Friday, February 4, 2011

On Links

The ELCA's new-ish website livinglutheran.com is very promising, and you should check it out. Just today I read two excellent articles there, related to the same stuff I usually go on about here. Kevin Haug's story about welcome in a sermon interruption speaks for itself, and my former pastor Ken Wheeler from Milwaukee offers a lovely description of his congregation (Cross, the congregation of which I was a member until I arrived here in Kzoo) that is for me both nostalgic and inspiring. This line toward the end really hits home for me: "It is that grace that keeps us open to the other, that compels us to live beyond ourselves." Sign up for Living Lutheran yourself, put it on your RSS feed, contribute to the community there.

There's a lot of good stuff out there, and these cluttered interwebs offer tremendous resources to those of us who dare to slog through the silliness that we might find God speaking to us through people like Kevin and Ken. I have links listed on this blog for a reason, and am happy to update them if you have suggestions.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

The best story I read today was about a chicken

Nothing gets this steadfast vegetarian out of blog-writing dormancy like a good story about a chicken. Of course, my being vegetarian has nothing to do with it, and I long for a source of fresh eggs in my own apartment-centered life. Anyway. I love this story because it is about community, how community can build around the unlikeliest of commonalities in the most uncommon places. A neighborhood loves gawking at some chickens. What neighborhood wouldn't?

The story is well-written, much more so than the overwhelming majority of blogs and online news outlets that make up my daily reading list (this one included, of course). The author sets a wonderful scene, invokes sights and sounds and smells and really brings to life this chicken and its admirers, and indeed I cheered the tale's happy ending.

The heart of this story, at least for me, is the experience of the author and her neighbors forming a bond around the tragedy of a stolen chicken, the words in varied languages expressing solidarity with the victims, the anonymous scribbles of support. What is it that really draws people together? What allows us to be honest with one another, to open ourselves to the possibility that today we may meet someone that broadens our perspectives or even changes our lives? What makes us look at the same old anonymous person in a new way, to recognize the humanity shared between us?

More pointedly: what about the way we gather as a church draws people and builds relationships, and what does the opposite? This chicken managed to unite a diverse neighborhood in ways many church leaders only dream of, myself included.  Now look at me: romanticizing a chicken because of a well-written newspaper article. The questions at the heart of my doing so: how do we build community, expand our sense of "us" beyond the us that gathers on a Sunday morning at Lutheran Church of the Savior? How can we really welcome people? Not just "You're welcome to come be like us, with us," but "You're welcome here. You. Really."

It's a slow crawl to that place, the place where a community is truly open to growing not just by assimilation but by welcoming new people with new gifts to take us along new paths. That's the challenge of the gospel for us - not to think we have the answer and wait for someone to come and ask for it, but to build relationships with unexpected people, to see where God is working in their lives and to allow the new us to lead the old us. To be sure, the Holy Spirit is in our traditions, our roots, or oldest and strongest relationships. We have much to share. The Spirit is also in newness, surprising, serendipitous and blessed as the community that springs up around a city chicken. Can we, by the grace of God, find a way to help people feel fully like themselves, yet a part of something bigger, grander, stronger and more beautiful  than just themselves? A part of the body of Christ?

I always did prefer questions to answers, though in regard to the above I'd happily listen to either. If you want to raise chickens on the church grounds, I guess we can talk about that too.