Reading

I've been doing quite a bit of reading lately...but because I can't seem to keep track of calendar dates, only how things work within the program year of the church....this winter (the middle of the program year) I've read:

Millennials Rising

I disliked this book, because it felt like it was premature. Published as the first Millennials were graduating from high school (2000), I felt it characterized the bridge people (born between, say, 1979 and 1985) more than most Millennials. It's pre-9/11 and pre-recession, two serious markers of the growing up/coming-of-age years of most Millennials, so its understanding of the generation is, in my opinion, inaccurate. The way the world has shaped them, and the ways they have shaped the world, is lightyears different from how this book reads.

Sustainable Youth Ministry

I loved this book. We are working on getting a team together to try to make our youth ministry more sustainable (ie not so much dependent on me and 7 other amazing youth leaders who are basically irreplaceable), more integrated (we're better than many churches, but we have a long way to go), and more about vertical relationships that nurture and sustain inquiry about faith and life rather than about just playing human battleship (which is important too--don't worry, we're not jettisoning game nights!).

Almost Christian

Yes, yes yes. Everyone needs to be reading this book...and then trying to figure out how we do something about the issue of our churches being full of people who not only teach our children but also believe themselves that God is just "there when you need him." First of all: not a him. Second: not a servant. Third: shallow. We need to find ways to engage a serious biblical and reflective faith. This book is a good start.

The Hundred Foot Journey

I really liked this novel, though my colleague did not. I confess that I mainly liked it as food p0*n but it had some engaging story to it as well. The family dynamics and intersections of cultures via food were interesting. My colleague thought it betrayed a colonial mindset of assimilation, I thought it was about two cultures meeting...so there you go. It was not the best written novel ever--it was clearly written to be a movie, not a book, but then the author died or something and the movie was never made, so it reads a little sparsely--there are things that would have been better portrayed on screen that are not well written into the script. But overall, I kinda liked it.

Reframing Hope (a re-read in preparation for the BE4)

I heart Carol Howard Merritt. This book didn't bring up new things for me, exactly, but then again I'm hardly the target audience. I'm a young adult who IS in the church, and I work in a congregation that is intentionally seeking to be more intergenerational, that has a long history of mission and social justice, and that is invested in trying to BE the church, not just go to church. I love this book because it makes accessible the things that many church leaders (lay and ordained) need to be thinking about. The book is not long, nor is it hard to read (no dictionaries necessary here!), and it brings up things I wish more people were talking about. I feel like a large portion of the church is busy hand-wringing about my generation and the one(s) after me, but simultaneously ignoring what it means to be church in a world that is constantly changing. It's about time someone wrote a book that explains in plain english that each generation is different enough that while the faith remains the same, the ways we go about living it do not. Thanks Carol.

The White Queen

I love me some princess books! Philippa Gregory is always a good go-to-princess-book writer. I enjoyed this book and am looking forward to reading The Red Queen as well. This was a pre-Tudors story, and just as engaging as most of her work is. I love that she finds women in history and plays up their roles, instead of the usual downplaying of women in "important" stories. I like that the women are both feminine/traditional and strong/independent/interesting/stereotype-defying. I like that the story has plot twists I wouldn't necessarily expect. I like that I get to escape into a story that is both so different from my own and yet so related. loved.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

The Girl Who Played With Fire

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

I could not put these down. The story was so interesting, the characters so intriguing, the plot so not-predictable (at least at first) that I couldn't help myself. I read all three books in less than a week, because seriously...could.not.stop. The violence was a little out of control, and the sexism and heterosexism...oh my god. I nearly threw my kindle across the room more than once. But the story felt so real, and so important...and I wanted to know what was going to happen to these characters. They were just so...human. I haven't watched the movies yet, because I don't know if I can handle all that violence again (it's seriously graphic) but I probably will eventually. They're streaming on Netflix, after all. And I want to see how other people see these characters and places and interactions...my imagination ran a little wild as I contemplated all the possibilities while simultaneously devouring every page.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Sometimes you just need a little classic poetry in your life.

Alice in Wonderland

And sometimes you just need to read something you read as a young person...and then discover that it was completely drug induced in a way you had no idea about. I mean, seriously? SERIOUSLY? I had no clue when I was little...it was a fanciful story. Now I read this and go "Oh My God, what were you taking???" It's completely bizarre in every possible way. Still a great story, but wow. I did not remember it like that...

The Apothecary's Daughter

Kind of a princess book, sort of...it was fluff. But I liked it a lot. Again, plot twists, good character development, interesting people you get sort of invested in. I found this book a good escape, amusing, thought-provoking, and full of gentle commentary on the place of women in society. Then again, every historical novel is probably a commentary on the place of women in society.

Saving Paradise

This may be my favorite new theology book. It should clearly be required reading for, oh, everyone. I tried to finish the book before the lecture and workshop I attended, but didn't quite make it...I got halfway through though. Then I realized how long the book was (I was reading it on my kindle and could not figure out why the percentage wasn't increasing as I kept turning pages...now I know that it's because the book is 560 pages, but over 100 of those are notes and whatnot...it's just over 420 of actual text and images...but that 100+ pages at the end skews the kindle percentage significantly!) and I didn't feel so bad about not finishing before I went to the workshop. Anyway: Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Parker do amazing research, write great church history and theology, and delve into an art history mystery all in the same book. It's eye-opening and thought-provoking, and relieves a great burden for those of us who have trouble with the "traditional" theories of atonement. Of course, I have been saying for years now (along with some other people like, oh, Jesus) that the kingdom of God is here and we just lack the eyes to see it...which is basically what they say. So since they confirm my beliefs, they are of course the best scholars *ever*... ;-) No, seriously, read this book. Because I want to be able to talk about it, and about the work we did in their lectures and workshops. They were awesome.

Abundance: a novel about Marie Antoinette.

We all think we know about Marie Antoinette, the supposedly callous queen who valued herself above her people and sparked the french revolution with her extravagant indifference to the rest of the population. This novel, drawing on significant historical evidence including MA's own letters and letters of her court, suggests otherwise. First of all, as is pointed out in the introduction, "let them eat cake" was not said by MA but by the queen of Louis XIV, two generations before MA. Second, this novel portrays her as a compassionate, loving, interested and interesting woman whose life did not turn out as she planned. In this novel she is a woman who knows anxiety, disappointment, uncertainty, love, hope, dreams, friendship, fun, despair...in other words, she's a human being. Again, it's often a commentary on the place of women, on class and status, and on the political realities of 18th century Europe. It's intriguing. I read it mostly on the plane...it looks long, but it doesn't feel long. Enjoy.

I'm moving on now to Open Leadership, a book I'm reading with my S3 group....I'll let you know how it goes.

Happy Easter!

I'm headed out to visit some family...back in a week.

Happy Easter, all!

In the past 24 hours...

...I have:

* written a new section for, and adapted the rest of, a series of monologues for Friday's Tenebrae service, which may be one of my favorites ever. Was very impressed with myself.

* pretended to be the children's choir teacher for the preschool choir (which apparently comes under "other duties as assigned" sometimes).

* shepherded 10 children through their first Taize service.

* practiced my awesome awesome children's sermon for Easter morning with the choir.

* gotten a speeding ticket on my way home from church.

* read said speeding ticket in my garage, by the light of the "reading lights" in the car, to discover that it will cost me $120.

* discovered this morning that I'd left that light on inside my car, and the battery was dead.

* re-learned how to jump a car battery (red first!).

* drove around randomly letting my battery charge, kicking myself because my stupidity last night translated into wasting $4.15/gallon gas today.

* blogged instead of planning tonight's Maundy Thursday service.

Here's hoping the next 24 hours are slightly less eventful.

1400

This is my 1400th post on this blog. I've been writing here since May 29, 2002...and in that first post I said that I might sometimes write about the weather, "if it ever changes from cold to hot, because there's nothing in between."

Which is pretty funny, since yesterday (4.18.2011) it SNOWED and today it is cold and gray and rainy and disgusting...but 8 days ago, on the 5th Sunday in Lent, it was 80 degrees. While right now I long for 80 degrees (it's disgusting outside and this weather makes me want to just curl back up in bed), I wouldn't mind some in between. Or just a flat out shift from cold to hot.

It seems that in 9 years and 1400 posts, I'm still saying the same thing. And that thing boils down to three little words: I. Want. Sunshine.

:-)

In Her Place--5th sermon in the Lent series "Choices on the Way"

Rev. Teri Peterson
RCLPC
In Her Place
Mark 7.24-30
10 April 2011, Lent 5A (off lectionary—Choices On The Way)

From there Jesus set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ But she answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’ Then he said to her, ‘For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.’ So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.


She was just a woman. She was just a woman, a Gentile woman, a woman who should know better, who should never have been seen and certainly not heard, a foreigner, with the wrong skin color and the wrong religious beliefs and the wrong accent.

She was a woman who needed to be put in her place.

I mean, we all know how the world works. We all know that there are systems and norms and rules, and we know how to play the game. We know that our position of privilege—whether privilege of education or status or gender or color or wealth or being the most chosen of the chosen people—gives us certain…opportunities. Among those is the opportunity to remind people where they belong.

She was just a desperate woman, looking for help anywhere she could find it. She was willing to break the rules because—well—when you’re desperate, rules don’t matter.
And suddenly, against all the odds, we hear it.
We hear a voice calling out to us, a voice that is simultaneously familiar and discordant, a voice we half recognize though it comes from a body that can’t possibly contain it.

We know, of course, how God works. We know that God plays by the rules, always uses the best people available to do the job, always lays out the map and gives us fences to mark the path…and to keep the wrong kind of people out. Sure, there were a few aberrations with that murderer who led us out of Egypt, and that adulterer who was our greatest king ever, and those women of questionable morals and questionable breeding in the family tree. But overall, we get it. We know where we chosen people stand, and where others stand, and we know what to do when the wrong kind of people try to get in, when the wrong kind of people answer the call, when the wrong kind of people start calling out to us for the same kind of love and care we give our own.

So when we hear the voice, and we see the body it comes from, we know that something is up. This does not follow the rules—though we try. We were brought up to believe that she was bad, an outsider, not to be trusted let alone touched or conversed with. Our whole society, our whole religious system, our whole identity, our whole understanding of who God is and what God calls us to do, tells us the proper response: to put her in her place.

And we tried, we really did. We tried the racist slurs, the sarcastic tone, the condescending glare, the cold shoulder. We looked down on her—on her choices, her upbringing, her ethnicity and her religion. We used the most derogatory words we could call to mind, and we spat them out at her, hoping she would understand that we play by the rules and so would slink away, tail between her legs, to go back to wherever she belongs.

But then that voice…clear as a bell, both as desperate as our psalmist crying out to God from the depths of despair and as sassy as wisdom calling out to us from the street corner. The container doesn’t match, but we would know that voice anywhere—that’s the voice of the Spirit, hovering over the waters, breathing new life into dry bones, calling light out of darkness and love out of hate.

So we have to make a choice—to answer the Spirit’s call, though it breaks all the rules we think we know, or to close our ears and avert our eyes.
This is the moment when our divine nature tries to assert itself, when the image of God tries to break forth through our human ways. And we realize—this is what it means to be fully human, fully divine. This is what it means to live as God calls us to live. This is what it means to hear and obey. This is what it means to follow God’s will, to suddenly the systems of sin in which we are oh-so-humanly caught and turn into a new kingdom of hope. This is what it means to break open our hardened shells and let God’s light stream into the world.

And so we turn to this woman, this child of God, this vessel of the Spirit, and let love flow out from us, out past the walls we’ve built, out past the cage we’ve kept ourselves in, erasing our lines in the sand and growing the circle ever wider. Instead of putting her in the place we think she deserves, we step aside, make room for the Spirit to move among and within us and others, and allow her to take the place God has prepared for her, at the table of sassy saints. And then we turn again, following God’s call into the unknown, toward Jerusalem. For that is where this journey of obedient love will take us.

May God guide us on our way. Amen.

who prays "best"?

Presbyterian with the letters rearranged = "best in prayer"....awesome. (ignore the fact that it could also rearrange to "britney spears")

This morning a friend tweeted about this article, where one of the myths is that the pastor's prayers are more powerful than "normal" people (I don't even want to think about what that means for my normalcy quotient!)...and it reminded me of a conversation we had last night in which, after I opened the Bible study with prayer, someone asked "how do you do that? I could never pray like that." (It wasn't even a particularly stellar prayer--it felt sort of...well...standard. You know, the usual prayer at the beginning of a class or meeting.) I actually said that I had a lot of practice praying essentially the same prayer over and over again, because those prayers are just a few sentences and always say the same things--thanks for this day, for the privilege of gathering around the Word...be with us as we discuss and learn and ponder...so we can be faithful disciples in the world.

You know the one.

Anyway, in this conversation it quickly became clear that everyone in the room really believes that they can't do that. That they can't pray out loud, that they aren't good enough to talk to God on behalf of a room full of people, that because they stutter or their mind wanders or they might ramble or whatever, God and the other people in the room will be judging their praying ability. Pastors should just do the praying because we are so much better at it.

Um, no.

We're protestants. One of the key things about the whole Protestant idea is that every single one of us has direct access to God through prayer; we don't have to wait for the priest to go to God on our behalf, we don't have to wait for someone else (priest, saint, monk, pope, whoever) to pray for us, we can do it all on our own. And I have spent years now trying to convince kids that they can talk to God and whatever they have to say, God will listen to. It doesn't matter what other people think of their ability to speak in public, it doesn't matter whether the grown-ups in the room think the prayer is fluffy or "cute," it doesn't matter if you have to pause and think about the next word because you're not sure yet what you even want to say. Everyone can pray, everyone can pray out loud, everyone can pray on behalf of others, everyone can pray at Bible Study or in worship or at a meeting or a potluck. It's not like pastors have some special power that gives us the right words to say, or makes us unusually eloquent, or whatever. We all have that same power--it's called the Holy Spirit. Some of us have more practice, but that doesn't mean the rest of us shouldn't be practicing. And in this case, practice doesn't make perfect--like any other spiritual discipline, this practice makes us more comfortable chatting with God despite our imperfection.

Apparently I should have been reminding the parents, not just the kids.

Next week: one of the parents will pray. (mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha....)

wisdom...

I have been thinking a lot about wisdom lately, but not "wisdom" in the traditional sense, or at least the sense it usually seems to get talked about in our culture. We have this picture of wisdom as something you sort of magically get when you're older--as in the phrase "older and wiser"--or through lots of really hard and tragic experiences.

But "wisdom" is also a spiritual gift listed in 1 Corinthians and it shows up on all the spiritual gift inventories, described as (different from knowledge) knowing God's will and being able to see the connections between everyday life and spiritual matters/God-things.

I think there's also another kind of wisdom--the kind that allows us to see ourselves clearly, to see others clearly, and to make room in that clarity for the movement of the Spirit.

I don't think many people (myself included) have this kind of wisdom.

But this is the kind of wisdom that we need if we are going to stop saying things like "it's not my fault there aren't any women leaders at this conference--we were just looking for the best people." This is so arrogant/condescending (especially when talking to a woman), and it shows that the speaker has not seen clearly the gifts of others or made room for the Spirit to work through people the speaker doesn't see fitting the usual mold of leaders. (Because really? all the best people just happened to be white men? really? hmm.) It's also the kind of wisdom we need if we are going to stop meeting new ideas with "that won't work because ______." Because as soon as we utter those words, we have shut down our own vision of others, we have blocked their creativity, and we have closed the windows and kept the Spirit outside. This is the kind of wisdom at work when we choose to listen without fixing the problems of the other person, when we show compassion without needing to solve everything for them...because when we fix it, we not only give the impression that we believe we are better than the other person, we also close down room for the Spirit to work in that person's own creative solutions to what's going on in their life.

The trouble is, this kind of wisdom requires that we know ourselves really really well, and that we simultaneously allow others to know themselves (and show that self to us) and to know us. So few people in our culture are truly self-aware, and so few people seem interested in really knowing The Other, and so few people want the Holy Spirit blowing in and messing up their worldview and plans, that this kind of wisdom seems scarce. When we're around it, we know. But most of life (at least my life) is not lived in that wisdom atmosphere, and we barely notice its absence until we breathe that life-giving air for a few moments...and then it's awfully hard to go back to the way things were.

So today I'm working on making space, because I breathed that other atmosphere and now I want it back.

BG (Before Google)--a sermon for Lent 2A

Rev. Teri Peterson
RCLPC
B.G. (Before Google)
Genesis 12.1-4
20 March 2011, Lent 2A

Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’
So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.


Often, when I am preparing to go somewhere, I check out all kinds of things. I head to google and I look up the hotel, the restaurants, the attractions, the community news and statistics…I read reviews on yelp and trip advisor, I plot which places I want to try and which I’d rather avoid, based on other people’s experiences. I even do this here at home, looking up businesses I’ve not used before to find out about them before I ever make a call or walk through the door, to find out about the churches hosting Presbytery meetings, or what else is good at a local restaurant besides the thing I always order. And when I, or a friend, get ready to meet someone new, whether we’ve been set up on a date or we’re just making new friends, I almost always google them to see if I can figure out what they’re like ahead of time. Employers are now doing this too, googling candidates before they interview them, checking to see that there’s nothing embarrassing or controversial about them floating around the web, checking up on their history or their time management or their ability to keep the shocking photos off facebook.

And, of course, before I go anywhere—sometimes long before I even decide to go anywhere—I map it on google. How long will it take to drive there? Can I walk between these different places I want to go? Are there alternate routes I might prefer? I put in the addresses, I move that little blue line all around—because who wants to drive down Randall Road all the way to 90 when we could drive down 62 instead?—and I check out all my options. Sometimes I print the directions, sometimes I just put the address into the gps, sometimes I do both…but I almost always have a map before I leave, and I have a fair idea what to expect when I get there, thanks to Google.

Abram had none of these things. He heard the voice of the Lord telling him to leave his home and his family, to set out to this unknown place that God would show him. Abram didn’t have the opportunity to google who this God character is—this is the first time we find out that Abram and God have talked, we don’t know whether Abram and God had a prior relationship, and yet Abram asks no questions like “who are you?” or “can I see your photo?” or “what other things have you done, what other journeys have you guided, what other people have you blessed?” He doesn’t whip out his iPad and google “God” which will, as of this morning, get you about 726 million results, the first of which is the Wikipedia entry about God. Abram also doesn’t manage to ask God for a map—where is he going, how is he going to get there, how long is it going to take, and what’s the traffic adjustment? He just seems to believe that this voice is trustworthy, so he packs up all his stuff and heads out into the desert.

I don’t know if many of us would do that.

When God calls, we probably would prefer to do a quick Google search and ask for a map first? It’s so tempting, and so easy, to try to mitigate our fear of the unknown by doing some research ahead of time. Of course, then it’s also easy to get distracted by the millions of other things out there, the myriad options, the many voices. And it’s easy to find reasons not to go—it’s dangerous, it’s humid, it’s cold, the people are snooty, the food is only so-so, it’ll take a long time and cost a lot with today’s gas prices, there are a lot of 1 star reviews. Or it’s just that sometimes following God is too difficult a path, it doesn’t fit in our busy schedules, it might ruin our social status.

Presumably Abram had a busy schedule—he appears to have an entire household and a large extended family, and we know he has large flocks and servants which means his household was like a small village of tents. He was probably a respected member of his community. Not to mention that he was 75 years old! And yet, off he went, leaving all that behind. It kind of makes me wonder what people said about him after the last of his camel caravan was out of sight…I can practically hear the gossip. But he went anyway. Once he’d heard God’s call, he had to make a choice—he could try to return to life the way it had always been, before he heard God’s voice, or he could follow that call and see where that led him.

Dropping everything and following God’s voice into the wilderness is a common theme in the Bible—from this story of Abram to the Israelites leaving Egypt to Elijah to John the Baptist and Jesus and Paul. But even if we never leave home, God still calls us to a journey—a journey involving risks and life-changing choices. Once we hear God’s voice, things can never be the same. We have to decide whether to set our face back toward the past, pretending nothing has changed and that we can go on leading our safe old lives, or to set our face toward Jerusalem and accept the consequences of following God’s call.

One of my favorite quotes says, “faith is believing that one of two things will happen—that there will be something solid for you to stand on, or that you will be taught to fly.” Now, of course, I prefer to think about flying, because it sounds more fun and adventurous, but sometimes the journey just involves stepping out and finding the path is there, waiting for us even though we couldn’t see it before.



Indy didn't believe until this moment...he heard the voice of someone he trusted, and he chose to take the step.

This Lent, we too have some choices. God is calling…but to where or to what, we may not be sure. Who does God want us to be? What kind of people? What kind of work are we to do? How can our lives, both individually and as a community, be part of God’s kingdom quest here and now? Our church is at a crossroads—now we have to discern which voice is God’s amidst that jumble of voices, and then we have to decide…we can’t just stay where we are, looking at the sign—signs point somewhere, they’re not meant to be stopping places. We have to turn one way or the other. And perhaps this is a decision we need to make BG—Before Google, or maybe even live life Beyond Google, because there’s no way to remove our fear of the unknown, so at some point we have to decide whether, with Jesus, we will set our face toward Jerusalem or toward something else more comfortable and predictable. We know is that God has great plans…the question is—once we know God’s voice, which journey will we choose to walk?

May the Lord guide us as we travel together.
Amen.

Lenten Discipline

Normally for Lent I take on the discipline of being more intentional about what I put in my body. This means giving up eating out and drinking pop, both of which are things I do because I didn't plan ahead for my day. So in being intentional, I try to bring my lunch (and/or dinner, if I have evening things, which I do almost every night). I pack my water bottles. I pass by Taco Bell rather than giving in to my every crunchwrap supreme craving. Etc.

This year I managed to fail at my discipline within about 36 hours. More than once.

And after talking with my therapist last week (and again this week) about my perfectionist tendencies and my not-helpful self-talk and my general feel of failure when I don't do things perfectly and all the time, I've decided to change my lenten discipline mid-stream. Granted, we're only a few days into Lent, which helps...

So this year I am going to give up perfectionism--in the sense that I am not going to talk badly to (or about) myself when I fail at something. I don't write every day? Not a cause to tell myself I'm lazy or stupid. I forgot my lunch and ran to Subway? Not a reason to remind myself of my idiotic forgetfulness. I skipped a morning workout? Doesn't mean I have to give up exercise because I won't get 90 minutes in, and doesn't make me a fat slob.

You get the idea.

So if you catch me talking bad about myself, please hold me accountable. Thanks...love Teri.

a life for a life

This week the death penalty was abolished in Illinois. I am unspeakably proud of the legislature and governor for taking this step, and yet I find that I'm almost unable to write anything about it.

All the news coverage I have heard has been interviews with people who disagree with this decision, and I find the things they say so horrifying I don't know what to do other than to turn off the radio or the computer and sit in the silence instead.

Now, I've never been the victim/survivor of a crime for which someone could conceivably receive the death penalty. I don't pretend to know what those people are feeling. I would like to think that the values I hold would hold up under those circumstances, but I also know that you can't know that until they're tested (and, frankly, I'm a big wuss and don't want to be tested in that way!).

But still.

I heard a woman say that since she was robbed of seeing her loved one grow old, another family should also be robbed of that privilege. That's not what she said, but it's how she framed it: "I don't get to see him grow old, so this other man should die." Which means another family grieves, and the cycle of violence and grief and anger continues, with healing for no one.

I heard a lawyer say that now we will have more trials because they won't be able to use the person's life as a bargaining chip to get them to agree to plead guilty, thus avoiding a trial by a jury of their peers. All I could think was "please tell me we have not been using someone's LIFE/DEATH as a carrot/stick to get them to give up their constitutional right to a jury trial.....oh lord, I think that's what he's saying."

I heard law enforcement officials insisting (even when confronted with statistics that give the lie to their assertions) that the death penalty is a strong deterrent to crime and now there will be more crime.

And that was all in less than 10 minutes yesterday. If there were interviews with people who support the decision, I didn't hear them because I had to turn off the news.

It turns my stomach and makes all sound an assault on my ears and brain to hear these things. I can't imagine saying them out loud and I don't know in what world they are okay. I don't even know what to say. I want to start a sentence with "as a person of faith..." but I'm not sure what the next words in that sentence would be. All I can do right now is pray for people and for our systems, and maybe even for the english language because all the words I want to use (justice, mercy, grace, peace, repentance, forgiveness, punishment, etc) have been co-opted in ways that make them almost impossible to use in a theological sense in this context. Which makes me even more sad and speechless, even as I celebrate a decision that I believe to be in the best interests of the state, of justice, of humanity, and of faithfulness.

Sigh.

Ashes to Ashes

I'm sitting on my couch, a smudge of ashes still on my forehead, thinking about this strange ritual that kicks off this very strange time of year.

You should know two things about me before I tell you what I'm thinking, though:

1. I like meaningful ritual. I like actions with symbol and communal meaning, rituals that connect me (and us) to something bigger and older than we are.

2. I did not grow up in the church, so I lack a lot of the baggage many others seem to carry.

Now...

I have many colleagues and friends who are, at best, ambivalent about Ash Wednesday. Part of me understands this, because when I came to the church I too thought it was a weird thing, a meaningless ritual that had been rightfully jettisoned from church practice during the Reformation, some kind of fake magic that was designed to control and manipulate people into giving more money to the already richest-thing-around overbearing church institution. (I've never been one to mince words, either...) The first year I went to an Ash Wednesday service, nearly a year after I started going to church, was the first time that congregation had done ashes in...ever. And I was one of those people who went forward but asked them to put ashes on my hand, not my head, because I thought it was creepy and weird and Catholic and I didn't really want to do it but I wasn't about to be the only person just sitting in the pew all alone either.

Now I love Ash Wednesday. It's one of my favorite services of the year, and it leads into one of my favorite seasons of the year. (Full disclosure: I seem to have particular love for the church seasons that are opposite the cultural season...I love Advent, which is all about waiting even as the culture runs around like headless chickens, and I love Lent which is all about darkness even though in the northern hemisphere our days get longer and warmer and sunnier and flowers bloom and whatnot.)

So...what is it that I love about Ash Wednesday?

I love that it gives us an opportunity to stop and repent -- to turn and focus where we should be focusing. Sure, we're Presbyterians so we have a prayer of confession every week, we admit our failings, the ways we wound our lives and the lives of others and the life of the world. We confront the ways we fall short of the glory of God, and we turn our attention to where it belongs...every week. But on Ash Wednesday, it's what we do...and that's about it. We name the ways we have fallen short, we pray to be turned toward the light again, we admit that we prefer darkness, we spend time focusing on looking for the right path.

But even more than that, I love that it's a service that reminds us that not only are we not perfect, we're also not immortal. We may try to cheat death with medical miracles, we may try to cheat aging with products and chemicals and makeup and hours of exercise, we may try to live forever through our own legacies. but we can't. In the end, we are all dust, and to dust we shall return.

And yes, we can think about this at other times...but not many other times. Most of the time when these ideas come up, it's at a funeral. But on Ash Wednesday we can remember, contemplate, and even celebrate our own mortality outside the context of individual grief (frankly, I didn't want to contemplate my own mortality while sprinkling my mom's ashes into the ocean....and that was the first time I ever touched ashes. I was busy grieving.). It's not often we get to acknowledge what we all know deep down--that no one lives forever, no one is perfect, and no one can walk this journey alone. We try to remind ourselves of these things throughout the year, but this is a day when the stark reality is all there is. We can look each other in the eye and say "We are dust, but God's love endures forever." We can affirm these two most crucial things about us as human beings: We are not God, but God is.

I am glad that protestants are (slowly but surely) reclaiming Ash Wednesday and Lent. This journey is an important one, and the ashes are a marker on our road, reminding us to let go of some things, embrace others, and turn to the light.

International Women's Day

March 8 is International Women's Day--a day celebrating (and working for) the economic, political, and social achievement and well being of women worldwide. It's quite an organization--and this year is the 100th International Women's Day. It also happens to fall on Mardi Gras this year, because Easter is so late, making it a day of celebration on many fronts. (I'll gloss over the New Orleans Mardi Gras tradition of objectifying women, at least for the moment....)

I come from a position of privilege, at least in terms of my race, my socio-economic status (on a worldwide scale--on a local scale, not so much), and my country. I have always had a lot of opportunity open to me, from fantastic education to support in every endeavor I've tried. I've always been told I can do whatever I want to do and be whatever I want to be. The only expectations from my family were that I do something good, and that I do it well. Quitting something I'd committed to was never an option, and doing poorly wasn't really an option...and those non-options are marks of a position of privilege in many ways (and of growing up in the lower class in many other ways!). (and let's not discuss how those are also marks of being the firstborn of a firstborn...)

In any case, I have not run into the kind of gender discrimination that people in many parts of the world have. I've had some experiences, both at home and abroad, that have made me aware (sometimes painfully so) of the plague of sexism and the desire to subjugate powerful women. I've also had some experiences within my regular life that I attribute to subconscious sexism, though when I've pointed those out people always say I'm imagining things. And I've been one of those people pointing out that the leadership of various events--whether conferences, seminars, church events, etc--has lacked diversity. The response to that is similar to "you're imagining things" and generally sounds like some kind of anti-affirmative-action soundbite: "we're not trying to fill any kind of quota, we were just looking for the best people."

and the "best people" are, of course, strangely similar in gender, skin color, and cultural background to the person speaking.

As a woman who is intelligent, witty, a fast learner, a good speaker, talented in many areas, and willing (even desiring!) to serve the church and world in a variety of ways, I find that kind of statement so offensive as to almost be funny.

But not quite funny.

There's just no way you can tell me that the best people are always men. Or always white. Or always Americans. Or always hip. Or always over 40. Or always the highly paid people in our biggest churches (who almost uniformly call only white men to be their pastors...coincidence?).

Yes, those people are no doubt talented and wonderful and have things to say that we need to hear.

And so are the people who aren't invited.

Plus there are, frankly, some people in both of those categories who are not the best people to be speaking, but they fill the right position and they look right, so there they are on the glossy brochure or on the stage.

SO: dear world, you are going to have to make a choice. And International Women's Day is a great day to do it. It's time to choose: do you believe that stuff you've been teaching us girls, that we can do and be anything we want? Or do you believe that we can do anything we want as long as we don't tell anyone about it, and as long as we don't complain about being paid less than men to do it, and as long as we come to the conferences led by the famous rich white dudes without murmuring? Because the theme of this year's IWD is education and training, and if we are going to have all the great education and training, then you'd better be prepared to let us in to the subsequent arenas--good (and equally paid) jobs, voices in the wider church/business/culture, and the opportunity to stand on that stage and prove that we too are some of the best people out there, quotas or no.

playing

I am playing around with a new blog template...now with pages, changeable background pictures, and other fun features. So please...suggestions and feedback are welcome! Especially if you find it hard to read or if colors are confusing or if you can't tell what's a link or any other things like that, please let me know so I can keep updating until it's perfect. Thanks!

Not Deathly Ill

There are waves in the PCUSA right now about a letter that came out from a bunch of men who pastor big churches. When the biggest uproar was about how no women or elders had signed the letter, they issued a follow up clarification letter, as well as adding a zillion new signers practically overnight. The letter claims that the PCUSA is deathly ill and that the main cause of this illness is the fight for (and now trend toward) inclusion. They name the LGBT "issue" as the primary symptom of our illness, as well as including a list of other fun things like "creeping universalism" (which is just fun to say and to picture). The bottom line is that the denomination is getting smaller and we have to stop it ASAP before we fade away into irrelevance or just...well...fade away. They lament the lack of young people, the disproportionate funeral-to-infant-baptism ratio, and (I think) a lack of passion for mission and evangelism. They believe these problems to be the result of lax theological standards and loose morals, and somehow both the cause and the effect of institutional decline.

There have already been a number of fantastic replies to these letters. There have also been defensive replies to the replies. There is a vibrant, if sometimes heated, discussion going on in the church. There is frustration, disappointment, and even anger all around, as well as love and hope and fear and joy and wonder. Some feel the initial letter was condescending, some feel the replies are hateful, and in general everyone is focusing once again on, in my opinion, the wrong thing.

Yes, the PCUSA is getting smaller. Yes, most mainline denominations are getting smaller. And, in fact, most megachurches are even getting smaller.

I do not believe that to be a symptom of deathly illness.

I believe this is a symptom of our culture's move away from institutions. I also believe, along with those who write about generational theory, that this anti-institutional fervor is likely to change in the next 25-50 years as Millennials take the stage with their communitarian and institution-building and institution-trusting tendencies.

More important than the generational theory (and I think it is CRUCIAL, frankly, but few are likely to listen to me about it....go read the book), though, is the fact that we may finally be in a position to stop believing that the institution, the building, the Sunday attendance, is the church. The church is not a building, is not a theological system or a moral code, is not a set of rules, is not a denomination, is not a fight over "issues," is not even a book of order. The church is the people of God, working with God, doing God's work in the world. and in that sense, the church is nowhere near death. In fact, it's quite presumptuous and extremely condescending to declare the church deathly ill when the people of God are working with God all over the place. The fact that they are not joining the PCUSA or any other denomination is not the point (and attendance trends often seem to suggest that people attend but don't join). The fact that the birth rate in the US has dropped, particularly among the educated white families that the PCUSA tends to attract, is not the point. The fact that Millennials are not flocking to church (gee, do/did their parents?) is not the point. In other words--the writers of this letter have missed the point. By a lot. The point is: the people of God are out there doing God's work all over the place. People are feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, loving the unloveable, connecting with the image of God in every person, caring for God's creation, loving their neighbors and their enemies, sharing their resources, shining a light, bringing a little joy, offering grace...they are studying, teaching, learning...they are worshipping, gathering, fellowshipping...and it may not be happening in a church building, but it sure as hell is the church. And the church is not deathly ill.

In fact, it is more obvious than ever that the church is alive. The institution may not live in the halls of power, the big-steeple pastors may not have the influence they once had, the culture may not care what we as a whole have to say...but those things aren't what Jesus did anyway, and the early church didn't have any of those things and yet thrived anyway.

So I would argue that the way these letter writers have framed the issue, viewed through my biblical, theological, socio-economic, political, and generational framework: the church has indeed been ill. For the past 60 years (or more, if you head all the way back to Constantine), we have gorged ourselves on power and influence and numbers and programs and attractionalism and big buildings/salaries/pensions and assumptions. Those things crippled our ability to be the people of God working with God to do God's work in the world--to transform the world into the kingdom. And now we are beginning to get well. But like any healing process, some parts are painful.

be yourself--a sermon on the text for ordinary 5A

Rev. Teri Peterson
RCLPC
be yourself
Matthew 5.13-16
13 February 2011, Ordinary 6A (5A text)

“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”


When we give advice, whether it’s about a relationship or an outfit, choosing a school or interviewing for a job, one of the most common phrases we use is “just be yourself.” We want people to be who they are so they can get the best fit, best express who they are and what they are looking for, and be happy. Of course, sometimes when we say “just be yourself” what we really mean is “just be nice” or “just be the bubbly, happy, enthusiastic you,” which is not always the same as being yourself. And occasionally, “be yourself” really means “be who they want you to be” in order to land the interview, get the job, or score the second date.

If we stop to think about it for a moment, the advice to “be yourself” is not the simple proposition most people seem to think it is. It’s actually pretty difficult to first know yourself well enough, then to be able to express who you really are, in all the various settings you might find yourself in. Knowing ourselves, and being ourselves, is hard work. There’s a reason therapists always have full practices and the self-help shelves take up so much of the bookstores.
There is a story about a rabbi who was wandering through the forest one evening. As he was praying and walking along, he lost his way and found himself in front of a military base, where a guard brought him out of his reverie by shouting, "Who are you? What are you doing here?" The rabbi replied, "How much do they pay you?" "Why do you ask?" the guard wondered. "Because," said the rabbi, "I need someone to ask me those questions every day.”

So we are here to wonder together: who are we? And what are we doing here?

The very first question in one of our Presbyterian teaching tools is: “who are you?” and the answer is “I am a child of God.”

Not, “I am an enthusiastic and passionate person,” not, “I’m a pastor/teacher/computer geek” or “I’m a daughter/parent/friend,” but “I am a child of God.”

Today Jesus reminds us what that means, and he says to us, “You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.” He doesn’t say “you should be” or “one day you will be” or “you are like” or “work harder at becoming” the salt of the earth and the light of the world. He says, “you ARE the salt of the earth, you ARE the light of the world.”

I wonder how many of us think first of these kinds of descriptions when we think about who we are. We are children of God, made in the image of God, salt of the earth and light of the world.
We are things necessary for life—salt and light. Nothing can live or grow without them.
We are symbols of covenant—in the ancient world salt was exchanged to seal the deal, to create an unbreakable promise.
We are the ingredients that bring out the flavor and character of things around us, the way salt brings out the flavor of veggies or tomatoes or chocolate and caramel; the way light makes it possible to see the details of what’s around us.
And we didn’t become this by ourselves—God created us this way, and called us very good.

So I am here today to tell you that regardless of what other words you might use to describe who you are—whether you look at yourself and think “beautiful” or “plain” or “fat” or “stupid” or “awesome” or “freak” or “witty” or “geek” or “teacher” or “unemployed” or “sad” or “passionate” or “graceful” or “frazzled” any of the other millions of words we use to think about ourselves, good and bad…no matter what words you think when you look in the mirror or hear the question “who are you,” you are a child of God, loved by the creator, and made to be salt and light for the world.
The same is true when we think about the church—whether we start out with words like “welcoming” or “dynamic” or “broken” or “lost” or “dying” or “faithful,” our primary identity is that we are the people of God, salt and light, made to bring zest and show truth and offer flavorful hope to the world, pointing to the glory of God.

So then the question becomes WHY do we so often turn to those other identities first? Why do we so often believe the other descriptors but not the ones God has given us? Why is our saltiness always either too strong or too weak, our light so often hidden under a bushel basket? Why do we so often forget the answers to “who are you?” and “what are you doing here?”

Sometimes I think we forget because those other words are so much more prevalent, so much more accessible, so much more real-feeling. That whole business about needing 10 positive words to counteract one negative word is true for adults as well as children. It’s easy to become who the culture tells us we are, whether that’s beautiful, smart, and talented or whether that’s lazy, at-risk, and dangerous.

Sometimes I think we choose to forget, we choose to hide under the bushel basket, because we are afraid of making a scene. We don’t want to be the one who points out the problem or the one who suggests the unpopular solution. We don’t want to do too much—to blind people with bright light or to over-salt the dish. We want people to like us, we want to be part of the in-crowd, and that means not drawing attention.

And sometimes I think we reject our primary identity because we DO want to draw attention to ourselves, and so often the purpose of salt and light is to enable us to see something else—salt is there not to be tasted on its own, but to bring out the natural flavors of other ingredients; light is there not to be looked at directly but to let other things be seen. Which means that salt and light are not the center of attention, and for some of us that is just too much to handle.

But we don’t get to choose…God has created us to be mirrors of the divine image, to reflect God’s glory into the world, to be children of God, salt and light. God has told us who we are, and what we are doing here. In the words of another of our teaching tools, “the chief purpose of humankind is to glorify God and enjoy God forever.” There’s a reason that’s the first sentence! So, friends, it’s time to cast off our bushel baskets. It’s time to claim our true identity, to let go of our fear and our need to be liked, to stand on the lampstands of the world and let God’s light shine through us.

I’m reminded of a quote from a book by Marianne Williamson. She says, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same."

Friends, we’ve just received the best advice in the world: just be yourself, the person God made you to be.

May it be so.
Amen.

the way--a sermon

Rev Teri Peterson
RCLPC
the way
Psalm 25.1-10, Micah 6.6-8
6 February 2011, Ordinary 5A (text for 4A)

In you, LORD my God, I put my trust.
I trust in you; do not let me be put to shame,
nor let my enemies triumph over me.No one who hopes in you
will ever be put to shame, 

but shame will come on those
who are treacherous without cause.
Show me your ways, LORD,
teach me your paths.
Guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Savior, 

and my hope is in you all day long.
Remember, LORD,
your great mercy and love, 

for they are from of old.
Do not remember the sins of my youth
and my rebellious ways; 

according to your love remember me,
for you, LORD, are good.
Good and upright is the LORD;
therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.
He guides the humble in what is right
and teaches them his way.
All the ways of the LORD
are loving and faithful 

toward those who keep the demands
of his covenant.

With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high?

Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves a year old? 

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with tens of thousands of rivers of oil?

Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
God has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
~~~~~~~~~~

This morning I have a confession to make. I spent this week not particularly interested in writing a sermon. Instead, much like last week, I’ve been glued to the news, watching and reading everything coming out of Egypt. I’ve been waiting to hear from my friends and colleagues and students, hoping and praying for justice and peace…and I’ve been disappointed and frightened that the peaceful revolution turned violent. I’ve watched as protestors have camped out in the square downtown, as the army has been cheered through the streets, as the police first disappeared entirely and then came back with guns and rocks. I’ve laughed hysterically and yet with hope and awe at videos and interviews that show protestors picking up trash from the streets of Cairo, and shed tears at the video from a friend showing bullet holes in the windows of the church where I worshipped and preached. I’ve waited anxiously as internet and cell phone service was cut off, and then been one of those people trying to get through when it came back on. I’ve followed the news on al-jazeera, twitter, facebook, cnn, blogs, and anywhere else that’s publishing or broadcasting. And thinking of the people of Egypt has consumed my time and my energy for the past two weeks in ways I would never have imagined. So I want to tell you about some of these people who have been on my mind this week. People like Naadia and Marsa, who kept our house and made sure we stayed out of trouble and helped us with all kinds of things from shopping to cleaning to cooking.

Like Sabray,
my taxi driver, and his family who offered not just a way around the city but also hospitality and love, even though we lived such different lives and were of different religions. Like the people who took care of us and made sure we had enough fruit and vegetables to eat, who found us great treats and great prices nearly every day.

Like my Arabic teacher Ashgan, who helped me communicate and always had a smile even when I was so slow sounding out words or writing my own name.

Or Mehir, the gatekeeper at the school, who greeted us, gave us directions, rescued me from more than one sticky situation, helped us find our way, and was always good for a late-night conversation or a joke or story over a glass of mango juice.

I’ve been thinking of my students—girls who are now in the 6th grade and whose futures are being fought for in the streets of Cairo…I’ve especially been thinking of the troublemakers from Class C, Ireny, Nourhan, Maria, and Sandy, and wondering what they are doing now as their classes are disrupted and their country is in turmoil around them.

Or the teenagers in my English class, girls who are now in college, many of them at universities near Tahrir Square.

And of course there are the students and teachers and families of Fairhaven. I still haven’t heard anything from them, but we continue to pray that they are okay.

I think of the teachers I worked with at the Ramses College for Girls—6 women who gave their lives to first graders,

and of the congregations pastored by my friends from the protestant seminary. And I think a lot about Martha Roy, who is now 98 years old and has been in Egypt for most of her life. She’s seen a lot of change in that country, and she’s done a lot of good. She taught, built schools, helped run clinics, and transcribed the music of the Coptic liturgy so it could be preserved and studied and used outside of Egypt. As late as her 93rd birthday she was still playing the organ every Friday and Sunday for the St. Andrews United Reformed Church downtown, the one that was damaged by looters. She lives in the nursing-home wing of a hospital a few blocks from Tahrir Square, and no one seems to have heard anything about her. As I think about and pray for Martha, I can’t help but worry about her even though this is hardly her first revolution.

Egypt is changing, and I think it’s safe to say that no matter what happens in the politics, the country will never be the same. The hopes and dreams of generations of people are on the line…millions are praying for a way forward, but that way seems unclear.

As I talked with the confirmation class about these two scripture texts, we wondered together how we find the way. How do we discover the path we are supposed to follow? There are a lot of options, a lot of possibilities, and often they’re all good. Sometimes we look for the way by following our friends or our families, sometimes by taking facebook quizzes or reading our horoscopes, sometimes by being so perfect that God will be forced into helping us, sometimes by just going along with the flow and avoiding the subject entirely. Sometimes we even read Scripture and pray and discern in our church community. We prayed this psalm together—“show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths.” And then we flipped over to Micah and read that “God has shown you what is good—to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.”

It often seems that our prayer for God to teach us or show us goes unheeded…we flounder around in our own ways, confused or worried or detached, looking for a burning bush or a flash of light. We say we put our hope in God, that we want to walk God’s path if we could just find it…and here’s the prophet Micah pointing us to the path laid out before us. And then we call to mind the example of Jesus, who directed us to love others as he loves us…and the path still seems unclear. I think we often prefer the unclarity, because it’s a hard road to walk. This road requires us to both realize and act: to realize that we have been given everything we need to travel this journey—freely God has given God’s own self to us, in life and in death and even at this table; and to act on love, justice, mercy, and humility. Our first reaction to hearing these things is always “but HOW do we do that?” much like the man who asked Jesus “but who IS my neighbor?” I’m reminded of Stephen Colbert, in a show near Christmastime, who said that we are going to have to start either openly pretending that Jesus is as selfish as we are, or acknowledge the things he commanded us and then admit that we don’t want to do it.

I think we know what we are called to do…and we know how to do it. We know that in our everyday lives we can love as we have been loved, we can give as freely as we have received, we can build community and feed the hungry and shelter the homeless. We can work to change systems, we can lobby and vote and pray and even protest, we can be beacons on the path of justice and mercy that God has shown us. The question is whether we’ll choose that path, or another, or whether we’ll be too consumed by looking back at where we’ve been to move down any path at all.

I want to leave you with one more picture. This picture has been widely distributed since it was taken on Thursday, and it’s a perfect example of people who have so freely received grace upon grace…giving out of that abundance, acting without fear, and doing justice together. This is downtown Cairo, during noontime prayers. Thousands of Muslims are gathered to pray, and they are vulnerable. Or they would be, if not for the ring of Christians who have joined hands, standing between those praying and the mob intent on violence.


May we too do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.

Amen.

more brainstorming-by-blog

Our confirmation class is thinking about Psalm 25.1-10 and Micah 6.6-8 and the theme of finding and walking in God's path. One of the questions before us is about what other ways we've tried before finding and following God's way?

So I wonder...where are some places you have looked for God's way but haven't found it? Or some detours you've taken? Some attempts you've made that didn't get you further down God's path?

(the idea comes from Micah 6, where the question seems to be about which thing God has asked for--an extreme ritual sacrifice of material goods? a bargain? a way of life?--and also from the parts of Psalm 25 in which the psalmist asks for forgiveness for following other paths before finding God's. So what are those other ways? What are some things we thought were God's way but weren't?)

sermon video for "Telling"

from the 930 service on the 16th. A few times I had trouble getting the words out exactly right, but overall it's pretty good...and good sound and video quality!

in search of the perfect metaphor...

....for our Lenten journey.

This year in worship we are on a journey, exploring the points along the way when we have to make a choice to move forward or go back. We're contemplating the choice between moving into God's future or looking back at the way things used to be "back in the day." The question is whether we're ready to take a leap of faith and see where God is leading, or if we'd prefer to go back to the way things have always been.

The initial metaphor was something like turning points, decision points, crossroads, etc. But none of those is quite right, for various reasons.

The scriptures we are using are:

*Adam and Eve choosing to eat from the tree of knowledge;

*Abram and Sarai leaving everything and everyone to go to a land God will show them;

*The Israelites "going back" by making a golden calf at the foot of Mt. Sinai;

*Peter declaring Jesus the Messiah, then backpedaling when he finds out what that really means;

*Jesus meeting a woman who changes his understanding of his mission (the Syrophoenician woman).

So I'm in search of a metaphor...a catchy phrase, an image, something we can work with in advertising and in the worship space, etc. I know it has to be there somewhere, but I can't seem to get all the pieces of the phrase or metaphor to fall into a coherent space.

Thoughts?

Telling--a sermon for Ordinary 2A

Rev. Teri Peterson
RCLPC
Telling
John 1.29-42
16 January 2011, Ordinary 2A

The next day John saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.’ And John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.’
The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).


Many of you know that I did not grow up in the church—my grandparents were de-churched and my parents were secular humanists who believed that religion was a crutch and we could be good people without buying in to some pre-scientific mythology. The world could be explained by science, morals were perfectly possible without religion, and the purpose of life was to do your best to make the world a better place. My parents also believed their children should make their own decisions about these things when we were old enough to do so—that was their answer when asked about why other kids went to this thing called church.

It’s hard for many people to grasp—the idea of growing up completely unchurched and unaware of the whole God-concept. I never felt like there was something missing, like Christmas was meaningless because it was about family and giving instead of about the baby Jesus, or like my family was bad because we didn’t go to church. I didn’t know Easter was about anything other than bunnies and chocolate until I was probably 15. The whole Christian story was completely alien to me.

However, I was a voracious reader. I was planning to somehow double major in music and literature, and I had come to realize that there was a whole background story that I was missing when I read great books or important authors. So I decided to read the Bible, straight through from beginning to end. It was quite an undertaking, and at first I thought it was completely insane. Which, you have to admit, some of it is—especially when you read it alone, with no context and no community to help you understand. By the end, I knew it wasn’t just a story, but I still didn’t understand the whole church thing…or, if I’m honest, most of what’s in the story either.

It wasn’t until my first year in college that I joined the church. People ask me all the time why I did that, why then, why there, and how on earth that happened. It’s like I’m not just an anomaly but some kind of freak of nature. And that’s true, especially among Presbyterians, I am something of a freak of nature. Not because I didn’t join until I was an adult, and not because college was my seeking time. Instead, my freakishness comes because of how I got there.

It was holy week, 1999. I needed to go to a choral concert to fulfill a class requirement. A friend invited me to a “concert” happening during the service on a Friday night. I went, and I wrote the paper, and I tried not to be weirded out by the fact that I had just gone to church. But then my friend invited me to go to church on Easter morning. This sounded like the worst idea ever, so naturally I called my mom to ask for her advice—which ended up being even more startling than the fact I’d gone to church on Good Friday. She told me that relationships are about experiencing things with other people and sometimes about compromise, so I should go. Being a mama’s girl, of course I went.

I don’t think my mother knew what she was getting either of us in for. I don’t think my friend who invited me knew what was going to happen. I know I had no idea. I just turned up at 11:00 on a Sunday morning, because someone I knew invited me and someone I trusted encouraged me, and my life was literally changed forever. I was back the next Sunday, and then only 10 days after my first ever visit to a church I was sitting in an Inquirer’s Class not all that different from the one we’ll have here starting in two weeks. I wasn’t about to join the church, I just wanted to know what it was all about. Except, of course, within a month I had taken the plunge, been baptized and joined a church, all in what now seems like a whirlwind but then seemed just like the right thing to do. It was the beginning of a journey that has taken me all over the world, through lots of encounters and conversations and educational experiences, all the way to this place and time where I can tell this story to you.

All because someone I knew invited me, and someone I trusted encouraged me.

Did you notice that Jesus doesn’t call anyone in this story? The first two disciples start following Jesus because John, their teacher, tells them about Jesus. The third comes because his brother invited him. Someone they trusted told them about Jesus, and off they went to check it out. And what did they find? An invitation to Come and See. Not answers, not a roadmap, not assurances of heaven or threats of hell. They found an invitation to a journey, an invitation that would change the course of their lives forever. They found themselves part of a story with roots extending through time and a future they couldn’t even imagine.

I wonder how often we’re willing to tell this story, or at least our part in it? I’ll be the first to admit that talking about my faith or even my church makes me super uncomfortable—when people ask me what I do I sometimes tell them I work for a non-profit, to avoid the inevitable conversations that come with saying I’m a pastor. But I don’t think this is about talking to strangers. This is about people we know, people we trust. Do we invite them to come and see—come and see what’s going on in this part of the Body of Christ, come and see God, come and see a story, a journey, a community that we believe has value and can help make the world a better place? And if we won’t, what kind of story does our silence tell?

Now, I know I’m newer to this whole church thing than most of you, but I’m still Presbyterian and therefore allergic to this word I’m about to use. But remember that the root of the word is Good News—we believe we are part of a story that is good news even in the midst of a world filled with bad news. That’s right…it’s time to talk about evangelism. I know it’s a scary word, and if we could reduce it to four letters and outlaw saying it in polite company, we would. But it’s not scary—it’s about good news. Evangelism is not standing on street corners or telling people to Come To Jesus Or Else. It’s not knocking on doors or pushing your views on people or even insisting they come to your church.

It’s an invitation, offered to someone you know, an encouragement to someone who trusts you. It’s about relationship, storytelling, and a journey.

I think it’s telling that we don’t think twice before recommending books we’ve read or movies we’ve seen or restaurants we’ve enjoyed, yet when faith or church is involved we so often keep silent rather than offer a simple invitation or encouragement. That silence speaks volumes, and it often says that avoiding discomfort is more important to us than the journey is. I’m just as guilty, maybe more guilty because this is my job. But it’s not my job because I’m a pastor—it’s my job because I’m a Christian, and part of our calling is to invite people to come and see. Come and see God at work, come and see what’s happening in the Body of Christ, come and see a story that extends through time and has a future we can’t yet imagine. Come and see what God can do through you, and through us together.

Have you all thought of a story of God at work in our congregation? My invitation to you this week is to share that story with someone who is not sitting in this room. It doesn’t have to be a sales pitch—just a story and an invitation to join that story. John the baptist, Peter’s brother Andrew, my friend, and my mom all had it right. No pressure, no threats, no promises—just an invitation, just an encouragement…God will do the rest, in God’s way and in God’s time.

May it be so.
Amen.

ambition

In the past week or so, I've been watching period dramas...The Pillars of the Earth and The Tudors. Slightly different periods, but with many similarities.

One of the things I've been struck by is the blatant fact of ambitious clergy -- clergy who are so obviously not following God's call but are instead in it for the power and monetary gain, to advance ever higher and get as much as they can. We all know this about the medieval Church, that it was rife with corruption and oppression and people who were in it for power. We know that the church was a pathway to power and wealth and prestige, an "in" with the political rulers and more of a diplomatic career than a religious one (though they certainly used God to get what they wanted).

What I don't know that we've grasped is that that's not really the case 5-800 years later.

(Or it shouldn't be, anyway.)

People often ask me when I'm going to "move up" and "get my own church" as though there's some kind of hierarchy of calling, that my current call and position are just a stepping stone to something better. The assumption is clearly that a) I should harbor ambition for something bigger and better, b) that the place and people I serve now aren't worth the talents and effort of an experienced pastor or someone staying a long time, and c) there is a ladder and I should get busy climbing it.

There's been plenty written about this before, particularly by female associate pastors. Generally it's a phenomenon attributed to thinking of the ministry in the same way we think about corporate type jobs. But I wonder if it's a combination of that and the history of ambition in church professionals. I know it's true that there are people serving now how are ambitious, who seek bigger churches and taller steeples and more money and more power in the denomination or the culture. And it's also true that there are hundreds of pastors who simply serve where they are called, regardless of the power or prestige of the position, loving people and serving churches and making the world a better place. Both categories can and do contain faithful (and less faithful) people. The second category is not lesser, or less talented, than the first--though many of us are made to feel that way sometimes.

But as I watch the story of priests, bishops, cardinals who serve their ambition and not the gospel, I have to wonder how much of that history plays into our current understanding of clergy, power, prestige, and ambition--and into the things we think about those who choose to follow a calling to stay in small churches or associate positions.

friend

I have some amazing friends--people who have walked with me on the journey of life and faith, people who listen well, people who tell amazing stories, people who know how to share laughter, people who have challenged and supported and generally been fantastic.

Among these friends:

Rachel (my best friend from high school), with whom I shared the excitement of the Running Start program, where we went to college during high school, and who has been an important partner in my seeking and discovering both faith and ways to do good in the world...who recently got married in a fantastic (if I do say so myself) ceremony in Seattle. (why yes, I did do the ceremony! and I did refrain from using my impromptu "sermon" in the ceremony to tell Alan, her new husband, how funny I think it is that one of the things Rachel keeps saying is that she likes to hang out with him, in spite of the fact that Rachel is the only person I know who has ever declared a moratorium on "hanging out." (scroll down to January 13) LOL.)

Amy (my best friend...we met in seminary), who I didn't like at first and who didn't like me! Amy has been with me through so much...seminary, relationships, good choices and mistakes, adventures and explorations (which is NOT the same thing as being lost!), travels, hopes and dreams both fulfilled and dashed. We may live hundreds of miles apart, but still our friendship grows thanks to cell phones and airplanes.

Elsa (a fantastic friend I met through the young clergy women project), who opened her heart and her home when I so needed both of those things. Elsa also knows how to challenge and support simultaneously, which is a little ridiculously impressive. She calls me on my crap, listens when I spout my neurotic issues, and knows how to use twitter and text messaging to great effect. I particularly appreciate the way she is compassionate and loving and blunt all at the same time. And, of course, the parts of our journey that we share in common make her a wonderful sounding board and comforter when I'm particularly neurotic about health issues or grief stuff.

The PFC girls--my McHenry County friends, amazing women who play and laugh and cry and are generally wonderful. They are fun to hang out with, good friends and wonderful people. Their compassion, willing spirits, and great laughs make my life here very good.

Among these PFC girls is one who is moving away. I know from experience (obviously) that it is more than possible to maintain and even grow friendships without living near each other. But it's still hard--to know that the days of random dinner parties or late-night tv watching or shouting at Mario Kart or spur-of-the-moment hot cocoa with bailey's nights are coming to an end, to know that when I forget something I can't just call this friend to help, to realize how much that friendship has come to mean and to contemplate the ways it will change now that we have to drive 4 hours to visit in person. We'll still be friends, and we'll still be close I'm sure, but it will be different. So I think I'll take this moment to just say thanks: Thanks for being my friend, for keeping me sane, for listening and talking and watching The Doctor and talking about Buffy and commiserating sometimes and doing rituals and making up youth group games. You're awesome. I'll miss you.

As is probably obvious from my list of good friends, I'm not used to being one who stays behind. I've almost always been the one who moved away. It's a weird feeling, but I suppose it's part of being a grown up and part of living in a culture where people move for economic and family and other kinds of opportunity. I understand it, but I don't have to like it (lol).

Things I Did at the End of 2010

This year I finally joined the rest of the country on a couple of random bandwagons. Among them...

* I joined Netflix. Thanks to a gift subscription for my birthday, I'm now on the get-DVDs-in-the-mail-and-watch-whatever-I-want-streaming plan that everyone else has been on for, oh, 10 years. And for all the pooh-poohing I've done, and all the claiming that I don't need that, I will say that I absolutely love it. And that I'm watching more TV and movies than at any time in recent memory. You would not believe the stuff that's out there, just waiting for you to add to your queue.

* I started playing video games other than Wii Fit. I became obsessed with Mario Galaxy 2, for instance. obsessed. Sadly, this has not improved my ability to play the float-your-bubble-down-the-river Wii Fit game, which I had hoped would be a side-effect of my eyes and brain getting used to how video games look and move on the screen.

* I joined Skype. Yeah, I know, everyone's been doing that for even longer than netflix. whatever. I had iChat with video chatting, so why did I need skype? Oh wait, so I could keep in touch with friends who don't have macs. duh. My campaign to just get everyone I know to buy a macbook has failed due to cost, and skype is free.

* I got a Kindle and also managed to download a ton of stuff before I even knew what hit me. I heart my Kindle and read on it almost every day. My favorite part is that I can read while lying down and never have to worry about the left page, which always makes my arm tired when reading regular books. I do still love books, of course, and I don't think they're going anywhere. There's something about the tactile experience of a book that you just can't replicate. but I finally got over that and joined the zillions of people who've been doing the e-reader thing for half a decade already.

* I decorated my house for Christmas. I don't normally do this, but it seems like the thing to do this year. So my living room/dining room/kitchen have lights and ornaments other other fun. No tree (cat hazard) but it is sort of festive when the lights are on.

~~~~

There are some things I did not do this year that everyone else is doing, too. For instance:

I did not get on any of the no-really-you-can-keep-your-house-clean-in-5-minutes-a-day bandwagons. I'm not sure they're for real anyway, at least not without significant up-front time investment, and besides that I'd rather relax my five minutes and clean once a week. (Well, okay, who are we kidding...I get to the end of the week and would prefer to sit on the couch, so it's more like once every 2-3 weeks...but that's where Roomba and a dishwasher come in. Praise the Lord.)

I did not join any weight-loss programs, though I did exercise more and attempt, generally, to eat better. People seem to think I've lost weight, which is lovely of them. Whether it's true or not is unknown.

I did not pay my quarterly estimated taxes on time. sigh. I swear I'm going to be better about that this year.

I did not file a single thing at my house this year. I made a pile of all the stuff to be filed, but I filed nothing. This year I have to decide whether to go ahead and file it or just shred everything and start over.

I did not blog or tweet as much as I should have. This community is important to me and if I want it to be community for me I need to participate more...so I'm working on that.

I did not get a smartphone. I did get a new cell phone, touch screen and everything (hello, 21st century, nice to see you 10 years in)...but no internet, no email, no apps. My one hold-out in the culture of always-available.

And now it's a new year, with new possibilities. May it be filled with good things.