My favorite Jedi Meister always makes me laugh…
LENT TWO: LAMENT – TRANSFORMATION
Click here to listen to the SERMON: Lent 2 Mar 4 2012
Click here to download the WORSHIP BULLETIN Lent 2B Mar 4 2012
Category: Uncategorized
Love Thy Neighbor
Good advice…
Dear Churches Seeking New Members, 
My husband and I moved to the city a few years ago and have been ‘between churches’ ever since. We’ve been to visit quite a few of you and have some observations you may find helpful in encouraging more new members:
- No Public Humiliation – please don’t make us stand up in a room full of total strangers and introduce ourselves. We want to be anonymous because we’re not sure we want to see you again and, frankly, we’re still seeing other churches. It’s not you, it’s us, and we just don’t know you very well yet. (And, believe me, if we do decide to join you, you’ll be lucky to get us to shut up, so enjoy the quiet while you can get it.)
- Acknowledge We Exist – Being anonymous is not the same as being invisible. We’re probably going to be a little…
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Other Voices on the Quest for a Better Gospel
As many of you superfriends and blogofans already know, my personal spiritual journey is one of constant searching for alternatives to the Bad Old Good News that is typically propagated by most traditional expressions of western Christianity (i.e. Roman Catholicism and Fundamentalist Protestantism).
One of the stops on this journey was with my former roommate from seminary (If you thought of Dark Helmet as soon as I said “former roommate,” you get 3 extra points).
Aaron Blue is the founder and Director of the Charis Project, an outreach organization that supports holistic and sustainable community development through orphanages in Thailand. Click the link above to learn more and support it.
While Aaron’s ecclesiastical roots lie in the early Vineyard movement, his is a theology that defies categorization. What made me gravitate toward him in seminary is the fact that he doesn’t seem to live by the same rules that everyone else does. A rather Christlike quality, if you ask me. Aaron would describe himself as follows: “While everyone else is trying to win the Superbowl, I’m questioning the validity of the NFL.”
Aaron’s journey has taken him in some interesting directions. We disagree on a lot, but that’s okay with us because we both believe that dogmatic conformity is probably the single worst criterion for evaluating the quality of one’s spirituality.
He keeps a blog of signposts from his metaphysical travels:
In Search of a Shameless Gospel
I recommend starting with this post:
Running from a Shameful Gospel – Part 1
This post is particularly reminiscent of conversations that Aaron and I were having about this time seven years ago. Those conversations played a big part in helping me talk about the Bad Old Good News in terms that are as ridiculous as the theology itself. Here’s how I like to say it:
The Bad Old Good News
You were such a horrible person that God had to torture and murder the only person in the world who didn’t deserve it. If you don’t think this is the best idea ever, God will torture you forever along with most of the rest of the human race.
Another favorite rendition:
Telepathically tell the zombie that he’s your master and you get to live forever.
That kind of “good news” is neither good nor news. It’s either silly, offensive, or both. Aaron and I both set off on our separate quests for a better Gospel. The journey has led us in very different directions, but we continue to share notes.
I’ve literally been looking for a copy of this book for years. Then, last Sunday, one of the elders in my congregation handed me one.
I’m looking forward to reading this for several reasons. First, it’s a classic of the Civil Rights Movement. Martin Luther King read it and drew all kinds of inspiration from it. In fact, I can’t help but tell the story of Thurman’s visit to India, where he was granted an audience with Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi lamented that he didn’t have more opportunity to share his message of nonviolence with America, but he also prophesied that a member of the African American community would one day arise and do so. Shall we say that Gandhi foretold to Howard Thurman the ministry of Martin Luther King?
The second reason why I am excited about this book is because of Thurman’s focus on the person of Jesus. This year, as I have been struggling to work out for myself what a post-evangelical and liberal faith looks like, the Christological question looms large. I don’t want to be an unfaithful friend to Jesus, but any relationship we have must be our own, not dictated or categorized by strict adherence to literal interpretations of creeds and formulae. I find myself drawn to the motto of the Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship: “Freely Following Jesus.” Something about that rings true to what I’m trying to do.
The final reason why I am excited to finally get my hands on a copy of this book is closely related to the previous reason. I wonder if God might be currently working in my life to redeem my experience of Protestantism (particularly in its Baptist expressions). Through individual voices like Thurman, King, and Harry Emerson Fosdick and through churches like Wedgewood and Binkley Baptist, I am coming to see a different side of the Baptist tradition than the legalistic fundamentalism I experienced at Cresset Christian Academy. I’m hearing, perhaps for the first time, the voice of freedom in their politics and theology. It’s an inspiring vision. I had a shocking thought the other day: I might even one day consider taking a call from a Baptist congregation (provided that it was more like “Howard Thurman” Baptist than “Jerry Falwell” Baptist).
So, that’s what I’ve got for now…
At the brink of the Civil Rights Movement, pastor and writer Howard Thurman released the book Jesus and the Disinherited. Prevalent then and now, the book provides a foundation of reasoning for the need for non-violent movements to fight the oppressive systems that exist. Thurman’s book focuses primarily on the disinherited state of African-Americans at that time in the United States, where segregation was the norm, Jim Crow laws existed, and people’s rights were being disregarded.
Using Jesus as the ultimate example, Thurman discusses how to overcome, in a peaceful manner, the frustration and pain that can develop from being oppressed. Jesus life provides endless examples of how to react to oppressive and controlling systems. He himself was part of a minority group within the Roman Empire, a large dominant and controlling group, and not only was he part of the Jewish minority, he also came from a poor…
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Sounds trivial, but it’s not. The quality of our spirituality can be measured by the quality of our relationships.
Unlikely Encounters
It was one o’clock in the morning and I was driving to my home an hour away from the hospital where my wife and son are staying. I made a pit stop at a Service Area on the New York Thruway that had a McDonald’s. Having made the initial unexpected trip to the ER during my workday, I was still in my clerical collar. It just so happened that a busload of Orthodox Jews from Toronto was passing through at the same time. There was an elderly man in line behind me who obviously spoke English as a second language. When he tried to buy coffee with Canadian coin, he encountered resistance from the staff behind the counter. He didn’t seem to understand.
“But the money is good!”
I stepped in and offered to pay.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Just trying to be nice.”
“I don’t like it,” he said in reference to the offered charity.
The cashier suggested that he pay me and I pay her. That seemed acceptable to him. He gave me a looney. I told him I used to live in Canada, so it would be a nice reminder of days gone by.
“Here,” he said as he handed me the coin, “You can keep it as an antique.”
His name is Leo and he is originally from Poland. He is also a Holocaust survivor. Although he was only a small boy then, he lost his entire family. He lives in Toronto now.
I just had to laugh in wonder at the moment: a Holocaust survivor and a Presbyterian minister, both decked out in traditional identifying garb, brought together for the briefest instant of kindness and Tikkun Ha’Olam (‘fixing the world’) by the flowing energies of life, the universe, and God. I wish I could have sat down and talked with him for longer, but his bus was leaving and he had to go. We said goodbye and I sat down with my food to listen to the lyrics of the muzak coming over the loudspeakers: “There’s all kinds of people in this world.”
I think I’ll hang onto that looney for a while.
Holding Onto Hope
I lectured on William James in yesterday’s class. Here’s a passage of his that I like:
Most religious men believe (or ‘know,’ if they be mystical) that not only they themselves, but the whole universe of beings to whom the God is present, are secure in his parental hands. There is a sense, a dimension, they are sure, in which we are all saved, in spite of the gates of hell and all adverse terrestrial appearances. God’s existence is the guarantee of an ideal order that shall be permanently preserved. This world may indeed, as science tells us, some day burn up or freeze; but if it is part of his order, the old ideals are sure to be brought elsewhere to fruition, so that where God is, tragedy is only provisional and partial, and shipwreck and dissolution are not the absolutely final things.
–William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 1902
Hopping Hadrian's Wall 