Wednesday Night Prayers - Psalm 90 and "Ants Marching"

Psalm 90

¹Lord, you have ^| been our refuge

            from one generation ^| to another.

²Before the mountains were brought forth, or the land and the ^| earth were born,

            from age to age ^| you are God.

³You turn us back to the ^| dust and say,

            "Turn back, O child- ^| ren of earth."

⁴For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when ^| it is past

            and like a watch ^| in the night;

⁵you sweep them away ^| like a dream,

            they fade away suddenly ^| like the grass:

⁶in the morning it is ^| green and flourishes;

            in the evening it is dried ^| up and withered.

⁷For we are consumed ^| by your anger;

            we are afraid because ^| of your wrath.

⁸Our iniquities you have ^| set before you,

            and our secret sins in the light ^| of your countenance.

⁹When you are angry, all our ^| days are gone;

            we bring our years to an end ^| like a sigh.

¹⁰The span of our life is seventy years, perhaps in strength ^| even eighty;

            yet the sum of them is but labor and sorrow, for they pass away quickly and ^| we are gone.

¹¹Who regards the power ^| of your wrath?

            Who rightly fears your ^| indignation?

¹²So teach us to num- ^| ber our days

            that we may apply our ^| hearts to wisdom.

¹³Return, O LORD; how long ^| will you tarry?

            Be gracious ^| to your servants.

¹⁴Satisfy us by your steadfast love ^| in the morning;

            so shall we rejoice and be glad ^| all our days.

¹⁵Make us glad as many days as you af- ^| flicted us

            and as many years as we suf- ^| fered adversity.

¹⁶Show your ser- ^| vants your works,

            and your splendor ^| to their children.

¹⁷May the graciousness of the Lord our God ^| be upon us;

            prosper the work of our hands; pros- ^| per our handiwork.

From Sundays and Seasons.com. Copyright 2010 Augsburg Fortress. All rights reserved.

Reprinted by permission under Augsburg Fortress Liturgies Annual License #20449.

Driving home from the gym tonight, my oldest daughter asked, "Daddy, where are all these cars going?"  I said, "Well, honey, some are coming home from work, and some are going to work.  Some are going to the gym, and some are going to church.  I don't know where all of them are going, kiddo - they're going lots of places."  

It made me think of the song "Ants Marching" by Dave Matthews Band.  "He wakes up in the morning - does his teeth, bite to eat and he's rolling - never changes a thing - the week ends the week begins..."  I've always understood the song as a call to awareness, a call to recognize that every day is a precious gift from God, even the ones in which it feels like nothing extraordinary happens.  

The psalmist writes:  "The span of our life is seventy years, maybe eighty, but they are marked with hard toil, they fly by and then we're gone...teach us to number our days so we might apply our hearts to wisdom."  How have you marked today?  Take a minute and name one thing that made today different, even if it seems like an insignificant little difference.  It can be pleasant, or painful - what God wants for us is the thing for which the psalmist asks:  awareness, perspective, the sense that, even on the most ordinary of days, things of consequence are taking place.  

In his book The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis describes heaven as a place in which reality is so overwhelming that it is painful.  Those who are unaware of where they are and what power has brought them hide in their grey lives, unwilling or unable to experience the reality around them in all its depth and power.  They are so insubstantial the grass feels as hard as diamonds and they can't even disturb the delicate morning dew.  Could the ants marching in Dave Matthews' song be so different?

You're going lots of places.  Some of you are just getting started, some of you are looking at graduation as soon as this December.  The prayer of the psalmist is not for power, or strength, or vindication:  the psalmist's prayer is for wisdom, understanding, and the chance to spend the day working on God's behalf.  In the end, that's a pretty substantial reality in which to live.  

Exercise Evangelism

I have been having an evangelism experience at the gym lately.

I've struggled with back pain off and on for the past two years, and I'm finally mostly pain-free after well over a year of physical therapy, chiropractic care and essentially taking better care of my body.  About two months ago, I was sharing my struggle with Michelle, our kick-ass spin instructor who has fought cancer and won over the past year (you have no idea what a simpering little weenus you are until you watch a bald woman lead your spin class with a chemo port in her arm).  As we were talking about juggling parenthood, vocations, exercise and all the other important stuff in our lives, she said, "Hey, we've got this new class starting called Centergy - you should give it a shot!  It sounds like it could be just what you need."

My friend Rachel doing yoga at her family's former vacation home in Florida.
Rachel has been pushing me to do yoga for months and will hopefully be happy I'm finally taking her advice (somewhat).

So, last Friday I gave it a whirl.  Centergy is a combination of yoga, pilates and other stuff set to music.  You come in, lay out your mat, and proceed to spend the next hour stretching, working, and sweating.  At least, that's what I did.  It was the weirdest thing:  I never moved more than four feet in any one direction, but by the end of the hour my shirt was drenched and I was in heaven.  Was Michelle ever right - the class worked all the muscles my PT and chiropractor identified as trouble spots for me, and since it was a class where everyone was trying to do the poses, I didn't get that dreaded feeling of "oh, shit, I look like a total fool flopping around on this mat in the weight room."

Tuesday night, Beloved and I both had time free to exercise together, so I suggested we go to another Centergy class.  I had an even better experience than the first, and Beloved liked it as well.  I've pretty much decided that the Tuesday night and Friday afternoon sessions at our gym are going to be added to my regular exercise rotation.

Now, here's where the evangelism part comes in.  Some of my blogger friends have been visiting the topic lately, and I think they've presented some valuable insight.  I think they've covered why we (the ELCA) aren't particularly good at evangelism, but here I'd like to offer some thoughts on how we could be better.

1. Evangelism addresses the need of the evangelized, not the need of the church.  My friend Michelle wasn't teaching that particular Centergy class, nor was she going to receive a commission if I attended.  She had no thought of her own reward for getting me to sign up:  what she saw was my need for something new and a way our gym could provide it.  Our most effective (and, dare I say, most holy) evangelism comes when our concern is for our neighbor, not our church.  Evangelism driven by the need of the congregation cheapens the gift of the gospel by offering the holy community for the sake of its own benefit, which seems far too much like prostitution for my comfort.  
2. Effective evangelists listen and hear before speaking.  Michelle didn't break into our conversation with some sort of ham-handed script extolling the benefits of Centergy.  We were talking, as friends, and she heard and understood what I was saying before mentioning the class.  It felt natural and good because it was natural and good.  If the church is to be trustworthy in a post-Christendom environment, it starts by listening to others for the sake of their own story, not that of the church.  Yes, the church has a good story to share, a wonderful story, but the evangelizing moment is not the moment to unload it all on the evangelized.  A simple acknowledgment that "hey, I've heard what you're saying" creates a bond of trust from the very start of the evangelized's relationship with the church - and that trust is essential to the life of the church itself.  
3. Effective evangelists believe they are offering a real, concrete benefit to the lives of the evangelized.  Again, Michelle didn't suggest the class because it's what she was "supposed" to do:  she offered the class because she thought it could help.  Our gym has a lot of other classes and programs, including a very spendy personal trainer program:  if Michelle's concern was helping the gym's bottom line, she could have done so a hundred times over in the year we've been going to spin class.  But Michelle saw that this class could directly address the very problem I was facing.  Is it so much to ask the same of the church?  Effective evangelists, having heard, offer a benefit that can contribute to the life of the evangelized.  In other words, they don't evangelize because the church needs people:  they evangelize because they believe something in the church can help people in their real, actual, present circumstances.  This is why "Bullhorn Guy" pisses me off:  he doesn't give a fart in a stiff wind about what your problems are now, since if you're hellbound anyway your abusive boyfriend or unemployment or addiction or concern for your kids doesn't matter (and chances are if those things don't matter before you join his church, they won't matter afterwards, either).

There are a few corollaries to these points as well.  First, we who are the church need to understand our role as givers, not receivers.  As Bonhoeffer wrote and others have affirmed, "the church is only the church when it exists for others."^[1]  When we use the term "effective" as an after-the-fact descriptor, we emphasize very clearly these are not techniques to develop so much as they are gifts embodied in the act itself.

Second, it is incumbent upon the church to actually offer real, concrete benefit in the here and now.  Life is no longer "nasty, brutish and short;" in fact, for most Americans, life is at the least pleasant, civilized and long.  Any remaining social pressure to join the church in order to be a member of "polite society" is dying a swift death.  These two forces have driven much of what passes for evangelism in the church for the past few centuries.  Now we live in a different world, where God, it seems, is humbling the church in order that it may serve the world in which it is planted.  All of us who read the Sermon on the Mount with a sense of delicious irony may now be realizing, to our horror, that Jesus wasn't being ironic at all.

There is a new reality afoot for the church, especially the mainline American Protestant tradition.  Our comfortable position as the de facto guardians of middle class morality and decency has been pulled from underneath us by a God who "takes by its corners this whole world and shakes us forward and shakes us free." (Rich Mullins)  This new reality may be uncomfortable for a while.  It may even feel like we're dying.  Some of our churches may indeed really die.  But death hasn't been a barrier to stop God in the past - why should the present, and God's future, be any different?

Grace & peace,

Scott 

^[1]Bonhoeffer, Dietrich.  Letters and Papers from Prison

Sermon for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost - "A Chasm of Compassion"

A pop quiz.  According to researchers from Princeton University, which of the following is the income level beyond which more money does NOT guarantee more happiness:

a.     $50,000

b.     $75,000

c.     $100,000

d.     $125,000

If you guessed $75,000, you’d be right.  Researchers from Princeton

“found that not having enough money definitely causes emotional pain and unhappiness. But, after reaching an income of about $75,000 per year, money can't buy happiness. More money can, however, help people view their lives as successful or better. [1]

I did some further research on my own, and according to the 2007 census, well over 40% of the U.S. is going to clear that $75,000 threshhold.  So, it seems that most of you can count on making enough money in your lifetime to be financially assured of maximum happiness.  In other words, you’re going to be rich.  Congratulations.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote, “Hunger begins only when people desire to keep their own bread for themselves.”[2]  In the movie “Wall Street,” Gordon Gekko said, “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.”[3]  The task for you, as American Christians in the 21^st Century, will be learning how to overcome the chasm between these two polarities. 

            There is a chasm in Jesus’ parable.  But it is not a chasm of riches or poverty.  It is not a chasm of greed.  It is not a chasm of luck or good fortune.  The chasm exists from the start of the parable right through to the very end.  The chasm in Jesus’ parable is a chasm of compassion.  It has very little to do with wealth and everything to do with blindness.  Jesus did not tell this parable to make the rich give up our riches.  Jesus told this parable so that the blind might see.

            In Bible Study Tuesday night, as we were discussing this parable, one of our folks said, “Okay, so when do we know we’ve given away enough so we won’t wind up in the rich man’s spot?  Who do we need to save?”  The quick, snarky answer to that question is, “Who are you thinking about, and what are you waiting for?”  But that’s missing the point of the parable.  Jesus isn’t talking about an actual person burning in hell – he IS, however, warning actual people that their actual blindness to the needs around them could actually place them in actual danger of actually getting in big, big trouble.

            The deep, true answer to the question from Tuesday night is this:  it isn’t how much you save, it’s how well you see.  You are not the savior of the world; that’s Jesus, just in case you’ve gotten confused lately.  But if you claim to follow the Savior, then within that following you are called to open your eyes to more than just your own needs.  The rich man wasn’t condemned for being rich:  he was condemned because someone was suffering right on his doorstep, and he either couldn’t see it, or refused to see it.

            One of my seminary professors used to remind us that “the parables are told for us, not against us.”  This parable, with all its talk of Hades and burning and poverty, is good news for us.  Forget the abstract suffering of the poor man Lazarus, the abstract sorrow of the rich man who ignored him.  They are imaginary, fiction told with a purpose.  Remember that for you, this parable comes in time.  For you, this parable is good news:  you can bind up the wounds you encounter in this world.  You have Moses and the prophets.  You have the witness of Jesus, risen from the dead as proof that God’s love will never be conqured.  You can see the chasm of compassion that separates us in this world, and you can trust in the power of the Holy Spirit to venture into that chasm for the sake of your neighbor, rich or poor.

            Jurgen Möltmann, a German theologian, once said that “the opposite of poverty is not property:  the opposite of both is community.” [4]  The chasm Jesus shows you cannot be filled with money – it can only be bridged by the love of Christ for rich and poor alike.  Yes, we are rich – but our riches will not heal the wounds of this world.  Only the love of Christ poured out through us can bridge the chasm of compassion.  As a baptized and beloved child of God, you are part of that bridge – take the love of Christ with you this week, and let those riches loose for the sake of the world.  Amen.           

---

[1] http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/la-heb-money-20100906,0,7805444.story

[2] Bonhoeffer, Dietrich.  DBW Volume 5:  Life Together – Prayerbook of the Bible.  © 2003 by Fortress Press.  p. 65

[3] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094291/quotes

[4] http://adammlowe.com/2010/05/23/holy-spirit-in-the-world-today-conference-london-htb/

Pop Culture Roundup

How long has it been since my last PCR?  I dunno, but it's been a while.  Got a few minutes to share it and so, here we go.

I finished Anne Tyler's Noah's Compass a few days ago via our library's free audiobook system.  It was my first experience with Tyler, and I enjoyed it, though the book itself certainly wasn't life-changing.  I kept waiting for the big moment, the denouement (thank you, Mrs. Heier and Mrs. Sundell!) wherein I would understand the larger narrative arc that was going on in the midst of the story.  It never came.  From what I've read, this is a common feature of Tyler's writing, which makes me a bit cautious about trying another.  We'll see, I guess.

Now I'm on to Kraken by China Mieville.  This is certainly a change of pace from Anne Tyler.  On first listen, Kraken reminds me of a cross between Neil Gaiman's two masterful novels Neverwhere and American Gods.  The narrator even sounds like Gaiman doing his own work narrating Neverwhere, which is fantastic in my humble opinion.  Anyway, the basic plot involves a museum curator who specializes in mollusks discovering that the world's best-preserved giant squid has been stolen.  He is subsequently dragged into the underground conflict surrounding that squid, its worshipers and a host of other characters far too bizarre to spoil here.  Suffice it to say that if you liked Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar from Neverwhere, you're going to love this book.

I'm continuing to journey through the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan - currently I'm reading Crossroads of Twilight, with hopes of finishing the published works in the series before the next volume is released in November.  Stephen King once noted that Jordan's picture of how this series would develop was insane.  I dunno about that, but I fervently hope that the ghostwriter who's finishing the series does it well - I'd hate to invest this much time in a series to wind up as disappointed as I was in the last two volumes of The Dark Tower.

On the telly, Sons of Anarchy is back, and picking up right where it left off.  I'm really beginning to love this show.  I imagine much of what I love is due to the superior talent within the cast:  I'm no biker, but I believe with every ounce of my TV-watching eyes that these folks are exactly who they seem to be.  It's gritty, it's human, and unlike Grey's Anatomy or many of the other navel-gazing shows popular at the moment, I don't feel like kicking Jax or Tigg or any of the Sons in the nads on a weekly basis.  With other seasons starting in coming weeks, I'm very much looking forward to Fringe, Big Bang Theory, NCIS and CSI getting rolling again.  Beloved has gotten hooked on White Collar, but I also got her on Fringe this summer, so in coming weeks we'll be furiously working through Season 2 on DVD so we can enjoy Season 3 together.

We haven't caught many movies this year.  Dropping upwards of $50 when you figure babysitter, tickets, soda and popcorn means we will watch a lot of stuff on DVD, but even then by the time we get the girls into bed we're usually too tired to make it through a movie.  So I really can't comment on anything movie-wise at the present, though I'm hoping to catch Inception at the matinee tomorrow if I can get teh Sermon rolling early in the morning.

If you've got good recommendations for books/movies/TV/music, let me know!

Grace & peace,
Scott

Sermon for the 17th Sunday after Pentecost - "Real and Messy"

We’re going to begin this morning with a little bit of readers’ theatre. A Presbyterian colleage of mine in Alexandria, VA wrote in her blog about some conversations she's had in the church over the years:

Sweet Church Lady: I sat beside Betsy at the women's luncheon the other day and she wouldn't stop criticizing you.
Pastor: So what did you say?
SCL: Oh, I would never say anything. I wouldn't want to make waves.

Church Leader: Would you pray for my daughter? She's back in rehab again.
Pastor: Of course I will. Shall we add her name to the prayer list?
CL: Oh, please don't. I couldn't face my friends if they knew. I've never told them about Deena's problem.

Church Officer: I think ___ (another officer who is a recovering alcoholic) might be drinking again.
Pastor: Do you think we should go talk with him?
CO: Oh, no. I wouldn't want to embarrass him.

As a child of the 1960s, I remember dressing up in patent leather shoes and donning a bow in my pin-curled hair for Sunday School and worship where I would join dozens of other little girls dressed just the same. Little boys wore little jackets and ties. Moms and Dads also donned their Sunday Best. And everybody filed into their pews and smiled at their neighbors and worshipped the LORD and went home.

At home, there might have been marriage/addiction/financial/mental health/sexual problems. But - God forbid - we disclose such family secrets, especially in church. We wouldn't even tell the pastor unless we were desperate.

As late as the 1980s when I served as a summer intern in a NY church, I met a family who disappeared for the summer, only to return my last weekend. They asked to speak with me and shared that their only son had died of AIDS in another state.

Me: Oh my gosh. I am so sorry. I didn't even know he was sick. And no one said anything to me.
Grieving Mom: We didn't tell anyone he was sick. That's why no one told you.
Me: ? Well . . . would you like to have a memorial service here after the pastor's back from sabbatical?
Grieving Mom: Oh no! Please don't tell anyone. We can't tell people about it. It would be too embarrassing.
Me: (long pause) So . . . you aren't going to tell your friends that your son died . . . because it would be too embarrassing?[1]

I will admit that, like many preachers, I’ve struggled with the Gospel text this week. This parable, as well as the verses that surround it, is one of the most confusing passages in scripture for me. Now I know I’m not supposed to say that – I know I’m not supposed to comment on the Bible as if it were a novel under review. But it’s the truth: I honestly don’t know how to understand this parable. I’m not the only one, either.

Deciphering what Jesus meant to say in this parable is a tough nut to crack. Was the manager merely shrewd, or was he corrupt? The manager said, “I’m too weak to dig, and I won’t stoop to begging.” Jesus insisted all along that beggars and laborers were as much children of God as anyone else – does this parable invalidate all of what Jesus said? Under the accusation of squandering the rich man’s property, the manager confirms the accusation by squandering even more in an attempt to cover his butt for the time he gets sacked. But at the end of the parable, Jesus tells his disciples to be faithful and honest in all things, whether it’s a little or a lot. How again is all of this supposed to work?

I’ve read several attempts to decipher the meaning of this parable, some old and some new. Some look closely at the Greek to find an escape hatch; others use socio-economic policies of the time to try and determine how the manager might have been working for his master's benefit. An Episcopal preacher for whom I have a lot of respect says that this is a story about how the shrewd manager actually freed the peasant farmers from their oppressive debt to an incredibly wealthy landowner. These are all valid attempts to make sense of a very difficult parable – but none of them rang true to me this week. This is one of those moments in the story of Jesus where I'm not really sure what's going on, but I don't want to try to escape the uncertainty by changing the rules of the story – that seems false to me.

Philipp Melanchthon, the Greek and Latin scholar who was Martin Luther's most trusted colleague during the Reformation, once said that "to know Christ is to know His benefits." So, if that's the case, let's take a look at this parable in terms of benefits, shall we? The landowner doesn't really gain any benefits, other than possibly in the goodwill of his debtors. Important, but not essential to the story. The manager gains the benefit of shelter and protection, but at the cost of his honesty; even though the landowner says he's been shrewd, the manager has in fact squandered his master's property. But the debtors – they are the ones who gain benefits clean, aren't they? The end result for the debtors is forgiveness; their debts have been significantly reduced. Even if it's unfair – even if it's a cheat – even if the manager did it to save his own skin, the debtors have in fact found their burden lessened and now may walk that much more free. It's messy, it's not fair, it's bad economics – but it's also a gift to the debtors which they couldn't have gotten for themselves.

We have a choice when it comes to forgiveness – we can take it real and messy, or we can take it false and clean. The Pharisees, who had been grumbling about Jesus dining with sinners, wanted their forgiveness clean – so clean, in fact, that Jesus once described them as “white-washed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth.”[2] Jesus came to forgive sinners – and we were so offended at the thought that we crucified Him for it. In that sense, we are all Pharisees – all people who try so very hard to maintain that no, we’re not messy, we’re not sinful, and we don’t need forgiveness like that. If we just maintain the illusion that everything’s okay, no one will notice that we’re covered, head to toe, in our failings, our disappointments and our sins. Real and messy, or false and clean: how do you want it?

Perhaps the manager really was squandering his master’s property; we’ll never know if the accusation was just or unjust. What we do know is that the people to whom he offered forgiveness of their debts took that forgiveness without a second thought. When you’re under the load of an unpayable debt, you don’t question whether or not you’re too proud to accept the gracious gift that lifts the burden: you take it. What Jesus offers us is the same reckless, squandering gift. We owe God a debt for our sins that we could never repay. But Jesus offers to forgive the debt: no payment, no required sacrifice, just forgiveness and mercy. Jesus gives up what is “fair” and “just” for the sake of obtaining what he desires: the justification of sinners. Your righteousness cheats the Law for the Gospel. The question is: can we accept the grace He offers?

Every faith community has a choice: either we can be a bunch of real, messy, forgiven sinners or a bunch of false, clean, white-washed Pharisees. We are messy and in need of forgiveness. We make mistakes and we cannot be what God has created us to be. We have no hope at all without the squandering grace of a Son who cannot resist giving his Father’s forgiveness away. This is the real, messy truth about who we are: sinners in bondage to sin who cannot free ourselves. Living together in a faith community isn’t about pretending nothing is wrong – it’s about admitting that with all that IS wrong, we have hope in Jesus that all will someday be right.

Jesus offers you forgiveness, I suggest you take Him at His word and accept it. Take it as the free gift of a manager who is recklessly giving away His Master’s property. Stop pretending that you can stay clean when you’re up to your neck in your sins and burdens. Put away all your false pretenses to righteousness and purity on your own, and let the gracious Son offer you the new, clean garments He washed in His own blood, the garments of forgiveness and mercy. Let it be real if it’s real. Let it be messy if it’s messy. Let it be squander if it’s squander: you are free, regardless. Amen.

---

[1] Jan Edmiston. “What We Talk About When We Talk About Life” http://churchforstarvingartists.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about.html

[2] Matthew 23.27

Wishing for Perfection

Before moving to Ames in 2008, we lived in Barrett, MN, a small town surrounding a lake much like the one in this picture. In fact, I took several sunrise photos that looked quite a bit like this in the four years I served Peace Lutheran Church in Barrett. Our house was just across the road from the lake, and when the conditions were right, you could get the most beautiful scenes when the sun came up across the lake.

I had a somewhat disheartening meeting today, one that reminded me that no matter how much we might wish for it, no Christian community is ever perfect. As I walked, sweating, over to the bus stop for my ride home, I thought of how nice it was last week when it was so cool, and how few days there have been this summer that weren't either rainy, steamy or (more often) both. Imperfect weather today, to do with an imperfect church (with an imperfect pastor, I might add).

Not every sunrise in Minnesota looked like this one. Most were ordinary, unremarkable, and passed without notice. Some were as beautiful as this one, some were even more spectacular. Some were, frankly, ugly - especially in March and April when the snow was finally melting and everything was grey and brown and mushy.

Gordon Atkinson, who blogs at Real Live Preacher, wrote a piece in which he reminded everyone that churches, at their heart, are "a silly bunch of dreamers and children, prone to mistakes, blunders and misjudgments." This doesn't excuse us from apologizing and trying to make amends when we blunder and misjudge, or when others make mistakes. It also doesn't allow us to go searching willy-nilly for "the perfect church," because that church only exists in fantasyland.

That town in which we lived and worked in Minnesota had its share of flaws. We had some genuine disappointments and struggles in four years there. We also had some really wonderful moments of grace, which were not of our creation but simply moments to see what wonders God can do in communities dedicated to living in faith with one another, with all our mistakes, blunders and misjudgments.

Perfection this side of heaven is a fairy tale. God chooses what is weak, foolish and imperfect to shame the strong, wise and seemingly perfect. We trust that God will supply the grace and faith necessary to live together as part of the body of Christ: forgiven, set free to enjoy grace when it comes, and dedicated to living together as one community, no matter how imperfectly we might do it.

Grace & peace,
Scott

God and Sabbath

If you refrain from trampling the sabbath,
from pursuing your own interests on my holy day; if you call the sabbath a delight
and the holy day of the Lord honourable; if you honour it, not going your own ways,
serving your own interests, or pursuing your own affairs; then you shall take delight in the Lord,
and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.

Isaiah 58.13-14

The question was raised tonight at Bible Study: "How does God keep the Sabbath?" Christians and Jews tend to understand the commandment to "Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy" as a commandment designed to elicit worship out of God's creatures - and since God is, well, God, worship of Godself seems nonsensical at the least, not to mention in some ways impossible.

We are not merely playing with semantics here: Genesis 1 describes the first Sabbath, and it is God doing the observing, not us. Obviously, Sabbath is important to God - but we know precious little about what God actually does with God's Sabbath.

Sabbath weighs heavily on the Old Testament and Gospel readings from the Revised Common Lectionary this week. Isaiah 58, quoted above, reminds the hearer that the Sabbath is a day in which one's own interests are put aside and one's affairs take the back seat. In Luke 13, Jesus heals a near-crippled woman on the Sabbath; this act of healing brings condemnation from the leader of the synagogue, who insists that the woman could have been healed on any other day of the week. It is the third of four Sabbath controversies in Luke's gospel, and in all of them Jesus calls the strictest Sabbath observances into question. The question that arises is, "What is Jesus saying about the Sabbath and its purpose? How does God do Sabbath, and how should this transform our observance as well?"

One wonders if the issue is not work or not-work, but rather delight or drudgery. In his commentary on the lectionary this week, Dan Clendenin wrote,

"When religious rituals like sabbath-keeping and fasting — or our Bible studies, sermons, church attendance, and retreats — are divorced from human health and wholeness, whenever a believer "turns away from your own flesh and blood" (Is. 58:7), then our religion has gone very bad indeed."

When the things we do as religious people become more important than our delight in the One who calls forth work and play and Sabbath, we have missed the point of Sabbath altogether. When God had finished a "hard week" of creation, God rested on the Sabbath; what do you suppose that rest looked like? Here's one possibility: imagine you have slaved all week on an outdoor patio or backyard retreat like the one pictured above. Once you've finished all that work, what will be the first thing you'll want to do? Take delight in that which you have wrought. Was this what God did on that first Sabbath? Moreover, is delight what God asks of us when we ourselves observe Sabbath?

I am coming to believe that delight is indeed the first and most important point of Sabbath: delight in the presence of God, delight in the company of our fellow sinner/saints, delight in the promise, made in baptism, through preaching and in the Lord's Supper, that Christ has lived, died and risen again for you. Sabbath is a time to put down the laptop, to stop looking at the clock, to deny the omnipresent modern desire to produce and consume and simply be in the good creation which God hath wrought. Walter Bruggeman insists that the modern pre-occupation with production and consumption is a metaphysical equivalent of Pharaoh's yoke. Let the reader note that when Jesus explains himself in Luke's gospel, he points back 1300 years to the time of slavery in Egypt and says, "Ought not this woman...have been released from her bondage on the Sabbath day?" Call it a date night, call it a backyard retreat, call it what you will - the call to Sabbath is not about satisfying God's need to be praised, but rather about the sheer joy of taking delight in God, of being shaped by God's grace, of hearing regularly "You are My beloved child, fearfully and wonderfully made."

That's my answer, at least: what's yours?

Grace & peace,

Scott

Shining Lights

It was a day for shining lights in the Windy City. I know I'm going to miss one or two, but here's a brief list.

• Eboo Patel, founder and executive director of Interfaith Youth Core, spoke for 45 minutes this morning to a spellbound audience about a "theology of the bridge," his metaphor for ways interfaith cooperation can overcome those who use religion to dominate or separate people of different faiths.
• A workshop with Hamsa and Emy of IFYC discussing concrete ways we as campus ministry staff can promote religious freedom and respect in our own environments. It was their first workshop, but they carried it off without a hitch and really opened our eyes.
• I sit down to lunch, and one of our campus ministry students hands me a list of all the things she and the rest of the group have been planning for this academic year. Completely. Freaking. Unprompted. By. Me. This is what I was hoping we could do after returning from the conference, and now it's already done. Time to hang on for a wild ride this year, I think.
• A remarkable conversation with B, a seminary classmate serving in a new call since we saw each other last. Her new call is a) a very important synodical staff position, b) one for which she is very well-equipped and, I imagine, at which she is succeeding wildly, and c) one which usually goes only to ordained clergy, regardless of whether the clergyperson in question is qualified. Here's a great example of the church not being bound to its past when looking to its present needs. Professional lay ministry is a growing part of the church and needs to be lifted up when we do it right!
• A plenary session on social media that turned out to be more valuable than I suspected it would be. Lots of helpful information, but the caveat by which our use of that information can be judged: "Don't mistake effort for success."
• Another workshop with Rosella and Mike on Alternative Spring Break programs. Rosella and Mike are two incredibly vivacious 20somethings who have been carrying out heavy ministry responsibilities over the past two years, if not longer. I was floored by their intelligence and commitment to the important ministry they are doing, and I wish I had known about them prior to this conference.
• Finally, a gut-busting dinner with our friends from Christus House at the University of Iowa. We all went to Gino's East for true Chicago deep-dish, and I'm about ten minutes from succumbing to a major food coma.

It was a day to celebrate the many ways God is active in this church. In the midst of all our anxiety about mission support, social issues and the future of our denomination, we need to take time to look around and see the fearfully, wonderfully made people carrying out important ministry in our midst. God be praised: this church will have a future if we are wise enough to encourage and empower those with such remarkable gifts.

Grace and peace,

Scott

Confessing the Cost of Vocation

I'm in Chicago with four of our students for Follow Me: Sharing the Gospel in a 2.0 World. It's been an enriching experience thus far: time to re-connect with colleagues, strengthen ties across the church and hear from others about ways to be the hands and feet of Christ in a culture becoming more and more suspicious of or apathetic to the church. I met Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber, who I've appreciated from a distance for a few years now but never had the opportunity to meet in real life. (Her church, House for All Sinners and Saints, sells the awesome shirt shown here) I heard a passionate sermon from Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, which in itself is remarkable because, even with all of his many gifts taken into account, "passionate" is not a word I would have formerly used to describe the man. Seeing that side of a leader I greatly respect was empowering. His message, which was to meet the question, "Can anything good come out of Christianity?" with Philip's response, "Come and see" was inspiring. My hotel room is swanky and my roommate is gracious, especially when it comes to putting up with my snoring.

All of this good stuff, however, comes with a cost. Normally the cost is simply time away from my girls, which in itself is never fun, but endurable in the short term. Campus ministry is a specialized ministry that puts a lot of us out "on the island" in our local context, so we need this time together, even though it takes us away from family and friends. This time, however, the cost is considerably more painful. A flood swept through Ames this week, and unfortunately my being at this conference has left Beloved on her own with our girls in Ames with no day care, no potable water from city lines and heat indexes above 100 degrees. They're safe: friends have provided drinking water, there's water for bathing and toilets, the electricity is running and we didn't have any water in the house. But this week will never make Beloved's list of top ten favorite weeks of all time. Not by a long, long shot.

All of us, not just pastors, have these moments where your vocation, whatever it may be, comes with a price. For the farmer, it's the continual anxiety about rain, sunshine, hail and the gazillion other things that can ruin a crop every single year. For the teacher, it's the long hours, low pay and continual managing of all the different hurdles between a student and their educational progress. For the manager, it's juggling schedules and emotions, maintaining the proper balance between caring for employees and remaining the boss. Every job comes with a price to pay. I think the difference between a profession and a vocation is the willingness to pay the price - and maybe vocation takes an unhealthy turn when one doesn't even notice how high the price has become.

I'm going to be uncomfortable most of my time here, not because Beloved has laid a guilt trip on me, but because I'm torn between my vocation as a husband/father and my vocation as a pastor. Jesus help me if I ever stop noticing how much the latter takes away from the former; if that happens, I'm not sufficiently equipped to be either.

Grace & peace,

Scott

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.