This week I am headed to New Orleans to help with the rehabilitation of another home in the 9th Ward. This is my second year of going down to work on a house. The report I heard recently was that 80 percent of the people were still not back in their homes. This is five years since Katrina hit that community. I am not sure that the 80 percent figure is true for all of New Orleans. But I do know that five years after the storm there is still an amazing amount of work that needs to be done. The Federal Aid has been slow finding its way to help. I know of another group of people who go every year to help along the Mississippi coast with rebuilding. Recovery takes a long time and it is hard to stay with it to the end.
The work of restoring New Orleans and the time it takes makes the thought of rebuilding Haiti seem almost impossible. In many ways the destruction has been so much worse or different. The leadership of the country rivals the leadership in New Orleans for incompetence. The number of people affected seems so much greater and the physical damage to people has been much more severe. If we are still five years and working on New Orleans, it is hard to imagine how many years work will be needed to done to rebuild Haiti. One has to wonder if the international community has the will and the commitment to stay with the effort until the work is done.
It seems to me that there is a ambiguous attitude towards that kind of total commitment within our culture. We do have slogans like "Quitters never win, and winners never quit." but I also know there is the attitude, "If at first you don't succeed, quit before you make a fool of yourself." A preschool teacher told me that that was the biggest change she had seen in children in her thirty years. When she began teaching, if she gave a child a puzzle to work, they worked at it until they got it done. When she retired thirty years later, the child would try a couple of solutions and then quit and wait for the teacher to show her.
Certainly our divorce rate has something to suggest about our attitude towards commitment and working all things to the end.
Politicians present interesting studies as so few things get accomplished or finished that it is hard to tell whether any of them see an issue through to the end. I think that was the last temptation given to Jesus: to give up the fight, to say that he had made a good effort, and it had not worked and he could just go into retirement and live with Mary and raise a family. But as he said "It is finished" he had stayed with it to the end.
The rebuilding of New Orleans is not finished, but it has dropped off the major radar of work that needs to be done. The rebuilding of Haiti is now being talked about and people are commenting about how long that work will have to take and whether or not we have the commitment to see it through. There is within the Christian story a thread that speaks of a love that has that kind of tenacity.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
Lessons Retold
Recently I had an opportunity to return to a previous congregation I had served as Pastor for a Supply preaching assignment. They have an interim and he was on vacation and he invited me to come back to preach. One of the things I had hoped to do in retirement was to retrace some steps in my life and how things were in the places I have been. So this was a perfect opportunity.
It turned out to be a real reminder of what are the important things in ministry. Nothing that was said or done was new, but in the brief span of one day of worship with that congregation, I got a very clear reminder of what is at the very heart of a good pastoral relationship. I am not sure how it fits in with theology of ministry, but I heard the demand from two very distinct directions. The members of a congregation what to know that God is concerned about them and they want to know that the minister is attuned to their lives.
At the lunch table after worship there was much talk about the church and its ministers. They have had several since I left. The consistent complaint was that the minister did not show any interest or concern for the members. In previous ages it was about the minister visiting personally at the homes, but they were not that focused, A phone, an email, a post card, a thank you note, a brief conversation at the Post Office, "Hi, how is the family? Has Mary's cancer responded to the treatment?" would have been enough. Visits are still expected at critical times, but the complaint was that the ministers were not aware or attuned to when those critical times happened.
I remember once in my training that a minister observed that he found his brief time at the door after worship to be a great sounding opportunity. As the congregation came to shake hands his subconscious would remind him of who was absent. As they came by he could ask a brief question to see if the husband had a job yet, or the baby had gotten a tooth, or something. As they came buy, he could look at them and see if they looked well. At the back door was a great place to get signals that would need to be followed up. Monday he could call on the phone or in person on all those whose absence worried him. A new cane or walker would be another sign for some attention. When a member asked the minister how was another member she expected him to have more current information than she did.
But it was not only in the conversation. At the contemporary worship service that evening which consisted of six songs done by a praise band with the congregation of about 20 singing when they knew the songs and a sermon all of the praise music was focused on Jesus and his love for "me". The focus of the theology of the songs is what a Great God who loves me, who saved me, who suffered for me. Jesus and I have a personal relationship. The songs were not written by local singers so this emphasis must have a larger following. The hunger is for Jesus to know and love "me." "For God so loved the world" may be true, but that is not the important piece. "The Whole world groans and waits the revelation" is okay, but Jesus saves "me."
Both events indicated that the people in a congregation are hungry to know that Jesus and his servant the minister love "me", pay attention to "me", care what happens to "me".
Certainly one can respond that this is a self-centered selfishness that ought not to be encouraged, but I am only reporting what was said and why this congregation has fallen to less than 300 members from a high of about 700. People have left because they did not believe that the pastors cared about them. They were not told that Jesus loves them. Obviously, a social justice theology talks about systems and agencies and groups and programs. Such a gospel maybe true but it is not directed at scratching the itch that these two events suggest is primary to a pastoral relationship with the congregation. The mega churches claim to be high touch and high demand certainly has half of it right as people want to be "high touched."
It turned out to be a real reminder of what are the important things in ministry. Nothing that was said or done was new, but in the brief span of one day of worship with that congregation, I got a very clear reminder of what is at the very heart of a good pastoral relationship. I am not sure how it fits in with theology of ministry, but I heard the demand from two very distinct directions. The members of a congregation what to know that God is concerned about them and they want to know that the minister is attuned to their lives.
At the lunch table after worship there was much talk about the church and its ministers. They have had several since I left. The consistent complaint was that the minister did not show any interest or concern for the members. In previous ages it was about the minister visiting personally at the homes, but they were not that focused, A phone, an email, a post card, a thank you note, a brief conversation at the Post Office, "Hi, how is the family? Has Mary's cancer responded to the treatment?" would have been enough. Visits are still expected at critical times, but the complaint was that the ministers were not aware or attuned to when those critical times happened.
I remember once in my training that a minister observed that he found his brief time at the door after worship to be a great sounding opportunity. As the congregation came to shake hands his subconscious would remind him of who was absent. As they came by he could ask a brief question to see if the husband had a job yet, or the baby had gotten a tooth, or something. As they came buy, he could look at them and see if they looked well. At the back door was a great place to get signals that would need to be followed up. Monday he could call on the phone or in person on all those whose absence worried him. A new cane or walker would be another sign for some attention. When a member asked the minister how was another member she expected him to have more current information than she did.
But it was not only in the conversation. At the contemporary worship service that evening which consisted of six songs done by a praise band with the congregation of about 20 singing when they knew the songs and a sermon all of the praise music was focused on Jesus and his love for "me". The focus of the theology of the songs is what a Great God who loves me, who saved me, who suffered for me. Jesus and I have a personal relationship. The songs were not written by local singers so this emphasis must have a larger following. The hunger is for Jesus to know and love "me." "For God so loved the world" may be true, but that is not the important piece. "The Whole world groans and waits the revelation" is okay, but Jesus saves "me."
Both events indicated that the people in a congregation are hungry to know that Jesus and his servant the minister love "me", pay attention to "me", care what happens to "me".
Certainly one can respond that this is a self-centered selfishness that ought not to be encouraged, but I am only reporting what was said and why this congregation has fallen to less than 300 members from a high of about 700. People have left because they did not believe that the pastors cared about them. They were not told that Jesus loves them. Obviously, a social justice theology talks about systems and agencies and groups and programs. Such a gospel maybe true but it is not directed at scratching the itch that these two events suggest is primary to a pastoral relationship with the congregation. The mega churches claim to be high touch and high demand certainly has half of it right as people want to be "high touched."
Monday, January 18, 2010
When do you decide?
I was always amused by those jokes that had a series of statements: The town had only building in it. Boo. It was a bar. Yeah. It was only one foot wide. Boo. It was thirty yards long. Yeah. and on and on it went. The joke was never finished and you could never know whether it was a tragedy or a comedy. Whether it ended on a "yeah" or a "boo."
The same thought was expressed in a song Frank Sinatra sang. I think the chorus went something like "There isn't much that I have learned in all these many years. Except that life keeps turning in cycles, first there's laughter, then there's tears." Our lives and history keep alternating between the good and the bad. Robert Browning question was whether the chess board is white with black square or black with white squares.
I remember the comment that Germany became the most modern manufacturing country in the world after World War II because it had to rebuild all of their bombed out factories. The Allied destroy all of their manufacturing facilities and then after the war helped them to rebuild. Of course, what was rebuilt was built state of the art new.
Certainly no one would try to say that the tears aren't real or that chaos and destruction is good. Evil and suffering are real, but the cycles just make it so much harder to give a final verdict to life or history. The earthquake in Haiti is horrendous pain and suffering. No possibility of a next turn of the wheel to something good makes the situation positive. But at the same time such a horrible event does not make all of life and history negative either.
The cycles are not connected to any kind of moral or ethical standard. That debate is as old as human thought and no where has any link been found. Good people have bad things happen and bad people have good things happen. Pat Robertson absurd comments about Haiti have no substance in history. Perhaps Robertson ought to read the New Testament. The best person in History, Jesus,got the worst punishment humans could give.
If one is to be helped in taking a stance towards life and history from the New Testament, then I would suggest that Jesus' resurrection is the revelation that the last line of the joke is a yeah.
The same thought was expressed in a song Frank Sinatra sang. I think the chorus went something like "There isn't much that I have learned in all these many years. Except that life keeps turning in cycles, first there's laughter, then there's tears." Our lives and history keep alternating between the good and the bad. Robert Browning question was whether the chess board is white with black square or black with white squares.
I remember the comment that Germany became the most modern manufacturing country in the world after World War II because it had to rebuild all of their bombed out factories. The Allied destroy all of their manufacturing facilities and then after the war helped them to rebuild. Of course, what was rebuilt was built state of the art new.
Certainly no one would try to say that the tears aren't real or that chaos and destruction is good. Evil and suffering are real, but the cycles just make it so much harder to give a final verdict to life or history. The earthquake in Haiti is horrendous pain and suffering. No possibility of a next turn of the wheel to something good makes the situation positive. But at the same time such a horrible event does not make all of life and history negative either.
The cycles are not connected to any kind of moral or ethical standard. That debate is as old as human thought and no where has any link been found. Good people have bad things happen and bad people have good things happen. Pat Robertson absurd comments about Haiti have no substance in history. Perhaps Robertson ought to read the New Testament. The best person in History, Jesus,got the worst punishment humans could give.
If one is to be helped in taking a stance towards life and history from the New Testament, then I would suggest that Jesus' resurrection is the revelation that the last line of the joke is a yeah.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Heavenly Hopes
Among the wonderful Christmas gifts I received this year was the latest version of the "gospel from the coast" as Jimmy Buffet refers to his albums. The most recent release was timed well for Christmas sales. Last year his album was a Christmas album but this year's Christmas album was just typical Buffet music. Like most artist who survive a long time, he has a very comfortable format, formula, and this album does the formula very well.
What I enjoy about the songs and music of Jimmy Buffet is that there are some very interesting comments about life and thus about faith and hope. His best known song about Margarittaville, for me, is really a confession of sin. "Some people say there is a woman to blame, but I know ... it is" and he blames other people on the first two verses, then he says it maybe my fault. The last verse ends "but I know it is my own damn fault." Finally he recognizes his own responsibility.
This year's album has a number of suggestions about life and faith. In one song he suggests that if we are going "to fly" we have to learn to trust "the wings that we can't see." We must launch forth in faith in the existence of support that we can not see or validate by looking. In another song he declares that "Life is just a water ballet."
It is in this song,"Beautiful Swimmers" that he expresses a vision of heaven for him. He says if he had enough money he would buy us all, every man, woman and child on earth, a mask and a snorkel, and we would fall swim towards this paradise place. "Life is just a water ballet." Now that may not be street of gold and McMansions in the sky, but it is a dream of perfect. It is not a vision of seventy virgins waiting for you if you die in a religious war.
The Scriptures say that the Kingdom of God is entered through a narrow door, and is hard to enter. The visions of heaven for each of us have a way of suggesting, I think, what that narrow door may be for each of us. It is not necessarily going to be the same narrow door for all of us. I am not sure I want a mask and a snorkel and I certainly am not sure I want to spend my life scuba diving. But Jimmy thinks that that is what we all need and everything would be wonderful if we were all snorkeling. But I do think that we come into the Kingdom of God when we finally find that one thing that matters most to us and are willing to give and to give up all that we have for that one thing. There is something about "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and these things shall be added unto you."
What I enjoy about the songs and music of Jimmy Buffet is that there are some very interesting comments about life and thus about faith and hope. His best known song about Margarittaville, for me, is really a confession of sin. "Some people say there is a woman to blame, but I know ... it is" and he blames other people on the first two verses, then he says it maybe my fault. The last verse ends "but I know it is my own damn fault." Finally he recognizes his own responsibility.
This year's album has a number of suggestions about life and faith. In one song he suggests that if we are going "to fly" we have to learn to trust "the wings that we can't see." We must launch forth in faith in the existence of support that we can not see or validate by looking. In another song he declares that "Life is just a water ballet."
It is in this song,"Beautiful Swimmers" that he expresses a vision of heaven for him. He says if he had enough money he would buy us all, every man, woman and child on earth, a mask and a snorkel, and we would fall swim towards this paradise place. "Life is just a water ballet." Now that may not be street of gold and McMansions in the sky, but it is a dream of perfect. It is not a vision of seventy virgins waiting for you if you die in a religious war.
The Scriptures say that the Kingdom of God is entered through a narrow door, and is hard to enter. The visions of heaven for each of us have a way of suggesting, I think, what that narrow door may be for each of us. It is not necessarily going to be the same narrow door for all of us. I am not sure I want a mask and a snorkel and I certainly am not sure I want to spend my life scuba diving. But Jimmy thinks that that is what we all need and everything would be wonderful if we were all snorkeling. But I do think that we come into the Kingdom of God when we finally find that one thing that matters most to us and are willing to give and to give up all that we have for that one thing. There is something about "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and these things shall be added unto you."
Friday, January 1, 2010
New Year Hope
Dick Clark was still at the Time Square celebration. He has been there for more than 35 years. Every year he wishes us all a Happy New Year. Every year there is the review of the past year and predictions for the coming year. And every year it looks like more of the same thing. What do we really expect to be new in the coming year? Isn't every wish for something new an affirmation of faith? For where is the new to come from except from beyond? The Teacher in the Old Testament said that there was nothing new under the sun. And if the new year has nothing to offer but the same old earth and the same old humanity then we will get the same old stuff.
I remember a discussion that Will Willimon had with InterVarsity students at Duke. He asked them how in the world they could be evangelical conservative Christians and be at Duke. They responded that it was because of what they had learned at Duke that convinced them that if there was any hope for humanity, if there was any hope for something new in life, it would come from outside the limits of our humanity. It would come from "beyond." If there was any hope for the future, for a new year, it would be from the invasion of time by eternity. There would be lots of rearranging of the matter and forces of this earth, but it would not be new. There may be different forms of energy, but it would not make a great deal of difference in human relationships and the competition of cultures.
So it seems to me that every New Year's Resolution is a confession of a need to be changed, and every New Year's wish for a New and different year is an affirmation that something New will come into our reality and the wish that the Holy will be made visible in the temporal.
I remember a discussion that Will Willimon had with InterVarsity students at Duke. He asked them how in the world they could be evangelical conservative Christians and be at Duke. They responded that it was because of what they had learned at Duke that convinced them that if there was any hope for humanity, if there was any hope for something new in life, it would come from outside the limits of our humanity. It would come from "beyond." If there was any hope for the future, for a new year, it would be from the invasion of time by eternity. There would be lots of rearranging of the matter and forces of this earth, but it would not be new. There may be different forms of energy, but it would not make a great deal of difference in human relationships and the competition of cultures.
So it seems to me that every New Year's Resolution is a confession of a need to be changed, and every New Year's wish for a New and different year is an affirmation that something New will come into our reality and the wish that the Holy will be made visible in the temporal.
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