In his book Orthodox Heretic: And Other Impossible Tales, Peter Rollins writes a parable about a community of people in the desert far outside of Jerusalem.  These people were present during Jesus’ crucifixion and left after he died.  Their descendants had been living there for over a hundred years when missionaries showed up and shared with them the “good news” that Jesus had been raised and was in heaven with God.  The people left Jerusalem after the crucifixion before the resurrection story began to spread and only knew that Jesus had died.

One of the missionaries noticed that the elder of the community had been missing for some time and upon looking for him, found him “crouched low in a small hut on the fringe of the village, praying and weeping.”  The missionary was amazed that the elder could be sad at such a time as this having heard the great news that Jesus had not remained dead.   The elder informed the missionary that they had lived as a community despite the fact that they understood Jesus to have been defeated by death and that “death would one day defeat” them also.  The elder then “looked the missionary compassionately in the eyes” and said the following:

Each day we have forsaken our very lives for him because we judged him wholly worthy of the sacrifice, wholly worthy of our being.  But now, following your news, I am concerned that my children and my children’s children my follow him, not because of his radical life and supreme sacrifice, but selfishly, because his sacrifice will ensure their personal salvation and eternal life.

The people of this community had been following and being like Jesus, not because they expected a reward, but because this was what Jesus had taught them to do.  Where many of us see the resurrection of Jesus as a great thing, this elder was afraid that it would in fact become a stumbling block for the people who had been so successfully incarnating the teachings of Jesus.  Having no knowledge of an “eternal hope” the people lived in compassion toward one another despite having only a temporal hope that could only come by them creating it here on earth.

After I read this, I happened to be walking a labyrinth and thinking about the church calendar and where it placed Easter and Pentecost.  Suddenly, it occurred to me how brilliantly it was laid out.  I realized as I walked the seemingly endless circles of that sacred maze that Easter gives us the opportunity to celebrate a cosmic hope of resurrection while Pentecost actually was that resurrection.  I can just imagine how the community of believers who had been dejected and saddened by the death of Jesus were filled with the spirit of hope once again and decided that despite Jesus’ death, they were going to live their lives in community modeled on the life and teachings of the one whom they had been mourning.  During the church calendar, we get to pray and ponder the hope of resurrection during Eastertide, but it is at Pentecost that we celebrate the actual resurrection that still takes place around us!

I realize that this is all easy to say and that it is not necessarily easy to envision what such a resurrected community would look like as it does life and is the church.  Rollins does not paint much of a picture, but makes it clear that we are not called to do church, but rather to be the church as we do life the way Jesus taught us to.  Fred Craddock, (the eminent preacher and professor) however, paints a very vivid picture of what this community would look like.

In his book Saving Jesus from the Church, Robin Meyers recalls a story told to him by Craddock about a community of folk in Appalachia that Craddock was working with who would do their baptismal services en mass at the banks of a river at sundown.  This was a small rural mission that contained some of the poorest people in the United States.  The candidates would be baptized and then would come out and get dried off to share in a large meal that was cooked along the banks of the river.  A fire would be lit to warm them and before dinner, they would all gather around the fire.  The other members of the community would gather in a large circle around them and would one by one introduce themselves to the newly baptized.  With their introduction, they would state what they could do for those people when in need.  “My name is . . . and if you ever need somebody to chop wood . . .”  “My name is . . . and if you ever need someone to repair your home . . .”   Afterward they would all share a large meal and have a huge square dance. When Craddock was asked by the city folk whom he was telling the story to what he called such a thing where he came from, he said, “I don’t know what you call it where you come from.  But where I come from we call it . . . church.”  May God grant us the strength, compassion, and wisdom to be that church.

We will be having a get-together to discuss planning of our first service set for the end of June.  Food will be provided, so please feel free to join and share your ideas.  This is your opportunity to be a part of making church what it should be!

Immanuel United Church of Christ  1500 Old Church Rd.  Streamwood.

May 23rd, 2012  6 pm

I wanted to take a moment and throw an update up here to keep everyone apprised of what’s going on.  I have been in contact with numerous group leaders who have art, music, poetry, writing, etc groups in the Chicagoland area and we are planning to have a large joint expo at Immanuel UCC this summer.  Our regular services will be starting by the end of June and ALL ARE WELCOME!!  Remember, this is a safe place where folk at any place in their faith journey can come and be comfortable, ask questions, and find community.  People from these artistic groups are joining in on the formation of the liturgy, art, and what have you to bring the gathering together as our own expressions of the divine.  I hope you can join us!!

If you have any questions or want any info, please feel free to contact me at firststepworldwide@gmail.com.  You can also join our Meetup group at http://www.meetup.com/The-Crossing-Chicago-NW-Suburbs/ .

Hope to see you soon!

Peace,

Brandyn

New and exciting things have been happening at The Crossing.   We have registered to be a cohort of Emergent Village and have reached out to numerous artist’s groups.  It is our vision to have those involved in the gathering basically write the service themselves.  By sharing their own music, art, poetry, etc, they can create the liturgy of the service.

Our official kickoff will be in June and gatherings (services) will be at 6pm on Sunday nights.  This website will be devoted to the happenings at The Crossing and all reflections and other posts will be on the Pastor B Blog that is linked at right.  I hope to see you at our gatherings and I trust that you will find us a safe haven for mystics, skeptics, believers, and all sorts of people!

As we approach the season of Lent, it is so easy to see this time as one of self-deprecation and loathing.  It is unfortunate that this wonderful season has become such a time of spiritual isolation in which we feel ourselves so unworthy of approaching the throne that we put ourselves in to a sort of self-imposed isolation.  We remain with our faces hidden from God while we await the celebration of resurrection which brings with it our assurance of salvation and a sense of purification that allows us to turn, even if ever so slightly, back toward God.  It is as though we give ourselves no permission to celebrate the resurrection until the official day on Easter and so, until that day, we heap the ashes upon our heads on Ash Wednesday and wait in the darkness for the light of when the Son again rises.

I think it is always healthy to question things.  Whether it is something as deep as the root of our own faith or something as simple as why we have the routines in our lives that we do, it is good to be inquisitive.  This being the case, it does us good to question if such an attitude toward Lent is really the right one.  If God raised his Son so that we could be reconciled to him and not have to face isolation from him, then are we really doing ourselves any favors, or even doing the will of God, when we exile ourselves from God?  In my humble opinion the answer would have to be a resounding “No!”  What if, instead of heaping ashes upon our heads and trying to be contortionists as we flog ourselves, we see this season as a wonderful crescendo leading up to the greatest celebration of all?  What if we see this time as a build up to ultimate reconciliation and use it to practice so that when the great celebration is upon us, we will recognize it for what it is?

If this season, then, is a time to prepare for complete reconciliation and reunion with God, then instead of pushing ourselves away from God, shouldn’t we be running to God?  Imagine if we used this time to seek the Divine and to create an awareness of how intertwined and connected God already is to us and our lives.  Admittedly this is a difficult task.  How can we make ourselves more aware of God in us, around us, and in our lives?  We can start by leaving room for God and the awareness of God.  There is no question that this is a difficult struggle that does not get easier over night, but I think Thomas Merton gives us some hope in these words about seeking God:

The hermit, all day and all night, beats his head against a wall of doubt.  That is his contemplation.  Do not mistake my meaning.  It is not a question of intellectual doubt, an analytical investigation of theological, philosophical, or some other truths. It is something else, a kind of unknowing of his own self, a kind of doubt which undermines his very reasons for existing and for doing what he does.  It is this doubt which reduces him finally to silence, and in the silence which ceases to ask questions, he receives the only certitude he knows: the presence of God in the midst of uncertainty and nothingness, as the only reality . . . . Beyond and in all this, he possesses his solitude, the riches of his emptiness his interior poverty: but of course, it is not a possession.  It is an established fact.  It is there.  It is assured.  In fact, it is inescapable.  It is everything – his whole life.  It contains God, surrounds him with God, plunges him in God.

                For each of us, may this Lenten season be a beautiful time of reconnecting with God and arriving at a point when God is our life – containing God, surrounded by God, plunged in God.

I knew a leper once.  Not in the sense that his skin was flaking off or that he had a contagious disease, but in the real sense of the term – he was estranged from the community.  Nobody in my generation wanted to be near him and I think those of my parents’ generation and beyond had forgotten him.  I was born in and went to high school in a small town of about 9000 people and I lived about 10 miles north of town in an even smaller town of about 150 people.  The only time I would get a chance to see people then was when we went to town for groceries or when I was walking around at lunch time during high school.  I would occasionally see this man who was slightly hunched over and had a strange voice.  He would walk with his elbows pushed back and there wasn’t one of us who hadn’t imitated him at one time or another.  The girls would run away and scream when they saw him and would say things like “Ooh gross!”  He generally slept at a rundown motel near the high school.  If you have ever seen Sling Blade with Billy Bob Thornton, he was kind of like that.

Whenever I would encounter him he would be perfectly pleasant and ask how I was doing.  I think he even asked me for money once so that he could pay his motel fee that night.  It was not until around my Sophomore year when I was at a community recovery meeting with my grandmother in a kind of Bible study/ 12-step recovery group.  Kind of like Bill W. meet Billy Graham when I started to wonder who he was.  Until then I had thought he was just the town Quasimoto and I didn’t really care who he was or what his story was.  We would go around taking turns reading from the Bible and I have to admit that in kind of a snarky way I was looking forward to when it was his turn to read.  I wasn’t even sure if he could read.  I half expected him to pass when it was his turn.  He took the Bible, ran his finger down the page to find where the last person had left off, and there it was.  I couldn’t believe it.  He read it in as normal and clear of a voice and just as succinctly as anyone else.  I still can’t explain it and I don’t put any meaning behind it, but I still think it was the strangest thing.

When I got home I asked my mom about him and she knew right away who I was talking about.  She said, “Oh, that’s Dennis Swanson.  I used to have such a crush on him.  Then again, so did all the girls.”  I just looked at her thinking, “Way to go mom.  Way to keep those standards up there.”  I asked her if he was born like that and she said no, not hardly.  You see, Dennis Swanson had been an all-state wrestler.  Oh, so he was a jock.  Not necessarily ever too bright.  I see.  No, no, she told me.  He was our valedictorian.  What!?  I could hardly believe it.  What happened to him?  Well, she told me.  He got too popular, too good, and he thought he was untouchable.  He started dabbling in drugs (it was the early 70s, after all) and ended up getting a bad batch.  Someone had thinned the product out to make more money and had used some chemical that wasn’t made for human consumption.  It fried Dennis’ brain and he became the town leper.  Just like that.  Most liked, respected, and envied guy in town and over night he became an outcast – estranged from his community.  Everyone wants to hang out with you when you’re cool, but as soon as your brain turns into a fried egg on a skillet, the party’s over.

I wonder if that’s how it had been with Naaman.  We know that he was a top dog.  Commander of the Aramean army, subjects under him, only answered to the king.  Then, something happened that estranged him from the rest of the community.  Was he too big for his britches?  Did he alienate the wrong people?  Who knows?  The text doesn’t tell us that.  What we do know is that Naaman thought pretty highly of himself, so it is plausible that it was his pride that alienated him from everyone else.  We know people like that, don’t we?  Usually they are the insecure ones who always brag to get affirmation from those around them but all it does is make people tired and not want to be around them.  The next thing you know, the person who thought he was better than everyone else is an outcast.

One day Naaman decides, ok, this has gone far enough.  It’s time to be healed.  I’m tired of the situation.  So the young girl from Israel suggests that he go see the prophet in Samaria and he does.  We quickly see, though, that although Naaman wants to be healed and reconciled, he doesn’t want to deal with that that got him estranged in the first place.  Elisha seems to know what it was though.  He doesn’t even come to the door when Naaman arrives and believe me, Naaman notices.  Elisha sends a messenger to tell Naaman to wash himself seven times in the River Jordan and he would be good as new.  Does he do it?  Of course not!

Infomercials tell us that we can make easy payments, software and apps are created to make our lives easier, car dealerships tell us how easy they are to get to, and even Staples has an Easy button.  I’m not sure about that one.  Maybe a fairy pops out and waves her wand making everything easy.  When things are actually easy though, we feel like they’re not complete like we should have to work for the real stuff.  Naaman apparently feels this way because he complains that his waters back home are so much better and Elisha didn’t just come out and wave his hand and make him better. I don’t have to tolerate this.  Doesn’t he know who I am?  I’m going home. But his officers say hey, we’ve come this far.  If he would have told you to do something difficult you would have done it – to show how great you are and how it was through your own doing that you were healed.  What the heck, why not give it a try?  Here.  Here’s the Easy button. And so he does, and so he is healed.  The key here is that he seems to get what had made him this way in the first place.  He submits to God and asks that he not have it held against him when he bows with his king at the altar.  Finally, Naaman sees why he got where he did.

After being healed, the job wasn’t over.  Naaman had to go back to Elisha.  Just like in the Mark passage Jesus tells the leper to go to the priest after he heals him.  The priest has to declare him ritually pure so that he can be reconciled and reintegrated into the community.  The text there in Mark says that Jesus was moved to pity and healed the man, but you may notice an asterisk.  The Greek word here may have been mistranslated and what Jesus felt was not pity, but in fact anger!  Why?  Maybe it’s just because Jesus was trying to rest and have the crowds not bug him.  Perhaps it’s because Jesus realized that the man wasn’t really dealing with the issues that got him there in the first place.  Jesus tells him to keep his mouth shut and go to the priest so that he can be declared ritually clean so that he can be reintegrated into the community.  There are rules to live in society and at that time the rules were the Law of Moses.  Instead, the man chose not to follow the rules and went and flapped his jaws anyway and Jesus was angry because he knew that the man was not really willing to do what’s right and that he would be right back where he started.  But notice that the ones who have the affliction are steered clear of, but the purest one, Jesus, is the one that they all flocked to.

We are left in the dark in these two stories because we assume that somehow these two – Naaman and the other leper in Mark – broke the rules of society either with their pride or something and became outcasts, lepers.  There is no complete evidence so we just have to guess.  But wait.  You see, the lectionary cuts off the story at 2 Kings 5:19 when Naaman goes home.  But the story actually continues and I think the writer of Kings makes his point here.  Gehazi is the servant of Elisha and he gets a bright idea.  Elisha had turned away all of the gold and silver and robes that Naaman brought to him, but Gehazi thinks, hey I can get those for myself.  So he chases after Naaman and says, you know, on second thought, we’ll go ahead and take those off your hands.  Elisha busts him and curses him.  Now YOU are the leper. You and your descendants will suffer NAAMAN’S leprosy forever.  He broke the rules and became an outcast.

The man that Jesus healed refused to follow the rules and we can assume that he wasn’t completely reconciled to the community that he had been cast out of.  Naaman got it.  He got healed AND realized what had caused his leprosy in the first case and made amends.  Isn’t that the most important thing?  Isn’t that the key?  Realizing what caused the estrangement in the first place and making amends there.  Gehazi?  He lost his chance to make amends.  What about Dennis?  Well, I think Dennis is a perfect example of the fact that it is not always the sick, the outcast, the leper who has to make amends.  Sometimes it’s the community around him who needs to realize that none of us is perfect and that if someone is different, even by fault of their own, sometimes it’s the community that needs healing so that they can except that brother or sister back in.  This shows how much of a community event healing is rather than an individual one.  One of my classmates said it best when explaining how she had been healed of an illness, but took issue when the healing was mentioned publically because she felt somehow her privacy may have been violated.  She said, “I admit that I am still dealing with how to reconcile its (the healing’s presence as a story of wonder in our community—that, partially, because God was involved in the healing of my body, it is a story that belongs to the community, for the betterment of us all seeing God at work.”  It couldn’t have been said more beautifully.

On Thursday night, my theology class was talking about the different views of atonement.  In other words, what did Jesus dying on a cross really do for us?  Was this a payment to God on behalf of us?  Was it a payment to the devil as the ruler of this world for our redemption?  Was it an example of complete sacrifice that we should learn from and therefore practice humility?  Numerous theologians came up with numerous views.  Those views that did not agree with the majority, i.e., the church universal (Catholic) were deemed heretics.  In the above picture, we see one of those “heretics”, Arius.  Arius believed that Jesus was not necessarily divine, but he was God’s greatest creation.  The church (in the 2nd and 3rd centuries) argued that God and Jesus were of the same substance and that they BOTH existed since the beginning.  Arius argued that there was a time that Jesus (the Son, the Logos) did not exist.  This got him branded as a heretic by the powers that be. 

Because there were so many different theologies around, the church made an official statement that they would be the ones to decide what was right and what was wrong.  As the church universal (the right and true church) they would dictate what was true about God and what theologies were tolerable.  They claimed that through apostolic succession their authority came all the way from Jesus.

One would think that such heavy handedness would be long gone by now in a world with so much diversity and so many different voices.  Unfortunately, however, we can still see the church (numerous local churches and denominations) claiming that they held the truth and everyone else be damned.  A perfect case in point happened during the theology class that I mentioned above.  One of the views of atonement was set forth by a man named Socinius.  His view was that Jesus was not divine, but rather a prophet that taught love and forgiveness.  He believed that Jesus dying and being resurrected was a beautiful example of dedication to God.  This view shows Jesus as doing what Micah 6:8 calls for: to do what’s right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.  

The professor went around the room and chose people at random to see which of the seven theories of atonement that had been introduced the student most adhered to.  Luckily (or unluckily) I was not called on.  The professor said that “of course” no one would choose the Socinian view because it was just too ridiculous.  Well, then, call me ridiculous.  Apparently we still live in a time when those of us who do not agree with the main stream are heretics.  It makes me wonder what it is they are so afraid of.  It seems like a sort of religious xenophobia because God forbid people should believe differently (and even worse!) what if there is some truth to what they believe!?  

If you Google or check on You Tube for “Emergent church” or ”Emerging church” you will find as many rants about how wrong and evil it is as there are actual samples.  How can the church be relevant if it does not even acknowledge the changes that are taking place around us?  People have given up on the theology that tells us a ruthless God will wipe us out eternally if we do not believe that he killed his son.  Ok, I’m admittedly being harsh here, but I think it is time for a worthwhile dialogue between those who claim to hold the keys of truth and those who have moved on.   It’s my prayer that this conversation will happen soon and that society can once again see that church is a safe haven where people can be different and seek the Divine in community without worrying about our differences.  Rather, we focus on our likeness – that of God and the desire to do right by one another, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

Here we are again. The beginning of a new year and a time when good intentions and famous motivational quotes get dusted off and pulled out of the recesses of our minds to be put on display on our lips and the front of our t-shirts. We start new diaries and tell ourselves the same stories that we are telling everyone else. “This is the year.” “This year I’m going to do . . .” Then, come January 15th, or if we’re really ambitious, mid February and the quotes are put back in their rightful place among the dark, undusted, cobwebby shelves in our minds and are promptly replaced with excuses.

Such would-be business wizards as Bruce Judson in books like Go it Alone tell us just that – Go it alone. Hence the subtitle, The Secret of Building a Successful Business on Your Own. Those of us with entrepreneurial aspirations and inclinations get excited when we read such titles because it tells us that we already have what we need to be successful and to do something different. The only problem is, once the book is read and placed back on the shelf, the same things remain as before – questions marks and excuses.
In the church, it is not only in our theology and soteriology that we have become individualists, but also in our aspirations. If I can do it alone, I do not have to rely on others. This is where one of my favorite examples comes in. Imagine you want to make money flipping houses. I’m sure everyone is familiar with the term by now although those who have been doing it for a while loathe the term. Nonetheless, the idea is the same regardless of what one calls it: buy a house well under market value, rehab it, and resell it.
Ok, so, you have your house purchased and some money set aside for fixing it up. Here’s the question – do you fix it up yourself or do you hire someone else to do it? Most who are handy would say that the answer is obvious. Do the work yourself so that you can save the money on labor and make more profit. But is this really the right answer if your goal is to make money? If a side project to keep you busy after retirement is the object, then it’s the perfect answer. If you are looking to make money, however, you would definitely not want to do the work yourself. Sounds like a contradiction, doesn’t it? But it’s not.
The faster the house gets to market, the faster you can turn a profit. But how fast can you really get the work done by yourself? Ok, you’re decent with carpentry, but maybe a mediocre plumber or electrician at best? If someone else can do the job better, why not let them? If they can get the work done faster, that’s that much faster that you will not only get money in your pocket, but even get to start on another house – or if you’re really wanting to make money – have a couple of houses going at the same time.
Ok, ok, I’ll get to the point. There are ambitions that come out this time of year and ideas about how to achieve them. When we realize that the work is insurmountable for ourselves we set it aside only to be reminded again when we set the next year’s resolutions. This time, we actually have to start. After all, if nothing ever makes it past the idea stage, that’s all it will ever be – just another good idea. We know that we cannot change the world alone, but together, we can do great things. I think this is why Margaret Mead said “A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” People. It’s what we need, what we have, and who we need to help. At IUCC that’s the business we’re in. Throw in some people from the community to team with us and let your imagine run wild for the amazing things that we can accomplish.
Since this is the season of cool quotes, I’ll leave you with one that you may have heard from me before:
It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the [person] who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends [him or herself] for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his/her place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.    – Teddy Roosevelt
See you in the arena.

   I’ve been thinking about my post on Advent last week and so allow me to expand on it:            

               Jesus is the reason for the season.  Keep Christ in Christmas.  Bah humbug.  There you go.  That’s my sermon along with about 300,000 other churches.  If you have the little bumper stickers and window decals showing the nativity then you already get it so I’ll save my breath and your time.   If this is really the point, then what does it mean?  As long as we believe in Jesus as our personal Lord and savior, then come Christmas morn everything will be ok.  Is that it?  Everyone think this understanding will make everything hunky dory?  Me neither.

                We go through the advent season understanding it as a season of hope and expectation that leads us up to Christmas and the celebration of Jesus’ birth.   We hope then that come Christmas morning things will somehow be different and our hopes will be realized and our fears will be gone.   But the sad thing that we all know but are afraid to admit is that come Christmas morning everything will still be the same.  The bills will still be there, the diagnosis will still be the same – the feeling of despair will not have lifted because we will realize that nothing is different.

                We are not the first ones to experience this feeling by any means.  Let’s look at the people of Israel.  Since the beginning of their existence they were under some sort of oppression.  The Egyptians turned them in to slaves, the Assyrians came and took them over, the Babylonians took them away in to captivity, and then when Jesus was born, the Romans held power over them and dictated what they could and could not do.  The Jews were understandably tired of this and held on to the hope of a messiah that prophets had spoken of since long ago.  This messiah would be a strong leader that would lead the people of Israel back to greatness and to victory over their oppressors.   2,000 years ago angels appeared to some shepherds to tell them that the messiah had been born.  This was it.  Finally the people of Israel would rise up and once again become a great nation and claim the promises God had made to them in covenants with Abraham, Moses, and David.  This was finally it.  The painful wait was over.  Nobody would ever again put down the people of Israel because their great hope was finally coming to fruition.

                The only problem was that not only did that messiah not grow up to gather a great army and encourage the people to fight their oppressors, that messiah encouraged peace and submission to the oppressors.  As if that weren’t bad enough, the one who was supposed to lead the great defeat of their enemies was nailed to a cross and killed by those enemies.  Once again, the people of Israel had hoped, but things were still the same after all.  The same oppressors were still there and would almost 40 years later destroy their precious temple.  Not only did it feel like God had abandoned them, but their very vehicle for connecting to God had been destroyed.

                Keep Christ in Christmas.  Jesus is the reason for the season.  Yep, that’s good enough.  That will get us through.  But what if it will?  What if it is the reason, but we have just gotten the interpretation wrong?  Isn’t that how Christianity came about in the first place – by an understanding that what they had previously believed was right, but also wrong?  That the messiah they had hoped for had actually come, but wasn’t the kind of messiah they thought he would be? 

                As humans, it’s only natural that we fear the unknown.  The shepherds were scared half to death when the angels appeared to them.  Even though these messengers had come to tell them some great news that they had waited for for thousands of years, they were scared.  Even though a blessing might be right under our nose, we fear it if it does not come in the form that we expect it in.  If we don’t recognize it, we fear it.  As Christians, in order to alleviate this fear and keep the hope going, we put our faith in a day sometime in the future when Christ will come back and do what the Jews thought he was going to do in the first place – defeat our enemies, eradicate evil, make everything ok.  We believe that we are living in the “in between time” – The time after Jesus came and died and rose again defeating evil, but that we are waiting for him to come back and make this defeat realized so that we no longer have to suffer.  And so we wait.  We stand looking up at the sky, figuratively at least if not literally, and we wait for God to do something and make everything better.

                What if though, we like the Israelites have got this Jesus guy, this messiah, all wrong?  What if it’s not God that has let us down when we come to the realization that everything is still the same, but it’s we who have let ourselves down?  It’s easy for us to say that the Israelites got it wrong.  They were expecting a great military leader and all they got was a man on a cross.  They were fools because they did not understand what kind of messiah Jesus was to be and ended up being.  But as the smart Christians we are we realize that Jesus was not that kind of messiah.  He was the kind of messiah that would die and rise again to take away the sins of the world and then come again to bring it all to fruition.  They always say that hindsight is 20/20.  The only problem is that this return to make everything ok isn’t in hindsight yet. It’s still in the future. 

                So what if, like the Israelites, the church misunderstood who this messiah is and was?  What if it’s not about waiting for him to come back and make everything ok, but what if instead it’s about the example that he made when he was here?  What if we were to feed the hungry, give clothes to the naked, comfort the hurting?  What if that comfort came back to us when we needed it most and our prayers were answered and fears relieved?  What if, by doing the things that this mysterious messiah taught us when he was here, we can wake up on Christmas morning not with despair and hopelessness and longing for something that is so far away and unattainable, but instead we can smile, take a deep breath, and take joy in knowing that things CAN be different.  What if, as we gather with our loved ones Christmas morning we see that the promise already has been realized and that we do not have to wait with our heads turned up toward the sky waiting for everything to be alright, but that by the entire church living out the example that Jesus left us that everything really will be alright and the wait is finally over.  This gives “keep Christ in Christmas” a whole new meaning.  I guess I was wrong – Jesus really is the reason for the season, we just got the meaning wrong.

The following is an article posted by a seminary friend, Tiffany Buchanan at  http://www.stateofformation.org/2011/12/interfaith-dialog-respect-is-key/ .  I thought it was a very responsible and well written call to go beyond tolerance and have a genuine respect for other faith traditions.  It will leave you wanting to worship in new and exciting ways while finding God inside yourself.  The following is copied by her permission. Enjoy!

This semester I had the honor and pleasure to work as the educational assistant for a course, “Religious Pluralism” at McCormick Theological Seminary under the leadership of Dr. Robert Cathey and Janaan Hashim, Esq.

The core of this class exposed seminary students to five different faith traditions. Each week students read a chapter and supplemental materials on the differing faith traditions and then the following week as a class we took field trips to the differing temples of worship that corresponded with the previous week’s readings.

“Religious Pluralism” is a religious and cultural immersion experience for McCormick seminary students. As a sociologist and mother, I think that immersion and exposure is one of the best teaching methods for students and children to truly learn, thus I promote it in the classroom, as well as my own personal life.

For as long as I can remember, I have personally had an interest in learning about other faith traditions, even though this is often shunned within some Christian faith traditions as idolatrous. In addition to the Bible, I have read the Bhagavad Gita, the Quran, attended Native American worship services, and studied under traditional Priests in Ghana, West Africa over the last fifteen years of my own faith journey as a Christian. In each of these personal experiences, I found that the affirmations and challenges to my own faith helped me to better understand what I believe and why, while inversely teaching me how to respect other peoples traditions as something sacred to them.

I have continually held a longstanding desire for unity among Christians, but after completing this semester and assisting with “Religious Pluralism,” I realize that my desire for unity extends beyond Christian unity. I realize that unity among Christians is only a portion of what I long to see happen on a global scale with people of faith. Deep in my soul, I hope to see people of all walks of life, all faith traditions working together for the common good of humanity, especially and including Christians.

As Christians we are disjointed, often pitting our denominational branches over each other and against each other. But, we not only stand over and against each other as Christians, we also often take this same position with people of differing faiths. Yet our greatest commandment as Christians is to love.

Love is respect.

We need to respect our denominational differences as Christians and we need to respect other people’s faith traditions. I am forever impacted by how Christianity has historically showed itself globally. On my visits to Ghana, West Africa as I stood in the slave dungeon smelling the stench of death of my ancestors that still lingers in the air; there in the middle of the dungeon was a “church.” It is forever etched into my consciousness how my faith has been used to oppress and justify oppression and I refuse to be silent and allow the liberating life and message of Jesus Christ to be misrepresented to a world I care to see well.

Gandhi says and I believe many would agree, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

As I visited the Synagogue, the Mosque, the Sikh temple, the Buddhist temple and finally the Hindu temple I learned more completely how not to judge other peoples faith and worship as lower than my own. I do not feel challenged about my own faith by being respectful of other people’s faith traditions. I do not feel compelled to “make” other people believe my religion is better or more right. The Bible teaches in Matthew 7:1-2;

1Do not judge and criticize and condemn others, so that you may not be judged and criticized and condemned yourselves.
2For just as you judge and criticize and condemn others, you will be judged and criticized and condemned, and in accordance with the measure you [use to] deal out to others, it will be dealt out again to you. (Amplified)

What I did find during this interfaith immersion experience was that other people’s faith traditions have great similarity to my own and this experience helped to illuminate places where we as Christians can take lessons that are affirmed in our own faith tradition.

At the synagogue, the Jewish temple of worship, the Holy Scripture is revered with such respect and adoration that it was so comforting to see a people singing and dancing in the aisle as their holiest of books was passed among the community, people kissing the pages as it passed by. This experience reminded me of how holy I hold the Bible personally. It allowed me to see that just because I am supposed to dissect every detail in scripture in seminary and often may hear a disregard for the holiness of the Bible as theological argument, I can still hold onto my reverence, as I dance down the aisle of my heart kissing the pages of my own holy book. I was encouraged and empowered in my own faith and beliefs by visiting the synagogue.

At the mosque, the Muslim temple of worship, it was encouraging to see that worship and going to the temple does not have to be a fashion show and that prayer should be central to any faith tradition. I often want to go into my own place of worship and bow with my face to the ground during prayer as this is often how I pray at home, yet in many churches this would be deemed inappropriate or out of line. But in the mosque, women and men freely pray, sometimes in isolation and other times as a community. Being able to witness this and to be among Muslims as they practiced their faith also encouraged me as did visiting the synagogue. I realized that just because some churches do not make prayer a central part of their worship services or choose to recite “churchy” catch phrases as a method to “do” prayer does not minimize my passion for talking with and communicating with the divine and bowing humbly in reverent prayer. Humble prayer is something all faiths can learn from.

At the gurdwara, the Sikh temple of worship, I learned about songs of scripture and hospitality. During the Sikh worship service, the musicians are singing their scripture as a poem as they play instruments. Though I could not understand the language, I heard the sweet melody and tender love that flowed from the voices of the musicians. In their music I heard adoration and reverence, it was not a music concert, it was not lead by those who were deemed the best singers, but it was the singing of their faith.

We should all sing a melody of our faith that even if people can not understand what we are saying, they still understand the love and reverence that shines as a radiant light of faith. After the worship service of song, we were fed a vegetarian meal. We were served and did not get up to get anything, we were fed until we could not eat another bite, it was food that was healthy and nourishing for our bodies and it tasted wonderful. As we were packing up to leave after dinner the host asked if we would like tea, most of my peers said no, yet I spoke up with bright eyes and a smile and said I would love some and they went and made some for us all to take on the drive home. I realized from this faith community how to sing my song of faith for the world to understand even when our languages are different. As well, I learned what hospitality and being accepted kindly as an outsider within a completely different faith feels like. I was respected, treated as an honored guest and treated as an insider through action, this all faith traditions should offer.

At the Buddhist Meditation Center, I was reminded that the ego, pride, and self-centeredness are tasks to be tackled daily by faith. I was reminded that in order to get into a place of prayer that it is important to clear out the clutter of the mind and all the daily hustle and bustle that keeps us from focusing solely on the God we profess to love. I was reminded that retreat from the worldly materialism all around us is a necessity to reconnect with the divine within us and all around us. It was also affirmed to me that times of solitude are necessary, dealing with self and our own inner issues allow us to then truly be in a place to serve those in need all around us from a healthier place. I also learned that most outsiders misinterpret the symbolic nature of other people’s faith traditions, where one would assume statues present in the temple were to be worshipped, really they are symbols to speak of the ineffable lessons of their own faith.

Judgmentalism is often taught as a faith practice, rather than asking those of differing faith traditions what they actually believe and what their symbols means. This is one of the most present examples of ego and pride being at the center of too many people’s faith practices. From the Buddhist faith, I learned that inner peace and health is what creates outer peace and health. Our societies are chaotic and sick because we’re individually and collectively in inner turmoil and dis-ease, thus we have little power to improve the state of society because we refuse to stop long enough to deal with self. Instead we medicate with materialism and judgment of others. From this we can all learn how to be better stewards of our faith.

Finally, from the Hindu faith tradition, I found the connection between the cosmic, the scientific, and faith. The Hindu faith places significance on understanding our connection to the stars, solar system, consciousness, energy, matter, and the masculine and feminine found in all creation. Often those who profess to be Christian want to debate science, while those who profess science as their faith often attack Christians and from the Hindu faith it was reaffirmed that rightness is both/and not either/or. In the Hindu faith tradition, when someone bows with hands in a prayer position and says, “Namaste” this translates as, “I am bowing to the divine in you in peace.”

Humility and honoring the divine in every person is a faith practice we could all learn from, rather than being jealous, competitive, and judgmental of each other as though the only place to exist is as a superior individual in relationship to each other. We all should bow to the uniqueness of God in every human being regardless of race, gender, class, or sexual orientation differences and want them to have peace.

Certainly, as a Christian I can find clear differences in what I believe from all of these faith traditions when considered in the broadest and more specific terms, however what I came away from this interfaith immersion experience with is again a richer understanding of what I do believe and why. I also came away from this experience being able to apply different lessons from all these faith traditions to practices that my own Bible teaches me. I found a deeper respect for what other people believe. I found that I am even more staunchly against tearing down other people’s faith practices to justify rightness as a Christian. If I can not draw others to Jesus Christ and wanting to know the God I serve through reverence of my scripture, humble prayer, singing psalms of praise, offering unending hospitality, dealing with my own ego so that I can better serve, and honoring the divine in each person I come into contact with, then I suppose I have no understanding of how to love as Jesus loved and fall short at honoring my own faith tradition.

Love is respect.

Herein lies the key for me in how we have authentic, empowering interfaith dialog. Respect is setting aside our notions of superiority, rightness and pride to listen to others. Listening is an art. It requires our undivided humble attention. It requires us to acknowledge our own social location, opinions, values, self-righteous arguments and being able to set those aside so that we can really hear with our hearts. If differing faith traditions stopped needing to “prove” they have all the answers and do everything the correct way, perhaps we could all find the commonality in our faith traditions and make the world a more peaceful, healthy, equitable place to co-exist.

We all mourn, know joy, bleed, and the one thing all human beings need no matter what faith we follow is love. Let us love each other by offering each other respect. Then let us all be disciples of our own faith traditions by living as examples to this crumbling world as lights of how our faith empowers us to be better people and reveals the divine in and through us.

Faith is a lived reality. Faith is exemplified in how we treat ourselves, our neighbors and our planet. If I were to orbit into space and use my sociological lens to view the planet with a critical macro lens, I could hypothesize there are very few of faith based on our relationships and treatment of each other and the whole creation. Interfaith dialog is an opportunity for us to come together inspite of our differences for the common good of all, love never fails and respect is the key.

- Posted 12/17/11 on State of Formation at http://www.stateofformation.org/2011/12/interfaith-dialog-respect-is-key/ by Tiffany Buchanan.

Advent. D.D. Murphy calls it the “three-fold coming (adventus) of Christ – as baby refugee, as Word and Sacrament, as glorious Lamb of God”.  We think of this season as one of hope. Hope for a persecuted people whose messiah was someone they never dreamed of born in a way they never imagined. Hope for the forgiveness of sins for the entire world after dying and raising from the dead. Hope for a warrior on a white horse who will defeat evil and eradicate death and tears from the Earth forever.  Hope for each of us that somehow when we wake up Christmas morning things will all be different. It won’t be just the presents under the tree that we stayed up all night wrapping for the kids, but that there will be something there for us, too. Maybe something in the form of peace in knowing that we have made right choices or that everything is somehow going to be ok. But this isn’t our first advent and we’ve seen this movie before. In fact, we’ve played the leading role.

Come Christmas morning everything will still be the same. The same doubts and fears. The same uncertainty and foreboding that we went to bed with the night before will still be there. Somehow the bills will still need to get paid and our loved one’s prognosis will not have changed. We’ll wonder when all of these magical promises will come true and when our prayers will be answered and everything will be alright. When will this man who died and rose come again and take away all of the pain from the world?  We find ourselves then in a place where there is no hope and we feel like we have been lied to and made the butt if a cruel joke. What if, though, we just read the story wrong?  What if the key was not in the stuff about a sweeping victory that we have to wait for to come some day, but instead the key was in the talk of loving our neighbor and letting our works be the proof of our faith?  What if Jesus wasn’t just speaking in parables when he said whatever we do for the least of these we do for him?  Maybe then, there is a much greater hope for us this advent – one that we don’t have to wait for in painful expectation. Instead, it is a hope that can be realized right here and right now by living the example set by Jesus in feeding, clothing, and loving one another. 

This advent season, let’s prepare and make way for a new and real realization of our hopes brought about here in our time by the hands and feet of Christ.  Let us wake up this Christmas morning with a smile on our faces and reassurance in our hearts that Jesus is doing what he said he would – through us – one broken heart at a time.

I have always been guilty of polarized thinking. I am usually too absolute and extreme in my logic which leads to a great reduction in perceived possibilities. Those things that are left then after some mental sorting can sometimes then seem daunting. For example, if I am considering a job, but really have my heart on starting a business, I may come to the conclusion that if I work full time, I won’t be able to build the business. This leaves me in a position where I think I either need to sacrifice my dream or go through a tough financial period until I get the business up and running. In reality, having the job will give me more capital to get the business running faster and will force me to use my time more wisely as I do it which will undoubtedly pay dividends in running the business.

So, why do I say all of this? Many people are now unemployed or are in jobs that they no longer have a passion for. Some ask themselves on a daily basis – How is the world a better place because I am selling vacuum cleaners? How am I making a difference crunching numbers at a desk all day? Possibilities abound anywhere you turn and it is never necessary to limit them. Regardless of where you are at in your life’s journey, don’t make the same mistake that I occasionally do and pin yourself into a corner. We may not be able to attain our dreams tomorrow, but if we are always making measurable progress toward a specific goal, we will eventually get there. It will not be the quickest path, but on the journey we will learn and be aware of so much more than we could have if we rushed through it.

Just a thought . . .

I’ve got great news for everyone! I’m sure there are some of us who have our concerns about our eternal fate so I want to put our minds at ease.

Thousands of years ago, an old fisherman saw the suffering that humans were enduring as they wondered what would happen to them when their lives on earth were over. So he vowed to do what he could to ensure that they would experience eternity in paradise. Because of his compassion, he became enlightened and could cross into eternal paradise. Because he was so compassionate, however, he vowed that he would wait until the last sentient being was saved before he would cross over into paradise. His name is now known as Amida and if we, even in our dying breath, say the words “Namu Amida Butsu”, we will be saved and be able to enter in to paradise. Isn’t that great news!? Now you do not have to worry about what lies ahead for us after our lives here are over!

If anyone hearing that story actually felt relieved, well, good for you. Most of us, on the other hand, most likely felt like “Huh? What in the world are you talking about?” This is the way that most people feel when we share the gospel of Jesus Christ. God sent his son to die for our sins and so Jesus emptied himself of divine power and allowed himself to be nailed to a cross. He was dead for three days and then was resurrected by God and now sits at the right hand of God. We commemorate this event by eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus. Some day all of the dead people will be resurrected and Jesus will come back and we will be with him in Heaven after a time of tribulation and a millenium of peace. Do we ever stop and think how crazy this sounds? Don’t get me wrong – we believe it to be true and we stake our very existence on it, but really – do we think this sounds any more rational to others than the story of Amida sounds to us? It is important that we realize that we no longer live in a Christian culture. We live now in what has been called Post-Christendom. Most people do not go to church and do not relate to the story of Jesus that we call the gospel. The story of Amida is one from another culture to us just like the story of Jesus comes from a culture foreign to people living in Post-Christendom/ post-modernism today.

This disconnect is nothing new. When Paul was writing to the people of the church at Corinth he said in 1 Cor. 2:14: “But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means.” We need to adopt a new way of speaking for those who do not understand the message. Is it wrong that they do not understand? Of course not! How could they? So how do we show people that the gospel is true? That’s just it – we SHOW them. Paul says in the same chapter in verses 1 – 5. He first says that because the people of Corinth did not at first have the Spirit, “I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.” Instead, he said “My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” In DEMONSTRATION of the Spirit. We cannot do much with magical words that people do not understand, rather we must demonstrate the gospel in how we live our lives as a testament to that truth.

We see where a lack of wisdom affects those outside the church. One area in which not necessarily a lack of wisdom, but a lack of using that wisdom leads to trouble is within the church. In 1054 we had the Great Schism that led to one of the biggest splits ever in the history of Christianity. This was the split over theology (or the Filioque to be specific – let me know if you want to hear more about this one). Most of us, we assume, would have sided with the west on this debate which means we side with the Roman Catholic Church. But wait! Most of us are Protestant after another huge split in the church – The Reformation. We don’t agree with the Catholic church. And on and on it goes with splits within denominations over same sex unions, ordination of homosexual pastors, ordination of women, issues of charisma, etc. etc. ad nauseum. This is like a story that Emo Philips told that I get a laugh out of:

(In a conversation with a suicidal man threatening to jump off a bridge)
“I said, ‘Are you a Christian or a Jew?’ He said, ‘A Christian.’
I said, ‘Me too. Protestant or Catholic?’ He said, ‘Protestant.’
I said, ‘Me too. What franchise?’ He says, ‘Baptist.’
I said, ‘Me too. Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?’ He says, ‘Northern Baptist.’
I said, ‘Me too. Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?’ He says, ‘Northern Conservative Baptist.’
I said, ‘Me too. Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist or Northern Conservative Reformed Baptist?’ He says, ‘Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist.’
I said, ‘Me too. Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist, Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist, Eastern Region?’ He says, ‘Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist, Great Lakes Region.’
I said, ‘Me too. Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist, Great Lakes Region, Council of 1879 or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist, Great Lakes Region, Council of 1912?’ He says, Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist, Great Lakes Region, Council of 1912.’
I said, ‘Die, heretic!’ and I pushed him over.”

Pretty ridiculous, eh? But how far is this from where we are at? Paul said in vs. 11 “For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. ” So let’s not assume that we understand what another party is thinking as we base our argument. Is there any hint of how we can start agreeing on things and being of like mind? Paul thought so. He said in vs. 12 “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. ” What if, for example, when we get to Heaven that God chides us for assuming that Rob Bell was heretic by saying that God has too much love for there to be a hell? What if God says, “Did you really think that I, in my infinite love, could do something so cruel to my children?” Who knows what the truth is here, but we need to seek wisdom through the Spirit since it has been given to us freely rather than assuming we already have all the answers.

Let’s pray that since we have the mind of Christ (as Paul says in vs. 16) that we can use it and get a glimpse of what is truly right. Let us also remember that when we use God-speak on a skeptic they will just hear something like the teacher on Charlie Brown. But if we SHOW them by how we live and DEMONSTRATE the gospel, then they will hear, see, and experience something truly beautiful.

            I have to admit that I have never really been much of a fan of missionary work.  I have no doubt that there are organizations that are doing good and genuinely helping others, but for some reason they do not excite me.  Organizations that bring medicine and health care to impoverished nations are definitely ok in my book, but they do not necessarily have to be missionary oriented or even religion-based to do good.  Imagine a missionary knocking on a door in Iran (as if this would be tolerated) and Ahmed comes to the door to hear how he must be saved by the blood of Jesus.  Do we honestly think that Ahmed would believe this person whom they have never met and declare that his parents and grandparents are liars for telling him that Allah is the way? 

          I think a lot of my cynicism stems from an experience that I had in college.  Our social psychology professor introduced us to a non-profit that would arrange sponsorships for children in third world countries so that they could be fed and clothed.  This sounds all fine and good on the surface and I thought it was too until I heard the catch – the children had to profess a belief in Christ.  I asked the professor to clarify that these children had to decide to believe in Jesus and that even if there were starving children living in the same tent they could not receive any help without professing faith in Christ.  The professor confirmed that this was true AND thought that it was quite alright to have such a system.  I was livid to say the least.

            The primary goal of a missionary is a decision.  Much like the organization that I described above, there is an agenda in place to convince the person being served that he or she should profess a belief in Jesus for the salvation of their immortal soul.  This stems from a view of the Gospel as an individual necessity to believe in and be saved by Jesus or else face the consequences.  As I have mentioned before, I have a hard time seeing the gospel in this light.  For me, the Gospel is what Jesus said it was in Luke 4: good news for the poor, freedom for the captives and the oppressed, and sight for the blind.  These are all acts of compassion done without an agenda merely for the sake of showing love.  This is being missional.

            As our church moves toward becoming a missional church, many may have visions of droves of homeless people wondering our halls or even members of IUCC knocking on doors with tracts trying to convert the community to Christianity so that we can fill our pews on Sundays.  Let me assure you, this is not the vision.  Rather than having an agenda, we want to go in to the community with a purpose – to show love to the community and help those who are in need.  That’s it.  No strings attached.  No starving children going hungry because they do not submit to our teachings.  Rather, we want to live by the example of Jesus and bring hope to the hopeless as we do our part in continuing to write and act out the story that God put in to action so long ago.  We need only to look out our front door to see what God is already doing in our community.  All we have to do is get on board.  Now being missional doesn’t sound so bad, does it?

As I was doing the stair climber at the gym this morning, one hand hanging onto the rail for dear life and the other with Roxburgh’s latest book in hand, a lightbulb went on in the dusty recesses of my mind.  I realized that churches are sometimes like gas stations.  Now, don’t ask me how I made this correlation, but it seems to work.  Imagine a gas station in the desert of Nevada that is old and run down.  It barely sees any business because since the interstate was built decades ago, very little traffic passes by this establishment.  The owner cannot figure out why he is not making any money and so he gets the bright idea to fix the place up.  He figures that if the place is more appealing, then people will surely come.  So, he gets new lighting, a fresh coat of paint, some arcade games inside, a nice clean bathroom, and some spiffy pumps where you can pay without going inside.  

So, what happens?  The same few people who used to come are still the ones who show up.  They are the ones who like to stick with the back roads and don’t like the interstate.  The only difference now is that since paying at the pump is possible, there is less community because few go inside for conversation anymore.  The handful who hate the idea of sliding their credit card in this new-fangled device still go inside, however.  Eventually the man has all but given up and decides to give away his gas.  He finds cars that have broken down or run out of gas along the roads and highways and he stops to help people and bring them gas.  Does he suddenly get a huge influx of business because people see his compassion?  We would like to think so, but maybe not.  He will, however, be able to say that he is doing the right thing and serving those around him.

Sound familiar?  Lately we have been talking about the idea that our view of Christ – who he is/was, what his purpose is/was, etc. influences our view of mission (since we now know that the church IS the mission of God and not that the church has a mission) and subsequently our view of what the church is and should be.  If this is all good and true, then where do we start with the questions?  In other words, if we want to know how to be relevant in the community, questions about the church come LAST, instead of FIRST.  The first question is not, then, “What can we do as a church to get people in the door?”, but instead needs to be “What is God doing in the community that we need to be involved in?”

This brings us to the concept of exegeting the community.  When we read the Bible, we have to interpret the words we read and then apply the meaning to our current context.  For example, washing each others’ feet is not so much the message today as showing humility and hospitality toward one another.  If we are to know what kind of church we need to be for the community, we have to go out into that community, get our feet wet and hands dirty, and find out what our role is.  In many ways we do this at the food pantry and other places.

What are some other ways we can do this?  Feel free to use this blog as an open forum for the missional discussion at IUCC.

In the film The Sixth Sense, Haley Joel Osment said the much-parodied line, “I see dead people.”  Osment was able to see to a level that most people could not.  He could see past the world of the living or that which had been deemed to be real into that of the dead or what actually was real.

As we look around us during our daily routines we come back claiming to have seen people.  But have we really?  If we are being truly honest with ourselves, isn’t it true that what we have actually seen are ideologies – both our own and those of the people we have perceived?  We see a person with a turban and without maybe even wanting to, we think “terrorist”.  We see a heavy-set person and we think “lazy”.  Even without being bigoted, we see people for their clothes, the color of their skin, the car they drive, where they live, what they do, what they believe, etc.  We see a man with a yarmulke and immediately identify him as a Jew.  Yes, it is true that this man is a Jew, but he is first and foremost a person.

When we begin to objectify people we get a feeling of “Us vs. Them” and it becomes more difficult to have compassion and empathy.  When this happens it becomes easier for such atrocities as rape, murder, war, and genocide to occur.  We begin to see people as very difficult from ourselves and become polarized in our identities. 

Those of us coming from Christianity or Judaism see our God as the God of the Israelites, but we often forget that God is the Creator of ALL creation.  We are ALL fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of our Creator.  There is even a passage in a Midrash on the Exodus that says that God scolded the angels for singing while the Egyptian army was being drowned in the Red Sea.  God said, “What has come over you?  My creatures are drowning in the sea and you are singing?”  Let us celebrate our differences, but start seeing each other NOT through the opaque lens of our preconceived notions and ideologies, but rather for that which we ALL have in common – our humanity.

During my jog this morning listening to Krista Tippet’s interview with a cosmologist/theologian I had an ontological discussion with me, myself, and I.  Realizing that there are so many views on the person of Christ, the dimensions of the universe, the Big Bang theory (and other theories of how the universe came into existence), I had to wonder how we know what the truth really is about anything.  It was frustrating in the beginning because one cannot know if what he/she is studying is the accurate account of an event or if the facts being learned are the right ones.  There are always 100 more views, opinions, and theories on a given subject leaving one to wonder what (if anything) is right.

Because I already had this topic in my mind at the time, I became acutely aware of all of the postings of individuals who had joined online groups because they wanted to be with “like-minded” people.  Don’t get me wrong – I understand the attraction of wanting to be with others who agree with you and will not tell you how wrong you are after every word.  However, how can there be any progress on any issue if there is nobody there to play the devil’s advocate or throw some friendly conjectures out as possible alternatives to the generally accepted norm?  Isn’t this how we have made all of our advances – by somebody daring to say that the masses may not, in fact, be right?

After thinking about it for a while, I realized that the “Great minds think alike” quote, if true, would leave us all with only one view of the “truth” and no room for extra discovery.  If Copernicus never would have considered that the world wasn’t flat and that we were in fact in a heliocentric solar system, then we never would have had a reason to study the stars and planets.  It seems that the more accurate quote was uttered by Patton when he said, “If everyone is thinking alike, somebody isn’t thinking.” 

How about a little more courage to put out new ideas and a little more grace in allow others to bring their ideas to the table?  Just a thought . . .

B

There is no doubt that IUCC is a good church.  There are many good people doing many good things for many good people in need.  The questions is then, how do we get to be great?  In his famous books Good to Great and Built to Last author and professor Jim Collins says that any organization that achieves greatness has a purpose.  This purpose is something that will not change regardless of what happens outside of the organization.  This is the organization’s reason for existence.  The next thing that is vital for sucess is a set of core values.  These are “the organization’s essential and enduring tenets, not to be compromised for financial gain or short-term expediency”. 

Keeping these things in mind, we must ask ourselves what our reason for existence is at IUCC?  Do we exist to provide a place of worship for its members?  Perhaps this is one reason to exist, but is it the reason?  This is a question that we will have to answer as a congregation as we move forward and become the church that God wants us to be.

Yesterday, Pastor Tom preached about the impetus of reformation and humanitarianism lying on our own shoulders.  We often find ourselves on our knees (literally or figuratively) asking God to perform a miracle for someone, for ourselves, or even for our congregation.  But what does this really accomplish?  Certainly I do not claim that prayer is worthless.  Not at all!  Scriptures teach us that prayer is important and even that God answers prayers.  But how does he answer prayers?

One of my least favorite statements is “I’ll pray for you.”  If there is action that follows the prayer, then it’s a good thing.  However, if it is as it often is, then it is merely a cop out from having to do anything to help.  We through up a prayer to heaven like an incantation and basically say “Ok, it’s on you Big Guy” and we wash our hands of it.  Prayer should ALWAYS be followed by action to make the prayer be answered.

We have all heard the stories of people who were in a dire financial situation when a check showed up for exactly the right amount to meet their needs.  Has this ever happened to you?  Yeah, me neither.  But let’s think for a minute how such a “miracle” happens.  Someone has a need and they voice it.  They voice it enough times and hit the pavement doing what ever they can to get the need met.  Somebody hears about the situation and either does a fund raiser or writes a check on their own and the need gets met.  Next thing you know there is a check in the mail for exactly the right amount.  Miracle?  Maybe, maybe not.  It’s definitely not magic, but it IS a need being met nonetheless and regardless of being a miracle or not it does not take away from the amazing aspect of being saved from such a situation!

So, what does this have to do with us?  Pastor Tom pointed out an important part of the scripture in the feeding of the 5,000.  When the disciples noticed it was getting late and told Jesus that they should wrap up the presentation because people needed to get home and eat – what did Jesus say?  “Oh yeah, it is getting late, isn’t it?”  “Check this out, I’ll have 10,000 fish jump on shore and we’ll have a barbecue!”  Nope!  He said YOU feed them.  This is where we are as a congregation.  Undoubtedly, most of us are praying for a flood of young families to appear out of nowhere some Sunday morning and stay with us – helping us to meet both financial and attendance needs.  Well, guess what?  Yep, you guessed it – it ain’t gonna happen.  WE have to get up off of our knees and start making those prayers come to fruition.  So, how do we do this?  Stay tuned for the next post – IUCC Vision 2012. 

We CAN become the congregation we want to be.  We just need to dust off our knees and get our hands dirty.

In 1967, two psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania did an experiment to help them understand depression more clearly.  They took some dogs and divided them into three groups.  The first group, they put into harnesses for a period of time and then let them go.  The second and third groups were placed into cages that had electrified grids at the bottom.  There were levers in all of the cages and the dogs in group two could stop the shocks by pressing down on the lever in their cage.  The dogs in group three had levers that did nothing, but the shocks would be stopped by their paired dog in group two when they pushed the lever.  The dogs in group three came to feel that pressing the lever had no meaning and so they just laid on the floor getting shocked and not trying to do anything to stop it. 

Almost a year later, another experiment was done with the dogs in which they were again placed into a cage with an electrified bottom, but this time there was a short wall that they could jump over to get away from the grid.  The dogs in group two immediately escaped the shocking, but the dogs from group three remained and did not even attempt to jump over the partition.  It was later found that humans, in this same way, once feeling that they have no control over a situation become hopeless, despaired, depressed.  This is a condition that has come to be known as learned helplessness.

In John 5 we see another person who is experiencing learned helplessness.  For the past 38 years this paralyzed man has laid on the same mat, or as some translations say – pallet, but either way on this bed looking up at the same sky day after day.  The view is always the same.  Sometimes the sky is blue, sometimes, cloudy, stormy, rainy, snowy, starry, but always the same sky.  I imagine that on that fateful day he was looking up at that sky perhaps watching a cloud as it drifted by considering that it looked like a rabbit or maybe a boat when all of the sudden a man’s bearded face obstructed his view.  The two just looked at each other for a moment and then this stranger said what must have seemed like the dumbest words in all of human history – “Do you want to be well?”  Did he!?  But instead of an emphatic YES!, he says “I can’t sir, for no one will take me to the water.”  I can’t.  It’s hopeless.  I’m helpless.  You may notice that in most translations, verse four is missing.  This verse said that an angel came down and stirred up or troubled the water and the first person in the water after this would be healed.  Jesus undoubtedly knew what this man was thinking and knowing that he couldn’t get past thinking that it was the water that did the healing said “Get up.  Take up your mat and walk.”

Oh the thoughts that must have rushed through this paralyzed man’s head!  “Who is this dusty wanderer?  How dare he tell me to get up?  Doesn’t he know that I’m paralyzed?  He must be some kind of prankster coming through just like everyone else for a good laugh.”  But there must have been something in the face of this stranger with the dusty feet and gentle eyes that made the man say “Maybe.  Just maybe this time will be different.  What’s the worst that could happen?  I’ll try to get up and nothing will happen.  He’ll have a good laugh and be on his way.  It’s not the first time and probably won’t be the last.”  So the man reached out his hand and placed it on the ground to push himself up.  He felt the warm earth and the dust running between his fingers.  Wait, he FELT it!  He hadn’t felt anything for 38 years.  He pushed himself up and stood.  This wasn’t just a lying man getting up.  For 38 years he had been laying in the same position relying on people to move him, to feed him, to bathe him, to clothe him.  Imagine the bed sores this man must have had.  How his skin must have been scabbed and stuck to his clothing.  How his muscles would have been atrophied and expecting them to support his weight would have been like placing a dumbbell on jello and expecting it not to sink.  This time WAS different and for the first time in almost four decades the man was standing and without a word he grabbed his bed and walked away.

It didn’t take him long to run into the religious folks who wasted no time in telling him that he was breaking the law by carrying his mat on the sabbath.  Forget the fact that this is the paralytic that they no doubt passed hundreds or thousands of times on their way to the temple who is now STANDING before them.  Why did he even go to the temple?  Was he going to give thanks?  Was it just the natural thing to do because that’s where everyone hung out?  Did he go their to show off his new legs?  Probably.  I tend to think that he went there to rub it in the face of the religious leaders as if to say “You stepped over me every day as if I was a rock never offering to help me.  Never offering to take me to the water.  And now I stand before you healed and you couldn’t even do it.”   He told the pharisees that the man who healed him told him to carry his mat.  “Who was this man?”, they asked.  NOT who was this man who did this amazing miracle that we should get to know because he could be important.  No, who is this man who commands you to break the law, who dare defy us.  Aren’t these people everywhere?  The people who tell us that we can’t do something.  The people who tell us that what we are dreaming is impossible and that we can never achieve it?  Sometimes it’s just the naysaying voice in our heads that tells us that we are helpless. 

Instead of being able to answer the pharisee’s question, the man said he didn’t know for the healer disappeared into the crowd.  He didn’t know the healer.  It was only after Jesus found the man again and said “What are you doing here?  Don’t you know you’re healed?  Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you” that somehow the man realized that he was Jesus.  Why?  Because the stranger mentioned sinning?  Sinning was linked with physical illness as we see in John 9:2 when the disciples asked about the blind man who sinned – him or his father?  Somehow the man came to understand that this man was Jesus who had healed him although we don’t know how deeply the man understood it – he most likely didn’t develop a strong soteriological grasp.  But what was his sin?  Why did Jesus tell him to stop sinning?  Was it because he was gloating?  Was it because he was talking to the pharisees?  Most likely it was because he didn’t know the healer and because he was going back to the same old patterns.  Don’t we do that?  Keep going back to the same old things even though we have been healed?

What about the mat?  What is it?  What does it represent?  Maybe nothing.  Maybe it’s just that – just a bed.  But I think it represents helplessness.  I think it represents one of the most dangerous things that any of us can have and it’s something that we all have at one point or another – complacency.  Plato once said that “complacency is the refuge of those who have lost the dream.”  Do we still have the dream?  Or have we lost it?  Do we have it individually?  Do we have it corporately?  As a church?  Have the naysayers convinced us that it just can’t be done?  That we can’t write that novel that we always dreamed of writing.  That we can’t start that business that we have always dreamed of starting.  That we can’t quit that habit that we have always dreamed of quitting.  That we can’t become the church that we have always dreamed of becoming.  THAT dream.  Do we still have it?  Or in our complacency have we lost it?  If we are waiting for Jesus to come along besides our mats of complacency and tell us to get up and walk we can just stop now.  Because that’s now where we’re at.  We’re in the temple ground and Jesus is telling us don’t you know that you’re ALREADY healed?  Let’s rise up, pick up our mats, and start walking toward our dreams.  If we’re afraid of failing, of falling flat on our faces,  think about how much worse it would be to look back on life and see that we never tried and consider the words of Teddy Roosevelt:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.