After a session of Theology on Tap that went on more than two hours and easily could have continued for six more I was reminded of one of the very first lessons I was taught about faith. Saturday night's topic was wide open: bring any question you have about faith, God, church, or whatever. Spill it! Someone did. People spoke. Another question followed, then another, then another. It was intense, unscripted, and yet very Spirit-filled. We all marveled about these things that had been bubbling inside us and never found the forum to get out before. We wondered why our life of faith wasn't more like this all the time.
That made me think back to the first real, live pastor I had a conversation with...a Lutheran guy, in fact. As I sat in his office across from his desk he looked at me and said, "The questions you ask in your walk of faith are ten times as important as the answers you get." He was right! I've since found that a good answer only lasts for a day but a good question can keep you occupied for a lifetime. All of the greatest leaps and realizations I've had in my own faith life have come from other people asking questions like, "Why do these things happen?" or "Why did God do this?" or "Why did God say that?" or "What in the world does this mean?" Plenty of those leaps have come from people directly (but usually nicely) probing into church practices and doctrine, questioning why we say or believe certain things. Those questions are a blessing, as they open up avenues for learning among us all...the person asking the question, the person being asked, and everyone who hears or participates in the conversation. It's sad that we don't ask more!
I said something on Saturday night that bears repeating in public. In the course of our discussions quite a few people said they'd been told that Lutherans believe this or that. It was actually funny, because more than half the time they were wrong. (That wasn't their fault, mind you. People say Lutherans believe a lot of things!) Addressing these assertions I said that Lutheran doctrine, at its heart, proposes three things:
1. We don't know everything! In some ways we don't know anything. We are incapable of perfectly understanding God on our own. We aren't capable of believing in him on our own either. We are the lost folks.
2. The doctrine we teach is designed to point us towards God but also to start us asking questions about him and our faith...a necessary process given Point #1 just stated. At no point is Lutheran doctrine meant to shut down conversation or provide "the answer". Instead it stands as a road map delineating hazards and marking oases along our journey towards God. The minute you say, "This is the Final Word and I will hear no more about it" you have stopped taking that journey and thus robbed the doctrine of its reason.
3. God is the God of the lost, wandering people. From Adam and Eve to the Israelites to the apostles of Jesus he has always embraced those who didn't know it all but kept seeking anyway. The key to understanding his salvation isn't getting the right answer but understanding that we'll never have it (short of heaven) and that he's loving us and saving us anyway. If faith is all about being right we're lost. Half of us won't get things correct and we'll be lost. Meanwhile the other half will get it and think they're more special than everybody else because of that and will get trapped in their own pride and self-satisfaction. If, on the other hand, faith is about the God who calls you to question and discuss even when you're not sure you have the answer then both right and wrong work to his purpose, as they both spur us to seek him more. Sometimes we walk in an empty wilderness without good answers, sometimes in a lush garden full of them. Still we soldier on.
How long has it been since you've asked a question about faith in the presence of God's people and thus spurred them to conversation with all their glorious right and mistaken answers, all their interesting theories, and all of the questions of their own that follow? Might be worth a try sometime...
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Monday, April 30, 2012
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Monday Morning Sermon: The Good Shepherd
This Sunday's gospel text was John 10: 11-18, as follows:
The good shepherd, on the other hand, cares about his sheep. He will not leave them, even to the point of giving his life for them. This is exactly what Jesus did for us on the cross. He gathers his flock, cares for them, makes them one, and won't let anything get in the way of that.
The sermon focused on two real-life applications of this lesson:
1. Whatever you do, do it with care for the people around you. We've all known "hired hands" in various professions and relationships...people just going through the motions to get what they feel is coming to them. You can tell when a nurse or a teacher, a parent or a spouse, is fulfilling their role without caring about the people they're with. Actions become hollow and empty, wrong even when they're right.
We've also known people from whom love flows genuinely in all circumstances. It doesn't matter what curriculum they're teaching, what medicine they're administering, what parental lesson they're trying to impart, what they're doing together with their spouse, it just works. The love and care make the experience, not vice-versa.
I've felt this plenty of time in social situations...parties and weddings and such. Sometimes you attend a party that's impeccably well-planned, but you know the guests are there for the sake of the party, not the reverse. Everybody is invited for a reason. Everything has to be just so. You feel almost like a piece in a grand game, or like you're an actor reading from a script. In these situations I get asked, "Pastor, will you pray?" because this is the part where the pastor says the prayer. In a second we'll be on to the next part. Everybody follow along! Everybody make the perfect evening! Isn't this grand?
Other times you arrive at a party and experience the opposite. The party is thrown for the sake of the guests, not the guests invited for the sake of the party. People feel welcome, comfortable, and free to interact with each other. There's laughter, food, conversation, warmth...all the things that make an evening great without the expectation that they'll be "just so". The guests get to define what's great instead of reading from the script. When I get asked to pray here, it's like praying with family. People gather around, share a moment together, bow heads and embrace the chance to be thankful. They genuinely care about the event and each other.
The first case feels a lot like the hired hand running the show. They've designed an impeccable evening, but the first hint of trouble and it's all ruined. When the wolves come, the place falls apart. The key to such an event is making sure that no wolves are invited, that everybody dresses a certain way, that all manners are in evidence, and that everybody stays on task lest the evening fall short.
In the second case the host becomes the good shepherd. If there's a hiccup, everybody adapts. Different kinds of people can come in different kinds of dress and do different things. Everybody makes it work. This is possible because people are enjoying each other instead of obsessing about an external "to do" list and judging how well everybody conforms to the standard.
Caring turns ordinary things extraordinary, making even flawed things seem perfect. In many ways caring is harder than just demanding everybody follow the curriculum/medical chart/party script. It takes more patience and sacrifice. But it also bears more dividends.
Each one of us should ask ourselves whether we're carrying out our daily tasks with caring first and foremost in our minds or whether we're just checking things off of our list so we can mark them as done and claim our reward. If it's the latter, we're probably missing out on a fair amount of life's joy plus a ton of holy opportunities that God's trying to show us.
2. We also need to examine how we operate as a church. Most non-church-familiar people carry the perception that the church is full of hired hands, not good shepherds. They suspect a church person always approaches wanting something for themselves: join our church, give offering, admit you're wrong, say you think like me. That perception is grounded in truth in many cases! How often do churches judge their work by how full the pews are or how fat the bank account looks? We divide the world into little pieces: believers vs. non-believers, members vs. non-members, good members vs. not-so-good members, people we like vs. people we dislike. Our goal is seemingly to convert as many people as possible into the categories we want: believer becomes member becomes good member becomes good member who's in our little circle. If you don't fall easily into the favored categories we don't value you as much. We push you to the side or we just badger you until you come around.
Who makes those categories and draws those distinctions? Generally, we do...the "good church folks". And why do we favor some of them over others? We favor the ones that make us feel good about ourselves, successful, proud. If we have the right number of people in the "believer/member/good member/inner circle" box we feel like we've done a good job, like our church is healthy. Never mind what those people are actually doing! Who cares what they're there for? Stop asking if this has anything to do with faith! And for heaven's sake stop worrying about the people we're chasing after...just get as many of them as possible into the correct designation! Go! Go! Go!
This is pretty much the opposite of caring. In the name of spreading/preserving/sustaining our "faith" (and I use the term loosely in this case) we treat other people like objects, viewing ministry as a series of tasks and church as the grand, stiff party mentioned above.
The great joke in all of this is that without caring church means nothing. Without caring we're just hired hands doing a poor job of watching over God's family. People outside the church are right to be suspicious of this kind of activity. The problem is, it's so widespread now that I'm not sure many people have seen anything but! People don't feel like some churches are like this, they think all churches are like this! They wouldn't know a good shepherd if he hooked them around the neck with his staff and planted a big, wet kiss on their cheek.
We've traded in "Jesus gave himself for you, so here's your love and joy" for "Give yourself to Jesus so we can be happy". In doing so we've not only ruined God's message, but put an enormous stumbling block in the way, tripping up anybody who tries to spread the good news of the Spirit.
Anybody remember the first cookie distribution day we had a couple years ago? It was Christmas...the season of giving. If there's any time people should be expecting a gift, that would be it. Yet what was the reaction at house after house as we distributed our homemade cookies for free and without expectation? The first response was suspicion and wariness. "What are those folks doing coming up my walk? What do they want to get from me?" When they realized that we really didn't want anything, that we were just giving away cookies so people could be happy, the expression turned to wonder and disbelief.
That same thing happens when we use the emergency fund to help people unexpectedly. The response I get is almost universal: "But I'm not a member of your church!" I wonder where they got the idea they had to be in order for God or anybody to favor them?
Stop and think about that for a minute. We have so conditioned people to believe that everybody approaching them wants to manipulate them into something--even and especially a church person--that they literally can not BELIEVE that anybody is simply sharing love with them without cost or expectation. Even when we're meeting their greatest need, they still have to get over a fair amount of suspicion in order to accept the gift.
All I can think of when I consider this is, "My gosh. How hired-hand-y have we been?"
That's why it's so important for each of us to go out and show the world the care and self-sacrifice that God first showed towards us. How else will they know who he is? How else will they un-learn that suspicion? If we're not good shepherds, following the one Good Shepherd, then who will be?
We're given a million potential avenues through which we are told we can control or gain possession of the world: money, politics, fame, and personal influence among them. Sadly church and faith have been co-opted into that list, seen as avenues of power and personal control. We need to get back to a simpler message and a simpler task. None of those approaches really change the world as much as caring does. That's how Jesus claimed us. He cared about us and thus earned the title of good shepherd. We are meant to affect the world likewise. If that isn't our first priority as individuals or a church, our priorities probably need realignment.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father —and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life —only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”In the sermon we focused on the distinction Jesus draws between the good shepherd and the hired hand. To the hired hand, tending sheep is simply a job for which he receives compensation. He's in it for his own gain. When something threatens him, he'll abandon his post. He doesn't care for the flock, just what the flock can provide for him (a means of making a living). To the outside eye he does the same work as the good shepherd, but when push comes to shove that work is a self-centered endeavor.
The good shepherd, on the other hand, cares about his sheep. He will not leave them, even to the point of giving his life for them. This is exactly what Jesus did for us on the cross. He gathers his flock, cares for them, makes them one, and won't let anything get in the way of that.
The sermon focused on two real-life applications of this lesson:
1. Whatever you do, do it with care for the people around you. We've all known "hired hands" in various professions and relationships...people just going through the motions to get what they feel is coming to them. You can tell when a nurse or a teacher, a parent or a spouse, is fulfilling their role without caring about the people they're with. Actions become hollow and empty, wrong even when they're right.
We've also known people from whom love flows genuinely in all circumstances. It doesn't matter what curriculum they're teaching, what medicine they're administering, what parental lesson they're trying to impart, what they're doing together with their spouse, it just works. The love and care make the experience, not vice-versa.
I've felt this plenty of time in social situations...parties and weddings and such. Sometimes you attend a party that's impeccably well-planned, but you know the guests are there for the sake of the party, not the reverse. Everybody is invited for a reason. Everything has to be just so. You feel almost like a piece in a grand game, or like you're an actor reading from a script. In these situations I get asked, "Pastor, will you pray?" because this is the part where the pastor says the prayer. In a second we'll be on to the next part. Everybody follow along! Everybody make the perfect evening! Isn't this grand?
Other times you arrive at a party and experience the opposite. The party is thrown for the sake of the guests, not the guests invited for the sake of the party. People feel welcome, comfortable, and free to interact with each other. There's laughter, food, conversation, warmth...all the things that make an evening great without the expectation that they'll be "just so". The guests get to define what's great instead of reading from the script. When I get asked to pray here, it's like praying with family. People gather around, share a moment together, bow heads and embrace the chance to be thankful. They genuinely care about the event and each other.
The first case feels a lot like the hired hand running the show. They've designed an impeccable evening, but the first hint of trouble and it's all ruined. When the wolves come, the place falls apart. The key to such an event is making sure that no wolves are invited, that everybody dresses a certain way, that all manners are in evidence, and that everybody stays on task lest the evening fall short.
In the second case the host becomes the good shepherd. If there's a hiccup, everybody adapts. Different kinds of people can come in different kinds of dress and do different things. Everybody makes it work. This is possible because people are enjoying each other instead of obsessing about an external "to do" list and judging how well everybody conforms to the standard.
Caring turns ordinary things extraordinary, making even flawed things seem perfect. In many ways caring is harder than just demanding everybody follow the curriculum/medical chart/party script. It takes more patience and sacrifice. But it also bears more dividends.
Each one of us should ask ourselves whether we're carrying out our daily tasks with caring first and foremost in our minds or whether we're just checking things off of our list so we can mark them as done and claim our reward. If it's the latter, we're probably missing out on a fair amount of life's joy plus a ton of holy opportunities that God's trying to show us.
2. We also need to examine how we operate as a church. Most non-church-familiar people carry the perception that the church is full of hired hands, not good shepherds. They suspect a church person always approaches wanting something for themselves: join our church, give offering, admit you're wrong, say you think like me. That perception is grounded in truth in many cases! How often do churches judge their work by how full the pews are or how fat the bank account looks? We divide the world into little pieces: believers vs. non-believers, members vs. non-members, good members vs. not-so-good members, people we like vs. people we dislike. Our goal is seemingly to convert as many people as possible into the categories we want: believer becomes member becomes good member becomes good member who's in our little circle. If you don't fall easily into the favored categories we don't value you as much. We push you to the side or we just badger you until you come around.
Who makes those categories and draws those distinctions? Generally, we do...the "good church folks". And why do we favor some of them over others? We favor the ones that make us feel good about ourselves, successful, proud. If we have the right number of people in the "believer/member/good member/inner circle" box we feel like we've done a good job, like our church is healthy. Never mind what those people are actually doing! Who cares what they're there for? Stop asking if this has anything to do with faith! And for heaven's sake stop worrying about the people we're chasing after...just get as many of them as possible into the correct designation! Go! Go! Go!
This is pretty much the opposite of caring. In the name of spreading/preserving/sustaining our "faith" (and I use the term loosely in this case) we treat other people like objects, viewing ministry as a series of tasks and church as the grand, stiff party mentioned above.
The great joke in all of this is that without caring church means nothing. Without caring we're just hired hands doing a poor job of watching over God's family. People outside the church are right to be suspicious of this kind of activity. The problem is, it's so widespread now that I'm not sure many people have seen anything but! People don't feel like some churches are like this, they think all churches are like this! They wouldn't know a good shepherd if he hooked them around the neck with his staff and planted a big, wet kiss on their cheek.
We've traded in "Jesus gave himself for you, so here's your love and joy" for "Give yourself to Jesus so we can be happy". In doing so we've not only ruined God's message, but put an enormous stumbling block in the way, tripping up anybody who tries to spread the good news of the Spirit.
Anybody remember the first cookie distribution day we had a couple years ago? It was Christmas...the season of giving. If there's any time people should be expecting a gift, that would be it. Yet what was the reaction at house after house as we distributed our homemade cookies for free and without expectation? The first response was suspicion and wariness. "What are those folks doing coming up my walk? What do they want to get from me?" When they realized that we really didn't want anything, that we were just giving away cookies so people could be happy, the expression turned to wonder and disbelief.
That same thing happens when we use the emergency fund to help people unexpectedly. The response I get is almost universal: "But I'm not a member of your church!" I wonder where they got the idea they had to be in order for God or anybody to favor them?
Stop and think about that for a minute. We have so conditioned people to believe that everybody approaching them wants to manipulate them into something--even and especially a church person--that they literally can not BELIEVE that anybody is simply sharing love with them without cost or expectation. Even when we're meeting their greatest need, they still have to get over a fair amount of suspicion in order to accept the gift.
All I can think of when I consider this is, "My gosh. How hired-hand-y have we been?"
That's why it's so important for each of us to go out and show the world the care and self-sacrifice that God first showed towards us. How else will they know who he is? How else will they un-learn that suspicion? If we're not good shepherds, following the one Good Shepherd, then who will be?
We're given a million potential avenues through which we are told we can control or gain possession of the world: money, politics, fame, and personal influence among them. Sadly church and faith have been co-opted into that list, seen as avenues of power and personal control. We need to get back to a simpler message and a simpler task. None of those approaches really change the world as much as caring does. That's how Jesus claimed us. He cared about us and thus earned the title of good shepherd. We are meant to affect the world likewise. If that isn't our first priority as individuals or a church, our priorities probably need realignment.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Bulletin Announcements
Our copy machine still isn't fixed and some of the announcements in the bulletin were obscured, so here is the list in its entirety:
Our first Evangelism Workshops will be held in May and June. One workshop will be offered on Thursday evening at 7:00 p.m. at St. John’s on May 3rd and 10th. Another will be offered after worship on June 3rd and 24th at the Valley. We will also offer sessions in the fall. We are looking for every member of our church to participate and to learn how to become an intentional evangelist!
We move to the Valley next Sunday, the 6th. Worship will remain at 10:00 a.m. through May.
Please sign up to help with worship through April and May!
Cindy S. has returned to her home and we have a request through Angels on Call to be part of the group providing dinners for her and her family. To be part of that e-mailing list providing dinners, contact her at: mamaz (at) turbonet (dot) com
Malaria is a leading cause of death in Africa, claiming the life of a child every 45 seconds. In Liberia, malaria accounts for 30 percent of all deaths in hospitals.
Since the launch of the ELCA Malaria Campaign last year, Lutheran churches in Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe have distributed mosquito nets and medicine as well as educating communities on prevention. However, we don’t yet have the funds to begin this work in Liberia.
Our sisters and brothers in Liberia are ready. Active congregations are mobilized to help prevent malaria in their communities. Two well-respected Lutheran hospitals, community-based health care programs and development and education ministries serve tens of thousands of people.
Today is World Malaria Day. During this week we need to raise $200,000 to fun anti-malaria work in Liberia this year.
Let’s make this dream a reality. There are three ways to give.
1. Donate online by visiting http://www.elca.org/MalariaDay anytime before the 11:59 p.m. CST deadline on Tuesday, May 1.
2. Donate over the phone by calling 800-638-3522 during business hours now through Tuesday, May 1, at 5:00 p.m. CST. Operators are standing by.
3. Donate through the mail by sending a check to the ELCA Malaria Campaign, P.O. Box 71764, Chicago, Illinois, 60694-1764. Please mail your checks by May 4, 2012, and be sure to write "World Malaria Day" in the memo line of your check.
Our first Evangelism Workshops will be held in May and June. One workshop will be offered on Thursday evening at 7:00 p.m. at St. John’s on May 3rd and 10th. Another will be offered after worship on June 3rd and 24th at the Valley. We will also offer sessions in the fall. We are looking for every member of our church to participate and to learn how to become an intentional evangelist!
We move to the Valley next Sunday, the 6th. Worship will remain at 10:00 a.m. through May.
Please sign up to help with worship through April and May!
Cindy S. has returned to her home and we have a request through Angels on Call to be part of the group providing dinners for her and her family. To be part of that e-mailing list providing dinners, contact her at: mamaz (at) turbonet (dot) com
Malaria is a leading cause of death in Africa, claiming the life of a child every 45 seconds. In Liberia, malaria accounts for 30 percent of all deaths in hospitals.
Since the launch of the ELCA Malaria Campaign last year, Lutheran churches in Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe have distributed mosquito nets and medicine as well as educating communities on prevention. However, we don’t yet have the funds to begin this work in Liberia.
Our sisters and brothers in Liberia are ready. Active congregations are mobilized to help prevent malaria in their communities. Two well-respected Lutheran hospitals, community-based health care programs and development and education ministries serve tens of thousands of people.
Today is World Malaria Day. During this week we need to raise $200,000 to fun anti-malaria work in Liberia this year.
Let’s make this dream a reality. There are three ways to give.
1. Donate online by visiting http://www.elca.org/MalariaDay anytime before the 11:59 p.m. CST deadline on Tuesday, May 1.
2. Donate over the phone by calling 800-638-3522 during business hours now through Tuesday, May 1, at 5:00 p.m. CST. Operators are standing by.
3. Donate through the mail by sending a check to the ELCA Malaria Campaign, P.O. Box 71764, Chicago, Illinois, 60694-1764. Please mail your checks by May 4, 2012, and be sure to write "World Malaria Day" in the memo line of your check.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
The Biggest Difference
A very nice person not associated with our church, familiar with us only through these posts, wrote in and asked me to summarize the biggest difference I see between the way we do church and "church as usual". He intimated that he's familiar with the church scene and it wasn't satisfying to him, but he was intrigued by some of the things we'd been talking about and doing. So here you go.
I'd say the biggest single difference between our ministry and the (stereo-)typical church experience is the direction of our focus. If we're not doing something that changes or informs your daily life, makes your everyday experience more Spirit-filled and closer to God, then we've failed in our mission. That's why we go to great length to keep church activities special, but not isolated. They represent the best of what we can give, naturally, but we also try to make them connect to ordinary life. We don't sit people down and make them go into another world, or even another mode of thinking, in order to experience our teaching of God. With the kids we teach through everyday activities like games and movies. Even with adults in more formalized studies we try and bring the words of scripture back around to our daily lives and tasks. We invite "ordinary" people to ask "ordinary" questions and state their "ordinary" opinions and by gum, we find God is plenty active in the ordinary! Our job isn't to bring God to you. We assume he's already there. Our job is to help you see him in all the moments of your life.
Many churches give lip service to this kind of thing, but in the end most spend the bulk of their time and energy trying to get you farther inside the church, more focused on the institution, investing in church for church's sake. You can see it in the hoops you have to jump in order to belong or participate. You can feel it in the emphasis on attendance and giving as litmus tests for the success of the church...or failing that having a grand building and breathtaking decorations. We talk about all of those things too, to be sure, but they're in service to the people and the community, not trying to get people and the community in service to us! We don't try to get the outside into church in order to make the church bigger. We try to get the inside out of church in order to spread God's goodness farther.
This change in direction makes all the difference. I believe it's the same distinction that separated Jesus from the religious leaders of his time. One wandered hither and yon, gracing people with healing and the news about God's goodness, bringing the Kingdom alive before them. The others stayed in their temple-castle, protecting what they had and encouraging everyone to come and bow, calling them great and securing their place in the community. The first is the ultimate self-giving, the second ultimately self-serving. We prefer the former to the latter.
Hope that answers the question!
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
I'd say the biggest single difference between our ministry and the (stereo-)typical church experience is the direction of our focus. If we're not doing something that changes or informs your daily life, makes your everyday experience more Spirit-filled and closer to God, then we've failed in our mission. That's why we go to great length to keep church activities special, but not isolated. They represent the best of what we can give, naturally, but we also try to make them connect to ordinary life. We don't sit people down and make them go into another world, or even another mode of thinking, in order to experience our teaching of God. With the kids we teach through everyday activities like games and movies. Even with adults in more formalized studies we try and bring the words of scripture back around to our daily lives and tasks. We invite "ordinary" people to ask "ordinary" questions and state their "ordinary" opinions and by gum, we find God is plenty active in the ordinary! Our job isn't to bring God to you. We assume he's already there. Our job is to help you see him in all the moments of your life.
Many churches give lip service to this kind of thing, but in the end most spend the bulk of their time and energy trying to get you farther inside the church, more focused on the institution, investing in church for church's sake. You can see it in the hoops you have to jump in order to belong or participate. You can feel it in the emphasis on attendance and giving as litmus tests for the success of the church...or failing that having a grand building and breathtaking decorations. We talk about all of those things too, to be sure, but they're in service to the people and the community, not trying to get people and the community in service to us! We don't try to get the outside into church in order to make the church bigger. We try to get the inside out of church in order to spread God's goodness farther.
This change in direction makes all the difference. I believe it's the same distinction that separated Jesus from the religious leaders of his time. One wandered hither and yon, gracing people with healing and the news about God's goodness, bringing the Kingdom alive before them. The others stayed in their temple-castle, protecting what they had and encouraging everyone to come and bow, calling them great and securing their place in the community. The first is the ultimate self-giving, the second ultimately self-serving. We prefer the former to the latter.
Hope that answers the question!
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
The Lives of Others
I got a chance to watch an interesting movie last night. It was called "The Lives of Others". It's a German film with English subtitles. It dealt with a member of the East German Secret Police during the Cold War. Our officer was assigned to 'round the clock surveillance on a playwright who seemed loyal to the Communist Party but aroused suspicious. Through the use of "bugs" the police could hear every word he said in his East Berlin apartment. Since high-ranking party officials were out to get him for various reasons, his future didn't look bright.
The theme of the story was how listening to true art and true goodness through those wiretaps changed the life of the secret police enforcer. The movie was quite well-written and well-acted. I enjoyed it.
The part that struck me for our purposes is how different the plot and pace of the film turned out to be from the usual Hollywood stuff we see. This was a film about spying, oppression by the state, using your talent to stand up for what's right, and defending your friends. The first part of the movie probably wasn't much different than it would have been had it been produced in America. But with all of those heroics leaking through the characters, the Berlin Wall providing a tangible and near-unbreakable barrier between the East Germans and freedom, and a secret police force involved, had this story been filmed in the U.S. it would have climaxed with a thrilling escape, gunfire, tunneling under the Wall while bad guys dogged your heels. American film producers would have felt the story needed more punch at the end, more overt tension, more reasons to spend a special effects budget.
"The Lives of Others" contained none of that. Its ending was both good and tense, but the story stayed solidly framed on the characters and the relationships between them, not on some huge manufactured thrill-moment.
Isn't life like that though? Seldom do our greatest joys come in whiz-bang events. They happen through the patient unrolling of threads between us as we're knit together. We spend far too much time looking for happiness or excitement in events and circumstances. We tend to underrate the happiness and excitement that comes through discovering each other.
Our youth ministry follows this pattern. If you came to a single event you'd probably think it was nice, but not out of the ordinary. But over time a hundred ordinary moments weave us together into something extraordinary. I sometimes tell the kids, "It's not what you do that makes life fun, but who you do it with." Waxing the kitchen floor with people you enjoy is a great afternoon. Going to Disneyland with people you hate is a pain.
We can also learn a lesson about worship here. Some people base their opinion of church on what kind of services that church conducts on a Sunday morning. If they like the music and the liturgy it's a good church. If not it's lousy. Heaven forbid anyone should change anything once it's set!
Any kind of worship can be better or worse, really. The style of worship doesn't matter as much as the people participating in it. People with less faith and less room in their heart for their neighbors must insist upon one kind of worship--the kind they like--or their church experience is ruined. People with more faith and room in their heart for their neighbors can find goodness in just about any kind of liturgy or song. The latter group knows that it's not about the notes on the page, it's about the people that they're together with and the God in whose name they gather.
Like our German film-making friends did here, we need to spend more time concentrating on people and relationships and maybe a little less time basing our lives, our judgment, and our contentment on events or circumstances. The beauty in people is more subtle but also much more profound and enduring once discovered.
I'm not sure I would have remembered this movie had they gone for the typical ending. They kept me focused on the people instead of the action and now it'll stick with me much longer.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
The theme of the story was how listening to true art and true goodness through those wiretaps changed the life of the secret police enforcer. The movie was quite well-written and well-acted. I enjoyed it.
The part that struck me for our purposes is how different the plot and pace of the film turned out to be from the usual Hollywood stuff we see. This was a film about spying, oppression by the state, using your talent to stand up for what's right, and defending your friends. The first part of the movie probably wasn't much different than it would have been had it been produced in America. But with all of those heroics leaking through the characters, the Berlin Wall providing a tangible and near-unbreakable barrier between the East Germans and freedom, and a secret police force involved, had this story been filmed in the U.S. it would have climaxed with a thrilling escape, gunfire, tunneling under the Wall while bad guys dogged your heels. American film producers would have felt the story needed more punch at the end, more overt tension, more reasons to spend a special effects budget.
"The Lives of Others" contained none of that. Its ending was both good and tense, but the story stayed solidly framed on the characters and the relationships between them, not on some huge manufactured thrill-moment.
Isn't life like that though? Seldom do our greatest joys come in whiz-bang events. They happen through the patient unrolling of threads between us as we're knit together. We spend far too much time looking for happiness or excitement in events and circumstances. We tend to underrate the happiness and excitement that comes through discovering each other.
Our youth ministry follows this pattern. If you came to a single event you'd probably think it was nice, but not out of the ordinary. But over time a hundred ordinary moments weave us together into something extraordinary. I sometimes tell the kids, "It's not what you do that makes life fun, but who you do it with." Waxing the kitchen floor with people you enjoy is a great afternoon. Going to Disneyland with people you hate is a pain.
We can also learn a lesson about worship here. Some people base their opinion of church on what kind of services that church conducts on a Sunday morning. If they like the music and the liturgy it's a good church. If not it's lousy. Heaven forbid anyone should change anything once it's set!
Any kind of worship can be better or worse, really. The style of worship doesn't matter as much as the people participating in it. People with less faith and less room in their heart for their neighbors must insist upon one kind of worship--the kind they like--or their church experience is ruined. People with more faith and room in their heart for their neighbors can find goodness in just about any kind of liturgy or song. The latter group knows that it's not about the notes on the page, it's about the people that they're together with and the God in whose name they gather.
Like our German film-making friends did here, we need to spend more time concentrating on people and relationships and maybe a little less time basing our lives, our judgment, and our contentment on events or circumstances. The beauty in people is more subtle but also much more profound and enduring once discovered.
I'm not sure I would have remembered this movie had they gone for the typical ending. They kept me focused on the people instead of the action and now it'll stick with me much longer.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
The Value of Being Open to Possibilities
I often argue that we're not nearly intentional enough about the lives we live. We spent an inordinate amount of time, energy, and stress on details that don't end up making much of a difference to us or the world. We leave many of life's deepest questions un-examined or at best taken for granted. We don't draw strong connections between our answers to those profound questions and the details of our daily lives. We respond to things that we perceive need doing rather than asking what things are best to do. Living our lives more intentionally--connecting those dots and then letting the overall picture inform our daily actions--would go a long way towards relieving our burdens and those of the world around us.
Unfortunately living intentionally often gets confused with being in control of our lives. Nothing could be further from the truth. We don't have to manage every circumstance of our life to live it faithfully or well. In fact some of the most delightful things are those we never plan for. Just as bad as leaving the purpose for your life un-examined is figuring you already know that purpose and the direction it will take you and not being willing to alter course when the unexpected arrives.
You're going to think this is weird, but the strongest lessons I've had in this vein have come from my cats.
We never had pets growing up. Dad thought they were too much trouble for folks who lived in the city. But when I was 11 my mom finally talked him into adopting a mostly-Siamese kitten from my sister's farm. I had waited for something like this my whole life. That cat taught me everything: how to love, how to be patient and gentle, how to communicate with someone even though we didn't share the same language. He chose me to sleep with at night. That made me feel prized beyond measure. He would later do the same thing with my mom after my parents were divorced. He was her lifeline when she was alone. One of the saddest days of my life was the day we had to put him to sleep.
When I went off to college and seminary I had no time or room for cats, of course. But I swore the first thing I was going to do when I got settled permanently was get a cat. And I did! Like our first cat, my sweet little Princess Buttercup kept me company when there was nobody else in the house. I remember my first Christmas in Iowa. It was just me and her...depressing as heck. But as it turned out she liked to open presents! I sat on the floor and brought out the gifts my family had mailed me and she ripped the paper off, loving every second. We were a good team.
It's funny, but had I insisted on my original plan I never would have had her. I had originally gone to the local animal shelter to pick out a kitten. They didn't have any at the moment, only grown up cats. I wanted to start from scratch. I was disappointed, but I figured I'd come back in a few weeks. In the meantime I reached through the cages and scratched a few cat heads to hold me over. I had just petted this one cat when I turned to my friend and started talking. All of a sudden...whoop! Out of the cage came a cat's paw, curling gently around my hand and pulling it back to pet her head again. I had overlooked her at first, but now that she had hold of my hand and was nuzzling it, I looked twice. She wasn't a kitten...but... She went home with me that day and she's been great ever since. I would have missed out on so much love if I hadn't changed my mind because of her fuzzy little paw.
Our second cat, Pocket, walked in the house during a bad thunderstorm when she was a baby kitten. She hasn't left yet. She's mostly grumpy and just rooms with us. She does not come into this tale.
But our third cat...Tubby, he does! I was driving around town one day, still in Iowa, when I got this weird feeling I should stop by the shelter again. I don't know how to describe it exactly, just an unspoken voice tickled me somewhere inside and I said to myself, "I should stop by the shelter. It would be fun." We were not looking for another cat. But I walked in there and right in the top cage was a little butterscotch ball of fur, not much bigger than my hand. His tail had been cut off halfway down. The shelter people thought it was probably an accident somewhere. There was a big sign on his cage door that said, "NOT FOR ADOPTION". I thought, "Good! This will be a safe cat to touch then." So I asked if I could see him and they got him out. I held him like a baby and he stretched out his paw, reaching up across my chest as if to say, "I choose YOU!" My heart melted. I asked why he wasn't adoptable and they said he would be in a couple days. He had just been neutered and needed time to recover. I asked if they could call someone and get the process done faster. They told me to pick him up the next day, which I did. He's the sweetest, most snuggly cat I've ever known and he's Careen's favorite. Again, had I not let that little voice change me I would have missed out on so much love!
And that was it...all done. Three cats is plenty. Until one day we were reading Derek one of his favorite books, "Cookie's Week". It's about a black and white tuxedo cat who gets into all kinds of comical mischief. I turned to Careen and said, "That's about the ONLY kind of cat I'd consider getting because we don't have a black one." We laughed. We did not need another cat. We did not want another cat.
A few days later I was sleeping in when Careen and Derek came home from a walk. Outside my window I heard this, "Mew!" Instantly it woke me up from my half-sleep. Something in my heart went, "Tug!" Then something in my brain said, "No! No, no, no, no, NO! I imagined that. There's nothing out there." Then I heard the "Mew!" again. Derek came running into my room and said, "Daddy! A kitten followed me all around!" Careen walked in and I looked at her with a raised eyebrow. She verified the story. This little cat had run in between Derek's legs just as they started their walk and had not left even though they had covered probably 20 blocks this way and that. Now it was outside the door. "And you better come take a look at it," she said.
I walked outside and sure enough...tuxedo black and white. The little kitten (a few weeks old at that point) meowed and rubbed between my legs, then jumped right up on my shoulder from the ground and started nibbling and licking my ear. She still does that to this day. Naturally we named her "Cookie" and she's just as delightfully mischievous as her literary counterpart. She's brought life and playfulness back to our brood of cats, being the youngest and totally unconcerned with anything but having fun and getting petted. Don't tell the others, but she may be the best cat I've ever owned.
Only once did I plan to get a cat, and even then I didn't get the cat I planned on at all. But by letting go and rolling with the circumstances when God or the universe or my heart were all conspiring to tell me something, I've found my life quadruply blessed.
I've learned that you do have to live your life intentionally with love and forgiveness, joy and grace at the forefront of your actions. But once you're committed to that, you just have to let go and see what happens. More often than not you'll be surprised in ways more pleasant than you could ever plan for yourself. I know three other sets of hands in this household and four more sets of furry paws that would be raised in agreement if they were reading this right now.
What wonderful things are in store for you today? Have fun finding out.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Unfortunately living intentionally often gets confused with being in control of our lives. Nothing could be further from the truth. We don't have to manage every circumstance of our life to live it faithfully or well. In fact some of the most delightful things are those we never plan for. Just as bad as leaving the purpose for your life un-examined is figuring you already know that purpose and the direction it will take you and not being willing to alter course when the unexpected arrives.
You're going to think this is weird, but the strongest lessons I've had in this vein have come from my cats.
We never had pets growing up. Dad thought they were too much trouble for folks who lived in the city. But when I was 11 my mom finally talked him into adopting a mostly-Siamese kitten from my sister's farm. I had waited for something like this my whole life. That cat taught me everything: how to love, how to be patient and gentle, how to communicate with someone even though we didn't share the same language. He chose me to sleep with at night. That made me feel prized beyond measure. He would later do the same thing with my mom after my parents were divorced. He was her lifeline when she was alone. One of the saddest days of my life was the day we had to put him to sleep.
When I went off to college and seminary I had no time or room for cats, of course. But I swore the first thing I was going to do when I got settled permanently was get a cat. And I did! Like our first cat, my sweet little Princess Buttercup kept me company when there was nobody else in the house. I remember my first Christmas in Iowa. It was just me and her...depressing as heck. But as it turned out she liked to open presents! I sat on the floor and brought out the gifts my family had mailed me and she ripped the paper off, loving every second. We were a good team.
It's funny, but had I insisted on my original plan I never would have had her. I had originally gone to the local animal shelter to pick out a kitten. They didn't have any at the moment, only grown up cats. I wanted to start from scratch. I was disappointed, but I figured I'd come back in a few weeks. In the meantime I reached through the cages and scratched a few cat heads to hold me over. I had just petted this one cat when I turned to my friend and started talking. All of a sudden...whoop! Out of the cage came a cat's paw, curling gently around my hand and pulling it back to pet her head again. I had overlooked her at first, but now that she had hold of my hand and was nuzzling it, I looked twice. She wasn't a kitten...but... She went home with me that day and she's been great ever since. I would have missed out on so much love if I hadn't changed my mind because of her fuzzy little paw.
Our second cat, Pocket, walked in the house during a bad thunderstorm when she was a baby kitten. She hasn't left yet. She's mostly grumpy and just rooms with us. She does not come into this tale.
But our third cat...Tubby, he does! I was driving around town one day, still in Iowa, when I got this weird feeling I should stop by the shelter again. I don't know how to describe it exactly, just an unspoken voice tickled me somewhere inside and I said to myself, "I should stop by the shelter. It would be fun." We were not looking for another cat. But I walked in there and right in the top cage was a little butterscotch ball of fur, not much bigger than my hand. His tail had been cut off halfway down. The shelter people thought it was probably an accident somewhere. There was a big sign on his cage door that said, "NOT FOR ADOPTION". I thought, "Good! This will be a safe cat to touch then." So I asked if I could see him and they got him out. I held him like a baby and he stretched out his paw, reaching up across my chest as if to say, "I choose YOU!" My heart melted. I asked why he wasn't adoptable and they said he would be in a couple days. He had just been neutered and needed time to recover. I asked if they could call someone and get the process done faster. They told me to pick him up the next day, which I did. He's the sweetest, most snuggly cat I've ever known and he's Careen's favorite. Again, had I not let that little voice change me I would have missed out on so much love!
And that was it...all done. Three cats is plenty. Until one day we were reading Derek one of his favorite books, "Cookie's Week". It's about a black and white tuxedo cat who gets into all kinds of comical mischief. I turned to Careen and said, "That's about the ONLY kind of cat I'd consider getting because we don't have a black one." We laughed. We did not need another cat. We did not want another cat.
A few days later I was sleeping in when Careen and Derek came home from a walk. Outside my window I heard this, "Mew!" Instantly it woke me up from my half-sleep. Something in my heart went, "Tug!" Then something in my brain said, "No! No, no, no, no, NO! I imagined that. There's nothing out there." Then I heard the "Mew!" again. Derek came running into my room and said, "Daddy! A kitten followed me all around!" Careen walked in and I looked at her with a raised eyebrow. She verified the story. This little cat had run in between Derek's legs just as they started their walk and had not left even though they had covered probably 20 blocks this way and that. Now it was outside the door. "And you better come take a look at it," she said.
I walked outside and sure enough...tuxedo black and white. The little kitten (a few weeks old at that point) meowed and rubbed between my legs, then jumped right up on my shoulder from the ground and started nibbling and licking my ear. She still does that to this day. Naturally we named her "Cookie" and she's just as delightfully mischievous as her literary counterpart. She's brought life and playfulness back to our brood of cats, being the youngest and totally unconcerned with anything but having fun and getting petted. Don't tell the others, but she may be the best cat I've ever owned.
Only once did I plan to get a cat, and even then I didn't get the cat I planned on at all. But by letting go and rolling with the circumstances when God or the universe or my heart were all conspiring to tell me something, I've found my life quadruply blessed.
I've learned that you do have to live your life intentionally with love and forgiveness, joy and grace at the forefront of your actions. But once you're committed to that, you just have to let go and see what happens. More often than not you'll be surprised in ways more pleasant than you could ever plan for yourself. I know three other sets of hands in this household and four more sets of furry paws that would be raised in agreement if they were reading this right now.
What wonderful things are in store for you today? Have fun finding out.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Monday, April 23, 2012
God and the Hunger Games
Whether you're reading the book series or have just watched the top-grossing movie, The Hunger Games is the latest craze to hit popular culture. It's a story that was geared towards teens and young adults but really transcends generations, capturing the imagination of readers and viewers everywhere. It's somewhat different than the usual Harry Potter fare in that it's quite dark. It's also packed with philosophy that easily morphs into theological discussion for people of faith.
I'm not going to spoil the story by talking about the narrative or any endings here, but I thought it might be fun to address some prominent themes and how they relate to our culture and consideration of God.
The Hunger Games is waist deep in issues of class and economics. Its world consists of a dozen outlying districts full of workers living in various levels of poverty. Each district is responsible for producing some sort of good. The value of that good determines the living standard for most everyone in the district. The central capitol controls the districts and is awash in wealth and luxury. When people from the districts meet people from the capitol they're all but alien to each other. Capitol dwellers live in complete ignorance of the source of their largess. They simply enjoy what others work for, throwing away more food each day than a district person eats over several.
Societies inevitably stratify people. That's a fact of life, all but unchangeable. No major society that's ever tried to equalize things has ever managed it. They only managed to shift the privilege. Our country contains many classes of people at various levels of wealth. That's not necessarily a problem in itself. We need to recognize, though, that the value of a person isn't defined just by wealth alone, nor are we to view people solely through the lens of what they produce for us. Jesus ministered with poor and wandering folks...treasuring them above all others precisely because the world didn't. He didn't judge by what people could give to him or how they could make his life easier, he simply gave to everyone he met regardless of his personal advantage or disadvantage in the process.
We'd be honored to have the President of the United States over for dinner. We should be just as honored to have the cashier from Dairy Queen. They're both God's children and if anything, the DQ worker might need a decent, balanced meal more.
When we only see people by their role in our lives--checker, house-cleaner, banker, or whatever--instead of seeing them as an extended part of God's family we echo the sin of the capitol-dwellers in the book. We spend our energy and love only on those closest to us, those like us in status and outlook, wasting much that's badly needed in the rest of the world.
There's also a bald economic component here. We're well-to-do compared to most people in the world. We should not get too comfortable with that inequity. Whatever God has blessed us with, it's meant to be shared. People without food, clean water, housing, jobs...whatever the imbalance may be, we do need to address it.
In the Hunger Games the solution to the problem of poverty is to select teenage representatives from each district and make them fight against each other to the death on TV for the amusement of all. The eventual victor (over 23 other victims) is rewarded with riches and fame forevermore...everything they could desire.
I can't help but think of the lottery system that so many people desperately buy into. Obviously that doesn't involve killing people but the reward process works about the same. Only one person wins. 99.999999% of the people who play remain poor. Somehow that doesn't matter because everyone hopes that they'll be the 0.0000001% someday. As long as that hope stays alive we figure there's a way out so we don't do anything to address the real issues surrounding poverty. As long as somebody makes it and we think we could be that somebody someday, we're content to let everybody else rot. If we do win, we're not spreading out that money to everyone who played. We're taking it and running to our new mansion.
I also think of the number of modern "starlets" who have become famous in recent years for doing nothing...no talent, no achievement, just famous for being famous and maybe showing some skin. Our young people are growing up with the message that fame and fortune cure everything. It runs on the same principle as the lottery but this time instead of buying a ticket you work to be thinner and get plastic surgery and torture your hair and put on revealing clothes. Not everybody will make it to that elite level of fame but somebody will, and it could be you!
I'm not certain, but those "starlets" don't look all that happy to me, especially in a couple years after the cameras move elsewhere. But again as long as the tantalizing apple of wild success hangs out there for a few, many people will happily play the game trying to grab it...much to their detriment and the detriment of those around them.
Jesus didn't just come to a few lucky winners or famous people. He made winners out of us all, adopting us into God's family. Everyone can call themselves blessed and beloved because of his sacrifice for them. We're not meant to make victors of a few and losers of everyone else. We're here to proclaim the ultimate victory that God won so he could wrap his arms around all of us where we were once divided.
The Hunger Games also deals with the issue of violence in the lives of young people. I'm not one who scrupulously avoids any depiction of violence. I have Mafia movies in my DVD collection. My son sometimes plays games on TV where cars crash into each other and knock each other off the road. I'm not always thrilled with the amount of violence we're exposed to in our popular culture, but we have to learn to deal with it and process it because it's not likely to stop anytime soon.
Dealing with it and processing it does not mean accepting it whole cloth, though. We teach Derek the difference between games/movies and real life. We don't let him watch anything with too much violence. Personally I find it funny that any movie with mild nudity would be considered completely taboo for kids but movies with people shooting the heck out of each other and TV shows depicting violent deaths are considered fine for all ages.
One of the main theses of The Hunger Games is that once experienced, violence leaves an imprint that doesn't go away. It also tends to beget more violence, even among its victims. We tend to shy away from people who have experienced violence, leaving this cycle unchallenged. When I first started working with people in the field of domestic violence long ago the statement that arrested my attention as a pastor was, "How many times have you heard a pastor or church stand up and say domestic violence is wrong?" It was true. At that point I never had, nor had I known anyone who had declared that publicly. We've since changed that, but it stands to reason that most folks haven't. If even our churches won't admit publicly that violence is bad for our society and has a bad effect on its victims, who will say it? We leave victims to struggle alone, walking in the wake of our silence. We consume violence in our entertainment without ever mitigating its effects by standing up against it--or even helping the victims of it--in real life.
When we see oppression we must speak and act. When we encounter victims of violence we must trust and uplift them. God does not call us to turn away when we perceive injustice, but to stand against it and work for a more just--and less injurious--society.
Whether economic, emotional, or physical, our world does damage to the people who live it in. Some of us experience it less, some more. Our response to this must be to hold each other closer, to pray more fervently, and to pick up those whom the world fells because of its unjust ways. The Hunger Games provides a decent depiction of what happens in the life of one woman when that doesn't happen. It's not necessarily a pretty tale, nor a happy one, but it's important for us to hear.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
I'm not going to spoil the story by talking about the narrative or any endings here, but I thought it might be fun to address some prominent themes and how they relate to our culture and consideration of God.
The Hunger Games is waist deep in issues of class and economics. Its world consists of a dozen outlying districts full of workers living in various levels of poverty. Each district is responsible for producing some sort of good. The value of that good determines the living standard for most everyone in the district. The central capitol controls the districts and is awash in wealth and luxury. When people from the districts meet people from the capitol they're all but alien to each other. Capitol dwellers live in complete ignorance of the source of their largess. They simply enjoy what others work for, throwing away more food each day than a district person eats over several.
Societies inevitably stratify people. That's a fact of life, all but unchangeable. No major society that's ever tried to equalize things has ever managed it. They only managed to shift the privilege. Our country contains many classes of people at various levels of wealth. That's not necessarily a problem in itself. We need to recognize, though, that the value of a person isn't defined just by wealth alone, nor are we to view people solely through the lens of what they produce for us. Jesus ministered with poor and wandering folks...treasuring them above all others precisely because the world didn't. He didn't judge by what people could give to him or how they could make his life easier, he simply gave to everyone he met regardless of his personal advantage or disadvantage in the process.
We'd be honored to have the President of the United States over for dinner. We should be just as honored to have the cashier from Dairy Queen. They're both God's children and if anything, the DQ worker might need a decent, balanced meal more.
When we only see people by their role in our lives--checker, house-cleaner, banker, or whatever--instead of seeing them as an extended part of God's family we echo the sin of the capitol-dwellers in the book. We spend our energy and love only on those closest to us, those like us in status and outlook, wasting much that's badly needed in the rest of the world.
There's also a bald economic component here. We're well-to-do compared to most people in the world. We should not get too comfortable with that inequity. Whatever God has blessed us with, it's meant to be shared. People without food, clean water, housing, jobs...whatever the imbalance may be, we do need to address it.
In the Hunger Games the solution to the problem of poverty is to select teenage representatives from each district and make them fight against each other to the death on TV for the amusement of all. The eventual victor (over 23 other victims) is rewarded with riches and fame forevermore...everything they could desire.
I can't help but think of the lottery system that so many people desperately buy into. Obviously that doesn't involve killing people but the reward process works about the same. Only one person wins. 99.999999% of the people who play remain poor. Somehow that doesn't matter because everyone hopes that they'll be the 0.0000001% someday. As long as that hope stays alive we figure there's a way out so we don't do anything to address the real issues surrounding poverty. As long as somebody makes it and we think we could be that somebody someday, we're content to let everybody else rot. If we do win, we're not spreading out that money to everyone who played. We're taking it and running to our new mansion.
I also think of the number of modern "starlets" who have become famous in recent years for doing nothing...no talent, no achievement, just famous for being famous and maybe showing some skin. Our young people are growing up with the message that fame and fortune cure everything. It runs on the same principle as the lottery but this time instead of buying a ticket you work to be thinner and get plastic surgery and torture your hair and put on revealing clothes. Not everybody will make it to that elite level of fame but somebody will, and it could be you!
I'm not certain, but those "starlets" don't look all that happy to me, especially in a couple years after the cameras move elsewhere. But again as long as the tantalizing apple of wild success hangs out there for a few, many people will happily play the game trying to grab it...much to their detriment and the detriment of those around them.
Jesus didn't just come to a few lucky winners or famous people. He made winners out of us all, adopting us into God's family. Everyone can call themselves blessed and beloved because of his sacrifice for them. We're not meant to make victors of a few and losers of everyone else. We're here to proclaim the ultimate victory that God won so he could wrap his arms around all of us where we were once divided.
The Hunger Games also deals with the issue of violence in the lives of young people. I'm not one who scrupulously avoids any depiction of violence. I have Mafia movies in my DVD collection. My son sometimes plays games on TV where cars crash into each other and knock each other off the road. I'm not always thrilled with the amount of violence we're exposed to in our popular culture, but we have to learn to deal with it and process it because it's not likely to stop anytime soon.
Dealing with it and processing it does not mean accepting it whole cloth, though. We teach Derek the difference between games/movies and real life. We don't let him watch anything with too much violence. Personally I find it funny that any movie with mild nudity would be considered completely taboo for kids but movies with people shooting the heck out of each other and TV shows depicting violent deaths are considered fine for all ages.
One of the main theses of The Hunger Games is that once experienced, violence leaves an imprint that doesn't go away. It also tends to beget more violence, even among its victims. We tend to shy away from people who have experienced violence, leaving this cycle unchallenged. When I first started working with people in the field of domestic violence long ago the statement that arrested my attention as a pastor was, "How many times have you heard a pastor or church stand up and say domestic violence is wrong?" It was true. At that point I never had, nor had I known anyone who had declared that publicly. We've since changed that, but it stands to reason that most folks haven't. If even our churches won't admit publicly that violence is bad for our society and has a bad effect on its victims, who will say it? We leave victims to struggle alone, walking in the wake of our silence. We consume violence in our entertainment without ever mitigating its effects by standing up against it--or even helping the victims of it--in real life.
When we see oppression we must speak and act. When we encounter victims of violence we must trust and uplift them. God does not call us to turn away when we perceive injustice, but to stand against it and work for a more just--and less injurious--society.
Whether economic, emotional, or physical, our world does damage to the people who live it in. Some of us experience it less, some more. Our response to this must be to hold each other closer, to pray more fervently, and to pick up those whom the world fells because of its unjust ways. The Hunger Games provides a decent depiction of what happens in the life of one woman when that doesn't happen. It's not necessarily a pretty tale, nor a happy one, but it's important for us to hear.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Monday Morning Sermon: Witness
The gospel for the Third Sunday of Easter came from Luke, chapter 24:
The part we keyed upon in the sermon was the very last sentence: "You are witnesses of these things." Jesus did miracles for us, first through his preaching, teaching, healing, and other ministries then by doing what no other person in all of the universe could: breaking the power of death and atoning for human sin by sacrificing himself into death and rising again for our sake. He requested no payment for this. He did not encourage us to achieve it ourselves by copying him either, for none of us could. He put no conditions upon it. He gave himself for us, imparting his grace and redemption freely. This one thing he said: you are witnesses. Witnessing is the key distinction between the old, temporary, hopeless life we led without Jesus and the new bountiful, joyous, and free life we live in him.
How tragic, then, that we've lost the sense of witness in our lives.
Witnessing has always involved two components: seeing and then telling the story of what you saw. We're more conversant with the first component--seeing--than any other generation in history. We literally have the world at our fingertips. Remote controls and computer mouses (mice?) (mousen?) transport our eyes anywhere we desire in an instant. Cable news channels, Netflix, YouTube, and their allied brethren bring us all the visual stimulation we could wish at any time, day or night. When something unusual, tragic, or striking happens we all see it. We see it faster, more readily, and over a wider footprint than anyone ever has.
All of this seeing, though, has alienated us from the second critical component of witness: sharing. Granted, the capacity to share has expanded right along with the capacity to transmit video. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and like sites have taken over the world. Like seeing, sharing is easier and more widespread than it's ever been.
You know what those sites have in common, though?
If you said speed, you're half right. Once upon a time they sent letters across country via Pony Express. You could expect your missive to make it in a month or two if all went well. Then the U.S. Mail took over and for 150-odd years you could send a message anywhere in the country in 1-3 days. When everybody got personal computers e-mail became king. Now you could deliver messages instantly! But now e-mail is old hat. It's becoming a dinosaur and fewer people are using it. Why? It's too slow. The messages still get delivered instantly but who knows when a person will enter their inbox and read them? With Facebook, Twitter, and text messaging your recipient can just keep an extra window open on their computer (or their phone by their side) all day and see the message the second you send it.
With this emphasis on speed has come a corresponding emphasis on brevity. Pony Express letters could take all the stationary sheets you wanted. Mail could too, within reason. E-mails were sometimes long, sometimes short. But Facebook wall posts come 2-3 sentences at a time, tops. Twitter only works with 140 characters or less. With Pinterest it's just a picture and a link. What need to speak when you can just type in the web address you're talking about and with one click everybody can see just what you saw?
That's what passes for witness nowadays...not conversation, certainly not in-depth discussion, but everybody pointing their browsers towards the same place so they can see the same thing. Less talking, more seeing...that's our culture now.
In this new world we've lost the sense of telling the story ourselves. Witness has become purely visual, a mostly-passive consumption of something created for us by others. News anchors tell us what the news is. Professional chefs tell us what recipes we should try. Movie and TV folks tell our stories or sports heroes act them out on our big screens. YouTube wackos crash skateboards for our amusement. We sit, we watch, we consume, and we invite everybody else to do the same.
Little surprise, then, that when Jesus says, "You are witnesses of these things" our first instinct is to reply, "OK. Saw it. Heard it. Job done. Who's playing in the game today?"
No it's not! The job's not done! That's not what he meant by "witness". In Jesus' day, with no newscasts or TV's or papers, if people didn't talk about an event it never happened! Even if 1000 people all saw it--consumed it as we do--that was just a drop in the bucket compared to the overall population. There were no video or audio tapes to record events...no way of disseminating or passing on stories except to tell and re-tell them. If those 1000 people saw an event but never repeated a word about it then that event passed into nothingness when the last of them died, as if it never existed.
Consider this: had that handful of people in the room with Jesus during this gospel story not been active witnesses--had they not told the story to their own friends who then re-told it and wrote it down and passed it on from generation to generation--we would not know God at all. There would be no Jesus, no church, no scripture, no idea whatsoever that these things even exist. You know God because someone showed you and/or told you about God. They knew God because someone showed and/or told them. God works through all that sharing. That's how he makes himself known.
And yet here we are, conditioned by culture to think of witness as a taking in instead of a giving out, as an instant event instead of a lifetime journey, as passive receiving instead of active communication. If it can't be done with two clicks, why bother?
Think how much of our church life itself is framed in passive terms. You come...that's active at least. But to what do you come? We're trained to think of church as a place...a building that never moves rather than an activity we engage in or a vibrant community we help create. After we come we sit. We're read to. We hear somebody speak at us. We spend an hour mostly taking things in. Then we go home and...that's it! We're done for the week.
ARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!
The traditional American church experience has been framed in such a way that makes us worse witnesses, not better...more passive rather than less. When the rest of our culture keels over, defining witness as mindless consumption, our faith becomes a sitting duck. In fact our faith was defining it that way well before YouTube and Fox News arrived on the scene. We're the original passive consumers!
If we're going to follow Jesus' words we need to change this. The first step is being aware of the issue, as I hope we become through this gospel and sermon. The next step goes beyond the bounds of this single scripture or a single talk.
This is where I reminded our good folks about the upcoming Evangelism Workshops on either Thursday May 3rd and 10th at 7:00 p.m. at St. John's or Sunday June 3rd and 24th after worship at the Valley. Those workshops will give us traction towards becoming more intentional and active witnesses. That's why we're asking everybody to set aside some time to engage in them.
Mark those dates. We'll see you there!
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
36b Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”
37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”
40 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet. 41 And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate it in their presence.
44 He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things.
The part we keyed upon in the sermon was the very last sentence: "You are witnesses of these things." Jesus did miracles for us, first through his preaching, teaching, healing, and other ministries then by doing what no other person in all of the universe could: breaking the power of death and atoning for human sin by sacrificing himself into death and rising again for our sake. He requested no payment for this. He did not encourage us to achieve it ourselves by copying him either, for none of us could. He put no conditions upon it. He gave himself for us, imparting his grace and redemption freely. This one thing he said: you are witnesses. Witnessing is the key distinction between the old, temporary, hopeless life we led without Jesus and the new bountiful, joyous, and free life we live in him.
How tragic, then, that we've lost the sense of witness in our lives.
Witnessing has always involved two components: seeing and then telling the story of what you saw. We're more conversant with the first component--seeing--than any other generation in history. We literally have the world at our fingertips. Remote controls and computer mouses (mice?) (mousen?) transport our eyes anywhere we desire in an instant. Cable news channels, Netflix, YouTube, and their allied brethren bring us all the visual stimulation we could wish at any time, day or night. When something unusual, tragic, or striking happens we all see it. We see it faster, more readily, and over a wider footprint than anyone ever has.
All of this seeing, though, has alienated us from the second critical component of witness: sharing. Granted, the capacity to share has expanded right along with the capacity to transmit video. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and like sites have taken over the world. Like seeing, sharing is easier and more widespread than it's ever been.
You know what those sites have in common, though?
If you said speed, you're half right. Once upon a time they sent letters across country via Pony Express. You could expect your missive to make it in a month or two if all went well. Then the U.S. Mail took over and for 150-odd years you could send a message anywhere in the country in 1-3 days. When everybody got personal computers e-mail became king. Now you could deliver messages instantly! But now e-mail is old hat. It's becoming a dinosaur and fewer people are using it. Why? It's too slow. The messages still get delivered instantly but who knows when a person will enter their inbox and read them? With Facebook, Twitter, and text messaging your recipient can just keep an extra window open on their computer (or their phone by their side) all day and see the message the second you send it.
With this emphasis on speed has come a corresponding emphasis on brevity. Pony Express letters could take all the stationary sheets you wanted. Mail could too, within reason. E-mails were sometimes long, sometimes short. But Facebook wall posts come 2-3 sentences at a time, tops. Twitter only works with 140 characters or less. With Pinterest it's just a picture and a link. What need to speak when you can just type in the web address you're talking about and with one click everybody can see just what you saw?
That's what passes for witness nowadays...not conversation, certainly not in-depth discussion, but everybody pointing their browsers towards the same place so they can see the same thing. Less talking, more seeing...that's our culture now.
In this new world we've lost the sense of telling the story ourselves. Witness has become purely visual, a mostly-passive consumption of something created for us by others. News anchors tell us what the news is. Professional chefs tell us what recipes we should try. Movie and TV folks tell our stories or sports heroes act them out on our big screens. YouTube wackos crash skateboards for our amusement. We sit, we watch, we consume, and we invite everybody else to do the same.
Little surprise, then, that when Jesus says, "You are witnesses of these things" our first instinct is to reply, "OK. Saw it. Heard it. Job done. Who's playing in the game today?"
No it's not! The job's not done! That's not what he meant by "witness". In Jesus' day, with no newscasts or TV's or papers, if people didn't talk about an event it never happened! Even if 1000 people all saw it--consumed it as we do--that was just a drop in the bucket compared to the overall population. There were no video or audio tapes to record events...no way of disseminating or passing on stories except to tell and re-tell them. If those 1000 people saw an event but never repeated a word about it then that event passed into nothingness when the last of them died, as if it never existed.
Consider this: had that handful of people in the room with Jesus during this gospel story not been active witnesses--had they not told the story to their own friends who then re-told it and wrote it down and passed it on from generation to generation--we would not know God at all. There would be no Jesus, no church, no scripture, no idea whatsoever that these things even exist. You know God because someone showed you and/or told you about God. They knew God because someone showed and/or told them. God works through all that sharing. That's how he makes himself known.
And yet here we are, conditioned by culture to think of witness as a taking in instead of a giving out, as an instant event instead of a lifetime journey, as passive receiving instead of active communication. If it can't be done with two clicks, why bother?
Think how much of our church life itself is framed in passive terms. You come...that's active at least. But to what do you come? We're trained to think of church as a place...a building that never moves rather than an activity we engage in or a vibrant community we help create. After we come we sit. We're read to. We hear somebody speak at us. We spend an hour mostly taking things in. Then we go home and...that's it! We're done for the week.
ARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!
The traditional American church experience has been framed in such a way that makes us worse witnesses, not better...more passive rather than less. When the rest of our culture keels over, defining witness as mindless consumption, our faith becomes a sitting duck. In fact our faith was defining it that way well before YouTube and Fox News arrived on the scene. We're the original passive consumers!
If we're going to follow Jesus' words we need to change this. The first step is being aware of the issue, as I hope we become through this gospel and sermon. The next step goes beyond the bounds of this single scripture or a single talk.
This is where I reminded our good folks about the upcoming Evangelism Workshops on either Thursday May 3rd and 10th at 7:00 p.m. at St. John's or Sunday June 3rd and 24th after worship at the Valley. Those workshops will give us traction towards becoming more intentional and active witnesses. That's why we're asking everybody to set aside some time to engage in them.
Mark those dates. We'll see you there!
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Friday, April 20, 2012
Another Example of Everyday Evangelism
It must be Evangelism Week around here because today I got the chance to consider yet another example of everyday evangelism, this one from my own family.
Click through to read all about it!
Click through to read all about it!
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Responses to Yesterday's Post
Today I want to share some of the responses I got from yesterday's blog post on my basketball website. You can find the text of that post just below. These are responses from readers of the Blazers site, not from readers of this one...in other words non-church people. Normally I don't post any kind of correspondence but I think they'll be illustrative. I'm keeping names off of them and, really, not many people outside our local area read here. It's not like I'm broadcasting this to the world at this point. So I'm making an exception.
Read them by clicking through...
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Cross-Posting
Today marks a first! On my basketball blog I was asked a question about athletes expressing their faith during sporting events. The NFL's Tim Tebow is one example but one of the Portland Trail Blazers' young forwards just came out with a bunch of comments about his faith and has started to debut a skyward point after each three-pointer he makes during the game. I was asked to offer my thoughts on such things after a semi-substantial argument broke out among fans of faith and fans of not-so-much faith on the site. I figured I'd give you a peek at the other work I do by re-printing my response here. Click through to see it and let me know if I did OK.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
High School Movies and God
Every other Sunday this spring we've been holding a movie/discussion night for high school students. Attendance has been pretty good! We start by eating a meal, mostly cooked by our high schoolers (good stuff!). We converse while eating and then sit down to watch a movie together, reflecting on it afterwards.
So far the movies we've watched have been:
It's funny how faith works like that. How many of you have ever been moved by someone coming up to you and saying, "Accept Jesus right now!!!"? (Moved to do something besides run, that is.) Sometimes the kind of talk that appears to be about faith is actually about the ego, motives, or choices of the person doing the speaking more than about God. Hitting people over the head with the Lord seldom does anything but make them go, "Ouch!" But if you're patient and show the beauty, tenderness, love, and passion of faith at work in your daily life, people will see and respond. Some of the most godly talks I've ever had have come with people who didn't even realize at the moment that they were talking about God. Drawing the connections between that daily walk and faith is often the last step in the process, closing the circle, rather than the first.
Keep this in mind next time you want to talk to someone about faith. What are you leading with? How will they know you're trustworthy and true? If the relationship's not right then faith won't follow even if you talk about God until you're blue in the face, just like if the movie's not right then people won't see God in it even if he's mentioned in every second line of the script.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
So far the movies we've watched have been:
- Smoke Signals, the story of two young Native Americans from Coeur d'Alene and their struggle to cope with the death of their parents.
- Forrest Gump, about the way a learning disabled man changes the world through his forthrightness and perseverance.
- Dead Poet's Society, about a group of teenage boys in a boarding school struggling to find their way in life and to cope with difficult circumstances.
- Life Is Beautiful, about an Italian Jewish man during World War II who gives up everything to save his son in a concentration camp.
It's funny how faith works like that. How many of you have ever been moved by someone coming up to you and saying, "Accept Jesus right now!!!"? (Moved to do something besides run, that is.) Sometimes the kind of talk that appears to be about faith is actually about the ego, motives, or choices of the person doing the speaking more than about God. Hitting people over the head with the Lord seldom does anything but make them go, "Ouch!" But if you're patient and show the beauty, tenderness, love, and passion of faith at work in your daily life, people will see and respond. Some of the most godly talks I've ever had have come with people who didn't even realize at the moment that they were talking about God. Drawing the connections between that daily walk and faith is often the last step in the process, closing the circle, rather than the first.
Keep this in mind next time you want to talk to someone about faith. What are you leading with? How will they know you're trustworthy and true? If the relationship's not right then faith won't follow even if you talk about God until you're blue in the face, just like if the movie's not right then people won't see God in it even if he's mentioned in every second line of the script.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Monday, April 16, 2012
Monday Morning Sermon: Thomas' Mistake
This Sunday's gospel text was John 20: 19-31. We concentrated on verses 24-29 for the sermon:
This text comes up after Easter every year and I've said many times before that we should pity poor "Doubting" Thomas because he gets a bad rap. Who among us would not doubt given the circumstances? The guy we just saw crucified and buried has come alive again and is speaking to all his friends? Yeah, sure. We're on Candid Camera, right? (Translation for all of you younger-generation folks: "We're getting Punk'd, right?") Besides, we need doubts! Our doubts provide the soil from which curiosity and learning grow. If nobody ever had a question or concern nobody would ever learn more than they already know. Doubts help us discover things about God that we would never probe otherwise. The old-school mantra of, "Never doubt. Never question." was backwards. Not doubting is the opposite of faith. The moment we stop doubting and questioning our faith stops evolving.
Doubts in themselves are not bad things. They have the potential to be good or bad depending on what we do with them. This is where Thomas fell short. That's what we discussed in the sermon.
There are two basic responses to doubt: utterances that end in a question mark and utterances that end in a period. The difference between the two provides the dividing line between faith and un-faith, between our doubts being productive and crippling us.
Responses that end in a question mark turn our doubts to good. Questions imply exploration, curiosity, the possibility of change. This is the kind of doubt-response we have in Theology on Tap and our other Bible Studies. When someone expresses doubt or poses a question we don't jump on them, shut them down, or run as if our faith was going to be contaminated. Nor do we immediately provide a "right" answer, shutting down the conversation and implying that we already know everything about faith and God. Instead we run with the question, open up the doubt. Usually the person who brought it up isn't the only one feeling it! We toss around the subject, weigh in, use the opportunity to get to know each other and our perceptions of faith a little better. Somehow in that process, even though the doubt isn't answered per se, it's assuaged. We know we don't have to be afraid of it. Raising the question, even a doubtful question, has brought us closer to each other and an understanding of God.
If only poor Thomas had put a question mark at the end of his doubts! "Wait...you saw him? How could that be? I don't get how that could happen, seeing as how he was DEAD. Are you sure?" Think of all the possible responses that could have come from those inquiries and all the faith that could have blossomed from the discussion as they waited for Jesus to show up again.
Unfortunately Thomas took the other route, punctuating his doubts with a period instead of a question mark. "I will not believe until I have seen him, stuck my fingers in the holes in his hands, stuck my hand in his side." He was not moving. He was not open to any new possibilities. Instead of opening himself up through his doubt he closed everyone else down. He already knew this could not be. He would sit there until someone proved him wrong.
There's no confession in this kind of expression. There's no vulnerability. It's a pushing away, first of the fear and doubt, then of everyone else around. "This is NOT so and I will not be told differently!" I guess in a way you've banished doubt there, but it's a cold resolution. It ends the conversation and any possibility of learning or growth.
The sad thing about this second approach is that it seldom gets resolved. Thomas was lucky. Jesus showed up in person and demonstrated the truth, much to Thomas' shame. But it took being hit over the head with a club to get Thomas to change his mind. That kind of experience doesn't happen to us much nowadays...not that Jesus doesn't show up, mind you. He's here and talking to us all the time. But we don't recognize him. We also don't let ourselves get hit over the head by that "you are wrong" club nowadays. We'd rather pack up and leave.
Nowadays punctuating your doubt with a period looks like this:
Despite Thomas' unique and dramatic case being an exception, both sets of people generally get what they sought. Question mark doubting people find deeper understanding and knowledge of God and his path when they are bold and let those question marks free among God's people. They also tend to open up paths for others who are asking their own questions, reassuring them that doubts and fears don't destroy faith, but in God's Spirit they aid faith. Period doubting people refuse to see anything that contradicts them and thus are proven "right". They also tend to drive away any who think differently or need to express their doubts, leaving behind a circle of the like-minded. This gives the impression that the whole world thinks like they do because in their small, closed environment it does. Both end up banishing their doubt and fear--one through embrace and exploration, the other through denial--but they have radically different effects on the people and world around them as they do so.
I don't think there's much doubt about which road Jesus calls us to take. If we want to see something, to have something proven to us, before we act in faith then we'll never act. Only by taking leaps of faith, discussing our doubts while trusting in God, can we walk the path of the Lord. That means admitting we don't know everything. That means admitting we're not in control. That even means doing some crazy things sometimes, like telling people that a guy who died (who we can't see anymore) really is back alive and that this transformed our lives forevermore. Sometimes it means turning our lives upside down so that message can be told, so others have a chance to hear, believe, and question, even as we have.
To be hit over the head with a club, having something proven to you before you'll act on it is one thing. But blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
24 Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
This text comes up after Easter every year and I've said many times before that we should pity poor "Doubting" Thomas because he gets a bad rap. Who among us would not doubt given the circumstances? The guy we just saw crucified and buried has come alive again and is speaking to all his friends? Yeah, sure. We're on Candid Camera, right? (Translation for all of you younger-generation folks: "We're getting Punk'd, right?") Besides, we need doubts! Our doubts provide the soil from which curiosity and learning grow. If nobody ever had a question or concern nobody would ever learn more than they already know. Doubts help us discover things about God that we would never probe otherwise. The old-school mantra of, "Never doubt. Never question." was backwards. Not doubting is the opposite of faith. The moment we stop doubting and questioning our faith stops evolving.
Doubts in themselves are not bad things. They have the potential to be good or bad depending on what we do with them. This is where Thomas fell short. That's what we discussed in the sermon.
There are two basic responses to doubt: utterances that end in a question mark and utterances that end in a period. The difference between the two provides the dividing line between faith and un-faith, between our doubts being productive and crippling us.
Responses that end in a question mark turn our doubts to good. Questions imply exploration, curiosity, the possibility of change. This is the kind of doubt-response we have in Theology on Tap and our other Bible Studies. When someone expresses doubt or poses a question we don't jump on them, shut them down, or run as if our faith was going to be contaminated. Nor do we immediately provide a "right" answer, shutting down the conversation and implying that we already know everything about faith and God. Instead we run with the question, open up the doubt. Usually the person who brought it up isn't the only one feeling it! We toss around the subject, weigh in, use the opportunity to get to know each other and our perceptions of faith a little better. Somehow in that process, even though the doubt isn't answered per se, it's assuaged. We know we don't have to be afraid of it. Raising the question, even a doubtful question, has brought us closer to each other and an understanding of God.
If only poor Thomas had put a question mark at the end of his doubts! "Wait...you saw him? How could that be? I don't get how that could happen, seeing as how he was DEAD. Are you sure?" Think of all the possible responses that could have come from those inquiries and all the faith that could have blossomed from the discussion as they waited for Jesus to show up again.
Unfortunately Thomas took the other route, punctuating his doubts with a period instead of a question mark. "I will not believe until I have seen him, stuck my fingers in the holes in his hands, stuck my hand in his side." He was not moving. He was not open to any new possibilities. Instead of opening himself up through his doubt he closed everyone else down. He already knew this could not be. He would sit there until someone proved him wrong.
There's no confession in this kind of expression. There's no vulnerability. It's a pushing away, first of the fear and doubt, then of everyone else around. "This is NOT so and I will not be told differently!" I guess in a way you've banished doubt there, but it's a cold resolution. It ends the conversation and any possibility of learning or growth.
The sad thing about this second approach is that it seldom gets resolved. Thomas was lucky. Jesus showed up in person and demonstrated the truth, much to Thomas' shame. But it took being hit over the head with a club to get Thomas to change his mind. That kind of experience doesn't happen to us much nowadays...not that Jesus doesn't show up, mind you. He's here and talking to us all the time. But we don't recognize him. We also don't let ourselves get hit over the head by that "you are wrong" club nowadays. We'd rather pack up and leave.
Nowadays punctuating your doubt with a period looks like this:
- You address an open issue with certainty, closing it down. "I know what's real. I know the truth. I know what God wants. It is THIS! And I will not hear anything more about it!"
- People around you offer different opinions, but you either remove yourself from them--keeping to a circle of people who think like you--or you simply refuse to acknowledge that what they say could be truthful or godly in any way.
- Anything that happens that might lean towards what other people are saying, you ignore or credit to some other cause.
- If, by some misfortune, what they say DOES turn out to be true and you are hit over the head with it, you leave and find another church that agrees with what you said initially.
Despite Thomas' unique and dramatic case being an exception, both sets of people generally get what they sought. Question mark doubting people find deeper understanding and knowledge of God and his path when they are bold and let those question marks free among God's people. They also tend to open up paths for others who are asking their own questions, reassuring them that doubts and fears don't destroy faith, but in God's Spirit they aid faith. Period doubting people refuse to see anything that contradicts them and thus are proven "right". They also tend to drive away any who think differently or need to express their doubts, leaving behind a circle of the like-minded. This gives the impression that the whole world thinks like they do because in their small, closed environment it does. Both end up banishing their doubt and fear--one through embrace and exploration, the other through denial--but they have radically different effects on the people and world around them as they do so.
I don't think there's much doubt about which road Jesus calls us to take. If we want to see something, to have something proven to us, before we act in faith then we'll never act. Only by taking leaps of faith, discussing our doubts while trusting in God, can we walk the path of the Lord. That means admitting we don't know everything. That means admitting we're not in control. That even means doing some crazy things sometimes, like telling people that a guy who died (who we can't see anymore) really is back alive and that this transformed our lives forevermore. Sometimes it means turning our lives upside down so that message can be told, so others have a chance to hear, believe, and question, even as we have.
To be hit over the head with a club, having something proven to you before you'll act on it is one thing. But blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Friday, April 13, 2012
Faith Statements
The beginning of June will see our next group of Confirmation students confirmed. This is always a day of mixed emotions for me. The pride in, and love for, the kids I've spent the last two years with mixes with the sadness of not meeting with them every other Sunday--at least not in this way--once the service is complete. Most of them do hang around in one way or another, coming to worship or youth group events or helping out when we need them. But it's not quite the same.
Each time a new class is confirmed I hear the stories from past confirmands about the way their Confirmation went. I love to hear those tales. It's good for the kids to hear them too, so they can understand their bond to past generations as well as the differences that define them and their faith. When the old-timers recall their Confirmation ceremony, one refrain echoes over and over. People look back with pride and horror on pastors grilling them in front of the congregation on the commandments form the Small Catechism and select Bible verses. This is inevitably followed by the question, "Do you still have them memorize?"
This is actually something I've thought about a fair bit. Rote memorization has its advantages. Even if the students don't understand the full meaning of the words they're saying, they can recall and re-examine them later. Public recounting of the words they've memorized also lends a sense of gravity to the proceedings, if nothing else from the stress involved!
Memorization also has disadvantages...some of which I've become acquainted with intimately over the years as they've been demonstrated by those same past confirmands. There's no guarantee that the student understands a word of what he or she is saying. Deeper meaning tends to get drown by the perspiration that comes with being quizzed in front of the congregation. Once completed, the exercise tends to evoke feelings of pride in the self and completion. Those are the exact opposite of what we're trying to teach in confirmation. We want to encourage humbleness, service to others, and life-long exploration of your relationship with God. Once you've spouted your required lines you have now "passed the test" and may "graduate", joining the ranks of the congregation who already know the words and now listen to other, younger people repeat them. The implication is that "grown up" faith people don't speak, they make other people prove their faith to them by speaking. Grown up faith people don't have to memorize or do work anymore, they've already done it. Grown up faith people don't ever let themselves feel uncomfortable or let themselves be asked questions, they have the not-yet-grown-up people handle that.
It's a weird system that teaches you that in order to learn you have to exit the grown up world and put yourself right back there sweating and being judged by others. Obviously nobody in their right mind would do that. Can you imagine a 55-year-old volunteering to get up in front of the congregation to repeat memorized phrases while everybody else watched?
I guess I've just run into too many long-confirmed people who could still repeat their memorized phrases but who also felt that there was nothing else they had to do, that their learning was done, that they were in the place of power now because of those words they memorized long ago. So they don't bother coming to Bible Study and they're uncomfortable with any change or exploration which would unseat them from their status as "the ones who have already done it and shouldn't be bothered anymore".
I'm not saying all people who went through the memorization process are like this, but I've met more than a few. And when you add that to the people who hated, hated, HATED Confirmation because they just perceived it as memory drills followed by a morning of abject fear about "getting it right" in front of everybody...well, this just didn't seem like the best idea.
We haven't abandoned the idea entirely, mind you. We don't require memorization anymore but we do have a two-year confirmation program here. During those two years we hit themes that repeat throughout scripture and church life. We don't rush. We don't force. We bathe in things until they sink in. By the time they get out of Confirmation these students, through a couple years of repetition and tackling the same ideas from different angles, have a fair idea of God's salvation, Jesus' sacrifice for them, grace, mercy, sin, death, resurrection, morality, and our responsibility to God, each other, and the world. They might not be able to put it into textbook-perfect phrases, but if you ask them to speak from their hearts about God they will probably give you a pretty close approximation of what the Bible says about him.
And asking them to speak about God is exactly what we do at their Confirmation service. We haven't gotten rid of the public proclamation. Witness is an intrinsic part of our faith! If they can never speak about God then they'll never really know him or be able to make the world better through his power. We still have them speak before the congregation. But instead of having them repeat the words WE find most important through memorization, we ask them to give THEIR witness of God, his actions, and what difference that makes to their lives. Instead of setting them up to be students who graduate to being not-students-anymore, we give them their first chance to be teachers, sharers, witnesses to the Word, entering upon a lifelong journey of discovering and talking about God. That's why we ask them to write and read statements about their faith on the day they are confirmed.
We don't want our pews to be filled with former Confirmation students who have "done it". We want our pews to be filled with current witnesses and explorers of faith who are still doing it! And we want these students to be able to speak to their classmates and friends, eventually their children and grandchildren, to be able to make statements of faith (and to hear other people's statements of faith) throughout their lives.
They still have to know about God. We don't tell them to get up there and say the first thing that comes to mind about any old subject. We're also concerned if they get up there and say that God doesn't matter or that he's a three-toed tree sloth. (Neither of those has happened yet.) But the God we have them share is THEIR God. Hearing their words makes our understanding of God that much bigger. We're turned into fellow explorers, thinkers, and theologians along with them instead of just paper correction experts with red pens in hand in case they make a mistake on their pre-memorized words. When they speak, even as newly-minted students taking their first intentional steps into faith, it transforms them and us.
The memorized words will always be available to them. They can find them in the Bible and the catechism. But if we don't teach them that their perceptions are inspired and their voice important really early in their faith life they'll probably never learn it. If we don't teach them that learning about, discovering, and sharing God is embedded in their very being they'll likely not try it again once they've completed their coursework.
So no, we don't have them memorize and repeat anymore. Some things may be lost there, but I'd argue that much more is gained. I'd also argue that the things we lose are easily picked up...indeed, that curiosity along the journey we set them on mandates that they will pick up those memorized words at some point. That doesn't happen when we do it the other way around. If we don't teach them that they have a soul and how to bare it for the sake of God, they'll trade in that realization for the much easier coinage of having succeeded at the small and temporary task we put before them before we pat them on the head and dub them confirmed. Once they think they've made it they'll have little use for the experience of learning again...or indeed for us. That would be a sad end to what's supposed to be a wonderful Confirmation experience.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Each time a new class is confirmed I hear the stories from past confirmands about the way their Confirmation went. I love to hear those tales. It's good for the kids to hear them too, so they can understand their bond to past generations as well as the differences that define them and their faith. When the old-timers recall their Confirmation ceremony, one refrain echoes over and over. People look back with pride and horror on pastors grilling them in front of the congregation on the commandments form the Small Catechism and select Bible verses. This is inevitably followed by the question, "Do you still have them memorize?"
This is actually something I've thought about a fair bit. Rote memorization has its advantages. Even if the students don't understand the full meaning of the words they're saying, they can recall and re-examine them later. Public recounting of the words they've memorized also lends a sense of gravity to the proceedings, if nothing else from the stress involved!
Memorization also has disadvantages...some of which I've become acquainted with intimately over the years as they've been demonstrated by those same past confirmands. There's no guarantee that the student understands a word of what he or she is saying. Deeper meaning tends to get drown by the perspiration that comes with being quizzed in front of the congregation. Once completed, the exercise tends to evoke feelings of pride in the self and completion. Those are the exact opposite of what we're trying to teach in confirmation. We want to encourage humbleness, service to others, and life-long exploration of your relationship with God. Once you've spouted your required lines you have now "passed the test" and may "graduate", joining the ranks of the congregation who already know the words and now listen to other, younger people repeat them. The implication is that "grown up" faith people don't speak, they make other people prove their faith to them by speaking. Grown up faith people don't have to memorize or do work anymore, they've already done it. Grown up faith people don't ever let themselves feel uncomfortable or let themselves be asked questions, they have the not-yet-grown-up people handle that.
It's a weird system that teaches you that in order to learn you have to exit the grown up world and put yourself right back there sweating and being judged by others. Obviously nobody in their right mind would do that. Can you imagine a 55-year-old volunteering to get up in front of the congregation to repeat memorized phrases while everybody else watched?
I guess I've just run into too many long-confirmed people who could still repeat their memorized phrases but who also felt that there was nothing else they had to do, that their learning was done, that they were in the place of power now because of those words they memorized long ago. So they don't bother coming to Bible Study and they're uncomfortable with any change or exploration which would unseat them from their status as "the ones who have already done it and shouldn't be bothered anymore".
I'm not saying all people who went through the memorization process are like this, but I've met more than a few. And when you add that to the people who hated, hated, HATED Confirmation because they just perceived it as memory drills followed by a morning of abject fear about "getting it right" in front of everybody...well, this just didn't seem like the best idea.
We haven't abandoned the idea entirely, mind you. We don't require memorization anymore but we do have a two-year confirmation program here. During those two years we hit themes that repeat throughout scripture and church life. We don't rush. We don't force. We bathe in things until they sink in. By the time they get out of Confirmation these students, through a couple years of repetition and tackling the same ideas from different angles, have a fair idea of God's salvation, Jesus' sacrifice for them, grace, mercy, sin, death, resurrection, morality, and our responsibility to God, each other, and the world. They might not be able to put it into textbook-perfect phrases, but if you ask them to speak from their hearts about God they will probably give you a pretty close approximation of what the Bible says about him.
And asking them to speak about God is exactly what we do at their Confirmation service. We haven't gotten rid of the public proclamation. Witness is an intrinsic part of our faith! If they can never speak about God then they'll never really know him or be able to make the world better through his power. We still have them speak before the congregation. But instead of having them repeat the words WE find most important through memorization, we ask them to give THEIR witness of God, his actions, and what difference that makes to their lives. Instead of setting them up to be students who graduate to being not-students-anymore, we give them their first chance to be teachers, sharers, witnesses to the Word, entering upon a lifelong journey of discovering and talking about God. That's why we ask them to write and read statements about their faith on the day they are confirmed.
We don't want our pews to be filled with former Confirmation students who have "done it". We want our pews to be filled with current witnesses and explorers of faith who are still doing it! And we want these students to be able to speak to their classmates and friends, eventually their children and grandchildren, to be able to make statements of faith (and to hear other people's statements of faith) throughout their lives.
They still have to know about God. We don't tell them to get up there and say the first thing that comes to mind about any old subject. We're also concerned if they get up there and say that God doesn't matter or that he's a three-toed tree sloth. (Neither of those has happened yet.) But the God we have them share is THEIR God. Hearing their words makes our understanding of God that much bigger. We're turned into fellow explorers, thinkers, and theologians along with them instead of just paper correction experts with red pens in hand in case they make a mistake on their pre-memorized words. When they speak, even as newly-minted students taking their first intentional steps into faith, it transforms them and us.
The memorized words will always be available to them. They can find them in the Bible and the catechism. But if we don't teach them that their perceptions are inspired and their voice important really early in their faith life they'll probably never learn it. If we don't teach them that learning about, discovering, and sharing God is embedded in their very being they'll likely not try it again once they've completed their coursework.
So no, we don't have them memorize and repeat anymore. Some things may be lost there, but I'd argue that much more is gained. I'd also argue that the things we lose are easily picked up...indeed, that curiosity along the journey we set them on mandates that they will pick up those memorized words at some point. That doesn't happen when we do it the other way around. If we don't teach them that they have a soul and how to bare it for the sake of God, they'll trade in that realization for the much easier coinage of having succeeded at the small and temporary task we put before them before we pat them on the head and dub them confirmed. Once they think they've made it they'll have little use for the experience of learning again...or indeed for us. That would be a sad end to what's supposed to be a wonderful Confirmation experience.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Quarterly Meeting Reminder
Our next Quarterly Meeting will be after worship on Sunday, April 22nd. Join us!
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Trust
I had one of those "I can't believe how amazing our church is right now" moments after Clarence Gilge's funeral yesterday that I want to share with you. It happened when I walked into the kitchen and saw several ladies of the church serving a meal to Clarence's family and friends. That's nothing unusual in itself. We've served funeral meals for years. But as I saw this group of ladies working together and sharing stories and even smiling and laughing at certain moments, I realized how special this moment was. They weren't smiling and sharing and sharing because they were related by blood, nor background, nor generation. They were doing all this because:
A. The tasks needed to be done. And...
B. Since they needed to be done, they might as well enjoy them and each other.
An unusual wave of feeling swept over me as I surveyed them working...a warmth of sorts. Then I realized that the feeling stemmed from the deep trust I had in them, individually and as a group. I don't just mean trust that they would do a good job with the meal and the dishes. Most people could do that. I realized when I felt the spirit in that kitchen that I trusted them with anything...this more or less random group of Genesee Lutheran Parish ladies who had come together on that day. If a person came in need of assistance, I would trust this group to help them. If a person came wanting to know who God was and what faith was about, I would trust these ladies to show them. If Derek or Ali got left behind at church somehow, I would trust these folks to take care of them as long as needed. Anything that was required, spiritually or in service or whatever, I believe these ladies could and would do. And they'd do it in a way that would well represent God, our church, and our faith. I'm glad I was present, but I didn't have to be present, watching out for everyone to make sure they got the right experience of God here. Everyone was already in great hands.
That's a priceless feeling. I probably could have felt it before with other groups, but there always seemed to be a sense that it was more important to get the task done "just so" or to make sure the forks were put away in exactly the right drawer. With this group of people now right or wrong, left or right don't matter as much as being together and serving well. In other words we don't care about jobs or things (in the kitchen or out) as much as we care about people and service and being together in God's name. That's why I felt I could trust these ladies with anything, anytime, anywhere and with anyone who came to them.
Having enough faith and trust in each other and God to operate like this is a powerful statement. Thank you to everyone who served yesterday for showing us that.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
A. The tasks needed to be done. And...
B. Since they needed to be done, they might as well enjoy them and each other.
An unusual wave of feeling swept over me as I surveyed them working...a warmth of sorts. Then I realized that the feeling stemmed from the deep trust I had in them, individually and as a group. I don't just mean trust that they would do a good job with the meal and the dishes. Most people could do that. I realized when I felt the spirit in that kitchen that I trusted them with anything...this more or less random group of Genesee Lutheran Parish ladies who had come together on that day. If a person came in need of assistance, I would trust this group to help them. If a person came wanting to know who God was and what faith was about, I would trust these ladies to show them. If Derek or Ali got left behind at church somehow, I would trust these folks to take care of them as long as needed. Anything that was required, spiritually or in service or whatever, I believe these ladies could and would do. And they'd do it in a way that would well represent God, our church, and our faith. I'm glad I was present, but I didn't have to be present, watching out for everyone to make sure they got the right experience of God here. Everyone was already in great hands.
That's a priceless feeling. I probably could have felt it before with other groups, but there always seemed to be a sense that it was more important to get the task done "just so" or to make sure the forks were put away in exactly the right drawer. With this group of people now right or wrong, left or right don't matter as much as being together and serving well. In other words we don't care about jobs or things (in the kitchen or out) as much as we care about people and service and being together in God's name. That's why I felt I could trust these ladies with anything, anytime, anywhere and with anyone who came to them.
Having enough faith and trust in each other and God to operate like this is a powerful statement. Thank you to everyone who served yesterday for showing us that.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Funeral Sermons
This morning at 10:30 we gather at St. John's to commemorate Clarence Gilge, who passed away last Friday morning. Clarence was a good friend of our family, both our church family and my own. Derek always loved to go see "Grandpa Clarence" and Clarence always laughed as he tickled Derek or listened to one of his stories. Clarence tended to make sunshine out of rain wherever he went. It'll be an honor to preside at his funeral service.
This seems a good time to talk about a question that faces every pastor and every grieving family at the time of the funeral: how much do you talk about the person and how much do you focus on God, heaven, and the eternal? Families often have concerns about how their loved ones will be remembered. Pastors always try to walk between those two paths, not falling prey to the weaknesses of taking just one or the other.
I think we've all seen that line walked poorly. You don't have to listen very long before you hear someone talk about a funeral sermon that seemed impersonal or distant because the deceased was barely mentioned, as if the pastor was taking the opportunity to preach at the congregation without connecting to or comforting them in their time of loss...loss which is bound up in the memories of a particular person, which should be honored. On the other hand we've all seen funerals that talk about nothing but the person, as if the whole purpose was to outdo each other with stories about how well we knew somebody and how wonderful they are and how big our grief will be at missing them. There's an old saying, somewhat cynical in delivery: "Everybody's a saint after they die." Canonizing a person in the funeral sermon divorces us from reality as much as ignoring them does. It denies that people are people, that the miracle of life (and death and resurrection) comes precisely in the moment when we realize they happen to imperfect, ordinary folks like all of us are. Who could ever live up to all the things that are said at these services? You'd crumble under the burden of trying.
Personally I've found the best way out of this conundrum is to ask a simple question then use the sermon to answer it: What has God shown us through this person and their life? It takes a fair amount of faith to even venture this. You have to assume God was active in their life, for starters. You have to assume he was working something good through them. Your job, then, is to play detective and find it, then share it. In a way it's a little like the Children's Sermon that we do each Sunday. You know something is in there. Do you have the faith to connect it to God, the eyes to see how that works, and the words to share it? When someone dies we get to open the box and look at the collection of things they've left us to talk about, finding all the places where they and God intersected.
In most cases this isn't too hard. Often I've known the person and seen the witness their life has been, even if they didn't know they were being a witness. Families always have stories, many of which I may not have heard. Some experienced God through fishing, others farming, others school, others in loving relationships. If you listen you can hear the threads God wove through their lives. The sermon, then, simply points them out and says, "Look at how amazing this is!"
Everybody meets God in their own way. Everybody shows God in their own way. If you can find how a person has done so, even in the smallest and most subtle fashion, then you can be sure God was present, that the relationship with the Almighty was alive, and that God has not abandoned the person in the hour of death. In fact it's almost eerie how closely the ways God supports us and works through us in life reflect his ultimate act of resurrection into heaven, the final miracle for us all. As we suggested in the Easter sermon, the small resurrections we experience in this life all point to the Big One at the end. Once you've seen and recognized those small moments for what they were it's an easy and natural leap to seeing and believing in that final act of grace and redemption.
Pray for Clarence's family today. Pray also that his service will be fitting and go well. Pray also in thanksgiving for God talking to us and working through our lives so intimately so that we might know who he is and be able to tell his story in all the moments of our lives and even beyond.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
This seems a good time to talk about a question that faces every pastor and every grieving family at the time of the funeral: how much do you talk about the person and how much do you focus on God, heaven, and the eternal? Families often have concerns about how their loved ones will be remembered. Pastors always try to walk between those two paths, not falling prey to the weaknesses of taking just one or the other.
I think we've all seen that line walked poorly. You don't have to listen very long before you hear someone talk about a funeral sermon that seemed impersonal or distant because the deceased was barely mentioned, as if the pastor was taking the opportunity to preach at the congregation without connecting to or comforting them in their time of loss...loss which is bound up in the memories of a particular person, which should be honored. On the other hand we've all seen funerals that talk about nothing but the person, as if the whole purpose was to outdo each other with stories about how well we knew somebody and how wonderful they are and how big our grief will be at missing them. There's an old saying, somewhat cynical in delivery: "Everybody's a saint after they die." Canonizing a person in the funeral sermon divorces us from reality as much as ignoring them does. It denies that people are people, that the miracle of life (and death and resurrection) comes precisely in the moment when we realize they happen to imperfect, ordinary folks like all of us are. Who could ever live up to all the things that are said at these services? You'd crumble under the burden of trying.
Personally I've found the best way out of this conundrum is to ask a simple question then use the sermon to answer it: What has God shown us through this person and their life? It takes a fair amount of faith to even venture this. You have to assume God was active in their life, for starters. You have to assume he was working something good through them. Your job, then, is to play detective and find it, then share it. In a way it's a little like the Children's Sermon that we do each Sunday. You know something is in there. Do you have the faith to connect it to God, the eyes to see how that works, and the words to share it? When someone dies we get to open the box and look at the collection of things they've left us to talk about, finding all the places where they and God intersected.
In most cases this isn't too hard. Often I've known the person and seen the witness their life has been, even if they didn't know they were being a witness. Families always have stories, many of which I may not have heard. Some experienced God through fishing, others farming, others school, others in loving relationships. If you listen you can hear the threads God wove through their lives. The sermon, then, simply points them out and says, "Look at how amazing this is!"
Everybody meets God in their own way. Everybody shows God in their own way. If you can find how a person has done so, even in the smallest and most subtle fashion, then you can be sure God was present, that the relationship with the Almighty was alive, and that God has not abandoned the person in the hour of death. In fact it's almost eerie how closely the ways God supports us and works through us in life reflect his ultimate act of resurrection into heaven, the final miracle for us all. As we suggested in the Easter sermon, the small resurrections we experience in this life all point to the Big One at the end. Once you've seen and recognized those small moments for what they were it's an easy and natural leap to seeing and believing in that final act of grace and redemption.
Pray for Clarence's family today. Pray also that his service will be fitting and go well. Pray also in thanksgiving for God talking to us and working through our lives so intimately so that we might know who he is and be able to tell his story in all the moments of our lives and even beyond.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Monday, April 9, 2012
Monday Morning Sermon: The Resurrection!
The text for Easter Sunday was Mark 16: 1-8:
Most people think of Easter as a day and Christ's resurrection as an event. That's exactly how it started. This story happened to the women who followed Jesus on a particular day in a particular place. It was real. But the effects of that day and event--the most important part of the story--rolled like a wave through time and history and continue to this day and beyond. We'll never see the end of the transformation Christ's resurrection brought to us. Not without cause did those women tremble in fear. Their whole world had been changed!
This day meant that the power of death was no more. A new power had taken control of our ultimate destiny. The pain and suffering of the cross--the intense and real anguish of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday--were now subservient to the purpose to which they pointed: Easter morning. Nothing and no-one were beyond redemption. No evil could prevail. No power which works against God's children could outlast or overcome this new reality.
It's a scary prospect when you think of how much we depend on the things of this world. We can only see life in the here and now. We see the outer shell of a greater truth, a shell which will be broken like that of an egg when the New Birth hatches. We see the outer shell and call it truth. It's going to roll away and crack just like the stone rolled away from Jesus' tomb. A couple tons of rock meant unmovable reality, symbolizing the even more unmovable reality of death and decay. Before God those unmovable realities were feathers, blown in the wind. Before God the outer shell of the egg cracks, giving birth to Truth, Joy, Peace, and Eternity. Everything we know will be moved in that moment, even as the night-bound reality of those women was broken and moved to make way for the new morn.
But it's also a joyous prospect, which was the focus of the sermon. Every darkness in the world becomes space to reflect the new light of this Easter morning. The resurrection flows and blooms all around us. Both Mark and I shared stories from our lives and ministries: recalcitrant folks turned around, the sick and dying given new assurance and strength, suffering communities given new spirit and purpose. We've seen them all!
The resurrection doesn't just happen when everything goes right. Often it happens precisely when everything has gone irrevocably wrong, as it did with Jesus on the cross. I shared the story of a man who died from Parkinson's disease who, in his final moments, suffered from a gulf between him and his wife because he had always been the strong one and taken care of her and he couldn't anymore and she didn't know how to reach out to him. Finally, almost in desperation, she asked for communion. When they shared it, their eyes met and they found strength and certainty beyond either of them. They were together again, experiencing God's arms around them both through the sacrament. Their eyes shone. They bonded. He died the next day but both had found what they sought. No disease could take away their love nor their hope for and with each other. That was resurrection. It didn't just happen after death, but before.
If you know how to look for it you'll see the resurrection happening all around. I've seen marriages on the brink of destruction renewed. I've seen marriages end and new ones begin out of the ashes. I've seen people lonely without companionship suddenly find purpose in causes that aren't related to romance at all. Each of these is a form of renewal. I've seen failures forgiven, tragedy struggled through, hopes dashed and then born again in a different way. Those are resurrection events too. Every night when I tuck my children into bed I think how marvelous it is that they're here, how quickly the day went, and how I wish it could last longer...that I could freeze this moment with them forever and keep living it because I'm so happy to be their dad. But then every morning they wake up and we're off again...a new day, another resurrection!
Sometimes the resurrection brings laughter. Sometimes it brings tears. Sometimes the resurrection comes in a surge of hope, other times with a wave of fear. Sometimes people shout to the world that they've seen it. Other times they carry it quietly in their heart. Either way, it's around us, in us, woven into the threads of our lives every day.
We are Easter people. We are people who cannot be conquered, who live in hope and expectation, strength and compassion. Triumph is our destiny, joy and renewal our ultimate end. We don't walk away from Easter morning saying, "That was nice. We'll do this again next year." We walk away from Easter morning knowing that its promise will be with us every day of our lives and beyond.
Celebrate, wonder, and believe. He is risen! He is risen indeed!
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3 and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”We had the privilege of being joined by Rev. Mark Nelson of the Eastern Washington-Idaho Synod during this service. Mark presided over the service and we preached the sermon together. Because we were working off of each other we opted to keep the message simple and personal.
4 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.
6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”
8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
Most people think of Easter as a day and Christ's resurrection as an event. That's exactly how it started. This story happened to the women who followed Jesus on a particular day in a particular place. It was real. But the effects of that day and event--the most important part of the story--rolled like a wave through time and history and continue to this day and beyond. We'll never see the end of the transformation Christ's resurrection brought to us. Not without cause did those women tremble in fear. Their whole world had been changed!
This day meant that the power of death was no more. A new power had taken control of our ultimate destiny. The pain and suffering of the cross--the intense and real anguish of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday--were now subservient to the purpose to which they pointed: Easter morning. Nothing and no-one were beyond redemption. No evil could prevail. No power which works against God's children could outlast or overcome this new reality.
It's a scary prospect when you think of how much we depend on the things of this world. We can only see life in the here and now. We see the outer shell of a greater truth, a shell which will be broken like that of an egg when the New Birth hatches. We see the outer shell and call it truth. It's going to roll away and crack just like the stone rolled away from Jesus' tomb. A couple tons of rock meant unmovable reality, symbolizing the even more unmovable reality of death and decay. Before God those unmovable realities were feathers, blown in the wind. Before God the outer shell of the egg cracks, giving birth to Truth, Joy, Peace, and Eternity. Everything we know will be moved in that moment, even as the night-bound reality of those women was broken and moved to make way for the new morn.
But it's also a joyous prospect, which was the focus of the sermon. Every darkness in the world becomes space to reflect the new light of this Easter morning. The resurrection flows and blooms all around us. Both Mark and I shared stories from our lives and ministries: recalcitrant folks turned around, the sick and dying given new assurance and strength, suffering communities given new spirit and purpose. We've seen them all!
The resurrection doesn't just happen when everything goes right. Often it happens precisely when everything has gone irrevocably wrong, as it did with Jesus on the cross. I shared the story of a man who died from Parkinson's disease who, in his final moments, suffered from a gulf between him and his wife because he had always been the strong one and taken care of her and he couldn't anymore and she didn't know how to reach out to him. Finally, almost in desperation, she asked for communion. When they shared it, their eyes met and they found strength and certainty beyond either of them. They were together again, experiencing God's arms around them both through the sacrament. Their eyes shone. They bonded. He died the next day but both had found what they sought. No disease could take away their love nor their hope for and with each other. That was resurrection. It didn't just happen after death, but before.
If you know how to look for it you'll see the resurrection happening all around. I've seen marriages on the brink of destruction renewed. I've seen marriages end and new ones begin out of the ashes. I've seen people lonely without companionship suddenly find purpose in causes that aren't related to romance at all. Each of these is a form of renewal. I've seen failures forgiven, tragedy struggled through, hopes dashed and then born again in a different way. Those are resurrection events too. Every night when I tuck my children into bed I think how marvelous it is that they're here, how quickly the day went, and how I wish it could last longer...that I could freeze this moment with them forever and keep living it because I'm so happy to be their dad. But then every morning they wake up and we're off again...a new day, another resurrection!
Sometimes the resurrection brings laughter. Sometimes it brings tears. Sometimes the resurrection comes in a surge of hope, other times with a wave of fear. Sometimes people shout to the world that they've seen it. Other times they carry it quietly in their heart. Either way, it's around us, in us, woven into the threads of our lives every day.
We are Easter people. We are people who cannot be conquered, who live in hope and expectation, strength and compassion. Triumph is our destiny, joy and renewal our ultimate end. We don't walk away from Easter morning saying, "That was nice. We'll do this again next year." We walk away from Easter morning knowing that its promise will be with us every day of our lives and beyond.
Celebrate, wonder, and believe. He is risen! He is risen indeed!
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Thursday, April 5, 2012
April 1st Sermon Recording
The recording of Pastor Dave's sermon from April 1, 2012 has been posted.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Church Council Meeting Minutes
The minutes of the March 13, 2012 meeting of the church council have been posted.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Holy Week
I'm going to be light on the posting this week because it's so busy. I do want to remind you that it's Holy Week and we're having three wonderful services over the next few days.
Thursday night we celebrate Maundy Thursday by eating supper together as the disciples did. It's going to be quite an experience, a combination of socializing, hearing the story, eating, and communing together. This is coming together quite well and I think you'll be touched by the experience. We meet at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday at the Valley.
And speaking of touched, Good Friday service will be at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, also at the Valley. This is the story of the central act of all history, the greatest thing God ever did for us...the moment that changed all the world and everyone in it: past, present, and future. It's a solemn thing, a holy night. We hope you'll join us.
At 10:00 a.m. on Easter morning we'll hold services at St. John's. You'll be uplifted by the music and we're having special guests as well. It'll be an Easter to remember!
For those inclined to rise early, they're still worshiping at Cordelia at dawn.
I hope you enjoy and reverence this week. It's the most important one of the year as far as church and faith are concerned.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Thursday night we celebrate Maundy Thursday by eating supper together as the disciples did. It's going to be quite an experience, a combination of socializing, hearing the story, eating, and communing together. This is coming together quite well and I think you'll be touched by the experience. We meet at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday at the Valley.
And speaking of touched, Good Friday service will be at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, also at the Valley. This is the story of the central act of all history, the greatest thing God ever did for us...the moment that changed all the world and everyone in it: past, present, and future. It's a solemn thing, a holy night. We hope you'll join us.
At 10:00 a.m. on Easter morning we'll hold services at St. John's. You'll be uplifted by the music and we're having special guests as well. It'll be an Easter to remember!
For those inclined to rise early, they're still worshiping at Cordelia at dawn.
I hope you enjoy and reverence this week. It's the most important one of the year as far as church and faith are concerned.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
Monday, April 2, 2012
Monday Morning Sermon: Evangelism
Palm/Passion Sunday married two gospel texts. The first, read at the beginning of the service, told the story of Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem as recounted in Mark 11: 1-11. The second told the story of Jesus before Pontius Pilate. Pilate offered to free Jesus because he knew the charges against him were false but the crowd screamed "Give us Barabbas" instead and, "Crucify him!" So Pilate bowed to public pressure and did exactly that. This story can be found in Mark 15: 1-15.
What do the two stories have in common, besides Jesus himself? Both contain crowds. The Palm Sunday crowd is perfectly happy to shout, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" while things are going well. But when things get tough that same crowd turns into the Passion bunch, screaming, "Give us something else and crucify that guy!" It seems impossible that a group of people celebrating and acclaiming Jesus as king one day can turn on him so quickly soon after but it happened. And not only did it happen, it happens to all of us.
Our church is wonderful, especially right now. Any of the faithful reading this blog right now know that this is so, as you're probably the deepest inside it. It takes at least two hands' worth of fingers, maybe some toes besides, to count off all of the ministries that have been given life in the last couple of years. People are more excited, bonded, and involved than ever before no matter which level of the church you're operating at. It's truly "Hosanna!" time around here.
But that phenomenon is also contained in some ways to the church itself. Outside our walls the perception of Jesus and God's Spirit remains what it always was. Outside our walls I'm not sure anybody knows that we're doing church any differently in here. Outside our walls there are still plenty of churches doing things backwards, as we once did in many ways. We have something special here, unique and vibrant. I believe you've felt it. In many ways we've spent the last two years showing that not only is this possible, it's real and true. But now that you know it, now that we have it, what are we going to do with it?
If nothings else these two gospel stories make clear that whatever you believe in your heart doesn't make a difference unless and until you share it with the world. People share in different ways, true, but until it's shared and shown it doesn't have the effect it's supposed to. For all we know that crowd shouting "Crucify him!" was full of otherwise good people! The text says that the Pharisees and priests incited them to yell. Many of them had seen the Palm Sunday parade. Maybe they had misgivings about what they were yelling. But that didn't matter. Whatever went on internally had no effect when they were shouting "Crucify!" and "We don't want him!" externally.
In the same way whatever Spirit we have alive in our church won't matter unless it's shared. You can know it's wonderful and godly. I can know it too. If we're out there in the world embracing and espousing something else all of that knowledge and experience we get here won't matter. It won't be any more lasting than the Palm Sunday parade.
And make no mistake, we're set up to fail here. Most of the world thinks there's "real life" and then there's "church". Church is somewhere you go for an hour a week, not a constant way of living out your faith. No matter what we do inside our walls the gravity of the world pulls us elsewhere as soon as we exit the building. Even when we talk about evangelism most people get the picture of getting more people INTO the church instead of getting God's Spirit OUT into the world. People get images of manipulation, recruitment, changing the behavior of other people instead of changing one's own life to show God's grace more. Every stab at fixing this problem embroils us worse. Meaning to grab at Christ we find ourselves with two handfuls of Barabbas. Meaning to shout praise we drive away our neighbors and the Lord. And no matter what we do in church this never gets solved, because all of that falls into the "particular time, particular place, not real life" trap that snares us in the first place.
We can't find our full expression of faith by changing what we do in here. We have to find it by changing how the world works out there. That includes changing how we talk about and show God to the world and how the world understands God and faith. If we do not do this, if we do not put ourselves to this task, then nothing we've done here will have any lasting importance beyond the few people who have experienced it...and even with them the effect will only last for a while.
The only way to change the world's vision of God, faith, and church is to first clarify our own and then to learn how to share it...how to shout real Hosannas and make them last. That is our mission in the coming year: to take what we've learned here, what we've come to believe and trust in, and share it with the world. This is not something I can do. This is not something only a few of us can do. This is something our whole church needs to do TOGETHER. If it doesn't happen that way, it won't work. Our Hosannas will be drown out by the world's "crucify him" and the (mostly unintentional) cries of our fellow Christians for Barabbas when they thought they were calling for Christ. Every day the wrong messages are being preached and heard about God, about faith, and about our church. We need to set this right...or at least as right as we can get.
The first step in this process, as we detailed on Sunday, is asking yourself if you believe. Do you believe in God really...not just as a nice part of your life or a good thing to think about on Sunday morning but do you believe in God and the grace, gifts, talents, relationships, and salvation he's shown you? Have you seen his Spirit at work here in music or preaching or meetings or council or fellowship or any of the dozens of ways in which he works among us? Do...you...believe? If not, I'm not sure what we're doing here. I'm sure we can go no farther unless most of us answer in the affirmative. Otherwise we're spinning our wheels. That's the first question to ask yourself: do you see God here, do you believe it?
Assuming you have even the smallest sliver of a "Yes" to that, we can help transform that faith into something that, in turn, transforms the world in a good way. If you believe, we want you to help us do that. It starts with the Evangelism Workshops that we're going to hold soon. A couple will be held in April and May, at different times so they'll be convenient. We'll do it again in the fall. We're talking maybe three sessions, once a week for three weeks. That's it. It's not a huge time commitment but this is something we desperately need from every person in this community to get us on the same page with a common goal. This small step will open up a huge world of potential for each of us. It's important...the most important thing we'll do this year by far. Without it, our belief will remain internal while our shouts communicate something else. With it, we start making our world into a place where faith, talk, and walk are one...where they can be seen and accepted by our neighbors.
Lest anybody is nervous at this point, these workshops are NOT about recruiting people to come to church, making people into cookie-cutter evangelists, forcing them to do things that are uncomfortable, making you into a nuisance to the world. Instead we want to help open all of our gifts to the world! It's the opposite of everything we fear when we hear "evangelism". We want to help YOU become an intentional evangelist in YOUR OWN way. We're not going to tell you how to do it, we're going to help you explore how to figure that out for yourself, your life, your family and environment. It's not a hard thing. It's an important thing though.
Some are shouting Hosannas. The world is still shouting for crucifixions and criminals. We follow along with the world sometimes without even knowing it. It's time to figure out all of this, what we're going to do with our faith and church in this environment. That conversation starts later this month. We need every man, woman, and child of confirmation age and above in this church to be a part of this process. You will all tackle this issue in different ways. Every way we miss is a way the Spirit of God is missed in this community. We don't want to miss any.
Do you believe? Are you ready to help this ministry, this faith, and the work of God? Are you sure what your life is shouting to the world? Would you know how to find out and how to change it if you chose? Come explore the answers to these questions with us. It will make a difference to all of us and our church. We'll see you there.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
What do the two stories have in common, besides Jesus himself? Both contain crowds. The Palm Sunday crowd is perfectly happy to shout, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" while things are going well. But when things get tough that same crowd turns into the Passion bunch, screaming, "Give us something else and crucify that guy!" It seems impossible that a group of people celebrating and acclaiming Jesus as king one day can turn on him so quickly soon after but it happened. And not only did it happen, it happens to all of us.
Our church is wonderful, especially right now. Any of the faithful reading this blog right now know that this is so, as you're probably the deepest inside it. It takes at least two hands' worth of fingers, maybe some toes besides, to count off all of the ministries that have been given life in the last couple of years. People are more excited, bonded, and involved than ever before no matter which level of the church you're operating at. It's truly "Hosanna!" time around here.
But that phenomenon is also contained in some ways to the church itself. Outside our walls the perception of Jesus and God's Spirit remains what it always was. Outside our walls I'm not sure anybody knows that we're doing church any differently in here. Outside our walls there are still plenty of churches doing things backwards, as we once did in many ways. We have something special here, unique and vibrant. I believe you've felt it. In many ways we've spent the last two years showing that not only is this possible, it's real and true. But now that you know it, now that we have it, what are we going to do with it?
If nothings else these two gospel stories make clear that whatever you believe in your heart doesn't make a difference unless and until you share it with the world. People share in different ways, true, but until it's shared and shown it doesn't have the effect it's supposed to. For all we know that crowd shouting "Crucify him!" was full of otherwise good people! The text says that the Pharisees and priests incited them to yell. Many of them had seen the Palm Sunday parade. Maybe they had misgivings about what they were yelling. But that didn't matter. Whatever went on internally had no effect when they were shouting "Crucify!" and "We don't want him!" externally.
In the same way whatever Spirit we have alive in our church won't matter unless it's shared. You can know it's wonderful and godly. I can know it too. If we're out there in the world embracing and espousing something else all of that knowledge and experience we get here won't matter. It won't be any more lasting than the Palm Sunday parade.
And make no mistake, we're set up to fail here. Most of the world thinks there's "real life" and then there's "church". Church is somewhere you go for an hour a week, not a constant way of living out your faith. No matter what we do inside our walls the gravity of the world pulls us elsewhere as soon as we exit the building. Even when we talk about evangelism most people get the picture of getting more people INTO the church instead of getting God's Spirit OUT into the world. People get images of manipulation, recruitment, changing the behavior of other people instead of changing one's own life to show God's grace more. Every stab at fixing this problem embroils us worse. Meaning to grab at Christ we find ourselves with two handfuls of Barabbas. Meaning to shout praise we drive away our neighbors and the Lord. And no matter what we do in church this never gets solved, because all of that falls into the "particular time, particular place, not real life" trap that snares us in the first place.
We can't find our full expression of faith by changing what we do in here. We have to find it by changing how the world works out there. That includes changing how we talk about and show God to the world and how the world understands God and faith. If we do not do this, if we do not put ourselves to this task, then nothing we've done here will have any lasting importance beyond the few people who have experienced it...and even with them the effect will only last for a while.
The only way to change the world's vision of God, faith, and church is to first clarify our own and then to learn how to share it...how to shout real Hosannas and make them last. That is our mission in the coming year: to take what we've learned here, what we've come to believe and trust in, and share it with the world. This is not something I can do. This is not something only a few of us can do. This is something our whole church needs to do TOGETHER. If it doesn't happen that way, it won't work. Our Hosannas will be drown out by the world's "crucify him" and the (mostly unintentional) cries of our fellow Christians for Barabbas when they thought they were calling for Christ. Every day the wrong messages are being preached and heard about God, about faith, and about our church. We need to set this right...or at least as right as we can get.
The first step in this process, as we detailed on Sunday, is asking yourself if you believe. Do you believe in God really...not just as a nice part of your life or a good thing to think about on Sunday morning but do you believe in God and the grace, gifts, talents, relationships, and salvation he's shown you? Have you seen his Spirit at work here in music or preaching or meetings or council or fellowship or any of the dozens of ways in which he works among us? Do...you...believe? If not, I'm not sure what we're doing here. I'm sure we can go no farther unless most of us answer in the affirmative. Otherwise we're spinning our wheels. That's the first question to ask yourself: do you see God here, do you believe it?
Assuming you have even the smallest sliver of a "Yes" to that, we can help transform that faith into something that, in turn, transforms the world in a good way. If you believe, we want you to help us do that. It starts with the Evangelism Workshops that we're going to hold soon. A couple will be held in April and May, at different times so they'll be convenient. We'll do it again in the fall. We're talking maybe three sessions, once a week for three weeks. That's it. It's not a huge time commitment but this is something we desperately need from every person in this community to get us on the same page with a common goal. This small step will open up a huge world of potential for each of us. It's important...the most important thing we'll do this year by far. Without it, our belief will remain internal while our shouts communicate something else. With it, we start making our world into a place where faith, talk, and walk are one...where they can be seen and accepted by our neighbors.
Lest anybody is nervous at this point, these workshops are NOT about recruiting people to come to church, making people into cookie-cutter evangelists, forcing them to do things that are uncomfortable, making you into a nuisance to the world. Instead we want to help open all of our gifts to the world! It's the opposite of everything we fear when we hear "evangelism". We want to help YOU become an intentional evangelist in YOUR OWN way. We're not going to tell you how to do it, we're going to help you explore how to figure that out for yourself, your life, your family and environment. It's not a hard thing. It's an important thing though.
Some are shouting Hosannas. The world is still shouting for crucifixions and criminals. We follow along with the world sometimes without even knowing it. It's time to figure out all of this, what we're going to do with our faith and church in this environment. That conversation starts later this month. We need every man, woman, and child of confirmation age and above in this church to be a part of this process. You will all tackle this issue in different ways. Every way we miss is a way the Spirit of God is missed in this community. We don't want to miss any.
Do you believe? Are you ready to help this ministry, this faith, and the work of God? Are you sure what your life is shouting to the world? Would you know how to find out and how to change it if you chose? Come explore the answers to these questions with us. It will make a difference to all of us and our church. We'll see you there.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
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