Faith and Social Justice
Featuring Cornel West, Serene Jones & Gary Dorrien
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Cornel West, emergent church, faith, Gary Dorrien, progressive, Serene Jones, social justice | Leave a Comment »
“How do you love America? Don’t say,
“My country, right or wrong.” That’s
like saying, “My grandmother, drunk or
sober”; it doesn’t get you anywhere.
Don’t just salute the flag, and don’t
burn it either. Wash it. Make it
clean. How do you love America? With
the vision and compassion of Christ,
with a transcendent ethic that alone
can fulfill ‘the patrit’s dream that
sees beyond the years, her alabaster
cities gleam undimmed by human tears’
(Katharine Lee Bates). ‘Behold, I make
all things new’, says the Lord. Our
revolutionary forebears seemed to
understand that. They didn’t bestire
themselves to salvage the past. Their
political debate pitted one kind of
future against another kind of future.
They knew people were supposed to die
to an old order and not with the old
order. How ironic that their
descendents should today be crushed by
ancient outmoded structures because we
prefer to be victims than to be
rebels! How ironic that the
descendents of Thomas Jefferson should
make like George III! How ironic that
there’s hardly a youth in the land as
radical adn as reasonable as was Ben
Franklin in his eighties!”
-WSC”How do you love America? Don’t say,
“My country, right or wrong.” That’s
like saying, “My grandmother, drunk or
sober”; it doesn’t get you anywhere.
Don’t just salute the flag, and don’t
burn it either. Wash it. Make it
clean. How do you love America? With
the vision and compassion of Christ,
with a transcendent ethic that alone
can fulfill ‘the patrit’s dream that
sees beyond the years, her alabaster
cities gleam undimmed by human tears’
(Katharine Lee Bates). ‘Behold, I make
all things new’, says the Lord. Our
revolutionary forebears seemed to
understand that. They didn’t bestire
themselves to salvage the past. Their
political debate pitted one kind of
future against another kind of future.
They knew people were supposed to die
to an old order and not with the old
order. How ironic that their
descendents should today be crushed by
ancient outmoded structures because we
prefer to be victims than to be
rebels! How ironic that the
descendents of Thomas Jefferson should
make like George III! How ironic that
there’s hardly a youth in the land as
radical adn as reasonable as was Ben
Franklin in his eighties!”
-WSC”How do you love America? Don’t say,
“My country, right or wrong.” That’s
like saying, “My grandmother, drunk or
sober”; it doesn’t get you anywhere.
Don’t just salute the flag, and don’t
burn it either. Wash it. Make it
clean. How do you love America? With
the vision and compassion of Christ,
with a transcendent ethic that alone
can fulfill ‘the patrit’s dream that
sees beyond the years, her alabaster
cities gleam undimmed by human tears’
(Katharine Lee Bates). ‘Behold, I make
all things new’, says the Lord. Our
revolutionary forebears seemed to
understand that. They didn’t bestire
themselves to salvage the past. Their
political debate pitted one kind of
future against another kind of future.
They knew people were supposed to die
to an old order and not with the old
order. How ironic that their
descendents should today be crushed by
ancient outmoded structures because we
prefer to be victims than to be
rebels! How ironic that the
descendents of Thomas Jefferson should
make like George III! How ironic that
there’s hardly a youth in the land as
radical adn as reasonable as was Ben
Franklin in his eighties!”
-WSC
“There are three kinds of patriots, two bad, one good. The bad ones are the uncritical lovers and the loveless critics. Good patriots carry on a lover’s quarrel with their country, a reflection of God’s lover’s quarrel with the world.” -William Sloane Coffin
“How do you love America? Don’t say, ‘My country, right or wrong.’ That’s like saying, ‘My grandmother, drunk or sober’; it doesn’t get you anywhere. Don’t just salute the flag, and don’t burn it either. Wash it. Make it clean. How do you love America? With the vision and compassion of Christ, with a transcendent ethic that alone can fulfill ‘the patriot’s dream that sees beyond the years, her alabaster cities gleam undimmed by human tears’ (Katherine Lee Bates). -William Sloane Coffin
“I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” -James Baldwin
“The love of one’s country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?” -Pablo Casals
O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern impassion’d stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America! God mend thine ev’ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
-‘America, the Beautiful’, by Katherine Lee Bates
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged America, America the Beautiful, Christianity, God, Independence Day, Inter-dependence Day, James Baldwin, Katherine Lee Bates, Nationalism, Pablo Casals, Patriotism, United States, William Sloane Coffin | 2 Comments »
Just when I thought it wasn’t possible to wrap the American flag around the cross any more than we already have, I just heard about the brand-new American Patriot’s Bible. It pretty much made me want to puke right away. Here is the publisher’s description: “THE ONE BIBLE THAT SHOWS HOW ‘A LIGHT FROM ABOVE’ SHAPED OUR NATION. Never has a version of the Bible targeted the spiritual needs of those who love our country more than The American Patriot’s Bible. This extremely unique Bible shows how the history of the United States connects the people and events of the Bible to our lives in a modern world. The story of the United States is wonderfully woven into the teachings of the Bible and includes a beautiful full-color family record section, memorable images from our nation’s history and hundreds of enlightening articles which complement the New King James Version Bible text.”
This must include quite a selective reading of US history. While there are many wonderful achievements that we can be proud of, we also have to remember that there’s an awful lot of repentance that still yet needs to be done. As long as we continue to candy-coat our nation’s history, we continue to jeapordize not only our moral integrity but also our future. As Brian McLaren recently commented: “When we in the US flatter ourselves with a mythologized national identity — seeing ourselves as the Chosen Nation, as Nature’s Nation, as a Christian Nation, as a Millennial Nation, and as an Innocent Nation — we make it more likely not only that we will behave unjustly, but that we will be ignorant and un-self-aware as we do so…When people tell me that we are or have been a Christian nation, I want to ask, ‘When?’ Was it in the colonial era or during westward expansion, when we began stealing the lands of the Native Americans, making and breaking treaties, killing wantonly, and justifying our actions by the Bible? Was it in the era of slavery or segregation, when again, we used the Bible to justify the unjustifiable? Was it in more recent history, when we dropped the first nuclear bomb and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, when we overthrew democratically elected governments in the Cold War era, when we plundered the environment without concern for the birds of the air or flowers of the field, or when we sanctioned or turned a blind eye to torture earlier this decade? Was it earlier this week, when I turned on the TV or radio and heard people scapegoating immigrants and gay people and Muslims? … Yes, our founding fathers (and mothers), even those who were Deists and not traditional Christians, drew deeply from their European-Christian history and heritage. Yes, our nation, like every nation has much to be proud of in our heritage, and I’m sure there are elements of Christian virtue to be found in nearly every neighborhood from coast to caost. But no, it would be inaccurate to look at American history and say it consistently and accurately has reflected the ethic of Jesus or even the highest ideals of the Christian religion. I don’t say this to downgrade America, but rather to uphold my belief that the label “Christian” means more than we have understood it to mean … and that in its best sense, a humble, Christian ethic upholds the motto “e pluribus unum” by respecting all people of all religions as neighbors and as equal bearers of the image and love of God. … In fact, I would say that the more we claim America is a Christian nation, the less we uphold the highest ideals of both authentic Christian faith and authentic American democracy.”
Publications like The American Patriot’s Bible draw me to what Rob Bell and Don Golden wrote about in Jesus Wants to Save Christians: “When the commander in chief of the most powerful armed forces humanity has ever seen quotes the prophet Isaiah from the Bible in celebration of military victory…is this what Isaiah had in mind?” Jesus’ followers are all too often “claiming to be the voice of God, but they are speaking the language of Caesar and using the methods of Rome, and for millions of us it has the stench of Rome.”
Enough already with all the idols!
A nice blog post on all of this (by Greg Boyd) can be found here.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Brian McLaren, Don Golden, Greg Boyd, Idols, Rob Bell, The American Patriot's Bible, United States | 2 Comments »
-a sermon by Emily Bowen-
A Tall Order
17 May 2009
Love one another. Sounds simple enough. Love one another. Reflect on that for a moment. Love one another. Not so simple, huh? I have an ongoing debate in my mind over which side of our human nature will win out. The side that loves or the side that fears? When I look around at the world, when I watch the news, it seems that much more of what we do is motivated by fear and not by love. And yet, LOVE is what Jesus commanded. His commandment clearly says “Love one another as I have loved you.” And something else I remember hearing over and over in the Bible are the words, “Fear not.” But these words of reassurance are being drowned out and love falls away as fear takes over.
Every time I preach, there seems to be a phrase that haunts me throughout the week. This time it was a verse from a hymn has been playing in my head all week, prodding me with its insistence…it is the hymn we will sing for our time of prayer. It begins by painting a picture of what our earth looks like from space, green and brown and blue and white. With mountains and plains, rivers and seas. Without borders that divide nation and race. And yet, despite such a view from the sky, when seen from the ground, from our own perspective, we are inundated with division, rent asunder by our differences. The final verse reflects upon Jesus’ commandment to love each other in a world where love is not the first order. Protecting our own interests is. And we protect our own interests by flying in the face of what Jesus called us to do. We dehumanize those who are not like us. Because by dehumanizing them, we can somehow make it OK to not reach out to them in love, we can make it OK to not follow Jesus’ command when it comes to THOSE people. But the final verse of this hymn challenges us to remember that Jesus did not put conditions on his commandment. He didn’t follow up “Love each other” with “Now here’s a list of those who I’m talking about when I say ‘each other’.” He didn’t qualify love in that way at all. And I’m thinking it’s because he meant for that love to be extended to all, in a vision of a world knit together in wholeness:
Now we face the unknown future, challenged by the work at hand.
Still the God of all creation summons us with one command:
“Love each other!” Will we do it? “Love each other!” Wars might cease!
“Love each other!” Justice follows: “Love each other!” There is peace!”
What is the shape of this love?
When Jesus commands his disciples to love, he expounds on what this love looks like. In its greatest form, it is exemplified in the laying down of one’s life for one’s friends. Here, in this Gospel, friendship for Jesus is the ultimate relationship with God and one another. And yet, friendship seems to be something that has fallen by the wayside in much of theological discussion. Scholar Gail O’Dell observes that this is due to the fact that “we have emptied “friendship” of its classical meaning. In the ancient world friendship was a key social relationship that could define one’s love for intimate companions who are striving for a common good (a life of virtue, or communion with God), as well as one’s obligations to fellow citizens in a small community. Sacrificing one’s life for one’s friends and being completely transparent with them were part of the ideal of friendship. Today we have reduced friendship to relationships of pleasure (“We celebrate our friends, we eat and drink with friends, we take vacations with friends”) or usefulness (“we are there when a friend is in need”).” But this is a mere shadow of the friendship Jesus is offering, a mere shadow of the friendship Jesus is asking us to engage in with him and with one another.
Jesus says “abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” Many of you may be aware that while we tend to just use the word “love” to describe different types of love in our own language, there are number of different words for love in the Greek language, words that capture certain types of love, such as “eros” or “philos” or “agape”. It is this last kind of love which Jesus is talking about in his commandment to the disciples. As one scholar writes, “agape love is love for people who can’t pay a person back. It is like grace, a free gift for others which is undeserved or unearned or unmerited. It is a free gift for those in need.” (Edward Markquart) This clearly is not a love that is concerned with what we are getting in return. It is not a love that is focused on our own advancement. It is a love that is ultimately about the other, the one who is not us.
But does this run with or contrary to human nature? In some ways, it seems as though we are hard wired to single people out as different or not worthy of our time or as objects of our ridicule. It starts when we’re little. There has always been someone who was on the outs, someone who got picked on for being different. Whether they were slow or dressed weird or had a stutter or walked with jerky movements, they became the butt of jokes. I remember when I was in kindergarten, not even five years old, we had a halloween parade at school. I was going to dress as a witch that year. Because the parade was at the end of the day, when my mom would not be there to help me get ready, she went ahead and did my make-up before I went to school. So that day I proudly boarded the bus wearing my normal school clothes while sporting a green face. Something interesting happened when I got to school. No one would play with me. The fact that my skin was green, an unusual skin color in Troy, Michigan, was enough to scare away those who had always played with me before. I was suddenly different and apparently, that meant something not good to my classmates. It was a very sad day leading up to that costume parade. Of course, once we put on the costumes, my difference from everyone else melted away and I was no longer the outsider, so my ostracization didn’t last. And it was lucky for me in my remaining time at Waddles Elementary School that my green skin washed off that night.
So yes, there is definitely an impulse towards fear in our human nature. But I have also borne witness to the impulse towards love. In 2001, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ held their General Assembly and General Synod together in Kansas City, MO. My roommate was getting married that same weekend, so I went to General Assembly/Synod late, but I heard a remarkable story from the youth I went to chaperone from the Indiana-Kentucky Conference. Perhaps many of you are familiar with Fred Phelps and Westboro Baptist Church out of Topeka, KS. This church, comprised mostly of Fred Phelps and his family members, has been monitored as a hate group. Their main focus is on homosexuality, upon which they blame every evil in society. They consider every hardship that has befallen the American people as retribution for growing tolerance of those who are gay and lesbian. They have even taken their protests to the funerals of fallen soldiers, which led President Bush to sign into law the Respect for America’s Fallen Heroes Act in May of 2006 and Kansas Governor Kathleen Sibelius to follow suit in April of 2007 by signing into a law a bill establishing a 150-foot no-picketing buffer zone around funerals. Christians of virtually every denomination have denounced Fred Phelps as a producer of anti-gay propaganda and violence-inspiring hate speech. Well, back in 2001, they felt that the DOC and the UCC were worthy targets of their protest, and so they set up camp across the street from the convention center, holding up their signs of hate. My youth were eager to tell me of their encounter with them. As people walked into the convention center, they couldn’t help but notice the awful signs and the shouts that were being hurled at them, and some just weren’t going to stand for it. Slowly, but surely, voices of those from our denominations joined together singing, “We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord, we are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord, and we pray that all unity may one day be restored. And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” Hand in hand, louder and louder the chorus grew, until the voices of love overpowered the voices of hate. It was a moment when the members of our denominations answered Jesus’ commandment and chose love.
Philip Yancy in his book What’s So Amazing about Grace?writes about a definition of love that Mother Teresa gave at a National Prayer Breakfast “… Rolled out in a wheelchair, the frail, eighty-three-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate needed help to stand up. A special platform had been positioned to allow her to see over the podium. Even so, hunched over, four-feet-six-inches tall, she could barely reach the microphone. She spoke clearly and slowly with a thick accent in a voice that nonetheless managed to fill the auditorium. Mother Teresa said that America has become a selfish nation, in danger of losing the proper meaning of love: “giving until it hurts.”” [p. 244]
Yancy continues, “I had never heard love defined like that before. We talk about love as the warm feelings inside when we are with a special person – or even thinking about that person…We talk about loving a car or some other object, meaning that we really like it, or really want it, or we spend all our extra time working on it. We often think of love as getting or having . It is a feeling I have or want to get. It is a person I get. It is an object I have or want to get. However, Mother Teresa says that love is giving – giving until it hurts. That’s what Jesus does. In fact, he not only gives until it hurts; he will continue giving until he dies. That’s how much pain he will suffer on behalf of those he loves. That’s also the lifestyle that Mother Teresa lived.”
So what is the lifestyle we live? Too often it seems like our lifestyle is loving to get, not loving to give. Which brings me back to that debate I have so often in my head. Which side of our human nature will win out? Which is stronger, the impulse to fear or the impulse to love? At times it really seems like the impulse to fear is stronger, but then, maybe that’s why Jesus gave us the commandment to love. Because I don’t think Jesus was about taking the easy way out. His commandment is a tall order and Jesus knew that. But the mere fact that he gave it as a commandment means he must have also known that it was possible. That we do have it within ourselves to banish fear and choose love. That despite evidence to the contrary, our human nature can incline itself toward love. The way may not be easy, but that does not mean it is impossible. Jesus calls us friends. So let us place our faith in him and respond to his command: Love one another.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Fred Phelps, Gail O'Dell, GLBTQ, Homiletics, Kathleen Sibelius, Love, Mother Teresa, Philip Yancey, United Church of Christ, worship | Leave a Comment »
Our world has become so full of posts- (postmodern, post-evangelical, post-colonial, post-denominational, post-structural, etc. etc. etc.) that I often find myself agreeing with Phyllis Tickle: we know where we’ve been, but we have no idea where we’re going! As tired as I am of all these posts- (they might have meant something more had they not become so fashionable and trendy), the emergent conversation appears to be experiencing a post of its own, and it’s increasingly difficult to avoid.
Over the past few years, conversations on the emerging church have shifted from the periphery of North American church culture to the point of occupying a significant—if not substantial—place within it. Very few ecclesial structures, whether evangelical or mainline, have remained wholly unaffected by the emergent conversation, so much so that the popular vernacular being used to describe the emerging church is shifting. Instead of tirelessly trying to define what constitutes “The Emerging Church,” participants are becoming much more interested in describing its effect. In other words, the emphasis isn’t placed nearly as much on questions like “What is the Emerging Church?” as it is on questions like “What kind of emergence is currently taking place?” There is a recognition that the emerging conversation—or should we say the great emergence?—isn’t a separate movement unto itself, but is part of a larger cultural shift affecting North American Christianity as a whole. It seems that the emergent movement—if such a thing even exists—isn’t some entity ‘out there,’ but is part and parcel of the shifts occuring within the broader context of North American Christianity. If emergent is sooooo yesterday, as we’re led to believe, perhaps a postmergent perspective is in order?
On the one hand, I’m quite pleased that the mainline denominations which I love so much have finally engaged the emergent conversation. Yet it also makes me worried. After all, one of the best traits of the emergent movement has been its ‘deconstruction’ of established church culture, and its prophetic role has offered necessary challenges to ecclesial structures. So I wonder: If the emergence is finding its place within established church culture and ecclesial structures, will that lead it to lose its prophetic edge? If so, I believe that one of the most important elements of the oh-so-yesterday emergent conversation will be lost. As Peter Rollins reminded listeners at Greenbelt ’08, one of the most effective ways that the institutional church found to silence St. Francis’ protest was to give him a place within it.
For me, the question is this: How do we welcome the great emergence without losing emergent’s prophetic role?
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged church emerging, emergence, emergent, emergent church, emerging, emerging church, Greenbelt, Peter Rollins, Phyllis Tickle, postmergent, postmodern, progressive, the great emergence | Leave a Comment »
Emily’s sermon from April 26th
Third Sunday of Easter
Luke 24:36-48
One of the things I think about when I think of resurrection is transformation. And when I say transformation, I don’t necessarily mean the transformation of Jesus. I mean more the transformation of ourselves. For when we experience resurrection in our midst, it changes us and we are never the same. Over the past week or so, a number of my facebook friends have posted a link to a popular video that has taken youtube by storm. It is a clip from the show Britain’s Got Talent (which is where our show America’s Got Talent comes from). To give you an idea of how popular this clip was, I noticed that just one of the videos featuring this moment had close to 50 million views! Anyway, this clip features a woman from Scotland by the name of Susan Boyle. Susan is not what you would call a beauty. In fact, she is rather plain looking, if not homely. She is forty seven years old, has dark, full eyebrows, mousy grey hair, a double chin and a shapeless figure. The dress she wears hardly stands out from her skin tone and does nothing to give an illusion of curves. Backstage, she tells the men who are interviewing her that she’s always wanted to perform in front of a large audience and she’s going to make that audience rock. She then struts out onto the stage, ready to wow the audience. But it is clear from the moment they see her that the audience is prepared to be anything BUT wowed. When one of the judges asks her age, he sighs and rolls his eyes at her response. Clearly he thinks that a woman of forty-seven is fooling herself, thinking she can get anywhere singing on Britain’s Got Talent. When asked, “What’s the dream?” she answers, “I’d like to be a professional singer.” The camera pans to a young woman in the audience who rolls her eyes derisively and sniggers. When Susan expands on her dream, saying she’d like to be as successful as Elaine Paige, more and more members of the audience show their disdain for this woman who wants nothing more than the chance to sing for them. The expectations in the room are set low and the audience is ready to jeer. Susan turns to the stage manager and gives a thumbs up for him to start the instrumental track. By the end of the first sung phrase, after just eight notes, the audience erupts, not in jeers, but in cheers. They can hardly believe their ears as a glorious voice comes out of this unassuming body. Jaws drop, hands clap, smiles break across faces, and tears fill eyes as the shock, and perhaps shame, rolls over the crowd. In one phrase, the hearts of the crowd were transformed and they fully embraced the dream of this humble woman from a village in Scotland. And, as I indicated before, I can’t help but wonder if the exuberance of their acceptance of her was in some way an act of penance for their initial readiness to laugh at her. They judged her on worldly standards of what a star should look like. They lowered the bar on their expectations based solely on this woman’s appearance, and their assumptions could not have been more wrong. It was a moment of transformation as the expected was turned on its head. The crowd was changed and I’d like to think in some ways, because of the lesson they learned when Susan sang, many of them will never be the same.
Our gospel text for this morning takes place directly after the text we read on Easter Sunday, the story on the road to Emmaus. At the conclusion of that reading, the couple on the road returns to the disciples and tells them of their experience, of how the risen Jesus had been made known to them in the breaking of bread. The story of Emmaus continues to be my favorite resurrection narrative, but as you all know, Phil already preached on it this year, and so I am left with the next part of the story. And there are some things about the continuation of the story that are a bit sticky for many of us. For here we have Jesus appearing among the disciples. Keep in mind that he doesn’t knock or do anything else quite so mundane to signal them to his presence. He just sort of appears out of thin air as they are talking amongst themselves. He then proceeds to prove to them that it is indeed he, the crucified one, who is standing among them. He does a number of things to back up his claim. He asks them look at his hands and his feet. There the marks of crucifixion are clear. He asks them to touch his wounds, making even more real the truth of that event. But notice that this still doesn’t quite do the trick for them. While the disciples begin to experience the glimmers of great joy at the possibility that this could indeed be Jesus, they dare not jump into the water, and prefer instead to still just dip a toe in, checking to see if the water is alright. They, like us, still need some convincing. And so Jesus asks them to give him something to eat, and he then eats some of the broiled fish in front of them. Do you see what he’s doing here? He is once again at table with them, participating in the Eucharist, something he did with them on many occasions. Think back to the stories of the feeding of the multitudes. What did they eat? Bread and fish. And here, in these back to back accounts of Jesus appearing before those who loved him, he breaks bread and eats fish. What a beautiful way to make himself know to them in their midst. Experiencing him doing what he always did. And finally, after Jesus eats the fish, he opens their minds to understand the scriptures and the transformation is complete.
This last part has caused many of us some trouble, because too often we read it as just another example of proof-texting, which I really don’t think Jesus was about, but there it is, right there in print for all to read. However, this week I was enlightened by the insight of one of my professors, Brandon Scott, who says, “Jesus is not appealing to specific texts to prove his messiahship; he is not proof-texting. He is appealing to the pattern of scripture as indicated in the stories of Moses and the prophets. The prophets and the Messiah proclaim God’s word and are always rejected, persecuted, and killed, and still God affirms them. That is the pattern of divine necessity.” It is another one of those over-arching themes of the Bible of which I am so fond of speaking. There are many themes that ark their way throughout scripture, and the mis-treatment of those with prophetic voices is certainly one of those consistent themes. The story of Jesus is further affirmation of that theme. And so the writer of Luke sets the scene for us: seeing Jesus, being with him and seeing the wounds he suffered, eating together, and sharing scripture together, these things combine to open the hearts and minds of the disciples.
There is something important I want to point out in this appearance of Jesus, though. When Jesus tells the disciples to look at him, to see and touch his hands and his feet, he is giving them the opportunity to see and embrace the crucified Christ. This is not feel good, warm fuzzy stuff. This is pain and suffering with the marks to prove it right there in plain sight. This is not Jesus as he was before. This is Jesus in a new form, made stronger in death, but not denying that death, not glossing over it as though it does not have implications for his ministry. For it most certainly does. It sheds new light on all that came before. It opens the minds of the disciples to new understandings of what Jesus said to and modeled for them time and time again. It transforms them.
Barbara Brown Taylor preaches poignantly on the way Jesus draws attention to his hands and his feet. She reflects on the ways in which his hands and feet have been important in his ministry of healing people, breaking bread, and traveling around to share the good news. “[His hands and feet] were wounded now – all of them – the hands that had joined him to other people and the feet that had joined him to the earth. They had holes in them, sore angry-looking bruises that hurt [the disciples] to look at, only it was important for [them] to look, because they had never done it before….He wanted them to know he had gone through the danger and not around it.” As another scholar reflects, the important phrase here is “Through the danger, and not around it. Much of our time and energy is spent on finding a way around things, rather than living through them! We don’t want to experience pain or danger, or even to come face to face with the suffering of other people, or the suffering of the earth. What can we do about all of that? And yet, Taylor says, we bear hope for the world because of that commission Jesus gave the disciples and the whole church long ago: “When that world looks around for the risen Christ, when they want to know what that means, it is us they look at. Not our pretty faces and not our sincere eyes but our hands and feet – what we have done with them and where we have gone with them.”
Resurrection is a strange and wonderful thing. It’s one of those things that is really difficult to wrap our minds around, especially considering the scientific and reason driven context in which we currently live. The idea of a person dying and then coming back to life again is unbelievable. But in fact, that is not really resurrection, that is resuscitation, which is not what we are talking about here. Lazarus coming back to life was resuscitation; Jesus appearing to his disciples is resurrection. The difference is that it is not a corpse coming back to life. Resurrection is Jesus in new form, a form that is not initially recognized by those who see him in their midst. Here, in this story, resurrection is something that is experienced in the community gathered together, breaking bread, sharing a meal, studying scripture, being the body of Christ together.
The resurrection is a transcendent moment. It is the moment when Jesus becomes Christ. It is the moment that makes possible our experiences of the risen Christ in our midst this day and every day. The resurrection reminds us that when it comes to God, things just aren’t the way we expect them to be. God cannot be put in a box. Just when we think we have things figured out, BAM, something happens that shakes us to the core, flipping everything we thought was so on its head, forcing us to re-evaluate, to re-configure, to re-imagine. So I invite you to open yourselves up to the transformation that comes in the wake of resurrection, and re-imagine the world with me.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged resurrection, worship | Leave a Comment »
Not long ago, I was singing along in worship and I suddenly realized the magnitude of the lyrics that were coming out of my mouth. We were singing the song “Jesu, Jesu.” It’s a folk song out of Ghana, one I learned when I was a member of a United Church of Christ congregation a number of years ago. I always thought it was a great song, lifting up the example of Jesus who served his friends by washing their feet, reminding us that all people are our neighbors regardless of race or proximity, calling upon us to serve our neighbors the same way Jesus served his disciples. “Jesu, Jesu, show us how to love, show us how to serve the neighbors we have from you.”
But on this particular Sunday, in a different church, singing out of a different hymnal, I suddenly felt ill at ease. Here are the lines that caught my attention:
“Kneels at the feet of his friends, silently washing their feet,
Master who acts as a slave to them…
Loving puts us on our knees, serving as though we are slaves,
this is the way we should live with you.”
I’m sure I have sung this song a number of times before, but never had that line hit me the way it did on that particular Sunday. We should live as slaves with Jesus? What?! I looked around at the congregation and thought to myself, “How do our brothers and sisters who perhaps have ancestors who were sold or born into slavery feel as they sing these words? What does such a line mean for them?” I tried to justify the words by reminding myself that there is a lot of “slave” language in the Bible, especially in the epistles, reminders that we are to be slaves to Christ, slaves to one another in love. So that’s where the language for “Jesu, Jesu” comes from. But then I started thinking, when I learned this song in my UCC church, did I learn it with the “slave” language? I pulled out my New Century Hymnal and thumbed through the index to find out. Here are the two corresponding verses in the New Century Hymnal:
“Knelt at the feet of his friends, silently washing their feet,
Jesus, you acted as servant to them…
Loving puts us on our knees, showing our faith by our deeds,
serving the neighbors we have from you.”
The version from The New Century Hymnal shows that it’s possible to sing this song in a way that communicates the same idea without using “slave” language. This is a great example of the way that lyrics can be modified in order to preserve—rather than change—the meaning of a song. But why did the other hymnal I sang out of a few weeks ago not take notice of such language? Why did it not strike the hymnal committee (those responsible for putting together all of the hymns) as troublesome?
What is it about the songs that we sing? Why do we still find it acceptable to sing male dominant language for God, all while seeking to use inclusive language in our speaking? Why is it OK for our hymns to be drenched in the language of hierarchy when we preach mutuality? Why doesn’t it bother us that serving as a slave is lifted up as a good thing in our hymn singing when we live in a country still haunted by the institution of slavery and all of its consequences and repercussions?
Language is so loaded. All of us bring our experiences and our baggage to our understandings of words. And while some of the lyrical changes in The New Century Hymnal trip me up, I have to applaud the intentionality with which they did their work in compiling this new hymnal, published in 1995. The hymnal committee took seriously concerns of patriarchy, sexism, racism, and other forms of prejudice and considered how these prejudices are often reinforced in the words we sing. They took a close look at the theology of the hymns we sing and discovered the ways in which our singing theology is often very different from our preaching and practicing theology and worked to compile a hymnal that was more consistent. A clear example of their work is the hymn “Jesu, Jesu, Fill Us with Your Love”. Because of hymns like this, I will keep my New Century Hymnal nearby for those times when we need an alternative vision for the songs we sing, a vision that celebrates God’s call for mutuality and love of neighbor.
*For further information about the thought process behind The New Century Hymnal, go to http://www.ucc.org/assets/pdfs/intro.pdf.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged diversity, emergent, emergent church, feminism, hospitality, hymns, inclusivity, music, mutuality, progressive, racism, worship | 2 Comments »
I’m excited to hear about the upcoming Christianity 21 conference, which features 21 female voices sharing their vision on the future of faith in the 21st century. One of the long-standing knocks on the whole emerging church conversation has been in relationship to its lack of diversity (with few exceptions, it has seemed like its main spokespersons have been straight white males, ala Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, Dan Kimball, etc.). And while I love the work of each of these leaders, I’m really glad to see the public face of the emergent conversation become more diverse in scope, and I know that they are as well. (I say “public face of the emergent conversation” intentionally because, behind the scenes and in the blogosphere, the emergent conversation has long been much more diverse than what first meets the eye.)
It’s no longer possible to pigeon-hole the emerging conversation to just one particular group of folk, for the voices around the table are growing much more diverse. At Christianity 21, for instance (in addition to featuring 21 female voices), there are representatives who are young and old, gay and straight, evangelical and progressive, etc. I can’t help but think this is a good thing for the church in general and the emergent conversation in particular.
I’m also noticing that the influence of the emergent conversation is finding its way into most of the dominant expressions of western Christianity. Its influence in evangelical culture is well noted, but it is slowly finding its way into mainline expressions of church and worship as well. And just last weekend, the first ever Catholic emergent conference took place. In time, I won’t be surprised if the whole labels of emerging and emergent begin to wane. In fact, I think they are already beginning to do so. Emergents resist labels as it is, and I wonder if the influence of the emergent conversation is beginning to carry enough weight in western Christian circles to stand on its own without having to constantly refer back to itself?
For more established institutions of church, the emergent conversation serves as a much needed critique. While those in the academic world have been thinking and writing about the import of postmodernism and pluralism for quite some time (at least since the sixties), emergents have been the first to significantly wrestle with what all of this means on the ground, at least in terms of the church. And if the emergent critique is rooted in a postmodern appreciation for pluralism — as is often the case — then it’s vital for emergents to walk the talk, so to speak. In other words, it’s vital for emergents to embody the diversity and mutuality that postmodernism calls attention to, and it is good to see that happening more and more.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Catholic, diversity, emergent, emergent church, emerging, emerging church, feminism, GLBT, inclusivity, mutuality, pluralism, progressive | 1 Comment »
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