Zoe

Proclamation Unfettered

I joined Facebook a few months back and have entered into the "community" with some curiosity. I have watched and read a few posts from friends in another Northwest Presbyterian Church, other than my own, make comments that go something like this, "Worship was great. Thanks for the awesome music."  It has made me think about what we are allowing to happen to the word proclaimed? I have even heard some elders in my own tradition lament that they go to church for the music and that is their primary "bar" that determines if the worship experience "was good or not."  This can be extended to include not just the singing in worship but the visual arts and even liturgical dance. A few comments are worth blogging about in response.

First, we go to worship not for a "feeling" or a "high" or a ecclesiastical substance to be mainlined into our spiritual veins, we go to worship to magnify the Creator, give thanks to the Redeemer and grow in the knowledge of the Spirt known as the triune God.

Secondly, in my tradition, the PCUSA, we have ordained Ministers of Word and Sacrament. The Minister of Word and Sacrament is the one who presides over the word proclaimed, articulated, delivered and the sacraments instituted. Let's start with the sacraments as a model for the word preached  and then determine the role of music and the arts. The sacraments are the way by which one remembers, retells, and acts out the story of which we are but a part of. The story was here before us and will remain long after us. This is not meant to diminish our role in the story just to suggest that our role is limited. In this sense the story transcends us. The story is by definition our story and to be entered into. So we encounter the risen Christ mysteriously present in the elements and thereby experience the risen Christ. However, whether one experiences anything in the celebration of the sacraments is entirely besides the point. If we make the experience the mark of authentic worship then we do no more than worship our own sense of a narcissistic self, which is the worship of self. Worship in this Facebook sense is altruistic! Similarly, and this is my primary point, in the sermon God is just as present as in the body and blood of the Eucharist. When it is all about the self then the sermon is just a speech that dispenses "good advice," or teaches a "moral." This is hardly the politic of speech worth getting out of bed for on a highly coveted weekend day off when I can stay in bed to catch up on my sleep and eat krispy kremes. Rather, the office of Minister of Word and Sacrament is trained, called out and ordained to lead the church into a dynamic process of growing into and out of the Good news which is another way of saying transformation. 

The sermon proclaimed in this sense becomes awful and awesome. God is made strangely transcendent and yet refreshingly with us so that good advice becomes good news and  the human "talk" or a "conversation" becomes a transformational word from God that literally saves us. We have an easier time recognizing the mysterious nature of God present in the sacraments but how is it that we have reduced a sermon to a talk that dispenses good moral advice. Perhaps in unfettering proclamation the Minister of Word is one who reads, unfolds, delivers, and applies, the written word of God so that it takes root in our context and becomes the living word of God in Jesus Christ so that Christ is mysteriously present with us in the sermon as Jesus is mysteriously present with us in the sacraments?

Maybe it is time that we stop worshipping worship. Maybe it is time to  stop reducing transformational preaching to a conversation.  We all, if we are honest, want to preach sermons that our congregation will "like." And I confess that it is hard to preach the truth to people who I have come to love, but this is what love requires. This is precisely what it means to be pastor! The truth of the gospel is a hard and audacious word. It is a truth that when it is all said and done we really would prefer to live as if God was really my own feeling of being close to God, which is to make myself god.  Maybe it is time to move beyond all of this "we don't need a message unless its a conversation methodology" so that we can get on with the real good news.  That God is God and we are not! I find this refreshingly freeing.

The role of music and the arts is to prepare us to receive the transformational good news of God in Jesus Christ and the reenactment of our life together in the sacraments.In the sacrament of the Lords Supper we remember. Again, this is really good news that transcends talk and conversation because we remember the work of Jesus on our behalf. This re-membering is what brings together broken people in a broken and dislocated world.  This is really good news that is sooo much better than just good advice! Thus, the role of the arts is that of preparation and therefore fulfills a support role. It points to and prepares us for the reception of the hard words that save, redeem, re-member and unify, rewrite and transform.

So we are left with one question, Is this good news or just good advice?  Hmmm...

ABC's of a Momentary Monk: G for Gathering

I like to be in groups with people but I need my space too. I guess that makes me an introvert. My wife Dawn, she is a true extrovert. She is energized by groups. She amazes me. She is like the Duracell bunny--she keeps going and going and going! Literally.  I like to have a reason for being in a group. It could be to do mission or service, pray, worship, love, even laugh. I always have a reason for being. Even if it is to be absolutely ridiculous, in the words of Bono. In the church we call this kind of gathering a community. I don't really like the word community because it is overused and carries with it too many sentimental versions of why gather and around whom do we gather. I mean Hallmark makes most good things into an emotion and most emotions are too subjective to be unifying. I am a purist so I risk further definition. We gather around Jesus. In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "Christ stands at the center." I like that. When I am in a gathering of Christian men, women and children, I honestly picture Christ hovering at the center; transcending conversations, sentimentalities,  emotions, expectations, rituals, and yes, even conflict. Literally and cosmically Jesus is at the center. I mean how else could such a diverse group of oddly political and precariously individualistic people stay unified, unless the gathering is gathered by a grand gatherer? 

Remembering Mike...

I have not written for a while because this is going to be what I write on and I have been putting it off. Not because I am a slouch but because I just don't want to admit it is true. On June 20th, my friend Mike closed his eyes to this world and opened in the arms of Jesus--it is just that simple.  I was roofing my house the day his wife called me to give me the news. I cried my eyes out, I mean I bawled, so loud my neighbor asked if I was okay. I told him my friend died and I wish I was there. I remember calling his cell phone a few times that week just hoping he would pcik up and signal to me that this really had not just happened. There is a special place in my heart for Mike Lundberg, or Lundy as we called him.  He was 29 years old or should I say-young! I loved that guy, always have and always will--Big time!

The first time I met Mike I honestly cannot remember. i was the Youth Pastor at Hope PResbyterian church in Richfield, Minnesota. That being said, I really don't remember being there at Hope when he was not. He is just synonymous with that season in our lives. Mike was full of energy and built. I mean cut, physically he had pipes for muscles on his arms and chisled to a degree. He looked like a  mythological Greek god. The kind of guy you just did not mess with.  He was not a bully or a tough guy, just solid, but in the same token tender. He was the kind of guy that you wanted on your side but also the kind who would cry with you and love you forever.  His smile cut the heart. He would smile and his whole face would light up and immediatley he was no longer a delinquent in mischief but just a guy who mysteriously made his way into your deep recess of your soul and there was no way to let him go. You could never really stay upset with him because he would become soft as clay when  he knew you were bummed out with him. That was Mike.  Rowdy, loud but tender and soft, winsome and everyone's best friend.  He was the best.

He took the same softball number that I wore. I was number nine and he wore number nine too. I will never forget the time I was watching their high school 12 inch softball team play and he effortlessly scooped up a ground ball at short stop and threw to first. He missed the first basemen not by a little, but by alot. I mean he threw it over the first base dug out and the first base line fence. He reminded me of myself so much. He made a great play and then threw it over the fence--just like I would have done!  That is why I just loved him so. It was like I was looking in the mirror and saw myself. He never gave up on anyone, including his own fading body. He died of very aggressive Leukemia. His body gave out but not his spirit. God was carrying him all the way. Through at least two bone marrow transplants and a stem cell transplant. There was probably more but he did not want to worry us. He wanted to live like he was alive not like he was dying. I will never forget the day he told me that. I vowed to always remember. Mike I remember. So does JEsus. Remember. Jesus remembers you, your mom and dad, sister, and of course, Janet, your awesome wife! Janet, thanks for loving Mike for the two years you had together. You are the best. I knew immediatly the two of you would be best friends, soul mates, lovers and, husband and wife. He cherished you and loved you beyond words. I will never forget you either. And I will always remember you Mike. You are one of my hero's. And I don't have many, if any hero's, any longer. I kind of gave up on them a few years ago. But if I still have any, you are one of them, to be sure.  You never gave up hope, you never gave up believing, you never gave up loving, you never gave up on people, and most of all you never gave up on God.

You are in a better place today. Heaven is most certainly louder. It is a party with a rugby game going on--if they play rugby in heaven.  And the rest of us here on earth, we are a bit worse for the ware because we need more people like you. People who are untainted by cynicism and sarcasm, people who are hopers and not filled with despair. People of the mustard seed, that what I will remember about you. I love you MIke, see you someday!

9er

An Angular Moment of Hope and Joy

Usually we have a great view facing west over the Puget Sound.  We can see the water, Vashon Island, and the Olympic Mountains on a clear day.  I got out of my car and had a rare moment of seeing a squall line of showers sweeping over the area across the water.  The wind picked up, it was piercing through my Mac Mor jacket.  The really interesting thing about this storm line was I couldn't even see the water, let alone Vashon or the Olympic Mountains.  It was a rare blanket of grey, dark, cold, and startling. The rain kicked in and pelted my face. I ran in the house. By the time I dropped off my book bag, and threw my car keys in my jacket pocket, the sky was getting lighter, but still raining hard. Pretty soon the water, Vashon Island and the Olympic Mountains were visible. It was still grey, however, with wind and rain at my house, but in the distance it was clearing. Within five more minutes the line of showers were gone and it was sunny, the water glistened, the Island and mountains were there in all splendor. I must say -- it was really beautiful.

It reminded me of Friday to Sunday in Holy Week. A moment of darkness and then light. That was a moment of great hope and joy at my house yesterday. C.S. Lewis writes in Screwtape Letters, "Joy is the meaningful acceleration of our relationship with God." That line from Lewis raced into my mind. How true.  The really powerful thing about Lewis was his "angular" ability to speak into the rain and wind of our times. We live in a dark land--just look at the five movies nominated for Academy Awards last month. All pretty dark. As if Hollywood needed a hug last year.

That was Friday but we are Sunday people. The darkness and grey of our culture is invaded by the angular truth of Lewis when we live as Easter Sunday people because of the risen Son of God in Christ. I can picture an arrow piercing the grey rain cloud with the hope that comes when we allow Joy to accelerate our relationship with God. That is my prayer this week for you and your family!

A Mutiny of Mercy

In Luke's gospel two things never happen. First, Jesus never asks someone to be born again. At least he does not do it in the formulaic fashion that we have grown accustomed to in the last 50 years. The second directive is never to try to decide what he really said or did not say. At least he does not do it in the sense that we have grown accustomed to in the last 50 years. Both are fruitless and to enter into an adventure of missing the point, according to Tony Campolo. In the Gospel of Luke we are asked, taught about, invited to participate in a invading mutiny of mercy and grace. This new invasion is not political it is spiritual and known as the Kingdom of God. This phrase is used by Jesus 38 times in the stories of Luke. It is high time we start to use it in our own stories. It is our framing story. We are called to participate in the antithesis of the imperial narratives of the day and so we are encouraged to enter into the same mutiny of grace today. A great mutiny that is an upside down peaceable kingdom--it is never what is the most plausible or instinctual action. Rather, it is usually quite the paradoxical opposite.

We are called to get de-framed from the imperial political, sociological, economic and ecological predominant paradigms of the day to be reframed into a new politic, community, economy of generosity and ecology of the brotherhood and sisterhood of humankind that is known as the Kingdom of God. In our day we are called to do to our enemies before they do it to us-this tends to be the primary politic. We are called to isolate as narcissistic individuals and be suspicious, judgmental and fearful of those not like us. We are called to accumulate pleasure, be financially secure, and develop our portfolios at the expense of those who have nothing. Afterall, they just need to get a job to provide or themselves, so the story and predominant belief system indoctrinates us. More than anything else, because of the industrial and new technological revolution, we rule over our environment, not participate in and with the environment. The progressive agenda roams the world seeking to accumulate, devour and consume. The First President of Kenya, President Kenyatta and Bishop Desmond Tutu said, "When the missionaries came to our country we had the land and the missionaries had the Bible. They asked us to pray. We closed our eyes and prayed. When we opened our eyes, we had the Bible and they had the land." This is an oversimplification but one that I and others could develop and articulate quite easily.

However, the mutiny in mercy calls us to stand apart of and from this heavy indoctrination to become unfettered by the secular framing story to get reframed into the Kingdom of God story. A story that asks us to get transformed and reformed, to get de-framed and reframed into a mutiny of mercy--in Jesus and his Kingdom. It is a framing story that...
*Says enough to greed and yes to generosity
*Says enough to nationaistic militarism and yes to a peaceable kingdom
*Says enough to plundering and pillaging the environment and make us co inhabitants in a global
kingdom to see our environment as the theater where God's wonder, awe and grandeur are on
continual display
*Says that the growing and ever widening gap between the rich and poor is immoral, unjust and
unacceptable in 2008

What about you will you join this kingdom of God, mutiny of mercy? Time to stand up for something so that we aviod falling for anything....Hey church no excuse is good enough! I want to hear more from you about what this Kingdom of God is in 2008. Please write and give me your statements that describe this mutiny of mercy, this irresistible revolution....jump in and join the conversation...

The Words of Waiting

Words. Image. They are powerful! They have the ability to create and frustrate, build up and tear down, birth new realities and preserve the old banalities. They, in a sense, are our realities. It is interesting that God created using words, spoken, articulated and alive. The Word is Grace-soaked and God alive. The word spoken brought order to the chaos and created ex nihilo, (out of nothing) something! That is why we stop and unwrap at this time of year words that not only have meaning but produce purpose for us as people of faith.

Word and image (story) go together in any pursuit of understanding in the Christian faith. Our fundamental Word, after all, became incarnate, visible and tactile in Jesus. Word and image really cannot be separated, even though we try it often enough. Word without image easily vaporizes into an abstraction; image without word can, and almost always does, degenerate into an idol. Word and image need one another.

And so, our great words lead us into Advent anticipation. Words like Emmanuel, God with us. This word is an incredible reminder that we are not alone. That our human journey is taken by a God who understands and loves so much that God became one of us. This is our hope for a life that allows us to be noticed, recognized, attended to, and called by our first name, by the Trinitarian God of the universe. Incarnation, God becoming a human being in Jesus Christ. The humility of God in Christ allows God to get bigger by becoming smaller, taking on the form of a child, a teenager, a man, and a crucified man at that. Through this crucifixion, death and resurrection, our despair becomes joy and our angst becomes peace. This crucible life that Jesus undergoes is one of extreme love for humankind, past, present and future. These italicized words are just a few of the words that we will explore this holy-day (holiday) season as we seek to experience Emmanuel through the words of waiting.

And so our images, the stories that burn in our collective consciousness and become our framework to make sense out of a life that seems more chaotic than ever. Stories and images of Angels announcing, a virgin giving birth, a babe in the straw, wise men from afar, a Messiah promised and delivered only to return again. When our words go flat through repetition and familiarity, we need these images and stories to reawaken our imagination into play and to sharpen our awareness of and participation in the word and the Word-made-flesh. Join us for an incredible line-up of worship experiences that promise to bring together word and image into powerful advent anticipations as we EXPERIENCE EMMANUEL THROUGH THE WORDS OF WAITING….

Honestly Speaking

I have not written for a couple of weeks... a bit busy...sorry about that. I have really been tuning into the decalogue lately. It has me a bit mesmerized and drawn to the reality of being united with G*d in such a way that I am totally captivated by the living Word of G*D in JEsus and inhabited by the Holy SPirit. What a great joy, adventure and surprise to be so loved by that kind of G*d.

I read a report that most students now believe that lying is acceptible. Check this out, according to the Josephson Institute of Ethics, in the time period between 1992 and 2002, the percentage that agreed with this statement "a person has to lie or cheat sometimes in order to succeed" jumped from 9 to 43 percent.  Michael Josephson, the President of the non-profit Foundation said, "The scary thing is that so many kids are entering the work force to become corporate executives, politicians, airplane mechanics and nuclear weapons inspectors with the dispositions and skill of cheaters and thieves."

I would like to state the obvious here. We are called as people of another kingdom to be honest.  This is just common knowledge in the civic politic, or is it?  The commandment to not bear false witness against one's neighbor has a dual purpose. The first is to set a bar that holds honesty as a basis upon all human dialogue. To lie about another is to steal from them not what they own (which is what the previous commandment of grace is all about when it says NO STEALING) but who they are.  And in so doing the one who speaks falsely about another, by not giving the other the benefit of the doubt, reduces themselves to someone less than one created Imago Dei, in the image of God.

Secondly, let me suggest more provocatively and forthrightly, to speak is sacred.  In other words speaking and speech is a sacred act. In the beginning God spoke and a new reality was created ex nihilo or out of nothing.  Speech that is sacred is godlike because we create realities anew about ourselves and other people. Speech has the innate power to give life or even in its most harmful manner to take it away or at least to diminish it.  This is where we derive the English word sarcasm. It comes from two Greek words that mean "tearing the flesh."  Our words have the power to build up or tear down and apart. We live in a world that seeks to tear down and destroy at every front. I was driving across the Narrows bridge in the Seattle area last summer when I heard a driver yell at a person on the bridge to JUMP! I was furious. We are called to be lovers and givers of life and not destroyers!  To say that when my soul has been so invaded by the spoken and living Word of the cosmos I have the ability to co-create life anew or to take it, is not an understatement. What if, honestly speaking we, as Christians, are called to speak honestly?  Not a bad thought for people of a new kingdom!