Friday Five: Nostalgia Edition

Today's Friday Five takes us on a trip down memory lane, from Sally:

This year Tim and I have planted and nurtured a vegetable garden, and I have just spent the morning preparing vegetables and soups for the freezer, our veggie garden is producing like crazy and it is hard to keep up with, that said it'll be worth it for a little taste of summer in the middle of winter :-). That got me thinking of the things I treasure, memories are often more valuable than possessions.

1. A treasured memory from childhood?

I remember the chair pictured here very fondly. We all loved that chair: it was the per

fect size for reading, snuggling with Mom or Dad, and all kinds of fun to turn over on its back and/or side. I know it got re-upholstered at least once in its lifetime. I have treasured comfy reading chairs ever since. A close second to this memory is Ed, the black lab we had when I was just a wee little thing. He was the gentlest, kindest dog I ever knew. I used to fall asleep in the yard using Ed as a pillow. Any wonder I wanted a lab when we started looking for a dog? I'm happy to say that Jack shows the same patience and love to the Sisters that Ed did to me and my brothers.

2. A teenage memory?

This time of year I'm always thinking about football. At the moment I'm listening to The Junction Boys: How Ten Days in Hell with Bear Bryant Forged a Championship Team on my iPod, and it brings back memories of two-a-days on "the hill" back home in Wakefield, NE. You never forget the feel of the pads on your shoulders, the helmet on your head, the smell of grass and sweat and maybe a little blood if you got popped in the nose or mouth. I remember my senior season most fondly: we weren't expected to amount to much, but we only lost two games that year, both very close games

against teams that went on to high post-season results. We worked our asses off for what we got that year, and so far as I can remember, it was the first time most of us had went out and gotten something people didn't think we could get. Man, those fun Friday nights were worth every torturous practice beforehand.

3. A young adult memory?

Ranch Camp, Week #7, 1994 at Carol Joy Holling Camp. I have a lot of wonderful memories from my five summers at camp, but this one week will always stand out for me. My co-counselor was Tanya, on whom I had a bit of an unrequited crush, but despite me making calf-eyes all week, we got along great and worked really well together. Our campers that week were just incredible. They bonded really well from the start, even Blake, who was our big rebel/too-cool-for-camp kid that week. We hiked, we cooked out, we had an overnight sleepout on the hill; you name it, we did it that week, and it was the kind of week that makes you think you could do that job for the rest of your life. The Bible Study was particularly good that summer: "Jesus, Who Are You?" was the theme, and each day we studied one of the "I am" sayings from the Gospel of John. Thursday was "I am the Resurrection and the Life," and as you can imagine, we talked about death. This particular Thursday was a very emotional session, but in the best possible way. Our village walked to the Closing Program in one big long line, arms around shoulders, me and Tanya right in there with them. We both cried when the campers were all gone that week. Experiences like that are so few and far between, yet they carry so much weight in ou

r lives; who would have imagined a bunch of teenagers, most of whom I can't even remember individually anymore, would remain in my heart all these years later?

4. A memory from this summer?

Just yesterday, as I was hurrying the girls into the car to go to the gym, Ainsley looked at me and said, "Daddy, you just have to be patient with me!" That's just one snapshot of this summer for us: growing girls who are blossoming into real people right in front of us. Holy. Crap. Ferris is right: "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." We've tried to take time to look around this summer, and I'm really thankful to be able to do it.

5. A memory you hope to have?

Lots in general: family vacations, happy weddings, great accomplishments for the Sisters, weddings, grandkids, etc. But one in particular we hope to start working on soon is a big anniversary trip back to Europe in 10-15 years. I'd dearly love to tour Ireland with Beloved; nights in the pub, days on the road, seeing the sights I saw in 1996 when I went with the Nebraska band, but with the appreciation I've gained over years of reading about Erin and her children. After some time in Ireland, a trip to Germany so Beloved can see "Luther Land" would be neat as well. We honeymooned in Bavaria, but Kristin hasn't seen Lutherstadt-Wittenberg, Eisenach, Leipzig or any of the wonderful sights I saw

during my J-term class in seminary. It would be great to spend a night or two in Haus Hainstein with my beloved, ja?

Bonus- a song that sums up one of those memories.

My folks had one of these gigantic counter-style stereo systems. They had (and still have) a chest full of LPs, but the ones that got the coveted spots inside the stereo itself were the Statler Brothers albums. My dad loved the Statler Brothers, and we all followed suit. I remember loading that record player up with three or four records and listening for what seemed like hours. I learned to harmonize from the Statler Brothers. (The fact that I'm likely doing the same thing to Ainsley and Alanna with Storyhill has certainly not escaped my notice.) Anyway, this is one of many songs I remember singing all those years ago:

Grace & peace,

Scott

Anne Rice and the Failure of the Church

Big news last week: Anne Rice has left the church.

Everyone's got their take on it, of course, and I'm no different. Pretty Good Lutherans has a good comment thread going, numerous bloggers are weighing in, and in one of the most crassly opportunistic grabs I've ever seen, the UCC is actively campaigning for Rice to join their flock.

I find myself in the “understanding but not agreeing with Anne Rice” camp. I find the institutional church an exhausting, frustrating, maddening bunch of hypocrites and powermongers far more often than I would like. During the Unbloggableness, a person involved in the situation said, "There are lots of good people here." Unfortunately, there is a threshold over which it doesn't matter how many good people are present: one can only exist in a toxic environment for so long. It appears that for Ms. Rice, that threshold has been crossed, at least for the time being.

I’m forced to wonder how closely connected Ms. Rice was to her local parish/congregation. Did her fame and notoriety keep her from forming the kind of spiritual friendships which carry us through those times of spiritual struggle? Or, on the flip side, was she deeply involved, but spurned or turned away by a cadre of power elite in her local community? It seems, from her description, that this isn't over one issue, so I'm betting on my the former, but we won’t know the answers to these and other questions unless Ms. Rice tells us. Frankly, I hope she keeps it to herself; adding more church gossip to this situation would be gasoline on an already-merrily-burning fire.

Regardless of the actual facts of this particular case, once again the church has failed one of its own. This one’s on us, at least partially, no matter what flavor of Christianity Rice called her home. Until the church acknowledges that we are part of the problem, and takes action to correct those contributions we are making to the dysfunction and dystopia of the life of faith, we will continue to hemorrhage members in increasing numbers. True, every believer must struggle to reconcile the sinner/saint nature of existence for herself, but this in no way excuses the church from its responsibility to deny sin within its power to do so.

The whole thing is saddening. I hold many of the same beliefs as Ms. Rice, according to her original posts, as do many of my friends in faith. The polarizing forces within the church are becoming so abhorrent that the rest of us suffer as a result. We're forced to wonder if we'll be defined by our fringe elements for the foreseeable future: how can we be louder about who we are without sounding the same strident tone as those who are often caricatured as "the Christians?"

We can't. That's just the thing. The way of Jesus doesn't allow us to attempt a hostile takeover of the church, from any political, socio-economic or moral perspective. When any of us attempts to do so, we become the Christians Anne Rice is leaving and Christopher Hitchens despises. We are called to co-exist with fellow sinners in the church - period. Yes, sometimes sin and evil need to be called out, but it seems to me we draw that particular circle far larger than Jesus does, and we don't always have the same things in the middle.

Gordon Atkinson wrote a wonderful reflection on the church a few years ago. If I were advising Ms. Rice, I'd suggest she read it, and take her time considering her next step. I hope her self-imposed exile doesn't last long, as I can't imagine being without a community of believers with whom I can pray, laugh, sing, shout and weep. As for the church, the call remains the same: do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with our God. The rest is not up to us.

Grace & peace,

Scott

ps: One commentary from the Philadelphia Atheist Examiner claimed that Rice's Interview with the Vampire series is "decidedly atheistic." I'm thinking he didn't read The Tale of the Body Thief or Memnoch the Devil, both decidedly not atheistic. Details, people!

Sermon for the 10th Sunday after Pentecost/Ordinary 18C - "Fear and Control, Faith and Freedom"

Leo Tolstoy wrote a wonderful short story entitled "How Much Land Does A Man Need?" in 1886, a story which author James Joyce called "the greatest short story ever written." In the story, a Russian peasant farmer named Pahom says to himself, "If I had plenty of land, I shouldn't fear the Devil himself!"

It should go without saying, of course, that in the course of the story, fear and greed drove Pahom to greater and greater lengths to find happiness and security in his land. Pahom certainly isn't the only literary figure to chase a treasure. Captain Ahab had his Moby Dick. Lord Voldemort had his Harry Potter.

Me? I've got my running shoes.

When it comes to shoes, many of us runners are shopaholics. We compare websites, we email one another, we spend lots of time looking for the perfect shoe, preferably at a low price. I bought this pair a few months ago, because I found them on sale at an online retailer. I ordered two pairs, one for now and one for six months from now when I need another pair.

In the grand scheme of the running life, this is the moment when I’m satisfied. This is the moment when I'm holding the box, inhaling the intoxicating scent of new shoes, and I think, "Now I'm okay. Now I'm set." This is the moment of real trouble for us – and Jesus hit that moment right on the head when he told this parable to the crowd around him. The fact that it has something to say to us today just proves that God’s Word is always doing something, doesn’t it?

First we need to understand this isn’t about bad people suffering the consequences of their sin. Grain that isn't stored properly is ruined, and it was common for rabbis to adjudicate inheritance disputes in Jesus‘ time. The characters in this story weren’t necessarily doing anything wrong. What’s wrong is not their actions, but the trust and faith driving their actions. Mistakes were made at the level of heart and soul, which is more often than not the very place our struggles begin.

The mistake of the rich man had nothing to do with grain. The mistake of the brother had nothing to do with inheritances. Their mistakes were made long before this stuff was ever part of the problem. Their mistakes were their misplaced treasures. The possessions they treasured held them captive, while the freedom in which God created them was buried under fear.

But what is it that drives this fear? What causes such great fear in us, that we should put all our trust in possessions or money or stuff? Is it a fear of inconvenience? I don't think so: inconvenience isn't pleasant, but it is definitely survivable. Is it a fear of discomfort? Again, no, for the same reason. Are we afraid of a loss of social standing? This might be nearer the mark, but again, a loss of social standing or reputation might be unpleasant, even painful, but we can survive such things. Even a fear of poverty, which can certainly be painful and even harmful to us and to our families, is not what drives our misplaced trust in things and possessions.

Our need for stored treasure has to do with one great, overwhelming fear: the fear of losing control. We are afraid that we are not in control of our world. We are afraid of the random, the uncertain. We are afraid of what we cannot control – and we fool ourselves into thinking that the things we can control are the things that matter, that they are, in fact, the things that will save and preserve us.

Our fear can lead us into all sorts of sins and trouble. Think of some of the commandments we break in our lust for treasures we think we can control. Our fear of commitment, vulnerability and authenticity us into superficial relationships a mile wide and an inch deep. Our fear of not being compared favorably to our neighbors leads us to covet our neigbor's possessions – "keeping up with the Joneses" is an expensive sin, but it is also one of the most common among us. Our fear of speaking the truth leads us to gossip and false witness, and not only that: fear leads us to think that the only way we can improve our own reputation is to bring down our neighbor's reputation. Our fear of risking peace, which makes us vulnerable but also makes us more completely God's children, leads us into thinking that harming our neighbor physically, even killing him, is justified if the circumstances can be defended adequately. And our fear of poverty, chaos and loss of control, as we've already seen, leads us into satisfying our greed and hoarding treasures, stealing those treasures if necessary.

Now, of course, we all fall into different places when it comes to fear and what it can do to us. But no matter how close or far away we may be from that which causes us to fear, we are all afraid, and deep down it comes back to our fear of losing control, of what may happen to us.

Friends, we need only look around us to see how little control we have of the world around us. Do you remember when the I35 bridge collapsed in 2007? My brother-in-law crossed that bridge less than two hours before it collapsed: it could have very easily been our family on the news, grieving a loss we couldn’t control. For nearly nine years we’ve been living under a cloud of fear that formed when the World Trade Center was destroyed on a normal, ordinary Tuesday morning. Floods sweep away dams; economies crash; accidents happen. Where we can, we try to stay in control, because so much of life is beyond our control.

Here’s the thing: control is not the primary value in the life of a Christian. Jesus told the parable of the rich fool to teach us that control is not our problem – fear is our problem. The primary value in the life of a Christian is faith. The opposite of faith? Fear. Fear leads to greed, to envy, to lust, to violence; fear leads us astray in many, many ways. Jesus brings the treasures which destroy the power of fear: faith, and out of faith, love.

It would be easy to think that managing our possessions better is the teaching point of this parable, but it’s not. The Teacher was absolutely right in our reading from Ecclesiastes today: possessions are meaningless; they are, after all, just stuff. What Jesus wants his disciples to understand is the fear that drives us to treasure such meaningless things. Learning to manage things better doesn’t solve the problem of our fear – only faith and love can do that, and faith and love are what Christ comes to give.

Here are the treasures of faith and love: to believe that God is always present, that even in the worst of circumstances God is there: that is a treasure worth treasuring! To believe that our lives consist of the presence of a creating, redeeming and sanctifying God: that is a treasure worth treasuring! To believe that our souls are far more important than our possessions, that each of us bears the breath of a loving Creator within us: that is a treasure worth treasuring! To know that out of love God did not withhold himself from us, but came in the person of Jesus Christ and lived among us, living in love even when it cost him his own life: that is a treasure worth treasuring! It is faith, and love, and far more, that Jesus puts in place of the treasures we have stored up for ourselves in our possessions. Our lives are created for the treasures of faith and love, and without them “all is vanity, a chasing after the wind.”

I have one more prop to show you: this marshmallow roaster. My Grandma Johnson died in January 2005, and over the next few months, we cousins watched our parents divide their inheritance amongst themselves, and they invited us to request anything we’d like to have from Grandma & Grandpa’s house in town and also the farm. Among the list of things I requested were these marshmallow roasters (we have four of them). They’re pretty ingenious, if you ask me: the handle extends. They can be short when you load them up and long when you want to roast stuff in the fire. Looking at these roasters the other night, while we were sitting by our own fire, I realized that as inconsequential as they may be, these roasters have now outlived my grandparents. Properly maintained, they will outlive me. But they’re roasters! They are not a treasure – they are things. Our family’s treasure is wrapped up in the faith my grandparents handed down to their children and then to us grandchildren. Faith, and love, cast out fear; the treasure worth treasuring frees us from our misplaced trust in shoes, grain bins and marshmallow roasters.

Brothers and sisters, what you have is not nearly as important as what you believe and in whom you trust. Martin Luther once wrote “to have a God is nothing else than to trust and believe in that one with your whole heart.”

Your life is meant for faith, and love, the treasures worth treasuring, and with joy Christ offers them to you freely. Put your trust in God, not your things. Treasure what you’ve been given in the love, grace and peace of Jesus Christ, and behold: all things are yours in Christ, now and forever more. Amen.

A Preaching Quandary

I am in the middle of a theological, homiletical dilemma. Perhaps you can help me out.

I love my kids. (No, that's not the quandary) I spend a good portion of my time thinking about my kids, driving my kids from place to place, picking them up, playing with them, teaching them, cooking for them, etc. I smile when they wake up in the morning (or when they wake me up, if it's at a decent hour) and both Beloved and I breathe a sigh of relief when we get them to sleep, even though they look adorable all snuggled up in their beds.

Anything into which you pour this much energy is bound to affect your thinking, and over the last three years I've noticed that my teaching and preaching are greatly influenced by my experience as a parent. To a certain point this is all well and good, but here's the quandary: how do I keep it from becoming too much? When do those who listen to me reach the point of saturation and stop hearing the good news because of the way my voice puts it?

When I was nine years old, our church back home had an interim pastor who constantly talked about California. He'd been raised there, and obviously had a great love for his home state. After a while, though, it became a joke: whatever the gospel reading was for that week, it would have something to do with California by the time the sermon came around. From what I remember, he was a pretty decent interim but for this one thing. Our new pastor made a great first impression when someone asked him about California in his "welcome" potluck and he said, "I've heard California is the land of fruits and nuts."

I don't want to be that interim, but I'm afraid I'm heading in that direction. My students have already begun to claim the sermon isn't finished until I've made a poop reference. They say it in jest, but we all know that some good jokes are funny because they're also true.

That's just one aspect of the problem. Another is this: how does "God as parent" preaching sound to the ears of those who don't have kids? When I preach about the patience and love required to be a good parent, how do those who don't have kids hear it? How about those who can't have kids, or those who had abusive parents?

The gospel reading for this week seems a text which offers several opportunities to go off the rails into "Daddy Knows Best" territory. That was my first impulse upon reading the text yesterday, but I'm leery of developing things in that direction for fear of the problems listed above. If you'd like to join a good discussion on the texts themselves, RevGalBlogPals has a Tuesday Lectionary post that always offers fruitful discussion. But if you're willing to offer them, I would appreciate your thoughts on this in the comments section. Tell me what you've seen in my blog posts, in my sermons, in places where I've taught: am I going overboard? Can you offer helpful suggestions to keep from doing so?

There's nothing wrong with loving your kids. In my life, the order of priorities is:

1. Child of God
2. Husband
3. Father
4. Son/Brother/Family member
5. Friend
6. Pastor

I'd like my preaching to reflect this ranking of priorities as well. Thoughts?

Grace & peace,

Scott

Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing

Had a moment with Ainsley on the way to Pre-school the other morning.

It started when it was time to get ready to leave, but she wanted to keep watching the Sesame Street episode we'd called up from the DVR. (Put this one under the "Problems my parents didn't have" column) As sometimes happens with toddlers, hearing "No." brought tears. She cried all the way upstairs. Cried when I asked her to put her flip-flops away and get shoes (no flip-flops at Pre-school). Cried when I brushed her hair. Cried when I put the barrettes in her hair, even though I used the Princess ones. Cried when I opened the door (she wanted to open it, and I was rapidly losing my patience and just walked out of the house with Alanna, who promptly hit me in the eye). Cried for the first mile of the car ride to pre-school. And I didn't care one little bit.

I'll admit it - I was frustrated and emotional. Part of me knows how important some measure of control is for a growing child, and how much it hurts when you don't get something you think is really important. I remember that sense of childish frustration very, very well, and knowing that I'm standing where my parents once stood for me doesn't help matters much. But every little tantrum meant another couple of minutes late for pre-school, and we had lots to do at home and work this week.

Here's the thing, though: by the time we'd driven five minutes, the crying was done. I asked Ainsley what she wanted to listen to, and she said, "Storyhill, please - the ghost song." "The Ghost Song" is "Give Up The Ghost" from their self-titled release on Red House Records:

Some of you who've been reading for a while know that Ainsley has a pre-birth connection to Storyhill. I don't know if that's a contributing factor recently or not, but I do know this: for all that we love Storyhill ourselves, the connection with our kids is even more wonderful. It adds another dimension to the music we already love. So when the song started, I looked into the rear-view mirror, saw my little girls smiling, heard Ainsley starting to sing along, and nearly had to pull over for wanting to cry at how rude I'd been to my kids.

By the time we got to pre-school, all was well. We had listened to "Give Up The Ghost," "Paradise Lost" and "Highlight," and the girls were all smiles. I dropped them off, with hugs and kisses from both before I left, and headed off to work. When I picked them up that afternoon, they were overjoyed to see me, and when we all went to the waterpark later that afternoon, we splashed and giggled and played and loved on each other a whole bunch.

The Gospel reading for this week is Jesus' encounter with Mary and Martha in Bethany, where Jesus reminds Martha, "Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her." It's not that Martha chooses things that are evil or even unimportant; Martha knows, rightly, that there are tasks in every time and place which need doing. But Mary has grasped the main thing, and has her priorities in order. Martha needs re-ordering so that she might receive what Jesus has to give, which can never be taken away from her. Martha, like me, needs to be reminded to keep the main thing the main thing.

Sure, we'll be late to pre-school sometimes. Life does that. I could benefit from remembering that for a three-year old girl, opening doors and getting to pick out your own clothes are far more important, and sometimes it might do me well as a parent to let her go to pre-school in whatever hideous ensemble she's selected, because it really isn't that important right now. I need to be reminded, as I was that morning, that the love I bear for these little girls is far, far more important than running absolutely on time or matching every outfit perfectly. Clothes will come and go. Someday I'll want Ainsley and Alanna to open doors for me because I won't be able to do it for myself. But the love between us? That can't ever go away - and I'm glad to have been reminded to chose the better part.

Grace & peace,

Scott

More Home Improvement (Not Thumb Improvement)

So, the latest steps in our home improvement process are almost complete. Here's a look at what we've done so far with paint, etc.

New kitchen look with "Merlot" on the east wall and "Oregon Coast" everywhere else (yes, we're considering renaming the house "Le Chateau de Paint Names We Liked.")


New dining room curtains and hardware. (The cat is Reggie. He's not new.)


New accent wall in the "dining room." We blatantly stole this look from the wall at our favorite Ames restaurant, the Cafe. We did not, however, steal the pre-chewed ottoman - Jack gave us that one for free.

As to the title of this post: on Friday afternoon I was going to finish up the painting in the kitchen while Beloved and the girls were at the gym. I got home around 4:00, started pulling the oven away from the wall so I could paint behind it, and promptly pulled the oven door off. While trying to put the door back on, one of the hinges popped out of its receptacle and closed on the end of my thumb with horrifying speed and power. The blood flow was immediate, and the amount would have been impressive if it wasn't, you know, MY OWN BLOOD. After about thirty seconds of rinsing it off in the bathroom sink, I realized this was a bit more than an owie, and I also realized the next fifteen minutes were not going to be fun because a) I was home alone with only my Volkswagen to drive to the hospital (my beloved manual transmission Volkswagen, and b) to get to the hospital, I would either have to brave the idiotic four way flashing red lights at 13th and Stange or take a chance on getting green on all the stoplights on Lincoln Way. Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to deeply lacerate my non-shifting hand, so I wrapped it up in a washcloth and set off for the emergency room.

I actually got to the hospital with no problems except for cursing the stop and go traffic at 13th and Stange (apparently the alternating pattern of 4-way stops is too cognitively taxing for many Iowa drivers). Once I arrived, it was pretty obvious why I was there. The admitting nurse even looked at me and said, "Laceration?" But they made me wait while the girl in front of me got to see the doctor first. I almost wished I was bleeding more profusely just so I could get somebody to DO something about it. Finally, after triage (seriously? You couldn't ask me if I'm taking drugs while the doctor's looking at my mangled thumb?) and twenty minutes waiting in a room, I got to see the doctor.

In the end I got three stitches and a lot of laughs out of the deal. The actual medical staff were very nice and profusely apologetic about how long it took to actually get me sewed up and on my way home. Apparently 4:30 Friday afternoon is not the best time to slice your thumb in half, as they were very busy with many patients at the time. Once I figured out how to work the TV it wasn't so bad: ESPN Classic was replaying the 2007 Fiesta Bowl and I got to watch Boise State beat Oklahoma again - always a good time. I even felt good enough to drive down to Target and pick up my painkiller prescription before going home.

It was an interesting experience - I haven't been hurt bad enough for an immediate trip to the ER since I seriously sprained my ankle over ten years ago playing church league volleyball. Calling Beloved from the hospital wasn't a lot of fun, but thankfully she took it in stride, found someone to cover her shift, and came to see if I needed her to get me home or whatever. The girls understood that Daddy hurt his thumb, but the doctor was taking care of me, so there weren't any tears or anything. When I got home they didn't understand why I didn't just have a band-aid on it, but the only comment since then has been Ainsley not wanting me to touch her with my owie (frankly, I wouldn't want to be touched with it, either, as you'll see). I even managed to run the 10K I was entered in on Saturday night, and still broke 60 minutes which, considering the last two days, I thought was a victory. Today it doesn't even hurt much - I have only taken two doses of the Vicodin, and good old vitamin I has done the trick since yesterday morning.

It was the crazy start of a good weekend - more on that later. Now, if you don't really care to look at stitches, this would be a good time to head over to Facebook or something.




Okay, we good? Here's some pictures from this morning:



I like how in this last one you can really see how I split the nail pretty good. I said earlier this wouldn't be "Thumb Improvement," but I might be wrong - after all, Keanu Reeves once said "chicks dig scars." I'll have to ask Beloved about that in a few weeks.

Grace & peace,
Scott

Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost - Ordinary 15C - "Certainty Comes At The End"

There’s a quote attributed to Mark Twain that goes like this: “What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for certain that just ain't so.” It’s one of those sayings that is so like Mark Twain that if he didn’t say it, he should have.

What does it mean to be certain of a thing? In our readings for today, God shows the prophet Amos the plumb line by which God’s people will be judged, but in the Gospel parable, Jesus uses the same plumb line to insist that what we know for certain is going to get us into trouble. Pay attention, brothers and sisters, and let’s talk about what we know for certain. Let us pray: O Creator of all that has been, all that is and all that will be, have mercy on us. You set a plumb line by which all things are judged, and we always come up out of line. Forgive us when we know for certain things that just aren’t so. Humble us and renew our hearts with your love, the only thing that is certain in all that exists. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Some of you may have worked with plumb lines before, but I’ve got a similar tool here that most of you, if not all of you, will know for certain that does the same thing. This is a level. Last summer I rebuilt the fence in our backyard and used this level to make sure the fence rails were straight up and down. This particular level comes from my Grandpa Johnson’s workshop, so I know that it has a long history of setting things straight in our family. You use this level in the same way a bricklayer uses a plumbline: it’s a tool to make sure that everything is lining up right, so that a wall is constructed to be as strong and sturdy as it needs to be. God is going to judge the state of the people of Judah, Amos will provide the level, and we see immediately how out of true the state of things really can be.

When Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, heard what Amos was telling the people of Israel, this was his response: “...never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king's sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.” Anyone who knows a little bit of Hebrew sees the irony in this sentence right away. The name “Bethel” means “house of the Lord” in Hebrew. Amaziah insists that “God’s house” is the king’s sanctuary, and God’s call for Israel to return to God is no longer welcome there. Out of plumb, for certain: things are not the way they should be for Israel, so God will begin the hard work of tearing down and rebuilding so that things might be what they are meant to be in the future.

Let’s move forward a few hundred years to Jesus and his conversation with the lawyer in today’s Gospel reading. There are many places in the gospels where people are trying to trap Jesus with their questions, especially the closer Jesus gets to Jerusalem in the gospel of Luke, but this isn’t necessarily one of those times. This lawyer seems to be genuinely seeking wisdom and eternal life, and Jesus seems to be genuinely interested in giving him the truth. But while the lawyer’s first question and answer session goes exactly how he might have expected, the parable would have seemed completely out of plumb to someone listening in Jesus’ time.

Who were the Samaritans? What do you know about them? Remnants of the Northern Kingdom, the people no one wanted, religious half-breeds who said they worshiped God but didn’t follow the same religious patterns Jewish people followed. Worshiped at Mt Gezirim, not the Temple. People would cross the Jordan when traveling between Galilee and Judea to avoid going through Samaritan territory. When Jesus identifies the merciful Samaritan as the one who is doing and being right to his neighbor, he blows up the certainty every listener would have had about Samaritans.

How would we put this in modern terms? Well, imagine the group of people you would avoid at all costs, and put them in the role of the Samaritan. You get “The Parable of the Good Democrat.” “The Parable of the Good Republican.” “The Parable of the Good Hawkeye Fan.” “The Parable of the Good Baptist.” “The Parable of the Good Muslim.” All of us have those groups of people with whom we would never, ever want to associate: that’s the group Jesus uses to show the lawyer how out of plumb his certainty really is.

One of the problems is how Jesus and the lawyer are asking and answering the question in different ways. When the lawyer asks, “Who is my neighbor?”, he is asking Jesus to identify who’s in and who’s out. The lawyer thinks, “Certainly, Jesus can’t suggest that my neighbor is anyone who’s actually near me at any given time. There are good guys and bad guys, and I’m only expected to love the good guys, right?” The lawyer isn’t only asking, “For whom must I show care?” He’s also asking, “Who can I ignore?” Jesus answer is plain and shocking: “You can’t ignore ANYONE.”

Professor Marilyn Salmon of United Theological Seminary in St. Paul, MN says, “Jesus shifts the question from the one the lawyer asks – who is my neighbor?—to ask what a righteous neighbor does.”1 What was once a question of doing becomes, on the lips of Jesus, a question of being. Asking Jesus to identify which group of people are our neighbors is like asking a carpenter which fence rail needs the level - if things are going to be the way they’re supposed to be, the level has to be used on every single fence rail. It’s not a question of which fence rail you can ignore - it’s a question of how the carpenter does all of her work.

My oldest daughter is beginning to understand manners and the like. We’ve worked very hard to impress the need to say “Please” and “Thank you.” The inevitable developmental shift, of course, is this: now that she knows how to ask nicely, she’s come to believe that every time she asks nicely we’ll give her what she wants. “But I asked nicely!” is something we’re hearing a lot these days. She sees manners and politeness like I see the quarters I plug into the vending machine when I want a Diet Coke. In the same way, the lawyer sees care for the neighbor as the coin he must pay to earn eternal life - and if you can find a vending machine that gives you a soda for 50 cents instead of 65, wouldn’t that be all the better?

Parables are not fables. Parables do not have “morals of the story.” Parable are intended to shake up our world, to get in our heads and mess with what we know for certain that just ain’t so. Parables are intended to explode our smugness and certainty and replace them with faith - because, in the end, faith is all we have and faith is all we need. Notice that in some ways, Jesus never gives the lawyer a “certain” answer to his question. There’s no point at which the lawyer can say, “I’ve done enough good deeds for my neighbor - I’ve earned eternal life.” Morals and good deeds are only the after-effects of the gospel: until our certainty is based on Jesus and Jesus alone, we will have traded the good news of God’s love for the conditional requirements of vending-machine spirituality, which cannot save and leaves us empty in the end.

Darrell Guder writes, “The ‘gospel which meets my needs’ must be replaced with the good news that reveals needs I did not know I had while providing healing I never dreamed was possible.”2 This is what Jesus is after for the lawyer and for you. Certainty isn’t part of what we do in this world, at least when it comes to knowing who’s in and who’s out. Mercy is for everyone, love is for the world, and the church of Jesus Christ is called to lives of faith and love, not certainty and division. We should feel unsettled by what Jesus does - because that unsettled feeling is what happens when God rips down those parts of ourselves that are out of plumb and starts building them anew and righteous.

Erica Jong wrote a poem entitled “You Are There” which I think describes the feeling of being trued by God’s righteousness:

You are there.

You have always been

there.

Even when you thought

you were climbing 

you had already arrived.


Even when you were

breathing hard,

you were at rest.

Even then it was clear

you were there.



Not in our nature

to know what

is journey and what

arrival.

Even if we knew

we would not admit.

Even if we lived

we would think

we were just

germinating.



To live is to be

uncertain.

Certainty comes

at the end.

Certainty comes at the end. Until then, we walk by faith, trusting God to show us our neighbors in need, or to show our neighbors our own need. In the ditch, on the road, listening to Jesus - may we all be made uncertain, faithful followers of Jesus who love, and are loved by, all our neighbors. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Damn - I Know I Came In Here For Something...

You Lutherans in the audience likely remember this little book. Augsburg Fortress has been making this appointment book for years. I've never used it myself (too small for my taste), but Larry, my campus pastor, carried one with a golf pencil rubber-banded onto it for as long as I knew him. Today's Friday Five is all about why we need such things...

a) What's the last thing you forgot?

Well, I bought tickets for a group trip to a DCI show in Des Moines next weekend, and I bought one for Beloved so she could come along, but forgot that she has a church commitment that night. Unfortunately, if I can't find someone to take the ticket, this one will cost us a little bit of money. Oops.

e) How do you keep track of appointments?

I used a Palm device from 2001 until just a few months ago when we got new phones. The new Palm devices are just too expensive, so we got Samsung Reclaim phones and I switched to Google Calendar, which is working pretty well so far. In other words, I haven't trusted my own memory for these things for nearly ten years, longer if you count the number of paper appointment books I kept before 2001.

i) Do you keep a running grocery list?

About half the time. We're in a bit of a grocery rut right now - toddler tastes don't vary much, so most of the time we're buying the same stuff every week. But we're getting food from a local CSA now, so hopefully we'll expand our palates a bit over the weeks to come.

o) When forced to improvise by circumstances, do you enjoy it or panic?
I'm not sure - I have the feeling what I think might not match what people see when circumstances happen. Generally, one of the things I love about being a minister is the flexibility. There are very few hard and fast administrative "rules" for us - basically, if you've got the sermon on Sunday and you're present in emergencies, the rest of your time is your own to manage as you see fit. I remember Larry Meyer telling me once, "When it comes to worship, you plan as much as you can in advance, make sure everyone's on the same page, and then you let what happens happen. Don't ignore surprises, but don't act like they ruin everything, either." I've adopted that wisdom for a fairly large portion of my life, and it seems to suit me just fine. Beloved would definitely disagree on this one, though - she does NOT enjoy being easy-going when it comes to deadlines, packing, etc. It's one of the few things to have actually caused fights in our marriage.

u) What's a memory you hope you will never forget?

Three in particular: our wedding day and the days Ainsley and Alanna were born. If I can hold on to those three, I'll be pretty good if everything else goes.

Now, has anyone seen my sunglasses?

Grace & peace,

Scott

In Which Old Things Become New-ish OR If There's Wallpaper Borders In Heaven I'm Not Sure I Want To Go.

Lots of you blowed up stuff real good over the weekend - good for you. We spent our lovely holiday weekend working around the house, literally. Lots of things to do for which we've finally scraped together some dough (including a generous guilt love offering related to the UB, which we gladly spent). We didn't get it all done this weekend, not by half, but we're off to a good start.

I need to say this first: when my wife gets the bit in her mouth, it's best just to let her go until she runs out of steam. HOLY. PAINTING. BATMAN. She's awesome, but exhausting to watch. We played the heathen this Sunday and stayed home, choosing to sleep in. Once everyone was awake, however, it was ON, baby. I corralled the kids downstairs while Beloved started scoring, soaking and scraping the awful wallpaper border off our dining room walls. No, it wasn't nearly as bad as some houses (my brother and his wife had six layers on one bedroom in their house, I think), but it's just freaking annoying to stand there and scrape above your head just so's you can slap on some new paint. At any rate, once she had the scraping done and sanded down the holes I'd spackled the night before, she jumped right into the painting.

At that point I could no longer control the Sisters downstairs, so upstairs we came to watch the progress. That meant "helping" Mommy, of course:

Meanwhile, we also made a trip to Lowe's and bought lots of fun new things for the house: new doors to replace the ones we ruined when the carpet was installed, drywall patches for the basement bedroom (yes, I finally got it patched, and will sand and texture tomorrow!), new curtain hardware for the dining room, stain for the doors and cabinets (and, eventually, the trim as well), and most importantly, new vinyl flooring for the kitchen. I wanted to do porcelain tile, but that was WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY out of our price range, so I'll have to wait to tackle that project. My brother's coming in a few weeks, and we'll send Beloved and the Sisters off to visit her sister while we boys install the vinyl (and likely take in a ballgame or something fun on our own).

I'm of two minds about this kind of home work. On the one hand, the clutter and mess drives me nuts. I HATE having things scattered hell to breakfast around our house, especially since Alanna has reached the "I can take everything out of this?" phase and regularly demolishes our movies and bookshelves. On the other hand, it's a lot of fun to see the end result of all that work, right? We're finishing up the dining room/kitchen painting tonight, so it'll be nice to see how all our work makes the house look that much nicer (and more in line with our taste as opposed to the former owners).

Best of all, we get to enjoy it for ourselves. We watch a lot of "house porn" these days (DIY and HGTV are two of the channels we didn't lose when we went to low-tier cable), and it seems like everything is geared toward increasing value for resale. While we're certainly not opposed to making money on the house, we're not going to be selling for a while, hopefully, so we made these changes for US to enjoy. That, combined with the satisfaction of doing the work ourselves, makes for some enjoyable living these last few days. Now if only I could keep the garage clean for one day...

Grace & peace,

Scott

Book Review: The Case for God

Lutheran Campus Ministry at Iowa State University hosts a "Theology for Lunch" group every Friday at noon during the school year. Last fall we tackled N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope. This spring, because Wright wasn't deep enough, we took on The Case for God by Karen Armstrong. [check your sarcasm sensor - fully operational? Good] It was a very enriching semester for all of us.

This is my first experience with Karen Armstrong's work. Many have recommended her other works to me through the years, most especially A History of God and The Spiral Staircase. After our experience with The Case for God, I'll definitely add these titles to my list for future reading.

Contrary to what the title may lead the reader to expect, The Case for God is not an apologetic; at least, it is not an apologetic akin to anything I've previously read. As we drew near to the end of the book, I found myself mystified with the title altogether - it seems to draw the reader's attention away from the marvelous work Armstrong is doing toward an argument or proof that is never offered. Armstrong herself states that "quarreling about religion is counterproductive and not conducive to enlightenment." But she does offer, in the introduction, her rationale for this work:

The modern God is only one of the many theologies that developed during the three thousand year history of monotheism. Because "God" is infinite, nobody can have the last word. I am concerned that many people are confused about the nature of religious truth, a perplexity exacerbated by the contentious nature of so much religious discussion at the moment. My aim in this book is simply to bring something fresh to the table.

What she brings is an encompassing history of theology, religion and faith. Armstrong literally attempts to cover the waterfront: she begins in 30,000 BCE and ends with the "death of God" movement of the 1960s, the recent rise of neo-atheists and a touch of how the modern church might wish to respond. It's an ambitious project which Armstrong mostly carries off extremely well, focusing on what I believe are two main hypotheses:

1. The concept of faith as cognitive assent to a list of dogmatic assertions is a very modern development, post-Enlightenment at the very least if not later; and
2. The development of this concept has had an extremely detrimental effect upon the three monotheistic faiths (Christianity, Islam and Judaism) and their adherents.

In pursuit of these two hypotheses, Armstrong collects and presents an impressive collection of theologians, philosophers and intellectuals of every stripe and genre. In such an attempt, there are bound to be omissions, no matter how carefully one does one's research. I'll gladly admit that the omissions I noted were mainly of the Lutheran stripe - I would have preferred a deeper look at the Reformation, and an analysis of how the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer were co-opted by many in the "Death of God" movement. Others might have preferred a more detailed examination of their own faith tradition, especially as the Christian church has splintered into denominations over the past 1,000 years.

These are, however, minor quibbles. Nearly every page offers a great deal of thought-provoking analysis of religious faith, and Armstrong is remarkably even-handed in her praise and criticism. As those of us who love our churches venture deeper into the post-Christendom age, The Case for God is a valuable contribution to the church's conversation with itself and with the world in which we live. I highly recommend it, but only if you're ready to think deeply about God, theology and what it means to be people of faith.

Grace & peace,

Scott

Summery Friday Five

Songbird gave us the Friday Five this week, and it's all about summer. Here are three things I love, two things I don't come the longest time of theyear.

Three Summery Things I Love:

1. Swimmin' holes. Specifically, the new Furman Aquatic Center here in our lovely town of Ames (Kids' Pool pictured to the right by Ronnie Miller of the Ames Tribune). This water park has been ridiculously wonderful for us this summer - we bought a season pass (with some help from a good friend) and have already gotten return value for the big expense. The Sisters love nothing more than going to the Water Park on an afternoon, and at this point all they can do is walk around in the water and go down the kiddie slides. I can't wait to see how much they love it when they're big enough to go down the big water slides you can just see in the background.

I've loved going to the pool in the summer my whole life, and it's been fun going back with our girls and discovering, among other things, why running on a wet pool deck is never a good idea. Okay, maybe that last wasn't so much fun, but the rest certainly has been!

2. Cooking food with fire. Hot dog roasts, burgers and brats on the grill, hobo packs, corn on the cob wrapped in its own husks - you name it, if it can be cooked outdoors I'll give it a shot this time of year. I'd like to try pizza and a dutch oven roast sometime before this summer's out, and maybe if I get a little adventurous I'll attempt to smoke some ribs, too.

3. Baseball. I grew up in the Baseball Capital of Nebraska, and spent most of my summers pursuing America's pastime until I was 16 and, frankly, got burned out. Even though I haven't played in all the years since, I still love going to the ballpark to catch a game, and joining a summer church league for softball wouldn't be all bad, either. Our campus ministry makes at least one trip to Des Moines for an Iowa Cubs game each year, and it's always a highlight of the summer for me. Hopefully at some point in the near future I'll have the chance to catch a Twins game at Target Field in Minneapolis as well.

Two Summery Things I Don't Love So Much

1. Sun, Heat and Humidity. You can blame this one on my Swedo-Germanic ancestors, I guess. When it comes to the weather, I'm all for sunny days, but I love them best when accompanied by spring or fall temps. Well-insulated chaps like me don't react well to being constantly sweaty, itchy from heat rash and fried to a crisp. An additional frustration for me is the way my body selectively tans: my arms will get comfortably red, my legs will stay pasty white no matter how often I wear shorts, and my face and neck will burn no matter how much sunscreen I use. I bought a nice hat last fall, and hopefully the full-coverage brim will help keep the forehead blisters to a minimum this year.

2. Mosquitoes, the state bird of Minnesota. Nothing ruins a picnic or night at the beach/lake/ballpark/campfire faster than these flying vampires. Yet another reason I prefer autumn and spring: no bugs.

Bonus Target of Loathing: Junebugs

Please, feel free to fly around our porchlight all night, smack into our screens and generally scare the hell out of me or my family by flying into our faces, buzzing like the world's first vuvuzela. Yuk, yuk, yuk.

Ten Years of Running

Chris D at The Lutheran Zephyr wrote a great blog post yesterday about getting back to running. Because of that post, I've been thinking about my own running journey, and this afternoon, during my run, I realized I've been doing this for over ten years. Ten years, and God only knows how many miles, shoes and sweat later, I'm still at it.

I was an athlete in high school, though not the running kind. I was a pretty good offensive tackle and threw the shot in track. Lifted lots of weights and even benched 300 lbs during football my senior year. But since I stopped growing at 5'11" or so, doing any kind of athletics at the University of Nebraska was out of the question - I was a few inches too short to play on the line, and far too slow to play anywhere else. Unfortunately, I kept eating like I was an athlete, and a few years later I had ballooned from 225 lbs to somewhere in the vicinity of 270 lbs. I ate, I smoked, I drank and I didn't exercise outside of the occasional church league volleyball and softball games. So, by the time I got to seminary, I was a pretty hefty boy.

Even so, I never really thought about my health all that much, and frankly, I started running because of FW. During our first year of marriage she enlisted in the Army Reserve, and we both started running; sometimes together, sometimes on our own. For me, it was pretty ugly at the start: jog a few minutes, walk a few minutes. Heart pounding, sweat coursing down my face, but at the same time, feeling really good. I didn't lose a lot of weight at first, but I started feeling better very quickly. Luther Seminary is located right next to St. Anthony Park, one of the more picturesque neighborhoods of the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area, and I took advantage of it, developing routes that would take me past some of the most beautiful houses in the area. It was especially nice in the autumn months - running through drifts of blazing orange, red and even violet with that crisp air in my lungs made me glad to be running. Between pounding out the miles around my parents' farm that first summer while doing CPE in nearby Sioux City, IA and foraging farther and farther afield when I got back to Luther, I eventually did start losing a little weight and feeling as though I was actually someone you'd call a "runner." It was a great feeling.

When FW and I separated during my internship in Titusville, FL, running was one of the primary ways I tried to cope with the emotional turbulence of the time. I ran almost every day, cut out a lot of the awful foods I'd been eating, and the pounds just melted away. I eventually dropped to under 200 lbs for the first time since my sophomore year of high school, and people got nervous. But at the time I was probably running between 30 and 40 miles a week, which burns a LOT of calories. I was putting in some good times, too, for a former nose tackle - in those days, I RAN when I ran. When I went to California to try and make things work with FW, I ran. When things didn't work and I went back to seminary, I ran. When Beloved and I started dating and I started spending time with her and her family, I ran. When I was called to be a pastor in Barrett, MN, I ran around the lake, around town, out into the country, wherever it felt like I ought to be running. It was genuinely a part of who I was.

A few weeks after my Grandma Johnson's death in 2006, I was diagnosed with mild depression, and as a means of doing something crazy to break out of the funk, I entered the Fargo Marathon. I downloaded a training program from Runner's World and followed it pretty closely, including my 20 mile long run that I completed in four five-mile loops on an awful, rainy Saturday in early April. I ran the marathon and had a blast, finishing in 4:35. I remember thinking, "this is fun - I could totally do this in under four hours, though."

Heh - what did I know? You see this picture of me and Beloved after that first marathon? I'm smiling because I'm feeling awesome. (Okay, actually, at this point I couldn't feel my face, and I had to go get an IV about 5 minutes later because I started slurring my words and almost fell down, but I still felt AWESOME for finishing a marathon) She's smiling because she's pregnant with Ainsley, and she's going to tell me two days later, after confirming it with her doctor. Hello, new priorities: goodbye, carefree 4-milers whenever I can lace up my shoes.

As far as running goes, the last four years have been Heartbreak Hill: miserable, soul-crushing, uphill and a daunting challenge that never seems to end. It's not all due to the addition of the Sisters: my body is catching up with me, and it's been harder and harder to keep myself in running shape. Back problems, foot problems, sleep deprivation and, most of all, parental responsibilities have combined to make any kind of consistent exercise difficult to accomplish. I've swelled back up to 230 lbs, and for every run that feels great, I often have to fight through two that feel like running through quik-dry concrete. I am absolutely not complaining about being a parent here: it's just that making the right choice has had consequences about which I'm not particularly thrilled.

However, things seem to be changing of late. As Ainsley and Alanna grow older, I don't feel quite so guilty asking Beloved for time to go running. In the last month especially, as Alanna begins to learn to talk and, therefore, becomes far less exhausting to parent, we're both finding time to get out and be physical, to walk and run and mow the lawn (with a reel mower, not a motored mower) and work on the yard and do some of the things you can't do with an infant underfoot. Best of all, the girls are getting into the act. If they see me in shorts and my trusty adidas Supernovas they ask, "Are you going on a run, Daddy?" And they seem excited by the prospect. Kristin says when they see me out running on their way back from preschool or the gym, they scream with delight from their car seats. So I ask myself, "if they think I'm a runner, who am I to act otherwise?"

In 2008 I ran Grandma's Marathon in Duluth with very little training. I basically gutted out a 4:39 I had no business achieving. This year, I'm going to run the Des Moines Marathon in October, and for the first time since before Alanna was born, I'm excited to be working toward a running goal. True, things are different now than they were ten years ago, but I'm still eating miles, and whether I slog through a terrible tempo run like I did today or fly through a great easy 3-miler like I did on Monday, I'm still a runner - and I hope that ten years from now I'll be able to say the same thing again.

Grace & peace,
Scott

Pop Culture Roundup

It's been a while since I've done a PCR, but here are a few things worth mentioning that have been going down the pike lately.

Pandorum - had a free night not so long ago and watched this sci-fi/horror flick on teh interwebs. I'm happy to say it wasn't a waste of time. Good movie: scary in parts, not completely predictable, and a really good twist at the end make this movie pretty good, really. If you liked Alien, Event Horizon or Pitch Black you'll probably get a kick out of this one.

The Wheel of Time - I'm up to book six now, and continuing to move as quickly as I can. This series has become my late-night reading, and I usually get through at least 30 minutes before I drop my Kindle on my chest and fall asleep (sign of a good book - you can remember where you were when you fell asleep). I think this will be the last time through the ENTIRE series for a while, though - reading through all of this for each of the last three soon-to-be-released titles would take years of reading other stuff away from me.

Odd Thomas - I've wanted to check this series out for a while, and recently listened to the audio versions via our local public library's free download service. It's pretty cool - you can get lots of different books for iPod for free; I'd be willing to bet that most regional library systems have something similar. Audible's great and all, but free is better than cheap six days a week and twice on Sunday. Anyway, Odd Thomas is an interesting series. The first novel, Odd Thomas, is by far the best. Odd Thomas is a short order cook who can see and interact with the lingering spirits of the dead. He has to solve a massive killing spree he knows is coming to his beloved hometown. The second novel, Forever Odd, was hard to follow in audio format. It mainly takes place in an abandoned casino hotel, and without the ability to skip back a page or two to check something you might have missed, it gets confusing. Other reviewers said the book wasn't all that great, either. The third novel, Brother Odd, comes close to capturing the feel of the first, though unfortunately it's a bit too self-referential for my taste at times. Mysteries all, Odd is a likable character I hope to continue reading in the future.

Blood, Sweat and Tears - I caught the tail end of "Lucretia McEvil" on the radio last week and realized I hadn't added these guys to the new iPod yet. If you like early Chicago, get on this now. If you think "You're the Inspiration" was the pinnacle of Chicago's run, get out. Seriously. Get out now.

Enjoy!

Scott

On Worship and "Issues"

I really try not to engage in church schadenfreude, as it's not particularly polite. Brother Martin might even argue it's a violation of the 8th Commandment. Whatever - today I'm engaging in it just a little bit because of this. Suffice it to say that if you're dumb enough to publicly state "God's will" endorsing your own interpretation of what to do and where to go, some of us will find a lot of humor watching it blow up in your face.

The comments led me to pondering how to be healthier in dealing with issues that can be divisive. One commenter at the Pretty Good Lutherans story mentioned that at her church, an officer of the congregation was allowed to state his/her "side" on an issue during worship, which to me seemed a gross violation of the way to go about being the church together, regardless of the issue/interpretation at hand.

It comes down to this: whatever our differences may be, they all pale, dramatically, in comparison to the duty and joy of worshiping God together. One of the primary responsibilities I have as pastor to a community of faith is to ensure that whatever the issues, whatever our differences may be, we are first and foremost a band of sinners called and gathered by the Holy Spirit to praise, thank, serve and obey God - together. If we can't worship together, can we really expect to do anything else together?

I recently had the opportunity to worship with one of the primary movers and shakers in The Unbloggableness. Seeing that person walk into the room and sit down made me instantly furious all over again. Not the most conducive mindset for worship, right? But in the course of the hour, hearing God's word together and receiving the body and blood of Christ together reminded me that whatever our differences, we are both sinners in need of forgiveness. In fact, Jesus insisted that reconciliation is more important than worship, something with which I have struggled over the past few months. I'm not reconciled to this person, and at this point, I'm no longer trying to be. Try as we might, sometimes we simply cannot reconcile ourselves to one another, and perhaps it is at this point that a severing is the best way forward. I'm sorry that it came to this, and I'll admit that I'm to blame, not completely, but I'm definitely part of the problem here. Rather than continuing to be part of the problem, we went our separate ways, and maybe that's partially what Jesus was saying. I think he knew that not every disagreement can be reconciled, for an infinite number of reasons. Better to worship with a new community, perhaps, than to continue pretending all is well in the old when it is not.

Using worship as a venue to promote a specific agenda, however, is wrong in every instance. Worship is about God, not us. Worship is about proclaiming the gospel, not airing the dirty laundry. Worship is about being God's baptized and forgiven children, not squabbling over the petty daily problems that arise whenever two or more sinners have to rub elbows regularly. Of course, the old sinner within us will try to violate the sanctity of worship from time to time. I've done it, and regretted it almost from the instant I did it. I've seen it happen in other places, and the end result is never pretty. Pastors walk a particularly fine line at all times, since we have, by far, the greatest number of chances to hijack the gospel to serve our own ends.

There is a genuine need to discern the will of a congregation when division is present and anxiety is high. Upholding the sanctity of worship does not permit any of us to willfully ignore problems, nor does it give pastors and worship leaders the right to duck the challenge of the gospel when it needs to be spoken boldly. We all need to be reminded, however, that no matter how our discernment may differ, we have a responsibility to one another to refrain from threatening or impugning the devotion of our brothers and sisters with whom we worship. Paying lip service alone won't cut it - if we are to be authentic, cohesive communities of faith, we must use our worship time for adoration and our discussion time for conversation, and in all things we must assume that each and every one of us is being as faithful as we can be. Perhaps that's what was missing in the case of Schadenfreude Lutheran Church above - the assumption that, regardless of the difference, they were all faithful people attempting to find the faithful way forward. I pray for healing, and for humility on the part of all of us as we continue to seek for ways to live together, faithfully.

Grace & peace,

Scott

Evening Prayer Sermon: "Gran Torino" and The Prodigal Son

[If you've not seen the movie Gran Torino, beware: SPOILER ALERT.]

I recently started an adult education class on the parable of the Prodigal Son at a local ELCA congregation, using Tim Keller's "The Prodigal God." In it, Keller insists, as do many, that the problem with both the elder son and the younger son is this: they want their father's things, but not a relationship with their father. I wasn't particularly convinced by Keller's argument until Beloved and I watched the movie Gran Torino this weekend.

There is really only one surprise in Gran Torino, and since it doesn't have to do with the point I'm making here, I won't ruin it for you. Clint Eastwood is a gruff, reclusive retired auto plant worker in Detroit, angry about all the "gooks" (his word, not mine - the movie makes it clear they are Hmong) taking over his neighborhood. One of his neighbors tries to steal his car as a gang initiation act, but when the gang members threaten the boy's family with violence on his own property, Clint chases them all away: "Get off my lawn!" His neighbors honor his courage by inviting him into their family, more or less, and Clint begins to see that these people aren't so different than himself once you get past the cultural distinctions. Meanwhile, his relationship with his own children suffers as they focus on "dealing" with him and his cantankerous nature. Two scenes in particular stand out: in the first, his granddaughter bluntly asks Clint if she can have his beautiful 1972 Ford Gran Torino when he dies; in the second, Clint's son and daughter-in-law use his birthday as a chance to try to wheedle him into a retirement home, only to be rudely thrown out of the house and told to mind their own damn business.

All of this is as obvious as the nose on your face - you can see things coming a mile away, mostly, I think, because the people who put this movie together know what it's like to be real, flawed, broken people. There's nothing particularly noble about what gets Clint involved, but once he knows his neighbors as actual people, he begins to care for them. Likewise, the wall between Clint and his kids is obviously the product of years of missed opportunities and disappointments, built one painful brick at a time, and it doesn't come down easily (or completely, even in the end). Clint Eastwood's character is a man who's done everything right for his family: earned a living, fought in Korea, provided for his children so they can have more than he had. In thanks he has two sons who drive Asian import vehicles on their rare visits to his house (paid for by wages earned at the Ford factory), grandkids who refuse to even come at all, and neighbors who bear a suspicious resemblance to the soldiers he killed in Korea. Life is most definitely not perfect, even for the virtuous.

Our virtues can be every last bit as sinful as our vices, and they are infinitely more dangerous because of their moral excellence. In the Wheel of Time series, author Robert Jordan wrote a character named Galad, who does what is right "no matter who he hurts." It would be so much easier if life were as neatly wrapped up as a fable from Aesop, but often there is no "moral of the story." We live one hour, one day, one week at a time, and the little chinks in the armor that lead to genuine love can just as easily be chinks that lead to a lot of pain and sorrow.

Jesus calls us to love, not to being morally excellent. It's an easy thing to forget, because the two quite often resemble each other. I know I've forgotten it in my own life: in the pursuit of being right, I've injured people I love, sometimes deeply. I know you have, too. We cannot go back and undo our past mistakes, but we can seek forgiveness and, more importantly, love our families and neighbors for who they are, right now.

Rich Mullins wrote a song called "Brother's Keeper." It might have done the two brothers of the parable some good to listen to it, especially the chorus:

I will be my brother's keeper, not the one who judges him -

I won't despise him for his weakness, I won't regard him for his strength -

I won't take away his freedom - I will help him learn to stand,

and I will be my brother's keeper.

May we be keepers of each other, now and forever. Amen.

Money Pit or Ministry Center?

When most people who serve professionally in the church (pastors, deacons & deaconesses, diaconal ministers, associates in ministry, etc) envision their careers, do they imagine being required to rebuild something like the sanctuary to my right? I doubt it. Of course, accidents happen, tornadoes and hurricanes and floods strike, and some of us get thrust into building programs we can't avoid because we can't walk away when disaster strikes. That kind of work is honorable and worthy of praise - but it's not what I'm talking about here.

Our campus ministry center is big, old, and in need of a lot of work. A whole lotta work. Like, a crap-ton of work. A good chunk of work got done under my predecessor, and what was done got done well. But that was just the necessary stuff, things to keep the building for falling in on itself. There's a lot to do - and I'm wondering: why, exactly, do we have to do it?

Our Synod Assembly was recently held at Lutheran Church of Hope, one of the largest churches in the ELCA. The place feels like an airport or a new middle school, complete with cafeteria space, a gymnasium, a coffee shop and two worship spaces that hold lots and lots and lots and lots of people. It's an incredible facility, well-built, well-managed, and obviously well-loved, given the number of people that worship there on any given weekend. Even though it's not really the place I'd call home spiritually, I'm glad they're there, and I think the ministry they do is, in many ways, very well done and an important witness to the good news of Jesus Christ. Now, I'm sure they've got lots of qualified people on their staff to handle maintenance there, to make sure stuff gets done the way it needs to get done, but as the pastor in a church with three paid staff, and me being the only one above 20 hours a week, I looked around that church in Des Moines and thought, "Man, I'm glad I'm not in charge here!"

When I first thought about ministry, buildings were the furthest thing from my mind. Bible study? Yeah. Preaching? Of course. Reading and thinking and teaching about God? Absolutely. Caring for the sick and building trusting relationships with the people I serve? No question. But caring for a building? Not even on my radar. Talk about ignorant.

There will be a lot of us in my position in the next 20-40 years: ministry leaders in places where the buildings are far larger than required for the worshiping community and in far more disrepair than is healthy. No, ministry is not all about the building, but we need to be asking ourselves some tough questions in the future:

• "Can we take care of this building, or are there others who could use it more effectively?"
• "Why do we pay so much for a building that is only properly used once a week?"
• "Do we make our building available for public, non-church events, or do we abdicate our building in favor of a more flexible, less labor-intensive way of gathering as a community?"

I'm not planning on going anywhere just yet, but the thought of being the pastor of a church with no facility to manage has some attraction to me. A coffee-shop office and worship in some public space once a week might be the way some of us will have to go - and it might even be more faithful to do so. Not everyone needs a place like Lutheran Church of Hope. Some do, and the "established" church building, with sanctuaries and Sunday School rooms and the like will probably never go away completely. But I think a lot of us are going to need to be creative about our facilities and our communities in the coming years, so that we don't make the mistake of chaining ourselves to money pits we can't manage properly. Every church, from Joel Osteen's big digs in San Antonio to the tiny little church I attended during seminary, is a ministry center - here's hoping we all find ourselves centered where we can actually do ministry.

Grace & peace,

Scott