Wandering Elder

John Lennon, in his song Happy Xmas (War is Over) sang, "So this is Christmas, and what have you done?"  The way he sang those words has always haunted me.  Especially the opening line.  "So this is Christmas."  John, not known for his overt Christianity, sings the song as if he is asking those who do believe in this time as sacred to the Christian story, "So here it is.  So what?  What have you done with it?  What does it mean to you?"   He then sings that the war is over "if you want it."  Again, I wonder if it is a question directed at us alleged followers of Christ: do we really want peace?  World peace?  A Prince of Peace? Or are we only wanting peace when it suits our interests? I don't know if that is what he meant, but it troubles me all the same.   That's because I find myself asking similar questions as Brother John.  Are we sleeping?  Are we paying attention?  Does this season have any deepe...

If there is a phrase that has been over-used during the last year, it is "double down."  Throughout much of the election cycle the phrase was used to mean one of two things: (1) to become more tenacious, zealous, or resolute in a position or undertaking or (2) to engage in risky behavior, especially when one is already in a dangerous situation.  Usually these definitions were used in the reverse order - someone makes a claim that is patently false and puts themselves in a dangerous situation politically, then becomes more tenacious in defending the initial position, no matter what the actual facts might be.  The term works, but it worked too well and too often and it has lost its power. The term itself comes from blackjack, and was used when a player would double the original bid against the house in exchange for only one more card.  A risky move.  The fact that a gambling  term has come to be the common phrase utilized to describe the political behavior ...

I recently read a post about the pending demise of the United Methodist Church (on the Thoughtful Pastor blog).  In it, the author said that there is no future for the UMC due to the inevitable split between the conservative arm and the Reconciling Movement over the language in the UMC Book of Discipline over homosexuality. It was a pretty compelling piece, and a frightening one because what it represents is the acknowledgment that the far right and far left will tear the middle out for the sake of ideology.  The far, far right are using words like "cleanse" and "heresy" when talking about this issue.  The far, far left are using words like "openness" and "inclusive."  The issue of homosexuality, while addressed in the Bible, is not one that is spelled out as clearly as either side would like for it to be.  There are clearly passages that condemn it, and there are passages that condemn a particular understanding of it, and then there are passag...

Last week, I heard an interview with the president of Maggiano's, Steve Provost, about a particular scene in a Maggiano's restaurant in Washington D.C. where a white nationalist group had gathered and ended their time with some Nazi salutes as well as protesters who shut the restaurant down.  I felt really bad for the guy because he said the restaurant didn't know who it was they were hosting.  I believe him.  Why would they think to pay close attention to that?  But in the interview, discussing the issue of the white nationalists, Provost said that he was offended by their remarks and the Nazi salute and that it goes against their principle which is that "we welcome everyone." He walked right into a linguistic and ethical/moral trap.  I know.  I have walked into it myself a few times. One of the big points that churches like to make is that "everyone is welcome."  I once attended a campus ministry event at a Christian college in which the group pr...

The voting is over.  The reality of the post-election United States has yet to set in.  There is plenty of analysis to be offered, some of it might even be useful or insightful.  But if anything, what we have seen during this election campaign, besides lies, manipulations of systems, fear, and the worst mud-slinging for any campaign in years (possibly ever), is that we are a divided nation in many, many respects. So this morning I would offer two prayers with the knowledge that perhaps had I and we all been praying like this over the last 16 years, we might be in a completely different place.  Never too late to start, though. This is a prayer from Thomas Merton, who was a Trappist monk, a writer, and a mystic.  May we join our voices together in prayer. O God, we are one with you. You have made us one with you. You have taught us that if we are open to one another, you dwell in us. Help us to preserve this openness and to fight for it with all our heart...

91 degree weather in November.  A reality (but not really reality) television personality running for the presidency.  A political insider manipulates her way into the running for the presidency.  Persons being unable to function without their phones.  Guns all around.  Russia and America returning to Cold War tactics (encouraged by a presidential candidate, no less).  Africa running out of water.  Drought and disintegrating ice caps.  Wars and rumors of wars without end. It must be the end of the world. Well, in some ways, it actually is. The world I grew up in, in which television shows were "interrupted" by breaking news rather than having 24/7 "news" channels blathering on in partisan outcries against one another, was different.  Toy guns looked real and real guns were rare.  The Cold War was always threatening to turn hot.  The World's Fair was a big deal.  Saturday morning cartoons were funny, exciting, but not real...

Over the years, I have taken note of the changes in television channels and programming.  For example, TLC used to be known as "The Learning Channel."  It focused on education and was originally founded by NASA and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare !  The channel was originally called the Appalachian Community Service Network but was then bought by a private company and the name was changed to The Learning Channel, whose focus was documentaries on space, science, how things were made, and medical studies. By the mid 2000's, the format had almost completely changed.  The channel that focused on genuine educational materials became "TLC" and switched from documentary to docu-drama to just plain garbage drama with shows like "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo."  Talk about devolving. But the same thing seems to be occurring on most of those kinds of channels.  Perhaps because education doesn't sell.  There has to be some twist, plot device, ...

It seems to be increasingly clear that society in the United States is becoming a nation whose level of discussion (certainly politically) has devolved to the level of false alternatives which assume there is no middle ground. This attitude is a logical fallacy.  What this fallacy of false alternatives does is to assume that there are, to any given situation or topic, only a few alternatives and, at the same time, assuming that only one of those alternative options is true.  Its a fallacy that operates in terms of black/white (or blue), either/or, or from the position of extremes.  What this line of thinking does is oversimplify a situation or problem: it's all  their fault; you are either  with us or  against us; it is either  hot or  cold. This way of thinking makes the assumption that there is no middle ground or no gray area in any given situation.  For example, and this example comes from the book Attacking Faulty Reasoning  by ...

The 137th Psalm is one that surprises and shocks the modern reader or hearer (if we can still be shocked).  Not initially, but perhaps that's why it is so shocking.  It starts out with the words, "By the rivers (or waters) of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion." This might just be me, but I hear that opening line and I am immediately put in the mind of Linda Ronstadt who had a song on her album "Hasten Down the Wind" (way back in 1976) entitled "Rivers of Babylon."  It is a short song that begins with words that are quite similar to Psalm 137: By the rivers of Babylon Where he sat down And there he went When he remembered Zion It changes the psalm in that it speaks of someone else  experiencing this.  The difference is that Psalm 137 is written from the point of view of one experiencing this exile.  "By the waters of Babylon, there we  sat down and wept." Now, here is the rest of the song. For the wicked ca...

I mentioned last time that I had received a letter from Warren Jeffs, the president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  The tricky part about that last sentence is whether or not Jeffs is  the president of that group or not.  He is currently in prison and there were some people who worked to get control of the FLDS, but Jeffs apparently resumed control of the denomination in 2011, though still in prison. I'm not going to go into the question (or fact) of his incarceration or the rationale behind it. Instead, I want to mention the fact that this letter from Jeffs to me care of the church to whom it was sent is not  a letter per se, but is a record of a revelation sent to Jeffs by Jesus Christ.  Confusingly, either this message was received by Jeffs in November of 2015 or this was when the letter was sent out and (according to the bottom of the letter), copyrighted. The letter is hard to read.  Mostly because it makes litt...

Okay.  I found myself in a really dark place mentally after watching a very dark satirical movie at 2 am this past week that was billed as a comedy but instead made my head and heart hurt.  That dark place was exacerbated by the fact that with shooting after shooting and disaster after disaster I find myself amazed at how quickly we tip past the point of working for change and instead go back to our regular lives - unless we were directly affected by the events. It did seem for a while that we were going to see some social change.  There were sit-ins by senators  to make changes in gun laws and to promote dialogue.  Racial issues were coming to the fore in national conversation.  But then another  shooting happened.  Another person got killed.  Another mass shooting.  Another insightful and carefully thought out sound bite from the wise and selfless persons running for president.  And before we know it, we have moved on.  It ...

Perhaps you might have read about Matt Bevin, the governor of Kentucky who this past week suggested...well, said  that bloodshed might be required to defend conservative ideologies from liberal ones, in particular those of Hilary Clinton - especially if she is elected. He had also just been awarded the Distinguished Christian Statesman Award from the D. James Kennedy Center for Christian Statesmanship. I wonder exactly how those two go together. Actually, I have a pretty good idea.  It is called "civil religion."  Civil religion, particularly American Civil Religion is defined by sociologist Robert Bellah as "a collection of beliefs, symbols, and rituals with respect to sacred things [...] This religion, while not antithetical to and indeed sharing much in common with Christianity, [is] neither sectarian nor in any specific sense Christian."  (Robert Bellah, "Civil Religion in America," Daedalus (Winter, 1967) p. 8) In other words, as Julia Corbett...

I recently read the opening lines of an article in a preacher's magazine in which the question was being raised about Jesus and knowledge of the end times.  Given the fact that in Matthew Jesus says that even the Son doesn't know the hour, the question being raised was this: does this deny Jesus' omniscience and/or divinity? My initial reaction was to sigh, roll my eyes, and put the magazine down.  That's because this is an old argument...like centuries  old.  While I don't mind hearing these debates or reading about their initial formulation (usually between the 2nd and 4th centuries AD), I find the need to re-argue or re-hash them to be a bit tiresome. That has to do with the fact that there is the need felt by some to keep defending particular theological ideas (this is called apologetics ).  In and of itself, no big deal.  I am certainly an apologist for the traditions of the United Methodist Church.  But even being a supporter of Wesleyan theo...

A few days ago, I was talking with a friend of mine when he recommended a particular cd to me.  He didn't just out and out start the conversation with the name of the band/cd (Liquid Tension Experiment 2, by the way), but it came from a conversation about the bass player Tony Levin who plays on that cd. That made me somewhat nostalgic for record stores. When I was in my teens, the local mall had two record shops, one of which was a national chain called The Record Bar.  There was also the new kid on the block, Cat's Records, Tapes, and CDs which showed up in town about the same time as the all new Blockbuster movie rental store.  What I was nostalgic for wasn't so much the stores themselves, though I do miss them, but the conversations  at the stores. Before the Internet, one of the great ways to learn information with the same level of reliability as the Internet was to talk  to people. "Hey, when is Pink Floyd going to put out a new album?" "Well, I h...

One of the aspects of the Christian faith I have always been drawn to is that of ritual.  Growing up United Methodist, I have been a part of a tradition/denomination that places a particular degree of importance on methodology (Method - ists), form, structure, and liturgy.  The church year, which is divided into particular seasons such as Advent, Easter, Pentecost etc. follows a cyclical nature that repeats and in so doing tells and re-tells the basic points of Christian belief. I find that calming. I also find that within our larger rituals are particular ones that mean more and more to me.  In particular, Holy Communion, which is one of our two sacraments in the UMC, baptism being the second.  Holy Communion is a vital part of our faith and practise and established much of our theology.  From the profound moment of declaring that "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us," to the lines in the Great Thanksgiving which outline the basics of faith to the...

The United Methodist Church (of which I am a part) has elected an openly gay individual to the Episcopacy.  Karen Oliveto, a pastor in the Western Jurisdiction of the UMC was elected unanimously to the office of Bishop. My issue is not with her sexuality. It is with rules. By the rules of the United Methodist Church, which are collectively known as the Book of Discipline , "self-avowed practicing homosexuals" are officially prohibited from being ordained as pastors - let alone Bishop.  Oliveto came out to her congregation and denomination this past year, meaning she had already been ordained.  However at some point the question of her sexuality was either never brought up or ignored by her or by those in the process of ordination. Let me again say that her sexuality is not my concern.  What is  is that she seems to ( seems to ) have knowingly broken the rules of the Discipline and, as such, put the larger denomination in the odd position of having ordaine...

So, my thoughts this week have been returning to that which is less painful and more of the philosophic and musical. In particular, my thoughts have been surrounded by the music of Pink Floyd. I am a big fan of Pink Floyd and have been since I was in junior high.  I got into listening to Pink Floyd late in their career - my first tape  of Pink Floyd's catalog was A Momentary Lapse of Reason.  This was followed shortly by The Dark Side of the Moon.   And while they both came from the band Pink Floyd, they weren't the same  band in the sense of members or of attitude. Yet I love them both. I will admit that I am a fan more of the music that comes from 1971 and forward than I am of the music that came before.  Not that I dislike the even older stuff, but the music from Dark Side and forward (with a touch of "Echoes" from the previous album, Meddle ) captured my attention and my imagination in a way few other bands ever would. Some of that came from...

Given the news as of late, I found I had little to express but grief and sadness.  Not what you want to hear from a pastor, I know.  Even pastors have their dark moments.  Believe me. This morning I pulled a book off my shelf called Strength to Love .  It is a collection of sermons by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  The opening words of his preface hit home:  "In these turbulent days of uncertainty the evils of war and of economic and racial injustice threaten the very survival of the human race.  Indeed, we live in a day of grave crisis." Still too true. So I wish to offer a challenge to each of us that comes from the words of such a great man. The following is an excerpt from Dr. King's sermon, "A Knock at Midnight" which was written in 1963. "Even in the inevitable moments when all seems hopeless, men know that without hope they cannot really live, and in agonizing desperation they cry for the bread of hope. And there is the deep longing for t...

As the debate over the language of climate and the political correct ways as to how we talk about the weather continue, many of us sit and watch our grass die and listen to stories of drought, super-storms, record-breaking temperatures (both highs and lows) and wander around our back yard in December without a coat. The weather is changing.  So is the composition of our planet.  Weather patterns are changing.  But so is the way in which we drill.  Fracking is leading to earthquakes in Oklahoma.  Water is poisoned by mining.  Flint Michigan can't catch a break (I think if this water crisis had happened in, say, LA, it would have been fixed in a week), and we feel  the weather is different. Our environment is changing in so many, many ways.  On a different level, our social systems are changing - breaking down perhaps or reshuffling to be sure.  But in our technological advances we are isolating ourselves.  And we have become (at least...

Another shooting.  Another wave of “Our hearts go out…” and “Our thoughts and prayers are with…”  Not to say that they don’t or shouldn’t or that they haven’t.  The sad news among this terrible event in Florida is that we are becoming all too accustomed to this kind of bad news and seem to have learned how to react and what to say in the midst of such things.  We tweet, post, and so forth, then we go on. When will enough be enough?  Why have we become so violent in our speech and in our actions culturally in what seems such a short amount of time? Before we can even get to those questions, though, the very loud, very standard talking heads emerge saying that the gun laws are to blame for being too strict or too lenient.  That the people in the nightclub should have been better armed to shoot back.  Perhaps these voices will suggest that the people at the club are at fault for either their sexuality or that the lateness of their revelry provide...

According to the author of the New Testament book of Hebrews, the law (the Levitical code) which was imparted to Moses on the mountain was given to Moses not by God, but through the mediation of angels (Hebrews 2:2).  This might be something of a revelation for readers of the New Testament or of the Bible in general. Hebrews is not the first New Testament book to make such a claim.  Acts has Stephen make such a declaration: "...you who received the law as delivered by angels..." And the Apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Galatians, "[the law] was ordained by angels." Some commentators argue that this is an acceptable Jewish  idea.  But is it?  Is what Hebrews claims a legitimate Jewish idea? There is the idea in the Old Testament as well as in a variety of Ancient Near Eastern cultures of what could be termed "divine agency" which is the idea that angels speak as proxy for God (see Judges 2:1 for example).  This idea is spelled out perhaps most...

The Trinity is a concept that would be best described as a mystery of faith.  It is not a doctrine spelled out in Scripture, though it is a doctrine the church has agreed is a binding one.  The word trinity itself does not occur in the Bible at all, and there are only glimpses of it as a concept in the Bible itself.  It is, however, a central tenant of our faith.  Yet it remains a mystery and, as a mystery, an intangible.  And intangibility is a hallmark of religion.  Intangible, incorporeal, ethereal, spiritual.  That which cannot be defined, held on to, or even seen.  Intangible.  Perhaps that’s why the church is losing ground – there is no gadget, no app, no hook, no gimmick, no thing . Worship has to be that which becomes the vehicle for experiencing the intangible.  Community has to be that which becomes the vehicle for experiencing the intangible. And much of that community and worship is built on other intangibles...

As a follow up to last week's post, I would add these thoughts: One of the great difficulties I have found in the pastorate is the fact that I feel I cannot always be honest with my parishioners.  These days it seems when a pastor says something like that it has to do with their sexuality.  That is not the case here.  In my case it has to do with theology and Biblical interpretation. I find that I am constrained by my profession as a pastor to allow people to voice their beliefs and ideas without feeling I can truly  express my own.  Now, I do feel I can offer my opinion as an alternative more often than not, but I have to do so carefully.  In those situations I have to gingerly and in small increments offer my opinion so as to not totally lose the conversation.  Yet I find I cannot just jump in and say "I believe this," or "I don't hold to that belief," for fear of alienating people for whom a different opinion is not easily shared. I suppose th...