liturgical theology of time

That's what I think is at the root of the carols-vs.-no-carols during Advent argument.

I am one of those people who does NOT want to sing Christmas carols in worship during Advent.  You can sing them elsewhere, you can hear them on the radio and in stores and in the Christmas specials that are no doubt all over TV.  But not on Sunday morning in Advent.

I have likened it to premature births--generally not good (though in the last month it's slightly  more okay for the baby and also many moms are READY!!).  The argument there is "Jesus has already been born--we're waiting for something different now."  

I have likened it to singing happy birthday a month before your birthday--generally not done.  What happens to the anticipation if you sing early, get your presents early, etc?  

But really, I think this is about conceptions of time.  

I think of time as cyclical, as opposed to linear.  This is born out by our liturgical calendar, which brings us the same stories at nearly the same time every year.  But the story is never exactly the same--we never hear it or experience it or live it the same way one year to the next.  It's not a circle, it's more of a spiral.  The place looks familiar but isn't exactly identical.

Cyclical time, when it comes to Christmas, is important because Advent is when we prepare for the Incarnation.  No, we're not technically preparing the way Mary did 2012 years ago.  But every year we need the time to prepare for God's breaking-in again.  Yes, the Word is incarnated in us as the Body of Christ every day, not just once a year.  But this is the time when we intentionally take time out and think about that, prepare, anticipate, wait.  How can we do that if we're busy singing about how it's already happened?  Where's the anticipation, the pain of waiting, if we're all GLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORIA! all through advent?  

If time is linear, then fine--sing the Christmas carols through all of Advent, because what we're really waiting for is something off in the future, not something that happens repeatedly in us.  We're waiting for God to do something we can't see yet.  We're waiting for GOD to do something further on down the line.

But if we're preparing for the word to be part of us, for us to be part of the action of the Word, yet again, then hold those carols, sing in minor keys, plaintively chant "O Come, O Come" and "how shall we meet you?" and wait for it.  It seems like it would be worth it.  Because we're coming around again to this reminder that, in many ways, WE are now the ones we are waiting for.  WE are the body of Christ in the world.  WE are preparing OURSELVES to be the incarnation of God in the world.  And that's going to take some work, not some jumping ahead to the main event.  Every year it's going to take work.  Every day, even.  Maybe every minute for some of us (aka me...).  The fact that the baby Jesus has already been born is irrelevant, because that isn't just some event that happened several marks back on the timeline, it's something we pass by every year on the spiral, something we re-live because it matters.  Jumping to it early only allows us to forego the hard work in ourselves and our communities.  We might as well light all the candles on the wreath, since we're not willing to wait for the light or walk through darkness to get there.

In so many ways, I think this is a symptom of the culture and the church being afraid of darkness, silence, grief, waiting...it's about instant gratification and instant grief recovery and refusal to be in the quiet dark places because they're too scary and too hard.  But even though we can just turn on electric lights, even though we can fill our ears with carols and our homes with beautifully wrapped stuff, even though we can party and eat and shop, we can't rush the work of Incarnation.  It happens when it happens.  Here's hoping we don't miss it, or miss out on being part of it, while we're singing cheery carols in the dark days.

One final, snarky argument:  would you sing "Jesus Christ Is Risen Today!" in Lent?  (okay, I'm done now...)

a few days later...

sorry for not posting more the last couple of days.  I am still obsessing about the worker killed in a rush of consumer madness.  I just cannot believe that people were upset that they had to stop shopping and leave the store.  really?

It also makes me think:  if we can be so callous as to kill someone for a good deal, no wonder we don't care so much about children making our clothes and shoes and trinkets in sweatshops.  No wonder we don't lobby for a living wage for factory workers in the developing world.  

And no wonder manufacturing has moved overseas--where we can't see the poor working conditions but can reap the benefits in the form of cheap products...for which we are willing to sacrifice a life to get on sale.

I'm trying to get into the Advent spirit, but I just can't.  What are we waiting for?  

disgusting

I am so disturbed and disgusted by the story of the Black Friday Wal-Mart stampede...every time I hear or read more about it, I get more disgusted.  No one thought "gee, it looks like I'm walking on a human being, maybe I shouldn't do that?" or "I could help here..."?????  Everyone in that line thought "how can I be first to get the good deals on stuff I don't need?"???  Really?  People continued shopping after the man was taken away.  People were upset when the store closed.  People waited in line beginning at 9pm Thursday night...why?  Why wait in line at WALMART of all places?  And then why kill someone to get cheap trinkets?

Something is very, very wrong here.  I wish I knew how to fix it.

Thanksgiving--yum!

Had a good time at make-your-own-family thanksgiving.  brought butternut squash soup and green bean casserole.  Ate mashed potatoes (lots) with veggie gravy (yum), green bean casserole (yum), soup (yum), cranberries (surprisingly yum), stuffing (medium yum...better than others I've eaten but still not my favorite part of t-day), and gingerbread-pumpkin trifle (OMG, yum).  Drank wine.  Avoided carrots, beets, and turkey.  Then came home, watched Buffy.  As I go to sleep now, I leave you all with a highly excellent quote from the thanksgiving episode (pangs, season 4)...

WILLOW: Well, yeah, sort of. That's why she doesn't celebrate thanksgiving or columbus day-- You know, the destruction of the indigenous peoples. I know it sounds a little overwrought, but really, she's...She's right.
BUFFY: Yeah. I guess I never really thought about it that way. With mom at aunt Darlene's this year, I'm not getting a thanksgiving. Maybe it's just as well.
ANYA: Well, I think that's a shame. I love a ritual sacrifice.
BUFFY: It's not really a one of those.
ANYA: To commemorate a past event, you kill and eat an animal. It's a ritual sacrifice, with pie.

dots for the day before thanksgiving

• There are too many LIT christmas lights up.  And too many blow-up Santas.  At least don't turn them on/blow them up until Friday, people!
• There are no frozen french cut green beans to be had in all of Crystal Lake.  You would think grocery stores would stock extra for this, the biggest of all food holidays.
• Porgy and Bess was a super fun opera to see--though, of course, painful on the women-are-property and the crippled=not fully human fronts.  But the singers were, for the most part, excellent, and the acting was better than most operas, and we had amazing seat: fifth row, center!  Thanks Nancy V.
• I love the TBM melt from Cosi.
• Northwestern is still a prohibitively large hospital.  And how come anyone can just walk right in to the ICU?  I've never been at a hospital with such low security on that.  The doors are open, come on in!  Bizarre.  Those people are SICK!  Every random person should not be able to just waltz in there with their germs.  I'm just sayin'.
• I'm hungry and am going to eat dinner now....now that I've been to the hospital and lunch and the opera and the train station and all the grocery stores in town...it's time to eat and relax with the kitties on this cold evening!
  

reading Challenge 2008

I've been slightly remiss in posting my books, and also slightly remiss in reading in general.  Not a lot of free time lately...but the latest fun book I read (before today) was The Boleyn Inheritance.  It was a fun Philippa Gregory...a princess book, quite literally.  Following the women who spent their lives chasing after, trying to hold, and fearing Henry VIII.  It was an intriguiging court tale, as all her books are!

Today I spent the day in my pjs (though I did work from home for a few minutes), and I read The Virgin's Lover, another Philippa Gregory princess book--this time about Elizabeth.  I think it's the novel that immediately precedes her latest, The Other Queen, which is about what happens to Mary Queen of Scots when Elizabeth's paranoia gets the better of her.  This book is about Elizabeth's first two years as queen, and in essence is about what happens to Robert Dudley (and his wife)...in some ways, a cautionary tale about unbridled ambition, in other ways a story about the lizard brain and what happens when it takes over.  (um, to use more technical language, when the sympathetic nervous system rules and the parasympathetic nervous system gets shoved aside.)  It was a fun fluff book for today!

Just in time for the high school retreat (which was, by the way, fabulous--we had a good time and we explored lots of different types of prayer, including waking up in the middle of the night to just hang out with God in creation...at a campfire, of course.  It's November, after all...) I finished Downtime: helping teenagers pray.  It was great, of course.  With the one small problem I have with nearly all Yaconelli youth ministry books:  I'm not always convinced that the teenagers he writes about (and about whom he writes with such authority, it makes me forget that in some ways he stereotypes an entire generation--which makes me crazy when people do it about young adults!) are the same as the teenagers I work with.  He insists that teens are dying inside for lack of downtime, for space to pray and be quiet and that they will just fall all over contemplative practices.  I think the first part of that is true, but I'm not convinced about the second yet.  Having said that, on this retreat we had more silence and more real conversation about prayer than we've ever had before.  So maybe it's just an atmosphere thing...if you take them out of their comfort zones, they'll become contemplatives?  hmm...maybe not.  We'll see, I guess!  Anyway, I really liked this book--more than some of the others, actually.  Probably because it had concrete practice suggestions, many of which I already do and really like.  True scholarship because it confirms my biases! (so sayeth one of my church members...usually in jest, I promise!

Dear Grammar Police,

I confess that tonight, while preaching the sermon posted below, I came up to the sentence that mentions "from where we have come" and, in the moment, decided it sounded too stuffy.  That's right, I intentionally ended a sentence with "from" so that I would sound more approachable from the pulpit.  "We remember where we have come from," I said.  (sigh)  I plead guilty to dumbing down my grammar so people would like me better, and doing so in a public speaking position.  Dangling participles, here I come.  

So sorry.

I don't think anyone noticed (or if they did, they didn't mention it).  The sermon was a home run, by all accounts (especially since 2/3 of the people were from other faith communities and so don't hear me preach all the time!), so perhaps I can be forgiven just this once?

Not Just One Day-- A sermon for the Interfaith Thanksgiving Service

Rev. Teri Peterson
RCLPC
Not Just One Day
Interfaith Thanksgiving Service
November 23, 2008

We have finally reached it—that time of year that everyone is supposed to love. The time of year marked by parties, by family time, by fun, by eating and eating and eating. Put another way, it’s a time of year marked by excess, stress, and consumerism. But that doesn’t sound quite as nice, does it? Most of us, I suspect, would just like to sit down to a Thanksgiving feast, maybe including mashed potatoes, green beans, yams, bread, squash, stuffing, Turkey, and dessert. We might gather around a table and each say one thing we’re thankful for. We might pray for those who spend the holiday alone, or on the street, or hungry. We might just dig in and eat and laugh and eat some more, until we collapse into a tryptophan coma. Then we’ll eat the leftovers as soup and sandwiches while we watch football and play games between naps and shopping trips, all the way through until January.

I have to admit that this stark description of Thanksgiving isn’t flattering. It reminds me that we seem to have given gratitude one day out of the year, and then turned it into something that is somehow about us. In my family growing up, we often had enough food at Thanksgiving to feed our family of four for at least a week, maybe more. But even with leftovers, we managed to devour the feast in a few days. Meanwhile, one of my neighbors was a single woman with two kids that I sometimes babysat for free. They were really struggling, and every year my brother and I packed up two paper grocery bags of all the Thanksgiving fixings for the three of them: a small turkey, a box of stuffing mix, some vegetables and rolls and canned pumpkin pie filling. One thing the kids always really looked forward to was olives. We always put in a can of whole black olives, and I could just imagine the kids each sticking the olives on the ends of their fingers and eating them off one by one. Olives were such a treat, they only got them at Thanksgiving, when my family included them in our grocery gift.
I don’t think of olives this way—olives are a normal thing to me. I like them on burritos at home, and quesadillas, and salads, and all kinds of things. I don’t even consider them to be expensive. But when times are hard, I suppose luxuries like olives can be hard to justify. Every year at Thanksgiving I think about that family and their olives.

I don’t think I’m alone in my experience of giving to “the needy” at the end of the year, especially around major holidays. I read recently that nearly 80% of Americans give to charity at this time of year, and many charities are wondering if the economic downturn is going to affect giving. Meanwhile, polls suggest that nearly ¾ of people who say they give to charity at the end of the year say they’re going to keep their giving constant this year in spite of the economy. I think many of us will be waiting to see if that’s true or not.

In the meantime, we have gathered here to pause and contemplate our blessings, even as some of us might be having a hard time making ends meet, some of us wonder if we’ll have a job next week, some of us plan to spend the feast day alone, missing family members and friends no longer with us. In a season of joy and exuberance and excess, we stop to remember from where we have come. We remember the many generations before us who have made our lives possible. We remember the One who has blessed us and guided us to this place. We give thanks to God, who is always good. To use a cliché, we count our blessings and find that, even though the economy looks dim, there are still too many blessings to count.

It is important to give thanks. And not just once a year, on the fourth Thursday of November. Not just when we sit at a table laden down with a feast. Not just when the whole family is together. All the time. Every day. “Give thanks in all circumstances” we heard a little while ago. “Give thanks to the Lord for God is good.” “If there is anything excellent, think about these things.” Gratitude doesn’t require its own holiday—it’s meant to be a part of the fabric of our being, a natural response to all that has been given to us. Sometimes gratitude is really hard—it’s hard to give thanks in all circumstances. Really, all circumstances? Even in the midst of grief? Depression? Anxiety? Fear? But Paul, when writing his letter, didn’t qualify his statement. Just “give thanks in all circumstances.” I think that might be a clue that it isn’t supposed to be simple, but it’s also not as complex as we often make it out to be.

Gratitude isn’t really about a feeling or even a word—though a “thank you” can go a long way! I suspect this is true in many of our traditions, and I know it’s true in my scriptural and theological tradition: feelings, while important, are not the point. God is much more interested in how we choose to act, how we respond, how we love, than how we feel. I wonder, then, what gratitude looks like as an action rather than as a feeling?

I suspect it looks like sharing. Even though we may not feel we have much to share, there’s probably something. Like the stone soup story, where the villagers were each certain that food was scarce until the man with the soup stone showed up. He mentioned that he was hungry, but the people he spoke to said there was no food. He said he had a magic stone that would make soup for all of them, he just needed a pot and some water. These were soon produced, and he put the stone in. He tasted the soup and said an onion would make it a little tastier, and an onion appeared out of a cellar. He thought a carrot might really help the color, and a carrot appeared from a cupboard. He thought a potato or two would really make the texture much better, and a few potatoes made their way up from the ground. Soon the whole village had brought something and there was an amazing soup for all to share.

I think about 75% of the sermons I preach are, in the end, about community. I really believe that when we come together as a true community, a community able to share our lives—our joys, our needs, our hopes, our fears, our love and compassion as well as the dark sides of our personalities—that’s how the Divine becomes known to us. When times are hard, it’s even more important for us to come together, to build community, to care for one another, and to share the grace we have received, to encounter God together.

I was listening to Chicago Public Radio this past Monday, and I happened to catch an interfaith dialogue on one of the programs. One of the participants said a phrase that I found very compelling. He said, “Each of our faiths was designed not to serve the faithful, they were designed to empower the faithful to serve humanity.” (Rabbi Brad Hirschfeld, Worldview from Chicago Public Radio, Monday November 17 2008) That’s not to say that there’s nothing in any of our religious traditions that’s good or helpful for us, but rather that our traditions give us a wonderful gift by empowering us to share love and grace and blessings with the world. There’s a lot of need in the world, even here in our own communities. And there’s also enough to go around—if one will bring a carrot, another a potato, another an onion, another some herbs, soon we’ll have soup for everyone. Another of Paul’s letters says it well: “God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, that you may share abundantly in every good work. The sharing of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but overflows, with many thanksgivings.” (from 2 Cor. 9)

As we give thanks, both in this season and every season, this day and every day, let us remember that gratitude is not primarily a feeling, but an action—an action best known in community.

May it be so.
Amen.

Mix and Stir Friday Five

Songbird writes...
In a minor domestic crisis, my food processor, or more precisely the part you use for almost everything for which I use a food processor, picked the eve of the festive season of the year to give up the ghost. A crack in the lid expanded such that a batch of squash soup had to be liberated via that column shaped thing that sticks up on top.
Can you tell this is not my area of strength?

Next week, I'm hosting Thanksgiving. I need your help. Please answer the following kitchen-related questions:

1) Do you have a food processor? Can you recommend it? Which is to say, do you actually use it?

I have a mini food processor. I hardly ever use it--except to make pesto.  It's more work than it's worth to get it out, use it for small batches of things (particularly anno

ying if I'm making a large batch of something), and then clean it and put it away again.  I normally use my Pampered Chef Food Chopper for chopping (quick and easy!), and a submersible hand blender for pureeing.  I love love love love love these things!!

2) And if so, do you use the fancy things on it? (Mine came with a mini-blender (used a lot and long ago broken) and these scary disks you used to julienne things (used once).)

ha!  no.  Those disks freak me out, and thankfully mini food processors don't come with those. now, for the next one...

3) Do you use a standing mixer? Or one of the hand-held varieties?
I do have an commercial-size/strength Kitchen Aid mixer (white).  It was my mom's.  I love it and use it often!  It does have all kinds of fun attachments to use for shredding or milling or sieving or slicing or goodness only knows what else.  Making a ton of mashed potatoes?  Making cookies?  Making something that requires shredded zucchini or pounds and pounds of cheese?  This is your thing.  It's utterly fabulous, and pretty easy to clean, too.

4) How about a blender? Do you have one? Use it much?

Just a couple of weeks ago I was at church and wondering if I had a blender.  I do, and it's on the counter between the sink and the juicer.  I think that tells you how often I use the blender.

5) Finally, what old-fashioned, non-electric kitchen tool do you enjoy using the most?

ooh, toss up between my fabulous whisk and a potato masher.  There's something so fun about an old fashioned potato masher....

Bonus: Is there a kitchen appliance or utensil you ONLY use at Thanksgiving or some other holiday? If so, what is it?

hmm....this year, maybe.  since Senior Pastor left, I haven't had time to cook.  Sometimes I wonder if I can find my kitchen (plus, see the question about the blender...).  So this year I think the answer to this would be pretty much everything in the kitchen...but hopefully that problem will be remedied soon!!

you know how sometimes...

...you don't write for a little while because either things are really busy or you don't have much to write about?

And then it becomes a habit, not writing.

And then even when you want to write, everything you have to say is either unbloggable church stuff OR would take more energy than you have to articulate clearly.

That's me right now.  I'm okay, I'm alive, but I'm tired and a little overwhelmed and really looking forward to a bunch of things, among them...

* tomorrow night's St. Andrew's Day dinner.  It will be probably the least vegetarian friendly thing I've ever been to, but I suspect the level of fun (bagpipes! cocktails! fancy new dress! friends! scottish dancers!) will make up for it.

* going to the opera on Wednesday.

* Thanksgiving.  I love mashed potatoes so much.  And I'm thinking of making a butternut squash something too.  Maybe risotto...I love risotto.  And what better time to eat mashed potatoes and risotto at the same meal than Thanksgiving, the holiday of the carbs?  Of course, I could end up just eating mashed potatoes (only) because that would be so simple and require so little work on my part...

* Advent.  I think it might be weird to look forward to Advent, but I actually think that this year my life will slow down during Advent.  I have fewer church program responsibilities then (retreat's over (and was great--must blog about that next week), Youth Sunday is in two days, Thanksgiving will be past, only two youth ministry events during Advent, etc etc) and I don't preach until the 4th Sunday of Advent (Dec. 21) so I might get to actually take days off and do silly things like go to the gym, cook actual meals, keep my house clean-ish, play with my kitties, read princess books, read real books, etc.  Imagine that!

* Christmas.  On Christmas Day I fly to SoCal for a week of fun in the sun with my fam.  San Diego Zoo, here I come!  I can watch the pandas in real life, not just on the panda cam.  woohoo!

So...that's me right now.  I'll try to get back into the discipline of writing, I swear.  after Youth Sunday and the Interfaith Thanksgiving Service (for which I am preaching), both of which are this Sunday.  So...next week...

Presbytery

It's that time again...the two-day Presbytery meeting. Ken Bailey is speaking at day one...right now.  He's talking about the New Testament so far...he's in the midst of a segment about how we as Christians will be unable to talk with Muslims unless we have a clear and developed doctrine of inspiration of Scripture.  He's not wrong.

I might live-blog Presbytery if I get bored...or when I get seminary overload.

the big day

It's finally here.

Perhaps now the signs will disappear, the arguments will end, the ads will stop.

I work in a building used as a polling place.  The cars park pretty much right outside my window.  It seems to be taking an average of 8 minutes for people to leave their cars, go vote, and come back to their cars, which means no long lines!  But there are a TON of people coming and going, and people are also parking along both sides of both streets out front.

Tonight, after the Taize service (assuming anybody comes to the Taize service...), the PFC is having an election-watch party.  There's food.  There's champagne.  There's hope...or the ability to drown our sorrows if necessary.  :-)

Busy day!  Here's hoping for a good end...

really?

On my way home from church tonight, I saw some people in devil costumes stealing Obama yard signs. On a major thoroughfare. It was dark, but anyone driving by could clearly see what was going on.

Really? You're that desperate, three days before the election, in ILLINOIS? I have some news, people...

Three years ago...

Three years ago today, I was frantically making arrangements to come home from Egypt. I'd spent the day teaching, leading a Bible Study and a prayer group, and sharing table fellowship with my various international and Egyptian seminary students. I returned home to find a number of messages from my dad, and then an AIM away message from my brother saying my mom had died.

I spent the evening on the phone and internet with travel agents, PCUSA Young Adult Volunteer coordinators, and various other people. I made a list of things I needed to pack, and I packed them. I got plane tickets for the next day. I planned what I would say to the teachers as I went in to say I couldn't work for a while. I sat for a while with the pastor of the church I was attending then. I made plans for my classes that someone else would teach. I cried some, but was mostly numb.

The next day I flew home, which took nearly 24 hours. I was sick the entire way--I ate something for breakfast on the flight to London and had food poisoning for three days, probably mainly because I absolutely refused to throw up anywhere but my own house. I laid on floors, I drank 7-Up, I tried to keep cool and not talk to people around me. Flight attendants told me I couldn't lay on the floor. Airport gate agents looked after me and told me when my gate was changed or when the plane was arriving or getting ready to board. Seatmates tried to engage me in conversation that I avoided as much as possible. London to Seattle is a long flight, in case you didn't know that already.

Two years ago today, I was recovering from my ordination two days earlier, still entertaining family and friends, trying to celebrate rather than sit and mope.

One year ago today, I was eating mexican food and writing letters to my mother.

Today, I spoke with my old Atlanta mom (a church music director I've worked with), and I spent the day with my church music director who is also a good friend and sometimes an extra mom (I seem to have a record of this as far as church music directors are concerned!). We visited the Art Institute and were some of the first people to see the new special exhibit "The Divine Art: 400 years of European tapestries"--an exquisite collection. All of the Art Institute's 70+ tapestries have been restored and are on display at the same time. They're gorgeous. Today was the first member preview day so it wasn't crowded and we were able to move through at a fairly leisurely pace--even when the exhibit closed they didn't chase us out, they just didn't let any more people in. Then we bought Christmas cards (I love buying my cards at the Art Institute), had Cosi sandwiches for lunch, wandered Macy's and tried on $900 coats and a cute party dress (didn't fit properly). We sampled truffles and bought frango mints. We met her husband for the train home and then the three of us had a lovely Italian dinner--wine, great entrees (well, they had lamb-kabobs or something...I had a great mediterranean vegetable strata), lovely tiramisu for dessert.

It was a relaxing day, and a great way to honor the women who have gotten me this far. Today I remember my mom, and also Dana F, a pastor at my home church, who died this week and whose funeral was today, and also all the extra moms I've had over the years who have helped me out, taught me things, kept me on the good path, encouraged me, and have generally made me who I am today. So especially to Betsy and Martha and Sherri, thanks ladies--I know my mom appreciates you as much as I do. And while I miss her a lot (not a day goes by that I don't think about calling, only to remember that I can't), you're all doing a pretty good job too.

looking for love...--a sermon for Ordinary 30A

Rev. Teri Peterson
RCLPC
looking for love…
Matthew 22.34-40
October 26 2008, Ordinary 30A/Reformation Sunday

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”


I can practically hear y’all groaning: “another love sermon? Doesn’t Jesus ever talk about anything else?” These are familiar words for many of us, and some of us may even remember that in Luke’s version of this story, the lawyer asks a follow up question: “who is my neighbor?” that prompts Jesus to tell a story about a victim of violence, two religious professionals, and a Samaritan. Some of us have used this summary of the law—love God, love your neighbor—as a summary of the Christian life: our call as Christians is to love, love, and love some more—love God, love our neighbors, love our enemies. There’s a reason love comes up a lot—because Jesus both did it and talked about it, because God calls us to love with our words and actions, because the Holy Spirit is the love that binds us all together. The rule of love is the plumb line we use for interpreting scripture and determining our action. There’s a lot of love to go around!

But for many of us, these words of Jesus probably evoke a vague feeling of unease, centered around the perpetual question: how? How do we love the Lord with all our heart and soul and mind? How do we love our neighbor? Couldn’t Jesus have been just a little more specific? Especially translated into English, this word “love” is sort of hazy. Is it a feeling? Is it more than a feeling? Can love be summed up the way Jesus sums up the law? We sometimes turn to Matthew 25, where Jesus says to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and imprisoned, give water to the thirsty, and we’ll be showing our love for Christ. Especially around here, where we tend to be do-ers—we want to make the world a better place, we want to help, we want to solve problems and make life better for everyone. Here at RCLPC we seem to really resonate with the idea that, as Teresa of Avila said, Christ has no hands on earth now but ours. We take very seriously that responsibility to be the body of Christ in the world, and it shows: when I asked the latest Inquirer’s Class why they came here, nearly all said that they felt this was a congregation that lives our faith out in the world. That’s a pretty good measure of who we are as a community—a community of people who live as the body of Christ in the world.

But I have to wonder if this is the whole of what Jesus was talking about, the full extent of the law to love God and love our neighbor.

It seems sometimes that we are missing a crucial part of Jesus’ commandment: that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Which implies at least a little bit that we love ourselves…and also tells us something about what our community might look like on the inside. We’re pretty good at the going-out part of loving our neighbors, but what about the inner workings of our community? I suspect this is the harder part for many of us. First, to love ourselves seems selfish somehow, seems the opposite of what God calls us to do. And second, to love people here in our own church community also means allowing them to love us, which gets back to the first problem. I suspect I’m not alone in keeping some of the hardest parts of life to myself because I’m either worried about how it will sound or look, or worse: I’m worried about people paying attention to me rather than the much bigger problems other people have. None of us want to focus attention on ourselves when there’s so much need in the world or even in our own church. But if we’re not willing to share our lives, even the hard parts, even the parts that show that we don’t have it all together, even the parts that make us feel vulnerable, then are we really loving ourselves? And are we really allowing others to love us? It’s hard to love if we can’t be loved, and it’s hard to be a community gathered around these commandments if we’re not willing to let others love us.

Even as I was writing this sermon yesterday, I could feel adrenaline coursing through my body, I could feel my heart beat faster and my hands begin to tremble. This can be a scary proposition: to let people in to the things that frighten us, to be vulnerable in community, to let people show God’s love to us. And it’s scary for me, as a preacher, to preach a sermon like this in a week that holds two important anniversaries for me: three years ago this Halloween my mother died from cancer, and two years ago this Wednesday I was ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacrament. I purposely planned my ordination to coincide with the 1st anniversary of my mom’s death but I also know that between that awesome loss and that awesome privilege is an emotional and spiritual minefield. And I wonder what it might mean for us together to claim it’s important to be loved as well as to love, to weep together and laugh together. But I also believe that if we’re not willing to share ourselves, we are missing out on true community. As Carrie Newcomer wrote in our anthem today: “I am a voice calling out across the great divide / I am only one person that feels they have to try / The questions fall like trees or dust, rise like prayers above / but the only word is courage and the only answer love.”

Many of you have probably heard the proverb about looking for love: “I sought myself, but myself I could not see; I sought my God, my God eluded me; I sought my neighbor, and I found all three.” We often talk about loving God and loving our neighbor as two sides of the same coin: that to love one is to love the other—they’re not separable. I think the same goes for being loved: if we won’t allow ourselves to be loved by our brothers and sisters in Christ, will we allow ourselves to be loved by God? And if we won’t allow ourselves to be loved, can we truly love?
These are hard questions, but questions I think we need to ask ourselves. As a community of God’s people, a covenant community bound together by the promise of God’s presence with us, what are we afraid of? Are we afraid of appearing weak or foolish or imperfect? Are we afraid of the power of love to heal? Or are we like Lily, the little girl in the Secret Life of Bees, or like Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz, afraid that, deep down, we’re unlovable?

There is challenge in this story, but deeper even than the challenge is this good news: no one is unlovable. We are all called to love our neighbor as ourselves, which means each person must be worthy of love, no matter how broken, no matter how sinful, no matter how weak or imperfect. When we share that brokenness, that weakness, that imperfection, we not only allow others to love us, we give others permission to be vulnerable too, and we give each other the space to live in the mystery rather than always trying to pin down the answer. When we seek our neighbor, and when we allow our neighbor to seek us, we all find together that God is in our midst, pouring out love like a mighty river of baptism, sharing a feast of grace tastier than bread and wine. And, one love at a time, one voice at a time, one hope at a time, the world will be transformed into the kingdom of God.

May it be so. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Friday Five: location, location, location

SingingOwl writes over at RGBP...
My daughter, her husband, and their toddler, Trinity Ann, are moving from Minneapolis, Minnesota to our place. It's a long story, but the short version is that they will be loading a Ryder truck on Saturday, and on Sunday afternoon we will unload it into a storage unit in our town. They will move themselves, their two cats and their BIG dog into our place. Yes, there will be issues, but this Friday Five isn't really about that. (Prayers for jobs for them and patience for all of us are most welcome, however.) This post is about locations. My husband has lived at 64 addresses in his life so far (16 with me) and he suggested the topic since we have moving trucks on our minds.
Therefore, tell us about the five favorite places you have lived in your lifetime. What did you like? What kind of place was it? Anything special happen there?

Hmm...I did a quick count and it appears that I've lived at 16 addresses in my 28 years.  One I don't remember because I was a baby.  Three more before I turned 10.  Three more between age 10 and graduating from high school.  5 during college (including the sojourn in Scotland).  2 during seminary (not including the house where I didn't technically live...).  2 since seminary.  What are my favorites?  again I say, hmm....

in no particular order...

40660 Edwards Drive

This is my grandparents' house.  I lived here with my mom and brother for about 3 years when I was growing up.  My grandparents raised sheep.  We had a garden, in which I got to plant "whatever I wanted" one year. Somehow I planted corn (which never even sprouted), carrots (which I don't even like) and beets (which I like even less).  Interesting...  This is where my mom led our CampFire Girls group.  This is where I learned to climb trees and pick blackberries and sit on sheep so their feet could be tied for shearing.  (well, okay, I sucked at that last job, running off screaming whenever my sheep chair wiggled...)  I don't go visit now, really, though my grandparents still live here on 40 gorgeous acres.  Once we moved to the city, I looked back on my farm experience without much fondness.  But now that I'm older, I recognize the value of being out in the quiet with very few neighbors nearby, of the community feel even though the houses are far apart, and the beauty of the place.  And I think I recognize more of the value of the lessons I learned on the farm than I realized before.

312 W. Wisconsin #3

I lived in this apartment for two years in college, with Jenny.  It was sort of ghetto (we realize now) and it was quite small.  The hardwood floors were pretty, but we didn't have doors on our kitchen cupboards.  The laundry room downstairs was scary.  Jenny's room was weirdly shaped.  But there was lots of fun had here!  We practiced (or, well, Jenny did), we watched Dawson's Creek and Felicity after clarinet choir rehearsals, we bemoaned the existence of piano guy, we joked about ordering pizza from the place across the street and just waving out the window when they asked where to deliver it.  It was a good time.  And oh the number 11 and 151 buses....

MacLeod Centre, Iona, Argyll, Scotland

I LOVED living in the Mac.  Even though there were 4 of us sharing a room (and 5 at one point!) and 12-15 sharing a bathroom, we had a great time.  We laughed and played and painted and whiskey tasted in our common room, we worked hard during the day and partied hard at night.  We prayed.  We lived in "intentional Christian community" and it was fabulous.  I loved nearly everything about the months I spent living on this island.  There are many days I wish I could move back.  And if this election goes badly, well....let's just say it looks more attractive every day.

1610 King Street

This was the weirdest house I think I've ever lived in.  The bedrooms had color themes--there was a blue room, a red room, and a gold (umm, yellow) room.  There was hideous shag-esque carpet and matching paint and curtains in each of these rooms.  Mine was the yellow.  (sigh)  This is the house where we first housed minor league baseball players.  The first year we lived here I was bitter about moving out of the good city, across the mountains to lame middle-of-nowhere-town-that-grows-apples.  I walked to school sometimes because the bus stop was more than halfway to the school.

I actually think this might be a tie with the other Yak house, 109 N. 15th Ave, because on 15th I got to have the whole basement to myself most of the time.  That house also has lots of character, with little niches in random walls, an arch between the living room and dining room, and a weird unknown space behind my bedroom wall.  I also got to paint my bedroom here--I had a painting party my sophomore year of high school.  My friends came over and we used different shaped sponges and different shades of green paint.  When we were done, the room looked sort of like  the jungle.  Awesome.

847 Chasefield Lane #3

This is where I live now.  It's "my first house"--the condo I bought when I moved here.  I get to experience all the joys of home ownership (I get to change my floors if I want, paint, deal with the appliances etc, have pets, control my own heat, replace broken stuff like cat-clawed-window-screens) and none of the responsibilities of a free-standing house in the midwest (I don't shovel snow or mow grass or prune trees or plant flowers).  It's perfect for me since it's 2 bed/2 bath--when people come visit, I have a place for them to sleep but no need to share my bathroom.  There's room for my crazy cats.  The location is great--a quiet neighborhood with mostly retired neighbors, 10 minutes from church, 10 minutes from grocery stores, 10 minutes from the library, 10 minutes from the gym.  The downside, of course, of any suburban living experience is dependence on a car.  There's almost nothing within walking distance of my house.  I miss that about living in the city.  But I have a garage to store extra winter food and to keep snow off my car, I can repaint anytime I feel like it, I can stick my clothes in the dryer for 5 minutes to warm them up before I put them on (a luxury in winter!).  It's great.  :-)

Okay, so I actually did 6, but whatever.  :-)  I could just as easily list my 5 or 6 LEAST favorites!  (I don't even remember the addresses, but all three of the OTHER places I lived during college would make that list for various reasons--roommate issues, noise problems, bugs, neighbors, location, tuckpointing that took 6 months and blew dust in my window every day, etc.)  fun!

What are your 5 favorite places you've lived?

birthday dots

* I love birthdays.

* Today I got to have Thai food AND Mexican food, plus an ice cream/fried banana birthday treat at the Thai place AND homemade cupcakes brought by my small group to the Mexican place.

* I actually do in fact serve the single best church that ever was.  My small group tonight decided (by a flurry of emails over the past two weeks! a flurry I wasn't in on!) that instead of our lesson, they'd kidnap me to my favorite Mexican place for margaritas.  And they got me a present!  It was a GREAT evening--like a real birthday party!  I even got to blow out a candle on a fabulous cupcake.  Thanks to C, C, D, J, J, J, and L for being a wonderful group and for a wonderful evening of laughter and story sharing and present opening and margarita drinking and happy birthday singing!

* I got lots of giftcards this year.  That's awesome because now I can get some new books!  And a check from a grandmother with a note to use it for "something you can't justify for yourself" means I'm calling tomorrow to schedule a massage and a pedicure.  aaaaaah.....

* I still didn't really get any work done today, but you know....it's okay.  I did get lots of phone calls, emails, and facebook wall posts wishing me a happy birthday!  

* all in all, a good day.  :-)  Thanks to all you friends and family who made it good--from the Buffy card that plays the soundtrack to the note from long-lost friends to the cupcakes and calls.  thanks.

* I know this gets to keep going because my congregation is having a birthday party for me (and for someone else too) on Sunday--yay!  There will be turtle cheesecake (yum!).   And the PFC is trying to make plans for fun.  It's a birthday month!  woowhoo!

Happy Birthday to me!!

happy birthday to me,

happy birthday to me,

happy birthday dear meeeeeeee.....

happy birthday to me.

(if you've ever wondered what single girls do for their birthdays when they live alone and far from friends and family...)

We Belong To God--a sermon for Ordinary 29A

Rev. Teri Peterson
RCLPC
We Belong to God
Matthew 22.15-22
October 19 2008, Ordinary 29A

Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap Jesus in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, ‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’ But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, ‘Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.’ And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ They answered, ‘The emperor’s.’ Then he said to them, ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.


Have you ever noticed that Jesus never seems to just answer the question? I’ve always been taught it’s one of the first rules of a tough interview: just answer the question. If a person were to hold up a pen and ask “do you know what this is?” then the answer would be “yes.” That’s all—simple, direct, an answer. But that doesn’t seem to be how Jesus operates.

Can you imagine how things might have gone if Jesus had answered with a simple yes or no? When the Pharisees and the Herodians (who, by the way, were traditionally at odds with each other but have now found a common enemy in Jesus) ask “is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?” they are asking a religious law question. They each know perfectly well that it’s against Jewish law to carry on their person something bearing an image—since images were prohibited by the first commandment. And it was even worse to carry something bearing an image of someone who claimed to BE a god, as Caesar did—again, the first commandment. So imagine if Jesus had simply said “no.” Then, after he was executed much earlier than planned, this time for refusing to pay taxes, throughout the ages we would have this teaching straight from the mouth of Christ: don’t pay taxes. And governments would have spent the last two thousand years trying to think of other ways to finance infrastructure and militaries and education and safety nets for those who need help.

Then again, imagine if Jesus had simply said “yes.” Then governments score a point, for sure, but Jesus would once again have been arrested early, for blasphemy and out-and-out 10 commandment breaking. And throughout the ages we would see government appealing to Jesus as the one who told us all to support them with as much of our money as possible.
Perhaps there’s a good reason why Jesus never answers a question with a simple yes or no!
Instead, he asks to see the coin. Now remember, no law-abiding Jew was allowed to carry one, especially not inside the Temple, where most of Jesus’ teaching took place. And yet the Pharisees and Herodians manage to produce a coin bearing the image of Caesar, proving already that Jesus is not the lawbreaker they are trying to make him out to be. And then the fun begins.

Jesus asks who’s picture it is on the coin…they answer that it’s Caesar, and his title too (a title which, by the way, proclaims him to be god). And Jesus, in a brilliant rhetorical move, says, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give back to God what is God’s.”

In other words: if it has Caesar’s picture and name on it, it must belong to him, so go on and give it back. And then Jesus goes one step further: if it has the One True God’s picture and name on it, then it must belong to God, so you’d better give it back. Well, coins had the picture and name of the emperor, so that’s fairly obvious. The coins used in the Temple—the special Jewish money—didn’t have any images on them and were only used in transactions between Jews and to buy sacrifices and other goods in the Temple, so Jesus is not talking only about money. What has the image of God on it and so clearly belongs to God, something we are to give back to God?

I suspect by now the answer is becoming obvious. In Genesis chapter 1, it says, “male and female God created them, in the image of God he created them.” We, human beings, are stamped with the image of God, each one of us. When we look at the coin, we can see whose picture is on it. When we look at each other, we can see whose picture is on us. And the clear teaching of Jesus is to give to God what is God’s—that means us. All of us. All of our selves—our time, our work, our love, our intellect and our emotions, our money, our hopes and dreams and fears, our bodies—all of it. God doesn’t want just a segment, just a little, just a box, just an hour once a week or even just an hour a day. God gave us all we have, God put God’s own image on and within us—we belong to God.

I suspect most of us know this intellectually. We know with our minds that everything we have is a gift from God—that we literally owe God everything. Many of us even try to live this out—trying very hard not to separate what is “religious” from what is “secular.” But all of us, and I include myself in this!, fall short of this goal. We think of things as “ours” or “mine” and we wonder how to increase those things, the benefits to me. We separate our faith from our work and our play and sometimes from our brains, because logic and faith don’t always go hand in hand. We compartmentalize our time: time for working, time for eating, time for playing, time for family, time for exercise, time for God. We compartmentalize our money: money for housing, money for food, money for clothes, money for kids, money for fun, money for God’s work. We compartmentalize in so many different ways, it’s hard to even name them—that’s just the way our lives are. I’m as guilty as the next person about this, and I even belong to an organization that states as its goal the integration of sacred and secular, of work and worship. This is hard work!

But then again, whenever Jesus decides not to answer a question, you can guess that it’s not going to be easy. Jesus says quite clearly that we, who are made in the image of God, belong to God and we are to give everything we have, everything we are, back to God. That’s what life means. And then he did it—every day, every hour, every time he opened his mouth, every time he acted, he lived his entire life as an offering to God. Jesus is not just a teacher here but a living example of what it means to live life belonging to God. It didn’t end well for Jesus’ earthly life, but it ended in obedience and in gratitude and as an offering of all he was. While I hope none of us will be called to that kind of end, it is out there as a possibility and it’s important to recognize that—its hard to be obedient if you don’t know what you’re being called to. But ultimately, we are all called to offer our whole selves—our time, our talents, our money, our hopes and fears and dreams, our work and our worship and our play, our lives, to the One to whom we belong. God will walk with us each step of that journey toward wholeness and belonging.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Okay, so I still don't have the guts to wear my "Save the Ta-Tas" t-shirt to church (not even on a regular weekday) but you can see me wearing it in one of the photos in the slideshow.  I'm trying to work out how I'm going to wear it during the rest of October.

But, t-shirt or no t-shirt, this is the month. If you need to schedule a doctor's appointment, do it.  Time for your mammogram?  do it.  Don't procrastinate, don't wait, don't put it off.  Just do it.

and if you also don't have the nerve to wear YOUR save the ta-tas t-shirt, well, at the very least head over to the Breast Cancer Site and click

 every day to help fund free mammograms for women who need them but can't pay.  (while you're there you can click for hunger, literacy, the environment, children's health, and animal rescue too!)  It only takes a few seconds.

This is supposedly a beatable disease, which means it's unconscionable that people are dying from it.  So go do something about it--for yourself, for your loved ones, for our healthcare system, for people you don't even know.

(Amy and Elsa and I wearing our Save the ta-tas shirts on Iona)