you will not always have me...

I wonder what it would be like to have a job or career where you weren't being compared to the last guy, the one we liked better than you.  As a pastor in the ELCA, smaller congregations tend to be very pastor-centric or oriented.  The ministry and the faith are largely understood and articulated in relation to the pastors.  A flawed way of thinking about church, given the democratic nature of ecclesial leadership in its earliest forms.  But humans in community need a head of household, a king, a leader-in-charge; one in whom the rest might turn for inspiration and direction.  One whom the others might reject or hold liable when things get ugly. Praise the leader or pin them to the wall.  No leader is going to fulfill everyone's expectations, hopes, and imagination.  Because leaders are people.  But in the church we allow pastors to be emotionally crucified by unloving and ungracious members.  The biblical narrative is full of flawed leadership; Moses, Saul, David, and every king thereafter.  God warns the people in 1 Samuel 7 the appointing a king is not a good idea for them. But they want to be like the nations and tribes around them.  God provides them leaders who misuse power, who make impulsive, self-protecting decisions, and who fail to accomplish the leadership task given to them, largely by failing to remain faithful to God and to their duty as earthly rulers under the rule of a God-King.   Despite the failures of leaders, however, people are inspired to faithfulness.  And God's love and grace are made known.  Leadership is not for the weak. I've learned that the hard way...after the jump!

wilderness journey: the emotional side effects of sin

Biblical places are part of our spiritual journeys.  The narrative breaks into our lives and draws us into the biblical world.  There are times in church life when it is possible and good to identify where we are in the story.  We are in the garden of gethsemane, where Jesus is weeping, where tensions run high, where anger strikes out, where forces of power collide.  It is a place of high emotion.  It is night.  We are walking together in my congregation through a difficult time.  It is a time of brokenness and sin.  It is a time when we acknowledge that some behaviors and attitudes have not been consistent with the law of love and grace.  It is a time when it is hard to be together and yet we need to be together.  And I am grateful for those faithful people who remain partners in ministry here, so that we can walk together with courage and hope.  So what are we learning as we walk in this garden?

the ground has shaken and we are not the same

How do Christian people, living in God’s Word, understand and respond to disasters and human tragedies?  In our time, not a day goes by that we are not bombarded by stories of violence, bloodshed, and tragedy.  Children abducted and murdered.  Violence erupting on the streets of Jerusalem last week, when praying Muslims emerged to throw rocks at praying Jews, in retaliation to the news that Israel was claiming additional rights to land in the west bank, land Palestinians hoped would become there’s.  When you see what you see and hear what you hear, what do you think?  We are so desensitized to the disasters and the violence.  We simply move on, because tomorrow will bring another round of the same.  Empty platitudes and wishful hopes of brighter days ahead are insufficient at best and at worse diminish their suffering.  Haiti’s earthquake is overshadowed by Chile’s, which will be overshadowed by the next thing.  Katrina was overshadowed by Tsunami’s  On and on it goes.  We barely have time to consider the meaning of these things.  I guess we don’t.  What does the earthquake mean?  What is God’s role in human tragedy, natural disasters, or accidents, or violence?  How do we interpret events in relation to God, who speaks to us about the world and about our lives in scripture? As a proclaimer of the Word I am called to reflect on its bearing, its meaning for us as God’s people.  What does this mean?  What does this text, this word mean to us as a word of God?  And what do the events of the week mean.  What do various encounters mean?  Because the incarnate God is revealed not only in extraordinary happenings but in ordinary experiences and relationships.  What does this visit, this phone call, this email mean? I interpret all things in relation to the biblical narrative. I listen for the biblical narrative to emerge in all things.  Where do I hear God’s word come alive?  I ask this question every week. 

The Prodigal Son of God and His lost church

The prodigal son.  Luke 15. It’s a story about broken family.  It’s a story about the difference between elders and youth.  It’s a story about resentments and bitterness and anger.  And it is an open-ended story because we’re meant to complete it in our own stories.  The end begs questions.  Does the elder son come home?  Does he ever embrace the younger brother?  Does he come to appreciate his father’s faithfulness, vigilance, and indiscriminate love?  Does the younger son find a new place in the household? Does he repeat his offense?  Does he really change his ways or is he flawed? Is it in the DNA, or in family birth position, that predetermines one’s family behavior? Does the Father, insanely gracious to both of his sons, ever get the family relationships he has tried to forge? Will the sons be his sons, so that he can be their father?  And will they be brothers?  Will they actually love each other or go their separate ways?  And what would be better?  Can this family come together or are the differences too great?    What a human story. We don’t need to stretch our imaginations very far to connect to this one. But this is also a story about God.  It is Jesus’ final answer in Luke’s gospel to the question, Who is GOD? What is God like?  And that is where some people get off the bus.   Hard to swallow a God like this God, this Father.  Unconditionally gracious.  Welcoming and loving cast offs.  Reclaiming the dispossessed, disowned, discarded.  We imagine a different God.  One who blesses the deserving and curses the undeserving.  One whose favor is conditioned upon one’s behavior.  We look around and we see the difference between those who have been blessed and those who have not.  And we begin to imagine why, too.  This God respects duty, loyalty, religion, good, law-abiding citizenship.  This God chooses some and rejects others outright and what they get is what they deserve.  This is a wrathful god.  

This parable in many ways calls to mind the story of Jacob and Esau in Genesis 27-33.  Jacob is the younger twin who steals his brother’s birthright and blessing. Basically he gets the attention from his mother and father, claiming a relationship reserved for the elder son. Esau hates Jacob and seeks to kill him. So begins Jacob’s exile.   Eventually, Jacob and Esau reconcile, but it is Jacob who is chosen by God to renew and live out the family covenant promises.  Jacob becomes Israel and the head of the 12 tribes.   Jacob is the favored one.  But Esau is able to reconcile that in his heart and mind, accept his own relationship with God, and embrace his brother.  In so doing, Esau and Jacob experience God by facing each other.