Reflections of Ancient Rome

The following reflections were presented to my congregation as my annual letter in the bulletin of reports for our 2011 annual meeting. I offer them to you for what they are worth. I am the unlikely pastor. Welcome to my world. Peace out.)

Grace to you and peace from the one who is, who was and who is to come.

 As I shared with the Council at our January 18, 2011 meeting, I am still in the process of digesting all that I experienced on my recent study trip to Rome, and will be for some time to come. Using Jesus parable of the final judgment in Matthew 25 as a backdrop. I reflected with the Council on the resolve of those early Christians in Rome to minister to “the least of these”, those whom proper Roman society had abandoned.

 The early Christian community in Rome was located far from the gleaming white marble-clad seats of Roman power. The vast number of early Christians in Rome lived in the swampy marshland that existed on the other side of the Tiber River. They were numbered among what we today call “the working poor”, primarily employed in janitorial positions, in slaughter houses, and as longshoremen off-loading the barge loads of wine, oil, grain and other produce and tribute that fed the Roman economy.

 They didn't have much. But what they did have they shared openly with one another and those in need. It was Roman practice that if for any reason and at anytime a family decided that they did not want a child, they were free to simply abandon it outside the city walls, leaving it to die of exposure. Those early Christians would take these abandoned children into their own homes do what they could to nurse them back to health and if successful, raise them as their own. Many of these children died. In touring the catacombs it was sad to see the disheartening number of tiny graves dug out of the volcanic rock indicating the burial site of a young child or infant. But at least for the latter part of their life they received the love and care that they needed. What you do for the least of these...

 

Another site that we saw was an island in the middle of the Tiber River, the site of a modern day hospital, but at one time home to a shrine to Aesculapius, the god of healing. It was there during outbreaks of small pox and plague that Roman families would abandon their sick to their fate. The early Christians would rescue those left for dead and take them into their own homes, attempt to nurse them back to health, and if successful continue to support them in whatever way they could, adopting them into their own families. What you do for the least of these...

There is a pattern here that can be instructive for us if we have the will and the wisdom to discern it. Who are those whom our society abandons to their fate? How can we take them into our community and share our life, our love with them? How do we in our life together minister to “the least of these” that populate the margins of our day to day experience? There is a pattern in the early Christian witness that can be instructive for us. Do we have the will and the wisdom to discern it?

Voting the Bible

Recently, I have been receiving all sorts of urgings from folks I know to "vote the Bible." Not exactly sure what to make of them. Does the Bible speak with a clear and unequivocal voice on the issues we face? Are they urging me to vote in accordance with a certain set of narrow predetermined criteria traced back somehow to the Bible's pages? Is this what Christians are called to do, proof-text voting?

My take is simply this, Biblical faith is intensely personal but it is never private. Biblical faith is lived publicly; therefore, as much as I hate politics, Biblical faith is political. It involves making choices in the realm of politics rooted and guided particularly in the prophetic literature and culminating in the person of Jesus. Issues of social and economic justice; how those who live on society's margins are protected and cared for; decisions made out of compassion rather than fear; how we care for God's creation so that it may sustain us as God intended; how differences are settled with respect and dialogue rather than vitriol and force.

These are among the principles that guide me as I vote for candidates. Do these coalesce into a certain political agenda? Perhaps, but I'm not really interested in labels, just being faithful and true to the path to which I feel called to follow. It may not be the path my "biblically voting" friends had in mind, or it may be, it is simply how I feel called to walk this world following the path of Jesus my Lord and Savior. I am the Unlikely Pastor, welcome to my world.

Appropriate Religious Speech

"Lord, take my hand and lead me, along life's way." The words to the old, familiar hymn sang into existence a very, clear and vivid memory. It was of her face, so confused, lost, and afraid. Her eyes seemed distant and longing. She was dying, her family gathered around her bedside at the nursing home. She was 99 years old, just a month or so short of 100. She had been in her life's final stage for awhile, but she always seemed to pull up at the last moment. Sadly, there would be no last minute heroics this time, she was played out. It showed in her pallor, in her breathing, and in those far away eyes.

Into the room wheeled her 98 year old brother. He was the elder statesman of the congregation, a true wisdom figure if there ever was one. His last few years had been pretty tough. He had survived a massive bee attack, several nasty falls, and had recently had his leg removed just above the knee due to poor circulation and wounds that would not heal. He wheeled himself straight toward her bed and the crowd parted as if Moses himself had raised his staff.

He took her hand in his and muttered a few words in German. Then without hesitation his shaky voice began to sing, the words were unintelligible to me, by the sound it was indeed German words he was singing, but the tune was clear and unmistakable, "Lord, take my hand and lead me, along life's way..." It was a holy moment. When he finished, he kissed her hand and then pushed back to join the rest of us who were gathered there. Her gaze still seemed distant and longing, and the confusion and lostness still registered on her face, but somehow she seemed a little more relaxed, a little less afraid, a little more ready to take the next step in her life's journey. It was indeed a holy moment.

As we sang that same hymn at nursing home devotions yesterday, those events of the not so long ago past came to mind. I can't help thinking about the world in which we live where religious speech is misappropriated and twisted into hate speech and to used to justify all sorts of bigotry, prejudice, and heinous actions that defy description (although the modern media falls all over itself to try). Perhaps religions critics are right. Perhaps religion is simply an infantile manifestation of wish fulfillment which humanity will be better off outgrowing, and the sooner the better. Perhaps...

Or perhaps the key can be found in the simple faith and actions of a humble 98 year old man who sang to his dying sister words of comfort, peace, and a living hope. Lord, take my hand and lead me along life's way...

I am the Unlikely Pastor. Welcome to my world.

Bent

¹⁰On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, ¹¹and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. ¹²When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, "Woman, you are set free from your infirmity." ¹³Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.

 ¹⁴Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue ruler said to the people, "There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath."

 ¹⁵The Lord answered him, "You hypocrites! Doesn't each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? ¹⁶Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?"

 ¹⁷When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing. (Luke 13:10-17, NIV)

He bent over backwards to get this Jesus fellow here, and this is the the way he is repaid. No one knows the sacrifices that he made, the strings he pulled, the favors that he called in: all to get Jesus to be at his synagogue on this Sabbath. Jesus was such a hot commodity, everyone wanted the honor of hosting him. The crowds; the notoriety; the bragging rights... He was bent on getting him there... For a solid month it was his singular focus. All that only to have Jesus mock him and all that he believed by healing old bent over Sarah on that day of all days. Why, God, why? He couldn't believe it was happening... the Sabbath defiled on his watch... after all the trouble he had been through... now he was bent...

It hadn't started out that way. Actually it began as a pretty ordinary Sabbath day. Nothing too special about the gathering crowd. A few unfamiliar faces, onlookers, and curiosity seekers mixed in among the faces of the usual suspects. And of course there at her customary position at the edge of the shadows slouched old bent over Sarah. She was a fixture hanging on the fringes of his congregation. She'd been all crippled up and stooped over for as long as he could remember. Some whispered that she was possessed by a demon. He really didn't place much credibility in those rumors, but he kept his distance all the same. One could never be too careful.

He was proud of his little worshiping community. Nothing to showy or notable about them. They were just ordinary people living out the command of their God, just as their ancestors had done before them. And sabbath keeping wasn't just living out any old command; it was living out the command. It was the command which marked the Jewish people as special and chosen by God. No other nation, to his knowledge, kept anything like the Sabbath, a day of holy rest to honor God. No other nation went to such scrupulous lengths to safeguard this special day. The other nations had their festivals, their rituals, and their sacrifices, but they had did not have the Sabbath, a day when even the stranger in their midst was bid to lay aside their weekly burdens and rest. It was a Sabbath to the LORD; a remembrance of the Creator of all that is, of God's sovereignty over all Creation and of God's deliverance of the Jewish people who once were allowed no rest as slaves in Egypt, but who had been led out of slavery by God's mighty hand and set free. The Sabbath was all about Creation, freedom, and rest. And the Jewish people worked very hard to preserve that Sabbath rest. 39 types of work were extrapolated from the Torah and forbidden; and the rules were scrupulously enforced. This was their identity as a people, as God's people, they were talking about. So violations and violators were not treated lightly. 

Jesus already had a reputation of playing loose with the Sabbath laws, of dancing around the fringe, poking and prodding and pushing. He was a little wary. But nothing had prepared him for this. It was a blatant disregard of all that he held sacred. He was happy for Sarah, he really was. To see her stand upright bouncing around in praise and thanksgiving was quite a sight. But not on the Sabbath.

Healing was a form of work clearly forbidden by Sabbath law. He couldn't remember which number 1-39, off the top of his head, but it was there all right. Somebody had to stand up and be counted. If the Sabbath observance is profaned, disregarded, violated at will, then who are we? Whose are we? Too much was at stake. He felt compelled to speak out.

And the ultimate indignity was to have Jesus turn it back on him, like somehow he was the bad guy here. True enough, unbinding animals and leading them to get a drink was permitted: it was humane. But by extension to allow for the unbinding of people? No, it didn't hold water in his estimation. Animals needed water. People, for the most part, could be healed at another time. No, not the same at all.

Yet, here he was, watching Sarah dance and sing and praise, like she was a young girl again. And while he wanted to be happy for her, for her release, for her freedom; he felt captive to the the Sabbath laws, bound by his people's tradition. He was bent...

(The biblical story was retold from the perspective of the synagogue leader in order to emphasize the importance of the Sabbath law in Jewish piety. This was not some trifling incident, but a major challenge to what had become a cornerstone of Jewish identity. It is easy on first blush to lose sight of that. Jesus tied into the part of the tradition that saw Sabbath keeping as a celebration of freedom and deliverance. The ensuing discussion ultimately was left with two questions: What keeps us bound and bent over and unable to celebrate with others? How are we enabled to free and release others from that which binds them?

I didn't take this tack, but I wonder if this text may somehow give some insight to those who are so angry and upset by recent ELCA Churchwide Assembly decisions to allow for the ordination of LGBT people living in "lifelong, committed, monogamous relationships," what we straight folks are allowed to call "marriage." Is this a case of folks being so bound by the tradition, a tradition held in good faith, that they can't celebrate with others? A question worth contemplating, IMHO. I am the Unlikely Pastor. Welcome to my world.

A Statement of Belief (Part I)

I believe that You are holy and just. Seeker of the lost and outcast. Lover of the soul. You love into being all that is and will that all should find life in you.

I desire nothing more than eternity locked in the warmth of Your embrace. Eternity begins now...

(Move over Theresa of Avila! Not sure when I wrote this. Found it cleaning off the home office desk. It rather called out to be shared, so here it is. I am the Unlikely Pastor. Welcome to my world.)

Holding God Accountable

I spent the past week high on a bluff overlooking the main portion of Bear Creek Scout Reservation. In the valley below were the program areas where the boys earned their chosen merit badges. But up on the bluff at our encampment my biggest worry was closing up tents in case of rain and whether my car would bottom out on the so-called road that led from our campsite to the main camp road and on into town where chocolate milkshakes awaited.

I came back down the mountain Saturday to resume my normal weekly routine and to see that the world hadn't changed much in a week. The Gulf Oil Spill was still there, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were still on, the world was still the same contentious, seething, violent place that I had left behind.

So what do we who live in this world daily do? Wring our hands and moan? Brew a cup of tea and rail at the unjust nature of life and governments? Put on ruby slippers, click our heals together three times, while reciting, "There is no place like home"? Curl up in a fetal ball and hope that it will all go away? Yes, I suppose we could do any number of those things. But, Jesus gives us another option: in the midst of tragedy and devastation and injustice, in the midst of a murky future and a cloudy horizon and a flickering hope, Jesus gives us another option... wait for it... wait for it... Jesus teaches us to pray. (Insert the sound effect that is used when someone loses on The Price is Right).

Prayer? Did he say, "Prayer"? How lame! What good will that do? It's too weak, too passive, too otherworldly. What we need to do is strike a blow against the forces of cruel injustice. We need to write letters, set up a foundation, begin a crusade. Something. Anything. But, prayer? Come on, that's child's stuff isn't it? This is the adult world. The big show. The stakes are much higher and the the consequences more dire. The results more final. "Now I lay me down to sleep..." just doesn't cut it in the adult world of random violence, cruel injustice, and lurking death.

And that may be true. For many of us our concept of prayer has never evolved beyond the innocence of kneeling beside a child's bed, or the desperation of a student realizing at the last minute that they haven't studied enough, or the impotence of an 11th hour bargaining session as a loved one is in peril. No wonder in the face of adult reality prayer seems childish, weak, and lame. But there is much more to prayer than we may have ever dreamed possible.

Prayer is a very bold, even revolutionary act. Prayer is the tool given to us whereby we can hold God accountable to God's promises to us and to act in accordance with God's own true nature. I'm going to say that again because a.) that is one long run on sentence and hard to follow; and b.) because if you don't remember anything else from this sermon I want you to remember this. So, prayer is the tool given to us whereby we can hold God accountable to God's promises to us and to act in accordance with God's own true nature. Now let's how this unfolds.

Think back to Abraham's dialog with God in the lesson from Genesis (Gen 18:16-33). (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2018:16-33&version=NIV) What is it that Abraham is doing here? "Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?" That is Abraham's question of God. What is he doing? Abraham is calling on God to act in a way consistent with God's revealed nature. Destroying the righteous along with and because of the wicked is simply not just. It is out of character for God to act in such a fashion. In all humility, yet with brazen confidence, Abraham calls upon God to be God, just and merciful and compassionate. And of course, God strikes him down dead right on the spot for his impudence. Uh, no. Well, at least God, as a consequence of his presumption, revoked a few of those cushy promises that he made to him. That would be be a no, too. Surely God was at least a little huffy and impatient with Abraham. No, not even that. Amazingly, God agrees to act in a manner consistent with God's revealed nature. As a result of Abraham's brazenness, the judge of all the earth agrees to act justly. Abraham's audacious actions not only receive airtime, but they garner results. Wow!

A fluke, you may say. An aberration because of God's special relationship with Abraham, but not a course of action available to us mere mortals of the faith. No. We don't get off the hook that easily. For you see, Jesus tells us a little story in the reading from Luke (Luke 11:1-13) (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2011:1-13&version=NIV).

Jesus tells a little story about a man who has this friend audacious enough to show up on his doorstep at midnight and presume upon his hospitality. And being true to the nature of a good friend, he welcomes him into his home, despite the lateness of the hour, and prepares to entertain him. But like Old Mother Hubbard, he goes to the cupboard and finds it bare.

Now he is faced with a dilemma. How can he be a true friend, showing hospitality, with a bare cupboard? Obviously, the closest Wal-Mart Supercenter was too far away. What was he to do? It occurs to him that his good friend and neighbor lives just around the block, and surely he has a loaf or two of bread to spare in the name of friendship. So he sneaks out, leaving his guest to read the coffe table books, and poke through the drawers, while he goes and starts pounding on his neighbor's door.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

Now, you can just picture the neighbor, little striped nightcap, perhaps even a pair of those little eyeshade things pulled up on top of his head, peering bleary-eyed and confused through the upstairs window out into the darkness. Wondering what in the world was going on out there.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

And there at street level, barely visible in the dark is his soon to be good ex-friend and neighbor pounding away at his front door and babbling something about needing a loaf or two of bread for a late night guest. He tells him to go away, and if he wakes up his children with this nonsense he'll get more than a loaf of bread for his trouble (and I don't think he was referring to a brick of cheese).

But the friend persists, audaciously knocking.

KNOCK! KNOCK KNOCK!

Calling upon their friendship. Boldly presuming upon their friendship.

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

Until the neighbor fulfills what friendship requires... even answering late night take out requests... simply in the name of friendship.

Let us be clear, the point of Jesus story is not that we can simply pester God into granting our requests in order to get us out of his face. Much like my children try to wear me down with their persistence when they think they want something. It is a shame that we have a key mistranslation in this story, which makes it seem this is the story's main point. This is not really a story about persistence. For the word translated as "persistence," actually means something more akin to "brazenness" or "shamelessness". And these translations are much more on point. It is the man's shameless presumption upon the nature and character of his friendship with his neighbor that is at issue and his brazen calling upon his friend to be a friend even at a ridiculous hour.

Do you hear echoes of Abraham's conversation with God? The punchline of the story being being that if a friend will respond out of friendship in such a situation, how much more will God do for God's own precious children when they cry out for justice freedom and peace?

And so we are called, in the midst of our adult world with its random violence, cruel injustice and lurking death... We are called to raise our cry of protest to God. Hey, this is not right. This is not just. This is not how you created the world to be. This is not who you call us to be. Come and come quickly! No holds barred. Pulling no punches.  Laying bare before our Heavenly Father the depth of our wounds and the full extent of our needs. This is not simple, passive, lame acceptance. This is active, confident, revolutionary resistance to this world's violence, injustice, and death.

And as we knock on doors, and seek out solutions, and ask the difficult questions of our life, as we seek to brazenly call upon God to be accountable to being the God revealed in and through Jesus Christ; so God also calls upon us to be God's children in the world. Children who are there to to answer the knocks of midnight questers, who are there to become part of the solutions that are so desperately sought after to our world's ills, who are there to listen when the difficult questions of life are asked. Prayer is a two way street. Prayer is the open and honest dialog between our Heavenly Father and God's own chosen, holy, and precious children. In prayer we call upon God to be God. Through prayer God responds, opening us to be the means whereby God acts as God on behalf of our neighbors and the whole broken and devastated Creation.

In this time of great emotional, environmental, economic, and spiritual turmoil: Consider this a call to arms against the forces of violence, injustice, and death. Pray. Pray like you never have prayed before. Pray boldly; pray confidently, even brazenly and shamelessly. Knock. Seek. Ask. Now is the time. Here is the place. Pray that here and now God raises us up from the depths of our despair and shapes us into the people we are called to be, the people that we boldly pray we are becoming through Jesus our Lord, our Savior, our Christ, and our God. Amen

I am the Unlikely Pastor. Welcome to my world.

On Father's Day, Iron Maiden, and God's Grace

Nothing scares the willies out of me more than the awesome responsibility of being a dad. No one will ever confuse me with a father of the year candidate: I am too often impatient, too often grouchy, too often wrapped up in my own stuff to be the kind of father that gets essays written about them or wins awards. I make my mistakes, do the best I can to apologize and correct them, and pray to God I haven't done anything to scar my kids for life. ;-) My parents made their mistakes, too; which hurt at the time, but as time has gone on I have come to appreciate the awesomeness of the responsibility; realize they did the best they could given their humanity, and have hopefully built upon the good that they gave me and thrown out that which is not helpful. I only hope God and time will grant such wisdom and perspective to my children.

That having been said, I am not above celebrating when I think I actually, intuitively got one right. My middle son (who is the spitting image of his dad, in more than just physical appearance) was given an opportunity to attend a Boy Scout leadership training. The code of behavior expected at this training was pretty rigorous and unforgiving, even more so than for a typical Boy Scout event, and especially so for a 14 year old with ADHD. He signed the behavior agreement without hesitation.

Now, anyone who has been around me for any length of time knows that I am not a morning person. This appears to be an inherited trait for neither is my son (the spitting image of his father, remember?), and particularly not before his ADHD meds have kicked in. Well sure enough, coming back from an overnight outing, before he had a chance to visit the nurse and get his meds, an incident occurred and my son was sent home. Even though there were exigent circumstances surrounding the incident, the rules were the rules, and he clearly knew what was expected of him when he signed up.

His mom was absolutely furious; I was upset, but more disappointed than mad. Once I was clear on the what had actually transpired, I moved beyond the desire for punishment (although I made my disappointment quite clear to him as well as making sure he was aware of all the people he had let down his scoutmaster, who had recommended him, the scouts in his troop who were to be the beneficiaries of the training he received, etc. and told him he needed to live with the consequences for awhile), his mom saw to it that he made appropriate apologies, and he even voluntarily surrendered the input devices to his computer.

His mom wanted to go one step further. We were scheduled to go to an Iron Maiden concert immediately following the closing of his leadership course (is taste in music inherited?). He had worked hard to earn the money for the tickets and had looked forward to going for months. Mom wanted to ground him from the concert, and he himself suggested he didn't deserve to go. I, brilliant father that I am, saw an opportunity.

I put off telling him he could go until the very last minute (although he told me later he figured out he was going earlier) and we went. On the way we talked about successes and failures in life and how the true test of one's character is not in the amount of successes they rack up, but in how they handle success and especially in how they handle failure. I told him that how he moved on from this failure would tell me more about the person he was and was becoming than the failure itself.

A nice lesson in character building, oh, but I wasn't done. I asked him if he felt that he deserved to have been dismissed from the program and grounded from the concert because of his behavior. He agreed. I then went on to explain how he had violated the rules, and rules are rules. Circumstances don't come into play when it comes to rules. You are either guilty or you aren't; and you should expect the stated consequences to follow when rules are broken. This is the law. But fortunately for us, there is another principle alive in the world, Gospel, which sets aside the law's verdict (though not always the consequences), and allows for forgiveness and life: just because. He was going to the concert not because he deserved to go (which he may or may not have), but just because. And that is how God loves us: just because.

Not perfect, I know. I'm sure you can poke a million and one theological holes in it. But I think he came away with a better understanding of God's love and grace that is at work in the world for those who have the vision of faith, and if so, mission accomplished. As I look back perhaps there might have been an opportunity to talk about "what we deserve" and working for justice and peace in the world. But it is what it is. And the character lesson is not over. Mom joined the cause and we have an appointment on Monday to share with local BSA staff, his experience of the program (which on the whole was not good, his offending behavior being the result of not only his own personal failing, but the understandable outcome of many failings). He is learning the value of becoming part of the solution and not remaining simply part of the problem. A lesson most of us sadly need to brush up on.

There, my son received a lesson in character building and God's grace. And I have written a semi-inspirational, feel good, blog entry. Could this be the start of a trend? A kinder, gentler Unlikely Pastor?......NAH! I am the Unlikely Pastor. Welcome to my world.