Talk With the Preacher

I had to see it, in much the same way I had to see The Passion of the Christ. Everybody is asking me what I think about the Da Vinci Code, as if, because of my profession, I might have some divine pronouncement previously unknown to Dan Brown, Ron Howard or Tom Hanks.

The thing is, surprisingly, the movie sparked a variety of different thoughts, enough, in fact, for two blog entries! So, for all of you who asked . . . and for all of you who could care less . . . here’s the first of my two cents.

First of all, let’s be sure we’re all on the same page.

The Da Vinci Code is fiction.

Did you get that?

The Da Vinci Code is fiction.

Okay, so as long as we are clear on that, let’s get down to some important critique.

I noticed that this movie is very dark. Most of the scenes are shot at night in shadowy places like old, poorly lit churches and large, empty Paris museums. If you are like me, your sense of a movie, or any kind of experience, really, is significantly influenced by the mood and ambiance. (Does this make any sense whatsoever? In other words, I care just as much how a restaurant “feels” as whether or not the food tastes good . . . ). So, I came out of the movie feeling a little depressed and carrying a sense that “church” and “God” are dark and ominous—not my general impressions, I have to say.

Further, I have a problem with movies in which the characters do not behave like normal people would. Some other examples of this genre would be the Mission Impossible and Bourne Identity movies. This are the questions that arise when I observe a lack of normal behavior: Who runs all over France for several days without sleeping or eating? And how do they know where to go when they are driving like maniacs through a dark forest toward a private estate? And who knows how to drive an armored truck in real life, anyway? And, worst of all, how on earth could Audrey Tautou run all over the cobblestones in Paris wearing three inch heels and still look like she stepped off the cover of Vogue? How can the filmmakers expect me to immerse myself in the story when I know darn well that there’s no way Audrey Tautou could be contemplating the deeper questions of faith when her feet are killing her?

While I am aware that there are larger, more deeply theological and sociological questions that arise from this movie I am afraid they will have to wait until my second blog entry on this issue. In the meantime, I think it critical to reframe Tom Hanks’ character’s question to Audrey Tautou’s character at the end of the movie: “If there was a descendent of Jesus, would she destroy faith or renew it?”

Let’s be honest . . . the more critical questions might possibly be:

“If you were going to shoot a movie in Paris, don’t you think you could find a more cheery place to do it than the Louvre at night?”

And, “If there was a descendent of Jesus, would she really be running around Paris in high heels?”

Ponder these and more we’ll consider other questions in another blog entry.

Who would’ve thought that you could build a whole worship service around shoes?

(What, the whole armor of God passage doesn’t make you think of shoes? If not, why not?)

This is the kind of inspiration, creativity and, some might say, insanity that happens when you gather together a whole group of exciting (and fashion savvy, I might add) individuals who believe, strangely enough, that the sacred text still holds a message for us today.

Last week I was fortunate enough to spend a day with a group of Calvary folk to discuss the lectionary passages for the whole summer and to bat around ideas for worship. We decided to do it now because of the weather: we’re only a few weeks, uh, days more likely, away from the hot, muggy, sticky, oppressive Washington summer weather. For just a little while longer, though, we can live in the illusion that the crisp air, bright sunshine and cool breeze are regular weather conditions for us.

And we also decided that our friend Harold needed us to visit his fabulous house on the Potomac River in Southern Maryland.

In attendance were two ministers, one minister-in-training, one summer missionary and aspiring teacher and one entrepreneurial artist (Caroline Armijo, pictured here in her very hip sunglasses). What a group!

In addition to laughing—a lot—we also read through all the texts for worship this summer, planned themes for the services, suggested songs and visuals (you are not going to BELIEVE the ideas floating around for Pentecost . . . !) and generally had the opportunity to get to know each other much better.

It’s my job to discuss worship with the worship committee of the diaconate, and in order to get the discussion of specifics going I have to bring ideas and plans for the time period under consideration. In case you do not already know this, one minister’s mind is a very lonely place from which to plan worship. But in a group of friends, sitting on the beach, sharing a lot of laughs . . . well, the richness and possibility of the worship experience seem unlimited.

I am pleased to report that, with the benefit of this inspired and inspiring day of brainstorming, it looks to me like worship this summer is going to be a creative experience destined to bring us closer to each other and to the creative God we worship.

Today I am thankful for the inspiration of God’s incredible creation, and for friends, colleagues and fellow travelers on this spiritual journey. What a gift!

And, the thought occurred to me . . . can you imagine the volunteers we’d have if all our church business could be conducted like this . . . ?

I always thought summertime at church was a little slow . . . Wednesday night dinner cancelled because everyone is on vacation, adult Sunday School classes combined to give teachers a break . . . you know, that kind of thing.

May I say emphatically that this is NOT the case at Calvary?

Why it should surprise me that this church is out of the norm I have no idea. But every year around this time I feel myself gearing up for what I know will be a huge influx of energy, enthusiasm, youth and vigor that changes this time of the liturgical year to anything BUT ordinary when Calvary’s college interns make our community of faith theirs for the summer (I’ve included some pictures of these quality individuals here).

Because of two large summer camps Calvary helps run, for years now college students have come to spend their summers working with kids from the inner city. Some of our interns come independently, having heard of the programs at Calvary. This year we have a good number from Student.Go.

Over the years hundreds of college students have had their first experience riding public transportation, talking with a homeless person, navigating dangerous neighborhoods and worshipping at a strangely traditional yet wildly NON-traditional Baptist congregation when they’ve packed their bags and come to spend their summer ministering in DC alongside the community at Calvary.

Inevitably these interns bring with them ideas of how the world should be . . . and inevitably we work together to learn that the world is lots bigger than we thought. Almost without exception we hear that living and working in our community changes them . . . changes everything about how they view the world.

Experiences that broaden vision and hearts . . . these are wonderful gifts. But the reason my heart is beating a little faster this time of year is because I have been around long enough to know that the gifts these interns bring to us . . . to our community of faith . . . well, these gifts are often beyond measure.

The interns bring us youth–so much youth it is bursting out of the stained glass windows and 150 year old brick of our sanctuary. They bring energy, vitality, enthusiasm . . . (remember those?) . . . emotions we felt somewhere along this strange journey of faith but sometimes forget. They call our hearts and our minds back again to the vision and future of our congregation, two things we must always keep in the forefront of our prayers as we work to be the presence of Christ in this place.

And into this historic old edifice they bring the reminder that God is always busy doing something new, even when we get stuck in doing things “the way we’ve always done them”.

I know we’ll probably have some homesick interns; one or two will find big city life intimidating and overwhelming. Usually there are a few who wonder about this strange Baptist church with a woman pastor and all these different kinds of people in the pews. But all of these things are gifts from one diverse group to another, shared back and forth until somehow, over the course of one short summer, we become community . . . together.

I am looking forward to the influx of interns coming our way because it seems to me that along with them also comes the influx of God’s Spirit, offering all of us once again the incredible opportunity to be changed.

I just noticed the big lavender bushes flanking the front walk of my house (here’s one of them).

I’ve been walking past them for about six weeks not noticing at all, and it took last week’s gospel lesson, John 15:1-8, to make me stop and look. Well, maybe it was last week’s gospel lesson and maybe it was the fact that everything, everywhere, seems to be blooming. Fresh cut grass, heavy-hanging rose bushes, riotous flox . . . it seems that, all of the sudden the whole world has taken on a new look.

When we saw our house for the very first time I remember loving those lavender bushes. They were huge–green with purple flowers that gave off a heady fragrance. I spent some time talking with the owner of the house, asking her specifically what I needed to do in the garden to make sure those lavender bushes kept thriving.

What she told me rang in ears for years afterward: she said you should never, NEVER cut lavender bushes back . . . that if you cut them back they would die.

So, not unlike Samson’s hair, no hedge clippers came near the big lavender bushes. I was adamant. I was determined to protect them no matter what, because all I wished for was the same green bushy foliage, bright purple flowers and spa-reminiscent fragrance.

What I started noticing the last year or so, though, is that the lavender bushes were getting bigger and bigger, more and more leggy, lots of wood . . . and less and less flowers. They still smelled, but not with that heady scent that had captivated me that first day I saw them–more like a faint memory of my first impression.

I finally admitted to myself that something might be wrong.

I remember wondering briefly if I should try to prune them . . . just a little, you know. I think I saw somewhere on HGTV that pruning was good . . . but those words . . .”you should never cut lavender back” . . . well, they rang in my head and kept the clippers at bay.

That all changed rather dramatically about six weeks ago when I hired someone to do the work in my yard that I used to do and now, somehow, cannot find the time. The guys were great; they raked up all the leaves left over from the fall, remulched all the flower beds and cut back the . . . I forgot to tell them, you know, that you’re not supposed to cut lavender back . . . yes, they cut them back. Drastically. WAY back.

I was horrified; so disappointed that my lavender bushes had met this sad fate.

I was horrified, yes, but hadn’t had time to deal with the situation. Then, this week when I walked past my lavender bushes, I noticed something unexpected. They’d been cut back very drastically, but it seems like, almost overnight, they’d exploded. Unencumbered by all of that dead wood, those plants have dramatically bounced back. They are sprouting unlike I have ever seen them sprout before, even more than the first time I ever saw them. They’re not just sprouting . . . they are covered with new, light green shoots that promise a huge–overwhelming–riot of blooms very soon.

I suspect, in fact, that if you come to my house in just about 4 more weeks, you’ll be knocked over by the smell of lavender.

I’ve long heard Jesus’ parable of the vine and the branches. In fact, if I close my eyes I can go back to the Sunday School classroom where I considered the horror of grape shortage–the sure result of the branches being cut off from the vine. At age 5 there seemed to possibly be little that could be worse. (Look at this beautiful grapevine from my friend Harold’s garden!)

But watching my lavender bushes has illustrated what Jesus was talking about in a powerful, tangible way that I have never fully understood before.

Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.”

In our lives the pruning is hard, no doubt about it. But this time of year all it takes is a look into the garden to see what Jesus meant–lush, green new life sprouting out all over after what seemed like such a severe way of dealing with the parts of our lives and our communities that drain and damage the whole.

Today my lavender plants are giving me some hope that a severe pruning is not the end after all (look how they’re growing!) . . . only, really, the beginning of new and vibrant life, sprouting out all over every part of what we are and giving off the heady scent of the kingdom of God.

May it be so.

Amen.

I think it’s safe to say I never thought I’d be blogging about this topic. Actually, I think it’s safe to say it never crossed my mind . . . ever . . . that I would even be thinking about this topic in direct relation to my own life.

It all started a few weeks ago. We were sitting around dinner one night and I thought to myself, “I wonder if Hayden is getting a cold?” He just sounded so different to me as he talked.

Hayden is our 12-year-old child who was a baby just yesterday–I swear it–and now is gleefully measuring his height on a regular basis as he rapidly approaches the day I’ll be looking up to him instead of the other way around.

I could see he was growing up, of course. He’s very tall and rather large, definitely too big to sit on my lap anymore. He carries around a heavy backpack, maintains a locker at school and has made the honor roll twice already this year. I’ve watched him grow from a rather pensive kid who struggled to read quickly into a confident young man who now celebrates the many areas in which he excels.

I’ve been noticing lately, though, that there seems to be curious amount of time and attention now being taken to personal grooming in our house, and not by me. I was taken aback, in fact, the other night when Hayden told me he’d like to go shopping for new clothes. He said that unprompted. Voluntarily.

Hmmm . . . very strange.

I’ve been watching all of these changes in complete denial, I now know. I’ve lived pretty successfully with the illusion that my little guy was still my baby. That all changed that night a few weeks ago at dinner when I suddenly realized Hayden did NOT have a cold in the least. No, the motion picture of my baby growing and changing has suddenly acquired a soundtrack . . . and it’s a lot LOWER than it was just a few weeks ago, I swear it!

My husband Mark thinks this whole voice changing thing is hilarious, but I am feeling rather panicky.

First of all, I am way too young–WAY–to have a genetic offspring whose voice is changing. And second, I’ve worked for twelve long years (almost 13 if you count the 9 months leading up to their official start) to learn to understand and parent my child . . . only to find out he is quickly leaving the child part of his life in the dust.

I am telling you, he was JUST a baby–really, really recently. I promise. And his voice was NOT low at all. From what I’m hearing lately, though, it sounds like, whether I want it or not, we’re already pretty far down the road on this strange journey to adulthood.

The thing I must remember as I struggle to keep up with reality is that the lessons Hayden learned and the amazing young man he’s already become are the things that really matter.

And, really, I am grateful that these wonderful things about him would definitely be apparent to you if you were to have a conversation with him . . . just articulated at a lower decibel, that’s all.

God help me.

“Is there a prophet in the house?”

My friend and classmate Jason Harvey, Associate Pastor at Broad Street United Methodist Church in Statesville, NC, asked that question in his sermon yesterday, the final day of my second intensive Doctor of Ministry class at Wesley Theological Seminary: Preaching With Prophetic Imagination (Jason is helpfully pictured here so you can imagine him calling us to task from the pulpit in Wesley’s chapel).

I don’t know what you think about such a question, but before this past week I personally would have thought it rather extraneous. Prophets are occasional folk who only come along once a generation or two, right?

But Jason’s question was a great way to end the week, because on Monday our professor Dr. McClain told us that the church needs “prophets who care for their people like pastors and pastors who speak the truth like prophets.”

It was at the very moment he made that statement that I started to suspect there was no getting out of this prophet business.

See, what I’d thought when I walked in to this core curriculum class Monday morning was that I could learn about Preaching With Prophetic Imagination, of course, but I was sure I’d be learning from a detached observer’s point of view. I am, after all, a pastor, not a prophet. I’m more gifted, you see, in nurture than censure. I am a caregiver, not a groundbreaker! Prophets are people like William Sloane Coffin or Martin Luther King, Jr. (Certainly not Amy Butler.)

When I heard what Dr. McClain had to say it sounded to me then that there was going to be no casual observing in class . . . and I was right. In Dr. McClain’s mind, not only was there a prophet in the house, there were 16 of us, and if he had anything to do with it we were going to learn to declare the prophetic word with passion and conviction . . . because that’s what a pastor does: declare the truth like a prophet.

This week has invited me to ask some hard questions about my job as a preacher. Could it be that sometimes “I’m a pastor, not a prophet” really means, “I’m better at preaching feel-good sermons than convicting sermons”? Or might “I’m more gifted in nurture than censure” translate literally: “I prefer to keep as many people happy as I possibly can rather than unnecessarily riling people up from the pulpit”?

Jason challenged the comfortable position I’d lounged in before, reminding me that we learned last week that the prophetic word belongs in every pulpit, declared boldly from the mouth of every preacher . . . even the more pastoral among us.

The problem with this question and its answer is that prophetically preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ is inconvenient, if not totally excruciating from time to time. At the end of the day, though, if we say we’re about preaching a word from the Lord, well, then, inconvenience should be par for the course . . . possibly even excruciating pain, if you think about it. So I’ve been thinking about what it might be that MY congregation needs to hear. What is the word of God for the people of Calvary Baptist Church? I’m listening, listening for God’s Spirit. The trick will be having the guts to pass the message along when it comes.

It’s easy to forget why we do this job in the first place. It’s nice when people like the sermons and everybody feels good. But the gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to task individually and as a community, and it’s the prophet’s job to call the people to the truth.

Seems like Jason’s not the first to ask the question. Paul asked the very same one in his letter to the Romans . . . how will they hear without a preacher? (In other words, SOMEBODY has to step up and tell the truth!)

“Is there a prophet in the house?”

After a week of thinking about this I have to say I hear Paul’s outrage . . . and, yes, Jason, I’m afraid (really, I am!) that there just might be a prophet in the house.

I keep hearing the stories of rebuilding, but the devastation is still so horrible. I took this picture while in New Orleans in February . . . it seemed especially poignant to me to see a manger on a pile of trash near the curb. Frankly, I am still trying to make sense of what happened. Here’s a link that graphically depicts how the devastation happened.

http://www.nola.com/katrina/graphics/continuous.swf

My Mom always sends me the nicest Mother’s Day cards. And for years I’ve been rather puzzled by this as she is, after all, my mother and not the other way around. (As my husband Mark would say: “Of course I didn’t get you a card! You’re not MY mother . . . .”)

Every year my Mom usually writes something in her card thanking me for making her a mother (my other four siblings were nice, of course, but I was first). I keep meaning to point out that, in actuality, I had nothing to do with my own birth . . . but who ever wants to have that conversation with your mother, you know what I mean?

This year Mom included with her card a picture of her with all five of us. Don’t you agree that she looks tired? Frazzled? Stunned by where life has landed her? I kind of thought so when I saw it (but knowing me I was probably projecting).

The funny thing is, when we talked today she told me she’d made copies of the picture to send to all of us because looking at this picture–a picture of a mother surrounded by all her kids–well, it makes her . . . happy.

That’s what she said . . . happy.

Then she went on to tell me that being a mother is the crowning achievement of her life.

And it is here that I encounter personal crisis.

I love my kids; those of you who read this blog are probably sick and tired of reading about them, in fact. But I’ve never been a real Earth Mother kind of gal. I couldn’t wait for babyhood to end; independence is encouraged in my world; if you skin your knee at my house you are more likely to get a lecture about how life is hard than an hour of back patting on the couch. Discussions of breastfeeding bore me; PTA meetings are my own personal torture; snow days or school vacations send me into a panic.

It’s terrible, I know, but I did not get my mother’s mother gene (my sisters did, but that’s another bitter blog entry).

This is what I was thinking today when I came home from church to a felt-covered pencil holder, a hand-stitched bookmark and this card (pictured here).

Now, I know in my head that I am not a mushy maternal individual, but looking at the carefully lined up handiwork that will clutter my office for years to come, I felt a strange stirring in my heart. It’s the same stirring I feel when I am greeted with a joyous “MOM!” most days after arriving home from work . . . or the warm happiness that floods over me like hot fudge when I hear an excited recounting of baseball field feats.

I’m shocked to admit it, and I’ll probably never hear the end of it, but this Mother’s Day I have to say I might just be a little bit like my mother. I mean, I’ve come to a kind of peace that I will never live for the maternal role, and I freely and enthusiastically embrace the frazzled nature of life as a mother.

But I guess today I have to agree with Mom that there’s something about being surrounded by my kids, something about the utter honor of being a mother that makes me . . . happy.

Happy Mother’s Day.

I’ve spent hours this week listening to sermons.

This may not seem notable to all of you who have to suffer through that experience every single week, but let me remind you that it is a rare week I have to sit through even one sermon.

Usually, as you know, I am giving the sermon.

Standing.

This week I’ve been in intensive Doctor of Ministry study in a class at Wesley Theological Seminary called Words and The Word: Theology and Rhetoric of Preaching. We’ve spent quite a bit of time talking about the authority of the preacher and the role of the sermon, and we’ve heard 4 sermons every day.

Four. Sermons. Every. Day.

My husband Mark said he felt so sorry for me (I think I heard him mutter something about his idea of hell under his breath, but I’m not totally sure).

I can’t imagine what he’s talking about.

It has been invigorating to see each preacher step up to the front and tackle the task we’d all like to think we do reasonably well. I’m learning a lot about how we as preachers see ourselves and about how much we can hear from others about our preaching.

One thing I am finding fascinating is the litany of preaching heroes I’ve heard this week . . . their names are whispered with quiet reverence: Will Willimon, Tom Long, Barbara Brown Taylor, Fred Craddock, Gardner Taylor . . . and all week it has struck me as funny that even preachers, we of the spotlight hogging, microphone coveting, pulpit residing . . . we need heroes, too. We need people who can shake us awake during the Sunday 11:00 a.m. national nap time, take the good news and weave it into a beautiful quilt we just want to wrap tight around us and never let go.

The thing I keep hearing from my colleagues and that I know myself is that sometimes the task of trying to do that very thing ourselves is so overwhelming we just don’t know how we’ll get it done. But the message compels us to proclaim.

Even if we don’t sound like Barbara Brown Taylor every week . . . even if no one would recognize Gardner Taylor’s influence in our words for the day . . . even if Will Willimon would say we weren’t confrontational enough . . . I think the best thing I’ve learned this week is that I need a hero.

I need a few folks who do what I do and do it well. I need some folks to whom I can look for reassurance that the preaching task is not impossible; that a word from God can come inspired by us . . . or in spite of us.

So as I listen to sermons for most of every day this week I’ve finally realized that part of what I am doing is looking for a hero. I am looking for someone who does the work of proclaiming the good news and does it well, week in and week out. And I’m looking because I need encouragement to keep fumbling through my own attempts to get the message across.

And, more than that, I need to hear the good news, too.

I’m starting to think, after hearing this same yearning from my colleagues, that there might be something to the idea of preacher cards (baseball cards, you know?). We have to have some way, I’m thinking, to cheer each other on, to remember that the week in and week out proclamation of a word from God, whether you do it well or you just do it, is worth every excruciating step.

While I listen I’ll try to learn how to do this preaching task well, or at least well enough that the message gets across. And in the meantime I think I’ll keep listening to all the others struggling to do the same. If I do that, I think I’ll look around and realize I am surrounded by heroes.

I went back to school today.

When I got up the courage to count I realized I have not been in a classroom as a student for over 11 years. That is a very long time, as 11 years ago would have been when I was in my 20s and some (namely my husband, a whole five months younger than I) would say that I am quickly sliding into 40 (gulp!).

As I packed my backpack this morning (notebook, pens, highlighter, books) the other students in our household were most intrigued by the idea that I was headed out the door for my first day of school. They helped me dig out school supplies from the kitchen drawers and asked critical questions with deep looks of concern on their little faces:

“Is your teacher nice?”
(Answer: I am not sure. I’ve never met her before. I heard she is a hard grader. I also heard she is an Episcopal priest, but neither of these bits of information shed any light on the question of whether or not she is liberal with the bathroom passes.)

“Do you know any of the other kids in your class?”
(Answer: I know one other member of my class who is, in fact, a few years younger than I am. However, I would not call her a kid. I don’t know ANYONE ELSE AT ALL!)

“What are the lunch choices?”
(Answer: No idea, but I hope there’s pizza.)

“Do you have a lot of homework?”
(Answer: I already had to read five books and write three papers. There had better not be too much more to do or I might keel over.)

I don’t have answers to all of these questions yet; I suppose I’ll find out very soon. The thing that keeps amazing me is how, even separated by years and years of school and several degrees, all the students in our house can relate to one another with the same concerns, the same anxieties about the experience of stepping into a classroom.

Today, on my first day of school (if I don’t hypervenhilate first), I’ll try to say a quick prayer of thanks for the unlikely occasions that bring us together, for the common human experiences that bond the hearts of a third grader worried about the social dynamics of the playground and a (much) older student . . . with the same exact fears.

And then together we’ll sling on our backpacks and head . . . back to school.