Sarcastic Lutheran

My day in Texas

The Bolz-Weber family is in Austin Texas for the week.  It's Matthew's 20th high school reunion (Elgin, Tx).  He asks very little of me when it comes down to it; coming here this Summer was a rare request and one that I would honor only for him. 

We started the morning at a wonderful science and nature center at Zilker park where we found a letterbox.  (Letterboxing is our family hobby)  We found ourselves at the top of a hill amongst the ruins of an old overlook.  On several trees were signs someone has posted that said: Thor (Steve Ray ..[I can;t remember the name]) Your mother is very ill.  Call home (collect) -Dad.  I can't stop thinking about this family and the fractured relationships that would lead to such a thing.  Is the son homeless?  Mentally ill? Addicted? Did the parents kick him out or did they try and keep him close and he pushed himself away?  I prayed for them this morning, that they find reconciliation and peace.

Later that afternoon I dropped the family at a water park and I went to visit my friend and general force of nature, Tim Snyder.  Tim is part of the Netzer Co-op, an intentional community of Lutheran young adults in Seguine, Tx.  We were set to meet at a coffee shop where the community holds some of their events and when Tim wasn't there when I arrived I started to feel a bit uncomfortable.  Heavily tattooed urban gals don't always feel terribly comfortable in small town Texas, but following me into the coffee shop were 2 old school bikers who came right up to me and asked if they could "see your art", meaning check out my tattooes.  "We need more beautiful tattooed ladies here in Seguin".  So I chatted with the bikers until one of them indicated that the next tattoo they wanted to get would be a big Knights Templar cross with the word "infidel" so that "those moos-lems would know what I think of them, and that includes Barak Obama.  He's a moos-lem - I read it on the internet".  And that's the moment Tim walked in and saved me.

A highlight of my afternoon in Seguin was the statue of Martin Luther on the Texas Lutheran University campus.

Darth Luther

  

God's Politics Blog Posting

I seem to be spending so much of my time writing: sermons, the TBN book, articles, stuff for hire, and the God's Politics Blog.  I'm sorry to my half a dozen faithful readers....no time to blog.  I will soon.

For now check out my God's Politics posting

Pax,
Nadia

God's Politics Blog

I am now a contributing writer for Jim Wallis' God's Politics Blog

Christians

Today while shoe shopping, a young clerk commented on my Last Supper belt buckle and Mary Magdalene tattoo.  Intrigued, he asked "why do you have that stuff, are you just really interested in Catholicism?"  I explained that no, I am a Lutheran vicar.  He said "I'm studying for the ministry too" "Oh really" I said "Where?" (There are 2 seminaries in town) To which he replied "Victory Outreach Center, they have college accredited classes and I go every week."

My standard reaction set in, which I am in no position to defend, namely that I immediately thought, OK, not really the same thing buddy.  I have an BA in Religion and have finished 3 years of post-graduate work in Theology....and GREEK, did I mention GREEK???

That is part "a" of my standard reaction.

Part "b" is that when I meet Christians from places like "Victory Outreach", or any other church that places itself outside of the church catholic (small c), what I hear them saying is that "The Gospel is:  there is an in-group (the saved....meaning us) and there is an out-group (the lost)" 
The problem is that what I believe is that "The Gospel is: because of Christ there no longer is an out-group", so this makes it super hard to do the Christian *wink*wink*,  which is why I always threaten to start wearing a shirt that says "I'm not that kind of Christian"

I don't really want to be this way, because it basically just lacks generosity. 

My new tattoo

Simul iustus et peccator

it means : at the same time saint and sinner

which is a big deal in Lutheran theology.

these are photos from a  crappy camera...the tattoo is crystal clear.

Wanna be in my new book?

Ok, so the life of The Sarcastic Lutheran is a bit insane right now.  Mr. SL got a new call to a church in a Denver suburb and we bought a house in the Park Hill neighborhood in Denver, which is an old multi-cultural-right-next-to-City-Park  urban area.  The house is a bit of a fixer-upper, so we've been insanely busy trying to do improvements while moving in.  The kids start their new school tomorrow and I've just come back 2 days ago from Luther Seminary.  Add to that my new book deal and what do you get?   A very happy , very  busy gal who is attempting to  manage the embarrassment of blessings in her life while trying to remember not to speak of herself in the third person.

The book:
I was approached by Church Publishing/Seabury Books to write a book, kind of a social and religious commentary about the Christian Industrial Complex based on me watching 24 straight hours of Trinity Broadcast Network which is a televangelism cable channel.  I suggested that perhaps the Geneva Convention might address making a person do this sort of thing....right after the paragraph on waterboarding, but then I agreed to it because, well, it was about the weirdest thing someone had asked me to do in a while,so how could I say no?.  I am having a pleasingly bizzare assortment of folks come for an hour each and watch with me so that those chapters become a conversation between us about what we are seeing. Here's where you come in.  I'm inviting my readers to do the unthinkable.  Please watch TBN ... any amount you'd like, between 5:30am Friday August 24th and 5:30am Saturday August 25th (Mountain time) and e-mail me your comments to sarcasticlutheran@gmail.com.  I will have my computer on the whole time as I will be taking notes and may be able to have a little chat right there and then.    Then I may just these comments in the book.  I'm looking for any kind of ideas about what you see: what does it say theologically? about gender? about consumerism? about beauty?  were you surprised?  was the gospel preached despite the makeup and hairspray?   
The book will hopefully be out a year from now so that I can take it to Greenbelt.

Well, there's your mission if you choose to accept it, as fucking weird as it is.

Be well.

driving across country

My 11 hour drive today from Denver to Des Moines:

good: The Holy Family Shrine A glorious shrine a top the Platte Valley...seriously if you're driving on I-80 in Nebraska, it's well worth the time to visit.  A visit to the shrine is called "a pilgrimage to celebrate your faith"....the chapel is breathtaking and serene and there is a labyrinth in the meadow outside.

bad: a bumper sticker on a semi-truck that said: "U.S.A. : built with gutts, guns and God"   a**hole.

Why I have a "low anthropology" and a progessive theology

Why?
It's a rare, but in my mind a kick a** position.
You see most Christian progressives (or liberals if you will) have what is called a "high anthropology" meaning that they think quite highly of human beings and what we are capable of all on our own.  In other words, those with a high anthropology will perhaps say things like "all the truth you need to know is inside of yourself" or "we aren't bad sinful creatures, but are co-creators with God" to which I find myself thinking "what the hell planet are you from?, because here on Earth people just aren't that frickin' good...just read the paper or watch pretty much anything on the WB....we're NOT GOD...clearly.

As a good Lutheran I have what is called a "low anthropology".  In other words I think that we are sinful depraved people in need of God's grace.  Why do I believe this?  Several reasons.
1) I know myself...pretty well
2) I take in the news
3) I have children.  I didn't actually believe in original sin until I had kids, and I'm still not convinced, but now am sure that if humans are left unguided and undisciplined let me tell you...it ain't pretty.
4) I know other people
5) Did I mention that I know myself?...thoughts, words and deeds, what I have done and what I have left undone?  Yeah, that's the best evidence. Slam dunk really.

Ok, so does that mean that I do evil shit all the time?  No.  Does it mean that I am some sort of demon child?  Not most days.  What it does mean is that the good in me and the good that I am able to do is as a result of God's always radical choice to use the broken and unlikely to do God's work in the world and not as a result of my own shiny soul.  There is no true altruism, at least for me.  I can't do a pure fucking thing to save my life.  This is actually very hopeful.  It means that there is a source from which I came and from which I draw and that source, unlike me, is endless.  If my ability to "be good" is reliant only on my own goodness then I'm screwed.  There is so much freedom in the fact that God and not myself is my source.  However, to be a bit circular in my logic, I am still a broken person who inevitably will try and rely on self and not on God and will once again screw things up and be in need of God's grace which in always and already, just sittin' there waiting for me to realize it.
Still, I believe that we are made in the image of God and are Children of the Most High, but like all children we seldom know what's best for us and we need discipline.
As Luther said- we're a bit like snow covered dung - we look good but still smell like sh*t.

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2 am

It can be great being a gal who can get shit done.  Seriously, I can be a force.  It also sucks to be a gal who can get stuff done because then I start to believe my own press so to speak and  forget that whatever I get done is  through the grace of God and that any gifts I may have are given me to glorify God and not myself.  So I'm, "starting an emerging church" this coming January in Denver, which is thrilling and terrifying simultaneously.  Here's the idea for the community:

Basically I envision a community of exiles, agnostics and new-monastics: those who have been burned but are willing to dip their toes back in, those who struggle with belief, and those who are drawn to a whole-life faith.  These are folks who simply are not going to make the cultural commute to the traditional church.  This is a place where the experience of the Holy  takes precedence over intellectual assent to a set of unbelievable propositions - where there is a spiritual reconnoitering of the tradition, mining it for gold (liturgy, the Hours, the mystics, contemplative prayer, Thomas Merton, Bach, Dorothy Day) while being willing to consider that there is much that is tailings (I'll be generous here and refrain from listing these).  This community is deeply rooted in tradition so that it can innovate with integrity.  Radical and loving hospitality is practiced even amidst the damaged, the needy and the thoroughly annoying.  Failure, or more accurately, the inability to do these things perfectly is expected and not hidden.  Scripture is respected so deeply that it is questioned and struggled with, perhaps leaving us limping from the process, but not without us first having demanded a blessing from it. While admitting our complicity in social and environmental injustices, we strive to actively proclaim the Gospel of release to the captives and freedom to the oppressed.  We seek to be followers of the man God Jesus - where we are and as who we are...fully expecting that by dong so the who,the here and now will be transformed.  Despite the death-dealing forces of our time and in our culture, we believe that a light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not, shall not, will not, can not overcome it.

So here's the question, is this something I can do?  Like from sheer force of will? Of course not.  Is this something God can do? yes and I hope like hell that s/he shows up.  So I need to constantly remind myself of this especially on nights like this when I wake up and think "what  if I throw a church and no one shows up?".  It's not about me, I've just been given some of the gifts for being a part of the creation of a new community.  Still, I hope that folks show up.  I'll just feel like a bit of an ass if they don't, but who knows maybe that's "part of God's plan" (I hate that expression, it's as though God has everything mapquested out on some cosmic level or something, and that just seems silly to me not to mention ethically dubious on the part of God), yeah, yeah I know...God's ways are not our ways and all that...let go and let God...yada yada yada.

Face Book

So, my sister talked me into joining face book and hey...it's a fun thing.
Here's my page .
Join in.