musings of a...

It has been months since I last took the time to sit down and write for this blog. So much has happened to me personally since that cold November day when I made my last post that I no longer feel that I can call this blog musings of a drop out anymore because, I'm no longer a drop out.

I am currently back in school, albeit a different seminary, to finish what I started nearly three years ago. I don't know how it all came to pass but my wife and I are back in the city we love and I'm back in the thick of things. But, I'm not where I started and to be honest this place has it's own issues. The difference is now it's ok for me to disagree, which is a nice change of pace. But I still feel like I don't belong. Like I am an exile in a foreign land.

I suppose that is a good way to think about it because I followed in the footsteps of some other people who called themselves that very title. While the struggle they fought was different I always respected their courage to walk out of the seminary, that same seminary I walked out of. And now, as I seek to finish my degree elsewhere I feel a strange connection to those brave seminex men and women. I am no longer home in the bosom of Lutheranism but I am interacting with different people steeped in different traditions and it's wonderful.

Maybe I will always be an exile. Maybe I will never fully fit in somewhere or find my ideal setting. But that's ok. Belonging to a community doesn't mean we all have to agree. It means that we all have our place among others. That we recognize that we all belong to each other whether we are part of a specific group or not. It doesn't matter if im a Lutheran among baptists or a terrorist among my victims. We all belong to one another.

As John Donne once said...

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as a manor of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee

the reality of the situation

Today I came across a sermon which focused on Christ the King as it was Christ the King Sunday in the revised common lectionary this past week. I was never one to go gaga for the pericopal system but today I found it particularly apropos. You can read the full text of the sermon here but I want to focus in on one quote...


"On the cross we don’t see a legal transaction where Jesus pays our debt.  We see God. The Word made flesh hangs from the cross. And let there be no mistake – this is Christ the King."


What a reminder. So often when I think about the crucifixion I focus on the result of the act. Sins paid for. Wrath poured out. The typical ideas and realities that are the result of that moment. But that is jumping the gun. It's moving past the reality of the situation. Hanging on that cross wasn't just a sacrifice that brought forgiveness it was God. Christ the king on his throne.


As we move into Advent it's so easy to jump the gun. We like Jesus as a baby but in the back of our minds we know where the story is going and it is so easy to miss the reality of the moment. That's why this Sunday's pericope and that sermon were so apropos to me, they made me focus on the situation, not the result.

the event

It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving is only a week away. I never seem to know where the time actually goes, but the days have ticked away and now we stand on the precipice of the holiday season. Families will come together, meals will be shared, and the inevitable trips to the mall in an effort to find that perfect gift will commence. And without fail, advertisements will saturate the airwaves, television screens, and the internet, all in an effort to help us pick out this year's hottest gift. 

Now, it is not my intent to rail against the materialism that accompanies this time of year but to point out an aspect of human behavior. Frankly, I like having things. Chances are, you like things too. For the longest time I wanted an iPhone, and when the iPhone 4 came out, I knew I had to have it. Not because I needed it, but because it was/is the pinnacle of cell phone perfection. (Some may disagree, but I happen to be a huge Apple devotee.) For whatever reason, this season really brings out the need we have to obtain the highest ideal. Thats why we line up at 2:30am the day after Thanksgiving, we want that must have perfect item, but not just the item, we want the ideal price on that item too. Its about the pinnacle of perfection. 

It would be deceptive of me to pretend that this was limited to buying gifts, this behavior plays out in various areas of life. Whether its sports, education, music, art, even drug use, all of these activities are manifestations of us attempting to obtain an ideal, whether that is a skill or a state of mind or an emotion.  Life's pursuits are often tied to an ideal. 

My own pursuit for an ideal has caused me to become bitter and jaded. I am often so full of cynicism its hard to tell what I acutally believe. The ideal I pursue is the perfect "church," or a perfect version of Christian thought and experience. I know I am not the only one wants to obtain this ideal. So many of us want to find the perfect church, want to have the perfect theology, want to be the perfect christians. This isn't just personal though, entire denominations have formed because of people earnestly striving for this ideal. 

Throughout this pursuit there are times when we encounter ideas we don't agree with and we retreat to the safety of the past, taking comfort in the thoughts and beliefs of those who have gone before us. There are also times when we encounter ideas that we reject the past completely and offer up our own interpretation, or if we don't reject the past, we attempt to go back further to somehow trump the argument. 

Recently I discovered a well known author/philosopher/theologian named Peter Rollins. A few days ago I posted on my blog a quote from him which deals directly with the pursuit of this ideal. He says, "The task today does not lie in some naive attempt to return to the early church. The church before Constantine. The church before Platonic philosophy. The church before Paul. The church before... For these moves fail to bring us back far enough. 

Rather we must call a new army of agitators into being. Dissidents courageous enough to return to the event that gave birth to the early church. A new breed of individuals brave enough to turn back so as to advance." 

Its not about a return to or the pursuit of an ideal, its about a return to an event. 


THE EVENT.


Christ on a cross.


Death and Resurrection.  

The more I think about my own pursuit, the more I think he is right. You cant experience an ideal. But in that event, you experience death and resurrection. You experience grace. Isn't that the point?

What do you think?

the task

"The task today does not lie in some naive attempt to return to the early church. The church before Constantine. The church before Platonic philosophy. The church before Paul. The church before... For these moves fail to bring us back far enough. Rather we must call a new army of agitators into being. Dissidents courageous enough to return to the event that gave birth to the early church. A new breed of individuals brave enough to turn back so as to advance." - Peter Rollins


Thoughts? More to come...

God is in the rain?

Last night my wife and I watched V for Vendetta. A superb film, one of my favorites, I was amazed at how much I still loved this movie not having seen it in a while. (Just in case someone hasn't seen it who might be reading this I wont give away the plot). There is one scene, that although is serious in the film, makes me burst out laughing. Its the scene when "Eve" is on the roof and it is raining. I know it is emotionally moving but for me, it brings back a different memory. 


A while back when I was still in college my friend and I were facilitating a college-age small group get together at Starbucks. There never were more than a handful but I really enjoyed those little meetings. One night it was a little rainy as we were about to finish up. During the prayer, my best friend blurted out, "And as we learned from V for Vendetta, you are in the rain." 


I will always laugh at this because it was one of those usual occurrences of my friend saying something stupid and at the time, we all poked fun at him for it. But last night, as I watched that scene and remembered that moment I thought to myself that maybe he wasn't all that far off. Not in his assertion that God somehow inhabits the rain, but in that he found a truth concerning the omnipresence of his creator in a source outside the biblical narrative.


Paul spoke to something similar to this in Romans when he said, "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." Now, I know that this passage is usually taken to mean the natural aspects God's creation, the physical earth and all its creatures, but I wonder if its more than that. If God left marks of jimself upon the ground he created, as Paul is claiming, why couldn't he leave marks of himself in other things like books, movies, or other technology? Is it possible for this verse to mean that God left marks of himself throughout the whole of his creation, even in what we create? Im not sure, but I'm curious. 

everyone matters

Yesterday I came across "An Open Letter to Young Christians on Their Way to College" written by Stanley Hauerwas. (You can find the full letter here.) While I have my agreements and disagreements with parts of his letter, one line really jumped out at me. 


"Don’t underestimate how much the Church needs your mind."


While it is obvious he was speaking to college students, I think these words need to be heard and remembered by all of us who are part of the Church, adults and youth. This is not just some flippant homage to the body of Christ. So often we forget how valuable each person is. We are all different. We have different experiences, thoughts, and habits. It is those differences which foster creativity and growth within our worshipping communities. The Christian faith is communal by nature. We cannot exist apart from one another nor should that be our aim. 


Another thing that we must remember is that no one person is more important than the other. Today being "Reformation Day" it is so easy to get caught up in the overly-romanticized version of events from 1517.  Martin Luther may have played a major role in the historical events surrounding the reformation era but he is no more important than those of us who inhabit worshipping communities today. Furthermore, we should not pretend that Luther, or anyone else, reformed the church independently from others. 


I really struggle with celebrating "Reformation Day" for several reasons, not the least of which is the overly-romaticized version of events. But I think in celebrating that day we are setting up other people to believe they will never matter as much as Luther did. That could not be more false. The world is constantly changing and although Luther was great for his time, he cannot address all things throughout all time. In the end it is up to us to, as a community, change our interactions with both our worshipping communities and the world. We cannot do that by ourselves. We all need to be part of the conversation. We need to remember that everyone has different thoughts and experiences and those things are important for us and our interactions with the world in which we live. Everyone matters.

money

As per usual, money seems to be playing a big issue in some decisions my wife and I have to make regarding our future. While this is true in our lives as individuals who live in a society where money matters, should this also be the case for worshipping communities? I understand that those communities are also under the same constraints as us as individuals when it comes to living in the world but are the methodologies employed by worshipping communities good for them? It seems that everyone these days is speaking up and asking why we need buildings and paid church workers and my voice is among them. My favorite blogger Dave Fitch posted regarding this topic and I think he gets it right. 


Here is his blog reposted from www.reclaimingthemission.com

When it Comes to the Ministry – Money changes everything

Money change things. And so when we pastors accept money from our churches to do ministry it changes everything. This is to say the obvious. Right? More specifically, when we pastors accept money from the church:

1.) We as pastors(s) now have to worry about the income flowing into the bank account every Sunday. We have to have a responsible eye for the budget.  Which means you have to worry about people with big pockets being “happy” with your church. There is a dynamic set in place that changes what we say, how we interpret ministry, how we challenge our selves and community towards mission. Often, this dynamic stalls mission in the local church.

2.) We as pastors now come under performance review. Money changes the relationship between the pastor(s) and the rest of the congregation. There is now the inescapable reality that the pastor is being paid to provide something, some basic goods and services for Christians or maybe some growth in the bottom line for the church. The relationship between the congregation and pastors takes on the character of performance reviews. As a result, pushing the church outward where time and effort does not produce such measurables  gets thwarted. As a result, mission is stalled, even thwarted in this mindset.

3.)We as pastors begin to look at people differently – as viable “giving units.” A business mindset starts to take over the church. This dynamic undercuts and stalls mission  for obvious reasons and must be fought at all costs.

I contend however that all of the above does not mean pastors should never be paid. I even suggest there are many times when it is appropriate for pastors to be paid full time. I also contend that there must be ministry accountability within the leadership of the church. I contend however than in all this, the dynamics outlined above should be fought with all our might if we would shape communities of Christ’s people into mission.

What do you think? What is the role of money? I know its an inescapable fact of reality but are there better ways of using our resources in a worshipping community so that others might benefit and we might not be constrained? Lets talk.