Justice Looks Like...

This morning I've been thinking a lot about why it sometimes seems like conversations between self-proclaimed liberal Christians and conservative Christians hardly ever seem to get anywhere. If I'm honest I fall into the former camp, even if I may not like the stigmas associated with those kinds of labels. So as a liberal Christian, generally spending my time with other liberal Christians, the verse I hear quoted most often is Micah 6:8- "What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?"

It seems so simple.

Do justice.

Love mercy.

Walk humbly.

Now I'm not sure that anyone is really very good at humility, but at least it's easily agreed upon, and people try. At least, I am able to make it through my day claiming the name of Christian by hoping that humility is one of the things we strive for.

Mercy is the same way. I don't think anyone would disagree that mercy is something we are called to. We may not live it out all the time, but we're working on it.

Really, it's justice where we hit a snag. Do justice. Do what is fair. Do what is right. Do what is deserved- that's what justice means. Administer the response that is deserved.

The disagreement , it seems, is over what is deserved. What does this person or that group deserve?

If you think that they deserve judgement and punishment for the choices they make- or worse, for who they are- and I think that they deserve love no matter who they are or what they've done, then yeah, we're going to have an issue. So what does justice look like?

What I keep coming back to is the fact that I am called, first and foremost, to love. Love God, love everyone else. And loving means being patient and kind, not rude or boastful or selfish or irritable, and keeping no record of wrongs but rejoicing in truth. It means wanting what is best for the other person even if it makes me uncomfortable to do so. If God loves me despite everything I've done and calls me to do the same- and even moreso if I believe that God does the same for everyone- then who can I possibly judge?  How can I do anything, or think that anyone deserves anything, but love? What could justice possibly look like besides extending my hand in peace and mercy to everyone I see?

So we come back to loving mercy and walking humbly. Doing justice means both of those things. Being a Christian and being just means loving to be kind, loving to extend mercy. It means being humble enough to recognize that the decision about what anyone truly deserves is beyond me.

I don't know if this kind of thinking will be enough to move anyone's conversations forward, but I keep going because I believe that love changes hearts. Love changes the world. And that's what justice looks like.


(Crossposted on OnFire)

The Church in One Service

This might not be my best post ever, but I just need to take a minute to acknowledge how beautiful my congregation's service was yesterday. It felt like just about everything that the Church does all wrapped up into one service.

First, yesterday was All Saints Sunday- the first Sunday after All Saints Day (November 1) when we remember the saints who have gone before us. This year was particularly difficult for me. November 4 was the anniversary of my grandfather's funeral and today is one month since the death of my good friend's father. In place of a sermon there was a microphone for people to come up and share the names of those they were remembering, especially those who've died in the last year, and then each person lit a candle for every name that they shared. The candles were in the windowsills all around the sanctuary, representing the "great cloud of witnesses" that surrounds us. It was a beautiful image, and I thought I could be strong, share my names, and enjoy the beauty of the moment. Nope. I'm not sure that anyone even heard the second name, and I could barely see the candles as I lit them. It was a good kind of cry, though, the kind that really does make you feel better when you're done, and the just bask in the peace of so many remembered loved ones. The strength of generations of ancestors and examples was tangible.

From remembering our past we shifted to looking to the future as we celebrated the baptism of a good friend of mine who moved here from Iran several months ago. She is a dear, beautiful person, and her joy and excitement was absolutely catching. Her desire to learn and keep asking hard questions is inspiring. After she'd been baptized, she and another friend joined our congregation. Watching two young adults join a "dying" Church was truly beautiful. It made me wonder what exactly would draw them to a congregation- what people my age are looking for. If I had to narrow it down, I'd say that it's three things: the presence of honest, deep relationships, the space to ask deep questions and have deep conversations, and the opportunity to serve together in a way that makes a difference in the world.

That brings me to the last part of the service. Not only was it All Saints Sunday and a baptism Sunday, but it was also a Communion Sunday. I already wrote an entire post about how important I think Communion is so I won't go into that again, but I just want to say how perfect it was as the end of this service. We had remembered, we had welcomed and celebrated, and in Communion we were made one and sent out to be the Church in the world. The only thing that could have made this service a more perfect picture of the life of the Church is if we had gone out and actually served together in some way that afternoon. Nonetheless, it was beautiful.

So. That might not be the most typical service at my congregation, but it's a decent description of what we do as the Church. Remember. Welcome. Celebrate. Give thanks. Share. Send. Serve.

A Confession

I have a confession to make. It’s not much of a confession, actually, if you know me very well. 

I love youth fiction. Love, love, love it.  

Two caveats. 1, no, I am not a creeper. I am, however, a youth minister and have been a teacher in some capacity for the last four years. I can’t help but get curious when I see my kids reading or hear them talking about a book. 2, I hate, hate, hate sparkly vampires and muscled werewolf men and anything that could possibly be labeled “Paranormal Teen Romance.” Ugh. That subset of youth fiction is antithetical to the whole reason that I love the wider genre.  

I spent the first half of this week grieving with and supporting one of my best friends and her family as they worked through the death of her father and all of the arrangements afterward. The majority of the second half of the week was spent at the hospital or with my dad back at home as he experienced inexplicable, excruciating pain in his right leg. When I wasn’t doing those things or trying desperately to pull together enough focus for the homework I brought with me, I was reading- for the fourth time- the Hunger Games trilogy. I’ll be the first to admit that, at least sometimes, the genre is attractive because it’s easy. It’s written to be engaging and accessible to an easily distracted demographic. It’s a good story told simply. This week it let me just relax my mind and be for a while in a world that wasn’t mine.  

The real reason that I love youth fiction, though, is because it opens the mind. It stretches the idealistic imagination. It challenges the reader and the world to be something more. I believe this wholeheartedly, and I am not alone. I have seen articles about it; a girl I knew in high school now has an entire blog devoted to it.  

Some of my favorite books fall into this category. The Hunger Games, obviously. I was one of the lucky generation that got to grow up alongside the Harry Potter series and it will always make the list of my top 10 books of all time. I got sucked into the Percy Jackson series thanks to a student of mine while I was in college. Then there are the older books like The Giver, The Phantom Tollbooth, the Chronicles of Narnia, A Wrinkle in Time (and all of its family of stories), The Little Prince, Ender's Game, and one book that no one but me seems to have read called The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles.

The thing that I love about these books, besides the fantastic stories and memorable characters, besides the incredible imagination behind each of them and that each of them encourages, is the way that they encourage us to take a look at the world around us. Just to notice it, first of all. To take the time to see the world in all of its strangeness, its beauty, and, yes, its pain. But it doesn’t stop there. The really beautiful thing about these books is that they challenge you to see the way the world could be, and to do something about it. 

Really great youth fiction teaches two things. First, the important things in life are not money and stuff; the important things are family, friends, kindness, love. And it teaches that you, no matter how young or how old or how small or unskilled or unimportant, you can change the world if you try. Maybe you can’t save it, but it isn’t always about saving the world. It’s about making your little corner of the world a better place to be, a place where there is peace and acceptance and hope.

Truly great youth fiction says to every reader, in the words of one of the greatest writers of children's books of all time, "Don't give up! I believe in you all. A person's a person, no matter how small!"

Don't Wait

I'm writing this on the plane on my way to Houston. Normally I'd be excited beyond belief right now. Not today. Today I'm going home to be there for one of my best friends and her family as they mourn the loss of her father. He had ALS. It was overwhelming how quickly he declined, but it was inspiring that his spirit- his sense of humor, his faith, his love for his family- never did. He was a great man and I am honored to have known him even in the small capacity that I did.

While I'm in town this week I do hope to spend some time with my parents and grandmother. My dad has a disease called Lewy Body Dementia. He's been sick for 12 years now. He is an amazing man.

No one expected him to be around for my high school graduation. Or my college graduation. Or my wedding. But he was, and he's still here. My best friend never expected to loser her dad at 23. But she did. It doesn't make sense, any of it.

I can't explain why things like this happen, why good people die young or die old, why it's stunningly fast or painfully slow. All I know is that I've already attended the funeral of one good man this week, a man from my church in DC, and now I'll be attending another next week. And I hate that funerals are this outpouring of affection for the one we've lost- not because that in itself is bad, because it's not. We need that as release, we need to celebrate that life. I hate it because I always wonder, "How many times did we tell his person how much we loved and appreciated them while they were still here?" If it's our family, sure. We're pretty good at that. But not always. And how often do we say to our friends, even our acquaintances, "You know? I really appreciate you. You are such a good ________, and I love the way you ________. You always make me laugh/appreciate life/feel better when I'm upset. I'm so glad to know you." Why don't we tell people the wonderful things that we'd wish we could have told them if they were to die tomorrow?

We don't know when our time here will be through. I want to leave this world a better place by the things that I do, but more than that I want the people I love to know just how much I love them. I am heartbroken to be going home for the reasons that I am, but I am so grateful for the opportunity to see my family, to hug them and tell them I love them face to face.

So go tell your family, tell your friends- tell them how glad you are that they are a part of your life. Take advantage of time with them. They are what make life beautiful. And they should know it.

Life and Other Things

Sorry Steve. You're awesome, but I'm calling you out a bit here.

Maybe it's not the best idea to make arguing against something one of my bosses said the focal point of a blog post, but since I have pretty much the coolest bosses ever I'm banking on him getting the gist of what I'm saying and not focusing too much on me disagreeing with him publicly :)

On Monday I was at my internship and- wait, I haven't mentioned my internship, have I? As part of my degree requirements for seminary I have to do field training. Since I've worked in churches basically my whole life and already have a job at one outside of school, my field training is actually at a non-profit/caucus group of the United Methodist Church called the Methodist Federation for Social Action. I love, love, love it. I love the people, I love the work, I love the things we stand for and the things we do. It's amazing. So this quote needs to be in that context. Let's try that again.

On Monday I was at my internship and one of my bosses, Steve, made a comment about how he couldn't be working a project we're doing because he had to assess the state of the house he's trying to sell in upper New York. What he said was, "Yeah, that's life- it gets in the way of things sometimes."

That really bothered me. I think the heart of what he was saying agreed with what I'm about to argue here, but the way he said it just kinda made me say "Whoa! What's that about?!"

Life is not the little things that get in our way. It's not home repair or paying bills or unexpected hassle or work. Life is in the things that give you joy, the things that keep you getting out of bed every day, the visions for the future that keep you pushing back against the world, the things you are passionate about. It's the people you love and the time you spend loving what you do.

For Steve and all of my other lovely coworkers, the things we do at MFSA are what we are passionate about. They are what give us hope and courage. So, when Steve said that I think he really just got his nouns wrong. For so many people, though, I feel like they would've agreed with what he said at face value.

Man. Life just gets in the way sometimes, you know?

Gets in the way of what?! That's what I want to know.

No. Sometimes we let things get in the way of life. Sometimes we let things that don't matter, things that no one will care about or remember in 50 years, get in the way of the people and the time well spent that make our time on this earth matter.

I happen to love my schoolwork, my job, and my internship. I find fulfillment in all three, and often the things that I get to do as a part of my work are a big part of what gives my life meaning.  But truly, it is the people I love that make my life worthwhile. It is because I've been able to focus my work around people that I love my work, and it's for the people that I would drop anything. They don't get in the way of life, they are my life. Sometimes I let things that don't matter get in the way of them.

So let's all get our nouns straight, shall we? That project at work, that unexpected expense, that traffic jam, that super-important-item that you lost: that's not life. Being there for a friend, spending time with your family, laughing and crying together, making the world a better place: that's life. Don't let anything get in the way of it.

The Pictures I Didn't Take

There's this website called unphotographable. I love it. And there were so many things this weekend that I didn't take a picture of, and so many that I couldn't have even if I had wanted to. Here are a few of them.


This is the picture I did not take of two little old church ladies- happily walking down the hall hand in hand.

This is the picture I did not take of my friend Tyler dancing to Christ Has Broken Down the Wall, across the stage and down the aisle and around the room, dancing so beautifully that I couldn't help but cry.

This is the picture I did not take of the joy on my friend Justin's face as he received his first reconciling stole, one of a beautiful crowd of 700 joyfully bestowing them on one another.

This is the picture I did not take of a family, the mother offering communion to her two little boys, and the five year old offering it to his mother in return.

This is the picture I did not take of my friend Mittie standing up to sign the chorus of We Are Called and watching it spread across the crowd.

This is the picture I did not take of the Reverend Amy DeLong, standing up to do what she was called to do, still a reverend and still a faithful, loving companion to her partner Val.

This is the picture I did not take of a grown man in tears as he told us about the recent affirmation of our LGBT  brothers and sisters by the Presbyterian Church (USA), or of the tears in the eyes of the crowd as he told us that he believed we would be next.

This is the picture I did not take of 50 young adults crammed into a tiny room to make a plan of action because they are committed to a church that is not always committed to them.

This is the picture I did not take of a room full of people dancing unabashedly in joy and hope.

This is the picture I did not take of 700 people, hand in hand, singing and praying for the church to draw the circle of their love wider.


If you were at Sing A New Song and want to share some of the pictures you didn't take, please leave a comment. I'd love to see them.

Expansion!

Well, instead of the blog post I wrote for yesterday, I have for you all a link to that post on the other blog which I will now be contributing to from time to time. Woo!

http://umonfire.blogspot.com/2011/08/raising-dead-waking-sleepers.html

I hope the flood of blog posts these past few days hasn't been too much for everyone. It's almost been like I'm a real, full-time blogger who's dedicated to writing. In any case, I have one more post about SANS that I'll try to get up later today, and then classes start up again tonight so I'll probably be back to my once a week goal. We'll see how it goes.

I hope you've enjoyed the updates about my experience at Sing A New Song, and I hope maybe you've learned something or gotten a new idea. If you want to hear any of the talks that I referenced, you can watch the videos (hopefully they will all be up soon!) on the SANS website.

http://sans2011.org/multimedia/videos/

I'd recommend any of them. All of the speakers had such great things to say!

If you've been reading all weekend, thanks for making this journey with me! And if you've kind of zoned out, well, things will get back to usual this week. Though I am really excited about my last SANS post, so I hope you at least read that one.

Peace!

The Images of God

Because so many people left early this morning, yesterday's services and closing banquet were the last parts of the conference that many people were a part of, which meant that we've already had the "sending out into the world" feeling. Yesterday's words of encouragement were to remind us that each of us bears the image of God.

What was really awesome, though, was extending that to think of ourselves as bearing the many images of God.

We are who we are.
We will be who we will be.
We are the cloud.
We are the fire.
We are the gentle whisper.
We are the voice crying in the night, "awake!"

God is active in the world, and God is active through us- we work it out in our lives, in the church, in the world.

We have the power of God behind us, and we will shake the earth.

Unity, Not Uniformity

I would sum up yesterday’s many wonderful speakers with this: our goal is to seek unity without losing identity.

The day was bookended with affirmations of who we are as Reconciling Methodists and what it is that we hope for in the future. Reverend Amy DeLong spoke in the morning about hypocrisy and bullying in the church. She encouraged all of us there to resist the temptation to deny who we are, who we have been made to be. In the evening Bishop Joseph Sprague outlined his vision for the “new song” that we are singing; we work for safe jobs and living wages, for education and organization, for peace, and for the recognition and equality of all human beings.

Yet sandwiched there in the middle was the reminder from UCC Bishop Yvette Flunder that, just as we claim our identity as the church despite outcry from those who would claim otherwise, we likewise cannot exclude those who disagree with us from the body of Christ. We are all unique organs performing specific functions and all held together by the skin of the love of Christ, to borrow Bishop Flunder’s (and Paul’s) analogy. We are all the church together, yet that does not mean we lose sight of who we were created to be.

We may have our disagreements. They may seem enough to rip the church apart. In the past, they certainly have. But even disagreement over the very nature of God did not stop the biblical authors: we have in the two creation stories two very different representations of God. We have a God who is distant, who creates with words and stands back from it all to observe; on the other hand, we have a God who gets down in the dirt and works with divine hands to create and participate. But what truly matters is that we are given both! The authors might have disagreed about what kind of God they worshiped, but they could still stand together as God’s people.

We are called to unity in the body of Christ, but unity is not the same as uniformity.

Hope

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been in Huron, Ohio, since Tuesday. I’m here for a conference called Sing A New Song- it’s a partnership between the Reconciling Ministries Network and the Methodist Federation for Social Action (where I’ll be interning for the next two years), and it’s basically a chance for United Methodists who care about justice issues ranging from LGBT rights to stewardship of the environment and everywhere in between to get together, encourage one another, and dream about and work toward a better future.

So if I had to choose one word to describe yesterday’s kickoff events, it would be hope. Hope for this weekend. Hope for the future. Hope for the church. Hope for the world.

That was definitely the theme of the young adult forum I got the chance to be a part of for a little while yesterday morning. What gives you hope? What do you hope for in the future of the church? What stories (biblical and non-biblical) give you hope and encouragement as you continue to work for peace and justice?

You know what gives me hope?

We do.

For many people (especially in local congregations!), the first thing that comes to mind when they think of young adults is, “Where are they?” But at this conference, 1 in 7 participants are under 35. And that’s after all of the people who were unable to come because school starts this week. That’s awesome.

The message of last night’s kickoff service was that we are the church, too. We—young adults, LGBT, people of color, the poor, anyone who has ever felt hated by or left out of “the church”—we are the church, too. And we can change it. We can choose to live in a better way because that’s what we are called to. That’s why we are here. That’s why we work—because we believe that the church, the world can be better.

We have hope. And we carry hope out into the world.

Sitting Is Bad For The Mind As Well As The Body

Uninspired.
Lethargic.
Apathetic.
Aimless.
Sleepy.
Bored.
Boring.

This is what you become when you watch multiple seasons of Doctor Who uninterrupted.

Goodness, I need school to start again. My brain needs a jump-start.

A State of Mind

This has been stewing in my brain since I was in Texas a month ago. And by stewing since, I mean it’s come up from time to time but I’ve been ridiculously busy and just now wrote it down.

At the end of June I was so very blessed to be able to spend two weeks in Texas seeing dear friends and family, hanging out in my favorite places, listening to country music and southern drawls, and of course eating the most wonderful food on the planet. Seriously, two absolutely amazing weeks.

Then this past week two of my best friends, my roommates from college, came to visit! We spent three days walking all over the city, hitting all the major highlights (and some of my favorite places that aren’t quite so thronged with tourists). We ended every day so tired and sore (and hot and cranky) that we could hardly move, but it was so good to be with them. Plus, watching our favorite movies and having sleepovers every night because we kicked Jeff out for the weekend was lovely :)

So Texas has been on my mind, and I finally just jotted down what I was thinking. It hasn’t had much revision and I don’t even know how to qualify it (poetry, I suppose?), so no guarantees. But here it is.

Texas is not Bible thumpers, raging conservatives, and unbearable heat.

Texas is green trees,

red earth,

and wide, blue sky.

Texas is the dust of a rodeo

and the sound of the state fair;

it’s the roar of a city,

the bustle of people,

junebugs on an otherwise silent summer night.

Texas is smiling speech,

shootin’ the breeze

in that slow drawl,

that musical twang.

Texas is big family dinners

blessed by a deep family grace.

It’s comfort food and

comfortable conversation.

Texas is southern hospitality.

A smile, a wave,

wide arms and an open door,

friends and strangers alike.

Texas is,

it has been said,

an obsession approaching a religion.

It is home.

“A Texan outside of Texas is a foreigner.”- John Steinbeck

"Mission" Trips?

Well this is embarrassing.

I must've written down (or thought of and lost- crap!) dozens of ideas for blog entries in the past month. Some of them I even wrote a few sentences for. I just haven't really been in the mood, you know? So I apologize. Maybe August will be better. Things might skip around, but there's certainly no dearth of new ideas!

In any case, most of you (who actually hung on and still read this) know that I took two of my youth and four other adults from my church out to West Virginia last week for a "mission" trip. I put "mission" in quotes because my feelings about the week-long youth group trips to help the foreign and/or underprivileged have gotten rather confused in the past year.

When I was a youth, summer mission trips weren't really what my church was about. We definitely went to summer camp- the Bible study/devotion/quiet time/worship 8 times a day, messy games, staying in cabins kind of camp- every year, but I don't remember ever even hearing about a summer mission trip. Maybe they were there and I just couldn't afford them, but they definitely weren't regular things. When I started meeting people later in high school and in college who had gone on mission trips every summer, I was jealous. That sounded so awesome! Spending a week helping people and hanging out with my youth group friends? Yes, please.

And right there, in my own response to it, is the issue that I've become aware of after a year of youth ministry classes. How much help do we really offer in a week, and how much is the trip really just about improving relationships between and widening the awareness of the youth who go on the trip? Sure, we do a small service. We fix up a house or we sponsor a VBS or we work in a food kitchen. On my own trip last week we shingled one house, put up safety bars on the deck of a second house, and completely tore down the tiny, rotting deck and wheelchair ramp of a third to build new, safer ones. Not a bad week's work. But the real change, as I have heard in class and now seen in my own experience, is in the group that goes. Putting seven (or twenty, or fifty) people together for a week, working toward a common goal, creates a perfect environment for forming new relationships and strengthening old ones. It reminds those of us who can afford to go somewhere else and donate our time and energy for a week that we truly are privileged. But surely there are other ways of doing that, ways that don't look like the privileged reaching down to pull the lowly out of their sad lives. How arrogant are we?

So there's that argument. But the most significant change I saw this week was neither of those things. In fact, it outweighed the first and invalidated the second. There was one moment on the third day of the trip that brought it home for me, and the rest of the trip was instantly changed.

When you drive down the windy mountain roads of West Virginia the houses you see range from fairly new and beautiful to fairly near to falling down. One of the homes we worked on looked pretty nice from the outside. The woman who owned it had said that if we needed a restroom we could just come inside; we were so dehydrated from working outside all day, though, that it was the third day before I managed to keep enough water in me to actually need to take her up on it. When I did, I managed maybe three steps inside before I felt literally slammed by revelation.

This home, pretty on the outside and housing this wonderful lady and her beautiful boys, was in the process of "remodeling" on the inside. The floors were plywood. There were no doors to any of the rooms; one room didn't even have a wall. The whole place was dark. My breath caught but I managed to keep walking, use the restroom, and get back outside to process.

What this woman had done by not simply letting us rebuild her home but letting us into it was nothing less than bravely and wholeheartedly opening her life to us. The lunchtimes that we spent talking to her, playing with the boys- as one of my (extremely wise) youth said in our Mission Moment in church on Sunday, those were the most important parts of the whole trip.

See, the work that gets done on a mission trip is important. The ways that the people who go are changed are important. But the most important thing, the impetus for the change in everyone involved, is actually sharing life with someone who is nothing like you- or very much like you, after all. You can just drive down the roads past the houses, sit out on the lawns, even climb on the roofs, but it isn't until you actually go inside that being there matters. It doesn't have to be literally going inside; not everyone can or wants to open themselves up like that. But going inside that person's life, getting to know him or her as a fellow human being just trying to figure out what life is about, that is what matters.

When I went overseas for the first time two years ago, one of the things that struck me most was just that people lived there. It sounds obvious, I know, but it was a strange feeling to realize that in this city that I was just visiting for a few months, where everything was new and strange, people lived. Some of them had lived their whole lives there. People actually live all over the world and their lives look very much or nothing like mine, and I almost never stop to think about them. Now that I was there I could just sit and watch, like some crazy life-sized ant farm, or I could actually go live with them for a little while.

That, to me, is what is important about mission trips. That is the most lasting change. Sure, I put up a roof this week. But in 10 years, that will need to be fixed, maybe even replaced. And sure, I was reminded that I have a responsibility to use my privilege to make the world a better place. But I, like most people, need reminding of that pretty often. It's so much easier to just cruise. What matters, though, is that there are connections between lives that didn't exist before last week. And no, those connections may not always be strong. People get busy, people forget. But the thing is, I think what we're called to as Christians and as humans trying to make this life make sense is to make those connections to people wherever we are, whoever they are. We are called to live together, to open up our lives and our selves to one another, to have relationships that matter, and yes, to lend one another a helping hand. It's easy to take the distanced, sterile route through life, but is that really living?

Random

Random was one of the defining popular words of my middle and early high school years. I distinctly remember overhearing one of my camp counselors saying to another, “What is it with these kids and the word random?” My friends and I may not use the word random so often as we used to, but randomness is no less a part of our lives.

It’s always fascinating to play the “What if?” game of random chances that brought me to where I am now. My husband and I talk about it often. What if the Missouri River hadn’t flooded, bringing his family to Texas? What if I hadn’t skipped a grade in elementary school? I never would have met the people I met that shaped me the way I did, and I never would have applied to the University of Texas- I was going to A&M, just like my cousin and my uncles! He never would’ve applied to UT either, because why would he apply to some random state school half the country away? If we hadn’t both ended up at that same freshman orientation session, I never would’ve introduced myself to him. We wouldn’t have been best friends for two years. He wouldn’t have challenged my long-unquestioned beliefs or encouraged me to pursue my call to ministry. We would never have dated or gotten married. I certainly would never have moved to DC of my own volition. I could go on forever- what about our parents’ lives, or our grandparents’ lives? My life would be absolutely unfathomably different if a long string of random chances- stretching back thousands of years!- hadn’t brought me to where I am.

Some people would argue that this unfathomable string of coincidences was all part of God’s plan. Other people would take the opposite tack, arguing that if life is all chance then it has no meaning. I think I come down in the middle. I don’t believe in a deterministic God; I believe that there is a distinction between knowing what will happen and deciding what will happen. Or, as my Hebrew Bible professor liked to say, “All is foreseen but freedom is given.” In high school I read a book by my favorite author, Ted Dekker, where the main character suddenly has the ability to see the future- or, more precisely, the futures. What he saw was the multitude of possible outcomes that would result from each choice he was faced with. That’s kind of how I imagine God. God sees all the ways that we could be, all the things we could do, and God hopes for our good choices, but our free will remains. And to me, that means that every choice I make has meaning. Every choice I make shapes my future in incalculable ways, extinguishing countless theoretical futures in favor of the one I created.

Creation and Discovery

This is actually the text of the sermon I preached this morning, which was Peace with Justice Sunday in the United Methodist Church. It was my first sermon, so it was a little nerve-wracking, but I think I did alright. The passages were Genesis 1:1-2:4 and Amos 2:6-7a, 5:10-12, 24, if you feel like reading them before you read the sermon. Also, I was going for around 10 minutes of speaking, so it's quite a bit longer than my normal posts. I hope you all like it, though, and I'd welcome any comments (as always!).

Claude Monet has always been my favorite artist. I’m specifically drawn to his works of impressionism, and my favorite by far is his water lily series. When I was in high school the Houston Museum of Fine Arts received a large exhibition on loan from the Met that included three massive panels of water lilies- I was SO there! I remember walking into the room and walking straight up to the canvas, my nose just inches from the paint—at that distance, of course, it just looked like dots and dashes of color. But when I’d finally convinced myself they were real, though, that I was actually seeing an original Monet in person, I sat down on the benches provided and I spent a good 20 minutes just reveling in what they truly were- not dots and dashes of color, but an amazing panorama of beauty.

When I read the first creation story in Genesis, this memory is always what I think of: God taking a swirling, chaotic deep and crafting from it a rhythmic order of stunning beauty and purpose. Each layer brings more complexity, more beauty as God stretches God’s self, playing and creating and discovering.

The final stretching of God’s creative powers, according to the Genesis story, the culmination of God’s discovery, is itself a creative being. God’s own image, with responsibility for all that has come before. Artists and creators in our own rite. The breath that brought order to the deep has been breathed into us; God’s ordering, creative spirit is our own.

Famous sculptor and artist Michelangelo is noted as having said that, “every block of stone has a statue inside and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” One of the tips for good writing is to begin the story and see where it takes you rather than to come at it with every plot detail already in mind. Creation, both for us and for God, is an act of discovery as much as it is a work of design.

So if God is the sculptor, the author, that means that we, the stone, the story, have immense creative responsibility. Not only do we have our own creative powers, reflections of God’s own—producing art and story, bringing order to the broken, chaotic places of the world—but we ourselves also guide the story that God is telling. God discovers with us as we guide the pen, the paintbrush, the chisel that is working out our history. This is the responsibility that comes with the word “dominion,” as the word is often translated when the passage talks about God giving humans responsibility over the earth.  

This phrase, “have dominion over,” has long been used to excuse the exploitation of the earth and its creatures. When peoples are seen as less than human it has been made to excuse unbelievable atrocity. This single phrase, “have dominion over,” has masked war, slavery, genocide, oppression, pollution, extinction, depletion of resources and unsustainable living practices.

But this, I think, is not how our part of the story ought to be read. If our relationship with the earth and its creatures is the reflection of God’s relationship with the creation then it is understood differently.

Moltmann writes in God in Creation that if the creator is present in the creation, the relationship to the creation, instead of one of the ruler and the ruled, “must rather be viewed as an intricate web of unilateral, reciprocal, and many-sided relationships. In this network of relationships, ‘making,’ ‘preserving,’ ‘maintaining,’ and ‘perfecting,’ are certainly the great one-sided relationships, but ‘indwelling,’ ‘sympathizing,’ ‘participating,’ ‘accompanying,’ ‘enduring,’ ‘delighting,’ and ‘glorifying’ are relationships of mutuality which describe a cosmic community of living between God the Spirit and all [God’s] created beings.”

This is the “dominion,” the “stewardship,” that we are charged with. In our one-sided relationships, we are charged with “’making,’ ‘preserving,’ ‘maintaining,’ and ‘perfecting’”—we bring order from chaos. But in our relationships of mutuality, which are the vast majority of our relationships, our responsibilities are “’sympathizing,’ ‘participating,’ ‘accompanying,’ ‘enduring,’ ‘delighting,’ and ‘glorifying.’” This is our simultaneous power to guide the story that God is telling and responsibility to discover the story that springs from our own creative work. God accompanies, delights and glorifies with us, and as we order and care for the world we delight, and glorify with it. As we seek right relationships with our fellow humans, they are relationships of honor and equality, where we accompany and sympathize.

Now, this creation story, this laying out of God’s relationship to us and our relationship to the world, this likely comes from the time of Israel’s exile. The covenant relationship that they thought protected them from all harm seemed to have failed. The community in exile and the remnant left behind struggled to work out exactly what had happened and why. It is also from around this time that we heard the voices of the prophets like Amos, reminding Israel of the reciprocal relationship of their covenant. They, the reflection of God, had been given responsibilities, and they had failed. Israel had discovered the distortion of the phrase “have dominion over” way before the modern age got ahold of it.

Sustainable rhythms of sowing, reaping, and lying fallow had been abandoned for constant overproduction of cash crops leading to depletion of resources. Societal structures of enough for all and excess for none had become hierarchies of inequality in a trickle-up economy. Corruption in power and oppression of the weak had become commonplace.

Sounding familiar?

So it is with trepidation and shame that I read Amos’ words, still stinging these two and a half millennia later.

We who have been given the privilege of creation, we who hold the responsibility of guiding the pen that writes our history—we trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth. We take from them their portions of grain. We abhor the one who speaks the truth.

Are we perfecting? Are we glorifying?

Does God sympathize with us? Does God delight in us?

When we step back from the painting that we as humankind are creating, is it a work of order and beauty? Or is it a work of confusion and pain?

Today is Peace With Justice Sunday. It’s one of the six special Sundays in the United Methodist Church, a day when we hear inspiring messages and make a special donation above and beyond our tithe to continue our many good efforts in the world.

But for many people all over the world, today will bring neither peace nor justice. Our world remains in disorder and chaos as wars brew in Africa and the Middle East, as unjust rulers remain in power the world over, as creation waits and groans for our own creative, healing hand. When we pray for peace today, it is not just peace that we pray for. Peace alone often serves simply to preserve the status quo. The peace that we pray for, the peace that we work to create together, is a peace that brings justice rolling down like waters.

This is our responsibility- as members of Dumbarton, as the United Methodist Church, as human beings. We have been given power for a purpose. History’s pen is in our hand, and God waits breathlessly—accompanying us, enduring our failures, delighting in our triumphs, waiting to see exactly what kind of story we will write.

Amen.

Humility and Love

I recently finished the book Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism) by Frank Schaeffer. While I felt like he was sometimes harsh and bitter- somewhat like the people he was writing against- I really enjoyed most of what he had to say, and the whole time I was reminded of the last thing that Brian McLaren said that I had wanted to talk about.

Brian said that, “Sometimes rejecting God is itself an act of spirituality because it says, ‘Whatever’s out there, it has to be better than that.’” If God is real, God has to be better than this small-minded, bigoted God that I’ve been peddled all these years.

Schaeffer takes on both the fundamentalist atheists—who militantly and arrogantly claim that God cannot exist because it goes against reason and that reason will eventually unravel all of the questions of the universe—and the fundamentalist Christians—who have put God in a box of their own beliefs and condensed salvation into a single prayer confirming “right” doctrine. Both reject mystery in favor of their own arrogance and certainty.

His response is that, “with all due respect to Dawkins, mystery trumps everything,” and that “according to traditional Christianity…the process of salvation was lived out in a community. Salvation was a path toward God, not a you’re-in-or-out event, as in ‘At two thirty last Wednesday I accepted Jesus.’”

God is so much bigger, so much better than that. So don’t mind me if I do reject your God. If your God demands that I hate or even kill my GLBTQ friends, if your God condones the pollution of the earth and the oppression of its peoples because they don’t look and sound and believe like me, if your God wants me to vote straight Republican because they’re God’s chosen people, then no, I don’t want your God. And if your not-God means that we’re all there is, that human reason is the best thing to come out of this galaxy, well, I don’t want that either.

“Some of the earliest Christians,” as Schaeffer notes, “wrote that God is not to be defined or hedged in by theology.”

I may know a person very well, but that person is still a distinct entity from me and therefore still foreign and, in a sense, incomprehensible. If I can’t even know another person entirely, how can I claim to know God entirely? How can I be so arrogant as to claim that I speak for God? For that matter, how can I claim to know the workings of the universe so entirely that I can say with confidence that there is no God at all?

What I can do is say that, “whatever is out there, it has to be better than that.” God has to be better than even my best, most hopeful imaginations. What I can do is share what I believe about God, what I believe about salvation, what I believe about my own responsibilities as a Christian. But I share with humility and love. Maybe God revealed something differently to you than to me. Maybe I’ve gotten something wrong. I’m human, so I probably have. But I can’t force anything on you. I can’t tell you with 100% certainty that you’re wrong.

So if you think that whatever’s out there is better than my God, go for it. Ask questions. Tell me about it. We can work toward God together. But if you share, share with humility and love. They’re the best we’ve got.

Roughing It

Well, last week I had quite the lifestyle change.

I had spent the better part of a week with my good friend as she house-sat this incredible house in north DC. This house was truly amazing (and excessive). A gorgeous (and obviously rarely used) kitchen, two dining rooms, three sitting rooms, three bedrooms, two patios, a study, a workout room, a home theatre, and seven bathrooms. Who needs seven bathrooms?! Not these people.

Oh, and a pool. Though I have to admit, the pool was my favorite part. I could spend the afternoon lying out by the pool, taking a dip, and when it got too hot just retreat into the gigantic, air-conditioned house.

And from there I went… camping! Last weekend was my church’s annual church-wide retreat at the West River Retreat Center in Maryland. As the youth minister I stayed with the youth in their lodge, which was not air-conditioned, and slept on the little camp pallets on bunk beds that I got so familiar with several summers ago at Lutherhill. I went from having just about every luxury at my fingertips to living with what I crammed into my backpack and the food from the camp cafeteria.

Don’t get me wrong, we didn’t rough it the whole weekend. The main lodge was air-conditioned, the food wasn’t too bad, and we did get to spend some time in the pool when it wasn’t raining Saturday afternoon. The drastic change did bring something home to me, though. How much do I really need? How much of my stuff actually matters? It’s kind of like when you clean out your closet or find a box that somehow never got unpacked (which I’ve also done recently- oops), and you discover all of this stuff that you actually managed to forget you had. Clearly it was incredibly important to you! How much do I really need if I can literally forget that I owned something?

Anyway, here are a few pictures from the weekend, which really was quite lovely. None from the house, but oh well. Enjoy, and have a lovely day!

My awesome top-of-the-giant-swing face.

The pretty campsite.

My toes in the West River.

Bandaids and Antibiotics

I know I said that there were several things that Brian said last week that I wanted to process, and then I stopped for a few days after just one. So today is a two for one! One post but two related things- charity and justice.

For me this topic actually goes back to a guest speaker we had in one of our classes in the fall. A woman from the General Board of Church and Society came to speak to us about doing charity work versus working for justice. She compared charity to putting a band-aid on a patient with systemic failure; working for justice, on the other hand, is like looking for and treating the source of that failure. Sometimes the work that we do- though it is good work- is really just treating the symptoms, putting on a bandage that staunches the flow a bit, rather than actually healing the disease. That's what injustice is- the disease of our world.

To that end, Brian made two points about injustice. One of the people at the discussion brought up the verse in James: "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world." They actually only quoted the first half of that verse, the bit about orphans and widows. The second half, keeping oneself unstained by the world, has been used for a long time to support total abstinence in all of its forms- abstaining from sex, from alcohol, from certain kinds of music or movies, even from spending time with non-Christians.

I'm not saying that any of those aren't good for certain people in certain places of life (except that last one- I'm pretty sure that it's completely counter to the life and ministry of Jesus to avoid anyone who doesn't fit the goody-two-shoes bill). What Brian suggested, though, is that keeping oneself unstained by the world might perhaps mean something bigger. Rather than living a cloistered and antiseptic life for fear of being stained by the world, he suggested that it meant refusing to participate in the injustices of the world. That seems to me to be more in line with the message of the verse and of James as a whole.  Religion is living out your faith by the things that you choose to do and the things you choose not to participate in. We choose to give aid; we choose not to harm. We choose to work for justice; we choose not to support injustice.

That brings us to the second thing Brian said- that "charity always moves toward issues of justice." Feeding the homeless, working in food pantries, sponsoring children for school or medicine or even just Christmas presents- these are all good things. But who hasn't felt the sting of doubt? How can I keep doing this when the need never seems to end? There are always more homeless, more poor, more oppressed. It gets so overwhelming. No matter how many sandwiches I hand out there is always another hand reaching for the next one. Eventually we realize that all the good we are doing just isn't enough.

Technically, you have two choices once you reach that point. The first is to simply give up. Throw your hands in the air and say "I'll never succeed, so I just quit!" This is simply unacceptable to me. Quitting when the journey gets rough makes me question the sincerity of the commitment in the first place. Were you doing this because you believe in it or because it made you feel good?

For me, the only real choice is to take the energy you've been putting into charity and to throw it into work for justice. That's what Brian meant. Eventually you realize that despite all of your pretty band-aids, the patient is still sick. The world is still diseased. Injustice permeates it, sickening everything it touches. Then you start looking for what's causing the sickness in the first place. You start trying to root out the injustice wherever it is found. It's like running a long and intensive course of antibiotics- it turns out to take a lot more effort than just putting on a bandage, but it's a lot more effective. It takes a long time but it's so worth it in the long run.

That's what religion is about. It's not about being some cultish, cloistered movement living by some obscenely long list of rules; it's about caring for the world. Working for peace and justice, not participating in systems and tools of oppression. We participate in the world, for good or for ill. Personally, I want that to be for good. And not just good that offers a quick fix to a long term problem, but a real work of healing in a world plagued with hatred and injustice.

Loving Alone

Thursday night I got the opportunity to go to a discussion and book reading with one of my favorite authors, Brian McLaren. When I was in college it was his books (along with some wonderful people) that challenged me to finally question for myself the beliefs I'd held forever and come up with a set of beliefs that are actually mine. That makes him a big part of the reason that I am who I am and that I am where I am. There were so many great things said that night and I want to process a few of them over the next several days, so here we go!

The one I want to start with is important to me because it relates to what I talked about yesterday- relationships with and within the Church. Brian said this: "If your spirituality is not just about feeling good but about making a difference in the world in the direction of love, here's the problem... you can't learn to love alone." You can't learn to love without people who are hard to love. People who challenge you. People who disagree with you. People who don't like you. People who hurt you.

Sounding much like Annual Conference to anyone? Or perhaps like those people you are quite content to leave outside the arms of the Church?

I can't learn to love without the people who just made me want to scream in anger and frustration last weekend at Conference. They can't learn to love without people like me (who probably make them spitting mad, too).

Hardcore Democrats can't learn to love without hardcore Republicans. Republicans can't learn to love without Democrats.

Atheists can't learn to love without evangelicals. Evangelicals need atheists.

I could go on forever here, but you get the picture. Learning to love people is like learning patience- you can't learn it without being tested on it. It's easy to love the people who are just like you, but it's the people who are nothing like you who teach you how to love truly. It's easy to love the people in your oh-so-homogeneous little congregation, but it's the people who won't set foot in your door that you truly need to love, and you need them in order to even learn how to do it properly. That means you can't ignore them. That means you have to be out with them. You can't learn to love alone.

This Post Doesn't Matter

Alright. I'm embarrassed.

It's officially been over a month (just a day, but over nonetheless) since I last updated. I daydreamed during finals about how over the summer I would have plenty of time to do all of the things I've wanted to do, like update my blog regularly. It turned out that after finals all I wanted to do was sleep and let my brain rot for a few weeks.

But no more. I've spent this week in a deadly boring intensive course on leadership (alright, alright, I'm sitting in that course right now- clearly, it's life-changing) and I think my brain is actually functioning again. Let's give it a shot.

Truly, the only important thing in my life the last few weeks has been Annual Conference. It was last weekend and it was a strange mix of soporific, frustrating, and exhilarating.

For those of you who are not United Methodist, Annual Conference technically refers to a geographic area; I'm a member in the Southwest Texas Annual Conference, but I'm currently living and working in the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference. Every year, however, the Conference gets together for the- wait for it- Annual Conference. Yeah, we're good at names.

This year's Annual Conference was particularly important because next year is the General Conference, when representatives delegates from every Annual Conference come together to evaluate the state of the church. That means that this year's Annual Conference is when motions are put forward that, if passed, will go before the whole General Conference to be discussed and voted on to in some way modify the stated beliefs or actions of the United Methodist Church.

Because I'm still a member in Southwest Texas, I technically didn't need to be at the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference. I wanted the chance to observe it, though, before I am in the position of being able to participate. As interesting as it was to be learning so much about the inner workings of the church, I also couldn't really participate. Thus, the soporific. Those three days of sessions and voting and legislation and worship are long.

Being so restrained was also frustrating at times. There were many times when I wanted to jump into a conversation or cast a vote but I simply couldn't. More frustrating than that was simply seeing the discord- the downright nastiness- that was sometimes a part of the discussion. Deep emotion is to be expected, I know, when you bring together such a diverse group of people to talk about such important topics. It hurts my heart, though, to see the church so divided.

What was amazing and exhilarating, then, was to see the Church come together. To see the incredible steps for justice that were made as people around me wept for joy. To see people come together after a divisive vote and to embrace one another from across the metaphorical aisle. To see the Church being the Church- growing, adapting, and coming together for good.

You know what the best part was, though?

The best part was when we were discussing ways to reach out to, to serve, to welcome, to love on all of the people that the Church has alienated and ignored, and the bishop himself wept in front of God and all of us talking about the people the Church has failed. His words were, "Until we change, it just doesn't matter." None of this- not the legislation, not the Conference, not anything we say or do- none of it matters until we fundamentally change the way we think about our relationship to the world. Until our relationship with the world is one of humility and love- not condescension, not judgment, not correction, not arrogance, not even charity- nothing we do or say matters. Our attitude infuses everything we do and it is that attitude that condemns us with the people we reach out to. Our bitterness and arrogance won't make a difference. It doesn't matter. Love makes a difference. Love brings the Church together when it disagrees. Love brings peace and change. Love matters.

An Imperfect World of Joy and Sorrow Mingled

It's been a while since I was able to free myself from finals work to write an entry here, but I'm doing it today.

Last night I just so happened to be taking a quick break from writing when the news broke on Twitter, Facebook, and finally the major news sources (thanks, social media!) that Osama bin Laden had been killed. It started with just two statuses on my newsfeed, but two turned almost immediately into ten and soon my newsfeed was a living thing, updating itself without me refreshing it because there were simply so many new statuses, articles, videos, and comments being posted all at one time.

These statuses fell into three main categories: joy/triumph, bitterness, and sorrow/hope. I'm not even going to touch on the statuses of bitterness about the President. I thought about it. I had clever things to say all laid out in my head. But really, that's not the issue today.

The statuses of joy were by far the most plentiful, and I get that. We've spent ten years looking for this man who was, directly or indirectly, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people; it's no surprise that some people felt that celebration was in order when he died. Justice has been done, or so they say.

It was relieving to me, though, that these statuses of bitterness and joy were almost balanced by statuses of sorrow and hope. People who chose not to celebrate the death of a man, but the lives of those remembered. People who expressed gratitude to those who live and die so that we can feel safe. And, most importantly, people who pushed to keep this in perspective. A man died. A life was lost. A child of God- yes, a child of God- was killed. He committed terrible crimes against humanity. He was responsible for the death of thousands of innocents. But his rebellion against the healing, reconciling power of God makes him no less a child of God than your rebellion or my own does.

The issue at stake with the death of Osama and indeed with the whole War on Terror is just that- we are at war with an idea, the idea that a specific position gives the right to kill the opposition, that one life is of more value than another. The problem is that we don't get to decide which lives are valuable. The problem is that you can't kill an idea with guns and missiles. You can't kill it by taking the life that holds it. To kill an idea requires nothing short of a stronger idea.

My friend Amanda offered this quote from Martin Luther King Jr. last night:

"Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already 

devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate 

cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies

violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction."  

We live in "an imperfect world of joy and sorrow mingled." That quote came not from an illustrious speaker but from a 1914 book on cycling, "Three Men on the Bummel," yet its truth is still powerful. Our world remains an imperfect place of pain and love. We rejoice in peace. We grieve life lost. But hatred and violence cannot overpower hatred and violence; only a stronger idea than hatred can do that. This idea is the core of Christianity- love, peace, and reconciliation. These are the ideas that can change the world.

  

Another friend quoted a few lines from a poem, Recommendation, by Thich Nhat Hanh. It was written for youth who were going out into the dark places of the Vietnam War, trying to bring comfort and aid to the Vietnamese people. I want to share it with you in full:

Promise me,
promise me this day,
promise me now,
while the sun is overhead
exactly at the zenith,
promise me:

Even as they
strike you down
with a mountain of hatred and violence;
even as they step on you and crush you
like a worm,
even as they dismember and disembowel you,
remember, brother,
remember:
man is not our enemy.

The only thing worthy of you is compassion –
invincible, limitless, unconditional.
Hatred will never let you face
the beast in man.

One day, when you face this beast alone,
with your courage intact, your eyes kind,
untroubled
(even as no one sees them),
out of your smile
will bloom a flower.
And those who love you
will behold you
across ten thousand worlds of birth and dying.

Alone again,
I will go on with bent head,
knowing that love has become eternal.
On the long, rough road,
the sun and the moon
will continue to shine. 

 

Man is not our enemy. The only thing worthy of you is compassion- invincible, limitless, unconditional.

 

In that, the idea of declaring war on terror makes sense. It is not our fellow human being that we seek to destroy, but the ideas of hatred and violence that have so wounded and distorted his or her humanity.

 

We rejoice at the prospect of hope, of peace. But we grieve the loss of human life, even life so blinded by hatred that it tested our strength to love (to quote MLK again). We grieve that such hatred exists, that it so cripples us. 

 

The idea that can defeat hatred, that can change the world, is the same idea I talked about back in March. Everyone deserves to be loved. Everyone is of sacred worth.

 

Love is stronger than hate. Love wins, if you will.  

One Step At A Time

Between Lent and Holy Week and planning the church retreat and just being in seminary in general, I feel like people have been talking about journey a lot lately.

"Where have you been, and how has that affected you?"

"Where do you find yourself, and is it where you want to be?"

"Where do you want to go, and will the path you are on get you there?"

This "journey" picture is from the hardest journey I ever took. It's one of the parts of my past

that's still affecting me in ways I can't imagine.

Well, I do know where I've been but I probably can't guess yet at all the ways that has affected and will continue to affect me. And I know where I am, most of the time. I love where I am. Not sure that I'm a fan of DC in general, but I love my school and my church and all of the amazing people here. But as for where I'm going? I have no clue. I think I'm slowly getting used to that, and I'm definitely starting to realize that it's probably for a reason.

See, sometimes I have control issues. Maybe it's because we didn't always have a lot of money growing up, or because my dad has been sick since I was in middle school, or because I was an only child--maybe I just wanted to be able to control something. Or maybe it's just that I'm precocious and stubborn. In any case, I'm not always very good at taking advice. Or letting other people make decisions for me. Even when that other is God and that other knows way more than me.

For example, I still look at myself and see this random assortment of semi-developed skills and wonder, "How am I supposed to cobble together a career out of those?!" Whereas I'm pretty sure God looks at me and says, "Heather! I gave you the perfect set of skills for this thing, or this thing, or even this other thing if you really want to. You'd be amazing at any of them and do great things. Why won't you get with the program already?!" And all the while I sit there, whining and worrying because I don't know what to do with my life.

But the conclusion I've come to this year is that perhaps the reason I don't have a clue what to do anymore is because, if I could see my life laid out, my control issues would come out and I'd say, "But this isn't right!" Or, "But I can't do that!" And I'd screw it up or just run away.

It started with just thinking about how very long it took me to acknowledge the possibility of even doing ministry. The thought that maybe I was called to ministry first occurred to me when I was seven, for goodness’ sake, and it took me over ten years to admit that maybe God really was calling me to ministry despite growing up Southern Baptist, despite being a woman. Even then, though, I’ve realized that I didn’t step out into what that call to ministry could mean. I stuck to what was safe, to what I’d already done: youth ministry. Working with youth in Sunday School, in youth group, and in camp settings all came naturally and I’d been allowed to do it, even as a girl in the Baptist church. I’ve started to feel, then, that what I did was assume that this ministry was what God was calling me to. It was easy. It was safe and familiar. Plus, I liked the idea. Clearly, all of this added up to youth ministry being my call from God. That’s what I decided that I would do. The thought that occurs to me, then, is that maybe youth ministry has just been my first step. Youth ministry was the first thing that I could finally admit to myself as a possibility, the first part of a plan that I can’t see yet.

So in the meantime I blunder along, sometimes listening to God and mostly just doing my own thing. For example, if you remember when I got here I had a minor crisis, way back in my very first entry. Am I here for the right reasons? And if I'm totally honest with myself, the answer is probably no. I came to DC because it was where Jeff was coming, and to Wesley because it was a good seminary here and they offered me a scholarship, and to my church because they offered me a job and seemed like they were doing really great things. But those were my reasons for coming.

That is not to say, though, that there were not other reasons for me being here that I could not see. That little piece of wisdom from a friend still rings true--the awesome thing is that no matter why you go, God can use you anyway. And looking back on this year, with just two more weeks to go, I can definitely see the ways that God has used my place here. Not used me, necessarily. Not in ways that I've seen, anyway. But where I am has affected me in powerful ways. Being in DC and at my amazing church here has rekindled the passion I once had for justice and peace. Being at Wesley has introduced me to truly wonderful people who challenge me every day and has given me the opportunity to explore not only youth ministry but also emerging ministry, which has given me the language to express what I was really yearning for all of those years that I struggled with being called to ministry. Wherever I end up, my ministry is to bring about the kingdom of God begun by Jesus and entrusted to us as Christians, where all people are loved and cared for, where hatred and violence and discrimination have no place. Wherever I go, whatever path I'm on, that is my compass and my goal. That is what I work toward.

Service of Word and Table

My church here takes Communion twice a month, on the first and third Sundays. This is less often than my church in Austin, which took Communion every week, but much, much more often than I ever took it growing up.

I have to admit, it was a little weird at first, back when I became United Methodist. Coming from a background where Communion wasn't really talked about, much less emphasized, taking it so often was interesting at first simply because it was novel. I'll be honest, I don't think I got it. The words were pretty. After all, that's what I'd grown up focusing on- the words spoken. The sermon had been the center and the high point of the service. I'm also a huge word nerd anyway, so it made sense to me. But the actual taking of the bread and juice (Methodist- we're not big on wine for the most part) was just kind of a tasty mouthful while I thought about Jesus...and what I was going to have for lunch, because now I was hungry.

It may sound weird to some of you to imagine a 20-year-old taking Communion with the basic mindset of a 5-year-old (snack time!). Or maybe that's kind of how you think about it too, and maybe that's ok for where you are.

In any case, the people I've met, the books I've read, and the classes I've taken since I've been here have all been gradually but drastically changing the way I look at Communion. Also, I just wrote a paper on it. So yeah. It's on my mind and I thought I'd share a bit. I'm not going to touch on who blesses or serves communion or even to whom they serve it. I'm just not. Not today. Today is just about what happens.

One quick thing I will say before I go into that, though, is that the Service of Word and Table- a service where the Gospel is proclaimed not only through preaching but also through Holy Communion- has become my favorite kind of service. Part of it is because the Emergent Christian in me loves the physical, interactive nature of taking Communion, but mostly it's because I've come to see Communion, rather than the sermon, as the high point and culmination of a worship gathering.

Why? Because I see four main things happening in taking Communion. We receive and see God's grace; we remember and give thanks for the life, death, and resurrection of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit; we affirm our place in the Church Universal; and we rededicate ourselves to our call to continue Christ's work in bringing about the already-present but not-yet-fulfilled kingdom of God (for more on that one, see my last post).

First, Communion is a matter of grace. Nothing we do makes us worthy of Communion with God- it is who we are, and who we are is the beloved people of God, being ever transformed into God's likeness. Grace has called us into the Church; grace makes us aware of God’s presence and power; grace gives the first inkling of understanding of our redemption; grace welcomes us to communion with God despite our failures. Grace invites us to the table despite all of our shortcomings, and at the table we find ourselves changed by nothing short of the most awesome grace of God.

Second, Communion lays before us in the most basic of elements the culmination of Christ's work in the world, defeating sin and death so that the work of God's kingdom could continue undeterred. It is by Christ’s sacrifice that we are saved and by the power of the Holy Spirit that we live, a community of the called. In the story that is told, in the blessings that are given, in the nourishment we receive, we see both of these lived out.

Third, Communion connects us to the entirety of the Church Universal, around the world and across the ages. We each take bread and juice, reminding us of the distinctly personal aspect of our relationship with God, but we take it from a communal loaf and a communal cup, reminding us that that relationship is for all of us. I mean that in both ways- God is in relationship with each of us, and each relationship is for the purpose of all of us. When we take Communion we stand in a line that stretches not simply down the aisles of our church but down the halls of time as we receive the gifts of God’s grace and love.

Finally, Communion reminds us of our part in bringing about reconciliation between God and the world. It is through simple bread and juice that we encounter God and it is through simple human beings that God works in the world. As we remember our union with God’s creation and God’s people, we are reminded of the ways in which we have failed to care for them. God has demonstrated God’s love for us in this good earth and in the gifts of food and drink, yet the earth is raped and polluted and God’s people go hungry and thirsty. The earth that produced the bread and juice is savaged and neglected; God’s children go without even the most basic elements of the table. God's kingdom has not been fulfilled. Our work remains.

Communion is the culmination of the work of the worship gathering- to draw together and to send out. As I've talked about before, I think we often get caught up in the drawing together and forget that the Church's purpose was to be sent out. Maybe that's why my favorite line from the words of institution said before Communion are these: "Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and wine. Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood." Amen.

The Mission of Ultimate Importance

*dun, dun, dun dun, dun, dun,  dun dun, dun, dun, dun dun duuunnnn*


Alright, if that didn't make any sense to you go back and read it again while singing to yourself the Mission: Impossible theme song. 

Theeeere you go. Alright. Cultural hook completed.

As you may have noticed, this is actually my second post for the day. The first one was basically for all of my loved ones who really just want to keep tabs on me and see what life is like for me here in DC, which I'm more than happy to do. I love to keep in touch this way.

This post, however, is for the people who are also interested in what I'm thinking about because I'm in seminary and that's a big part of what I do with my time. I think about faith and truth and the church and the world and what we're all supposed to be doing with our lives, and then I try to go out and do it and bring some people along with me. Also, I just need a space to work out all of what gets thrown at me in a week. So here we go.

The cheesy M:I hook is one I got in class today when we talked about this subject. It worked, though, and I'm also just kind of a big fan of cheesy things, so here it is again. Of course, he could actually play the song for us, but I do what I can.

The reason I used it, though, and the reason my professor used it, is to start off thinking about the word mission. What's the difference between a "mission-minded" church and a "missional" church?

A mission-minded church is a great thing. It's a group of people who dedicate their time, their money, and their efforts do doing missions. They do great things.

Yet, "mission" in a "mission-minded" church is still just that: something they do. The idea of a "missional" church is that mission is recognized as something they are; it's an inextricable part of their identity.

And what identity, what mission is that? Christ's, of course. Our identity as Christians is tied up with the identity of Christ. Christ's mission is our mission. So, as I asked before: what mission is that?

If you look at the gospel of Luke, there's a lot of buildup to Jesus' ministry. We get a lot about his birth and his childhood and the proclamations of his coming from John the Baptist. Then Jesus gets baptized, the Holy Spirit descends on him, and he goes off for forty days into the wilderness. When he comes back, he's ready to roll. He starts preaching and teaching. But it's not until he gets back to his hometown in chapter 4 that he really gets going, revealing who he is and why he's come.

He stands up to read in the temple, as usual. Someone hands him a scroll. He opens it and reads from Isaiah:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
   because he has anointed me
     to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
   and recovery of sight to the blind,
     to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour."

And then he sits down. Everyone's staring at him. And he says "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

It has been fulfilled. This is who I am. This is what I'm doing.

And then he does it.

Jesus' self-proclaimed mission has two main parts, and we know that it's legitimate because it's from the Spirit of the Lord. This is what God wants. His mission is to proclaim the good news and to bring about the good news, the good news of God's present and coming kingdom, of God's reconciliation with the world. And that's what he goes out and does. Along the way, he makes disciples; he creates a community of people who are charged with this same mission. And to seal the deal, to finish the beginning of the bringing about of this kingdom, Christ sacrifices himself. I could (and might) write a whole other blog post about how maybe in holding up Christ's death and resurrection as the be-all, end-all of Christianity we've lost an important part of who Christ was and therefore who we are. In the meantime, you can check out my good friend Andy's blog post about it here.

So that's it. That's our mission. To proclaim the kingdom of God and to bring it about. To bring in more people who are working side by side with us, who believe in this with us. And this is not just what we do; it's who we are. We live in the already-present but not-yet-fulfilled kingdom of God, and we are called by virtue of our identity as Christians to continue to bring about this vision for the world.

I didn't say the Lord's Prayer much growing up. I was Southern Baptist and they're more about praying as the Spirit leads, which is great. We miss out, though, on the skin-tinglingly communal aspect of praying a prayer that is prayed around the world by millions of people and has been prayed by billions more for 2,000 years. I loved being a part of a church that said the Lord's Prayer often when I left the SBC. I always kind of shivered at the one line, though: "thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Maybe it's my past, maybe it's something else, but that always conjured images of scurrying servants for me. It brought back the giant, angry, old God.

I don't think that's it, though. Thinking about God's kingdom as a vision for a healthy, whole, reconciled creation, as something that I am intrinsically a part of because I am Christian but even simply (or wondrously) because I am human--that changes it. When I say the Lord's Prayer now, that's one of my favorite lines. Thy kingdom come! And I want to be a part of it! That's my mission, and I have chosen to accept it.

EDIT: I meant to include this video in my original post. Here you go: