A story to give a warm glow of affirmation to all those who say the culture and the mission of the church are at odds.
Phoenix, Arizona, says a United Methodist Church is violating zoning laws by providing meals to homeless and hungry people. The neighbors are gleeful.
The talk of massive building and tumbling stones brings to mind images. The fall of the Berlin Wall. September 11. It reminds me as well of Reinhold Neibuhr, who reminded up again and again of the Tower of Babel nature of all human accomplishment.
On a personal level, I think of it as a metaphor for the walls we construct in our own lives and our own psychology. When they fall, how terrible it can seem. Even when the collapse is necessary.
There is a link here to birth pangs. Pain and blood – and even terror – are part of birth. New life comes only this way. I’m wary of making the leap from the tumbling walls to birth pangs too easily. The metaphors do not fit so easily side-by-side. If we try to force that, we miss the ways they differ.
And we risk dropping the false messiahs out of our reading all together. How do these three come together and hold together? Falling stones. False messiahs. Birth pangs. They all are signs of the final act of the Christian story, but they are also signs of nearly every day. There is not an age in history that is not over-run with all three.
There is something beguiling and misleading about trying to read the signs of the times. At every moment and in each of us, the apocalypse is present or on the cusp of emergence. We can never know when it might happen.
And this last thought throws into mind two more bits and pieces: TV is full of ads at the moment for the movie about the prediction of global destruction in 2012. I recall the interesting things people did in 2000 to prepare for the collapse of the Internet.
I’m a lot more free association this week than usual. But these are some thoughts on Monday.
Fleming Rutledge gives a name for a movement/school within Christian theology and preaching that has been hugely influential in my reading and thinking – even if I did not know I was caught up in a movement while I was collecting the books.
What is apocalyptic theology?
Here is a short summary by Douglas Harink, followed by a much longer description by me.
“Most simply stated, ‘apocalypse’ is shorthand for Jesus Christ. In the New Testament… all apocalyptic reflection and hope comes to this, that God has acted critically, decisively, and finally for Israel, all the peoples of the earth, and the entire cosmos, in the life, death, resurrection, and coming again of Jesus, in such a way that God’s purpose for Israel, all humanity, and all creation is critically, decisively, and finally disclosed and effected in he history of Jesus Christ.”
Read her outline of apocalyptic theology and a family tree of teachers and preachers who have helped shape it.
Ever wish they would write church history songs to a tune from Mary Poppins? Me, too! We’ll wish no more.
Some inspired genius has written a song about Martin Luther to be sung to the tune of “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”
Here it is as reformatted for readability by Ben Myers. Click here.
A lot of furor has been swirling around the story of Andre Agassi’s book. The former tennis star confesses to using crystal meth and writes about how he hated tennis. He became one of the greatest players of his generation, but it was all chosen for him – by fear of his father, by desperation, and by not knowing what else he could do.
What is not mentioned so much in the coverage I’ve heard is the next part of the story – as he tells it in a USA Today interview:
But the hate for tennis started to change when I took ownership and chose tennis, which didn’t happen till 1997, which didn’t happen till I fell to 141 in the world, which didn’t happen till that moment when I either had to walk away or choose it, and I didn’t walk away, and I chose it. Once I chose my life, once I took ownership of my life, the scale started to get balanced with what it was giving me.
Many of us live our lives. How many of us choose them?
I have some first-hand experience in the freedom that not choosing your life gives you. It gives you room to stay distant and removed from your decisions. It gives you room to say “if only” and to suggest it is not really you who are to blame for whatever failures or shortcomings you have had. Refusing to say “yes” or to say “no” to your life can be quite useful for many things – none of them particularly desireable or praieworthy.
Sometimes, we Christians do this to God. We say we are merely tools in the hand of God, so it is not really us who are responsible for our lives. There is something comforting in a theology of helplesness.
But God does not say, “Here is you life. Take it or leave it.” God says, “Choose this day.”
This day, I am grateful for a sinner like Andre Agassi who reminds a sinner like me that God gives me a choice. To refuse to choose is to reject the very freedom God has given me.
The Providence Journal has a well-written story about the tale of two United Methodist congregations that share a worship space, but find themselves divided over the issue of homosexuality.
The stage began to be set when members of Open Table voted unanimously in January to have their church join the Reconciling Ministries network, a national organization working for full participation of people of “all sexual orientations and gender identities” in the life of the church, and for removal from the United Methodist Book of Discipline a rule declaring homosexual practice to be “incompatible” with Christian teaching.
The Rev. Santos Escobar, the pastor of Abundant Life, says his church members knew about the January vote, but became concerned only after Open Table members held a Mother’s Day service in the spring at which they invited a gay Episcopalian to speak from the pulpit about his experiences as a Christian gay man.
Full story here.
This video is about playing music as a worship leader, but the point he makes near the beginning holds true for just about all kinds of church work: it is important to leave space for others to fill in.
Sooner or later the pastor has to lead.
You can spend a lot of energy well by tending to the flock where it is, letting it chew up the grass on the pasture you found it on. You can search each member to find burrs and sores and wounds that need tending. You can do a great deal of care and building up right where you found them when you took over for the shepherd who was there before you.
But eventually the pasture gets exhausted and the flock needs to move to new ground. And that is when it gets hard. Some – many, all – the flock does not want to move. Some will stray off. Some will point out quite correctly that the shepherd has not been around very long and the pasture has been a good place for them. Some will want to go in a different direction.
It would be easier if the Romans would come marching up to the door and persecute the church. That would make you all an us facing off against a them. The pastor would be the leader protecting and guiding in the face of a hostile outside force. It is easier to be a hero in those circumstances, if harder in its own ways. But the Romans got more clever in 2,000 years. They figured out how to break up Christian gatherings without marching in with hob-nail boots and swinging short swords.
And there is the pastor. If he is brave so much the better. But he may be no less a coward than Peter by the fire in the courtyard. He can watch the flock die of starvation. Or he can try to lead them to new pastures.
Will enough want to come to keep the flock alive? Will any?
The pastor needs the courage to fail trying. It is so much easier to watch the flock die and wash his hands and say, “Well, there wasn’t much I could do. They did not want to move. It is not my fault.”
The United Methodist Council of Bishops has declared that youth are the future. The bishops want to lead the UMC to reduce the average age of its membership by 10 years in the next 10 years. That would mean the UMC’s average age would be 47 in 2019.
This sparks two thoughts.
First, I’ll be 52 in 2019, so I suppose I can help the cause by leaving when I turn 47. I’m just a grumpy, old middle-aged white guy, so please ignore my pettiness.
Second, does the first step toward doing this have to be “hire an outside consultant”? Haven’t when been there and done that over and over again?
If we want to grow the young church, let’s get some money together, gather up some young people with a passion for God, pay their rent, food, and school bills and send them out like the old circuit riders to preach and organize the young people. Why do we need to grind them up in seminary first? Lay preachers and lay organizers worked in colonial America. Why not in the 21st century.
Some of them will fail horribly. Some of them will catch fire. If we support and watch over them, they may create a whole new United Methodist movement under our feet. It will look nothing like what we would plan – we old people.
When Wesley went out to the underserved proto-industrial areas to preach the gospel, he did all kinds of things the respectible people did not like, but look what fruit he bore.
Let’s find some young people who love God with a passion and set them loose.
Okay, I don’t know how the Veggie Tales do Noah’s Ark. But Will Grady has an excellent post about the Bible and children.
