With a little help from. . .

Last week the oldest member of our church turned 95. I went over and saw him. He is still as sharp as a tack and rye as Irish whiskey.

"Ninety-five," I said, "You know, Abraham had a child at a hundred."

"Yeah," he said, "and he might of had a little help too."

I almost fell out of my chair. "Well, that's not quite the orthodox understanding of the story, but that is about the funniest thing I've ever heard," I said.

But I got to thinking about that. Wait a minute. He was exactly right. What he said was entirely orthodox. Abraham had a little help. In fact, he had a lot of help.

And I suppose that is the whole meaning of this story we are living into over these next few hours. We needed help. And God gave us a child.

Letting Tony Speak

You know that I was born to be a preacher because I actually like to listen to sermons. I’m hopeless I know. Sometimes I go to St. Mike’s where they have really fast internet connection, and I log in under my wife’s name and I just sit back and watch three or four sermons in a row.

A couple of weeks ago I was there listening to a guy named Tony Campolo preach. He was preaching at my alma mater Duke University and on vocational discernment Sunday there at Duke Chapel. He was telling all those Dukies how they ought not to waste their lives. He was telling them that the world tells them to go to school so they can get a good ____ so they can make a lot of _____ so they can buy a lot of ______. I’m listening to this sermon and I look around and notice that I’m surrounded by college students who are all studying for finals so they can get out and get a good job and make a lot of money and buy a lot of stuff. So I think, Man, I’m need to pray for these cats. So I start praying for everyone in the room as I continue listening. And then I hear Tony tell a story. He used to be a college professor and he had one young student come up to him and tell him how proud she was because out of like 90 candidates she had landed this job. Tony heard that and looked that girl right in the eyes, and said, “That’s terrible. Why go somewhere you’re not needed when you could go somewhere you’re desperately needed? He told her last year there were something like 200 teacher vacancies in the city of Philadelphia alone why not go there and make a difference instead of going somewhere else to make a dollar?

So as I’m listening to this and looking at all these college kids surrounding me my heart starts pounding and I decide its not enough for me to pray for them; they gotta here this. It’s dead quiet in the computer cluster so I hit the volume button all the way up and then bring it back down like I’m having technical difficulties. But the truth is I’m trying to get their attention. Then, having gotten their attention, I start bringing that volume back real slow like and I start letting Tony preach to these people. And one girl keeps looking over at me. And I know she’s not studying to make a lot of money but wants to become a librarian, because she keeps giving me that irritated librarian face. “SSHH.”

Patron Saint

On Thanksgiving I obscurely gave thanks for the Rev. A. Ritchie Low. Here's why:


Most Baptists don't have patron saints, but maybe that is because they just haven't found there's yet.

I've found mine. His name is Rev. A. Ritchie Low.

I discovered Ritchie Low when I was researching former ministers of the church where I am now pastor. There were funny stories about a number of ministers - one whose "sermons were hortatory" but who was better remembered for his wife's culinary skills, his love of a fast horse and the "glop of a clambake he proposed." The story on Ritchie Low, pastor of the United Church of Colchester from 1927-1933, was equally anecdotal, replete with stories of erratic and dangerous driving through the backroads of rural Vermont.

The usual stuff you find in church histories. Nothing to get too excited about. But then this one line stuck out. During his tenure he "began working out plans for interracial fellowship at the child level." Plans for interracial fellowship in the early 30s? In Colchester, Vermont of all places?

When I was installed as pastor I told the congregation that I had no idea what interracial fellowship at the child level would have meant in this part of the country at that time. But, I said, "one of these days my wife Irie and I are going to have a child, and Ritchie Low's plans will come to fruition. You will have interracial fellowship a the child level every Sunday." We do now. On March 28 of last year Irie and I had our first child, Gabrielle Zipporah Price, the bi-racial child of a white man and a black woman.

If the story had ended there it would have been a pretty good one. But it didn't end there and is now becoming a great story.

I put Ritchie Low on the backburner for about a year but not long ago I was reading a history of race relations in Vermont and lo and behold there is a minister from the United Church of Johnson, VT who in the 1930s helped to integrate the major downtown Burlington, VT hotel. I knew then there is a story that needed to be told about Ritchie Low.

In 1943 Rev. Low traveled from Johnson, VT down to Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. There he stayed in the home of Adam Clayton, Powell, Jr. and upon his return began the Vermont-Harlem Project which would bring over 100 Harlem children to Vermont during the summers of 1943 and 44. This was a project aimed explicitly at bringing blacks and whites together. In an article in the 1946 summer issue of Common Ground Rev. Low wrote:


These were not underprivileged boys and girls in the usual sense of the word. They were coming as representatives of the thirteen million colored people of America. They were coming as friends, as ambassadors of goodwill. They were coming to the Green Mountains so that we might get to know them and, through them, their race.


The Harlem-Vermont Project made headlines throughout the nation and brought Rev. Low considerable attention. One quote from a Time Magazine article from August 28, 1944 was especially prescient for the day: "The Negro is not a problem to be solved but a human being to be understood."

Rev. Low continued his work at improving race relations in America before his untimely death on Christmas Eve 1948. He even traveled to the South as a part of a vanguard of civil rights activists, gathering information and encouraging blacks to organize for equality. In an article he wrote for the Christian Century titled "Zigzagging through Dixie" he wrote of the trouble he caused when he decided to sit at with the blacks on the back of the bus in Savannah. In that article he also described the inherent disparities between blacks and whites in the Jim Crow South.

I have to confess that I feel very connected to the Rev. Ritchie Low in a very mystical kind of way. Two white pastors, the same small Vermont church, both our lives surprisingly bound up with the story of race in America. The world outside the church would call it ironic. But inside the church we have an even better term for it I think. The communion of saints. That sounds right even to my Baptist ears. Perhaps it should not be too much of a surprise that Rev. Low began his tenure here at the United Church of Colchester on the first day of November - All Saints Day.

The thing is almost nobody has ever heard of Ritchie Low or the United Churches of Johnson and Colchester. And that's perhaps the whole point of the story. A guy from nowhere Vermont does some seemingly small, hidden act and it helps to change the world. It helps to change the way whites and blacks think about each other. It helps to change the laws so that a white man like me and a black woman like Irie can marry each other in the South. And it helps to change America so that wherever we bring our daughter Gabrielle there is interracial fellowship at the child level.

Amen.

Putting the (other) B in Baptist

When I was installed as pastor I asked one of the church pillars to say a few words. He told those gathered that I was teaching the congregation how to say Baptist like a Texan.

"Babtist," he said.

I didn't get it.

"Babtist," he said again.

Everyone was laughing, but I had no idea what was going on.

Finally he clued me in. "BaBtist. You say it with two Bs."

Things finally made sense for me a couple of weeks ago when I received a letter from my uncle down in Texas. The letter was addressed to:

The United Babtist Church

You can't make this stuff up.

Oh well, I borrowed a line from Stanley Hauerwas last Sunday and told the church that I'm proud of my accent. It is like my bellybutton; it reminds me that I came from somewhere.

Baptist and Blogger Part VII

Gil Gulick, a third year student at Wake Forest Divinity School is doing research on Baptist bloggers and the role of the blog in 21st century Baptist life. He solicited my help. I thought I would share my answers to his questions here with you. I think something profound is happening with blogs and I would be interested to read what Gil arrives at.

I'll do this in a series of installments. This is the seventh and final installment.



7. Historically, Baptists have been a people of dissent. How does blogging
fit into this idea and the Baptist idea of priesthood of the believer?

Like I said, this is a thoroughly democratized medium. Greg Horton of theparish is a great example of a guy who is writing honestly about faith and the struggle to live fully into Christ's claim on our lives. Greg probably wouldn't last very long in most traditional pulpits but his blog gives him a platform for all sorts of unchurched and outchurched folks to come and wrestle with God over his words. Blogs offer a counter to the neo-clericalism of our day which tries to determine who can and can't say something. If Roger Williams were alive today Rhode Island would be a blog. Heck, maybe it is. I'll Google that and see.

How This Plane and Ronald Reagan's Death Saved My Life (a non-substitutionary theory of atonement)

This is an excerpt from an email I recently wrote to a pastor I know in Texas. He is coming to Andover Newton in April to share thoughts about the future of preaching. He asked me to share some of my thoughts on the future of this calling and below is a portion of what I gave him.

As a nod to Stanley let me tell you my story. I graduated from Duke set on law school. I graduated with an MDiv but persuaded everyone at the local bar that I was studying "theology". That sounded vague, non-committal, and was served up nicely along with the third round of drinks. I could be anyone I pleased so long as Christianity was something I merely flirted with. A dilletante. Form but no soul.

So I moved to Washington, DC that summer because I landed a job interning for a congressman from my home district. And then Ronald Reagan died, which is actually strangely important to my story. Ronald Reagan died and all the dignitaries were flying in from all over the country and world, and one of them was the governor of Kentucky. He was flying in and somehow his private jet lost contact with the tower and ended up flying into protected airspace. The Capitol alarms went crazy and one of the staffers grabbed the emergency pack full of tylenol and bandaids and anti-anthrax syrum or whatever is in there and we were all off. Running down First St. trying to get as far away from the Capitol as possible because the #$%@ was about to hit the dome.

And that's when it all became clear. That's when Stanley through Yoder through Curtis Freeman all made sense. And it was terrifying. It was terrifying because I realized that I am baptized and because I am baptized my life is not my own and because my life is not my own I didn't want to die doing something I really didn't believe in.

So that's when I called back to North Carolina and I asked to have my youth director back at podunk, nobody ever heard of it, Lowe's Grove Baptist Church. Youth director! Not even minister of youth. Not even youth pastor. Youth director! And then I went back and Lord have mercy I moved in with an octogenarian from that church. An eighty something year old man with wax in his ears and dreams of his deceased wife at night.

And you know what God said, "It is good. It is very good."

Baptist and Blogger Part VI

Gil Gulick, a third year student at Wake Forest Divinity School is doing research on Baptist bloggers and the role of the blog in 21st century Baptist life. He solicited my help. I thought I would share my answers to his questions here with you. I think something profound is happening with blogs and I would be interested to read what Gil arrives at.

I'll do this in a series of installments. This is the sixth installment.


6. How do you handle comments on your blog? If you allow them, do you
screen them first? If so, what do you screen for? If you do not allow
comments, why not?

Any hurtful, blasphemous, incriminating, or otherwise inane comments get the boot. Commenters are my guests. No one should have to tolerate having grenades lobbed in from someone bent on destruction.

Judas Iscariot

April Deconick, professor of Biblical Studies at Rice University, has a very provocative op-ed piece on the Gospel of Judas in today's New York Times.

Last year the National Geographic Society said they had found and translated the 3rd century book and - much to people's shock and others' delight - the story had Jesus inducing his betrayal by Judas. Deconick, however, says that was all wrong. She says that the National Geographic Society's translators consistently made some very errant choices in translation which ended in that interpretation. An example: The Greek word "daimon" is usually translated demon into English. But Deconick says the translators instead made the unusual decision to intepret the word daimon as spirit in reference to Judas.

I suspect the debate will go on for years about what is the right reading of the Gospel of Judas. But Deconick makes a solid point when she questions National Geographic Society's choice not to open up discussion of the text more fully before they printed their article last year.

Deconik posits that perhaps the interpretive choices were inspired by a desire to reconcile Christians and Jews. Throughout the centuries Christians have wrongly painted Judas as an allegorical figure for the entire Jewish nation. Deconick suggests that in order to challenge the antisemitic reading of Judas,the National Geographic Society translators might have been too willing to problematize the Judas character.

If Deconik is right about the errant interpretative decisions I think there are less noble motives at work. In this new age of journalism even a respectable journal like National Geographic is under increasing pressure to get readers. Nothing gets readers like salacious stories that challenge the orthodox story of Judas' betrayal.

But here is the thing. It doesn't really matter if this good Judas myth began in the 1st or 3rd or 21st century. Both the orthodox and apocryphal gospels have Jesus knowing that he is going to be betrayed by Judas. And if there is betrayal then there is violation of trust. And that's why when Jesus said to Judas, "Do what you are going to do," there must have been a terrible sadness in his heart. For Judas and for all of us.

Baptist & Blogger Part V

Gil Gulick, a third year student at Wake Forest Divinity School is doing research on Baptist bloggers and the role of the blog in 21st century Baptist life. He solicited my help. I thought I would share my answers to his questions here with you. I think something profound is happening with blogs and I would be interested to read what Gil arrives at.

I'll do this in a series of installments. This is the fifth installment.

5. What, if any, opposition have you encountered to your blogging?

I think that some people are just wired to come looking at your blog for evidence. They're like the forensics team. If they think you did something, they come looking for evidence. I once interviewed for a youth ministry position down in Texas. Word got back to me that one of the people read my blog and didn't like what he saw. But the truth is he met me and didn't like what he saw, then he went to my blog to justify his reasoning. In seminary we called it proof texting.

Baptist & Blogger Part IV

Gil Gulick, a third year student at Wake Forest Divinity School is doing research on Baptist bloggers and the role of the blog in 21st century Baptist life. He solicited my help. I thought I would share my answers to his questions here with you. I think something profound is happening with blogs and I would be interested to read what Gil arrives at.

I'll do this in a series of installments. This is the fourth installment.

4. What are the positives and negatives of blogging?

I think the most positive thing is that this is a thoroughly democratized medium. If you write well and connect with people at a soul level then you will get discovered. The cream naturally rises to the top in the blogosphere.

The downside is that in this medium you really do need to write a lot. There's no room for sometimes bloggers. This means a lot of ideas aren't as fleshed out as they deserve to be. It also means that some ideas that ought never to be seen by anyone make their way into perpetuity. Thomas Merton and his editors would be appalled.

Having the poor with us - ie, Jesus' words are for me

I said something in my last post about using Jesus' words about always having the poor with us. I called it a cop out.

It's actually more than that even. It is a fundamental misunderstanding of the context in which Jesus spoke those words.

A woman came to anoint Jesus with alabaster. Some of the disciples grumbled. "We could have sold that and given it to the poor." What the disciples don't get - because they can't get it through their skulls that the Messiah is going to be killed - is that this is a burial annointing. Jesus corrects them. "The poor you will always have with you, but not me."

Most of those around the table would have heard that and known that Jesus was putting a twist on Deuteronomy 15. "...there will, however, be no poor among you, because the Lord is sure to bless you in the land that the Lord of God is giving you...if only you will obey the Lord your God..." In his book Jesus, Justice, and the Reign of God Bill Herzog says that the only logical conclusion we can draw from Jesus' statement is that poverty exists among us because people don't obey God. Herzog writes, "Far from being a saying about the prevalence of the poor, it is a wry saying about the omnipresence of oppression and explotation." We always have the poor among us because in a game of winners there are going to be losers.

But here's where things hit home for me. When Jesus says you can always give to the poor he ain't talking to the Herods of this earth. He's talking to a bunch scruffy-faced, corn-footed, fishermen-turned-itinerate-preachers. And that's the rub for us not destitute but definitely not rich folks. We do always have an abundance out of which we could give to the poor.

That's why I'm taking one of my extra snow coat to JUMP today. Because Jesus' words are for me.

Problematizing "Help"

I find this article about foodbanks in the US from the Washington Post at the breadblog.

The article raises all kinds of provocative questions about the way we go about combating hunger here in America. You read something like this and you are to grow pessimistic and write off doing anything with cop out of the ages - "Afterall, Jesus said we'd always have the poor with us."

Here's the thing. We're not going to solve hunger by building more food pantries (though we may need more food pantries to help stop the bleeding). What we really need to do every Thanksgiving is start introducing all those good folks who come downtown to help serve the poor to John. By John I mean the poor guy at the table who actually has a name and a story. Instead of just doling out a 1/8 scoop of stuffing on John's table, those good-hearted volunteers ought to be challenged to start sharing in his story.

That's why I love what Hal Colston is doing with Neighborkeepers here in Vermont. Hal is trying to connect people to people, because in the end it is going to be relationships that help people get people out of poverty.

Baptist & Blogger Part III

Gil Gulick, a third year student at Wake Forest Divinity School is doing research on Baptist bloggers and the role of the blog in 21st century Baptist life. He solicited my help. I thought I would share my answers to his questions here with you. I think something profound is happening with blogs and I would be interested to read what Gil arrives at.

I'll do this in a series of installments. This is the third insallment.

3. What do you think the biggest impact of your blog has been?

Two things. First, through my own story I've been able to invite a lot of white religious folk who don't normally think about race to begin doing so - especially in the context of what Jesus has done and is doing to reconcile the world.

Second, I've been able to connect with a lot of secular folks and offer them a picture of Jesus that is open-minded, yet viscerally compelling. For example, just last week Philip Baruth of vermontdailybriefing discovered that I had linked to his blog. He looked me up and then interviewed me on his blog. Pretty cool. Beyond all the crap we see coming from the mouths of too many churchpeople, the essential message is powerful enough to change our hearts and our world - there is more life in Jesus Christ than there is death in us. I consider it a real privelege to share that news here with whatever stranger cares to listen.

Baptist & Blogger Part II

Gil Gulick, a third year student at Wake Forest Divinity School is doing research on Baptist bloggers and the role of the blog in 21st century Baptist life. He solicited my help. I thought I would share my answers to his questions here with you. I think something profound is happening with blogs and I would be interested to read what Gil arrives at.

I'll do this in a series of installments. This is the second installment.

2. If you are a pastor of a church, how has your congregation responded to your blog?

I don't get a lot of feedback from parishioners. I know I have some lurkers from among my congregation but most of the people who read my blog are from elsewhere. It is a kind of second pulpit for me. I get to be pastor for a lot of people from my past and some folks I've never even met before. It's a kind of communing of saints beyond time and space. Nevertheless, I recognize that what I say at fromthewilderness does not belong to me alone. I am a pastor of a church and don't have the luxury of taking that hat off to speak as someone unconnected to the Body of Christ. So I'm careful.

Giving Thanks

What I am giving thanks for today:

1. Kindred Spirits with which to travel
2. Unkindred Spirits to teach me about hospitality
3. Irie & Gabs & the gift of love which, if not a proof, is at least a strong sign that God exists
4. A. Ritiche Low & other unsung saints who have traveled before us and changed the world in small but very meaningful ways
5. the mariacchi band that played at our wedding reception
6. the grace to write meaningfully
7. completion

Baptist & Blogger Part I

Gil Gulick, a third year student at Wake Forest Divinity School is doing research on Baptist bloggers and the role of the blog in 21st century Baptist life. He solicited my help. I thought I would share my answers to his questions here with you. I think something profound is happening with blogs and I would be interested to read what Gil arrives at.

I'll do this in a series of installments.

1. When did you start blogging and why?

I began blogging in 2005 right when reallivepreacher was being unmasked. I read his blog a lot and found the level of candor and depth with which he was writing to be really inspiring. I had graduated from divinity school a year before and was serving as a youth minister at a small Baptist church. The conversations I was having with my youth group were good, but I was longing for more. Plus, I had always enjoyed the heck out of writing and was looking for a forum to get some of my thoughts out into the public space. The religious writing world has high walls you have to scale - like pastoring a church of some significant size or name. Blogging was my way of sneaking through the backdoor. That may sound arrogant or pretentious - I have something to say that people ought to hear - but I don't think so. God created me to tell stories. I wouldn't be happy doing anything else.

White on Black

Yesterday Irie and I pulled out of the driveway and much to our surprise saw police officers walking up and down our street, some of them taking pictures. They were gathering evidence. Under the cover of darkness someone had taken a can of spray paint and used it to graffiti several hateful words and pictures on various parts of our block. The city of Winooski just repaved our street last month so the symbolism of the bold white paint burned into the black asphault of Hickok St. was unmistakable. The N-Word. Then two doors down from that more hatred. "Kill all Bosnians". At first I just shook my head in sadness. Then, after fifteen or twenty seconds my belly literally started to turn hot. It was as if all the evil and hate of those words had entered my body, settled down into the pit of my stomach and then brewed. I began to fume. I drove around the block three times, looking for someone with a guilty grin. I wanted to beat the hell out of someone.

And then after a little while I remembered that you can't beat the hell out of anyone. You have to love the hell out of them. Which is the hardest thing to do in the world.

This coming Sunday the lectionary reading is from the twenty-third chapter of Saint Luke. I don't know if a word from God has ever spoke more timely or meaningfully or directly to me. "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."

That is my prayer. I ask all those who read this to pray it with me. Pray it for me.

The thing that sickens and saddens me the most is that as I am reading this trash the first thing I think of is my Gabs all settled in innocently in the backseat without the feintest idea of the kind of world that she has been born into. The kind of world we chose to bring her into. I am so sorry for that and wish that I could protect her. But I can't. I can only do what I did tonight. I took her into my arms and bless her eyes for the things she will see.

The Sitter Routine

Two Mondays ago we had a babysitter come over. As soon as she got there I went about the usual routine of showing her around the house. I did the usual things you would expect. I showed her the milk in the fridge, the changing table upstairs, and the basket where all the toys are. Gabby can be pretty fussy when mom and dad are gone, so I shared with her a secret one of our babysitters tried. Gabby was crying inconsolably and the babysitter decided to try and fool Gabby into thinking one of either mom or dad was really there. Because the babysitter was white, she thought it would be impossible to fool Gabby into thinking Irie was home, so she decided to dress up like me. “So,” I told this babysitter, “if you get desperate here is where I keep my jackets and hat.”

After all those preliminary details, I finally came to the serious stuff. “In case of emergency,” I said, “here are all our contact numbers, and here is my cell phone you can feel free to use at any time, and here, mounted on the wall, is our fire extinguisher.” “Well, I hope Gabby won’t be setting any fires,” she said. “Well you never know,” I said, “she is a preacher’s kid after all.”

Philly 2

We returned yesterday from our trip down to Philly. We had a great time hanging out in the city with my sister Brooke. "Aunt Brooke" as I kept on calling her.

I said that we were going to worship at Central Baptist Church in Wayne. It turns out they are only about half a block down from the original Anthropology store. Brooke works at the Anthropology in Dallas and she was wanting to see the original store while in Philly. So here we were, thirty minutes outside of Philly and both of us were exactly where we wanted to be. A grace from God.

And then an even more amazing grace. I said in my last post that my relationship with Brooke was one with some baggage (which relationship isn't?). Part of the baggage was the fact that growing up Brooke lived beneath my shadow. I was good in school and athletics - two things valued in our house and in our community- while Brooke struggled to find her own unique gifts. It was the classic case of one sibling filling the refrigerator door with awards, accolades, etc. while the other sibling is made to often feel left out in the cold. The really great thing about the trip was this was Brooke's deal. She is making her own way in the world and finally discovering the unique gifts she has.

Anyway, we made our way to worship on Sunday at Central Baptist and Marcus Pomeroy, one of the pastors on staff there, preached a sermon about hope. There were three points (he said his sermons never have three points) and I have to admit I have already forgotten the first two. But the third point. That was all grace. It was about some friends of his who have struggled for fifteen or so years to bring up two children. And guess what...the first, their son, grew up the golden boy, filling the refrigerator with all his accolades and awards, while the second, their daughter, struggled to even make it out of high school. The point (the third point that is) was that Marcus' friends never gave up on their daughter, and this year she was honored with a certificate for outstanding academic achievement by her college. Finally, the mom said, the refigerator door was made complete.

Like I said, a grace.

Philly

Irie, Gabs, and I are in Philly this weekend, visiting my sister. She lives in Dallas but has gone to Philly for work this week.

Growing up my sister and I had a pretty rocky relationship. I was a jerk. I confess. The dastardly thing is that one's jerk moves as kids tend to follow us into adulthood. As Faulkner said, the past is never behind us; it's not even past. Anyway, my sister and I are now adulthoods and letting old wounds heal.

One really great way for us to do that is by worshiping together. Tomorrow we will be at Central Baptist Church in Wayne, PA. I've heard they do church uniquely and I am excited to do it with them!

House of Worship

For two years now I've been thinking how great it would be to get rid of the fixed pews in our sanctuary and replace thme with something more versatile. Some older churches have done that but it just ain't gonna happen at in our house. While getting rid of the pews might free us up to do some more creative things in the service, it would also rob us of a lot of the character. When you walk into our church you get a sense of the timelessness of what is done here. The bowing of heads. The bending of knees. The giving away in marriage. The giving away in burial. The New England Congregational house of worship may not be all that functional, but it is timeless for sure.

Besides, things could be a lot worse:

Last week Marc Fisher from the Washington Post wrote a stinging article about Third Church of Christ, Scientist in Washington, DC. District officials are moving to have the church declared a historic landmark while church members want to tear the church down and build something more functional. Apparently the government officials say the building has real architectural worth because it is a grand exhibit of "Brutalism".

Well, our pews are a little hard at times, but probably not altogether brutal - though a few of the sermons most certainly have been.

All Hallow's Eve 2007

Holy God, we come to you today with a heart full of memory.
It weighs us down like water; it tastes like tears.
We see names and faces passing,
Some before our very eyes. Some before their time. Some before time itself.
Are they dead, Lord,
Or just sleeping?
Will we wake with them in the morning?
Will their eyes twinkle in the light of resurrection?
We pray.
We pray for tomorrow.

But tonight we are wet.
We cannot be dry
Because we have been caught up in this great cloud of witnesses.
They have their hands all over us.
Shaping us. Molding us. Transforming us into an image.
Of what?
Of a reality that is and is not,
Yet.

Holy God, help us to remember.
Not just our past,
But also our future.
As saints.

Life on the Fault Lines

On Wednesday night Irie and I went to see a screening of the film Living on the Fault Line: Where Race and Family Meet. Living on the Fault Line documents the lives of several Vermont families and their experiences with transracial adoption. More specifically, it explores the racial "fault line" that is exposed when white parents adopt non-white children.

Jeff Farber, produced the film and hosted a conversation following the screening. What was clear from both the movie and his comments after is that he believes these mixed race families provide a unique opportunity for whites to explore the meaning of race and its powerful hold on our society. He also made it clear his belief that because whites so seldom have to think about race in a meaningful way, white parents who adopt non-white children are finding themselves woefully unprepared to help their children grow up as people of color in a world where race matters.

As a white person who has suddenly had to face race in a very intimate way, I agree that we are indeed ill-prepared to deal with race in a personal way. I remember waking up from our honeymoon in Durham and learning that three crosses had been burned downtown. Suddenly that wasn't about someone else anymore. Those crosses were burning me now. And yet I had no experience of being a racial outsider. No experience with what Cornel West in this month's Atlantic Monthly crudely (his word) calls "niggerization." I can only wonder how I will fare as a father of a bi-racial child as she matures and encounters this racialized world. As a person of faith, I am preparing myself now so that when Gabby comes home and tells me someone has said something racially malicious I won't go Old School on them but will remain true to Jesus' words.

And that, faith, is suppose what I've been thinking about most deeply since seeing the film. One of the parents in the film stated that she beleived her child's adoptive family was in actuality the third best option for her child. She said ideally her child would be with her biological family. Or, secondarily, with a family of her same race. I understood what that mother was was saying. Intellectually it made sense for sure. But I raised my hand during the discussion period and said that her statement sat ill with me somewhere down deep in my soul.

Soul was the right word. Because I am a person of faith, I simply cannot accept the assumption that biology or race or anything else is more definitive than the substance of love. The scriptures do not equate biology with God. They do not say that race is God. But the scriptures tell us that God is love.

The fault lines are real and they are dangerous. But if we believe that the power of love can indeed transcend the chasm from one heart to another and one people to another, then we will risk the danger. Which is I suppose what faith is all about.

Attachment Parenting

So Irie and I have just moved into our new house in Winooski. Our house is small, but has character which we totally appreciate. Lots of nooks and crannies and unique molding etc. It very much fits the idea we have of ourselves.

At church on Sunday someone asked me how Gabs is liking her new bedroom. "New bedroom?" I said, "Well, she likes to visit it occasionally."

See, we have this little problem in our house. That is, according to some parenting experts we have a problem. At least the making of one. We have a kid that absolutely insists on sleeping with mommy and daddy.

And the really hard thing to admit, but I'm going to do it, is this: I think its so cute. Mommy, Daddy and Gabby all cuddled up together like three pigs in a blanket. Oink, oink, oink.

But the doomsday predicters say we are headed for trouble. My mom included. "It's cute now, but how cute will it be two years from now?" Apparently my mom thought it was cute and easy, etc. with me but I ended up staying around a couple of extra years. My mom and a whole army of child development experts say get this kid out of your bed ASAP. But then there's this minority group of pediatritians - the touchy, feely kind - who propound this thing called "attachment parenting". The basic premise of attachment parenting is the idea that children should be with their parents as often as possible. They say, don't listen to those with low anthropologies, children aren't trying to manipulate you, their just being children. Love them. Nurture them. Snore all over them. Too soon they'll be gone and if you don't you'll wish you did.

So what's a family to do? We've really been struggling with this. And then, out of the blue an answer from God...

I picked up the book of Luke and right there in chapter 11, in one of his parables, Jesus tells about a knock at midnight and on the other side of the door...that's right, an attachment family all snuggled in bed together.

A Bizarre Delusion

On Wednesday I was flipping through the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual brushing up on a few pscychological terms that are currently en vogue. Obsessive comupulsive, passive aggressive, manic. I hear these phrases bandied about all the time but am not really quite sure what is meant. So I consulted the DSM, the handbook that names all the recognized mental disorders and their symptoms.

A word of caution. No one should pick up the DSM out of the blue unless certain of one's sanity. I mean infallibly certain. Otherwise, while perusing the innumerable pages of diagnostic material one is bound to come to the conclusion that he or she is hopelessly certifiable. An illustration from my Wednesday experience:

As I was flipping through the DSM I happened upon a certain disorder called Bizarre Delusion. Delusions are deemed bizarre if they are:
1) clearly implausible
2)not understandable
3)not derived from ordinary life experiences.

The example given by the DSM was an individual's belief that someone removed all his or her internal organs and replaced them with someone else's without leaving a stich of evidence.

But I was thinking about an individual's belief in the resurrection which is clearly implausible, not understandable, and certainly not derived from ordinary life experience. Suddenly, the words of Flannery O'Connor came to mind. "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd." Certifiably odd, I might add.

The other day I watched a keynote address James Lawson delivered at a dinner at Vanderbilt University last January. As a young Methodist minister Lawson was the one who trained all those students down in Nashville in the practice of non-violent resistance in preparation for their attempt to integrate the downtown Nashville lunch counters. He said in the address, that at the time there really was no guarantee that the freedom movement would succeed. In fact, in the spring of 1960 Vanderbilt rewarded Lawson's integration efforts by expelling him from the university (a fact which must have made that meal last January an especially savory one.) Yet in spite of the empirical, Lawson and that non-violent army of college students put their faith in the hope that indeed the world was going to one day change. And it is.

And so, we who know the truth about what the world is becoming are odd. We who put our faith in the resurrection are indeed a little bizarre. And we wouldn't have it any other way; because we do not put our ultimate faith in what the DSM calls "ordinary life experience", but rather in the experience of an extraordinary God.

Reflections on Calling at Cana

The article I wrote for Relevant Magazine has generated a few comments to which I would like to respond. So please indulge me here as a respond to comments that were posted. To know what I'm addressing go see those comments.

First off, I consider my writing to be a kind of art. Art is inherently hard to explain and trying to explain ones own art seems too often like bad form. However, I do not think art should be created for the sheer sake of aesthetic, but rather for the glory of God. More to the point, I wrote the Relevant article not because I am an artist, but because I am a pastor. That means that whatever I write or say is only a preface to the kind of God talk I want us all to engage in. So I'm glad to respond to comments and welcome them.

Now on to the article itself. At the beginning of each of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) there is record of Jesus being driven out into the wilderness to be tempted. In the Gospel of John there is no such temptation in the wilderness. However, at the heart of Calling at Cana there is an assumption on my part that Jesus' temptation did not end with his time in the wilderness, but rather followed him throughout his life and ministry and culminated on the Cross. The central thrust of Jesus' temptation was the attraction of not fulfilling his mission on the cross. I think we see Jesus wrestling with the lure of that attraction in Cana.

But, the moment we start talking about Jesus and temptation things get sticky. Preachers and film makers (ask Martin Scorsese) get accused of being disrespectful of the Jesus a lot of pious people in the world like to cling to - a Jesus who never struggled, never wrestled with his call, never had to go and pray for courage. That Jesus never existed outside a lot of candy-coated fantasies. Jesus of Nazareth was human and part of the risk of his being human was his openness to struggle. We might call this vulnerability.

I have tried to show that vulnerable struggle with Cana. And I don't think I'm beyond the boundaries of the text. As I said in the article, the story itself opens a space for wondering, and so I wondered: What would it mean for Jesus too to struggle with his call? Put differently, what would it mean if Jesus were being tempted to say no to be the Messiah?

Though she would not like me blaming this on her, I have to confess that I got the idea of reading the Wedding Feast at Cana as a temptation story from my wife. She called my attention to some other scenes in the Gospels, outside the wilderness scene and the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus may very well have been tempted to do and be something other than what he was called to. Off the top of my head I think of the healing of the Syrophenician's daughter, the dialogue with Peter following Peter's profession of faith, and the point at which Jesus fled because the people wanted to make him king.

I think too often we like to compartmentalize Jesus' temptation. There is the temptation in the wilderness where Satan offers Jesus the world and then the temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus wrestles weighs the cost of his crucifixion. Part of this compartmentalization is an honest attempt to glorify Jesus. Yet I feel that there is a great danger in separating these two moments of Jesus' life from all the rest of his life and ministry; for doing so blinds us to the reality of our own temptation - the seductiveness of which is always present, from the first day to the last.

Mm. . .I'm Thirsty

On Sunday afternoon we celebrated our American Baptist association's annual meeting. My friend and former classmate Chris Rice talked. He shared some profound stories from his life of living along the path of racial reconciliation. Many of those stories can be found in his book Grace Matters.

Following Chris' talk I and some deacons from our church led the whole assembly in Communion. For various reasons we I decided to break the typical Baptist protocol and have people come forward to receive communion (I can hear the collective Baptist gasp). This was the first time I had ever officiated a service of "intinction" (the official name for the practice of dipping the consecrated bread into the cup). I held the cup as the congregation streamed by. Everyone had a nametag on and as they dipped I addressed each of them by name. "The blood of Christ, for you Rebecca." "The blood of Christ, shed for you, Rohn." "Riki, the blood of Christ, given for you." The thing that gripped me most powerfully were the fingers that dipped their bread into that cup.. Some were long and beautiful. Some were stumpy and fat. Most were white, but some were black. And I hate to admit this, given that I was the one who decided on this whole intinction business, but some of the fingers were really, really dirty. Like dirty enough to make a germaphobe never come out of the house again. Yet even in that there was a profound truth about Christ. The cup, was open and available to all in spite of our dirtiness, or perhaps because of it.

After communion we went downstairs into the kitchen and one of my deacons had the presence of mind to ask if the cooks would like to receive communion also. I didn't do a very good job of explaining intinction to the group and before I knew it the first lady had swallowed her bread and was about to take a pull right from the cup. "Mm. . .I'm thirsty," she said. I saw the other ladies' eyes grow big as pumpkins. "Uh, I think I'm going to let you go last," I said embarrassingly. "And now, for the rest of you, dip the bread into the cup."

I've thought a lot about that lady over the last couple of days. I've decided that she in spite of how awkward she made me feel maybe she was on to something. Maybe we should all be as unabashadly thirsty for God as she was.

Calling at Cana

Relevant Magazine has posted a fun little article I wrote about Jesus, the wedding at Cana, and calling. "Calling at Cana" is the title, appropriately enough. It's short, but good I think. So go give it a look.

And by the way, some dude is at the top of the article looking all hip and ponderous like. Not me. Definitely not me.

Ultimate Allegiances

Ethicsdaily has a provocative article on comments made by Melissa Snarr, an ethicist at Vanderbilt Divinity School. Snarr says that American Christians have lost their ultimate allegiance to the person and work of Jesus and have instead replaced it with false allegiances.

Her argument crystallizes around the issue of immigration. She says that Christians have lost what earlier Christian generations knew to be true - that we are all pilgrims in a strange land (to borrow the tag line from a certain blog I really enjoy a lot).

I found her comments very interesting coming on the heals of a talk I gave last night at UVM's Intervarsity Fellowship. I spoke about the Christian witness and race and made the point that racism is really about ultimate allegiances. It is about fidelity to blood (or color or hair type or whatever else race is supposed to be) superceding all other fidelities. The biblical word for this is idolatry.

During the question and answer period one person in the group asked why it was that those who grew up in Sunday School (I didn't) never talked about this stuff. I don't know what exactly I said but I should have said it is because the church has been so thoroughly corrupted by Constantianism that the early witness of the church superceding all class, racial, and ethnic identities has been altogether lost.

This saddens me deeply because I believe that the Gospel that Christians have to proclaim is the one power in this world that can bring an end to the war and hostility and mutual-exclusion of the nations. In the resurrection of Jesus Christ the dividing wall of hostility has been put to shame and a new humanity has been born. All adjectives (black, white, American, Iraqi, Mexican, Texan, Vermonter) have been put back into their rightful place - as secondary to our most primal identity which is not an adjective, but a noun - children of God.

Oh really, O'Reilly?

Radio and TV host Bill O'Reilly is in hot water for saying what some are claiming were racially insensitive remarks.

He was talking about a rather pleasant experience he had during recent visit to a restaurant in Harlem named Sylvia's. Here's a quote from the Washington Post article:

"There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, '[Expletive], I want some more ice tea.' It was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there ordering and having fun and there wasn't any craziness at all."

O'Reilly seemed to be trying to be positive and emphasize the fact that in spite of what a lot of white America might think most of black America is civilized. But how he said that came off sounding a lot like a back-handed compliment. No craziness? In a black restaurant? Oh really, O'Reilly?

What he said was silly. Worse, it hurt people. He deserves to be told that. Straight up.

He does not deserve to be harshly chastened however. If we are going to get serious and start having some frank dialogue about race in this country (which I applaud O'Reilly for attempting to do) then we are going to have to give each other some grace. All we have are these words and we are trying to put very complicated and very pregnant feelings into those words. If we continue to jump on someone the moment they say something that isn't quite right then we will soon discover that most people will not feel like its worth the risk of talking at all.

That's the tragedy of political correctness. It started off as a boundary for what is exceptable in discussion but ended up eliminating discussion altogether. I hear it all the time. Someone will say, "Well, you know these days you gotta be PC." And they quit right there. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

The truth is most people don't know how to be PC. They're not PC at home around the dinner table with their kids. They're not PC in bed with their spouses. So when they get out in the public sphere and something heated like race comes up they simply don't know how to talk. And that's the end of discussion.

And the end of reconciliation also.

So, let's tell Bill we don't like what he said. But let's don't tell him to shut up.

Sermon: The Lost and the Found

I haven't posted in a while. Sometimes I think I'm just going to quit this thing. Then I'll get a random email from someone saying I should write more or an old friend will call out ofthe blue and say they found me here and enjoy reading about my life. That gets me to wondering about calling - like does this thing honor God and edify others enough to keep putting blood, sweat and tears in? If it does then I probably ought to pour more in. So that' were I am today.

Anyway, today I am posting a sermon I preached a couple of Sundays ago. I think it says a lot of important things about church and community and God's longing desire for the lost. I pray that it does indeed honor God and edify someone.

Sometime last month I marked my fourteenth anniversary of being a Christian. It’s never really a big deal. The day just comes and goes with little fanfare. No note from Billy Graham. No card from the Pope. Jesus doesn’t come down and take me out to eat at the Outback Steakhouse.

Nevertheless, sometime around the first of August each year I remember back to when I made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ and my life changed forever. It was a great week at Frontier Ranch Camp just outside Buena Vista, Colorado. We were in the Rockies and I don’t know, perhaps it was the Rocky Mountain high, but I fell in love seven times that week. That’s once per day. That’s enough to give even Bill Jocelyn a run for his money. The first six didn’t work out — thankfully. But the seventh did. The last night of camp we had a party and dozens of kids stood up to share about what happened to them at camp. I stood up too. “This week I fell in love with Jesus Christ,” I said. When it was all done I remember what the camp preacher said to us. “Tonight,” he said, “the angels in heaven are rejoicing.”

I remember exactly what it was that got me that week. I’ve told you before. I was circled up with a group of guys from my hometown and Scott Travis our leader had us reading a passage from the book of Matthew. Jesus was having dinner at a tax collector’s house and there were all kinds of people there who didn’t quite have their lives together. The Pharisees, the religious authorities of the day, took exception. They began to grumble. “This man eats with tax collectors and sinners,” they said. Jesus discerned their thoughts. “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick,” he told them. “I have come to call not the righteous, but the sinners.” I remember reading that and then looking up with a grin on my face and twinkle in my eye. “Jesus has come to call sinners? That means he’s has come to call me.”

The gospel got me that night and though I have read the story of Jesus over and over it has been getting me again and again over these last fourteen years. The gospel got me in a new and fresh way this week and I want to share that experience with you.

Today’s story sounds a lot like that story in Matthew that I read for the first time in that circle fourteen years ago. Luke says that Jesus had amassed large crowds that among those gathered around Jesus were some tax collectors and so-called sinners. Again the religious leaders began to grumble. “This man not only has attracted sinners and tax collectors, but he lets them stay. He welcomes them.”

This time Jesus did not answer with a story about doctors coming for the sick. Instead he answered them with two parables. The first is a story about a lost sheep. “Which of you,” Jesus said, “if he had a hundred sheep and lost one, would not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go in search of the one that was lost. And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices and returns home. Upon his return, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me,’ for I have found my sheep that was lost.”

Then Jesus tells his followers a second parable. It is a parable of a woman with ten silver drachma coins, who loses one. Jesus says, “Will this woman not light a lamp and sweep the house and search diligently until she finds that lost coin?” And when she finds it, Jesus says, she runs and calls all the neighbors. “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I have lost.”

I read these stories and think, “My goodness, these people Jesus dreams up really need help.” First the woman. I see her lighting the lamp and sweeping the floor and digging inside the trash. She’s really quite eccentric. Finally she puts her hand down one of the corners of the couch. “Is that my lost drachma? No that’s a stale Post-Toastie flake.” Then, when she finally finds the coin she loses her sense. She runs and tells all the neighbors in her apartment. Knock-knock-knock. “Hey. . .I just want you to know that I lost my drachma, but now. . .I found it.” Finally she throws a party and gives everyone a t-shirt. “Shirley found her drachma, and all I got was this stupid t-shirt.”

And the shepherd. The one who leaves the ninety-nine others in the wilderness, where they are not quite safe and sound, and goes out to look for the one that is lost. He leaves ninety-nine to go and find one? Is he just really remedial in math or is he absolutely crazy?

Crazy I think is the answer. They’re both crazy. And that is Jesus’ point. If a woman can be this crazy about one lost coin, and a shepherd this crazy about one lost sheep, then how much more crazy is God about one lost child? And so, Jesus says, the angels rejoice more over one sinner who repents, then over ninety-nine who need no repentance.

Jesus is saying something really profound about the economy of God’s kingdom. There is an incredible extravagance about Jesus, the good shepherd, who leaves the found in order to go and find the lost. That means we as a church should do some pretty extravagant things for those among us who are on the margins. Yet here is where the gospel got me this week. I have always read that to mean that there are times when one is more important than the rest. But it is not so much that the one lost sheep is greater than the other ninety-nine, but that rather ninety-nine is less than the one hundred. What Jesus is trying to communicate about the kingdom of God is that it as a place where everyone is valued, not because they are special or good or deserving, but because they belong.

Belonging to each other is not always easy. On Tuesday I was talking with a friend in our church and he described the people here as a bunch of individual puzzle pieces. I imagined large jigsaw puzzle spread across a table in someone’s living room. There were all kinds of pieces of assorted sizes and shapes, yet they came together seamlessly. Where one zigged the other zagged, where one curved in another curved out. In my mind I could see one breathtakingly beautiful picture of Jesus Christ. He was carrying a lamb upon his shoulders and an angelic chorus was welcoming them both home. It was perfect. But before I could fully take it all in my friend added an odd twist. “Except,” he said, “all of the pieces are from separate puzzles.” The picture suddenly became a lot less breathtaking. It was . Very postmodern, but not exactly perfect. And then it hit me, that was just the point. This church, the United Church of Colchester, is really just a big box of spare puzzle pieces. The lost and found of puzzle pieces. Put us together and we’re not very beautiful. Certainly not perfect. We’re really not sure how we ended up here really. But we are here, and that’s the important thing. We’re all here — together.

We come from different backgrounds and different viewpoints. Today in these pews next to you there are conservatives and there are liberals. Some voted for Bernie and some voted for Rich. And some didn’t vote at all. Some of us here were born and raised Baptist. Some are died in the wool Congregationalists. I think of Joyce Sweeney who had me and Irie over to dinner the first week we were in town. “Now, Joyce,” I said, “You were a Congregationalist is that right?” “I still am a Congregationalist,” she said. OKAY. There are also Episcopalians here. And Catholics. And some who wouldn’t consider themselves anything, but who are just interested in this man Jesus, who welcomed sinners.

You know what this all means don’t you? If that image is at all true it means we’re headed for T-R-O-U-B-L-E. We aren’t all going to get along always. Even your pastor is going to have a hard time coming together with some of these pieces he has wound up in the same box with.

Pastor Robert McCracken told of the young minister who could not make peace with one woman in the church. The two argued about everything from the meaning of justification by faith alone to the color of the altar cloth. Finally, when she just quit returning his phone calls, he decided to pay her a visit at home. He knocked three times and could hear her making all sorts of noise inside, but the door remained shut. Finally the young minister decided to peek through the keyhole and there was another eyeball staring right back. “Well, Mrs. Smith,” the minister said, “I see we have finally come eye to eye on something.”

We aren't always going to see eye to eye. Earlier this month I was in a meeting here at church. Because Irie had class I had Gabby and unfortunately I was unable to coordinate a sitter for the night so Gabby had to tag along. As everyone piled in I told each of them, “Tonight, we are kid friendly.” We were real friendly until about halfway through the meeting I said something that someone disagreed with. A semi-tense cloud fell over the rest of the meeting. Things suddenly felt about fifteen degrees cooler in the room. It seemed like the perfect prescription for global warming.

After the meeting adjurned I followed the person who had disagreed with me out to the door. We both argued our points for awhile when suddenly we heard a loud scream from within my study. It was Gabs. “Well,” I said, “I gotta go.” I took a half dozen steps toward the study, paused at the door, and turned back around. Tears flushed to my eyes. “I want you to know that I love you,” I said. “I really do love you.”

We embraced and then I made my way back toward the screams. I walked into the study and there Gabs was standing up on the conference table, completely bottomless. A host of church people were huddled over her working on changing her diaper. Tears were flowing in her eyes too. And then the person with whom I had disagreed came in also.

So there we were. The old and the young. The saints and sinners. The Pharisees and the tax collectors. The lost and the found. We were all there. Ninety-nine plus one. We were all there. And we all belonged there together.

And the angels were rejoicing.

Diversity

This is a really provocative article passed along to me today by a parishioner. The article is an op-ed from the Wall Street Journal which basically calls into question the value diversity gives to our society.

The article raises a lot of interesting questions about what diversity means and why we should value it as a society. I am afraid that some readers will see this as suggesting that the call for a more diverse society is what is fragmenting our society. That is certainly not the case. Rather it is the mandate for greater public diversity absent of substantive connection in our private lives that sometimes leads to disjuncture and frustration. To say that we have diversity in our schools and our work places without having any diversity at our dinner tables calls into question what it is that is valuable about diversity in the first place.

St. Paul said that we can have faith so as to move mountains but if we have not love we are nothing. So it is with diversity. We can have a lot blacks and whites in the same classroom but if they aren't loving one another then we have not yet reached our goal. My heart weeps for a world full of so much richness that cannot take the final and hard step toward love.

But, as Dr. King said, "I've been to the mountaintop." I've seen the promised land. I've read books like Chris Rice's Grace Matters. I was at our wedding when two families as different as night and day came together and celebrated what God had brought together. There were white people there and black people there and men in traditional African dress and others in Western boots.

And a mariachi band played the theme music...

The Contemplative Gift

Contemplative experience is not arrived at by the accumulation of grandiose thoughts and visions or by the practice of heroic mortifications. It is not "something you buy" with any coin, however spiritual it might seem to be. It is a pure Gift of God, and it has to be a gift, for that is part of its very essence.

I have been thinking all morning about these words from Merton and how they speak to me right now.

There is nothing like fatherhood to ruin one's spiritual life. Really, I mean it. There is no time to pray or think or write. There is no time for contemplation. I have to be at the pediatrician's office instead.

For four months now I have been wrestling with this and I have found myself becoming increasingly bitter about it all. I carve out a little time when I am going to be intentional and, what do you know, the kiddo just won't stop crying and Irie is having a breakdown and if I don't help then I'm a dead man.

But Merton's words gave me pause this morning. Maybe I'm too consumed with making contemplation. Maybe becoming a true contemplative means learning to let God make it happen instead.

Learning to view life with God as a gift, rather than something that can be manufactured, means learning to see it as we see the dress of the birds of the air. The cardinal neither toils nor spins for his crimson. It was his from the beginning and will be his in the end. So too is our portion of God - ours in the beginning, ours in the end, and ours right now. If we would only receive it.

Somewhere in his journals Merton uses the imagery of the cup as a metaphor for life with God. We are drunkards and we swing wildly at the cup in impetuous desperation. The wine spills everywhere. The object of our desire lost to the avarice of the human heart. If we would only be still and open our mouths and close our eyes and the drink of life would be ours.

An Exercise in Prayer

Not long ago I went down to visit Harlene Monta at the Ethan Allen Assisted Living home. I showed up unannounced and Harlene was just washing up for dinner. I told her to take her time and that I would be back in a few minutes. I left Harlene’s room and decided to spend the time moseying around the place, saying hi to the residents there.

I walked into the central living room and visited with a couple of women sitting on the couches. Neither of them seemed to pay much attention to my arrival. “Nice weather out there,” I said. “Yep,” one replied automatically. “Nice weather.” I waited for more commentary but none was forthcoming. “Nice bird,” I said pointing to the cage up above their heads. “Parakeet,” the same woman corrected as if I should have known better. “Parakeet, beautiful parakeet,” I said. “Yep, beautiful parakeet,” she said.

It was obvious that I had worn out the welcome that I never had so I excused myself and made my way back toward Holly’s room. Her door was still closed so I wondered down Holly’s hallway reading the signs on hers and her neighbors’ doors. On each door was a picture of the resident along with a cute little saying. Holly Monta — “Plant seeds of friendship.” Lenny Polow – “Imagination is intelligence having fun.” John Baker – “Gone fishing.”

As I made my way down the hallway reading doors I came to another communal area where a woman was sitting by herself. I had a seat in the chair next to the one she was seated in and introduced myself. “Hi, I’m Ryon.” She smiled largely and said her name was Elizabeth and that she had been a resident at Ethan Allen for six years. “Six years. . .well I guess you about got it down,” I said. She giggled. “Yeah, just about.” I asked Elizabeth if she knew Holly. “Holly,” she said, “yeah, she’s cool.” Now I have to tell you that when I showed up that afternoon about the last thing in the world that I thought I would be hearing was one of these residents call another of the residents “cool.”

“Holly Monta,” I thought to myself. ‘“Planting seeds of friendship’ — that is pretty cool.

When Holly came out of her room she told me that she had just taken another fall — the most recent in a series of falls she has been having for some time now. I looked down and saw that her arm was black and blue. I laid my hand on her arm and paused. I looked from her arm back up into her face. “I’m going to have to pray to God to send you a guardian angel,” I said. “That, or a padded room.” She looked back at me and grinned. “Both,” she said, “pray for both.”

Both, pray for both. Pray for it all; I think that is what Jesus is telling the disciples in today’s text from Luke.

They have come to him and want him to teach them to pray just as John taught his disciples to pray. First Jesus responds by telling the disciples to pray in the words that we say here every week and have come to know as the Lord’s Prayer. “When you pray,” Jesus tells them, “Pray like this:

Our Father, hallowed be thy name,
Your kingdom come
Give us each day our daily bread
And forgive us our sins,
As we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us
And do not bring us to the time of trial.

Then Jesus launches into a story. It is a story about a knock at midnight. “Suppose,” Jesus says, “that someone comes to you at midnight and is weary and in need of food. You have none, so you go next door to ask of your neighbor. ‘Friend,’ you say, ‘an unexpected guest has just arrived and I have nothing to set before him.’ He answers from within, ‘Go away, do not bother me. I was asleep and my children are all tucked in with me. It is a very inconvenient time.’ Truly I tell you,” Jesus says, “even if your neighbor will not get up out of bed for friendship’s sake, surely he will get up because you will not stop pounding on that door.”

“Ask,” Jesus says, “and it will be given you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door shall be open. For I tell you whoever asks receives, whoever seeks finds. Whoever knocks, she shall find.”

The disciples have come asking how to pray. Perhaps they are a little nervous about religion. Perhaps talking to God scares them a little. So they ask Jesus to teach them the right words. But Jesus isn’t concerned about the right words. They don’t have to have the right words. He wants them to see that they can pray simply and honestly, like a child talking to his daddy.

We say the Lord’s Prayer every week and we have ritualized it enough that it often sounds formal and stilted. But in reality it is a prayer that a child would pray. In fact, if you think about it, it is modeled on the kind of request that a child might bring to his father wants something. “Father,” “Daddy,” “Hallowed be thy name.” “You know I think you are such a cool, dad. The coolest in the neighborhood.” Then the kicker that needs no modern translation: “Give.”

And here is the thing about daddies — we secretly want to be givers. Our kids know this. At a very early age our kids learn that we dads are the biggest suckers around. Gabrielle has discovered this over the course of these last four months of life with me. I mean, you would not believe the things that a grown man will do to get a smile from his child. It’s pathetic. Downright shameful.

And it doesn’t stop when their infants. We keep on. We keep on because we want desperately for our children to know that we love them. I think of Christmas 2004. Irie and I had been dating for nearly a year and I had just begun what I now consider to be my militant vegetarian phase. I was passionate about not killing animals for the sake of mere style or comfort. I was even shopping for pleather shoes online. But my daddy in Texas didn’t quite get it. Under the tree was the biggest present you ever saw with the tag, “To Ryon, Love, Dad” on it. Imagine my surprise when I opened it. A full-quill ostrich brief case. “Now listen Ryon,” he said, “I want you to know, that it took a whole ostrich to make that brief case.” He must have told me that three or four times. “A whole ostrich.” “A mean a big ’en too.”

I still have that briefcase. I don’t use it much. But I have to admit I love it. I love it, not because a whole ostrich went into it, but because my dad’s whole heart went into also. And for that I’d have to say it was one of the best gifts I’ve ever been given.

“Which one of you if your child asks for a fish will give him a snake?” Jesus says. “And who of you if your child asks for an egg will give a scorpion? If you then who are evil know how to make good gifts, then how much more will your father who is in heaven give you the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”

And there is the surprise. The disciples wanted to know how to pray, but in the end it is really not us who pray at all. It is God who prays through us with the Holy Spirit. We have only to be open to that and God will give it, because it is in God’s nature to give good gifts and it is in our nature to receive them.

I titled today’s sermon “An Exercise in Prayer.” Like with most other forms of exercise, things happen when we find the discipline to show up. That’s why Paul said pray at all times. Show up and pray and offer the world to the movement of the Holy Spirit and let God do the rest.

We let the Holy Spirit have the residents at the Ethan Allen home, especially those two funny ladies on the couch. We pray for them. We pray for their parakeet also. We ask that his song will bring a small note of the kingdom to somebody today. On earth as it is in heaven. We pray for Lenny Polow also, thanking him for helping us to see what fun God’s intelligence was having when God imagined us into being. We pray for John Baker, who has gone fishing. We pray that he might continue to be a fisher not only of fish, but of men. We pray for Elizabeth and ask that God would let her know that in our eyes she’s pretty cool too. And finally, we pray for Holly Monta. We pray that she continues to plant seeds of friendship wherever she goes. And we pray also for that guardian angel or padded room or both.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and through the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Dr. Jim: Intelligence Having Fun

"Imagination is intelligence having fun."

That was one of the quotes hanging on one of the resident's doors when I visited the Ethan Allen assisted living home the other day (I preached a sermon on that today that maybe I'll share here tomorrow.). It was Lenny Polow's door and next to the quote was a picture of Lenny. And he certainly did look to be having a lot of fun in that picture.

I want to introduce to you someone else out there who seems to be having a lot of fun with his intelligence. His name is Dr. Jim Somerville. Jim is pastor of the First Baptist Church of Washington, DC and he has just begun posting audio links to all of his sermons at the FBCDC mychurch website.

In the summer of 2004 I showed up in DC set to begin law school that August. By then end of July I had come to the conclusion that I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life and that I needed a giant course correction in life if I was going to save my soul.

Now I have to confess. I really have no idea whether or not the sermons I heard Jim Somerville preach that summer were what saved me. But let's say that right now you are about to make the biggest mistake of your life (some of you are). And let's go even one step further. Let's say that this summer you are where I was three summers ago and that you may very well be in jeopardy of losing your soul (some of you are). Don't you think it just makes sense to play it safe and go hear Dr. Jim?

Horse Race

I am following the Farm Bill like a Derby horserace (where are the julips?). It's neck and neck but I really do think there is enough momentum being pushed for reform.

Here is where the breaking action can be followed: Mulch

This morning Diane Rehm dedicated an hour to the Farm Bill. They had a guy on from the South Plains Cotton Growers Association, which is headquartered in Lubbock. It was nice to finally hear from somebody who doesn't speak with a funny accent.

Too bad he what he said was so misguided. Basically he kept on saying the the Farm Bill is too complex to understand and that those calling for major reform just don't appreciate the nuances. In other words: this is our business, stay out!

People all around the nation are waking to the fact that the Farm Bill affects more than farmers. It affects everyone and it ought to reflect the things that we care about and, above all, it ought to be just.

The Farm Bill is complicated. Very. But here is the bottom line. The way we are subsidizing cotton and a lot of other crops right now is driving small farms to extinction and creating desperate farming conditions abroad.

Complicated or not, as it stands the way we subsidize farming is not working. For that alone we ought to try a new way of doing things.

Farm Bill Fairness Amendment

Oxfam America and Bread for the World are urging us to immediately contact our congressional representatives and ask them to vote in favor of the Fairness in Farm and Food Policy Amendment.

Go here for details on this amendment.

Rep. Welch's support for this legislation is critical.

Contact him today:

Vermont Office
30 Main Street
Third Floor, Suite 350
Burlington, VT 05401
Phone: (888) 605-7270 (toll free in Vermont)
(802) 652-2450

Saying Goodbye

Last Thursday a friend of our church was killed in a tragic diving accident. Kurtis McKinstry was only 23 years old and we were all terribly shocked to learn of his death.

Words fail at a tragic time like this. Yet I remember hearing Charlie Johnson speaking about the first time he had to preach a funeral while in seminary. He was overcome with the weight of the assignment and went and visited one of his professors. He said he cried like a baby. Then that seminary professor got out of his chair walked around his desk and literally shook Charlie. "Listen to me, young man. You are going to go out there and tell that family that Jesus Christ rose from the grave because that is our Gospel and that is what we are called to proclaim."

Into the darkness of death the preacher is called to speak the light of life. Here is what I shared at Kurtis' memorial. May it bring comfort to us all. And may Kurtis rest in peace.

I begin with a story from when Brad and Kurt were very young boys, just five or six years old. The two brothers were playing outside in the yard when the next thing Ruth, the boys’ mother, knew Kurt burst inside the house. He was breathless. “Brad gone cross the hay,” he said. That was six-year-old speak for Brad had gone beyond the natural boundaries of the property and ventured into territory they both knew they were not supposed to go. “Yeah,” Brad said on Saturday, “he was always the one tattling on me.”

Kurtis P. McKinstry.

“A brother.”

Here are some other words and phrases that I have heard used to describe Kurt over this weekend: “A free spirit.” “A good dancer.” “A partier.” “An artist.” “Humble, but cocky” (that one’s from Brad). “A real ladies’ man” (that one’s from his grandma). “A person who loved life.”

Only 23 years old it was a life that was just too short. His was truly a tragic death, and as the preacher charged with coming to you with a message this morning I wish I could tell you I knew the reason why. But I have to confess I don’t. I can only say that I can be here to help us all to mourn well. I pray that that is enough.

When a young person like Kurtis dies we mourn two things. First, we mourn the loss of who he was. We mourn his strength and vitality and zest for life. We mourn his smile and the smiles he gave us. We mourn his presence. We know that the absence of that presence will leave a terrible void in our lives.

But there is something else we mourn also. We mourn not only who Kurtis was, but also who he was becoming. We mourn the fact that he never had a chance to fully know and appreciate the unique gift that he was to the world. Kurtis was still in many ways an adolescent. He was just beginning to become the person he was created to be. Kurt had hopes and dreams and we had hopes and dreams for him. So in that respect we are mourning not only the past we lost, but also the future we never had.

Mourning well is a really important thing. In this culture we are taught to bottle things up and not show any emotion. Men have to be men. No crying allowed.

But let’s don’t forget that Jesus himself cried. Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus in the story that was read earlier by Kurt’s grandpa. What does that tell us? Death saddened Jesus just like it saddens us, and he gave himself permission to feel that sadness. We should give ourselves permission to feel that sadness also. We should give ourselves permission to feel the things that we are feeling. Anger, frustration, grief, regret, guilt, bitterness. We should be honest with each other about the things we are feeling. And the person we should be most honest with is God. God can handle our honesty. God can handle our grief and our pain and our questioning. God is big enough to handle all those things.

Mourning well also means remembering. On Thursday night when we found out about Kurt many of us gathered up at the hospital. As we sat in the room Ruth said something that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. She said that the day she found out she was pregnant with Kurt she drove back from the doctor’s office singing, “I’m the happiest girl in the whole USA.” Pain and loss are a part of the risk of loving. Yet the grace of remembering well is learning to realize that in spite of our loss and our pain we would do it all over again. Ruth and Kevin would have Kurt again. And in spite of the pain today, we too would allow him to come into our lives once more.


Another thing I heard Kurt described as this week was a Good Samaritan. As I gathered with the family and a couple of his friends on Saturday it was decided that it would be appropriate to pay tribute to Kurt by reading that story that Jesus gives us in the Gospel of Luke. Kurt, it was said, was just the kind of guy who would stop and help someone if they needed a hand. He would do anything for anybody. I imagine he got that from his daddy. Whether it was helping out on the farm or at his uncle Jerry’s or uncle Tim’s houses, Kurt was indeed the kind of guy who would take time out to give a hand. I think this sunk in most for me last night when I stopped and read what someone had written on one of the poster boards put out in memory of Kurtis. “Thank you for helping me learn how to ride my bike,” signed Jen. A Good Samaritan, yes, and a hero also in some little girl’s eyes also.

How will you remember Kurt? Some of us will remember him as the guy who always gave hugs. Some of us will remember him as a great football player. Some of us will remember him as the friend who stuck closer than a brother. A few of us will remember him as the son and brother who camped out under the stars and wondered if there was life out there. We will all remember him for proudly living up to the slogan on his own t-shirt: “Mr. Lizard never looked both ways.” He lived and died that way, going for it at full throttle.

I for one am going to remember Kurt just the way I saw him on Wednesday, July 4th. After the parade in Colchester Village a dozen or so of us gathered on the front lawn of the church and played a game of waffle ball. Now we all know that Kurt was tall and strapping and quite the athlete. But he had no qualms playing in the front yard of the church with a few old geezers, a Baptist preacher and a bunch of eight year old church girls.

Kurt was a kid at heart.

Yet he was more than that. He was becoming more than that anyway. There was something deeper stirring inside of him. Some of us saw glimpses of that. After he left the church on the Fourth he took a ride with Kevin and Jill and began asking questions about church. Under that I really do believe he was asking questions about the meaning of life. Just what was happening inside that head and heart of his? I wondered that as I preached on Easter Sunday and saw something coming visibly to life on his face as he heard and wrestled with the Easter message? Just who was Kurt becoming? His grandmother Barb wondered that when just last Wednesday Kurt left a message on her machine and told her that he loved her for the very first time.

I sure wish I knew what was going on inside of Kurt. What was God up to? We’ll never really be sure, but I have a vague notion that something profound was taking place just below the surface.

When a young person like Kurtis dies we pause to look and see what is going on below the surface in us. In the face of life’s fragility it behooves each of us to look beyond the surface of our own flesh see what God is doing down deep inside. It is a time for asking questions — ultimate questions, like who am I? Why was I created? What good will I do in this world? What difference will I make? How will I be remembered?

Last night when we got home from Kurt’s wake I went downstairs and began writing this message. After a while Irie came down. She could tell that I under some stress but nevertheless she sat down right in my lap. She said she was sad because of Kurt’s loss. She said she needed me to hold her. “Love on me,” she said. “Love on me like you have all the time in the world.” I got to thinking about that. We need to love on each other like we have all the time in the world, because the fact of the matter is we don’t. We don’t have all the time in the world. We just have a short time. We just have right now.


Our right now with Kurt has ended. He has gone on to another place — a place that Jesus tells us we should not fear. “Let not your hearts be troubled,” he said. “Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my father’s house there are many rooms. If it were not so would I have told you that I go there to prepare a place for you? I am going there to prepare a place for you. I will come back and take you to be with me so that where I am you may be also.”

In the Lazarus story, after Lazarus has been dead for four days, Jesus finally arrives in Bethany. Everyone is weeping and wailing and mourning the loss of their friend. Mary and Martha are mourning the loss of their brother. Upon seeing Jesus Martha says, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

I imagine Jesus looking at her as tears streak down her face. He wants her to know something — something about Lazarus and himself and the resurrecting power of God. “Martha,” he says, “your brother will rise again.”

Brad, brother will rise again. Kevin, Ruth your son will rise again.

Kurt gone cross the hay.

But we ain’t seen the last of him.

Amen.

The Heat is On

A chorus of voices is beginning to call for substantive reform to this year's farm bill.

In just the past forty-eight hours I have heard or seen it on:

Ethicsdaily.com

Sojourners Magazine

and On Point with Tom Ashbrook

Mourning Marlette

"Welcome to Kudzu"

Those were the first words of welcome I heard when I showed up for my first church job. I was in my third year of divinity school and had been assigned to an academic year of youth ministry at a small church in North Carolina. It was an assignment I was not particularly interested in and had I known what was meant by "Welcome to Kudzu" it might well have been enough to send me packing the first day.

The pastor was of course referring to the comic strip "Kudzu" by Doug Marlette which both honored and made light of the mid-twentieth century South and its way of life. Marlette was raised a Southern Baptist and the preacher in his comicstrip, Will B. Dunn, was modeled after famed Baptist minister, Will Campbell. A central theme in his work was the South's struggle to overcome what Jimmy Carter called "dead weight" of its racist past.

Marlette died Tuesday evening in a tragic car accident. Michael Westmoreland-White has written a nice piece about Marlette's life and work. Marlette was one of the best satirists of his era and earned a Pulitzer Prize for his work in 1988.

In many ways Marlette's death embodies the death of a whole generation of Southern Baptists who were first-hand witnesses to (and participants in) the civil rights movement dramatically altered the Southern way of life for good.

Marlette's work was an artifact of a time that still very much shapes the Southern identity today. Marlette helped us to remember the sins and sanctimony of our forebears in a way that neither canonized nor demonized, but simply told the truth.

That memory will be missed.

Burying the N-Word

On Monday the NAACP buried the enemy.

The N-Word is no more.

I commend Julian Bond and the rest of NAACP for having the courage to say that the N-Word is simply not going to be tolerated - out of the mouth of anybody.

This seems like a no-brainer. But for a long time an argument has been made (by some prominent African Americans, including luminaries like Dick Gregory) that by taking the hate-filled word and appropriating it into new contexts something subversively redemptive can take place. This happened, in an admittedly much simpler and less painful case, at my parents' high school alma mater where the Plainsmen of Monterey High School came to proudly embrace the once-belittling moniker "Peons".

Those who argue that using the N-Word in new contexts are basically saying there is no power in the the word save the power that it has been given. The charge that it has is not in its phonetic syllables in and of themselves, but rather in its context of use. This is the tricky thing about language. It is pregnant with meaning. Historically the N-Word has represented more than just a word; instead it has been a verbal symbol of a whole history of hatred, oppression and violence.

I am sympathetic to this line of reasoning. There is a certain logic to it. It is the same logic that many were using in the Apostle Paul's day to justify eating meat sacrificed to other gods. Here was the syllogism: "If there are no other gods, then in reality this meat has not been sacrificed at all. So let us eat" Well, yes. Logically true. But the way we communicate meaning as humans is, though not illogical, not altogether syllogistic either. Paul was not concerned about logical argument. He was concerned about people's faith and creating a kind of community that would sustain that faith. If someone with "weaker" faith is bothered by meat that is said to have been sacrificed to other gods, then we best not eat. Even if other gods have no ontological being, they certainly have a conceptual being. And that is enough to make a brother fall.

Part of the justification for keeping the N-Word alive is an appeal to "rights". This word has been used against us for so long, now we have a "right" to take the word and use it on our own terms. Fair enough. But I am stuck on Paul's point: what is most paramount in determing what to do is not "rights" but rather community.

I think it is best for our community that the N-word was buried.

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.