The Nowhere Place

We have begun a season of discernment related to worship at Seneca Presbyterian Church. We anticipate some transitions in leadership (for very good reasons) for our contemporary service, so we are using this time to contemplate the best options for us and especially for the community of faithful persons who worship at that service. We want our decisions to thoughtful, wise, and far reaching, rather than simply what is the most expeditious solution to the immediate challenge.

We have gathered a team and charged them with making the recommendation. That team is starting out with a time of study and reflection. Each member of the team is bringing his or her experiences in worship to the table, and I’m grateful for the diversity they represent.

In light of that study, and at the beginning of the long season of ordinary time, I will devote the Sundays of June to a sermon series on worship. I’m using a book by Don Saliers as my springboard. It’s called Worship Come to Its Senses. The book is actually a series of lectures where Dr. Saliers focuses on “the sense of awe and mystery, the sense of delight and spontaneity, the sense of knowing and being known by God truthfully, and the sense of hope in a confusing and violent world.” I appreciate his approach because it says worship can happen in a variety of styles, with different music, and in widely different spaces and still be genuine if it honors the presence of the holy as experienced through these four senses.

            For this Sunday, we will be attentive to the sense of awe. It is the proper starting point. All varieties of worship are meant to bring us into an encounter with God, an experience of the holy. Scripture offers us many places to turn for a story that will ground our understanding of the shape of holy encounter. We could look toward Moses and the burning bush, Isaiah and his vision in the Temple, Paul and the road to Damascus, or Mary and her angelic visitation. I’ve chosen someone a bit more like us. Jacob was a scoundrel, a cheat, and a liar. He knew life on the run. He loved one woman passionately and worked fourteen years in order to have her. He was his mother’s favorite son and then played favorites with his own sons, and knew the grief it brought.

            Jacob fell asleep one night in the middle of the desert, and when he did, he met God. He heard God’s claim upon his life and God’s promise for his life. His encounter with God changed him. Encounters like that can change us too. It is why we worship – to meet God, and be made anew.

            We’ll examine a portion of Jacob’s story this Sunday when we gather for worship at Seneca Presbyterian Church. It’s found in Genesis 28:10-22. We know God will be there. We’ll try to be ready for the holy encounter.   

            

Our 3-D God

In the tradition of the church year, the Sunday after Pentecost is Trinity Sunday. It marks the transition from the great seasons and festivals of Advent and Christmas; Lent and Easter; and finally Pentecost into the long season called “ordinary time.”

That may sound entirely boring until you understand that this is not “not special” ordinary but “ordinal” – like numbers. It is the season where we count the Sundays rather than link them to Sundays before or after our three high holy days.

Since Trinity Sunday often comes at the end of the school year, you can think of it as something of a recapitulation day. Who is this one God whom we have seen as God the Son and experienced as God the Holy Spirit? How can three be one and one be three? And the answer is: “It is a mystery.”

            The picture you see above graced my facebook page this week. I don’t know if it was sent as a challenge or a comfort. It takes all of us preachers back to our seminary theology classes where we discovered the dreaded truth: all those lovely analogies we learned as children about the Trinity are actually heresy. Think ice, water, and steam. Think three leaf clovers. The Three Musketeers may come close – “All for one and one for all.” Celtic knots may come even closer. But in the end, every explanation that satisfies one attribute risks losing another, hence heresy – which is why I am glad that faith is far bigger than systematic theology.

            When I worked with children, I would tell them that God is just so big that we cannot know God in simply one way, so we have three. That’s the mystery. God is gentle and God is strong. God forgives and God judges. God comforts and God challenges. God is near and God is far away. The key lies in our realization that God is not a multiple choice question. I cannot pick one “God” and neglect the others. That’s heresy, too.

            In the end, that’s the kind of God I need. Even if I can’t get my head around God the Trinity, I can try to get my heart around a God who is big enough to get those divine arms around all of me. I like the way Brian Wren says it (in Praising a Mystery): The living God is a mystery, not a secret: secrets puzzle us, but lose their fascination when they are revealed. A mystery deepens the more it is pondered and known.

That’s something of what I want to explore this Sunday when we gather for worship at Seneca Presbyterian Church. No kittens, just a 3-D God for my three dimensional world. You are welcome to come and join us.

It's Festival Week

I’m looking forward to a long-anticipated week away. On Monday, I’ll be joining with upwards of 2000 other preachers for an annual gathering called the Festival of Homiletics. We will converge on the city of Nashville, so beware if your travels are taking you to that fine city. We’ll be the ones in the restaurants still sporting name tags because we’ve forgotten to take them off, until about Wednesday when we will have forgotten to put them on. You needn’t worry about street corner evangelists in this crowd, though. You see, we all hail from the “mainline”: Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Disciples of Christ, United Church of Christ, and those wonderful “moderate” Baptists.

            We all make the trip in order to hear great preaching. The line-up of speakers is always outstanding, but this year it is incredible. As someone who began in ministry thirty five years ago with very few female preacher-role models, I’m naturally drawn to the women in the line-up: Diana Butler Bass, Lillian Daniel, Anna Carter Florence, Barbara Lundblad, Barbara Brown Taylor, Phyllis Tickle, Lauren Winner – all women I have heard on numerous occasions, some I’ve even actually met, yet who always challenge and inspire me. And just to prove this conference is open to “fresh winds of the Spirit” – Nadia Bolz-Weber will be with us, too. And she is amazing!

            There was a strange posting on the Facebook page for the Festival a few weeks ago announcing the outstanding line-up of male presenters. And they are – for they include Craig Barnes, Walter Brueggemann, and Brian McLaren, along with cutting-edger Eric Elnes. But I have to wonder if someone thought they were in the shadow of those amazing women.

            If anyone thinks this is “vacation,” let me assure you it’s not. I find sitting and listening all day even to these grand orators physically exhausting. But I’ll know I have transitioned into true receiving mode when I cease listening for sermon structure and useful illustrations and allow the Spirit to refresh.

            Since I will be preaching at Seneca Presbyterian Church on the Sunday following the festival – on Pentecost Sunday – this week is also affording me a unique opportunity. I’ll finish my rough draft of that sermon before leaving town, but unlike all other weeks, this week will allow for simmer time. It also allows you to enter into the dialogue. That’s what I had hoped would be routine when I first started this experiment.

The text I am working on is basically the 14^th chapter of John’s Gospel. It is part of that wonderful Farewell Discourse that is unique to John. The focus is, of course, on the gift of the Paraclete (your Bible may say Advocate, Comforter, or Counselor). But it is a gift to the community that will continue on in the absence of Jesus. The community that gift is meant to create is truly remarkable. It makes me wonder if you have ever experienced something like it. Have you ever: 

… been part of a community of people where you were absolutely accepted just the way you are?

… known a group of people where criticism was always constructive, spoken in love, and did not focus on the wishes and wants of the one criticizing?

… dared to try and fail supported by people you knew would not think less of you if you did?

… been surrounded by people who were always hopeful despite current reality?

… found the strength to never give up on God or the world God came to redeem?

            While no human community could ever fully meet those standards, the Spirit-filled Christian community is meant to try.  

The Treasure in Our Hands

When the faithful group of seekers of Seneca Presbyterian Church gathered last Wednesday evening to sink our teeth and our hearts into the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30), we discovered an almost universal dislike for this parable. The reason could have been as simple as its dis-use and abuse by so many preachers. Who has not heard this parable interpreted thusly? God has given us talents – skills and gifts – to use in a way that honors God. But too often we are afraid to use those talents – skills and gifts. Instead we bury them and keep them to ourselves. Then, if we get the soft climax to the sermon, we will be exhorted to do better - to dig up those talents and put them to use so God will bless us. But if we get the tough climax, we will be warned that God has little patience for those who bury what God has given and meant for us to use.

            I suppose every interpretation has within it something of truth. After all, we are beginning with God’s Word, the source of all truth. But I fear this is far too tame an interpretation for any parable of Jesus, let alone one that comes so near the end of his life. The parables of Jesus were simple stories with great meaning. The series of parables that end Matthew’s Gospel are stories with life and death meaning. These are stories that have a way of getting to us. And if it is God who is doing the “getting,” our discomfort is likely a clue to what we are meant to “get.”

            So if you are curious, here is what made us uncomfortable:

·         We thought the one talent servant was short-changed. He started off with low expectations. No wonder he was afraid.

·         Anyone who is entrusted with someone else’s wealth and acts recklessly with it is subject to a penalty. You should not act recklessly with what belongs to another.

·         Just how did those servants double their money? Did they do it honestly or dishonestly? Could the parable become a license for those who abuse the innocent and trusting gifts of others?

·         What if the return on the investment had been less? What if the servants only earned 50% or 25% or even 10%? What would the master say then? What would the master say if the servants risked the money and lost?

·         What’s wrong with keeping something entrusted to you safe? Why was the third servant judged so harshly? Is this really God? What happened to “salvation by grace alone through faith alone”? We don’t like this image of God.

So - just who is this master and what is his treasure? And what are we called to do with it? We’ll pick up with those questions on Sunday.