Tribal Church

Stories have always been important for humans, but they seem to be taking a new form and vitality in our culture. With our reaction to the information age and our longing for vibrant community, there is a revival of the narrative in our everyday lives.

I began to understand the importance of stories when I stood before the intergenerational group of men and women, leading a conference for an Episcopal Church diocese. I asked people in the crowd, “What formed your generation? What sort of music, technological developments, political events, religious movements and social trends helped to shape who you are today?”

It’s always a fascinating exercise, and that day was no exception. A journalist and church leader in her early twenties raised her hand, “Ever since I can remember, we’ve had the Internet. So, I’ve had every fact available—even news from around the world—at my fingertips.”

“Yes!” I yelled, with excitement. “Amazing things have developed.” I began to prattle on enthusiastically, until I noticed the concern on her face.

“No,” she stopped me. “You don’t understand. Every fact has been available,” she repeated, and this time I saw her furrowed brow. “It’s kind of scary.”

Her comment hides in the back of my mind, and every once in a while I invite it to the forefront so that I can roll it over, imagining the implications of growing up with news and data so readily available. How does this proliferation of information impact the ways in which we communicate? How does it affect our congregations and religious movements?

Looking across popular culture in a new generation, it seems that this crucial shift of information accessibility has made our stories more important. The business writer, Daniel Pink, makes the case in A Whole New Mind that with this inundation of data, facts have become cheap, and stories have more impact. We no longer vault our statistical information in ivory towers, waiting for some professor’s steadfast and dedicated assistant to set them free for the rest of us to consume in a scholarly journal. Now, research data can be readily procured, with a few keystrokes. “When facts become so widely available and instantly accessible,” Pink writes, “each one becomes less valuable. What begins to matter more is the ability to place these facts in context and to deliver them with emotional impact.”

I wonder if we’re learning about this important cultural shift in our preaching classes. In a time when much of our scriptural interpretation includes a long process of gathering facts and information, are we learning ways in which we can present them with emotional impact? Should that be a concern in our preaching? Or is too much emotionalism manipulative in the pulpit?

photo is by Bibimorvarid

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Text: Luke 4:14-21

I’m starting on my third book now, and I’m writing about the experience of healing from religious abuse. Moving from the conservative religious upbringing and becoming a progressive, female pastor is a huge shift. I’ve spent a lot of time, sorting out my beliefs. Trying to figure out what has been damaging to my self-esteem, my sexuality, my friendships, and attitude toward others. I am thinking about the people who have come into my office during this past decade in ministry.

As I’ve thought back on my history and remembered the stories of others, I hold my breath as I think about the wounds that religion has caused in the lives of so many people, so many of my friends who have suffered abuse from fathers who demanded submission; gays and lesbians who felt that they had to choose between divine love or human love; people who felt emotionally manipulated into a conversion experience, or rejected by their families and friends because of the shunning that was encouraged by churches; women who felt subordinate to men because of the teachings that they learned in Sunday school.

But as I write, I also cannot deny that even though religion wounds, it is often the balm that heals as well. It makes me think of the ointment that was poured over people for medicinal reasons in biblical times.

There was a practice, called anointing. Anointing is an extremely old ritual that is used in all sorts of religions—Hinduism, Judaism. In fact, it’s a practice went back farther than that. It seems that in ancient traditions, there was a sense of life flowing through the blood and fat of animals. There was something sacred about the fat. So when a hunter killed a bear, and he wanted the bear’s courage, he would take the fat of the bear and smear it on himself, welcoming the courage into himself.

This sense that power or the qualities of a person could be passed from one person to another is evident in the Bible. In some cases, it’s almost like passing along an inheritance. For instance, when the great prophet Elijah ended his time here on earth, he gave to his spiritual successor, Elisha, a double portion of his spirit.

Anointing is used throughout the Bible, for different purposes. In the beginning of fledgling country of Israel, the act was used to set men and women apart. Prophets were anointed, and prophets anointed the new kings. Even before the king was chosen by the people, he was chosen by God, through this ritual.

Anointing was used in more ordinary ways as well—as an act of hospitality, the smell of the sweet oil would fill the home, inviting and comforting guests. It was used for medicinal purposes, as the oil acted as a soothing balm for wounds. And men and women anointed bodies to prepare them for burial.

It is important in the life of Jesus as well. One of his first acts of Jesus’ ministry (or at least the first that’s recorded in this gospel) was the one that we read, where he reads from the scrolls:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

As we think about this act and about Jesus—especially as we remember how prophets and priests anointed each other and anointed kings in these ancient rituals—it is interesting to note that Mary is the one who anointed Jesus, right before he died. Lavishing expensive perfume on him, and bathing his feet with her tears, Jesus turned to her, and said that the good news that Jesus preached would always be told in memory of her.

And it just might be true. After all, Jesus is called “the Christ,” which isn’t his last name. The theologian Paul Tillich says that we ought to saying “Jesus the Christ,” because Christ is his title. It means “the anointed one,” and from what we know, she is the one who anointed Jesus. She gave him his title.

Jesus stood up at the beginning of his ministry and said that God had anointed him and she prepared him for the end of his life, pouring the oil over his feet, weeping tears, in this loving and tender gesture.

I know a little bit about anointing myself. We have similar ancient rituals. In other congregations that I’ve served, I have anointed babies when they were baptized. I marked their heads with oil and the sign of the cross, to note they are a part of the Body of Christ. A Christian, a little anointed one.

We do the same sort of ancient rituals when we lay hands on one another in ordination. When you think about it, it is quite amazing. The hands that surrounded you represent a chain that connects you with leaders who go back decades. The chain of arms connect you with men and women whose courage, creativity, and wisdom have kept this church vital for over a 150 years. It always gives me goosebumps when I think about it.

And I know about anointing on a personal level. This sort of thing happened when I went to my grandmother’s home in South Carolina. I had been called into my grandmother’s room, because she had stopped breathing, her heart stopped beating, and she was dying.

We took each other’s hands, made a circle, and began singing “Amazing Grace” and reading Psalm 23. I looked around at the women who were gathered. I could see them, a gathering of preachers and teachers, in some form or fashion. They had worked hard in their congregations. My grandmother had been a matriarch in her congregation. My aunt had cared for people as a nurse for years. My mother and my other aunt led a ministry with developmentally disabled people.

I’m pretty sure that all of these women, at one time or another, had believed that a woman should not be an ordained pastor. But we were gathered there, nonetheless, with our different ministries.

It was a beautiful moment. There was no oil there. But I could not help but have the sense that the strength that my grandmother embodied was flowing there. The bear-like courage with which she faced life was making its way from her, to all of us, from generation to generation. And, inexplicably, my mother turned to me and said, “You are an anointed one.”

The scene was so powerful that when it was over, the hospice nurse took my grandmother’s vital signs, looked at us, shook his head, and said, “Y’all just got her all riled up again. What are you doing? She’s not ever gonna wanna leave this room!”

I smiled. And something happened to me in the experience. I am not always proud of the religion that formed me. I am often ashamed that it is a tradition that often includes hatred and manipulation.

But something happened to me that day, because I was able to embrace my history, and acknowledge that even though my has been a source of pain, it has also been a place of healing. Like a balm, that was poured over wounds, that anointed the feet of Jesus. That gave him the title “Christ” and allows me to live as a Christian.

You are anointed ones. You have been called out to bring the good news to the poor, proclaim freedom for the prisoners, and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed.

photo by madbronny52

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Text: Philippians 4:4-7

I saw the car commercial, just slightly in my vision as I was walking through the basement. I was doing laundry, but I could tell that the ad was showing footage of a beautiful, expensive, luxury automobile, zooming at high speeds around the highway curves. And there was some sort of prattle going on, I don’t remember the monologue, but I think it was a man talking about how he was going to his holiday family reunion, and he was going to show them how successful he had become.

I smiled. The messages of this season are so interesting. You can show people how much you love them with a diamond. Your can make your children happy by buying them a video game. Now, you can finally let your brother and sister know that you got the biggest piece of the pie. You own the most toys. You won the ultimate tug-of-war, because you have a shiny car. Not only can you buy emotional security for your spouse, happy memories for your kids, but you can win the final grand victory for your sibling rivalry. In fact, if we believe the commercials, the only thing that money cannot buy is poverty.

In this season, the idea that money will buy our happiness seeps into just about everything we do. And in this time when we are grasping for joy, we almost believe it.

Joy is part of our Christmas season, and it is a theme in the Bible. The command to “Rejoice” was repeated in our Scriptures and it is peppered in our hymns. And so we gather around, in this time when we know we ought to be joyful, with this expectation that we will be happy. We even read the command from Philippians this morning: “Rejoice!” the author, Paul, says, “And again I say Rejoice!”

And yet, let’s be honest, often with the shorter days, gloom and depression can set in. This is a time when expectations run high and money can run low. It is a season when we can be surrounded by people, but feeling utterly alone. It is a moment when we long to be with our families and our friends, and yet we find ourselves working overtime and attending those parties that we really ought to be seen at.

So, with this command in front of us, and with these holiday pressures all around us, we have to ask, “What gives us joy?”

When I think about joy, two vivid scenes from the last couple of years pop in my mind. And please forgive me, because they are both bathroom scenes: one from a movie and the other from a book.

The first was from Slumdog Millionaire. I know that there has been some controversy about the portrayal of people in India and anger about the name of the movie itself. But, I must say, I liked the movie. There was this unforgettable moment in it. A little boy was in an outhouse, and his brother wanted him to come out of it. Just at that moment, a helicopter came flying over their heads, and news spread that a celebrity was visiting the city. His brother locked him in the outhouse. The boy wanted so badly to see the man that he escaped the only way he knew how. He fell into the excrement.

Then the boy went to go meet the famous man, without wiping anything off. And the crowd of people, who were surrounding the celebrity, moved out of the way for the little boy. He smelled, and they were all afraid that he was going to touch them!

And the celebrity gave the boy his signature.

The boy yelled and jumped for joy. The elation, the pure happiness of this moment, when this boy is covered from head to toe in filth, was an amazing moment.

I found myself, during the whole movie, rooting for such simple things for these children. A home. School. Food. Safety. I thought that it would be a happy ending if they could only have these basic things.

The second bathroom scene that stayed with me this year was much different. It was from the book Eat, Pray, Love, when the author, Elizabeth Gilbert, was on the clean bathroom floor of her suburban home. It was a beautiful house, with new furniture. Gilbert had everything that a person could want, everything that we strive for—a great career, a successful spouse. And yet, she would find herself, late at night, on the floor of the bathroom when she should have been sleeping. She was fighting a wave of overwhelming depression, and trying to talk herself out of hurting herself.

We talked about Eat, Pray, Love at the women’s retreat. We turned it over in our discussions, how the book has sold millions of copies. And we realized that it must be because a lot of people relate to the story–that story of finally having everything that you want and realizing that you’re miserable in the midst of it.

We see this unfold in the news all too often. We see the perfect “family man,” the sports star or politician, they seem to have everything together, then we watch them destroy their lives and themselves. And we scratch our heads and ask, “Why did they do that? They had everything that they could have wanted.” We look at their amazing spouses, and we realize it has nothing to do with what they already have.

Then, as the sordid details of their secret lives come out, we realize that men and women do not just cheat on their spouses because there is someone better who happens to be available. Sometimes they cheat because they are miserable. There is a giant vacuum inside of them that needs. And when they try to fill it with money, power, success, and accolades, and then it’s still there. So they grasp on to sex try to figure out if there is something else that can fill it.

Back to the two scenes, they contrast in my mind, and make me wonder—what is joy? Why does one person experience it in the midst of a slum and another person cannot find it in the midst of luxury? There are studies out that say that in this time and age, even before unemployment got so high, when men and women had many more comforts of life, that we were more depressed than ever before in our country.

Is it because we have too much money? About 15 years ago, I did some work in Kenya, and people in the villages would dance and sing all night long, completely outlasting my 20-year-old self. And after these long nights, my friend Grace would tell me, “We are poor people, but we are rich with happiness.” I never doubted it.

The experience had an effect on me. And I began to have this romantic notion that people who lived in poverty were somehow happier. On top of that, I had a sense of religious asceticism, and believed that when I gave material possessions up, then I would be satisfied. And when I left seminary, I decided to go to one of the poorest areas in the country to pastor in a very small congregation.

But, after living for a few years under the poverty level and realized that there is nothing satisfying about not knowing how I was going to pay for my student loans, or where my next mortgage payment was going to come from. The marital tension was overwhelming. And I quickly became a failed ascetic.

I am not so shallow to think that material possession can buy us happiness, and I learned that giving them up didn’t work for me. But I do wonder, where does joy come from? What sort of things need to be in place so that we might experience joy? Paul ought to know about joy in all kinds of circumstances, he is writing this from prison—and he is telling the community to “rejoice.”

There are things that we can learn to do-eat well and exercise. There are also spiritual disciplines that I have learned in my own life, and things that I have seen others going through as well.

Now, if you are experiencing chemical depression, then do not hesitate to get the help that you need. Often there is a chemical imbalance within our minds that physical and mental exercises will not resolve, and it’s important to get the help that you need.

But, aside from that, there are some things that we can do.

First, we can understand that God loves us and wants the best for us. I know that this might seem trite. It might sound like a bumper sticker on the car of someone you would not invite to your holiday parties, but it is a powerful truth when we can internalize it. For some of us, we get God all mixed up with our parents.

And if we had a father who was never satisfied no matter how hard we tried. If we had a dad who was always absent from our lives. Or a mother who seemed so wrapped up in her own depression to be there emotionally for her child. Or parents who regulated the amount of money or food they gave to us according to how much we were getting along with them. Or if we had parents who abused us. Then, when we pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven,” we might have the tendency to get the parental metaphor and God all mixed up, and we might imagine that we have a God who can never be pleased, who is never quite satisfied with what we do. Or we could even think that we have a manipulative God who dispenses joy and good things only as God is pleased.

But, if we can begin to imagine a God who loves us, who wants us to have abundant life, who wants us to have a deep abiding joy. If we can begin to imagine a God who will love us and hold us, who thinks that we are good, and delights even in the very smell of us, we can begin to heal from those wounds of our past.

The second thing is to make a gratitude list. Listing everything that we are thankful for. Paul seems to be pointing to this practice when hw says “whatever is whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

It is a rare thing to have everything that we need all at one time. If our job is going well, sometimes we do not have the relationship that we want. If our health is good, then we do not have the job that we want. If we have the career that we always dreamed of, then suddenly we realize that we miss that time with our family that we used to have.

If you are human, there will always a point of dissatisfaction in your life, a place where things seem unbearable. And yet, if we are able to take a few moments to step back, and remember all that we do have, then it’s like getting an injury when we are basically healthy. We can overcome it a lot easier.

The third thing that we can learn to do is to help others, even with our weaknesses. Going back to this retreat, we spent a lot of time talking about archetypes. We looked at the archetypes in the great myths, some that Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell pointed out, and as I was preparing, I noticed that archetype of the wounded healer.

It is a powerful metaphor. I have a friend who was sexually abused as a child, and I asked her one time how she was so resilient. How she was able to live such a productive life. I knew people who were in her same circumstances who were not able to get over the trauma. And she told me that she had learned to use it as a source of healing. Through her work as a counselor, she had been able to talk to people who had gone through similar circumstances, and she had been able to show them that they could live abundant lives. In some sort of emotional sense, it was like she was like she was able to show them her flesh, and to tell them, “Look, the scars will heal. They feel like they are gaping right now, and the pain seems too much to bear, but I have proof that they can heal.”

This is a season when forced happiness surrounds us. And it is a time when we are reminded of the spiritual discipline of rejoicing. We can learn to drink from that deep well of contentment that can fill us. When we are able to use our wounds as a source of healing for others, when we are able to focus on the good things that surrounds us, and when we are able to trust and rest in the fact that God loves us and wants us to have an abundant live.

May we go out in this season, with an overwhelming sense of joy.
To the glory of God our Creator,
God our Liberator,
and God, our Sustainer. Amen.

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Here’s my sermon from Sunday morning. So what’s best? posting the audio or the manuscript? I guess I’ll check the stats and see what gets the most traffic.

Our sermons can be found on iTunes, by searching “The Progressive Christian Voice.” Most of the sermons are John Wimberly’s, because I’m not good at the details… meaning… I stink at making sure that little stick is plugged into iRecord on Sunday morning….

I preached on the Lectionary passage, which was various verses in Esther, but I just incorporated the whole story. Because, it’s such a good story.

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Good morning! I’ll check in later today, but this morning, I need to prep for our conversation with Bishop Will Willimon on God Complex Radio. I’m sure that I’ll have a lot to reflect on when I’m done….

The show is going really well. We’re learning a lot, and it’s been wonderful to work with the staff, talk to Bruce Reyes-Chow and interview some amazing people, like Frank Schaefer, Barbara Brown Taylor, and Margaret Sartor. Our audience is growing, mostly with people who download. And interest is expanding as well… including funding/sponsorship interest. So, I’ll have more details later, but for now, it’s an exciting time of transition for us.

I get a lot of questions about how to listen to it. It’s pretty easy. You don’t have to listen to it live. If you use iTunes, you can download it from there (just search for God Complex Radio in podcasts), or you can go to the Blog Talk Radio Site, look for the episode you want, and press play. Or, of course, you can always listen to the last few episodes by pressing on the one you want on the Blog Talk Radio widget on the right column of this blog.

It’s not too difficult, and if you need help, just let me know (teammerritt at mac dot com).

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I usually don’t post my sermons because I found that they’re so long that people rarely read them on the blog. But, I had some requests, so here we go.

Text: Acts 2:1-21

Hagar was Sarah’s slave. Abraham and Sarah are characters from the Old Testament. Abraham knew that he was to be a father of a great people. Except something was going awry in the plan. Abraham and his wife, Sarah, were getting older, and they still didn’t have any children, and so Abraham forced Hagar to have his child, Ishmael. Then when Abraham and his wife finally did have a child of their own, Sarah and Abraham forced Hagar and Ishmael out into the desert. Abraham sent his own son out into the wilderness to die. Hagar was given a small bit of water, and that was it.

So, Hagar was wandering in the desert, with no place to go. The sun was beating down upon her. And I imagine her, walking with that sheer determination that a mother has when her child is in danger. But then the water ran out, Ishmael’s cries were getting louder and as much as she tried, she could no longer soothe him and it became clear that her sweet boy was going to die.

Hagar had no idea what to do. So, she placed her child under a bush, and then she called out to God, and pleaded that God would not allow her to look upon the death of her child, and somehow, there in that desert, she received a glimpse of God’s dream, she got a taste of God’s imagination, and she realized that she would become a mother of a great nation.

How did that happen? How did Hagar, a slave, who was forced to conceive her master’s child, stand in that barren desert, with no water and her small child crying, how did she suddenly imagine that she would become the mother of a great nation? I think it was because she caught a bit of the dream of God.

After she realized this, she looked up, and she saw a well of water on the horizon, and she and Ishmael were saved.

The Scriptures are full of stories like this.

There was Moses, who led the people of Israel out of slavery, and into the desert. They were wandering out there for forty years. And yet, all of that time, during all of that nomadic traveling amongst the dry and dusty sand, when the people were looking longingly back to a period when their children were killed or enslaved, Moses was not willing to go back. And in that desert landscape, Moses kept telling them stories about a land flowing with milk and honey.

How could he imagine it? How did Moses have the vision to see milk in honey, when his mouth and nose were full dry dust? I think it is because he somehow caught a glimpse of the dream of God.

And think about Esther. Esther was Jewish, in a land where she was an oppressed minority. Her parent’s died when she was a child, and so a relative, Mordecai, took care of her. When she was a young woman, she became a member of a harem, for a particularly vile king.

The king had gotten rid of his wife because the queen wouldn’t display her beauty (whatever that means) before his drunk friends. The king was humiliated and decided that if he let his wife get away with not obeying him, then it would be license for women in his whole kingdom not to obey their husbands. So he dismissed her, in order that every man would know that he was the master of his house.

Of course, shortly after he did get rid of her, he missed her and started looking for her replacement, so he gathered all of the most beautiful women in the land, of which Esther was one. After a year of intense beauty treatments, Esther was chosen to be the new queen. Yet, from what I can tell of the story, I’m not sure that it was much of a promotion. Esther was the victim of terrible violent threats. She could not reveal that she was Jewish, and she was not even allowed to enter the same room with her husband without the fear of being killed.

And yet, Esther, in spite of the years of racial discrimination, sexual victimization, and physical peril, somehow Esther realized that she was placed in her position at a particular time for a particular reason. She began to understand that she would be the savior of her people.

I wonder how, with her background, with her history, and with the terrible threats that she was under, how did Esther begin to see herself as the savior of her people? How did she have the courage to overcome the years of being violated and threatened? I believe that Esther, somehow, caught a glimpse of the dream of God.

And what about Mary? Imagine her, this young unmarried teenager, looking down at her bloated tummy, trying to swallow back her morning sickness she realized that if anyone found out that she was pregnant, then an angry mob of people would surround her, they would pick up stones and throw them at her, and they would keep pelting those rocks at her until her body was so bruised and broken that she would finally die.

And yet, somehow, as her ankles began to swell and her skin began to stretch, she reminded herself that she was the most blest among all women.

How did it happen? How did these people, in the most disturbing, violent and oppressive circumstances, how did they begin to see living water in the desert, milk and honey in a dry land? How did they begin to see themselves as mothers of great nations, saviors of a people, and the most blessed among all women? How did they leave their lives of bondage, slavery and abuse behind? How did they have the imagination to begin to see themselves as something different? How did they begin to envision a life without gender discrimination, sexual slavery, and racial oppression?

I think it was because each one of them became open to the dream of God. They began to see visions that were far removed from their actual settings, from their present environments, and they began to imagine the most extraordinary things.

When our family wakes up in the morning, often times we ask each other, “Did you have any interesting dreams last night?” And the most fascinating conversations follow. We can usually remember our dreams, and after we explain the long detailed story, we try to figure out what they mean. I don’t know how to interpret dreams. I don’t know the particular symbolism that people have developed around dream archetypes, but it is interesting to wonder what our subconscious has been working hard on during those dark hours. I often realized certain emotions that I was feeling, that I didn’t know existed. Or I realize that my concern about a particular situation, something that I was trying to blow off, looms large in my mind. Sometimes, I allow myself to dislike a person or a job in my dreams that I would never admit to disliking while I was awake.

Dreams are so common. Experts, who have studied brain activity and eye motion, say that we all dream, whether we recall the images or not, we all dream. We all have that ability. I wonder if we have all have the ability to wake up and dream.

Pentecost is such an extraordinary event, full of wonder and miracles, and yet, it is also filled with such ordinary things. The disciples were together in one room, praying, trying to figure out what to do next. They felt quite abandoned and confused. It had not been long since Jesus, who was killed in a brutal public display, began appearing to different people in very random places: on the beach, on a road, in a locked room.

Then, after getting his followers’ hopes up, Jesus gathers some disciples onto a mountainside, and ascends into heaven, leaving the disciples in physical danger, scared and bewildered. Until Pentecost.

On the Sunday of Pentecost, they were all in a room together, praying, and trying to figure out what to do, when suddenly they heard the sound of rushing wind, and tongues of fire appeared on each person’s head. People began to speak in different languages, when they never had that ability before. The old and the young began to dream dreams, and see visions.

And, as God so often does, the Holy Spirit moved in those common, ordinary things—fire, wind, words, dreams, and visions to make something miraculous happen.

When I was in Sunday school, I was confused by the idea of a vision, and so I asked my teacher what visions were. And she told me something interesting. She said that they were dreams that happened when we were awake. I like this idea. Visions are dreams that we have when we are awake.

And perhaps that is the promise of the Holy Spirit which has been poured out upon all of us. The Spirit allows us to wake up and dream. The Spirit gives birth to us, so that we can begin to see ourselves as new creations. We can begin imagining a world where men and women are no longer enslaved, where peace reigns.

Jesus talked a lot about the Kingdom of God. But the metaphor doesn’t make that much sense in our current context. It was a powerful image in the Jewish context that Jesus moved and taught in, but it is a bit foreign to most of us. Most of us are seeped in democracy. We’re more used to the idea of a president, and we chafe a bit when we think of being subjects of a king.

So theologians try to think of other words to use. Often they talk about the reign of God, to at least get past the Patriarchy of it. Or it’s the reign of God. Recently, I heard a theologian use the term the Dream of God.

The dream of God! What a beautiful concept. The dream of God is that the hungry will be full and there will be peace. And here, at this Pentecost moment we have a group of people get a glimpse of the dream of God.

When this miraculous moment occurred, it became clear to so many that the grace of God was no longer just for the Jews, but it was poured out upon men and women, young and old, of every language, of every ethnicity, of every socioeconomic background. That is the dream of God. And the church was formed, by God sharing the dream with a handful of people.

It is the dream that allowed men and women to imagine an underground railroad, so that slaves in the United States could escape to freedom. It is that vision that wakes women up from years of abuse, and allows them to create a way out of the violence. It is the hope that stirs within men and women who suffered from abuse or discrimination as children, and allows them to look into the mirror and see the image of God staring back at them.

Pentecost marks the fact that the dream of God runs through us. It flows through this sanctuary. It is that imagination that so captures a dying church to become a place of feeding and hospitality for homeless guests. It is the Spirit that stirs so boldly within us, until we can begin to imagine living water in the desert, milk and honey in the wilderness. And it is what encourages us to go out from this place, and to live boldly, into this Pentecost Spirit.

To the glory of God our Creator,

            God our Liberator, 

                      and God our Sustainer. Amen.

photo by PhotoSock-Israel

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So, Ismael Garcia, my ethics professor in seminary, told one of his classes about a medical doctor, who decided to work in a big city because he could get a better salary and a more prestigious job. Even though the doctor knew that he was needed in the small towns, where they had no medical professionals, he didn’t care.

Ismael was a masterful teacher, and he had us all worked up, booing the doctor, decrying the injustice. Then he turned around and said, “You hypocrites! All of you pastors do the same thing. You’re all going to bigger cities. You let these rural churches flounder. You won’t give them any time.”

Yeah, he laid on the guilt pretty thick. And it worked, at least in my case. When we were looking for calls, I was encouraged to take the associate pastor position at some large, prestigious church, but instead, I decided to go to a small congregation in rural Abbeville, Louisiana.

Now, I’m not going to tell you that it was easy. I’m not going to regurgitate the romantic mythology that people will love you more at a rural church, or that the appreciation they lavish upon you will far outweigh the lack of salary, because it’s not really true. It was difficult. I regularly experienced culture shock, and we would constantly escape to New Orleans to get a bit of city life in our souls.

But, now that many seminarians are looking for their first calls, I do want to urge you to look at a country church or two. At least, don’t completely write them off. If you have a spouse who can manage it, and if your student loans responsibilities aren’t too much (and if you’re Presbyterian, the BOP might be able to help you out with that), it is at least worth a look.

Why?

(1) You might like it. I met a wonderful, gifted pastor in Iowa a few months ago who lived in California most of her life, and she loves her country church. As I listened to her story, I wondered if it was a surprise for her to figure that out. Even if you don’t like it, you might find out some things about yourself that you didn’t know before.

(2) It will give you opportunities that you can’t get in larger cities. It’s the big fish/small pond thing. I was quickly placed in leadership positions within the city and within the denomination. It allowed me to gain a lot of great experience that I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. Plus, other clergy were very good at mentoring me, whereas in larger cities, new clergy go unnoticed.

(3) You can develop your preaching skills. We all think that we’re naturally gifted and talented orators when we come out of seminary. But, in reality, any art form requires practice to do it really well. You just won’t get that practice if you’re at a really large church, preaching four times a year. What people often don’t realize is that it doesn’t matter if you learn by preaching to a thousand people or fifty people. What matters is how many times that you do it. Serving a small church will give you the opportunity to write and preach on a consistent basis.

(4) They need you. Seriously. We’re in a crisis time in our denominations. In the PCUSA, forty percent of pulpits are empty. They are in rural areas, where it’s difficult to attract good candidates. You could give a congregation an opportunity to celebrate communion on a regular basis, or to have some consistent care, which they haven’t had for a long time. It is a sacrifice, but it’s for a very good cause.

Now, to denominational leaders, in order for this to work, we can no longer assume that a person went to a really small church or a rural pastorate because he or she was a low-quality candidate. Because, you know that’s what too many people are thinking. Can we resist that temptation? If seminary students decide to go to a rural parish for a first call, can we make sure that we don’t discriminate against them for giving up some prime years of their lives for the good of the denomination? If we see two people looking for a job, one who’s been on staff at a large prestigious church, and one who’s been a solo pastor at a rural church, can we stop making assumptions about who might be more qualified?

photo by wanderab

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So, the Head of Staff and I were talking about ideal staffing arrangements in a congregation….

Let me begin this discussion by saying that officially/denominationally I am an Associate Pastor, but the church just calls us both “pastors.” When I’m introduced by people in the congregation, I hear “This is our pastor” most often. I sometimes hear, “This is our co-pastor” or even “co-director.”

All that to say, it’s not like the HOS is wielding a great big power stick around, telling everyone that he’s the boss. We have a very collegial relationship, where my ideas and opinions are encouraged.

That said, when the HOS and I were talking about ideal staffing arrangements, the HOS repeated that he does not like the idea of Co-Pastors. At all. He listed a variety of solid reasons. Most of them were practical—i.e., when churches have tried the model in the past, it has often fallen apart. Then, they have gone back to HOS/AP models.

(It is a disconcerting trend… are many churches thinking in the CP model much any more? Is it failing? Or did it just fail in such high profile cases that it seems like a failing model?)

For me, if I had my choice, I would rather be a CP than an HOS. I’m not afraid of power, I am a natural leader, and I like being in charge of things. It’s just that I like a team leadership approach better.

And there may be more to it than that. I’ve got to say, I have seen many women become APs for life, even when they wanted to move into a different role in the church. In my years, I have seen women discriminated against over and over again in the HOS selection process.

They have tremendous abilities and gifts, but they have not been able to move into HOS positions, even when their less qualified male colleagues have. After ten years, the statistics in most denominations become quite startling. Men often move up, women often do not. Then if the women stay in AP positions, they often make half of their HOS, even with comparable education and experience. After banging their heads on the stained glass ceiling, soon, women drop out of parish work, and become chaplains or something else.

Many women are not serving in the positions that I am, a collegial situation where my experience and gifts are valued. Instead, on a multi-staff congregation, many female clergy are seen as the pastors to the women and children, and therefore, they (the pastor, the women, and the children) are worth less. Maybe I just want a bit of justice for them.

We can’t force churches to accept female Heads of Staff. We can’t force congregations to have keener imaginations, and see that sometimes the best man for a job is a woman. But, maybe we can begin to re-imagine our church staffs. Instead of paying one person twice the amount for doing all of the “big jobs” (preaching on Sundays) while we pay the other person less for “little jobs” (doing pastoral care, Christian education, and caring for children and moms), we could begin paying on the basis of experience and education.

Instead of having an HOS who stays at the position for decades, getting (well deserved) pay increases every year, while the AP gets chewed up and spit out every couple of years, ensuring that the position will stay at the minimum salary, we could create congregational environments where all of the pastors are valued and appreciated. Not just the tall-steeple pastors (whose demographic make-up seems to be very homogenous). Perhaps that would create a bit more equity in our congregations and our denominations. I certainly think they would create healthier church systems.

What do you think? Would you rather be an HOS or a CP? What are the problems with the CP and HOS/AP models? What are the advantages? Is there a generational shift occurring (people under 45 tend to appreciate less hierarchical models)? A cultural shift? Is this a shift that the church should embrace? Would a flattened-out model help gender inequity? Or would it just be a bogus liberal attempt to create a false equality?

Photo by L Plater

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It’s been a long time since Jonathan wrote this, but I keep thinking about it.

Basically, his blog gets about 100 hits per day, and most come through google searches. But one day (a Saturday, to be more specific) he got over a thousand hits from people looking for “Memorial Day Sermon.”

So, what do you think about this? Obviously, we had a lot of last-minute pastors grasping for straws (but, of course, since they ended up on Jonathan’s site, they got very well written, theologically deep sermons). But, I wonder, how much plagiarism is going on? Or, is it just healthy research and sharing sermon ideas?

Do you post your sermons? I don’t usually post them because I assume no one reads anything that long. But maybe they do. Maybe the real question is, are they reading them too closely? As a pastor, do you care about people stealing your stuff? Or are you in the camp with Neal Locke who often quotes Woody Guthrie:

This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin’ it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.

the photo’s by takomabibelot.

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Perhaps I’m not typical of my postmodern generation, because sometimes I like a good label. You know, I don’t think one word encompasses the whole of who I am, but it’s like when you have some sort of strange disease, and you just feel better when the doctor diagnosis it. You feel like you have some control over it. You now have something that you can google.

Or, when I first took the Meyers Briggs and found out that I was an INFP. I was in high school, feeling like a total freak because I was the only one of my artist/skater friends who wore black clothing every day and wanted to go into the ministry. But when I read my label description and realized that I was INFP, the world made a whole lot more sense. I felt less like a freak and more like a rarity.

I met a wonderful professor recently, and he said, “It’s so nice to meet you. It’s always good to meet a pastor/scholar.”

And I thought, Yeah. Pastor/scholar. That’s it. It was a defining moment for me, in more ways that one. I understood what I was doing a bit more. I felt a bit more validated in my work.

Writing can be hard. Not the actual putting words down. That’s fun. I love researching, forming ideas, and shaping sentences. It’s the other stuff that goes on in my head. I typically don’t have an over-abundance of ego. When I was writing my first book, I would just sit down and promise myself that no one would read it. If I didn’t, I had a crowd of people in my head telling me that they didn’t approve of me, or that they would certainly disown me.

(Okay, I’m about five years behind everybody else. I’m just now reading Harry Potter with my daughter. What about those Dementors? Wow. Amazing characters. I can see how a writer can conjure that sort of demon up….)

Now that I’m writing my second book, and no one has disowned me or said that I was a fraud, I have a different set of fears. Some of them come from snarky comments that people make to my face, some come from reading blog reviews.

The good news for writers nowadays is that anyone can review a book. We don’t have to rely on major magazines or professional critics to review our books in order for them to sell. Which is a huge relief, especially since Christian Century is a very thin publication, and… you know… they tend to have their favorites. Now, ordinary people can write about books and recommend them, and it does seem to be creating a meritocracy of sorts. Leveling out the playing field for unknown or unconnected authors.

The bad thing is that anyone can review a book. And while professional reviews are typically very kind, and the writer is very careful about what (s)he says, blog reviews are often more blunt.

Anyways, the most stinging comment that I’ve gotten from people is that my writing is too personal. Too much of my own opinions. It’s not based in research. I respond to this in different ways, depending on the day. Usually, my response is, “What do you expect? I’m a mom and a pastor. I’m writing from 4:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m., in those mere three hours in the day that I have alone. I don’t have a wad of research money, or a research staff, or even a research assistant. I don’t work for a university. I work for a church.”

I’m beginning to feel a little less defensive now though. I study other people’s research very, very carefully. Plus I have something that researchers don’t have. I’m actually doing the job. I’m a pastor who has been going to work at vital, growing churches every day for the last ten years. I roll up my sleeves, work with children, talk to homeless people, and connect with college students. I may not be conducting one-hour surveys for thousands of young adults, but I’m talking to them every single day. I’ve been intricately and deeply involved in their lives for years. A person simply cannot get that pool of knowledge from an hour survey. And, because of that, I think there should be room in our church studies for…um…the people who are actually leading churches.

I am a pastor/scholar. Just like so many of you who are diligently working, and studying, and thinking. So many of you who create wonderful sermons and thoughtful blog posts. I am thankful for the academics who have the resources to conduct in-depth research. I will continue to read them with great care. But, I also think that the opinions of people who are actually doing the job matter. Our discoveries, formed after long-term engagement, should not be dismissed.

The photo is by fanz

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