Saturday, July 31, 2010

Field Notes #43: Camp Meeting

O, walk together children
Don't you get weary

There's a great camp meeting

In the Promised Land


I've sung that song before, but I had nooooo idea what it meant.

You can see and read my initial reactions to visiting the campground earlier this summer here. I won't bore you with the details again--suffice to say I was totally unprepared for the reality of Rock Springs Campmeeting.

"Tents," you say? Nope. Shacks that are worth upwards of $40,000 each. I'm talking open-air, wooden tents, sometimes two-story, usually with concrete floors (nowadays, anyway), and no AC.

But it didn't take me long during my first visit to the campground (pre-camp meeting) for the initial shock to wear off and a sense of charm and appreciation to seep in.

That sense only deepened Thursday night. They were having a special service for the youth, so I went to check it out. The band that played is called The Unworthy Beloved, and I have offered to help them establish a web presence, because they are very, very good. Musically speaking, they were tight and energetic--and now that I've been dating a drummer for almost a year and a half, I can say with confidence that their drummer is phenomenal.

Of course, it was more than that--the hour they played was a powerful hour of worship for me. They played some original worship songs but also a number of praise anthems by Hillsong ("Lead Me to the Cross," "From the Inside Out" and "Hosanna"), John Mark McMillian's ubiquitous "How He Loves," and the newly popular hymn "Jesus Paid It All," among others. It was great, and my first taste of how a very old tradition can bring people of all ages together.

The next night, I went again, this time mostly just wandering around and visiting with various church members I ran into as I made a loop. The campground is laid out in a square, with the arbor in the middle and "tents" in rows on all sides. People own family tents, but everyone is always in everyone else's space. There are kids everywhere, running free, because it's OK for them to do that.

Everyone has a swing or bench of some sort, and unless they're specifically doing something inside, they're out there sitting and talking. I had the pleasure of joining one church member on her swing for a bit, then barely making it around the next corner before being flagged down by yet another woman I knew from Hill's Chapel.

Sometimes I get frustrated because I feel like our seminary education can get too focused on deconstruction, and being at camp meeting was one of those times where I felt that way. I wanted to bemoan the fact that although the campground is a little haven for Christians to be in constant, trustful community with hundreds of people, the real world just isn't that way.

But you know--I think it was a little glimpse of the Kingdom. I'm not saying I'll be looking to find that great camp meeting in the Promised Land, but there's something in what I saw there that I think is a foretaste of heaven. The freedom of children to roam, the atmosphere of belonging and mutuality. In today's world, we live paralyzed by fear of each other. But I've been reading the obscure Old Testament prophets, and Haggai 2:5 says, "My spirit abides among you; do not fear." At camp meeting, folks freely acknowledge that abiding spirit, and in it they find freedom from fear, freedom to love.

The War Prayer

In my Old Testament class this past year, we read Mark Twain's poem The War Prayer. This is a short, powerful piece--so powerful that it led a friend of mine to drop out of ROTC, thereby forfeiting a scholarship and transferring to another college. Another friend posted this video on Facebook and I had to share it.


Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Field Notes #42: Janet and the Chocolate Ministry

Today, I had a unique ministry experience. I wasn't the one doing the ministering. After going to Gastonia's Shrimp Boat (which, ironically (the actual definition of "ironically"), is famous for its chicken) for lunch with Amber, I went back to her parents' house and spent the afternoon making chocolates with her mother, Janet Tatum.

Janet and her husband Lee are two wonderful members of Hill's Chapel. I've gotten to sing with both of them (and Amber) in choir and have had the privilege of interacting with them regularly over the summer. Janet is a master baker/confectioner, and I quickly learned that any event at which she is in attendance--whether a potluck, choir practice or Sunday School--will be met with something delicious. My first experience of Janet's baking involved mint chocolate chip cookies. I've also thoroughly enjoyed her Butterfinger blast, and I even liked her white chocolate chip cookies (I hate white chocolate--er, hated?).

Making chocolate with Janet was fun. Not only because the whole time Amber was there with Tyler, the 3-year-old she's watching for the month (who is super adorable and spent most of the day wearing firefighter boots and overalls), so there was plenty of background noise and action. But it was a creative process in and of itself. We had materials in plenty--chocolate, homemade caramel, malt balls, peanuts, Rice Krispies, pretzels and more. We just had to decide how to combine it.

Sitting here now, I can't even remember all the combinations we came up with, but they're all in my fridge in various bags and boxes (including one cute floral gift box). The purpose of the afternoon wasn't getting the chocolate, anyway--it was learning and spending time with Janet. She told me that chocolate became her therapy when she was going through chemo (Janet is a breast cancer survivor, and it actually hasn't been that long since she was diagnosed). She would bring chocolates to the doctor's office with her because, as she told me, "A nurse with chocolate breath is a happy nurse." She rattled off to me a list of people who like her confections--the vet, her pharmacist, the employees at Showmars, and so on. "So you give chocolate to everybody, huh?" I asked.

I like that. Something that has brought Janet joy through a fight with cancer and which brings her even more joy because she is able to share it with anyone and everyone. She didn't even need to call a committee or launch a ministry; she's just doing hospitality. And it is delicious.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Mary Magdalene Was Not a Prostitute

Mary Magdalene gets a bad rap. We like to depict her as the prostitute who did ridiculous things like washing Jesus' feet with her hair.

The problem is that there are several Marys in the New Testament, and they're not all the same. We have Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary the mother of James, Mary the mother of Joses, Mary the wife of Clopas, Mary the sister of Martha (that's the one who did the anointing), "the other Mary," and Mary Magdalene. Of course, some of these are the same person, but my point is that not every Mary mentioned in the Bible is necessarily either Jesus' mom or Mary Magdalene.

Mary Magdalene is explicitly referred to in Matthew, Mark and John as being one of the women who went to Jesus' tomb (see Matthew 28:1-4, Mark 16:1-8 and John 20:1-16). In these same three gospels, she was also present at Jesus' death, and in Matthew and Mark, at Jesus' burial;

The only really strange mention of Mary Magdalene is in reference to her having been cured of demon possession. This is found in the longer ending of Mark and Luke 8:2.

So where did this idea that she's a prostitute come from? Get this. It's because in Luke 7, an unnamed woman washes Jesus' feet, and he declares, "her many sins have been forgiven." Now, I won't bother going into too much detail on how we can't even be positive this is Mary Magdalene (at best we can peg her as Mary of Bethany, Martha's sister), but the even bigger issue is the assumption the church made.

All we know from the text is that the woman is sinful. What her sins are, we do not know. But to the ancient church (and, um, the modern church), the automatic conclusion is that a sinful woman is a sexually promiscuous woman. Ergo, sinful chick who may or may not even be named Mary = Mary Magdalene is a prostitute.

This is troubling to me. It is even more so because of the way we talk about prostitutes and women's sexuality in general. I decided to write this blog when I recently saw a skit/talk where Mary Magdalene was described as a prostitute and said to have washed Jesus' feet with her hair. When one speaker asked jokingly if that meant she ran a salon, the other replied, "Well, not that kind of salon."

Sure, it's funny. I was amused for a moment, and all the teenagers present laughed. I love irreverent humor and can handle bawdy jokes as long as they're mildly clever. But we couldn't have known every listener's sexual history. How did we know there wasn't someone among us who had at some point sold their body or been sexually exploited? Because, guess what, even unwanted sexual contact brands a woman as somehow damaged. That's a problem, especially when 1 in 4 women will be sexually assaulted sometime in their life.

So can we please stop saying Mary Magdalene was a prostitute? Can we please start to combat the incredibly negative view of female sexuality that prevails in the church? It would be fine if she were a prostitute and Jesus forgave her, but the assumption that the worst thing a woman could do would be something sexual is a problem.

Note that Mary Magdalene was the first person to whom the resurrected Christ appeared. Heck, Mary Magdalene basically delivered the first sermon. Check out John 20:17-18--she's the first person to proclaim the resurrection. Take that, anti-women-in-the-pulpit people.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Beauty, Good and Evil

Tonight, I led a Sunday evening worship service where the theme was "Beauty." I had one attendee, and per Matthew 18:20, that was just fine with me.

Before the service started, I decided to Google quotes about beauty. I was expecting fluffy sentimentalism about the clouds and sunsets, and there was plenty of that, but I also found a few warnings. The one that stuck out to me came from St. Augustine:

"Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked."

You know what this made me think of? Vampires.

OK, pop culture seems obsessed with vampires right now. Let me just set the record straight: I loathe Twilight. Loathe. I'll spare you my rant.

But I recently started watching the TV series Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. (Sidebar: Joss Whedon is brilliant.) My boyfriend (who is responsible for getting me into Buffy) was telling me the other day that one thing he likes about that series is how they represent vampires.

Most depictions of vampires go to one extreme or another. On one end, you have creatures that are clearly monsters (see 30 Days of Night). Pointy teeth, black eyes, definitely not human. Excuse me, I think you have a little blood on your chin. I'm going to go run and hide now. Call me back when the sun comes out. In a month.

On the opposite end, you have sexy pasty, dreamy creepy immortals who go to high school over and over again (WHY???), stalk teenage girls...and sparkle.

I said I wasn't going to rant.

Anyway, what my boyfriend said he appreciates about the vampires in Buffy is that a lot of the time they look like regular people--and not just regular people, but dark, mysterious, sexy people (oh, David Boreanaz...be still, my beating heart).

However, when they reveal their true selves, HOLY CRAP.

*whimper*

Temptation wouldn't be tempting if it didn't look good. If evil always showed its true face, we wouldn't have this whole sin problem.

Here's another quote I found and liked:

"That which is striking and beautiful is not always good, but that which is good is always beautiful."

That's from somebody named Ninon de L'Enclos. So if something's beautiful, we know it's either good or bad, but if it's not beautiful, it's bad.

Of course, that just begs the question of our standards of beauty...but the fact remains that although we should always honor beauty in the natural world, in people, in worship, in the arts, etc., we should also be cautious of its seductive power and be able to distinguish true beauty from false beauty.

When you figure out how to do that, give me a call.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Turn Around

At CCC, the senior high youth from HCUMC performed a skit as part of the Friday night campfire. It was to the Bonnie Raitt song "Total Eclipse of the Heart." (Sidebar: if you haven't seen the YouTube video "Total Eclipse of the Heart: Literal Video Version," bookmark that link and watch it after you read this.)

The skit was incredibly moving, and the youth did a great job with it. I'll spare you a lengthy description and just direct you to the video below of another group performing it. The addition that really shook me is that the girl playing the main part was Tristan, and her dad was an adult leader at CCC; at one point in the part where she was being pushed around inside the circle, she broke out, screamed "Daddy!" and ran to hug him before Amber, who was playing the Satanic character, pulled her away and back into the circle. I definitely cried.

Here's the thing. To my knowledge, I don't know that any of these kids have theater training. I know a number of the girls are very active in dance, but these are not the drama club nerds. I've seen it over and over again--kids you wouldn't normally see in an acting capacity get brought into a skit or drama for youth group, and they do a superb job. There's something about the sheer power of what's communicated through the drama that pulls in kids that you might never see on stage elsewhere.

This is proof to me that the arts have a very important place in the life of the church and that they can and should be accessible to everyone, regardless of "talent" or even interest. That's why someday I want a job with the words "worship" and "arts" in the title or description. There is a quality to the arts that is capable of transcending all sorts of boundaries and bringing people together for a common cause: in this case, for proclaiming a message of hope and redemption in Christ.


Thursday, July 22, 2010

Field Notes #41: Sunday Evening Worship: Beauty

Twice this summer I've helped lead a low-key Sunday evening worship service, along with Jon Dwyer, a college student from Hill's Chapel. We got off schedule with the 4th of July and the youth mission trip, and Jon may actually still be out of town this Sunday, but I'm gonna go ahead and have a service, partly so I can get one more in before my summer ends and partly because with no youth leaders in town this weekend, I want to make something available for the youth to be a part of. I decided that the theme this week will be "Beauty." Two of the songs we learned at CCC had to do with that motif, so I chose those and 4 more songs:


I'll be thinking of Scripture, poetry, quotations, etc. to help us think about the theme. I'm excited.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Rubik's Cube Faith

I hate the Rubik's cube. It baffles me completely. Yes, I know, there's a systematic way to solve it, but that kind of stuff just doesn't fit in my brain. I'm not good at spatial calculations, and fortunately for my driving record, my bad depth perception errs on the side of caution.

At CCC last week, two of the counselors did a brief skit/devotion with a Rubik's cube. While Daniel paced around solving the puzzle, Zach talked about how solving a Rubik's cube is kind of like how God leads us through our lives. We're the Rubik's cube--we're just a jumbled mess and can't get ourselves straightened out. But God knows what our lives are supposed to look like. God has a plan.

One of the things that has frustrated me most when I've tried to solve a Rubik's cube in the past is that you'll get to where you're almost done, but there's just one or two squares out of place. The things is, in that situation, you have to backtrack and stuff has to get jumbled up again before it can all be straightened out. I hate that part. I would get so close and then be told that if I wanted to complete the puzzle, I'd have to scramble all my hard work. I didn't want to do that. I'd have to let go of my almost (but not quite) perfect Rubik's cube.

That's the part of this metaphor that really stuck out to me. When we're following Christ, we have to be willing to go places that may not fit our idea of how this thing called life should go. We might get really close to where we think we need to be and then have to take a detour to actually get there.

I've got two verses from Proverbs that relate to this:


"The human mind plans the way,
but the Lord directs the steps." -- Proverbs 16:9


"All our steps are ordered by the Lord;

how then can we understand our own ways?" -- Proverbs 20:24



That first one is a verse I've spent a good bit of time with because I'm a planner and need to learn that whatever agenda I set, God has something much better in mind. The second one is another I've read before, but the idea of not understanding our own ways interests me. I've used the image of walking in pitch dark with only a flashlight to guide our steps (or sometimes, I've said, a cell phone). We can't always see the big picture of why things are coming together (or falling apart) the way they are. That doesn't mean we can explain everything away as being God's will; it means that we can let go of the need to understand. How freeing.

One more thing this line of thought reminded me of is a prayer by Thomas Merton from Thoughts in Solitude. This is one of my favorite prayers, and I recently realized it's printed in the back of the Bible I use most frequently these days. Here it is, with underlining added in the places I feel are most relevant:


My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.


Amen.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Field Notes #40: Rescheduling the Psalms Class

I had one person show up for the Psalms class tonight, and although it was a cool person, I decided it would be best if I didn't hold a class that was just me and a married man. Besides, the Psalms of vengeance make for awesome discussion, and I'd really like to be able to share what I've learned with more people, so I'm gonna reschedule it for next Tuesday. I've also made a new bulletin insert to advertise the class. I'm going for the shock factor. :)

Field Notes #39: Water Games, Ice Cream & a Movie

Here are some pictures from our fellowship event at the church on Sunday night. We got a good 30 minutes of outside time before the storm rolled through, at which point we sought refuge and ice cream indoors. The sun did come back out later. It was fun.

Field Notes #38: The Happy Timers

Yesterday I ended up going out to lunch twice. I had planned to have lunch with Jeana, our music director, and her daughter Celeste at 1:00, but I also got invited to Wendy's at 11:00 with the Happy Timers, a group of older folks that gets together about once a month to go out to lunch. I figured I'd swing by Wendy's, maybe get a little snack, and still be hungry when Jeana arrived.

I had fun at Wendy's. I've been a little surprised at how much I've enjoyed getting to know the older folks at the church. I know that sounds bad, but it's more that this summer I've had my eyes opened to issues with the elderly that hadn't occurred to me before.

All my life there have been older men and women who have had a profound impact on me; the first person I think of is James Alexander, the late lay leader at Davidson United Methodist Church, where I spent 12 years from age 4 to age 16. James was truly a saint--since he shared his first name with my dad, we referred to them as "James the Elder" and "James the Younger," or, alternatively, James Alexander would become "James the Wiser." His passing was a significant loss for me, even though my family had since moved to Charlotte.

And of course, there are my maternal grandparents. Mimi and Pop, as we call them, have always been a huge part of my life; in fact, only in recent years am I realizing just how much their presence has shaped me. As the first grandchild (and the only one for a little over 2 years), I experienced their omnipresence in a way that my siblings and cousins simply didn't. Now that I am older, I have found in my grandmother a wise counselor and in my grandfather a source of ministry wisdom and really terrible jokes.

But my grandparents have always been active and youthful, always younger-looking and more independent than many of their peers. Only in the past few years have I noticed any sort of decline in their health, and that has been distressing. So when I came to Hill's Chapel, I had little to no experience with shut-ins and the chronically ill and elderly. Home visits were not something that would have occurred to me unless someone had just come home from the hospital, but I've been able to tag along with Val on visits to several folks who simply can't make it to church or much of anywhere anymore.

So, back to Wendy's. I've gotten to know some of the old men in the church through various things, including a monthly coffee break Val's been hosting, and I've really enjoyed that. They have stories and they are characters. In checking in with my lay training committee at the church, I was telling one of its members how I've been pleasantly surprised at the amount of interaction I've had with the older churchgoers, and he made a good point: older men are one of the most neglected groups in the church. Women continue to stay involved in the church as they get older, but many men are unable to keep doing so in the ways in which they were accustomed in their younger days.

I hadn't really thought about that. I borrowed a book from my boyfriend called Why Men Hate Going to Church--I haven't read it yet, but part of what Gary told me is in it is that men like to accomplish things, and when they aren't given the opportunity to do so, they get bored and disconnected. In that sense, it seems logical to me that as men slowly lose physical health and strength, they can drift away from the church; and it seems to me that widowers are even more likely to lose touch without a wife to keep them connected.

I'm grateful for the opportunities I've had to interact with the older and wiser members of this church. Some of these people were baptized at Hill's Chapel and have truly been here all their life. They are our link to the history of the church, and we cannot leave them out in this fast-paced modern society.

Monday, July 19, 2010

What I'm Reading #10: Stuff Christians Like (Jonathan Acuff)

Stuff Christians Like, by Jonathan Acuff

A long time ago, I became a fan of the blog Stuff White People Like. So when I found out that there was a blog called Stuff Christians Like (which Acuff, its author, admits is a shameless ripoff of SWPL), I was pretty excited. And, just as I own Christian Lander's book SWPL, as soon as SCL hit the shelves I was on board.

So what kinds of things do Christians like? Well, as you can tell from the book cover, one thing is The Side Hug. A few of my favorites include the following:

  • Falling in Love on a Mission Trip
  • Using "Let Me Pray About It" as a Euphemism for "No"
  • The Metrosexual Worship Leader
  • Losing the Will to Clap During Songs
  • Subtly Finding Out if You Drink Beer Too
  • Judging People Who Use the Table of Contents in the Bible

And so on, and so forth. Acuff's observations come out of his experience in a large evangelical church--he mentions being in worship with a few thousand people--so there are a few things I can laugh at as somewhat of an outsider, but for the most part, I'm laughing at myself.

I found that Acuff's writing is not only funny but also insightful. His language is engaging, incisive and witty, and he doesn't always feel the need to make a profound theological point in an entry--though often the points make themselves. Acuff's writing style is what I would like to be able to do, though he's fortunate enough to be a professional writer and advertiser and other things that are great training for this kind of writing.

I've found myself convicted by a lot of what he says. He talks about how we tell people we'll pray for them, then don't--he makes it sound funny, but the other day I received an email from my dad telling me that a friend of his has a terrible cancer all throughout his abdomen and is undergoing experimental chemotherapy, but he also can't eat because the growth is blocking his digestive system. I found myself writing back, "I'll be praying for him," and then I asked myself...Will you really? So, thanks to SCL, I started a list on a notepad on my desk. I'm going to do my best to write down names anytime I agree to pray for someone. Because I want to--but Christians are people too, often failures at being people.

The last section of the book is called "Saturday Night Cryfest." Having been on countless retreats and mission trips, I was laughing as soon as I read the title. But I was not prepared for the essays in this chapter. They were legitimately profound and moving. Some of them were humorous, but these were more pointed, more reflective. Facebook Friend-Suggesting Jesus. Confessing "Safe Sins." Pretending We Believe All Sins Are Equal. Guilt Trips. This is where Acuff really got to me, and my view of the book as funny but true was elevated beyond that. I read most of this book on a mission trip, and two of our daily devotionals were actually written by him, which just made me smile.

I would definitely recommend this book. It's an easy read, each entry is max 1.5 pages or so, it's hilarious, and it'll make you think. Besides, I think we Christians need to get better at laughing at ourselves. We can be pretty ridiculous.


Favorite Quotations

"I've never gotten a speeding ticket, but if I ever do, I want to be honest with you. I'm going to name-drop God. Not just a little bit. I'm going to name-drop God so hard and so often in that conversation with the cop that God in heaven is going to stop playing Battleship with Peter and say, 'Hold up, did someone just give me a shout-out? Is is the Grammys already?'" -- Name-Dropping God to Get Out of a Speeding Ticket

"Saying 'I don't feel led' is the greatest way to get out of a Christian chore, like having a daily quiet time. Which, by the way, shouldn't feel like a chore. It should feel like an uncontainable desire to spend time with the Lord. [...] So to assuage that guilt of not having a consistent quiet time, you'll say, 'I don't want to just go through the motions with my quiet time. [...] Until I'm sincere, I'll respect [God] enough to avoid him.'" -- Having a Spiritual Excuse Not to Have a Spiritual Discipline

"If your girlfriend goes on a mission trip without you and immediately tells you 'we need to talk' upon getting back, don't say I didn't warn you." -- Falling in Love on a Mission Trip

"I am slightly terrified that you will think I am a snake-handling Christian." -- Trying to Say Something Christiany Without Looking Like a Snake Handler

"Time after time, the answer to the question 'Who is carrying that with you?' comes back as 'no one.' But it's not one of those questions you can ask and then disappear as soon as you've friend suggested Jesus. You have to be willing to carry the 'all that' with the person you're talking with. You can't fade into the weeds of life like dissolving into the sea of profiles on Facebook. That's why witnessing is hard. That's why it's easier to friend suggest Jesus to strangers than it is to introduce your friend Jesus to someone." -- Facebook Friend-Suggesting Jesus

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Field Notes #37: Youth Sunday!


Youth Sunday this morning was awesome! The youth led worship, we opened with "Prince of Peace" and "Marvelous Light," baby Grayson was baptized, several youth shared about their experiences at CCC, I preached a sermon that got finished at about 9:45 a.m., the girls and I sang "You're Beautiful" during the offertory, Jenni and Maddie led the children's message, we showed a video I put together of pictures from the trip (see below!), and we ended by singing "Shine, Jesus, Shine." It was one of the more uplifting, energetic church services I've been to in a while. Our youth are great.



And here's my sermon:

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"

"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

-- Luke 10:38-42


Martha is annoyed. Her sister is just sitting there. This isn’t the first time she’s been stuck doing the work while Mary goofs off. It seems that Mary has a habit of doing things that seem pointless and wasteful. In John 12, we see Martha serving a meal while Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with costly perfume. She is essentially dumping out a year’s worth of wages. The disciples protest, not simply at the wastefulness but because, as they say, that perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor. Jesus’ response seems almost harsh: “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” Is Jesus telling us not to bother helping the poor?

I’ve never really liked the story of Mary and Martha. The moral of the story seems simple enough at first: if you are focused on Jesus and on his words, like Mary was, then you don’t have to worry about doing anything, like Martha did. But the pragmatist in me screams, “What about lunch?? Somebody has to make lunch! Jesus is fully human, he gets hungry!”

My main issue with this passage is that I have always had a hard time figuring out what the story says about faith and action. Sometimes, we make Mary and Martha into one-dimensional metaphors for the Christian life. Some people are Marys: they have the gifts of prayer and contemplation. Other people are Marthas: they make the casserole for the potluck and volunteer at Christian Ministries. We need both to be the church.

But that’s not quite right, is it? Certainly we all have different spiritual gifts, but this passage isn’t about God-given talents; it’s about how we use them. Did you notice what Jesus said? He said, “Mary has chosen what is better.” Mary made a choice. Her choice was to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen to his words. Her choice was to be at peace in the presence of her Lord.

Martha made a choice, too. But that choice was less about what she was doing and more about how she was doing it. This passage is not telling us only to listen and never to act; that goes against the spirit of the gospel. Besides, right before the story of Mary and Martha is the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Good Samaritan doesn’t even believe in God, but he is the model of love and mercy that Jesus describes.

Martha’s problem is not that she’s busy; it’s that she’s worried and distracted. Martha is stressed out. More than that, she’s bitter that Mary isn’t helping her. Martha chooses to let her actions get in the way of her intended love and hospitality instead of flowing from it. She even becomes a tattletale—instead of asking Mary for help, she goes to Jesus: “don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

This scene reminds me of countless childhood squabbles with my little sister. Grace would take something of mine or vice versa, and before you knew it, a familiar sound was ringing through the halls. “Moooo-oooom!” Sometimes my parents would get tired of it and basically say, “I don’t care” if it wasn’t a big deal. This would annoy the daylights out of me because it made it seem like whatever possession Grace had swiped was not important. Most likely, it really wasn’t all that important. But I was not willing to admit that, and neither was Martha.

The story of Mary and Martha tells us that how and why we do things is just as important as what we do. In fact, it may well be more important in many cases. Not only that, but Jesus is telling them and us precisely what is the most important thing: he is. Martha has made the story about herself; Jesus insists that she make it about him.

Remember the story I mentioned earlier about Mary wasting all that perfume? When Jesus said, “The poor you will always have with you,” the disciples would have known that Jesus was actually quoting Deuteronomy 15:11. This verse begins, “There will always be poor people in the land.” But it doesn’t stop there. “Therefore,” it reads, “I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.” Therefore. Jesus wants us to help others, but he knows that the work of serving the poor is endless. We cannot approach such a task unless our purpose and hope comes from him. Jesus must come first; without him, we are helpless to do anything in the face of human need.

I was privileged to spend the past week with our youth group at Carolina Cross Connection, or CCC. As a first-timer at CCC, I was moved by how intentionally the program connected work, prayer and fellowship. We started each morning with prayer or worship, before we even got our work assignment for the day. The staff members told us repeatedly that although our work projects were important in and of themselves, more important were the relationships we might form with the people we were serving. We went to work, but we also went to sit, to listen, to talk. And everything we did was made possible by and was ultimately for God. Maybe we didn’t hammer nails any differently than any other volunteer might have, but the inherent connection with God and with others made a huge difference in what we were doing.

If you think about it, none of what we did would have made any sense if not for that—why in the world would someone expect, let alone allow, a group of teenagers and adults of varying levels of experience build a 20-foot wheelchair ramp? Why else would 13-year-olds be using power tools?

I realized that CCC was the embodiment of what Luke is trying to tell us in the Mary and Martha story. Psalm 127:1 says, “Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain.” It’s not about what we do. It’s about how and why we do it, and for whom we do it. CCC forced us to take the focus off ourselves for a week. None of what the youth and adults did this past week benefited them in any tangible way; in fact, particularly for working adults, it sounds crazy—take a week off work to sweat all day on a construction project in the middle of the North Carolina summer? And not get paid? Wait, we pay them to let us do that? It’s not about what we do. It’s about how, why, and for whom. The funny thing is that the answer to all of those questions should be the same. How? Like Jesus. With Jesus. Why? Because of Jesus. For whom? For Jesus and for his glory. Let’s not get worried and distracted. Let’s stay focused on God.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

"You're Beautiful" Phil Wickham

I had never heard this song until we sang it several times this past week at CCC. I am now completely obsessed, and this video is pretty awesome. Watch/listen to this NOW.

Field Notes #36: Faith in Action. Love in Person. CCC 2010.

I am SO clean right now. My shower/bath this afternoon involved 2 kinds of shampoo, conditioner, 2 kinds of soap, facial cleanser, body wash and lavender-scented Epsom salt. I feel glorious. My fingers and toes are even pruning, and being the short shower advocate that I am, I can't remember the last time that happened that wasn't swimming-related.

The rigorous cleaning was my response to a week-long accumulation of paint, dirt, grass, sweat, sawdust, and bug bites.

[Speaking of which, I have two bones to pick with God: ticks and chiggers. What is their purpose in creation? Seriously! They are evil! (No ticks this week, but chiggers? Oh yeah. Hence the Epsom salt.)]

ANYWAY. I just got back from a week of camp with Carolina Cross Connection. Here's the description from the organization's website:

"Carolina Cross Connection is a Christian outreach ministry in western North Carolina. It is an opportunity for youth, youth groups, college-age folks, and adults to spend a week of their summer serving families in need. Campers will perform a variety of home repairs, such as building wheelchair ramps, repairing porches, painting, yard work, and much more. Campers also strive to meet the social, emotional, and spiritual needs of the folks we work for, and to share the love of Christ with them. CCC is also an opportunity for youth and adults to grow in their faith through worship, devotions, team-building, and other in-camp activities led by our summer staff."

Their motto is "Faith in Action. Love in Person." I had a great week at CCC and now consider myself a supporter of the program. CCC is held at a variety of locations around North Carolina; this year, HCUMC was at Joshua Youth Camp, a Free Will Baptist youth camp in Albemarle. The facilities are undoubtedly camp-like but still great, and each day we were sent out in small groups to work for people in Albemarle, Concord and everywhere in between.

I could tell a zillion stories about CCC (and some will probably come out later--most likely in my sermon for tomorrow, actually), but I'm going to try to be brief. Perhaps what I liked the most about CCC was that I felt like they struck a great balance among several important things, namely worship/spiritual formation, service, and fellowship. I've been on all kinds of mission trips in my life, and I've had great experiences, but the intentionality of CCC's schedule was, I think, a wonderful embodiment of the life to which Christians are called.

Anyone who knows me can see this comparison coming a mile away, but I found myself thinking about how monastic life depends on a rhythm of ora et labora--prayer and work. At Christ in the Desert Monastery in New Mexico, the monks at this Benedictine monastery follow a disciplined schedule of prayer (7 times a day, starting at 4:00 a.m.), and in between, they do manual labor and study. I couldn't help but see our week of camp as reflecting that general idea--each day, we rose at 7:00, ate breakfast, had morning watch (devotion/quiet time with God) or worship, went out into the community to work, returned for dinner followed by fellowship and fun activities (funtivities?), and we ended our day with worship.

That's awesome. So much youth ministry responds to our culture's self-centeredness by feeding it, but the very design of CCC is to take these teenagers' (and adults'!) focus off themselves for a week. Just about everything we did was geared toward pulling us out of ourselves to center on God and to see him in other people.

Like I said, I'll probably tell more specific CCC stories later, and since this week's Gospel lesson is Mary and Martha, you can bet I've got plenty of sermon material to draw on now. Speaking of which, I should go write that...

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Field Notes #35: Carolina Cross Connection

This morning we're headed out on a youth mission trip! We're going with Carolina Cross Connection (CCC) to Joshua Youth Camp in Albemarle. We'll be working in the area, worshipping and eating together, and I don't know what else, but I'm looking forward to being a part of it!

Friday, July 9, 2010

The Kind of Person Who Would Date a Black Guy

Recently, I was catching up on life with an old friend, and as usual our conversation turned to dating. She gave me the 411 on her romantic life, then asked me about my going-on-17-months relationship with my boyfriend, Gary. I told her about music, church and his recent trip to El Salvador, and then she said something that I found amusing. "When I saw you were dating Gary, I was shocked," she said. "I just never thought you were the kind of person who would date a black guy."

Now I'm paraphrasing, and also let me give you some background: we were at a gathering of a bunch of her friends, several of whom are black. She didn't intend that as a derogatory comment at all. But it made me chuckle, and I recalled that there are actually several people in my life who have said things like "I always knew you'd end up with a black guy." Heck, I've said that myself.

But what does that mean? What are we saying when we refer to the kind of person who would date a black guy? Let me just give you a few images of that "kind of person":

That's Heidi Klum, supermodel and actress, on the left; her husband is English singer Seal. And on the right is Idina Menzel, the original Elphaba in the Broadway musical Wicked, and more recently Lea Michele/Rachel Berry's mother Shelby in the Fox television series Glee; her husband is Taye Diggs, whom she met when they were both in the original Broadway cast of Rent.

And for that matter...

On the left is Jada Pinkett Smith, actress/producer/director/singer, and wife of the ubiquitous Will Smith. And on the right--do I really have to do this?--first lady Michelle Obama, Princeton University and Harvard Law graduate and husband to Barack Obama (yeah, yeah, he's only half black--Gary's 1/8 Cherokee).

(Side note: I had to laugh at myself--I named these images "heididina.jpg" and "jadabama.jpg" on my laptop.)

I talked to my dad about this the other day--he had overheard a conversation the other day where a white man was talking about someone and mentioned that "she's got herself a black boyfriend." It's interesting that we find that kind of thing worth pointing out. Sure, it's not the norm--but it's funny how we can be pointing out people in a room and say, "the guy in the red shirt is Bob, the girl in the blue shirt is Susie, and the black guy is Rob." That's not necessarily wrong--I mean, if there's one black guy in the room, it's easiest to point him out by referring to his skin color. If I'm the only white girl around (which happens to me pretty regularly), I have no problem being "the white girl."

A few months ago, a friend of mine (who is white) told Gary and I about a frustrating experience he'd had at work. He was interviewing for a job and felt like it went really well. Later, however, his superiors told him they were concerned because he had said a few things that people might find racist. Here they are: first, my friend (who is also a musician) had been talking about a guy he knows who's a brilliant piano player, and he mentioned that he plays at a black church. Second, he referred to a client he'd been dealing with recently on the phone; her name was "Rosa," and my friend had no idea what ethnicity she was, but since she pronounced her name by rolling the "r," he did the same. His superiors felt like the reference to "a black church" was racist, and that he was mocking Rosa by pronouncing her name the way it's meant to be pronounced.

I had to laugh at that. I'm sure that in professional situations you have to be particularly sensitive to such things, but I had to think, I feel like only white people who don't really know any non-white people would say something like that is racist. "Am I racist if I say I have a black boyfriend?" I asked. True, if I'm around black people I don't know, I'll use the term "African-American" if I have occasion to refer to race--but my dad pointed out that not all black people are African-American. What about Haitians? And there's a difference between Africans and African-Americans, both ethnically and culturally, even within the U.S.

Anyway, this is just me throwing stuff out there to think about. Do you have to be a certain kind of person to date outside your racial/ethnic background? If so, what does that even mean? If we all are made in the image of God, what does that mean for how we understand race?

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Field Notes #34: Sarah's Workspace

Since my room is a disaster right now, I decided to work in the living room today. At some point I took a look at my workspace (since it's not an office) and had to laugh. A Bible, a Book of Worship, my guitar, sheet music, my laptop...definitely *my* space.

Numbers, Atheists and Responsible Evangelism

I've always had good theological instincts. If something bothers me, it's probably for a reason, even if I can't quite put my finger on it or explain it.

So when I recently had an experience with some folks who were tallying up the number of people with whom they had had evangelistic encounters, I swallowed the discomfort I felt and responded graciously. I wanted to appreciate their genuineness, and decided I'd return to the question later.

To be fair, I hate numbers in general. I don't like math, my recent efforts at Scripture memorization have been hindered by an inability to recall chapter and verse, and I use what I call "my handy-dandy tip calculator" in my cell phone when paying the bill at restaurants. If I'm looking at a room of people, whether it's 7 people or 700, I am utterly unable to estimate the number present.

That aside, I have to admit that numbers are not unimportant. I talked to my dad about this, and he pointed out that when taking attendance in worship, it matters whether there are 150 or 151 people in the congregation--because that 151st person is valuable in and of himself or herself.

Another image I thought of is this: my boyfriend is a musician and frequently plays for tips. When he's counting up his $1 bills, he likes to think of each bill as representing a person who took the time to listen to his music and to dig out their wallet; so with each dollar bill, he prays for the unknown person behind it.

But a preoccupation with numbers makes me nervous. Yesterday I read an article from the Huffington Post called "Thank God for Atheists" that helped me figure out what exactly was troubling me. In it, Tom Krattenmaker tells about Jim Henderson, "a recovering evangelist," who decided at one point that he hated evangelizing and needed a different way to share his faith. Here's the part that resonated with me:

"Henderson realized he was doing unto others what he would never want done unto him. He was manipulating conversations to set up a pitch. Viewing people as potential notches on his evangelism belt rather than fellow sojourners and prospective friends. Listening only to the extent it could reveal an argumentative opening. He realized he hated the whole enterprise."


That's how I've always felt about evangelism in general. In fact, for a year or so, I only referred to it as "the E-word." This is wrong, of course; I've since come to the conclusion that although evangelism is not my primary vocation, it is the calling and duty of every Christian. But Henderson realized something very important: anytime a non-believer becomes a potential believer instead of a person, something is wrong.

Henderson found that having genuine friendships with atheists was immensely helpful for him developing a sense of his own faith and religion. The perspective of someone with an outside view of Christianity can reveal things that other Christians wouldn't even think about.

Of course, Christians aren't always very good at having genuine relationships with non-believers. Sometimes the potential for them to convert becomes the sole reason for maintaining the friendship. I've seen this happen and it seems so strange to me. One of my best friend is a self-professed "apathetic agnostic." I've never really thought about the possibility of him coming to Christ. I guess I'm supposed to at least hope for that--but I love him as he is, not as he might be. Not to mention that he has been a far better friend and moral compass that a lot of Christians I've known over the years...and since he knows me so well, I'm acutely aware that I haven't exactly been a model of what a Christian life should look like.

The sad truth is that I often feel more comfortable around non-believers than some Christians, which is disturbing. Some of that, I'll admit, is my own pride and residual theological elitism I'm still trying to get over. But I remember watching the movie Jesus Camp and feeling really, really uncomfortable. Granted, if church isn't making you uncomfortable, it's not doing its job (or you're not doing your part). But it's that sentiment about which Jim Henderson expressed concern--that's what gets me. The worldview of some atheists/agnostics is closer to mine than that of certain Christian groups.

So. Do numbers matter? Yes--in that each number represents a person whose life is precious in the eyes of God and should be treated as such by other people. That preciousness is unconditional.

You still won't catch me dealing with attendance or the budget if I can help it.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Field Notes #33: Preaching on July 4: "I Wanna Get Washed Up"

(That's me wading in the Dead Sea in the spring of 1995.)

The Jordan River is not a very big river in global terms, but it is an important resource in the dry land through which it runs. For millennia, many peoples have depended on its water, often clashing over use and ownership of the currents. In the Old Testament, the Jordan often outlines someone’s inheritance; it also has served as a border of ancient Israel and as the site of army encampments in times of war. In the New Testament, it is where the first Christians are baptized—and where Jesus himself is baptized. Today, many make pilgrimages to the Jordan River to stand in its waters and remember their baptism or to be baptized. I received a blessing from an old friend in this very river when I traveled to Israel at age 8. Of course, the Jordan’s history of conflict and warfare is far from over; it is still a symbol of national pride in the Arab/Israeli conflict, and disputes over land ownership and use of the water rage on even today.

This little river becomes a major player in the story we just heard from 2 Kings. The narrative is full of irony—servants, prophets and a small water source end up being more important than kings and generals. If this were a Hollywood film, Naaman and the king of Israel would be on the movie poster, but they end up looking pretty foolish. Naaman is told that a prophet in Israel can heal him, so he writes to the king. Either he misunderstands the servant girl or just assumes that if any help can come from Israel, surely it would come from royalty. Similarly, the king of Israel is immediately suspicious of Naaman’s request, assuming he is trying to pick a fight—remember, this is an enemy general occupying Israeli land. Notice that both men make assumptions, both of which turn out to be wrong. Because of their pride, communication breaks down and Naaman almost misses his chance to be healed.

On the other hand, the servant girl and Elisha barely make cameos in the story, but they’re the ones who know what’s going on. This shows that this passage isn’t about Naaman and the king of Israel. But it’s not about the servant or Elisha, either. This story is about God. God is the main character. It would be hard to create a movie poster for such a plot, but let’s explore this a little further.

God has a hand in events from the very beginning of this passage. God’s first mention is actually pretty strange: the writer says that God used Naaman to give Aram victory. But wait, these are the bad guys. This is victory against Israel, God’s chosen people. What’s that about? I have two theories: one, that this is evidence that although God is not just at work among his people; and two, this is dramatic irony—Naaman may not realize it, but he already has reason to be grateful to the God of Israel.

The next time God’s name is mentioned, the king of Israel is getting something right: He cries, “Am I God, to give death or life?” We can pretty safely assume that this is a rhetorical question, and the answer is “No.” I could go on for a while about the implications of this—suffice to say that when answered truthfully, this question impacts our thoughts and decisions on healthcare, war, the justice system and much, much more.

Scanning the passage further, God comes up again as part of the title “Elisha the man of God.” Interesting that Naaman went first for help to the king and not to the man of God. But Elisha reaches out to Naaman anyway, saying, “Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” Even Elisha doesn’t get it yet: the miracle that’s coming up isn’t about his legitimacy as a prophet; it’s about God’s power and mercy. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Elisha tells Naaman exactly what he must to do be cured: wash in the Jordan River seven times. Sounds pretty simple, right? But Naaman is downright offended at this. He was looking for something more impressive. He was a victorious general, after all; he deserved it! Naaman says, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy!” “For me,” he says. Naaman thinks he deserves a special miracle, not one that requires him to wash in a dinky river in Israel. And you know what else he says? “The Lord his God.” Naaman is not claiming the God of Israel in any form but a utilitarian one at this point. You’d think Elisha would just say, “Forget it.” And maybe he did—we don’t see Elisha again in this passage.

Luckily for Naaman, his servants keep their cool. Here we go with the minor characters again. I love what they say to their master: “If the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it?” Naaman wanted a flashy miracle. He wanted a magic trick or an impressive feat with which he could earn his healing. His pride was keeping him from the thing he needed most. The servants point out, “All he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean.’” “Wash, and be clean.” Naaman is embarrassed, insulted even, at the simplicity of the task. “Wash, and be clean.”

Naaman’s reaction reflects not only excessive pride but also a lack of trust. William Sloane Coffin said wisely, “faith is not believing without proof but trusting without reservation.” I’m never really bothered when someone challenges me that there is no proof for the existence of God. Reason and knowledge are a part of faith, but they are not its substance. Love and trust are. Naaman had reservations that kept him from trusting, the main one being that he had a preconceived notion of what the miracle he sought would look like.

Did you ever hear the joke about the man who climbed onto the roof of his house during a flood? He prayed and prayed to God to send him help as the waters rose closer and closer to the top of the house. Before long, some people paddled by in a canoe. “Come on!” they cried, “Let us get you out of here!” But the man replied, “No, I’m waiting for God to rescue me.” A little later, a family drove by in a motorboat and offered to pick him up; again the man refused. As the waters started to lap at his feet, a helicopter flew down and tried to rescue him; but he stayed put. Finally, the man drowned, and when he went to heaven, he immediately marched up to God. “I’ve been a faithful Christian all my life,” he said, “and I prayed for you to rescue me, and you didn’t! Where were you?” God replied, “Good grief man, I sent you a canoe, a motorboat and a helicopter. What more did you want from me?”

Naaman almost ends up in the same boat as that man. (Pun intended.) If the miracle wasn’t going to happen his way, he just wasn’t going to accept it. Good thing he listened to his servants.

The only other reference to God in this passage is a mention of Elisha again as “the man of God.” The story ends with Naaman washing in the Jordan and being cured of his disease. But if we look at the next verse, we see that this isn’t just a healing narrative. Here’s verse 15: “Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company; he came and stood before him and said, ‘Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.’” Elisha wanted to show Naaman that there was a prophet in Israel; he ended up introducing him to the God of Israel.

Here’s the interesting thing: Naaman’s faith was not a condition of his healing. His healing led to his faith. Here’s how Kathleen Robertson Farmer puts it: “It is his experience of salvation that brings about his faith, not the other way around! ...the grace of God is extended to those who do nothing to qualify for salvation.”

The response of many Christians to that statement may well be “No fair!” But if we’re honest with ourselves, the only thing we can do or say in response to this story’s message is to fall on our knees and say, “Thank God.” See, none of us can do anything to qualify for salvation. Nothing. God is not a vending machine in the sky; nor can we earn his love by being really good Christians. God’s love and mercy is offered to everyone, regardless of age, race, gender, social status, creed, culture...all that matters is their status as children of God—and that’s everybody. It’s never been a question as to whether the grace is available. The question has always been: will we accept it? All God says to us is, “Wash, and be clean.” In the musical Godspell, Jesus comes to John the Baptist and says, “I wanna get washed up.” That’s all we have to say. “I wanna get washed up.” I wanna get washed up.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.


(My dad, brother and grandparents came to hear me preach!)

Friday, July 2, 2010

Field Notes #32: Perfectly Lonely

"Nothing to do / Nowhere to be / A simple little kind of free." These lines from John Mayer's song "Perfectly Lonely" (from his latest release, Battle Studies) popped in my head a little while ago. Ignore the rest of the song, which is about being happily single, and that's basically what I have going on today. I mean, I have things to get done, like my sermon for Sunday, but I don't have to go anywhere. I'm still in the pink shirt and green pants I wore to bed. I look like a watermelon. And I have had a lovely day so far.

I got up this morning to discover it was 66 degrees outside! That is amazing! I quickly made some coffee, grabbed my Bible, journal and a few books, and proceeded to drag an armchair and ottoman out onto the back deck. I was there for several hours, enjoying the day, reading, writing and praying, taking a "break" to walk around the track while I called my dad and brother, who got back from Brazil early this morning.

I have since moved inside, but I'm sitting in the room adjacent to the deck with the sliding glass door open so there's just a screen between me and the day. I'm letting ideas for my sermon percolate a bit more, but I'll probably commit something to paper at some point today. I'm hoping for one of those days where I take it easy and yet am productive. Love it.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Tea Party Jesus: The Words of Christians in the Mouth of Christ

This blog is hilarious. And condemning. And inappropriate. But it's not the authors who are being necessarily inappropriate--it's Christians. These are direct quotes from high-profile, self-proclaimed Christians, put into perspective by putting them in Jesus' mouth. See my earlier post that touches on Christians being jerks.

Here are a few favorites so far (I just discovered this blog):

(Tom Mullins, May 2010)

(Glen Beck, March 2008)

DANGER: Entering Church...?

My dad posted a great blog recently entitled "Crash Helmets and Inclusivity." Go read it. Don't worry, his posts are generally shorter than mine. :)

He was inspired by the renovations going on in the sanctuary at Myers Park United Methodist Church in Charlotte, NC. On all the doors to the sanctuary, there are signs that read "DANGER: HARD HAT AREA." He recalled a quote from author Annie Dillard's book Teaching a Stone to Talk: "It is madness to wear ladies' velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets." And that blog post was born.

I got to see the interior of the sanctuary the other day. It is a mess! The picture of the sign on the door is one my dad sent me, but here's a shot inside the church that I took with my phone. I love it--bright red tape screaming "DANGER DANGER DANGER" all the way around the sanctuary. If the trustees (at any given church) wouldn't throw a hissy fit, I'd suggest leaving that there and installing it in other churches (note to self: try this someday. It could be a fun sermon stunt). We forget sometimes that when we enter into worship, we are drawing near to immeasurable power--the power that created the universe! Crash helmets? At the very least!

What I'm Reading #9: Feasting on the Word (David Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors)

Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season After Pentecost, edited by David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor

OK, I'm not reading this cover-to-cover, because that would be silly. But this is a preaching resource based on the Revised Common Lectionary. Val gave it to me, and it is awesome. Feasting on the Word is a new series published by Westminster John Knox, and I have Year C, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season After Pentecost (which is where we are in the liturgical calendar right now). It's edited by two greats in the world of Biblical studies and preaching, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor.

Each week, there are 4 texts, and Feasting on the Word approaches each one from 4 different perspectives: Theological, Pastoral, Exegetical and Homiletical. I just read the entire entry on the Old Testament passage for this Sunday, and it got me all jazzed up, which is why I'm writing this now. :) If you're a preacher or a writer or just someone interested in how to approach the Bible from different perspectives, check this out.

Field Notes #31: Exploring the Campground

Before I came to Hill's Chapel UMC, this is what I thought was meant by the phrase "camp meeting": Dad doesn't wear a robe for 6 Sundays during the summer and we sing really old hymns.

I quickly learned that this is not what people around here are talking about when they mention camp meeting.

I started hearing words like "tents" and "weekend," and finally someone explained to me that the Rock Springs Camp Meeting goes on for 2 weeks and people actually stay in tents (which are really more like shacks that cost upwards of $40,000). My first reaction felt something like morbid fascination. I've never thought of myself as a city girl, but since coming here I've realized that to some extent I definitely am one.

Well, today Don Grice took me and LeaAnne out to lunch, and when he found out neither of us had seen the campground, he insisted that we take a tour after we ate. Camp meeting doesn't start until August, but there were already people there working on their tents and getting ready--and they knew right away that LeaAnne and I had never been there before. I was amazed. Someone had told me that parts of the campground looked like a third world country, and they were not wrong. Don showed us the inside of his family's "tent"--they have concrete floors, carpet, a second floor and a balcony, so their place is nice by comparison to many others.

After I got over the initial shock, I realized...this place is AWESOME! Thousands of people come to camp meeting, and yet you can let kids run around unattended without worrying about them getting lost or hurt, and everyone has benches and porch swings, and the arbor is actually really beautiful. I totally want to stay an extra day or two in Denver to experience camp meeting.

I didn't have my camera on me, but I took a bunch of pictures with my cell phone. Check these out:

Intimacy Fail: How Technology Destroys Our Social IQ and Cripples the Greatest Commandment

Last night, I watched the movie Surrogates, starring Bruce Willis. Here's a bit of a plot summary from IMDB: "People are living their lives remotely from the safety of their own homes via robotic surrogates--sexy, physically perfect mechanical representations of themselves. It's an ideal world where crime, pain, fear and consequences don't exist." Discrimination disappears: everyone is good-looking, and race doesn't have meaning in a world where someone's skin tone may not necessarily reflect their cultural background. Infectious diseases are all but wiped out: robots cannot transmit bacteria and viruses. Injury and death are completely avoidable: surrogates can be thrown from bridges, shot in the head and beaten, with no consequence to the operator except the need to repair or replace their robot.

The flip side of this utopia is the reality that people don't actually interact with each other anymore. Bruce Willis' character lives in a world where his wife mourns the death of their son (during the pre-surrogate age) by locking herself in her room and living entirely through her surrogate. This married couple only interacts through youthful, physically perfected versions of themselves, and they hide their pain from each other by barricading their true selves in lonely isolation.

Of course, we don't need futuristic robot avatars to separate ourselves from each other. We're doing it already. It makes me think of the opening lines of the movie Crash: "It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something." Impersonality is the law of the land, whether imposed consciously for self-protection or unconsciously out of habit.

I recently read an article from the humor and video site Cracked.com entitled "7 Reasons the 21st Century Is Making You Miserable." (WARNING: Cracked is not known for being politically correct or polite. If you have issues with strong language a crude humor, don't read this. I'll summarize it for you anyway.) Here are those 7 reasons:

#1: We don't have enough annoying strangers in our lives.
#2: We don't have enough annoying friends, either.
#3: Texting is a [crappy] way to communicate.
#4: Online company only makes us lonelier.
#5: We don't get criticized enough.
#6: We're victims of the Outrage Machine.
#7: We feel worthless, because we actually are worth less.

I'm not going to go into detail on all of these, but here are some basic points made in this article. Today's technology allows us to be selective about how and with whom we interact; therefore, we can more easily avoid dealing with obnoxious people. However, this actually makes us less able to cope with the annoying people with whom we inevitably must communicate from time to time. This article also points out that e-mail and texting allow us to avoid deeper levels of honesty and leave tons of room for miscommunication; it cites studies that found only 7% of communication has to do with the actual words we use--the other 93% is nonverbal. This means that when you talk to someone purely using words on a screen, you're only getting a tiny fraction of what they're really saying.

The other thing does is that it allows us to throw things out online that we wouldn't say to someone's face. Online bullying is a real issue for kids and teens today that I, for one, simply didn't have to deal with much at all. When I was a kid, people just talked about you behind your back; now, they'll ridicule and threaten each other online. The lack of immediate consequences (or, sometimes, any consequences at all) can bring out the worst in people.

Christians are not exempt from this. Jonathan Acuff, author of www.StuffChristiansLike.net (his book Stuff Christians Like is now available for purchase), recently wrote for CNN's Belief Blog. His post, "Why Christians are Jerks Online," gives two reasons for the preponderance of hateful Christian blogs, bitter Twittering from churchgoers, and Christian hate mail. First, what Acuff calls "The Business Traveler Approach"--going on the "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" rule, Christians are often able to separate their offline and online selves, believing that despite their commitment to the commandment to love one another, what they say on the internet "doesn't count." The second reason, one that really hit home with me, Acuff terms "Room Cleaning Christianity."

"Think of it like college. When you’ve got a final paper due Monday, you will be amazed at how energetic your desire is to clean your room. You will scrub tile with a slow toothbrush if it means avoiding the bigger, more difficult work of writing your paper. The same thing happens with Christianity. Loving your neighbor might be simple, but it’s not easy. [...] So instead of dealing with that, we get online and police people. We find small things to focus on that will distract us. I think God wants us to discuss the little stuff, but we make it an idol when we practice room cleaning Christianity at the exclusion of love. And we tend to become jerks."

As a member of the Facebook group "Nothing Gets My Room Cleaner Than a Paper Due Tomorrow," I can identify with this metaphor. And Acuff's explanation connects directly to a conversation I had recently about how to be committed to your tradition without being an arrogant jerk. Sometimes we lose any trace of humility in our attempt to elevate adiaphora (non-essentials) to the state of dogma (essentials) when really we're just putting off dealing with real issues and real people.

As if this post weren't already too long, thinking about all this made me recall a book I started reading and really need to finish: Marva J. Dawn's Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down: A Theology of Worship for This Urgent Time. Dawn points out that the overload thrown at us by the internet has gotten us used to learning random trivia that has no impact on our actual lives (remember Cracked.com? Totally my guilty source for exactly that kind of thing). Dawn writes, "television [and the internet, etc.] has habituated its watchers [and users] to a low information-action ratio, that people are accustomed to 'learning' good ideas (even from sermons) and then doing nothing about them." She also emphasizes the point that our technology-addicted culture decreases our ability to form intimate human relationships: "We talk about the weather and the latest ball scores, but we don't understand each other as if we belonged to each other, and we don't really want to know the answer to 'How are you?'" Ouch.

I need to go ahead and admit something that you're probably already thinking: writing this entire blog has been totally self-indicting. I am the queen of Facebook, email and texting. Even making phone calls to close friends makes me nervous. I have definitely made attempts to counteract this tendency to keep a computer between myself and others--when I ran a summer camp last year, I got tired of all the volunteers communicating simply via email and called a meeting for the sole purpose of acknowledging and pursuing the incarnational nature that our faith is supposed to have. We didn't talk about anything we couldn't have done over email, but it was so much more fruitful to sit around a table with coffee and donuts and just talk and pray together.

And now I've compiled all this information and educated myself and maybe some of you. My question to myself and to my readers now is...what am I--what are we--going to do about this? First off, I'm going to get off the computer and go to lunch with a parishioner and our administrative assistant. And I'm going to pray about the possibility of going on a technology fast sometime in the near future. Some fellow Duke Divinity School students did this for a class last year, and it was interesting--it felt like they dropped off the face of the planet for a week, and yet until I was 16 or 17 I barely ever used the internet, and I didn't have my own cell phone until I was about 18. It's amazing how quickly I've become addicted to my gadgets. Recently my boyfriend thanked me for not bringing my laptop over to his apartment when I came to hang out because it removed the temptation for me to disappear into my computer and ignore him. I immediately felt ashamed that he would have to thank me for such a thing.

Are we willing and able to acknowledge that despite the amazing things technology can do (because obviously I'm not anti-technology--it's an incredible tool), it also presents a danger in limiting our personal relationships? Are we willing to have contact with others where we are not fully in control of how much time and energy we invest in that interaction? Do we really want to know the answer to "How are you?", even if the answer might make us uncomfortable or, heaven forbid, take up our time?

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Field Notes #43: Camp Meeting

O, walk together children
Don't you get weary

There's a great camp meeting

In the Promised Land


I've sung that song before, but I had nooooo idea what it meant.

You can see and read my initial reactions to visiting the campground earlier this summer here. I won't bore you with the details again--suffice to say I was totally unprepared for the reality of Rock Springs Campmeeting.

"Tents," you say? Nope. Shacks that are worth upwards of $40,000 each. I'm talking open-air, wooden tents, sometimes two-story, usually with concrete floors (nowadays, anyway), and no AC.

But it didn't take me long during my first visit to the campground (pre-camp meeting) for the initial shock to wear off and a sense of charm and appreciation to seep in.

That sense only deepened Thursday night. They were having a special service for the youth, so I went to check it out. The band that played is called The Unworthy Beloved, and I have offered to help them establish a web presence, because they are very, very good. Musically speaking, they were tight and energetic--and now that I've been dating a drummer for almost a year and a half, I can say with confidence that their drummer is phenomenal.

Of course, it was more than that--the hour they played was a powerful hour of worship for me. They played some original worship songs but also a number of praise anthems by Hillsong ("Lead Me to the Cross," "From the Inside Out" and "Hosanna"), John Mark McMillian's ubiquitous "How He Loves," and the newly popular hymn "Jesus Paid It All," among others. It was great, and my first taste of how a very old tradition can bring people of all ages together.

The next night, I went again, this time mostly just wandering around and visiting with various church members I ran into as I made a loop. The campground is laid out in a square, with the arbor in the middle and "tents" in rows on all sides. People own family tents, but everyone is always in everyone else's space. There are kids everywhere, running free, because it's OK for them to do that.

Everyone has a swing or bench of some sort, and unless they're specifically doing something inside, they're out there sitting and talking. I had the pleasure of joining one church member on her swing for a bit, then barely making it around the next corner before being flagged down by yet another woman I knew from Hill's Chapel.

Sometimes I get frustrated because I feel like our seminary education can get too focused on deconstruction, and being at camp meeting was one of those times where I felt that way. I wanted to bemoan the fact that although the campground is a little haven for Christians to be in constant, trustful community with hundreds of people, the real world just isn't that way.

But you know--I think it was a little glimpse of the Kingdom. I'm not saying I'll be looking to find that great camp meeting in the Promised Land, but there's something in what I saw there that I think is a foretaste of heaven. The freedom of children to roam, the atmosphere of belonging and mutuality. In today's world, we live paralyzed by fear of each other. But I've been reading the obscure Old Testament prophets, and Haggai 2:5 says, "My spirit abides among you; do not fear." At camp meeting, folks freely acknowledge that abiding spirit, and in it they find freedom from fear, freedom to love.

The War Prayer

In my Old Testament class this past year, we read Mark Twain's poem The War Prayer. This is a short, powerful piece--so powerful that it led a friend of mine to drop out of ROTC, thereby forfeiting a scholarship and transferring to another college. Another friend posted this video on Facebook and I had to share it.


Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Field Notes #42: Janet and the Chocolate Ministry

Today, I had a unique ministry experience. I wasn't the one doing the ministering. After going to Gastonia's Shrimp Boat (which, ironically (the actual definition of "ironically"), is famous for its chicken) for lunch with Amber, I went back to her parents' house and spent the afternoon making chocolates with her mother, Janet Tatum.

Janet and her husband Lee are two wonderful members of Hill's Chapel. I've gotten to sing with both of them (and Amber) in choir and have had the privilege of interacting with them regularly over the summer. Janet is a master baker/confectioner, and I quickly learned that any event at which she is in attendance--whether a potluck, choir practice or Sunday School--will be met with something delicious. My first experience of Janet's baking involved mint chocolate chip cookies. I've also thoroughly enjoyed her Butterfinger blast, and I even liked her white chocolate chip cookies (I hate white chocolate--er, hated?).

Making chocolate with Janet was fun. Not only because the whole time Amber was there with Tyler, the 3-year-old she's watching for the month (who is super adorable and spent most of the day wearing firefighter boots and overalls), so there was plenty of background noise and action. But it was a creative process in and of itself. We had materials in plenty--chocolate, homemade caramel, malt balls, peanuts, Rice Krispies, pretzels and more. We just had to decide how to combine it.

Sitting here now, I can't even remember all the combinations we came up with, but they're all in my fridge in various bags and boxes (including one cute floral gift box). The purpose of the afternoon wasn't getting the chocolate, anyway--it was learning and spending time with Janet. She told me that chocolate became her therapy when she was going through chemo (Janet is a breast cancer survivor, and it actually hasn't been that long since she was diagnosed). She would bring chocolates to the doctor's office with her because, as she told me, "A nurse with chocolate breath is a happy nurse." She rattled off to me a list of people who like her confections--the vet, her pharmacist, the employees at Showmars, and so on. "So you give chocolate to everybody, huh?" I asked.

I like that. Something that has brought Janet joy through a fight with cancer and which brings her even more joy because she is able to share it with anyone and everyone. She didn't even need to call a committee or launch a ministry; she's just doing hospitality. And it is delicious.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Mary Magdalene Was Not a Prostitute

Mary Magdalene gets a bad rap. We like to depict her as the prostitute who did ridiculous things like washing Jesus' feet with her hair.

The problem is that there are several Marys in the New Testament, and they're not all the same. We have Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary the mother of James, Mary the mother of Joses, Mary the wife of Clopas, Mary the sister of Martha (that's the one who did the anointing), "the other Mary," and Mary Magdalene. Of course, some of these are the same person, but my point is that not every Mary mentioned in the Bible is necessarily either Jesus' mom or Mary Magdalene.

Mary Magdalene is explicitly referred to in Matthew, Mark and John as being one of the women who went to Jesus' tomb (see Matthew 28:1-4, Mark 16:1-8 and John 20:1-16). In these same three gospels, she was also present at Jesus' death, and in Matthew and Mark, at Jesus' burial;

The only really strange mention of Mary Magdalene is in reference to her having been cured of demon possession. This is found in the longer ending of Mark and Luke 8:2.

So where did this idea that she's a prostitute come from? Get this. It's because in Luke 7, an unnamed woman washes Jesus' feet, and he declares, "her many sins have been forgiven." Now, I won't bother going into too much detail on how we can't even be positive this is Mary Magdalene (at best we can peg her as Mary of Bethany, Martha's sister), but the even bigger issue is the assumption the church made.

All we know from the text is that the woman is sinful. What her sins are, we do not know. But to the ancient church (and, um, the modern church), the automatic conclusion is that a sinful woman is a sexually promiscuous woman. Ergo, sinful chick who may or may not even be named Mary = Mary Magdalene is a prostitute.

This is troubling to me. It is even more so because of the way we talk about prostitutes and women's sexuality in general. I decided to write this blog when I recently saw a skit/talk where Mary Magdalene was described as a prostitute and said to have washed Jesus' feet with her hair. When one speaker asked jokingly if that meant she ran a salon, the other replied, "Well, not that kind of salon."

Sure, it's funny. I was amused for a moment, and all the teenagers present laughed. I love irreverent humor and can handle bawdy jokes as long as they're mildly clever. But we couldn't have known every listener's sexual history. How did we know there wasn't someone among us who had at some point sold their body or been sexually exploited? Because, guess what, even unwanted sexual contact brands a woman as somehow damaged. That's a problem, especially when 1 in 4 women will be sexually assaulted sometime in their life.

So can we please stop saying Mary Magdalene was a prostitute? Can we please start to combat the incredibly negative view of female sexuality that prevails in the church? It would be fine if she were a prostitute and Jesus forgave her, but the assumption that the worst thing a woman could do would be something sexual is a problem.

Note that Mary Magdalene was the first person to whom the resurrected Christ appeared. Heck, Mary Magdalene basically delivered the first sermon. Check out John 20:17-18--she's the first person to proclaim the resurrection. Take that, anti-women-in-the-pulpit people.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Beauty, Good and Evil

Tonight, I led a Sunday evening worship service where the theme was "Beauty." I had one attendee, and per Matthew 18:20, that was just fine with me.

Before the service started, I decided to Google quotes about beauty. I was expecting fluffy sentimentalism about the clouds and sunsets, and there was plenty of that, but I also found a few warnings. The one that stuck out to me came from St. Augustine:

"Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked."

You know what this made me think of? Vampires.

OK, pop culture seems obsessed with vampires right now. Let me just set the record straight: I loathe Twilight. Loathe. I'll spare you my rant.

But I recently started watching the TV series Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. (Sidebar: Joss Whedon is brilliant.) My boyfriend (who is responsible for getting me into Buffy) was telling me the other day that one thing he likes about that series is how they represent vampires.

Most depictions of vampires go to one extreme or another. On one end, you have creatures that are clearly monsters (see 30 Days of Night). Pointy teeth, black eyes, definitely not human. Excuse me, I think you have a little blood on your chin. I'm going to go run and hide now. Call me back when the sun comes out. In a month.

On the opposite end, you have sexy pasty, dreamy creepy immortals who go to high school over and over again (WHY???), stalk teenage girls...and sparkle.

I said I wasn't going to rant.

Anyway, what my boyfriend said he appreciates about the vampires in Buffy is that a lot of the time they look like regular people--and not just regular people, but dark, mysterious, sexy people (oh, David Boreanaz...be still, my beating heart).

However, when they reveal their true selves, HOLY CRAP.

*whimper*

Temptation wouldn't be tempting if it didn't look good. If evil always showed its true face, we wouldn't have this whole sin problem.

Here's another quote I found and liked:

"That which is striking and beautiful is not always good, but that which is good is always beautiful."

That's from somebody named Ninon de L'Enclos. So if something's beautiful, we know it's either good or bad, but if it's not beautiful, it's bad.

Of course, that just begs the question of our standards of beauty...but the fact remains that although we should always honor beauty in the natural world, in people, in worship, in the arts, etc., we should also be cautious of its seductive power and be able to distinguish true beauty from false beauty.

When you figure out how to do that, give me a call.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Turn Around

At CCC, the senior high youth from HCUMC performed a skit as part of the Friday night campfire. It was to the Bonnie Raitt song "Total Eclipse of the Heart." (Sidebar: if you haven't seen the YouTube video "Total Eclipse of the Heart: Literal Video Version," bookmark that link and watch it after you read this.)

The skit was incredibly moving, and the youth did a great job with it. I'll spare you a lengthy description and just direct you to the video below of another group performing it. The addition that really shook me is that the girl playing the main part was Tristan, and her dad was an adult leader at CCC; at one point in the part where she was being pushed around inside the circle, she broke out, screamed "Daddy!" and ran to hug him before Amber, who was playing the Satanic character, pulled her away and back into the circle. I definitely cried.

Here's the thing. To my knowledge, I don't know that any of these kids have theater training. I know a number of the girls are very active in dance, but these are not the drama club nerds. I've seen it over and over again--kids you wouldn't normally see in an acting capacity get brought into a skit or drama for youth group, and they do a superb job. There's something about the sheer power of what's communicated through the drama that pulls in kids that you might never see on stage elsewhere.

This is proof to me that the arts have a very important place in the life of the church and that they can and should be accessible to everyone, regardless of "talent" or even interest. That's why someday I want a job with the words "worship" and "arts" in the title or description. There is a quality to the arts that is capable of transcending all sorts of boundaries and bringing people together for a common cause: in this case, for proclaiming a message of hope and redemption in Christ.


Thursday, July 22, 2010

Field Notes #41: Sunday Evening Worship: Beauty

Twice this summer I've helped lead a low-key Sunday evening worship service, along with Jon Dwyer, a college student from Hill's Chapel. We got off schedule with the 4th of July and the youth mission trip, and Jon may actually still be out of town this Sunday, but I'm gonna go ahead and have a service, partly so I can get one more in before my summer ends and partly because with no youth leaders in town this weekend, I want to make something available for the youth to be a part of. I decided that the theme this week will be "Beauty." Two of the songs we learned at CCC had to do with that motif, so I chose those and 4 more songs:


I'll be thinking of Scripture, poetry, quotations, etc. to help us think about the theme. I'm excited.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Rubik's Cube Faith

I hate the Rubik's cube. It baffles me completely. Yes, I know, there's a systematic way to solve it, but that kind of stuff just doesn't fit in my brain. I'm not good at spatial calculations, and fortunately for my driving record, my bad depth perception errs on the side of caution.

At CCC last week, two of the counselors did a brief skit/devotion with a Rubik's cube. While Daniel paced around solving the puzzle, Zach talked about how solving a Rubik's cube is kind of like how God leads us through our lives. We're the Rubik's cube--we're just a jumbled mess and can't get ourselves straightened out. But God knows what our lives are supposed to look like. God has a plan.

One of the things that has frustrated me most when I've tried to solve a Rubik's cube in the past is that you'll get to where you're almost done, but there's just one or two squares out of place. The things is, in that situation, you have to backtrack and stuff has to get jumbled up again before it can all be straightened out. I hate that part. I would get so close and then be told that if I wanted to complete the puzzle, I'd have to scramble all my hard work. I didn't want to do that. I'd have to let go of my almost (but not quite) perfect Rubik's cube.

That's the part of this metaphor that really stuck out to me. When we're following Christ, we have to be willing to go places that may not fit our idea of how this thing called life should go. We might get really close to where we think we need to be and then have to take a detour to actually get there.

I've got two verses from Proverbs that relate to this:


"The human mind plans the way,
but the Lord directs the steps." -- Proverbs 16:9


"All our steps are ordered by the Lord;

how then can we understand our own ways?" -- Proverbs 20:24



That first one is a verse I've spent a good bit of time with because I'm a planner and need to learn that whatever agenda I set, God has something much better in mind. The second one is another I've read before, but the idea of not understanding our own ways interests me. I've used the image of walking in pitch dark with only a flashlight to guide our steps (or sometimes, I've said, a cell phone). We can't always see the big picture of why things are coming together (or falling apart) the way they are. That doesn't mean we can explain everything away as being God's will; it means that we can let go of the need to understand. How freeing.

One more thing this line of thought reminded me of is a prayer by Thomas Merton from Thoughts in Solitude. This is one of my favorite prayers, and I recently realized it's printed in the back of the Bible I use most frequently these days. Here it is, with underlining added in the places I feel are most relevant:


My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.


Amen.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Field Notes #40: Rescheduling the Psalms Class

I had one person show up for the Psalms class tonight, and although it was a cool person, I decided it would be best if I didn't hold a class that was just me and a married man. Besides, the Psalms of vengeance make for awesome discussion, and I'd really like to be able to share what I've learned with more people, so I'm gonna reschedule it for next Tuesday. I've also made a new bulletin insert to advertise the class. I'm going for the shock factor. :)

Field Notes #39: Water Games, Ice Cream & a Movie

Here are some pictures from our fellowship event at the church on Sunday night. We got a good 30 minutes of outside time before the storm rolled through, at which point we sought refuge and ice cream indoors. The sun did come back out later. It was fun.


Field Notes #38: The Happy Timers

Yesterday I ended up going out to lunch twice. I had planned to have lunch with Jeana, our music director, and her daughter Celeste at 1:00, but I also got invited to Wendy's at 11:00 with the Happy Timers, a group of older folks that gets together about once a month to go out to lunch. I figured I'd swing by Wendy's, maybe get a little snack, and still be hungry when Jeana arrived.

I had fun at Wendy's. I've been a little surprised at how much I've enjoyed getting to know the older folks at the church. I know that sounds bad, but it's more that this summer I've had my eyes opened to issues with the elderly that hadn't occurred to me before.

All my life there have been older men and women who have had a profound impact on me; the first person I think of is James Alexander, the late lay leader at Davidson United Methodist Church, where I spent 12 years from age 4 to age 16. James was truly a saint--since he shared his first name with my dad, we referred to them as "James the Elder" and "James the Younger," or, alternatively, James Alexander would become "James the Wiser." His passing was a significant loss for me, even though my family had since moved to Charlotte.

And of course, there are my maternal grandparents. Mimi and Pop, as we call them, have always been a huge part of my life; in fact, only in recent years am I realizing just how much their presence has shaped me. As the first grandchild (and the only one for a little over 2 years), I experienced their omnipresence in a way that my siblings and cousins simply didn't. Now that I am older, I have found in my grandmother a wise counselor and in my grandfather a source of ministry wisdom and really terrible jokes.

But my grandparents have always been active and youthful, always younger-looking and more independent than many of their peers. Only in the past few years have I noticed any sort of decline in their health, and that has been distressing. So when I came to Hill's Chapel, I had little to no experience with shut-ins and the chronically ill and elderly. Home visits were not something that would have occurred to me unless someone had just come home from the hospital, but I've been able to tag along with Val on visits to several folks who simply can't make it to church or much of anywhere anymore.

So, back to Wendy's. I've gotten to know some of the old men in the church through various things, including a monthly coffee break Val's been hosting, and I've really enjoyed that. They have stories and they are characters. In checking in with my lay training committee at the church, I was telling one of its members how I've been pleasantly surprised at the amount of interaction I've had with the older churchgoers, and he made a good point: older men are one of the most neglected groups in the church. Women continue to stay involved in the church as they get older, but many men are unable to keep doing so in the ways in which they were accustomed in their younger days.

I hadn't really thought about that. I borrowed a book from my boyfriend called Why Men Hate Going to Church--I haven't read it yet, but part of what Gary told me is in it is that men like to accomplish things, and when they aren't given the opportunity to do so, they get bored and disconnected. In that sense, it seems logical to me that as men slowly lose physical health and strength, they can drift away from the church; and it seems to me that widowers are even more likely to lose touch without a wife to keep them connected.

I'm grateful for the opportunities I've had to interact with the older and wiser members of this church. Some of these people were baptized at Hill's Chapel and have truly been here all their life. They are our link to the history of the church, and we cannot leave them out in this fast-paced modern society.

Monday, July 19, 2010

What I'm Reading #10: Stuff Christians Like (Jonathan Acuff)

Stuff Christians Like, by Jonathan Acuff

A long time ago, I became a fan of the blog Stuff White People Like. So when I found out that there was a blog called Stuff Christians Like (which Acuff, its author, admits is a shameless ripoff of SWPL), I was pretty excited. And, just as I own Christian Lander's book SWPL, as soon as SCL hit the shelves I was on board.

So what kinds of things do Christians like? Well, as you can tell from the book cover, one thing is The Side Hug. A few of my favorites include the following:

  • Falling in Love on a Mission Trip
  • Using "Let Me Pray About It" as a Euphemism for "No"
  • The Metrosexual Worship Leader
  • Losing the Will to Clap During Songs
  • Subtly Finding Out if You Drink Beer Too
  • Judging People Who Use the Table of Contents in the Bible

And so on, and so forth. Acuff's observations come out of his experience in a large evangelical church--he mentions being in worship with a few thousand people--so there are a few things I can laugh at as somewhat of an outsider, but for the most part, I'm laughing at myself.

I found that Acuff's writing is not only funny but also insightful. His language is engaging, incisive and witty, and he doesn't always feel the need to make a profound theological point in an entry--though often the points make themselves. Acuff's writing style is what I would like to be able to do, though he's fortunate enough to be a professional writer and advertiser and other things that are great training for this kind of writing.

I've found myself convicted by a lot of what he says. He talks about how we tell people we'll pray for them, then don't--he makes it sound funny, but the other day I received an email from my dad telling me that a friend of his has a terrible cancer all throughout his abdomen and is undergoing experimental chemotherapy, but he also can't eat because the growth is blocking his digestive system. I found myself writing back, "I'll be praying for him," and then I asked myself...Will you really? So, thanks to SCL, I started a list on a notepad on my desk. I'm going to do my best to write down names anytime I agree to pray for someone. Because I want to--but Christians are people too, often failures at being people.

The last section of the book is called "Saturday Night Cryfest." Having been on countless retreats and mission trips, I was laughing as soon as I read the title. But I was not prepared for the essays in this chapter. They were legitimately profound and moving. Some of them were humorous, but these were more pointed, more reflective. Facebook Friend-Suggesting Jesus. Confessing "Safe Sins." Pretending We Believe All Sins Are Equal. Guilt Trips. This is where Acuff really got to me, and my view of the book as funny but true was elevated beyond that. I read most of this book on a mission trip, and two of our daily devotionals were actually written by him, which just made me smile.

I would definitely recommend this book. It's an easy read, each entry is max 1.5 pages or so, it's hilarious, and it'll make you think. Besides, I think we Christians need to get better at laughing at ourselves. We can be pretty ridiculous.


Favorite Quotations

"I've never gotten a speeding ticket, but if I ever do, I want to be honest with you. I'm going to name-drop God. Not just a little bit. I'm going to name-drop God so hard and so often in that conversation with the cop that God in heaven is going to stop playing Battleship with Peter and say, 'Hold up, did someone just give me a shout-out? Is is the Grammys already?'" -- Name-Dropping God to Get Out of a Speeding Ticket

"Saying 'I don't feel led' is the greatest way to get out of a Christian chore, like having a daily quiet time. Which, by the way, shouldn't feel like a chore. It should feel like an uncontainable desire to spend time with the Lord. [...] So to assuage that guilt of not having a consistent quiet time, you'll say, 'I don't want to just go through the motions with my quiet time. [...] Until I'm sincere, I'll respect [God] enough to avoid him.'" -- Having a Spiritual Excuse Not to Have a Spiritual Discipline

"If your girlfriend goes on a mission trip without you and immediately tells you 'we need to talk' upon getting back, don't say I didn't warn you." -- Falling in Love on a Mission Trip

"I am slightly terrified that you will think I am a snake-handling Christian." -- Trying to Say Something Christiany Without Looking Like a Snake Handler

"Time after time, the answer to the question 'Who is carrying that with you?' comes back as 'no one.' But it's not one of those questions you can ask and then disappear as soon as you've friend suggested Jesus. You have to be willing to carry the 'all that' with the person you're talking with. You can't fade into the weeds of life like dissolving into the sea of profiles on Facebook. That's why witnessing is hard. That's why it's easier to friend suggest Jesus to strangers than it is to introduce your friend Jesus to someone." -- Facebook Friend-Suggesting Jesus

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Field Notes #37: Youth Sunday!


Youth Sunday this morning was awesome! The youth led worship, we opened with "Prince of Peace" and "Marvelous Light," baby Grayson was baptized, several youth shared about their experiences at CCC, I preached a sermon that got finished at about 9:45 a.m., the girls and I sang "You're Beautiful" during the offertory, Jenni and Maddie led the children's message, we showed a video I put together of pictures from the trip (see below!), and we ended by singing "Shine, Jesus, Shine." It was one of the more uplifting, energetic church services I've been to in a while. Our youth are great.



And here's my sermon:

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"

"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

-- Luke 10:38-42


Martha is annoyed. Her sister is just sitting there. This isn’t the first time she’s been stuck doing the work while Mary goofs off. It seems that Mary has a habit of doing things that seem pointless and wasteful. In John 12, we see Martha serving a meal while Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with costly perfume. She is essentially dumping out a year’s worth of wages. The disciples protest, not simply at the wastefulness but because, as they say, that perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor. Jesus’ response seems almost harsh: “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.” Is Jesus telling us not to bother helping the poor?

I’ve never really liked the story of Mary and Martha. The moral of the story seems simple enough at first: if you are focused on Jesus and on his words, like Mary was, then you don’t have to worry about doing anything, like Martha did. But the pragmatist in me screams, “What about lunch?? Somebody has to make lunch! Jesus is fully human, he gets hungry!”

My main issue with this passage is that I have always had a hard time figuring out what the story says about faith and action. Sometimes, we make Mary and Martha into one-dimensional metaphors for the Christian life. Some people are Marys: they have the gifts of prayer and contemplation. Other people are Marthas: they make the casserole for the potluck and volunteer at Christian Ministries. We need both to be the church.

But that’s not quite right, is it? Certainly we all have different spiritual gifts, but this passage isn’t about God-given talents; it’s about how we use them. Did you notice what Jesus said? He said, “Mary has chosen what is better.” Mary made a choice. Her choice was to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen to his words. Her choice was to be at peace in the presence of her Lord.

Martha made a choice, too. But that choice was less about what she was doing and more about how she was doing it. This passage is not telling us only to listen and never to act; that goes against the spirit of the gospel. Besides, right before the story of Mary and Martha is the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Good Samaritan doesn’t even believe in God, but he is the model of love and mercy that Jesus describes.

Martha’s problem is not that she’s busy; it’s that she’s worried and distracted. Martha is stressed out. More than that, she’s bitter that Mary isn’t helping her. Martha chooses to let her actions get in the way of her intended love and hospitality instead of flowing from it. She even becomes a tattletale—instead of asking Mary for help, she goes to Jesus: “don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

This scene reminds me of countless childhood squabbles with my little sister. Grace would take something of mine or vice versa, and before you knew it, a familiar sound was ringing through the halls. “Moooo-oooom!” Sometimes my parents would get tired of it and basically say, “I don’t care” if it wasn’t a big deal. This would annoy the daylights out of me because it made it seem like whatever possession Grace had swiped was not important. Most likely, it really wasn’t all that important. But I was not willing to admit that, and neither was Martha.

The story of Mary and Martha tells us that how and why we do things is just as important as what we do. In fact, it may well be more important in many cases. Not only that, but Jesus is telling them and us precisely what is the most important thing: he is. Martha has made the story about herself; Jesus insists that she make it about him.

Remember the story I mentioned earlier about Mary wasting all that perfume? When Jesus said, “The poor you will always have with you,” the disciples would have known that Jesus was actually quoting Deuteronomy 15:11. This verse begins, “There will always be poor people in the land.” But it doesn’t stop there. “Therefore,” it reads, “I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.” Therefore. Jesus wants us to help others, but he knows that the work of serving the poor is endless. We cannot approach such a task unless our purpose and hope comes from him. Jesus must come first; without him, we are helpless to do anything in the face of human need.

I was privileged to spend the past week with our youth group at Carolina Cross Connection, or CCC. As a first-timer at CCC, I was moved by how intentionally the program connected work, prayer and fellowship. We started each morning with prayer or worship, before we even got our work assignment for the day. The staff members told us repeatedly that although our work projects were important in and of themselves, more important were the relationships we might form with the people we were serving. We went to work, but we also went to sit, to listen, to talk. And everything we did was made possible by and was ultimately for God. Maybe we didn’t hammer nails any differently than any other volunteer might have, but the inherent connection with God and with others made a huge difference in what we were doing.

If you think about it, none of what we did would have made any sense if not for that—why in the world would someone expect, let alone allow, a group of teenagers and adults of varying levels of experience build a 20-foot wheelchair ramp? Why else would 13-year-olds be using power tools?

I realized that CCC was the embodiment of what Luke is trying to tell us in the Mary and Martha story. Psalm 127:1 says, “Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain.” It’s not about what we do. It’s about how and why we do it, and for whom we do it. CCC forced us to take the focus off ourselves for a week. None of what the youth and adults did this past week benefited them in any tangible way; in fact, particularly for working adults, it sounds crazy—take a week off work to sweat all day on a construction project in the middle of the North Carolina summer? And not get paid? Wait, we pay them to let us do that? It’s not about what we do. It’s about how, why, and for whom. The funny thing is that the answer to all of those questions should be the same. How? Like Jesus. With Jesus. Why? Because of Jesus. For whom? For Jesus and for his glory. Let’s not get worried and distracted. Let’s stay focused on God.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

"You're Beautiful" Phil Wickham

I had never heard this song until we sang it several times this past week at CCC. I am now completely obsessed, and this video is pretty awesome. Watch/listen to this NOW.

Field Notes #36: Faith in Action. Love in Person. CCC 2010.

I am SO clean right now. My shower/bath this afternoon involved 2 kinds of shampoo, conditioner, 2 kinds of soap, facial cleanser, body wash and lavender-scented Epsom salt. I feel glorious. My fingers and toes are even pruning, and being the short shower advocate that I am, I can't remember the last time that happened that wasn't swimming-related.

The rigorous cleaning was my response to a week-long accumulation of paint, dirt, grass, sweat, sawdust, and bug bites.

[Speaking of which, I have two bones to pick with God: ticks and chiggers. What is their purpose in creation? Seriously! They are evil! (No ticks this week, but chiggers? Oh yeah. Hence the Epsom salt.)]

ANYWAY. I just got back from a week of camp with Carolina Cross Connection. Here's the description from the organization's website:

"Carolina Cross Connection is a Christian outreach ministry in western North Carolina. It is an opportunity for youth, youth groups, college-age folks, and adults to spend a week of their summer serving families in need. Campers will perform a variety of home repairs, such as building wheelchair ramps, repairing porches, painting, yard work, and much more. Campers also strive to meet the social, emotional, and spiritual needs of the folks we work for, and to share the love of Christ with them. CCC is also an opportunity for youth and adults to grow in their faith through worship, devotions, team-building, and other in-camp activities led by our summer staff."

Their motto is "Faith in Action. Love in Person." I had a great week at CCC and now consider myself a supporter of the program. CCC is held at a variety of locations around North Carolina; this year, HCUMC was at Joshua Youth Camp, a Free Will Baptist youth camp in Albemarle. The facilities are undoubtedly camp-like but still great, and each day we were sent out in small groups to work for people in Albemarle, Concord and everywhere in between.

I could tell a zillion stories about CCC (and some will probably come out later--most likely in my sermon for tomorrow, actually), but I'm going to try to be brief. Perhaps what I liked the most about CCC was that I felt like they struck a great balance among several important things, namely worship/spiritual formation, service, and fellowship. I've been on all kinds of mission trips in my life, and I've had great experiences, but the intentionality of CCC's schedule was, I think, a wonderful embodiment of the life to which Christians are called.

Anyone who knows me can see this comparison coming a mile away, but I found myself thinking about how monastic life depends on a rhythm of ora et labora--prayer and work. At Christ in the Desert Monastery in New Mexico, the monks at this Benedictine monastery follow a disciplined schedule of prayer (7 times a day, starting at 4:00 a.m.), and in between, they do manual labor and study. I couldn't help but see our week of camp as reflecting that general idea--each day, we rose at 7:00, ate breakfast, had morning watch (devotion/quiet time with God) or worship, went out into the community to work, returned for dinner followed by fellowship and fun activities (funtivities?), and we ended our day with worship.

That's awesome. So much youth ministry responds to our culture's self-centeredness by feeding it, but the very design of CCC is to take these teenagers' (and adults'!) focus off themselves for a week. Just about everything we did was geared toward pulling us out of ourselves to center on God and to see him in other people.

Like I said, I'll probably tell more specific CCC stories later, and since this week's Gospel lesson is Mary and Martha, you can bet I've got plenty of sermon material to draw on now. Speaking of which, I should go write that...

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Field Notes #35: Carolina Cross Connection

This morning we're headed out on a youth mission trip! We're going with Carolina Cross Connection (CCC) to Joshua Youth Camp in Albemarle. We'll be working in the area, worshipping and eating together, and I don't know what else, but I'm looking forward to being a part of it!

Friday, July 9, 2010

The Kind of Person Who Would Date a Black Guy

Recently, I was catching up on life with an old friend, and as usual our conversation turned to dating. She gave me the 411 on her romantic life, then asked me about my going-on-17-months relationship with my boyfriend, Gary. I told her about music, church and his recent trip to El Salvador, and then she said something that I found amusing. "When I saw you were dating Gary, I was shocked," she said. "I just never thought you were the kind of person who would date a black guy."

Now I'm paraphrasing, and also let me give you some background: we were at a gathering of a bunch of her friends, several of whom are black. She didn't intend that as a derogatory comment at all. But it made me chuckle, and I recalled that there are actually several people in my life who have said things like "I always knew you'd end up with a black guy." Heck, I've said that myself.

But what does that mean? What are we saying when we refer to the kind of person who would date a black guy? Let me just give you a few images of that "kind of person":

That's Heidi Klum, supermodel and actress, on the left; her husband is English singer Seal. And on the right is Idina Menzel, the original Elphaba in the Broadway musical Wicked, and more recently Lea Michele/Rachel Berry's mother Shelby in the Fox television series Glee; her husband is Taye Diggs, whom she met when they were both in the original Broadway cast of Rent.

And for that matter...

On the left is Jada Pinkett Smith, actress/producer/director/singer, and wife of the ubiquitous Will Smith. And on the right--do I really have to do this?--first lady Michelle Obama, Princeton University and Harvard Law graduate and husband to Barack Obama (yeah, yeah, he's only half black--Gary's 1/8 Cherokee).

(Side note: I had to laugh at myself--I named these images "heididina.jpg" and "jadabama.jpg" on my laptop.)

I talked to my dad about this the other day--he had overheard a conversation the other day where a white man was talking about someone and mentioned that "she's got herself a black boyfriend." It's interesting that we find that kind of thing worth pointing out. Sure, it's not the norm--but it's funny how we can be pointing out people in a room and say, "the guy in the red shirt is Bob, the girl in the blue shirt is Susie, and the black guy is Rob." That's not necessarily wrong--I mean, if there's one black guy in the room, it's easiest to point him out by referring to his skin color. If I'm the only white girl around (which happens to me pretty regularly), I have no problem being "the white girl."

A few months ago, a friend of mine (who is white) told Gary and I about a frustrating experience he'd had at work. He was interviewing for a job and felt like it went really well. Later, however, his superiors told him they were concerned because he had said a few things that people might find racist. Here they are: first, my friend (who is also a musician) had been talking about a guy he knows who's a brilliant piano player, and he mentioned that he plays at a black church. Second, he referred to a client he'd been dealing with recently on the phone; her name was "Rosa," and my friend had no idea what ethnicity she was, but since she pronounced her name by rolling the "r," he did the same. His superiors felt like the reference to "a black church" was racist, and that he was mocking Rosa by pronouncing her name the way it's meant to be pronounced.

I had to laugh at that. I'm sure that in professional situations you have to be particularly sensitive to such things, but I had to think, I feel like only white people who don't really know any non-white people would say something like that is racist. "Am I racist if I say I have a black boyfriend?" I asked. True, if I'm around black people I don't know, I'll use the term "African-American" if I have occasion to refer to race--but my dad pointed out that not all black people are African-American. What about Haitians? And there's a difference between Africans and African-Americans, both ethnically and culturally, even within the U.S.

Anyway, this is just me throwing stuff out there to think about. Do you have to be a certain kind of person to date outside your racial/ethnic background? If so, what does that even mean? If we all are made in the image of God, what does that mean for how we understand race?

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Field Notes #34: Sarah's Workspace

Since my room is a disaster right now, I decided to work in the living room today. At some point I took a look at my workspace (since it's not an office) and had to laugh. A Bible, a Book of Worship, my guitar, sheet music, my laptop...definitely *my* space.

Numbers, Atheists and Responsible Evangelism

I've always had good theological instincts. If something bothers me, it's probably for a reason, even if I can't quite put my finger on it or explain it.

So when I recently had an experience with some folks who were tallying up the number of people with whom they had had evangelistic encounters, I swallowed the discomfort I felt and responded graciously. I wanted to appreciate their genuineness, and decided I'd return to the question later.

To be fair, I hate numbers in general. I don't like math, my recent efforts at Scripture memorization have been hindered by an inability to recall chapter and verse, and I use what I call "my handy-dandy tip calculator" in my cell phone when paying the bill at restaurants. If I'm looking at a room of people, whether it's 7 people or 700, I am utterly unable to estimate the number present.

That aside, I have to admit that numbers are not unimportant. I talked to my dad about this, and he pointed out that when taking attendance in worship, it matters whether there are 150 or 151 people in the congregation--because that 151st person is valuable in and of himself or herself.

Another image I thought of is this: my boyfriend is a musician and frequently plays for tips. When he's counting up his $1 bills, he likes to think of each bill as representing a person who took the time to listen to his music and to dig out their wallet; so with each dollar bill, he prays for the unknown person behind it.

But a preoccupation with numbers makes me nervous. Yesterday I read an article from the Huffington Post called "Thank God for Atheists" that helped me figure out what exactly was troubling me. In it, Tom Krattenmaker tells about Jim Henderson, "a recovering evangelist," who decided at one point that he hated evangelizing and needed a different way to share his faith. Here's the part that resonated with me:

"Henderson realized he was doing unto others what he would never want done unto him. He was manipulating conversations to set up a pitch. Viewing people as potential notches on his evangelism belt rather than fellow sojourners and prospective friends. Listening only to the extent it could reveal an argumentative opening. He realized he hated the whole enterprise."


That's how I've always felt about evangelism in general. In fact, for a year or so, I only referred to it as "the E-word." This is wrong, of course; I've since come to the conclusion that although evangelism is not my primary vocation, it is the calling and duty of every Christian. But Henderson realized something very important: anytime a non-believer becomes a potential believer instead of a person, something is wrong.

Henderson found that having genuine friendships with atheists was immensely helpful for him developing a sense of his own faith and religion. The perspective of someone with an outside view of Christianity can reveal things that other Christians wouldn't even think about.

Of course, Christians aren't always very good at having genuine relationships with non-believers. Sometimes the potential for them to convert becomes the sole reason for maintaining the friendship. I've seen this happen and it seems so strange to me. One of my best friend is a self-professed "apathetic agnostic." I've never really thought about the possibility of him coming to Christ. I guess I'm supposed to at least hope for that--but I love him as he is, not as he might be. Not to mention that he has been a far better friend and moral compass that a lot of Christians I've known over the years...and since he knows me so well, I'm acutely aware that I haven't exactly been a model of what a Christian life should look like.

The sad truth is that I often feel more comfortable around non-believers than some Christians, which is disturbing. Some of that, I'll admit, is my own pride and residual theological elitism I'm still trying to get over. But I remember watching the movie Jesus Camp and feeling really, really uncomfortable. Granted, if church isn't making you uncomfortable, it's not doing its job (or you're not doing your part). But it's that sentiment about which Jim Henderson expressed concern--that's what gets me. The worldview of some atheists/agnostics is closer to mine than that of certain Christian groups.

So. Do numbers matter? Yes--in that each number represents a person whose life is precious in the eyes of God and should be treated as such by other people. That preciousness is unconditional.

You still won't catch me dealing with attendance or the budget if I can help it.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Field Notes #33: Preaching on July 4: "I Wanna Get Washed Up"

(That's me wading in the Dead Sea in the spring of 1995.)

The Jordan River is not a very big river in global terms, but it is an important resource in the dry land through which it runs. For millennia, many peoples have depended on its water, often clashing over use and ownership of the currents. In the Old Testament, the Jordan often outlines someone’s inheritance; it also has served as a border of ancient Israel and as the site of army encampments in times of war. In the New Testament, it is where the first Christians are baptized—and where Jesus himself is baptized. Today, many make pilgrimages to the Jordan River to stand in its waters and remember their baptism or to be baptized. I received a blessing from an old friend in this very river when I traveled to Israel at age 8. Of course, the Jordan’s history of conflict and warfare is far from over; it is still a symbol of national pride in the Arab/Israeli conflict, and disputes over land ownership and use of the water rage on even today.

This little river becomes a major player in the story we just heard from 2 Kings. The narrative is full of irony—servants, prophets and a small water source end up being more important than kings and generals. If this were a Hollywood film, Naaman and the king of Israel would be on the movie poster, but they end up looking pretty foolish. Naaman is told that a prophet in Israel can heal him, so he writes to the king. Either he misunderstands the servant girl or just assumes that if any help can come from Israel, surely it would come from royalty. Similarly, the king of Israel is immediately suspicious of Naaman’s request, assuming he is trying to pick a fight—remember, this is an enemy general occupying Israeli land. Notice that both men make assumptions, both of which turn out to be wrong. Because of their pride, communication breaks down and Naaman almost misses his chance to be healed.

On the other hand, the servant girl and Elisha barely make cameos in the story, but they’re the ones who know what’s going on. This shows that this passage isn’t about Naaman and the king of Israel. But it’s not about the servant or Elisha, either. This story is about God. God is the main character. It would be hard to create a movie poster for such a plot, but let’s explore this a little further.

God has a hand in events from the very beginning of this passage. God’s first mention is actually pretty strange: the writer says that God used Naaman to give Aram victory. But wait, these are the bad guys. This is victory against Israel, God’s chosen people. What’s that about? I have two theories: one, that this is evidence that although God is not just at work among his people; and two, this is dramatic irony—Naaman may not realize it, but he already has reason to be grateful to the God of Israel.

The next time God’s name is mentioned, the king of Israel is getting something right: He cries, “Am I God, to give death or life?” We can pretty safely assume that this is a rhetorical question, and the answer is “No.” I could go on for a while about the implications of this—suffice to say that when answered truthfully, this question impacts our thoughts and decisions on healthcare, war, the justice system and much, much more.

Scanning the passage further, God comes up again as part of the title “Elisha the man of God.” Interesting that Naaman went first for help to the king and not to the man of God. But Elisha reaches out to Naaman anyway, saying, “Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” Even Elisha doesn’t get it yet: the miracle that’s coming up isn’t about his legitimacy as a prophet; it’s about God’s power and mercy. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Elisha tells Naaman exactly what he must to do be cured: wash in the Jordan River seven times. Sounds pretty simple, right? But Naaman is downright offended at this. He was looking for something more impressive. He was a victorious general, after all; he deserved it! Naaman says, “I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy!” “For me,” he says. Naaman thinks he deserves a special miracle, not one that requires him to wash in a dinky river in Israel. And you know what else he says? “The Lord his God.” Naaman is not claiming the God of Israel in any form but a utilitarian one at this point. You’d think Elisha would just say, “Forget it.” And maybe he did—we don’t see Elisha again in this passage.

Luckily for Naaman, his servants keep their cool. Here we go with the minor characters again. I love what they say to their master: “If the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it?” Naaman wanted a flashy miracle. He wanted a magic trick or an impressive feat with which he could earn his healing. His pride was keeping him from the thing he needed most. The servants point out, “All he said to you was, ‘Wash, and be clean.’” “Wash, and be clean.” Naaman is embarrassed, insulted even, at the simplicity of the task. “Wash, and be clean.”

Naaman’s reaction reflects not only excessive pride but also a lack of trust. William Sloane Coffin said wisely, “faith is not believing without proof but trusting without reservation.” I’m never really bothered when someone challenges me that there is no proof for the existence of God. Reason and knowledge are a part of faith, but they are not its substance. Love and trust are. Naaman had reservations that kept him from trusting, the main one being that he had a preconceived notion of what the miracle he sought would look like.

Did you ever hear the joke about the man who climbed onto the roof of his house during a flood? He prayed and prayed to God to send him help as the waters rose closer and closer to the top of the house. Before long, some people paddled by in a canoe. “Come on!” they cried, “Let us get you out of here!” But the man replied, “No, I’m waiting for God to rescue me.” A little later, a family drove by in a motorboat and offered to pick him up; again the man refused. As the waters started to lap at his feet, a helicopter flew down and tried to rescue him; but he stayed put. Finally, the man drowned, and when he went to heaven, he immediately marched up to God. “I’ve been a faithful Christian all my life,” he said, “and I prayed for you to rescue me, and you didn’t! Where were you?” God replied, “Good grief man, I sent you a canoe, a motorboat and a helicopter. What more did you want from me?”

Naaman almost ends up in the same boat as that man. (Pun intended.) If the miracle wasn’t going to happen his way, he just wasn’t going to accept it. Good thing he listened to his servants.

The only other reference to God in this passage is a mention of Elisha again as “the man of God.” The story ends with Naaman washing in the Jordan and being cured of his disease. But if we look at the next verse, we see that this isn’t just a healing narrative. Here’s verse 15: “Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company; he came and stood before him and said, ‘Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.’” Elisha wanted to show Naaman that there was a prophet in Israel; he ended up introducing him to the God of Israel.

Here’s the interesting thing: Naaman’s faith was not a condition of his healing. His healing led to his faith. Here’s how Kathleen Robertson Farmer puts it: “It is his experience of salvation that brings about his faith, not the other way around! ...the grace of God is extended to those who do nothing to qualify for salvation.”

The response of many Christians to that statement may well be “No fair!” But if we’re honest with ourselves, the only thing we can do or say in response to this story’s message is to fall on our knees and say, “Thank God.” See, none of us can do anything to qualify for salvation. Nothing. God is not a vending machine in the sky; nor can we earn his love by being really good Christians. God’s love and mercy is offered to everyone, regardless of age, race, gender, social status, creed, culture...all that matters is their status as children of God—and that’s everybody. It’s never been a question as to whether the grace is available. The question has always been: will we accept it? All God says to us is, “Wash, and be clean.” In the musical Godspell, Jesus comes to John the Baptist and says, “I wanna get washed up.” That’s all we have to say. “I wanna get washed up.” I wanna get washed up.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.


(My dad, brother and grandparents came to hear me preach!)

Friday, July 2, 2010

Field Notes #32: Perfectly Lonely

"Nothing to do / Nowhere to be / A simple little kind of free." These lines from John Mayer's song "Perfectly Lonely" (from his latest release, Battle Studies) popped in my head a little while ago. Ignore the rest of the song, which is about being happily single, and that's basically what I have going on today. I mean, I have things to get done, like my sermon for Sunday, but I don't have to go anywhere. I'm still in the pink shirt and green pants I wore to bed. I look like a watermelon. And I have had a lovely day so far.

I got up this morning to discover it was 66 degrees outside! That is amazing! I quickly made some coffee, grabbed my Bible, journal and a few books, and proceeded to drag an armchair and ottoman out onto the back deck. I was there for several hours, enjoying the day, reading, writing and praying, taking a "break" to walk around the track while I called my dad and brother, who got back from Brazil early this morning.

I have since moved inside, but I'm sitting in the room adjacent to the deck with the sliding glass door open so there's just a screen between me and the day. I'm letting ideas for my sermon percolate a bit more, but I'll probably commit something to paper at some point today. I'm hoping for one of those days where I take it easy and yet am productive. Love it.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Tea Party Jesus: The Words of Christians in the Mouth of Christ

This blog is hilarious. And condemning. And inappropriate. But it's not the authors who are being necessarily inappropriate--it's Christians. These are direct quotes from high-profile, self-proclaimed Christians, put into perspective by putting them in Jesus' mouth. See my earlier post that touches on Christians being jerks.

Here are a few favorites so far (I just discovered this blog):

(Tom Mullins, May 2010)

(Glen Beck, March 2008)

DANGER: Entering Church...?

My dad posted a great blog recently entitled "Crash Helmets and Inclusivity." Go read it. Don't worry, his posts are generally shorter than mine. :)

He was inspired by the renovations going on in the sanctuary at Myers Park United Methodist Church in Charlotte, NC. On all the doors to the sanctuary, there are signs that read "DANGER: HARD HAT AREA." He recalled a quote from author Annie Dillard's book Teaching a Stone to Talk: "It is madness to wear ladies' velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets." And that blog post was born.

I got to see the interior of the sanctuary the other day. It is a mess! The picture of the sign on the door is one my dad sent me, but here's a shot inside the church that I took with my phone. I love it--bright red tape screaming "DANGER DANGER DANGER" all the way around the sanctuary. If the trustees (at any given church) wouldn't throw a hissy fit, I'd suggest leaving that there and installing it in other churches (note to self: try this someday. It could be a fun sermon stunt). We forget sometimes that when we enter into worship, we are drawing near to immeasurable power--the power that created the universe! Crash helmets? At the very least!

What I'm Reading #9: Feasting on the Word (David Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors)

Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season After Pentecost, edited by David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor

OK, I'm not reading this cover-to-cover, because that would be silly. But this is a preaching resource based on the Revised Common Lectionary. Val gave it to me, and it is awesome. Feasting on the Word is a new series published by Westminster John Knox, and I have Year C, Volume 3: Pentecost and Season After Pentecost (which is where we are in the liturgical calendar right now). It's edited by two greats in the world of Biblical studies and preaching, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor.

Each week, there are 4 texts, and Feasting on the Word approaches each one from 4 different perspectives: Theological, Pastoral, Exegetical and Homiletical. I just read the entire entry on the Old Testament passage for this Sunday, and it got me all jazzed up, which is why I'm writing this now. :) If you're a preacher or a writer or just someone interested in how to approach the Bible from different perspectives, check this out.

Field Notes #31: Exploring the Campground

Before I came to Hill's Chapel UMC, this is what I thought was meant by the phrase "camp meeting": Dad doesn't wear a robe for 6 Sundays during the summer and we sing really old hymns.

I quickly learned that this is not what people around here are talking about when they mention camp meeting.

I started hearing words like "tents" and "weekend," and finally someone explained to me that the Rock Springs Camp Meeting goes on for 2 weeks and people actually stay in tents (which are really more like shacks that cost upwards of $40,000). My first reaction felt something like morbid fascination. I've never thought of myself as a city girl, but since coming here I've realized that to some extent I definitely am one.

Well, today Don Grice took me and LeaAnne out to lunch, and when he found out neither of us had seen the campground, he insisted that we take a tour after we ate. Camp meeting doesn't start until August, but there were already people there working on their tents and getting ready--and they knew right away that LeaAnne and I had never been there before. I was amazed. Someone had told me that parts of the campground looked like a third world country, and they were not wrong. Don showed us the inside of his family's "tent"--they have concrete floors, carpet, a second floor and a balcony, so their place is nice by comparison to many others.

After I got over the initial shock, I realized...this place is AWESOME! Thousands of people come to camp meeting, and yet you can let kids run around unattended without worrying about them getting lost or hurt, and everyone has benches and porch swings, and the arbor is actually really beautiful. I totally want to stay an extra day or two in Denver to experience camp meeting.

I didn't have my camera on me, but I took a bunch of pictures with my cell phone. Check these out:


Intimacy Fail: How Technology Destroys Our Social IQ and Cripples the Greatest Commandment

Last night, I watched the movie Surrogates, starring Bruce Willis. Here's a bit of a plot summary from IMDB: "People are living their lives remotely from the safety of their own homes via robotic surrogates--sexy, physically perfect mechanical representations of themselves. It's an ideal world where crime, pain, fear and consequences don't exist." Discrimination disappears: everyone is good-looking, and race doesn't have meaning in a world where someone's skin tone may not necessarily reflect their cultural background. Infectious diseases are all but wiped out: robots cannot transmit bacteria and viruses. Injury and death are completely avoidable: surrogates can be thrown from bridges, shot in the head and beaten, with no consequence to the operator except the need to repair or replace their robot.

The flip side of this utopia is the reality that people don't actually interact with each other anymore. Bruce Willis' character lives in a world where his wife mourns the death of their son (during the pre-surrogate age) by locking herself in her room and living entirely through her surrogate. This married couple only interacts through youthful, physically perfected versions of themselves, and they hide their pain from each other by barricading their true selves in lonely isolation.

Of course, we don't need futuristic robot avatars to separate ourselves from each other. We're doing it already. It makes me think of the opening lines of the movie Crash: "It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something." Impersonality is the law of the land, whether imposed consciously for self-protection or unconsciously out of habit.

I recently read an article from the humor and video site Cracked.com entitled "7 Reasons the 21st Century Is Making You Miserable." (WARNING: Cracked is not known for being politically correct or polite. If you have issues with strong language a crude humor, don't read this. I'll summarize it for you anyway.) Here are those 7 reasons:

#1: We don't have enough annoying strangers in our lives.
#2: We don't have enough annoying friends, either.
#3: Texting is a [crappy] way to communicate.
#4: Online company only makes us lonelier.
#5: We don't get criticized enough.
#6: We're victims of the Outrage Machine.
#7: We feel worthless, because we actually are worth less.

I'm not going to go into detail on all of these, but here are some basic points made in this article. Today's technology allows us to be selective about how and with whom we interact; therefore, we can more easily avoid dealing with obnoxious people. However, this actually makes us less able to cope with the annoying people with whom we inevitably must communicate from time to time. This article also points out that e-mail and texting allow us to avoid deeper levels of honesty and leave tons of room for miscommunication; it cites studies that found only 7% of communication has to do with the actual words we use--the other 93% is nonverbal. This means that when you talk to someone purely using words on a screen, you're only getting a tiny fraction of what they're really saying.

The other thing does is that it allows us to throw things out online that we wouldn't say to someone's face. Online bullying is a real issue for kids and teens today that I, for one, simply didn't have to deal with much at all. When I was a kid, people just talked about you behind your back; now, they'll ridicule and threaten each other online. The lack of immediate consequences (or, sometimes, any consequences at all) can bring out the worst in people.

Christians are not exempt from this. Jonathan Acuff, author of www.StuffChristiansLike.net (his book Stuff Christians Like is now available for purchase), recently wrote for CNN's Belief Blog. His post, "Why Christians are Jerks Online," gives two reasons for the preponderance of hateful Christian blogs, bitter Twittering from churchgoers, and Christian hate mail. First, what Acuff calls "The Business Traveler Approach"--going on the "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" rule, Christians are often able to separate their offline and online selves, believing that despite their commitment to the commandment to love one another, what they say on the internet "doesn't count." The second reason, one that really hit home with me, Acuff terms "Room Cleaning Christianity."

"Think of it like college. When you’ve got a final paper due Monday, you will be amazed at how energetic your desire is to clean your room. You will scrub tile with a slow toothbrush if it means avoiding the bigger, more difficult work of writing your paper. The same thing happens with Christianity. Loving your neighbor might be simple, but it’s not easy. [...] So instead of dealing with that, we get online and police people. We find small things to focus on that will distract us. I think God wants us to discuss the little stuff, but we make it an idol when we practice room cleaning Christianity at the exclusion of love. And we tend to become jerks."

As a member of the Facebook group "Nothing Gets My Room Cleaner Than a Paper Due Tomorrow," I can identify with this metaphor. And Acuff's explanation connects directly to a conversation I had recently about how to be committed to your tradition without being an arrogant jerk. Sometimes we lose any trace of humility in our attempt to elevate adiaphora (non-essentials) to the state of dogma (essentials) when really we're just putting off dealing with real issues and real people.

As if this post weren't already too long, thinking about all this made me recall a book I started reading and really need to finish: Marva J. Dawn's Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down: A Theology of Worship for This Urgent Time. Dawn points out that the overload thrown at us by the internet has gotten us used to learning random trivia that has no impact on our actual lives (remember Cracked.com? Totally my guilty source for exactly that kind of thing). Dawn writes, "television [and the internet, etc.] has habituated its watchers [and users] to a low information-action ratio, that people are accustomed to 'learning' good ideas (even from sermons) and then doing nothing about them." She also emphasizes the point that our technology-addicted culture decreases our ability to form intimate human relationships: "We talk about the weather and the latest ball scores, but we don't understand each other as if we belonged to each other, and we don't really want to know the answer to 'How are you?'" Ouch.

I need to go ahead and admit something that you're probably already thinking: writing this entire blog has been totally self-indicting. I am the queen of Facebook, email and texting. Even making phone calls to close friends makes me nervous. I have definitely made attempts to counteract this tendency to keep a computer between myself and others--when I ran a summer camp last year, I got tired of all the volunteers communicating simply via email and called a meeting for the sole purpose of acknowledging and pursuing the incarnational nature that our faith is supposed to have. We didn't talk about anything we couldn't have done over email, but it was so much more fruitful to sit around a table with coffee and donuts and just talk and pray together.

And now I've compiled all this information and educated myself and maybe some of you. My question to myself and to my readers now is...what am I--what are we--going to do about this? First off, I'm going to get off the computer and go to lunch with a parishioner and our administrative assistant. And I'm going to pray about the possibility of going on a technology fast sometime in the near future. Some fellow Duke Divinity School students did this for a class last year, and it was interesting--it felt like they dropped off the face of the planet for a week, and yet until I was 16 or 17 I barely ever used the internet, and I didn't have my own cell phone until I was about 18. It's amazing how quickly I've become addicted to my gadgets. Recently my boyfriend thanked me for not bringing my laptop over to his apartment when I came to hang out because it removed the temptation for me to disappear into my computer and ignore him. I immediately felt ashamed that he would have to thank me for such a thing.

Are we willing and able to acknowledge that despite the amazing things technology can do (because obviously I'm not anti-technology--it's an incredible tool), it also presents a danger in limiting our personal relationships? Are we willing to have contact with others where we are not fully in control of how much time and energy we invest in that interaction? Do we really want to know the answer to "How are you?", even if the answer might make us uncomfortable or, heaven forbid, take up our time?

 

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