Wait a Minute...

I went to a meeting last night.  It was one in a series.  Most of the meetings up to this point have been energetic, passionate.  These meetings have revolved around problems/issues, or perhaps a conflict in vision between groups.

Last night's meeting was slated for solutions...and the energy seemed to dissolve.  We put some ideas on the table--or on the white board--but nothing captured the intensity and the passion of the previous discussion.  I was disappointed.  I wanted the focus to be as intense on problem-solving as on problem-speaking.  I wanted creative interaction with each other.  I wanted connection with each other, the issues, the solutions, and the God that calls us to serve.

But, I think we needed to get home for dinner.  I think we were tired from the intensity of what has gone before.  I think solutions are much harder than problems.

So in this Advent season, I wondered what lesson was to be learned.  And I am brought back to waiting.  Looking at the biblical story, we, the people of God, spend most of our time waiting.  Moments of clarity and insight  exist...and those are the stories we tend to know.  Moses and the burning bush inspires us with a clear, purposeful call story.  King David and the interaction with the prophet, Nathan, teaches us that even the most powerful make major mistakes and are held accountable.  But in the betweens, in the part we don't usually read because it's not exciting, the people of God wait.

What is also true, regardless of the energy level or the available clarity, is that God is working.  When he finally did encounter the burning bush, Moses had been a shepherd for a while, prepared by God through moments of great danger, great privilege, murderous intensity, and desert wanderings.  But outside of those few memorable moments, mostly there was waiting.

So we will continue to work, and wait.  And we will claim the promise of the Advent season in all times ...in the waiting we can know that God is at work bringing salvation to us and to our world.

Hospitality...

There's a party planned.  T minus three days and counting.  32 women, a number of dead chickens, vegetables because we are women and try to be healthy...mix with a little wine...whoopee!  Party!

I really thought this would be a good idea two months ago when we all sat in a very noisy restaurant trying to talk to each other.  Seemed pretty easy.  Everyone is pitching in for the cost of the food.  Simple...easy.

But preparing for a party, especially one for Presbyterian Women, especially one for many women who have never been to your home can be a bit nerve wracking.  I want to practice hospitality.  I fight against practicing perfectionism.

Like my house is anywhere near perfect anyway...not a chance.  There is always a project brewing--a direct result of not enough time or money to just do/get everything you want.  Something is always out of place, especially now with two adult children home with all there stuff...especially now with carefully placed furnishings pushed up against the walls to make room for tables.

In this Advent season, we are asked to prepare for the coming of God's Kingdom...for the inbreaking of God into our real lives...our messy, nowhere near perfect lives.  I've spent a lot of energy today creating some beauty to enjoy together, some space in which we can eat and visit and get to know each other a bit better.

I guess we could wait for perfection and then have the PW to our homes....like never.  Or we could open ourselves to the hospitality of being together...of relationship building...of breaking bread and becoming family.  (Which, by the way, is the goal I keep reminding myself of!!!)

Perhaps the coming of the Kingdom is tied to risking our imperfection with each other...opening up to each other and risking exposing our messy, nowhere near perfect lives to other people.  Perhaps the coming of the Kingdom is opening our messy, nowhere near perfect lives to God.

Two Moons in Advent...

David Brooks, in a column titles "The Two Moons" laid out an interesting theory.

In 1951, Samuel Lubell invented the concept of the political solar system. At any moment, he wrote, there is a Sun Party (the majority party, which drives the agenda) and a Moon Party (the minority party, which shines by reflecting the solar rays).

Brooks goes on to theorize that we don't have a "Sun Party" today.  Both political parties are equal.

In these circumstances, both parties have developed minority mentalities. The Republicans feel oppressed by the cultural establishment, and Democrats feel oppressed by the corporate establishment. They embrace the mental habits that have always been adopted by those who feel themselves resisting the onslaught of a dominant culture.                                              

Their main fear is that they will lose their identity and cohesion if their members compromise with the larger world. They erect clear and rigid boundaries separating themselves from their enemies. In a hostile world, they erect rules and pledges and become hypervigilant about deviationism. They are more interested in protecting their special interests than converting outsiders. They slowly encase themselves in an epistemic cocoon.

Sometimes we take a path in life and then we watch our behaviors change.  Other times we look at behaviors and recognize we have changed paths.  I am looking at the behaviors of the church of Jesus Christ, and what I see is a path reflecting two moons.  I am not sure what the moons are, but I'm thinking churches are caught up in reflecting each other.

Churches apparently fear a "[loss of] identity and cohesion if their members compromise with the larger world" so scientific understandings of why people are gay are ignored and condemnation practiced for their "choice" of lifestyle...then attempts to exclude them from church...then, exclusion of anyone who doesn't exclude them...and so on....This also holds for ordination of women, literal interpretation of the Bible, and other issues.

Fear leads to erecting clear and rigid boundaries separating themselves from their enemies...their perceived enemies...all those they decide are their enemies.   The fellowship group...the churches moving to other denominations...ones perceived to be on the "right side" of the issue.  Conservative churches, progressive churches, white churches, black churches...we choose our side and dig in our heels.

If a church doesn't leave the denomination as their attempt to define boundaries, they get really concerned about "rules and pledges and become hypervigilant about deviationism." One church I know gives their inquirers a list of questions that they must answer correctly before they can be approved.  Most of those questions aren't studied until our second year of seminary.  Many focused on controversial issues that if answered "wrong" would disqualify a person from approval.  All this for what is supposed to be a process of "beginning to explore a call to ministry."  Fear insists that no one who "deviates" in the slightest from what the church has determined "orthodoxy" can be allowed to serve as a minister of Word and Sacrament.

Churches more interested in protecting their special interests than converting outsiders?  That speaks for itself.  Encased in an epistemic cocoon?  Totally concerned about what they think...what is "right and wrong"...a tightly wrapped enclosure of correct beliefs and thoughts...determined completely by the organization.  What would Jesus do?  I think do is the operative word.  Jesus might stick around to challenge the status quo.  He might ask us if we are feeding hungry, clothing naked, bring the Kingdom of God into our here and now.  Or he might just shake the dust off his sandals and leave the American church to its own insanity.

As a child, I was taught that we "Christians" didn't shine our own light, we reflected the light of God.  We did a lot of Bible study to understand who God was, especially God in Jesus, so that we could know who we were supposed to be...so that we could reflect God's light in the world.  And if we are looking at Jesus to understand who God is and how we are expected to live, we see loving our neighbor as ourselves as our highest priority...and no exclusions apply.  We don't get to love only the straight, the conservative, the progressive, the nice.  We are invited into the difficulty of being and living together, seeking the path that invites people into the Kingdom.  That requires Bible study together.  That requires patience and struggle.  Most of all, that requires us to let go of fear...to let God be God.

As we begin the Advent season, we cry out to God to fix us.  Things have to be better.  Things used to be better.  So we are looking forward to this little baby to come.  We love Christmas.  That little baby fits neatly into our lives...sweet, cuddly, not threatening, not demanding.  We are so desperate for help that we hurry Christmas...singing a token Advent hymn but including Christmas music so we don't have to stay in the dark places.

Perhaps the gift of Advent--the search for hope in despair, life in death--is the practice of not giving in to the fear that inevitably arises when we pause in the darkness.  But as much as we would like the baby Jesus to be our Sun, it's the adult Jesus that teaches us what we need to do to reflect the light of God.  We can't lay around and look cute and expect people to come in and commit.  We have to live in a different way...a difficult way that requires everything of us.

The world needs a sun.  The world needs a Son.

Self-made?

An advertisement in Time magazine caught my eye.  There sits Richard Branson, million/billionaire, in his private jet, handsomely coiffed, getting ready to fly a paper airplane.  Caption reads..."Self-made Man."

I call BS...and I bet his mother does, too.  Did he feed himself and wipe his own bottom those first two years?  Does he single-handedly make, fly, repair, advertise, and clean his fleet at Virgin Airlines?  Does he grow the food he eats?  Spin the yarn he wears?  Cut his own beautiful gray hair?  Did he build his abode?  Construct his car?  Refine his gas?

In this season of encouraging gratitude, maybe we all need to step back and take a good look at how very interconnected we are.  None, not one, of us is self-made.  We all should be saying "thank you" to all those around us.  We  are only "me" because we are "us."

Being a "Christian" in the 21st century is an interesting endeavor.  Seems like mostly it is about how we feel...loved, comforted, supported, challenged (perhaps), peaceful.  (Because that is what we mostly talk with each other about.)  We act like it is mostly about what we think...virgin birth, how we practice baptism, Lord's Supper practices, who can serve as ordained clergy.  (Because that is what we spend our energy fighting about.)

So what do we actually do with our faith?  With our identity as "Christian."

Shirley Guthrie (Christian Doctrine) shares an interesting comment (p. 272):

To be a Christian is not just to expect the presence of God in the depths of our own and others' suffering; it is to expect the active work of God in our individual lives, in the church, and in the world to create a new humanity in a new world in which the life, justice, and peace of the kingdom of God will finally triumph over the powers of sin, evil, suffering, injustice, and death.  

How, if we expected "work" and not a feeling or a belief, would our participation in this practice we call Christianity change?  And the specific "work" is the creation of a new humanity...

Maybe instead of Amazing Grace, our new theme song could be the the Dwarves song from Snow White...Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off to Work we Go!

Assumptions...

Caught the end of a news story about a school district somewhere which is feeding their students lunch mid-morning (10:30 ish).  The interview included a few administrators explaining that most of their kids are on the bus between 5:45 and 6:30 a.m and many might not have breakfast, so they decided this was a good thing to do.  Mostly, though, we heard the dissatisfied folks from the district, and then a spewing of condemnation from the talking heads on the news.

Now perhaps we could discuss why students need to be on a school bus at 5:45 in the morning, but here is the question I am left asking...

Do people really think the school administration and powers that be got together and said:

OK...I know how we can really screw up these children.  Let's force them to eat lunch at 10:30.  That will totally mess up their systems and their families and send everyone to therapy for the psychological damage and to physicians for the physical damage.  YES!  LET'S DO IT!!!

How do we live together, trusting that we are trying to do our best?  How do we deal with the few instances of people who shouldn't be trusted without refusing to trust everyone?  How do we learn to listen again to each other so we understand at the deepest levels what the other needs?  How does our faith fit into these questions, does it provide us a way forward or does it become yet another destructive force?

Answers would be welcomed!