Christmas Sermon: Up, Down, Out, In

             Now if I was to say UP, what would you say it the opposite? (DOWN)

            Similarly, what is the opposite of out? (In)

 

            When I went through seminary in Philly, we were all encouraged to seek Spiritual Direction
—a unique mixture of traditional counseling along with faith based reflection. 
By my Senior year most of my 12 person cohort realized we were being directed by the same lady, Susan Cole… 
and we all noticed that at the same time, about 40 minutes into a fifty-five-minute conversation
—Susan would ask each of us the same question, “Where is God in all that?”

            Locating God… 
Finding God… 
looking for God in my life. 
Heck of a question to answer, honestly.

            And I want you all to know, when you’re faced with those type of questions: 
“Where is God in all this?” 
Whenever you want to locate God
—you can do so using the sign of the cross:

God is: UP, DOWN, OUT, IN +

            “Where is God?” UP, DOWN, OUT, IN

Prayer

 

“Where is God?”

            We can look up, 
not to look for those overhyped drones,
but to see that army of angels overhead… 
to hear the heavenly songs of the angelic choir, 
serenaded by the hope filled message that they bring from God.

            To not look up, would be a mistake—a mistake often made… 
We are easily trapped in an imminent frame, 
meaning we believe that the extraordinary is off limits
—we confuse the transcendent and profound—the things sought by faith
with superstition and wishful thinking…
In our attempts to stick to the facts 
and begin everything as a healthy skeptic
(Modernism, the Enlightenment… all that)
—we sell life short. 
We limit ourselves to a life that consists of waiting for the next Marvel Movie
or anticipating the next family fight.

            But when we look up, we risk
—like a tightrope walker, 
or someone on the bomb squad,
—risk seeking God, 
seeking that which is greater than ourselves…
—we can at least be real about our meaning making soul
—“Gee I wish it was so.” “If only!” “God!”

            We can allow for awe, 
for those things that we can’t categorize… 
-friendship and beauty, 
-emotion and pathos, 
-rest and redemption. 

            

“Where is God?”

            We can look down, 
under the feet of Augustus and Quirinius and all of their ilk… 
When we look down we see a strange sigil—a strange sign
—one different from thosed used by all the great Lords of History, the winners of this world
—you wouldn’t plant it as a flag, to claim a foreign land, 
you wouldn’t choose to use it as a logo, to brand your business…

            A trough and strips of clothe
—swaddling clothes and manger.
“That’s how you’ll know your savior,” the angels tell the shepherds.

            We might want to work out our own salvation… 
Clinging to the big and mighty, 
crowning an ideology or party slogan, as something to put our trust in,
Perhaps our own hard work, or some unfailing system we see as deeply sacred
… but Salvation is being birthed into the world—our Savior—Jesus Christ. 
God comes down, 
dwells with us, 
doesn’t quit us! That’s Gospel!

 

“Where is God?”

            We can look out. Out into the fields, at the margins
—flocks at the edge of town flanked and cared for by Shepherds.

            Out in the cold and crisp night, 
tedium and vigilance, 
watching over those sheep.

            But we don’t know those shepherds, do we?
We don’t even want to! 
I know they’re right next door, 
I know they’re just down the road, 
one town over, 
neighbors we already know just enough about to render judgment.

            Going out into the field and meeting those men might mean extending trust, 
a thing so often shattered, 
its pieces are strewn about our world like
 a child’s broken mirror caught in shag carpet. 
            It might mean admitting you don’t always have it right… 
it might mean humility, crossing boundaries, 
not saying that thing you just want to say, 
listening a little, 
throwing away assumptions…

            All that hard, relational, work so the message, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom God favors” that was sung to those shepherds, might become a refrain for all humankind! 
So that we can experience what Francis of Assisi experienced when he embraced a leper
—it was the very embrace of God
We can experience that old bit of wisdom: 
the reconciled, siblings putting down their swords and seeing each other
—they see God!

            A commentator recently described his transcendent moment
—he was sitting in a packed subway 
and he looked around and saw how everyone sort of glowed and realized, 
“Wait, they all have souls! They’re all unique. Loved by God!”

 

“Where is God?”

            We look in… yes, like Mary we ponder these things
—this God with us—this savior, 
this night an echo of all previous Christmases, and also unique
—how is God meeting you tonight? 
“Where is God in all that?”…

            Looking inside is hard
—We want to be human doings, but we’re human beings. 
We would much rather act that reflect… 
shoot, ready, aim
—cutting before you measure… 
is a heck of a lot easier, than taking the time to ask, and sit with the one who sits with us
—dwell with the God who dwells with us
—consider the Christ Child.

            Our inclination is to be like Shakespeare’s poor player: “strutting and fretting, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing…”

            But something significant has happened
—in the midst of chest thumping Emperors and lowing beasts, 
apologies of “Sorry no room here” and the percussive trot of travel
—Christ is born!

            On this day, we can shift into the silence and quiet of it… treasure it, 
this night, 
these words of scripture, 
savor the savior born of Mary
—consider him with joy and gladness!

 

            That question Susan Cole asked all us Seminarians, when we had about 15 minutes left in our session… “Where is God in all of that?”
Everywhere!

Up, Down, Out, and In. 

The transcendent God breaking into our flesh and blood world, 

Incarnate among us—with us, in the flesh. 

Reconciling us all to God and to our neighbors, especially those on the margins.

Beating within us, a heartbeat to reflect upon, to mull over and adore.

            Ultimately wherever you look—there, there is God!
UP, DOWN, OUT, IN +

Jesus has come for us and will not abandon us, thanks be to God. Amen.

Longest Night Sermon: Elijah and the Gerasene Demoniac

         Elijah the Tishabite and the Gerasene Demoniac both find themselves in the depths of things…

         Elijah is fleeing for his life; the royal family wants him dead. He despairs of his generation
—they’ve all gone after Ahab, and Elijah believes that he may be the last good man. 
He collapses
—ready to die, 
done with it all.

         The Demoniac, literally a man possessed,
dispossessed of all of his belongings
—unhoused and naked. 
He is both captured and driven away, 
shackled and pushed out of polite society, 
and off to the graves.

         These two men, suicidal and stigmatized… 
They’re good company for us on this longest night.

Prayer

 

         We might be short on obvious angels
or demons discernable and front and center… 
but there is a sense of all that, here with us tonight.

         Now, it is easy to dismiss the demonic as simply a silly pre-modern thing that we wise post-modern people don’t have to give a moment’s thought to… 
but both sociologists and theologians who study the phenomena suggest otherwise. 

         Folk like Walter Wink and most post-colonial thinkers suggest that 
there is a real spiritual heft, 
a burden
to things that are too big for more than a small community to handle. 
For example, Gerasa or Gergassa, 
was a place occupied by Syrian Roman Legions, 
whose sigil was a swine…
a pig…

         -Violent military occupation 
-driving a person to bouts of violence, 
-calling himself legion, 
-living among the dead 
-and associating his ailment with swine… 
there can be a spiritual heaviness to such things…

         This kind of anguish disturbs all those who would rather look away…
so they don’t become like him…

         We too can feel that 
world events, 
illness, 
losses of all sorts… 
are just too much, 
it’s too big for me! 
Too much for us to handle
—we can’t get ahold of it, 
and it has a hold on us.

 

         Like Elijah, it can feel as if the world has gone mad, 
like we’re heading in a bad direction 
and there is no way to turn us from tragedy.
We’ve given every ounce of our strength, 
and it is just not enough… 
we are not enough!

Our woes can leave us so depleted 
we would like to die.

         Yes, surely there is room among us for these two men on this longest night.

         

         Those two men… 
Elijah, 
who rests, 
who is fed, 
who is given water to drink.

         Who naps a second time, who is:
again fed, 
again hydrates
—and this providence transforms him!
No longer hangry, 
no longer dehydrated, 
no longer bone tired
—he can keep on being faithful.

         Cared for and accompanied, 
Elijah can continue on!

         On,
through wind, 
earthquake, 
and fire
—come face to face with God in the silence.
Called by God to a new task
—to meet with his fellow faithful
—he is not alone!
Called to bring a new message, to keep being faithful to God’s people, 
come what may!

 

Yes! There is room for those two men…

         The Demoniac, 
freed from an occupied soul. 
Clothed. 
Healed. 
In his right mind! 
Seated at the feet of Jesus
—in the position of a student, 
a Disciple…

         It is a scary thing for all those who looked away, 
all the Gerasenes who couldn’t stand the sight of what the occupation was doing to the most sensitive among them, 
and turned away their eyes.

         Jesus, strangely, does not invite the Demoniac to join him
—instead of “Come, follow me”
—And to be clear, that’s Jesus’ go to phrase!
he says “Go home and tell ‘em what God has done for you.”

         Reconnect with community, 
name what it is like to be free of your ailments… 

         I think of the struggles folk who’ve gotten clean have when they return home… 
         How do you stay sober 
with your old friends?
         How do you keep on the straight and narrow 
when your family system dictates that you’re the bad daughter?
         Yet Jesus wants this man to show them another way, 
a way unscarred by the crippling chaos of Legion, 
of lingering at the tombs, 
of the abyss into which he’s stared. 
A better way
—the way that has freed him!

 

         A hard task for both men… 
a hard task for all of us
—keeping on faithfully, navigating new realities
realities we’d just as soon leave behind…

         We, like the Demoniac, 
find ways to keep connected 
and name our healing, 
look at what God is doing!

         We do like Elijah: 
eat, 
hydrate, 
take a nap, 
and keep on anyhow
—through the fires and wind and all the chaotic tumult, 
trusting that God will be there with us.

 

         All of us together, 
simply separated by time, and letters on a scroll…
We’re good company for each other, 
journeying through this long night together,
yearning,
anticipating, 
hoping for the longer days that are to come.
Amen.

My Top 10 Books of 2024

 Honorable Mentions:

The Book of Psalms by Alabaster Co.—Just a pretty psalm-book; it spoke to my soul!

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone—A fun sci-fi read, one part Romeo and Juliet, one part Edge of Tomorrow

 

10. The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin—I read the whole series. I loved reading a sci-fi work from a different cultural perspective.

9. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann—This book hit me pretty hard, especially the last quarter of the book. The history of the Osage Nation is one I vaguely knew, but the broader picture of how native oil wealth was suppressed and stolen, and that many wealthy natives were murdered is heavy but important.

8. Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman—An excellent corrective for anyone who has a system of time management or uses productivity apps or is just a type-A. Recognizing limits is freeing!

7. Low Anthropology: The Unlikely Key to a Gracious View of Others by David Zahl—I stuck this book next to Four Thousand Weeks, because it opens some of Burkeman’s points up to our relationships, including with ourselves. We humans have limits, and so does everyone else, what do we do now?!?

6. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman—This was a really fun read, senior citizens solving crimes in rural England. I intend to read other books in the series.

5. 11/23/63 by Stephen King—I don’t often read King, but I’m glad I read this book. King returns to Derry where IT took place, he play with temporal mechanics, and we get to experience a love story involving the Kennedy assassination.

4. A Guidebook to Progressive Church by Clint Schnekloth—I’ve been following Clint since I was a 19 year old Freshman in college. He’s one of the most thoughtful Lutheran voices out there, always practical, always faithful. Even if you disagree with Clint, this is a useful and important book!

3. Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford—I read this book based on a recommendation, and I’m so very glad I did. A hard-boiled detective story, an alternative history, a reflection on hybridity, syncretism, and Native American dignity.

2. A Declaration of Right of Magicians  by H. G. Parry—This is another book that came out of the blue. I’d purchased it for my kindle years ago, and never got around to reading it. Then I started, and read it and its sequel in no time flat. This book asks the question: How would the English Abolitionist movement, Haitian Independence, and the French Revolution have looked different if magic existed? Finding this book just sitting there on my Kindle, and then discovering just how good it was, felt like grace! An unearned unexpected joy!

1. Hunting Magic Eels: Recovering an Enchanted Faith in a Skeptical World by Richard Beck—A book recommended by the same person who pointed me toward Cahokia Jazz (Thanks Keith!) it was another unexpected gem! This book, and Beck’s framing of Enchantment/Disenchantment, has rocked my world! It has caused me to re-think how ministry works these days!

Sermon: John’s life is a parallel that proclaims and prepares us for Jesus!

            Imagine it—a group of scholars going line by line through the words and deeds of Jesus as found in the Gospels—and dropping different colored marbles in a jar to indicate if they thought the saying was likely that of the Historical Jesus, or not… well that was the work of the Jesus Seminar some 3 decades ago… 

            On one hand, most scholars today scoff at some of their methods as naïve, or at least so inconclusive as to be unhelpful… but one thing did become fairly clear, and I’m quoting the New Testament scholar Ben Worthington here, “in the midst of the church's collection of Jesus' sayings were also included sayings of John!”

            In fact, John the Baptist was so important, that, “Jesus was willing to parallel his own work and divine authority with John's.”

            John is “the one figure in the Gospel tradition to whom Jesus seems to compare and contrast himself, both in his words and deeds.”

            John as a lens for us to see Jesus. 

            John’s life is a parallel that proclaims and prepares us for Jesus!

Prayer

 

            John’s life is a parallel that proclaims and prepares us for Jesus!

            What does it mean that John is a parallel of Jesus? Honestly, it means he was his cousin—both literally and figurative.

            Think of your cousins… don’t they feel like parallel paths, don’t they open up for you “what if?” kinds of questions? They’re similar enough to you that the differences are more telling.

            When I think of my cousin Harley I wonder, “What if we’d stayed in the Midwest and I had a head for business?”

            When I think of my cousin Anne I ask, “What if I’d been artistic and really leaned into my whimsy?”

            Or Sara, “What if I’d stayed overseas?”

            And so too with John
—his similarities to Jesus draw us closer to Him, 
and his differences when compared to his cousin clarify what it means that we call Jesus the Christ.

            

            For example, Luke orders the beginning of his Gospel in such a way that we can’t help but look at John’s Birth and anticipate Jesus’
—if Jesus is the Christmas Baby, John is the Advent Child!

            John whose mother, Elizabeth, has an unexpected pregnancy that shows the favor of God, 
John whose Father, Zechariah, encounters the angel Gabriel and eventually sings a song about the Goodness of God, 
John who even from the womb points to Jesus.

 

            Or consider today’s lesson:

            It begins by anchoring John’s ministry of Baptism in history
—naming the powers that be, emperors and governors, rulers and high-priests.

            Powers that be… I might add… who eventually overpower John
—Herod Antipas ruler of Galilee, who eventually marries his niece Herodias, 
who had previously been married to his half-brother, 
Herod Boethius… also known as Philip—rules of Ituraea and Trachonitis
—all of whom militate to murder and mutilate John
—beheading him because he spoke out against them.

 

            John’s ministry of Baptism
—Called into the desert to journey through to the other side! 

In the dry and dangerous wilderness—be washed, satiated, saved!

—Repent!

Rethink Everything!

Turn around 

And keep going!
You are released from Sin’s wicked hold, keep moving!

Follow that path of John, like Israel’s escape from Egypt and Return from Babylon… God will make a way!

            Turn around and be ready for what God is doing next!

            Look! There is life!

            Look! There is salvation! All people shall see him!

 

John’s life is a parallel that proclaims and prepares us for Jesus!

            To peer through the highway in the wilderness and see him! His Baptism is like fire—the Spirit speaks and proclaims, “Beloved Son!”

            To see how Jesus navigates the desert
—moves through the three temptation and onward to pick up the mantle of the one who baptized him on behalf of his brethren—it fulfilled all righteousness, and now all flesh sees the salvation of God! For God is with us!

            

John’s life is a parallel that proclaims and prepares us for Jesus!

            To know what is at stake from the beginning—the dangers of that Christmas lesson often read by children, “In those days Caesar Augustus” “when Quirinius governed Syria” “Herod” “Pontius Pilate”
… names sharpened with deadly import—leaders on a crash course with a man who cross and nail could not nullify, John’s cousin Jesus.

            

John’s life is a parallel that proclaims and prepares us for Jesus!

            To anticipate Mary’s unexpected pregnancy—look oh Highly Favored Lady!

            To expect Mary’s encounter with Gabriel, and her famed song, the Magnificat, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.”

            To look and see what made Elizabeth’s womb leap with joy—John’s cousin, Jesus! A+A

How have I walked all that 4D talk?

 

              I feel, especially as the number of people reading my blog has recently spiked, I need to name my own limitations and that my words aren’t from a place of extra knowledge—I don’t have the inside track on anything! Like that nice Greek fella said to the cyclopes, I’m nobody.

I’m a parish pastor in “rural” New Jersey whose been blogging since I was a 19-year-old freshman doing Religious Studies at U of Oregon (hence the 19 at the end of the blog handle). I don’t have special insights from any sort of wider organizational perspective, I don’t have a background in statistics that allows me to essentially predict the future based on current trends. My non-M.Div. advanced degree, an M. Phil, is in the intertestamental period and wisdom literature. My 4D ideas simply come from on the ground observation, reading, and being a Christian in the Year of our Lord 2024.

              That said, I do have one thing going for me. I didn’t grow up in the church, so sometimes I have outsider moments where I look around a room full of religious people and wonder to myself, “What the heck are all these people talking about?”  There are times when folk are riding a shibboleth so hard it’ll never have another rodeo, and times when the working assumption in the room doesn’t comport with reality as I understand it. A corollary to not growing up in church, I’m also a Norwegian Lutheran who doesn’t see a connection between those two identities. That’s it, that’s who is writing about the world in which we are ministering.

              I first hit upon the 3Ds while reflecting with colleagues on the transition from Judges to Kings back when I was the counselor of the Raritan Cluster. We were wondering what changes in ministry were making “both of our ears tingle”—1 Samuel 3:11. It is wild to think that was a decade ago! Since then, the 3Ds, and now 4Ds, have become a shorthand I use to interpret what’s going on in ministry today.

              As I roll out all my 4D talk, I think it is worth naming my own experience of it, going from the big picture to the local and personal. How have I experienced and engaged with Disenchantment, Decentralization, Demographic Shifts, and Disestablishment? How am I a leader who shepherds souls, performs sacred science, rides waves, and crafts partnerships? 

Disenchantment and Soul Shepherding

Many of my ideas about our world as disenchanted and the church’s need to be enchanted comes from Richard Beck’s Hunting Magic Eels, though there are also shades of Root and Taylor floating around in the back of my brain as well.

I have shepherded souls in a variety of ways:

Most recently, I created a Bible Study of Wisdom Literature that invited congregants to answer the underlying questions of wisdom literature for themselves. This moved the conversation from paper to lips, ancient royal Israel to the lived present.

A few years back I invited my congregation to have God Conversations with their neighbors. This helped parishioners notice where the Holy Spirit was already at work.

Finally, I do my darnedest to help folk pray. After Hurricane Sandy, while I was without power for an extended period, I created a prayer book, Read, Reflect, Pray. Eventually that led to the privilege of being an editor of Minister’s Prayer Book.

 

Decentralization and Sacred Science

              My ideas about our world being profoundly decentralized come from the book The Spider and the Starfish by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom.

              I have been performed sacred science, harnessing the power of a decentralized world, in a variety of ways:

Inspired by a congregation in Baltimore, I’ve brought “PUB/lick Theology” with me to Jersey—an hour of learning, discussion, and fellowship out in the neighborhood. In its current iteration we meet at a local Pub in the winter and an ice cream place in the summer.

While we all became “Televangelists” on the fly during Covid, I’d been shooting my sermons and putting them onto youtube since 2013.

Taking Starfish’s admonition about classrooms shifting from front facing lectures to discussions in the round, I briefly tried a “talk-show” format for sermons one summer… it was a disaster… on one hand I don’t have the chops for that, but also the congregation’s architecture militated against the format.

 

Demographic Shifts and Wave Riding

              I was given the inestimable gift of learning, as a Field Ed student, a Vicar, and a student in Urban Theological Institute courses, in African American and African Descent contexts. Anything I say that is true or useful about being Church in a diverse country came to me from the hospitality of Black folk.

              In a very concrete way, I rode the waves of demographic shift as a Pastor in the ELCA at my first call. The first congregation I served was built by GIs returning from World War 2 and their new families, as well as refugees from the ruins of that horrible war, and that set of demographics matched with the community at the time, but by the time I got there the borough was much more diverse than the congregation, something like 40% non-white.

So, by accompanying a neighboring congregation that was closing, consistent curiosity about the India community one town over (one of the largest Indian Diaspora communities in the world) and giving thumbs up to most every cross-cultural contact a parishioner had—by the time I left, those worshipping on a Sunday looked demographically similar to the neighborhood as a whole.

Additionally, I co-wrote a commentary on Luke’s Gospel—Seeing with the Mind, Hearing with the Heart: A Thematic Bible Study on Luke by a Young Pastor and a Not So Young Parishioner—that attempted to bridge some generational divides.

 

Disestablishment and Crafting Partnerships

              Much of my thoughts about the Disestablishment of the Church comes from the Canadian thinker Douglas John Hall with a sprinkling of flavor from Andrew Root.

              Before I get into my foray into partnerships, let me share a story that solidified all those things I’d read by Hall.

I had just visited a hospital where I got to bless a newborn baby and celebrate with the parents, and I just about broke down outside the hospital afterward—you see, it was the first time I’d visited a hospital and it wasn’t for someone sick or maimed. For a decade every prayer I prayed was some variation of “Lord, be with the Doctors and Nurses keeping this person alive” never “Wow! Lord thank you for this new life!” Yet, when I went back through Pastor’s reports, even just a few decades back, they were blessing babies in the hospital monthly. Such a vocation affirming action—monthly! I couldn’t imagine how good the “good old days” once were. Problematic as all get out, but at least in that small way—getting to bless newborns, I was very jealous.

All those academic descriptions of how the church changed, how we used to be connected to the heartbeat of culture and society, were emotionally true to me in the parking lot of JFK hospital. Our ministry tends to be to a culture and a society that has passed away—if we do not become relevant and meaningful, partnering and engaging with the world as it is—we will never again get to bless a baby, nor walk with the child through to adulthood in a way that allows them to trust in God.

I am still a novice when it comes to crafting partnerships. I am convinced organizations like Partners for Sacred Places, from whom I gleaned 12 steps to finding a partner for your congregation, have a major role to play in helping congregations be good stewards of space, and Grace Duddy Pomroy’s Funding Forward project and book can point to not only examples of partnering well, but a way forward for the Church. Clint's "A Guidebook to Progressive Church" also points to some amazing ways to partner well.

Additionally, in the past I have welcomed a variety of non-Lutheran congregations into our worship space and, as indicated in the Decentralization section, have made relationships with pub and ice cream shop owners. All smaller versions of what is likely the future of ministry when engaging with disestablishment.

 

Conclusion:

              It’s funny, the last D I discovered, Disenchantment, was the one hardest for me to name, yet between prayerbooks and God Conversations, it is the aspect of the world as it is I’ve been engaged with the most, from almost the start. I imagine it is one of those “fish not knowing they’re in water” kind of situations.

              I hope these concrete examples from my own ministry flesh my earlier semi-viral “imagine a church” post.

Imagine A Church

               I’ve been writing around in circles about the 4Ds for a while now. Let me try to make it plain. Let me just try to describe what a church that engages with the world as it is--a world that is decentralized, diverse, disestablished, and disenchanted-- would look like for you. Here is some kindling for your imagination, dear reader.

 

A Decentralized Church

              Imagine a church with a nuanced and thoughtful web presence. They selected the online platforms that were manageable for their needs and did them well. The congregation’s web presence is up to date and supports its ministry, connecting the hospitalized and homebound to the congregation, encouraging acts of discipleship, and making sure outsiders feel welcome to join in the congregation’s ministries.

              Imagine a church that meets out in the community and is known there. A church that serves and fellowships outside its walls, so that there are porous boundaries that can invite others in and make connections with partners. Perhaps there is a Bible and Bagels study or a monthly Dinner Church service at a local restaurant.

              Imagine a church where experimentation is part of their identity. Where programs or events are analyzed after the fact, and improved. Where the disposition of leadership is “sure, let’s give it a try” and also, “lets glean as much data from the event as possible” and “what was the most faithful part of what we just did?”

 

A Diverse Church

              Imagine a church that is truly intergenerational, where wisdom is shared across age cohorts. Where young people can look around a sanctuary or soup supper and say, “Oh, I might look like that kind Christian when I’m 45 and will be doing stuff like that when I’m 85.” Where mentorships sprout and the young have a voice. Imagine a church where every generation’s gifts are welcomed, and everyone’s stories are told.

              Speaking from personal experience, I have felt the most Lutheran in contexts where Lutheranism is an act of cultural translation—How is the cowboy Chuckwagon an analogy for Koinonia and Holy Communion? How did we not see it before, the musical rests in LBW are the place where everyone does the black woman double clap? Why wouldn’t the prayers of the people involve everyone holding hands and last at least 20 minutes—talk about the Work of the People! How can I think of Theology of the Cross without the analogy to lynching? How does Galatians speak to the caste system as it is experienced today?

Imagine a church where multiculturalism is more than a buzz word. Where we are, to quote a NJ Synod program, “love struck.” Where the ideals of being color blind—deference to none and equality for all—are joined with appreciation of difference, it is met with curiosity and respect. Imagine the “multicolored wisdom of God” to quote the apostle Paul, on full displace in sanctuaries and service events, and integral to the leadership of every congregation!

Imagine a church that is comfortable enough with difference that they have God conversations with neighbors, and eventually look like the neighborhood they are in! Where listening leads to conversation and conversation leads to accompaniment. Folk of a variety of backgrounds walking alongside one another, making sure everyone makes it home alright!

 

A Partnering Church

              There is an Ascension Day tradition of beating the bounds, that is, congregations go out and walk the boundaries of the neighborhood (parish) they serve. It is a concrete way to let the community know that the congregation is there for them, and also reminds the congregation of that same fact—these are our neighbors! Imagine a church that knows thier bounds, and their bounds know them!

              Imagine a church integral and integrated with the community it resides in. Where the church building is a community center, where the do-gooders of the area congregate and collaborate. Where the building is shared with the community—the congregation is a good steward of their possessions—and the congregation is out in the community—evangelism and service are central!

              Imagine a church with a clear mission statement, one that is memorable and acted upon, one that is regularly renewed and reviewed as the mission field changes. One known not only by members, but also by those they meet, not necessarily because the congregation repeats it ad nauseum, but because they live it out.

 

An Enchanted Church

              Alas, all the above is for not, save that Christ is present. Without God’s love centered among us, every mission statement rings hollow, every culturally relevant move is moot, every experiment is an abomination. But imagine a church where the Spirit dwells!

              Imagine a church where prayers are not perfunctory, but from the heart and by heart! Where we are equipped to trust that God is our loving parent, who wants to hear from us, everything from babble to blessing. Imagine a place and a people where God sightings are plentiful and celebrated! Where we keep on the lookout, wearing cross shaped glasses, so that we will see what God is up to among us. Where we, like the church of acts, see the Spirit at work ahead of us, and are keen to catch up!

              Imagine a church where wisdom is won. Where our experiences, the stories of our life and our life together, are plumbed for wisdom and decency. Where we cultivate: humble success, uplift in crisis, and the ability to end things well by holding everything gently. Imagine a wise church!

              Imagine a church where scripture speaks! Where the pathos and evocative drama of the bible is alive! Where we can go deep, and hear the Word speak to the past and echo in the present. Where we can hear afresh the Gospel for us, for you!

 

Imagine dear reader, a decentralized, diverse, partnering, and enchanted Church.

My Reconstitution Posts

               The Vice President of the ELCA, the highest-ranking lay leader in my denomination, just asked a question: If you were to change the organizational structure of the ELCA, how would you do it?

              Last year I engaged with this question in a sustained kind of way on this blog. Here are links to some of those thoughts.

-In my first post, initially planned as a one-off, I thought back to major changes in the ELCA since its establishment and laid out a couple of alternative models of church that took them into account, but the idea caught my imagination and I was off to the races.

- I took some time defining Church.

- I thought a bit about the task of lay folk.

-I meandered around what it means to be ordained.

-I made the case that practicing the liturgy is reasonable, an argument I am still making in a variety of forms.

-I made some arguments about a more decentralized or more centralized polity.

-I engaged with an Atlantic article everyone, even non-church-types were sharing.

-I shared a map of what the ELCA (missing the Caribbean Synod) would look like if we cut the number of Synods in half.

-I wrestled with some questions about authority: Who is the Pastor’s Boss? How do we share our money?

-More recently, I tugged at the thorny question of power and responsibilities surrounding congregational closings and named some alternative framings for leadership and organization.

              What do these dozen or so posts add up to? A few ponderings inspired by the ELCA’s hopeful intention to reconstitute ourselves, so that we might be more faithful in the world as it is, so we might move on from “living into” the merger of 1988 to living together in 2025 and on into the future.

A Defense of the Liturgy

 

              I know folk like Ross Douthat pooh-pooh naming the social good of the liturgy and the church as adopting the position of a quisling to culture, but I disagree. Focusing on the transcendent frame is very important, it is why I encouraged my congregation to have God conversations and why I added a 4^th D to my conception of ministry in the year of our Lord 2024. That said, noting how people’s physical lives are impoverished by a lack of practicing the liturgy, is worthwhile.

              If you’d like to read the broad strokes of my thoughts on the 7 Central Things of Worship, here is my most comprehensive thoughts. But, for this post, I’ll be focusing on the absence of the 7 central things.

Gathering:

              The recently released documentary, Join or Die is a popularization of Robert Putman’s famous book Bowling Alone. It documents the rise and fall of club/league culture, and points out that not gathering with other people is disastrous both for individuals and for whole societies. On the individual level not being an active member of at least one organization is as detrimental to one’s health as picking up a major vice, like smoking or overeating. For societies it is the difference between kleptocracy and democracy. So, gathering weekly with your fellow Christians doesn’t sound so bad when compared to the alternative, does it?

Baptism:

              The church in every age has a built in buffer against bigotry—Baptism. We can point to that famous phrase found in Galatians, “In Christ there is no…” and add whatever division the world has created in the present moment. In Christ there is no cis or trans, in Christ no black or white, in Christ no red or blue, in Christ no foreigner or native. We quite often fail to live up to that ideal, but it is always there as a prophetic wooing, “Come back to the font you whose ultimate Identity is in Christ Jesus.” In the face of Apartheid and segregation and the murder of Matthew Shepherd—look again, that’s a CHILD OF GOD! That’s the IMAGE OF GOD! You are a child of God, ACT LIKE IT! Imagine if you were regularly reminded of that reality! If your identity and the identity of your neighbor was grounded in grace! Imagine if our society was less bigoted, because a good portion of us had to make a mark of the cross upon our brow before brow beating the “other”.

Confession and Forgiveness:

              I regularly hear complaints about our country being too litigious, people being too sensitive, no one having a sense of shame, and that there is never a way to back down in a confrontation. What if there was an alternative to tit for tat confrontation, a way to wrestle with having fallen short other than a shame spiral or complete denial that you’ve ever done something wrong? What if we could soothe and ameliorate hurts instead of holding onto them or resenting the one we’ve wronged? What if there were ways of righting a wrong and receiving an apology and rectifying the wrong that didn’t involve going to court? Well, according to the Christian tradition, there is, confession and forgiveness. In fact, there is a concrete process for doing so, most earnestly described by Desmund Tutu—the fourfold path of forgiveness.

Word:

              Especially with the gaping wound of our partisan divide, it feels like we aren’t telling the same story. Our news is siloed, our lives are cut off from one another by garage doors and diverse area codes, our fables, myths, and metanarratives are told by politicians—mediated by storytellers with axes to grind. What if instead, once a week, we shared a common story? How might that transform the ugliness we've all embraced?

Thanksgiving

We are an anxious people, drawn into that dis-ease by a sense of lack, a sense of want, a sense of avarice even. Our souls are cultivated by an artificial sense of scarcity, advertisements that turn our attention to what we do not have. In that mentality of scarcity, we lose our sure footing, resilience and very selves—all this in one of the most well-off countries in the world! It doesn’t have to be that way, we can name everything as gift, and in so doing recognize that we have enough, that abundance is on offer.

Meal

              For some time there has been talk of a “generosity crisis”. While a few super rich people and corporations are currently propping up charities, millions and millions fewer people donate to charities and volunteer their time, than in previous generations. Some of that has to do with the average person being squeezed economically, some of it has to do with a lack of trust in institutions and the breakdown in community Robert Putman talks about, and some of it has to do with people being out of practice. Well, I’ve got news for you, every time a congregation receives the Lord’s Supper—Holy Communion—we are participating in “The economy of the City of God.” We receive the generous, priceless, gift of the body of Christ, and in turn are sent to be that very body in the world. Receiving grace, we offer grace, receiving the generosity of God, we are moved to be generous. And, funny enough, the statisticians and psychologist agree with this theological statement, the most generous folk, are religious folk!

Sending

              Piggypacking off that last point, in a world where consciously avoiding assisting our neighbor (just look at any of those hidden camera viral videos with people passing a stranger in need, or search your own heart when someone asks for assistance) and where we have grown to believe we are so time poor we hoard our hours and our minutes, isn’t it amazing that I have the audacity to use a phrase like: “sent to be that very body in the world.” That’s a dangerous thing, to understand leaving a church building as a call to go and entertain angels unaware, that’s downright countercultural! But that’s part of what goes on at a typical Sunday service. We are priming ourselves to serve and to be sent for the sake of our neighbors.

Conclusion

              So, what am I saying with all this? That liturgical worship, worship that encompasses the seven central things, is expansively good!

-It is good in a spiritual way that is maybe too ephemeral or transcendent or unquantifiable to justify the practice to anyone not already wooed by its mysteries.

-It is good in a nameable individual way as I’ve spelled out before: I’m better at being in community, I have an increased sense of self-worth, am better at getting over slights and making sense of life, and I am more content, generous, and gentle, because I worship.

-But also having a meaningful number of people practicing the seven central things is good in a way that benefits society at large. We flavor our neighborhoods and nations. Where there is loneliness, we offer community. Where there is bigotry, we offer identities rooted in baptism and loyal to the truth that all people are made in the image of God. Where there is enmity, we offer a path to reconciliation. Where there is a broken story, we offer narratives that can cross many boundaries. Where there is greed and scarcity, we offer abundance, resilience, and generosity. Where there are walls of separation and unmet needs, we offer assistance and neighborliness.

Truly, the liturgy is very good.

Ministry in the Trump Era, initial thoughts

                Here we are again. A week ago, Donald Trump was elected president. We did this once before. Many of us tried to forget those four years, and how bone achingly hard it was to minister faithfully. Well, it’s worth reflecting back a bit on those hard years.

Every word of yours will be blue or red

                One of the hardest things about the four years of Trump was how everything was viewed through an intense partisan lens. I remember the week the Sermon on the Mount came up in the lectionary. A colleague was called onto the carpet by her church council for “picking” such “anti-Trump” words.

At bible studies and council meetings you could see parishioners calculating out if your words supported Trump or the Resistance; anything that didn’t clearly have a red hat or a pink hat with ears on it, was suspect. You were assumed to be on the other “side” unless your words explicitly announced the shibboleth of the moment, whatever the moment was. In short, good was wholly defined by its relationship to Donald Trump and his framing of whatever issue was front and center in our national life that day or that week.

                This means we need to remember how to blend idioms, so people can actually hear the gospel. It means translating the message of scripture into two opposing vernaculars and then tearing the corners off each, so they still startle and save your people! It means preaching the good news about Jesus is going to challenge your people in ways that are going to make them uncomfortable, and sometimes they are going to hate you for it.

                As a corollary, there will also be a temptation to see every instance of discomfort and every time someone spews hatred at you, as proof of your faithfulness. We preachers aren’t that righteous. There will be times when we screw up or are indelicate or are responding to events with our own agenda, not faithfulness to the Gospel. Deep and meaningful discernment is required.

                And the lectionary is doing us no favors—or every favor, depending on how uncomfortable you are willing to get. We’re heading into the year of Luke! Luke, who insists on an ancient sort of gender equality when it comes to miracles—if a guy receive healing in a certain way inevitably a woman will receive the same. Luke, who is concerned about everyone having enough to such an extent that his John the Baptist sounds to some like John the Socialist, with his cloak re-distribution and emptying of the Tax Collector’s pockets. Luke, who begins Jesus’ ministry with the words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Christian Nationalism

                Along with partisan lenses, there was the drum beat of Christian Nationalism. People would continually confuse being an American citizen with being a Christian and vice versa. Using Lutheran language, people were consistently confusing the two hands of God—the authority of government and the authority of the church. Or to use more American language, there were gleeful urges to break down the wall between church and state.

                Sometimes this was fairly innocent stuff: “Why not more hymns that honor America, if baseball games can honor our country, why can’t worship do the same.”

                The answer being that worship is something different than a baseball game. We’re here to worship Jesus, not America. Many civic hymns aren’t written and embraced because they have good solid doctrine, but because they rouse people to fight, or feel especially good about a cause, or a country. For example, the Battle Hymn of the Republic affirms that God’s glory is clearly visible in the wrath filled death visited upon America during the Civil War. As Lutherans we affirm God is most fully visible only on the cross, and even then, it is a strange thing, an “alien work of God.”

                Other times it could get downright uncomfortable, insidious even. “In the prayers of intercession don’t pray for countries that aren’t America.” “We’re a Christian country, so shouldn’t non-Christians leave?” “The ELCA shouldn’t do refugee work or foreign mission, we should help our own first!” “Pastor, don’t you think Donald Trump is America’s King David, anointed to Make America Great?”

                The above may sound comical, but they are all things said to me last time around. So, as good Lutherans, we ought to be clear that the Church is never a political party at prayer, the City of Man isn’t the City of God, and there is no such thing as a Christian country, because Christians are always sojourners. Theocracy is not our goal, and the Kingdom of God comes about in instances that will look nothing like America’s political process. We only hope that we are given the grace to catch glimpses of it.

Exhaustion

                The pace of those 4 years was grueling. It felt like there was a whole year in there where a major world-shifting event that had to be referenced and unpacked in the sermon if the preacher was to be faithful, happened every Saturday afternoon. Along with that, the number of parishioners breaking down under the unrelenting weight of the news cycle and unending familial partisan fights, in need of pastoral care but also prickly as could be, was astonishing!

                In retrospect, some of those times we preachers tried to be faithful to the moment came off as shooting from the hip. For that matter, sometimes it was chasing relevance, not faithfulness. But, in the fog of those four years, it was hard to tell the difference. Even with the breathing room of the last four years, it’s still hard, at least for me, to discern the difference.

Don’t go looking for crosses, they’ll find you

                Maybe this is a “me” problem. For all my time in New Jersey and Belgium and England and Oregon and about a dozen other places, I’m at my core a Liberal from Wyoming, a “Red State Reject.” That means I tend to assume a defensive crouch and am tactically and strategically moderate. I don’t assume going for maximalist goals or grand denunciations work. I assume if I were to announce that everyone in the room has to side with me or my ideological opposite, I’m going to be pretty lonely—and doing so might endanger other people. At my core I value: listening, finding common ground, holding my own ideologies loosely, and taking bold action only when it will do the most good.

                This kind of stance was not well received in the Trump era. You see, at least once a month there was a drum beat on social media that, “If your preacher doesn’t preach this talking point, this Sunday you need to leave your church!” This was usually followed up by one-upmanship by preachers about how fiercely Trump was denounced and how many “Red Hats” walked out that Sunday. It felt at times like the misquote of the day was to, “Preach with Daily Kos in one hand and the Bible in the other.”

                And maybe some contexts called for that level of political engagement. But every time I tried to hop on that train, every time I tried to fully embody that meme, “If you wonder what you would have done in Nazi Germany, look at what you’re doing right now!” it felt performative, and like I was trying to center myself in a story that wasn’t actually mine. The raw energy of the era made every protest, every new book, every email, every action—be it wearing safety pins or now blue rubber bands—the most important thing.

In short, I felt like I was rushing off to find my cross so I could carry it. But, the same thing I tell parishioners who get excited about some harmful thing being their “cross to bear” and Luther told all those monks flagellating themselves as a good work, applies here, “If you’re acting faithfully in the world, the cross will find you.”

I found that to be true. Faithfully ministering during the Trump years caused me to lead my fairly moderate to conservative congregation to care about and advocate for Indonesian refugees, some of whom were eventually deported. The cross found me, not in safety pins or marches, but in the day in day out work of caring for souls well. Or to roughly translate that into a secular phrase, “Think globally, but act locally.”

A Word on Protest

With all the above said, there is something right about protest that I’d been told in college, and only have come to believe to be true after January 6^th. I was fairly active in protesting against the Iraq war. After that movement fizzled out, some folks thought I would show up to the protest about the next issue, and the next issue, and the next issue—there was literally a protest about something at least once a week at U of O. It was like people cared about the medium as much as the message, that protests were a good unto themselves, which always hit me wrong.

At the time, again call me Crouching Wyoming Hidden Liberal, I thought less was more—people would actually pay attention to protests, if they weren’t the background noise of the everyday. My more serious protester friends responded that the smaller inconsequential protests were practice for the big ones that matter.

When the Women’s March happened, I remembering making a big deal about how amazing it was that no one was arrested or hurt. Many conservatives forcefully pushed back at me. I tried to explain how there is a talent and genius to protesting well. My words were mocked. Then when the conservatives did their version of the Women’s March—January 6^th—hundreds of people were hurt, several died, and there are still ongoing arrests!

On one hand, I could say that was all by design, that the violence was all intentional, and therefore everyone who participated ought to be locked up, or at least fined. Or I could assume that the right has absolutely no idea how to protest, because they never practiced.

Now, if my kinder interpretation is correct, it also means college me was wrong. A healthy practice of protest ensures that the big ones are orderly, that points are made with words instead of with bear spray and brass knuckles.

 

Conclusion

-Trump is really good at pushing people into partisan corners, we’ll need to be ready to preach Gospel to an even more siloed church.

-People are going to confuse Church and State, we need to be clear about that separation and refuse to be co-opted.

-We need to think about pacing—we have been given timeless truths and we need to trust they’ll be relevant even during seismic shifts.

-We won’t need to hunt down the hard particular work, it’ll find us in the day to day of our baptismal vocations.

A thought experiment: A Local Tithe and a Vision Tithe

 

              If the statisticians are right and the mainline tradition writ large will not be a significant force in America in about a decade, mainly because many congregations will shrink and close, we need to rethink Holy Closure, if for no other reason than there will be a whole lot of them. Luckily, one of the very forces hobbling the church, decentralization, may also assist in setting things right. Now, I know, no shock, one of the last guys defending decentralization in the ELCA, thinks it could be helpful.

              But hear me out. A danger in the coming years is that the Synod will be spending all of their time and effort shepherding congregational closures, instead of equipping the remaining congregation for ministry. A second danger is that a large portion of the proceeds from closures will go straight to the Synod to fund Synodical ministries, which will be fixated on closing churches. These two dynamics pressed together could create a bad feedback loop, where a Synod becomes invested in doing the work of church closure, and church closure in turn funds that work.

              So, what’s the problem with that, you may ask. After all, those who do the work ought to receive the fruits of that work. Yes, and. And millions of dollars leaving local communities for a centralized office, is alienating, especially if that centralized office is so caught up in closures that they have no bandwidth for other ministry and mission. I know there is an implication that folks from closing congregations will join a nearby congregation and renew them, and those who make that move certainly do. But the majority of the members of a closing congregation disappear into the ether, and will only reappear as “anonymous” Lutherans at the funeral home. The pastor of the receiving congregation will go from doing 6-10 funerals a year for people they know, to 10-12 funerals a year, half of them for people they do not know. And again, the shibboleth is that if a Pastor does one or two “anonymous” funerals really well they’ll gain a family… that may have been true when families lived near each other, but rarely happens these days.

              What if both the responsibility and fruits of closure were distributed differently? What if, becoming a District Dean or Cluster Counselor came with more than a vague “Other Duties as Assigned” type of mandate, but instead an understanding that 10% of resources from closing a congregation would go to ministries in the Cluster or District? This would do two things:
1. It might encourage Districts and Clusters to think more “missionally” about who their Deans and Counselors are (I know in Clusters and Districts I’ve been a part of, everyone touches their nose and says “not it” when picking the new Dean or Counselor).
2. It might also spark little local fires until something catches—it might harness the power of Decentralization in such a way that congregational closings will cease to be a sign of death, but instead a sign of resurrection and new life!

              So, one thing to think of, is encouraging every congregation to voluntarily pass a continuing resolution that if they close, they want at least 10% of their assets to go to the Synod and 10% of their assets to go to either their Cluster or District. Give 10% to support the broader vision that the Synod has laid out, the strategic big picture thinking that takes into account demographic shifts and programs that benefit the whole Synod. But also, give 10% to minister to those who remain, to encourage tactical victories that might otherwise become missed opportunities, to fund ground up innovation and empower clusters and districts.