Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
-Isaiah 43:17-18
At breakfast today with Laura and the kids, it occurred to me that in the last few years, we have developed, in my humble opinion, a pretty impressive arsenal of tricks to get our kids to eat their food. Here are a few of my favorites:
The "Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper". In this classic technique, an ordinary salt and pepper shaker--found at almost any dinner table--transform into the characters of Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper from Maggie's favorite show, Blue's Clues. It seems Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper are eager to see Maggie eat her food--especially if it's a new food. She doesn't much care about our opinion, but Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper have much more clout.
The, "If You Don't Want it, I'll Eat it..." It's a good thing this works as well as it does, because bad as it sounds, I actually am often tempted to eat their food.
The "One, Two, Eat a Bite." A simple chant we started with Maggs early on. It often leads to dancing, clapping, table-thumping, and spontaneous vegetable ingestion. The rhythm is, indeed, going to get you...
The "Keg Stand." Please pardon the crass name. We developed this for Soren, because apparently a frat-party atmosphere is conducive to infantile digestion. We simply chant, "Sor-en, Sor-en, Sor-en...." again with the clapping, stomping, table-thumping, until he takes a good bite, and we explode in applause. Especially effective in fine restaurants.
Good Old Reverse Psychology. We just look at Maggs, and say something to the effect of, "Don't you dare eat that carrot!" and act positively outraged when she does. Great for kids in a rebellious or silly mood.
So I never really examined before exactly why we go to such lengths to get our kids to eat. I mean, nutrition is one thing, but for that, we could just leave out cups of cereal, animal crackers, soy nuggets and carrot sticks all day, and sit down to a nice quiet meal as a couple. It could be Laura's and my passion for diversity, and the strong sense that the kids will miss out on lots of good foods if they don't try. (Green Eggs and Ham is a bedtime standard in our house.) But it seems like a lot of effort to put in at every single meal, knowing the kids will probably just revert to Pizza, noodles and Ben & Jerry's their Freshman year of college anyway, like any other red-blooded American kids.
The deeper element I think we, and lots of other parents are working on with our kids, is what might be called "Holy Flexibility": a sense that what lies outside our realm of experience need not be frightening. In fact, the Bible says God almost always calls us from beyond our sphere of knowledge. Holiness, from the earliest stories of God's people, is by definition that which is set apart, and "other." Less like PB&J, and more like Pad Thai.
God called Abram to leave his ancestral home of Haran at age 75. God called the people of Israel out of a fixed status quo in Egypt--oppressive though it was--to a new life of freedom across the sea. Jesus called his disciples to think differently about where God lives, and whom God loves and cares about. He invited them to a New Covenant in his blood. And even after his resurrection, He kept calling believers to keep their ears open: new plans and new horizons were coming their way. From accepting Gentile believers, to processing their experience of God as Three-In-One, all the way down to the last two centuries, beginning to hear God's call for equality of all God's children, an end to slavery and imperialism, a beginning of new opportunities for women and racial integration, God keeps doing new stuff, and we don't want to miss it.
So, this evening at dinner, I plan to try my best to see in our daily cheer-leading ritual more than just vitamins, minerals, and table manner training, but also another step in our process of making disciples. Good thought, anyway. We'll have to see how it goes...
Monday, August 27, 2012
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Accepting, Celebrating, Living in God's Image
So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
Gen. 1:26
I've had a lot of pretty good evenings this summer. But last night was without a doubt the best. A nice Italian dinner, a glass or two of Chianti, and a couple of the most disgracefully awful bowling scores I've ever put my name to...all with the woman I love, to celebrate nine years of marriage. I am so thankful to God for the wild ride we've taken, and for the family we've become.
Like many couples who've spent nine years together, there's a certain comfort that sets in...you know each other's tastes, jokes and stories, you get a sense of what will make them happy, what will make them laugh and cry, what they'll find exciting or frightening. Being comfortable is a good thing sometimes.
But more than comfort, what makes me smile as I write this is the sense of being accepted and celebrated, and the joy of accepting and celebrating another, all the more now that we really know each other, and begin to discover how much more there is to know. The woman I know today, I love all the more, because of the gifted counselor she is becoming and the lives she will change for the better; the compassion she is instilling in our son; the strength and confidence she is instilling in our daughter.
The Bible says that from the very beginning humankind was meant to reflect the image of God, not just individually, but in close community. Accepting the other and being accepted. "In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." It is not gender in itself--maleness or femaleness--that causes us to bear God's image, but rather, our capacity to love and fully commit to another. I feel that God's image really has been reflected to a fuller degree in my life as a member of a family than as an individual.
As Laura and I continue to live out our call as partners and teammates in the adventure of life in Christ, I give thanks to God. I pray that all who feel called to do so, can share this same gift of acceptance, of celebration, of commitment to another's good, as a training ground for the love to which Jesus calls us all. I pray this for those who can legally marry in their state, and for those who look forward to having that right acknowledged someday by their fellow citizens.
I am truly grateful for my best friend, my life coach, my muse, my high school crush, my wife. May God bless you and your family--whatever shape it may take--as richly as God has blessed me.
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
Gen. 1:26
I've had a lot of pretty good evenings this summer. But last night was without a doubt the best. A nice Italian dinner, a glass or two of Chianti, and a couple of the most disgracefully awful bowling scores I've ever put my name to...all with the woman I love, to celebrate nine years of marriage. I am so thankful to God for the wild ride we've taken, and for the family we've become.
Like many couples who've spent nine years together, there's a certain comfort that sets in...you know each other's tastes, jokes and stories, you get a sense of what will make them happy, what will make them laugh and cry, what they'll find exciting or frightening. Being comfortable is a good thing sometimes.
But more than comfort, what makes me smile as I write this is the sense of being accepted and celebrated, and the joy of accepting and celebrating another, all the more now that we really know each other, and begin to discover how much more there is to know. The woman I know today, I love all the more, because of the gifted counselor she is becoming and the lives she will change for the better; the compassion she is instilling in our son; the strength and confidence she is instilling in our daughter.
The Bible says that from the very beginning humankind was meant to reflect the image of God, not just individually, but in close community. Accepting the other and being accepted. "In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." It is not gender in itself--maleness or femaleness--that causes us to bear God's image, but rather, our capacity to love and fully commit to another. I feel that God's image really has been reflected to a fuller degree in my life as a member of a family than as an individual.
As Laura and I continue to live out our call as partners and teammates in the adventure of life in Christ, I give thanks to God. I pray that all who feel called to do so, can share this same gift of acceptance, of celebration, of commitment to another's good, as a training ground for the love to which Jesus calls us all. I pray this for those who can legally marry in their state, and for those who look forward to having that right acknowledged someday by their fellow citizens.
I am truly grateful for my best friend, my life coach, my muse, my high school crush, my wife. May God bless you and your family--whatever shape it may take--as richly as God has blessed me.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Extremists for Love
So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love?
-Martin Luter King, Jr., from Letter from a Birmingham Jail
These days I feel like my heart has a hundred-pound weight chained to it. I've just read about yet another act of domestic terrorism near Texas A&M, in a month that has held far too many already. There are too many grieving families to pray for; too many police officers and families of fallen officers who will carry this trauma for the rest of their lives; too many communities where people will think twice about even leaving their homes; and too many hearts of perpetrators filled with so much darkness and foreboding that it's an effort to pray for them, even when they need it most.
I hate that this is the third national-news-making shooting right here in the U.S. of this month, and I'm just now feeling impassioned enough to blog about it, let alone take action, or even determine what the appropriate action might be. I hate that when these events clump together, they lose focus in the public (and in my own) mind, when they are distinct, carried out by different people in different places under different circumstances. I hate that this has become a political football for both sides over gun control. I hate that others see it as some kind of vague "sign of the times," and as an excuse to be even more fearful, paranoid and unwilling to try to understand our neighbors. I hate the sick feeling I get in my stomach when I look at a few of these situations and realize that, while it's impossible to see inside someone else's heart, some of these shooters were not just despairing or without hope. The Aurora shooter, for instance, was not just armed to the teeth, but covered in defensive gear, which seems to suggest he had not lost hope for himself: he just wanted to steal it away from others.
I hate a lot of things about these situations. But more than anything, I hate the impression, sometimes even the notion I get in my own heart, that in the midst of all this, the church is not doing anything relevant. That we're not taking any action. That we're just sitting around, praying, keeping our eyes on the skies.
You see, I am blessed to work for a church that does a lot of what the world considers really good things. We spend a lot of time, energy and money feeding the poor, clothing the naked, caring for the homeless, and welcoming the stranger. These things are uncontroversially good. Not only did Jesus actually tell his disciples to DO these things, but most people, religious or secular, would clap us on the back for doing them. They make us feel like we're actually accomplishing something, instead of expending all that effort throwing fancy words and phrases into the Sunday morning air, and handing out little crumbs of bread and sips of wine.
But here's the thing: as proud as I am of my congregation for those works of compassion, as hard as I'll fight to ensure we keep doing them, as much good as I truly believe they do and as pleased as I believe God is with them, those things can be done by just about any charitable organization, and often are. We do not have the market cornered on compassion. Target, the Rotary Club, the American Legion, and in fact every middle- and high school student in Maryland as a graduation requirement, have joined us in that effort; for which I thank God.
But what Target, the Rotary club, and your average middle school class can not do is raise people up believing they are a cherished and beloved child of the creator of the universe. They can not tell a child that nonviolence is not only a practical solution, but also the way of the savior of humankind, who has already triumphed over death. They can not tell a story that helps people make sense of their past, present, and future, in light of a God who loves us so much that no boundary--not even death--would separate him from dwelling among us. They can not give a person the kind of hope that helps us to sing hymns of praise even as we stare into the face of our own mortality.
Of course I don't mean to say that all acts of violence would come to an end if people just worshiped and prayed more, as if Christians are immune to despair, hopelessness, hatred. They wouldn't, because clearly we aren't. But what I do mean to say is that evangelism matters. The story we are called to tell, the teachings we are called to pass on, the faith and trust we are called to impart, the imperative not just to love our neighbors as ourselves but also to love God with heart, soul, mind and strength: those things matter. They do make a difference. They are not an afterthought, but the very heart of hope for almost two billion people on this planet, and they are worth sharing.
As we Christians grieve with yet another set of victims and pray for yet another community in turmoil, let's remember: our news really is good. So let's not hide it under a bushel basket anymore.
-Martin Luter King, Jr., from Letter from a Birmingham Jail
These days I feel like my heart has a hundred-pound weight chained to it. I've just read about yet another act of domestic terrorism near Texas A&M, in a month that has held far too many already. There are too many grieving families to pray for; too many police officers and families of fallen officers who will carry this trauma for the rest of their lives; too many communities where people will think twice about even leaving their homes; and too many hearts of perpetrators filled with so much darkness and foreboding that it's an effort to pray for them, even when they need it most.
I hate that this is the third national-news-making shooting right here in the U.S. of this month, and I'm just now feeling impassioned enough to blog about it, let alone take action, or even determine what the appropriate action might be. I hate that when these events clump together, they lose focus in the public (and in my own) mind, when they are distinct, carried out by different people in different places under different circumstances. I hate that this has become a political football for both sides over gun control. I hate that others see it as some kind of vague "sign of the times," and as an excuse to be even more fearful, paranoid and unwilling to try to understand our neighbors. I hate the sick feeling I get in my stomach when I look at a few of these situations and realize that, while it's impossible to see inside someone else's heart, some of these shooters were not just despairing or without hope. The Aurora shooter, for instance, was not just armed to the teeth, but covered in defensive gear, which seems to suggest he had not lost hope for himself: he just wanted to steal it away from others.
I hate a lot of things about these situations. But more than anything, I hate the impression, sometimes even the notion I get in my own heart, that in the midst of all this, the church is not doing anything relevant. That we're not taking any action. That we're just sitting around, praying, keeping our eyes on the skies.
You see, I am blessed to work for a church that does a lot of what the world considers really good things. We spend a lot of time, energy and money feeding the poor, clothing the naked, caring for the homeless, and welcoming the stranger. These things are uncontroversially good. Not only did Jesus actually tell his disciples to DO these things, but most people, religious or secular, would clap us on the back for doing them. They make us feel like we're actually accomplishing something, instead of expending all that effort throwing fancy words and phrases into the Sunday morning air, and handing out little crumbs of bread and sips of wine.
But here's the thing: as proud as I am of my congregation for those works of compassion, as hard as I'll fight to ensure we keep doing them, as much good as I truly believe they do and as pleased as I believe God is with them, those things can be done by just about any charitable organization, and often are. We do not have the market cornered on compassion. Target, the Rotary Club, the American Legion, and in fact every middle- and high school student in Maryland as a graduation requirement, have joined us in that effort; for which I thank God.
But what Target, the Rotary club, and your average middle school class can not do is raise people up believing they are a cherished and beloved child of the creator of the universe. They can not tell a child that nonviolence is not only a practical solution, but also the way of the savior of humankind, who has already triumphed over death. They can not tell a story that helps people make sense of their past, present, and future, in light of a God who loves us so much that no boundary--not even death--would separate him from dwelling among us. They can not give a person the kind of hope that helps us to sing hymns of praise even as we stare into the face of our own mortality.
Of course I don't mean to say that all acts of violence would come to an end if people just worshiped and prayed more, as if Christians are immune to despair, hopelessness, hatred. They wouldn't, because clearly we aren't. But what I do mean to say is that evangelism matters. The story we are called to tell, the teachings we are called to pass on, the faith and trust we are called to impart, the imperative not just to love our neighbors as ourselves but also to love God with heart, soul, mind and strength: those things matter. They do make a difference. They are not an afterthought, but the very heart of hope for almost two billion people on this planet, and they are worth sharing.
As we Christians grieve with yet another set of victims and pray for yet another community in turmoil, let's remember: our news really is good. So let's not hide it under a bushel basket anymore.
Friday, August 3, 2012
It's Part of Our Story
And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. Romans 5:3-5
There's just no other honest way to say it: it's been a hell of a month here at Salem. I'm surely not the only one among us who is somewhat glad to close the book on July, and pray fervently that August is nothing like it.
Granted, there have been many highs: walking through the Exodus story with our Confirmands at Mar-Lu Ridge; praising and serving God with 33,309 high school students at the ELCA Youth Gathering; worshiping with and hearing from Annie Bunio, our missionary teacher in Tanzania (although technically that was August 1st).
But the lows have been very low. This month alone, we have had to say goodbye to three faithful, beloved, active members of Salem; and mourned with at least three other member families at the untimely loss of spouses, parents, and even children. My prayers remain with the Grempler family; the Van Sant family; Alice Meier and her family; The family of and all who were close to Claire Graham; Mary Kay, Shannon and Alaina Willing and their family; and Paul and Lynda Bell, their son Robert, and his children; among so many others who are crying out to God for comfort and peace. I invite you also to join me in daily lifting up Dave, our senior pastor, as he seeks to provide spiritual leadership and a word of good news in this time of deep struggle.
I have long held the belief that times of crisis are not very good times for theological teaching. The absolute worst funeral sermons I have ever heard have been theological expositions on the finer points of the resurrection of the body, or of atonement theory from a "turn or burn" standpoint, when what everyone really needed to hear was that God is weeping with them, and that Jesus is making all things new.
But with all that said, I'd like to share with you something that might be helpful now, or might be something to come back to later: in the cross of Christ, we have a unique way of processing our suffering. The cross allows us to stop avoiding, ignoring, or trying to escape suffering, but rather to allow its presence in our story as God's children. We can stop trying to "make everything OK," but rather admit we're not OK, and hand our stories over to God.
Saint Paul wrote about how the message of the cross seemed to most people of his time to be utter foolishness. And if we really look at it, maybe it would seem that way in our own culture, too. We live among a people obsessed with "holding it together," with projecting an image of success, of unflappability, of single-handedly overcoming every kind of adversity life throws at you. Western culture idolizes the "rags to riches" stories, the stories of "self made" men and women who take the hand that they're dealt and turn it into health, wealth, fortune and fame. I'm still not sure our culture knows what to do with a God who, being all-sufficient and all-powerful, emptied himself and became a human being, and suffered death right here among us. It doesn't compute. It doesn't allow us to do what we tend to do with our suffering: to minimize it, to ignore it, to stick it in the closet and pretend it's not there.
But when we affirm that in the cross of Christ, God came to suffer with us, we are affirming two important things.
The first is that the fact that we're suffering is not "OK" with God, and it doesn't have to be "OK" with us. Jesus would not have spent his entire ministry healing the sick, feeding the hungry, casting out demons, and taking such an outspoken stand against political and religious oppression that it ultimately cost him his life, if he believed all that stuff was "God's will." He did not tell the synagogue leader that his daughter had died because "God needed another angel in his choir," and he did not justify the ailment of the paralyzed man by saying it was somehow "in God's plan." He healed them. In his every word and deed, Jesus demonstrated that God wants abundant life for us, and God weeps with us when, because of a sinful world gone haywire, that life is taken from us. God does not push buttons to make people suffer. Instead, on the cross, God takes our pain and dies with it there. Martin Luther once said, "a theologian of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theologian of the cross calls the thing what it is." We don't have to do theological gymnastics trying to justify why our pain is somehow "good" and God wants it. God doesn't. God wants to take our pain to the cross, and raise us to new life.
The second thing we affirm in the cross is that although our suffering is not "OK," it can be part of our story--even a central part. You would think that in telling the story of Jesus' life, the first Christians would kind of gloss over the story of his death. It's unpleasant. It brings back painful memories. It makes the "hero" of the story look vulnerable and weak. In telling our own life stories, we often gloss over those painful times. They rarely make it into our photo albums, or our family Christmas letters. And yet they are a part of our story. They help to form us, and make us who we are. And by finding ways of retelling our story, even the most difficult parts, we can discover how God has been present with us all along, not causing our suffering, but bearing it with us and finding ways to turn our pain into healing. To be a child of God is to be more than what has happened to us, but to let all that has happened to us be a witness to our crucified lord: the one who rose from the grave, and was recognized by his disciples not by a crown or shining lights of glory, but by his own wounds. In the same way, our wounds may stay with us, and remain a part of our story, but in the hope of Christ, we know the story itself will be one of healing.
As I said, all this may be too much to process now, and to be honest, part of why I'm posting this is to try and process it myself. But alongside my prayers for healing for so many of my sisters and brothers in Christ, I also lift up prayers that when we are in pain, we can come to the cross: that we can lift up our stories to Jesus, and see his presence with us each step of the way.
There's just no other honest way to say it: it's been a hell of a month here at Salem. I'm surely not the only one among us who is somewhat glad to close the book on July, and pray fervently that August is nothing like it.
Granted, there have been many highs: walking through the Exodus story with our Confirmands at Mar-Lu Ridge; praising and serving God with 33,309 high school students at the ELCA Youth Gathering; worshiping with and hearing from Annie Bunio, our missionary teacher in Tanzania (although technically that was August 1st).
But the lows have been very low. This month alone, we have had to say goodbye to three faithful, beloved, active members of Salem; and mourned with at least three other member families at the untimely loss of spouses, parents, and even children. My prayers remain with the Grempler family; the Van Sant family; Alice Meier and her family; The family of and all who were close to Claire Graham; Mary Kay, Shannon and Alaina Willing and their family; and Paul and Lynda Bell, their son Robert, and his children; among so many others who are crying out to God for comfort and peace. I invite you also to join me in daily lifting up Dave, our senior pastor, as he seeks to provide spiritual leadership and a word of good news in this time of deep struggle.
I have long held the belief that times of crisis are not very good times for theological teaching. The absolute worst funeral sermons I have ever heard have been theological expositions on the finer points of the resurrection of the body, or of atonement theory from a "turn or burn" standpoint, when what everyone really needed to hear was that God is weeping with them, and that Jesus is making all things new.
But with all that said, I'd like to share with you something that might be helpful now, or might be something to come back to later: in the cross of Christ, we have a unique way of processing our suffering. The cross allows us to stop avoiding, ignoring, or trying to escape suffering, but rather to allow its presence in our story as God's children. We can stop trying to "make everything OK," but rather admit we're not OK, and hand our stories over to God.
Saint Paul wrote about how the message of the cross seemed to most people of his time to be utter foolishness. And if we really look at it, maybe it would seem that way in our own culture, too. We live among a people obsessed with "holding it together," with projecting an image of success, of unflappability, of single-handedly overcoming every kind of adversity life throws at you. Western culture idolizes the "rags to riches" stories, the stories of "self made" men and women who take the hand that they're dealt and turn it into health, wealth, fortune and fame. I'm still not sure our culture knows what to do with a God who, being all-sufficient and all-powerful, emptied himself and became a human being, and suffered death right here among us. It doesn't compute. It doesn't allow us to do what we tend to do with our suffering: to minimize it, to ignore it, to stick it in the closet and pretend it's not there.
But when we affirm that in the cross of Christ, God came to suffer with us, we are affirming two important things.
The first is that the fact that we're suffering is not "OK" with God, and it doesn't have to be "OK" with us. Jesus would not have spent his entire ministry healing the sick, feeding the hungry, casting out demons, and taking such an outspoken stand against political and religious oppression that it ultimately cost him his life, if he believed all that stuff was "God's will." He did not tell the synagogue leader that his daughter had died because "God needed another angel in his choir," and he did not justify the ailment of the paralyzed man by saying it was somehow "in God's plan." He healed them. In his every word and deed, Jesus demonstrated that God wants abundant life for us, and God weeps with us when, because of a sinful world gone haywire, that life is taken from us. God does not push buttons to make people suffer. Instead, on the cross, God takes our pain and dies with it there. Martin Luther once said, "a theologian of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theologian of the cross calls the thing what it is." We don't have to do theological gymnastics trying to justify why our pain is somehow "good" and God wants it. God doesn't. God wants to take our pain to the cross, and raise us to new life.
The second thing we affirm in the cross is that although our suffering is not "OK," it can be part of our story--even a central part. You would think that in telling the story of Jesus' life, the first Christians would kind of gloss over the story of his death. It's unpleasant. It brings back painful memories. It makes the "hero" of the story look vulnerable and weak. In telling our own life stories, we often gloss over those painful times. They rarely make it into our photo albums, or our family Christmas letters. And yet they are a part of our story. They help to form us, and make us who we are. And by finding ways of retelling our story, even the most difficult parts, we can discover how God has been present with us all along, not causing our suffering, but bearing it with us and finding ways to turn our pain into healing. To be a child of God is to be more than what has happened to us, but to let all that has happened to us be a witness to our crucified lord: the one who rose from the grave, and was recognized by his disciples not by a crown or shining lights of glory, but by his own wounds. In the same way, our wounds may stay with us, and remain a part of our story, but in the hope of Christ, we know the story itself will be one of healing.
As I said, all this may be too much to process now, and to be honest, part of why I'm posting this is to try and process it myself. But alongside my prayers for healing for so many of my sisters and brothers in Christ, I also lift up prayers that when we are in pain, we can come to the cross: that we can lift up our stories to Jesus, and see his presence with us each step of the way.
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