To Save the Church

                                                                             Photo courtesy of NBC 2

It’s trite to say that this weekend was difficult. Watching as the hidden face of terror and hate that has been a part of our country since it founding roam the streets of Charlottesville stirred all of my emotions. I spent Friday night through Saturday reading the news with either rage, sadness, sorrow, grief, despair, or hope running and colliding through me. To have the false image of American comity and harmony fully crushed in such a dramatic fashion caused me to write a new sermon. After spending the week thinking, reading, and researching for one message, I know that another was being called into existence by the strife before my eyes. That new sermon, one that tried to confront racism and hatred directly, is posted here, if you would like to read it. 

It is not the best that I have ever done. The transitions are a little ham-fisted, there are numerous spelling errors, and my delivery was haphazard due to the short time in which to put together new remarks. I left all of that in the text that you can see on purpose. Even that which we think is the most polished, the sermon, can be as dirty and raw as the life to which the preacher is attempting to respond. All of the emotions that were present in the writing of the script were present in my voice as well. Reflecting on yesterday, I am aware that I was not as composed as I usually am, nor were the thoughts as refined as I would have liked. 

When it was over, I knew there would be raw emotions from the congregation, and there were. Not everyone likes it when their worship services don’t allow them to escape from a world of broken dreams. While I feel peace in having spoken what I know the Holy Spirit brought out of me, I feel uneasy that some were left so unsettled. Let me admit that while I can make bold proclamation, I want people to like. Sometimes, that means I soften my stance, but haste stripped me of nuance this time.

What has stuck with me, however, is one compliment I received. One of the teenagers I have been closely working with came up to me as we left the sanctuary. She was visibly emotional, though to try and name all those emotions would require a level of ESP that I do not have. As I started to greet her, she blurted out, “I never looked at my phone once. It’s the biggest compliment I can give you.” We both chuckled at the stereotype of a teenager on their phone, but she didn’t let it sit long before she added with deep conviction. “I just loved it so much because you actually talked about something that mattered!”

I don’t want this to sound as if I am bashing my colleagues. I am a part-time associate, and so I rarely get to spend time in the pulpit. Every week, ministers of the Gospel ascend the steps to the pulpit and give their best in trying to shepherd this congregation. I know how deeply they care for the work they do, and how much they want this church to find vibrant life in the call of Jesus. It was pure happenstance that I was on the docket for this week when such a horrible event would descend on us. But what she said, that the sermon talked about “something that mattered,” will not let go of me. 

During my sermon, I reflected on how the congregation of my formation had repeatedly said that Christ’s Church was concerned with “soul matters” over social issues. Often, they were silent about what was happening in our society, unless of course it concerned itself with Islam or the LGBTQ community. While writing frantically on Saturday, as events unfolded before my eyes, I remembered Charles Finney’s use of the invitation to bring people down and sign up to support abolition. How he thought we should, “put feet to our faith,” and so I tried to call those in our church on Sunday to stand up and count themselves amongst those who would fight back against racism in our world.

I wanted to say that standing up to racism IS a “soul matter.”

Apparently for her, that mattered.

A friend who is an associate at another congregation posted about how the majority of those who were supporting the Nazi’s and white supremacists were millennials, and he wanted to make a call for the Church to do something. We have been struggling to figure out what to do in regards to reaching our generation for some time. Our old tricks don’t seem to work anymore, and the difficult road of trying to find new ways to share the love of God is an insurmountable task for those who labor under the assumption that the better times are behind us. 

To try and save our Church, I would like to contend that one possible road to strengthening our faith would be to start talking about things that matter. If we are only going to talk about “soul matters,” and refuse to wrap our faith in the skin of everyday living, we might as well shut this thing down now. It’s time to realize that Jesus didn’t save us to a life of only prayer and daily Bible studies. 

We must give feet to our faith, and let it learn to walk. 

Now is our opportunity to give hands to the love of God and reach out for those who are hurting. 

It amazed me to hear someone become so passionate about the God they love because a minister didn’t have the time to create any pretensions for their sermon. Maybe that could be our path. We could start to stand up and talk about how we see our world, and the events taking place right here and now, through the lens of the Cross of Christ. 

It sure is a lot cheaper than getting a smoke machine.

The Work of Ministry (Full Sermon Text Aug. 13, 2017)

                                                                                  Photo courtesy of Vox.com

This morning, you were supposed to hear a talk about the current state of the youth ministry here at Westwood Baptist Church. While such a conversation is definitely necessary, it is not timely. Events are taking place, and social influences are at work in our world that require an immediate response. It’s easy to imagine that it does not affect us, or that we are insulated from such things because we are either geographically, or ideologically, removed from such pressures, but such wishful thinking could not be further from the truth. What happened in Charlottesville is but the most recent of a series of violent events that have taken place in our state concerning the topics of race, religion, immigration, and identity. We are not removed from such topics, but directly in the midst of tensions that have implications for the ministries of this very congregation. 

Our Scripture passage for today says that the work of people gifted for ministry, such as myself, “is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” Ever since I chose to walk the path that would lead me to ministry when I was a teenager, this verse has rattled around in my mind and my heart. Paul’s words to the Ephesians are that those with gifts are to do more than encourage people to make decisions, but reorient their lives toward the example of Jesus Christ. That work of ministry is always contextual. The work of clergy is to interpret the world through the lens of the cross, and then use our gifts to prepare the body so that we may respond to where the Holy Spirit is leading us. It’s a grave responsibility. One that burns people out faster than almost any other profession. The pressures of addressing highly charged issues can break people’s psyches, their families, and the congregations they have been called to serve. I did not consider my call lightly, and I don’t know of anyone else who has.

In such times as these, it can be difficult to know what to say. Typically, in my lifetime, the Church has remained silent on most social issues; instead saying that God only cares about matters of the soul. Such theology does not have it’s foundation in Scripture, where the Incarnate God healed many physical bodies of their ailments, but in Platonic philosophy that believed there was at “truer” world of ideas beyond our physical one. Instead of providing sound theological basis for our response to the world, the Church has divided human beings against themselves by calling our bodies trash and instead speaking only in the words of Gnosticism, a movement called “heresy” by the early Church. 

Today, violence and fear roll through the populace like a tidal wave. A study released by Pew Research said that in 2016, for the first time, a majority of members in both major political parties now believe that members of the other political party are out to intentionally destroy the country. Lobbying groups, purportedly the voice of their donors, use overtly violent language while calling for resistance to opposing opinions.

This violence and fear even touches us here in northern Virginia. Just last winter, the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia, on Little River Turnpike, was vandalized with anti-semitic symbols. Just across the river in Silver Spring, Maryland, an Episcopal parish was vandalized with the words, “Whites only” just after the 2016 election.

I say violence and fear because the two are intertwined, each feeding the other. Fear drives us to violence, and violence causes more fear. What has happened in Charlottesville is the clearest picture yet our fear of the other, and our propensity to respond to any fear with violence, is driving us mad. Our madness strips others of their humanity. We don’t see those who are different from us as people, but agents working for our destruction. When people are not people, then we can eliminate our opposition through any means necessary.

When people lose the dignity of being people, and are instead seen only as enemies, even pastors can become emboldened to wield violence. To return to the topic that brought us to this conversation; just yesterday in Charlotte, a car plowed into a group of protesters carrying signs denouncing white supremacy and the KKK. Do you think the driver saw their victims as human? Do you think the counter-protestors who threw rocks and shot pepper spray into the faces of people bearing Confederate and Nazi flags saw them as human? Do you think the torch-bearing mob, chanting, “Jews will not replace us,” and who surrounded a church filled with clergy for a prayer meeting the night before the rally was supposed to begin saw these ministers as human? Do you think the militia members who brought all their tactical gear to what was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration did that because they thought those who speak against them are human?

The first major response I have seen after these terrible events has been for people to “calm down and let’s just have some peace.” While I totally agree that peace is, and should be, our ultimate goal in the aftermath of these terrible events, we must interrogate that word, “peace.” Far too often, peace has been seen as an absence of conflict. However, in my own home there have been many times where there has been an absence of conflict between Meg and myself that does not in any way reflect a true feeling of peace. Eventually, our conflict comes to bear and we have to address our contentions because we simply can not ignore them any longer.

I believe our society finds itself in a similar situation. For years, we have had an absence of overt racial conflict in our country. After the LA riots it seemed many of our racial wounds had been healed, and with the election of our first African-American President, it appeared that we were truly in a post-racial society. However, the Southern Poverty Law Center, who tracks hate groups throughout the US, saw an increase in the number and stridency of racist groups since 2008. We must recognize that President Obama did not create these groups, but instead his mere presence highlighted a tension that had been simmering under the surface for generations. What we had thought was peace, was nothing more than a lie.

Instead of real peace, we lived in a world that still head the same hatreds and bigotries that had fueled violence for our entire history. Instead of such things being stamped out, they went underground; only to pop up with even greater intensity and cause more destruction and pain than before. We who have been called to be peacemakers have failed in our calling. We must acknowledge that we confused quiet for peace and are now reaping the harvest of our inaction. By the very act of turning a blind eye, or turning to primarily “soul matters,” we have perpetuated the very hate our faith calls us to stand against.

When terrible things happen, when there are obstacles to overcome, it is too easy for us to descend to a place where we respond in violence or fear. It’s what happened yesterday when both protesters and counter-protesters brought clubs, shields, and helmets to Charlottesville. They each went after the other based on their ideologies; based on their self-assurance that they were right in their convictions. In the end, three people wound up dead. Violence in the name of the cause is why a man went into an abortion clinic in Colorado armed with a rifle because he wanted, “to save the babies.” He believes, even still, that abortion is killing babies, and so to stop it he killed people who worked at the clinic. Both fear and violence are why protestors stand on street corners outside mainline Christian churches where LGBTQ people get married and shout that God hates them.

It’s not enough to stand up to hateful ideologies, if you are responding with equal violence. But how are those who are called by God supposed to respond to such hateful things has racism and Nazis in 2017? It was in the book of John that Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, should you love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” And we know what this love is supposed to look like because the Apostle Paul told us, “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

During the Civil Rights Movement, there was a Baptist minister named Will Campbell. You may not have heard of him, but trust me, it would be worth finding one of his books on Amazon. Will was a white man who believed in the work of Civil Rights. He was there for the founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In fact, Bayard Ruston advocated for his inclusion as the only white member. Later, he would be ridiculed by his allies in the movement when he would minister to Klan members in jail. Why would he go and minister to the same people who would willingly kill him and his friends? His response, “anyone who is not as concerned with the immortal soul of the dispossessor as he is with the suffering of the dispossessed is being something less than Christian.”

It is difficult to stand up to hateful ideologies. It calls for boldness and puts us at risk for reprisal when we stand up and unequivocally say, “Racism and hatred are wrong. They may be done in the name of a Gospel, but that is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” We have to be able to say that with conviction. We must be capable of responding when Nazi websites use the phrase, “God bless,” that they are not speaking of the same God we are. We can say that, and we can say it with conviction because it is the truth. Historically, Christians have said that we know God by looking to Jesus. Jesus says in the Gospels, “If you know me, you will know my Father also.” If our view of God is mediated through the image of the Jesus who ministered, died, and was risen then we must admit that the God we see is one who heals, feeds, clothes, welcomes, visits, and speaks powerful truth about how we treat those who are different from us. If you are struggling to find it, you can read it in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and the meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well in Luke, and the healing of the Roman centurion’s daughter in Matthew.

In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, N.T. Wright, the British New Testament scholar says that his statements of “no Jew or Gentile,” are statements about race distinction, “no slave or free,” are statements of class distinction, “no male or female,” are statements of gender or sexual distinction. The image Scripture gives us of God is of a creator who does not separate us out from one another, and definitely does not see any of us as being better or worse than the other. It’s time, here and now, for Christians to stand up and say no to this kind of hatred and bigotry. To go back to today’s passage, this context where the Church finds itself doing ministry is one where there is racism. And the Church is called, by the witness of Jesus’ ministry, to stand up and speak out against such hate. We must speak out here in our church, in our workplaces, in the grocery stores, our schools, at the park, and anywhere else we find ourselves confronting such an insidious sin.

Now, I know from some personal conversations, more accurately described as spirited arguments, between myself and some members of this congregation that there are those who believe that the only real ministry of the church is one of bringing people to decisions, or saving souls, like I talked about earlier. If the Scripture I discussed in this sermon is not persuasive, I have a story I would like to share. Do you know where the invitation, like we have at the end of all our services, came from? When I was growing up, there were only three responses to the invitation. Either you came to “give your life to Jesus,” “rededicate your life to Jesus,” or “respond to a call to ordained ministry.” But there is a great depth that we must rediscover.

In the early 19th century, during the last decades of the Second Great Awakening, a Baptist/Presbyterian minister named Charles Grandison Finney was making quite a name for himself as a revivalist who spoke out in favor of the abolition of slavery. When he came to the conclusion of one of his passionate fiery sermons, he would make a call for people to come down to the altar and sign their names on a sheet of paper, enlisting them into the abolitionist cause. He believed that such an invitation was necessary, “to give feet to our faith.” Finney thought that it was one thing to make a decision for the mission of Jesus in slaveholding America while sitting in your pew, but it was quite another to come down the aisle and be counted amongst those who went out to do something about the injustice of the world. Throughout the history of the Christian story there are those who are calling people in the name of God to action. It happened during the time of Jesus, it happened during the early Church, the early monastics, the great Awakenings, during Jim Crow and Civil Rights, and it is happening again.

For still others, you may be sitting in the pew and you have found a way not to feel. Maybe you were appalled, as I was, when you first saw some of the images from Charlottesville. Perhaps you wanted to cry, or rage at the things you saw. Now, you have found a way to hold all that down, though. Because in a world where things come at you so fast, the ability to just push it down and make it to your bed at night can be seen as a virtue. But today, I hope you are disturbed, discomforted by the things you have seen, and maybe even the things I have said. For you I also have a verse from our Scriptures. Psalm 139 says, “Search me, O God, and know my thoughts. Test me and know my heart. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me to the way of everlasting.”

Today, the Holy Spirit of God is calling on the Church to stand up. Stand up and take a step toward love. As Paul says, it is time to cast off all that which hinders us and run the race set before us. That race is one that is asking us to be a part of the solution. One that speaks out and says that Nazis and racists have no place in Christ’s church. A race that calls us to sing that there will be no quarter given to violence, no matter whose name it is done in. But a calling that says we do this in the name of the love of the God who saved us, and we want to hold that love over the world. 

Amen.

On 1 Corinthians 13: Love is Kind

                                                                    Photo courtesy of Wikemedia

In my last post, which was way too long ago (thanks youth camp), I started a discussion on how we could re-interpret “The Love Chapter” away from weddings and back into our everyday existence as Jesus-followers. You can read the entire post here, and I hope you do. It’s important to discuss what our love is supposed to look like since we are told, “they will know you are my disciples by the way you love one another,” and “God is love.” When such descriptions from our Scriptures are limited to only small portions of our existence, such as marriage, we run the risk of not fully engaging with the faith to which we are called.

This time, I would like to take one of the descriptors from Paul’s words and unpack it, and there is a very good reason for why the starting part is “love is kind.” For most of my personal experience with faith the question of how and when we are to confront those things in the world that damage human relationships, typically called sin, the conversation always expands into multiple tactics of response. Scripture is quoted often, especially from the writings of Paul, with such nuggets as, “All Scripture…is useful for correction.” While trying to not sound dismissive it must be recognized that often this turns into a contest of who can quote the most Bible passages to support their position. Often, the context of those passages, or their overall cohesive voice, is not considered; just how much you can pile upon your side and how accurate your sourcing can be. 

At the same time, Christianity in America has been trying to confront different challenges to its tradition. Topics such as the role of women in leadership, race, war, immigration, marriage equality, social justice, and Biblical inerrancy, just to name a few, can spark controversy that tears apart relationships, congregations, and denominations with incredible power. Different personalities rise to the top of different camps as the conflicts unfold. Wisdom is often replaced with invective as words are exchanged between beliefs that become ideologies. In the end a purity test is created and stark, bright lines are drawn in order to highlight who is in and who is out. Some examples of recent memory, but in no way an exhaustive list, are what happened to Eugene Peterson just a couple of weeks ago, the blowback to WorldVision a couple of years ago, and the dismissal of Rob Bell a few years before that.

No matter the topic, when questioned as to the chosen rhetoric which is so willing to dismiss supposed offenders the phrase “tough love” is used often; the idea that they are showing love by freely and openly telling someone that they are wrong, and therefore outside of the grace of God. The hope is that by being so straightforward the offending party will suddenly realize the error of their ways and immediately return to the ideological fold. 

With Eugene Peterson and World Vision, it seems to have worked. 

With Rob Bell, not so much.

It seems, however, that none of these discussions value the idea that “love is kind.” When Westboro Baptist Church protests a funeral for dead military personnel there is little kindness in what they are saying. When protesters hold up signs condemning theological decisions from denominational bodies proclamations of eternal judgment usually appear. When op-eds are written about the decisions of pastors, rarely are they considerate of the person’s history or their faithfulness over a long tenure of ministry. In short, while I will not say that they do not love, I will say that they are not kind. 

One of the immediate responses when ire was focused on them was for book stores to cease selling their books. Immediately after whatever their controversial remarks were, huge chains, such as LifeWay, threatened to remove all of their books. For Peterson, maybe that had something to do with his correction, or clarification of earlier comments if you prefer. For people like Rob Bell, Jen Hatmaker, and Rachel Held Evans, their outlets are now much more limited. Articles appeared on blogs and Christian news sites proclaiming that their work could no longer be taught or recommended by real Christians because the writers had strayed so far.

These stories are the public ones that we see, but there are others who very few ever hear. I could even tell stories from my personal experience where a disagreement over theology has led some to question my faith, or whether or not I am actually a Christian. Choices made based on a need to maintain purity rarely consider the implications of loving kindness. 

Can there be love without kindness?

1 Peter says, “Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins.”

Maybe that is why “the love chapter” is only applied to marriage. In our marriages, we try and cover over those small slights and shallow cuts to our hearts that come when two people join their lives together. We are not perfect after all, and so all our relationships are going to have those moments where they cause us pain. If we were to expand the application of 1 Corinthians 13 to all the aspects of our existence we might have to admit that some of us were wrong when we dismissed those who thought or believed differently from us. If we were kind, we might find a way to truly love those who don’t hold to our ideological purity. 

Man, wouldn’t that be something?

On 1 Corinthians 13: What I Learned At Weddings

Over the past two weekends, I have been attending weddings. At one I was a participant; for the second I was an observer. One was filled with religious symbols and quotes while the other consciously bypassed these things to focus on the life of the people involved and those who gathered to celebrate. One was simple in its design and execution. The other was more pronounced in its pageantry. This post will not be a discussion of the overall choices of these two couples in how they planned their wedding. Instead, I want to focus on a verse that is often quoted at weddings (1 Corinthians 13), and how its use in weddings has influenced our interpretation, or misinterpretation. 

As I started putting my thoughts together I realized that I had a quite a bit to say, and so there will be multiple posts surrounding this topic. Though I have planned ahead to what I will say in the following posts, the comments received will be incorporated into those future writings as a way of carrying forward a conversation. I hope you who read this as it comes out will help me create a conversation instead of a monologue. No one wants just a monologue.

If you, like me, grew up in Church you probably heard how the Greek language used in the writing of the New Testament has at least three words in its lexicon that describe love. Words such as eros, phileo, and agape make their way into sermons, books, songs, and blog posts from time to time, and even before I went and actually studied Greek I had a rough meaning of those definitions solely because of my time in Church. I know now, as I reasoned then, that my life as a Christian should reflect agape-love as that is the love displayed in the life of Jesus Christ. Just as I learned that while Philadelphia may be named for the idea of brotherly love, its sports fans rarely show it. (Sorry, just had to get a dig in there about sports fans.)

However, it was only at weddings, or that one youth retreat that focused on sexual purity, that I heard 1 Corinthians 13 quoted out loud. And it was only in situations where the focus of discussion centered on sexual ethics where we actually studied the interpretation of this passage. I remember, and have even participated in, moments where this verse is read over beaming couples who are declaring their love for each other. But there was never any real work at applying this verse in those places. It was like an incantation that was supposed to happen at Christian weddings, and it happened so often that by the time I got married, we decided to read something else. 

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has heard the reading of “The Love Chapter” so many times that they almost quote along with the reader. In fact, I’ve made a game of trying to figure out what version of the Bible they are reading by the slight differences I can pick out from my memory. It’s sad, I know. The point is that such singular use of these particular passage of Scripture creates an interpretation that goes with it. This kind of love the Apostle Paul is writing about here is the love found in a truly God-centered marriage. It’s our spouse who deserves our patience, kindness, etc.

But is that what Paul is trying to tell us?

When we look at the larger context of 1 Corinthians, it doesn’t seem that the Apostle credited for writing two-thirds of the Christian Testament is talking about weddings and marriage at all. Now, it’s true that in 1 Corinthians Paul speaks about interpersonal relationships like marriage, but not around this passage. In the chapter immediately before chapter thirteen, we find writings about spiritual gifts and the organization of the Body of Christ. Chapter eleven’s first half speaks of relationships between husbands and wives, but mainly in reference to how they comport themselves in worship, which is immediately followed with instructions on the Lord’s Supper and what abuses of that ordinance look like. 

In chapter fourteen, the Corinthian church is given counsel concerning the speaking of tongues in worship. Some Baptists like to get all in a tizzy about glossolalia, but that’s not my bailiwick. But once Paul is finished with speaking in tongues, he goes on to give more instruction of what orderly worship looks like. Then, he speaks of resurrection, the eschaton (end-times), and then closes out the letter talking about offerings and travel plans. 

The point is, marriage is not the focus of the book. 

Therefore, marriage is not the focus of chapter 13.

Paul doesn’t say, “When you get married, this is how you are supposed to love your spouse…”

Instead, it seems Paul is saying that when we love, as we have been called to love by Jesus, then we are supposed to love like 1 Corinthians 13 tells us. It would seem that Paul was making his own definition for agape long before a confused teenager in a youth group in north Texas would start asking questions about it. It just turns out my interpretation of the text was too small. I had only heard it at weddings and so I only applied it to marriage. In fact, as a straight man, I only applied that kind of love to a certain few women who were in a specific kind of relationship with me.

This is where I think we have all gotten it wrong. Turns out this isn’t some special kind of love in the sense that we only share it with our spouses. Instead, it is a special love because we are meant to pour it out of our lives indiscriminately, like our God does. It’s special because it is supposed to touch everyone and everything we come around. 1 Corinthians 13 love changes the world precisely there are no limits on who should receive it from us. We weren’t totally wrong, just too small. And it took a couple of weddings for me to figure that out.

All the Healing with All the Scars

                                                                           Photo credit: Rodalena.com

One of the things that I have grown to love about living in the DC-metro area is the collection of art museums; especially the fact that so many of them do not charge an entrance fee. Unfortunately, I am a novice when it comes to appreciating art. I never took a class in college, and have never considered myself much of a visual artist. I gave up even trying to draw years ago due to the frustration of how what was in my head never seemed to come close to making it to the paper. I would like to think, however, that I am observant, though. And one thing I have noticed as I've progressed from taking in classic to modern art, is the progression in what human beings conceive as beautiful in the human form. For all of that, there are numerous examples and videos out there of how body images in art can either be damaging or empowering, but there is something specific I would like to talk about.

            

In classic art, the connection between purity and beauty is obvious with the images of Renaissance models with their inhumanly fair skin. Recently, there has been some protest and artistic commentary that has tried to show that scars also carry a unique beauty all their own. Many of the most poignant revolve around those who have struggled with suicide and self-harm, helping to remove the stigma and exclusion that so often surrounds those who suffer in silence. Also, when we remove the stigma of scars, we bring into the conversation the beauty of life itself. The beauty found in living and experiencing life, both in the tragic and ecstatic moments that fill our individual histories.

            

In the Church, experiencing the beauty that is everyday life is not something we are good at. In fact, for the majority of our history, in sermons, songs, and theology, we still rely on the connection of purity with beauty. Often, our experiences and reminiscences of reconciliation and healing contain the same default to purity. When we speak of things, "being made new," the imagery we use imagery like taking an old cracked vase and restoring it to the way it was.

But is that really "new?"

Merriam-Webster would define "new" as "having recently come into existence." 

While there is a marked difference between the terms "new," "heal," "restore," or "reconcile," I would posit that they are often used interchangeably. For instance, last Sunday was Pentecost, and one of the oft-used images of the Pentecost event in sermons is connecting it to the story of Babel. They become two parts to one story. God sunders the people at Babel by confusing their language, and at Pentecost, the moment where the Apostles participate in speaking in tongues is the reconciling moment for humanity. Or the moment where the separation wrought at Babel is "healed," bringing together a new community that serves God.

            

But what kind of healing is this? Many churches will employ the services of members who speak languages other than English in the reading of the Scripture on Pentecost. Often, the speakers take turns reading sections of the story, followed by the main English readers so the congregation can hear the story. Because of the way language works, those separate readings can take a long time. Sometimes, some languages require more words to translate the same thoughts, but the point is that in the Acts story they are different languages. If this is how Babel is "healed," it is a healing that doesn't put things back the way they were.

            

Pentecost leaves humanity with scars. Though something new definitely comes in the moment of the Church's birth, and humanity is united through the power of the Spirit, God's creation still carries scars from Babel. The arrival of the Spirit is does not usher in a new language that replaces all the sundered languages of the scattered people whose pride lead them to build a tower to God. No one's native language, not even the language of those who were the first to follow Jesus is chosen above the travelers who have come from across the Roman empire. The text tells us that people were instead amazed to here these Galileans speaking different languages.

It seems Pentecost may unite us in the Spirit, but it doesn't make us the same.

            

Today, we speak often of diversity and the effects of cultural diversity on American Society. Violence against immigrants and members of minority religious groups is on the rise as some of our more violent citizens believe that everyone should just get in line and assimilate. "Speak the language," someone may yell in a supermarket when they here a language other than English. Others may lament that every customer service phone number now has an option to hear the menus in another language. While still others lament that the directions for the new electronics they just purchased have texts and scripts they do not recognize. I've even heard one person complain about how Bible Gateway, an online Bible search engine, lists the languages alphabetically instead of putting English at the top of the list.

            

We want Pentecost to be a healing story, but then we look at a world where differences abound. We speak of how the movement of the Spirit heals us from the pain of Babel, but this "new" thing that has been brought into being is not like the thing we had before. Pentecost highlights how God can cross our differences, and embrace them. The Spirit reaches into all languages, communicating the same love no matter the words someone may use, and yet God leaves the scars of Babel in our throats.

Beauty and Healing, just like humanity, carry scars.

Because God things scars are beautiful.

Reexamining Youth

It’s interesting to me that at this point in my life, I am in my early 30s, that I still get told how young I am on a regular basis. As an older Millennial, which I guess is what I am generationally speaking, I imagined a very different experience of my life in ministry. The ministers I grew up learning from were Boomers or early Gen-Xers. When I think about their stories of going into ministry, they are very different from the path on which I find myself. While the point of this post is not for me to number and lament my struggles in finding full-time service in the Church, I do want to say that it has been a significant struggle. I know I’m not alone in trying to find my place, as many of the ministers of my generation express the same struggles, but I think our generation is encountering obstacles unique to our current social context.

In early March, the Barna group released a study on the average age of Protestant ministers in America. This most recent study was a follow-up to research done by George Barna in the early 90s, and the results depicting how the average senior pastor is significantly older now than just two decades ago is striking. In less than a generation, the average age of a senior pastor has gone up by ten years, but that is not the only striking revelation. The percentages of pastors over the age of 55 has doubled while the numbers for those under 50 has shrank by half. In one sense, this is not surprising. The Church as a whole is aging, and to find that such aging extends to the pulpit should not be that surprising. If fewer adults of younger demographics are coming to our churches, then it makes sense that there would be fewer of those same people entering the ranks of the clergy. It also explains why the Church has a difficult time trying to figure out how to communicate to those same groups. 

One thing I would like to highlight, though, is from my own experience that while anecdotal, I don’t believe that is so unique that it should be excluded from the conversation. My wife and I both feel called to pastoral ministry, and have diligently pursued trying to find places for us to serve. However, there is very little response to us, which again is not unique. If you ask any ministry who has tried to reach out and communicate with congregations, stories abound of those congregations taking your information and never contacting you again. What is disheartening, though, is when a well-meaning mentor, or more likely a well-meaning older congregant, tell you, “You shouldn’t get so worried. You are both young and have a long time ahead of you.” While I know that people are trying to encourage us to continue striving for the thing God has called us to, it is EXTREMELY patronizing to hear. 

While I don’t think of myself as someone who is going to change the world, because if you look at the number of people who read this blog it’s obvious no one really wants to hear what I think, I am reminded of some historical people who were much younger than I and in the midst of amazing ministries. At 26, Martin Luther King Jr. was senior pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL. At 30, George S. Truett was called as pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas. At 19, C.H. Spurgeon was called to his first pastorate of New Park Street Chapel, and at 27 that church became The Metropolitan Tabernacle. At 32, Carlyle Marney was called to First Baptist Church of Austin, TX, and that was his third pastorate. 

Again, I know I am none of these men, and it should be noted that they are all men which could be the subject of another post. However, the point I’m getting at is in this moment, the churches they served would never call them. Each was highly educated and credentialed before they arrived at these positions, but that doesn’t matter. I have friends and acquaintances with their doctorates who still feel looked down upon for their age. It is said that we want our pastors to be 40 years-old with 30 years of experience. 

What has changed that we view youth and age so differently now?

How old does one have to be in order to be seen as an adult in their own right?

Generational conflicts abound, and so I don’t want to pile onto what is already a very heated discussion. However, there does need to be a shift in what we recognize as an age when someone is fully responsible of leadership in the Church. In order to do that, we need to recognize that such a benchmark has shifted dramatically in such a short amount of time. It is as if one is not fully capable of being a leader in our current church context until they reach middle age. 

Christians, especially, should be pushing back against this. Our Scriptures are filled with examples of young people leading in the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul exhorts Timothy to not let people put him down because of his youth. The prophets, and Jesus, tell of a coming time with it will be the young who prophesy and lead the people of God. 

Maybe, this is not that time, and so we need to have an ever-aging clergy, and laity, lead the Church. 

Or maybe, with a Church that is aging, we need the young leaders to help us find a new way.

On Loving Numbers More Than People

                                                                          Photo courtesy of My 2nd Heartbeat

With all the talk of polarization in our current climate, there are innumerable conversations focused around the most effective tactics to persuade others. Roughly, they can be divided into two camps, though such dividing is of course problematic but this is only a blog post. Namely, those two camps are “emotional stories” and “statistical analysis.” The best communicators can mix-and-match these two streams together in order to engage people from multiple directions. Everyone from politicians, to ministers, to people sitting in the coffeeshop are in some fashion engaging these topics from the perspective of coaxing emotional responses or trying to logically refute arguments. I would like to focus on the logical side, which seems to engage economic reasoning and data to support the necessity of serving the disadvantaged (around healthcare, taxes, social services, race/ethnicity, and poverty) in our society. 

In such conversations, the discipline of economics has become a major rhetorical device. Economic analysis is used to support social safety net programs, healthcare reform, foreign policy, personal decisions, racial reconciliation, LGBTQ anti-discrimination policies, education, and just about every other social conversation taking place in the public sphere. The influence of economic rationales are seeping into every facet of our lives as try to find a rigidly analytical way to respond to the obstacles of our daily existence. Using podcast “Freakonomics” as an example, we are creating for ourselves a market society. One in which every discussion and decision must be measured by market impacts and rationales. 

Part of the reason for this comes from an understanding that economics are a “values neutral” systems. For generations, the study of economics has been explained as an extension of hard science. It’s reliance upon modeling and equations is used as justification and support for its impartiality. 

Economics doesn’t care about your race.

Economics doesn’t care about your politics.

Economics doesn’t consider your religion.

Economics doesn’t take into account your personality.

However, this isn’t true. Over the past few years there has been an explosion in the number of economists and philosophers who have started to push back against this ascension of our understanding of economics. People like Michael Sandel are beginning to question this “values neutral” assumption and question whether creating a market society is a good thing. According to Sandel, it’s one thing to have a market economy, which sees the market as a tool, and another to create a market society where every component of culture is given a value. It’s interesting reading if for no other reason than it asks questions of our current debates around the effectiveness of market thinking. There are also great discussions about the history of economics and how it comes from philosophy, not natural science. (But that is something a historian or a philosopher should write about.)

I tend to agree with Sandel that there are limits to where economic thought should impact our moral judgments. I can not assent to the idea that everything has a monetary value fixed to it. For instance, education. As education increasingly becomes seen as nothing more than a vehicle to financial gain, disciplines are then valued on their ability to get you a good paying job. Then a business degree becomes more “valuable” than a degree in the humanities. I must say that technically, religion degrees are part of the humanities, and I have two of those, so I am biased for the humanities. But I don’t think it is a stretch to say that we have come to a point in our collective experience where we focus on the worth of education to get your employment more than we value education for enrichment. 

But this conversation needs to extend into our response to social issues. The Rev. William Barber, of whom I am an unabashed fan-boy, uses economic data in sermons to support the need for expanded social engagement. When you hear it, it is extremely compelling, but there is a question in the back of my mind.

Why do numbers count more than the fact that they are people?

As a Christian, and especially as a Baptist who says, “there is no creed buy Scripture,” shouldn’t the teachings of my faith spur my action? 

Though the verse is used so much, and misapplied so often, John 3:16 should have some sway. “For God so loved the world…” The Gospels tell us that the main impetus for Jesus’ teaching, and his mere presence, is because God was moved by love for the world. 

It says nothing about the economic data of 1st century Palestine. 

Nothing of the benefits of healthcare on impoverished Jewish populations.

No numbers for those who would benefit the most from God’s action.

Just that God loves the world, and thus sends Jesus to save the world. (John 3:17)

I believe it says something about us that we need the numbers and evidence to spur our social responses. The need for hard data suggests that we do not recognize the inherent humanity of suffering people, and therefore are not moved to action because of our love. I hear you though. 

“Of course we don’t love like God. Just look at the world we live in with all of its suffering.”

And to that I respond. “Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, ‘you shall be holy, for I AM holy.’” 1 Peter 1:15-16

We may not be God, but we are supposed to try. That means we should be moved not because we have hard mathematical evidence of what we are doing, but because we are called of God to do as God has done. It may be a little idealistic, or very idealistic, but the Scripture itself is an ideal. One that we are supposed to live up to.

My last thought, don’t think of this as trying to shame you into responding. After years of the ASPCA playing that same add with Sarah McLachlan’s song in the background. I don’t think we have any shame left. It’s all been pulled out.

Instead, be filled with love. 

Look into the eyes of another, and see the humanity staring back at you.

Jim Wallis, Jerry Falwell, and American Christianity's Love Affair with Wealth

                                 Jim Wallis Courtesy of RedLetterChristians.org              Jerry Falwell courtesy of Liberty University

Yesterday, Jim Wallis, the founder of Sojourners, wrote an article in response to Jerry Falwell Jr.’s statements about President Donald Trump, specifically where Falwell said that evangelicals, “have found their dream President.” The article from Wallis takes the Liberty University president to task on his position; focusing on how easily Trump’s multiple marriages, infidelities, charges of alleged racism and alleged illegal action were forgiven by the 81% of white evangelicals who voted for the Republican candidate. As is typical if you have been reading Jim Wallis’ work, he makes sure to highlight the racist implications of the President’s policies and choices, and ties Falwell to these racially discriminatory underpinnings while simultaneously reminding us of the racist inheritance that comes from Jerry Falwell Sr. 

While I will in no way question, or in anyway mitigate, the unconscious (or conscious) racism at play in American society, there is another influence on white Evangelical America’s choice of supporting Donald J. Trump. It’s roots go back to at least the 1930s, though I would bet there are indications of it earlier in our religious history. It’s how white evangelicalism in America has propped up and bowed down to wealthy white men and celebrated them as captains of industry, regardless of the means by which they came to their wealth. My thoughts are drawn from two books published in the last couple of years. 

“One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Created Christian America,” by Keven Kruse, and, “The Blessings of Business: How Corporations Shaped Conservative Christianity,” by Darren Grem, take different paths toward a similar thesis. Namely, that it was a wedding of corporate money with conservative, individualistic theology that created modern evangelicalism and its political influence on American society. Both books make a point of highlighting how the careers of well-known evangelical leaders, such as Billy Graham, were influenced and financed by powerful business owners.

While not exactly a “prosperity gospel,” the authors discuss how the works of evangelicals, who were all benefitting through their connections to big business, uniformly preached that the successful business owner is the only person positioned by God to know how best to address social concerns. Our current context, where evangelicals voted for a “billionaire” in such large numbers is a continuation of the work started during the depths of the Great Depression. There are still those, such as Jerry Falwell Jr., who will support the idea that success in business is the result of someone rightly aligned with the will of God. 

Kruse and Grem both draw a line from the conservative Christians and business leaders of the 1930s to the Moral Majority of the 1980s and the election of Ronald Reagan. The choice to vote for Trump in 2016 is not that much different than the evangelical vote for Regan, a casual church-goer on his second marriage. It’s not as if all of a sudden white evangelical Christians have forgotten their morals in order to elect a social messiah. They have done it before, but this time their choice is one decidedly more brash. In 1981, when Jimmy Carter, a devoted Baptist Sunday School teacher and the first politician known to have talked about being “born again,” was leaving the White House on Inauguration Day, Jerry Falwell Sr. said in an interview, “Finally, we have a Christian in the White House.” Supposedly, that was the only negative thing said about President Carter that actually affected him. 

I don’t dispute Wallis’ assertion that white America has yet to fully grapple with its racist inheritance. But I think there was another unconscious bias at work in the 2016 election, as well as the continued support of President Trump. White evangelicals love wealth and power. They are very quickly to connect wealthy individuals to kings from the Old Testament, while consistently failing to remember the failings of those very same kings. David and Solomon are great examples to hold up, as long as you don’t talk about the rape, adultery, and idolatry that are a part of their Biblical narratives. 

It seems Evangelical Christians would rather have their eye dazzled than have poor people receive healthcare.

They would rather “Ooo,” and “Ahhh” at gold leaf everywhere than see hungry children fed in school.

They would rather ride in fancy helicopters and private planes than have a livable Earth to walk barefoot upon.

It’s not new, Mr. Wallis. White Evangelical America has been holding up people like Trump for almost 80 years. 

The Content of our Words, Not the Sound

                                                                               Photo courtesy of Esquire.com

It probably happens to me once a week. I will be talking with someone, and through the course of a conversation, I will say a word where I drag out a long vowel sound, or clip an ending consonant. The person I am speaking with will then latch onto that sound and stop the flow of the conversation in order to point out that my “Texas” was showing. I, like millions of other people, was born in the south, or southwest depending on how puritanical one’s regional definitions are. I grew up in a rural area; my hometown currently has a population of about 6400 people. It’s about 95% white, according to the 2010 census, and its major industry is oil field work. 

Suffice it to say, I came by a heavily accented English pronunciation honestly. In truth, my accent gets worse when I spend time with my family because I hear them speak and slip into comfortable patterns. However, like many people, I do not realize that I have an accent. Or, should we be more precise, I am not aware of the content of my accent. So, when I speak I can should as if I am a product of my hometown, and I see nothing wrong with that. I try to use proper grammar, and do not mind if my vocabulary is corrected because to be corrected out of ignorance is a good thing. However, when comments are made to correct the way I pronounce words, I tend to experience it as mocking derision, and not edifying critique.

It is not new information that over the last few years the opinion of someone who carries a “drawl” or “twang” in their speech is often seen as someone of low intellect. It as just a few weeks ago that Stephen Colbert was mockingly imitating former President George W. Bush’s accent. Whatever your opinion of the former president, it struck me as odd to mock the way he speaks. While the video is very difficult to find, Colbert, a product of South Carolina, has spoken before about how he worked to hide his accent so he could be taken seriously as an actor. I love Colbert, personally, but it does chafe on me a bit that he has hidden his accent.

There was a fascinating article today in “New York Magazine” about how the rural-urban divide in America is much more descriptive of social differences than the Republican-Democratic divide. While it would seem that those things are synonymous, but the article does a fantastic work in focusing more on the economic and social conditions influencing this growing divide. Though the article is long, it’s extremely informative in getting a grip on the growing differences between urban and rural America, but it avoids discussing social stereotypes which I believe have an influence on the antipathy felt by these two population groups.

As I was alluding to early in this post, an issue that needs be addressed is how a person is mocked simply for the way they speak. It’s not a stretch to say that our current media culture does not think highly of people with southern inflections. Most often, a southern accent is given to a character in a movie or TV show that is less intelligent than the protagonist, they might be a comedic foil, or perhaps they are the embodiment of racism in the narrative. Rarely is the hero someone with a thick southern accent, unless it is a biopic of course. National newscasters, whether it be on the evening news of broadcast TV or the 24-hour cable networks, they are all lauded for their “Neutral” American English. Late night hosts on any network, save for Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah and “Last Week Tonight” host Jon Oliver, offer neutral American English to their audiences, which also happen to slant more liberal/progressive than the rest of the television audience. 

To have any regionalization to your speech is seen as a fault which must be overcome, and until you do, you will be mocked. 

The sad part is, even I can’t avoid thinking negatively of people with heavily accented American English. 

In my own home, we make jokes which lampoon southern speakers as less intelligent or refined than the rest of the world. 

So, think of this piece as part confession as well as part polemic. 

If the goal of the coming years is to heal the divides of rural and urban areas, maybe we could start with NOT mocking the sounds that come out of a person’s mouth. 

In a sermon at Myers Park Baptist Church, just after the last Presidential election, the Rev. William Barber spoke of how the issues he had with candidates in the race had nothing to do with “tone.” While pundits and reporters continued to speak of the “tone” of the election, Rev. Barber spoke of the “trajectory of policies.” In his reflection, it didn’t matter what tone you used, if the words and policies you were articulating were racist. Racism in a quiet tone is still racist.

In the experiences I have had, the moment a conversation partner diverts the point to adjudicating the accent with which I speak the words, we are no longer discussing a topic. Now we having out how my mouth forms words, and that means we have walked away from the point. We could be talking about anything, but now we are talking about the way I sound. No longer is it the trajectory of our topic, but a conversation about “tone.” Whether it comes from the pulpit, a public policy speech, or a news report, the way someone sounds should fall far down the list of important objectives. 

The content of their message should be the focus. 

Maybe instead of commenting on the way I stretch a long vowel sound, we could talk about the words and concepts I am actually speaking into existence. Then, we might have something to really talk about.