Monthly Archives: April 2009

Beautiful Quilts

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I took a group today to the annual Sauder Village Quilt Show, with over 400 on display.  Here are a few patterns:

Stars…

quilt-11

Arcs…

quilt-2

Circles…

quilt-3

Nature…

quilt-4

Rectangles…

quilt-5

It was also interesting watching all the women (and a few men) who were watching the quilts.  Most wore a plastic glove on one hand so they could touch the quilts.  The artists who make the quilts must be filled

with divine spirit, with ability, intelligence, and knowledge in every kind of craft, to devise artistic designs…  (Exodus 31.3-4 NRSV)

Afterward we enjoyed a midday meal at Das Essen Haus.

Jesus Is Insane

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A few folks have gathered in the youth room for lunch the last two Mondays. We sit on orange and blue couches, or yellow saucer chairs, and eat our sandwiches, bananas and yogurt.

We’ve been watching 30 minute segments of The Gospel of John movie on a widescreen TV mounted on the wall. We’ve covered a third of the story so far, up to chapter seven in the Gospel. After each viewing we share our reactions to the film for a few minutes before continuing on with the day’s duties. Four more lunches and we’ll complete the three-hour DVD.

I planned this six week event and advertised it as ‘Lunch With Jesus.’ It’s not a Bible study or a seminar. It’s a time to watch and listen to a story as it’s portrayed, as actors in costume bring the narrative to life. The dialogue and narration come directly from the Today’s English Version .

I’m wondering today — if I knew nothing of Jesus apart from this story, what would be my first impression of him?

In answer, I’d say Jesus is seriously insane. He says the sorts of things that land people in psychiatric hospitals behind locked doors. Yet he’s also strangely compelling. His warmth and intensity engage me and make me what to know him more. His ability to perform miracles is striking — apart from walking on water, which seemed too theatrical, he mutes his miracles and tailors them to meet human need.

He impresses me as a wild and dangerous man. Not dangerous as people will say of Jesus when they enlist him to endorse a cause they favor. No, dangerous in his own person, in his ability to upset my settled sense of religion and reality.

I like this wildness of Jesus. I think we need more of it in the church and less attempts to interpret and manage him.

In Praise of Small Changes

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In the May issue of Scientific American, Katherine Pollard summarizes current research on the DNA differences between humans and chimpanzees.

We share about 99 percent of the 15 billion letters in the human genome with chimps. Pollard has been exploring the one percent difference, which in humans has resulted in larger brains and a greater capacity for language and manual dexterity (needed for making tools). A small number of DNA changes overall have made humans a different species.

It’s like when someone goes to the hardware store to purchase a can of paint. They choose a color from the palette. The employee adds bits of different colors to the basic white and puts the can in a mixing machine. The outcome is the color and shade the customer wanted. But a few small changes to the mix would yield a different color.

Life coaches emphasize the cumulative effect of small consistent changes over time. A ‘twenty minute tidy’ at the end of each day will make a messy house clean in time. A lifestyle grows out of specific habits, which are the fruit of small, repeated actions. Small changes matter.

kneeler

The Sunday after Easter, ten confirmands knelt one by one in front of the altar and joined the church. It was the culmination of a seven month confirmation program for eighth graders. Their parents, pastors and mentors prayed for them as they pledged themselves to be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.

To me, discipleship is a gradual thing. It involves lots of little choices made over and over again until they become second nature. Disciples make progress through small, consistent changes in their beliefs and practices. They act in concert with the Holy Spirit, who rewrites their spiritual DNA. So they evolve into a new species, a new creation.

Five Tips For Introverted Pastors

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I admire extraverts. Crowds energize them — they love the noise, attention and interaction. By contrast, large groups of people leave me feeling depleted. I love people, but when I encounter so many there is too much life on display and too many voices. It overwhelms me.

My biggest shock in ministry was discovering how much attention the minister gets. Introverts don’t seek attention. We like to work quietly behind the scenes to make things happen.

Oftentimes introverted ways are an asset in ministry. I love to sit at a hospital bedside and engage in a quiet ministry of listening and presence. I’m good at facilitating small group Bible studies — I never feel the need to dominate the group with my opinions. I value the contemplation that goes into creating sermons. (I love preaching them too, which may be an anomaly in an introverted personality.)

But sometimes the crowds and attention wear me out. For what it’s worth, extraverts have told me they have a hard time with the alonenesses in ministry, the long stretches sitting by themselves at their desks. Pastoral ministry is a vocation that doesn’t fit any one personality type.

In fourteen years of ministry as an introverted pastor, I’ve learned a few tips for coping and thriving.

1.  Know your worth.  God made you as you are.  Celebrate that!  You’re just as valuable as the high-octane extravert.  Reflect on Psalm 139.14.  We are all ‘fearfully and wonderfully made.’ 

2.  Follow your strengths.  I’m convinced introverts bring unique gifts to pastoral ministry.  We’re excellent listeners.  We’re thoughtful and reflective.  Parishioners value these things.  Introverts can excel at being ‘thought leaders.’  Their ideas, shared with gentleness and encouragement, can make an impact over time (although it may be the proverbial water carving a stone).  So focus on the things you do well in ministry, and fret less about the rest.  No one does all things well. Pair up with people whose strengths compliment yours.

3.  Define yourself.  People have a hard time interpreting quiet.  They will assign meanings to your quietness, unless you take the initiative and define things yourself.  Pick one item on the meeting agenda and speak your mind on it.  The world will not collapse if you utter a contrary opinion.  Remember, too, to smile and greet others by name — this will counter the aloofness people perceive in quieter personalities. 

4.  Seek solitude.  You need this as your lungs need air.  In fact, imagine you’re wearing an air tank that needs replenishing from time to time.  In a busy day, with event after event, be sure to steal away for a time of silence to let your tank fill again.  That Jesus needed solitude (Mk 1.35) tells me he was probably an introvert. 

5.  Plant yourself at the edges of things.  In a large gathering of people, sit or stand at the side, if possible.  Don’t plunge into the middle — nibble away at the margin.  There’s plenty to see and experience there.

If you’re an introvert in a people-oriented vocation, what tips and strategies have you discovered?

Migrating at Night

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Anne Yarbrough at Nova Scotia Island Journal found an Indigo Bunting feeding near her fence. Quoting the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, she notes that this bird

migrates at night, using the stars for guidance. It learns its orientation to the night sky from its experience as a young bird observing the stars.

She wonders if cloud cover poses a problem for animals navigating by the stars.

The birds are doing what Isaiah the prophet advised:

Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:
Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one,
and calls them each by name.  (40.26 TNIV)

In my life it feels like I migrate at night too, observing the stars and learning from experience.  Clouds may obscure my direction for a time, but eventually clear skies return.

What Are You Looking For?

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In The Gospel of John movie, narrated by Christopher Plummer, Mary wears her traditional blue, and Jesus has a charisma that attracts followers.

Early in the film John the Baptist, portrayed as a wild man of the desert, points to Jesus and calls him the ‘Lamb of God.’ The metaphor draws imagery from the Hebrew scriptures and identifies Jesus as an atoning sacrifice for sin.

On hearing this, two of John’s disciples run after Jesus and catch up with him at a bridge. He turns to them, smiles and says, “What are you looking for?” These are his first words in the Gospel.

They glance at one another and stammer, “Where do you live, Rabbi?” Jesus invites them to come along with him and see.

In his book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham argues the Gospel of John was written by someone the early church knew as John the Elder, an original follower of Jesus (though not one of the Twelve). If true, it’s telling to me that of all the things John could have written as Jesus’ first words in his memoir, he begins with this question. What are you looking for?

This question stays with us all our lives and helps define who we are. We may be looking for an identity or a vocation; we may be looking for security, love or power. If we look for something hard enough, and it’s attainable, we usually find and achieve it. What we are looking for also tends to change as we age.

The response these new disciples give to Jesus’ question intrigues me. They don’t say, “We’re looking for an answer to the problem of why bad things happen to good people.” They don’t say they are looking for world peace or another religion.

Their response is simple. They want to know where Jesus is living so they can spend time with him and get to know him. They are looking for a relationship and an adventure. Jesus doesn’t let them down.

Nor will he us.

A Simple Steeple

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steeple

Our church facility was built in three stages in the 1960s, beginning with fellowship hall and its steeple. (The sanctuary has no steeple.) This perspective through the oak tree of a workman painting our steeple caught my attention.  I like how the steeple is linear and the branches are random.  Both move upward.

The word steeple comes from stepel, Old English for tower. Before GPS, I imagine a tall steeple helped people navigate their way to church.  That and the bells in the tower.  There were visual and aural cues leading people to the place of worship.  A tall tower then also reflected social prominence for the churches.

Towers today belong to buildings in the financial sector.  Or to medicine — the sprawling medical center is like the cathedral of our age.  The sports stadium probably also falls into this category.

I like our simple steeple, with its plain cross at the top.  Stat crux dum volvitur orbis.  The cross stands while the world turns.

Room For Religion

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Cathy Lynn Gossman, a journalist with USA Today, is at a Cambridge event featuring scholars exploring the relationship between science and religion. In a lecture by Dame Gillian Beer, Gossman noted this comment about Charles Darwin:

People’s opinions don’t go in a straight line, do they? He was a creative man, afraid all the time that he might be wrong, feeling that he is right, and always under attack. It was important to consider that there might be room for religion.

People’s opinions don’t go in a straight line. I like that. Mine certainly haven’t.  And the observation that Darwin believed he was right and doubted he was right — that’s pretty honest. 

But the last sentence I don’t get.  We consider that there might be room for religion?  Might be?  How much room?  And how does this relate to Darwin’s doubts?  I suppose I had to be there. 

It’s a telling sentence, though, one that perhaps inadvertently reveals a certain attitude toward religion.  Maybe we can find room for it.

Hate Filled Christian

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I am thoroughly convinced that God will let everyone into heaven who, in his considered opinion, can stand it…

I often wonder how happy and useful some of the fearful, bitter, lust-ridden, hate-filled Christians I have seen involved in church or family or neighborhood or political battles would be if they were forced to live forever in the unrestrained fullness of the reality of God. ~ Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy

Twenty years ago I worked in an engineering lab. At lunch time I drove out behind Osco Drugs to a parking area overlooking a vacant lot. I ate a ham sandwich and listened to James Dobson on the radio. His guests amazed me with stories of faith, heartbreak and courage.

At times, though, he moved from the personal to the political, and then the hate bubbled out, like a pot boiling over on the stove. Dobson hated the liberals he thought were destroying America.

For the last fourteen years I’ve worked as a pastor in mainline churches. I’ve encountered many liberal Christians who hate religious conservatives like James Dobson. It’s always there under the surface, ready to flash out. Lately the hate is directed more at Rick Warren.

I score a nine on the Enneagram — the peacemaker. Hate on both sides of the spectrum leaves me feeling uneasy and alienated.

In my observation, haters are usually unaware of their hatreds. Or they pass their hate off as righteous anger. But in practical terms there seems little difference between righteous anger and hatred. Who among us is righteous anyway?

Hate, I have noted, has its uses. It provides a lot of energy — hatreds mobilize people for an agenda. Hatred also helps us define ourselves. Tell me who you hate, and I’ll tell you who you are.

I have my own hates, of course. I water and nourish them like seedlings in a nursery. Some have grown into stout trees. Dallas Willard says I cannot take my hates with me into the ‘unrestrained fullness of the reality of God.’

I know this is true, but I’m afraid of what it will take to uproot them.

I Don’t Want to Forget God

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There seems to be a constant decay of all our ideas, even of those which are struck deepest, and in minds the most retentive; so that if they be not sometimes renewed, by repeated exercise of the senses, or reflection on those kinds of objects which at first occasioned them, the print wears out, and at last there remains nothing to be seen… The pictures drawn in our minds are laid in fading colours; and if not sometimes refreshed, vanish and disappear. ~John Locke, Human Understanding, 2.10.6

My niece summed up Locke’s view perfectly once when she said, “I used to know that, but I forgot to know.” She also used fewer words. An idea in our minds will disappear unless we refresh it. It will fade like the ink on the US Constitution.

I wonder if the idea of God can fade away too. Can we forget to know God? Perhaps the value of regular religious practices is that they print certain ideas on the mind, or rather they renew the impression of characters already imprinted there so they don’t vanish over time.

Recently I’ve taken up again the practice of scripture memory — the discipline of writing verses on the heart through simple repetition. Other spiritual practices involving scripture, like lectio divina, make me feel like I’m preparing a sermon. But committing little bits of scripture to memory doesn’t resemble anything I do in my vocation. I like that.

Someday I may lose my eyesight, and along with it the ability to read. I may also lose the capacity to think clearly. Perhaps practices like scripture memory will help me retain the knowledge of God then, like the dementia sufferer who can still recite the Lord’s Prayer or sing Amazing Grace.

Ridiculous Resurrection

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Our community Good Friday service started 25 minutes late. The procession of the cross through downtown — a ‘Walk of Compassion’ — took longer than expected, and several walkers were also readers in the service. So we waited at the First Presbyterian Church for them to arrive.

When the service began, we took our seats in the chancel at the front. The organ pipes rose behind us, and the cross from the downtown walk stood in front near the communion table. There were seven readers, each assigned one of Jesus’ last words from the cross, coupled with a theological commentary.

We sang the first hymn, Beneath the Cross of Jesus. The first reader stood, walked past the lectern and on out of the sanctuary. Silence. More silence. People glancing at one another. Eyebrows raising. Then whispers:

“Where did he go?” said one of the readers.

“Don’t worry. He’ll be back,” said another.

The first reader, a dear colleague, had left his script in the church library. When he returned to the sanctuary, he stood next to the cross; apparently flustered, he read the second reading instead of the first. I nodded and thought, “Religion is an amusing thing.”

The next day, filling plastic eggs for the Easter Egg Hunt, a parishioner who had attended on Good Friday pointed out that the first reading was on “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” She was highly amused. It must have looked like we didn’t know what we were doing.

On Sunday I preached on Mark’s resurrection story, two Marys and Salome at the tomb. It seems unlikely, I said, that this is an invented tale. Society then gave women little credibility as witnesses, and these women weren’t exactly robust witnesses anyway. It’s not the story someone would create to gain a hearing — it’s one they’d tell if it more or less happened that way. It has the ‘ring of truth’ to it.

I wonder how it was for these women when they caught up with Jesus in Galilee. When the astonishment began to lessen, did they find the whole affair ridiculous? Or at least amusing. They must have laughed. (Ridiculous comes from the Latin for laughable.) After all, we say the resurrection is God’s practical joke on humanity. A joke makes you laugh, or at least smile, assuming you get it in the first place.

I’ve never been a Christian who swings around the church steeple shouting ‘Christ is risen.’ I have to struggle at faith. But even for me, Christ’s resurrection brings to my face a wry smile of amusement at the ways of God.

Colored Eggs

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colored-eggs

Children in Sunday school hung colored eggs on a tree in the Memorial Garden, and the Easter Egg Hunt itself is coming up on Saturday.  Last year it was in the snow, but this year it looks like it will be warmer.

I’ll be taking a break here till after the holiday.  Happy Easter to all.

Divine Conspiracy 7

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My plan to read Dallas Willard’s book The Divine Conspiracy during Lent has run aground.  It was an artificial timetable anyway.  I’m reading more slowly now and have resolved to end the book when I end it.

In chapter 7 he describes ‘The Community of Prayerful Love,’ his vision of what the society of Jesus’ apprentices should look like.  They refrain from judging others (Mt 7:1-5), believing such judgments are best left to God; they realize, too, that when human beings judge one another, self-righteousness and condemnation are always present.  They do not push their agendas onto other people — this is how Willard interprets the enigmatic phrase about not throwing our pearls to pigs (Mt 7:6).

Instead of judging and pushing, students of Jesus live in the realm of request.  The act of asking (Mt 7:7) characterizes their relations with others and with God.  Asking implies and involves humility, vulnerability and love.  This brings Willard to an extended discussion of prayer, which he sees chiefly in terms of requests of God made in the context of an intimate relationship.

Prayer is a matter of explicitly sharing with God my concerns about what he too is concerned about in my life.  And of course he is concerned about my concerns and, in particular, that my concerns should coincide with his.  This is our walk together.  Out of it I pray.

Willard uses the walking imagery also when he says, “We are simply children walking and talking with our Father at hand.”

A word about his approach to scripture is appropriate here.  Often today I hear the phrase, “We take scripture seriously, but not literally.”  Willard doesn’t follow this line, but his way isn’t that of a benighted fundamentalist.  It seems rather the simplicity of a child, or a second naivete.  For example, when scripture portrays God’s mind changing as a result of human requests, Willard takes this seriously and literally.  Prayer doesn’t simply change us, as is often admitted; prayer can change what happens.

In this discussion of prayer, Willard offers his exposition of the Lord’s Prayer.  While treating the request ‘thy kingdom come,’ he makes these comments about human cultures:

Culture is seen in what people do unthinkingly, what is ‘natural’ to them and therefore requires no explanation or justification.  Everyone has a culture — or, really, multidimensional cultures of various levels.  These cultures structure their lives.  And of course by far the most of everyone’s culture is right and good and essential.  But not all.  For culture is the place where wickedness takes on group form, just as the flesh, good and right in itself, is the place where individual wickedness dwells.  We therefore pray for our Father to break up these higher-level patterns of evil.  And, among other things, we ask him to help us see the patterns we are involved in.  We ask him to help us not cooperate with them, to cast light on them and act effectively to remove them.

This is the first time he’s spoken of a social dimension to the faith.  I hope he addresses this further.

Also worth pondering is his contention that human beings need pity more than they need compassion:

I have used the word pity through much of this discussion of ‘forgive us our sins,’ rather than the word mercy or even the more dignified compassion.  This is because only pity reaches to the heart of our condition.

This comment was refreshing, and it made me realize how wary I have become of the word compassion.  Pity is more apt.

A Hard Story to Read

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Ken at Lost Borders loves walking in the wilderness, but he resists the illusion that nature is ultimately his friend.  He knows nature is indifferent to him and could easily kill him if he isn’t careful.

The beauty and benevolence of wilderness is deceptive. The harmony is illusion. The river runs cold through Whitewater Canyon, bears hunt the deer, and my survival, as well as that of bears and deer, depends on me leaving this tall and uncut place before night.

His comments on the terrors nature can bring reminded me of the story of Mike Turner, a Presbyterian pastor from Idaho.  He loved hiking alone in the wilderness, and in the end the wilderness took his life — an accident left him trapped for days between two boulders until he died of dehydration.  His death at the hands of nature resembles Jesus’ crucifixion, only it takes longer.

The story is hard to read.  The link is here.

When Raccoons Die

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Saturday morning we woke to find a raccoon in our front yard, lying in the myrtle at the edge of our property.  It was asleep.  Not knowing what to do, we called the sheriff’s office.  They told us raccoons are nocturnal animals, and in the daytime they can lose their bearings and become disoriented.  “Let it be, and see if it goes away later.”

By evening the raccoon awoke.  It was unstable on its little legs and couldn’t move far.  We gave it some water and a few over ripe bananas, which it ate with gusto.  We also gave her a name, Raffi.  (With discussion later on the proper spelling.)

raffi

Raffi with a bit of banana on her nose.

I put on my coat and went outside periodically through the evening to check on Raffi.  Her breathing grew more and more labored, and she couldn’t move at all.  It looked like she was in the last hours of life.  During the night, Raffi breathed her last.  We found her lying dead on Palm Sunday morning.  Her little body had slid down the myrtle to the sidewalk.

Raffi’s death put a sad spirit in me during Palm Sunday festivities.  I thought about her as the children paraded around the sanctuary waving their palm branches.  During the sermon I remembered a scene from M*A*S*H where Major Houlihan cries over a little dog in camp that’s died.  And a strange thought came to mind:  before Jesus’ death was memorialized, ritualized and analyzed endlessly, it was simply a death that made someone sad.  They happen a lot — to humans, to horses, and to the little creatures that wander unexpectedly into our lives for a few hours.  At least Raffi had someone to care about her when she died.  It comforts me to believe that if God knows when the mountain goats give birth (Job 39.1), then God must know when the raccoons die.

Sunday night my wife dreamed about Raffi.  “I dreamed she was playing in our front yard.  That must mean she’s okay.”  I smile now to think of her out in the myrtle munching on bananas.

Hide These Words In My Heart

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This week I’ve committed this promise from scripture to memory:

Have no fear of sudden disaster
or of the ruin that overtakes the wicked,
for the Lord will be your confidence
and will keep your foot from being snared. 
(Prov 3.25-26 NIV)

The lines before this describe someone who walks in the ways of wisdom and discernment, and the lines after someone who treats other people with fairness and generosity.  So the assurance here fits into a larger context of someone living a godly life.

What does the promise mean, though?  If it says trouble will never touch the good person, then experience shows that to be false.  Our Lord Jesus, the best person ever to live, endured terrible troubles in his life, the culmination of which we will observe in the coming holy week. 

Perhaps I must read the promise at a deeper level.  Whatever trouble comes upon a godly person, it doesn’t have power to overthrow them.  God’s love and providential care outweigh any calamities — provided I make God my final trust, rather than earthly things. 

I’ve been walking more in a state of fear than a state of trust lately.  So I’m hiding these words in my heart, hoping they will fertilize my heart and allow a deeper trust to grow up.

Dear Mr President

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postcards

Students in our midweek Wednesday Night Live program have sent postcards to President Obama, copies of which were displayed on a bulletin board in the hallway.  Some of their comments to our new president:

  • We need more parks for kids in the United States.
  • Do the people in black suits have to follow you everywhere and your children?
  • I saw you and your wife on TV at the Inauguration Ball.
  • I wish you safety for you and your family on this journey.
  • When things get hard, keep persisting.
  • Can I have your autograph?

There were several requests for autographs.  The cards also mentioned social concerns of homelessness, poverty, pollution, drugs, teen pregnancy, divorce, jobs, war and taxes.  All of these issues touch the lives of children and are on their minds.

Seeing the cards made me wonder what my postcard to the president would say:

Dear Mr. President,
I hope you and Mrs. Obama have a good trip to Europe.  I pray for God’s blessing on you and your children.  Your job must be harder than anyone imagines.  I pray that God will give you wisdom.  Grace and peace to you.
Sincerely,
Chris Brundage

Ecstatic Gods and Exuberant Churches

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We finished the last of our group studies on Robert Schnase’s Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations.  Yesterday we discussed extravagant generosity.

Schnase urges people to tithe, and he emphasizes it’s not that the church needs the money but that we need to give.  Giving as a spiritual discipline changes our values and transforms us.

Looking back over this book, the word that describes it is exuberance.  Judged by his writing, Robert Schnase must be an exuberant man.  Sentences tumble out one after another like water gushing from a faucet.  And he wants churches to be exuberant places, gushing with radical hospitality, passionate worship, intentional faith development, risk-taking mission and service, and extravagant generosity.  Our group agreed these are excellent practices, ones we’d do well to keep in view and not set back on the shelf when the books are put away.

And yet — here’s the Skeptical Thomas in me — exhorting people to become exuberant isn’t necessarily going to make them exuberant.  There are issues here of personality and long-standing habits.  It makes me wonder where exuberance comes from?

A parishioner noted to me recently that some congregations have a spirit of joy, and others do not.  When you visit a church you can sense whether the joyful spirit is there or not.  Joyful churches, I believe, are characterized by certain loves:  parishioners love their church, they love their pastor or priest (who in turn is loving, credible and faithful), they love one another, and they love God.

If one or more of these loves are lacking, then the joy and exuberance will diminish and disappear.  If the loves are present, joy bubbles like a fountain, and the congregation mirrors the very life of God, who Thomas Aquinas says is ‘ecstatic with joy.’