I heard a snippet of this story on Fresh Air the other day,

Here’s a link to an excellent piece from the Alban Weekly from Peter Steinke.

Avoiding Missional Drift

Today was the first day of our VBS, termed in our lexicon ‘Summer Celebration’.  

One of the charisms of St. Luke’s is a ministry to children and not just our own.  We have a goodly heritage of providing exposure to God and the life of the church for many in our neighborhood who are not ‘members’ of St. Luke’s.  Frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Too often, it seems to me, we join together outreach and evangelism like conjoined twins and don’t recognize that each of them is a faithful and viable ministry in and of itself.  The purpose of Outreach is to demonstrate to the world that we love them with the love of Christ, just because Jesus said to ‘love your neighbors as yourselves’ (but only after you’ve had an experience of a loving God.).

Evangelism is simply carrying the Good News (the Gospel) around with us as part of who we are not like something that we wear to impress others.  Here’s where the obligatory nod to St. Francis mantra, “Go forth and preach the Gospel, and, if necessary, use words.” makes it’s predictable appearance.

Many times we only view our Evangelization as ‘successful’ if we get people to come to our church (usually meaning a building) or to be saved so that they get to experience heaven at some point in the future.  It seems to me, as I encounter Jesus in the Gospels, that to be one of the Evangel is simply to communicate the love of God in Christ through word and especially action.

This week because we take both Outreach and Evangelism seriously we are opening the doors of our building and the heart of the Church to the children of God of all sorts and conditions in the Tatnuck Square area.  We do it not because we think that it will add to the bottom line, but rather because it is part of the ‘top line’ understanding of who God calls us to be.  So that means that whatever the results sewing the seeds of faith might or might not be, what we do here is a success even if only 5 children show up.

Thanks be to God for Good News and a world to share it with!!!!!!

I’ve run across a couple of instances in the past couple of days that has made me take a hard look at a word.  That word is ‘disillusioned’. For most of my life I saw being disillusioned as a lamentable (maybe a word for another post) state.  I have to admit that I have tended to spend a good deal of time trying to keep people disillusioned with one thing or another (mostly me and my role-whatever it may be-in their lives).  I was reading something the other day, however, that brought me up short. The writer (and I wish I could remember who it was so I could give credit where credit is due) reminded me that illusions are not ‘real’, not ‘true’.  They function to deceive, that’s what their job is.  Franciscan Priest Richard Rohr says,

the greatest ally of the truth is what is. I call it the actual.

We can only deal with what really is.  Jesus seems to be well aware of the need for us all to become disillusioned with the self that we have been sold.  Jesus consistently calls us away from a world that is illusory and calls us more deeply into faith into something that we cannot ‘see’ but is much more ‘real’ that what is right before our very eyes. Paul exhorts fledgling churches to be mindful of the seduction of the earthly things that can get in the way of getting on The Way. In Philippians 3 Paul warns of concentrating on the things of the world-

¹⁸ For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. ¹⁹ Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. ²⁰ But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. ²¹ He will transform the body of our humiliation 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.

Again in Colossians 3 Paul exhorts the Church (the people of God on The Way of Jesus) to-

² Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, ³ for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. ⁴ When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

Both of these texts seem to me to be exhorting the Church (God’s People) to actively be aware of the need to be disillusioned with what the world is trying to sell us.  Sometimes that has a very alluring wrapping on it, that wrapping can look wonderfully holy, like a church building.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Church buildings are awesome. I just think they need to be seen for what they are and be viewed with suspicion based upon what they can become.

The bottom line, it seems to me, is to remember that the building is to serve the mission of the Church and that the mission of the Church is not to serve buildings.  In some ways I suspect that we need to take a hard look at where any community or congregation stands along that contiuum from time to time.

At the end of the day if being disillusioned with the Church, on whatever level, reveals to us our life, which is Christ (see Colossians above) then we (the people of God) can really become Church (The Body of Christ in the world) in a new and more faithful and authentic way.

Anybody care to diss some illusions with me?

I came across this story on NPR this morning while on my way from driving my son to school.

I was moved by the portion of the story that says, “as parents, we don’t cease caring for our children and their needs and challenges simply because they turn 18, but in the vast majority of cases, that’s what happens to foster children ‘aging out’ of the system.”

New studies indicate that children who are currently ‘aging out’ of the system face immediate challenges that will effect them for the rest of their lives:

• Among girls more than half are likely to have children shortly after leaving the system.
• Among boys, there will likely be 60% or more who will be convicted of a crime before their 21st birthday.
  

I commend the story to you, your reflection and prayers.

I’ll leave you with  a couple of questions that should be addressed by our churches.

• Does God cease to care and look after us when we’ve come of age?
• Can we as the church find an appropriate way to support these foster children who are ‘coming of age’ as they transition to independent lives?

For about the last six weeks I’ve been watching this retaining wall go up down the street from my house.

When I first started watching the process it was before a long weekend.  I thought the project was to be a modest one to make a small (about 2 foot high) wall around a small flowerbed on the street side of the house.

Since then the scope and ambition of the project has emerged.  The wall is almost 5 feet tall and turns the corner from the front of the house.

Stone by Stone

I don’t pretend to know just what exactly the ultimate purpose of the wall is.  That being said, I’m intrigued to see what plans are to follow.  I’m imagining that an extensive landscaping plan is in the offing.  But, as always, I could be wrong.

Two things about this wall and its construction have been most intriguing.  The first I mentioned above.  What’s going to be the finished product?

The second, and more interesting for me, is observing the skill and patience of the guy (yup, just one person) who’s building the wall.  I’ve spent a few minutes here and there watching him work.  He moves slowly and with purpose.  He ponders and places, imagines, forms and then finally places the stones where they’re going to go.  One of the remarkable things is that he keeps very few stones on the corner at any given time.  I’d love to ask him how he chooses them.  Does he look for particular pieces? Or, does he make the wall so brilliantly with the stones that come his way?  I’d like to believe it’s the latter.

So it is with God, it seems to me.  In Jesus, God has begun the work of completing the plan of redemption, reconciliation and re-creation.  Brennan Manning has famously called the band of disciples (then and now) a bunch of ragamuffins.  From where I look in the church, that’s a tremendous asset.  I believe that whatever God’s work of building the kingdom will ultimately look like, the first stone in building this wall is the ‘cornerstone’ Jesus.  The perfect example of incarnate divinity.  The first stone doesn’t complete the wall but makes every other stone utterly dependent on it.

We Anglicans are noted for our ‘Incarnational Eucharistic Theology’.  Our view of the Church in the world (our ecclesiology) takes seriously Paul’s characterization of the Church as ‘the Body of Christ’ in the world.  Specifically we are the church as an ongoing expression of the Incarnation, not merely as a result of it.

The Church mystifies me at times.  God’s method is as wonderful and mysterious to me as is the method the builder of this wall’s is.  One thing I am sure of, I am somehow more connected to the building of something special when I am witness to the process than I am when I worry primarily about the result.

Stone by Stone, Person by Person, Community by Community God is building something truly wonderful and I’m humbled, honored and blessed to be another stone in that wall.

Is the final question in this video the one that the Church should be dealing with most?

Thanks to my colleague Rich Simpson for sending the video link and the provocative question??

How does the message of the Gospel compete with all the other demands that a massively transitional world throws at us?  How do we imagine the path to faithful witness in the face of a world that is preparing for questions it can’t even ask yet?

September 10, 2008

I usually pride myself on at least having a fleeting acquaintance with the folks that we in the Episcopal Church remember in the common of Lesser Feasts and Fasts.  These are folks ranging from Dietrich Bonhoeffer to C.S. Lewis and from Julian of Norwich to David Pendleton Oakerhater.

They are folks who have had an impact through their life and witness on the life of the Church and the Mission of God in the world.  Like I said, I thought I had a passing relationship with virtually all of them.

Until this morning…

The Rev'd Alexander Crummell

Today we remembers Alexander Crummell who was a pioneer in the Episcopal Church advocating for the minority voice of African-Americans.  Here’s a link to his full story.

Crummell was an important figure in the best of the prophetic wing of the Church.  If you read his story you’ll soon notice that he was not one to take no as an answer.

He was run out of a prep school in New Hampshire, denied candidacy to Holy Orders on more than one occasion, was not allowed to enroll in the seminary of his choice, denied admittance to the diocesan convention where he was finally ordained, forced to leave Liberia when he ran afoul of the prevailing political elite and opposed by Southern Governors when he tried to establish a platform for the voice of Black Episcopalians in the American Church.  In the face of all this adversity, he never lost his prophetic edge.  He believed that God’s call upon his life was reason enough to challenge the conventions that limited participation by all of God’s people in the Mission of God through the church.  Having said that, what I find most laudable about his life and witness is that he remained commited to and engaged in a flawed institution despite its best efforts to push him to the margin.

This is due in large measure of a deep love for the institution and a firm belief that God was calling it to a more faithful witness and challenging it the wrestle with its angels as well as its demons.  Just as Jacob’s struggle results in his blessing, so to did Crummell’s wrestling with the powers that be in God’s name secure a blessing of our Episcopal Church as a voice crying in the wilderness of marginalization and misunderstanding.

As I remember Crummell and his legacy across three continents in his 50 years of ordained ministry, I thank God that he and people like him, maintain patience with the Church, ‘that wonderful and sacred mystery’ and continue to call us, who after all are the Church, to engage with and express faithfully our better nature as we seek to do the Mission of the Church, ‘reconciling the world to God in Christ’ (BCP p. 855).

Well done Brother Crummell, continue to inspire God’s people, the Church.  Thanks be to God!!!

I have to say that it’s taken me less than a week to become weary of the ‘conversation’ between the two major presidential party candidates.  What disheartens me is the shrill character of what passes for dialogue on the real and pressing problems of the world we live in today.  I don’t see a conversation, I feel like I’m witnessing a collective monologue where people and groups of people don’t talk to one another but rather at or past one another.

I’m enough of a pramatist to know that this isn’t likely to change soon.  What I will say is that the labels, whether they be ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ take on a perjorative tone.  I find this remarkable since these are not nouns, but adjectives.  Maybe that’s for another time.

Today’s Boston Globe has an interesting interview with author Peter Korzen about how church moral teaching, in his case Catholic moral teaching, can inform dialogue in the public square in a meaningful and faithful way.  He has recently co-authored A Nation for All: How the Catholic Vision of the Common Good Can Save America from the Politics of Division with Alexia Kelley and talks about the book and its premise in the interview.

For me the most interesting challenge in the arena of partisan politics today is how communities of faith, made up of people with differing views, can contribute in a meaningful way to the process.  I would hope that we are still willing to claim a voice in the public square that is not demeaning, shrill or condescending.  One of my mentors told his students often, “The highest compliment you can pay anyone is to take them seriously.”  What would happen if supporters of major political candidates would take the other side ‘seriously’ and allow that people of good will can disagree agreeably?  I’d love to see how that might play out.

I guess for small communities, like the one I serve, we can do that by asking honest questions of people that we disagree with and have a conversation of understanding before we try and ‘convert’ them to our particular worldview.  We can share the experiences that bring us to certain places, but we cannot expect others to treat them as if they were their own and ‘better’ experiences.  That doesn’t take ‘the other’ seriously and involves a certain arrogance and hubris unbecoming of the followers of Jesus who, in the words of Paul’s letter to the Philippians:

Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. ⁵

Let the same mind be in you that was^* in Christ Jesus,
⁶who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
⁷but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
⁸ he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.(Philippians 2)

Korzen and Kelley appeal to a great ideal that might help us to shift the conversation to the center from the poles, namely that we seek the common good above being right (or left for that matter).  I may be a hopeless optimist, but it won’t ever happen if we don’t try by our life and example as people of faith to make it so.

I’m more hopeful about politics than I’ve been in a long time.  I pray that hope grow into fruitful dialogue.

My prayer is that this hope can be rewarded with a substantive discourse on ideas and not devolve into the politics of name-calling and fear.  I want to say up front that I mean that in both directions, both the left and the right.

Two snippets give me hope (maybe I’m just looking for a half-full glass).

• Barack Obama’s description of John McCain as ‘a good man’ when talking about his impending nomination as the Republican Presidential Candidate
• John McCain’s congratulatory message to the Illinois Senator the day following Obama’s nomination

I believe that regardless of our politics, we as people of faith should really pray for, to borrow from the Apostle Paul, “a more excellent way” to emerge as part of this important time in our country and for the life of the world as God’s creation.

To that end I am going to commit myself to praying for God to sustain all of the candidates and not just ‘my’ candidate.  Will you join me in a commitment to such a prayer discipline?

In closing I offer this from the Book of Common Prayer as template for such a discipline.

Almighty God, giver of all good things:
We thank you for the natural majesty and beauty of this land.
They restore us, though we often destroy them.
Heal us.
We thank you for the great resources of this nation. They
make us rich, though we often exploit them.
Forgive us.
We thank you for the men and women who have made this
country strong. They are models for us, though we often fall
short of them.
Inspire us.
We thank you for the torch of liberty which has been lit in
this land. It has drawn people from every nation, though we
have often hidden from its light.
Enlighten us.
We thank you for the faith we have inherited in all its rich
variety. It sustains our life, though we have been faithless
again and again.
Renew us.
Help us, O Lord, to finish the good work here begun.
Strengthen our efforts to blot out ignorance and prejudice,
and to abolish poverty and crime. And hasten the day when
all our people, with many voices in one united chorus, will
glorify your holy Name. Amen.