Monthly Archives: July 2009

One Reason I Love Harry Potter

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Harry Potter appeals for many reasons, chiefly the way J.K. Rowling spins out marvelous tales. Her mind is the magic. But as we watched the new Half-Blood Prince movie, a particular reason crystalized for me. I love the way evil in her universe is real and palpable.

In its fear of fundamentalism, my religion has demythologized and abstracted evil.  Evil now inhabits not persons but systems and structures. In the Bible, though, as in the world of Harry Potter, evil is personal not systemic. Here evil is particular and local, which makes it capable of being defeated. One cannot fight against a system — or rather, one cannot defeat it.

Kathleen Norris notes a desert father who said when we try to do what is right, the demons become our wills and fight against our effort.  At least here evil is personal again, something one can resist – not a protest march against an abstract, nefarious ism.

Keep Reason and Religion Together

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Newspaper editors pay attention to the placement of stories. They put key stories on the front page ‘above the fold.’ They also, I’m convinced, will lay two stories side by side to comment on one another.

The Raleigh News & Observer Thursday offered a story on atheists who set aside a religious upbringing through de-baptism.  In the rite a hair dryer labeled ‘reason’ removes the (long evaporated) water.  A certificate announces the exchange of reason for superstition. The de-christianized can send the paperwork to a former church and ask to be removed from the rolls. In their minds reason excludes religion.

Next to this story the editor put one to illustrate the other side of the matter — Buzz Aldrin celebrated communion on the moon forty years ago. He asked for a radio blackout and received the sacrament blessed at his home church in Texas.

I ate the tiny Host and swallowed the wine. I gave thanks for the intelligence and spirit that had brought two young pilots to the Sea of Tranquility.

Aldrin found a way, as many of us do, to keep reason and religion together.

Caesar and the Great Dismal Swamp

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bears

The Great Dismal Swamp straddles Virginia and North Carolina, covering 111,000 acres south of Norfolk. The land once belonged to George Washington. Today its wetlands and wildlife await hunters and nature enthusiasts.

Washington fell off his horse one day trying to mount. His body landed on the dirt like a large sack of grain.  His slave Caesar laughed at this misfortune, and Washington, incensed, sent him off to work in the Dismal Swamp. Which demonstrates a critical truth: Do not offend the King.

We walked along a paved hiking trail with water standing in a canal to the right. A park employee in a gray pick-up drew alongside us and warned us about bears. “They come out in the afternoon.”

Should one appear, we were resolved to turn and head back to the car. It’s not wise to offend the bears either.

Blogging Nap

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Jane

This blog will rest till August.  Note the new Favorites tab above.  Grace and peace to you all.

ADDED:  It turns out blogging will just be spotty depending on computer availability while we travel.  Regular posting will resume in August.

The Benefits and Pitfalls of Denominations

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Bob Cornwall defends denominations against those who consider them old baggage in a new ’postdenominational’ world.  He agrees with Michael Kinnamon and Jan Linn that to be vital churches must affirm their heritage embodied in a particular tradition.  He used to discount denominations, but now Cornwall embraces the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

He gives no other reasons, though, for embracing a particular tradition, nor does he discuss the pitfalls they present.  The relevance of denominations is more ambiguous than this.

The earliest form of Christian community is the congregation, the ecclesia.  Anything beyond this came later.  In the Presbyterian Church, where my ordination lies, congregations in America first joined together to form presbyteries, and presbyteries joined together to form larger synods and a national church.  But the matter began with local congregations.  As for other traditions, no matter what structure or polity exists now, the movement began in Palestine with a loose collection of house churches.  The roots of things are in the local congregation.

And whatever church structures exist now, their purpose is to serve the local congregation.  I see denominations doing this well in specific ways.  A denomination connects a congregation to something larger and older than itself — an antidote to a local church becoming narcissistic.  A denomination can also engage in forms of mission, education and healing beyond the reach of a local congregation.  Resources pool to water many fields.

But denominations carry dangers too.  Chief among them is their resistance to necessary change.  Witness how slowly music has changed in mainline denominations — for over a generation the musical instrument of our culture has been the guitar, acoustic and electric, but the mainline churches have been reluctant to embrace it, and they have paid a high price for this.

Denominations also, like any institution, tend to become an end in themselves rather than a means to an end.  Their chief goal becomes to perpetuate their own existence.  (This danger can also characterize the local congregation.)  They become like the temple stones that impressed the disciples — Christ had to remind them all those stones wouldn’t last.  They were never meant to.  They’re ruins today.

The Shorter Catechism says Christ communicates his benefits to us in three ways:  word, sacrament and prayer.  Believers experience these in the communal life of a local congregation.  As Christ communicates his benefits to them, so he also equips them to be his servants and ambassadors in a needy world.

The denomination that helps local congregations do this deserves our respect and loyalty.  The denomination that doesn’t, that fritters its energies on other pursuits, should fall into ruins.

How To Prepare a Tasty Sermon

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Prepare me the kind of tasty food I like and bring it to me to eat.  (Gen 27.4)

Preparing a sermon is like cooking in a Crock-Pot.  I start with the meat — a healthy portion of scripture.  I put the meat in the pot on Monday.  I study the scripture and let it begin to cook.  The type of meat matters.  Scripture comes as narrative, poetry and discursive writing.  I prefer to preach on narrative texts, but the others have their possibilities too.  For a balanced diet, it’s probably good to vary the type of scripture.  What’s important is it be a passage of substance.  Make sure there’s plenty of meat.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I add vegetables to the pot — illustrations and interpretations on the scripture.  These I draw from commentaries, online resources and my own reflections.  I’m looking for the intersection where the Bible and life meet.  It helps to get away from the office to a public place, a park, a library or a table at the grocery deli.  I sit and watch people and write what comes to mind.  I also reflect on that ongoing conversation with my parishioners, drawing on what I’ve learned listening to their lives.  All these juices mingle together in the pot. Whenever possible I add seasoning to the mix – humor, or at least something quirky that makes me smile.

I let the mixture cook until Thursday, when it’s simmered enough to write an outline of the message.  Here’s where the analogy breaks down.  Before I serve the congregation, I must eat the meal myself — that is, get the words off the printed page and inside of me.  Preachers can’t simply read an essay aloud.  They must embody a message, and for that to happen it needs to live in the blood and sinews.  Over Friday and Saturday then, I talk through the message a half dozen times or more and so consume it.

No longer writing a full manuscript helps me to have more natural speech patterns as I preach. On Sunday I’ll keep the outline handy but only reference it occasionally.  For all practical purposes I’ve written the message on my heart — I need only deliver it with energy, animation and lots of eye contact.

Afterward when the sermon’s done, I seldom worry about it.  Sermons don’t end when they end — they continue in the listener’s mind and heart.  In this I agree with Kathleen Norris:  “The sermon is an oral art form, always more a thought in progress rather than a finished product.  Even more so than with literature, the listener is the one who completes the work.”  To take up the cooking imagery again, a meal isn’t complete until someone eats it — their body digests it and draws energy from it.

Everyone practices the art of preaching differently, but this is how I prepare a tasty sermon.

Empty Tables at the Funeral Meal

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table

I officiated at two funerals this week. The first went well, except for when I mispronounced the person’s name right at the start. Two family members sitting in the front row corrected me. I felt like an idiot. I knew the name — it simply came out of my mouth wrong. The family was kind about it afterward.

The second funeral preceded a meal at church. The family at first asked us to plan for 200 at the meal; we suggested 75 and then settled on 100.  When the time came 65 people ate, counting our own servers, which meant empty tables and lots of leftover food (though less than I’d feared). The number at a funeral meal is always hard to judge. Families base their expectation on love, and we base ours on experience. But it’s better to have too much food than too little. Our volunteers were cheerful and industrious. The funeral itself was a lovely thing, with three adult children offering tributes to their father.

It’s getting harder for churches to provide funeral meals. This practice holds over from an earlier era when life habits and demographics were much different. I no longer suggest such meals, but if the family requests one we comply.

Come to Jesus

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Reading the Gospel of Matthew this week, the cleansing of the Temple story, a line leaped out at me.  “The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them.” (Mt 21.14)  I glanced at the cleansing story parallels in the other Gospels, and this line doesn’t appear in them.  It’s unique to Matthew’s account.

Even in the last days before his death, with controversies and intrigue swirling all around him, people in need still sought Jesus out for the help he alone could give them.

There are days when I don’t feel like a major character in the Bible drama.  I’m not Peter, Caiaphas or Mary Magdalene.  I don’t have a name at all — frankly, I’m not that important.  I take my place among the masses of unnamed characters who only enjoy a minute or two on stage and then disappear again.  But their brief encounter with Jesus alters them forever.

I am the blind, the lame, the poor who come to Jesus, and suddenly I see, I walk and I possess untold wealth.  I need only come.

Atonement Anew

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She wore a pink and black top, black slacks and flip-flops as she stood before the judge. She pleaded guilty to attempted larceny — she’d stolen jewelry from a home where she was babysitting. (The larceny charge itself the court dropped in exchange for her plea.)  She wiped tears from her face as the judge spoke to her, admonished her and set a sentencing date for August. She then said good-bye to her attorney and left the courtroom, a look of deep embarrassment on her face.

This was one of a dozen defendants in Judge Margaret Noe’s courtroom Wednesday morning. Sitting in the gallery, we watched brief acts of ongoing dramas in the lives of real men and women. Theft, assault, drugs, home invasion — each crime carrying its own penalty.

As things proceeded I thought, of all things, about substutionary atonement. Christ takes the penalty we guilty sinners deserve, securing our innocence. John Calvin, whose 500th birthday we observe tomorrow, summarizes this classical understanding of atonement:

This is our acquittal: the guilt that held us liable for punishment has been transferred to the head of the Son of God. We must, above all, remember this substitution, lest we tremble and remain anxious throughout life — as if God’s righteous vengeance, which the Son of God has taken upon himself, still hung over us. (Institutes 2.16.5)

These are hard words.  It’s easy to understand why this doctrine has fallen into disfavor and disrepair.  It makes God, whom Jesus likened to a heartsick Father, look punitive and vengeful.

Yet I wonder if our theology has withered for casting this doctrine aside.  God is so loving and compassionate now our actions no longer carry consequences.  If all that matters is God loves me no matter what I do, then what I do no longer matters.  But the courtroom tells me actions do bring consequences.  If I break a human law, I will suffer a penalty.  Does breaking God’s law bring none?

If I stood before a judge, as the woman did yesterday, caught in the machinery of justice, and a painful penalty stared me in the face, I’d be stunned and grateful for anyone who made it all go away — even if I didn’t understand exactly how that happened or who absorbed the cost.

On a TV crime drama a young woman was driving her father home when she killed a boy riding a bike.  After the accident, her father compelled her to change seats with him so it would appear he had been driving.  He went to prison in her place out of love for his daughter.  This is substitutionary atonement.  It’s not morally plausible — it’s an act of desperate love.

I don’t know if this is what Jesus meant when he described his death as ‘a ransom for many.’  I also realize atonement has many meanings.  But all this helps me understand the atonement in a new way, although the idea itself is as old as religion.  Christ switches places with me, absorbs the consequences of my crimes and drains them of any further danger to me.

‘Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.’  I suspect this is an inescapable part of the gospel.

A Brief Review of Up

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An old man loses his beloved wife and doesn’t know what to do with himself afterward.  Carl and Ellie were never able to have children, so when Ellie dies, Carl is left alone in their house, which a developer wants to tear down.

Rather than move to a retirement center, he attaches thousands of colored balloons to his house and floats away on a belated trip to South America — he and Ellie had planned to go there, but they never made it.  Along the way he befriends a boy, has an adventure and learns to love again.

Up is the best movie I’ve seen in a good while.  Its themes include loss, aging and discovery of new life.  It reminded me of a book by Dan Moseley, Living with Loss.  This film (and Moseley’s book) are excellent resources for people dealing with grief.

Why Calvin Wrote the Institutes

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Christ

He was living in Basel in the 1530s, a young Frenchman who had adopted the new Protestant faith.  There he heard news that ‘many faithful and holy persons were burnt alive in France.’  They were Protestant martyrs.  Afterward pamphlets appeared attacking them and justifying their deaths.

Calvin wrote the first edition of his Institutes in response to these things — to vindicate the ‘holy martyrs’ and explain their faith to the world.

When it was then published, it was not that copious and labored work it now is, but only a small treatise containing a summary of the principle truths of the Christian religion; and it was published with no other design than that the peoples might know what was the faith held by those whom I saw basely and wickedly defamed.  (Preface to the Commentary on the Psalms)

Last week at camp I sat on the floor in front of a fireplace.  (The rain had moved our campfire indoors.)  A picture of Jesus rested on the mantle, the paint pealing on the wall above it.  I watched the flames on the wood and thought of the ‘holy martyrs’ whose deaths occasioned the Institutes of the Christian Religion. 

Five broad themes mark this work:

1. The Majesty of God
2. The Frailty of Human Beings
3. The Sufficiency of Christ
4. The Efficacy of the Holy Spirit
5. The Necessity of the Church

But Calvin’s writing shines best, I think, when he speaks of the believer’s union with Christ, whose grace is our light and food in life, and our only hope in death.

40 Bits of Wisdom from Ben Franklin

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Gleaned from Poor Richard’s Almanack in honor of Independence Day:

1.  To lengthen thy Life, lessen thy meals.

2.  He that lies down with Dogs, shall rise up with fleas.

3.  Men & Melons are hard to know.

4.  What one relishes, nourishes.

5.  Would you persuade, speak of Interest, not of Reason.

6.  Diligence is the Mother of Good-Luck.

7.  He that can compose himself, is wiser than he that composes books.

8.  There are no ugly Loves, nor handsome Prisons.

9.  There is no little enemy.

10. Who has deceiv’d thee so oft as thy self?

11. Is there any thing Men take more pains about than to render themselves unhappy?

12. Read much, but not many books.

13. Let thy Discontents be Secrets.

14. Blessed is he that expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

15. He that sows thorns, should not go barefoot.

16. What you would seem to be, be really.

17. The things which hurt, instruct.

18. If you’d be beloved, make yourself amiable. 

19. He’s a fool that can’t conceal his Wisdom.

20. To God we owe fear and love; to our neighbours justice and charity; to our selves prudence and sobriety.

21. When the Well’s dry, we know the Worth of Water.

22. Dost thou love Life? then do not squander Time; for that’s the stuff Life is made of.

23. We are not so sensible of the greatest Health as of the least Sickness.

24. Write Injuries in Dust, Benefits in Marble. 

25. Suspicion may be no Fault, but shewing it may be a great one.

26. The Muses love the Morning.

27. Lost Time is never found again.

28. If your head is wax, don’t walk in the Sun.

29. Clean your Finger, before you point at my Spots.

30. Little Strokes fell great Oaks.

31. Friendship increases by visiting Friends, but by visiting seldom.

32. The Proud hate Pride — in others.

33. Generous minds are all of kin.

34. An ill Wound, but not an ill Name, may be healed.

35. Diligence overcomes Difficulties, Sloth makes them.

36. The Sting of a Reproach, is the Truth of it. 

37. He that resolves to mend hereafter, resolves not to mend now.

38. Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

39. Half the Truth is often a great Lie.

40. One to-day is worth two to-morrows.

Saddam Hussein Wrote Poetry

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He made time each day to read fiction too.  He also apparently lied about possessing weapons of mass destruction to appear stronger to his rival Iran.  That boast brought him to an ignominious end.

Advocates have offered two reasons for the ’03 invasion of Iraq:

  1. A fear of WMDs falling into the wrong hands (a potent concern in the aftermath of 9/11).
  2. A desire to end a cruel totalitarian government and partner with the people to build a humane, consensual one.

Ever since events discredited No. 1, the war’s critics have felt vindicated; but I’ve not heard them offer a credible plan to address No. 2, ending cruel totalitarian governments around the world, the kind exemplified in Hussein’s Iraq and the Taliban’s Afghanistan.  Peaceful means should come first, of course, but I don’t see a realistic way of ending these governments if force of arms is not an option.  (Although arms can let loose the Furies.)

Having said this, I should note the denomination I serve, the United Methodist Church, regards all warfare as ‘incompatible with the teachings of Christ.’  Yet war also seems to me a sad and necessary thing in some cases.  Whether war was necessary to dethrone a certain poetry loving dictator, I’ll leave history to decide.  Or better, Christ to judge.

Flag In the Sanctuary

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In anticipation of the Fourth of July, On the Jericho Road asks whether the United States is a Christian nation.  The answer he gives is no, since nations cannot make the faith commitment needed to be religious.  And besides, what nation can follow the New Testament ethic of loving enemies or not storing up wealth?

In broad strokes I agree with this assessment.  Someone may consider the U.S. a Christian nation since it has more professing Christians in it than any other nation.  But beyond this, no it’s not a Christian nation.  The challenge, Jericho Road notes, is for those who profess Christian faith actually to live it.

Independence Day raises another issue:  the presence of American flags in church sanctuaries in the U.S.  Critics of this practice are vocal, but their arguments have never persuaded me.  So long as the flag stands discreetly to one side, its presence doesn’t bother me.  Love of country is a part of love of neighbor, and singing My Country, ‘Tis of Thee on occasion is acceptable in worship.  We thank God for our country and its blessings.

I make it a point, though, during the prayer time in worship always to include prayers for people in other nations — from Iran to Brazil — remembering God is active and present in the lives of all peoples and lands.

Are There Really Multiple Intelligences?

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Christopher J. Ferguson, a behavioral sciences professor at Texas A&M, highlights the lack of empirical evidence in support of the theory of multiple intelligences.

There probably is just a single intelligence or capacity to learn, not multiple ones devoted to independent tasks. To varying degrees, some individuals have this capacity, and others do not. To be sure, there is much debate about Gardner’s theory [of multiple intelligences] in the literature, with contenders for and against. Nonetheless, empirical evidence has not been robust. While the theory sounds nice (perhaps because it sounds nice), it is more intuitive than empirical. In other words, the eight intelligences are based more on philosophy than on data.

There is, he notes, ample empirical data to indicate a single intelligence, ‘an innate cognitive ability that powers learning.’  This capacity arises from heredity not environment, and some possess more of it than others.  The theory of multiple intelligences may satisfy our democratic aspirations — we want it to be true — but it doesn’t rest on an empirical foundation that can be measured.  The obvious differences we see in children and adults Ferguson attributes to varying talents and inclinations, not intelligences.

I just finished three days at camp, assisting in the faith development of eight-year-old girls and boys and deepening my own in the process.  Our curriculum made generous use of the theory of multiple intelligences, even tagging elements of each lesson with specific ones, but Ferguson’s commentary makes me wonder about this approach now.  I don’t know enough about educational theory, though, to argue one way or another.

Mostly at camp I saw how children learn through story, song, repetition and activity.  These elements also characterize the church’s weekly communal worship.  I imagine they’re among the ways we learn in all seasons of life.