fasting in secret, doing justice in the daylight

Last night in Disciple Bible Study, we very timely read the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew.

As a class, we wrestled with the implications of such contradictory phrases:  being salt and light, letting the whole world see the witness of our life - vs - praying and fasting and even almsgiving in secret.

How can we be witnesses for the Kingdom of God if everything we do is secret?

I've often loved the familiar quote by St. Francis of Assisi - Preach the gospel, use words if necessary.

We are supposed to be salt, flavoring this world for the Kingdom... but do it in secret?

It has always seemed strange to me that as we put ashes on our foreheads on this holy day and walk back into the world, we read the gospel:

And go out into the world to feed the hungry and to weep with those who mourn; to share your bread and to rejoice with others. And do it not for any heavenly reward... but do it because the Lord loves them. And do it because YOU love them too.

Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them (Matthew 6:1)

Yet as we wrestled, clairty started to find us.


We created a distinction between our personal piety: our prayer life, our fasting, our giving and realized that those aspects of our piety have nothing to do with other people.  It is not done for others, it is done for God.  No one else needs to know what we have given up, what we sacrifice, what time we have spent with the Lord.  It is not for them... it is for God.

On the other hand, this same God reminds us that the fast he chooses is a life lived out in public:

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? ⁷Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?  (Isaiah 58:6-7)

These actions have to be done in the world.  You can not do them from the quiet of your closet. 

God is calling us to both personal and social holiness, public and private repentance, transformation of heart and mind and soul and body.

As a Wesleyan, these two make perfect sense together.  Love God, love your neighbor. 

Fast and study and pray and worship, not for any reward but just to spend time with your Lord.

Ezra and Nehemiah... rewriting history

In my local emergent cohort, we have been reading Phyllis Tickle's Prayer Is a Place: America's Religious Landscape Observed.  As this book has been in the back of my mind, I have been thinking about how we look back and view history.  As my carpool buddy Tim put it, we are always rewriting history and every history has a slant. 

As I dove into Ezra and Nehemiah then this week with our Disciple study, I have been wrestling with how they, too, are rewriting history.  They come parading back into the land they were so visciously torn away from and suddenly begin setting themselves apart, above, against those who are already in the land.  They are so terrified of being punished again by God, of being sent back into exile, of having all of this tenuous peace destroyed that they immediately begin talking about righteousness and what makes them righteous.  All of the foreign wives they fell in love with and the children of those marriages have to go.  This is about purity, this is about a common identity, this is about trying their darndest to not make the mistakes of the past.

I found myself greatly disliking these two books as I read them through this time.  I lamented the fact they were so exclusionary, so focused on works and rightousness and reclaiming what was theirs.  I had never seen the texts in that way before, and it troubled me.

But I realized that we also have a group of people who grew to experience God very differently in the land of exile than their brothers and sisters who were left behind in Israel.  And so when they come back, they find folks who did not sit by the waters of Babylon and weep.  They find folks who managed to go on worshipping God in the land without the temple.  They find folks who are now complete strangers to them... adversaries.

Having this revelation about Ezra and Nehemiah helped me to see how difficult it is to lay claim to a space in the world without pushing others away.  In any attempts to define ourselves, we inevitably also say what we are not.  We tell our stories in such ways that show how we have arrived at a certain place and that might mean that others must be written out of our histories.  Is this a good or a bad thing?  Is it simply reality?

Alongside these two accounts, we also find the prophet Haggai who tells this story without such an exclusionary tone. We find the story of Esther who was in the diaspora and who saved her people by her relationship with the gentile king. 

What a wonderful thing it is that our sacred texts can hold these contradictions together.  That we can witness to both our struggle to self-identify and to include, to be a people among people and to be a people set apart.  What it means to be faithful in this world is not a black and white story, but it is a complicated interweaving of telling our stories, saying who we are and who we are not, working to make the best of our lives in a given place, our attempts to be faithful, our mistaken journeys down wrong paths... and through it all, God is still God.

And thanks be to God that in each of our readings of these sacred texts we are lead deeper into a realtionship with God.

levels and dimensions

 Last month at our county ministerial alliance gathering, we got to chatting about the books we were reading.  One pastor mentioned a book - and of course the title escapes me - but it had something to do with how we invite people into deeper discipleship. I actually think that it was "Simple Church: Returning to God's Process for Making Disciples" but I'm not 100% positive.

Our conversation from this point talked about the process for making these deep disciples.  We talked about Saddleback Church's Baseball Diamond metaphor... which probably comes from somewhere else first.  We talked about the process at one local pastor's church of moving from an attender to a participator to a server... well, that's not exactly how he phrased it, but it's moving from simply being there to going deeper in your involvement and then giving back in some way. 

It was all about process and movement and how to move people, how to encourage people to not just stay at one level in their spiritual growth, but to... grow!

I left the conversation thinking about the fact our congregation hasn't had a discussion about our discipleship process.  People come to church and we try to get them to join and then... well, pray they get active. It's kind of sad to type that out, but it's probably the truth.

I left the meeting and picked back up the book that I had been reading, "This Beautiful Mess: Practicing the Presence of the Kingdom of God" by Rick McKinley.  And the very chapter I was beginning had this to say: 

When I first became a Christ follower, I was invited to a Bible study... Bring it on, I thought.  I was all for it.  I devoured that one and soon moved on to the next, and then the next one after that, and the next one after that... But there was no end to it.  All I ever arrived at was a new level that needed reaching.  Now you might recognize yourself in my spiritual striving, or you might not.  But I see that kind of striving and competitiveness everywhere... churches especially. Pastors and lay leaders love to talk about advancing the kingdom, about building the kingdom.  It is as if Jesus said, "My kingdom is a pile of lumber on the truck in heave, and I need you boys and girls to get a hammer and help Me nail this thing together.  Could ya?"

But he didn't... He said, "The Kingdom is..."

... What if I told you that the the world is broken and that WE are God's answer to the world's problems?... You yourself - and all that you can do - are crucial to the future of the planet.  Just like you secretly, humbly, all along expected.

Of course, it's not true. The kingdom is. That's it. Jesus does not need you or me to nail it together.

Kind of throws me off.  I like thinking in terms of levels of achievement... if I work hard and do the right things, I can move to the next level... Levels of spirituality are perfect for a culture that deifies the individual.  Our world is focused on self; the kingdom is about the other.  It demands that I notice others, love others, pray for them and serve them. "Levels spirituality" does not.  It allows me to do it myself, by myself.

Jesus hates levels spirutuality. All it does is reinforce the lie that started way back in the beginning - the one that says I can be like God. (pgs 56-58)

So, I spent the morning talking about and embracing this idea of levels and growth through a process and then Rick McKinley turns the whole thing upside down and on its head and says - no.

Of course, it's not necessarily an either/or.  It's a both/and.  We are called both to just be in Christ's kingdom and we are called to take up our cross and follow. 

In spite of my Wesleyan roots, I think I tend to really hold fast to the being of discipleship.  Wesley had a fanatical desire to grow in his spirituality and had all sorts of "methods" for doing so.  Fasting, prayer, visiting the prisoners were all steps in the process of becoming more like Christ. There was the whole idea of sanctification... that we actually COULD by God's grace become more and more like Christ. 

But what I think that in spite of all the doing of discipleship, the early Wesleyans were also putting themselves in situations and among people where they could BE in the Kingdom.  They was seeking out the poor - or they were the poor, the sick, the imprisoned. They sat with the people Jesus loved.  They loved them.  They did what they could for them, but the relationships were important.  When they asked, "how is it with your soul?" they meant it.

Again from Rick McKinley:

...God isn't measuring anything.  He only wants us to live in a dimension that is already there.  He is simply inviting us to be a part of what He is already doing... What I am realizing after a few years of leaving the levels is that our eyes begin to see differently.  We notice the kingdom dimension of life, but slowly... seeing the kingdom may take a few seconds.

My hope as a pastor is not that I get someone to achieve higher levels of discipleship, but that I can love them.  My hope is that I can love them and offer them the opportunity to see the world with new eyes.  To see the world as Christ sees it.  To see the broken and hurting things and to love them.  Yes, there is a goal to be reached  - a time when that hurting and suffering and pain is no more... but that is not for me to determine.  I can simply be in the kingdom and let Christ's love flow through me.

church growth

#6) I have never been a fan of the church growth movement. While I went to a large church in high school - and served a large church in Nashville - I just never bought into the whole church growth schtick. As one of my seminary professors put it - the only thing that grows that fast is cancer.

I never realized how much I would love being in a small town church until I got here. It's amazing folks. People are there to lend a hand instantly, you really get immersed into the community because you are living among your parishoners - instead of everyone traveling in to the church from far off places. They have a great work ethic, they are hungering to learn more and want to get their hands dirty.

My focus has never been to get the church to grow. at least not numerically. Growing in our faithfulness - yes. Growing in our commitment - yes. Growing in our ability to respond to God's Spirit - yes. Growing in numbers... eh.

But we are! My first year here, we about evened out with our deaths and members joining. But this year, with our confirmation class and so far 4 new members, we have grown our church by 11 in six months.

At an Ad Board meeting sometime last fall, someone commented that if we are doing what God wants us to do - the people will come... or maybe they said that the money would come... either way - if we are faithful, people will see that and they will want to be a part of what we are doing. And I think that is true.

We don't need to market our church so much as witness to what cool things God is doing in our midst right now. And right now we witnessed seven young people professing their faith in front of friends and family and their church. We have watched God connect us with a ministry in Cedar Rapids and have been called to respond with donations and building of relationships. We had a family join our church who was so excited about doing so that they brought all of their siblings and parents with them.

Stuff like that is pretty cool. And we are going to keep trying to follow God. And if more people want to join us on that journey - amen!

whew.

all of the distraction and wrestling and frustration yesterday with my sermon... and in the two weeks worth of conversations on membership and discipleship really paid off this morning.

I think my number one goal was to get us to admit as a congregation (and as the church) that our current journey of faith - the one through membership - right now isn't transforming us into disciples of Jesus Christ... we aren't quite there yet. The big problem isn't that it's a bad road to travel, it's that we haven't held one another accountable to prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness. We haven't fully accepted the path.

When I asked how many people feel equipped and empowered to transform the world as a disciple of Jesus Christ - no one raised their hand. When I asked how many wanted to be equipped and empowered to go out there right now and change the world... everyone looked a little bit uneasy.

Good!!!! We should. Because we aren't there yet!!! But we are always moving on to perfection, and today - we put that out there in the light of Christ, we confessed our shortcomings and failures and over the next five weeks we will be prayerfully discerning how we can begin to live out our vows. Because we don't have to be disciples in order to practice these things.... but we might just become disciples if we do.

making members, making disciples

At my church, we have a pretty significant number of people who are "constituents" of our church and not official members. For various reasons, these people want to be an active part of our congregation but do not want to take the vows of membership and officially become United Methodist. And yet, many of those individuals are just as, if not more, active than the "members" of our church.

At School For Ministry last week, we talked a lot about making disciples, and very little about making church members. And at one point in the conversation, we actually admitted that we don't really expect people to uphold their baptismal vows. If we did, we would have a structure for responding or holding people accountable to their choices. But we don't. We baptize them, hold them in our prayers and pray to God that a seed we might have planted would take root.

Contrast that with early Christianity. Baptism was a process you only went through after years of formational training. I'm not sure that "membership" was ever the term used in that time, but certainly one could be excluded from the body for offenses until penance had been made. Confession of faith was extremely important.

Now, our church has very good reasons for upholding infant baptism. It says that baptism is a sign that God's grace goes before us - even before we are able to respond. But... BUT... baptism is also supposed to be an act of the congregation as we together promise, covenant, commit ourselves to nurturing that baby in the Christian faith.

Perhaps it was because for such a long time, Christianity was just the norm that we lost touch of those promises. The congregation didn't take seriously their role, because after all, this was a Christian nation and anyone who was raised simply by the culture would be brought up Christian. But that was a false presumption and it has led to whole generations of people who have been formed by the culture's view of Christianity, rather than God's view of culture.

So we make members. We ask people to join our club. And we count our success in ministry by the number of people we have on the rolls.

And there is nothing in there about making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

The big question for me is how do we start? How do I help my confirmation kids, or the baby who will be baptized this next Sunday - but whose parents do not even attend my church (her grandparents do), or the members of my congregation who think that simply by showing up once a month they are living out their commitments... how do I begin to show each of those groups of people that ideally, membership is a process of discipleship?

Let's look first at the process of membership.

1) we ask people to renounce sin and profess their faith
2) the congregation promises to nurture one another in the faith
3) if someone has not been baptized, we do so
4) if it is someone who was baptized before and is now reaffirming their faith (new members or confirmands) we have a blessing over them.
5) we recieve people into the church with the following vow:
as members of this congregation, will you faithfully participate in its
ministries by your prayers, your presence, your gifts, your service and your witness? I will.

In our tradition, being a member means taking on those five responsibilities.

And to be honest - I think that they are good commitments to make. I believe that they can be disciple making activities. But the big disconnect is the part where it says "its ministries." We expect that all of this disciple making will happen in the congregation, or in some way connected to a ministry of the congregation. And it might not. It may be in a bible study at work, or in helping a neighbor, or partnering with community agencies to share your gifts. Our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness will be evidence of our growth as disciples... but we can't let ourselves be limited to the church. We have to be disciples for the transformation of the world.

Maybe that is my starting place. As we baptise an infant next week, I need to uplift that it is our responsibility to help nurture her wherever in the world she may be. As we get ready to confirm our youth, I need to encourage them to be disciples wherever they may be. And as we go over these membership vows in teaching and preaching in the next five weeks - I need to remind people that this is their responsibility and commitment... and that we need to hold one another accountable to doing so in EVERY facet of our lives.

ABC's of ...

I spent a lot of time in the car last week - having to drive to the hospital in another city and then traveling yet again to meet with my clergy mentor. And as I did so, I kept thinking about how we can really ramp up energy for the fall and then sustain it. What would get people who haven't been in a while to come back? What would be appealing for those in our community who have never checked out our church? How can we reach out and really start at the basics?

And then it hit me... back to school... back to the basics... what about focusing this fall, beginning with the return to our normal schedule/sunday school/3rd grade bible give out, on the ABC's?

I struggle with the ABC's of what... ABC's of the church? ABC's of faith? ABC's of Christianity? So bear with me as I figure that one out... (or if you have suggestions - please comment!!!)

I'm also a fairly consistent lectionary preacher, so in thinking about this, I've been trying to figure out how each Sunday, from Aug 31 to Nov 23 (because then we start Lent), fits not only a letter, but also the weekly texts. Some have worked beautifully. Others, not so well. So I'm asking for some help.

1) Am I trying to hard to make this concept work?
2) Suggestions for the letters that have no direction yet (B, H, I, L)

Here is what I have so far:

A: Alpha/Omega or I AM

focusing on who God is, using the burning bush scriptures from Exodus, and combining this and the previous week's gospels - Mt 16:13-28

B: Body of Christ, Blessed, ?

scriptures for the week include teaching on how to reach when someone offends you in the church, the institution of passover, and in Romans, the call to love and call to prepare for salvation by putting on Christ. Sidenote: after reading a sermon recently on Psalm 119 - I really was thinking about using "Bible" for my B... so that may be an entirely different direction

C: Care, Compassion, Community

scriptures include the law of forgiveness, the call not to judge one another, and the parting of the sea in exodus. Originally when I thought about this series, I really wanted to focus on care during this week - and to emphasize our role as a community to care for one another, and my desire to care for them. I've noticed that people don't call me or tell me when something happens in their lives - like if they have to go in for surgery or suddenly end up in the hospital - which may be simply that they aren't used to telling their pastor these things. I want to talk about how together we are supposed to care for each other.

D: Disciple (but I was really thinking about Doubt too)

scriptures: Paul's exhortation to live lives worthy of the gospel, the parable of the landowner and the wages for workers, and if I went the doubt route - the manna and quails and the people grumbling in the wilderness

E: Emptying

I really wanted to use Kenosis for K... and then realized that the Christ Hymn fell on the E Sunday - which is perfect! (since its the same concept)

F: Faith (and maybe Fear also) ooo... maybe Fall?

This is also World Communion Sunday - so I was stuck a bit. The scriptures for the week don't fit really well with the scope of world communion Sunday and I was stretching trying to make fruit work. Scriptures are supposed to include the parable of the wicked tenants, the 10 commandments, and the example of Paul - I press on toward the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ. I could use the wicked tenants and the 10 commandments to talk about the Fall, and our place before God - why we need the law. But another idea is to actually take the readings from August 10 and use them here: Jesus walking on the water (faith and fear) along with Paul talking about faith and the idea that there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all. (which I think works much better for World Communion Sunday). Thoughts?

G: Grace

This would be a great time to talk about grace from the Wesleyan perspective. I think the three main readings can help illustrate prevenient grace (the sinners invited to the feast), justifying grace (moses interceding after the golden calf), and sanctifying grace (stand firm, help one another, rejoice from Philippians)

H: Holy, Holy Spirit, Humility

I'm stuck here. Readings include Jesus call to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, as well as the pharisees trying to trap Jesus in questions; Moses having the chance to encounter God's presence, but not being able to look at God's face; and Paul giving thanks for the Thessalonians who received the gospel with power and the Holy Spirit. Could go lots of different ways.

I: ? Instruction? Idolatry?

Again, stuck here. Readings include the greatest command - to love, the death and burial of Moses, and Paul assuring the Thessalonians that he comes to bring them not only God's word, but also their true hearts (you are witnesses to how blameless our conduct was towards you)

J: Joy, Journey, Jordan River

All Saints Sunday - which fits in PERFECTLY. Joshua is leading the people across the river Jordan where they remember the promise of God and leave 12 stones for remembrance, Paul gives thanks for witnesses, and Matthew warns against trying to be better, but that we should all be servants - what a great day to celebrate the saints among us who have passed before us?

K: Kingdom of God/Heaven

parable of the 10 bridesmaids (the kingdom of heaven will be like this!), choose this day who you will serve (Joshua)

L: ? (Lord, Light, Love, Law, Life, Lord's Prayer, Logos)

readings include the parable of the talents; Paul claiming that the Lord will come like a theif in the night - so we should be children of the light; and simply the introduction of Deborah as a judge - not even the full story. Part of me wants to switch this week with the greatest command to love scriptures (week I) - which would mean going a different direction with week I (could they just be flip-flopped?)

M: Messiah

Christ the King Sunday - Readings include the sheep and the goats, Christ as the head of the church, and Ezekiel's description of the shepherd who seeks the lost.

That brings me to the first Sunday of Advent - which I want to focus on in its fullness.