more wonderful than gloss

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


I will not post on Rick Warren and the inauguration… this has been my general position in the last few weeks. And I am going to keep my promise for the most part, but I will post on my favorite post on Rick Warren thus far.

It is by Melissa Etheridge at the Huffington Post. It tells the beautiful story of how she and Rick Warren made contact and began a discussion that is going to take both of them farther in this conversation.

She is right. Many people who oppose gay marriage are not regularly sitting in the living rooms of gay couples who have been married or who would love to be married. They are not hearing the stories of couples who have remained in committed relationships for 25 years and who have taken great joy in having the courts acknowledge their commitment. They don’t get to hear the agony and pain of coming out and the rejection that has caused within their extended families and friends. When you don’t get personal in this issue, it is easy to keep it to your interpretation of Scripture or your lack of understanding of different sexual orientation. And in the end, whatever your belief is, the choosing and holding of that is very different when you are in relationship with those that have for so long remained “other.”

And I have to say on Rick Warren’s side, there are not many outside of the church (or inside for that matter) that have experienced the beauty of waiting for sex within marriage. They have not considered that choosing to restrain one’s sexual desire is not repression but a choice to give oneself more fully to the healing of the world in service. Some of the greatest mystics and peacemakers in our world have been those that chosen to renounce their own sexual expression. There is something to be said for restraint and maturity when it comes to sexuality which as some of my friends will remind me, is not limited to marriage. I hear you, but nevertheless, I still prefer marriage. Rick Warren is trying to say this. I don’t like how he is saying it, but I think this is one of the things he is trying to communicate.

I stand firmly in between these two positions. I have many friends that disagree with me in both ways and I understand their positions, but for me the conversation between Melissa and RIck is incredibly encouraging. They might not ever agree but they need to listen and enter into each other’s lives and be willing to be changed by what they hear. I have no doubt that these two can do it. Can you?

Here’s something I wrote this week for the session at Clayton Valley Presbyterian Church.  

Phyllis Tickle, an Episcopal author, speaks of a church meeting she once led in which she was trying to address the divide in the Episcopal church, which also exists in the Presbyterian church, between those who believe the physical virgin birth and those who believe it is metaphor or myth.  As the meeting went on, a young man in his late teens came out of the kitchen where he had been washing dishes and sat down to listen to the discussion.  Afterwards, he approached Phyllis and said, “That Virgin Mary debate?  I don’t really understand what it’s all about it.  It’s so absolutely beautiful that it has to be true whether it happened or not.”

Phyllis’ story keeps running through my head as we celebrate advent this year because it is tempting for some of us to get lost in the intellectualizing of the actual event.  It is tempting to make the season about whether or not the virgin birth happened or what the exact relationship was between Christ’s divinity and humanity.  And on the other hand, it is tempting to leave behind any thought about the story of Christmas and to make it all sugar and spice and everything nice.  It is easy to sing songs about the “sweet little baby boy born in a manger” from the comfort of middle class lives.  The birth of Jesus becomes a means to feel warm fuzzies while making cookies and wrapping presents.

But the young man that spoke with Phyllis was not interested in saccharine beauty nor analytical intellectualism.  He was interested in a story that resonated in the depths of his being.  He was interested in a story that was a plumb line of truth in the history of the world… a story of a God whose very nature is self-giving, reconciling love.  It is the story of a God born into the “landscape of hunger and poverty, turmoil and tumult,” (Obery M. Hendricks, The Politics of Jesus, 94), and in that birth, Jesus spoke truth about injustice and demonstrated the potential healing that is contained in the life of a powerless child. 

We who have been around church for awhile have often lost this sense of wonder about the story that we hear over and over at this time of the year.  We get caught up in our own doubts or we are lulled to sleep by the familiar sweet songs.  But I think part of the work of the church is to avoid either extreme.  Instead, we must tell the story again and again to ourselves and to the world.  We must live it out in the way that it confronts privilege, empire, arrogance and power with the terrible beauty of a Jewish virgin miles away from home living in an occupied land, giving birth to her first child in a stable.  Into that uncertainty and pain, God was born.  This is so “absolutely beautiful that it has to be true whether it happened or not.”

Leaving fundamentalism is not an easy road and though there are many who have left, there are few who can articulate the pain, grief and internal experience.  Some of my favorites are Randall Balmer and Brian McLaren but this week I heard an interview with Frank Schaeffer, Francis Schaeffer’s son that was very moving.  You can hear his deep love for his father, even while he speaks truthfully about the dysfunction in his home that was glossed over by the public persona.  He speaks with honest epistemic humility about his cultural propensity to the Christian faith and yet is unapologetic about his choice to join the Greek Orthodox Church.  And he has some profound statements about the mindset of fundamentalism and the years that it takes to recover.  I appreciated his perspective and his courage.

Last night I finished my preaching class with Rev. Dr. J. Alfred Smith.  Dr. Smith is the long-time pastor of Allen Temple Baptist Church in the heart of downtown Oakland.  He is a prominent African-American pastor and gifted preacher.  What I discovered is he is also a master pastor.  What we found in his class is rare in seminary education.  It was a place where we were taught but we were also pastored and encouraged.  A preaching class could potentially be one of the most competitive courses in seminary because it is all about the public face of ministry.  Dr. Smith somehow took all the competition out of it.  Each person was respected and lifted up from right where they were and not asked to be somewhere they are not.  This was not a recipe for complacency.  Dr Smith modeled a lifetime of moving to becoming a “better preacher.”

At the end of class last night, we gathered in a circle holding hands and the TA, Robyn, and Pastor Smith’s wife, Bernie, both ordained ministers themselves, went around the circle anointing each of us with oil.  We sang the song that we sang each time someone came up to preach:

Send your word dear Lord, Send your word.  Use your servant this hour.  Let her speak with Holy Ghost power.  Fix my mind , my heart, my will to receive your word.

I think every seminary class should end like that!  For even the most intellectual of pursuits in seminary should be about our calling to be the hands and feet of Christ in this world.  

We desperately need to be training pastors who know what it is to skillfully pastor.  All the theology and original language in the world means little if it is not used in relationship with people and our world.  And social justice is empty without personal kindness.  Dr. Smith has modeled this for me this semester and renewed my commitment to be transformed into the image of Jesus even as I seek the transformation of the world.