RoboPreacher

go do, you'll know how to

2012-01-28T06:50:00.000-08:00

just let yourself, give into the flood-tide

(Go do!)

what we’re doing

For the next four posts I will be working through the fourbasic parts of a service (Gathering, Word, Meal, Sending). The idea is to minethe resources available about each part of the service and ask relevantquestions.

And as I said last week, much of the formal material isn’tthat helpful…

a ritual within aritual

That being said, the sending, or propelling, is the end ofthe service. After God’s people have gotten together, read a little and noshed,it’s time to go. They’re thrust through the thresholds into the world. Thereshould be a momentum to this propelling.

The reason the sending is a specific ritual is because asthese people are going, they find they’ve been changed.

As with all liminal moments in life, a ritual isappropriate.

The sending, then, is a specific ritual that is located atthe end of the larger ritual of worship. The sending requires a ritual becauseafter the service we’re a little different and we need a ritual to help usgrasp with what the sending means.

How are we to live now as different people?

What does it mean that we’re leaving a place that has(hopefully/ideally) changed us in a meaningful way?

the sending helps uswrestle with those questions

The sending helps us wrestle with these questions, not somuch by giving us answers, but by reminding us God goes with us. The sendinghelps us wrestle with these questions by reminding us that, not only is it okayto leave, but that is what God intends.

The sending tells usthat we don’t leave our transformation at the church door. In other words,we’re not just saints in the church, we’re called to be saints outside of thechurch, too.

a digression

By saints I don’t mean obnoxious, pious people. I meanpeople who, somehow, are changed.

The sending helps us understand that this reign of God, thatthis beloved community is not just a tribal thing.

the sending remindsus that the gifts we’ve been given are to be shared

That, basically, is what the sending is all about.

So, with a better grasp of what the sending is all about,how do we craft rituals that are meaningful and that carry these meanings?

Obviously every answer is different.

Some basic parts have been singing, a blessing and a call to“go,” with a response that we’re thankful about it.

the things is, we’reall familiar with sendings

When we moved out, when the bar closes, etc. We’re sofamiliar with sendings it is easy to just float through them.

The church service is no different…

Honestly sometimes I am annoyed if there is a sending song,by the time I get to that part in the service I am ready to go (especially if Iknow there is a postlude I am going to be expected to sit through)!

So, not only do we easily float through the sending, but ourrituals retard the process. Rather than being sent out euphoric & with asense of urgency, we’re sent sedated & bored.

Okay, I know I’ve been complaining a lot, but I guess it’sbecause I think the sending can be a really meaningful part of a worshipexperience, all too often, though, it is boring.

here are a fewproposals

•The blessings should be brief and it should be given fromthe back of the congregation, so everyone can get the hell out of there (theworld is waiting for passionate people).

•If, however, the blessing is going to be given from thefront of the church, all God’s people should still be gathered there fromcommunion.

•If there is a “sending song” it should be either familiar orprojected on the exit-wall so people can sing as they leave.

•Sometimes for a “remembrance of baptism” people aresprinkled with water, perhaps we should do this on our way out.

Ultimately, though,the sending is something God does

As the name makes clear, the sending is something that happens to us. God sends us, the ritualneeds to contain that urgency. The ritual needs to convey the fact that this isactually happening.

The forensic formula-ism of a specific blessing given from aspecific place will have trouble conveying the urgency and the work of God.

the sending shouldjar us

There are many other ways that the sending can really propeland compel. I invite any and all ideas.
At the end of this series I will publish a list of suggestions should any beoffered.

there is hardly a method you know

2012-01-25T19:23:00.000-08:00

it’s a broken poem /started up yesterday

this is an excursus, of sorts

I used to think that the rigid way worship was conceived hadto do with the seminary I went to; two things, though, changed my mind.

the first is relativelyinnocuous, but informing

When I was planning a worship service for chapel I had kindof had it with the authoritarian grip on chapel services. So rather thansubmitting the boilerplate worship service I tried planning somethingdifferent. Not radically different, but different. After sharing my reasoning,the Dean of the Chapel was on-board & helping me plan the particulars.

For as rigid as the authority figures can be, it turns out thereis still room for deviation.

the other observationshould have been more obvious sooner

If other seminaries are more flexible in worship training, howcome every Lutheran service is basically the same?

Well, there are probably many reasons why worship is sogeneric, but one has to do with the worship commentaries of the ELCA.

not only are they bland,but they also speak with this weird air of authority

An excerpt:

“First this, then such-and-such, after you can do doodle-hay or doodle-hoe, but thenyou will finish with that.”

Okay, that’s not really in the commentary, but you get thepicture.

the entire talk aboutworship lacks imagination

I might even say it stifles imagination by what it includes, aswell as what it precludes.

While the commentary talks about flexibility, its general acceptanceof many things leaves the impression that the service just won’t work if we don’tsing particular hymns from the hymnal at the right time.

This general insistence and lack of genuine alternatives simultaneousstifle imagination and bars innovation. Perhaps not explicitly or evenintentionally, but to someone trying to learn and learn from the service, thatis the outcome.

Okay, I know I haven’t spoken about the sending, but all thereading I’ve done has been highly unsatisfactory.

I think this project is going to take a little longer. Thenext four entries will go through the four parts of the service using formalresources. After those reflections I hope to examine something more, I don’tknow, helpful...

get real, get right

2012-01-21T19:57:00.000-08:00

for you will not be distracted

“Tradition is theliving faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. And,I suppose I should add, it is traditionalism that gives tradition its badname.” ~Pelikan

in seminary we talkabout all sorts of things that don’t matter

For instance, did you know that worship has a four-foldshape?

If you did, congratulations!

If you didn’t, oh well…

See, that’s thing, we learn this stuff that has little to nocontemporary relevancy.

well, let me nuancethat a little

It is important to learn the foundations. I had this greatjournalism professor in college, and she was fine with breaking layout and APrules. There was one catch, though, you had to know what rules you werebreaking and why.

Ultimately I think that is why it is good to know the foundations.Tradition has power, real meaningful power. Rote enactment of tradition (i.e.traditionalism) is, well, boring.

not only is itboring, it begs irrelevancy

Going through the motions is counterproductive, and I daresay it is nihilistic. To become a pastor we learn the basics, and somewherealong the way the basics have become an idol or sorts.

If we don’t follow the rules just so, I don’t know, the skywill fall.

In other words, we begin to think that the basics are theend-all-be-all.

I am convinced that the “four-fold” shape of worship (gathering,word, meal, sending) came about because it was intuitive to the first followersof Jesus, because it fit their living tradition and their lived experience.

the four-fold shape of worship didn’t come aboutbecause it is a theological paradigm unto itself

That’s the thing, we learn the basics to help peoplesynthesize their lived experience to an incredibly large and diverse story;that of God’s and God’s followers. The basics are not some form to be protected,but a treasure ready to be opened.

so what

So that brings me to the question I’ve been struggling within various ways since my last year of college and my four years of seminary;what does that tradition look to my generation?

How am I, as a servant-leader within the church, to assistmy peers in crafting a worship that is intuitive, that invites them into alarger story, a story that bursts with power and sends us ready into the world?

sometimes I worryI’ve betrayed my friends and peers by entering seminary

Sometimes I worry that by entering seminary I’ve posturedthat all the meaningful traditions of my generation must be discarded so we canlook like all those older than us.

I guess my post is a farewell to posturing that lie by mysilence.

I’ve learned the tradition, now it is time to study mygeneration again. What makes us unique is not something to ignore and destroy,instead it is something that empowers us uniquely to bring a meaningful word tothe tradition of all those before it, and add treasure to treasure.

The next four posts will address each dimension of worship(propelling, mastication, reading, and getting together) and examine the powerof the tradition, and what unique aspects my generation can add.

Can I get an amen?

a sermon for brett & audra

2012-01-09T07:07:00.001-08:00

from first corinthians 13

Today we are all here to witness Brett and Audra declare their love and fidelity to one another. We are here to celebrate their wedding with them. The wedding…

And I must admit, when we first began discussing this wedding I was taking at how chill and relaxed Brett and Audra have been about the whole thing. In fact, when I asked what the reading would be Brett said; First Corinthians 13 should be fine. “Should be fine?!?!”

Where were the exaggerated emotions, I wondered?

Where was the bridezillah?!?

But laid back they were. So, along we went, cool and calm. Then yesterday I received an email from Brett with some details for the wedding. In that email he apologized that he hadn’t sent the email earlier and added, “There has been a lot on our minds.”

There has been a lot on the two of your minds, huh?

I imagine there have been a few stressers pulling this thing off…

Yet; here we are, and the whole thing has been going swimmingly, if I do say so myself.

Through all of this; through the challenges of graduating, attending graduate school, moving, searching for jobs, living into new roles as fiancés and soon husband and wife, and planning this wedding; here you are.

Here you Audra;

here you are Brett…

In many ways, this ceremony is a celebration of that. Through all of it, here you are. Through everything, love has been. Love, that is what has gotten the two of you here, and it is what brings us all here today.

Pretty simple, huh? Through it all, through moving and planning, it’s just been love. Well love and sunshine and roses, huh? There’s been nothing else as you’ve planned this wedding, as you’ve moved, graduated, and became fiancés to one another…

Perhaps that is a little too simple?

I am sure, Brett and Audra, that you know and have experienced in meaningful ways the depth of trial that love can endure and sustain. Love beyond roses and sunshine. Yes, I am sure that as the two of you have gone through everything that has brought you here today you have learned how dynamic and multidimensional love is.

I am sure that you’ve been patient and kind to one another, humble and consider to the other. Yes, you two have experienced all that love can be. As Paul says, you have seen that love is, and that love never ends.

And in the spirit of that, I would like to give the two of you a wedding gift. Here, Brett. Here, Audra.

For those of you who might not be able to see, these are gobstoppers. Not just any gobstoppers, either. They are everlasting gobstoppers. They too, like love, never end. At least that is what the name implies…

I thought maybe the two of you could save one of these candies and have it next year with your wedding cake… Or, if that is just a little too gross for you, I’ve got some other ways you could use them.

For instance, next time you are finding it hard to be patient; rather than biting your tongue you can enjoy one of these gobstoppers. Or, when you notice that one of you is having a little trouble being humble, when you can tell the other is tempted to say those treacherous four words, “I told you so,” you can give them a gobstopper instead.

See, that’s the rub today isn’t it? There are times when it is hard to be patient, or times when it is hard to be humble. In other words, there are times when it is hard to love. Brett and Audra, that two of you have been in love for a long time and through a lot; I am sure you also know these challenges very deeply.

I am sure that there have been times when you have wondered, how on earth can I be any more patient. And, I am sure there have been times you have been simply in awe by how humble and considerate the other can be.

Yes, there have been times, and there will be times, when you have wondered, how can this be?

Yet, through it all, love has been. That is what we are celebrating, that love is. And, we are also celebrating that love never ends, in other words, that love will be.

Perhaps all this talk of love, on a day like this may seem redundant. Today, as Audra looks so beautiful in her gown, and Brett so handsome in his suit. Possibly this affirmation of Love’s tenacity seems redundant.

Brett and Audra, you know better, though, don’t you?

You know that love is more than simply handsome and beautiful. You know, deeply I suspect, that love is also patient and humble and kind and considerate.

You know that love is, and that is why you have asked us to join you today. You know, and have lived though, those times when it has seen like nothing could hold your future together, yet love did.

Today you enter more deeply into that mystery. The mystery that in a life full of stresses; of finding the perfect gown, finding jobs, finding how to honor one another as your husband, as your wife, in the midst of all that, you live into the mystery that love is.

Audra, love will never end.

Love will never end, Brett.

Amen.

i know it's heavy, i know it ain't light...

2011-12-28T09:46:00.000-08:00

but how you going to lift it with your arms folded tight?

advent is over

We’re in the Christmas season.

In the church-year that means we’ve moved from expectant waiting to living with the promise. Now, in this fabricated church-year, we live with that hope for which we’ve been waiting. Now, that hope is in our arms, wrapped in swaddling clothes, ready to change everything.

Change everything...

Maybe you haven’t noticed, but little has changed from 12/24 to 12/28.

maybe nothing has

The world doesn’t seem to be bursting with hope. If anything we’re just as, if not more, cynical, pessimistic…

What does that mean?

One could infer it means that Christianity is a farce.

And maybe it is.

What does it mean if all this is simply motions we go through, some sort of opiate to cope, some opiate to ease the pain of capitulation?

What would that mean?

These are questions Christians must consider...

Personally, I think intentionally malevolent people have exploited the religious institution and people’s good intentions to sedate people. I do think Christianity can be a farce.

That isn’t to say Christianity inherently is one. That isn’t to think for a moment that the movement Jesus inaugurated is an opiate at all. If anything it is a movement that bursts the chains of slavery, it is a movement that strives to realize the dignity and worth of all creation.

However, it is also a movement that has been co-opted to deny global warming (as if creation didn’t matter), oppose gay-rights (as if God doesn’t create and prefer diversity), erode public accountability (as if we are not held together in mutual love and care), et cetera, et cetera.

Here we are, the season of Christmas. The waiting is over.

yet I find myself still waiting

Maybe it is all simply going through motions…

Or maybe it is something more radical.

Maybe it means that my waiting should be transformed.

Maybe it means that rather than waiting expectantly I am not called to live:

hope-filled not hopeless,

expecting not cynical,

encouraged not despondent.

Indeed the earth still cries out under injustice. But maybe this delivery has wrought a transformation. Maybe this delivery places something really wonderful in my hands, and maybe that gift changes a lot.

Maybe now, after a season of waiting, I am sent.

Maybe I am sent to share the gift I have in my arms with those people and places that are waiting for justice, mercy and peace. Maybe now the resolve that I am called to care for my neighbor is intensified. And maybe in that sending I will find that for which I wait.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

But Maybe; and I guess if this faith is something other than an opiate, something other than a farce, the only conclusion is to fall on the side of maybe.

Maybe this season of Christmas does herald in something new. Maybe this is a time between the now and not yet. Yes it must be affirmed that for many, including myself, the waiting is not over; but maybe it must also be affirmed that this delivery has changed me.

Now tragedy must be seen with eyes of compassion, sorrow, and yes, even hope. Certainly that is risky. Maybe there is no reason to hope anymore.

But maybe there is more reason to hope than ever.

“People tend to think religious talk is different from political talk. You can talk about the king(queen)dom and say it’s just a metaphor. But actually, it’s very real. You have to have deep, deep religious faith to stay in the struggle for a long time.”

~Cornel West.

either way the market moves

2011-12-22T10:54:00.000-08:00

cash rules.

consider this the hundredth draft…

It has been a while since I’ve updated this Advent series, and indeed Advent is quickly coming to a close. I haven’t updated for lack of topics, rather it has been because of the trouble I have had addressing one particular topic.

I’ve had trouble collecting my thoughts, writing anything coherent, putting the pieces together in a meaningful way. I’ve had trouble talking about this because it hits close to home in many ways.

Most troubling, though, is the difficulty I’ve had in imagining any meaningful way forward. With each entry I have not been happy merely to discuss something that I am waiting for an end to; I have always tried to include something I am waiting on to begin as well.

This post is about jobs.

I am part of the generation that graduated from college near the end of the 2000’s. This is the graduating class that faces such a lack of jobs that we may comprise the next “lost generation.” Many of us worked hard in college and really gave ourselves over the idea that our energy, will and skill could help create a better world.

Call it naive.

We’re not the only one’s facing uncertainty, though.

Many people who have worked for a long time live with the daily threat of layoffs and no discernible job in the thereafter.

Let’s not forget to remember that I am a white, male. I don’t even have to deal with systematic discrimination when it comes to finding a job…

Let’s not forget that some psychologist see our need to exhibit our competence is one of our greatest needs. Indeed, good jobs are important to reinforce our self-worth, as well as provide for ourselves and family.

Given the importance of jobs, this high unemployment rate it troubling.

It feels heavy. As a friend of mine said one night, “it feels close to a breaking point.”

Over and over again we find ourselves at the mercy of employers.

and I think many of them know it, too…

What I mean is, whenever we talk about taxes that would benefit and strengthen the middle class everyone present it quick to coddle employers. If we establish a progressive taxing policy (on corporations of wealthy individuals), these, so-assumed, “benevolent patrons” will leave and take their jobs with them.

Instead of trying out a “new deal” policies that create public sector jobs, we’re trying on old deal over and over again. The deal is to put the responsibility on the private sector, and to reward the sector for creating these jobs we deregulate the market so the sector will have an easier time creating jobs.

That is the logic anyway.

Never mind it isn’t playing out that way, at all.

So, at the expense of the middle class and poor, we cater to the “needs” of employers. We deregulate, we erode public accountability, we erode public space, we erode a sense of the “common good.” All in the name of creating jobs.

But it feels like such a bad joke, doesn’t it?

Look at this whole mess over extending the payroll tax. (And it is a mess, I am not going to analyze the whole thing, but focus on what was attached to this bill.)

This tax cut benefits the middle class to the tune of $20 a week (on average), this measure would also extend unemployment benefits and extend a sustainable rate of reimbursement for doctors who treat Medicare patients. All of these are good things for an economically depressed middle-class.

Although none of this necessarily does anything that would create jobs. (Do not get the point of this bill confused, it is not explicitly about creating jobs.) The Senate republicans, however, had a plan. To even get this bill through the Senate an expedited decision on the Keystone XL pipeline had to be added.

Never mind that this pipeline would do little to alter the global route to a hot earth. This pipeline needs to be approved; after all it is this is the great solution to creating jobs! And this pithy answer to job creation just doesn’t play out. The Washington Post recently analyzed how many jobs it would actually create; not 100,000 but (MAYBE!) 13,000 construction jobs over two years.

Here we are, catering corporations, and even citing their convenient statistics! We need to serve these corporations so jobs will be created, unless they aren’t…

In our headlong hurry to shower corporations in adoration we destroy laws that empower the middle-class when corporations renege.

this world we’ve created raises all this anxiety in my chest.

I mean I think I would be willing to pay taxes, taxes that create jobs, taxes that strengthen my community. I think I would be willing to vote for policies that create the world I want to live in, one where we’re not subject to corporations but our sisters and brothers.

I’d gladly live in that world…

We don’t talk about this world anymore, though.

We talk about our messed up political system.

We talk about how every politician is a crook.

And, we don’t talk to our neighbors.

We don’t believe in our officials.

I say I would gladly live in this world, but there are so many voices telling me I can’t, telling me that I actually don’t want to live in this world.

i afraid we’ve all forgotten how to dream…

We feel trapped in this world. We’ve lost our long-term imagination.

We’ve lost the ability to imagine something different. We’ve lost the imagination that lead people to write a declaration of independence, begin the suffragist movement, fight for desegregation, fight for gay-rights.

We’ve all capitulated to a hell. The best we hope to dream for is the ability to ignore our nightmares.

I’m waiting for prophetic imagination.

I waiting to shake off this fear and step out. I don’t think I would be the only one…

say it'll be better

2011-12-19T16:48:00.000-08:00

i keep waiting forever.

(Editor's Note: This post is only tangentially related to the Advent-project. This is a reflection I gave on 12/12 at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, during the chapel-service. This reflection discusses the intersection of theology and practice, as we wait for God's reign of justice. For those who are unfamiliar, or uninterested, in Lutheran theological categories this post will be "most unsatisfactory." Mea culpa!)

Luke 3:7-18:

I had enough. I was tired of it.

No, that morning I would not be waking up early. That morning I would not be running in the cold before class. No. I didn’t need to, I had already secured my position on the varsity team. Nope, I was not going to run that morning.

Upon retrospect I can see I was throwing a tantrum. Petty fit or not, feeling arrogant that morning, I decided I would not go to cross-country practice.

And I didn’t...

…And I also had to run with the underclassmen for a week after that little stunt, and I had to sit-out of a race…

But the consequences are another sermon.

I tell this little story, because I believe I can see many striking similarities between my silly behavior and the way we are tempted to pigeon-hole John.

Captivated by our prowess, we become tempted to think we can distinguish the outcome from the process…

When we hear John’s preaching with its potent exhortations we become tempted to think we can separate John’s message from that of Jesus’.

Never mind that Luke clearly sees Jesus’ preaching as a direct extension of John’s…

The facts are all there, after all:
•“You brood of vipers?!?!”

• “Bear fruits worthy of repentance?”

• “The chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire?”

As if all this wasn’t enough, John dares to add insult to my protestant injury by explicitly prescribing acts of how to live! It is enough to make my Dominican brothers leap with joy, and shout; “Nah-ny, nah-ny boo-boo! I told you so!”

With my law-sense tingling to a breaking point, I grab for the law/gospel scalpel to alleviate these disturbing inconsistencies. The temptation to cut John from Jesus’ mission of grace is all too easy…

It doesn’t feel right, though, does it?

Do we want to separate this preaching of God’s alternative reign in the midst of an oppressive empire, from the gospel? Really?

Suddenly we want to see John’s preaching as some legalism that is not becoming of our Lutheran tradition…

But.

But what about all our food pantries, that do share food?

But what about the Circle of Protection that our own Bishop Hanson signed, calling for economic practices that remember the poor?

And what about our shelters?

What about all our hospitals?

In our desire to be Lutheran surgeons we risk severing our theology from our practice…

Worse, though…

What about vulnerable people who wait for God’s empire of mercy?

In our swiftness to separate the law from the gospel, we risk separating ourselves from all those people who long for God’s alternative reign.

With our strict categories, we forget what it was that drew us to seminary in the first place.

With our binary understandings of God’s work we confuse ourselves about what it is, exactly, we are waiting for…

The author of Luke, like the prophets before him, like John, like Jesus, understands that this preaching of repentance is part and parcel to God’s work. The preaching of Jesus’ followers in acts is replete with this preaching of repentance.

Yes, our lens of law and gospel is a gift from God, and it does broaden Christian dialogue. Except when it restricts it… When we forget that we are still waiting. This lens of gospel/law is a gift. It helps to sustain during the interim, but this lens is not the reign we wait upon.

Let us remember that these lens are simply the glasses we wear as we wait for the time when we will see God’s empire face to face no longer needing spectacles; or to stick closer to the analogy, bifocals.

John’s message of repentance is indeed consistent with our proclamation of gospel.

Really, we should know better, too. Day in and day out we dwell on this theology of unceasing grace.

With that perpetual promise that we are indeed God’s chosen trees bursting to bear good fruit; how can we doubt that this call to be what God is already making us into isn’t gospel?

Bear fruit worthy of repentance of the one on whom we wait. Bear fruit worthy of repentance of the one who has born this repentance for us. Bear fruit that feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, participates in alternative life-giving economics.

No, that is not law.

That is the reign of God we wait on. That is the very work of a God of peace and justice who inspired us and drew us to seminary in the first place. This call to a life of repentance is the very frame that holds together our glasses of law and gospel as we wait expectantly for God’s empire.

While law may say it’s too late; we don’t get to be a part of God’s reign;

Gospel invites; what are you waiting on the courtyard is lacking your fruit? Bear fruit you good trees!

Bear fruit!

Amen.

all your enemies smile when you fall

2011-12-11T14:02:00.001-08:00

you’ll take it because you don’t know what you want

suddenly I had this uneasy feeling:

“It seems like everything is changing and it is never good for the people.”

My mom said that.

I was talking to her while running to catch the metro. I had a final that night and I was running a little behind. I had been pretty caught up in my own little world of balancing school, work, and trying to get out to OWS stuff (and my computer quasi-crashing in the midst of it all).

With some news from my mom I was suddenly ripped from all that nonsense, and I just felt… uneasy.

I was feeling uneasy because my mom had just told me the company she works for had just been bought by another larger company.

She wasn’t going to be laid off or anything, but the compensation was going to change.

All this within two months of the same thing happening with the company my father works for, too.

oh yeah, my parents aren’t hedge fund managers.

My family is thoroughly blue-collar. My Dad is a welder, and when I was in high-school my mom earned a transcriptionist certification. She types medical reports.

My suspicion is my parents are a lot like most families.

My suspicion is a lot of people share this uneasy feeling.

And the truth is, I think, I had been feeling uneasy for some time…

The truth is, I am afraid so many of us are walking around waiting for the other boot to drop.

Honestly, I believe many middle-class folk keep their head to the ground, work hard, and are quite grateful.

I am afraid, though, many middle-class folk walk around with a deep sense of guilt and terror.

here’s what I mean:

Most Americans work longer hours and take fewer vacation days than their contemporaries in Northern European countries. All this to make the day to day.

All this work, and these same people know that any number of tragedies could take it all away. All this work, and these same people are afraid (for good reason) they will be the one to be blamed if tragedy were to strike.

All this work, and people can count on hearing stuff like this:

“No one made you take out those loans.”

Blah, Blah, Blah. Et Cetera

Indeed, there is a certain dimension of truth to those statements. We live with incredible choices compared to many other people of the world. We do deserve to be held accountable…

But why is it that those sort of sentiments will be the first word on people’s lips?”

Why not something like:

“Oh my god, that is terrible.”

“I’m sorry.”

“How can I help you?”

Why aren’t those the first words on our lips, especially at a time of crisis?

We’re running around with this uneasy feeling because we feel alone. We’re feeling alone because more likely than the fact that we will get any help or sympathy, is that we will be blamed.

And, while there may be uncertainty about receiving any help, there is no doubt bill collectors will have the full force of the law to send any debtor into poverty.

We’re feeling uneasy because deep down we have reason to fear that when our back is to the wall, there will be no one to help us…

it is oppressive

This pitting of marginal groups against one another is how oppression works, too.

The privileged will choose a suitable subordinate, and say this subordinate is the model. The message is that the obedient subordinate is how the every member of the group should behave. If anyone acts out of line with that imposed model, they are behaving inappropriately and subject to being vilified by the privileged and the subordinate.

You can see this at work in North America in so many ways; and I am afraid it plays right into the hands of the plutocrat’s interest.

An easy example of this dynamic is our collective national willingness to view the OWS protestors as spoiled and selfish.

Here’s a harder hitting example: The housing bubble burst.

Middle-class folk we’re virulent in their attack of neighbors who took out loans that were worth more than the homes. The idea of bailing out these mortgages was tantamount to treason.

So instead we elected to bail out the institutions that traded on these inflated mortgages. Instead we bailed out the institutions that hired con-artist to trick people into taking on sub-prime mortgages.

Yes the individuals who incurred dubious debt can be addressed, but so should the institutions that lubricated the whole process.

But they weren’t. Instead, these institutions were given loans to help repair the economy, and so far these institutions have sat on the money.

i’m waiting for the day when we stand with one another.

Yes we should be grateful. Yes we can hold one another accountable.

But we need to stop blaming one another.

We need to hold one another in mutual care.

Our first word shouldn’t be blame.

Our first word should be consolation.

Our first word should be solidarity.

I’m waiting for the day when my first feeling in the morning isn’t a dull, nagging sense that something is wrong.

I’m waiting for the day when we all realize that there are alternatives.

i’m living in an age whose name I don’t know

2011-12-03T09:57:00.001-08:00

still my fear keeps my moving but my heartbeats are slow.

i was sitting on the metro.

I had just left an OWS rally in DC. I was reading an issue of Newsweek, but I wasn’t really reading. Instead I was thinking about who was at the rally, and I was bumming about who wasn’t.

Specifically, my classmates. In general, churches.

i guess i just don’t understand.

To me the OWS movement seems like an explicit movement with many tendrils follows of Jesus can get on board with. This movement is about solidarity among a disenfranchised populace. This movement is incredibly horizontal or democratic. This movement is strikingly non-partisan.

This movement also has its own integrity. I am not interested in OWS being co-opted by institutional Christianity. I am, however, quite interested in how followers of Jesus can support this movement, stand in solidarity with these folks. Basically, I am interested in how followers of Jesus can give a damn.

i want to, though.

I guess I should say my classmates are in Gettysburg. D.C. is a 90 minute trip at least. I understand the hesitancy to make that trip. Graduate school is a huge time-suck. I understand the difficulty with carving out time to go to an action. Also, OWS isn’t really asking for help from churches or followers of Jesus. I understand the hesitancy to support something that isn’t clearly asking for support.

But still, I guess I don’t understand. And that leads me to what I am waiting on…

so often in church the person who isn’t in the pews gets blamed.

Let me say more. Often church leaders, and some church-folk, gripe about the people who aren’t coming to church.

“I guess anything is more important than church.”

Crap like that. You see why that complaint is a red-herring, right?

It is akin to Gucci complaining that not enough poor people are buying their product. That’s an absurd complaint because Gucci unequivocally does not serve poor people.

Not that church is trying to sell a product.

Still, though, the analogy works. It isn’t fair to provide little to nothing to people, and then blame those same people for not being there.

the silence in the face of OWS is demonstrative…

OWS is a middle-class, predominantly white movement. One would have trouble finding churches that represent these people at any OWS actions.

Before I get to the strong words let me say a few things. Church folk, like everyone else, have limited time. I will admit, by attending the OWS rally I missed a church event. Also, there are church folks supporting and attending OWS events. Generally my criticism of churchly silence in the face of OWS applies, in the specifics it doesn’t.

Back to the point. The absence of churches from OWS has something to do with the conceit and judgment implicit within many church-leadership attitudes toward culture outside of the church at large.

I intend for this criticism to cut both ways. Not only are conservative churches, with their overt criticism of culture implied. So are so-called liberal churches, with their apathy in the face of these actions.

It is not young people’s fault they are not at church.

It is ours.

We’ve presented them with a feeble God, a petty faith, a limited range of God’s work. In other words, we’ve shown them in so many ways that, apparently, God is not worth worshiping.

I’m waiting for that new exodus. I’m waiting for churches to shake the dust off themselves. I’m waiting, with other disenfranchised young people, for the churches to get involved with me.

I’m waiting for churches to help me act on this passion for justice.

Fewer and fewer young people are going to church.

Someday we will get wise enough to ask why. Someday someone will be kind enough to answer the question.

“You didn’t show up.”

they are all within my reach

2011-12-01T20:38:00.000-08:00

they are free.

White people smell like dogs when they're wet...

I was biking to class, and it started to rain. Cold rain.

The first cold rain of the season.

It sucked.

It sucked because I had to go to class, and I was going to have to sit in class wet. And, as Elliot says in an episode of Scrubs, “White people smell like dogs when they’re wet.” I was going to have to sit in class wet & cold, smelling like a dog…

But what made that bike ride especially terrible was I had just had an awesome talk with Joe. That was the conversation when Joe and I started to talk about working on this Advent project.

So, I had been talking with him about all these exciting ideas; and, like I said earlier, it started to rain. Biking to class, getting soaked, I thought about that conversation. I thought about how spoiled I was that some rain was going to sour my day. And then I heard metal on metal; and a whizzing sound…

Great.

My pedals lost their tension.

My bike shifted behind me and my weight shifted forward. All of it.

I ate it…

Over my handlebars.

It sucked.

Churchy jargon.

It is Advent. Advent, that is church-speak. Advent, is the season of expectant waiting. Waiting for the birth of “God With Us,” or Emmanuel, or Jesus.

Again, this is church-speak.

So, it is Advent. Walking my bike to class, late, I had plenty of time to think about what I was waiting for.

Ultimately, I think I am waiting for the day I will get over myself.

If the worst thing that happens to me is a get wet on my way to class; the world is going to be waiting on me.

Justice and peace will be dawning and I’ll be sitting in the corner pouting because I hadn’t finished writing my magna opus! The house-party of peace will be descending like a bright chandelier; the waiting will be over and I’ll holding up the deejay from playing “Dream of Dreams” because I spilled some of my Starbucks on my new hoodie.

Let me be clear, there is a lot I am waiting on, but first and foremost I am waiting on a turkey; myself.

Let’s get it together RoboPreacher, its time for a new exodus...

how can we listen you...

2011-11-30T21:17:00.000-08:00

when we know your talk is cheap.

A new thing:

For Advent RoboPreacher is going to try something new; brief vignettes talking about things I am waiting on. After all, advent is the season of waiting.

Why:

Theology is ultimately a joke. Yeah, I said it. Theology that sits in a book on a shelf doesn’t matter. As Paul says, without love any and all speech is noise. So much theology is noise, or a joke.

It doesn't have to be, though.

I have a friend, let’s call him Joe. Joe is a theologian. He is a theologian who designs shit. His design is awesome. He is a theologian because when he designs, he thinks about how it serves God and God’s creation. He is a theologian, because when he loves his wife, he thinks about how it serves God and God’s creation. Joe is a theologian.

I am a seminary. I am not a theologian.

I want to be though. I am waiting…

Joe is one of my many sources of my inspiration. That is why RoboPreacher is going to try something new.

The impetus:

The most important theological conversation I ever had was with Joe one night.

It was a work night, and we were sitting on his deck, drinking beer and talking way too loudly. I don’t know why his wife didn’t come out and punch me in the face for being noisy and keeping her husband up.

Did I mention his wife is a theologian, too? She is. She is a theologian because she understands that love deserves its place in this world, and although she was undoubtedly going to wake up to a mess created, largely, by me, she was going to make me breakfast that morning before she left for work (helping people find jobs).

So, there we were in North Minneapolis, drinking beer and talking about why the story of Jesus matters. Talking about how I hoped it would make me good and brave and kind. Talking about how we didn’t understand how people would use faith as a tool of exclusion. Talking about how the denomination we are a part of (the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) can be so awesome on the one hand and such a bummer on the other. Talking about why people in churches don’t say hello to visitors. Talking and talking.

We went to bed after 3 a.m.

That conversation has haunted me…

And so…

And so, I am waiting. That is why RoboPreacher is going to be reflecting about waiting during this season of Advent.

When will this faith change me?

When will this faith give people the courage to step past their own prejudices?

When will this faith put a spark in all our hearts so that instead of feeling awkward when we notice a visitor in the congregation, we feel awesome and tell them how we thinks it’s awesome that they are here?

That is going to be the project. Pretty simple, right?

Not so simple.

My lenses are that of a male, middle class, white, twenty-something. I am part of a privileged class.

If all this blog is about is how I hope the church serves me better, this blog will be a lot of noise. It won’t be theology; and it won’t matter.

In other words, RoboPreacher need your help.

What are you waiting on? Share your thoughts. RoboPreacher will try to incorporate them into this blog and think about what it means to wait (expectantly) together.

I am privileged. I do not think, however, that invalidates my waiting. Ultimately, I think God can give us all a heart that waits on something worthwhile. I guess I am trying to say I hope God can teach me to wait with those who are underprivileged, underserved, oppressed.

So that is the project. Let’s see how it goes, eh?

Share your thoughts.

All are welcome.

yet the powerful got nervous...

2011-11-21T10:00:00.000-08:00

because they refused to be their servant

On December 12 I will be leading Chapel at the Church of the Abiding Presence. The Gospel for the Monday of the third week of Advent is Luke 3:7-18.

At this point I’ve only done cursory research, but the dynamics of this story have already piqued my interest. Here we have an itinerant preacher addressing the need for justice and repentance (this is John after all). In their culture of oppression and corruption the crowds are immediately drawn to this message.

In fact, some are so infatuated with John they begin to wonder if, indeed, he is the insurgent to overthrow the powers and principalities and become the new, just ruler. Quickly John points to one greater than he.

This dynamic can be seen in many places, but one contemporary example is the OWS movement. Many have criticized this movement as lacking leadership and direction. While many of these critiques are well-intentioned and well-made (great New Yorker article analyzing the Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline protests and contrasting it to OWS ), they may also stem from the same desire to have one person embody an enormous message.

John had the humility and presence of mind to distinguish himself from God’s reign of justice and peace. As such, John was a harbinger who maintained his integrity and allowed the message to have its own integrity too.

Ultimately John was a preacher of repentance, and repentance served the reign of justice, but was not that reign itself. Ultimately the OWS is a call for many things, especially economic justice, but not that justice itself.

The insight and humility of the OWS movement to resist calls to identify a leader and make a list of specific demands may madden those (individuals and political parties) who think they can bring justice themselves. That frustration certainly gives rise to a number of critiques, but one praise you don’t often hear of the OWS is that this group of people know who they are, and just as importantly who, and what, they are not.

By separating themselves from the justice they (and many others) so desire, they protect this justice. Ultimately a person, a party, an initiative, a bill cannot create this justice. It will take enormous political will. These brave women and men are helping create this willpower by remembering the justice that inspires this will is not of their own creation.

John, like these people, saw a need to address corruption. John, like these people, resisted the call to embody this message. The eyes of power-dynamic may see this resistance as cowardice, insipidity, or weakness, but maybe that judgment won’t be the final one…

it's a corporate world

2011-09-30T14:06:00.000-07:00

are the corporations cutting back

Here is a link to an interesting lecture given by Hans J. Hillerbrand at the 2011 Colloquy at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg (pages 9-20).

Hillerbrand sets out to consider what Luther’s position on Christian Faith and politics would have been. He begins with Luther’s dinner table remark that, “Christ has nothing to do with politics.” From there he goes on to consider the question any seminary student sitting with the contradiction between that Lutheran tradition of “quietism” and the Lutheran notion of “vocation” or “priesthood of all believers” has entertained

Hillerbrand phrases the question, “Really? Jesus has nothing to do with how we as Christians relate our faith to our daily lives, to our vocations, our professions?”

I might put the question another way; if we say that every vocation that serves the neighbor is laudable, why do we draw the line at advocacy?

Or, to put it a little more bluntly; don’t we act nearly schizophrenic when we insist that someone fallowing their vocation to advocate for the vulnerable are somehow acting on a principle of “justification by works?”

However you phrase the question, though, the cognitive dissonance must be addressed. Hillerbrand sets out to resolve the tension by putting Luther’s sentiment in the context of his experience of social reform and church reform. To summarize Hillerbrand’s argument, Luther stopped associating his religious reforms from social reforms once the issue of reform (social AND church) became associated to disruption of the law.

“Luther clearly became concerned about the connection of reform and the disruption of law and order. Aufruhr (uproar, rioting) seemed to be making the rounds, endangering the gospel. Societal reform could not put religious reform at risk.”

Hillerbrand supports this notion by attending to the fact that the early in his career Luther did not hesitate to address social issues in need of reform, i.e. Sermon on Usury. For instance, in his “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation,” Luther dedicates the second section to the reforms that are needed in society. Aside from noting the particular topics in the second section, one only needs to note the title to suspect that the concerns of this treatise will be comprehensive reform.

The conclusion Hillerbrand comes to is an open question, “what would have happened if Luther had been able to deal with the issue of Aufruhr separately from the question of whether the Christian faith has a word for the social and political realm.”

While this question is interesting, I think there is a stronger conclusion we can reach.

I believe we can use a critique often employed by the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures. Prophets such as Amos, Isaiah and Hosea often condemn cultic prophets due to how they regard their employment by the temple or their own self-interest. These prophets are so worried about their job that the integrity of their prophecies are eliminated (Micah 3:5). In other words, the fact that these prophets are employed by the temple means they cannot speak about that state of the temple politic with reliability.

Is it too much to imagine that Luther had every reason to appease Elector Frederick since Luther was being protected, and employed, by Frederick?

Hillerbrand seems to come close to making this claim when he notes that after the “Wittenberg Disturbances” of 1521 Luther sent word that he would write a treatise on Aufruhr. The suggestion is Luther sent word of his plan so his elector, Fredrick, would hear of his disapproval of the peasant’s uproar.

Hillerbrand gets even closer to making this critique of Lutheran when he notes that Luther’s assumption that religious reform could only happen in harmony with political rulers leads Luther to a precarious position.

Imagining that reform must happen in harmony with the political leaders, as Luther did, forces one to simultaneously call for a vision of biblical justice while all the while placing the realization of this vision in the hand of the properly established (allusion to Luther’s Twelve Article) political authorities.

What if, however, we apply the criticism of the prophets to Luther as well?

What if what is precarious about Luther’s position is not the inconsistencies, but how it protects his interests? What if what is precarious about Luther’s position is that his pseudo-theological defense of rulers undermines the religious reforms he is working for by abandoning the people the religious reform were intended for?

What if what is so apparent to the prophets applies to Luther as well, that religious piety is always related to social justice? Perhaps what is most precarious about Luther’s position is that in trying to further his immediate interests, he undercuts them by ignoring their broad conclusions.

Ultimately, it is easy to have sympathy with Luther. Ultimately, it is easy to give into the momentum of traditional interpretations of Luther. Perhaps we are called, though, to humbly look at our founder and learn from his insights as well as his cowardice.

everything's changing around me

2011-09-18T16:53:00.000-07:00

i wanna change, too.

Matthew 16:21-28:

Prayer: Lord, may the words of my lips and the meditations of all our hearts humbly follow you. Amen

Greetings sisters and brothers. It is truly my honor to be back here with you all today. You have supported me, and I have prayed for you often. We have always been bound by something very deep and personal.

For those of you I may not have had the pleasure of meeting, my name is Ryan Cosgrove and I am a member of Luther Memorial. I am a student studying to be a pastor, and this fall will begin my last year of seminary. I will be studying in Washington D.C., and I just completed a year-long internship at a Danish Lutheran congregation in Seattle, Washington.

As I’ve gone through this process of working to become a pastor you all have supported me greatly. That support has sustained me, because as fun as this process of becoming a pastor can be, it is also challenging.

In fact, I remember one time when I found myself deeply reconsidering this call to be a pastor. During my first year at seminary I took a preaching class, and the first sermon I had to write got an F.

An F.

I don’t think I had ever gotten an F before. I was rattled by this. So I went to the professor and asked what I could do next time to get a better grade. The advice I got hurt. The professor suggested I look into a different profession.

Walking back to my dorm room in the Gettysburg rain, I felt alone. There I was in a different state away from all my friends, failing. It was terrible. In that moment I found myself wondering, why would God lead me to this place? Why would God lead me all the way to Pennsylvania just so I could fail?

I imagine you all have stories that relate, too:

Perhaps at work you’ve been asked to lead a project you don’t feel ready for, or maybe you’ve been laid off. Or perhaps you’ve found yourself wondering why God lead you to a place when you were taking a difficult course, or when your child is having trouble in school. Perhaps shifting into retirement has been harder than you thought, or you miss your workmates.

Perhaps you are wondering why this congregations would be lead to the process of calling a new pastor, again…

In one way or another we all find ourselves being led to these difficult places. We know these places, those places where death seems to reign. When we find ourselves in these places we can’t help but wonder, why.

We are not alone in struggling to understand, either. When we find ourselves in these places new and unexpected places we can’t help but wonder, why. Today’s gospel is about this same struggle.

Peter, who had just been described as the rock that Jesus would build the church on, is now called the rock Jesus could trip over.

When Jesus tells the disciples that he is going to suffer, die and be raised on the third day Peter; who just confessed that Jesus was God’s child, the messiah; says the most natural thing. Peter, the rock, says in effect, “God would not let this happen!”

And who could blame him?

Peter gave up everything to follow this messiah, God’s child, Jesus. Peter obviously had incredible trust in Jesus. When Jesus says he is going to suffer and die Peter is shocked, obviously Peter doesn’t want this to happen to Jesus.

Who would?

Why would God lead Jesus to the cross?

It just doesn’t make sense, and Peter has sense enough to say, “God forbid!”

Why this place? Why the cross? Why humiliation and suffering? Peter knew Jesus was the messiah. Why would the messiah be killed? Why would Peter’s trust lead him to that place of death and humiliation?

This struggle of Peter’s is the same struggle we find ourselves in. Why would our trust in God lead us to these new and uncertain places?

Why would God want this for us?

Honestly, when I find myself confronted with the call to some place I would rather not go, I do not know why God would call me there. In those moments it is hard for me to understand why.

Jesus, however, says it has something to do with our temptation to set our mind on human things. Apparently, for Jesus, when one sets their mind on the things of God, they are able to see those new and uncertain places differently.

In our calling to discipleship we try to follow Jesus, and suddenly we find ourselves called to this new place. We find ourselves called to a place where death and defeat seem to reign.

When we find ourselves called to these places, when we survey they dangerous terrain, like Peter we say the most rational thing: Surely God would not call us there!

Still, though, we’re called to those places. We’re called to get behind, or follow, Jesus to those places. We are called to follow Jesus to those new and uncertain places regardless of how challenging or intimidating these places might be.

Earlier I said that Jesus seems to think that if we set our mind on the things of God we can see the calling to these places differently. There is something to that. When Jesus tells the disciples that they are to follow Jesus to Jerusalem where the religious and civil authorities will kill him, Jesus also says God will raise him.

Isn’t that remarkable?!?! Jesus will be raised after three days!

Like Peter, though, all we focus on is the suffering and death. Yet, when Jesus calls us to follow him, he gives us a promise. With our mind set firmly on where we think being a disciple should lead us, we miss the promise we’re given.

However, we’re still called. We’re called to those new and uncertain places. We’re called, fearful and trembling as we are, to those new places clutching a promise. A promise that as God’s disciples, Jesus goes before us to those places we’re called. A promise that in those new and uncertain places we’re likely to encounter the resurrected Messiah, God’s child, Jesus.

I’ve been reading your newsletters, and I imagine it might be easy to feel like we’re being led to an uncertain places. School is about to start and we’re in the process of calling a pastor, again. Going through this process can seem intimidating and challenging.

Yet this is exactly where God is calling us. We’re called, we’re called to follow Jesus to those new and uncertain places, and we’re blessed that Jesus has gone before us and around every corner we’re likely to encounter our risen lord. We’re called to these places because the world needs our witness.

Now as you find yourselves called to go through the process of deciding how you will follow Jesus into this new future, we are at least certain of one thing; we have a promise. As you call a new pastor, have picnics, have water oasis’ and the like we have a promise that God has given us and is with us in our calling to the future as this congregation.

Earlier I told you a story of a time when I found myself thinking that this calling led me to a place I would never want to go. Well, this same calling has also led me to other places as well. This same calling has led me to Luther Memorial Church. This same calling has led me to you all.

You all have been the risen Christ for me. You have given me new life where death seemed to reign.

After I gave my first sermon here, one of you came to me and said, “You just belong up there.” This promise has sustained me. Even after failing that first sermon, your support came to me. You have also financially supported me. You have encouraged me. You have been the risen Christ bearing a promise to me in a new and uncertain place.

Thank you.

Thank you for getting behind Jesus and faithfully following, regardless of how challenging it may have been for you. Thank you. And keep following. Jesus has called you, and this place; Grand View, Des Moines, this place, the people here need you. As you follow your calling encountering the risen Lord you become the same promise you are searching for, for others searching.

God has called you.

Amen

if what's loosed on earth will be loosed up on high...

2011-09-16T12:11:00.000-07:00

it's a hell of a heaven we must go to when we die

Matthew 16:13-20

Prayer: Lord, may the words of my lips and the meditations of all our hearts proclaim your son, Jesus, as your anointed one, the messiah.

Keys, these simple tools are quite common. I imagine most of you have a ring of them in your pocket or purse. Keys are just one of the many mundane props in the play of our day to day life.

Keys are ordinary, except, of course, when they’re not…

Today I will give these keys back.

No longer will I need to use them to unlock my office. No longer will I find myself strolling upstairs to talk to Pastor Carol. No longer will I find myself taking a quite lunch in the Emmaus Lounge taking in that amazing skyline. No longer.

Today I turn in these keys.

These keys. These keys that have become mundane and ordinary. These keys have become so humdrum I have forgotten when I rushed here to get ready for a theology pub, a men’s breakfast or the Children’s Christmas Pageant. Yet today these keys that have become ordinary, suddenly blossom with meaning.

And really, despite of, or maybe because of their commonplace role in our lives, keys really are quite significant. Can you remember your first car keys, the first time you drove yourself to visit a friend? Or perhaps your first apartment keys are more significant to you. Remember the first time you unlocked the door to your own house? Or, maybe you remember the first time you handed keys to your daughter or son so they could learn to drive.

Yes, despite the routine of using keys day in and day out, keys really are quite noteworthy. Keys give you access to new places, new opportunities and new people.

Places, opportunities and people I must now leave…

In today’s gospel Jesus gives the church the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Today, after the confession that Jesus is the anointed one, Jesus tells the disciples that with such a confession the gates of heaven are open.

Imagine how absurd that must have sounded!

Leaders of Rome and leaders of the church had all rejected Jesus. This messiah, this Jesus, was hardly acting messianic. In fact, Jesus’ community inhabited such a marginal place in that society, Jesus concludes by ordering the disciples to keep quiet. Keep quiet lest the claims about Jesus as the son of God, the messiah spread and bring more persecution to Jesus’ followers.

In that place, for Jesus’ followers, it must have appeared that the gates of Hades had not only been opened, but were triumphing.

Armed with nothing more than a confession, Jesus proclaims that now his followers have the keys to the kingdom. With nothing more than a confession, Jesus’ followers are told that they are given the keys to the reign of God.

Despite any opposition, even in the face of it, Jesus’ followers are given the keys to God’s reign. The gates of Hades will not prevail against God’s reign, Jesus says. Yes, there may be opposition, yes there may be death, but these forces will not succeed.

God’s dominion, the reign of peace and justice, will not be quieted, it will not be stopped. In the face of rejection from civic and church leaders, and with nothing more than a confession, Jesus proclaims that followers, followers such and you and I, have the keys to God’s reign.

And these keys, like our first car keys, first house keys, grant us access to new places, opportunities and people. These keys to God’s empire make us into God’s alternative community in the world.

God’s alternative community; a community that confesses a simple man such as Jesus is God’s anointed one, God’s child. As God’s alternative community we find ourselves encountering new places and people. As God’s alternative community we find ourselves with the keys to manifest God’s reign. Where death may appear to hold sway, we are called to be God’s alternative, life-giving, presence in the world.

We are blessed to be God’s alternative community. Blessed to provide school supplies to children in need, blessed to house the homeless, blessed to work for laws the address the root causes of poverty and hunger, blessed to feed the hungry, we are blessed to cultivate a strip of land with flowers, food and beauty.

As we walk through our ordinary days unlocking ordinary doors, we suddenly find ourselves confronted with a question. YOU, who do you say that I am? Without even thinking we blurt out, “you, Jesus, are the one God has chosen, you are God’s child.”

And just as suddenly we find ourselves with the keys to God’s reign. And with these keys you bless the world by being a part God’s alternative life-giving presence. You find yourself supporting a congregation that calls seminary students for a year of training.

With these keys, you have given an intern for the past nine years, and soon Kari will make ten, keys to your community. In the giving of these keys you have blessed these interns, you bless the ELCA, you bless this community with the intern’s presence, and you have blessed me; thank you.

God has given you the keys to God’s reign and you have blessed nine, soon to be ten, interns. Thank heavens. I mean that, thank heavens. Lately I keep relating this story back; through the seminary process I have seen how candidates have been scarred.

Throughout the process of working to become ordained to serve God’s people, something happens, and a candidate picks up some baggage and takes that with them through the process of becoming ordained.

I must say I have been so blessed to be protected from being treated poorly. I owe many thanks to you for that. You allowed me to try new things, to preach in different ways, to try my hand at teaching adults, to work with your children. And all the while, all the while, you were open and supported me.

Indeed there were times when a class session I led didn’t go well. Yes, there were bumps in the Faith, Family and Finances event. And let’s be honest, we all know some of my sermons weren’t that good. Yet you supported me. You cared for me. You loved me. And you didn’t do this based on my merits, either.

You did this because Jesus has given you keys to God’s reign, and you have blessed me by inviting me into this reign. And participating in, living with you all, has transformed me. It has given me hope.

You’re sharing of the keys Jesus has blessed you with, has given me the confidence to do something different and study in Washington D.C. next year. You’re sharing of these keys has given me the courage to talk about stewardship. You’re sharing of these keys has reminded me that, for as quiet as the church can be at times, it is also one of the last places the vulnerable are considered first.

Ultimately, you’re sharing of these keys with me, has given me keys to continue my pursuit of ordination. And although I give back these keys today, you have given me another set of keys that I will take with me into paths as yet untrodden, to perils as yet unknown. You have given me keys that open a future that is blossoming with promises and healing. Thank you.

And not just me, either. You have blessed Matt, I know that from Facebook posts of his I’ve seen. You will also, no doubt, bless Kari.

And you also bless the United States. Take a look at the intern map out there.

You’ve shaped interns during our education, and you’ve sent us out to continue your mission. Throughout the United States pastors, pastors you have helped raise up, are loosing God’s reign in places like California, Washington D.C., Wisconsin and the like.

You have given us all keys. And today I turn them in, so you may give them to another, so that you may give them to Kari.

It is hard for me to turn them in, honestly. I love you all. I remember the first time I dreamt of you, I remember waking up and thinking I am a part of this place, these people.

I remember gardening with many of you, sharing concerns with you, hugs, laughs and prayers. And prayers. Thank you.

And, although this internship does come to an end, something between us has been opened. The keys to the kingdom have been inserted, turned and God’s reign came bursting forth. Nothing will stop this flow, either. As Jesus said, the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

Nothing will stop this bursting forth of God’s reign. And, as hard as it is, I find the bursting forth of God’s reign rushing me to D.C., just as Kari finds herself rushed here. We have taken these keys Jesus has given us, and we have opened doors and walked into new places and met new people.

I thank God every day that I was blessed to walk into you community if even for a little while.

Thank you for taking those keys and opening the gate. Thank you. God bless you all. Amen.

approval essay

2011-09-14T17:10:00.000-07:00

Part I: Contextual Theological Reflection:

Ministry Context:

Folk musician, Josh Ritter, described the West as a story we made up to erase. In other words, the frontier, or the West, is a destination, not a stop on a journey somewhere else. If an urban dweller were to go to the frontier of the continental United States, Seattle is the largest city one could go that is westernmost and northernmost.

This pioneer sentimentality manifests itself in a number of ways in Seattle. For instance, individualism and autonomy are highly valued. These values show up in atypical living arrangements that, while atypical nationwide, are more common in Seattle. For instance, Seattle has among the highest rates of people living alone or unrelated people living together, as well as the smallest average family sizes in the nation.

Given that Seattle is a destination, it is the geographically mobile who dwell in the Emerald City. So, paradoxically, while a sense of individuality drives people to Seattle, the type of people living in Seattle tend to share a lot of traits. According to the 2010 US Census, Seattle is one of the “whitest large cities.”

This is not to say Seattle lacks diversity, though. Aside from atypical living arrangements, Seattle also has one of the largest gay and lesbian populations in the nation.

St. John United Lutheran Church is near one of the largest enclaves of the LGBT communities in Seattle, Capitol Hill. More specifically, though, St. John United is located in North Seattle. In general the population is aging. The youngest residents of North Seattle tend to be new parents. Additionally, North Seattle is more affluent and educated than the general population.

This is, of course, to say nothing of the general unchurched nature of the Northwest. The Northwest is known as the “no-zone” among clergy of the area. The “no-zone” denotes two things; the most common religious preference is none, and since congregations tend to be younger and never experienced the “golden years,” there is a lack of congregational sentimentality in the area.

Theological Reflection:

It is in this unique, urban setting that I spent a year as an intern at St. John United Lutheran Church. It is in this context that terms like law and gospel take on incredible relativity. For instance, for an unchurched person, the word “gospel” may at best have a loose affiliation with religion or a branch of Christianity, but that is likely all the word means. Synonyms such as good news, grace, or solidarity probably carry a lot more traction and utility in this context.

Additionally, the term “law” can be problematic, especially when one considers the LGBT community and the long process of working for civil laws that honor their sexual orientation. In this context the Lutheran confessional understanding of the law can hardly seem like something God created to protect humanity or drive one to God. Rather the term law is likely to conjure images of legally encoded discrimination.

That is not to say, however, that the good news of Jesus’ life, death and life beyond death do not have a word for this context. What it means is that church leaders should be nimble and adept at expressing the gospel in a vernacular that is accessible and meaningful to the individuals and communities in Seattle.

An important factor a preacher in Seattle might consider is orthopraxy. Given that the population is relatively unchurched, it should come as little surprise that traditional rituals have trouble carrying the meaning they intend. Additionally, when one considers the individuality that drives people to Seattle, it is important to proclaim the story of Jesus in such a way that the individual understands themselves as included and invited into this story. Telling the story of Jesus in such a way empowers the audience to develop rituals that have meaning and that connect them to the gospel.

It has been my experience that by recounting the gospel in terms such as “hope” and “solidarity” the context I have been describing is addressed in an extremely meaningful way. Preaching the good news as hope that God is with us, and recreating us, in the midst of ecological crises and incredible political tumult makes sense and preaches God’s justification well to a generally unchurched citizenry.

The Lutheran Confessions express God’s solidarity as the Word becoming flesh and suffering so that humanity might be reconciled to God. For the authors of the Confessions, God’s solidarity is expressed by the union of humanity and divinity in Jesus, and Jesus’ experience of the entire gamut of human life, even death, so that humanity and God might have a relationship.

This relationship, this union, is deeply hopeful. It promises that amidst any situation, no matter how godforsaken it might appear, God is with us. Now, stopping simply at solidarity would only have gone half the way in expressing the good news, or hope, of the story of Jesus.

Strictly speaking, solidarity is not justification. Ultimately, the God who is with us is a God who justifies. God does not simply meet us in our context, God also takes on the work of freely restoring a loving relationship with humanity.

In other words, the God who meets humanity is not ambivalent, instead the God who meets humanity, in Christ, is loving (1Jo. 4:16). This promise of a loving God meeting humanity in their context transforms the present into a moment ready at any second to blossom with new life and hope.

Solidarity may be inherent to justification, but it is important for the preacher to preach what kind of God is meeting humanity. The gospel of Jesus promises us that the God who descends to humanity, dies and is raised, is a God who desires and creates a loving relationship with humanity.

Describing this work of God’s as solidarity with humanity is confessional. This confessional description also incorporates language that is meaningful for an unchurched population. Another reason solidarity carries utility in Seattle is that solidarity not only meets individuals in their context, it invites them into another larger one; God’s. Again, in an unchurched population, it is important to describe the gospel in such a way that the hearer is invited into the story.

While rich words such as law and gospel may not carry immediate currency in Seattle, once people find themselves invited into the story of God, these words take on incredible meaning.

As so often happened to Jesus’ followers in the gospels, this love of God (gospel) propels them to unknown people and places to preach the love they have experienced. This experience is as true for the disciples in the ancient world as it is for disciples in modern Seattle. This prompting of God, which encounters people in their context and invites them to see themselves within the larger context of God’s story, may address any context, but in Seattle it addresses the context with particular force.

And it is in the telling of the story of Jesus as God’s story of solidarity, that law and gospel come to life. When the hearer finds themselves invited and included in the story of God creating a loving relationship with all of creation, the hearer experiences God’s law as life giving, yet something they have failed to obey. It is in this telling of the story of gospel as solidarity that the law reveals us all to be in need of God’s help. It is in the telling of Jesus’ story as solidarity with a world in need that gospel is revealed to truly be good news.

Part II: Theological Proclamation:

Sermon:

Matthew 10:40-42:

Jesus said to the newly commissioned disciples: “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple – truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

The Gospel of the Lord!

It had been a hot morning. We all had been in Central America for over ten days and we were worn out. We were a group of seminary students who had traveled to Honduras and Nicaragua to learn from the Lutheran Church in these countries.

On this hot morning, surrounded by people with little more than enough to eat for the day, I took the first shower I had had in some time. I went out behind the house to a well. Holding onto a rope, I dropped the bucket down a hole and heard a wonderful splash. Pulling the bucket up, I began preparing myself for the freezing water to take the breath from me when I poured it over my head.

Nothing could have prepared me for what happened, though. Taking a deep breath I dumped half the bucket over my head. The water temperature was perfect.

Standing behind the house and feeling the breeze cool me, in the distance I could see hills, children chasing each other and suddenly the words “remember your baptism,” came to my mind: Remember your baptism.

There, in that place of incredible poverty, poverty brought on by no fault of their own, I learned more about my baptism than I had anywhere else. In that place, where the world saw poverty, I began to understand God’s abundant love.

Isn’t that the way it always goes, though? Henri Nouwen goes to the L’arche community to care for a man with little, to no, cognitive functions. In that place, the man Nouwen is supposed to care for, Adam, models the ability to accept God’s love this priest has written so eloquently about, and yet also searched for all his life. Adam, a man with little use to the world, teaches a famous priest about love.

A Jewish boy in a concentration camp, watching a younger boy hang, dares to say that if God is anywhere in the world, God is with that boy strangling under an unjust noose.

A Jewish boy, Elie Wiesel, condemned by so many, including the German Church, teaches Christians about the Theology of the Cross.

And today, gays and lesbians in Seattle will gather to proclaim their human worth. These humans, whom so many states use laws to treat as second class citizens, teach us about the remarkable love of God that will not make distinctions.

These stories we just heard, these unlikely, unexpected, vulnerable stories are our stories. It is this kind of stories that we’re called to find ourselves in. It is these stories, after all, that move the heart. It is these that can actually remind us of the kind of God we’re called to worship, if only we had the courage. It is these stories that matter.

Perhaps we’ve forgotten about these stories. Perhaps we’ve been too intimidated to claim them, because they all too often seem ignored. But, they are the stories we’re called to. They are the stories we’re called to claim and find ourselves in.

And how do we claim these stories, after all? How do we have the courage to find ourselves in these stories? Put simply, through stewardship. We claim these stories, through our calling to be stewards.

The calling to be a steward, to live with a unique disposition to the world and to that God on the cross we worship. The calling to be a steward invites us to see God’s abundance manifested in vulnerable love in any situation. In fact, the calling of stewardship is the story of Jesus, and it is the story of the Jesus movement as well.

Just earlier, the words of Jesus we heard in the Gospel, they are the words Jesus gave to the disciples he sent into the world to proclaim God’s reign. Jesus sent them as prophets, the righteous and most accurately of all little children.

Children, the weak and vulnerable of the society Jesus lived in. To be a child was to be one with little use, less respect, and no worth. The community of Jesus’ followers in Matthew is that of Jews living in a city. Jews living as a minority. And, as so often happens to minorities in urban settings, the followers of Jesus in Matthew are also poor.

It is this exact group that Jesus chooses to begin his movement. This group, the disregarded of society, metaphorically children, that Jesus chooses. A poor group of outcasts. Jesus chooses the poor, a minority community. Jesus chooses the vulnerable.

WHY? Seriously, why? If I were to start a movement, a movement I wanted to succeed, I would carefully choose those who I thought would best represent my motives, I would consider their skill in rhetoric, their community standing, and on and on. Yet, Jesus doesn’t.

Jesus does nearly the opposite. Why?

Jesus chooses this group because he sees these people with the eyes of a steward, not the eyes of some anxious human. Jesus has the eyes of a steward, and with these eyes he sends what looks to the world to be a group of losers, to begin his movement; a movement we’re a part of today.

This story of who Jesus chooses to call is another remarkable story. It is a story like that of the story of Adam and Nouwen. This movement Jesus begins is such a story, a story that can only be understood with the eyes of a steward.

It is a story of a group of poor Jews living in a city that is at best ambivalent of their citizenship, that exact place, those exact people God calls to begin the Jesus movement; a movement that has somehow withstood prejudice, sexism, and even supporting the holocaust. And now, here we stand, a part of that movement. Abused, misused at it has been. Can we look at this story of the Jesus movement with the eyes of a steward?

After all, it is also a movement that feeds the hungry, houses the homeless, blankets the poor, nurtures the earth. And today, it is a movement that supports Open Door Ministries, which provides support to our gay, lesbian and transgendered brothers and sisters. A ministry which is participating in the Seattle Pride Parade.

And another thing, it is a movement that is not over, either. Here we are, in Seattle. Seattle, one of the cities known for being religion-less. Here we are, in a small congregation. A congregation that has to look carefully and seriously when budgets are drafted. Here we are a group the world may see as having every reason to give up hope, with a calling from God.

In this place, a community many may assume too small to make a difference, God calls us to stewardship. God gives us a calling that provides us the courage to look hard at budgets, to make faithful decisions, to trust God. God calls us to welcome the homeless, welcome the visitor, welcome the addicted. God’s word calls us to be stewards of this gift we have. God calls us to, in faith, share this calling with the world, again and again.

This is what we’re called to: we’re called to expect God’s unexpected work among us. We’re not called to have the calloused lens that see the Adams of the world as useless brain-dead meat, we’re called to see these people as ones God loves, ones who likely have a word for us. We’re called to see those who receive our legalized prejudices as those who understand the worth God sees all humans with, better than us.

And, we’re called to honor their story, heed their words. We’re called to declare that violence, prejudice, abuse is wrong. We’re called, like Jesus, to stand with these people. This is the lens we’re called to see the world through. As stewards we’re called to trust, to expect, to beg God to show up in those unlikely, unexpected and vulnerable places.

That is the story of the Jesus movement, the story of St. John United, the story of all our lives. These are the stories that could move us to really worship the God of the cross. Claim it. Claim these stories, find yourself in them. Dare to find God working in your life in those places where only a calling from God can bring new life.

See these stories through the calling of stewardship. Claim your calling to be a steward. Stewardship is not a chore, rather it is the very lens that empowers us to see and hear and feel God’s work in our lives, this congregation, and the world.

Claim your story, your lens, in the table we’re about to come to. Claim it at a table where this small group gathers around common bread and simple wine, and yet expect to receive a humble man, a man crucified because the powers of the world could not tolerate his voice of stewardship proclaiming the worth of every living thing.

Claim it at the table, which looks to the rest of the world as foolishness. Come to the table and join Jesus’ fellowship, which invites the homeless, the outcast, the vulnerable, the abused victims; you. Come to the table and become what you will eat, God’s eyes, ears, heart, hands and feet in the world. Come to the table and find the power of the powerless. Come to the table and find the eyes of a steward. Come and see. Come and see. –Amen

The Sermon and the Context Reflection:

This sermon addressed the Seattle context by attending to the similarities in the story of Jesus’ first followers as a marginal community and the reality that being a Christian in the Northwest is also a marginal identity.

The sermon also addressed the context by considering the story of another marginal community, lesbian, gay and transgendered individuals. Not only did the sermon address a public event, it related to the members of St. John United because some members had left the service early to participate in the parade. Additionally, St. John United is a “Reconciling in Christ” congregation and many members support Open Door Ministries financially.

Of course, I attempted to make the sermon more than simply relevant. To make the sermon more than a pathetic chase after relevancy, I not only noted the similarities among various marginal groups in the Bible and Seattle. To make the sermon authentic to the gospel, I preached about the common thread that made all these marginal stories powerful; God’s hope-filled presence.

By preaching God’s presence in these marginal communities I was able to preach about two important things. First, I was able to peach that the congregation’s support of LGBT individuals is more than simply doing a civic good deed. Instead, the congregation’s support of and solidarity with the LGBT community is a core expression of their faith/vocation. Second, by preaching about God’s justifying presence in any marginal place, I was able to help people see that those vulnerable places of their lives are not some place to be hidden from. Instead these are places where God is likely to show up and bring hope. In this sermon I discussed one of the core ways God shows up in our gathering, small and marginal as it might be; the Lord’s Meal.

Aside from the typical preparation for the sermon; historical, contextual, etc. research, I also considered how the impact of Jesus’ life among his first followers related to the impact Jesus’ life still has. The clear connection for me, was Jesus’ frank description of his followers as children. Jesus’ frankness is not intended to demean, instead it is intended to bring hope to a group the world saw as hopeless.

When Jesus notes the marginal reality of a group and still chooses to dwell with this group, a transformation occurs. It is the transformation Jesus’ solidarity brings to a people that captures the attention, imagination and hope of laity (including myself). This transformation, created by God, describes the way the story of God breaks into the story of the hearers in the present. As I said earlier, in Seattle it is important to describe the story of God in such a way that the hearer finds themselves invited and included into the story of God.

Additionally, preaching God’s transformative presence amidst any situation is able to preach about all of our need of God (law) and the hope Jesus’ life, death and life beyond death brings (gospel). By attending to this universal work of God one is able to grasp the common connection among all people, although they may appear different from one another. This common connection is the way God sees God’s creation, through love.

Finally, given that general ambivalent attitude many in Seattle have to the church, it could be easy to become cynical to the idea that God could be at work in this context. By preaching about the work of God in the LGBT community (specifically through the ministry of Open Door) at the Pride Parade, I was able to relate the story of God to the present context. Obviously if people are empowered to see the story of God as still impacting contemporary communities, they are empowered to see the story of God breaking into their own lives in a personal as well as public way. It is this breaking in of God that encounters and transforms the present that I intended to preach about in the sermon.

Part III: Integration of Leadership and Theology:

Case Study:

In the fall of 2009 there was a cadre of twenty-somethings attending St. John United for different reasons (proximity, familial connection, etc.). With this faction attending, St. John United members and church leadership decided to develop young adult programming. The programming consisted of occasional special outings and a monthly “theology pub.” The theology pub, simply put, was a gathering at a local bar.

Over time, due to various reasons, these young adults stopped affiliating with St. John United regularly. This loose affiliation to a congregation reflects the transient nature of young adults in urban settings. The casual relationship to St. John United in particular also reflects the reality that ethnic identities, especially northern European ones, are becoming less significant. Additionally, given that the Northwest is relatively unchurched, the idea of denominational loyalty is quite novel. As these young adults moved to different locations, it didn’t make sense to continue to affiliate with St. John United any longer, regardless of how much they may have enjoyed the congregation.

When I began my internship in the fall of 2010 I hoped to continue young adult ministry and so did the congregation. The problem, however, was that there were not any young adults attending St. John United on a regular basis. After attempting to hold theology pubs by inviting the previous group of young adults, I began to reflect on the transitory lifestyle of young adults in urban settings. Additionally I also visited other congregation’s theology pubs to get different perspectives. After those experiences and prayerful reflection; I proposed a change.

Reflection:

What I suggested was to broaden the gatherings so that all members of St. John United felt invited. While we invited all members, it quickly became apparent that the parents in the congregation were the demographic most interested in attending. Again, the youngest residents of North Seattle tend to be parents, the average age in St. John United’s zip code is 36.

After discussing the idea of beginning a different theology pub and receiving positive feedback, we held our first new “theology pub.” The first theology pub was in a local bar that had been recommended by a spouse of one of a members. At this meeting the attendees discussed future theology pubs and goals for the gathering. These goals included to meet monthly, advertise the gatherings, and visiting different pubs throughout the year.

What began to emerge was a group dedicated to these theology pubs. The first attendees were long-time members. Over time, though, as these members began to talk about the theology pub and others started to attend. Newer members began attending, and visitors would often express interest in checking out the theology pubs. Slowly the theology pubs grew to be something of their own. While the members of St. John United provided the staff resources needed to facilitate the gatherings, all were invited. These invitations extended to visitors as well as those who found out about the theology pub through our on-line publicity.

Throughout the various gatherings two things happened. First, the traditional long-time members that comprised the cohort had the opportunity to congregate in what may have been, for them, an “untraditional” venue. Second, as these members took this opportunity to gather in an alternative setting and enjoyed it, they created a venue for other members and non-members who may have felt more comfortable being initiated into the Christian story outside of a church.

For my part, I suggested the change and discussed it with other members. Once there appeared to be enough energy, I announced the first gathering and made intentional face to face invitations. Additionally, when discussing the theology pub in public settings, I did not act like meeting in a bar was anything atypical. As the gatherings took on a life of their own, I continued to express enthusiasm, plan the gathering, talk about the theology pub to others and invite visitors.

Originally a challenge appeared to be how one might sustain the energy to continue to facilitate these gatherings. Given the enthusiasm and energy the longtime members had, that concern proved to be a non-issue. As there is intern transition, though, the theology pub may encounter a few bumps in the coming fall.

The only other challenge, really, would be that a valuable opportunity to gather as the church would be passed up. As I said earlier, in this unchurched setting it is important to cultivate faith rituals that carry meaning and are powerful as well as accessible to the population. Gathering as a community in a public setting to discuss contemporary events, family milestones, church activities and the like, is an incredibly appropriate ritual.

The ritual of the theology pub declared that one’s faith is not only private, additionally it also lived out the fact that the church gathering is a public one for God’s work in the world. The ritual of the theology pubs reinforced the confessional understanding that the church is, simply put, the people gathered by God.

Gathering in a public setting was simply a way to enact the theological claim that God’s story is a part of the world’s story. It is worth mentioning here that most of the discussions were not explicitly “theological.” Rather, the discussions focused on contemporary events and happenings. These discussions were a way members were invited to communally reflect upon God’s solidarity encountering and affecting the world and their lives.

The theology pub ritual ultimately buttressed the claim that God is at work in the world, in any place. Theologically, God’s sovereignty was at stake. The claim members of the theology pub enacted was that God’s solidarity is not limited to any place or time.

Part IV: Person in Ministry:

Hopefully at this point in this essay the reader is able to gather that this pursuit of ministry brings me joy. Considering God’s work in the world, and the calling to that work, is also something that is interesting to me. This interest and joy from the calling, gives me the faith to be open to the new and unexpected ways God will be at work in the world.

Currently in my seminary career I would say it is these attributes; joy, interest and openness that are my greatest strengths. One way these strengths have been manifested in the fact that I am theologically inclined. Studying theology in college and seminary was an incredibly exciting and enjoyable experience. This education has given me classical categories as a foundation and jumping board to interpret contemporary expressions of theology and current events.

Throughout undergrad and seminary I have found much insight from traditional theologians. Martin Luther is a hero of mine. While I’ve enjoyed reading theologians such as Tillich, Forde, and Moltmann; I’ve also enjoyed reading contemporary theologians such Elizabeth Johnson, Gustavo Gutierez, René Girard and the like.

While this openness to listening to various theologian’s voices during seminary has been meaningful, I have also come to understand that theology does not exist for itself. What I mean to say is, theology serves to proclaim God’s reign. Voice such as Forde and Eck belong together. Their voices have helped me understand the multiple ways God’s story breaks into and changes ours.

Theology is not merely an academic pursuit. Understanding that theology serves God and the proclamation of the gospel keeps me humble and protects me from being too caustic and rigid in discussing theology and God’s work. Theology is to be informed by, and inform, its context.

Theology does not exist to preserve ideologies. Instead theology, at its best, seeks to lead God’s people into a world in need. While there can be a temptation to make any expression of theology into an idol, God calls us to new places and people. The joy, interest and openness God has gifted me with, help me to be open to the ongoing work of God.

While in the present it is difficult to discern God’s ways, I suspect God has gifted me with an excitement and openness so that I may have perseverance and a word for the future. Being open to the new and different ways God may be working in the world sustains me as I preach and walk faithfully with God’s people into a world in need.

Continually being open to how God may be working takes time and energy. While I do not wish to demean the difficulty of this task, joy is a great sustainer in the midst of any work, no matter how difficult. Considering a contemporary context and how God’s word encounters that context takes time and energy, but my interest in theology compels me to consider and preach the intersection of our story and God’s.

Alternately, the largest weakness of mine would be my lack of confidence. I try to stay humble and open, but at times this vocation does call me to make assertions.

Throughout internship I’ve noticed that it is difficult for me to incorporate others into projects. I think this has been difficult for me because I worry that I would bother a person by asking them to be a part of a ministry team. Another reason it has been difficult to integrate others into various projects is because I am still having trouble seeing myself as a servant leader.

Now, while I say that I have trouble inviting others to participate in ministry objectives, I know I shouldn’t be so unconfident. Throughout internship it has been my experience that people do want to be invited. To work on addressing my discomfort, I have begun to take opportunities to get used to requesting people’s assistance.

This practice was a good way to address my discomfort, and to try to continue to be changed by my calling. As I said earlier, sometimes this vocation does require me to confidently make assertions, and when I am uncomfortable it has been helpful for me to remember that the role I am being called to changes me. While my personality, strengths and weaknesses make the way I live out this calling unique, the duties of the calling also shape me to address the areas where I can to continue to grow.

Another way the need to cultivate my confidence has come up, is in cantouring. I really enjoy music and the liturgy. Now, while I may not be incredibly musically inclined, I can carry a tune and with work I could chant the liturgy. However, I always sang too quietly to lead well.

Mitigating this weakness will obviously be through continuing to practice, it is also important that I remember that this calling is about God’s people not my confidence or lack of it. Being able to lead the liturgy invites people to add their voices to the service. So, while I am not incredibly confident in my voice, this calling compels me to this place and people. As I find myself called to this place it is important for me to remember that chanting is not a performance I am putting on. Instead, chanting is simply joining my voice with others in the congregation to worship God.

While I do have strengths and weaknesses, I have found that this vocation uses my gifts and leads me through my discomfort in order to serve God’s people. As I find myself called to tasks that I may not be the most comfortable with, I also find myself called to trust that God is with me in that place. Trusting that God is with me gives me the courage and ability to openly talk about my strengths and weaknesses with others.

In order to keep the faith, as it were, during my journey to ordination I have surrounded myself with good preachers. As much as I enjoy the calling and am open to growing, it can be hard. There are many times when I don’t want to be challenged or all that is needed of me seems to be too much. In those moments only a word from God can give me new life.

As has always been true and always will be true, this group of preachers I have surrounded myself with, declare a word unto me. These preachers know me and I trust them. I have confessed and confided in them many times. These preachers promise to me again and again that my identity does not lie in my prowess (or worse, lack of). Instead my identity lies in God’s life-giving hands.

Discussing my weaknesses with others allows me to be honest that I am not perfect and gives me an alternative perspective. An openness about my strengths and weaknesses tells people, whether clergy or laity, that it is okay to talk to me about my development as a pastor. Hearing other’s reflection is a way that I have found incredibly helpful in assessing and evaluating myself as a servant leader.

Learning from other’s perspective is something I really do enjoy. I am naturally self-reflective, and I do like learning from other’s feedback. My ability to welcome of feedback is something my supervisor and intern committee noted during my internship year in Seattle. Being able to welcome and learn from feedback is a great gift God has given me, and I imagine it will serve me well in my first call and beyond.

During my first call, I hope I will see that my trust in this calling is well-placed, in spite of any lack of confidence. I imagine my first calling as a time of fear and trembling where I see again and again that, indeed, God has called me to that people and place. Trusting that calling will impel me to confront my lack of confidence and boldly trust the role this calling has given me.

Ultimately I see God’s shaping and reshaping work to continue. I imagine that in ways I do not even anticipate, I will learn that this calling is not so much about my gifts and strengths as it is about God’s word and God’s people. I see my first years of ministry as a time of being shaped by the calling. This work of God’s shaping will use me and the place I am called to, to proclaim God’s reign.

And another thing, I hope I will get to see the ways God is at work in the place I am called. Seeing this will no doubt have a huge impact on me. I imagine seeing God’s work will continue to transform me, just as it transforms the world. This transformation will affect and prepare me as I continue to consider how to preach God’s constant work in the world. In short, I expect that in the give and take of ministry and daily reflection on God’s word, I will continue to grow in faith and understanding.

Finally, I must say I plan to continue to explore the role the church’s public proclamation has in civic affairs. I hope that in my first call I will have the opportunity to continue engaging my passion for the church’s work of advocating for justice through public policy. It is my prayer that my first call will provide me with the opportunity to practice advocating for the most vulnerable in the public sphere, and to learn from these experiences. I pray that my first call will give me the opportunity to discuss how God’s good news for the world addresses contemporary issues of justice.

In conclusion, this calling is something I am still learning to trust. While trust is difficult, I want to trust. I am excited and open to trust that God has called me to this vocation. During seminary I came to trust that theology exists for God’s people. During internship I have learned to trust that my vocation exists for God’s people. So, while trust is difficult, I find myself like the man in Mark beseeching God, “Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief (Mar 9:24).”

While learning to trust God has called me is important, what is of the utmost importance is that I continue to see and hear, despite my ability to trust or not, that God has given me trust. This trust is not something I can conjure, instead it is a gift God has given me for God’s people. As one of God’s people I have and will continue to constantly find myself transformed by the place I am called to. This transformation is what I hope for the most, not only during my first three years of serving as a pastor, but all of my life.