I recently visited India to speak at a conference called “Future to the Responsibility”.
When I landed in Mumbai, a driver called Arun was fortunately waiting for me at the airport, armed with an umbrella for the rains which really taught me what a Monsoon is!
We had quite a long drive to the hotel and although I know it’s a cliché for journalists to quote drivers during their blink-and-you’ll-miss-them visits to cities around the world, Arun and I exchanged quite a few gems.

I’d told him I’d arrived from the U.S. but that I was Egyptian. He still chose America as my country – e.g. how much do drivers make in “my country”, does “my country” have roads like the highway which starts shortly after Bombay International airport, etc.

“That’s an Indian church,” Arun said. “Do you have churches in your country?”

“Yes,” I replied.

Then a few minutes later, we passed a temple to Ganesha, the Hindu god of wealth and wisdom – a rare combination at the best of times!

“Do you know Ganesha?” Arun asked.

“Yes. He’s an Indian god, right?”

“Yes!” Arun said. “What is the American god called?”

Good question!

I was too exhausted for irony so I gave it to him straight – there are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Seikhs and Buddhists in America, all worshiping their own god. And then I told him I was a Muslim and asked him how relations were between Hindus and Muslims.

“Like brother and brother,” he said. “How are relations in your country?”

“Sometimes like brother and brother,” I replied. “Sometimes difficult.”

“Yes!” Arun said. “The same here.”

During my stay in India I got to see both “brother and brother” and “sometimes difficult”.

As a Muslim, I wanted to visit shrines to Muslim saints that I was told draw both Muslims and Hindus. So I went to Haji Ali in Mumbai, a shrine of a Muslim holy man who was believed to have died on his way to Haj (pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest site Mecca in what is today Saudi Arabia) and whose body is said to have been carried back home by the waters of the Arabian Sea.

Along the way to Haji Ali’s shrine were stalls where garlands were prepared to be given as tokens to the holy man, reminiscent of the offerings made at Hindu temples. And once inside the shrine – at the “ladies section” – I saw Muslim women wearing hijab and others reciting from the Quran alongside Hindu women with bindis on their forehead, all standing inside the mausoleum, saying prayers and awaiting blessing.

As the women exited Haji Ali’s shrine, the Hindus among them would bend to touch the doorstep of the ladies section in a move reminiscent of touching the feet of elders or parents as a sign of reverence by Hindus.

And so I was eager to see that cross-religious spirituality at Ajmer, home of one of India’s most important Muslim pilgrimage sites – the shrine of Khwaja Muin-ud-din Chishti, a Sufi saint and founder of the Chishti order, the main Sufi order in India to this day.

In case I was under any illusion that Muslims and Hindus were always like “brother and brother” my visit to Ajmer was cancelled exactly because brotherly love at times eludes Hindus and Muslims in India. Inter-communal riots and bombings in 1992/3 killed hundreds and left Hindus and Muslims still suspicious of each other.

Just as I was about to head to Ajmer, the driver taking me found out that because of a nationwide strike called by a Hindu nationalist party, tensions between Hindus and Muslims in Ajmer were high and that he wouldn’t be able to take me into the town nor would any other Hindu driver.

Instead of Ajmer, I visited Amber Fort, which was the ancient capital of Jaipur. Work on the fort – very representative of the architecture in Rajasthan State – began in 1592. The artwork in some parts of the palace was a mix of Hindu and Muslim art. For example, the screen from behind which the queens could look out onto the public area of the palace was made of panels which were alternately comprised of lotus flowers - representative of Hindu art - and stars - symbolizing Muslims art.

It was a beautiful expression of responsibility to the future that we can still learn from.

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!

This is the third blog in a series I’ve called “Being church”. In this series I’ve tried to describe how church is actually a verb. When Christians gather together, we are not ‘church’ because we call ourselves a church or because we belong to a congregation or because we built a nice building with a steeple. We become church when we gather and live together in Christ-likeness. We become church as we bear-forth or incarnate the life and ministry of Jesus the Christ.

I’ll have more to say about what it means to be church in the next blog, but now I would like to move on to a description of a community in whom I experienced Christ and the Christian life more intensely, more intentionally, than anywhere else. Note especially how the Bishram community is made up of oppressed people who are reaching out to others who are oppressed. They sustain their communal life through fellowship, sharing whatever they have in common, giving to those who have need, reaching out to those beyond their community, and also through much prayer and study.

My encounter with Bishram Ministries in Nepal began vicariously a few years ago. My sister Patti had visited Nepal on a mission trip, worked with Sister Asangla and Pastor Dan of Bishram Ministries. She returned aglow with the radiant enthusiasm of a new convert. As she told me of their evangelistic ministry in Nepal, I tried to be an attentive brother to her, but truth be known I was rather dismissive of the whole thing. For one thing, Nepal is pretty far away from my daily concerns in Kansas City. And another, Patti and I are on different ends of the theological spectrum, and I was not too interested in her “brand” of evangelism. Proselytizing Hindus and Buddhists and converting them to Christianity is out of my spiritual comfort zone. Over the years, as she repeatedly asked me to travel with her to see Bishram ministry for myself, I politely but resolutely refused. After a while, however, my excuses were running out (especially since I was going to be on sabbatical for a year) and I finally said to her that I would need to hear about the ministry from someone more…well…more academically legitimate. Immediately, she replied that “Billy” “who taught somewhere in Dallas” could tell me about it. Well, the name “Billy” did not strike me as very authoritative, but I reluctantly agreed. Shortly, I received an email from Patti that was in effect a virtual handshake between “Billy” and myself. When I inspected the name on the email, it was none other than the respected theologian, William Abraham. Now, she had my attention.

Soon, Billy and I had a conversation about Bishram, and he convinced me that for many reasons I needed to go. So, I did in January 2008. And the rest of this story is about my experience of an amazing community that is the closest approximation of the early church in Acts chapter 2 that I have ever encountered. Do I now sound like a convert?

If I was going to go halfway around the world, I didn’t want to be just a spectator, so I offered to teach and preach as it would be useful to them. It was arranged for me to teach students in their school of ministry, to teach church leaders in a village, and then to preach whenever needed. I would arrive on Saturday, have Sunday to relax and recover from travel, then start teaching in the school of ministry on Monday. Patti would join us the following Thursday. Then we would travel to western Nepal so that Patti and I could teach in a 2 day conference.

Nepal is a study in stark contrasts. Fertile valleys and rich, biodiverse jungles stretch out  between majestic peaks of the Himalayan range. Nepal is an ancient civilization and slowly making its way into the 21st Century. With 80% of Nepali people being Hindu, Nepal is the only official Hindu state in the world. 10% are Buddhist; 4% are Muslim; and Christians are lumped in the “other” category with less than 1%.

Nepali culture is as beautiful and attractive as the awe-inspiring natural environment. The people are gentle, friendly, and family-oriented. Everywhere you see people walking arm in arm, talking freely, smiling and laughing easily. Their hospitality is legendary; as a culture, they give freely of whatever they have.

However, Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world that faces seemingly intractable obstacles. Their government is nearly incapacitated by incompetence, political infighting, insurgencies, and corruption. Fuel is scarce and only intermittently available. Electricity is on for a maximum of 16 hours a day. Maoist and Tarai factions extort money from people and businesses on a regular basis, and their political rallies can shut down whole sectors of the country. Nepali culture is highly stratified by a complicated and rigid caste system and an absolute hierarchy of men over women.

Sister Asangla, her family, and everyone in Bishram ministry were the Christian incarnation of that Nepali graciousness, attending to my every need. Without exaggeration, without hyperbole, the community of Bishram ministry is a communion that challenges what we have come to call “church” here in the US. Their faith is born and sustained in struggle, in lack, in suffering. They experience and witness to God’s miraculous and transformative power in very real and tangible ways. To be with them – even for a short while – is to be convicted of my (our) idolatrous need for material goods and financial security. They give sacrificially; whereas, for the most part we give out of our surplus. The grace by which they live day to day amidst hardship exposes the materialistic poverty of our faith. As I returned to the US, I left convicted of my many spiritual limitations.

What exactly is Bishram Ministries? I must confess it took me a while to understand it, to get the whole picture. Structurally, Bishram is centered in Kathmandu, the capitol city of about 800,000, and is founded and led by Sister Asangla and Pastor Dan, both of whom were working in different churches prior to founding Bishram in 2001. Their mission was to form disciples in a transformative community that is always in mission. As I have said, Nepali society is highly stratified between classes and genders. Sister Asangla and Pastor Dan (of Brahmin lineage) joined together to create a biblical community where there is no division in Christ, and that is exactly what they are doing. As I experienced their communal life in the school of ministry and during the conference, I saw men serving and women leading, and people from all castes joined together in a common life. What the Spirit has done through them is to transform small bits of Nepali society into egalitarian communions that aim to accept, nurture, and disciple each person in the community. It is truly humbling and inspiring to experience such a transformative communion, in which people’s lives are radically changed and through which the community becomes a ‘city on a hill’ that itself proclaims the gospel by the sacrificial love of one for another (John 17:21).

Right now, the central community in which Sister Asangla and Pastor Dan are the leaders is the mother church of a loosely structured Bishram organization. There are other smaller congregations in the Kathmandu area, and still more church communities that have been founded in villages and towns across Nepal. Over the few years since the founding of Bishram, the Bishram mother church has prepared and sent ministers to start new Christian communities, and these become ‘daughter’ churches. These daughter churches range from very small in number to 150 or so believers. Each of the congregations are unique, for each is a manifestation of the indigenous culture of their specific context. This is to say that Bishram does not try to duplicate itself; it doesn’t franchise itself. Rather, their intention is for the gospel to be planted within a particular community and for the church to emerge organically as a Christian incarnation of that culture.

The Bishram mother church is the hub of several important ministries. First, there is the school for ministry that Brother Temjen, Asangla’s very capable brother, directs. This is primarily a residential school that trains people to be leaders in existing churches or to start church communities in other areas. People who have the potential and the drive to serve the church in leadership are sent to live in the school for 2 – 3 years. Of course, these students are poor and have no livelihood while they are in school, so they must depend upon Bishram ministries to support them for all of their needs.

The school has an academic curriculum that itself is challenging and transformative for the students, many of whom have only minimum education when they arrive and very little if any theological training. But the school is a community in and of itself in which the students learn a very different, and more communal, way of life. They live together and share just about everything in common. They unlearn the oppressive divisions of caste and gender. They practice spiritual disciplines of study, prayer, and mission. Words fail to convey the intensity and transformative power of the school of ministry. I’ve seen the lives that have been radically changed: a drug addict who writes and performs Christian music that is used in many of the churches, an untouchable woman (the lowest caste) who has become a leader and teacher in a church. These are only two of many whose lives have been radically reoriented and redeemed, whose gifts and talents are now contributing to the church’s life and mission.

The school for ministry is like the heart of the Bishram organization for it takes in those whose lives seem to be depleted and used up. The school involves them in a redemptive community in which they discover their gifts and are given the skills to use their gifts effectively. They are equipped and sent out into the body of Christ to build it up, to edify it, to renew it.

A second focus of Bishram ministries is to administrate and develop the network of churches. Sister Asangla and Pastor Dan are in regular communication with the pastors and leaders of their daughter churches, in order to train them and to support them in any way they can. Bishram has developed a creative network of teachers who travel among Bishram churches and other churches to teach and encourage the people in their faith and daily life. Most of these pastors need supplemental income to survive, and the mother church supports them as much as possible. However, funds are very tight as you might imagine, so pastors and church planters have to be self-reliant as well.

Bishram has always been concerned with not only the spiritual but the material needs of people. The third aspect of their ministry is to cultivate external relations (e.g., other ministry organizations) to bring in medical missions and job training, for example.

These three forms of ministry are all evangelistic and missional; they are means of spreading and incarnating the Word of God. Because it is illegal to proselytize and to evangelize through mass media, the primary way that people hear the Word of God is for Christians to witness to them, personally, by word of mouth. So, the believers in Bishram churches share their faith, they share their experiences of God’s transforming power, they talk about the new way of life they find in Christ, and they invite others to experience it for themselves in worship services and bible studies. In this respect, each believer is cultivated to become an evangelist.

Bishram churches are like congregations, but I hesitate to call them congregations because to American ears that word may give a wrong impression. In America we have so compartmentalized our lives that we tend to think of congregations as institutions that exist side-by-side with other institutions and to which we dedicate part of our time. Because daily life is very difficult in Nepal, and Christianity is a very small minority, I cannot stress enough the life-giving nature of their Christian community, a communion in which they share a common life and share one another’s burdens, and lift each other up in love. Of course, there are degrees of involvement among the ‘believers’ and others who attend (they emphasize belief and discipleship rather than ‘membership’).

But it is important to get a sense for the intense and sustained life these people share with each other throughout the week. Obtaining basic necessities is a daily struggle, and most people endure great hardship and suffering. Because of grossly inadequate sanitary conditions, many are quite ill. There is an interdependence in the Bishram community that most Americans can scarcely imagine: they depend upon one another for their very lives. They are in small groups together and talking to one another throughout the week. In many respects, the Bishram churches are their life. For those who have converted from other religions and have been shunned by their families, the Bishram community has become their closest family and provides a life-line of survival.

Ok, I am a convert. This is the real deal. I have never encountered a Christian community that so closely approximates Acts chapter 2, in which an oppressed community gathers daily to break bread, shares their possessions, studies and prays, ministers in the marketplace, and rejoices in the gracious love of God who does great and awesome things among them. My experience with Bishram has profoundly affected me; I have returned a better disciple of Christ.

In the next blog, I will try to draw these three examples together and come up with some principles for what the church is and how we can be more fully the church.

I frequently mutter about writing outraged letters to the media but seldom do anything about it.  However after the Democratic debate in Pennsylvania on ABC I not only sent off an immediate e-mail I signed an angry petition the next day, and if anybody had sent me more petitions, I would have signed them, too.

The most blatantly annoying tactic employed by Messrs. Gibson and Stephanopolos was to focus the first sixty per cent of the debate on questions loosely focused on niceness and electability.  The nation is in crisis and we’re trying to figure out whether Senator Clinton really ducked sniper fire or whether Senator Obama not only was in the same room with Professor Ayers but, God forbid, might have said something to him.

But of course as a clergyperson I saved my greatest annoyance for the questions and comments on Jeremiah Wright, having long since noticed that the mainstream media are blithely clueless about 1)church; 2)rhetoric; and 3)prophetic ministry.  (Tell me, Amos, what do you mean when you say “God will get Judah?”)

And what moved me from annoyance to something approaching fury was Stephanopolos’ question to Senator Obama: “Does Rev. Wright love America as much as you?”

First, what kind of a question is that?  I’ve spent some time visiting Chinese churches and the great divide between the acceptable and the marginalized churches is: “How much do these congregations and their leaders love China?”  Is that our model for religious life in America?  When I was very young the FBI showed up to hear my father preach because someone wondered whether he loved America as much as say, Joe McCarthy did.

Second, why would anyone think that was a question Mr. Obama should answer?  I very much do not want my parishioners or my students (or my family) to make public pronouncements on how much I do or do not love America.

And third, since the Rev. Mr. Wright gave six years of his life to serving in the Armed Services while Mr. Stephanopolos and I had other agendas, I found myself wondering:  “Who the hell does he think he is to ask?”

That’s what I found myself wondering.

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.

A few weeks ago I spent a few minutes reading yet another review of the recent works of the evangelical atheists—Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens.  Now I have not read any of the books being reviewed, though I’ve read essays by each of those authors.

My general sense was that their image of the way in which people decide for or against religious faith is this: the seeker sits in a den or study with paper and pad.  In the left hand column he or she totes up the reasons for religious belief (a short list indeed); in the right hand column he or she jots down the reasons against it (along and impressive list).  Being totally dispassionate and rational, the seeker becomes a non-believer and lives happily, or at least rationally, ever after.

That afternoon I went to a women’s prison in our town to teach a Bible study.  We were talking about the raising of Lazarus (talk about irrational), and when the women talked they did not talk about evidence or rational decision making.

They talked about how faith made it possible to get through incredibly difficult lives. 
They talked about the social structure that the prison’s chapel services and Bible study provided. They talked about how they counted on church to provide the context that would help them make it when they returned to the larger world. They talked about forgiveness.  How they knew it.  How they shared it.

There are interesting intellectual arguments to be made for or against any particular set of religious beliefs.  (Arguments against religion in general are usually just bizarre.)  But what the gang of three seems to miss is the sheer social thickness of the faithful life.  Faith is who people are, not just what people believe.

To miss that is pretty much to miss the point.

It is a complicated week in the life of the church.  A Holy Week, but a week that involves many things, with many mixed emotions. 
 
There’s the excitement of Palm Sunday.  Jesus enters Jerusalem and crowds gather to welcome him, to put down their cloaks, to shout hosanna, blessed is he!  But even that excitement is tempered with irony.  The crowds shout hosanna and call Jesus their king.  A few days later that title will come back at Jesus when the prosecuting Roman governor asks, “are you the king of the Jews?”  These adoring crowds will, in a few, short days, change their cries to that of “crucify him!”  The excitement of Palm Sunday turns to the anguish of betrayal on Maundy Thursday.  It moves to the deep grief of death on Good Friday and the loss of hope on Saturday.  Then, however, on Sunday, there is the empty tomb.  There is the resurrection, the assurance of new life.  There is victory over death; there is restoration of hope.  This week is a collision of religious expression and a collision of emotions.
 
Perhaps this collision is exactly where we need to be.  Rather than staying in the triumphal entry, rather than to moving on to the passion and depths of Jesus’s suffering, rather than skipping right ahead to the joy of Easter, perhaps we need to stay in the confusion of all these things happening simultaneously.  Rather than wrapping things up nicely and neatly, we stay right here, in the collision of joy, pain, suffering and anticipation.  We stay right here in the collisions and complications and learn how to cope with them. 
 
Because life is this way.  It isn’t black and white.  It is shades of gray.
 
Sending your child off to the bus stop for the first day of school isn’t black and white.  It’s an exciting milestone.  Yet it is scary to let go and trust that he can cope with school.  There’s pride in watching that little person step out on her own.  Yet it is painful to recognize that she can be part of the world without you.  It’s shades of gray.
 
Faith is this way too.  The Christian faith is a story of complications and collisions.  The last shall be first and the first shall be last.  Anyone who will lose their life shall save it.  We are simultaneously sinners and set free from our sin.  God is great and God is humble.  The kingdom is now and the kingdom is yet to come.  Absolutes are not what we’re after.  Experiences of love and grace are.  And neither of those is clear-cut. 
 
Love can mean saying no to a child.  Love can mean setting boundaries and expectations for the people who ask the church for financial assistance.  Love can mean turning off life support.  Love is a messiah entering Jerusalem on a stolen colt.
 
Grace is an empty tomb.  Grace is a crucifixion.  Grace is a lamb sitting on the monarch’s throne.   
 
Delving into these collisions of emotion, we begin to see that what is complicated and complex can be broken down into smaller parts and named.  Finally, in that delving and naming we arrive at what is most true, most sincere in our experience and being.  It is not black and white.  It is the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Mark. 1:1).

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.

Jim Burklo got me thinking. In his most recent post (Progressive Christian Elevator Speeches) he identifies the difficulty congregations have these days in knowing how to talk about ourselves.  Even more difficult is talking about ourselves in a way that makes sense to the community at large.  We used to be the “Mainline church,” but we held a memorial service for that term some time back.  Burklo speaks of the desire to describe himself as “progressive,” but acknowledges that this term is increasingly cluttered as well.  Lacking a general term, he opts for what he calls “tag lines.” I would encourage you to read the full list, but a sampling includes:

I’m a progressive Christian who
* keeps the faith and drops the dogma
* experiences God more than I believe in any definition of God
* thinks that God is bigger than anybody’s idea about God

These tag lines speak a fresh corrective to a church that at times has placed a premium on “faith” as belief, while downplaying faith as action.  The present day church has learned anew that Christianity is something that is practiced.  It is not simply believed; it is lived.
In addition, these tag lines question the historical conversation about who God is and how God has been understood and they prioritize the Christian’s personal experience of God. It was Isaiah who confessed, “I saw the Lord high and lifted up.”  This is experiential worship.  Far too often, the people of God gather for worship with absolutely no expectation that God will show up. Burklo rightly asserts experience matters.   

However, as much as I like these tag lines, I also find them raising troubling questions.  Why is it necessary to separate experience from tradition or creed? Our ideas about God are surely limited. Our language falters under the weight of the truth we seek to speak. No definition of God will be adequate.  But the same is true for our experience of God.  God is bigger than our experience. To suggest that God be defined by my experience alone is reductionist.  The present day church that fails to learn how to hold our experience of God in conversation with the tradition of the church impoverishes itself. After all, the tradition of the church is the testimony of how generations before have experienced God.

One suspects, that the tension between experience and tradition may have less to do with testimony that is deemed outdated or passé, and has more to do with problems that emerge when I cannot define God on my own.  The taglines are presented not as statements defining a “church” but rather a Christian.   American culture does individualism well.  The tradition is the voice of community. It is the shared conversation of how God has been known in generations gone by.  However, as long as my experience governs my understanding of God, I don’t have to be bothered with how others experience God.  Experience matters.  But the experience of an undefined God may run  the risk of experiencing an unknown God.  

If I were to add a tag line or two, I might suggest:

I am a progressive Christian who knows
-Tradition matters: the movement of God’s Spirit today has integrity with the movement of God’s Spirit yesterday, today and every day.
 -Community matters: a faith revealed as love cannot be lived alone.
-Ideas matter: God is bigger than but not removed from our ideas, and can be found in our testimonies.

For a few days earlier this month I divided my time between my official job in Decatur,  Georgia and the New Baptist Covenant celebration in Atlanta.  The celebration had been planned by President Jimmy Carter and several other distinguished Baptists as an attempt to bring many Baptists together across the usual lines of our “Conventions.”  (These are not really “conventions” but alliances of churches that have conventions, very much like what other people call “denominations.”)

It was clear both from the attendees and from the agenda that the meetings attracted a certain kind of Baptist—those who found much that was persuasive in the traditional Social Gospel that was rooted in the theology of the Baptist Walter Rauschenbusch and flowered most powerfully in the action of the Baptist Martin Luther King, Jr.

We discovered that we were quite good at singing and praying together, and even at thinking about issues like poverty and AIDS, as long as we did not have to engage in arguments about scriptural inerrancy or local church autonomy.

I was particularly impressed by the speakers I heard or heard about.  President Jimmy Carter and President Bill Clinton I heard; Vice President Al Gore and Senator Charles Grassley I heard about.

What I noticed was this:  at home, with other Baptists, these political leaders were perfectly comfortable talking about their faith.  They did not talk about faith as a kind superficial add-on to their prior political commitments.  They did not use their faith to try to con us into voting for them or their preferred candidates.  It was clear that their social convictions were deeply grounded in their faith, and they could talk about that without shame, embarrassment, or guile.

I am a firm believer in the separation of church and state, and I do not think we want the kind of public religious discourse that suggests that believers make better officials than unbelievers, or, God knows, that Baptists have a corner on public virtue.

But I do wish that the media and the public had some clue to the fact that for these people, of different political persuasions, who might or might not like each other very much,  and for many other leaders, faith is a fundamental part of who they are.

I think many Americans don’t get that, to our loss.

Nine years ago – when I was 49 – I experienced the gift of a three month sabbatical. After 25 years of ministry and 25 years of marriage and 22 years of parenting, I was ready for a break. And so I put together 10 weeks of exploration – some into areas of uncomfortable discovery ( yoga and massage!), and some into retooling for a fresh commitment to ministry. 

At one of the seminars I attended, we spent five days studying the Enneagram – an ancient spiritual practice that invites us to explore the shadow side of our souls.  If you are not familiar with this frightening but life changing way of owning your own darkness, I strongly encourage you to investigate it. Coming face to face with my enneagram style/was the single most helpful discovery during my mid-life years. Which is saying a lot, because owning your enneagram is a way of acknowledging failure. An enneagram type is defined  by the weakness, the sin which is central to our lives – the single flaw that stands in the way of spiritual wholeness and radical dependence upon the grace of God. And the challenge of an enneagram discipline is to transform weakness into strength.

For those of you familiar with enneagram language, I am a Type One – sometimes called the Perfectionist or the Truth Teller. (Other well known Ones are the Apostle Paul, Martin Luther, Ralph Nader and Hillary Clinton. You get the picture!). We Ones are emphatic about truth, fairness, moral rectitude and social righteousness. At our best we can build transparency, accountability, order  and justice into the fabric of personal and social community. But at our worst, we are insufferable  - legalistic, judgmental, self-righteous, and unforgiving. And it is only when we see the pitch blackness of our ugly rigidity, that we can begin to let go – and realize that only God is perfect, only God is Truth, only God is Just. And if we invite God to be God, then our moral sensibilities can be subject to God’s grace, instead of our own stubborn certainty.

But enough of me. It has occurred to me, as I once again prepare for the journey of Lent, that exploring our shadow sides is the spiritual task of this season – perhaps the most creative time of the year for our souls. When Jesus wrestled with Satan during those 40 days of temptation, he was offered the opportunity to take virtues and turn them into self-serving vices. Feed the hungry – but do it miraculously with Super Bowl half-time tactics.( an excess of Enneagram Type Two!). Perform a miracle – but for your own aggrandizement instead of pointing to the power of God (an excess of Enneagram Type 4). Grab the authority over all the kingdoms – not for service but for power (an excess of Enneagram Type . Thank God that Jesus resisted – but it took 40 days of struggle and deprivation and brutal self examination before he survived the rigors of his shadow struggle.

My shadow side is just as strong at 58 as it was when I was 20 – but at least now I have the wisdom to recognize it.. And the temptations just keep coming – to judge others, to claim superior truth, to rail at the unfairness of life, to out do every one else’s righteousness – including God’s. And anger – the satanic force in the soul of a Type One – continues to gnaw at my soul.  I KNOW ALL OF THIS! But I still fall prey to the seduction of  the shadowy world. And so I must be brutally honest with my continuing failures. I must courageously explore this endless shadow. And I must earnestly cast my self upon the grace and mercy of God – who loves me – and needs me – failure and all. If my truth can somehow be filtered through God’s Truth, then maybe we can be partners in the ever continuing work of creation.

What is your shadow? Where is your failure? How do you separate yourself from God and pretend to BE God – in ways that distort the world, instead of love the world? And how can your flaw become a tiny flame of holiness in God’s ongoing work of redemption?

Exploring the wilderness of shadow is our Lenten Call.

May it be so!

(A good book to begin an Enneagram journey is called Parables and the Enneagram, by Clarence Thomson. 144 pages.)

The continuing relevance of the great blues song, Stormy Monday, popularized by T. Bone Walker and re-popularized by the Allman Brothers and—on any given weekend—by various bar bands across the country, is self-evident.  But what might it mean?  One listens to the narrator’s voice work through the (fatalistic?) week, declaring Tuesday “just as bad” as that Monday which gives the song it’s title.  What about the weekend—does it provide a welcome and renewing respite from the difficulties and challenges of the week, or simply a mundane, if perhaps a bit more playful, recasting of the same?  And Sunday—are those Church prayers which are referred to hopeful, thankful, confessional, desperate or some combination thereof? 
 
The brief period of time bookended by Super Bowl and Transfiguration Sunday, on one side, and Ash Wednesday, on the other, punctuated by Super-, or as some would have it, Super-Duper -, Tuesday and concurrently Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras, provide  us with quite an extraordinary, and arguably quite a stormy, set of days.  Political races, whether despite themselves or due to the possibilities they suggest, tend to provide some degree of hopeful, even inspirational, rhetoric; at the same time, they inevitably descend into, or even actively court, mudslinging and contemptuous rhetoric.   Transfiguration Sunday, for those who care—and dare— to engage it, provides some pretty heady, and very gutsy, stuff for our own, and our churches’, journeys.  The Super Bowl—well, is it even about football anymore?  I guess we do see some between the “dot.com,” junk food, and car commercials. Mardi Gras, by its very name, suggests— and by testimony of those involved includes—various “rich” offerings of (at least fleeting) delight.  And Shrove Tuesday, bless it’s quaint and foreign (to most Americans) sounding name, interestingly and insightfully suggests not a one-sided, solemn, guilt-ridden confession, but genuine relationship, consideration, sharing, and even dialogue on the way towards, one hopes and prays, forgiveness and recommitment to, and from, the community. 

Indeed one important and missing (from the lives of all too many in our world) ingredient which might tie together these seemingly disparate days and activities is related to the “shriving” and “shrift” from which Shrove Tuesday takes its name.  Too many individuals and organizations in our “communication age”—now there’s an irony!—give each other only “short shrift.”  That is, we—as a society, as a set of individuals, as consumers and as providers, as competitors on the gridiron or in the (far more ruthless) marketplace, and  even (sadly) as coworkers, team-members,  lovers, family members, etc— simply don’t listen to and engage one another as God intended and intends.  The full phrase in which “short shrift” is found in the old English saying is telling: “short shrift and a long rope.”  That is, as we might translate it into our vernacular, “don’t deal with him/her, let him/her hang.”  We’re good at that!

The Transfiguration Story, in marvelous fashion, joins the glorified Jesus on the mountaintop while he is “in conversation” with that deep and rich tradition of the law and the prophets which provides his religious identity and impulse (Luke 8:30).  And what was the conversation about?  Jesus’ “exodus” (the word is clear in the Greek , if not in most translations).  Peter wants to bottle the moment (v. 33)—not a bad impulse, arguably.  But, God knows, there’s work to be done “down” there (v. 37).  And so Jesus takes his followers there, to encounter and engage others. 

Returning to our song—Tuesday is indeed “bad” in that course of things in which “short shrift and a long rope” rules the day.  But insofar as it may offer some real playfulness along the way, and some real engagement and encounter for the journey, Shrove Tuesday offers a suggestion of God’s will and God’s way for God’s people and for the world.  In every exodus there is the high point of liberation and the low points of wilderness wandering.  Fellow travelers, let us be there for each other along the way in order to point the way to fuller and truer engagement of each other and of God!  Now that’s rich.  And super.

Since The Center for Progressive Christianity came into being in 1994, it has succeeded in widely spreading the term “progressive Christian” around the world.  It embraces a pluralistic spirituality, inclusion of people who have been traditionally excluded from the church, openness to metaphorical interpretations of Christian tradition, and commitment to practicing the faith to make the world a better place.

But now it can be said that there are two kinds of progressive Christianity in America.  In the last few years, the term “progressive Christian” has begun to be used by evangelical Christians who are disaffected from right-wing politics.    Their definition of “progressive Christian” is mostly a political one; they tend to have orthodox, traditional views about religion while standing for economic justice and peace.

By contrast, The Center for Progressive Christianity does not define progressive Christianity in political terms.  It’s 8 Point Welcome Statement embraces people of all sorts of persuasions.  Our movement is committed to inclusiveness at many levels. We care a lot about justice, peace, and environmental responsibility, but we recognize that there are many different ways to approach these goals.  While we encourage political activism, we care even more about values that are more enduring than current political passions.

So it is more important than ever for us to be clear about what we mean when we say we are progressive Christians.  For years I’ve been writing and collecting “tag lines”, short phrases that we can share with others about the kind of Christianity we represent.  Lots of folks are embarrassed to call themselves Christians, because of all the bad things that have been done in the name of our faith, and particularly by the traditional Christian claim that Christianity is the only true religion.  Our progressive Christian movement is about  re-imagining and re-defining our religion, boldly reclaiming our identity, and finding succinct ways to express it:

I’m a progressive Christian who

* keeps the faith and drops the dogma
* experiences God more than I believe in any definition of God
* thinks that my faith is about deeds, not creeds
* takes the Bible seriously because I don’t take it literally
* thinks spiritual questions are more important than religious answers
* cares more about what happens in the war-room and the board-room than about what happens in the bedroom
* thinks that other religions can be as good for others as my religion is good for me
* goes to a church that doesn’t require you to park your brain outside before you come inside
* thinks that God is bigger than anybody’s idea about God
* thinks that God evolves

Do you have any “elevator speeches” you’d like to add to this list?

It used to be conventional wisdom to avoid religion and politics at gatherings of friends and family. Nowadays, it’s nearly impossible not to talk about them. I think that’s a good thing; after all, for people of faith their religious convictions, if they mean anything at all, certainly inform their political opinions. It’s true for all traditions. When Benazir Bhutto was murdered, I offered condolences to my close neighbor, who a Muslim from Pakistan, and then we spoke about the religious politics of his former country.

For Jews and Christians listening week after week to the teachings of Torah, the Prophets and the New Testament, it is impossible not to have an convictions about the pressing social problems of our time. For instance, I believe caring for God’s people who are hungry, poor, without homes; destitute, sick, in prison and even unborn is a Biblical calling. It is not optional. Neither is it optional to be a good steward of one’s resources while caring for the resources of the earth in a manner that preserves it for future generations. Patterns of consumption that leads to eradication of species and threaten death to the creation, is an offense to God according to the scriptures of both Jews and Christians. Repentance is basic.

How can I teach and preach without these scriptures having some influence on my own political decisions about social policies that will more closely adhere to my religious convictions? Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.

The current political discussions are focused on the very matters that our scriptures address: care for creation, hospitality to sojourners in the land, fair and equitable economic policy, health care for the sick, lifting up the poor, restraining greed, ending war while preserving peace, protecting the innocent and sustaining human freedom. These subjects are not unfamiliar to people of faith who read the Bible. I don’t expect people to agree on the precise way to address these problems, but I do believe it’s important for Christians to be fully engaged in the process by offering a vision rooted in scripture that corresponds to the hope offered there for all God’s people.

Speaking of people not agreeing, my guess is that not everyone in our congregations agree on every matter of politics, theology or church practices any more than we agree on books, movies or restaurants. People in our congregations, like our larger Church bodies have differences of opinions. That is no surprise and I don’t expect anything else. The real challenge for congregations is the same for our denominations, and our country. Treating one another with respect while disagreeing is the great challenge. At heart, it is a spiritual opportunity to learn how to care truly for another with respect while disagreeing on matters of real substance. The challenge is the same as that facing the country: living respectfully with different people and different opinions. People of faith have a narrative that calls us to such a life. Whether the country does right now is up for serious debate.

Editor’s Note: This is the transcript of a sermon preached on June 17, 2007. We have decided to publish it now, on the QTL blog, because of the on-going need for religion in America to allow itself to be defined by grace more than by hostility; by including rather than excluding; by humility rather than pious posturing. Some of the references are dated specifically to the week of June 17, 2007, but the point remains the same today as it did on June 17th.

Today’s lectionary reading (Luke 7:36-39), like all lectionary readings, is the reading that was heard in nearly every church around the world this week. Christians from all over the world heard, this week, about the woman who washed Jesus’s feet with her hair. It’s an amazing event that Luke records. This woman who had not lived her life very well….who was looked down upon by all, ignored, mocked…..she hears that Jesus – the only one in this woman’s world who did not ignore her or look down on her, but instead reaffirmed his love for her as someone who God made and loves – no matter how much she had marred that image of God – she hears that Jesus was going to be eating at a home nearby and she went there to wash his feet with the best oil money could buy. No one had asked her to be there, and the host certainly did not want her there. But there she was, weeping at Jesus’ feet…her tears of gratitude dropping on his feet which she wiped off with her hair.  Now, we don’t know when Jesus forgave her, Luke doesn’t say. The text, if I have read it correctly, makes clear that she is not forgiven because of the way she washes his feet that night. Her acts of love and gratitude are the result of having been forgiven at another time, and she was so moved, she is so grateful…that when she heard he was going to be nearby, she had to be there.

Now, Jesus often acknowledged and blessed people that the world deemed unworthy. And it was often the response of the religious leaders looking on to see such actions by Jesus, as they did in this case, as clear evidence that he was certainly not divine…certainly not holy….because such radical forgiveness was not a reflection of the God they wanted to know. For God to be so radical, so inclined to love a woman like this, was to expose in neon lights how little these religious leaders and the other guests that night were actually reflecting the God they claimed to know.

There is a message here – a call to each of us to think on how well we know and are willing to reflect the God of Jesus Christ. And it is this message that Jesus wants not only to underscore, but to help his host, the other guests and all of us here understand what it looks like to reflect the God of Jesus Christ.

And so he asks his host, who was clearly uncomfortable with the woman and how Jesus was handling everything…he asks his host about two men who owed debts to the same lender, one much larger a debt than the other, both of which the lender forgave. Now Jesus has talked about forgiving debts before, but on this night he asked his host which of the two men will love the lender more. The host answers correctly, Jesus says – the man who had more debt forgiven loved the lender more, which leads Jesus to say these truly revolutionary words: “He who has been forgiven little loves little.”

Now, it is important to note that there are many different kinds of love and many different Greek words for love. In this case, the word used to describe the love the men feel at having their debt forgiven is the same word Jesus uses when he talks about those who are forgiven little, love little. The word used means: moral love. In other words, being forgiven ignites in the forgiven a moral re-compassing, a gratitude that reflects not the relief one feels when they have gotten off the hook, but rather the transforming humility one feels as the recipient of a sacrifice they did not earn or deserve. 
When we forgive, we give someone the gift of grace….think of forgiveness as the wrapping paper on a gift called grace. And it is that grace, grace that reflects who God is, not who we are, it is that grace that moves, that reforms, that reignites a moral love in the human heart. To forgive is not always the option I want to choose. And if you’re like me, it’s not always the option you want to choose either. We get angry, it’s natural, we get angry when we have been wronged in some way, and if the other person has done nothing to earn my forgiveness….just my wrath, then to forgive – especially the big things - is not my first instinct. But Jesus never said we need to change the world, he said we need to allow God to change the world through us. To forgive, even when we don’t want to, is to do nothing less than take part in building God’s Kingdom on this earth. To forgive is to pave a road for God’s grace to become real in the life of another, who is moved to humility and gratitude as the recipient of a pardon they did not earn. It is a radical message. But this, if I understand it correctly, is the way Jesus says God works. It is the concept of the cross. Grace is limited to no one, is not earned and is by our worldly measures, not fair. I imagine this is what the host was thinking that night at his home, as this woman that he looked down upon in every respect was shown such grace and love by Jesus. I can hear him thinking, “You forgave her?” This forgiveness concept is so radical. Not many liked to hear it. It’s hard to hear today……unless you’re one of the people that is forgiven…or you’re one of the people who (though they may not know it) are held captive by the anger, the disgust they hold for another person who has wronged them in some way. Forgiveness is a radical notion. Make no mistake about it. But I think what we learn from Jesus is that when we choose to forgive – we become a vehicle through which God’s grace can break into this world to heal, to make whole.

Imagine how these words, these radical words from Luke, must have been heard this week when they were read in churches in South Africa, where so many people know through their own experience and the living out of his call to forgive, that the words of Jesus are true. I imagine a lot of those people who forgave, did not want to. But they had trust that through forgiveness, they were giving the gift of God’s radical grace, which heals both the giver and the given. I wonder how these words have been heard this week at Duke, where yesterday the DA was found guilty of lying about the case involving the lacrosse team. I wonder how these words have been heard this week in Liberia, where the hearings have just begun for their ousted leader who wreaked such havoc, caused such pain and loss for so many Liberians.  Did these words fall on rocky ground? Will they take root in the heart of just one, who will begin to allow her life to be used as a vehicle for the breaking in of God’s Kingdom in that hurting land? How were these words heard in Iraq this week? How were they heard in New York? How were they heard in Gaza, where ancient angers and hatreds have reared their heads again this week in violence? Will just one allow his life to become a gift of grace, wrapped in the cover of forgiveness?

How do we hear these words? Does your concept of forgiveness has a limit? Are there, in other words, some offenses for which forgiveness is not an option and may actually be considered the immoral thing to do? I admit that there are limits beyond which I would have a very hard time to forgive. But if I understand Jesus, to forgive is to offer grace, not my grace, but God’s…and God’s grace is the only thing, the only power that can transform the human heart. And if God’s grace knows no limits, after all the cross was meant for every single person, good & bad, than how can forgiveness know limits?  The more willing we are to forgive, the more able we are to be a builder in God’s Kingdom.

So I think the main question, the main message that comes out of this evening meal we have read about today is: How willing are we to give birth to moments of grace? That’s ultimately what forgiveness does….it gives birth to moments of grace. This is what we are seeing in this incredible display of the woman washing Jesus’ feet with her tears and wiping those tears from his feet with her hair….we see the overwhelming joy of a new person who has been birthed by grace.

If we live in the world this way…And it’s not easy, in fact it is very hard…and I am no master of it…..but if we choose to see the grace that can be given rather than the sin that has been…we help create men & women like the one who washed Jesus’ feet with her hair: people who have been transformed by grace. We live in a world filled with both sin & the potential for grace, all the time. What do we see? I think the point Jesus is making is that a life lived for him, is a life that chooses to see the grace that could be….over the sin that was.

I hate to admit it, but I just turned 53 years old.  I was born smack-dab in the middle of the Baby Boom.  On my birthday a few days ago, my wife and I were headed to a worship service out of town and stopped at McDonalds for a cup of coffee.  Two cups cost $1.07.  I was surprised and commented on the price.  The sweet young woman at the cash register smiled and said, “It’s the price for seniors.”  Ouch.  After church we went to a restaurant that had a buffet.  The waiter who came to ask about drinks also asked, “Is either of you a senior?”  Now, this is cruel and unusual punishment for an aging Baby Boomer on his birthday. 

Those of you old enough to remember, do you remember the 1968 movie, “Wild in the Streets?”  Among other au-dacious happenings, a 24-year-old gets elected President of the United States.  The tagline of this film was, “If you’re 30, you’re through!”  Although I was a young teenager and did not ever see the film (my parents probably wouldn’t let me, so my memories come from previews), I remember thinking how racy it all seemed.  We thought we were shattering all the rules. 

We Boomers tend to hold on to this image of being young, even though we, too, are going the way of all flesh.  Jean Twenge, in Generation Me, has argued persuasively that Baby Boomers, who think of our generation as having re-defined popular culture (I’m amazed at how many of us believe that Woodstock [1969 version] really did change the world), do not even hold a candle to the young people of today on pushing aside traditional expectations.  I work with college students and love the job.  That said, I’m feeling increasingly “geezerish” on an almost daily basis.  This generation of emerging adults (an actual sociological term nowadays) is mystifyingly paradoxical to me.  They are brazenly self-assertive, even “in your face.”  At the same time they are surprisingly passive and vulnerable, in some ways really fragile.  They are very opinionated, yet when challenged (even gently and respectfully), they tend to wilt.  They have opinions, they just don‘t know how to support them.  Now, I know these observations are, for the most part, my own anecdotal, very unscientific, observations.  But some of them seem to go along with what I’m reading.

One of the most paradoxical qualities that I see in young people is their passion and hunger for God (coupled with a deep desire for community) and their detachment from organized Christianity.  It is increasingly the case that I en-counter students on the campus where I teach who think of themselves as deeply committed Christians, who do not participate, who do not engage, a local church at all.  In other words, they never or rarely go to church on Sunday.  They may consider chapel their “church” for the week or it may be a small group or some sort of “Bible study” with friends.  In keeping with the brazen, opinionated quality I just mentioned, I overheard one student (a self-identified Christian) describe church as “boring as hell.”  He doesn’t go.

What do we make of this picture?  I honestly don’t know.  As Christian Smith has recently written (see “Getting a Life,” christianitytoday.com/bc/2007/006/2.10), the one thing we don’t do is lurch between anxiously grasping at “relevance” or rigidly demanding that young people do church the way we oldsters think it ought to be done.  One thing that is still critically important – relationships.  But relationships with young people will likely be more off-putting in certain ways and bumpier than we’d like.  We’re going to need a huge dose of humility and pa-tience…and love.  In a word, the American church needs to repent for ignoring its young.  I’m working on this kind of penitence every day.  I admit, these young ‘uns do make me scratch my head.           

I learned something that impressed me when I visited Wichita a few weeks ago.  As a passenger in a car driving over the river that bisects the city, I said, “Oh, there’s the Arkansas (ARkansaw)!”  It brought back memories of a cross-country road trip I took many years ago, following the river down from the foothills of the Rockies.  At Canon City, Colorado, the river tumbled through a gorge lined with mica-laden rock that shimmered in the sunlight.  Then it flowed placidly across the endless plain of Kansas.  It’s one of America’s longest and most important waterways.

The driver of the car corrected me immediately in my pronunciation.  “No.  Here we call it the Arkansas (OurKANsas) River!”

I was enchanted by the idea that this river could be the Arkansas (ARkansaw) in Colorado, the Arkansas (OurKANsas) in Kansas, and once again the Arkansas (ARkansaw) in Oklahoma and Arkansas (ARkansaw). 

It’s a lingustic misunderstanding, I suppose.  The best-known version of the river’s name came from an Indian word transliterated by the French, who aren’t in the habit of pronouncing the last “s”.  But not all Americans bought everything that came with the Louisiana Purchase.

The pronunciation of the river’s name says much more.  Not just about the French.  Not just about Kansas.  Not just about America.  It says something about the human and divine condition.

What, or whom, I call God is a river that flows through many, many souls. Some call the river Watanka.  Others call it Allah.  Others name it Brahman.  Others pray it Yahweh.  Some sing it Nature.  Others refuse, on grounds of religious principle, to name it at all.  Meanwhile, the water is the same.  The river flows on, without apparent concern for what it is called or how it is defined.  Fish happily swim up and down its current, oblivious to theological attempts to constrain it.  Some people stand by its banks and declaim its intentions and directions, without bothering to follow it.  Without taking the trouble to jump into it and go with its flow.  Without honoring how others might experience it, elsewhere along its path.  Some people have adamant opinions about it, instead of just enjoying it and letting it exist on its own terms.  Some people call the river “Our God”, as if they could control or own it, or as if it had chosen them to be its exclusive spokespersons.

Meanwhile, the river runs its long and steady course through every heart and soul, bringing life to all, regardless of what any might think of it, regardless of the names we give it.

Perhaps the highest praise we can give to God is to appreciate how very many ways we describe and name the transcendent dimension.  Honoring the fact that there is no one way to say God’s name is itself a profound act of worship.

So, more power to the people of Kansas for their special way of saying the name of the great river that defines their landscape.  Thanks to them for their addition to the cacaphonic poetry of America’s language about itself.  With a wink and a chuckle, let us thank them for reminding us of the infinite possibilities for naming the river that flows through us all.

In a (quite good and interesting) recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education titled “The Targets of Aggression” (Chronicle Review, October 5, 2007), David Barash considers the matter of misplaced aggression and like  countless others before him—preachers and Christian educators foremost among them—cites Jesus’ teachings “to love our enemies and if slapped, turn the other cheek.”  Indeed, Jesus did say these things.  And their meaning is obvious.  No?  Well, maybe.

Again, like countless others before him, Barash summarizes Jesus’ teachings along these lines: “absorb pain without passing it on.”  Just take it.  That’s the godly, or Godly, or What-would-Jesus-do way to be.  And anyway, what other way to be is there—aggression?!  Even were one to condone violence and, to put that more honestly, when one condones violence (since most of do, at some point[s]) in the name of vengeance or justice or something(s) in between, s/he would need to admit that aggressive response is a move and a set of actions that results much moreso in misplaced or displaced aggression toward some (weaker and/or available) other than it does in action directed at the aggressor. Think of biblical stories, history, “scapegoating” of all kinds and, if/as you will, various current military conflicts. 

And in our heart of hearts, we (many of us) would agree that violent aggression is not godly.  So, where does that leave us?  Back at “absorb pain without passing it on”?

Barash asserts within his article that “we might all be well advised to explore not only how pain and aggression are typically misplaced or displaced, but also how they should be placed.”  I agree!  Indeed, I think that in many and significant ways, which Barash along with countless others—preachers and Christian educators foremost among them —does not explore, this is precisely where Jesus’ teachings kick in (pardon the, arguably, aggressive metaphor). 

As scholarly work on Jesus in his Roman/Galilean context has shown, far from simply asking or demanding that his followers simply “absorb pain,” Jesus actually teaches in these sayings a creative response which neither simply absorbs nor passes on pain.  Rather, Jesus invites and models a creative redirection back onto the aggressor.  Listen again, as if for the first time: 

1) “you feel privileged to slap me in public with the (socially acceptable) right hand, well then let me turn my check, giving you the opportunity–and literally forcing your hand, if you so choose to follow through–to slap me again with the (not socially acceptable) left hand”;
2) “you feel justified in suing me in open court for my last set of pants and shirt, well then, here, take my underpants and undershirt too”;
3) “you’re going to  press me into service to carry your gear for a mile (as Roman soldiers are privileged to do), then I’ll go ahead and carry it another mile too (putting the Roman soldier under threat of having broken the rules of engagement).

Dubbed Jesus “third way” (by Walter Wink, whose writings have been influential on the matter), these teachings creatively turn the tables back onto aggressors in a manner that potentially threatens their social standing and suggests to them, and to others, the limits of their presumed power and even of the systems which uphold that power.  They provide precisely that which Barash’s article, and our world, is crying out for–both a break in the aggression : misplaced aggression paradigm, and an alternative to simply absorbing pain.

God help us to continue hearing, and applying, Jesus’ teachings in paradigm breaking, and habit breaking, ways!

Is the Church becoming nothing more than a beautiful place to get married?  This question comes as one among many questions being asked about the future of the Church and its place in the social fabric of America.  As a Pastor of Young Adult ministry, I hear many such questions from that faithful generation of Christian saints who lived through the golden age of Mainline Protestantism.  Think what you will about the authenticity of mainline Protestant churches and the approach to ministry they represent, but these are the institutions that were established, yes by the will of Jesus Christ, but also by the blood and sweat of our venerable elders.  When I hear these people ask questions about the youth and young adults, when I hear them worry aloud about “whether we’re losing the next generation of Presbyterians,” in my case, what I hear is a deep-seated anxiety that all for which this generation labored will be for naught.
 

This is not a reflection about the shortcomings of mainline Protestantism, nor is it a lecture in human finitude to point out the impossibility for human kind to ever know what is good, right or God’s will for the Church.  Rather, this brief reflection will examine the various responses to that deep-seated anxiety running rampant through the Presbyterian denomination, if nowhere else. 

After looking up the on-line July/August issue of The Presbyterian Layman, I saw a series of articles with titles like “46,544 Members lost” or “Church Exodus Continues.”  Clearly, this anxiety is not limited to a small minority of Church-goers…this anxiety lies at the heart of much of our ecclesial conflict.  I certainly do not wish to turn a blind eye to the problems of my denomination, to the sliding membership and loss of vitality, but I must confess that I am much more uncomfortable with the idea of using our membership roles as a litmus test for faithfulness.  In chapter 3 of the Gospel of Luke, the devil assails Jesus with three temptations - three temptations that seek to mislead Jesus concerning his identity as the Son of God.  The third and final of these temptations is that he should position himself on the very top of the Temple and throw himself down, confident that God would rescue him from certain death.  Jesus rebuffs this temptation, and this interpretation of his Son-ship as meaning that he never has to die.  Further into his ministry, Jesus does set his sights on Jerusalem, and he does position himself up on a high place…not the Temple, but rather on a hillside called the Skull, where he willingly embraces death.  The Temptation narrative ends with a foreboding warning that the devil “departed from him until an opportune time.”

That opportune time is now, and it is the Church that is tempted.  When we measure our health and faithfulness by the numbers of people filling our pews we, too, will be tempted to believe that being the Church of Jesus Christ means that we never have to risk death.  It will be as if Christ never uttered the words “…those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will lose it.” 

Yes the sliding numbers in my denomination concern me, and I would be fooling myself to pretend that they don’t, but I am equally concerned with the willingness with which my brothers and sisters sacrifice what is right and faithful for what is successful and popular.  The entire Reformation was never meant to create an institution…it began as a movement to reform the Church; to call it back to this self-sacrificing foundation laid by Christ himself.  Why don’t we continue this tradition of being a voice that calls the Church to that which is most faithful and loving and kind, even if it means putting our life at risk.
 
But what of the next generation?  What about the future of this reforming Church?  Instead of focusing on the sliding membership, I choose to focus on Sam and Tanya.  Sam and Tanya are a young couple who did get married at the Church where I serve.  My wife and I attended both the wedding and reception. During their toast to one another, Tanya thanked her family and friends for driving all the way from Sioux City where she grew up, to her wedding here in Kansas City.  She explained that it was important to her and Sam that they take their wedding vows in the Church where THEY have chosen to lodge their membership and their service…it is THEIR Church.  You see, it’s not just a place to get married, not for everybody…and that’s where I find my hope!