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.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
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 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...
Thursday, August 02, 2007
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.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
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.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
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?
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?
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
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
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
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
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.
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
In just the past forty-eight hours I have heard or seen it on:
Ethicsdaily.com
Sojourners Magazine
and On Point with Tom Ashbrook
Thursday, July 12, 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Burying the N-WordOn 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.
A Recent Self-Revelation
I have a responsibility to talk about race. I have a responsibility to tell my story and my family's story. I have a responsibility to speak because I have been graced (burdened?) with (figurative and literal) pulpit.
How did I come to this pulpit? Oh, if I only knew how such things happen in this world. When I was a child grown-ups told me that marrying a black lady was a lot like driving a Ford - "there may not be anything wrong with it, but you'll always feel a little funny about it." When I was a child I thought like a child. I spoke like a child. When I was a child I learned to speak like a grown-up.
But when I became an adult I put away the grown-up ways. I became a child again. When I became an adult I married a black lady.
And here is the irony. I do sometimes feel a little funny about it some times. I feel a little funny like W.E.B. DuBois felt a little funny when he looked through the looking glass of double-consciousness and read the world's mind: "How does it feel to be a problem?"
I have a responsibility to talk about race. I have a responsibility to tell my story and my family's story. I have a responsibility to speak because I have been graced (burdened?) with (figurative and literal) pulpit.
How did I come to this pulpit? Oh, if I only knew how such things happen in this world. When I was a child grown-ups told me that marrying a black lady was a lot like driving a Ford - "there may not be anything wrong with it, but you'll always feel a little funny about it." When I was a child I thought like a child. I spoke like a child. When I was a child I learned to speak like a grown-up.
But when I became an adult I put away the grown-up ways. I became a child again. When I became an adult I married a black lady.
And here is the irony. I do sometimes feel a little funny about it some times. I feel a little funny like W.E.B. DuBois felt a little funny when he looked through the looking glass of double-consciousness and read the world's mind: "How does it feel to be a problem?"
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Time for A New Baptist Covenant
As I have written before, President Jimmy Carter has initiated a number of other Baptist leaders from across the theological and political spectrum to begin what is being called a New Baptist Covenant. The hope is that the New Baptist Covenant will serve as a venue for Baptists in North America to join together in affirming traditional Baptist principles. In January Atlanta will play host to a convocation for Baptists from around the world to come and celebrate the new covenant.
I am excited about the prospect of Baptists coming together to witness to what I hope is a budding culture of grace and goodwill, as opposed to the culture of rancor which has defined Baptists in the public eye for too long. On the night Jesus was betrayed he prayed that his disciples might all be one. I do not know if we will see that prayer answered in our lifetime. But I do know that January’s meeting will mark the closest we Baptists have come since before the Civil War. If, as the old preachers used to say, "the Lord is willin’ and the creek don’t rise," I will be truly delighted to be there in Atlanta.
It is interesting to note how many of the Baptist denominations which will be represented at the New Baptist Covenant meeting in January have names that derive from either geographical or nationalistic sources. Just a cursory glance at the participating organizations reveals all sorts of place names: American Baptists Churches, USA (formerly the Northern Baptist Convention), Canadian Baptist Ministries, National Baptist Convention of America, Inc., National Baptist Convention USA, Inc., Progressive Baptist National Convention. In addition to these officially participating organizations there looks to be a heavy contingency of Southern Baptist participants as well.
These fixed place names contrast markedly with the Biblical text the New Baptist Covenant has chosen as the key scripture for the convocation. In the Luke 4 story Jesus has come home to visit the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth. He opens the scroll of the Hebrew Scriptures and reads from the book of Isaiah. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, and declare deliverance to the captives, to let the prisoners go free and to declare the year of the Lord’s favor.”
The text is unique in that it does not talk about the blessing of geographical place, which is exclusionary. Rather the text refers to the blessing of a time, which is liberally expansive and all-inclusive. The year of the Lord’s is the time acceptable to the Lord when no one is left out. When Jesus comes to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor he comes to baptize all geographies and nationalities into the flaming fire of the all-consuming Holy Spirit.
It is really quite a magnanimous statement and the people receive it with much cheerfulness. Jesus is unimpressed by their enthusiasm however. Immediately he goes into a story about Elijah who, though there were many widows in Israel at the time, went instead to minister outside of Israel at Zeraphath in Sidon. “No doubt about it,” he tells the crowd, “you are going to say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” The inference is clear. Jesus is going to do what Elijah did. Suddenly the cheers turned to jeers. The idolatry of a particular place and people over all others was the original sin that caused the people at Nazareth to reject Jesus.
Next Wednesday most of the members of my church will stand outside on the front yard and wave and watch as a throng of cars and floats make their way down Main St here in the heart of Colchester Village. It will be a great day just like last year. And just like last year I will be decked out in red, white and blue. Yet in the back of my mind I will do my best to remember that though my country ’tis of thee, but it is not Thee.
At the very core of the Baptist identity is what is in every generation the radical notion that one simply cannot equate church and state. I applaud the many participating organizations listed above, and a dozen or so others, which have recognized that geographic and nationalistic identities must all be subsumed under the Lordship of the anointed Christ.
Jesus has come to inaugurate the year of the Lord’s favor. And all nations shall, in the end, bow down in the fullness, wonder and magnanimity of that time and be blessed.
I am excited about the prospect of Baptists coming together to witness to what I hope is a budding culture of grace and goodwill, as opposed to the culture of rancor which has defined Baptists in the public eye for too long. On the night Jesus was betrayed he prayed that his disciples might all be one. I do not know if we will see that prayer answered in our lifetime. But I do know that January’s meeting will mark the closest we Baptists have come since before the Civil War. If, as the old preachers used to say, "the Lord is willin’ and the creek don’t rise," I will be truly delighted to be there in Atlanta.
It is interesting to note how many of the Baptist denominations which will be represented at the New Baptist Covenant meeting in January have names that derive from either geographical or nationalistic sources. Just a cursory glance at the participating organizations reveals all sorts of place names: American Baptists Churches, USA (formerly the Northern Baptist Convention), Canadian Baptist Ministries, National Baptist Convention of America, Inc., National Baptist Convention USA, Inc., Progressive Baptist National Convention. In addition to these officially participating organizations there looks to be a heavy contingency of Southern Baptist participants as well.
These fixed place names contrast markedly with the Biblical text the New Baptist Covenant has chosen as the key scripture for the convocation. In the Luke 4 story Jesus has come home to visit the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth. He opens the scroll of the Hebrew Scriptures and reads from the book of Isaiah. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, and declare deliverance to the captives, to let the prisoners go free and to declare the year of the Lord’s favor.”
The text is unique in that it does not talk about the blessing of geographical place, which is exclusionary. Rather the text refers to the blessing of a time, which is liberally expansive and all-inclusive. The year of the Lord’s is the time acceptable to the Lord when no one is left out. When Jesus comes to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor he comes to baptize all geographies and nationalities into the flaming fire of the all-consuming Holy Spirit.
It is really quite a magnanimous statement and the people receive it with much cheerfulness. Jesus is unimpressed by their enthusiasm however. Immediately he goes into a story about Elijah who, though there were many widows in Israel at the time, went instead to minister outside of Israel at Zeraphath in Sidon. “No doubt about it,” he tells the crowd, “you are going to say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” The inference is clear. Jesus is going to do what Elijah did. Suddenly the cheers turned to jeers. The idolatry of a particular place and people over all others was the original sin that caused the people at Nazareth to reject Jesus.
Next Wednesday most of the members of my church will stand outside on the front yard and wave and watch as a throng of cars and floats make their way down Main St here in the heart of Colchester Village. It will be a great day just like last year. And just like last year I will be decked out in red, white and blue. Yet in the back of my mind I will do my best to remember that though my country ’tis of thee, but it is not Thee.
At the very core of the Baptist identity is what is in every generation the radical notion that one simply cannot equate church and state. I applaud the many participating organizations listed above, and a dozen or so others, which have recognized that geographic and nationalistic identities must all be subsumed under the Lordship of the anointed Christ.
Jesus has come to inaugurate the year of the Lord’s favor. And all nations shall, in the end, bow down in the fullness, wonder and magnanimity of that time and be blessed.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Racialism
On both Thursday and Friday I got a chance to watch one of the most provocative and productive social change-agents in the last quarter of the last century and the first quarter of this century. Who am I talking about? Oprah.
Oprah's subtlety and endearing staying power has given her a platform amongst both white and black Americas that is unparalleled. I do not know the demographics but suspect that women still form the vast majority of her viewership. However, Oprah is a phenonemon to be contended with. When she talks we all listen.
I don't know if it was a set of reruns or not, but Oprah hosted a twod-day "town hall" forum to discuss the whole Imus scandal. She amassed a number of movers and shakers in the black community including Stanley Crouch, Russell Simmons, India Arie, Common, Al Sharpton, Diane Weathers and Ben Chavis.
Everyone agreed that there is "a problem" but none of the representatives from hip hop were willing to admit that they themselves are in some way responsible for the mysogeny we hear in rap lyrics. Instead, Russell Simmons kept pointing a fingure at poverty as the real culprit. I agree to some extent that economic oppression fosters environments where exploitation takes root.
But as Stanley Crouch said, on the whole "I'm not buying it."
For too long black scholars and public intellectuals have been relunctant to speak out because they have been afraid of being accused of not understanding/supporting young black culture. In essence they have accepted a culturally/morally relativistic argument ("I'm poor and black and couldn't help but sing about what I know") because they have not wanted to be seen as further diving an already fractured community. This is what Cornell West calls "racialism" which basically means giving a pass to people because they belong to your race community.
No more passes. True black culture is not pimps and hoes and should not be represented as such. It is too bad it took a white man to show us that.
Oprah's subtlety and endearing staying power has given her a platform amongst both white and black Americas that is unparalleled. I do not know the demographics but suspect that women still form the vast majority of her viewership. However, Oprah is a phenonemon to be contended with. When she talks we all listen.
I don't know if it was a set of reruns or not, but Oprah hosted a twod-day "town hall" forum to discuss the whole Imus scandal. She amassed a number of movers and shakers in the black community including Stanley Crouch, Russell Simmons, India Arie, Common, Al Sharpton, Diane Weathers and Ben Chavis.
Everyone agreed that there is "a problem" but none of the representatives from hip hop were willing to admit that they themselves are in some way responsible for the mysogeny we hear in rap lyrics. Instead, Russell Simmons kept pointing a fingure at poverty as the real culprit. I agree to some extent that economic oppression fosters environments where exploitation takes root.
But as Stanley Crouch said, on the whole "I'm not buying it."
For too long black scholars and public intellectuals have been relunctant to speak out because they have been afraid of being accused of not understanding/supporting young black culture. In essence they have accepted a culturally/morally relativistic argument ("I'm poor and black and couldn't help but sing about what I know") because they have not wanted to be seen as further diving an already fractured community. This is what Cornell West calls "racialism" which basically means giving a pass to people because they belong to your race community.
No more passes. True black culture is not pimps and hoes and should not be represented as such. It is too bad it took a white man to show us that.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Preaching Ourselves
I just gave Irie Parker Palmer's book The Courage to Teach. In the inscription I wrote, "In honor of your courage to teach and to love." I've enjoyed sneaking a peek at the book here and there. Palmer's thesis - that teachers must not only teach subject material but in some way teach their own lives also - is causing me to reflect some on the meaning, not only of teaching, but of preaching also.
Palmer says that good teaching takes a variety of forms, but invariably bad teaching can be pretty well summarized by the picture of a lecturer with a big bubble coming out of his mouth: Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah.
Bad teaching is essentially words abstracted from personhood. The heresy undergirding this is gnostic dualism. The false hope that ideas can save us.
I am realizing that as a preacher I cannot simply preach the text. "The Bible says. . ." Ultimately that leads to a flattened conception of both the text and of God. Instead as a preacher I must learn to stand in the gap between ideas (Scripture/text) and people. I have nothing but my own story and the witnessing story of the Church to stand there with me.
Palmer's book has many convergences with what John Claypool called "confessional preaching". The basic assumption of both these individuals is that words alone have no power to save. Words must instead be embodied. Words must be told through the character and story of the proclaimer. This is why Palmer says it takes "courage" to teach, because it is inherently risky business to offer one's body to the world.
It is inherently risky business when the word becomes flesh and dwells among us.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Nifong's Excuses
On his blog today one of my former professors Mike Broadway has an interesting quote from a Duke law professor who says that what Mike Nifong, the former district attorney of Durham, NC, did in the Duke Lacrosse case was really not that unusual for a district attorney.
Here is the quote from Duke U. law professor James Coleman:
Here is the quote from Duke U. law professor James Coleman:
Everybody wants to say that Mike Nifong is some kind of rogue prosecutor, but in
fact, what he did is not that different from what other prosecutors do on a
regular basis in cases out of the spotlight.
One of the things Nifong did that people are upset about is the way he came out and publically called the accused students a bunch of "hooligans." The thing is that these kinds of public statements are made all the time by district attorneys. And certainly those public comments do much to shape public opinion long before the facts are in.
But I'm not as concerned about what Nifong said as what he did not say. He was not forthcoming with DNA evidence that favored the defendants. NPR reported this weekend that Nifong blamed an overburdensome caseload. Of course, that excuse didn't hold water because this was THE Duke Lacrosse Case. But if it wasn't THE Duke Lacrosse case then the public may very well have accepted that kind of excuse without much question.
Which brings up another point. . .
If Nifong was not prevaricating when he said he didn't have adequate time or staff to give sufficient attention to THE Duke Lacrosse Case, then what does that tell us about the kind of attention being given to less high profile cases?
Sobering.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
I've Got a Fever and the Only Cure is More Farm Bill!
On Wednesday we attended a House Party hosted by our friend Debby and her friend Brendan (with yellow dog). We watched a PBS video about how US farm policy is having a detrimental effect in the developing world.
When I start talking about the Farm Bill and all that is at stake eyes begin to glaze over. I don't really think its that people don't care. They do by and large. Very few people I know are blatantly callous enough simply not to give a rip about people in the developing world going hungry.
But eyes do glaze over nonetheless. I think that is because we have been so trained not to have to pay attention that anything complex that comes along just goes right over our heads. After years of sitting back and taking in easy-to-consume television we just don't know how to pay attention.
And the dark principalities of this world love that because it means that their power can remain hidden.
So, if you care about people not being hungry here is a crash course in how US farm policy is contributing to global insecurity. Pay attention:
1. Our goverment gives lots of money to US farmers to produce crops like wheat and cotton
2. This creates incentives to produce lots. And I mean lots
3. We take what we don't use and sell it at basement prices
4. We sell our crops for less than it costs farmers in the developing world to produce theirs
5. This means they make next to nothing (like a buck or two a day)
So, that wasn't too bad. Now go and pay attention to the video to learn more.
The (Politcally Active) Christian Citizen; Or: "That's right, IceMan, I am dangerous."
The latest issue of the Christian Citizen has just come out. The Christian Citizen is a magazine put out by ABCUSA focusing on issues of justice and faith-informed social action.
In his editorial "The Church and Politics" Curtis Ramsey-Lucas writes, "Simply because politics is dangerous does not mean that Christians have the luxury of opting out of the Process." He points to various political movements in our nation's history - the Civil Rights movement, the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa, etc. - and underscores the fact that the Baptist denomination was intimately involved. (Of course, the Baptist denomination was intimately involved on both sides of the struggle for Civil Rights.)
What I find interesting is the fact that many who would say we ought not to "mix politics and religion" are oftentimes the very same people who will take great pride in the heroes of our faith who did just that. A case in point is the burgeoning interest in William Wilberforce and his role in putting an end to the British slave trade. The truth is that, when pressed, most of us will admit that the distinction between what is political in nature and what is religious is at best arbitrary and oftentimes altogether false.
I think that Ramsey-Lucas' statement about politics being "dangerous" may shed some light on what we as Christians really think. For something to be dangerous means that it may cost us something truly valuable - our job, our reputation and in some cases our very life. When we say something is "political" and therefore choose not to enter into the fray, what we are really saying is that we are not passionate enough about the cause to risk losing anything very meaningful.
Ramsey-Lucas closes his essay by saying that as Christians we have the "opportunity" to let our faith speak by asking those who want our vote in the 2008 election to tell us what they are going to do about poverty, hunger and educational inequality here and abroad. These are indeed the kinds of questions we as people of faith ought to be asking. But in order for these questions to be truly "political" in nature then we as Christian citizens are going to have to learn to ask them in risky or - to borrow a word from Ramsey-Lucas -"dangerous" ways.
I suppose this means that if we are going to ask a question that matters then we are going to have to put our own selves in the hot seat. We are going to have to ask these questions when others are telling us we ought to be asking or doing other things. It means we ought to ask them in a public forum when we could have gone home and watched reruns of "Friends" instead. It means we ought to ask them when it would be a lot nicer not to ask anything at all but just smile and get along and let the market do its thing.
In his editorial "The Church and Politics" Curtis Ramsey-Lucas writes, "Simply because politics is dangerous does not mean that Christians have the luxury of opting out of the Process." He points to various political movements in our nation's history - the Civil Rights movement, the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa, etc. - and underscores the fact that the Baptist denomination was intimately involved. (Of course, the Baptist denomination was intimately involved on both sides of the struggle for Civil Rights.)
What I find interesting is the fact that many who would say we ought not to "mix politics and religion" are oftentimes the very same people who will take great pride in the heroes of our faith who did just that. A case in point is the burgeoning interest in William Wilberforce and his role in putting an end to the British slave trade. The truth is that, when pressed, most of us will admit that the distinction between what is political in nature and what is religious is at best arbitrary and oftentimes altogether false.
I think that Ramsey-Lucas' statement about politics being "dangerous" may shed some light on what we as Christians really think. For something to be dangerous means that it may cost us something truly valuable - our job, our reputation and in some cases our very life. When we say something is "political" and therefore choose not to enter into the fray, what we are really saying is that we are not passionate enough about the cause to risk losing anything very meaningful.
Ramsey-Lucas closes his essay by saying that as Christians we have the "opportunity" to let our faith speak by asking those who want our vote in the 2008 election to tell us what they are going to do about poverty, hunger and educational inequality here and abroad. These are indeed the kinds of questions we as people of faith ought to be asking. But in order for these questions to be truly "political" in nature then we as Christian citizens are going to have to learn to ask them in risky or - to borrow a word from Ramsey-Lucas -"dangerous" ways.
I suppose this means that if we are going to ask a question that matters then we are going to have to put our own selves in the hot seat. We are going to have to ask these questions when others are telling us we ought to be asking or doing other things. It means we ought to ask them in a public forum when we could have gone home and watched reruns of "Friends" instead. It means we ought to ask them when it would be a lot nicer not to ask anything at all but just smile and get along and let the market do its thing.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
The Power of an Indestructible Life
On Sunday we honored our two graduating high school seniors during church. It was a fun day with lots of smiles and a couple of stories and some very meaningful words spoken by parents to their children.
These girls were of course badgered with the requisite graduating senior question. "Now that you've graduated, what are you going to do with your life?" That is, of course, the wrong question. The question everyone ought to be asking is instead, "Now that you've graduated, who are you going to be?" It is the difference between being a fisher in the world and a fisher of men in the kingdom.
During the sermon I said that being a Christian is going to mean choosing a path which will often diverge from the status quo. As Flannery O'Connor wrote, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd."
When I graduated from high school someone said pretty much the same thing to me. "Being a Christian means you are different. It means you are going to have to live differently from your friends." I heard that and, whether it was intended or not, pretty much thought everything that was being said was referring to sex. "Being a Christian means not doing it till you're married," which would indeed mean being pretty odd in today's world.
Being a Christian certainly means our sexual practices should look very different from the world's (sadly, they often don't). But a lot more is at stake than just sex.
In Hebrews the writer talks about the "power of [Jesus'] indestructible life." Jesus lived such a profoundly counter-cultural life that he was able in death to transfigure the shame of the cross into the glory of the heavens.
As Christians we are to share in that profound power. Yet the only way to do so is to ourselves join in Christ's suffering.
As I write this I realize how domesticated my Christianity really is. I am richer than ninety-nine percent of all the people who have ever lived on earth. That is a daunting thought when I consider the Scriptures word for the rich.
The power of Jesus' indestructible life has laid a claim to all of me. Not just my sex life, but also my bank account and my free time. That is why being a Christian is so incredibly difficult and so incredibly, well, "odd".
So today, eleven years ahead of these girls, I am doing exactly what I hope they are doing. I'm wondering who it is that I'm going to be.
These girls were of course badgered with the requisite graduating senior question. "Now that you've graduated, what are you going to do with your life?" That is, of course, the wrong question. The question everyone ought to be asking is instead, "Now that you've graduated, who are you going to be?" It is the difference between being a fisher in the world and a fisher of men in the kingdom.
During the sermon I said that being a Christian is going to mean choosing a path which will often diverge from the status quo. As Flannery O'Connor wrote, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd."
When I graduated from high school someone said pretty much the same thing to me. "Being a Christian means you are different. It means you are going to have to live differently from your friends." I heard that and, whether it was intended or not, pretty much thought everything that was being said was referring to sex. "Being a Christian means not doing it till you're married," which would indeed mean being pretty odd in today's world.
Being a Christian certainly means our sexual practices should look very different from the world's (sadly, they often don't). But a lot more is at stake than just sex.
In Hebrews the writer talks about the "power of [Jesus'] indestructible life." Jesus lived such a profoundly counter-cultural life that he was able in death to transfigure the shame of the cross into the glory of the heavens.
As Christians we are to share in that profound power. Yet the only way to do so is to ourselves join in Christ's suffering.
As I write this I realize how domesticated my Christianity really is. I am richer than ninety-nine percent of all the people who have ever lived on earth. That is a daunting thought when I consider the Scriptures word for the rich.
The power of Jesus' indestructible life has laid a claim to all of me. Not just my sex life, but also my bank account and my free time. That is why being a Christian is so incredibly difficult and so incredibly, well, "odd".
So today, eleven years ahead of these girls, I am doing exactly what I hope they are doing. I'm wondering who it is that I'm going to be.
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