Recently I shared a brief reunion with a significant community in my life, a Church authority with responsibility to hundreds of thousand of local church members and hundreds of contexts in which the member churches' work is located. Walked right into the midst of many deeply held shared passions, and some longstanding disagreements.
Ahead of time I’d given thought to avoiding this particular moment in the collective body’s life, because I’m not really a part of that in the same way at the moment. We are in a figurative marriage through my membership and ordination, but I have chosen a mild trial separation while I do some intentional study and experience life and the world from different angles.
Here, outside responsibilities of the pulpits I’ve filled, I make this assertion: I don’t believe homosexuality is a sin. I don’t think earnest investments in mutually loving relationships are ever in the most idealistic sense sinful.
I realize this can be a very troubling statement. Nonetheless, this is what I have come to believe. God will continue to breath life into my understanding, I’m confident of that, and I will seek God continually.
We seem to need to see others within a template, in comparison to standards; I don't believe our infinite Creator has such limits.
I’m not a radical libertine. I do think homosexual acts on my part would be sinful, but I won’t go into specifics on that apart from offering that it is not a match for my spiritual understanding, desires, hopes or values. I do believe if some of the variables within me were different I could be both homosexual and a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ. I could not be a United Methodist pastor if this were so.
For me coming to this place started when a man came up to me in a park and propositioned me more than thirty years ago. I said ‘no’, and found that he did not accept my response. I was more clear and reinforced my message with eye-contact and expression. He understood and left me to finish writing letters in the park.
I found the experience personally troubling, and tried to process it within community. In some ways this didn’t help: I found a number of people who thought I should have responded with physical violence. “I would have slugged him,” several said. Things may have gone a similar direction in someones response: a week after my encounter in the park, in the local paper there was an article about a man being shot in the park.
Those who know me well know I have always been single, and I’ve not sustained a lot of long-term dating relationships -- so concurrent with this experience with this man in the park and my attempt to process it I was reflecting on my own experience with dating, and how challenging it can be to tastefully approach and discern mutual interest between yourself and another person.
Having now met this man, however unwillingly I’d been brought into contact, I pondered in my heart the thought that hunger for relationship was more complicated than I had to this point known it to be. I prayed the man in the park would find something good and nurturing which could resonate with who he was at that moment. (I was then a member of a more liberal denomination, so I don’t know what conclusions I would have drawn as a United Methodist youth, and know from experience one isn’t the same as another.)
I am thankful that God reaches out to me in my uniqueness and I have every confidence that God wants that for each individual. It is a sin of people, not the expressed will of God, that we people make homosexuality a part of a sort of ‘threshold’ we present to the world. It is a sin, we feel need to assert, and in doing so advance a prioritization of sins -- as if we didn’t all have sins -- homosexuality over gossip or consumerism or militarism or any of a number of things pretty destructive and harmful and beyond God’s hopes reflected in scripture.
Here are some other troubling assertions regarding sexuality I will make: In my ordination I have practiced celibacy in singleness -- and I’ve discovered what I discern to be nuances of celibacy which can be personally sinful. Among them, there are ways that walling myself off is not good. So it is complicated, it is my journey, prayerfully finding my way through my singleness. The fact that others have been single really doesn’t mean anyone can truly understand my life, simply that they have some understanding of their circumstances as a lens to interpreting what they perceive of my life.
In counseling folks in the midst of marriages I have also seen some discouraging ways in which sexual sinfulness can operate in marriage. I won’t go further in describing that, sensing that, as it is possible to go from preaching to meddling, it is also possible to go from blogging to meddling. Sexuality is not simply OK in marriage, not OK out of it. It’s a component of who each one of us is, uniquely expressed in each of us. Our responsibility for this gift is expressed moment to moment.
This week I went back to my community to express my best personal discernment, to vote that a good man after God’s heart, who practices as much commitment to the person he loves as our culture permits him to... can serve the Church he loves. By the grace of God he now gets the opportunity. Early indications are good, in so far as his part goes.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Thursday, May 6, 2010
“I know what will make this work, and all that has to happen is for you to change!”
Haven’t we all been tempted to take that position at one time or another?! Sometimes the person we’re dealing with is pretty darned unreasonable; seems well within bounds to point that out.
Well, it’s only going to yield helpful results when the person you’re saying it to is highly motivated to trust you and work with you. It will only work when the person has some question about what they are doing or thinking -- and in the U.S.A. today, there seems to be almost no one who will admit to being less than certain! Wouldn’t want to seem “wishy-washy!”
Thought which recalibrates in the midst of changing circumstances and understandings seems today an underappreciated asset. To lose the capacity for listening to views different from one’s own, is to forfeit a significant part of what makes one a responsible citizen of a diverse nation. Unless it is simply up to persons different from you to change.
It may sound silly, but I suggest to you the position embedded in the quote at the top finds wide acceptance and use.
I see it embedded in the Franklin Graham ‘controversy’ over today’s National Day of Prayer. The Graham family has made many positive contributions to individuals, our country and our world; I wouldn’t count Franklin Graham’s comments about Muslims among the positive contributions. What’s more, I think the words he has shared fall short of the high calling of the Christian faith Franklin means to represent. They strike me as prideful rather than humble, and they certainly don’t make a constructive bridge to a way forward -- unless of course, all that needs to happen is for the other to change.
Christian faith is expressly NOT about conformity by the other. It’s about loving others as our selves (presumably we’ve found the personal health to love self). In the golden rule we don’t say ‘do to others as they do to you’, but rather “do unto others as you would have them to do to you.”
Our idealism calls us to be people of integrity and persistence of goodwill, regardless of what we get in return. We win others not by the use of a hammer as much as by the persuasive power of our own idealism and love on display, dare I say our reflection of God on display. This can seem so impractical we are tempted to take shortcuts and use coercion or worse. People notice our shortcuts -- it’s that way, when you tell people you mean to demonstrate one thing and then demonstrate another.
What is central to faith is a personal invitation to be changed, an invitation issued by self to God, inviting God to transform the person making the petition. The practice of faith, over time, is repeated choice, acceptance of God, to introduce constructive cycles and to supplant destructive patterns.
When people see the cycles of change bringing positive change in us, and when they experience our genuine love and humility, tempered by personal memory of small-mindedness and judgment we’ve been called to discard, this is noticed too. And in this humble living testimony great possibility is born.
The greatest possibilities available to us are made possible in our willingness to adapt, even to change.
Prayer of St. Francis:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon:
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope
where there is darkness, light
where there is sadness, joy
O divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen
Haven’t we all been tempted to take that position at one time or another?! Sometimes the person we’re dealing with is pretty darned unreasonable; seems well within bounds to point that out.
Well, it’s only going to yield helpful results when the person you’re saying it to is highly motivated to trust you and work with you. It will only work when the person has some question about what they are doing or thinking -- and in the U.S.A. today, there seems to be almost no one who will admit to being less than certain! Wouldn’t want to seem “wishy-washy!”
Thought which recalibrates in the midst of changing circumstances and understandings seems today an underappreciated asset. To lose the capacity for listening to views different from one’s own, is to forfeit a significant part of what makes one a responsible citizen of a diverse nation. Unless it is simply up to persons different from you to change.
It may sound silly, but I suggest to you the position embedded in the quote at the top finds wide acceptance and use.
I see it embedded in the Franklin Graham ‘controversy’ over today’s National Day of Prayer. The Graham family has made many positive contributions to individuals, our country and our world; I wouldn’t count Franklin Graham’s comments about Muslims among the positive contributions. What’s more, I think the words he has shared fall short of the high calling of the Christian faith Franklin means to represent. They strike me as prideful rather than humble, and they certainly don’t make a constructive bridge to a way forward -- unless of course, all that needs to happen is for the other to change.
Christian faith is expressly NOT about conformity by the other. It’s about loving others as our selves (presumably we’ve found the personal health to love self). In the golden rule we don’t say ‘do to others as they do to you’, but rather “do unto others as you would have them to do to you.”
Our idealism calls us to be people of integrity and persistence of goodwill, regardless of what we get in return. We win others not by the use of a hammer as much as by the persuasive power of our own idealism and love on display, dare I say our reflection of God on display. This can seem so impractical we are tempted to take shortcuts and use coercion or worse. People notice our shortcuts -- it’s that way, when you tell people you mean to demonstrate one thing and then demonstrate another.
What is central to faith is a personal invitation to be changed, an invitation issued by self to God, inviting God to transform the person making the petition. The practice of faith, over time, is repeated choice, acceptance of God, to introduce constructive cycles and to supplant destructive patterns.
When people see the cycles of change bringing positive change in us, and when they experience our genuine love and humility, tempered by personal memory of small-mindedness and judgment we’ve been called to discard, this is noticed too. And in this humble living testimony great possibility is born.
The greatest possibilities available to us are made possible in our willingness to adapt, even to change.
Prayer of St. Francis:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon:
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope
where there is darkness, light
where there is sadness, joy
O divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen
Saturday, February 27, 2010
I reached a figurative wall this month in studies, and I didn’t see it coming -- but then, surprise is often what gets us to new places.
I’ve been finding the counseling program here to be an easy match for my interests and passions. Studies have been adding a lot to what’s been learned and observed over my life to this point.
Not that there haven’t been revelations which have given pause. Last semester it occurred to me that nearly all of the pastoral care I’ve given, in the terminology of the counseling field, would be viewed as having taken place in the context of dual relationships. That is, those sessions have taken place in the midst of a relationships complicated (in many ways enriched) by competing responsibilities toward the counseled: in the context of relationships sometimes professional, sometimes social... you can name other descriptors. Any of us would get complications when we try to ‘counsel’ friends too, in fact we can’t properly counsel them -- that’s not to say that we can’t be helpful friends.
Dual relationships are acknowledged to be very dicey from an ethical standpoint. Partly a matter of which role one is acting in at each encounter, and partly a recognition that even though you are trying to act from one role, the other roles by which you know one another will influence the role from which you are attempting to operate. Are you the guide, sounding board, advisor? Pastors get up in front of the ‘counseled’ (and a crowd of other people, each with different stories) and preach. Counseling relationships don’t usually introduce that magnitude of complication. To what effect? It is the counselors responsibility to live in awareness, and even to inform the counseled what is being offered so the counseled can make informed decisions.
In that moment I felt vindicated in past policy, referring out after no more than three meetings. Counseling is not pastoral care, and the first is properly the province of individuals who’ve taken part in more extensive preparation, who don’t have so many competing responsibilities to the persons in front of them.
Jolting me to attention more recently was my study of group counseling. In group discipline so much is made of the construction of the group, screening for participation, methods of exercising leadership and subsequent developmental stages in group function.
Some of you may know my story well enough to know that I had my butt kicked by a congregation. It wasn’t a one-time experience we later got beyond; it happened early and often for five years. Not everybody willfully added to my butt kicking, but there was enough of a continuing presence to make it a significant challenge. The first year was painful; after a couple of years, when I was traveling, old friends in conversations would say, “why are you apologizing, you’re not responsible for X” [X = some innocuous shared disappointment, like missing the train]. But I’d taken on so much of the weight of the circumstances of my butt-kicking that accepting responsibility for this other thing just seemed a natural extension, it had become a default position.
Then somebody in the larger church’s administration told me my record didn’t look so good -- to be fair, that individual hadn’t been present for any but the last of those years, but the presented conclusion, given not in the context of an invitation to examine, but rather as a settled judgment, was to me shattering. It did severe damage to the impression cultivated by his predecessor, and continuing hope, that I was operating as part of a team. Suddenly I saw Uriah differently.
Pastors don’t seem to talk about this. As I transitioned from that painful assignment to the next I sought out some colleagues who’s work in ministry I respected, individuals who I heard had at some point had a tough time with a congregation. I didn’t get anyone to talk. Given the way we are together I don’t blame those I approached. If you are lucky enough to get beyond such things, I suspect you don’t want to get near that taint again. You know what it is to be marginalized and perhaps on some level fear that giving out insight about you might again empower unreasonable people. Stigma would accompany the work of any recovery network.
From the beginning of that awful time I used to say to my superintendent that the congregation had a pretty low regard for the role of a pastor among them. Some thought the pastor’s role was simply to deliver what they wanted, as reflected in the individual who told me, “the will of God is what we say it is!”
I now realize that early on I’d been screened out of that church, by a relatively small but influential control group, and to a lesser extent by others who in innocence didn’t know the screening was taking place, but who placed high value on continuing to do what had been done -- ‘No, this isn’t in line with our purposes, but Charlie has done a lot. Shouldn’t we give Charlie this show of support’.
Like all of my colleagues I’m not a perfect pastor, but I am an earnest servant of the Lord -- not simply self-identified as a pastor, but carefully and prayerfully screened by others in a wide-ranging community.
Screening me out largely deprived that local community of what could be brought. In some churches which function like twelve step groups, not acknowledging formal leadership, churches where longer-tenured individuals can establish influence, and can use their influence to work their way -- speaking as if all has been left to fate -- this isn’t all that uncommon a story.
As for me, I now take comfort in the existence of screening procedures in group counseling. We may be once saved, but the obligation to respond is moment to moment. It’s an active process, not a box to check.
To be willing to try new things and make changes to improve life circumstances -- that is very consistent with Christian teaching and discipleship. Yet resistance to personal change is at the heart of struggles. Churches struggle because individuals within them think they are the exception to that commitment to personal change, too many think they needn’t adapt to continuously evolving circumstances.
A few months after my new start one of my new church’s leaders confided to me: ‘I thought all that talk about change at your introduction was for the benefit of the Superintendent’ (my new boss, leading the introduction). Putting aside my concern that this individual apparently thought I would say things I did not believe if the circumstance called for it, prayerfully, I began to consider with them the circumstances of our setting, and attendant implications for we disciples who find ourselves there...
I’ve been finding the counseling program here to be an easy match for my interests and passions. Studies have been adding a lot to what’s been learned and observed over my life to this point.
Not that there haven’t been revelations which have given pause. Last semester it occurred to me that nearly all of the pastoral care I’ve given, in the terminology of the counseling field, would be viewed as having taken place in the context of dual relationships. That is, those sessions have taken place in the midst of a relationships complicated (in many ways enriched) by competing responsibilities toward the counseled: in the context of relationships sometimes professional, sometimes social... you can name other descriptors. Any of us would get complications when we try to ‘counsel’ friends too, in fact we can’t properly counsel them -- that’s not to say that we can’t be helpful friends.
Dual relationships are acknowledged to be very dicey from an ethical standpoint. Partly a matter of which role one is acting in at each encounter, and partly a recognition that even though you are trying to act from one role, the other roles by which you know one another will influence the role from which you are attempting to operate. Are you the guide, sounding board, advisor? Pastors get up in front of the ‘counseled’ (and a crowd of other people, each with different stories) and preach. Counseling relationships don’t usually introduce that magnitude of complication. To what effect? It is the counselors responsibility to live in awareness, and even to inform the counseled what is being offered so the counseled can make informed decisions.
In that moment I felt vindicated in past policy, referring out after no more than three meetings. Counseling is not pastoral care, and the first is properly the province of individuals who’ve taken part in more extensive preparation, who don’t have so many competing responsibilities to the persons in front of them.
Jolting me to attention more recently was my study of group counseling. In group discipline so much is made of the construction of the group, screening for participation, methods of exercising leadership and subsequent developmental stages in group function.
Some of you may know my story well enough to know that I had my butt kicked by a congregation. It wasn’t a one-time experience we later got beyond; it happened early and often for five years. Not everybody willfully added to my butt kicking, but there was enough of a continuing presence to make it a significant challenge. The first year was painful; after a couple of years, when I was traveling, old friends in conversations would say, “why are you apologizing, you’re not responsible for X” [X = some innocuous shared disappointment, like missing the train]. But I’d taken on so much of the weight of the circumstances of my butt-kicking that accepting responsibility for this other thing just seemed a natural extension, it had become a default position.
Then somebody in the larger church’s administration told me my record didn’t look so good -- to be fair, that individual hadn’t been present for any but the last of those years, but the presented conclusion, given not in the context of an invitation to examine, but rather as a settled judgment, was to me shattering. It did severe damage to the impression cultivated by his predecessor, and continuing hope, that I was operating as part of a team. Suddenly I saw Uriah differently.
Pastors don’t seem to talk about this. As I transitioned from that painful assignment to the next I sought out some colleagues who’s work in ministry I respected, individuals who I heard had at some point had a tough time with a congregation. I didn’t get anyone to talk. Given the way we are together I don’t blame those I approached. If you are lucky enough to get beyond such things, I suspect you don’t want to get near that taint again. You know what it is to be marginalized and perhaps on some level fear that giving out insight about you might again empower unreasonable people. Stigma would accompany the work of any recovery network.
From the beginning of that awful time I used to say to my superintendent that the congregation had a pretty low regard for the role of a pastor among them. Some thought the pastor’s role was simply to deliver what they wanted, as reflected in the individual who told me, “the will of God is what we say it is!”
I now realize that early on I’d been screened out of that church, by a relatively small but influential control group, and to a lesser extent by others who in innocence didn’t know the screening was taking place, but who placed high value on continuing to do what had been done -- ‘No, this isn’t in line with our purposes, but Charlie has done a lot. Shouldn’t we give Charlie this show of support’.
Like all of my colleagues I’m not a perfect pastor, but I am an earnest servant of the Lord -- not simply self-identified as a pastor, but carefully and prayerfully screened by others in a wide-ranging community.
Screening me out largely deprived that local community of what could be brought. In some churches which function like twelve step groups, not acknowledging formal leadership, churches where longer-tenured individuals can establish influence, and can use their influence to work their way -- speaking as if all has been left to fate -- this isn’t all that uncommon a story.
As for me, I now take comfort in the existence of screening procedures in group counseling. We may be once saved, but the obligation to respond is moment to moment. It’s an active process, not a box to check.
To be willing to try new things and make changes to improve life circumstances -- that is very consistent with Christian teaching and discipleship. Yet resistance to personal change is at the heart of struggles. Churches struggle because individuals within them think they are the exception to that commitment to personal change, too many think they needn’t adapt to continuously evolving circumstances.
A few months after my new start one of my new church’s leaders confided to me: ‘I thought all that talk about change at your introduction was for the benefit of the Superintendent’ (my new boss, leading the introduction). Putting aside my concern that this individual apparently thought I would say things I did not believe if the circumstance called for it, prayerfully, I began to consider with them the circumstances of our setting, and attendant implications for we disciples who find ourselves there...
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
I Doubt!
Doubt has gotten a bad rap. In more than fifty years of personal Christian faith lived in community, the last fifteen of them as a Protestant minister I have witnessed doubt treated derogatorily, even with contempt, as if it were only a step removed from the Devil, temptation, and all things threatening to faith. If you had doubt you had not faith. If you had faith you had not doubt.
This I find to be at odds with my own experience, which is that I have a faith which I endeavor to reconcile with experiences which give pause, introduce questions, and leave me with doubts which often can not be entirely banished so long as I have the intellectual integrity to acknowledge the validity and persistence of the experiences and observations which contribute to doubt.
That I doubt does not mean that I do not have faith; My doubt is a part of the fabric of my faith. Looking back on my experience, doubt has often represented a leading edge for spiritual growth. It was as if doubt represented the irritant which eventually produced treasure.
Doubt can be a component which spurs the one who doubts to dig further. Some who doubt refuse to be satisfied with repeating, unconsidered, patterns which have become familiar.
This sort of doubt would seem a precious commodity in the midst of a landscape littered with churches which lack vitality-giving purpose apart from the relative spiritual poverty of taking care of their own insular community, keeping the doors open so that relationship may be initiated largely by those outside coming in. These isolated churches, and perhaps all churches to some degree, need to break free of patterns which fail to doubt the status quo.
To these communities of faith the acknowledgment of doubt may well be a gift which invites the community and it’s individuals to ask afresh how God’s purposes can be served here and now by personal participation.
We must consider with openness our listening, prayers, discernment, daily practices, our willingness to be formed and reformed. The more common tendency may be to question God, presuming our own parts to be well-executed.
Unacknowledged, doubt is denied a place in wider considerations of faith, and perhaps more tragically, some, including persons who face particularly challenging seasons in life, find far too little accommodation of their spiritual need for an accepting community which acknowledges without stigma the very real experiences of doubt such persons face.
This I find to be at odds with my own experience, which is that I have a faith which I endeavor to reconcile with experiences which give pause, introduce questions, and leave me with doubts which often can not be entirely banished so long as I have the intellectual integrity to acknowledge the validity and persistence of the experiences and observations which contribute to doubt.
That I doubt does not mean that I do not have faith; My doubt is a part of the fabric of my faith. Looking back on my experience, doubt has often represented a leading edge for spiritual growth. It was as if doubt represented the irritant which eventually produced treasure.
Doubt can be a component which spurs the one who doubts to dig further. Some who doubt refuse to be satisfied with repeating, unconsidered, patterns which have become familiar.
This sort of doubt would seem a precious commodity in the midst of a landscape littered with churches which lack vitality-giving purpose apart from the relative spiritual poverty of taking care of their own insular community, keeping the doors open so that relationship may be initiated largely by those outside coming in. These isolated churches, and perhaps all churches to some degree, need to break free of patterns which fail to doubt the status quo.
To these communities of faith the acknowledgment of doubt may well be a gift which invites the community and it’s individuals to ask afresh how God’s purposes can be served here and now by personal participation.
We must consider with openness our listening, prayers, discernment, daily practices, our willingness to be formed and reformed. The more common tendency may be to question God, presuming our own parts to be well-executed.
Unacknowledged, doubt is denied a place in wider considerations of faith, and perhaps more tragically, some, including persons who face particularly challenging seasons in life, find far too little accommodation of their spiritual need for an accepting community which acknowledges without stigma the very real experiences of doubt such persons face.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Unconditionally Loving?!
My parents modeled a friendly outlook, and that impressed me as a worthwhile energy to put forth in the world. I mean really, wouldn’t we all like to be received as being of value and worth?! Sure beats being met with indifference! Sadly, it is my impression that indifference is becoming more the norm in dealing with those we don’t know.
I used to run a lot, somewhere between thirty and fifty miles a week from the late 1970’s into the middle 80’s, until tennis diverted me from steady mileage. In those days eye contact was a given, particularly between runners. It seemed a very rare thing not to get at least momentary acknowledgement of shared space, shared endeavor. As I passed pedestrians going my way I gave a wave (partly because my nearly-blind grandmother had shared how disorienting it was to get passed quickly). I usually did something of that nature while approaching walkers reversing my course. I may have noticed a difference when Sony came out with the Walkman. Some runners put a greater proportion of their consciousness in a different place.
This has not improved with time! It’s become more widespread: iPods, bluetooth ear-pieces, cell phone conversations in all sorts of public places, phones attached to the ears of people who take offense that someone would actually listen to the words they are putting out there at easily audible levels.
Several times in recent weeks Coco and I startled people who were walking and texting, apparently expecting the seas of people in front of them to part in deference to their focus on other things. I swear, I’ve stared and looked for a chance to break into attention to work out directional signals for as many as thirty feet without an opening.
I get a similar feeling when crossing driveways while drivers on cell-phones wait for Coco and I to pass (or sometimes, don’t wait), like we don’t have time for people who move on feet any more, like we think life can be lived with a minimum of interactions. Seems to me a regrettable waste of opportunities at hand.
I miss polite acknowledgment. I’m not looking to make time. I’m just trying to live fully into each particular moment of God’s creation, and celebrating the creatures with whose paths I am crossing. I’m probably a little lonely at this moment in my journey, and that makes me more sensitive about this phenomenon.
I went to church a couple of weeks ago and found a greeter who had other things to do. Her grandson was with her, and at the moment of her interaction with me she seemed to be thinking more of what in the U.M. Church we’ve been calling Safe Sanctuaries than with greeting this stranger in front of her. I understood to some extent, we send multiple messages: be friendly, protect the children, but I was a little disappointed to not even be offered a bulletin.
A week or so later I went to another church and asked them if I might use their parking lot for about an hour early on weekday mornings. She told me I could, if I payed them ninety-five dollars a semester-- ‘after all, it wouldn’t be fair to charge the other students and not charge you’. I told the secretary I understood: “you see I am a pastor, I know it gets complicated.” To that she said, “You know if you were to attend this church, then we’d give you a pass!”
I remember in one of the last churches I served, we learned that a growing church needed a place to hold services on Sundays, and that they also could use our space for a weeknight program. A retired pastor in the congregation who’d served in Indiana said he didn’t think we should consider taking them in because there would be more wear and tear on the facility and we‘d have to schedule our activities in cooperation. The Finance Committee came up with a suggested fee which at the time looked to me like about half of our monthly budget. I wanted this other church near because I was greatly touched by their earnestness and fire, and frankly I was a bit disappointed in my existing congregation’s urgency about living faith. We finally did host the second church for a more modest fee, but deep down I wished we’d have had more heart for grace, for seeing the situation less for what was in it for us, and more because the one we follow gave abundantly. Weren’t the least among us featured prominently in Jesus’ teachings? Isn’t hospitality a foundational element in both Judaism and Christianity? The Jewish, Muslim and Christian folks I’ve met in the Middle East blew me away with their hospitality.
But in churches I’ve met some folks who suggested they were not gifted for hospitality. Really, I couldn’t believe I’d heard it either! That sounds more like a faith which is puffed up than a faith built upon humility. An individual voicing such a thing doesn’t sound like a candidate for leadership as much as someone you bring along so they can continue growth.
Can anyone who is discovering how truly wondrous a gift they themselves have received feel indifferent to extending love and hospitality?! Can they really be conditional in spreading love?
I used to run a lot, somewhere between thirty and fifty miles a week from the late 1970’s into the middle 80’s, until tennis diverted me from steady mileage. In those days eye contact was a given, particularly between runners. It seemed a very rare thing not to get at least momentary acknowledgement of shared space, shared endeavor. As I passed pedestrians going my way I gave a wave (partly because my nearly-blind grandmother had shared how disorienting it was to get passed quickly). I usually did something of that nature while approaching walkers reversing my course. I may have noticed a difference when Sony came out with the Walkman. Some runners put a greater proportion of their consciousness in a different place.
This has not improved with time! It’s become more widespread: iPods, bluetooth ear-pieces, cell phone conversations in all sorts of public places, phones attached to the ears of people who take offense that someone would actually listen to the words they are putting out there at easily audible levels.
Several times in recent weeks Coco and I startled people who were walking and texting, apparently expecting the seas of people in front of them to part in deference to their focus on other things. I swear, I’ve stared and looked for a chance to break into attention to work out directional signals for as many as thirty feet without an opening.
I get a similar feeling when crossing driveways while drivers on cell-phones wait for Coco and I to pass (or sometimes, don’t wait), like we don’t have time for people who move on feet any more, like we think life can be lived with a minimum of interactions. Seems to me a regrettable waste of opportunities at hand.
I miss polite acknowledgment. I’m not looking to make time. I’m just trying to live fully into each particular moment of God’s creation, and celebrating the creatures with whose paths I am crossing. I’m probably a little lonely at this moment in my journey, and that makes me more sensitive about this phenomenon.
I went to church a couple of weeks ago and found a greeter who had other things to do. Her grandson was with her, and at the moment of her interaction with me she seemed to be thinking more of what in the U.M. Church we’ve been calling Safe Sanctuaries than with greeting this stranger in front of her. I understood to some extent, we send multiple messages: be friendly, protect the children, but I was a little disappointed to not even be offered a bulletin.
A week or so later I went to another church and asked them if I might use their parking lot for about an hour early on weekday mornings. She told me I could, if I payed them ninety-five dollars a semester-- ‘after all, it wouldn’t be fair to charge the other students and not charge you’. I told the secretary I understood: “you see I am a pastor, I know it gets complicated.” To that she said, “You know if you were to attend this church, then we’d give you a pass!”
I remember in one of the last churches I served, we learned that a growing church needed a place to hold services on Sundays, and that they also could use our space for a weeknight program. A retired pastor in the congregation who’d served in Indiana said he didn’t think we should consider taking them in because there would be more wear and tear on the facility and we‘d have to schedule our activities in cooperation. The Finance Committee came up with a suggested fee which at the time looked to me like about half of our monthly budget. I wanted this other church near because I was greatly touched by their earnestness and fire, and frankly I was a bit disappointed in my existing congregation’s urgency about living faith. We finally did host the second church for a more modest fee, but deep down I wished we’d have had more heart for grace, for seeing the situation less for what was in it for us, and more because the one we follow gave abundantly. Weren’t the least among us featured prominently in Jesus’ teachings? Isn’t hospitality a foundational element in both Judaism and Christianity? The Jewish, Muslim and Christian folks I’ve met in the Middle East blew me away with their hospitality.
But in churches I’ve met some folks who suggested they were not gifted for hospitality. Really, I couldn’t believe I’d heard it either! That sounds more like a faith which is puffed up than a faith built upon humility. An individual voicing such a thing doesn’t sound like a candidate for leadership as much as someone you bring along so they can continue growth.
Can anyone who is discovering how truly wondrous a gift they themselves have received feel indifferent to extending love and hospitality?! Can they really be conditional in spreading love?
Sunday, September 20, 2009
The Rapture
I walk through about one hundred and fifty yards of commuter parking on my way to the gym. One day I noticed a bumper sticker which I particularly liked: “Come the Rapture, can I have your car?”
I’m not a person who puts stickers on cars, but I do survey them a bit, and mostly I am disappointed. Whether political or not, on the main they tend toward simple declarations, and I have a soft spot for the ones which say more and get me thinking.
I’m pretty sure that Rapture bumper sticker was spawned by another sticker which I’ve seen a lot more often: “Warning: when the Rapture comes this car will be unoccupied.”
When I see that one I feel an impulse to motion that person over and give ‘em a hug. It doesn’t sound like they’re finding much joy in the here and now of faith. Sounds more like they’re looking forward to being liberated, at last having their exalted status recognized in horror by all those folks who went on having a good time. I’m not totally dismissing the possibility of the occasional reader who will see that bumper sticker and think something along the lines of ‘that person knows something I want to know’, but it seems more likely that the reader will begin to form an impression of a faith that exults at the hope of being vindicated, a resolution with winners and losers, rather than a faith where the first shall be last and the humble lifted up.
I fear there is a thread of Christian community which wishes to find justification for exercising a good old-fashioned smote. You know, hell fire, total destruction as a definitive rebuke. We have a societal remnant of that in the death penalty: you are so bad we’re going to end your life. But hear this: we don’t think ending a life is right, unless it is the ultimate statement of societal disapproval. Don’t do this at home. But I digress...
Unconditional love, grace, compassion, mercy, these are counter-cultural words at the center of understanding God’s love for us. These are practices which must be embodied by followers if we are to fully live faith, and pass on faith rather than cultural bias. Unconditional love, grace, compassion and mercy must be practiced as counter-balances to any of our opposing impulses.
Formation in God’s methods is foundational those who seek to follow the will and way of God. Ours is not a faith which calls us to be ready to act faithfully at some future moment, not after we have prevailed, but rather to employ faith qualities and practices as a means to witness whose we are, in the midst of all moments; when we do this beautifully it is very persuasive.
And it just might become a faith which never wants to operate a car without filling the car’s seats with new friends.
I’m not a person who puts stickers on cars, but I do survey them a bit, and mostly I am disappointed. Whether political or not, on the main they tend toward simple declarations, and I have a soft spot for the ones which say more and get me thinking.
I’m pretty sure that Rapture bumper sticker was spawned by another sticker which I’ve seen a lot more often: “Warning: when the Rapture comes this car will be unoccupied.”
When I see that one I feel an impulse to motion that person over and give ‘em a hug. It doesn’t sound like they’re finding much joy in the here and now of faith. Sounds more like they’re looking forward to being liberated, at last having their exalted status recognized in horror by all those folks who went on having a good time. I’m not totally dismissing the possibility of the occasional reader who will see that bumper sticker and think something along the lines of ‘that person knows something I want to know’, but it seems more likely that the reader will begin to form an impression of a faith that exults at the hope of being vindicated, a resolution with winners and losers, rather than a faith where the first shall be last and the humble lifted up.
I fear there is a thread of Christian community which wishes to find justification for exercising a good old-fashioned smote. You know, hell fire, total destruction as a definitive rebuke. We have a societal remnant of that in the death penalty: you are so bad we’re going to end your life. But hear this: we don’t think ending a life is right, unless it is the ultimate statement of societal disapproval. Don’t do this at home. But I digress...
Unconditional love, grace, compassion, mercy, these are counter-cultural words at the center of understanding God’s love for us. These are practices which must be embodied by followers if we are to fully live faith, and pass on faith rather than cultural bias. Unconditional love, grace, compassion and mercy must be practiced as counter-balances to any of our opposing impulses.
Formation in God’s methods is foundational those who seek to follow the will and way of God. Ours is not a faith which calls us to be ready to act faithfully at some future moment, not after we have prevailed, but rather to employ faith qualities and practices as a means to witness whose we are, in the midst of all moments; when we do this beautifully it is very persuasive.
And it just might become a faith which never wants to operate a car without filling the car’s seats with new friends.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Middle-Class Morality
I’ve been away from church responsibilities now for two months. I'm taking in new things in a new place.
The K.S.U. campus community is diverse, it may even be more apparent in summer when some who have traveled furthest to participate remain. My dog, Coco, and I have retrieved balls for international students playing cricket, we’ve exchanged greetings and nods with all sorts of people, we’ve visited university staff members during breaks from their preparations of the campus for another year.
One day a few weeks ago a line from a movie came to mind, it’s from G.B. Shaw’s Pygmalion (and it’s more recent adaptation, My Fair Lady). Shaw has written them as the words of Alfred P. Doolittle, a man bewildered by a change in his fortunes:
“Who asked him to make a gentleman out of me? I was happy. I was free. I touched pretty nigh everyone for money when I wanted it, same as I touched him. Now, I'm tied neck and heels, and everybody touches me. A year ago, I hadn't a relation in the world except one or two who wouldn't speak to me. Now, I've fifty, and not a decent week's wages amongst the lot of 'em. Oh, I have to live for others now, not for myself. Middle-class morality.” (quotation courtesy IMDb)
‘Middle-class morality’, Alfred’s concluding words, the phrase has been sticking with me. I’ve been wondering just how much of what we present as faith is really middle-class morality, more a reflection of our place in local culture than our place in God’s wider community.
There are targets which for me which are easy: preferences for church music and church decor, much of what is familiar in the particular sanctuary experience with which we have become most familiar. I suspect we compromise the broad invitation issued by Christ, by inserting the particular specifics which have become comforting to us.
Here in Kent I’ve found another interesting place to watch people. As I’ve watched others I’ve been thinking about faith in God, and the possibility that my own conceptions of middle-class morality may unduly influence understandings of what it is to seek to walk with God. Wondering to what degree perceptions then affect what I as an individual disciple invite others to.
God gave us something simple to do: to love God and others. Yet to invest in God’s purpose and method of love is humbling. It seems against human nature to be humble; we want credit for being humble, perhaps even to have others notice how well we do humble, introducing a destructive compromise at a fundamental level. There is virtue in the practice of humility. The humble withdraw from outsized self-importance to see themselves in context of interrelatedness and interdependence. But the realization is only apparent to those who draw close to humility.
Humbly serving God, recognizing the ‘other’ as God’s receptacle for love right before us, broadcasting love is our central task. The task of establishing a local ‘footprint’ of outward-radiating love should take a higher priority than perpetuating local church practice, in many instances our form of middle-class morality.
I’m suggesting there are unintended layers we followers attach to following.
Jesus distilled the commandments to two: loving God with all one’s heart, soul, mind and strength; and loving neighbor as self (Mk. 12:29-31). The charge is both simple, and in the idealistic practice of love, totally consuming, as is the nature of the whole of faith. We are to be people who are known by love, who set the stage through loving acts for still others to find abundant discovery and growth in God’s unconditional love. We may believe that others prevail by taking advantage of love, but better that should happen than we become proponents of methods that are not of God, and in so doing, compromise the message of the One we represent.
Should we expect others to experience God as we do? How can we introduce them to a path which reflects God’s love above all else? Must they be effectively ‘circumcised’ into our conventions and practice?
How much of our current practice is about providing comfort to our selves, how much to expanding the circle and loving?
The K.S.U. campus community is diverse, it may even be more apparent in summer when some who have traveled furthest to participate remain. My dog, Coco, and I have retrieved balls for international students playing cricket, we’ve exchanged greetings and nods with all sorts of people, we’ve visited university staff members during breaks from their preparations of the campus for another year.
One day a few weeks ago a line from a movie came to mind, it’s from G.B. Shaw’s Pygmalion (and it’s more recent adaptation, My Fair Lady). Shaw has written them as the words of Alfred P. Doolittle, a man bewildered by a change in his fortunes:
“Who asked him to make a gentleman out of me? I was happy. I was free. I touched pretty nigh everyone for money when I wanted it, same as I touched him. Now, I'm tied neck and heels, and everybody touches me. A year ago, I hadn't a relation in the world except one or two who wouldn't speak to me. Now, I've fifty, and not a decent week's wages amongst the lot of 'em. Oh, I have to live for others now, not for myself. Middle-class morality.” (quotation courtesy IMDb)
‘Middle-class morality’, Alfred’s concluding words, the phrase has been sticking with me. I’ve been wondering just how much of what we present as faith is really middle-class morality, more a reflection of our place in local culture than our place in God’s wider community.
There are targets which for me which are easy: preferences for church music and church decor, much of what is familiar in the particular sanctuary experience with which we have become most familiar. I suspect we compromise the broad invitation issued by Christ, by inserting the particular specifics which have become comforting to us.
Here in Kent I’ve found another interesting place to watch people. As I’ve watched others I’ve been thinking about faith in God, and the possibility that my own conceptions of middle-class morality may unduly influence understandings of what it is to seek to walk with God. Wondering to what degree perceptions then affect what I as an individual disciple invite others to.
God gave us something simple to do: to love God and others. Yet to invest in God’s purpose and method of love is humbling. It seems against human nature to be humble; we want credit for being humble, perhaps even to have others notice how well we do humble, introducing a destructive compromise at a fundamental level. There is virtue in the practice of humility. The humble withdraw from outsized self-importance to see themselves in context of interrelatedness and interdependence. But the realization is only apparent to those who draw close to humility.
Humbly serving God, recognizing the ‘other’ as God’s receptacle for love right before us, broadcasting love is our central task. The task of establishing a local ‘footprint’ of outward-radiating love should take a higher priority than perpetuating local church practice, in many instances our form of middle-class morality.
I’m suggesting there are unintended layers we followers attach to following.
Jesus distilled the commandments to two: loving God with all one’s heart, soul, mind and strength; and loving neighbor as self (Mk. 12:29-31). The charge is both simple, and in the idealistic practice of love, totally consuming, as is the nature of the whole of faith. We are to be people who are known by love, who set the stage through loving acts for still others to find abundant discovery and growth in God’s unconditional love. We may believe that others prevail by taking advantage of love, but better that should happen than we become proponents of methods that are not of God, and in so doing, compromise the message of the One we represent.
Should we expect others to experience God as we do? How can we introduce them to a path which reflects God’s love above all else? Must they be effectively ‘circumcised’ into our conventions and practice?
How much of our current practice is about providing comfort to our selves, how much to expanding the circle and loving?
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