How Does It Look to You Now?

I’m discovering my role on the team. I work with some amazing people here, on my team and in the agency in general. They continually amaze me with their knowledge and experience and the passion with which they do their jobs. Even in this strange times we find ourselves in these days. Which means that I see them on Zoom, little squares of people as we gather for meetings large and small. I’m old enough that the first images that comes to mind when I think of our Zoom communication is the intro to the Brady Bunch. You remember that sitcom - “It’s a story, or a lovely lady ...” You’re singing it now, aren’t you? Well, some of you. But they were in those boxes looking down and around at each other. That’s the first Zoom meeting, it seems to me. 

Where was I? Oh, yes, my role in the incredible team. I’m the writer. I know, I thought I was going to be the preacher, but no. There aren’t enough opportunities to preach. But write. It is all I do it seems. Except for Zoom meetings. Which makes it odd, I guess, that on the weekend, I write. Still. I love it. I love words, and putting them together and making sense out of a world that doesn’t really make much sense any more. Or attempting to make sense. So, I write, a lot. I write preaching notes and worship ideas for every series that we produce. I write articles about worship and preaching. I write responses to questions that come in. I write reports, and proposals. I just write a lot. 

Don’t get me wrong, the others write too. And do it well. I’m just often tasked with putting our conversations into written words, or coming up with descriptions of the podcasts that we record, or putting into words emotions that arise among us and threaten to choke us up. I do that. And I love it. 

Which is why I was honored to be asked this spring if I would write a week’s worth of devotions for the Upper Room Disciplines. This is different from the monthly Upper Room Devotional. This is whole year’s worth of devotions published in one book together. I’m writing the week that includes All Saints Day (Nov.1) in 2022. It’ll come out in fall of 2021, so watch for it. :)

But I thought I’d test out my devotionals here in this space. The problem is they have to be very short, 325 words.  Considering my last post here was a little over 5 times that amount, it seems really short. That’s why the long introduction. I’m given four texts and because I have All Saints Day in my week, I get four more. And I’m supposed to use them all over the week. So, for the next few weeks you get to read my musings on these texts and figure out (and maybe help me figure out) which 325 words I can use for the devotional.

And I thought I’d start with the hardest one. At least from the first reading a while ago. (I admit, I set this aside for a while, but the deadline is now closer, so I need to get working on this, along with the other things I have to write!) I love the Hebrew Bible stories, but there are parts that I don’t pay a lot of attention to. And this is one of those. Take a look.

Haggai 2:1-9 In the second year of King Darius, in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai, saying: 2 Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, and say, 3 Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing? 4 Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the LORD; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the LORD; work, for I am with you, says the LORD of hosts, 5 according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear. 6 For thus says the LORD of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; 7 and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the LORD of hosts. 8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the LORD of hosts. 9 The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the LORD of hosts.

Huh. Not necessarily Huh? But certainly just huh. What do we do with that? This is very specific, look at all those names and dates. It’s like a bad history class. Names of people we don’t know from Adam. Or Archduke Ferdinand. Or Chaing Kai-Shek. It just seems like a mess, right? A right zerubbabel, you might say. And a date that seems somewhat arbitrary. July 21st. Seventh month, twenty-first day. Except it wasn’t July. July hadn’t been invented yet.  Actually, it was called Tishrei, and it was a very important month. Rosh Hashana happens in Tishrei, as does Yom Kippur, and Sukkot (or the Feast of Tabernacles) and Hoshana Rabbah which is the seventh day of the Feast of Sukkot and a special synagogue service marked by processions and the sounding of the shofar and it happened on the twenty-first day of the seventh month. 

Did you get all that? It was a loud day, a party day. It was a celebration of what God has done for God’s people, and marked my movement and music and food and joy. On that day the Lord spoke to Haggai. That day. Haggai probably said “What?” and held his hand behind his ear. “Was that the shofar or was that God?” 

But somehow God got through the noise of that celebratory worship. And what was the message? It was all about God’s house. The temple and how it was rebuilt, or not rebuilt. It didn’t have the style it used to have, didn’t have the glory. And even on this loud day of celebration there was a ho hum quality to their worship. It ain’t what it used to be. “How does it look to you now?” Is God trying to shame them? King Zerubbabel? Prophet Haggai? Everyone? You’ve given me a shack, God says, a dump, an eyesore!

No, it doesn’t seem that way. I wonder, in fact, if God is actually hinting about something beyond the building anyway. Yeah the second temple wasn’t as grand as the first. But God says, don’t worry about it. I’m with you. I’m always with you. And guess what? Things are going to get shaky. Stuff is going to happen. You’re going to be afraid. You’re going to wonder what’s up. You’re going to feel ... shaky. And then you’re going to figure out what really matters. What the treasure really is. And it’s mine. 

Wait. God’s going to threaten us? For a ransom? No, I don’t think so. Shaking happens. Is happening. And pat of what gets shaken is our priorities. But as always, we have a choice. We can choose to go after God’s treasure, the stuff that really matters. Like loving God and neighbor, like self-sacrifice and service, like building up and making better, like equality and justice, and peace. Or we can choose the shaky stuff. The temporary stuff. The stuff like the second rate temple building that doesn’t really satisfy anyone. We can cling to our lifestyle and our rights and our so-called freedom. And still miss out on the splendor of God. The splendor God promises to fill our spaces with.

There are those to value buildings and festivals and the right to ignore science and safety. And while they are doing it, blowing their own horns and making all the ruckus. There are those who value a way of life that over-values some while devaluing others, they shout about their right to hate. And it is during the noise of this protestation that God says “how does it look to you now?”  

No so great. I vote for the glory of God. Fill our spaces with your presence, as we care for the most vulnerable among us. Shake us up until we begin to see what we are doing to one another, to those who are different, and finally begin to see the treasure that they are. The treasure that we all are. Only then, will God’s splendor return. The latter splendor, the splendor of peace, the splendor of justice, the splendor of equality will be greater than the former. Because we choose love.

Shalom, 

Derek 

Festival of Homiletics 2020, Virtual Edition Day Five: Lament and Longing

Peter Mayer and his family are singing as I write these closing thoughts from the last day of the Almost Festival of Homiletics. Peter Mayer is a guitarist, played with Jimmy Buffet, and maybe still does, I don’t know. But I know that he’s really good. He sings with his son Brendan and others from time to time appear. He isn’t really here, but it’s like watching to original MTV, when it was music videos. It is the best of Peter Mayer, music videos. Peter sings songs of faith, when he isn’t with Jimmy. Not that Jimmy Buffet isn’t a person of faith, don’t want to upset any parrot heads who might read this.

It was an interested final day of the Virtual Festival. After we were welcomed and blessed by another of the organizers, I forgot to record her name. But she thanked everyone she could think of, and had a better list than I did. It was a usual end of event kind of welcome. Thanking everyone who made it happen. Everyone who made a major shift to make this happen in this new way in a short period of time. And it worked. No, it wasn’t the same, but it worked. I am grateful for those who went out of their way to make this happen.

Then we worshiped together. I did catch the musicians names today. Uriah Moore was the pianist and singer, and Una Brown was the singer. They did a great job all week. The preacher for the service was Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock, Senior Pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Yeah, that one. I sometimes struggled to follow the pastors I had to follow. To preach from the pulpit made famous by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would be daunting to say the least.

Dr. Warnock preached from the prophet Joel, and he called us to Lament. It’s a language unique to God’s people, he argues, a language that we seem to be losing in our self-sufficient culture. A language that just might save us. Lament. Not a whine. Not a complaint. Lament. It is a cry out to God. It is an acknowledgment of a difficult situation, it is an admission of helplessness. Lament. It is a surrender. It is a invitation to be opened up to new possibilities. Which begins when we learn how to praise even as we lament. How to cling to faith and cling to hope, even when despair seems the more logical step. Lament.

Later in the afternoon, the preacher was Bishop Robert Wright, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta. His text was Psalm 42 and his title was “Like a Deer.” I think he should have named it Longing. That was the theme, or one of them anyway. His over all theme, with the theme of the Festival, was about the care of the planet. But Psalm 42 calls us to care by longing. Longing for a better world. Longing for a more faithful witness. Longing for a faith secure in the promises of God, not in the resources of our economy. Of course we need to live, we know that, God knows that, at least Jesus said so. But we don’t need to destroy. We don’t need to deplete. We don’t need to take from others that we might have more. We’ve got to live. But that we is an inclusive we. We all have to live. Bishop Wright quoted that well known theologian Theodore Geisel, or as some of us knew him, Dr. Seuss.  The bishop quoted from that book that was banned in some circles because it seemed too radical, too environmental for our culture, The Lorax: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” Maybe caring a whole awful lot means starting with Lament and moving toward Longing.

Part of what I long for is a place to preach more regularly. I do enjoy the freedom to have a Saturday, I must admit, and to face Sunday without the anxiety of proclamation weighing on me. But still, it miss it. It was a part of my life for a long time. Perhaps that is why I wasn’t terribly excited about the lecture titled “Less Stress Preaching and Prep.” It felt like an intro to preaching course. Admittedly the Rev. Dr. Raquel S. Lettsome, Associate Minister at Union AME and Managing Partner of Say AMEN!, had a solid presentation and she brought in the unique pressures of preaching during a pandemic and the shelter at home phenomenon. But I found my mind wandering as I imagined how I would be preaching now, what I might say and what I might try to do. Name your anxieties, Dr. Lettsome advised. So, I did.

The interview was with Rev. Neichelle Guidry, Liturgist and Scholar, Dean of the Chapel and Director of the Wisdom Center at Spelman College. She spoke with enthusiasm and passion about women who preach, and about helping victims of abuse find a voice and community of welcome. She talked about preaching as a corporate act, not dominated by a preacher, but shared as a conversation within the body of those who gather, believers and those who aren’t believers yet. I admit, it was fun listening to her passion for what it is that she offers.

There was music, as I said at the beginning. Peter and Brenden Mayer, and also Fran McKendree, who sang and played while we watched a slide show of previous Festivals, you know back when you could shake a hand and give someone a pat on the back. There were also slides of the behind the scenes people who made this year’s Festival possible, and screen shots of the speakers and preachers we heard. It was not the same, but it was good. I am thankful, but am still praying that next year we’ll be able to go to Denver and sit in the same room and worship together. Just like I am sure many of you are hoping that soon you can gather with your family and worship together. Let’s long for that together.

Shalom,
Derek
#Homiletics2020

Festival of Homiletics 2020 Virtual Edition, Day Four: Truth that Matters

Today I was part of the recording of a Podcast, and then quickly having to write a description of the same Podcast because the web folk were working quickly because of the holiday weekend. I wrote up and sent off a proposal for an online Preaching Webinar about tips and techniques for Preaching Online, not sure when that will be released, but soon. And I managed to attend a full day of the Almost Festival of Homiletics!

Virtual, I mean, not almost. The Virtual Festival. Another good day and again I give credit to the planners and organizers. I’m actually writing while the last session is underway. It’s a music group called “The Fleshpots of Egypt” or the “Fleshpots” for short. A group of seminary professors and pastors playing bluegrass gospel songs. You have to see them to believe it. They have a lot of fun. Even in the streamed version, they are enjoying themselves tremendously. Full disclosure, I’m not a big bluegrass fan, but these guys are a lot of fun.

But let me go back to the beginning of the day with the Festival for my reflections. We began with the welcome and blessing of Rev. Antony Bailey hosting us from his home in Toronto Canada and he walked us through the schedule for the day and then had a little devotion for us. Originally from Barbados, Antony is a frequent host at the Festival and brings a gracious spirit with him.

This was more like a “normal” day at the Festival, in that I heard three sermons today, and a lecture and an interview, before the Fleshpots. You just have to keep saying the Fleshpots, it seems to me. It’s not a word I type all that often. Anyway, the first worship experience was led by our musicians and liturgists. Most of whom are invisible. The prayer time, for example, is floating words, inviting us into a spirit of prayer. The voices are prompters and not performers. Sometimes we have landscape pictures to help us in our spiritual imagination. Sometimes the words alone, or a candle flame flickering with our virtual breath in the space we create. The musicians likewise are often obscured by images. Once in a while we get a glimpse of them, a young African American man on the piano and an older African American woman at a microphone. I think their names appear briefly as they begin to sing. I’ll have to pay attention more tomorrow. I’ve been appreciative of their ability to lead us, usually with familiar hymns of the faith. I am grateful for what they add to the worship feel.

The preacher for the first time slot was Dr. Cynthia Hale, Senior Pastor of Ray of Hope Church is Decatur Georgia. I think every church should be named Ray of Hope, don’t you? We should declare what we are doing with our name. Her sermon was titled “Don’t Panic: God is in Control!” With exclamation point. And that’s exactly how she preached. With exclamation points. She was hampered, I am sure, by the lack of response in her call and response style of preaching, but it didn’t slow her down. She leaned on us to trust in the promises. It was a recitation of words that have brought the people of God hope for centuries I have to confess I was looking for something deeper, something surprising. To be honest, based on the title, Don’t Panic, I was also expecting a few Douglas Adams quotes from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but there were none. But maybe we need to be reminded of the eternal truths from time to time. God is still in control. Amen? Amen.

Following Dr. Hale was a lecture titled “‘Is it True? Does it Matter’ Preaching that Saves Lives.” The lecturer was new to me, but I confess to being swept up in her topic quickly. Her name is Rev. Dr. Katie Hays, and she is the Senior Pastor of Galileo Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Fort Worth Texas. She planted that church and has intentionally directed her attention to the marginalized peoples of our society. In their mission statement it states that Galileo Church is “a next church community of belonging that seeks and shelters spiritual refugees, especially LGBTQ+ people and those who love them.” 

Her lecture challenged all of us who preach to consider not just truth, but truth that matters. Telling someone something that is true might not save them, might not bring them the hope that they need, might not be meeting them in their brokenness and leading them into deeper and more profound relationships of truth and salvation. What is our preaching trying to do? That was the question she was asking us. Are we preachers giving answers to questions no one is asking, while we ignore the deeper needs, wounds and potential of the people around us, inside and outside the church. It is a message that we need to return to again and again as we examine our preaching. 

As I am preparing, for instance, to present a webinar on how to preach online, a part of my content must pay attention to the why of preaching and not just the how. My shelves are full of books on the how, but those who pay attention to the why are more rare. I took another look at my outline as I listened to Dr Hays speak today.

Two sermons followed in quick succession. And they were stand alone sermons, outside of the context, even the almost context of this virtual world. They were just dropped in on us from above. Antony Bailey’s voice introduced them, but that was the only contextualization of these two sermons. It was unsettling to say the least.

But then they were unsettling sermons. Maybe that was part of the intent. Lenny Duncan, who is introduced as “pastor/author/speaker/activist”, preached on Awaiting the God who Answers from Habakkuk. It was a plea to pay attention to who is left out, left out of the recovery efforts, left out of the health care system, left out of our attention. But also what does it mean to say we await a God who answers? Where are the answers? How do we know them, recognize them, listen to them? 

William Barber continued that theme in his sermon that followed. Rev. William Barber is a life long advocate for the poor and the head of the Poor People’s Campaign in Washington DC. He, as he often does, astounds us with statistics about the depth of poverty in this the greatest country in the world. And like Lenny Duncan before him, asked us how we can justify doing nothing about the injustice rampant in our nation? How can we call ourselves followers of Christ and yet be content with death on such a scale. Duncan and Barber both reminded us of the national debate when it comes to the reopening of our economy and how often it devolved into a discussion at to which lives are worth saving. Sermons that came out of nowhere and left us breathless and trembling, if we just paid attention. What truths really matter, as Dr. Hays might ask.

We concluded with an interview of Jonathan Wilson-Hargrave, a Spiritual Writer and Public Speaker, according to his bio. He didn’t let us off the hook either. Insisting that spiritual life has to manifest itself in social justice, we were encourage to take words of those like Barber and Duncan to heart as we seek to walk with Jesus. Walking with Jesus cannot be a walk in the garden alone, despite the gospel song. To walk with Jesus is to walk through the truths of the world as it really is, as we are living it out every day, as individuals and as a nation. In fact, I might have to read some of his writing because he said in the interview, that coming from North Carolina, he was aware of just how much the bible says “y’all” and not just you.  I believe that I’ve heard that before somewhere.

The Fleshpots have sung themselves off the stage and it’s time to wrap this up. One more day of the Festival and what I hear, I’ll share with you.

Shalom,

Derek

#Homiletics2020

Festival of Homiletics 2020, Virtual Edition, Days Two and Three:Certain Uncertainty

Because of work responsibilities I am only getting a partial experience of the Festival in this “almost” experience. But even if I could hang on every spoken word, I would still be getting only a partial experience. One of the elements of the Festival experience is gathering together with colleagues from all over the world into a shared space and hearing the sound of 1,500 voices singing the great hymns of the faith, and leaning into the proclaimed word, caught up in the Spirit that moves through. Sitting up here in the spare room, the “room of requirement” that can become whatever we need it to be, except that it can’t become the cathedral like sanctuary of Peachtree Road United Methodist Church, which is where we were supposed to have been. 

Still, I don’t want to moan too much. A little moaning is OK, isn’t it? But not too much. And I have to give credit to the organizers, they are trying really hard to capture the moment as best they can. And there have been some good sermons in this unusual setting, some good conversations and some amazing music. And maybe that’s what we need right now. Almost. Something that speaks of what was, what we remember together, and also recognizes that everything has changed. 

Day Two began with the Rev. Otis Moss III preaching in his empty sanctuary in Chicago about the Certain Uncertainty. He too, like many of us, is almost done hearing “these uncertain times.” And yet, what better description can there be about the life of the follower of Jesus? Everything is uncertain, except the certainty of the presence of the One we follow. And in the end, that is enough. What we need, Moss declares is to look beyond the frame. To look for the support that stands with us. Here the camera he was using pulled back and revealed his wife sitting in the pew next to him. We lean into the support of the God who calls us, but we feel it in the people around us. Who is supporting you, who is praying you through, who is just out of the frame and on your side? In the certain uncertainty, we need to remember those who brought us to where we are.

I was in and out yesterday and didn’t catch all of anything else. But I heard parts of Dr. Ellen Davis, biblical scholar from Duke University, talking about “Telling the Truth: Ungodly Facts, Real Power, and Holy Fear.” Dr. Davis’s thesis was reminding us of the Exodus event, and how Moses was called to speak truth to power, even at the risk of his life, and the fear that his own people had when he chose to do that. Sometimes, slavery seems safer than the risk of resistance. Sometimes, the destruction of the world is safer than the risk of changing a way of life so that life may continue.

I caught most of Dr. Joy Moore’s sermon titled “Breathless Anticipation.” Her sermon was based on Romans 8, reminding us what a shocking statement Paul made when he said “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory about to be revealed to us.” Which was immediately followed by “Creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God.” The breathless anticipation is because of the great need, the great suffering that all of creation endures, while it hopes for the people of God to finally understanding stewardship of all that is. The glory is not just the someday of the coming new age, the Kingdom, or Kin-dom as many of us are now naming it. But it is in the translation of this world to that one. It is in the rescuing for what the world has been and can be, once we stop our mad dash toward destruction. Creation waits for us to be who God calls us to be.

Dr. Leah Schade was the subject of an interview in the next time slot. I got to hear a part of it before having to go to yet another zoom call. I met Leah at a conference last December, she made a presentation of her major work, “Preaching in the Purple Zone.” The purple zone is trying to walk the middle of our great national divide between the red and the blue, attempting to speak into this polarity and be heard. Or better yet, let the gospel be heard. 

I came back in time to hear Grace Kelly sing and play us out. Grace has been a part of the Festival before, and I remember being amazed at her talent and heart. She is a jazz saxophonist and singer of blues and jazz. And she’s Asian American. Sometimes it’s like I am looking at Maddie sing the blues. It seems incongruous on the one hand, but oh so amazing on the other. Grace sings and plays of a spirit that connects, that teaches love, risks loving. It was a beautiful ending to day two.

Day three was even more sketchy than the previous. We had an all staff meeting a Discipleship Ministries in the morning and then an all programming staff meeting in the afternoon. So, I missed a lot today. I did, however, hear a sermon for Olu Brown, a pastor from Atlanta who planted a church near the airport and somehow managed to grow it into a multi site church and now online church with a reach in the multiple thousands. Oddly enough, tomorrow the Worship Team is recording a podcast with Olu about the use of technology in worship. 

His sermon was titled Imagine, based on the end of the book of Revelation, Olu was asking us to not let our imagination sit on the sidelines as we work toward what Christ as promised for all of creation. To not settle for what is but continue to long for what can be, what might be, what God intends for each person. Too often we are apt to say, that’s just the way things are. And have stopped asking why are they this way? And why are we content with this? Whether we’re talking about our own lives, our human community or the condition of the planet as a whole, we need to imagine a better reality, a more God-breathed reality. Don’t stop imagining.

Then I was able to hear most of Karoline Lewis’s lecture on leading with the sermon. Preaching, she argues, as do many others (I’ve even been know to talk about this when I teach) that the sermon is not just a Sunday morning moment of uplift or inspiration, but a way of shepherding the flock into becoming the body of Christ. Much of what she shared I knew, and yet it was good to hear it outlined the way she did. My only problem was that she started by saying she had 8 elements of the sermon as leadership, but I only got 7. So now I’ll have to wait until the recording is publish in a few weeks to find number 8.

Then I was caught up in office stuff, and managed to come back in time to catch most of the closing music and worship experience led by a group called “The Many.” I was amazed at what they were doing, able to do in this disconnected medium. They sang and they prayed and they even shared in a few minutes a meditation that took my breath away in its simplicity and grace. I hope to learn more about The Many, and I’ll let you know.  

Shalom,

Derek

#Homiletics2020

Festival of Homiletics 2020, Virtual Event, Day One: Almost Bent Over

Well, here I am at the Festival of Homiletics, 2020. I’m not alone this time. Dora, the upstairs cat, is sleeping on the pile of boxes next to her window here in the room of requirement in #S303 here on Sawyer Brown Road, Nashville TN. Yeah, like so many other things this year, the in person Festival was canceled and replaced with this virtual edition. So, I’m up here in my home office, which sounds like an awfully grandiose title for the spare room. Or the comic book room, because that is where the comic books reside. And the room of family genealogy papers that La Donna is working her way through. All of which is why we call it “The Room of Requirement.” For the non-Harry Potter fans out there, it is the room where what you need to have happen, happens. So, since mid-March, it has been where my computer and books reside so I can do whatever I need to do for Discipleship Ministries. 

This week what I am doing is attending the virtual Festival of Homiletics. As well as various other things that work requires. That’s the problem with not going away, you end up trying to it all. So, I’ll miss some of the Festival, while I maintain my virtual presence as a part of the Worship Team, and the larger Strategic Programming Team, and the Discipleship Ministries Team. It’s hard to keep all those things in motion all at once. Especially in “these difficult times.”

That is the subtext of everything happening at the Festival this year. The theme is “Preaching a New Earth: Climate and Creation.” But the pandemic has focused the thinking and acting and the whole structure of the event. We’re scaled down this year, no overlapping or concurrent events, we’re not starting at 8am and ending at 7 or 8pm. Instead we’re “live at 12noon Eastern time and we end at 4pm with some music. Today, for example, after an opening welcome we had a sermon by Rev. Traci Blackmon/worship experience, a lecture on Christians and Climate Change by Climate Scientist Katherine Hayhoe, then a talk on Genesis in reverse, or undoing creation by Bill McKibben, an interview with Bishop William Willimon, and music by Ashley Cleveland. That’s Day One. Seems like a lot, but it is a light day for the Festival. Trust me on this.

But, I have to give credit to the organizers who have been scrambling for these past few months to figure out what and how. It was still a significant event. The beginning of a significant event. 

The Rev. Traci Blackmon serves as pastor in the UCC and also is the Executive Director of Justice and Local Church Ministries. Think about that for a moment. Justice and Local Church Ministries. I don’t think, or rather I hope that isn’t two different jobs cobbled together. But rather a denominational position. Justice and Local Church Ministries. Justice isn’t something that happens somewhere else, by people apart from the functioning of the local church. No, justice is what the local church is about. What the local church does. And Rev. Blackmon says it begins by seeing. Her text was Luke 13:10-17, the woman bent over whom Jesus heals on the Sabbath causing all sort of conniptions amongst the people of power. Blackmon points out that this woman didn’t come to be healed. She was just coming to the synagogue. Coming for prayers. Coming to make her offering. She doesn’t come with a request. She is bent over, has been for 18 years - and there isn’t any indication of her age, we assume elderly because bone density and curvature of the spine is an affliction of some in the old age, but she might have been this way from birth, maybe she was 18 years old and didn’t know any life but this bent one. We don’t know. But she might have been there, worshiping beside us for years, and we knew it, we know her, but we don’t see her. That’s Blackmon’s point. The bent ones among us, the ones burdened by the injustice of this world, the one’s carrying this society’s burden of not being the majority, not being the right race, the right gender, the right ethnicity, the right economic class, she and they are bent over trying to carry all that has been piled on them, all that has been thrown at them and we don’t even see them. By choice, often. We don’t want to see them. Because seeing them might carry responsibility to do something, to heal something, to bring justice. 

That’s why workers of justice in our society want us to know the names of those who are bent over by injustice, those broken, the Ahmaud Arberys and the Breonna Taylors, and the Atatiana Jeffersons and so many others who have become statistics and not people who are bent over in our society. Jesus healed her because He saw her. Not because she asked, not because she “deserved” it more than any others, but because He saw her. Can we do less than to see those around us. In part because we hope someone will see us when we are bent over.

Like those who hope we will see a world bent over, in need of healing. I missed Dr. Hayhoe’s lecture, but I heard Bill McKibben speak about an issue that he has spent most of his life trying to get people to see. The earth is bent over, he argues, has been for years. And, he claims, everyone knows it. Even those most at fault, the oil companies and fossil fuel companies, who have known for years the impact of their industy on the planet. They’ve made some changes in what they do, not to halt the devastation or to lessen their impact, but to ensure that they can keep making money. One example, they raised the level of their oil drilling platforms off-shore to account for the rising sea levels that they predicted decades ago. 

Frankly it was hard to listen to Bill. You could hear the despair in his voice, the fear that we will continue not to see, to want to sustain our lifestyle to such an extent that the world we give to our children and grandchildren will not be able to sustain life. Will we see? That’s the question that Bill McKibben is asking us. Will we see what’s bent over around us?

Bishop Willimon talked with Karoline Lewis, who is the host of the event from Luther Seminary in Minneapolis. The subject was preaching in this difficult moment. And let me sum up the Bishop’s advice, listen to God. He says we need to turn back to the Word and hear what God has been saying to God’s people about who is in charge and who isn’t. Sometimes it isn’t our innovation that is called for but our confession and our surrender. Then maybe we can stop thinking we’re in charge, and let God direct our eyes to see who is bent over.

Ashley Cleveland echoed that with two of my favorites from her repertoire, God Don’t Never Change, and Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning. May we indeed! 

Shalom,

Derek

#Homiletics2020

Disappointed by Hope

I’ve written about my favorite week of the year in this space before. No, not family vacation or holidays of any sort. It is not the usual kinds of weeks that many of us look forward to. No, this one is strictly mine. Well, mine and almost two thousand others. It is the week of the Festival of Homiletics. A week full of preachers preaching and preaching teachers talking about preaching and sometimes teachers preaching and preachers teaching, with some music and liturgy thrown in just for good measure. It is as close to heaven as a preaching geek like me could ever hope for.  I found it almost 20 years ago and have been going faithfully every year since. I even had to miss a birthday or two along the way, since it always falls around Maddie’s birthday. Which was Saturday, by the way, May 16th, she turned 25 this year. Not quite sure how that happened. Soon she’ll be older than me. Somehow. Anyway, the Festival falls between Maddie’s birthday and my anniversary. Well, our anniversary, since I am pretty sure La Donna was there too. Which is next Sunday, May 24th. Forty years this year, wow. Not quite sure how that happened either. Soon our marriage will be older than I am. Somehow. 

I was all signed up, paid my fee, was supposed to be in Atlanta right now waiting for the event to start. But no, here I am, sitting at home, here in Nashville. Oh, sure, like so many other things, they aren’t canceling the Festival, it is just going to become virtual. Remember when virtual used to mean almost? Well, it sort of kinda does still. I know it means online these days. But it also kinda feels like almost. We’re almost going to have a Festival this year. Almost. I’ll hear some of the preachers, and I’ll be a part of the worship, from a distance. Almost. But because I’m here, in my virtual office, I’ll also have work things to do. Zoom calls and projects to complete, a podcast to record and a virtual meeting about a preaching teaching series I’m going to do. So it won’t be the same. I will get access, because I was already registered and paid, to the recorded sessions of the Festival, so even though I’ll have to miss some of it, I won’t miss any of it, almost. 

But it won’t be the same. You see, while the heart and soul of the Festival for me has always been the words spoken, proclaimed really, and the opportunity to hear from some of the most incredible preachers in the mainline tradition and variety of cultures and approaches, all of which will be captured as best as possible through the virtual medium employed; that has never been the whole story. Or indeed what it is that brings me back year after year. There was something deeper, more profound going on in me and those who gathered year after year. 

Ministry is hard. I won’t say harder than other jobs, because every job has struggles and difficulties along the way. But one of the things that makes ministry and preaching in particular difficult is that you often are told in a variety of ways that you are wasting your time. And worse, wasting their time, those who come to listen. That’s often why preachers want to come up with simple tips on how to live a good life. Do these three things, follow those five rules, observe these 7 traits and you’ll be right with God. You’ll be assured of your salvation. You’ll have your ticket to heaven, or a better life, or all the answers. If we just read the Bible right, we preachers think, we can decode the tips, the steps, the elements of the life that Jesus led. And by golly, we find them. And they work. Until they don’t. Until we find the next set of things. The next tips on living. 

We do this, we tell ourselves, because it is what the people want. All the popular preachers do it. They make life, they make faith, they make following Jesus sound so easy. And fun! So, we all look for the five fun things that we can give to the people on a fill-in-the-blank bulletin insert and feel like we’ve done our job. Except that even while we do it, week after week, we have this nagging suspicion that it isn’t working. It isn’t what we’re supposed to do. It isn’t what is going to give people life. And we don’t know what to do. 

Then sometimes, we are beaten down. Directly or indirectly, told by churches that we aren’t doing our job, we aren’t making them happy, we aren’t leading them in the directions they want to go. We’re told we’re failing because we haven’t found the magic program or worship style or seat cushions that will make our church grow like the mega-church on the edge of town.  And we begin to investigate other career opportunities. 

It was in one of those moments that I found the Festival. Those “beaten down, what are you doing with your life” moments. And I went, not expecting much, except for the chance to be away and not feel too guilty about being gone. What I found, however, was a reminder that the Word matters. It matters in the world because it gives us a sense of the presence of God. The Word, which at one time, put on flesh and walked around among us, with skin on, and eyes to see and spit that made mud and tears that flowed and hands that held and a mouth that spoke. It spoke, that Word on two legs. It spoke and it told stories and it called followers and it made riddles and shared history and it challenged and threatened and comforted and loved, but it never once explained everything. Even when the gospel writers said the Word with a mouth explained everything, to the followers, if you listen carefully you’ll realize nothing was explained. There is no road map, no virtual GPS that will get you through the tough times. There are no three steps or five or seven steps to an easy life, in fact the Word that talked said if your life is easy you’re doing it wrong. 

On Great Performances this past week, PBS broadcast the 2019 Ravinia Festival’s production of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass. It was originally written for the opening of the Kennedy Center in Washington DC in 1971. It was controversial then and still is today. Some love it, and some hate it. I’ve always loved it. It is about faith and about doubt and about how they live side by side in an uneasy relationship. It doesn’t provide answers, it barely offers hope. Bernstein, of course, was Jewish, but he was writing in honor John F. Kennedy, the only Catholic President in our history. The central figure is a priest and his journey through this show is too complex to outline here. But he too, travels through faith and doubt and hope. 

In the middle of the opera there is a song titled “The Word of the Lord.”  

"For the Word, / for the Word was at the birth of the beginning, / it made the heavens and the earth and set them spinning. / And for several million years, / it withstood all our quorums and fine ideas. / It’s been rough, / it’s been rough but it appears to be winning.”

And 

"For the Word, / for the Word created mud and got it going. / It filled our empty brains with blood and set it flowing. / And for thousands of regimes, / it endured all our follies and fancy schemes. / It’s been tough, / it’s been tough and yet it seems to be growing. // Oh you people of power, / oh you people of power, your power is now. / You may plan to go forever but you never do somehow. // So you wait in silent treason until reason is restored, / and we wait for the season of the Word of the Lord. We await the season of the Word of the Lord. / We wait, / we wait for the Word of the Lord.”

This song seems to be a pivot around which the whole show revolves. I’m not a music critic, I may be wrong. But I am a preacher and this seems to be the ground which holds us, even when things get shaky. We don’t have the answers, but we have the hope. We have the faith. We have confidence in the Word, even when we don’t understand it.  

Romans 5:1-5 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. 3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

I am disappointed that I won’t be going to the Festival this year. But I know it is the right thing. And I have hope that the Word still matters. Even during a pandemic. Maybe especially so. I’ll share whatever insights I glean from the almost Festival this year, so watch for that. In the meantime, I am not disappointed by hope, while I wait for the Word of the Lord.

Shalom, 

Derek

Latest Last Chance

Online shopping has been convenient, and necessary during these days of the pandemic. I also enjoy online looking and not buying, just to see what is out there. The problem with all that looking is that you get on the email lists, even from the ones you don’t give out your email! Not only that, but you look at something online once and then your browser ads are full of that same item immediately. How do they do that? No, wait, I don’t think I want to know.

The problem with being on everyone’s email list is that you get flooded with requests, requests? No more like demands, to buy. More and more, the same stuff that you already bought, or the companion pieces. Like Amazon’s helpful little “purchasers of this usually also got that!” line. Oh, really, you think? Then maybe I ought to have that too. Maybe. But probably not. Or as my wife would say, definitely not. 

The one that really has been getting under my skin lately though are the ones that declare “Last Chance!” Last chance to save a lot of money, for example, but only by spending a lot more money. Last chance to get this unique item that we only have a few million of. Last chance before the price goes up. Last chance before everyone has one and we’re on to the next thing that you’ll get a last chance to purchase. I’ve got a couple of them that send me a last chance on an almost daily basis. It’s wearing me out.

You can’t help when you’re inundated with last chances to hear something ultimate in that. Something apocalyptic even. Last chance. It’s all over. It’s the end. Our minds go there, don’t they? Too often really. We are obsessed, as a culture, with the end. How many post-apocalyptic movies have we seen in our lifetime? How many dystopian novels have we read? Is this really our last chance? Is this the end of all that we know? 

You’ve seen, no doubt, the conspiracy theories running rampant in some branches of the Christian community. Conspiracy and end times pronouncements are getting a lot of play, going viral in this time of fears of the virus. I’ve never really understood the fascination. Or the fear-mongering. There are some interesting psychological analyses that I’ve read recently as to why people get caught up in conspiracy theories and end time prognostications. You can look it up yourselves, if you’re really interested. But the one bit of information that I gleaned from that research is that argument won’t fix it. You can’t reason someone out of a conspiracy theory. You can’t give them enough information that will change their minds. So, don’t bother.

So, what do we do? How do we refute them, or avoid them, or ignore them? You can’t really. I wish you could. Just like opting out of email lists doesn’t guarantee you won’t get email telling you this is your last chance anymore. Believe me, I’ve tried. But then why? Why can’t we avoid them, the end time pronouncements? Because Jesus did it.

Matthew 24:32-44 "From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. 33 So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates. 34 Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. 35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. 36 "But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37 For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, 39 and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. 41 Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. 42 Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

Sometimes I wonder why Jesus said things like this. Surely He knew that His followers would just go nutzo with this kind of thing. Surely He knew that it would cause dissension and division and distraction by parts of the church to come. Surely. Yet, He did it, and kept doing it. This is only one of the times when Jesus spoke like this. What exactly did He want us to do with this information? Be afraid? Spend our lives looking over our shoulder? Certainly not share it with an air of superiority or condemnation to the world around us? Yet, that’s what many people do. Are doing. Blaming. Pointing fingers. Getting angry.

I think there are mainly two reasons why this kind of thing was shared by our Lord. And both of them are about keeping us humble. The first reason is to remind us that we don’t know everything. Or to put it another way, we aren’t in control. It has always astounded me that here we have Jesus, the founder of our faith, the incarnate God walking among us, saying “I don’t know when this is going to happen” and there have been people and are people saying “I know!” It just seems to me that saying you know more than Jesus is the highest form of arrogance. To claim that you’ve been given knowledge that Jesus didn’t even get is a heresy that we should avoid. Jesus says, I don’t know and implies that you don’t need to know. So, quit trying to figure it out.

But then, He does say keep watch. Isn’t that a call to figure it out? No, I don’t think so. I think it is a call to pay attention. Pay attention to the world around you and the work before you. Pay attention to whether what you are doing is Kingdom work or selfish work. Pay attention to the opportunities you have to let God’s grace flow through you, so that a little bit of the Kin-dom (I love that phrase that we’re using. Kingdom values imply the inter-relationship of all creation, we are longing for a Kin-dom) can shine through you.

I always loved the story, whether it really happened or not, of a conversation St. Francis of Assisi had one day as he was hoeing his beans. A pilgrim came upon the saint in the garden and called out to him. “Francis,” he said, “what would you do if you realized this was your last day on earth?” Francis paused a moment and wiped his brow. Then he picked up his hoe and went back to work. “I would continue hoeing this row of beans,” he said over his shoulder.

I don’t think this is really our last chance. Last chance as a nation, as a stable economy, as the people we are becoming. But even if it is, maybe we ought to just keep hoeing our beans. What Jesus was asking us to do, I think, was to stop worrying about the end, it’s not in our hands anyway, and we can trust the One in whose hands it resides. But to keep hoeing our beans trusting that what we do matters. And if it doesn’t matter, don’t do it. Do what we can, as we can and walk with God in all that we do. 

Just keep hoeing your beans. To the glory of God.

Shalom, 

Derek