Taking Responsibility

The Catholic Worker cofounder Peter Maurin said, "The future will be different if we make the present different." I like this quote because it reminds us that we, you and I, are responsible for the future. 

I say this with all seriousness. 

Of course, the Almighty is, moment by moment, somehow moving toward the implementation of his kingdom project, a project which began tangibly with the resurrection of the Christ. But this should not be taken to mean that we are exempt and sidelined as watchers. While, we do not bring in the kingdom -- this comes only by an act of grace -- we who name the name of that carpenter from Judea are certainly called to be contributors to his kingdom.

This means, among other things, that what we do in the here and now really matters. Said another way, to build our little kingdom while the rest of the world goes to hell is not only incredibly short-sighted, it’s also anti-gospel. Or, said still another way, to say we are not responsible for our part of the world because we are waiting for God to return so that he might dump the entire works completely misses the point of the cross and Jesus’ destruction of radical evil. For now, we share in the sufferings of the crucified one; for now we carry our cross daily; for now we follow in his steps. There is no triumph, not now, there is only brokenness and the last great enemy death, and our struggle with it. 

“Look at the fields,” says Jesus, “they are ripe unto harvest...but the laborers are few...” 

We must look at our field for it too is ripe for the message of the kingdom, ripe for the message that the king has arrived and offers new life and a new way to live. 

All this was brought home to me several days ago when G, a man to whom I had been ministering and someone freshly part of our church, was sharing how the new spiritual part of his life had had a profound effect on his behavior. I asked him how he was now getting on with a particular person who had truly wronged him. He told me he had spent the evening with him and there were no problems. 

“Do you think your involvement with the LORD and the church was part of this change in you?” I asked.

He thought for a second and said, “Yes. I used to carry grudges and I wouldn’t forget, but since I came here I’m tryin’ that forgiveness thing.”

So am I.

Linking to Bonhoefer

"To endure the cross is not tragedy, it is suffering which is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ." -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

If the examples of the saints help keep us to the narrow path, then for me the mainstay has been this German Lutheran. 

In his, Letters And Papers From Prison, in the midst of an ongoing discussion about religionless Christianity, Bultmann & Barth, he writes: 

"Does the question about saving ones soul appear in the Old Testament at all? Aren't righteousness and the Kingdom of God on earth the focus of everything, and isn't it true that Romans 3.24ff. is not an individualistic doctrine of salvation, but the culmination of the view that God alone is righteous? It is not with the beyond that we are concerned, but with this world as created and preserved, subjected to laws, reconciled, and restored. What is above this world is, in the gospel, intended to exist for this world; I mean that, not in the anthropomorphic sense of liberal, mystic pietistic, ethical theology, but in the biblical sense of creation and of incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ." (LPP.[Tegal] 5.5.1944) 

Several things are important here:

1. First, we must take into account the deeply Jewish nature of the Christian faith. As the Bishop N.T. Wright reminds us, creation, incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection are deeply embedded in the Hebrew theological universe, a universe which we Christians grew to share with them. This means that within this idea of "God alone is righteous," is contained God's fidelity to the Abrahamic Covenant -- "through you all the world will be blessed".
   
2. The gospel is therefore the primary act of God to reconcile and renew his world from corruption and death, for the gospel is the carrier of Covenant.
3. Which means the Kingdom People, the New Covenant People, or the New Humanity (N.T. Wright) -- that is the Church -- exists for the world and for the other. The gospel is not, therefore, primarily a message of personal salvation. Instead, the gospel is a message of global restoration and redemption (read: Kingdom) that of course has individual implications, but which starts from a very wide universal ring and moves inward toward the personal. 
4. The gospel then, as the message of God, reveals God not as arbitrary, capricious, or malevolent, but one who willingly suffers for the other. This brings us to the first quote above. If the church exists for the world -- and not its own pleasure and personal security -- then the church will suffer for her allegiance to the Christ and his cross, and she will carry in her own body the marks of that cross and that suffering.

Change As Loss & Gain

I was unable to discover who said, "All change is experienced as loss." I wanted to offer the name because I think someone this smart should be acknowledged. 

This axiom is especially true in church work where the known and the familiar is sacrosanct. So that, when a church's servant leadership -- e.g. pastors & deacons in my franchise of Christianity -- are called upon to offer leadership with one eye on the past and one eye on the future, (read: change) he or she is often shot at from both sides. 

Such is the nature of the work, or as I am fond of saying, if you can't take these shots you can't take the work because that is what servant leadership is all about -- responsibility without authority.

Two ideas must kept in mind at this point -- especially when the shots are falling from the sky like meteors. First, change is inevitable. That is, the ones who fight change with the most vigor are actually merely covering a retreat. Change, in the end captures us all. I have tried to bring this home to the place where I serve by showing the demographic reality of our church. If present trends continue, and without some sort of discontinuous change, we will be the last generation of believers inhabiting our hallowed halls. This is a fact. This means that some sort of intervention, or organizational development process, becomes extremely important.

By definition, organizational development is "an effort planned, organization-wide, and managed from the top, to increase organization effectiveness and health through planned interventions in the organization's 'processes,' using behavioral-science knowledge.” (Beckhard, Organization development: Strategies and Models) All of which sounds straightforward, but in reality is messy, and filled with winners and losers and busted egos. 

For example, recently, our church began to institute some changes in schedule. Overwhelmingly the majority wanted this to occur. Those few who did not are now wounded and in some cases angry. Would it have been better to leave things as they were, allowing the change of decay to finally do its work? Perhaps. Time will tell if the changes we made bear the fruit we hope.

The second idea is humility. As servant leaders we may think we have the best ideas, but we must teach our tongues to say, "I do not know," and our ears to hear ideas that are not our own. Said another way, in the institutional church, organizational development is collaboration and compromise. This also means that, while both sides of the change issue must be willing to say, "You know, I was wrong," servant leaders must be especially open to this path of reality. 

The Prayer of Discouragement

"It is impossible for a person who prays regularly to remain in serious sin; because the two are incompatible, one or the other will have to be given up." -- St Teresa of Avila

Is this true? Questions come to mind. Are we really unable to pray when we've settled in sin for the long haul? Is St. Teresa referring to personal sin (which I suspect) or systemic evil? Is she referring to the prayer of the mystic (which I suspect), or the liturgical prayer of the church?

For my part, I know much more about sinning than I do about prayer, and it's not the sin that keeps me from prayer, rather it is the discouragement. It's the, "Dammit! Here I go again," reflex that keeps me from the prayer room. 

Recently, I received a very kind email from a parishioner who was pleased for a consistent crop of sermons on grace. I thanked her for the kind words and then honestly replied that I preached grace because I need it so badly. I suspect that this came as no shock to her, however, since I have been her pastor for ten years. 

I am often confronted with people who have deep scars from sin (which I define as living for self and to hell with everyone else). They would like to pray, they say, but they cannot believe they are good enough to be heard, or they do not believe that prayer could matter for them. I try to reassure them that heaven is in fact not far away, but as someone has said, "it is easier to believe the bad stuff."

So, for those so down that prayer holds no hope, I consistently practice praying for them while they listen. I recite to God -- and to them -- the elements of our conversation, knowing by experience that prayer is truly the only path to existential wholeness, and hoping that someone is doing the same for me.

Pentecost Sunday Posts

Many of the bloggers who are part of the Christian Century blogging group created posts for Pentecost Sunday. Go here for the link.

The Liturgical Moment

I came across a statement on the web today that genuinely both troubled and resonated with me: 

"All liturgy is pastoral." 

Really? This caused me to ask: Is the liturgy for me (and the ones for whom I am breaking forth the Word and the Cup), or is the liturgy for God? On the one hand, it seems axiomatic that the liturgy is for the shaping of those who practice it, while on the other the liturgy is also easily understood to have God as subject and not object.

Perhaps the both/and answer is the best: both approaches being intended and important. The liturgy, then, is both for God and for us? 

Well, yes and no. I would say it this way, the liturgy's focus has God as subject, and we offer him the sacrifice of praise in the practice of the liturgical moment because he is worthy, and we are consequently (and mysteriously) shaped by the liturgical work, over time, to be more like the subject of the "people's work."

Kenneth Allen, RIP

Recently, The Christian Century advertised this book: God Does Not...: Entertain, Play Matchmaker, Hurry, Demand Blood, Cure Every Illness. It is edited by D. Brent Laytham.  The title grabbed me (I guess it is the second in a series), but so far not enough to purchase it. 

But, I did ask the obvious question though, if God does not do those things, then just what does God do? How active is the Almighty in our events and entanglements? Perhaps an even deeper question would be, just how much we want God involved with us, but that's for a different post. Anyway, these ideas were driven home one evening last week when a 16 year old kid from our area named Kenneth Allen was shot to death by drive-by on his way home. 

I didn't know Kenneth, and really wouldn't have paid much attention to the story if I had not discovered that he was part of an innercity youth ministry our church supports in East St. Louis called the Christian Activity Center.  Drew Phillips, chaplain at the CAC, tells me that Kenneth was a great kid. Drew wrote me and said:

"Kenneth was one of the first children I met when I started at the CAC  in 2001.  His appetite was unparalleled, his laugh contagious, his capacity for friendship unrivaled.  He was always the first to sign up for camp, swimming days, mission trips: he loved to be involved in activities.  It was only upon his passing that I realized Kenneth's affect: he was the face of the CAC to so many people...The world is a poorer place without Kenneth.  He was a role model in a demographic in which there is a shortage of male role-models.  He was above so much of the fray that pulls down our teens.  I was looking forward to watching him grow up. His tragic, senseless death hit us who know him very deeply."

Singer and troubadour Tom Waits has a song from his Mule Variations album called Georgia Lee, that always comes to mind when things like this occur. I have embedded it from youtube, followed by the lyric.  After which, I'll share a final thought. 

Cold was the night, and hard was the ground
They found her in a small grove of trees

And lonesome was the place where Georgia was found
She's too young to be out
On the street.

Why wasn't God watching?
Why wasn't God listening?
Why wasn't God there for
Georgia Lee?

Ida said she couldn't keep Georgia
From dropping out of school
I was doing the best that I could
O but she just kept runnin away from this world
These children are so hard to raise good

Why wasn't God watching?
Why wasn't God listening?
Why wasn't God there for
Georgia Lee?

Close your eyes and count to ten
I will go and hid but then
Be sure to find me. I want you to find me
And we'll play all over
We will play all over again

There's a toad in the witch grass
There's a crow in the corn
Wild flowers on a cross by the road
And somewhere a baby is crying
For her mom
As the hills turn from green back
To gold

Why wasn't God watching?
Why wasn't God listening?
Why wasn't God there for
Georgia Lee?

Theologian, Jurgen Moltmann, (talking about the monstrous evil that was the Shoah) tells us that the proper question to put to God in the face of evil is not why, but where? God, where are you? This, he says, is actually reminiscent of  Jesus' cry of dereliction, and may be the primary and guttural response to divine abandonment.

Of course, Jesus promised that we would not be left as orphans (On Monday I relied upon this text for the funeral of a cancer victim), but sometimes this is certainly not how it feels. So this promise we must take by faith.

Patrick Henry Hughes

Our preaching theme for the Easter Season has been gratitude. I found this video on Patrick Henry Hughes while researching the final installment and had to share it.

Funny Baptism

enjoy:

Confessing Hitchens & Camus

Hitchens

Brian Lamb, from C-Span, interviewed Christopher Hitchens last night on the television program, Q&A. I generally watch this discussion every Sunday evening; I enjoy Mr. Lamb's demeanor, the personality of his interviews, and the fact that he does not practice, "gotcha journalism." 

Mr. Hitchens, of course, is the iconoclast journalist who usually succeeds in making everyone angry before the interview or article concludes. His latest book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, places him at the forefront -- along with Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris -- of the new atheism. 

Interestingly enough, Mr. Lamb did not get much into the book until Mr. Hitchens seemed to force the issue. Instead, the discussion was more about the author's life and his various biographical signposts, for example the reason he decided to become an American citizen, or his willingness to be "water-boarded" to see what it was like.

I have a confession to make. I love to read Christopher Hitchens' prose. His book, Love, Poverty And War, offer several examples of pure polemic writing that both infuriates and evokes steep admiration (jealousy?) in his ability to turn a phrase. The New York Times review said he "is happiest when he has an enemy, and least happiest when he is most content." I think this is true.

My favorite of his writings, the little book, Letters To A Young Contrarian, offer his advice to those who would swim against the stream and find their own way. This book shows us his way of seeing the world, a unique view, I think, and one worthy of our attention. Which means, even if you find yourself in total disagreement with Mr. Hitchen's ideas, he is a worthy adivsary and a joy to read.

Camus

Mr. Hitchens confesses as an influence  Albert Camus, one who also challenges and provokes our thoughts with prose that is both dense and heavy. Like many, my introduction to Camus came through his fiction, namely, The Stranger, and was followed later by his non-fiction work, especially, The Myth of Sisyphus.  What Hitchens and Camus' writings offer the Christian believer, besides a guide to excellent prose, is the distain for hypocrisy. If there is any distance between what we say and what we do, these authors can smell it, and they love nothing more than to expose it and exploit our failings. Said another way, we always learn more from our enemies than we do from our friends.

Holding Hands in Church

As in most urban settings, people with addiction and mental issues tend to gravitate toward the church. This is true for us because of our location, and it is true because so many with these challenges also live on poverty's edge. That is why I wasn't surprised when M. walked into our worship service yesterday. He's been here before. 

Actually, I have been working with him for five years or so, attempting to live-out the Gospel before him, while not seeking to overtly speak about church or Jesus, unless he brings it to the conversation. Instead, I have mostly offered to really listen to him the three or four times he visits each week, which means most of our conversations revolve around me encouraging him to stay on his meds, attend his meetings or respond to his requests for cash (which he always pays back). 

So, while I wasn't surprised when he came to church yesterday, I wasn't too excited either. You see, the thing about M. and worship is that he rarely stays for an entire service.  Most times, usually during the song-set, he will mosey out of the sanctuary, down the steps and out the door. Which is fine with me, my thinking being -- around here, you are allowed to rise to the level of your own involvement.

Well, yesterday, he walked up to me before the service and said, "Is it OK if I come to your church today?"

To which I replied, "What do you think?"

He grinned and said, "Yeah."

Since he had a twenty minute wait, I offered a seat, not really thinking he would even make the wait-time before the start. But, about five minutes before worship I saw he was still sitting there, so I tossed a prayer over the wall: "LORD, have someone sit by M.," and to my surprise, someone did. When I stood to share my Conversation with the TEXT I noticed that B., a very frail senior adult lady, had moved across the aisle from her seat with her family in order to sit with him. 

M. ended up staying for the service, and as B. left she said, "You know M. is a nice man, but he was so nervous I ended up holding his hand."

Work Of The People @ Yale

Steve Frost, from Work Of The People, made a presentation at Yale on the arts, the media, the liturgy and grace. This is must see. I use their work for many of our visuals and thirdspeople. 

TWOTP at Yale Divinity from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

The Liturgy as Discipleship

What is increasingly a challenge in pastoral ministry is the crunch of time experienced by our parishioners, or what Alexander Schmemann calls the, "nightmarish alteration between rush and relaxation," and what Susan J. White, in her book The Spirit of Worship, describes as "a particular problem for those who are seeking to build integrated spiritual lives in the contemporary situation."

Think of the problem this way. At best, at least in our tradition, we have four hours each week to meet and to remind ourselves of the Christ event, and together, to shape ourselves into his followers.  Is this enough time? Well, of course, that depends on just what is happening in those four hours, and it also depends upon what is being practiced during the other 164 hours of the week as well.

THE LITURGICAL HOUR

MS. White's book is important in this regard, offering an overview of the Liturgical Tradition of Spirituality, by which is meant, "the primary source for the nourishment of the Christian spiritual life is to be found in the Church's public worship." 

She intends for us to understand that no matter what passes for liturgy (whether high or low), the proponents within the liturgical tradition assert that, "one receives the primary spiritual insight, strength, experience of the holy and nourishment for godly living," through the liturgy. This means that what really matters is "not how the liturgical tradition works, or what it means, but rather how it...sustains, influences, enriches, and enlivens the relationship between the Christian believer and God."

To this end she outlines how the liturgy offers spiritual resources in at least six ways:

• a language for prayer and meditation -- the liturgy teaches prayer
• a pattern for the spiritual disciplines --  various forms of devotional exercises are expressed in the liturgy
• an arena for an encounter with God -- the liturgy offers a context in which to encounter the Holy
• signs, symbols and rituals by which to express the relationship with God -- the liturgy offers the primary speech about our complex  relationship with God
• a model for the Christian life and community -- the liturgy shapes how we are to relate to each other and the wider community
• strength in the time of spiritual crisis -- the liturgy is a source of spiritual sustenance in times of temptation, trial and torment

The point here is that we must deepen our investment in the liturgical moment. We must offer the liturgy with a clear understanding of just what is at stake when we gather in ritual performance.  And, we must see that the metaphor of the liturgy speaks volumes to those expressing and experiencing the movements and cadence of those sacred, shared meanings.

Saturday's Gift

All The Things You Are - Art Tatum

Food for Thought

Those of us involved in direct church ministry (feet on the ground as opposed to thoughts from the tower) realize the almost constant movement of those in need to our doors. And now, what with the serious economic crash, the resources of most churches are being severely stretched by the very real needs of those coming to us who want for the most basic survival necessities.  

PBS's Religion & Ethics host, Bob Abernethy, featured this important issue on March 27 of this year (go here).  Recently, Jane Raphael, our Church & Community Director made this appeal to thirdspeople:

I would be interested in any thoughts, experiences, insights of others who are seeing this same troubling trend.

Pagan Christianity

Frank Viola and George Barna collaborated on a book in 2008 entitled Pagan Christianity, and it may mark the final nail in the coffin of a deconstructed Christendom.

Essentially, the book recites in detail how the church developed historically, and how its structures and actions and hierarchy were surreptitiously co-opted from a New Testament presentation by an add mixture of pagan thought and ritual, and therefore all we now do as church is by their account, not at all "by the book." 

It is clear Mr. Viola welcomes the demise of Christendom, hoping, it seems, that in its death rattle we will somehow hear the sound of an unspoiled church rolling toward us, something as pristine as the New Testament model. One wonders if he sees the irony in making money by selling books to the churches and people he hopes will soon go into the tank, but that is not said to diminish his argument, this is still America, after all. 

In fact, I have often argued in this blog that the death of Christendom is imminent (go here and here).  And, as I say in the description of this blog: "we who are saying grace at the graveside of Christendom must give an account to the future. we must tell the story of these days of loss and transition, and we must get out of the way of those who will take us to the next church." 

The difference between us is quite clear, however. Besides being much smarter than I, Mr. Viola has no vested interest in the survival of Christendom (other than selling books) -- having left it long ago, while I am still paid by Christendom. So, like all good revolutionaries, he can strike the match that begins the fire, but I am here holding a squirt gun in a match factory. We all have our roles in this drama.

To be sure, the church of tomorrow will hardly resemble the church we see today. (For an excellent description of this transition see The Great Emergence by Phyllis Tickle.) But, what also is without doubt is the truth that the church now emerging to replace Pagan Christendom will merely be a station on the way to church next. And what will also be true -- though I'm neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet -- is that church next will not be some fundamentalist wet dream of an unspoiled Christian community. The wheel is still spinning very quickly indeed. 

Said another way, to ask, "What would Jesus think?" as if the problem in the church is merely wrong thinking, truly misses the basic understanding of the desperation of the hour. Simplicity and statistical analysis will not cut it. Neither will house churches or foundational theology, not when we are so marginalized sociologically and not when our ideas and doctrines are hollowed out with age and senility.

Saturday's Gift

a little traveling music for saturday...

Leap Frog - Dizzy Gillespie

Pastors Meeting

Once a month I am fortunate enough to meet with three other like-minded pastors. I drive about 40 minutes to meet with them; it is well worth the trip.

As you might expect, I find these two hours a month to be of profound importance in my life. It's a time a letting loose, really, of not being "on." Sometimes we meet and commiserate about the state of the church, and about the challenge of pastoral ministry today. Sometimes we share difficult problems we face in pastoral care. And very often our conversation turns to laughter (sometimes irreverent) and ribbing. But almost always we eventually make it around to asking, "What books are you reading?" and, "What authors do you recommend?" and, "What speakers have you heard." 

I share this as a word of testimony and a word of gratitude. I am thankful for these men. I am a better pastor for knowing them.

The True Self

It seems more clear all the time that who I really am has been encrusted over the years by layers and layers of self-protection. This is what the contemplatives call the artificial self or the false self.  What also seems just as clear is that openness to realism and honesty about who I've become is the only path to finding rest in God.

Thomas Merton said, " The first step toward finding God, Who is Truth, is to discover the truth about myself: and if I have been in error, this first step to truth is the discovery of my error."

OK, but how am I to find the truth about myself? I was taught that the path to this revelation is the Scriptures -- they will guide me to the core. And in part this is true. But, what I am beginning to discover is that the Word can take me only so far, and what is actually needed is some sort of revealing and healing from the Spirit of the living Christ. 

Said another way, I weary of carrying this body of death around on my back. I weary of always protecting my ideas and programs and ego. But, how to let it go? I cannot seem to do so on my own.

In my experience, the only way of healing is the sustained silence of contemplative prayer. Whatever personal healing and the resultant spirituality I have in my life, I have experienced through the gift of silence in this "letting go" prayer. What this practice has succeeded in showing me is just how destitute I am spiritually, and just how wounded I am as a person, which I believe is the first, but painful, step to healing. Quoting Merton again, "Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real." Humility is the first step, and honesty about oneself will humble us every time, but most of the time the truth of who we really are is much too painful. That is, we must have help to gaze on it.

What is also interesting is something I discovered without looking for it. I have found something I have talked about for others but never expected for myself. I have found hints of God's love waiting for me in the silence and the self-darkness. It seems I still flinch at the my ugliness, but God does not have the same problem. I am finding that he can look at me as I really am.

The Last Generation

On this Sunday past I presented to our church what I see as our challenges and our future. I did this as part of our Lenten journey, which theme this year is emphasizing taking responsibility, and which meant this time our conversation described the need for us to take responsibility for our church.

Our challenges are not unlike those facing other churches our size and age. They are mostly demographic -- the numbers are against us -- and they ask how we will respond to the fact that our church is rapidly aging? The upshot of this challenge is simple: In the next ten years we will have many funerals and even more retirements. Add to this the several younger families who have left for the greener pastures of the mega-church and you see how this means that, unless some sort of discontinuous change occurs, I am pastoring the final generation of this 75 year old congregation. It's difficult to reach any other conclusion.

And this is the point with what I closed my message on Sunday morning, saying, even if we are in fact the final generation, we are not called to worry about that fact. Our calling, if we are to be a Kingdom outpost in this small corner of the world, must mean we focus on one thing only -- mission, being found faithful and building the Kingdom of the Christ. That is, loving people, feeding the hungry (and these numbers are growing), and most importantly not worrying to attract people to the church. Instead, we minister to them as we have opportunity whether they ever walk into our building or not.

Often, I am privileged to meet with a man who will soon leave the area to plant a new church in the Southwest. He is excited and full of hope and faith. Usually, for a few hours after meeting with him I experience a time of wondering if this may be a direction that I need to consider. But then I remember my calling here to this blue-collar steel town.

My ten year anniversary at this church is very close, and what is interesting is that in the midst of all these challenges, I have no real desire to be anywhere else. This is a faithful church; a church with a great history of missions and ministry, and a great missional work that is still occurring. So, I am content. You see, these aging people need a pastor, too (even if he is aging as well), and this community needs this congregation.

Architecture For A New Church + Graphs

View more presentations from Mark Powell.