Follow-up and revisions to this week's sermon...

I affirm the wisdom of the Body of Christ.  I come from a tradition that practices a radical sense of the incarnation - congregationalism - in which we believe that with prayer and patience the Holy Spirit will lead us as a body into the wisdom of the Lord.  In this, every one's insights are essential.  And this has some very important implications for me as a pastor.

+ Sometimes, for example, the theologian in residence (aka my wife Dianne) talks with me about an up-coming sermon - and if she sees a red flag will often suggest a wiser alternative.

+ Sometimes, too, people from the congregation read my sermon notes in advance of worship. From time to time, they have asked for clarification or even challenged my vision.

One of my goals - and I have never found a way to make it happen - was born in the worker-priest movement in Europe and the industrial USA after WWII.  It was common for these priests to prepare a Bible study on the passage for Sunday and then hold a conversation mid-week with the workers and their families of the congregation.  Like Ernesto Cardenal at Solentiname, the shared conversation became the heart of each Sunday sermon as the wisdom of Christ was made flesh by the gathered body of believers.

In this spirit, I need to make two changes to the sermon notes I was going to share this Sunday because more light has been shared - and I am grateful.  First, in an illustration based on AA, I was reminded that this spirituality has its own unique limitations as well as benefits, yes?  In many ways, it is great for men, but not always what the doctor ordered for women.  What's more the implied relationship with God in the AA paradigm is top/down rather than congregational or communal.  To that end, I've made the following change that I hope is more helpful and inclusive:

You see, the first clue to living into God s grace within our suffering begins with God and God’s nature: not ourselves – not the emptiness – not our fears or addictions; we start with God the Creator who gave life and shape and form to heaven and earth. It is not coincidental, you know, that our friends in various recovery ministries begin their journey of healing from the hell of addiction with three steps that say: 

1) We came to own that our lives had become unmanageable. 

2) We came to see that we needed God’s help.

3) So in community we opened ourselves to the presence of healing and hope from God and one another.

At the core of this confession is an awareness that God not only has something better in store for us than we can ever cook up all by ourselves – God’s creative love as Genesis puts it – but that God can meet and embrace us even in our most ugly, depraved, shame-filled and wounded places. We may run and hide away from God’s grace, but God’s love is bigger than our pain.

I have also been told that not everyone easily follows my less than linear approach to preaching.  What seems like three clear points to me - with examples and commentary - can come off as circuitous to others.  So, for this message I'm preparing a worksheet to handout afterwards having to do with applying the spiritual resources I discussed in my message.  They include:


+ Begin with God rather than the wound.  Based on the wisdom of Genesis 1 the two practical steps here are as follows:  a) Start each morning with a song/act of praise to God; b) Use a clearly articulated summary of God's loving nature to guide you in prayer every time you start to feel overwhelmed, afraid or shamed.  Three good summaries of God's loving nature would include the Lord's Prayer, the Statement of Faith of the United Church of Christ or even the Jesus Prayer.

+ Trusting God is an experience NOT an intellectual construct.  We cannot talk ourselves into experiencing God's grace nor can we study our way into intimacy with the Lord.  We have to practice being open - and practice, practice, practice.  Centering prayer is a tool, using our breath for grounding is good, too. (breathe in:  God of Grace - breathe out:  Give me peace.)

+ Practice seeing God's evidence in the ordinary.  What is God saying to you through the TV? Music? Your dreams?  Are you paying attention?  Are you able to see the miracles and blessings in addition to the pain or wound?

I hope this makes my work not only better but more real to the body of Christ I serve and celebrate.  We shall see, yes?

Some hard questions about suffering...

NOTE: Here are my worship notes for Sunday, May 15, 2011 - the third installment of the "Love Wins" series inspired by Rob Bell's new book.  It also grows out of what happened last week in worship when I asked the congregation to consider exploring the really hard questions that challenge our faith.  If you are around, please join us at 10:30 am.

“We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, rather we live ourselves into new ways of thinking." (Richard Rohr) Fr. Richard Rohr’s quote came to me this week as I was thinking about the description of the early church as recorded in Acts 2: 42 where we’re told:

The faithful devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Think about that for a moment – and let it sink in – for this is essential: "Because we do not think ourselves into new ways of living, but rather live ourselves into new ways of thinking,” the disciples let the Spirit guide them into a new way of living we might call the Christ life: “where we show wisdom by trusting people, handle leadership by serving, handle offenders by forgiving, handle money by sharing, handle enemies by loving and handle violence by suffering” just as Jesus did in the flesh. 

It is the upside down kingdom that Jesus asks us to live so that God’s people might come to think about life in new ways. And today – as a part of our series on hard questions – I want to consider what Christ’s upside down wisdom has to say about human suffering. Because if you are anything like me there is a part of you that wants to trust Jesus as the Good Shepherd – we want this with all our heart, soul, mind and strength – and at the same times we also know that sometimes we wonder: “Where the hell is God in all of this?” I’ve asked that question out loud and in prayer at different times in my life – and I bet you have, too, right?

• Where the hell is God in all of this mess? Why is this happening to me? Or my baby? Or my lover? Or my dearest friend?

• Sometimes we put the question like this: If God is God, then what is so holy and sacred about cancer? Or Alzheimer’s disease? Or random and senseless acts of violence? Or addiction?

Like I said: Where the hell is God in any of this? “That question,” said my doctoral advisor, Warren Lee, “is non-negotiable for those of us who want to serve the Lord in the local church. And if you can’t answer that question with integrity and clarity,” he told me, “then get out of this business as fast as you can because you’ll do more harm than good. That is the question most people NEED answers to so almost everything else you do in ministry,” he concluded, “will be mere commentary.”

• And I think he was right so go back with me to the beginning of this message when I said that we don’t think ourselves into new ways of living, rather we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.

• Christians have been invited by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus to trust that even when life is saturated with suffering – and I mean filled with pain on a personal, social, environmental, political and economical level – we have been invited to live as if God is still God.

We have been called to live in a way that acknowledges that God is truly in charge of heaven and earth – committed to bringing grace and justice into every nook and cranny of creation – even if the evidence is obscure – or missing - or confusing to us. We are asked to trust that God is God just as the opening poem of Genesis tells us: “in the beginning there was God who created both heaven and earth.” Listen carefully to how Peterson’s restates the poetry of Genesis One:

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. Then 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, it was morning— Day One… (And after creating EVERYTHING that was created – including human kind in the living image of God) God looked over everything he had made; and saw that it was so good, so very good! It was evening, it was morning— Day Six. So on the seventh day God rested…

Now did you notice that this sacred poem does NOT say that in the beginning there was nothing? That is nihilism – life filled with emptiness and fear not at all what we affirm by faith. No, the Genesis poem says that the Christ life first celebrates that there was God; then we testify that God created – not destroyed or dawdled – not procrastinated or experimented – but God created.  And then, we bear witness to the fact that God’s creativity was not just about trinkets or incidentals, but the abundance of heaven and earth.

• Are you still with me? If we want to find out where the hell the Lord is in the middle of all our suffering we have to get grounded in God right from the start: in the beginning – God.

• And not some vague, new-age notion of an ephemeral eternal spirit: we’re talking about the creative Lord of all time and space who was there before there even was a beginning.

You see, the first clue to living into God s grace within our suffering begins with God and God’s nature: not ourselves – not the emptiness – not our fears or addictions; we start with God the Creator who gave life and shape and form to heaven and earth. It is not coincidental, you know, that our friends in AA begin their program of healing people from the hell of alcoholism with three steps that say: 

1) We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and our lives had become unmanageable. 

2) We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3) We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

At the core of this confession is an awareness that God not only has something better in store for us than we can ever cook up all by ourselves – God’s creative love as Genesis puts it – but that God can meet and embrace us even in our most ugly, depraved, shame-filled and wounded places. We may run and hide away from God’s grace, but God’s love is bigger than our pain.

• That’s what so many of the Jesus stories are all about, right? Christ the Good Shepherd doesn’t stay locked up in the Sanctuary. He goes out into the world beyond the confines of the sheep pen to bring the wounded into safety, to heal the sick and to love and cherish all who have been pushed to the periphery by fear or pain or suffering.

• One part of finding God’s presence in the midst of our suffering begins with living into this commitment: in the beginning is God – and that includes the beginning of your life, the beginning of creation and the beginning of heaven and earth.

Now, if it is true that God’s creative presence is found at the beginning – and I think most modern people need to spend a LOT of time letting ourselves be saturated with the awe and beauty of this truth – then another piece of the puzzle has to do with making this truth a part of your everyday life. That’s what faith really means – not memorizing the catechism or knowing how to follow the leader or jump through the hoops of a liturgy – but living into God’s creative and healing presence in your ordinary, everyday lives right now. 

St. Paul told the earliest believers in Romans 12:

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

And this is where real faith gets tricky – especially in our suffering – because we have come to believe that if we can just understand something, we can fix it. We can make things better – take away the sting of suffering or sorrow – and make everything alright and that is just a lie. Most of the time there is NOTHING we can do to make things better, beloved.

You know what I’m talking about if you have ever sat with a loved one while she died – watching and waiting and praying – and no matter how much you understand about the end of life, no matter how great your wisdom is of human biology, you can’t take away their death and you can’t make it better.

When my sister, Linda, died almost 20 years ago at Easter, all my understanding of her pain and addiction – all my psychological wisdom about the root causes of her self-destructive actions – couldn’t take away the agony and sorrow of her senseless death. It hurt like hell.

• Early in my ministry, when I had to do the funeral service for 4 of 5 children burned to death in an electrical fire, my knowledge of their parents’ dysfunctional lifestyle gave me no clue about where to find God’s grace in that tragedy.

• When I saw small children eating dirt in the jungles of Nicaragua because they were starving; when you come to me and share stories of your fears, abuse or addictions; when I sit at my prayer desk in the morning or at night and try to catch a glimpse of the presence of the Lord amidst all this pain, let me tell you, it doesn’t come through what I know intellectually.

Not at all, God’s grace comes through trusting that beyond the evidence, God is still God. That is what St. Peter was really trying to tell us in his words this morning. Sure, we can get lost or distracted by his exterior words about slavery; it was a social norm of the day that we now find repulsive. So please don’t get stuck there. Look, instead, towards the interior wisdom of this passage – for Peter is talking about what he learned from Jesus – cultivating a life that knows how to redeem hardship and suffering and that is what bears closer attention.

What counts is that you (are learning) to put up with hardship for God's sake when you're treated badly for no good reason. There's no particular virtue in accepting punishment that you well deserve. But if you're treated badly for good behavior and continue in spite of it to be a good servant, that is what counts with God. This is the kind of life you've been invited into, the kind of life Christ lived. He suffered everything that came his way so you would know that it could be done, and also know how to do it, step-by-step.

In contemporary language we would call this “acceptance” like the Serenity Prayer teaches:

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.

And acceptance, beloved, is never easy because it is not an intellectual construct to be mastered or a fact to be stored away. Acceptance is a spiritual practice – concrete faith in action – just as Fr. Rohr said. "We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, rather we live ourselves into new ways of thinking." And let’s be clear: a spiritual practice requires… practice!

So you can either waste a lot of precious time, love and energy trying to figure out how to comprehend and fix things that are totality beyond your control, or, right now you can start to practice trusting that God really is God. Right now you can choose to follow Jesus as the Good Shepherd who tells us: Anyone who goes through me will be cared for—will freely go in and out, and find pasture… I came so you can have real and eternal life, more and better life than you ever dreamed of.

• You can do that right now because you don’t need a seminary course in epistemology to trust Jesus. You just have to practice living as if God were really in charge. As if the upside-down kingdom was true.

• And as our buddies in the 12 step programs like to say, “If all your education and excuses get in the way, then fake it until you make it.” Act like you trust God’s grace until one day you wake up and discover that you have experienced it from the inside out.

So let me give you a challenge – a holy homework assignment, if you will – because I don’t want you to waste your pain – and I know that God doesn’t want that either. There is so much more healing that needs to happen within and among us and so much more love that needs to be shared world, too?

So here’s the deal: if you want to start practicing trusting God how about looking for some evidence this week for people who have learned to redeem their suffering? Look for some real life examples of people who have been wounded but lived into the presence of God’s love so profoundly that now their wound’s are a source of strength and beauty!

• It could happen while watching “Oprah” or the evening news.

• You might find a movie or a song that opens your heart, too.

Just look for a story of someone who learned to use their suffering for a greater good; someone who didn’t waste their pain, but rather let it be redeemed. Last Saturday night, I heard a song called “Willie’s Shades” by the great Australian guitarist, Tommy Emmanuel and it has haunted me ever since. Now when something like that happens – when you keep hearing a song or singing it over and over to yourself – pay attention: something important is going on that has to do with your healing your soul.

• So we’re going to sing it for you now as the end of today’s message because it is an invitation to quit wasting your pain.

• The time has come to be awed by God’s grace as we live together a new life born of Christ Jesus our Lord…

So what about THESE songs for church?

You already know that I believe almost EVERY hot song has a place in worship, right? I mean, if the incarnation means ANYTHING it is that EVERYTHING can be filled with God's presence and grace, right?  And if resurrection means anything, it has to do with the redemption of every thing in creation, dig?

So here are some tunes that cry out to be included in worship:

+ "Willie's Shades" by the amazing Tommy Emmunuel speaks to seeing beyond the obvious as well as the redemption of suffering through creativity.  And damn, what a groove...

+ Then there is "Mr. E's Beautiful Day" - that would probably scare off those Clarence Jordan called "tissue paper" Christians - but which rocks and rolls about the the beauty and joy of a sweet day like nobody's business...

+ And let us not forget the incredible Allman Brothers who sang more about church than any of us realized back in the day - so dig this one all about living into the kingdom right NOW, goddamn it - cuz "I Ain't Wastin' Time NO More!"

You already know that we've done "Jesus Is Just Alright" and "Beautiful Day" as part of the worship groove, right?  But what about "I Know Where I'm Goin'" by the Judds?  That was HOT in all the right and wrong ways... same for brother Garth's classic: " We Shall Be Free?"

And then my favorite groove for the offering... NOBODY can match Booker T's "Green Onions," right?  Now THAT would get some dollars hopping into the plate...

Street art...

Street art fascinates me: it is creative, in your face, funny and often poignant and insightful. From the political graffiti of the 60s to the TED winner JR, I love it all.

One of my favorite daily delights is an email I get from a place called VANDALOG - a street art blog - that collects and shares street art from around the world.  I don't save most of them but every now and again something rises to the top and really grabs my attention.  For example, here's a posting about "a new book from Dran called: I Love My World. It just came out on Edition Populaire over the weekend. One of Dran’s old books, Television, is one of my favorite art books from an individual artist, and from the previews, I’m hopeful that Love My World will on par with that one."  (Check them out @ http://blog.vandalog.com/)

I think this is one is incredible... on so many levels.

Then there is something called ARTISTADAY who describe their mission like this: Our purpose is to raise awareness of art globally and bring more art to more people. We feel artists are under-valued, under-exposed, and generally under-appreciated. Our goal is to bring attention to artists that otherwise don't get the attention they deserve. If we can bring their art to one person that would have otherwise missed the opportunity to see it, we feel like we have made a contribution to the art community.

We don't intend to showcase all the artist's work, in fact we only show one or two images by the artist. Be sure to continue through to the artist's website to find more of their work. If you like the artist's work, take a second to leave a comment to tell them so. If you don't, feel free to tell them that as well (constructive criticism is always appreciated). (Check them out @ http://www.artistaday.com/)

Today's artist was Josh Goldstien... "who received a BA in Architecture from Pratt Institute and a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis.

He does most of his research on his bike rides around New York City. His art is inspired by a fascination with the the density, decay, and diversity of the city—street signs, Chinese take-out menus, old bodegas, graffiti tags, and other urban ephemera.

The resulting plywood collages express the murky boundary between the mundane and the sublime that Goldstein encounters on his bike rides. ‘It is my aim to re-contextualize the banalities of city life through my salvaged plywood constructions,’ he says.

And then there is the photography of my wife - who has an eye for pictures - and a great sense of humor, too.  Wherever we travel - and we've been around a LOT of Europe together over the years as well as parts of Canada - she finds street art that speaks to my soul. I am grateful for this gift on Mother's Day and can't WAIT to see what she photographs when we head to Istanbul in a month.
  

Random thoughts on faith, culture and hope

Over the past few days I have had an interesting conversation with some of the people I love and respect the most about the people in our lives who drive us crazy.  We all have them so it was helpful to hear how my band mates as well as wife and daughter make sense of this challenge.  It would seem that their are four broad categories of people who make us nuts:  colleagues, customers, family and strangers. 

+ The exploration started while we were setting up our equipment before Thursday's jazz gig when someone said, "Have you ever been playing and having a blast when you notice that somebody in the audience doesn't like you?  You don't know why - everybody else seems to in the groove - but this one soul has copped a clear attitude and is sending you looks like daggers?"  We all agreed we've experienced this and wondered why:  why would a stranger decided YOU were a problem?  (This hasn't happened so much in the jazz band I think mostly because we're such a "happy machine of good vibes" that we just overwhelm any negativity with beauty and laughter.  But when I played coffee houses back in the day - or solo gigs in a bar - every now and again there was a heckler who was a real pain in the ass!)  Who knows why this happens, but every performer I've ever met knows what this is like and is equally mystified. 

+ The conversation took a new form over a late family dinner the next night, too. I noted that for me - my customers and strangers - took the form of church members and guests, so it was both professionally unacceptable and theologically offensive to treat trouble makers the way I learned as a child.  Given my family of origin, my preferred way of handling conflict was to either run away and avoid the hassles - like moving to California - or else run them over in anger like a tank.  You know, the whole a good defensive is a strong offense strategy, right?  But we agreed that not only was this not such a winning strategy for a church - or a business - but that there have to be better ways of protecting your boundaries and integrity while being open and compassionate.

Some people are masters. One of my dearest mentors in ministry, Ray Swartzback, used to say:  "Lord, we love all your children and want them to with your forever - we just pray that some go home sooner rather than later!"  I've tried to use that approach and it works with some people.  I've also learned to trust Jesus' admonition not to triangulate:  "If you have a problem... take it to the source."  No gossipping or carping allowed. And if someone at church tells me about a problem with somebody else, I have to insist:  take it to the source before you talk to me about it.  Now even my church council embraces it as a way to minimize complaining.  Most people won't take the time to solve their own problems - and it doesn't advance the cause of Christ or the healing of culture to do their heavy-lifting - so we don't do their work for them.  Praying the Serenity Prayers is essential, too.

But no matter how good we work our professional boundaries and mental/spiritual health, someone still gets through it all and just rubs you raw.  An old friend from my Cleveland school board days - along with the wise old psychedelic sage Don Juan - used to call them "petty tyrants" who are put in our lives to help us learn to really let go and grow stronger.  Not easy or quick, but essential for the long haul, yes?  They will rob your soul - and steal your time and energy - if you let them.  How did this man put it:  "Even Jesus has his Judas, ok, so why should you expect any less?"

With the trouble-makers on TV, we can turn off the sound.  With the problem-makers in our families, we can make wise use of telephone answering machines.  But you can't escape hecklers or soul-bandits or just those souls who don't know how to NOT be a pain in our places of work or ministry.  For them, nothing is better than friends and colleagues who know how to share and love us - and offer a guiding light when needed.  James Taylor and Carol King got it right...

"You're blessed," the Sermon on the Mount begins, "when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule."

Going beyond button pushing...

Once upon a time, I used to tell my wife that "getting angry was my way of expressing my feelings!  After all, isn't that what you women keep talking about?!  So give me a break!"  (It should be added that not KNOWING what I was feeling - and finding it too complicated and unsafe to explore - was one of the many reasons my first marriage came to a crash.) So I thought I was truly making progress when I would shout and stomp - I was finally expressing my feelings - and if they were tough or frightening that was just too bad:  they felt tough and frightening to me, too.

It took a while - a LONG while - and a LOT of therapy - for this straight, white guy to learn that there is a difference between having angry feelings and how they are expressed. And I was well versed in the early progressive feminist writings, too!  (Women may find this bewildering or ugly or just plain stupid.  But the sad truth is that men are trained to not only NOT know what they are feeling, but the connections between our right and left brains are not nearly as well defined as those in the brains of women.  The implications of this fact are fascinating as Deborah Tannen has explored at length.) 

+ A very funny albeit politically incorrect expression of this reality used to be regularly exploited  on "The Man Show."  The premise was simple:  every week Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla would talk about what it was REALLY like to be a man and offer skits to make their point. Carolla once confessed, for example, that real men only knew three emotions:  hunger, anger and farting. Then, in typically American hyperbole, they would exploit their take on male stereotypes and close the show out with "babes bouncing on trampolines." It was every bit as biting a social satire as "The Simpsons" or "South Park."  (Find out more @http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Show)

+ More socially acceptable explorations of the journey from confusion to clarity for men would include the work of Robert Bly, Sam Keen, Philip Culbertson and Richard Rohr. Even the more conservative - and narrow - work of John Eldridge and the Wisdom Keepers taped into the confusion - and violence - that happens when men aren't initiated into the realm of wisdom, managing feelings and strength for the good of a society.  The "One Million Man March," was another honorable approach to this problem.

Bly put it like this: We are living at an important and fruitful moment now, for it is clear to men that the images of adult manhood given by the popular culture are worn out; a man can no longer depend on them. By the time a man is thirty-five he knows that the images of the right man, the tough man, the true man which he received in high school do not work in life.  That was - and is - true for me.  (For more see a TIME interview with Bly @ http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,973647-1,00.html)

So why the history lesson?  What's the point?  Sometimes I still need to remember that when my buttons are pushed - when crazy-makers or petty tyrants seek to provoke - or just when I am too tired to be at my best: the expression of my anger need not become harsh, cruel or frightening.  Other feelings need to be explored beyond anger, yes?  To be sure, it is the one most men have the most practice with - we get angry when we're afraid, we get angry when we are confused, we get angry when we are embarrassed - and all the rest.  Just look at Donald Trump when President Obama took him on last Saturday:  the Trumpster didn't know how to laugh at himself - he didn't know how to express feelings other than anger - so he became a sad, mean-spirited fool.

In The Spirituality of Imperfection, Ernest Kurtz suggests that sometimes those who only know anger get trapped in resentments - literally to "feel again" - and this keeps us locked in the past.  What's more, "resent unites anger, fear and sadness in a kind of closed-circle, scissors-paper-rock game. In the absence of resentment, anger, fear and sadness tend to heal each other.  Anger can act like a scissors and cut through fear...and fear helps us realize we are not in control..." while sadness points us in the direction of our deepest healing.  Resentment "refuses the possibility of going through and beyond the anger into the world of forgiveness."

Forgiveness is what grounds me in the present and points me towards the future.  Forgiveness opens my heart to the wounds I have caused - or that have come my way - and reminds me that there is wisdom in these wounds if I will pay attention.  And as I have noted before, the wisdom of our wounds is counter-intuitive:  when I feel like running away, I need to engage; when I feel like seeking revenge, I need to listen and wait; when I think I know the full truth, I need to shut-up and ask for help, etc.  In other words, I can go beyond having my buttons pushed if I am willing to explore the wisdom of my wounds.  As Kurtz writes, "Even victims are responsible for what they do now."

So, on this day of Sabbath rest, I have spent some time trying to listen to and experience what pushes my buttons.  The wisdom of our wounds takes time - it is always better NOT to respond quickly - but to "be still so that God can be God within us," yes?  I have come to see that laughter helps me.  Walking, too and quiet listening.  (And that includes NOT opening my church emails on Fridays.) Lord, may that be so.

Eugene Peterson puts one the Beatitudes like this and with God's help it is true: You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are and your place in God's family."  

Happy anniversary...

Today Dianne and I celebrated our 16th anniversary - we played a jazz gig at Patrick's Pub in Pittsfield - and had a blast sharing music.  She sang me, "Fly Me to the Moon" and I did a ragged "Sunshine of Your Love" in return.  Here's a picture from our wedding day in a park in Cleveland, Ohio.  What a couple of hippies!  It has been a  blessed trip... and I am still grateful to God for this woman and the life we share.

Odds and ends on a cold and sick day...

Today it is cold and rainy in the Berkshires:  AGAIN! It is also wonderfully green and alive, too so it is simply time to DEAL with it.  I have a head cold, however, so dealing is not my long suit. I woke up on Sunday trying to convince myself that the dull aches and scratchy throat had to do with tree pollen - knowing all the while that this was a head cold - and it is...

+ We celebrated our first midday Eucharist at 12:10 pm today - a lovely and renewing time for the 8 of us who gathered for reflection - and the text was John 17:  make them one as the Father and I are one.  As we let the words of scripture - and sung alleluias - wash over us, a few ideas rose to the surface:  our intimacy with God is not about striving but simply receiving; Jesus calls us into intimacy with God as a foundation for living; and everyone in this community of grace are equals - one with Christ and God as Jesus and the Father are one - it would seem.

+ I guess setting aside this time was the right thing to do:  some who gathered are wrestling with frightening illnesses, others are seeking a sense of God's direction in their lives while others are hungry for a connection - human and holy - beyond the loneliness. Earlier today I read a colleague reflect on the challenge of provoking or comforting; she landed on the side of provoking and made a number of very good points. And, to be sure, while there are some places where provocation in the name of the Sacred is in order - so, too, is the ministry of presence (whether this is called comfort or simply contemplation.)

+ On another level entirely our electric toothbrush died two nights ago.  Or it might be better to say that it had to be executed:  no matter how hard we tried, the little engine would not shut off.  I pushed it, I threw it on the floor and even beat it with a hammer; I tried to pull out the battery but still the little engine whirled until I finally pulverized it.  Dianne had to quit her evening exercies because her sides hurt so much from laughing.  Oh, that I had such perseverance in many things as that little engine!

Tomorrow we play Patrick's Pub - with a whole new collection of tunes - including some fun Beatles' songs.  I pray my head cold does not slow down my dancing fingers.  More and more, I feel that this decision to explore peace-making through music (and laughter and feasting, too) is truly part of my calling at this moment in history.  Not just because of the recent Bin Laden-madness, but also because that region of the world has known too much of the worst side of America. And Muslims have heard way too much from the loud-mouthed bigots.

At this moment in time I find that I feel much like Willow Wilson notes in her beautiful spiritual autobiography, The Butterfly Mosque, about her journey into Islam:
The war between Islam and the West is a human conflict, in which human experience is the only reliable guide. We are all standing on the mountaintop, and we must learn to look out at the world not through the medium of self-appointed authorities, but with our own eyes." 

So tomorrow night when we sing, "One Love" by Bob Marley or the Beatles', "All You Need Is Love" or even U2's "One," it won't be as a naive or foolish child of the 60s, it will be as a mature prayer. If you are in town, stop by for some great tunes, a brew or two and a prayer?

Eastertide Love Wins #2: Hard questions...

NOTE:  Here are my worship notes for the upcoming Sunday, May 8, 2011.  It continues my series using parts of Rob Bell's Love Wins for insights.  The two texts are the Emmaus Road story in Luke 24 and I Peter 1.  Join us if you are around...


Last week I was thrown on my butt by the news that the United States had finally succeeded in killing Osama Bin Laden. Like many of you, I was filled with a mixture of thoughts, feelings and reactions that included relief mixed with grief as well as a bruising and sobering sadness over the spontaneous blood lust celebrations that erupted all over America.

• This morning in worship is not necessarily the best place to unpack my thoughts about all of this – I’ve already posted them on-line for those who are interested – and sent them to the Berkshire Eagle, too.

• But I will say that as I followed the obsessive coverage of the carnage on National Public Radio, I heard something from one who had lost his wife in the Twin Towers that made me physically ill. Now please understand that I cannot and will not begrudge anyone their grief or pain – I carry my own open wounds about September 11th, too and have great solidarity with those who suffer – so it wasn’t the intensity of his anguish that caused me trouble.

No, it was that sickening combination of patriotism and fear fused with religious piety – the Cross of Jesus Christ carelessly wrapped in an America flag – that caught me up short. For this widower said, “I know that my sweet wife is dancing in heaven right now because the one who stole her life has been killed and brought to justice by the good ol’ USA!”

Lord, have mercy! Where do we come up with this stuff?!? Where do we find the gall and chutzpah to link the message of Christ’s grace with the harsh realities of geo-politics? Where did we learn to put heaven and assassination - joy and the often necessary but always brutal facts of war, fear and national security – or even grief and retaliation in the same sentence?


• And just when I thought I had to be living on another planet with a vastly different set of ethical and moral guidelines, it hit me: Christian people have been wrestling with this reality for 2,000 years!

• We’ve been troubled with this problem since the first Cross crucified our Lord. So get real, man: this is not a NEW problem – those who follow Jesus have been confused about the meaning of the Cross since the beginning – and we’ve been making this same tragic mistake for millennia.

That’s part of what baffled the disciples in this morning’s gospel text – and it is part of what Jesus clarified for them, too –when he opened their eyes so that they GOT it! In the words from St. Luke’s gospel we call the Emmaus Road story, we read:

Now that same day as two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, they were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself – Crucified and Risen - came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him. So He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?” They stood still, their faces downcast. Then one of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” “What things?” Jesus asked. “About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.

Did you grasp that? “We had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.” This brother wasn’t speaking in spiritual terms alone, my friends:

• He meant that they had hoped that Jesus was going to restore Israel to its former political greatness: overthrow the Roman Empire, kick out the oppressive occupation troops and vanquish their enemies.

• Remember not only was Jesus crucified between two thieves – and we aren’t talking about petty bandits who were lifting a six pack from the local Jerusalem convenience store – but two well-connected political terrorists that had broken into a Roman garrison and stolen weapons to use in an insurrection…

• … but for the next 50 days after the Resurrection the story tells us that Jesus had to constantly retrain his disciples from thinking purely in political terms. Luke puts it like this:

Jesus said to his friends, “You can be so thick-headed and so slow hearted. Why can’t you simply believe all that the prophets said?” So starting at the beginning, Jesus went through the books of Moses – and through all of the prophets – pointing out everything in the Scriptures that referred to him… (Luke 24) And even then they still sometimes asked him, “Master, are you going to restore the kingdom of Israel now?” To which he said, “Timing is always the business of the Father… what you are going to get is the Holy Spirit… so that then you can be my witnesses throughout the world in a new kingdom…” (Acts 1)

Are you still with me? What I’m trying to say is that since the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus has been trying to show us another way – a way that is bigger than ordinary politics – and we have been very, very slow to comprehend. We tend to like to mix our religion with our politics even when say that we don’t – especially if it makes us feel better. Or more powerful. Or more like God is on our side when the real challenge is getting on God’s side. And the consequences of this – our trying to force God into our small politics and fears – is always tragic and sickening – like the bloodlust we’ve been seeing in our streets.

• So that got me to thinking outside the box for a little bit about the sacred importance of asking hard questions: not only did Jesus ask his disciples to wrestle with hard questions in his day, but people of faith have continued to come up with their own hard questions, too.

• So maybe one of the most blessed things we could do at this moment in time is to quit being afraid of all the hard questions and start saying them out loud?

Think how liberating and creative that would be if people inside the church started to understand that it was a blessing rather than a curse – a sacred calling rather than a scandal – to give voice to all the hard questions we have about God and faith and politics and heaven and hell? Then all different types of people – inside the church and beyond – might even come to believe that having questions – and doubts – was part of what it means to be faithful! Now wouldn’t that be a fascinating time?

• Fewer catechisms and more questions? Fewer judgments about who is truly in and who is definitely out and more compassion?

• I think St. Peter was right when he wrote: Now that you've cleaned up your lives by following the truth, love one another as if your lives depended on it. Your new life is not like your old life. Your old birth came from mortal sperm; your new birth comes from God's living Word. Just think: a life conceived by God himself!

So let me give you a few examples of the hard questions I think it is time to start asking out loud – without fear or judgment – just as Jesus asked his first disciples, ok? We’ll start with some religious questions:

• Is it really true – and truly faithful – to believe that “of all the billions and billions of people who have ever lived, only a select number will make it to ‘a better place’ called heaven and every other single person will suffer in torment and punishment forever? Is this acceptable to God? Has God created millions of people over tens of thousands of years who are going to spend eternity in anguish? Can God do this – or even allow this – and still claim to be a loving God?” (Rob Bell, p. 2)

• Or what about this: “Does God punish people for thousands of years with infinite, eternal torment for things they did in their few finite years of living? Doesn’t this raise more disturbing questions about God and so-called traditional beliefs, too?” (Bell, p. 3)

• What’s more, “if there are only a select few who go to heaven, which is more terrifying to fathom: the billions who burn forever or the few who escape this fate? And how does a person end up being one of the few? Chance? Luck? Random selection? Being born in the right place, family or country? Having a youth pastor who relates to the kids? God choosing you instead of others?” (Bell, p. 3)

“And then… what kind of faith is that – or more important – what kind of God is that?” (Bell, p. 3) I think these questions – and a ton of others – need to be out on the table. They need the fresh air of real inquiry as well as the fresh minds and tender prayers of all of God’s people so that we can start sharing what is the truly GOOD news.

Because the good news, you see, has NOTHING to do with the old traditional words that tell us that “God loves us and offers us everlasting life in heaven by grace – freely – through no merit on our own… unless we do not respond in the right way. Then God will torture us forever in hell!”

• The good news of Jesus is better than that…

• The good news of Jesus is that he comes to us in all types of ways – whether we’ve betrayed him like Peter – or abandoned him like Judas – or confused our religion with our politics in broken ways like the people on the Emmaus Road.

And when he comes to us, he opens our hearts with grace and then opens our eyes to his loving presence all around us in every day. He takes what is ordinary in our lives – bread, wine, chicken soup, heart ache, confusion, politics, music or our toughest questions – and blesses them so that they might nourish rather than wound or divide us.

• How does today’s gospel put it? “He sat down at the table with them. And taking the bread, he blessed and broke and gave it to them. And at that moment, open-eyed… they recognized him… and said, “Didn’t we feel on fire as he talked with us on the road and opened up the Scriptures for us?"

• That is, weren’t we fully alive – being cleansed and made whole – by his loving presence from the inside out?

For the good news to be truly good news it HAS to be better than our fears – or bloodlust – or all the rest. It has to be big enough to embrace our hardest questions and help us move into a life conceived by God. One of my favorite writers, Tony Robinson, recently put it like this in reference to trying to make sense of the good news of Easter: “The New Testament never reports ‘sightings’ or the risen Jesus.”  

It reports "appearances." Jesus intrusions. People don't say, "Yes, it was about sunrise when I got a glimpse of him heading over the hill there."They report, "he appeared." What's the difference? The difference is who's the subject of the verbs. The difference is who's in charge. With sightings, we are. With appearances, God is.

“Easter means, among other things, it's not about us. Not all about me. Not all about you. It's about God.”

In Jesus, God is busy rewriting our sentences, busy intruding upon us, appearing when and where we least expect him – and asking all types of hard questions. So is that good news or bad? I guess it depends on who you think is in charge.

But when it is Jesus then our eyes will be opened and our hearts will be on fire with true grace.

A sad and sobering day...

Many of my country men and women celebrated today - upon hearing the news that Osama Bin Laden had been killed by US Navy Seals - but not me.

Don't misunderstand: I have no love for this terrorist and still grieve the wounds he inflicted upon my beloved country. I have made pilgrimage to Ground Zero on many occasions - it is still sacred ground to me - and I still weep and pray for the innocent. And I know that he had this coming - those who live by the sword will die by the sword - and all the rest. So, in many ways, I find his death a political necessity in a broken and sinful world and expected nothing less.

Rather, what strikes me as truly sad and sobering is not the necessary death of a terrorist in a violent world, but the jubilation and celebration this death has evoked throughout the USA. Spontaneous crowds chanting "USA! USA!" with blood lust in their eyes is NOT the legacy of September 11th that I want to be a part of in any way, shape or form. Again, I know that conquering tribes have always gone wild when their opponent is vanquished: from the beginning of time human beings have bathed themselves in vile acts of retribution when ever their enemy has been beaten - from a week of raping and pillaging to other assorted religiously sanctioned tortures - so I GET (and even feel) this primal urge.

But if Christ's death on the Cross means anything it has something to say to the madness of political and religious murder: for Jesus exposes to the world what if looks and feels like to be the scapegoat. Don't be confused: I am not saying that Bin Laden is a scapegoat - he was guilty - and got ended as he lived. But descending into primitive war dances over the spilled blood of our enemy is NOT how we move forward after the Twin Towers.

In a moment like this, when politicians must do what politicians must do - and I am a realist so know the lay of the land with the pols - and the fearful and easily distracted let themselves be whipped into a stupid fury, someone must share an alternative to the madness. Someone must say there is another way to move forward - beyond the blood - beyond the fear and beyond our primal addictions and carnage.

One of the cherished elders in my world, the poet Robert Bly, put it like this during the start of the Iraq madness - and on this sad and sobering day his words still ring true to me.

Dr. King STILL gets it right: "I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."