What is left to protest?

October 31 marks the 493^rd anniversary of Martin Luther's disputation of the practice of selling indulgences and the symbolic (though hardly actual) beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Throughout the Lutheran and Reformed worlds, many churches will make at least some tacit acknowledgement of this day. In an era of increasing ecumenical dialogue and cooperation, why would we want to emphasize an era that tore the church apart? The Protestant churches are firmly independent of Rome, so what do we have left to protest?

The Protestant churches and denominations are like the rings of suburbs surrounding an urban center. While families may have started in the city, many wind up "moving out to the burbs." And over time, those suburbs begin to forget about the urban center that connects them all. They become discreet self-sufficient communities with their own city councils, fire departments, schools and even shopping malls. After a while, we forget that we were ever in the city to begin with. One of the lessons of the last two decades in urban planning is that the health of the suburbs and the health of the city are connected in many ways. The same is true for the church. However far we may seek to move from our historical center, we are still connected in Christ one with the other.

The metaphor is not perfect, but you get the point. We Protestants moved out to the ecclesiastical burbs nearly 5 centuries ago and now few of us ever go back to the city at all. We stand at a distance and proclaim what is wrong but you will never catch us moving back.

To be sure, there are still many doctrines and policies of the Roman Catholic faith with which I take issue. I agree with Luther and Calvin and other Protestant thinkers that the Catholic Church fundamentally misunderstands the grace of God. I disagree with their stance on the role of women in the church, the nature of the priesthood and the role of bishops. There are many things that I believe still need protest. However, I think that we contemporary Protest-ants can take a lesson from our Reformation era forebears. Martin Luther never intended to separate from the Roman Catholic Church. He intended to protest its practices not abandon it all together.

One lesson for us this Reformation Sunday is that while there is much to still protest about the historic practices of the church, we make our protest not from the outside looking in but from within the larger body of Christ. Our protests are not (or at least should not be) to change a church outside the body of Christ but to reform part of our shared community as the body of Christ.

After all, it is
Reformation Sunday and not Protestant
Sunday.

It Shouldn’t Have to Get Better

Tyler Clementi 18

Billy Lucas 15

Asher Brown 13

Seth Walsh 13

Theirs are the names that made the news but they are not the only ones. Each year hundreds of youth and young adults take their own lives. In response to a recent rash of suicides among youth who identified as GLBTQ or were perceived to be by their peers, writer Dan Savage filmed a short video message called "It Gets Better." The "It Gets Better" phenomenon has spread across the nation to include politicians, celebrities, clergy, parents, teachers and others from nearly every walk of life telling GLBTQ youth and young adults that they are not alone. The project is a great one, but it raises an important question about the state of our society…why have we created a world where it has to get better?

It would be overly simplistic to draw a straight line between religious intolerance and the tragic deaths of GLBTQ youth and young adults. There is certainly a connection between theologies of intolerance and the culture of despair surrounding far too many youth and young adults; however it is not the only factor. Not even the only religious factor. Mainline Protestant traditions have played a part in creating a world where it has to get better by contributing to the conspiracy of silence on issues of sexuality. Our absence on issues of welcome and justice and our failure to publically and vocally advocate for the full inclusion and embrace of GLBTQ men and women of faith makes us silent accomplices.

Civil rights for GLBTQ men and women around the world is one of the defining issues of our time. It is certainly the defining issue of American culture today. For many youth and young adults, it has quite literally become a matter of life and death. It is not enough to shake our heads and lament the tragedy of their despair. We must speak up. Simply rejecting theologies of intolerance and hate is not sufficient. We must actively proclaim the Gospel of radical inclusion that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If we are to be true to the calling of Christ to care for all God's children, the church cannot be silent any longer. We can no longer contribute to a world where it needs to get better by offering nothing more than indifference. Each and every life- male and female, rich and poor, old and young, GLBT&Q- is a cherished treasure in the eyes and heart of God.

The hope we know in Jesus Christ gives us the strength and courage to not only dream of a world better than the one we share today, but the imagination to bring that world into being for all of God's children.

Yes, it does get better.

But it shouldn't have to.

Be glad of life

Not much more to say than that. 

Be glad that life, even in the most difficult moments, gives you the opportunity to love and hope and dream and be. 

I am not very good at it most of the time, but today I am glad of life and fully satisfied with what it has to offer.  And my day is better for it.

More than yellow stripes and dead armadillos.

Texas politician Jim Hightower wrote a book a few years ago titled “There’s Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos.”   There are two opposing camps on every issue and never the twain shall meet.  Or so the argument goes. I would add one more thing…me.  More often than not I find myself in the middle of the road politically and theologically. 

According to the mainstream press (and some of the religious press) we are a society that is sharply divided between left and right with little or no room for moderation.  The church is often characterized the same way along liberal/evangelical lines.  Voices on the extremes dominate our public and theological debate to a degree that any possibility of moderation is squashed.  Moderate voices in politics and theology are viewed with suspicion and even hostility.  Once, when being interviewed by a Committee on Ministry in a presbytery I was hoping to join, a member of the COM actually accused me of being “untrustworthy” because I would not take an absolute stand on a particular divisive issue.  For whatever reason, “I’m not sure” has become an unacceptable answer.  Our churches and communities are fast allowing minority voices on the fringe to take over the debate.

This summer I had the opportunity to attend the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in Minneapolis.  The city was gracious, our hosts were wonderful and the leadership of the GA did an admirable job.  Nonetheless, I came away from GA feeling a deep sense of trouble.  Everywhere you look at General Assembly there is another affinity group pressing one cause or another.  I went to GA to work with one of those groups, however half way through I resigned my post as a volunteer.  I could not stomach it anymore.  I still support the goals of the group.  However, I was left feeling troubled by the persistent all or nothing view on theology.  It is a mentality that you are either with us or against us on every issue and for the right reasons.  Arriving at the same theological conclusion for different reasons is eyed with suspicion and even a measure of disdain.  Theological disagreement becomes absolute with a winner and a loser and little room for compromise.  Theological discernment is reduced to political strategy.  This tendency is as true on the left as it is on the right.  The dominance of such thinking leaves little room for moderation.  As a moderate at GA, I found myself feeling like a new kid in the cafeteria at school without anyone to sit with at lunch!

In 2006 the Baylor Religion Survey found that 17.6% of respondents consider themselves theologically conservative while 13.8% consider themselves theologically liberal.  So what happens to the other 68.6% of us who claim neither label?  We are right there with the yellow stripes and the dead armadillos in the middle of the road.

Carry-on Bags and the Kingdom of God

This morning I flew the short distance from Memphis to Atlanta. I should say here that I truly hate to fly. Not a little but like a white hot supernova of burning hatred. It was 6am and, let’s face it, none of us is at our best at 6am in an airport. We were 160 or so strangers headed in as many directions. Some people travelled in couples or groups of three or four but most of us were that very American creature, the solo traveler.

As we filed onto the plane, looked for our seats and stored our carry-on bags, I could swear there were glimpses of the Kingdom working to peek through. Nothing so staggering that it would make the news or even be worth much notice. But taken together those little acts of kindness- offering to let a couple who were sitting apart sit together or giving up a seat toward the front to an older gentleman with a cane or helping a young woman reach her bag in the overhead bin- became greater in sum than they were in their distinct parts.

Alone, those discrete little gestures do not amount to much beyond the moment, but together they work to challenge our usual way of living together. The prevailing social contract that says “that is MY seat” or “get your own damn bag” is pushed aside and there is a sense that we are all in it together. So often we are seduced by the complexity of our world. We are seduced into thinking that it is only with grand gestures and momentous shifts in society that change can come. Those airplane moments remind us that within each seemingly meaningless gesture of kindness is the potential to change the way we live together even just a little bit. They are mustard seeds, and we know what Jesus had to say about those.

I have a suspicion that the Kingdom is going to be something like those airplane experiences. But with more leg room.

Gentle Jesus: Hostile World

In an iconic scene in the American film classic "Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby," the eponymous main character is sitting at the dinner table with his family and best friend and offering a blessing before the meal.  He (played by Will Ferrell) begins his prayer to "dear little baby Jesus."  His wife interrupts him and demands that he not keep praying to a little baby because it is off-putting.  He counters by declaring that he "likes the Christmas Jesus best!"

As a preacher, I like the Christmas Jesus best too.  You don't get into nearly as much trouble as a preacher when you work with texts about mangers and shepherds as when you deal with laborers who come late in the day or being nice to unclean people.  Grown up Jesus is a trouble maker.  Preaching would be so much easier (if a little boring) if we could spend 52 Sundays each year in the romanticized gentility of the baby Jesus.  At least you would think it would be easier.

The trouble is that even as a baby, Jesus was a trouble maker.  His very birth was like poking the establishment with a sharp stick.  And he kept going from there.  The gentle Jesus is tempting, but not terribly faithful as a universal image of the one who turned the world upside down 2000 years ago and continues to today.

Jesus- baby, rebelling teenager, preaching young adult and resurrected Messiah- brings a troubling word into a hostile world.  It is troubling to those voices who would seek to divide, demean and neglect our neighbors. It is a troubling voice for those who sit in a posture of self satisfaction knowing that their worldview is the only right and righteous one.  And it is troubling to those of us who are in both of those camps.  In our brokenness, we create a hostile world for the Word of God.  Neighbor love is pretty far from our collective minds.  Especially in these troubled times.  However hostile the world becomes, Jesus comes right back with his eternal command to love God and love neighbor.  Even at his most adamant, Jesus never stopped loving God's children- all of them.  Even at our most anxious, we must not either.

The true gentleness of Jesus is found not in a romantic image of a cute little baby but in the willingness of God incarnate to rebuke and admonish a hostile world while never ceasing in his love for it. The antidote to the hostility that surrounds us is not retreat into a simple gentle image of Jesus but a re-commitment to the gentleness of Jesus' daring and demanding love.

Ground Zero Sacred? Really?

I did not catch the name of the person being interviewed on the radio today, but what he said intrigued me. In reference to the Park51 center in lower Manhattan, he said, “Why can’t they [presumably Muslims] build it somewhere else? Why does it have to be built in a place that is sacred to the rest of us?” Leaving aside the problem of lumping all of the world’s Muslim population into a one size fits all category of “they” (or the rest of us into “we”); I wonder what we do with the last five words of that question? He called the parcel of land called Ground Zero “sacred.”

Is it? Is it really sacred?

Oxford defines sacred as “concerned with religion or religious purpose; made or declared or believed to be holy.” I am not certain that Ground Zero can be called sacred, at least not in the way the word is being bandied about in the argument over Park51.

The logic behind the argument as presented is that this ground is a place where thousands of people died at the hands of madmen. Their lives were taken in an act of gross terror. Because of the massive scale of destruction the physical remains of some victims were never recovered. It is, in essence, a burial ground and the memories of the dead deserve to be respected. I agree. I am not sure that makes the site sacred. (It is interesting that there is no outcry about a new multi building complex devoted to commerce being built on the site. Would these opponents of Park51 allow a bank branch to be built on a cemetery?)

The sacred points us toward God. Sacred things and places point beyond themselves to the truth of God. Is that what Ground Zero does? Does it point beyond itself to God; to the holy?

The argument against building the Park51 center two blocks from this “sacred” ground is that the center is built by and for the Muslim community and it was Muslims who led the attacks on 9/11. Therefore, the center should not be built. By that logic, the reality the ground at Ground Zero points to is one of exclusion, unwillingness to forgive, prejudice and division. In what way is that sacred?

To point to Ground Zero and say this is the holy place is to point to the cross and say this is the end. As Christians we point to the cross not because it was a symbol of death but because it is a symbol of death defeated. The cross stands empty because the tomb stands empty. Ground Zero is not a sacred place if it points only to death and encourages a sense of revenge and animosity. If that is all the ground is good for, cover it up and let it be forgotten.

The terrorists who attacked that day did so because in their small minded way they thought our society was too small to include Islam and our ethic as a people to narrow to embrace difference. If Ground Zero affirms those ideas, it is not sacred it is sad. If it points to a reality that defies those ideas and gives the world reason to see a generosity of spirit rather than a spirit of exclusion, maybe it is a little bit sacred.

Time and our actions will tell.

The "Ground Zero Mosque" and Imaginative Christian Love

As a Christian who fully supports the building of the Park51 (aka Ground Zero Mosque), I am deeply distressed by the voices of some within the Christian community. I do not take it upon myself to apologize for them. I can speak only for myself.  I confess that like most Christians, I stray from the path of Jesus Christ more often than I would like to admit. I too see through the filtered lenses of my limited life experience and worldview.

What amazes me is that there are those within the Christian community who consistently conflate their own will with God’s and take it upon themselves to determine which of God’s children is deserving of their neighborly love. I am unconvinced that this is the result of meanness. It can certainly sound mean and even hateful at times, but I am unconvinced that these voices are the voices of bad people. I believe that they are the voices of unimaginative theology.

The apostle Paul reminds us that we all “see through the glass dimly.” None of us has a monopoly on wisdom or the mind of God. The God we worship and in whom we put our faith and hope is far bigger than ourselves. And Christ, the axis around which the church moves and has its being, has called us to a love that extends far beyond the boundaries of our own self-selected communities. Christ’s is a love that begs not mercy for itself but for those who raise it on a cross. Only a theology that can imagine a world beyond the pettiness of the moment can embrace such a thing.

The question before the Church regarding the building of Park51 is not one of freedom of religion or freedom of speech or liberty or even political tolerance. It is a question about our fundamental identity as the community of Jesus Christ. Can we, who follow Christ who forgave from the cross, imagine a world in which the mercy of God exceeds our expectations and imaginations? Can we look beyond our own fears and prejudices to see the many faces of God’s children?

Islam did not attack America on 9/11 and it certainly did not attack Christians alone. The evil perpetrated that day was equal-opportunity in its devastation. What happened on 9/11 was not an act of faith; it was an act of murder; of evil; of crucifixion. Crucifixion demands healing not hating. Nonetheless, some within the Christian community have chosen to react to that day with an ethic of fear and revenge. Protests and Koran burnings sponsored by churches have declared that there is no room in this nation for Islam.

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg said recently, “There is no neighborhood in this city that is off-limits to God’s love and mercy.” His words echo true in my heart and to them I would add that there is no neighbor that is off-limits to Christ’s love and, by extension, our own.

How we as Christians respond in this moment will testify to the world who and whose we are. By responding to the creation of the Park51 community center as an opportunity for healing and unity, we declare to the world that the act of madmen will not and cannot lead us away from the fundamental core of our being as Christians; the reconciling love of Jesus Christ.
This is a moment for Christian love in action. I pray that the sentiment of Mayor Bloomberg’s message to New Yorkers will serve as a reminder to each of us that we are called to love not those we choose but all God’s children.

2010 Blogs

In a moment of tech un-savy, I managed to delete all of my 2010 posts.  Oh, well.  Perhaps it is time for fresh thoughts.