Saturday, June 29, 2013

Galatians 5 Sermon: Liberating Love vs. Hate and Intolerance

Hey friends! What follows is a sermon draft I just came up with for tomorrow at Saint Peter's Church where I serve as Vicar. It's primarily on an appointed reading for the day, Galatians 5: 1, 13 -25, and the recent federal recognition of marriage equality. Definitely needs some changes before tomorrow so I'd love to hear what you think.
 
If you’re a rabble-rousing sinner like me, if you’re someone known to get a bit rowdy, or someone that well… has a bit of flavor in any number of ways, and thanks be to God we have a bunch of those folks here at Saint Peter’s, part of today’s first reading from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Galatians probably didn’t sound like very good news at all… part of it might have bummed you out, angered you or even scared the heck out of ya. I’m specifically speaking about the part where Saint Paul condemns that nice long list of “desires of the flesh.” Desires of the flesh… for many folks such talk conjures up images of hate, images of judgment… images of times when our friends, our families and our own selves have gotten the message to feel inadequate or unwelcome because of who we are. And all too often, such messages of hate, such messages of judgment have come from the mouths of our fellow Christians.

Desires of the flesh… Perhaps you’ve had to sit and comfort a daughter or friend who’s made the difficult decision to exercise her God-given right to choose and then had to confront voices calling her a whore and fornicator on the way to a family planning center. Perhaps you or a loved one have had to deal with accusations of impurity or carousing because for any number of very legitimate reasons you live with a long-term committed partner before marriage. I know many of us were angered this past week when in the midst of celebrating the news of the federal recognition of marriage equality, as the tolling bells of advancing justice were ringing out loud across our country, our joy was interrupted by all sorts of people… politicians, pundits, and pastors especially, accusing the Supreme Court of going against the word of God.

At times, we can we respond to such messages of hate and judgment by shrugging it off or perhaps like Nancy Pelosi did this past week, we can easily reply, “Who cares.” But sometimes, we can’t, sometimes it’s not so easy… sometimes these messages, whether coming from our fellow Christians or from other polished and seemingly perfect individuals simply cut too deep. As Christians, they strike us at the core of who we know ourselves to be through faith as broken yet beautiful children of God. And that’s just for us Christians… for the increasing number of our sisters and brothers either born outside an organized faith community or painfully separated from one, such messages can hurt even more and certainly dissuade them from ever stepping foot inside a church, hearing the good news and knowing the joy of community in Christ.

So, what shall we do, what shall we say in this time and place, in a specific historical and cultural situation calling us to respond to hate and intolerance that is so frequently propagated in the name of God? First, I believe, we have to take stock of where we are as a society. Not even an hour after the Supreme Court released it’s ruling on the so-called Defense of Marriage Act, CNN brought Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council on air to give a “Christian perspective on the news.” Now, when you have the president of an anti-gay hate group representing the views of a diverse faith like Christianity to millions, it must be recognized that we have a long way to go. At the same time, we must also take stock of ourselves, our own biases and weaknesses, and create space to ask the difficult questions about how to name hate for what it is while still fully affirming those who propagate hate are just as much children of God as we are.

Next, we should celebrate our successes… in the past couple years we’ve seen a diverse group of folks from famous athletes to Jay-Z to even the President of the United States specifically cite their faith as a reason to affirm the rights of everyone across the rich diversity that is the gender spectrum in our world. And this past week, as marriage equality became federally recognized across our land, to cite the poetic summation of Martin Luther King, the long arc of the moral universe took a most powerful bend towards justice. That is absolutely amazing news, its absolutely amazing news folks… and as many of us gather to celebrate our freedom as Americans later this week, let us hold in our hearts that many of our sisters and brothers are more free now than ever before, and our whole society is the better for it.

But finally, the most important thing to keep in mind is that its not really about what you, or me or any other person for that matter is really doing to confront the forces of hate and intolerance at all… its about what Christ is doing… its about what Christ is doing in this time, in this place, in this city, and in this world… and that my sisters and brothers, is amazingly good news. For we know the compassionate work of God in Christ is not an act of intolerance, its not an act of judgment, but rather is an act of liberation, of freedom from all the powers of sin, of death and hate that may oppress us, and thus, an act of love. If one looks at Saint Paul’s Letter to the Galatians as a whole rather than just cherry picking that list of desires of the flesh, one realizes that in six short chapters it proclaims a message of Christ’s liberating love in the most profound of ways. You see, Paul wrote his letter in a cultural context much like our own…

Despite Paul’s earlier attempt to proclaim the liberating good news of God’s work in Christ, the Galatians had turned to a different “gospel,” to those who preached that following a strict interpretation of Mosaic Law was a necessary part of being a Christian, rather than living into the Spirit of God’s covenant with Israel as a gift. Paul boldly proclaims to the Galatians, “No folks… trying to get on God’s good side by following such a legalistic sense of piety doesn’t bring life… it kills you and it kills community! If you think you can score some brownie points with God by acting all polished and perfect… then what’s the point of God’s liberating work in Jesus at all? That path just leads to an inflated ego and a subsequent trampling on the hearts of others who we deem less pious.” Then, my sisters and brothers, Paul exclaims to the Galatians and to us as in this time, in this place, in this city, “By rising over the best attempt of those in power to stop His message of liberating love, by rising over the powers of sin and hate and death, Christ frees you from a need to be perfect, Christ frees you from yourself, Christ frees you and all people, into the hope of restored community with God and with one another.” Sure, sin is a very real thing, and Saint Paul lists those “sins of the flesh,” although perhaps we could update them… I don’t see sorcery being one of our major issues as of late, because neither he nor God wants us to hurt others or ourselves. Absolutely. But in the end, Saint Paul’s message, a saving message of God’s liberating love in Christ is that you don’t need to fit your own or anyone else’s definition of perfection. Rather folks, be your wonderful, broken yet beautiful selves. Do good things, make the world a better place, celebrate and share the good news of Christ’s liberating love throughout the world, but don’t do it out of a need to be perfect... Do it out of love for God and love for each other. Amen.

Dustin currently serves as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

WCC Ecumenical Prayer Cycle: Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay

Celebrating marriage equality in Uruguay.
As I wrote about in a post a few months ago, part of my vicarage at Saint Peter's Church this year is is providing a supplemental paragraph about countries in the weekly Ecumenical Prayer Cycle created by the World Council of Churches. We pray for each country listed in the prayer cycle during the Intercessory Prayers at Saint Peter's on Sundays and the paragraph is included in our bulletin insert to provide context for those intercessions.

This week's countries (23 June - 29 June) are Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay. While the paragraph below provides information on current events, check out the week's WCC page for additional prayer resources:
We pray for a peaceful resolution to the continued territorial dispute between Argentina and Great Britain over the Falkland Islands, whose citizens recently voted overwhelmingly to remain a British territory.  We give thanks and pray for Pope Francis, who is from Argentina.  We pray for those in Paraguay who are suffering from an outbreak of dengue fever and for decreased corruption in that country following the recent election of Horacio Cartes as President.  We give thanks for Uruguay’s recent passage of a marriage equality bill, which will begin taking effect this August.
God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin currently serves as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

WCC Ecumenical Prayer Cycle: Brazil

Protesting the Belo Monte Dam project in Brazil.
As I wrote about in a post a few months ago, part of my vicarage at Saint Peter's Church this year is is providing a supplemental paragraph about countries in the weekly Ecumenical Prayer Cycle created by the World Council of Churches. We pray for each country listed in the prayer cycle during the Intercessory Prayers at Saint Peter's on Sundays and the paragraph is included in our bulletin insert to provide context for those intercessions.

This week's countries (16 June - 22 June) is Brazil. While the paragraph below provides information on current events (with links to related news stories), check out the week's WCC page for additional prayer resources:
We pray for all involved in the proposed Belo Monte Dam project in Brazil, that they seek a more environmentally sustainable alternative and that they would respect the human rights of thousands of indigenous persons being displaced by the dam’s construction. We give thanks for Brazil’s success in decreasing economic inequalities in recent decades. The number of Brazilians living on less than $2.00 a day and the number of those suffering from malnutrition has been halved since the early 1990s.
God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin currently serves as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Immigration, Oppression and Our God of "Yes"

What follows is video of a sermon I gave at Saint Peter's Church this past Sunday at Jazz Vespers, primarily on 1 Kings 21: 1 - 21 and Saint Luke 7: 36 - 8: 3.  I had something entirely different prepared until that morning, but kept feeling a tug on me all day to tell the story I ended up including.  Thus, this became my first time preaching without at least a mental manuscript.  From my eyes, it only turned out mediocre... it seemed unpolished, had a few missteps, and definitely had a weak conclusion.  The funny thing is that I heard from a few of the folks there that it was some of my best preaching all year.  So, did this last minute change of preaching style on Sunday work?  My initial response is no, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.



God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin currently serves as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

What I've Been Up to for the Last Six Months

What follows is a post I wrote for my internal Vicar's Page at Saint Peter's Church where I currently serve as Vicar, but I figured it could work as a general update on my year as well.  Please leave comments and questions!


Well, much like what often happens on these sort of things, the last six months got pretty busy, and I've thus had "Update the Vicar's Page" as an item on my to-do list for almost that long.  My hope is that over the final two months of my internship at Saint Peter's and the Lutheran Office for World Community, (my last Sunday is August 11th) I'll have the opportunity to add to this page a little more frequently.

That said, the last six months, while quite busy, have been filled with absolutely amazing experiences at both internship sites, so I figured I could go through a quick exercise of filling in folks on what I've been up to.  After a great break over Christmas and New Years, I served as chaplain at a retreat at Camp Calumet Lutheran in New Hampshire.  Working with a rowdy group of teenage campers reuniting from the previous summer, we had a bunch of great talks on faith, service and global mission - and had a bunch of fun as well. We "live-tweeted" the entire retreat on Twitter, and for more information you can check out my personal blog here.

After getting back from my time in New England, things we really started to pick up.  A major aspect of my internship at the United Nations is doing communications work for Ecumenical Women, a coalition of church denominations and ecumenical organizations working to advance the rights of girls and women, especially at the annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).  As the 57th session of CSW was taking place at the beginning of March, I spent a great deal of time this winter blogging, posting videos and managing online registration for various Ecumenical Women events during CSW.  I believe our work at CSW57 turned out to be a huge success... outside of getting strong agreed conclusions we had more traffic at the EW website than ever before with over four thousand views and many great stories shared during the month of March.  In addition to working with Ecumenical Women this winter, I spent time following the Security Council and Food & Hunger issues at the UN. Perhaps most notably, I've also been working to increase faith-based participation in the World We Want 2015, a web platform where global citizens can give their input for what should follow the Millenium Development Goals in 2015.  If you have no idea what the Millenium Development Goals are, no problem!  Check out an Ecumenical Women post I wrote here giving a basic overview of the whole thing.

While it was sometimes difficult, I tried to balance my work at the UN with my responsibilities and opportunities for ministry at Saint Peter's as well.  Outside of preaching frequently at our Jazz Vespers service, I spent a great deal of time working with our immigration advocacy group this winter, primarily to organize an Immigration Advocacy Workshop, which after being snowed out in early February was held on March 16th.  Roughly twenty-five folks from Saint Peter's, Sion Iglesia Luterana and the local community worshiped together and learned about immigration advocacy on a Saturday afternoon.  For a copy of the bi-lingual liturgy we used for worship, click here.  We also attended New Sanctuary NYC's weekly Jericho Walk for immigration reform a number of times.  I also attended an amazing conference at Union Theological Seminary in February entitled Digital Church: Theology and New Media.  While there I heard a number of clergy and lay leaders discuss how they've used social media to strengthen their ministries.  A number of folks also identified a number of theological issues brought about by the new digital context we find ourselves in.  Another great success was leading an adult forum at Saint Peter's entitled "Ask the Vicar," where folks could ask me questions on my internship experience thus far, my background, etc.

After a brief trip to visit friends at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia where I'm working towards my Master's of Divinity, my focus shifted almost exclusively toward work at Saint Peter's during Holy Week.  I preached during one noontime Mass and assisted with the daily liturgies.  I was also absolutely blown away by how powerful many of the worship services were during Holy Week at Saint Peter's, especially the Easter Vigil.  After Holy Week I traveled to Washington D.C. twice in one week, first for Ecumenical Advocacy Days (a conference that this year focused on food and hunger) and then for a rally for immigration reform with two members of Saint Peter's.  Both experiences were great, especially the many opportunities I had to meet with our elected officials (or at least their staff).

Following my busy week of travel the Lutheran office at the UN hosted a number of seminarians for the Nolde Seminar on Faith and Human Rights, which provided me with a great opportunity to catch up with friends from seminary and learn a great deal as well.  Perhaps one of the most moving days of my internship took place in early May when a number of Saint Peter's members showed up to accompany another member to his hearing for refugee status.  To me, that day couldn't have been a more powerful expression of what "doing Church" is supposed to be like.

Since mid-May things have slowed down a little bit.  I've been preaching more frequently, especially at Jazz Vespers, continuing to work on communications for Ecumenical Women, working on faith-based participation with the World We Want and number of other issues at the UN.  I also attended a powerful anti-hate crime march in response to the killing of Marc Carson in the Village.  For a bit more on my experience you can check out a blog post here.  Another great success was Saint Peter's Parish Council voting in favor of a resolution official endorsing our immigration advocacy group, now called Nuestro Refugio (Our Refuge).  We've also been working on strengthening the partnership between Nuestro Refugio, Sion Iglesia Luterana and New Sanctuary NYC, as well as ensuring there will be leadership in group once my vicarage ends in August.

Well that's about it.  Check back here frequently, and please contact me if you have any questions.

God's peace,
Vicar Dustin

Dustin currently serves as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Monday, June 10, 2013

Gathered Up Into Community: Holy Trinity Sermon (video)

What follows is video of the sermon I preached a couple Sundays back at Saint Peter's Church where I currently serve as Vicar.  It's predominately on the Gospel for the day, Saint John 16: 12 - 15.  I'd love to hear what you think!

 

God's peace,
Dustin 


Dustin currently serves as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

WCC Ecumenical Prayer Cycle: Angola and Mozambique

Luanda, Angola.
As I wrote about in a post a few months ago, part of my vicarage at Saint Peter's Church this year is is providing a supplemental paragraph about countries in the weekly Ecumenical Prayer Cycle created by the World Council of Churches. We pray for each country listed in the prayer cycle during the Intercessory Prayers at Saint Peter's on Sundays and the paragraph is included in our bulletin insert to provide context for those intercessions.

This week's countries (9 June - 15 June) are Angola and Mozambique. While the paragraph below provides information on current events (with links to related news stories), check out the week's WCC page for additional prayer resources:
We pray for a peaceful run-up to this November’s elections in Mozambique, a country that has remained largely stable since its first multi-party elections in the early 1990s.  We give thanks and pray for continued peace and recovery in Angola following its’ decades-long civil war which ended in 2002 and took the lives of over 500,000 persons.  We pray that increased wealth from natural resource extraction in both countries is used to assist their many citizens who still live in extreme poverty.  
God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin currently serves as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Tuesday, June 04, 2013

WCC Ecumenical Prayer Cycle: Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland

Mountains of Lesotho
As I wrote about in a post a few months ago, part of my vicarage at Saint Peter's Church this year is is providing a supplemental paragraph about countries in the weekly Ecumenical Prayer Cycle created by the World Council of Churches. We pray for each country listed in the prayer cycle during the Intercessory Prayers at Saint Peter's on Sundays and the paragraph is included in our bulletin insert to provide context for those intercessions.

This week's countries (2 June - 8 June) are Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland. While the paragraph below provides information on current events (with links to related news stories), check out the week's WCC page for additional prayer resources.
We give thanks for last year’s free, fair and peaceful elections in Lesotho and pray for continued strengthening of democracy in that country. We pray for the people of Mukwe, an area of Namibia stricken by drought. We pray for a just resolution of continued labour strife in South Africa, particularly in the mining sector. We pray for Ellinah Wamukoya, who was ordained by the Anglican Church of South Africa as Bishop of Swaziland last November, becoming the first female bishop in all of Africa.
God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin currently serves as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.