Ring in the New

                When I was a child of 12 or so years, I earned the esteemed and highly coveted position of bell-ringer at First Congregational Church in Moline (IL). The position was usually filled by boys, because it was heavy and messy work (it involved climbing crude wooden steps to a dirty, dusty, cobwebby bell tower, not something to be done in “girly clothes”), but my brother held the position before me and I learned the ropes from him. One rope, actually. You had to pull hard but once you got going you could ride the rope up off the ground, and that was exhilarating!

                That was just one of several church-related jobs I have held over the years. Another was baby-sitter to the children of our Associate Pastor and his wife, Bob & Julie Ullman, a job I sometimes shared with my sister. One New Years’ Eve when we were babysitting, Bob and Julie returned home before midnight and Bob offered to drive us down to church, to climb the bell tower and ring in the New Year! All along that river city, bells were ringing, from First Congregational and First Presbyterian, and First Lutheran, St. Mary’s… all the churches that still had bells in towers.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

                These lines, penned by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, are part of a much longer work, “In Memoriam,” published in 1850. The previous years had not been kind to Tennyson. For more than a decade, he had been mourning the loss of his close friend from college days. The one good thing, the love of his life to whom he had been engaged to be married, was lost to him: her family broke off the engagement when Tennyson lost the fortune he had inherited. Grief, heartbreak, diminished circumstances—no wonder he wrote “Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.”

                Of course we know nothing is really dying. We are turning a page, hanging a new calendar on the wall. January 1, 2012 will look very similar to December 31, 2011. But we pause to acknowledge the passing of time, perhaps to shed a tear for missed opportunities, perhaps to raise a parting glass in memory of those whom we have lost. And perhaps we will raise another, to life, to hope, to promise.

                What I sense most of all in Tennyson’s verses is release. “In Memoriam” seems to mark the end of grieving, a final relinquishment of mourning. Is it the poet’s declaration of independence from despair? Perhaps it is. Perhaps it is an invitation for hope to enter in.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be. 

So be it. Amen.

                You can read more of “Ring Out, Wild Bells” here.

God and Material Engagement Theory

Here’s how my brain works:

One day last week, while driving from one place to another, I caught a snippet of an opinion piece on the radio. It was about resisting the ludicrous material excesses of the end-of-year holidays—all the time spent shopping and the money spent procuring just the right things to give to our friends and family, things which would be forgotten and possibly discarded before the thawing of the frozen ground. The voice on the radio suggested we cut the number of gifts we give in half. Use some of the money we would have spent on gifts to make a donation to a charitable organization that does some good in the world, like Heifer International. How very Puritan, I thought. Who is this guy, preaching the gospel like he invented it?

I found the answer on the National Public Radio website. This guy is Adam Frank, who authored a book called About Time: Cosmology and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang. A couple of clicks later I was previewing the book on Amazon.com, and I noticed frequent use the phrase “material engagement.” So I “searched inside the book” as Amazon allows and discovered seventy-one results. That seemed significant. That led me to Google “material engagement,” and after I filtered out “fabric” and “weddings” I discovered Lambros Malafouris and Colin Refrew at Keble College, Oxford Univeristy, and soon I was in too deep.

So, paddling back to the shallower pools of Adam Frank (no offense intended), I pondered the phrase “material engagement.” It struck me because even though it is still Advent, my brain has long been contemplating Christmas and Epiphany, and God’s incarnation. Which is, it seems to me, God’s material engagement with the cosmos. The theological leap from the God who could not be seen face-to-face, whose voice could not be heard but through the prophets, who could only be addressed through the rituals the temple, to a God who is present in the person of Jesus—that leap requires a new theory of God. If God who spoke to no one face-to-face could suddenly be present in human form, that means God changed the rules of engagement with God’s creation, from immaterial engagement through dreams and visions, to material engagement in human flesh. What the church calls “incarnation,” God getting fleshy, could also be called God’s praxis of material engagement.

So what? Well let me tell you what. Many people live as if the material world doesn’t matter. Many of these people even consider their point of view to be Christian. What really matters, they say, is what is in your heart, what you believe. As long as you accept Jesus into your heart and believe, really believe, then you are saved. Saved from what? From this dirty world, which will be destroyed. And they proceed to excel the rate of destruction, because their engagement with the world is based on the assumption that mater doesn’t matter, or worse, that mater is evil.

That’s just messed up.

If God created the world, and loved the world enough to become materially engaged in the world, then everything—every last thing—has holy potential. Our own praxis of material engagement should be informed by God’s praxis of material engagement. If God was present in the person of Jesus, then God is potentially present in every person. If God slept in a manger in Bethlehem, then God is potentially present in every barn, every favela, every shanty town and shelter. If God walked the back roads of Galilee and the streets of Jerusalem, then every country lane from Mississippi to Mozambique to Myanmar and all around the world is highway in the Holy Land; and every city street is potentially a street in the City of God. If God bathed in the Jordan River, then every river… you get the drift, right?

How can we despise anyone who is potentially God? How can we abandon the streets of God’s city? How can we remove the mountain of God’s presence?

If we believe, really believe, or reluctantly believe or even entertain the possibility for a moment, that God is present in the world, then how should we live? Think about it.

Christ of the Carols: Child of God, Love's Pure Light

December 4, 2011

Text: Silent Night, Holy Night

When I was in elementary school, I remember seeing an educational film about the story of the song, Silent Night. The dramatic recreation of events was set in a small village in Austria and filmed in black and white. You probably know the story as well as I do, how the organ in the village church broke down, and no one could be found to repair it. So the Choir Master, Franz Gruber, and the Pastor, Joseph Mohr, collaborated on a simple hymn which could be accompanied by guitar.

It is a tale of adversity was transformed into advantage. Which is probably why it has become an American favorite. We like our legends of adversity overcome. We like to imagine that if it weren’t for the apparently unfortunate circumstance of the organ that went kaput, the song might never have been written. God works in a mysterious way, wonders to perform.

The thing is, no one can find an account of this story that predates 1965.

The hymn was written in 1818.

So this dramatic account is probably a complete fiction.

And yet, we know this is true: God does work in a mysterious way. God does turn disappointment into blessing, time and time again. And that is why the broken organ story will last. Because whether or not it actually happened that way, it is a true story. The story is not truth, but the story is a container ship of truth. It is the vessel that carries a truth into the future.

And that is why the stories of Christ’s nativity are so precious. They need not be factual to be true. We don’t need to pretend to suspend our disbelief in a virgin birth.  We don’t have to pretend to suspend our disbelief  that a star could guide travelers to one particular house among many, or that we could call men “wise” who thought that it did. We don’t have to pretend not to notice that Matthew and Luke’s gospel tell completely different stories of Jesus’ birth, and that two of the gospels don’t mention it at all. Because the truth of the story is not in the details. The story holds the truth. And it is a beautiful vessel for the truth. It is a story richly embroidered, lovingly crafted, polished to shine like gold.

The hymns and carols of Christmas similarly vessels of a truth, a faith, a devotion passed from generation to generation.  Still nacht, heilege nacht, Alles schlaft, eimsam wacht nur das traute hochheilege Paar, holder Knabe mit lockigen Haar, Schlafen in himmlishe ruh. Silent night, holy night, everyone sleeps, no one is awake except the faithful, holy few. The beautiful boy with the curly hair sleeps in heavenly rest.

Anyone who has spent a night with a newborn knows that the heavenly rest could not have lasted long! But don’t sweat the details, because that is not where the truth is found. The truth is that Jesus, like every baby, is born into a world that, for all its faults, becomes holy to those gathered around for the event. Time seems to stop, and for a moment there is no one in the world except mother and child, looking into one another’s eyes for the first time. The rest of the world might as well be asleep.

The truth is that generations of Christians have found in the person of Jesus a God-presence so powerful, so complete, that their devotion found expression in stories and songs that identify that presence as extending retroactively through childhood and into infancy. And so Jesus, the Man of God, became Jesus the infant Child of God. And our hymn for today is a song of praise to the Child of God, love’s pure light. Let us join with our brothers and sisters in Christ in all ages in this song of praise. 

Christ of the Carols: Hail, the Heaven Born Prince of Peace!

Text: Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

                To rise up and sing—this is one of the most ancient and most natural forms of worship. According to our scriptures, when the Hebrews crossed the Red Sea from slavery into freedom, once they had made it to the safer shore, Moses’ sister Miriam picked up her drum and began to sing and dance, and all the people joined her. Across cultures, around the world, people express their highest joy and their deepest sorrow in music.

                In the New Testament too, possibly the oldest verses are found in the Philippian hymn. Paul’s letters predate the gospels—you know that, right? And within Paul’s letter to the Philippians he quotes a hymn that might represent one of the first hymns of the first Christians, and the first attempt at Christology (which is one big word that stands in for many. Christology is about making sense of who Christ is in relation to God).

                In this letter, Paul was trying to correct some bad behavior that resulted from dissention among the church of the Philippians. He said, stop your quarreling. Stop acting all superior. That part is a paraphrase, here is the actual quote:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

who, though he was in the form of God,

   did not regard equality with God

   as something to be exploited,

but emptied himself,

   taking the form of a slave,

   being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form,

   he humbled himself

   and became obedient to the point of death—

   even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him

   and gave him the name

   that is above every name,

so that at the name of Jesus

   every knee should bend,

   in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue should confess

   that Jesus Christ is Lord,

   to the glory of God the Father.

And that is possibly the first hymn of the Christian church. Many thousands, or millions more were to follow. Charles Wesley, to whom Hark the Herald Angels Sing is attributed, wrote 6,000 hymns in his lifetime.

Actually, the hymn as it is presented in our hymnal bears only a slight resemblance to the original, by which I do not mean the Pilgrim Hymnal version, because that one too is several contributors and editors removed from Wesley’s original version, “Hark How the Welkin Sings,” published in 1739, almost 300 years ago.  But, that was a common problem pre-copyright law. Once published, an author’s work went viral (as we say now); people picked it up and reworked it and published their own versions. Wesley’s hymn was tweaked a bit more a century later to fit with Mendelssohn’s melody. So what we have today is more than just a Wesleyan hymn, it is a hymn of the church. With apologies to ASCAP, and a nod to Wikipedia, sometimes a collaborative effort produces a better product.

                So, let’s look not so much at Wesley’s original but at the “canonical version” of the hymn, the version we have before us. The first verse is easy to parse; it is of course a retelling of that bit in the second chapter of Luke’s gospel about the shepherds seeing angels who praise God and say “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good will to all people!” And then the hymn invites us all to join in with the angel’s song.

                The second and third verses are stuffed with Christological references. These verses identify Jesus as the “offspring of the Virgin’s womb,” and “Emmanuel,” and “Prince of Peace,” all references to Isaiah’s prophecy.  “Son of Righteousness” like “Son of Man” is another title given by the Hebrew prophets to identify the one who would come to restore the balance of justice, bring down the mighty and lift up the lowly and vindicate all who are oppressed. When we sing these titles we are celebrating the God of the oppressed. This is an invocation calling on the one who comes to destroy the rule of greed and violence, to replace it with a reign of peace. These titles, Prince of Peace, King of Kings, are political titles, and as such, would be as appropriately sung in an Occupy Wall Street rally, as in church. Maybe more so. When we use these titles and sing these verses we are making a political statement. Not a partisan political statement, mind you. God is not a Republican or a Democrat; God transcends all that. But by identifying Christ as the Prince of Peace we are identifying an ideal to which all leaders should be held accountable. All leaders will fail to live up to that ideal, but it is better to aim high and fail then to be aimless.

The concluding lines of the third verse are a reference to the same theme we found in Paul’s Philippian hymn—a confirmation that Jesus, though he was in the form of God, chose to be born in human form and was obedient unto death, and furthermore that somehow that obedience gives us eternal life. Mild, he lays his glory by, born that we no more must die. Born to raise “the sons of earth,” born to give us second birth. The Christ of the carol is one who does not grasp at crowns, but lives to serve, and serves to give life to others.

So let us be of the same mind, as we sing Glory to the newborn king, or as our newest version reads, “Glory to the Christ-child bring.”

The Table as Parable

Matt. 25:31-46

As we come to the end of the gospel of Matthew, we read parables which contrast the faithful and the wicked, the wise and the foolish, trustworthy and lazy, sheep and goats. These are parables of the Day of Judgment, when the human one will come and bring justice. What justice looks like in the 24^th and 25^th chapters of the gospel of Matthew is informed by what happens to Jesus in the 26^th and 27^th chapters. What justice looks like in the gospel of Matthew is also shaped by what was happening to the first century Christians for whom the gospel was written, and by the memory of Israel in exile, as recorded by the prophets.

A thread of violence is woven into these parables, and it is troubling to our liberal sensibilities. Usually, we gloss over it, ignore it, as one would politely ignore a flaw in someone else’s dress—a run in the stocking or a stain on the tie. It’s unsightly, you can hardly keep your eyes off it, but it would be rude to point it out. You have to be really good friends with someone to tell her that her bra strap is showing or his fly is open. It’s far too embarrassing to share that observation with a mere acquaintance.

Sometimes it’s like that with the bible too. Some parts of scripture are so embarrassing or so offensive, that we would just rather pretend we didn’t notice. But we are good friends with the scriptures so let’s be honest. Matthew says there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, fire, devils, and an eternal lockout. Hey, Matthew, what’s up with that?

We can only imagine the gospel’s answer, but as I said, the context gives us a clue, and the context is a violent world. If you have ever been in exile, if you have ever been in prison, if you have ever been falsely accused, betrayed by friends, beaten and mocked, then you know where the gospel writer is coming from. If you are a veteran of war, if you have been a prisoner of war, or if you have ever been a sole survivor of a battle, maybe you understand. For victims of violence, maybe rescue and relief are just not enough. For victims of violence, maybe justice is incomplete without retribution. It takes a great deal of psychological maturity and spiritual strength not to wish for retribution.

Scripture is a human creation. It is inspired and informed by thousands of years of life experience and a passion for God. Scripture does not speak with a single voice; it is a chorus of voices, sometimes in harmony and sometimes a cacophony. We believe that God is still speaking through the scripture and experience; and we have been given the discretion to sift through the scriptures to find the kernel of wheat among the chaff.

The parables of judgment tell of retributive justice. But other stories tell of another vision of justice. The story of the manna in the wilderness describes a distributive justice. Those who are lazy and those who are industrious, those who are obedient and those who are naughty all have enough to eat. Those who gathered much did not have too much, those who gathered little did not have too little.

The stories of Jesus on the hillside, breaking bread and sharing fish, are stories of distributive justice. Whether they came to hear Jesus or came just to eat, everyone had enough and more was leftover.

Holy Communion is also a parable. The parable of the table that we repeat on the first Sunday of every month is a reenactment of God’s distributive justice. When we come to this table we step into a numinous place: we step into God’s realm, where everyone is welcome, and everyone is fed, and we look forward to the day “when sharing by all will mean scarcity for none.” We rehearse our roles in God’s realm. Here we practice sharing, so that sharing will come naturally. Here we practice joy, so that joy will come naturally. Here we receive the presence of Christ so that we will recognize the presence of Christ when we step away from the table and out into the world.

At this table we embrace a vision of justice that means everyone eats. Everyone gets in, everyone has a place at the table. No one is cast out, no one suffers violence. Everyone has a table prepared in the presence of former enemies who are now friends, everyone’s head is anointed with oil and every cup overflows, and there is one flock, one shepherd and God of all.

Next step: Go and do likewise.

Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me: An Oddly Informative Sermon Quiz

23 October 2011

                I am not Peter Segel or Carl Kassel. I am not even Paula Poundstone. For three consecutive Sundays we have poked fun at ourselves through a spoof of the NPR news quiz, Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. The skits were written by Erik Steen and enacted by our talented troupe of Stewardship Committee members. But today it’s just me, offering you one more opportunity to play the quiz. Whether win or lose, and I assure you, you can’t lose, you will be rewarded.

                So, here is your first multiple choice question in a game called “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Budget Meeting.” You will play as a group; shout out the answer when you think you know it.

                Other churches take their giving very seriously, but for the past three years at First Congregational, we have been celebrating the Stewardship season with comedy. The scriptural basis for this change in philosophy is

                A. From the book of Exodus, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s ass.” Because what could be funnier than that?

                B. From the Book of Genesis, “God has brought laughter to me, now everyone who hears will laugh at me,” which is what Sarah said when she found out she was pregnant at age 90.

                C. From Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, “The Lord loves a cheerful giver,” because the word translated cheerful is literally hilarious.

                That’s right, it is C. The context of the quote is that apparently the people of the church in Corinth had pledged to make a donation to the church in Jerusalem, which was suffering severe persecution, but they had not yet come through with the gift. Paul reminded them that the people from the much poorer community of Philippi had already made good on their pledge, so don’t let them make you look bad. But no pressure, don’t let me guilt trip you, for the Lord loves a cheerful, or in the Greek language of the day, “hilarious” giver.  At First Congregational we have been testing the limits of hilarious by poking fun at our relationship with wealth.

                Actually, there is another scriptural basis for this change from somber to silly. It is the first commandment, “I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other Gods before me.” We rarely think about the commandment against idolatry as relating to money. But what else threatens to take the place of God in our lives? The pursuit of wealth is a national pastime, if not a national obsession. As the folktale, The Emperor’s New Clothes, reminds us, the best way to upset a pompous ruler is to laugh at him. By laughing about our relationship with wealth, we make profane what wants to be sacred.

                Next question: At First Congregational United Church of Christ we encourage members to pledge to the General Fund, which is for all the operating expenses of our local church. We also encourage you to give a “tip” to OCWM; like figuring the tip for your server at Applebees, move the decimal one place to the left and add that on to the bill. Ten percent to OCWM which stands for:

                A. Owls, Crows, Wrens and Mallards: a consortium of bird charities.

                B. Old Codgers of Wrestle Mania: a retirement fund for Jesse Ventura types.

                C. Our Church’s Wider Mission, the basic support for the United Church of Christ.

                Too easy, I suppose. The gifts that you give to Our Churches Wider Mission are forwarded to the Minnesota Conference of the United Church of Christ. The Conference keeps a portion for their ministries, and forwards the rest to the national office of the United Church of Christ in Cleveland Ohio. In Minnesota, our Conference provides training and support for clergy and for churches in transition, hosts an annual meeting so we can have fellowship with other United Church of Christ congregations in our state, and brings church members together for cooperative ministries of justice and witness, outdoor ministries, and other ministries that we can do better together.

                The Cleveland office coordinates the ministries of Conferences, and provides resources to congregations. We have offices of Communication and Publication, Stewardship, Education, and Global Ministries, to name a few. Our gifts to Our Church’s Wider Mission help share the good news of God’s stillspeaking voice, all around the world.

                Final Question: How much should I, personally, pledge to the church?

                A. You are our pastor, you give your whole life, we don’t expect you to pledge!

                B. Ten percent of your gross income.

                C. The national average: 1.5% of your net income.

Or           D. Work it out for yourself, prayerfully.

                The answer for me and for everyone is D. Being a pastor does not exclude me from the joy of giving. Generosity is a Christian virtue, it is one of the virtues we all must practice, like prayer, and service, and patience and gentleness.

                Some churches do expect their members to give ten percent of their income (gross or net, I’m not sure which). But we are not biblical literalists in any other matter, so we certainly aren’t going to be legalistic on this point. Some people may be able to give more than 10%. Others may struggle to reach the nation’s average rate of generosity, 1.5% of their annual income.

                Each year, I hope to be able to grow in generosity as well as in other spiritual gifts. We each have to work it out for ourselves, considering our responsibility to care for ourselves, our families, and others.

                Well, that’s all for today’s quiz. You are 3 for 3, so you have won a fabulous prize: a pancake breakfast, served by members of the Stewardship committee to thank you for your faithfulness!

Out of the Depths I Cry: The Birth of the Blues

I got one of those forwards today, that I usually don't read, but I guessed where it was going, and I knew I would have to reply. The email attributed the hymn "Precious Lord" to the big band leader Tommy Dorsey. WRONG! Thomas Dorsey and Tommy Dorsey were both musicians but the similarity ends there. So it must be time to reprint this sermon, from the Wednesday Lenten series on Songs of our Faith. First preached in 2004.

            This Lenten Season our Wednesday night services will focus on the music of our faith, the beloved hymns of the church. Tonight, the featured hymn is “Precious Lord Take My Hand,” by Thomas Dorsey, a blues musician who became “the father of Gospel music."

I have included in this service the recitation of a psalm, because the psalms contain the oldest hymns of the faith. The Book of Psalms is the hymnbook of the bible. Psalm 130 is one of many psalms of lament. Psalms of lament are honest, unguarded expressions of grief, and yearning. The psalms of lament, like The Blues, were born of suffering, captivity, enslavement. The people of the psalms were enslaved in Egypt, and held captive in Babylon; the people of the Blues were slaves in these United States, and captives to the laws of segregation. The dehumanizing effects of slavery and deprivation gave birth to the blues. It wasn’t the breeze in the trees singing sweet melodies after all. The Blues was born of suffering.

             At the beginning of the 20^th century, music was as segregated as everything else in American society. There were separate washrooms and separate drinking fountains and separate neighborhoods and separate hospitals and separate churches. And folks had their own separate music, and separate places to get together and enjoy music.

            In our separate churches, we had our separate music, the churches of black America singing the spirituals in call and response style, songs which came from the merger of the faith of the new land with the rhythm of the homeland. The churches of white America were singing songs of praise to the tunes of classical European composers. Like today, churches then were slow to change, and though folks might sing the blues or listen to country music on Saturday night, they wouldn’t think of singing that same kind of music on Sunday morning. It would be unseemly.

            So when “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” was first published (in 1932) by the well-known blues musician, Georgia Tom, folks though it was “too secular” for church, too sensual. Thomas Dorsey, who had been a minister’s son but had strayed from the flock, and sought after the things of the flesh, could not possibly be up to any good. Folks thought this must be his way of trying to lure people into the speak-easies by introducing them to his music in church.

            But Thomas Dorsey’s faith was sincere, and the song, which was born of the grief of losing his wife and child, endured, and it has touched the hearts of generations of the faithful. “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” expresses the need we all feel for the Savior’s touch, in times of darkness and doubt and pain. It is a song for the world-weary, sick woman reaching out to touch the hem of his garment. It is a song for and by the prodigal son, wishing to return home, but uncertain of the welcome.

Thomas Dorsey’s return to the faith of his childhood was complete, and it transformed the church. The Blues Musician became the Father of Gospel Music, which is a style bright and hopeful. Gospel is Blues music infused with hope, and lifted by the faith that God will work all things together for good, in time.

“Precious Lord, Take My Hand” became a source of strength when the civil rights movement began. When protesters were jailed and beaten, this song was sung by supporters outside the prison. The song was sung by Mahalia Jackson at the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr., and by Aretha Franklin at Ms Jackson’s funeral a few years later.

This is the song that I find myself singing, when tired, weak and worn, and it always lifts me up. Thanks be to God for this gift of music. Let us sing.