May 2, 2013 · 3:21 pm

Straw Blankets, Ministry With The Poor

hay-blanket-peppers-smIt is cold here right now in North Texas.  Wind is blowing wildly, temperatures continue to drop and we are on target for record lows tonight.  Areas just slightly to the west and north are under a frost watch.  I suspect my own garden may get a bit of frostbite because it is on the north side, high up, with a large pasture behind it, so there is nothing to block the wind and cold.

I went out and piled straw around all the warm weather plants.  Am hopeful they won’t be damaged.  However, many gardeners and farmers may wake tomorrow to a fair amount of destruction.

As always, weather really does win. All who have reasonably well-insulated houses and functional heaters will stay comfortable. But for those who don’t . . .

These thoughts always lead me to the mandate that we are called to be in ministry with the poor.  I honor that, respect that and believe that it is nearly impossible for anyone who is reasonably protected to actually do that.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading and research this past year, trying to get a handle on what it means to be poverty-striken.  Now, there are lots of kinds of poverty:  spiritual, educational, financial, social, and cultural, just to name a few.  I think it is possible to have few monetary resources and not be poverty-striken, but those who manage that generally have rich inner resources and strong community support.  Most of the time, being impoverished in one area means the rest of the areas also suffer from the effects of poverty.

I understand that the vast majority of people in the US who end up in bankruptcy or in other terrible financial binds get there, not because of financial mismanagement or spending too much on luxuries, but because of the atrocious cost of even basic health care.  Emergencies and chronic illnesses, again much more common among those living in poverty to begin with, can send people into a never-ending spiral of greater debt, more ill-health, less ability to work, leading to greater debt, greater stress and even more ill-health.

And here is my conundrum:  how can we, particularly as United Methodists, confidently affirm that we seek to be in ministry with the poor when we have the straw blanket of fairly decent health insurance tucked all around us?

To be really, seriously, stuckly poor means no health insurance and extremely limited access to what few available means there are for medical care and the practice of habits that bring health rather than destroy health.

Last year, I had to undergo my first-ever surgery. A rapidly growing uterine tumor starting causing enough symptoms to set off alarm bells that even I would listen to.  Although I did have visions of someday being written up in a newspaper story (Headline:  ”Woman With Watermelon-sized  Tumor Steadfastly Denies That Anything is Wrong”), and after grieving that I would not be able to reach my stated goal of dying with all my lady-parts intact, I agreed to a hysterectomy.

Sure, I had co-pays.  Absolutely the hospital wanted their money up front.  It was a lot of money for me.  The insurance company paid their part (a pittance of the actual bill), and then it was over.   I was lucky. The tumor turned out to be benign, despite its rapid growth.  (One of the nurses in the hospital said, “I could not believe how much your uterus weighed!”  I tried to take that as a compliment.)  I recovered reasonably uneventfully, although I will say it is not a good idea to take an international flight just a couple of weeks after that kind of surgery.

But more to the point:  if I had not been able to wave my handy-dandy insurance card around, and whip out a high-limit credit card for my own part of this event, I would have faced these choices:  One, go ahead and let the tumor grow.  Two, have the surgery and be faced with years of paying off those bills.  And that was a relatively inexpensive procedure with no complications.

I am not rich, but I have straw blankets all around me.   I have a level of protection that cushions me to such a point that despite my real concern for those who do live in poverty, I can’t fully enter into their experience.

I do not know what it is like to live so close to the edge that a child sick for just a couple of days can have such an impact that my whole house of cards comes tumbling down.

If we are really going to do ministry with the poor, then we need to be in solidarity with the poor over these issues of health care.  I admit I do not know how to do this.  I don’t want to relinquish my own health insurance.  But I am reaching a point where I think it smacks of great hypocrisy to make that statement as a guiding principle and then live with the kinds of straw blankets around us that too many are routinely denied.

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April 24, 2013 · 9:17 pm

Called and Gifted? How about Called to Circuits?

A Circuit Rider

A Circuit Rider

The blogging world of United Methodist Clergy has exploded recently with the revelation that the Texas Annual Conference is floating a document that appears “ageist” in its suggestions as to who might or might not be encouraged to seek ordination there. I want to thank Jeremy at Hacking Christianity for this post which exposes the possible plans in the Texas Annual Conference for discouraging older people from entering the ordination process.

Now, there are lots of comments flying around. One, from someone who was part of creating the proposal, reminded us that we live in the real world and that, among other things, older clergy add to the health insurance burdens of all us the rest of us. This, of course, assumes that no younger clergy will find themselves in the midst of a horrific disease and will run up giant medical bills in response to it, a rather naive assumption.

But others are saying, and in my opinion more rightly, that just because someone senses a call to the ministry of the ordained doesn’t necessarily make them one of the chosen for this very complex and draining profession. Age, gender, able-bodiedness, race, etc. are not the issue.

Giftedness Must Match the Call

The issue is giftedness for the profession.

I wish that every person sitting on the various gatekeeper boards (SPRC’s, District Board of Ministries, Conference Board of Ordained Ministries), would take the time to read this compelling little novel called Cosmas or the Love of God.

Here’s a review:

Devout, sensitive, young Cosmas believes that he has a vocation to become a Trappist monk, but the reality of monastic life disappoints him deeply. Fellow monks are hard to live with. The life of the monastery seems worldly. He is disheartened by his own shortcomings and appalled by the weaknesses of others. If he can’t live the life, does that mean God isn’t calling him to it? What should he do? Many people—single, married, vowed, ordained—ask these same questions. Pierre de Calan explores them all in this exquisite tale of a man who learns that sanctity does not mean perfection.

Now, that statement in the review, “the reality of monastic life disappoints him deeply,” struck a nerve with me. The reality of the life of one in the ministry of the ordained surely has disappointed everyone to some degree.

Frankly, fellow clergy are hard to live with. The nature of the “career ladder” for pastoral moves, and a highly limited number of prime appointments makes us all competitors with one another more than colleagues in loving covenant.

“Worldly” is very much a word that describes The United Methodist Church. We are selling our souls down the river of numerical success. The “making of disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world” be damned. The process of discipleship simply gets in the way. It is too slow, too cumbersome, without glamour, and not at all remunerative. Seriously, no really effective discipler is going to make Time Magazine’s “25 Most Influential Christian Leaders” list.

We’ve Already Tried This

But none of that is the point. Here is the point:

The young, hotshot (male) clergy that the movin’ and shakin’ Conferences want and are actively promoting to prestigious pulpits look like clones of the very people who helped bring The UMC to the point where we are now: laboring under giant, smothering, expensive infrastructure that says, “More is better!” They are the ones who have proudly brought us to a situation where we are crushed under bureaucracy, burdened with an unworkable, impenetrable Book of Discipline, and dismayed by the fact that apparently only 15% of our churches can be labeled “vital.”

Now, time for a serious disclaimer: Every Christian generation does what seems right at the time in their call to serve the church and to love God and neighbor. Those men, and a few women, who came into clergy ranks 35-50 years ago were doing exactly what the conventional wisdom of the day said to do, and they did it with the best of intentions. Many have persevered through years of heartache, disappointment, and difficult appointments.

The Search for a Messiah

Nonetheless, we as a denomination are in a bad place. So we, in our very human state, start looking for a Messiah. But we don’t want a Messiah like Jesus, who died alone at the cross, pretty well disappointing everyone who wanted to restore “success” to the Jewish nation. No, we want a messiah like Moses who will lead us to the promised land, flowing with milk and honey, or in our case, full offering plates and stuffed worship centers.

Our current hopes as those who will be our Messiahs? Young, gifted, good-looking male pastors. There are solid reasons for this. Frankly, the ones I know that fit the description have simply an astounding level of talent and also come to their calls to the ministry of the ordained under powerful leading from the Spirit of God.

But here lies my great, huge concern: Too many of these young, gifted ones have not spent adequate time in the desert in order to competently deal with the huge pressure to succeed, i.e., save The United Methodist Church. How many of these will bring incalculable harm because their talents have not yet been joined by characters both tested and purified by fire? How many will end up like Walker Railey and Bailey Smith, just to name two of those whose talent levels were not matched with formed characters?

Moses was clearly called to leadership, to his own brand of messiahship, from birth. He was not gifted for the task until he lost everything and had to come face-to-face with his own soul in the wilderness.

Called to Circuit Ministry?

I want to make a suggestion here that I think might help: Let us consider returning to real circuit ministry. Our so-called “itinerancy” is simply a joke, a code for “some well-connected ones are going to make it big and will be powerful and famous but most of you are going to labor in near-poverty and great obscurity for your entire ministerial lives.”

It’s time to change this system.

I envision circuits this way: Churches are grouped geographically into a circuit with no more than one large membership church in any given circuit. Clergy teams are appointed to circuits, not individual charges. The teams consist of a mixture of young and energetic, middle-aged and experienced (especially those coming in as second-career pastors), racially mixed, older and full of wisdom, male and female, elders in full connection, provisional elders, local pastors and interns, some full-time, others part-time, gifted in multiple ways and with varying talents and theological viewpoints.

Clergy teams are charged with the spiritual health and well-being of their entire circuit, not individual charges. Together, they pray their way through the God-visions for the circuit. They rotate preaching, teaching, pastoral and administrative skills from charge to charge. They hold each other accountable in every area of their lives. They model for their charges the nature of kingdom of heaven living as they work out their conflicts and misunderstandings with each other. They know they are in this together and for one charge to benefit at the expense of another becomes anathema to them. Together, they seek the lost, the least, the last and the littlest, and never, ever poach one another’s “founds.”

A Common Pool for Compensation

Furthermore, all members of any given circuit share a common pool for their compensation, although it will vary among the team, factoring in experience, background and full or part-time status. The way clergy salaries are currently set should be a cause of public shame. To have it necessary for some clergy to have to enroll their children in Medicaid to get health insurance while other clergy are able to purchase lavish homes and enjoy country club memberships denies the very basis of Wesley’s understanding of itinerant ministry. At this point, the highest paid clergy may enjoy pay and benefit packages that could be as high as eight to ten times what the lowest paid clergy receive.

We are either in this together or we are not. Currently, I believe we are more “not” than “together.”

The challenge of the distribution of the compensation pool may be one of the toughest faced by each team, and certainly input from the superintendents will be mandatory.  If, however, we could do that and do it maintaining deep love and respect for each other in the circuit, then, and only then, do we evidence the spiritual maturity necessary to move into pastoral leadership.

Compensation is a very touchy and deeply personal issue.  The world tell us, “your compensation packages speaks volumes about your worth as a human being.”  But the church must say, “The love of God has already determined your worth as a human being.”  That’s what we call “grace.”

Could We Start a Conversation?

I know this is radical. I know the idea needs huge tweaks. It’s easy to start listing the issues with it.

But what if? What if we serve in life-giving connection with one another? What if we seek to honor the distinctiveness of the itinerancy by marrying it to the need for greater accountability because of our cultural context? What if we make the Discipline-mandated committee structure start working for us instead of against us, which is too often the case?  It would have to undergo giant change to make circuits work.

Could we at least start a discussion on it? Could we engage in a connected discussion where we explore whether the idea could be matured and shaped into something far healthier than we currently have?

Any and all comments are both hoped for and welcome.  I will also be happy to take emails privately.  I just want to know:  could we even talk about this?

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April 16, 2013 · 10:25 am

Evil Defies Reason

Evil defies reason.  Reasonable people do not blow up innocent humans. Reasonable people do not plant bombs that kill, maim and destroy. Reasonable people may make lots of stupid mistakes, may indeed bring harm to others, but they still don’t set out to rip limbs off people who have come out to relax, play, show the results of years of hard work and celebrate a great tradition.

Evil does these things.

Explosion at Boston marathonEvil destroys innocence.

Evil loves fear and terror.

Evil cannot be explained or understood.

And we never know when we are going to come face to face with  evil.  There are no preparations adequate to protect from this kind of evil.  We can offer some fairly effective protections from reasonable people when they make their stupid mistakes (like mixing texting and driving or alcohol and loaded handguns–not evil, just stupid–and very destructive).  But the craftiness of someone who has crossed over into the realm of evil will defy all efforts to prepare for it.

What do we do?  One thing I know:  we cannot fight evil with evil.  Such response simply exacerbates and accelerates the power of evil.

Another thing I know:  Good will eventually win because God will prevail.

But for now, for now . . . we sit in sorrow and anguish.

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April 14, 2013 · 7:56 pm

Portrait of a Pastor

I received a gift this morning.  A gift so full of love and hope that I am still nearly breathless.

Several years ago, Vicki Attaway made her way to the church I serve, having heard that there was a female pastor there and that she might find it welcoming and comfortable.  Within a short period of time, I discovered that Vicki, as am I, is a graduate of Rice University. An immediate and unbreakable bond formed. There are few of us and even fewer women of our generation who can say that.

In time, Vicki’s love for God and willingness to serve became invaluable to me and our community. She arrives each Sunday morning VERY EARLY. The building sits empty and still. In that stillness, she sets out the elements for the weekly Service of Holy Communion. She keeps those elements supplied as we run low, including baking the gluten-free wafers that I and a few others must have. She changes the altar-cloths and stole colors as the liturgical seasons come and go. She puts fresh batteries in my microphone and has the mouthpiece properly threaded through the hole in the pocket of my preaching gown. She marks my hymnal with the hymns of the day, puts out the registration pads, maneuvers new wicks in the candle-lighters, cleaning them out as necessary and places fresh candles on the altar as needed. She competently handles dozens of other little noticed but vital tasks.

She prays for me diligently during our worship services. She is the unlucky recipient of the first drafts of my newspaper columns. Patiently, week after week, she reads, critiques, calls me out when necessary, sharpens the point, and then, after all that, has to clean up my many typos. I’m a fast and rotten typist.

I try to get to the building early enough each Sunday so the two of us can enjoy a few moments of quiet catch-up. Sometimes she sits nearby while I play a game or two of computer solitaire, supporting that time to clear my brain and clarify my focus.

I  was privileged to meet Vicki’s parents, the lovely George and Virginia Attaway. The Attaways, founding members of a church in Denton, loved their daughter and delighted in our friendship.  The excellent seamstress Virginia made cushions for our kneeling rails and also fixed my preaching robe so I did indeed have the right kind of pocket to hold my microphone receiver. The “holy pocket,” we jokingly called it.

Two years ago, I was stunned to receive a call from a church member and learn that Virginia had died suddenly. That church member had been working on the floor of the hospital when Virginia died, thank goodness, or I might not have found out nearly so quickly. I raced to the hospital, my own heart breaking with the broken hearts of this weeping family.

After Virginia’s death and after over 50 years of vital marriage, George, in his mid-70′s and in excellent health, sank into a deep, deep depression. No surprise–this loss was  too great. On April 3, 2013, he, too,  passed from glory to glory, almost exactly two years after Virginia’s death. Intractable pneumonia took over after a necessary surgery for a diseased gall bladder.

Right after the surgery it looked like an uneventful recovery would send him home in a few days. George and I had a wonderful conversation in which he indicated that he was ready to start living again. He would emerge from those two years of sadness. He did, of course, but not the way I or his family had hoped.

This morning as I entered the church ready to begin those Sunday morning preparations, I walked to my desk to find on it a parcel with an envelope attached. Never one to bother with the niceties, I tore into the parcel and ignored the note. What I found was this, one of two charcoal portraits:

A George Attaway portrait

A George Attaway portrait

I looked at it, tears coming so rapidly I could not wipe them away fast enough. George, an extraordinarily gifted artist, had spent some of his last months of life drawing those two portraits of me. I opened the note:

Dear Christy, 

Daddy drew these for you in December.  I never had a good time to give them for you, but now I do.  He came alive again to have a chance to draw something very meaningful to him.  It got him out of his chair, saying, “Now I have a goal”  – to draw Christy.  

He labored over it with love and worked his heart out to get it right, saying this is a beautiful woman inside and out.  His hands were literally on your face as he drew it.  

You were precious to him.  He was so glad that I had you as a friend.  He wanted to see if he still “had it” (i.e., the ability to draw portraits.)  I definitely think he did!  He drew the front of this card. 

What a gift he had as an artist.  And what a generous, kind and intelligent man he was.  So courageous in life and even in his death. 

Thank you for loving him.

Love,

Vicki

I have many moments when I wonder if make any impact for the Kingdom of Heaven. Those times when my innate tendency for melancholy colors everything I see. Those times when I am able to acknowledge only the undone and not the done. Those times when I forget the privilege I have of participating in the salvation path of so many people. Those times when necessary administrative tasks so load my desk that my Bible and prayer book disappear under the piles. Those times when I am blind to everything but the cross before me.

I struggle with the knowledge that the evaluation of my effectiveness in ministry rests heavily on two things over which I actually have no control:  how many people show up for Sunday worship and how much money they contribute. I acknowledge the necessity of such use of metrics.  But they say so little about the massive ministry that takes place within this fairly small church community. They say nothing about those newspaper articles or blog posts that are read by thousands. George Attaway was one of many who found much of his pastoral care in those articles and in many ways considered me his pastor.

But as I sat at my desk this morning, those unchecked tears pooling on the just dusted wood (I am officially on vacation as of this afternoon and ALWAYS dust my desk before leaving!), I knew a moment of pure love.

Thanks be to God!

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April 12, 2013 · 11:17 am

Red High Heels and Annual Conference

Red-High-HeelsThere has been a delightful movement started among the clergy women of the North Texas Conference whereby they are asking all clergywomen to wear red high heels on the Monday of Annual Conference as a sign of our connection and our solidarity with one another.  One quote, apocryphally attributed to Kathleen Baskin-Ball reads, “you haven’t preached until you’ve preached in a pair of red heels.”  The tradition apparently dates to wonderful memories of Cathy Bingman’s ordination.

But I won’t be wearing red high heels on that day and I want to say why.

Two Reasons: The Practical and The Theological

The first reason is simply practical:  I have difficult feet, never, ever wear high heels, must buy expensive shoes to keep my feet healthy and pain-free, and would prefer not to spend my limited clothing budget on a pair of shoes that I will not wear again.

But I would quickly discard the practical and spend the money were it not for a deeper issue.

The second issue is theological, and there are two prongs to this.

The Invisible Preacher

First, when I preach, my goal is to become such a powerful conduit for the Word of God that I become utterly invisible to the congregation as their attention moves fully to God.  Time after time, when I read in Scripture of the Presence of God descending upon humanity, I see that such Presence deserves full attention—and is so glorious that nothing else matters anyway.  The words I most prefer not to hear at the end of worship, “You did a great job today, Preacher” (or,” what color IS your hair today?”).  The words I most desire to hear, “I met God today in worship.”

Over and over, I have told my worship team, everyone from the director, to the Communion stewards, to the musicians and singers, to the people who run the sound booth:  “The better you are, the less people will notice you.  Leading in worship is not a performance, but is a window through which glory is glimpsed.”

So the idea that I have not preached until I have preached in red shoes is a bit problematic to me.  But I also understand how it works for others and I really do celebrate that and support that tradition for them.

Solidarity With Other Clergy

Second:  the issue of solidarity with other clergy.  If I understand rightly, the purpose behind the movement is to express the solidarity of our female clergy connection.  That is a wonderful, wonderful thing.  I’m deeply grateful for my female clergy colleagues.  But I am also deeply and equally grateful for my male clergy colleagues.

I came to age in a theological world that is foreign to almost all other women in this clergy connection.  The world I knew was the one that said that a woman hearing a call to preach is hearing a lie, for God would not call a woman.  Therefore a woman who hears  such a call is deceived and must be kept silent.

I know by heart all the textual arguments used to deny women a place in the pulpit or other ecclesiastical leadership roles that exercise authority over men.  At one point, I could even quote the Greek and Hebrew texts to support those arguments.

Eventually, by my own diligent study of the Holy Scriptures, I began to believe that such arguments have a deep and fatal flaw:  they elevate human interpretation over the very nature of God and the liberating power of the gospel.

Eventually, I became one of those who fought the fight and said, “This is wrong.”

I also became one of those who paid a horrific price for my willingness to speak out.

I know this:  there are women who are serving freely because I did pay that price.  I do not regret it.

What I regret is that they were willing for me to pay the price for them, but they were not willing to pay the price for others.  I was eventually expelled from that world and what little I had been able to accomplish there has long since been wiped away.

When I finally found the world of The United Methodist Church, I learned that I had been a Wesleyan long before I ever read John Wesley.  I also knew that doors were open here because other women AND men had fought the same fight I had been fighting, but, thanks be to God, with a different outcome.

All this brings me, finally, to the important conversation the female lead clergy had with Bishop McKee on Tuesday, April 9, 2013.  I heard him voice profound theological and practical support for women in central and influential lead clergy positions.  I also heard him say that at this time, he does not wish to place a woman in a position where she will most certainly fail because the ground has not yet been plowed for her, or that which had once been rich and welcoming soil has now become hard-packed and rejecting.

As the Bishop spoke, I started thinking of Ghandi’s great salt march in India.  The mining and distribution of salt, that mineral essential to life particularly in a hot humid country where heavy perspiration is a way of life, was restricted to the British.  And they made everyone else pay, and pay dearly, for that which was needed to stay alive.

At the culmination of the great salt march, man after man was clubbed down by British soldiers. Read these words from a live press report:

Not one of the marchers even raised an arm to fend off the blows. They went down like ten-pins. From where I stood I heard the sickening whacks of the clubs on unprotected skulls. The waiting crowd of watchers groaned and sucked in their breaths in sympathetic pain at every blow. Those struck down fell sprawling, unconscious or writhing in pain with fractured skulls or broken shoulders. In two or three minutes the ground was quilted with bodies. Great patches of blood widened on their white clothes. The survivors without breaking ranks silently and doggedly marched on until struck down….Finally the police became enraged by the non-resistance….They commenced savagely kicking the seated men in the abdomen and testicles. The injured men writhed and squealed in agony, which seemed to inflame the fury of the police….The police then began dragging the sitting men by the arms or feet, sometimes for a hundred yards, and throwing them into ditches. 

That is solidarity.  And such solidarity eventually led to the end of British Colonial rule in India.

We Have it Very, Very Good

Again, I want to say I appreciate red high heels. I appreciate the symbolism, the solidarity and the power expressed there.   I appreciate their beauty, and the empowerment they represent.  This is important.

I also say:  Clergy women of the North Texas Conference, we have it very, very good.  While I personally disagree with the Bishop’s decision (I think we are going to have to have more martyrs rather than already plowed ground before substantive change takes place), I also trust that this man is for us, not against us.

My own solidarity now goes to those who don’t have the kinds of privileges and support I have.  I am thinking of the women who are routinely shrouded and kept silent.  Who have brutal operations on their genitalia in order to destroy sexual pleasure and ensure their chastity. Who are shot when standing up for the right to educate girls. Who are forced into sexual slavery or into unwanted marriages. Who have bought into a world of generational poverty exacerbated by multiple baby-daddies who offer only sperm but nothing else.

callosed-feet

Were I to don footwear that expresses such support, I would actually be barefoot.  I would have to walk on hot sidewalks with no foot protection, none of the expensive cushioning and fine workmanship with which I pamper myself.  No more pedicures, no more smooth well-cared for skin, for the calluses would be my only protection from sharp stones and pieces of piercing glass.

But I won’t.  I shall stride into Annual Conference in my unfashionable shoes, grateful for every step without pain.  I shall admire every single pair of red high heels I see and cheer each one on.  I shall pray diligently for those who are barefoot, either in actuality or symbolically, and know our work paves the way for them.

And I will breathe a silent “thank you” for all those women and men who have already fought the fight, paid the price and made a way for me.

We are all together in this battle.

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April 3, 2013 · 10:33 am

The Heavenly Waiting Room

The Waiting Room

The Waiting Room

Many of us hold beliefs in an afterlife of some sort.  However, we have significant disagreement in how we think that afterlife will work as we hold mutually contradictory descriptions.  For example, if heaven for one man equals having seventy virgins to deflower as he wishes, then that person’s heaven equals hell for others. If one person’s heaven means being surrounded only by like-minded people, the majority of humanity will be denied entrance.

My point: if our versions of the afterlife mean that others must suffer or be excluded in order to get our ideal world, maybe, just maybe, there’s a problem here.

I read once, and unfortunately can’t remember where, a suggestion that heaven is going to be like a giant airport waiting room filled with people with whom we have had unresolved conflicts. We will have all eternity to work out those conflicts. The plane takes off only when all reconcile and everyone is welcomed aboard.

After all, if people whom I would rather not see again populate heaven, how can it be a place of perfect love?  There’s always the chance of running into those people. Will there be a heavenly equivalent to crossing over to the other side of the road or unfriending them on a social network site?

So let’s look at that “heavenly” airport waiting room possibility.  Who fills that space?

Each of us will have a different list.

  • A left-leaning Democrat might find a right-wing radio commentator in the next seat.
  • A person who lived life as part of a committed same-sex relationship may find the seat across the aisle taken with a well-known and highly vocal gay-basher.
  • Estranged spouses, long not speaking to one another, sit stiffly in corner seats, unable to avoid each other’s eyes.
  • An avid defender of care-free childless living discovers the quiet seat carefully chosen in a what looked like an adults-only section is suddenly surrounded with harried parents caring for screaming babies and racing toddlers.
  • The liberal Christian intellectual glares at the biblical literalist standing in line, busily offering proof texts as to why preferred seating should be offered only to those in complete agreement to a certain list of doctrines, including absolute female submission to male headship, the right to own slaves, and the assurance that only a tiny group of elect will actually get to board the plane.
  • The atheist, certain that religious institutions are the root of all evil and shocked by even the idea of an afterlife, looks at the face at the one who has devoted his entire adult life to top leadership of a massive religious institution.
  • The European physical fitness and healthy eating guru, long vocal about the sloppy and disgusting avoirdupois of most Americans, lands in the food court which smells of stale grease. The air is so saturated by fat-producing carbohydrates that she can feel her thighs growing larger moment by moment and she shares a table with a bunch of super-sized Americans delightedly ordering more shakes and fried pies.
  • The power-hungry murdering dictator faces unending lines of those tortured and slaughtered under his rule—and he’s going to have to ask each one for forgiveness.  Worse, each one will have to find forgiveness.

Outrageous scenarios?   Perhaps.  But what if we must make our peace with those for whom we feel things like hatred, disgust, disdain, disappointment?  What if those we have soundly condemned will sit with us until we are able to lay our condemnation down? What if we must offer the forgiving hand and hug to those in opposing camps in order for either of us to board that plane?

And yet, if we don’t, would we ourselves ever be free to receive the fullness of perfect love? Can we receive it if we dictate to God that others must not receive it?

Just something to think about.

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March 30, 2013 · 12:54 pm

The Two Way Betrayal

It is Holy or Black Saturday and I’m deep in a place of emotional and spiritual pain.

Last night, at Tenebrae, as I was leading the service, I saw again the shock of the disciples. I saw their need to flee, their betrayal, and the aloneness of Jesus when he faced his accusers.  My tears began to flow.

That time of utter desolation for Jesus stands as final proof of undeserved love. But I bet Jesus’s closest followers did not see love. Instead they, too, felt totally betrayed by the one they had loved.

Why? Because there was no king, no kingdom, no toppling of power of the hated Roman oppressors, no reversal promised by Mary’s Magnificat, no James and John at Jesus on the right and left sides of the royal seat. There was death. Just death. Loss. Dreams gone. Confusion. Anger. Sadness. Emptiness.

Jesus was betrayed. Unquestionably. And Jesus also betrayed. Harsh words, but true, I believe. The betrayal went both ways.

This week, I had to make an extraordinarily painful decision that I’m more than sure left someone feeling totally betrayed. Possibly devastated. Certainly angry. Probably seeking revenge, for that is the normal, human response to such experience.

I’ve hardly slept. My prayer all week has been, “Please, isn’t there some other way?” I think that falls somewhere close to “let this cup pass from me.” Ultimately, I did what was right for the health of my church community. But it hurt, and that hurt will be long-lasting on all sides.

Jesus betrayed his disciples because it was necessary for the ultimate good for all of humanity. Being crowned the temporal “King of the Jews” as a political title might indeed have brought some momentary relief from oppression.  However, it wouldn’t have lasted long. In that political climate, he would have been assassinated quickly, another power would have risen in his place, and his name quickly forgotten.

So he took the high road, the lonely road, the road of abandonment. Not only was he abandoned, but he also abandoned himself, in the sense of giving all, for the ultimate end.

What was that end? “The veil in the Temple was torn in half.” That barrier, that curtain, that wall that kept everyone except a select few at a distance from the Mercy Seat and the very Holy Presence of God, was ripped open and access was given to all.

And that brings me to my morning musings. As have most churches, the church I serve has special worship planned for tomorrow. Glorious music, all-church brunch, Easter Egg hunt for the children, and the joyous celebration of Holy Communion as we break bread together and commemorate Jesus’s first meal with the disciples after the Resurrection.

As I was heading out to take care of some needed errands, my way was stopped by a group of horse-back riders and a covered wagon on one of the two main streets in town. I finally realized they were from one of the local cowboy churches, presumably inviting people to Easter worship by causing a fairly large traffic jam in our small town.

Passing by the middle school, I saw a fully packed parking lot. That’s because another church holds its massive Easter egg hunt  on this day.  I admit I have never been able to wrap my arms around an Easter, i.e., resurrection, egg hunt on a day of sorrow and darkness, but that is my story, not theirs. This particular events includes spectacular door prizes for anyone who comes–things like bikes and high-end electronics will be distributed. The crowds fill that space every year. Presumably the hope is that they’ll come to church the next day. The church I serve sent out a mailing, made sure the website is up to date, sent out multiple e-news reminders, entered the information on the Conference website just in case someone might go there looking for a service.

All of us doing all we can to get them in the door.

All this to invite them into a religious observance that, at its core, involves the nearly impossible act of forgiveness to those who have betrayed us. Something just about no one wants to do, and not one single person does easily.

Not exactly a popular message. Far better to couch Christianity in terms of “God wants you to have your best life now! God wants to fulfill your every need! God thinks everything you do is just hunky-dory!”

Who wants to hear, “You really want the riches of the realm of heaven? Then walk in the way, the life and the truth of Jesus, lay down your lives for your enemies, forgive the unforgivable, and, above all, say, ‘Thy will be done.’”

And the crowds will walk away, saying, “Too hard. Not interested. I’ll go find a different god who doesn’t ask so much.”

But this way, the way of Jesus, is the way that leads to life, and life abundant.  That’s resurrection.  That is Easter.  Each time we let the betrayals go, we have our own Easter morning.

Thanks be to God.

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