Tempted to judge?

In the face of obvious wrongdoing                         

In the midst of shattered covenants

I want to judge.

I want the guilty to receive their due as I determine it.

Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.

This Lord heals the thankless and rewards those who show up late for work.

This Lord forgave a blatant wrongdoer from the cross.

The mercy of this one offends my judgmental self.

This I confess: To release my need to hand out punishment is beyond my capability.  

In your mercy, O God,  you place before me the only question to which I need respond:  “How can I grow in love?”

Intercession

The posture of the priest as intercessor:   Lord, I am a person of unclean lips in the midst of a people of unclean lips.

The hope of the intercessor:  The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounds in steadfast love.  As far as east is from the west, so far does God remove our sins from us.

The life of the intercessor:  Forgive us for the times we have offended God as we forgive those who have offended us.

The Necessity of Call; The Call of Necessity

What does it mean to be a pastor?    From this desk, I am tasked  differently than I was while in the more traditional role of a congregational leader.  At times I wonder if I can recover that part of the call.   Today I know it is not dead but is still the energy the fires my soul.

For those called to ordination there is a necessity about the call.   It IS the “fire in the bones that cannot be put out.”  It is that which summons me back from the classifieds and squashes my desire, on a trying day, to work for a landscaper.

This was a trying day.   A children’s Sunday School room has now had the bloodstains professionally expunged from its floor and walls.   Attempted homicide of a beloved custodian by a respected church member, both now gravely wounded, betrayal at the core of it all.    Families wait in what must be an awful mix of hope and anger, guilt and care.   All have sinned…

What does it mean to be a pastor?    On this day it means, I think, to pray that the very human church be saved from itself.   These tragedies do, after all, suck the life out of congregations and communities for generations.   To be a pastor has to mean to look to the good of the Church, to intercede, to preach the love that remains steadfast when our love, our human covenants fail.   It is the necessity of call.

There is a twin passion which serves to repel us from call.   There are these situations so overwhelming that their very direness issues marching orders to those who wear the yoke for life.   The instinct is to purchase a flight to Fiji.  (This is as far as you can go before you start coming back.)  Jonah-like we head for the hill country while our craft revs up in the harbor.    I have experienced those moments: When the phone rings at 2 AM and it is the local police department needing to deliver bad news somewhere.   When an illness has reached the stage of death stench.   When the newborn does not cry, breathe, move.  When blood stains the floor of the children’s safe sanctuary.  The call of necessity.

The necessity of call rises up to hold us when the call of necessity is more than we, alone, can bear.

Tradition!

     “Traditio” is the biblical word to which our word tradition is related.   It does not mean that which we desire to keep, be it the Latin Mass, the 1926 Book of Common Prayer,the old brown hymnal, or the Mother-Daughter banquet. Traditio   is a verb and refers to the act of handing on.   What is it that we desire to pass on to the next generation?   

The Apostle Paul gives us  the most significant act of traditioning when he said,  For I received from the Lord what I also passed on [traditio] to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.  [1 Corinthians 11:23-26]

This is referred to as “The Great Tradition.”  It is the life of Christ that we are called to “tradition” to the next generation of believers.  

As churches, we are always about the task of deciding what to keep and what to cast away.  What if this Great Tradition were to be our guide?    We will pass on that which will convey the life of Christ to those who will come after us.   That which was meaningful to us may not make the cut.   To offer Christ to a new generation will involve creating new tradition…or better yet, giving our blessing to the next generation to shape its own!    That would be transformation!

 

New Pastors/New Congregations/New D.S.

Bishop Middleton regularly reminds the Annual Conference that each pastor deserves a new congregation each year and each congregation deserves a new pastor each year.   Let me say that all deserve a new D.S. each year!

It’s easier said than done, but is ultimately liberating and is the only way to truly become all that God intends us to be.   A starting point would be granting one another forgiveness for the ways in which we have all missed the mark of our calling.  Along with that is assuming the best about each other. Let us be willing to believe that all of us, pastors and congregations alike, are in this thing called Christ-following for the good of the world!   

Serving the Present Age

Remember the old hymn?   To serve the present age…

That would be today!   June 2008.  

How can the people of Jesus Christ be proactive in this time?

• Gas prices curtail all but necessary travel for many.
• Gas prices joined to other economic realities are forcing difficult  choices in many homes.
• Maintaining church facilities will be a severe challenge when winter comes again.
• We must act to save the planet.

What opportunities are in this situation for the church?  What needs are we called to meet?

How will lifestyles change and what will this mean for how we “do” church?  (I think these changes are happening NOW and happening quickly!)

How will your faith community respond?  Ideas???

 

Merging Churches?

Someone placed before our Annual Conference the idea that churches that are within a 10-mile radius of each other should combine and create one congregation.   This will never happen via legislation, nor should it.   However, I think that the author of the resolution had good intentions.

Why should churches stay small?  

• Some small congregations have healthy and vital ministries that extend beyond their four walls.  Some have sound stewardship and strong vision.
• People today are looking for the “family” feel of a smaller community.
• In this day of expensive travel, a multiplicity of small churches means that no one has to travel very far to find a worshipping congregation.

When should “smallness” be questioned?                                   

• Smallness is not good if it indicates that members are not multiplying for the kingdom!  No new disciples this year?  No plan for introducing people to Jesus? No new small groups?  This church, whatever its size, is already on artificial life support.  Maybe the plug should be pulled.
• Small circles close quickly, easily and firmly making it difficult or impossible for newcomers to break in.
• Sometimes small churches want to stay small. They like it the way it is.   We invariably see this when an additional worship service is added to a congregation of any size.   Having new people attend whom everyone will not know is scary for some reason.   We will not regularly see old friends if they choose to worship at a different hour than we do.
• When the surrounding area is growing and the congregation is not

When should congregations join forces?

• When folks appreciate that more gifts + more diversity= more ministry possibilities
• When lost people are valued more than church buildings.
• When there are affinities in ministry, geography, and theology 
• When the Spirit says so!

 

Pentecost +3: In a Drowning World

In a drowning world, God calls someone to build an ark.

Who will it be?

Lives ravaged by storms all around.

 Myanmar.  China.  Managua.

The children in every place.

HIV-AIDS, malaria, addiction

Where will the safe place be?

In a drowning world, God calls someone to build an ark.

Who will it be?

 

 

Do Not Worry II

Did Jesus worry?   He was the fully human God.

Jesus yearned for wayward ones, comparing himself to an old mother hen.  Looking over the Holy City, he grieved, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!  [Luke 13:34]

In Gethsemane, Jesus agonized toward the reality of suffering and death.   He wept bloody tears.  Nevertheless, Lord, he prayed, not my will but yours be done.

The Psalmist prayed, Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  [Ps.139:23]

In Philippians 4:6 are these words of St. Paul, Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

It is clear that anxiety and worry are not strangers to the faithful ones of God!  The challenge is not to befriend these visitors overly much.   Worry knocks most persistently in our moments of deep care for our beloved ones.  It is is the child of our inadequacy, our powerlessness to rescue either others or ourselves.   It is to us in our anxiety and fear, that grace invites us toward trust.  Little by little, over a lifetime, the relinquishments happen and, for some, become life’s habit.

Live the Questions

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
- Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903, in “Letters to a Young Poet”