called me to embody the year of the Lord’s favor. This is all about Jubilee – the radical forgiveness of debts – a profound commitment to economic justice – and the restoration of dignity and health to all people.  From this I take it that being about the justice of Jesus means I have to become allies with the broken and wounded, the forgotten and disrespected for anything less is not sacrificial.

And third, I have to listen to the words of Jesus are recorded in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel. They begin:  Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And for the next three chapters, Jesus articulates such a radically  upside down way of sacrificial living, touching on everything from peace-making, forgiveness and truth telling to humility, personal finances and the way to end anxiety, that I realize that even at the end of this life I will still only be a novice in the way of this Master.  These are the truths I have been called to listen to when trying to discern how to live into the justice of Jesus.

That means that most of my justice work involves a lot of time in quiet thought and reflection.  The old ways of activism are over – stick a fork in them – their done.  Douglas John Hall put it like this:  “Not too long ago, I saw a poster in the most unlikely place—a Protestant church!—that read, “Don’t just do something, sit there.”

This, I believe, is the first requirement for any Christian person or congregation or denomination today that wants to find a way into the future. Thought—original, deep, critical, theological thinking—is the conditio sine qua non—the condition without which the Christian movement will not find its way into the uncertain future. Another word for the kind of thought of which I am speaking is the much-misunderstood word “theology.” Ours is a time when theological reflection may be the most important thing Christians can do if they are earnest about their future (and concerned about justice.)

That is what was so intriguing – and effective – about the Occupy Wall Street movement:  they gathered to think together – to reason and reflect on our current crisis together.  Not to demonize others or polarize real or imagined enemies, but to bring very different people together to talk and think about our common life together. 

There is much more to say about this and in the months ahead I’ll be sharing with you an idea born of what is being called “the slow living movement” as a way of entering into the justice of Jesus in a holistic way. It holds great promise for us as a way to bring together justice, grace and compassion.

So, that’s enough for right now – save one last text that can never be left out when talking about listening to Jesus for clues about justice and compassion:  Matthew 25.  And I will simply read it for you again without commentary because it doesn’t get any better than this.

When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation. And here's why:

I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.'

Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.'

credits:
1) thegoodheart.blogspot.com 
2) mattstone.blogs.com
3) jimmyakin.typepad.com
4) johnaugustswanson.com

Fat Tuesday 2012...

Tonight we practiced for next Tuesday's FAT TUESDAY BLUES AND JAZZ PARTY (a benefit for the oldest social service agency in the Berkshires:  the Christian Center.)  I have been blessed to become friends and colleagues with some of the HOTTEST local musicians - young and old - and almost 25 of us will gather for this feast of a show.

+ My little buddies Ethan and Emory (aka Edge) will be laying it down on JT's "Steam Roller Blues"

+ Local jazz wizard Vikki True is going to join us - and that will be smokin!

+ And Rebecca Leigh sings like a soul-filled angel:  you HAVE to hear this girl get down!

We've got a show that begins with ZZ Top and Miles Davis and then takes a left turn to New Orleans with a bunch of Monk, Delta Blues, Clapton, Nora Jones, honky tonk and funk and more thown in for fun.  If you are in town, you HAVE to come on up to the house.  Additionally, we have some special guests including:

+ Linda Worster

+ Grahm Sturz

+ The Beeline Ramblers

+ Danielle Lennard and Kevin Gallagher

Plus our own Andy Kelly, Dianne De Mott, Dave McDermott, Brian Staubach, Eva Perri, Jon Grenoble, Carlton Maaia II and Dick Noble.  It was a little bit of heaven doing practice tonight.

Don't wait for Tom...

Today, after the snow evaporated and the wind died down, I read two different readings that spoke to my life, heart and ministry.  In a way, they were words of consolation and reassurance.  The first, by Fr. Richard Rohr, of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, NM speaks of the inner journey:

“Everything exposed to the light itself  becomes light,” says Ephesians 5:13. In prayer, we merely keep returning the  divine gaze and we become its reflection, almost in spite of ourselves: Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We're free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him. (II Corinthians 3: 16-18)

The word “prayer” has often been trivialized by making it  into a way of getting what we want. But I use “prayer” as the umbrella word for  any interior journeys or practices that  allow you to experience faith, hope, and love within yourself. It is not a  technique for getting things, a pious exercise that somehow makes God happy, or  a requirement for entry into heaven. It is much more like practicing heaven  now.

Such prayer, such seeing, takes away your  anxiety for figuring it all out fully for yourself, or needing to be right  about your formulations. At this point, God becomes more a verb than a noun,  more a process than a conclusion, more an experience than a dogma, more a  personal relationship than an idea. There is Someone dancing with you, and you  are not afraid of making mistakes.

So much of ministry, it seems, is encouraging people (and sometimes myself) that there truly is no reason to be anxious if God is God.  Faith is resting in God's care, knowing that God's grace is bigger than our doubts, trusting that God's presence is real and well... godly. Friends, near and far, worry so much - fret even more - and doubt, doubt, doubt.  I have come to believe that this is choice.  Like the Wailin' Jennys said in concert last year:  Worrying is like praying for something bad to happen, yeah?  Not that we don't have fears, but by faith we seek to place even our dearest fears and wounds into God's grace.  Seems like I spend most of my days sharing this truth over and over again in different ways...

The second reading came from Eugene Peterson's book, The Contemplative Pastor, and he writes:  "Matter is real. Flesh is good. Without a firm rooting in creation, religion is always drifting off into some kind of pious sentimentalism or sophisticated intellectualism."

Then he cuts to the chase:

The task of salvation is not to refine us into pure spirits so that we will not be cumbered with this too solid flesh. We are not angels, nor are we to become angels. The Word did not become a good idea, or a numinous feeling or a moral aspiration; the Word became flesh. It also becomes flesh. Our Lord left us a command to remember and receive him in bread and wine, in acts of eating and drinking. Things matter: the physical is holy. It is extremely significant that in the opening sentences of the Bible, God speaks a world of energy and matter into being: light, moon, stars, earth, vegetation, animals, man, woman (not love and virtue, faith and salvation, hope and judgment, though they will come soon enough.) Apart from creation, you see, covenant has no structure, no context, no rootage in reality.

I love Peterson! He is so earthy and honest - clear and challenging - reminding me again and again that my calling is NOT to solve people's problems, but rather to be present with them in the mystery of a life of faith:  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 (of everyday life), 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.

So now it is off to my Play-Full Life discussion group - who knows what will pop up there?!?

Thinking about Whitney...

When my daughters were young - back in the days of Cleveland and urban ministry - the sounds of Whitney Houston used to make us happy.  They were white girls in a majority black system - and they were down with all types of music from my "old time rock and roll" to very hip dance tracks - and sometimes, back in the day, Whitney's pop groove was a great crossover for everyone involved. As the years have ripened - and our worlds have changed - I've been knocked out by Whitney Houston's chops because she could sing in ways that moved anyone who was paying attention - and sometimes even those who weren't.  I still have such admiration and affection for what she does with this song...

Over the years - and during the past 10 years in particular - pop culture has watched sadly as Whitney Houston died before our eyes. There was not much anyone could do, of course, and her death didn't come all at once. But, as is so often the case, her demons when combined with her addictions finally got the best of her. Like countless other artists, there was just too much pain and emptiness to keep it going any longer. 

So today Di sang a vulnerable and tender tribute to Ms. Houston as the "postlude" at the conclusion of morning worship. Our music director played the piano and I played the bass and we offered up "I Will Always Love You" in her honor and in our grief.  Some of us wept because of the beauty of Dianne's singing. Others wept because Whitney Houston's death reminds us how brutal and tragic so much of life can be - how lonely and afraid most of us are - and why artists need to be connected in community. 

I think we wept, too because her death said to me - yet again - that sometimes, no matter how much love and concern you have for another person, it isn't enough. There are some realities that can neither be healed or fixed this side of eternity.  No matter how hard we pray and hope and love. We are not in control of the actions of our loved ones.

But we can keep on loving - and hoping - and praying.  At times like these, my mind goes back to the closing moments of this clip - and I give thanks for the artists who made it. Rest in peace, dear sister, rest in peace.

More thoughts on a justice and compassion witness in the 21st century...

It should come as no surprise that when I think about my witness for "peace and justice" in the 21st century, my thoughts are more grounded in acts of compassion than ever before.  In fact, much of what I used to find "important" in the realm of peace and justice work leaves me cold in 2012.  That's one reason I am so interested in the "slow living" movement" - and the call to a "play-full life," too - for this approach to justice and peace is born of loving relationships. It is also such an upside-down way of challenging injustice that there is hope, too. 

+ What do the AA folk say?  "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got."

+ So much of the old peace and justice organizing is just a self-righteous paean to the classic definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results.

In A Play-Full Life, Jaco Hamman writes: To be play-full is to imaginatively and creatively engage one's self, others, God and all of reality so that peace and justice reign within us and with others and in every conceivable situation we might find ourselves in.  So how does this happen for me?  I think at least in the following ways:

+ First, I really have had to learn and practice resting in God's loving care.  I don't think it is coincidental that when Jesus invites those of us who are tired and heavy laden into his rest he is talking about living by faith. Trust.  Resting in the assurance that God is God so we don't have to act like we are in charge of creation. Or in charge of things beyond our station. Rather, we can rest - like on the Sabbath - knowing that God is greater than our fears or needs or abilities because... God is God. 

I think that is part of what the unforced rhythms of grace are all about - Sabbath wisdom - for if we can rest and trust that God is in control on the Sabbath, then maybe we can learn to do so beyond the Sabbath, too.  Sure, there are things we should and must do, but only in real moderation.  "To everything there is a season..."

+ Second, I have also had to learn that there is no consistent Biblical ethic when it comes to peace and justice.  There is Christ's compassion - and that is grounded in God's grace - but there is also a mechanical fundamentalism that teaches an eye for an eye as well as a limited justice that is confined to my "tribe."  As Walter Wink has taught in his work re: a consistent Biblical sex ethic: we have choices to make because there are alternative visions offered in the scriptures that are often in competition with one another. 

By choosing a commitment to God's grace, then the heart and soul of my justice and peace work must hold together two truths at the same time:

1) God's grace is eternal and always bigger than our ability to comprehend; so we must embrace and practice it with a genuine sense of humility.  Like Niebuhr taught, not only are we likely to make mistakes, we are unable to consistently do the right think no matter how wise or committed to the truth.  The human condition is defined by the fact that we know what to do but can't do it consistently.

 2) Grace trumps karma: that is to say, grace and forgiveness interrupt the way human society works and makes everything new. My justice and peace work, therefore, must always be born of renewal and restoration.  From the Exodus to Easter, God's justice creates a grace-filled way for enemies to become partners.  It points to unity rather than competition, trust instead of shame and reconciliation as the path to new life. 

So when I consider my own search for a consistent Biblical ethic of peace making, I have to confess that I have been all over the map:  I have been a conscientious objector until that seemed too doctrinaire and self-centered; I have explored embracing the slippery slope of situational ethics until I realized that was just as self-serving as my previous path. So now I seem to rest in a cautious and mostly Niebuhrian place.  Like the master said:  "The best we can confess is that now we see as through a glass darkly."

So I don't seek a consistent peace and justice ethic in scripture.  I have listened to Bishop Robert Weakland argue for "seamless garment" against all violence - and I appreciate what he has attempted - but most so-called pro-life advocates are wildly inconsistent as they fight abortion but support capital punishment.  Way too many hardcore peace people are just as rigid and self-righteous in their sense of what makes for peace.  And how many career military people do I know who are advocates for the way of grace and compassion even in the midst of armed combat?  (A lot!)

3) The best standard I can find in scripture for a realistic and humble approach to peace and justice work comes from the Apostle Paul in Romans 12:

...I you help, just help, don't take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don't get bossy; if you're put in charge, don't manipulate; if you're called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don't let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.

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.

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 rest.

4) And the best articulation of Christian justice born of grace comes from Matthew 25:

Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation. And here's why:

I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.'

Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.'

That's what strikes me today...