Sarcastic Lutheran

Advent

Why is it that I feel the "finally!" of the first day of Advent more than on Christmas?  Advent is finally here and this low, deep, sleeping silence of waiting is pure gift itself.  I feel as though I get to float in the warm, embryonic waters of creation, waiting for birth, but content in the stillness.  Then, in the very next moment I panic, and sink, limbs flailing -- feeling like maybe shopping really will silence the hunger pangs brought on by my binge and purge spiritual life.  Surely God cannot come into this mess.  Except for the fact that God always does.

Dear God,
I will do just about anything but willingly hear your still small voice, your beckoning, your amazing and really hard to believe YES to us and to me and to all your creation.  I wait for this tiny yet uncontainable yes of your light entering the world.  This birth of holiness, this flesh of salvation in the muck of our existence. It is all I need and I bid you come. Even now. Even to me.  Even to this place.
In Jesus' name,
AMEN.

prayers

Yesterday I flew from St. Paul to Denver (and back in the same day, so I'm totally strung out right now) to participate in a conference Iliff School of Theology held on emerging church.  There were lots of important Methodists there, bishops and the like.  Karen Ward of Church of the Apostles was the speaker.  Karen's a bit of a mentor to me and I came in to help with worship and field questions after the presentation.  I wrote these prayers for worship which someone asked me to post:

Let us pray.
God of Mercy.  Let your presence be felt in the moanings of creation - grant that we see your life-giving self in even those places on the earth and within our selves  that we have used up and abandoned, strip mined and clear cut. Where we have collectively and individually been wasteful, bring forth rejuvenation and new life.  where we are smug about recycling and driving a Prius bring humility and when we are unaware of  how we effect others and our environment, bring us to understanding.
Lord in your Mercy,
Hear our prayer.

God of Wisdom,
We cry out for our world.  In the places where pride and power seem to win out over humility and gentleness, help us remember the folly of the cross and how there we see how the gospel messes everything up.  Grant that the rulers of countries may  see reconciliation as more powerful than tyranny.  Help all those in positions of power to see that you always do a new thing and are present in creative solutions.
Lord in your mercy.
Hear our prayer.

God of Wonder,
Be with the church.  Help us to remember that your work in the world is always done by sinners, or else it would never get done.  Breath your creative spirit into our churches that we might find ways of  proclaiming your word, new language, new music, new relationship and at the same time show us how beautiful, faithful and totally worth keeping around the traditional church is.  Thank you for church music...for some of us our first language.  Thank you for the likes of Matt Rees who created an electronica liturgy  and Thank you for the likes of  Hymn writer Fannie Crosby  who must surely be one of your favorites.
Lord in your Mercy,
Hear our prayer.

God of Love,
You are hidden and known throughout our lives.  Help us pay attention to the signs all around which point to how madly you love us.  Help us in turn to love each other even when it too seems like madness.
:Lord in your mercy,

Into your hands O Lord we commend all for whom we pray trusting in your gracious love.
In the name of Christ,
AMEN

Martin Luther's prayer

Lord God,
You have placed me in your church.  You know how unsuitable i am.  Were it not for your guidance I would long since have brought everything to destruction.  I wish to give my heart and mouth to your service.  I desire to teach your people, and long to be taught your work.  Use me as your workman dear Lord.  Do not forsake me; for if I am alone I shall bring it all to naught.  Amen.
- Martin Luther (1483-1546)

Amen indeed.

Pain and carnival

Wednesday night I got a half dozen friends together to begin having a conversation about the emerging church start here in Denver.  The project won't start officially until I get back from Luther Seminary in St. Paul in December (those denominational hoops must be jumped through), but I wanted to start the conversation now.  What better way to start a postmodern, urban, nu-monastic, Christian community that with dahl and beer?  So with a plate full of curried lentils, overcooked rice and just cooked tortillas, we sat down to what ended up being a really amazing conversation. Here's what I read ( pertaining to a vision of  being church in the city) from Kester Brewin's Signs of Emergence: A Vision For Church that is Organic/ Networked/ Decentralized/ Bottom-up/ Communal/ Flexible/ Always Evolving: "We are the community of the Creator, so we must create.  We are the community that looks forward to the city where divinity and humanity will live side by side, so we must give birth to an emergent, conjunctive, self-renewing, adaptable church that can model this in inclusivity, generosity,creativity and flexibility, welcoming the Other, providing true space for pain, and real time for carnival."  (143)

The idea of providing true space for pain and real time for carnival really sparked some beautiful, rich, thoughtful, hysterical ideas from the group. 

In the end I think that we all agreed that it's possible, needed and timely.

I'm so excited I can hardly sit still.

Dear God,
Make your presence known in this weird little project.  Without your guidance we're sunk.  But with the Holy Spirit in our midst things can be so crazy beautiful and more real that we can imagine.  If our pride and hurt and fear and selfishness and insecurity hinder us, as they will, be a big old carpet thrown over our brokenness over which we can scurry.  That stuff is there, but in You there is a way over.  Thanks for those spaces for pain and those times for carnival in both of which you are to be found.
In Jesus' name,
AMEN

[Grid::Blog::Via Crucis 2007] Mary Magdalene

John 20

Via Crucis GridBlog is now into the stations of the resurrection and I gleefully signed up for "Christ appears to Mary Magdalene"

This is my favorite passage in the entire Bible for the following reasons:

*Mary is despondent about the death of her teacher whom she loved so deeply.  She's so filled with grief that she doesn't even recognize him in her midst, instead confusing him for the gardener (how do you possibly ever live that down?  I imagine her and other Christians late at night drinking wine telling stories about Jesus and inevitably someone going "Yeah...and remember when Mary thought he was the gardener!! Hey Mary, how'd you know he was the gardener and not say, the plummer or maybe just a florist???!!!")

??? A Question: How often in our own lives do we fail to recognize Christ in our midst?

* She has no idea he is there or that the resurrection even took place until...."Mary".  He speaks her name.  This is beautiful to me.  I have heard my name and it made all the difference.

???  A Question: How is Christ calling our name?

* Christ appoints her to be the Apostle to the Apostles.  She is chosen to let the boys in on the news.  Her.  A woman.  A former demonic.  Her.      Wow.   
(Mary M was not a prostitute nor was she the woman caught in adultery.)  Read Dr. Ann Brock's book Mary Magdalene, The First Apostle: The Struggle for Authority

??? A Question: How are we unlikely proclaimers of the the risen Christ?

p.s. yeah, that's my arm.

Dear God,
Thank you for the faithful witness of Mary Magdalene.  Help me to recognize Christ in my midst.  Help me to listen for my name.  Help me to stop questioning your judgment around my own call to announce the resurrection.
In Jesus' name,
AMEN

*

The Problem WIth Christian Love

Here's the problem I have with Christian love: people who I don't like.

As those who follow Christ we are called to love others. This can be highly inconvenient. It's so easy to be loving toward people I like. It's even easy to be loving toward people who aren't in the category of "people I like", but just "people who don't bug the shit out of me". It's the people who fall into the latter that I struggle with. These people aren't even "my enemies", they're just irritating.

Here is one reason that I never thought of myself as pastor material: I avoid emotionally needy people. This isn't the most pastoral trait in the world. Now, we're not talking about someone in crisis because of a recent tragedy. We're talking about people who think they are in crisis, but aren't. These are people who are emotional vacuums who will suck all the focus and energy from a group given the chance.

In my morning prayer I can hold them in God's love. I can wish them to have health and healing. Just don't ask me to be in the same room with them. I love them in the sense that I want good things for them, only I don't want them to obtain these good things by emotionally sucking them out of me. The problem with this is that I suspect that love is as much a feeling as it is an action and I can have all the nice fuzzy thoughts and prayers about damaged, socially awkward people as I want, but if I "have not love" I am a "noisy gong, a clanging cymbal" as Paul says to the Corinthians.

It's not easy to have my values (love, inclusively, grace) with my personality (sarcastic, judgmental, acerbic)

Dear God,
Some of your children are extremely irritating and honestly, difficult to love. I don't really want to be around these people, but know that I am called to reflect your love to them. This is really gonna need to come from you. Pony up the extra measure if you don't mind, because I've got nothin'. Remind me that you, and not my personality, are my source, and that that is an endless source.
AMEN

doubt and idolatry

“If we fail to recognize that the term ‘God’ always falls short of that towards which the word is supposed to point, we will end up bowing down before our own conceptual creations forged from the raw materials of our self-image, rather than bowing before the one who stands over and above that creation. Hence Meister Eckhart famously prays, ‘God rid me of God’, a prayer that acknowledges how the God we are in relationship with is bigger, better and different than our understanding of that God”. ( Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God19)

I've been thinking about conceptual idolatry. In the fundamentalist theological system that I was taught growing up, doubt was the opposite of faith, essentially equated with disbelief. Any attempt to question the faith or the biblical text was seen as Satan trying to get me to not believe in Jesus and thus "red rover, red rover, send Nadia right over" to his side. This was dangerous business obviously as any questions one might have about, I don't know, maybe the logical inconsistencies of biblical literalism, or the fact that God sends all people who don't believe in Jesus to Hell (even those who never heard of the guy) all potentially meant putting your soul in eternal peril, so they largely just went unasked. Of course now I see doubt as a cornerstone of faith. To strenuously engage with, struggle with and question the text and the faith is a deeply faithful act. The faith and the text can take it. really. it stands up to what we throw against it. This is not to imply that there is a singular, orthodox truth which always shines through, but that the wisdom contained in the faith and the text does not go up in smoke when we question it. Paradoxically the wisdom of the faith and the text comes alive when we dare to wrestle it ... and then ask for its blessing. This critical, often angry engagement is the opposite of idolatry. Kenneth Leech in Experiencing God": Theology as Spirituality, says "Such doubt is not the enemy of faith, but an essential element within it. For faith in God does not bring the false peace of answered questions and resolved paradoxes. Rather it can be seen as a process of 'unceasing interrogation'" (25). OK, so here's the rub. As a progressive thinking Christian, I'm totally on board with this critical engagement and not making the biblical text an idol. But what about my own theologically sacred cows? What about the all-star notion that God is Love? Let's question that. (actually, my friend the Hebrew Bible professor thinks that there are enough texts in the Bible to support a book called "God is a Tyrant") What about the liberal notion of Jesus as one who favors women and the poor? Let's question that too. I'm not trying to imply that these two ideas are not true, only that when we hold onto them too tightly we may do so at the peril of a richer theological understanding. When we are unwilling to doubt or question the theological ideas we cherish the most, we are in danger of reifying our own conceptions and thus allowing them to limit what they point to.

Dear God,
Forgive me when I confuse YOU with my limited idea of you. Help me faithfully to wonder, question and engage my assumptions and beliefs, not so that they dissolve in the process, but that they then become more alive. Show me how my strangle hold on ideas about the Bible and the faith keep them from breathing. Destroy my conceptual idols. When I seek the comfort of sure answers, discomfort me. When I seek you instead, give me comfort.
In Jesus' name,
AMEN

Portland Emerging Women's conference

I'm back from the Emerging Women's conference in Portland. I was nervous about going as I seldom break away from my Anglican, Episcopal, Lutheran tribe (more about that here). I thought that I, as a progressive Christian, would be hit with the scripture stick by my more conservative sisters. This did not happen, but the conference was difficult for me in an entirely different way. Seeing so many amazing women deeply wounded by the church was really tough. I met a lot of gals who were so deeply faithful and who felt a call from God to be leaders but who were told it was sinful to even presume that God would call a woman to ministry. I met gals who, even within traditions that ordain women, were told that if they were ordained, no man would ever want to marry them. (I see this as a positive selection process myself). I met older women who have engaged this struggle for decades - machete in their hands making the path that much clearer for women behind them. I too came from a religious background in which women were second class citizens, not permitted to even pray aloud if men were present, (that part of my story here), but I left that church 20 years ago and spent ten years exploring the female face of God as a way of reclaiming that of God within myself which I felt in my upbringing had been silenced. It was only after years of seeing Goddess in the world and in myself and not only God (I see these as two faces of one deity), that I was able to go back to the church...that is another story for another time. Many of my tattoos are related to this narrative in my life, including one of The Snake Goddess pictured above...she's so strong and fierce and curvy and beautiful....by claiming her in me when I was in my early twenties, I was able to come back to Christianity having learned, experienced, felt and claimed that I too am a child of the Creator. Many of the women I met this weekend are trying to go through a transformation into their own power within the church and my prayers are with them. I was glad to have been with them all. As for the Lutheran church, we have ordained women for 32 some odd years, but seriously, can 2000 years of male domination be overcome and made right in 32 years?

Dear God,
Send your healing to women who have been told that you don't want their leadership and to those who told them such a lie. Heal your church that we may feel, experience and know the wholeness you intend for us.
In Jesus' name,
AMEN

Detroit

Ryan Torma (minister of community life at Spirit Garage in Minneapolis) and I spent the last two days in Detroit. The Bishop's office there is looking at the possibility of an emerging church plant near Wayne State University and wanted our input. First of all...heaps of praise to these people (synod staff, local clergy, outreach board, Episcopal and Lutheran campus ministry) for casting a vision for something they are new to and are only in the begining stages of learning about! There's a good scene there that would lend itself well to postmodern Christian community.

Jack Eggleston from the Bishop's office drove us around downtown Detroit and I still don't quite know how to process what I saw. It was like a bombed out war zone. There were large areas with more abandoned buildings than occupied, including neighborhoods with large victorian homes which hinted at their previous beauty but are now burned up, decimated and raw. These are truly the abdandoned places of empire. Detroit never quite recovered from the race riots of the 1960's and the "White Flight" from the inner city drained the area of needed resources and infastructure. Today in Detroit, one block will be abandoned and another will hold a row of new lofts. One block will have only a run down liquor store with barred windows and the next will host a new gallery and hipster bar. I guess it felt weird to say to them that yeah, there's a happenin' arts and music scene and the creative class are moving back to the city, and then have nothing to say about the death and hopelessness surrounding the "hip scene". The whole experience was darkly and unavoidably punctuated by a reality I would rather not know about...but don't have the option of ignoring anymore.

I don't even have a prayer for this. Do any of you?

a confession

Personal confession:
I have such an antipathy for conservative-jesus-as-your-personal-lord-and-savior Christianity, and let's face it, Christians themselves- that it's a sin. Seriously, I hate that whole thing. I hate the smugness, the certainty, the Biblical (selective) literalism. I hate the exclusion of women (usually) and of gays (always). And it's not that I just don't understand it, trust me I do. I was raised in the Church of Christ - not the United Church of Christ mind you...the Church of Christ, which is like Baptist Plus. I can recite the party line with the best of them and I will go to any lengths to avoid being around these people. I feel like wearing a shirt everyday that says "I'm not that kind of Christian". Basically I find the whole thing profoundly creepy and uncomfortable. It's ok for me to disagree with them theologically, but I take it to the next level. If I am called to love those who persecute me (or, in my opinion, persecute the Gospel), then I'm doing a lousy job and that's not ok. I guess I'm saying I need to love the sinner but hate the bad theology. Or maybe I'm to just love the person and stop being such a theological bigot.

I am uncomfortable with a whole lot of Christianity. But the thing is, I'm Christian (note I didn't say "a" Christian...as that, to me, plays into the whole Western individualism gone amuck in the church thing ....another example of which is the "personal" lord and savior bit...you know - "personal trainer", "personal shopper", "personal assistant" and "personal lord and savior") Anyhow, in the emerging church conversation I have limited my interactions and conversation (almost) exclusively to my fellow Lutheran/Anglican tribe members and have avoided the post-evangelicals. This exhibits an enormous amount of hubris on my part, but there it is.

Here's why I'm struggling with this right now. There is an emerging women's blog that I occasionally try and participate in, they're a fine group of gals but I have no patience for comments sometimes left about how "unfortunate it is that there is swearing in the posts on a Christian blog". This nicey-nice Christian crap is why so many people want nothing to do with us. Are we really serving the gospel this way? In all fairness I'm sure my critics would say the same about the fact that I basically swear like a truck driver. Anyway, there is an emerging women's gathering in Portland that I'm considering attending. This is a huge step for me - to be willing to step outside my tribe a bit. So I poked around on the web looking for information about the event. I found a list of the organizers and looked at the home page from one of their churches. It looked amazing with lots of street kids and crazy dreadlocked pastors, but on their "about us" page the first thing was that "we believe the Bible is inerrant and totally true", which made me want to never stop slapping them. I couldn't simply think "huh, interesting" and leave it at that...no, it became personal. The thing is, I've met this woman and she's absolutely lovely...we just have differing views on scripture. I feel like maybe I'm ready to start getting over this enormous bias of mine, - which does nothing to improve the theology of my subjects, but simply unsettles me and feels like crap. Maybe it's time to put my theological money where my mouth is and BE a reconciling person in the world, not one who sets up more division between myself and others. You know, I travel all the time and attend events and meeting, consultations and planning teams with people who are my theological fellows. Perhaps I might gain something from being around people who also are Christian but who might have more traditional views than I. Perhaps God can actually be at work with and among decision-theology types. I suppose on some level my reaction against the evangelicals is a defense measure. Who I am was not ok to the conservative Christians in the church I was raised in and in order to avoid that awful feeling I reject them before they can reject me. OK, I get it. Once again God is speaking to me. The message is almost always the same: Get Over Yourself. But it's really hard.

A Prayer is needed:
Dear God,
Your followers make me crazy. I'm totally a jerk about this and I'm sorry. It'd be great if maybe you could try and improve some of the theology on the ground here, and if that's not going to happen then help me to not be so arrogant. Be with those whom I find most irritating and show me how to love them. This is pretty much only going to happen by your grace, which in the past has done for me what I could never do for myself, so I'm trusting you again. Your will, not mine be done (we can all be thankful for that)
In Jesus' name,
AMEN