Representatives of the traditional Yard Sale Crew!

There is, perhaps, no more energetic weekend, no more passionate and participatory event in the whole life of the Scotchtown Presbyterian congregation, than our Yard Sale weekend. From lugging donations in through the front door to sorting and tagging the goods, the prep week is a constant buzz of activity in the fellowship hall. The morning of, our dedicated team of volunteers hauls out furniture and books and movies and glassware and kitchen appliances and everything that you can imagine having been given to a church yard sale. And for six hours that day, with the able help of the Scouts of Troop 273 and the combined effort of our dozens of volunteers, we share with our community of the bounty that God has shared with us.

And that, truly, is how I have to see this event – as a sharing in the bounty that God has delivered onto our doorstep. This is a Stewardship event for me…an event that causes me to give thanks for the fantastic members and friends of the church who devote so much time and love and care to the community, at the Yard Sale and far beyond. It causes me to give thanks for our astonishingly generous neighbors and community, who give freely so much of their material goods, devoting unto God that which they do not need. I pray constantly that we are worthy of that gift, and that we devote also unto God all the work and donations and recompense we receive.

But most of all, I give thanks for this community in which we live – a community in which so many different voices and faces dwell. I was so blessed to meet and see once again and for the first time so many of my neighbors…the Muslim couple, delighted to be greeted in Arabic…the Jewish family, stopping by to see what was up for sale…families from Latin America and the Caribbean…so many of our neighbors and friends, and to them all, we are the body of Christ – the working out of God’s salvation is laid on our preaching, on our care, on our invitation.

I am, as ever, humbled and overjoyed by the work that went into the Yard Sale…and by the gift of grace that God has left with us.

Found on a church sign after the close of the Yard Sale

]]> http://foundgospel.wordpress.com/2013/06/15/sold/feed/ 0 revmmlj 20130608_120933.jpg 20130608_151907.jpg http://foundgospel.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/cleaned/ http://foundgospel.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/cleaned/#comments Sat, 23 Feb 2013 04:16:18 +0000 revmmlj http://foundgospel.wordpress.com/?p=1723 Continue reading →]]> We had a good day at church today – it was part one of what I’ve taken to calling the Big Church Clean. The plan is, this weekend, to get a whole bunch of bodies together and just make things clean. Tidy. Vacuum. Dust. Neaten. Straighten. Maybe, even, paint just a little bit.

I get to have a little fun, at events like this. Be a little goofy. There was a nice moment when I had chip clips attached to my ears. I got to check in with some folks, and do some work with some folks, which is always a nice feeling. There was music, and fellowship, and a great deal of incredibly useful just, plain cleaning. It was hard work, don’t get me wrong, but it felt good. It felt right.

And I am indescribably glad that it happened in the season of Lent. This is the time of year – this is when we clean ourselves out. We tidy up the psychic clutter. We dust the corners of our souls that have been too long neglected. We throw into the trash all the things that are preventing us from being God’s people to the fullest – living our whole lives ready and sparkling and brilliant for the seasons to come.

It is a beautiful Lent, my friends. A time of slowness, and silence. A time of prayer, and repentance. A time to break down, and throw out. A time to clean.

About twenty minutes later I noticed the problem. I have been a Christian, committed, now, for more than twenty years. I was a Christian Fellowship leader and a Prayz! board member, a Christian a cappella singer, I applied to seminary in December of 2008 (five years ago, for those of you keeping score), and I have been an ordained Teaching Elder of the PC(USA) for a full year now. And never, in all those years and roles, have I ever spoken about church with anything near the passion and energy that I put into an – admittedly very good – cheeseburger.

I think, although I am not sure, that this is either a nice New England/Pacific Northwest kind of way to be. Or, possibly, a nice mainline Protestant way to be. Or, maybe, even, a nice middle-class white guy way to be. Any or all of these could fit the bill.

The problem is that it just plain doesn’t work. It doesn’t connect. I promise you, as much as I love my LBC, my service to and life in the Church of Jesus Christ is WAY more important to me than a Five Guys burger. Is, even, way more fun than a Five Guys burger.

I want to talk about church this way. Not with pressure, not with creepiness, but with an expression of my joy in being a part of God’s work. With energy, with passion, and with real excitement to say: “Have you tried church? It’s AWESOME.”

Because it is.

Did you know there are 150 Psalms and 150 Shakespeare sonnets (discounting the few that are tucked into Romeo and Juliet)? I am not expecting a great deal of analytical crossover, but there’s something fun about reading these two radically different styles of poetry side by side.

Anyway.

Today is 7, and Psalm 7 contains one of the most alarming prayers I have ever read in the Scriptures. The Psalmist prays in verse 8, saying, “Establish justice for me, LORD, according to my righteousness and according to my integrity.” What a terrifying thing to pray! I surely want justice from the Lord in radical disproportion to my righteousness and my integrity. I know my righteousness and my integrity well enough to know that both are vastly outweighed by my sin – it is only through the grace of God in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that I am anywhere near balanced. 

One of my favorite television shows features the following quote: “I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?’ ” I thank God daily for has gracious injustices – for the blessings that have rained upon us, even when we deserved them least. 

Really, though, if I’m going with the children’s literature reference, it should probably be “Zorn! All zorn!” There’s probably a Scripture reference somewhere about the abomination of the desolation that might also fit. Suffice it to say:

My cell phone got busted. I caught it on the edge of a piece of furniture, cracked the screen, and that was all she wrote.

On my birthday.

Now, I first got a cell phone in 2002, I believe. And I’ve had a few other breaks and cracks and shatters over the years. I’ve had to do some quick turnaround replacements. This is not a unique experience.

And yet…I don’t know that I’ve ever felt so generically AWFUL to have a lost a cell phone before. It was like I’d misplaced a limb or something. I couldn’t stay in touch with friends or family or parishioners…it was horrible.

I’ve now replaced the Device, but I am still finding myself reflecting on the wretchedness of the experience. One lesson was that I might need to find ways to be a BIT less dependent on the poor thing.

But I was also thinking about lines of communication…thinking about prayer. I fear sometimes, that the cell phone with which I call God, which we call prayer – I misplace it. I don’t know as it’s ever been broken, but I certainly have left it under the bed, or behind the nightstand. The charge on it runs down, and God tries to call, and it goes straight to voicemail…

I shan’t labor the metaphor too much longer. But, in a time of transition and grief and change – in life, in short – it is so very important, so critical, to be in touch with God. To leave prayer where it can be found, to spend time on the phone with God, both speaking and listening. I hope that in days to come, I will find being disconnected from God as distressing as I once found having a broken cell phone screen.

I know – I’ve known for a few days – that I would be using the text of John 1, at the very least, in the Christmas Eve service. And I think, as I watch the candle dance on the table and the winter sunlight stream in the windows, I think that I will never be through wondering at one brief, almost unintelligible line of John’s Gospel. He says, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:5, NRSV). The NIV notes that “understood” would also be a valid translation of the word here rendered “overcome.” The King James bible reads that the darkness “comprehended it not.” 

I think of this young man – this angry young man, whose darkness did not understand the light. I think of the many in the world who carry with them a darkness that can not, does not understand the light. Violence and hatred abound – this is by no means news. In the DRC, in Syria, in Yemen, in Afghanistan, in Palestine/Israel, in Chicago, in New York City, yes, even in Aurora, CO and Portland, OR, in Newtown, CT, there is a darkness which has not understood the light – and a light that has not understood the darkness.

I do not understand this darkness. This evil. I do not understand this human violence. I cannot excuse, condone, or permit it. No more so at Sandy Hook School than in Kabul or Damascus or Chicago’s South Side. It is wrong. Wrong to murder people. Wrong to murder children. I don’t get it.

But this, then, is the promise of Christmas – the promise of John’s Gospel. A light has shone into that impenetrable darkness…and the darkness, at the same time that it has not understood the light…it has also not overcome the light. The light that is the presence of Jesus Christ in our midst has never been compassed, never been extinguished, never been snuffed from its ultimate shining. Save once…but I’ll talk on that point later.

For today…for today I will get up, and make a cup of cocoa, and keep pounding my head against this liturgy, and praying for a wounded, a traumatized community. And, to the best of my ability, I will keep shining the light of Christ into the darkness that surrounds me. 

Blessings to you all, this Advent. Pray for the daughters and sons of Newtown, and to all those who have faced the darkness. Pray for them light.

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

This time, rather than toughing it out, I found for myself a very fine pine which seemed to be keeping its undergrowth dry, hunkered down with my back to the telephone pole, and waited for the weather to wear itself out.

Did you know that on a warm day (or maybe every day, I’ve never stopped to look before), when the rain hits the pavement, the roadway steams? Mostly there was a very fine mist that worked its way downhill, but every once a while a car would pass the other way, and, for a moment, there would be a traffic pattern of moisture, nebulously moving in the correct directions.

Gradually, as I watched, the space kept dry by my sturdy pine was overrun. Tiny rivulets of flood tentatively flowed over the asphalt until the streams cascaded down the bank of the roadway and into the storm drain, where their music lulled me for a time.

I’ve been having this waiting problem, you see, which is to say that I’ve been waiting very badly of late. There’s quite a bit for which I need to wait – for more work to materialize (which does not excuse me from working), for some of the tectonics of my household to shift, for many of the exciting things upcoming this summer…and I’m doing it wrong. The waiting, I mean. I alternate between losing myself in media of various kinds and focusing exclusively on the pot, waiting for the stainless little jerk to boil.

So, for half an hour today, God forced me to slow down. I’d left my phone when I headed to lunch, and so I couldn’t entertain myself with Twitter, couldn’t leave, had to stay planted at the foot of that tree, and had to wait in silence. Had to observe and be amazed and be silent, and wait.

There are waiting hours for us. Hours of anticipation, when our destination on the road seems so interminably close that we find it all too easy to neglect to look around – to see the  landscape and the rivers and trees, to enjoy our presence on the road. It is an art I had once, and am re-discovering, the art of letting my anxieties go, as Christ calls me to do, and submitting myself to the plan He has in place for me, not only the road itself but the pace He has declared. And if, on the way, I am struck dumb by the beauty of rainwater on asphalt, all the more glory be to God.

Good thing we just had Pentecost.

Today in the Hudson Valley, there is a cool wind blowing, after the heat and humidity of the past few days. I’ve got the windows wide open, blowing a healing breeze through my home, and the sounds of life and activity and hope just outside my window. A brilliant day to take a long walk (slated for just as soon as I’m done with this blog post), to pray a bit, to feel the sun on my bald spot, and the breeze…the mild and gentle wind blowing past me, and healing as it goes.

On a day with a wind like today, I find that I focus once again on the stories of Spirit in the Scriptures as being a wind/breath thing. That God breathed life into humans. That the wind played such a key part in the Jesus life and story.

We are nepeshim, in the Hebrew Scriptures, animated, breath-creatures. Without our gasping, our sighing, our intake and exhalation, we are nothing. I fear in all my business, I’ve forgotten, sometimes, to breathe, and breathe deep. And it’s winded me, for certain.

When do you breathe? And when do you forget to do so?

The church’s great hour of Viral Media

I was blessed to be able to give a talk at the May 22nd meeting of Hudson River Presbytery, at Larchmont Avenue Presbyterian Church. Much of my presentation was a very brief rundown of some jargon and thinking that underlies social media, but just towards the end I dived into a concept that I thought deserved a bit more time – the link between Pentecost and the viral media “revolution” of the last few years.

More Complicated

The reason that I’m inclined to enquote that “revolution” is because, really, it’s nothing new. The unusual events were those of the seventeenth and twentieth centuries, the print and radio/TV transitions into “mass” media. All of a sudden, it became possible for a few people to reach out to a HUGE audience – bigger than had ever been possible before.

What’ we’re seeing now with the internet and social media is a return to the old model, done MUCH faster. The peddlers and legates traveled from town to town with the news, spread it to smaller groups of people, information was shared by human contact, across the lines of relationships. What Facebook and Google and Twitter and foursquare and the rest have down is recapture that sense of news as grounded in relationship. They’ve also successfully bridged the gap between mass media and the ancient model of personal media, blending the two practices, and making a heck of a lot of money between ‘em.

The Pentecost Epidemic

I need to disclaim this next section by remarking that the work of Neal Stephenson in Snow Crash is profoundly influential in my thinking. He was probably the one who first compared the glossolalia (speaking in tongues) of Pentecost with a sort of mental computer virus. I want to take it in a slightly different direction, however, and say that Pentecost was one of the most successful moments of viral marketing of its era, for two key reasons.

First of all, because the message itself was compelling. People who were exposed to the truth that Peter and the other apostles proclaimed (not all people, but many, as many as three thousand that day) were so moved that they were baptized and became believers. I think one of the greatest disservices we do the Gospel of Jesus Christ is pretending to folks (and to ourselves), that it is not the biggest, best, most important thing that you could possibly share with someone. This is phenomenal stuff! God loves you! God loves you so much he died for you. We seem intent on trying to quarantine the Gospel, which is precisely the opposite of what we’re supposed to be doing.

Secondly, what’s absolutely powerful and phenomenal about viral media is that it meets people where they are. The apostles stood up and preached to people, who heard in their native languages. Now, I sadly cannot preach in the tongues of Phrygia and Pamphylia, but I can be deeply attentive to the contexts of the people with whom I share this particular positive virus. I can try to embed it in their context in their understanding, find vectors for transmission that are available and open.

The Language of the Gospel Virus

We have all, in the church, been infected by the Good News of Jesus Christ. We have caught the pathogen, the one that creates empathy with the suffering of Christ. We are borne down by its wellness, rather than illness. We dedicate ourselves to spreading this ease (not disease). And we will do it as all great epidemics have spread – upon the people. Through people, through the contact of human communities, through human relationships. Many of the people of this generation have learned immunity to some of the more extreme symptoms of our Pentecost plague. We must find new vectors, person to person, that share not merely the symptoms but the real changes, the fundamental genetic transformation of the virus of God’s good news. Social media – the original form of media – will be crucial to us as we proceed on this road. Catch the fever – feel the wellness spreading throughout your system. We are the Church, and we’re called to make more Church. Let’s get to it.

Can you spot the bird-hole?

So, as I was headed into the Fellowship Hall for the Session Meeting, I had an unexpected avian encounter. As you can see from the photograph, the stairway down to the Fellowship Hall has a method for ornithological entrance, to wit, there’s a little tube-hole in the wall. I’m quite sure that in the depths and mists of time, this hole served a higher purposed, but it’s function of latter days seems to be permitting birds to flap their way into the Fellowship Hall lobby.

The poor little guy was…I’m not going to say frantic. But he was clearly not happy about his location, and suffering from the common feather-brained problem of glass confusion (I can see through it…why can’t I GO through it?). I startled him when I opened the door, and he banged himself against the window over and over, desperate to get back to a place of freedom.

I wonder, sometimes, if we seem that way to God’s ministers, thumping over and over again against the glass. We can see the promised land, God’s Kingdom and purposes for us, but our way is blocked. Over and over again, we throw ourselves up against the barriers of our sin.

And behind us, all the while, some One is holding the door open, ready for us to pass by Him and let us into the light and abundance without. We simply need to turn around, to see, and to trust that His intentions for us are as good as they have ever been.

Of course, maybe there was just a bird in a stairway. But I like to think of it the other way.