On Rabbit Ears and Dinner Guests

Someone noticed what looks like "rabbit ears" over my head in the picture at the left. At first, we thought about cropping those out, but I wanted to write a blog about that photo...so we kept it in. The "ears" are part of the poster that announces the centennial of Edvard Grieg's death, the Norwegian composer, and the upcoming events commemorating his work and music. In and of itself this is not so much, except that the picture was taken outside of Grieghallen in Bergen, Norway...
You see, if this internet stuff is really going to catch on, then places like Bergen, Norway and Bismarck, ND, USA have some kind of relationship, even if it's not how we usually think of relationships. If you think of Prairie Table as a real table that has real people around it...well, that's what we do in Bismarck (usually at a bar)...But there's another way in which the "table" is the globe itself, the great world upon which we walk. In that way, the folks in Bergen, the folks in Bismarck, you reading this wherever you are...we're all at the prairie table. This is what makes the internet such a difficult "place" to be...time means very little (you can read this whenever you want, and we'd still be in "conversation" even if I was asleep when you wrote it)...place, of couse, is irrelevant...and the Christian Church has always assumed those preogatives to be of God, not humanity. Time and Eternity...Historicity and Omnipresence...this was how you know the difference between the divine and the human. The internet seems to challenge those ideas...

Second topic this month: dinner guests...Who to invite to dinner, or, more problematically, who not to invite for dinner? Who do you invite to dinner? Have you ever wondered why people invited Jesus to dinner? You know, many of the more strict Pharisees thought Jesus shouldn't eat dinner with the kinds of folks he ate dinner with...but why did they invite him to dinner? When you invite someone to dinner..why? For me, it's usually to catch up with friendships...so was Jesus a friend to the folks?...Sometimes I invite people to dinner to get to know them...this seems to be the most logical reason people invited Jesus to dinner...I suppose the question for us is: would we invite Jesus to dinner? Comment away!

The Prairie Table and Religion

In some ways religion and morality go hand-in-hand. Although that has been true for many people over the centuries, for many people it has not been enough. Even more troubling is that certain religions get labeled with certain types of morality--and then the battles really begin. For example, one could view the "religion" of Jesus of Nazareth as a battle between his view of Judaism and the Pharisees' or the Saducees' view of Judaism. Each view carried its own morality, Jesus' seemingly to be caught in the phrase of knowing that God asks for "mercy, not sacrifice."
Prairie Table, as much as it may be religious, carries its own morality too. A morality that understands God wishes to create, sustain, and recycle rather than to destroy, abuse, or waste. The morality of Prairie Table comes from putting relationships ahead of success, statistics, profitability (although as a non-profit organization, that's not a huge concern), and relationships breed their own kind of accountability--one that "accountants" might not be able to calculate. Basically, the morality of Prairie Table arises from the idea that life is more fun "when we do it all together."
Now, this is not the type of "morality" that makes it into the worlds of mass media, or the conventional Christian bookstore. Morality in those places often is a set of rules or ways to behave that follow ideas a bit different than the Jesus of the gospels. The morality of Prairie Table Ministries has three pieces: first, God makes and re-makes life for the sustaining of all creation, including non-human species; secondly, from Christ we receive the power to respect the well-being of someone other than yourself is more important than you; lastly, the Holy Spirit frees us so it's more fun when we do it all together. This is the kind of morality that I like...the kind of morality that puts people ahead of ideas and rules, the kind of morality that trusts in mercy, not the laws of sacrifice. It is--finally--I argue, the morality of the cross of Jesus Christ. So the question for the month: what relationship does morality have to your faith in Christ Jesus?

(PS: A lot of people are wondering if PT will have a "real" site in Bismarck soon. I hope so. If all goes well there whould be something by June 1. Prairie Table Ministries is a non-profit organization under the auspices of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Contributions are tax-deductible and can be sent to the Western North Dakota Synod, attn: Prairie Table Ministries, 1614 Capitol Way, PO Box 370,Bismarck, ND 58502)

Table Work

One of the reasons I like the prairie "table" idea, (although I also like prairie "fire" and prairie "hearth," but those seem a bit nebulous sometimes), is because "table" is always about relationships when it comes to God. You can try to put things like "success," "accomplishment," "effectiveness," and "accountability" into your ministry or faith journey, but you always seem to be swimming upstream that way...

Now I know that the New Testament writings, and some of the historical books of the Old Testament are not opposed to such ecclesiastical measurements. Numbers seem to matter in the Book of Acts. Accomplishment is celebrated throughout the Book of Judges. Accountability seems like a big deal in the Apocalypse of John. But why is it when you try to organize ministry or a faith journey around things like "accomplishment" it becomes such a frustrating venture? On the other hand, praying at the bedside of a dying friend carries enough energy to bring you out of the abyss?

The prairie "table" idea speaks to this a bit...

Ministry, like eating, has to be done all the time. I remember when learning Greek how Homer had this phrase about being a "slave to the belly," and it seemed like he wrote it at least once on every page. Every time Odesseyus wanted to do something, he first had to have a meal. Stuff just keep repeating itself, and you're never done with "Eating" any more than you are ever done with "ministry," or with your "faith...."

We gather at table all the time because there is no end in sight for these journeys. The purpose of the table is not to be there "once for all," but to be there for life everlasting. Most days we find ourselves wondering where tomorrow may lead, and the table around which we gather with friends and brothers and sisters in Christ, is the bread for the journey. The table is meant to be temporary, moveable, and available to every one, regardless of stature in the world. What the table accomplishes is nothing other than a reminder that we are all in this together... forever.

Please feel free to leave an e-mail, if you'd like to be included in upcoming announcements about this new venture here in Bismarck, ND

Where might this lead?

I suppose, when pressed hard, I might choose Galatians 5.1 "For freedom Christ has set you free" as my favorite verse of scripture...
Although I really like "So if there is anyone in Christ, there is new creation..." (2nd Corinthians 5.17)...
And who can not like "Father, forgive them...they don't have a clue." (somewhere in Luke's gospel, I'm sure).

We all kind of pick and choose favorites from scripture, I suppose, and I don't imagine it's much different for people of any book religion. Christians, like our Jewish and Muslim cousins, are book religion people. We might want God to continually work and live outside the box, but we do love our stories...

Basically, this blog is going to tell the story of where and how this new community the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) prays about is going. As Christians, we pretty much leave the final outcome to God, but there is still a journey to be wandered...

So for a theme song tonight, at least, I've got the Jewish singer Barbara Streisand in mind singing "I Wonder as I Wander." I'm not going to ponder the irony there...

So as the wanderings begin, as we gather around the fire for some stories, around the table for some food and wine, we keep in mind this little ditty, "I wonder as I wander, out under the sky..."

First Thoughts

We've come to the point of having to blog...
I'm not even sure what that means, but here we go...
Yesterday I talked with a 17 year old exchange student from Germany spending a year abroad in the North Dakota prairies...you can still get by up here if you know a little German...she talked about the Spirit moving her in these revival experiences she has back home...That's what I miss here, she said...
So do I.
I've spent a lot of time in churches in my life...most people have better things to do I guess, but not me...I've dragged friends to some pretty weird things...In high school a friend and I attended an Episcopalian mass, and it was just him and I, two senior ladies with hats, the priest, and two acolytes (the kids who light the candles) for one hour...In college a friend and I attended a local Christian Missionary and Alliance congregation, and the pastor had us stand up and tell everyone how long we'd been married...To their chagrin, we hadn't, we weren't, and we didn't...My wife and I once spent three hours in an American Baptist congregation on the South side of Chicago where we were the only visible minorities amongst the 3000 parishioners...These are are the stories, the people, the places that are part of my journey at the table of our Lord Jesus the Christ.
I've seen a lot of tables...some are bona fide granite altars to bygone days of Christendom...some are wooden characters that have more stories carved into them than I have in me...Some are painted as to be unrecognizable to their owners...some tables are left to the weather, and to the wayfaring stranger who finds their way to them...People have laid out tables for me, and after 40 years of eating, drinking, resting, and sharing, I've laid out a few tables for others too...
Tables are all about refreshment...finding your God, maybe yourself, maybe a community to share beer, wine, food, and a few stories...There's not much more to life than that...at least important stuff.