Sarcastic Lutheran

Outlaw Preacher podcast - Law and Gospel

 
photo by Agnes Gossler (outside a Baptist church in Berlin, Germany)

Khad Young has posted his conversation with me here. We talk about Law and Gospel, and Anne Coulter at the Well.

More about being an "Outlaw Preacher" later...

Sermon on Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

A sermon for Easter 4b

Text: Acts 8
26Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." (This is a wilderness road.)  27So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship  28and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah.  29Then the Spirit said to Philip, "Go over to this chariot and join it."  30So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?"  31He replied, "How can I, unless someone guides me?" And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him.  32Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:
    "Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,
    and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth.
  33In his humiliation justice was denied him.
    Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth."
  34The eunuch asked Philip, "About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?"  35Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus.  36As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, "Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?"  38He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him.  39When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.  40But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

As many of you know, last week Seth and I attended the Rocky Mountain Synod assembly – the legislative body for this region of the Lutheran church.  For more than 10 years my denomination has been talking about human sexuality.  Much like the early church who were convinced that gentiles could only become Christians if they changed into being Jews first (which, for the record, involved a rather unpleasant process), much like our first century brothers and sisters there is a segment of the church today who thinks that if we extend the roof of the tent to include “the gays” then the whole thing will come crashing down around us.  We must “evangelize” them – ie. change them into us before they will fit. Or else the roof can’t hold.  Meanwhile the other side of the church is all about “inclusion”.  We must extend the tent to include the marginalized, the less fortunate the minorities.

    But then we have this story of Phillip and The Ethiopian Eunuch.  A text which I have always heard as being about evangelism. “The conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch” it was called.    I was always told that the message of this text was that we should tell everyone we meet about Jesus because in doing so we might save them.  We might convert them.  We might change them into being us. 

But today I’m not so sure.  Because if the Eunuch was reading Isaiah as he returned from Jerusalem having gone there to worship – see if he was reading Isaiah then I would bet he was also familiar with Dueteronomy, specifically 23:1 “No one whose testicles are cut off or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord” Anyone have that one as a memory verse growing up?
This law strictly forbids a Eunuch from entering the assembly of the Lord.  Their transgression of gender binaries and the inability to fit in proper categories made them profane by nature.  They do not fit in the tent.  But the Eunuch went to Jerusalem to worship despite the fact that in all likelihood he would be turned away by the religious establishment.  The Eunuch sought God anyway.

See, when the Spirit guided Phillip to that road in the desert I like to think she guided him to his own conversion.  As he approached the chariot he may have been thinking OK…I’ll just beat him with the scripture stick until he becomes what I am comfortable with.  But when Phillip joined this person who sought to worship God despite his exclusion form the tent, maybe it was Phillip himself who was converted to the faith.  It was perhaps even a mutual conversion.  Maybe because they simply asked each other questions in the desert.  The only imperatives came from the Holy Spirit. Phillip and the Eunuch only asked each other questions.  The only commands came from God and the command was go and join.  Go and join the other.  What we don’t know is if the Spirit also gave the Eunuch a command to invite.  Invite this nice Jewish boy – representative of all that clings to the law and rejects you from God’s house.  Invite him to sit by you.  Go…join…invite…ask questions. Perhaps Phillip in his encounter with this gender transgressive foreigner learned what seeking the Lord looks like.

A couple weeks ago Stuart showed up to liturgy wearing slacks and button down shirt rather than his Grease Monkey jacket and jeans.  Earlier that day He had stood as Godfather and baptismal sponsor for the child of his friends’ ; a straight couple who have known Stuart for a number of years.  Apparently after the baptism there was a little reception back at this couple’s house.  To Stuart’s surprise his friends got all of their guests attention so they could say a few words about why they had chosen Stuart as their child’s godparent.  “We chose you Stuart” they said “because for most of your life you have pursued Christ and Christ’s church even though as a Gay Man all you’ve heard from the church is that ‘there is no love for you here’”.  I heard that story as his friends saying to him “you, Stuart convert us again and again to this faith” 

All many of you have heard is that the tent is simply not big enough unless you change to fit in it.  Change your sexuality, your personality your doubting. Change your addictive patterns, your story, your brokenness. And if you can’t, then just pretend. Yet here you are.  Converting me once again to this faith.

Because how can I know what it means to follow Christ unless I learn it from someone who has done so despite every obstacle possible?  That’s why I am so in awe of those in our community who have heard again and again “there is no love for you here unless you let us change you into who we feel comfortable with you being”.  Not just the queers either.  Also those who have the wrong personality or the wrong socio economic status or the wrong gender or the wrong immigration status or the wrong politics to fit under the tent.
 I think maybe that we can’t actually know what this Jesus following thing is about unless we too have the stranger show us.  This is far more than “inclusion”. Inclusion isn’t the right word at all because it sounds like in our niceness and virtue we are allowing “them” to join us - like we are judging another group of people to be worthy to be a part of this thing.  “inclusion” seems like a small thing.  A charity.  A mercy. But the truth is that We need the equivalent of our Ethiopian Eunuch to show us the faith.  We continually need the stranger, the foreigner, the “other” to show us water in the desert.  We need to hear “Here is water in the desert, so what is to keep me the eunuch from being baptized” or me the queer or me the intersexed, or me the illiterate or me the neurotic or me the over-educated or me the founder of Focus on the Family.  Until we face the difficulty of that question and come up as Phillip did with no answer…until then we just look at the seemingly limited space under the tent and either think it’s our job to change people so they fit or its our job to extend the roof so that they fit.  Either way, it’s misguided because …it’s not our tent.  It’s God’s tent. The wideness of the tent of the Lord should concern us only insofaras it points to the gracious nature of a loving God who became flesh and entered into our humanity.  The wideness of the tent should only concern us insofaras it  points to the great mercy and love of a God who welcomes us all as friends.

The bigness of God’s tent is why we have an open communion table.  When we come to the table we all come as Christ’s guests to his feast. And as much as we’d like to be - we are not the makers of the guest list. We come to the table with those who accept us and those who reject us.  We come to the table with those we love and those we distrust. We come whether or not we feel worthy. Because It is God who has made us worthy in the invitation.  It is God who has torn the curtain of the temple so that there is no longer Jew nor Greek, Slave nor free, Male nor Female gay nor straight.  Liberal nor conservative.

So maybe here in this story of the conversion of Phillip and the Eunuch is some hope for the church.  That under God’s really big tent we might ask questions, invite those who represent the establishment to come and sit by us, to stay in the scriptures, to be converted anew by the strange and the stranger, to see where there is water in the desert, to enter fully into the waters of God’s mercy with the foreigners, with the “not us”. And to go on our way rejoicing having converted each other to this beautiful, dangerous expansive life of faith.

Announcing Christianity 21

 

Christianity 21: Faith in the 21st Century
21 Voices
21 Ideas
21 Minutes Each

We live in a time of epochal change.

Many find this change exciting; for others, it’s a challenge. Call it globalization, pluralization, or postmodernism, this change affects our economy, politics, government, and education—all of society. And, of course, our faith and our churches are not immune to change.

So we have gathered 21 of the most important voices for the future of Christianity—21 voices for the 21st century—to speak into our future as people of faith in this age. They represent a diverse array of backgrounds, interests, and passions, and they will provide a wide range of innovative and challenging presentations.

Christianity21 is less a conference and more a happening, an event—a gathering of voices and ideas that will shape the future of our faith. And to the 21 voices, we want you to add your voice, whether you’re a seeker or skeptic, leader or layperson, disciple or doubter.

We hope you consider joining your voice to ours at Christianity21.

Friday, October 9 – Sunday, October 11
Colonial Church of Edina
6200 Colonial Way
Minneapolis, MN 55436
$195

___________________________________________________________

I'm really excited about this event.  I'll be one of the 21 speakers but don't let that dissuade you from attending - the other presenters are legit.  It's an amazing collection of voices.

My topic: Authority; Authenticity and Assholes

Hope to see you there.

Salvation on the Small Screen? 24 Hours of Christian Television out now!

My book is now available on Amazon Here

"Turn off your TV and read this book. It's enlightening and entertaining and
it doesn't emit any radiation whatsoever."
--AJ Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically

From 5am November 2nd to 5 am November 3rd (2007) I watched 24 consecutive hours of cable televangelism/prosperity gospel fare on Trinity Broadcasting Network.  28 contributors, including Bible Scholars from Iliff School of Theology, a gay Unitarian, her non-religious ex-boyfriend, a couple Jews, her Evangelical parents, Lutheran pastors and her 9 year old daughter all joined Nadia for an hour each so that the book becomes a conversation between what’s happening on the TV, what’s happening on the sofa, and what’s happing in the writer’s head.  The result is a narrative which is frequently hysterical, often insightful and occasionally totally surprising.

Please consider joining the Salvation on the Small Screen's Facebook group!

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

Where are the Queers???

I've been at Luther Seminary for 3 weeks now and have yet to meet an out GLBTQ person.  Um, I know they have to be here somewhere.  It's so weird to be in an environment where it is apparently not safe to be out.  It's making me deeply sad actually. I think I'll start being a little obnoxious about it and find some rainbow flags and pink triangles to sport.
Allie Allie in come free!!!!

It's so troubling to me to be a part of system (the ELCA - my denomination) who has a policy of exclusion that I do not agree with....it actually goes beyond disagreement, I think it is sinful.  I just refuse to leave and will (along with many many other folks) work to change my church. That is a threat, not just a promise.

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.

Lutheran Confessions

I'm taking a 3 week class at Luther Seminary in St. Paul on Lutheran Confessional Writings.  These writings are in the Book of Concord, a 16th century collection of Reformation documents.  Basically when all hell broke loose after Martin Luther dared to speak theological truth to ecclesiastical power, a bunch of theologians worked quite hard at justifying why we are justified by faith alone and not by any effort of our own.  Which of course begs the question- doesn't that make faith a "work"?  Ney say the reformers, faith is a gift given by the Holy Spirit, as the 3rd article of the Creed in Luther's Small Catechism states:  I believe that                     I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ,                     my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me                     by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and                     kept me in the true faith. 
This is my favorite part of the catechism, because as someone who was raised in an almost entirely works based church  -  a bit like a  salvific meritocracy,  I'm inclined to find the idea that I don't have to try and muster up faith in Christ by sheer individual effort, a great comfort. If I am unable on my own to believe in Christ, then I wonder if when I feel that I am lacking in faith, that it is perhaps almost entirely absent, should I then trust that I indeed do have the faith that I do not at that moment percieve I have?  Perhaps the Holy Spirit gives us faith but not the ability to perceive we have it and we are to just have faith that we have faith and not depend on our thoughts and feelings to determine if we have it.  See, this is quite messy isn't it?

Here's been my main issue in this class: lack of humility.  Would it have killed the reformers to hedge even a little bit in the absolute certainty with which they made their proclamations?  In class the other day  we were talking about how we are all simultaneously sinner and saint.  A student then asked "How are we seen by God?"  The professor then answered - it was convoluted, I could not begin to explicate it here, but the thing that struck me was how certain and immediate his answer was.  So we can know the mind of the Almighty?  We can definitively say "Well, here's how God sees this..."  I'm not so sure.  I think there is a limit to rational thought and we best start confessing THAT.  Here's why I believe this lack of humility exists, and it's a bit circular, so stay with me.   We get that God  is bigger than and has more authority than us, so  in matters of theology we cannot rely on "human experience" or "ideas of man" to tell us about who God is, so we claim that the confession we make - the official church doctrines - are "scriptural" and not of human origin, therefore we have no reason to hedge in our absolute certainty in these matters, for they are from God and not from us.   The problem is that these ARE all human ideas and creations...I'll not get into the issue of authority of scripture, but even giving scripture a high authority - the way in which it is used and explained is entirely human.  Even if you believe that "God wrote the Bible", God did not also write a commentary on the Bible, so any interpretation is going to be from human thought and experience.  I think perhaps we ought to be honest about this and not hide behind "scriptural authority" by trying to pawn off our ideas as God's.  Are we so scared of mystery that in our pride we trust our reason to explain every doctrinal and theological minutiae so that in the end it's all explained to our satisfaction, packaged neatly and tied with a bow?
I love the Creeds and the Augsburg Confession, I even trust them, but I'm just not willing to eliminate the possibility that maybe we got something wrong.  These doctrines are our best shot at the truth, not the truth itself.  I guess I'm just more comforted by mystery than certainty. 
So call me a heretic...again.

Ruth and Mary Magdalene sermon

I know that sermons are a bit long for blog posting...but for the half a dozen people out there who actually read sermons on line....

The lectionary reading are from the 1st chapter of Ruth and the 20th chapter of John...I also refer to this text from the Gospel of Mary Magdalene:

The disciples were in sorrow, shedding many tears and saying: "How are we to go among the unbelievers and announce the gospel of the Kingdom of the Son of Man?  They did not spare His life, so why should they spare ours?"

Then Mary (Magdalene arose, embraced them all, and began to speak to her brothers:

"Do not remain in sorrow and doubt, for His Grace will guide you and comfort you.  Instead, let us praise His greatness, for He has prepared us for this.  He is calling upon us to become fully human."

Thus Mary turned their hearts toward the Good, and they began to discuss the meaning of the Teacher's words.

Picture if you will the perfect cliché’wedding.  Bridesmaids in garish matching taffeta.  The sweating groom,  Pachebell’s canon, or if the church will allow, perhaps the shrill, endless vowels of Whitney Houston's “Iiiiiiiiii will always love youuuuuuuuu”,
and a reading from Ruth:
Where you go I will go
Where you lodge I will lodge
Your people shall be my people
And your God my God.

  When these words are spoken in the context of a wedding, a man and a woman pledge their love to one another and they become one in the eyes of their families and friends and society. 

But these rich love filled verses were not from a wedding, and not spoken between a man and a woman, they were from one woman to another.  More specifically, these words are said from a young Moabite woman to an old Hebrew woman.

Ruth and Naomi’s story starts in the time of the Judges.  The Hebrew people have settled in Canaan, but the time of King David has not yet come about.  There is a famine in the land.  Famine in the promised land.  Famine in Bethlehem, which in Hebrew ironically means the “house of Bread” wow. Naomi, her husband and 2 sons go to Moab where there is food. Moab.  Moab is not exactly spoken of kindly in the rest of the Hebrew Bible.  I can’t imagine what this must have been like.  Perhaps not unlike if we  in America, this land of plenty had a famine and were so desperate for food that we had to go to Saudi Arabia because their crops were growing like gangbusters.  I think perhaps this type of situation would make it difficult to maintain our idea that WE had “Most Favored Nation” status in the eyes of the Almighty.  So the House of Bread is pretty much out of bread, but the Moabites who are not exactly best friends with the Hebrew people, much less with their God ha’shem, apparently are doing ok.
Famine.  In the Promised Land.  Famine.  In the House of Bread -
So, where  exactly is God? 

After having to leave Bethlehem because of famine and after having to go and live with the Moabites,  Naomi’s husband dies leaving her a widow, but at least she has her two sons.  Still, where exactly is God?

So,then Naomi’s sons marry Moabite women. The Hebrew people have continually been told to not intermarry.   Isn’t this a big deal in the Torah that they not marry pagans?  That should settle it shouldn’t it.  This type of marriage is ok, this type is not.  I secretly wonder if they ever claimed to love the pagan, but hate the paganism. 
So Naomi’s sons marry Moabite women and then, after famine in Bethlehem, and after having to flee to Moab, and after her sons marry Moabite women, and ten years after she became a widow, she becomes childless.  All she has is her sons and her sons die.  So, Where exactly is God we ask? Still no mention of God.

So now there are three husbandless women and let me tell you, Life is not friendly to widows.  The fear must have been unimaginable.  It’s not like today when Naomi could “go back to teaching” or even work at Starbucks for the health benefits.  Being a widow meant throwing yourself on the mercy of your kinfolks and hoping...hoping they take care of you.  So Naomi decides to go home after hearing that the LORD had recently  “considered his people” in Bethlehem and given them food again.  OK so, God finally shows up, but only in rumor really and if you ask me, maybe too little too late.  In Naomi’s place I know I would have wondered if it would have been too much to ask for God to have “considered his people” before the famine that caused me to go to Moab where my husband and children died.

So, Naomi has no choice but to return home ... the 3 set out for Bethlehem together - Three childless widows, two were Moabites.  Naomi feels as though God has turned God’s hand from her.   And who can blame her really?  Famine has forced her from her land.  Her husband is dead.  Her sons are dead.  Her value in life is dead.  From this diminished, hollow, dusty place she does what I and perhaps you have done when feeling particularly unlovable and entirely without value.  She tries to push people away from her so as to not feel the pain of being loved while feeling unlovable  To the only 2 people she had left in the world she says “go away from me.  save yourselves for God has turned his hand against me.    I am of no value to you.  maybe the LORD will be good to you if you leave me” and when they protest, when they say, no we want to stay with you, she’s like “Why?  I am only the mother of your dead husbands  - my value to you is only as your provider of husbands, and I have no husbands left in this belly for you.  and look, even if I found a husband tonight and bore more sons for you, be real...it’s a long wait till you could marry them....that’s a long time for a gal to be...you know... unmarried, don’t you think you’d get I don’t know, a bit cranky waiting that long?”  You see, Naomi is barren in more than one way.  Naomi is barren in spirit.    SO Where exactly  is God we ask?
Why didn’t God show up and stop the famine?
Why didn’t God show up and stop the death of her husband and sons?
Why didn't God show up and stop hurricane Katrrina?
Why didn’t God show up and stop the massacre At Virginia Tech?
I don’t know.
But I do know that in our text, God does show up.
God shows up in these words:
where you go, i will go
where you lodge I will lodge
your people shall be my people
and your God, my God.
God has not turn God’s hand against her, because God’s love is right there, revealed in Ruth’s love for her.  Sometimes God’s presence isn’t felt until we cleave to one another.

@@@@@
Naomi’s primary identity was as “one who bore children”, and when those children were gone, she was bitter, and hollowed out and sure God had turned against her.  Now, lest I judge her too harshly, I have to admit there have been hollow times in my life when I too have been bitter and wondered “where exactly is God”, which always seems to be the time when some act of love from another person completely breaks me open till I see that God lives in these sometimes small, sometimes great acts of love toward one another.

In these words of love from Ruth, Naomi’s primary identity shifts from “widow” to her true name of beloved of God where it belongs.
And these shifts in identity due to acts of love happen for us too.

So where exactly is God we ask?
God is in love that gives a new primary identity.  In love shown to oneanother which then returns us to our true identity, beloved of God

Mary Magdalene whose feast we celebrate today...her identity shifted from demon posessed woman to beloved of God through the love of Christ.  In our reading from John today we see her weeping at the empty tomb.  She’s been on a bit of a wild ride the past couple of years.  I imagine that she had been posessed for such a long time...dealing with her demons...filled with despair...being alienated from herself, from her God and from her  community.  Then she met this teacher from Gallilee and everything changed.  He called her by name.  He called her Mary,  not demoniac.  He called her into the fullness of her humanity, into her new primary identity as beloved of God.  But then he was gone. tortured. crucified. dead. buried. gone. “so where is God” she must have asked.  Is it really all over now? They have taken him away and I do not know where he is.   But then it happened again.  While she was in despair weeping for her disappeared Lord she, in a foux pax of historic proportion,  mistakes him for the gardener...how exactly do you live that down?  In her pain and sorrow she mistakes him for the gardener UNTIL  .....he speaks her name.  “Mary”.  He speaks her true name “Beloved of God”  His love for her shifted her primary identity.  In a culture where she was not only a woman, but one who was posessed of demons, one who was outcast, one who was the ‘Other’, he loved her into becoming fully human.  And then chose her to be the first witness to the resurrection and to be the apostles to the apostels.  It is Mary who is given the task of proclaiming the risenChrist, while the boys were arguing about “which one of us is greatest?  who is going to be at your right hand in glory?  Who is first in the kingdom?”  God chooses an outcast woman to tell them that they are beloved of God, that they are called to be fully human and to turn their hearts to the good.
So where is God we ask?
No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another God’s love lives in us and is perfected in us.
Isn’t that what the church is in a way?  A group in which our value comes from being the beloved of God, children of the Most High and not our jobs, or bank accounts or status in society, or sexual orientation...ideally speaking?
There are plenty of times in life when we wonder “Where exactly is God?” when the events of life are painful, or unjust or downright devastating.  When we too are barren of spirit.  Sometimes there are no miraculous healings, or partings of the seas or raising of the dead.  Sometimes there is just us asking where is God.  But Sometimes God is that still small voice of gentle kindnesses toward one another.  Sometimes God is the roaring wind of our mercies undeserved.  But always God is revealed in acts of love toward one another.  No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another God lives in us and God’s love is perfected in us. 

So, my friends, close your eyes if you choose and visualize above your head some of your most primary identities : mother, husband, elderly, lawyer, high schooler, ...whatever they may be.  And as I say these words of love from these women of God, visualize these labels being erased and replaced boldly with the words beloved of God

Where you go I will go
where you lodge, I will lodge
Your people shall be my people
and your God my God

Do not remain in sorrow, for God’s grace will guide you and comfort you.  God is calling us to become fully human.  God had prepared us for this.   Turn your hearts to the good.
You are the Beloved of God

AMEN

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

Sermon I preached at Holden Village

I was shocked, thrilled and horrified to be asked to preach at Holden Village.  I had just a day and a half to write a sermon, which I balked at, but that Holy Spirit showed up and she kind of rocked my world.
The lectionary texts were Galations 5: 1-25 and Luke 9:51-62, The Galations reading deals with Christian freedom and the workd of the flesh and the fruits of the spirit.  When folks entered the worship space they were met with a table with two bowls filled with bits of paper folded in half.  The bowl on the right  was filled with the fruits of the spirit "Take one"  the bowl on the left, the works of the flesh "take one"  above the bowls was written: Simul iustus et peccator (Simultaniously sinner and saint) "reflect."  So every one got a random paper from each bowl.  My favorite was Pastor Eric who got "fornication" and "faithfulness". hmmmm. 

Here's the manuscript:

Grace peace and mercy to you from the Triune God. Amen.
So Jesus is kinda harsh in this gospel reading, but
Honestly, I love these Gospel texts like this one which are called “problematic texts”, which is greek for “ones we’d never voluntarily preach on but which come up in the lectionary so we’re stuck with them.  But the Hebrew translation of  “Problematic text in the lectionary” is just “guest preacher”, so I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Pastor Eric for the invitation to preach today....i think.

It’s kind of a weird little story in Luke...
At the beginning of this chapter Jesus has just given the 12 power and authority to cast out demons and to cure diseases and has sent them out to proclaim the kingdom and to heal. This is kind of an important point.  Jesus gave them power and authority, power and authority did not come from them- they weren’t born with it, they did not stumble upon it and the certainly didn’t earn it.  It was given to them from Jesus. 
               So, what do they do with this freedom and this gift they did not earn? If we put this text in conversation with the Galatians reading, we could say that the disciples used their freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence an certainly did not become slaves to one another.  Instead, It totally goes to their heads, they forget that all their mojo comes from God and not themselves and so they start arguing about which one of them was the greatest. ok so that’s strike one.  Strike 2 is that soon after this they come to Jesus and say "so we were out using our power to cast out demons when we came across some guy who was also casting out demons in your name....and we don't know who this guy thinks he is, but we tried to put a stop to that real quick."  to which he answered “give me a break! whoever is not against you is for you.” The very next verse is where we enter in today’s text. 
           So he’s stuck with this ridiculous band of followers who are totally full of themselves and acting like jerks while he has set his face to Jerusalem and what awaits him there, namely the cross.  The passages about the would-be followers we just read are a bit harsh because come on, let’s not forget that Jesus was fully divine AND fully human...the guy has to be already a little irritated: he gives the 12 power to heal and proclaim the kingdom which immediately goes to their heads and they end up arguing, of all things,  about who is the greatest when in fact the only greatness they might have comes not from themselves but from Jesus who granted them power in the first place, so it’s kind of no surprise when in our gospel reading for today strike 3 happens: James and John come back rejected by the Samaritan village and ask “ so, should we rain fire down from heaven to consume them?” Jesus just had to of rolled his eyes.  These guys were a real piece of work.  I read this and thought “so exactly when did raining fire down to consume the villages of folks they don’t like become an option for them"? I even went back to the first verses of the chapter to check...power and authority to cast out demons is there, healing and proclaiming the kingdom is there, but strangely enough, incinerating an entire village because they made you look bad...hmmm...strangely absent. 
         So maybe in these harsh proclamations about what it takes to be a disciple: - that you won't have a place to sleep and can't bury your poor old dad,  or even take a minute to say farewell to your family... maybe what we see here is Jesus indulging in a bit of hyperbole in order to knock some sense into his disciples about what it means to be a follower of Christ.  So he responds to these three would-be followers we meet in today’s text by raising the bar for what it means to live a radical discipleship and I kinda like to imagine that he did this with his voice raised just enough so that he was sure James and John were in earshot.

     Barbara Rossing talked this week in Bible study about  our society’s escaltology...the ideas of the fullness of life, what is the culmination of human potential, which for us might be that that I should buy Loreal shampoo because I’m worth it, that the right car can bring me to the height of what it means to be human, that the fulfillment of all my wants will bring me all I need, that immortality can be obtained through consumption.  She then showed us images from the Roman Empire which portrayed their escatology: a belief that they would always have dominion over other nations as a imperial force, that they had the Gods on their side and they were living into the eschatological fulness of life where they had forever been destined to be the victors and other nations had forever been destined to be the conquered on whose backs and labor the empire rightly stood ...  victoriously in the fullness of time - world without end.
     Standing as we are in the 21st century knowing the rest of the story, namely the deterioration of the Roman Empire ... we snicker at them, knowing it is a farce and that they are just the dead burying the dead... that they are simply whistling in the graveyard.  From there it's almost effortless for us to turn to the empires of our day, the multinational corporations, the military industrial complex, Halibuton, Pepsico etc..Do you, like I, recognize Rome in their flawed and deceitful message of victory, entitlement and dominion?  We see environmental devastation and know that the planet cannot possibly sustain this empire for much longer.  We know that these empires are not the life giving gospel but are the death dealing forces.  They, like the village in Samaria are rejecting Christ and the Kingdom of God. They are the works of the flesh on a global scale.   And with fingers pointing to these death dealers we too say “Absolutely, let the dead bury the dead".  We see Rome burning and we want to hurry the process asking   “do you want us to command fire down from Heaven and consume them? “  And I wonder if we listen for the answer... if we might also hear Jesus rebuking us.    Because to turn from  empire we turn not to a victory party of righteousness where we, like the disciples,, can become drunk on self-congratulations, but we are called with Christ to turn our faces to Jerusalem and what waits there.... namely the cross. Yes we are called to let the dead bury the dead and to turn from Rome and our yoke of slavery to the lies of our culture's escatology - but I guess I wonder if, like in our Galatians text,  we simply are trading one yoke for another, if maybe we become slaves to self righteousness because by having our fingers pointed to the obvious evils we are drawing a line between them - the works of the flesh and us, the fruits of the spirit.  When in reality, we are all simultaneously sinner and saint. 
    Jesus is calling us, like the would-be followers in this text away from comfort and security perhaps even the comfort and security of our own confidence in our righteousness.  But that calling is not just from something but is also to something.  To a life of radical discipleship where we are free from the bondage of self and this freedom allows us to be slaves of one another  This Christian freedom is in self-giving in which we receive much.  This freedom allows us to love one another as we love ourselves.

             This all sounds kind of nice and fluffy, doesn’t it?  A Christian community of folks who are all self-giving slaves of one another?  How exactly does the math work on that?  If we are all set to serve one another, then who is getting served?  How exactly do we, as Paul suggests, “through love be slaves of one another”?  what does that look like? “you go first, oh no you go first, oh no really you go on” 
    In my blog I recently wrote about Christian love and how we are called to this radical loving of one another which is transformative and how this is so beautiful  and I'm totally onboard with the whole Christian love thing except for one little problem: and that is the annoying people.  Seriously, being slave to the annoying or the mean or the manipulative....this is a problem.  But Paul is pretty clear on this one: “Through love become slaves to one another”  So when it comes down to it, I just don’t think I can muster up that much love.  Seriously.  When it comes to Love and for that matter we might as well include joy, peace, patience, kindness,  generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and  (for sure) self-control, I and perhaps you can come up pretty short.  But here’s the good news - these are not the fruits of Nadia.  These are the fruits of the Spirit.
        Maybe that love is not from us but from Christ through us.  If our faces are set towards Jerusalem, then they are set towards the cross and God’s reconciling and redeeming work in the world, not our work in the world...so maybe the love by which we are to be slaves of one another is already accomplished and thankfully does not rely on our own efforts.
Perhaps is this new economy of sinner saint servanthood we all fall short to be fit for the kingdom.  I mean seriously.   Look at the poor would-be disciples in our text who wanted to follow Jesus - the bar gets set pretty high:  it's a bit of a set up really, there's no way to pull it off through our their own efforts, and maybe that's the point, because the good news is that we don't have to.  God's redeeming work through the cross provides for us a source which is an endless source.  Truly world without end.  If Luther is right about Christian freedom and that we are lord of all subject to none and at the same time dutiful servant of all, subject to everyone, then - this source, this power we have is a spiritual source....and it comes from ascribing glory and honor not to ourselves, but to God which then reckons us honorable and glorified through the beautiful paradox of II Corinthians that  “Power is made perfect in weakness”
         So while we should by all means turn from the bondage of empire and the death dealing powers of society with the false eschatology, the false messages of what it means to be fully human, we should  have faith that we are also free from the bondage of self - from idolatry, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, envy and the like.  So here’s the other word of good news:  I not only cannot overcome these death dealing forces within myself, but I am not expected to because it was Christ who set his face to Jerusalem and the suffering of the cross.  He says Follow me...he says to us, come and see.  He does not along this road ask us for directions or ask us to lead the way and thanks be to God for that,   But he set his face to Jerusalem and the inbreaking of God’s reign on earth through the suffering on the cross - where the false eschatology of earthly empire was inverted by the perfecting of true power in weakness.  So if we are called to "Through love be slaves to oneanother", then the good news is that this redeeming work of God and not ourselves is the source of love that makes it possible that we might be free from self and slaves to one another.   This source from which we drink is an endless source, truly world without end.  And this table to which we are about to come is simple bread and wine, but is the most abundant feast.  A feast in which we are called to freely partake.  And the good news is that we don’t all have to show up with our own bread.  And we don’t receive amounts in accordance with our goodness...we are all fed this broken and poured out Christ which gives us freedom and nourishes us to be as Luther says the most free lords of all and subjects to none; and the most dutiful servant of all and subject to everyone.   Christian freedom brothers and sisters- come and taste, come and drink, come and see.

AMEN

Young adults...the elusive demographic: just light the candles and they will come

The church is not unlike film and television.  We all are looking for that 18-35 demographic aren't we?  I was at the Rocky Mountain Synod Assembly (big Lutheran business meeting of like 540 pastors and lay leaders) over the past few days and had the chance to hostess a lunchtime conversation about the emerging church (at breakfast I told Mr. SL that I really was hoping at least 8 people would show up because with less than that, it would just be awkward) there were 45 folks who showed up! - many of whom had to sit on the floor.  I was amazed at the interest so I started out by asking folks to say who they were and why they chose this out of 20 so other options for lunch conversations.  Many were just curious about EC, some were there because the tall tattooed lady was leading it and they were frankly curious about me, and many indicated that their churches were looking at starting an alternative worship service or a second campus geared toward the "younger generation".  Here are my 2 reactions to this last group: 1) I am amazed and pleased at how much these "traditional" church folks want to reach those who are not already coming to their churches and that's a good sign that they are not entirely self-centered, which is great.  2) I unfortunately have yet to really see this work, especially if these churches are trying to reach post-moderns.  If you are reading this and you know of exceptions to this statement, please let me know, especially if these churches have managed to bring in post-moderns who are de-churched or un-churched.  I tried to lovingly tell of what I had seen across the country without being too defeatist about the whole thing.  One red flag that goes up for me when a church wants to try and attract young adults is that there is the implication that traditional congregations are normative Christian communities which everyone SHOULD want to be a part of.  I tend to resent the idea that the current manifestation of traditional church (building, pews all in a row, nicy-nice people, hymns, organ, Sunday worship, aurality as the primary sensory experience of the liturgy etc...) is NOT a single cultural expression of Christian community but the normative expression to which all deviations are judged.  My friend Annie spoke up during the conversation and said that people need to try and not see the emerging church as a resource which can be duplicated in your congregations resulting in young adults joining your church, instead folks should see these new communities as the growth of the church in a bigger sense, not simply a way to try and grow your own congregation.  To this she added that established churches should support the people who are native to the  postmodern culture and then walk away.  Pray for the people who are appropriate to and equipped for this culturally specific ministry, see that this is a needed and vital ministry that you are likely NOT equipped or appropriate for but which is in need of resources....give them money, prayer and blessing...tell the kids who grew up in your churches, but who no longer are in Christian community to check it out.  This is so needed.  Now, is that it?  No.  What trad churches can take from the emerging church is to pay attention to the questions that the EC is asking and then ask those same questions in your community.  Please don't try and have your Easter vigil in a Goth club like Church of the Apostles.  Please don't try and have a "Tomb Show" during Lent like Mercy Seat.  That would be just as silly as them trying to start a "Dorothy circle" (sorry - if you're not Lutheran, that may not make sense), or start a quilting circle because it works for your community.  But DO ask "is our worship service culturally appropriate to our context?"  and "does the language we use in our community reflect our core values?" and "are we noticing where God is already at work in our lives and in our neighborhoods, and are we willing to join in that work?"  This is what you can take form the EC: a renewed focus on mission, context and praxis.  But seriously, I have no starter kit with candles, a glue on goatee and an icon for $49.95 which will attract young adults like flies on shit, and if anyone else claims to, please never stop smacking them.

John 5:1-9

"Dude, high five!"

John 5:1-9
1After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.  2 Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. 3In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralysed. 5One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ 7The sick man answered him, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.’ 8Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’ 9At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.
Now that day was a sabbath.

Here's my sermon for this Sunday:

Jesus asks  “do you want to be made well?’” a yes or no question.
does he get a yes or no answer?  not so much.
what he does get to his yes or no question is this:
“Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.”
This is kind of a puzzling anwer to the “do you want to be made well”  question isn’t it?

To be honest, the first time I looked over our text for today my first reaction wasn’t “oh, what a beautiful healing narrative”, it wasn’t even “wow, what a weird healing narrative”....trust me, we’ll get to that, but was “where the heck is verse 4?”  Well, lest we think there is some Divinci Code conspiracy to keep verse 4 from us, I’ll assure you, that verse 4 is included in some Bibles and in one family of ancient manuscripts, but not in others.  If you have a King James version at home you’ll see there’s a verse 4 in there.    Here’s what verse 4 says......  ***For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.***
So given that information, the answer to Jesus’ question-“Do you want to be made well?” being, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” makes more sense. 

But still, that’s a bit disturbing isn’t it?First invalid in the pool gets healed?  What kind of theology is that?
Can you imagine being that guy?  Sitting at the pool for 38 years waiting for someone to carry you in so that you’re the first invalid in the pool. Kind of explains the man’s answer though doesn’t is?  Here’s how I imagine the lame man heard Jesus’ question: “Do you WANT to be healed? I mean come on already,  Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!”
So he was a little defensive, who can blame him?  Hey, “no one will carry me down and when I try and hobble down myself, other guys get in front of me  I’ve tried and tried to be made whole, but it never happens.“ He’s basically saying to Jesus :cut me some slack here.

My theory is that he misheard the question due straight up to sin.  I’m talking straight up sin.
and that sin is a woeful lack of imagination
does that ever fit into our confession?I confess that I’ve sinned against you in thought, word and deed.....and by a woeful lack of imagination.

the sin of lacking imagination looks like this:
it’s as though Jesus has an airplane and is asking :would you like to go flying?  and we say “sounds nice, but I don’t think I have the arm strength to get that thing in the air”
The man at the pool, like us, Completely fails to understand what is being offered to him and, like us, is entirely unable to see that the Son of God LIVING WATER is right before him offering peace and wholeness and God’s shalom.   But he’s just looking for a lift into the pool.. but still....and here’s the cool thing folks,  Jesus heals him anyway... knowing that he didn’t even have the capacity to answer the yes or no question..... knowing that unlike the other healing stories there was no crowd watching who are going to witness this miracle and believeth...... perhaps even knowing that this guy still wouldn’t get it.  he healed him.  He looked on him and despite his inadequacies, or maybe, just maybe ...BECAUSE of his inadequacies, he healed him.  God didn’t insist that this lame man have the right attitude, or that he even understand what was being accomplished in him.   no.  he was unknowingly conscripted into the opus dei, the work of God without being qualified, likable, worthy or even terribly bright.

so  Jesus heals the guy who doesn’t even understand his question, he receives God’s shalom without even having seen it as a possibility, much less having earned it in some way..
This irony is the great thing about John’s gospel, as Tom Thatcher suggests, we get to snicker at all the characters, the Samaritan woman, Nicodemus, this guy....who, unlike us, didn’t have the benefit of reading John’s prologue to his gospel account.  you know, the word was with God and the Word was God and the word was made flesh.  You see, we know by reading John’s prologue that Jesus isn’t just another weird Galilean, but is God made flesh.  He’s not just another prophet, but is LIVING WATER.   this is not information the characters who encounter Jesus have the benefit of knowing.  So we chuckle at people like the lame man at the pool who doesn’t understand what is really going on, who doesn’t understand who’s really talking to him.  We snicker, that is, until the last verse of this passage when we find out the joke is really on us.  Jesus just healed a man who had been sick for 38 years, tells him to walk and carry his mat which we might think was just a little housekeeping detail...”don’t just leave your matt here for someone else to have to pick up”.  But we don’t really get what’s going on until that last verse when the tables are turned on us ....you see, we think we know what’s going on ...that the son of God is healing a lame man...until these 5 little words “this happened on the sabbath”.  what!  We thought it was all about the healing of a man who doesn’t  get it, but no... Now it is US who don’t have the benefit of important background information that might help us understand the importance of this interaction.   Now, in the verses that follow our reading for this morning the man encounters leaders from the temple who say “who told you to carry your matt on the sabbath...yada yada..”.but lest we use yet another opportunity to deride the Jews for their ridiculous rules....we should consider the possibility that when we see Jesus doing something he shouldn’t be doing on the sabbath, this is an invitation for us to reflect on how much we love, I mean LOVE to limit how and with what or whom we think God can be at work in the world.......
a woeful lack of imagination

this  happens in two ways,  -  one:
We kind of have the tendency to limit how we think God might use others.  Look again at the text.  Not only is the lame man at the Bethesda pool lacking imagination, he’s doesn’t even have the manners to ask Jesus’ name...when the leaders at the temple  ask who healed him he’s like “I don’t know, some guy”  In other healing narratives, the one who is healed believes and so do the witnesses to the healing, then they praise God and it’s a big victory party.  Not here. So in our lack of imagination we like to think that God only is at work in those who believe, those who are grateful, those who are deserving.  Not here. When Jesus tells him to walk and carry his mat on the sabbath,  he is conscripted into God’s redeeming work in the world and he’s not even necessarily  a believer....doesn’t even know Jesus’ name!  Ultimately, what is considered sacred is changing and the lame man is swept up into this expanding sacrality of the Kingdom of God. 
Here as always Jesus is messing with our heads.  Upturning our assumptions, inverting our values and loving our brokeness.

Secondly, these sabbath violations are all about us and how we like to limit how we think God can work through us in the world.... 
woeful lack of imagination
  It’s remarkable to me that despite the fact that just about every hero in the bible is really an anti-hero of some sort- David the adulterer, Mary Magdalene the demonic, Peter the denier,  Mary the unwed mother, Rahab the prostitute...despite all that,  we’re still  sure that God can only use perfect people, or at the very least, people better than us .  Show me one character (who isn’t the second person of the trinity) in the Bible , used to participate in God’s work who was used because they were perfect, or grateful, or worthy

  How do we answer when asked if we want to be made whole?  Are we imaginative?  We have a healing ministry right here at Bethlehem...Stephan ministers offer healing prayer on the first sunday...., not just for those who are in need of physical healing, but those who are in need of blessing, of encouragement, in need of God’s shalom.....and that’s ALL of us.  I know I hesitate to take advantage of this because if I admitted that I need healing then others may think that I need healing and would then they’d assume I’m not perfect and we just can’t have that sort of thing going on.
I wonder if God is saying to us: “do you want to be made whole, to 

participate in the inbreaking of my kingdom here and now...to

glimpse the New Jerusalem? 

and then we say: Dude, we’re just hoping for a lift into the pool.
A woeful lack of imagination

Our lack of imagination doesn’t keep God from washing us up into God’s work...work that is happening often far outside of where we look for it.  Our lack of imagination, like that of the lame man in John, just keeps us from naming who healed us, naming who reconciled a broken relationship, who healed our fractured selves.

Beloved of God, Hear the good news:

While we might settle for just a lift into the pool, right in front of us is living water....water available to all .... even us, the young, the old, the smug, the overlooked, the single mothers, the housewives, homeless and the business executives. Water which sweeps us up into God’s work in the world. Not through our own righteousness, not through our own perfection but through the grace of a loving baffling God.   The availability of this water has nothing to do with believing or being grateful, or being worthy.  It has to do with being.  Being children of God in this creation of God’s and being caught up into the work of God.
You are made whole by living water of the risen Christ, may you continue to be swept up into the unexpected and baffling shalom of God. 
AMEN

Scum of the Earth

A couple of weeks ago I visited a church in Denver called Scum of the Earth.  They meet in a huge old grocery store turned into a worship space.

Cool stuff:

• Every Sunday night before worship they serve a free meal to whoever shows up, and trust me...they show up.  Lots of Denver's homeless are fed each week as well as other folks.  A church that feeds people before feeding people is a good thing.
• The room was filled with not only the homeless, but skate punks, street kids, goths, you name it...it was difficult trying to conjure the image of another local church where these guys would be found.  I liked that my heavily tattooed arms were not looked at twice except in admiration.  This is an unusual experience for me in a church setting.

Not so cool stuff

• worship sucked ass.  Seriously.  There is a huge stage on which stood a band who played (well I might add) rocked up versions of praise songs, 3 of them, followed by a 35 minute sermon follwed by another 3 praise songs.  That's it.  That's what they did.  For a gal who's a liturgy princess, this was weird.  No ritual, no liturgy.  It felt like a birthday party without a cake or presents or decorations, just the song.
• It's no secret that I'm generally not a big fan of the praise music (to be clear, I'm all for offering thanks and praise to God, just not with vapid lyrics sung to really bad soft-rock).  I often refer to this as "Jesus is my Boyfriend" music and no shit, there was a line sung during their worship service that talked (to Jesus) in this way: "Your intoxicating scent when we meet in our secret place".  EEWWW!  I felt like I needed a shower.  You CANNOT talk about Jesus that way....creepy.
• The first words on their "Statement of Faith" sheet are as follows: We believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, free from error and the final authority in matters of life and faith. The sixty-six books of the Protestant Cannon contain God's written revelation of himself.  Which leads me to wonder "have you read the thing?"  Free from error?  Read the synoptics in parallel and get back to me on that.

Conclusion:

Not my bag theologically or liturgically (if you could even use that word).  However, they feed a bunch of folks and there are plenty of churches whose worship I love and with whose theology I agree who don't do anything close to that and where these kids would not be found.    I didn't feel like a freak at church and that was nice.  They have a Christian community with whom to worship God and that's a good thing.

[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

Grid::Blog::Via Crucis 2007

i am part of an eccumenical international grid blod during holy week and easter (april 1- may27) - esentially that means that folks are blogging each day (I've signed on for 3 of them) and using the same title, Grid::Blog::Via Crucis 2007

it's a bit slow out there this morning, but during these two months google Grid::Blog::Via Crucis 2007 and you'll find some good stuff

if you're a blogger, consider joining in here

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

What I'm giving up for Lent

It's that time of year again. I love Ash Wednesday, it's my favorite worship service of the year...Easter vigil being a close 2nd. Walking around the world with ashes on my forehead makes me feel like I've just returned from another place and time and am walking through this life with an other-life orientation, not in the "I can suffer through this world because I'll have mansions and crowns and streets of gold in heaven" type of way, but in an up-side-down now and not yet eschatological way.

For each of the 40 days of Lent (and Sundays) I will strive to rid myself of one personal possession, and to not buy anything other than food and gas. The point is is that I love stuff, especially of the clothes, shoes, jewelry and yarn variety and I have WAY too much of it. Maybe by ridding myself of 40+ items I can create a space to breath deeper.

Dear God,
Help me look to you during these forty days and not to the false security of stuff. Forgive me for my inordinate love of things. Forgive me for my hypocritical judgments of other people's materialism and excess; when the truth is that if I had the kind of money they did I would likely buy just as much stuff. Save me from the pride of less and the pride of more.
In Jesus' name,
AMEN

The Transfiguration of our Lord

I feel each day as though I am being pulled deeper into the mystery of the faith. I'm not sure how else to describe it, but the deeper I'm drawn, the more like a neophyte I feel. It's as though this sacred, blessed, mystery religion, ripe with endless possibility, meaning and import has been hiding all along behind the facade of the Church; hidden by pews in straight lines and nicy-nice chit-chat, and minutiae of doctrine, and bad organ music, and intolerance or at best irrelevance. Faith to me is an experience and not intellectual assent to a set of propositions and I just want to invite others into the experience, not tell them what it means or try and get them to agree with me, but to create space where they can engage the mystery of Christ. Here's something I read this morning pertaining to the Transfiguration of our Lord which I found to be beautiful:

The basic response of the soul to the Light is internal adoration and joy, thanksgiving and worship, self-surrender and listening. The secret places of the heart cease to be our noisy workshop. They become a holy sanctuary of adoration and of self-oblation, where we are kept in perfect peace, if our minds be stayed on Him who has found us in the inward springs of our life. And in brief intervals of overpowering visitation we are able to carry the sanctuary from of mind out into the world, into its turmoil and its fitfulness, and in a hyperaesthesia (pathological increase of sensitivity) of the soul, we see all mankind tinged with deeper shadows, and touched with Galilean glories. Powerfully are the springs of will moved to an abandon of singing love toward God; powerfully are we moved to a new and overcoming love toward time-blinded men and all creation. In this Center of Creation all things are ours, and we are CHrist's and CHrist is God's. We are owned men ready to run and not be weary and to walk and not faint.
A Testimonial of Devotion
Thomas Kelly (1893-1941)

I can't help it that I'm Christian

I hold a very un-PC and unpopular belief: I think it's best if at all possible to stay within the religion that one has been raised. After exploring Goddess religions in my late teens and early twenties, I tried for several years to be a Unitarian, but having already had the experience of becoming clean and sober after years of serious drug and alcohol dependancy, I was hopelessly convinced of my need for God's grace. My experience of having gotten sober was that it was not as a result of me having pulled myself up by my bootstraps, but as a result of God's grace. Unitarians (good, smart, fun people in my book) are just not known for talking much about our need for God's grace. They tend to have a really high opinion of human beings, which makes my wonder "what the hell planet are you from?" Having said that let me say that I've had more fun in my life hanging out with Unitarians than I should admit to in a public forum.

I have good reasons (as do loads of other folks) for leaving the church and never coming back. I won't go into the blood and guts narrative of my fundamentalist upbringing, but let's just say that it was theologically disturbing on many levels and being me in that kind of church is a problem.
I'll not go into how I came back to the church here, but I will say that coming to the Lutheran church, with the theology of grace...grace that is freely given and which is never earned...was so much more liberating than leaving the church in the first place. Why? Because I'm Christian. I refuse to stay out of the church. The Biblical narrative formed me. Worship formed me. Prayer, the triune God, hymnody, communion....I can try and pretend that it's not who I am, but I'd be lying.
Perhaps this is why I tend to react so negatively toward the vast array of white buddhists, white rastafarians, white Sikhs etc... here in Boulder county Colorado.
I guess the question for me is this: in what ways does religion form who we are? In what ways does cultural ethos (ultimately informed by the dominant religion) form who we are and can these things be changed? Hinduism is so bound to India, can I as someone who was born a privileged white protestant American ever become a Hindu? This is an admittedly flawed line of reasoning when extended to global Christianity...for it is certainly not culturally American (thanks be to God), and what is meant by "American" changes every day too, as Diana Eck asks "Who is the 'we' of 'we the people'?"
This whole line of thinking is not coming from a place of derision toward other faiths. Actually, my years of studying Islam under Fred Denny at CU Boulder guided me toward a deeper living out of my own faith...after studying about Muslim daily prayer and the Hajj and the Ramadan fast, I couldn't help but be moved to consider : "In what ways am I living out my faith?, why do I not pray several times a day?", but it did not move me to becoming Muslim, because I'm Christian.

Here's something I read this week from Theologian John Hick of Claremont Graduate University in California:

For our religion creates us in its own image, so that it fits us and we fit it as no other can. It is thus for us the best, the truest, most naturally acceptable faith, within which we rightly remain....There are, of course, and will always be individual conversions in all directions, for individual reasons. But broadly speaking we do best to live within the religion that has formed us, though with an awareness that the same holds true for those who have been formed by a different tradition from our own.

I obviously need to think less about what other people should be doing and simply say - hey, I'm Christian because I'm Christian...also because I think the Gospel of Jesus Christ is mind blowing and true....but the whole "truth doesn't necessarily mean fact" post will have to wait until later.

Call me a relativist if you must, just doen't assume I'm not a deeply faithful Christian 'cause them's fightin' words.

Dear God,
Thank you for the Bible and for the church...but mostly for the Gospel of Jesus Christ which tells us who we are. I am marked with the cross of Christ, help me remember what this means and to faithfully, daily live out the Gospel. Thank you for creating a world with its multiplicity of cultures and peoples and ways of accessing the transcendent truth of you. Forgive me when I think that I have this figured out. Help me see you in my fellow human beings who name you differently. And if there's an extra measure of humility available, I could use that too, thanks.
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

Theological "Sardines"

Church youth groups are known to play "sardines" in which 1 person hides somewhere in the church building and the others all try and find them. When the hider is found, the seeker quietly joins them until everyone is in the hiding place together, all squished together like "sardines".

For the Morning Office I use For All The Saints: A Prayer Book For and By the Church, which contains the Daily Office readings as well as a writing each day from a theologian or saint or some such. (For the Daily Office prayers...Matins, noon, Vespers and Compline, I use The Divine Hours). Today's Gospel is the Samaritan woman at the well, which is a favorite of mine, although I have to admit, meeting someone at the water fountain who "told me everything I did" might be kind of freaky and a bit humiliating (and I imagine rather time consuming), but I digress. The extra-Biblical writing from today was from some guy named Fulton J. Sheen. His take on the Gospel text is the worst I've encountered, but what really was creepy was his assertion that "There are only two classes of people in the world - those who have found God and those who are looking for Him." So I guess God is hiding in the church building and there are those who have found him and those who are looking for him. If that's the case, I'd rather be the latter than the former. I'm still looking and part of that looking is proclaiming my experiences of God. If "finding God" implies then that I 'll be pressed up against a group of smug people who have also "found Him", then I'd rather keep looking, thanks. It seems a bit more satisfying.
Having said that I must admit that I love hearing of and telling personal experiences of God, which I believe are not only possible but transformative, both personally and globally. It's just that believing you've arrived at the final destination "God" is an illusion and a dangerous one. For me it doesn't work like that.

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

A Christmas Gift from the Sarcastic Lutheran

Let us, then, meditate upon the nativity just as we see it happening in our own babies. Behold Christ lying in the lap of his own mother. What can be sweeter than the Babe, what more lovely than the young mother! What fairer than her youth! What more gracious than her virginity! Look at the Child, knowing nothing. Yet all that is belongs to him, that your conscience should not fear but take comfort in him. Doubt nothing. To me there is no greater consolation given to mankind than this, that Christ became man, a child, a babe, playing in the lap and at the breasts of his most gracious mother. Who is there that this sight would not comfort? Now is overcome the power of sin, death, hell, conscience, and guilt, if you come to this gurgling Babe and believe that he is come, not to judge you, but to save.

-Martin Luther's Christmas sermon

A blessed Christmas to all!

Luke 3:7-18

This coming Sunday (3rd Sunday in Advent)'s gospel reading is a doosey. So John the baptist is doing his whole cool-but-weird prophet thing and telling the crowds to not be so complacent in their religiosity and to make their faith really mean something in the world. After which they're like, "ok then what do we do?" to which J.t.B. says to share your extra stuff with the folks who don't have anything and to not cheat or extort money. This is not exactly spiritual brain surgery. It's "Be a Good Person 101" if anything.
The difficult part is next. "I baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire".( Luke 3 16-17 NRSV)

Here are 2 ways to look at this:
1) I'm "saved" and you're "damned" - Jesus is a comin' and he's gonna put all the good folks in his heavenly barn and the bad folks are gonna burn in the eternal fires of Hell (strangely enough, this is a position generally upheld only by people who see themselves as the "good folks")

2) Perhaps I should Thank God Jesus has the winnowing fork and not me because there's stuff about me that I'm sure is wheat, but that God may see as chaff and there has been chaff in me that I'm certain should be burned but which God seems to insist is still useful. To me there is great hope in this passage. The Holy Spirit is an unquechable fire which burns up the dead, useless stuff in us? Then sign me up! To me, the whole "Jesus with a winnowing fork" thing is cool. Winnow away.

A Prayer:
Dear God,
I'm lousey at knowing what in me is useful, so just use what you can and burn the rest...I'll try and stay out of the way.
In Jesus' name,
AMEN

Advent

This first day of Advent has me wondering about waiting and disappointment. There's a certain deliciousness to waiting, in that when you're preparing for something to happen or to arrive, that time is filled with possibility. You have not yet been disappointed by the actuality of the event or object. As a child I remember the anticipation of what I would get for Christmas. My mom would give us the Sears Wish Book (a catalogue of Christmas gifts) and we would circle what we wanted, which we generally never actually got. It took me years to realize that my Mom didn't actually shop at Sears but at the "BX", (or "PX") at the Air Force Base. This is sort of like a discount store filled with last year's products and off-brands that went unsold at regular stores, or simply just random stuff that the military got a deal on. So we got whatever happened to be on sale at the PX, which pretty much never was the cool stuff in the Sears Wish Book,(this wan an economic necessity given our military pay). Herein lies the problem with Advent having turned into the period in which we wait for the holiday of Christmas, that glorious day in which we get to open presents and overeat - in this framework for waiting we're dissappointed by all the wrong things; bad gifts, lousy relatives, over dry turkey etc... when what we should be dissappointed in is the Christmas story itself, meaning that we never can predict how God will show up in the world. When advent is about waiting on God's incarnation into the world and into our lives, as it should be, then the outcome is much better. Don't get me wrong there is still disappointment in this story as well. The King of Glory coming to earth in the form of a ....drum roll please.....helpless baby of an unwed mother???? This is the kind of disappointment which illuminates God's upside-down kingdom on Earth. It is the kind of disappointment which satisfies like the fulfillment of personal desires cannot. This is a God of irony, which I find terribly comforting.
Dear God,
May we all be fulfilled with the the Holy Disappointment of Advent!
Save us from the idolatry of an American Christmas
In Jesus' name,
AMEN

AAR highlights

I just returned from the American Academy of Religion's annual conference which was held this year in Washington DC. Here are some highlights:
* eating dinner Friday night with about 30 Lutheran women theologians and scholars
* presiding at a session on religion and spirituality among the Deaf
* going for an hour long morning run in which I passed the Washington memorial phallus, I mean obelisk, the Lincoln memorial and the Vietnam memorial (I cried as I walked past those names thinking of all the families (on both sides) whose loved ones are dying right now in Iraq.
* Spending time with my friend Sara who's so smart and funny I can hardly stand it, and Ryan Torma who is my Partner in Lutheran emerging church crime.
* going salsa dancing until 2am with Sara, Ryan and this random Swiss guy we met (Christoph, who's absolutley lovely) who I referred to as "Zwingli" all night ...
* Hearing Brian McLaren, Peter Rollins and Phyllis Tickle's panel on emerging church. They were all brilliant.
* Theology Pub with the above, and about 40 others - scholars, Baptists, Nazarenes, Anglicans...it was a good conversation with lots of cross-pollination.
* Hearing papers on Men's studies in Religion; Men's studies is a perspective I've not experienced and hearing about men struggling with the nature of masculinity was really interesting ("Zwingli" was on this panel)
* Experiencing a Smithsonian exhibit on Bibles before the year 1000. It was thrilling to see these ancient codexes and illuminated manuscripts. (the guy at the convention book exhibit noticed how enthralled I was with the enormous, full-color coffee table book on the "Bibles before the Year 1000" exhibit and he asked if I was a starving grad student, I replied that indeed I was and that I could never afford such a book, but that I appreciated how totally beautiful it is...he then proceeded to slip it into a nice shoulder bag and say "then this is something that would probably mean a great deal to you, right?" and handed it to me with a smile.)
* Coming home and being with my kids this morning.

ushpizin

If you have Netflix, I highly recommend getting a film called Ushpizin - it is a delightful and moving film about an ultra-orthodox couple in Jerusalem. It was filmed entirely on location in an ultra-orthodox neighborhood and all the actors are ultra-orthodox. It is one of the best films I've ever seen about faith. Check out the story behind the making of the film here

Will the real homosexuals please stand up?

Mark Driscoll, perhaps the biggest buffoon in American Christianity has blamed Ted Haggard's scandal on ... WOMEN! The lengths this guy will go to to hate and fear women is amazing. We should meet, don't you think?
He claims that:
1) only men should pastor churches so that they aren't tempted by their vixon/Jezabel co-pastors...perhaps this would have been a better argument if he claimed that male prostitute meth dealers should not co-pastor churches, so that closeted hypocritical self-hating men aren't tempted to have lurid affairs with them.
2) that if pastors wives didn't let themselves go and get old, fat and ugly then closeted, hypocritical, self-hating men wouldn't have to have lurid affairs with male prostitute meth dealers.

Clearly Mark Driscoll is one of the foremost thinkers in the church today, a true genius.

There is a conversation on emerging women on this.

Dear God,
Your church is a mess beacuse of Mark Driscoll, Ted Haggard and me...in equal measure. Help us to confess our sins as the church so that we can more clearly live the Gospel in this broken hurting world and in our own broken hurting lives.
Have Mercy on us.
In Jesus' name,
AMEN.

Brian McLaren and Pete Rollins

I will be hostessing a Theology Pub in Washington DC featuring Rollins and McLaren on November 19th at 7pm: Capital City Brewing Company across from the DC convention center, on the corner of 11th & H Streets NW in downtown DC. This is following a panel they are participating on at the AAR conference.

Show up. It won't suck.

If anyone reading this is going to be at the AAR/SBL (if you don't know what this is, trust me, you wouldn't care anyway...it's the American Academy of Reigion/ Society for Biblical Literature's annual meeting with like 10,000 academic study of religion geeks...a true nerdfest if ever there was one...see told you you wouldn't care) I am presiding at a session on Saturday morning on religion and spirituality among the Deaf, come say hi.

Korean Woman Theologian

This blew me away today:

Can this Korean women’s theology be a Christian theology with these two norms: liberation (Han-pu-ri) and life giving power? Surely it can because we Korean women believe in good news (gospel), not bad news. For us, the gospel of Jesus means liberation (Han-pu-ri) and life-giving power. In that sense, we are Christians. WHere there is genuine experience of liberation (Han-pu-ri) and life-giving power, we meet our God, Christ, and the power of the Spirit. That is Good News. We Korean Christian women define our Christian identity according to our lived inherited experience which stretches five thousand years back, even beyond the birth of Jesus.”

"Han-pu-ri": Doing Theology from Korean Women's Perspective Chung Hyun Kyung Dr. Hyun Kyung Chung is Professor of Ecumenical Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City

Ordination Island

Happy happy (I'm actually not being sarcastic) I met with my candidacy committee yesterday and they didn't vote me of ordination island, (which means they endorsed me). Also, they greenlighted my non-traditional internship, which is very good news indeed. This means that rather than going to a completely traditional parish somewhere and serving as their vicar for a year, I get to start my emerging church plant process while working with local congregational partners (so that I can become part of their communities and have regular opportunities to preach). Hopefully these partners will continue supporting the mission start. Needless to say, I'm pretty psyched about the whole thing...thanks for all of you who held me in their thoughts and prayers this week.

Mad Priest strikes again

Mad Priest linked to the Gay post and here's our little back and forth:

MP: The Tattooed Lady spells the whole gay thing out nice and simple at SARCASTIC LUTHERAN today.
Of course, it would have to be simple, her being a Lutheran and all that, but sometimes us Anglicans can learn some important things off even the most primitive of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Sarcastic Lutheran said...
MP,
Let's have a bit of a history lesson shall we? Who had the more "primitive" reason for breaking from Rome...Martin Luther, or Henry 8?
Despite your questionable beginings I have to say I feel a particular fondness for you Anglican types . . . you're like our overly verbous 1st cousins.

Mad Priest said...
Henry VIII? What's he got to do with Anglicanism?

The Church of England was founded whilst Jesus was still a young man, maybe even just a boy. His Uncle Joseph of Arimathea, a merchant, brought him to England on one of his many trading trips to our beautiful country. At this point, everybody in the land converted to Christianity. Jesus gave us the Book of Common Prayer and the King James Bible and explained to us all about P.C.C.s and the arranging of Autumn Bazaars.

If this is not true, how come the Bible's in English? How come Jesus spoke English?

You know, the bush is still there in Glastonbury.

"And did those feet in ancient times..."

But don't get me wrong. Although we are far superior to you in so many ways, I always insist that Martin Luther, although a crap theologian, did write some half decent hymns, and I also liked his "I have a dream" sermon - I've got that written down somewhere.

The whole "gay" thing

There is a discussion about homosexuality on emerging women

Here are my comments I posted:

There are those of us out here who read the passages from the Bible that pertain to homosexuality as condemning sexual violence, not gay people.

In my theological purview it is difficult to picture a God who would not support love and commitment in a world so desperately in need of both.

I don't think God cares about sex. I think God cares about hurting others and hurting ourselves (through sex, words, images, consumption, commerce, you name it)

I am deeply committed to a denomination who does not allow non-celebate homosexuals to serve in ordained positions and this is deeply difficult for me. I have (as have many others) decided I love the Lutheran church too much to leave it as it is. We will not be silent, or silenced.

The whole "love the sinner, hate the sin" in reference to gays is total bull-shit to me. We could say this about abusive partners, the promiscuous (straight or gay), white collar criminals, any other collar criminal etc. But not gay people, or short people or Republicans, or people with bad hair (no matter how much we'd like to)

Can we please stop using scripture to proof-text our own bigotry...it has also been used to keep women out of ordained ministry, to uphold the legitimacy of slave-holding, to justify genocide etc...Find something else to help you hate who you hate.

B

Today's biggest irony (in Nadia's life):
I recieved the first B on an academic paper since I was in High School.
The Topic: Martin Luther's Eucharistic Theology.
Seriously, I read Luther for fun.
I'd cry if I wasn't laughing so hard and telling all my friends.
If you know me, you know how funny this is.
Humility isn't really optional in life is it?

Shut up

I have, for the past 2 days, participated in a "Theological Consultation on the Vocation of Leadership" at the ELCA offices in Chicago. The room was filled with 30 or so professors of theology, bishops and other important and super smart people...and me. How it is that I always end up invited to these meetings is a mystery to me as I'm often the only person without a fancy title or two in front of their name. Anyhow, I enjoyed the conversation and left with the conviction that I need to become a better listener. I'm a great talker, I mean seriously, I can talk. What I'm lousy at is being an authentically good listener. I can discipline myself to listen well, but I'm not a good listener REALLY. I can only assume this is due to a lack of humility and an excess of self-absorbtion. Some day I would love to listen to someone without waiting the whole time to give my clever response. I want to become the kind of person who is genuinely curious about what others think, not just able to diplomatically let others have their say, before I get to talk again.

A prayer:

Dear God,
Forgive me for thinking I'm so much more interresting than other people. Seriously. We both know it's not the case. Help me to shut the hell up so that I can hear your wisdom in the voices of my fellows.
In Jesus' name,
AMEN

Law and Gospel

I was just reading Martin Luther's writings on Law and Gospel and I began to think, does the ELCA only proclaim the Gospel and the LCMS and WELS only proclaim the Law? Which is worse?

(for you readers who aren't Lutheran nerds, ELCA= evangelical lutheran church in america and the other two are the missouri and wisconsin synod churches which are much smaller and more conservative lutheran denominations)

Are you an ass? I am.

One issue I struggle with is that of becoming an asshole...I mean, more of an asshole.  I'm embarking on starting an "emerging church" in Denver (eventually) and am wondering how I might keep from thinking I'm some sort of ecclesiastical rock star.  God has given me some very public gifts for ministry, great.  I find myself simultaneously craving and repulsed by people's praise of my gifts.  This morning I stumbled on Brother Martin's (Luther)thoughts on this matter from his "Preface to the Wittenburg edition" (1539 ce) He's brilliant, self-effacing, and funny as hell:

If, however, you feel that you are inclined to think you have "made it", flattering yourself with your own little books, teaching, or writing, because you have done it beautifully and preached excellently; if you are highly pleased when someone praises you in the presence of others; if you perhaps look for praise, and would sulk or quit what you are doing if you do not get it  - if you are of that stripe, dear friend, then take yourself by the ears, and if you do this in the right way you will find a beautiful pair of big, long, shaggy donkey ears.  Then do not spare any expense! Decorate them with golden bells, so that people will be able to hear you wherever you go, point their fingers at you, and say, "See, See! There goes that clever beast, who can write such exquisite books and preach so remarkably well."

A prayer for today:
Dear God,
Thank you for my gifts.  May they always be used to point to you and not to myself.  I understand this is not likely to happen, but perhaps with your help I might be less of an asshole.
In Jesus' name,
AMEN

John 9: 1-17

The gospel reading today in the lectionary is the one where Jesus restores sight to the blind beggar. Here are some messages I see in this story.
*that we like to blame people or their families for what we see as their misfortune.
* that our difficulties in life are stages on which the Mercy of God dances.
* sometimes it is we who get to show the Mercy of God to the world.
*when we are more attached to religion than to God, we can become blind to God's work around us.
A prayer for today:
Dear God,
Help me to understand your great mercy. And even if I can't understand it, please give me your strength to dance it out into the world. Help me to not be so judgemental of others. For the times when I have been blind to your work in the world, forgive me. Spread your mud over MY eyes, that I might wash and see you.
In Jesus' name,
AMEN

the image is a cross stitch pattern that is titled "Jesus healing the blind man", but perhaps should have been something like "Jesus poking out the eye of a little boy"

what I listen to while running (or, more evidence on how Nadia is a big nerd)

I'd love to be the kind of runner who doesn't need to listen to an iPod, but I'm not. On my weekly long runs I listen to NPR programing that I've downloaded...they have a podcast of stories involving religion which are usually worth a listen. I've also discovered a Bill Moyers podcast on Faith and Reason in which he interviews writers. Yesterday my run was a little over 2 hours so I got to listen to 2 episodes, one of which featured American writer Mary Gordon who is a devout Catholic. Here's a great quote from that interview:
"Faith without doubt is either a kind of nostalgia, or addiction"
I totally value doubt in faith.

Blog Day 2006

Apparently today is Blog Day 2006. I'm not entirely sure what that means exactly, but I know that I should list 5 blogs I like that I haven't mentioned before:
eclectic itchings
ninja nun
stupid church people
swan dive
emerging women

The creeps

from www.badchristian.com

Bonhoeffer is a total Rock Star

It would be difficult for me to be less of a poetry person, but I picked up Voices in the Night: The Prison Poems of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (edited and translated by Edwin Robertson) this morning and read this:

Christians and Others ("others" can also be translated as "Pagans")

1. All go to God in their distress,
seek help and pray for bread and happiness,
deliverance from pain, guilt and death.
ALL do, Christians and others.

2. ALL go to God in His distress,
find him poor, reviled without shelter or bread,
watch him tormented by sin, weakness, and death.
Christians stand by God in His agony.

3. God goes to ALL in their distress,
satisfies body and soul with His bread,
dies, crucified for all, Christians and others
and both alike forgiving.

I may have to rethink my distaste for poetry. Holy shit this is good stuff. Bonhoeffer is such a rock star to me. If you don't know who he is, it is worth finding out - he wrote this and volumes of theology while imprisoned by the Nazis (who later executed him) for his involvement in a failed plot to assassinate Hitler. He was a powerful voice of resistance to not only the Nazi Party, but the church in which he was a pastor - a church that was silently complicit in the death of millions.

In the commentary on the next page, Robertson says that soon after writing this poem Bonhoeffer said in a letter that: "It is not the religious act that makes the Christian, but the participation in the suffering of God in the world."

Robertson goes on to say:

By now Bonhoeffer had observed Christians and others, finding, as he said, that it was easier to talk about God with unbelievers than with Christians. One is reminded of the answer given by Jurgen Moltmann to the question, "are you, then, a Universalist?" to which as a good Calvinist he had to say "No!", but he added, "I sometimes suspect that God is."

I'm thinking this will be what we discuss at Theology Pub this Thursday.

Little Miss Sunshine

Little Miss Sunshine is the funniest movie I've seen in ages. See it. I feel like the family is like me and my friends, and the little beauty pagent contestants are like the church, or perhaps how people often view Christians...see the difference? Give me messy and loving over perfect and unapproachable any day.

Smells like Jesus

I am reading 2 Corinthians right now and love this passage:

For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not peddlers of God's word like so many; but in Christ we speak as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God and standing in God's presence.

Questions:

1) How exactly do we go about smelling of Christ? Really this is such a weird notion: being the aroma of Christ. But perhaps it's pretty cool too. Smell is the greatest trigger for memory. If we can be the aroma of Christ, do we in our spirit, actions and words bring others to the memory of themselves as Imago Dei (made in the image of God)?

2) Who is sufficient for these things? Me? (perhaps) You? (perhaps) Pat Robertson? (no fu**ing way) Does hate, whether it is from Pat Robertson against gays, or from myself against Pat Robertson carry the aroma of Christ? Not so much, huh? It's amazing how vitriolic I can be about the religious right's vitriol. I'm a big fat hypocrite, of course this qualifies me to be a Christian, so there you go.

I'm kind of digging the word sufficient. Not perfect, not ideal, but sufficient. Kind of an easier mark to aim for.

3) I'm also digging the distinction between being peddlers of God's word and being sincere in Christ and standing in God's presence. Here is a distinction that I always look for in theology: does it point to me, or does it point to God?

tattoo

Our family is on vacation this week at Pagosa Springs Colorado (near New Mexico). We're staying at this place that has cable television, which we only see when staying at a hotel or on vacation. I found myself watching 3 episodes of this show called Miami Ink on TLC which is a reality show about a tattoo parlor in Florida. I loved hearing about why people were coming in to get tattooed. One couple had lost a baby and wanted hands holding a child with the words In His Hands, several people came in to get memorial tattoos to honor friends who had died. One woman wanted to mark the new life she is living in sobriety after years of addiction. I have gotten tattoos for very spiritual reasons as well. I really think God is at work in these people's lives and in this process. So many people talked about the healing they felt from being tattooed, which I very much relate to. Here's the tattoo I want next, it is an image of Mary Magdalene (I love that she was the first witness to the resurrection) letting the guys in on the big news: