Take Away Thoughts

This is a Myna bird in Maui having a snack on the onion rings left by a previous lunch-er.  He was in heaven until the waitress saw him and said, "Oh!  Party over!" and took the basket away.
I was in a meeting today about metrics.  I'm still trying to process what was presented, but here are a few "take away" messages I wrote down.  Some of these are destined to be expanded into their own blog posts, but for now, let your mind wander over these thoughts:

• Christianity is about change.  (I liked that one.  It was an ah-ha moment.)


• As a church, we have disconnected ourselves from our environment.  It is time to reconnect.


• A vital congregation requires a very clear identity and a very clear purpose.


• We are not here to save the institution.  We are here to use the institution.


• Do churches know more about who they used to be than who they are?


• A system gets (i.e. achieves) what it measures.  In other words, we get what we pay attention to.  (I'm still moving this one through my mind.  Do you agree with it?)


• Without measurement, purpose devolves into preference.  If we have no purpose, we measure whether people are happy by counting complaints.


• The purpose of problem solving it to return a system to what it once was.  We don't have a problem -- we have a new mission field and new opportunities.  We need to stop being problem solvers.  Churches don't need to be fixed; they need to be changed.

More to come.

Stewardship

I'm in Texas. My room here has a giant jacuzzi tub, but this is the view from my room. See that lake? Drought.

Sometimes stewardship involves just looking around and making appropriate decisions. Short shower, for instance.

God will give us clear vision.

I'm here

I'm still here.  I've been here and there and yonder, including Maui and Memphis.  At the end of the week I go to Austin, for a day, and then I'll be back.

Work is very busy -- many projects in May to complete.

I'll try to do better with blogging (which means I need to do better with devotionals, but if I have learned one thing, its that they go hand in hand).

I have many images to share -- good ones -- so I'll try to get that done, too.

Have you ever noticed, that when you have large projects to complete, that the small ones tend to weigh on you?  And that the interruptions take priority over the big Must be Done projects?  However, I believe in a Ministry of Interruptions, and one of my interruptions today was to send a check to someone who really needed it -- a grant from a Trust.  Those kind of interruptions are golden.  And what I'm called to do.

I'll get the Big Project done.  Tomorrow.  And the next day.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying having both my boys home.  Mother's Day was great.  Son the Younger preached.  You can listen to it here.

Mississippi River

Mississippi River outside of Memphis.

Simon Says, Part 4

OK, so the sermon has four parts, not three.  Ooops.
 

Consider this.  In West Virginia, one in three children lives in poverty.  Almost 10% of babies are born with low birth weight.  In our schools, 55% of students are approved for a free or reduced lunch.  Over half of all fourth graders in West Virginia cannot read at what is considered a proficient level.  Children who lived in poverty are more likely to have children outside of marriage, to be arrested, and to have severe health problems.  What can we do about this kind of darkness?

A group of United Methodist Women in my church, called the Lydia Circle, heard these statistics.  The teachers in the group told them that some of the students approved for free lunches in our schools go home every weekend and dodn’t eat again until Monday, because school food is their only food.  These women stopped focusing on their dwindling membership numbers, their increasing age, and their busy schedules.  They stopped worrying about what they could nod do.  They listened to Paul and they joined him in following Christ.  They started a back-pack ministry. 

Each week these women pack a weekend’s worth of food in large plastic Ziploc bags.  They deliver the bags to a neighborhood school where the bags are placed in the backpacks of 10 specific students.  Each weekend – every weekend -- these 10 students have something to eat.  They are no longer hungry.  The Lydia Circle has plans to expand the ministry so that no child in that school spends the weekend without food.  They are punching holes in the darkness.

Paul stands in prison and says, “Join in imitating me.”

The Lydia Circle stands in a school-yard and says, “Join in imitating me.”

When Judy and I were working out the order of worship for today, she asked me to send her the scriptural focus for the day and to choose hymns for worship.  I spent some time in prayer and then I worked through what I thought the message should be.  I chose several hymns I thought were appropriate and then narrowed it down to three.  I put them in the order I thought they would work, and then I looked at them.  And then I saw what hadn’t been obvious to me before; God had chosen the music.  God placed You are Mine before the sermon, as a way to sing over us and remind us that we are his beloved children.  Listen again to the words as if God is speaking them to you:

I am hope for all who are hopeless
I am eyes for all who long to see
In the shadows of the night,
I will be your light
Come and rest in Me

Do not be afraid, I am with you
I have called you each by name
Come and follow Me
I will bring you home
I love you and you are mine

We stand here this morning, secure in the knowledge of the love of God.   – we are not afraid.  We read Psalm 27, which says, “The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”   Paul reminds us that we are transformed, from humiliation to glory.  We have the opportunity live into the persons we were created to be.  We are citizens of heaven.

We are called to stand firm in the Lord.  We are called to pick up our cross and push back the darkness in the world.  We are called to choose to follow Christ – not to be transformed by the world but to allow God to change the world through us. 

Before the sermon, we sang, You are Mine – God’s reminder to us.  Our song of response after the sermon is I am Thine, Lord.

Who will you follow?  Who do you belong to?  What holes will you punch in the darkness?  Where will you stand today?

Simon Says, Part 3

When our god is God, when we live a God-centered life, we live into the grace-filled gifts of being citizens of heaven, here on earth.  When we follow God, we love others and we love God.  We share what we have been given, we serve. 

When we allow ourselves to be changed by the world, we end up empty.  Following Christ means that instead of being transformed by the world, we are transformed by God, and everything we do becomes a way that God can transform the world.

This past week I was listening to a sermon by Adam Hamilton, a United Methodist minister at the Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City.  He told a story about Robert Louis Stevenson, a 19^th century author.  As a young boy, Stevenson was sitting in his room, watching the lamplighter go from gas street lamp to gas street lamp, lighting each one with a torch.  He placed his ladder, climbed up, lighted the lamp and then moved on the next.  The young boy was fascinated by this.  His father opens his bedroom door, and Robert doesn’t even notice that someone has come into his room.  He just keeps watching as more and more lamps are lighted on the street.  Finally his father asks him, “Son, what are you looking at?  What is so fascinating outside that you don’t even notice that I’ve come into the room?”  Robert answers, “Daddy, I’m watching that man out there knock holes in the darkness.”

Paul stands in the prison and says, “Join in imitating me.” 

It is our task.  We are to imitate Paul as he imitates Christ.  Christ is the light, and now we are the light of the world, pushing back the darkness.  Knocking holes in the darkness of the world.

 

Simon Says, Part 2

Philippians 3:17-4:1: Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. 18For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. 19Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. 20But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. 21He will transform the body of our humiliation so that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.

4:1Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.

I think it would be helpful to our understanding of the passage to have some background information.  Paul is writing this letter from prison – persecuted by non-Christian authorities.  The church at Philippi faced some of these same struggles.  He is writing to a church that is tempted at times to follow heretical teachings.  They struggle against those who would have them believe that in order to be Christian, they must first follow all Jewish laws.  Perhaps they are tempted to believe the Gnostics, who tell them that they can do anything they want – they can be free from moral restraint, because the world of the flesh doesn’t matter.  On top of all of this, Philippi was the urban center of a Roman colony and was located on a major east-west road linking Rome with the East.  So Paul is writing to them from prison, urging them to not be swayed by the culture around them or those who would lead them astray, but instead to imitate him.

I think we live in a world that is very much like the world the Philippians lived in – except ours is even bigger.   While Philippi was on a road connecting Rome to the east, we live, metaphorically, on a road that connects every part of the globe to where we stand.  We could leave today and be in Rome tomorrow.  We can turn on the TV and see any part of the world in seconds.  We live in a global culture, and we are impacted and seduced by that culture in ways too numerous to count.  The culture tempts us to value ourselves above anyone else.  Me, mine.  We are taught that might makes right, that success is defined by our accomplishments and possessions and that whatever we can get away with is our best option.   The culture lifts up heroes for us to emulate, but those heroes have reached that status because they have been successful as the culture defines it – through accomplishments in the sports arena or through the accumulation of wealth or star-power.

We are tempted to live a life of self-centered interest, where our own lives become the entire focus of our attention.  A life where our needs and even our wants are translated into rights.   When we follow the ways of the culture, we place ourselves at the center of our lives.  That kind of self-centeredness leads to lifelessness.  Martin Luther said, “Anything on which your heart relies and depends, I say, that is really your God.”  Is that the kind of life we want to lead?  A life where we are trapped by our own fears and insecurities, left lifeless in our pursuit of what the culture tells us to value?

Paul stands in prison and says, “Join in imitating me.”

When Paul uses the word imitate, he isn’t talking about duplication.  He isn’t claiming to be a hero we should follow.  He’s not even suggesting that he is the ultimate Christian.  One commentary I read said the word imitate, in this context, means “an incarnation of a living example.”  In other words, Paul is seeking to imitate Christ, and he is inviting the Philippians to do the same – imitate Christ.  Paul is urging his readers to pick up their crosses, as Christ did, and as he is doing, and follow.

Cruciform living – following Christ – is countercultural.  It means emptying ourselves, instead of living only for ourselves.  It means success is defined as servanthood and our greatest need becomes offering love to the world. 

Simon Says, Part 1

The following three posts are from a sermon in early March:

Philippians 3:17-4:1: Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. 18For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. 19Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. 20But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. 21He will transform the body of our humiliation so that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.

4:1Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.

I don’t want to start my time with you today by embarrassing you, but how many of you remember the game of Simon Says?  Can you raise your hands?

And would know you know what I meant if I said you were “out” because I didn’t say “Simon says, raise your hands?”

Do you remember playing that game as a child?  I remember playing it on the playground during recess or on rainy days, in the audicafenasium – you know that room?  The one that is the cafeteria at lunch, the gymnasium during physical education and the auditorium for the Christmas play?  We would all stand in lines while the leader would have us do silly movements – like jump on one foot, or raise both arms.  If the leader preceded the command with “Simon Says”, you followed the instructions.  If not, then you were to ignore the instructions.  If you followed the leader without the Simon Says command, then you were “out.”  And I remember the leader would try to trick us, with phrases like, “OK, you can put your arm down now.”  And we would fall for the trick.  Why was it so hard to win the game?  It seemed simple enough, but it didn’t take long for there to only be two or three really excellent players left, while the rest of us sat on the sidelines.  We had gotten tired of listening, or distracted by something else, or maybe we had fallen for the sneaky leader’s tricks, but we were out, in no time flat.

As I read the epistle lesson from this week’s lectionary, the game Simon Says came to mind.  Paul is telling the Christians of Phillipi who they should follow.  He says, “Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us.” 

As I read it, I wondered how a church of today would react if the pastor stood in the pulpit and said, “Follow me.  Do what I do.”  What would we think?  We would go to lunch after worship and talk among our friends about the pastor’s arrogance?  Who is he to hold himself up as someone we should follow?  Who does he think he is?  Is that the reaction we have to Paul’s statement to the Philippians?

Lecture 5: Isaac

Lecture 5: Isaac

 

What moral judgment should be made concerning Abraham?  Concerning God?

On the surface, the story seems to call for us to judge Abraham as good, for his obedience.  C.S. Lewis says, in his book Mere Christianity, that we all have an internal capacity to judge right from wrong – he sees it as evidence of our creation by God.  We know that child sacrifice – child murder – even as commanded by a god, is wrong.  We cringe at this story, because we judge God as wrong for his demand of the sacrifice and Abraham as wrong in his obedience.  We hesitate to say it, because God is God, and we are not, and yet our moral compass comes from God, and this passage makes that compass spin.  How do we come to terms with the Akedah?

Sacrifice was as common in antiquity as television is today.  Why did it become less common, and is it something that has replaced or should be revived?

I have no desire to go back to sacrifice as outlined in the Old Testament, and I don’t think God has called us to do that.  Jesus was the ultimate, never-needs-to-be-repeated sacrifice.  Our idea of offering as worship could be strengthened, and we would benefit from it.

Why might Judaism have chosen this passage as the New Year (Rosh ha-Shanah) reading?

The main themes of the Prayer Service for Rosh ha-Shanah are repentance by man and judgment by God.  Sacrifice, in the Old Testament, was often about repentance – could this story be a repentance / sacrifice story?  Does God “staying the hand of Abraham” translate into an image of mercy?

Lecture 3: Murder, Flood and Dispersion

Lecture 3: Murder, Flood and Dispersion

What are today’s equivalents for “sacrifice” – a practice in antiquity as common as we find watching television?

 

My first thought is that today’s “sacrifice” is offering – bringing gifts to God as an act of worship.  I would add to that the practice of sacrifice during Lent – giving up something in order to grow closer to God.  Could that be extended to practices such as fasting?   Could “sacrifice” be defined as an outward ritual to indicate an inward devotion?  Then perhaps communion could be used as an example – a ritual remembering of Christ’s sacrifice and an outward movement of devotion to indicate a internal communion with God.

 

 Is Noah a hero?  Is his story comforting or threatening?  Why would ancient Israel so describe its flood story’s protagonist and its God?

 

Heroes in the Bible are rarely perfect.  Noah is considered a hero – someone God calls to move forward the work of God’s kingdom.  The story is really not comforting.  It is a story of a society so separated from God in sin that God decides to destroy it.  He saves one person and his family – maybe only so that Noah can provide care for the rest of creation?  I hope that is not the case.  We do receive a promise that God will not destroy creation with a flood again, but it’s a promise with a rider – only by flood.  And there is nothing in the story that says God’s creatures, humans, have improved any.  God doesn’t stay his hand of flood destruction because we have done better, only because he has promised not to respond to sin in the same way again. 

 

Ancient Israel would have nothing to tell if it avoided telling about non-perfect people.  I think the story portrays the society’s (far from perfect) understanding of God and its real understanding of sin.

 

Why does Israel detail, at the beginning of its sacred history, God’s disappointments and humanity’s continual failures?

 

The answer to this one is much the same as the answer to the last question.  What would the stories be about if not humanity’s continual failures.  We continually fail.  Anything else would be disingenuous.  We continually disappoint God.  We need stories to demonstrate to us God’s response to our failure, because that is where we are.  And that’s why this story isn’t very comforting.  We don’t like this response.

Lecture 2: Adam and Eve

Lecture 2: Adam and Eve

This story of Eden is never mentioned again in the Old Testament/Tanakh (its next canonical appearances are the Old Testament Apocrypha / Deuterocanonical writings).  How then, if at all, does the story affect interpretations of later texts (e.g., the man speaks of leaving home to cleave to his wife; do most male characters do this)?

 

I think first and foremost, the story of Eden provides a basis for us to understand who we are.  We are created by God in God’s image.  I think that would certainly affect the interpretations of later texts.  For example, Psalm 139 – “he knit us together” – created by God.  Job has many references to the idea of God as the one who set the world in motion.  The Adam and Eve story create a reference for the rest of scripture that God expects obedience, and there are (perhaps even self-inflicted) consequences of disobedience.  The Adam and Eve story sets up the idea that we have been expelled from paradise and we cannot return.  It establishes the idea that we have the freedom to choose.  And the expulsion story sets up the idea of family – a unit working together.

 

 How closely do later retellings (Milton’s Paradise Lost, the film The Bible, popular cultural renditions) adhere to the text?

 

We have a tendency in the retelling of any biblical story to homogenize the story – for example, the first chapter of Genesis combined with the second chapter into one homogeneous story.  We also have a tendency to stamp the story with our own cultural interpretation.  We have an impression that Eve tempted Adam to eat the fruit, when he was standing right there as the snake tempted her.  

 

 Is Eden a desirable place?  A return to childhood?  A prison?

 

I would think that for it to be considered a prison, the occupants would have to lack free will – no ability to make their own choices – and they would desire to leave.  Neither one of those are true.  In some ways, one could consider it a place of child-like life and faith.  Before the fall, the occupants were innocent and were in close relationship to God (as one would be with a parent).  I imagine they found it to be a desirable place, and were sorry to be made to leave.  Do I think heaven is like Eden?  No, not really.  We don’t have the innocence that Adam and Eve shared – even in our salvation, we are not like them in that way.  We are called to a more child-like faith in God, and the day to day walk with God is a frightening but desirable relationship.

Biblical Literacy

I'm working my way through one of the classes from The Great Courses, an online business where one can purchase courses recorded by well known professors throughout the country.  I'm listening to The Old Testament, taught by Amy-Jill Levine, a professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School. 

After each lecture, I'm trying to have the discipline to read and answer the questions from the study guide.  This one is from the first lecture.  I thought it might make an interesting blog post.

Cultural critics have claimed that biblical literacy is on the decline among today’s youth.  Is the text as important, culturally or religiously, today as it has been in the past?

Important is a subjective word, and I think the question can be answered two ways.  First, do I believe that the text is deemed to be important to today’s youth?  To some of them, yes.  The decline in biblical literacy could perhaps be attributed more as a failure of an older generation to teach the text than the younger generation to value it.  Blaming young people for biblical illiteracy would be like blaming the kindergartner who can’t read;  has he been taught the value of reading?  Has he been taught to read?

Secondly, is the text important to the youth of today’s society?  Yes.  God speaks through the text – to those who lived 500 years ago, to those who lived 100 years ago, and to those who live today.  My faith tells me that it is a means by which God makes himself known, so it has immeasurable value to all of us.

So, if youth are biblically illiterate and may not value the text, and we believe it is of high value to them because it reveals God, then woe to us for not teaching the faith to the next generation.

Sun and Moon

Have you noticed that in Genesis 1, God creates heaven, earth, light, darkness, the sky, the separation of the water from the earth, and vegetation -- and THEN he created the sun and the moon.  On the Fourth Day?

Remove yourself from our world.  Forget that we have launched rockets into the sky and watch men walk on the surface of the moon.  Ignore that we know how the sun works, what causes an eclipse and why the moon waxes and wanes.  Forget about telescopes and radio observatories.  Just imagine what the moon and the sun seemed like in the far, far past.  Wouldn't they have been mysteries?  Who could blame the Babylonians (and others) for calling them gods?

And here are the Jews, claiming that there is only one God -- and that God created the sun and moon.  It was a radical thought that I don't think we appreciate very much.

In the Image

Have you noticed, as you read the Old Testament, the propensity for people to try to be like God?

• In the Garden of Eden, the snake tells Adam and Eve that God doesn't want them to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, because then they "will be like God."  They eat the fruit anyway.
• Right after the Flood, humans build the tower of Babel, "with its top in the heavens." 
• In Job, God says to him, "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth..."  In other words, are you God, or am I God?

I could list other examples, but these struck me today.  I think we often try to be God, or try to take the role of God.

So, one day God sent his son, in the form of a man, to show us the error of our ways (as one purpose, anyway).  I wonder if part of our problem is that our image of God isn't right.  We try to be who we think God is; instead, God says, "This is who I am.  Be like this."

Be like Jesus if you wish to be like God.