Religion

Ministerial Musings: Common Courtesy

When Christmas falls on Sunday, a Church has many decisions to make. Are we going to have a worship service on Christmas Day? Should we do a big Christmas Eve Service instead? We have to do something, right? After all it is Jesus’ birthday!

At CityEdge, we believe that God is always pursuing people. He is always speaking to them in subtle ways, inviting them into a bigger story, into his grander narrative of amazing life-changing love. So instead of calling everyone to get out of bed and short-change their traditional Christmas celebrations with family, we decided to meet people where they are. In this case, it happens to be their couches, via the internet, with something we called the Online Christmas Worship Experience. We had everyone invite their friends and family to join us at www.cityedge.org/online on Christmas Day for a very unique 20-minute Christmas experience.

Dear Church Trailer Thief,

On New Year's Day we picked up our trailer from its regular spot to find that you broke in and stole our equipment. You nabbed our church’s speakers and subwoofers, microphone stands, drum shield, bass cabinet and amp, and all of the cases that carry the items. All in all it was over $7,000 in losses.

My first reaction was anger. I wanted our church’s stuff back. I wanted justice. I wanted nothing more than to hunt you down and find you, but then I remembered why I am a follower of Jesus. I am a follower of Jesus because God paid a great price to put my relationship back together with him and with others. I am a follower of Jesus because he pardoned my offenses and debt against him.

 

I recall a Christmas story about a seminary professor who, as he reached the end of the fall semester, was exhausted. He was not in the Christmas spirit. Not at all. Having graded one too many mediocre exams — exams that only proved his students paid little attention to his lectures on Reformation theology — he needed a break. Having a month off between semesters was not enough, but it would have to do.

Every Christmas $450,000,000,000 are spent in the United States alone. And every year it seems that we get more stressed and depressed during the holiday season. Is this really what Christmas is about? Spending lots of money and getting depressed? Or is there a different story? A better story? 

What was the first Christmas story about? It is a rescue story of a God who so desperately loves his people that he enters in, not as a supreme ruler, but as a vulnerable baby in a manger. The first Christmas is the story of Emmanuel: “God with us.” A God who loves us so much that he enters into our pain and saves us from darkness. By doing this he brings us peace and hope.

 

“I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

For hope would be hope of the wrong thing.”

~ T.S. Eliot, “East Coker” (III)

What does Eliot mean here and what does it have to do with the beginning of Advent? The four Sundays of Advent are entitled hope, peace, love, and joy respectively, but this is about more than just the first day of this season of anticipation.

My earliest memories of Christmas involve the Christmas Eve parties my parents still host. While the adults dined on shrimp and meatballs and toasted the Yuletide with champagne and a sundry of cocktails, I would be shuffled off to bed far too early for me. “Santa is coming,” my mother would say. “You better go to bed or he’ll pass by our house.”

 

So, it is the holiday season. Everyone is out there in 'stress central' perhaps. Making time for job (if one has one), home, family & friends, and self is in itself a juggling act of major proportions. Why then do we often feel hollow inside? Are we rushing from one event to the next? Do we clean our space 5 minutes here and there or one room at a time so we can get out there and meet and greet? Are we so busy we find an online dating service so we can have a five minute date with X number of folks in one evening?

I received a postcard in the mail today informing me that my favorite magazine is going out of business. Quarterly Review of Wines, published by Salem State University literary guru and oeneologist Dr. Richard Elia, regrets to inform it's readers that “After 35 years, Quarterly Review of Wines, one of the country’s oldest wine magazines, will cease publication.”  In this brief communiqué, Dr. Elia tells his readers: “The economic climate is depressing, and we at QRW would be unable to continue the kind of quality publication we have delivered to our devoted subscribers.”

When I was a kid I loved the hymn, “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God.”  It sounded very British to me and it seemed to transcend time.  It sounded as if it was all about knights, and princesses, and tea time.  These are the people of legends and fables and Buckingham Palace. It is not a whole lot different than the characters we see in Disney movies.

Yes, Lakewoodites, as we saw animated in a recent edition of The Observer, I am often late getting my articles on the editor’s desk. More often than not, I run into my good friend and publisher Jim O’Bryan at the Root Café — on our way to our respective offices — and I ask him if I still have time to get my Musings in before the paper goes to print. Jim is always gracious, and I am always grateful.

Calvary United Methodist Church is please to announce that on November 4, 2011 the Ambassadors will be performing at Calvary, which is located at 16305 Hilliard Road in Lakewood.

On September 11, 2011 City Edge Christian Church launched "a church for the rest of us" with 112 people in attendance. City Edge's mission is to Love beyond reason, Journey with God, and serve the City. Since launch the church has averaged 89 people in attendance through September. 

Once in a while, a name washes upon our shore: one not heard in eons. With those waves come a flood of emotions — emotions no storm warning could forecast.

Facebook and other social media have enabled people to reconnect with friends from yesterday. Recently, a childhood friend I have not seen in about eighteen years found me in cyberspace. It was great to reminisce with Darrell on-line.  We recalled growing up on the North Shore of Boston — how we were street hockey fanatics and aspiring audiophiles.

Three new Lutheran pastors will be ordained Saturday, September 10 in a service at Faith Lutheran Church in Lakewood.

Bishop Elizabeth A. Eaton of the Northeastern Ohio Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) will preside and preach at the service and ordain the new pastors as ministers of word and sacrament.

The service begins at 10:30 a.m. and will be followed by a reception at the church, which is located at 16511 Hilliard Road (the corner of Hilliard and Woodward). Parking will be available across the street at Harding Middle School.

 

We are mired in an age where the left and the right are drifting further apart, becoming ever-more polarized.  Democrats and Republicans no longer talk to each other. They shout across the aisles and sling pejoratives in self-righteous contempt. Compromises, in the best interest of the citizenry who elected these officials, are rare. The desires of the military-industrial complex take precedence.

What are such “political” musings doing in a “religion” column?

Numerous social programs are on the cutting block as a result of the recent debt ceiling “negotiations.”  Don’t be fooled: when all is said and done CEOs will still receive tax breaks on their corporate jets. The military will get all the money they need (and then some) to fight the two wars in which we are currently embroiled. (Or is it five?)  Wall Street will still receive bail-outs while Main Street becomes a ghost town.

 

Acting on a recommendation from its Faith Mission Board, Faith Lutheran Church (ELCA), Lakewood, Ohio, has extended a call to Seminarian Mark Rollenhagen to direct the Faith Mission Project. He began work on July 1 as a lay outreach minister and will be ordained and installed as Mission Pastor on Saturday, September 10, 2011.

A congregational meeting of Faith Lutheran Church, Lakewood, Ohio, voted unanimously on June 26 to call Seminarian Mark Rollenhagen as Mission Pastor with the task of leading and driving the Faith Mission Project.

Dear Representative Bachmann,

Recent news reports have highlighted the work of your husband, Dr. Marcus Bachmann, President of Bachmann & Associates— work that you fully support, recent retractions notwithstanding. Among his clients are members of the LGBT community (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) whom you and your husband claim can become heterosexual through “reparative therapy.” Popular culture refers to such treatment as “pray the gay away.” While such language is inflammatory and offensive, it is no less deplorable than your husband’s claim (on the conservative Christian radio program Point of View on May 12, 2010) that gay people are “barbarians” that need to be “educated” and “disciplined.”

I received a phone call from my eldest brother the other day. He called to inform me that his father-in-law died. He was 82 years old and was in relatively good health. He had an unexpected coronary.

My brother and sister-in-law live on the North Shore of Boston. The father-in-law lived in Florida. My brother and sister-in-law have not seen him in over a year. They were planning on visiting him in just a week and half- ten days too late, unfortunately.

Children in Lakewood Park were treated to games, face painting and hundreds of free snow cones on Saturday afternoon, June 18, as City Edge Christian Church celebrated the warm weather with their Kids’ Summer Kickoff event.

CityEdge Christian Church is a new church in Lakewood with a focus on public service and community outreach. According to lead minister Kevin Rush, events like the Kids’ Summer Kickoff are one of many ways CityEdge Church seeks to enrich the lives of Lakewood residents.

As some of you may know, I am a poet. Poetry, for me, is one of the ways to capture the indefinable — however partial. It is a means of tapping into the divine essence that surrounds us and infuses us, yet, ironically enough, often goes unnoticed.

Last night as I watched the final embers fade to ether in the fire-pit in my backyard, a few lines came to mind. This is what I scribbled on the back of an envelope when I went into the kitchen:

Fire. There is nothing sadder than a fire going out. Embers struggling to breathe. Gray smoke rising. An ashen dance beneath. The patient on the bed, motionless. A gulp of air. A hiss. Little more…

 

Apparently, Harold Camping was wrong. Family Radio’s president’s prediction did not come to fruition. The world did not end at 6:00 pm on May 21, 2011, just as it did not end in 1988 and 1994 as Camping previously surmised. This eschatological prognosticator has since said that a symbolic rapture took place on May 21; the physical one will occur on October 21.

“USA!”  “USA!”

This chant bellowed from my television in the waning hours of May 1. CNN reported that Osama bin Laden had been assassinated in a secret Pakistani bunker by a covert, United States military task force. A few dozen people gathered outside the White House waving Old Glory and singing "The Star-Spangled Banner.” The ad hoc gathering swelled as fast as the news spread nationally. Similar celebrations took place in New York City, near Ground Zero, and others erupted in bars across America. Napkins shredded into confetti. Pints of beer hoisted for a toast. Beaming smiles carved into patriotic faces.

Saxophonist John Coltrane, perhaps the greatest icon of jazz spirituality once said, “My music is the spiritual expression of what I am — my faith, my knowledge, my being… When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hang-ups… I want to speak to their souls.”

Saturday. 10:32 am. Lakewood, Ohio.

Knock, knock.

I open the door. “Hello.”

“Hi. How are you this morning, sir?”

“I’m fine,” I say. “Can I help you?”

“I was just wondering if you ever read The Bible at all,” the nicely-dressed, handsome gentleman at my front door asked. I did not have the heart to tell him what I do for a living.

“A bit,” I said.

“Well, if you read it regularly, then you would realize that all ‘the signs’ are happening.”

 

Like many communions, the United Church of Christ has a Statement of Faith. It is not so much a test of faith, as many of the historic creeds are, but rather a testimony of the common faith shared by the 5,320 autonomous congregations that comprise this united and uniting denomination.

Theories abound about the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. There are some who claim that it never happened. “People do not rise from the dead today,” they say, “So I doubt that it actually happened in Jerusalem two millennia ago.”

Others claim that it occurred in the experience of the disciples. Jesus did not physically rise from the dead, proponents of this theory claim, but he did live in the communal experience of the disciples after his death.

And then there are those ol’ stalwart traditionalists like me who believe that it really did happen as it is chronicled in the Gospels.

I remember being at a clergy meeting once. I was sitting in a room with about a dozen colleagues from my denomination;  the meeting was during Lent.

 

“For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.”  ~ James 2:26

What is the point of this life? Why do people suffer? What happens when we die? Is forgiveness possible? Find out the answer to these questions and more by participating in the Alpha Course.

The nonprofit, nonpartisan religious organization Sojourners, founded by Jim Wallis of God’s Politics fame, circulated a bumper sticker and hosted an on-line petition during the 2004 campaign under the mantra, “God is not a Republican…or a Democrat.”  That’s true.  God may be a Socialist, though — at least Jesus of Nazareth was.

I am very sorry for my recent extended absence. I was finishing the dissertation for my Ph.D. and was under a colossal deadline. My thanks to those of you who wrote and called asking for me to come back; it feels so good to be wanted.

Well, the New Year is here. Actually, as I write these musings, it is not quite here yet, but it is on the horizon, and not the “distant” one. For many people, resolutions conjure up images of working out more often, eating healthier foods, quitting smoking, developing a new hobby, or spiritual discipline.

While I was getting dressed this morning, the Today Show was on television. The feature story that I half-listened to was about baby boomers heading into retirement. They listed, by percentages, what retirees were hoping to do as they approached their golden years. Ten percent of those surveyed wanted to deepen their spiritual life.

I love Lakewood, Ohio. Why? There are several reasons…

First of all, our public services are second to none. We have amazing police and fire departments (not to mention a quality hospital right in the center of town). These civil servants keep our community safe with proactive programs and responsive service.

I am disgusted. This is the headline that greeted me when I turned on my computer this morning: “8 Men Arraigned in NYC Anti-Gay Beating Case.” Alleged members of the Latin King Goonies Gang heard that one of their new recruits, a teenage boy, was gay. In the early hours of Friday, October 3, they lured the young man to a vacant apartment and then they “stripped and beat him and sodomized him with a plunger handle until he confessed to having had sex with a man” (AP News). The gang tortured a second teen they believed was a homosexual as well. “They also invited the man the first teen had admitted having sex with to a house, telling him they were having a party…When he arrived, five of them burned, beat and tortured him for hours” (AP News).

I am against war for a sundry of reasons. Aside from the fact that warfare leaves incalculable, innocent victims in its wake (including children), I also believe that just about all armed conflicts are perpetrated by elected officials and business moguls in order to maintain political power and economic dominance. War enables the upper echelon of elites to amass prodigious amounts of wealth while many a lower or middle class nineteen year old ends up dead or in a veteran’s hospital being fitted with prosthetic limbs, all for some propagandized purpose.

Do I think that there is such a thing as Just War? Sure - if someone invades your country you have a right to defend yourself with force if need be.

I have purposely strayed from writing about anything political in my Ministerial Musings lately. I wanted them to be more spiritually edifying than anything else. However, there are occasions when clergy need to raise a prophetic voice to critique injustices and hurtful ideologies when they arise from the mire of human existence.

That said — if you are a fan of Glenn Beck, then you should probably stop reading at this point.

Glenn Beck is one of the most offensive and insensitive pundits I have ever heard. His self-absorption is so unparalleled that “Sponge Beck” is the most fitting appellative for him.

On Saturday, August 28, 2010 — the forty-seventh anniversary of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s legendary “I Have a Dream” speech — Beck held a rally in front of the same Lincoln Memorial to call America back to God and to reinstate his understanding of “traditional” values. Beck touted the gathering on his radio and television programs (as well as on his website) as “Restoring Honor.” The word “honor” conjures up images of fairness, honesty, and integrity. Beck has been anything but honorable.

Mr. Beck has been quite vociferous as of late in condemning any religion, denomination, or church whose theology is rooted in social justice. According to Beck, salvation is about one’s individual commitment to Jesus Christ; it has nothing to do with communal responsibility.

 

“How can young people keep their way pure? By guarding it according to your word.” ~ Psalm 119:9, NRSV

As I write this article, I am preparing to depart on a two week vacation. I will be heading to my parent’s camp, located on a beautiful lake in southern Maine, with my three children. My wife will be heading to Namibia in South Africa as part of an immersion mission trip for her seminary education.

Some people feel uneasy about taking vacations. “The boss will be upset.” “I really should be working all the time; isn’t that what it means to have a strong work-ethic.” Vacations actually make us better workers. It gives us a time of respite so that we can return to work rejuvenated, better equipped to deal with our daily demands.

But vacations are more than that. They should not just be seen as means to an end: we rest so we can work harder. Vacation is Sabbath time.

Sabbath is a biblical concept. It begins in the earliest pages of Scripture. God creates the earth (be it metaphorically or literal) in six days. On the seventh day God rests from all the work of Creation. Ancient Israel was also called to let the earth rest every seventh year from the strain of cultivation.

If God needs relaxation, and even the land needs a breather, then is it too hard to believe that we need to rest, too?

I have been MIA for a few issues recently, my deepest apologies. That said, I can safely say, "I'm back!" (I said that in my best faux Poltergeist voice.) Never mind...

 

Some of our sayings make no sense.  They seem to contradict one another.  “Practice makes perfect.”  And yet, we are also told that “Nobody is perfect.”  That can lead one to question, “Then why practice?”

I had lunch with a parishioner in Berea today. On the way back to the office, I stopped for gas and asked the cashier, “What is the quickest way to get to Route 71?” As she looked into the distance and scratched her head, a scruffy man in line behind me began giving me directions. “What you want to do is to keep going down this main road here and turn left at the lights. After that, you want to turn…”

Now keep something in mind. If directions require more than two turns, I get lost. You might as well give them to me in another language. I need to write them down at that point. So, I asked the cashier for a piece of scrap paper, but before she even moved the man in line said, “I’m actually headin’ that way. Follow me.”

“Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath.  Stress is an ignorant state.  It believes that everything is an emergency.  Nothing is that important.  Just lie down.”