So many words...

“Lutherans just have so many words.”

It was said yesterday in the course of a lunch time conversation after worship yesterday. The subject was outreach, and there were a lot of good ideas kicked around about how we might do a better, more faithful job of bearing the Good News into our communities and inviting folks to share Christ’s abundant life with us. Things like music, discipleship, community were all on the table…salutary topics that must and will be addressed in this place. But the one item that I find sticking with me in mulling over our conversation is less about the substance of what we do and more about the media by which those things are conveyed. “Lutherans just have so many words.” While not exactly offered as a complaint, neither was it expressed as a compliment.

“Lutherans just have so many words.” Of course, we do. We Lutherans emerged as a theological tradition primarily on the power of a media revolution. Not to ignore the role of the rise of German nationalism: but really…were it not for the printing press, Fr. Martin and his co-conspirators would have had a very difficult time getting their theological points made and their reforms enacted. Lutherans have so many words because we were born in the midst of printed words. And we have relied on those printed words and the rising literacy they engendered to make our way ever since.

So how do we communicate to a world for which the printed word is waning? How do we make a 16^th century handbook of the faith (still a faithful and relevant exposition of what it means to be Christian) accessible to a 21^st century public programmed to receive and respond in digital visual forms? These are the questions we need to take seriously…or we might as well appoint the last person out the door to turn out the lights. And please note: this is not about merely being fashionable or throwing out the substance of what we believe. Quite the contrary: It is about learning to live and speak and share the profound insights of the Reformation in a way which today’s hurting and harried world can understand. I’m convinced that folks still need and can benefit from what the Lutheran tradition has to say. So, not unlike the lessons learned by missionaries of old, this is about the church learning the language of the culture to which it is sent.

Yes…we Lutherans just have so many words…beautiful, faithful, powerful words rooted in the Word. Why keep them to ourselves? Let’s learn to speak again.

Ashes to go...

AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty

I’m still not quite sure what to make of this: The Episcopal churches of southern Maine imposed (distributed?) ashes on/to folks on the streets of Portland and other cities on this most recent Ash Wednesday. According to the AP, the church’s motto for the day was “You’re on the go, so [we] bring the ashes to you.” The little sign is a nice touch, too.

*sigh*

I understand that the Episcopal Church USA is really concerned about their declining membership. Most mainline denominations are facing, if not succumbing to, the same problem. And I understand that, in order to combat that decline, the church needs to explore some outside-the-box ways of taking the Good News to the street. McAshes, however, just doesn’t seem to be the right strategy.

The church is not a retail institution. Its profound inability to reach the people by traditional means (i.e. stay inside and wait until someone shows up) still does not warrant trying to make the church conform to certain retail sensibilities about product sampling and public events marketing. Eugene Peterson wrote some years ago about the denigration of clergy as religious shop-keepers. This kind of stunt only confirms his argument. Christianity cannot be vended alongside street food and fake Ray-bans.

Christianity can, however, be shared even more effectively (I would argue) on those very same streets by the community formed around that ashen cross and the baptismal covenant out of which it arises. Those folks who stop to consider their mortality, reflect on their sinfulness, and give thanks for the grace which marks them are completely equipped to leave their places of worship and go to work in the world bearing God’s mercy and love on and through themselves. I’m having a hard time imagining that so much necessary work gets done during a thirty-second stop on a cold, winter sidewalk.

Those who disagree may well cite my lack of imagination. So be it. But I would rather spend more time forming the community that incarnates Christ in its daily work and play than spend time forming distribution strategies for dust.

By the way, you kids: get off my lawn.

Watching over me...

The acolytes here at Grace recently picked up some new duties. Because of a renovation to the sanctuary, they’re now charged with ringing the bell right before worship and during the Lord’s Prayer. The organist can no longer reach the ringer-thingy (I’m pretty sure that’s the technical term) from where he sits. So…it’s the acolytes to the rescue.

It’s not a huge deal really. The instructions are posted right there on the ringer-thingy and are easy to follow. But the acolytes are 7th and 8th graders…which means that they’re freaking out about this. The reason? Everybody is watching them! The fact that they’re tucked back into a corner where almost no one can see them doesn’t seem to have registered. Not to mention: the congregation is engaged in prayer when the youngsters doing their bell-ringing best. For most of us rather traditional Lutherans that means eyes closed, hands folded, and heads bowed. We’re not looking at acolytes. But when you’re that age, the mere probability that someone might be looking at you (seeing as how you are the center of the universe) makes it a terrifying reality.

So…dear acolytes…are you ready for this?

There is One who is watching. That One sees them (and all of us) to a depth no wall or alb or mask can prevent. That One sees our anxieties and our fears, our deepest desires and our greatest joys. That One knows already how our sins defeat us, how our faith buoys us, and how His own mercy saves us. Like a parent who stands over a child’s bed just for the joy of watching her little one breathe and sleep, that One watches over us in love…in every place…all the time.

Maybe that seems creepy when you’re in middle school. That will change. Someday…soon, I hope…you will know what a comfort it is to confess that “someone is watching over me.”

Lent well done...

Still haven't decided how you will keep Lent this year. Nadia has some great ideas. Check 'em out here. This is way better than giving up Oreos.

Talking past...

I have a college friend with whom I’ve become somewhat recently reconnected via Facebook. In fact, there are a bunch of us from that same circle of friends who regularly share old memories and family updates. We’re even planning a reunion picnic for this coming summer. Good stuff.

If only it could stay at the level of old memories and family updates.

This friend posted something within the last week of a political nature related to the on-going tussle between the Obama administration and the US Catholic bishops about the forced provision of contraceptives by Catholic institutions. My friend had some very definite views about this issue related to gender and power inequities and the need for justice. Because even when it’s good for me I can’t always keep my mouth shut, I responded with a question about the constitutionality of the matter. And suddenly we seem to be unable to speak about this issue. Our entry points on the conversation and our assumptions about what’s going on here are so very different that we end up talking past each other no matter what we say. Guess we’ll have to sort it out over a beer at that upcoming picnic. Or maybe we’ll just agree to disagree. Hopefully we don’t end up at the point of “un-friending” one another.

Does is seem that an awful lot of what passes for theological and ecclesial conversation in the church these days falls into this same pit? The inability to speak clearly, civilly and rationally with fellow Christians of differing persuasions is about the worst thing we’ve borrowed from the larger culture since Constantine and the empire.

Really…I don’t expect to agree with everyone or to have everyone agree with me. I don’t even agree with everything the folks I agree with have to say about things we agree on. (Sorry. You may have to read that sentence twice.) Life and faith are much too nuanced to fit into a single-issue argument about which we all have to take sides. There is something greater at stake here: the on-going mission of the church to be Christ to a world that needs Christ more desperately than it knows. But if we insist on (and persist in) lobbing rocks at each other rather than the devil, Christ doesn’t get heard, at least not by us…and the world turns away…and we shrink into the irrelevance that we have made for ourselves.

So if I ask you a question that seems challenging, please don’t assume that I’m simply being a difficult, sarcastic wiseass. Maybe I just want an answer…from you, from your perspective…in order to better understand. I promise to return the favor. And perhaps, if we really work at this, we can get back to the business to which we are called.

Only 355 Days...

Why wait until December when we can start now? There are just 355 days until the winter solstice and the end of the world…at least according to the Mayan calendar and all kinds of serious sounding programs on the History channel. Hmm…what to do whilst we wait…

I know! Let’s live like the end of the world already happened! After all, this Jesus whose birth we are celebrating and with whose cross we are marked is raised from the dead. Apparently, death and all its attendant anxieties do not have the last word for us. Rather than being stymied like deer in the headlights at our oncoming doom, we are given the freedom to work and play and build and invest in the world which God is coming to make new.

Need a suggestion for a New Year’s resolution? Well…here’s one anyway. Get off your keister and go plant an apple tree…or speak a word of gratitude to your neighbor…or teach a kid how to read. Not that any of these things will guarantee your salvation or make you a better person. You’ll still be the same old simul-justus-et-peccator dependent upon Christ. But the new creation which we have foreseen in Christ will be reflected in you…a building block laid towards the coming of the kingdom of God, and a witness for the One whom we often too glibly name as Lord.

This, it occurs to me, is what it means to be Church…missional, confidant, faithful…and not sitting around waiting for someone else to take up the cause or do the heavy lifting. Christ leads the way. We follow in his footsteps. Let the timing be God’s…and let the day-to-day joy and toil of ministry be ours.

Peace-a-palooza...

A dear friend from our college days surprised us with a visit for worship yesterday morning while on his way through our small town. It was great to see him and to catch even the few brief minutes we had for conversation. At the end of the day there were, of course, the requisite reflections on his visit on Facebook…including a comment from our friend about the “Sharing of the Peace-a-palooza” which is a part of our practice.

Just to explain: the sharing of the peace of Christ takes a few minutes in this place. I know that some of the liturgical purists would find it overdone (while the pathologically introverted almost certainly find it horrifying), but the folks here seem to enjoy leaving their pews and warmly greeting one another as sisters and brothers renewed by the grace of the Savior. It is noisy and a bit chaotic, and visitors are certainly not ignored in the process. Hence, our dear friend’s comment.

I’ve wondered at times (liturgy nerd that I am) if we haven’t gotten a bit out of hand. But the pastor in me is loathe to rein it in. There are so few places in this world where folks of all stripes and means are genuinely welcome or where they might be joined in true community. The Church, it occurs to me, must always be that place…even if it’s a bit messier than we would like. There’s a missional aspect to this, too. Our identity as Christ’s disciples is undergirded to great degree by that “mutual conversation and consolation of the saints” (thanks, Brother Martin) which affirms that, as we are Christ’s, we are also members one of another (and thanks, St. Paul). From simple things like sharing the peace with a hug, a handshake and a good word comes the strength to bear God’s grace outside the walls of the congregation’s building…confident that we do not stand alone, but are borne up by the rest of the baptized in witness to the world which God seems determined to reconcile.

Self-justification for our existing practice? Maybe. But I’m willing to take that risk if the peace-a-palooza in here means a more faithful and engaged presence “out there.”