United Methodist Presence on VT Campus

The Wesley Foundation on the campus of Virginia Tech has offered a safe place for prayer, comfort, and conversation in recent days. Here's the article.

Hold dear the connection, Methodist friends! Because there is a Wesley Foundation on campus, the United Methodist Church is there. Because I belong to a truly connectional denomination, I am in Blacksburg, praying, crying, offering comfort. Moments such as these bring the beauty and power of the Methodist connection into its fullness.

I am so happy to know that the first response of the United Methodist Church at "ground zero" of this horrific event is one of prayer, community, and support. Thinking about the Methodist students at Virginia Tech grieving, hugging one another, mourning close friends and fellow students, and bringing it all to God through a campus ministry reminds us all of how truly important the connection is. What a powerful witness for us all to see a truly healthy, vital ministry at work for the sake of Christ Jesus.

As we pray, I hope we all remember to offer thanks for the connectional presence that is on the VT campus through the Wesley Foundation and their pastor Rev. Glenn Tyndall, and especially for the living presence of Christ in that place, bringing the hope of resurrection into the midst of the pain and grief of this moment.

(Here's another article about UM responses.)

Blame

The assignment of blame on another person or group has the effect of letting the blamer off the hook. If I blame hip-hop culture for racism, then it’s not my fault. If I blame the NRA for the Virginia Tech shooting, then it’s not my fault. If I blame gays for the erosion of the family, then it’s not my fault. If I blame the White House for global warming, then it’s not my fault. And so forth.

Thank you, Mike Hendricks, for articulating the most humble and level-headed response I have read recently. In his April 18th Kansas City Star column, he says what so desperately needs to be said – it’s our fault. All of us. Together. And thank you, Jenee Osterheldt, whose column on the same date exposes the cultural tendency to blame others as a way to shield one’s self.

Hendricks wrote,

Consider: Why is it that a college student in Virginia can so easily obtain handguns to spray his classmates with deadly bullets?
Because we help make it possible. You and me.
No, we don’t pull the trigger. But we might as well be helping the killers reload by not demanding an end to the easy availability of firearms in this country. We let the NRA have the ears of our politicians, when our voices could be so much louder.

Osterheldt wrote,

Everyone wants to point fingers.
Some say hip-hop is the culprit. Others want to blame George Bush. And then there are the truly hateful who blame homosexuality for all the world’s ills.
But they can say what they want, right? We let people use their right to free speech as a shield, their words as weapons.

To say that assigning blame is simply an attempt to explain a given situation is a smoke screen. There is a big distinction between blaming and explaining. We are in this together, and that is what gives us hope. Only when we deepen our understanding of our individual role in the problems of the community can we work together as a community to eliminate them.

Rest Eternal

Requiem eternam dona eis, Domine,

et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Te decet hymnus, Deus in Sion

et tibi reddetur votum

in Jerusalem.

Exaudi orationem meam,

ad te omnis caro veniet.

Kyrie eleison.

Christe eleison.

Kyrie eleison.

translation

Appointment Season!

The Missouri Conference posts upcoming appointment changes on their website.
Click here.
I'm not moving - yea!

Just curious, how common is this practice? If you would, let me know by leaving me a comment if you are a UM, how does your conference do pre-AC appointment announcing?

Missouri's way saves a lot of unproductive gossip time, that's for sure!

Blogging Etiquette: Code of Conduct Proposals

There is a lot of buzz about online etiquette and maintaining civility in the blogoshpere. We had a little flare up a few posts ago here at Enter the Rainbow, in fact.

Today, Bill Tammaeus led me to an article (login required) about Tim O'Reilly that proposes a blogging code of conduct. (Aside: His blog is called O'Reilly Radar - love it!) Here is the checklist version:

1) Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog.
2) Label your tolerance level for abusive comments.
3) Consider eliminating anonymous comments.
4) Ignore the trolls.
5) Take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an intermediary who can do so.
6) If you know someone who is behaving badly, tell them so.
7) Don't say anything online that you wouldn't say in person.

Here's the full post.

BlogHer.org has a code of conduct that is worth checking out, too.

And Jimmy Wales at wikia.com is soliciting bloggers' comments to see about coming to some kind of consensus.

Interesting ideas, huh? This could be a really good moment for blogging, or it could be the "jump the shark" episode. I hope the blogosphere doesn't get institutionalized; I am drawn to the wide-open, emerging, rough-and-tumble feeling of it. But on the other hand, it does tick me off when comments get nasty, and I try to be civil as much as possible.

I'm interested to hear your perspectives. Is blog etiquette something that is unspoken and assumed, or should we make a list? Should the Methoblog community endorse these guidelines? Should we come up with our own "official" list?

Brian McLaren Lecture

I just got back from hearing Brian McLaren lecture on the campus of Saint Paul School of Theology. It was great to hear his voice, see him live and in person, shake his hand, you know, breathe the same air he was breathing. And yes, I did ask him to sign my copy of “A Generous Orthodoxy.” I know, I’m a nerd.

As I shook his hand and handed him the book, I asked, “So, can we do this in the mainline or do we have to start something totally new?” (By “do this,” I meant emerging church, offering a healthy relationship with God through Christ in the church to a generation of people who would not necessarily think of the church first when seeking meaning and purpose in their lives.)

He looked at me and said, “Are you a mainline pastor?”

“Yes, I am United Methodist,” says I.

Then he said basically that he thinks the mainline is a very good place in which to “do this” emerging new thing. He recommended an author to me, whose name I promptly forgot, and mentioned the UMerging conversation. He said, “Um-merging” with a short “u” vowel sound, and since I had never heard anyone actually pronounce it out loud, I asked him if that was how it was supposed to sound. He kind of grinned and said, “Well, I know some people say ‘you-merging’ or whatever, but I say ‘uhm-merging.’” Wasn’t that so very post-modern of him?

The content of the lecture was basically a re-cap of his book, “More Ready Than You Realize,” and he even used the same e-mails from April that he used for the thematic thread of that book. So if you already read that one, you didn’t get many new insights today. There was some stuff that struck me, though.

He said that the 1990’s “church growth” movement was fueled by reaching out to people who love God and like the idea of church, but had a bad experience or three from the past that had driven them away from church. The key to the movement was to remove those barriers in perception, and welcome the people back to church. However, the emerging evangelism that McLaren does is reaching out to a group of people who have no specific negative experience keeping them away from church. There is just a general shoulder shrug about church that precludes their even thinking of church as a place they would find what they are looking for.

For example, in the 90s you said to de-churched people, “We are removing the barriers to church! Come back,” and so they came back. But now, removing the barriers to church is, in McLaren’s analogy, like removing the barriers to playing bridge. “You no longer have to smoke cigarettes to enjoy playing bridge! Come and play.” That doesn’t work for people who don’t like to play bridge. They are not pro-smoking, they just don’t play bridge. The emerging church movement is not about removing barriers to coming to church, it is about giving people a reason to want to come to church in the first place.

That’s pretty good stuff. Former barriers like liturgy and formality and hymns and solemnity and “traditional” are no longer inherently barriers. The trick is to present them with creativity and excellence and energy and life, all undergirded with a desire for an authentic relationship with God and one another. (That’s my own spin on it.)

I also liked his answer to a question about the “essentials” of the faith. The emerging church movement often gets criticized for being all form and no content. He was pressed for time and it was the last question of the morning, so he said pretty quickly that God, who is pure good, created the world and all that is in it. God has a “dream” of how the world ought to look, and humanity, through sin, greed, prejudice, etc. has turned the “dream” into a “nightmare,” messing up the goodness of the world that God intended. And so God sent Jesus Christ as the expression of that dream, to announce it and embody it, and to save creation from the nightmare. He also used the term “Kingdom of God” when talking about God’s dream, or desired state for creation. Following Jesus, therefore, is a decision to realize God’s dream, continue the mission of Christ to announce and embody the Reign of God on earth.

You know, sprinkle in some churchy jargon here and there and that sounds pretty orthodox to me.

There was a bunch more – emphasis on asking good questions, minimizing the language of conquest from religious conversations, pointing out that “modern” evangelism still works if the focus is “modern” people but new ways of doing things are required for “post-moderns,” and so forth. It was a morning well spent. Having read his books, reflected on his ideas, and now inhabited common space, I’m more convinced than ever that McLaren is pretty much right on target with what he has to say about the future of the church.

The Wisdom of Gamaliel - Wait, Who?

Anybody remember Gamaliel?

He is the guy who convinces the council not to kill the apostles in Acts, chapter five. The apostles had defied the Pharisees et al., who ordered them not to teach anyone about Jesus. And so the apostles rebutted by claiming to be speaking in obedience to God’s authority, which clearly trumped the authority of the council. This REALLY ticks them off, and they are ready to execute the whole lot of Jesus’ followers. It was an inter-faith dialogue, ancient near east style!

Enter Gamaliel. Only a lawyer could have come up with his reasoning. He said, in a nutshell, “If their plan is of human origin, it will ultimately fail and so we don’t need to worry about it. But if it really is from God, we won’t win, and what’s more we will be guilty of fighting against God!”

(By the way, for what it’s worth, Gamaliel is also the middle name of the 29th and worst President of the United States, Warren G. Harding. But we digress.)

The rest of the council was convinced by Gamaliel’s wisdom, and so instead of killing the apostles, they just had them flogged and let them go with another order to stop teaching. Needless to say, the apostles continued right on doing what they were doing and the story continued.

Where would we be without the role Gamaliel played in the story? He certainly advanced the plot a scene or two. Actually, as we learn in Acts 22:3, he was Paul’s teacher early on in his life. And tradition says that he was baptized a Christian by Peter and John, but kept his faith a secret so that he could, as a member of the Jerusalem council, provide aid to other followers of the Way.

But what about his logic? Would it convince you? “If they’re just doing their own thing, let ‘em! No skin off our nose! But let’s say for the sake of discussion they really ARE acting by God’s authority: well, we don’t want to mess with that, do we?” Tangentially, there’s a whole lot of fertile ground here to think about the pitfalls of claiming God’s authority (i.e. “God has called me to say …” or “God has put it on my heart …”) in the middle of a dialogue with another person of faith with whom one happens to disagree. (Click here to read more on this topic.)

And that gets me thinking is the application of Gamaliel’s logic to some of our faith conversations today. Peter boldly claimed God’s authority for himself and his colleagues, right in the face of the Jerusalem powerhouses, who also made the claim of God’s authority on their side. The situation could have escalated, but Gamaliel stepped in between and said, “Wait! Let’s see how this thing all shakes out. Give it some time, and clarity will emerge.”

(My friend Teresa has taught me that, given enough time, clarity will emerge.)

What if, instead of arguing with one another over our disagreements, we all just shut up for a while and let clarity emerge? God’s desire for this world will be realized, either in spite of us or because of us. Sometimes we get in God’s way and the best thing we could do would be to move aside for a while and see what happens.

Post 300 - A Look Back Through the Rainbow

This post is post number 300 for me on Enter the Rainbow!
I put together a small smattering of remembrances:

- This whole thing started on January 17, 2005 with a post called “Enter the Rainbow.”
- I shared my personal frustrations with the anti-denim agenda on May 16, 2005.
- I have written a bunch about changing the tone of public conversation, including this three part post on October 25, 26, and 29, 2005, and I followed that up with a post about foxes and hedgehogs on January 6, 2006.
- Occasionally I have had a chance to wax political, like on March 9, 2006 and a few days later on March 14, too. (I must have been in a political mood that month!)
- One of my personal favorite images is the “Dancing Tomato at a Busy Intersection,” from a post on March 21, 2006.
- There was a series called “Truth in the Bible” that I posted on July 12, 15, and 18 of 2006 that led to some good conversation.
- We had a good little discussion about the church in the world on August 26, 2006.
- On September 7, 2006 I wrote my own version of the Barmen Declaration.
- I reflected out loud about my calling to ministry on December 19 and 29, 2007.
- There was an intense conversation on my post about panhandling in Kansas City that led into another good conversation about blogging etiquette on February 15 and 16, 2007.

I have written about immigration, posted some of my ordination papers, commented on the goings on in the United Methodist Church, reflected on the lectionary texts, shared stories about my kids, and prattled on about a slew of other topics, too. I hope that, all in all, the things I have written have been true to my calling of “realizing the diversity of God’s vision for creation,” a phrase I included in the initial description of Enter the Rainbow.

In celebration of this 300th post, I have decided to change Enter the Rainbow’s template! Hooray! Throw a party, everyone! … Okay, so maybe it’s more exciting for me than anyone else, but still.

And finally, thank you to y’all for taking a bit of time to read my stuff. And a special thanks to you who leave comments, email me about a post, or give me a call to talk more about a particular subject. I love the conversation, and I’m looking forward to more!

Best Egg Dying Kit - EVER!!!

I'm Saint Melito, Apparently

You’re St. Melito of Sardis! You have a great love of history and liturgy. You’re attached to the traditions of the ancients, yet you recognize that the old world — great as it was — is passing away. You are loyal to the customs of your family, though you do not hesitate to call family members to account for their sins. Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers!

Huh. I guess I can see that.
Here is some more Melito info, if you're curious.
Hat tip to John.

The Bunny or the Fox - by Corneille M. Bryan

One day, long ago, there was a fight over who would be the Easter animal. The Bunny and Fox both wanted to be the Easter animal. All the animals agreed they will have a vote. Mayor Bear gave out a note:

Come to vote for the Easter animal! Meet at the pond tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The next day, all the animals that could come, came. First, Bunny gave his speech. He said “Easter is about Jesus and how he came alive again! It’s also about having a great time with friends and family!”

Then, it was time for Fox. He said “Easter is about getting candy, peeps and things from the Easter fox!”

All the animals voted. Mayor Bear said “I will put the winner in tomorrow’s paper!”

Who do you think won?


Bunny won!

There will now be an Easter Bunny! Bunny won by….well… all the animals voted for Bunny!

THE END!

About the author: Cori is a third grade student and the author of several short stories and poems. Her completely unbiased dad raves, "One of the most promising up-and-comers in the literary world!"

Resurrection Thoughts

In my April newsletter article I wrote some thoughts about Easter.
CLICK HERE to give it a read.

And more - THIS ARTICLE by Rev. Steve Cox has been very helpful for me in thinking about the Conference's support of the "vital ministries" which I wrote about before.

Royals are Gil-tastic!

Rejoice, rejoice! Celebrate this day of days. The Kansas City Royals are in first place in the American League Central Division, beating Boston yesterday 7 - 1.

Kansas City fans know we must enjoy it now, because it will probably not last very long.

But hey - you gotta stop and smell the roses, right? Woo-Hoo! Go, Royals! We're number one! We're number one! We're number one!

Missouri Conference - Special Session Wrap-up

On Saturday, March 31st the special called session of the Missouri Annual Conference was held in Columbia. We were called together in order to vote on one resolution, offered by Bishop Schnase’s ad hoc advisory team, “Pathways,” the implications of which would impact the regular session of Annual Conference this June.

The entire resolution from Pathways passed overwhelmingly, though not by any means unanimously. It passed with a show of hands, and from my seat it looked like a 70 / 30 split or so. When the question was called, there were still approximately fifty hands in the air, wanting to speak on the resolution. But a call of the question is not open to debate, and so we voted to vote, which we did, and we were done.

The Pathways recommendations were in response to our denominational trend of declining attendance and membership, and are intended to help reverse those trends. The intention is to provide a “new direction” to the purpose and function of our Annual Conference, toward the mission of creating healthy and vital congregations that are effectively making disciples of Jesus Christ. It is all couched in very positive, upbeat, and hopeful terms. Here’s the nutshell version:

+ The Missouri Conference office will now house a “Center for Congregational Excellence” and a “Center for Pastoral Excellence,” although the particular logistics of these two centers is unclear. Bishop Schnase expressed a hope that these centers would facilitate training events all around the conference year-round, focusing on specific ecclesial issues.

+ Missouri Conference apportionments will now be based only on the local congregation’s expenditures, rather than a complicated formula involving budget, attendance, and membership. The total conference budget will be capped relative to the aggregate of congregational expenditures around the state.

+ The Missouri Conference budget will no longer include financial support of the “Vital Ministries” in our state. The Vital Ministries are mostly the agencies and facilities that are doing mainly social justice work throughout our state and beyond. In Kansas City, that includes Della Lamb Community Services, NewHouse, re-Start, and Spofford.

+ Campus ministries in our conference will no longer be housed in specialized “Wesley Foundations,” but will be carried out by local congregations.

I voted against the resolution, but I went back and forth about it a million times.

On the one hand, I like the idea of centers for excellence, both congregational and pastoral. On the other hand, I do not want to be a part of a congregational system, but a connectional one. In many ways this feels like one more step away from a true connection and toward a loose association of individual congregations.

On the one hand, I understand Pathways’ desire to trim the conference budget. But on the other hand, the conference is the vehicle by which congregations can do connectional ministry: the whole “we can do more together than we can alone” thing. It is important for my congregation that we are able to provide support for an agency to which we would not otherwise have any connection. It feels very Methodist to me, and I like it! The resolution seems to remove that particular aspect of connectionalism.

On the one hand, I love the idea of developing healthy and vital congregations. But on the other hand, I take very seriously the call to ministries of social justice. Our conference’s decision to pull funding from so many social justice agencies all at once leaves me feeling like I’ve been punched in the gut. It all felt very much focused on the bottom line – money, money, money! By outward appearances, it seems that the Missouri Conference has said what matters is filling the pews with people and the collection plates with money, not so much realizing the reign of God on earth, lifting valleys and making mountains and hills low, the crooked straight and the rough places plain, and all that stuff.

On the one hand, I see that the number of students served by campus ministries as we know them now is way low compared to the total number of students. But on the other hand, I suspect that the ratio of students in Wesley Foundations to total college students is comparable to the ratio of Methodists in Missouri to total Missourians, so I don’t really know how fair it is to judge them by these numbers. And furthermore, I see a disconnect between the ministry our admittedly aging congregations are doing and the kind of ministry that college students would find meaningful.

Another thing that feels a bit awkward is Pathways itself. It is a group hand-selected by the Bishop, and supposedly an ad hoc task force whose role was to assess the situation in the conference and recommend a new direction (i.e. a “pathway” forward). That’s great, but now it seems that Pathways is going to be actively involved with the implementation phase, too. That sounds a bit more than “ad hoc” to me. It sounds like we have created another layer of bureaucracy, appointed by the Bishop rather than nominated and elected by the conference. On the one hand, they’re good people and want what’s best for the conference. But on the other hand, what are the conference council, the cabinet, the conference staff, and all of the forty-seven thousand other boards, committees, and teams for?

Now that it’s all done, I’m going to support it. It would not be particularly helpful of me to raise a big stink now, and apparently 70% or so of the conference likes it, so I’m probably over-thinking things. I tend to do that.

On the one hand, I love the idea of a new direction for the church; I use that kind of language all the time. But on the other hand, I’m not so sure this is the direction we want to take.

March 29th, 2007

Yesterday was Thursday, March 29th, 2007. There is nothing extraordinary about this day. My grandchildren will not be required to memorize this date for a history test. It was just a day.

In the Kansas City Star, front page:
+ A mob killing spree killed at least 60 people in Tal Afar, Iraq.
+ The Kaiser Family Foundation released a study that reveals disturbing truths about the relationship between television advertising and childhood obesity.

Second page:
+ A museum is about to open in Petersburg, Kentucky whose website features this teaser: “Other surprises are just around the corner. Adam and apes share the same birthday. The first man walked with dinosaurs and named them all! God’s Word is true, or evolution is true. No millions of years. There’s no room for compromise.”
+ James Dobson said of Senator Fred Thomson, “I don’t think he’s a Christian; at least that’s my impression.”

Third page:
+ In the last two years, three newborn babies have been abandoned in Orosi, California, apparently all by the same mother. The first two survived; the third died.

Page fifteen:
+ United States soldiers are going to be returning to deployment in Iraq after being home for less than a year, in order to support the latest increase.
+ U.S. ally Saudi Arabia has called our nation’s presence in Iraq “an illegitimate foreign occupation.”

Back page:
+ Iran and Great Britain cannot seem to agree about whether or not British sailors were in Iranian waters or Iraqi waters when they boarded a merchant vessel and were captured, a point of contention which has created international tension.

And so on.

So that’s March 29th, 2007. Oh, there was other stuff happening, too. I admit that I picked and chose stories for effect. Feel free to compile your own list.

The point is, what if we selected March 29th, 2007 as a snapshot of life on the third rock from the sun? What if aliens were in orbit on March 29th, 2007, and used their superior technology to observe this world for that day, in order to learn all they could about the planet’s inhabitants? (By the way, no aliens, as far as I could tell, are included in the exhibits in the aforementioned museum. Dinosaurs walked the earth with humans, but extraterrestrial life is out of bounds, it seems.)

Ask yourself: What am I doing to make this world a better place?

March 29th, 2007 was just a day, but every day is “just a day.” In fact, all we have is today. Yesterday is over and tomorrow is no guarantee. All we have is now.

Do you remember that Bible story where Mary broke open the jar of expensive perfume and poured it all over Jesus’ feet? In response to the protests of the other disciples, Jesus said, “Leave her alone. It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” (John 12)

Mary understood something about the present moment that the disciples didn’t get. Her act of extravagance was not wasteful, as the other disciples thought. It was a celebration of right now.

Yesterday and Tomorrow are in God’s hands; all we can do is live today. What kind of day will today be?

Render Unto ... ?

Has anyone else noticed that the lectionary text for April 15th has Peter saying, "We must obey God rather than any human authority" (Acts 5:29) and it just happens to be the day our taxes are due?

How fun!

Brotherly Post - Good Grief

My brother Brad has written a wonderful post about grief.
Click here to give it a read.

How's this for a definition of pastoral care?

"What I think doesn't matter, doesn't mean a thing, to the person actually doing the grieving. What we as friends of the grieving must do is help the person find that thing that helps them."

About dealing with grief, he writes:

"We have two choices when faced with grief. Deny it and lose ourselves in the undertow too powerful for anyone to fight alone. Or face it, embrace it, sit in the dark and cry for three hours -and I mean the gasping for breath, snot running down the face kind of crying, the crying that makes you forget where you are or what you did - and become stronger, a more complete person."

And his tag line is wonderful:

"Behind every cloud there IS silver lining, but there's still one big badass storm on the way."

Thanks, B. Good stuff.

It's Not Just Me!

Recently I posted my dream for General Conference. Maybe it could be coming true!

Click Here to read about what Rev. Joe Easley and Rev. Mark Dicken are trying to do in the South Indiana Conference. Click here to read a list of some of the specific changes they are proposing. I sure do like the spirit of this idea!

Rev. Easley: "So many things divide us in the church. We need to learn how to disagree as Christians rather than disagree as the world. We need to be in dialogue. We are a stronger church because of our diversity. We all have one central commitment to Jesus Christ."

Rev. Dicken: "We (conference members) can all take a deep breath and identify who we are and what is important to us. We hope with this (change) there is an open manner so that there is no hidden agenda."

I wonder if there are any Methobloggers from Indiana who could give some more information on this thing?


(Hat Tip: Larry B.)

Sweet Sixteen - For Whom to Root?

I LOVE College basketball. You can't beat March Madness if you're a sports fan. Everything else moves down a notch or two on the priority list, doesn't it? Officially, for the record, I have Florida picked to win it all over Texas A&M in the finals of the Men's NCAA Basketball Tournament.

But "Who do you pick to win it all?" is a different question than "For whom are you rooting?" If their team is out of it (thank you, Mizzou), REAL fans root for the underdog, and so I'll be cheering for the lower seed in every game this weekend.

Should the lower seeds win, that would yield a final four of UNLV, Southerin Illinois, Vanderbilt, and Tennessee.

Then UNLV would beat Vanderbilt in the final. Now, that would be true MADNESS!

Go Rebs!

UPDATE (March 24): Crap.

Dr. Seuss on General Conference

I was unaware that Dr. Seuss had written about the United Methodist General Conference. And I quote ...


One day, making tracks
In the prairie of Prax,
Came a North-Going Zax
And a South-Going Zax.

And it happened that both of them came to a place
Where they bumped. There they stood.
Foot to foot. Face to face.

"Look here, now!" the North-Going Zax said, "I say!
You are blocking my path. You are right in my way.
I'm a North-Going Zax and I always go north.
Get out of my way, now, and let me go forth!"

"Who's in whose way?" snapped the South-Going Zax.
"I always go south, making south-going tracks.
So you're in MY way! And I ask you to move
And let me go south in my south-going groove."

Then the North-Going Zax puffed his chest up with pride.
"I never," he said, "take a step to one side.
And I'll prove to you that I won't change my ways
If I have to keep standing here fifty-nine days!"

"And I'll prove to YOU," yelled the South-Going Zax,
"That I can stand here in the prairie of Prax
For fifty-nine years! For I live by a rule
That I learned as a boy back in South-Going School.
Never budge! That's my rule. Never budge in the least!
Not an inch to the west! Not an inch to the east!
I'll stay here, not budging! I can and I will
If it makes you and me and the whole world stand still!"

Well...
Of course the world didn't stand still. The world grew.
In a couple of years, the new highway came through
And they built it right over those two stubborn Zax
And left them there, standing un-budged in their tracks.

by Dr. Seuss

From The Sneetches and Other Stories

Copyright 1961 by Theodor S. Geisel and Audrey S. Geisel, renewed 1989.

Update:
Okay, I couldn't resist creating my own version (with sincerest apologies to my hero Dr. Seuss):

One quadrennium, on the way
to their Conference one day,
Came a Methodist Yea
And a Methodist Nay.

And it happened that both of them came to a place
Where they bumped. There they stood.
Foot to foot. Face to face.

"Look here, now!" the Methodist Yea said, "I say!
You are blocking my path. You are right in my way.
I'm a Methodist Yea and I always include.
Get out of my way, now, you are being rude!"

"Who's in whose way?" snapped the Methodist Nay.
"I read my Bible, so do what I say.
So you're in MY way! And I ask you to move
And let me proceed in my Biblical groove."

Then the Methodist Yea puffed his chest up with pride.
“I never,” he said, “take a step to one side.
And I’ll prove to you that acceptance is right
(Excepting I won’t accept you – day or night!)”

"And I'll prove to YOU," yelled the Methodist Nay,
"That I can stand here in the good moral way
For fifty-nine years! For I live by a rule
That I learned as a boy back in my Sunday School.
Never budge! That's my rule. For to budge might reveal
that the Bible’s not true, or that God isn’t real!
So I'll stay here, not budging! I can and I will
If it makes you and me and the whole world stand still!"

Well...
Of course the world didn't stand still. The world grew.
And since they were so stubborn, there was naught they could do.
“Irrelevant!” “Pointless.” “Old-fashioned.” “You blew it!”
And Methodists, both Yea and Nay, never knew it.

Disclaimer: the assignment of "Yea" and "Nay" to any one side or the other of any particular argument or another is purely coincidental. No actual Methodists were harmed in the writing of this silly poem.

update: edited for proper spelling of "Seuss" and thank you Beth for pointing that out!

Caption Contest

Please submit your suggested caption as a comment:



Updated: Winner = "Gives a whole new context to the phrase 'down under'."
Hooray for Adam!

Gays and Christians in the Military: I'm Asking, Who's Telling?

Blogger and United Methodist Pastor Keith McIlwain has a very thought provoking post about service in the military. Click here.

In the post, he asks, "If we believe that murder is a sin, then shouldn't Gen. Pace want an army of gay people, who in his mind are already immoral? Why shouldn't gay people be permitted to kill for their country?"

This question is wonderfully complex. You have the whole "military killing is morally different than murder" discussion. You have the whole "war is sinful, but necessary" discussion. And those discussions are interwoven in this case with all the standard rhetoric about sexual orientation. Wow! My brain is working overtime, just thinking about all the implications.

(By the way, Keith and John engage in a very respectful and enlightening back-and-forth in the comments of Keith's post, and I hope you read that, too.)

In his post, Keith quotes Stanley Hauerwas, who ponders why the military considers homosexual people morally unfit for military service, but not Christian people. Hauerwas believes Christians ought to be conisdered morally unfit to serve in the military, since they believe human life to be sacred, created in the image of God, and therefore would be unwilling to kill.

I served as an associate pastor in Warrensburg, Missouri for four years. Several members of our congregation were B2 bomber pilots and their families, support personnel, and other staff of Whiteman Air Force Base, just a few miles away. The enormous, black, no-way-that-contraption-should-be-able-to-fly B2 soaring overhead was a common sight. I have had conversations with military people about this issue for years and years. I was on one pilot's file to be one of the people present at the notification of his wife, should "anything happen" to him while flying a mission. I have prayed over men and women being deployed, and cared for their families while they were gone. I have embraced returning soldiers with tears of joy.

I write all that just to say that I cannot think of Christians serving in the military as any more sinful than anyone else. I know that, through their interpretation of scripture and their personal convictions, they are striving to live a faithful life and become the person God wants them to be, just like I am. I personally hold the belief that non-violent resistance is the most authentic Christian response to evil, but that's me. My friends in the military, who do not believe as I do, are no less faithful because they have come to a different conclusion that I have. All I can do is witness.

What I have a tough time understanding is the perspective that says a gay person who genuinely wants to serve in the military is somehow less morally fit to do so than a straight person of a similar mindset. Or, as Keith McIlwain writes it, "What is it about a person's sexual behavior that makes it easier or more difficult to kill?" I'm asking; who's telling?

Beer Drinking Church

In a way, it is good that church is the place where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came. But did you hear the one about the church that not only meets in a bar, but also partakes of the local brew? Read this. Here's their website. The church is called "The Journey" and beer drinking happens at a monthly program they call "Theology at the Bottleworks."

The article referenced above was in the Columbia Tribune last Sunday, and it says that "Theology at the Bottleworks is run by a wildly successful congregation of young St. Louisans called The Journey. The ... program is part of the church’s outreach ministry. And it works. Every month, dozens show up at the brewpub to drink beer and talk about issues ranging from racism in St. Louis to modern-art controversies to the debate about embryonic stem cell research."

It's all about keeping it real and relevant and taking the church out to where the people are. And apparently ... it got them in trouble from the Baptists. (I hope you read the whole story, it's great!) I guess The Journey is non-denominational, but they got a big loan from the Southern Baptists in Missouri to buy and renovate an old Catholic church building in St. Louis. At the time, the SBC was all stoked about this new and emerging church thing. Rev. Darrin Patrick (who did his seminary here in Kansas City, by the way) was praised and the model of ministry was lifted up as exemplary.

But then, they found out about the booze!

Now, they say things like, "Beer being served as part of a church presentation sends mixed messages to the community and causes confusion. Had we known about this before the loan was approved, I would have openly spoken out against a financial relationship being established."

So here we go:
Is this an example of the older status quo balking because younger people just do things differently?
or
Is this an example of a congregation compromising the church's doctrines in order to attract people and grow?
or
Is this an example of a congregation betraying the trust of a denomination by taking their money but not upholding their moral principles?
or
Is this an example of a congregation working in partnership with a denomination in urban ministry, but just using rather unique methods?
or
Do you have to drink beer in order to be relevant?
or
Do you have to not drink beer in order to be church?

I know a bunch of wonderful, Christian people who drink beer.
Is there a difference between drinking beer with a bunch of friends at your house and drinking beer at an official church function? If so, why?

Look, making your way in the world today takes everything you've got. Taking a break from all your troubles sure would help a lot. Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name ... and have a beer or two with a good friend? Is that church?

update: click here, read the comments for Darrin Patrick's own take on the situation.

Lenten Devotion Podcast

I recently posted a Lenten Devotion as a podcast on the Missouri Annual Conference website.

Click here and take a listen.

Reverend Photog Again

After another long sabbatical, I'm again posting new photographs over at Reverend Photog. I invite you to come and enjoy my hobby with me!

Believing: Experience and/or Reason?

Yesterday the topic for Confirmation Class was "What does it mean to 'believe in' God?" Over the course of our conversation, I watched how various class members talked with their hands. I noticed that one of the students would put his index finger on his temple when he would be talking about what it means to believe something, and another would put his hand on his chest, over his heart.

When answering a question about what evidence or criteria you would need in order to believe something, the first student answered that it would have to be logical, it would have to make sense. In other words, he said, you couldn't just say that aliens had landed and were planning to take over the school. He wouldn't believe that, because it doesn't make sense.

Answering the same question, the second student said he based his beliefs on what he experienced, the things he saw around him, and his feelings about things. You believe things because you sense it, like you would believe that the wind is blowing because you can feel it on your face and see the trees moving.

Toward the end of the class, I pointed out how these two students seemed to talk about "belief" in very different ways. In fact, each one's answers had seemed not to make much sense to the other. And that's no surprise, since they were each looking at faith from two different perspectives. But really both of them are right.

Without my really planning it, our conversation about believing nicely illuminated the dynamic interplay between experience and reason that has been a part of theological conversation for centuries. Both aspects are very important for Wesleyan theologians, as they were to Mr. Wesley himself, product of the enlightenment as he was.

I thought it was pretty cool that, there in our little confirmation class, we had a pretty good case study to talk about the different ways people come to believe what they believe.

"In God We Trust"-Gate: Godless Coin Foments Irate Email Campaign: But Wait, It Was All A Mistake: Or Was It?

I got an outraged email forward yesterday. It was informing me that the U.S. Government left the insciption "In God We Trust" off of the new dollar coins, and needless to say the email was very angry - big, red, capital letters angry.

It started out with, "You guessed it - 'In God We Trust' is gone!"

Wait, I guessed it? What would have led me to guess something like that? I'm not sure that the sender knows me very well. Like when I heard that there was a new dollar coin coming out, my first thought was, "You know, I'll betchya they leave off the "In God We Trust" inscription." Actually, my first thought was, "Who has the sports section?" Turns out, my wife did, as she was checking the weather forecast on the back page.

Anyway, the forwarded rant continued thusly: "Who originally put 'In God We Trust' onto our currency? My bet is that it was one of the Presidents on these coins. All our U.S. Government has done is Dishonor them, and disgust me!!!"

Okay, let me just stop you there one more time, email ranter. You really want to claim that everything the U.S. Government has done since George Washington was president is a dishonor to him? And your evidence for this is that an inscription is missing from a new coin? Yeah, I can see where putting a person on the moon is just a bunch of hooey in comparison to leaving an inscription off of a coin.

The email ranter then called for action. "If ever there was a reason to boycott something, THIS IS IT!!!! DO NOT ACCEPT THE NEW DOLLAR COINS AS CHANGE. Together we can force them out of circulation." Everybody needs a cause, I suppose. Just be careful about which one you back. You may get all fired up about it, only to have the whole thing end up as a puff of smoke.

See, apparently this whole things was the result of a glitch in the system. Reuters reported that the mint in Philadelphia is working to correct the "mistake" by making the "necessary technical adjustments." The coins, rather than the latest salvo of the governmental heathens in the war to eliminate God from the world, actually turned out to just have a simple "defect" that the mint is working diligently to correct.

Which might make these coins somewhat valuable, apparently. I read where one of the defective dollars sold online for 400 bucks! I'm having all of the church members here check their dollar coins for the appropriate inscriptions; we may have found a way to resolve our budget crunch!

But actually I have a theory, even more devious and insipid than the vast governmental conspiracy to do away with the divine. I think the one responsible for the ommission was none other than ... God. Here's what I'm thinking: God needed another trivial issue that would distract the religious right away from things that really matter. Bingo - just arrange to leave "In God We Trust" off of the new coins. It's not like that was going to affect God in any way at all. People are going to trust God (or not) because they decide to, not because a coin suggests it. Then, with the religious right busy forwarding emails to each other, getting all worked up and speaking in large red capital letters, the rest of us can just quietly be about our business.

I can't help but think that somewhere, Sacagawea must be chuckling softly to herself ...

Scriptural Gymnastics: Follow-Up

I've been thinking about "scriptural gymnastics" ever since Joseph included it in a comment on my last post. What a great term! I suppose that I infer it's meaning to be basically creating an interpretation of scripture that supports one's own perspective. The metaphor indicates that you would have to do some intricate exegetical backflips in order to get the Bible to say what you want it to say.

The opposite, I suppose, is to come to the Bible with a completely unbiased perspective - a tabula rasa that is unblemished by any smudge of experience or previous teaching. Hmm, what's the opposite of gymnastics? Maybe a scriptural 100 yard dash: straight to the finish line, stay in your lane, fast as you can. My claim would be that I had full access to the Truth of Holy Scripture as God really meant it, revealed to me.

Problem with that is, none of us can claim to come to God's word without smudges on our tabulas. We are all prone to error, temptation, and sin. Or, as Mitch said in our last bit of conversation, all we can do is peek at the thing, and from our own limited perspective. So there must be a middle somewhere in between backflipping and somersaulting to make the Bible support my opinion and sprinting ahead unswervingly claiming that my own lane is all that counts in this race.

We all know the various scriptural interpretations around the issue of acceptance of homosexual people in the Church. In no particular order,
- you've got your "burn in hell" people,
- you've got your "it's the behavior that's sinful, not the orientation" people, - you've got your "if they would only repent" people,
- you've got your "hate the sin, love the sinner" people,
- you've got your "accept everybody because we are all sinners" people,
- you've got your "I don't know for sure, but I err on the side of grace" people,
- you've got your "the Bible doesn't say anything about sexual orientation" people,
- you've got your "oh forget it, let's just start our own denomination" people,
- you've got your "I'll protest: anywhere, anytime, anyhow" people,
- you've got your "accept gay people or I'll kick your a**" people,
- and there are probably a few that I've forgotten about.

We have heard them all, we know them all.

Now, which one of these interpretations is guilty of "scriptural gymnastics?" Chances are, if you answer that question, you will choose one of the myriad of perspectives that is not yours. No matter where you are personally, everyone else must be wrong, right? That is where we have been for decades, and that is why the bitter, hateful, angry fighting has got to stop.

As I wrote previously, I am not advocating ending the conversation, I am advocating transforming it. I want to talk with passion and conviction about my belief that a person with the gifts and graces for ordained ministry should be ordained, regardless of sexual orientation. I want to talk with passion and conviction about my belief that gender ought to play no role in determining whom one is allowed to marry.

I have come to this belief, not by doing any "scriptural gymnastics," nor have I come to this belief as the finish line to my own little "100 yard dash" with Jesus. Or said another way, I have neither bent the Bible to my own perspective nor had the full Truth of the Lord revealed to me exclusively. I have worked faithfully, prayerfully, and diligently to arrive at this interpretation.

And furthermore ...

So has Mitch. I know Mitch, and I know he's peeking at things differently than me. But I would no sooner accuse him of being unfaithful as I would call the sky pink. He is not simply bending the Bible to his own perspective, nor would he ever dare to claim exclusive, full knowledge of the Truth of God (I don't think). He, like me, has come to his beliefs faithfully, prayerfully, and with all due diligence.

(Thanks, Mitch, for letting me use you as a case study!)

So how to we transform the conversation? The first step, which I kind of poked fun at in my last post, is to remove those for whom this whole thing is some kind of a hateful battle to be waged. Next, the remaining conversation partners have to understand how each person has come to her or his belief, so everything can be out on the table, and as transparent as possible. That means not only understanding a perspective different from your own, but also understanding how that perspective came to be. Only then can the conversation proceed.

I don't think we are there yet. We're pretty much still just fighting with each other. We haven't let go of the rancor, hatred, and bitterness. Until that happens, things will not get better for any gymnasts, sprinters, or anyone in between.

Jacob Lawrence

John recently art-blogged Jacob Lawrence. Thanks, John.

I had emailed to ask him to do so because for our daughter's birthday, Erin and I took her to a performance of the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, who presented a powerful recital based on Lawrence's paintings.

A Dream for General Conference

Here’s my General Conference dream:

“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to this opening session of the 2008 General Conference of the United Methodist Church. I hereby call this session to order.

Turning to our first agenda item, all of those who wish to beat each other up over the issue of homosexuality please excuse yourselves from the floor and reconvene just down the hall in room 560, which has been reserved especially for you for the duration of the conference. Do not forget to bring your Bibles with you, as there are many good tidbits in there which you can use as ammunition against one another. You will be notified at the beginning of our closing session, at which time we will reconvene to hear absolutely no report whatsoever of what you have been doing for the past several days.

Those of you who wish to remain on the floor and discuss our other agenda items, like the presence of the living God in our midst, the mission of the church as God’s agent in the world, sharing the grace of Jesus Christ with those who so desperately need to experience it, the spreading of scriptural holiness throughout the land, the power of God’s Holy Spirit to bring peace and justice to a hurting and broken world, creative ways to participate in the ongoing incarnation of Christ to realize God’s reign on earth, and so forth, please be in recess for a few moments as we allow our more single-minded brothers and sisters to adjourn for their special session down the hall.

We will reconvene in five minutes.”

To be clear, I am not advocating ignoring the issue of homosexuality. I simply think that there are too many people who are ready to throw down and do battle over the issue to have any hope of a healthy conversation. And I think that there are people on “both sides” of the issue that fall into that category. But if we reframe the conversation, and make it be about the church’s participation in God’s mission on earth in Christ Jesus, maybe we’ll be able to talk together in a grace-filled, loving, healthy way.

What are the chances of my dream coming true, do you think?
Is it dewy-eyed optimism, or hope for things unseen?

Whew! Made It Through! - Ordination Journey Nearing the Destination

As it turns out, the road to ordination had an unexpected twist in it for me. But I must have good traction in my tires, because I managed to negotiate the curve and stay on the road. After not one but two afternoons of interviews, the Missouri Board of Ordained Ministry has recommended me for ordination this June at the Annual Conference session! Hooray!

The twist in the road involved my receiving a call on Monday night, after I had spent the afternoon in Sedalia interviewing with the four committees. One of the committees, I was told, had a few more questions they wanted to ask me. The other three had enthusiastically recommended me, but one group had some reservations.

*gulp* (Heart stopped for a minute, stomach churned a bit, blood pressure dropped alarmingly)

They wanted to know if I could drive back to Sedalia (97.3 miles one way) at either 1:30 or 4:30 the next afternoon, Tuesday. To be back at 1:30, I would have to cancel my lunch with my YouthFriend (YouthFriends is a mentoring program in the NKC School district). To be back at 4:30, I would have to cancel my appointment with a woman who had let me know that her long struggle with her relationship with Jesus had led her to a place where she was ready to profess her faith and join the church. Either way, I hoped to be back to church by 7:00, when I had an appointment with a family (3 generations, no less) who wanted to join the church and have the kids baptized. This was the decision I had to make.

I decided on 4:30, told the caller I would take that time, and he offered me some encouraging words as we ended the call and said goodbye.

I was reading a bedtime story to my daughter when the call came in. Somehow I managed to get back to the story, the chapter from "Little House on the Prairie" when Pa puts the roof on. After we prayed and kissed goodnight, I left my daughter's room and went downstairs to wait for Erin to come home from her dance class. When she arrived, I told her and she embraced me and we cried and grumbled and hugged more and and shook our heads and cried more. I called some friends and my Dad, letting them know what was happening.

I didn't sleep well.

I am not going to share the details of Tuesday afternoon with the BOOM. Having had only a day for reflecting on everything, I just have too much unprocessed. And I probably won't post any particulars at all, because it would be tinged with so much of my emotion as to be quite unhelpful. What happened was that I went to the one committee who had further questions, I answered the questions they asked, they must have been pleased with my answers, and the full Board voted to approve my ordination. I was called last night by the same pastor who had called me the night before, but this time he had happier news to share!

The past two days, I have truly come to understand what it is to be loved unconditionally and supported fully, to be held in prayer and compassion by wonderful people. Erin, the light of my life, my true love, my rock, my life-partner forever. My kids, who just knew that Daddy finally had "passed the test" and were so excited they could hardly contain it. My dad, my mom, my siblings, who have put up with me longer than anyone and for some reason still find room in their hearts to love me. My covenant partners, who prayed with me, shouted curses at the wind with me, loved me for me. Colleagues on the BOOM, who gave me thumbs up signals, put their arms around me, prayed for me, affirmed and supported and encouraged me. Church staff and members who spoke uplifting, encouraging words of support, and who gave me assurance. Wow, I'm just about overwhelmed.

And here it is, Lent - penance, fasting, preparation, mortality, confession, repentance. My Lenten journey is going to be a little bit different this year, I suspect. I wonder what new thing God is going to do this year, as we yearn for resurrection. What new thing is God going to do, as creation groans with labor pains? I wonder what new thing God is going to do.

Check your tires for traction, there may be a twist in the road ahead.

Blogging Etiquette: A Developing Field

Recently, John convinced me not to respond to anonymous comments. That's a good rule, seems to me.

However, it is possible for a commenter to display a name, but stay pretty much anonymous by not allowing your profile to be viewed publicly. That happened in yesterday's string of comments.

So, what do you think? Should bloggers respond to anonymous or name-only comments? Or should bloggers limit the back-and-forth commenting to either people we know or who have a blog of their own?

Update: Cross posted at Locusts & Honey

Panhandling Ban in Kansas City?

There’s a Kansas City council member named John Fairfield (also a Kansas City mayoral candidate, but who isn’t?) who wants to ban “panhandling” in four specific areas of our city. Here’s the article (login required).

Panhandling is broadly defined in the proposal, and would include “any request for money by voice, music, singing or other street performance,” according to the article. This has some musicians and other performance artists riled up, and apparently there was quite a show at the most recent city council meeting as some protested the proposal by performing for council members.

But street performers aside, a deeper question we ought to be asking has to do with the people who aren’t juggling or doing balloon animals or playing their saxophone. Those who are there just sitting, hand held out, their life’s circumstances having driven them to desperation. It is a desperate life that is lived begging for help on the street, no matter what it was that got you there in the first place. Do we really want to consider street folks criminals and run them off, just to make our shopping experience more comfortable?

Some people are quick to pass judgment on people of the street, certain that it must be their own fault somehow, that they must be lazy, that they made bad choices and are now just suffering the consequences of those choices so let them suffer, that they actually prefer to live this lifestyle, or some other such rationalizations. What sucks is that some of those people passing judgment are Christians who claim to be followers of Jesus, the one who says, “Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.” (Luke 6:30, NRSV)

Maybe I’m missing something, but that seems pretty clear to me. I don’t know if John Fairfield, running for mayor and wanting to make a name for himself, is a Christian or not. In fact, I don’t know anything about him. But I think his proposal reflects the worst part of our society, the part that wants to go shopping and be entertained and eat at fancy restaurants without any pesky reminders that some people can’t do those things. What purpose does banning panhandlers serve other than a desire for antiseptic, insulated, isolationist denial of reality? “If they’re not there, we can pretend they don’t exist!”

Yuck.

Hitting Your Spiritual Snooze Button? - Transfiguration Thoughts

What do you do with the Transfiguration story? That’s this week’s lectionary reading, Luke’s version. I get the feeling the Transfiguration story must be important, but I’m not really sure why. Kind of like District Superintendents. :) (Joke.)

Luke has a line in the story that has caught my eye this time. Luke 9:32 says, “Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him.” (NRSV) It reminds me of another time the disciples got sleepy, in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night Jesus was arrested. Only that time, they went right ahead and fell asleep.

“Since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory.” Maybe the whole thing was a result of sleep deprivation? You know how when you stay awake really late at night and you start getting all loopy? Maybe Peter, James, and John were just really, really sleepy and their minds were playing tricks on them.

Or maybe it’s more about “staying awake” spiritually, so that you don’t miss an opportunity to see Christ. Maybe sin is essentially evidence that we are spiritually asleep, not aware of Christ’s presence, unable to recognize the glory of God revealed in Jesus Christ. And the thing about being asleep is that sometimes your dreams are so vivid, you don’t realize you are sleeping. That is, until you wake up.

This metaphor is helpful for me in thinking about many sins. Sin is a vivid dream in which your perceptions seem real and good and right and just, but they are only a dream. Upon waking up and seeing Christ’s glory, you realize that your sinful life is just a dream, and salvation is an ongoing attempt to stay awake spiritually so that you will live a life that God intends. The devil LOVES this situation, you know? With this sleeping/dreaming arrangement Satan has worked it out so that we are sinning, but we don’t realize we are. Not only do we not realize it, but we actually think we are being righteous, so we just keep on sinning/dreaming, all the time unaware of our sin.

Consider affluence. How many of us try to live in the dream that says it is okay for some people to have a big house, two cars, closets full of clothes, pantries full of food, while other people lie on heating ducts downtown with all of their worldly possessions stuffed into a dirty backpack beside them? I know I do. Any excuse I try to offer is the equivalent of pressing my spiritual snooze button. “Just ten more minutes, okay Jesus?”

There’s something here also that reminds me of one of the themes from “The Matrix.” Neo was awakened to the ugly, painful reality of the world, having been in an altered state of perception in which his life seemed to be quite ordinary and relatively easy. The most insidious sin is not a horrific, blatant act, but rather the attitude of indifference displayed by all of us who are asleep to the reality of the world.

Peter, James, and John stayed awake, despite their sleepiness. That is vital to our salvation, to be awake and alert for opportunities to glimpse the glory of God. How easy it is to drift off into quiet, comfortable, blissful slumber and dream the “everything’s okay” dream. But the call of Christ is to remain alert, stay awake, get your hand away from that snooze button! Wake up and see the glory of Christ.

Gambling vs. Investing

My wife Erin told me about an interesting discussion in her Sunday School class last week. Part of the conversation centered around this question:

What is the difference between gambling, which the UMC is against, and investing, which the UMC is definitely in favor of?

What do you think? All comments appreciated:

Ex Nihilo Discussion, Ages 6 and 9, A True Story

6 year old: What was there before there was anything? There couldn't have been just blackness, because black is something. But it couldn't have just been all white, either, because white is something, too. So what was there before there was anything else?

9 year old: Well, there never was a time before there was anything else, because no matter what, God has always been there.

6 year old: Hmm.

Yes, our 6 year old is a philosopher, and our 9 year old is a mystic.

Super Bowl 41: "The Lord's Way"

Did anyone else find the Super Bowl yesterday to be a bit … weird? The teams played mediocre at best. The camera lenses kept getting fogged up. The commercials were horrible. Prince didn’t dance. It was like a Super Bowl Twilight Zone episode.

And then there was the trophy presentation. Here’s what Tony Dungy said:

“I’m proud to be representing African-American coaches, to be the first African-American to win this. That means an awful lot to our country. But again, more than anything, I’ve said it before, Lovie Smith and I, not only the first two African-Americans, but Christian coaches, showing that you can win doing it the Lord’s way, we’re more proud of that.”

At first, that’s a nice thing: a kind of color-blindness that seems to befit the Gospel, and a simple example of a Christian man witnessing to his faith. But if you listen to his remark a few times, it just raises more and more questions than anything else. Here are some of mine:

1 - So, winning the Lord's way involves spotting the other team a touchdown on the opening kickoff, having the opposing quarterback to fumble all over the field, missing an extra point and a chip-shot field goal, having the opponents best running back get injured, and then running the most boring, conservative, dink-and-dunk offensive gameplan ever written? Give me a good Red Sea parting any day. Come on, even God was bored.

2 - He’s talking about football, right? So, is he claiming that the Lord actually cares one way or the other about who wins a particular football game? As if Jesus needs to be validated by the outcome of a sporting event. I am as big a fan of the game as anyone, but I’m not quite ready to say that God is quite that interested, and may have even had a few other things on the heavenly agenda for that day.

3 - This latest Super Bowl was the 41st one. If Dungy is right, why has it taken 40 years to “win doing it the Lord’s way?” Was it a modern day journey through the wilderness of other ways to win the Super Bowl, awaiting Moses Dungy to lead the NFL into the promised land of the Lord’s Way to Win?

4 - On the flipside of question 2, I wonder what all the other 40 winners of the previous Super Bowls think about Dungy’s claim that now, at last, he and Lovie have shown you can win it “the Lord’s way?” Let’s check in with Bill Walsh on that one. Somebody go ask Tom Landry what way he was winning, since it must not have been “the Lord’s way.” Vince Lombardi, care to comment?

5 – And on the flip-flipside of that, wasn’t Lovie Smith doing things “the Lord’s way” last Sunday? If Dungy and Smith are examples of coaches coaching “the Lord’s way,” why did God pick Dungy to win this one and not Smith? Did Dungy just pray a little bit harder that morning or what? Lots of grey area there. Gets to the whole theodicy question (our favorite seminary word!).

OK, OK - I know that Tony Dungy wasn’t trying to be all deep and theological when he was accepting the Lombardi Trophy last Sunday. He really seems like a nice guy, and I’m not trying to beat him up or anything. But his expression “showing that you can win doing it the Lord’s way” kind of makes my stomach gurgle a little bit. Not because of what it says on the surface level, but for the questions it raises underneath. I just think we need to be extra careful whenever we are claiming that God has favored us in a particular way. Often such a claim carries with it implications that we likely do not intend.

God loves us and all, but I'm pretty sure that by halftime, God had switched channels, and was watching Puppy Bowl III on Animal Planet.