Talk With the Preacher

The start of school always brings a whole slew of adventures, and not just for the students in our family. The parents always get dragged along for the ride.

If you count pre-school, I have been the parent of a school-going child for over ten years, so “what I did on vacation” essays, informational sheets, ridiculous lists of school supplies (where on earth will you store the THREE boxes of Kleenex required of every child??!?), five copies of the same exact parent emergency card to be filled out for every child in the family by tomorrow . . . none of these assignments surprise me.

In fact, they bore me.

This year, however, along with the mildly fascinating news that Miss Hefner is now Mrs. Baldi, I’ll admit there was one assignment that caught my attention: one of my little ones had to create a “Personality Bag”.

A “Personality Bag”, I was informed with not a little disdain, is a bag that contains up to 7 things which, when displayed, will illustrate for the class the owner’s personality.

My Sam spent quite a bit of time last night hunting through bookshelves and toy boxes to find just the right combination of treasures for the bag, and this morning Sam announced he had finally found the right collection of pieces for his bag: A New Orleans Zephyrs baseball, a Pokemon card (Blaziken, FYI), his favorite Value Tale, a baseball card (Sammy Sosa, of course) and a medal awarded to all the kids on the team at the end of last soccer season.

All of these things would communicate to his new classmates all the critical things about him: that he was born in New Orleans; that he loves Pokemon; that baseball is his very favorite sport and he hopes to be the next famous baseball player named Sammy; that soccer makes his list, too; and the books are his primary love affair at the moment (note: in a nice thematic trend, his favorite Value Tale is about Jackie Robinson).

As I watched Sam’s progress on his bag I started to wonder what I might put in a Personality Bag of my own. I thought of several things but then got distracted by the thought of what exactly this bag of mine might look like itself . . . . Summer or fall? Leather or synthetic? Elegant with one color or funky with a design?

My reverie was interrupted when Sam came in and said, “Hey Mom, do you think I could put my Bible in the bag?”

Hmmmm. Hadn’t thought about THAT.

I stumbled around with some response, trying to think of how un-PC it might be to show up at public school with a Bible as Sam went on to explain, “It’s just that I love church so much and I think my friends should know that about me.”

I decided right then that my Bible should be in my Personality Bag, too. Because I love church a lot, too, and I think that’s something my friends should know about me.

I also decided, however, that no matter what’s in it, my Personality Bag should be very, very cool.

Today it has been a whole year since the horror of hurricane Katrina began. I have the highest admiration for my friends in New Orleans who have doggedly determined their city will be, once again, a place of beauty. There’s a long, long way to go.

Here’s an article about my dear friend Ann Freedman, one of those heroes.

On this first anniversary we are witnesses to all this suffering and hope. And because we are people of faith we declare: “We will repair the breach; we will raise the foundations again; we will restore the streets and make them livable again. We will honor the lives of the dead and the living by acting in justice.”

On this one year since the devastation our Great God of Justice still calls us to repair the walls, to stand in the gaping holes of our society; to cry out and to make things right.

May it be so.

They woke up, brushed their teeth, got dressed, combed their hair, put their backpacks on and came to breakfast wearing them.

Gotta love the first day of school!

Over the past two years I’ve been involved with a program called the Lewis Fellows, a program of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary that trains and nurtures young leaders in the church.

(I don’t know how much longer I will be considered a “young leader” so I think I should mention this fact a lot until such time . . . .)

This program draws a group of young leaders from several Christian denominations from all over the country together several times a year to learn from practitioners in the field of ministry who can teach us about leadership. I’ve learned quite a bit from these practitioners over these past two years, but I have to say my biggest learning and most helpful experiences have come from meeting the colleagues with whom I’ve been studying.

One of these is Rev. Todd Adams, pastor of Memorial Drive Christian Church in Houston, Texas. Todd has done quite a bit of D.Min. work on stewardship so I regularly turn to him for advice on the subject and have long thought it would be great to have him at Calvary.

We finally got Todd here this weekend for several classes on stewardship and a sermon in worship Sunday morning.

I was celebrating what a great decision it was to bring Todd here as I listened to him review the spiritual groundwork for stewardship; the nuts and bolts of a successful stewardship campaign; and the steps churches should take in planning capital campaigns. I knew the information he had to share would be very helpful for our leadership, especially as we go into the fall.

It was when he got to the sermon on Sunday that I wondered about the full effects of his visit.

And the reason I started to wonder was that the man brought m&ms with him. 18 pounds. On the airplane. All the way from Texas.

Todd had m&ms for everyone. He passed them out in worship. He displayed a huge bowl of them on the altar. He had individual bags for every worshipper to take home.

Granted, his point was a good one. Todd talked about the different colors in the bowl of m&ms and how they represented the abundance of blessings our lives reflect. Then he dropped a few–three or four–into another bowl to demonstrate our stingy response to God’s abundant blessings. Ouch.

And he had a name for this response to God’s goodness: sin.

It was a message we all needed to hear, but my question for Todd is a professional question related to the very serious issue of . . . liturgical bribery, because all I heard at the door were questions about what I’d be passing out next week!

Okay, so if you are a pastor in Texas perhaps this is commonplace to you.

For me it was something totally new. Perhaps I missed the day in seminary when we covered the Quinceñera service?

It was quite an honor for me to be invited to help our Associate Pastor, Edgar Palacios, preside over the Quinceñera (fifteenth birthday, for those of you who have forgotten your High School Spanish) of Susana Reyes, daughter of one of the families in our congregation.

Truth be told, it made me feel again the regret I always do when I attend a bar mitzvah . . . that we Baptists don’t have something, some rite of passage to celebrate the fast-approaching adulthood of children in our congregations.

It was a joy to see Susana so radiant, to hear her hopes for her future, to listen to her parents talk about the joy she had brought to their lives and to pray for her, that her life would embody every promise it could see right at this moment.

(The experience also made me think of The Red Tent, which is a book everyone should read . . . but that is another blog entry.)

One of the very special things about this experience was that my children were also invited to participate (see how lovely they look?), and the look of concentration on Sam’s face as he carefully hoisted his rose to be part of the canopy Susana walked through was priceless . . . along with Hannah’s careful tending of her dress (which matched with all the other girls’) and Hayden’s introduction to a cumberbund (”Hey Mom, what is this thing??!?”).

More than anything, though, I have to say the honor of being part of something so very important in the lives of a family in our church, even though I do not share their cultural traditions, became for me a moment of grace.

On this difficult journey at Calvary to meld cultures and create a place where everyone feels they can worship God, it’s not too often we embrace each other like this. Thank you, Reyes family, and happy Quinceñera Susana!

I’ve been invited to post occasionally over at Mainstream Baptist Blog Site. Frankly, I wouldn’t consider myself a spokesperson for Mainstream Baptists or any kind of expert in Church and State issues . . . all I can speak to is what I do day in and day out here at Calvary.

Shockingly, thinking about all of this inspired the following post at the MB site, so I thought I’d post it here, too:

I live at a curious crossroads of faith and politics here, since Calvary is located almost exactly between the Capitol building and the White House. The challenges of living at this juncture have not eluded me. In fact, compulsions to speak out on political issues have kept me up at night because, friends, I am a good Baptist, thoroughly enamored with ideas like priesthood of the believer, autonomy of the local church and SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE.

Lately, though, I’ve been noticing that Jesus, whom I claim to follow, was quite an outspoken critic on political issues and institutions. He spoke out vehemently and agitated forcefully against those in power.

Being in this city has made me confront it a little more concretely. It seems to me that political ideologies and institutions are just like every other human invention: they can be used for good or for evil (and often are—both). The Gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to speak out—vehemently, even—when any person or institution or ideology creates poverty or injustice, perpetuates the spiritual or physical hunger of any soul.

With that convicting thought steering the liturgical car at the moment, I have been planning worship for the fall. I noticed quickly that those of us following the Revised Common Lectionary have the opportunity to jump feet-first into the Epistle of James these next few weeks, framing our examination of the scripture texts with the admonition that our faith is sadly empty if it doesn’t change the institutions and ideologies around us that enslave people: “This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God: to visit orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (James 1:27)

So I thought this might be a great opportunity to preach some “social justice sermons”—you know, some really heart-wrenching, guilt-inducing, go out and be a good Christian for God’s sake kind of sermons. We could even go protest down on the Mall after church!

The more I looked at the lectionary texts, though, the more I realized the questions raised for me were not inviting the same (though justified) outrage over starving children in Darfur. Instead, the Epistle of James and particularly the words of Jesus in the Markan passages seem to be asking pointed questions of why these injustices happen in the first place.

Perhaps, I began to think with help from my colleague and lectionary planning partner, Lia, this might be just the opportunity to examine the roots of injustice, pain, hunger, racism . . . all those things that plague our religious and political selves. Beginning September 3, here’s where we’re going in worship . . . take a look:

Why Are You Afraid?: Mark 7:1-8; 14-15; 21-23 and James 1:17-27
Wherever he went Jesus kept running into the political and social powers of the day. The Pharisees were afraid. They were afraid of losing power, of systems changing, of discomfort. And with his suggestion that we seek internal transformation rather than external position or power, Jesus was threatening them. They were afraid. Why are we afraid?

Why Are You Poor?: Mark 7:24-37; James 2:1-10;14-17
There are all kinds of poverty, as we know well. But in these passages both Jesus and the writer of James explore the disparity of our societal distinctions. Both seem to suggest that everyone should have a place at the table, but we spend an awful lot of time making sure folks don’t. The irony of all of this exclusive behavior . . . is that it makes US poor. Go figure.

Why Are You Foolish?: Mark 8:27-38; James 3:1-12
An inability to deny ourselves and put others first might just be the very thing that causes us to buy into our own grand ideas of how we might live–which generally end up being downright foolish. Instead, Jesus suggests we adopt a wise way of living that includes denying ourselves. If we do that, the way we live, the institutions we create and the ideologies we embody will reflect our true hearts, as the James passage points out.

Why Are You Lazy?: Mark 9:30-37; James 3:12-4:3
Want to be first? You’re going to have to become a servant. Want to know what’s causing dissention among you? Take a look at your ongoing pursuit of pleasure. Wondering why things aren’t working as you think they should? Examine what motivates you.

Separation of church and state doesn’t mean we sit back and stay quiet. Perhaps these lectionary passages can help our congregation take a closer look at why injustice happens and where we can start to change—really change—the institutions and ideologies that enslave our world.

Surely the Gospel of Jesus Christ, political activist extraordinaire, calls us to nothing less.

Lately I’ve been listening to The Message on CD as part of my daily spiritual practice. I find the language of Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of scripture often catches my imagination and helps me think about how relevant the words of Jesus are for my own life.

I have long owned a printed version of The Message, but listening on CD forced me to hear for the first time Peterson’s introduction. It is too good not to share:

This is Eugene Peterson and this is the Introduction to The Message: The New Testament.

The arrival of Jesus signaled the beginning of a new era. God entered history in a personal way and made it unmistakably clear that he is on our side doing everything possible to save us. It was all presented and worked out in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

It was and is hard to believe, seemingly too good to be true. But one by one men and women did believe it—believed Jesus was God alive among them and for them. Soon they would realize that he also lived in them.

In the course of this writing and reading, collecting and arranging with no one apparently in charge, the early Christians, whose lives were being changed and shaped by what they were reading, arrived at the conviction that there was, in fact, someone in charge.

God’s Holy Spirit was behind and in it all.

In retrospect they could see that it was not at all random or haphazard, that every word worked with every other word, that all the separate documents worked in intricate harmony. There was nothing accidental in any of this; nothing merely circumstantial.

And that is why the followers of Jesus, in their witness and preaching, translating and teaching, have always done their best to get the message, the Good News, into the language of whatever streets they happen to be living on.

In order to understand the message right, the language must be right. Not a refined language that appeals to our aspirations after the best, but a rough and earthy language that reveals God’s presence and action where we least expect it, catching us when we are up to our elbows in the soil and ordinary-ness of our lives, and God is the furtherest thing from our minds.

This version of the New Testament in a contemporary idiom keeps the language of the message current and fresh, understandable in the same language in which we do our shopping, talk with our friends, worry about world affairs and teach our children their table manners. The goal is not to render a word for word conversion of Greek into English, but rather to convert the tone, the rhythm, the events, the ideas into the way we actually think and speak.

Spend some time reading The Message and see if it captures YOUR imagination . . .

Look into their eyes, would you?

You can’t even hear them talk but just by looking you know what they’re thinking: “Here we are, ready to change the world! This big city had better be ready for us!”

Can you see it in their eyes? Can you imagine the deep conviction and firey faith that inspired two young folks to pack up their lives and move to the big city?

This week we welcomed Eric Bebber and Allyson Wisdom, two CBF missionaries placed here at Calvary to work with us as we explore and live out our mission here on the corner of H and 8th. Along with some newly-minted degrees they bring fresh perspective, boundless energy and the optimism of new adventures.

I’m looking forward to working with Eric and Allyson as they help us live out our calling here at Calvary and as they become part of our community of faith. Primarily, however, I’m counting on them to remind me why I do this job, to help me remember every day the incredible invitation of the Gospel to live a life of change.

Welcome, guys!

Hey, head over to Ethics Daily to check out this article about “Centrist Baptist Bloggers”.

Since I was on vacation last Sunday the family stayed home from church, too.

After an afternoon nap Mark and I came downstairs to find the dining room chairs assembled in rows, the coffee table set up with candles and bulletins (pictured above) thoughtfully provided for each member of the congregation (me and Mark).

Turns out the kids had been feverishly working all afternoon to plan the service, including selecting appropriate piano pieces from recent lessons, picking out the tune on the piano to “Make Us One” (which we sing after the passing of the peace at Calvary), and laboring over a sermon on the feeding of the 5,000.

After it was all over I said something about how great it is that we can worship God anywhere. Mark said he’d thought we were having a break from church today . . . . I guess not!