“Wrestle”

Do you wrestle?

I had the privilege this weekend to sit in on two presentations led by Christian blogger and author Rachel Held Evans. At an afternoon session with the Arizona Foundation for Contemporary Theology she shared about the “evolving faith” of GenXers and Millenials, and what older Christians might do to minister with and to them. Then, at an evening session at Tempe First United Methodist Church she shared about her recent project, a “year of biblical womanhood.” (And, okay, I’ll be honest that that particular focus did not initially interest me, but I found her insights and her willingness to share about her faith refreshing and inspiring, so I attended after all…)

All of which is preface to share that Rachel’s comments, especially drawing from comments to this post, about the spiritual struggle of young adults resonated with me for a variety of reasons. In fact, when I arrived early for the evening presentation (I had nowhere else to go*), I shared with her that one of my favorite invite cards at our church read: You’ve got questions… on the front, with …so do we on the back.

Maybe it’s because I’m a part of Generation X myself, but I’ve not been bothered with the need to have answers to everything. Just like Mr. Henslowe repeatedly reminds us in Shakespeare in Love, when it comes to competing theological assertions I’m okay with the idea that “it’s a mystery.” Even John Wesley, the founder of my particular religious** tribe, basically instructed those who want to engage Scripture, when they come across a part they find particularly troublesome or difficult to understand, not to be overly anxious about it; but to return to it at some later date to then re-consider if it made more sense to them.

So struggling with faith, Scripture, doubt, etc. is not a foreign concept to me, and is something I readily embrace, even as one called to reach, preach, and teach.

So I’ve been reflecting the last two days that perhaps a good guiding image for what it means to seek a relationship with God comes from Genesis 32:24-31, where Jacob wrestles all night with a stranger (presumably God). The story includes the fact that Jacob is transformed as a result of his willingness to wrestle with God (e.g. his name is changed) and is blessed by God.

I have often said, “Faith is not the same as belief.” Belief indicates giving intellectual assent to some doctrine or teaching. Faith is about relationship; faith is about trust. And faith is very much about wrestling. After all, if God is so radically different and removed from human experience as to be considered “holy,” then our understandings of God must be challenged and transformed from time to time lest we re-make God in our own image. And so my childhood understandings of God and my relationship with Christ have undergone great  change through the years; but my underlying faith has generally been blessed as a result of wrestling with God, with concepts about God, with Scripture, etc.

So it is okay to wrestle when it comes to faith. Looking at Jacob/Israel’s example, we could say it is to be encouraged, as transformation and blessing can result. And it is also, I would dare say, far more normative than bedrock assurance.

Between his penultimate and final hospital stays this past year, my father had about a two month period first in a rehab / care center and then in his apartment. During the time, I overheard him talking with a chaplain once – and I later had a conversation with another pastor whom he had visited with for some time. At the end of his life, he was experiencing a struggle in faith. He had been asked by the more-evangelistic chaplain if he was “assured” what was going to happen if or when he died. With both the chaplain and my Methodist colleague, my father opened up and talked about his struggle. Raised in the church all his life, of late he had been wrestling with the question of what was going to happen; and whether he was heaven-bound, or not.

I, too, have visited with many individuals who, nearing the end of their lives, suddenly started asking questions about whether God would accept them or not. It often times makes me sad to hear such questions, not because I think it belies a lack of faith – indeed, I would argue quite the opposite! – but because it suggests that certain tenets of belief may have outweighed the person’s faith/relationship with God; because in their own times of difficulty, rather than the lavish welcoming father the prodigal son encountered they envisioned God as a remote judge validating their decisions…

I know I don’t get all things right. (Some days I could argue I get very little right!) But I do trust and love God, even though at times I debate the very existence of God. I understand that God’s love for me is not fully dependent on whether I’m right, even as I struggle with what Scripture or tradition indicate is appropriate or not. And, at a level deep within, I firmly trust that God loves all the world, even as I, like others, have to wrestle with why there is pain and suffering and abuse…

I believe wrestling with God is normal, and positive. Perhaps it is in the striving with God and others that the purity of heart I long for might arise. Perhaps it is in wrestling with tough questions where I might encounter greater understandings of God’s unlimited mercy and love.

During one of her presentations Rachel referenced a quote that I also find in my notes from The Academy for Spiritual Formation; a quote from author Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letter’s to a Young Poet that seems an appropriate place to end:

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

 

*This isn’t actually true. I took 30 minutes to walk from Tempe First up Mill Avenue, which I haven’t walked since 1995. Nostalgia kicked in big time – the Mill is just so radically changed from the days I was regularly visiting it…

**I intend to share more on my and others’ wrestling with the word “religion” in a future post…

“The Silver Bracelet” – Advent sermons/stories from 2008

Just posting here on the main page, as well, that I am sharing my Advent narrative from 2008 – “The Silver Bracelet” – which is based on Year B lectionary passages.

No doubt the astute among you will find that in addition to trying to craft a narrative about one woman’s life and experience of God, I also tried to integrate two theological teachings:

1. our Triune God (parts 2, 3, and 4 each try to emphasize one “person” of the Trinity)
2. three stages of grace (again, parts 2, 3, and 4 each try to illustrate “preventing” [or "prevenient"], justifying, and santcifying grace)

I hope you enjoy. And thank you for reading! Feel free to post comments here or on the main/starting page.

Blessings to you.

Hectic Pace

Hectic Pace (unfinished, from 10/5/2011)

One of the common problems that members of my congregations cite is the hectic lifestyle so many people experience today. Yet, when trying to compare that with an alternative, they fall short. Not only could they not think of an alternative, they cannot conceive of ministries to help people reach one. This, I think, is one of the core life issues for people the church needs to respond to, for the quality of one’s life is denigrated by the speed with which so many of us live it. The old cliche is to “take time to smell the roses,” and it holds a great deal of truth.
(From a November 29, 2004 entry in my journal – edited for this post)

Seven years later, and these words strike me as just as powerfully true and needed today as they did then. In these intervening years, in both charges I have served – Armstrong/Dunlap in Illinois, and Song of Life in Arizona – I have run one series on slowing down the pace, drawing from Kirk Byron Jone’s book “Addicted to Hurry.” Yet I, as do many of our church members, still feel the crunch of deadlines and the hurry that permeates our lives.

On Facebook today I was alerted to a TED talk on limiting stuff and living in smaller space. There was nothing particularly novel in the presentation, but it remains an important lesson that we seem to need to learn. My perception of the talk leads me to reflect that perhaps just as we take the amount of space we have and then over-fill it with stuff, so we do with our time: whether it be personal time or professional time, we overfill it. We attempt to fill our time with more “stuff” than it can contain; but, in this case, we can’t send things off-site for storage!

I am not the only one to recognize that we are over-booked, over-committed, and over-whelmed. It is, by far, the modern norm – and one that I believe the church needs to share a viable alternative to.

Remember Jerry McGuire? Part of the midnight epiphany that led to his Catcher In The Rye-like assertion to pursue “less (agents), less money…”, Jerry also discovered a means to greater meaning. (He also discovered a young Rene Zelweger, but I digress!)

I wonder: do we fill our lives with stuff and activity because we are lacking meaning?

Are we unable – or just unwilling? – to stem the tide of cultural and social pressures? And what does an alternative look like? It is much easier to reflect on what it is like to live with less stuff, or in smaller space. But to reflect on being less hurried, less committed, less busy… I’m unsure. What does that look like?

Perhaps The Academy For Spiritual Formation gives me one image of such life, but it is clear that weeks in the Academy are obviously an exception for participants, and not the norm. A slower life balancing study, work, prayer, and reflection after the example of monastic communities is, by its nature, difficult to achieve outside of a cloistered community!

As I reflect on this, I wonder: what alternative to the hurried and hectic pace of life today have you experienced? How do you think the Church can speak to helping people create a healthy alternative?

Great Expectations

Great Expectations (an unfinished entry from 9/21/2011)

Q: What may we reasonably believe to be God’s design, in raising up the preachers called Methodists?
A: To reform the Continent, and spread scripture holiness through these lands.
(1784 Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church)

The above Q & A is taken directly from the first edition of our Discipline, the 1784 Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church created with the founding of our denomination at the Christmas Conference in Baltimore. Recent events have led me to reflect on a similar question, and the radically different answer I perceive being exerted upon me and my fellow clergy colleagues:

Q: What do you think we might reasonably believe is God’s intent and desire for our Methodist leaders?
A: To save the United Methodist institution.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’ve been snarky and skeptical (and even, to my shame, cynical) plenty before, but I have always loved our Church and our heritage. Even as a seminarian championing “we need to change!” in order to reach GenX and Millennials, I was formed in and through our Church. I was influenced by Christians of deep passion and serious thought, and continue to grow in my admiration for John and Charles Wesley and the earliest Methodist movement.

But lately – as our Church and leaders continue to require new ministries and “practices of fruitful churches” and “Calls to Action” and tools for “vital congregations” and surveys about “church vitality,” etc. – I’ve begun to feel further out of place than I did as a young(er) clergy person championing for change. Suddenly everyone is encouraging change – but (it seems to me) there is an aimlessness to it. We have gravitated to a number of programs or gurus or dashboards or other indicators and methods for change, sometimes complementary and sometimes conflicting. And if our leadership is questioned about it, we’re simply told “it’s all important.”

I love our history and our Wesleyan roots, but frankly I am increasingly discouraged that the unwritten expectation for our clergy at large – and younger clergy specifically! – is that we will make the changes (and, often, sacrifices) to save the ship. Mission statements or challenges from our denominational leaders increasingly sound and feel like they are coming from a survivor mentality rather than a true passion for Jesus Christ. Our desire for change seems motivated more by a desire to save ourselves, rather than a true desire to fulfill Christ’s Great Commission. Indeed, I have heard our leaders tell us that we need to start new churches not to save new people, but to increase the number of Methodists to sustain our Church!

At the same time, we young clergy can expect to lose what has been the equivalent of “tenure” for decades – e.g. guaranteed appointments for ordained elders – while also being held accountable for greater growth and health than the church has known since 1965! We will continue to be expected to itinerate – going where we are told to go – and then evaluated as to whether we effectively “fit” the community we serve. Even as our conference structures are loathe to change insurance or pension plans for our current retirees, it is no far stretch to recognize that retirement for currently active clergy will be diminished and more challenging. In short, the current path of leaders focused on our struggling institution will continue to negatively impact our clergy, leading to increasing feelings of alienation and isolation.

As clergy respond to a difficult but often irresistible calling from God to lead others in making “disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world,” we feel pulled in multiple directions to support, sustain, or outright save the denomination. Not to be a Negative Nancy, but I hear this struggle from too many of my colleagues to ignore it, and it deeply concerns me.

So what do we do?

I believe that our hope, and the foundation for any substantive or positive change in our situation, lies in the (re)discovery that as pastoral leaders, our primary calling is doing our best to follow Jesus and bring others to follow Jesus. As Methodists, we do so – we live, serve, and journey as servant leaders of Jesus Christ – in the company and guidance of the Wesleys and other Methodists. Our heritage (and denomination) is a resource to aid our mission, not a sacred cow to drive numeric goal-setting.

Our focus needs to be not on the institution, but on the people around us and the unique means our Wesleyan heritage has of sharing the message of the Good News of Jesus Christ. Which naturally leads to the all important questions: why do we, and our neighbors, need Jesus Christ? This question, taught for decades by Bill Easum and others who would coach churches, remains the ultimate question we are called to ask of ourselves and our churches.

Perhaps instead of worrying about how we will grow the church, we need to spend more time focusing on questions related to why we need Jesus today. I can’t even say I know the right questions, but I think I might start with some like…

What are the real – and felt – needs of the communities we serve in that Jesus would address if he were here?
What issues facing our neighbors might faith in Jesus Christ positively impact?
How can re respond to our neighbors’ needs in such a way as to fulfill our mission to “make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world”?
How can Jesus help with the disintegrating sense of family and community felt by so many?
How can Jesus and Christian faith help overcome social additions to hurry and material possessiveness?
How can our daily choices and teachings encourage people toward the life of holy happiness God calls us to (eg. “spread Scriptural holiness”)?
How can the witness of our faith, the ministries of our churches, and the very vocations of our lives (whether we be clergy or laity) positively impact our communities (e.g. “reform the Continent” or “transform the world”)?

Listening For God

I’m thinking tonight about some of the ways that we can listen for God. Like any important discussion, time in prayer with God has to include time for listening. Sure, we pour out our heart – or, as Paul wrote in Philippians 4, “in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” – and express our deepest desires, and (hopefully!) express our willingness to know and follow God’s will. But it is also important to take some time to listen.

Many more wise than I have shared ways of listening for God over the years, but I thought I’d go ahead and share a few ideas:

Search the Scriptures

Searching the Scriptures is a term used by John Wesley, drawing from John 5, to refer to the various ways we can engage Scripture to know Christ. Wesley shared that it can be in reading, or through eharing sermons, or even in other means.

The next time you’re seeking to know and hear God, consider finding ways to engage God through Scripture. You might…

• flip through the Psalms or Proverbs, seeking a word
• open your Bible randomly, and see what you find
• slowly read a section of the Gospels to hear Jesus’ word to you.

Listen to your discomfort

I believe that there is often an aspect of God’s word or will for us when we experience discomfort or anxiety about something in prayer… Consider that the central Christian idea of metanoia – repentance – has to first be rooted in our recognition of our need to change, and this is generally associated with dis-ease. The Greek word used in the New Testament for salvation can also mean healing; hence, the salvation we experience through repentance is like being healed of disease.

Seek your peace

When seeking to hear the word of God, consider where your heart is at peace. In considering different potential responses or outcomes – and this is more specific to your own actions – where do you feel a degree of deep peace with the move. Where dis-ease can be a sense of our need to follow God’s call to move in the right direction or make an important change, a sense of true peace with a decision can be God’s word of assurance.

Listen to others

I believe that God often brings particular people into our lives for a reason. Perhaps in listening to those you respect and trust, you can also discern God speaking to you.

Go for a walk

Sometimes, you just need to get outdoors, away from the distractions of television and iPhone, to sense the presence of God. Get out, and see if you sense God’s direction in the quiet of the morning, in the light of a setting sun, or perhaps in the sound of a bird singing…

Those are just a few ideas rambling around in my mind this evening, but I would love to hear your ideas of ways you seek to listen to God. Please feel free to share!

When the Church gets it right…

Our denomination is working on a “call to action” – ideally a call for the revitalization of the church in the world – in response to its ongoing work of discernment and improvement. I’ll be sharing thoughts on this direction of the Church at large, but before I start wanted to share a related reflection about when the church gets it right…

My family and I just returned from a two week vacation, most of which was spent with members of Lynn’s family in Florida. We did what she calls the “whirlwind tour” of the state, spending time with her parents, one of her sisters, and her grandparents. She and I also spent three nights just to ourselves – something we have not had since Will was born 4 1/2 years ago.

I share that just to give some context, because I actually want to write a bit about when the local church gets things right. Both examples come during the time of this vacation.

The night before our last full day in Florida, a major storm moved through the area. High winds, thunder, and some rain came through late night / early morning (it woke us up around 3am). When we got up in the morning, damage around Lynn’s parents’ place was not bad… but then we heard that one of her mother’s (Joyce) colleagues at school had major damage around her house, was “blocked in,” and without power.

So as the ladies loaded up materials for sandwiches, Will and Kate made their usual messes in the living room, and Lynn’s dad (Bill) and I loaded a generator onto the trailer. When everything was found and ready, we rode out to the home and spent a couple hours there helping.

I fired up Bill’s chainsaw and did a bit of cutting (not very well – I had to use a chisel to free the blade at one point!), and did a bit more of moving logs out of the way away from the house and fence. Bill attached the right plug onto an extension cable and managed to get power to the home (the trees that had fallen around the house knocked down power lines in at least two places). Lynn and Joyce made lunches while Will and Kate ran around with the kids getting in everyone’s way.

I had various thoughts about the morning during and after, and much of them came back to the way of life in rural and small towns around the nation. My experiences in Woodland and Marshall, Illinois, as well as that morning’s experience of going out to help a neighbor – and Bill was out most of the rest of the day, helping another neighbor fix a broken water line (granted, he had stepped on it, but still!) – are very often the norm, not the exception.

Recalling my suburban life with my parents, I mentioned to Lynn at one point that this was something that appealed to me about rural life. Back home, people might very well have to wait for state employees or some business to come and help. In small towns, people still seem to take the initiative to reach out to their neighbor. (Indeed, just that morning Joyce was making a dish to take to a family that had suffered a sudden death the day before.)

A very similar thing occurred in our local church just as Lynn and I were leaving for our vacation. The husband of one of our church’s members was very ill in Alaska at the time, and members of the church rallied around her to support her, even managing to get her tickets to fly to Alaska. We connected her with a pastor in Alaska who was a God-send, offering her a place to stay, transportation, and some needed pastoral care. She went, and was with her husband when he passed away.

This whole experience was sudden and unexpected, and all the more difficult because of the distance that initially separated the couple. Her flight out was the day after ours, and I was in touch with members back home (in AZ) as well as the pastor in Alaska during the time.

The members of our church – as well as others in the community who have been connected with us at one time or another – rallied around this woman to support her through a trying, traumatic experience. I just sat with her and her daughters today, and they expressed just how thankful they were for the love and care the church members extended to their mother.

And here is the thing: in this instance, our church’s members were the church for this woman, in all the right ways, in all the ways that mattered. They’ve prayed with her, shared their airline miles to get her to Alaska, helped her connect with others there, and supported her with visits and food and in other ways since she returned. In some cases, our church’s members have given up their own resources – even, perhaps, their own dreams of how to use them – to support another member of the community.

This is when I am the most hopeful to be a part of a local congregation or community – when people can give of themselves, not expecting anything in return, to help out others. Jesus demonstrated the nature of love, taught us to love God and neighbor, and called us to be His followers. Paul teaches that this means we are to be His Body in the world, to literally be Christ for others. One way we do this is when we go beyond ourselves to care for others – whether its for a colleague who attends another church, or for a member of our local congregation going trough tragedy.

This is when we get it (church) right.

Simple

Just a quick post today from my pad, to note the confluence of the following article that I read on Harvard Business Review this morning with a friend’s recommendation that I read the book “Simple “Church.”

Here’s the article link, about our 2,300 year run of “information overload”…

http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/mar2011/ca20110315_654306.htm