Discontinued

This blog is discontinued. For more information on Ryon and the United Church of Colchester please see unitedchurchcolchester.org

Faith and Theology: It's a Boy! A Christmas eve homily

Faith and Theology: It's a Boy! A Christmas eve homily

Read this sermon by Kim Fabricius. I keep reading things by Kim over at Faith and Theology. He is a pastor over in Wales with a prophet's vision and a poet's sword. Just the thing to make your Christmas.

Here's the teaser. . .

Does this little one care about who you are, about your sex, sexuality, politics, or even whether you believe in God, or what God you believe in? No, he reaches out, unquestioningly, to you in your elemental humanity. He wants only your tenderness, moist like cattle breath, warm like straw.

Read the rest.

I'm Going to Walk: An Advent Meditation on Strong, Dark-Skinned Mothers-To-Be

When Irie gave birth to our daughter we showed up at the hospital, parked in the garage as practiced, and then rode up the elevator to the main floor. Irie's contractions were monster, so the walk was very slow, and very painful.

When we reached the main floor lobby a dozen plus wheelchairs sat in dereliction at the front door. I told Irie I was going to grab one, but she refused. "No, I'm going to walk," she said. We continued across the floor, each small step revealing just how far we had to go. We were caught in Zeno's paradox. How could we ever get to the maternity floor if an infinite number of lesser points stood in our way?

And - and this is what really peeved me - why was the maternity ward on the third floor anyway?

We had now come to tortoise speed. And not just any tortoise, but clawed-foot tortoise - chryogenically frozen - and stuck in L.A. traffic - speed. I felt people's eyes. They could not bear to look at Irie. So they were looking at me. I knew what they were thinking. I was thinking it too. "Why don't you get that woman a wheelchair you idiot first-time dad?"

But still, Irie protested. "No. I'm going to walk."

I tell all this because I've been thinking of why it was that Mary was in Bethlehem.

We know the story. "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. . ." And so Joseph went from Galilee to Judea to the city of David. And Mary, who was great with child, went with him.

I've always read the fact that Mary went with Joseph as a sign of the callousness of Caesar's census. And no doubt Caesar and his policies were indeed cruelly callous.

But my experience with Irie has me wondering if perhaps Mary went with her husband, not because she had to, but because she chose too.

I am wondering if maybe Mary decided to stand up and walk because she belonged to that long line of strong dark-skinned women who - the midwives stingingly told Pharaoh - "are not like the Egyptian women, but are vigorous in child birth."

And I wonder if she got up and walked to Bethlehem because she was about to have a boy born beneath the jackboot of empire. So she wanted to teach him a lesson about what it means to stay human in the face of oppression.

I'm wondering all these things. And if they are true then I have to draw one more conclusion.

That Jesus learned his lesson from his momma. And that's where he got his teaching. "If the Roman Empire asks you to go one mile, go also a second."

Go as far as it takes to show Caesar that he may take your name, your date, your tribe, your land, and even your time, but he cannot take your dignity.

Advent Proclamation

The water has broken
The midwife is awash in the virgin's womb
She can see the crown now
A human head adorning God's heart
This is the moment of terror
A race with time

Panic seizes the midwife
She shouts, she screams
But her cries make no difference
It is a gospel of straw
The child will be lost
Caught up with the multitudes
Only St. Matthew remembers
Rachel weeping for her children
She refused to be consoled
The midwife weeping for wisdom
They are no more

Silence

Three days in hell
Without hope and God in the world

And then the miracle
The Word breaks forth
It pieces the silence
In kicks and fits with groans too deep
The child is born

Hallelujah!

Annunciation

I'm in the thick of reading and re-reading the Annunciation and Nativity accounts. At this time of year a preacher pretty much feels like she or he is living in a perpetual Nativity drama. "In the days of the emporer Augustus. . ." keeps spinning around in my head.

Compounding things is the fact that I checked out James Earl Jones Reads the King James Version of the Bible from my local library. Yes, Darth Vader reads the KJV. As I drive around I can't help but think I may actually hear him say, "And now a reading from the 1st chapter of the Book of Luke, I am your father."

Anyway, as I've been reading and listening to the Annuciation account, I noticed that after Mary asks how it might be that she could give birth without knowing a man the angel Gabriel replies by saying that nothing is impossible with God.

What is interesting is that this is the same thing Jesus says much later on when talking about a rich man getting into heaven. "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. . . For man it is impossible, but with God nothing is impossible."

The annunciation brings startling good news: If God canpush a child through the eye of a virgin's womb, then God can likewise push even the most unlikely of us through the gates of heaven.

Another Fold

I let someone go from the church the other day. Not an employee. A parishioner. And a friend.

We met in a coffee shop and she began asking about ways that she can get more involved in church.

But that wasn't what she really needed. What she really needed was permission to leave.

She lives downtown. She has intentionally chosen to live in the poorest neighborhood in Burlington so she can love on and serve the residents there. She lives there so she can be the presence of Christ there. In order to fully live out her calling she needs not only to live there, but she needs to - must - worship there as well. It is obvious that our bedroom community church wasn't right for her.

What amazes me though is how long it took for us to see the obvious. Or, more accurately, how long it took for us to say it. For me to say it.

I want our church to be able to meet the needs of everyone. In the end, however, trying to be all things to all people is a prescription both for schizophrenia in the short-term and heartbreak in the long.

A church must learn to be what it is. A pastor must learn to be what he or she is. We all must learn to be ourselves. If we try to be anything else ultimately it will destroy us. The wineskin will burst.

When I finally did say it - "Don't you think you should go to church downtown" - there was a sudden release for us both. The relationship suddenly seemed much more authentic. The pressure was off. The truth had set us both free.

After she left I sat in the coffee shop for a long while. I knew that what had just happened was for the best. I had given the best pastoral advice I could give and she had taken it. It was the right thing. Yet I was heavy of heart. Sorrowful even.

And then these words from Jesus came over me as a soothing balm, "I have other sheep that don't belong to this fold."

May the shepherd lead you to your rightful fold, my friend.

What We Can Learn From the Wal-Mart Death

Ethicsdaily is running an op-ed I wrote about last week's death of Wal-Mart employe Jdimytai Damour. I'm posting the piece here with their permission.


By now we have all heard about the Wal-Mart employee in Long Island who was trampled to death in last week's Black Friday shopping stampede.

That employee was Jdimytai Damour. He was a temporary worker and had been employed by Wal-Mart for only a week. He was 34.

Mr. Damour's death reveals an underside to not only Black Friday and the whole Christmas shopping season, but to the way we buy, barter, trade and live more generally. Mr. Damour's death is a single, shocking glance at the incalcuable cost of always low prices.

Incalcuable because we don't really know how many more Jdimytai Damours have been trampled by the force of a disconnected trade system. My farming friends here in Vermont have a saying: "Know your farmer, love your farmer."

But the truth is most of us don't know who milked the cows today that we will drink from tomorrow. Nor do we know who cuts the cane for our sugar or picks the bananas for our lunchboxes or sews the shoes for our feet. We have no idea whether they are making a fair wage or—like Mr. Damour—being left exposed to the cruel forces of consumption.

So, in reality, we're a lot like the folks at the back of that Wal-Mart line. We have no idea who's up there ahead of us. We can't see who's being crushed by the weight of our wants. All we know is that there's a sale and the doors are now open.

In Jesus' day a grand tower in Jerusalem fell, crushing 18 people to death. There was a lot of talk about what happened and what it meant. Jesus interpreted it as a warning. He said: "Do you think those 18 were worse sinners than all the others of Jerusalem? No. But I tell you, unless you repent you will all perish just the same."

What happened in Long Island should come as a warning to us all. None of us is guiltier than anyone else. We're all implicated in this myth of no-consequence consumption.

It is time we repent, lest we all be crushed in the stampede.

Thanksgiving Ecumenical Service

I just returned from our annual Colchester Ecumenical Thanksgiving Service.

Tonight we gathered as Baptists, Catholics, Episcopalians, and Congregationalists and did the one thing all Christians should be able to do together. We said thank you to God.

Every year I tell my congregation that the ecumenical service is no small thing. As I said when I preached the service two years ago, our forebears would not have liked what we are doing. The vileness that was embedded in the Reformation and responses to it persisted well into the first half of the last century.

But we live in a new world today. Our forebears might not have liked it, but I do believe God does.

I think we as Christians need more of these kinds of ecumenical encounters. We need them because it helps us to see that Christ is working in and through the ministries of other churches and other traditions. Our real enemies are not those with divergent ecclesiologies or atonement theories.

The church's true enemy in the 21st century is a dehumanizing secularism that sees self-gratification as the summum bonum and will thererfore exploit, consume, annihilate, or subject any person or nation that stands in the way.

An old - but still fresh - word helps keep everything in perspective: "Those who are not against us are for us."

Besides, I just like the whole ecumenical service affair. It's half super formal with collars, and genuflects, and responsive prayers and half low-brow Baptist with me in my dapper tweed asking God all impromptu like to bless the canned foods that have been brought forward in a recycling bin.

And I hear Jesus' prayer to the Father, "That they might be one as we are one."

Amen to that.

Burlington Hunger Banquet
Poverty and hunger are for the most part out of sight and therefore out of mind for most of us.

This holiday season, however, I have been invited to attend an event that promises to call our attention to the injustice of the world and challenge us to do something about it.

My friends at the Oxfam Action-Corps is bringing a number of Vermont's leading anti-poverty and ant-hunger advocates together for an Oxfam Hunger Banquet.

The banquet will include stories, singing, and a meal designed to simulate the real life conditions of disparity separarating the world's richest and poorest populations.

WARNING: You may not get your fair share!

The skinny:

Date: Saturday, December 6th Time:
Time: 6:00 – 7:30 pm
Location: McClure Multigenerational Center 241 North Winooski Ave.
Burlington, VT

Speakers:

Hal Colston of NeighborKeepers
Joanne Heidkamp of the VT Campaign to End Childhood Hunger
Alex Pial of the Visiting Nurse Association


This event is FREE and promises to be an empowering experience facilitated by community leaders advocating on behalf of the poor and vulnerable communities here in Vermont as well as in the developing world.

You are invited too.

Playing the Wrong Game

Like a lot of you I grew up playing Monopoly with my family on the living room floor. I remember I always wanted to be the Race Car. And I treated the game just like it was a race car game. I sped off and did my best to make it around that little square track as fast as I could, not slowing down to miss a beat. Ninety-to nothing I was in my car and I was out to collect my $200 for passing Go! My mother was the banker. “Reading Railroad, do you want to buy it?” “No.” Pass Go! Collect $200. “St. Charles Place, do you want to buy it.” “No.” Pass Go! collect $200. Yes! Boardwalk, Fifth Avenue? No. Just give me my $200. While I was speeding my race car around the board my dad was busy being the Top Hat. The ultimate symbol of a Monopoly baron. St. Charles. Yes, I’ll buy that. New York Avenue. Why yes, I’ll buy that also. Boardwalk, Park Place. Yes, I’ll buy those too. Thirty minutes into the game I’m rolling in the dough and my dad is almost broke.

And then I land on my first house. And then the second house. And then the hotel. “Let’s see,” my mom says, “Boardwalk with two hotels and nine houses and a couple of horses and a Jacuzzi out back. Yes, Ryon will also be needing a $700 billion bailout.” I look up at my dad. He’s standing over me in a top hat in the middle of the living room jumping up and down on my little race car shattering it into pieces.

When I was in divinity school I did a summer internship in an inner-city ministry and made friends with a 13-year-old kid named Alvin. Alvin’s father was in jail for killing his mother and Alvin himself was on the margins. His life was at a critical point. He could go one way or he could go the other. I was glad to be there at that critical time to befriend him and to help steer him in the right direction.

Then my internship was over. I went back to the Gothic Wonderland of Duke. I was just a couple of blocks away from Alvin’s house, but I was a world away from his life. Yet Alvin kept showing up. I was a Resident Assistant on campus and I kept finding Alvin roaming the halls of my dormitory. I would come home from school and there Alvin would be, hanging out beside my door. I mean he was desperate for a friendship.

But I was too busy. I was too busy studying theology. I was too busy plunging the depths of God’s mind. I was too busy trying to make the grade. I didn’t have the time for an interruption like Alvin.

I was driven by fear that Alvin was going to ruin my nice, orchestrated life. Do you see? I was being the Race Car again. I was playing the wrong game again. I had gone to seminary to learn about God and instead I was settling for a theological education.

And I risked a 13-year-old boy’s life while I was at it.

Mighty Waters

As of this writing it has been exactly one week since it was announced that Senator Barack Obama had been elected the next president of the United States. What followed that announcement was an act of ritual cleansing - for our nation and for me also.

When President-Elect Obama and his family walked out onto the stage there at Grant Park black America wept. My father-in-law, who grew up the son of a preacher on Sweet Auburn beneath the shadow of Martin Luther King's Ebenezer Baptist Church, wept. My wife, who grew up in the outcrops of a racially-divided Old South bastion, wept. Jesse Jackson wept. Colin Powell wept. All black America wept.

We saw their tears blazoned across America's television screens. Tears of joy, yes. But more than joy; tears of jubilee.

Those enough close enough could hear the tears as they fell. It was the sound of mighty waters. The sound of a 40 million member chorus, singing through the lump in their throats: I, Too, Sing America.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. compared last Tuesday night to the night Joe Lewis beat Max Schmeling for the Heavyweight Championship of the World. A "magical" and "transformative" moment in African-American history which marks a point when we all know nothing will ever be the same again.

But it was more than that too. When Max Schmeling fell to Joe Louis only the black people of America cheered. As Jimmy Carter tells in his memoir, the black sharecroppers on his daddy's farm listened to the fight on the radio from outside the Carter home. When Louis knocked out Schmeling in the first round there was not a peep from anybody. The black families walked back across the lot to their own homes in silence and shut the door. It wasn't until that door was opened that Carter heard what he described as the sound of all hell breaking loose.

Last Tuesday was different from that. It wasn't just a transformative moment for African-American history. It was a transformative moment for American history. Not only blacks shed tears. Whites did too. And not behind closed doors. The doors were open. The tears were public. Colorless.

Even those who voted for Senator Obama's opponent shared in the momentousness of the night. They echoed the graciousness of Senator John McCain in celebrating the fact that "America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry" of its past.

As I reflected on Senator McCain's words I realized that I too am a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of my own past. When I was a boy I shuttered at the thought of a black family living in my neighborhood. Now a black family will soon be living in the White House. The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The stone I rejected has become my president.

I thank God for all of this. Not for Barack Obama having been elected so much, but for America having been "ready" to elect a black person president.

After the long procession of civil rights marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus bridge in 1965 and made their way to State Capitol Building in Montgomery, Alabama King preached a sermon from the capitol steps popularly known as the "How Long? Not Long" speech. "How long?" Dr. King asked in a series of litanies. "Not long," the response each time.

On January 20 that procession will make its last leg to Washington, DC where a new litany will be heard echoed from the steps of our nation's capitol.

"How long?"

"Now."

Risky Business

I don't usually blog about stuff I'm going to preach on soon. Blogging and preaching are two separate exercises for me - though they do seem shape and refine each other like two measures shaken together and then running over.

Nevertheless I'm sharing something here that I'll share again Sunday. We'll be talking about risky faith and this is a story from our congregation I wanted to share.

We have a deacon at our church and whose phone number is on our church answering machine. If no one is at church and someone is having an emergency they can call her house for help.

You would not believe the kind of calls she gets. The other day some lady called and asked, “Is the owner of the church in, or is he napping?” I told our deacon she should have put her husband on the phone. “Yeah - ahh - this is Jesus; I was napping on the pillow down deck in the houseboat. How can I help you.” (If you don't get that read Mark 4.)

Anyway, back in August our deacon gets a call from a lady looking for someone to do a memorial service for someone in the family who had just passed away. “I’m sure we can get somebody to help you,” our deacon said. “When is the memorial service going to take place?” “Oh, in about an hour.”

You read that right. An hour. Sixty minutes.

Our decaon gave that woman some scriptures to read and told the woman that she would try to call the minister. And then something really cool happened; our deacon decided that if she couldn’t get hold of me, she was just going to go over there herself and read scripture.

You gotta love that. No theological education. No seminary degree. Just a woman who loves God and is compassionate toward people and couldn't stand the thought of a family not hearing words of comfort on a dark day.

Risky faith.

I love it.

A Hand for Richard Land

I want to thank Richard Land for graciously congratulating Barack Obama on his election and for his spot-on comments about how more proactive pro-life policymaking can help create create common ground among the Left and Right.

Here is the link.

Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, calls for President-Elect Obama to support the Democrats for Life initiative known as the Pregnant Women Support Act which, if passed, would offer pregnant and parenting women increased assistance for things like child care and health insurance to low-income and student parents, and tax credits for adoptive parents.

I don't know if Senator Obama already supports this legislation. It seems like this is the kind of legislation that would be in keeping with his post-divisive political promise.

Personally, I think we need to make every effort to make choosing life a real option. That's why I am proud that my church works with Christian ministries like Carenet Pregnancy Center here in Burlington.

Women - and men - facing unexpected pregnancies need all the help they can get. That help comes not only at the point of making a decision about whether or not to terminate the pregnancy; but also long-term help.

In essence, they need community.

Legislation out of Washington can't provide that (churches and synagogues and families can). Nevertheless, this bill is a start. It has us thinking in practical terms about a matter of ultimate importance - how to help make life more livable.

I do hope Senator Obama will support it when he becomes president.

Prayers for President-Elect Obama

The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

A black American has been elected president.

Tonight I sat with my daughter asleep in my arms and listened to John Lewis, that great American civil rights leader and Georgian congressman. Congressman Lewis said that what we have witnessed tonight is another page in the nonviolent revolution that began in Montgomery in 1955.

Whatever your political leanings, let us all tonight rejoice that America is a better place than it was a half century ago. And for that we give thanks to all those who learned to turn the other cheek from Congressman Lewis who learned it from Rev. James Lawson, who learned it from Martin Luther King, Jr., who learned it from Ghandi, who learned it from Jesus.

Tavis Smiley was on NBC tonight. His prayer for Barack Obama is my prayer also. May President-elect Obama deal effectively with the pressures of now being a global icon and may he never lose his soul.

Congratulations Senator Obama.

An Election Day Story

On this election day it is reasonable to expect a pastor would say something about the presidential election. Probably a short homily about how it is important to do our civic duty and not get too out of shape if our candidate doesn't win because in the end Christ is Lord!

Words of wisdom for sure.

If you are looking for something like that I suggest you visit Jim Somerville's blog entry How Would Jesus Vote? Jim is pastor of First Baptist Richmond, VA and his pastoral sensibilities and thought-provoking words far outdo anything I could offer. So, rather than cribbing from Jim I say just go read his blog.

Instead, I offer you a brief picture of the kingdom of God:

Today, while millions of Americans were lining up to vote in this historic election, I went to see a dear friend in a nursing home.

When I arrived I discovered she wasn't in her room. She was in the community room, watching TV. I walked in and could see her from behind. Beyond her were the faces of Fred and LaMonte Sanford who were duking it out about something on the rerun channel.

I pulled up a chair next to my friend, set down and said hi. My movement stirred a number of the other residents from slumber. One smiled. Another frowned. One asked for help. Then they all fell back to sleep.

It didn't take me long to realize that my friend did not have her hearing aides in. Perhaps it was best as Fred was saying some pretty terrible things about LeMonte and his friend from Puerto Rico. So instead of talking, we just sat there. Me caressing my friends arm which was dressed in an old red sweater and perched on the arm of her wheelchair.

A few minutes went by and then I reached down and lifted a couple of items out of bag that I had sitting between my feet.

"The body of Jesus," my friend said.

"Yes," I said with unexpected tears rushing up to my eyes, "the body of Jesus."

So right there, in the midst of all her sleeping neighbors and with the pugilism of Sanford and son going at one another's throats, my friend and I shared the Lord's Supper.

St. Luke begins his account of the kingdom of God movement with a litany of titles and reigns: "In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar - when Pontius Pilate was govrenor of Judea, Herod tetrach of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrach of Iturea and Troconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene - during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. . ." In the midst of all these governments, and figures, and actors on the center stage of history, then Luke says. . .

"The word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert."

And so it is, in the midst of this historic election and all its stars and mega-stars, the word of God still comes in the desert - in nursing homes, and orphanages, and little hole in the wall community centers. The word still comes and gives life.

And no matter who wins this election today, the word of God will do the same thing tomorrow.

I pray.

Ryon

Time and Tide

I spent last weekend with my family at the Nausett lightkeeper's house at Nauset Beach in Cape Cod. A friend of ours who owns the house was very generous in letting us stay at that special home.

I could hardly believe the wind and waves. Nature is having its way with Nauset Beach. The original five acre plot the light was on is now down to only three and a half acres. The sea is washing away three feet of land a year on average. Evidently Cape Cod as a whole is literally falling into the sea.

In the mid-nineties, after ten feet of beach was lost in three successive years, both the lighthouse and the lighkeepers house were moved to higher ground for what must have been an altogether mind-boggling price.

All of this makes the home we stayed at an especially powerful place to stay. Generations of people have fought to keep the light and the lightkeeper's house alive. And it still stands, a beacon in the night.

On the morning we left for the coast I went and visited the oldest member of our congregation. He is nearly 96. "You can live to be a 100," he said as we sat together at his breakfast table, "but even if you do life is still too short." The whole time I was on the Cape I couldn't help but think that those words and the whole story of the Nausett Beach Light were somehow interlinked. We are alive today and perhaps tomorrow but as the psalms say, "Man's life is but a puff." In the end time and tide will have there way.

Yet somehow the effort is worth it. To be alive today is worth it. To be a light in the midst of the darkness right here and right now is enough.

There is a lightkeeper's inn log, less romantically known as a guest book, in the house. Entries date back for decades. In my entry I included my favorite poem, of unknown authorship but first passed on to me by that great African American mystic and churchman Howard Thurman. I thought the words were apt.

The Struggle
You say the little efforts I make
Will do no good
They never will prevail
To tip the hovering scale
Justice keeps in balance
I didn't say I ever thought they would
But I am prejudiced beyond debate
In favor of my right to choose
Which side shall feel
The stubborn ounces of my weight

Joe Six Pack the Plumber

As part of my vocational practice discipline I am reading Eugene Peterson's reflection on the pastoral call Under the Unpredictable Plant. Eugene Peterson is the guy who translated The Message version of the Bible. I have long been amazed by the keenness of his insights into scripture. Under the Unpredictable Plant has proved that he has the read on my soul also.

Peterson says that as pastors we shouldn't buy into the veneer our parishioners often present. An example comes to mind. I'll call him - because its fun - Joe Six Pack the Plumber. On the surface Joe's life doesn't exactly ooze spirituality. He's pretty irregular on Sundays. His wife was his live-in girlfriend for a couple of years before they got married. He knows everything about Nascar, but next to nothing about the Bible.

We see in parishioners like Joe a soulless world where, as Peterson says, all "spirit [seems] to have leaked out . . . and been replaced by a garage-sale clutter of cliches and stereotypes, securities and fashions." In short, we pastors see that we are surrounded by shallow lives.

The problem, Peterson says, is that this is all most pastors see. We allow ourselves to get tricked by the visible and end up missing the remarkably disturbing truth that God is infinitely interested in each and every one of these folks.

I suppose that is the radically upsetting meaning of this idea of a Jesus who was born in a barn and raised in a little town no bigger than Muleshoe, Texas. Joe Six Pack the Plumber has a soul afterall. The task of the pastor is to pay close and long enough attention to notice it and help it grow.

John Claypool liked to tell a story about a child who watched as a crane delivered a giant granite block to the downtown square of his hometown. For months the boy passed by that granite block and wondered at what the craftsman was doing behind the curtain. Finally the work was complete and the curtain was pulled back. Incredulou the child asked the artist, "How did you know that Mr. Lincoln was trapped inside that block?"

The task of the pastor in this "art of arts" is to see what God sees buried inside of the people we encounter and then call it out.

Art of Arts

I have committed to start practicing being a pastor more faithfully. And as any good piano player will tell you, with practice comes - not perfection - but sacrifice. Numerous "outside" engagements and opportunities - all good - are always knocking on a pastor's door. So and so needs this. This organization would like help with that. The list is never ending; and toxic

A couple of thing things in recent months have suggested that it is vital to my spiritual life and the spiritual life of my church that I take Jesus' words as my own - "Get away from me Satan."

So in practicing the pastoral role I'm working on some spiritual exercises. I'm going to visit more. I know, its quaint, but its the purest form of ministry I of. Besides, I can't turn water into wine.

Secondly, I'm going to blog more. And I am going to blog about pastoring more. Writing helps me preach and pastor better. And it brings me joy.

Third, I'm going to read less and more. I'm going to read less junk. Less fly by night blogs and more spiritual classics. You have permission to do the same, which I recognize means you might never read another thing I write. I'm okay with that if you are.

The first spiritual classic I am reading is Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care - appropriate enough for a person trying to practice being a better pastor.

In the first chapter Gregory brings gravity to the office of pastoring by calling it the "art of arts." In fact, the whole quote exhorts even more powerfully:

With what rashness, then, would the pastoral office be undertaken by the unfit, seeing that the government of souls is the art of arts!

I've been thinking about what that means. Pastoring - the art of arts. Here's what I've come up with. The ancient philosophers called wisdom the "virtue of virtues." Wisdom was what enabled one to recognize all the other virtues. It was what enabled one to discern courage, not only from cowardice, but - more expertly - from bravado.

I am thinking then that pastoring is the art of arts because it is the art of being able to discern the artist in others. Good pastoring is the artful ability of cultivating and calling forth the artist from within the soul of others. In essence, it is the ability to see what and who God has created these persons around us to be and then to help them see it too.

You can't do that with only one hand on the wheel.

A final story that is scaring the devil out of me - literally. I read it in Leviticus with Irie the other day. (Yeah, we're reading Old Testament to each other at night. Some read love poems, we read Leviticus.)

The LORD went to great lengths to make clear all the mandates that a priest should follow in making atonement for the people. Cut the lamb this way. Fling the blood on the altar that way. Strike the fire like this. You get the point. Well, it seems that Aaron's two sons didn't pay strict enough attention. They offered up a fire to the LORD in the wrong way. They were killed for it. Harsh. Way harsh, but the penalty for offering an "unholy fire" to the LORD.

LORD, give me the diligence to serve you well. Give me the strength to discern. The courage to say no. Give me the eyes to see and cultivate what you have created in these people you have charged me with. And, most of all, may the fire I offer up to you always be holy as I practice this art of arts. Amen.

VIA Gubernatorial Forum

I want to give a big shout out (ha!) to my friend Debbie Ingram with the Vermont Interfaith Action. VIA has managed to get all three major contenders for this year's gubernatorial race to participate in a forum on VIA's core issues of affordable housing, access to health care, and opportunities for youth.

That's right, Debbie Ingram . . . the Rick Warren of Vermont.

The forum will take place at the October 27 at 7pm at the College Street Congregational Church in Burlington. Gov. Jim Douglas, Anthony Pollina, and Rep. Gaye Symington will all participate.

I'm impressed with what VIA is doing. They have managed to bring together a theologically diverse group of faith communities - including a Jewish synagogue, a Unitarian congregation, and a couple of Catholic churches - to work on solving some shared problems.

The faith community has a vocational mandate to speak to the major issues of our time. In this increasingly secular age our voice is being drowned out. But VIA is showing us that if people of faith speak with one voice then they will be heard over the din.

A good example - Affordable Housing. As part of an agreement with the City of Burlington, a local development was mandated to provide a minimum number of affordable homes. But apparently the practice of some developers is to simply skip out on that mandate and pay the corresponding fine.

VIA blew the whistle on that practice, saying, "That may be technically legal but, hay, don't be a ninny." Or something like that anyway.

Congratulations VIA. Keep up the good work.

This post amended from the original post. Thanks Morgan.

Georgia Baptists

Most of the time when you mention Georgia Baptists people think of Jimmy Carter or Charles Stanley.

I'm posting a link to a conversation with another Georgia Baptist however - Archbishop Malkhaz Songulashvili, from the Evangelical Baptist Church of the Republic of Georgia.

I've mentioned the Republic of Georgia in my last two articles. I want people to know about the courageous witness of Baptists there. When I heard this interview last month I thought to myself: Deitrich Bonhoeffer.

Take the time to listen to this interview. The church continues to witness for hope in the midst of Babylon's terror.

Malkhaz Songulashvili inteview