For the Season of Easter...Henri Nouwen's "In the Name of Jesus"

There is no voice better to help us hear clearly the the call of Jesus, and what the life of the disciple of the Crucified and Risen Christ looks like than Henri Nouwen.

His powerful little book, In the Name of Jesus, will be our guide, as well as the post resurrection conversation between Jesus and Peter, as recorded in the Gospel of John. Share with Lora Jean and me as we re-read this oft read book, and find new meaning for living faithfully during this upcoming season of Easter.

"Come One, Come All to the Greatest Show On Earth" or "Glenn Beck Is an Idiot"

Wow.

I haven't even been on my blog in so long I forgot my login.

I wonder what that means?

Hmmm.

Anyoldway, I'm back at it. In the months since I last posted anything, much has happened.

Let me, in short order, address a few things.

First things first.

I don't watch Glenn Beck. Heck, until I came home from work one day and my father in law was at the house watching Fox News, I didn't even know that my TV would go to that channel... :)

I know and I love a lot of people who watch GOPTV, I mean, Fox News. That's fine, enjoy. You're certainly free to do that. I prefer to watch my fiction on other channels. Ain't America great!

I'm usually of the mind to ignore bombastic pomposity. But not this.

About Mr. Beck's recent comments on "social justice," the Church and the Gospel, anyone who honestly believes the drivel he has spewed about what is at the heart of the Christian mission and tending to the least of these, and feels compelled to leave any church that preaches it...see you later.

It matters not if you're right or left on the political or theological spectrum, his read of the Gospel is completely and utterly wrong.

It is not merely a matter of opinion. He's free to have one. But you know what opinions are like.

He is just plain wrong. I think he knows it, too. Truth is, I don't really care what he thinks. He's just one of many TV talking head blowhards who make their bones on keeping the pot stirred up. He is a 21st century carnival barker who is charismatic enough to convince you to come see the show, only to walk away later with your wallet a bit lighter and a bottle of snake oil in your hands.

My concern is for those who watch him and confuse commentary with fact.

Now, I am admittedly not on the right wing side of theological or political perspectives.

Never have been.

What is more inherently resonant in my spirit can best be described in the title of one of William Sloane Coffin's books, "The Heart is a Little to the Left."

But many of my friends and colleagues who are of that persuasion understand as do those of my friends and colleagues on the left that Matthew 25, Luke 4, Acts 2-4 (just for starters) are unequivocal about what matters to God, to Jesus and to any who would be so audacious as to admit that they are Companions of Christ.

In fact, it has been my experience as a pastor that it is such a clear understanding of this mission that best bridges the wide range of theological and political perspectives. There's something about being mandated by Jesus to tend to the least of these, or reading the Hebrew Prophets (Micah 6, anyone?), that serves as the common ground that brings the Church together.

I know of what I speak. I've served congregations that work at the conscious choice of successfully bridging the most conservative and liberal of people around the mandates of the Gospel.

I've lived through a couple of natural disasters in which the widest range of the Church rolled up their sleeves and worked together not for their own sake, but because they understood that this is what Christians do.

The only thing Christians are called to hold in common are the teachings and mandates of Jesus, each of which invariably ends up with love of God expressed through love of neighbor, especially the least among us. We can approach our lives and our politics from varying perspectives, to be sure, but in the end, it is the heart and mind of Christ that trumps all.

And when it doesn't--it's idolatry.

My experience tells me that right and left need each other. They'd never admit it, but surely it must be so.

When left to their own devices, there is no check and no balance. And when we loose our balance, it could be because we've contracted a case of spiritual vertigo.

Any with ears to hear, let them hear: to co-opt Beck's rhetoric and act upon it as if it's of Christ or for the Christian Church is blasphemy. I rarely use such language, but because Beck's disciples seem to follow every little word that comes out of his mouth, such people need to decide who is their Teacher on this one--

Jesus or Glenn.

Late Night II

My feelings on who should have gotten The Tonight Show when Johnny retired are well documented in this blog. Johnny wanted Dave. Dave earned it. But Jay got it.

That's a life lesson. Life's not always fair. And true enough, as much as many of us still have a hard time imagining anyone but Johnny in that chair, NBC owns the program, and can do with it what it chooses.

And the company has been making a lot of choices lately...and as it is with any choice we make in life, we have to live with the consequences of it.

What Late Night II has brought, however, is a revisiting of Late Night I.

Letterman has said more publicly about Jay in the past two weeks than he has in almost 20 years. Whatever comic amusement there may or may not be about this whole deal, I thought last night's extemporaneous rant came about as close as anything proving life's principle that unresolved conflict always resurfaces.

But it may be something other than that. In some strange way, I'm wondering if this whole mess with Conan has been cathartic for Dave. When Whoopi came on the other night, as she was taking her chair beside Dave, she could be heard saying, "Don't you feel vindicated?" He blew it off, but you have to wonder.

Here's last night's take. To keep the clip down to about 5 minutes, CBS edited out about 90 seconds that was really good stuff in which he recalled his taking leave from NBC....he recalled the head honchos coming to his office to tell him that he wasn't getting The Tonight Show, and Dave reacting by saying that it was clear there was no longer a place for him at NBC, and then looking elsewhere. When this spiel started, you could tell he was only going to say a couple of things...start his little comedy bit and move on...but his internal editor wouldn't kick in...and just when you think he's done, here come's some more.

Listen to Your Life, An Invitation

What does God want me to do with my life?

Isn't that the question that lives in each of us as some point?

Or, how about this one - Am I doing what God wants me to do? And if I'm not, why not?

We treat that question as if it's something we can't know the answer to absent some "Damascus Road blinding light" -or - "Moses and the burning bush experience."

Whenever I broach this question with lay people, invariably I hear that it's easy for me because I'm a member of the clergy, God made it abundantly clear what I was supposed to do.

Ahhh, Right.

Keep on believing that if you must, but ask any of us who have accepted ordination's yoke of obedience and see if it was always or is still crystal clear. Trust me, this a call that's not answered without a Divine wrestling match worthy of Jacob first.

Most of us come away with an answer and a bit of limp.

Being the spiritually impatient people we are, we tend to think that unless the signs in life blink in neon or are posted on a billboard, it's something we can never fully know.

The result of our impatience is the living our days hoping against hope that the life we're living is exactly what God wants for us - or, what God needs from us . Deep down, though, given our own power to choose - we'll always tend to live in ways that will require less risk of us and more security. And we'll "bless" that safe choice with God language as a cover for our fears and insecurities.

Starting this Sunday, and there following for four weeks, I invite you into a conversation with God and each other through a congregational emphasis based upon Parker Palmer's book, "Let Your Life Speak: Listening to the Voice of Vocation."

This will be the fodder for a series of sermons that I'll preach beginning this Sunday, January 24, in all services. Lora Jean will be facilitating our Wednesday night conversations in which we'll consider the gifts we've been given and how that matches the call we may yet answer. She will also be using Palmer's book as a guide for the women's midweek study beginning on January 27.

I invite you now to start listening to your life. What is it saying? What is God saying to you through it? The problem with listening well to the voice of God as spoken through our lives, is that we may not like what we hear. The temptation to ignore what we hear is real. So, too, is the tendency to immerse ourselves in guilt for not being what God desires of us. But guilt is an escape mechanism from doing and being what we really called to be.

I first crafted sermons around this book in the Summer of 2007. In revisiting the material I prepared then, I'm amazed at how much life has been lived since and what of God I've been called to embrace as new and different. I've learned something in the process. God's call is constant, sure, and it is always surprising. The result of that "fresh listening" will manifest itself in the sermons crafted over the next several weeks.

So, join me in a time to stop, to listen, and then be prepared to respond to the voice of vocation being uttered right in front of us, even within us, waiting to be embraced.

Of All The Things Being Said About Tiger, At This Point I'll Only Say This . . .

....and still

the undisputed King...

Jack Nicklaus


As it should be . . .

A Pastoral Letter on the Current Crisis at The Med

For the past couple of years, I've had the joy of being in fellowship with a special group of clergy and their spouses. We represent a cross section of Memphis and Shelby County. We are black, white, urban and suburban, high church, contemporary, interfaith...I was at Saint John's when I first became a part of this group, and have remained in my move east representing Cordova, along with my next door neighbor, Craig.

We fellowship with each other throughout the year- we avoid "preacher" stuff when we get together. Rather, we seek to be friends to one another. In what must seem the definition of irony, we who have answered the call of this vocation often find ourselves the most lonely. I bear witness that this can be so. To have this unique fellowship is a means of grace.

Only on one previous occasion have we marshaled our resources to speak as a group. It was during the horrific murders on Lester Street last year. We find it necessary to speak again. As I did during the Lester Street response, I was asked to write a pastoral response from our group on the current situation regarding The Med. Although the final version may deviate from this one just a bit, this word represents us all. We will be sharing this with our congregations seeking to join our voices for the good of our community. We invite all people of faith to join with us in this quest.

Dear Sisters and Brothers of Faith,

As clergy leaders from across Memphis and Shelby County, we celebrate the unity shared in common fellowship. We have found our resolve strengthened, and our love of and deep desire for a city that lives up to the fullest measure of its slogan – the “city of good abode” equally true for all of its citizens. Because of our friendship and fellowship, the better nature of our faith traditions and theological perspectives transcend divergent viewpoints, which too often serve to divide our community.

Today, we stand uniformly and unequivocally gathered around the question of care for the most vulnerable of our society, the least of these, and those pushed to the margins unable to access life’s basic needs because they are poor. The mandates of the Hebrew Bible and the Holy Gospels on this point are unyielding and unavoidable.

In the current climate, this question is manifest most profoundly in the poor’s inability to access proper healthcare in the City of Memphis. Like the rest of Memphis and Shelby County, we have heard the dire warnings of the imminent closure within The Med’s Emergency Department in February, 2010. We find such an option untenable for our community and we call upon elected officials and community leaders to explore all creative and appropriate means to sustain The Med through this crisis as long term solutions for indigent healthcare are studied and implemented.

While the circumstances prompting this crisis are complex, the need for sustainable care is constant. The Med’s role in offering this care to our community is essential. The impact of closure will ripple from the river’s edge across Shelby County and beyond. And surely, it is those in greatest need with least ability to access care who will most suffer. Our unwillingness to respond to this crisis will serve as an indictment upon the character of our community.

As clergy and pastoral leaders, we are compelled to the urgency of this moment. We invite our congregants to join us in appealing to our elected officials and community leaders to make a way for The Med’s services to continue unabated. While this is not solely a political question, political courage will be necessary to sustain The Med. We believe it to be a matter of faith for the common welfare of the people—our neighbors, our sisters and brothers. We call upon our congregants to join us in a season of prayer for our leaders that wisdom will prevail over political expediency.

Join us as we advocate for the least of these in the name of our Loving God.

Recalibration

For the past several months I’ve asked the congregation to sit with me and assess our compass heading.

Where are we?

Where are we going?

To what do we aspire?

How do we bridge the gap between where we are to where we feel God’s leading?

Your input has been very informative and has helped me understand Covenant in context. It is in no small part the fruit of those prayerful Christian conversations that has given rise to our shift in Sunday morning scheduling, set to launch January 3, 2010.

Covenant in context. That has been a key for me.

We who have been to seminary and had to endure, oops, I mean enjoy courses on Biblical interpretation are very familiar with a German phrase that guides interpretation of Holy Scripture. The phrase is “sitz im leben.” It is translated “setting in life.” When we read Scripture, beyond what we think it says, or what we think it means for us, we must first be guided by the notion of what it meant to those who first heard it, who first received it. What was their setting in life that prompted such words to be offered in the first place?

I have been studying our “setting in life” for these months upon my arrival as your pastor. I could not with any integrity whatsoever articulate any change in the rhythm of our church without knowing our context, living in it with you, and determining whether a shift was warranted in the first place.

It is from that perspective I offered my strongest sense that we needed to recalibrate our course for two primary reasons. The first is to claim outright that each worship experience has value and requires the fullest measure of attention from each of our clergy every week. And the second reason depends upon the first. That is, it is time for Covenant to stand up and proclaim its distinct Methodist witness in Cordova. It is time for us to set our course toward growth, in outreach, mission, ministry and evangelism.

For Covenant to be the Church we could be, and what The United Methodist Church needs us to be, we must focus upon the scores of people who are not yet a part of our fellowship, but because of this course recalibration, will come to be integral to our community of faith. To that end we offer this shift.

I know only too well how jarring it can be to make a change like this. I have studied, prayed, talked, conferred, sought counsel from every level of the Church, spent too many sleepless nights, and anguished over where we needed to go. After living in this context for some months, the one thing I concluded was that the status quo was not going to allow Covenant to make its best and most effective witness for the long term.

With this change, we make room for growth in Sunday Schools that right now we do not have. We create an additional hour every Sunday morning for groups to form. I’m encouraging all classes to consider the implications of this shift on their group and to consider their decisions investments in Covenant’s future. If very large groups are willing to split and seed new groups that would be great, although it needs to come gladly and willingly. I'm not intentionally forcing any group to split. Groups who seek to remain intact and find this shift makes it difficult to do so on Sunday mornings are encouraged to find other ways, other times to be together.

With this change, Lora Jean and I can be present at each service. This one was big for me. I determined after awhile living with this schedule that I could no longer abide the thought that on any given Sunday I was missing seeing up to 1/3 of my worshipping congregation. For a new guy trying to learn your stories and take the journey with you, to miss 1/3 of you a week makes something that in the best of circumstances takes time virtually untenable.

I’ve heard opinions aplenty of what I needed to do about our context. Do we go from 3 services to 2? And if we did, which services got forcibly merged? And what kind of spirit would reign in a service of forcibly merged people? Hmmm. I wonder?

Here’s what I’ve determined. Covenant, regardless of what it was way back when, is this – a congregation of very distinct worship styles each of which deserves expression and the full attention of your pastoral leaders.

My most pressing concern in the proposed change, however, was the impact on our Children and Youth. I asked Zack and Tara to study options with me. Could our ministries on Sundays bear up to this change and find creative ways to accommodate and make consequences of the change a good thing. I believe they have created models where that is the case and I’m thankful for their thoughtful and dedicated work.

From the beginning of my time with you, I’ve asked us to aspire to unity, not uniformity. In fact, it is our diversity of expression and experience that no longer needs to be considered a liability to the Church’s future. I believe it to be among our greatest assets. What will unify us Sunday to Sunday is the presence of our clergy, the creative ways in which classes and small groups form and grow and seed new classes that will form and grow and so on. It is those moments through the year when we all come together and bring a spirit of unity to our common worship experience like we did in August on Rally Sunday (although I promise we won’t go 1:45!).

This recalibration is a corner turned on the cusp of a new year. I invite you, I urge you to join me in it.

Covenant, it’s time.

Right here. Right now.