God Is Still Speaking, #1

Yesterday after church a group of folks gathered to discuss how we would organize our Sunday School after our Christian Education director retires at the end of October. It was mostly about mechanics and logistics, the comfortable discussions we fall into at these types of meetings: who is available to cover when, what is the procedure, etc.

But right in the middle there was a God Is Still Speaking Moment. Carol, our Christian Ed director, put in a DVD that is part of the curriculum. She told me later that it was not even the video clip that she intended to show first. It was geared for middle school students and it was a clip of a group of kids discussing Jesus' family tree. They were commenting on the variety of characters in Jesus' ancestry, how some were famous Biblical characters known for following God and how some were people that would not be considered at all "religious," or as one of the kids put it, not like he pictured "church people."

God used a Sunday school video clip to speak to me yesterday. I hope, if God was speaking to others beside me, they were listening as well. Jesus of Nazareth, the one sent to redeem and restore the world, came from a pedigree of bastards, murderers, prostitutes, and cheats.

God can use any of us to birth the Divine into the world. There is nothing we can do to disqualify ourselves. One is used by God because God chooses to use one, despite one's education level, title, station in life, social class, or criminal record. Of course, our life experience may make us more or less fit for particular ministries, but none of us are disqualified and, therefore, none of us exempt.

Wait a Minute, I Don't Buy That...

Last Sunday, a mother came up to me and told me that she and her daughter had been discussing the morning's sermon. I had preached on "We Belong to Jesus" and had mentioned that when we surrender to Christ, when we see ourselves as belonging to Christ, then we don't have to worry about things like others' opinions of ourselves or whether we have enough money at the end of the month.

Well, this sharp young woman's bullshit detector went off and she said to herself, "Wait a minute, that is not true. It doesn't match what I have experienced." And of course, it doesn't. She knows all sorts of good, church-going Christians that still have to worry about their mortgage.

And I found myself once again at the precipice of the huge chasm that divides religious talk and sermons and church stuff from an authentic relationship with Christ. A life surrendered to Christ, a life given to something more than just making it, does indeed lead us into an entirely different realm where the concerns of this life don't go away but become no more burdensome than gnats that we have to shew away from our face. However, I'm afraid that, at least as far as typical American church life goes, we can't get there from here. The systems we have not only don't lead people into this authentic relationship with God, in many ways they actively oppose it.

As I enter ordained ministry, I want my ministry to be about facilitating the wonderful transformation and freedom that can take place in individual lives and in society as one makes the decision to simply follow Jesus.

The Spirituality of Questions

Last Sunday afternoon was my Ecclesiastical Council for my ordination. In the United Church of Christ, it is not just the local church that ordains a woman or man for ministry, it is also a function of the wider church, since one is ordained as a minister of the entire United Church of Christ.

What this looked like for me is that 40 or so people, mostly from my church, but including people from other churches in the area, gathered to discern whether I had been called into vocational ministry. I shared briefly my spiritual journey, and my theological and ecclesiological understandings as they stand at this point in my life. And then the magic happened.

After my opening address, anyone gathered was welcome to ask me questions. And ask they did. "What is heaven and hell?" "What does it mean to be saved?" "Why does God allow evil?" "Will we ever evolve beyond our need for God?" And I didn't get the feeling at all that people were trying to trick me or even test me. It felt like those gathered were revealing the deep questions of their hearts.

In the coming days I may share my responses to some of these questions. For now, I want to honor the questions themselves. I left that afternoon convinced that we as the church need to be creating space for people to be safe in asking questions. For so long, the church has been the dispenser of the "truth" and we would all come on Sundays and get our cup filled. And because we weren't allowed or were too polite or were afraid about what would happen if we started messing with the cards in the house of cards. Our choices were to agree and fall in line or  disagree, keep our mouths shut, and leave or stay and pretend.

We need to question. We need to knead and squeeze our understanding of our truth so we can get it into a form that makes it efficacious for our lives.

A Hermeneutic of Love

On Sunday at church, I preached about one of our core values, "We are people of God's extravagant welcome" and then invited response from the conversation.

One of the questions that was asked was regarding how we assimilate the idea of extravagant welcome with passages in the Bible that appear to exclude certain people or behaviors, in this instance specifically homosexuality.

I responded with the notion that every time we approach scripture we make a choice of how we will interpret it and that we, or I, choose to interpret it in a certain way. On reflection, I realized that, while true, it was about 30% of an answer. And I want to get it up to a good 80-85% here.

Yes, every time we engage scripture we do so through a particular lens or a system of interpretation called a hermeneutic. I know, big word. But it's a very useful word. The Bible is so vast and deep and varied and, dare I say, messy at times that one may find it useful to have a guiding principle when approaching it. That guiding principle is a "hermeneutic."

"Well," one may respond, "I believe the Bible says what it means and means what it says. I just take it at face value." And that is a good way to start reading these sacred scriptures. However, it has been my experience that as I spend more and more time in scripture, which I love to do, I find parts that seem to contradict other parts. I encounter a God that commanded that an entire nation be killed, not because they did anything wrong, but because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time (Joshua 6). Elsewhere, I encounter a God that loved humanity so much, that this God took the form of a human just to be with us and reveal his love and grace to us in a way we could understand. As a result, I must choose how to read a passage of scripture; I must make a hermeneutical choice.

I could choose to read the Bible as one long story from beginning to end, written, without error, by the hands of men controlled exactly and precisely by God. That choice would require me to come up with some pretty creative explanations of parts of the Bible that seem to be in contradiction to one another.
That was a choice that I grew uncomfortable with.

The story I tell about God, based on my understanding from scripture, my observation of how God has worked in history, and my experience of God in my own life, is that God is a God of unfathomable, super-human, love, grace, and acceptance. That understanding of God in scripture eclipses other understandings, in my most humble opinion. So, I choose to read scripture with the hermeneutic of love. Every passage I read, I read through the glasses of a God of radical, extravagant welcome and acceptance. And guess what...that choice requires that I come up with some pretty creative explanations of parts of the Bible that seem to be in contradiction to my understanding of God, but no more or less creative than other hermeneutics.

So, briefly, with every intention of filling these out in greater detail at another time: When I read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19), I don't see God angry at a people because of homosexuality, but because of, among other things, being inhospitable.  When I read laws supposedly given by God against homosexuality (Leviticus 20:13), I see a necessary rule for a particular time and place to ensure the fruitfulness of a particular tribe, not an all-time and forever rule. When I read Paul's inclusion of homosexuality in a list of sins seen as symptoms of a people who do hot acknowledge God (Romans 1), I assume that Paul is speaking of the only homosexuality he knew at the time, prostitution and slavery, not same-sex couples that choose to form loving, sexual relationships.

Do these require some creative interpretations? Yes, as a matter of fact, they do. Are there other ways that these, and all scriptures, can be read? Most certainly. However, my life and ministry is based on a particular hermeneutical choice, a hermeneutic of love.

My Spiritual Choice

I read an article this morning that really nudged me over the edge. There are a myriad of spiritualities one could live. Even within Christianity, there are several doctrinal stories in which one could engage. Most of them, when followed authentically, are benign and there are more than one that could lead to a rich, transformative, productive life with God. Most of us "good Christians," in my opinion, would do better to pick one and live it than to argue about them.

Here is the one I am choosing: love God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:27). As Paul Allen, the author of the article states, "there is no mention of balance, just pure devotion." What if Jesus' statement that if we seek first the Kingdom of God, everything else will be added, is a true statement about spiritual life? It seems so simple. What if I focused on loving God and loving those around me: my family, my patients, my parishioners, my co-workers, my friends.

This is what I am choosing. I am not saying it is he only doctrinal story one could live or even the best. However, I feel it is the best for me.

God, I am giving it over to you. I want my heart to be transformed. In loving you, I want to be transformed into a lover of my neighbors. I can't wait to see how you will shape me.

What we Hear

Today I was listening to Fresh Air on National Public Radio. Terry Gross was interviewing a poet named Natasha Tretheway. She won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for poetry for her book Native Guard. Good stuff. Her latest book is Beyond Katrina: A Mediation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, a book of poetry and prose.

The part of the interview that I heard included the poet speaking about her grandmother's faith and her funeral.

GROSS: You describe yourself as not a religious person. But do you ever wish that you could have religion like your grandmother did and therefore, find some kind of holy meaning in the most horrible things that have happened?

Prof. TRETHEWEY: I think, you know, she had such a faith and I understood it as a great comfort to her. And there are times that I think that I wish I had such a comfort.I remember when she was being remembered at her service, the preacher looking directly at me and saying, grieve not as others grieve. He was sermonizing about how the faithful don't have the same kind of grief, because they know that there is something else. And so I felt indicted as he looked at me and said "grieve not as others grieve," as if he was pointing to me and saying, I know that you are not the faithful and because of that you have a different kind of grief, the wrong kind.

GROSS: And were you changed by that at all? 

Prof. TRETHEWEY: Oh, I was angry.

GROSS: Angry at him for making you feel that way when you were grieving.

Prof. TRETHEWEY: Yes. I...

GROSS: As if there were a wrong kind of grief.

Prof. TRETHEWEY: I think I wanted remembrance of her and I wanted comfort. I mean, I think funeral services are for the living in some ways. They are to remember the dead, but in the face of the living, beloved. And so I didn't feel comforted. 

I was so sad listening to this. I wasn't there, but it seems to me from her telling that it is possible this minister was offering to her comfort and hope when he said "grieve not as others grieve." However, she certainly didn't take it as such. She took it as judgment, an indictment.

It seems that for some any word from a religious leader is a word of judgment. And it is true that up to and including now, most of the words of religion have been judgmental.

These are the questions I am pondering:

Why are religious voices always heard as judgmental (and I am specifically using "religious" and not "spiritual" here) even when they may not be? Is it only because of our horrible history? Or, is there something going on inside a person that makes them feel indicted by God?

How can we change our religious language so that those around us understand and experience that "God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world..." (John 3:17 NLT)?


I would love to hear your thoughts!

Agressive and Palliative Spiritual Care

Someone gave me a quote today-- quote by one of my favorite spiritual writers, Henri Nouwen:

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. the friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is the friend who cares.

It's a great description of what I do with my hospice patients in my role as an interfaith chaplain. I meet them where they are, discerning what is spiritually important to them, providing comfort and assurance.

Medically, hospice is about palliative care. It is about keeping a patient comfortable. No agressive or curative treatment is pursued.

Spiritually, palliative care is often called for: comfort, assurance. End-of-life is such a time, I believe, unless of course, a patient demonstrates a need for something else: reconciliation with God, reconciliation with others. But what about in my role as pastor? When is it appropriate to engage in curative spiritual care? When do I need to risk a little bit of pain, possibly on the part of one who I am caring for, and definitely on my part, to help someone over a hump, or to mirror what I see as a detrimental issue in their life?

I imagine it would have to be if they themselves request me to take such a position. Or, as a prophetic voice, which, generally, is not comfortable for me, there may be times when I should take the initiative.

Finley Peter Dunne is credited with originating the saying "Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." He was referring to the role of the newspaper. It has since been applied to the role of spiritual leaders and the church. It requires great discernment. I can think of times when both have been used where the other may have been appropriate.

The Light of God in the Prism of People

Last night, I attended the interfaith prayer circle for the National Day of Prayer in Lake Worth. It was a meaningful time for me. It is a powerful experience to gather with those of different beliefs who are willing to come together and make space for, and even engage in one another's practices.

Yes, sometimes another's ritual or practice is so different from one's own that it is a bit awkward, somewhat uncomfortable. But I see that as an opportunity for growth, expanding my understanding of God beyond what I am comfortable with.

Here is the prayer I shared, as best as I can remember it:

Our source of life, of love
We thank you for your presence with us
We thank for you for your constant, abiding presence with us always
And we thank you for this opportunity to see your light through the prism of your children gathered here
Allowing us to experience you in all of your colors and words and images and genders and sounds and silences.
Grant us your Spirit of imagination, allowing us each to see what would be possible if each of us gathered here lived fully our understanding of you, the shift that could happen in our culture, in our world
We pray especially today on this National Day of Prayer for our leaders
We start right here where we are by lifting up Renee, Cara, Suzanne, and Scott to you,
Encourage and enliven them, lift them up
Give them the courage to lead and to speak
Give them the humility to listen and make space for one another and for the voices of those they govern
Amen

Coach Jose

Let me take a moment to explain my awe with Coach Jose. Coach Jose is my son's T-Ball coach. T-Ball, remember that? 5 year-olds and 6 year-olds (with a couple of 4's thrown in just to keep it interesting) on a ball field spinning around, kicking dirt in the infield, pulling up grass in the outfield, poking each other, and watching baseballs rolling by them.

If it's a boy or girl's first year, they know nothing about the game, especially if they have a non-baseball dad like me. They have few skills and a six-minute...tops...attention span.

Coach Jose has a background coaching baseball, real baseball, I think, high school kids. He is very knowledgeable. He told us he had never coached little kids before. Over the past several weeks, I have watched Coach Jose do drills, run bases, and explain the game to these kids. He is ever so patient. He goes over and over the fundamentals. Most of them don't remember. They will drill for an hour: catch the  ball..step...point...throw it to first base. The next practice, they have to start all over again except for maybe one or two that have a vague memory of doing something like that last week. Coach Jose doesn't get upset, he simply starts over again...catch...step...point...throw. I honestly don't know how he does it. It seems like somewhere deep inside he is 100% confident that each of those kids is going to get it, going to be a star, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

I get so agitated when people don't get it...when I don't get it. I have been on this spiritual path for so long and yet I feel like i never even get the basics down. I screw up, I don't pay attention. Then I look around at those I lead and, I hate to say, I get even more frustrated. "C'mon! We have gone over this time and again and it still hasn't sunk in even a bit!"

For myself and my fellow sojourners, I am going to follow my new idol, Coach Jose. "Alright Yankees, let's do it again: catch...step...point..throw"

Chambers on the Power of the Gospel

"If in preaching the gospel you substitute your knowledge of the way of salvation for confidence in the power of the gospel, you hinder people from getting to reality."                     -Oswald Chambers



And yet, this is what happens over and over again. We make the gospel our pet, our servant. The history of the church is a history of taming the gospel. We fear it's power. 

I want people to get on board with my cause, sign up for my class, propagate my philosophy, but come in contact with the raw power of the gospel? Without me controlling it and mediating it? Are you kidding?

Forgive me God. May your fire of love purify my ministry, burning off anything that stands between me and the power of the gospel for those that I lead.

Waste

This is the trash created from Emerson and me eating at McDonald's tonight. I don't really consifer myself a green freak, but as I was gathering our trash from the table and the mountain kept getting bigger on the tray, I was thinking there was no way this could be good. I want to start being a bit more conscious.



I was at : 132 Riley Ave, Palm Springs, FL 33461,

OUR Father, who art in heaven...

I have started utilizing Phyllis Tickle's Divine Hours as a resource for my spiritual journey. Of course, a consistent element of most daily prayers is the prayer Jesus taught.

As I was praying it this morning, I was reminded yet again that the prayer is prayed in first person plural. I know that. (You know that. We all know that and have heard at least a half-dozen sermons on the topic.) This morning, however, it dropped a bit from my head to my heart. When I pray that prayer, I am asking that God gives  all of us our daily bread, that God leads each one of us away from temptation, that God forgives my debts and your debts. If the prayer doesn't change the way I live than it is just a collection of meaningless, superstitious words.

I want to live the prayer.

Tearing Down the Altars

That night the Lord said to him [Gideon], ‘Take your father’s bull, the second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that belongs to your father, and cut down the sacred pole that is beside it; and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of the stronghold here, in proper order; then take the second bull, and offer it as a burnt-offering with the wood of the sacred pole that you shall cut down.’

Judges 6:25-26


I've read and heard and been taught this story numerous times, but this little incident has always escaped me. God told Gideon to go tear down the altar to Baal, the altar his father had built. In order to have our own authentic relationship with God, it may be necessary to tear down some of the altars we have been left.

Very often, those who have gone before us have left us altars to small, tribal gods like Baal. And even those of us who have received the awesome gift of an altar to a mighty, awesome God need to rebuild that altar for ourselves, based on our own experience with God.

And when we tear down old altars, others take notice. When it got back to Gideon's dad that Gideon had torn down the altar, his response was "If he is a god, let him contend for himself, because his altar has been pulled down." I love it!

It's time to pull down altars. It is time to engage God for ourselves.

The Example

"The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the foremost. But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life." Paul to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:15-16

I am enjoying spending time in Timothy. I haven't read it in a while. It's good advice from a seasoned minister to a newbie. This passage from the first chapter just confirms what God has been communicating to me in so many different ways over the past few weeks. Paul got the whole Christ thing because he had experienced it and, as a result, his goal was to be an example to others of what Jesus Christ can do in a life--an example of Jesus' patience and love.

The Christ-following life is simple but not easy. It's practice is difficult, mainly because we make it difficult. Well, what's this we stuff, I guess. I make it difficult for myself.

Thank you, God, for your patience!

The Amazing Sally Welsh

Sally Welsh is the director of the municipal pool here in Lake Worth. I heard her speak Monday evening at the Eden Place Neighborhood Association meeting and I came away inspired.

"What is so exciting about a swimming pool?" you may ask. Everything about pools and swimming lessons and water exercise is exciting to Sally Welsh. She is positive and passionate about her job. I can't imagine there was a single person in that room who didn't at least contemplate checking out what the Lake Worth pool has to offer. I'm going to take Emerson there for swimming lessons, even though it will be less convenient for us than other places would be.

Being energetic, passionate, and positive can be transforming for those who surround us. As people of faith, specifically as people who have experienced the good news of Jesus Christ, we should be the most positive, passionate people of all.

On Getting Back Into the Boat

When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. Matthew 14:32


I preached Sunday on Peter getting out of the boat and characteristics of water-walkers. I was thinking today that the biggest effect from Peter's water-walk came when he got back into the boat. The result was that he brought Jesus back in with him, Peter's life would be changed forever because of his experience, and the eleven others in the boat most likely had their faith strengthened. Peter getting back into the boat was just as important as him getting out of the boat. I had never thought about that before!

Are We Being Changed?

Rev. Kent Siladi, the Conference Minister of the Florida Conference of the United Church of Christ, preached at our church this past Sunday. It was an excellent message, which is available to listen to here. The central idea, for me, anyway is this. He commented that to be a Christian means that we have a life transformation. The purpose of the church is to invite people into transformation. The important question for us is "Are we being changed?"

I couldn't agree more. The question is foundational. It is primary. Because nothing else can happen unless personal transformation is taking place. As personal transformation takes place, then societal transformation can take place. Then the Kingdom of God starts to emerge, right here, right now.

Back On Line

So, I have access to my website again. My computer and external hard drive were destroyed in our recent move so I had to recreate from scratch. My website files, along with five years of sermons, and papers, and research are gone. I was, to say the least, disheartened.

And it made me think. Yes, about the importance of offsite backup, but also about who I am. I discovered something about myself. No matter what I say (or preach) to the contrary, I really do define myself by what I accomplish, what I produce. But that isn't who I am. I am a child of God, unconditionally loved by God, and a friend of Christ. That is who I am. Anything of worth that I happen to produce comes out of that understanding of myself, not the other way around.

...and, I have article insurance so a new MacBook is on its way!

Lately, it seems I am being asked more often about what I believe or what our church believes. Or maybe I am just noticing the question more. It is a difficult question for me, not because I do not hold strong theological beliefs, beliefs that I really enjoy discussing. It just seems the question is more often than not dogmatic in nature and I have no interest in debates of dogma. I know, I know dogma is important. It's just not my thing. I strive to live my theology. I relish discussing and even debating my ideas about God, but never in an "I'm right and you are wrong" sort of way. It probably is a result of my coming of age as a Southern Baptist during the great purge of the 1980's and 1990's.

That being said, I am realizing the importance of being able to speak to what one believes. It is what drives one and keeps one focused. The core of my theological beliefs is simply that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has the potential to transform lives and those thus transformed have the opportunity and the responsibility of participating in the Kingdom of God. My "elevator explanation" of that is that we are to love God, love one another, and serve the world.

For me this is the foundation. Everything else is detail. Everything else is subject to change. When I am 82, I will sit on my porch and figure out everything else and write a book. Until then, I work with what others are thinking that to assist in fleshing out my doctrine. Here are a couple of links to organizations whose work is helpful to me:

What Matters (I mentioned these last week. They come from my denomination, the United Church of Christ.)
The Phoenix Affirmations (I love these affirmations. They are unapolegetically Christ-centered yet theologically and socially progressive.)
The Center for Progressive Christianity (Skews a little more academic and cerebral than The Phoenix Affirmations, but very helpful)

Update: In looking at their websites, I learned that Crosswalk America (which produced the Phoenix Affirmations) and The Center for Progressive Christianity have merged. I love their stuff. It just needs to drop a foot from the head to the heart.

Last Wednesday as I was working on Sunday's sermon on the story of Jacob wrestling with God and how it relates to the power of change in our lives, a realization came into sharp focus for me. There are three of me.

There is Jason Fairbanks, the industrious, creative pastor and preacher and father. I like that Jason. And I like the responses, quite often of admiration, that Jason receives from people. But there is a second Jason. The Jason that is prideful and fearful and lustful and undisciplined. That Jason I don't like so much. I keep that Jason hidden because I'm pretty sure folks wouldn't like him quite as much. I'd like to change that Jason, and sometimes I try. But it's really, really hard.

Now, what I have described about myself is true of everyone to some extent or another, it's widely accepted psychological theory. But I've noticed that we good church folks have raised this to an art form. We have become masters at portraying what people want to see and hiding what we are struggling with. The problem with that is we never getting around to being changed. We keep the second self hidden instead of exposing it to the healing, transformative power of Christ and the support of community.

But that is just two me's, and I promised a third. After Jacob struggled with the angel of God, the angel asked Jacob his name. Jacob responded with a confession, his name which means usurper or grasper. The angel gave Jacob a new name, Israel. The third me is the me that God sees. The me that has been made new in Christ, the me fully accepted and infinitely loved by God.

I am practiced at being the Jason that everyone likes. And the second Jason is always there causing me guilt and shame. I want to spend some more time getting to know the third Jason, the one that God is so in love with. I think I'm going to like him.