Do Not Succumb to bigotry and fear

It is tempting to let our fear, bigotry, prejudice, and anger rule our judgement about what is going on these days in the world. For one thing, we're not used to all the confusion, chaos, and rapid change. We had it pretty well in this country for about 50 years, and we lost the collective consciousness of what life is all about. I mean, we purposefully built housing developments designed to make us forget about reality for a while. The great media critic Neal Postman called this "amusing ourselves to death," in the 1970s.

But now the world has caught up to us, and our little suburban enclaves have become festering cesspools of racism and hatred. The very places we built to keep out all the problems of the world have just become another venue for the problems of the world to play out, often in their extremism. For me, when the Sikh temple and some of its adherents were attacked in Brookfield, WI ( a suburb of Milwaukee), I knew everything I had growing up was over for good.

Of course, over 30 years ago my roommate in college told me a story about when he was 6. (That would have been 1969). His dad had to talk him out of the fear that he was never going to be able to have a house and home like this, and it made him sad. (My roommate is an exceptionally intuitive person, and this is not his most profound things he's shared with me. He has more.) But if Brookfield, WI can start harboring the violence and frustration that is so much a part of today's world, it's safe to say the "American Dream" is over. Get used to it.

For me, it all started with Columbine. Climbing into the pulpit that Sunday morning after the shooting at Columbine high school was the toughest day of preaching I ever had. A few years later, after 9/11, I was much more prepared to preach, even the the tragedy was on such a larger scale. The neighborhood stories I tell are just memories of a time we can never have back. Grandparents with pensions and healthcare, parents with decent jobs, and kids who actually learned about life in school, are family stories for the fairy tales of our future. Those days aren't coming back.

Of course, now that we know that so much of those days were built on repression, degradation of the environment, willful hatred of others, and bloated self-aggrandizement, who'd really want to go back? We can't let our fears and depressions cause our to lose our souls. Jesus once said, "What does it profit you to gain the whole world, if you lose your soul?" (Our current presidential candidates, especially in the GOP, have truly ignored this advice. Don't vote for any of them unless they repent of such hatred, greed, and fraud. Why vote for someone who only wants to steal from you?)

I, as much as anybody, have lost a lot in this world. As the world has caught up to me, my white, male, middle-class upbringing has been seen as the problem, not the solution--and I have to agree. And it's no fun being turned down for scholarships so that women or people of color get an equal opportunity. But that's okay for me, as I want to live in a world where everyone has a chance. I don't want to live in a world where I succeed based not on who I am, but rather what I am. I am more than the circumstances of my birth...and so is everyone else.

And that is what our current chaos seems to have forgotten. We are ALL children of God, and people of color, women, those differently-abled, those of non-traditional genders and sexuality, everyone basks in the light of God's grace and glory. And perhaps I've had to move aside so that others have room, but one thing I have learned is that it is more fun when we are all together. I'm glad to be part of the universe...and I hope to keep my soul as I'm in it.

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

Sometimes a sermon is a just a joke

What do you want to get out of a sermon? If you have to hear one, what would you want to get from a sermon? Do you want to learn something? Do you want to be moved in your faith? Do you want to feel good about yourself? What might you look for?

I look for a way to  an idea about what God might be doing in the world? What kind of things does God find interesting? How does God behave? I'm always interested in this quest.

So in this sermon we see how God is NOT working or what does NOT interest God. God is not about ritual and having to do things in order for God to love us. God loves us, and that changes us. Sometimes it's a simple as that.

Here's a sermon: did you get what you wanted from it?




May your tables be full and your conversations be true.

It's always a question of timing...

If you've listened to that sermon, you know I reference this guy: Joseph Sittler
In the course of my career, I have learned much from reading his work. (I only met him twice in my life, towards the end of his, and his health was not good. But he was impressive even then.) I would say the three things I most appreciate about him are:

1) his connection between Jesus Christ and the environment. His work in this area has allowed me to stay a Christian because the environment is a huge issue for me. I cannot do his thought justice in this blog, but his linking of whatever God did with Jesus in the manger is related to what God did in making mountains and stars is quite possibly the most important move in contemporary American theology in the last 300 years.

2) My wife was his last student. She had him as a teacher who taught her the importance of language, theology, and how poetry is God's preferred way of speaking. As a teacher of English before I became a theologian, I always have appreciated that about his work. His Doctrine of the Word is my favorite work of Lutheran theology outside of Luther's own writings.

And he happened to wander into my class on my first day of seminary...does God really work this way? (I think so.) Thanks be to God!

May your tables be full and your conversations be true.

Wealth of God

What are your plans for your wealth? Even if you have nothing, what are your going to do with that?
Like the widow in my sermon, would you stand in line to give all you could? These are the questions posed for us these days as we approach Christmas.

Our wealth is on full display at this time of year, and the great Dickens story about Ebeneezer Scrooge is just one example of how we deal with our wealth. We can have so much amidst so little, and it can be a lot overwhelming.

The Spirit of generosity is a gift from God that comes from God's unlimited generosity. When it comes to wealth, of course, we want God to be generous. But when it comes to forgiveness?? Maybe not so much.

I am constantly amazed at how many people see the generosity of God in forgiving us as something that has limits. Why would you wish that so? Is "fairness" really that big a deal? Why would God limit forgiveness? I've never understood why people think that way...

But then I've never really understood the widow who gave the two coins to the treasury that day. I suppose--warning: pun coming--they are just two sides of the same coin. (you were warned) Generosity is difficult no matter whether we are talking about wealth or forgiveness. But as tough as it is for us, God seems to have no problem with being generous...thanks be to God.

May your tables be full and your conversations be true.

Location, Location, Location!

It's true in real estate, it's true in theology. You can only be where God planted you. Sometimes, it's a fit; sometimes, not so much...

We spend a lot of time as people trying to make our location fit us; rather, than having our location shape us. For example, I love mountains, but I've never had to live in them. I've lived on the prairie most of my life, and the Texas desert when I didn't. I'm not used to making mountains part of my life.

But many of my friends and co-workers over the years have grown up in mountains, and the prairie drives them nuts. There's no boundaries, no landmarks you can see for miles away--in short, there is just too much sky.

We get that way in our congregations as well. We try to put a group of people who live in the mountains into congregations like those out on the prairie. Just doesn't work. We have to be attentive to our locations geographically, but even more so culturally. And this is where congregations often fail.

We use the ministries of one location as if it will adapt immediately to any and all location. We assume all people are all the same, and that if something works for congregation Chi it will also work for congregation Rho, even though the two congregations have little in common but a short name.

We need to see that God gives us many different locations for ministry, and to see that each location has its own unique culture, its own way of living, its own way of being human. That's what congregations do.

Below you'll find a sermon that comes from one such location in the world. If you were to find any part of it useful for your life, make sure you use your location to have it make sense.

May your tables be full and your conversations be true.