The Kind of Bishop We Need

 

              Since our Bishop announced that she would not be seeking re-election, I’ve been reflecting and praying on that call, both what kind of leader the Synod needs next, and if I might be that leader. I’ve explored my internal sense of call, checked with close friends if they sense an external call upon my life, and reflected on the needs of our Synod. I’ve also paid serious attention to Bishop Bartholomew’s words about the office as she has practiced it and taken some time with the questions in the discernment tool from the Synod as well.

I don’t think it is me. As a leader I am still too reactive, I personalize too much, and default to reflection instead of action; in general, I still have plenty of room to grow and rough edges to tame.

              I do worry that the timing of my growth as a leader and the uncertainties surrounding my heart condition may interact in a way that the office of Bishop will never be my calling. There is certainly a sense of loss in that—I’m a pretty with-it pastor, and believe I could lead well in the church I love—but there is something freeing as well; I’m not Strider or Gandalf, I’m Tom Bombadil or Radagast. Most likely the only thing I’ll ever be the bishop of is whimsy.

              So, freed of all ambition and desiring only the gentle upbuilding of the Kingdom of God and the flourishing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, here is what I believe our Synod needs to look for in a Bishop.

 

They Have a Plan

              As the child of two free spirits and a student of Clausewitz, I know that everything in life is ad libbed and that “no plan survives first contact with the enemy.” That said, having no plan is planning for the status quo and “without vision the people perish.”

              Our next Bishop needs to have a sense of what they would do as Bishop. If their plan begins and ends with “won’t I be a good Bishop” that is a red flag to me. They need to cast a vision and name where they think the Holy Spirit is leading us. Additionally, there will be many congregations closing in the next 6 years; the next Bishop needs to articulate a plan for that!

Here is the vision I developed in my time of discernment; it might be a useful conversation partner for anyone in discernment about the role.

 

They are Sinners and Know the Cross

              Did you know the original quote was not, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” but instead, “The road to hell is paved with the skulls of Bishops.” The office of Word and Sacrament, and the office of the Bishop still more, is a position of leadership where you have to make decisions while publicly struggling against Sin, Death, and the Devil; you make mistakes, and you have to find a way to keep moving. You sin, you fall short in this vocation (and yes, in every other one as well) and cling to God, the God revealed on the cross—no scent of success no pleasant features, only trustworthiness.

              One of the things our current bishop returns to from time to time, and you can tell there are both wounds and scars there, is dealing with misconduct and representing the Synod in court. Having done versions of both within the context of pastoral ministry, I can affirm they lead to sleepless nights and exact a heavy toll. And it is not just your own conscience that assails you, but every naysayer and second guesser comes out of the woodwork and watches and waits to pay you their two cents. There is Anfechtung and tentatio embedded in both of these tasks.

              When I was ordained, Bishop Riley’s sermon included an insistence that part of ministry is finding a way to get to sleep at night; there is always one more task, there is always one more failure that won’t stop bothering you. For me, I keep on keeping on by praying every morning that God would make me faithful and thanking God every evening that Christ is faithful.

              So, what does this mean practically, as we choose a new Bishop? Anyone who peddles and promises success upon success or can’t answer the question: “Name a time in ministry when you’ve failed, and what you did next?” Anyone who lacks a firm faith rooted in the forgiveness found every time we return to the font, or blames someone else when criticism comes their way, is not fit for the office.

             

They Understand the Challenge

              George Orwell famously wrote, “To see what’s right in front of your eyes takes a constant struggle.” I hope and pray our next Bishop will be in that struggle, seeing the challenges of today clearly. Ours is a time of crisis, and has been for years. Our next Bishop needs an existential understanding of the day-to-day challenges of parish ministry, both the mundane and the profound. Our next Bishop needs to be able to focus on that which matters most and navigate the waters in which we do ministry.

              At least for me, my conceptual framework, the 4Ds, do that. There is both the single needful thing—our ability to trust in God at all, and the context in which we do that, one that is dispersed, diverse, and disestablished. We don’t need a 4D Bishop, but we do need one who equips the Synod to navigate the world as it is, and one who never loses sight of our work, the proclamation of the Gospel.

 

They Feel the Oddness of Syn-od

              There is an often unspoken tension within one of our Synod’s core values, interdependence. So too a tension in the very nature of Synod (the etymology of which is odd people next to each other, right?… oh no, sorry, it’s accompanying along the way…). I hope that the next bishop has a heart torn with that tension, the tension of the ELCA’s three expressions. In fact, I hope the whole Bishop’s office publicly wrestles with their role as the bridge between the local and national church, while still being their own unique expression.

              Having seen that tension up close on Synod Council, as a District Dean, Cluster Counselor, and Vice Pastor, I hope a new balance can be struck; I hope the Bishop will woo local congregations near and far from the Synod office into a posture of deeper relationship and responsibility toward the larger church. I hope she or he brings the best of Churchwide to the congregational level, and that their Assistants foster fresh collaboration among congregations and Synod. I hope we can continue to walk together meeting Jesus along the way, the Synod office equipping congregations as only they can, while caring for the whole, upbuilding and bringing together for the sake of the ministry.

              So much of this will only occur if the whole Synod, both office and congregations, are committed to doing the work that makes for healthy, functioning, congregations. There are so many tasks, so many good tasks, required of us, but if we aren’t equipping congregations to do the basics that are foundational to doing complex ministries, we will become a few endowed and flagship congregations attached to a middle judicatory, which is not the same as a Synod. This sort of work is not inspirational, but it is necessary.

 

They Reflect and they Act

              Finally, the next bishop needs to both act and reflect, and then act again. They need to regularly enter into the Hermeneutical Circle in which ideas become concrete, and then those concrete actions lead to deeper thoughts, which in turn lead to new creative acts. They can neither be captured by ideas to the point of immobility, nor can they rely on the manic heat of hyperactivity to “flood the zone” or be a substitute for well thought through actions. We need someone who is comfortable both on the dance floor and the balcony above seeing the big picture.

They need to be a questioner—asking second and third level question… “What then? What then? What then?” Following, like a bloodhound, the logical likely outcomes, and consequences, always aware of the probabilities that they have missed something along the way.

In short, we need the amalgamation of a monk and a scientist, someone who will model for all of us, the whole Synod, a method for becoming something new.

 

Conclusion:

              In conclusion, I hope that our next bishop: has a plan, is comfortable with failure and clear eyed about the challenges of ministry today, is infectiously collaborative and can seed an attitude of experimentation throughout the Synod. Come Holy Spirit Come!

A six-year vision for the Synod

 

                  I believe the most faithful way to be the Church these days is to take the 4Ds seriously by leaning into any ministry that: creates partnerships, encourages nimble action, reflects authentic diversity, and re-enchants the Church. In fact, as we prepare to elect a Bishop of the New Jersey Synod, I see that as an opportunity for a 6-year experiment for the sake of the wider church; it would be six years intentionally wrestling, taming, and coming to terms with: Disestablishment, Decentralization, Demographic Shift, and Disenchantment.

Closures:

                  One of the places the Synod can make a big difference, and encourage nimble behaviors, is at the point of a congregation’s closure. The Synod would encourage closing congregations to designate a local tithe and a vision tithe to the Synod.

The local tithe would stay within the Cluster or District to encourage grass root ministry exploration. This “walking around money” would empower Cluster Counselors to lead new mission. As it stands, when clusters meet to decide who will be the new Counselor it is a game of “not it!”. If there was some economic power behind the office, the more missional and innovative clergy would rise to the challenge, the title would no longer elicit the gag reflex, but instead a hunger to share the Gospel.

The Vision Tithe would be money that would leave the local context and empower the larger whole. It would be spent based on the Synod Council’s top-down vision.

Staffing:

                  There is a tension in staffing between geography and specialization. As I envision things, when it comes to congregational care staffing would be geographic, but when it comes to specialization Bishop’s Assistants would focus on one of the 4Ds.

                  There would be a Bishop’s Assistant caring for Northeast Jersey, one for Southwest Jersey, and one for the Jersey Core (Yes, Virginia, Central Jersey does exist). District Deans and Cluster Counselors would regularly meet with said staff members to coordinate, plot, and plan—a nimbleness that can make for good trouble.

                  At the same time, these Assistants would also have specializations. I envision these specializations as acts of caring.

The Assistant to the Bishop focused on Demographic Shift would be the A2B who Cares for Our Diversity, the Advocate for our Edges. They would shepherd intergenerational and Multicultural ministries. They would be a collector of Best Practices—not only contemporary but also remembering what came before, both to honor the past and notice when present situations rhyme with the historical.

The Assistant to the Bishop focused on Decentralization would be the A2B who Cares for Relationships, the Experiment Encourager. They would guide the internet ministries of the Synod and assist congregations with their web presence. They would host regular Dinner Churches around the Synod, as well as our fellowship events.

                  The Assistant to the Bishop focused on Disestablishment would be the A2B who Cares for our Partnerships, the Partner Liaison. They would be the Liaison for the Synod with Partners for Sacred Places (or the developer of a similar organization in the state). They would organize Synod wide service events, and be in charge of stewardship grants.

                  The Bishop would focus on Disenchantment. They would care for souls, and shepherd the 4D vision, so it doesn’t get lost in the administrative conflagrations that is: putting out fires, slurries of meetings, and untold amounts of travel. They would organize and lead Bible Study and Prayer meetings throughout the Synod. Additionally, they would listen to hear the indigenous wisdom of this Synod. This would include doing extensive group retirement interviews to glean wisdom from retiring pastors, and in so doing short circuit some retired-pastor bad behavior that often has the flavor of Ecclesiastes sprinkled on it.

                  Speaking of administrative conflagrations, the final piece of the puzzle as I see it is a staff person, or persons, focused on Care of Institutions. A Master Organizer watching over pulpit supply, candidacy, and first call theological education.

 

Synod Wide Focuses for Each Year:

                  Each year the Synod Office would encourage every congregation to take one step together. The steps might seem fairly small, but there is a powerful intentionality behind each one. Each step is either a step that is reflective and internal or an action that is focused on the external. Actions inform reflection and reflection in turn informs future actions. A clear sense of congregational identity allows for healthy cooperation and connection making in the neighborhood and community, which in turn reshapes the congregational identity.

This type of intentional work would, in six years, remake the identity of every congregation in the New Jersey Synod, and just as all the parts and players are different, so too the Synod itself.

 

The Six Years

Year 1 (Reflection):

                  The Bishop would lead the year one step; this would increase their exposure to the less Synod aware members. The Synod would encourage and equip every congregation to clean their rolls and hold internal conversations about the faith.

Year 2 (Action):

                  The Assistant to the Bishop for Our Edges would lead the year two step. The Synod would encourage and equip every congregation to have 135 God Conversations with their neighbors.

Year 3 (Reflection):

                  The Assistant to the Bishop for Partnership would lead the year three step. The Synod would encourage and equip every congregation to write, renew or review their mission statement.

Year 4 (Action):

                  The Assistant to the Bishop for Experimentation would lead the year four step. The Synod would encourage and equip every congregation to perform one Holy Experiment.

Year 5 (Reflection):

                  The Bishop would lead the year five step. The Synod would encourage and equip every congregation to look back on their last five years and share and celebrate the highlights with each other, their community, and the Synod.

Year 6 (Action):

                  The entire Bishop’s staff would work on its final year—it would be an all hands on deck year. The staff would comb through congregational highlights and help to seed and share, repeat and reproduce success stories throughout the Synod.

Roving Synod Events:

                  With the assumption that decentralized gatherings ought to be encouraged, the Synod would regularly host Fellowship Gatherings, Dinner Church, Prayer Gatherings, Bible Studies, and Service Events throughout the state. There would also be a yearly remembrance of Ordination vows.

Jeremiah’s Hopeful Field, a Monologue

               I’ve been Jeremiah’s scribe for many years now… I’ve seen him do some strange things—sign prophecy it’s called…

Once he threw fresh underwear into a stream and left them there until they got moldy and disgusting, then he marched them around telling the people that they were just like moldy underwear…
More recently, he shackled himself to a yoke and wandered the streets warning everyone to shackle themselves to the Babylonian yolk or face God’s wrath…

              Honestly, he almost lost me with that one. After all, the Babylonians are vile pagans. Their empire is an attempt to overawe and overpower so many peoples, including us. We don’t want to send tribute to them, or affirm their chaotic gods as akin to the one true God…
They were besieging us, the enemy was at the gate and Jeremiah was out there blubbering about the Babylonian yolk—it was treasonous…
prophets…
so often their words sound like treason, because they love only God…

              After that sign prophecy—the yoke, I almost called it quits. If I’m his scribe and lawyer, the prophet Jeremiah’s right-hand man, I am complicit in his seditious behavior. The enemy was at the gate and I was siding with them! I looked like a Babylonian lackey!

Maybe my parents were right, I thought, maybe Jeremiah is a bad influence, maybe I would meet a bad end because of him.

              But then, then he called for me, he needed a lawyer to make something nice and legal; a land deal as it became clear that the land was no longer ours
—buying and selling property at a time when it was obvious all property was going to belong to the invaders…
such prophetic audacity drew me in, I would be his lawyer again,
I would write down his words, come what may!

              He did the right thing, redeeming his relatives property, even at a time when it was hopeless and the property was worthless.

              He did the right thing, and it became something more, a sign! A message from God!

“God says “Take these deeds, both sealed and open, and put them in earthenware jars, so that they’ll last a good while, for thus says the LORD, the House and Fields and Vineyards shall again be bought in this land.”

              In the face of famine, in the face of the largest nation in the world crushing the coalition we were part of, overcoming our armies, occupying our land, and pressed hard against the capital city’s very walls and gates.

              In the face of Jeremiah’s own prophecies, “doom doom doom!”

              In the face of immense evil, a couple of legal documents, sealed in a jar, buried in the back yard.

              A small thing that proclaimed God’s Word:
“All is going to go to hell, but have hope!
“I will bring them back to this place and I will settle them in safety!
I brought disaster, so I will later bring good fortune!
Fields shall be bought in this land and deeds signed and sealed again, for God is the restorer of fortunes!”

Amen.

Help Local Food Pantries, Contact Congress

               Dear readers, our local food pantry, the North Hunterdon Food Pantry, recently received some bad news. Due to severe cuts in funding of the USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation we will lose access to low-cost meats and cheeses. Additionally, cuts to the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program, will mean we will lose access to fresh fruits and vegetables come October.

              We make sure 30 families, 25+ kids, a little over 100 people all told, make it to the end of the month without going hungry. We won’t stop doing that, but these cuts make our mission all the harder, and our offerings all the more meager.

              I imagine our little pantry isn’t the only one being hit by these changes. Over 45 million Americans are food insecure, their struggles have just gotten worse. Being poor in America just got harder.

              Please contact your representative and ask them to restore funding to the USDA’s “The Emergency Food Assistance Program Commodity Credit Corporation” and freeze cuts to the “Local Food Purchase Assistance Program.”

              Please check with your local food pantry or bank to see what you can do to help; find out what their immediate needs are, as well as what the staple foods in your community are. If you’re a hunter, connect with local hunters against hunger type group, if you are a farmer or gardener find your local gleaning network.

Life is Fragile: A Reflection on Moving Quickly and Breaking Things

 Chesterton’s Fence

              G. K. Chesterton famously described good reform as a long period of reflection prior to action. If you come to a fence that is of no use to you, don’t break it down, instead figure out why it is there in the first place, and only then make a decision about whether it should be torn down or not.

              A pretty simple concept, but one that is the backstop for most conservativism. “Conserve the fence, you fast paced and foolish liberals! Understand the fence’s function, before you start doing something new with it. Make sure you know the root of the thing before you root it out.”

              Chesterton’s idea is why I would encourage any pastor at a new call to listen for about a year, before making substantial changes to how the congregation functions. Write down every “new” idea you have for the community but go a full liturgical year and see if that new thing is done in some other way, so that you don’t accidently replace a good and functional thing with a half thought out change. Your mere presence as the new pastor will likely be enough change for the congregation without imposing a bunch of new stuff right out of the gate.

              I bring all this up, because it seems like in our political life today, the traditionally conservative party is not taking a beat, in order to see how our country’s fences function; they are not being conservative.

 

The Fence is Already Trampled

              Now, to be fair to the so-called conservatives, they maintain that the fence has already been trampled down, and they have to do radical atypical things to right the ship. Essentially, in a crisis actions, not reflection, is the priority.

              So, to use the pastor new to a congregation example again. A global health crisis occurred as I became the pastor at my current call. That meant I had to move fast and make decisions without the level of reflection or deference to history that I would have sans crisis. The fence was already toppled by external pressures, and I simply did what I could to restore and maintain some sort of equilibrium.

              The Republicans are making the same claim: there is a crisis that require action without reflection to restore and maintain an equilibrium. My concern about this is two-fold: 1. What is the actual crisis? 2. What is the equilibrium we are shooting for?

Multitudinous crises:

For some the crisis is abortion; Roe v. Wade has normalized a “genocide state” and extreme measures are required to end the slaughter of the unborn, even if it means a bunch of women will be denied healthcare—abortion and not—and some of them will die or become disabled by childbirth.

For others the crisis is immigration; illegal immigration is too high, asylum laws are too loose, and the countries of origin of legal immigrants are "undesirable." Often times, attached to this are worries about the flow of illegal drugs.

For still others, the crisis is DEI; in some ways, concerns about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion are parallel to the first two crises. Women having full bodily autonomy, including access to abortion, and immigrants coming from non-European countries, shifts culture; it changes how things get done in our country. For some Republicans that shift is a grave threat, instead of a vitalizing dynamic; cultural discomfort is an existential threat.

For others, the crisis is one of lost dynamism; America has lost “The Hop.” We don’t manufacture things here and a country centered around service and government jobs stifles adaptation and innovation. Red tape makes building new houses complicated and unaffordable, and there are fewer paths for working class folk to get ahead.

What is the preferred equilibrium? When is “Again”?

              The big unanswered question of Trumpism is when is the “Again” in “Make America Great Again.” Personally, I think that’s the point, it is open ended. It is a Rorschach test of the same caliber as Obama’s progressive, “Yes We Can” … can what? The “Again” is the spot we project all our hopes and dreams.

              Now, my own “Again” would be the immediate post-Cold War period up until 9-11. It was the time when the whole world celebrated the triumph of capitalism, and every culture and idea was welcome to join the marketplace of ideas. It was a period of time when anything was possible, the entire world could address major problems without the fracturing ideological lens of the Cold War, likewise, America could make geopolitical decisions that were right, instead of decisions that would simply counter communist activity… America was great then: we defeated and redeemed the Evil Empire through culturally adept soft power and Saddam through technologically sophisticated hard power, the president played a saxophone, we took concrete steps to protect the environment, the personal computer and internet were popularized, the stock market did nothing but go up, and even Russia wanted to join Nato!

To be clear, this is my incredibly rose-colored glasses version of the 90s and early 2000s, but that’s the vibes I’d project onto Trump’s “Again” if my politics was primarily backwards looking instead of forward looking.

              So, I wonder, what is the equilibrium point Trump voters are hoping for? Perhaps…
-For the anti-abortionists it is the Pre-Roe 1970s?
-Or for the anti-immigration folks the pre-Immigration and Nationality Act 1960s?
-Or the people who miss “The Hop” the post-World War 2 boom times of the 1950s?
-Or judging by the tariffs and a policy of annexing Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal, the 1890s?

              That said, I’ve heard some pretty out there and ahistorical “Agains” from my fellow millennials, not to mention people younger than me:
-We’re going back to the 1050s, before the great Schism between Eastern and Western Christianity; an Evangelical-Russian Orthodox cultural alliance will return us to greatness, that’s why we are siding with Putin!
-We’re going back to the 1450s, before the fall of Constantinople and along with it the “Roman” cultural ideal: hierarchy, agrarianism, and family!
-We’re going back to the 1550s, say the “Theo-bros” who hope to restore that brief period when John Calvin set up a Theocracy in Geneva.

              For that matter, and in the most extreme, you have folks like Steve Bannon, looking to a Europe oriented toward a traditionalist Vatican and a “Christian” Emperor. Bannon is publicly feuding with another end of the "conservative" spectrum, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, who hope to build a “techno-feudalist” future. And then we have Richard Spencer of Unite the Right who, in his podcasts, cite Far Future Science Fiction as his “Again,” particularly the tabletop game Warhammer 40K and the Dune books, both of which are centered around a “God-Emperor.”

The Fences we’ve Destroyed

And all of this brings me to the fences being trampled. There are, of course, all the big ones making headlines: the Department of Education and USAID shoved in a corner to be ignored, intentionally cruel mass firings of federal employees, overturning world trade without a plan, attacks on judges and the rule of law, non-profits being insulted, defunded, and undermined, and hairdressers and students being snatched up off the streets, bound for God help them. But those might seem a little abstract, and a little too far off. So, here are three examples I’ve personally come across recently that highlight how fragile life is, and how tearing down fences have real consequences and costs to them.

I have peers doing the squish generation thing—caring for both their kids and their elderly parents—who have lost their jobs as part of the firing of federal employees. This isn’t just devastating for them, but for their extended family! Sure, they will likely get their job back in 6 months to a year, along with backpay, once everything works its way through the courts, but you can’t pay mortgages or medical expenses with IOUs!

              Due to severe cuts in funding of the USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation, as well as the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program, our local pantry will lose access to low-cost meats and cheeses, and in a few months’ time fresh produce as well. We make sure 30 families, 25+ kids, a little over 100 people all told, make it to the end of the month without going hungry. These cuts make our mission all the harder, and our offerings all the more meager.

              I have a colleague who had discerned it was time to retire. He’d put in his paperwork and he and his wife were starting to make plans for their next phase of life. Then the stock market bottomed out. He’s back in and plans to stick things out for the foreseeable future.

              Life is fragile enough without someone taking a metaphorical baseball bat to it.
It is hard enough to discern that God is calling you to a retired life, having that taken away…
Being food insecure, and then having your source of fresh fruits and vegetables, meat and cheese for your kids, reduced or eliminated…
Being simultaneously pulled and sandwiched by your parents and your child, and faithfully making it all work, then to lose your ability to provide for any of them…

 

Ends and Means

              I wonder, if the goal is ending abortion, why is the administration going out of their way to attack Lutheran and Catholic institutions that care for orphans and walk families through adoptions? I wonder, if the goal is tightly regulating immigration, why did candidate Trump and then Senator Marco Rubio torpedo bi-partisan immigration reform over and over again, since at least 2013?

I wonder if we really want to go back to the 1960s? As much as corporate DEI stuff can be ham fisted, wasn’t segregation and women not being allowed to have credit cards of their own legitimately awful in retrospect? I wonder, wasn’t the CHIPS Act and the Infrastructure Bill an attempt to re-create the manufacturing dynamism of the 1950s for the 2020s?

My worry is that we’re not asking retirees to suffer for a bit, so that the traditional family can flourish. My worry is that we’re not hurting federal employees and their families, so that we secure our border and limit DEI. My worry is that we’re not asking the poor to tighten their belts even more, so that good jobs and plenty are on the way.

              My worry is that the odder “Agains”: theocracy or techno feudalism, God Emperors or European style monarchy, are the ends for which this fence breaking is occurring. We’re hurting people in the name of speculative fiction! The passing fancies of the rich and the violent are being masked with more mundane concerns.

My worry is that we’re hurting people as an end unto itself. We’re hurting people to assert power.

My worry, ultimately, is that singularly beautiful and fragile lives are being damaged for no good reason, and we’re justifying means for mean ends.

That fence is someone’s golden years, that fence makes a family whole, that fence keeps poor folks fed. Take a moment to consider the fence, it is worthy of our time and our care.

The 4 Ds and My Congregation

               I’ve been casting a vision for quite a while now, blog posts pointing to a single premise:

I believe the most faithful way to be the Church these days is to take the 4Ds seriously by leaning into any ministry that: creates partnerships, encourages nimble action, reflects authentic diversity, and re-enchants the Church.

                  Okay, you say, visions are great, Chris, but give me some tools to take home to my congregation. How could a congregation catch this vision, actually and actively engage with it beyond reading blog posts on the internet?

A Bible Study:

A good way to internalize what I’m saying may be to listen to my vision next to the sacred vision of scripture. Here is a 5 session Bible Study that builds a bit of scriptural scaffolding for engaging with the world as it is.

Find Partners for your Space:

              In a disestablished world, where Boy Scouts and AA groups aren’t beating down your door to use your space and other do-gooders in the area don’t automatically think of the Church as a place where good might be done, how do you find partners. Here is a 12-step process to find partners for your space.

Cure your Lutheran Laryngitis:

                  As we minister in a society that aches for the God who is just beyond our peripheral vision, it is good to have God conversations. If the Acts of the Apostles is right, the Spirit is always working just beyond the Church’s furthest step. Listening to what our neighbors are seeing God doing is enlightening, can draw us into ongoing engaging conversations and dialogue, relationship, and can call us along the way, so we can more fully be people of the Way.

Discover your Congregational Wisdom:

                  One of the best things I’ve done at my congregation recently has been Listening Wisdom into Existence. Walking through the Wisdom books of the Bible and asking their questions of our own experience. Since then I offered the process as a five week Lenten study; two colleagues picked it up and ran with it, and I’m so impressed with what I’ve seen from it so far! I’m going to do another round of passing the study on to colleagues, and if it goes well, try to write something up share with the wider Church.

Smaller Actions and Questions:

-Have you done a Dinner Church? Are any of your Learning Opportunities done off site, to give them more porous borders and invite in the public?

-How are you using Social Media? Zoom? Filming the service? Is it to ensure your ministries are accessible, or done as an obligation? Is it duty or delight? We dove into all those things in the midst of an awful crisis, now that we can take a beat, how can we look at them critically?

-What are the physical bounds of your congregation? (If you are having a hard time conceptualizing this, here are two examples: Jesus’ bounds was a 13-mile by 7-mile area around the Sea of Galilee. Mine runs up and down US Route 31.) Who lives there? Does your congregation look like its neighbors? If so, how’d that happen? If not, why not? How can you be church to those in your bounds? What is the Spirit already doing within the bounds of your congregation?

Sermon: What an Odd Meal!

 It’s easy to gloss over the story John tells,

to rush passed details to get to the Maundy of Maundy Thursday
—the Mandate, the Command,
the Law—the Law of Love!
“I give you a new commandment,
love one another just as I have loved you,
so that they shall know that you are my disciples.”

          But, if we tarry for a time,
take in some details,
we’ll notice just how strange the whole thing is
—what an odd meal…

Prayer

 

On several occasions I’ve had the privilege of participating in Passover
—sitting down to a Seder meal with Jewish neighbors and friends.
One such meal sticks out in my mind…

 

I was in Jerusalem with an Israeli scholar-friend one Passover,
and got to join him and some of his college buddies in a somewhat impromptu Seder.

-We met at a public park in Jerusalem …
it wasn’t entirely clear to me that it was open…

-the Haggadah—the order of service,
instead of using Hebrew Scripture,
used quotes from the poet Rilke,

-midway through the meal,
someone antagonized me about why we Christians scrubbed all the Jewish names from the New Testament
(you know Miriam becomes Mary,
Yeshua HaMeshiak becomes Jesus Christ,
Shimon becomes Peter)

-and finally, an argument broke out about how to end the service…
is it appropriate to say,
“Next year in Jerusalem”
or not…
especially when you’re literally in Jerusalem.

I kinda stumbled out of the whole thing thinking,
 “What a weird meal!”
What just happened?
Well, that was odd!

And I imagine the Disciples had a similar experience,
at the end of the last supper…
what an odd meal.

 

The meal is a pre-emptive Passover meal
—at least in John’s Gospel
—because for John, Jesus has to die as the Passover Lambs are slaughtered
—because he is the Lamb of God who takes away the Sin of the Whole World…

So, this meal is Passover, and not Passover,
Different, but the same.
It has a flavor of the event, but is its own event.
There is an order to Passover—but this thing,
there isn’t a familiar beat to it
—its something else,
uncomfortably so.

Uncomfortable too,
the blossoming betrayal building
—Judas seated there with the other disciples
—deceptive in his partaking of this meal
—or maybe like the Pre-Passover, it is a pre-deceit,
a horrible experience, like that moment before a fall,
when you feel the ground give way,
when your sense of balance shouts out, “Oh no!”

 

And halfway through the meal,
the Host, the Teacher, the Lord,
he strips and kneels and takes the form of a slave
—washing his guest’s, student’s, disciple’s feet.

Disgusting insists Peter.
Not you! My Lord, My Teacher!
Not you!

And after a back and forth
—Peter does what he always does
—He’s all out
Or he’s all in.

Remember, he’s the Disciple who throws himself off the boat while still clothed,

He stands on the waves and then he sinks.
“Never wash me,
wash me to my core!”

No half measures, no middle ground, with this man! All in or all out!

The meal, then interrupted by the host’s accusation,
“One of you is not clean!
One of you will betray me.”
Followed by Judas’ awful exit.

Then a farewell, by the host
—my children, my little ones,
where I go, you can not come.
As you have leaned on one another’s sides this meal,
now I shall go to lean on my father’s side
—abiding with God,
so that there shall be abiding places for us all.

As I leave, I give you a mandate, a command,
the Law of how to live together without me present as I have been:
“I give you a new commandment,
love one another just as I have loved you,
so that they shall know that you are my disciples.”

 

Especially with the disastrous and divine events yet to unfold
—the awful Passion of Good Friday,
I imagine they stumbled out of the upper room saying,
“What a weird meal!”
“What just happened?”
“Well, that was kind of odd!”

And it is in that mess:
the ambiguous goodbyes, the betrayals, the overwrought extra,
the surprise and discomfort and disorder
—in that wild mix that is the Body of Christ
—that love holds it all together.

 

Love,
not an option, but a command
—not as we ought, but as we are able

Love,
not a means to an end, but the end itself!
not an abstraction, but the very muck of community.

Love,
not ours to command or conjure, but because of him! Because of Jesus!
not from our lifeblood, to pour out like an empty cup,
but because Jesus abides with us
and has brought to us abundant life!

This love! His Love! This Love is commanded is the Love first given; this is the Love of Jesus!

Thanks be to God! Amen.

A rephrasing of St. John Chrysostom's Paschal Homily

         Are any of you devout and God-loving? Then enjoy this fair and radiant triumph.

        Are any of you good and wise servants? Then enter into our Lord’s joy with rejoicing of your own!

        Are any of you wearied from your Lenten fast? If so, receive now your reward!

 

        If any of you labored from the first hour, receive your just payment.

        If you arrived at the third hour, now is the Thankful Feast!

        If you got here at the sixth hour, in no way be doubtful, for in no way will you suffer loss.

        If you were delayed even to the 9^th hour, come on close, neither doubt nor fear a single thing!

        If you tarried until the 11^th hour, don’t let your lateness make you fearful; the Honorable Master receives the last just like the first!

        He gives rest and restoration to the one who comes at the 11^th hour, as well as the laborer who was here since the first hour. He is merciful to the last and pleased by the first! To one he gives, to the other he bestows; He receives work and welcomes intention. He both honors the deed and praises the offering!

 

        Therefore, all y’all enter into the Lord’s joy! 1^st and 2^nd both receive your reward! Rich and Poor, exult together!

 

        You sober and you slothful—honor this day!

        You that kept the fast and you that… well… didn’t… both of you, be glad!

        Look, the table is bows inward with its bounty—delight in it everyone!        The calf is fatted, let no one go hungry.

Let’s all enjoy the feast of faith; the riches of goodness, receive them as a gift.

Let no one anywhere bewail their poverty, for the universal Kingdom is revealed!

Let no one weep for their transgressions, for forgiveness dawned from the tomb!

Let no one fear death, for the death of our Savior has set us free. It smothered him, and he descended into Hades, and now Hades is his prisoner of war!

It tore into his flesh for a taste, and oh it was bitter!

It’s like Isaiah said, when he cried: "Hades was embittered when it encountered him below."

It was embittered, for it was abolished.

It was embittered, for it was mocked.

It was embittered, for it was slain.

It was embittered, for it was overthrown.

It was embittered, for it was fettered.

It received a body and encountered God.

It received earth and met heaven.

It received that which it saw and fell to what it did not see.

O death, where is thy sting? O hades, where is thy victory?

Christ is risen, and thou art cast down.

Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen.

Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice.

Christ is risen, and life flourisheth.

Christ is risen, and there is none dead in the tombs.

For Christ, being risen from the dead, is become the first-fruits of them that have fallen asleep. To Him be glory and dominion unto the ages of ages. Amen.

A Paschal Homily for All who Seek the Living Among the Dead

“They came to the tomb.” Mary and some other women, came to clean and care for the body of their beloved teacher and friend, Jesus.

They entered the empty tomb, and they did not find the body.

When you try to grasp this scene with your sacred imagination, what is it like?
-Is it sunny, or still dark?
-The spice, can you smell it? Has the scent seeped out of its container?
-How many women are at the tomb?

Dr. Barbara Lundblad, who presented at the New Jersey Synod’s Ministerium Day this year, speculated that we know of 12 women in Luke’s Gospel who were in Jerusalem at the time of his crucifixion and resurrection.
4 Marys,
Joanna, Susanna, Martha,
as well as 5 unnamed women.

These women—between 2 and 12 of ‘em—they were confronted with:
shimmering people
—terrifying angels
—Heavenly messengers,
who ask, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”
And then the women are instructed to remember.

Prayer

                Mother Mary, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

Remember! That song you sang that scattered the proud of heart, toppled thrones, lifted up the lowly, and filled the empty with good things!
What tasks your son was set apart to do!

 

Residents of Nain: Unnamed Widow and woman called “Sinner” “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

Remember! That strange meeting
—mourning your only son, meeting God’s only Son.
He was moved in the guts—moved with compassion
—and that son of yours once lost, alive again!
You cried out, “God has come to help his people!”

Remember! That deep kindness you offered to Jesus
—perfume and tears, anointing him with kisses
—just like now… again…
but this time anointing him for burial.

But the religious leaders named you sinner,
and acted as if associating with you was a mark against Jesus
—but he named it all as hospitality! Love! Forgiveness! Faithfulness!

 

Jairus’ daughter and woman with the flow of blood—“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

Remember! Your father’s pleading, “my only child! Save her!”
“Be not afraid! Trust!
Talitha Kumi—Child get up!”

Remember! Being healed and then being noticed.
Noticed, not stigmatized for that miserable flow of blood.
Declared Daughter! Your faith was named and uplifted!

 

Mary and Martha, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

Remember! Serving Jesus. Sitting at Jesus’ feet!
Drawn to the one necessary thing
—his presence.

 

Dear woman, bent over for over 18 long years, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

Remember! He freed you from bondage, that Holy day!
He declared the Sabbath as a day of liberation!
He straightened your back up
and you praised God!

 

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?” Remember!

                If it seems an idle tale, a delirious testimony—Remember!
Remember that Jesus draws us to him, is present with us, calls us Children of God!
Remember that Jesus Makes us faithful and allows us to praise God!

                If you are amazed or terrified—Remember!
Remember Jesus’ compassion and liberation!
Remember that Jesus uplifts and gives life!

                If you are wondering or perplexed—Remember!
Remember that Jesus is our salvation and forgiveness!
Remember
—On the Third Day He Shall Rise Again!

               

Night bows to the Easter dawn,
and the first fruits of a new creation wake!

The burial perfume can not be held in that small tomb
—it spills out and things have never been the same
—heaven is loose,
and humanity is forever stained by the sacred!

The witnesses,
be there 2 or 12 or multitudes upon multitudes
—these Gospel Bearers,
they testify,
“The Grave tried to tie him up,
but the Grave alone stayed bound.”
“Bitter Death snarled and snapped at him,
but could only grind its teeth in despair.”

“O death, where is thy sting?
O hades, where is thy victory?”

“Christ has triumphed!
He is living!
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!”

Sermon: The Ache

                If you’ve spent a bit of time with me,
asked me questions about where the Church is going,
you’re aware that I think very highly of Richard Beck,
a psychologist and prison chaplain who spends a lot of time thinking about secular habits
—or disenchantment as he calls it.

                He uses the example of the Selective Attention Test to get to the heart of the matter.
Participants watch a video of people passing a ball to each other, and are told to be ready to write down who has the ball at the end of the video.
What they don’t know, is that a man in a gorilla suit is going to walk through the game of catch…
and because the observers are so focused on the ball, most people never notice the gorilla. So too, Beck says, modern people
—the day-to-day habits we have, mask our ability to notice God in the world.
We’ve traded meaningful things for measurable things
and the mystical for moral.

                That’s why we mark:
God Conversations,
Praying for People,
 and now Invitations to Church, with marbles…
it helps us notice the gorilla in the room…
it helps us move beyond the “Secular Frame”
and see a bit of what is going on outside the picture,
outside the box…

                And the thing about Beck’s framing of all this, is that it isn’t “vile secularists” out “there” trashing the faith or something like that,
instead it is Christians who don’t believe our own story!

                In addition to marking God moments,
one of the ways we can express and experience and share our faith in our secular world is to name “The Ache.”
The smallness of measuring without meaning,
and morality without the mystical…
the loss of Beauty and friendship,
poetry and prayer,
reflection and gratitude
—that all are part of the secular package.

The Ache
—not only an experience of our present moment,
but in every age,
every human way of life,
has its own ache…
-In Jesus’ day, “I believe… help my unbelief.”
-In Augustine’s, “We are restless until we rest in you.”
In Shakespeare’s, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

                The Ache causes us to whisper plaintively, “Imagine… I wonder… what if?”

Prayer

 

                The ache broke out in Isaiah’s soul…
serving at the pleasure of princes and tyrants,
captured there in Babylon.
Imprisoned, snatched from home, hopeless…

                The Ache broke out and asked, “What if?”

                What if that story of the exodus from Egypt
—Moses’ movement through the desert to the promised land…
what if it means something now?

-What if a return is possible?

-What if Nourishment is normal,

-What if thirst can be slaked, even in the desert… even as you return!

                Imagine, a road in the desert
—a highway hastening our return!
Imagine unkosher animals
—jackals and ostriches
—ostentatiously greeting our return!

 Imagine…
The former things
—this generation’s captivity
—forgotten, overcome!

                I wonder if God…

I wonder if God has a future for us!
Yes, our way of being the people of God is dying, but look!

What if God is doing a new thing!
What if God is the one who makes all things new!

 

                The ache broke out differently for Paul, the author the Philippians letter…
his was an ache of fullness,
of having something!
That can hurt too, can’t it?

                The Ache broke out and asked, “What if?”

                What if you lost it all?
That’s the tragic question that prods so many of our decisions
—especially the bad ones, right?
Its why we buy insurance,
on our cars and health and homes and appliances, and even our life. “What if I lost it all?” Insurance, an assurance that we won’t be left with nothing!
An assurance that at least some of what we lose with be retained.

                But imagine, if there was something…
something more,
something greater than the mystery of one’s birth,
the zeal of one’s convictions,
greater than the violence with which we defend ourselves…

                I wonder what would make giving it all up
—every last thing
—transformative
loosing it all
—a triumph, not a tragedy?

I wonder, would I then press on,
keep going through suffering…
in the face of this decaying world
—trusting that a new creation is possible,
is coming to birth?

                What if it is not a something
—this precious something, but a someone?
The one who is righting, redeeming, the whole world
—I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection!

               

                The ache broke out at that strange banquet in Bethany.
Mary and Martha and Lazarus coming to terms with death and life.
Judas judging extravagant generosity based on its ROI
—Return on Investment.

                The Ache broke out and asked, “What if?”

                What if Judas had known the gift of that moment—priceless…
present with his Savior for a meal
—as one of his followers
—still a disciple,
still six days to be with him!
A supper that isn’t the last one
—isn’t charged with the awful electricity of betrayal.
“Judas lean here beside me, while you still got me!”

                Imagine Charity…
not this beautiful word now broken,
cheapened until it is nothing more than a tense transaction
—maybe you get a tote bag afterwards
—that’s Judas’ sense of it…

but instead charity faithful flowing from it’s origin
—Charitas
—love, a generous sacrifice that is not a sacrifice but a joy
—that’s what Mary’s gift was!

I wonder at that room…
its brave example is stunning…
instead of hiding from the frightening specter of Lazarus’ recent time in the tomb,
hiding from death—they leaned into it!
Martha take that that shade lurking in the corner and pour it out as an offering.
The scent of the tomb becoming the celebration of the meal!

What if the revived Lazarus gets to see a foretaste of the feast to come,
that banquet we all yearn and wait and ache for
—and taste every Sunday?
This whole scene is a sign of it!
Death’s wicked scent met and matched by an anointing.
New life lived with family and fellow disciples.
A gracious meal, a gracious host
—all pointing to the Resurrected One,
in whom we have life!

 

The ache breaks out here among us,
just out of the frame, a flicker in our peripheral vision,
in our yearning and our loss,
in our hunger and our love.

The Ache breaks out and asks, “What if?”

Amen.