An Open Letter to Mari-beth

Dear Mari-beth,

I am so sorry to learn of the death from cancer of your friend Beth. You said on facebook that Beth was a wife and a mom, and that you "can't understand why God would be taking her away."

That "why" is an awful tough question. It goes to the heart of our human-ness. Why do we have to lose people we love? Why do we have to die? Our ability to ask this "why" is what makes us human beings. Strange, isn't it, that we'd often rather deal with anything else in the world but this awesome question.

I was thinking about you and Beth and this "why" as I was looking at the gospel lesson for 17 Pentecost:

"...he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, 'The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.' But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him." (Matthew 9:31-32)

Yup. They didn't understand that he had to die, and they were afraid of the very question.

Remember in school when the teachers used to say, "The only silly question is the one you don't ask?" And yet, as kids, we sometimes failed to ask the important question because asking might make us look stupid. We thought we had more to lose by the act of questioning than we had to gain by actually knowing the answer. Now, as adults, we do the same thing. We don't ask "Why did Jesus have to die?" or "Why do I have to die?" "Why does the person I care for so much have to die?"

What I love about this bible story is that Jesus' disciples are so desperately avoiding the questions of death and immortality that they focus instead on a vain and trivial argument over their own self worth (Matt. 9:33-34). Maybe the question of death scares them so much that, in defense, they have to start boasting about their own accomplishments in order to make themselves feel less helpless.

I think the reason why important questions about God, life, and suffering go unasked is because we fear that the answers--or the very lack of answers--will lead us to unbelief. We fear we'll have to toss away a comforting Sunday School faith. We fear betraying the beliefs of our ancestors. We fear we'll lose the warmth of the baby Jesus in his mother's arms and the sweet glow of a sunny Easter morning. In short, we fear losing a part of ourselves should we reach into the black hole of such questions and come up empty handed.

But you, MB, aren't afraid to ask--in fact, you even ask  on facebook!

So I offer you the same--probably inadequate--answer I always give. We hurt because we can never say "I love you" without risking loss. Life and people are precious because they are, in this realm at least, perishable commodities. We could avoid pain if we just didn't care about anyone, but that would be a very empty existence.

You'll miss Beth, but you will never forget her courage in the face of sickness. You'll worry about her husband and children, but you'll acknowledge that they will have a much different and much deeper relationship now--even if that relationship is forged in grief. You'll be angry about the unfairness of it all, but you'll be more compassionate and more aware, too.

For me, I take solace in the notion that the God who is our very existence is not just jerking us around, but is giving us constant opportunities to choose love.

Thanks for putting it all out there, MB. Please know that Marilyn and I, as well as your whole Faith family, will keep you in our prayers as you miss your friend.

"Iconic?"

Iconic. I seem to be hearing that word a lot in the media lately. I guess it's the new favorite expression. Michael Jackson is referred to as a pop icon. Commentators on the Republican National Convention call Clint Eastwood an iconic figure. Hucksters on home shopping television dub NFL logos iconic. Even the illustrious Oprah Winfrey has self-applied the term, claiming her popular TV talk show contained "those iconic moments."

But what does the word mean? The New World Dictionary defines an icon as "an image, figure, or representation," and, secondarily, notes its ecclesiastical usage as "an image or picture of Jesus, Mary, a saint, etc. venerated as sacred."

Venerated as sacred. You see, that's the part that gets me. By this definition, THIS would be an icon:

THIS, in contrast, is NOT an icon:

Why? Because dear old Clint, however much we may enjoy his movies and recognize him as a favorite, is not to be venerated as sacred.

Now, I might just be letting my middle-aged grumpiness get the better of me, but I'm starting to resent how the words "icon" or "iconic" have morphed from their original theological meaning into secular usage. If we consider Clint Eastwood, Oprah Winfrey, and the NFL to be icons, what does that say about us as a society? What do these images represent for us? What are we venerating as sacred? Are we saying that we now find holiness in machismo, fame, and material success? There is, you know, another old-fashioned theological term for such veneration:

IDOLATRY



Let me just say that I have no problem with the English language evolving, but my old-fashioned heart yearns for clarity. The British playwright Tom Stoppard said it like this, "Words are innocent. Neutral. Standing for this. Meaning that. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can build a bridge across incomprehension." I like that. So I ask you: Can we please restrict this one word to its original ecclesiastic usage? There are plenty of excellent words in our language for Clint, Oprah, and the NFL. I'd like to suggest "classic," "emblematic," "evocative," or even "quintessential."

But I would prefer it if we reserved "icon" and "iconic" for those images which lead us beyond ourselves and our own sense of frivolous vanity. Let the words be used for images which lead us to sacrificial love, faith in God, admiration for goodness, and belief in eternity.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading!

"Lord, to Whom Shall We Go?" (Reflections on Pentecost 13)

"Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them."
                                                                                             John 6: 56

So reads the opening phrase of the gospel lesson assigned by our Revised Common Lectionary for the 13th Sunday after Pentecost. For us  post-modern folk as well as for the turn-of-the-first-century audience for whom this was written, "This teaching is difficult; who can accept it? (Jn. 6:60)"

The Greek word translated here as "difficult" is skleros. According to Zerwick's Grammatical Analysis of the New Testament (1993), it can mean "hard to take" or "unacceptable." According to the German Bible Society's Greek Dictionary (and you know how smart those German guys are!), the word can also mean harsh or terrible. Basically, John's characters are telling Jesus that this flesh-eating, blood-drinking thing is offensive to them.

Granted, it sounds a little creepy to most of us, too. So how do we interpret this text? I can always take the academic coward's way our by pointing out that, according to the really smart fellas of the Jesus Seminar (and I don't know why there weren't any women in their little club), Jesus probably never said  anything at all like this. John's gospel was composed almost seventy years after the time of Jesus and seems to be prone to a little improvisation.

So, I hear you ask, if Jesus didn't say it, why is it in the Bible? Good question. Here's my best guess: By the time John was writing his gospel, everyone in the Christian community knew about the sacrament we call Holy Communion. But only those who were really in fellowship with the Christian community actively participated. Remember: at this time Christianity was officially an outlaw religion in the Roman Empire. Those who committed themselves to the faith risked being ostracized from their society, and, possibly, risked imprisonment or death. The ones who actively received the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament were the ones who had made a life-altering choice to be followers of Jesus.

The Judeans depicted in the sixth chapter of John take "bread" and "flesh" very literally. John's Jesus, however, uses the meal commemorating his physical sacrifice on the cross as a reflection of spiritual food. Jesus has provided a nourishment for this little group that no one else could. He's given them love for each other, faith in eternity, and courage. Those who who receive this spiritual food abide in Jesus and he abides in them.

John loves this word, "abide." It means, literally, "to pitch a tent with." That is, those who abide with Jesus are as intimate with his teachings, suffering, and resurrection as they are with the people who live under their roof. They live in the constant presence of Jesus, and everything they do is informed by sacrificial love (both God's sacrifice and our own willingness to give to each other), and the empty tomb promise of eternal life. Which, come to think of it, are not bad things to live with!

+     +     +     +

 

I kind of like the fact that the RCL has paired this gospel lesson with a reading from Joshua 24 in which Joshua, the successor to Moses who has led the people of Israel in victorious conquest of the Promised Land, confronts the nation and asks them to "choose this day whom you will serve (Josh 24:15)." He then rattles off a list of local tribal gods (folks in that time had not yet figured out that there is only One God). Both of these lessons sound a call for commitment. Personally, I often think the difference between those who claim to be "spiritual" but not "religious" is a simple unwillingness to commit.

 

But if we are not committed, not willing to abide with the God of sacrifice and resurrection, to what god do we commit ourselves? In what deity do we abide? In John's text, Simon Peter asks Jesus, "Lord, to whom shall we go?"

 

There are tons of tribal gods upon which we can rest our allegiance, but which has the words of eternal life? Do we abide in...

      ...our wealth and security? Great, until the economy tanks or we fall ill.

     ....our government or our free market? Please..!

     ...our job? Wonderful, until we're laid off or we retire.

     ....our intelligence? Until we make that stupid decision or until Alzheimer's strikes!

     ...our local sports teams? Not in Philly this year!

     ...the goodness of human nature? Only until a maniac opens fire in a movie theater in Colorado or a junkie in New Jersey decapitates her two-year-old child.

 

No. An old country/gospel song puts it like this:

          Living below in this old sinful world

Hardly a comfort can afford,

Striving alone to face temptation so...

Where could I go but to the Lord?

 

Where could I go? Oh, where could I go?

Seeking the refuge for my soul.

Needing a friend to save me in the end,

Where could I go but to the Lord?

(J.B. Coats)

 

Lord, to whom shall we go?

 

 

Thanks for stopping by, my friends.

Confessions of an Amoeba

"We're like Fort Apache," Wayne said. "They got us surrounded!"

Wayne is a faithful member of my congregation and a volunteer sexton. He and I often chew the fat over the future of our tiny little Lutheran parish--an island of Reformation theology adrift in a vast Roman sea. Faith Lutheran Church of Northeast Philadelphia is actually surrounded by six enormous Roman Catholic parishes, each claiming about nine thousand families. Additionally, we fall in the catchment area of at least two non-denominational evangelical mega-churches.

If the power and glory of Rome and the splash and flash of the megas isn't enough to pound us into insignificance, we have to deal with a rather unfortunate physical location. In a masterpiece of miscalculation, our founders placed us on a one-way street barricaded by a freeway and Interstate 95. We sit in full view of pretty much nothing at all, making our property an ideal location for drug deals, trash dumping, vandalism, and other assorted pestilence which plague the urban parish.

Now don't get me wrong. I love my parish, but I'll be the first to admit that the architecture--if you could call it that!--is a nightmare mixture of lousy fung shui and ghastly aesthetics. The upside is that the building is paid for, it costs relatively little to heat and cool, and it looks pretty full when you get about sixty people or so inside it (Our average Sunday worship attendance is in the low 90's). So, overall, I'd have to say that God has been very good to us. After fifty-two years, we've still kept the doors open. There are still kids in our Sunday School, and we still do the best we can.

Recently, our local non-denom mega-church, the Bethel Church of Franklin Mills, invited me to attend the Global Leadership Summit. This was a two-day satellite feed conference presented by Bill Hybel's Willow Creek Community Church outside of Chicago. I really enjoyed the summit, and I consider it one of the few continuing education events I've attended from which I actually learned something. However, being in the Bethel Church, a converted movie theatre with hundreds of seats which worships over 1,100 people each weekend, and watching the feed from the 7,000+ seat Willow Creek Church, gave me a bit of an inferiority complex. Who was I and how significant was my ministry compared to the fabulous success of these titans of the faith? I was but a pitiful amoeba, lost in the shadow of these behemoths of ecclesiastic grandeur.

Fortunately, Rob Tarnoviski, the senior pastor at Bethel Church and a very gracious host, reminded me, "We're not trying to build congregations, Owen. We're trying to build the Kingdom of God."

Okay. Good point.

Shortly thereafter, Cindie, a member of my parish and one of the cheeriest little Lutheran ladies one is likely to encounter, told me a story about a recent visit she had made to a new couple in our congregation. Jason and Doug live in South Philly, but they commute all the way up to the Northeast every Sunday to worship with us. Jason's brother, Cindie tells me, worships with a non-denominational mega-church and can't understand why Jason makes the journey to our tiny Lutheran parish. The brother boasts that his church is filled with hundreds of people, has a team of pastors leading small groups, a terrific and professional praise band, and three giant projection screens which make everyone feel part of the service.

To which Jason replied, "But my pastor knows my name."

Well said, my friend. Jason reminds me that even though some people will crave the excitement and energy of the mega-church (or perhaps the anonymity, too), there will always be those who will yearn for the family feeling only the small parish can provide. I think of Mother Teresa's quote: "We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less fat without that missing drop."

I will never be a Bill Hybels or a Joel Osteen or a T.D. Jakes. But then, I am not called to be. I remind myself that what I am doing is what God has intended me to do. Where I serve is where God intends me to serve. And who I am--to the best of my sinful ability--is who God intends me to be.

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

"I Am the Bread of Life" (Reflections on Pentecost 11)

I dread it every three years when it comes around in the Revised Common Lectionary--that freakin' "Bread of Life" summer!I don't know what the folks who devised our Lectionary were thinking, but every third summer, in Cycle B, there are six--yes, SIX!--Sundays in a row when the gospel lesson focuses on Jesus as the Bread of Life. That's always a good time for either the pastor or the congregation to go on vacation. I mean, just how much can I think of to say about bread?

"I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." (John 6:51)

To non-Christians, the response to the above quotation might be, "Yech! Sounds like cannibalism!"And I have to confess that for some Christians, asleep in the pew, the question of what it means to eat the flesh of Jesus might not be something we really ponder. So I wrestle with the question of, "Why would you want to do something which sounds so disgusting?"

Glad you asked. Some years ago I stumbled upon a wonderful book titled Rabbi Jesus: The Jewish Life and Teachings That Inspired Christianity by Bruce Chilton (Doubleday, 2000). I recommend it highly. Professor Chilton made me look at the sacrament of Holy Communion in a new way.

He begins by describing Jewish ritual sacrifice at the time of Jesus. Animals were brought to the Temple of Jerusalem, their throats were cut, and their blood was splashed against the burning hot metal altar. Then, the flesh of the animal was thrown onto the fire. The sputtering steam of the blood and the smoke from the animal's body were seen to ascend--symbolically to God on high. To offer sacrifice in this way to atone for one's sins was one of the holiest things a Jewish man could do.

Unfortunately, not all men--and no women--were permitted to enter the inner court of the temple to participate in this ritual. Gentiles were forbidden, as were those deemed to be ritually unclean. Jesus himself, because of his questionable parentage, would not have been permitted full participation in the sacrifice of the body and the blood.

Mary and Joseph were not married when Jesus was conceived. Prof. Chilton notes that any question about who Jesus' father might be would automatically classify Jesus as a mamzer--one who could not be assumed to be 100% Jewish. Such a designation would have put Jesus on the margins of society.

So what does Jesus do? He institutes his own holy practice. He eats ritual meals from which no one is excluded. He eats with those who are deemed to be ritually impure: tax collectors, prostitutes, sinners of every kind. His followers will even share this meal with gentiles. Those forbidden to touch the body and the blood of the sacrificial animal in the temple will not only touch but eat Jesus' body and drink of Jesus' blood. And Jesus, by his death, will be the sacrifice for all.

What more intimate and necessary thing can we do than share our food? Think about it: you don't even have to know a stranger's language in order to offer him or her something to eat. In Near Eastern culture, to share food was to create family. If you eat of my bread, you become one of my household.

As a pastor, I love to preside at Holy Communion. I need to share the common hunger we all feel--for forgiveness, for wholeness, for community. And I need to ingest the man who loves with his whole body and soul and whose love knows no distinction of persons--young or old, married, single, divorced, re-married, gay, straight, black, white, rich, poor, conservative, liberal. All human. All God's family.

If you come to my congregation some Sunday, we'll welcome you to our table. We simply can't let you be a guest in our home without feeding you.

God bless you, my friends!

If God Is Good, Why Is There Evil?

 My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of the shooting rampage in Aurora, Colorado on July 19th. My family lived in Aurora when I was about a year old or so. In fact, I was actually baptized at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in that town. Although I don't remember Aurora--we moved when I was still quite small--I feel a sympathy for the place and for those who have suffered there.

I wonder if there's anyone out there who is asking, "If God is good, how could he let something so terrible as this happen?" Truly, moments of such horror, placed right on our doorstep, challenge our whole belief system.

For my part, however, I rest in the belief that God did not cause this tragedy--a disturbed young man did.

Yet now you ask me, "But, Pastor Owen, why would God let this happen?"

Here's my best answer: I still believe that God is good--and good all the time. As the scripture says, "God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good." (Genesis 1:31a) God is not the author of evil; nevertheless, we are always faced with the problem that nothing can exist without its opposite. Because we have light, we understand that there is darkness. Because there is sound, we apprehend the concept of silence. So if we believe in real goodness, we must accept that there may be some things which are not good. Indeed, if we are truly free to experience love, charity, mercy, pity, friendship, and all of the things which make us most human, we must accept that these things can only be genuine in our hearts because we also have the capacity to deny them. In order to make love real, we are born with the ability to chose hatred, indifference, selfishness, violence, and all which degrades the human spirit. And to be born into a world where such a choice exits is to be born into a very dangerous place. Just as to be born on a beach means we will forever encounter sand, to be born human means we will never be out of contact with evil.

So where was God on the night of July 19th in Aurora, Colorado?

God was present in the heroic acts of love expressed by those who refused to leave wounded friends and children--in those who shielded others with their own bodies. In acts of life-giving sacrifice which echoed the sacrifice of our Lord on the cross.

God was present in the compassion of first responders and emergency room teams who have dedicated their lives to the protection of complete strangers.

God was present--and is present still--in the compassionate embrace of a community and a nation praying for and loving the victims of this tragedy.

And, sadly, God is present in the love experienced through grief. And God does not cease to be good even when our circumstances keep us from seeing the goodness.

God will be present in the challenges which lie before the members of this community as the victims recover and try to reclaim their lives. There will be much need for love, patience, empathy, and courage. There will also, I hope, be found the need for that most divine of attributes, forgiveness.

I can't bring myself to hate James Holmes or wish for his execution. I don't know what kind of demons have laid claim to his mind--a mind which might otherwise have been a benefit to his fellow human beings. I only pray that such violent demons do not claim my mind. I pray only for mercy and healing for this community, and the peace which passes understanding.

Thanks for reading, my friends. As always, I'm interested to learn your thoughts.

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.