A pastoral tug of war...

The old saying, "When the student is ready, the Buddha will appear" continues to be true for me.  Not only has a new little (but quickly growing) puppy come into my life - helping me slow down and rest in the unforced rhythms of grace - but so, too with events, books and people.  Yesterday, for example, I read this from Eugene Peterson:

A tug of war takes place every week between pastor and people. The contest is over conflicting views of the person who comes to church. The result of the struggle is exhibited in the service of worship, shaping sermon and prayers, influencing gesture and tone.

People (and particularly people who come to church and put themselves in touch with pastoral ministry) see themselves in human and moral terms: they have human needs that need fulfilling and moral deficiencies that need correcting. Pastors see people quite differently. We see them in theological terms:  they are sinners - persons separated from God who need to be restored in Christ.  And these two views - the pastor's theological understanding of people and the people's self-understanding - are almost always in tension.

What I found valuable in Peterson's insight is simple:  I know myself to be a sinner - in this I am not at all different from the people I do ministry with and among - and most of the time I know the church to be a hospital for sinners, too.  But sometimes, when I get out of balance and the rush of expectations and needs start to feel oppressive to me, I forget this truth.  I can always tell when I am slipping out of balance because I start to resent the very people I have been called to love and challenge in the presence of Christ's grace. That is to say, when I give in to the contemporary understanding that the pastor must always be "a quivering mass of availability" (bless you, Stanley Hauerwas) - and then find myself pushing back and trying to get away - I know the problem is mine.

As a pastor himself, Peterson understands that this resentment happens all the time for those called to pastoral ministry.  Certainly in Scripture you can see this tension as far back as Moses and not much has changed.  Part of the problem, of course, has to do with the way being a pastor is different from doing a job.  Peterson writes:

The term pastor in our American culture does not name a vocation that carries with it a clear job description. This is probably right. Jobs have job descriptions. A job is an assignment to do that can be quantified and evaluated.  It is pretty easy to decide whether a job has been completed or not. It is pretty easy to tell whether a job is done well or badly.

But a vocation is not a job in that sense. I can be hired to do a job, paid a fair wage if I do it, dismissed if I don’t. But I can’t be hired to be a pastor, for my primary responsibility is not to the people I serve, but to the God I serve.  And as it turns out, the people I serve would often prefer an idol who would do what they want done rather than what the God revealed in Jesus wants them to do. In our present culture, the sharp distinction between a job and a vocation is considerably blurred. How do I prevent myself as a pastor from thinking of my work as a I job I get paid for, a job that is assigned to me by a denomination, a job that I am expected to do to the satisfaction of my congregation?  How do I stay attentive to and listen to the call that got me started in this way of life? This is not the call to help people feel good about themselves and have a good life or a call to use my considerable gifts and fulfill myself.  It is a call like Abraham’s, “to set out for a place… not knowing where he was going.” (Hebrews 11: 8) – a call to deny myself and take up my cross and follow Jesus (Matthew 16:24) – a call like Jonah’s to “go at once to Nineveh” (Jonah 1;1) which was a city he detested – a call like Paul’s to “get up and enter the city and you will be told what to do.” (Acts 9:6)

How do I keep the immediacy and authority of God’s call in my ears when an entire culture, both secular and ecclesial, is giving me a job description?  How do I keep the calling- the vocation of pastor – from being drowned by job descriptions gussied up in glossy challenges and visions and strategies clamoring incessantly for my attention?  (Eugene Peterson, “The Pastor: Shaping an Identity,” in For the Beauty of the Church.)

 

I have discovered that I get out of balance and allow myself to become confused about my identity as a pastor almost every year during our Stewardship drive.  As much as I know within that I can't grow a church all by myself, I always feel inadequate whenever we attempt to raise a budget.  Why can't we do more?  Why are we stuck?  What haven't I done to express the joy of giving?  And I know that there are always some in the leadership team who are thinking the same things.  So even though my calling is fundamentally to teach and preach and equip the saints with the skill necessary for ministry, at key times of real pressure and judgment I find myself losing perspective and falling into resentment.

 

That's why yesterday's insight spoke to me so profoundly:  "If a pastor finds himself resenting his people (sic), getting petulant and haranguing them, that is a sign that he or she has quit thinking of them as sinners who bring "nothing in themselves of worth" and has secretly invested them with divine attributes of love, strength, compassion and joy.  They, of course, do not have these attributes in any mature measure and so will disappoint him or her every time."  OMG, I thought, this guy has been reading my mail!  He not only grasps what it feels like to fall out of balance in ministry, he has diagnosed the root cause.

 

An understanding of people as sinners enables a pastoral ministry to function without anger. Accumulated resentment (a constant threat to pastors) is dissolved when unreal - that is, untheological - presuppositions are abandoned. If people are sinners then pastors can concentrate on talking about God;s action in Jesus Christ instead of sitting around lamenting how bad the people are.  We already know they can't make it. We have already accepted their sin. We didn't engage to be a pastor to relax in their care or entrust ourselves to their saintly ways... We have come among the people to talk about Jesus Christ. Grace is the main subject of pastoral conversation and preaching.

 

This not only lifts a burden from my soul, it creates the freedom to celebrate when grace and faith actually do break into our ordinary lives.  There is always something new to learn and practice on the way into the Lord's unforced rhyhms of grace.  So, I'm heading outside to rake leaves and play with the puppy.  My sermon is ready, the pastoral calls have been finished, we're ready for tomorrow's CROP Walk, the music has been practiced and prayers have been lifted up.  To head into the Sabbath is to trust in the Lord... 

Ramblings on a rainy Sabbath...

On this rainy fall Sabbath day in the Berkshires, a few random thoughts are wandering around my head.  The first was prompted by a note from our guests from Turkey who last week joined us in Pittsfield.  On Sunday, they were in worship with us, too - along with the Jazz Ambassadors - and later spoke about the escalating war in Syria.  Ahmet wrote about being in Christian worship: 

This was the first that we ever attended. The preacher and our friends from the community, now numbering too many to name, showed us that brotherhood, friendship and peace knows no boundaries. We were treated to beautiful music by the Sister City Jazz Ambassadors, including one of our favorite pieces, "Take Five" by Dave Brubeck. Later the choir and an eleven year old girl who had the most beautiful voice and ability made our eyes get wet. I hope the church gets a larger congregation and more support as its fame grows and that they can sponsor another trip abroad for the jazz group.

I hope I was able to respond to their trust by giving a good speech after the service and answering some questions about the current politics of the Middle East and possible catastrophe scenarios, about men's greed, avarice and desire for violence, all supposedly for good reasons and ends.

After worship on Sunday, a member of my congregation wrote to me saying, "I've never really thought about 'Take Five' as a spiritual song before.  I've liked it but never thought about what it might be saying on a deeper level.  But what would happen if every day I stopped and TOOK five minutes to pray - and listen - and wonder?  I would be more at peace and I could share that peace with others in new ways, too.  Who would have ever thought that jazz could lead me into deeper prayer?"  It is amazing what an open heart will discover, yes?

That brought me to another thought - one I began last week about beauty and peace-making - in which I wrote about St. Thomas Aquinas' definition of beauty as that which is complete (or whole), that which is harmonious and that which is radiant.  Two ideas keep coming back to me:

+ First, this notion of complete - or wholeness - is less about being "finished" and more about experiencing a deep satisfaction.  As I understand it, the Hebrew word shalom is not about the absence of conflict.  Rather, it is about living in a way where everyone has enough and everyone has a place.  It is about radical hospitality and deep compassion.  It is what Jesus was talking about in the Sermon on the Mount when he said, "I have come to fill the law full."  Not finish or complete it, but strengthen and enrich it so that it brings blessings to everyone.

+ Second, Baraba Nicolosi suggests that another way of speaking about the words of Aquinas might be that beauty evokes rest, joy and an awareness of our destiny in God's grace. I like that:  rest on every level - spiritual, emotional, political, physical - is that which   refreshes and renews.  It is a way of being that is an antidote to anxiety and fretting.  It, too, is akin to the shalom that makes certain everyone and everything has a place. Interestingly, Nicolosi goes on to observe that political art is almost never beautiful.  It is manipulative and designed to make a statement rather than strengthen rest, joy and grace. What's more, the beautiful has precious little to do with distracting us from reality.  Like contemplation, beauty asks us to take a long, loving look at what is real.

And that leads to my third random thought for this day concerning grief:  it is a strange and mysterious friend.  We're gearing up for my sister's memorial service over the first weekend in November - all the arrangements have been made - and I have discovered a growing sense of dread has taken up residence within my soul. I couldn't put my finger on it at first, but last night in our PTSD conversation I couldn't stop weeping over all the sorrow within me and around us all.  (NOTE: this group is a trial exploration designed to help civilians both come to terms with the PTSD of returning vets and perhaps act with compassion in solidarity with them.)  It isn't that I don't want to see my brother and sisters again - that will be fun - and I will enjoy the long drive, too. 

No, what I am beginning to realize is the grief that currently infects me has been hiding within for a long time - and Beth's death made me too weary to bury it. In the gospel according to John there is a story about Jesus weeping.  His tears come after hearing that his dear friend, Lazarus, had died. 

I've always trusted this story:  Jesus wept for the pain in his own heart, for the suffering the sisters of Lazarus were experiencing and for the emptiness the whole community embraced.  I think he also wept because the death of Lazarus exposed his own mortality.  Currently in my faith community I am trying to be present with a host of people facing various forms of cancer and disease - and some are moving ever closer to death.  Unlike Jesus with Lazarus, however, there is nothing I can do to change or fix things except be present in love - and weep.

Fr. Ed Hays spoke of weeping as one of the ways Jesus prayed.  I am going to trust that, too because my tears feel like prayers.  For me weeping feels like a way to accept my powerlessness and express my longing for God's grace.  It is a way to enter into the truth of everything I can't fix and trust that God's love is bigger than my emptiness. This is a rich time filled with beauty and grief, sweet music and weeping, peace-making and fear.   

So just after I posted this I saw that today is my brother's birthday.  God I love that guy and miss him so - another paradoxical invitation to more tears - and the rain keeps coming down, too.

Learning to listen with my animal...

Like many people I haven't learned how to listen to my animal very well... but now I am.  Oh, I can tell when she is upset - and playful - and it is clear when she is afraid, too.  But there are a lot more nuances that I am starting to grasp - maybe I'll even become a better listener with two-legged creatures, too - who knows?

There are high-pitched yips that are playful.  There are odd little yelps when she gets hurt (getting stepped on by accident seems to be her specialty.) There are teasing barks - and losing control barks - when she is playing with old dog Casey.  And there are hound dog howls when she is lonely.  Interestingly, how I use MY voice is also important in what she hears - tone and timbre is much more important than the words - given what she learned as a tiny pup.  So there's no gentle, "noooooo honey" when she has an accident.  That's about as effective as the parent in the grocery store cooing to their child, "now time to sit down." Apparently all small creatures need clear and deep toned commands to stop.  (And higher pitched sounds for play and encouragement.)

In a section called "vocal communication," the Monks of New Skete, NY (who specialize in training German shepherds) write:

A dog, like a wolf, generally vocalizes in one of several ways, each apparently tied to various body postures that communicate different meanings and moods: wimpering and whining, growling and barking, yelping and howling all in a variety of tones... (The go on to note that whining is for attention and should not be encouraged.) A growl communicates threat and antagonism.  It is a warning and may be accompanied with a snarl... Domestic dogs bark any time they are excited. Barks are sharp and short and the tonal quality reflects meaning. High barks are associated with greetings... Warning barks are deeper and alert you that something is up.  The aggressive bark is deeper still and communicates threat.  It alternates with growling to send an unmistakable message. Howling is more common in wolves than in dogs. 

Then they write something that blows my mind and I love it:

A howl is a prolonged tone, lasting from 2 to 11 seconds and may fluctuate over a wide range of notes. Each individual wolf's howl is distinct and seems to suggest that individual wolves can be identified by their howl. Specialists feel that wolves howl for a number of reasons: to reassemble the pact after a hunt, to advertise territory or simply as a collective celebratory rite. Wolves howl both alone and in chorus and when they howl together they avoid unison, apparently preferring chord tones.  Dogs howl much less frequently than wolves... (except when the monks sing.) Evidently the harmonies they hear (in chant) encourage them to join in with their own notes.

What a trip, yes?  Makes me think of the breath-taking music of Paul Winter.

Today Lucie and I practiced walking (on a lease) and sitting.  In a few months she'll get it - now there is a lot of practice and even more distractions.  But that's good practice for me.

Can you drink this cup... as a slave to all?

NOTE:  Here are my worship notes for this coming Sunday, October 21st 2012.  They are grounded in the Common Lectionary Texts for the day - Isaiah 53/53 and Mark 10: 35-54 - and offer another non-Lenten pass at two important texts.  Let me state for the theological record that the "Servant Songs of Isaiah" were not originally intended to refer to Jesus. I know, however, that Christian tradition has seen some clear Christ-like truths in Isaiah 53 and these have played an important role in our spirituality. 

My take - in a teaching mode - would be the following:  a) place the four Servant Songs of Isaiah in their historical context in Israel's history; b) note that a deep understanding of Isaiah suggests that the servant was wounded not to vicariously "atone" for the sins of others, but rather suffered because Israel  sinned the. That is 53:5 does not say, "He was wounded FOR our transgressions" but rather that he was wounded and crushed BECAUSE of our sins" and c) that this turns traditional atonement theology in new directions.  I affirm the importance of Christ's atoning love on the Cross but believe it is more nuanced, complex and liberating than some substitionary theologies allow.

But this is NOT a teaching mode (I've done that in classes before and will do so again.) Rather this is a sermon - a proclamation of the good news in worship - and requires a different agenda. I pray, therefore, that it both strengthens true faith and helps in the cause of healing in our broken world. 

Introduction

Late in the afternoon last Sunday, I was lying down on the sofa for a snooze as is my regular practice at the end of the Lord’s Day.  It had been a full and blessed time:  the Jazz Ambassadors had shared their songs of peace and beauty with us, Eser and Ahmet from Turkey had joined us for worship, fellowship and conversation and later some of our church leaders had gone to South Church to meet with their counter-parts for the first in a series of discussions about how we might share common ministries. 

·       I had walked the new puppy, flipped through the NY Times and was about to drift off into an eagerly anticipated nap… when I made the mistake of turning on the TV.

 

·       Sometimes before my siesta I like to see what the other churches are putting on so I flip through the schedule of PCTV and listen to other choirs, evaluate other sermons and see what it is our friends and neighbors are presenting to the world in the name of Jesus Christ.

And what I heard not only stopped me in my tracks – and destroyed any hope of a nap – but also offended and frightened me.  No lie, I heard one of my colleagues in our town say:  “If there is more than one holy book of truth in the world, then everything we do here is a lie and a waste of time.  Everything!”  O Lord, have mercy I said out loud…

·       Hadn’t we just welcomed two guests from Turkey into our Sanctuary – shared with them a proclamation from our beloved Mayor – and exchanged gifts and hospitality with them in the name of the Lord who seeks peace for all God’s children?

·       Didn’t we just witness on the news how the Taliban in Islamabad had gunned down a 14 year old girl, Malala Yousufzai, because she had refused to be intimidated by their narrow spirituality and fear-based religion and was now being flown to London for surgery with a bullet in her neck?

·       Weren’t we in the midst of planning for our CROP Walk to Fight World Hunger – raising funds and consciousness in our town about the way we can help our neighbors in need all across the world – as a part of our love and dedication to the Lord?

At this time in my life, beloved, when I hear words of pious religious fear-mongering sincerely spoken in the name of Jesus – or Allah or Moses or Krishna or any other deity – before I even know what is going on I find that I am weeping.  I mean it – weeping beyond my control – because in their zeal and commitment to God, so many of the Lord’s servants become God’s enemies.

·       Protestants have been taught to hate their Catholic neighbors in Northern Ireland by their clergy and Roman priests have been all too willing to return the hatred in thought, prayer and deed.

·       Christians have been taught for millennia to hate and persecute the Jews as “Christ killers.  Jews have been taught to hate the followers of Islam.  And those who honor the prophet have been taught to hate the Jews – and most of their friends – with equal venom and violence.

·        Hindus in India and Muslims in Cairo burn Christian sanctuaries to the ground in fear and sacred self-righteousness.  American GIs urinate upon and burn the holy Qu’ran in Afghanistan.  And Friday prayers throughout the Middle East that begin with the words, “In the name of Allah, Most Gracious and Most Merciful” often result in rampage and carnage with regularity.

Apparently we never really grasped St. Augustine’s insight when he taught us:  “Never fight evil as if it were something that arose totally outside yourself.”  The late William Sloan Coffin of Riverside Church in New York City put it like this:

When it comes to God’s love there are really one two things we can say:  it is poured out universally for everyone from the Pope to the loneliest wino on the planet; and secondly, God’s love doesn’t seek value, it creates value. It is not because we have value that we are loved, but because we are loved that we have value.  Our value, you see, is a gift – not an achievement.

Insights

That is what is at the heart of this morning’s lessons from Scripture:  we are God’s beloved – not because we have earned this love or deserve it in any way, shape or form – but rather we are God’s beloved because God is the essence of love and aches to make us whole.  There are NO favorites, there are NO insiders, NOBODY has exclusive rights to God’s grace nor does any tradition, religion or nationality have a monopoly upon God’s loving presence.  And while there is only ONE source of God’s love – the Lord – there are countless ways that sacred and healing love is expressed.  

Think, for example, of what the story we’re given today about James and John asking Jesus for special favors tells us from Mark’s gospel.  “Whenever your glory comes, Lord,” they say “we want the best seats in the house, ok?  We want to be your favorites who get to sit with you on your left and right side: can you make that happen whenever it is that you are glorified?”

·       Now I don’t know about you, but I love our tradition for keeping this story in the canon:  it shows us something about the human condition – how selfish and dim we can all be at times – especially when we think we deserve religious advantage.

·       James and John – the sons of thunder as they’re known – have been with Jesus since the beginning.  They were founding members of the movement and have watched Jesus as he healed and embraced lepers, welcomed those on the periphery of society into the center of his loving embrace, shared deep and profound respect for women and children and kept emphasizing that in the upside down kingdom of God the first shall be… last.

And still these two act with self-righteous impunity:  cut us a deal, Master they beg in secret and give us a special edge over the other of the disciples.  Let us always be seated at your right and left side when you are glorified. But to appreciation the audacity of this request – and the integrity of Christ’s response – we need to be clear about two other truths.   

·       First, what does it mean for Jesus to be glorified?  Not transfigured and bathed in light as took place when Jesus mystically met with Moses and Elijah for their mountain top retreat, but glorified:  any ideas?

·       Jesus is glorified in his resurrection.  He is shown to be fully conformed and renewed by God’s grace as he accepts the Cross, surrenders himself in love and is raised beyond death in a way that defies human reason but rings true to those who have been touched by his love.

What James and John are really asking for, you see, is to be given special honors in sharing Christ’s resurrection – special permission to bask in God’s grace and advance God’s healing in the world – but they have no comprehension of what they are requesting.  That’s one truth – their arrogance and spiritual immaturity blinded them to the true way of the Lord – and the other is this:  as he lay nailed to the Cross who was given a special place of honor on his left and right side? 

·       Two thieves, right?  Two sinners who didn’t recognize or respect Jesus as they mocked him but were humbled by his mercy and came to faith by his love.

·       “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom,” one said as he hung on the cross.  And Jesus replied:  “Truly I say unto you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Not because he deserved it – or earned the right to be embraced by grace – or knew the right people or belonged to the crowd with the one and only true sacred book of truth.  No, the blessings of heaven were offered purely out of God’s love that is always a gift and never an achievement.

This truth became clear for those who followed Jesus after his passion and resurrection – on the other side of Good Friday and Easter those who were closest to the Master had the scales fall away from their eyes – but Jesus had been trying to clue them in all along.  Already in Mark’s story, Jesus has given his closest friends three predictions of his death on the Cross – and they turned a deaf ear to his pleading - so in our reading for today he unpacks this further.  “Those who come closest to God’s heart and live in the radical grace of the Lord not only drink the cup that I drink… but act as a servant to those in need.

Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all: for the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.

Servanthood, it would seem, is what glorification looks like for you and me:  caring for others in a deep and generous way is how our lives conform to the spirit and truth of God in this life.  Now notice two insights here, ok?

·       First we are being told that if we want to have an honored place in the community of Christ then we must practice living as a servant for all; there is what is called a parallelism here:  whoever is called to be a servant leader in the group must live as a slave for all.

·       The Greek text suggests that the diakonos – the servant leader— of the community must live as doulous – slave – for the world.

The way of James and John is not the path of a servant leader – and they won’t get the places of honor on the left and right side of the Messiah – no, the honor goes to the most humble and unlikely among us – the servant leader who practices sharing mercy for all.  That’s one insight – and the other is this:  Christ on the Cross shows us what it looks like whenever we choose to selfishly ignore his grace.  We wound one another – we crucify the Savior – we disfigure God’s world.

Over and over Jesus makes it clear that his way of grace – God’s way of mercy – has been shared with the world to set us free from captivity. 

·       Think of the woman bleeding for 12 years who was restored to health and released from her captivity of isolation, disgust and pain.

·      Think of the young man wandering the tombs – cutting himself repeatedly – who was restored to a sound mind, clothed and fed with affection and then returned to the love of his family from the captivity of the graveyard.

·       Think of the prodigal child who was released from the captivity of sin and shame and embraced by the feast of his father’s forgiveness.  Or the woman at the well who was set free from her bondage to promiscuity.  Or the man born blind from birth was liberated by the light of sight and God’s grace. 

Conclusion

Over and over, as preacher Richard Jensen tells us, the stories of Jesus make it clear that he has come to show us the consequences of our captivity – and to set us free.  Without equivocation, Jesus tells us:

I have come to fulfill Isaiah's dream.  I have come to bear your infirmities. I have come to be wounded for your transgressions.  I have come to bless your life with the blessing of God.  You may not want my blessing.  You may wish to condemn me.  You may wish to kill me. Alright, have your way.  Push me out of the world and onto a cross.  I will go through the cross to bless you.  I will go through hell itself to bless you.  For I have come to ransom your life from sin.  I have come to ransom your life from the powers of evil.  I have come to ransom your life from death. I have come to suffer and die that you might live and serve under the sign of the cross. For I have come to give my life as a ransom for many. (Richard Jensen)

Beloved, this is the good news for today:  let those who have ears to hear, hear.  Amen.   

Beauty as peace-making...

"Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do: the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."  A friend sent that to me recently on a hand-made card to mark my 30th anniversary of ordination. The quote comes from Frederick Buechner and is one of my favorites about vocation.  Living into our truest selves is not about forced sacrifice nor the lowest common denominator; rather it points to where our most profound joy can embrace and embody compassion in real life.

In his address to an arts conference, Eugene Peterson, said:  "Jobs have job descriptions. A job is an assignment to do work that can be quantified and evaluated. It is pretty easy to decided whether a job has been completed or not. It is pretty easy to tell whether a job is done well or badly. But a vocation is not a job in that sense. I can be hired to do a job, paid a fair wage if I do it, dismissed if I don't.  But I can't be hired..." into my deep gladness, right?  No, I can only live into it or ignore it.

After worship yesterday - and sometimes even in the midst of the music we were making - I experienced a deep resonance in my heart.  It was an encounter with what the late Karol Wojtyla, John Paul II, liked to call the "pursuit of new epiphanies of beauty."  The holy and the human embraced, the extraordinary and the ordinary were at peace and time seemed suspended as we all shared the full beauty of the present tense.  As you know, for the past 15 years I have been ever more carefully exploring this intersection as my vocation within the church.  So it is not too shocking to confess that during this time one of the new epiphanies that came to me had to do with the way creating and responding to beauty is actually a path into peace-making in our wounded world.

Barbara Nicolosi has noted that St. Thomas Aquinas "gave a definition of the beautiful that is still helpful and relevant seven centuries later.  The beautiful, he said, is wholeness, harmony and radiance."

+ In wholeness, there is nothing missing: the lion lies down with the lamb, the Alpha is embraced by the Omega, the holy and the human are integrated along with light and darkness as the hopes and fears of all the years rest together. 

I think of Psalm 85: Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground and righteousness will look down from the sky. 

Or Isaiah 40: Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God,the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. Even youths will faint and be weary,and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

Or the gospel for this week in Mark 10:  So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant,⁴⁴and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

There is nothing unnecessary in wholeness - it is shalom in the truest sense - where all that is gratuitous has been culled and all that is dross burned off so that the fullness of life works together for the shalom of every soul.  Nicolosi adds: Wholeness gives us a sense of being at rest and at home.  Indeed, "the beautiful gives us a sense of peace."  And in an era that is addicted to activity, a culture that grants meaning and value only to those who are productive, rest becomes essential to our healing.  Nourishing repose and practicing the release of our obsessions - choosing not to be defined by busyness but grace - deepens wholeness and peace within and among us all. "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest."

+ In harmony there is joy:  not anxiety, not fear and not guilt or shame.  In harmony we each have a place - a note to sing, a calling to share, a home to rest in - and we are not at peace until we settle into our place.  Singing together - or playing music with others - makes this obvious:  when we sing out of pitch - off key - or in ways that are out of sync with the others, everything hurts.  The sound is not beautiful - and we become agitated and tense.  But when we find our true place - where our notes meet their mates - the tension evaporates and is replaced by joy.  Like Buechner said:  "neither hair shirt nor soft birth will do... it is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

Jesus said to his disciples in the gospel of John:  Rest in me - abide in me - Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing... If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become^* my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

+ In radiance there is both insight and purpose:  When something radiates it is illuminated from within. There is light and clarity shared beyond even language.  Ralph Heintzman calls this reverence and awe:  an experience or insight that connects our inside with something greater beyond yet among us, too.  And in these moments, we cannot help but respond for we ache and thirst for a deeper intimacy with the source of our longing.  Some have spoken of this thirsting as our sense of destiny - we come to know our purpose in life in response to beauty - for we are humbled and nourished by this love greater than ourselves. Psalm 42 says it best:  As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?

Nicolosi puts it like this:  Beauty actually subverts the problem of the Garden of Eden.  "Satan's temptation was, 'You shall be like gods.' Adam and Eve rejected their creaturehood. And this the perennial temptation for us: we want to be like God, we want no limits. But the beautiful makes us content with our creaturehood: 'I am small and that's ok."  We sense that we are a part of something larger than ourselves, we hunger and thirst for greater connections all while celebrating that we are not the source or origin of beauty. As Psalm 131 puts it:

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvellous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.

Understanding my calling as a vocation of new epiphanies in pursuit of beauty helps me avoid being coercive and manipulative.  Not always successfully, to be sure, but as a conviction.  To move towards wholeness, harmony and radiance is to share gifts with others rather than get them to do my bidding.  And this type of peace-making feels right at this moment in my life.

Safe and sound...

Here's our 12 year star, Olivia, singing "Safe and Sound" at this morning's worship... just brilliant.  Inter-generational worship at its best!

Thanks be to God for the subtle and gentle peace-makers...

Today at worship we honored the subtle and gentle peace-makers:  the musicians and artists and diplomats and world citizens who feed the soul and create space for radical hospitality.  Ahmet and Eser joined the Sister City Jazz Ambassadors for a reflective time of worship, meditation, prayer, silence and beauty.  Then they spoke about the current conflict in Syria - how everyone has gotten involved (China, Russian, Iran, USA and Turkey) for once good reasons.  But now the drive to control precious resources and terrain has turned all our once noble intentions to dross.

The Jazz Ambassadors played flawlessly this morning - everything from Ahmet's favorite "Take 5" as the response to Isaiah's prophecy that one day the lion will lie down with the lamb - to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "All Blues."  My reflection on how jazz encourages cross cultural peace-making included the following:

Today we read of the time when  Jesus tells a young man who wants to go deeper that he has to learn to get over himself first if he wants to be free in the Lord:

As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.” He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth. Jesus, looking at him, loved him with a pure and compassionate heart and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money  to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

Now let’s be clear:

 

+ Jesus wasn’t saying money was bad – he couldn’t have conducted his ministry without it – and depended upon the generosity of many people just like this church does today.  And he wasn’t saying this young man was bad either. No, the issue wasn’t money; it was this young man’s obsession with it.  It ruled his heart – so what Jesus wanted him to practice was giving it away so that he might know how to live life as a beautiful and undeserved gift.

 

+ You see, his money made him think he was special – better than others – more valuable and important.  With money he could come and go as he pleased, do and think and say whatever without worrying about the consequences.  So with great compassion – and this is critical for this story – with great compassion Jesus said, “Brother, you need to learn to live as if all of life was a gift not something you control.  Become like one of the poorest and most vulnerable and then… maybe, you’ll get what God’s grace is all about.”

 

That’s what Brother Marsalis was getting after when he said that “the bandstand is a sacred place…”  You have been given a gift that you want to share – music – you want to share it for the sheer joy of sharing.  You want to share it with your musicians in the band because when it is received then they share something with you.  And you want to share it with an audience.  Now here’s the thing:  a gift is given away freely – you never know if what you have to offer will be received and valued – you can hope and pray but you never know – you just give it.  And that sacred giving is at the heart of jazz in a way that is unique and even sacred.

 

Let me give you another example with the classic Miles Davis tune from 1959:  “All Blues.”  This song is brilliant in simplicity and drama:

 

+ It takes a traditional African-American musical form – the blues – and plays with it in creative and unexpected ways.  It became the musical foundation for Dmitri Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony and went on to inspire the freedom and civil rights artist, Oscar Brown, Jr, to write a poem to accompany the groove.

 

+ That was the gift that Miles gave to the world – and he got it by receiving the gift of his own musical tradition as well as the creativity of the early bop giants in NYC – and when he passed it on others were blessed and kept the giving going on until today.

 

And our own 12 year old, Olivia Kinne, closed worship with the band singing Taylor Swift's "Safe and Sound."  I am grateful for these gentle warriors who nourish beauty in pursuit of peace.  There is already too much harsh posturing for my old soul - and I am not persuaded by mean-spirits and ugly insults.  No, grace is what I need and beauty gives shape and form to it in a unique and communal way.  As another old friend once said when challenged by the so-called realists, "You may say I'm a dreamer... but I'm not the only one."  Thank God for dreamers and poets and gentle souls who nourish peace. I am so, so grateful.

Two different challenges...

After a recent post re: peace-making through jazz I was asked about the historic split in the Protestant church re: art and discipleship - and why it continues to matter.  So here are a few interrerlated responses:

+ My use of art in worship - all types of art - is not designed to lure people into the church or faith.  That would be a gimmick or a technique - I've seen this approach - and I believe it is fundamentally manipulative.  Rather, when it comes to art in general and music in particular, I view it as a spiritual resource/practice that nourishes my discipleship in community. And by this I mean:  a) the selection of music - sacred and/or popular - involves a time of prayerful discernment; b) the practice of the music takes me (and the other musicians) deeper into the soul of the song; c) the sharing of the music in worship is done as an offering - a gift to God and the gathered participants - that is offered freely; and d) when that gift is received and embraced, the whole community is touched and nourished.

+ My use of popular forms of music in worship is equally grounded in a spirituality of the music.  Indeed, it has become one of the ways I pray.  At the heart of this spiritual discipline is a desire to hear and respond to God's voice/presence in the ordinary.  It is a radical sense of incarnation as first shared with Christians in Christ's birth: in the dark and cold, in the form of a vulnerable child God comes to us in the most unexpected way. And while I cherish this experience in its unique historical context, I also sense that it is still happening if we have eyes to see and ears to hear.  What's more, as the community of faith learns not to separate the sacred from the secular - to trust that God is at the supper table and cinema and work place as much if not more as the Sanctuary - an integrated and embodied life of faith ripens.  Blending ALL types of music into the worship encounter is a way of linking the ordinary with the extraordinary so that the complex and rich totality of our lives are lived awakened to the presence of the Lord.

+ The split between the arts and the Protestant churches was not a part of Calvin or Luther's cause as their use of hymnody, poetry, liturgy and the psalms suggest.  The Geneva Psalter is still a lovely resource for singing the ancient hymns of Israel.  No, I would lay the blame for this schism squarely at the feet of Ulrich Zwingli and his zeal.  The development of the Reformed Church in Switzerland under his leadership is where the roots of biblical literalism begin as well as the purging of visual, musical and liturgical art from worship. His goal, of course, was symbolically pure - like other radical non-conformists he wanted  worship to contain only what was found in the Scriptures - but his opposition to both Rome and his other Reformers pushed him into an ideological commitment that we are still trying to overcome.  The harsh line in the sand Zwingli drew between the so-called "sacred and the secular" was reinforced with a practice that true believers were to be "in the world but not of the world."  The roots for our antagonism and ignorance are deep. 

+ Add to this tension a growing trust in the importance of "the bottom line" - a utilitarianism born of the market place and post Enlightenment conceits - and many modern churches exist as little more than multi-purpose rooms.  They are functional, to be sure, but mostly ugly. Think of all the new congregations that simply rent school auditoriums for the weekend - these rooms are functional and clean - but without any visual sense of how worship is more than the Word. Where is the word made flesh - the presence of the Lord nourished and embraced - the integration of the holy and the human in these places? From my perspective, worship is not just an intellectual exercise in doctrine or even raw biblicism. 

So, for all these reasons I find it essential in a post-modern world to reclaim the arts and celebrate them in my spirituality.  As Eugene Peterson has written:   "The people who have been most most help to me in discerning the difference (between a job and a calling) - and embodying it into my life as a pastor - have been artists."  They understand that our calling, "the vocation of pastor, can not be drowned out by the job desciptions gussied up in glossy challenges and visions and strategies clamoring incessantly for my attention." ( For the Beauty of the Church: Casting a Vision for the Arts, ed. David O Taylor.) 

Resources that I have found for going deeper into this spirituality would include the work of Mako Fujimura and the International Arts Movement IAM @ http://www.internationalarts movement.org/) as well as the work of Gregory Wolfe and IMAGE Journal (@ http://imagejournal.org)  Other important resources include:  1) Arts, Theology and the Church eds. Vrundy and Yates; 2) The Substance of Things Seen by Robin Jensen; 3) For the Beauty of the Church (ibid) 4) Art and Soul by Brand and Chaplin; and 5) Imagine by Steve Turner.

When it comes to peace-making - a part of my spirituality - I have found, too that music has a vital role to play.  But I should make something explicit:  peace-making for me is not an act of evangelism.  I don't share compassion or work for justice as a way of bringing others to Christ.  There is intrinsic value in acts of mercy, sharing cold water with the thirsty and building bridges between people who are suspicious, afraid and angry.  In fact, I make a conscious commitment NOT to speak of the Lord while engaged in peace-making - unless, of course, I am asked.  And even then my witness is about how I experience and encounter the presence of the Living God in others.  PERIOD.  I refuse to let mercy be a tool of manipulation, ok?

In Turkey, for example, our work was driven by "the sacreness of the bandstand" as Marsalis puts it:  we had a gift of love and beauty to share and hoped it might be received. And when it was, we found a space to talk and trust for a little bit.  My hope is that we will have a chance to build on those experiences over the next few years.  Already having our friends Ahmet and Eser in town points in that direction.  And Ahmet will be sharing with us some reflections on the war in Syria after worship from the perspective of a wise and learned man from that region of the world.  And that will strengthen the bridges and bonds that began with jazz.

But even if nothing but the music was shared, that would be enough.  How do my cousins in Judaism put it?  Dayenu!  And the reason I have come to believe that jazz works best in this type of work - better than classical or pop - is because jazz celebrates groove, beauty, melody, improvisation and freedom all at the same time.  There is nothing elitist about jazz played well.  At the same time, you can still shake your booty.