There are many good reasons to suspect that the life blood of politics is money. That fact is not new or something unknown by others. And I am certain that what I have suddenly realized has been common knowledge for others for a very long time. What I suspect is that there are certain political issues that do not get solved in Congress because their debate is a great source of money. They are the hot ticket issues that generate great passion and thus great contributions. They are brought up and argued and then they are allowed to fade unsolved because they produce great waves of contributions to politics.
My hunch would be that Immigration Reform is one of these. It is not a complicated nor difficult problem to solve. Even President George W. Bush was able to come up with a good plan. But it is an issue that has great passion in it and thus swells the bank accounts of parties on both sides.
It is an issue that should be easily compromised. There are some very clear givens. There is no way we are going to send all of them home. There is no way politically that a bill will get pass that just grants "amnesty" to all of them. So it would seem to me that the reform would include something about better border regulation; a process by which all who are here who want to become legal come forward and confess that they have violated the law. There will then need to be some kind of punishment. A Fine of some size. The punishment is one of those places where compromise is needed to find a good balance. There would need to be avenues for all who are here illegally to become legal, either citizenship or work papers. Again the steps for citizenship or legal work status can be brokered. Those who have criminal records would be subject to deportation. There are lots of little pieces that would need to be included but that is where good political "horse trading" would be wonderful.
Neglect of this issue continues to make it worse. But solving it would probably deprive the body politics of a great cash cow. But it is certainly true that the measure passed in Arizona to deal with it appears to me to be a great violation of our American rights under the Bill of Rights.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
The Preacher's Urban Legend
I heard it again this week at a lunch with other ministers. One of them was reporting that the church secretary said that all the former minister did was close his office door and pull out an old sermon and say this will preach. Other person said well now all you have to do is download it from the Internet.
Now I will confess that there were a few special services like Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday when I told a story of grace and over the years I was a pastor I told the same story several times at those special services. One year I read an article that Fred Craddock wrote that said congregations like to hear sermons repeated, they can kind of preach along as people sing along with songs they know. "Here comes the good part." So for a six week period during one summer I asked the congregation to tell me some sermons they knew and I would "re-preach" them during those weeks. Most members said they didn't remember any, but a few gave me some titles and we got through the summer.
Professor Tom Long, a widely known preacher in Presbyterian Church who does about 3 guest visits to churches each month, reported to me that he usually took three sermons he had used often and one he was working on to each place where he was doing a guest visitation. So indeed some sermons get preached again. A friend of mine early in my ministry put it this way:"Every sermon that deserves to be preached once, is worthy to be preached again and often. The problem is most sermons do not deserve to be preached the first time. We just preach them because we have to have something to say on Sunday.
But most of the local pastors and preachers I know, and I am in this group, work very hard every week to have something ready for Sunday morning. It is never as good as they hoped. They, and I, never preach it as well as they would want to, and it if it was prepared for this week's people, it is never appropriate for next week's or next year's people without extensive work. It is one of the stereotypes and myths that preachers just have to live with.
Now I will confess that there were a few special services like Ash Wednesday and Maundy Thursday when I told a story of grace and over the years I was a pastor I told the same story several times at those special services. One year I read an article that Fred Craddock wrote that said congregations like to hear sermons repeated, they can kind of preach along as people sing along with songs they know. "Here comes the good part." So for a six week period during one summer I asked the congregation to tell me some sermons they knew and I would "re-preach" them during those weeks. Most members said they didn't remember any, but a few gave me some titles and we got through the summer.
Professor Tom Long, a widely known preacher in Presbyterian Church who does about 3 guest visits to churches each month, reported to me that he usually took three sermons he had used often and one he was working on to each place where he was doing a guest visitation. So indeed some sermons get preached again. A friend of mine early in my ministry put it this way:"Every sermon that deserves to be preached once, is worthy to be preached again and often. The problem is most sermons do not deserve to be preached the first time. We just preach them because we have to have something to say on Sunday.
But most of the local pastors and preachers I know, and I am in this group, work very hard every week to have something ready for Sunday morning. It is never as good as they hoped. They, and I, never preach it as well as they would want to, and it if it was prepared for this week's people, it is never appropriate for next week's or next year's people without extensive work. It is one of the stereotypes and myths that preachers just have to live with.
National Day of Prayer
Recently a Federal Judge has declared the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional. Not being a lawyer or a constitutional scholar I have to leave some of the legal and technical matters to others. But I do have some questions and ramblings on this.
First, I know that we have in lots of communities, we have one in this community, preachers who turns the National Day of Prayer into a Christian evangelical revival. There are three or four scheduled events in different parts of our town, and every one is a full blown testimony to Jesus. So I can understand why it might be possible for a Federal Judge to see the National Day of Prayer as an effort to establish the Christian religion over others. That would be contrary to the law that Congress will make no law to establish one religion over another.
However, the establishing a National Day of Prayer does not necessarily have to establish one religion over another. From what I have read most other religions have a practice of prayer and meditation. Just like Thanksgiving Day declaration does not say one has to go into a Christian church, the proclamations recently that I have read call for people to go into their place of worship and give thanks. A National Day of Prayer is a day on which all people are invited to pray, like AA, to the higher power however they define or identify it. Certainly in these days of heated rhetoric it would be a good idea for all of us to take a moment to remember that neither side is perfect, that neither side is God and has all the answers, and neither side knows what the future brings because the future is in the hands of the mystery of tomorrow. It is not a bad thing to have a National Day of Prayer on which Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Taoists, and all others lift up to the needs and the concerns of this country to the Holy One. Heaven knows, our country's power and pride need some kind of humbling.
Secondly, on a much more general note, it seems to me that we have a very confused and complicated public relationship with religion in our politics. When 9/11 happened nobody declared all those prayer services and worship events to be unconstitutional. When old Presidents die we don't rule their public funeral services to be unconstitutional. When all the candidates say "God Bless America" after all their speeches, no one I have heard files suit.
The old argument against the Ten Commandments in courtrooms always troubled me as well because they were declared offensive as the establishment of one religion over others. The Ten Commandments are part of the tradition of three, at least, major religions. God is not a term that is solely the property of Christianity. We all need to remember that. A National Day of Prayer is not addressed just to Christians.
First, I know that we have in lots of communities, we have one in this community, preachers who turns the National Day of Prayer into a Christian evangelical revival. There are three or four scheduled events in different parts of our town, and every one is a full blown testimony to Jesus. So I can understand why it might be possible for a Federal Judge to see the National Day of Prayer as an effort to establish the Christian religion over others. That would be contrary to the law that Congress will make no law to establish one religion over another.
However, the establishing a National Day of Prayer does not necessarily have to establish one religion over another. From what I have read most other religions have a practice of prayer and meditation. Just like Thanksgiving Day declaration does not say one has to go into a Christian church, the proclamations recently that I have read call for people to go into their place of worship and give thanks. A National Day of Prayer is a day on which all people are invited to pray, like AA, to the higher power however they define or identify it. Certainly in these days of heated rhetoric it would be a good idea for all of us to take a moment to remember that neither side is perfect, that neither side is God and has all the answers, and neither side knows what the future brings because the future is in the hands of the mystery of tomorrow. It is not a bad thing to have a National Day of Prayer on which Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, Taoists, and all others lift up to the needs and the concerns of this country to the Holy One. Heaven knows, our country's power and pride need some kind of humbling.
Secondly, on a much more general note, it seems to me that we have a very confused and complicated public relationship with religion in our politics. When 9/11 happened nobody declared all those prayer services and worship events to be unconstitutional. When old Presidents die we don't rule their public funeral services to be unconstitutional. When all the candidates say "God Bless America" after all their speeches, no one I have heard files suit.
The old argument against the Ten Commandments in courtrooms always troubled me as well because they were declared offensive as the establishment of one religion over others. The Ten Commandments are part of the tradition of three, at least, major religions. God is not a term that is solely the property of Christianity. We all need to remember that. A National Day of Prayer is not addressed just to Christians.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Losing the Way
Someone once compared the church, and all religious organizations, to a NASCAR race. Christian people, Jews, Muslims and other followers of the faith were in the race. Like St. Paul said, they pressed on to win the race, but the Church was to be like the pit crew. The Temple or the Synagogue was to be the place where disciples would go to be supplied with fuel, with adjustments, with new resources to run the race. The parable went on to suggest that the pit crew began to make little adjustments to make life in the pit crew a little easier. They put in a drink and snack machine. Then they wanted to put a roof over the pit area. The crew later wanted to build sides under the roof to cut down on the noise and the wind blowing. Then someone suggested that they just enclose the whole thing and put in air-conditioning. Once the air-conditioning got put in, the crew members were a lot less eager to go outside and work on the cars. They took their time getting up and going out. It was hot out there. They asked for a television so they could watch the race from inside their pit accommodations. Needless to say they very soon seldom had a winning participant in the race.
I actually saw something of this happen in our community. I think they are now trying to get back on track, but there was an agency that began as a soup kitchen. Their purpose was to provide a hot lunch for anybody who came to their place at noon. They were good at this and they had the support of about 60 churches which provided funds for this soup kitchen. The people who came would ask the servers if they could help with rent and food or other emergencies. The leaders began to look into how they might respond and so they opened a food pantry with can goods and put some money in a program of vouchers for rent, and utilities. That went along for awhile and then there were a few requests for shelter on cold winter nights. The Director suggested to the Board that the upstairs be used by him to allow somebody to spend the night. That idea grew into a whole effort to buy the Little Hotel, to convert an old hospital into a shelter. Both of which did not work out. But the idea of shelter continued and the problem of battered women came up and the Board got off in applying for State and Federal grants for domestic violence protection, and the soup kitchen, the food pantry, and the churches just got forgotten in the mix Now the soup kitchen, the pantry and the vouchers are struggling to survive. The Board has had a lot of debt. The first thing got lost in a lot of other good things. The best became a victim of other goods.
It is so easy to let the central idea, the first idea, the original idea, to get lost or corrupted by a lot of later developments. We begin to take for granted the foundation and start to add a lot of things and the whole thing falls down. I think there is a reminder in the Gospels about seeking first the Kingdom, the most important thing, and the rest will be added. In our personal lives we forget what is central and get caught up with all the little things. In business we try to do too much and forget the purpose of our business. I remember talking with a former buyer for a bankrupt company. "We forgot what we were doing and could not decide whether we were a discount store or a high end story and in the end were neither." It has always been a comfort to me that the Presbyterian tradition has the first question, what is the chief purpose of life-- the answer is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. That is the first thing. To be grateful to the Creator for life and then to enjoy it and share it.
It is not my job to punish or condemn others. We are to enjoy our living and invite others to enjoy theirs as best they can. Certainly there is a dimension which means that when somebody is doing something that prevents the enjoyment of life for somebody, then society needs to act. But the first thing is to give thanks for life, and to enjoy it as best we can. The rest of it may be air-conditioning pit row.
I actually saw something of this happen in our community. I think they are now trying to get back on track, but there was an agency that began as a soup kitchen. Their purpose was to provide a hot lunch for anybody who came to their place at noon. They were good at this and they had the support of about 60 churches which provided funds for this soup kitchen. The people who came would ask the servers if they could help with rent and food or other emergencies. The leaders began to look into how they might respond and so they opened a food pantry with can goods and put some money in a program of vouchers for rent, and utilities. That went along for awhile and then there were a few requests for shelter on cold winter nights. The Director suggested to the Board that the upstairs be used by him to allow somebody to spend the night. That idea grew into a whole effort to buy the Little Hotel, to convert an old hospital into a shelter. Both of which did not work out. But the idea of shelter continued and the problem of battered women came up and the Board got off in applying for State and Federal grants for domestic violence protection, and the soup kitchen, the food pantry, and the churches just got forgotten in the mix Now the soup kitchen, the pantry and the vouchers are struggling to survive. The Board has had a lot of debt. The first thing got lost in a lot of other good things. The best became a victim of other goods.
It is so easy to let the central idea, the first idea, the original idea, to get lost or corrupted by a lot of later developments. We begin to take for granted the foundation and start to add a lot of things and the whole thing falls down. I think there is a reminder in the Gospels about seeking first the Kingdom, the most important thing, and the rest will be added. In our personal lives we forget what is central and get caught up with all the little things. In business we try to do too much and forget the purpose of our business. I remember talking with a former buyer for a bankrupt company. "We forgot what we were doing and could not decide whether we were a discount store or a high end story and in the end were neither." It has always been a comfort to me that the Presbyterian tradition has the first question, what is the chief purpose of life-- the answer is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. That is the first thing. To be grateful to the Creator for life and then to enjoy it and share it.
It is not my job to punish or condemn others. We are to enjoy our living and invite others to enjoy theirs as best they can. Certainly there is a dimension which means that when somebody is doing something that prevents the enjoyment of life for somebody, then society needs to act. But the first thing is to give thanks for life, and to enjoy it as best we can. The rest of it may be air-conditioning pit row.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Not that Easy
A 26 year old graduate student wrote to one of those advice columnist and asked for some reason to believe. He asked for some reason for hope. He said his studies in History and Economic gave him nothing but despair. He said there is overpopulation, environmental destruction, increasing violence in religious wars, the gap between rich and poor is ever growing, unemployment, horrible tribal warfare, and pending natural disasters. What is there that offers any reason to be hopeful?
That article in the newspaper was just a public display of what I got in a personal response to an email I sent out to friends at Easter. I said something about the fact that I hoped the annual repetition of the Easter greeting, He is Risen" has not robbed it of the audacity and incredible claim that it makes and that this Easter would find them with a surprise of joy that would help them to hold on to it. One of my older friends, one whom I have admired and respected for a great number of years, wrote back and said that because of some very severe and painful deaths of a few friends, because of his own unstoppable prostate cancer, and other things, he no longer believe in a beneficent God. After a life time of preaching and bearing witness to faith, he has now found he can no longer claim it.
When it comes right down to it, and one wants to take it seriously, this business of faith in the reality of another power, the existence of another reality that impacts and shapes and is involved with this reality is not an easy decision. Evil is a problem for a good God, but goodness is a problem for agnostics. Ethical behavior for human beings is a problem for all of us. Why does the good matter? Someone once said that the amazing coincidences of the creation of the universe by chance is about the same as the publication of the encyclopedia by an explosion in a printing shop. So there is the problem of explain the amazing creation without a supreme being who has intelligence and purpose. But the argument is not absolute.
This business of faith in a good God is not as simply or as easy as some many practitioners of religious groups seems to want to believe. One theologian once suggested that religious groups get young people to commit at age 12 or so because they can get them to make promises at that age that they do not fully understand and then when the young person does start to question, the religious group can apply pressure by saying "But you swore that you did..." The evidence and the rational arguments for or against faith are pretty equal. The evidence is inconclusive from the logical point of view. The decision in either direction is a leap of faith. It is a leap of faith to believe in a good God. It is an equal leap of faith to believe that there is no God. The decision to not believe in a supreme being also is a decision to put something else in that place. Who has ultimate authority? The State? My race? My own mind? But we ought to never suggest to any one that those leaps are easy to make. It is a gamble we have to make with life. We are all lottery players in this game.
That article in the newspaper was just a public display of what I got in a personal response to an email I sent out to friends at Easter. I said something about the fact that I hoped the annual repetition of the Easter greeting, He is Risen" has not robbed it of the audacity and incredible claim that it makes and that this Easter would find them with a surprise of joy that would help them to hold on to it. One of my older friends, one whom I have admired and respected for a great number of years, wrote back and said that because of some very severe and painful deaths of a few friends, because of his own unstoppable prostate cancer, and other things, he no longer believe in a beneficent God. After a life time of preaching and bearing witness to faith, he has now found he can no longer claim it.
When it comes right down to it, and one wants to take it seriously, this business of faith in the reality of another power, the existence of another reality that impacts and shapes and is involved with this reality is not an easy decision. Evil is a problem for a good God, but goodness is a problem for agnostics. Ethical behavior for human beings is a problem for all of us. Why does the good matter? Someone once said that the amazing coincidences of the creation of the universe by chance is about the same as the publication of the encyclopedia by an explosion in a printing shop. So there is the problem of explain the amazing creation without a supreme being who has intelligence and purpose. But the argument is not absolute.
This business of faith in a good God is not as simply or as easy as some many practitioners of religious groups seems to want to believe. One theologian once suggested that religious groups get young people to commit at age 12 or so because they can get them to make promises at that age that they do not fully understand and then when the young person does start to question, the religious group can apply pressure by saying "But you swore that you did..." The evidence and the rational arguments for or against faith are pretty equal. The evidence is inconclusive from the logical point of view. The decision in either direction is a leap of faith. It is a leap of faith to believe in a good God. It is an equal leap of faith to believe that there is no God. The decision to not believe in a supreme being also is a decision to put something else in that place. Who has ultimate authority? The State? My race? My own mind? But we ought to never suggest to any one that those leaps are easy to make. It is a gamble we have to make with life. We are all lottery players in this game.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Grows in the Dark
There has been a lot of talk about "transparency" in government in the last couple of years. Those running for office seem to think that it is a good thing. Those in government somehow find that it is not that easy to do. But there are some powerful stories around that ought to make those in power think more about making the effort for more honesty, more transparency in their affairs.
Perhaps the biggest scandal which demonstrates one of the great reasons for being open and transparent is the Roman Catholic Church priests' sex scandal. The story shows that evil grows bigger in secret. All one has to do is look at what is happening within the Roman Catholic Church at the moment. Who would not now trade a public scandal in the 60's and 70's for the kind of scandal that is happening now in 2010. It would have been very painful when it happened, but the cover up and the denial that has lasted for years is going to make this scandal even more painful and costly in the pocketbook.
The Roman Catholic Church's scandal is strong evidence that evil gets worse, grows bigger, and smells a lot worse if it is kept in the dark. The more obvious and easier lesson is that good openness in public affairs help to prevent abuses and mistakes. Open bidding for contracts helps prevent sweetheart deals like those that were made in Iraq. Open public meetings help prevent decisions that are based on misinformation. Transparency helps to prevent problems from getting started.
Openness and transparency help to prevent evil and mistakes from growing larger and more difficult to handle. Of course, when you are the one on the committee or when it has been your error that is about to be made public, it is pretty hard to see the good in making it public. But I do remember one of those sayings, "When you make a mistake, acknowledge it quickly and openly, crow tastes better warm."
Perhaps the biggest scandal which demonstrates one of the great reasons for being open and transparent is the Roman Catholic Church priests' sex scandal. The story shows that evil grows bigger in secret. All one has to do is look at what is happening within the Roman Catholic Church at the moment. Who would not now trade a public scandal in the 60's and 70's for the kind of scandal that is happening now in 2010. It would have been very painful when it happened, but the cover up and the denial that has lasted for years is going to make this scandal even more painful and costly in the pocketbook.
The Roman Catholic Church's scandal is strong evidence that evil gets worse, grows bigger, and smells a lot worse if it is kept in the dark. The more obvious and easier lesson is that good openness in public affairs help to prevent abuses and mistakes. Open bidding for contracts helps prevent sweetheart deals like those that were made in Iraq. Open public meetings help prevent decisions that are based on misinformation. Transparency helps to prevent problems from getting started.
Openness and transparency help to prevent evil and mistakes from growing larger and more difficult to handle. Of course, when you are the one on the committee or when it has been your error that is about to be made public, it is pretty hard to see the good in making it public. But I do remember one of those sayings, "When you make a mistake, acknowledge it quickly and openly, crow tastes better warm."
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