How we ‘rocked’ Palm Sunday

April 18, 2011 · Bible, Worship, ministry, spiritual life · 57 comments

3415677543_3a004d22f0_oIn worship at my congregation we try to engage all of the senses, but that’s not easy. Hearing is the easiest one to engage in traditional Lutheran worship; that’s what we tend to do best. But when we get out of that comfort zone–how do I put this?–cool things happen. Especially when the original worship plan doesn’t work.

Yesterday, on Palm Sunday, we decided to engage both eyes and hands in the experience of the Passion Story—Jesus’ suffering and death as told in Matthew 26:14-27:66. It’s a long story and difficult to just listen to all at once, but it’s central to Christian faith and central to this Holy Week leading up to Easter. Our congregation has experienced various and powerful dramas in past years as well as choral readings. But this year I wondered if our imaginations could be freed up to enter the story, and let it enter us, by a different use of the senses:

  • Hearing the story read,
  • Seeing thematic images and words on the screen (a palm branch, a garden, a rocky path), and
  • Holding a large rock in our hands as a concrete focus for our imagination.

Instead of trying to digest the story all at once, we broke it up with brief interludes from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, played live. (Many people in our congregation had recently experienced the musical when it was produced in town.) Those interludes became times to imagine the place our own rock might have in the story: underneath Jesus as he threw himself on the ground to pray at Gethsemane, for example. (You can read the script of readings and reflections here.)

Lutherans say we worship in “Word and Sacrament”—“Word” meaning both the Word of Scripture and the Word who is Christ—but people aren’t all wired to receive “words” in the same way. Some of us are much more visual than auditory, and some of us learn with our hands. (Touch regularly happens in worship through sharing the peace—handshakes or hugs—and receiving communion, which engages smell and taste too.)

But all of that is background to what I really wanted to say today, which is what I learn from such multi-sensory worship experiments. Every time you bring objects into worship, you open up Pandora’s box of what the objects will actually turn out to mean to people. In the context of corporate worship, the objects don’t always mean what you had envisioned, and people don’t always interpret your instructions the way you had envisioned, either.  Continue reading →

Question-ing ministry, part 1

March 16, 2011 · Community, Vocation, ministry, spiritual life · 138 comments

I’m seeing lately how much ministry and church life are characterized by the questions we are asking, perhaps even more than by the ways we are answering them. Each year about this time I have to write an Annual Report as a church staff member. This time, rather than just listing “what we did,” I’ve been pondering the questions that emerged in and through the ministries and relationships I’m involved in. Not surprisingly, there’s lots of overlap with the things I blog about here—young adult spiritual journeys, vocation discernment, belonging—so I’ll post the report, in two parts.

Two related “umbrella” questions span the whole year: How can a church like ours be a resource for young adults (ages 18-30) on their life journeys and spiritual travels? And, perhaps even more importantly, How can the church learn from and adapt to the resources and creativity that young adults offer? This is not the same as asking, “How do we ‘hold onto’ teens and young adults?” It’s not asking, “How will the Church survive if the current trends of declining membership and attendance among young people continue?” Rather, it’s a question about what we value and communicate as a congregation, who finds it possible to belong here, and how open we are to new generations’ own questions and answers.

In 2010 I had the privilege of traveling to several colleges, congregations, and young adult ministries, where I had this conversation with many others who are asking similar questions. Continue reading →

Becoming a better lover

February 10, 2011 · Discernment, Vocation, spiritual life · 106 comments

3333536996_b2b0742476_mI spent last weekend on the California coast with a group of college students on a retreat called “Seeking Your Calling, Finding Yourself.” I’ve been leading such retreats for more than seven years now, and while every group is different, it’s interesting to see how certain themes keep surfacing and resurfacing in various retreats. With the group last weekend, I spent a lot of time pondering the possibility of “wrong” choices. Can a choice be “wrong” if you learn something important from it or if something good comes out of it? If not, can you really call anything a “wrong choice”? And if there is no such thing as a wrong choice, why do we bother to seek our calling and practice discernment at all?

I wrote about this in Chapter 4 of my book, but it’s been a while since I talked about it with people. Here’s where the conversation ended up over the weekend: Perhaps there are no “right” or “wrong” choices, only ones which are “more” or “less” loving–toward others and ourselves. Perhaps that is the very best reason to engage in discernment and pay attention to our own clues on the treasure hunts of our lives: so that we can keep practicing love, both giving it and receiving it. We never become perfect at this (something to keep pondering as I prepare a sermon on Matthew 5:48, “Be perfect…”), but we can become more “practiced” and more open-hearted. God loves us no matter what kind of choices we make, but becoming able to give and receive more love makes a big difference in our life, relationships, and work.

As we practice discernment, we gain trust in God, ourselves, and the journey itself–which helps us to love better, as fear loses its grip on us. And as we gain freedom from self-centered anxiety, we become more free for love. We “love” in all kinds of ways–this isn’t just true of romantic love or love shown to family, friends, and strangers. It’s also about the love we practice in our work, learning, faith and worship, and the ways we inhabit our communities and planet.

So with the weekend’s retreat in mind, with Valentine’s Day approaching, and with today being the ninth anniversary of my ordination to pastoral ministry, I’m recalling this hope: “Hope that with the skills we learn on our search for treasure, we will one day love God, the world, and ourselves as passionately as we are loved” (The Treasure Hunt of Your Life, p.158). May it be so.

(Photo by gigaman, flickr/creativecommons)

Hello! You’re welcome to belong

February 2, 2011 · Community, Discernment, ministry, spiritual life · 54 comments

Many things related to “welcome” are crossing my path these days. With last Sunday celebrated as “Welcome Sunday” by many in the Reconciling in Christ community and this recent thought-provoking blog post by Pastor Keith Anderson, I have been pondering what it takes for someone to feel “welcome”–in particular, welcome in a church community or at a worship service.

Much of the church talk about welcome and hospitality that I’ve seen over the years focuses on first impressions–what happens the first time someone comes to worship, for example, and how follow-up happens from there. First impressions are crucial, I agree, but that seems more like “greeting”–and “greeting” may or may not deepen into “welcome,” and “welcome” may or may not become “belonging.”

Perhaps these are false distinctions. Perhaps they happen simultaneously, or perhaps they happen in a different order for some people. Perhaps neither greeting nor welcome works very well if there’s no potential for a deeper belonging down the road. In fact, perhaps it’s the potential for belonging that defines a good greeting or welcome.

But then how does belonging happen, and more to the point, how quickly does it happen? Continue reading →

Whose story is this, anyway?

January 4, 2011 · Bible, Discernment, ministry, spiritual life · 150 comments

As I’m preparing the sermon for this Sunday’s celebration of The Baptism of Our Lord, this line jumped out at me in a commentary on the gospel, Matthew 3:13-17:

“The writer of Matthew strives to link the story of Jesus’ life with the story of God’s people as told in the Hebrew Scriptures.”

It is often noted about Matthew that, of the four gospel writers, he is the one who quotes Hebrew Scripture most frequently, and perhaps that is why his gospel was placed first in the New Testament, as a bridge from the Old to the New. But that’s not why this line jumped out at me.

I think it was because, as a reader of Scripture, I am always looking for something similar: the link between my life and the story of Jesus and God’s people as told in the Christian and Hebrew Scriptures. And, as a preacher of Scripture, I’m always looking for ways to help others find those links too. That’s not often easy, and sometimes it can seem almost impossible. But I keep looking, because the effort is always worth it.

With the story of Jesus’ baptism, the easy way to link our story with his is to focus on what happens last: God says of Jesus, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17). Then the preacher points out how God says the same thing of us at our baptisms: we are God’s beloved sons and daughters. Voila! Stories linked.

But that seems too easy. It ignores several major differences between Jesus’ story and ours. For one thing, Matthew’s point here is not about God’s love per se. It’s that Jesus is actually Son of God, in a way that the rest of us are not.

More concretely, in today’s churches (at least, in Lutheran churches), we don’t experience baptisms like Jesus’ baptism. The landscape is different, obviously. And for us, the heavens usually do not open. The Spirit does not descend like a dove and alight on the one baptized. We do not hear the voice from heaven.

So, as I keep looking for a new way to think about the link between our own lives and this story, I wonder if I might look here: The same God who was present at Jesus’ baptism is also present at baptisms today. Perhaps we get so focused on looking for the concrete links (i.e. Jesus was baptized by immersion in a river, so we should baptize by immersion in a river) that we miss the bigger picture: the God who was present then is also present now, doing the same kinds of things that God always does.

The work of interpretation, then, becomes the work of paying attention to the ways God is acting today: in this case, sending the Spirit and revealing Jesus to the world again and again. With this story and many others, that work is always worth it.

Don’t speak, just wait

December 6, 2010 · Bible, Discernment, ministry, spiritual life · (No comments)

4464692837_abacc2f28fIf a pastor is going to get laryngitis, she might as well get it during the Advent season. At least there’s Biblical precedent for this combination of speechlessness and waiting in the very first story of Luke’s gospel: the story of Zechariah, father-to-be of John the Baptist (Luke 1:5-24). When an angel tells him that his barren wife, Elizabeth, will bear a child, he’s doubtful; who wouldn’t be? But the angel Gabriel is not impressed by the extent of his doubts, and those doubts have consequences: “But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur” (Lk.1:20). And so Zechariah spends his time waiting for the birth, speechless.

I used to think the speechlessness was a punishment, along the lines of “if you can’t say anything nice (or faithful, or theologically appropriate, or whatever), then don’t say anything at all.” But today, as I face my own temporary time of not-speaking, I wonder if there is also grace in this consequence. When you can’t speak, you can listen better. You have time and space to wrestle with your own private doubts–of which Zechariah had plenty–without speaking them into public reality along the way. You can enter into the silence of waiting in a more concrete way. Which, after all, is what Advent is all about.

In my line of work, you can’t get as much accomplished when you can’t speak, and perhaps this too is what Advent is all about–not the busy-ness of Christmas preparations, but the slow darkness of the winter solstice and, eventually, the hopeful lengthening of days when the Christ child’s birth will be celebrated, when the “new thing” will be born.

Recently I’ve been watching and listening to Brian McLaren’s song “To Be Born.” Words such as “do not push or rush, do not fight or strive” seem to go well with speechlessness. Just let it be. Let the new thing be born. Do not try to determine its identity or its timing or its purpose with so many words. Welcome it with openness. Welcome it with humility. Welcome it with silence.

There will be plenty of time for speech, as Zechariah discovered (Luke 1:57-80). For now, we wait.

Photo by Anders Printz (flickr/Creative Commons).

Jesus’ faith in us

September 28, 2010 · Bible, Community, Vocation, ministry, spiritual life · (No comments)

1983679028_f733a006db_mThe gospel text for this Sunday, Luke 17:5-10, presents some challenges. For me, the biggest challenge is the way this parable seems to glorify “duty”–which I frankly have never found to be a very powerful motivator.

Just before this in Luke 17, Jesus has been talking to the disciples about two particularly challenging “duties” of discipleship: 1) correct one another when you’re wrong, and 2) forgive one another as many times as it takes. Given those difficult responsibilities, it’s no wonder, in verse 5, that the disciples cry out, “Increase our faith!” Jesus’ response does not seem particularly helpful, or at least not particularly comforting: “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.” Huh? Then I guess we don’t even have that small amount of faith.

And then, this parable:

“Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Would he not rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’ ” (Luke 17:7-10, NIV)

Here is where I find it very, very helpful to read the Bible with people of different ages. How we read the Bible–or how the Bible reads us–depends on many things, one of which is the stage of life we’re living. Continue reading →

Pluto, you DO belong

August 24, 2010 · Community, Vocation, ministry, spiritual life · (No comments)

1184940392_38d1f78e3e_mThis morning the Writer’s Almanac informed me, “It was on this day four years ago that Pluto was demoted from being a planet. Pluto’s status had been debated for decades, but its fate was decided rather swiftly on this day, at the 2006 meeting of the International Astronomical Union (IAU).” I remember that time well, because in 2006 my own sense of self-definition and belonging was in transition, as I’d just left one call in ministry and was awaiting the next. For this fourth anniversary of Pluto’s “demotion,” I’ll repost the reflection I wrote for Religion and Spirituality.com on September 6, 2006:

“I know just how Pluto feels.” That thread runs through many of the comments on the recent redefinition of Pluto by the International Astronomical Union. Pluto’s been “demoted,” some call it, from planet to dwarf-planet.

We know what this must feel like, because it’s a universal human experience: losing status, being left out, or having our universe defined in a way that kicks us out of the place we expected or wanted. Continue reading →

Coveting my neighbor’s talents

August 8, 2010 · Bible, Community, Discernment, Vocation, ministry, spiritual life · (No comments)

I just returned from the Invitation to Service event, where I experienced yet again a reason I need to keep talking about finding one’s calling: because I forget key principles myself if I go too long between telling others about them.

For example: One of the principles of calling (”vocation”) is that you start with the gifts and talents you get, which are not always the ones you want. I’ve spent much of my life and ministry mourning the gifts I didn’t have or wanted more of, which diminishes the gifts I do have. This makes it hard to follow wherever my calling is taking me because I’m always wanting to go somewhere else. (It reminds me of Parker Palmer’s line from Let Your Life Speak: “Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you.”) I was hoping that I’d be immune to this by now, but I needed another booster shot this weekend. Continue reading →

Watch for falling bricks

July 13, 2010 · Discernment, ministry, spiritual life · (No comments)

132640908_1bfbaa6f56Every now and then I encounter someone whose play with the metaphor of “new houses from old bricks” reveals new insights about how identity and faith are formed. I had such a conversation yesterday with a young woman from my congregation who’s about to start her second year of college.

We were talking about the way each person picks up “bricks” along life’s journey–bits and pieces of insight, tradition, and experience. Those bricks can then be used in the creation of a self, a faith, and a life big enough and strong enough to live in: a “new house.” This is a risky process for a couple reasons:

  • If you never pick up any bricks (that is, appropriate tradition and experience, claiming them as yours), you’ll be at best a “renter” in your own life and communities, always depending on others to provide your shelter (tell you what to believe in).
  • If you know how to pick up bricks (accumulate experiences and ideas) but don’t know how to build with them (interpret, create, and do theology for yourself), you’ll end up with a pile of bricks–not something that will provide shelter in life’s storms.

Yesterday my friend came up with a third risk that I’m still pondering. Sometimes, she said, you pick up a brick and then, instead of it getting incorporated in the structure, it becomes an obstacle. I can picture a building project in process, with the leftover bricks scattered throughout the yard just waiting to trip up the inattentive. Or, she said, you might drop the brick on your foot. Continue reading →

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