Wonder

I look at this picture and think about what the Psalmist says about us being wonderfully made. I usually take that word wonderful to describe God's activity - God's creative action. But seeing this picture of my kid I have to think it describes more than God. It also describes us. Think about it. We were wonderfully made. In other words, wonder was on hand when we were being made in secret and woven in the depths of the earth. Wonder is a basic part of our genetic makeup. We are quite literally "wonder full".

Part of the tragedy of the human fall was our loss of wonder. When we ate the fruit, and began knowing things that only God had beforehand known, we grew smarter but lost that sense of absolute awe that makes us so giddy that we can do nothing but break out into doxology:

O the depths and the riches and wonder of God. Who has known his mind and who has been his counselor?

James Baldwin once wrote that the purpose of art is to lay bear the questions that have been hidden by the answers. Looking at this picture of Gabrielle I long for that lost womb of God's imagination, where I knew nothing and all was possible.

Dismas House

Saint Dismas

Last night Irie, Gabs and I attended the Dismas House of Vermont annual dinner. I delivered the invocation - which means that I provided the first awkward moment of the evening. "And now, let us pause from the fun we are having and remember that God is still watching. . ."

Our church has been sending a troop of six or so people over to Dismas every month or so for a while now. (Props to Mary Lynch for taking on the organization of that.) Dismas is a transitional home for people who are re-entering our community following a jail or prison term. I have had a great time every time I've gone and have discovered that I am willing to fight for dinner rolls just as much as the felon sitting next to me.

Olin Robison, professor emeritus of Middlebury College, gave the keynote address. That didn't impress me much. But the fact that he was a Baylor alumni made me think he might actually have something of substance to say. I'm glad I listened. His speech was shorter than I would have liked, but his thoughts imaginative.

Robison talked about the request by James and John to sit with Jesus, one on his left and one on his right, when he came into his kingdom. "That is not mine to grant," Jesus said. Robison made the point that James and John assumed Jesus would be draped in royal garments and seated on a throne of glory when he came into his kingdom. They were wrong. When he came into his kingdom he was hanging naked from a cross - not so very becoming for a king.

For whatever reason, James and John were spared the agony of having to die with Jesus. Instead, two common criminals held the places next to Jesus when Jesus came into his kingdom.

I think what Robison was getting at was this: It could have been James. It could have been John. It could have been them hanging naked next to Jesus. And except for grace, it could have been us too.

Catholic tradition has it that a man named Dismas was one of the two criminals next to Jesus when he came into his kingdom. It was Dismas who turned to Jesus and begged him to remember him when he came into his royal power. Dismas' request stands the request of James and John on its head. They were asking out of a desire for glory; Dismas was asking out of a longing for grace.

A lot of politicians and talking heads on TV earn their living by getting some people riled up about needing to be tougher on crime, etc. They make anyone who has ever served time out to be less than human. Its bread and butter for them.

But places like the Dismas House keep reminding me that convicts and felons are human also. I know that because I keep bumping elbows with them as we pass the dinner rolls around.

And I look up from my plate and think, "You know, it could of been me. But for grace, it could have been me."

Sinners at the Table of an Awesome God

"The Lord's Supper" Fritz Eichenberger

Pastors-to-be go to seminary and talk about the radical nature of Jesus' call - how he gathered the sinners and tax collectors. We decide that that is exactly the kind of community we are going to gather when we pastor.

It turns out, however, that Jesus has already gathered that community in the church. Misfits and miscreants and juvenile delinquents and alchoholics and gossips and holier-than-thou tax evaders are all there waiting for us in the pews.

The trouble for us in ministry is that we read a story like Jesus having dinner at Levi's house and pretty much put ourselves in Jesus' place. But the fact is we are a lot more like the sinners and tax collectors and are in constant jeopardy of being like the Pharisees - awfully surprised by who has shown up for dinner. At some point we have to come to the realization that we are not so much the gatherers, but rather the gathered.

I have been reading Eugene Peterson's book Leap Over A Wall. I love what Peterson says about the church in all of its rag-tag messiness. "For myself...I refuse to either apologize for the church as it is or attempt to improve its image. Apologize for David's crew-the distressed, the debtors, and the malcontents at the cave of Adullam? Improve the image of Jesus eating with crooks and whores?"

Like Peterson, I am not going to apologize anymore; and I am going to try and quit demanding apologies also.

A Confession of Faith, Bizzarely Stated

I believe we were made for God and each other. All of us. Male and female, God created us - to know and love God and to know and love one other. The sky was beautiful that day. In the tragedy of the human condition, however, we, like sheep, all went astray. The seamless garment of our humanity was ripped in two - then to pieces. A spell was cast. A deep, impenetrable darkness again returned to hover over the face of the deep and cloak the beauty of the world. We all put on masks, hewn out of fig trees. We could no longer bear the thought of anyone seeing us as we really are. We were ashamed.

Then a light turned on. The Light, really. The one Light from whence the sun got its burn and the moon its glow and the stars their twinkling wink. The Light turned on and there was a man standing at the door. His name was Jesus. It was all very surprising. He asked to come in and have dinner - with us. With me. He feasted lavishly and laughed a lot. A little too much for some. Someone asked what in the world he thought he was doing with us sinners. He looked at them incredulously, as if they had missed the whole point. "Who else would I eat with?" he asked. "I came to be with the sinners, not the righteous."

He came to other houses too. He healed people and talked about the coming of a new age. He taught with authority. He spoke with power. He was NOT boring. It was all good news. Someone asked him if he was the Messiah - the anointed one of God. He just winked. But I swear I saw the twinkle of the stars in that wink. Then they came for him. At midnight. Under the hushed cloak of darkness; the powers of a cruel world came and took him. But he did not resist. He told us to put away our swords. By that afternoon he would be dead - convicted on a bunch of false charges. He was executed as an enemy of the state.

The sun mourned. The moon cried. The stars lost all their twinkle.

Then, on the third day he rose again. From the dead. And not just his ghost. But his body. Tom touched his hands to make sure.

This changed everything. Death has been swallowed up by life. The darkness has given way to the Light. A whole new world has been born over. There is a new creation.

So what do I believe?

I believe that we are the bearers of the hope of this new creation. We have been entrusted to announce the coming of a new age where hatred gives way to love, sadness gives way to joy, strife is overcome by peace and death will one day, for all of us, give way to resurrected life. We have been graced to carry on Jesus' ministry and to be his ongoing presence in the world.

The Village Church

I love the village church. It is a sign of the faith of generations' past. I wrote an article about the history of our church for the Colchester Sun earlier this year.

Since the Sun didn't post that article online I have decided to post the text myself. It is long, but worth the read I think. . .
My wife and I are celebrating our one year anniversary as Colchester residents. We moved here last February from North Carolina when I accepted the call to be the pastor of the United Church of Colchester. Ours is the brick church in the village with the tall, spired steeple. We share the parking lot with the Burnham Memorial Library.

One of my first tasks as a pastor in a new church and a new town was to familiarize myself with both the history of the congregation and the history of the community. Joyce Sweeney, a longtime resident of Colchester and member of the United Church, handed me Ruth Wright’s book Colchester Vermont From Ice-Age to Interstate. Wright includes in her book an excerpt from the diary of Rev. Nathan Perkins, a Connecticut minister who toured the region in 1789. In those days ministers were among the most highly educated in society and their surviving journals oftentimes provide invaluable insight into the temperament of a particular people at a particular time in history. I was hoping I could glean a little insight from Reverend Perkins’ experience and parlay it into my current context. His description of the topography, terrain, and fauna was just what I expected:
Moose plenty on ye mountains over against Jericho, Essex and Colchester – people hunt them – eat them in lieu of beef - & get their Tallow. Bear and wolves, plenty – timber, beach maple, – pine, hemlock, cherry-birch & some oak and Walnut – land extra ordinary good . . .

What I had not expected was Rev. Perkins’ account of the people of this area, which was altogether shocking:
[P]eople nasty – poor – low-lived – indelicate – and miserable cooks – All sadly parsimonious – many profane –yet cheerful and contended – the women more contented than ye men turned tawney by ye smoke of ye log huts – dress coarse & mean & nasty & ragged.

I often wonder if the construction of what is now the United Church of Colchester either precipitated or resulted from the end of all that meanness and nastiness. In either case the construction of what is now the brick church must have been quite an undertaking for such a “sadly parsimonious” group. Yet despite whatever personal difficulties they might have had, the Congregationalists and Baptists pooled their resources and ingenuity in 1838 and built themselves a fine church which outlasted Rev. Perkins and several other generations of ministers after him. The church is a grand building with a picturesque New England village church steeple on top. On occasion I will slip up into the attic just below the belfry and marvel at the construction. The lumber was all hand chopped and precision fitted. Only the sturdiest of pine and hemlock was selected. It is obvious that the builders intended to craft something that would last. In commenting about the construction of the building one person in our congregation recently said to me, “You know there was probably no blueprint at all for this building, but someone sure as heck knew what they were doing.” Indeed they did.

For twenty years the Baptists and Congregationalists shared the building until the Baptists raised enough to build their own white church down the street. Sixty years later the two congregations merged to become one single congregation – the United Church of Colchester. The United Church continued to use both buildings for several decades until the white church was sold to the town in the 1990s. That building now serves as the Colchester Meeting House.

When I was officially installed as the pastor last May I began thinking about what kind of footprint I might like to make over these next few years. I again turned to Ruth Wright’s book to see what kind of legacy the ministers before me had left. What I read there shocked me once more.

According to Wright, the first minister of the United Church, Stephen Talbot, knew how to preach a serious sermon. The congregation, however, was apparently more captivated by his young son Andrew’s attempts to escape the confines of a pew – by any means necessary. Rev. Delbert Donnocker’s sermons packed a punch but he was “more remembered for his wife’s culinary skills, and for his personal love of a fast horse.” These, and the flop of a clambake he proposed. (Perhaps things would have turned out differently had he solicited the counsel of his wife in the matter.) But my favorite has to be Rev. A. Ritchie Low, whose erratic driving apparently left a real impression on the hearts, minds and yards of the congregation.

After reading these accounts I was beginning to suspect Joyce Sweeney had acted with malice of forethought in not disclosing this book to me before I answered the call to come as pastor. But then I read a little more about Rev. Low’s tenure and realized that indeed I was called as pastor of the United Church of Colchester for a very distinct purpose. According to Wright, in 1929 Rev. Low “began working out plans for interracial fellowship at the child level.” An interracial fellowship at the child level in 1929? What that would have meant I do not even know. What I do know is that my wife Irie and I are expecting a little girl sometime next month. I am white and Irie is black and when that child is born a dream that was begun way back in 1929 will finally come true. We will have interracial fellowship at the child level at the United Church of Colchester.
I suppose that is the really wonderful thing about belonging to a church as old as ours. You are always living out someone else’s dreams.

Much has changed since the Baptists and Congregationalists first dreamed of building themselves a church in the early 19th century. The moose in these parts have disappeared. And so have the log huts. The poverty, though not completely eliminated, is much diminished.

But for all that has changed about the context of our ministry, one thing remains the same. We are still working to create a place where others can come and find grace. That is what it meant to be church when the brick building went up in 1838; and that is what it continues to mean all these many years later.

In that sense you might say we are still building the “brick church.” There are still no blue prints. We only have the dreams of those who came before us. And our dreams as well. And faith that someone knows what the heck they are doing . . .

Green Step

Our friends Annie, Michael and Sam live across the street from the church and have just begun a weekly email that lets others know what kinds of things can be done to conserve energy and reduce pollution around the house. The email is called Green Step and gives us one small step a week to make a difference.

With absolutely no permission from any of them, I am pasting a copy of step 1 below. To receive other steps email green.step.email@gmail.com.

Green Step 1: Unplug the power vampires in your house

Since a number of people read our invitation letter and asked why we
unplug our cell phone charger, we thought we'd start by passing along
what we've learned about household power drains. Many appliances that
appear to be officially "off" are actually consuming energy. Although
some folks blandly refer to these as "standby power appliances," we
prefer the more intriguing names of "vampire power" or "phantom
loads."

Any device that has a big plug (known as a wall pack or more aptly as
a "wall wart") is a power vampire, using energy when merely plugged
in. An appliance that continues showing a light or clock when off,
anything with a standby feature, or one with a remote control is too.
Here's a quick list of assorted vampires: cell phone chargers,
computer chargers, ipod chargers, Game Boys, televisions, vcrs, cd
players, battery chargers, flashlight chargers, hairdryers, power
tools, printers, baby monitors.

Although these items seem like small energy drains, they add up, both
in your electricity bill, and in their contribution to global warming
pollution. Wasted energy adds up to 10% of your bill, and as An
Inconvenient Truth's website reports, "the energy used to keep display
clocks and memory chips working accounts for 5 % of total domestic
energy consumption." While that number may seem small, it is
responsible for sending out "18 million tons of carbon into the
atmosphere every year." Or as worldwatch.org puts it: "vampire-like
standby devices…suck 26 power plants' worth of electricity every year
in the U.S. alone. That's 26 power plants spewing pollution and
disrupting our climate just so the vampires can sit at our beck and
call."

What can we do? Be vigilant about vampires at home: unplug any
appliances you aren't using right then and there; unplug chargers when
they are done; plug your tv and vcr into a power strip connected to a
wall switch and turn the switch off when you are through so the whole
unit is off; use the sleep mode on your computer and turn off your
computer and monitor when not in use.

What else can we do? Tell a friend, tell a colleague, tell your
roommate. We're taking this quote from Goethe to heart: "It is not
enough to take steps which may someday lead to a goal; each step must
be itself a goal and a step likewise." We hope this step has helped.
If it has, please pass it on or pass along our email address. Thanks
for being a part of this effort to share information. If you have any
suggestions, questions, or ideas, please let us know. We hope you'll
be in touch.


Peace,
Annie, Michael, and Sam
green.step.email@gmail.com

Tony Two

I've been in a conversation regarding my last post about Tony Campolo. He took a lot of flack for ministering to Bill Clinton during the whole Lewinsky thing - as did Bill Hybels of Willow Creek. Too bad that isolated them from some evangelicals. But I have found it interesting in recent years that secular media just latch onto the fact that they did what they did. I can't figure out if it is a part of the cult of personality that surrounds Bill Clinton or if, down deep inside, there is something that is telling them that if an evangelical Christian could stand by the side of a guy who did what Clinton did then maybe what I thought about the message of Jesus might be worth listening to again...for the first time.

A Red Lettered Jesus

Its worth checking out the link below where Tony Campolo was on The Hour last night. I think he does an incredible job of talking about who Jesus is to a very secular audience.

Jesus hangs out with sinners and tax collectors and even Canadians. Imagine that.


http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.php?id=1073

Pastor's Page

This is a rough draft for the pastor's page on the church website. I am interested in feedback. Does this say something which might compell someone enough to get the kids up on Sunday morning and try church again - maybe for the first time?

Hello and welcome. Or, as I leaned to say growing up in West Texas, “Howdy, stranger.”

Stranger. That’s a pretty good place to begin. It is my hope that this page will give you, the stranger, a brief introduction to who we are and will serve as an invitation to come and get to know us the old fashioned way – in person.

I like to tell people that we are a church that is becoming.

Actually, we’ve been a becoming church for a long time now really. Since 1804 in fact. When the bricks were laid for what is now the United Church of Colchester, the building tripled as the Baptist church, the Congregationalist church, and the town meeting hall. Like a lot of other New England churches, our church was the place to be.

But things changed; a whole generation of New Englanders quit going to church and there came a day when the members of the United Church of Colchester didn’t know if they were going to make it. Then a really cool thing happened. A small group of faithful people came to the conclusion that they still had something good here and decided not to quit doing life together. So they kept on gathering and kept praying and somehow they kept the lights on. And they survived the storm.

Now we’ve turned a corner. On any given Sunday a steady stream of children’s feet can be heard pattering up and down the halls. Adults gather on Sunday mornings and regularly throughout the week to pray and study scripture together and talk about work and home and rest and play and piece all those things together into the arrangement I like to call spiritual living.

We believe we were made for relationship with God and each other. With that in mind we are trying to do two very simple things. Love God and love neighbor. Bottom line.

If you come to visit us you will discover we have done our best to preserve the character of the church we inherited from generations past. With wooden pews (cushioned now) and stained glass and a beautiful steeple on top, our church is indeed a traditional Vermont village church. For over 150 years people have gathered in our humble sanctuary to marry, bury, laugh with, listen to and love one another. Sometimes when I need a break I will go in there to sit by myself. I always get this peculiar feeling that I am not alone, but that a cloud of witnesses sits with me. Our sanctuary is more than a quaint space. It is a sacred one also.

We are Baptists, and wherever two or three Baptists are gathered there will be food. So we eat together a lot – not because we love food (we do) but because we love each other and because we believe something really special happens when people break bread together. I think this is why a lot of the parables Jesus told about the kingdom of God were about banquet feasts.

A seat will be left empty for you at our banquet. No matter who you are. No matter where you have been. No matter what you have done. We will welcome you. We will say, “Pull up a chair. Tell us your story. Share with us in this feast called life.”

Your children will be welcomed too. We will welcome their laughter because it gives us buoyancy. We will teach them our stories because it gives them faith. We will not stop telling them that God loves them – without remainder.

We are truly a church that is becoming. And we hope you will become along with us.

Strangers no more,


Ryon

Connectivity

My friend and mentor Charlie Johnson has begun a new blog. Charlie is one of the best Baptist preachers around and we are all hoping this new forum will give Charlie's voice a larger audience. It is a voice that needs to be heard.

I remember the first time I heard Charlie preach. I was in college and had been invited to speak to the high school Sunday School class at Second Baptist Church, where Charlie was pastor. Second B was the church I had attended as a boy before my family quit church altogether.

When I arrived at Second B my most consistent adult experience of church had been the seeker service kind. Some praise songs that got us all in the mood and then a very "relevant" sermon - usually with three points, illustrating the three "principles" we could all take home from the scripture.

Charlie's preaching was entirely different. He didn't preach a how-to sermon. Instead his preaching was more a kind of unleashing. Whereas so many others preach about the gospel, Charlie understood that the preaching act itself is in fact part of the gospel. For the first time I realized that to proclaim the Gospel is to let loose the power of God which first spoke life into the world. "Let there be..."

Sermon: Letting Children and Others In

Letting Children and Others In
Rev. Ryon L Price
United Church of Colchester
September 24, 2006
Mark 9:30-37


I turned thirty this week. It has been a long while since birthdays were a big deal. Twenty-one was of course a significant milestone – from what I remember of it anyway. But the last eight have just sort of come and gone. Hum drum.
Needless to say I didn’t see it coming. I thought thirty would be another yawner; but I was wrong. Way wrong. Apparently for everyone else in the world thirty is a really, really big deal. My health insurance jumped up by nearly half – which should concern you because you pay my premium. For the first time I received a birthday card that began with a statement like, “It doesn’t matter how many birthdays you’ve had…” That was supposed to be reassuring but it sounded patronizing. Backhanded even. If it doesn’t matter then why remind me? And then, to top things off, my mom called and she just couldn’t quit saying, “Thirty years.” “I just can’t it’s been thirty years.” “It just doesn’t seem possible that it has been that long.” My mother of all people. I kept thinking, I used to get candles and cake; now I get insults. “Gee, Mom, thanks!”
Yet I wonder if the profound reality is that my mom might be wrestling with the truth that if I am thirty years old, she is now thirty years older. That did little to comfort me of course.

We live in a culture where youth has unprecedented power. Just look at all the activities our kids are involved with their infinite practices and ballgames and recitals and we can see that we are not only kid-friendly, but we can sometimes be kid-run. This is why we have to have “toy free” checkout lanes at the grocery store. Some of you parents look at me knowlingly.
If we are to get what Jesus’ is trying to say we must imagine a very different world from our own. From the very beginning I think it is important for us to realize that children in Jesus’ day belonged to a much lower station in life than their contemporaries today in the first world. In fact it is much better to compare the children of Jesus’ day to the children of somewhere like third-world Africa. It is these children who are the most vulnerable to death and disease and the abuses of corrupt military and political powers. If we can imagine the kind of lives these children live then we might well come close to imagining the kind of lives children lived in Jesus’ day.

We have been talking about how in the eighth chapter of Mark there is a dramatic turn in the course of events. The first half of the book is characterized by a certain rocket-like combustionable force. Jesus bursts onto the scene of Galilee like British rock stars busted onto the American shore in the 1960s. Reading all the signs correctly, Peter confesses to Jesus his belief. “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” But then the rising action climaxes with sudden and surprising foreshadowing of a dark turn in the narrative. “Then,” the scripture says, “Jesus began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer and die.”
The disciples were having none of it. They refused to hear what they did not want to hear. Their vision was too clouded by their own religious, political and ideological preoccupations and the delusions of their own grandeur to see Jesus for who he really was. As they walked along, the disciples began arguing about who amongst them was the greatest. Jesus knew something was up. Perhaps he heard their muffled rumblings. “Me” “Mine” “Greatest” “No team in I” When they reached Capernaum, Jesus had had enough. It was time for an intervention. “What were you arguing about on the way?” he asked. Embarrassed silence was their response.
He sat down and called the twelve to him, “If anyone wants to be first, he must be last and servant of all.” Then he took a child, and set the child before them, and put his arm around him and said, “Whoever welcomes one of these children in my name, welcomes me. And whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the Father who sent me.”

I have a friend who coaches seventh grade basketball at a middle school in Dallas. Now I have to tell you that most kids don’t grow up idolizing their seventh grade coaches. Us kids who played basketball in junior high all thought we were going to grow up and be the next Michael Jordan. The Nike commercial still plays in my head. “Be like Mike, if I could be like Mike.” Somehow it never occurred to us that not all of us could be like Mike, but that some of us were going to grow up and be like my own seventh-grade coach, Coach Arterburn. As much as I loved and respected him, “Be like Arterburn” just didn’t have quite the same ring to it.
Coaching seventh grade wasn’t my friend Jayson’s idea of making it big time either. Nevertheless there he found himself two years ago suffering through a winless season coaching one of the worst teams in the history of Dallas ISD sports history. And just to add insult to injury to that ill-fated season, the team was getting drowned by thirty in the final regular season game. It doesn’t get any lower than this.
With a few minutes left in the game Jayson decided to clear the benches and let some kids who seldom saw any playing time have a chance to run up and down the floor a few times. He even put in the manager, Timmy, who was physically and developmentally disabled and had a penchant for shooting the ball anytime he touched it – no matter where he was on the court. I don’t think Jayson ever really thought that Timmy might actually touch the ball; instead he thought the other kids would keep it between themselves. But as fate would have it, with just over a minute left in the game someone was desperate enough to pass Timmy the ball. He was standing just inside the half court line when the ball fell into his hands and he turned reflexively and heaved it toward the bucket. I can imagine that in the brief second it took for that ball to sail toward its goal all of the darker human emotions of shame and repugnance reared their ugly heads in the hearts and minds of Timmy’s teammates and coaches. And yet hidden beneath those dark emotions I believe there was also a sprig of human hopefulness and longing, buried like a mustard seed in the depths of the dark earth. If you had to put words to that tiny, hopeful feeling it would sound something like a prayer. “Please, Lord, for Timmy’s sake, please.” As the ball arced toward its final destination all breath was held within the gym and then released in a sudden, collective and unmistakable burst of sound. S-W-I-S-H.
The game came to a complete stop. Parents and fans and both teams rushed the floor and hoisted Timmy into the air. Suddenly for my friend Jayson and for all those others gathered there life had been put into perspective. Winning and losing didn’t matter so much anymore. Being on the bottom of the coaching ladder did not matter anymore. Not only did the question of “Who is greatest?” no longer matter; the question no longer even made sense. For the lowly had been raised up. Yes, for the sake of the lowly. But for Jayson’s sake also. And for the sake of all people in that gym. And for our sakes too. And for the sake of the entire world.
“Let this little child come in,” the hymn says. And not just for the sake of the child. But for the sake of us who allow the child to come in and find space and change our lives. “For whoever welcomes a child, welcomes me,” Jesus says. The scriptures tell us that we must open ourselves and our homes to the stranger because in doing so people have sometimes entertained angels unawares. Jesus’ teachings today go even beyond that. He says that in opening ourselves up to the lowly, we open ourselves up to God.
The Biblical word for this is hospitality. It means creating an open space for others to come into. Our challenge as the community of God is to work toward creating that space so that single mothers might feel that they can give birth to their children and that the alien and foreigner among us might also find a place to be him or herself in spite of differences in theology and worldview. Simone Weil said that creation is that space where God ceased to be all things so that we might be some thing. And so it is with us.

You may or may not have noticed that many of today’s music pieces revolve around the theme of water. That is quite appropriate given the events of my life this past week. As another piece in my rite of passage into old-age this week, I baptized someone for the first time. Now I have to admit that up until now I have felt a little phony as a minister. Yes, I had married and buried but not yet dunked anyone – which is the primary charge Jesus gives his followers at the end of the book of Matthew. “Go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” A minister who is only burying old Christians but not baptizing new ones soon learns that he is working himself out of a job. So I am very glad to have now dunked someone in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Brad, the young man who I baptized is home on leave from the war in Iraq and the son of two Kevin and Jill McKinstry who are both a part of our congregation. Most of the time this would have been a more church-wide affair and would have involved him joining our church as a member as well. Since Brad will not be staying here but heading back to a base in California however, we felt it was appropriate that we were baptizing him into the Christian body at-large. As we sat along the banks of Lake Champlain, contemplating our courage to enter into the chill of the early-fall waters, I talked to Brad and his family about the importance of this moment he was entering into. I said that being baptized is being baptized into the life and death of Jesus Christ and then raised into his resurrection. It is a death – a kind of burial itself – where the shell of our old lives are washed away and we are raised into new life with Christ. It is a submission of our lives to the claim of Christ – a promise that the Way of Christ will be our way. It is a promise to strip ourselves of all our pretences toward greatness and leave them on the banks of the shoreline and enter into the waters, adopting the words of the first baptizer John the Baptist as our own, “He must increase. I must decrease.” “What is your profession of faith?” I asked between the cold rattle of my clattering teeth. “Christ is Lord,” Brad responded.
As we were leaving that spot along the banks, I secretly pocketed a small, stone from among the shoreline. Thousands and perhaps millions of years of waves lapping against the shore have worn this rock flat and smooth. The course edges are gone. The rough edges have been flattened, and buffed.
When we submit ourselves to the waters of baptism we in faith say no to the false dreams we might have made of ourselves and yes to the dream God has for us in the womb of his imagination. The coarse edges of our lives are made smooth. “Have Thine own way Lord,” we sang earlier, “Have Thine own way, Thou art the potter and I am the clay.” To say yes to God is to say yes to whatever form God desires to make out of us.
To be baptized is in the end to come to a profoundly new understanding of who and what is great. When we fall back headlong into our Baptismal waters, the whole world is turned upside down. The lofty are brought low and the lowly are raised up. And there is only one answer to who is the greatest and that name is Jesus Christ our Lord.
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

On the "Principles" of Christian Education

At Michael Westmorland-White's http://anabaptist418.blogspot.com has some interesting thoughts on the tragedy of Biblical illiteracy in the church. He has some ideas of how we might go about turning the tide.

My comments were the following:

The real objective is to get our whole community hearing and reading the scriptures again that their lives might be shaped by the narrative. But what I have found in most youth and children's curriculum is not a primary emphasis on the story (ie - Jonah and the fish) but on the "Biblical principle" that story is meant to teach. The question of course is, just what is that principle? And once we "get it" do we throw out the husk and keep the kernel?I think that is what we have primarily done and that is why we are in such a crisis right now in the way of Christian ed. We have stripped the scriptures of all their own creative powers and settled for good "Christian principles" like "be nice" and "share." No wonder kids think the Bible is so boring.

The idea of the creative power of story is really central to what I think we as the church most need to be teaching. If we can train our churches toward the point of what Richard Lischer calls "thinking in Bible", much like a native French speaker thinks in French, then I think we may come a long way back toward really seeing ourselves as living in the world of the Bible. Stories seem to have a much more compelling force than do "principles", which lack the imaginative power to testify to a God who creates something from nothing and raises life from death.

Perhaps G.K. Chesterton articulated best what I am trying to say in his book Orthodoxy (Harold Shaw Publishers 1994, p. 28)

The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone.

The virtues of being a good boy and then growing up to be a nice gentleman simply fail at the point of creativity. And in that sense they are maddening because they are dull. And nothing is more maddening than dullness.

And here is my big concern - one MWW said he shares with me - The church can and should not count on an unbaptized secular school system (no matter how good it is). The church must be the one to teach us to pray and read the scriptures and love our neighbor as ourself.

Sermon: Under the Table and Into the Fire

Under the Table and Into the Fire
Rev. Ryon L Price
United Church of Colchester
September 10, 2006
Mark 7:24-37; Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23

Irie and I have returned from our jaunt to the Maine coast. I am embarrassed to admit that our trip completed my transition. With the volume of fish and clams I consumed I can now no longer classify myself as a vegetarian, but am now a full-fledged "pescetarian."

As we drove down the Maine coast what we found most peculiar were the monuments erected to the men who fought for the cause of the Union. Irie and I grew up with monuments dedicated to men on the other side of that terrible war decorating our town lawns. It is almost unimaginable that this one nation under God was at one time so bitterly divided. And I thank God that those wounds continue to find healing.

Jesus is on a trip of his own in today’s Gospel story.
He has entered the region of Tyre, which was largely a gentile region – and a despised one at that. There was more than a friendly rivalry between the Jewish people and their neighbors to the north. This was not Duke–UNC or Colchester–Winooski. The hostility between the people of Tyre and the people of Israel was long, bitter and bloody. Tyre was infamous among the Jewish people for its complicity in the slave trade that saw thousands of Israelites stolen from their homeland hundreds of years earlier. The Jewish people had not fully forgiven them for that. Many still hoped for one day when the Lord’s condemnation of Tyre would one day come to pass:

I will thrust you down with those who descend into the Pit, to the people of
long ago, and I will make you live in the world below, among primeval ruins,
with those who go down to the Pit, so that you will not be inhabited or have
a place in the land in the living.
Ezekiel 26:20

There really is no mincing words here – according to Ezekiel Tyre can and will quite literally go to hell.

It is to this land of all places that Jesus has come in today’s gospel reading. We are not told why he has come or what he plans to do while he is here. Yet, I suspect, it may have been sheer weariness that brought him here. He had just suffered an intense encounter with a group of Scribes and Pharisees who had come from Jerusalem and were questioning what appeared to them to be his rather lax morals. "Why do your disciples not wash before dinner, but eat with defiled hands?" "Do you not respect the law?" "Where is your sense of decency?" I suspect that after an encounter with a group of teetotalers like this, Jesus was slipping off to Tyre for a little rest. Perhaps not unlike a pastor slipping off to Maine to have a couple of beers where nobody will recognize him?

Yet that seems to be just Jesus’ problem in the book of Mark. Scholars refer to the "Messianic Secret" because Jesus is always telling folks not to say anything about him being the Son of God. The irony of course is that it is that the secret isn’t really a secret. Everyone seems to know or suspect that Jesus is the Messiah – everyone but the religious authorities, that is.
Apparently this woman in the story is in on the secret too. Or perhaps she’s just heard whispers. Perhaps because her daughter was possessed by a demon she is desperate enough to try anything or anyone. What else is a mother to do but hope when she thinks the devil is in her child? Hearing that Jesus has come to Tyre she scurries to find him and ask that he might heal her daughter.

Here is where things get a little unsettling. This woman is a Syrophoenician; meaning that she’s not a good Jew like the ones who came from Jerusalem to hassle Jesus about his lax morals. This woman doesn’t keep kosher. She’s not clean. Her daddy wasn’t circumcised on the eighth day. She is therefore certainly no child of the living God. "Save my baby," the woman cries out. But Jesus plays the fox, "Let the children be fed first," he says, "for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs."

But this woman will not be outfoxed, "Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs."

I suppose mothers will go to most any length to see that their children are well. The great writer and thinker G.K. Chesterton told the story of a man who was something of a rogue who died and was cast into hell. His business associate, a deacon in the church and an upstanding citizen in the community, went to the gates of hell and in the most professional and courteous way politely asked, "Please, let my partner out of there." The devil declined. Then the condemned man’s priest came and begged, "Please, for mercy’s sake, let that man out." Again, the devil was unmoved. Finally, the condemned man’s mother arrived on the scene. Without so much as a bat of an eye she charged up, rattled the gates and surprised everyone when she did not beg to have her son back but instead yelled, "Let me in there!"

The Apostles’ Creed tells us that that is exactly what Jesus did for the sake of God’s children:

I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth and in his only
Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the
virgin Mary, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, dead and buried. He descended
into hell.

This is the depth of Christ’s love for us. That he would descend even into the Pit to save us.
David Steinmetz, one of my seminary professors, told us in his Church History lecture course about a Presbyterian who had come to Duke to do her divinity degree and really suffered for that choice later when she came before the Presbytery to have her fitness for ministry examined. First there was the problem of her being a woman. And why did she not go to Princeton, the Presbytery wanted to know? Or Westminster? But, Duke of all places, a Methodist school? The grilling went on insufferably like this for several hours and the young woman grew more and more aggravated by what she thought was an unfair trial. At last the final question was to be asked – the question which would serve as the litmus test for whether or not this person was indeed a true Calvinist Presbyterian or a Methodist wolf in Presbyterian wool. "Would you be willing to be damned to hell for the sake of the Gospel?" the inquisitors asked. "Yes, I would be damned for the sake of the Gospel," the would-be minister responded. "And I would even go one step further," she said. "I would even be willing to have you and the entire Presbytery damned to hell also…but only for the sake of the Gospel of course."

That woman trapped her inquisitors in their words much like Martin Luther says the Syrophenician woman trapped Jesus in his. "You want me to be a dog? Then I will be a dog. For my daughter to be well I will be a cat or a dog whatever you want me to be, and I will go through whatever you want me to go through." Her love was unqualified, and unconditional, and totally self-effacing. And it absolutely broke Jesus’ heart because it reflected God’s own self-effacing love for his children. The fact that this woman would willingly become a dog for the sake of her child mirrors, in all its startling beauty, the fact that God – for the sake of his own children – became a man. And because of that her daughter was healed.

In the summer of 2001, I was a "tour liason" in New York City. Tour liason was a neat little euphemism my employers dreamed up to explain why I was directing large groups of people up the World Trade Center or over to Yankee Stadium without an official New York City Tour Guide License. "No, officer, I am not guiding this group of people. I am directing them. I am not a tour guide; I am a tour liason." All the work for half the pay.

At any rate it was a wonderful summer for this boy from Lubbock, Texas to take in the sights, sounds and seediness of the Big Apple without having fully taken on all the responsibilities of adulthood. Near the end of my stay I eerily reflected in my journal, "I can always come back to New York, but I will never come back to right now. There is no way I could have known at the time how true that would be. We can all of us always go to New York, but we can never go back to June, July or August 2001.

As we enter these next forty or so hours together we prepare to enter into a holy time of remembrance of those whose lives were lost five years ago – those who cannot go back to New York at all. We remember where we were and how we felt when we heard the news. We were scared. We were mournful. We were angry. Our thirst for vengeance resembled Ezekiel’s curse against Tyre: "I will thrust you down with those who descend into the Pit."
These were and are our feelings and part of the natural grieving process is allowing ourselves to feel them so that we can move on. Yet, whatever hatred and enmity we might feel, we must not presume that God feels just as we do.

What made Harry Emerson Fosdick famous in the first part of the last century was in part the fervency of his preaching which rallied young men from all across the nation to take up arms to fight in the First World War. Fosdick later arrived at a more nuanced theology of war. At the end of his life Fosdick wrote in his book The Living of These Days that when he imagined Christ in the warring world he did not see Christ arrayed in the panoply of battle, but on his judgment seat, high above the fury, sitting in condemnation of us all – aggressor, defender and neutral all alike – who by our communal guilt have somehow all contributed to a way of life that is so estranged from the way of life Jesus taught us to live.

I too imagine Christ seated on the judgment seat looking with horror upon the demon-possessed nations. Yet I also see the image of the Syrophenician woman standing beside him. Her child is in her arms. She comforts Jesus. Ministers to him. She reminds him of his own love – even for the demon possessed.

Perhaps that is why I am not so bothered by the monuments erected in the South in honor of the "Boys Who Wore the Grey." My how glad I am that they lost, lest in the tragedy of history Irie and I would never have been allowed to meet and fall in love and marry as one fully human woman and one fully human man. Yet I understand the monuments, and I am glad that they stand because the boys who wore the gray too had mothers who loved them and lives that mattered to Jesus Christ.

When I think of September 11, 2001, I think of its heroes. I think especially of New York City’s firefighters who raced into the smoke and flames. Their mission was clear and unencumbered by geography or religion or ideology. Their mission was to save lives and valiantly they sacrificed their own lives to do so. I think that is the truth about Jesus Christ we must live with most deeply today. The truth that Jesus has come to save lives regardless of geography or ideology. The truth that his heart breaks for the thousands of mothers who lost children on September 11th and for the many more tens of thousands of mothers who have lost children since. Good or bad, Christian or Islamic, Jew or Gentile, black or white. They matter to Jesus. And so however we might respond to 9-11, in order to be faithful to the true Jesus, we must resist the temptation to strip him of that universal compassion because in the end he is the one who has raced into the fire. He is the one who became a dog. He is the one who for our sakes even went into hell.

And on the third day he rose again.

And because of that, so shall we.

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

On Hearing My Child For the First Time

I heard you yesterday. For the first time. Your sound was quick and healthy and alive. One hundred and seventy beats a minute.

Ba-bump, Ba-bump, Ba-Bump

It really was amazing to sit and listen to you. Your mother smiled and squeezed my hand. Light flashed from her eyes. She loves you already. So do I.

It takes a lot of hope to bring a child into today's world. The world is dark. Even darker than where you are right now. It takes a lot of hope, but darkness is not dark to your Daddy.

Here are some of my hopes:
That you will know you are a gift
That you will like to read
That the same tingles I get when walking into a sanctuary will find their way to your spine also
That you will change the world (I know, perhaps that's a little too much)
That you will forgive me
That you will get the whole potty training thing really early
That we will be friends
That you will have your mother's smile, and that light will flash from your eyes also
That I will never quit listening to you

NIMPs

This article originally appeared as a column at Ethicsdaily.com.

Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Seminary, has written an interesting assessment of the current state of women in Baptist ministry. Citing a study titled "Baptist Women in Ministry", Mohler says that though moderate Baptists publicly affirm the right of women in ministry, they are relunctant to actually call a woman to serve as pastor of their church.

Though I have not seen the data upon which Mohler bases his claims, my suspicion is that he is probably right. There are a lot of Baptist churches that I refer to as NIMPs - Not In My Pulpits. These are the churches that affirm women in ministry abstractly, but have a hard time walking the walk in any kind of concrete way. NIMP churches also have a hard time calling ministers outside the dominant racial and ethnic makeup of the congregation.

A personal anecdote serves well here. I am a white man married to a black woman. We were both raised in the South and after I graduated from divinity shool we began looking for a church in which I could serve as either pastor or associate pastor. Since most of our connections were in the South we naturally began looking for baptist churches in that part of the country. In the process I was introduced to a woman who serves as the congregational contact person for one of the major moderate Baptist divinity schools in the country. She told me that it may be a very long time before I would find a home in the South. She said even most moderate congregations, which perceive themselves as being open to all races, would trip over the stumbling stone of a white pastor and a black wife. It was evident how painful it was for this kind woman to tell me that; but she wanted me to know the truth. "The search committee will look at your resume and they will all agree you are a great candidate," she said, "but they will say the community just isn't ready for something like that."

The problem, of course, is that our communities might never be ready. Communities tend toward remaining within the of parameters what is comfortably familiar. We need more moderate Baptists, both clergy and laity, to help our congregations see how imperative it is to step out of the boat - ready or not.

I took the hint and began entertaining the idea of serving a church outside the South. We are now happily serving in an American Baptist Church in Vermont - the second whitest state in the Union. How proud we are of our congregation for saying, "Yes, in our pulpit!"

Mohler may be giving moderate Baptists the same reality check that woman gave me. Rather than wrangling with Mohler about how substantive the differences between moderate Baptist life and hardline fundamentalism is or is not, moderate Baptists should all agree that there needs to be greater tangible evidence that we are committed to women in ministry. I think moderates should thank Mohler for this challenge, and then be about the business of conforming our lives to our convictional talk. I include myself in this challenge; and I plan to go to greater lengths to include lay women in worship and invite ordained women to proclaim the Word in our church.

The old refrain still echoes, "How long?" How long will it be before we moderate Baptists begin making conscious decisions to practice what we preach about women and people of color? The answer to that question matters, not only for the sake of our integrity as moderate Baptists, but also for the sake of the Gospel we proclaim.

Baptist Peacemaking (corrected)

Mercer University's August Baptist Studies Bulletin has just come out and there is an excellent article by Glen Stassen. With humility and keen perceptivity, which have become the trademarks of this misfit evangelical, Stassen calls for Christians to reaffirm Jesus' central teachings about how we are to live.

Stassen's point that we as Christians must continue to take the initiative toward making peace with our enemies is valid and timely, not only for our country's Christian leaders, but also for us in the local church. What Stassen in other places calls "transformative practices" may very well melt the heart of whoever is forcing us to walk two miles. But even if not, they are still worthwhile in their own sake insofar as they make real and historical the ethical practices that are the "kingdom coming."

Yet the real bugaboo for most of us Christians is that in daring to live out the ethical commands of the Sermon on the Mount, we must be willing to renounce whatever recourses we have to power and coercion. That is why Stassen's point that living the Kingdom Ethics and adult baptism are so intricately bound up with one another. To turn the other cheek is to confess that I am not a god - that my ultimate allegiance is to Jesus Christ and not my own glory or success or security. A profound and sobering call that requires deep consideration and commitment.

As we seek to practice these commands as individual Christians in local bodies it is necessary that we realize that doing so may very well cost us our efficiency and effectiveness in the eyes of the world. A small body of Christians practicing this kind of enemy love may never grow to be a huge church or have a huge bank account or a bug in the ear of our representatives in Congress. And the question we are all asking ourselves is, "Will we dare?"

Centrist Baptists? Who are They?

Robert Parham has written an editorial for EthicsDaily.com calling for Cenrist Baptists to begin blogging more diligently.

I lament the fact that so much of what we see from televangelists is fake and unnuanced and much of the time just downright mean-spirited. But perhaps that is what plays to the crowd, while the faithful take to more humble tasks like working for peace and caring for the sick.

I hope that more "Centrist Baptists" will come online to change the discourse of what it means to believe in Christ, that the darkness of this world might see the light of Christ's community, and not just a different shade of night. I think we can do this by following the insights Jerrod Hugenot, from the Roger Williams Fellowship, shared in his article Ethics of Blogging.

So, yes, let us "Centrist Baptists" blog on. But let us do it with humility and with the purposes of Christ and His kingdom in mind.

Centrist Baptists? Who are They?

Robert Parham has written an editorial for EthicsDaily.com calling for Cenrist Baptists to begin blogging more diligently.

I lament the fact that so much of what we see from televangelists is fake and unnuanced and much of the time just downright mean-spirited. But perhaps that is what plays to the crowd, while the faithful take to more humble tasks like working for peace and caring for the sick.

I hope that more "Centrist Baptists" will come online to change the discourse of what it means to believe in Christ, that the darkness of this world might see the light of Christ's community, and not just a different shade of night. I think we can do this by following the insights Jerrod Hugenot, from the Roger Williams Fellowship, shared in his article Ethics of Blogging.

So, yes, let us "Centrist Baptists" blog on. But let us do it with humility and with the purposes of Christ and His kingdom in mind.

Six Months

August 8, 2006

Friends,

Grace and peace!

Six months, if you can believe that. That's right, we've been on this journey together for six months now and the first leg of our journey has been full of excitement and hope for the future of the United Church of Colchester. We have prayed together, broke bread together, served the poor together and we have even climbed mountains together.

As we begin our second six months together and begin to climb even greater mountains I pray that we will each dedicate ourselves to being more intentional in finding time to be shaped by the stories of our faith. Our Scriptures are not just an account of lives lived, they are the definitive account of life itself. I pray that we will begin to more completely see our own stories in the stories of faith, and share those connections with one another. The leadership of the church is working hard to create more opportunities for shared study and I hope everyone will make a genuine effort to be involved in this important piece of Christian formation.

Sunday worship is becoming an exciting event. And indeed it should be. Worship should reflect the life with God, which is anything but boring. It is my hope that each Sunday we will hear and sing great music which reflect the time-honored tradition of the church, that we will pray with and for one another, and that the hope the resurrection will be preached in a fresh and inspiring sermon. Pray as we seek to make put together a worship service that is all-at-once welcoming to outsiders, reflective of who we are as a particular part of Christ's church, and true to the great tradition of our faith.

Finally, as we continue our journey together, let us set our minds on continuing to be a people dedicated to loving one another and to seeking the peace of the community around us. A vision for being the beloved community should inspire us to share our lives more with one another, and with our neighbors. We are the broken fragments of Christ's body and we offer ourselves to one another as tokens of the promise of His salvation.

Alan Jones writes, "The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty." The American Church is addicted to the certain. "Little ventured, little lost" seems to be its motto. But when I look out on the faces of the United Church of Colchester, I see a body of people who look like they are ready to take a giant leap of faith - together.

Who knows what we will leap off into? And who would want to?


Proud to be your pastor,

Ryon

Buying the Field

Last week, after about a month of phone tag, an old friend and I connected for what turned out to be a really inspiring conversation. He told me he used to read my blog and that is what has me in front of this screen right now.

We were roommates for a couple of years in college and very close. After college we lost contact due primarily to the time I spent making my bed in the depths. A valuable friendship was broken. Though I know the fragments will never be put back together in the same way, I pray that they will indeed be pieced back together again. And I pray they will come together to make something beautiful. Different, yes, but beautiful.

It turns out that after spending a couple of years in the corporate world - a world I always found ill-suited for my friend - he decided to go back to school and get his teaching accredidation. He is now teaching 7th grade science and coaching various middle school sports. He told me that every morning at 7am or so a few kids make their way to his classroom nearly an hour before school begins. They talk a little about science and a lot about life. And most of all my friend just loves on them the way all kids deserve to be loved on and the way most kids are not. And it is good.

The funny thing is that when I was in 7th grade there was no bigger joke than a middle school coach. In my mind these were the guys who couldn't coach worth a damn so ended up teaching kids how to put on jock straps. Apparently a lot of guys still think that same way. My friend said that not long ago he ran into some friends who asked how things were going at Conquest, or whatever the name of the real estate company was that he used to work for. He told them that he quit Conquest and was now teaching 7th grade. He said you could have heard a pin drop.

But when my friend told me the news I swear I had a lump in my throat as big as Dallas. I was so proud of him and I felt so sorry for all the people out there who wonder why anyone would go off and ruin a good career like that. And I felt sorry for the little 7th grader in me who once thought that middle school coaches did what they did because they couldn't do anything else, rather than because they wouldn't do anything else - even if they could.

As we hung up the phone I thought about that story that Jesus tells of a guy who went out into a field and tripped over a treasure sticking out beneath the ground. And then he went out and sold everything he had just to buy that field. I have to think that field was a pretty rotten one as fields go. Rocks. Thistles. All in all, it probably looked a lot like Lubbock. But the treasure was there.

And where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.