conXian

Hope

2008-07-28T21:18:00.001-06:00

Presidential Power

2008-05-21T22:10:00.002-06:00

I've been worried for a while now about the trend in this administration toward strengthening the power of the executive. Now, while it's true that I'm not generally a fan of the Bush administration, that's not the reason that I'm opposed to increased executive power. It doesn't matter who is the White House, there still need to be appropriate checks and balances, even if that means that a future president that I love is blocked by Congress. I think that this kind of shift in power is a danger to the democracy. I think that it marks a turn away from republic toward empire, just as that that occurred in the Roman Empire.

Right at this moment I'm watching an old episode of Frontline that seems pretty good. I definitely recommend watching it. It not so much about the war or terrorism or any of that. That was just the vehicle used to expand presidential authority. That's the part that concerns me most.

2008-05-21T20:50:00.003-06:00

I haven't written in this blog for quite some time. I think it mostly has to do with changing from a seminarian to a pastor. As a seminarian, I could write just about whatever I wanted, without worrying about there being repercussions. As a pastor, things are a bit different. It not that I'm somehow censored as a pastor. It's not that I'm silenced. But if parishioners are reading the blog, then I have to think about what reactions they might have to my thoughts and what effects that might have in the congregation.

For some pastors, that wouldn't be a problem at all. Some pastors have a very prophetic voice and are very clear and open about their personal views -- there is no separation between the inner thoughts and the public voice.

For me, though, that's not the way it works. I feel that as pastor, I want to be a bit more neutral. I want people to know that I understand and respect a wide variety of theological and political views. Certainly I have my own views. But that doesn't mean that I think everyone has to agree with me. If I am too open with my personal opinions, that could damage my credibility as a servant-leader of all the people.

Furthermore, I come from a very different context than most of the people in the congregation, with age being the most notable difference. If I'm going to be an effective pastor, then I need to be able to understand as best I can the other viewpoints in the congregation. To at least some degree, that mean suppressing my own feelings, because they simply don't make sense in this context.

Now, with almost two years under my belt at Coos Bay First UMC, I feel like I've gained some trust and credibility. Our relationship is a bit more durable. And it may be time now to be a bit less guarded.

Now, I know that I've tried to be more diligent about writing before, and haven't followed through. That may happen again. But we'll see.

Yes We Can

2008-02-08T14:15:00.000-07:00

Karthik's Blog

2007-11-18T21:34:00.000-07:00

We made it back home safe and sound to Coos Bay, and Karthik is doing well. If you're looking for more news about him, check out his blog at http://web.mac.com/melissadavidking/Site/Adoption_Blog/Adoption_Blog.html. Sorry about switching back and forth. I haven't had time to figure out how to post on that one from anywhere but my laptop, so I had to use this one while we were in India. But from now on, you should be able to find everything about Karthik at the other site.

Visa Process Complete

2007-11-15T02:11:00.000-07:00

It's 2:45 pm on Thursday the 15th here in Delhi.

We made it safe and sound to New Delhi yesterday. After checking in to the hotel, which by the way is quite fancy, we made our way to lunch and then to the US embassy. Along the way, we caught a few of the tourist sites: the Presidential Palace and the India Gate. At the embassy, we filed the paperwork for the I-600. I didn't take too long, and before long we were back at the hotel. We ordered in room service and made it an early night.

Our driver (we have a driver) picked us up at 9:00 am to go visit the embassy-approved doctor. Karthik behaved very well, even during his immunization (Varicella), and we headed back to the embassy. A few more meetings. Some waiting. $380. By 12:40 pm we had his immigrant visa in hand. All finished with all of the paperwork. Now we are just waiting for our flight to leave India.

We'll spend the rest of the day here at the hotel, maybe order in a pizza tonight. Tomorrow our driver will pick us up at 9:00 am and give us a tour of the city. Then at 9:00 pm tomorrow we will make our way to the airport. Our flight leaves at 12:05 am for Bangkok, and then it's flight after flight, with 2-3 hour layovers, until we arrive in Coos Bay around 5:30 pm, still on Saturday the 17th.

Karthik is doing quite well. He's a bit upset that he can't move around more, since most of our time is in the hotel or the car or offices. But he sleeps quite well, and quite a lot, which is a blessing. And he loves moving vehicles. He does quite well with Melissa most of the time. The 11 hour flight from Hong Kong to San Francisco will probably be really hard, but in all I have high hopes for traveling. I'm really looking forward to getting home with him, where things will be more normal, and where we can eat or fix a bottle or walk around or play with toys anytime that we want to.

I probably won't write again from India, so it will likely be until we get to the states that I post again. Until then... I'm go to go upstairs and watch the India-Pakistan cricket match.

I probably won't write again from here in India, so I'll check in with you again

Salaam Bangalore

2007-11-13T09:14:00.000-07:00

Well, it's our last night in Bangalore. It's about 9:45 pm on Tuesday the 13th here. Tomorrow morning the taxi picks us up at 5:30 to go to the airport and then it's off to Delhi. There should be someone there to pick us up at the airport and take us to our hotel. Then, after we get settled, we'll go to the US Embassy to work on Karthik's immigration process. We way have to go back on the 15th, and maybe the 16th to get everything finished. Then begins our epic journey home.

I am so glad that we got to come here to Bangalore to get a sense of where Karthik is from. I know that we've only been here for a few days, and mostly we've only been in the same few places. Still, I feel like I understand this place much better than I did before we came, and I'm glad that I will have to stories to share with Karthik about the place that he was born.

This morning's trip to VCT was a bust. I think it reminded Karthik too much of saying goodbye to his foster mother yesterday. He was just inconsolable. But, we did get a chance to spend a little time with the orphanage staff that took care of Karthik for his first 6 months. And we got some good pictures of Bangalore during the trip there and back. We ended up leaving there earlier than we had initially planned, and came back here to the hotel, where he was much calmer.

Karthik is also worked on a cold at the moment, so that also makes him a little grumpy. And he still has bouts of severe grieving. And sometimes he just throws toddler tantrums. But over all he is adjusting very well, and I think everything is going to be just fine.

I am amazed by how much I already feel like Karthik's dad. We've only known him for about 36 hours, but still I feel very connected to him, even if he still isn't too sure about me. I knew that I would love him, because I did even before we met him. But I guess what I'm saying is that I'm surprised by how quickly I have settled into the role of dad. Somehow it seems very normal, even though it is anything but. I don't know.

We're not sure of the internet situation in Delhi, so I may not be able to write any more while we're there. I'll try to at least tuck into an internet cafe once for a short post, but even if I don't, know that all is well.

A New Day

2007-11-12T21:13:00.001-07:00

It's 9:45 am on Tuesday the 13th here in Bangalore. Karthik is really doing remarkably well. Last night he had a whole bottle of milk, plus the beginnings of another one. He ate a little rice, but not much. He was really sleepy after dinner (which is at 9:00 pm here), and he went to bed easily.

He woke up a couple of times in the night. He looked around and saw that we are not "Ama" (Mama - his foster mom). He'd go into a crying spell for a little while and then wear himself out and fall asleep again. So, for the most part, he slept through the night.

This morning we gave him a bath. He didn't like it at all, but we made it through alright. Got him all decked out in new clothes and went down to breakfast. He ate a little bit of a kind of onion pancake, and a little yogurt. Also drank some water.

He obviously still grieving a lot, but he really is doing remarkably well. Melissa is the magic parent right now, the one he goes to, but he's been pretty good with me too. We are incredibly proud of his progress and a bit suprised. One fortunate thing is that he doesn't seem to have the stamina for a sustained fit. He can go on for several minutes, but then he gets tired and stops.

It is indescribably amazing to have him with us, to finally be his parents in fact, and not just in law. He is the most wonderful, most beautiful boy, and we are so incredibly happy, if a bit tired.

At 10:30 am we're going to go back to VCT to spend the day and play around. Tomorrow morning our flight leaves for Delhi, where it's off to do more paperwork.

With Karthik

2007-11-12T04:16:00.000-07:00

We met Karthik today. At first he screamed bloody murder and kicked and wanted nothing to do with us. Then after about 20 or 30 minutes he was too tired to put as concerted of a fight. After a little bit, he fell asleep in my arms and took a nap.

After he awoke, it was some calm followed by some short bursts of crying. He wouldn't eat anything at lunch. He's still protesting, I think -- on a hunger strike. But pretty soon he'll get hungry enough that he'll have to give in and eat.

He fell asleep again in the afternoon with Melissa. He slept on the whole car ride back to the apartment. He's awake again now. As time is going by, there is less crying and more calm. He's really starting to attach to Melissa. He reaches out for her whenever she puts him down.

More later.

Waiting for the Meeting

2007-11-11T20:09:00.000-07:00

It's 8:40 am on Monday here in Bangalore. At 9:00 or 9:30 we will have a traditional Indian breakfast here at the apartment. At 10:30, the driver from Vaythsalya Charitable Trust (VCT, our adoption agency) will pick us up and take us to VCT. We will meet Karthik for the first time. We'll meet his foster parents. If all goes well, we will bring him back with us to the apartment tonight. Or we might go back tomorrow to pick him up.

It's really exciting, a quite surreal. It's hard to believe that we are meeting him today. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not some time in the next 5 to 15 months. Today.

And I don't really know what to expect. We don't know the details of today's schedule or anything. We go there, and they will take care of us.

We have the diaper bag packed. We have a little stuffed elephant for Karhik. We have some small gifts for the foster parents and the agency/orphanage staff.

But how will Karthik greet us? Will he be scared? Will he throw a fit? Will he clam up? Will he just roll with the change? We don't know. It's all a wonderful mystery.

So we are just trusting in God right now. God has carried us through this far. Through all of the paperwork and the processes and the roadblocks and the waiting. And God has brought us here to Bangalore safely and in great shape. Now we just trust God to take us through the next adventure.

Notes on an Indian Church Service

2007-11-11T19:46:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned before, yesterday we went to Sunday worship at St. Mark's Cathedral in Bangalore. It's part of the Church of South India, a united church that includes Methodists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, etc.

The worship was a very centering experience. In terms of liturgical formality, it was high-church Methodist or low-church Anglican. Actually very close to what we do in Coos Bay on a communion Sunday. We had been traveling for days, and our first few hours in Bangalore had been rather anxiety ridden and stressful. We came to worship, and were welcomed. The service was in English, so that was very familiar. The basic order or service was fairly familiar as well. A call to worship followed by a processional hymn. The choir and pastors processed in behind the crucifer. Then there were some prayers, confessions, etc. Then the reading of scriptures: a Hebrew Bible lesson, an Epistle lesson, and a Gospel lesson. We stood for the gospel.

Then there was the sermon. It was really quite good. I was impressed by how pointedly political it was. He wasn't afraid to point out the precise real-world situations where we are or are not following the gospel call. He was preaching on the sheep and the goats in the little apocalyps in Matthew. He said, there is one group, the sheep, who are doing the acts of justice and charity in the world, without any expectation of reward. There is another group, the goats, who are waiting God to come in person before they will fulfill the Gospel call for justice. And there is a third group, that we usually forget, and it is the group with which Jesus himself identifies. That group is the poor, the imprisoned, the oppressed, the marginalized. Then, he encouraged us to reach out across lines of difference, whether they be political, racial, ethnic, language group, caste, national, economic, etc. He mentioned the situation in Pakistan, the situation in Bengal. I can't do it justice here, but it was very good.

Then there were more announements and prayers. There was even a push for their new funds campaign. The church is celebrating 200 years in their building, and as part of the celebration, they are raising funds to build a church building for another congregation in another town. They want to raise enough money to cover the complete costs, so that building can be a complete gift the other congregation. They are also working to expand their outreach ministries. The slogan was that a church that has been here for 200 years should be able to have 200 people participating in direct outreach ministry. In addition, they are trying to work on their youth program.

Next, we moved into communion. It was so wonderful to receive the Eucharist with everyone, such a unifying and grace-filled expereince. We came up to the high altar to kneel at the rail and receive. It was a wafer and wine. Actually, the wine tasted like some kind of hard apple cider.

Anyway, it was a wonderful time for us. We really felt connected to God in the service.

In Bangalore

2007-11-11T05:27:00.000-07:00

We made it to Bangalore. Due to a couple of miscommunications, there first few hours here did not go according to plan at all. There was a mixup with the driver that was supposed to pick us up at the airport. And there was also a mixup about where we would be staying. So we ended up taking a taxi to the wrong hotel. We were about to get settled in there, though, and we got ahold of VCT, our agency, by phone. Mary, the director of VCT, came over to our hotel and straightened everything out. We did spend the first night there. Then this morning, the VCT driver picked us up, took us to church at St. Mark's Cathedral (Church of South India), and took us to the new hotel.

It's actually more of an apartment. We have a private room above, with a private bathroom. There is a beautiful living room below, with nice seating, TV, newspapers, etc. I'm writing this from the next room, an office, where we have access to a computer. Next to me, there is also a dining room, where we'll be having some of our meals. There is also laundry facility. It's all really very nice. And we're right on Mahatma Gandhi Road, in the hip, touristy part of town. Easy access to ATM, restaurants, and shopping. About a block away from the cathedral. I'm going to see if I can buy a copy of the Book of Common Worship for the CSI.

The church service this morning was wonderful. It was in English, which was helpful. They were observing Remembrance Day, the international version of what we call Veterans Day in the USA. The sermon was on Matthew 21, the sheep and goats. It was a really good sermon about peace and being a self-sacrificing force for justice and peace in the world. Wonderful. I'll try to write more about it later.

In the afternoon we had lunch at a Chinese restaurant just around the corner. Then we walked down MG Road and checked out the shops. I am proud to say I have now visited an iStore, the Indian version of an Apple Store. I didn't buy anything there, though. But we did visit a great little clothing shop. The staff was very helpful, and we ended up getting some great traditional outfits. Two each for Melissa and I and four for Karthik. His outfits are super cute. We got him a nice white one for his baptism.

Will write more later.

Singapore Airport

2007-11-09T12:51:00.000-07:00

So, we're hanging out in the Singapore Airport Terminal. We have close to 8 hours here. It's actually quite a nice terminal. Lot's of shops, free internet. There's even a hotel right in the terminal. It's booked up, unfortunately.

It's been a long day of travel. We started in Portland, getting up at 4:15 am to get to the airport. We came into Singapore at 11:30 pm local time, which I think is about 4:30 am Pacific, so more than 24 hours traveling. Got in a couple of naps, but not too much, so I'm a little jumpy. We board for Bangalore at 7:30 am, and will be there in the late morning. Time to shower and crash.

Journey's Beginning

2007-11-07T22:35:00.000-07:00

I first started this blog sitting in this same house, the house of my friend Brian over at The Faithful Skeptic. Back then, I was just about to take my first trip out of the country (except Canada) to Guatemala to study Spanish for a couple of weeks. Now, I'm just about to make my first trip to Asia. But this one is a bit different. My wife, Melissa, and I are headed to Bangalore, India, to pick up our new son, Karthik. Most of the waiting is finally over. Tomorrow we head out of the country. By far, the most important trip of my life. I don't really know what to expect. The unexpected, I suppose. But it should be very exciting.

Iran So Far

2007-10-01T16:51:00.000-06:00

I love the SNL Digital Shorts by Andy Samberg, et al, but they're really outdone themselves this time. This one is just great, and quite a catchy tune to boot.

So Long

2007-09-21T16:00:00.000-06:00

Definitely the biggest thing in my life right now is waiting. We have been working on an adoption for about 4 years now. Finally it seems to be approaching, but at an obnoxiously slow and indeterminate rate. For quite some time now, we've been telling people that it could happen at any time, or that it could be months. We've known who Karthik is for... I think it's been like 11 months now. I'm not sure. We've had pictures. We've had visits. We've had medical reports. We're watching him grow up on paper from 8300 miles away. For quite some time now we've been waiting for the last phone call that would tell we have 2 weeks to get ready and go to India to pick him up. People are constantly asking us, "Why is it taking so long?" I don't know, okay. I don't know. It just is. I don't know why other people's adoption processes haven't taken 4 years and ours has. I don't know why we've had Karthik's picture for so long and we still aren't his parents. I don't know. I'm starting to think that people think we're just delusional, that we're making the whole thing up. And I quite sure that many people think it's our fault that it's taking as long as it is, that we've done something wrong or are somehow wrong. That's not surprise, I suppose. A fairly significant minority of people think that anyone other than the biological parents are somehow illegitimate, that a failure to produce biological children means that God doesn't want you to be parents. We've had people tell us that for quite some time already, so it shouldn't be surprising that other people blame us for the slowly turning wheels of bureaucracy. And to some degree it has been our fault, to the degree that we are too young, too poor, too religious, too rural, too mobile, and too white to be considered acceptable parents. It's very emotionally taxing, the whole thing. You want to be excited. But we've been "excited" for so long now... you just can't keep it up. Now I'm just tired. And it's so weird to be planning for all kinds of things at church and in the conference, and I don't when I'm going to be gone. I can never say that I'm sure I can be somewhere, because who knows when we'll be leaving. People want a solid "yes" or "no" and I can't offer it. Our best guess right now is that we might be travelling at the end of October, but there is no way to be sure about that. We might not be able to travel until next year. We have absolutely no control over it at this point. And yes, I know that it would be better for Karthik to be with us sooner than later. I know that the longer it is from now the harder the transition will be. I know how important early life is to development. We've known all of that from the beginning. I'm sorry that we aren't able to tell people what's going on with more certainty. That's just how it is. It's uncertain.

Reunion

2007-08-20T20:25:00.000-06:00

I just went to my 10 year reunion for South Salem High School. It was a very interesting experience. I was really surprized by how few people there were. Out of a graduating class of about 350, I'll bet there were only 60 graduates there. There were an aweful lot of people that I was looking forward to reconnecting with that just weren't there. I guess now I'll have to wait another 10 years.

It was great to see those who were there. I ended up with a rather different impression of how high school went.

Vancouver

2007-07-07T23:08:00.000-06:00

Vancouver was great. The city is wonderful. Absolutely beautiful, with the ocean right there and the mountains just behind. It has a great international feel, with an especially strong Asian community. Awesome restraunts. We went to Little India, which was great, and would be great for Karthik. All sorts of cool Indian kids clothes.

The school was also good. I really liked it's general vibe. I liked that it had a Pacific Northwest feel, and I also liked getting the Canadian perspective. It seemed relaxed, but serious, if that makes sense. (As opposed to stressed and frivilous). I got a chance to sit in on a class with Dr. Harry Maier. It was an intro Paul class, and quite good. I liked what he had to say, and I learned quite a lot, as I haven't spent much time studying Paul. He was a really interesting lecturer, and seemed to be a fine scholar. Plus, he had a sense of humor, which is quite important in an academic, at least in my book. I ordered his latest book, so we'll find out more there.

The way the program works, I would spend about two years on the Th. M. (Master of Theology) degree from Vancouver School of Theology. That would cover research methods (where I need help) and some advanced bible coursework. Then the Ph. D. would take about another 3 years. There's no coursework for it, just a 100,000-word essay. But I would audit courses as I worked on it. The doctorate would come from University of Wales, Lampeter, so I'd have to travel back there once to defend the dissertation. The day-to-day advising would be done by Dr. Maier.

Looks pretty interesting. Maybe in two or three years.

Independence Day

2007-07-05T01:04:00.000-06:00

I have real mixed feelings about the Fourth of July. On the one hand, it is the celebration of our nation, and that certainly has its good points. On the other hand, it seems to show us at our worst. The festivities I saw today celebrated violence, and our violent history. They celebrated our excess, and our conspicuous consumption. At the parade, almost everything was a commercial. People wished each other a happy fourth of July, but I hardly heard anyone wishing a happy Independence Day. And the fourth also celebrates our drunkeness. There were certainly things about the day that I really enjoyed. But I'm not sure how proud I am of the America that we are when we celebrate this day.

Vacation

2007-07-03T20:56:00.000-06:00

I'm on vacation visiting Melissa's family in Bothell, WA. It's nice to have a whole week of, and not even have to worry about preaching on Sunday. I've been at Coos Bay UMC for a full year now. I've been away from church several times, but mostly for meetings. I think this is the first time that I've taken a full week off, including a Sunday.

We're up here for the Fourth of July festivities. Always a good time in Bothell. Parade, barbeque, fireworks -- it's all good.

Thursday and Friday we're going to go up to Vancouver, BC to check out Vancouver School of Theology. I'm interested in the ThM and PhD degrees there, probably in New Testament. It's only about 2.5 hours from here, so that's nice. Anyway, I'm just checking it out. It won't be for at least a couple of years that I'll be ready to go.

Academy

2007-05-31T12:54:00.000-06:00

I went to Pastor's School a couple of weeks ago. The lectures were by Richard Rohrbaugh on a peasant reading of the New Testament. Incredibly interesting. It was great. And it sparked some feelings about call as well.

From the very beginning of my sense of call to ordained ministry, it's been a three-part call. So all along way I've been wrestling with these three things: pastor, scholar, missionary. I'm not sure where I'm going to end up with those three. Obviously, I'm a pastor now, so I've experienced at least one. But I've had the sense that God might end up calling me to all three of these at some time or other.

Pastors' School got me to thinking about the second one again: scholar. It was so great to be back in a school-like setting, to be studying again. I think I'm probably quite a bit better an doing the scholarly analysis of a biblical text than I am at making the tex relivant in real life. I'm good at finding all of the interesting little tidbits, all of the inconsistencies, all of the meaningful details. But those don't always preach very well. They usually stir up more questions than they ever bring answers. But I do love working with that kind of thing.

For a little while I've been looking at PhD programs in Liturgics, which is another area of interest for me. There seem to be good programs at Garrett-Evangelical in Chicago and at the GTU in Berkley. But now I'm thinking that the New Testament route might be the better way to go. With a PhD in Liturgics I'd be pretty well stuck looking for a job in one of a very seminaries that care about it. And despite my wishes, Liturgics doesn't seem to be very popular among Methodists at all. What can I say?

But the New Testament, with which I'm equally interested, would have a much broader usefulness, at least so it seems to me. The GTU still looks kind of interesting. I'm also looking at Vancouver School of Theology, which certainly doesn't seem to be as prestegious, but has the advantages of being close, and being on the European model.

College

2007-04-10T16:11:00.000-06:00

This afternoon we just had the first weekly meeting of local area pastors for a lectionary study. It was great. We just had a few there this first time -- four of us -- but it was a great time. Not only did we get a chance to share insights about the upcoming texts for this Sunday, but we also got a chance to just be colleagues. I mentioned in some previous posts about the isolation that I've experienced here, which is to be expected. But this was a great chance to connect with others who are in similar situations. I'm very excited that we're going to be meeting every week.

Good Good Friday

2007-04-07T18:27:00.000-06:00

Something completely new happened to me yesterday. Someone called me at home less than an hour after services had ended to tell me what a good service it was and to thank me.

It was the Good Friday service. Not the noon ecumenical one I blogged about before, but the evening Tenebrae that we had at the church. It was pretty simple. We used the Tenebrae service out of the order of worship. There are 16 readings from the Gospel of John, each done by a different reader. As each reading is finished, the reader puts out one of 15 candles, ending with the Christ candle. Every two readings we had either a hymn or an anthem. The choir did two pieces, and we had a guest bell choir that played two pieces, plus two more as prelude. Very simple. No sermon. Just 16 readers, some songs, and some candles.

After the service several people stopped me to thank me or compliment me on the service. (It's extraordinarily difficult to take a compliment on a Good Friday Service.) Then today as we gathered to decorate the church for Easter, several others made a special point to come up and say the same. It is by far the most positive response I've gotten for anything that we have done. It was very powerful, very affecting. But very simple.

Being Jesus

2007-04-06T15:04:00.000-06:00

At noon today we had the Community Ecumenical Good Friday Service over at our sister UMC in North Bend, which is just a couple of miles away. Obviously, this being my first year in Coos Bay, this was my first experience with this service.

We'd gotten no preperatory material, there was not rehearsal, but I knew that I would probably be asked to do a reading or something once I got there. Little did I know that I would be asked to be Jesus.

The central piece of the service was a little reader's theatre setting of John's Passion, and each of the local area pastors were asked to read a part. Like I said, we didn't have a lot of instruction. Just "Will you be Jesus? Okay, here's the script."

I was an interesting experience. I got to be shouted at quite a lot by the congregation (who played at various times, the crowd, the guards, and the Jewish authorities.) I got to be slapped in the face by Father Carl, the Roman priest in North Bend, who was playing a soldier. It was a real slap too. I got to have some nice philosophical discourse with Pilate, played by Pastor David from the D of C church. And I got to fulfill every hair-band-lead-singer dream: strike a Jesus pose in front of a crowd of people. Too bad it wasn't a music video. ;-)

But all kidding aside, it was a pretty powerful spiritual experience. Even doing John's Gospel, which is pretty soft on the suffering, I really noticed how hard it felt having people shout derision at me and call for my crucifixion. I noticed how humiliating it was to be drug around from one official to another, to be paraded in front of the crowds and mocked. And it was interesting to be up there on the cross and yet still caring for those who caused my suffering.

It took quite a lot of energy, but I'm glad I happened on the chance. Next year we can have Fr. Carl be Jesus and see how he likes getting slapped.

GenX

2007-04-03T23:08:00.000-06:00

We just got back from a week in Washington DC visiting family. It only took a day there for me to be starkly reminded of just how little contact I have with people of my generation on a general basis. I think in the four days we spent there I spent more time around people my own age than I have in Coos Bay in the last nine months.

Of course, at the church here, where I spend most of my time, there is no one in our age category. Besides Melissa and I, there is nobody between the few middle/high schoolers that we have and their parents. And I'm pretty sure I closer in age to the high school freshman than I am to their parents. The vast majority of people at the church are already retired, with most of our visitors being newly retired people moving into the area.

The community at large isn't a whole lot better. It's been steadily aging. In the last 12 years they've closed half of the schools in the area because of lack of enrollment. There aren't a lot of jobs. Most people are graduating high school and moving to Eugene or Portland.

And I've become to used to this situation now that it rather shocked me when we went to DC and things were different. Suddenly I could speak normally and people knew what I was talking about. When I made little humorous side comments, people understood them. They had a working knowledge of things like pop culture, technology, even international news. I felt like I belonged, like I wasn't just some cooky weirdo, which I'm realizing is how I feel most of the time in Coos Bay.

I came out of seminary believing that the church needed to be more experienctial, more participatory, more spiritual, able to relate to emerging world. I thought that people needed to find meaning out of their harried and hum-drum lives, that they needed to be given permission to question the way that faith has been delivered, that they need to find ways to be a Christian without being the self-centered, money-grabbing, self-righteous, hypocritical, bigotted moralists that seem to have hijacked the Christian agenda in America. I thought people were struggling with the immorality of corporations, the inter-religious issues associated with our pluralistic world, the need to find connection in an increasingly individualistic society.

Now what I'm finding is that these issues and questions are virtually irrelavent here. My entire sense of the need of humanity and ways that God is acting and reaching out to meet those needs is irrelavent. And thus that means that my own spiritual need, my own theological cravings, my own deep yearnings for God are irrelavent.

And I think that it is largely a generational issue. For the last 7 years I've been pressed to find ways that the church can be relavent to young adults, only to find now that young adults seem to be irrelavent to the church.

Religious Dialogue in Iran

2007-02-22T13:28:00.000-07:00

I was very please to read this article from the United Methodist News Service. A group of US religious leaders travelled to Iran to discuss peace with Iranian religious leaders.

In particular, I appreciated this bit: "Peace is the key teaching of Christianity and Islam and this will be realized in our lives," said Archbishop Sabu Sarkission of the Armenian Orthodox church in Iran. "This is the product of dialogue."

It's good to hear that at least some people are thinking about peace, especially between the US and Iran.

Lent

2007-02-20T16:16:00.000-07:00

Lent is almost here. It starts tomorrow. I'm one of those crazy people who really likes Lent. For some reason, the darker side of Christianity has always had a stronger draw for me. I think I'm probably just a moody musician at heart, and Lent is a great chance to really wallow. In any case, I've been looking forward to Lent for several weeks now, and it's finally here. I've got my black cassock ready.

Bishop's call for new US Budget priorities

2007-02-16T13:47:00.000-07:00

I came across this great article on the United Methodist News Service. Well, I guess it's not the article that's great, it's the story.

Adoption Blog

2007-01-17T14:42:00.001-07:00

For those of you interested in our adoption process, I've set up a seperate blog for that here.

Strange Liberators

2007-01-17T14:05:00.000-07:00

I was updating our church website and found this interesting article from the United Methodist News Service. It talks about Jim Winkler, top executive of the General Board of Church and Society, and his statement opposing President Bush's proposed surge of US troops into Baghdad. He talks about the futility of the exercise.

But most interestingly, he quotes the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. regarding the American War in Vietnam:

"Dr. King stated that given the widespread destruction caused by that war, the people of Vietnam must have seen us as 'strange liberators.' So, too, is the United States viewed today by the people of Iraq."

The phrase "strange liberators" really struck me. We, of course, have gone into Iraq claiming to be liberators. The military codename for the operation is Iraqi Freedom. And we expected to be greeted as liberators. But now, as we're finishing up our fourth year in Iraq, daily life for the average Iraqi is worse than it was under the government of Sadaam Hussein. We are indeed strange liberators.

Vietnam

2007-01-04T20:59:00.000-07:00

Melissa and I have made an application on a waiting child in Vietnam. We should hear some more soon. But in the mean time, I've been trying to do some research of Vietnam. It's not that easy, let me tell you. Apparently, the only thing that ever happened in Vietnam was the Vietnam War. And the only people that ever did anything in Vietnam were American GIs. Some other people have noticed this too, it seems. I found an Amazon Listmania list called Vietnam: the Country, Not the War. It's kind of interesting. Our country spent 20 years and 58,000 lives in Vietnam, but we don't seem to care what's happened there since. Or before, for that matter. Is that what will happen when we leave Iraq? Will we forget that anything ever happened there besides the war?

Missionary

2006-11-03T18:23:00.000-07:00

Today United Methodist Missionary Rev. Evelyn Erbele visited our little church in Coos Bay. She and her husband are serving in the Methodist church in Lithuania. She told us some wonderful stories about the ministry going on there, even in the midst really crushing poverty.

I don't often talk about this, but one of the main reasons that I'm a pastor now is that I once experience a strong call to mission work. I never had a flash-bang experience that told me to get ordained; that was a gradual process. But I did have a flash-bang experience that told me to be a missionary. Melissa and I pursued it heavily at the time, but I was too unqualified to do it at the time -- I didn't even yet have a bachelor's degree. So, I set that to the side, believing strongly that God still had some training in mind for me. It was that spark the set me on the path that led to seminary and commissioning.

But that was seven years ago, and the missionary dream still being unfulfilled, I guess I had pushed it down, out of the way. But Ev's visit today sparked my memory. And now, I actually have the credentials to do it. We'd still have to finish our adoption process here, and I'd have to finish my probationary period here and be ordained, but in a few years, it could be a possibility. Something very interesting to think about.

White and Nerdy

2006-10-07T22:04:00.000-06:00

Melissa pointed me to this incredibly funny video from Weird Al, White and Nerdy, a parody of Chamillionaire's Ridin Dirty. And yes, I did use some HTML to bring this to you.

The Sophia Controversy

2006-09-27T23:32:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago, I preached a sermon called Holy Sophia based on the lectionary text for the day, which was Proverbs 1:20-33. I basically reviewed a few different ideas about Sophia and suggested that one way or another, Sophia, and more generally the divine feminine, are a part of the Christian experience of and cannot be ignored if for no other reason than that they are attested in our Holy Scriptures. Of course, I expected it to be a bit controversial, since we very rarely talk about that part of our tradition. I expected people to be skeptical. I expected that some would find it just too unfamiliar and would basically dismiss it. However, what seems to have happened is that this is the first sermon I've preached that has really gotten people upset and angry.

As I was preaching it, I could tell it wasn't going over very well. The congregation seemed completely dead, and they usually give at least some vocal response. And many people seemed have they're faces screwed up in expressions of either distaste or confusion. After the sermon, the response was pretty cold. Usually most people give the obligatory "nice sermon" as they shake my hand on the way out the sanctuary. Not so much on this Sunday. I got one very enthusiastic comment, another of general approval, one comment to the effect of "I'm going to have to think some more about that" and the rest mostly silent.

Now, I'll admit, it wasn't the best sermon I've ever given. It was terribly academic, for one thing, since I had to lay out the history and context of the Sophia tradition, which I assumed would be fairly unfamiliar. So, in that sense it was more lecturish than sermonish. In addition, I probably could have constructed the sermon a bit better, made it more accessible and relevant to everyday life. Still, though, I stand by the subject matter of the sermon. And I stand by the biblical warrant for the sermon.

So, back to the story. In the first week after the sermon, I heard very little about the sermon. I figured that some people probably hadn't liked it too much, but that's true of all sermons. And I figured that that was probably the end of it.

On the Sunday after the sermon, a parishioner asked me, "Are you girding up your loins for battle?" and helpfully warned me that some were upset about the sermon and that there were grumblings about it. The parishioner was just giving me a friendly warning that people were talking about it. (Which, by the way, was part of the point of the sermon, to get people to talk about it.)

Then today I got the first direct negative feedback. It was offered in a quite loving and polite fashion, not directly attacking me or anything. The parishioner said how uncomfortable the sermon had made them feel. They told me that they didn't believe there was warrant in the bible to say what I had said, and they made a very reasonable point: "Jesus called God Father, and I want to be like Jesus."

And that's fine. I certainly didn't expect everyone to agree with what I had to say. And I am very appreciative that this parishioner actually came and talked to me and told me how they felt. If people are concerned about how I'm doing my job, I'd much rather that they actually talk with me than that they grumble amongst themselves until I'm hit unaware at some later point with a whole mess of anger that has been growing and festering beyond my sight.

Still, I find myself a little surprised at the negative reaction, and I find myself taking it a little more personally than I really feel I should. The reason I'm surprised at the reaction that seems to be building is that the argument is purely theological. As far as I can tell, those who are upset (though to be fair, I haven't heard much from them, mostly rumors) have issue with a purely theological point that I made: can God be addressed or thought of as female. That is to say, it's not a social or political issue. I've already made reference in sermons to several controversial social issues, but those aren't the things that stirred up controversy, it's the more sterile, theological concept of Sophia.

Furthermore, I didn't suggest in any way that masculine images of God are invalid or even problematic. A didn't say that referring to God as Father was a problem. We still used Father language throughout the service. So I didn't feel like I was threatening people's strongly held beliefs. I wasn't telling anyone that there image of God was wrong. I was just highlighting another image God, one that is testified in both the biblical and historical traditions. If I had said that referring to God as Father was somehow wrong or oppressive, then I certainly would have understood tremendous resistance. But I didn't. I just lifted up another, often overlooked image of God.

And that's part of the reason that I'm taking it a bit personally. You see, the images of Sophia, of the Divine Mother, of the Bakerwoman God, are images that are very powerful to me. During some of most difficult struggles of life and faith, it was from God the Mother that I received help, sustenance, and healing. So if people are offended by the mere mention or suggestion of Sophia or the Divine Feminine, then it follows that they are offended by my personal experience of faith. It means that they consider my experience of God to be invalid, that the divine healing and forgiveness that I have received are somehow counterfeit. And that's why I'm taking it personally, because I was very careful not to discount any other image of God, even the ones that have very little power for me. But the mere suggestion of a biblical image of God that I have found helpful now seems to be the seed of congregational controversy.

On the other hand, I guess I didn't share anything personal in the sermon. I guess I thought it would be less controversial if I wasn't taking a personal stand for it, if I was just introducing the concept. Or maybe I'm just not very good at sharing my own faith, and it rarely occurs to me to do so.

I want to be clear that I don't expect others to feel any connection to God as Sophia or God as Mother. It's a foreign concept for most Christians. And I should also be clear that no one has accused me of anything. There are only rumblings and rumors, and I could be grossly misrepresenting the folks who are upset with me, if they are even out there. I just hope that we all, as people who some different ideas about God, can at least respect each other's views and experience, and I pray that I will have the grace to do the same.

Gig

2006-09-21T16:17:00.000-06:00

So, I've got a gig in town now. I'm the accompanish for the Coos Bay Community Choir through Southwestern Oregon Community College. I'm really looking forward to it. I've haven't really done much playing in quite a while, and it will be good to have a creative outlet. Also, this will be my first real activity here that isn't church related. It will be nice to have one, and to start to get to know folks outside of church. So all around, it should be a good thing.

Podcast

2006-09-13T18:32:00.000-06:00

So, we've got a sermon podcast up now. You can use iTunes to subscribe to it. We're listed in the iTunes Podcast directory, or you can just click this link to find us. If you get a chance, please go ahead and subscribe so we can boost our stats a little bit.

Ten

2006-09-06T15:19:00.000-06:00

So, I just preached my tenth Sermon at Coos Bay UMC. Definitely my record for consecutive sermons. I had preached 6 at different churches last summer. But it's a very interesting thing to be preaching every Sunday like this. It means always needing to have something to say, which I'm not always that great at. Often, I just like to b silent until I feel like I really have something to say. Now, I have to say something meaningful whether I feel like I have anything to say or not.

It's been a really good experience, though. A few of them have been surprizes. Imbibe the Spirit in particular ended up being exactly the words that I needed to hear at that time. It's not all that often that one successfully preaches to themself, but it happened that time.

Also, it's been interesting to see if I was really brave enough to tackle difficult subjects when they present themselves. I haven't done too badly. So far, the words, "heroin, sex, prostitution, pornography, cocaine, AIDS, Democrats, Republicans, vote, campaign, drugs, drunkenness, evil, terrorism, pregnancy, abortion, death penalty, war, sexist, rape, murder, adultry, lust, menstration, and politics" have all appeared in a sermon of mine. I did chicken out a little bit with To Whom Can We Go?, though. I could have brought up homosexuality in that one, but I didn't. Of course, I was also running a fever of 101 degrees when I wrote it, so I may not have been in the best condition to handle that topic with the tact necessary. Another time will present itself, I'm sure.

So yeah, ten consecutive sermons to the same congergation, without repeating myself, as far as I can tell. That's kind of cool.

Pilgrimage

2006-09-05T16:18:00.000-06:00

I just got back from a week of vacation. I spent the time visiting my Grandma and Great Uncle in Haines, Oregon. Part of the reason for my visit was to go through a document that we had recently found: the journal of my Great-Great-Grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Thomas Stewart, recording her experiences of coming to Oregon in a covered wagon in 1896. I was able to transcribe the entire journal and begin some historical work on the text. At the same time, I was able to do a bit of genealogical and other general family history research.

I found: 1) my family was passing through Denver in a covered wagon almost exactly 110 years before I graduated from seminary there, 2) President Richard Nixon is my 7th cousin twice removed, 3) my grandfather was a WWI veteran in the Canadian Army. I was also priviledged to take possession of several family heirlooms including some wonderful antique woodworking tools.

It's really hard to explain what the experience was like. It felt like a bit of a pilgrimage through time, walking in the steps of my ancestors. I've always felt a bit culturally homeless, like I didn't know much about my family history. Now I feel like a have a great sense of place.

A Good Day

2006-08-22T21:48:00.000-06:00

Sunday was a very good day. Part of it had to do with the sermon that I preached. Not that it was necessary all that good of a sermon. But, it was a sermon that I very much needed to hear. It ended up being on the topic of perpetual thankfulness. I'm usually not very good at that. I'm much better at being skeptical, cynical, and generally depressed. But I actually paid attention to my own words this week, and I really have been thankful. It's a good feeling. (If you want to check out the sermon, it's here on the church's new website.)

So, after the sermon, we spent the first part of the prayer time sharing the things that we're thankful for, and it was great! The congregation has been a little down about themselves, and it was great to be sharing joys during the time that we usually share only concerns.

Also, the music in the service was great, we had a visiting YWAM missionary giving a presentation, and there were a bunch of people in worship.

Then we went home and chilled out for a little. I read some Harry Potter.

In the evening we went over to a parishioner's house for a smore party. Several of us just sat around the fire and had a great time. It was the first time that I've been with church folk here and felt like I was just one of the gang. I didn't feel like I was "on." It was really nice to be able to relax a little bit.

So, it was a great day. I really, really enjoyed it.

Target: USA

2006-08-17T13:54:00.000-06:00

Not sure why, exactly, but this video from The Daily Show totally had me cracking up.

Over Exposure

2006-08-11T15:52:00.000-06:00

So, I've been in Coos Bay for about a month and a half now. In that time, several things have happened. I've had an article written about me in the area newspaper, The World (the greatest piece of journalism ever assembled :-). I've had my broadcast several times on KDOCK radio 92.9, as I am now responsible for Faith Break, a 60-second inspirational spot that runs throughout the day. I've been on KCBY Television Channel 11 with Father Carl speaking about the meaning of the community Hiroshima remembrance that we helped lead. And now both the Conference and the District offices want me to write a newletter article talking about my experience doing Faith Break. I don't think I've ever gotten this much media attention in my life. And what's worse, I can't even enjoy it. The World mysteriously didn't come to our door the one day that I was featured, and I've never managed to catch either a radio or TV broadcast. But people keep telling me that they've seen or heard me in the media, so I must be out there. Anyway, it just kind of cracks me up a little bit.

A Light Emerging

2006-08-09T15:50:00.000-06:00

It's been a long road getting here. I'm now a little over a month into my first pastorate. It hasn't been easy at all. It's a good church, don't get me wrong, but there have just been a lot of things to adjust to.

It's quite a transition going from serminary, where collegues abound, to being the solo pastor at a church, where there are no collegues. And it hasn't been made easier by the conference structures. I wasn't assigned a clergy mentor until this week. And the Residence In Ministry group, for clergy in their first or second years, hasn't yet started. And the Colloquay group of clergy in my area is off for the summer. It really would have been nice to have a little more support in the first weeks and months, but apparently that is not how it works. I haven't been completely abandoned, I've had a visit from the DS and a call from the Bishop, but it would have been nice to have the at least one of those three support systems in place right from the start.

And it's been a little lonely here. The church is aging. There really isn't anyone there my age at all. There a less than a handful of youth, and then there are some 40-somethings. And the town of Coos Bay is in about the same shape. It is aging rapidly, and I don't even know where I'd go looking for friends. I was desperate enough to actually go to the mall the other, just to be around younger people, but it didn't help much.

On top of that, I've been in a bit of a spiritual funk. Part of it is moving into full-time pastorate, I'm sure. If I attend any religious service, chances are that I'm leading it, so it's not often all the spiritually filling. And I'm been struggling with my own personal prayer disciplines. And I've just been questioning my call. Pastoring is a lot of hard work, and it's a minefield of mistakes. And with that idealistic, seminarian mind, I had a lot of preasure to "succeed", which by my working definition was probably nothing less than ushering in the Kingdom of God. :-)

So now I'm feeling a little more realistic. I'm feeling good about some of things that are going on here. I've had a few personal successes. I can see some of the new life sprouting forth in the congregation. And I feel more supported. My personal prayers are starting to feel like they mean something again. It's only been about 28 hours, but I'm actually feeling good about the situation, good about life Praise God. And hopefully that can last for a little while before the next major trial comes along.

First Communion

2006-07-05T20:19:00.000-06:00

For a liturgical nerd like myself (or as my friend Courtney would say, a Seminerdian), it's pretty cool to celebrate communion for the first time. I was the celebrant on my first Sunday as Pastor of First United Methodist Church of Coos Bay. Some pastors get excited about preaching, some about Bible study; me, I'm excited about sacraments. In any case, the whole service went quite smoothly. There were three special segments: Celebration of a New Appointment, Reaffirmation of Baptism with reception of a member, and Communion, I we still managed to get out early. Then we had everyone over for Potluck at the Parsonage in the afternoon. Overall, quite a good start, I'd say.

Weddings

2006-06-26T20:11:00.000-06:00

I got my first wedding request today. Someone from outside the church. I was a bit surprised. Thought for sure it would be a funeral before a wedding. But with funerals you don't the option of declining, which you do with a wedding. I think I'm inclined to do it so long as they do the whole counseling thing, but I don't have any real resources for doing that. I'll try to get some research done before I have to call them back.

Displacement

2006-06-25T14:48:00.000-06:00

It was our first Sunday in Coos Bay today. But it's not yet my first Sunday at Coos Bay UMC.

Last night we snuck over to the church with Melissa's parents. My name is on the sign: "Reverend David King". It was a little odd to see that. The pastor's study is pretty much cleared out. My business cards are almost made. My article for the church newsletter has been submitted. And on the table outside the sanctuary there was a scrapbook page displayed that featured Melissa and I at Annual Conference. Again, a little odd to see that. But it's not my Sunday yet.

Melissa and I went to the local Episcopal Church for worship. Only got lost in the liturgy once or twice. I met Father Steve, the rector, and Father Gene, the retired rector, as well as many other friendly folk. Hopefully we'll be able to work together on at least some eccumenical projects. They seemed agreeable.

Today was Elizabeth's last Sunday at Coos Bay UMC. She has served ably as and interim pastor for the past 5 months or so. Those I've talked to seem very thankful for her ministry. I'll meet her for the first time on Tuesday, and that's also when I'll start coming to the office.

We're getting settled in the house. Our cat, Turtle, has rejoined us after spending three years with Melissa's parents, and she is busy claiming every inch of the house as her own. I'm starting to do the same.

Humble Servant

2006-06-23T14:22:00.000-06:00

I am truly feeling like a humble servant. i feel so unprepared to be a pastor. I guess that's how it's supposed to be. How could one possibly be prepared. I'm as ready as I can be, and yet, woefully unready.

I suppose it's not much different from most things done for the first time. Is a teacher really prepared for their first classroom? Is a supervisor really prepared to be "the boss" on day one? I imagine not.

So, feeling as unprepared as I do, I am deeply aware of the need for grace. And that in itself is a blessing.

Waiting

2006-06-16T11:30:00.000-06:00

The truck is here. All but the last few things are packed up. Now we're just waiting for folks to show up so we can get the piano moved on. Once that's done, the rest should be somewhat easier. But for now, we're just waiting.

In four days time we'll be in Coos Bay. I'm looking forward.

2006-06-12T19:17:00.000-06:00

Well, most everything has happened since the last time I blogged. I graduated Iliff as a Master of Divinity on June 2nd. Then on June 7th, a was voted into probationary membership in the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church, giving me the right to vote as clergy. And on June 8th I was Commissioned by Bishop Robert Hoshibata, and made a reverand with full sacramental rights. On June 9th, I was appointed as pastor to First United Methodist Church of Coos Bay, effective July 1. Now I'm back in Denver, packing up things and preparing to move.

It's kind of a weird feeling. I've been waiting for all these things to come about, but I think none of it will really seem real until that first Sunday in Coos Bay. In the mean time, I've lost almost all track of the days of the week. I have no sort of regularity of schedule. I feel almost as though I exist outside of time. I'm hardly living; I'm simply moving.

Ethics and the Law

2006-06-03T10:49:00.000-06:00

Brian has an excellent point in the previous post, pointing out that the USAmerican corporate world general views ethics as minimum standards of behaviour. I think this concept is probably pretty close to the understanding in the general public. We tend to think of ethics as morality or even ethics as law, something that can be governed by a simple set of rules. But even a cursory study of Christian ethics will reveal that ethics and the law are not at all the same. We hope that they're in line most of the time. Murder is generally not ethical and is also against the law. But they are not always the same.

Ethics can force us to do something that is not required of us by the law. That is to say, sometimes the ethical choice requires more of us than a simple legal choice would. Legally, I can buy a Hummer and drive it continuously around the country 24 hours a day for no apparent reason. But ethically, since I know that driving my Hummer is polluting and uses scarse resources, perhaps I should only drive it when I have good reason.

Ethics can also force us to break the law, at times. There are plenty of unjust laws in the history of humanity. Sometimes, breaking these laws is the ethical choice. Breaking a law that enforces genocide is likely to be an ethical choice. But there are also some just laws that can in certain circumstances be ethically broken. Dietrich Bonhoeffer felt ethically obligated to support an attempt to assasinate Hitler, even though porhibitions on murder and conspiracy to commit murder are clearly just laws. Of course, when you make an ethical choice that breaks the law, you must be willing to accept the consequences of breaking the law. Martin Luther King, Jr. went to jail for his ethical choices that broke the law, for example.

In any case, my point is that it is high time that we stop taking the easy way out by only following the law and abdicating our responsibility as ethical beings.

Professional Ethics

2006-06-01T12:51:00.000-06:00

BBC Story
NPR Story

It seems that soldiers in Iraq are now going to be taking basic ethics courses. My first thought on hearing this was, you mean they don't take ethics courses already? But then I remembered that many of my collegues in pastoral ministry haven't even taken ethics courses. Clearly some of our American CEOs are a bit lacking in ethics training too. And I'll bet that most Christians can't even tell you where to go in the Bible to find ethical teachings. (My first stop would be Matthew 5-7). Even in my whole career in academics, I myself have only taken one ethics course, and how much of it do I actually remember? So is it any suprise that our soldiers aren't receiving ethics training? Maybe we USAmericans need to take another look at how we do and teach ethics.

Last Paper

2006-05-22T17:30:00.000-06:00

I just turned in the last paper of my Iliff career, and boy am I glad to be done. I suppose it probably won't be long before I start missing being in school, but right now I am so incredibly glad to be finishing. I'm a bit sick of school, and a bit sick of Iliff in general. Like I said, I imagine both of those feelings will fade in time.

It's pretty weird to be staring my first appointment square in the face. I honestly feel that I am prepared -- as prepared as I can be -- but I also know that I'm going to make a whole lot of mistakes. Coos Bay is about all I can think about, but I still have so little information that most of my thought is completely speculative. I am looking forward to it, and also a little bit scared.

So now we're venturing on the great task of packing up everything. We have a lot of books. So far, we have 27 boxes packed, and most of them are filled with books. And there are still books left. But books are the easy things, I guess. I'm sure there are other things that will be much more difficult.

Lighthouse

2006-05-11T12:11:00.000-06:00

Melissa got a great job in Coos Bay. She'll be teaching either 4th or 5th grade at the Lighthouse School. This seems to be just a wonder match for her, and I'm very excited that she is already free from the stress of job hunting.

Keyboards of Calvary

2006-05-11T12:02:00.000-06:00

Did a last concert at Calvary. It's always kind of weird performing jazz piano. It feels a bit like entering a past life. But it was rather fun to do. Click here to see the concert on Windows Media Player. Jason and I are the last act.

Darfur is Dying

2006-05-08T22:57:00.000-06:00

Check the online game, Darfur is Dying. After you've played, one way to help is through the United Methodist Committee on Relief. 100% of your gift goes directly to those in need. Here is more about their Sudan Emergency Advance.

Reflections on Coos Bay

2006-05-01T13:56:00.000-06:00

I'm finally starting to get over the cold enough to be able to reflect cogently. Melissa and I have been in Coos Bay for just under two days now. The weather has been really nice while we've been here: sunny most of the time. The town/area seems nice. It's big enough to have just about everything one would need. There's passable shopping. A nice medical complex. People seem friendly.

Visited the church. The sanctuary is beautiful. It seems like a wonderful worship space. They even have a processional cross, though I doubt they use it for processions very often, if at all. There's a nice office space. The pastor's office is in a converted classroom. I definitely going to have to paint it, but it's quite spacious with lots of shelf space and windows. There is a lot of classroom space; almost none of it is being used. Great fellowship hall downstairs with a quite functional kitchen, though a remodel is in the works. We rent space to a Jewish congregation: Mayim Shalom. I look forward to meeting the rabbi.

Had dinner with the folks from the SPRC committee. They seem great. Really wonderful people. I look forward to working with them. I think they're a little down about the church's prospects, but that's not uncommon.

Melissa is interviewing today. The teaching prospects look quite good. She might even have a job lined up before we move.

Saw the outside of the parsonage. It seems like a big house: split level two story. What we could see of it looks nice. It's kind of tucked away on a hillside, so it's hard to see much of the house. It's really close to the big city park, which is nice. About a half mile from the church, which is about perfect. I guess there's already a piano in the house, so we'll probably put our piano in my church office. And they're going to be putting in all new appliances, so that will be great.

It's great to be around all the water. The bay is close. It's a little farther to get to an ocean beach, but it's quite nice when you get there.

Visited the closest Methodist Church: North Bend. Nice church with nice folks. The pastor seems like someone who will be good to work with. Hopefully we can coordinate on some programs.

Overall, it looks good. It will be a bit of an adjustment from Denver, but I think I'll get used to it pretty quickly. I'm looking forward to moving.

OR-ID Appointments VII

2006-05-01T13:48:00.000-06:00

Three more appointments came out. Here's the list:

Scott Harkness: Connectional Ministries
Donna Pritchard: Southern District Superintendent
Robert Flaherty: Eastern District Superintendent
David King: Coos Bay
Jim Fellers: Corvallis
Courtney McHill: Corvallis Associate
Karen Nelson: Coquille, Pioneer
Jeremy Hajdu-Paulen: Dallas
Achsah Clark: Eugene Asbury/Harrisburg
Ruth Marsh: Florence
Melissa Harkness Haugen: Grants Pass, Newman
Gwen Drake: Hillsboro
Dan Benson: John Day/Prairie City
Larry Ward: Portland, Capitol Hill
David Bean: Portland, Cherry Park
Brett Stroebel: Portland, Christ Church
Daryl Blanksma: Roseburg
Christina Fridel: Seaside
Davey Lefler: Shelley
Charles Chase: Wilderville/Cave Junction

2006-04-29T22:20:00.000-06:00

It's my birthday, I'm in Coos Bay, and I'm very ill. I should be celebrating. And I should be really excited about getting to see our future home for the first time. But I've got some kind of cold. Sore throat, sinus infection, fever. Hopefully I'll be recovered at least somewhat by tomorrow.

Sermon: Breathing Peace

2006-04-23T08:15:00.000-06:00

Like so many other 3rd-string preachers, I preached on the 2nd Sunday of Easter. You can see a video of the service here.

John 20:19-23

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

Final Translation

19 It being early evening on that day, the first of the week, and the doors having been barred where the disciples were gathered on account of Jew-phobia, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them: “Peace to all of you.” 20 And after saying this, he displayed his hands and ribs to them. Then, the disciples were delighted, having seen the master. 21 And Jesus told them once more, “Peace to all of you. Even as the father has dispatched me, so I myself am sending all of you.” 22 And after saying this, he blew into them and said to them: “Receive a holy breath, understand this holy saying: 23 if you should happen to let go of the sins of anyone, they are set free; if you lord it over anyone, then they have been enslaved.”

Sermon Text

It’s still Easter. The disciples have gotten the news that Jesus is risen. They’ve heard the reports from the empty tomb. They’ve heard Mary Magdalene’s story of how she saw the risen Lord. And now, with the sun low in the western sky, they are not out proclaiming the good news, are not spreading the word that Jesus is risen. No, as evening falls they are hidden away in some undisclosed location, with the doors closed, locked, and barred. And why are they cowering away in some dark corner? Because they are afraid of the Jews.

And I suppose it’s not so hard to understand why they were afraid. It was the Jewish authorities, after all, who had brought Jesus to trial in the first place. Now that his body was gone from the tomb, neither the Jewish leaders nor the Roman government would be very pleased. They’d likely come after all of Jesus’ followers to keep these rumors that Jesus had risen from the dead from starting some sort of riot or insurrection. Judea was a volatile place, and the government wouldn’t think twice about using military force to put down a few rebels. They had to be prepared for the coming battle. They had to develop their plans and strategies. If Jesus really was alive, then perhaps he would be amassing forces to overthrow the Roman military occupation and their lapdogs, the Jewish religious authorities. This might be the very moment that they had been waiting for since they first heard about the messiah. Jesus would surely rise up now and crush the foreign oppressors. The disciples just had to play it safe for a little while, stay under cover, until Jesus came to rescue them.

And so they remain locked away in a secret conclave on that evening of the first Easter, hiding out and assuming the worst – because they were afraid. The word in Greek is one that you know: phobia. The disciples were phobic of the Jews. And it was this Jew-phobia that kept them isolated, paralyzed, disconnected from the rest of the world. They couldn’t move, they couldn’t act, they couldn’t even find out what was really going on. All they could do was hide and cower in fear.

And it seems to me that we are not unfamiliar with that kind of fear – the fear that paralyzes and keeps us locked away. We seem to live in a constant state of fear. In fact, there is so much fear that the US government even has a threat rating system to let us know just how afraid we should be at any given time. Today, for example, the threat risk is “elevated” which I’m told means that there is “significant risk of terrorist attacks.” Ever since September 11th, we’ve been living in constant fear of another terrorist attack, stocking up on supplies, learning how to tape our doors and windows closed, looking with suspicion on every stranger. We fill our minds with terrifying images of suicide bombers coming to elementary schools. In the end, we become paralyzed by fear, unable to function because we suspect danger all around.

And it’s not just terrorism that we have to fear. There are natural disasters like tsunamis, tornados, earthquakes, and hurricanes. There is the threat of global climate change. There is our dependency on oil, and the world’s dwindling supply of petroleum resources. We’re afraid of diseases: cancer, AIDS, even the bird flu. We’re concerned about the economy, and the kind of chaos that might occur if it were to become unbalanced. We’re concerned of change in all its forms: change in our personal lives, change in our families, change in our nation, change in society, and change in our church. We’re afraid about success and failure, and what others might think about our lives. Ultimately, we are afraid of death, of that great unknown, and whether or not our life will have been worthy of eternity. Sometimes we take all of these fears, roll them all up together into one neat package, and call it the End Times. Things seem so bad that we become afraid of the very end of the world.

Now, it’s certainly not wrong to be afraid. Fear is God’s way of keeping us out of undue danger. And there certainly are real threats in the world that trigger our fears. But, whether or not a fear is justified, it can still be a dangerous thing. As Yoda tells us in one of the Star Wars movies, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Fear has the power to overcome us, to enslave us, bind us, and confine us. Fear causes us to separate ourselves from the world around us, to expect the worst, to suspect our neighbors. Fear brought the disciples to lock themselves away in a secret hiding place, to reject the world, to live in constant terror of the people in the their own communities, and it has the power to do the same thing to us. When we let fear control our lives, we stop living for God and for God’s kingdom and start living only for our own self-preservation. We become blocked from the grace that God provides, and our discipleship becomes sterile and fruitless, like those useless apostles hiding behind bolted doors.

While the disciples were still locked away in that back room, Jesus mysteriously appeared to them. And he immediately spoke to them these words: “Peace be to all of you.” Jesus came to them in the midst of their disabling fear and spoke peace. “Let your fear go. Fill yourselves with peace instead.” But the disciples we’re able to hear him. They were too caught up in their phobias and paranoias to understand Jesus’ message to them. Yes, they were happy to see Jesus, they were glad to be in the presence of the risen Lord. But they were unable to really listen to what Jesus was saying to them.

So Jesus tries again. Repeats his previous words: “Peace unto all of you.” And then he adds, “God has sent me out, rolled away the stone and set me loose from death. Now it’s your turn. Unlock these doors that keep you buried in this room just the same as if it were a grave. Roll away the stone of fear that makes you a slave to sin and death. Now, I am sending you out into the world. Even death can’t keep me locked away; don’t let fear keep you locked away. You’re supposed to be apostles, aren’t you? And an apostle is one who is sent out. Well, I’m sending you out. Leave your fear behind and get going.”

Jesus will not let them stay snuggly hid away in their safe little bomb shelter. He won’t allow them to remain comfortably separate from the world outside. No, Jesus sends them out into the world, tells them to get past their fear and do the work that they are meant to do.

That same message applies to us today. Jesus is sending us. If we hold on to our fears, allow them to control us, then we will be unable to answer Jesus’ call to us. Change, and disease, and disaster, and terrorism, and death, will keep us bound up in chains that prevent us from doing what God intends for us. Fear will render us useless.

Now, that message might seem a little harsh, a bit unsympathetic on Jesus’ part. Are we being told to just get over it? To pretend that we don’t have any fears? Overcoming fear takes more than just getting a lecture.

Fortunately, Jesus doesn’t leave us there. If fact, Jesus does something absolutely extraordinary. What Jesus does is so amazing, that it is very difficult to understand. If you check your Bible at John 19:22 you’ll probably find something like, “he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” That in itself is quite remarkable, but it’s not as simple as it seems at first. Once again, the frailty of the English language fails to capture what is happening in this passage.

First Jesus, does not breathe on the disciples, which seems pretty strange already. No Jesus actually breathes into the disciples. The Greek word use here is the exact same word in the exact same form that is used when God breathes the breath of life into Adam in Genesis 2. Jesus isn’t just breathing on them, he is breathing a new life into them, making a new creation out of them, just as God made a new creation by breathing into Adam. Jesus is the Word made flesh, and he is breathing that divine Word into the disciples. He is making them into new beings, creatures filled with the Word and Spirit of God.

And that’s not the end of the mystery. Jesus says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” In Greek, this can also mean, “Receive a holy breath,” which makes sense since he is breathing into them. Or it can mean, “Understand this holy saying,” which also makes sense, because Jesus about to deliver a wisdom saying to them. The Greek reader would probably understand all of these meanings to be happening simultaneously. Receive the Holy Spirit, receive a holy breath, understand this holy saying – they are all true to what is happening.

And then Jesus delivers the saying. The New Revised Standard Version translates it this way: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” So we usually think, Oh, the apostles have received the Holy Spirit, so now they must have the authority to forgive sins or retain them. This is some sort of special privilege and power that they’ve been granted.

But once again, it’s not that simple. Listen to another translation of those same words: “If you should happen to let go of the sins of anyone, that person is set free; if you lord it over anyone, then that person has been enslaved.” Now things start to make sense. Jesus is not granting the disciples some sort of special power, he is giving them a piece of wisdom. He’s saying that if we choose to forgive someone or not to forgive them, that it actually has an effect on that other person. If we forgive them, then we set them free. If we withhold our forgiveness, then we are enslaving that person with the chains of our own negative emotions. To grant forgiveness is a beautiful gift that releases good into the world. Withholding forgiveness is an injury to others, and limits the avenues that God has to pour forth grace. Understand this holy saying, says Jesus, if you forgive, you grant freedom; if you withhold forgiveness, then you just create more ways to hold people down.

And what is fear but a wrong left unforgiven? When we hold on so tightly to all of our hurts, every bad thing that we’ve ever experienced, then we start to live in fear of everything that could possibly go wrong in the future. Living a life without forgiveness inevitably leads us into a life of slavery – slavery to our own fears – slavery that reaches even to those around us, binding us all in a web of terror.

But Jesus offers us a different way. He says, “Peace. Peace to all of you. Be released from your fear.” And offers us the gift of the Holy Spirit, he breathes peace into us, breathes forgiveness into us, breathes new life into us, and makes us a new creation, free from slavery to fear and death, free to go out as Christ’s representatives into the world. Christ is calling. Christ is making us new. And Christ is sending us out into the world that we might share in his ministry and be always and everywhere breathing peace.

OR-ID Appointments VI

2006-04-21T14:54:00.000-06:00

It looks like there going to be quite a bit of change in the churches around Coos Bay. Coos Bay, Coquille, Florence, Grants Pass, and Roseburg are all getting new appointments.

Scott Harkness: Connectional Ministries
Donna Pritchard: Southern District Superintendent
Robert Flaherty: Eastern District Superintendent
David King: Coos Bay
Jim Fellers: Corvallis
Courtney McHill: Corvallis Associate
Karen Nelson: Coquille, Pioneer
Jeremy Hajdu-Paulen: Dallas
Ruth Marsh: Florence
Melissa Harkness Haugen: Grants Pass, Newman
Gwen Drake: Hillsboro
Dan Benson: John Day/Prairie City
Larry Ward: Portland, Capitol Hill
David Bean: Portland, Cherry Park
Brett Stroebel: Portland, Christ Church
Daryl Blanksma: Roseburg
Christina Fridel: Seaside

Oregon's 5th

2006-04-11T10:43:00.000-06:00

As a once and future Oregonian, I just feel I need to draw your attention to Darlene Hooley's appearance on the 18th of Colbert's 433-part series, Better Know a District. I voted for her, once upon a time.

OR-ID Appointments V

2006-04-11T10:33:00.000-06:00

A few more appointments came out. Here's the current list:

Scott Harkness: Connectional Ministries
Donna Pritchard: Southern District Superintendent
Robert Flaherty: Eastern District Superintendent
David King: Coos Bay
Jim Fellers: Corvallis
Courtney McHill: Corvallis Associate
Jeremy Hajdu-Paulen: Dallas
Ruth Marsh: Florence
Gwen Drake: Hillsboro
Dan Benson: John Day/Prairie City
Larry Ward: Portland, Capitol Hill
David Bean: Portland, Cherry Park
Brett Stroebel: Portland, Christ Church
Daryl Blanksma: Roseburg
Christina Fridel: Seaside

I'm really excited for my friend Courtney and her appointment to Corvallis. I'm sure she's going to do great work with their new emergent worship program, and everything else too.

Oh, Deanna and Paul Self-Price are getting ¶346 appointments to the Desert Southwest Conference.

Jury Duty

2006-04-04T17:36:00.000-06:00

So, I've been summoned as Juror 153 tomorrow. Never been on Jury duty before. Should be interesting, I suppose. I hope it's not longer than one or two days. I've got Easter Vigil rehearsal on Friday down at St. Andrew's.

OR-ID Appointments IV

2006-03-27T23:06:00.000-07:00

Some new appointments were announced today (including mine). Here's the new list:

Scott Harkness: Connectional Ministries
Donna Pritchard: Southern District Superintendent
Robert Flaherty: Eastern District Superintendent
David King: Coos Bay
Jim Fellers: Corvallis
Jeremy Hajdu-Paulen: Dallas
Ruth Marsh: Florence
Gwen Drake: Hillsboro
Dan Benson: John Day/Prairie City
Larry Ward: Portland, Capitol Hill
David Bean: Portland, Cherry Park
Brett Stroebel: Portland, Christ Church
Daryl Blanksma: Roseburg

It's kind of interesting that two of the new appointments, Florence and Roseburg, are near Coos Bay. I know and really like Ruth and Daryl, so it will be nice to work with them.

And now I'm wondering who's going to Seaside, Daryl's current appointment.

My Appointment

2006-03-26T14:06:00.000-07:00

It's public now. I can finally tell you. Bishop Hoshibata intends to appoint me as pastor to First United Methodist Church in Coos Bay, Oregon. I am very excited, and it sounds like they're pretty excited too. The congregation has about 150 members, with about 80-90 in worship on any given Sunday. Like the rest of the town, they are mostly older folks, with lots of newly retired people. There are very few children and youth, but some prospects. The congregation prefers a traditional style of worship, which is just fine with me, and they are very proud of their music program.

The town of Coos Bay has about 14,000 inhabitants. Timber, fishing, and shipping are the main industries. Located on the south coast of Oregon, it has the largest natural harbor between San Francisco and Puget Sound. There are two school districts in the area, with a total of 7 elementary schools between them, so Melissa should have fair prospects for getting a teaching job. The town isn't big, but it is a regional center, and has most of the amenities necessary. It looks like a great place, and I am really looking forward to being there.

OR-ID Appointments III

2006-03-20T15:37:00.000-07:00

New appointments came out. Here is the current list:

Scott Harkness: Connectional Ministries
Donna Pritchard: Southern District Superintendent
Robert Flaherty: Eastern District Superintendent
Jim Fellers: Corvallis
Jeremy Hajdu-Paulen: Dallas
Gwen Drake: Hillsboro
Larry Ward: Portland, Capitol Hill
David Bean: Portland, Cherry Park
Brett Stroebel: Portland, Christ Church

Hopefully, I'll be able to add myself to this list by Sunday.

Collectivist Mentality

2006-03-20T09:56:00.000-07:00

So, I think I've finally figured out what's been bothering me with church lately. Do you remember the Borg? They're characters in Star Trek: half organic and half cybernetic, possessing a collective consciousness. They think only corporately, and have a very hard time comprehending the concept of individuality.

And that seems to be the conflict that I'm running into at the Baptist church. You see, I'm like the Borg (except, of course, I don't running around trying to assimilate other people, unless you consider this article an attempt at assimilation -- resistance is futile!!). I tend to think of Christianity as a fairly corporate matter, especially when it comes to rituals. My understanding of Baptism is that it is a grafting into the Body of Christ, the Church. Because of that, infant Baptist isn't a problem. But for Baptists, Baptism is a sign of a personal acceptance of Jesus as Lord. It's a very individual thing.

Or take communion. For me, it's another expression of the Body of Christ, something that mysteriously connects us all as the Church. For Baptists, it seems to be more of a remembrance of the saving grace offered by Christ to individuals (who are all equal).

Or ordination. For me, it is a setting aside by the community of certain individuals for a specialized task. If clergy have any sort of special authority, it is because it is granted to them by the community. They are representative of the community. So in our ordination service, the entire Conference is present, and several people are ordained at once, being accepted into membership in the conference. At a Baptist ordination, it's very individualistic. Only one person is ordained. The service is specifically tailored to them and their sensibilities. In fact, very little of the service is the same from one ordination to the next. And ordination is considered a recognition of the individual's ministry, not an acceptance into the overall ministry of the Church. (This is matter of degree of course. I just mean that the emphasis is different, not that the approaches are completely different.)

Methodist pastors are members of the Annual Conference. Baptist pastors are members of the local congregation. Baptist have a great tradition of individual freedom and allowing persons to hammer out their own faith. But I guess I must be a true Methodist (or maybe Anglo-Methodist), because I really long for that more corporate aspect of worship and spirituality.

Appointment

2006-03-17T10:26:00.000-07:00

I'm sooooo excited. I was just offered an appointment. I can't tell you where it is yet, unfortunately. I'll have a phone meeting with the SPRC on Wednesday the 22nd. If they say yes, then it will be announced on Sunday the 26th. So, I'll be able to tell you then. So..... I guess I'll say, it's in the Southern District. That's about as much as I can say. And that's probably too much. Soooo excited!!!

Graduation Controversy

2006-03-14T16:16:00.000-07:00

So, as is usually the case at Iliff, there is a controversy. This time it is concerning Graduation. You, this year it is planned at Trinity United Methodist. Well, apparently back in 1896 they had a funeral at Trinity, and this funeral was for Rev. Col. John M. Chivington. Now, Col. Chivington was definitely not a nice guy. He was the commander of the Sand Creek Massacre. But, he was also a great hero of early Methodism in Colorado, having been the District superintendent of the Denver area. Unfortunately, American Protestant history goes hand and hand with cruelty and violence.

So, back to Iliff, many students don't want to have graduation at Trinity because of this particular bit of history: the fact that Col. Chivington was honored with great pomp at his funeral at Trinity in 1896.

But I don't quite understand it. If it's not okay to have graduation at Trinity, then why is it okay to go to school at Iliff, where Col. Chivington played a major role in the school's founding? Wouldn't it be safe to assume that he was memorialized in a Chapel service at Iliff in 1896? But we still go to chapel? It seems to me that every step I take is on land stolen from Native Americans, every drink I swallow is of water stolen from Native Americans -- every square inch of this land is drenched in he blood of innocents. How does singling out Trinity, and sacrificing them as the scapegoat on the altar of white shame, help this situation? It doesn't make our history go away if we just decide to assign the blame to an old building.

Cabinet meeting

2006-03-14T00:43:00.000-07:00

The Cabinet is meeting again tomorrow and Thursday. I eagerly await news from them. In the mean time, I've pinned a map of Oregon to the wall next to my desk and marked every city that has a Methodist church, connecting multi-point charges with lines.

I've finished one of two final papers for this quarter. Now I just have to write about Catherine Blaine.

Papers... urrrrgggh

2006-03-12T21:31:00.000-07:00

I don't want to write any more papers. I'm just sick of it. They seem so pointless. I so long for the old days of Blue Book tests. These papers just have so little to do with the classes. They only measure my ability to write papers and do research. They don't at all measure the class content, or really even my ability to use it effectively. Argh. It's just so lame. It's just a bunch of work with no purpose because profs are afraid of giving regular tests anymore. I guess it's not "best practice" to give tests anymore, but its so much less busy work.

Commencement Speaker

2006-03-08T07:23:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty excited that my bishop, Bishop Robert Hoshibata, is going to be the speaker for commencement at Iliff. I think I'm the only graduating student from Iliff whose in the candidacy process in the OR-ID conference, and so it's just kind of interesting that he's going to be the speaker here. It should be good, though. Maybe he'll draw a few more Iliff folks out west.

OR-ID Appointments II

2006-03-06T12:41:00.000-07:00

Some more appointments were made. Here's the current list, to my reckoning:

Scott Harkness: Connectional Ministries
Donna Pritchard: Southern District Superintendent
Robert Flaherty: Eastern District Superintendent
Jim Fellers: Corvallis
Gwen Drake: Hillsboro

That leaves the following loose ends:

Dallas UMC
Roseburg UMC
Deanna & Paul Self-Price

OR-ID Appointments

2006-03-02T22:33:00.000-07:00

The first appointment of the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference of The UMC came out today from the Cabinet. Jim Fellers, the current District Superintendent for the Eastern District (southern Idaho) was appointed to Corvallis UMC. Also, Scott Harkness and Donna Pritchard were named as the new co-deans of the Cabinet, implying that they will both be continuing as Director of Connectional Ministries and Southern District superintendent, respectively.

So, now we wonder who's going to be the new Eastern DS and what appointments Deanna and Paul Self-Price (currently assigned to Corvallis) might be anticipating.

Colbert

2006-02-28T23:18:00.000-07:00

Some great religious reporting from Stephen Colbert:

Trial Seperation
The De-Deification of the American Faithscape
Pick Your Apocalypse
Interview with Tony Campolo

Transfiguration

2006-02-25T23:52:00.000-07:00

Today is The Festival of the Transfiguration. As I prayed the Office tonight, I found a bit of transfiguration myself. I've been struggling for several weeks (maybe even months) with keeping up my prayer discipline. I'm not exactly sure why. It seemed too repetative, maybe. Or perhaps I just didn't really want to have to face God.

But tonight, for whatever reason, I went ahead and did it. And I found the image of the transfiguration to be incredibly powerful. I'd read the story earlier this week, and it didn't do much for me. But this time it exploded. It's the whole idea of that resurrection power, that end-of-times joy, coming into the world -- somehow before its time. It's in the world before the world is ready for it. And it gives me great hope this evening. God's transforming power is on the loose in the world, and for those who have eyes to see it, it is absolutely dumbfounding.

Long Limen

2006-02-18T16:50:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling like I'm in a really long transitional period right now. There are several reasons. First, I've been approved by the Board of Ordained Ministry for Commissioning; but now I have to just wait for several months until: first, I find out where the bishop plans to appoint me; second, go before the clergy session for the final test before comissioning; third, be commissioned; fourth, finally be appointed and become a pastor somewhere. That will be on July 1st. So, I'm reasonably sure that's what's going to happen, but right now I just have to wait.

Then there's school. At the end of this term, I'll actually have conpleted every requirement for graduation. But there's still one more term to go. So I'll take some more classes, just waiting to graduation to come around in June.

Then, there's work at the Baptist church, where I'm still a pastoral intern. First of all, it's a little odd because I'm just kind of waiting for the Methodists to come through this summer so I can go back there. And I am kind of excited to be a Methodist again. Nothing against the Baptists; they've been great. I'm just very much a Methodist.

But it's weirder than just that. They've already hired my replacement, and he's my new boss. They hired a Transition Pastor, who will become the Interim Pastor when the current Senior Pastor retires at some undisclosed future date. (the Baptists are pretty paranoid about leadership changes) I the mean time, he'll be taking over my duties in Adult Education. So anyway, he's a great guy -- I've worked with him before -- but it's just kind of weird to have my replacement already hired. And he's my boss. And he's in my old office (I volunteered to give it to him) and I'm stuck in a little cubby hole with the Youth Pastor. They reassigned me to help out with youth until I leave in May, but that's not very long to establish report. So, I'm just kind of waiting to be done, in a way.

Which means that I'm in a very long period of liminal space. I'm anticipating a not too distant future, but still waiting for it to arrive, in a sort of no-man's land of uncertainty.

Senioritis

2006-02-16T09:45:00.000-07:00

I though I was just suffering from a major case of senioritis; I've been kind of lazy. But it turns out that I'm actually suffering from a case of strep. So, that's kind of good to know. I have a chance of being better before graduation in June.

I made the cut. I had a lot of trouble getting connected with my notification team, but we finally got in contact this evening, and they informed me that the Board of Ordained Ministry has recommended me for Commissioning and Probationary Membership to the Clergy Session of the Oregon-Idaho Anuual Conference. It's a really nice feeling.

BOM Retreat

2006-01-31T15:21:00.000-07:00

I just spent Thursday, Friday, Saturday with the Board of Ordained Ministry at Collins Retreat Center. They were deciding whether or not to advance me and 10 other candidates. Some of us are up for full ordination, while others, like myself, are up for commissioning and probationary membership. We'll be hearing back from the BOM (which apparently many pronounce "boom", but which I still prefer to call "bomb") in the next two weeks. Teams of two will come from the BOM to each candidate to inform us in person of the result. Except for the two of us who are still away at seminary; we'll be receiving phone calls. Mine is at 3:30 Pacific Time this Thursday, Feb 2.

I think my interviews went pretty well. Nothing that we discussed caused me to think there were any grounds not to recommend me. The interviews were actually pretty fun and like an interesting discussion of the issues we were covering. I'll find out for sure on Thursday.

A Day

2006-01-15T23:33:00.000-07:00

It was a day at church this morning. Our Pastor of Worship (also choir director) was on vacation. No problem -- the organist shifted over to direct the choir. We've got a great backup organist. But... she called in sick. Trouble.

Our senior pastor started off the early service, and noticed part way through that the battery on the handheld mic was almost dead. She had to run out for a replacement, so I covered the rest of her part. And I covered for the song leader -- the Pastor of Worship usually does that. We got through that service.

Then is Sunday school. We're doing a unit on The Matrix from Reel Faith. Unfortunately, my co-teacher lost the curriculum book this week. I had already set up the clips, so we figured to watch them before class and come up with some questions on our own. He was the designated leader this morning. However, despite my best efforts, I somehow failed to leave the house with the DVD. My partner punted a lesson while I went to practice organ -- I'd been recruited to accompany the choir at the second service.

Now, my organ chops are pretty weak, and I haven't played in quite some time. So putting together an anthem in a little less than an hour was a bit of a challenge. I even ended up doing some of the choir rehearsal. It turned out pretty well, though. And it was actually quite fun to play.

Then, after church, I led a meeting with representatives from all 10 adult Sunday school classes. Our classes are growing, and their started to feel cramped. I called the meeting to try to come up with a room assignment solution that would work for everyone. It had the potential to be very contentious. However, it went better than I could have expected, thanks to some good planning, a lot of prayer, and some compassionate hearts.

Like I said, it was a day.

BOM Retreat

2006-01-12T11:07:00.000-07:00

I'm meeting with the Board of Ordained Ministry of the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church in almost exactly 14 days, 2 weeks. After two days of meeting with me and my fellow candidates, they will determine whether or not to recommend us for ordination or commisioning to the Clergy Session of Annual Conference. This is the next-to-last step in being approved to be commissioned. I've been in the process for five years now. And in two weeks I will face the greatest hurdle of the process so far.

It's an interesting place to be in. Earlier in the process I took each step with what could almost be trepidation. I knew that each step was very serious and that I could not expect to simply be past. Now, although I still take this process very seriously and I know that being passed is not a foregone conclusion, I still don't feel I have much to fear. In the last 5 years, I haven't really been faced with many serious questions of fitness. Those that I have faced, I have worked on and developed answers to. I enter this phase now, just ready to be questioned, but not anxious about the process or the result. I don't feel that the board is out to get me. I feel like they will be just. I'm almost looking forward to it.

Iliff Prayer Vigil

2005-11-04T09:02:00.000-07:00

Rocky Mountain News article
Iliff held a prayer vigil yesterday over the ruling of Judicial Council Decision 1032. It was nice to be a part of some sort of prayerful responce to this gross injustice.

The Council of Bishops also came out with a statement. Here is the UMNS account.

Bishop Hoshibata calls for "Hospitality to All"

2005-11-02T19:35:00.000-07:00

I am very proud to be a part of the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church in which our Bishop Robert Hoshibata issued this statement:

Dear Members and Friends of the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference,

Grace to you in the name of Jesus Christ who calls us to love one another in his name!

I am writing to share about a matter of profound importance to all of us. As you read this, I am attending the fall meeting of the Council of Bishops of The United Methodist Church. We are meeting at Lake Junaluska Assembly in North Carolina.

While meeting here, we received word of decisions of the Judicial Council, the highest court of our denomination. The Judicial Council was asked to rule on a number of issues, but one ruling in particular is the subject of this pastoral letter to you. As I understand them, these are the important facts to know about this case.

In December 2004, a person who expressed interest in becoming a member of a United Methodist Church in the Virginia Annual Conference was denied membership. He had been participating in the life of the Church in a variety of ways. The person wanting to join The United Methodist Church is a gay man and subsequently was denied membership on the basis of his sexual orientation and practice.

After consultation with his bishop, the district superintendent met with the pastor and informed him that he was not to refuse membership in the church to this man or anyone else who came with a willingness to receive the vow, affirm the vow, and to fulfill the vow of membership. Since the pastor would not agree to do so, a formal complaint was brought against him.

The complaint was referred to the Board of Ordained Ministry for review, as the Book of Discipline requires. As a result, the Board recommended to the Clergy Session that the clergyperson be placed on involuntary leave of absence.

Following the action of the Clergy Session of the Virginia Annual Conference, a question of law was posed to the presiding bishop asking whether it is within the authority of a pastor to exercise judgment in determining who may or may not be received into membership in the local church. The bishop ruled that the Constitution of The United Methodist Church offers church membership to all persons (Article 4).

The Judicial Council overturned Bishop Kammerer’s ruling and determined that the pastor of a local United Methodist Church does have the discretion to exclude people from membership.

I am saddened and profoundly disappointed by this ruling. You and I know good, faithful Christians who are on opposite sides of the debate about how the church considers homosexuality. However, regardless of what one believes about homosexuality, we need to think through carefully what this decision says about who we are as a body of Jesus Christ. To that end, I issue these calls to you who follow Jesus in the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference:

I call upon us to continue to offer hospitality to all persons. The love we know in Christ knows no bounds. Thus, as we seek to be more like Jesus, we must emulate his desire to claim all persons as disciples. When we ask, “What would Jesus do?” we arrive at a place of love and acceptance and grace. When confronted by a decision between law and grace, Jesus took the high road and offered grace. Let hospitality be graciously offered in the same spirit in our United Methodist churches.

We might also ask ourselves, “What would John Wesley do?” Wesley preached that the church is the means of the dispensing of the grace of God. We offer that grace to all who come seeking it. All persons are in need of the grace which the church alone provides. For this very reason, I cannot support the decision of a pastor to exclude a person from membership who is willing to seriously take on the vows of The United Methodist Church. I call upon all who have the responsibility of welcoming new members to continue to reach out with an all-encompassing love which we know because we ourselves have received the grace of God through Jesus Christ.

There are many members of our United Methodist churches who are receiving the news of this ruling with sadness. There are many faithful congregations that are lovingly reaching out into the community and the world to invite all persons into discipleship. I will continue to do my best to insure that all persons are welcomed in our United Methodist Church. I call us again to the vision of a church with “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors.”

I call us to dispel the fear of persons who are different from us. Let us set the bar high in our churches for the acceptance and appreciation of people who are different from us. Whether that means a person of a different race or ethnicity, or who is poorer or wealthier than we; no matter what a person’s culture; no matter a person’s sexual orientation, we are called by Christ to love all and hold each other in mutual respect.

Finally, I call upon you to pray with me. As your Council of Bishops continues to converse and pray about this ruling we need your prayers. As I lead our Annual Conference into our future, will you pray for me? Pray for gay and lesbian members of our churches and our communities and the parents and families of gay and lesbian persons. And will you join with me to hold in prayer all our laity and clergy! I hope and expect that our Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference will be open to the Spirit of God leading us faithfully as we “Boldly Make Disciples of Jesus Christ!”

Faithfully,
Robert T. Hoshibata

God, our Grace-filled Creator: We give you thanks for Jesus Christ, who taught us to love one another. We give thanks for Christ’s assurance that dispels fear, even the fear over death and evil. We thank you for his teaching and healing ministry which models for us a life of faith reaching out to all persons. In these times of uncertainty, be with us. Rekindle in us the passion for making disciples, of spreading the Good News wherever we are; of caring for all of your children in every place. May we open our hearts and minds and thus our church doors to all persons, that your love may be made available and your grace might be known by all. We pray in the peace of God, Amen.

Furthermore, my friend Brian whipped up this lovely:

Decision 1032

2005-11-01T20:25:00.000-07:00

You can read the full decision here.

The Judicial Council's ruling seems to hang on the interpretation of two Discipline text. In my opinion, one of these decisions is correct, but the other is wrong. Here is the first quote from Decision 1032:

Paragraph 225 states: "Transfer from Other Denominations – A member in good standing in any Christian denomination who has been baptized and who desires to unite with The United Methodist Church may [emphasis added] be received as either a baptized or a professing member by a proper certificate of transfer from that person's former church, or by a declaration of Christian faith, and upon affirming a willingness to be loyal to The United Methodist Church (see ¶¶ 214-217) . . . ."

The Council is right here in saying that Paragraph 225 does not say that all transferring members must be accepted. They "may be received." The church is not required to receive them.

Here is a second quote from Decision 1032:

Paragraph 214 states: "Eligibility – The United Methodist Church is a part of the holy catholic (universal) church, as we confess in the Apostles' Creed. In the church, Jesus Christ is proclaimed and professed as Lord and Savior. All people may [emphasis added] attend its worship services, participate in its programs, receive the sacraments and become members in any local church in the connection . . . . ” The operative word in connection with the phrase "become members in any local church in the connection" is "may." Decision 930 established the premise that "shall" cannot be used to replace "may" in the Discipline. Thus the General Conference has determined that any person “may” become a member of any local church in the connection.

Here they are using the same argument about the word "may." However, there is a problem. In Paragraph 225, the verb was in the passive voice: "may be received." An outside authority, presumably the pastor or local church, is the entity that gets to decide whether or not "may" becomes reality. However, in this case, Paragraph 214 has an active verb: "All people may attend its worship services, participate in its programs, receive the sacraments and become members in any local church in the connection." The "may" is attached directly to "All people." It is the "all people" who have the power over the "may." The persons presenting themselves get to decide whether they will or will not become members, not the pastor.

Furthermore, if we take the Judicial Council's ruling as it is, we must assume that the pastor is able to bar people from more than just membership. The pastor decides whether someone can "attend its [the UMC's] worship services, participate in its programs, receive the sacraments..." So, if we believe the Judicial Council, all UMC clergy can bar anyone they don't like from worship, refuse to give them the sacraments, or kick them out of church programs. This is not only against the Discipline, but it is against the very heart and nature of The UMC.

Judicial Council Screws Up

2005-11-01T10:26:00.000-07:00

This news was enough to rouse me from my long blogging slumber. The UMC Judicial Council has ruled that a pastor has the right to refuse church membership to a person because they are gay. See the UMNS report here. I don't care where you stand on the issue of homosexuality, this is just plain wrong. The UMC has always had open membership. This strikes at the very foundation of what it means to be Church. And there is absolutely no justification for this ruling. Listen to the dissent position from Council member Rev. Susan T. Henry-Crowe:

"This decision compromises the historic understanding that the Church is open to all. The Judicial Council cannot interpret something that is not stated in the Discipline. Nothing in the Discipline gives pastors discretion to exclude persons presenting themselves for membership in the Church."

This is just pure bigotry, and as far as I can tell, has no biblical, theological, or ecclesiastical justification. How ironic that on the Feast of All Saints, when we are supposed to be celebrating the contributions of the entire Body of Christ, that the Judicial Council decides that it needs to make some amputations. For shame.

Retreat day

2005-08-29T17:16:00.000-06:00

I did it. It was great. More later...

Retreat

2005-08-27T16:20:00.000-06:00

I think I need a personal retreat. And I'm thinking about taking one (at least in mini form) on Monday. I'm thinking I'll pray all the hours of the Daily Office, have some period of exercise, journal, pray, and read. And no electronics whatsoever. Maybe not even lights. I'm thinking I'll hold up in the guest bedroom. Yeah. Good idea.

Insomnia

2005-08-17T06:34:00.000-06:00

This is the second week in a row that I haven't been able to fall asleep on Tuesday night. It sure makes for a long Wednesday. Maybe I'd do better on Mars where the days are longer.

Really big questions

2005-08-13T02:15:00.000-06:00

I've been trying to work on ordination essay for the last few days, but without much luck. I'm just having a really hard time getting started. The questions are so big that I guess I really want to give them proper treatment. I have a feeling I could end up with a 100 page paper on these without trying too hard. But no one wants to read that... at least I don't. So anyway, here are the questions from ¶324.9 of the Discipline:

a) Describe your personal experience of God and the understanding of God you derive from biblical, theological, and historical sources.

b) What is your understanding of evil as it exists in the world?

c) What is your understanding of humanity, and the human need for divine grace?

d) How do you interpret the statement Jesus Christ is Lord?

e) What is your conception of the activity of the Holy Spirit in personal faith, in the community of believers, and in responsible living in the world?

f) What is your understanding of the kingdom of God; the Resurrection; eternal life?

g) How do you intend to affirm, teach and apply Part II of the Discipline (Doctrinal Standards and Our Theological Task) in your work in the ministry to which you have been called?

h) The United Methodist Church holds that the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in Scripture, illuminated by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason. What is your understanding of this theological position of the Church?

i) Describe the nature and mission of the Church. What are its primary tasks today?

j) Discuss your understanding of the primary characteristics of United Methodist polity.

k) How do you perceive yourself, your gifts, your motives, your role, and your commitment as a probationary member and commissioned minister in The United Methodist Church?

l) Describe your understanding of diaconia, the servant ministry of the church, and the servant ministry of the probationary member and commissioned minister.

m) What is the meaning of ordination in the context of the general ministry of the Church?

n) Describe your understanding of an inclusive church and ministry.

o) You have agreed as a candidate for the sake of the mission of Jesus Christ in the world and the most effective witness of the gospel, and in consideration of their influence as ministers, to make a complete dedication of yourself to the highest ideals of the Christian life, and to this end agree to exercise responsible self-control by personal habits conducive to bodily health, mental and emotional maturity, integrity in all personal relationships, fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness, social responsibility, and growth in grace and the knowledge and love of God. What is your understanding of this agreement?

p) Explain the role and significance of the sacraments in the ministry to which you have been called.

Simple, right?

Liberal Fundamentalism

2005-08-12T15:45:00.000-06:00

I've been meaning to write this post for quite a while, and I think I won't be able to write anything else until I get it done. Also, I don't really have any evidence; this is just my own unproven rambling

I've been noticing in the last little while what is to me a rather disturbing trend which I'll call liberal fundamentalism. My surprise at its existence is starting to fade, but at first I was very surprised by its irony.

Here's the deal: liberals are constantly attacking conservatives and especially fundamentalists for their closed-minded-ness and unwillingness to consider other viewpoints. The argument seems to be that it's not that fundamentalists have different views that's the problem, it's that they refuse to consider other arguments, etc. The liberal idea is that all perspectives should bloom and be respected by all others.

The problem is that this is a hypercritical argument on the part of many liberals. Yes, there are some who are open to all sorts of competing perspectives. But it seems like many liberals are just as fundamentalist as the conservatives they attack. They are just as unwilling to change, as unwilling to consider differing views. The only difference is that they base their ideology on different fundamentals.

Here's one example. Bill Maher was on Larry King last night, and I heard a good deal of the interview. Now, I've heard Mr. Maher say this before, but it always shocks me a little. He made the argument (over and over) that all religious people have been brainwashed, that all religious beliefs are ridiculous, and that all people holding any type of religious belief are mentally unstable. This is after saying that he is not an atheist, but an agnostic, and that he is not unspiritual. The problem here is that he has so completely oversimplified the religious landscape that he has ceased being able to listen to any type of religious argument whatsoever. Even though he says on the one hand that he just doesn't know one way or the other about the existence of God, he is ultimately saying that the only valid view for anyone is that they cannot know and therefore should not even try to know in part. It is actually a fundamentalist view disguised as anti-fundamentalism.

I've seen the same sort of thing from religious liberals. We start to become so convinced by our own positions that we start to completely discount all others. We cease being able to listen to anything else. It's getting more and more easy to isolate ourselves among friends and media sources with which we virtually always agree and to say that anything outside our bubble is extremist and fundamentalist because they won't listen to us. Nevermind the fact that we won't listen to them either. This is dangerous state of polarization that can only lead to us vilinizing each other and getting nowhere.

Here's what I'd like to try to believe instead. If there is one thing I know, it is that something about what I believe is wrong. I haven't got everything right. Something about it is surely wrong. And furthermore, I don't know which part is wrong. So, that means that out of all the people with which I disagree, something about what each one of them says is probably right. Maybe not all of it, but there's probably some kernel of rightness in each person's beliefs. Therefore, it is necessary for me at least to listen. Besides, we are never going to get anywhere if we can't work together. We'll just get more and more polarized and keep talking past each other until finally we just hate and demonize each other. That should not be an option for the serious Christian. If we are called to love our enemies, should we not at least listen to them.

The Spirit of Things

2005-08-05T11:46:00.000-06:00

Since the most recent update to iTunes which enabled Podcasting, I've been exposed to a lot of new radio progams from around the world. One that I'd like to recommend to all is an Australian program (or programme, I suppose) called The Spirit of Things, a really interesting discussion of religion and spirituality in the world today. If you're an iTunes user, you can find in the Podcast directory. If not, try listening on their website.

Chillin' in Grand Junction

2005-07-20T16:47:00.000-06:00

Oh my... It has been quite a trip back to Denver so far. It's been insanely hot the whole time (in the 100s). We stayed Monday night with friends in Boise, ID. Then Tuesday night with friends in Tooele, UT. On the way to Tooele, the car started to overheat a bit. We got there with no problems. Then we took it in to Jiffy Lube this morning and got everything filled-up and flushed. So, we headed off with the intention of getting to Mesa Verde for a two-day stay starting tonight.

We stopped in the afternoon at a little rest stop near the junction of I-70 and US 191, a little ways north of Moab, UT, in the absolute middle of nowhere. When we came back to the car, it wouldn't start. There was power; it wasn't turning over. So, after several failed attempts, we called AAA. That proved to be harder than we thought. There was virtually no cell reception. Once we did get through, we were connected to the Portland, OR office because our cells are from Portland. Anyway, we finally got through to Utah AAA and placed a call. "They should be out within the hour." It was blazing hot. No shade. So, about 1 minute after the successful call to AAA, the car started. We wasted no time getting back on the road, but we had to call AAA again to cancel the call. After about 30 unsuccessful or partially successful calls, we finally got through, to Colorado AAA this time, and got the call cancelled. We were in Loma, CO by then.

Anyway, we checked into a hotel here in Grand Junction. It's got powerful AC and high speed internet (hence the reason I can post this). We're going to bypass our four days of planned camping in the 100+ degree weather and come straight back to Denver tomorrow. For now, we are just enjoying the cold -- chillin' in Grand Junction...

Sermon for Salem First UMC: I Did Not Know It

2005-07-17T08:30:00.000-06:00

Here it is: the last sermon for awhile. Maybe I'll have something interesting to write again now.

I Did Not Know It

Sermon given by
Br. David D. M. King, OSL
at Salem First United Methodist Church; Salem, Oregon
Sunday 17 July 2005
Year A, 9th Sunday After Pentecost

Genesis 28:10-19a

10 Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. 11He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. 12And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13And the LORD stood beside him and said, ‘I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; 14and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. 15Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.’

16 Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the LORD is in this place—and I did not know it!’ 17And he was afraid, and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’ 18So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. 19He called that place Bethel;

Matthew 13:24-30

24 He put before them another parable: ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; 25but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. 26So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. 27And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?” 28He answered, “An enemy has done this.” The slaves said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?” 29But he replied, “No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. 30Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’

Sermon Text

Organ Interlude on UMH 563 ALBRIGHT

We have two texts this morning. The first is a rather familiar story known as Jacob's Ladder. Well, maybe the story isn't all that familiar, but the song is familiar. And the second, is a very unfamiliar parable (although it is one of my personal favorites): the parable of the wheat and the weeds. Two texts, seemingly not related, but one message all the same. Let's start with the story of Jacob's ladder:

Jacob is in bad shape. Do you remember the story? He has managed to cheat his brother Esau out of both his birthright and his father's blessing. But Esau, rightful upset at this unfortunate turn of events, is plotting to kill Jacob. When their mother, Rebekah, overhears Esau's plan, she warns Jacob to flee for his life and to find a wife among the daughters of her brother, Laban, back in her hometown of Haran.

So off Jacob runs. He doesn't take the main roads. No, he runs up into the hill country, either because he's only concerned with running or because he is trying to avoid detection by his murderous brother. And he finds himself up in the hills in a place called Luz. He is homeless – alone. He's left everything that he knows – on his way to seek refuge from relatives that he's never met. Mind is racing. What good was it to trick his brother if he can never return home again? He has instructions to go off and marry one of his cousins, which I guess might not be that weird when your own parents are cousins and your grandparents are siblings, but still seems a bit frightening to our modern ears. So he's there, exhausted from running, up in the mountains, alone, and the only pillow he can find is a big rock on the ground. It's there that he falls asleep.

And it is there that he dreams a magnificent dream. He sees a ladder ascending to heaven, with angels going up and down. God appears before him and assures him that he will be blessed, that God is with him, and that he will return to his homeland someday. God reveals Godself to be with Jacob always and in every place, even when he is in a strange land – God is with him everywhere.

And how does Jacob respond? He gets it all wrong. Rather than recognizing that God is present everywhere, Jacob assumes that he must have stumbled into some special place, the Gate of Heaven, where God's presence is especially strong. He names the place Bethel, which means House of God, and says, "Surely God is in this place and I did not know it." Surely God is in this place, and I did not know it.

Verse 1: UMH 563 Father, We Thank You

But, you know, Jacob didn't need to be in that special place in order to be in God's presence. God's promise was to be with Jacob all of the time, wherever he might be.

But don't we make the same mistake that Jacob made? Don't we seek to confine God to the places where we think God should be, places where God belongs? And don't we work very hard to separate what is sacred from what is secular? When we do, we are missing the point.

Now, sometimes it can be good to separate out special places for God. We set aside this building for God. We set aside this hour in our week for God. We set aside a certain amount of our money for God. We set aside special prayer and devotional times just for God.

But, we should not be fooled into thinking that God ends at the border of what we call sacred. If we think that God will leave us alone once we spend an hour in church each week, then we are sorely mistaken. If we think that God's territory ends at the door of this building, we will be disappointed. If we think that once we give our share to the church and charity that God doesn't care how we use the rest of our money, then we will be surprised. God has a knack for showing up in the places where we least expect. Over and over God shows us that if there is any place where we think that God does not exist, that is precisely where God can be found. God will be in that place, even if we do not know it.

Verse 2: UMH 563 Father, We Thank You

Two thousand years after Jacob, a man from Galilee whose name is Jesus tells a story. It's a rather interesting tale about a farmer and his field. He has his servants plant the field with good seed. But, in the night, while no one is watching, one of his enemies comes and plants the whole field with weed seeds. That is quite a dirty trick, isn't it. Imagine you had spent all this time on your garden, planting each seed in its proper place, and in the night your neighbor jumped the fence and blew dandelions and thistles and all sorts of other nasty things all over your freshly tilled soil. Not very nice.

So, when the field started to sprout, the whole thing was an awful tangle on brambles and briers throughout the crop of wheat. The wheat and the weeds were all mixed up together – and there was no way to pull the weeds without destroying the whole crop. So, confounding his servants, the farmer let the weeds grow right along with the wheat. The farmer knew that there was still good in that field – a good that could not be quashed by the mere presence of a few weeds.

Verse 3: UMH 563 Father, We Thank You

When we look at the world, do we fail to see the wheat through the weeds? Do we see only the evil, only the pain, only the trouble, and assume that no good could be there? Do we think that God could not possibly exist in a place so filled with turmoil?

I think we do. We look out at the world and call it Godless. We see acts of terrorism and violence around the world and we call it Godless. We look at the state of political polarization and contention and we call it Godless. We see conflict in the church, even, and we call it Godless. We get discouraged because no matter where we look, we can't find anything that is wholly pure, completely good. We can't find anything that is unblemished. When we look for the fruit of God's kingdom, all we see is a field full of weeds. And we wonder what that means. Some of us are so concerned that we think the end of all things must be coming soon, because we can't tolerate the imperfection that we see around us. We can't find God in the broken and Godless world around us.

Jesus invites us to look more closely. Jesus invites us to look out on the world with new eyes. God is doing a new thing… do you not perceive it?

Jacob did not expect to find God in the godforsaken hill country of Canaan. And the servants did not expect to find good fruit in a field full of weeds. In just the same way, we don't expect to find God in our broken world.

But God is there to be found. In the peace of silence, or in the raucous shouts of praise; in the green fields, or the rugged mountains, or the parched deserts, or the city streets: God is there. In the patience of a teacher, or the diligence of an accountant, or the toil of a laborer, or the passion of an advocate; in sighs of the aging, in the questions of the middle-aged, or in the cries of the newborn: God is there. In the wide eyes of the innocent, the might of the powerful, or the struggle of the oppressed; in singing, speaking, listening, or screaming out in pain: God is there. In learning, welcoming, smiling, or suffering; in waking, working, or resting: God is there. In friends or enemies, loved ones or strangers; in the strong, the weak, or the disabled, the beautiful or the ugly: God is there. In Genesis, in Origin of Species, or even in Harry Potter: God is there. In black, brown, and white; in English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Greek, Hebrew, or Arabic; in straight or gay, old or young, woman or man, rich or poor: God is most certainly there.

All we need do is open our eyes and ears and mouths and noses and hands in order to find God. All we need do is open our hearts, our minds, and our doors. For when we truly seek God, and when we are not afraid to see God in the most unexpected places, we will certainly not fail to find God. Right here, right now, and all around us, the kingdom of God is at work, sprouting forth in all its glory, in new and amazing ways, if we only have the eyes to see it. And perhaps we will be brought like Jacob to say, "Surely God is in this place… and I did not know it."

Verse 4: UMH 563 Father, We Thank You

Sermon for Seaside UMC: Hear, Understand, Bear, Yield

2005-07-10T10:30:00.000-06:00

Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. 2Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach. 3And he told them many things in parables, saying: ‘Listen! A sower went out to sow. 4And as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. 5Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. 6But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. 7Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. 8Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9Let anyone with ears listen!’a

18‘Hear then the parable of the sower. 19When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. 20As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away.c 22As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. 23But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.’

Sermon Text

Good Morning. It's such a pleasure to be with you this morning. I've been preaching at several Methodist Churches while I've been back in Oregon for the summer – this is the sixth one, actually – but this is the only time when preparing a sermon has felt like a vacation. Honestly, how does anyone ever get anything done living here in such a beautiful place? I guess I've still gotten a lot done while I've been here; I've just been a lot more relaxed about it. This is a great place to get refreshed and centered and to feel close to God.

And it's interesting to note that that is precisely what Jesus is trying to do at the beginning of today's passage: he's trying to get away for a little break. Did you know Jesus actually had a little vacation home? A beach house actually, a little getaway for when he was tired of the road. Not many people notice this: Matthew is the only gospel that reports it. Way back in Mt 4:13 we find, "He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea…" From that point on in the Gospel, Matthew is constantly reporting that Jesus is going to and from "the house" in Capernaum. So, there it is. Jesus has a little seaside beach house, and that's where he is at the beginning of this story.

And, as everyone likes to do when they’re at their beach house, Jesus decides to go out for a little walk on the beach and sit down and watch the water. I did that quite a few times this week when I was trying to get some inspiration, and it sounds like that's what Jesus was doing too.

Unfortunately for Jesus, he's a much more popular guy than I am, and people just can't seem to leave him alone for a second. A few people notice him there, "Isn't that Jesus sitting by the shore?" "Yes, I think it is." And before you know it, there's a huge crowd around him, jostling to get closer to him. They start pressing in on him so much that they're about to push him into the sea. Fortunately, there's a little boat just off shore, and Jesus climbs in to get a little distance from the crowd. ((Does that ever happen to you when you're walking on the beach, Pastor? No? Well, anyway…)) Jesus, interrupted once again but always the patient teacher, sits down and starts to tell a story.

"What do you make of this? A farmer planted seed. As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road, and birds ate it. Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn't put down roots, so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly. Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled by the weeds. Some fell on good earth, and produced a harvest beyond his wildest dreams. Are you listening to this? Really listening?" (The Message)

Now, what on earth does that all mean? It must be important because of that whole "if you've got ears to hear then you'd better listen to this" bit at the end. But do we have ears to hear this message?

This same story appears in the both the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Luke. In both, the story is left completely up to our interpretation. Matthew is different. Matthew decides to include a helpful little sermon on the topic. (See, this morning you're getting two sermons and you didn't even know it.) Anyway, scholars think that it probably wasn't actually spoken by Jesus, but added later, but it's still a rather interesting bit.

The sermon interprets this whole parable as a sort of allegory: a story where everything represents something else. The seed appears to be "the word of the kingdom," whatever that is exactly, and the story tells us about what happens when that word is sown on different types of soil: that is, different situations in the real world. So:

Situation number one: the seed on the path and eaten by birds is like when someone hears the word but doesn't understand it – it just gets stolen away. That makes sense, doesn't it? Haven't you ever read a passage of scripture or heard a sermon and you just didn't understand it? That happens to me all the time. Let's have a show of hands: is there anyone here who understands every piece of scripture that you read? Anyone? No I didn't think so.

Why don't we understand? Well, it's awfully confusing isn't it? For one thing, it's really long. And inside this [ lift up bible] is not just one book, but a whole library of different books, written in different times, different cultures, by different authors, and for different purposes. There's everything from legends to poetry to court records to love songs to letters to biographies in this thing, and it's hard to figure out sometimes. [set down]

On top of that, no seems to agree about what the Bible says. Even if a passage of scripture has some sort of defined meaning on the page, as soon as two people read it, it all of sudden has two meanings. Once ten people read it, it's got ten meanings. Once a billion people read it… well, you get the idea. How can we understand it when there are voices from all sides telling us that it means this, or that, or something else? Reading and trying to understand the Bible is not for the faint of heart; it can be a bit of a contact sport even, from time to time.

For me personally, I've just decided that if there's one thing I know, it's that I don’t know everything. I am not always going to be able to understand. I will make mistakes. Sometimes the word sown in my heart will just be picked up and eaten by the birds.

Situation number two: the seed on the rocky ground with the shallow root is like the fair weather disciple who gets really excited at first, but doesn't have the staying power to follow through. Oh, does that sound familiar. This is what I like to call "New Year's Resolution Syndrome." You know, we hear some word of faith, and we get all excited, all fired up – we're ready to change our lives forever – get out of my way, I'm moving, and then… um, we wake up the next morning? The fire isn't there anymore.

This can be really common among religious people. Have you heard people talk about a mountaintop experience? I'll bet a lot of you have had them. Sometimes at camp, or on a retreat, or at some big gathering – once in while (though not very often) even in response to a sermon – someone feels absolutely on top of the world. Everything has changed. They feel closer to God than ever before. It's a wonderful feeling, and then… it ends. Some people spend their whole lives just trying to get back up on that mountain and stay there.

But no matter how much we might want that, the truth is that the vast majority of life is lived in the valley. We spend most of our lives in the day-to-day ordinariness of real life. Sometimes it's hard to remember that God is still around when we're busy at our jobs, taking care of children, running errands, paying bills, cleaning the house, trying to get in our exercise, etc., etc… Sometimes it's hard to be a Christian once we leave the four walls of the church. Sometimes we just whiter out in the oppressive heat of the pressure-cooker that is the "real world". We get baked by the sun.

Situation number three: the seeds among weeds are like those of us who get distracted by wealth and power and all the other alluring things of the world. This is perhaps the most sneaky of all the situations. In USAmerican culture, we seem to be especially susceptible to the allure of wealth and power. You know, out of all the things Jesus talked about, the thing he talked about most in the Gospels – far more than any other topic – is not sex or marriage or crime or drugs or anything else that we seem to put into the category "morality" these days: it's greed. Jesus talked most about greed. And yet, in the richest nation in the world – did you know we have 10 times as many billionaires as any other country – we seem to just skip over that little bit about greed. We have books that tell us we should be "blessed to be a blessing", that is, that we should ask God to give us wealth… oh, yeah, and I guess we'll share it with others. This is a culture that demands we live extravagantly and keep seeking more and more. While millions of hard working people try to get by on less than a dollar a day, we never seem to be satisfied with what we have, no matter how much it might be.

Oh yes, money can be distracting. Some say that money in itself is neither good nor evil, and I suppose that that's true, but Jesus talks about money as if it is a rival God that is vying for our attention. Many of us fall in the trap. I imagine we all do from time to time. We let our desires, and wants, and even our fears get the best of us. We let the weeds and thorns of the world come up and choke us, and we end up not being the disciples that we could be.

So is there any hope? When we have a confusing message; and when we get so easily discouraged; and when we get caught up in our desire for more, more, more; is there any chance that we can be true disciples? According to this parable of Jesus, yes there is. Sometimes the word falls on good soil.

But how can we know when this has happened? What are the marks of Situation: Good Soil? They are this: we know that something good is happening when we don't just hear the word, when we don't just hear and understand it, but when we hear and understand the word AND… we bear fruit and yield. Bear fruit and yield a harvest. In other words, we know that we are in Situation: Good Soil when we actually do something about the lessons that we hear: when we live out our faith in the world.

But what does that mean? How do we live out our faith in the real world? Does it mean evangelizing a bunch of people? It might mean that, but that's not all it means. Does it mean being morally upstanding people? It might, but that's not all it means. Does it mean working for justice, making decisions about your money based on your faith, living each moment as if it were owned by God, treating other people as if they were Christ himself, loving your neighbor, loving your enemies? Yes, and more. That's what bearing fruit looks like. It's giving birth to the Kingdom of God right here in the here and now by the way we live our lives. When we are in Situation: Good Soil, we get to be like Mary on that Bethlehem night: an instrument for bringing God's love and grace into the world. It's not our own grace that we give. No, it is the fruit of God's grace sown within us. At it can yield a harvest well beyond our wildest dreams. It can truly change the world, if we let it.

Will we always be in that situation, when good fruit is being born inside of us. No, we won't. The world still has it's distractions. We are still human. But may we all be good soil, as often as we possibly can, by God's grace. Amen.

Retreat

2005-07-07T23:19:00.000-06:00

We're here in Seaside, where I'll be preaching this Sunday. It's great: so relaxing. I'm really enjoying just chilling here in the parsonage by the ocean. I think I could handle this appointment. It can't be too bad if you get to see this every evening:

Sermon for Englewood UMC: The "S" Word

2005-07-03T14:53:00.000-06:00

This is my first sermon on an Epistle text. I don't think it's my best sermon ever, but I learned a bit from doing it.

Romans 7:15-25a

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Sermon Text

The "S" Word. Since I came up with that title, I've realized that there are several possible candidates for what The "S" Word could refer to. There is of course a fairly common 4-letter curse word beginning with the letter s. But that's not it. Or, It could be referring to "sex". After all, the church is notoriously bad at talking about sex – so bad that more than 40 million people in the world are suffering from AIDS and we don't even know how to talk about it. But that's not it either. No, there is another "s" word that we have just as much trouble talking about. The "s" word I'm referring to is "sin".

Some would argue that we don't talk about sin because we just want to have a happy religion that never really challenges us much. I would argue that is oversimplifying the matter. I'd guess that those of us who don't much like talking about sin are in fact afraid of the damage that we might do to people, and with good reason. Many of us have experienced the wrath of fire & brimstone preachers. And I don't think that they really achieve the effect that they're hoping for. More often fire & brimstone serves to abuse the listeners, to create in our minds the image of a horrible, fearsome God, and to drive us away from both God and the Church. So it's natural for us to react to that kind of rhetoric by throwing out everything that reminds of the fire & brimstone model; we end up throwing out sin altogether.

This is a mistake. We certainly have the best intentions. We don't want to keep saddlling people with the burden of sin, to keep marking them with the stain of sin so that there is no way for them to escape its shadow. We've seen how all of this focus on sin can become itself a sin, and how it works against the freedom that God wants for us.

But even though a constant obsession with sin can become itself sin, that does not mean that ignoring sin makes sin go away. Sin is still alive and well, and it is working in the world. If we choose to ignore sin, then we are left dumbfounded and unprotected when sin sneaks up behind us and sabotages our lives. We are left not even knowing what hit us.

That's what Paul is taking about in the passage from Romans today. He's telling us that sin is very, very sneaky. Sin will take a hold of whatever opportunity is available. Sin is not afraid of disguising itself as righteousness in order to fool us. When we finally see the light and head off in the right direction, sin secretly and busily digs a hole right in the middle of our path so we fall anyway.

That's what Paul is so frustrated with. In fact, he sounds a bit desperate. "I do not do what I want, but do the very thing that I hate… I can will what is right, but I cannot do it." Paul's best intentions seem to be getting him into trouble. He just can't seem to escape; even when he is trying to do good, he fails. He even goes so far as to say that his constant failure is a law: "I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand."

Eugene Peterson's translation is particularly helpful in this section to help us understand Paul's struggle and desperation:

What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary.

But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.

It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me?

Wow. Paul is in bad shape. He knows that his life is messed up, and he's tried over and over to fix it, but he can't. He doesn't know what else to do.

Does Paul's story sound familiar? Do you ever do things you don't want to do? Do you fail to do the things that you want? It sure sounds familiar to me. I imagine it does to all of us.

We've all got our problems. We all have those particular ways in which me are most susceptible to sin. We all have our own ways that we are enslaved, addicted to sin…

You know what they are, don't you?… I could go through a long litany of examples, but I won't. You know the ways that sin has power of you. You know places where you seem to trip up every single time. You know the ways that you feel out of control… and the ways that you hate yourself for making the same mistake again. You know the places where you feel tortured. You know the chains that bind you.

We are all so susceptible to sin because sin is such a powerful, and most of all, a tricky thing. Sin has a way of hiding itself in things that are good, waiting until just the right moment to strike. I'm reminded of C. S. Lewis's book, The Screwtape Letters, in which a senior devil gives advise to his nephew about how to tempt good things into sin. I'm reminded of the movie The Devil's Advocate that paints a rather vivid picture of just how sneaky and covert the forces of sin can actually be. Sin is a powerful and real force, and just as Paul says, it has a tendency to work within us whether we like it or not.

Now, I imagine some of you are thinking, "Yes, but isn't all this talk about sin just a way of making excuses when we do something wrong? Can we really say, 'The Devil made me do it'?" Well, we can say it, but it doesn't really mean much. Blaming the forces of sin for our actions, even if it is deserved, doesn't do much for the situation. It doesn't make us guiltless. It doesn't change to consequences of our actions. We still end up in the same place.

So what good is it to know about the power of sin if it always seems to be one step ahead of us and yet we still can't blame sin when we do something wrong? What use is our knowledge of sin if it doesn't seem to help us? And what hope is there for us? If we are bound in slavery to sin, what can we possibly do to set ourselves free?

Well, it appears that we can't do anything to set ourselves free from slavery to sin. No matter how hard we try, sin somehow manages to trick us and to turn our good intensions into more sin.

So what can we do? Give up? Well, in a sense, that is precisely what Paul recommends. Give up. Give in. Wait a minute, can that be right? Are we really supposed to just throw in the towel and give in to our slavery to sin?

No, giving up to sin leads to death. But the way out of slavery to sin is not by fighting our way out, it's not by willing ourselves into a better life. Sin will always win that game. The secret, according to Paul, is to give up, not to sin, but to give up to God.

Trying to be better, to follow God's ways… it's all just beating our heads against a wall. We will never be able to make ourselves holy. But if we give up those delusions, if we give up everything we are and need and want and desire to God, if we become slaves to God – not just servants, but really slaves to God, giving up our will completely to God – that is when we begin to see God's work of salvation moving in us. It's counterintuitive. We want to fight. We want to resist. But sin turns our resistance into pride, which just turns to sin. We want to blame someone. But sin turns our blame – whether we blame ourselves or others – into hate, which just turns into sin. Somehow, what we have to do is to submit. The trick is to make sure we are enslaved to the right master.

Is it easy? No. Not at all. Does it happen all at once? No. Once we are under God, do we stop sinning completely? Unfortunately, we don't. The battle continues within. But the battle is no longer ours, but God's.

How does Paul answer the question, "Who will save me?" He doesn't actually. He simply says, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ." Somehow, just being able to ask the question, "Who will save me?" is something that is worthy of thanks and praise. Just crying out in desperation to God is the first step to becoming God's own completely.

A great Quaker minister, Isaac Pennington, very eloquently captures the heart of what it means to give oneself up to God. He writes:

Give over thine own willing, give over thine own running, give over thine own desiring to know or be anything and sink down to the seed which God sows in the heart, and let that grow in thee and be in thee and breathe in thee and act in thee; and thou shalt find by sweet experience that the Lord knows that and loves and owns that, and will lead it to the inheritance of Life, which is its portion.

May we all be willing to trust God so completely.

Sermon for West Salem UMC: Welcome in Christ's Name -- Bienvenidos en el Nombre de Cristo

2005-06-26T10:45:00.000-06:00

Matthew 10:40-42

Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple – truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.

Quien los recibe a ustedes, me recibe a mí; y quien me recibe a mí, recibe al que me envió. Cualquiera que recibe a un profeta por tratarse de un profeta, recibirá recompensa de profeta; y el que recibe a un justo por tratarse de un justo, recibirá recompensa de justo. Y quien dé siquiera un vaso de agua fresca a uno de estos pequeños por tratarse de uno de mis discípulos, les aseguro que no perderá su recompensa."

Sermon Text

Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Quien los recibe a ustedes, me recibe a mí; y quien me recibe a mí, recibe al que me envió.

We're very different people, aren't we. Not one of us is the same. There are many things that make us different. We're different ages, and people of different ages and generations have always seemed to have a hard time understanding each other.

And we're in different life stages. Some of us are students, some are working, some are retired. Some of us are single, some are married, some are divorced, and some are widowed. Some of us have children, some of us will, and some of us never will.

And we come from different sorts of families. Some of us were raised in very domineering households, some of us had to take care of our parents more than they took care of us, some of us never knew our parents the way we had hoped.

We come from different nations and cultures: Native American, Anglo-American, German-American, Spanish-American, Italian-American, African-American, Asian-American, Irish-American, Mexican-American, on and on.

We speak different languages. Hablamos diversos lenguajes. Wir sprechen unterschiedliche Sprachen. And we don't always hear or understand each other.

We have different political beliefs. US politics are so polarized right now that sometimes it is hard to find anything that we have in common.

We have different theological beliefs. Even though we are all Christians here in this room, it might be difficult to find even one theological point on which we would all agree completely.

We have different kinds of spiritualities. Some of us respond well to sermons, some would rather sing, others find God more easily in nature. Some like to meditate silently, others pray out loud, others pray best in community.
We are all very different people. Somos gente muy diversa.

Jesus says, "Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me." Jesús dice, "Quien los recibe a ustedes, me recibe a mí; y quien me recibe a mí, recibe al que me envió."

People were just as different in Jesus' time. In first century Palestine there were people from all over the known world. There were Jews, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Arabs, Persians, Sudanese, and many others. The Roman Imperial system depended upon a wide variety of people at all different social stations in order to function. It was often a very harsh and oppressive system, requiring much from the majority of poor people at the bottom in order to give luxury to a few rich people at the top. The empire had conquered many peoples in order to continue to bring wealth and power to the Roman elite.
Because of this, there were many ways that people were alienated from each other. There was great difference between those who had power and those who were powerless. Only a few people had Roman citizenship and all others were under a different set of laws. Most people spoke only their own local languages and couldn't communicate in Latin or Greek, the languages of the empire. And there were still many racial animosities, such as the mutual hatred between the Jews and the Samaritans.

Jesús dice, "Quien los recibe a ustedes, me recibe a mí; y quien me recibe a mí, recibe al que me envió." Jesus says, "Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me."

It's easy to let our differences divide us. It's all too easy to let our divisions become animosities, and to let our animosities mature into hatreds. It happens when we think that everyone should be the same, when we become afraid of difference. When we start to worry that our own way of life is going to die when change starts to happen around us. And when we start to be afraid, we become defensive and protective. We develop an us-or-them mentality that pits us against our neighbors, instead of with them.

Jesus says, "Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me." Jesús dice, "Quien los recibe a ustedes, me recibe a mí; y quien me recibe a mí, recibe al que me envió."

Jesus offers us a different way of seeing things. Even in the highly segregated and divided world of the Roman Empire, Jesus told his disciples that whoever received them, whoever welcomed them, had in fact welcomed and received him and the God who had sent him. Jesus broke the traditional barriers that divided the people of ancient Palestine and provided them a way to come together in unity around him and around God.

Jesús dice, "Quien los recibe a ustedes, me recibe a mí; y quien me recibe a mí, recibe al que me envió." Jesus says, "Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me."

It's an interesting word, that word that is translated "welcome." The Greek word is dechomai, and it is a word that has many meanings. La palabra "recibe" en Griego tiene muchos significados. It can mean: to welcome, to take, to accept, to receive, to hear, to entertain, to greet, to worship, or even to expect. Significa: para dar la bienvenida, tomar, validar, recibir, oír, entretener, saludar, adorarse, o aún esperar. So Jesus could be saying, "Whoever greets you greets me," or "whoever receives you receives me – whoever accepts you accepts me – whoever entertains you entertains me…" the meanings go on and on. Jesús podría decir, "quienquiera le saluda me saluda, o quienquiera le toma me toma, o quienquiera le entretiene me entretiene." The point is that however you treat one of Christ's followers is how you treat Christ. La punta es que la manera que ustedes tratan a uno de los discípulos de Cristo es cómo ustedes tratan a Cristo. If we want to accept Jesus, and we talk so often about how we are supposed to accept Jesus, then we have to accept Jesus' disciples. Not just a few of them, but all of them. Si deseamos validar a Jesús, después tenemos que validar a los discípulos de Jesús. It's not easy. It's not supposed to be easy. But nevertheless, we are called to see the Christ that lives and dwells within each one of us. We are called to honor the Christ that is in each of our neighbors. To reject a disciple is to reject Christ.

Jesus says, "Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me." Jesús dice, "Quien los recibe a ustedes, me recibe a mí; y quien me recibe a mí, recibe al que me envió."

We are all welcome here, in Christ's name. We are all adopted into the same family of God through Jesus' gift of grace to us. We are all one in the Spirit of God. Isn't that a wonderfully miraculous message? Do any of us deserve to be here? It doesn't matter – Christ welcomes us anyway. Christ calls each one of us into his family, a family in which we are all brothers and sisters. Somos una familia en Cristo. Welcome. You are welcome. We are welcome. Welcome in the name of Christ. Bienvenidos en el nombre de Cristo.

New Plan

2005-06-18T17:07:00.000-06:00

Well, we think that we've figured out our new plan. At least, this is the leading candidate at the moment. We're going to put the adoption process on hold for the moment. Instead of staying in Denver for two more years, we'll stay just one. New rules in the 2004 Discipline mean that I can be eligible for probationary membership by the next annual conference. I'll accept an appointment somewhere in Oregon (I'll ask for one in Oregon). Melissa might look for a permenant position, but will likely substitute teach. We will then continue the adoption process with Holt in Oregon.

I like this plan because it seems to have nice smooth transitions and quite a lot more stability for the child.

Homeland &$#@ Security

2005-06-15T21:18:00.000-06:00

I'm a little down this evening. There are two reasons. Reason one is that my dad got a poison pen letter from some unknown person at church that contains all sorts of conpletely false charges and claims. That kind of letter is the act of a coward, and it really upsets me.

Reason two is that the Department of Homeland Security is putting in all kinds of new requirements that are making our adoption process really difficult. We were already on hold in the process because DHS requires that everyone in our house (there are three other adults living in the same house with us) to get retinal scans, DNA testing, and another round of fingerprints ($700). The problem is that DHS will simply assign us a time that we all have to come in to get them. Since everyone is in and out of the Denver area this summer, we need to wait until the school year starts again, since we'll have no choice about when we have to go in. Now, however, they're also requiring that everyone in our house have a complete physical ($500). That's just something that's really hard to ask of our friend who are living with us. Asking them to get finger prints is one thing. Asking them to get criminal background and credit checks is even worse. Asking them to have DNA testing and Retinal scans is just plain ridiculous. Asking them to get pap smears and HIV tests might just be a little over the line. We won't even be getting a child by the time that we all move apart. It's ridiculous. We thought we had it all worked out, and now it looks like we might have to put everything off for another year, or move out this summer, or who knows what. ARGH!!

My Theological Worldview

2005-06-14T13:29:00.000-06:00

This was a pretty interesting quiz that I found over at Gavin's site. It says that as a Postmodern that I feel alienated from older forms of church. I don't. But I do agree with good chunks of the rest of it.

Emergent/Postmodern

89%

Roman Catholic

79%

Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan

75%

Modern Liberal

71%

Classical Liberal

64%

Neo orthodox

46%

Charismatic/Pentecostal

46%

Reformed Evangelical

29%

Fundamentalist

What's your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com

conXian

Hope

Presidential Power

Yes We Can

Karthik's Blog

Visa Process Complete

Salaam Bangalore

A New Day

With Karthik

Waiting for the Meeting

Notes on an Indian Church Service

In Bangalore

Singapore Airport

Journey's Beginning

Iran So Far

So Long

Reunion

Vancouver

Independence Day

Vacation

Academy

College

Good Good Friday

Being Jesus

GenX

Religious Dialogue in Iran

Lent

Bishop's call for new US Budget priorities

Adoption Blog

Strange Liberators

Vietnam

Missionary

White and Nerdy

The Sophia Controversy

Gig

Podcast

Ten

Pilgrimage

A Good Day

Target: USA

Over Exposure

A Light Emerging

First Communion

Weddings

Displacement

Humble Servant

Waiting

Ethics and the Law

Professional Ethics

Last Paper

Lighthouse

Keyboards of Calvary

Darfur is Dying

Reflections on Coos Bay

OR-ID Appointments VII

Sermon: Breathing Peace

John 20:19-23

Final Translation

Sermon Text

OR-ID Appointments VI

Oregon's 5th

OR-ID Appointments V

Jury Duty

OR-ID Appointments IV

My Appointment

OR-ID Appointments III

Collectivist Mentality

Appointment

Graduation Controversy

Cabinet meeting

Papers... urrrrgggh

Commencement Speaker

OR-ID Appointments II

OR-ID Appointments

Colbert

Transfiguration

Long Limen

Senioritis

Recommended

BOM Retreat

Homeland &$#@ Security