Sermon: Wisdom, Vision, and Finance

“Wisdom, Vision, and Finance”

(November 8, 2009) In this sermon, we take a more practical look at some of the ways to curb our prodigal nature (our wasting and spending). But for any of these practical things to matter, we need to first know what our vision is. Like the prodigal child, when we have no sense of who we want to be, we wander aimlessly. When we have a vision– a vision for ourselves, for our communities, for our churches and organizations– then we can begin to make wise decisions, using all of the tools at our disposal, including the monetary tools, to achieve our life’s purpose. (Luke 15:11-32)

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Part two in a series addressing faith and finances, based upon the study and program series “Enough: Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity” by Adam Hamilton. Statistics, quotes, and general outlines are taken from that work and used with permission. I of course add my own interpretation. Sermon titles include: “When Dreams Become Nightmares,” “Wisdom, Vision, and Finance,” “Cultivating Contentment,” and “Defined by Generosity.”

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and that’s one of the longer sermons I’ve ever preached. so far, only one person complained…

Sermon: When Dreams Become Nightmares

“When Dreams Become Nightmares”

(November 1, 2009) We think we want to live the “American Dream,” but we see that all too often and far too easily, this dream becomes an unsustainable nightmare. That’s because it is a false promise, that money– the love of it, the protection of its bottom line– is what will make us happy and successful. We fall into a trap as individuals and as churches, buying into this worldview. There is another, competing vision out there, a different dream for us, and that is to live into God’s dream, Gods vision. This life-giving dream is to be people focused first and foremost on God, and requires a change of heart. Fortunately, when it comes to changes of heart, God happens to specialize. (1Timothy 6:6-19)

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Part one in a series addressing faith and finances, based upon the study and program series “Enough: Discovering Joy Through Simplicity and Generosity” by Adam Hamilton. Statistics, quotes, and general outlines are taken from that work and used with permission. I of course add my own interpretation. Sermon titles include: “When Dreams Become Nightmares,” “Wisdom, Vision, and Finance,” “Cultivating Contentment,” and “Defined by Generosity.”

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Hey, any time I can get Vermonters to vocalize ‘Amen’ in the middle of a sermon, I consider my work well done!

Thoughts from an UMAC newbie

Some people check the water level of the proverbial pool before they jump in. But you all know that I’m not ‘some people.’

I’m a co-chair of my Annual Conference’s Communications team, and frequently contribute to our online and print media communication. This qualifies me to become, as I did this year, a member of the United Methodist Association of Communicators, and be entered in contests for communications-related things (winning both the local church website best in class award for Trinity’s website and the local level non-fiction best in class for this blog– wow!), and attend the annual meeting. So I did these things, and this week, I spent time in Nashville TN at the United Methodist Association of Communicators’ annual meeting.

But, as with so much of what I do, I didn’t really know what the heck I was doing.

The UMAC people are the real deal; they are professional communicators—journalists, bloggers, photographers, videographers, technology gurus, and people with advanced degrees in something or other that I didn’t study. They approach crafting messages for internal and external audiences with a technical, precise, methodology. They feel justifiably frustrated when church folks—particularly clergy, who tend to pride themselves on being good communicators in their own minds—don’t respect or listen to the expertise of the professional communicator. And when they get together, they tend to, um, vent about that a little bit.

I can’t tell you how many people, upon hearing that I’m an elder and a pastor rather than a Conference-level employee, cocked their eyebrows at me and said, “wow, you’re so brave to come here!”

That would be because I didn’t know what the heck I was doing.

I sat through a workshop on “Writing Worth Reading,” which only served to point out that (here’s a surprise for you readers out there!) I don’t write at all as if I were writing for a newspaper or a public proclamation. I tend to write as if I were expressing an opinion, making an attempt at a persuasive argument, or crafting a sermon. And here’s the thing: I don’t want to change the way I write to be a better journalist. I’m perfectly happy being a lousy journalist and a better preacher. I don’t know that I needed to be laughed at by proxy because of it, but I can take it. Largely, I don’t know what the heck I’m doing.

Then I attended a workshop on Podcasting, and heard a lot about the technical aspects of how to put together a podcast, but not a lot about why we might do it or what content might be valuable and interesting. And no one there could answer my question about how to clean up my podcast’s feed so that you can actually find it in iTunes. So at least here, I’m not the only one who doesn’t totally know what I’m doing. Sometimes, technology is actually a pain in the butt for everyone. Big surprise.

And then I participated in the “ReThink Church” workshop, where I had a lot of ideas and several bones to pick with the concept of the ReThink campaign. The workshop focused more on the research, ad buys, trainings, and impact community (love this portion!) aspects of the campaign, and not discussing concept. So of course, I found a few people with whom I could discuss content. At great length.

I began to see the issue here. The off-the-chart big picture thinker is trying to bend her brain into focusing on the details, specifics, and methods. Maybe it’s not so much that I don’t know what I am doing as that what I am doing is from a completely different perspective than what the communicators are doing. That’s kind of why we need each other.

All that said, I had a great time. I did learn a lot about the methods and techniques of professional communication, and have an even greater respect for what communicators do. I used twitter more than I ever have, and I think I might actually have the beginnings of some understanding of how it can be used for me more effectively.

Of course networking, on and offline, in and out of official gatherings, is always the most important part. I met wonderful people, some of whom I knew virtually, and some who were new friends. I got excited about a couple of ministerial possibilities that interest me, and saw some parts of Nashville that surprised me (did you know this city has a full-scale replica of the Greek Parthenon, and at least one bar advertising ‘nude karaoke’? Yea, I didn’t know that either. I went in to only one of those places, and there were some nudes inside, but they were cast in plaster).

So thanks to friends and contacts and colleagues, new and old, virtual and in person, lay people, communicators, and clergy who stumbled in by accident like I did. I learned a lot, got some great ideas, and had tons of fun getting to know you. I might even know a little bit more about what the heck I’m doing from time to time.

[I look forward to watching the video of the Social Media Round Table that I missed this morning and reflecting on that, but tonight I'm just too darn tired!]

I’m not ready to *not* make nice…

Howdy, y’all, from down here in Nashville! I’m attending the United Methodist Association of Communicators’ Annual Meeting (about which I will say more later), where this blog, that’s right, this very one, has been awarded Best in Class for non-fiction in the local church category.

No pressure there.

So, on to being relevant. Today, my inbox was overrun by emails and celebrations about Bishop John Shelby Spong’s Manifesto (linked at the Reconciling Ministries Network). In it, he lifts celebration that “the time has come” to move on from the battle about homosexuality. Bishop Spong writes that he believes the battle is won, and that he will waste no further time in debate on the matter:

I have made a decision. I will no longer debate the issue of homosexuality in the church with anyone. I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility. I will no longer discuss with them or listen to them tell me how homosexuality is “an abomination to God,” about how homosexuality is a “chosen lifestyle,” or about how through prayer and “spiritual counseling” homosexual persons can be “cured.” Those arguments are no longer worthy of my time or energy.

I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, I feel this way a lot. As I wrote earlier, I wrestled greatly with how to respond to extreme positions like those of the Westboro Baptist Church, and I decided in the end that ignoring violent language and hate speech was not something with which I could live. Still, I resonate with the idea that some arguments are not worth the waste of breath, or the anger and bitterness they generate in me. When I find that I am becoming more negative and bitter as a result of a conversation or debate, it’s time to walk away. Actually, it’s past the time to walk away. I frequently give myself sanity breaks from such debates on the umcommunities website for that precise reason. It’s not worth the breath. It’s not worth the poison that seeps into me in the course of the debate. It’s not worth it–never worth it– when I feel more distant from God as a result of a conversation.

In this matter, I do think the handwriting is largely on the wall, and that Bishop Spong is right when he says that we as church are only making ourselves more irrelevant by our continued focus on sexuality rather than on ministry:

The world has moved on, leaving these elements of the Christian Church that cannot adjust to new knowledge or a new consciousness lost in a sea of their own irrelevance. They no longer talk to anyone but themselves. I will no longer seek to slow down the witness to inclusiveness by pretending that there is some middle ground between prejudice and oppression. There isn’t. Justice postponed is justice denied.

He is right, and as a church we certainly do great harm to ourselves, not to mention to the witness of Christ, by fixating on sexuality and sexual orientation.

But I push back on two points:

First, while the tide may have turned, that doesn’t mean a battle is over. In this instance, I’m not yet prepared to walk away and dismiss anyone’s words as outdated or irrelevant or as the death throes of a position. They are still hurtful words and positions that I think must be countered. If the battle is over, there is many a GLBT person in my pews who doesn’t know it yet, and until they can let words roll off their back like water, I’m not prepared to ignore them– the words or the ones wounded by them– either. While I applaud Bishop Spong’s optimism, I don’t want to (totally mixing metaphors here!) declare ‘mission accomplished’ and pull out, leaving troops still in the trenches to be wounded and maimed.

Second, I maintain that there are many people out there, even a majority of people out there, whose positions about homosexuality in the church differ from mine, who are faithful Christians to the best of their ability and to the best of their understanding. I resent it when my opponents in a debate disregard me as “unchristian” or “liberal whacko” or whatever, rather than have to live together in difference with me. I can’t in good conscience do the same, disregarding not only their positions, but their theological frameworks, their gifts to the ministry of the church, and their human struggle to understand and serve Christ as best they can. To do so is in a way to deny the Christ in them, however hard it may be at times to see it, just as I’m sure it is sometimes hard to see the Christ in me.

Debate is, I’ll admit, fun and challenging, and often helps clarify one’s own point, but it can also be a forum for relationship growth and reaching out across differences. Wrestling together with our differences, even and especially such stark and emotionally charged ones, can in fact be a huge opportunity to grow and change. And while I’m not naive (or, I hope, arrogant) enough to assume that I can change the hearts and minds of the world, I do kind of have persuasive rhetorical speech as part of my job description, and I do therefore harbor a hope that some positive change might come from conversations I have with others. Like Jacob, wrestling with an angel in the night, we grapple with each other in the dark, each a wanderer, each an angel, and I for one don’t want to let you go until we both receive blessing.

There are some things about which I cannot compromise, and some places where I am not open to changing my mind. I cannot abide violence. I will not compromise with hate speech. I can’t imagine conceding that anything made and beloved by God is abhorrent. I reserve the right and the need to walk away from poison and mutually assured destruction in argument. I also want to declare the joy of living in the already-not-yet promise of God’s kin-dom of radical love. It’s here, in part and in glimpses! The snippets of grace and glimpses of living together in the tension of our differences, when they shine through, are enough to keep me hopeful and focused on the joy.

And yet, I still wade into the battle, to the wrestling match, because the ones with whom I wrestle are often sisters and brothers, are sometimes angels, can teach and transform me even as I hope to teach and transform them. I’m not ready to give up on them just yet.

Sermon: My Ways are not Your Ways

“My Ways are not Your Ways”

(October 18, 2009) Often, we attribute to God human-like attributes: not just flesh and hair and gender, but limited loving, justice, or forgiveness. God reminds us that especially when it comes to provision, new life, and forgiveness (which we might just sum up as grace), God does not fit inside our tiny human boxes. (Job 38:1-7, 34-41, Mark 10:35-45, Isaiah 55:1-9)

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in this sermon, I make reference to a puzzle of unknown (to me) origin: connected four dots using three straight lines to create one enclosed shape.

answer:

Sermon: Live Out Loud

“Rethink Church, Reboot Church: Live Out Loud”

(October 11, 2009) We conclude the sermon series examining the practices of the early church in Acts 2:42-47, using their example as a starting point for ways we might not only rethink church but “reboot” it by going back to the beginning. The early church did indeed preach the Gospel, but did so mostly with the examples they set with their lives. What if we considered preaching to look less like street-corner evangelism or pastors in pulpits and more like workers in soup kitchens and health clinics and house-building projects? In what ways is God calling you to take what you believe and live it out loud? (Acts 2:42-47, James 2:14-26, Matthew 5:13-16)

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part four of a four-part series, “Rethink Church, Reboot Church,” examining the practices of the early church: pooling resources to meet needs, observing a daily discipline of worship, eating together as celebration, and living the message with their lives.

series graphic my own design; pictures from stock exchange; Learn more about The United Methodist Church’s journey to “Rethink Church” at www.10thousanddoors.org.

The assurance of things hoped for

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)

President Obama today won the Nobel Peace Prize.

I am surprised, and very proud of him and of our country, to be sure.

I also wonder a little bit about what it means to award a Nobel Prize to someone who represents potential and promise more than–thus far– action and accomplishment. I’m a huge fan of the Nobel Prizes in general, and the peace prize to be sure. The list of Laureates reads like a collection of my all-time heroes (minus that Jesus of Nazareth guy, who lived before peace prizes, and Gandhi, who I can’t figure out why he didn’t get one): Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Elie Wiesel, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu.

And Barack Obama.

I love the man. I love his policies. I love the things he says. I’m still waiting for most of them to take effect. Like closing Gitmo. Like bringing our troops home from the two wars we are fighting. Like putting any pressure on Congress for a public option health care reform bill (which may have little to do with global peace, but more to do with peace of mind and body). Like reducing the stockpiling of nuclear arms in any part of the world. Like using his position to change global environmental policies. Even one of those things, let alone (I hope, by the end of his service as President) a large chunk of them, and I think he’s more than won himself a Nobel Peace Prize.

But what has he done thus far?

The Nobel Committee says this prize was awarded “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” Efforts being a pretty key word there.

Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland elaborated: “Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future.” Now we’re getting somewhere.

And, from the same NPR article linked above:

Former Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, said Obama has already provided outstanding leadership in the effort to prevent nuclear proliferation.

“In less than a year in office, he has transformed the way we look at ourselves and the world we live in and rekindled hope for a world at peace with itself,” ElBaradei said. “He has shown an unshakeable commitment to diplomacy, mutual respect and dialogue as the best means of resolving conflicts.”

The way I see it, this awarding of the Peace Prize is an expression first of all of relief from the international community– thank goodness America is going in a new direction! Then it is also an act of trust, of faith if you will, that the promise and the potential seen in Obama are not empty talk, but that he can and will follow through with the vision he is beginning to paint for the world. A world at peace with itself. A hope for a better future.

I try to get people to believe in things, to feel better about the world, to have faith in stuff they haven’t yet seen. It’s not an easy task. To change a climate in, say, a local church, from one of fear to one of hope is a mighty task indeed. I have a little first-hand experience in this effort. Again, effort being a key word. So to change the mood in the country and in the international community– yeah, that is a pretty big deal.

Maybe this award is more of an attempt at early positive reinforcement, a way of saying, yes, do that, keep going in that direction and we, the Nobel Committee at least, support your early efforts. We give your our mandate for what it’s worth. Maybe it’s given in trust for the things not yet realized, as a motivator and comes with a little post-it stuck to the check: “don’t make us regret this!” Maybe it’s a way of the international community saying we have hope for the future of our relationship, we have faith in the United States of America.

When was the last time the world had faith in us?

Mr. President, I trust you. I have faith that you can carry through on at least some of your promises and some of your vision. I hope and pray that you can live into this gift and honor you’ve been given, and be who so many of us, including some folks on the Nobel Committee it seems, believe you will be– a man who changes the way we look at global politics and policies. Even though I don’t totally see it right now, I have faith in these things hoped for.

That Old Time Religion Ain’t Conservative Enough

So my friends lists on Facebook, and on my blogroll, and even on my television (good Lord, do I love Rachel Maddow) are all talking about the same thing this week.

The Conservative Bible Project.

Like Rachel Maddow, like many of my friends when we first emailed this around, I was convinced this had to be satire. Surely The Onion was pointing out the foolishness of over-reliance on Biblical translations by creating a silly story about people so committed to the causes of conservatism– including Biblical literalism– that they would re-write the Bible to make it easier for them to take it literally. A joke, right?

Right? please?

Nope.

So you’ve probably heard this one by now, but there’s this group on the conservative wiki “Conservapedia” who want to create a ‘translation’ of the bible devoid of liberal bias, which, according to them includes “three sources of errors in conveying biblical meaning:

• lack of precision in the original language, such as terms underdeveloped to convey new concepts introduced by Christ
• lack of precision in modern language
• translation bias in converting the original language to the modern one.”

Instead, they want a Bible that obeys these guidelines:

Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias

Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, “gender inclusive” language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity

Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level

Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop; defective translations use the word “comrade” three times as often as “volunteer”; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as “word”, “peace”, and “miracle”.

Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as “gamble” rather than “cast lots”; using modern political terms, such as “register” rather than “enroll” for the census

Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.

Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning

Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story

Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels

Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word “Lord” rather than “Jehovah” or “Yahweh” or “Lord God.”

I’ve never found Hell to be particularly logical. In fact, I’ve never really found there to be a strong case for it in the Bible, but I’ve been reading those liberal Bibles that leave things in their original language where possible, so I read more about Sheol and Gehenna than Hell. Oh well.

I don’t even understand point 9. They want a bible that credits the openmindedness of the author of the fourth gospel, who, 70 years after Jesus’ death, wrote “No one comes to the Father but by me”? I can’t speak to this point.

And 10 just makes me laugh. Yes, silly liberal wordiness; why keep single words in their original language like “Yahweh,” when you can use two words loaded with historical, gendered, medieval baggage like “The Lord”?

But strangely, the one I have the biggest problem with is #7. Maybe this isn’t strange; I did just watch Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story,” which I highly recommend, and about which I hope to post soon. In any case, I can’t even begin to get my mind around how much you have to misread the Bible to think that a good translation would be committed to “explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning.”

Yes, yes, I remember. The Israelite concept of Jubilee– you know, bailouts for the wealthy, but forget that bit about letting all the slaves go free and forgiving individuals’ debts. The Deuteronomic Law insisting that in the land which God provides, the people must care for the widows and orphans and strangers (actually, aliens– don’t know if we mean illegal immigrants there or people from other planets…)– that’s the one part of Deuteronomy we should ignore (but keep the part about sexual practices, because nothing in human sexuality has changed in 4000 years). Most of the prophet Micah’s work, because in fact, God requires that you seek punitive justice, love kindness as an abstract concept, and walk along arrogantly proclaiming that you are in accordance with God, who, now that ‘He’ thinks of it, could care less about mercy and does require a big, honking CEO bonus of a sacrifice.

Then there’s that ridiculous Socialist society of the early church, holding all things in common, by which we should really understand that they took things from other people to accumulate their own wealth, which they held in common until the strongest among them developed a corporate buyout scheme, leaving the rest of the fledgling church members paupers.

And that Jesus guy. I must have totally misunderstood! He didn’t really mean blessed are the poor, but thank God for the poor because without their class to oppress, the rich couldn’t be rich. And he was being sarcastic when he said that it a rich man should sell everything and give it to the needy; no, he should sell everything at the best price he can get for it, gouging other retailers so they go out of business, and making the poor dependent on his goods so they can’t sustain their lifestyles. God’s kin-dom is like a foreman who hires workers for a day, and pays them all the same amount regardless of the hours worked, because the foreman is trying to break the back of the Union so tomorrow he can fire all those workers and hire new ones for much less money. Whoever holds on to their life is bound to accumulate more and more of it, and whoever looses their life for the sake of Jesus and the Gospel is a right fool who deserves to fall on hard times and no one is going to give them a free ride.

Again, you have to seriously, painfully misread the Bible and misunderstand what faith is and what it means to be faithful to think that this is a idea that merits anything other than scorn.

Sermon: Every Meal a Celebration

“Rethink Church, Reboot Church Every Meal a Celebration”

(October 4, 2009) We continue the sermon series examining the practices of the early church in Acts 2:42-47, using their example as a starting point for ways we might not only rethink church but “reboot” it by going back to the beginning. This week, we find that the first Christians regularly ate together, celebrating as they did so the presence and blessing of God. On this World Communion Sunday, how do we give thanks and celebrate God not only at the communion table, but every time we gather for a meal?  (Acts 2:42-47, 1 Corinthians 11:17-26, Luke 24:13-35)

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part three of a four-part series, “Rethink Church, Reboot Church,” examining the practices of the early church: pooling resources to meet needs, observing a daily discipline of worship, eating together as celebration, and living the message with their lives.

series graphic my own design; pictures from stock exchange; Learn more about The United Methodist Church’s journey to “Rethink Church” at www.10thousanddoors.org.

Grace. No Kidding.

Here is a great post about grace and how hard she can be to believe in, from a United Methodist pastor blogging “everyday theology.”

And that, my dears, in the midst of a very busy but very productive week, is my thought for the day.