Archive for August, 2011

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August 30, 2011

Some Summer Reading

When people ask me what my hobbies are, I usually feel quite lost. I’m not sure exactly what to say because I don’t naturally gravitate toward activities that seem hobby worthy (getting pedicures just doesn’t count does it?). But, there is one thing I always do regularly– even as dorky as it may be– and that is reading. My life just doesn’t seem in balance if I don’t have something or somethings ready to go on my night stand. It is hard to pack for vacation sometimes because I simply do not have luggage space for all the books!

I’ve stumbled upon a few great ones lately that I thought might be worthy to share here with blog readers. Most are prose that have inspired me to think or re-examine what I believe about something– my favorite type of books instead of just the fluffy entertainment driven novels (for me, this is what tv is for). If you’ve read any of these and have a strong reaction for or against in someway, I’d love to hear more about it.

1. Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison by Piper Kerman

“With a career, a boyfriend and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money ten years before. But that past has caught up with her. Convinced and sentence to 15 months at the infamous feral correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the well-heeled Smith college grad is now inmate #11187-424 . . . “

After finishing this one, I found have new appreciation for the injustice and conditions of women’s correctional facilities in our country. The humanity of women in prison, the stories that led them to be there, and the toil of their daily lives beyond bars captured me and I could hardly put this book down. Though we often what to tell the stories of prison of “bad people” vs. “good” this memoir breaks a part this stereotype and leaves it here for the entirety. I was inspired to think about how I might be involved in prison reform in the future and believed that this book would be a great text for a book club at a congregation discerning the beginnings of a prison ministry.

2. The Faith Club: A Muslim, A Christian, A Jew– Three Women Search for Understanding by Ranya Idliby, Suzanne Oliver and Priscilla Warner

Though not a new book, with the 10th anniversary of 9/11 coming up, it is a great one to pick up for it is a story that began out of this tragedy. Three women, mothers, of different faiths wanted to get together to write a children’s book about tolerance and peace in the wake of how the events of 9/11 forever changed the city of New York, where each lived. However, as soon as they began to meet to begin to work on the project, they learned that there was no way they could work together if they did not know each other first.  And, thus began a series of Interfaith conversations that became this book.

This text is one that a group of us from Oakbrook Church, Northern VA Hebrew Congregation in Reston and the Adams Center in Sterling, VA along with folks from Washington Plaza are using to have an Interfaith conversation in our local community. We’ve met once already for our “faith club” gathering and look forward to more. If you are interested in joining this book club, let me know!

3. Peace Like a River by Leif Engler

It’s a novel and I normally stay away from novels, but really found myself drawn to the language and imagery of this one, especially after several of my colleagues at the Collegeville Institute recommended it several weeks ago– many as their “favorite read” on the first morning of our group sharing.

“The novel is narrated by Reuben Land, an eleven-year-old boy suffering from severe asthma who lives with his unusual family in a small Minnesota town in 1962. His mother abandoned the family years before. He is among three children: his older brother Davy, who is sixteen years old when the story begins; and his younger sister Swede eight years old, and an imaginative writer and poet. His father, Jeremiah, a school janitor, is a man of faith who quietly performs miracles – one of which is to bring Reuben to life after his lungs failed to inflate when he was born. Reuben is the only one who ever sees or notices these miracles; he concludes that he is meant to be a witness to them.”

And, this is just the beginning of the adventure . . . check it out.

4. Before and After Zachariah by Fern Kupfer

This is a book recommended to me by Sari, the writing tutor from my week at Collegeville. And ever since I started it, I just couldn’t put it down. The vivid language and emotionally driven plot is captivating.  Again, not a new book– written in the 1980s in fact, but full of powerful insights for any going through a time in their life of pronounced pain and loss– not only for who or what might have died, but for what is living and still is just not as it should be. 

This mid-western family documents through the voice of Fern, the mom, the ups and downs of what it means to birth, raise and make decisions for the care of a severely mentally and physically challenged child. Questions of “when it is it time to institutionalize?” “how does a marriage survive such kind of care for another?” and “how do you parent a ‘normal’ child while taking care of such a ‘abnormal’ one too?” are raised in ways that the reader does not often expect.  I was challenged to reconsider how I think about and care for parents and teachers I know who are caring for special needs children.

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August 28, 2011

Heaven and Hell: What’s the Difference?

Conversations about Heaven and Hell: Who Goes Where?

Matthew 25:31-46

It has been a hell of a week, hasn’t it? From the unthinkable earthquake, to the tropical storm battering our homes yesterday, to the ever-changing political situation around our globe as leaders rise and fall with no end in sight, the past few days have reminded us all the state of world as it is not what we would like it to be.

When natural disasters fall on the most vulnerable, when the elderly and sick have to be evacuated from their homes in moments of panic, when people going about the business emerge from work in the afternoon to find bricks and mortar destroying their cars, if you are like me, you crave good news. You crave to see pictures of any kind evidence of what the world should be, of what the world could be, of any hope at all for the future. Yet, in our 24 hour news cycle of doom and gloom and conflicts over everything imaginable around our world holding back the prophetic and creative gifts of artists who could help us see a different way, we are often left without the hopeful pictures that we crave to see.

Sometimes, however, pictures of hopeful realities find their way into mainstream culture. One such occurrence happened in response to the 1984- 1985 famine in Ethiopia, which claimed nearly one million lives, during one of the worst droughts the continent had seen in modern times.

Harry Belafonte, a known American entertainer and social activist at the time had a dream of gathering together some of the most influential and important musicians of the time for a joint project. Though rarely seen before that singers and entertainers of all kinds would gather together, laying aside personal projects, their own pride and schedules, somehow after signing on Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and legend producer, Quincy Jones, soon the artists came out in droves to support the project.

When I say, “We are the World” you name that song by completing the phrase, “we are the children.”

With this interracial and multi-ethnic team of gathered artists, musical history was made—not only in the details of this unlikely coming together, but of the message of the song inspiring unity, service and the human responsibility for the suffering of all. In “We are the World” a statement was made, a picture was boldly drawn —that indeed, beauty could come from tragedy, that death and starvation did not have to be the only story being told.  While the proceeds of record sales went on to support hunger relief in Africa, the lasting effects of this musical production were far greater. A picture of something different from the normal way things go on in the world was created, and once this happens, there’s never really any going back to complete ignorance of things again.

In the same way, when Jesus gathers his disciples together to give them the last what Matthew’s gospel calls the series of five discourses, he too is seeking to paint a picture of this “kingdom of God” or “kingdom of heaven” that he has been talking so much about for the entire course of his ministry. Only a vivid image would do to get the point across clearly: we know the story as the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats.

As we begin to read it again this morning, we might find that these words are familiar to us, especially those of us who are lovers of the social gospel, seeking proof that our “help people” mentality is truly pleasing to Jesus. In fact, many churches read these verses as a spiritual litmus test for its members. Asking one another, “Did you visit the sick this week?” “Did you cloth the naked?” “Did you go to prison?” And, if one’s responses aren’t in the affirmative, telling congregants to get to work! By all means, care for somebody other than yourself if you want to get the “get out of hell” free card.

But was this what Jesus meant at all? Was he telling a story to his followers to scare them? Was he really talking about eternal, forever damnation for those whose good works list was short and not sweet?

Well, to begin to uncover some of these questions, I feel we have to remind ourselves to whom and why the gospel of Matthew was written in the first place.

In contrast to other gospel authors, Matthew writes with a specific audience in mind—fellow Jewish Christians. Matthew was said to have been well versed in the language of Jewish law, the political plight of a Jewish citizen living in a Roman empire during the life and ministry of Jesus. As a result, throughout Matthew’s version of the gospel, we find him being quite concerned about how to remain Jewish and Christian in a Gentile world and what a Christian response should be to the changing political landscape.

Whereas countless Jewish Christians would cheer “revolt” seek to use the life and memory of Jesus as one who came to birth a new political kingdom, Matthew was known to be regularly re-defining life in God’s kingdom in ways that had nothing to do with the expected norms of “us vs. them” “the strongest always win” or “conquer all by force.” Rather, Matthew’s Jesus taught a lot about what life could be like in the kingdom of God, asking followers of Jesus to do everything they could to help create it.

Thus, when we get to the 25th chapter of Matthew, it is good to frame this story as one more representation of the picture of such the kingdom.

To make it explicit, the picture looks like this: there are those whose lives are full of mercy (represented by the sheep) and there are those who are not (represented by the goats). Our world is full of both types of people. And while sheep of this world may never wonder about or know the impact their overflowing compassionate acts have had (saying “Lord, Lord!), and those who are goats might wonder the same things about their lives, continuing to live as carefree as possible, Jesus has an answer for those in both. In the kingdom of God: we are all seen for who we really are.

While this all sounds well and good, when we think about it, it is quite a controversial message of Jesus, for it goes against everything that is normal about life in this world as human being.

How often are we known to lie because it is just easier? Cheat because no one will ever know? Steal because no one is watching? Or go home and watch more tv or read more books or cook more fancy dinners without considering how our neighbors are doing, or what they are having for supper or even if they can afford this night to have supper at all?

The truth be told, we think that what we earn is ours, what we live in is ours, who we birth is ours, and ours alone. We easily shun out of our kingdom those whom we or our society has not claimed as their own.

In response to this, instead, Jesus is painting an entirely different picture of life in his household where all of us are intimately connected to each other and the distinctions of what we call “heaven” and what we call “hell” have a lot to do with how we choose to deal with each other. Learning to play well with others is the main event in the classroom, not what gets you extra credit.

Consider this: a holy man was having a conversation with the Lord one day and said, “Lord, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like.” The Lord led the holy man to two doors. He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in. In the middle of the room was a large round table.

In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew which smelled delicious and made the holy man’s mouth water. Yet, the people sitting around this table were thin and sickly. They looked miserable and starving as if they were barely alive.

The holy man questioned why until he realized that these people were holding spoons with very long handles that were strapped to their arms. Because of the way the spoons were placed, each found it impossible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful for they could not get the spoons back into their mouths. The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering—to be so close to what nourish them but yet so far.

The Lord said, “You have seen Hell.”

They went to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one. There was the large round table with the large pot of stew which made the holy man’s mouth water again.

The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and plump, laughing and talking. The holy man said, “I don’t understand.” “It is simple, this is heaven you see,” said the Lord, “being here requires but one skill. You see, they have learned to feed each other.”

So, while attending our well-being, our own self-care, our own recovery is not to be thrown out the window in the kingdom of God (Jesus did say after all to love our neighbor AS OURSELVES too)—Jesus is teaching us that this is not to be our entire focus. It simply can’t be IF we want to see the kingdom come on earth—a kingdom where the spoons we do have are well-used to feed all those who are hungry.

Yet before you go ahead this morning and do some self-critical judgment of your own by saying, “I’m simply a goat, there’s no hope for me. I like myself. I like my nice clothes and shoes. I like my time to be my time. I can’t live without my gym membership or my I Pad. So, I guess you are just implying, Pastor, that I’m doomed.” To which, I say, wait a minute and let’s think about this.

Just like the holy man in the story who gets to take a tour with God of what heaven and hell might look like, what they feel like and smell like, consider your time spent today with this passage as a journey too.

Pastor Rob Bell helps us out here in his book Love Wins when he gives insight into the original Greek of the place where the goats are sent which is an aion of kolazo. Bell writes, “Aion, we know, has several meetings. One is an age or a period of time; another refers to intensity of experience. The word kolazo is a term used for horticulture. It refers to the pruning and trimming of the branches of the plant so it can flourish.. . . So depending on how you translate aion and kolazo, then the phrase can mean ‘a period of pruning’ or ‘a time of trimming’ or an intense experience of correction.”

Thus, if you are ready to say today that the deeds that you are known by and the lack of mercy of your heart are choking out the coming of the kingdom of heaven into your life, there is always grace and hope waiting for you.  Like a plant surrounded by suffocating weeds in a garden, consider your life in a time of trimming.

Consider yourself not dammed to a lake of fire, but strongly exhorted to jump over the fence more often and take note from the deeds of the sheep: deeds which display the love and mercy of our God in the most ordinary of ways day in and day out.  Deeds like
sharing what you have with those who need it more than you do, noticing those
whose physical needs are robbing them of the opportunity to pay attention to their spiritual needs, and then doing something about it.  Consider then, what needs to be “trimmed” from your plate so that more of God can be known in all you do.

I end with this personal reflection. This past Tuesday, your church hosted the monthly gathering of the Reston Interfaith Clergy Ministerium. As part of our meeting as religious leaders of all faiths from within this neighborhood, the new principals of Forest Edge and Lake Anne Elementary were invited to share more with us about their students and how we as faith leaders could support them. Besides being informative in nature—who knew there was a large and growing immigrant Russian population in Reston—I left the meeting struck by the enormity of the needs within walking distance of this church and what we are doing and not doing to be ambassadors of love in Jesus’ name.

Of course, we are a small but faithful band and we can’t do everything that we would like, you and I do need to be strategic in terms of where and when we commit our energy, remembering we can’t be all things to all people after all. But, I left this meeting with a conviction and the conviction was that I need to be a community participant at Lake Anne elementary. I need to begin having lunch there once a week with a troubled student, as the principal highly encouraged us was a great need there: for relationships of kindness to be built between adults in the community and youth who had just about all given up on someone caring about them.

So, I tell you this today because I admit to you that there needs to be ongoing trimming in my life, as much as does in yours. Not because good deeds make us feel good or look good or even because someone at church told us too. Rather, if we want to mirror the kingdom of God here, if we want the kingdom of heaven to be on earth—we each have to fill our lives with acts that matter among those who are desperate to know that they matter to anyone at all.

For I tell you today, God is longing to tell each one of us: “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”

AMEN

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August 26, 2011

Earthquakes, Irene and the Week of Weird Weather

Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you. Isaiah 54:11

Such have been the words that have been on my mind over the last week of weather chaos in the Washington DC area for literally on Tuesday, the ground on which the church stands, where I was working away at my desk, began to shake.

Though I can laugh about it now, upon first notice of the strange movement in the church, my first thoughts were “Someone is breaking in! We need to call the police!” A loud clanging noise seemed to keep thumbing on the roof. It sounded like an army was invading our usual quiet work space in Lake Anne. But soon it was apparent as the church building continued to shake that such a distribution was not the work that any human or group of human beings could cause.

My second thought was “Some of our recent repairs on the church building are faltering, maybe we are having a structural problem,” but before I had much time to think twice about this, Deb, the church administrator had figured it out. The unthinkable had happened: an earthquake. “Let’s go, Elizabeth! Let’s go!”

Before we had time to say to one another that we were not in California for goodness sake, there was no way this would be happening, in panic we took action. Quickly, she and I ran out of the church (which I later learned was NOT the thing to do– we should have just hid under our desks) and were greeted outdoors by our equally bewildered neighbors. “What in the world just happened?” was the thought we simultaneously shared with one another. ”I guess, I’m not going crazy, then” was the cry of relief of all.

As we met some of the employees who work in the small business office unit next to the church, an interesting outreach opportunity materialized. I met people whom I’d never seen or spoken to before. As we exchanged details of what we did and our sacred we just were, there was the usual “look” when people found out they were talking to a pastor. One person even said, patting me on the shoulder: “Maybe this was a sign that God wants me to come back to church. . . .”  “Of course,” I said, “You are welcomed anytime. Sundays at 11 am!”

Funny thing is, though, church this Sunday might be in jeopardy of all being normal again (if my new friend’s sudden interest in church has indeed lasted) as all of us are preparing for the furry of hurricane Irene making its way up the east coast.  Talk around town involves questions of “Do you have enough batteries?” “Do you have your bottled water and canned goods?” “Have you secured your lawn from items that could become projector toward your house?” Though it seems by the hour, Target and other big box stores are running out of the essentials.

While I know our friends in Florida and New Orleans are exclaiming how glad they are that this storm is not hitting them for once and DC will most certainly not get the worst– our hearts go out to those on the coast, especially along the Outerbanks and in the Tidewater region– still Irene is rearing her ugly head and causing all of us to take notice.

It has been a week for all to remember that certainly we are not in control, as much as we think we might be . . .

Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed and the week of weird weather continues, there is one thing that we can all be certain of that has nothing to do with our emergency preparation kits or generators, that the compassion of the Lord will never fail us.  And, I hope for the possibility to see all of you Washington Plaza folks on Sunday.

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August 14, 2011

What the Hell?

What the Hell? Conversations about Heaven and Hell

Revelations 20:11-15; Mark 9:42-50

For Christian youth growing up in conservative congregations whose theological perspective is all about getting as many people “saved” as possible, there’s a phenomenon called a Judgment House.  A Judgment House, if you’ve never heard of such is a Christian evangelistic alterative to the “devilish”practices of Halloween. And churches run these drama presentations with the
hopes of getting as many people to visit them as possible, especially the children and youth.

If you were to visit a Judgment House, you would find it constructed in a church fellowship hall or a barn in a field or even in someone’s home with special lighting, sound and special effects all with the purpose of creating a fear producing presentation about the fate of everyone who dies without confessing Christ.

The setting alone would seek to evoke feelings of guilt and shame about how an unrepentant heart for sins committed would punish you for eternity.  Hell, in this context exists maybe like some of the images you drew on your pieces of paper this morning—dark, full of fire, torture, and of course with Satan at the center—a man, believed to be a fallen angel who is the author of all evil.

When you reach the end of each station of hell, there would be an emotional presentation by a pastor about how you can be certain of never going there by praying a simple sinner’s prayer of repentance. Many leave the Judgment House committing to Christ and church leaders cheer about how the gospel has been effectively shared (and no I am not making this up—witnessed it personally while serving a church in North Carolina only a couple of years ago).

While I will not be proposing the Church Council that we host a “Judgment House” in our building this October (rest assured), I think there is something to why some of our Christian brothers and sisters go to the trouble of creating such elaborate events.We as Christians or as people who are interested in matters of religion for that matter have and will continue to be fascinated by hell. No matter if we’ve never tried to convert someone to belief in God out of a fear of hell—“What the hell?” “You are going to hell for
that,” “When Hell freezes over” or even “You are going to hell in a hand basket” are a part of our every day vernacular. We find great purpose in talking about hell, apparently.

Yet, even with this all true, when we as open-minded Christians come to church or begin a spiritual conversation with someone about what happens when someone dies, we often shy away from language of hell. We cling to an idea of a loving God and just don’t know how to interpret all of the mentions of scripture about hell, so we do the best thing we know how to do when we don’t know- we ignore them and say nothing at all.

And, I have been right there with you.

Hell is not something I’ve ever preached or taught about in my eight years of doing pastoral ministry. So I enter into this conversation this morning and for the next three weeks about the topic of heaven and hell with some fear and trembling of my own.

But, with encouragement taken from one of the New York Times best sellers the past few months, Rob Bell’s book called Love Wins (a wonderful resource that I highly recommend by the way), I decided to take the challenge and begin in the depths of hell—hitting this subject right on, no squirming around it.

When we go into the witness of scripture searching for understanding about hell, we are a bit lost if we just stay in the Hebrew Scriptures found in our Old Testament: for to the Jewish tradition, we find no mention of hell. If you’ve been a Jewish memorial service lately, you know this to be true, for there is no talk about the afterlife, only mention of their actual life on earth.

However, one of the Hebrew words that even comes close to implying the presence of something beyond this is “Sheol” known the place—yet undefined—where people go when they die. In our opening litany for this morning, Psalm 16, we find a mention to Sheol when the Psalmist writes: “My body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead.” Yet, even in Sheol’s existence—one is not left with a clear understanding of what it is, where it is and who goes there when they die.

When we reach the New Testament, however, we find that the word “hell” is quoted around 12 times depending on what translation you are using. And it is almost always quoted by Jesus in one of his sermons or parables.

The Greek word that is used for Jesus’ mention of hell is Gehenna.  Let me break it down for you like this: “Ge” means valley and “henna” means “Himmon.” Gehenna, the Valley of Hinnom is actually a place in the city of Jerusalem, a place that was known in Jesus’ time as the city dump. It was the place where a resident of the city would come to bring their garbage, where stray animals would fight over scraps of food and often the fights that would break out among them would be heard through the gnashing of teeth sounds from all around town.[i]

Kevin and I had our first meal when we visited Jerusalem in January right beside Gehenna and the big joke around the table to our guides was, “We have come all the way here to have dinner in hell? What is the rest of our trip going to be like, then?”

However, stay with me here, for this concept of hell as the city dump is quite important to remember when we begin to look at what Jesus says in the gospels.

Though I’m sure that many of you were cringing this morning when the gospel lesson was read (maybe even thinking why in the world did Jesus say that?), let me read part of it again and have you insert in your own mind the word Gehenna, the town garbage pile for the word “hell”

Jesus is teaching the disciples saying: “43If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. 45 And if your foot causes you to stumble,cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. 47 And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, 48 where ‘the worms
that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched.”

I was busy working last week at a writing conference for pastors in Minnesota last week. As we talked about what it meant to be good communicators of over used words and ideas, we conversed a lot about metaphors and the importance of choosing just the right one. We talked about how descriptive metaphors—ones that show action are much more interesting that nouns or adjectives that merely tell what has happened.

And, Jesus being the ultimate storyteller that he was, I think is doing just this. Jesus talking about hell, as we understand the translation and cultural context, seems to be about using a strong metaphor to convey his hope for his followers: not let anything get in your way of the good that you can do in the name of my love.

But if you are still looking for hell to be a literal place, you’ve found your New Testament alternative to Sheol in the word “Hades.” Like Sheol, Hades is an undefined, unspecified location for where one goes in the afterlife. It is word used by Jesus the parable of the Rich Man and the beggar named Lazarus—to talk about where the rich man goes when he dies and is found our epistle reading for today taken from the book we normally associate with hell—Revelations.

In Revelations 20, we read about the great judgment, where an image emerges of a great white throne and the one sitting on it. The dead of the earth are standing before it. And, all while this takes place, books are opened, with some names being written in the book of life and others not. Then those who had been judged according to actions that were evil were placed in Death and Hades and then Death and Hades were through into the Lake of Fire.

It’s one of the most frequently quoted and dramatic images of the New Testament about hell— good fodder for anyone trying to create a Judgment House this Halloween.

But, what we miss, in our exploration to understand hell from a literal reading of this passage, is also the context in which it was written. The book of Revelation as best I’ve studied it, is not about a play book for the end times—though I guess many would like to interpret it this way.

Revelation is a letter written by John on the island of Palmos to seven churches. It’s a pastoral letter that seeks to help a suffering people deal with the political and social upheaval that was near. The methodology of this letter seeks to address a distressed
people with a clear message of in the end, good and evil will be known for what they are. Saying “You may be in distress now, but you won’t be in distress forever,” so take heart! Whereby, the presence of “Hades” in this context actually exists as a statement of love—those who endure injustice are not forgotten by God.

So, where does this leave us as Christ followers? Can we talk about hell? Do we know anything about hell?  Where does it factor into our faith?

A pastor friend of mine recently found herself in a conversation with a self-professed atheist guy whom she felt she soon had to explain herself when the words, “I am a pastor” were uttered about her vocation. “Know this, “she quickly uttered: “I am not the kind of pastor who will beat you over the head with the Bible, make you handle snakes or dam you to hell.”

And he replied, “Well, if you can’t send me to hell, then what is the point?”

It’s a valid question– if hell is not be a place of eternal damnation for those who aren’t baptized, prayed up or in proper relations with Jesus, or a place like we drew on our paper at the beginning of the service—if it’s not a threat we can hold over people’s
heads–is hell still necessary?

I think hell is necessary—because hell is not something that we know nothing about—it’s not something have to go on some sort of mystical journey to see. Hell is not something that we can fully draw in pictures. Hell is something that actually occurs around us and to us anytime anyone our human family finds themselves in situations full of torture, pain, and life-altering abuse seemingly without end.

Hell, in fact, is as real as turning on our televisions and seeing the pictures of the countless children who have died this week from famine and cholera in Somalia—dying in a country without peace from war or connections in the world to resources that could save these young and precious lives.

Hell, is a real, as what happens every two minutes in our country, a sexual assault: the torture that forever clouds the world of helpless women and children where 80% of the victims are under the age of 30 years old- vulnerable to no one speaking for them.[ii]

Hell is as real as the world of continual anguish those who live with undiagnosed mental illness patients abide in day in and day out, not knowing there could be a better life because no one has ever showed them how.[iii]

Hell is as real as the grief that seeks to swallows us whole when someone whom we love is no longer there, and we
must face the deep shadows of the night alone.

But, life is not supposed to be like this, is it? Hell wasn’t part of the original plan when man and woman came to be in the garden, was it? There was always to be enough food, enough protection, enough love, enough care and enough support to fulfill every need
that we have on earth. But, then there wasn’t enough— we forgot how loved we were. We made choices to kill, steal and destroy and to see needs and not share what we have with one another.

Rob Bell talks about why Jesus talked about hell, why John wrote about hell and why we as modern people need it too. Saying, “We need a loaded, volatile adequately violent, dramatic, serious world to describe the very real consequences we experience when we reject and true and beautiful life that God has for us. We need a word that refers to the big, wide, terrible evil that comes from the secrets hidden deep within our hearts all the way to the massive, society-wide collapse and chaos that comes when we fail to live in God’s world in God’s way.”[iv]

If we cannot name this, how can we ever show there is another way?

So as much as I want to tidy up the end of this sermon and declare for you as your pastor today that hell will be exactly like this, and exactly this type of person will go there and this kind of person will not, or that hell is not literally a place or it is not, I
can’t because I believe as soon as you and I begin to have a conversation about hell, we find that there are more questions than answers.

But what I know is this: there is goodness and beauty and love and wonderful redemptive things that happen in our world that are of God, and there is hate, lies and all types of evil that are not.

If we believe that hell is real—and if we take a look around our world, we cannot deny that it is—then the question remains with us…what the hell are we going to do about it?

AMEN

[i] Thank you Rob Bell for this wonderful text work!

[iv]Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Has Ever Lived. Harper Collins: New York,
2011.

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August 12, 2011

Diversity Is a Verb

The longer I am the pastor of my congregation, the more I am convinced that one of our growing edges comes in the category of diversity.

Diversity, a cultural buzz word these days often is what someone talks about when they find themselves in a homogenous group and know it needs some spicing up.  It’s a word we often use to describe our intentions, but rarely the reality. It’s something that makes us feel good to talk about but scares us to death to live out.

Yet, without mandate from an overseeing bishop (since Baptists don’t have them), it’s something that Washington Plaza has sought to be for over the years. We’ve regularly welcomed with ease members from other denominational backgrounds without asking for re-baptism. Many nationalities are represented in the membership rolls at all times. We have gay and straight members alike, no big deal. We have folks who are all sides of the theological spectrum on a number of given issues. And, we love the republican delegation of members as much as we do the democratic leaning folks.

All of this is great and should be celebrated and is one of the reasons why I am proud to be Washington Plaza’s pastor, but I wonder if diversity is something that we find merely in our community and our individual lives as a noun or has it transformed our lives as a verb?

When I came back from my Interfaith trip to Israel in January, I became more convinced that if I said I was a pastor who cultivated diversity in my congregation and in my life, then there was going to have changes all around in my priorities. (I even wrote an article in Baptist Today about just this exhortation).

And, as I have begun to make changes, I’ve seen that diversity practice exists as an intentional lifestyle choice. And, it is a choice, I am challenging Washington Plaza folks to continue to make too.

I’ve found that it’s a choice that shows up in who I go to lunch with. It’s a choice that has everything to do with who comes to dinner at my home and to whose homes I go. It’s a choice that says everything about what books I read, how I prepare for sermons and most importantly how I lead.

In light of all of this, as a congregation, we’ve been busy building relationships that are more than token partnerships right in our own neighborhood. It’s good to start where you are, right? We’re seeking to make real friends with other congregations which are like us theologically but different from us racially. We’re seeking to make friends with those who look like us but theologically see the world going in different directions than us. We are seeking to make friends with people that we have never interacted with before such our Muslim brothers and sisters.

In the past six months, we’ve hosted Martin Luther King Jr. Christian Church for a celebration of diversity special afternoon service and reception, we’ve shared in a community forum at Oakbrook Church about Israel and Palestine, we’ve hosted our friends again from MLK for a shared meal, we’ve served as the hosting congregation for the Reston Interfaith Ministrium bi-monthly gatherings and we’ve welcomed friends in our facility from Northern VA Hebrew Congregation and other faith communities for an Interfaith book club discussion. Most of these congregations are in a less than five-mile radius of where we are located– proving you don’t have to go far to find ways to live into your growth of diversity.

And, this is just the beginning as I see it. Why? Because diversity is a verb. To be diverse, it’s an action that one must make their own, over and over again until it becomes so normal that it doesn’t feel like an imposed concept but simply who we are as people.

I’m glad to be on this journey of neighborhood partnerships, seeing to be a witness of  Christ’s love in the Reston area. It’s a work that has changed my life and I know will continue to do so for our church as the testimony of diversity as a verb lives on.

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August 9, 2011

Blog How-To’s

Last week, while I was at the Collegeville Insitute, I got a lot of questions about my blog. Some of my colleagues there had them, but mostly to post sermons, but no one (unless I am mistaken) had a blog for the purpose of sharing personal stories, reflections or their hopes or dreams for the vocation. Suddenly, I was the blog expert on campus.  Jaws dropped in awe when I said I wrote for Preacher on the Plaza a couple of times a week (how do you have that kind of time? How do you have that kind of discipline?).

Though I’ve been at this online publishing medium since 2006 in one form or another, I feel my practice is quite ordinary and am by no means an expert. However, not to take anything for granted, I thought it might be useful to other inspiring bloggers out there to answer some of the questions I spent some time pondering with others last week.

Why do you blog?

I blog because I enjoy writing and having other people read my work inspires me to write better and more often. It is as simple as that.

Spiritually, for me, though, the blog serves an even more personal purpose: it slows me down. If I have to sit down and write about an event or experience, I am going to think about it much more clearly and if I just zoom on through to what is next. Blogging is a way to have Sabbath like moments in my days. To the benefit of everyone around me, in writing, I might find gems in a situation I previously judged harshly or ignored. Writing regularly on this site exists as a grace of holy reflection that I wouldn’t have if I was just writing in sermons, newsletter columns or even journaling alone at home. Blogging makes me accountable.

What is the purpose of blogging?

For me, as a pastor of an urban congregation with some members that I only see on Sundays, blogging is a way for us to stay connected. My congregation, through the blog, gets to hear more about the particular thoughts on my mind about the church’s growing edges, the larger world and sometimes my life. It is a relationship building tool at its heart.

Even more so, often folks who are thinking of visiting Washington Plaza, read my blog first (no pressure of course) and figure out more of our leanings as a congregation and whether or not they’d fit in here.

But, there is another audience that I hope to reach through the site and that is other pastors. There’s something strange about the vocation of ministry– the ups and downs, the unusual experiences, the long hours, etc. that is it good to know that you aren’t alone. I hope my writing connects with them too to either give an idea of something we’ve tried in congregational life here that did or didn’t work, a book or text I found interesting or a conference or workshop I’ve found that they might want to explore too.

When do I blog?

Whenever I have time and an idea that I think I can write at least 500 or 600 words on, I post. Often my best ideas come when I am putting my head down on my pillow at night. It’s annoying because I don’t really want to get up and write then, but I seek to store them away in some chunk of unoccupied space of my brain and explore the topic as soon as I can.

Sometime I blog at home on my couch or in my favorite sermon writing chair. Sometimes I blog at church at my desk or on the couch where I meet with parishioners. Sometimes I blog when I’m out-of-town when I’m in a place with a WI-FI connection. Truly, the beauty of the web is that you can blog anywhere! I have found that during times away, such as my Israel adventure in January, blogging is even more useful because the people you love don’t feel so far away.

If I am thinking of blogging, what advice would you give?

Beginning a blog is a commitment. You are only as good as your last post. So, if blogging is something you want to try ask yourself: “Do I have the personal discipline to keep this up?”  If you are a sporadic writer or you are the type of person who regularly starts and stops new things, maybe blogging is not for you.

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t write– for there are other forums that could be perfect for your style, feature articles from time to time, for example– but that you just shouldn’t blog. There is nothing that makes me as sad to find a blog that is well-written and interesting only to find that it is rarely updated. In the online world of constant movement, you have to keep up or move out.

Get a theme and stick with it. Decide what you are going to write about and stay on that course. I’m not a great example of this because I seem to write about all sorts of things . . . But, I’m told that if you want larger amounts of web traffic and regular readers, pick one thing you want to write about and stick with it. For example, do you want to share about your experimenting with recipes? Do you want to detail your trips as a traveling journalist? Do you want to give advice to other writers? Do you want to share about what it means to parent a child with an eating disorder? It’s best not to go from sharing your favorite recipe one day to a dramatic story about the death of your parent the next. You audience will be confused. Be specific and write regularly!

And, make friends who also blog. The details of how to post, where to plug-in pictures, how to change fonts, etc are often things you have to learn on your own, but it is always good to have friends who care about what you do too. It has been great to ask folks, like those on my blogroll, questions about how to make my page look more attractive and who are willing to share what they have learned about the practice as we go through it together.

What is the danger of blogging?

There’s a record of your words that can and will be used against you from time-to-time. Blogging is one of the most vulnerable things I do in my ministry. But, I try to not let the fear hold me back.

I could sit around and worry all the time about how what I say this year will come back to bite me in twenty days or twenty years or more (because nothing on the internet is really ever gone), but I honestly try not to think about it. In my faith tradition, I cling to an understanding of my imperfections. I will make mistakes. I will not live up to my potential. I will make people mad with me. I will cause hurt from time to time. Yet, the larger goal remains: using any tools this day and age as given me to share the goodness of life as I’ve experienced in my Creator and connecting all of God’s children with the love of God I’ve known through the church.

So, I’ll keep blogging. How about you?

Any other questions? I’d love to keep sharing ideas.

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August 7, 2011

Being at Collegeville Part 3: What’s Your Voice?

When you are a child, it is ordinary to say, “I want to be like ____ when I grow up.”

We watch, we imitate, and we learn by being around folks who inspire us the most. It’s the tools of how we figure out who we most want to be. Though usually our first ideas have something to do with being a fireman or a police officer or wonder woman. I always wanted to be a woman who delivers the mail, though you see how that turned out.

On the first day of our sessions with Richard Lischer, he said the first steps to becoming a good writer are admiration and imitation. And for this reason, we were asked to bring to class a selection of a poem or story that was particularly moving to us and our writing style. Words like “all I wanted was to be born with a good set of lungs” or “it is like touching a dented cup” flowed around the room and we all considered the ways in which our writing could be as the prose of those we liked the best. The morning of these reading brewed over with delights of ear all around.

In our everyday lives, we’ve all read a book or seen a performance or heard a speech when the person who is speaking sounds exactly like someone else we know. It’s familiar, but maybe too familiar. So in the end, while useful as a learning tool, imitation, it doesn’t provide our world with anything new. We don’t see God in any fresh wind of the Spirit sort of ways.

There comes a time when art must come from within and rest upon individual voice. Who am I? Who are you? And how through what I say, can you tell us a part?

One of the themes that has run throughout several of my conversations, especially with the other female pastors at the Insitute this week has been of how much women struggle with voice.

In a culture when so much is expected of us: wife, mother, professional, writer, friend, you name it, we are much more likely among our male colleagues to shrink back when it comes to letting our voice shine through. We take associate positions when we really want to preach. We say “ok” to youth trips for back to back weeks, even if this means neglecting our children. We don’t dare voice our ambition or dreams for fruitful work because we fear it might hurt someone’s feelings. I could be oversimplifying, I realize, but there’s something to this voice thing that we should pay attention to.

I speculate this problem occurs because we don’t want to come across as the “over powering” or “bitchy” females. We are so thankful to be where we are, that we dare not ask for more. Or, simply we just don’t know what our voice is because we’re afraid of what we might have to do with it, if it was finally heard. And, as the church, we are left without voices, lots of voices that we need to hear the most.

But this week, I’ve been learning that my writing (and my preaching for that matter) will not soar to the heavens as it could, if I don’t continually keep finding and hanging onto what makes me uniquely me. If I don’t recognize my voice and use it, God doesn’t have even a first draft to work with.

So, what’s holding you back? Speak! Write! Be!

When I grow up, I want to be a writer. How about you?

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August 6, 2011

Being at Collegeville Part 2: A Writing Workshop

The pace of life here at Collegeville has been divine. It has included all of my favorite things: quiet, tasty food in just the right portions, beyond the surface conversation, learning from a scholar, peace-filled sleep and a room with a view of water.

In the afternoon we’ve gathered together as a group– all 12 of us for a writing workshop, each day several submissions of writing for group feedback and commentary.  Because I was not an English major in college, it all was a new thing for me. A fear producing exercise: to ask for feedback on a non-fiction piece about me from my well-read, well-spoken and theologically gifted new friends.  The only comfort I came thinking that others just  might be as terrified as I was!

In the process of the past four days, I’ve paid attention to many details that I normally would ignore as we have all carefully probed one another’s prose for sense of tone, voice, style, flow and pace. (Who knew these things could be talked about for so long?)

As I’ve been living in the writing world and participating in these workshops,  I’ve been making a list in my head all week of, “You know you’ve spent a week in a writing workshop if . . .”  I thought it might be humorous to share a few.

  • You stop someone after she shares a thought over when going through the food line at dinner and say, “That was a lovely sentence you just put together.”
  • You begin to recognize how many adjectives and adverbs are present in a paragraph of a book you are reading that never seemed there before.
  • You hear things coming out of your mouth like, “That sentence needs a stronger verb and more descriptive nouns.”
  • You walk to lunch and greet a colleague by: “I really like the sense of narrative suspense you created in that piece you shared yesterday.”
  • You ask your fellow writers to stitch in more details that cover the five senses. “What did that scene smell like?” you say about a particular piece.
  • You begin thinking of your new colleagues in terms of their narrative voice. You muse: “She’s a character I really find likeable.”

I told Kevin all about what I have been learning tonight over the phone. He was not impressed (as you might not be either), but among new peers I’m smitten with these new inisghts. The tools of my craft finally have names!

It’s a world I’m just learning to be a part of in an official capacity and even though the writing workshop afternoons became sweaty palm inducing at first, I’m sort of sad they are over. I’ve learned it is Christmas morning pleasure for writers to be around other writers who care about making their work better as much as they do. And, I’m going to continue to open as many shiny presents as long as I am here.

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August 3, 2011

Being at Collegeville Part 1: Hospitality Revisited

We talk a good talk in the church about the Christian virtue of hospitality. It has become in many circles a practice that you just can’t say you aren’t interested in. Sure, I welcome my neighbors in, we say. Sure, I have an extra bed at my house. Sure, you can come over for dinner. Saying these things rolls off our tongue as easily as “Jesus loves you.” Yet, in our there’s a Wal-Mart around the corner neighborhoods, just walk to 7-11 if you need something existence, do we really get to know our friend called hospitality? Do we really understand how to make ourselves vulnerable to one another in our giving and receiving?

If I am on an out-of-town trip to visit a friend and have a need of an item or I want a special snack, what do I do? I either leave before or during the visit to purchase from the nearest variety story what my heart desires. Or, if I don’t have a car, I keep the same plan but find a ride. In both instances, it’s a mostly independent activity.

This week, the pastoral life has taken me to the campus of St. John’s College in Collegeville, Minnesota. It’s a place housing a Benedictine monastery, a school for women and men, the famous St. John’s Bible, acres and acres of well-preserved and kept land. I’m a guest at the Collegeville institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research– an outreach program of the monetary. I’m here learning how to become a better communicator of the written word.

When I arrived yesterday after a 90 mile van ride from the Minneapolis airport, my first impression of this state new to me alongside with 11 other pastors along with a scholar in residence, Richard Lischer and a writing tutor, Sari Fordham, was: “This place is in the middle of nowhere!”

And, I didn’t have a car. I felt trapped.  There would be no runs to CVS for left at home essentials or late night snacks of my choice. A whole week in the middle of the land of thousand lakes? Where was the nearest Target?

But, to the staff of Collegeville Institute hospitality is no joke.  If you know anything about the Benedictine order of brothers, you know they take the virtue of welcome very seriously.

Before I had too much time to worry about my non-existent toothpaste, we were informed during Monday night orientation of the commissary open to us free of charge. Everything we might need by way of personal products could be found. If we didn’t see what we needed, we were instructed to let the staff know so that they could find it for us. Then, we were told about the kitchen, fully stocked with every kind of juice, soda, cereal, snack that you could even imagine. And, if there was a particular food that would make us particularly happy, we’d find a tablet on the refrigerator to make our request. They promised to have it to us within 24 hours.

Sometimes I think, we city folk, busy folk, “I’ll take care of me” folk, aren’t able to allow the wells of hospitality’s waters to seep in bless our days because we think we have no need of such. Modern life’s love of self-sufficiency have put us all in auto pilot.

I’m glad to be spending a week in here where every morning when I can drink the Almond Milk I requested for my cereal then brush my teeth with the toothpaste I did not buy, so to remember God’s gift of welcome. It’s a gift I can’t buy or earn. Being at Collegeville is teaching me how to recieve.

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