“Christian Weddings Should Be Deeper” or “What I Learned at a Hindu Wedding”

Posted on by
1

(Let me begin by saying: I’ve paimagesrticipated in many beautiful and full Christian weddings that have been rich in depth and meaning.  The following is in no way a commentary on weddings that I preside over, but rather a general reflection over the state of Christian weddings today)

I had the pleasure of co-presiding at a Hindu wedding this last week.

She’s Hindu.  He’s Christian.

Love, it seems, doesn’t know religious affiliation…though many religions think they have exclusive knowledge of what love is.

The Christian ceremony of marriage is beautiful and rich in meaning, in flow, in design.

But in function, well, more often than not these days a couple wants a short service (at which they’ll wear thousands of dollars worth of material to show off for 20 minutes and in pictures they’ll rarely look at again) with a hefty price-tag.  “Make it simple,” is the common line.

A ceremony can be simple and still take a while…

And think about it.  Think about what the abbreviated service says. Families process in separately.  The Father of the bride exchanges her for a handshake with the groom.  There are readings, a short reflection, vows, the giving of rings, candle lighting (or some other symbol of unity), and then a kiss and applause.

It says that love is simple.  Lord knows that’s not true.

Of course a marriage ceremony is, in Western culture, largely utilitarian.  None of the above is necessary except for the presence of an official who witnesses two people make vows to one another.

But that utilitarianism, which is largely a product of law and right order, has so greatly influenced a religious understanding of marriage, which is in itself a huge symbol of Divine love for humanity, that we have religious weddings occurring with little depth of meaning past “I wonder how much she spent on that dress.”

What are we saying about love here?  That love is individual.  That it should be acted upon quickly.  That its extravagance is seen primarily in material expenditures.  And, assuming there is a reception, that it should be seen almost exclusively as party.

If that is what we’re trying to say about love, then there is certainly no problem with a short ceremony and long party.  In that case, a couple really should go to the courthouse to get married.

But that is not what the Christian faith says about love, and not what the Christian marriage ceremony says about love at its fullest.

I didn’t really have reason to reflect on it, though, until I participated in a Hindu wedding.

For this Christian-Hindu ceremony, we intertwined the different necessary expressions of the two traditions into one.  This was no easy feat.  The Hindu wedding ceremony is long and involved, spanning many days.  It is rich in meaning and symbol.  It involves the whole family on both sides of the proverbial aisle.  It involves prayers, offerings, and multiple processions.

For the wedding ceremony itself, the floor surrounding the couple was covered with baskets of fruit, symbolizing the bounty of the Earth, a habitation we all share.  The altar had statues, but also grain and coins, symbols of a world economy that the couple would now enter into and participate in as one.

The parents of the bride welcomed the groom into the family.  The father entrusted his bride to the groom by noting that she is “as precious as gold,” and that he was now entrusted with the care of their daughter who is precious to them.

They walked together around the altar, step-by-step, plotting the journey of life they were now to take together.  They were tied together by a knot in their ceremonial scarves.  The whole ceremony was done in tandem.  They exchanged necklaces, exposing their necks to one another, a vulnerable thing to do.

It was all deeply moving, and in light of many secular-Christian ceremonies, full of such rich meaning that you saw love for what it is: celebratory but serious, a family affair, a journey together through the various economies the world puts on us, primal and earthy, yet transcendent and heavenly.

The extravagance was in the clothes; yes.  But also in the time spent on the ceremony.  Also in the number of family who participated. Also in the rich use of language and chant.

The Christian ceremony, when done fully, has all of these elements…or should.

And if the elements are absent, I don’t really blame a couple.  The church hasn’t done a very good job at critiquing culture when it comes to weddings other than railing against cost (which it rightly should).  But have we spoken against form and function in the prevailing culture?  Have we spoken for order and symbol, primarily how marriage is a symbol of God’s love for humanity?

A good challenge for those of us in the church is to find ways to include the whole family in the service outside of the obligatory ushering role for a brother and the two mothers lighting tapers for a unity candle (which, by the way, is not an ancient part of the ceremony). We have bridesmaids and groomsmen stand at the front flanking a couple in honorary (and stationary) positions when we could include them as intricate parts of the ceremony, driving home the point that, as persons in this wedding party they are entrusted with helping this couple in their marriage and keeping their vows.

The Eucharist could regain an important place in the ceremony as the couple’s first act is to host a party for everyone, celebrating the great feast that God shares with humanity.  Communion is not common practice, though, at most weddings.

Generous use of prayers and music (and especially music everyone sings), a couple’s procession around the altar, an offering of treasure and flowers given away to charity (as love is charitable), families standing together at the front or doing a remembrance of baptism at the font with the whole family: these are all options for the Christian wedding and speak more fully to Love as a gift to the community, to the family,  and to the world that we all inhabit.  Marriage is a calling like the priesthood.  It is not for every individual, but it is for the benefit of the whole community.

Have a number of readings.  Use ancient vows full of meaning, but perhaps include statements of love from the couple to one another, or letters written from the attendants offering their hopes and wishes for the love they see in the couple.  Have clear, distinct rings.  The ring is a symbol in and of itself: an unending circle of love.  Today, though, we don’t look at the circle, just the rock that sits atop it.

Forgo the aisle runner, buy lilies and offer them to God or to the guests as a sacrifice of beauty, for love is a sacrifice of beauty that each person gives to the other.

I don’t know.

All I know is that we’ve created a culture of utility when it comes to Christian marriage ceremonies.

We shouldn’t speak shallowly of love.  Love is rich.  An extravagant dance and dinner is necessary; love is a party.  But love is also a solemn vow, a serious symbol for a world bereft of symbols that speak deeply.  The Christian church can do better, and we should be imaginative in doing so.  We can learn from other cultures.

It can be more.  Love as a symbol of Divine love deserves more for those who profess faith in God.

I loved my wedding. We had communal singing, Eucharist, and even an offering taken up for charity. But if I could go back in time, I’d use my family more, my attendants more, and I’d, as we like to say in liturgical circles, make the symbols big.  Really big.

I’m often a reluctant Christian because we’ve made the symbols small.

But we’ve sure enough made the price-tag big…

“Excavating Fear” or “If You Want Children to be Safer, Don’t Buy Bulletproof Blankets”

Posted on by
2

I wasn’t going to post about the recenscreen shot 2014-06-10 at 7.30.47 amt school shootings that we’ve endured as a nation these past few weeks, but here I am.

I wasn’t going to post about them because I just don’t think I can anymore.

When I look down at my son, when I drop him off at school, I don’t think of him as in danger, or as a target.

But I guess we’re starting to these days, right?  I mean we’re talking about more armed guards in schools, we’re talking about lock-down procedures and evacuation routes not just for fire, but also for “live-fire” scenarios.

And I guess now we’re talking about bulletproof blankets to cover my baby should someone come shooting up his school.

In Isaiah 11:6-9 we find a vision for a new Earth, and it doesn’t look like like my son huddled under a bulletproof blanket.

And it doesn’t look like my son cowering behind an armed guard with a gun, a teacher with a gun, or even he himself holding a gun.

In that day, “The wolf will lie down with the lamb, the leopard with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together, and a little child shall lead them.”  In verse 8 it gets even better, “the infant will play near the cobra’s den, and a young child will put it’s hand in the viper’s nest.”

The problem with that day is that we don’t think it’s today.  The problem with that day is that we think the prophet is talking about animals.  And, I guess, in a way he is because he’s talking about the created order, the whole created order, being turned on it’s head.

But primarily, though, the prophet is talking about people.  Humans.  You and me.

And the prophet is talking about creation not living in fear, even in natural fear.  It would be natural for the goat to fear the leopard, the child the viper.  But in the world that has “knowledge of God,” even that kind of fear isn’t needed.

Because God is doing a new thing.

See, here’s the problem I have with armed guards, with armed teachers, with armed citizens, and with something as ridiculous as bulletproof blankets: it buys into the fear.

If the day of the Lord is to eradicate fear, then why do we belabor under the wrong assumption that we must continue to purchase it?  This youth at Reynolds High School was obviously hurting and sick.  I do not believe he was a monster.  You don’t have to be a monster to do monstrous things.

But his parents were law-abiding citizens with a closet full of guns.  Why?  Recreation?  Collection? Sport?

It doesn’t really matter now, because in the end they were saved for a mass shooting.

And the remedy to that, I think and believe, is not to buy more guns, is not to buy more kevlar, is not to arm more people.

The remedy for that is, I think and believe, to take the prophet seriously and believe that today is the day when the world is filled with the knowledge of the Lord.  And I don’t take that to mean that everyone is Christian.  I don’t take that to mean that everyone thinks the same things.

The “knowledge of the Lord” is not the ability to recognize God, it is the ability to trust as God trusts.

And how does God trust?  In the Jesus story, God trusts the power of life and resurrection enough not to repay hurt with hurt, but to bathe in love and forgiveness.  I mean, what would it look like if we raised our children not with a closet full of semi-automatic guns and hand guns, even if we teach them to respect guns, but rather with a closet full of the belief that semi-automatic guns aren’t necessary in this world.

They aren’t necessary to have a good time, they aren’t necessary to obliterate targets, they aren’t necessary for common citizens.

They just aren’t necessary.

We need to excavate fear, dig it up like Indiana Jones, and reveal it for what it is: an idol we’re being forced to worship these days.

It’s obvious these people need mental help.  But they also don’t need easy access to weapons.  And I don’t think that’s an either/or situation.  It’s a both/and.

But I really expect the carillon cry on this issue to come from the church, to come from Christians.  I really expect it to come from people who look at Jesus and see someone who didn’t repay evil with evil. I really expect it to come from people who hear stories every damn week about the Jesus who healed the sick, even the mentally sick.  We need to provide that care.  And I really expect it from people who every year hear the story of how Jesus told Peter to put his sword away. “The one who lives by the sword, dies by the sword…”

I really expect it to come from those who would wonder what it means to hold a weapon with no other purpose in the world than for the killing of another human being, a being created out of love by the God who creates all things for joy and good. Licensed police officers, military officers, they all consider that question…at least, I hope they do if they take their work seriously.  We, as a society, have called them to that office, and it’s not one to be taken lightly.

Certainly not one to be taken “recreationally.”  We have licensed law enforcement, and give them licenses, for a reason.  Part of that reason is, I think, because they take it seriously enough to honor the responsibility.  I don’t think the average citizen does, and we’ve shown that by having these “open carry” situations throughout the country now…that, in and of itself, is a sign of mental health issues, I think.

And look, with all this talk, I’m not even talking primarily about gun control.  Gun control has not worked well in Chicago.  I’m all for it, but do I think it will save my baby?  No.  This is a complex issue.  But the church doesn’t just need to condemn the shooting, they need to condemn the situations that led up to the shooting: mental health, easy access to semi-automatic weapons…

And we need to condemn the fact that too many of the “faithful” in this world don’t trust that the Earth can be full of the knowledge of the Lord if they would just live into it.

I’m talking about changing the hearts and minds of this world to realize that the day of the Lord is today.

And tomorrow.

And it was yesterday…we just didn’t trust it enough to live into it.

Why Young Adults Don’t Make Friends Easily Anymore

Posted on by
4

“I’m lonely.”index

I hear it a lot.  I hear it a lot from young adults.

My armchair analysis is that the “I’m lonely” phenomenon with young adults probably has much to do with our ability to keep our childhood friends over great distances with ease.  Social media and emails have replaced the slow-and-tedious pen pal connections of our parents.

Thus our “friends quota” is largely full post college, and for some, post high school.  We go into adulthood thinking we don’t really need anymore friends (and, thus, not reall cultivating the skills to make anymore).

There are exceptions, of course.  But we have young adults coming to the church, and on the one hand they’re looking for spiritual connection with the Divine, especially the Divine seen through the lens of Jesus.

On the other hand they’re looking for friends.

If my armchair analysis were to go deeper (“let’s explore that, shall we?”) I’d also posit that many of the people who express that they are lonely do so not because they don’t have friends, but because they don’t have the deep, satisfying relationships that provide close, personal connection.

Part of this comes with the changing nature of our society.  I think my grandparent’s generation made friendships largely out of necessity.  The difficulties of war-time life, depression-era life, led to the desire to band together.  My grandparents on my father’s side never moved an they had many friends.  On my mother’s side they moved a few times for my grandfather’s work, but though my grandfather was gregarious, had very few close friends, but kept close ties to a lot of family.  Both sides never seemed too distraught about their friendships (though, granted, I never interrogated them about it either, and I won’t get the chance).

My parent’s generation, I think, made and continue to make friends for fun, and made them pretty easily.  It may differ from individual to individual, of course,  but I see this generation making connections that are pretty tenuous and relatively easy to maintain.  Some relationships are deeper than others, but it doesn’t seem to be the great expectation that depth is necessary for friendship. And those friendships that are deep have continued throughout the years becausemy parents treasured them so much they worked hard at keeping them long before the ease of social media and direct communication.

For my generation though, I’m finding an underlying unmet need for deep relationships, and the desire to make them easily. Those two don’t mix, though.  The kind of depth that forced situations, like the college dormitory or the high school track team, put on you only come through rare, intense situations.  After leaving those pressure cooker environments where strong bonds are formed, my generation is not sure how to make those loose, tenuous relationships of their parent’s generation, nor work hard at keeping really deep relationships from afar (it is work, you know).

Or, when they do make the loose friendships, they find them quaint but not enough.

Likewise, they’re not comfortable making friends for necessity’s sake because, well, they’ve been able to keep their friends from childhood!  Sure they live 800 miles away, but they’re still friends!  They “talk” almost every day over Instagram and Snapchat.

Unsurprisingly, these methods of keeping up do not satisfy a heart that needs something more than just an update.

Sidebar: I believe we can see much of the loneliness and PTSD in our veteran population being due to the fact that the close, personal relationships they formed in the service just aren’t found or easily forged in civilian society. Sidebar over.

Funny enough, I actually see this issue being more of a problem for men than for women.  It might be because I tend to work more with men on these issues, but with the changing landscape of male friendship (men are creating more intense bonds as many social stigmas over what it means to be a man who has male friends are evolving), many men don’t know exactly how to navigate the waters of loneliness.

All of this is to say that I’m finding young adults, myself included, making friends much for the same reason many from my generation get married: self-fulfillment. Hence why we want them all to be deep.

Despite the fact that that sounds very insular and narcissistic (and to a degree that can’t be denied), I think we come by it honestly, having been raised in a culture of “You can be anything you want” and “You can plot your own course.”

The trouble is that we’re becoming disillusioned by the fact that we can’t be anything we want, and that while our life trajectory has a good bit of leeway, surely more leeway than the previous two generations, we still hit walls on either side of the road despite the assurance that it’s all open range.

One of those walls is loneliness, something we thought would be abated by virtual connection.

What the fortune tellers say may eventually be true; “virtual reality” may one day just be “reality.”

But we’re not there yet.  And in the meantime I’m finding more and more people needing real rather than virtual.  I think the church can help if it’ll stop wringing it’s hands over shrinking numbers on the one side, and get off it’s hyper-fundamentalist kick on the other side.

Another sidebar about the hyper-fundamentalist kick in some areas of the church: I once heard a study (which I conveniently can’t find) where it was noted that people make more intense bonds over common dislikes rather than common affinities.  I have a working theory that one of the reasons very conservative churches grow quickly is not because everyone there loves Jesus so much and are aligned on that commonality, but because they dislike being wrong.  And the assurance of conservative churches that they have the right answers is a nice gel. We hate to think we’re wrong. Second sidebar over.

For the other side of the church, the supposedly “shrinking” part, take heart. Actually, shrinking numbers can help with this phenomenon, if attended to correctly and prayerfully.  The real connections that my generation longs for, both spiritually and physically, can be better met by a smaller more nimble group of people; a smaller more nimble church.

And I really (no, really) have hope that the church can teach my generation what it means to make and keep friends in the flesh again.  Of course some will wonder, “Well, we want those looking for Jesus, only, to sustain a religious community, right?  Is someone looking for community and not for faith really who the church wants in it’s doors?”

Of course it is.

The intensity of the Divine-human relationship is best embodied in intensely strong human-human relationships.  The one points to the other, which is why I have so much trouble with the “Jesus and me” language of so much of the evangelical world.

Look, we just don’t make friends easily anymore because we expect a lot out of our friendships these days.  Perhaps we need to let go of a bit of that as a generation.  But perhaps we don’t have to let go of all of it, and perhaps the church can be the incubator to foster such relationships with the honest purpose of helping people be more humanly whole again.

Because whenever I hear the phrase “I’m lonely,” I’m actually hearing “I’m not whole.”

And that is a spiritual problem.

 

The Church of the Perpetual Misogyny

Posted on by
4

This shooting in California has my heart breaking.index

Still.

The fall out has sparked some intense conversation, and it’s just heartbreaking to see some of the comments coming from the dusty corners of society where misogyny still lives and breathes.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I think misogyny lives everywhere in our society.  But it has a hard time breathing in some places…and I thank God for that.

Unfortunately, one place it doesn’t have a hard time breathing is in the church.

People are pointing to misogynist video games, misogynist movies, and all other cultural points as contributing to this young man’s delusion that just because he has a sexual desire for women they should appease it willingly (or, even, unwillingly).

But, for my part, I’m going to let Hollywood alone.  I’m going to let video games alone, too.  They have their blame.  But, see: I’ve come to expect that from them.  Hollywood and the video game industry and marketing and the like have all used sex for gain, to force submission, to put sex on a pedestal.

But me?  I’m going to point to the church.

I’m going to point to churches who still refuse to ordain women, despite the fact that, while Paul (inconsistently) makes misogynist comments, Jesus (consistently) treated women as part of his inner circle and, indeed, entrusted them first with the news of the resurrection, the “gospel,” the “good news.”

Explain that rationale for me, please?  The men were all too chicken in their hiding places, and when the women told them about the resurrection, they didn’t trust their testimony (after all, in a court of law, women couldn’t be trusted, so why would God entrust this good news to them?).  And we look at this and wink and laugh as if it’s some sort of Laurel and Hardy episode, where the one who was supposed to “get it” doesn’t.

But I don’t think that’s it at all.  I think the women were supposed to get it.  Intentionally. Purposefully.

I’m going to point to churches who still refuse to let women vote, as if somehow their opinions are less important than the opinions of human beings with a Y chromosome.

I’m going to point to churches who still refuse to acknowledge the presence of feminine examples for God in the scripture, yet who claim to take the Bible literally.  If God is male, then God is also a hen (at least, according to Isaiah). And, for that matter, a rock.

What?  Those are metaphors?  Personifications? Which one(s)? All?  Or only the ones without male anatomy?

I’m going to point to churches who allow women preachers, but who won’t allow women preachers to lead churches by themselves.  Or who allow women preachers, but won’t allow them to preach primarily to men.  Or who allow them to preach, but as long as they tell their fellow sisters to “submit” to their male partners.

By the way, don’t ask me to preach at your wedding on any “submission” text.  Not going to happen…

But just before you mainline Protestants think you’re off the hook; no way.  I’m pointing at you, too (and, therefore, to myself).  We think that just because we ordain women that we’re free of blame?  Because I know more female pastors across all the mainline Protestant denominations without churches then I do male pastors without churches.  I know of situations where churches have rejected every female candidate received in the hopes that they would receive a male candidate eventually.  I know of churches who still feel as if their pastor is inferior or that they “weren’t good enough” for a male pastor, just because their pastor is a female.

The church should be the place where misogyny comes to die, not where it comes to life.

And, this is the thing: while I don’t hold Hollywood or the video game industry or politics or any of that fluff to a very high standard when it comes to gender stereotypes and discrimination, I do hold the church to a high standard.

I wish all the former could be held to a higher standard.  I expect the latter to be.   It’s sad, but not surprising.

And while this individual who shot up these innocent people may not have been religious (I haven’t heard either way), it doesn’t really matter.  If religion isn’t able to critique culture, to model for the wider culture a way of living that embraces the life of Jesus rather than the hate of any “ism,” we’re useless.  We can say that it’s sad that this man was violent, but on Sunday mornings many churches preach a violent, male god.  We can say that this man shouldn’t have thought of women that way, but until we acknowledge that we at least had a hand in that education, we’re speaking out of both sides of our mouths.

If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves; the truth is not in us.

It may be interesting to think about how Mario always saving the Princess has contributed to this misogyny that resulted in such violence.  But that narrative is just part of a much larger narrative of men saving the day, tracing it’s way back through the centuries.

The church has the ability, the call, to break off from that narrative and live a different one.

If only it had a good example to follow…

“Donald Sterling Should Be an Insulation Salesman” or “Cultic Christianity is Deadly Due to Insulation”

Posted on by
1

Donald Sterling is a one-man study in insulation.fiberglass-insulation

He should be an insulation salesman; he’s his own best example.

In his interview last night with Anderson Cooper, which I only was able to see part of (but a telling part), he convincingly argues for his own ineptitude without meaning to.

To him, he’s not hated by players.  To him, he’s not hated by fans.  And while he knows that he has done wrong and has “hurt many people,” he then proceeds to prove that he does not, in fact, know this in any way that might lead to behavior change because he starts berating Magic Johnson, the black community, and basic sensibility all in one fell swoop (see link above for the spectacularly terrible soundbite).

This shows me that either he is a) going slightly mad (not out of the realm of possibility) or b) absolutely insulated from the general public.

My hunch is “b”.

There are many insulators.  I think money is probably one of his greatest insulators.  With the ability to be taken everywhere by hired car, what need do you have to interact with anyone who you don’t hire or choose to spend time with?  When you can buy anything you want, including sexual partners, why bother with real relationships (like, say, the legal wife you have)?

One of the greatest things someone who wants to live an uninsulated life can do is take public transportation.  It is grounding.  In a good way.  In a way that makes me want to raise my kids in the city and have them do it.

Another one of his insulators he has is that he’s white.  It absolutely insulates him from a whole variety of perspectives and, wrongly, gives him the appearance that he’s one of many voices.  He is in fact a privileged voice among other voices.  This is the same mistake that poor college kid made when Time magazine picked up his article.  If you haven’t run across that news tidbit yet, please check it out.  It’s a perfect example of what self-righteousness will do to the young mind if given a platform. I suspect he’ll repent of that article in five years, if his education is worth anything and he lives vulnerably enough to see how asinine he is…

To be fair to that guy, no one should have any of their Freshman papers/thoughts published.  Ever.  His thoughts aren’t fully developed (I hope).

But back to Sterling.

Sterling suffers from insulation in a way that I see cultic Christianity suffering from insulation, too.  For an example, check out your local cinema. This abhorrent move God is Not Dead is just one example of the insulation problem that much of the church has.  A philosophy professor that throws down an ultimatum to stifle thought?  A Muslim girl who gets beat up by her father for conversion?  A last-ditch confession of said professor when it comes out that he doesn’t believe in God because of personal tragedy?

It’s the same reason that I stopped believing in Santa Claus: you don’t get that G.I. Joe action figure enough Christmases in a row, and you kind of get wise…

Except that those are all straw men.  They aren’t real people.  They’re fake elaborations on attributes that might be part of the make-up of a person.  But they’re not real.  It’s the same problem I have with Christopher Hitchens’ writings.  He writes of straw men.  Insulated Christianity and insulated atheism are two sides of the same coin.

But the delusion of these things being real can continue if a person is in isolation.  That’s what I worry about. Kind of like the delusion that Sterling has of himself.  Kind of like the delusion of homosexuality being a “choice.”  Much like I choose my heterosexuality, I guess…

All of these ideas can persist in a world where you don’t actually interact with anyone outside of your insulation zone.  Sterling’s problem isn’t one of bad publicity, it’s one of insulated publicity.  And it’s a cycle that perpetuates itself.  He never sees himself clearly because he doesn’t really have anyone of worth to reflect him back on himself, and because he can’t see himself clearly he becomes more and more the monster that he is.

Cultic Christianity is the same way.  Except with Christianity it has to do with interacting with others outside of the “Christian worldview” (whatever that means).  And it’s deadly because of this.  Deadly in that it creates a spirituality that is dead to it’s own self-righteousness.

And it’s a problem.  Not just because it results in crappy movies…that has been going on for years (looking at you Kirk Cameron).  It’s mostly a problem because it prevents the abundant life, the limitless life, that Christ talks about.  It’s dead life.

It’s why I encourage people to have friends across faith lines, cultural lines, all sorts of lines.  And not in an effort to convert them; that’s disingenuous.

Can’t you just experience the other where they are and *gasp* learn from that?

Part of the problem with insulation is that it gives the appearance of certitude.  Sterling is willing to admit he made a mistake, but he can’t see that he’s messed up.  He’s messed up as a human being, as part of a larger system of affluence and influence.

Christianity is messed up.  It’s made mistakes, but it really has to come out and say “We’re messed up.”  And not in the superficial way we say, “We’re a broken vessel just like everything in this world.”  But in a legitimate way that allows it to let go of the influence grip it has over people’s hearts and minds to open hearts to the greater world and greater life that God invites us to experience as Christ-followers.

Christ is our feed box, not our fence.

I am unapologetically Christian (reluctantly).

As part of that identity, though, I feel compelled to meet others where they are.  I feel compelled to tear down the insulation around me (and have it torn down), as best I can, and move out of my comfort zone into the dangerous place outside the walls of security and meet the other.

The church, at her best, can help people do this.  If only she’ll be vulnerable enough to admit she’s part of the system…

 

Your Pastor Dreads Mother’s Day

Posted on by
2

depressionMother’s Day is a continual reminder to pastors that they are truly incompetent in the “make everyone happy” department.

A good lesson, I guess.

Except we’re reminded of it every day…it just intensifies on Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, when the 4th of July lands on a Sunday, Veteran’s Day, and when 9/11 marks the first day of the week.

Out of all of those, though, Mother’s Day really does take the cake because it is really intimately tied to culture in a deeply personal way.  Mother’s Day is really about sex, sexuality, procreation, choice, marriage, divorce, and choosing to raise/not raise children.

And the pastor’s hands are tied, in this case.  Especially if the pastor is accustomed to preaching with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.  You cannot mention current events and not mention the reason why so many women are wearing flowers that morning, I think.

Or maybe you can…I don’t know.  I haven’t figured out a way to do it.

It’s just, well, whatever you choose, be prepared for the emails, anonymous notes, and comments following the service.

A very popular blog post has been making it’s way around this past week.  It’s good. Really good.  It’s been around for a few years.  Like that picture your mom took of you in the bathtub when you were four, it makes it’s rounds about the same time every year just in time to make you feel really awkward.

Yes, the blog post makes me feel awkward.

As a father, it doesn’t make me feel awkward at all.

As a feminist, it makes me shout “yes!”

As someone who wasn’t always sure they wanted children, it makes me feel affirmed.

As a pastor it makes me feel awkward.

Because it’s indicative of a Catch-22 for me.  Mother’s Day isn’t a liturgical holiday, so it really doesn’t need mentioning by the church.  And yet, we lift up Mary as the theotokos, the “God-bearer,” and note her motherly care of the Christ.  We talk a lot about the “womb of creation” as being God’s womb, and make the case hard for feminine pronouns to describe God, especially pointing to God’s work in creation.

And then comes Mother’s Day.

I’m not for honoring Mother’s Day during a Sunday service.  I’m not for pretending it isn’t happening, either.  I’m sure there are ways to straddle the desire to lift up mothering in this world while also not glorifying it as the end-all and be-all of existence.  I truly get that mothers are proud of that role in their life.  I truly get that not all women want to be mothers, and don’t need the church making them feel like they should.  Society does that well enough.  And I truly get that Mother’s Day is painful for some who are grieving their mother, or who have crappy mothers, or who can’t conceive.

Hopefully your pastor isn’t glib.  Hopefully they see all of these realities and try to acknowledge them all. I try to do that…to varying degrees of success.

But it’s just yet another example of why I suck in the department of making people happy.  Pastors truly die from a thousand paper-cuts…not just on this topic.  Which might be why your pastor responded to your email of “concern” or “complaint” in that way that made you feel like they really didn’t hear you.

It’s probably the fifth email of concern they’ve gotten that day…and they’ve stopped being concerned in order to just finish out the day without feeling absolutely dejected.

But I digress. Back to Mother’s Day.

These fights between cultural holidays and Sunday morning worship sometimes make me want to skip out on church altogether.  I don’t blame the women who do on Mother’s Day.  And I don’t blame the women who feel slighted when Mother’s Day isn’t talked about at all at worship, either.  The church of the past was the place to celebrate such things; for many it still is.

But for me?  I’d really just like to say a quiet prayer on Mother’s Day in thanks for God who is mother to us all, call my mom, kiss the mother of my son, greet the young woman who doesn’t want kids where she is, thank the couple who can’t conceive for worshiping God today in our congregation, hug the grandmother who has outlived her children and buried each one with a hug that she won’t get from them, high-five little girls without assuming that they’ll be or want to be mothers, shake the hands of the two fathers who bring their children to church, and not feel like by doing any one of those actions I’m hurting someone else.

Is that too much to ask?

 

Why You Get Mad When Your Pastor Mentions Politics, and Why She Has To…

Posted on by
12

Let’s start with some political statements:church_state

“Jesus is Lord.”

Yes; that is a political statement.  You might think it’s pretty innocuous.  Perhaps you even think it’s a bit annoying (sometimes I find how this seems to be a catch-all answer for some annoying).  But, actually, for the ancient people in Palestine, this statement was scandalous.  Because they only had one Lord: Caesar.  And if you went around saying Jesus stands in the place of Caesar for you and your family…well…keep your politics to yourself.

“Prince of Peace.”

Yes; a political statement.  Want to hanker a guess as to who was the Prince of Peace in ancient Palestine?  If you chose Bill Murray, you were off by a few thousand years.  No, it was Caesar.  He was hailed as the one who kept the empire out of war.  He was the harbinger of peaceful times.

That is, unless, you were some of the occupied people under him.  The Roman Empire kept peace through military might and subjugation; through intimidation and economic sanctions.  Is that really “peace”?  The absence of war does not mean the presence of peace…

In fact, the opening chapters of the first three Gospels are chock full of political language.  But no need to just stick to the New Testament.  The prophets were certainly not quiet about politics, both domestic and foreign.  The whole book of Exodus was leaving one political reality for another, tackling immigration head-on.  The whole book of Leviticus was about how the people would organize themselves in the new land.

See, we have people who get pretty angry when they hear “politics” preached from the pulpit.  In fact, a colleague of mine recently noted that pastors should preach the Gospel and then shut up.

But, well, nothing happens in a vacuum.

(…I love that pun)

We aren’t people who are floating free in our own little religious world.  We must talk about politics from the pulpit.  The ancient texts compel it; the modern times call to us from the news programs and paper rags.  We are being pulled into it by the past and the present, and the preacher must put these two things together to comment on how God might be leading us into the future…

We should talk about how farm bills do or do not help feed the world.  We should talk about how, in Chicago, we are bankrupt and giving huge corporations billions in tax breaks while, just this last year, my housing tax went up, but my house value went down.  And if that’s the case for me, who lives in a pretty good neighborhood, what does that mean for my sisters and brothers who don’t?

Explain that to me, please.

We should talk about what it means to be able to carry on your person a weapon that is made only to kill other people.  What might God have to say about that?  What might the Christian world have to say about that?  Especially in Chicago where we don’t ranch cattle, but live in a concrete jungle.

See…your pastor has to talk about politics because you are enmeshed in political systems that have a spiritual dimension.  But we’ve been trained by the world to have a negative reaction to such talk because we see politics as divisive rather than unifying.

But, if there’s one thing that does unify the world, it’s that we are all under a political system of some sort.  And we should talk about it.  Your pastor should talk about it.

What she shouldn’t do, and here’s the rub, what she shouldn’t do is be partisan.

Sure, she has her own opinions.  And you might know them, too.  But her opinions aren’t the Gospel.  And you preachers…that’s important to remember.  God is not a Republican, nor is God a Democrat.  God is not in the Labour Party nor is God a Tory.

That being said, to pretend like the texts don’t say something about political issues is naive.  You follow the Prince of Peace, and yet you don’t think that God might have an opinion on war?  You say “Jesus is Lord” and yet your church is making most of it’s decisions based off of economics, putting money in the place of power?

Nothing happens in a vacuum.

Your church shouldn’t feel like a gathering of the Democratic Party.  That’s a church that would have a hard time saying “Jesus is Lord” and meaning it.  That’s a puppet platform.

Your church shouldn’t feel like a gathering of the Republican Party, either.  Or any part, for that matter.

So many do, though.

And I’ve been accused in my time of preaching politics…it’s a careful line the preacher has to walk, and hopefully it’s done with fear and trepidation.  Politics so easily turn partisan.

But let us not pretend that God might not have a word or two for the systems that surround us, for the systems we’re embedded in, for the systems we inhabit.

We can be careful how we speak, but we cannot not say anything.

Christian Ideas of “Controversial” are Screwed Up…

Posted on by
8

This poor homeless statue of Jesus is still having trouble finding a home without controversy.

Appropriate, I think.  It challenges our sensibilities in a way that I think only Jesus does.

But, here’s the thing: this is not controversial from a Biblical perspective.

index

 

 

 

 

If Jesus wasn’t actually homeless (for a dude who might have had a home, he doesn’t hang much there in scripture), he certainly was found with the homeless and destitute, probably sleeping many nights under a sheet with the sky as a roof.

But this?  This is absolutely controversial:

muscular-jesus-breaking-cross

OMG, Jesus! Where did you get those quads from? Biking?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’d say it’s damn near blasphemous…and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t think much is very blasphemous.

This is pretty controversial, too:

jesusarm-wrestlingwithsatandemon

Ugh…dualisms make me want to punch someone. Exorcising them from Christianity is like arm-wrestling the devil. Wait a sec…

 

 

 

 

 

Look at how crazy creepy that really white Jesus is wrestling with the good-guy from the Hellboy comics…

An uproar over this statue…that’s screwed up.  We see Jesus as Jesus is and get all offended.  That’s a teachable lesson for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.  But I haven’t heard much said about those other pics or others like them that appear on bulletin covers, emails, Facebook memes, or bumper stickers…in fact, I’d dare guess that most Christians would see them and not think two things about them: their veracity, their message, their scandal.

And they’re far more scandalous…

Want to know what else doesn’t seem to cause much controversy?  The fact that people die of starvation in the city of Chicago, one of the wealthiest cities in the world.

Or the fact that farm owners are committing suicide because they can’t make a living anymore, what with our demand for everything cheap and mass produced and all.

Or the fact that $600,000 was stolen from smiley Joel Osteen’s mega church a few weeks ago, and that was just one Sunday’s offering from plate-giving. For some perspective, that is almost double my faith community’s total operating budget.

Don’t let Jesus be shown homeless, but it’s sure ’nuff OK for the imago dei to be starving and dying while hundreds of thousands are collected each week from one place…and the only thing we can say is that we can’t believe someone would have the nerve to steal that money from a “church”…

Where’s really-ripped abs Jesus when you need him?

 

“What Makes Things Holy?” or “Damn It!”

Posted on by
2

Today begins the long week of the church year that we call Holy Week.

485585_10151478304920983_1287496397_n

Our Easter Vigil fire at my faith community…a fire of sacred flame used for lighting candles for a profane/sacred people.

It’s the culmination of this walk toward Jerusalem that we take with Jesus every year…and every year it’s called Holy Week.

Even when some years the week seems holier than others.

I remember my first Holy Week as a pastor.  I spent most of every morning that first year coming early to the church to pray at the altar, with my prayer beads, being faithful to the hours as best I could.

This year, though, I spent this morning coming early to the crib of my son, with cheerios in hand, being faithful with breakfast as best I could.

And now, having been up for just as long but involved more in holy play than holy prayer, I’m reflecting on the difference.

Sure, I’ll keep the hours as best I can today, being mindful of Terce, Sext and None (though I’m a bit behind on Terce already), but I’ll do my best.

In college I took a course where we read a book called Holy Things by Gordon Lathrop, a premier Lutheran theologian, pastor, and scholar. I took exception to the title back then. Newly out of my atheist phase, “things” weren’t holy…only God was holy.

I was an idiot.

Now I see that things are, indeed, holy.  Bread, wine, water, yes…all of this.

And time mindfully spent.  And icons mindfully written.  Sermons, songs, prayers, hands, beads, stained glass, more prayers…mindfully said or not.

Holy does not mean “magical,” by the way.  That’s nonsense.  I don’t have time for nonsense…there are holy things to attend to.

No.  Holy means “set apart,” or better in the Latin, sacrum.  Sacred.

It’s funny, in my tradition we set things apart all the time.   But I meet so many with my college mindset who think nothing is holy; nothing is sacred.

And yet these are the people who I so often hear willing to damn people and things: that divorcee is in the wrong; that homosexual is an abomination; that movie, the song, that video is a disgrace to God.

So willing to damn things…so unwilling to lift things up as holy because it all seems so much hocus pocus.

That, actually, is most of us much of the time, I think.  As if our damning isn’t just as much the hocus pocus of personal opinion, prejudice, and the trappings of self-righteousness.

What makes a thing holy?  I’d say it’s purpose seen in light of the Divine.  The purpose of our time spent together, the bread, the wine, the water, the beads, the hands laid on to heal…

What makes a thing profane?  I’d say it’s probably us.  We so often take the place of God, damning people, places, and things in righteous indignation.

Progressive Christians do this, too.  You don’t get off the hook…no one does.  The sacred/profane line is thin.  So thin, in fact, that some might say it is imaginary…

But today, on this Holy Monday whose purpose it is to further our walk to Jerusalem as we lean toward Maundy Thursday, hear that time is set apart today for you to reflect on God’s work in your life, God’s purpose for your sacred existence, for the sacred existence of your neighbor, and this world.

And that purpose is not to damn you or any of it…

So spend a little less time doing that, and a little more time honoring things as sacred.

That, at least, is what I’m meditating on these hours.

The Seasons of the Church Year Aren’t Just for Decoration, Folks…

Posted on by
6

 

So, funny enough, liturgical-calendarone of the things that I think makes the most sense about the way the church does things has to do with the liturgical season.

The liturgical calendar.

I’ve written about this before, but we’re at the tail-end of our Catechumenate class here at my faith community, and it’s come up again as we discuss the church year.

See, when I was an atheist, the only thing that kept me in the pew was practicing this greater current that we call “the liturgical calendar”; this greater movement that connected all of life together.

Which makes me wonder why all corners of the Christian church don’t follow the church calendar.

Because even though I couldn’t believe, I could sense, I knew, that whether or not there was a God, there was definitely life.  And that life had seasons.  Not just the outside world, not just flowers and hibernating bears and all that stuff, but my life had seasons.

Has seasons.

In fact, in the winters of my life, the ability to practice the season of the church was one of the most important things in the world to me.

Even as someone who had broken up with Jesus as his boyfriend.

And there’s some good wisdom to the church year.  Like, for instance, that Lent is 40 days long, but Easter is 50 days long.  If that is not an implicit message that your life will laugh more than it cries, I don’t know what is.

Or how that season that we call “Ordinary Time,” the time in the church year of spiritual growth, takes up almost fifty percent of the calendar.  Take a look at your life.  About half of your life will be spent learning and growing.

Lord, that’s deep wisdom.

And see, the church year helps us to practice these seasons in our lives.  It gives us rhythm.

I like to talk about it as breath.  The seasons of the church year help me to breathe.  If you think yoga is good for your breath, dive deeply into the church calendar as a practice…

Because there are times in my life where I wait, and will have to wait: for diagnosis, for biopsy results, for birth, for a death.  Advent helps me wait.

There are times in my life where I’ll need to do some adjustment, some realignment: after a disgrace, after a significant relationship break, in a season of vocational or personal drought.  Lent helps me to do the introspective work necessary to live well.

There are times in my life of “Ah-ha” and “feeling most alive”: having a breakthrough, gaining insight, feeling zealousness over a cause.  Epiphany and Pentecost teach me to be on the look out for these moments and not pass them by.

And there are times in my life for rejoicing, for birth and re-birth: in reconciliation, after a literal birth, on holidays, after an illness has passed, “sittin’ on the dock of the bay.”  Christmas and Easter help me to celebrate well.

And the three days of that time we call “The Triduum,” Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Vigil…well…that’s a whole life-span in one fell swoop.  A life of serving, of dying, and of rising.  And when it’s honored it is the most important gift of the church year.

It is Christ’s body emblazoned on a calendar.  And it helps me see my body and my calendar and how they mix.

There is just such wisdom to the church year.  It’s like a Mr. Miyagi for your soul: you “wax on” and “wax off” and think you’re not doing anything but refurbishing a car…and then, boom, you’re forced to wait or repent or celebrate or learn or grow.

And, as T.S. Elliot says, it’s like you “know the place for the first time”…and yet, you’ve been there before.  It’s that familiar/foreign experience that this journey with God always puts upon us when practiced well.

A lot of churches are getting away from the liturgical calendar.  And they do so at the expense of the Christians they serve.  It has deep roots, even deeper than the church itself.  The roots of marking time and specific periods goes all the way back to when our ancient mothers and fathers figured out that a dead seed will live again if planted, watered, tended, and nurtured.

And that the thing that grew from that would be good for you.

A friend of mine talked about going to a church on Easter Sunday one day.  They had all the attraction details down: welcoming people, if you signed up on a bulletin board as a first time visitor Krispy Kreme donuts would be delivered to your house the next week, the music was loud, the pastor had an engaging sermon.

But they didn’t talk about the resurrection.  They just talked about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ that was abstracted not only from Easter as a celebration day, but from the whole history of Christianity.

He said he left feeling…empty.

He had come for food, for deep roots, for a personal relationship in some ways, but also an historical relationship that lifted up so much more than just he and Jesus one-on-one time.

But he didn’t find it there because, Lord, if all we’re offering is shallow theology and Krispy Kreme donuts…well…skip the church service and just go to the coffee shop.

And many people, now, do.

And I think it’s probably because we haven’t really done a good job rooting them in this practice, this deeper rhythm.

Look, Christianity is nothing without Jesus.  But Jesus, and a personal relationship with Jesus, is not all there is to Christianity, either.  And the deeper undercurrent that speaks truth about the heartbeat of life, all life, that is made plain by the church calendar can and should be lifted up.

And it’s not just about changing church parament colors.  It is about living differently in different seasons of life.  It is about Ecclesiastes 3, and asking “what time is it?” for our lives personally and communally.

But instead we lift up an empty Jesus devoid of rootedness with my life, with the rhythms of life, a Jesus who is no more connected to the current of life than a Krispy Kreme donut.

And, let’s be honest, I love Krispy Kreme donuts.

But they don’t really feed me.