If Barack Obama asked me to endorse him, I’d have to excommunicate him for his own good.

That’s my conclusion after the messy consequences of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s association with Obama, and of Pastor John Hagee’s proclaimed support for John McCain.  The gonzological utterances of these pastors have given all of us Christian clergy a bad rap, to say nothing of the harm they’ve done to the candidates they aimed to support.  The best thing that religious leaders can do for their favored candidates, and for our profession, is to avoid the entanglement that comes with endorsement.

That won’t stop me, nor should it stop spiritual communities, from taking action on issues that figure significantly in the upcoming presidential election.  Issues like the overwhelming need for comprehensive health care reform, so that Americans finally get universal, single-payer medical coverage that is enjoyed by citizens of most other industrialized nations.  Issues like America’s occupation of Iraq, which needs to end swiftly.  Issues like how to deal with Iran and Syria and Palestine/Israel - it is time for our nation to show its true strength by talking directly with their leaders, working hard to deal with the root causes of conflict wherever possible, instead of stonewalling and saber-rattling.  Issues like ending America’s disastrous “war on drugs” and adopting a more humane and pragmatic “harm-reduction” approach instead.   Issues like breaking up our prison-industrial complex, giving judges more flexibility in sentencing and giving inmates more opportunities for education and rehabilitation.  Issues like marriage equality:  giving support for the California court decision making gay and lesbian marriages possible.  (Anybody out there whose straight marriage is falling apart because gay marriage is now allowed?) 

Strongly as I feel about these issues, the Christ inspires me to a humility that avoids claiming that my opinion is God’s, a humility that admits that I don’t have the last word on how society best should be ordered.  The Christian faith calls us to care deeply about all the great issues of our day, and take action in response.  But it doesn’t unequivocally explain how these questions should be answered. 

So I’ll stick with Jesus’ gospel of kindness and love that impels me to care about matters political, and also reminds me to stay open to the perspectives of people who disagree with me.  I’ll avoid the pitfalls of mixing my pastoral role with partisanship: I’d never vote for a politician who would advertise my endorsement!

What makes the Bible such an interesting collection of writings is also what makes them so maddeningly frustrating at times.  The fact that the Bible holds together so many different documents and different theological perspectives is precisely what makes it so timeless.  At times, however, the more peculiar theological trajectories contained in these pages rears its head in some really quite disastrous ways.  Take this pastoral call I received for instance…

In my place of ministry, the pastoral staff alternates weekends of being the recipient of messages from our on-call answering service.  It’s our way of making sure that people can always get in touch with a pastor if need be.  Several weeks ago, I received a message from the service from a woman who I knew to be mentally ill in some way, but I really had no understanding of her condition as I dialed her number.  For the next thirty minutes I listened to her agonize over the guilt she felt for failing to remain in a constant state of prayer, for being constantly lured away from her spiritual duty by the everyday acts of eating or sleeping.  It broke my heart to hear her speak of the depths of her sinfulness and how tired she was of being tested by God.

As I listened, I began to wonder where she internalized these messages of what is good and what is bad and why the Lord is constantly testing her faithfulness.  Then it occurred to me that it would not be so very hard to internalize such expectations and theological convictions from simple reading of the Bible or an attentive ear to a sermon.  1 Thessalonians exhorts us to “pray without ceasing,” which given free reign in a legalistic faith would easily translate to a guilt over not praying without ceasing.  Then there is Job, of course, where a totally faithful servant of the Lord is put through countless tests, all with God’s permission, to see if he will in time come to despise the Lord.  Again, at a naïve read, it would be all too easy to hear in this story that God tests us without ceasing to ensure that we are in fact faithful. 

I know that these texts are complex and that, with proper exegesis, we can deduce valuable insights from the wisdom contained therein.  I do not want to say that we should avoid these texts or any difficult texts for that matter.  But there is also another level at which these texts are heard, and sometimes that is the straightforward sense of the text.  It grieved me to see an already troubled woman further damaged by her association with the Christian faith, a faith that I would hope could offer comfort and peace to her already fragile mind. 

I feel as if there is some lesson to be learned here for homiletics.  When dealing with a particularly multivalent text, especially one where the logical conclusion of the text leads us down a dangerous theological and psychological path, we owe it to our communities to say up front, in plain speech, what the text is and is not about.  If there is a harmful conclusion to be drawn from that reading, let’s refute it right up front and not defer that task to the delicate matters of rhetoric and homiletic style.  After all, we really must come to grips with the fact that, for many listeners in a worship pew, the first five minutes is all they’re going to give us.

Nothing is more effective at turning a person into a theologian than witnessing somebody else’s personal crisis.

Recently, I lost my job, or my job lost me.  I’m still not sure which description is more accurate.  In any case, it’s my first experience with unemployment.   I’m blessed with very supportive family and friends (including so many of you, dear readers of my “musings”).  But it’s still been a trying time.

People want to say and do the right things.  Their attempts at compassion are sincere.  While I am learning to receive gratefully their underlying intentions, some of their expressions make me wince.  And make me muse about what helps, and what doesn’t work so well, in offering sympathy to people in crisis. 

So in addition to the wonderful kindness that is being showered on my wife and myself, I am getting an off-the-job training course in compassion.

Consider these words which have been said to me, in one form or another, quite a few times in recent weeks:  “When God closes one door, He always opens another.”  When I first heard this one from one of my parishioners, right after my employment imploded, I was taken aback.  What about the people in Baghdad?  I thought.  When their doors are kicked in by men with machine guns, does God magically open another door for them to exit gracefully?  All too often, the answer is no.  Lots of people lose their jobs and go bankrupt.  Do we worship a God who washes away the front door of your nice house in New Orleans with a devastating flood, and then opens a trailer door for you in a bleak vacant lot, months later?  Are we expecting divine intervention to solve our personal or social problems, or are we taking action to make sure that when a door is closed, another one will open to something good?

And yet, the people who said it meant only the best for me.  Kind and caring souls who really did want another door to swing wide for me, with an even better job on the other side.  And of course that is what I want, as well.  So I took deep breaths and politely thanked them for their concern.

I don’t believe in a supernatural door-opening-and-closing God.  I believe in the God who is the door that opens to love.  We practice that divine love when we open our hearts to the pain of others, and listen, ask questions, and stay present for them.

Another line I heard repeatedly was this one:  “When it’s all over, you’ll be grateful for this.  You’ll wind up with a much better job than this one, and you’ll be glad this happened.” After enduring this assertion several times as my job was collapsing, I realized it had become a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The idea of stocking shelves at Home Depot began to look like a blessing by comparison.  Those well-wishers had no more clue than I do about what my next job will be like. They forgot, if they knew in the first place, that mostly I really liked the job I lost.  It did not serve me to hear their assurance of something that’s impossible for them to predict.

But again, they meant well.  They were just revealing their discomfort with the stark reality that things can, and often do, get worse instead of better.  It was a spiritual discipline for me to be gracious in accepting their caring thoughts and their unconscious self-revelations.
 
Not even God can predict what will become of my career after this current debacle.  I am hopeful and in good spirits.  I am grateful for my severance package.  I get a lot of encouragement and I have some really good job leads.  I am in much better circumstances than so many other unemployed people.  But nobody can be sure how this current crisis will play out.  For me, it seems more God-like to accept my ignorance of the future, and just be present in the moment.

I am thankful for those who simply recognize my pain, inquire about my feelings, and offer their presence.  They are my guides in how to offer this kind of compassion to others.  I hope to pay their God-like goodness forward to the next person I encounter who goes through the loss of a job!

Just last week, I returned from a 3 week trip to Nepal. Yes, that Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world, sandwiched between India and China, split from its spiritual cousin, Tibet, by the towering majesty of Mount Everest and the rest of the Himalayan range. If you have perused the “World” section in the New York Times last week, you will have seen that Nepal is convulsing with political unrest as violent protests erupted in the capital, Kathmandu.

The trip was very difficult in many ways, but it was also one of the most inspirational of my life. I went to teach in a Christian church and school for ministry (Bishram Ministries) that was founded only 7 years ago. I’ll have more to say about that in a later blog, but as I reflected on my experiences with that wonderful and amazing community, I realized that I was returning a very different person. For you see, the ministry I visited in Nepal was the closest I’ve ever come to experiencing the church as described in Acts 1-4. Now, I realize that there are problems and conflicts in every community, even in the early church (remember that Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead in Acts 5; so much for spiritual harmony in the church!), but the Bishram community is the most vivid example I’ve encountered of a people in communion, giving their all, and transforming their world.

My experience in Nepal brought to mind other experiences I’ve had of church,
    of church as a verb,
           of being church,
                 of church as a sacrificial and shared life in Christ.

So in this and the next 2 blogs, I’ll talk about 3 experiences of being church in ways that are somewhat different from traditional, congregational life. Perhaps these reflections will help you recall your own experiences of spiritual vitality and challenge that you might not have associated with being church. And then perhaps, just perhaps, we can bring those experiences into our congregations, and shake up the usual suspects and usual practices and allow God to do a new thing among us.

1. Being Church as Doubting Believers

For just over a year I have been acting as the leader of a small covenant discipleship group. But it is a rather odd assortment of folks; they are not the usual suspects. When I think of the kinds of people who would gravitate toward one of these intimate settings of spiritual formation, I imagine that they are ardent believers who are looking for just a little deeper walk with God.

But in this group, it is safe to say only one person in our group might qualify, just barely, for the “ardent believer” type. The rest of them are struggling more with doubt than resting firmly in faith. These are people who are active in an urban congregation but who don’t feel all that spiritual. They want to believe, but the theology of their church doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to them. They believe in God but their concept of God is vague and it is difficult for them to talk about. They don’t know what to do with Jesus, especially the claim about his divinity. Forget the Holy Spirit; it’s just too spooky. When it comes time to pray, they don’t know how or even why to do it. Reciting the Apostle’s Creed makes them feel like they are lying or just going through the motions. For the most part, these folks are drawn to the moral and political mission of this congregation.  The greatest common denominator among this group is their passionate commitment to social justice, their love for one another, and the fact that they are all leaders in the congregation.

You might wonder: what in the world is this group of agnostics doing in the church, and how did they get to be LEADERS in the church? I don’t know. But the surprising thing to me is that when I get together with them for conversation, meditation, and study, I feel like I’m in church; that we are doing church. I feel that our gathering is more like church than anything else I do during the week – and I’m a seminary professor, ordained, and a regular participant in a congregation!

Before I came to Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, I taught for 6 years at Yale Divinity School, where the student body was quite a bit more diverse. Because the Divinity School was part of the University, we had a good number of students who were agnostic and even atheist. They were usually the most interesting, engaged, and thoughtful students in the classroom. And I enjoyed them immensely. They asked the difficult questions and were not content with easy answers. They didn’t buy into the standard party line of churchy propaganda. For many of our more dogmatic students, they were trouble-makers and nay-sayers. In many respects, though, they were secular prophets in that supposedly “sacred” space. They were refreshing breeze that cleared away much of the traditioned fog that we churchy people feel so comfortable in.

When our Kansas City group of doubters and questioners gather, it is refreshing. There is less tolerance for fuzzy doctrine and irrelevant tradition. There is greater honesty and truth proclaimed, there is a greater sharing of life, and there is greater potential for transformation than just about anywhere I go throughout the week. They ask tough questions; they are not satisfied with routine answers. They are spiritually attuned without being able to readily describe it. They know God, but they don’t know what to call the mysterium tremendum. They serve God but in ways that traditional mainline Protestantism hardly recognizes as spiritual. And their lives reflect a strong commitment to shalom, to a peaceful wellbeing for all. When we pray together – despite its awkwardness – the Spirit visits.

I love – even crave – the time we share in covenant.

Like all communities, this group is not perfect; it is not ideal. Some are more committed than others; some are struggling to carve out enough time. For some, the spiritual practices of our covenant are not as meaningful as they would like. A few of our members are wondering if they should give up on “church” altogether because it is largely irrelevant and so much of what happens on Sunday and in “church” seems anachronistic.

But still, this little band of doubting believers meet week after week, sharing our lives with one another, exploring the faith, holding each other up before God, struggling with making sense of life and of our life in God, and striving to live more fully in the sacred dimension of this incredibly secular world.

Next blog: Being church in the wilderness.

Forgive me for dipping again into the waters of the Chronicle of Higher Education (see “Jesus’ Extreme Makeover:  Breaking the Aggression Cycle,” posted on this blog on Oct. 17, 2007) for my subject.  It is, frankly, a pleasure to observe that that weekly journal, often seemingly oblivious to church and church-related institutions, is itself revisiting church practice and teachings.  It is also interesting, and perhaps not surprising, to find in the pages of the Chronicle both colorful and challenging, as well as thin and painfully stereotypical, notions of church life.
     In a recent column, “The Limits of Community” (Chronicle of Higher Education, Dec. 7, 2007 section C p. 3), the author, who writes under the pseudonym “George Theodore”—I wonder whether that choice of name has anything to do with a certain George Theodore who was a likeable, slightly gawky, almost good-enough-for-prime-time outfielder for the hapless New York Mets teams of the mid 1970’s—argues that the “pragmatic demands of academic life mean that church-related colleges can’t always demonstrate compassionate Christianity.”  Having myself grown-up within, attended, and served such church-related institutions, I can certainly confirm, and have indeed experienced (!), much that is cited in the article.  I do, however, have two important concerns about the author’s stated assumptions about church vis-à-vis academy, which go to the often harmful (mis)perceptions of both. 
     First, the article includes several positive ways “in which community was fostered” at the author’s institution.  Unfortunately that fostering did not extend to clear guidelines and frank discussion regarding review process and expectations.  Had such been in place, including a serious annual review process, the individual whose plight is recounted in the article would have had the opportunity to gauge and improve performance and those colleagues variously supporting or inclined toward not supporting the candidate (perhaps for pernicious reasons, perhaps out of genuine concern and respect for the overall mission of institution) would have had the opportunity to voice their concerns.
     Second, and perhaps even more importantly, I am concerned by the author’s presumption that “church-related colleges are not the same as churches” because churches are defined by “the purest forms of community” while academic institutions must face such “pragmatic demands” as “the need to offer quality….”  Talk about damning with faint praise!  Churches are great communities, they’re just not built for, or particularly capable of, quality.
     The author sets up a false and harmful dichotomy.  Why?  Precisely because “pragmatic demands” are the stuff of community!  Successful churches, like successful institutions of most any kind, have in place the very kind of processes to support and promote effective leadership as are discussed above.  Without such, community can and will indeed break down—as it did at the institution described in the article.  “Compassionate Christianity” exercised in the name of community and leadership cannot and does not avoid clear expectations, goals, and frank discussion; it promotes them.  You don’t believe me?  Go read a parable. Or, visit a successful, quality church (of which there are many!).
     With prayers for strength, courage, quality and pragmatically demanding community life in and among our churches and church-related institutions…

In my previous entry I shared some reflections on a friend and colleague who died over the summer—Brevard Childs.  In this entry I want to reflect on the life and contributions of Letty Russell, another friend and colleague who also died a few months ago.

 The obituaries on Letty all noted that she was a feminist theologian, which is an honorable thing to be.  I think if I were writing the obituaries I would have said simply that she was a very good theologian.  She was a feminist, indeed, and a passionate one.  She was also a life long member of Reformed (Presbyterian and UCC) churches, and that perspective was also evident in her living and writing.  And she was deeply, persistently, naggingly committed to a more just and open church in a more just and open world.

 She was probably not the first theologian to find in the Hebrew term shalom the heart of what she thought of as God’s vision for the world.  But she centered on shalom more wholeheartedly than any other Christian I know.  She wrote on shalom, taught shalom and served as host at shalom meals.

 For her shalom meant not only “peace” but “wholeness” “justice” “equity.”

 Her vision of the church was of a community gathered around a round table, where everyone could see everyone else and where no one sat at the head of the table or at the foot.  I will however add that I noted that whenever the rest of us sat at a dinner table or a committee table or a classroom table with Letty, the table may have been round but we always knew who was really in charge.

 In addition to her strong stress on shalom she brought two major gifts to doing theology from a feminist perspective.

 For one thing she really was concerned for justice for people of all sorts and conditions.  Racial inequality and economic inequality annoyed her just as much as gender inequality.

 For another thing, annoyed as she could be at Christian tradition and critical as she could be of our canon, she was first and foremost a lover and interpreter of Scripture.

 Tuesday, at the memorial service in Letty’s honor, Professor Yolanda Smith danced a beautiful tribute to her life and ministry.  As she entered the sanctuary to dance her memorial to Letty, Yolanda held the Bible high.

 Letty was a remarkable woman.  Requiescat in shalom.

In my new position as a presbytery executive, I drive – a lot! Ninety-two churches, spread out over seven counties – from New York City almost up to Albany and from Connecticut to New Jersey on both sides of the Hudson River. Luckily, most of the scenery is gorgeous, and the roads are good. But, I still spend too many hours in the car. So, I have discovered Books on Disc – and am rapidly going through the entire stash of choices at the local library. My most recent auditory adventure was The World is Flat – by Thomas Freidman. I now know more about technology and globalization than I will ever remember. But there are some high points that directly connect with the contemporary world of the church.

Freidman’s whole emphasis is on the flattening of the world –  brought about by the internet and wireless technology and the equal access that everyone has – regardless of country, religion, age, or education.  Hierarchical or sectarian control of any kind is simply impossible in a world where the poorest little girl in the farthest village can log on pretty easily to all the information and ideas and opportunities that anyone needs to move ahead. Granted, developing countries are at a disadvantage economically in gaining access to this technology – but even that is changing at an electric speed. With the flattening of the world and the opening up of information possibilities, the way things get done are through imagination, personal initiative, collaboration, and interdependent creativity – a pretty good description of the church according to the Apostle Paul – and to Jesus. “You are the Body of Christ and individually members of him – and when one part weeps, we all weep, and when one part rejoices, we all rejoice.” And it is only when the body is coordinated and integrated that the Good News of abundant life for all can be realized.

The one idea that has stayed with me the most is Friedman’s new formula for “intelligence.” His thinking is somewhat akin to Goldman’s idea about “emotional intelligence” – that effective leadership and mature living does not come from brainpower alone – but through the integration of heart and mind – building strong and healthy emotional systems and relationships with others. Freidman says that among the young entrepreneurs and technological innovators who are shaping the future of the world, the Intelligent Quotient (IQ) has now been surpassed by the Curiosity Quotient (CQ) and the Passion Quotient PQ). CQ plus PQ is what is encouraging creativity and new life to emerge in such a rapidly changing world.   Which I think is a clue that the emerging church needs to embrace.

The Curiosity Quotient is a way to keep the Gospel alive – constantly re-examining the parables and teachings of scripture – by asking questions and probing new insights as to how the written word becomes the Living Word in the immediacy of NOW. Rather than dogmatic answers or doctrinal warfare, lively conversation and dialogue seems to be the way to keep the church alive - where disagreement is embraced and New Truth emerges from the blending of old truths.  And the Passion Quotient is a wonderful way of describing the Holy Spirit – constantly stirring things up and energizing us to care body and soul - embodying the Grace and  Truth of the Living Christ in contemporary people and places.

In his comprehensive study of the missing young adults in our pews, Rodger Nishioka  (Christian Education professor at Columbia Seminary) has discovered that Passion is the key to the engagement and enthusiasm of young adults in our churches. If a congregation is not EXCITED about SOMETHING, why should anybody stick around? If we are not emotionally engaged in the life and promise of Jesus, why should any of us bother to be disciples. If energy and laughter and compassion and commitment are not bubbling up out of our communities of faith, what difference are they making? After all the Passion Story of Jesus is what sets Christianity apart – the love, the blood, the suffering, the energy, the intimacy, the vitality, the new life, the heart/head/mind/body commitment  – all poured into transforming the world. Living Resurrection in the midst of brokenness and crucifixion and need and yearning - it is this Passion Quotient that continues the work of creation – adding texture to the flattened terrain of a connected, collaborative, still emerging world.

May it be so.

Raise your hand if you think the Church is obsessed with sex, and especially homosexuality. If you read the news reports with any regularity you might think there is absolutely nothing else worth discussing in the minds of church folks. Okay. I admit that’s a bit over the top; but not by far. Every other day there is a news report about some church fight over what to do with gay and lesbians Christians who might actually desire to serve the people of God in leadership. Last week it was the struggles of the Episcopal Church to carefully avoid a schism that would further the current bizarre situation of having a Nigerian bishop providing pastoral guidance for a congregation in the marshlands of South Carolina.
 
During the same week the Presbyterians were scrupulously interrogating candidates for ordinations to ensure compliance with ordination standards barring homosexual candidates. We are not alone – all the churches seem obsessed with the same subject – and last week the international community got involved when one of the world’s more despicable leaders spoke at Columbia. Of all the outrageous things he said, the one that seemed to create the most buzz had to do with … guess what … homosexuality, or the absence thereof.
 
What is the deal? Okay, I admit, it was a laughable moment but I wish the buzz were about some of his other not-so laughable moments that seriously threaten the planet, not to mention Israel and Jews everywhere.
 
While I respect the desire for high moral standards among clergy and hear the vigorous disagreement over what that means with regard to sexual orientation, I am certain there are more pressing matters that the people of God might attend to if we weren’t otherwise distracted by such scrupulously narrow attention to gay and lesbian Christians. Perhaps it is our unfailing ability to be distracted that allows us to avoid the disturbing realities of the world’s poor that are at our doorstep. Endless discussions over who to bar from serving the Church, quibbling over obscure biblical passages, demanding a righteousness among some that no one, other than Jesus could match, distracts serious attention to the fact that 6 million people are dying each year from preventable diseases malaria, tuberculosis and HIV. 
 
I think we should focus our attention on that fact alone just long enough for it to make us seriously uncomfortable. Do not reach for the remote control, don’t fast forward to the celebrity news or switch to the game. Let us simply sit with the fact that according to the best estimates of medical experts 6 million people, many of them children, will die from lack of vaccines for malaria, tuberculosis and HIV. Why? Because good vaccines to treat these diseases don’t even exist.
 
Do you think just maybe God would even be pleased  if we paid more attention to that problem than figuring out how many ways we can distract ourselves over sex?

We believe that everyone—political figure or commentator, citizen or alien, man or woman, black or white, conservative or radical—who at this particular time says that this people and this nation are in deep, perhaps irremediable political trouble, speaks the truth.
~ ~ Will D. Campbell and James Y. Holloway.

Some words come back with haunting relevance.  Back in the 1960s, these two southern churchmen, Will Campbell and James Y. Holloway, co-edited  the journal of the Committee of Southern Churchmen, called Katallegete Be Reconciled.  A collection of their essays from that journal was published in 1970 under the title, Up To Our Steeples in Politics (Paulist Press).  The words above led the essay from which the title of the book was drawn.  Wipf and Stock Publishers has recently re-released this book.  It’s eerily timely, but not for reasons a quick reading of this lead might have you believe.  For these writers go on to unsettle an easy take on their political assessment.

Stated simply, we believe that the fundamental crises in our land rise from the obsession with politics, the faith that the political order is the only source and authority from which we can and ought to seek relief from what ails us as a community and as individuals.  Because there is in our land no real challenge to these obsessions, we believe that our crises will deepen, perhaps even beyond a point of no return . . . (111)

In 1970, they were calling into question the “political messianism” of Christian liberals.  Nearly forty years later, it would seem that the Christian Right took the bait and have been for two decades the more successful purveyors of this apostasy—the belief that we are called to create via political action what the New Testament claims God has already accomplished for us in Christ:  reconciliation.  Liberals haven’t left it far behind, however, we’ve just been outflanked.  So Campbell’s and Holloway’s message goes both ways, trying to identify a error we share when we trust Ceasar over Christ, and confuse politics—a means for an end, which is justice—with the end itself.  Despite flowery theological or biblical rhetoric accompanying the political action of the church, to the extent that the church, conservative or liberal, trusts Ceasar to do its bidding it falls inside Caesar’s yoke.  “Surely our calling as Christians is not summed up by a vapid, pathetic and generally ineffective effort to inject morality and high-mindedness into political activity” (117).  Ouch.

And they go on:  “Is obedience to Christ exhausted by immersing oneself in Caesar’s definition of politics?  Is witness to Christ’s victory uniting all men [sic] best made by service to what Caesar judges as the urgent issues of our times?  Might it not be that Caesar himself is confused, or is lying?  There is evidence in the history of Western civilization to support both affirmations” (118).  1970 or today?

What if we worked as hard to change the subject as we work to sway opinion within the subjects we are handed by powers that use us more than hear us?  Now I realize that in asking that question I’m stretching credulity, for one of our most difficult challenges in the American church is deciding who, at the beginning and end of all of this, is us?  Are we Americans, Christians, Christian Americans, or American Christians?  Must we begin to think again about the difference, all the while admitting the confusion?  I believe so.  And Campbell and Holloway have a word worth remembering.

These two write in a great and too often ignored tradition of Christian anarchy, refusing to acknowledge any monopoly of means (economics, politics, schooling, development, relentless pursuit of happiness) over holy ends (commonwealth, peace, knowledge, justice, joy).  They would remind us that trusting techniques of human invention as primary vehicles for the divine will amounts to idolatry, and should be treated as such.

Are Campbell and Holloway calling for retreat?  Are we to hold ourselves up in Christian enclaves, depending on what the world can give us but not making any contribution toward the common good of those who don’t live with us in our enclave?  Not at all.  We are to engage, to wish peace upon the city and to work for it as best we can.  But we are not to trust it too much, or like it too much, or confine our desires to its standards too much, lest we begin to confuse it with our home. 

Campbell and Holloway are working within the kind of distinction Stanley Hauerwas so aptly described a few years later, the distinction between the church as a peculiar politics that gives witness by whatever means necessary to the justice that God has already accomplished in Christ (beyond and more powerful than economics and politics, and nonviolent all the down to its core in Christ), and a political church that seeks to produce something like justice within a polity gone wildly off kilter and irretrievably distant to the ways of God (bound to economics and politics as the primary tools of human freedom).  We are called to give witness to what we begin to see, that God has reconciled the world in Christ—that reconciled, we need no longer kill each other because we are afraid, or angry, or belittling, or prejudice.  We can live reconciled, even before our politics catch up, even before we agree, even before we approve of each other.  And by so doing, we will humble the political for the sake of new politics (God’s politics).

Within echoes of the New Testament, the church need not be chaplain to a reigning order—be it military/industrial, commercial, religious, political or economic; be it conservative, liberal, radical or moderate.  It may live within the reigning order wisely, using its goods for holy purpose, but it need not accept the empire’s logic.  It may sow seeds of a more fundamental dissent.  And it may both experience and put on display an alternative order, with changed subjects and holier objects. 

Have any churches tried?  Yes, indeed, in their own broken ways.  And those broken ways sow seeds of this Christian anarchy—humbling wealth, power, race, gender, ideologies, and other distinctions we hold so dear.  Imagining a new reality, already here.

    In a time in which the logic of the market carries over into religion as well as economics, religious leaders often feel pressure to tailor theology to meet the demands of the consumer-driven, spiritual marketplace. As a result, theological “hard truths” are often soft peddled, lest they adversely impact things like congregational harmony and church growth.

     A similar dynamic can be observed in the work of theologians and religious leaders committed to Christian ecumenism and interreligious dialogue. While the furthering of both these things is unquestionably important, there is, in each case, a temptation to play down the real differences that distinguish Christian denominations and religious traditions from one another in the interest of fostering unity among them.

      Pope Benedict XIV is one religious leader who refuses to succumb to such temptations. He frequently warns of a “dictatorship of relativism” infecting the church and has consistently used his papal platform to speak out against philosophical, theological, and cultural trends that promote tolerance and acceptance at the expense of the doctrinal integrity of the Roman Catholic tradition. “An ‘adult’ faith,” Benedict stated, “is not a faith that follows the trends of fashion and the latest novelty; a mature adult faith is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ. It is this friendship that opens us up to all that is good and gives us a criterion by which to distinguish the true from the false, and deceit from truth.”

     The conviction that in Christ Christians encounter not just one truth among many, but the Truth with a capital T — and that this encounter is most authentic when conducted within the confines of the Roman Catholic church — together constitute the animating core of Benedict’s theological perspective. Critics have contended, however, that unlike his predecessor, John Paul II, Benedict lacks a diplomat’s ability to present this perspective in ways that enable productive exchanges with non-Roman Catholics — one of the achievements of the Second Vatican Council, for instance. Exhibit A for Benedict’s detractors in this regard was the controversial address he gave before an audience at the University of Regensburg in Germany on September 12, 2006, in which his quoting of a 14th century Byzantine emperor’s negative remarks about Islam drew worldwide, and even violent, protests from Muslims.

     Exhibit B may now be the document issued by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) on July 10, entitled Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church. This document has generated controversy among both a number of Protestant and Eastern Orthodox church leaders and liberal and ecumenically minded Roman Catholics for its bold assertion of the Roman Catholic church’s superior capacity to facilitate the human encounter with God through the person of Jesus Christ.

     Eastern Orthodox and Protestant Christianity, the document states, suffer from “defects” due to the fact that they are not in full communion with Rome. And while the document does extend the title of “Church” to Eastern Orthodox communities of faith, the same courtesy is not extended to the churches of the Reformation which, having supposedly broken the line of apostolic succession in the 16th century, are referred to as “ecclesial communities.”

     The decision to use the term “ecclesial communities” rather than “churches” when discussing Protestantism is theologically significant. “Church” in the New Testament connotes that community against which Jesus, in Matthew 16:18, says not even “the gates of Hades will prevail.” It also stands for that special collection of persons whom Christ nourishes and tenderly cares for as members of his own body (Ephesians 5:29-30). To be denied the title “Church,” then, is no small matter: If Benedict and the authors of Responses are correct in their determination that what Protestants belong to is not properly called “Church,” then Protestants should be concerned –– very concerned –– about where it is that they stand vis-à-vis Christ.

     As one who has experienced Christ’s justifying grace and the fullness of inclusion into the Church by way of Protestant churches, I know, however, that Responses is wrong to deny that Protestants participate in anything less than the “Church” when they gather to give thanks for what God has done in and for the world through the person of Jesus Christ.

     A service Responses does provide to Protestant Christians and, more importantly, to the Church universal is its ability to clarify the terms of an important dispute regarding the nature of the relationship between the Church and the dynamic presence of God in the world that is the Holy Spirit.

     That debate, simply stated, amounts to this: Is it the case that the Holy Spirit conforms itself to that space provided for it by the earthly, visible Church, or is it rather this Church that must permit its scope and location to be determined for it by the agency of the Spirit? When reading Responses one gets the sense that it is the former. When reading the central documents of the 16th century Reformation, however, as well as those of the Second Vatican Council, the latter, in contrast, is assumed.

     I have a hunch that the most significant, yet unacknowledged, division within Christianity may not be between Roman Catholics and Protestants, fundamentalists and modernists, or even pro-gay and anti-gay Christians. Instead, I suspect it may be between those who believe that the Holy Spirit must set up shop where the Church allows it to and those who believe the Church must follow the Spirit’s lead when determining where its boundaries begin and end.

     Should we seek to discover the theological roots that lead to many of the internal conflicts facing the Church at present — including everything from Christianity’s relationship to the other world religions and the extent to which gay and lesbian Christians should enjoy full inclusion into the Church — one will most likely find that they can be traced back to the Church’s failure to come to a consensus on the nature of its relationship to the Holy Spirit.

     And until this fundamental issue is addressed, Christians will continue to spend lots of time and energy dealing with symptoms rather than root causes.

It was a cube consisting of many separate pieces of charred wood, each piece dangling from a thin black wire, hanging from the ceiling of the De Young Museum in San Francisco.  This artwork by Cornelia Parker was entitled “Anti-Mass”.  It was a compelling sight.  It reminded me of the way blackened embers are suspended in air above a fire, as if momentarily weightless.  The installation was thing of simple beauty, taking the mind to a place beyond words. 
 
Then I read the card next to the installation and found that I was looking at the creatively re-arranged remains of a black Baptist church in Alabama which had been destroyed in a racist arson attack.  “Anti-Mass” was at least a double-play on words – referring to the airborne wood, and the violent act against the worship of the congregation that once met inside it.
 
As soon as I knew the story behind the wood, I sensed that I was in the presence of the sacred.  In a way, this work of art was the resurrection of that burned church.  The artist had taken that terrible act of racist arson and turned it inside out and upside down.  Just as the early Christians turned the crucifixion inside out and upside down, transforming the cross from a terrifying symbol of Roman state power into a hopeful sign of salvation.
 
When I got home from the museum, I reflected on the striking difference in my experience of the artwork between my first glance at it and my later discovery of the wood’s source.  It revealed how influenced I am by the emotional and spiritual associations that I make, or that others make for me.  It revealed that I, and the rest of us, seem to be primed for experiences of the sacred.  There is a God-shaped cube inside of me, ready to be filled by encounters with divinity.
 
It also revealed the resurrecting, redeeming power given to each of us by God.  We have within each of us a remarkable measure of divine energy which we can use to turn hopelessness into hope, violence into compassion, despair into positive vision, destruction into creativity.  If a church building, burned down in an act of hatred, can be brought back to life in such a remarkable manner, what isn’t possible for us, both as individuals and as a collective? 
 
What creative, redemptive leap can our nation take to help the people of Iraq turn seared flesh, twisted metal, and dusty rubble into elements of peace and prosperity?  How can we take the emotional charge from the injuries and insults we each suffer, and direct that energy toward healing and wholeness?  What can we do to transform the church from being a reliquary for old dogma into becoming a living spiritual community for the present? 
 
If an artist can bring about a resurrection with nothing more than wire and bits of burnt wood, think of what you and I can bring to life!  Each counter-intuitive action we take to change ourselves and the world for the better is a form of artwork, as worthy of “ooohs” and “aaahs” as anything hanging in a museum…

They were traveling up the center aisle to see the body. Moving with faithful footsteps toward the one they dearly loved. Tears filled their eyes and they held tight to daughters and sisters as they came forward to view the deceased, hands folded calmly, suit freshly pressed.

I had lost the battle, you see. My pastoral sensitivity overran my pastoral authority. I am fairly new to the world of ordained parish ministry with a special focus in pastoral care. My newness does not mean that I am new at presiding in worship at funerals. With our congregations aging and with more and more “unchurched” people turning toward the church at the time of death—not knowing where else to go—pastors have a great gift and opportunity to travel alongside families who are grieving, families who are trying to figure out what to do with their dead. Pastors receive this gift frequently. My newness, in this case, meant that I presided over an open casket funeral. Not my practice, not my theology: but there the congregation was traveling up during a hymn to pay their last respects.

We believe that the funeral service is a “Witness to the Resurrection.” The funeral is the place where we affirm that in life and in death we belong to God. It is the place where we say aloud that death has no power to pull us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. It is the place where we give thanks to God for the gift of life experienced in the one we loved and where we place that one into God’s everlasting arms. All that is to say that the funeral is about God.

But then there is that person—that body: surrounded by memories and stories and jokes. There is that person—that body: surrounded by brothers and daughters, by colleagues and choir buddies—all with tales and lessons and laughter that they are bursting at the seams to share.

In my struggle, I turned to an amazing article, “O Sing to Me of Heaven: Preaching at Funerals,” by Tom Long (Journal for Preachers, Easter 2006). Long claims, “We have a tug of war between the quiet, but somewhat abstract, ideal of a worship service reflecting on the joy of the resurrection and the Oprah-esque carnival of anecdotes and memories.” I felt comforted that I was not alone in this tug of war. Long recounts what the funeral was for our Christian forebears: Christians washed, anointed and dressed in baptismal garments the bodies of the deceased. Then they would carry them to the grave, singing as they traveled. The dead were seen as saints traveling on to God. The focus was on the journey and ultimately the destination.

Traveling to God—not to a lifeless body—that is what we are doing at funerals. All of life is a pilgrimage toward God. The dead have finished the journey; they are home.

The next time I watch people travel up the center aisle at a funeral—the next time I receive that gift, I will try to speak a word about the One to whom we all are traveling, a word about the heaven to which we are going, and yes, a word about the person who is home and what there journey there was like.
 

Ah, summer.  Warm—or, hot (!)—weather, a break in the normal routines, time to recharge and recreate.  Among the activities I am involved in this summer are several conferences, at which I am taking various leadership and participatory roles, and a family vacation which will involve some amount of hiking.  

A story familiar to many, and one that was read and preached on in many churches this past Sunday, is that of Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42).  If you’re like me, you feel a bit sorry for Martha for getting the short end of the stick; kind of like the older brother in the Prodigal Son story, which, like the Mary and Martha, is also found only in Luke’s Gospel.  What’s going on in this story, and what’s it got to do with conferences, hiking, and us?

One thing I often hear at, and about, conferences is this:  “what are the takeaways?”  That is, what will I learn, experience, or encounter at the conference that I can take away with me and apply in my context or setting?  A fair question.  In the experiential-model conference which is/was the encounter with Jesus in the Mary and Martha story, who get’s the most out of the conference?  The last line of the story tells us:  “Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42).  Mary gets the takeaways (and presumably she applies them well).

Martha seems, to me, to do a lot of things right.  She welcomes or “receives” Jesus, to begin the story.  As the story unfolds, she seems to be caring about, and for, others.  What’s the problem?  The answer is, on the face of it, simple: “But Martha was distracted by her many tasks” (Luke 10:40). Fair enough.  But still, won’t a minor adjustment do (to get back on track)?  And shouldn’t she get some points for caring?

The terms used for “distracted” and “tasks” are loaded, and very telling.  The latter, “tasks,” is, in the Greek, diakonia, from which we get the good, churchy words “deacon” and “diaconate.”  It is a technical word for the good and basic and essential service work of the church.  God forbid that we, the church, should forget or shun such tasks!  Score one for Martha (and for us, who would follow Martha).

The first term, “distracted,” is used in military and other contexts to indicate diversion, distraction, being drawn away, and—my favorite—“to be pulled away from a reference point” (Danker, Bauer, et. al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament… ).   As those with hiking experience know, losing or being drawn or pulled away from your reference point, whether it be the sun, a river, or formal or informal trail markings, can be a dangerous and even perilous experience, and can put the whole expedition at risk.  That is even more so the case when one thinks, and intends, that one is following the right markings (in the right way).

The psychology behind how, or why, we in the church so often follow seemingly commendable (at least to ourselves) “tasks” while losing sight of the needs and mission to which God is calling us is real and deep and can be engaged on several levels.  The first, last, and best level on which to engage is that indicated by Mary.  She draws us back to the reference point, the “one thing” (Lk 10:42) without which there is no mission and no calling, that is “the word” of the Lord (Lk 10:39).  

I teach at a seminary where we try very hard to be sensitive to the diversity of the whole body of Christ.  While most of the community is of Euro-American descent and the overwhelming majority of the student body consist of anglo Presbyterians, we are delighted that the faculty is becoming more and more diverse ethnically and denominationally and we have hopes that the student body will slowly but surely follow.

Nonetheless two events in the late spring reminded us that while good intentions do not always pave the way to hell they often don’t pave the way to koinōnia either.

The first was our own seminary commencement, held in the sanctuary of a local church.  The person presiding over the event reminded us all before the degrees were awarded that this was a worship context and that, therefore, we would be expected to comport ourselves worshipfully.   What he meant by that was, no cheering and no clapping.

The problem was that the definition of a worship context was decidedly shaped by the white, middle class,  Presbyterian history both of the presider and of the seminary.  Many in the congregation came from African American Baptist or AME churches and some from Hispanic Pentecostal churches.  They, too, intended to comport themselves worshipfully, so they did what they often do at other services when they want to praise the goodness of God and to rejoice when another member of the body rejoices: they cheered and clapped.

I hope that next year we will think about “worship” more broadly.

The other event was sadder and more serious.  After it was discovered that the person who shot a number of students at Virginia Tech was Korean American,  the president of our Korean student association wrote to the whole community.  The Korean students, he wrote, were not only saddened they were ashamed at the behavior of this person of Korean descent.

The e-mail letters came pouring back.  Appropriately many pointed out that the student shooter had been a deeply disturbed young man.  Less appropriately, many of us tried to persuade our Korean brothers and sisters that they needed to take a more Western view of the world.  If only they had read more Locke or Jefferson (we implied) they would know that responsibility is always an individual and never a communal affair.

Instead of seeking to understand their perspective in order to be helpful, we urged them to adopt our perspective and then take comfort.  We did not take much time to think about what convictions might lie behind their sense of shame, and we certainly did not reflect on the fact that their sense of community identity was probably a good deal closer to the self-understanding of New Testament churches than our Kantian individualism.  When Paul reminded the Corinthians that they were the Body of Christ he was reminding them precisely that their belonging was at least as important as their individuality.

The tough thing about trying to be a genuinely diverse and multicultural church is this: it takes a good deal of research and a great deal of thought. 
 

One of the new things in my life is books-on-tape, After the first four or five months of one and two hour drives – a necessary part of my new ministry as a presbytery executive - I decided I needed to figure out a way to stay alert. And so I went to the new Ossining Library and borrowed several sets of discs. What a wonderful addition it has been to my life – giving me lots to think about – and not all of it presbytery related!

Recently I have been listening to Team of Rivals (all 36 discs!) – Doris Kearns Goodwin’s riveting account of Abraham Lincoln’s rise to the presidency and the tumultuous years of the Civil War. In the process, I have learned more about leadership than any of the dozen “churchy” books I have read. There are too many lessons for me to recount here, but a few ideas have helped me re-think clergy and lay leadership in the church:

1) Love your enemies – and make them part of your Cabinet! The very title of Goodwin’s book is an oxymoron - how can rivals form a cohesive and creative team? But that is exactly what Lincoln did – intentionally and decisively. He made sure that the other three men who had contended for the Republican nomination, and lost, were the first people he invited into his leadership team – into the key positions of Secretary of State (Seward), Secretary of the Treasury (Chase), and Attorney General (Bates). As a non-anxious, non-reactive presence, Lincoln didn’t care if these leaders agreed with him – as long as they all worked together for the common good. And by harnessing their potentially negative energy for the good, he recognized them, while containing them all at the same time. As a result, he obtained the absolute best leadership to help lead the nation.

How frequently do pastors or elders INTENTIONALLY ask people who disagree with us to join our team?

2) Head and heart synergy defines good leadership. I have been struck - in listening to the words of politicians and national leaders from the 19th century - by the deep passion and feeling evident in all their writing and speaking. The men – as well as their wives – express extremes of joy and grief, anger and anxiety as they reflect on the life of the nation – and yet their intelligent and complex analysis of events and ideas puts our current political commentary to shame. Again and again, Goodwin recounts Lincoln’s laughter, his  tears, his pure joy in story and family and friends – all enjoyed daily – even as he struggled with the dangers and complexities of the war. Lincoln understood the Great Commandment – that we can truly love God and neighbor only if we use our head heart and our heart – as well as our body and our soul.

How many church fights spin out of control because we are either overly emotional – or stuck in the rational rigidity of doctrine and tradition?

3) A strong leader engages in careful collaboration and discernment, but also knows when decisive action is necessary. In my 32 years of ministry I have been caught in the crosswind between competing leadership schools – 1) those that say a pastor is called to empower and enable other leaders through listening and collaboration – and then get out of the way and let the body decide.; and 2) the decisive leader school – a leader must lead -  making the tough decisions and then bringing the congregation along. Abraham Lincoln was a both/and kind of man – patiently asking for, and listening to, the opinions of his Cabinet and his wife and the leaders in Congress – often allowing consensus to arise. But in critical moments, when his heart and intuition told him otherwise, he would make a decision counter to the advice he was given – and most often it paid off for the well being of the country.  His combination of collegiality and courage offered to this country perhaps the wisest presidential leadership we have ever had.

When do Sessions and pastors refuse to make tough decisions, because they are afraid of conflict. But, when is collaboration and conversation absolutely necessary to build ownership and enthusiasm about a common vision? It is often a tough call.

4) Servant leadership does not blame others.  Lincoln took the blame for mistakes and failures – even if they were not his own. In some sense, he knew that they were all in the mess together. Though he challenged his Cabinet and pushed his military commanders and was very direct and honest when he disagreed or was disappointed in some action, he knew that to blame others in order to get himself off the hook was not conducive to building a team.  And on several occasions he took the blame for something that someone else had done in order to spare that man public humiliation.

How often do we church leaders fall into the blame game, refusing to understand that when part of the body suffers or fails or disappoints, we all suffer and fail and are disappointed?

5) Strong leadership is grounded in the power and wisdom of God – the One who leads us in strength and intelligence, grace and creativity.  Lincoln was often found with his Bible at hand, reading late into the night, or praying on his knees. And he worshiped almost every Sunday at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC. He never joined the church – because in many ways he was adverse to dogmatic and superstitious ideas. But he never doubted the providence and will of God, or the universal values of dignity and freedom and service that he understood God intended for all humankind. Yes, Lincoln remained humble and empowered by immersing himself in the disciplines and the mysteries of the spiritual life.

How often do our leadership struggles in the church ignore the teachings and values of scripture – and separate us from the promise of worship and the power of prayer?

In the 1980’s I read James McGregor Burns’ classic book entitled Leadership – based on his analysis of the Kennedy years (well, I didn’t read ALL of it – 600+ pages!) His concept of “transformational leadership” versus “transactional analysis” has stayed with me ever since. A transactional leader gives in order to get - I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine. But a transformational leader leads – taking risks and sharing dreams in order to invite people into a stronger, bigger, purer, more ethical place. Or to put it theologically, a transformational leader - honoring and sensing the image of God in himself/herself - leads others to fully express the image of God in themselves and in all of God’s children who share this world. Next to Jesus, Abraham Lincoln was one of the most inspirational transformational leaders who ever graced this earth.

May we learn form him and lead like him – for the sake of the church we love and serve.

It was on July 4th that I read this news release from across the pond:  “LONDON (ENI):  The Church of England has welcomed Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s proposal to parliament to remove the prime minister from the process of choosing the church’s bishops in the future.”  Good news!  What could be better than to have the church be the church, unfettered from governmental, or any other, oversight. Hard to see a down side to that article.  Then I thought some more.

Ironic, isn’t it, that the very act of choosing bishops, or their respective equivalents in denominations with differing governmental structures, has caused such hurtful and terrible fighting among so many of the church’s faithful in so many locales within so many denominations in this country and around the world. The curse of choice?  Perhaps.  Power politics is a closer approximation of the truth.

How do we choose bishops or other church officers?  On what basis?  Litmus tests of various sizes and shapes exist and are driving forces in so many cases.  Why?  For exceedingly good and important reasons, no doubt. I’ll confess to having a strong opinion or two on matters I consider central. “If we could only get a bishop (or regional minister, or presbyter, etc.) who would  _______, then this church could really stand for something.”  Or, “we can’t allow a bishop (or regional minister, or presbyter, etc.) who would do that, then what’s next?”  And yet, who is the “we” and what are “we” constituted for?

I have been spending some time, lately, with Paul’s Letter to the Galatians and the complicated relationship that his descriptions therein of the very real and threatening (at least to him and his “gospel” message) challenges facing the churches in Galatia have with the descriptions of the so-called Jerusalem Council in the Book of Acts chapter 15.  It’s a mess.  The accounts don’t quite line up.  The core issues aren’t exactly clear.  The resolution, insofar as there was one, doesn’t seem to have stuck (for very long). What’s more, at the council itself, there were delegates “secretly” brought in to “spy on” others (Gal 2:4)—who’s ever heard of something like that happening at a church meeting?! 
And yet, Paul emerges from that ugly, messy, complicated and ambiguous affair with one thing very clear:  “that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do” (Gal 2:10).  Now that’s quite an outcome, no?  
 
What about the many local and national church councils which are being held this summer in this country alone, many of which have contentious items, or elections, on the agenda? I wonder what will be decided, and how, and who will be elected?  I wonder too, finally, how important the answers to those questions would be, or even how soon the very questions would begin to melt away IF, at each of these conventions, the delegates emerged so committed: “that we remember the poor” as we are “eager to do.”  Now that would be a church council, and a set of decisions, worth recording!   

During the years I was teaching preaching at a university divinity school I was often struck by how eloquent many of our students could be when describing the human condition. They would wax lyrical, find appropriate metaphors, use telling examples of life experiences, and identify with their audience in ways that kept their hearers’ attention and interest. They could use classical rhetorical moves to great effect, taking us to worlds of poverty, illness, struggle, or anxiety with surprising deftness. If there were a preaching Pulitzer for that sort of thing, I’d have had some nominees.

As I took note of my students’ persuasive skills, I began to notice something else too. I began to notice that many of these same students, most of them preparing to be pastors, were far less deft at describing the love that moves them, or grace that fills them, or the hope that sustains them. They sometimes hesitated to speak of God, got tongue tied when it came to Jesus, and might flirt with cliché when it came to describing the experience of grace. Their language wasn’t nearly so rich.

Some of this difference was surely born from a sense of God’s ineffability. God is beyond our description, even beyond language, and so the best way to speak of God might be to follow the Apostle Paul’s injunction to simple speech. Some of this difference might also have come from a desire to not offend hearers with tales of pious conversion or religious discovery. It was as though some of these students felt a need to be less persuasive when it came to matters of faith, perhaps out of fear of looking too strident or dogmatic. I can sympathize with those concerns.

Yet I was also left wondering. Why this reticence when it comes to the experience of faith? Is it cultural? Theological? Rooted in church traditions? Or was it because these students had come to seminary with a good sense of what is wrong with things, but a still unformed sense of what is possible in God’s realm? Does the fact that our schools tend to reward critical thinking more than appreciative description effect the way we talk about faith? Has our fear of offending anyone grown the point of saying too little to everyone? Were we training our students out of the very wonder and imagination that speaking of God invites? Are we so caught up short by church affirmations of biblical authority that we feel that our range of rhetorical freedom beyond biblical language is limited?

I don’t know the answer to these questions, and I’m sure a reader of this entry might have her own explanations to add. However, I do know that the phenomenology of faith-filled experience is as rich, if not richer, than the phenomenology of faith-wanting experience. And I do know that the good news of the gospel will touch peoples lives in the right way, and turn the world upside down, when the realm of life into which the church invites folks is seen to be as deeply textured, alive and hopeful, colorful and rich as it truly is. Here experience is raised up, flipped over for examination, and handed back all new. Here we feel things most sharply, love with an intensity unimaginable elsewhere, wait more patiently—as if leaning into life, and find our eyes finally opened, our ears finally pitched correctly, and our voices in tune. We need more of what Jim Kay calls a “parabolic imagination” for the gospel. I’d say we also need a fuller collection of metaphors, stories, memories, histories, and articulated yearnings to draw on. Let’s start sharing again, not only about what is wrong but also about what is right, true, and possible.

Let’s find the words, and let’s offer them to each other and to the world in ways that are both gentle and urgent, always inviting and always ready to wait without desperation to be heard. Let’s find the Christian rhetoric for our time.

Henri Nouwen wrote that sometimes it is in and through our sufferings that we come to know God and experience God’s call.  Entering into the suffering of the poor is one way to become obedient, to become a listener of God.  “Suffering accepted and shared in love breaks down our selfish defenses and sets us free to accept God’s guidance,” Nouwen said. 

Perhaps no other figure in the 20th century entered into the suffering of others as dramatically as Mother Teresa.  It had been a life-long dream of mine to visit Calcutta and to come to understand her ministry more fully.  I went to volunteer at Kalighat, Mother Teresa’s Center for the Dying in Calcutta.  Upon my arrival, I remember so clearly the motives at play in my mind, most especially the desire, as Nouwen described…to enter into the suffering of the world, so as to know the world better and serve God more faithfully. But what I found I could never have prepared for or imagined.  Kalighat is filled with cots of very sick people. The illnesses the people were suffering from were ones I had only read about in books.  Death seemed to be lurking in every corner.  The Sisters of Charity were busy administering basic medical treatment with whatever had been donated that week.  As I walked around trying to find a place to be useful, I felt totally out of my element.  Full of fear, I shut down so that I would not feel any emotion too strongly.  I realized that I was frightened, but I could not understand why.  I spent this first day cleaning dishes before returning to my hotel room, which is when the fear and shock finally sank in.  Never had I seen so many people so sick, so absolutely destitute, and so young.  How could God allow such misery, such abject poverty, such darkness?  Kalighat was, it seemed to me, a true living hell.

I returned the next day and was given a new job of drying the women off with a towel as they came out of the shower.  The Sisters would bathe them, and one by one, I would dry them.  I continued in this role over the next few weeks, and between shower times I began to visit with the patients who were awake.  Most of the patients were too weak to speak, and those who could spoke only Bengali. But in these encounters I learned a new language, spoken with the eyes and the smallest of gestures. It was a language of love, gratitude, compassion and mercy.  My own inhibitions and fears began to fade, and I felt for the first time what it meant to be open to God’s love, to plunge in, heart first, stretched between communion with God and the limitations of our bodied lives.

Just when I thought there was nothing but despair, I found God. I saw the power of God’s love healing the spirits of those who were physically ill, and through their generous spirits, healing me. 

How long, O Lord, must I cry for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. (Habbakuk 1:2-3)

Habbakuk wrote these words about 2500 years ago – as he looked out at a world that was filled with violence, war and injustice. Most of our world has changed since he wrote these words – but some things remain the same.

We still war against one another…violence still abounds…conflict, not peace, is often the choice…and there are many of us who are frustrated, as Habbakuk was, with the fact that so many choose to treat one another in such violent ways.

And notice that Habbakuk is not asking God why bad things happen to good people……he is specifically asking about the injustices that are fully within our own power to prevent…violence, destruction, conflict….He is frustrated that God allows us to treat each other in such violent ways.

But ultimately what we learn – when we read on beyond Habbakuk – and we come across the life of Christ – and his call to love our neighbors as we love ourselves…his call to engage the needs and the people of our world in a way that values those people and their needs as equal to our own…what I think we learn is that the real question we are to be asking is not why God allows these types of things to happen, but rather when will we no longer allow these types of things to happen.

This call of Christ’s to love our neighbor, to feed those who are hungry, to clothe those who are naked…and on and on….ultimately all of these things are first – I think - about recognition.  If we fail to see the person who is in need, if we don’t acknowledge the systems that oppress even if to do so is uncomfortable or fearful, if we don’t look at the world with an unflinching and courageous eye to continually discover where God’s justice is not yet…where God’s love is not felt…where God’s hope is not known…then the people and the desperate needs they have….become invisible….which is perhaps the greatest form of violence, the greatest form of destruction there is.

Ralph Ellison wrote in The Invisible Man, “I am an invisible man…I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.”

And today, we still live in a world filled with invisibles. The desperately poor are invisible to most of us. The underage sweatshop workers that fill thousands of factories around this world are invisible to most of us. Victims of malnutrition are invisible to most of us. The list is long of invisibles in our world. And while so much of the Church seems to be fighting over ordination qualifications, who goes to heaven, etc…Perhaps the time is upon us to focus our attention on the issue of effectiveness….how effective are we, the Church, at making visible…the people and issues and needs that are invisible to the world?

I believe this is what Martin Luther King fought to achieve…a world that would recognize its own injustices…a world that would make the needs of our neighbor truly our own…to the point that we refuse to allow those people and their needs to remain invisible.

As we look out upon a world that reveals in many ways the violence and destruction that Habbakuk looked out on in his world – It is helpful to be reminded of the power and purpose of our existence as a church…to name the invisibles…to help make God real & relevant in a world filled with many people and places that do not feel God, that do not see God. 

As the church year moves from Eastertide to Pentecost this weekend (May 27, 2007), it is easy for us to get swept up in the disciples’ spiritual combustion or their evangelistic fervor in the marketplace. But what is it that prepared them for being fired-up and what is it that they carried out into the marketplace that attracted so many? It was their communal life in which the categories of rich and poor, slave and free, male and female held no superiority or inferiority and in which the lowly and outcast were lifted up and honored. It was a communion in which each person gave their all and everyone received as they had need (Acts 1-4).

If a Christian version of “Letterman” were to have a “Top 10” list of “Ways the Church Can Be Recognized,” many would give the number 1 spot to preaching or teaching, mission or service. The Reformers of the church have consistently pointed to ‘right preaching’ and ‘right administration of the sacraments’. For Jesus, however, the love of the disciples, one for another, was the definitive mark by which they would be recognized as Jesus’ disciples (John 17). We find this affirmation as well in the Letters of Paul:  Whether Christians love each other in real, tangible, life-transforming ways is the key evidence by which people decide whether Jesus is really the Christ and whether the church is really the Body of Christ. And this communal life in the Spirit is actually the primary substance of Paul’s ‘right’ preaching and his teaching about the sacramental life.

The Word of God is proclaimed most explicitly and powerfully as Christians build a common life of self-sacrificial love and extend that fellowship beyond all visible boundaries. Eucharistic life in Christ, our communion with one another in the Spirit of Christ, is the end-all and be-all of what the church is and what it does. The title of a book by Paul McPartlan says it succinctly: The Eucharist Makes the Church.

If Eucharistic unity is the heart of ecclesial life, and I believe it is, then it would behoove church folks like us to grapple with one of the major obstacles to enacting the eucharist in congregational life: middle- and upper-class lifestyles predominant in American society. With respect to two of those values, we have adopted unreservedly the value of self-sufficiency through material accumulation. Hoping and praying and striving for affluence, we blanch at the thought of being openly dependent upon others for the basic necessities of life. Our corporate worship on Sunday morning usually reflects these social values. We congregate as separate and independent individuals who have grown accustomed to “drive-by” passing of the peace: a smile, a handshake, and a polite how-do-you-do. The separation to which we have become culturally accustomed has become that to which church members aspire.

Mutual dependence is what catalyzed the early church. Sharing all things in common set the stage for Pentecostal transformation. They clung desperately to each other in part because they were being persecuted. They gave their lives to one another because their lives were literally at stake. But most of the time, when we are ‘at church’ what do we do? We talk. We share our experiences and feelings and thoughts. But let’s be clear about it: we share, but we share mostly by talking. That’s ok as far as it goes, but talking to each other is not the same thing as sharing a common life, as depending upon one another for our very survival.

In such an individualistic milieu, how do congregations come to reorient themselves to the common life we, in fact, share? And how might that common life in Christ be enacted more fully in the congregations’ worship and mission? Well, in a word, we must relearn it. And we will learn it best the same way we learn how to do any activity better: by practicing.

If eucharistic living is to break out of the confines of bourgeois values of independence and self-sufficiency, then we need to share our lives more fully – every aspect of life, including the basic necessities.  In order to learn eucharistic living, we need to think about every aspect of church life as a teaching-learning venue. We need to practice our worship services, mission efforts, pastoral care, and mission as opportunities to cultivate and extend a fellowship of koinonia.

We’ve all heard the reports of folks returning from an arduous but productive mission trip, who can’t wait to go again because of the concrete impact they made and the spirit-filled friendship that formed among missioners and their hosts. These experiences are demonstrations that we shouldn’t think about communion within the church apart from its mission beyond its walls. To experience koinonia in and through mission is commonplace among those whose lives are unified in interdependent mission to others. Unfortunately, and to the church’s shame, these experiences are compartmentalized and set apart from the ordinary practices of worship, education, and other aspects of congregational life. When the mission trip ends, everyone returns to their pews and the deep sharing of a common life is relegated to a nice memory.

There are two principles I want to lift up in this blog by which a greater communal life can be developed in congregations. First, lift up before the people the ways in which they are, perhaps unaware, already sharing their lives eucharistically. Here congregations of struggling and suffering people, of hard-pressed urban and rural communities, may have one-up on more affluent, suburban congregations. People for whom economic struggle is a way of life are usually already serving each other interdependently. Because their lives are woven together in mutual support, they may more fully understand what it is to be in communion. For example, when a farmer is sick during harvest time, it is not unusual for the neighbors to help bring in the crop. When I was a member of an inner city, multi-racial congregation, after evening meetings we would, for safety’s sake, accompany each other to our means of transportation. In that congregation, it was also assumed that during the year, some members of the congregation would go through hard times and would need our assistance. Regularly and without fanfare, offerings were taken and groceries were delivered, all as expressions of the congregation’s mutuality. These diaconal acts of compassion are marks of a robust, material communion, a sharing in the necessities of life, much like the early church in Acts.

Usually, this kind of sharing is not connected explicitly with the sacrament of communion. But it should be. If we were more attentive to the ritual of the sacrament itself, taking its implicit cues, we could incorporate the congregation’s diaconal service of one to another as a means by which Christ is shared among the Body. That way, the sacrament of communion would vividly consummate the sacramental unity already at work among the members. One way, among many others, of making the connection between the daily acts of love among the people and the Lord’s Supper is to make the offertory more than a fund-raiser. During the offertory time, usually considered to be a necessary inconvenience, people might stand to give testimony of what others have done for them and what the congregation has done for others. Much more than cold, hard cash can be brought to the altar: food, clothing, building materials, etc. These gifts are symbols of our very lives that we are giving to each other and to our God. And even the bread and wine for the eucharist can be brought up and placed on the altar by the people who made them.

Make it clear to everyone, through all kinds of symbolic gestures, that we are giving not only our money but our lives. And we are giving not only to “the church” as an institution but to one another and to the larger society. As the gifts of the people are placed on the altar as bread and wine, they are then transfigured by the Spirit to be Body and Blood of Christ for the Body of Christ. To partake of what we have made and done together vividly demonstrates that the Eucharistic bread is not just a symbol but an ecclesial relation that is the very substance of our lives. During the last supper, didn’t Jesus instruct us to ‘do this’  - to lay our lives on the altar as bread and wine, to be transformed by the Spirit, to be given back and received one to another for the redemption of the world – in remembrance of him?

A second principle of developing communal awareness and intention among the congregation has already been anticipated in the first point: make the worship service more than a mere expression, make it a vibrant enactment of what the church is in Christ. Rather than conceiving the worship service as primarily oriented away from the congregation to a distant God, reimagine the service as an opportunity for the Spirit to fill the assembly, unify it, and send it outward. Every Sunday is Pentecost! Look at it this way: the praise and glory we ascribe to God is much more acceptable to God when it arises out of our unity in Christ and mission through the Spirit. The worship service should be the time when the assembly more fully becomes – in reality – the Body of Christ. When we leave the service, we should feel that we have not only come to “know” God better, but that we have experienced our unity in Christ more intensely.

A major hindrance to this kind of communal enactment, it seems to me, is the circumscribed nature of the service itself. Most of the time, corporate worship is a thing unto itself, isolated from the mundane activities of life. But it doesn’t have to be. I have been privileged to experience worship that was more thoroughly integrated with the rest of the congregation’s life. The same multi-racial congregation I mentioned earlier shared its buildings with a Korean congregation. The differences between the way these two congregations structured their worship were stark. Not that one was necessarily “better” than another, but to me it was clear that the Korean congregation had a better sense of what a communal life together meant. The most striking difference was the order of worship. First, the Koreans would gather bringing all kinds of food to the kitchen area. Men, women, and children would help prepare the meal they would later share. Off to the side, a small group would practice their choir music, filling the hall with a beautiful if incomplete work-in-progress. People would flow in and out of the “rehearsal,” coming from or going to other responsibilities. In a room off to the side, many of the children gathered with a couple of adults for a type of Sunday School. But again, this classroom was not isolated from the rest of the activities; children were enlisted to set the tables and to help in other ways. When all was ready, everyone would sit down and enjoy the meal and afterward would slowly assemble in the main sanctuary for the worship service.

I was fascinated to find out that the Koreans believed the “preparatory time” to be as much a time of worship as the actual service. The linkage between the “preparatory time” and the service was crucial to their understanding of what it meant to worship God in spirit and truth. When they partook of the eucharist bread and wine, they had in mind (and body) the feast they shared earlier. For them, the Eucharist was the explicit enactment that vividly demonstrated an abiding way of life. Not all congregations will be able to do what these Koreans did, but in many communities, for example, the “pot-luck supper” could easily be incorporated more intentionally into the worship time to serve the same purpose. Isn’t that exactly the structure of church life in Acts and I Corinthians?

There might be any number of ways the worship service can become more robust and more integrated with the rest of the congregation’s life. As church leaders in congregational learning, we should strive to engage our faith communities in everyday rituals and practices that enact more fully the communion we share in Christ. Then, unexpectedly and without warning, the Spirit may descend upon us, igniting our hearts aflame with the Good News of the Gospel, sending us out into a dangerous world with a risky message. Who knows, we too may become church.