Collecting Manna: Poetry as a Means of Grace

I wonder today how much the clergy of today keep in mind the old medieval distinction between the Active and the Contemplative Life. How concerned are they in maintaining the equilibrium between them? When a pastor's soul is weary and confused and short-focused and out of adjustment from cares and distractions of the parish, (s)he can only find readjustment through the contemplation and influence of things that reach to the infinite and invisible.

One of these means is prayer. One of these means is literature. I do not mean just books, but the thing which distinguishes itself from the rest by its imagination, its beauty, its generalization and transcendence over the mere phenomenon of life. If any has within him the depth to which the deep of literature can call - I do not mean that he should be "literary" in the narrow sense - herein is a means of restoration which is efficacious as great music, or pictures, or the grandeur of Nature, or prayer are efficacious to a man whose soul is weary with labor.

Charles G. Osgood, Poetry as a Means of Grace (Princeton University Press, 1941), 10

Cross-Bloggination: A Dantean Lent

Starting in Lent, my esteemed cousin-in-law Jonathan Grunert and I will be reading through a canto or two per day of Dante's Inferno and Purgatorio. I'm incredibly excited, as Dante was and has always been a passion and deep love. We've also started a blog, appropriately titled "A Dantean Lent," where we'll be posting on the journey (I've included a link in my "Fellow Travelers" section on this blog). I've just written a post offering suggestions on helpful resources and background reading, and if anyone feels inclined to join us, let us know!

Sermon: "Running to Stand Still, or, 20 McNuggets at 30 is NOT a Good Idea"

"Running to Stand Still, or, 20 McNuggets at 30 is NOT a Good Idea"

Preached at House for All Sinners and Saints
Denver, Colorado
Sixth Sunday after Epiphany
12 February 2012

Texts: 2 Kings 5.1-14
Psalm 30
1 Corinthians 9.24-27
Mark 1.40-45

~

I see seven towers
but I only see one way out...
-"Running to Stand Still", U2

-As a runner, I’ve always loved today’s reading from Corinthians. Yet, as you get older, it’s amazing how a text can change for you. I know, I know. I’m only turning 30 next week. That’s not that old, not even for HFASS!

-But it is old, especially in runner years. So it’s one thing to hear Paul tell the Corinthians, “run in such a way as to win the prize” when you are 17, putting in 10 mile days with the cross country team, and able to wolf down 20 chicken nuggets without a second thought. It’s another to hear it with flat feet, two bad knees, and an extra ten years and ten pounds under your belt! When getting to a half mile is a good day for me. And scarfing 20 chicken nuggets definitely isn’t.

-So unlike in my “younger” days, when this passage provided endless inspiration out on the trails, for me today, it’s kind of, well, uninspiring. Paul talks about things like self-control, competing for an imperishable wreath, punishing my body and enslaving it.

-But when it’s your body that feels like its enslaving you; when it’s your feeble attempts at self-control that seem to endlessly control you; when a life of competition and comparison leads to loneliness and isolation instead of collaboration and community; and when that sought-after prize still seems to elude you in spite of your best efforts to “run in such a way as to win it;” well, that’s when I want to tell old Paul – bracket “St.” apparently – to take his running shoes and race directly to h-e-double hockey sticks.

-And yet…we keep on running, don’t we? And not just because we live in Colorado. But as much as we say we believe that there’s absolutely nothing we can do to earn God’s grace and love, as much as our tired bodies and our broken souls scream at us to stop the madness, we cannot help being gluttons for punishment. We know in our gut that the game is rigged. That no matter how much we train for the marathon, some skinny Kenyan dude is going to come out of nowhere and make everyone look foolish while setting a new world record. We know the competition for spiritual success or self-improvement is a faltering footrace, that grace points us elsewhere.

-But then, we hear an inspiring sermon. Read a motivational blog or tweet. Experience a fleeting moment of success. Discover a new diet plan, or a new church. After years of despair about faith, we find progressive politics, or radical religion. Someone challenges us to get our lives back together. And then, suddenly, we’re back on the treadmill, training away, running after that promised carrot of glory dangled by our own self-delusion - and a ready array of promised guarantees from the capitalistic and Christian industrial complex.

-And we always start out with such high hopes, don’t we? Some of you may remember that it’s February. Which means that, just a few weeks ago, we may have made New Year’s resolutions. Remember those? How’s that going for you exactly? I was cruising...until I wasn’t. But thank God, Lent’s right around the corner, right?

-Maybe for you the race looks more "spiritual." Maybe it’s something you’ve been working on your whole life. Maybe it’s that deep, dark, completely flawed personality issue, that foible or secret fault, that you know is destroying you, and yet, you are completely unable to destroy. Like the Leper in today’s Gospel, maybe you were touched by Jesus. And then Jesus gave you a week of sobriety. Enabled you to stop lying about money. Took away your anger, and gave you kindness towards your enemies - or your co-worker, spouse or partner. Helped you stop talking so darn much…or gave you the courage to speak up.

-At least for a week or so. And then, we’re right back to measuring ourselves by our self-made images of success. The treadmill is whirring away, the headphones are back in our ears. We tell Christ, “thanks for the pit-stop. I think I can take it from here.”

-In many ways, we are all like the Leper Guy from today’s Gospel reading. We come to Jesus in an hour of desperate need, begging to be healed. We beg with the right words: “if you choose, you can make me clean.” If we’re lucky, we may even experience some form of healing! And then, as soon as Jesus sternly commands us to do something – or in this case, nothing! - well, like Leper Guy, we fail miserably. If this guy’s healing is the starting pistol of the race of faithful obedience, dude basically takes a few steps, pulls up a deck chair, cracks open a bottle of beer, and watches the rest of the runners go by from the sidelines, yelling, “see ya’ suckers!” He doesn’t even try to obey Jesus. He starts up his own race, which is, in fact, no race at all. Definitely not the nothing that constitutes the race to which Jesus calls him.

-His own race looks like self-promotion, like Leper Guy doing what he wants, “proclaiming freely” about his good fortune to anyone who will listen. And as a result, we are told, Jesus can no longer openly enter a town – any town! – but has to resort to roughing it out in the wilderness. Ironically, the quarantined, isolated leper thanks Jesus by exchanging places with him in what the text calls a “lonely place.” We are no different when, disregarding Jesus’ command, we relegate him to the margins of our lives in favor of our own efforts. And then it’s back to struggle, self-loathing, and the faltering foot-race of self-improvement. Then we’re back, with Jesus, in the lonely place of despair.

-But here’s the thing, my dear saintly sinners. This is no shock to Jesus. Christ does not call us because he thinks we are going to be all-stars. Christ knows we run on two bum knees and two flat feet, knows that at the first opportunity, we’ll turn tail and run. Away from him, and towards perishable crowns of our own imagining.

-And yet, even knowing this, Christ has compassion on us. Christ reaches out and touches us, Christ tells us “BE CLEAN” - even though, even WHEN, Christ knows that within minutes, we are going to fall flat on our faces. Christ sees us in our leprosy - our wordiness, our anger, our laziness, our addiction - and when we fall on our knees before him, begging for mercy and compassion, Christ does not merely touch us. Like my friend TJ, who during a championship high school cross country meet, found me broken-footed and face-down in the mud, disgraced and unwilling to finish the final mile, Christ comes to us all, breaks the rules, crosses the barrier, and lifts us up. Pulls our face out of the muddy ground. Christ embraces us. Christ embraces YOU. He embraces me. Full on. Sets us on our feet again. And whispers in our ears, “be clean.”

-And though we keep talking freely and thus banish Christ to the lonely places, though we line up to race for glory again and again, Christ continues to admonish us, simply, “be clean.” It’s not just a one-time moment. It’s a command and a promise: “be clean.” Be what you are. You are embraced. You ARE mine. This is your new race. Becoming what you are in me.

-Nothing can change that. Nothing can separate us from that love. Nothing can take away that crown which has been given us - the crown of the love of God in Christ Jesus. We run the race, falling, stumbling, tripping, vommitting, failing. But now, we run, even at a crawl, towards the cross of Jesus, who was not afraid to fall into the mud and mire of our lonely places, that we might all be lifted up into his arms. And even in those miry, lonely places, Christ still awaits. Even our failure cannot keep people from coming out to him “from every quarter.” The more we try to run away from him, the more shocked we are to find Him running into us.

-And maybe that’s the kind of running Paul has in mind. Running in Christ. Running together. Running in freedom. Knowing that even our bold failures, like Leper Guy’s, can still be a free proclamation of the Good News of what Christ has done for us. That, set free in Christ, we may run fiercely, risk needing forgiveness, sinning boldly, but always, stumbling more boldly in the direction of the love of Christ Jesus. Running to stand still.

-Amen

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"Take It and Tweet It:" Keith Anderson on Digital Ministry

It wasn’t quite St. Augustine’s famous “take it and read it” conversion moment in his Confessions. But hearing Rev. Keith Anderson on social media and pastoral practice at the Rocky Mountain Synod’s Theological Convocation was a kind of metanoia for me. Because now I’m officially a believer in the Gospel of “digital ministry.”

Like the erstwhile bishop of Hippo, I’ve long been a skeptic about the salvation promised by the story social media tells. Looking around the conference room at dozens pastors seemingly unable to listen to such a compelling presenter without burying their heads in their iPhones every five minutes only provided grist for the mills. I’ve always felt (feared?) that facebook and friends were peddling gateway drugs, the use of which would precipitate a rapid decline into gnosticism and narcissism.

(Also, I’m insanely jealous that while my friends’ phones can talk to them, half the time, I can barely get the keyboard to text on my now “ancient” En-V3 mobile.)

But just as St. Ambrose unlocked the creative potential of new readings of Scripture for Augustine, Keith presented us with a radically different vision of digital media as vehicle for digital ministry.

Reminding us that “people are not looking for information, but relationship,” and that “your website/sermon blog/facebook profile-you-never-use cannot LOVE somebody,” Keith flipped the script on a broadcast mentality of social media, challenging us to consider the question: “how do we LOVE PEOPLE via social media? How do we extend grace, and share Christ’s GOSPEL through social media?”

Now that’s a query Augustine would relish - challenging disordered desires around our false “enjoyment” of media, towards consideration of the “use” - in love - to which we put it.

And that’s what I took away from Keith’s presentations. Not social media as a way to extend ourselves into broader digital markets or profer the worst projections of our egos.

But digital ministry as a gift and a tool, for extending, in Keith’s words, “spiritual care, formation, prayer, evangelism, and other manifestations of grace into online spaces...where more and more people gather to nurture, explore, and share their faith today.”

As vicar of House for All Sinners and Saints, a community that is heralded as an exemplar of digital ministry, I’m amazed its taken me this long to see the light. Partly, I just needed someone to teach me how to organize my facebook news feed, learn how to tweet, and help me see the difference between wasting time, and truly using it.

HFASS self-identifies as a church comprised largely of “post-modern, urban, young adults” - which means that most of us practically grew up as cyborgs, or, as I learned (making me feel quite old), “digital natives.” So really, the question has never been “if” people congregate in digital spaces. Rather, given the fact of their online location, its “how” grace and the Gospel will find them there.

I think the author of the Confessions would also further delight in the confessional tint of Keith’s teaching. Sharing our own lives, while first taking the time and care to notice the ways in which others are sharing theirs, can be narcissism. But it can also be the catalyst for something incarnational, as Keith noted:

By bringing the fullness of our lives to be bear in ministry and social media, we bear witness to the fullness of life in God. After all, the Real Presence here is God’s, and it is through our real and authentic presence in social media that we most clearly and effectively point to God.

In many ways, social media raises the spectre of the oft-dodged question of the “pastor as exemplar.” In the past, the minister shouldered the impossible burden of serving as pillar of moral virtue for his community. As has tragically been the case, public virtue often masked a plethora of private lusts.

But digital ministry invites pastors to share a wider glimpse of their lives with their parishioners. The onus is not on being a superman. The invitation is to be more fully a human being. And in the process, pastors and lay people alike have the opportunity to show how faith shapes our whole lives - in the community, family, in the study, and not just in places designated as “church.” Pastors are challenged to be, not merely moral, but authentic, asking how our lives and practices, and not merely our words, constitute a witness to the Gospel.

Digital ministry can be demonic. Or, it can be another way people experience the Good News of Immanuel, God with us - through the attentive, loving presence of someone willing to enact Christ’s concrete presence in a disembodied realm.

And that’s really what it came down to in the end, and where it began for me. Digital ministry is a no-strings attached enterprise. “The return on our investment in social media,” Keith proclaimed, “is not to gain new members or pledges; its to set people free in the Gospel. That’s my job as a pastor.”

That’s the voice of the child in the garden, calling, “take it and tweet it.” That’s something worth re-tweeting.

(As part of trying on digital ministry, I hope to blog more about specific practices Keith suggested, as well as to continue to reflect on digital ministry in my own community. You can follow Keith Anderson on twitter at @prkanderson and on his blog.)

Sermon: "Jesus Christ: Dumpster Diver, or, The Kingdom of Heaven is Fish Guts"

"Jesus Christ: Dumpster Diver, or, The Kingdom of Heaven is Fish Guts"

Preached at House for All Sinners and Saints
Denver, Colorado
Third Sunday After Epiphany
22 January 2012

Texts: Jonah 3.1-5, 10
Psalm 65.5-12
1 Corinthians 7.29-31
Mark 1.14-20

~

-In today's Gospel, Jesus has his work cut out for him as he officially begins his ministry. St. Mark drops him smack in the middle of all out spiritual warfare. Jesus has just returned from being tempted by Satan in the wilderness. His cousin John is on death row after crossing corrupt King Herod. Demoniacs, disease, and disgruntled religious leaders loom on the horizon. Into such chaos, Christ dares to speak words of light and new creation, proclaiming, “the kingdom of heaven has come near!”

-And then, as his first act as Messiah, he calls…Simon Peter. And his fishermen friends. Which, by the way, I’m pretty sure was a folk group in the 1960s.

-Now look, the guy’s the Son of God. Who am I to question his methods. Yet, faced with the full forces of shadow and darkness, you’d think he could do better. Recruit some of those guerilla zealots from the Galilean hillside. Summon legions of angels. Beam in advanced technology from the future. At least hire some ninjas or wizards.

-And then there’s Jesus’ stump speech. “Follow me and I’ll make you fishers of people!” OK, look. I love fishing as much as the next guy. But if you’re like me, wouldn’t you rather have the Savior do a little bit more…saving? Couldn’t he have said, “I’ll make you investment bankers of people,” or, “alt-country rock stars of people,” or even, “safe, secure, trouble-free, and ultimately-fulfilled for people?” You know, promises more likely to win over the hearts and minds of the civilians?

-But of course, this is Jesus we’re talking about. And so, instead of hiring fresh young ivy league grads to staff his kingdom campaign, he goes with a bunch of half-naked peasants standing knee-deep in water, seaweed tangled in their beards, reeking from the fish guts smeared on their brine-encrusted hands. Can’t you just hear Satan shaking in his little red boots? I’m sure the people of Galilee saw them and just sadly shook their heads. “What a stench,” I can hear them say. “And what a waste.”

-I can imagine the odiferousness of Jesus’ new community quite vividly, because, as many of you know, I spend a lot of my free time in dumpsters. In fact, as a dumpster diver, I like to think of those fishermen as kindred spirits. We both work all night to find food in the depths of dark, unsavory places. We’re not particularly liked by the cleaner element of society. And then, of course, there’s the smell.

-But like Jesus’ calling of fishermen, dumpster diving also brings to the surface a dark truth about the tyranny of perfectionism that oppresses so many in our opulent society. See, Americans throw out over 90 billion tons of food a year. That’s enough to fill enough boxcars to reach from L.A. to New York. And back again. We trash over half of what we produce, even as we grow fatter and the rest of the world thinner. I rejoice when I find a case of 599 perfectly good grass-fed free-range eggs that were thrown out because of a single broken shell. This provision feeds my family and five housemates, and there’s plenty left over to share with our neighborhood food bank and others who help feed the hungry.

-But I also lament. Because this much food does not need to be thrown away. While some of that food really has gone bad, in the majority of cases, it’s tossed because of a harmless blemish, an arbitrary sell-by date, or some other failure to live up to the ideal of perfection we think we deserve as citizens of a prosperous nation.

-Look, I’m by no means advocating that you all go out and eat trash. After all, it’s an acquired taste. But whether its unsavory food or unsavory fisher folk, we live in a culture of sin and death that claims to cherish the quirky and the quotidian, even while it tells us that true value, worth, and effectiveness are tied to prettiness, power, prestige, perfection. And discreetly asks us to toss out anything – or anyone – that doesn’t measure up to our idolatrous ideals.

-And that’s how Satan tries to win the war. By dangling the impossible ideal of perfection ever before our eyes. By selling the idea that to be a useful to the kingdom, you have to be proper, prosperous, professional – or, for that matter, become a professional, a pastor or a professor or some other respectable form of mental illness. As with our food, our lives are bombarded with the claim that we need to meet the sell-by date of our gifts and talents. All the while, we are simultaneously crippled by the false promise that what we need is always in the future, always somewhere else, if we only work hard enough or become perfect enough to deserve it. In the eyes of the world, the kingdom is never near - or never deigns to come near such messiness

-I wonder how many dreams and how many potential ministries we have all thrown away because they have failed to meet these satanic standards.

-I wonder how many of us have thrown our selves away because, whether we are prosperous or impoverished, we feel our lives are a waste.

-I wonder how many other people we have disregarded and discarded because, deceived by death, we’ve refused to acknowledge the value of their lives.

-I wonder how long a boxcar train all these would make. How many dumpsters they would fill.

-But again, this is Jesus we’re talking about. And this Jesus is the one who gazes upon the fisher folk of the world and sees the kingdom coming near. This Jesus not only embraces the stinking, fish-gut covered flesh of the forgotten and the filthy. He also goes so far as to clothe himself in that very flesh – blood, guts, odors and all! And in doing so, brings the kingdom near to us by his very presence as Immanuel, God with us. This Jesus is the Incarnate God who delights in diving head-first into the deepest dumpsters of the world’s wastefulness, because this Jesus seeks, not perfection, but a new community, and the restoration of all created things.

-This Jesus does not say, “become something else, and then you can do ministry with me.” No, this Jesus says, “follow me, and fish for people.” He says, “follow me, and become teachers – for people. Become lawyers, business people, social workers, musicians, artists, designer, dumpster divers, parents – all for people. Heck, be unemployed for people!” But most importantly, he says, “follow me, become more deeply who you are, and be the good creation I made and delight in – for people!” It doesn’t matter what your vocation may be. Even time spent not knowing your vocation is not wasted. Nor is time spent questioning, doubting, or hurting. What matters is that Christ sees you, looks upon you with a piercing gaze, and calls us to be, one and all, ministers of the Gospel, and servants of one another. Perfection’s not mentioned here. Just command and promise.

-Now, we don’t need new atheists or a theology degree to know that God’s history of working with people is far from, well, perfect. Christ called Peter, knowing full well that he would deny him three times. Christ built the kingdom, not on ideals, but on idolatrous human beings who fight over power, divide into denominations, kill heretics, exclude outsiders, and generally do everything in their power to waste the good gifts of community and vocation we’ve been given. If there’s a candidate for landfill status, it’s the church.

-But while the church may abandon Christ, Christ never abandons the church. Rather, he continually calls us to be a people who, having been reclaimed and re-made from the refuse, look on one another and the world as Christ does. Seeking, not perfection, but possibility. Wasting nothing, blessing everything. Diving into the depths of one another’s lives in order to serve one another, all the while building each other up in our vocations to be fishers of people, and followers of the one who first dove, from the heights of the cross, into the hellish dumpsters of our sin and our death, catching us in the net of his grace and his love. When we receive the Eucharist, we are salvaged from selfishness. When we embrace one another with a sign of peace, we are living reminders for one another that the kingdom has come near, and that there is a place in that kingdom for us all.

-There is no waste in the kingdom of God, and Christ throws nothing away in the new creation. Your life is not a waste in his eyes. You are held in the powerful gaze of Jesus, and his call seeks nothing less than the transfiguration of our entire lives. Christ does not promise power, prestige, or prosperity. But he has already given to us the perfection that is the freedom of grace to live our lives for others in the kingdom of Love.

-Christ the dumpster diver defeats the powers of darkness, not with angelic armies clad in pristine white, but by restoring humanity’s place in the creation. By making a place for fisher folk – stench, fish guts, and all. By making a place for you. That’s the kingdom of God, and it has come near, here in this place, and in all places. Hear the promise. Take the plunge. Dive on in.

-Amen.

Sermon: Holy Crap, or, How the Glory Finds Us

"Holy Crap, or, How the Glory Finds Us"

Preached at House for All Sinners and Saints
Denver, Colorado
Second Sunday of Christmas
1 January 2012

Texts: Isaiah 61.10-62.3
Psalm 148
Galatians 4.4-7
Luke 2.22-40

"Someday, we'll fall down and weep, and we'll understand it all. All things." - Mr. O'Brien in The Tree of Life

-An Entry from the Journal of Joseph, husband of Mary, father of Jesus:

-“Holy Crap. And I’m not just referring to what exploded from the rear end of my son, who is God Incarnate. OK, so it was kind of fun at first. Running in after every diaper change to tell Mary, ‘guess what? I just wiped God’s bum!’ She’d give me that look like, ‘I love you, but you’re a complete idiot.’ Absolutely true, but it got old fast. Still, a little humor can’t hurt when you’re trying to raise any kid – let alone the freaking Creator!

-Because man, no one told me it would be this much work. As I swaddle the little guy each night, I think often of how the prophet Isaiah said he would “clothe us in garments of salvation.” No one mentioned he would also puke all over our garments! And whoever wrote that song “Away in a Manger” with that line “the little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes?” Guys’ a complete liar, and the bags under my eyes prove it. Oh, and that part in the Gospel of Luke that says that Mary and I never, you know, had relations until after the child was born? Yeah, still waiting for that to come true.

-Don’t get me wrong. I love the boy. And as much as it’s utterly screwed up my life, I have to say, I wouldn’t trade this for the world. But you know, I thought being the father of the Messiah would be more…glorious. Because after the shepherds and the wise dudes and the angels, it’s back to the same dead-end town, the same dead-end job, and the same dead-end people…

-Crap. Again. Literally. Gotta go. Joe.”

-OK, so maybe that’s not exactly what Joseph said. But even if you’re not a parent, maybe you share some of his sentiments. After all, this is the week after Christmas. The time when we’re almost obligated to play the post-holiday blues as the celebrations wind down, as the post-New Year’s hangover kicks in, and we go back to the same old mundane life the advertisements promised to help us escape. It’s like the Zen master said, “after the ecstasy, the laundry.” And the laundry’s still a chore.

-If you’re like me, then this return to ordinariness feels unacceptable. We were promised peace on earth, good will towards all! Who pulled the plug? And what’s with today’s Gospel, a story of two very elderly people, Simeon and Anna, who spend their whole life…waiting? Didn’t we just finish an entire season of waiting? Are the people who select the weekly lectionary texts playing some sort of cruel prank on us?

-I hate waiting, and I hate not having, and I hate the messiness and monotony of the mundane. After tasting something transcendent, I want something more. And I want it NOW. And so, like a good American shaped by the economy of the Protestant work ethic, I try to make it happen myself. I find carrots to chase, ladders to climb, quests to pursue, things to buy. I set goals and make promises to myself and others. I make absurdly unrealistic New Year’s Resolutions. Anything to hold on to that feeling of gloriousness.

-Problem is, that sounds like this thing Martin Luther called a “theology of glory.” Such a theology, which we all excel at, tells us that the glory is always somewhere else. In a golden age past. In an idealized future. Anywhere except here. And in order to get to that glory, we need to spend our lives trying to work our way towards it. Trying to be good enough to deserve it. Trying to take matters into our own hands. The theology of glory always sounds like this: “If I could only be or do or have X, then…”

-Just this morning at the breakfast table, my mind was percolating about possibilities. See, this New Year’s is bittersweet for me. While it marks six months of serving at HFASS, it also marks six months until internship is over. Six months until it’s time to leave again. Six months until let down. My response? Ponder ways to prolong the imagined perfection! DO something or FIND some way to engineer the future in my family’s favor.

-My reverie was broken by a loud “Papa!” from Abby. I managed a stammer before Leah said, “Matthew, she’s asked you the same question three times already!” I felt like the father in the film The Tree of Life, who, in a moment of brokenness, tells his son, “I wanted to be loved because I was great, a big man. I’m nothing. Look at the glory around us: trees, birds. I lived in shame. I dishonored it all, and didn’t notice the glory. I’m a foolish man.” Playing the glory game, I ignored the glory prattling on right in front of me. I too am a foolish man. I too live in the shame of sin. That’s where the theology of glory will always lead.

-But see, I wonder if that’s why today’s Gospel is such Good News. Like all good Jews, Mary and Joseph do the ordinary, expected thing. They take their son to be circumcised in the temple. Nothing special, right? But when they arrive, they are approached by two strange old people who, led by the Holy Spirit, remind them, and us, of the glory asleep in their arms. Simeon bursts into song, proclaiming, “Finally! After a lifetime of waiting, I’m seeing with my own eyes God’s promises fulfilled! And the light of this salvation is the glory of us all! It’s right here, this little boy, here for us!”

-In God’s way of doing things, we do not find glory; instead, glory has this surprising knack for finding us. And see, this glory, this grace, seeks us, not in some ideal realm of past or future, but here and now, in the midst of the ordinary, the routine, the messy, broken, every day fleshiness of our mundane existences. Christ’s Incarnation short-circuits our systems of seeking after glory, because in that very Incarnation, that glory is revealed as a gift that’s always already been given to us. That’s always already ours!

-Just listen to the words of Isaiah: “he has clothed me in garments of salvation, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, as a bride adorns herself with jewels…and you shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord!’ Jesus does not merely stop over to save us, and then leave us to fend for ourselves. By his Incarnation, by sharing our human flesh and our human fluids and our human journey of growing and living and dying, Christ also transfigures all of life. Jesus remains with us, joins His life to our own, clothes us in His glory, and remains with us, making beauty in the midst of ugliness, splendor out of suffering, saints out of sinners.

-Grace does not only redeem nature; it transfigures it. All of it.

-And see, I think this is exactly why Luther once summed up the Gospel as the fact that “God shits.” Because the shitting God is the only God who dares get messy enough to save us. Who loves us enough to sink deeply into the mire of our convoluted strivings after glory. Who deigns to touch our very flesh and make it His own. As a different Simeon, Symeon the New Theologian once said, “I move my hand, and it is the whole Christ who is my hand…I move my foot, and it shines like He does himself!”

-And, just as Simeon and Anna waited for Christ to find them in the temple, so in Christ, we also are provided places where grace finds us. In ordinary bread and wine, Christ comes to us, clothing us in salvation, forgiving our sins, building us up in our ordinariness, and sharing His very self. And just as Mary and Joseph experienced their child anew through the songs of Simeon and Anna, so we also are given a community – this community! – where we hear the Gospel of the Incarnate and Crucified Christ proclaimed. Where we can proclaim it to one another. Where, when we touch one another’s hands in offering the peace of Christ, we also experience His embodied presence. In Word, Sacrament, and community, God’s glory comes to find us. This is God’s glory, all around us, in this moment, here and now. Here in this place, where we can stop seeking, where grace finds us, we are God’s body, hidden under ordinary, broken, messy people, It is here, waiting together in song and symbol, that we are fashioned into a crown of beauty, for the sake of a world crowned in thorns.

-An Entry from the Journal of Joseph: “Just got back from Jesus’ dedication in the temple. Met some trippy old troubador types. Simply by his coming near to them, their faces seem ablaze with light, as if set on fire. He seems to make everything around him more beautiful. Was amazed. Wonder what I’m missing. Maybe the glory isn’t in angels, or in wise men, or even in the temple. Maybe he’s been the glory all along. Maybe it’s already mine. Something to ponder the next time I wipe the bum of God…”

-Amen.

Sermon: "Tebow Time, or, On Giving the World the Finger"

"Tebow Time, or, On Giving the World the Finger"


Preached at House for All Sinners and Saints
Denver, Colorado
Third Sunday of Advent
11 December 2011

Texts: Isaiah 64.1-4, 8-11
Luke 1.46-55
1 Thessalonians 5.16-24
John 1.6-8, 19-28

~

"The crux here, the issue driving this whole "Tebow Thing," is the matter of faith. It's the ongoing choice between embracing a warm feeling that makes no sense or a cold pragmatism that's probably true. And with Tebow, that illogical warm feeling keeps working out. It pays off. The upside to secular thinking is that — in theory — your skepticism will prove correct. Your rightness might be emotionally unsatisfying, but it confirms a stable understanding of the universe...But Tebow wrecks all that, because he makes blind faith a viable option. His faith in God, his followers' faith in him — it all defies modernity. This is why people care so much. He is making people wonder if they should try to believe things they don't actually believe." - Chuck Klosterman

~


-This week, I’ve found it utterly impossible to think about today's Gospel story about John the Baptizer without thinking about Tim Tebow. If like my daughter you wonder: “what’s a Tebow?” let me fill you in: Tim Tebow is the current quarterback of the Denver Broncos. Despite his inability to throw the football at anything resembling a professional level of competency, Tebow has somehow managed to lead the faltering Broncos to five* (updated to six mid-sermon!) straight victories. He’s a national obsession, a living legend, the "Mile High Messiah," and, perhaps most infamously, he is an outspoken evangelical Christian. His trademark move of “Tebowing” after each play to thank Jesus is both replicated and reviled.

-Now, I’ll confess, I’m a bit of a Tebow fanatic myself. I wasn’t against renaming today’s open space “Tebow Time.” And my wife only narrowly persuaded me that making homemade #15 jerseys was not the best use of our craft time after worship. Despite profound theological disagreements, I deeply admire Tebow. He's courageous, unorthodox, and seems to be a genuinely nice, joyful guy. And, actually, Timmy and John the Baptist have more in common than you’d think. Really! Both attract huge numbers of folks from the countryside to participate in their spectacle. Both of them, it seems, are too often mistaken for being the Messiah. And both of them seem to do nothing except point to Jesus.

-As you might imagine, as with John the Baptizer, not everyone is down with Tebow’s public displays of affection for his Savior. But then, I’m not sure people have really ever been down with public displays of faith. I know I’m not. Is there really anything more uncomfortable than when someone comes up to you -NOT in church- and says, “I’d like to talk to you about Jesus?” I mean, I guess in theory we’re all supposed to be all about taking the Good News to the world. But if you’re like me, you probably prefer St Francis to Tim Tebow. You know, that whole, “preach the Gospel at all times, and use words only if necessary” thing? Especially because necessary can then easily be changed to “never.”

-I was even starting to feel a bit guilty about the “evangelical” in our denomination’s name, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, when I read this great article by journalist Chuck Klostermann. Reflecting on Tebow’s haters, Klostermann notes, “I'm starting to think it has something to do with the natural human discomfort with faith — and not just faith in Christ, but faith in anything that might (eventually) make us look ridiculous.”

-That nailed it for me. See, when I was in college, was definitely embarrassed by the campus Christian culture. It was hard not to be when, at an ivy league school, the best idea of how to share faith was to hide bible verses and tracts under the free pizza they were giving out in the student union. Maybe equally embarrassing to some is the idea that Jesus cares whether Tebow wins a football game, or whether an angel really held open that parking space at Whole Foods. Or, whether an angel really visited a virgin. Whether she was a virgin at all. Whether any of this is really true at all, or just a nice cover for a Hallmark card.

-The world is tired of Christians and our contradictions. And frankly, so are many of us. And so we let the world teach us how to tell our story, with skepticism and cynicism…or just plain silence.

-In our Gospel today, I wonder if its embarrassment that also leads the Pharisees to confront John the Baptizer. See, as soon as John starts performing unauthorized baptisms out in the desert the religious leaders are forced to deal with the madness of what’s going on. Because people are actually craving what John has to offer! And the leaders want to know why. They want answers. Demand an account.

-Which is, of course, exactly what John doesn’t give them! When the Phraisees ask him who he is, he replies, “I’m not the Messiah, and I’m not really sure who is, but he’s one among you don't know, he's coming, and he’s awesome!” Not exactly a clarifying visit for the Pharisees. Or us, for that matter!

-But I think there’s tremendous freedom in the fact that even John himself doesn’t have to understand everything. But he does know something powerful is happening. Something prophets have promised. Something has touched his existence and set it on fire. And as he shares what he is experiencing of God, it seems others are set on fire as well.

-See, I think this humble, bold testimony of John is a word of tremendous freedom to those of us not quite sure about what to do with the whole faith-sharing” thing. Because look: even John, the “man sent from God to testify about the light,” the one Jesus called the greatest prophet of all time, doesn’t have to have everything figured out in order to marvel and wonder at the new thing God is up to in Jesus Christ.

-One reason we named our son Matthias was for a 15th-century painter, Matthias Grunewald, who created this magnificent work called the Isenheim Altarpiece. It was famous both for its grisly depiction of the suffering Christ, and also for its depiction of John the Baptist. See, John’s off to the side, lifting a single, bony finger, which guides the viewer’s gaze away towards the man on the cross. It’s this finger of John’s that inspired theologians like Karl Barth to defy the Nazis by uncompromisingly proclaiming Christ. And it’s this finger, I think, that serves as a perfect icon of what it means to be a witness. It’s that finger John gives to the Pharisees. It’s the original version of “Tebowing.”

-It’s my hope that my son, and all of us, will, like the Baptizer, also be a people who gives the world the finger. This isn’t exactly territory we Lutherans are traditionally comfortable with. We’d rather talk about our churches or our theology than about Christ in our lives. Would rather enjoy the world than testify to it. Knowing that we don’t have to know everything, it doesn’t make witnessing magically easier, more comfortable, or less risky.

-But maybe what the world needs most is for the church to stop trying to appease or answer it. Maybe the greatest gift the church can give to a skeptical world this Advent is simply giving the world the finger! By pointing to those places where, inexplicably, unbelievably, God is with us and for us, fulfilling His promises, shining light in the midst of the world’s darkness.

-See, in declaring, “I am not the Messiah,” John is giving us permission to give the world the finger! We are not the Messiah! So we don’t need to explain away the grisly history of the faltering, failing church. We don’t need to have an answer for the suffering of the world, or to the questions of the cynics and the skeptics. Do not need to untangle every contradiction in the jumbled mess we call sacred Scripture. We do not even need to overcome the darkness of the human heart. After all, since we’re not the Messiah, we’re not responsible for doing Messiah’s work of enlightening, converting, or transforming others. Or ourselves.

-Because rather than converting or changing others to be more like ourselves, maybe being a witness looks more like giving the world the finger, pointing to Christ and Him Crucified. Even and especially when he seems most absurd, mots hidden, most embarrassing, most absent. And maybe it looks less like having answers. Maybe it looks more like the prophet Isaiah, proclaiming freedom for the captives and comfort for the afflicted, imagining ancient ruins rebuilt and about a bridegroom clothing his people in riches and finery, even while his people still are still in Babylonian captivity. Maybe it looks like Mary, a marginalized, impoverished, voiceless peasant woman, who is told that God is coming near, and so bursts out into song - the very Magnificat we sang as today’s psalm - proclaiming, “the Lord has done great things for me!” - even while still living under Roman oppression.

-And maybe, just maybe, it looks like a football player, or a graphic designer, or a social worker, or a disgruntled, cynical vicar, giving the world the finger. By telling the story of how, in spite all odds, God still seems to be in the business of surprising you with Her mystery, Her presence, and Her faithfulness. Maybe it starts, not with convincing others, but by first letting ourselves be convicted by the mystery in our lives. By allowing ourselves to be overjoyed by that which we do not know in our midst. And simply, by sharing the stories about the places in our lives God seems to be active. Places where answers end. Where God is happening. Where God’s promises seem to be alive and dancing.

-Maybe giving the world the finger is less about what WE can muster up about God. Maybe it’s more about us noticing and proclaiming where God IS already showing up. In the midst of confusion, embarrassment and pain. But also, in the midst of surprise, mystery, and joy. Maybe it starts by simply telling our stories to each other. Of how God IS present with us and for us, here and now, binding up the brokenhearted, liberating captives, casting down the mighty, raising up the lowly, fulfilling the promises of the prophets, giving the world the finger. The finger which points to Christ.

-Maybe Tebow's on to something after all. Amen.

Cross Bloggination: Occupy Vocation

The folks at the Fund for Theologican Education were kind enough to invite me to write another post about my experience at HFASS. This time around, I build on my sermon "The Other 100%" to reflect on the relationship between vocation and contemplation. If you feel so inclined, check it out here.

Sermon: "Happy New Church Year - We're All Dead"

"Happy New Church Year - We're All Dead"

Preached at Bethlehem Lutheran Church
Fairport, New York
27 November 2011
The First Sunday of Advent

Day Texts: Isaiah 64.1-9
Psalm 80.1-7, 17-19
1 Corinthians 1.3-9
Mark 13.24-37

"And death is at your doorstep
And it will steal your innocence
But it will not steal your substance

But you are not alone in this
And you are not alone in this
As brothers we will stand and we'll hold your hand
Hold your hand..."
-Mumford and Sons, "Timshel"

~

-"Oh that you would rip open the heavens..." For life is hard. Israel feels abandoned. Jesus skipped town. The world is broken by our sin. We’re all screwed.

- Happy New Church Year!

-That’s basically where our lectionary texts drop us as we come once more to Advent. And that’s what I love about the faith of Israel and the Church. No punches pulled. No holds barred. No excuses. If there is one thing our tradition has handed on, it’s the gift of getting real with God. Especially when God seems to have foreclosed on God’s promises.

-Take our Old Testament texts. In both Isaiah and the Psalm, Israel has strong with her God. See, God had promised the Jews that he would deliver them from slavery and sin and make them a light to the nations. A messiah may have been promised. And yet, after Egypt, Babylon, Rome, the Christians, and the Third Reich, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are still waiting for God to make good on his word.

-So when the prophet demands to know “how long will you hide your face from us, O God?” this is not a polite theological inquiry. And when the people lament, “we all fade like the leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away,” we hear, not lip service to some doctrine of confession, but the anguished cry of a people who have suffered, and continue to suffer. Who long to know that God is still with them. Still for them.

-And then, our Gospel. Christ promises that one day, He will return to set all things right. But does he have to do it so…apocalyptically? A darkened sun and stars. Judgement and destruction. Language that seems to vaguely allude to some sort of rapture. Oh, and of course, NO ONE – not even Jesus – knows WHEN this will happen. So while Jesus did do the whole “coming-and-dying-for-our-sins-and- then-resurrecting-thing,” it’s hard not feel a little…stood up. Left alone with only another article in the Apostles’ Creed to show for it. If I said, "honey, I'll do the dishes but not even I know the day or hour," I have the feeling it just wouldn't fly.

-At the end of the day, our situation doesn’t feel much different than Israel. Still waiting. Still wondering. Still suffering. Still struggling to keep watch and stay awake.

-And if we’re honest with ourselves, it’s hard to stay awake. Hard to hold on to the promises of God in the midst of a world that doesn’t feel much different than the chaos and confusion named in the longings and lamentations of scripture. We may not be in slavery to foreign powers or face martyrdom by being served as lion chow in Frontier Field. But I know as I think what it means to baptize my son Matthias today, it's been really hard for me to hold on faithfully to God’s promises. They just don’t seem to hold a candle next to the deep darkness of a reality where God can feel so absent.

-Because our world indeed feels shrouded in deep darkness. We sin, we fail, we hurt ourselves and others as easily and as frequently as we draw breath. We see loved ones claimed by cancer, crippled by car crashes, stricken by strokes, withered away by age and dementia. We raise children the best we can, trusting in God’s claim on their lives, only to see them counting down the days until Confirmation is over so they can get the hell out of church. We continue to show up in the pews and in the pulpit, hoping God will show His face. Even though, deep in our hearts, we feel only emptiness, weariness. And disappointment.

-And, when it feels like God is too long overdue in doing God’s redemption thing, it’s tempting to take matters into our own hands. We get tired of suffering. Tired of waiting. And so we step in to fill in the gaps left by God’s felt absence. Maybe our drug of choice is getting all churchy and theological (guilty!). Coming up with nice answers and systems and church growth programs so we can feel successful or right or relevant. Or maybe it’s replacing the Black Friday of the cross with the Black Friday of November 25th, turning up at 6am…er, midnight…er, 10pm the night before, making sure we get our hands on the right gift, so we can guarantee a good holiday season.

-Or maybe we get political, and find something to occupy. Or someone who promises a better hope, a change we can not only believe in, but touch and see. Or maybe, we simply shut down. Withdraw. Pretend nothing is wrong. We stop caring, because we no longer have the energy to sustain our hope. Or, to fuel our outrage. We abandon the promises for proxies; the protest psalms for Playstation.

-No matter what your poison, we find some way to do something so that we can avoid or medicate the pain of disappointment. And in so doing, we extinguish the fire that burned in the bones of the prophets. We forfeit the rush of life that can only come in coming close to death. We sacrifice wisdom and grace, and the wonder at the reality of God’s promises that is given to us. Wonder and wisdom that come, not when we avoid or flee. But when we are willing, like Israel, to stare God down. Look death in the eye. Get real. With God. Get real about our world. Get real with each other.

-Because you see, when we stop running away from the pain – stop trying to control or contain or clean up the chaos - when we take up the gift of relationship God has given us, which includes the permission, even the necessity, of naming that pain, and holding God to God’s promises – when we allow ourselves to suffer, it is then, especially and only then, that we discover the true reality, the deeper magic, of God’s promised faithfulness and companionship.

-Because we don’t believe in a God who makes promises from a Santa Claus throne at Eastview Mall. We don’t follow a God who asks us to make the world perfect and just before His Son will deign to return. We don’t baptize children in the name of a God who demands that we fix all the damage our sins cause before we can enjoy God’s love and claim on our lives.

-No, the God in whose name we baptize is the God of Jesus Christ. The Crucified God. The God who does not flee from death. Does not flinch in the face of our sin. Does not rush towards a quick fix. This is the God who became Incarnate not in a palace, but in a stable on a pile of dung. This is the God of the original Black Friday, the God who suffers and dies, the God nailed to the cross. The God who descends into hell. The God who fulfills God’s promises, not in some far-off utopian future, but constantly, here and now, in our midst. And especially, in the midst of our failures. Our sins. In the midst of our doubt, our dirtiness, our desperation, our darkness, our death, and our despair.

-This is the God who saves us, not by taking away the difficulties of the world, but by showing up in the very midst of the world’s brokenness. This is the potter who takes delights in shining light through the cracks of His imperfect creations. This is the lover who embraces us in our ugliness, kisses us tenderly, looks us in the eye, and sees only beauty. This is the Triune God revealed in Jesus Christ.

-Which is not to say that this God magically makes the sufferings of life disappear, or easier to endure. But then, this God never promised ease and comfort. We do not baptize our children so they will merely be nice and clean. St. Paul tells us that, instead, they are baptized into death – Christ’s death. When Matthias goes into the waters today, we watch him die. It’s why one Brazilian bishop says not, “I baptize you,” but, “I kill you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!” God knows our propensity to avoid the truth that all real tranformation begins with death. And so, our Christian lives, like our church year, must begin on Calvary, with Jesus.

-But when Matthias emerges from the waters today, he will also be radiantly alive. He will be clothed in the gifts and the power and the beauty of Christ. He will be given new eyes in the Spirit. Eyes that no longer seek to blind themselves to the realities of sin and death in the world. Eyes that are no longer deceived by the empty promises of Wall St or Eastview or our own human pride. Eyes that instead see Christ, broken, suffering, and present with us, in the midst of the hells of our lives. Eyes, only for the One who is real in our suffering, and so, enables us to be real about the suffering of our own lives.

-In light of this God, perhaps one of the most profound ways we can live out the promises we make (Matthias) in baptism today is not by trying to save (him) from suffering. Maybe, instead, we can give the gift of being real about it. Of crying out with him. Of hurting, and lamenting, and doubting, and struggling with him when he struggles, doubts, hurts and laments. The gift of challenging ourselves to embrace God’s promised presence for ourselves, seeing the world with our own new eyes, living bold and risky lives of faith along the edges of the darkness where grace delights to dance and dwell. Unafraid of death, because, let's face it - we're all already dead.

-And when we do so, when we are present with, and grieve with, and suffer with, and wait with, each other, we are not only honoring our baptismal vows. We are holding the Christ-light for one another in the midst of the darkness. We make it possible to see the Crucified God, present with us, transforming us, in the midst of our hells. We enable one another to see God’s faithfulness, God’s making a way, where no way seemed probable or possible. We become ourselves the body of Christ, the living embodiment of the promises fulfilled, a witness to God’s faithfulness. For each other. And for the suffering, watching, waiting world.

-God, in Christ, is faithful to God’s promises. God, in Christ, has not abandoned us. But God, in Christ, fulfills His promises in ways we never expect. Not only in blessing us. Not merely in successes and in celebration. But also, most especially, in being present in the midst of out most painful losses, our most tragic failures. God in Christ, using our sufferings to transform us into people who can then be present to the sufferings of others. Walking with us through the darkness of hell, so that we as Christ’s body can walk with one another.

-This is the God of Advent. The God of Israel, and the God of the Church. The God of the cross. The God who is Jesus Christ. God for us. God with us.

-Happy New Church Year. Amen.

A Poem for Christ the King Sunday

"Coming Out, or, A Rhapsodaisical Break-Up Allegory"

Once, I was the perfectly free master of all
and I loved the queen of liberty whose torch
gave light unto my feet, and I was her
concubine. I made her dreams my dreams,
her people were my people, and our union
brought wealth and wonder to all nations.

But one night, feeling allegorical, I awoke
from slumbering in her bed, only to realize
that I had never really loved her, only
lusted. That my heart belonged to another,
betrothed before we were born, and that
he was the king, the one who ruled the waters.
I touched lightly the shoulder of my lover.

"I'm leaving you, lady," I whispered. "There
is no hiding it any longer; I must come out of
this closet of sleep, and acknowledge the hard
truth: his claim on me is binding; yours, merely
convenience born of boredom and of fear."
Her eyes leered lazily from under her crown
as she sneered, "why, lover, that's just not
natural, not the way things work in this world -

don't you know that your freedom and power
come from my protection, my affection?
Go back to sleep, and I'll overlook this impulse
that the devil must have planted." But I had heard
such nonsense before, and so protested, "No."
"No?" She wheezed. "No? Do you not know who it is
you plan to make your enemy? For...for HIS sake?"
If you follow the king of waters, what will you do?

You will give up my protection! When they come
asking for your allegiance and your submission
you will not be permitted to take up arms,
nor will he allow you to use deceit, flattery,
or the quick fix to keep things from getting ugly!
In short, helpless you'll be! Weak, exposed,
a prime target for suffering and death -
and all the good we've done together, all that

freedom, will disappear - you will be nothing. Stop
being childish, child. Let us return to dreaming
together." But this was not every other time;
there was no prize she could dangle, no profit
she could promise, no truth she could manufacture
to sway the desire of my heart. And so, gathering
what courage I could muster before the iron boots
of her scorn, I again breathed the intolerable "no.

No, O lady of liberty, No and no again!
For now let me question thee - answer if you can!
If I am your enemy, will you forgive me?
Can you take the lies I have told, and from them
make truth? The death we have visited upon
this world - can you promise something new,
not just novel? The suffering of the poor, our
adopted children - can you learn to love to learn
from them, from the voices of those who most
have nothing? Could we possibly stand together
to be empty, broken, to admit to all those who serve us
that they are the masters, we, their jesters and their slaves?
Lady, can you do this? Because he can, and now I know

that from birth, my true feelings and only attraction
have been for this man, and not for thee, lady."
I formed goodbye upon my lips, but before
the benediction escaped, her fist silenced prayer.
I had gone too far, and to her, was too far gone.
She had known it long before, and long ago, love
had been withheld. And so, blood trickling from my lips,
I arose, naked, trembling with fear and also with freedom,
I left her to find the king. And it had to be so:
for with her, even entertaining a different dream
was already enough to wed me to another.

Once, I was the perfectly free master of all,
now, the servant of all things living.
Now I am free, and am called beloved.
Now I am not free, but am called beloved.