#21 A Dead Philosopher just critiqued my life.

I have been reading a little bit of Soren Kierkegaard's essay called "The Present Age."  His present age of course was in the 1800s so we are talking about different ages.  But there was something striking about his thoughts on his age that seems to pertain to me.  I'm not sure I like it when a notoriously curmudgeon of a philosophers pegs my own fear so well.  Anyway this grumpy cat philosopher (Is this disrespectful to that cat or to Kierkegaard?) said basically this, "Mark, you are really good at reflecting on self and others but those reflects never really get out of your head into the real world."  Only he said it in German and not specifically addressed to me and not in those words.  This is just how I heard it in my head. 

I think I can reflect all day and night on something.  And if I have someone to reflect with it is even better.  I can talk for weeks about a topic if someone is interested.  Few are, by the way, and this can be a very frustrating thing to my wife.  Although she can do it, too, if it is on a topic she is passionate about, but alas, rarely do our passion for reflection overlap.  This is a good thing because otherwise nothing of importance would probably ever get done.  

And that is precisely my fear.  I fear that I have become so good at reflecting and creating abstract assertions (some of which are meaningless, see what I did there!) that I don't know how to do anything worthwhile in the real world.  I think it is exciting to talk about the implications of Trinitarian theology, but I'm not sure I ever go a live them out.  I love to talk about how feminist thinking has enriched our culture and still has some work to do (this my wife and I can talk about), yet what do I do in a concrete sense to make the world more equal?

I fear that in an action-reflection model of life, I have left behind the action part.  I fear that I have become someone who only lives in my own mind and does little in the real world.  I fear that my reflections are stunted because I don't live them and test them in a concrete way in the real world.  

This matters to me because Kierkegaard was wrong about his present age.  He said they would never start revolution to change the oppressive power structures of his day, but then the French Revolution happened, and many revolutions happened across German to unify the country.  He was wrong about his age, but is he right about me personally.  I need to break out of pure abstraction and test these theories.  I need to question current power structures while coming up with new ways of living on this planet called Earth.  I need to put on ideas and become incarnate in these theories, so that I can see if they are really worthwhile or just really fun to think about.  Practice makes perfect, right?  So I need to go practice so I can critique and evolve theories into something more true and more engaged to effect real change in this world.

#20 I Gave Away My Power.

I have been thinking a little about power.  Maybe because my church is doing a preaching series on the book of Amos. That's right, a minor prophet preaching series, that is meant to challenge us and our way of life rather that a series telling us God is good and we can get better.  It's refreshing...in a difficult way.

Anyway, power...I have not done any kind of real study on power.  I've a read "The Powers that Be" by Walter Wink, which I think I mentioned in a previous post.  But I haven't done any real study beyond reading an occasional book.  So this isn't any kind of authoritative survey.  Just my typical meaningless babbling that an average of like 10 people read (I'm sure a book deal is to follow from such an amazing readership).

I have come to think of power as similar to energy.  There is a finite amount of power in the world that can be spread out among many people or can be hoarded by a few.  There is power in each of us sitting latent waiting for the stimulus to push it into action.  There are obviously many kinds of power, economical, personal, political, etc.  Sometimes power is giving to people through votes or mutual understandings of a situation.  Sometimes power is taken by force or manipulated out of someone through systemic injustice (there is Amos!).  I believe the problem comes when the few have too much of the power.  When the few are able to control the many.  Power can shift from latent to kinetic in a short amount of time.  Sometimes getting out of hand as it does.  This happens in revolutions that end up going too far and ending with more of the same oppression that was fought against.  The latent power was converted into kinetic power that was eventual all given to one person or organization.

We can give our power away as I did at the beginning of this little rambling post by giving the little warning that I haven't studied this before writing.  I totally undermined my own power as the author in the process.  I think we do this all the time.  We undermine, manipulate, and steal power without even realizing we are doing it.  I don't think that these evil actions come from evil people, but often start out as a well-meaning actions that end up doing harm.  Sometime self-worth and self-esteem get in the way of our exertion of power and sometimes systems are perpetuated and prosper on keeping certain groups from realizing and living into their power potential.

How can we have a redistribution of power?  Does that have to happen violently? Can we get other people to give up power without having to forcibly take it from them?  It is only natural to want to keep a hold of what you have.  I believe that power structures can be challenged without the use of violence, and I have written about that before, think MLK and Gandhi (see #17). But it is probably the harder road to travel.  If there is a finite amount of power in the world, how are we going to distribute or re-distribute it?

#19 Something about a Christian Ethic

Right now, I am unemployed.  I used to work in a church as a youth pastor, but I didn't play the church game well, and I was unwilling to play it.  So now, I'm without a job in a new city trying to figure out what to do with my life.  I've come to the realization that I really like to study and talk about faith, but when it comes to managing in a church context it all became too much for me.  I nearly walked away from my faith, now I realize that I probably just shouldn't be employed by the church.  I'm in the midst of trying to figure out what is next...

While that is all going on, I have taken the time to read a couple of books.  There are three book in particular that have made an impact on me.  The first is Red Letter Revolution.  This book is basically a conversation by two people who are trying to take what Jesus said seriously, Tony Campolo and Shane Claiborne.   These two tend to make the news, in certain circles, for living differently from most Evangelicals.  Claiborne is part of a kind of protestant monastic community in Philadelphia.  Campolo is sociology professor at Eastern University who is know for saying things that upset our supposed Christian sense of Ethics.  To me there was nothing new in this book.  They talked about critically applying Jesus' expressed Ethics as we see especially in "The Sermon on the Mount" in Matthew 5-7. You know the Beatitudes and  turn the other cheek and such. The impact this book on me was that it helped me realize how sparingly we actually try to apply Jesus' Ethics.

The second book that had an impact on me was called Peace by Walter Brueggemann.  Brueggemann is a Hebrew Bible scholar who usually has some pretty fantastic things to say, so he is always worth the read.  Again nothing Earth shattering or new in this book.  He spent a lot of time talking about Shalom, which has a deeper definition of peace then our English word.  This is peace is about community and justice.  Not retributive justice with an eye for an eye but a restorative justice where everyone is treated as a child of God with respect and love.  It is about sharing power and really is an imagine of the Kingdom of God which we mistakenly make into a concept of where we go when we die.  That kingdom was the expectation of Israel and is what Jesus was talking about all the time.  The Kingdom of God is near, which is a kingdom of peace of shalom.  Again it made me think about how we don't really want to apply Jesus' Ethics on our own lives today.  We make it about a coming Kingdom forgetting that the kingdom is being realized today.  We are supposed to live Shalom now, like that kingdom (or empire if you'd like, it is the same word in Greek) is already fully realized.

The third book is called, Peace in a Post-Christian Era by Thomas Merton.  Merton was a Trappist Monk who was also a profound writer in the 1960s.  As a monk in this time period everything that he wrote to be published had to approved by the church.  This book was never approved during his lifetime because it was considered inappropriate for a monk to write about these things.  Merton apparently had hard time with this but tried to be obedient to the church.  You can be obedient and unhappy at the same time.  What was inappropriate for Merton to write about was the Cold War arms race.  Some say that having lots of nuclear weapons kept the Soviets from using nukes on us because they were afraid of the retaliation.  Merton was pointing out the serious danger in this thinking and trying to build a good moral argument again nuclear proliferation using Jesus' Ethics.  So basically the church didn't want to hear how Jesus' thoughts say on turning the other cheek can be applied to the arms race.  Merton's ideas didn't go along with conventional thinking at the time, so it wasn't published in his lifetime.

As we all know we managed not to blow up the world during the cold war, so good use of restraint on both sides of that staring contest.  There was a missile crisis or something with Cuba and the USSR, but happily no nuclear fallout.  Still the striking thing in this book was that here was someone trying to apply Jesus' Ethics to our lives and he got censored by the church of all things for it.  It was a political issue that church didn't want a monk weighing in on, but still can it be bad to try to apply the teachings of Jesus to our lives?

All of these people draw from other sources in the Bible, too.  For instance, Merton like Peter's words, of "Do not repay evil with evil" (1 Peter 3:9).  But mostly all of these people were drawing from the Sermon on the Mount and other ethical teachings from Jesus.  Do you really know what Jesus taught?  Do you really think that we are supposed to apply these things to our lives?  It seems that our Ethics are not really based on Jesus' teachings but on other things, like consumption and politics.

To wrap this rambling mess up, I would like to just put some Ethical statements out there for you. Ready?

Love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:39/Leviticus 19:18)

Do not repay evil with evil or abuse with abuse; but, on the contrary, repay with a blessing (1 Peter 3:9)

Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. (Luke 6:27-28)

Turn the other cheek (Luke 6:29; Matthew 5:39)

Do to other what you would have them do to you (Luke 6:31)

We are both Sinner and Saint--this one is Martin Luther, but keeping this in mind makes you more gracious especially with yourself.

How can you live these things out?  It seems counter-cultural to our current set of norms, yet so familiar and cliched.  Isn't this a frame for what a Christian Ethics should look like?  At least the start of one?

#18 Something about Nouns and Verbs.

I have been thinking quite a bit lately about the interaction between belief and action.  I often say that in order to change a way you do something you need to change your beliefs.  So if you change the way you think about something it will change the way you act.  For instance, if you believe that all of creation is precious to God then maybe you would treat that creation differently based on that belief or assumption.  But if you hold the belief that God created the rest of the world for us, and in the end it is all going to be burned up or something, then you might treat the environment as something to consume.

But I have been wondering how do people actually change their beliefs.  Sometimes it takes a really persuasive argument, but in all actuality that is rare.  Most people don't change their beliefs because someone made a really valid and interesting point, but because of the relationship and integrity of the person who made that point.  It is in the doing of the relationship that beliefs are changed.  So maybe changing belief requires that you do something that is out of the norm.

Instead of arguing about the nouns of our faith we should be doing the verbs and let the nouns have meaning in light of the verbs (check out this HBX for more on that).  Indoctrination is the specialty of most religious movements.  But maybe we go about it all wrong.  I used to teach Confirmation at a pretty large affluent church.  This was always a really great experience because I love talking about our faith and laying out the various beliefs of the church.  I tend to take an approach of laying some various beliefs in front of the students and allowing them to wrestle with them.  Because I think you come to faith through wrestling with meaning not through being told what is the right way to believe.  I think I was doing it wrong though.  We spent almost the entire time talking and discussing the beliefs of the church and we spent almost no time actually doing these things.  We did a mission project, but we should be continual mission projects.  We should be always doing the verbs of the faith.  Go, preach, baptize, love, pray, give, clothe, visit, eat, etc.  These are the things that show what you actually believe.  These are the things that change what you actually believe.  These are the things that bring meaning to the nouns of the faith like Christology, Eucharist, Eschaton, etc.

Belief and action are wound together so tightly that they inform each other.  Belief doesn't always dictate our actions and actions don't always change beliefs.  But intentionally revising both based on the other seems like a great way to form your faith.  It is kind of an action reflection model, only with the awareness the sometimes it is a reflection action model.  Verbs and nouns inform each other.  They create meaning for each other.  They make more sense when placed together.  Also, don't forget about the power of the prepositional phrase and punctuation...

#17 Praying for peace doesn't mean praying for inaction.

In response to my last post, a friend of mine called me.  He is a pastor of a church and his community was going to do a prayer vigil for peace in the Syrian conflict.  This pastor, one of my few readers, is a very practical person.  He wondered to me, "Is praying for peace really just praying for no bombing?"

I think that is a fantastic question and one everyone should be asking.  Is praying for peace really just praying that no further violence is perpetrated by our country on another?  Is prayer for peace really just asking to blindly turn the other cheek?  My response to him was obviously, "No! Not at all!"  But something rings true about what he said.  In a practical sense, "turn the other cheek" seems like a poor way to solve conflict.

Praying for peace is about solving conflict, not just praying for no more violence or war.  Praying for peace is praying that people can figure out creative and non-violent ways to resolve conflict.  Walter Wink, an amazingly smart scholar, talks about how there is a third way to react to conflict, violence and injustice.  The first way is to respond with violence.  This tends to grow and grow until someone decides that nuking the entire planet because we don't agree is ridiculous.  The second way is the way too many people talk about turning the other cheek, which is to do nothing.  The third way is to turn the other cheek in a way that exposes the inhuman, violent actions without using violence yourself.  It might seem shameful to you at the time, but in the end it will show the sinful injustice of the other person(s).

It reminds me of those theatrical protests that happened in the sixties.  And by reminds me of, I mean reminds me of pictures I've seen and stories I've read/heard because I was born during the Reagan administration.  I think of the people who in an over the top fashion would stick a flower in the riot police officers' gun barrels.  It was if they were saying you should trade your weapon for something a little bit friendlier!  It's brilliant, and I think it is Abbie Hoffman's work.  I'm not sure.

Praying for peace isn't praying that people turn the other cheek or don't try to do something about the use of chemical weapons in Syria.  It is asking for conflict resolution in a non-violent way, without any threat of bombing to stop bombing. Instead negotiating and exposing injustice through thought provoking and  nonviolent action. When we pray for peace, we should also pray that we can be courageous enough to be instruments of creating the peace.

If you want to read some Walter Wink, I would advise, The Powers that Be.  It is an accessible writing about his thoughts on the powers of the world.  Also, it seems you could read, Jesus and the Nonviolence: A Third Way.  I've not read it, yet, but seems completely to the point.

#16 Something about Syria

I haven't really followed anything political in a long time, but for some reason I have been reading more and more about the possible American involvement in the Syrian Civil War.  Here are some of the things that I have found interesting (Please note that I am not a journalist, nor am I a politician, just an onlooker):

1. British PM David Cameron decided to take this to Parliament before calling for a military strike.  And they voted it down. There seems to be something telling about that.
2. France seems to be with President Obama.  What?  Can we call them french fries again?
3. Russia is against the action.  Not a surprise we have a new/old feud with them, which is also interesting to watch. We seem to be getting colder...
4. The UN is still doing their work deciding what to do with the breaking of international ban on chemical weapons.  You know investigating and deciding who is to blame, and how to proceed as an international community.
5. President Obama has cooled down on it a little and called for Congress to vote on it.  This is the first time in like 30 years that a President hasn't just pulled the trigger without Congressional approval, even though that's seems to be the way it is supposed to be.
6. I have heard that folks in Congress have a slight worry about casting a vote either way because it could be used against them in the next election.  Because pandering is the most important thing, not you know figuring out if we need to get involved to try to protect innocent life in a bloody war.
7. There doesn't seem to be a very clear objective in this.  No regime change just to send a message.  My question is: How does killing more people actually send a message? It appears that Bashar al-Assad is okay with killing his own people, especially if his regime is to blame.

Somehow I think this vote in Congress and how we proceed from here is going to significantly influence how we do foreign policy in the future.  I'm hoping that somehow we can come up with ways of creating peace that doesn't involve violence because peace through war doesn't seem logical, yet it is the prevailing wisdom of our age.

So here's to hope for a more peaceful form of conflict resolution.  Here's to hope for a way of doing foreign policy that spends less time bombing and more time trying to figure out what the underlying cause of the conflict is.

I know that I am coming off idealistic and it seems we don't have much chance of that, but I have to believe that a more peaceful world is possible.  Less eye for an eye; more turn the other cheek.

#15 Projection is not just for walls and screens.

My wife and daughter were out shopping the other day, and they had a rather peculiar experience.  After they had found all the things they were looking for and more, I'm sure, they went up to check out their wares.  The lady at the check out counter looked down at my two and a half year old daughter and said, "She looks guilty of something.  I'm going to be a mom soon and I can tell she is guilty of something."

My wife was speechless (a rare feat) and another worker in the store told the check out lady not to say things like that.  It was a rather odd circumstance.  This encounter made me think about projection, or more precisely this tale of this encounter made me think about projection.  I wasn't there so this is all hearsay.  I wondered what this lady was feeling guilty about that she would project it onto a cute, harmless, intelligent little toddler (I'm not biased about this kid at all, these things are all objectively true).

My thoughts of course jumped to her feeling guilty about being pregnant, which I am only assuming she is by the comment.  I have no other proof and my wife did not specify whether the lady had a baby bump or not, so it could be a poor assumption.  Then, I thought, "how incredibly Victorian Era of me to think that this woman feels guilty about becoming pregnant.  Sex isn't shameful and producing life isn't either."

My thoughts then turned to generalizations.  What if instead of projecting her own  feelings onto my genius like tot, she's projecting a generalization she holds about genius little tots.  Maybe she thinks that all children are actually guilty of something especially in a store.  This could all stem from her stealing something as a kid.   That can mess you up just ask Saint Augustine.  Regardless of where it comes from, it made me think slightly differently about projection, When it is a generalization is it called something else? Can a Psychologist please weigh in on this?

We do this all the time we project a generalization on someone when we first meet them as a way to make sense of the world.  We generalized based on race, sex, age, and all kinds of other factors.  Interestingly, not all of these projected generalizations are uniform.  Depending on where you are from and your own life experiences you think differently about different groups of people.  For instance, I don't look at a two year old and automatically think you are guilty of something.  I think look at this toddler isn't he or she cute and probably high energy.  Unless they aren't cute, then I want to tell them that there are so many more important qualities than being cute, like being smart and generous.

Regardless of whether you are projecting your feelings, beliefs, or generalizations on other people it still says more about you and your life experience than it says about the other person. So if you want to really get to know yourself, then spend some time meeting new people and see what you think about them before you know them.  Then, read your projection likes it a PowerPoint presentation in Psych 203: Awareness and Self-hood.  (Hat tip to all you starting college today.)

#14 Labels are not just for soup cans!

Could you imagine walking through a grocery store looking for something nice and processed to purchase, but there were no labels on any of them?  Or going to the cupboard (under your stairs?) to find a can of green beans only to discover that all the labels have been removed from the cans by some sick puppy who likes to make people guess about what they are going to prepare as a side with their pork chops?  Could you imagine the chaos of not knowing what these things are?  

I have been reading some blog post lately (which is entirely too much of my existence) which have been talking about labels.  One is about how Tony Jones doesn't want to be labeled with the tainted horrible "mainline Christian" label (see here), or for that matter he doesn't want to be labeled as a pastor either.  I am in fact mainline and I don't take offense to this at all because he hates the polity of the church that has gotten in the way and I respect that.  The institution is something I have struggled with, yet I have chosen to stay close to it. Anyway, don't label Mr. Jones because, quite frankly, it is up to him what labels he wants to choose.

Labels in and of themselves are fine.  There is nothing wrong with them.  They just help give a short cut into a history of someone.  For instance, I am a United Methodist.  Now, you have some baggage with that term maybe, which might be, "take a stand on something, dammit!"  Or it could be, "oh you must be nice."  But I also would label myself a progressive Christian.  Now you have new preconceived notions of me from that.  On Facebook, my religious views say that I am "Trinitarian Eucharistic." What doesn't that mean to you?  So even when you are just talking about my religious associations you need lots of labels to get any kind of picture of me.

The problem is when you put labels on me.  If you label me, usually it is done as a way to distance me from you.  For instance, if you are "Evangelical," you may say I am "Progressive" with a sneer, which is a way of saying I don't agree with him (and he is going to hell. Was that an overstatement? Probably).  Or you could say it because, well, I just told you I am a progressive.  My advice is lose the sneer.  Anyway, the point of this rambling is that labeling is fine as long as we are respectful about them.  Bo Sanders wrote here:

Like labeling a Pilsner and a Pale Ale, it is necessary to know that you are getting a different product BECAUSE it has come through a different process and has different ingredients.

Labels help us give a little background information about where we came from.  The first (and only at this point) comment on Mr. Sanders' post talks about having a label placed on him that helped him understand how others see him.  I think that is worth doing as well, but you don't have to embrace any labels but the one you place on yourself.  Who you are, what labels you are going to live into, it's up to you, and it is your choice, so choose wisely my friends!

#13 NPR makes Me Cry (Is this an assertion?)

I was in my car on my way back to work after lunch, when I turned on NRP to see what's going on.  I caught the end of Here and Now, which is produced in Boston.  It was incredibly emotional as people told stories and talked about tragedy and heartache that happened in a city they love.  When signing off Robin Young, the host of the show, had to compose herself before finishing her sign off.  I lost it.  I've never been to Boston.  My home town has never been bombed.  I have never really felt that heartache for my city.  But I bawled because a moment that was supposed to be filled with joy and inspiration was quickly turned into a horrible moment of pain and despair.

Then, I have to juxtapose this feeling with the thought of all the people who moved toward the pain and suffering.  The people who cared enough to reach out to the stranger and help stop the bleeding, or move someone from harms way.  The EMT and Police Officers who are trained to react in way to help and protect in this moment. Here is a great piece to read about this from comedian Patton Oswald, it is amazing and well worth the read.

Many people after moments like this can say where is Christ in this?  Where was God?  Why would God allow this?  This along with thousands of other tragedies that unfold all throughout the world, such as earthquakes, terrorist attacks, and homicide on the street corner, cause people to think critically about who they believe God is in the face of it all.

Some will stick to old party lines that God ordained this and is somehow using it for God's purpose.  Where is the love in that?  Or some will say things like God doesn't cause this to happen but God can bring good out of it.  This is better, but if God has the power to stop it then why doesn't God.  This is a classic question of theodicy.  And one that almost always leave us wanting for a better explanation.  If this interests you, then check out Tony Jones blog, where this weeks "Questions that Haunt Christianity" is about just this.  Leave a comment and see Tony's response on Saturday, I think.

Here is how I come down on it, but again, I don't know that I have anything useful to say: I believe that God is loving to the extreme meaning that God limits God's power because love requires choice.  You can choose to love, to hate, or to be indifferent, but regardless it requires choice.  Giving us choice means we can choose to do absolutely awful things to each other.  It is a side effect of the opportunity to love.  This love that God has chosen for us led God to become incarnate, enter into the mess we have made, then suffer and die under our rule only to overcome it through resurrection.

The question posed earlier was where is Christ in all of this?  My thought is that you can see Christ on every suffering face.  You can see the crucified Christ in every victim of pointless acts of violence.  You can see Christ face in every moment of death and despair.  But you can also see the Rise Christ on the face of every person who turned towards his/her neighbor and helped.  You can see Christ Resurrected in every person who is offering love and grace in the midst of grief.  You can see God's Kingdom intersect with ours when a person steps out of his/her normal role and expectation to risk loving in the face of pain, suffering, and injustice.

Let's not try to make sense of the senseless.  Instead, let's live a life where we know that God reveals love and grace through both Good Friday moments and through Easter Sunday moments.  From the pain and suffering of the Good Friday comes the new creation of Resurrection.  This is the Hope of the Christian faith. My prayer is that we can live resurrection in the face of despair for others and can see the Resurrection from the help of others in the face of our own struggles, pain and despair.

#12 Lack of Coffee causes Mild to Severe Irritability.

Yesterday, I made the last of my coffee, but forgot all about it when I went to the store.  This morning my day started with cereal with my daughter.  Usually, I have cereal and coffee.  There was no coffee.  I thought no big deal.  I'll get a cup of coffee on the way to work and be fine.  Well, as the morning progressed, I found that everything began to make me incredibly anger.  Angrier than I should be for just, you know, a two year old running off with her blankets while we were making her bed.

The kicker for me, when I realized how caffeine withdrawals effect me was as we were all leaving to head to work.  My wife forgot her lunch, and ran back into to get it, which mildly annoyed me (but shouldn't have).  Then, I came back out with all the pieces of leftover home made pizza.  She basically said that's more than I need and why didn't I just take a piece or two out for me.  Usually, I would have just said I don't know, it didn't cross my mind and we would have worked it out.  Instead, my withdrawing self saw this utterance as an attack on my intelligence.  So I got really mad and hateful with her--over pizza.

Now that I have had really big cup of coffee, I realize how stupid I was.  Is this how people are when they quit smoking or some other drug?  They don't feel normal until that next hit of whatever.  I didn't have hallucinations of dead babies crawling on the ceiling like in Trainspotting, but I kind of get how some people do awful things to get the next fix.

In conclusion, I'm sorry for being a jackass to my wife.  I am an addict.

#11 Church is the new scapegoat.

Have you ever heard someone say, "I'm spiritual, but not religious."?  I have been really close to saying it myself except you know I'm a seminary trained employee of the church, which means I am the poster board of religion.  I grew up in it, and I have pretty much never strayed.  Even during my period in college of searching out other faiths to see if one fits better, I was almost Buddhist you know, I still attended a church and my campus ministry.  So, ummm...I'm religious, but not spiritual.

When people say that they love Jesus and his ideals, but they don't like the church or the term Christian, I get it. My reasons for looking for a new faith community were the same reasons people have today.  People have done absolutely awful things in the name of Christ, from war to cheesy t-shirts that co-opt a corporate logo and give it a pseudo-Christian spin.  The Church has a 2000 year laundry list of mistakes, but does that mean it is evil?

In today's culture, people are suspect of the organized and established religion.  I can't blame them.  We love to blame other people and organizations for the struggles of the world.  Today, with Catholic sex abuse scandal, Westboro Baptist "Church," and crazy people saying things like God ordained natural disasters to punish us for homosexuality or whatever "sin" they think is the worst at the time.  Therefore, we have decided to use Christianity/the Church as a scapegoat.  If the church hadn't gotten involved in politics the nation would be in better shape.  If Christians would butt out there would be less wars because Just War Theory is bogus.  If the church was more like Jesus we would absolutely be involved with it, but it isn't.  It's actually the reason for all of the ills in the world.

You know what is amazing about the church.  It is a mix of people who meet together as broken, awful, sinful, wounded, and unloved people to hope for a life of fullness, grace, and love.  The Church has done awful things because it is made up of broken people.  We do awful things when we forget that we are in fact people who are capable of being wrong and horrible to each other.  Let's stop blaming the Church for our problems and start trying to authentically do our faith with other people who are hurting.  Then, we should call that the Church.

#10 Being God-forsaken brings meaning to the Resurrection.

Whenever I hear the song "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz, I want to, and often do, rant about how he says that it is our God-forsaken right to be loved, looooved, loved.  I didn't realize that God had in fact forsaken our right to be loved.  I think he probably meant God-given or something like that, and I can't believe none of the producers asked him about that line.  Whatever, we all have words we misuse, so I don't hate Jason Mraz or even think he's stupid, just made a very public mistake.

The song always makes me think about that idea of God-forsakenness (there is red squiggle under forsakenness, which I do not agree with at all).  Does God really forsake things?  I mean I've driven through Kansas on I-70 and it is boring and as much as I hate to say it there is still beauty and God in it.  If God hasn't forsaken Kansas, then God is not going to forsake anything.  See what I did there.

It's Holy Week so it seems the time to think about forsakenness some more.  I am reminded of Jesus' haunting cry from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!"  It is a moment that should bring a little confusion to anybody who believes in the Incarnation.  How is it possible for God to have forsaken Jesus, since Jesus is God?  It's the kind of question that makes my brain hurt.  How does God abandon Godself?

In reality, does God really abandon anyone?  Jesus on the cross is having a real feeling of being abandoned.  In his being, Jesus does not feel like God is moving or in this situation at all.  God feels exactly what the rest of us feel from time to time.  God feels like God is not present and does not care.  God feels forsaken.  We all have those moments of feeling like God has left the building and doesn't give a flip about the awful, excruciating, and all-consuming pain and grief that we are feeling.  Does that mean that it is okay to feel that way from time to time?  I mean Jesus did.  Obviously, most of the time we aren't dying a horribly painful death when we shout the open of Psalm 22.  Usually, it's because the peanut butter has run out, or something equally as horrible.

In that moment when Jesus felt forsaken and we feel forsaken, it might be good to realize that God is present.  God is present in the junk as well as the joy..  God is present in suffering.  God is present in Kansas. God is present in our abandonment.  God is present.  I believe that God is present all around us, and that Good Friday and Holy Saturday are the days when we are to feel with the disciples that feeling of abandonment or forsakenness.  We are to face our own fears, failures, suffering, and grief.  Then, see the Crucified God present in the suffering and participating in our suffering.  The power of the Resurrection and God's invitation to you in it will become significantly more meaningful if you force yourself to face your reality of pain and rejection and empty peanut butter jars.  Because we are never truly forsaken, but we have to face the pain we cause and feel before we can experience the joy of new life in Resurrection.

Did I just write a sermon?  What are your thoughts on forsakenness and Jesus' cry from cross?

Although I didn't cite anyone in this post, I do want you to know that I have been heavily influenced by Jurgen Moltmann and Peter Rollins on this idea.

#9 Protestant Christians suck at Rituals.

I've been thinking a lot about rituals.  You may not know this about me but I love the ritual of Holy Communion.  I think it is a moment when we intentionally enter into a reality that is always around us.  It is beautiful and mystical and most of all meaningful.  Rituals are ways that we are intentional with our rhythms to help participate more deeply with the world around us.  Here's what I figured out recently: Protestant Christians suck at ritualizing our faith.  In fact, I think we are scared to be too ritualistic because we fear we'll become Catholic (how about the new Pope, huh? Added hits with that comment).

I don't know if fear of becoming Catholic is really it because the Lutheran church kept most of the rituals and the Episcopal church has definitely keep up with rituals.  Do they have meaning?  I don't know I'm not really in these denominations.  And of course every local church has its own rituals.  For instance, I once heard a story of a monk who would bring his cat to lead morning prayers.  He would hook the leash on the lectern while he led the prayer time.  The same place still has a hook on a new lectern for the cat's leash because it became part of the tradition.  The monk had moved on to a different ministry setting, and on a visit asked why they had the hook on the lectern.  The answer was that they just always had, and it was part of how things worked there.  This act of bringing his cat to morning prayer created a culture that continued long after the man had left. (Side Note: I have no idea where I heard this story, if I retold it correctly, if this is remotely true, or why he kept his cat on a leash).

We have rituals that build just based on where we are that take on new meaning or are empty of meaning but we keep them out of comfort.  I think we have some work to do in the Protestant Traditions to bring our rituals home with us.  For instance, did you know that Jewish families celebrate most of their religious traditions in their homes more than at the synagogue.  The Sabbath has a set of rituals that happen in the home.  It's not just don't go to work instead go to church so that the pastor has to work on the holy day of rest but the rest of us don't kind of thing.  It is a ritual to remember our rhythms and set a pacing for our lives that centers around God.

I believe that we need a religious ritualization of the home.  I think we should set up a time to be in community as a family where we talk about how God works in this world.  It could be turning off the TV and  reading something together.  It could be talking to your teens about your faith and having them do the same (even God forbid your struggles with belief).  It could be flannel board hour at home with your two year old where you tell Bible stories.  It could be lighting a candle at sundown while saying a prayer together.  But we need a ritual at home to help make faith more than something that is done for an hour every Sunday and if your ambitious another hour on Wednesday.  Let's do church, religion, faith at home with the people see most.  Oh and atheist, you can even do this and talk about whatever your brand of atheism believes; science is the new Catholic, or humanism is the new Protestantism, or Nietzsche is the new Jesus, or whatever (I think I lost all the atheist with the first line, so if you made it this far, congrats, we must be friends).  Regardless of your belief, if you make a meaningful ritual out of it, then it becomes part of how you participate in a greater reality on an ongoing basis.

#8 Just because a lot of people are coming doesn't mean you're doing something right.

The very first time I met a certain pastor he said to me, "I think the Church Growth Model and the Prosperity Gospel are really the same thing."  At the time I totally shrugged it off, and yes I'm pretty sure he capitalized those terms when he talked. It left me wondering, "What the hell was that?"

Usually people don't start first time conversation by linking dangerous theological concepts with a certain model of the church.  It was really completely outside the social norms that should have dictated the conversation.  It went from, Hi, I'm Mark and I'm new youth pastor in town to his assertion.  Now that it has been nearly three years since that conversation I can honestly say that it was one of my more memorable "nice to meet you" conversations I have ever had.

I have thought about what he said, which by the way does have some merit.  There have been times that I have looked at an organization like a church and said they must be doing something right because they have a lot of people supporting it.  Is that true?  Is the number of people a direct correlation to the rightness of the program?

Let's follow that logic out a little shall we.  Let's say that an organization is gaining a lot of followers.  This organization has over the course of just a few years built up a following of several hundred thousand people. This is a pretty big organization.  Now, let's say that the reason this organization is growing is because it is placing irrational amount of blame on one ethnic group for the struggles that are going on in the world, and promises to make the world a better place through relocating this group and stripping them of power and wealth.  Is this organization doing the right thing?  Most would say no, yet they are getting a large following, therefore, just because a lot of people are supporting something doesn't make it right.

My assertion is that just because a lot of people coming doesn't mean you are doing something right.  It means you are doing something popular.  It means you are marketing well.  But it doesn't mean that theologically or ethically you are doing the right thing.  This is the basic link my awkward conversationalist was making.  Church Growth is about getting lots of people and it follows that if you are faithful to God then everyone will flock to your church, which is in fact prosperity gospel.  Maybe if we follow the line of the prophets, we are following God when the majority of the people in the world are ignoring you.

Therefore, it is not that you're doing something right if you have a lot of people attending, but it is not that you are doing something wrong either.  High church attendance means you have lots of people interested in what you are doing.  It could be right or it could be wrong.  Growth doesn't mean you're right theologically or ethically it just means there are a lot of people checking out what you're doing. Let's not read too much into numbers, please.

#7 I feel like I know Portland thanks to the show Portlandia.

We don't have a TV anymore, but we do have a lap top computer that Netflix streams TV shows and movies to.  It's pretty awesome.  But it means that I am always at least one season behind on every TV show, which I have to just live with.

Because of Netflix though I have been exposed to shows that I probably would have never watched without their recommendation.  Portlandia is one of those shows.  So I really like the first two seasons, and because of this show I'm pretty sure I can count Portland as a place that I have visited.  I've never physically been there, but I think the show has shown me exactly what it is about and, therefore Portland has been checked off of my bucket list.

I would like to conclude this post by saying that this has been, indeed, my most meaningless assertion.  I'm not sure I can top this, but stay tuned and I will try.

P.S. I also have checked Gotham City off of my list because of the new Batman movies.  There's nothing wrong with living life vicariously through my lap top computer, right?

#6 I like to read about the Bible more than I like to read the bible.

I have found as I try to prepare for lessons for my youth group that I don't really enjoy reading the Bible itself.  I can open the Bible up and decide that I'm going to read Romans or something, and I absolutely can read it.  The problem is I don't really care that much about it when I just start reading it to read it.  The text means very little and I get a little caught up in the rhetoric and lost in the words and miss most of the meaning.  Then I get a little bored.

Rather if you give me a book that is a commentary on Romans, I will eat that up.  I love reading about the historical social world of the original writers.  I love read about what we know of Paul and what letters are actually his and which might not be.  I love the read about the ideas people have about how Paul's mission actually may have happened.  Or how in the letters Paul seems to have done things differently than how Acts portrays them.  I like to know what words and sentences could be translated differently with the chance that they are actually a veiled slam on the Roman Empire.  I like reading about Jewish revolts and the destruction of the Temple and disputes on when these books may have been written and disputes on authorship of these books of the Bible.

The story underneath the surface of the Bible that scholars have dedicated their lives to discern is way more fascinating to me than the actual texts.  But once I learn more about the background of the text it changes the way I may understand parts of the Bible.  Meaning changes and it becomes more interesting.  Trying to figure out the motivation behind the letters Paul wrote changes the feel of the letter, which in turn makes me think about it differently.  Maybe he wasn't writing to us today, but we can still learn from it.

In closing, I don't really like to read the Bible, but I love to read things about the Bible.  Reading about the Bible is way more interesting to me.  And maybe in the long run it makes the Bible come to life a little more and speak to me differently.  Bible reading plans for me suck, but reading plans that include books about the Bible sounds way more interesting.

Is anyone else like me?  What's your favorite book about the Bible?  What's your favorite book of the Bible?  Why?

Does anyone really comment?

Assertion #5:New Year's Resolutions make me feel bad about myself.

It's the start of another year.  Somehow we made it through another one despite the threat of certain doom from various contemporary and ancient sources.  And although I'm thankful to be alive at the end of this tumultuous year, there is one thing I hate about the new year.  A new year always makes me feel bad about myself.

 A new year means a time of reflection and evaluation, then setting the dreaded New Year's Resolution.  I don't know how you are, but I am really hard on myself.  When asked, I struggle to come up with strengths but I'm ready to tell you all my weaknesses.  It is a problem I have always had, and as a kid it meant at certain things I tried harder.  Like basketball, I was a short kid who was told that I probably shouldn't go out for the team next year.  And with true Michael Jordan flair (sometimes I overstate things) I came back the next year as the starting point guard of an undefeated team.  Basketball became my obsession because I was told I was bad at it.  I knew my weaknesses on the court and always did my best to work on them.  That didn't really get me anywhere, but it is a way my personality flaw worked to my advantage.  (Some would say that was more of a pride/proving people wrong issue, but whatever)

So as I look at myself in the mirror and reflect on what could change in my life, I always dwell on the negative.  Then, my self-esteem goes down.  Because over time, my determination and resolve have gotten weaker while self nit-picking has gotten stronger.  I've nearly defeated myself.  Then, I just start to feel bad about myself, and this whole New Year's thing starts to smell like my childhood home on liver and onion day, absolutely gag-worthy! (Sorry, Mom.)

So this year, while I will be trying to work to improve on some things, I am going to start thinking more about my strengths.  I've beaten myself up for my weaknesses enough.  It is time to concentrate on what I do well, and reflect on those things, so that while I'll occasionally give in to dwelling on my weaknesses, I won't forget that I'm actually do some things quite well.  This is the year that I will focus on the positive in my life instead of worrying about the negative.

What are your resolutions or goals for this coming year?  Upon what are you going to improve this year?  Of what are going to rid?  (I'm working on the don't-end-sentences-with-a-preposition syndrome this year, but it makes questions seem awkward.)