Called by God - Part 2
As part of my seminary education I am required to do two academic years of intern placement in ministry setting. Since I plan to seek ordination and hopefully will enter into local parish ministry I have been looking at several churches as possible options for my placement. One of the questions that is asked by the pastors I am interviewing with is about my call story or why I feel called to ministry and why I want to be a pastor. It is a question that I have spent a lot of time thinking about before coming to seminary and one I still think about as I continue to discover my call.
My call story really begins in 2008 at the UMC General Conference. I was there with the Reconciling Ministries Network to be a witness to the General Conference delegates and the wider UMC about the need for full inclusion of all peoples in the life of the church. Seeing the UMC at there reminded me of why I love this church and why I am proud to call myself a United Methodist. But as the church voted on issues of inclusion, my heart broke. I had personally been hurt by my own denial of membership. When the vote on church membership occurred and went against inclusion it broke my heart to know that there would still be those denied membership to our community of faith. That though we claim to have open doors not all congregations mean it. It was in the broken heart and stream of tears that I heard my call. In that moment God spoke to me and said that I am calling you to be a leader for the next generation aiding my church in becoming the church I desire it to be. God used that moment to show me just how far we have to go as church and that it will not change on its own, but through the work of our pastors and lay people working to create a change that reflects the diversity of God's creation and the inclusive love of Christ.
My understanding of God's call becomes clearer as I learn and one of the things I am certain of is the need for the church to change. The next generation will quite possibly determine whether the UMC dies or continues to be a representative of Christ on earth. I am being called to be at the forefront of this change as a pastor that reminds the youth and young adults that the church is not a place of hate, rejection, and condemnation but is rather a place to find God's open and accepting arms waiting to pour grace on us.
I believe one of the keys to energizing and revitalizing young people will be to reverse our current policy on homosexuality. A recent study by the Barna Group stated that a majority of young Christians and young non-Christian identified individuals believe the church is anti-gay. This is a real problem because this means many young people who have peers who are LGBTQ see the church as not a place for their friends. When this occurs they are less likely to attend church as well. We need to reverse this image and show that the church welcomes all people regardless. Period. This is what I feel called to. I am called to the margins and to the neglected and pushed. I am called to show that God loves all individuals and wants all to come and that all are welcome in God's church. I am called to show that God's church is place not of hate but a place of love. A place to come and find redemption and salvation in God's loving embrace.
Monday, March 29, 2010
To comfort all who mourn
1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, 2 to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, 3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion — to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. - Isaiah 61:1-3
On Thursday, I presided over a funeral. I went over the service with the family two days beforehand, choosing the hymn and Scripture passages to be sung and read, helping them to visualize the moments ahead - helping me to visualize the moments ahead, as this was the first funeral I had officiated at, and I hadn't attended one in several years. I spoke to the funeral home about the service arrangements the family had requested, met with the American Legion color guard that would honor the deceased at the graveside, stood beside the casket at the end of the service to silently witness their final goodbyes. I greeted the family at each viewing and spoke a blessing over the reception meal served at the little church next to the graveyard. I spoke the prayers and Scripture passages with conviction, with hope, with reverence. In short, I did what I was supposed to do.
But this funeral was different from every other funeral I will ever preside over, in that the family involved was mine. The man who delivered the eulogy was my father, the family members who read those carefully selected Scripture passages were my sister and cousins. When I spoke the prayers, I had to resist the urge to refer to the dead man as "Pappap", because the man in the casket was my grandfather.
When I told my friends and various professors that I had agreed to officiate at Pappap's service, the most common response went something like, "Wow. Oh, my God. How do you feel about that?" The honest answer was somewhere between deeply ambivalent and doggedly determined. I knew that it would be difficult, maybe the most difficult thing I had done. On the other hand...my grandfather was not a religious man, nor was anyone else in the family, and there were no other obvious candidates to officiate the service. And the stark reality of the situation was that this - speaking the last blessing over him, walking his son and daughter through the reality of his death and burial - was the last thing I could do for my grandfather. It's difficult to say no to a dead man, especially one who was famously infatuated with his grandchildren, even making six-hour round trips to babysit them when they were small. I knew it would be easier on my father and aunt to deal with me than a stranger, that I could anticipate their needs and wants. And in a very cowardly, selfish way, I knew it would be easier for me - that officiating would allow me to create a small amount of emotional distance from the awful thing that was my grandfather's death, focus on the minutiae of doing a job rather than dealing with the overwhelming flood of grief that threatened to engulf me.
In my last entry, I wrote that part of my job as a youth minister is to allow my heart to be broken by the kids and families I work with. I am called to rejoice with those who celebrate, to comfort those who mourn, "to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor". Where do the personal triumphs and tragedies of life fit into this call? Did I make a mistake in allowing my family to claim my pastoral services? Or did I construct a more meaningful ritual than would have ever been possible with any other officiant? Did I do my family a service or an injustice by separating myself, even partially, from their grief?
(Postscript: For those who wondered, the service went very well - two of my grandfather's brothers asked me to officiate at their funerals afterward, which gave my dad a good laugh. On the whole, I think it was as positive and cathartic an experience as it could have been, for everyone concerned.)
On Thursday, I presided over a funeral. I went over the service with the family two days beforehand, choosing the hymn and Scripture passages to be sung and read, helping them to visualize the moments ahead - helping me to visualize the moments ahead, as this was the first funeral I had officiated at, and I hadn't attended one in several years. I spoke to the funeral home about the service arrangements the family had requested, met with the American Legion color guard that would honor the deceased at the graveside, stood beside the casket at the end of the service to silently witness their final goodbyes. I greeted the family at each viewing and spoke a blessing over the reception meal served at the little church next to the graveyard. I spoke the prayers and Scripture passages with conviction, with hope, with reverence. In short, I did what I was supposed to do.
But this funeral was different from every other funeral I will ever preside over, in that the family involved was mine. The man who delivered the eulogy was my father, the family members who read those carefully selected Scripture passages were my sister and cousins. When I spoke the prayers, I had to resist the urge to refer to the dead man as "Pappap", because the man in the casket was my grandfather.
When I told my friends and various professors that I had agreed to officiate at Pappap's service, the most common response went something like, "Wow. Oh, my God. How do you feel about that?" The honest answer was somewhere between deeply ambivalent and doggedly determined. I knew that it would be difficult, maybe the most difficult thing I had done. On the other hand...my grandfather was not a religious man, nor was anyone else in the family, and there were no other obvious candidates to officiate the service. And the stark reality of the situation was that this - speaking the last blessing over him, walking his son and daughter through the reality of his death and burial - was the last thing I could do for my grandfather. It's difficult to say no to a dead man, especially one who was famously infatuated with his grandchildren, even making six-hour round trips to babysit them when they were small. I knew it would be easier on my father and aunt to deal with me than a stranger, that I could anticipate their needs and wants. And in a very cowardly, selfish way, I knew it would be easier for me - that officiating would allow me to create a small amount of emotional distance from the awful thing that was my grandfather's death, focus on the minutiae of doing a job rather than dealing with the overwhelming flood of grief that threatened to engulf me.
In my last entry, I wrote that part of my job as a youth minister is to allow my heart to be broken by the kids and families I work with. I am called to rejoice with those who celebrate, to comfort those who mourn, "to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor". Where do the personal triumphs and tragedies of life fit into this call? Did I make a mistake in allowing my family to claim my pastoral services? Or did I construct a more meaningful ritual than would have ever been possible with any other officiant? Did I do my family a service or an injustice by separating myself, even partially, from their grief?
(Postscript: For those who wondered, the service went very well - two of my grandfather's brothers asked me to officiate at their funerals afterward, which gave my dad a good laugh. On the whole, I think it was as positive and cathartic an experience as it could have been, for everyone concerned.)
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Being called into the ministry is kind-of like being diagnosed with a fatal disease.
That’s a joke. Sort of. Not really.
Actually, every major life transition is like dying. Every time we start down a path, at some level, we must grieve the loss of the paths not taken. At some point, every seminarian reads Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s 1969 book, On Death and Dying. (In my opinion, everybody should read it.) The five stages of grief outlined in that ground-breaking book are now virtually universally accepted. Some people skip stages, and some people take them out of order. But almost everyone who finds out that they’re dying must go through stages of denial, anger, bargaining, and depression/fear before they finally reach acceptance. Their loved ones experience these stages as well. As with anything, some people move more quickly than others.
All grief follows this pattern, or something very much like it. Whether we’re losing a friend, changing careers, or moving out of the house we grew up in, we simply cannot lose something that defines our identities without grieving the loss. Anyone who denies this is simply stuck in the denial phase, which is not a good place to be.
Nothing defines our personal identity more than our vocation… our life’s calling. Most of us were raised on a lie: “You can be anything you want to be when you grow up.” Yeah. Right. I wanted to be an astronaut. Then I tried to learn math… which, as it turns out, is incredibly difficult for some people. The truth is that God created each of us with a purpose. If we choose a purpose other than the one for which we were designed, we will suffer for it. That’s why so many pastors love the story of Jonah. At some point we all realized that “free will” just means that we’re free to choose to follow God willingly, or we can get dragged along in the belly of a fish. God will work either through us or in spite of us… the choice is ours.
But the choice is nonetheless hard. Saying “Yes,” to ministry means saying, “No,” to so many things. Not just vocations, but lifestyles. Pastors never know what it feels like to get a “performance bonus.” They never know the joy of reading “The Night Before Christmas” to their kids while tucking them in on Christmas Eve. There are many joys… a great many to be sure… But we don’t truly know what ANY of them are at the point when we must answer the call. We go in blind, or not at all.
That’s why we typically respond with DENIAL... which will be the topic of my next post.
In the meantime, let me say that it is an honor to be invited into this blog, especially knowing that I am the only one writing from the other side of ordination. The journey from candidacy to Elders’ Orders took me twelve years. But rather than bore you all with a blow-by-blow of my discernment process, I’ve chosen to start with a series of five reflections (six if you count this introduction) based on the stages of grief. While that may sound like a downer, grief is truly the most fertile ground for personal growth, which ultimately brings us joy.
Actually, every major life transition is like dying. Every time we start down a path, at some level, we must grieve the loss of the paths not taken. At some point, every seminarian reads Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s 1969 book, On Death and Dying. (In my opinion, everybody should read it.) The five stages of grief outlined in that ground-breaking book are now virtually universally accepted. Some people skip stages, and some people take them out of order. But almost everyone who finds out that they’re dying must go through stages of denial, anger, bargaining, and depression/fear before they finally reach acceptance. Their loved ones experience these stages as well. As with anything, some people move more quickly than others.
All grief follows this pattern, or something very much like it. Whether we’re losing a friend, changing careers, or moving out of the house we grew up in, we simply cannot lose something that defines our identities without grieving the loss. Anyone who denies this is simply stuck in the denial phase, which is not a good place to be.
Nothing defines our personal identity more than our vocation… our life’s calling. Most of us were raised on a lie: “You can be anything you want to be when you grow up.” Yeah. Right. I wanted to be an astronaut. Then I tried to learn math… which, as it turns out, is incredibly difficult for some people. The truth is that God created each of us with a purpose. If we choose a purpose other than the one for which we were designed, we will suffer for it. That’s why so many pastors love the story of Jonah. At some point we all realized that “free will” just means that we’re free to choose to follow God willingly, or we can get dragged along in the belly of a fish. God will work either through us or in spite of us… the choice is ours.
But the choice is nonetheless hard. Saying “Yes,” to ministry means saying, “No,” to so many things. Not just vocations, but lifestyles. Pastors never know what it feels like to get a “performance bonus.” They never know the joy of reading “The Night Before Christmas” to their kids while tucking them in on Christmas Eve. There are many joys… a great many to be sure… But we don’t truly know what ANY of them are at the point when we must answer the call. We go in blind, or not at all.
That’s why we typically respond with DENIAL... which will be the topic of my next post.
In the meantime, let me say that it is an honor to be invited into this blog, especially knowing that I am the only one writing from the other side of ordination. The journey from candidacy to Elders’ Orders took me twelve years. But rather than bore you all with a blow-by-blow of my discernment process, I’ve chosen to start with a series of five reflections (six if you count this introduction) based on the stages of grief. While that may sound like a downer, grief is truly the most fertile ground for personal growth, which ultimately brings us joy.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Barf Bags Make Great Bookmarks
Do you ever feel like God is calling you in lots of different directions all at once? Like your calling has lots of little elements that don’t really fit together perfectly all the time? You’re being pushed and pulled in multiple directions all at once. It’s enough to make you feel a bit woozy.
Applying to, visiting, and eventually choosing a theology school is a tedious and stressful process. I know – I did it last year, and I’m doing it again right now. After finding the school that I loved, my situation has changed and I find myself once again going through the application and discernment process, this time as a transfer student.
I felt called to Boston University School of Theology last year, like it was perfect for me. It was the only school that I applied to, and I received a generous scholarship to attend. Sure, Boston is an expensive city to live in, but as a single person, it was fairly doable. It was the perfect fit for me, it was close to my girlfriend (who had been going to school in Vermont for three years – 3,000 miles across the country from me and our home state of Washington), and their academics are great.
Jump forward a year. Boston University is still a great fit, and their academics are still great… But the girlfriend is now my fiancée, and we’re getting married in July. Boston’s cost of living, along with being confined to the public transportation system (Boston rent, parking AND a car payment? Not going to happen.) began looking like a more and more financially irresponsible choice for us.
Having to discern a call for one person is pretty tough in itself… When you add in another person, another life that is affected by your decisions, it gets even more tough and confusing.
So, I began writing this entry as I was sitting sitting in the Chicago/Midway Airport on my way back to Boston after visiting Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri. It was a wonderful visit, and while the school is very different from Boston University School of Theology, it has a lot of really great attributes. I could certainly see myself being happy spending a few years out there. It could be a great place for Crystal (my fiancée) and I to start our life together. If she is able to get a teaching job out there, it would be absolutely perfect. For me, anyway. Maybe it will be for her, as well, we’ll have to talk about it and see what we can figure out. My calling has become, at least in part, our calling. And it’s exciting, and it’s scary, and sometimes it makes me want to run away and hide.
In a couple of weeks, I'm going to visit Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. More admissions and financial aid people to meet with, more students to talk to, and more decisions to make. And of course, plenty of pictures to take so that I can share as much as possible with Crystal.
When I was on one of my flights, I was reading a book. When the flight attendant brought snacks, I put a barf bag into the book to mark my page. That got me to thinking… Sometimes when things get rough, when you feel like you’re going to get sick, that’s a great place to stop and take a break, to sit back and gather your thoughts. Barf bags make great bookmarks.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Reconciling my calls
Through most of my high school and college experience, I wrestled with what I now recognize as two calls; one to ministry, one to psychology. I chose to study psychology at a Christian college as a compromise between the two, but I felt towards the end of my senior year of college that I had to choose ministry over psychology, for a variety of reasons, one of them being a pretty drastic lack of connection with the faculty in my department and a fear that I would not meet the more exacting standards for admission to a graduate program at a university. However, in the past year and a half I have gained a new appreciation for my former course of study, and come to embrace a unique call to both psychology and ministry.
Now, any minister worth their salt will tell you that a good deal of any ministry lies in one-on-one relationship building, leadership development, and counseling. Often in ministry these three are blended together so totally that its difficult to tell when one stops and another begins. My heart as a youth minister is to latch onto the lost and the hurting kids - and as a psychologist, I can tell you that I think they are ALL lost and hurting on some level. And usually, the problem kids - that is to say, the ones who are hurting badly enough that they can't mask it and play to expectations like the "good kids" do - have problem parents. If there is one thing I could tell the parents of the kids I work with, it would be that you cannot underestimate the ways in which the things you do - especially the things done behind closed doors, even the things you think your kids don't know about - affect the way they relate to every other person and situation they encounter. Parents have incredible power to help or to harm, and sometimes the difference is as small as the inflection on a statement. This is, I believe, my call - to help hurting kids, to help confused and overwhelmed and hurting parents, find a place where they can connect and become the family that God created them to be.
I also believe that youth create their own family within the church structure, and we need to recognize the power of what we do. I have seen and can testify to the changes wrought by relentless loving on the part of youth leaders for a wayward child. Once, that wayward child was me. Now, I have wayward children of my own, and I understand how Herculean is the task set before us - to love others fearlessly, to allow our hearts to be broken by them because God's heart is also broken for them, to give of our time and our resources so sacrificially so that our students can be filled with love, can begin a journey to wholeness of identity and self. And that - that sounds like a journey worth the taking.
Now, any minister worth their salt will tell you that a good deal of any ministry lies in one-on-one relationship building, leadership development, and counseling. Often in ministry these three are blended together so totally that its difficult to tell when one stops and another begins. My heart as a youth minister is to latch onto the lost and the hurting kids - and as a psychologist, I can tell you that I think they are ALL lost and hurting on some level. And usually, the problem kids - that is to say, the ones who are hurting badly enough that they can't mask it and play to expectations like the "good kids" do - have problem parents. If there is one thing I could tell the parents of the kids I work with, it would be that you cannot underestimate the ways in which the things you do - especially the things done behind closed doors, even the things you think your kids don't know about - affect the way they relate to every other person and situation they encounter. Parents have incredible power to help or to harm, and sometimes the difference is as small as the inflection on a statement. This is, I believe, my call - to help hurting kids, to help confused and overwhelmed and hurting parents, find a place where they can connect and become the family that God created them to be.
I also believe that youth create their own family within the church structure, and we need to recognize the power of what we do. I have seen and can testify to the changes wrought by relentless loving on the part of youth leaders for a wayward child. Once, that wayward child was me. Now, I have wayward children of my own, and I understand how Herculean is the task set before us - to love others fearlessly, to allow our hearts to be broken by them because God's heart is also broken for them, to give of our time and our resources so sacrificially so that our students can be filled with love, can begin a journey to wholeness of identity and self. And that - that sounds like a journey worth the taking.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
It's so Painful!!!!
You know what's a pain in the butt about following one's Christian call? Well I'll tell you: it's that we have to follow Jesus Christ's example.
My favorite chapter in Scripture is 1 John 2. My favorite Scripture verse is 1 John 2:6, which goes like so (well not "like so," it goes exactly like this): "whoever says, 'I abide in him,' ought to walk just as we walked." If we continue on in the chapter we get verses 15-17: "Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world; for all that is in the world--the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches--comes not from the Father but from the world. And the world and its desire are passing away, but those who do the will of God live forever."
Quite honestly I can't remember what in the heck I've written for this blog so far. I prefer to keep it that way. As Oscar Wilde said, the truth one believes in is the truth one believes in at that moment. If we are truly open to God's voice we aren't concerned with contradicting something we said five days ago. We will be concerned with contradicting something we said five minutes ago, though, because God's reason and order are not contradictory. These are things I believe in, and I mention them hopefully once and for all as an excuse for repeating myself (though I can honestly say I don't think I'll be contradicting myself all that often). Side note: if this were an academic paper or an academic book, this entire paragraph up to this point would have been a footnote. And all that is a lead-up to saying something I may have said many times before: I take Scripture very seriously. One of the many themes in Scripture, especially in the New Testament but all throughout, is that of walking just as God has commanded (or asked) us to walk and not taking the things of the world seriously but the things of God seriously. 1 John 2, and all of John's letters, reminds us of that very well.
You may ask why in the world 1 John 2 is my favorite chapter in Scripture if I started this post by saying following Jesus' example is painful. 1 John 2 is all about doing exactly as Jesus did. Have you thought about how difficult that is, though? If you haven't, let's take a moment or two, or three, to discuss how difficult following Jesus Christ's example is.
First of all, as a young male, the whole purity thing mentioned in 1 John becomes quite a burden. 1 John claims that we want to be pure because Jesus was pure and our salvation is in Jesus as the Christ. Now, I am in the Wesley tradition, so I do believe that salvation is a funny and mysterious thing, but we most surely become more aware of God's grace and more aware and more thankful of Christ's saving us all when we act in accordance with Jesus' life and God's will. Disciplining ourselves is a means of living into grace. And so, Henry David Thoreau's statement that "Man flows at once to God when the channel of purity is open," means a lot to me. I think it should mean a lot to all Christians, because it's right there in 1 John and the entire Scripture that we claim is God's Word to us.
But while all this might mean a lot to me, and I might believe in it wholeheartedly, nevertheless I DO NOT WANT to be pure. Deep down I rebel against purity, deep down I say who cares if Jesus was pure and who cares if Scripture tells me to be pure for the sake of being close to God. Bottom line, I DO NOT WANT TO BE PURE. Purity is friggin hard. There's no other way to describe it.
Purity means I have to temper my unending lusts, it means I need to control my urge to flirt with that pretty girl because I can't do anything with her anyway as much as I really really want to. Purity means I don't go out with my friends to a bar to get drunk, but instead try and convince them that the reason Paul and countless other religious leaders have spoken against drunkenness is that, in many ways, it means we are turning away from God (for one, why should we need alcohol to have a good time when we have God's love?), even though I know they'll just laugh at me and insult me and I won't be able to have a good time with them. Purity means I don't start swearing my head off when I'm angry but I calm myself down. Purity means looking at every human being as a child of God with integrity rather than "appreciating" certain body parts or the potential pleasure they may provide us. All that goes against my nature. Anytime I have to say "no" to what's natural to me I get so unbelievably frustrated, because I'm denying what I "want." Even though self-denial and looking beyond the things of this world to the things of heaven is good for us and what we are told to do (because it's good for us), it doesn't change the fact that in the midst of choosing to deny my natural wants or not I get really crazy frustrated. It's hard. And it's painful. In fact, I hate it.
What makes it all even more painful is that if I give in "just this once," which everyone knows will never be just this once, I feel God's looking down on me and asking, "My son, why did you do that?" Whether He is judging me or not, I now am judging myself, and of course I feel guilty, and of course now I regret it, and of course now I am in more pain than the act of choosing brought on. What's more, though, is that if I choose the right thing, I feel God's looking down on me and saying, "My son, you did what was right, and now don't you feel great?" Yes, I do feel great... but then a few weeks later, boy, I'm wishing I just gratified myself, no matter how temporary the pleasure may have been. Again, more pain. Or, perhaps I did the right thing and I feel God's looking down on me and saying, "My son, you did what was right, but did you do it for the right reason?" How the heck am I supposed to know? Did I do it simply because the Scriptures and my religious tradition warn against it? Because I think God will be proud of me? Because I think I'll go to hell if I don't? Or did I do it out of love for God, for myself, and for others? Who's to tell? So, again, more pain.
And generally when we do the wrong thing we, as Christians, do more than just look forward hoping to not repeat our sins. Maybe I'm only speaking for myself here, but I look back constantly and regret the damage I did to other people's lives. Especially when it comes to sexual misconduct our impurity generally ruins the lives of others, and when it comes to sexual misconduct we do so by shaming their sexual integrity and identity. That weighs heavily on me. More pain. If ever I don't look back in regret, then I still feel pain for not looking back and asking for forgiveness. If we live our lives without looking back and asking for forgiveness, just hoping in God's saving grace, then we are apt to continue hurting ourselves and other of God's children day after day, without remorse.
The more pain there is, the more I hate living the Christian life. The more I hate living the Christian life, the more I feel it necessary that our religion is about a way of life more than merely a faith we cling to. For if we have faith but do not live the life we will feel the pain and guilt and pain and regret and pain that I am so accustomed to, and we are probably all accustomed to.
So, why is 1 John 2 a favorite Scripture of mine? Why should I continue believing that as Christians we are all called to live as Jesus did? Why, if it only causes pain to ourselves for not being able to live up to the lofty goals of living as Jesus did? The reason is found in 1 John 3. Verse 1: "See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are." Verse 18: "Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action." We live as Jesus did not simply because we are commanded to, but because we love God so much that we can do nothing else.
Love is the key. Love for God, love for ourselves, love for all neighbors and all other children of God, for everyone is precious and everyone is loved by God. If we try living out of a sense of duty or obligation we might succeed, but then even success will breed pain in us if not in others. If we live in love then even our failures will be a success and there will be little likelihood that we do anything that can bring pain to others. And if we do bring pain to others, we are living knowing that our Father's love is everywhere and we are, in fact, forgiven.
So what am I saying exactly? Well... I'm saying that living out our call is a really hard, painful thing. Let's admit that. But I'm also saying that if we don't keep on just doing it because we feel compelled to from a sense of duty, and do it instead out of love for God and everything God has created, we will live as Jesus did. Love love love and we will walk just as Jesus walked, and when we walked as our Savior did, there's nothing we can do wrong. When we walk as Jesus did we will always be on the right path, even if we may have doubts. But it all comes down to love.
Now love, of course, can be it's own obligation. But let us try and remember why our call is to love--God has first loved us. That's truly amazing, if we really take a step back and think about it. So often I intellectualize those words and all other holy words, interpreting them and fitting them into a theology, and then that pains me. If we really think about how God loved us first and thank Him for it... the pain of living into the call will disappear.
For me, that's also incredibly hard. As I said, I intellectualize. Nothing really means anything to me. I struggle with the whole "faith" thing. Faith is nothing but a theology to me most of the time. Hence, I'm really afraid of death, it's really hard for me to believe in the resurrection as hard as I try. Love is hard for me. If we can remember, though, that we are all called to love because God first loved us and has created us and all His children, then our paths will be made clearer and more free of thorns.
My favorite chapter in Scripture is 1 John 2. My favorite Scripture verse is 1 John 2:6, which goes like so (well not "like so," it goes exactly like this): "whoever says, 'I abide in him,' ought to walk just as we walked." If we continue on in the chapter we get verses 15-17: "Do not love the world or the things in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world; for all that is in the world--the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches--comes not from the Father but from the world. And the world and its desire are passing away, but those who do the will of God live forever."
Quite honestly I can't remember what in the heck I've written for this blog so far. I prefer to keep it that way. As Oscar Wilde said, the truth one believes in is the truth one believes in at that moment. If we are truly open to God's voice we aren't concerned with contradicting something we said five days ago. We will be concerned with contradicting something we said five minutes ago, though, because God's reason and order are not contradictory. These are things I believe in, and I mention them hopefully once and for all as an excuse for repeating myself (though I can honestly say I don't think I'll be contradicting myself all that often). Side note: if this were an academic paper or an academic book, this entire paragraph up to this point would have been a footnote. And all that is a lead-up to saying something I may have said many times before: I take Scripture very seriously. One of the many themes in Scripture, especially in the New Testament but all throughout, is that of walking just as God has commanded (or asked) us to walk and not taking the things of the world seriously but the things of God seriously. 1 John 2, and all of John's letters, reminds us of that very well.
You may ask why in the world 1 John 2 is my favorite chapter in Scripture if I started this post by saying following Jesus' example is painful. 1 John 2 is all about doing exactly as Jesus did. Have you thought about how difficult that is, though? If you haven't, let's take a moment or two, or three, to discuss how difficult following Jesus Christ's example is.
First of all, as a young male, the whole purity thing mentioned in 1 John becomes quite a burden. 1 John claims that we want to be pure because Jesus was pure and our salvation is in Jesus as the Christ. Now, I am in the Wesley tradition, so I do believe that salvation is a funny and mysterious thing, but we most surely become more aware of God's grace and more aware and more thankful of Christ's saving us all when we act in accordance with Jesus' life and God's will. Disciplining ourselves is a means of living into grace. And so, Henry David Thoreau's statement that "Man flows at once to God when the channel of purity is open," means a lot to me. I think it should mean a lot to all Christians, because it's right there in 1 John and the entire Scripture that we claim is God's Word to us.
But while all this might mean a lot to me, and I might believe in it wholeheartedly, nevertheless I DO NOT WANT to be pure. Deep down I rebel against purity, deep down I say who cares if Jesus was pure and who cares if Scripture tells me to be pure for the sake of being close to God. Bottom line, I DO NOT WANT TO BE PURE. Purity is friggin hard. There's no other way to describe it.
Purity means I have to temper my unending lusts, it means I need to control my urge to flirt with that pretty girl because I can't do anything with her anyway as much as I really really want to. Purity means I don't go out with my friends to a bar to get drunk, but instead try and convince them that the reason Paul and countless other religious leaders have spoken against drunkenness is that, in many ways, it means we are turning away from God (for one, why should we need alcohol to have a good time when we have God's love?), even though I know they'll just laugh at me and insult me and I won't be able to have a good time with them. Purity means I don't start swearing my head off when I'm angry but I calm myself down. Purity means looking at every human being as a child of God with integrity rather than "appreciating" certain body parts or the potential pleasure they may provide us. All that goes against my nature. Anytime I have to say "no" to what's natural to me I get so unbelievably frustrated, because I'm denying what I "want." Even though self-denial and looking beyond the things of this world to the things of heaven is good for us and what we are told to do (because it's good for us), it doesn't change the fact that in the midst of choosing to deny my natural wants or not I get really crazy frustrated. It's hard. And it's painful. In fact, I hate it.
What makes it all even more painful is that if I give in "just this once," which everyone knows will never be just this once, I feel God's looking down on me and asking, "My son, why did you do that?" Whether He is judging me or not, I now am judging myself, and of course I feel guilty, and of course now I regret it, and of course now I am in more pain than the act of choosing brought on. What's more, though, is that if I choose the right thing, I feel God's looking down on me and saying, "My son, you did what was right, and now don't you feel great?" Yes, I do feel great... but then a few weeks later, boy, I'm wishing I just gratified myself, no matter how temporary the pleasure may have been. Again, more pain. Or, perhaps I did the right thing and I feel God's looking down on me and saying, "My son, you did what was right, but did you do it for the right reason?" How the heck am I supposed to know? Did I do it simply because the Scriptures and my religious tradition warn against it? Because I think God will be proud of me? Because I think I'll go to hell if I don't? Or did I do it out of love for God, for myself, and for others? Who's to tell? So, again, more pain.
And generally when we do the wrong thing we, as Christians, do more than just look forward hoping to not repeat our sins. Maybe I'm only speaking for myself here, but I look back constantly and regret the damage I did to other people's lives. Especially when it comes to sexual misconduct our impurity generally ruins the lives of others, and when it comes to sexual misconduct we do so by shaming their sexual integrity and identity. That weighs heavily on me. More pain. If ever I don't look back in regret, then I still feel pain for not looking back and asking for forgiveness. If we live our lives without looking back and asking for forgiveness, just hoping in God's saving grace, then we are apt to continue hurting ourselves and other of God's children day after day, without remorse.
The more pain there is, the more I hate living the Christian life. The more I hate living the Christian life, the more I feel it necessary that our religion is about a way of life more than merely a faith we cling to. For if we have faith but do not live the life we will feel the pain and guilt and pain and regret and pain that I am so accustomed to, and we are probably all accustomed to.
So, why is 1 John 2 a favorite Scripture of mine? Why should I continue believing that as Christians we are all called to live as Jesus did? Why, if it only causes pain to ourselves for not being able to live up to the lofty goals of living as Jesus did? The reason is found in 1 John 3. Verse 1: "See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are." Verse 18: "Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action." We live as Jesus did not simply because we are commanded to, but because we love God so much that we can do nothing else.
Love is the key. Love for God, love for ourselves, love for all neighbors and all other children of God, for everyone is precious and everyone is loved by God. If we try living out of a sense of duty or obligation we might succeed, but then even success will breed pain in us if not in others. If we live in love then even our failures will be a success and there will be little likelihood that we do anything that can bring pain to others. And if we do bring pain to others, we are living knowing that our Father's love is everywhere and we are, in fact, forgiven.
So what am I saying exactly? Well... I'm saying that living out our call is a really hard, painful thing. Let's admit that. But I'm also saying that if we don't keep on just doing it because we feel compelled to from a sense of duty, and do it instead out of love for God and everything God has created, we will live as Jesus did. Love love love and we will walk just as Jesus walked, and when we walked as our Savior did, there's nothing we can do wrong. When we walk as Jesus did we will always be on the right path, even if we may have doubts. But it all comes down to love.
Now love, of course, can be it's own obligation. But let us try and remember why our call is to love--God has first loved us. That's truly amazing, if we really take a step back and think about it. So often I intellectualize those words and all other holy words, interpreting them and fitting them into a theology, and then that pains me. If we really think about how God loved us first and thank Him for it... the pain of living into the call will disappear.
For me, that's also incredibly hard. As I said, I intellectualize. Nothing really means anything to me. I struggle with the whole "faith" thing. Faith is nothing but a theology to me most of the time. Hence, I'm really afraid of death, it's really hard for me to believe in the resurrection as hard as I try. Love is hard for me. If we can remember, though, that we are all called to love because God first loved us and has created us and all His children, then our paths will be made clearer and more free of thorns.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Created by God
It is a momentous time in the movement for equality for LGBTQ people. Marriage Equality has now reached the US capital Washington, DC. The Soulforce Equality Ride is on the road again bringing a message of affirmation for LGBTQ people where that message might not be heard. What a time it is to be involved in the LGBTQ rights movement. So much work is being done but so much more is left to do and as such I wanted to start my next post based off of a post a friend of mine made on the Gay Christian Network. My friend (Matthew, a seminary student at BU) posted this:
There is much more to his post then just this quote but this is what really struck me. I hear so often people say that homosexuality is the result of our fallen world. They make it sound as if the sexual orientation of a segment of the population was just an accident. Well I am standing up today and saying this is wrong. The sexuality and gender identity of LGBTQ people IS NOT an accident. God created us each to be diverse individuals. People come in so many different ways, shapes, sizes, hair color, eye color, skin color, etc. So why is it so hard to believe that sexuality and gender identity would be part of that beautiful diversity?
In Jer. 1:5 God say ““Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Now this was a message to Jeremiah calling him to be a prophet but I think it also speaks to the idea that God knows us even before we are born and that God puts us together,creating us into a unique creation. This means my sexuality can not be an accident because it is a part of who I am, a God created part of my identity. This idea that God would rather all of the world be heterosexual but because of sin coming into the world this accidental sexuality exists is based on a heterocentric worldview and denies the very creation of God. Look throughout the animal kingdom, this diversity of sexuality also exists there. So the next time someone is trying tell you that this homosexuality is the result of fallen humanity kindly remind them the it is homophobia and hatred that are the result of sin and that sexuality and gender identity are a part of the beautifully diverse creation of God.
“My sexuality is an expression of the diversity that God created into nature. Diversity is not a result of sin. It is all part of God's plan. As for myself I believe God made me gay in a fallen world and he would have made me gay in a hypothetical non-fallen world. I believe that it is homophobia and hate that are results of the sin of the world. Those are the things that come from sin”
There is much more to his post then just this quote but this is what really struck me. I hear so often people say that homosexuality is the result of our fallen world. They make it sound as if the sexual orientation of a segment of the population was just an accident. Well I am standing up today and saying this is wrong. The sexuality and gender identity of LGBTQ people IS NOT an accident. God created us each to be diverse individuals. People come in so many different ways, shapes, sizes, hair color, eye color, skin color, etc. So why is it so hard to believe that sexuality and gender identity would be part of that beautiful diversity?
In Jer. 1:5 God say ““Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Now this was a message to Jeremiah calling him to be a prophet but I think it also speaks to the idea that God knows us even before we are born and that God puts us together,creating us into a unique creation. This means my sexuality can not be an accident because it is a part of who I am, a God created part of my identity. This idea that God would rather all of the world be heterosexual but because of sin coming into the world this accidental sexuality exists is based on a heterocentric worldview and denies the very creation of God. Look throughout the animal kingdom, this diversity of sexuality also exists there. So the next time someone is trying tell you that this homosexuality is the result of fallen humanity kindly remind them the it is homophobia and hatred that are the result of sin and that sexuality and gender identity are a part of the beautifully diverse creation of God.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Be Yourself?!?
This weekend I had the opportunity to attend the Simply Youth Ministry Conference in Chicago - after a 12-hour drive through a snowstorm to get there, which is a whole other blog post on our call to perseverance :) However, once I got there, I attended an 8-hour intensive "deep track" with Chap Clark titled "Thinking Theologically In Youth Ministry". During the four sessions that comprised the course, Chap had a lot to say about some negative blogging press he's been receiving (and capped off a detailed description of his detractors and their problems with "but of course I don't care about any of this" - riiiight). So I decided that I'd give him some positive attention on the Interwebs, specifically about the portion of the 3rd session dedicated to the call of Christian leadership.
(What follows is a very brief summation of what he had to say. My notes may be inaccurate or incomplete - I apologize to Chap and Fuller Seminary if I have misrepresented his work. On the other hand, since I was the intended and actual audience for the lecture, if I misrepresent his work, he may need to rethink some things. Just sayin'.)
The first point Chap makes about call is that it needs to be "thick", or multilayered. When we look at call in the Old Testament, we see that call was a defining force for those touched by it; call was nothing short of a radical change in personal and corporate identity. The four layers of call Chap identified were:
1) Individual summons, a la John 15:1-8
2) Call to a new family of faith (John 15:9-17)
3) Call to holy living (Phil. 5:1-3)
4) Call to live in the Kingdom by being yourself!
Chap goes on to mark the difference between job and vocation as God's presence and our acknowledgment of God as our audience. Within those parameters, he says our call should also contain or be defined by an unquenchable thirst for growth - not necessarily in numbers, but in depth and strength (my notes here have the Olympic motto - "higher, stronger, faster").
This last point is a sticker for those of us in professional ministry. I have watched nearly a dozen pastors of churches I've attended or worked at over the past decade struggle with how to relate to their congregations. Some choose to put up walls, to keep their private lives behind closed doors and to maintain emotional distance from those they serve. Others get right in there alongside their congregations, build relationships, share confidences - only to have a doubly difficult time extricating themselves when they are (inevitably, in the United Methodist system) reappointed. Most try to walk a tightrope line in the middle - allowing their personality to flavor their ministry and interactions more than some, but not getting as emotionally invested as others do.
Two weeks ago I began a paid ministry position as a youth director for a midsize church about an hour away from where I live. I haven't gotten to spend a whole lot of time with my youth and youth leaders (being in Chicago for four days somewhat hindered being present in Maryland), but already I'm wondering, as a staff member with no other history with or connection to the church, how close the congregation will let me get to them - and how willing I am to let them get close to me. In my experience, with youth especially, you have to allow your church, your youth, your family, to get under your skin if you have any hope of being an effective minister. It's not said nearly enough, but service in ministry is a dual transformation - a transformation of the people we serve, and a transformation of us as ministers as we learn, grow, succeed and fail. As Jake says in "To Save A Life" - what is the point of all this if you don't let it change you? If our ministry is not transformative, we're not doing what God has called us to do - and it can't be transformative unless we allow ourselves to be an organism, open to change.
(What follows is a very brief summation of what he had to say. My notes may be inaccurate or incomplete - I apologize to Chap and Fuller Seminary if I have misrepresented his work. On the other hand, since I was the intended and actual audience for the lecture, if I misrepresent his work, he may need to rethink some things. Just sayin'.)
The first point Chap makes about call is that it needs to be "thick", or multilayered. When we look at call in the Old Testament, we see that call was a defining force for those touched by it; call was nothing short of a radical change in personal and corporate identity. The four layers of call Chap identified were:
1) Individual summons, a la John 15:1-8
2) Call to a new family of faith (John 15:9-17)
3) Call to holy living (Phil. 5:1-3)
4) Call to live in the Kingdom by being yourself!
Chap goes on to mark the difference between job and vocation as God's presence and our acknowledgment of God as our audience. Within those parameters, he says our call should also contain or be defined by an unquenchable thirst for growth - not necessarily in numbers, but in depth and strength (my notes here have the Olympic motto - "higher, stronger, faster").
This last point is a sticker for those of us in professional ministry. I have watched nearly a dozen pastors of churches I've attended or worked at over the past decade struggle with how to relate to their congregations. Some choose to put up walls, to keep their private lives behind closed doors and to maintain emotional distance from those they serve. Others get right in there alongside their congregations, build relationships, share confidences - only to have a doubly difficult time extricating themselves when they are (inevitably, in the United Methodist system) reappointed. Most try to walk a tightrope line in the middle - allowing their personality to flavor their ministry and interactions more than some, but not getting as emotionally invested as others do.
Two weeks ago I began a paid ministry position as a youth director for a midsize church about an hour away from where I live. I haven't gotten to spend a whole lot of time with my youth and youth leaders (being in Chicago for four days somewhat hindered being present in Maryland), but already I'm wondering, as a staff member with no other history with or connection to the church, how close the congregation will let me get to them - and how willing I am to let them get close to me. In my experience, with youth especially, you have to allow your church, your youth, your family, to get under your skin if you have any hope of being an effective minister. It's not said nearly enough, but service in ministry is a dual transformation - a transformation of the people we serve, and a transformation of us as ministers as we learn, grow, succeed and fail. As Jake says in "To Save A Life" - what is the point of all this if you don't let it change you? If our ministry is not transformative, we're not doing what God has called us to do - and it can't be transformative unless we allow ourselves to be an organism, open to change.
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