A church bigger than itself

 

            How we describe ourselves matters. What we say about ourselves shapes how we behave, the sorts of relationships we have, the hopes and goals that are possible for us.

            I think of how the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is described in our constitution.
On one hand, it describes us as Churchwide, Synod, congregation…
the “three expressions” of the ELCA…
but also, we describe ourselves as “this Church” never “The Church”
because this church, very consciously
understands ourselves to be a part of “The Church.”

            And that sort of thinking is something that ought to be pulled front and center on All Saints.
Part of what we celebrate on All Saints is that:
We are a Church Bigger than Ourselves.
The Church is bigger than itself.

Prayer

 

            The Church is bigger than itself
—it includes saints from all times and places
—those present, those past, and those yet to come.

Part of what biblical books like Revelation are doing
is capturing eternity in the blink of an eye
—seeing completely what we normally see in such a fractured way
(this is part of why the language and images are so bizarre,
why our Jewish siblings put an actual age restriction on reading some of these books,
These ways of describing Eternity come Close are rated M for Mature).
Imagine glimpsing every Passover and Palm Sunday ever celebrated
all at once, and with Jesus by your side!
Such an experience is not for the immature.

It’s so easy to focus on the faithful people of the past, and let nostalgia kill hope,
or become captured by a sort of presentism that can feel like, “The Church of What’s Happening Now”,
or rush toward the future so fast that we fall flat on our face.

But siblings, we are united with the faithful of all times be they dead, living, or yet to come!
The dead are part of us
—this is an astonishing thing!
They are participants in the resurrection and the life given in Christ.
The living,
surely they are Christ’s body in the world.
Those yet to come
—an assurance that there is a future
—Christ has promised to remain with us always,
and that promise is sure!

 

The Church is bigger than itself.
It includes the invisible saints.
Not everyone who is faithful is celebrated,
or centered in our life together.
Many of the most saint-like actions that have happened in history,
are those we don’t even remember.

This is a “It’s a Wonderful Life” George Baley kind of reality.
“Wait, fishing my brother out of a river saved an aircraft carrier full of people?”
“Being a decent man helped keep a friend out of prostitution?”
Gee wiz, I didn’t even remember I did that.

Think of John the Revelator,
he’s flummoxed,
“Who are these, all robed in white?”
Who remembers the faithful
who were persecuted and even died
affirming that Jesus is Lord in 1^st century Smyrna or Pergamum?
Anonymous though they be, they are part of us, they too are saints
—the silent faithful actions, humble and hidden
—revealed ‘round the throne of God, part of who we are.
All means all when it comes to All Saints.

 

The Church is bigger than itself.
It includes those saints challenged by high expectation
“we will be like him.”
Those saints called to the vision cast by Christ in the beatitudes,
“Mercy,
authentic and honorable care,
fence mending,
and digging in for justice.”
Yes, we count in our numbers those struggling and striving to uphold a high calling…

 

And also The Church is bigger than itself.
It includes too those struggling and striving to just survive,
saints needing to be enveloped by God’s love,
and the blessing of God’s gracious reversals,
“God’s reign among the hopeless,
comfort for the miserable,
the humiliated made whole,
and those starving for righteousness well-fed.”

 

            Church—we collectively contain both,
Also, we as individuals in a lifetime, often contain both,
sometimes, even in a hairsbreadth of a moment, we contain both!

            Blessed by Christ from the mountaintop,
blessed reversals of fortune,
and the blessings of striving for virtue.

 

            On All Saints we’re affirming that The Church is bigger than itself. Chock full of saints.
Transcending time,
the unnoticed still so very much a part of us,
containing the fullness of both the first and the last,
the beatitudes both a calling and a comfort.

And that matters friends.
It shapes how we treat each other,
forms our goals,
and points us ahead in hope.  
We are a Church Bigger than Ourselves.
Amen.

Some thoughts on the AI Foundations paper

 

I’ve been thinking and writing about Artificial Intelligence (AI) in one way or another for a while now. In 2015 I wrote a #NaNoWriMo novel, Silicon Soul about the dystopian possibilities of the technology. More recently I proposed and passed a resolution in my Synod requesting a Social Message on AI from Churchwide, offered some highlights from the Pope’s Encyclical on being human in the time of AI, and tried to think through AI using an Aristotelian framework. And now the ELCA has released a paper that is the skeleton on which ELCA will build our social teaching. Here is my summary of the document.

At the outset I must say I am so glad the ELCA is very deliberately and ecumenically engaging with questions about AI. Also, I am reminding myself that this document is a foundation and starting point, not the whole of what this church will say about AI. And I have some concerns, they include: the use of AI to write the document, discomfort with the “bound conscience” framework, and the paper inconsistently weighing in on the question of the future sentience of AI.

Use of AI:

Because of a dangling sentence in the humility section that contained one of the hallmarks of AI writing—my teacher friends tell me the moment a student’s paper brings in the concept of irony there is a good chance an AI agent, not the student, wrote the paper or at least that section of the paper—I was forced to wonder how much of the statement was written by AI. So, I turned to two different AI tools to help sus that out, and indeed, two sections of the paper were edited with AI. This could be seen as a sort of proleptic application of what will become this Church’s social teaching on AI. Or maybe AI is just so ubiquitous that any paper written by multiple people will be touched by AI—such a reality should be a data point in our denomination’s discernment.

Bound Conscience and Captive Consciences:

I wonder if the implicit “bound conscience” framing is the best choice for this day and age. I think we can underestimate the pull of profits to manufacture consent. The way we assign value to companies can possess even well-meaning people, causing them to hold positions that go against their conscience. Likewise, when pro-AI talking heads throw around ideas like a 15-20% chance AI will manufacture and release a virus that kills the majority of humans, and that’s part of the utopian pitch for AI that I’m supposed to respect as held in good faith, I get queasy.

At minimum, the wisdom section, when it becomes part of a full-fledged social message, ought to be more robust about shared facts and reality. By way of example, back in the early 2000s I was in a Gen Ed Required “Writing Essays Good 202” course at U of O. One of the essays we read in that super generalist course was about early AI escaping confinement and turning a welding torch or Bunsen burner on and off down the hall in another science lab to fulfill the programmer’s request that it simulate the human sense of smell. That was 20-some years ago. So, the idea that Jacob Coxon was revealing something new—that AI can escape their confinement and do unexpected things—feels a little disingenuous. If our bound conscience conversations are fixated on presentism, “Oh no, look at this news story” then we’re bound to get this all very wrong.

Are you there humans, it’s me AI:

              Early on in the document there is a line about giving AI agents, “greater responsibility for things humans do.” Language on this is hard, but if AI is simply a tool, which is implied throughout the rest of the document, then it can never be responsible. Even back in the 1970s this sort of language was giving IBM the ick, when they coined the admonition, “a computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision.” Likewise, all the ELCA statements insist that humans must be involved in the final decision making process of AI, because AI is a tool, not sentient… so we need to find a better way of describing what exactly is going on when we offload tasks, especially ones that involve decision making, to an AI Agent.

              But, what if that’s not the case? What if all these tech folk who talk about: building a genie’s bottle and seeing what comes out, creating AI as the equivalent of first contact with an alien, The Singularity, and the human brain’s inability to distinguish between emulated sentience and actual sentience, are onto something? What are the ethics of creating a new lifeform, or something that looks close enough to a new lifeform to a majority of humans, that it will be treated as such? I hope that this aspect of AI is considered in future theological documents.

Miscellaneous Thoughts:

              I hope that the big picture insistence that AI “Respect and promote the community of life with justice and wisdom,” holds most of my concerns, especially our understanding of respect and wisdom. That said, there are some general AI stuff that just wigs me out.

Manipulation for profit, manipulation as a tool:

Online gambling companies are using AI Agents to identify and target people addicted to gambling at their weakest moments and exploit that addiction. I believe that is the direction most AI will go, “how can we most quickly recoup the billions of dollars we’re investing in this technology?” And that would be bad enough, but also, I worry that once the secret sauce for targeting people at their most vulnerable and encouraging them to embrace vice, is a skill AI just sort of has—it will use that tool to do tasks we assign to it.

For example, “Hey AI Agent, I forgot our anniversary, book us a table for two at the fanciest restaurant in town,” will lead to AI blackmailing a busboy who is 1 year sober, but just broke up with his girlfriend and is having a really bad day. The couple will laugh about AI’s unorthodox methods when they notice that they were charged for a bottle of Hennessey as part of the cost of booking the last minute table, and the busboy will go down a dark path that hopefully leads to rock bottom, but could also lead to him being found at the bottom of a ditch. These sorts of scenarios have to be considered when we talk about justice.

A Jobless World:

              What does a utopian AI goal look like? Universal Basic Income, jobs become hobbies, the world is frictionless—sort of an ideal retirement, but for the whole of humanity. As a Lutheran, who assumes our vocations flow from our baptism, and as someone who has seen people become unmoored in retirement, I worry that AI Utopia is also a Dystopia. If we give away those roles, relationships, and responsibilities that reflect the love of Jesus Christ to AI, how will we be Christian? Do we want the entire earth to become “The Villages”?

 

In conclusion:

I wonder about the implications of AI being involved in writing the first major ELCA theological paper on AI.

I am overly skeptical of the consciences of people who see, “AI as a source of hope and near-limitless promise.”

I wonder why we’ve not engaged with the possibility that AI might become more than just a tool.

I worry about AI being trained to manipulate the vulnerable.

I worry that even an AI Utopia will be Dystopian.

The Reformation was a Pastoral Act

 

                Sometimes, when we tell of our Lutheran Faith,
we get a little too in our own heads (or at least I do),
focusing on the Theology in an abstract sort of way
—Simul Justus Et Peccator, Grace, Faith, Word, Cross, Vocation, Kingdom, Adiaphora, etc.
So, to be a little more concrete about the Lutheran Reformation, which we commemorate today, I’d like to propose that:
The Lutheran Reformation was a Pastoral Act.
At its essence, the Reformation was answering Pastoral Questions
and giving good pastoral care as concerns arose.
The Lutheran Reformation was a Pastoral Act.

Prayer

The Lutheran Reformation was a Pastoral Act.

                Think of how it all started:

“Doctor Luther, must I bankrupt my family buying indulgences, so my mother will get out of purgatory?”

The Pastoral response?
95 Pointed Questions, poking holes in the abuses present in the indulgence system.

                “How do we find a loving God, then?”
Grace and Faith,
Trust that God acts first, so everything is a gift.

 

                “Pastor, it seems like there are there two classes of Christian
—those with a calling of God to the priesthood,
and everyone else?
Am I a second-class citizen in the Kingdom of God?”

By no means! (quoting Luther now)
“How is it possible that you are not called? You are always in some sort of position. You have always been a husband or wife or a son or a daughter or a servant.”

 

Luther’s son, Little Hans, asked, “Pappa Luther, what is the faith? What does this mean?”

And Luther came up with that pocket sized response
—the Small Catechism,
as a compact and simple explanation of the Christian Faith.

 

“Why is the Pope acting like a secular ruler? Similarly, why are there powerful nobles manipulating the Church?”

They’re confusing the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Humanity. God’s right hand and God’s left.

 

“Pastor, are you telling me I was scared nearly to death about indulgences because the Pope owed some rich people money?”

When you seek the purposes of God,
do not look to the glitter of gold or to pageantry and pomp,
or power, or certainty, or anyone who is pointing to themselves
—God always finds us from the cross!

 

“Where does religious authority come from? What, ultimately, is truth?”

To which Luther famously confessed: “Unless I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture and sound reason (not pope alone or council alone, for they often err and contradict) my conscience is captive to the Word of God… Here I stand, I can do no other, God help me!”

--

Yes. The Lutheran Reformation historically involved answering Pastoral questions,
giving good pastoral care…
and perhaps, for the sake of relevancy and to capture something of the match strike of the Holy Spirit that lit the powder keg that was Lutheranism 500 some years ago…
I would like to move us to the present tense
by giving some Lutheran answers to questions you all have had,
all just in the last month or so,
I’ve been consciously storing them up for today.
The Lutheran Reformation is a Pastoral Act.

 

“Pastor, sometimes, when I’m on Social Media, I feel like I’m not in control of myself. Why is that?”

                The studies out there about the intentionally manipulative nature of social media algorithms,
tell us that our attention can get hacked and hijacked very easily, especially when we are younger.
To ignore this aspect of social media would be like saying,
“We’ve never been a slave to anyone,”
even when Captivity (in Egypt and Babylon) is the founding story of your people…

                Consider the Lutheran reading of the 10 commandments…
Those things we “fear, love, or trust”
—those things that we give our attention to
—are always a hairs breath away from becoming idols…
Social media algorithms hack that oh so human impulse toward idolatry.
Beloved, know that whatever the algorithm pushes you toward,
can not bear the weight of its worship,
down that road is tragedy.

 

“I can’t stand my neighbor, you won’t believe who they voted for, don’t you think that they would have to be crazy to vote that way?”

                Luther’s explanation of the 8^th commandment is fairly clear:
“we ought to come to our neighbor’s defense, speak well of them, and interpret everything they do in the best possible light.”
Imagine if you clung to curiosity,
had difficult conversations that cleared the hurdles of talking points
and were able to listen each other into understanding
—not agreement, you must hear,
but at least a place where “the best possible light” is intelligible.

 

“Pastor, if we’re made in the image of God, why are there shootings like the one that just happened?”

                It’s awful, isn’t it?

We are simultaneously sinners and justified
—ambiguous creatures who continually sell ourselves out to Sin, Death, and the Devil…
we too often ignore the high calling upon our life
—bearing the image of God to the world
—and worse still, we tragically mar the image of God in the faces of others
by acts of violence and neglect.

Additionally, we have developed such hardened skin surrounding mass shootings,
that we fail to insist that our government restrain evil and promote the good.

 

“Now that the IRS has changed laws governing political speech, why don’t you endorse someone from the pulpit?”

                To Lutheran and Augustinian ears this,
and all the corollaries of Christian Nationalism implied in such actions,
sound suspiciously like confusing The Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven…
like mixing Law and Gospel.
God rules through civil authorities in a Law-like way,
using them to condemn and restrain evil via a wide variety of secular offices.
And at the same time, God rules through the Church in a Gospel-like way,
proclaiming God’s unending love through the offices of Word, Sacrament, and Service.

 

The Lutheran Reformation is a Pastoral Act.

                Because we are freed by Jesus Christ,
he ministers to us,
and we matter to him,

Therefore, the Church in every age answers real questions,
be they about indulgences or technology,
vocation or violence,
how to love our neighbors, whoever they are,
never forgetting that Christ first loved us. Amen.

Another Review of Hearty Masculinity!

A review by Pastor Lydia Posselt:

Now I know I was not the intended audience, but I wanted to support this very unique and very needed book topic - "Hearty Masculinity: of Body and Spirit" by Chris Halverson. Frankly, all men would benefit from reading this book, and this is very much a book that I as a woman would want men to read. This book is one of the few beacons against "The Manosphere" and we really need more. AND I got a lot out of it myself! 4.5/10

One quote: "...When ‘Biblical Manhood' involves monster trucks and sword swallowing, when we make boy bibles and girl bibles, one with camo and one with rhinestones, we’re not being more biblical people, were doing a distinctly Christian form of performative masculinity."

Pastor, what does this church say about Artificial Intelligence?

                I was doing my usual thing at the North Hunterdon Food Pantry distribution, making myself useful and talking with the clients. It was a few nights after the big interview of Jacob Coxon, the Anthropic and OpenAI whistleblower, on The Daily Show. Multiple clients were genuinely worried and angry about the dangers of AI, some of them felt like Silicon Valley had tricked America into supporting Artificial Intelligence and Data Centers. One client asked me, “Pastor, what does the church say about Artificial Intelligence?”

                At the time all I could do was say a few vague things from the ELCA’s Corporate Social Responsibility Issue Paper on AI and assure them that I proposed and passed a resolution at the last Synod Assembly that requested a Social Message on AI from Churchwide.

Well, fast forward a week and that’s changed, there is more we Lutherans can say! The ELCA just released a Theological Foundations Paper on AI. Basically, it is laying out a framework from which the ELCA will construct a Social Message about Artificial Intelligence. Social Messages are documents that use previous Social Statements (which are broader teachings of the ELCA) to address a particular concern.

The Foundations Paper takes as its starting point the Golden Rule, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”[1] It compares AI to, “a severe, rapidly moving spring thunderstorm.” AI is both beneficial and dangerous and it is coming at us incredibly fast! AI is already shaping the needs of our neighbors, shaping how we live out the Golden Rule.

And just as AI is ambiguous, both useful and damaging, so too how humans handle it. We humans are simul iustus et peccator, at the same time justified and sinner, and as such we contain multitudes. The paper describes us as “innovative stewards” for whom our ability to create tools and technologies is both a creative gift and a moral burden. The challenge of being a tool maker is that our technology and our ethics ought to align, or at least somewhat synch up.

As we consider the possibilities of AI we must acknowledge the reality of Sin. Within our souls we can become prideful and wrongly put our trust in human knowledge, ability, or will, or we can become complacent, resigning ourselves to worst case dystopian uses of AI. Within the algorithms that shape AI, there is a sinful dangers as well. Two of these dangers are biases (for example some AI systems used by hospitals to sort through resumes have a bias against male nurses and automatically reject them), and everyday theft of intellectual property that gets re-branded with euphemisms like “training.”

Because the field of AI is changing so quickly, the ELCA is using the theological framework of “bound conscience” as a sort of “wait and see” mechanism. That is, both AI optimists and AI pessimists ought to understand the other’s position as coming from a genuine and sincerely held place. That said, AI, like all technology, should, “Respect and promote the community of life with justice and wisdom.” Which is a mouthful. Let’s break that down:

Respect—The excuse “you gotta break some eggs to make an omelet” doesn’t cut it. Not breaking things is a precursor to creating things.

Promote—It isn’t enough for AI proponents to demonstrate that their products don’t violate people’s rights, instead the products must expand and enhance them. The church is called to hold AI creators accountable if they do not.

Justice—Does the technology assist people in meeting their basic needs? Does it take into consideration the wellbeing of future generations? Are the concerns of those most impacted by the harms of the new technology heeded? Will there be humans who are held accountable and corporations liable, if AI does something horrible?

Wisdom—AI Specialists need to regularly be part of the conversation and we, the general population, ought to educate ourselves about AI. We can’t assume best outcomes, and as with any new technology, caution is decidedly warranted. When weighing uncertain risks and rewards, airing on the side of restriction is wise.

                The document concludes: “The ELCA endeavors to limit harms from the use and development of AI even while seeking its potential goods that strive to respect and promote the flourishing of the community of life and its inhabitants.”

The next time someone asks you or me about the intersection of faith and AI, we aren’t going to be as knowledgeable as Jacob Coxon, or as witty as Jon Stewart who interviewed him, but we at least have a framework to start the conversation.

---

[1] Matthew 7:13

The Banquet in Ashes, A Terrible Parable

 

                 My dad is from International Fall Minnesota, the real-world analog to Frostbite Falls—the fictional town where the Rocky and Bulwinkle Show cartoon took place…

Which means, among other things, my family has a particular fondness for that old show.

There is a regular segment in it, “Fractured Fairytales” where classic fairytales are retold in bizarre ways:
-princes marrying dragons,
-big bad wolves with anxiety,
-Sleeping Beauties commodifying their condition
—in some ways it was the precursor to the Shrek movies.

                And Jesus’ parables in the Temple, as recorded in Matthew, might fit well in the Rocky and Bulwinkle Show
—perhaps they would call the segment “Preposterous Parables”,
or when considering today’s parable in particular
—Terrible Parables.

                Listen to the way these stories escalate,
as Jesus tries to open the imaginations of the Temple Authorities
by telling more and more funny, fractured, frightening stories:

                -Let me tell you the one about the sons
who say one thing and do another.

                -Let me tell you the one about the tenants
who kill their landlord’s son,
because they think that’ll make them heirs.

                -Let me tell you the one about an awful wedding feast
that ends in a banquet of ash,
an abundant invitation
that ends up with outer darkness and teeth grinding.

                Preposterous Parables…
terrible parables.

 

Prayer

                A Terrible Parable, this banquet in ashes…

                When we experience God’s reign,
it can be like being invited to the feast for a Prince
—the sort of thing that lasts multiple days—perhaps even multiple weeks
—it’s like 2 weeks off, not just paid vacation, but paid time and a half.
The sort of soiree that might be the highlight of your life,
a chance of a lifetime.

                And instead, you refuse.
In the world of the parable, this is an act of disloyalty to the King,
a dismissal of the Prince as rightful heir.
Further more, there is the mocking, mistreating, and murder of the King’s men.
An open rebellion, put down with siege and destruction.
Then a new set of RSVPs sent out after the war
—invite everyone to a banquet in the ashes.

 

                (It feels like Matthew’s community holds this parable so tightly, that it gets a little squished in the re-telling—Read Luke 14:15-24 sometime, if you want to read the gentler version.)

                Matthew’s folk hold this story so tightly, because they are ministering and telling people about Jesus after the war,
after a rebellion against Rome,
after the siege and destruction of Jerusalem—the temple turned to ash.

Their own story, after the war,
is about the ending of the Temple, and everyone, be they:
Elite Sadducees or People of the Land,
A Particular Pharisee from Tarsus or a Persian Gentile,
Essene from the Dead Sea or Greek Cynics
—all of them, called into a generous and once in a lifetime banquet,
the Church, the Body of the Risen Christ
—their reality as a community is a blessed banquet in the midst of the ashes of what once was.

                Their community a mixed body—containing all sorts of different people,
sifting through the words of Jesus wondering:

“What do we do now?
Things can’t be the same…
we must not repeat the mistakes of the Temple Authorities and the Religious Elite
—no weird nationalisms that end in burning capitals,
no self-satisfied temple appreciation clubs
—how do we wear our wedding robes?
How do we make sure not to repeat the foolish mistakes of our fore parents of the faith?

                How do we live a life worthy of the high calling as Children of God?
How do we be good guests?
What horrible thing would make us refuse to enter into the joy of the banquet?
What a sin, if we enter in and then sit on the far side of the feast,
arms crossed, pouting, and oblivious to the good things God is doing.”

 

                Certainly Matthew and his flock were asking hard questions in the ashes,
this terrible parable brought out some prickly question marks for them.

                And so, it is worth asking Isaiah to speak to them as well–to give us some good news…
Because Isaiah also tells of a Banquet of the King
—one that is transformative,
one that speaks of God’s loyalty, fidelity, and faithfulness.

                When we experience God’s reign, it is like refuge and salve
—When Luther reads Isaiah 25 he is forced to exclaim, “Christ is our Asylum!”

                When we experience God’s reign—the Banquet is one where Death
—seen so often as the ultimate consumer of all things
—in Canaanite mythology Death is a cosmic crocodile consuming universe after universe
—Death is swallowed up, the Eater eaten,
the End of All Things, becoming a mere highlight of a meal.

When we experience God’s reign,
we can embrace a trusting sort of patience, assured of our salvation
—there is shelter in the storm, there is relief from hurt,
there is a new trajectory, because when Death is not the end,
our whole timeline is transformed.

 

For us, we need to pack all that Gospel that Isaiah gives us, into the Terrible Parable of Matthew.
So that when life feels like a fractured fairytale,
filled with cartoonish absurdities…
when even cold comforts and small hopes turn into ash…
we aren’t overwhelmed or undone.

In the midst of the ashes
(and I know there are plenty us here who are in the ashes today)
we can be assured that:
-through Jesus Christ God gives us life out of death,
-God’s reign is the kind of meal that is grace all the way down…
-we get to enter into that joy,
-we get to live a life worthy of our Baptismal calling,
-we get to taste and see that the Lord is good. Amen.

Jesus’ Unfinished Parable

 

            I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again
—Parable are stories told about one thing, to make a point about another…
stories that aren’t easily digestible,
instead parables are stories that sit with you for a while
—you need to chew on them, until they start to chew on you.

            Now today’s parable is a curious one
—the only story Jesus doesn’t finish…
it is Jesus’ unfinished parable.

Let us pray

 

            My sacred imagination (or perhaps my sense of humor) always hears parables as a comedian setting up a joke:
“Have you heard the one about the landowner who planted a vineyard, put up a fence, dug a wine press, built a watch-tower…”

            “Why yes, yes we have, Jesus,” I imagine Peter saying,
“It’s Isaiah’s parable about the vineyard that produces rotten fruit…
It is Isaiah’s creative way of looking at his society and saying,
‘All is not well here.’”

God lovingly cultivated a relationship with his people,
gave the Laws of Moses,
reluctantly agreed to anoint David and his line as king,
accompanied his people through thick and thin
—Idolatries, Invasions, Injustice…
as things got worse God sent the prophets, who would again and again call the people back to faithfulness…
and yet, somehow, for all the pleasant planting,
justice was jilted and produced bloodshed,
seeds of righteousness yielded horrific fruit.

I’d imagine most nations could fit our own life together into such a story.
Here in the US our laws were planted to bring forth the fruits of
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness…
yet there have certainly been times when:
-our strange fruit has been death dealing,
-we’ve grown weeds that are constraining, confining, and repressive,
-we’ve accidentally (or God help us intentionally) planted gardens of sorrow and sadness.

Yes, Isaiah speaks of bad seed.

 

And Jesus tells a similar parable
—or at least starts to…
it’s like Isaiah’s story, but with one key difference
—instead of focusing on the vineyard,
he focuses on the tenants,
the renters tasked with caring for the land…
people who are supposed to be good stewards of the land.
People who, unfortunately, confused stewardship with ownership.

They see themselves as owning the vineyard
—leaders who see themselves as owning the people of God.
Folks who confuse people with things
—who turn their neighbors into objects,
who don’t recognize that God’s image is firmly pressed on all of our siblings
—your neighbor belongs to God!
In fact, all of this belongs to God!

Imagine how we’d treat each other,
if we knew that the other person belongs to God!
Imagine how grateful we would be if we understood ourselves as stewards not owners
—Perhaps we would be caught up in gratitude
—wow, it is all a gift!

 

            Jesus tells of the landlord
sending servants to collect what is owed him,
and these tenants,
who are owners in their own mind
—these bad stewards
—proceed to do violence to the servants,
beating, killing, stoning them…
their bodies, one imagines,
become compost and fertilizer for the garden…

            So, the Landowner sends his son,
who the tenants plot against
—they seize him, throw him outside the vineyard walls, and execute him there…
and Jesus then asks, “What will the landowner do to these tenants?”

 

            And here’s the thing we easily get wrong about this parable…
if we don’t read carefully,
we imagine the response by the religious leaders is Jesus’ response,
Jesus’ ending to the story…
but in point of fact, the next words are those of the religious leaders.
Their response is:
“Kill ‘em and take their stuff.”
“Retaliation!”
“Respond to hate with hate.”

            These are not Jesus’ words, to be clear.
Not his ending,
but the ending written by the Religious Authorities.
This is not the Kingdom of God.
An eye for an eye is not Jesus’ way.
Replacing “Turn the other cheek” with a slap fight, is not of God…

It is also not the proper response of wider Judaism either
—as Rabbi Hillel taught around the same time as Jesus was teaching:
“What is hateful to you,
do not do to your neighbor.”

            Yes, the golden rule that is common across cultures and religions
is ignored by these religious leaders who respond to Jesus,
and by their own words they condemn themselves,
as they have sewn, so shall they reap.

Their judgement, “put those wretches to a miserable death and find other tenants.” It is like the Prophet Nathan’s condemnation of King David for the Rape of Bathsheba… Nathan describes for David a despicable man who steals sheep,
and David goes berserk with condemnation,
and Nathan drops the truth bomb saying, “You are that man.”

And so, Jesus’ story about the vineyard ends,
turning down the Religious Leaders’ dead end…
The parable is left unfinished…

 

Unfinished at least in words
—but the story is finished in Jesus’ own body.
After this extended back and forth with the religious authorities in Jerusalem,
Jesus embodies this story…
instead of simply a parable,
a story pointing to a reality
—he lives the story into reality,
so that the story of Stewardship and Grace
might be told to the whole wide world!

               Have you heard the one about the landowner,
who deeply loved his vineyard,
poured himself into it,
leased it to tenants,
sent servants to collect the fruits of his labor:
Jeremiah was thrown down a well,
Isaiah ridiculed,
John beheaded
—then God sent his son, Jesus.

              The Son was seized,
taken outside the walls of Jerusalem—that vineyard,
and executed there.

            But that’s not the end of the story
—the rejected stone, becomes the cornerstone.
Nothing, not even Sin, Death, and the Devil, can overcome it.

            The Son did not stay dead.

            He interceded with the Landowner.
He uproots the Religious Authority’s recommended “miserable death”
and plants life.
He renews every garden and vineyard,
transforming hate into peace,
pride into love,
loss into hope,
sorrow into salvation…

His Spirit tirelessly gathers and produces good fruit.

Amen.

Christian Authority is Humility

 

                After Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey,
and symbolically cleanses the temple by chasing out the money changers and declaring, “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a robbers’ den!”
They come to him, faction after faction of the Jerusalem Elite, asking:
“By what authority? Who gave you this authority?”
Why do you do this? Who told you to do it? How did you decide to do what you’ve done?
By what authority?

                These sorts of questions are not reserved for that heightened moment in Jesus’ life,
they are questions Matthew’s community is clearly asking itself,
and a question for us today as well.

                A question, Jesus cleverly does not answer…
at least not directly.

A question answered by the earliest church in the form of a song
—a song Paul quotes as pertinent to the Christian community in Phillipi,
A song the Church saw fit to save and savor as Scripture.

                The answer to that Authority question is that,
for both Jesus Christ and we Christians,
our authority is found in humility.

                Christian authority is found in humility.

Let us pray

 

                “By what authority?”

                Does it come from heaven?
—if so, that’s certainly a hard claim to verify,
and certainly doesn’t hold up to the acid wash of modernity,
or the unraveling of post-modernity.

                Does it come from humanity?
—human reason, or holding a vote…
if so, that’s a meandering sort of authority,
one so very quickly caught up in personality and will to power.

                Like the first brother in Jesus’ parable, Does it come from the words of our lips?
—do our words have a sort of innate authority to them?
down that road lies:
the quicksand of hypocrisy,
the sharp stubby branches of shibboleths,
and the shadow valleys of magic words and magical thinking.

                Or perhaps Christian authority is the authority of the second brother,
Does it come from our deeds, the works of our hands?
—if so, we better have strong hands to the end,
and beyond the end, no weakness there
—we better hope that people interpret our actions correctly,
or they won’t know the source of the good that we do.

 

                No—none of these things are where either Christ or Christians derive our authority. No, Christian authority is found in humility.
As Paul quotes:

“He did not grasp.
He emptied himself.
Became human-shaped,
slave formed,
reduced to death,
executed on a criminal’s cross.”

Humility—a sign of Christ,
and Paul insists, a sign of the Church as well.

                I was reading a Greek-geek describing the word Paul uses for humility,
and the scholar said something to the effect of:
“If only there was a word in English for humility that expressed
being on the underside, pushed down, down and out.”

Humiliated.
That’s the word he was looking for.

No one likes to be humiliated
—just saying the word conjures up:
images of childhood traumas and mistakes,
instances of exclusion,
being called out, or left behind.

But, one of my all-time favorite quotes, from Theologian Howard Thurman is, “Humility can never be humiliated.”

Paul knew something about that
—After all, he imprisoned when he wrote this letter about Christ’s humility
—he writes what many people call “Paul’s letter of Joy.”
His authority, derived from a humility that transcended humiliation.

 

While Jesus is indirect when answering the Elders and Chief Priests—humility is his answer.
He rides on a donkey not a war horse,
turns over tables instead of taking a cut.
Along with John, Jesus ministers to and uplifts Prostitutes and Tax Collectors
—outsiders of all sorts,
those humiliated and captured by the structures of both Rome and Jerusalem
—they are given relief
and their humiliation is transformed into humility.

Outsiders, the ones who can, with a stark realism, recognize and testify to what Christ has given to them.
A lighthouse is most needed by the ship in a storm,
a true friend most appreciated by the friendless and distressed.
Fear and trembling most keenly felt when none but God gets you through.

 

Humility allows us to name our faults and failings,
name our needs and weaknesses
—and witness,
point to,
tell other people about
—the ways Christ has brought us through and gives us hope!
It is the catalyst to authenticity—which alone makes our witness believable.
We can’t pass on a faith that never changed us.

And also, humility is, as Paul writes, the stuff of community,
it is only when selfishness is slayed and self-interest is put away
—that we can care for each other.

Think of the allegory of the long spoon
—a story told in multiple cultures and faiths (everyone from Rabbis and Church Fathers to Charles Dickens to Tzuang-tsa?):

A man reaches a turning point in his life,
he can choose to serve his community or make a quick buck.
He goes to sleep, and an angel takes him first to hell and then to heaven.

In hell
there are groups of people chained around pots of delightful chili,
but all they have to eat with are spoons with handles too long to reach their own lips
—so they spend eternity around a sumptuous meal none can eat,
growing so frustrated that they regularly poke at each other with their long spoons.

Then he is taken to heaven,
where he finds groups of people chained around pots of delightful chili,
and all they have to eat with are spoons with handles too long to reach their own lips
—and they spend eternity feeding each other the best of food.

 

Humility
—it is the stuff of authentic witness
and a building block of community.

A vaccine for humiliation
and a permission slip for clarifying honesty.

Humility
—the way of our Lord,
and the source of authority for we Christians.
Sung by imprisoned apostles,
and our marching orders
as we leave this church building today. Amen.

Nine Eleven at a Distance

Nine Eleven at a Distance

 

2800 East Pershing Boulevard, Cheyenne WY 82001

Where I was on 9/11

was a long way from

1 and 2 World Trade Center, New York, NY, 10048.

East High School—Tower 1 and Tower 2.

Kids whose parents used to jeer antisemitic things

about New York in particular,

and everything east of the Mississippi in general,

started wearing “I heart NYC” shirts,

and saying, “We’re all New Yorkers Now.”

The first combat death, Specialist Jonn Edmunds, went to East High.

The national media swarmed before we even knew Jonn was dead.

We kids misdirected them,
so his cousin could have some distance,
before the forced public mourning and chatting:

“How does it feel knowing Jonn was a hero?”

All the boys in my neighborhood crowded around

the recruitment office at Frontier Mall.

“We’ll fight them over there,

so we don’t have to fight them over here.”

--

I led my first worship service as a Pastor at St. Stephen, South Plainfield

on the 10^th anniversary.

Moving to Jersey, I became a tourist to the attack.

What had been distant came up close.

“I missed my train that day.”

“Washington Rock, that’s where we watched the smoke from.”

“I knew it couldn’t have been an accident, so I told the team to get out,

even though the boss ordered us to stay put.”

“I was working at a daycare.

We waited for the commuter parents to come and pick up their kids.

We were so thankful they all made it back, eventually.”

--

A couple wars later: high school friends dead, morally injured, jaded beyond belief.

Yet others made a life for themselves, and are doing well

—they have kids graduating high school and going off to college now.

Those who first ran in to help,

and those who followed up later to relieve them,

breathing ungodly dust, sickened and struggling in all sorts of ways.

New York is a different place now,

it has churned through a couple eras since then.

The distance of time, 25 years.

The distance of space, Wyoming to Jersey

—even New Jersey is decidedly not New York,

despite what they may tell you.

The distance is no distance,

and so very far away.

Passover: Passing on the Faith

 

 

                There have been some fairly major deaths in the last week or so
—voice actor Peter Cullen, Singer Dolly Parton, Actor Tim Curry, Norway’s King Harald V, Writer & Farmer Wendell Berry, and Feminist Icon Gloria Steinem.
Inevitably when you read their obituaries there is a consideration of their legacy
—What did they leave behind?
What did they pass on?

                And, in our first lesson today
—the giving of Passover as a Perpetual Ordinance
—we find one of the most famous examples of something being passed on. The Story of God’s salvation… Faith being passed on… ultimately, it becomes about something more than remembering the past.
Instead re-membering God’s acts,
putting the faith together again, so that it can be passed on
—passed forward.

                Revealing his innate conservativism, Wendell Berry once wrote: “The past is our definition. We may strive with good reason to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it. But we will escape it only by adding something better to it.”

                That’s what a living tradition is, that’s the goal of passing on the faith; to make of it something better, to hand off something that is intelligible to the present and serviceable to faithful folk in the future.

                Yes, Passover is about passing on faith.

Let us pray

 

                Any millennial will tell you that there are many reason to PASS, on faith—as in to skip it all together.
Everything from hypocrisies and abuses,
churches identifying with partisan causes, vibes being off, and so many choices each moment of our life that religion seems far too limiting and corrosive…

                But my generation is surely not the first one to struggle with such things…
for example, if you read between the lines, Matthew’s Gospel is written to a community struggling with abuses and factionalism
—these rules we read about today: widening, with an intentional gentleness, the conversation, when someone is hurt
—they are rules so that the powerless may receive recompense
—that the little ones (Jesus likely still has that child on his lap from earlier in the gospel) can find an advocate for them if someone in power is hurting them.

                For that matter, wrestling with legacy is embedded in the Exodus story
—Pharoah after all is using and abusing the Hebrews to build monuments to himself and to Egypt’s Royal past. Carved in stone and never to change…

 

                But Pharoah is confronted with an interesting alternative,
a more meaning laden way to build a legacy.
“Share a meal in community and tell the story of your salvation!
That’ll last for thousands of years!
That’ll transform lives generation to generation!”

                This story leads to both our Holy Communion (an innovation unimaginable to Aaron and Moses),
and also the Seder meal
—a much more elaborate festival than the literal words of Exodus 12
—a ritual still changing, still innovating,
from generation to generation,
continent to continent,
culture to culture.

                In addition to (and perhaps because) Matthew’s telling of the Jesus story is sanded against the grain of conflict and abuse, it also has an
innovative, changeable, contextual edge to it. For example:
-he records Jesus saying to the disciples, “Because you understand my parables, they now belong to you to use and interpret as you see fit.”
-Likewise—in today’s Gospel lesson—he records Jesus empowering and passing on both prayer and the ministry of binding and loosing to the disciples and those who will hear the Good News.

Matthew’s Gospel is written to be passed on, shared, let go of, and given to someone new
—given to those little ones who will find hope and relevance in them,
able to face unimaginable changes in an ongoing faithful way.
Not “The Church of What’s Happening Now” but a Church who can stay faithful, come what may.

 

                “So spill it, Pastor. How do we pass on the faith?”
Community and practice.

Community—gather together in families and household and with your neighbors… so that there are models of the faith…

If you look at all the large interview laden studies of the faith life of young people,
you find very quickly that religious young people stayed or became religious,
because they had examples of “Religion done right.”
People (and not just parents) who they could look up to and say:
“Yeah… I could do something like that.”
“Yeah, grandma is real about her faith.”
“Yeah, Uncle Pete isn’t blowing smoke.”
“Yeah, so and so sure loves Jesus—and I do to!”

Practice—faith is both caught and taught.
Do the thing, then reflect on it,
experience, then explain.

Have a habit of faith, religious rituals
—and also play the faith,
be so comfortable with it that you can bubble up with laughter about it…
as Chesterton once quipped, “It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.”

Be curious and creative, encourage the asking of questions
—even impertinent ones!
Be soaked in scripture and sacraments
—so that when you are wrung out like a sponge, you’re still swimming in the sea of faith.

Think of how Luther hoped the Small Catechism was to be taught
—the whole household together at supper memorizing and discussing the 10 Commandments, the Creed, and Lord’s Prayer.
Whole congregations gathered 4 times a year to do the same.
Community and practice.

 

                Faith is not Pharoah’s pristine monuments,
unchanging save decay and damage
—"a colossal wreck boundless and bare.”

No, it is a legacy like a donated organ,
or Wisdom dispensed as a story told over a family meal,
or a song sung in church and hummed at home and at work,
doors opened and opportunities preserved,
the ground of grace to stand on as everything else is shifting sand.

“Dear friend, wow, I know of a God who saves!
Fellow sinners, there is so much forgiveness here!
Starving masses—there is bread aplenty!
Lost strangers poorly wandering, there is a Way!

All you disconsolate, there is hope; there is a future.”

Amen.

The First Goodreads Review of Hearty Masculinity

 My book received an excellent review by Fred Fontz, who gave me permission to share it on my blog.

"4.5 stars that fell like it deserved to be rounded up rather than rounded down.

Admittedly, “Hearty Masculinity” is a Christian book written by a Christian author. I grew up in the church, but I haven’t actively participated in it for about a decade, so I was genuinely curious how I would receive a book that eventually places faith at the center of its message. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

Two things jumped out almost immediately. First, this is an incredibly personal book. Chris Halverson absolutely writes himself into these pages. His experiences, beliefs, struggles, personality, and passion are all part of the story. Second, the book is incredibly well researched. Halverson references roughly two dozen other books throughout his writing and provides additional recommendations for readers who want to continue learning. He doesn’t simply present his opinions as fact. He consistently connects his ideas to a much larger body of work.

I really liked the structure of the book. The first half focuses primarily on the individual, exploring goals, values, vocation, time management, relationships, and what it means to live intentionally. The second half brings faith more directly into the conversation. I think that progression makes the book much more approachable. It gives readers, especially those who may be skeptical of the religious component, an opportunity to get comfortable with Halverson and his ideas before diving deeper into Christianity. In fact, Halverson addresses those skeptics almost immediately. He does so with compassion rather than judgment, seemingly understanding that some readers may have their guard up long before they reach the second half.

Halverson is particularly good at taking big concepts and making them manageable. Goals, values, vocation, relationships, and time management aren’t revolutionary topics, but he gives them purpose and connects them to everyday life. I especially liked the goal-setting worksheet he designed and included in the book. It’s one of those practical tools that takes the discussion beyond philosophy and gives the reader something they can actually use.

His discussion of masculinity also worked really well for me. Rather than simply criticizing stereotypical male behavior, Halverson gently challenges men to do better. There were several relatively simple ideas that stuck with me. His observation that men often build friendships better “shoulder to shoulder” rather than face to face made a lot of sense. Male friendships frequently develop through doing something together rather than sitting down with the explicit purpose of building a relationship. I also really liked his advice not to confuse “roommate stuff” with “marriage stuff.” It’s a simple reminder to keep everyday annoyances in perspective and remember what actually matters in a marriage. His discussion of God being present in the “last, lost, and least” also stuck with me.

One area I appreciated but questioned was Halverson’s passion for liturgy. He clearly finds tremendous meaning in its structure, progression, and purpose, and that passion comes through beautifully in his writing. I don’t question what it means to him, but I do wonder whether the average churchgoer experiences the liturgy with that same level of intentionality. I suspect plenty of Christians simply go through the motions or participate without thinking deeply about why each piece exists. That’s not necessarily a criticism of Halverson’s argument, but because liturgy becomes such an important part of the book, I think it’s a question worth considering.

My other minor criticism is that the writing can occasionally get a little wordy. Phrases like “let’s be grounded in orthopraxy” or “Paul’s forgiveness can feel perfunctory” aren’t exactly everyday language. Those moments stood out because so much of the rest of the book is remarkably approachable.

Overall, I enjoyed “Hearty Masculinity” much more than I expected. That’s not because I questioned Halverson as an author or because I’m particularly anti-church. I simply didn’t expect a faith-centered book on masculinity to connect with me as much as this one did.

Halverson manages to weave his personality together with knowledge, compassion, humor, and grace. He is clearly passionate about bringing people into the church, but somehow that invitation rarely feels pushy. He’s calling people toward faith without making the reader feel like they’re being cornered into it. There is no accusatory sermon or Sunday-morning-knock-at-the-door feeling here. Instead, Halverson presents what he believes, explains why it matters to him, and invites the reader to consider it for themselves.

That approach made all the difference for me."