i hear his voice on the phone,
“h-e-y, jenny, how’s my girl?”
it has been 2 yrs since he passed away,
taking secrets and sentiments with him
he never knew how to express.
the rough hands,
the skilled but unschooled eye,
the forever farmer always looking at the sky.
i don’t know exactly what lies beyond death
but these days i imagine i will hear,
“how’s my girl?”
My first career was in what was called “member care” – providing support and resources to people who were living and working in a cross-cultural environment.
Ironically, I was a victim of this “care” when I first began. A good friend had been murdered just a year before and the grief had unleashed a chain of unpacking a lot of the faith and structures I had grown up with. When I was interviewed to be accepted by the organization, I was raw and they saw it. They requested I take an extra 6 months to take care of myself and find some stability. I was embarrassed, angry and frustrated. I had been honest with them and then got punished for it. Or at least that’s how it felt. Looking back, they may have been right.
Once I was on the job 18 months later, I began to see the wisdom of the structure. There were many, many organizations who had sent people with no support. These organizations were proud of their loose structure, their ability to listen to the Spirit’s leading to determine readiness for life overseas and the independence of their staff. But in reality, there were many serious casualties of their lack of structure. People who had not been evaluated psychologically may have looked good on paper and won popularity by their drive and charm, but once the limelight was gone and the pressure of cross-cultural living began, they imploded. At best, the cost was thousands of dollars spent to move an entire family across an ocean only to find out they couldn’t make it. At worst, it was husbands and fathers having sex with 16 year old local girls. And most often, it was the lives of the family who suffered from lack of support and understanding.
Honestly, I often see a lot of this same tendency in emerging Christian movements. While we have given a lot of thought to our theology and our praxis, we have not considered the health of an individual. And without a working sense of emotional health, it is easy to reward those who come across as most confident and charismatic to their own detriment, and also to leave behind voices that may be more cautious and understated but provide wisdom and a needed perspective.
I am not a big fan of institutions when they prohibit mission and flexibility but I have also learned that it is dangerous to leave the structures behind all together. The question for the emerging Christian movements is how do we use the gifts we have been given by modernity – theological exploration, understandings of human emotions and behavior, structures that support people who are not white, male, straight and charismatic – and use them in a way that is less authoritarian and gate-keeping? How can we help those called to ministry fulfill their dreams and have room to test out their visions while also supporting them financially, emotionally, theologically and spiritually? There are no easy answers to these questions but in the meantime, we need to give both institutions and emerging movements a little grace. For those of who find ourselves with a leg in each, we need to facilitate conversation and mutual learning in a way that gives each its due respect.
In class on Tuesday, we talked about really important things like what happens after you die and how does what we think about that affect how we live now. I love these kinds of discussions, especially in the welcoming and friendly space of that classroom. I left class thinking, “I want to have these discussions in whatever I do. This is really important.”
A few minutes later it occurred to me that those conversations are not important without the doing things that are important like loving people, feeding the hungry, working for justice, listening to those who have no one to listen to. And so much of my problem with academia and those that dive deep into the “important questions” is that their questions are disconnected from the doing. But there are many who do, but don’t think too much.
This is the point – I want to do both. I think that is one the things that really drew me to the emergent movement is that there is rich theological discussion AND an insistence on praxis. But we are given a false choice when we feel we have to choose between academia and the church. Maybe one does become our vocation while the other becomes a way of life, but it also seems there can be ways to integrate the two. It just takes a lot of thinking outside the box and a lot of courage to challenge the definitions. A pastor who is willing to risk honest theological discussion risks stepping outside “orthodoxy” and the bounds of their denomination. An academic who is willing to enter into the pain outside the walls of the institution risks finding their air-tight answers don’t work as well in real life with people in real pain.
I feel caught in between because I’m not sure there are places that will let me do both… think, speak, and do things that are really important… not just walk the hamster wheel of institutional propriety.
Waking up this morning are Presbyterians all over the San Francisco Bay Area who are preparing for a meeting this afternoon and evening in which they will vote on what our standards for ordination will be around issues of sexual orientation.
In my own prayer this morning, I am reminded that there are many opposing prayers being lifted up for this meeting. All of them sincere. All of them well-intentioned. All of them believing they are faithful to God and the gospel. But they don’t agree. And sometimes they don’t have any grace to give to those who disagree.
I feel sad that we are so divided on this issue. I am frustrated by those who are going in with a strategy, agenda and ultimatums. It feels so far away from the discerning, reconciling work of the Spirit that the church is to embody.
As for me, I will be in class all day, following the reports coming from the meeting, praying for all that are present and voting and hoping for a gracious spirit on the part of all who participate. In some ways I would like to be there, but in other ways, I am glad I am gone. Watching those who claim to follow Christ argue and divide is really not something I need to see.
Whatever your prayer is this morning, my prayers are with you. Go in peace. Listen. Welcome. Embrace. Have courage. Wrestle honestly. Take heart. Remember the greatest of these is LOVE.
I caught just the end of the U2 special on Good Morning America this morning. I loved the moment in the interview when Bono was prompted by the interviewer saying, “It’s all about positive energy and hope.” And Bono said, “Yeah, but you’ve got to be real at the same time and… we’re more from the blues in that sense. You know, gospel music is great but the music we like has got an honesty and a grit. Rock n Roll is a mixture of the blues as well as the gospel highness.”
And if that case, then for me, the gospel is more rock and roll than gospel music (and if it’s U2’s rock and roll, then most definitely!). Bono is reacting to a very common theme that I hear on TV, in popular media and in conversations all around me that are only concerned with “positive energy.” Positive energy has a lot going for it. It is a lot about choice – the power to choose our response to life, to see the positive rather than the negative. And I think in a spiritual sense, it can be about putting ourselves in the pathway of the Spirit of God and opening ourselves up to transformation and transcendence.
But for me, it’s not just that. If that were all, I could easily switch religions or leave religion all together. The thing that keeps me tied to Christianity is the “honesty” and the “grit.” It’s a faith that is real even where there is no “positive energy and hope” to be found – in the midst of oppression, under the finger of empire, in the death of God on the day before Easter. “You’ve got to be real at the same time…” otherwise all the positive energy in the world will be a delusion of the privileged and the wealthy who have the luxury of shaping their future. Or it is a positive energy that is about my well-being without consideration for others.
There are echoes of this in other faiths as well and I am greatly encouraged by the possibilities of coming together across faiths to address the gritty places in this world but for me, the story of Jesus keeps me grounded in both the hope and the grit and provides me a way to live holding onto both tightly.
As soon as mystery is scheduled for solution, it is no longer a mystery, it is a problem.
Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle
I am rereading this book this week and enjoying once again diving into Berry’s writing. Although he writes here of the danger of modern science and technology, it has applications to the larger realm of how we hold what we know – what is called “epistemology” in academic circles. So much has been said on this subject but the colonialism of modern thinking is so epidemic, that a post about it doesn’t seem redundant.
This statement exposes something very important in the balance between faith and learning. Learning, hypothesizing and gathering all one can in an effort to understand is extremely valuable but it is not all there is. We must be willing to hold humility and allow mystery. We must be ready to admit that our systems cannot explain everything and that there are things we simply cannot know.
This humility is required by the post-colonial thinker who clearly sees that all the answers set forth by white privileged men fail to account for what can only be known by those without the privilege of birthright, without the security of country and religion, without turning heads in a room, without a warm bed, without enough food and without relative peace. And for those without, the system created by those “with” has serious flaws… starting with its failure to allow mystery and in the face of mystery, humility.
God showed up this week
in new and unexpected ways
but i also
for the first time in a long time
have remained open
i have asked for you
and you came
invited
as you do
I was a part of a community prayer service last night which included Greek Orthodox, Catholic, Episcopal, evangelical and presbyterian (me) pastors. Gail is out of town so I filled in. I was like a kid in a candy store… after learning so much about each of these traditions and having a deep respect for them and their spirituality and theology, it was such an honor to lead worship with them. They were also incredibly gracious to me as the only woman and the only non-ordained person.
Each of us had to give a 5 minute reflection on two virtues of civil discourse. Mine were purity of heart and honesty. Here is mine, in case you’re interested in reading it. 
Usually I post sermons to the separate site on the right but this one is shorter…
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
Weimar, Germany is known for being home to some of Germany’s greatest artists and writers: composers Johann Sebastian Bach and Franz Liszt, authors Goethe and Schiller. But just 8 kilometers from the city center is the site of the Nazi concentration camp, Buchenwald, where among many others, theologian and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was kept for awhile. Upon arriving in Weimar by train, you will find a sign outside the train station that says:
“Yes, this is the city where so much great art was created. It is also the city next to Buchenwald. Weimar is both, and we want you to be aware of this contradiction while you are here.”Purity of heart and honesty. The city of Weimar provides a window into how these two might be connected. It is not perfection that brings purity of heart. It is honesty. The Psalmist says, “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Our approach to God, any movement we make in our spiritual lives, in our church communities, in our nation and our world must begin with honesty… being transparent with the contradictions that lie in each of our hearts, in the narrative of our history, in our actions of self-gratification even while words of selflessness are still on our tongues.
Most of us are masters of deceit. We hold firmly to grand ideas and theologies, even as we betray these with our pocketbooks, our prejudices, our self-protection. But here in Matthew, we are called to be “pure of heart”. Not perfect but to live with integrity, with honesty, familiar with the pattern of confession. The temptation to perfection is great, isn’t it? We want to be thought well of, to be admired, consulted, respected and even envied. And for those of us who hold faith, we often think we must have a perfect family and an idyllic demeanor. Isn’t this how we best represent God?
The answer is no. For people who worship a God who was born into an animal stable, for people who follow teachings given by a man who was oppressed by empire, for people who look to a Savior who died a criminal’s death… the answer is no. We find God in the dividing line that runs through our hearts between the beauty of being human and the painful reality of our sin. We live real, honest lives, taking confession seriously, and find in our honesty that we are transformed into people who value unconditional love over performance. We are transformed into communities who care more about justice than all the right ways to do worship. We find our hearts purified by a love that we do not deserve and do not earn but that loves us anyway.
In his popular book, Blue like Jazz, Donald Miller tells of a campus Christian group that decided to take a different approach in the annual campus-wide party of a private Oregon college. In the midst of the debauchery and revelry of the free drugs, alcohol and love, students set up a confession booth. When people entered the booth, they would jokingly ask if they were to confess all of their sins. “No,” they were told. “We are here to confess to you.” And what followed was a litany of the ways the church had failed the world throughout its history. After a couple hours of confessing to about thirty people, Miller says, “I was being changed through the process… I felt very peaceful in that place and very sober. I felt very connected to God because I had confessed so much to so many people and had gotten so much off my chest and I had been forgiven by the people I had wronged with my indifference and judgmentalism.”
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.”
Let us consider honesty and purity of heart as essential to our unity, to our transformation, and to seeing the kingdom of God come here in this place, this community and this world.
My take on preaching is changing. I have done A LOT of it for an intern. About 2-3 Sundays per month since July. So while I do not have the experience of years to speak of, I have definitely passed the romantic stage of “hey, wow! I get to preach!” and also the glamour of thinking that I am really a great preacher. I actually feel like my first few sermons were a lot better than my more recent sermons. I’m not sure why that is.
It could be a case of dulling of my exegetical skills. As I get farther away from the intense Greek and exegesis, it takes me more time every week to translate and get into the technical aspects of sermon prep. That is not my general strength anyways and week after week, it is hard to sit down and spend the hours on the text that I did early on in this process.
Another option is that preaching occasionally allows for a sense of freshness that regular preaching prohibits. I have heard that preachers really only have a few sermons that they preach over and over. That seemed like such a horrific statement but I’m realizing it might be true. I’m not sure it’s bad. I mean, it is pretty hard to exhaust the subject of reconciliation (one of my favorite topics) and it is all over Scripture but sometimes I think the congregation must have caught on to what I have to offer by now. Will they get bored with it? Will they think they just heard this last week? I’m not sure. It is my passion and I really don’t get bored of it at all and discover it in fresh ways but… is this a sign of my lack of theological imagination or just the reality?
And while I still feel incredibly thankful for the opportunity to preach, it does begin to feel like it is more commonplace than extraordinary, more about faithfulness than performance after awhile. Again, I’m not sure this is a bad thing but it does rub the novelty off.
All that said, it still amazes me what God can do through a sermon. This week I had a call from someone asking me to repeat something I had said in a sermon because they had felt freed to forgive an estranged family member as I spoke about forgiveness. Never before had this person considered that forgiveness can be truth-telling not truth-denying and this insight gave them the courage to forgive.
This kind of feedback, plus the sense that I get that the Holy Spirit uses me despite all the above misgivings keeps me going and keeps me humbled at the enormous potential of the preached word. And I have realized that preaching consistently well week after week is really, really hard. It’s hard to recognize this because it looks so effortless for those that do it but it’s not. It takes a ton of work, constant prayer and practice, practice, practice…
It’s just not as romantic as it once was…
I love this… it rings true 500 years later.
“Take courage, it is I!”
All ships have a compass which, when touched by the magnet, always turns towards the polar star. And even when the boat is making its way in a southward direction yet the compass does not cease turning towards its north at all times. In the same way, let the fine point of your spirit always turn towards God, its north… You are about to take to the high seas of the world; don’t on this account alter dial or mast, sail or anchor or wind. Keep Jesus Christ as your dial at all times, his cross for mast on which to hoist your resolutions as a sail. Let your anchor be profound trust in him and set out early. May the propitious wind of heavenly inspirations ever fill the sails of your vessel more and more and cause you to speed forward to the harbor of a holy eternity… Should everything turn upside down, I don’t say around us but within us, that is to say, should our soul be sad, happy, in sweetness, in bitterness, peaceful, troubled, in light, in darkness, in temptation, in rest, in enjoyment, in disgust, in dryness, in gentleness, should the sun burn it or the dew refresh it, ah!, this point of our heart, our spirit, our higher will, which is our compass, should nevertheless always and at all times turn unceasingly, tend perpetually towards the love of God.
Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622)
Bishop of Geneva and Doctor of the Church
Letters
