Can I be a Pastor?

I spent a good deal of my time in my early adult years asking myself that question. Other people asked the question along with me, and some asked it even of themselves. I had friends who decided they couldn't be a pastor, and they went on to do amazing, generous and helpful things as positive stewards in God's world. I had other decide they could be a pastor, and they have joined me over the years in this vocation. Can I be a pastor?

To be fair, a great many people wondered how I was ever going to be a pastor. Most assumed I was joking. And my lifestyle, to this day, pushes many of the pre-conceived notions people have of pastors. (I must admit the influx of Gen-Xers and Millennials and their lifestyles into professional ministry have lessened the strangeness of my lifestyle choices. I mean, I once had someone evaluate me and one of their critiques was I wore cowboy boots to an interview, even though they knew I was living in Austin, TX. And you wonder why the church was shrinking...)

Being a pastor, much like being a Christian, boils down to about 3 things: being authentic to who God created you; being faithful, yet creative in whenever God calls you; and seeking to help others. Clearly this list is not exhaustive, and there is more to be a pastor than just these qualities; however, without these qualities everything else that might go into being a pastor doesn't really "steward the mysteries" as Paul says.

Let's start with "seeking to help others." Being a pastor is a practical occupation. That is, you are trying to have practical, realistic, pragmatic impact on the lives of people and communities. William James and all the pragmatic philosophers relish the practicality of pastors. Even a pastor who never steps foot out of his or her office is more practical than many others professions "of the mind." That is because, primarily, you are responsible for the practicality of your thought. It is only as people can access, use, and apply your thoughts that one is being a pastor. Let me show you what I mean...

In 451 CE in a town named Chalcedon, the Church declared that Jesus Christ was of 2 natures in 1 person.(Council of Chalcedon) This definition, known commonly as the "Chalcedonian Definition" is pretty important to most Christians of the world. And most Christians of the world use this definition all the time, and you have too, even if this is the first time you've ever heard of it. The Chalcedonian Definition is central to how we worship Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ of God.

Jesus did some pretty human things over the course of his life here on earth. He did things all humans have, and everything about him was completely human. He was so human that he even died. But he is also God. And can do all the things God can do. He's both because the Bible seems to say he's both.

But this is hard to believe. But we do. Every time your pray to Jesus to deliver you from evil, or sin, or death, or the devil, or anything you are making 3 assumptions:
1) Jesus is worthy to pray to. In other words, he's God
2) Jesus understands what you're asking for. In other words, he's human.
3) It's the same Jesus in assumptions 1 and 2.

Christians make these assumptions every time they pray in Jesus' name. And those three assumptions are the Chalcedonian Definition.

This is where being a pastor comes into play. Knowing the Chalcedonian Defintion is not going to do much for you, but using it to help you guide your prayers might. If you're struggling in a situation what do you need from God? Praying to Jesus will ensure that God hears what you need. And all the emotions, feelings, thoughts, and attitudes that are swirling around in you, how can God possibly understand? Jesus does. And Jesus will ensure that God understands your unique situation.

Pastors focus on the prayers and praying part of our spiritual life. There is a huge and deep doctrinal, and in the case of the Chalcedonian Definition, dogmatic tradition that underlies these spiritual practices. Pastors are professionals in these spiritual practices, and have an inkling, at least, of their deeper theological importance. But it's the praying that matters to pastors most.

So for this week, if you ask can I be a pastor? Ask first, if you want to help.

May your tables be full and your conversations be true.

Mental Illness and the Gospel

Today, June 10, 2018, we had as our reading from the life of Jesus in the story of him saying, "Can Satan cast out Satan?" And everyone, especially his family, worried that he was so "out of character." (Literally: lost his mind.) And I told a story about when I  with our SUV almost ran over Anthony Bourdain in Hollywood a few years ago. Anthony Bourdain succumbed to suicide a couple of days ago.

My sermon came to the reality that there is little we can do about mental illness other than to offer ourselves, literally give ourselves away, so that those in the throes of mental illness' power have time to survive another day. It made many people grateful for the power of Jesus to subdue "the devil" (which I use as a metaphor for the negative energy the mental illness brings upon people.) But it also led a few of us into a sense of hopelessness, especially those who want to help those suffering from mental illness. There's not a lot you can do when "Satan" has someone in their power. And what you can do, stay by them, walk with them, love them seems so inadequate.

Mental illness is the one place these days where the gospel is our only salvation. All the people God has sent to bring medicine and knowledge, compassion and care to those suffering from mental illness cannot "subdue" it. They can mollify its effects, re-direct its energy, and even mask some of its pain, but the illness always lurks in the background, and those suffering are never sure when it will strike again. Only something completely from the outside, only something that doesn't play by the rules, only someone who is willing to die so others may live can defeat-- subdue mental illness. And in Christianity that someone is Jesus the Christ of God.

As the Son of God, Jesus does not play by the rules of Satan. He is completely outside of the person suffering; he can die, so someone else can live. But as the Son of Humanity he is completely at ease knowing the destructive power of Satan and negative energy. But he does not succumb, but not because he is God, but because he becomes so human. He lets Satan have free reign over his failures, his regrets, and his blasphemies. He clings to the Holy Spirit, and lets Satan have all the rest of him. And in doing so--he subdues Satan.And his promise is such that he does so for you as well.

Satan thinks he has won because he got Jesus dead. But Jesus knows that is not a win when you are dealing with a God of eternal love. And Jesus gives everything to Satan because he trusts God will give everything to him. And in the end, Jesus got it right, and he conquered because he was weaker rather than stronger.

Mental illness makes bold the Gospel because it is so rife with images of weakness and strength. And always remember when it comes to Jesus and the Gospel weakness is the point, not the problem.

May your tables be full and your conversation be true.

Helping Your Neighbor is a good thing...

...it's just not exclusively a Christian thing. You might say that God created us (or, mechanistically, we're made that way) to help each other. You don't need to believe in God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit in order to help someone out. That much is pretty clear, I believe.

So, if you're a Christian, why do you help other people? Is it only because you're made like the rest of us? Or, does your faith in God through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit make a difference in why you help people? You can see where I am going with this. If you're helping people, and your faith doesn't make a difference in that helping, why do you practice a faith? If you have a faith, but aren't helping people, how does your faith actually make you LESS human? That is, all humans seem to want to help, but your faith encourages you not to help? So, you're actually denying that portion of your createdness? That seems weird.

So, for this let us assume that we help people, or want to help people, and that we want our faith to make a difference in our "helping." Since everyone helps faith cannot serve as your reason TO help. In other words, it does nothing for your faith to say, "I help because I am a Christian." Clearly, if others without faith are helping, faith cannot be a motivator for helping.

You might say that "faith" in whatever or whomever is required to help. But if it is just faith or "believing in something a lot," then again, your specific Christian faith is irrelevant to your helping. You'd just need some kind of faith in that scenario, and it wouldn't have to be Christian. This, by the way, is the most popular understanding of faith these days. Faith might have a reason to exist, but whatever particularities your faith carries is a matter of taste and opinion.

So the way to ask the question this week after Easter is: does the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of God, make any difference in whether you help people or not? Although most of us would wish to say to "Yes," to that question, it's almost impossible for us to know if it is or not. If people help without believing in those events, how can one who believes in those events say they impact their helping? As the great Schleiermacher pointed out long ago, you really can't.

If your Christian faith cannot determined why you help other, perhaps it can help guide HOW you help others? Probably not though because helping people is giving them what they need, and so how you help is often determined by the other. Of course, Christians have tried this road too, and this is why you see so many "meals for homeless" that include a Bible study or some kind of Christian teaching. A hungry person needs food, and no matter how you decorate that food delivery, you still gave them food, which was the point of helping.

So if your Christian faith has no bearing on WHY you help or HOW you help, perhaps it can influence Who, or When, or Where you help? These are questions your Christian faith can begin to make a difference in helping. Who you help? Well, that might depend on your faith. If like the prophets or Jesus you are going to help those God has a predilection for, the widow, the orphan, and the poor, you could say your faith a direct influence on your helping then. However, no matter who you help the person is a person in need, the kind of person you help is often the second question.So although answering the "who" question gets us closer to having our faith influence our helping, it doesn't get us all the way there. When and Where questions follow in the same way.

No matter where or when you help someone, they have a when and a where that determines your helping more so than your own Christian faith. So, we are left after all this with the rather unsettling understanding that our faith seems to have absolutely NO influence or bearing on our helping people. It seems like it should be a influence, but it really is not. So what is faith good for in terms of helping people, others?

For me, faith encourages me to persevere and to keep going until there is no more helping left to do. In other words, faith doesn't influence me to start helping, it allows me to keep helping. You may have heard Jesus of Nazareth once said, "the poor will always be with you." It seems like such a defeatist thing to say. But what he seems to be getting at is that there will always be a need and opportunity to help. But the question is whether you will have the energy to help all the time? Faith is the energy that influences your helping out when you no longer have the human desire or need to help.

From my experience this is why people tend to get  more "conservative" as they age. We no longer have the energy we once had to keep helping all the time, so we pick and choose our helping, and that's the definition of "conserve." But people of strong faith in a God for whom death and failure are not the worst things, they keep helping no matter how old they get. They way they help might change because of age, but they are still helping. In fact, in my experience, once people retire they can help even more, especially those convinced of the temporariness of suffering under the power of a gracious God.

So faith is not about why you help, or how or when or where or who, but rather faith encourages you to keep helping. To not succumb to the inhumane-ness (not being human) of not helping, but rather to keep helping even when the rest of your body, your mind, and your community tells you you don't have to do that anymore. The death and resurrection is nothing else if it is not a testament to God who wants to keep helping even though death wants to win. The resurrection is God sticking with us so we can continue to stick with others and help.

May your tables be full and your conversations be true.

Jesus was NOT an immigrant

I saw a lot of social media about Easter yesterday. Most were friends and their families celebrating a day of food and fun, and for those in the upper Midwest, snow-shoveling. Every now and then some posts brought up the reason for the day--the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead. The He is risen, he is risen indeed part of the day.

But remember the upside down is right side up these days, and a few of the resistance noted the irony of a bunch of white, racist, Christian nationalists celebrating an "immigrant who was killed by the empire." The irony is not lost upon me, and yes Jesus was killed the empire and the religious authorities (which you would think would give Christian nationalists a pause, but they don't actually think about the things they claim to think about.) But Jesus was NOT an immigrant.

I hate to break this to my friends of the resistance to our current regime of stupidity, because I really do want us to resist the stupid of the world, but you do a great dis-service to Jesus and his mission in the world, at least as we have it in the Bible. I do not pretend that what we know of Jesus could be entirely make-believe, but we do have four stories about him, and in none of those four stories is he an immigrant. In fact, in one of them, he may not even be the country preacher, rural religious savant bringing about a revolution to the city folk that so many Christians, especially the politically motivated ones, want him to be.

Take this line from the story of Jesus according to some writer named "John." He tells the story this way:
Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him (John the Baptizer), "Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah nor Elijah, nor the prophet?" John answered them, "I baptize you with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal." This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing." (John 1.24-28)

Usually this text is interpreted to talk about how John sees himself not as the messiah, or even any very important prophet. Rather, he is just pointing that his baptizing is a precursor to someone really powerful, who becomes, by the end of John's story, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of God. Here's the interesting line from John in this text: "Among you stands one whom you do not know" and in John's mind, at least, he will be the Messiah. The Gospel of John assures us of John's trustworthiness, so why might we assume John did NOT get this point right too? In other words, one of the people standing with these questioners is Jesus of Nazareth. And the people questioning John are a bunch of Pharisees or their scribes. Jesus of Nazareth is standing with a bunch of folks who come from Jerusalem, sent by Pharisees to question John.

And John says, one of you, whom you do not know, is going to be the messiah. If John got this piece of historical accuracy right, in all probability, Jesus, at one point in his life, was a Pharisee and connected to the religious authority and elite of Jerusalem. He was definitely not a country preacher who learned his Torah at night in a woodshop in Nazareth. But regardless of whether you believe Jesus started out as a Pharisee or some kind of religious elite, he was not an immigrant.

He was born in Judea. He died in Judea. It is true that one of the stories about Jesus has him as a refugee early in his life, but all four stories have him dying in Jerusalem, and those that tell about his birth have him born near there too. Here's some other interesting questions that the story of Jesus in the Gospel of John presents to me, and why I overwhelmingly believe Jesus was a Pharisee before he was baptized by John the Baptizer, at least in that story, although I tend to believe if Jesus was real than he was probably a Pharisee living in Jerusalem. (That just seems to be how God works. See Moses.)

1. Why does John put Jesus cleansing the temple at the beginning of Jesus' public ministry rather than near the end?
For me, the answer to that question is because Jesus is in the earliest stages of his rebellion against the religious system that is slavishly devoted to the wrong thing. That is, not God, but rather religion itself. You tend to only know if your religion is going off the tracks if you are a devotee of your religion and through your ardent zeal try to bring it back to its roots and to God. And if that's the case, there has to be a "straw that breaks the camel's back," and in John's story, the temple and its day-to-day operations is that straw. That's the kind of action from which there is no going back. When Jesus overthrows the moneychangers, his days of being a Pharisee are over. For good.

2. Who is Nicodemus?
Usually the answer is he is some kind of "closet" believer who has to sneak over to see Jesus by night so that no one can see him. Possibly. It certainly makes for good Hollywood drama that way. But what about this? What if Nicodemus visits Jesus by night because he's busy during the day? In other words, what if Nicodemus has a day job? Or, here's another one: what if Nicodemus and Jesus were friends back when Jesus was a Pharisee, and he just came over for a late-night drink and some conversation with his friend? Who is still his friend, even if they now have some religious disagreements? Jesus says to Nicodemus, "Are you a teacher of Israel and yet you don't understand these things?" (John 3.10) Have you never kidded or chastised one of your friends when they don't seem to understand you? Haven't you ever said to someone, "how do you not know this?" And chances are the person you said it to you know pretty well. That's what makes it so incredulous to you. They should know it, and you know them and know they should know it, but they don't.

(This is the last one, I could go on forever.)

My point is to remind us that we have to be careful when we let our political ideologies define the story of Jesus. As Albert Schweitzer pointed out, we're going to do it, but let's at least be aware of our assumptions. And that's the biggest problem right now: we're not talking about our assumptions. We're talking about the results of our assumptions, and a lot of people are being led astray by those results because they sound innocent enough. But those results harbor assumptions of fear, resentment, hatred, and jealousy. The very things Jesus of Nazareth, whether a Pharisee or not, found to go against a life in God.

May your tables be full and your conversations be true.

Footwashing is Killing Congregations (especially in Nebraska)

As with many Christians across the globe yesterday I celebrated Maundy Thursday. The day has a deep liturgical tradition in Christianity, and it begins the great Three-Day worship ending with the Easter Vigil on Saturday. (Good Friday is the third worship.) But even though I celebrated Maundy Thursday, I did not participate or even a view a footwashing ceremony. That would be stupid.

The ceremony--it is not a ritual, as I have never seen everyone in a congregation participate in the ritual, usually just a few are involved in some kind of ceremonial sideshow--involves someone wrapping a towel around their waist, splashing some water on a person or two's feet, and wiping them dry. A moment of dramatic silence follows, and then we are on to the offering. Did you like our show?

As easy as it is to make fun of footwashing, we should note that for many people in the world, shoes are not an option. Footwashing is in deed for many still an act of service and hospitality. And in places where shoes are only for the wealthy, footwashing might still carry the theological and religious freight of a new commandment. (The word "Maundy" means commandment.)

But that ain't so in our world...everyone wears shoes. And socks too. I wear Birkenstocks (and yes this may be a plug, but they are the only sandals I wear) about 10 months out of the year. I don't wear them if there's  a lot of rain or snow. But I do wear them if the temperature is 0 degrees. My feet sweat at all temperatures. But even as often as I wear sandals, and as dirty as my feet might get, to have someone else wash my feet is not an act of service. It would be an act of slavery.

Footwashing goes against the very grain of having freedom in the first place. It's why it was problematic for the disciples when Jesus did it to them, and it's even more problematic for us today. It's denying the freedom we have been given to wash our own feet. In a world that assumes freedom (even if all people aren't free), footwashing becomes an act of slavery. And slavery, just to remind everyone, is bad. So why would you want to ceremonialize an act of slavery? Just because Jesus did? He died on a cross too, but we don't have people going up on crosses just to show how painful that love can be?

Consequently, footwashing in our culture looks fake (it is, but not because it's sacrilege not to wear socks and shoes, but because it denies us the freedom we were granted on the cross 2000 years ago.) In order for footwashing to have any kind of valid reason we must assume we were not freed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But why would we assume that? What's the point of assuming we're not free? Something might trap us from exercising our freedom, but it is probably not our feet.

If you really want to commemorate the service to others Jesus mandates in the new commandment to love each other, stage a play between a mortgage banker and a single mom trying to get a house. At least there we don't have to pretend Jesus didn't free us, in fact, we have to hope he did; or, what chance does the mom have?

The issue I have with footwashing ceremonies is not because they are stupid or even counter-cultural. Christian congregations do a lot of things that are stupid and counter-cultural, and they are important and valuable to God's mission for world. The issue I have is that in order for the ceremony to make sense I have to set aside the very freedom of the new commandment I was given in order to pretend to do the new commandment. That is play-acting. It is not worship. And people know this, instinctively in most cases, because a secular version of freedom is indoctrinated into all of us.

If you want to help your people don't force them to believe the freedom they were given was not given to them by Jesus so that they can show you how they serve. Rather, help them see the freedom they were given, and how that freedom translates into serving others. And it's not by washing feet. That doesn't serve anybody in a culture dominated by socks and shoes. The new commandment is way more than washing body parts, but it is sad that so many people only saw that version of the commandment ceremonialized last night. And, if they believe Christianity is about something as trivial as that, why would they return?

And over the last 60 years many of them have not returned, because it turns out that footwashing is just one of many things congregations have been play-acting with instead of worshiping God and celebrating the gift of freedom from sin and freedom to serve. People leave congregations not because they do strange things but because they do trivial things. Footwashing, as an act of love, is about as trivial as you can get. And that trviality is killing us.

May your tables be full and your conversations be true.

Hypocrisy; Or, How to Live as you Think or Believe

Hypocrisy is part and parcel of the religious life. To my knowledge, every religion eschews hypocrisy, although every critic of religion accuses religion of hypocrisy. That is, according to the critics, religious people are hypocritical of their own hypocrisy...which in a double-negative sort-of-way makes some sense.

But what is "hypocrisy?" Basically, hypocrisy is an incongruity between how one thinks, feels, believes, and how one acts or behaves. "Putting on a good face" is a hypocritical activity. You don't really feel good, but you pretend to for some reason or another. In religious terms, saying you believe in God or love or forgiveness, but never living or behaving as if God matters to you, or never loving or forgiving anyone or anything is hypocritical. Jesus was a fervent opponent of hypocrisy.

So hypocrisy is bad. OK. But why do we do it? Although there are many answers to such a question, as a theologian it comes down to a couple of things: 1) we haven't thought enough about what we actually believe so that we do not know how hypocritically we behave. Fortunately, we have many critics of religion who are willing to help us think about what we might actually believe. So there is that.

2) We don't actually trust enough in the God we believe to change our behavior. In fact, when we do have those levels of trust that change our behavior, there are often a plethora of critics who assert that we are "crazy," or "religious fanatics." But for most of us, a little hypocrisy is a lot easier on the pocketbook and our life expectancy. Christian Liberation theologians have long advocated that God has a "preferential option for the poor." But do we actually behave as if that is true? Does God really love poor people more than others? If we really believed that was true, and we wanted to be on God's side, wouldn't we all strive to be poor? That we are not is just evidence of our hypocrisy.

One of the great hypocrisies Lutherans are responsible for, although Christians in general were not shown in a good light either, is the rise of National Socialism and Adolph Hitler in the first third of the 20th Century. Although many Lutheran theologians at the time claimed to be following the Lutheran theological tradition (more on that in an upcoming post) they wound up betraying that theological tradition by behaving in very quietistic and evil-enabling ways. In other words, they were hypocrites.

As far as Christians go, Lutherans have one of the most obvious ways of avoiding charges of hypocrisy. Since our theological tradition claims that works of love and righteousness are not directly connected to our belief in God and God's love, our behavior does not need to be justified theologically. We can own up to our failures in behavior because we believe that our behaviors, even our best ones, do not condition God's love for us. In other words, you could murder somebody and we believe that God may still love that person. I once saw a very Lutheran sign on a vending machine-- "You're lucky God loves you, no one else does." In our theological tradition the worst-behaved person is still loved by God, and that belief can eliminate a lot of need for hypocrisy.

If you can say whatever needs to be said or do whatever needs to be done because you believe that your words or behaviors do not condition God's love for you, you can do a lot of things other people cannot do because they are afraid of God. You can forgive somebody, for example. So if you believe in forgiveness, and in the process of living you are harmed, you can actually behave in a forgiving way towards your enemy. You don't have to pretend in order to have God not judge you, you can actually behave as the situation calls for because your behavior does not affect God's love for you. You may still be judged by God, but you won't be a hypocrite to the rest of us.

Hypocrisy is revealed when the incongruity of thought and behavior rises to the surface. Jesus of Nazareth once said that one is judged by their fruit. And that is true. But one is not loved by their fruit, and that's the difference between being a hypocrite and being a witness to your faith. When you live with an understanding that God loves you, and that behaviors can be judged good or bad and not affect that love, you are on the way to eliminating hypocrisy in your life. Because in this case what you think or believe does make a difference in how you behave, but not because you think or believe properly, but rather because you trust that what you think or believe is actually true.

May your table be full, and your conversations be true.

I wonder about Intersectionality and the Lutheran Theological Tradition

I have been reading a lot from colleagues a generation or two younger than me who are imploring our tradition to change. Specifically, in areas of inclusion and intersectionality, two areas our tradition does not carry a progressive track record. I hope they succeed, but I wonder...

Our tradition, for example, is not big on "intersectionality." One way to read the Lutheran theological tradition is to see it as the breakdown of society with the elevation of independence. (This has been the basic Roman Catholic critique of Martin Luther and his tradition since the Diet of Worms in 1521.) If you are going to assert independence as a method of theological interpretation, societal methodologies often take a back seat, especially when facing execution. So although we might wish to include as many people as possible, since we base our inclusion on independence rather than societal rationales, we get a haphazard way of living and being. It's tough to be inclusive if your're the only one.

Our congregations are then centered less in our independence and more in whatever other societal norms and mores are active in our larger community. Although in our theological tradition we claim independence as a value, in our piety we are much less independent, and in some cases we even make our theology subservient to our piety. The result is that those on the margins of society are also on the margins of our congregations, and it's hard to be intersectional when you're in the middle.

On the one hand, Luther offered the possibility for intersectionality* to even be available by placing the contextual situation of the human within his law and gospel paradigm. In fact, the tradition following Luther did an even better job of placing humanity within theological method, so much so that by the time of John Wesley, the Lutheran tradition could be the catalyst for the great Methodist theological tradition centered in a "strangely warmed heart." So the result that those on the margins, or more accurately to date, those who started on the margins of theological discourse, are able to participate at all because of much work done in our Lutheran theological tradition.

But on the other hand, because those following Luther (and in this case Luther himself), were not on the margins in any way but theologically, they could never explicate the intersections that society placed upon our theology. It literally took World War One to get Lutheran theologians to think that maybe God was doing something other in the world than colonizing. This comes from a theological tradition that experienced the Peasant's War, the 100 Years' War, the French Revolution, the American Revolution, the American Civil War, and whatever France and Prussia were doing. Because the Lutheran theological tradition was so centered in a rather calcified way within society, and those in the tradition calcified right along with it, the idea of intersectionality, although available for discernment, was never used.

The result is that in the last 100 years, those formed by the Lutheran theological tradition have come to see great benefit in viewing Lutheran piety in more intersectional ways. As different pieties, almost now by defintion intersectional, begin to be lived in society, the way to be Lutheran has come under great change. And all the change arises from its own theological tradition.

For example, when Lutherans of the ELCA (my own denomination) in 2009 voted (not "discerned," as that had been done years before) to allow LGBTQIA+ people to be in relationships (now marriage) and to be eligible to be ordained leaders, the primary theological rationale was to allow those on the margins the same standing before God as those in the center. We used the nascent form of intersectionality, focused through the crucible of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, to de-center the piety that had so long been the blinder to our theological radicality. This began, for our theological tradition, the way into the future...and I just wonder what I'll see along the way?

The radicality of the Lutheran theological tradition explodes the colonizing tendencies of Lutheran piety practices. Although for some it might seem too radical, it is the same idea in the theological tradition  that allowed Luther to burn the papal bull against him. We Lutherans have a history of using our theology to de-center our piety, although it goes dormant every now and then it seems. But I wonder how pieties and practices will change?

Take, for example, attending worship. Somehow attending worship became the prime spiritual practice, and the defining piety for our Lutheran tradition. This was so true that as a child I would go to worship with my grandparents and everybody who was healthy that day was "at church." The rest of the week you did whatever you did, but on Sunday you went to the Lutheran congregation. That's how you knew you were Lutheran. Did all those people believe in the right to self-assert their conscience in defiance of government? No. Did all those people believe in the power of the gospel to correct the abuses of the law? Maybe, at least theoretically, although most never claimed to see it in action, especially if it involved themselves. The few sermons I remember were about the power of Jesus Christ to change lives and about being able to free from a lot of rules and norms. The theological tradition of Luther was there, but it was not being used to critique the very piety that was being lived. So what is the point of worship if it no longer defines your religious or theological identity? Why go to worship? That to me is the main reason why worship attendance declines. Worship is no longer part of who you are. The question facing me is can you still be a Lutheran and not go to worship? I wonder...?

Once folks started using that theological tradition to critique that colonizing piety of "Lutheranism?" You begin to get the intersectionality we now experience so often in our congregations. From my reading of the history, the Lutheran theological tradition was always intersectional, but it took us 500 years to apply it to our piety. I wonder what else we've missed?

May your tables be full and your conversations be true.




*Intersectionality is not a term of the Lutheran tradition, but the parameters of the idea seems to fit well with an understanding of Luther's Word of God hidden versus the revealed God of the cross. The Gospel always de-centers the Law in Lutheran theology, and this seems to be the basic motivation for intersectional interpretation as well.

Some thoughts on worship

15 years or so ago a woman, about my age, came into my office seeking advice about her life. I'd married her to a man a few years earlier, but that relationship had ended soon after the honeymoon. As it turned out, most of her adult relationships went that way. So, knowing this, I asked why she wanted to see me?

As the tears flowed, it turns out, all her relationships began to go to shit when she was 6 years old, and she was told she was not a good enough daughter to come to this church by her mother's friends. Apparently, the women who sat around her family in Sunday worship would pick on this girl pretty much every Sunday in her memory. Not other kids, grown women. This girl wasn't abused by a bad father or uncle, but by her mom's friends who for some reason thought they were "helping." They weren't.

One day, visiting a congregation to hear a friend preach I sat behind two ladies who spent the entire time during the sermon commenting on other ladies in the church. During the offering I tapped them on the shoulder and asked, "I'm just visiting here, how much do you charge for worship?" They told me, "Oh, church is free." I nodded, and said, "Then, how much for the gossip?" My friend went to find a better congregation a few months later.

My wife is a preacher, and she had just started at her new congregation, and I hadn't been introduced to the folks of this congregation yet as the new pastor's husband. So I sat in worship, and during the sermon of her colleague, I listened to a brother and sister literally use the F-word to each other arguing about who "had" to take care of "mom" this week. As we left worship, I mentioned to them that brothers and sisters don't have to like each other, but their mom has the third commandment. They may want to think about that.

I figure I have been to over 6000 worship services during my life. And many of them I am not in the congregation, but rather leading from the front, often from the pulpit. But I am generally scared to worship out in the "nave." (That's where the congregation sits in the room.) Scary shit happens out there.

I only have one piece of advice for people who dare to go to worship. Don't be an idiot. Don't try to parent the children who aren't yours. Don't try to use worship to solve your issues, but rather use the time to solve you. Listen to the people around you. Prayer is a time to hear God, you may want to listen?

I assume most people come to worship to participate in the life and being of God. We want to figure out how we can be part of a God's preferred future for the world. We want to make a difference. And worship can--and does--do that. But sometimes some of us forget, and we treat worship like any other hour of the day or week. It's probably not the end of the world if that happens every now and then, but worship can be  much more..I hope it is for you.

May your table be full and your conversations be true.

Relationships, faith, and Everything in between

I'm fascinated by all the relationships I am in or have been a part of in my life so far. "Cast my memory back there, Lord; sometime I'm overcome thinking about..." (Van Morrison) I mean, how many people do we get to know in one lifetime?

I suppose everyone has a different number; and real extroverted people might strive for 1,000,000; and a true introverted person might want 6. I don't know, but no matter what number, we're all in this together one way or another.

And there's so many different kinds of relationships. There's intimate relationships; there's business relationships; there's family relationships; there's casual or intentional; there's good one and bad ones. So many different, different kinds.

Have you ever had one of those experiences that are a "6 Degrees of Separation" type thing? I remember once my wife and I checked into a hotel room in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and when we first got to the room, the phone was ringing. My wife picked up the phone, nodded yes a few times, and then hung up the receiver. "We have to go back to the front desk," she said, "they want to give us another room."

On arriving at the front desk, they did indeed give us another room, for free, and for up to three days if we wanted it. (We were only traveling through.) This hotel gave pastors a free room for up to three days, and they wanted Chris and I to use it. We did, and as I was getting the key from the front desk clerk, I asked how they knew I was a pastor? I never register as a pastor; nor, do I dress in khaki.

The clerk looked and me and said I looked familiar when he was checking me in, but it wasn't until we were on our way up to our room that he remembered how he knew me. I had done his cousin's wedding at our church the previous summer, and that's how he knew I was a pastor. Small world...

...But many, many relationships. And that's the point of Christian faith. Faith is the "regal relationship" (Joseph Sittler) that we have with God, and through our relationship with God we are in relationship with all the rest of the universe. I love keeping track of relationships in this world, and I'm excited to see what relationships there might be in the next. I am grateful for my faith.

Love, not justice

As a kid I ran to the convenience store comic book rack always looking for the next issue of my favorite comic. The comic was from Marvel and called “Daredevil.” My brother’s taste in comics was based on the art and color, so we had a lot of “Thor,” The Hulk,” and “Spiderman” comics too. But for me, I was fascinated by the back story of Daredevil, and I liked the red suit.

Daredevil is a blind man who is a lawyer by day, and fights crime—actually he seeks “justice” by night. Although, like most kids I suppose, I read comic books for all the wrong reasons, and over the years I’ve realized that I have internalized some of that Daredevil ethic into my own life. Daredevil always started with idea that law, and the systems we have around those laws, would provide justice. But, of course, those systems are manipulated by criminals, or those seeking to do harm, and therefore justice is often denied. At that point, since the law has been rendered powerless, you become a masked crime-fighter and wreck all sorts of havoc on those for whom the law does not punish for their criminal and abusive behavior. It was standard vigilantism with a patina of “we tried to play by the rules but that didn’t work.”

What I learned as I started reading other books, and most of those didn’t have pictures, is that systems, and the laws around those systems, are often manipulated by one side or the other for their own advantage. The poor system is just trying to maintain some sense of order, but people keep going around it, or ignoring it, or gerrymandering its boundaries so that it no longer provides any sense of confidence that the center of the system can hold. It’s like we are standing in mid-air trying to go in all directions at once. It’s a very disconcerting place to be.

This is what led me to religion, and specifically Jesus of Nazareth on the cross, and how God responds to such events. What do you do when you’ve been betrayed? When the very systems you thought would protect you instead crucify you? What do you do when the ideas, thoughts, people, even yourself that you thought you could always count on, no longer can be counted upon to help? What do you do?

You just love.  There is nothing else in that situation. That’s the difference between Jesus of Nazareth and Daredevil. When the system failed Jesus he did not become some super-hero trying to bring about justice. He accepted his failure to receive justice in the system, and continued to love, even those who betrayed him. As Daredevil discovers it is not easy to accept failure within a system of justice, and even harder to love. It’s easier to put on a mask and start lashing out in pain, in frustration, and a sense of “fairness.” 

But that’s not what Jesus did. He loved. He died…but he loved. And I’ve always wondered if love, not justice, is what made the difference?