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.
Friday, February 4, 2011
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
A thought from the shower today
In looking at the scope of the human-divine relationship in the Bible, people do not change, while God changes. People were stupid from the beginning, and still are today (and joyful and naive and murderous and compassionate and courageous and selfish and jealous and wonderfully human). God's approach to dealing with these infuriatingly stubborn people changed a great deal over time.
It's not that God changed in essence - what we know of God's essence is quite limited, mediated as it is by the historical person of Jesus and myriad interpretations thereof, by stories written and told and edited and lost and found over millennia, by personal experiences and visions and feelings of spirit impossible to articulate or recreate. But to the extent that we know God through Christian faith, life, and Scripture, God changes in relation to us while we remain as described above.
It occurs to me that given all this, I should add "and hubristic" to the list of consistent human attributes above, you know, just to cover my bases.
It occurs to me that given all this, I should add "and hubristic" to the list of consistent human attributes above, you know, just to cover my bases.
This thought fits perfectly into the blog label category "unexpected," as it happens. I mean, I was in the shower. Shouldn't I have been thinking of shampoo, or singing about Kokomo, or something similarly mundane?
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Sermon links
Some of the things I've talked about in recent sermons merit follow-up links, and now that I have the blog, I can do that. Yay.
This is the Andrew Sullivan post about Epiphany I quoted to begin my sermon on 1/9/11.
***
From today's sermon (1/16/11), the entire text of Martin Luther King Jr's Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
Also, here is the text of his speech at WMU here in Kalamazoo in December 1963.
I hope y'all are able to get out and live the dream, as it were, on Monday the MLK holiday.
***
I'll probably post some sermon-related stuff here, maybe audio or video or text, but we'll cross those bridges when we get there. Currently we have none of those three options, but suggestions (and assistance) in making that work are welcome.
Pastor Andrew
This is the Andrew Sullivan post about Epiphany I quoted to begin my sermon on 1/9/11.
***
From today's sermon (1/16/11), the entire text of Martin Luther King Jr's Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
Also, here is the text of his speech at WMU here in Kalamazoo in December 1963.
I hope y'all are able to get out and live the dream, as it were, on Monday the MLK holiday.
***
I'll probably post some sermon-related stuff here, maybe audio or video or text, but we'll cross those bridges when we get there. Currently we have none of those three options, but suggestions (and assistance) in making that work are welcome.
Pastor Andrew
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Rock and roll, etc
So as the internet will attest, I listen to a whole lot of music. I broadly (and at times ironically) refer to most of this music as "rock and roll," in an apparent effort to make that term meaningless. Maybe some other time I'll explain what I mean by it, but for now I just want to point out a line in a song that caught my ear today. The song is When My Time Comes by the young California band Dawes (you can download the song free at that site for subscribing to their mailing list, it turns out). The line in question is "...and if heaven is all that was promised to me why don't I pray for death?"
I think this is a good question. I have no indication this band is "Christian" (a uniquely loaded term in popular music, and that's maybe not what I mean) though a number of their song titles and lyrics on their album North Hills do seem to point to frameworks Christians use when addressing life's big questions. Such a question might fit well in the voice of one who is questioning or rejecting faith in Jesus, making the assumption or expressing their experience that heaven is the sole focus of Christian faith and life. I often find that I can learn a great deal about following Jesus by listening to those who question faith, and this is one of those questions.
In brief response to the question, I would say that heaven is far from the "all that is promised to me," and if anything I at times eschew talk of heaven altogether in favor of talking about the full, rich, vibrant, engaged, passionate life to which I feel called right here and now. This is the only Earth God has given us, and our time here is fleeting, and whatever heaven turns out to be, God sent Jesus to this world to be with us. This smelly, cranky, selfish world is the one God created and called good, and is the one God sent Jesus to redeem - not to replace, not to reject, but to redeem. And various New Testament texts are clear that Jesus will return to this earth - not to replace it, but to bring God's love to bear on this creation in a way that makes this world the best it can be. This despite the common misunderstanding of these same biblical texts applied by some who see this world as merely fleeting and disposable, like fast-food wrappers that the careless throw out their windows on the highway.
I need to wrap this up - I have a sermon to finish, and I seriously doubt that this will fit into it - but I guess the point I want to make is that God is working in the world, speaking through the lyrics of so-called "secular" rock songs, through random magazine articles, through the words of strangers in grocery stores. So many of us show up on Sunday mornings seeking Jesus, and while that's important (maybe even vital or necessary), it's not the whole story. We gather for worship and liturgy not because Jesus lives in this building with this mortgage we're paying, but so that we can in this community of faith learn to recognize God's voice, God's hand, God's face outside that building, in the rest of the wide world we are given. If we are followers of Jesus, then God is calling us into the world, the real world, the young-rock-and-roll-band-from-California world, the people-sure-do-drive-like-selfish-maniacs-on-the-highway world, the that-little-girl-at-Meijer-looks-like-she-could-use-a-hug world.
So keep your ears open.Unexpected and mysterious, indeed.
I think this is a good question. I have no indication this band is "Christian" (a uniquely loaded term in popular music, and that's maybe not what I mean) though a number of their song titles and lyrics on their album North Hills do seem to point to frameworks Christians use when addressing life's big questions. Such a question might fit well in the voice of one who is questioning or rejecting faith in Jesus, making the assumption or expressing their experience that heaven is the sole focus of Christian faith and life. I often find that I can learn a great deal about following Jesus by listening to those who question faith, and this is one of those questions.
In brief response to the question, I would say that heaven is far from the "all that is promised to me," and if anything I at times eschew talk of heaven altogether in favor of talking about the full, rich, vibrant, engaged, passionate life to which I feel called right here and now. This is the only Earth God has given us, and our time here is fleeting, and whatever heaven turns out to be, God sent Jesus to this world to be with us. This smelly, cranky, selfish world is the one God created and called good, and is the one God sent Jesus to redeem - not to replace, not to reject, but to redeem. And various New Testament texts are clear that Jesus will return to this earth - not to replace it, but to bring God's love to bear on this creation in a way that makes this world the best it can be. This despite the common misunderstanding of these same biblical texts applied by some who see this world as merely fleeting and disposable, like fast-food wrappers that the careless throw out their windows on the highway.
I need to wrap this up - I have a sermon to finish, and I seriously doubt that this will fit into it - but I guess the point I want to make is that God is working in the world, speaking through the lyrics of so-called "secular" rock songs, through random magazine articles, through the words of strangers in grocery stores. So many of us show up on Sunday mornings seeking Jesus, and while that's important (maybe even vital or necessary), it's not the whole story. We gather for worship and liturgy not because Jesus lives in this building with this mortgage we're paying, but so that we can in this community of faith learn to recognize God's voice, God's hand, God's face outside that building, in the rest of the wide world we are given. If we are followers of Jesus, then God is calling us into the world, the real world, the young-rock-and-roll-band-from-California world, the people-sure-do-drive-like-selfish-maniacs-on-the-highway world, the that-little-girl-at-Meijer-looks-like-she-could-use-a-hug world.
So keep your ears open.Unexpected and mysterious, indeed.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
An Introduction
Welcome to the pastor's blog for Lutheran Church of the Savior in Kalamazoo! Or at least that's the idea. I'm Pastor Andrew, and I've had the privilege of serving as Pastor here since October of 2009. In that time have learned a good deal about the people and story of this congregation, about how church works and at times fails to work, and about myself. My expectations for this space are modest, at least for now. I hope to share thoughts about varied topics, church-related and church-appropriate (Lord help me discern that), to post bits of sermons or bits that may become sermons, and to highlight links that inspire me to better serve God's people. The administrator of our congregation's shiny new website hopes this blog will draw more pageviews and generate interest in our community, and that sounds cool as well.
For those wondering about the blog's title, it is borrowed from an Advent hymn by the same name, published in the ELCA's recent hymnal Evangelical Lutheran Worship (#258). The hymn text's author is one Jeannette M. Lindholm, and since I do not know her and hope she doesn't sue me for stealing her words, I'll endeavor to send her an email and at least let her know the deal. The hymn is set to Calvin Hampton's beautiful tune St. Helena, and as a hymn nerd, I find it a lovely pairing of word and image and tune.
The hymn begins "Unexpected and mysterious is the gentle word of grace," and I hope this blog can provide a word of grace, especially to those who may have momentarily forgotten that God's love is for them. At times I count myself among this number, certainly, and hopefully in this space I will be able to honestly express the joys and struggles and blessings of living out my call in this community.
But before I get too churchy, I should point out that I am generally not one to take myself too seriously, and this blog should be no exception. Hopefully some of my posts will be unexpected, and the mysteries I explore may range from the miracle of the Incarnation to my inability to remember what time Women's Bible Study begins (10:00 am, NOT 10:30, as I need to be reminded most months around 10:10). My main hobby is roller derby announcing, and surely this space will see some news about my adventures with the Killamazoo Derby Darlins. I do suspect that the words "unexpected" and "mysterious" will serve well as guides to figuring out what I'm doing, both on this blog and as the pastor of this church. I like to think I'm getting a clue about the pastor stuff, but this blogging business is entirely new. Lord, have mercy.
Thanks for reading. God loves you. See you around the internets.
For those wondering about the blog's title, it is borrowed from an Advent hymn by the same name, published in the ELCA's recent hymnal Evangelical Lutheran Worship (#258). The hymn text's author is one Jeannette M. Lindholm, and since I do not know her and hope she doesn't sue me for stealing her words, I'll endeavor to send her an email and at least let her know the deal. The hymn is set to Calvin Hampton's beautiful tune St. Helena, and as a hymn nerd, I find it a lovely pairing of word and image and tune.
The hymn begins "Unexpected and mysterious is the gentle word of grace," and I hope this blog can provide a word of grace, especially to those who may have momentarily forgotten that God's love is for them. At times I count myself among this number, certainly, and hopefully in this space I will be able to honestly express the joys and struggles and blessings of living out my call in this community.
But before I get too churchy, I should point out that I am generally not one to take myself too seriously, and this blog should be no exception. Hopefully some of my posts will be unexpected, and the mysteries I explore may range from the miracle of the Incarnation to my inability to remember what time Women's Bible Study begins (10:00 am, NOT 10:30, as I need to be reminded most months around 10:10). My main hobby is roller derby announcing, and surely this space will see some news about my adventures with the Killamazoo Derby Darlins. I do suspect that the words "unexpected" and "mysterious" will serve well as guides to figuring out what I'm doing, both on this blog and as the pastor of this church. I like to think I'm getting a clue about the pastor stuff, but this blogging business is entirely new. Lord, have mercy.
Thanks for reading. God loves you. See you around the internets.
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