Friends, as most of you have long known, the Supreme Court will soon be taking up two marriage equality cases, one concerning the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and the other on California's Proposition 8, the constitution amendment that stripped same-sex couples of their freedom to marry back in 2008. The court has scheduled oral arguments to begin on March 26th and March 27th, with a final ruling expected in June. Although the court could make a wide variety of rulings on the two cases, there's great hope that we could win the struggle for marriage equality this spring.
In such hope, people of faith in New York City are gathering every Saturday evening at Saint John's Lutheran Church at 81 Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. While the weekly vigil will be held from 7-9pm, its designed to be a free flowing style of worship where folks can come and go as they please. Various stations will be placed throughout the Saint John's sanctuary, where folks can pray for the Supreme Court Justices, pray for those who wish to deny same-sex individuals their civil rights, celebrate those who are married, and remember those who have died before they could enjoy the right to marry, etc. An additional station will offer the opportunity to brainstorm additional ways we can take action to forward the cause of nationwide marriage equality. For more info, you can find contact information for Pastor Mark Erson on the Saint John's website, or simply comment on this post.
Additionally, if you're someone in or outside the New York area planning a similar pray vigil, I'd love to hear about it.
God's peace, Dustin
Dustin is currently a 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 building 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.
What an amazing example of a person of faith being a prophetic witness speaking about race in America in light of the killing of Trayvon Martin:
This gets me thinking about all the different ways folks were prophets in the Bible... Ezekiel through both word and action, God raining down the gift of the Torah through Moses, Miriam singing, dancing and playing music in praise of God. We have plenty of modern day prophets as well, and Rep. Bobby Rush is one of them. People of faith it seems have been particularly outspoken about the Trayvon Martin story. Do you have any examples of this sort of prophetic witness in your own community?
God's peace,
Dustin
Dustin is a Masters of Divinity candidate in his second year of study 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 building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin really likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.
Had to write my own psalm for a First Testament course this semester and the following is what I came up with... it's based on a conversation I had with a woman who used to call the Occupy Philly encampment her home.
Creator, nurturing mother;
Your love and beauty fill all the earth.
Nurturing mother;
You come to even the forbidden places,
the merciless grid of the city street.
Yet the demons of poverty, and hunger and open-air death dealing
press in on me.
The hellhounds of addiction, and depression and hopelessness
seek to overtake me.
How could I remain without your guiding hand?
What would I do without your comforting embrace?
May you vanquish my enemies O Lord,
not with the sting of your sword,
but with the wild shoots of your garden
breaking forth through blood stained concrete.
I know your attentive ear
will hear the groans of your child
stripped of her humanity.
I am blameless Lord.
I shout your name from atop tenements.
I shout within burned out rowhouses.
I shout both night and day.
I shout you are my strength, my healer, and my champion.
On February 7th the LTSP community was privileged
to hear David Beckmann, a Lutheran pastor and President of Bread for the World,
speak at our first convocation of the spring 2012 semester. The talk was an encouraging yet
sobering update on what has occurred in the struggle to end global food
insecurity since the publication of Mr. Beckmann’s book Exodus from Hunger in 2010.
Through Exodus’s inclusion
in the “One Seminary; One Book” campaign, the LTSP community has learned a
great deal both about hunger and what role public theologians have in leading
our world out of what is very solvable crisis. Much like in his book, Beckmann discussed how solving hunger
can be a bi-partisan issue, evidenced by the fact that Bread for the World has
both former Republican Senator Bob Dole and former Democratic Senator Tom
Harkin on it’s board.” He also
stressed that public theologians have a responsibility to help faith
communities see citizenship as stewardship and considering offerings of not
only money and food but advocacy actions that work towards changing the system
that causes hunger in our world.
While
a great deal of work has already been done towards ending food insecurity, Mr.
Beckmann discussed how given the current political environment, we need to help
defend the “circle of protection” around the poor and vulnerable of our
society. Although maintaining
church food banks is a great start, they only contribute 6% of what federal
assistance programs currently do towards feeding hungry people. As state and federal politicians
continue attacking the federal safety net of food stamps, school breakfast and
lunches, tax credits and other programs, the faith community must stand, the
faith community needs to lend its voice to those who do not have one. Here are only a few ideas of what folks
at LTSP and elsewhere could do to help in this effort:
Pick up a copy of Exodus from Hunger and read it to educate yourself on the issue if you have not already done so (it’s a really easy book).
Write, call or visit your local, state or federal representatives as indicated on those websites… even if you’re against their position, the people who work in legislative offices are generally pretty nice. Help folks at your congregations and field sites realize how important advocacy is as part of their faith.
Let’s get creative on the LTSP campus! Figuring out how to do a well-publicized hunger fast during part of Lent might be a great start.
By engaging in these actions, we can both ensure that hungry
people are fed and that we are doing our best to be the Church, Christ’s body
on earth.
Seminarians nowadays are hearing a lot about how we'll have to be "bi-vocational" when we get out of school... in normal language, that means we'll only be able to get part-time jobs as pastors since many churches can no longer afford a full-time clergy on staff. This has of course caused considerable worry amongst both me and my fellow seminarians... getting a master's degree to only get a part-time job doesn't sound all that enticing. The more I think about it though (and especially after visiting my home congregation of Emanuel Lutheran in Manchester, CT this past Sunday), I'm realizing that having to be bi-vocational can be pretty awesome. Not only can it be a pretty amazing to be a pastor, but I think it actually presents a very powerful way for the church to move forward in our increasingly disconnected and pluralistic age.
First of all, the term "bi-vocational" is theologically weak... everyone has many roles their called to by God. Whether or not you're a pastor, you're also called to be a good son or daughter, a good brother or sister, a good parent and a good citizen. When thinking specifically about being a part-time pastor (whether or not that term fits well either) I honestly think folks should get excited rather than disheartened. We constantly hear about how the church needs to be out in the community more rather than simply welcoming people into it's doors. Used effectively, a congregation can do just that with a part-time pastor. Imagine if a congregation was able to team up with a local not-for-profit and split a pastor's salary and time. The ministries of both that congregation and the not-for-profit could be greatly strengthened. The networking possibilities of being a part-time pastor/ part-time bartender or coffee shop manager could be enormous. Perhaps a part-time pastor could also work as a local co-op manager or in chaplaincy.
In order for the bi-vocational pastor movement to work though, the heavy weight of filling such a role cannot be put solely on the pastor. In this difficult economy many congregations can't be expected to pay for a full-time pastor, but they should be expected to get creative and line-up another role for their pastor that both connects with their ministry plans and provides the pastor with sufficient financial compensation. Seminaries need to do their part too by educating future pastors to work in the world they'll actually be ministering in... a little less Greek and a couple basic business classes could perhaps do the trick. More bi-vocational internships should be offered as well. I doubt many of our earliest Christian sisters and brothers had full-time pastors, but instead had leaders who were already connected to the community through other professions. Even Saint Paul wasn't a full-time evangelist, but instead split that role with making tents! (Acts 18:3) More and more of us pastors may have to spend some time doing the modern version of making tents, and as long as our congregations and seminaries are responsibly supporting us, I think being bi-vocational can greatly strengthen the church well into the future.
I've been blessed to stay with a friend up in New Hampshire over the past few days, and it's been both a fun but also very meditative experience. One thing I spent time doing was reading some of the first posts I wrote for It's Only A Northern blog back in 2009. The post that particularly struck me was something I came up with for the by the way community entitled "...with each gift that you share may you heal and repair..." The title of the post itself is part of a beautiful environmental stewardship called "Changes" by Xavier Rudd, but the substance of the post is about all forms of Christian stewardship.
Stewardship is a much wider concept of course than simply properly using your financial resources. It also means caring for the environment, for our own bodies, our families and our own borrowed time. One thing that I've been thinking a whole lot about lately is how stewardship of all these amazing gifts from God functions in our congregations as well as in our own individual lives.
I've had a number of conversations with friends over the last few weeks about how in our increasingly pluralistic and disconnected society, church buildings often get in the way of proper congregational stewardship. For one, they obviously get in the way of financial stewardship... old, large and perhaps unnecessary buildings cost a lot of money that could otherwise be used towards mission efforts. Church buildings also frequently represent poor environmental stewardship... those same old buildings waste a lot of energy to cool and heat. Most importantly though, church buildings often represent poor stewardship of the opportunity we have as believers to be the body of Christ in this world and serve our neighbor.
One can't make blanket statements for sure, as there are more than enough examples of church buildings being essential resources for the towns and cities that surround them. Frequently though, maintaining and worshiping in beautiful buildings take congregations out of the communities they're meant to minister to... the Church ends up becoming identified with a building rather than the sisters and brothers that make up the body of Christ in this world.
There's a number of ways the "building-free" congregation can work. This post at Till He Comes makes some helpful suggestions: "Sell Your Church Building." One might worship in smaller house-church "cells" most weeks and then occasionally get together in a larger location. Other faith communities could rent out meeting places, helping support a local business or even another congregation. A group could even regularly meet in local bars and coffee houses, getting out and being visible in the community and learning from them in turn. Indeed, selling church buildings can end up helping congregations sell the Church itself to a disconnected, pluralistic culture hungry for faith and community.
What follows is the final practice sermon I gave for my Homiletics course at LTSP. It was on the Advent 3B lectionary texts and boy... due to it being a busy end of the semester I didn't have a wink of sleep the night before. You can definitely tell (it takes me a bit to get going and I messed up both the Bible verse and narrative portion a bit), but overall I didn't think it turned out TOO bad. It'd love to hear your input. Thanks for viewing friends!
This is still a work in progress but tell me what you think... not preaching it until Thursday:
I want to do something a little atypical and begin with a song that helps illustrate today’s texts in this season of watching and hopeful waiting. It’s called “The Rebel Jesus,” by Jackson Browne:
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My sisters and brothers, much like Jackson Browne, I have no
wish to come between this day and your enjoyment. Rather, I intend to talk
today about that which truly frees us.
Today’s texts are all about prophetic witness… they’re all
about believers preaching the gospel through word and action. In our first
lesson from Isaiah we hear of God’s children building up ancient ruins,
repairing ruined cities and the devastations of many generations. We hear John
the Baptizer crying out in the wilderness “make straight the way of the Lord!”
We hear from Paul that despite whatever wilderness we may find ourselves in we
can “rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances for
it is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” And Paul adds, “Do not quench
the Spirit!” DO NOT QUENCH THE SPIRIT!
Despite the examples of Paul, John the Baptizer and
countless others throughout our history, we often fail to be prophetic
witnesses… we often fail to be a voice calling out in the wilderness of
injustice in ours troubled, broken world. Despite being the body of Christ in
this world, through both our action and inaction, we quench the Spirit.
Moreover, we all know this, at least deep down, and we feel guilty. We feel
guilty and doubting ourselves, we feel alone in our guilt… again and again we
here a quiet voice telling us do not quench the Spirit.
The good and bad news about our situation my sisters and
brothers is that while we may feel like we’re alone in our guilt, we are not.
As a human institution, the church is broken and sinful too. As a community of
faith we all too often fail to raise a collective voice of prophetic witness.
In fact, the church frequently stands against the prophetic voice of others. I
first heard of the song “The Rebel Jesus” when a close friend of mine told me about
his father playing it in church during the holiday season. Instead of embracing
the song as a thought provoking look at Christian religion, the congregation
simply shrugged off the song and raised their eyebrows at my friend’s father.
Isn’t this why it is so difficult to be a prophetic witness?
Turned in on ourselves, we worry too much about not being accepted by others…
as a church we worship the approval of our community rather than following
God’s call.We don’t want to cause
trouble and instead stick to what’s safe.We worry more about the color of the carpet in our sanctuaries than the
injustice and violent oppression happening all around us.As a church we frequently fail to bind
up the brokenhearted by speaking out against bullying in our schools.We fail to advocate for programs that
could liberate our neighbors from the captivity of underwater mortgages.We fail to help release those
imprisoned by unemployment or marriage inequality or a broken immigration
system.All too often, we quench
the Spirit.
Of course it isn’t always possible to speak with a prophetic
voice. We all do some of the time though… many of us are very active in our
communities, volunteering with Habitat for Humanity or serving in soup
kitchens. Some of us even write letters to our congressmen or the editor our
local newspaper advocating for programs that help the most vulnerable in our
society. The good news my sisters and brothers is that while we can
always do better, we can’t be perfect and God doesn’t expect us to be.God loves us and we couldn’t earn God’s
favor even if we wanted to… Christ has already done that for us. In this season
of Advent we wait and hope and joyfully celebrate the coming of our Savior. We
wait and hope for our Savior who has called each of us by name… Christ our
Savior who called YOU and YOU and YOU… we watch in great expectation for God to
come as a humble child, born to love and redeem all of us.
In fact it is because of Christ’s sacrifice that we’re all
freed… freed from the need to justify ourselves, to make up for past mistakes
or to clamor for power and glory.We’re freed from all those things to be a prophetic voice and serve our
neighbor solely out of love for God. There are a lot of folks who aren’t big
fans of the church, and some for good reason. Much like Jackson Browne though,
many of those “heathens” and “pagans,” are on the side of the Rebel Jesus.
Folks might not support the church, but they probably support the idea of a
community selflessly serving others as one voice, crying out in the wilderness.
Don’t quench the Spirit… Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in
all circumstances and support each other in being a prophetic voice against the
unjust world around us. In doing so may we live out our call to spread the
gospel, solely out of love for God.
First of all, I want to thank you all so much for reading lately... this blog has really taken off in recent weeks (I hit over one hundred readers for the first time today!) and for that I'm so grateful.
In an attempt to begin practicing what I intend to do in the parish, I'm putting up some initial sermon ideas and questions for preaching the lectionary texts for this Sunday, December 11th, 2011. I have the luxury of not actually giving a sermon until this coming Thursday for my Homiletics course, so I would greatly appreciate some feedback in the comments section of my blog. This and most of my other posts either directly have to do with coursework or something I'm writing for my field internship with Lutheran Advocacy Ministries of PA, so your feedback is a critical part of my education process. For example, when looking at lectionary texts I often come at them from a social justice perspective (see below) and often worry I'm missing other messages that scripture may be telling me. Thanks again for helping me fill in the complete picture.
To begin, here are links for the Advent 3, Year B texts in the NRSV: Isaiah 61: 1-4, 8-11 | Psalm 126 | 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 | John: 6-8, 19-28. There's three main ideas I see in this Sunday's texts: social justice, release and Christian freedom. Let's try to treat all of these seperately:
Social Justice
A social justice theme is definitely running through all these texts. For instance, "the year of the Lord's favor" in verse of two the Isaiah text is probably referring to the concept of a jubilee year. Basically, jubilee happened every fifty years in Israel in order to maintain a well ordered society. Debtors would be forgiven of all their debts and indentured servants would be set free. The jubilee was also a sabbatical year for society: fields would be left to lie follow, giving both people and the land a well-deserved break. In this age of extreme income disparity when our society's most vulnerable are asked to shoulder ever greater burdens by cuts to government programs, what would declaring something like a jubilee look like? Isn't forgiving others of their debts (and other things) something the Creator always asks of us?
One line that could provide an organizing idea for this Sunday's sermon is the "Do not quench the Spirit" in 1 Thessalonians. In response to God's love, don't quench the Spirit. Don't quench the Spirit and pray without ceasing about how people of faith can best care for their neighbor. Like John the Baptist, never quench the Spirit, bear prophetic witness to the sins of our society but recognize that it is God doing the work, not you... Don't quench the Spirit, and "raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the
ruined cities, the devastations of many generations" (Isaiah 61:
4).
That sort of stuff could be great right? What do you think?
Also, for those that are interested in more emerging/ emergent styles of worship, I keep thinking of one of my favorite Jackson Browne songs:
It definitely is all about prophetic witness. I don't know the exact story around, but I heard from a friend once that his father played "The Rebel Jesus" at church during Advent and was asked to leave... now that's definitely being a prophetic witness.
Release
In this season of hopeful waiting, what exactly are waiting for? Jesus of course, but what does Christ coming mean for each of us? What sins do we need to be assured Christ will release us from? What else troubles our souls? Parishioners could be asked to take a meditative moment to think about what they need to be released from. Going back to the jubilee year concept, what can they release others from? The "may those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy" in Psalm 126:5 could be a central theme of this sermon.
Christian Freedom
Is Advent a good time to get a little doctrinal? Maybe. And through talking about Christian freedom could allow you to roll both themes of social justice and release into one sermon. Verse ten in the Isaiah text could be especially great for talking about Christian freedom:
"I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels."
How does this state of Christian freedom compel us to serve our neighbor as Christ? Christian freedom is what allows us to do God's work in the world, to be the body of Christ in the world until the eschaton. Definitely something you could talk about. Well that's about it folks. As Paul says, don't quench the Spirit and may God rock your congregation this Sunday with a good dose of Word. And please, I'm sure I missed a lot here... leave me some comments.
As written in an upcoming edition of LTSP'sThe Seminarian:
Over the last few weeks I had the pleasure of visiting the
OccupyPhilly encampment at Dilworth Plaza three times. Each visit was a uniquely amazing
experience. It was great to talk
with folks and feel a strong sense of community during my first visit, but I
was also disappointed that people of faith weren’t visibly present at all. My second time down I attended a
meeting of the then newly formed Interfaith Working Group. Since that meeting, I’ve seen the
Interfaith Working Group do some fantastic ministry. They’ve organized weekly speakers, made appeals for food
donations and cared for the many homeless folks living at Occupy. The group provided a calming presence
when police closed the encampment last week and they’ve even worked with the
Rev. Jesse Jackson to reach out to the city’s African-American church
community.
I purposely made my third visit to OccupyPhilly during one
of their public feeding times. At
the encampment’s height they was feeding 900 folks each day of the week and
2100 folks on the weekend free of charge.
Meals were cooked at a local Friends Center kitchen and carted
over to the encampment, providing a very public witness to our city’s hunger
crisis right in front of City Hall.
Before leaving that evening I briefly spoke with a man who said he
wanted to start going to church because the Friends Center was so helpful.
The city government evicted occupiers from Dilworth Plaza
last week to make way for a construction project without granting a new
overnight permit for another location.
Since then OccupyPhilly’s Interfaith Working Group has worked hard to
help homeless folks find another long-term residence. While I pray the movement stays alive and even grows in the
coming months, Occupy has already provided us with an important model for being
church in the 21st century.
Living amidst such social and economic injustice, the church must bear
very public, prophetic witness to the many sins of our contemporary
society. Like Occupy, the church
must publicly witness in partnership with our interfaith sisters and brother in
manner centered on conversation rather than violence.
One of the best aspects of OccupyPhilly's former encampment at Dilworth Plaza was that it provided a semi-permanent community for homeless folks in Philadelphia to live in a central location with easy access to food and other important resources. Since the city evicted the occupiers from Dilworth Plaza last week, the rare sense of community for the city's homeless has been destroyed. Immediately after the eviction, some homeless occupiers attempted to set-up another encampment in North Philadelphia under a I-95 underpass, but they were recently asked to leave as well. Paul Klemmer, one of the homeless occupiers, recently wrote an open letter to Mayor Nutter about the situation. Check out the following heartbreaking excerpt:
Philadelphia has about 4,000 homeless people and 40,000 empty dwelling
units, but, apparently, unless the wealthy can profit by our occupying
these dwellings, they would rather see us alone, with our possessions if
not stolen by regular criminals, "confiscated" by police, since we have
no place to store anything we can't carry and are not allowed to
congregate to watch one another's belongings.
You can check out more of Paul Klemmer's letter here. The church needs to be a prophetic witness and support individuals like Paul who want to set up fully functioning communities where homeless folks can live, be good neighbors and even minister to each other without being victimized by our wider society. As Paul mentions later on his letter, these encampments or facilities could be located in those forgotten, abandoned places in the city like foreclosed homes. OccupyPhilly's Interfaith Working group has continued working on helping the homeless of our city find new, fully functioning communities to live instead of simply shelters. The group can certainly provide a strong model for the rest of us.
God's peace,
Dustin
UPDATE 12:47 PM: Here's a great video segment on this second eviction from Fox29 News:
