Since my last post over three years ago, a lot has changed and there is a lot to reflect on. In all of these changes, all of which have been a total blessing, I am continually amazed by the grace I experience time and time again. So, I've renamed my blog, am working on updating, and will hopefully have some wonderful things to share with the world.

Brian McLaren and the Episcopal Church

I'm sitting in my office trying to catch up from being away on vacation for the last two weeks and so have been trying to read up on what has been happening at General Convention (the ultimate governing body of the Episcopal Church). Apparently, lots has been happening and I thought this was going to be a quiet year--seems I was wrong. For starts, it appears that we've made some definitive steps towards endorsing same-sex blessings (marriages where possible) and towards allowing gay bishops to be consecrated. While these things please me, I also find myself wondering where that will take us in regards to our relationship with the rest of the Communion and with those who are currently sitting in our pews who may not be so pleased. I often preach that as Christians, we aren't called to be right, but to be faithful; meaning that I see our mission to be the embodiment and living out the reconciliation that Christ exemplified for and offers to, us. I like emphasizing faithfulness because I feel it nuances the difficulties that come in life and in the choices we make. It hints that there may be a price to pay for our being faithful--as there was for Christ. It may be that we do pay a great price for making these choices. In our doing what we feel is right, we may fail to be faithful to our brothers and sisters who feel we aren't and so fall short of reconciliation on this end. Obviously, a less than perfect solution. Yet in acting as we have, we retain our integrity as people of faith and our identity as such. In spite of what some (indeed many) may say, I feel the full inclusion of the GLBT community is a faithful Christian response to questions of human sexuality. And it certainly will be seen as such by the individuals, couples and families who find themselves within this community.

And yet it isn't enough.

No, I'm not advocating for a more progressive agenda. I'm pressing for a more evangelical agenda. Enter Brian McLaren. Anglicans love Brian McLaren, and he us. But I'm not sure we're listening just yet. Especially the Episcopalians. He spoke twice at General Convention, with one of those talks being a sermon he offered last Thursday. In it he talked about how the E word (Evangelism) should no longer be a dirty word for the Episcopal Church. Because, lets face it, it is. And in truth that word has lots of baggage. But the way McLaren defined it should give us pause and help us reconsider what it means to be evangelical:

And we can start with today’s reading from 2 Corinthians. There we see evangelism as
our call to demonstrate and proclaim a new creation in Christ. We see our call to live and
invite others into a new way of life. We see evangelism as recruiting early adopters to be
part of a radical new beginning for the human race – which Paul calls the new creation in
Christ.

This world and its empires are living by an old script, Paul would say. Politics of
domination and exploitation, economies of consumption, sociologies of exclusion and
prejudice, and psychologies of shame and self-justification all flow from the old
destructive narrative that is passing away. The crucifixion and resurrection of Christ
meant for Paul, among many other things, that it is time for a new politics of service and
the common good, for new economies of sustainability and regeneration, for new
sociologies of reconciliation and love, and for new psychologies rooted in grace and faith
. . . in short, in Christ, all things are made new, and evangelism means recruiting and
training people to defect from the old order and throw themselves wholeheartedly into the
new way.

Wow. I think this is something we could all get behind. Especially in the midst of our institutional crisis. And in terms of such a crisis, he goes on to point out that in order to save our institution, we might have to be willing to let go of it. To let it change. Because if we don't-if we try to save the institution we will in fact lose it. If this is the first you've heard that the Episcopal church, like many churches, is struggling--welcome.

So, for all my fellow Episcopalians, and to myself, I ask: what are we willing to give up? What can we let go of? As I have been for the last two years learning to dive into the world of evangelism, these are the questions I have kept asking as it was becoming more and more apparent to me that people aren't interested in being invited to something. I think they are more interested in being invited into something. Something dynamic and alive and not into a particular denomination. Our institution is a tool, it is not the end. I am ok with this--but it took some time. While we boldly declare that same-sex couples can have full inclusion in our church, we dare not invite someone to church, or make our worship more inclusive, or even share our faith with someone outside of the church because that might be seen as scary, dirty, fundy, evangelism. It is the very same faithfulness that we exemplify in our inclusivity, in our support of the MDG's and in our service that is required in evangelism, but we get in the way of it. I love the Episcopal church for all that it is and all that it loves. I have no intention of leaving it. Yet I am willing to let go and be rid of anything that stands in the way of our being a faithful and missional church. We have so much to offer, so much that is life-giving and wonderful. Let's take advantage of all of that and use it to its full potential and become evangelists and in doing so become better disciples ourselves.

Worship space

I guess in a kind of follow-up to my last post, I would offer up a photo of our May worship. New screen and projector and new candles from our "guest" bassist Jeremy. Who is moving to Kalamazoo! Wonderful soul who always worked in the evenings and so could never make a service--until he lost his job after the restaurant closed. We'll miss you!
Anyway, we had lovely music and readings this evening with a blend of Taize songs and praise music. Ruthy, who plays keyboard and Steve, on violin, were incredible with their skill in leading us and helped create an environment of reverence and joy. And with our singing we also incorporated visuals with icons being projected on the screen, images used for our prayers, and quiet space for those so moved to share witness to God in their lives and in the city we worship. It was fabulous. And then of course we had dinner. Also fabulous--for tuna salad.

I love how we worship, and I love that we all have a hand in making it happen. Recently, we gathered at my place to discuss the future of our taize worship and us. I was blessed to see that there is energy moving amongst us to expand, maybe not necessarily into an every-week-taize-service, but adding on bible study to our activities, other things we called "Community-building Adventures" and possibly a simple Sunday evening thing. But, these things don't just exist as plug-in points for others; they are also things that sustain us. As a group, we all are committed to helping out each other and offering support--creating a community where, as I told one young man the other day, one can find trustworthy people who are working at being the good news in Saginaw. These are not easy things, particularly in a place like Saginaw, MI. A broken city in a broken state. But, for now, our little worship space is a place of beauty and peace; something different and hopefully, something also a little familiar.

Person of Peace--Bob.

For anyone who's new to an area, particularly someone who is looking to start a faith community, it is important to meet an individual who can connect you to the greater community--to others. This is how you start to fit it and are allowed to begin forging new relationships. This person, by bringing you in closer, tells others that there is something trustworthy about you, that you're ok and that basically you don't have the social equivalent of the plague. For me, that person was Bob Maul. I had been in the Tri-Cities for maybe a month or two and knew next to no one. So, on a day I was having coffee with the one guy I did know, I was introduced to Bob, and suddenly found myself a few days later sitting in a scull learning how to row. What?! As I would come to find out, I was not the first person to find themselves deeply involved in a Bob-project.

But, I told Bob who I was and what I did and he was supportive from the word go. And as I worked to be a part of the Lawn Chair Film Festival, the Rowing Club and Christmas caroling, I got to know more and more people. And I started to become something of a part of that Saginaw community. And as that happened, began to form a small community with some of those individuals I met through Bob. And as our, as yet, nameless community got more organized and started worship, he gave us space under the loft that he and his wife Arlene shared. Bob was, for me, my person of peace; and when he passed last month, I had the honor of co-celebrating his funeral. And after seeing what must have been close to 500 people piling into the church, I realized that he was a person of peace to many more than just me.

So, from my corner of the world, this is my little thank-you to Robert Maul. And I know that I join many in missing him.

I've got Jesus on my side--really!

So, I still hang out in the coffee shop that I first walked into when I started this work. Of course I do. And I still converse with many of the people I first met when I moved here almost two years ago. One of these people is the barista who I've been trying to get to come to our Taize services for forever now. And each time I ask, she turns me down. So it goes. However, these days instead of her teasing me, I get to tease her a little bit.

Now, I asked her if I could blog about this and she said yes, so before I go further know that I have informed consent.

This young woman has many beautiful tattoos and I'm always admiring them, and seeing the new ones she's getting in addition to the hair color and piercings. She's fun. And now, she is getting a very large, very colorful tattoo of a stained glass image of Jesus on her side. And according to her, it's hurting like hell. So of course I could absolutely NOT resist jabbing her a bit. I mean, there ARE easier ways to have Jesus. Our little monthly services are humble and quiet; and we don't jab anyone with tiny little needles. We also have food when we are done--when was the last time a tattoo shop gave you a pancake for your trouble? I mean, really! Yet, the 2-dimensional Jesus is still more appealing than the Jesus matrix--the Jesus we find in community. Why is this? Why should this be? Maybe it is because the Jesus in the picture, drilled into her flesh, is somehow more real than the Jesus in the world. For her anyway.

I'm sure I'm going to love her new ink and I can't wait to see it finished, but I also can't help but wonder why the real Jesus sometimes struggles to break through. And not just for her, but for lots of people with the tattoo Jesus. And this is me not wondering just how it is that Jesus has failed, he hasn't, but rather how has the church failed to connect. So, how do we re-connect? The million dollar question, right? But I also believe that it is better to ask this question than to assume people are just going to show up--like they used to fifty years ago. Because they aren't. And the blessing in this is that we cannot, or can no longer, take our faith for granted. Not to say that we are faithful so that we still have church as its always been, but so we can have healing, reconciling communities who in their discipleship invite others to also be disciples. That way, even with a tattoo of Christ in your ribcage, it would still be possible for one to say that truly one had Christ on one's side. Because in fact, one would-- in all those others also walking the journey of faith.

Just my musings for the week....

Dear God, it's been a year!

Shameful on my part, yes, but I really let the blog thing go for a number of reasons; none of which may be great, but they're my reasons. So there. I thought I would reopen my blogging life with a sermon post. I've never done anything like this before, but thought it might be a good idea and certainly an interesting way to get feedback. So, to kick this blog back off, I'm offering my Good Shepherd Sunday sermon I preached yesterday.
The texts are:

Acts 4:5-12
Psalm 23
1 John 3:16-24
John 10:11-18

The readings for this Good Shepherd Sunday are full of images of compassion, giving, and caretaking aren’t they? And love, there is such a powerful theme of love that I felt myself responding to the texts by having that song by the Beatles pop into my head: “All you need is love”, which immediately made me then think of a campfire scene where men and women with dreadlocked hair sat around the fire signing songs, wearing hemp clothing and smelling like petuly. It was kind of this weird picture from the 60’s where you had all kinds of people throwing off the constraints of traditional society and embracing this bohemian life of carefree love and I just had them seated around a campfire with Greatful Dead t-shirts on and no shoes. Such is the image one gets who wasn’t actually around when all of this was taking place. So, I apologize for my stereotyping and for doing a poor job at that. However, it did get me wondering about what it meant to love. Because, I do feel that all we need is love. However, in the same breath I will also point out that more is necessary. But then, what more? What is more than love? Especially the kind of love we have read about today?
I mean, there are so many kinds of love that have to do with different parts of our lives—our families, pets, foods, lovers, friends, activities and so on. English is pretty paultry when it comes to being able to nuance the different loves—truly, we only have one word whereas other languages have several. We have to figure it out what kind of love someone is talking about by the context of the conversation. Its easy to say we love taco’s but any sane person would be using the word “love” in a somewhat different way than they would when talking about a spouse or child. Still, when I had this song playing in my head, I wasn’t necessarily thinking about all the different possibilities for the word “love” but rather found myself thinking about the emotional reactions we associate with that word through my own gut reaction. Sort of that warm fuzzy feeling. Which is where I saw the problem.
Now, I wonder if we don’t see love as being more of a noun as opposed to seeing it as a verb? Put another way, is love something we have, as in an emotion, or is it something we do, as in our actions? I think most of us would say, “both” and that would be correct. Because it is. But, regardless, I feel like there is a tendency for us to emphasize the emotional, I-have-a-good-feeling, part. It certainly is marketed to us that way: You will love the new burger at Burger King because it has such great taste and makes us feel good, or a particular new car because it smells nice and makes us feel good; sitcom’s have people falling “in love” all the time, which usually shows us a couple of people in these dewy emotional states and feeling really good which makes us feel good and we call it love. For me, the bottom line seems to be that in our collective understanding of love, we far too often associate it with a kind of emotional euphoria-- which happens and is a good thing, but it is not long lasting nor is it capable of being present in all kinds of situations. When I think of love, I often think of it in this way, or even at times offhandedly, when I talk about how much I love Japanese food. But love is more—always more.
So, I think it is time for us to start thinking of love as also being a verb, a thing we enact. A thing we can do even when our emotions may not quite be there. When we may not be feeling a drop of loving toward the person to whom we are giving love. And thank God for that, for when was the last time any of us were really able to control how we responded emotionally to something? Probably not ever. And it isn’t something we can, nor should do; however, we can act. And the love that we are being invited into in our scriptures today is love found in service to one another. In this way, loving another person doesn’t require that we necessarily feel loving toward him or her, but that we act out of service, compassion, kindness, hope, and love. To all, even to those who have harmed us. And the blessing here is that in loving each other in this way, our love can be expressed, yet does so in a way that doesn’t deny ourselves and any of our own pain, hurt, injustice, fear, or anger that this other may have caused in us. Case in point, there is a movie, the Scarlet in the Black telling the true story of a priest who during WWII smuggled and housed Jews in and out of Rome. At the end, saving over two thousand Jews. At the same time, there was a German officer, the Commandant, who suspected that this priest was doing this, but couldn’t prove it and never did. However, when the war ended, this officer and his family were in danger of execution. The officer came to this priest and requested he take his family to safety. The priest refused. However, at the end of this story, this priest does indeed save this man’s family and in doing so, exemplifies a love that doesn’t deny horror or wrongdoing, but does not also demand blood for blood. That doesn’t require retribution, that doesn’t see that this man ought to be punished by losing his own family like the families he himself destroyed. It is the kind of love that through the lying down of life for others allows space for healing and for transformation. It does not perpetuate the same violence, the same hatred and the same anger but arrives at a moment and responds—differently.
Love should be lived out of us, be breathed out of us, poured out of us for others and in doing so, will then make its way back into us changing our hearts so that both our hearts and minds are truly in synch with each other and we begin to become whole ourselves. This is how healing happens. By loving others, we will know love ourselves. And we see this model of wholeness and love, this Good Shepherd, before us in Christ, the one who inside and out loves us from his very core to our own. Who knows us and sees us for all that can make us very unloveable and who yet still loves in the laying down of his own life—the giving of himself to us in body mind and spirit, in what essentially is the sharing of life and all that makes life both wonderful and horrible. There is an Icon writer of contemporary Icons, Robert Lentz who paints images of traditional saints as well as contemporary people and concepts. He has done an image of the Good Shepherd, and instead using a lamb or sheep, he paints this Christ with his arm around what he describes as a smelly, lustful, scary, old billy goat. And it fits the description, it looks like it could eat the page it has been painted onto. Yet this goat represents those who are truly difficult to love, and if you ask me that would cover pretty much all of us as some time or another, but yet here it is in the arms of the Good Shepherd--being saved.
We will not find our life in hatred or rightness or even in our self-protection. We will find our life before us as it is passed over to someone else and changed before our very eyes. And in doing this we will not be the same, but begin to see just how we fit into this life, this flock Christ has claimed as his own and begin to love as he has loved us. Love and life are inextricably linked in this fold of Christ’s. The passage before our Gospel reading today is those words of hope Christ speaks: that he came to give us life and life abundant. We cannot first do this without love, not a carefree kind of emotional high, but a deliberate, meaningful love that we practice with each other and in doing so, grow into. Our model is our Good Shepherd who guides us into this practice that makes space for all to enter the fold and not just those we find easy to love. At the end of our days we will all lay down our lives, but for those who have loved, who have served the flock and cared for Christ’s sheep, they will know what it has meant to lay down their lives so as to then pick them up again and have life abundantly and fully, finding themselves in each other. This is the challenge that is ever before us, and yet it is one that has been met by the Saviour. In our own lives, let us meet this challenge and embrace love as practice and as life. Amen.

Sheesh!

Ok, almost out of the airport! Anyway, as I was trying to write yesterday, there were all these amazing different communities gathered not just to discuss, but to celebrate their faith as it is lived out in their very common, yet not-so-common life together.

The topic of the gathering was not just community, but faith lived out in every aspect on one's life and for these people, that meant inclusivity' identification with the poor, poverty, action, love and worship. It was clear that not everyone was coming from the same background and certainly not everyone was coming from the same sort of "doctrine". But what they did have in common was a desire to follow Christ so as not to be Christians, but to be disciples.

This was a good look at what I might call a kind of emerging neo-monasticism. The days were structured around morning worship which usually involved a phone call to someone like tony camplo or Brian mcclaren (rock stars of the faith) followed by learning sessions held in the morning. My flight is about to board so ill follow up on this later!
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