Is the Church Irrelevant?

This morning Faye, one of the great pillars of my parish, dropped by church to do some photocopying. We chatted for a while, and I asked the usual questions about how she and her family were doing during these hot summer months. She happily reported that her granddaughter was doing very well, but this young adult raised in the church was not inclined to attend worship. "What can you do, Pastor?" Faye said. "She says she's a very spiritual person, but she doesn't like organized religion. She has her own ideas. I'm certainly not going to push anything on her."

I think Faye's attitude toward her granddaughter's spirituality is perfectly appropriate. Everybody has their own spiritual path to walk, and one of the greatest errors the Christian faith has made over the centuries has been the attempt to force dogma down the throats of the unwilling.

But, given the life I live, I can't help but try to share my love of the faith and my reasoning for continuing in the religious institution in which I was raised. If we take wars and persecutions, Crusades and Inquisitions, sexual and financial scandals out of the picture, the Church as an institution still has, to my mind, a great deal to recommend it.

The English word "church" comes to us via a twisted and tortured path through Middle English and Germanic words taken from the Greek kyriake oikia meaning "Lord's House." What is a house if not the home of a family? The fancy word we in English use to describe "churchy" things is ecclesiastic, which also comes to us from the Greek. Ecclesia is the word the New Testament uses which we normally translate as "church." It means an assembly or gathering of people who have been called together.

I can't imagine anything more necessary or poignant in today's individualistic society than human gathering. Recently, I was hanging out in my local Starbuck's and I noticed at a nearby table about four or five twenty-somethings drinking overpriced coffee and chatting animatedly. Besides their tattoos and piercings, the young people reminded me of myself and my college friends from back in the day. But there was one glaring difference: each one of these beautiful young people held some kind of electronic device in their laps under the table and were busily texting or facebook-ing, or something while they were supposedly enjoying each others' company. I wanted to go over and tell them, "Could you please put the damn iphones away and just be present with each other?!"

Our technology is great, but it seems to have robbed us of the ability to be with one another. I believe a big part of our humanity still craves the physical company of the family. We need to know that we have a home full of people who are willing to understand us, who share our thoughts, and to whom our presence is special and valuable. This is what the Church, at her best, should give us: community. We are united by our shared story-telling and by the shared rituals which help us navigate the transitions of our lives.

Besides just the act of being together, the Church also provides the shared wisdom of the past. At weddings or funerals I like to explain that part of our ritual is the reading of really old stuff. When we hear really old words, we know what we feel has been felt by others throughout the centuries, and will be felt again by others in the future. Reading these words makes us feel less alone.

As warm and fuzzy as our personal spirituality may make us feel, it still remains true that none of us can manage very much on our own. What we do together can be so much more powerful than what we do as individuals. Last week my parish hosted an organizing meeting for Interfaith Hospitality Network. We will be the first congregation in the Northeast neighborhoods of Philadelphia to provide shelter for temporarily homeless families. I couldn't very well hostel a family of six or so in my house, but, with the help of the church two families--victims of our precarious economic times--will get a chance to stay together in a clean, safe environment (which happens to be our church basement) while Interfaith works to find them permanent housing. My congregation is doing this in partnership with a non-denominational mega church, a large Roman Catholic parish, and smaller congregations of Methodists, Quakers, United Church of Christ, Church of God in Christ, and Jewish brothers and sisters. Totally freakin' awesome if you ask me.

Jesus told his disciples that they would do even greater works than he had done if they showed a little faith (see John 14:12). I am so thrilled to belong to a family of people who are making a material difference in the lives of some very vulnerable folks--simply because it is the decent, loving, and compassionate thing to do. We expect nothing in return. Simple love of humanity put into practice. You can't get more spiritual than that!

Thanks for reading, my friends. Please leave me a comment to let me know you were here. Also, to find out more about Interfaith Hospitality Network, click on www.philashelter.org.

America: God Mend Thine Every Flaw

(Warning: The views expressed in this blog post are those of the author and are not intended to reflect the opinions of his congregation or the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America--although I'll bet a whole bunch of those folks might agree with me!)

We're coming up on Independence Day, so I thought I'd take a moment to salute my native land--a country which got it's official start right here in Philadelphia. Granted, I'm always a bit uncomfortable wrapping the cross of Jesus in the American flag. I don't see the two symbols as being equal in value; however, I will always maintain (and I think Martin Luther would agree with me) that being a devoted Christian first and foremost will always make one a better patriot. Devotion to Christ means a selfless devotion to neighbor and a love of justice, mercy, and charity. Such is the foundation of sound society.

Besides the fireworks (and who doesn't like fireworks?), cook-outs, and parades, an aspect of Independence Day I really dig is the patriotic music. My favorite is that prayerful song "America the Beautiful." I particularly like this line:

           "America, America, may God thy gold refine,

           Til all success be nobleness, and every gain divine."

Last week, with the Supreme Court's decision that the Affordable Care Act is, indeed, constitutional, our nation achieved success for millions of her citizens. I am grateful for the wisdom of Chief Justice Roberts in upholding this legislation which I believe to be both noble and divine in intention.

Okay. I'll be honest. Truth be told, I don't really know that much about the details of the Affordable Care Act. To my understanding, it's twice as long as the Philadelphia phone book and only half as entertaining to read. But here's what I do know:

My sister has cancer.

Her symptoms presented some three to four years ago, but...

Her employer does NOT provide her with health insurance, and her wages are so low that taking the insurance burden on herself would cause even greater financial challenges than she already faces. Subsequently...

She was initially treated at a free clinic, but the clinic did not provide a needed CT scan. My sister was told she would have to have the scan at her own expense.

She could not afford the scan on her own, so the symptoms went largely untreated and the cancer spread to her brain, necessitating a life-saving emergency surgery.

Because of her strained financial circumstances, social workers managed to get the hospital to forgive 80% of her medical debt...

Leaving her liable for the remaining 20% which happens to be THREE TIMES HER ANNUAL SALARY. Therefore...

If she beats her cancer and lives to a ripe old age, she may still be sentenced to a lifetime of debt and/or bad credit.

And so, My Fellow Americans, I ask you, "What would Jesus have us do?" In the wealthiest nation on the globe, situations such as my sister's ought not to exist. This is not even a Conservative v. Progressive issue. It is a matter of human decency. It's a "Do unto others" issue, an issue of mercy and compassion. C'mon, folks. Let's stop this silliness about "mandates" and "death panels" and just do the right thing.

I'll be glad to read your comments. Happy Fourth, everybody.

I Don't Want to Think About It

I'm worried about my sisters.

If you've been following this blog, you'll know that my sister Maryanne has been diagnosed with cancer. Last night I learned that her twin, my sister Lorraine, is living in the path of the Waldo Canyon forest fire which has destroyed half the state of Colorado and forced the evacuation of some thirty-two thousand people. As of this writing, the fire is still burning out of control, which means my sister and her family face the possibility that this monster blaze will devour their home and force them to run for their lives.

Now, Lorraine is nothing if not thorough. She phoned last evening to give a graphic description of the phenomenon: the sky turned black, ash everywhere, the smell of burning wood hanging over the entire town of Colorado Springs, and the air growing increasingly more difficult to breathe. Additionally, she has been documenting this catastrophe on her facebook page, and my wife has been following the fire's progress with great interest and no small amount of anxiety. After about two hours of watching the 24-hour news and weather channels (with growing worry for both Lorraine and my wife's sister in Florida who is being punished beneath the wrath of Tropical Storm Debby), I felt a desperate need to put all manner of disasters out of my head and switch the TV to a rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond.

Sometimes, I just can't deal with my own sense of helplessness.

Maybe that's what's going on in the world of the gospel lesson for this coming Sunday. The reading for the Fifth Sunday After Pentecost is the story of Jesus performing two miraculous healings: a woman who has suffered from hemorrhages for twelve years touches Jesus' cloak and is made well, and Jesus touches the hand of a supposedly dead child and brings her back to life (Mark 5: 21-43). With both healings, Jesus makes himself ritually impure.

I think now I get this "ritually impure" stuff. I mean, who really wants to deal with sickness and death? Like first century Judeans, I often feel the desire to get as far away from the things which cause pain and fear as I possibly can. The ancient Jews wanted to quarantine the bleeding and the dead and the grieving so that honest, God-fearing folks would not be contaminated by their sorrow.

Do you blame them?

But as a pastor, I struggle with knowing how to deal with such passages of scripture. After all, these are stories of miraculous healing brought about by faith. For me, it's just too easy to say, "Have faith and everything will be okay." What if everything isn't okay?

Have faith anyway?

My personal take-away from this gospel lesson is this: Healing and rescue come in God's time, not mine. The woman has bled for twelve years before she finally gets relief. The little girl is believed to have died because Jesus has been delayed coming to her aid. A line from a recent (and really excellent!) movie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel sums up my feelings: "Everything will be all right in the end. So if it's not all right, it is not yet the end."

The other take-away is the example of Jesus, dirtying himself with that which the world does not wish to touch. I guess the job of the Church is to touch and be touched by the things and people who represent pain and fear. Homelessness, poverty, sickness, death. We are called to be in the midst of it. Worrying about my sisters and my sister-in-law may not do them any good, but, perhaps, it is making me just a little more human. I mean, there can't be healing if we are not touched, don't you think?

Thanks for reading, my friends.

(In the interest of honesty, however, I should disclose that Lorraine feels pretty confident that disaster will not befall her family. Interstate Highway 25 lies between her home and the inferno, and there's ample hope that this road will serve as a natural firebreak--although this hope is not a 100% certainty! Please keep her and all the residents of the Colorado Springs area in your prayers.)

Waiting on God and Cancer

This Sunday will be the Feast of Saint John the Baptist. I'm supposed to be writing a stirring homily on this subject to touch the hearts of the faithful and bring them to repentance, but, to be honest with you, I'm having a bit of a hard time concentrating.

It's not easy to be thinking about Zechariah and Elizabeth and the Archangel Gabriel when I know that three thousand miles away my sister is having a PET scan to determine the spread of her cancer. Some weeks ago I blogged about my sister Maryanne's brain tumor. We now know that this tumor is actually a distant metastasis. Today's test will indicate just how aggressive this disease has become.

How do I feel? A big part of me is yet to get my head around the idea that this is as serious as everyone tells me it is. I just can't believe that my sister--my goofy sister who walked me to the store when I was little, who painted scenery for the plays I was in, who went dancing with me--is really this sick.

Another part of me is really, really angry about the inadequate treatment she was given at her local clinic. You see, my sis doesn't make much money so she doesn't have health care insurance. I'm just really outraged that today, in 2012, in the wealthiest nation on the planet, we still have people who refuse to see health care as a basic human right and not a privilege for those who can afford it.

But the outrage doesn't get me anywhere. Just like old Zechariah in Luke's gospel, I find myself mute and questioning and begging God for a sign--even when I have God's promise:

"We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28)

Well, Maryanne certainly loves God if anyone does. So what's good about this situation, huh? Will we see a miracle? Will there be a sign?

My family waits. And we hope. And we pray.

Can Lutherans be Reincarnated?

Okay. I'm not one for living a life of danger. I don't sky dive or bungee jump or race motorcycles. The most dangerous thing I can do is flirt with a little heresy every now and then. So here goes:

Some weeks ago, Carol, a faithful member of my congregation, asked me if I'd be willing to read Dr. Brian L. Weiss' book Many Lives, Many Masters. The book is subtitled, "The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past-Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives." I told Carol I'd be willing to give it a look, and she graciously dropped off a copy at my office. I actually found it rather enjoyable. Dr. Weiss has a smooth writing style, and the book reads like a novel. It does beg the question, "Can a Christian believe in reincarnation?"

To Dr. Weiss' credit, he makes a very compelling argument for the transmigration of souls. I won't detail his evidence here, but if you click on his name (Brian L. Weiss, MD) you can learn all about him and his books. What I personally found most interesting was his assertion that some of the early Christian fathers seemed to believe in the doctrine of reincarnation. Weiss sites Origen, Clement of Alexandria, and Jerome as proponents of past-life experiences.

By the sixth century, however, reincarnation was pretty much denounced as heresy by the Church. This was chiefly because the notion that we gain wisdom and salvation through the accumulated experiences of past lives seems to undercut the fundamental Christian doctrine of total salvation through the atonement of Christ on the cross. As a Lutheran, however, I can't resist mentioning that the Roman Catholic Church's doctrine of purgatory seems to do precisely the same thing. I guess none of those sixth century churchmen noticed that!

If you're interested in the intersection of Christian doctrine and reincarnation, I suggest you take a look at the Reluctant Messenger website. The author does a very thorough job of detailing the evidence linking Christianity to reincarnation as well as  the Church's objections to this belief.

Now here's what your Old Religious Guy thinks:

I felt a tremendous amount of joy and comfort reading Dr. Weiss' book. Whether reincarnation is true or not, we cannot write or discuss the transmigration of the soul unless we first believe in the concept of the soul. What do I mean when I use the word "soul?" I mean that I believe in a personal consciousness which is informed by our physical selves but not bound by our physical reality. Please note, I do not subscribe to the ancient Manichaean heresy that body and soul are separate and opposite elements. I believe in a divine interconnectedness between our consciousness and our bodies; however, I also believe that consciousness--like all energy forces in the universe--can neither be created nor destroyed. It is eternal, and will survive once our material bodies have changed their form.

Did any of that make sense?

In short, I believe in eternity, or, as we say in our Creed, in "the life everlasting." Dr. Weiss' book highlights the very positive reaction people in this life have once they become aware of their eternal selves. So good job, Doc!

Of course, in reading Many Lives, Many Masters, one may become skeptical about exactly what Dr. Weiss' hypnotized patients were really experiencing when they recounted past-life experiences. Do I think the book presents 100% irrefutable evidence for reincarnation? I'm afraid I can't say yes to this. Perhaps the patients were tapping powerful but previously untapped creative potential within their own brains? Or, perhaps they were connecting to the accumulated wisdom of all souls? Maybe they were demonstrating, as John Steinbeck said, that there is "one big soul that ever'body's part of?"

But who the heck am I to judge?

Maybe in some past life I was a Navajo princess or a Lithuanian pig farmer. Who knows? What I know for certain is that in this life I am a Lutheran pastor. Trinitarian Christianity works for me (and that's a subject for a future post). Right now, I owe it to my soul and to the God of All Souls to be the best Lutheran pastor I can be. I'll just have to put the rest of eternity into God's almighty hands and live in the moment in faith, hope, and love.

Thank you so much for reading! I will be on vacation for the next two weeks and will not be posting. Please amuse yourself with some of the past posts you may have missed. As always, I look forward to your comments. God bless!

Healing Cancer

My wife and I were out to dinner last Saturday when my cell phone rang. I plugged my bad ear with a finger so I could hear the news from my brother-in-law over the clanging din of the family restaurant. The words coming through the phone hit me like a right cross to the head: My sister Maryanne had been hospitalized. She was scheduled for surgery the next morning.

She had a brain tumor.

Oh shit.

Brain tumor. Two words that are like the sudden appearance of a stranger with a gun or the unexpected snarl of a rabid animal when there is no place to run or hide. Terrifying words.

I know these words. I've been to this rodeo before. Sixteen years ago I lost a dear friend to a brain tumor. I flashed back to all the memories of that ugly, ungodly disease. The surgery. The recovery. The radiation. The sickness. The confusion. The hopeful good news. The devastating disappointment. The loss of a brilliant personality, disappearing inch by inch. The final, obscene family vigil by the bedside when Death, although inevitable, stubbornly refuses to come. The waiting, refusing to leave even for sleep or meals--suffering because the loved one is suffering. Anguish.

But I calm down. The terror subsides. I realize the fear is so great because of the dearness of the person who is at risk. It's so great to have sisters. Granted, it's been many years since I've seen Maryanne. We live on opposite coasts, and neither of us has a lot of money to spend on air travel to visit each other. Still, I just love to know that she's around--somewhere.

Maryanne is sort of the family eccentric. Back in the 1970's she was a genuine card-carrying Jesus Freak. Her enthusiasms have always been eclectic--modern dance, ice skating, fashion design, classical singing, and even pro wrestling. She's a wife and a mother. A brilliant water color artist, she has also been a professional scenic designer and set-painter with Off Broadway credits to her name. For me, her most defining and endearing characteristic is her humor--a goofball sense of the absurd, expressed in a diction somewhere between P. G. Wodehouse and Eddie Murphy. She is sensitive by nature, and, although she is technically my big sister, I find myself thinking of her as my little sister.

Siblings are precious because they are the only people, I think, who truly know us. Our spouses, our parents, our children, or our adult friends didn't grow up under the same roof, and don't share the same childhood memories. At best, siblings have their own special language and points of reference. And when we lose them, we feel so much more alone.

Fortunately, the news from Maryanne has been pretty positive. Her surgery went well, and most of the tumor has been removed without any impairment to her motor or sensory functions. So far, we are optimistic. Maryanne tells me that she is feeling closer to God now that she has had this traumatic diagnosis. She's thankful her headaches are gone. She tells me she has felt the support of all of those who have been praying for her. She is overwhelmingly grateful to her care-givers--especially her husband and mother-in-law.

And me? I'm feeling closer to my sister these last few days than I have felt in a very long time--and closer to her twin, my sister Lorraine, who is united with me in worry and prayer and love for our sis.

I've been a pastor for a long time now, but I still don't know if there is any kind of adequate pastoral care for a person or family attacked by a life-threatening diagnosis. All I can do is take solace in the little moments of joy and the tiny victories which come in the midst of our troubles. As Saint Paul says,

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you." (1 Thessalonians 5:17-18)

This may not be of much comfort to those who are experiencing similar losses or fears, but it's the best I can do at the moment and under the circumstances. Because, you see, the truth is that none of us can be cured--we all must die from something. We all must face loss. But I want to believe in the soul and in eternity and in righteousness. I want to believe--as I know my sister does--in joy and gratitude and love. I want to be made whole.

That's what the word "heal" means. It comes from the same root as "whole"--free from grief, troubles, and evil. And such is the ground of faith, this is the belief which keeps me going: we are  all incurable, but no one is un-healable.

Thanks for reading, my friend. Keep us in your prayers.

"What is to Prevent Me From Being Baptized?"

"As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, 'Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?'"
                                                                            Acts 8:36

The above question comes from a story in the eighth chapter of Acts (Acts 8:26-40) which was the assigned first reading for the Fifth Sunday of Easter. It's a great story: Phillip, a follower of Jesus Christ, has left Jerusalem and is sort of wandering around the middle east at the direction of the Holy Spirit. In his journey, he encounters an Ethiopian eunuch. The eunuch is a real big shot--he's Secretary of the Treasury and a pretty important guy. He's got his own chariot and driver, and he's sitting by the road reading from the prophet Isaiah.

No two people in the ancient world could be more different than Phillip and this stranger (alas, unnamed in the bible). One is a wandering Jewish peasant, the other a high official from sub-Saharan Africa. They are of different races, social classes, cultures, and (need I mention it?) sexuality. And yet, this unlikely pair become comrades on the road, united by a love of God and holy literature. Phillip's desire to share his relationship with Jesus transcends the barriers that would, within the culture of the day, keep these two men at arms' length. And this is what the church--at her best--should really be about: loving acceptance and reconciliation. This is a picture of the radical hospitality which  characterizes the Kingdom of God.

When the eunuch asks "What is to prevent me from being baptized?" he's not just asking a rhetorical question. This fellow has come to Jerusalem to worship. Although it is not said so explicitly in the text, the original readers of Acts would have known that the eunuch would have been prevented from full participation in the Jewish assembly precisely because he was a eunuch (see Deuteronomy 23:1). Despite this man's achievements and social position, he is looked down upon as a sexual freak and an abomination by people outside of his culture. But in Jesus, there are no barriers. There is nothing to prevent this man from being a loved part of the community of fellow believers.

Recently, a member of my parish whom I'll call "Laura" (because that's her name), had a conversation with a twenty-seven year old man in her ceramics class. They were talking about godparents (or "baptismal sponsors" if you will). The young man lamented that he had no godparents because he had never been baptized. He told Laura that he really wanted to go deeper into his faith, and that he wanted to be baptized. Seizing the moment, Laura volunteered her pastor (that would be me) and her congregation as vehicles to welcome this young seeker sacramentally into the Christian faith.

I should mention that the young ceramic artist is a partnered gay man. Regretably, there are still some Christian communities which would take issue with individuals over the the matter of sexual orientation. I think the 2009 (and still ongoing in some places) upheaval in my own denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, over questions of human sexuality and inclusivity is evidence of this very point. To me, however, the story of Phillip and the eunuch illustrates that the grace of Jesus supersedes the purity codes of Hebrew Scripture. We are called to be welcoming to all, for in Christ there are no distinctions.

" I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd."
                                                                               John 10:16

Thanks for reading, my friends. Please drop me a note if you're able.