If you hang around with religious people long enough, sooner or later you encounter a prophet or two.
These days, I suppose most people call them activists. And that’s fine, as far as it goes, because they almost always are activists of one kind or another. What makes them prophets, though, is that their passion for change is deeply rooted in their longing for God’s healed and redeemed creation. They are not shy about condemning the current order because of the way it falls horribly short of God’s will for us. And they expect us to do something about it.
The prophets I know are a pain in the neck. They have no sense of moderation, and are not at all interested in hearing about what is actually possible. They’re impatient with compromise and process. In the church, they always seem to have at least one foot out the door, because they’re frustrated by our timidity in responding to God’s call to us. They are disruptive and annoyingly single-minded.
And they are a blessing to the church. Anyone who spends much time in our midst knows that the great temptation of church life is to become so focused on our own needs and our personal relationship with God that we forget we are part of a larger Body. We come for comfort, and don’t want to be shaken to our core by challenges to what we currently are, even if those changes invite us into new growth. We want a deeper spiritual life, but like the rich young man, we are often reluctant to make the sacrifices that would allow us to have it.
Prophets refuse to let us be complacent. They remind us that while God may meet us where we are, God doesn’t leave us there -- and that there is an urgent need for us to be about God’s work in the world. They call to our attention the devastation caused by climate change and unjust economic systems. They demand we do something about poverty and immigration. They point out the resources we have and then insist we use them for the sake of others. They give us a sense of urgency and drive us out of our comfort zones, where God can transform us in ways we longed for but didn’t dare seek. Yes, as annoying and disruptive as they are, the church needs prophets.
But the church also needs pastors like me. Whatever my prophetic friends think, it’s not fear of rejection or losing my job that softens my tone and makes me insist on patience. It’s that I want people to be able to hear what I say -- what I’ve learned from them -- and I know shrill voices and guilt trips cause people to tune out. In order to grow, we need someone wiling to meet us where we are, and hold our hands while we seek healing of the wounds that keep us from being the people we are called to be. We need someone to reassure us that we are loved, because if we do not know we are loved by God, we cannot offer God’s love to the world. We need someone to encourage us when we are afraid, so that we can find the courage to take the next step.
As a pastor, one of my jobs is to care for people in that strange, ambiguous place where we want growth but don’t want to change. My job is to invite, to encourage, to strengthen, and to prod so that people who arrive looking for comfort go out empowered by God to do things they never believed possible. My task is to hold hands with people facing terrifying realities and promise them they are not alone, and then to embody that by staying there no matter what comes, whether it’s new life or deep disappointment. Only then can I point out when it is fear itself holding us back, and that God is inviting us to come walk on water in the middle of the storm. And yeah, it’s my job to get out of the boat first, and sometimes I see the wind and fail just as Peter failed, and I have to be helped back into the boat by Jesus. That’s my job, too.
Prophets, with their impatience and their passion, are lousy at nurturing people who fall short in responding to God’s call. They are always ten steps ahead, impatiently looking back and demanding we catch up. Pastors are the ones that help us up when we fall, bind our wounds, and urge us to try again.
And we need one another. I think it’s a little like instilling a love of hiking. Prophets are the ones who write the guidebooks and build the trails. They tackle 4,000 foot mountains and tell us all about the wonders we’re missing out on, and warn us of the perils of staying on the couch, of letting the forests be cut and the land mined for another’s profit. They tell us to come out and see for ourselves -- and hurry up about it, because the opportunity isn’t going to last forever. They get us moving, teach us to value the longer view, and convince us to try even when the summit seems a long way away. We’d never experience these amazing places if it weren’t for the prophets urging us onward.
But pastors are the ones who prepare us to get to the top of the mountain. Like teaching children to hike: When you take a small child on their first hike, you don’t try to summit a 4,000-footer. For one thing, you are doomed to fail -- it’s just too hard for a small child -- and if you drag a child on past the point where they are tired and whiny, they will come to hate hiking very, very quickly. If you want your child to love hiking, so that they will eventually climb mountains, you start with an easy hike with lots of interesting things to see and an end that comes into sight when they are just starting to get tired. As your child grows, you do longer, more challenging hikes. Eventually, the day comes when you choose a hike that’s challenging for *you* and your nearly-grown children bound ahead of you, calling back “Hurry up!” and expressing impatience when you have to stop and rest, again. Soon they are eagerly planning for longer, more ambitious hikes -- ones you know you will never go on, because they have far outpaced your strength and skill. If you are very lucky, they will become prophets who tell everyone down below how wonderful the view is and how important it is to learn to climb.
In the end, the church would have no hope of being what it should be if it weren’t for the prophets and the pastors. We complement each other, part of the whole Body of Christ, and the hand cannot say to the foot, “I don’t need you.” We may not always like each other, but we do need each other.
It’s not easy for us to be friends, prophets and pastors. We know each others’ limits all too well, and we irritate each other. Prophets are never patient enough, and pastors never bold enough. But I suppose that’s why God gives us both -- so that as the people of God, we will be both patient and bold.
God bless the prophets and the pastors.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Friday, March 21, 2014
Community
I wrote this post almost exactly three years ago, and never quite finished it. I came across it while reviewing unfinished posts this week in an attempt to clean out my blog files, and thought I’d share it, unfinished as it is, as a reminder to myself of what I learned and as an invitation to others to share what they’ve learned along the way.
Last week, I sent a resignation letter and left a community of faith that had nurtured me for many long years.
No, I didn’t leave my church. I left an online discussion group where I had been moderator for close to a decade.
I stumbled into the Episcopal Church Yahoo Group at a time when I was only just beginning to discern a call to ordained vocation. The discussions were lively, often passionate, always challenging. There were posts that made me furious, and posts that made me want to cheer out loud. Participating forced me to to think beyond cliche, beyond “everybody knows,” to struggle to articulate my faith clearly and with serious attention to Scripture and Tradition. It was a challenge from this community that helped me to think deeply about sacramental theology and my sense of call to sacramental ministry; that helped me see more completely what it means to say that it takes the *whole* world to understand the whole Gospel; it nurtured my ability to respect viewpoints very different from my own.
But all things change. Online communities are always fluid, and in the last couple years that I served as moderator, many of the people that I had wrestled with and argued with went on to other communities. New people, full of insight and curiosity, did not come. This week, after a couple of posts full of distortions and rage that would have once triggered fierce and passionate debate, I realized that I was sitting in the pews largely alone. The handful of souls left were just as tired as I was of the same old debates, and too sick of the fight to bother engaging with it again. We went through the motions, but the fire had gone out.
Still, I hesitated. I feel great affection and respect for the few solitary souls who remain, hoping to provide a refuge for discussion there. And I take seriously St. Benedict’s instruction that wherever you find yourself, “do not easily leave.” But then I realized that I was doing exactly what so many churches do -- I was clinging to the structure long after what had made it a place of God’s grace and love had left the building. The community had moved on: it was time to use my gifts to nurture a new one elsewhere.
But before I move on, a few reflections on what I learned about community from my years as a moderator:
First, true community is often uncomfortable. It requires patience with the misguided, the lost, the angry, and even the destructive. It requires engagement again and again with people that you may not like and have no reason to value, at least at first. It generally does not transform them into lovable people, but when we allow God’s grace to work through community, it does help transform us into people who can love them anyway.
Second, politeness is not the same as being Christian. Politeness is important for providing space for mutual respect to grow and flourish, but it can also become a cover for uncivil and intolerant behavior that wounds members of the community. You cannot build community without *mutual* respect, and disdain and rejection from one side makes true community impossible, no matter how polite you are. What’s more, that disdain and rejection will poison whatever community has already been built. Imagine being in a room with an angry, disrespectful person holding forth about who God does not love. Imagine everyone in the room looking at the floor, the ceiling, anything but each other, embarrassed by the rant and isolated from each other. As long as that person is allowed to rant and hold the floor, community cannot form -- and the people in the room will one by one slip away.
Third, true community is richest when you do not try to limit it to the like-minded. It was our disagreements at Episcopal Church that allowed us to get to know one another more deeply than surface sentiments, that led us to appreciate the difficult and sometimes strange paths that had led us to our conclusions. We might not agree with those conclusions, but we learned to respect and honor the faith and strength that had allowed each of us to reach those conclusions.
Building a community replete with passionate disagreement requires the entire community be willing to hold each other accountable for our words and the impact of our claims. Without a wider community to demand such accountability, a single angry voice can dominate the conversation, and what should be a rich dialog becomes an exhausting and fruitless struggle to counter a strident voice. I think Jesus knew this, which is why he was so often cutting and even harsh with the Pharisees, who were accustomed to being the dominant voices. Christian leadership is forgiving, inclusive, gentle and welcoming, but not willing to sacrifice the community for the ego of a single member. When a single voice excludes by word or deed some members of the community, the whole community is damaged. It’s not easy to find the right balance between welcome and protecting the community, but it’s necessary to keep looking for it -- and it is most likely to be found when the entire community constantly engages in the search together.
What would you add? What have you learned from being part of Christian communities that do this well, and ones that don’t? What are you praying for in the community where you abide right now?
Last week, I sent a resignation letter and left a community of faith that had nurtured me for many long years.
No, I didn’t leave my church. I left an online discussion group where I had been moderator for close to a decade.
I stumbled into the Episcopal Church Yahoo Group at a time when I was only just beginning to discern a call to ordained vocation. The discussions were lively, often passionate, always challenging. There were posts that made me furious, and posts that made me want to cheer out loud. Participating forced me to to think beyond cliche, beyond “everybody knows,” to struggle to articulate my faith clearly and with serious attention to Scripture and Tradition. It was a challenge from this community that helped me to think deeply about sacramental theology and my sense of call to sacramental ministry; that helped me see more completely what it means to say that it takes the *whole* world to understand the whole Gospel; it nurtured my ability to respect viewpoints very different from my own.
But all things change. Online communities are always fluid, and in the last couple years that I served as moderator, many of the people that I had wrestled with and argued with went on to other communities. New people, full of insight and curiosity, did not come. This week, after a couple of posts full of distortions and rage that would have once triggered fierce and passionate debate, I realized that I was sitting in the pews largely alone. The handful of souls left were just as tired as I was of the same old debates, and too sick of the fight to bother engaging with it again. We went through the motions, but the fire had gone out.
Still, I hesitated. I feel great affection and respect for the few solitary souls who remain, hoping to provide a refuge for discussion there. And I take seriously St. Benedict’s instruction that wherever you find yourself, “do not easily leave.” But then I realized that I was doing exactly what so many churches do -- I was clinging to the structure long after what had made it a place of God’s grace and love had left the building. The community had moved on: it was time to use my gifts to nurture a new one elsewhere.
But before I move on, a few reflections on what I learned about community from my years as a moderator:
First, true community is often uncomfortable. It requires patience with the misguided, the lost, the angry, and even the destructive. It requires engagement again and again with people that you may not like and have no reason to value, at least at first. It generally does not transform them into lovable people, but when we allow God’s grace to work through community, it does help transform us into people who can love them anyway.
Second, politeness is not the same as being Christian. Politeness is important for providing space for mutual respect to grow and flourish, but it can also become a cover for uncivil and intolerant behavior that wounds members of the community. You cannot build community without *mutual* respect, and disdain and rejection from one side makes true community impossible, no matter how polite you are. What’s more, that disdain and rejection will poison whatever community has already been built. Imagine being in a room with an angry, disrespectful person holding forth about who God does not love. Imagine everyone in the room looking at the floor, the ceiling, anything but each other, embarrassed by the rant and isolated from each other. As long as that person is allowed to rant and hold the floor, community cannot form -- and the people in the room will one by one slip away.
Third, true community is richest when you do not try to limit it to the like-minded. It was our disagreements at Episcopal Church that allowed us to get to know one another more deeply than surface sentiments, that led us to appreciate the difficult and sometimes strange paths that had led us to our conclusions. We might not agree with those conclusions, but we learned to respect and honor the faith and strength that had allowed each of us to reach those conclusions.
Building a community replete with passionate disagreement requires the entire community be willing to hold each other accountable for our words and the impact of our claims. Without a wider community to demand such accountability, a single angry voice can dominate the conversation, and what should be a rich dialog becomes an exhausting and fruitless struggle to counter a strident voice. I think Jesus knew this, which is why he was so often cutting and even harsh with the Pharisees, who were accustomed to being the dominant voices. Christian leadership is forgiving, inclusive, gentle and welcoming, but not willing to sacrifice the community for the ego of a single member. When a single voice excludes by word or deed some members of the community, the whole community is damaged. It’s not easy to find the right balance between welcome and protecting the community, but it’s necessary to keep looking for it -- and it is most likely to be found when the entire community constantly engages in the search together.
What would you add? What have you learned from being part of Christian communities that do this well, and ones that don’t? What are you praying for in the community where you abide right now?
Friday, March 14, 2014
Waiting in the Wilderness
I know there are people who like winter, but I am not one of them. And as far as I am concerned, there is nothing worse than winter in March.
I’m not fond of the frigid cold of January or February either, you understand. In fact, November, December, January, February, March and sometimes April are all some of my least-favorite months in New England. But March is my least-favorite of my least-favorite months. It’s cold, it’s wet, and just to make it more fun, Daylight Savings Time arrives and snatches away whatever hope I had when in the last days of February when the sun finally began to rise before my alarm went off at 6 a.m. And that’s even before we get to the mud.
March is the wilderness of the year here in New England. The snow that was pretty and fun at the beginning of winter is now grey and annoying, blanketing the landscape and turning it into a barren wasteland. The skies are frequently grey, too, and while temperatures are warmer than they were a month ago, they often have a damp edge that makes the cold reach right down into your bones. March is when it feels like winter will last forever.
I thought about all this last Monday morning, as I walked the dog on a chilly, grey day with snow once again in the forecast, and thought about last Sunday’s Gospel, in which Jesus is driven into the wilderness after his baptism and tempted by Satan. Lent’s 40 days (not counting 6 Sundays) are modeled on the 40 days that Jesus spends in the wilderness. And while I imagine the wet and cold of a New England March is a far cry from the hot, dry wilderness of the Holy Land, I suspect they feel equally empty of life. I wonder if it’s a coincidence that a good chunk of Lent always falls in March.
Forty days is a long time, and even longer when your surroundings offer very little encouragement. I keep thinking about Jesus waiting in the wilderness for something to happen, particularly after the amazing experience of his baptism. And when it does, it’s Satan come to tempt him -- like snow and bitter cold blowing in after a tantalizingly brief March warm-up.
Was Jesus discouraged? Matthew’s gospel doesn’t say. He turns aside the temptations of Satan calmly and without apparent hesitation. Jesus stays true to the God who called him in baptism. He keeps on keeping on. And then, suddenly, the angels turn up and start ministering to him.
It’s actually a pretty good metaphor for the life of faith. There are times when we are aware of God’s presence with every breath, when we can see the Holy Spirit descending on us and feel God’s love and approval with an intensity that takes our breath away. But there are other times when God can seem very far away, when the winter goes on and on. It’s hard to believe God’s silence will ever end.
But spring always does come, eventually. We can trust in that, at least. We may not be able to *believe* it, precisely, but we can trust it. And so it is with God. Even in the midst of the wilderness, our task is simply to keep on keeping on. We don’t have to work at believing, at having faith. We just have to wait, stubbornly, because there’s nothing else to be done. Because we can trust that God will eventually bring new life out of the emptiness, even if we aren’t entirely able to believe it.
A couple days ago, the snow in my yard finally began to melt. For the first time since December, I could see the ground under the weeping cherry tree. And there were two green shoots with a little white blossom. The snowdrops are blooming.
Winter really is going to end.
I’m not fond of the frigid cold of January or February either, you understand. In fact, November, December, January, February, March and sometimes April are all some of my least-favorite months in New England. But March is my least-favorite of my least-favorite months. It’s cold, it’s wet, and just to make it more fun, Daylight Savings Time arrives and snatches away whatever hope I had when in the last days of February when the sun finally began to rise before my alarm went off at 6 a.m. And that’s even before we get to the mud.
March is the wilderness of the year here in New England. The snow that was pretty and fun at the beginning of winter is now grey and annoying, blanketing the landscape and turning it into a barren wasteland. The skies are frequently grey, too, and while temperatures are warmer than they were a month ago, they often have a damp edge that makes the cold reach right down into your bones. March is when it feels like winter will last forever.
I thought about all this last Monday morning, as I walked the dog on a chilly, grey day with snow once again in the forecast, and thought about last Sunday’s Gospel, in which Jesus is driven into the wilderness after his baptism and tempted by Satan. Lent’s 40 days (not counting 6 Sundays) are modeled on the 40 days that Jesus spends in the wilderness. And while I imagine the wet and cold of a New England March is a far cry from the hot, dry wilderness of the Holy Land, I suspect they feel equally empty of life. I wonder if it’s a coincidence that a good chunk of Lent always falls in March.
Forty days is a long time, and even longer when your surroundings offer very little encouragement. I keep thinking about Jesus waiting in the wilderness for something to happen, particularly after the amazing experience of his baptism. And when it does, it’s Satan come to tempt him -- like snow and bitter cold blowing in after a tantalizingly brief March warm-up.
Was Jesus discouraged? Matthew’s gospel doesn’t say. He turns aside the temptations of Satan calmly and without apparent hesitation. Jesus stays true to the God who called him in baptism. He keeps on keeping on. And then, suddenly, the angels turn up and start ministering to him.
It’s actually a pretty good metaphor for the life of faith. There are times when we are aware of God’s presence with every breath, when we can see the Holy Spirit descending on us and feel God’s love and approval with an intensity that takes our breath away. But there are other times when God can seem very far away, when the winter goes on and on. It’s hard to believe God’s silence will ever end.
But spring always does come, eventually. We can trust in that, at least. We may not be able to *believe* it, precisely, but we can trust it. And so it is with God. Even in the midst of the wilderness, our task is simply to keep on keeping on. We don’t have to work at believing, at having faith. We just have to wait, stubbornly, because there’s nothing else to be done. Because we can trust that God will eventually bring new life out of the emptiness, even if we aren’t entirely able to believe it.
A couple days ago, the snow in my yard finally began to melt. For the first time since December, I could see the ground under the weeping cherry tree. And there were two green shoots with a little white blossom. The snowdrops are blooming.
Winter really is going to end.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Ash Wednesday
A couple months ago, I suddenly realized that I am older than Jesus. Christian tradition teaches that Jesus was about 30 when he began his ministry, which means he was somewhere around 33 when he was crucified. At 44, I’ve got more than a decade on Jesus, which means that my children may be right when they say that I am “older than God.”
Of course, 44 hardly means I have one foot in the grave, whatever my kids think. Since Americans are living longer and I have two great-aunts who lived to be 99, I may not even realistically be middle-aged. Still, I’m also very aware that I no longer qualify as an up-and-comer. When magazines publish lists of people who are going to change the world, they choose “30 under 30” or maybe occasionally “40 under 40,” but once you get past those milestones, you’re assumed to be either prominent in your field or… well, not going to be.
Jesus would have made a list like that, I’m sure. And there was a time when I might have too -- at least in the jewelry industry where I worked. In the first six years of my career, I was promoted every year or two, going from editorial assistant to associate publisher by the time I was 27. It was heady stuff. I started working on an MBA, and began eyeing the corner office. I loved my job.
And then I left it. I got pregnant, and after much soul-searching, I decided at 29 to stay at home with my newborn son and launch a freelance writing career instead.
At the time, I didn’t think I was giving up my ambition. If anything, I figured I was delaying my trip to the corner office by a couple years. But now, 15 years later, when some of the people I graduated with are being promoted to prominent positions, I find myself on a very different path.
Sometimes I wonder what I’d be doing if I hadn’t quit my job. Maybe I’d be CEO of some non-profit in Washington or New York -- I think that’s what I would have pursued if I hadn’t gone to seminary instead. And some days, I regret the life I gave up. I can’t help but wonder if I’m wasting the gifts God gave me. I wonder if on the day I was baptized, God was hoping that by this stage of my life, I’d be bringing together international organizations for a major new initiative on Haiti, or leading the charge against gun violence as head of a national association, or something equally important.
But when I look back, I’m also astounded at the ways each step in the path prepared me for what I am doing today. I’m amazed at the way each opportunity led me to develop gifts that I use daily as a parish priest, even though most of them never appear on priestly lists of essential skills. I feel gratitude for what I learned, and the ways in which I use all that knowledge and all those gifts in my current ministry. When I was 27, I would never have imagined that managing a magazine was excellent preparation for being a priest -- but every time I draw on what I learned from that experience in my ministry at St. Mark’s, I realize that I am, indeed, using all the gifts God has given me.
And then I also think, maybe God had plenty of candidates for the kinds of jobs that land you on the cover of TIME. God is a generous giver, after all, and the gifts needed to bring together international organizations to solve big problems do seem to be surprisingly abundant -- witness all those lists of talented young professionals. And surely, God has every bit as much need for the ministries we do without fanfare or fame, the gifts we use in small but important ways. Maybe God didn’t need me to change the whole world; maybe my gifts were always intended to be used simply to make my corner of it a more compassionate, more loving place. Maybe that’s not a small thing after all. And maybe the contentment I feel in living into that calling is a sign of having listened to God’s voice.
On Ash Wednesday, we kneel to receive ashes with the words, “Thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.” It’s a reminder of our mortality, and an invitation to reflect on the ways we have fallen short of God’s gifts in our lives. But falling short is not the same thing as unfulfilled ambition. The question to ask is really, “How am I using my gifts in God’s service -- or failing to?” not, “Have I achieved what God wanted me to achieve?” Because on the day of our deaths, what will matter is how we have loved and served God and how we lived generously into the use of our gifts, not whether or not our obituaries appear in the New York Times. By that measure, perhaps I am living up to my potential.
Of course, 44 hardly means I have one foot in the grave, whatever my kids think. Since Americans are living longer and I have two great-aunts who lived to be 99, I may not even realistically be middle-aged. Still, I’m also very aware that I no longer qualify as an up-and-comer. When magazines publish lists of people who are going to change the world, they choose “30 under 30” or maybe occasionally “40 under 40,” but once you get past those milestones, you’re assumed to be either prominent in your field or… well, not going to be.
Jesus would have made a list like that, I’m sure. And there was a time when I might have too -- at least in the jewelry industry where I worked. In the first six years of my career, I was promoted every year or two, going from editorial assistant to associate publisher by the time I was 27. It was heady stuff. I started working on an MBA, and began eyeing the corner office. I loved my job.
And then I left it. I got pregnant, and after much soul-searching, I decided at 29 to stay at home with my newborn son and launch a freelance writing career instead.
At the time, I didn’t think I was giving up my ambition. If anything, I figured I was delaying my trip to the corner office by a couple years. But now, 15 years later, when some of the people I graduated with are being promoted to prominent positions, I find myself on a very different path.
Sometimes I wonder what I’d be doing if I hadn’t quit my job. Maybe I’d be CEO of some non-profit in Washington or New York -- I think that’s what I would have pursued if I hadn’t gone to seminary instead. And some days, I regret the life I gave up. I can’t help but wonder if I’m wasting the gifts God gave me. I wonder if on the day I was baptized, God was hoping that by this stage of my life, I’d be bringing together international organizations for a major new initiative on Haiti, or leading the charge against gun violence as head of a national association, or something equally important.
But when I look back, I’m also astounded at the ways each step in the path prepared me for what I am doing today. I’m amazed at the way each opportunity led me to develop gifts that I use daily as a parish priest, even though most of them never appear on priestly lists of essential skills. I feel gratitude for what I learned, and the ways in which I use all that knowledge and all those gifts in my current ministry. When I was 27, I would never have imagined that managing a magazine was excellent preparation for being a priest -- but every time I draw on what I learned from that experience in my ministry at St. Mark’s, I realize that I am, indeed, using all the gifts God has given me.
And then I also think, maybe God had plenty of candidates for the kinds of jobs that land you on the cover of TIME. God is a generous giver, after all, and the gifts needed to bring together international organizations to solve big problems do seem to be surprisingly abundant -- witness all those lists of talented young professionals. And surely, God has every bit as much need for the ministries we do without fanfare or fame, the gifts we use in small but important ways. Maybe God didn’t need me to change the whole world; maybe my gifts were always intended to be used simply to make my corner of it a more compassionate, more loving place. Maybe that’s not a small thing after all. And maybe the contentment I feel in living into that calling is a sign of having listened to God’s voice.
On Ash Wednesday, we kneel to receive ashes with the words, “Thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.” It’s a reminder of our mortality, and an invitation to reflect on the ways we have fallen short of God’s gifts in our lives. But falling short is not the same thing as unfulfilled ambition. The question to ask is really, “How am I using my gifts in God’s service -- or failing to?” not, “Have I achieved what God wanted me to achieve?” Because on the day of our deaths, what will matter is how we have loved and served God and how we lived generously into the use of our gifts, not whether or not our obituaries appear in the New York Times. By that measure, perhaps I am living up to my potential.
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Fitting In
For in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. ~ Galatians 3:26-28
Somewhere in the middle of the weeks leading up to Christmas, Fox news anchor Meghyn Kelly generated a small firestorm of controversy by asserting on her program that both Santa Claus and Jesus were “white men.” Even leaving aside the question of Santa Claus -- whose reputed European heritage is hardly the most incredible claim made about him anyway -- the description of Jesus as “white” provided ample fodder for television comics. Late night TV was quickly filled by comedians gleefully pointing out that as a Middle Eastern Jew, Jesus likely looked more like an Arab than a Swede, and probably would have been profiled as a potential terrorist by airport security.
But as a friend pointed out, what got lost in the controversy over Kelly’s words were the real story, which was about the struggle to fit in when the dominant culture incessantly and insistently tells us we are “other.” The black woman Kelly was replying to was making a point about how isolated and alone she felt as a child, surrounded by white Santa and white Baby Jesus, when her own family looked very different. It’s a struggle familiar to anyone who lives in the midst of people whose race, language, or religion is noticeably different from one’s own.
And it’s not just differences of race and ethnicity that can make us feel isolated and alone, my friend adds. Being unable to afford Christmas gifts when everyone is talking about Christmas shopping and the airwaves are wall-to-wall commercials for gifts to buy; being alone, without family or friends nearby, when everyone is asking about holiday plans; being in mourning for a loved one recently lost when everyone else is laughing and merry -- all can leave us wrestling with how to “fit in” in an world that feels alien and strange. You can probably add other examples from your own life. Sooner or later, all of us have the experience of not belonging.
But as it turns out, Jesus was one of those people who didn’t “fit in,” too. A Jew from Palestine under Roman occupation, a hick from a rural backwater called Nazareth, the son of a woman who had not been married to his father when he was conceived -- Jesus would certainly have known what it was like to be disregarded by the “in” crowd. What’s more, people who didn’t “fit in” were exactly the people Jesus befriended. Lepers, tax collectors, prostitutes, Samaritans -- these were the people Jesus lived among and ministered to, and scandalized the authorities of the day by associating with. People who didn’t “fit in” -- the blind, the lame, the sick and the poor -- were exactly the ones the Good News was intended for.
That is where Meghyn Kelly’s response to her guest failed. In asserting Jesus ‘s difference from “those others,” she missed the point of Jesus’ message -- that in God’s kingdom, we all belong. No one is a stranger. No one is an outcast. Leper and lawyer, black and white, Greek and Jew, male and female, all “fit” in the Body of Christ, by virtue of God’s love for each of us. Whether Jesus is “white” or not, he is always and undeniably for those who don’t fit in, those left out, those who are alone and on the margins, with no power and little hope. For those, like Kelly, used to viewing Jesus as “one of us,” it may be strange to say Jesus is “one of them.” But if we want to be like Jesus, it’s not our race or our gender we should compare: it’s our willingness to stand alongside those who don’t “fit in.” And maybe that would be easier if we imagined Jesus as black, or gay, or a woman, or an immigrant now and then.
The church must always strive to be a place where those who don’t “fit in” finally do: Not because we make them like us, but because we have learned from Jesus how to truly welcome those who are different. We must recall our baptismal vows, and be willing to see Jesus not just in those who look and act like us, but also those who look, or speak, or act very differently. We must be willing to hear the voices of those who have not felt like they belonged, so that we can expand our understanding of what God’s Kingdom is like until we see that the Good News is truly Good News for everyone.
Was Jesus white? Probably not, but that’s far less important than realizing that we are welcome and loved as we are -- and the same is true for people who are not like us at all. It’s time we set aside whatever need we have to see Jesus only as “one of us,” and realized that God’s Kingdom -- and God’s church -- is for all of us, in all our variety and all our differences, and in all the ways in which we don’t fit in.
Somewhere in the middle of the weeks leading up to Christmas, Fox news anchor Meghyn Kelly generated a small firestorm of controversy by asserting on her program that both Santa Claus and Jesus were “white men.” Even leaving aside the question of Santa Claus -- whose reputed European heritage is hardly the most incredible claim made about him anyway -- the description of Jesus as “white” provided ample fodder for television comics. Late night TV was quickly filled by comedians gleefully pointing out that as a Middle Eastern Jew, Jesus likely looked more like an Arab than a Swede, and probably would have been profiled as a potential terrorist by airport security.
But as a friend pointed out, what got lost in the controversy over Kelly’s words were the real story, which was about the struggle to fit in when the dominant culture incessantly and insistently tells us we are “other.” The black woman Kelly was replying to was making a point about how isolated and alone she felt as a child, surrounded by white Santa and white Baby Jesus, when her own family looked very different. It’s a struggle familiar to anyone who lives in the midst of people whose race, language, or religion is noticeably different from one’s own.
And it’s not just differences of race and ethnicity that can make us feel isolated and alone, my friend adds. Being unable to afford Christmas gifts when everyone is talking about Christmas shopping and the airwaves are wall-to-wall commercials for gifts to buy; being alone, without family or friends nearby, when everyone is asking about holiday plans; being in mourning for a loved one recently lost when everyone else is laughing and merry -- all can leave us wrestling with how to “fit in” in an world that feels alien and strange. You can probably add other examples from your own life. Sooner or later, all of us have the experience of not belonging.
But as it turns out, Jesus was one of those people who didn’t “fit in,” too. A Jew from Palestine under Roman occupation, a hick from a rural backwater called Nazareth, the son of a woman who had not been married to his father when he was conceived -- Jesus would certainly have known what it was like to be disregarded by the “in” crowd. What’s more, people who didn’t “fit in” were exactly the people Jesus befriended. Lepers, tax collectors, prostitutes, Samaritans -- these were the people Jesus lived among and ministered to, and scandalized the authorities of the day by associating with. People who didn’t “fit in” -- the blind, the lame, the sick and the poor -- were exactly the ones the Good News was intended for.
That is where Meghyn Kelly’s response to her guest failed. In asserting Jesus ‘s difference from “those others,” she missed the point of Jesus’ message -- that in God’s kingdom, we all belong. No one is a stranger. No one is an outcast. Leper and lawyer, black and white, Greek and Jew, male and female, all “fit” in the Body of Christ, by virtue of God’s love for each of us. Whether Jesus is “white” or not, he is always and undeniably for those who don’t fit in, those left out, those who are alone and on the margins, with no power and little hope. For those, like Kelly, used to viewing Jesus as “one of us,” it may be strange to say Jesus is “one of them.” But if we want to be like Jesus, it’s not our race or our gender we should compare: it’s our willingness to stand alongside those who don’t “fit in.” And maybe that would be easier if we imagined Jesus as black, or gay, or a woman, or an immigrant now and then.
The church must always strive to be a place where those who don’t “fit in” finally do: Not because we make them like us, but because we have learned from Jesus how to truly welcome those who are different. We must recall our baptismal vows, and be willing to see Jesus not just in those who look and act like us, but also those who look, or speak, or act very differently. We must be willing to hear the voices of those who have not felt like they belonged, so that we can expand our understanding of what God’s Kingdom is like until we see that the Good News is truly Good News for everyone.
Was Jesus white? Probably not, but that’s far less important than realizing that we are welcome and loved as we are -- and the same is true for people who are not like us at all. It’s time we set aside whatever need we have to see Jesus only as “one of us,” and realized that God’s Kingdom -- and God’s church -- is for all of us, in all our variety and all our differences, and in all the ways in which we don’t fit in.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Can I buy you lunch?
“You know, I still believe marriage is between one man and one woman,” the 80+ year old man I had been visiting fired at me as we walked toward the door. It was a challenge: how would I respond?
“Yes, I know,” I told him. “And I honor and respect that that’s your view. I’d be surprised if you felt any other way.”
And I would. He had earlier that evening commented that he wasn’t going to vote for Obama, despite being perfectly comfortable with the idea of an African-American president. I had laughed and said that if he voted for Obama, I would start looking over my shoulder for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, because we were surely in the End Times. Charlie would have no trouble voting for a black man -- but it’d be a cold day in hell before he voted for a Democrat. He had laughed along with me, and then told me another story of his service in World War II.
The parting shot was a test. He likes me, even though having known me for a year, he’s figured out that we don’t agree on much theologically, and even less politically. He appreciates that as his pastor, I’ve been a regular visitor as he’s struggled with several major upheavals in his life. He knows I pray for him, and he likes that I laugh at his jokes, even when they’re slightly off color. But he needed to know, could he trust me? Would I turn hostile and angry, and demand he conform to my view on what is, to him, a moral question? He didn’t want to debate it or discuss it -- if he had, he wouldn’t have waited until he was showing me to the door. He just wanted to know: would I still love him even if he opposed same sex marriage?
I was thinking of this exchange this morning as I read my Facebook feed and my friends lined up on both sides of the Great Chick-Fil-A Debate. A couple declared that those who had lined up on the other side could no longer be their Facebook friends -- or their friends at all.
And I thought of Charlie. I thought of what I didn’t say to him. I didn’t tell him he was a bigot who was attacking the wonderful and faithful marriages of my friends. I didn’t tell him he was an unfaithful Christian because he would vote to deny the rights of people I care about. I didn’t even tell him I thought he was wrong.
Maybe I should have. Maybe I lost an opportunity to proclaim the Gospel that God loves and accepts all people, regardless of their gender or orientation. Maybe I surrendered my chance to take a prophetic stand and speak truth to power, or at least, to Charlie.
But my church has been down that road before, and I can’t think of any good that came of it. No one changed their minds. Some people left, some people came, and a whole lot of angry and vitriolic words were thrown. More people left, many deeply wounded by the bitterness and downright nastiness that had infected the congregation as people took sides. No one new came, because who wants to be part of a congregation that’s fighting like that?
And the truth is, I do honor and respect Charlie’s viewpoint. I don’t agree with him, and perhaps it’s worth noting that I went from my visit with Charlie to a vestry meeting where, in a discussion about General Convention’s actions, I had declared unambiguously that if I were asked, I would gladly officiate at a same-sex wedding. If Charlie had asked for my opinion on the matter, I would have been equally unambiguous in declaring my own support for marriage equality.
But that isn’t what Charlie asked for that evening: he asked to be accepted despite what he knows is my very different understanding of the subject. He asked me to respect that it was thoughtful consideration that had led him to his own view, even if I didn’t agree with it. He asked me to make space for disagreement about this important topic in our relationship.
And I made space, because I don’t suppose I’m any more right about everything than Charlie is. And maybe if we journey together, we’ll both be able to discover the things we are wrong about, and see more clearly the Gospel that God reveals in us. Maybe the Holy Spirit will work through both of us to help lead the church into all truth.
I didn’t eat at Chick-Fil-A yesterday, although that’s a fairly meaningless boycott because I wouldn’t have eaten there anyway, since I don’t like fast-food fried chicken and there isn’t a Chick-Fil-A within 50 miles of my house. But if you did, well, that’s OK. We can still be friends. Maybe we can even talk about why the boycott is so disturbing to you, and why Chick-Fil-A’s support of anti-gay groups is so disturbing to me. Maybe from there we can talk about how we both deeply value First Amendment freedoms and the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. Maybe I’ll concede that I admire Chick-Fil-A’s commitment to honoring the sabbath by closing on Sunday and its tuition-reimbursement programs for its employees. Perhaps you’ll admit that the vitriol and hatred spewed towards gays by some of the groups Chick-Fil-A supports is absolutely contrary to the Gospel of a God who loved us enough to die for us while we were yet sinners. Maybe we can even talk for awhile about what the Gospel means to us, and what we think it means to the whole world.
Odds are, I won’t change your mind, and you won’t change mine. But let’s journey together, and see what the Holy Spirit leads us into. I know there are sharp rocks in that road, and I know what I hear will pain me, as what you hear will pain you. I know speaking my truth, and hearing your truth, may not resolve our differences, and we will have to learn to live with the rocks. But let’s journey together anyway. Because I do believe God loves us both, and that the Holy Spirit really is trying to lead us into all truth, however hard and long the road. And I think it actually has very little to do with whether I buy a chicken sandwich, or not.
“Yes, I know,” I told him. “And I honor and respect that that’s your view. I’d be surprised if you felt any other way.”
And I would. He had earlier that evening commented that he wasn’t going to vote for Obama, despite being perfectly comfortable with the idea of an African-American president. I had laughed and said that if he voted for Obama, I would start looking over my shoulder for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, because we were surely in the End Times. Charlie would have no trouble voting for a black man -- but it’d be a cold day in hell before he voted for a Democrat. He had laughed along with me, and then told me another story of his service in World War II.
The parting shot was a test. He likes me, even though having known me for a year, he’s figured out that we don’t agree on much theologically, and even less politically. He appreciates that as his pastor, I’ve been a regular visitor as he’s struggled with several major upheavals in his life. He knows I pray for him, and he likes that I laugh at his jokes, even when they’re slightly off color. But he needed to know, could he trust me? Would I turn hostile and angry, and demand he conform to my view on what is, to him, a moral question? He didn’t want to debate it or discuss it -- if he had, he wouldn’t have waited until he was showing me to the door. He just wanted to know: would I still love him even if he opposed same sex marriage?
I was thinking of this exchange this morning as I read my Facebook feed and my friends lined up on both sides of the Great Chick-Fil-A Debate. A couple declared that those who had lined up on the other side could no longer be their Facebook friends -- or their friends at all.
And I thought of Charlie. I thought of what I didn’t say to him. I didn’t tell him he was a bigot who was attacking the wonderful and faithful marriages of my friends. I didn’t tell him he was an unfaithful Christian because he would vote to deny the rights of people I care about. I didn’t even tell him I thought he was wrong.
Maybe I should have. Maybe I lost an opportunity to proclaim the Gospel that God loves and accepts all people, regardless of their gender or orientation. Maybe I surrendered my chance to take a prophetic stand and speak truth to power, or at least, to Charlie.
But my church has been down that road before, and I can’t think of any good that came of it. No one changed their minds. Some people left, some people came, and a whole lot of angry and vitriolic words were thrown. More people left, many deeply wounded by the bitterness and downright nastiness that had infected the congregation as people took sides. No one new came, because who wants to be part of a congregation that’s fighting like that?
And the truth is, I do honor and respect Charlie’s viewpoint. I don’t agree with him, and perhaps it’s worth noting that I went from my visit with Charlie to a vestry meeting where, in a discussion about General Convention’s actions, I had declared unambiguously that if I were asked, I would gladly officiate at a same-sex wedding. If Charlie had asked for my opinion on the matter, I would have been equally unambiguous in declaring my own support for marriage equality.
But that isn’t what Charlie asked for that evening: he asked to be accepted despite what he knows is my very different understanding of the subject. He asked me to respect that it was thoughtful consideration that had led him to his own view, even if I didn’t agree with it. He asked me to make space for disagreement about this important topic in our relationship.
And I made space, because I don’t suppose I’m any more right about everything than Charlie is. And maybe if we journey together, we’ll both be able to discover the things we are wrong about, and see more clearly the Gospel that God reveals in us. Maybe the Holy Spirit will work through both of us to help lead the church into all truth.
I didn’t eat at Chick-Fil-A yesterday, although that’s a fairly meaningless boycott because I wouldn’t have eaten there anyway, since I don’t like fast-food fried chicken and there isn’t a Chick-Fil-A within 50 miles of my house. But if you did, well, that’s OK. We can still be friends. Maybe we can even talk about why the boycott is so disturbing to you, and why Chick-Fil-A’s support of anti-gay groups is so disturbing to me. Maybe from there we can talk about how we both deeply value First Amendment freedoms and the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. Maybe I’ll concede that I admire Chick-Fil-A’s commitment to honoring the sabbath by closing on Sunday and its tuition-reimbursement programs for its employees. Perhaps you’ll admit that the vitriol and hatred spewed towards gays by some of the groups Chick-Fil-A supports is absolutely contrary to the Gospel of a God who loved us enough to die for us while we were yet sinners. Maybe we can even talk for awhile about what the Gospel means to us, and what we think it means to the whole world.
Odds are, I won’t change your mind, and you won’t change mine. But let’s journey together, and see what the Holy Spirit leads us into. I know there are sharp rocks in that road, and I know what I hear will pain me, as what you hear will pain you. I know speaking my truth, and hearing your truth, may not resolve our differences, and we will have to learn to live with the rocks. But let’s journey together anyway. Because I do believe God loves us both, and that the Holy Spirit really is trying to lead us into all truth, however hard and long the road. And I think it actually has very little to do with whether I buy a chicken sandwich, or not.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Join the Union!
I’ve been thinking about my grandfather a lot this past week, as I’ve watched the country wrestle with the questions raised in Wisconsin as Gov. Scott Walker seeks legislation that would eliminate collective bargaining rights for public union employees. I wish I could hear my grandfather’s take on events.
My grandfather was a staunch Republican, a fan of Ronald Reagan and a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” kind of guy. He believed government shouldn’t buy what it couldn’t afford, and was deeply suspicious of government “giveaways,” particularly programs that he thought promoted dependence.
He was also a union man, through and through. A small businessman, he ran a union shop, and was proud to be a member of the printer’s union. His advice on almost any subject was to “join the union,” so much so that it got to be a running joke in his old age.
I am not certain how he reconciled those two things, because I was in my early 20s when he died and did not yet have the wisdom to see that they needed reconciling. Our political arguments (and there were many, because Grandpa taught me to love a good political argument) were mostly about his commitment to self-reliance and my youthful enthusiasm for using government to fix what is wrong in the world. As I’ve watched events unfold in Wisconsin and elsewhere, though, I’ve been thinking more about that question, and I think I have an idea of how being a Republican union man might have made perfect sense to my grandfather.
Unions level the playing field. They help balance the vast differentials in power that occur when one side has all the cards -- money, influence, desperately needed jobs to offer or take away. Unions are the only way the working class can play the one card they have -- the fact that without their toil, everything the company’s owners have built is worthless. Unions brought us the 40-hour workweek, the minimum wage, unemployment insurance, disability insurance for those injured on the job, and industrial safety standards so there would be fewer injuries. In other words, unions made it possible for hard-working people to gain a toehold and build better lives for themselves. The union movement gave them bootstraps to pull themselves up with.
Sadly, unions do not always champion such righteous causes. Sometimes they stand in the way of needed change, and become champions of mediocrity, defending the jobs of people who probably deserve to lose them. They have sometimes carried an “us vs. them” mentality into a world where there’s now a much bigger “them” out there than company management. Public employees’ unions have sometimes championed the good of their members at the expense of the good of the people.
Alas, that’s the problem with human organizations -- they are never perfect. But getting rid of the unions is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. It favors those who already have power and influence, and if you think *that* doesn’t lead to greater problems than flawed unions, you need to read up on 19th century American history. Be sure you place yourself firmly in the working class, unless your last name is Rockefeller or you come from a long line of Boston Brahmins. I doubt you’ll come away wishing the world were the way it was before the labor movement.
I think we need *more* unions, not fewer. I listen to my professional friends talk about working 60 hours a week while being paid for 40, because they are afraid they will lose their jobs if they don’t. I hear them griping about the loss of benefits they feel powerless to stop. I hear about paid vacation time that “expires” because management refuses to approve vacations, again and again, because there’s too much work to get done. I read constantly about CEOs and upper management who collect multi-million dollar bonuses on top of their multi-million dollar salaries, while talking about “shared sacrifices” and insisting workers making $50,000 a year pay the cost of their health care.
These are just the kinds of corporate greed and individual powerlessness that unions empower workers to address, fairly and equitably, through collective bargaining. Unions force companies to share the benefits of their success with workers as well as shareholders. So I say, let’s have more unions, not fewer. Let’s have unions for engineers and accountants, as well as assembly line workers and electricians. Let’s force those with money and influence to sit down at the table and figure out how to fairly and equitably share out the pie. Let’s work on fixing union short-sightedness and greed, instead of simply handing the whole pie to those who are already getting the biggest piece of it.
I sympathize with the frustrations of those who have come up against immovable unions, and spent too much time defending against ridiculous grievances. There’s no doubt that we need to keep working on better ways to maintain a balance between the needs of employers and employed. But if an occasional shift in the balance of power towards the employed is the price we pay for keeping a place at the table for those who otherwise have little influence or voice, I’m willing to live with the union system’s flaws. I guess that makes me a “union man” through and through. I think my grandfather would be pleased.
My grandfather was a staunch Republican, a fan of Ronald Reagan and a “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” kind of guy. He believed government shouldn’t buy what it couldn’t afford, and was deeply suspicious of government “giveaways,” particularly programs that he thought promoted dependence.
He was also a union man, through and through. A small businessman, he ran a union shop, and was proud to be a member of the printer’s union. His advice on almost any subject was to “join the union,” so much so that it got to be a running joke in his old age.
I am not certain how he reconciled those two things, because I was in my early 20s when he died and did not yet have the wisdom to see that they needed reconciling. Our political arguments (and there were many, because Grandpa taught me to love a good political argument) were mostly about his commitment to self-reliance and my youthful enthusiasm for using government to fix what is wrong in the world. As I’ve watched events unfold in Wisconsin and elsewhere, though, I’ve been thinking more about that question, and I think I have an idea of how being a Republican union man might have made perfect sense to my grandfather.
Unions level the playing field. They help balance the vast differentials in power that occur when one side has all the cards -- money, influence, desperately needed jobs to offer or take away. Unions are the only way the working class can play the one card they have -- the fact that without their toil, everything the company’s owners have built is worthless. Unions brought us the 40-hour workweek, the minimum wage, unemployment insurance, disability insurance for those injured on the job, and industrial safety standards so there would be fewer injuries. In other words, unions made it possible for hard-working people to gain a toehold and build better lives for themselves. The union movement gave them bootstraps to pull themselves up with.
Sadly, unions do not always champion such righteous causes. Sometimes they stand in the way of needed change, and become champions of mediocrity, defending the jobs of people who probably deserve to lose them. They have sometimes carried an “us vs. them” mentality into a world where there’s now a much bigger “them” out there than company management. Public employees’ unions have sometimes championed the good of their members at the expense of the good of the people.
Alas, that’s the problem with human organizations -- they are never perfect. But getting rid of the unions is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. It favors those who already have power and influence, and if you think *that* doesn’t lead to greater problems than flawed unions, you need to read up on 19th century American history. Be sure you place yourself firmly in the working class, unless your last name is Rockefeller or you come from a long line of Boston Brahmins. I doubt you’ll come away wishing the world were the way it was before the labor movement.
I think we need *more* unions, not fewer. I listen to my professional friends talk about working 60 hours a week while being paid for 40, because they are afraid they will lose their jobs if they don’t. I hear them griping about the loss of benefits they feel powerless to stop. I hear about paid vacation time that “expires” because management refuses to approve vacations, again and again, because there’s too much work to get done. I read constantly about CEOs and upper management who collect multi-million dollar bonuses on top of their multi-million dollar salaries, while talking about “shared sacrifices” and insisting workers making $50,000 a year pay the cost of their health care.
These are just the kinds of corporate greed and individual powerlessness that unions empower workers to address, fairly and equitably, through collective bargaining. Unions force companies to share the benefits of their success with workers as well as shareholders. So I say, let’s have more unions, not fewer. Let’s have unions for engineers and accountants, as well as assembly line workers and electricians. Let’s force those with money and influence to sit down at the table and figure out how to fairly and equitably share out the pie. Let’s work on fixing union short-sightedness and greed, instead of simply handing the whole pie to those who are already getting the biggest piece of it.
I sympathize with the frustrations of those who have come up against immovable unions, and spent too much time defending against ridiculous grievances. There’s no doubt that we need to keep working on better ways to maintain a balance between the needs of employers and employed. But if an occasional shift in the balance of power towards the employed is the price we pay for keeping a place at the table for those who otherwise have little influence or voice, I’m willing to live with the union system’s flaws. I guess that makes me a “union man” through and through. I think my grandfather would be pleased.
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