Saturday, September 11, 2010
Thinking about Baptism
Only one of these appears to be in the "proper" Brethren direction but it was fun to watch.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Another death certificate for the emerging church
Another death certificate for the emerging church
This is an older post by Carol but I found it true to some of what I feel.
This is an older post by Carol but I found it true to some of what I feel.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Confronted and Convicted
Ever been really convicted of something? So much so your eyes were opened to a new reality?
When I was younger, someone asked me about tithing. I was a tither since mom & dad first gave me $7.50 a month and said to give 10% to the church. Someone asked “Do you tithe your net or your gross income?” My eyes opened wide. I had never thought about it like that. I had worked for just enough years to think of my income as the amount on my paycheck, (pause) NOT the amount on the stub before taxes and social security. I had some thinking to do, this simple question, ‘cracked me open’ it CONFRONTED me with a new reality, a new way of thinking about giving that still challenges.
When we are cracked open, we are left RAW, like a ripe fruit we are vulnerable to rapid change once the skin is pierced. Someone either enjoys the fruit or it is quickly spoiled.
I knew a man who was a fellow at the Sorenson Institute when I was. He was an ardent anti-abortionist. The Institute offered us learning opportunities in a great variety of public policy areas and the key issues of the day. AND since we were together for a full weekend, we had many opportunities for deep discussion with a group so diverse that all beliefs on the spectrum were represented. I shared with this man how difficult I found the issue of abortion. While I believe in the sanctity of life, I also understood some circumstances to be so complex, so painful, and medically dangerous that abortion seemed to be the answer; certainly never ideal, but sometimes the better choice. He told me that he and his wife were firm in their belief that abortion was never the answer.
Several of us talked about strident believers who propose no answer for children born without parents, without love, or into tortuous conditions. Then he told us that something had happened to he and his wife (I never learned what) but something that ‘cracked them open’. Once they were CONFRONTED, they became so convicted that they couldn’t continue to promote a strict anti-abortion stance unless they also acted to relieve the stress on children who were born into a system without parents to raise them. So this couple began to adopt children that had been in the ‘social service system.’ They raised a family of adopted children and when their kids got older, they became foster parents too.
Brethren would say they ‘walked their talk’. All the fine points of the group’s debate disappeared after that. Tho WE still struggled with the issue and individual choice, WE could only look at our colleague with admiration for his conviction AND his action.
Have you ever been confronted so deeply and surprisingly that it cracked you open?
Jesus did this again and again. He told stories with twisted endings, where the hated and unclean person turned out to be the hero. In Jesus’ stories a Samaritan rescues a mugged stranger left for dead, an unclean, ethnically undesirable, does what priests and religious people wouldn’t stoop to do. In Jesus’ life, a WOMAN, perhaps shamed that life has left her without a living spouse, deserved his personal attention and precious time.
Jesus confronted, he challenged, and many people walked away, convicted.
But others, just walked away.
Paul did the same thing and it landed him in jail again and again. As surprising as this letter to Philemon is for its day, its just Paul being Paul, CONFRONTING people out of his own CONVICTION. Paul reminded Philemon of the brother-and-sisterhood we ALL share in Christ – equality of person, gender, and position. Paul wrote this in a day when NO equality was assumed.
Men and women weren’t equal, the relationship between Greeks and Jews remained a debate in the 1st century church, and slavery was the way of the world for captured populations or those sold into slavery to pay debts. Paul challenged Philemon’s rights, asking him to give up what he was entitled to. He even confronted Philemon’s status, asking him to ‘step down’ from his position as master and accept shame from his peers by allowing his slave to return, not only unpunished, but as an equal. Because they were equal; EQUAL members of Christ’s body.
Paul did this with tack, he did it with cleverness, he did it with gentle force, he was clever in the ways of the world in order to promote the ways of the kingdom.
Have you ever been CONFRONTED and CONVICTED of a new reality?
This is what Christ’s Kingdom is, - a new reality of equality. If you have - you may have found yourself visiting someone in prison, writing to someone on death row, marching in a demonstration for peace, or giving up a meal to give the money to someone who was hungry. Maybe you gave up thanksgiving with your family to work in a soup kitchen…. Or found yourself handing out groceries on a Saturday at AFAC..
Discipleship is a word we use easily in church. YET living the Jesus’ WAY has a cost. It takes away from our disposable income to tithe. It takes away from our safe, predictable lives to visit – in a prison OR a nursing home. It takes away from our VERY precious time to volunteer with programs that reach the most needy. It takes away our security and our status to reach out to those Jesus saw as the least, and the lost.
Giving up family thanksgiving dinner may be the hardest thing you can imagine. Or maybe beginning a correspondence with someone sentenced to death is the thing you are challenged to do. How hard that can be, especially knowing how the relationship is likely to end. We don’t do these things because they make us feel good. (Although that sometimes happens).
We do them, because somewhere someone, named Jesus, confronted us. And once convicted of HIS WAY, we have to change our way.
When I was younger, someone asked me about tithing. I was a tither since mom & dad first gave me $7.50 a month and said to give 10% to the church. Someone asked “Do you tithe your net or your gross income?” My eyes opened wide. I had never thought about it like that. I had worked for just enough years to think of my income as the amount on my paycheck, (pause) NOT the amount on the stub before taxes and social security. I had some thinking to do, this simple question, ‘cracked me open’ it CONFRONTED me with a new reality, a new way of thinking about giving that still challenges.
When we are cracked open, we are left RAW, like a ripe fruit we are vulnerable to rapid change once the skin is pierced. Someone either enjoys the fruit or it is quickly spoiled.
I knew a man who was a fellow at the Sorenson Institute when I was. He was an ardent anti-abortionist. The Institute offered us learning opportunities in a great variety of public policy areas and the key issues of the day. AND since we were together for a full weekend, we had many opportunities for deep discussion with a group so diverse that all beliefs on the spectrum were represented. I shared with this man how difficult I found the issue of abortion. While I believe in the sanctity of life, I also understood some circumstances to be so complex, so painful, and medically dangerous that abortion seemed to be the answer; certainly never ideal, but sometimes the better choice. He told me that he and his wife were firm in their belief that abortion was never the answer.
Several of us talked about strident believers who propose no answer for children born without parents, without love, or into tortuous conditions. Then he told us that something had happened to he and his wife (I never learned what) but something that ‘cracked them open’. Once they were CONFRONTED, they became so convicted that they couldn’t continue to promote a strict anti-abortion stance unless they also acted to relieve the stress on children who were born into a system without parents to raise them. So this couple began to adopt children that had been in the ‘social service system.’ They raised a family of adopted children and when their kids got older, they became foster parents too.
Brethren would say they ‘walked their talk’. All the fine points of the group’s debate disappeared after that. Tho WE still struggled with the issue and individual choice, WE could only look at our colleague with admiration for his conviction AND his action.
Have you ever been confronted so deeply and surprisingly that it cracked you open?
Jesus did this again and again. He told stories with twisted endings, where the hated and unclean person turned out to be the hero. In Jesus’ stories a Samaritan rescues a mugged stranger left for dead, an unclean, ethnically undesirable, does what priests and religious people wouldn’t stoop to do. In Jesus’ life, a WOMAN, perhaps shamed that life has left her without a living spouse, deserved his personal attention and precious time.
Jesus confronted, he challenged, and many people walked away, convicted.
But others, just walked away.
Paul did the same thing and it landed him in jail again and again. As surprising as this letter to Philemon is for its day, its just Paul being Paul, CONFRONTING people out of his own CONVICTION. Paul reminded Philemon of the brother-and-sisterhood we ALL share in Christ – equality of person, gender, and position. Paul wrote this in a day when NO equality was assumed.
Men and women weren’t equal, the relationship between Greeks and Jews remained a debate in the 1st century church, and slavery was the way of the world for captured populations or those sold into slavery to pay debts. Paul challenged Philemon’s rights, asking him to give up what he was entitled to. He even confronted Philemon’s status, asking him to ‘step down’ from his position as master and accept shame from his peers by allowing his slave to return, not only unpunished, but as an equal. Because they were equal; EQUAL members of Christ’s body.
Paul did this with tack, he did it with cleverness, he did it with gentle force, he was clever in the ways of the world in order to promote the ways of the kingdom.
Have you ever been CONFRONTED and CONVICTED of a new reality?
This is what Christ’s Kingdom is, - a new reality of equality. If you have - you may have found yourself visiting someone in prison, writing to someone on death row, marching in a demonstration for peace, or giving up a meal to give the money to someone who was hungry. Maybe you gave up thanksgiving with your family to work in a soup kitchen…. Or found yourself handing out groceries on a Saturday at AFAC..
Discipleship is a word we use easily in church. YET living the Jesus’ WAY has a cost. It takes away from our disposable income to tithe. It takes away from our safe, predictable lives to visit – in a prison OR a nursing home. It takes away from our VERY precious time to volunteer with programs that reach the most needy. It takes away our security and our status to reach out to those Jesus saw as the least, and the lost.
Giving up family thanksgiving dinner may be the hardest thing you can imagine. Or maybe beginning a correspondence with someone sentenced to death is the thing you are challenged to do. How hard that can be, especially knowing how the relationship is likely to end. We don’t do these things because they make us feel good. (Although that sometimes happens).
We do them, because somewhere someone, named Jesus, confronted us. And once convicted of HIS WAY, we have to change our way.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Still working
I'm still working on the sermon. Almost done, but had to post this picture, if I can. You can find it at http://twitpic.com/2l6ckk Can you imagine the business meeting that voted on this logo?
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
"Comfort in Fall Rituals"
"Take comfort in fall rituals" my Starbucks email says as they promote the pumpkin spice latte. I'm taking comfort in a different kind of ritual, that of the funeral. Tomorrow is family visitation and on Thursday we celebrate the life of Barbara Jean Fitzgerald, my mother-in-law.
She was an awesome woman and my only mother for the past 10 years since mine died. She has had a rough time of it in the last several years. It seemed each infection was harder to overcome and many landed her in the hospital. She fought back again and again, always putting on her beautiful smile and reaching out from her wheelchair to hug us when we visited. Until last week, when she tired of fighting. She asked not to go to the hospital and thanks to the care of my sister-in-law and Piedmont hospice, she was able to stay home as she relinquished the fight. In her language, she WAS going home.
We take comfort in the rituals surrounding end of life. We will take comfort in memory and story. I'll read scripture and encourage family to share a mental image they have of 'Jean'. We will say our goodbyes this way and listen for the words of hope in scripture that remind us that we are in God's care, on both sides of the grave.
She was an awesome woman and my only mother for the past 10 years since mine died. She has had a rough time of it in the last several years. It seemed each infection was harder to overcome and many landed her in the hospital. She fought back again and again, always putting on her beautiful smile and reaching out from her wheelchair to hug us when we visited. Until last week, when she tired of fighting. She asked not to go to the hospital and thanks to the care of my sister-in-law and Piedmont hospice, she was able to stay home as she relinquished the fight. In her language, she WAS going home.
We take comfort in the rituals surrounding end of life. We will take comfort in memory and story. I'll read scripture and encourage family to share a mental image they have of 'Jean'. We will say our goodbyes this way and listen for the words of hope in scripture that remind us that we are in God's care, on both sides of the grave.
Psalm 25:5 Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long.For mom, the waiting is over.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Ok, I'll play the Friday Five
1) What was the hardest thing to leave behind when you went away to school for the first time?
My friends from school. I moved away from that town the same weekend I went off to college. TOO many goodbyes all at once.
2) We live in the era of helicopter parents. How much fuss did your parents make when you first left home?
They never seemed overly effected by my leaving. Maybe because the whole family was in the midst of a move. Mom said they just figured I was old enough to leave home by then, she had around that age.
3) Share a favorite memory of living with schoolmates, whether in a dorm or other shared housing.
Water fights in the all-girls dorm and sitting in the window to watch the guys have ROTC practice.
4) What absolute necessity of college life in your day would seem hilariously out-of-date now?
A relative's ok to "Check out of the dorm" for the weekend.
5) What innovation of today do you wish had been part of your life in college?
Cell-phone!
My friends from school. I moved away from that town the same weekend I went off to college. TOO many goodbyes all at once.
2) We live in the era of helicopter parents. How much fuss did your parents make when you first left home?
They never seemed overly effected by my leaving. Maybe because the whole family was in the midst of a move. Mom said they just figured I was old enough to leave home by then, she had around that age.
3) Share a favorite memory of living with schoolmates, whether in a dorm or other shared housing.
Water fights in the all-girls dorm and sitting in the window to watch the guys have ROTC practice.
4) What absolute necessity of college life in your day would seem hilariously out-of-date now?
A relative's ok to "Check out of the dorm" for the weekend.
5) What innovation of today do you wish had been part of your life in college?
Cell-phone!
End of August, already?
Can it be the end of August? It feels so much cooler and I am loving the temperatures. Yet I feel the pressure of things not finished and some never got started! It's hard to believe that vacation and a writer's conference kept me away from blogging for so long. And now that I'm back? Well here's a brief thought from this morning until the sermon notes come together.
As I write it appears the worst of the very hot days of summer are over. Beautiful weather is a gift that we take for granted until the temperatures rise over 90 degrees. When we sweat and groan when stepping out of the air conditioning is required, we remember the gift of “good weather”. Even as we enjoy a few cooler days, complete villages and towns in Pakistan struggle to survive severe flooding. Life on this planet is diverse and calls us to constantly be aware of our surroundings and all humanity of which we are a part. Each day we view life in both small and large perspective. Each day we pray for those close to our hearts; family, friends, AND those far away who hope someone remembers. May we live in the challenge of holding near and far together in our prayers as we enter the usually busy fall season.
May my busy days never keep me away from prayer.
As I write it appears the worst of the very hot days of summer are over. Beautiful weather is a gift that we take for granted until the temperatures rise over 90 degrees. When we sweat and groan when stepping out of the air conditioning is required, we remember the gift of “good weather”. Even as we enjoy a few cooler days, complete villages and towns in Pakistan struggle to survive severe flooding. Life on this planet is diverse and calls us to constantly be aware of our surroundings and all humanity of which we are a part. Each day we view life in both small and large perspective. Each day we pray for those close to our hearts; family, friends, AND those far away who hope someone remembers. May we live in the challenge of holding near and far together in our prayers as we enter the usually busy fall season.
May my busy days never keep me away from prayer.
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