Post-Game Analysis

(this was supposed to get published yesterday.  My apologies)

So ... Sunday was a little bit crazy at the DC CRC, huh?  I realized on Friday that God was not going to give me a "normal" sermon.  It was a full week.  I wouldn't have minded "normal."

But instead: outline and props and audience participation, oh my!

So I've been reflecting on the nature of preaching (as I do) and realizing a couple of things:

1) Generally, I am a narrative preacher.  I gravitate toward the narrative texts in the Bible (OT, Gospel, Acts.)

2) When preaching narrative texts, the story is the central image, metaphor, illustration.  The job of the preacher, then, it seems to me, is to re-tell the story, inserting textual insights along the way.  The raw materials are evocative and the preacher crafts a scaffolding of teaching and nuance around it (hopefully in a way that never obscures the original materials.)

3) Colossians is not a narrative text.  It is an epistle, written by the Apostle Paul, chock full of insights, teaching, nuance and concrete concepts.

4) Preaching epistles is proving to be an exercise in building scaffolding out of central images, metaphors, illustrations, etc.  I am required to re-insert the story (because Colossians is not a text written outside a context, which means that there is a story there somewhere.) And Paul, God love him (& God does), is full of passion but you have to pull a little harder on the threads of the text for the evocative language/metaphor to start unraveling.

5) Explanations & apologies in advance, then, for stranger than normal sermons.  Thanks & a request for patience as you have given me the opportunity to stretch and grow and learn with you.

The Good Life

Tonight we began our Summer Bible Study at The Parsonage (but don't worry, we haven't read the book yet so there is still time to join us.)

We will be discussing Jamie Smith's Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview and Cultural Formation.  Tonight we watched this video:

Cliff Notes to our Discussion:
1) What do you make of the claim that we are "not primarily thinkers"?  Rather, we are defined by our loves.  Agree/Disagree?
2) Loves are shaped by practices.  These practices can also be called "liturgies."  Where might we find liturgies -- in the church? In the world?

Another point Jamie makes elsewhere and in the book itself (which we haven't started reading yet so you are still welcome to join us!) is that liturgies/practices all have in mind to shape and form us into some particular version of "The Good Life."

The Good Life
What is the "The Good Life"? It is some ideal of human flourishing. Some people craft their liturgies around wealth-acquisition -- because the Good Life = the Affluent Life.  "The American Dream" is a rendering of the Good Life.  We agreed that there are multiple iterations of The Good Life, all of which can be demonstrated by the replacement of the word Good.

The __Adventurous__ Life
The __Comfortable__ Life
The __Do-Gooder__ Life
The ______________ Life

Colossians
And this brings us back to our text for Sunday: Colossians 1:9-14 (from Eugene Peterson's The Message Version.)  See if this doesn't sound like a version -- hopefully a compelling version -- of The Good Life.

9-12 Be assured that from the first day we heard of you, we haven’t stopped praying for you, asking God to give you wise minds and spirits attuned to his will, and so acquire a thorough understanding of the ways in which God works. We pray that you’ll live well for the Master, making him proud of you as you work hard in his orchard. As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work. We pray that you’ll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul—not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us.

13-14 God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons. He’s set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much, the Son who got us out of the pit we were in, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating.

More thoughts to come as our Summer Bible Study continues (cause we've barely even started.  You wouldn't be behind at all if you decided to join us next Thursday 7:30pm. Just read the introduction and you'll be good to go.)

Advanced Text Study

Yesterday I had the chance to sit with the text for Sunday, Colossians 1:9-14.  Taking smaller chunks in the New Testament means spending additional time in textual analysis.  And I will attempt to share some of that here with you early in the week so you, too, can be ruminating on God's Word in advance of our study together on Sunday.  So ...

Colossians 1:12-14 (TNIV)
"Giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his people in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

Colossians 1:12-14 (MegV)

With joy (gladness) thanking the Father

     Who qualified you (made you sufficient, made you adequate)

           for a portion (part, sharing)     of the ministry (lot, share, possession, responsibility)

                                                              of the holy ones (dedicated, consecrated) in the light

     And changes (causes us to move from one place to another) us into  

          the kingdom (sovereignty, royal power, reign) of the Son He loves.

               In whom we possess (have, hold, possess) 

                    our release (deliverance, redemption, ransom), 

                    the forgiveness (pardon, release, liberty) of sin.

So, with these alternate words & some semblance of a grammatical lay-out (keeping in mind that I'm pretty sure Paul flunked all his Greek grammar classes), what good news would YOU preach from this text?

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places

Yesterday we began our summer series in the book of Colossians.  I am grateful already for the participation of so many and excited for the opportunities for discussion, interaction, worship and learning together.

The title of our series, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, comes from a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, entitled:

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

     As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

     Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

     Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

     Selves -- goes its self; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;

     Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is --

     Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

     To the Father through the features of men's faces.

---

We want to LOOK for the challenge of proclaiming "Jesus is LORD."  We want to LOOK for God at work and we want to challenge our ordinary, everyday living to reflect Christ's work in our midst, which puts us in mind of a theme quotation by Abraham Kuyper:

“There is not a square inch 

in the whole domain of our human existence 

over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, 

does not cry, "Mine!”  

-Abraham Kuyper

Additional Thoughts

Surprising as it might be to believe (which is to say not even at all), not everything I think belongs on a denominationally-supported website.  Which is why I have my own.  Here are two posts intended to provoke conversation with strong opinions but perhaps best aired on a neutral site.

Diakonia Remix Reboot

It is a little disappointing to observe how Overtures 3 & 4 (with regard to a theological affinity classis for churches opposed to the seating of women delegates) bring out impassioned opinions and concerns about the demise of the church. It’s not disappointing that people care about the church.  The disappointment lies in the paltry responses to a proposal about the work of deacons in our midst.  The suggestion that we allow a greater participation of the deaconate in steering the direction of local churches, classis and the denomination (via Synod.) 

Last year we decided that we would accept the Belhar Confession as a gift to our denomination and that we would adhere to it in some nebulous fashion as an ecumenical faith declaration.  This year we have the opportunity to see whether we can, indeed, accept the gift of another denomination/another culture’s difficult lesson learned.

If I am correct, and please (PLEASE) leave me a comment if I am not, the thrust of an increased role for the diaconate in the denomination parallels an increased focus on the mission of the church.  Of course we define ourselves by orthodoxy, which, to unduly simplify matters, is the work of elders in the church.  But we also ought to define ourselves by our orthopraxis, which, in a similar over-simplification, is the work of the deacons of the church. 

Surely we would have a word to speak to any congregation that would not take seriously Paul’s primer on faith, “For it is by grace you are saved, through faith, and this is not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not by works so that no one may boast.”  But aren’t we just as obligated to speak a cautionary word to any congregation failing to take seriously the very next verse, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do”?

To this I add my own simple prayer - “From a denomination that cares more about whether women serve from the church kitchen or the pulpit, the Sunday School classroom or the consistory than whether the church serves the world with all its resources and all its members, Good Lord, deliver us.”

Diversity Defined

I recently accepted a call to a church in Washington DC where church membership is as diverse as I’ve seen in the denomination.  I’d like to think that this allows us a unique glimpse of the Kingdom of God.  I’d like to think that, because the Spirit is present in this place, we are always super-accepting and understanding of one another.  Just like Jesus.

7 months in, what I’ve come to think is that holding people together is hard work. That’s a universal truth whether the factions are split over worship music, carpet colors for the fellowship hall or culture, language and ethnicity.  It requires the effort of well-meaning individuals deciding to live in community with one another no matter what. And, even THEN, it isn’t easy.

Nonetheless, when it works – even for a moment – it is a good and glorious thing.  So yes, let’s equip our pastors and our churches to do the difficult work of holding on to each other – across divides of culture, ethnicity, language, theological proclivities, politics and gender.  Absolutely, yes. I’m a big fan of the impulse behind the Diversity in Leadership Planning Group II.  I just wonder about the conclusion they have reached.

Is the solution, then, to spend $200,000 (admittedly scaled down from the original request of 1 million) to hire persons of color (to say nothing of diversity with regard to gender, to geography or faith background) for leadership positions at the denominational level?

To believe that this is the solution to the problem is to put a tacit trust in trickle-down social understanding.  To believe that diversity in hiring at the denominational level is the solution to creating multi-cultural, multi-ethnic understanding in the local congregation depends upon an assumption that the leadership at 2850 significantly changes the lived experiences of our congregations.

And I don’t think I’m the first person to worry that something is being made of you and me with that assumption. 

Introducing ... Eastertide: the Season

Easter isn’t a day.  Easter isn’t even a season.  Easter is a way of life for the people of God.  Through Pentecost Sunday on May 19, we will be hearing a series of sermons entitled: Resurrection People.  What does it mean to live after Easter but before Christ’s Second Coming.  How does Christ’s work of death, resurrection, ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit equip us to be the People of God in the world today?

“What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God’s future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether. They are part of what we may call building for God’s kingdom.” 
- N.T. Wright "Surprised By Hope"

Baptism Wrap-Up

Thanks to you all for a meaningful Lent and joyful Easter morning. As we move forward into the 6 weeks of Easter Season before Pentecost on May 19, I thought I would share a couple of resources with you.  These books were significant in my preparation of thoughts and sermons on Baptism so if that it a topic you are curious about, I encourage you to read more.

The Promise of Baptism by James Brownson

and

Leonard VanderZee's Christ, Baptism and the Lord's Supper.


Finally, because it is Easter Monday after all, a little something contemporary to carry the Joy of Easter Sunday into the rest of the week.  Remember, you are Resurrection people!