Presbyterian Heritage Sunday

Today in church, we celebrated Presbyterian Heritage Sunday. This morning, Presbyterian churches across the country took a minute to sit back and remember who we are, who we as Presbyterians claim to be, and what we have done for the world and in the world.

All of which leaves this a prime Sunday for some Presbyterian jokes. Now, perusing the internet, there aren’t as many Presbyterian jokes as one might think – most seem to be reserved for the Catholics and the Baptists, but I’ve put together a few of my favorites. So here goes:

What is a Presbyterian? A Presbyterian is a Baptist who likes to drink but doesn't have enough money to be Episcopalian.

During a Presbyterian worship service a man began to be moved by the Spirit.

Out loud he said "Amen!" People around him were a little disturbed.

Then louder he said, "Hallelujah!" A few more people were becoming disturbed.

Louder still he shouted "Praise Jesus!"

An usher moved quickly down the aisle. He bent over and whispered to the man, "Sir! Control yourself!"

The man exclaimed, "I can't help it. I got religion!!!"

To which the usher responded, "Well you didn't get it here!"

How many Presbyterians does it take to change a light bulb?
10. 9 to form a committee and 1 to change the bulb.

All great jokes, and they all highlight a sense of the priorities we might find in our Presbyterian congegations. Presbyterians greatest strength is our sense of community. More than anyone else, Presbyterians are all about community. From the local church, to our Presbytery regions, to our national General Assembly, Presbyterians go out of their way to be in community with one another – for better or worse, to be a family.

I’ve always thought of Hebrews 12 as kind of the Presbyterian identifier. More than another other Bible excerpt, this passage tells us who we are as a community of believers. The author of Hebrews, who some scholars believe was a female Jew, has just recited a litany of Isreal’s past, of heroes important to the Jewish faith – people like Abraham and Jacob, Abel, Enoch, even the prostitute Rahab.

According to the author of Hebrews, each of these people bring something unique to their community.

The people who have gone before, the people who are with her community now, those who share with her in this newly formed Christian faith, all of them make up her cloud of witnesses. These heroes of the faith are the bystanders along the race of her life – cheering her on to the finish line where God calls her to be.

The author Hebrews, reminds her community that each individual brings something unique to the party. Each person’s background, each voice brings something special to their family. For her, it’s the differences that make her group stronger.

To put it another way, Presbyterians are like a large scale version of the Breakfast Club. The breakfast club is one of the quintessential bad 80s movies we all love. The plot follows five students at a fictional Shermer High School in the suburbs as Chicago as they report for Saturday detention. While not complete strangers, the five teenagers are each from a different clique or social group.

The five students, who seem to have nothing in common at first, come together it seems, only to be harassed by the antagonistic principal,  who orders them not to speak or move from their seats They are forced to remain together, despite their protests, in a locked library. In fact, The principal leaves them mostly unsupervised, returning only occasionally to check on them. The students pass the hours in a variety of ways. mostly of the movie arguing and fighting with each other. The students call each other names and belittle one another.

Through this argument and disagreement, they also discover some eerie similarities. These students who are seemingly so different discover that they all have strained relationships with their parents and are afraid of making the same mistakes as the adults around them. In the end, this divergent group of thinkers make out their own unique little group – strange, quirky and unusual – but all together a club that’s special only to them. Like a big dysfunctional family, the breakfast club disagrees, but end up loving each other anyway.

This is our Presbyterian legacy, what makes us unique. We accept different viewpoints, we seek out people from different places, with different stories, with unique backgrounds. We are community who comes to support one another, to be witnesses for each other in midst of struggle and strife.

For better or worse we are family. That’s what makes us unique. We say, that in the end, if all we can be as a church is a cloud of witnesses for each other than that is enough. For Presbtyerian being a community is the highest calling. We are unique, we are each of us different. It is through the combination of our voices, through the harmony of our lives that we become stronger, in our faith, in our life, in our walk with God.

We are Family. We are Presbyterians.

God Loves a Loser

Americans don’t really like losers. I mean, that’s probably a pretty obvious statement. Our society doesn’t like people who lose - and we don’t like losing very much ourselves. American lives are, to quote Charlie Sheen, about winning.

There are people whose entire careers are dedicated to avoiding loss. It’s not called “not losing” of course – we call it risk management or “shrink avoidance” or industrial security. Or, as I’ve come to appreciate – insurance adjusting. Some people will spend their entire lives calculating risk vs. reward. In other words – if we try this, what’s our chance at losing?

Our societies avoidance of losing goes beyond the business sector, however. Ask one of our teenagers about the last time they “lost” a video game? It actually can’t be done. Video game producers have taken the chance of losing out of games entirely. You can quit, sure. You can just stop playing the game. But you can’t lose. And if, by chance, you do almost lose (that is, the game gets too hard) there are a number of websites and books poised to help you win by revealing the games secrets. It’s is virtually impossible to actually lose a video game.

All of this is because Americans don’t like losers. When people lose, we avoid them, we degrade them. Our society is structured so that we can always be winners.

This winning obsession is not so bad, except for when we turn to the Bible. God’s redemption story is all about people who are screw ups, who make mistakes, who – in essence – are losers. God loves the loser.

And nobody is a bigger loser than Stephen. Stephen is known for many things – perhaps Stephen’s most famous for instituting a vital ministry in Jerusalem dedicated to caring for the poor in money and spirit. Stephen was one of the first Christian mission workers – a losing cause to be sure. How could one person possibly feed all of the hungry in the world?

I guess you could say that Stephen was a sucker for a lost cause. And so, when the chief priest’s bring him in front of the court – when all they want is for Stephen to say, “you know what? Maybe I didn’t really mean that the way it sounded.” Which would have been the risk conscious way to respond– As soon as the Chief Priest appears, there’s a sense this situation isn’t going to work out well for poor Stephen.

And in the end, as the reader knows must happen, Stephen loses. I don’t know that there is a definition of winning in the world that includes being stoned to death by an angry mob. Angry mobs are usually a sign that someone’s not on the right strategy. And Stephen, from a risk vs. reward perspective, was definitely not on the right track. In the end, he lost. Stephen dies, beaten, bleeding, dragged down a street by his friends and neighbors.

God’s redemption story is all about people who are screw ups, who make mistakes, who – in essence – are losers. God loves the loser.

Which leaves us, the church, somewhere in the middle. We in limbo between a society that preaches safety – personal, financial, emotional, psychological safety – and a God who says “Risk everything. Take a chance at losing.” It’s a choice, between a society of winners and a God of losers.

Many of you may have been following the rapture story this week. Harold Camping, an evangelical radio host and “pastor”, had decided he could calculate the exact date – and time – of the rapture using both biblical and archealogical evidence, despite there being almost no reference to a rapture in the Bible (It’s 1 Thess 4, if your interested) and literally thousands of scholars contradicting his assumptions.

Mr. Camping was convinced.

So, His church promptly went out and put up bill boards. Behold, the judgment day is here – they said – be prepared. Like a weird town crier, this church declared
The Rapture is coming! And They stuck by their account. May 21^st, 6pm. Kiss your loved ones goodbye – cause the rapture is upon us.

Now, looking around this morning, I’m going to boldly predict that the rapture didn’t happen. Or, it did – and we were all left behind, in which case this should have been a different blog post.

It’s easy to poke fun, to ridicule the idea and the people who have it. The jokes almost write themselves.

And yet, the rapture believers persisted. The whole world – literally – was laughing at them, ridiculing them. And yet they stood by their belief, perhaps misguided, they stood up for what they believed to be true.

I wonder how willing we are to do the same. I wonder how many times in a day we diminish or downplay our faith. How many times do we hide or disguise what we believe to make others comfortable, so others won’t lump us in with the losers like this doomsday cults or the idiots who handle snakes.

Are we really that afraid of risk?

Are we really that afraid of being called names?

We don’t even believe anything that radical, really. We’re Mainline Protestants! Our church reflects the mainstream of religious belief. Few of us are declaring rapture. Yet, we hide.

It is safer to hide then it is to venture out into the world.

We are less likely to lose if we stay inside our four walls.

But it not losing actually winning?

Stephen lost.

Stephen lost big time.

We won’t lose if we don’t play the game.

God loves the loser.

Expertise

In Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court”, we hear the story of Hank Morgan  a 19th-century resident of Hartford, Connecticut who, after a blow to the head, awakens to find himself inexplicably transported back in time to early medieval England at the time of the legendary King Arthur.

Hank is ridiculed at King Arthur's court for his strange appearance and dress, but quickly turns the situation around by banking on his knowledge of history. You see, he’d learned all about King Arthur’s courts and times during his school years.

Throughout the story, Hank is always muttering under his breath about the poor, ignorant people of King Arthur’s time. Don’t they know how superior life would be with modern conveniences? If only, Hank thought, they would do things my way. Wouldn’t their life be grand?

These poor simpletons don’t know what they’re missing. Hank believed he had all the answers, knew exactly the right path. And he was more than willing to take over. Hank believed his ideas were better, smarter, and the absolute correct truth.

Hank’s sin is a lot like our sin. Modern American’s identify with Hank because Americans are Hank. We may not be from Connecticut, or Yankees for that matter, but all of those, deep inside are like Hank.

You see, Americans live their lives like we’re in a giant Holiday Inn Express commercial. You know the one where the person is suddenly able to perform Brain Surgery. When everyone questions their knew found expertise -  “Don’t worry” they say, “I slept at a Holiday Inn Express last night.”

In our culture, everyone’s an expert. On everything. We’re all smarter than the University’s football coach “I never would have called that play.” We’re smarter than the judges on American idol. We’re know more about Dancing than Carrie Ann Inaba (whether we’ve ever danced or not). We know better how to run the world. President Obama (or Bush, take your pick) is an idiot. Why doesn’t he do… ..

Americans are all experts. Wouldn’t it just be better if everyone agreed with me? Wouldn’t everything be better if everyone would just do why I want? I know what’s best, I know what’s absolutely right. Americans all experts.

Hidden in the midst of all that expertness is the idea that our own, individual perspective on the world is supreme. Our world of the world is THE world view to have. Surely, we think, everyone must agree with me!

But God didn’t create us to be the same. God didn’t create us all to be alike, to be copies of each other. God wants us to celebrate our diversity!

We need diverse voices in the church, and in all our communities. Stories about the Holy Spirit are usually stories about how much God loves diversity, and how God gives more and more people the ability to speak.  In this gathering, the church, we need many voices. We need all of your voices.

Presbyterians have always believed in more than one idea. More than one perspective. Presbyterians usually go for the more understandable kind of diversity. The New Testament kind, I guess. We ask for the Holy Spirit to gather us together and to make this diverse group of people into a community.

It’s certainly tempting to try to be the masters of our own little universes. Sometimes we try to arrange our lives so that we will be like that single, solitary, self-sufficient monarch on a throne issuing orders that must be followed. Or we try to arrange our lives so that we just won’t need any kind of help from anybody. Or we get scared of the profound differences between us and our neighbors, and we try to control our neighborhoods or our workplaces or our churches so that we won’t have to be frustrated by the differences between us. It’s harder to work with differences. It’s harder to teach across a language barrier; to get along with new neighbors of a different culture; to understand the attitudes of someone from another economic class. It’s harder to understand our own children who are from another generation and raised in a totally different situation than we were. 

So this Ash Wednesday – let’s do something radical. Let’s repent of our sameness, of our expertness. Let’s accept more than one idea. Let’s acknowledge the Godliness of one another. Let’s repent of our “having to be right.” Let’s admit that sometimes We are wrong.

And then, let’s let God, be God.

Don't Worry, Be Happy.

Every Generation has a super annoyingly bad, but oh so good song which typifies their ethos, the mood of that generation.

For the 60s -    Wipeout.  In the 70s, it was Freebird. 
For the 90s, it was the Macarana

But for the 80s, it was a super bad, yet super good all - acapella song sensation. It went a little something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU

After one particularly bad week as a camp counselor, one person revived Bobby McFarins. You see this week at camp my Co Counselor and I had been responsible for 15, 4 and 5^th graders. Of those 15 children, 8 were on ADD medications and an additional 2 children needed them, but their parents must have decided camp would be a good week to take off from there meds. Those 4 children delighted in fun games like, “Let’s throw Liz’s backpack in the campfire,” and “Ring around the top bunks of the cabin.” And then, that week, there was Amy. Amy was allergic to everything. Literally. Her allergies included wheat, grass, bees, peanut butter, chlorinated water, and milk. So, wouldn’t you know it, Amy gets stung by a bee. At camp. In front of everyone. And then screaming and running out of the dining hall, directly into BE, my co-counselors arms, who preceeded to hoist her over his head and run to the camp truck, jump and the back. And yell, “GO! Go! Go! GO!”

On Sunday morning, during worship, Sausage – that nickname is a story in and of itself - Sausage decided to lift everyone’s spirits by playing Don’t Worry, be Happy. And the song worked. We had been dropping into worship, tired, exhausted, stressed. Then Sausage played the song. You almost can’t help it. You hear the song, and it just makes you want to dance. Don’t Worry – Be happy! We screamed. We laughed. Don’t Worry, Be Happy became our theme song for the summer.

We Worry about good things, like our family and friends. We pray for our family’s health and hope our children do well and are successful. We anxiously wonder about the latest chemo treatment and it’s effectiveness. We agonize over the latest utility bill and worry how our friends who lost their jobs deal with the rise in gas prices. Worry can be good when it spurs us to action or to change a situation. Worrying about a test can cause us to study. When anxiety can cause us to prepare for an upcoming event by positing different scenarios, that can be good.

But worry can also be very bad. You know those people, who we call worryworts? The ones who can never seem to really enjoy anything because they are always think about what might happen?  Worry can be bad when it leads to constant anxiety or fear, when it consists of continually repeating the same cycle of thought over and over again – when nothing or no one can help ease your mind. Worry become problematic when it begins to consume or thoughts and or minds, when worrying is what we do best.

We worry most often about the things over which we have no control.  Am I going to get into heaven or not? When will the oil prices be lower? Will our flight leave on time and what am I going to do if it doesn’t? Worry at its core is about control.

In the Sermon on the Mount,  Jesus spok on the dangers of serving two masters – You can not serve both God and something else. It’s that simple, Jesus has been saying. You can not serve God and money. You can not serve God and Caesar. You can not serve God and worry.

Worry, Jesus says, is about control. About trust. Look, Jesus says, at the birds of the air? They don’t farm, they don’t stockpile. The birds don’t run to Food City at the first sign of bad weather. But the birds are fed.

The sermon goes on. Look at the flowers, the way they grow here and there. The weeds, the way they grow into the crack of your sidewalk – even when you don’t want them too. The beauty of the fields of wildflowers – If God takes care of them, Jesus says, won’t God take care of you also?

And then, the most condemning statements. Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

And the last, the dagger that always catches us - Can anyone of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your life? Can anyone of us, by worrying change the outcome of God’s plan? Worry accomplishes very little. Worrying is at its worst when we have no control over the situations of our lives.

But I can’t help how I feel,  You might be thinking. Anxiety just happens – talk about not having control! I can’t stop worrying any more than I can stop breathing!

No, we can’t all of the sudden stop stressing about the oil prices rising, or the inevitability of hard times in our lives. We can’t just stop making the negativity spiral through our thoughts. Sometimes the stress will overwhelm us. It’s just going to happen.

We do have choice, though, about where we focus out attention. We can make a choice not to increase our anxiety through focusing on the worst possible outcomes. We can make a choice to remember that God loves us, and cares for us. God will provide. We have choice, to Let Go our control, and Let God provide. Let Go, and Let God.

Yes, it is possible that tomorrow will see yet more escalation in the Middle East. It’s probably inevitable. And yes, that means rising gas prices and food prices. But we will not starve. We will not be shut it to our homes with no means of transportation. The turmoil will continue – but when you turn on the news, and the anxiety starts to rise? That’s a good time to Let Go – and Let God.

We could go on with scenarios until the end of time.   Disease and Famine and Heartbreaks are a part of this life. But nothing, not one thing, can separate us from the Love of God who cares about each one of us, who knows the number of hairs on our head. Nothing in this world, not life nor death, nor any human creation can prevent God from providing for us. It may not look the way we want. But God knows what we need more than we do.

So, we have a choice. We can choose to hold on to the worry and the anxiety, to focus on the worst possible outcome. Or we can choose to trust that God will provide. Brothers and Sisters, God will provide. It’s time we Let Go of our white knuckled control, and Let God take the reigns. It’s time to Let Go, and Let God. Amen

Rhetorical Mud Wrestling

We have been offered a startling amount of proof recently about our world’s brokenness.  The news seems to be exceptionally worse, the disasters and catastrophes inextricably larger in scope and sheer destructive power. The victims even seem more innocent and more tragic that normal.

Just this week at least 350 people were killed in Brazil as the result of flooding. An additional 250,000 people were affected by flash floods that affected Brisbane, Australia’s third largest city and an area twice the size of Texas.

The economic news is not improving either. The foreclosure crisis that paralyzed the housing market has only just begun. Approximately 5 million bowers are at least two months behind on their mortgages. 1.2 million Homes are estimated to be repossessed this year alone.

And then there’s the nonsensical tragedies, the ones where we can’t find purpose or meaning. The shooting in Arizona this past week leaves us all on our heels. What would cause a person to do that short of thing? To indiscriminately kill and maim? To end lives, some as young as 9 years old? And perhaps the most pressing question – what can we do to stop it from happening again?

Bad news begets more bad news, begets tragedy. Our world is broken. But it seems just a little bit more broken than usual this week, a little more fragile, and lot more dangerous.

It seems to me, that the human response, the innate gut reaction to tragedy or difficult times goes one of two ways. Either we play the blame game and seek to find someone to blame, or we close off and stop interacting all together only analyzing the ways in which the tragedy affects us personally.

The instinct to Blame, to find someone, anyone who might be at fault, appeared in abundance this week. Minutes after the shooting in Tucson, the blogosphere and punditry had laid the blame at the feet of Right-Wing conspiracy nuts, Sarah Palin, and imagery and language of guns. Other were blaming the Democrats for being mean and unfair, people like leading one liberal commentator to ask for Sarah Palin to be decapitated. At one point there was even a debate over the difference between bull’s-eyes and crosshairs. The Blame Game is an easy one to play – it allows us to feel as if someone is a fault, someone caused this, someone who is evil and despicable and less than human. Blame makes us feel control over any situation and to avoid the real cause of problems.

The second way we see react to tragedy is to focus inwardly, to look only at ourselves. We close off to the world. Hezekiah is a great example of the inward focus tendency. Hezekiah was the king of Judah son of Ahaz mentioned in Jesus’ genology. His kingdom, Judah, was being watched by the evil King Sennacherib of Assyria. Sennacherib had forcibly resettled Israel, the northern country of Galilee with his own Assyrians, removing any native he found there.  And one day, Sennacherib saw a weakness. Hezekiah had been ill, and so he exploited that moment of ill health in order to infiltrate the ministry. Hezekiah immediately sets out to impress his visitors, showing off all his treasures and goodies. Look at my golden camels with diamond eyes – He says – and my room full of money.  Isaiah is the king’s prophet at the time, and Isaiah sees all of this strutting and puffing, which greatly concerns him. Isaiah says to the king “Um…. How much of your treasures did you actually show him? All of it…? hmmm….”

Isaiah then presents a very terrible prophecy. "Hezekiah", he says, "one day that king of Assyria, Sennacherib? He’s going to take all of that awesome stuff you have. And, even more than that, Sennacherib is going to take your family, your sons, and they will become eunuchs. The Assyrian’s are going to take everything.”

And Hezekiah’s response?

“The word of the Lord you have spoken is good.” Huh? Good? Which part of Eunuch did you not understand?

Hezekiah merely smiled.

“For, he thought, There will be peace and security in my lifetime.”

The second way we see react to tragedy is to focus inwardly, to look only at ourselves. We close off to the world. We deal with pain by ignoring its consequences.

I would submit to you that neither of these responses is particularly helpful. Blame and avoidance only end up hurting us more; make the situation more difficult in the end. Pointing fingers at others, or ourselves, deepens the problem we are trying to avoid in the first place.

The Church offers us a third way of coping with the stresses of life, a different kind of witness to tragedy. The church is called to stand in the gap between blame and apathy, between unrelenting vitriolic anger and anxiety. The church marches into the breach caused by the pains of this life with a new, unique kind of witness.

There is a benefit to being very, very old. Through the testament of those who have come before, through the witness of folks like Noah, Abraham, and Moses, through the memories of Deborah, Rahab, and the Psalmists, the church contains the insight of centuries. We have the perspective of those who have gone before us, who have experienced tragedy and heartache and pain and come out the others side to say Hallelujah again.  This is why the church studies the Bible, This is why the church learn studies its history and about Paul’s 3^rd missionary journeys.  To gain perspective, and to learn the perseverance of the saints.

The Church offers us a third way of coping with the stresses of life, a different kind of witness to tragedy. The church is called to stand in the gap between blame and apathy, between unrelenting vitriolic anger and anxiety. The church marches into the breach caused by the pains of this life with a new, unique kind of witness.

You Spin me right round like a record, baby

The choir at Waverly Road just completed a two week Concert Tour. While that may not seem illustrious or overly rock-star like (how many rock stars are accompanied by organ?) the time, effort, and passion put into these appearances made many of our members feel, for a moment, like they were Diana Ross - or at the very least the Supremes. Music is a very recognizable talent in the life and ministry of the church. Every week some form of musical expression appears in worship, and in fact a service without music is very awkward indeed.

The Apostle Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians. is concerned about the new worship craze that is sweeping the Roman empire, the Corinthian precinct anyway. Speaking in Tongues. Now, most good Presbyterians would look resonabily and appropriately askance were someone to stand up in worship and proclaim in a loud yet completely foreign voice, the prophecy of God. We just don't do that sort of thing.

But in many ways, Music is a form of prophesying in tongues. None of us fully understand why and how music has such power to express the unspoken words of our hearts, but somehow we all recognize that music does such a thing - even when the words are foreign to us as in a Latin Requiem mass. We don't understand the impact of music, but we always feel it. And in the church's progression towards "contemporary worship" services with their worship leaders and praise bands, we seem to be closer and closer to emphasizing the singularity of one person's musical gift, much as the people of Corinth glorified the one or two people capable of speaking in tongues.

Paul reminds us that these gifts, the gifts of music and speaking in tongues, are uniquely situated to encourage personal glorification. It is absolutely right to share with someone when their gift ahs touched us personally. However, we in the church must be careful to ensure that when spiritual gifts - like music, like art, like speaking in tongues - are in employed, it should always be to the glory of God who provides all blessings. It's an easy trap and a beautiful snare. I think we should ask ourselves, as Paul does, "Is this for God or for me?"

The Daily Lectionary Readings
1 Corinthians 14:1-19

New Beginnings

I sit here, in my living room, staring out at a very different mountain view then the one I grew up enjoying. It makes sense because now I'm in Tennessee.

It's true. I'm a Tennessean. Or Tennessonian. Or Tennessite. I'm not sure which. People here seem to go with "Volunteer", and I like that idea.

Every once in awhile, when the days seem most normal, when a simple human need strikes - like mailing a letter or buying gas - it hits me. I don't live in West Virginia anymore. This is Tennessee.

Though the surroundings are certainly unfamiliar and the language quite strange, I can't help but remember the the many people God has called to far more exotic places than Kingsport. Sure, I don't have the requisite accent (though I might pick it up - the sound is so charming), but the people here don't seem to care.

All of which makes me want to Volunteer.

So, God, what can I do today?

Friday, February 3, 2005

It has been said that when the groundhog sees his shadow there will be six more weeks of winter, but Turner is shedding like a mad man, so maybe he's more accurate of a source.... Here's hoping.

WV Mining Accident Redux

So, one of the guys who died I knew, and I knew one of the guys who was part of the rescue crew. It is just weird. I don't really understand how I feel, or, I guess, more accuratley, how I am supposed to feel.
People keep asking me if I am ok, if I am having a problem with this whole thing, but the truth I don't feel sad, or angry, or that upset. I just feel numb, like I am walking around in some cloud world. It feels really odd.

WV Mining Accident

I just heard that there was a mining accident near my home. We are not sure, but one of our dear family friends may be in the trap. Both he and his son are workers in the mine, and a very good people. It seems odd to maybe actually know someone who is involved in one of the disasters shown on the TV. It kind of removes the "Not in my backyard" syndrome. It's just an uneasy feeling.