Leigh's church let me preach again

I preached at Leigh's church a month ago.

They invited me back.

That was nice of them.

You can watch/listen to it on their website; the sermon itself starts around 26:00.

It was Memorial Day weekend, and so I talked about memory. Thanks to my dad for giving me permission to share some of his thoughts about Memorial Day and Veteran's Day at the beginning of it.

Thoughts on Unity, pt. 3 -- "I pray they will be one"

This is the third in a series on unity in the church. What do we mean when we use language of "unity," "being united," versus "being divided"? If you missed them, you can go back and read the first part here and the second part here. 

If you've spent any time with the four gospels, you know that John's gospel is...different. I won't go into all the many differences here, but I'll mention one briefly. Unlike the first three gospels, John's gospel has a long "farewell discourse" in which Jesus offers final thoughts and reflections to his disciples before he is arrested and executed. At the end of this farewell speech, just before his arrest, Jesus prays a long prayer for his disciples, which includes these lines [I've added a few notes since it's out of context]:

"I’m not praying only for them [that  is, the disciples who are standing right there] but also for those who believe in me because of their word. I pray they [that is, all those others who will believe because of the witness of the disciples] will be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. I pray that they also will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. I’ve given them the glory that you gave me so that they can be one just as we are one. I’m in them and you are in me so that they will be made perfectly one. Then the world will know that you sent me and that you have loved them just as you loved me."

This is, in a sense, a prayer for Christian unity par excellence. Here Jesus prays, not only for the disciples who he has known during his time on earth, who -- in John's gospel -- he has called friends, but for all those who will come to believe because of their witness. And what does he pray? That they will be united. That they will be one, inextricably part of each other just as John's gospel portrays Jesus/Word and Father*/Source and Spirit/Breath as inextricably part of each other.

Now, this prayer only appears in John's gospel. Maybe Jesus prayed it, maybe not. Maybe this is a prayer that emerged from the experience of a particular community, perhaps an early Jewish Christian community in the diaspora, feeling isolated, it's identity threatened from all sides.

But you know what it's definitely not?

It is definitely not a prayer about denominations staying together.

Or about denominations joining together into bigger denominations.

You know how I know?

Because denominations weren't a thing yet.

This is "yeah, duh, we know," stuff, but it bears saying, because it's so easy for language of "that they will be one" to be co-opted into our denominational conflicts or dialogues.

But that's not what this prayer is about at all. Here, Jesus prays, not for institutional unity, but for a mystical one-ness, the same kind of mystical one-ness that Jesus enjoys with the Father.* What's more, this one-ness has a purpose, an end: "Then the world will know that you sent me and that you have loved them just as you loved me."

The purpose of the unity Jesus prays for is for the world to know and understand God's love, as manifested in Jesus, the Word who becomes flesh and dwells among us. So on the one hand it's a mystical one-ness, rather than an organizational or institutional unity. And on the other hand, it's made real, fleshy, physical, by virtue of its indwelling-ness in the world.

Now, as I've suggested in the past two posts, institutional and organizational work can be good and important. It's very possible to argue that bringing two previously separate organizations together into one united organization is a faithful way to live out the one-ness that Jesus prays for in John 17. But that kind of work isn't the be-all and end-all of Christian unity. Christian unity is only Christian unity if it is (a) a participation in the mystical unity of Christ with God by the power of the Spirit** and (b) directed/sent to the world to spread the knowledge of God's love.

"The Church" at the time John's gospel was written was not a single, united institution. It would have been nearly impossible for the community out of which this writing emerged to have imagined such a thing. What they could imagine, and what they were willing to stake their faith and their lives on, was a deeper unity, which would serve as an expression of God's love in the world.

It seems to me that before we even have any sort of conversation about how to "stay united" or "split up" a denomination or a church, we ought to take a good hard look at what we're doing and ask:

Are we sharing together in spiritual union with God?
Are we helping the world to know God's love?

Ask those questions first.

Ask them. Pray about them. Reflect on them.

And then maybe -- but only maybe -- we can start talking about the structures or institutions that such questions might imply.


----
*I've kept the masculine language as it is in John's gospel, but the language is metaphorical, not literal. The language is meant to emphasize relationship, not gender. One could substitute "Mother," or "Caregiver," or use alternative language, but keep the same essential emphasis. For a wonderful take on all of that, check out Sharon Ringe's book Wisdom's Friends.
** Traditionally, this has been expressed in the doctrine of the Trinity. We can argue until we're blue in the face about the doctrine (and we certainly have), but at base it's about mystical unity, about the indwelling community and hospitality modeled for us by God.

Thoughts on Unity, pt. 2 -- "Be of the same mind"

This is the second in a series on unity in the church. What do we mean when we use language of "unity," "being united," versus "being divided"? If you want to know where this is coming from, you can read the first part here. 

"I am praying that the Church -- as a whole, as a body, not those individuals who already feel they have been emptied, broken, beaten -- but the Church as a whole will remember an ancient, ancient hymn."   

That's how I ended my post two weeks ago, with a prayer for the General Conference of the United Methodist Church. The ancient hymn I'm talking about is quoted by the apostle Paul in his letter to one of the very earliest churches in the city of Philippi. You can read it here.

Paul quotes the hymn, but first he introduces it. He's quoting it for a purpose, and you could sum up his purpose by saying that he wants to urge the church in Philippi towards unity:

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

Notice that he uses the phrase "same mind" or "one mind" three times in this short passage, as well as"same love." The phrase in the original Greek is phronein to auto -- be of one mind, have the same mind. But the phrase used here by Paul, like similar phrases elsewhere in his letters, doesn't mean "agree on everything." That becomes clear when we read on to hear Paul speak of having the same mind as Christ -- not the same intellectual beliefs, but the same willingness to divest ourselves of power and privilege in order to be united in love.*

Unity, here, is unity in Christ. Specifically, it's unity in the self-emptying Christ.

Now, for some people who have been abused, or deprived of power or a sense of self, an ethical imperative to empty one's self can be problematic. But Paul's "you" is always a plural, written to a community -- in this case, to a community in Philippi, a city deeply entrenched in the power and imperial might of the Roman Empire. And with Paul's interpretive gloss about having one mind and one love, this passage speaks to me of the need for our unity to be based, not in politics or power over one another, but rather in mutuality and solidarity, particularly with those experiencing suffering and marginalization. Those suffering death, even death on a cross.

One last note on the text. Many English translations say something like this:

"Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself..."

I added the emphasis there.

Because "though" isn't in the original Greek at all.

"Though" was added by English translators to make some sense out of a rather complex Greek sentence. But "though" sets up a contrast -- even though he was in the form of God, Jesus Christ emptied himself. Which apparently is a very un-God-like thing to do.

But the text says something more like, "Christ Jesus who in the form of God was emptying himself."

Which makes it sound like self-emptying is, in fact, a very God-like thing to do.

I owe this insight to a talk given by Brian McLaren, and I'm inclined to agree with him. The self-emptying of Jesus isn't in contrast to an otherwise mighty, distant, apathetic god; the self-emptying of Jesus is what God looks like in action. And it's the sort of action we're called to -- one in which we empty ourselves of power, not because it removes our divinity, but because it reveals it.

That's the important point that I want to make here. A truly self-emptying unity ought to reveal the divinity in all of us, not obscure it or harm it. "To be of one mind" is to be of this mind -- this self-emptying mind, this mind of divine love.

And I'm just not sure there's a way you can institutionalize this kind of thing. As I said in my last post, this doesn't mean institutions are necessarily bad. And there are certainly actions they can take and structures they can form that tend to inhibit or obstruct such kenotic unity. There also might very well be actions that institutions can take to facilitate -- the root of the word means 'easy,' as in, 'to make something easier' -- this sort of shared identity-in-love.

But "Be of the same mind" and "have the same love" is not the same as "be of one logo" or "have a single mission statement" or "share a global structure." That's not to say those things are bad. They're just not really the point.

This passage can't -- no ancient passage can -- reveal to us all the answers of how to make such a thing possible, how to shape it or structure it. But it can, I think, give us some good questions to ask. Questions like, "Are we creating a space in which people are safe to express a self-emptying love? Or are we too anxious, too conflictual, for people to do anything but keep their guards up? Are we divesting ourselves of power-over in order to unite with those who are being harmed by the powers of the world? Are we (and here I'm speaking to myself and everyone else in the ordination process, or already ordained) more concerned with questions of status than with questions of love?"

These are challenging questions, which defy easy answer. They aren't the only questions raised by this passage. But they're the kind of questions -- rather than questions about votes, or who's-in-charge-here, or institutional authority -- that we ought to be asking if we want to talk about Christ-like unity.

Stay tuned for the third part of this little series, where I'll share some thoughts about Jesus' prayer for the unity of the Church. 

---
* Edit: I realize I should provide some sources for this claim. Check out the chapter on Philippians by my professor, Carla Swafford Works, in the 3rd edition of the Women's Bible Commentary (Westminster John Knox, 2012); as well as Sze-Kar Wan's entry on "Mind" in The New Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Volume 4 (Abingdon, 2009).

Thoughts on Unity, pt. 1: Pentecost or Babel?

I said two weeks ago that you wouldn't be hearing from me about the General Conference of the United Methodist Church until it was over, and I stuck to that promise.

Now the Conference is over, with unfortunately predictable results. Some people are saying that unity is worth it all; others are agitating for splitting up. Which is pretty much what I remember happening 4 years ago.

And I'm still not going to say much about it. I wasn't there, and there are other places you can go if you want analysis of General Conference itself. Better places. More informed places. Let me suggest Jeremy Smith's blog, which includes guest voices; or this helpful article from Dr. Darryl Stephens; or this one from Rev. Mary Sellon Huycke.

What I have been thinking quite a bit about, and what I would like to spend some time writing about, is the idea of unity and being united. What does it mean to work for, pray for, seek unity in the Church? What would it mean to be "united"? Or to be "divided"?

I've been thinking about that a lot over the past week, and I started sketching out a blog, and before I knew it had gotten way too long. So I'm actually going to write a few posts on this topic, and post them here.

First, I'm going to talk a little bit about two stories that, in many churches, are read together 50 days after Easter.

Then, I'm going to talk a little bit about a very old song.

Then, I'm going to talk about a prayer that Jesus prayed, at least according to one storyteller.

And finally, I might get around to saying a thing or two about the United Methodist Church.

So with all of that said, here's part 1:

Sometimes Pentecost is cold

Sometimes Pentecost is cold
   which is fitting
      because the flames can't burn hot
           all the time.

That would be the stuff of
   motivational speeches
   self-help pep talks
   bluster and chest-pounding.

Sometimes we need
   a flickering
   a dampening
   a dimming

So we can remember:

We spend most of our time
   not in upper rooms
      but in places called Babel.
   

What happens when I pray

What happens when I pray
               ---

Whenever I try to pray

   I find myself

     (or at least, I fail to lose myself)

   distracted

      (in record time)

   by

      10,000 things

By failures and grudges

   and time tables and pay scales

   by the good and the bad and --

      well, mainly, by the ugliness that simmers behind my smiles.

And if, by chance or by grace,

   I catch myself

   as I churn through the sludge of old, tired thoughts

And if, by chance or by grace,

   I don't turn the catching into more sludge

   fodder for the curving in

then --

   sometimes --

      some precious times --

         I can have a quiet, inward chuckle at myself.

And if, by chance or by grace,

   I do

Then the churn quiets down enough

   that I can hear --

      just barely

      out of the corner of my soul's eye

God chuckling softly with me.

You see,

   prayer is a serious thing.

But God knows 

   not to take it too seriously.

A prayer for General Conference

For anyone reading this who isn't ensconced in the weird world of United Methodism, this week begins the United Methodist Church's General Conference, taking place this year in Portland, OR. This gathering takes place once every four years, and brings delegates from all over the world to discuss various matters of church doctrine and policy.

I was at the last General Conference, in 2012, and it was a very difficult experience. To be honest, in hindsight it was a questionable decision for me to attend. I was still recovering at the time from a series of hospitalizations for mental health reasons, and the gathering is stressful and discouraging for even those in the best of mental health. Which I was not. So take that into due consideration when I tell you that, for me, being a part of General Conference was an alienating, disconcerting experience, one which I frankly have no desire to ever repeat.

And so as General Conference begins, and as the rate of blogs and articles related to it begin to take up more and more space on my newsfeed, I want to just say briefly that I am praying for everyone attending and everyone affected by the decisions made there, and that you won't be hearing from me about the topic again until it's all over.

My prayer is that the delegates, observers, and those there to witness for justice and inclusion will find moments of hope, of solidarity, and of peace in the midst of all of the rancor, division, and political posturing. My prayer is -- as it always is -- that love will, somehow, prevail.

To be honest, although I have very strong beliefs and opinions about a number of the topics that will be debated, and while I am definitely praying for an end to the hurt that so many have experienced, I am finding it hard to be optimistic about any particular outcome.

In part this is because the experience 4 years ago was so terrible for me, not because of the results of the votes, but because of the hurt and cynicism that seemed to dominate all of the discussions.

In part it is because a quick glance at any of the crosses with which we decorate our churches ought to remind us that the God we proclaim does not really guarantee us results.

What God does promise us, instead, is solidarity. Resurrection. Spirit. Hope.

And so those are the things that I am praying for.

And I am praying that the Church -- as a whole, as a body, not those individuals who already feel they have been emptied, broken, beaten -- but the Church as a whole will remember an ancient, ancient hymn.

Of Christ.
In the form of God.
Not grasping for power.
But emptying himself.

Emptying.

I preached a sermon at Leigh's church

You can listen to it here.

It's part of a sermon series called "Half-Truths." Each week the congregation -- Crossroads UMC in Ashburn, VA -- is looking at a popular saying that people think is biblical/part of the Christian tradition, but really isn't a good representation of that tradition. My "half-truth" was "God won't give you more than you can handle."

My friend Morgan wrote a book

Hi friends.

At the beginning of last month, I posted on here and said that I was going to be writing more regularly and that you would be seeing the fruits of that writing.

Fun fact: I lied.

Well, "lied" sounds intentional. The actual fact of the matter is that I've been struggling with a mixture of writer's block, existential doubt, and my old friend depression, who seems to haunt around every corner that looks even a little bit like failure.

Also I have cold. Blergh.

One thing that I have been meaning to write, in fact that I promised to write, is a book review. I was supposed to review a book written by my friend, Morgan Guyton. The book is called How Jesus Saves the World from Us: 12 Antidotes to Toxic Christianity.

It's a good book. I recommend it. You can buy it here.

I told Morgan that I would post something about his book on my blog. I told him I would do so last Tuesday. I didn't. Then I felt really bad about it. So I promised myself I would post it on Wednesday. I didn't. So then I started feeling really awful and ashamed about the fact that I had not posted about it, even though (rationally) I doubt Morgan, who is in the middle of launching a book, really noticed that I had failed to do so. Especially since some rather more high-profile folks than me are talking about his book. But I kept feeling worse and worse about not writing anything about it, and kept trying to come up with something clever or good or helpful to say about it, and not coming up with anything, and so not posting anything, and then feeling bad about it. And, if I'm being completely honest, I was feeling a bit bitter and jealous of my friend Morgan, who was able to write a book, while I'm apparently incapable of even writing something about a book that someone else managed to write.

This is not a particularly flattering thing to share about myself, but c'mon, you know you've thought this kind of thing before.

And then, while complaining to my wife about something completely different, she said to me: "Why don't you try to do one thing at a time and not try to do everything at once?"

Which is wise advice.

So I decided I would post about the book written by my friend Morgan.

Which I still have nothing clever or helpful to say about, other than this:

It is a good book. You should read it, if you are interested in faith or if you have become un-interested in faith because of hurtful things that religious people have done or said.

And also, this:

One of the things that Morgan's book says is that our desperate need to justify ourselves and to perform does a lot more damage than it does good, and the grace our faith proclaims is exactly the opposite of all of that. And that is probably a good thing for me to remember, when I have a bad case of writer's block and am feeling a bit depressed and can't, for the life of me, come up with anything useful to write about a friend's book.

Which you should buy.

By clicking here.

In (brief) praise of foolishness

I don't like April Fool's Day.

I hate pranks. Joke news articles that get posted online never rise to the humor level of actual satire, and often involve making light of things that aren't really that funny.

But I did name this blog with a nod to the foolishness of faith, so I thought I'd take a brief moment on this first day of April to celebrate foolishness.

Writing to a church wracked with conflict, scandal, and political machinations, the apostle Paul wrote this sometime in the 1st century:

Look at your situation when you were called, brothers and sisters! By ordinary human standards not many were wise, not many were powerful, not many were from the upper class. But God chose what the world considers foolish to shame the wise. God chose what the world considers weak to shame the strong. And God chose what the world considers low-class and low-life—what is considered to be nothing—to reduce what is considered to be something to nothing. So no human being can brag in God’s presence.

Not many wise, not many powerful, not many form the upper class -- but God chooses what is nothing to reduce all the "something-ness" that we strive for to naught.

Foolishness.

An even playing field.

Foolishness.

Compassion winning out over hatred.

Foolishness.

Love being the strongest force, the thing that holds the universe together.

Foolishness, foolishness, foolishness.

I hate pranks. But here's to foolishness.

What if *he's* not the problem?

I hesitate to post this, having recently shifted most of my social media presence away from political commentary and into the much more satisfying realm of puppy pics. So, in the style of John Oliver: if you get through this with me, I'll post a pic of Penny Lane at the end. Deal?

Alright, so -- you've probably heard, there's a certain casino-owner-turned-reality-TV-"star"-turned-presidential candidate who has been getting a lot of attention and a lot of votes. This person, whose name I have steadfastly refused to write on the internet in order to avoid any further inflation of his already bloated ego, has been inciting violence and making statements that are blatantly racist, sexist, xenophobic, and just about every other type of -ist and -phobic there is. All of this, it seems, to the thunderous applause and laughter of a rather large group of fellow citizens.

This has drawn a lot of comparisons to 1930s Germany and the meteoric ascendance of another monstrously masterful conductor of the xenophobic orchestra, whose name has now become so synonymous with evil that we can hurl it at people as a political ad hominem, with or without any understanding of the context in which he rose to power.

And it seems to be the widely held opinion, from just about everyone I'm friends with in material or Facebook reality, that stopping this particular orange-haired fellow and his fascist band of followers is The Thing that must happen in order to save America from impending doom and destruction.

And I'm super suspicious of that sort of language for basically the same reason I'm suspicious of Mr. "We'll make Mexico pay for the wall."

I'm suspicious -- or at least I am if I'm thinking clearly enough and being mindful enough to reflect for a second -- anytime anybody proposes that the problem, the thing that must be fixed, is that guy over there, those people over there. I've heard this person's supporters called ignorant, idiotic, dangerous, even vermin. That's language dangerously close to the type of language we decry when it is coming from their lips. That's language that says, "We'd all be better off if those people didn't exist anymore....not that I'm saying we should do anything about it, mind you, just saying...."

Remember that the eugenics folks were all about eliminating imbeciles and improving the intellect of the country. Just notice that for a second.

A brief story. Leigh and I were talking the other day, and she wondered out loud about who the people are who are voting for this fellow -- since she doesn't know anyone, personally, who is voting for the guy. Same for me, I said. And that strikes me as indicative of a problem -- the same problem, I suspect, that makes a failed businessman and reality TV star such a popular figure to begin with.

There are such huge divides, huge chasms in this country. And they are often marked, yes, by race, by class, by sexuality, by gender identity, by educational attainment. All these things are true. These things lead to the type of political clustering -- aided by the social media echo chamber -- that make it possible for me to not know a single person voting for the leading candidate of a major political party.

But deep down under that lurks something else -- something, I suspect, that is not so easy to blame on them over there.

I think we've got a shame problem and an empathy problem.

And by "we," I mean, "a group of people that includes me, myself, I, this guy right here, writing this blog post."

I think we -- I think I -- have a really hard time putting myself into the place of people I disagree with, or of people who are different than me, and I think when you start to probe around as to why that might be, other than just sort of a general human-condition-we-are-mysteries-unto-each-other thing, the reason is shame.

To put myself in someone else's place is to risk exposing my own uncertainty, or my own weakness, or my own vulnerability -- or, say, my own racism, my own sexism, my own xenophobia -- and that is really quite terrifying, so better to yell or to laugh scornfully.

And so the divisions grow deeper, and our reactions to each other grow more extreme, and it's all quite horrendously predictable and sad.

Now, I want to back up and be really clear about some things that I'm not saying. I'm not, not even for a second, condemning the protesters at the rally in Chicago and elsewhere. I'm not admonishing those who are truly fearful for the violence and oppression that might be directed at them or their families. I'm not suggesting that people should not organize, or should not be about the work of proposing political alternatives that are not based in narratives of fear, anger, or hate.

Yes to protest. Yes to organizing. Yes to a politics of hope.

But let's be careful, yes? Let's be careful not to become the thing that we fear so much.

And let's remember that the xenophobia and racism and sexism and all the other -isms and -phobias this election have brought to the surface did not suddenly appear over night.

Let's remember that they have been here, dwelling with us -- our national shadow, so to speak.

Let's remember that the Wall we're freaking out has already been built in places -- I've seen it, touched it, compared it to the one in Palestine, which I've also seen and touched, which we helped build with our tax dollars.

Let's remember that the carpet bombing threats that we're so offended by, the war crimes being proposed that we are quick to condemn -- these things have already happened, are happening still, and on our dime, and without such a widespread reaction. You know. To the real thing. Because, really, please, tell me the difference, with a straight face, between "You've got to kill the terrorists' families" and drone strikes in Pakistan.

But more than all of that, more than any particular issue that I could name, what I'm suggesting is that all of this might be dwelling much closer than we might care to admit -- hidden, under layers of shame, in our own hearts.

And that if we can uncover that, if we can gently tear open those layers of shame, we might just find those terrifying forces disarmed. We might just rediscover our capacity for empathy and for solidarity and for care.

It's what Christian theologians might refer to as "standing under the cross." Realizing our own complicity, our own involvement in violence, our own need for forgiveness. And then finding ourselves, somewhat miraculously, forgiven. Free from shame. Free to love.

And that, I suspect, will go much further towards healing this hurting country and this hurting world than shutting up those terrifying people over there.

And that's about as far as I'll go with this, for today.

Now, for your promised Penny pic:

Transitions, Lenten Journeys, and New Life for the Ol' Blog

Hi friends -- it's been too long since I've posted regularly on here. If you're still reading, thanks for sticking with me!

You might already know, but this has been a time of massive transition for me. Leigh and I graduated in May and got married in September; by October we'd moved to Georgetown University to begin a new position together as Chaplains-in-Residence in the New South freshman residence hall. During that same time period, I served for a semester as the interim United Methodist Chaplain at American University, since our full-time chaplain was on sabbatical for the semester. I also came on as a board member for Friends of Sabeel North America. Leigh started another new job during that semester. And we were both TAing classes at Wesley Seminary. It was a full and rich semester. It was also tremendously busy, and more than a little overwhelming.

As the new year began, I started to realize that I needed to take a deep breath and step back from a few things. I've learned before that I need to take some care with myself, to not get in over my head emotionally and mentally. It's a health issue for me, and it's also a soul issue. When I'm overwhelmed, I don't function well, and I don't love well, either.

Because of that, and because of some other discernment that I've been doing, I made a tough decision. I've stepped down from my position as an Associate Chaplain at AU.* February 28th was my last Sunday there. I'm sad, and will miss a community that I've been part of for a long time -- four years in an official capacity, but really more like 7 years, since I first came to DC. I also feel a sense of peace about the decision, and am excited to see how that ministry is going to continue to grow in love, service, and welcome.

This was definitely a big decision for me, but it's just one part of a deeper and wider sense I've had that I'm in a time of transition and need to, for lack of a more eloquent word, do this transition. Getting married, moving together with Leigh to start a shared position, and most recently getting a dog** -- these are big, big shifts from where I was a few years ago. I think I need some time to honor that. Some time to learn how to be a husband (and a puppy dad) and to take some breaths before plunging into whatever the next adventure is going to be.

And I suppose that's the Lenten practice that I've taken up, to be in this, to be mindful of this journey I'm on. William Bridges suggests two questions for people who are in transition, particularly work transition: "What is it time to let go of in my life right now?" and "What is standing backstage, in the wings of my life, waiting to make its entrance?"***

So during Lent I'm pondering those questions. And taking some time to pray and to reflect and to write and to think.

And to play with a puppy, which sure helps.

Ministry at Georgetown continues (you can read updates from Leigh and I about that here), as does TAing at Wesley. I'm also going to be working on a few writing projects -- some of the fruit of which I may be posting on here. And I'm going to try to update this blog at least once a week, now that I'll have a bit more down time, so you'll be seeing more from me on here.

So stay tuned for more writing and thoughts here -- and if you want the puppy picture hookup, friend me on Facebook!

I am grateful for all of you, and overflowing with gratitude for all of the amazing opportunities and gifts in my life.

Grace and peace,
David
___________________________________________________________________________

* Many of you donated so generously to the Next Generation Campaign at AU.  Thank you, thank you, thank you! I benefited directly from that support, and now the campaign continues to grow. The vision remains to support a new staff position at AU in the coming year. I don't know exactly what that will look like, but I bet it will be cool, and I'm sure they'll be updating the Next Generation website when they have more details.

** Specifically, this adorable puppy:

*** That's from Bridges' book Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes (DeCapo, 2004), pg. 87.

A sermon, an interview, and a Lenten reflection

Hi folks!

I haven't had the chance to update the blog in awhile, so just wanted to share a few things with you.

-- I gave a sermon last night for the AU Methodists, part of our "Dystopian Lent" sermon series. You can read the text here, or listen to the audio:

-- Leigh interviewed me for her Patheos blog. You can read the interview, "The Fidelity of Limits," here.

-- Leigh and I have also started a blog to share reflections and information with our Georgetown University students. Here's our first reflection, about Lent and the goodness of limits.

Hoping to post some more updates and reflections soon! Thanks for reading/listening.

Some recent snazz

Hi folks --

Haven't been doing a good job of keeping the blog updated, but a few things to check out:

-- all of my sermons from our "Big Questions" series at AU are available on the AU Methodist website (with audio available on my Soundcloud site)
-- Jason Wiedel was kind enough to include me in his recent MediaScorch podcast about Christianity and mental health; check it out
-- stay tuned for more sermon stuff and an upcoming Advent series!

There are funerals I never want to officiate.

It was December of 2013.

I was in the college lounge at the church -- just across the street from campus -- when one of the students' phones buzzed.

There was a pause. Then a short intake of breath.

"It's an alert form public safety. There might be a shooter on campus."

Hold, there. Let that be disruptive for a moment. "A shooter." This is a common enough occurrence in our country that we have a shorthand colloquialism for something that ought to be difficult to imagine, let alone discuss.

"Ok," I said.

Non-anxious presence, they tell us in seminary. Be calm. 'Hold the office.'

"You all stay here. Lock the door. I'll go make sure the rest of the church knows."

We checked outer doors.

"This church has an awful lot of doors," one of the pastors said to me in passing. I laughed. We need a term other than gallows humor. I've never seen the gallows. The phrase doesn't mean much to me. This was handgun humor. Catastrophe comedy.

Back in the college lounge, the students checked in on social media. "Everyone ok?" one posted on our group page. One by one, others responded.

Finally, information began flowing in. False alarm. Everything is ok.

Everything is ok.

This time.

---

In this line of vocation -- what one author ironically refers to as being a "professional religious person," a phrase not without its share of self-critique -- funerals are an assumed part of the job. Death is a fact of life -- as it turns out, one of the few definite facts of life -- and being present with people in times of grief and death is one of the sacred spaces that pastors and chaplains are invited into. We stand in awe on holy ground, and often that holy ground is a place of pain.

In seminary, we are given guidance in officiating funerals. How to hold pastoral presence. Things not to say. How to pay attention to family dynamics and cultural differences. How to create space for lament. 

Funerals are a part of the role, no less than weddings and baptisms and preaching and (in campus ministry, at least) Costco runs for absurd amounts of s'mores supplies.

But there are funerals I never want to officiate.

There is no reason, no goddamn reason in the whole wide world, that I should ever have to plan a service, write a homily, hold the pastoral office, at a funeral for a college student who was shot and killed because we, as a country, have decided that we love guns more than life. 

In Oregon, this weekend, there are people doing just that. 

There shouldn't be.

If I continue in this church-thing -- and somehow, it seems to me that no matter the frustrations of a given week or month, I keep coming back to this odd gathering of messy people who cluster around a table and look for God in bread and grape juice and each other and mere inadequate words -- I will probably officiate many funerals. I pray that I will be given the grace to do so with awe and respect for the sacredness of such moments of grief and celebration, pain and release.

But there are funerals I never want to officiate. Here are five things you can do so that I never have to. 

Or, here's one: call you legislators this week. Tell them your friend David is a college chaplain. Tell them it's his job to pray and to be with people in times of mourning. Tell them it's their job to make sure that he doesn't have to do that for the families of students who died because we, as a country, refused to take any common sense measures to end gun violence.

Tell them I'll keep doing my job, today and tomorrow and the next day.

Tell them to do theirs. 

Sermon -- "Who am I...and what am I doing with my life?"

Hi friends -- I'm posting my sermon texts over at the AU Methodist website these days, but figured I'd share the audio here for you. This is part of a sermon series we're doing called "Big Questions" -- you can read more about that (as well as see what questions we're considering and submit your own questions) here. 

Anyway, Sunday's question was "Who am I...and what am I doing with my life?" I'd say I pretty much 100% answered this one, no ambiguities or questions remain:

(that was a joke):



The text is available here. 

It's a real privilege to be able to serve with the students at American, and to get the chance to offer these sorts of reflections. My position at AU is funded by donations, so if you like these kinds of reflections, you can help keep them coming by supporting our Next Generation Campaign!

Laverne and Esther (a sermon about privilege)

This is the sermon I preached at Emmanuel UMC in Laurel, MD this morning. I was invited to preach as part of a sermon series called "Old Testament Yearbook," with each week dedicated to a different character from the Hebrew Bible. I was asked to preach on Esther. I decided to share some lessons about privilege that we can learn from Esther -- and from Laverne Cox.

            A few months ago, the notoriously short attention span of the U.S. media focused for a brief moment on the experience of transgender people – folks who don’t identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. The catalyst for this momentary fascination with a group that is often ignored or mocked in media representation was Caitlyn Jenner’s decision to come out as trans and subsequently to appear on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine. I didn’t quite understand the media buzz; my fiancée had to explain to me that prior to coming out as trans, Jenner was well-known and loved as a Cold War-era Olympic decathalon gold medalist and All-American Wheaties box celebrity.  

            I don’t usually spend a lot of time reflecting on the U.S. celebrity scene, and this is the first and likely the last time that I’ve ever mentioned Vanity Fair in a sermon. But in all of the buzz around Caitlyn Jenner’s cover shoot, one response in particular caught my attention. The actress Laverne Cox, star of the hit HBO series Orange is the New Black and herself a trans woman, posted a reflection on her blog, of which I will quote only a brief excerpt. She writes:

“I am so moved by all the love and support Caitlyn is receiving….Yes, Caitlyn looks amazing and is beautiful but what I think what is most beautiful about her is her heart and soul, the ways she has allowed the world into her vulnerabilities….For me it is necessary everyday to celebrate every aspect of myself especially those things about myself that don’t align with other people’s ideas about what is beautiful….Most trans folks don’t have the privileges Caitlyn and I have now have. It is those trans folks we must continue to lift up, get them access to healthcare, jobs, housing, safe streets, safe schools and homes for our young people. We must lift up the stories of those most at risk, statistically trans people of color who are poor and working class. I have hoped over the past few years that the incredible love I have received from the public can translate to the lives of all trans folks.”[i]

            I was struck by the power of this reflection. I should mention, for those unfamiliar with Ms. Cox, that she is a woman of color. She is someone who has faced multiple forms of societal stigma – as a woman, as a trans person, and as a person of color – using the media spotlight to lift up the needs and voices of those with less privilege than herself.

            I – a white, straight, cisgender male – find myself deeply humbled by Ms. Cox’s witness. How easy it is for me, on a daily basis, to forget my privilege, the unearned status and power granted to me by USAmerican society. For me to learn a lesson about the importance of using one’s status to amplify the voices of those less privileged – and to learn this lesson from a transwoman of color – is to enter into a space of self-reflection and repentance that I associate with encountering the gospel of Jesus Christ.

            Ms. Cox does not identify as a Christian. She has spoken in interviews about her upbringing in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and how she has come to understand and practice her spirituality outside of the institution of American Christianity.[ii] But to me, her words strike a deep, resonating chord within the prophetic and pastoral tradition of our religious heritage. In her refusal to hide behind the power of celebrity status or beauty standards, and her decision to identity instead with those who share aspects of identity often targeted for violence, Laverne Cox reminds me of another celebrity woman: the biblical character of Esther.

            The book of Esther, as many commentators have pointed out, is not a historical record, nor is it particularly theological – God does not appear in the story at all.[iii] Rather, it’s something like a fairy tale – though a pretty grim one, if you’ll excuse the pun. It is a story of palace intrigues and political rivalries, of gender and ethnic violence, of the folly of power and the surprising ability of individuals to challenge the status quo. The main character, Esther, is a young, status-less Jewish woman who becomes a princess because she happens to meet the objectifying beauty standards of the Persian court. This, indeed, would seem like a fairy-tale-princess dream come true, if not for the horrifying violence on the horizon. In the scene which we read this morning, Esther’s cousin Mordecai informs her of a plot in the royal court to massacre all of their people – for no reason other than a petty rivalry between Mordecai and Haman, the king’s chief courtier.  

            At first, Esther, who has hidden her Jewish identity from the court, reacts defensively. She sends him new clothes, so that he will stop embarrassing himself with his public acts of mourning and protest. She tries to explain to him that she is a marginalized individual, with no power to change things in the king’s court. Her reaction is, I think, quite understandable – she is young, and scared, and sticking one’s neck out in this situation is likely to end with that neck on a chopping block.

            And Mordecai tells her, essentially: “Look, don’t think that your status will protect you. You’re one of us. We will all share the same fate.” And then, that powerful line: “Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”

            And suddenly, it’s as if something shifts inside of Esther. She has been largely reactive up to this point in the story, but now she orders her older, male cousin to take action; she commands a fast; and, over the course of the following chapters, she sets into place a clever strategy to get the king on her side and to disrupt the plot against her people.

            The story, like many fairy tales, ends violently, with a happy ever after for the good guys and a horrifying end for the bad guys. But it’s not the climax of the story that interests me today; rather, it’s this moment when Esther comes to see with new eyes and speak with a new, powerful voice – or should I say, her own voice, a voice that must have been waiting inside of her, longing to be let out. Esther stops hiding behind the privileged aspects of her identity and instead chooses to act from her most vulnerable, endangered identity. It is that identity which creates connection with others, rather than isolating her in the illusion of security and the desperate loneliness of affluence. She turns down the false promises of upward mobility, exchanging them for the risky action of societally-downward solidarity. In doing so, Esther is able to use her status and privilege to affect change, to challenge violent systems of power, and to save her people.   

Esther’s insight speaks powerfully into our situation today, as a church and as a society. We are terrified of vulnerability, terrified of shame – and, paradoxically, this prevents us, particularly those of us with a high level of status and privilege, from naming and claiming our own ability to make change. And so in 2014 when women responded to the misogynistic manifesto of a mass shooter in California by posting stories on social media with the tag, #YesAllWomen, many men responded – not by joining together to end sexist violence – but rather by starting their own campaign, called #NotAllMen.” When the #BlackLivesMatter movement began, protesting police violence against unarmed African American men and women, many white folks responded – not by joining the effort to end police violence and racism – but instead by insisting on the slogan “All Lives Matter.” In fact, just recently, several Black Lives Matter signs hanging outside of churches in Maryland and DC were vandalized to erase the word “black.”[iv] That’s privilege at work, denying rather than challenging violence and discrimination. And meanwhile, the church in the U.S. spends its time fighting amongst itself and worrying about whether or not it will survive for another few years.

Do we see how different this is from the decision of Esther? Do we see how much we have to learn from the risk-taking young princess of this Jewish fairy tale?

Centuries after the fabled Persian court portrayed in the story of Esther, another young Jew grappled with questions of power and vulnerability, upward mobility versus downward solidarity. Writing to the church in Philippi, the apostle Paul admonished them: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself.” Interestingly, modern translators have added the word “though,” which does not exist in the original Greek. We read, “Christ who, though he was in the form of God, emptied himself.” But the actual text reads something like, “Christ who was in the form of God, emptying himself.” We decided that there was some sort of contradiction between who God is and the idea of emptying oneself, of identifying with the vulnerable and the marginalized. We decided that choosing to give up power and status is somehow out of character for God.[v]

But the Christ we Christians claim to follow, the God we claim to put our faith in, does not shy away from vulnerability. This God does not hide behind power or status or beauty in order to avoid risk. This God, this Christ, identifies with the threatened and the excluded. This God, this Christ, tells us that beauty and power and status are nothing except opportunities to speak out for and with those who have been denied such privilege.

And when I am tempted to say, “Look, I don’t really have that much power. I can’t really change things. It’s too risky. I’m too vulnerable.”

Or when churches wring anxious hands about shrinking budgets and empty pews, wondering whether we will ever ascend back to our former glory at the center of societal prestige.

This God, I believe, speaks – though just like in the book of Esther, not always directly. God speaks through the scandalous grief and protest of those whose people are threatened with violence, through young women who find their voice to challenge the status quo, through trans women of color, through countless marginalized people all over our land – this God speaks.

And says:

Perhaps, you have come to your current place of privilege for just such a time as this.
            Amen.

---

[i] From Laverne Cox’s tumblr blog: http://lavernecox.tumblr.com/post/120503412651/on-may-29-2014-the-issue-of-timemagazine

[ii] “Laverne Talks Spirituality with Miss Ross Live”: http://www.missross.com/laverne-talks-spirituality-ross-live/

[iii] Sidnie White Crawford, “Esther Introduction,” in The New Interpreter’s Study Bible (Nashville: Abingdon, 2003), 689-690.

[iv] Petula Dvorak, “The ugly message behind erasing ‘Black’ from ‘Black Lives Matter’ signs,” The Washington Post, 6 August 2015, available: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/the-ugly-message-behind-erasing-black-from-black-lives-matter-signs/2015/08/06/1d87a892-3c57-11e5-9c2d-ed991d848c48_story.html

[v] I owe this insight to a talk given by Brian McLaren at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Marco Island, FL, in March 2015.

Sermon -- "Jesus' Name"

This is a sermon I preached on Aug 2, 2015, at Dumbarton United Methodist Church in Washington, DC. It was part of a sermon series called "Who Do You Say Jesus Is?" Each sermon in the series focused on a different name or title that Christians have given Jesus. My sermon focused on the subversive nature of Jesus' own name. The texts were Joshua 6:1,15-21 and Matthew 1:18-21.



           Over the past few weeks, Dumbarton has been doing sermon series called “Who Do You Say Jesus Is?” which has looked at different ways that Christians refer to Jesus. You’ve heard sermons about Jesus as the Word of God, as Lord, as Lamb of God, as Emmanuel, and as Messiah. When Mary Kay invited me to preach this morning, she told me I could continue this series by talking about a name or title for Jesus that has particular meaning for me.

            So I decided that this morning, I will talk about the name that I most often use to refer to Jesus.

            Which is: Jesus.

            You might already have a sense that in the Hebrew and Greek in which the Jewish and Christian scriptures were written, names have importance and meaning. You might remember that Isaac means “God laughs,” because Sarah thought the idea of having a child at her age was so funny that she had to chuckle at the thought. Or that the Exodus story relates Moses name to the Hebrew for “draw out,” since he was pulled out of the water. You might remember that Abram’s name changes to Abraham, that Simon gets dubbed “Peter,” meaning “Rock,” or that Saul’s name changes to Paul. Of course, you also might not have heard any of those things before, in which case you can check out some of these stories and – to quote LeVar Burton from Reading Rainbow – “You don’t have to take my word for it!”
            Names have meaning, and Jesus’ name is no exception, although the way our texts are translated tends to obscure this fact. The name “Jesus,” you see, is an Anglicized version of the Latinized form of the Greek rendition of the Hebrew name “Yeshua.” (Did you get all of that?) While the gospels were written in Greek, Jesus and his disciples – like other 1^st century Palestinian Jews – would likely have been most at home in the Aramaic language, a Semitic tongue closely related to Hebrew. So while we’re used to calling Jesus “Jesus,” his friends would have called him something like “Yeshua.”

            Yeshua, as it turns out, can also be anglicized into the common name “Joshua.” The Jesus of the gospels and the Joshua of the Hebrew Bible share a name. And that name has a meaning.  It comes from a Hebrew root meaning, “rescue” or “deliver,” combined with the first syllable of the name of God. So Jesus and Joshua’s name means, “Yahweh delivers,” or “Yahweh is salvation.”

            The translation of Matthew’s gospel that we heard this morning does a good job of representing this meaning when it says: “you are to name him Jesus – Salvation! – because he will save the people from their sins.” We’re getting an English translation of a Greek translation of a Hebrew play on words. Isn’t that fun?

            The author of Matthew’s gospel wants to make sure the reader knows, explicitly, that the name “Yeshua” isn’t just a name. It’s connected to what this Jesus will do. The name this newborn messiah is *called by* is directly related to the mission he is *called to.*

            Now, us North American Protestant Christians are so used to a certain narrative of how Jesus saves people from their sins that we tend to just zip right over that line from Matthew. Whatever you might personally think about the way the church has traditionally taught, a certain understanding of sin and atonement has tended to dominate the conversation so that we miss the implications of this little sentence in Matthew’s gospel.

            Matthew’s gospel, however, takes great pains to place Jesus in line with Jewish tradition. In Matthew, the first thing we hear about Jesus the Messiah is that he is “the son of David, the son of Abraham.” In Matthew, Jesus goes up on a mountain to teach, recalling Mount Sinai where the Law was given to Moses. There are more citations of Hebrew Bible passages in Matthew than in any other gospel, many of them accompanied by the formula: “This took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the prophet.” So when Matthew’s gospel says the Messiah is named Yeshua, “Yahweh saves,” because he will save the people from their sins, its original readers – most of whom, remember, would have been faithful Jews, not Gentile converts – would have had an instant moment of association with another figure named Yeshua.

            Joshua.

            The guy we heard from earlier, commanding the people: “Now shout! Yahweh has given you the city!  The city—and everything in it—is devoted to Yahweh for destruction.” Joshua, the guy leading the charge when the Israelites raze Jericho to the ground, killing all the men, women, children, and, for good measure, the cattle, sheep, donkeys, and pet parakeets.

            Joshua’s name – Yeshua – means “God will save,” and throughout the book dedicated to his exploits we get a pretty good sense of the type of saving that God is expected to do. It involves a whole lot of putting things to the sword and to the torch. A whole lot of saving the people from their sins of disobedience by making sure they know that, without total obedience to God, they will not succeed in their military conquest of the people who stand between them and the land they want.

            Now, I could say a lot about the book of Joshua. Many theologians, such as American Indian scholar George Tinker and Palestinian priest Naim Ateek, have critiqued the conquest narratives of Joshua, arguing that for             indigenous peoples, such theologizing of conquest has justified subjugation and ethnic cleansing. Other theologians have taken pains to point out that Joshua is not historical record, but rather some combination of mythic account and theological argument for the power of Israel’s God.

            But Matthew’s audience would not have read up on the latest in historical critical scholarship of the book of Joshua. They would have known the stories, and they would have heard, “you will call the child Yeshua, because he will save the people from their sins,” and they would have known exactly what kind of saving this Jesus-character was going to get up to. They would have looked around at their own context – in which the Roman Empire had just destroyed the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, burned it to the ground, crucified anyone involved in recent anti-imperial activity, and sent others into exile – and they would have made some assumptions about the type of good news that would be announced by this Jesus, this Yeshua, this first-century-Joshua.

            And they would have been quite surprised by the story that unfolds throughout the rest of the gospel.

            Because it turns out that what Jesus is *called to* is a complete subversion of the name he is *called by.*

            It turns out that the type of salvation and deliverance announced by this Jesus is nonviolent rather than violent. That it’s found in solidarity rather than dominance. In seeming weakness rather than coercive strength. In taking up the cross rather than avenging those who have been put to the cross. In identifying with and loving the Other rather than purifying ourselves by expunging the Other from our midst.

            Jesus takes all the religious and political assumptions of his followers and turns them upside down, dumps them right on their heads.

            And that, I would argue, is what Jesus is up to no matter what name or label we try to apply. Word, Lord, Lamb, Messiah – you name it, Jesus subverts it. Jesus takes all of the things that we try to call him and turns them inside-out, into the question of what we are called to.

                        Now, if you’re a Dumbarton regular, this isn’t exactly news to you. You’ve heard plenty of sermons about how Jesus’ nonviolent ethic of compassion and justice challenges and subverts the assumptions of good religious folks.

            But I want to  go a step farther and suggest that one of the things God is still up to in our midst is subverting our religious language, turning inside-out what names we are called by and breaking open new understandings of what we are called to. And I want to suggest that this is true even when the religious language being employed is language that we like to use – us progressive Christian folks, us Methodists of the Reconciling persuasion at places like Dumbarton and American University. I want to suggest that God is still up to the type of language-subverting work that we see in Jesus’ name – even when the language that we like to use is good language like “welcome” and “inclusion.”

            Recently, one of the AU students that I work with sent me a quote from a Facebook discussion they were having regarding the inclusion of transgendered folks. I’ll read you part of the quote:

“When we talk about making a word or a space more inclusive, I think many of us imagine that this means those of us already included are, like, at a party in our house, and there are other people outside, and making it more inclusive means we open the door and let them in, where they will presumably take up some space and eat some of our food and the like. This model is problematic, because it implies a residual right of possession (the house, inviting people in) and a slight imposition on our part….Instead, we need to think of inclusivity like this: we are ALL already at a party and its not owned by anyone but there are far more people than chairs, and some people have been standing up for centuries. We need to get some more in and, if we can't get enough right now, we need to take turns. If that still doesn't do it, maybe we should move the whole party someplace else.”

           Now, I like the word inclusion. And I like the mission statement of the AU Methodists, which includes the words “Welcome All.” But I suspect that what God is up to inside of words like inclusion and welcome is bigger than what we’re often up to when we use them, just as what God was up to in words like salvation and deliverance turned out to be something deeper, something more surprising, than what those words meant to their first century hearers. I suspect that, as that quote indicates, God might not so much want us to invite those folks over their to our party as much as up and move the party somewhere else – or, even more so, to recognize that this party wasn’t ever ours to begin with, that it was always God’s party, and oooohhhhh the types of people that God has invited to that party.

         See God’s party, God’s church, God’s realm, isn’t a white party that maybe we could squeeze some folks of color into.

         God’s party isn’t a straight party that maybe we could squeeze some gay folks into, nor a cisgendered party but maybe we could find a few more chairs for some trans folks.

         God’s party isn’t an upper middle class party but, hey, maybe, if you ask nicely enough, we’ll let a few poor folks in.

         God’s welcome, God’s inclusion, is deeper and wider and way more radical than all that. And, I suspect, it isn’t about us welcoming those people to our church. It’s about uprooting ourselves from our comfort zones and our sense of ownership and displacing ourselves to the kinds of parties that Jesus attends – places that might be just as surprising to our religious assumptions as Jesus would have been to those who thought they knew what his name meant.

What do we call Jesus? What assumptions are embedded in those names? And what is God up to in that -- subverting, shaking up, and redefining what we are being called to?

---


The quote is from a personal correspondence with one of the students I work with at American University. Their name has been withheld in order to protect their superhero identity. But if you want to support their ministry, you can donate to the AU United Methodist-Protestant Community.  

a wound

"You have an old wound," she told me --
    cropped gray hair and sloping ceilings,
    for the dozenth, the hundredth, time.

"You have an old wound" --
     and how to take such a thing seriously

when in the West Bank the settlers have lit an infant on fire
while the guards at the border blithely deny another human home
and the videos from just a few states away
show the shooting of an unarmed man
and the quick lies to cover it up
which -- we must assume --
are entirely normal.

"You have an old wound" --
   what is such a thing in this
   this
   this world gone madder than me.

"You have an old wound.
  Here, in your heart"
-- she touches her own heart, lightly --
"and you can care for it."

Here I sit --
  touching my heart lightly --
watching the hurt.

Stepping into it.

Through it.

To a world whose wounds
are older than Cain
and as new as this morning's

awful

news.

Sermon -- "Tell Another Generation"

Here's the text of yesterday's sermon at Chevy Chase United Methodist Church. A few technical issues, so no audio file this time around. The text was Joel 2:21-28.

"Tell Another Generation"

As one of your United Methodist campus ministers at American University, a big part of my job over the summer is to participate in a series of New Student Orientation sessions. These sessions, held throughout June and July, are a chance for new students to meet each other, to learn more about the school, and to meet with advisors for academic planning and course selection. Each session includes a community involvement fair, where various student activity groups, such as the United Methodist Protestant Community, set up tables in one of the main dining areas in order to share opportunities for student participation. We hand out free candy, give t-shirts to people who sign up for our newsletter, and answer questions about spiritual life on campus.

Something that I’ve noticed over a few summers of these orientation sessions is a phenomenon that I call “Enthusiastic Parent; Reluctant Student.” What happens is that a parent approaches our table, very excited to find out that there are Methodists or Christians or whatever on campus, and asks us a bunch of questions. Meanwhile, their child, the new student, maintains a cool distance, physically separating themselves from the *clearly embarrassing* enthusiasm of their parents or at the very least not making too much eye contact with those of us behind the table. Sometimes, parents even complain out loud about their child’s reluctance to approach our table, which, as you might imagine, does not generally succeed at increasing the student’s level of interest.

I’m not sharing this in order to make fun of either parent or student – though this common phenomenon does lead to some genuinely funny moments. But in all of these encounters, I find myself really feeling for both the parent and the student. Both come into a new student orientation experiencing a complex web of excitement and anxiety, fear and hope. I’ve never been a parent, so I can only imagine the mixture of relief that a beloved child has achieved this milestone, mixed with anxiety about them being far away from home, mixed with excitement for all that is ahead of them, mixed, perhaps, with a bit of nostalgia and maybe even the fear of loneliness or a shift in parental purpose and self-understanding. I have, on the other hand, been an undergraduate student, and although it was more than a decade ago that I attended my own college’s new student orientation, I remember very well the swirling combination of anxiety, fear, relief, excitement, stress – you name it, I was feeling it.

And there’s something about a religious life organization table that just brings it all out. This phenomenon doesn’t happen as much to, say, the rugby club as it does to the religious life groups. All of those new college jitters get stirred up with the addition of another level of anxiety – for the parents, the question of whether the beliefs and values that they’ve tried to instill will remain important once their children leave home and begin their adult journeys. For the students, the question of how to claim their own identity, how to be their own person in a new setting free of the structures and parental influence of their childhoods. Faith, identity, meaning, purpose – this is deep, complex stuff that can sometimes surface over something as simple as whether or not they really need one of our free AU Methodist pens.

And these personal anxieties take form on top of a groundswell of deeper societal anxiety. Environmental catastrophe, racism, gun violence, sexual assault on college campuses – this is the stuff of internet newsfeeds and tense dinner table discussion. Our churches grapple with cultural changes and narratives of decline. Aging congregations ask, “where are the young people?”; young adults in the church ask “Why is it so hard for the church to change?” An older generation wonders whether they have created an environment unsafe for a younger; a younger generation wonders whether they have what it takes to change the world left to them by an older. Who is to blame for the mess we’re in? Who must take responsibility for changing it?
            “Hear this, O elders,” declare the opening lines of the book of Joel, “give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your ancestors? Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.” Joel’s prophetic words are framed, from the very beginning of the book, as part of an intergenerational conversation, a passing on of wisdom and hope and challenge from one age to the next.

We don’t know very much about the person named Joel. We do know that his is a late entry into the library of prophetic literature. Many of the Hebrew prophets warn the nation of future exile if they fail to deal justly and mercifully with the most vulnerable members of society. Joel, however, writes after the exile to Babylon and the return to the land of Judah. The crisis to which Joel is responding is not the encroaching armies of foreign nations, but rather what us modern folk might think of as a natural disaster: a swarm of locusts has plagued the land, destroying crops and ruining livelihoods. In the midst of this ecological catastrophe, Joel calls the leadership of Judah to account for their unwillingness or inability to share the things of God with the next generation. “Call a solemn assembly,” Joel cries, “gather the people. Sanctify the congregation. Assemble the aged, gather the children, even infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her canopy.”

Leave nobody out, Joel warns. Gather everyone. Everyone needs to hear what God is up to in the midst of this crisis. If there’s any way out of this locust-infested-mess, everybody better turn back and listen to God.

To our 21^st century ears, Joel’s theologizing of disaster can seem strange, even harmful. Surely there are natural, scientific explanations for a locust and famine. Surely God – who, as Joel reminds the people, is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love” – surely such a God does not inflict harm on people, including children, just to prove a point. The God that I believe in, the Jesus that I follow, does not go around causing natural disasters and random acts of violence in order to convince us to improve our behavior.

Yet there is something powerful about Joel’s reminder to seek for the voice of God in the midst of an age of anxiety. To stop and listen to what we might be called to do together when change is scary, when disaster strikes, or when violence seems to reign supreme.

“Do not fear,” begins the passage from Joel that we heard this morning. And in case we missed it, it’s repeated – “Do not fear, O soil; be glad and rejoice, for the LORD has done great things! Do not fear, you animals of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green, the tree bears its fruit, the fig tree and vine give their full yield.”

Even as environmental and economic catastrophe rage all around, Joel calls God’s covenant community back to a hope in the ever-generous abundance of God. “You shall know that I am in your midst,” God declares. I am with you. I am with you. You are not alone.

And then – and here, perhaps, we come to understand why Joel has been so insistent that all the people, young and old, have been gathered to hear this message – we hear the words that have become familiar in the Christian tradition through the story of Pentecost:

“I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old folk shall dream dreams, and your young folk shall see visions.”

For Joel, the culmination of the hope that he comes to offer the beleaguered and distraught people of God is a vision of intergenerational inspiration, in which people of all ages and genders – and we can add of all races, of all language-groups, of all abilities and orientations and political affiliations and national backgrounds – all find themselves dreaming anew, imagining anew, speaking out anew about the things of the Spirit.

            In the midst of ecological crisis, God says, “I will pour out my spirit…on all of you.”

            In the midst of violence caused by deprivation and distrust, God says, “I will pour out my spirit…on all of you.”

            In the midst of massive societal change, God says: “I will pour out my spirit…on all of you.”

            In the midst of intergenerational anxiety and tension, God says, “I will pour out my spirit…on all of you, young or old or anywhere in between. And you will dream new things, and see new things, and speak new things.”

            Now, it’s a bit strange being a guest preacher in a congregation that I don’t know very well. I don’t know each of you, and your unique stories and situations. I don’t know whether some of you are about to send a kid off to college, or if some of you are going off to college yourselves. I don’t know if some of you are worried about whether a younger generation is going to carry on the mission and ministry that you’ve put so much time and effort into cultivating; I don’t know if some of you are worried that an older generation will never get out of the way and let you lead.

            What I think I know is this: God’s still got some Spirit waiting to pour out on us. God’s still got some Spirit waiting to pour out on American University. On Chevy Chase United Methodist Church. On the church in the U.S. and around the world. God’s still got some dream-inspiring, vision-inducing, imagination-provoking Spirit to pour out on all of us.

            But we’ve got to take the time and make the space to receive it. And if sons and daughters are prophesying, and older people are dreaming dreams, and younger people are seeing visions – then we darn well better figure out some ways to share all that with each other. 

            As usual, there are no easy guides for how to do this, no quick 3-step solution to the challenge at hand. Instead, here is one story: last week I attended a big, raucous Christian festival in North Carolina, called the Wild Goose Festival. On the last day of the festival, I helped my friend Alicia facilitate a conversation about growing a new generation of leaders in the church. An intergenerational group – from 12 years old to 76 – sat together and shared their first memories of leadership, and the things that make them feel affirmed or discouraged as leaders. Youth shared their hopes and their fears. Older adults asked how they could be more supportive, and shared some of their own feelings of being pushed aside or not listened to.

            Of all the many wonderful things I experienced at that festival – and it was a wonderful experience – that conversation gave me the most hope. It felt like we were taking the time to listen to each other’s dreams and visions, to create a space of sharing and collaboration in the midst of a societal context of anxiety and fear and division.

            We can create such spaces – here, in our churches, in our communities, in our families. We can ask questions, we can listen, we can share from a place of honesty and of Spirit. What it might look like exactly, I can’t tell you for sure – but we can do it, and we must. Otherwise, we might just miss what it is that God is pouring out among us.

            So gather the people. Sanctify the congregation. Assemble the aged. Gather the children, even infants at the breast. Listen for what God has to say: “Do not fear. Do not fear. I am with you – all of you – always.”

            Amen.