The Hebrews Sermon

           There is much that we think we know about the Letter to the Hebrews

—for example we think it is a letter, and that it is to the Hebrews…
neither of which are true.
This piece of scripture is, in point of fact, a sermon,
and the title “To the Hebrews” was added centuries later when Judaism and Christianity were trying to differentiate themselves from one another.
This sermon became a sort of clobber book, that 2^nd century Christians would use against their Jewish neighbors.

                But that wasn’t how it was originally read…

                You see, this sermon was first preached to a pocket of Christians who have survived the persecutions by Nero
—back in 64, Nero accidently set fire to a section of Rome, and didn’t want to take responsibility, so he said the Christians did it…
and then Rome proceeded to catch Christians and dip them in pitch and light them on fire, as both punishment and a way to light the streets of the city.

                An awful time, contemporaries of the event speak of the smell of burning bodies clogging the nostrils of Rome…

                It is to such a situation that this sermon is preached.
To a Christian community who survived attacks, arrests, harassment…
they held fast through the worst of it…
and years later, the low-level persecution just didn’t stop
—shunned by neighbors and relations, kept out of social clubs,
goods and wealth never returned by the government and the mobs that sack Christian homes,
seen as weird and anti-social at best, seditious at worst.

                And the author reminds these persecuted Christians of their past courage and confidence,
calls them to their best baptized selves
—keep on keeping on,
care for each other,
be loving and welcoming.

He preaches this message in a repeated three-part framework:
1. Consider how God was faithful in Hebrew Scriptures.
2. Guess what, Jesus is faithful like that!
3. Don’t let go of that faithfulness! No matter what, hold on!

Prayer

 

                God has consistently sent messengers and leaders
—Angels and Prophets even!

Christ Jesus
—God’s dear Son, the heft of God’s glory, the spark of creation, God in front of us clear as day…
He is God’s message personified—in the flesh,
and his journey from death to new life is God’s way for us!

                Do not drift away or disobey or fall short!
Do not ignore God’s message for us or stop your ears
—No! Instead, keep hearing the Gospel!

 

                The Temple System
—the Sanctuary of God and the High Priesthood and Sacrifices,
were all done to bring peace and righteousness.

And look to Jesus
—he frees us from the fear of Death,
scours us of our Sin—making us clean.
He is our dwelling place, a sanctuary for those in need,
his tears, tenderly wept, are taken by God as a sacrifice for us.

Take a load off—rest in Christ!
You have found confidence and favor from God on account of Jesus Christ.
Please, don’t lose your spiritual sensitivity,
do not let your hearts grow cold,
even when your society continues to kick you out into the cold.

 

                The Torah
—a Law and story and way of life,
was given to God’s people,
Moses and Aaron,
with Tablets and Temple.

                And look, as the prophet Jeremiah writes, a new sort of way, and story, and law has been put into your hearts.
Jesus does God’s will,
willing us to life even when we are in death.

                You’ve been washed and saved by the Living God!
Christ’s Law of love is within you,
why wouldn’t you encourage each other through the long haul,
Continue to gather together, you are Christ’s body after all!
Be welcoming, for God’s sake!

Love and do good—just as Christ did!

                Heck of a sermon to preach to Christians being persecuted…
I wonder how the Persecuted Church hears this kind of message today…
-How does the Nigerian Christian whose church was firebombed hear this? Be confident.
-How does the South Korean missionary to the North hear it while yet imprisoned? Stay sensitive.

-How does the Indonesian Christian who watched his Pastor uncle be beheaded hears it? Keep on loving!

 

                And what is the meaning of all these words for we, who are certainly well off in the grand scheme of things?
We Christians who may even have a hard time saying, “we are strangers and foreigners here on earth.” Who on our bad days, even confuse our homeland, with our heavenly home.

                No… we can’t go too far down that road…

 

                This sermon is for us as well…
certainly there are some here today who:
-Suffer great pains.
-Worry has not left our hearts,
nor doubts or bouts of laxity.
-Has not your heart been recalcitrant to the Spirit’s calling.
-Aren’t we too tired;
don’t we also struggle with hatred and evil.
-Are we not beset by inclinations toward isolation and defensiveness, as are all peoples!

 

Certainly! We too need to hear of hope; we need to know that God has been faithful.
Jesus Christ will never abandon us! In him we can keep on keeping on!

The anguished of body and soul finds rest in him!

Our slack spirits are slaked…
our hard hearts are made soft…
by our Savior’s words!

He guides us homeward
—through our self-seeking,
patiently creating a welcoming people,
making us walk the way of daring understanding,
and helping us to more clearly and courageously love.

 

God is faithful, we belong to Christ, no matter what, hold on!

Amen.

Vanity O’ Vanity!

                There are many things to commend the Revised Common Lectionary
—our 3-year cycle of reading scripture in the Church
—but one of its shortcomings is that we only read from the book of Ecclesiastes once every three years.

                What a pity.
This book is the most nuanced of the Books of Wisdom
—focused on ending well, and letting go.
Like its more optimistic cousins,
it divides human actions into two camps wisdom and folly,
but then it follows up with: “What then?”
After you succeed, what is next?
It focuses on some deep stuff:

·         Vanity—a chasing after the wind.

·         Generational Churn—What will be done with your successes, by your successors?

·         The meaning of Life—What matters in the end?

·         Possessions—what’s the point of what we accumulate?

 

                Now today,
to hear some of the major themes of Ecclesiastes,
this under-read book of the Bible,
we’re going to consider Jesus’ famed parable of the Rich Fool.

Let us pray

 

                Jesus tells us that there was a man who was so successful
—so wealthy and well off,
that he decided to tear down his barns,
in order to build still larger ones.

                Now, many pastors, not wanting anyone to feel uncomfortable, will rush in and say,
“it is the love of money, not money itself,
that is the root of all kinds of evil.”

And that’s fair as far as it goes, but
—in a world where we’re welcoming the first Trillionaire into existence
—I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t warn you all that possessions are two-edged swords, in fact,
possessions can possess us.
-They can make us love things and use people, instead of use things and love people.
-They can push us into a corner
where we only think of scarcity and the accumulation of more,
when God offers abundance and we ought to be pleased with enough,
and consider wisely that which sustains us.
-After all, who will remember that you had a bigger barn?
Is that what they’ll be talking about at your funeral…
and if so…
is that a good thing?

                On our after-Easter vacation, Lisa, my parents, and I went to Wilmington Delaware, and we toured the Nemours Estates
—Alfred duPont’s mansion and gardens…
but on our way there, we thought we got lost
—we ended up at a big bustling children’s hospital…
Alfred duPont’s other major project…
while his giant home is seen by tourists the world over…
his investment in children’s medicine has consistently revolutionized pediatric orthopedics
and is the only pediatric health system in the nation
with two freestanding children’s hospitals.

A two-edged sword—wealth can cut both ways!

 

                The rich fool just needs to build this bigger barn, and then he can
—and to be clear he is paraphrasing—quoting—Ecclesiastes here:
“Relax, eat, drink, and be merry.”

                There will always be another barn to build…
you can forget to live, living like that.

If we’re not careful, we’ll miss the meaning of it all,
we won’t notice those sublime moments in life
—both in our work and our play. Moments of:
loyalty & gentleness,
wisdom & community,
health & helping.

Part of a meaningful life is noticing those times,
that Luther describes in his commentary on Ecclesiastes writing: “Is it not amazing, when you are empty of cares and something pleasant, something beautiful even, occurs.”

Both Duty & Delight!

 

                But, this eventual point of rest never comes,
instead the man’s only comfort is the words on his tombstone, “Rest in Peace.”
“You fool, this very night your life is being demanded of you.”

                One of Ecclesiastes ongoing refrains is “Vanity of vanities.”
Literally a puff of smoke
—vapor vaporizing (that’s the New Revised Halverson translation).

                Vanity
—it is vapid,
it is vapor,
it is fragile,
we have limits…

                And how do we respond to all that?

                On one hand, we can become grasping
—Scrooge from the Christmas Carol
—oh no! I can’t take it with me!
All my things,
all my effort,
all my wisdom and many books
—“I can’t take them with me!”
Let me clutch them to my chest, for as long as I am able!

                On the other hand, this reality can be freeing.
I can’t take it with me; I might as well share.

Ultimately, most things are out of your control!
For a type A perfectionist, this can be great news,
not only shouldn’t you try to do everything—you can’t!

 

                The comedy TV show “Schitt’s Creek” (S-C-H-I-T-T-S… creek) was popular about 5 years ago
—it was about a ridiculously rich family, who loses everything except Schitt’s Creek,
a quirky run-down town they once bought as a joke.
The whole series could almost be a commentary on Ecclesiastes.
Stripped of wealth, this family is forced to confront duty and delight,
and in so doing start a journey to become people of substance and meaning.

                There is a scene where the brother of the family, David, is taking a drivers test and has a panic attack, and his sister points out,
“Nobody cares…
people aren’t thinking about you, the way you are thinking about you…
if you stop worrying and everything will be easier.”
“It’s vapor vaporizing and that’s okay!”

 

                Finally, this man is left with the question:
“All these things I prepared, whose will they be?”
“I’m aging, I’m dying, who gets my stuff?”
“Will my successor be wise or foolish?”
“What is my legacy?”

                For the inexperienced young,
each new experience can be a crisis.

For the wise elder,
each choice is made more carefully than the last.
How can both care for one another?
How can we live in a way that there is intergenerational hopefulness?
Have we truly passed on what is good?

“What is our legacy?”

 

                Dear siblings, be not grasping, instead generous.
Consider well your legacy and what is enough.
At least for today, be present and faithful.

 

Let us pray:

“O God, we are as grass, we will wither and fade—and as grass we do not know the moment at which we will be cast to the wind. Help us to live our lives so that at our leaving of them it shall not be a tragedy; give to us such trust in your care that be we alive or dead, we abide in you. This we pray in the name of the one who died and rose for us, your son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”

A Review and Reflection on “Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America”

                Christian Smith’s new book is a broad study of the decline and obsolescence of “Traditional Religion” (for Smith this is predominantly white Christian denominations) in America.

Terms & Times:

Obsolete: Smith defines obsolescence as “No longer useful because something else has superseded it in function, efficiency, value, or interest.” His primary example of the subjective feel of obsolescence is the Western as a movie genre. It peaked in the 1970s and then all but disappeared. It is now a passe, outmoded, and worn-out genre.

Pivotal Period: Smith keys in on the 18 years between 1991-2009 as the time period that shaped Traditional American Faith irreparably.

Zeitgeist: The overall vibes of an era.

Neoliberalism: “Utilitarian individualism.” “Greed is good.” Free markets, small government, viewing humans as merely workers and consumers.

The Times

                The time period Smith focuses on is from the end of the Cold War to the “end” of the War on Terror, so ’91-2009. Smith describes this period as encompassing the exhilarating boundary-breaking 90s and the depressing gloom of the 2000s. In the 90s the Church responded to boundary-breaking with calls for repression, and in the aughts' gloom with a happy clappy positivity. The best example of this he uses is comparing grunge music, particularly the song “Smells like Teen Spirit” to Contemporary Christian Music. In short, the vibes were wrong, and that hamstrung the church greatly.

The Vibes

                Smith describes the Millennial Generation’s Zeitgeist as, “Immanent, Individualistic, Anti-institutional, Presentist, Relativist, Distrustful, Subjective, Anti-authority, Multicultural, Minimalist, Transgressive, Pornographic, Jaded, Consumerist, Entertained, and Re-enchanted.” All of which made Christianity less compelling.

                Behind many of these “vibes” and stalking the whole era, was the upsurge and ascension of neoliberalism. “The neoliberal conception is simply not compatible with those of American traditional religions (which believe) humans are divinely dependent and socially interdependent creatures who inhabit a morally significant universe in which they are on a quest to realize, with divine aid, their spiritually and morally higher selves, the aim of which is to enjoy flourishing lives in communities of peace and love that reside under the governing care and judgement of God.” Instead the human is to be an “efficient producer, rational exchanger, and desiring consumer.”

                If all that sounds a little obtuse or abstract, consider how Traditional American Religion deals with stress: “Quiet prayer, contemplation, worship, centering, reading, meditation, singing, connecting with other humans, volunteering, sharing a meal… doesn’t really make anyone money.” Neoliberalism responds instead with, “shopping for and buying new products.” Instead of citizens or members of a particular denomination, neoliberalism demands only that we are consumers.

Particular

                Moving from the big picture forces that constrained and are suffocating traditional religion, what did that look like at a more granular level?

-A new National Identity & Religious Violence

                The enemy during the Cold War was Atheistic Communists, so Americans defined themselves, at least nominally, as Religious Capitalists. Without an atheist enemy, there was less reason to identify as religious. Likewise, after 9/11 religious extremists became the enemy, so being anti-religious was a way to be a good American. Religion became linked to violence in a way it hadn't been directly connected in the Cold War era.

-The Religious Right & Televangelism

                After Jimmy Carter’s presidency Evangelicals embrace the right wing of America, and got in a weird feedback loop in which they begin to mirror the worst aspects of the GOP, and also encouraged those worst tendencies. Additionally, there was a two decade long period of high profile religious scandals, religious leaders using their authority to satiate their lust, greed, and wrath.

-Mainline success & schism

                On the other end of the spectrum, Smith points to the Mainline/liberal theological tradition winning the culture war and finding it all somewhat hollow. Their emphasis on: individualism, pluralism, emancipation, tolerance, free critical inquiry, and experience as a source of religious knowledge, was sucked into the Millennial Zeitgeist/Neoliberal soup and was made redundant. Additionally, mainline denominations had decade long fights over abortion and same sex marriage, which left these denominations split and confused.

-Postmodernism & Multiculturalism

                Suspicion of any grand idea, critiques of any thought system as simply an internal linguistic game, and hyper-tolerance have all made proclamation of the Gospel trickier.

-Intensive Parenting, Emerging Adulthood & Power Hording Boomers

                One of the consequences of neoliberalism turning humans into worker/consumers is a constant need to achieve and compete, a skills race that starts incredibly young. No longer can parents let kids be kids, kids need to be developing skills to compete for jobs on a global scale. This means kids have activities 24/7, which crowds out non-competitive activities like church.

Many more competitive skills require a Bachelors or even Masters level degree for just an entry level position. That means a whole new life-period has developed, “Emerging Adulthood” a 5-10 year period where young adults are adult and not—universities and trade schools step into the role of parents while young people continue to be trained. This is a very unstable time of life. The church doesn’t know what to do with these young adults, and they will likely move to a new city or 3 before they settle down, so the church gives up on them and they return the favor.

Finally, and perhaps as a consequence of the disappearing young adults, Baby Boomers have held onto power way longer than was normal in the church. So long, in fact, that they have sort of calcified in place. Now even when younger generations of church folk come along wanting to take the reins, the Baby Boomers refuse.

-Spirituality and the Occult

                One of the more fascinating parts of this study was the number of post-Boomers who are “Spiritual but not Religious” or even “Occult.” There is a very eclectic sense of the Divine out there. Everything from UFO-focused folks to Bookstore Buddhists to people convinced that werewolves and vampires walk among us. For example, 25% of millennials surveyed believed in werewolves. (I’m not surprised by this, as I’ve written before I’ve met people who sincerely believe St. Paul was a werewolf).

Trapped?

                All of these factors, Smith says, have put the Church in quite a bind, and forced us into any number of no-win situations. We regularly must choose between being milquetoast or narrow-minded, self-degrading or arrogant, archaic or non-distinctive, empty of meaning or exclusivistic, outdated or pandering. Do we spend our time engaging with scientific modernism or engage with postmodernism? If we embrace internet culture we’ll be seen as too anonymous but if we focus on in person events we will be seen as too demanding. The Church can not win.

                For that matter, the loss of Traditional Religion is having damaging consequences for society writ large. Smith points to isolation, a loss of social capital and trust, degradation of mental and emotional health, and spiraling social support.

                And yet, I’m hopeful. While Smith cites James Baldwin’s famous “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced” quote as a call to the Church to finally take a look around, and as much as this book may send some shockwaves or large ripples on the pond… those of us who’ve been paying attention already are out beyond this data and analysis. For post-Boomer clergy this isn’t new information, this is the water in which we live.

I’ve been writing about religious violence since my undergraduate degree more than TWENTY YEARS ago, preaching regularly on it for at least a decade. I literally get kids and adults to play with Legos to talk about post-modernity. My 15 wise people, and 4Ds engage with the vast majority of these dynamics Smith brings up. We post-Boomer clergy have been facing these changes for our whole ministry, in fact, this is what we signed up for. We can do no other.

But what do we do?

Okay, it’s all well and good to thump my Millennial chest about all that, but what ought we be doing?

-Clergy. Live beyond reproach. I know, it’s a silly phrase connecting to our ordination, but seriously, we must never gratify our personal desires with the office we hold. We’ve seen what happens if we fail—decades of slaughtered souls.

-Look to Judaism & The Black Church. One of Smith’s asides is that Judaism retained post-Boomers by committing real funds on programs that were intentionally focused on passing the faith on to the next generation. Likewise, the Black Church has retained younger people by having many role models who lived their faith in a compelling way that Smith describes as, “religion done right.”

-We are still “restless until they rest in him.”  If nothing else, the eclectic re-enchantment of America, fuzzy werewolves and all, suggests that people are still hungry for faith, for meaning, for something beyond the box of a 9-5 neoliberal existence.

-The Ache and the Need. It is worth naming that hunger—people still ache for God. When God’s goodness is named, when grace and generosity, faith and hope, are pointed to, it is still compelling. People are still willing to say, “Wouldn’t that be nice, good even, if it was true.” And that’s enough of a witness. For that matter, all the good social/cultural stuff the Church does—food banks and filling the banks of loneliness by offering community—that’s maybe enough. Together, the need and the ache—I think that’s more than enough for the Gospel to sprout anew.

The Colossian Hymn

For whatever reason I've always focused on the Philippians' "Christ Hymn" when I've thought of the earliest non-Psalm Christian music, but perhaps Colossians 1:15-20 is equally rich. Here is my attempt at making something new out of the text. I'm not entirely pleased with the 3rd verse yet, but here is an initial draft. Enjoy

Refrain:

All in Christ, all through Christ, all for Christ.

Firstborn of Creation, First of the Resurrection,

Reconciliation born in him.

 

Verse 1:

Christ is the invisible made visible;

That is, God in sandals.

Impersonal cosmic forces,

Humans and their horses,

Call him Sibling and Sustainer,

Call him Mirror and Container.

 

Verse 2:

Christ is life before life ever was

All held together by his generous love.

Come out of those graves!

Tell the whole world that he saves!

We are his body, he is the head.

A new beginning, life from the dead!

 

Verse 3:

Christ is where we all fully meet,

Seated together at the Father’s feet.

He is the reconciliation of all things;

“Peace” all our voice as one rings!

Wait! God took it as an honest sacrifice?

Blood and cross became peace and paradise!

This Week’s IRS Ruling

 

The Recent IRS Decision

                In response to lawsuits brought by a bunch of Baptist and non-denominational congregations in Texas, as well as the National Religious Broadcasters, the IRS has shifted their reading of the Johnson Amendment, which bars non-profits from political campaigning. The IRS will no longer apply that to political speech during religious services. Now the IRS will understand pastors endorsing politicians from the pulpit as, “Nothing more than a family discussion concerning candidates.”

                While a small number of Americans are rejoicing over this, 76% of Americans, 70% of Christians by the way, do not believe clergy should endorse candidates from the pulpit. In fact, a perception that Churches are the praying arm of partisan causes is one of the reasons my generation and those younger than me won’t darken the doors of a church. We’re dying not because we don’t have enough political and civic power, but because we keep grabbing at it and it isn’t a good look and it isn’t what God has called us to do. Younger folks might like our Jesus, but they are a little worried we’re using him as a mascot for politics that they abhor.

 

An Endorsement

                In light of my newfound ability to endorse candidates from the pulpit, I endorse Fredrick Muhlenberg for any and all political positions in our government. Yes, Fredrick Muhlenberg, the son of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, founder of American Lutheranism. Yes, Fredrick Muhlenberg, the first Speaker of the House! Vote Muhlenberg, why not!

 

Two Kingdoms (I write this section having reflected on this article)

                In all seriousness, there is a reason I won’t ever endorse someone from the pulpit, even my amazing cousin Harley who has held and ran for elected offices in Minnesota. I won’t do this because it goes against my conscience and the teachings of this Church.

                You see we Lutherans are people of paradox and tension. We believe scripture works on us as both Law and Gospel; we believe humans are simultaneously justified and sinners; we believe that God’s kingdom is both already here and not yet here.

And most relevant today, we also believe that God is ambidextrous—can use both hands—working through both civil authorities and the church, and that Christian actions flow from both grace and vocation.

The Lutheran affirmation that God is ambidextrous, more conventionally called “Two Kingdoms Theory,” or “Two Kingdoms Doctrine” sometimes is cited as a historical convenience; the religious folk, the Roman Catholic Church of Luther’s time, was trying to hunt down and kill Luther, so he turned to secular authorities for help… and therefore we embrace a healthy wall of separation between church and state, simply as an ongoing thank you to “Luther’s Princes.”

No dice there! Two Kingdoms Theory isn’t an invention of Luther. That said, Luther’s situation is informative for our present question about eradicating the dividing wall between partisanship and the pulpit. Think about it, a church using secular means to enforce doctrine, yikes! The State did not have a monopoly on violence in the medieval era, and I think most of us Moderns and Post-Moderns see that as a bad thing. We wouldn’t want to give any Denomination the go ahead to hunt heretics, even if they do so by means of a political party.

Two Kingdoms theory, however, is not a new thing. For the Apostle Paul there are two kingdoms, the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of this World; they are filled with children of Adam and children of Christ. The Christian has an obligation to no one, yet adopts a great many obligations of her society for the sake of proclaiming the Gospel. The Kingdom is already here, and has not yet come—and until it does the whole creation yearns for the consummation of the righting of the whole world. There are flickers of it, but all has not been reborn. As such, Christians find ourselves in the ambiguous place of being in a culture but not of it, a good citizen, but citizenship is not their highest good, the wild tug of war between the start of Romans 12 and the start of Romans 13. “Be transformed and renewed” and at the same time “place yourself under the authority of the government.”

One of the most famous interpreters of Paul was Augustine. His City of God/City of Man framing is a grand untangling of being a Citizen of the Roman Empire and being part of the Body of Christ. If Rome could be sacked, does that mean heaven is in danger of the same? If there is no distinction between the two yes, otherwise no.

It was from these wellsprings that Luther says, “God uses two hands!” Just as scripture acts as Law and Gospel, God does the same through Church and State. 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.

Now, just like the distinction between Law and Gospel, a separation between these things needs to occur. After all, when Gospel tries to be Law, it ceases to be Gospel, and when Law tries to be Gospel, it ceases to be Law. So too, when the Church tries to be the State, it ceases to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and when the State tries to be the Church, it spews out a muddle that neither loves nor protects, or as Luther writes:

“To try to rule a country, or the world, by the Gospel would be like putting wolves, lions, eagles, and sheep all together in the fold and saying to them, ‘Now graze, and live a godly and peaceful life together. The door is open, and there is pasture enough, and no watchdog you need fear.’ The sheep would keep the peace, sure enough, but they would not live long.”

                Instead of trying to create a Churchy State or a Statey Church, we Lutherans offer a different course. Harkening back to Paul, Luther affirms in his pamphlet On Christian Freedom “we are slaves to none, yet servants of all.” We are saved by grace, which then moves us to works of love for our neighbors. We live out the Gospel through a myriad of vocations—callings—our Roles, Relationships, and Responsibilities ought to sing forth, “This one is baptized!” This one is inhabiting an office for the sake of the neighbor. We Lutherans fulfill roles in the secular world, knowing that doing so is a holy calling. Luther even goes so far (to my ears too far) as to say (I’m paraphrasing from memory), “Does no one want to be a hangman in your town? Perhaps it is your Christian calling to fulfill that role, so that good order is maintained and evil is eschewed.”

Conclusion

                In a world where we are all simultaneously saint and sinner, and where the Kingdom is here and not yet, claiming too much for ourselves and our particular ideologies, baptizing partisanship, or claiming prophetic mandates for politicians because the IRS won’t smack you on your nose for it, will have consequences we can only imagine.

Perhaps, dear preachers, superPACs will pump money into your church, and it will cause you to claim more than you are sure of, and when your candidate doesn’t come through, it slaughters the souls of your congregants, or at least cause them not to trust you as a faithful preacher of the Gospel. Perhaps congregations do get to be power players, accrue enough political power that they can point the police after people who don’t fit into the Mosaic laws: Shrimpeaters, people with mold in their homes, or divorcees. Perhaps a political party will get their hooks into your congregation so tightly that there will be no distinction between a political rally and a worship service.

All that to say, God has two hands, so let’s not try to tie His pinkies together, no good will come from that. There is enough holiness in living out our vocations for our neighbors, let’s not add to that. Such bald politicking turns people away from the Church. Don’t ride the tiger, you are just a little treat.

35 Fiction Books for Men

                 As of late there have been a spat of articles and think pieces bemoaning men not reading or writing, but especially not reading fiction! Reading fiction encourages empathy and expands conversational skills; it gives folk time and space to dream beyond their experience, and in general is really fun. So, I thought I’d offer, in no particular order, 35 fictional books that I’ve really appreciated. So, without further ado, 18 good standalone books and 17 good series. So, guys, read some of these, they’re pretty good!

One off books:

1.      Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin—This is the first book to ever make me feel nostalgia!

2.      Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford—An alternative history detective novel!

3.      Erasure by Percival Everett—By the same guy who brought us James.

4.      The Plot Against America by Philip Roth—An alternative history told from below.

5.      The River Why by David James Duncan—A thoughtful book about fly fishing that is about a lot more than fly fishing.

6.      The Last Town on Earth by Thomas Mullen—A Historical fiction about the Spanish Flu.

7.      Julian Comstock: A Story of 22^nd Century America by Robert Charles Wilson—A fun sci-fi adventure where the world has fallen into a dark ages and America has fallen much like Rome.

8.      11/22/63 by Stephen King—This is a fun time travel/horror read. If you’ve read other works by King, he brings us back to Derry.

9.      The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller—This is a really good re-telling of the Trojan War. It does center around a gay relationship (you know how the Ancient Greeks are) so if that’s not your cup of tea, maybe it isn’t the book for you.

10.  Fives and Twenty-Fives by Michael Pitre—Even though the Iraq War ended 14 years ago, it is still in the room with us. Pitre does an excellent job reminding us that it still here with us.

11.  Silicon Soul by Chris Halverson—This is my sci-fi book from back in 2015 where I warned everyone that AI, social media demagoguery, angry men, and hyperactive nationalistic capitalism are dangerous. Thank God it was just fiction.

12.  This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone—Romantic letters between two time traveling rivals working to shape the future in polar opposite ideological directions.

13.  The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber—I was in a weird place while reading this one. This book freaked me out in a really good way!

14.  Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir—This one was a little more hard sci-fi that I usually like, but there is also a surprise relationship that makes it worth reading.

15.  The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams—This book is all about how reading fiction can do all those positive things I said at the start of this post.

16.  The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley—Another time travel story with a romantic subplot… do I have a type? The fascinating hook for me was the experience of being dislocated from your time, the toll being a time refugee takes on the soul!

17.  Starter Villian by John Scalzi—This is the first book by Scalzi I’ve read. It was fluff, but fun fluff; what if you inherit a supervillain’s acroama?

18.  The Children of Men by P. D. James—A dystopia about a world where every aspect of life is shaped by mass infertility.

Series/Groupings of books:

19.  The Hyperion Cantos series by Dan Simmons—My best friend in high school recommended it to me, and once I started reading it I knew it was one of those series that needs to be read at different parts of one’s life. A sprawling space opera beyond description.

20.  The Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe—This series is working on a bunch of different levels, not all of them I’ve caught. I intend to re-read it when I’m 45 to see if I get it better then. Brilliant, but also opaque.

21.  Steppenwolf/Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse—Technically these two should probably each by a stand alone book in the other section, but they work well together read back to back.

22.  The Mistborn Saga by Brandon Sanderson—Sanderson writes solid stuff, and you won’t ever have to worry about not having something new to write, because he is a bit of a perpetual writing machine.

23.  The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordon/Brandon Sanderson—This is the amazing series that Amazon recently tried to adapt, but lacked the courage to finish.

24.  The Gilead series by Marilynne Robinson—Four slow-burn books centered on the town of Gilead Iowa, the first told from the perspective of an old Pastor who knows he’s dying of his heart condition.

25.  The Wolf Hall series by Hilary Mantel—A series chronicling the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell.

26.  The Magicians Series by Lev Grossman—A gritty college take on the Magical School genre.

27.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Series by Stieg Larsson—An unfinished Swedish detective/spy/thriller series.

28.  The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey—A rollicking good sci-fi series about a universe where humanity is divided into three factions: Earth Mars, and “Belters.” What start off as a book about a geopolitical… solarpolitical… competition shifts once alien technology is found that changes the balance of everything!

29.  The Remembrance of Earth’s Past series by Liu Cixin—An extensive telling of the remainder of human history.

30.  The Monk and Robot series by Becky Chambers—This was my first foray into solar-punk/joyful sci-fi. I highly recommend it!

31.  The Thursday Murder Club series by Richard Osman—I was surprised how much I enjoyed this series. Old folk in a swanky nursing home solving murders in Jolly Old England! What fun!

32.  A Declaration of Rights of Magicians H.G. Parry—The Shadow Histories series was another surprise for me. It asks the simple question, what if magic was real during the French Revolution and English debates about slavery? The book takes place in Haiti, England, and France. Amazing!

33.  The Strain series by Chuck Hogan/Guillermo del Toro—This is Vampires done different. It starts off as a sort of mystery, switches to a science drama, and ends in the mystical. Not for the faint of heart.

34.  Diskworld series by Terry Pratchett—A satirical fantasy take on anything that Pratchett puts his eyes on. It is a little too rambunctious for me at times, but still they’re much better than a whole lot of books I’ve read.

35.  The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher—Fantasy Noire, I’m reading through it to think about how to write a sustained world over multiple books. It feels a little too much like some of the scenarios are Butcher’s wish fulfillment, but it does seem to get better as the main character grows up, which is maybe the point.

God works through common things

 

I recently read that the average human body is composed of 8 and a half dollars’ worth of oxygen, 8 dollars’ worth of carbon, 7 dollars’ worth of hydrogen, and 36 cents worth of nitrogen… when the other elements are added to the calculation, our market value ends up being around 28 and a half dollars. Of course, with inflation being what it is, we might be talking real money…

Likewise, if you may remember all the back and forth that went on surrounding the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund—where you were and what you did when you died, shaped what the government considered you to be worth.

                Now… on some level, we’re just a cheap sack of molecules (Luther would occasionally refer to himself as a maggot sack… in fact that was our Seminary Flag Football Team’s name one year) … yet our faith tells us that God works through common things!

 

Prayer

                Imagine how the story of Naaman and Elijah would have gone bad, if an attitude of disparaging common things were to have prevailed…

                Namaan, embarrassed by his ailment—how it indicated that he too was as vulnerable as all the rest—he would have never told anyone of his disease, and thus never been healed. He would have seen an enslaved foreigner as so low that she was not to be listened to. Perhaps the King of Israel would have surmised rightly—Namaan WAS picking a quarrel—driving Aram towards war, after all life is cheap and our words are cheaper still. Again, perhaps Namaan would not have trusted his lowly, worth less, servant and “washed and become clean.” Likewise, perhaps a show—waving hands and theatrics, instead of healing would have been more precious.

 

                What I’m saying is woe to those who seek only the rare, the favor of the mighty, the uncommon and difficult.

                Blessed, however, the common things, the common people… was it not so when God came among us, to a lowly family—Joseph the carpenter and Mary who calls herself “a low servant” who could only afford the most basic of sacrifice—a pair of turtle doves—to honor their son’s birth, in the flesh, God one of us in sandals and made up of 20 some dollars’ worth of molecules.

                Woe too, to those who want a show. “Come, stand, call, wave” those hands around, or I will pout and rage.

                Blessed are those who show up. Who heal and cleanse, who help even when the odds increase, who ground their actions in real needs, who ask, “What can I do? Where can I be useful?” Those who take steps to care for another, even when the other is the enemy.

 

                Imagine too how the sending of the 70 would have gone if a scarcity mindset, a boil the body down to its trace elements worldview had won.

                Perhaps there would have been many laborers, but no harvest. Perhaps, out of self-preservation, the 70 would have gone out as wolves among lambs, bringing everything but peace. Perhaps instead of staying in a singular place where they were sent, they would have circled around the community like predators, scamming the whole town. No one would have known the nearness of the Kingdom of God, for the 70 would have sought triumph and dismissed faithfulness.

                Woe to the airport evangelists and parashooting do gooders—those who make no effort at care or community, and wait until they’ve got someone captured and vulnerable, and only then name the name of Jesus or point to the Kingdom, and only do so from a point of power, a box to tick off, a point to brag upon, ever having to consider that person again.

                Blessed are those who come in open weakness and stay among neighbors. The local ones who trust in the kindness of strangers—who know they are guests, that they share the same baseness, the same vulnerability, as those to whom they minister. Sent with peace, and nothing more.

                Woe to the self-serving stuffed with triumph, who like Namaan are caught on the grandness of the mission, not the message itself, the miracles not the Kingdom come.

                Blessed, finally, are those who rejoice for they have been named and claimed by God. Those who have the Spirit of Peace sealed upon their soul and their sending showed it. Those for whom the Kingdom of God—the reign, the rule, the righting of this world by God, has come near.

 

                As I talked about at Pub Theology and wrote an article about in our upcoming Newsletter, echoing Luther’s refrain in the Small and Large Catechism, “Was ist das?” we’re having a “So What?” summer here at Spruce Run.

                We are indeed made of common stuff, yet God works through common things… so what?

-So, the things we do every week in worship—community, washing and word, a hospitable meal of grace and thanksgiving, called and sent into the world that needs us—all of that is God mediated by common stuff—Kingdom and cleansing, peace and healing—present with us, even in this very moment!

-So, being the body of Christ together, the nearness of God, has been named as faithfulness. Even when it doesn’t feel like it, there is a spiritual import to the peace we receive and the peace and extend to others.

-So, the faithful way to minister to this world—even if it isn’t cool or hip or anything like that—is about vulnerability and being present with our local community. Being neighbors here in the Lebanon Township area, is ministry.  

-So, in a world that pulls us 10,000 different directions and encourages separation and disengagement, where we are drawn to being consumers and enemies, passive and disempowered… it has to be said, even as torturously shallow as it might sound: Showing up subdues the evils of this world!

Amen?

Useful Cuttings from My Time of Discernment

 

Since discerning that it is not my calling to be the Bishop of New Jersey, the Synod went through a three-day time of discernment that led to the calling of a new Bishop, Christa Compton. Thanks be to God!

As I recalibrate from that year long time of discernment, there are still some irritants, clutter that is keeping me from being fully present. In the spirit of “better out than in” here are pieces of my discernment I think are worth lifting up for the sake of the wider Church one last time. They might even be useful for folk discerning what’s next at the coming Churchwide Assembly.

Closures:

                A bunch of congregations are going to close, and that will affect the life of the congregations that remain. This includes the scramble to integrate as many members of the closing congregation into surrounding congregations and helping them process their grief. It also includes navigating the fight or flight “I don’t want to be the last person who turns out the lights of our congregation” reactions of leaders in remaining congregations. For local Pastors it means something like 6 extra funerals a year, and these will be “anonymous Lutheran” funerals—funerals for people with whom you have no prior relationship, but will expect the pastoral attention of their now non-existent home pastor.

For all those reasons, I think a “local tithe” from closing congregations to the Cluster or District the congregation was in ought to be considered as an informal closure policy. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve benefited from the EMU program, which was funded by a closed congregation, and our camp ministries certainly use money from closed congregations faithfully. It just feels like moving a bunch of money from the peripheries to the center can create painful tensions that don’t need to be there.

Retirements:

                From my observation, one of the hardest things a pastor can do is retire. The ways in which we grow to love our people, and sometimes get enmeshed with them, the weird routine of being a pastor, the amount of self we offer up to this vocation, the rush of capturing people’s attention for 20 minutes on a Sunday with the act of confession of our faith, and the evaporation of our name and its replacement with a title, “Pastor”—can make us, to quote the Shawshank Redemption, “Institutionalized”; it’s hard to be on the outside, hard to be a “civilian”, a lay person. And as such there is a propensity to get squirrely.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say half the retired pastors I know are actively plotting to make changes in the congregation they no longer serve or are hyper-functioning in a negative way at the congregation in which they worship. That’s not to say I’ve had solely bad experiences with retired pastors—in fact, some of the wisest mentors I’ve met are retired ministers who were able to take off the collar and throw themselves into a new adventure, or have found ways to be useful to the wider church in their retirement.

                What do you do with a problem like Maria… or rather retired pastors?

On one hand, there is some personal responsibility involved in all this that should be cultivated before retirement—an ongoing returning to the font—baptism not ordination is your primary identity. Personally, I try to have at least one meaningful life project going on that has nothing to do with my ministry, and my wife is a sort of accountability partner in that, nudging me when I veer toward “institutionalized” behavior.

On the other hand, retired pastors need to be listened to. I think regularly running a retiring pastor listening panel (maybe a “Last Call Theological Education” event) based on the Wisdom books, so a slightly shifted version of my “Wisdom From” Bible Study, could be a healthy thing for the church writ large. It would compile generational snap shots of retired pastors’ wisdom, and also be a sort of circuit breaker for potential bad behavior.

And finally… The 4Ds

                It is my conviction that the Church’s job is to engage with the world as it is, in order to share the Gospel believably. A solid conceptual framework for understanding what’s right in front of our nose is the 3Ds—Decentralization, Demographic Shift, and Disestablished. A good description of a believable gospel in this 3D world is the 4^th D, we are Disenchanted—our habits are wholly secular so the holy is unbelievable—believing the Gospel in a 3D world will look like Re-enchantment.

                In a Decentralized world, we must be Nimble. Imagine a roving Church—imagine the wider church decamping in a congregation’s backyard for a week, a good old fashioned Lutheran Revival! A Church where Dinner Church and other forms of public ministry are common, and local congregations are healthy and empowered.

                In a Demographically Shifted world, we must embrace Authentic Diversity. No more the day when Lutheran automatically means Lake Wobegon, and also no more beating ourselves up with a wet noodle because we minister in a less than diverse context, instead of recognizing the kinds of diversity that ARE there and trying to reflect it.

                In a Disestablished world, we need to intentionally make Partners. The old web of connection—boy scouts, toast masters, ethnic clubs, is broken and not coming back, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t groups and organizations that have cropped up who would be amenable to working alongside the Church. One place where this sort of work is being done is Philadelphia, where Partners for Sacred Places is leading the way.

                Finally, in a Disenchanted world, we ought to be Re-enchanters. We ought to be a people who practice holy habits, so we can still point to God—our confessions are not abstract, but grounded in God’s good works revealed to us. We are a people of prayer and friendship, beauty and gratitude, rest and passion!

 

                And there you have it, my view of things, the Church is dealing with making endings healthy and holy, as well as chasing the Spirit to practices and places that allow the Gospel to be received as trustworthy and true.

Sunday's sermon today: Freed from Demons, Stuck with Neighbors

 

            No more had Jesus set foot on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, than he was confronted by this man…
naked, unhoused, at home in the wild and among the tombs.
A man guarded and bound…
all kinds of things done to try to keep him under control…
all of them failed…

            Possessed—(from Garasa, a village destroyed by Rome, named as “Legion”—a 5,000 person cohort of Roman Soldiers—thrown into swine—the mascot of Rome’s Syrian Legion.)

            And Jesus throws the Legion out of this man,
and they stampede through the swine over a cliff,
to the pigs’ doom.

            Then the hog farmers
—the villagers
—the man’s neighbors
—come to see the commotion.
Transformed—the man is clothed and in his right mind…

            Now that’s frightening! Who is this man without his demons… who is he if he’s not the guy we used to chain up? Guarded… was it all worth the trouble? Is his stability worth losing many times his weight in bacon and profit?

            “Get out of here, Jesus!”

            “Take me with you, Jesus!”

            “Stay with them, your neighbors, the hog farmers, the folk who used to tie you up and no longer recognize you now that you are you again!”

            God! I feel for this man…
he’s freed from his demons, and now he’s stuck with his neighbors!

Let us pray

 

            You might remember three years ago when I last preached on Galatians—the continued refrain of that letter is an equation: “Jesus + anything is less than Jesus Alone.” (J+<J)

            Paul says, “watch out, we were once captured and tutored by the Law”
—by this he means something more than just the Jewish Torah
—but in fact any rules based on Antimonies
—pairs of things that make up the whole…
dominating by using dualistic, either/or categories.
“The whole world is Free people… or Slaves”
“You’re either a Greek… or a Barbarian.”
“You got men… and you got ladies.”

            In short, Paul is saying, “don’t get Jailed by your categories.”
Don’t let their usefulness for order, order you around;
don’t let a system become a stumbling block for you and your faith.
If the Law is your schoolmaster or Nanny,
you’re an immature and retched pupil…
but you’re not!
You are a Child of God!
You’re an heir of the Promise!

            Fastening any of those categories onto Baptism
—forcing people to put on a cultural, religious, economic or gendered garb,
before baptism and membership into the family of God
—before putting on Christ
Or advantaging one type over another,
one identity or category
—misses the mark and the point!

 

That’s small ball kind of stuff
—this faith, this community, this baptism
—it destroys the world and all of its categories, its laws and its hierarchies.

When you put on Christ you are putting on:
-God’s invasion of this world
-God’s emancipation and adoption
-the righting of the whole world!

You are joined to Christ
—you are a New Creation!
You are a member of God’s family on account of Jesus, and Jesus alone!

That alone is the meaningful category!
That alone pulls together all these jangling pieces—like a magnet
—like a mother hen… all of us gathered together, in our baptism, under loving wings!

We are one, without homogeneity,
we find dignity in difference because of our oneness in Christ,
united in diversity,
heirs of the promise—all of us!
Freed, and now stuck together!

 

            Think about the man from Garasa.
While he was physically hard to control—categorizing him as the Demoniac made it easy to control… literally demonize… There are people possessed by demons and then there is us.

            Having a bad guy is comfortable,
The hard work of growth and change when you’re faced with the man as he is—faced with the way you abused and devalued him—that’s where the Spirit breaks in!

            For that matter, the transformation of this man isn’t inconsequential—encountering Christ is an invasion—not business as usual—an unburdening and emancipation from the power of the Devil!

            He is Freed from Demons, Stuck with Neighbors, or to quote Luther’s understanding of Christian freedom, he is now, “Slave to none, and servant to all.”

 

(As I said last week, the season after Pentecost is a “So What” sort of season… don’t just tell the story but tell me the why and the so what of things!)

            Well, our congregation was one of 100s who took part in the Harford Study
—the first major study of how the Pandemic affected the faith life of Parishioners
—there’ve been tons of studies on the Clergy
—we’re not alright
—but this was the first to measure what’s happening in the pews—what the people attending virtually are up to.

-The study told us that 95% of parishioners are satisfied with online worship.

-Virtual worshippers multitask—but do pray, read, and sing along.

-Counting each person who watches at 1.5 people is about right.

            It also had a lot to say about people who have joined a church in the last 5 years.
8% have never been to church before, and are looking for mentors—this is a significantly higher number than pre-Covid.
22% of joiners were returners—they’d stopped regularly attending pre-Covid and came back because they were looking for connection—a place to volunteer and belong.

Then finally, the bulk of people joining a congregation—70% left another congregation to join one that more closely aligned with their ideology. Blue churches for blue people and Red churches for red people—a parallel to the sorting we see in wider society—you have blue neighborhoods and red neighborhoods, blue news and red news. They left, according to this study, because it made them happy and comfortable.

The thing about that is… there are higher values than happiness. Is a community life giving, not comfortable? Are you transformed? Filled with joy? Do you find peace and growth—does the community open you to hear the Spirit?

In Luther’s table talk about marriage he says that it knocks off the rough edges—in general relationships, community, is like sandpaper, it smooths out our jagged coarseness.

-Jews and Gentiles worshipping together meant we had to have the Council of Jerusalem.
-Freed and Slave gathered as one body—led to Paul to call Onesimus son and insist that his owner Philemon cease to call him slave!
-Man and woman—Luke’s whole Gospel & and the Acts of the Apostles attests to the Spirit at work in that admixture!

What I’m saying is—seeking conflict free happiness in a homogeneous congregation might not be our highest goal as Christians.

Faithfulness means we’re Freed from Demons, Stuck with Neighbors, God help us!

 

            So X, Y—joining us, you need to know a couple things…
-This isn’t a hobby church—but folks in a struggle of life from death, the Spirit birthing a new creation in us!

-This isn’t an ideological silo—we’re not any political party at prayer—even when we want to be, we’re awful at it, our Theology doesn’t allow it. Just as Jesus’ disciples included Roman Collaborator Tax Collectors and anti-Roman Zealots—we too hold antimonies together in our baptism.
-The way Lutherans understand preaching is that it’s an act of confession, my confession of faith in a way that ought to speak to the whole congregation…
that’s why ELCA clergy can be removed for using  other people’s sermons without citation
—that wouldn’t be a genuine confession of faith…
that’s also why you will hear the Gospel in the tenor of Halverson, the key of Chris
—and that means I’m more likely to disappoint you or say something you disagree with
—that’s part of the package when the preacher is not a parrot or entertainer, but is a confessor.

            Welcome to this community, freed from Sin, Death, and the Devil, and bound to one another in our Baptism.

Amen.