Struggling with faith statements that close off

Recently I was in a discussion with a group in our church and one of our folks turned to another and stated, "I do not believe that dogs have souls." It was a matter of fact kind of statement, it shouldn't have bothered me, but for some reason it just kind of stuck in my craw and wouldn't go away. At first I thought it was because I have 2 dogs and I love them...and even though I don't think they think like a human, I feel them. I'm in relationship with them. I'm not sure they have "souls" like we do, but they certainly have heart! Maybe this is what bugged me, but as I contemplated the statement I began to realize what I don't like about this statement isn't the fact that it's says something against dogs, what I don't like about this statement is that in one simple statement like this all the possibilities are cut off at the knees. This statement cuts out any of the mystery of life. It's a statement that says, "there, I don't have to deal with that anymore...dogs have no soul." It puts dogs in a box that is manageable...as if you are saying, "there I figured that out!"

I believe that this happens many times when we're talking about God. People make a "belief" statement that instead of opening up the possibilities, shuts them down. So many faith statement divide and shut down, instead of unite and open up. It's almost like in our statements of belief we are trying to box God (and our understandings of God) up so that we don't have to deal with it anymore.

Often I find myself doing this with people. Have you ever said, "Hmmm. I just can't figure that person out yet." We almost say it in a sense of frustration. But in reality isn't that the cool part about relationships? Isn't it the mystery in relationships that really keep them alive? Once you "figure it all out" don't we in essence seize to be in relationship?

What do you think? Can we make a statement of faith that opens up more possibilities?

I think there are really two kinds of truths. The first kind seperates, diminishes, and divides---like we're in some kind of debate. The second kind opens, unites, and ignites...like the truth people encountered when they met Jesus of Nazerath.

Easter Prayer after Haiti

Dear God of Sunrise and Hope,
On this day we look outside and expect Easter to come in all of its grandeur, tearing open the divide between the holy and the human. We wake up on Easter morning hoping that poverty has ended...justice has triumphed... Hunger is no more...and peace is here to stay! We come to our world's tombs and want desperately to see the stone rolled away and a 100 voice choir singing "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!"
But sometimes Easter comes instead in the lower left corner of the horizon, a tiny glimmer of hope barely noticeable to the untrained eye. A family from Haiti bakes their first loaf of bread in a solar oven; a friend comforts an infant inflicted with HIV by singing "Jesus Loves Me"; a stranger whispers into your tear stained eyes, "Mary!"
And suddenly it comes! Easter! Hope! Joy! New possibilities!
Help us, dear God, to run with Mary this Easter morning as we go and tell our friends the good news. Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen! Indeed!

Good Friday Prayer after Haiti trip

Dear God of Dark and Disappointment,
Some weeks, come Friday (when we're really honest about it anyway) our weeks don't end in light and hope, but instead end in despair and disappointment.
Seeds planted on Monday, begin to flower on Wednesday, but end on Friday bruised...stomped on...neglected.
Try as we may; believe as we may; Easter just doesn't come.
The only thing we see is poverty...the smell of it pervades the horizon.
Saturdays we drag ourselves out of bed, find our way to the paper, and begin to check for job openings.
Suddenly driving truck starts to sound pretty good.
We bow our heads to pray...doubting its relevance in today's world.
We look out the kitchen window...no birds sing...no sunrise calls...just dark...despair...clouds of doubt.
And yet....
we pray...somehow...we pray.
Help us, dear God, to know that even on Good Friday you are listening. Amen.

Sound Bit Theology/Politics

Recently I was watching Barach Obama give his speech on Race in the US. It was a stirring speech that brought me to a new awareness about racism in America. I think the best point he made was that we were at a impasse concerning racism and that it was time to move beyond that impasse. But there was one thing that troubled me about the speech...and that was the way the TV channel projected it. I think I was watching it on MSNBC and throughout the broadcast...underneath the speech they would lift up little "sound bites" of the speech. Things about the speech that were controversial especially when taken out of context of the whole speech. As I was listening and watching to this wonderful speech and the way the media was trying to make it controversial by the sound bites underneath. It was so frustrating. And it occured to me that this is exactly what's wrong with our world and with our understanding of Christianity today. We live in a sound bite world that wants everything boiled down to a one sentence sound bite. And if we don't do that..or have to talk about a difficult issue...they will boil it down for us!
We do the same thing with our reading of the Bible. People pick one line that sticks out to them and then broadcast that as if it is "the truth." They don't consider it's context...in the historical sense...or in the literary sense. And therefore we get just that....a misleading often times minipulated sense of what it means to be people of faith.
It's time to quit doing short hand division...and opt for the long hand division. I say no to sound bites and Halleluia to Context!!!!!

Replacing the idea of Sin with the idea of Han

As a pastor I suppose I should love Lent. I mean it is that time of the year where people seem to lean into church and grow in their faith. We encourage them to "give things up" and put together worship services that focus on their sin...even asking them to write them down and burn them at the altar (yes, I've even done that.) I've even nailed nails into the cross on Good Friday and explained to the congregation that these nails represent our own sins...we are the ones who nailed (and continue to nail) Christ to the cross. Heavy stuff! Of course, life is pretty heavy sometimes.
But, I've been rethinking all of this as of late. I've recently been reading a book by Andrew Sung Park called "From Hurt to Healing" a Theology of the Wounded.

In the book Park claims we've got it all wrong. He says that the key to any good doctor, is the diagnosis. If the doctor can get the diagnosis right he or she can probably help a person heal. The same goes for the church, unfortunately, according to Park we get people into the church and immediately we determine their problem to be sin. "Sinner repent!" we shout. "Repent and believe the good news!" "Your sins are forgiven!"

According to Park the real problem for the wounded (and most of are wounded) is not that we eternally marked by our sin, but that we are trapped not in sin, but in what he calls "han" (a korean work that means a hopelessness due to oppression and intense pain that has been inflicted on us by society or by incredible pain. His belief is that it is this "han" that is the real human condition. We are deeply wounded. And asking the deeply wounded to repent of their sin just simply is the wrong medicine.

I find this understanding of the human condition very helpful as a pastor and it's made me really take a deep look at lent and the cross. What can the cross mean for the wounded and oppressed? Is there any hope there for those who have been and are deeply wounded by society?

Something to think about...what do you think?

God of many names--God as Place

Recently I've been thinking a bunch about place. Fred Craddock, a wonderful preacher and writer, tells the story of visiting with Rabbi Silberman at Venderbilt. Rabbi Silberman had commented that he nver used the word "God" when talking about the holy. Troubled a bit by this Fred asked the Rabbi, "What is your favorite expression for the almighty, for God?" The rabbi replied without hesitation, "Of all the names, my favoirte is one of the oldest---"the place.'" This name for God..."place" has really set my mind to wrestling.

First of all I think of all the displaced people in our world. People who have no place. Refugees, "homeless" folk; People struggling to find a place in our capitalistic economic system. In some senses shouldn't a system that displaces so many people be considered a "Godless" system?

And what about a church that refuses to let some people have a full "place" at the table? Isn't a church system that fails to give poeple "place" be considered "godless?"

Isn't the fact that people of European descent displaced thousands of Native Americans in a sense a terrible "godless" act?

Maybe that's why Jesus scattered the tables in the temple and called for the temple to be torn down...it was doing more to displace people than to give people place.

My daughter is graduating from college this year. She's started interview for jobs. Even got an offer to work for Boeing. Pretty exciting! Unfortunately Boeing is located in Seattle, Washington...at 24 hour trip for us! UGH! My daughter has always wanted to live in the Midwest...that's her place. Now she's (we all are) struggling to figure out what she should do.
Place!

On the other hand...I also struggle with this idea of God as "place." The people of Jerusalem, both Jew and Palestinian are fighting over what? "Place!" Isn't, in some senses, this understanding of "place" a terrible idol! Most of the wars we have fought are about land---place!

I have a hard time believing that God is only in one place and not another. That one place on earth is holier than another place.

Can't my daughter find "place" also in Seattle?

And so I struggle...what does it mean to say that God is "the place"....

And isn't part of being a disciple to be "out of place" with the world?

Something to munch on...

Shalom, Brook

Learning to breach again

The other night my dog, Cocoa, wanted out. It was 3 in the morning. I did not want to get up and let her out, but she's getting old and she's been having bladder problems...so I got up and let her out. As I opened our bedroom door, Cocoa nearly sprinted to our back door and I thought, "Man, she must really have to go!" I opened the door and she immediately sprinted out the door toward the corner of our backyard, barking to beat the band. I couldn't believe it! Here I thought she wanted to go to the bathroom and she just wanted to be a dog...bark and snarl and chase and protect. I'm not sure what was out there, but it made me feel good about Cocoa. Lately she'd been just kind of moping around, asleep. For Cocoa this was like a resurrection! Cocoa was alive again. I watched her for about 5 minutes...digging, barking, waggin, slobering...being a true dog and then I decided to go back to bed. 30 minutes later I noticed she was barking quite a bit so I went to the door and there she was right at the door barking at something "out there" but now afraid to go out there. The house was her protection...her security. I let her in...but as I went to bed I laid awake thinking about my life in the church. For me this incident is symbolic of my life with the church. I want so much to run out and be me...preach the radical message of of inclusion and justice and peace...I just want to go out there and be alive again. Cocoa was breaching! Like a whale she was busting up out of the water of "ordinariness" and claiming who she was. There are times in my life that I need to breach! Just go out there and let it all just flow! Unfortunately, the church....the heirarchy....does not encourage breaching...it holds it down...it is uncomfortable with it. So I find myself in the same dilemna as Cocoa...I like the security of the "house".....the salary, the parsonage, the job security, all of that...but I'm not allowed to be all that I am in the church...I have to "domesticate" the message....clip my wings...tuck in my tummy...to fit in...and when I do that...I'm not alive...I'm well...I'm Cocoa laying on a couch.

May God give us the courage and strength and system....TO Breach!

why Christian "revisionist"

Last night one of my close colleagues asked me why I had to call myself a christian "revisionist." By doing that, he was thinking, wasn't I actually giving the word "christian" to the conservatives. He felt like we (meaning liberals or progressives) tend to do that too much. "We need to stay in there and fight for what is truly ours. We let the conservatives take too many of the names and definitions," he said. I think he makes a good point, but indeed, I feel by calling myself a christian "revisionist" I can actually stay a Christian. Let's face it the word "christian" alone has been "ruined" in a sense---I'm not sure there is any hope in totally reclaiming it back. If you say you are a Christian in the 21st century---most people will think you are a card carrying conservative Christian. Let's face that fact. I, for one, have a hard time saying that I am a Christian to someone I don't know mainly because I don't want them to automatically jump to thinking I'm a member of the PTL club.

So by identifying myself as a christian "revisionist" I feel that I can authentically call myself a Christian again, and begin reclaiming some of the freedom of being one. I feel strong in who I am. I feel proud of who I am. I feel "me" in there. That's why it's so important to me that I clarify that I am a christian "revisionist." In essence, instead of giving the word over to the conservatives, I feel I am actually finding a way to claim the word "christian" for my own again. I don't know, it somehow liberates me and empowers me!