A Liturgy of the Oppressed

Friends,

Whew, what a busy couple weeks! After getting to know folks at the annual assembly Upstate New York Synod of the ELCA where I'll hopefully be called as a pastor in a month or so, I've spent some time hiking in northern New England and also preparing to lead a youth mission trip to a Cherokee reservation in Oklahoma, which begins next week.

In the meantime, I'm still trying to post my work from my final semester at seminary. What follows is one of my favorite assignments throughout seminary, a paper and liturgy I created based off of Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed with inspiration from a faith community called Parables in Brooklyn. This formed the final assignment for an epic "Liturgy and Postcolonialism" course with Professor Cláudio Carvalhaes. The liturgy itself (at the bottom of the post) was written for a short half-hour Service of the Word service at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, but otherwise it would certainly include a collection and Eucharist. It's a bit "provocative" perhaps, but I'd love to hear what you think.

God's peace,
Dustin

With only two weeks (and unfortunately around forty pages of writing) between me and graduation, I figure it’s about time to admit something that’s deeply troubled me throughout my seminary education: the majority of church services I’ve participated in throughout my life have been really, really boring! Perhaps it’s due to my overwhelming sense of entitlement as a North American millennial, or maybe it’s because I come from an overly individualistic culture, or maybe it’s just because I’m a good old fashioned heretic… I’m not entirely sure. What I do definitively know however, is that the majority of church services I’ve participated in throughout my life have been really, really boring, and they didn’t mean much. Now such a statement may quickly lead one to ask, “Why be a pastor, or even a Christian at all if you don’t find Christian worship meaningful?” From my perspective, the answer to such a question is quite easy—I’ve developed strong, lifelong relationships through the Church, I’ve experienced a profound sense of community and solidarity through the Church, and I’ve been supported in serving folks and advocating against systems of injustice through the Church. When my mother died from lung cancer at a relatively young age, the Church held me close and told me that life would go on, and it did. In short, I want to be a Christian pastor because I’ve experienced the presence of God in the Church like nowhere else.

Yet, and I say this with some notable exceptions in mind, most church services I’ve participated in throughout my life have been really, really boring. Here’s what my experience of a church service is all too often like (I put this purposefully in a pretty provocative way): I start off by sitting down in an uncomfortable seat, not being allowed to have coffee despite it being way too early in the morning, hearing some announcements and then watching the pastor walk to the back of the sanctuary only to walk forward again in various levels of pomp and circumstance. The folks up front pray some prayers for me and then I spend a whole lot of time trying not to space out while a bunch of long Bible passages are read. After hearing what is often a good sermon (to be fair), I get a brief reprieve by standing up and singing a song, only to have the folks up front once again pray for me, usually from some pretty sounding words they found on an internet resource. The first time I really feel like I get to do anything besides trying to stay awake is the collection, through which I genuinely feel connected to my faith community in mission. The Meal, as long as it is done in a way that is fully inclusive of all individuals, is an extremely profound experience. Shortly after that however, one of the folks up front (sometimes after walking to the back of the sanctuary), reads literally one sentence to say goodbye to me. Couldn’t she or he just look me in the eye and truly say goodbye, lovingly sending me out into the world to serve God and the folks in my community?

Interestingly enough, it is usually only after the official liturgy is completed that the true liturgy, the true λειτουργία, which translates as “work of the people” or even “public service” typically begins… coffee hour! Now that is a good time! I actually get to hear how my sisters and brothers in Christ are doing. I am blessed and honored to support them in their sorrows, laugh with them amidst great joy and simply hear how God is at work in their lives! I welcome in new guests along with the few folks who have good social skills, perhaps share a light meal and finally have a damn coffee! And after that, this is when things really get good… I either learn something about God in fellowship with others, go on some sort of fun outing, engage in meaningful service with my community or go back home and get to take a nap! What could possibly be better? What could possibly be more meaningful? Waking up way too early was kind of a pain, but wow, it was entirely worth it!

I cannot speak for everyone, or even my generation, but I do know I am not alone in these convictions. In my own tiny part of the global Christian community, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, membership in congregations is steadily declining, yet we can’t sign up folks (and especially young people) fast enough for many of our long-term service programs. Every summer for nearly a decade, I had the privilege of engaging in ministry as a camp counselor at a Lutheran summer camp. For many of the folks I worked with, summers at camp were the most meaningful experiences of their lives, experiences they often interpret as experiencing God’s work while ministering in community. Yet few, and I mean very few, probably ten percent or less, of these same folks go back home and regularly participate in the life of their local congregations. One could make the excuse that these sort of folks are too individualistic, do not have their priorities in order or apply their love of capitalistic choice to their faith life. One could also say (and this option seems quite popular in the Church as of late) that we simply do not educate these folks enough… if only we could teach them how the liturgy is meaningful, they would find the liturgy meaningful!

There is however, another option, one deeply informed by the related concepts of postcolonialism, liberation theology and even community organizing… take the data, take the voice of the people in your context (which includes people outside the church building) seriously! Saul Alinsky, often considered the father of modern community organizing in North America, states the following:

The actual projection of a completely particularized program by a few persons is a highly dictatorial action. It is not a democratic program but a monumental testament to lack of faith in the ability and intelligence of the masses of people to think their way through the successful solution of their problems. It is not a people’s program, and the people will have little to do with it. There should not be too much concern with specifics or details of a people’s program. The program items are not too significant when one considers the enormous importance of getting people interested and participating in a democratic way. After all, the real democratic program is a democratically minded people—a healthy, active, participating, interested, self-confident people who, through their participation and interest, become informed, educated and above all develop faith in themselves, their fellow men, and the future.

Alinsky is of course coming from the predominately secular perspective of community organizing, but applied to liturgy one could easily change his last sentence to the following: “The real λειτουργία is the work of a democratically minded people—a healthy, active, participating, interested, self-confident people who, through their participation and interest, become informed, educated and above all develop faith in themselves, their fellow human beings, and most of all, faith in their God.”

In the name of “unity,” or “equality” as a Church, we often hear that all assemblies should do similar things in their liturgies, and that all people should do similar things in a particular assembly, no matter the context. This idea of “unity in similarity” reaches to all levels of our liturgy, even to the level of what we are to wear on a Sunday:

Washed and bleached clean, this garment became one of the basic symbols of baptism… Leaders of the assembly wear it on behalf of us all, showing another way of festive clothing than either “Sunday best” or casual clothes. Indeed, our leaders can thereby step out of the ways in which our current clothing so inevitably communicates gender, sexual attraction, class and wealth, inviting us to another way of considering the human being.

This appeal to “unity in similarity” almost always has the best of intentions, and needs to be honored as such. Yet at the same time, the people are quite clearly crying out, “I don’t want to be bleached clean! I want to come to God’s table as I am, no matter my shape, size or color!” Such data, the voice of the people, must be taken quite seriously. Furthermore, as postcolonialism teaches us, the modernist appeal to universality almost always ends up looking or acting like the dominant culture:

[Universality is] the assumption that there are irreducible features of human life and experience that exist beyond the constitutive effects of local cultural conditions. Universalism offers a hegemonic view of existence by which the experiences, values and expectations of a dominant culture are held to be true for all humanity. For this reason, it is a crucial feature of imperial hegemony, because its assumption (or assertion) of a common humanity - underlies the promulgation of imperial discourse for the ‘advancement’ or ‘improvement’ of the colonized, goals that thus mask the extensive and multifaceted exploitation of the colony.

Baptism, the wider liturgy, and indeed the gospel itself doesn’t bleach us clean! The good news of God’s act of liberating love in Christ lets us to see the beauty of our own unique shade of “differentness” amidst the muck of our humanity, and thereby frees us to lovingly share in the beautifully unique differentness of our sisters and brothers as well. 

Our chief objective as we cultivate new spaces, communities and liturgies is not to achieve a perfectly objective equality. Although we should do our best to move toward this, such a thing is not humanly possible— there will always be inherent power dynamics involved in any social situation, at least until the Kingdom of God is fully with us. We should however do our prayerful best to acknowledge those inherent power dynamics. In doing so we can foster a spirit of hybridity where all can share of themselves, learn from each other and experience the Divine alongside one another as a communion of fellow pilgrims moving towards their unique destinations. Through celebrating the beautiful tapestry of differentness that is humanity, and the rich variety of means through which humanity experiences God, the λειτουργία, the work of the people, is focused exactly where it should be—on Christ, on the God who promises to show up where we would least expect Her and Him to be: “The presence of God and the Lamb—and the presence of the water of life and the tree of life that come from God—should be at the center of the assembly of the church.”

Now, the next question we must ask of course, is what would such a liturgy look like? We can say a liturgy should truly be the democratic work of the people, all God’s people, in all their beautifully unique differentness, but it has to look like something. One possibility stems from the largely secular work of Augusto Boal, the Brazilian director who developed a “theatre of the oppressed.” Reflecting on Aristotle’s Poetics, Boal discovered that throughout much of Western history the point of theatre was simply to produce a sense of catharsis, and thereby to subjugate the spectator:

… the poetics of Aristotle is the poetics of oppression: the world is known, perfect or about to be perfected, and all its values are imposed on the spectators, who passively delegate power to the characters to act and think in their place. In so doing the spectators purge themselves of their tragic flaw—that is, of something capable of changing society. A catharsis of the revolutionary impetus is produced! Dramatic action substitutes for real action.

Similar to Boal’s understanding of the theatre, the whole point of the gospel, the whole point of the good news of God’s act of liberating love in Christ is to free us from whatever may oppress us, whether it be dominant members of our society, from natural phenomenon like disease or disaster, and especially, from ourselves. We are all oppressed, even in a North American context, although it may look slightly different for us here at the center of the empire. Whether through hate, indifference or most often lack of self agency, many of us, myself included, simply cannot help but oppress our sisters and brother both known and unknown, and in turn, we oppress ourselves.

Amidst so much oppression and the guilt that goes along with it, why would we develop liturgies that are supposed to communicate liberation in Christ yet fail to help us recognize our full sense of self expression and self agency in Christ to change this situation? Augusto Boal, speaking through the secular language of theatre, provides us with another option:

“Spectator” is a bad word! The spectator is less than a man and it is necessary to humanize him, to restore to him his capacity of action in all its fullness. He too must be a subject, an actor on an equal plane with those generally accepted as actors, who must also be spectators. All these experiments of a people’s theater have the same objective—the liberation of the spectator, on whom the theater has imposed finished visions of the world… The poetics of the oppressed is essentially the poetics of liberation: the spectator no longer delegates power to the characters either to think or to act in his place. The spectator frees himself; he thinks and acts for himself! Theater is action!

Theatre is not the same as liturgy, but they both are action, as they both indeed can be the work of the people! The way Augusto Boal blurred the line between spectator and actor was to develop a variety of “movement games” through which anyone could participate, even those with little theatrical training. Furthermore, whether it be a theatre or an assembly engaged in liturgy, communities need a facilitator in some sense. In a theatre of the oppressed, this person is not called the narrator or protagonist but the “joker.” The role of the joker is to float above the action, to allow for the greatest degree of self-expression possible, but also to descend into the action when needed. The role of the pastor in a “liturgy of the oppressed” is quite similar—she or he must prayerfully ensure the gospel is communicated, while allowing for the most democratically minded self expression possible.

A basic “liturgy of the oppressed” is attached as an appendix to this paper, one that hopefully proclaims the gospel while taking seriously the presence of Christ in the beautiful differentness of humanity. As this particularly liturgy was developed for a short weekday “Service of the Word” at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, the Meal is unfortunately excluded, although I would consider it central to any Sunday assembly. The traditional Lutheran ordo is followed for the sake of reflecting the liturgical movements of our ancestors but even more for reasons of hospitality, as creating familiar structure hopefully encourages greater self-expression within each individual movement of the liturgy. A “name and gesture” movement game acts as a sort of Kyrie, but a fully participatory “Remembrance of Baptism” rite could greatly strength the Gathering. As a volunteer moves the assembly forward with the “prayer of the day,” it may prove helpful to reflect the prayers of our ancestors through the day’s appointed collects.

The Word portion of the liturgy would look quite different depending on the text(s) used and the folks present in the assembly. If the text for the day is short, reading each phrase and having the assembly repeat seems to work quite well. For longer passages, Bibles should be provided. Although this is of course not a universal observation, I believe a “liturgy of the oppressed” should generally stay away from hymnals, as they often greatly limit self expression. Moving forward, the “columbian hypnosis” movement game then creates an environment for folks in the assembly to have fun, relate to each other and use their bodies in new ways while also exploring social power exchanges. There are a wide variety of more complicated movement games that could also be used, many of which allow for the exploration (and overcoming) of a societal injustice. Discussion then allows the assembly to process the experience, relate it back to the text and most importantly to God’s presence in their lives. The joker should prayerfully shape this discussion to ensure the gospel is communicated. The assembly then responds to the good news in song and prayer. If the liturgy does not include a Meal, the assembly is sent back out into the world with a message of peaceful liberation and community in Christ.

As it has been so aptly stated, “Lutheran worship at its deepest—and this is true of all Western and Eastern Christian worship, as well—is this: a participating and open assembly, served by its ministers, gathered around the bath, the word, the prayers, the table—the very matters which speak and sign Jesus Christ so that the nations may live.” A liturgy of the oppressed takes these central things of worship quite seriously, as they are the gifts Christ gave us to proclaim the gospel. At the same time however, a liturgy of the oppressed also takes seriously the data, the voice of the people, in its context. To say it in a less fancy way, in a liturgy of the oppressed, people matter! The people truly matter! Instead of appealing to the colonialist idea of “unity in similarity,” with everyone engaged in the same action or having “the folks up front” perform the action for them, a more democratic liturgy can develop in which difference is celebrated, not bleached away. Indeed, it is through celebrating the beautiful tapestry of differentness that is our humanity, and especially the innumerable amazing ways God continuously breaks into our lives, that the λειτουργία, the work of the people, is focused exactly where it should be—on Christ, on the God who promises to show up where we would least expect!

A Liturgy of the Oppressed

Gathering

Greeting: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all! And also with you! 

Name and Gesture: The assembly stands in a circle. The joker begins by stating her first name followed by a physical gesture which is indicative of what feelings and/ or experiences she is bringing into the assembly that day. The whole group then repeats the joker’s name and gesture. This process works around the group until everyone has said their name and performed a gesture. The process is then repeated a second time but without names mentioned. Individuals may wish to step forward and briefly explain to the group why they decided upon their gesture as well. 

Prayer of the Day: The joker invites a volunteer to either pray extemporaneously or pray the appointed collects for the day.

Word

Reading: A short Biblical passage, perhaps one appointed for the day by the Revised Common Lectionary, is read phrase by phrase by the joker, who also invites the assembly to repeat each phrase after it is read. 

Columbian Hypnosis and Discussion: The assembly divides into pairs - choosing role A and role B. A will “hypnotize” B with her or his hand - B must keep her face just a few inches from A’s hand at all times - always an equal distance. A should try to manipulate B into all sorts of positions, using forgotten muscles, liberating her to use the body in a different way than she is accustomed. A & B then switch roles.Remaining in pairs the assembly discusses their experience of being in complete power and without power. They may wish to reread the day’s Bible passage. How does power relate to the Biblical passage just read? How is Christ at work in exchanges of power and the everyday life of the assembly? The assembly then gathers back in a circle and those who wish may share their findings. The joker shapes the conversation as needed to ensure the gospel is communicated. One possible addition: The assembly divides into triads. A hypnotizes B & C using two hands, which may do entirely different movements at any time.A second possible addition: One person (A) stands in the center of the assembly. A hypnotizes two people (Bs) using two hands. Everyone else picks one of the B people to be hypnotized by. 

Hymn of the Day: The joker invites the assembly to proclaim liberation in Christ through a commonly known song for which anyone can call out individual verses. Examples include “This Little Light of Mine” and “We Are Marching in the Light of God.” Movement is encouraged as the assembly is able! 

Prayers of the People: The joker invites the assembly into prayer and then individuals go around the circle offering intercessions as they wish. The Lord’s Prayer is then sung or spoken by the assembly in unison.

Sending

Blessing: My sisters and brothers, let us go forth, liberated in Christ to love and serve the world! Thanks be to God! 

Peace: A sign of peace may be shared by all.

Dustin is a recent graduate from the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia and approved candidate for ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. An evangelist, urban gardener, mountain climber, community organizer, saint and sinner, Dustin spends most of his professional time wrestling with God and proclaiming liberation in Christ. Otherwise, Dustin likes hiking, playing frisbee, hanging out with an amazing woman named Jessie and pretending to know how to sing.

Preaching on Syria and a New Seminary Year at LTSP

What follows is the manuscript for a sermon I gave earlier today at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia.  The sermon is centered around Matthew 10: 34 - 42 and discusses the Syria conflict, as well as the uncertainty of a new academic year.  Please let me know what you think.

My sisters and brothers, I confess that I come to you this day with a near overwhelming sense of having no idea what the heck is going on... it feels like we’re living amidst times of great uncertainty, and I imagine there many of you here today who feel much the same way. For seniors like me nearing the end of our seminary education, we’re looking to graduation with excitement... we’re pumped, we are ready to go and “preach the damn gospel,” as someone once described it, although I can’t remember who. On the other hand, we’re worrying about being approved for ordination, or getting new jobs and worrying about where in this very large country we’ll be first called and most importantly, we’re worrying about how as a new generation of leaders we’ll be able reinvigorate a Church in seeming decline and share the good news with population that has for many reasons, both good and bad, largely turned away from organized religion. Middlers, at least from what I remember, you’re probably starting already to worry about internship placement and why there are so many darn papers to write. Juniors, now after almost two weeks of figuring each other out, settling in and socially establishing yourselves over beers and board games, you might be worrying about what the heck you got into by starting this whole seminary thing, and you might feel a little homesick too. Our wonderful faculty and staff, amidst what you’re continually hearing about this declining Church, you might be worrying about the future of seminary education, or maybe even whether or not you’ll have a job five years from now.

Inundated by these concerns as a seminary community, and whatever may be going on in our own personal lives, in recent days we’ve also been hit by a truly major crisis, a life and death crisis in fact, as a nation and a world. When I first saw those pictures of rows upon rows of deathly white pale bodies, many of whom were children, and heard reports of over 1500 Syrians being gassed to death by their own government, my first reaction was that the United States and our partners in the international community needed to militarily intervene. Those rows of pale bodies reminded me way too much of that haunting pile of victim’s shoes at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. Those rows and rows of pale bodies reminded me way too much of the horrifying stories I’ve heard from folks roughly my age who were young children, both Hutus and Tutsis, during the Rwandan genocide. Those rows of pale, deathly white bodies reminded me way too much that after every hard rain, human bones still decades later wash up out of the ground in the killing fields of Cambodia, crying out for some sort of justice. Reminded of the hell of human sin in our previous century, despite my typically peacenik tendencies and hopefully Christian values, my first reaction was that we need to act, to militarily intervene, to somehow halt absolute evil.

My sisters and brothers, our current situation is by no means the same as the run-up to the Iraq War a decade ago. This is not a crisis built on lies, its very real, and there are legitimate arguments for meeting the large-scale use of weapons of mass destruction with a strong military response. Yet, there are other voices, some of folks actually on the ground in Syria and the surrounding region of Western Asia, arguing for a radically different response. The Right Reverend Munib A. Younan, Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, recently wrote, “The only ones who will benefit from Western military intervention in Syria will be extremists on all sides. The violent ambitions of extremists within all traditions in the Middle East— Muslims, Christians, and Jews, among others—will be stoked by the fuel of even greater military destruction. As an Arab Christian, I am concerned for the effects this violence will have on every community in Syria, whether they are Sunni, Shiite, Alawite, Druze, or Christian.” The Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Reverend Mark Hanson, has also echoed these sentiments, as have countless other leaders of many faiths and denominations across America. I also see the pleas for peace of a close friend from my early childhood, the only Syrian I personally know, coming across my Facebook Newsfeed on now a nearly daily basis. She makes strong arguments that the situation is much more complicated than our media portrays, and that the Syrian government in fact still has a great deal of popular support within her country. And, plenty of experts also fear an even modest US military intervention would only exacerbate the cycle of violence in Western Asia, dragging Iran, Israel and other countries into a wider regional war. Following the initial shock, upon further prayerful discernment, it appears as if a peaceful, diplomatic approach to the Syrian crisis is the best of two difficult options. And, I humbly invite you to contact President Obama and your leaders in Congress to advocate for such an approach.

But besides that, what shall we say, what shall we do? Even more importantly, what good news does a God who proclaims He comes not to bring peace, but rather with a sword, have to share with us this day, as we live amongst such great anxiety in our community, in our Church and our world? Well, first of all, we have to recognize and rest in the profoundly good news that no matter what uncertainties we may face, what’s really important is not what you, or me, or frankly any of us are doing at all. What’s truly important is the amazing things God is doing, and has always done, to bring about reconciliation, to bring about peace and to bring about liberation in Christ. If you look at the earlier verses of Matthew 10, the saints Jesus is talking to are initially named the twelve disciples... in other words, they’re students of Christ first, learning the way of the Cross as they grow in their faith. As I’m sure all the professors here will affirm, as students, we’re ain’t expected to be perfect... we’ll all make mistakes, and we won’t always have the right answer, or sometimes, any answer at all. It’s only in a later verse, after the evangelist establishes them as ongoing learners of the way of the Cross, that the status of the twelve as apostles, as doers, as proclaimers, is affirmed.

Furthermore, if you really look at the text, the fact that our God comes not with peace but the with the sword is profoundly good news. Jesus isn’t portraying himself as a barbaric warrior, a violent judge or destroyer of families... no! Jesus proclaims to the twelve, and to us in this city, on this campus, in this most uncertain of times that God is a God of movement, not of stagnation. Yes, our God promises us She is a God of change. For our God promises us She is a God of a sometimes chaotic creation, but a new, life-giving creation nonetheless. For God is always at work, dancing through your life and your life and all our lives, lovingly strengthening and comforting us when we doubt why we’re here or what lies ahead. God is always at work, rebirthing the Church, the body of Her Son in this world anew, whether it be through a new Pope washing the feet of a Muslim girl or a new Lutheran Presiding Bishop proclaiming the good news on MSNBC or the grassroots work of missional faith communities across this land serving their neighbors in Christian freedom. And even amidst a difficult global crisis, even as calls to war once again sound across this country, God is and will always be at work, guiding us and our leaders, bearing peace amongst the hell of human sin and in fact freeing us to reach out in mutual comfort and consolation like never before in human history to our sisters and brothers half a world away. In Christ, God promises to be a God of movement, of change, of life, of new creation, of liberating love that is always at work. And, God is a God who keep Her promises. Amen.

Dustin is currently in his final year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, having recently completed a year as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in New York City. 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.

"Don't Worry Father, I'm not a Sodomite," NYC Bath Houses, Khalil Gibran and Feeding God's Sheep

So I'm in the midst of writing my "approval essay," which means I'm desperately trying to finish the essay I have to write before going to a final interview with folks in New England where we'll discern whether or not I should be a pastor.

This year's prompt for the essay are questions about "missional leadership." In less churchy language, this means leadership that inspires folks in churches to get out in the world, spread the gospel and help other folks out rather than sitting around arguing about what new furniture to buy, etc. Luckily, the prompt also states, "this theme is motivated by a desire for a deep and rich conversation about the church and its participation in God's mission." So, I figure it'd be pretty darn missional of me to share my writings thus far, in order to spark wider conversation outside of just the folks I'll be meeting with a couple months from now.  What follows is the third part of a three-part essay, specifically about a sermon I've previously preached on missional leadership.  You can watch a video of the sermon here.  I'd love to hear what you think!

What follows is a sermon I preached on April 14, 2013 primarily on the appointed Gospel message for the day, Saint John 21: 1- 29 at Saint Peter’s Church in Midtown Manhattan where I served this past year as Vicar. It highlights the way I approach talking about missional leadership while still proclaiming the Gospel:

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Alleluia! Christ is risen! I want to begin tonight with a story… a story that’s a bit humorous and a bit sad, but also filled with amazingly Good News. This is a story about an experience I had about month ago – it was a Saturday evening and I had just finished up an immigration advocacy workshop here at Saint Peter’s. I was absolutely on top of the world… my committee and I had been planning the workshop for months, and it had gone off perfectly. I was also excited because of where I was heading next… for weeks I had wanted to attend the weekly prayer vigil for marriage equality at Saint John’s Lutheran Church down in the Village and this was the first Saturday evening I could make it. So I hopped on the subway, still wearing my clergy collar, and I quickly realized this was going to be a very interesting trip… it was not only a Saturday night, but in fact the weekend of Saint Patrick’s Day, a commemoration day which is apparently celebrated quite heavily here in the City of New York. My subway car was jammed full with college kids and other folks, decked out in all sorts of light-up shamrocks, leprechaun gear, green t-shirts, etc. yelling and slurring their words… even though it was only around 7pm many of them had clearly been drinking for hours.

For time first time in awhile I felt self-conscious in my clergy collar, knowing that it would make me a sort of target in such a situation and sure enough, not long after we got moving, a young man stumbled up to me and exclaimed loud enough for much of the subway car to hear, “Don’t worry about me Father… I’m not a Sodomite!” I was of course immediately offended, and wanted to respond angrily about how insensitive the young man had been, etc. but I was able to hold back while I composed myself. After recognizing that I had probably said similarly dumb things on similar nights throughout my own college years, I was able to somewhat see the humor in the situation and instead clumsily blurted out, "I would prefer we use different language, but I'm a Lutheran, and many of the folks in my church are actually quite down with the sodomites... I'm on my way to a prayer vigil for marriage equality right now." Now a couple folks in the subway car actually cheered, others breathed a sigh of relief, but the young frat bro responded back to me a in a truly awesome way. He said something like, "Oh wow, I was just joking, I'm sorry... but knowing that is actually pretty cool. I've never heard about Lutherans before... tell me a bit about your church." We ended up having a great conversation and I left him with a handshake and my business card.

The sad part about this story of course is that when that fellow saw me in my collar, when he identified me as a Christian; his first thoughts weren’t about God’s love, or forgiveness, or liberation or even worshipping God… his first thoughts were “Oh, that’s someone who doesn’t like gay people… who doesn’t like people that are different.” And honestly of course, who could blame him… For far too long, perhaps even for much of our Christian history, it’s unfortunately sad but true that a large portion of the Church has not stood for love, forgiveness or liberation… it’s instead inadvertently stood for intolerance, backward thinking, perhaps even bigotry. So then, where is the Good News in this story?

Well quite simply… it’s that in even a situation where so large a portion of our society, particularly open-minded young people, have been so absolutely alienated by the Church, the Gospel still proves irresistible. Sure, the young man I met that night on the subway still might never step through a sanctuary door, but the simple Good News I goofily conveyed that there are communities that believe God loves everyone, that there are communities that see all people as precious children of God, made him get immensely excited… Such Good News perhaps even made him stop and think about how he himself was a child of God too. Yes my sisters and brothers, even in this day, in this age, in this city, the Gospel still proves irresistible because it reminds us of who we truly are… children of God, loved and called to share that love with others… loved and called to feed God’s sheep.

Feeding God’s sheep, sharing the good news… the big fancy word for it in the Church is evangelism, and it often can seem pretty scary. And all too often it is pretty scary, as too many Christians have taken Jesus’ command to “feed my sheep” to instead mean “tell everyone else that they’re wrong… that they’re going to hell or something like that.” Let me be absolutely clear - by no means is that what Jesus really wants us to do… its simply not what evangelism truly is. And luckily, in today’s Gospel story, Jesus provides us with a better model. He isn’t telling Peter about his many faults; about how goofy it was of him to be fishing naked only to put on his clothes before diving in the sea… even though that certainly is pretty goofy. Instead, Jesus simply invites Peter to the table, welcomes him to sit by that charcoal fire, breaks bread, eats with him and affirms who he is as child of God, no matter how goofy Peter acts or what Peter might do.

That’s because true evangelism, truly feeding God’s sheep is not really about what Peter is doing, or what I’m doing, or what you’re doing at all… its about what God is doing through Christ. For when we know God’s love and are affirmed through bread and wine, through water and words and the consolation of others in our communities, we simply can’t help but share that love and affirmation right? Simply put, we can’t help it, the Gospel is irresistible. So when Jesus commands us to feed his sheep, what he’s really saying is that you are loved, that you are okay no matter how goofy or messed up you think you are, that you are welcome at God’s table. And in knowing that amazingly Good News, by golly we can’t help but share it with others. Alleluia! Christ is risen!

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I fully realize portions of this sermon could not be preached at many congregations across the ELCA. At Saint Peter’s Church however, such a message proved not only welcomed but pastorally necessary. It is a uniquely amazing place, a progressive parish where all are truly welcome, a place where you can see a trans-sexual parishioner joyfully walking through the narthex wearing a bikini top on the way to the Pride Parade and a place where an elderly, homeless man and recovering alcoholic can become an essential community leader. The folks at Saint Peter’s, like everyone in the Northeast, had been through a tumultuous year. Many parishioners were directly affected by Superstorm Sandy, only to go through a trying presidential election season and the horrific shootings only an hour north in Newtown, CT. Given the large population of LGBT folks and Catholics in the congregation, the recent election of Pope Francis and the upcoming Supreme Court rulings on marriage equality were sources of hope but also additional stress. Only two Sundays after a joyous Easter Vigil, it was a time that called for humor but also for the creation of space to mourn the difficulties the Church, the Body of Christ has faced over human sexuality.

The Biblical claims and theological convictions of the text were timely, as Saint Peter’s was celebrating its 150th Anniversary while in the midst of drafting a new mission statement. Despite its consistently increasing membership, some folks worried the parish was in decline after making a difficult decision earlier in the year to decrease the pastoral staff due to financial concerns. Finally, I was preaching at Jazz Vespers, the Saint Peter’s liturgy that particularly attracts new members. Jesus’ message to feed his sheep and follow Him could not have arrived at a better time. The text puts forward two theological lessons and also an essential model for evangelism: While Jesus indicates the Gospel is for everyone and we’re called to share it, the earlier failed attempt of the disciples to fish shows we can’t do it on our own... we need Jesus! The evangelism model Jesus’ illustrates for us is a powerful one, much different than previous models of destroying foreign cultures or beating folks into submission. Rather, Jesus goes out to the disciples and meets them where they are, fishing naked on The Sea of Tiberias. He does NOT just sit at home waiting to welcome them in. After reaching out, Jesus simply prepares a meal, invites the disciples to join Him, and has a conversation. Evangelism has become such a negative word in our culture, and largely for good reason. In this sermon, I tried to proclaim to the people of Saint Peter’s that with a little effort to follow Jesus’ model and the work of the Spirit, we could reconstruct evangelism in the positive light of Christian hospitality and liberation.

The way I prepared this sermon was pretty typical, although perhaps unconventional. Early in my internship year, a close friend introduced me to a place called the Wall Street Bath in Lower Manhattan. A Russian-Turkish sauna/ bathhouse, it’s probably my favorite place in all of New York City and oasis from all the craziness outside. When I was initially told about the place, I was concerned it was one of the hook-up spots in similar establishments that New York City is supposedly well known for, but its very strictly not one of those at all. Instead, its populated by an odd mix of Wall Street bankers, immigrants from various Eastern European countries of all ages and orthodox Jews. There’s even the Buddhist equivalent of a pastor from a temple next door who frequents the establishment, and we had a bunch of great conversations over the year.

At any rate, whenever I was scheduled to preach, I made sure I had at least a half-day to get out of my office at the United Nations (I strongly dislike offices, and could never manage to write a sermon there) and would head down to the Wall Street Bath, with a bathing suit, a Bible and a bunch of books. After initially reading the lectionary passages through a couple times, I’d usually go into the saunas to either meditatively pray or engage folks in conversation about the main themes of the text... people were almost always interested in talking, and even more intriguing once I told them I was preparing a sermon. After doing that for awhile, I’d watch the news and reflect long and hard about what issues the parish was currently facing, only to then go back and do a closer read of the texts and their surrounding passages. Finally, I’d start to consult the other books I brought with me, and by the end of the day, I’d at very least have an outline of my sermon ready to go.

While my sermon writing process always allowed plenty of space for God to speak to me both through sacred silence and conversation with a diverse group of individuals, on the day I wrote the particular sermon above, I believe God really spoke to me through the following passage from Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet. While it’s pretty long and I’m running out of space, it’s also simply too awesome not to include in it’s entirety:

And an old priest said, “Speak to us of Religion.” And [the Prophet] said: “Have I spoke this day of aught else? Is not religion all deeds and all reflection, and that which is neither deed nor reflection, but a wonder and a surprise ever springing in the soul, even while the hands hew the stone or tend the loom? Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations? Who can spread his hours before him, saying, ‘This for God and this for myself; This for my soul, and this other for my body?’ All your hours are wings that beat through space from self to self. He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked. The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin. And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song-bird in a cage.

The freest song comes not through bars and wires. And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn. Your daily life is your temple and your religion. Whenever you enter into it take with you your all. Take the plough and the forge and the mallet and the lute, the things you have fashioned in necessity or for delight. For in revery you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures. And take with you all men: For in adoration you cannot fly higher than their hopes nor humble yourself lower than despair.

And if you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles. Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children. And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain. You shall see Him smiling in the flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.

Okay, so everything Gibran writes above doesn’t stick to Lutheran theology, but given that he was a somewhat Maronite, fully Lebanese-American writing in the 1920s, he comes pretty close. I could have done a better job conveying some the key missional aspects of the text from Saint John, the conversations I held at the Wall Street Bath that day, and the way the Spirit spoke to me through Gibran’s writings; primarily, I should have added some concrete examples of what Christian evangelism and mission could like at Saint Peter’s, rather than just using the generality of inviting folks to a meal.

On the whole though, the sermon worked well, and I received extremely positive feedback. I proclaimed the Gospel that God loves all Her children in a humorous yet serious way, especially to all those LGBT folks and allies troubled by the constant barrage of hate coming from our conservative sisters and brothers in Christ. Additionally, I proclaimed that God liberates our whole selves through Christ: we are freed to live out our whole lives and respond to God’s love in all we say and do, not just what we do at church or what we do on a Sunday morning. I conveyed that our whole lives are our temple and our religion. Finally, I reaffirmed that not only does God welcome all folks into His loving embrace, but that we should always be ready and willing to tell our story, to invite all of humanity in its rich diversity into God’s loving arms with us.

Dustin is currently in his final year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, having recently completed a year as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in New York City. 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.

Camp Calumet: A "Missional" Faith Community

So as many folks I speak regularly with know, I'm in the midst of writing my "approval essay," which means I'm desperately trying to finish the really long assignment (roughly twenty pages) that I have to write before going to a final interview with folks in New England where we'll discern whether or not I should be a pastor.

This year's prompts for the approval essay are all questions about "missional leadership." In less churchy language, this means leadership that inspires folks in churches to get out in the world, spread the gospel and help other folks out rather than sitting around arguing about what new furniture to buy, etc. Luckily, the prompt also states, "this theme is motivated by a desire for a deep and rich conversation about the church and its participation in God's mission." So, I figure it'd be pretty darn missional of me to share my writings thus far, in order to spark wider conversation outside of just the folks I'll be meeting with a couple months from now. What follows is the first of three parts of my essay, and its specifically about a "formative faith community that has helped shape your understanding of missional leadership." I decided to write about Camp Calumet Lutheran in Freedom, NH.  Thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Despite the task ahead of me, I feel immensely blessed as I embark upon writing my approval essay.  At the end of a powerful, affirming, even life-changing year at the Lutheran Office for World Community (LOWC) and Saint Peter’s Church in New York, I absolutely craved the opportunity to break away from the hustle of city life.  I thus decided to head up to northern New England for two weeks of time with friends, hiking in my home mountains and thereby beginning to unpack my internship experience.  While things were already going great, this processing time took an even better turn when I bumped into some of the more senior staff from Camp Calumet Lutheran in New Hampshire.

After catching up on each other’s summers, we got to talking about an international staff member seeking political asylum here in the United States.  Given my work this year on immigration issues at both Saint Peter’s and LOWC, we decided I should spend a couple days at camp both dialoging with that staff member and writing this essay.  So now I’m here, sitting in the dining hall of the camp I spent nearly a decade growing, working and serving at.  At one end of the room an older woman joyfully dances about as she sets up for a coming meal.  At the other, a group of young refugees laugh and hang out, talking really loudly in a bunch of different languages. In the middle of the room, two junior counselors Skype home to their friends in high school about “the best summer ever” that will soon come to a close.

I relay this story not take up space in a really long essay, or in a vain attempt to bolster my people watching credentials, but rather to describe what a truly missional faith community looks like.  What makes Camp Calumet a missional faith community?  Whether they intellectually know it or not, most of the folks here, staff, campers and others guests alike, quite visibly feel the Triune God at work not only in their own lives, but in the life of the wider Calumet community.  Teaching His disciples about the Trinity in John 16: 12 - 15, Christ states:

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.  He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.  All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you (NRSV).

Through such teaching Christ proclaims the profoundly good news to His disciples, both now and two thousand years ago, that not even God Herself can be alone.  God can only do Her work in Holy Community, the very work that lovingly gathers us up into missional community with God and one another.  When the folks at Calumet experience the good news of God’s act of liberating love in community, its readily apparent that they can’t help but respond, all according to their given vocations.  And whether it is through talking with friends at home over Skype, joyfully setting up dinner, creatively discerning how to leverage new opportunities or welcoming in people who the world has turned away, the folks at Calumet carry out Christian mission in a way that’s highly contextual, trusting the Spirit to guide them into truth amidst the chaotic change of our contemporary world.

I spent much of the past day here talking with staff of all ages about their experiences of missional leadership (using less churchy language) in order to help jog my own memory.  After sharing funny and profound stories over lunch, meeting a bunch of fantastic new counselors and going on a great sailing trip with two now senior counselors I trained years ago, I eventually identified two specific lessons I learned about missional leadership during my many summers at Calumet: 1) selflessness is only sustainable in community and 2) leadership means creating spaces for disciples to grow into leaders themselves.

Selflessness is only sustainable in community... The scene is a summer night in late June, 2002, with a bunch of young adults sitting around a fire on really uncomfortable benches, or if you were lucky, a creaky camp chair.  Earlier that day I, along with thirty-two other fifteen and sixteen year olds, had made a long trek up I-95 to camp in the back of our parents’ mini-vans for the beginning of an eight-week session of camp counselor training.  One kid showed up with a clothes trunk that looked like a coffin.  Another guy spent a couple hours sprinting through the campsite with a football.  Everyone was trying to establish an identity for themselves. It was a truly bizarre day, but around the campfire that evening, things quickly got serious once we started learning about “camper comes first,” or CCF, Calumet’s central organizing principal of putting the needs of campers and other guests ahead of your own.  I came to learn the most important thing one does during trainee summer is figure out how to live into this concept, and for someone like me who was more interested in hanging out with friends and chasing girls than selflessly serving others, such a task did not come easy.

Eventually after years of growing and working at Calumet, I thought I understood the concept of selfless service quite well.  It was only many summers later though in 2008 when I realized the other half of the lesson, the part that makes selfless service truly missional.  This aspect is reflected in one of my absolutely favorite Bible passages, Ecclesiastes 4: 9 - 12:

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil.  For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help.  Again, if two lie together, they keep warm; but how can one keep warm alone?  And though one might prevail against another, two will withstand one.  A threefold cord is not quickly broken (NRSV).

In the summer of 2008 I graduated on the precipice of the Great Recession, my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer, an important relationship was ending and the doctors thought I had thyroid cancer too.  One night in early August I found out my mother’s cancer had metastasized, and the next morning, despite being assigned as a counselor that week, I could barely function without bursting into tears at breakfast.  A close friend on staff offered to take my campers for a couple hours so I could sit, pray and get my head together.  At first my pride got in the way, but eventually my friend convinced me that to truly put my campers’ needs first, I needed to take care of myself.

It seems like a simple lesson, but it’s a profound one... no matter how great you are, you cannot shoulder the burdens of Christian mission on your own.  Missional leadership thus means cultivating faith communities where folks of diverse callings, gathered up by the Triune God, support each other as they engage in selfless service, for the sake of the Gospel.  Even God cannot work alone... He only works in Holy Community and more often than not chooses to work through apostles, evangelists and all types of disciples.  If God cannot work alone, no matter how much our original sin may tell us otherwise, how can we?  Engaging the way of the cross, we must recognize selfless service is only sustainable in community.

Missional leadership also means creating spaces for disciples to grow into leaders themselves.  I first learned this humbling but important lesson in the summer of 2010 while working with thirty-four fifteen and sixteen year old counselors-in-training (CITs) as they discovered how to become leaders themselves.  I went into that summer super pumped; I had wanted to be trainer ever since I was a CIT, and it was finally going to happen.  After working at Calumet for so many summers, I had much experience to share, and as I was about to enter seminary the following fall, I felt extremely qualified.  Furthermore, I perceived a bit of decline at Calumet over the preceding years, and this was my chance to turn things around by training a new group of amazing counselors!

If only I had read Exodus 18: 13 - 23 beforehand, I would have been saved a lot of soul searching that summer:

The next day Moses sat as judge for the people, while the people stood around him from morning until evening. When Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, ‘What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone, while all the people stand around you from morning until evening?’ Moses said to his father-in-law, ‘Because the people come to me to inquire of God. When they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between one person and another, and I make known to them the statutes and instructions of God.’ Moses’ father-in-law said to him, ‘What you are doing is not good. You will surely wear yourself out, both you and these people with you. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone. Now listen to me. I will give you counsel, and God be with you! You should represent the people before God, and you should bring their cases before God; teach them the statutes and instructions and make known to them the way they are to go and the things they are to do. You should also look for able men among all the people, men who fear God, are trustworthy, and hate dishonest gain; set such men over them as officers over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. Let them sit as judges for the people at all times; let them bring every important case to you, but decide every minor case themselves. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. If you do this, and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure, and all these people will go to their home in peace’ (NRSV).

I remember one stark conversation with a close friend on staff lamenting how it didn’t feel like I was doing much that summer.  Sure, I could give the trainees basic tips about leading conversations or demonstrate how to clean up a wet-bed, but on the whole, it seemed like most of the folks I was working with were already ready to be great counselors... they just needed a little time and the right environment to fully grow into that calling.  The gardening analogy for missional leadership is certainly overused, but my experience training new counselors in 2010 taught me its largely accurate.  Like Moses in the Exodus passage above, I found there was not a great deal of active ‘doing’ or gifting of knowledge in leading.  Instead, leading is much more about simply cultivating spaces where disciples can grow into the leaders God has intended them to be.  Perhaps the most poignant conversation I had today at Calumet was with a young adult who talked about how Church as an extremely hierarchal institution throughout much of its history.  He contrasted this with Calumet’s more missional model of leadership, where power is shared and the focus is not about what a single individual is doing. Rather, Calumet focuses on what God is doing through a community of growing leaders.  Missional leadership means creating spaces for disciples to grow into leaders themselves.

As I stated earlier, when the folks at Calumet experience the good news of God’s act of liberating love in community, its readily apparent that they can’t help but respond, all according to their given vocations.  Given that Calumet has proven such a formative place in my development as a missional leader, its follows that I believe empowering missional leadership in others primarily means cultivating faith communities where the gospel is experienced in ALL its forms.  Luther does a great job of laying out all the ways we experience the gospel in the Smalcald Articles:

We now want to return to the gospel, which gives guidance and help against sin in more that one way, because is extravagantly rich in his grace: first, through the spoken word, in which the forgiveness of sins is preached to the whole world... second, through baptism; third, through the holy Sacrament of the Altar; fourth, through the power of the keys and also through the mutual conversation and consolation of brothers and sisters (Kolb and Wengert, Book of Concord, 319).

The gospel, the good news of God’s act of liberating love in Jesus Christ, is really, really awesome!  Not only is the gospel really awesome, but it also frees folks to serve their neighbors and their world, or in other words, to act missionally.  Why then would one not want to cultivate faith communities where the gospel is experienced as much and in as many ways as possible?

In my experience, most pastors know how to perform a baptismal rite, know how to preside over the Eucharist and many can give a pretty decent sermon.  Where congregations often fail however is the fourth way we experience the gospel; they don’t cultivate strong faith communities where “members” and those outside the church walls alike can engage in mutual conversation and consolation.  If there’s one thing Camp Calumet is good at, its cultivating just that sort of missional community, through strong and fun Bible study, culturally aware mentorship and profound discussion on the shores of Lake Ossipee.  Lutherans deeply believe that all folks, not just pastors and other “religious professionals” are called to God given vocations.  Having learned missional leadership at Camp Calumet, I will follow its model of cultivating communities where the good news of God’s act of liberating love in Jesus Christ is experienced in all its forms, thereby inspiring folks to grow into and missionally live out their unique callings.

Dustin is currently in his final year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, having recently completed a year as Vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in New York City. 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.