Theology and Protestors

A friend of mine sent me a link to a youtube video from the Lawrence O'Donnell show. A Wisconsin state senator was interviewed saying that they are trying to keep protesters out of the building because the building is becoming a "pig sty." The person on the other side of the interview countered that the folks spending the night are not slobs, as the senator calls them, but police officers, nurses, and firefighters. The senator then responded by saying they are "college TAs, college students, and hangers on." Later he says there are also unemployed people looking for something to do. They are just there to have a party according to the senator.

We human beings don't learn do we? No matter how many times history and theology teach us that people are people... no matter how often we hear our nation's declaration of independence quoted "we hold these truths to be self evident: all men are created equal" many of us just don't believe it, do we?

It would seem that in this example college TAs, college students, unemployed people, and "hangers on" are not welcome, not worthy, and cannot exercise their right to free speech without creating a pig sty. They are somehow less.

I understand that at the root of our desire to categorize, stereotype, and dismiss people who are different than we are is fear. We fear what we don't understand. We fear what is different from us. The senator said he would not bring his children to the state capital building with it in this state. I find that telling. The only antidote I know of for this spiritual problem (it is a spiritual problem) is the gift of compassion and the freedom from fear that comes through faith.

Two of the great testimonies of the saints through the ages are
1. perfect love casts out fear (1John4:18)
2. The LORD is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion (Psalm 116:5)

These are two of my favorite things about my relationship with Jesus: I am taught how to become increasingly free of fear (its a life long journey), and I am taught compassion by the One who knows all about love and compassion. The saints testify that the more we know, love, and serve Jesus, the more compassionate the Holy Spirit makes us. This is because the Spirit works within us to make us more like Jesus.

Here are some beautiful excerpts from the United Methodist Social Principles. It's good to be reminded of what we teach and believe, I think.

We affirm all persons as equally valuable in the sight of God. We therefore work toward societies in which each person’s value is recognized, maintained, and strengthened. We support the basic rights of all persons to equal access to housing, education, communication, employment, medical care, legal redress for grievances, and physical protection. We deplore acts of hate or violence against groups or persons based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, or economic status. Our respect for the inherent dignity of all persons leads us to call for the recognition, protection, and implementation of the principles of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights so that communities and individuals may claim and enjoy their universal, indivisible, and inalienable rights. para. 162 The Social Community

We claim all economic systems to be under the judgment of God no less than other facets of the created order. Therefore, we recognize the responsibility of governments to develop and implement sound fiscal and monetary policies that provide for the economic life of individuals and corporate entities and that ensure full employment and adequate incomes with a minimum of inflation. We believe private and public economic enterprises are responsible for the social costs of doing business, such as employment and environmental pollution, and that they should be held accountable for these costs. We support measures that would reduce the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. We further support efforts to revise tax structures and to eliminate governmental support programs that now benefit the wealthy at the expense of other persons. para. 163 The Economic Community

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.

Child Like Faith

I am preaching on Luke 18: 9-17 tomorrow. It is the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector followed by Jesus blessing the little children. So I have been thinking about child like faith, and how much children have to teach me about life.

My son six year old son has been showing me a lot about joy (now that I am paying close attention!) He is licking the chocolate off of his crepe with abandon as I am writing this. I don't have the heart to correct him. It looks like too much fun.

When I asked him if he wanted to go out back and pick raspberries, he immediately replied with an enthusiastic "yes!" Then he wanted to be sure his sister knew that he would have raspberries for her when he returned. God has given him such a generous heart.

As I stood at my kitchen window, I got to watch him leap from place to place around the bushes as he hunted for raspberries. The leaping was my favorite part- such joy! Then he came back in with twelve raspberries. Since they are new plants, we only get a handful at a time. Shannon raced upstairs from the basement to enjoy them with him. As she walked back down the steps she announced "raspberries are my new favorite fruit!"

I have been contemplating planting raspberry bushes for 7 years now. This summer I finally did it. I am so glad I did. Children and raspberry bushes have plenty to teach me about God. I can't wait to see their reaction next summer when we get a full crop.

Seeing God in my Kids

Jacob showed me God a few weeks ago...

We were reading a book together about Easter. He sighed and said "Mommy, I can't wait to die." I turned to him and smiled and asked him "you mean you can't wait to meet Jesus in heaven?" He said "yeah." I went to explain that it would probably be a long time before he goes to heaven, and that by then several of his family members would already be there to meet him.

I was struck by his complete lack of fear. What a gift; no wonder Jesus talked about having faith like that of a child.

Religion and Politics

I wrote this article for the newsletter. I am sharing it here as well, with active links to the voter guides I mention.

Religion and Politics

Perhaps you have heard me share one of my favorite analogies for faith: think about a pie. Imagine every "slice of your life" like family, school, work, activities, friendships, etc. Now, rather than imagining faith as one section of the pie, think of it as the pie plate. There is not any part of our lives apart from God. Our faith informs and sustains all aspects of our journey.

Practicing faithful reflection about all aspects of life is a vital faith practice. God wants to be a part of every decision, and has some guidance to offer. From whether to eat out tonight, to what kind of car to drive, what kids activities are important, to how to vote…all can be informed by our faith. I find it takes practice.

In the United Methodist tradition, we teach the use of Scripture, Tradition (church history and doctrine), Experience (our own experiences of God) and Reason (our God given brains) as the basis for knowing God and making decisions.

Our church has official positions on just about everything. However, to be a "good" United Methodist, there is not a requirement to agree with all of the positions. Our tradition teaches the use of Scripture, Tradition, Experience, and Reason in community and as individuals. All this is rooted in the understanding that we all "see through a glass dimly" as Paul says. One of the basic values of Jesus that is expressed in United Methodism is that God welcomes ALL people, no matter what.

As we approach another election season, I encourage you to think about how your faith informs your choices. In our Social Principles, we find these words: While our allegiance to God takes precedence over our allegiance to any state, we acknowledge the vital function of government as a principal vehicle for the ordering of society. Because we know ourselves to be responsible to God for social and political life, we declare the following relative to governments:
B) Political Responsibility—The strength of a political system depends upon the full and willing participation of its citizens. The church should continually exert a strong ethical influence upon the state, supporting policies and programs deemed to be just and opposing policies and programs that are unjust.

As citizens of God's Kingdom, our allegiance is always to God first. We have the privilege as voters in this country to have input into how our government is run, and it is both a privilege and an obligation that is to be informed by our faith.

Inside this issue, you will find a voters guide prepared by a Christian organization known as Sojourners. It has close ties with our denomination. In addition, there will be available in church a 12 page voting guide prepared by our denomination. It lists United Methodist positions on issues, and then lists the platforms of the two major parties on the issues.

I encourage you to use both guides as a resource. Read Scripture. Pray in discernment. Take seriously the truth that we are God's citizens first and always and that we are called to put others before ourselves. Also, please don't think that you must be in agreement with everyone else in our church. I know that we share a diversity of opinion on various issues among our church family. I believe it is a testimony to the power of the Holy Spirit whenever unity exists among diversity. May we never lose sight of what matters most: Jesus Christ. I hope these resources help you to feel more spiritually prepared this election season.

Striving to be faithful,
Pastor Amy

Wrestling

This was our annual week at Camp Pecometh. On our way home last night, Ray had the idea to stop at Downey's Chicken in Chestertown. We have said at least a dozen times that we want to try their food. As expected, it was delicious.

Camp is wonderful in many ways, and this was our most wonderful year yet. Jacob is out of diapers. Shannon was in the day camp week. They were both happy and enjoying themselves all week. Happy kids make for... yep, happy parents.

It was also a bit stressful, in that I am still sitting here on Saturday afternoon wrestling mightily for a clue about my sermon. Usually I have studied the scripture with others on Wednesdays, and then have been thinking about it all week. Not so this week.

The first somewhat unique insight that I have had after many hours of study and prayer is one that feels frighteningly personal. Two weeks ago, I preached on Jacob wrestling with the Lord in Genesis. Last week, I preached on fear as it relates to Jesus and Peter walking on water. This week I am reading the stories of the Canaanite woman Jesus rebuffed and her tenacity in verbally besting Jesus and about Joseph meeting up with his brothers in Egypt (which must have been emotionally trying for all involved on a number of levels). My insight? That sometimes the life of faith is about tenacity, about holding on, until things feel right again.

I am reminded of three things. First, at the preaching conference I went to this year, one of the speakers talked about preaching being the act of placing ourselves on a platter for all the hearers to dissect. Second, one of my clergy friends' mother's comments that you can always tell where a preacher is by what they are preaching. Third, I remember a friend from Seminary who lamented "once, just once, I want to hear someone preach an honest sermon about struggling while they are actually struggling, not referring to some past struggle."

Preaching is such a vulnerable act. It is feeling especially true today. I suppose that is part of the honest walk of faith- trusting God enough to be honest about where we really are on the journey. The life of faith is not all sweetness and light...much as I wish it would be. There is plenty of honest struggle, doubt, and fear... and somehow God takes it and uses it for God's purposes. I never cease to be amazed.

Thanksgiving Gift

I received a precious gift this morning. It came in the form of a phone call from a woman I first met more than eight years ago. She was a member of the church I served before coming to Chesapeake City. Laura (not her real name) was a woman who was seeking after all the big answers when we first met. She was depressed, unhappy in her marriage, struggling with her nearly grown children, and genuinely trying to figure out how to live well. She and I spent many hours together in worship, Bible study, service, and around her kitchen table. I came to care deeply for her.

I like to joke that I never received my magic God wand in the mail. I had hoped it would finally arrive when I was ordained, but alas, it seems to have gotten lost in the mail. I have so many uses for a magic God wand!

In absence of that, I listened, prayed, and tried to love Laura. She tried to figure out how to open herself up to God and learn to trust and to be loved.

She called this morning to say thank you for letting God use me to bless her. She has relocated a bit north. She has accepted her marriage for what it is, and is not. She has accepted her children. Most of all, she has been blessed by her relationship with God. She even landed in my home church. Small world.

As we were studying Scripture this morning, the lectionary gospel lesson is the crucifixion story in Luke 23. Just after Jesus cries out "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing" the guards begin casting lots for his clothing. They don't even register what Jesus has just said. Then someone challenges Jesus to save himself, if he is who he says it is. But that was not the appointed hour. The appointed hour was still three days away, when he would rise, overcoming sin and death. How difficult it must have been to endure the time for what it was, trusting God in the midst of his suffering.

Every time I sit, listen, cry, and pray with someone, I long for God to heal them, to heal me, to end this difficult time. Usually, it is not yet the time. The healing, the resurrection, is coming. But I spend most of my time in the not yet. What a gift to be given another glimpse of God's faithfulness, love, and healing.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Failures

I have been thinking about "failures" lately. It has been coming up a lot in the past few weeks (which often means it's the Spirit).

Last week, I met a woman who had been the pastor of a new church start in Miami. When she arrived, it had been struggling for its first five years of existence. In the two years in which she served as pastor, it became a recovery ministry, reaching people struggling with addiction. Through this ministry, lives were literally and spiritually saved- people have been transformed. But because of its history and funding circumstances, it could not become a self supporting church in the two years she served. So it is being grafted together with another church family. It has been a work of the Spirit for all involved. The receiving church has been re-energized and the new church folks continue to be in vital recovery ministry.

She commented to me that in traditional terms, the new church was considered a "failure". I told her I struggle with that concept. Who is to say that a ministry which touches lives so deeply is a failure because it does not fit a standard definition?

Later the same week, I made a presentation about how God is working in our church family, especially as it relates to Jacob's Well. I commented that during launch and continuing to the present, I often feel unsure of how to accomplish things. I trust completely in the Spirit and in our gathered team to accomplish what God set before us, while being as informed and faithful as I know how to be. But it never feels like enough. This keeps me clear about who is really doing all of this- God.

One of the people there commented to me afterwards that this was the most encouraging thing I said- it was a relief to know I was no "expert" but someone striving and learning faithfully. (As a side note, I think this is why church workshops can be so discouraging. The presenters always come off as always having everything together and on the ball. Surely that cannot be true for the vast majority of us?)

Then I had a conversation with a friend on Saturday. I talked about how I spend most of my time feeling like we are teetering on the edge of a cliff. The Spirit has not let us fall yet. I also talked about how I think "failures" (world's definition) have been the fertile soil of God's most significant work. She commented she was very relieved to hear that.

If our church family had not had a Saturday night service that lasted a few years, and then a Sunday night prayer and praise service for a few years, I don't think Jacob's Well would have been launched. It was in the soil of those ministries in which Jacob's Well took root. They were not failures, but rather ministries that lasted a season. They were one of the many ways the soil was prepared for new growth.

In 2004, our church family went through the process of trying to buy land on Route 213. The seller refused to sell to us because of the amount of time it would take for perk tests and zoning requests. I know now that it was not God's timing to buy that parcel. Within six months of the sale falling through, God raised up a person who owns more land on 213. She would find total joy in selling us her land. I pray that God will bring this to fruition sometime in the future.

Also, we are now beginning conversation about having a Blended Parish Ministry structure for Town Point, Trinity, and Jacob's Well. If this is how God is moving, we would become unified in membership, administrative structure, and finances....one church with three locations. Some of the seeds of these possibilities were planted in the "failure" to acquire the land in 2004.

Finally, I think about how we voted at Town Point to not host the rotating homeless shelter there. God then used so many of us across the Charge, on all sides of the issue, to serve the homeless in other ways...at the Generation Station, at St. Paul's, at Trinity, and in relationship with folks regardless of where the shelter was hosted on a given week. In the seeds of that very difficult time, God nurtured existing seeds and planted new seeds for tremendous ministry among the homeless.

I don't yet know what the future will bring. I am certain that whatever the outcome, God will use it for God's purpose.

I am reminded of a phrase that was on our front sign for a few weeks: "Nothing that is done for God is ever lost."

I am also reminded of one of my favorite passages from the books of Acts, which came up in the lectionary a few weeks ago. It is the account of the apostles being brought before the council and persecuted for preaching about Jesus. The council was debating how to proceed, and one of their leaders said this:
But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, respected by all the people, stood up and ordered the men to be put outside for a short time. Then he said to them, ‘Fellow Israelites, consider carefully what you propose to do to these men. For some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him; but he was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and disappeared. After him Judas the Galilean rose up at the time of the census and got people to follow him; he also perished, and all who followed him were scattered. So in the present case, I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them—in that case you may even be found fighting against God!’
Acts 4:34-39

Kids, Families, God

I have had two conversations in the past month that have me thinking about the importance of religion in family life.

The first was with a friend who was sharing a bizarre conversation she had with another mother at the elementary school. The mother shared that her five year old daughter was really into American Girl dolls. (I have heard of them, but pretty much all I know is that they are expensive.) Apparently, this five year old has had American Girl dolls since she was an infant. The details are fuzzy now, but American Girl dolls apparently have birth places listed on them, and if a family is so inclined, they can go take a vacation at the doll's birth place...an American Girl vacation. This New Jersey family went to Williamsburg, VA. For a week. To visit a pretend birthplace. For a doll.

My friends and my husband and I had spent the better part of the previous night talking about religion. So after my friend finished her story, my comment was "this is why people need religion." I am just imagining: what if this family, who has the resources to go on a fantasy vacation for their five year old, went instead on a mission trip together? Perhaps offering Bible school for children, or sharing dolls and crafts and play time with children who don't have such resources. It seems to me that these people are dying to have something worth investing themselves in. I (not so humbly) submit that American Girl dolls don't fit the bill.

Then today, I was talking with someone who has moved to a new place in Pennsylvania. She is becoming a part of a Mom's Club, and volunteered to help coordinate the annual picnic. Because of a schedule conflict and a dead cell phone battery, she was not at the first formal planning meeting. What she thought she was signing up for was...a picnic. She was imagining a park, some grills, some playground time for the kids, perhaps some extra sand toys, and maybe some sidewalk chalk. Maximum investment of about three dollars per family, to cover park rental space and some common supplies, with each family bringing a dish to share. When she was apprised of the plans formed while she was away, she discovered the other three organizers are planning a small festival. They are planning to charge each family ten dollars, comparison shop at BJs and Costco for the best prices, prepare all of the food, rent some moon bounce style entertainment, and generally go entirely overboard... and call it a picnic. If she cannot persuade them to keep things simple, she is going to bow out. She was looking for a picnic.

I asked her, "do these women go to church? If not, they should. I know at my church, I could think of lots of things they could organize effectively... things that matter." I have been thinking all day of the wasted talents of the American Doll family and the picnic families. God has given them all kinds of resources and abilities... think what could be accomplished in love...if only they knew what was possible.

Megan (our youth director) and I were walking out of Union Hospital on Wednesday this week, when a woman standing near the door asked for a ride up the road to Acme. We went and got the car, and it took her several minutes to make her way over to the car, and get in. She can barely walk with a walker. Although she had just been discharged from the hospital, sadly she did not smell as though a bath had been part of her care. She explained that a cab ride for those few blocks would be six dollars, and she didn't have that kind of money. She wanted some sale items at the store. So we offered to drive her to our church food pantry, and then save her the thirteen dollar cab ride to her apartment.

Watching her climb the fourteen steps to her second level apartment was heartbreaking. Even more troubling was the state of her apartment. She is physically incapable of keeping it clean.
I am imagining the American girl and picnic families talents being put into cleaning, laundering, and shopping for this dear soul on a regular basis.

All of this has me thinking about how truly grateful I am for coming (back) to faith in my early twenties. And it has me thinking about how important our faith is in forming our family life. I think about how much our church family shapes the lives of our children, teaching them to be generous, loving, trusting, kind to others. I think about how comforting the routine is for them, to know that they will gather with the same community every week for a special time of fun and celebration, pray familiar prayers every day, and have tools to think through complicated subjects like creation, death, sin, forgiveness. As they get older, we will delve deeper into the questions and complications that surround such things, but for now, it is comforting to have age appropriate responses for such questions.

I think about the common purpose we share, both in our family and in our community of faith. I think about the ways we make decisions about our resources so that we honor God with what we have been given. We try to keep our religious convictions the organizing force in our family. Our hope is that our children will grow to live God-directed lives, living to bless others and honor God, for we know that self centered lives are lousy. Living for others is where blessing rests.

But it is not where profits flow. As Megan, our youth director, noted in Bible study this week, capitalism is not just our economic system, it is our organizing moral principle. People have become commodities, avenues for profit. Religion provides a much different organizing premise, an alternative. And from what I can see, we are more in need of such an alternative with each passing decade.

I fantasize on a fairly regular basis about writing a book on one subject or another. Right now, I am envisioning a book of interviews and stories of how faith forms families. Perhaps it could be a new hit in the child development section...God knows the children of our world need an alternative to materialism.