Searching

Generous Landowner

2011-08-30T18:30:00.000-04:00

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Matthew 20:1-16, NRSV

Earlier this week I told my house mates what scripture this sermon was going to be about and I got this response: “I know that parable, and I don't like it.” I totally understand why I got that response too. I confess that often when reading the gospels there are stories that I frankly don't like. Some stories seem completely unfair.

The Parable of the landowner is definitely one of them: laborers that work different amounts receive the same pay. Imagine for a second if a corporate executive decided to adopt a similar renumeration policy and started to give every employee an identical paycheck no matter how many hours were worked. Some people would be livid. Others would be very happy. Either way, there would not be much motivation for people to work. If I can get paid for a full eight hour shift by clocking in at four and getting off at five, why on earth would I go to work at nine? The scandal that would result from such a decision would most certainly be epic and the business would probably quickly fail.

Even more drastic would be if employees that only worked for a company for a few days were able to have the same wealth of a loyal employee that worked for a company since its inception. Often with startup companies, the first employees are able to make the most money, especially through employee stock options. For instance, at Starbucks, all employees were offered stock options starting in 1991. An employee making $20,000 at that time received about $2400 in stock offerings. In just five years time that employee could have cashed in the stock options at around $50,000. (From Howard Schultz book Pour your heart into it) Just think what those stocks are worth today! Also, the longer a person works for a company, the bigger their salary gets.

In our world, people that have been working for a long time simply make more money. That's why this parable is so shocking. And it should be! But this parable starts telling us its about something different than the way our world works, doesn't it? Lets take a look at the passage.

Verse one starts out with a connecting word: “For.” There is clearly a connection being made to whatever came before. In fact, Many scholars argue that Matthew 19 and 20 should not be separated:

Warren Carter in his book Matthew and the Margins titles his section on these two chapters: "The Alternative Households of God's Empire." He writes:
The coherence of these two chapters resides in pervasive cultural understandings of households. ... They [Aristotelean tradition, Neopythagoreans, and Hellenistic Judaism] understood the household to consist of four dimensions, namely, three relationships (husband-wife; father-children; master-slave) and the male's task of earning wealth. A power dynamic controlled the relationships in which the husband/father/master ruled over the wife/children/slaves. The household was hierarchical and patriarchal in that the male held power over women and children. It was marked by strict gender differentiation. ...
The sections of chapters 19-20 reflect this household pattern: the husband-wife relationship (including divorce, 19:3-12), children (19:13-15), procuring wealth (19:16-30), being slaves (20:17-28). In addition, 20:1-16 is a parable about a householder administering his estate and hiring workers.
But while the chapters utilize this household structure, they do not endorse this cultural norm. Rather, siding with some other minority cultural views, the two chapters subvert this hierarchical and patriarchal structure by instructing disciples in a more egalitarian pattern (cf. 20:12). Husbands are not to rule over wives but to participate in a "one-flesh" relationship (19:3-12); all disciples are children, there are no parents (19:13-15); following Jesus, not procuring wealth and status, defines discipleship (19:16-30); all disciples are slaves like Jesus, there are no masters (20:17-28). The parable of the householder in 20:1-16 exemplifies God's distinctive and different ways of ordering life. The concluding story of Jesus healing the blind men who beg for mercy offers disciples hope that they too will be enabled by Jesus' power to live this alternative and against-the-grain existence (20:29-34). That is, as Jesus journeys to Jerusalem to die, the chapters provide disciples with instruction on an alternative household that befits the empire or reign of God. [pp. 376-7]
Chapter 19 concludes with the story of the rich young man that approached Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?” Jesus answer to the young man is to sell everything and give the money to the poor and come follow him. Then in verse 30, Jesus says, “But many who are first shall be last, and the last will be first.” Sound familiar?

Now in Chapter 20, in typical Parable fashion, Jesus begins to describe the Kingdom of Heaven. Its like a landowner-- a rich guy, just like the rich guy that approached Jesus before-- who hired laborers for his vineyard.

Apparently the scene Jesus described would have been familiar. The social structure in the Roman Empire was hierarchically ordered. A few powerful men ruled at the top of the pyramid while at the bottom, the local peasants and businessmen struggled for a meager living. The day laborers may have struggled the most in this society, as the marketplace was a volatile place to look for work. At least slaves knew where their next meal would come from and may have received healthcare because they were at least worth what their master paid for them.

Well, today's the lucky day for a few workers. The landowner approaches the first workers. They agree to a wage-- a denarius-- to go out to the fields to work. Now a denarius is not a lot of money. It was about enough to feed a peasant family for one day with none left to save. So, if the laborers didn't get their denarius for the day, their family didn't eat. To compare the denarius to a current US dollar, historians say that a denarius has the buying power to get about $20 worth of bread (Wikipedia). Comparitively, a laborer working for minimum wage today would be paid $58 before taxes for an eight hour work day. After this agreement is made, the landowner sends the first workers to the field.

Then when the landowner goes back to the marketplace at nine, noon, and three, he hires them and says “You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you what is right.” Notice that this agreement looks very different than the first agreement. With the first workers, there is a specific amount that is agreed upon. Now the landowner simply says he will pay “what is right,” or we could also say, “what is just.” No specific wage is given. Furthermore, Jesus says, “then they went.” The first laborers were sent out to the field. These laborers “went.”

The last group of laborers is hired one hour before the end of the work day, about five o'clock. The owner goes back to the marketplace and asks the people there, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” When I first read this, I thought, “What a jerk!” I mean don't you think that this just adds insult to injury? They say, “Nobody hired us!” I imagine it being like that scene in the movie Fun with Dick and Jane where Jim Carey goes and joins bunch of Latino men outside the paint store waiting for someone to come and offer them work for the day. Only one truck comes to hire someone, so he gets in a scuff and ends up losing his wallet. Then when INS officers come he ends up getting deported to Mexico because he doesn't have “Papers.” We can laugh about Jim Carey's antics, but this parable may speak more than I know to people struggling with unemployment and hearing people say, “why aren't you working?”

So that's the first half of the Parable. The second half goes on to show how they were paid. The evening Comes, and as the law states in Deuteronomy that poor workers must be paid before sunset, the owner (litterally translated 'the lord') sets to have the laborers paid. One thing that puzzles me about the parable is why the owner has the manager summon and pay the workers what the owner feels is “right and just.” If the manage is the one giving the money, is he not the one that must take the complaints for the owner's renumeration? The owner also specifically asks the manager to do the payments in reverse order making it really awkward when the first workers don't get more than the last. I almost wander if the landowner knew that the interaction would be awkward and made the manager do his dirty work. I guess nobody ever said life would be easy or fun...

However, the order of the payments clearly illustrates that indeed the last are first and the first are last. The owner could have easily eased the tension had he simply given the money out in the opposite order. Yet order is everything in this story. The last to work are the first to get paid and the first to work are the last to get paid. Jesus wants it to be clear that the first workers witnessed the generosity of the landowner.

Quickly come the complaints. “Now when the first came they thought they would receive more...” The word 'Nomizō', (nah-meed-zoh) translated as 'thought' here implies that the first workers are making an assumption based on a custom or rule. In every instance 'Nomizō' is used in the book of Matthew, Jesus is challenging the assumption. For instance, Jesus said, “Do not think I came to abolish the law...” Here Jesus challenges the assumption that reward would be based on merit.

In verse 12, “They complained against the landowner, saying, 'These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat'” There are two complaints here. First, the first workers place themselves into a level above the workers that came later. There is an 'us and them' mentality that has been perpetuated by a society that is dominated by hierarchy. The second complaint is about the grueling nature of working in the sun. Have they forgotten so soon that if they hadn't been invited to work that day their family would not eat that evening? The very invitation to work is a gracious gift from the landowner.

The landowner responds to one of the grumblers. He sarcastically calls him 'friend,' which is evident from the other times that Jesus uses the same word to call someone 'friend' in Matthew, like when he called Judas 'friend' as he was being betrayed.

'Friend' the owner says, 'I have done you no wrong.' He shows that he has kept to the agreement, so there is nothing to complain about. Then, he harshly tells the worker to take his belongings and get out of there. He has chosen to distribute reward based on need rather than on merit. That's his right and that's his choice.

The worker of course doesn't like this, so in his envy, gives the landowner the evil eye. I find this very interesting. These are the reasons I love critically studying scripture. You end up noticing that words like 'envy' are literally translated 'give the evil eye.'

“So the last will be first and the first will be last.” And the first will give you the evil eye.

That's the parable. That's what the Kingdom of heaven is like. What have we learned?

I certainly don't think we can ignore the socio-politico-religious context from which Jesus is speaking. In the introduction to the book of Matthew in the Harper Collins Study Bible, Dennis Duling Describes the Roman Empire as
a hierarchically ordered, commercialized, advanced agrarian (peasant) society with no middle class. A few powerful men and their families ruled; and they were supported by bureaucrats, slaves, official priests, and a sophisticated military establishment. Those at the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid were local businesspeople, artisans, and-- the vast majority-- peasant farmers and fishermen. There were also a few “expendables,” e.g., bandits, beggars, and prostitutes. With few exceptions, women always ranked below men, and children below both.

Jesus frequently in the gospel of Matthew is portrayed as an advocate for those at the bottom of the society and was thus in tension with the rulers. Jesus message about the upsidedown kingdom of heaven was in direct conflict with the kingdom of Rome.

Jesus also frequently rubbed against the Religious power of the day. The Pharisees were his opponents in Gallilee, and he even called them hypocrites in chapter 23. In Jerusalem it was the saducees he clashed with. Perhaps this parable is a warning to these Jews that they needed to be accepting of the Gentiles, giving up their status as 'chosen people'. AS Paul said in Galations, “...in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3)

A similar warning might go to the disciples as well. As the church grew, the disciples must not try to claim a spot ahead of newcomers to the faith. Later on in Chapter 20, Jesus is asked to place James and John on his left and right in his Kingdom. Jesus answer?
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

In God's Kingdom the last will be first and the first shall be last.

In God's kingdom, the economy is upside down. Reward is not based on work, but on need. Decisions are not driven by time but by love and compassion.

To finish on a personal note, I'd like you to ask yourself who you relate to in this parable.

Some of us may be the workers hired from the beginning. Something I've noticed in some churches I've been to is that people who have been a part of the congregation for a long time-- some 70+ years of their life-- have trouble seeing new people join the church and make changes. Do we treat everyone in church with the same respect or grumble because some people are treated well when we don't think they deserve it? Sometimes life just seems totally unfair.

Some of us may be the workers that waited all day at the marketplace for someone to hire us. Unemployment is a very real issue. In fact a study done in 2006 showed that on any given day, approximately 117,600 workers are either looking for day-labor jobs or working as day laborers . (http://www.uic.edu/cuppa/uicued ) They may be standing in front of paint stores just like Jim Carey's character.

Some of us yet may be the manager of the landowner, doing the dirty work and taking all the flak. Like a messenger with a bad message to give, we're left enduring the reactions meant for someone else.

Finally, some of us may be landowners who try to be generous and make sure everyone has enough but all we get is complaints.

No matter who you relate to, If you're a first or a last or somewhere in the middle, Jesus shows us that we're all gonna eat. In the end everyone gets a denarius!

Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your Kingdom come, your will be done. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not to temptation but deliver us from evil. Yours is the kingdom and power and glory forever.

Amen.

Bin Laden

2011-05-02T18:48:00.005-04:00

I just finished watching Obama's public address from last night in which he told the nation and the world that Osama Bin Laden is dead.

Obama is great at making emotional speeches. He talked a lot about the September 11 attacks ("9/11" appears 6 times in the ten minute speech)-- the billowing smoke and wreckage, the heroism and bravery, the empty seat at the dinner table.

He also talked a lot about how our military has been bravely fighting against the evil al Qaeda in order to ensure such an act of terrorism wouldn't happen on our soil again.

Now Bin Laden is dead. "And on nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al Qaeda’s terror: Justice has been done."

Justice has been done? Really?

I've seen too much evidence to believe that a few guys with box cutters were able to take out two giant buildings, perform a virtually impossible flying maneuver to leave a hole smaller than the plane that was supposed to have made it in the worlds most secure building, and completely pulverize a plane with no identifiable wreckage into a field in Pennsylvania-- all without our nation's air force not noticing. There's a pretty eye-opening documentary about it here.

So I can't help but think that for the last decade we've all been duped into falsely blaming the wrong people for all our problems.

I'm reminded again of the scapegoat mechanism. (btw, that post still gets put in the top 5 results of a Google search) We've successfully dehumanized people from the mid-east and made them the enemy.

Today we can rejoice because our goat has died...

When our president said, "Justice has been done," I think what he meant was, "For decades we've done injustice to the world, especially the middle east, and we've done a lot of work to make sure that Osama Bin Laden looks like the bad guy so that when we killed him it feels like justice has been done."

Ignorance is Bliss

2011-03-15T17:49:00.001-04:00

Kyle Wetherald
Pittsburgh Mennonite Church
March 13, 2011
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 | Psalm 32 | Matthew 4:1-11

They say that ignorance is bliss. The less we know about the world the less it can hurt us. Just look at the world through the eyes of children. As babies the simplest things make us happy, like the joy of sitting in a box, or the thrill of a game of “peek-a-boo.” But then as we get older and encounter suffering, pain, and death, we find out that some things aren’t as good as we once thought. All those yummy cookies gave me a tummy ache. That girl I had a crush on broke my heart. I found out the hard way that grandparents don’t live forever.

That sort of bliss-loss is what I think about when I read Genesis. Let’s read a little bit again.

Read Genesis 2:16b-17.

God wants good for the human-- there’s plenty of fruit to eat-- but there are a couple of things amiss about the human. First, the human is free-- too free-- to make choices. God does not want the human to lose his innocence, hence the commandment (more of a prophecy really). Choosing knowledge will result in death.

Second, he was lonely.

Read 2:18-25.

What’s interesting here is that Adam, a creature of reason (after all he’s been naming things) does not have a conversation with Eve. He simply makes a statement about “This one...” and then there they are: naked and unashamed, and they become one flesh. Typical... man wanted sex, not a conversation...

Perhaps that was why Eve is so easily seduced by the Serpent. She just wanted to talk. The very next thing that happens in the story is a conversation between the Serpent and the Woman.

“Now the serpent was most cunning of all beasts of the field that the Lord God had made.”

The serpent is an intriguing character. It is one of only two beasts of the Hebrew scripture that can talk, and the only said to be able to independently of God (God caused Balaam’s ass to speak). Serpents, I’ve found out, are regarded in many ancient Near eastern myths as both attractive and dangerous. It’s name given by Adam, ‘nachash’ comes from a root word meaning both ‘shiny’ and ‘enchanting.’ We also can assume that it is at least somewhat upright because it is not until it is later cursed that it must crawl on its belly. The serpent embodies certain human characteristics. Furthermore, the text specifically tells us he’s cunning-- shrewd, subtle, crafty-- and Adam rejected him as a suitable mate. Adam chose sex over reason.

So he sets get back at Adam by winning Eve over to reason and knowledge-- the very thing that God said will lead them to death, separation from God.

Read 3:1-7

There it is-- the Bliss-loss. The serpent convinces Eve that gaining knowledge would make her like God, and God cannot die, so if she ate and knew, she could not die. They ate. Suddenly they knew they weren’t perfect. They weren’t God, and there they were: naked and ashamed, and they made fig leaf loincloths to try to cover their shame.

But the question remains: why is the fruit of knowledge forbidden? Isn’t knowledge a good thing? They say Knowledge is power. For the human to make the choice implies that the human knows-- or thinks he knows-- what is best. That capacity to make decisions based on what is best give humans power and makes them feel like they don’t need God.

As the story shows, too often we feel like we know everything. We think we know what is best to do and we end up making mistakes. When our eyes are opened to our flaws, we feel naked. We feel shame. We try to cover up our vulnerability and hide our pain.

During Lent (if you haven’t figured it out yet, this is the first Sunday of lent) we enter into a story that we all know the ending of. Soon we’ll all be saying together “He is risen!,” But before the story gets there, it’s a story of death and suffering. So, as we enter the story, it becomes a story of blemish, of the mud that is revealed as the snow melts, of our attempts to cover our shame with fig leaves. But at lent, we are

In Matthew we hear an echo of what happened in the creation story. In the serpent’s place is a devilish slanderer that puts Jesus to the test. This ‘devil’ appeals to the human desire for knowledge. “They say you’re the son of God, but don’t you want everyone to know for sure? Try these tests out so that everyone can tell.” The Devil offers the famished man a way to get food. Jesus chooses hunger. The Devil offers him a way to look good in front of a city of people. Jesus chooses humility. The Devil offers all the wealth and power of all the kingdoms of the world. Jesus chooses poverty. Jesus Chooses suffering and ultimately Jesus chooses death.

This year’s theme for Lent is about becoming human.

What I hear in the lectionary scriptures today is that part of being human is that we don’t have everything put together. We don’t know everything. We mess up.

But we don’t have to cover our shame. And on Ash Wednesday, we put ashes on our foreheads as a sign that we realize we mess up. Like the mud revealed as the snow melts, our sins are rubbed as dirty marks on display for the whole world to see. A metaphorical act of confession.

The best news offered in the lectionary is offered by the psalmist. We don’t need to sulk, and here’s why:

Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Happy are those to whom the LORD imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.

For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah

Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD," and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah

Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you; at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them.

You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. Selah

Confession puts our sins in the open, but grace preserves us and delivers us.

There’s a short story written by Canadian writer Alice Munro that really evokes many of the same feelings as the lectionary passages. I haven’t read the story, buy essayist Barbara Pitkin, recounts the story in a beautiful way. I’d like to read part of her essay:

Canadian writer Alice Munro is one who consistently achieves the delicate balance between the fatedness of a narrative with the freedom of discovery—as a reviewer of her 2004 collection of short stories observes, “The third thing that is so compelling about RUNAWAY is a powerful sense of fate, chance, destiny—the exact word is unimportant.” We watch as Munro’s characters — complex, “endearingly ordinary,” and predominately female — lose themselves in myriad ways but also, ineluctably, through “often through devastating twists and surprises of plot,” cannot escape their appointed but unknown ends.
Munro’s “Trespasses” plays ironically with this, opening with what turns out to be the closing scene. The ring composition enfolds the tale of Lauren, her parents Harry and Eileen, and Delphine, an employee at a small town hotel. The reader has a dim sense of where the story is going to end up, but less a knowledge of what is going to happen and more an unspecified mingling of fear and foreboding. What brought these four characters to this place just “far enough” off the road, at midnight, in the dead of winter? Does this bode evil for Lauren, in the backseat, wearing her pajamas?
The ensuing narrative unfolds as a flashback that relates Harry, Eileen, and Lauren’s recent arrival in the town and their first encounters with the initially unnamed woman who works at the hotel. Harry, who has taken over the town newspaper, wants to write books and shares this bit of advice with his daughter: “The thing about life, Harry told Lauren, was to live in the world with interest. To keep your eyes open and see the possibilities — see the humanity — in everybody you meet. To be aware. If he had anything at all to teach her it was that. Be aware.”
Eyes wide open, like the man and the woman after eating the forbidden fruit, Lauren becomes aware of the mysterious, “oddly light” cardboard box among her father’s boxes of papers. Her interest in humanity leads her into a clandestine friendship with Delphine. The box and Delphine share a secret, and as Lauren begins to piece together the truth that binds them together, her own identity and fate are thrown into doubt. She no longer knows who she is: is she the child of Harry and Eileen? Or is she adopted, and is Delphine her biological mother? And the human remains in the box: do they belong to Lauren, Harry and Eileen’s adopted daughter, or to Lauren, their biological one? So distressed that she becomes physically ill, Lauren finally tells Eileen and then Harry, but goes to bed fearing that the revelation will lead to one of Eileen and Harry’s violent rows — fights that Lauren now suspects have to do with the buried secret that she has uncovered.
Instead, however, her actions lead to resolution, at least for the adults. Delphine comes for proof about the death of the daughter she gave up for adoption; Harry wakes Lauren and explains, finally, the whole story. But one chapter is still unfinished: “So tonight as a family,” he said, “tonight while everything is all wide-open, we are going to go out and do this. And get rid of all this — misery and blame. Delphine and Eileen and me, and we want you to come with us — is that all right with you? Are you all right?”
Standing in the snow, just far enough off of the road, each of the adults takes a handful of the ashes. Eileen begins the Lord’s Prayer, but Harry interrupts, “This is Lauren, who was our child and whom we all loved — let’s all say it together.” And they all do, ending with “And we say good-bye to her and commit her to the snow,” with Eileen adding hastily at the end: “Forgive us our sins. Our trespasses. Forgive us our trespasses.” The ending of the story for Lauren is more ambivalent. Like the painful burrs clinging to her pajamas, and then her legs and fingers, the words “hers” and “ours” stick painfully in her ears: is she not more than someone’s possession?

Mortality. Ashes. The desire to be rid of misery and blame. Prayers for forgiveness from sins, trespasses. These elements constitute the end of Munro’s story and the beginning of the Lenten one. Yet perhaps these familiar beginnings can open up an extraordinary journey, one that resists the temptation to take the usual path. One that is open to the possibility of losing one’s self along the way. Be aware. We are being shaped by testing.

Choose Life

2011-02-15T17:18:00.002-05:00

Choose Life
Pittsburgh Mennonite Church
February 13, 2011

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God himself;
And earthly power doth then show like God's
When mercy seasons justice.

Here’s how I understand the story:

In Genesis God created the universe. Chaos turned to order. It was good, but it didn’t take long until death entered the picture. Sibling rivalry turned into murder. Man started to become more and more separate from God as violence, arrogance, and wickedness continued to creep into the picture. It got so bad that God decided to take drastic measures like flooding the entire earth, and scattering all people and confusing their language. In these stories we see people that tried to take the freedom they had to choose their destiny and muck it up by trying to be apart from and even equal to God.

Then God chooses a particular family. Abraham’s descendants become God’s chosen people for how God is going to bring creation back to the peaceful order in which it started. God promises this family a land for wondering migrants, children from a barren womb, and blessing for the nations that would come from them.

They get a little lost on the way and end up as slaves in Egypt. Their lives got pretty miserable, but God called Moses to lead them out of the mess and back to that land God promised them.

After some pretty miraculous events, these chosen people finally get out of the slavery in Egypt, but before they can go to that prized land, God lays down the law and Moses gives it to the people. Now they can be on their way and God leads them in the right direction, through the desert.

But then they get lost again. After grumbling about being in the desert, they lose their direction and wander in the desert for about 40 years. Then they all reconvene near the promised land and Moses delivers the law again. This is Deuteronomy—the “second law.”

At the center of the law is one commandment—the greatest commandment—

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength (Deut. 6:4-9).

The majority of the book of Deuteronomy is Moses giving these speeches that lay out all the rules. Then in Chapter 30, Moses defines the covenant:

If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess.

But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them,

I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess (30:15-18).

Basically there are two choices. You can go the God way and you will end up with abundant life. Or, you can go the evil way. Then you will surely find death.

God Says, “Choose Life.” That's what the covenant is all about.

This was typical of an ancient near eastern covenant. There were two parties that came to a binding agreement. The interesting thing about this covenant, though is the witness. Vs. 19: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.” Callie Plunket-Brewton, an instructor at the University of North Alabama notes:

these witnesses are not divine beings as in many of the ancient Near East covenants. Here one can see that the monotheistic perspective one finds in the Old Testament has changed the nature of the witnesses from gods, so that the earth itself testifies to the agreement.

I imagine this had a big implication. If the entire created order were witness to this covenant, the Israelites couldn't go anywhere without the witness being present. EVERY action they did would be watched.

What often makes me uncomfortable about the Old Testament is that it seems to portray a deity that rules with an iron fist. At face value, this covenant relationship seems no different. However, the Law laid out in Deuteronomy is ultimately not oppressive, Again, Callie Plunket-Brewton writes:

In the first place, Deuteronomy upholds the value of human life, in particular, the value of success and flourishing community. These joys of human life are honored as gifts from God and to be treasured as such....

In other words, the law isn't just a bunch of rules to be followed, but an invitation to the good life by making positive decisions every day.

Last year when I worked with youth at Peabody high school, I knew that my students were faced with decisions every day. Drugs were easily accessible to them. They could choose to go to class or they could choose to skip and get high. There was constantly pressure to have sex. They could choose to stay safe or choose to risk getting std's or becoming pregnant. In the neighborhoods which they lived, gang violence ruled the streets. There was a choice of joining the violence or staying safe and risking their social image.

The choice for life or death became very real when I was working with the youth in the 206 project. Choosing not to follow the rules could affect the rest of their lives and ultimately could result in death.

All too often the youth of our city choose death. Oh how I wish the youth of our city would choose to take the invitation to the good life.

...

The New Testament reflects this invitation to the good life as well.

In the Sermon on the mount, Jesus tells the crowd around him that he did not come to do away with the law of Moses, but to complete it. Here’s an example he gives from today’s reading:

"You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, 'You shall not murder'; and 'whoever murders shall be liable to judgment'( Matt. 5:21).

The people would have known the law and what it said about murder. Jesus goes on:

“But I tell you...But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, 'You fool,' you will be liable to the hell of fire (5:22).

What Jesus words here tell me is that what's on the inside matters. Yes, murder is bad and makes for bad relationships, but so are anger, bitterness, and insults. Our thoughts and emotions matter in the Kingdom of God.

When Andrea and I were first dating, I went with her to a church in Canton where her dad was preaching that week. He was talking about how easy it is to have surface-level relationships when so much is happening in our hearts and minds. Often when something happens to us we can find just the right things to say to make people think things are alright, but inside we're feeling angry and bitter. At one point in the sermon he looked directly at me and asked, “how is it in your heart?”

I melted and started sobbing, thinking about the things I held hidden inside while on the outside I acted like nothing was wrong.

In 1 Corinthians Paul is writing to a church that is experiencing a schism. Some people are following Paul and others are following Apollos. Paul says that their actions are “of the flesh” and even calls their jealousy and quarreling “infantile.” According to Paul, we are to be living radically different lives than what he calls, “mere men.”

So what does that radically different life look like? Instead of living like a pagan, Jesus said later in the Sermon on the mount, “Be Perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect” (5:48), a reflection on Leviticus 19:2, “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.”

This creates quite a conundrum for me. Perfection is something that I don't feel like I can do. In a blog post about this scripture, Dan Clendenin writes:

Perfection? For mere mortals? That sounds ideal, but isn't it impossible? Isn't the quest for perfection the voice of the oppressor? Doesn't perfectionism lead to self-righteousness, a need to be right and to be seen as right? Doesn't it tempt us to edit our real but fallen selves and instead to project a false and sanctimonious self — to our own selves and to others?

Dan's thoughts remind me of my father in-law's sermon...

What Dan offers as a solution to the conundrum is looking at the parallel text in Luke-- the sermon on the plain. Here, the way Luke records it, instead of “Be perfect,” Luke quotes Jesus in saying “Be Merciful, as your heavenly Father is merciful.

Now mercy is something I can do.

Just imagine if in every decision we made, we made it with mercy in mind...

What would our marriages look like? If mercy was extended by both sides of a married couple, could some divorces be prevented?

If, when someone is so deeply hurt and angered by something their response was mercy, could murder be prevented?

If mercy were extended between national enemies, could wars be prevented?

If we could all extend mercy to ourselves, could depression start to be healed?

If when we are bitter we could extend mercy to those we do not think deserves it, could relationships be reconciled?

Perhaps the most radically life changing thing we could do is to give some of that divine mercy to ourselves.

It could be as simple as forgiving yourself for something you've done (or not done). There's actually a WebMD article on forgiving yourself. Here's part of that article:

Sharon A. Hartman, LSW, a clinical trainer at the Caron Foundation, a drug and alcohol treatment center in Wernersville, Pa., deals with the need to forgive every day. "These are such shame-based diseases," she says. "Forgiving oneself is of the more difficult parts of recovery."

A chronic state of anger and resentment interferes with life, Hartman points out. Countless studies also show stress and anger can cause or worsen diseases, such as cancer, heart disease, and various autoimmune disorders. "When resentment is interfering with your life, it's time to forgive yourself," she says. "So many people have a constant, critical voice in their heads narrating their every move." She says she calls her critical voice "Gertrude" and tries to counteract Gertrude's eternal litany with positive affirmations -- that she is getting better, that she is less angry. "Forgiving doesn't mean not being angry with yourself, but not hating yourself.

"No one," Hartman adds, "can beat us up better than we beat ourselves up."

...

Or maybe you don't feel like the person you are is good enough. It's easy to look at the way other people look, or the things that other people do, or even the things that other people have and get jealous. Sometimes being merciful means looking in the mirror and saying...

“Awwwwww Yeah! I look Good!”

or stepping back to look at the things we've done and saying....

“MMMMMHMMM! That was me!”

or facing the guilt you’ve been holding on to and finally telling yourself...

“I forgive you.”
…

The poem I read when I first stood up here was actually a quote from Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice.” I think the metaphor of mercy being rain falling from heaven is absolutely fitting. After all, where there is no rain, there is no life. I also like how Portia mentions that mercy “is an attribute of God himself.” I believe that mercy is life-giving and I believe that mercy is the way of God. So the challenge then, is to choose mercy. In doing so, we will be choosing life.

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God himself;
And earthly power doth then show like God's
When mercy seasons justice.

Celebrate the Solstice

2010-12-17T10:37:00.002-05:00

I'm not sure why I never made this connection before, but Christmas falls only a few days after the Winter Solstice. The days have been getting increasingly shorter and the sun has gotten lower and lower in the sky every day, but on Tuesday, that's all going to turn around. The sun is going to start rising once again and the days are going to start getting longer.

I think in the 21st century it would be easy for us not to notice the days slowly getting longer again and the sun getting higher each day. Winter, if we are honest, is often not difficult. We can still travel very easily because of salt on the highways. We can still stay comfortable because of heat in our buildings. We can still eat produce because it gets shipped to our grocery stores from the south. Life, if we're honest, doesn't change that much.

That would have all been different for ancient aboriginal peoples. Once the sun went down for the winter, they could no longer rely on their gardens for food. They had to rely on stored food and any animals they could catch. They no longer had a comfortable place to sleep and had to work very hard to get heat from fires. No longer did they have a lot of daylight to do the work needed for survival.

So I can imagine that the winter solstice was very important.

Just look at some of the religious monuments around the world:

Art, engineering, astronomy, physical exertion, social organization, and mysticism - such categories are rigidly distinct in our time, each a separate university “discipline,’’ different buildings, if not quads. Yet imagine how those skills came together, say, in the construction of New Grange, the man-made hill in Ireland that was assembled out of huge stones some 5,000 years ago. Defining a mound that probably served as a tomb, the small inner chamber has a narrow opening to the sky that was calibrated so precisely as to admit a needle of sunlight only at dawn on the winter solstice. The light, lasting minutes, illuminates delicately carved triple spirals that would, over millennia, be seen as triune symbols of male, female, child; birth, love, death; eventually of the Trinity, foreshadowing the Irish shamrock.

The megalith structure in Ireland was created by “primitives’’ whose lives were hemmed in by ghosts and goblins, predating perhaps even Druids, yet it was, in fact, a sophisticated scientific instrument, carefully scaled to register the event that happens again today. The landscape of Earth is likewise marked with such massive measuring devices, each of which comes into its own on the solstice, from Stonehenge in England to Aztec pyramids in Mexico. Right through the Middle Ages, religion and science were paired in the quest for such usable knowledge, with even European cathedrals aligned to serve as solar observatories...

(That was from an article from the Boston Globe December 21, 2009 called "Religion Science and the Solstice" by James Carroll.)

You really begin to see themes of light and dark; life, death, and rebirth... It's no wonder that we celebrate the birth of a savior a few days after the solstice. Life is cold. It's dark, but light is coming.

I suppose one connection that we could make these days is that of the seasonal depression that seems to hit so many of us every year. It's been dark the weather has been nasty. There may be several more months of cold weather before spring, but at leastthe solstice gives us hope that the days are going to start getting loner again. We're living in darkness now, but light is on its way.

If you didn't know already, I've started working at Pittsburgh Mennonite Church as a leader to the youth. One thing I've been trying to work on is a sort of Identity for the High School Youth group. They've already voted on a name for the group: SAG (short for Sunday Afternoon Gang because we meet every Sunday afternoon). It seems like most things that you might think of as "saggy" are depressing at best and inappropriate at worst. For instance, a Google search for the term "saggy" brings up links to websites about certain body parts that droop with age, while "sagging" brings up links to websites about the hip-hop culture's trend of wearing pants below the waist, therefore exposing much of the underwear a layer below. You might also read an article about the sagging economy or hear the woes of a homeowner whose porch or roof is sagging.

That's a tough name to get a positive identity from...

In a world of saggy things, though, the Winter Solstice reminds us that there is hope. Life as a teenager can be pretty hard, but like the solstice, the church is always there to remind us that the strong, bright sun we've missed is coming.

Another thought I had is about downward mobility. I recently read a transcript of a story from American Public Media about Shane Claiborne where he talked about Downward mobility as a way of coming into relationship with the poor. What Shane was calling for is not charity but relationship. Because charity allows us to keep a distance from the poor, but relationship with the poor makes us stop and work for real change for our friends. Shane says that the church should be with the poor, not giving the poor things at a safe distance. It is in the margins of society that we'll find Christ.

Perhaps our youth group could be about how we can allow our social status to SAG into the margins.

Any thoughts on a good mission statement or visual identity? I think having a clear focus fro the group could be very helpful.

To end this post, I wish you comfort and joy, and I wish PEACE to all people everywhere-- no matter how this time of new light is celebrated.

Repent and Reconnect

2010-12-06T11:46:00.003-05:00

This was my fifth? sermon at PMC. It seems I get to speak most often during the liturgical seasons of advent and lent. I'm okay with that.

Scripture: Isaiah 11:1-10; Romans 15:4-13; Psalm 72:1-7; Matthew 3:1-12

Isaiah was a prophet of doom.

Much of the book of Isaiah is prophecy about how Israel is about to get what’s coming to it. Unless they make drastic changes, certain doom is coming. The 10th chapter uses this metaphor of trees that represent power. Isaiah says that God is going to send Assyria through like an ax to take out the forest army of Israel. But then to give Israel a little assurance, the chapter ends like this:

But look! The Lord, the LORD of Heaven's Armies, will chop down the mighty tree of Assyria with great power! He will cut down the proud. That lofty tree will be brought down. He will cut down the forest trees with an ax. Lebanon (a land of huge forests) will fall to the Mighty One. (NLT)

Then… From the death of a powerful forest giant, comes the life of a sapling—“A shoot will come out of the stump of Jesse”

A shoot—a twig, a rod, a branch—It is small. It is vulnerable. Yet it is alive.

But wait… there’s more. Not only is it alive, this spirit will settle in upon it—this Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
of counsel and of might,
of the knowledge and fear of the LORD—
and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.

This twig will judge with mercy for the poor and meek and with its words—with the very breath from its lips, the wicked will be brought down.

And the world is going to be so awesome, that carnivores will become vegetarians so that wolf pups can play with little lambs and kids can play with snakes.

No longer will there be borders of nations and enemies because this twig is going to grow into a flagstaff for peace.

There is repentance. There is reconnection. There is hope for all of creation.

…

Paul quotes this scripture from Isaiah in Romans 15, saying “Such things were written in the Scriptures long ago to teach us. And the Scriptures give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God’s promises to be fulfilled.” (verse 4)

He encourages the Romans using phrases like “patience and encouragement,” “live in complete harmony with each other” (verse 5), “join together in one voice” (verse 6), “accept each other just as Christ has accepted you.” He encourages Jews and Gentiles alike to come together to praise God and rely only on God.

Jews and Gentiles didn’t always get along…

But there is repentance. There is reconnection. There is hope for all of creation.

…

Psalm 72 is a coronation poem for a king. In one light it looks a lot like a prayer that God will help this king rule justly. Viewed in another light it looks like a prediction of the same.

The Psalmist prays for Justice, righteousness, prosperity for all, defense for the poor. rescue for the children, and a crushing blow to the power of oppressors.

The reign of a king with such qualities would be “refreshing as the springtime rains” over freshly cut grass.

This King sounds an awful lot like the shoot in the stump of Jesse.

Long live the twig!

There is repentance. There is reconnection. There is hope for all of creation.

…

During Advent the church waits for the shoot to come out of the stump.

But what does that look like? What does that really look like? What is the wickedness that will cause the Assyrians to come with axes to tear down our trees of power? Who are the stumps of the past from which the shoots will break forth?

…

This past Wednesday was world AIDS day. According to the World AIDS Campaign website:

“Scores of cities and communities all over the world will dim the lights this December 1st to mark World AIDS Day as part of the Light for Rights campaign which focuses on human rights, HIV and AIDS. Significant progress has been made in advancing access to HIV prevention, treatment, support and care over the past ten years, but putting human rights approaches at the centre of the response is crucial to further progress. The 2010 Global Update on the AIDS Epidemic by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) shows that in 2009 the pace of new infections had declined by almost 20% compared to 1999, but still outpaces treatment success by two to one. There are still major gaps in the implementation of human rights commitments at national and regional levels according to the report.”

Is there justice for the poor and meek?
…

I saw an article on Google’s news feed this week. It was about the tension happening in Asia right now. I’d like to read part of it:

“North Korea denounced the U.S., South Korea and Japan for “reckless moves” to create a military alliance that threatens peace in North Asia.

“The situation on the Korean Peninsula is getting tenser as the days go by and the danger of a war is increasing hour by hour,” the state-run Korea Central News Agency reported, citing a commentary in the Rodong newspaper yesterday. ‘The U.S. is giving spurs to an arms buildup and preparations for a war.”

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have increased since North Korea’s Nov. 23 shelling of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong island that killed two soldiers and two civilians. South Korea’s new defense minister Kim Kwan Jin two days ago vowed retaliation that would include airstrikes if North Korea made another attack.”

Is there a world without national borders or enemies? Is there a flagstaff for peace?

…

I was excited this week to see an article in the Post-Gazette this week about a new bill that was passed by the senate and will likely be passed by the house. Sweeping food safety overhaul is soon to come. Yet this good news comes in the wake of bad news. From the article:

“For Jeff Almer -- whose mother, Shirley, died in 2008 after eating peanut butter contaminated with salmonella -- the Senate vote came as a salve to a family still in mourning. "I think about her every day," said Mr. Almer, a Minnesota resident who has traveled to Washington six times to lobby for the passage of the bill. The legislation "is not perfect, but it's very satisfying to see something of this magnitude has made its way through."

Food illnesses affect 1 in 4 Americans and kill 5,000 of them each year, according to government statistics. Tainted food has cost the industry billions of dollars in recalls, lost sales and legal expenses.”

In our last sermon series about food, John talked about how Jesus showed us just how holy the act of eating is. Is there hope for all of creation?

…

My wife is good friends with the Nazarene Compassionate Ministries coordinators of the French-speaking Caribbean regional missions. They saw a big need in Haiti, so they started an organization called the Haiti Water Project. On their website they describe the need they saw:

Haiti is a country filled with beautiful people and great possibilities. Today it is also one of the most water-impoverished countries in the world and after the earthquake, there are even more challenges. Nine out of ten people do not have running water and more than 4 million have no access to safe drinking water.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

In Haiti, it usually falls to the youngest family members to retrieve water each day for their family. Children as young as four and five are sent out to walk hours each day. Too often, children must spend the day walking for water instead of going to school or parents must pay high prices for water, disabling them from paying for their child’s education. And the water they find may still bring illness. Drinking contaminated water kills thousands each year, and children are especially vulnerable. In fact, one of every eight kids in Haiti won’t reach his or her fifth birthday.

Again, Is there hope for all of creation?

…

We could go on for hours talking about the wickedness around us, but that is not what advent is about, is it? It’s about hope.

…

This week we were starting to decorate our home for the holiday season. Andrea was really excited about decorating our mantle, so I thought I would try to get her creative juices flowing by placing different objects above the mantle to see how they looked. One of the things that I put up there was a matchbox car rack my grandpa made me when I was a little boy. I knew it wasn’t really a Christmas decoration, but I wanted to try it anyway. Doing so brought back a lot of memories and after thinking about the memories for a while I was moved to weeping. My grandpa died when I was nine but I can vividly remember how compassionate and generous he was.

My grandpa is a tree of strength that has been cut down by the axe of cancer, but he remains a stump of hope.

…

Wednesday wasn’t just world AIDS day. On Wednesday the Google homepage showed an image of a public transportation bus with kids of different skin colors skipping out of it. The doodle was there to honor Rosa Parks, who 55 years ago on December 1st refused to sit in the back of the bus.

Years have passed, but Rosa Parks remains a stump of hope.

…

I stumbled upon an etymology blog (Etymology, if you did’t know, is the study of where our words came from. Exciting right?) that posted about the word Advent. The origin of the word “Advent” is not surprising. But the thing that I hadn’t really thought about was the (also obvious) fact that “advent” is the root word for “adventure” --risky, exciting activity without knowing what is coming.

I stumbled upon a blog post by my friend Scott Schomburg called “Dangerous Hospitality.” I thought it was fitting for advent because hospitality involves the anticipation of somebody coming. In it he told stories about the hospitality of people he met in Uganda. He said,

“For my Ugandan friends, welcoming the stranger into your home does not mean that peace is just around the corner—at least in the way we misuse that word, peace, to mean a kind of kumbaya moment—rather it means that life is about to get even messier.”

He talked about David, who despite getting a graduate level education decided he would not use his resources to leave the slum he knew. But instead moved into an HIV welcome center, where his life got much messier.

He talked about Martin, who opened up his home place to people that had fled from the violence of civil war and took on the risk of the LRA soldiers finding them and attacking his home.

What Scott Learned is that,

“Christian hospitality finds its life at the margins. These margins are places where people do not have access to what gives them a voice and a place; but here is the good news. Jesus inaugurated a world upside-down. Who Jesus discovered on the margins of 1st Century Palestinian society he invited into the center of God’s kingdom. That is the way the incarnate Lord showed us how to be human. More than recovering hospitality as a practice, it is being transformed into a new humanity.”

That is dangerous hospitality.

…

A shoot will come out of the stump of Jesse…

We constantly see the axes that tear us apart. We also all know people that have come before us and whose remnants continue to give us hope. The only question left is where is the shoot?

In Matthew 3, John the Baptist is going around looking all crazy and baptizing everyone. Like Paul, he also refers to Isaiah: “The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” (verse 10).

I wonder if we are ready to be baptized and become shoots or if we will be trees that are subject to the ax.

Are we ready to shoot out of the stumps of our ancestors? Or will we perpetuate the stigmas that keep people from being tested for HIV?

Will we rule with wisdom? Or will we stand by idly while our country goes to war?

Will we work for justice? Or will we support a food system that makes people and the environment sick?

Is there hope for the poor and meek? Or will we turn a blind eye to the plight of those who suffer?

This advent, God is calling us to defy the axes that cripple us and shoot out with new life.

Repent. Reconnect. There is hope for all of creation.

Living the Drama of Pentecost

2010-06-01T23:52:00.000-04:00

Sermon May 23, 2010

It was about 7 and a half months ago that I gave my first sermon here at PMC. At the time we were doing a series on the book of Acts called something like “the church under the influence.” In that sermon, my text was Acts 2: the story of Pentecost. In that sermon, we say such a strange, irrational thing was happening that the only response the perplexed people could come up with was that they were drunk. We reflected on Peter's sermon that revealed that God was doing something new-- something that was prophesied about-- and how we are to be martyr-witnesses to this good news. Finally, we looked at the people's response to Peter's sermon-- loving acts of compassion and generosity.

My second sermon was during advent. The theme this past season had to do with how God “Bursting in and breaking out” in a world of fear and foreboding. The week I preached was about how God calls us to choose the path of peace, which I said meant letting love be Lord so that even Mamzers could be included. “This is how I see Christ. Can you see too?”

Sermon number 3 came during lent. Our theme for lent was holding on and letting go. I love the imagery that was there. IT fit so well with the rhythm of life we got to experience through the change in season. Anyway, in that third sermon we explored the comparison of the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ to the love of a mothering hen. Breath in Breathe out. Hold on. Let go.

It seems we've come full circle. Back to Pentecost, the traditional “birth” of the church. We've gone through the seasons of the liturgical calendar and we're back. It's like I get to play preacher for real because I have to preach a second time on the same subject without just giving the same sermon as last time...

Certainly there will be some things that are repeated, but that's okay. Repetition is a great way to learn.

With that in mind, I think it would be appropriate to review the story a bit. Acts 2:1 “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.”

I did a little research this week about the Jewish Holiday 'Shavuot', which means 'weeks.' Shavuot happens every year 50 days (hence the name pentecost we use), or a “Week of weeks” (hence the name shavuot) after Passover. In the time of the jewish ancestors, the “day of pentecost” served two purposes. First, it was a pilgrimage feast or festival where jews would bring the first fruits of the harvest to sacrifice at the Temple. Second, the shavuot was essentially a birthday party for the Torah (which means 'law') because it commemorated the giving of the ten commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai.

I watched a video online this week by rabbi Jonathan Gingsburg of Skokie, Illinois explaining shavuot. In it he made the challenge:

“We talk about the giving of the Torah, but the question is, how do we receive the Torah? It's really a time for all of us to reconfirm ourselves to the idea of the giving of revelation-- that God decided that God had a gift to give and God gave it to the children of Israel. One midrash says that's because no one else wanted it. But once we heard it, that God wanted to give it to us, we said we'll practice it and then we'll try to understand it, and that's what we've been trying to do ever since.”

I love this idea of the Torah being a gift. Rabbi Jonathon even goes on to say that the Torah is “The holiest gift in the world was given to us to share with the world.” Thinking of the law as a gift makes it seem less overbearing and more gracious. During Shavuot, many Jews stay up all night studying Torah and do not work the following day as both a tribute to and a re-commitment to the law that they hold so close to their lives.

Looking at this Acts 2 story through the lens of gift is also very appropriate. I'm willing to bet that the apostles weren't in the best of moods around this time. Even though Easter had come and they could rejoice that Jesus was alive, they still must have been mourning him. Their close companion was not with them daily for he had left them. And what of his promise to return? They were waiting patiently, but I imagine that the promised spirit seemed far away. Distant. Stagnant. Unmoving.

And since they were in Jerusalem taking part in the shavuot festival, they must have had the story of Moses on mount sinai on the brain, which goes something like this:

On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. 17 Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. 18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain [b] trembled violently, 19 and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.

You can imagine that the apostles might have been expecting something big. And it happened:

“Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.”

This certainly must have been the ultimate awesome event for the apostles. I mean this was big! The spirit they had been waiting for—that they committed themselves to prayer for, that had seemed so distant and static, this spirit came alive! They could feel the spirit, see the spirit, hear the spirit. God was real and among them! The Jesus that had breathed on them before breathed on them once again. What a gift! Right when they needed it too!

In such a spirit of giving, the gift of the spirit upon the apostles quickly turned into a gift for the crowds of people that had gathered around:

4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues[a] as the Spirit enabled them.

All of these people were receiving good news with no language barrier. Babel reversed. It certainly was a lot to take in, though-- and very confusing. “What does this mean?” “They must have had too much wine.”

Peter boldy stepped in to clear things up. From my previous sermon on this passage:

Peter, who was once the guy that denied Jesus thrice, is now apparently filled with the spirit and speaks boldly, making claims that Joel’s prophesy in scripture is being fulfilled. In Joel’s words, God said that in the last days the spirit would be poured out and the people of God will prophesy. Peter is saying THIS IS WHATS HAPPENING NOW!

And Peter is quick to connect this occurrance with what happened to Jesus. Death has lost its power on Christ, just as king David said: Hades could not hold him. But the Israelites’ Beloved King David is dead never to come out of the grave. Jesus, on the other hand, is ALIVE and moving through their midst in this wild and wonderful moment. God is doing something New and Exciting, and as Peter says in Verse 32: “All of us are witnesses.” … Witness, translated from the greek “martus” the same word from which we get the English word martyr

Already we can see that the story celebrated during Shavuot and the story we now celebrate during Pentecost are similar in many ways: the loud, violent entrance of the spirit, the gift of holy guidance, and even in the call for commitment. As seen in the people's response to all of the events of the day,

The scripture tells us that about 3000 people repented from their old ways and were baptized—were washed clean—into this new life as part of the church. They ate together, held everything in common, and sold their possessions so that they could give to each other as there was need. Everyone was loving and generous and compassionate toward each other and life was good for everyone. The Church was born.

This was salvation. This was church. This was the kingdom the people of Israel had been praying for. The spirit of God moving amongst the people inspired them to respond with loving acts of Compassion and generosity. They were being the body of Christ. They were living out the good news to each other. They were the church.

Just as Rabbi Jonathan Gingsburg of Skokie, Illinois challenges his audience to recommit to the giving of revelation, I think there are challenges we are called to undertake as we celebrate the revelation of the spirit.

One of the articles I read this week in preparation for this sermon was one from the National Catholic Reporter by John Drear (no not the tractor guy), a Jesuit priest and peace activist. He starts that article:

In May 1983 and May 1985, I attended Sojourners' "Peace Pentecost" rallies in Washington, D.C. -- prayer services and inspiring speakers and nonviolent demonstrations against war and injustice. Those were some of the most electrifying Pentecost experiences of my life. The police hauled hundreds away as we proclaimed God's reign of peace. I recall those days as we enter another Pentecost season, and wonder, how do we live out the drama of Pentecost today?

So how do we live out the drama of Pentecost? Thats the question of the day.

Pentecost is a story of tongues of fire. It's a story of people that speak boldly and proclaim good news. John Dear says of the apostles: “Out they go into the streets, speaking out. They gather crowds about them and tell of the nonviolent Jesus, of his love and peace, of his death and resurrection, of his new realm of nonviolence.”

So living the drama of pentecost might mean speaking boldly about the good news that is God's reign of peace. Yet in speaking for something (i.e. peace) we also end up speaking against: against empire, against its violence and wars, against executions and laws. When the Apostles spoke against these things, the Sanhedron eventually caught on and threw them in jail. Some even became the ultimate witnesses-- that is they became martyrs.

But speaking against can lead us dangerously close to things that are not peaceful at all: hatred, resentment, meanness, arrogance, egotism, even violence. These are the things that lead us to the spirit of war, and again quoting john dear, “these rob us of life -- as do the imperial spirit of the United States, the deadly spirit of the military, the greedy spirit of Wall Street, and the soulless spirit of Los Alamos, New Mexico, where they are working hard on another generation of nuclear bombs.”

How can we prevent this? Breathe Peace.

The verses in John that I had read today portray Jesus breathing and saying, “My peace I give to you.”

Breathe in that peace and breathe it out to everyone around you-- your family, friends, coworkers, strangers-- everyone. Make peacemaking such a regular part of your life that it becomes a natural rhythm that you don't even have to think about. Breathe Peace.

And then like Peter, we will boldly stand up and say to our nation, “You killed Christ! Repent of your war in Iraq. Beat your swords into plowshares. Repent of your racial profiling in Arizona. Love your neighbor as yourself. Repent of the blind eye you've turned to the poor. Repent of oil spills and global warming. Take care of creation.

As you do this, it may not be well received. You might have people that are perplexed. People might start to say, “what are you drunk?”

But we must have confidence that the 3000 people will get the message and as they proclaim jubilee, we will one day be able to say:

Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

I want to end with a prayer. You may know it's based on the prayer of st. Francis:

Lyrics:
Lord, Make us instruments of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let your love increase
Lord, make us instruments of your peace,
Walls of pride and prejudice shall cease
When we are your instruments of peace.

Where there is hatred, we will show his love
Where there is injury, we will never judge
Where there is striving, we will speak his peace
To the millions crying for release,
We will be his instruments of peace

Lord, Make us instruments of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let your love increase
Lord, make us instruments of your peace,
Walls of pride and prejudice shall cease
When we are your instruments of peace.

Where there is blindness, we will pray for sight
where there is darkness, we will shine his light
Where there is sadness, we will bear their grief
To the millions crying for relief,
We will be your instruments of peace.

Sermon Audio

2010-02-24T10:27:00.002-05:00

Here is the audio to my third sermon as Pastoral intern at Pittsburgh Mennonite Church.

Perhaps you'd like to play the umm game again. I think I'm getting even better yet.

The Hen is my strength

2010-02-21T21:39:00.003-05:00

I played preacher again this morning. Below is the text. I borrowed the first part about Lent from my blog post on Lent, so you may find it a bit redundant. I'll try to post the audio later this week, but my fiancee's grandmother died this past week, so I'm heading to Michigan tomorrow for the funeral. Please pray for the Nichols family.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Hold on.

Let go.

Hold on.

Let go.

(Pause)

Holding on and Letting go is our theme for Lent this year. Lent is the time in the Christian Liturgical calendar that includes 40 days (that number doesn't include Sundays) that start today and end during Holy Week. Since early Christian church history, new converts to the faith have gotten baptized at Easter. Before doing so, however, these "catechumens" had to go through intense instruction, mentoring, practice in the spiritual disciplines, etc. This time of spiritual formation was especially rigorous the six weeks prior to baptism.

The common lectionary reflects this feeling of conversion. In year A (the lectionary goes through a 3 year cycle. Year A was 2008.) The chosen scriptures go through stories of conversions: Nicodemus, the Samaritan Woman, the man born blind, Lazarus of Bethany, etc.

The church would not want to leave out the rest of the believers or let them off the hook. While the catechumens were going through spiritual formation and preparing themselves for baptism, the rest of the people in the church were reflecting on their own spiritual journeys and pushing themselves forward toward new spiritual growth through much of the same discipline the seekers participate in. Year B (2009) and Year C (2010) reflect this spiritual reminder of sorts by going through the story of the covenant from Noah to Abraham, Moses and the prophets, all the way to Jesus in Year B and a group of stories where wandering believers are called to return to God in Year C.

If you intensely follow the scriptures, there's a very dramatic, emotional feel that happens over the course of Lent, and it starts at Ash wednesday, when Christians rub dirt on their foreheads. I like the way Peter Mazar so eloquently puts it in the introduction to A Lent Sourcebook:

"Lent is not tidy. Days grow longer (the word “Lent” comes from “lengthen”), the ground thaws, and the next thing we know, everything is filthy. Our windows need washing, our temples need cleansing, the earth itself needs a good bath. The English names for these months come from ancient words that reflect the need to roll up our sleeves this season: February (“purification”) and March (“the spirit of war”). Good names. Winter doesn’t leave without blustery battles that push things over and mess things up and even break things. Lent, if we face it honestly, will leave the landscape littered with bits and pieces of ourselves.
Sometimes the only antidote is to take more of the poison. And so on our foreheads we rub dirt: Eden gone to ashes, the dustbin emptied of a winter’s worth of soot, last year’s leaves riddled with worms, the broken earth turned by the plow, the dry earth thirsty for waters to make it clay of a new creation..."

Even the seasons feel the emotional changes! And so the church does the work of guiding us through. In a sense, the whole church-- both baptized and not yet baptized-- is participating in a disciplined revival during Lent, yearly preparing themselves for the return of the crucified Christ.

Hence, we do things like fasting: Fish sandwiches go on sale at McDonalds because no meat is to be eaten on Fridays, people get drunk for Mardi Gras because no partying will be allowed during lent, and everyone scrambles to figure out just what they're going to give up during lent.

In the Leader magazine, the Worship Resource Team introduces:

"...Lent is an opportunity to draw near to God, to ponder God's words to us in Scripture, to hold close what we value, and to identify with Jesus in his mission. Jesus' self giving on the cross is a powerful metaphor for our call to turn away from the temptation to make ourselves the center of the universe and choose instead a life of sacrificial love in the world."

Sacrificial love is something that is reflected in the Luke 13 Passage. To understand this, I'd like to unpack this passage a bit. (I used the NRSV in my studying, so it might be a little different from what we read. Sorry for the confusion.)

Verse 31 starts: "At that very hour" What was happening that very hour? We know that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem, a journey that started back in Chapter 9 verse 51: "When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem."

It seems this journey is not only a physical, literal journey to the Holy City, but it also has a deep metaphorical significance. Jesus is journeying to a painful death and ultimately to his resurrection. We'll see an example in a little bit, but everything has this kind of points to the passion, to the cross. Jesus has "set his face," set his purpose. His eye is on the prize (or maybe the punishment. I don't know)

The journey isn't just a "giddyup and go to Jerusalem lets get 'er done" journey, though. This is a big chunk of the book of Luke. Jesus is using this journey to evangelize and teach as he goes and there a bunch of stories to go along with it. That's the first thing I want you to notice. The Journey-- Kind of like the Journey Christians are on during Lent.

Back to chapter 13, Jesus is teaching in these synagogues telling parables and telling people about what the kingdom of looks like, then starting at verse ten he has this incident where he heals this woman on a sabbath and the leader of the synagogue speaks out against it, Jesus to call him a hypocrite. Then just before verse 31 ("At that very hour") Jesus is talking about the Kingdom and he says "Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last." You might say that Jesus is telling some of these pious religious strict law-abiding Pharisees that they aren't going to win in the Kingdom of God. It will be the lowlies-- the underdogs. The mamzers (remember Mamzers?).

You start to get the sense that there's some tension present between Jesus and the Pharisees. That's the second thing I want you to notice. Tension. Some people don't like Jesus right now.

Moving on in Verse 31: "some Pharisees came and said to him, 'Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.'"

We could look at that report in two ways: as a warning or as a threat. Here's what we know about the Pharisees and Herod: First, the Pharisees weren't above using either truth or falsehood to go against Jesus, even if it meant collaborating with an enemy. Second, Herod was not above killing religious leaders, which he proved in the beheading of John the Baptist. Yet Herod did seem to feel some remorse in killing John (especially if you look in Matthew) so Herod probably hoped that Jesus would leave so he wouldn't have to do the dirty deed again. So it looks like both Herod and the Pharisees would have liked that Jesus was being told to leave through the threat of death. Now how's that for tension?

Next, note Jesus' reply to the threat:

"He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!"

I love love love love love the animal imagery here! I'll get into the obvious animal references in a second, but first I want to point out something that might not be as obvious. Back in 1929, Walter Cannon came up with this theory that animals will always respond to stress, especially a sense of danger or an environmental stressor like a loud bang or a bright flash, with either combat or escape. There's even physiological evidence to back this up. There's this hormone in our bodies called catecholamines (pretty much a big fancy word for adrenaline) that are released when we sense danger that actually prepares the body for physical activity. If there is enough of this adrenaline released at once, our nervous system will go on autopilot and our muscles will move involuntarily. For instance, If I were to suddenly blow an airhorn in the middle of my next sentence, everyone of you would jump and a few of you might wake up. I won't do that, though. This phenomenon is commonly known as the fight-or-flight response. Some Scientists have argued that it should also include freeze, like those fainting goats you can watch on YouTube.

Regardless, when Jesus was faced with the ultimate danger of a death threat, Jesus certainly doesn't freeze or play dead, he doesn't run away and hide from his enemy, and he doesn't fight his enemy either. Jesus keeps going on his journey despite the tension. There are no violent knee-jerk reactions. In fact, the animal metaphors jesus uses shows that his intent is quite the opposite of violence.

First, what does he call Herod? A Fox! To the Jew the fox was a couple of things: the slyest of animals and a destructive animal. Someone told me that in that part of the world, foxes are a lot like raccoons in the city. They're pests that get into your garbage and are big nuicances. Used as a symbol for a person, fox would not be a flattering name to receive: to be a fox was to be a devious, deceitful, worthless, and insignificant. What a name for a king!

But the real kicker comes with what Jesus named himself: A Hen!

I think this is such a beautiful image for Jesus. When I was in high school, I raised chickens, and I don't know if there is a better example of sacrificial love than a mothering Hen. Whenever the Hen senses danger, she'll make noises and peck at the ground in a certain way, and the little peeps will all run under her wings safe and sound. The hen will do whatever she can to make sure the chicks stay safe. When I was in Laurelville for the worship Leaders retreat, Brian McLaren told us a story about how he had afriend that raised chickens, and one dat there was a fire in the chicken coop. There was a mothering hen and her peeps were in the coop at the time, and when his friend later found the chickens, he found a hen that had been killed by the flames, but under her wings, two chicks still living.

Jesus resigned himself to the ultimate sacrificial love.

What's more, Chickens are fox food. One of the dangers that a mothering hen would have to protect her brood from is a fox. Jesus says his brood is Jerusalem-- the Holy city, the center of Jewish religious activity, the representation of Pharisees and Saducees. Was Jesus was trying to protect his enemy from Herod the fox?

It's ironic. It's sad, but Jesus knows and mourns that the Jewish people do not take his offer of protection. Instead they try to get him killed and eventually succeed. Why were they so hateful to Jesus? Perhaps it was the brand of Mamzer Jesus probably received at birth and never was able to get rid of. Perhaps it was because he did scandalous things like heal people on the sabbath. It was probably a combination of things, but ultimately, I think Jesus was just not Pious enough for the Pharisees. Jesus didn't follow the law well enough and since he had a following, there was danger that Jesus was going to lead Jews away from the Torah law they clung to so tightly.

What can we take away from Luke 13:31-35 this lenten season? I think if we all look at our lives, we might find that we too are like the rebellious peeps of Jerusalem, clinging to our rules, pushing away our mother hen, ignoring the protection and love she offers us and leaving ourselves vulnerable to the foxes of the world. If we find that is true, I pray that we will be able to let go of the rules we are clinging to, and hold on to the love and protection and grace that is freely given to us.

Hold on. Let Go.
Breathe in. Breathe out.

It seems so natural yet proves itself so difficult.

My hope is that as we journey through this time of lent, our prayer will be like that in Psalm 27, which I may have reworded a little...

¹ The Hen is my light and my salvation—
what shall I fear?
The Hen is the stronghold of my life—
of whom shall I be afraid?

² When foxes advance against me
to devour my flesh,
when my enemies and my foes attack me,
they will not succeed

³ Though a danger looms,
my heart will not fear;
though fire threatens me,
even then will I be confident.

⁴ One thing I ask of the Hen,
this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the safety of her wings
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Hen
and to seek her in her Coop.

⁵ For in the day of trouble
she will keep me safe in her presence;
she will hide me in the shelter of her feathers
and set me under her belly.

⁶ Then my head will be exalted
above the dangers that surround me;
on her back I will climb with shouts of joy;
I will cluck and crow to Her name!

⁷ Hear my voice when I call, O mothering Hen;
be merciful to me and answer me.

⁸ My heart says of you, "Seek her face!"
Your face, oh fowl, I will seek.

⁹ Do not hide your face from me,
do not turn your servant away in anger;
you have been my protector.
Do not reject me or forsake me,
O God my Savior.

¹⁰ Though my father and mother forsake me,
Your nest will receive me.

¹¹ Teach me your way, O mothering hen;
lead me in a straight path
because of my oppressors.

¹² Do not turn me over to the desire of my preditors,
for false witnesses rise up against me,
breathing out violence.

¹³ I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the mothering Hen
in the land of the living.

¹⁴ Wait for the Bird;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the Bird.

My Lenten Commitments

2010-02-17T15:33:00.005-05:00

It's not often that I get some time off during the week. My schedule normally takes me from 9 in the morning until 7 in the evening. Wednesdays are sacred PULSE days when we usually devote the entire afternoon to some sort of training and enrichment seminar or service activity. For example, in the past we've learned about time management and communication skills, discussed economics and poverty issues, shoveled sidewalks, even sorted catheters for a local non-profit that sends surplus medical supplies to clinics in developing nations in the western hemisphere.

This week, however, Chris (the director of PULSE) planned an event with the Coalition for Christian Outreach (CCO) for Thursday night at our house, so he gave us the afternoon off.

I decided to use my afternoon off to take a trip to Oakland. I love going to Oakland because it's such a bustling neighborhood that has a very Urban feel. It's the kind of place where you walk around and think "I'm definitely in the city now." Oakland is also the home of a couple of the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Melon, two of Pittsburgh's largest schools, as well as the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History and my destination, the Carnegie Library main branch. Since I'm preaching this Sunday, I wanted to stop by the library to see if there were any useful resources.

Another thing I've noticed about Oakland is that there seems to be a very diverse population of young people, probably because of the Universities. Walking on the sidewalk in Oakland, you'll see faces of varied colors and hear voices in varied languages. You'll also see evidence of varied religious backgrounds-- oily ash smudges included.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the day when you have to catch yourself before you go up to someone to inform them there is dirt on their forehead.

Ash Wednesday also the start of the Lenten season. Lately my thoughts have been focused on Lent because a lot of my life has been focused on lent, so I've been doing some reading to recall what I probably learned in my Christian Worship class at Bluffton.

Lent is the time in the Christian Liturgical calendar that includes 40 days (that number doesn't include Sundays) that start today and end during Holy Week. Since early Christian church history, new converts to the faith have gotten baptized. Before doing so, however, these "catechumens" had to go through intense instruction, mentoring, practice in the spiritual disciplines, etc. This time of spiritual formation was especially rigorous the six weeks prior to baptism.

Even the common lectionary reflects this feeling of conversion. In year A (the lectionary goes through a 3 year cycle. Year A was 2008.) The chosen scriptures go through stories of conversions: Nicodemus, the Samaritan Woman, the man born blind, Lazarus of Bethany, etc.

The church would not want to leave out the rest of the believers or let them off the hook. While the catechumens were going through spiritual formation and preparing themselves for baptism, the rest of the people in the church were reflecting on their own spiritual journeys and pushing themselves forward toward new spiritual growth through much of the same discipline the seekers participate in. Year B (2009) and Year C (2010) reflect this spiritual reminder of sorts by going through the story of the covenant from Noah to Abraham, Moses and the prophets, all the way to Jesus in Year B and a group of stories where wandering believers are called to return to God in Year C.

If you intensely follow the scriptures, there's a very dramatic, emotional feel that happens over the course of Lent, and it starts at Ash wednesday, when Christians rub dirt on their foreheads. I like the way Peter Mazar so eloquently puts it in the introduction to A Lent Sourcebook:

"Lent is not tidy. Days grow longer (the word “Lent” come “lengthen”), the ground thaws, and the next thing we know, everything is filthy. Our windows need washing, our temples need cleansing, the earth itself needs a good bath. The English names for these months come from ancient words that reflect the need to roll up our sleeves this season: February (“purification”) and March (“the spirit of war”). Good names. Winter doesn’t leave without blustery battles that push things over and mess things up and even break things. Lent, if we face it honestly, will leave the landscape littered with bits and pieces of ourselves.
Sometimes the only antidote is to take more of the poison. And so on our foreheads we rub dirt: Eden gone to ashes, the dustbin emptied of a winter’s worth of soot, last year’s leaves riddled with worms, the broken earth turned by the plow, the dry earth thirsty for waters to make it clay of a new creation..."

Even the seasons feel the emotional changes. And so the church does the work of guiding us through. In a sense, the whole church, both baptized and not is participating in a disciplined revival during Lent, yearly preparing themselves for the return of the crucified Christ.

Hence, the fasting: Fish sandwiches go on sale at McDonalds because no meat is to be eaten on Friday nights, people get drunk for Mardi Gras because no partying will be allowed during lent, and everyone scrambles to figure out just what they're going to give up during lent.

The Mennonite Leader magazine provides resources for churches to use for worship services, and Pittsburgh Mennonite is using some of their suggestions (albeit in a slightly different order because we're hosting Bluffton University's Shining Through ministry team one Sunday, and there were a couple Sundays we didn't want to miss out on). The theme the Leader provides is that of "holding on and letting go." In the scriptures there are two parallel invitations: to hold on to what is important and let go of what is peripheral or what gets in the way of growth.

So in this time of deciding whether or not I will fast from anything this Lenten season and with the theme of holding on and letting go on my mind, I've decided that I'm going to this year forgo a fast of "do nots" and embark instead on a journey where I hold fast to healthy habits. Hopefully I'll be able to let go of the things I do that keep me from practicing these healthy habits and hold on to what it is that benefits me and makes me feel better in life.

Here are a few healthy habits I'll be adding to my routine:

My grandma always tells me how important it is to take my vitamins and has even sent me money and demanded I use it to buy a bottle of multi's with it. While I have intermittently remembered to take the dang pills, I have been slacking a bit as of late. My plan is to set out the Centrum right beside breakfast so that when I pour the cereal I can grab a horse pill too.
I recently read a blog where the author talked about how bad it is for your teeth if you don't floss. He quoted his dentist in comparing his pearlies to a dock at low tide. Apparently the bacteria in your mouth can eventually erode away your teeth and gums and cause all kids of problems. I bought a pack of floss at Giant Eagle today and I plan to set it beside my toothbrush in the bathroom so I can add it to my nightly routine.
Speaking of Blogs, I haven't done a good job of keeping up with my own. I love blogging because I think its a great medium for allowing my thoughts to flow from my noodle to the world, and I haven't allotted myself adequate time to release the thought stream. I'm committing myself to one blog a week, and to make sure of it, I've decided that Wednesday night is going to be blog night for the next 6 weeks. I may need some help on topic ideas, though.

It's been fun riding the blog wagon again, but I'm afraid I've got work to do. Wednesday nights are also my time to help cook, and I need to do so before I have to leave for church where I'll get my own proper forehead dirt-smearing.

Solemn days... but there will be rejoicing!

Guide Us to Openness

2010-01-18T16:26:00.002-05:00

We sang this at the Music and worship leaders retreat at Laurelville the weekend before last. It goes with the tune to "Great is Thy Faithfulness."

Guide us to openness, Spirit of mercy,
Aide us in seeking God’s justice and grace.
Move us to show Christ’s compassion through witness,
Love first to offer and hate to erase.
Guide us to openness! Guide us to openness!
Let no one ever be shunned or denied.
Make of the Church a bold place of compassion,
That all who seek you may come and abide.

Spirit of tenderness, impart your presence,
Fill both our hearts and our hands with your care.
Let no one suffer or grieve unattended,
Grant us your kindness and warmth here to share.
Guide us to openness! Guide us to openness!
Let no one ever be shunned or denied.
Make of the Church a bold place of compassion,
That all who seek you may come and abide.

Though there are those who would limit Christ’s graces,
Still we refuse to believe in such lies,
For in this time we have made a commitment
Never to limit love’s power or size.
Guide us to openness! Guide us to openness!
Let no one ever be shunned or denied.
Make of the Church a bold place of compassion,
That all who seek you may come and abide.

© W. Robert Martin, III

Sermon Audio 2

2009-12-08T00:34:00.005-05:00

Let's play a game. Listen to this sermon that I preached back in October and count the number of times I say "Um." Then listen to the sermon I preached this week and do the same. Compare the numbers and see how much I've improved...

Sermon Audio

2009-12-07T13:02:00.007-05:00

This is the Audio from my sermon yesterday.

Get Ready! God calls us to choose the path of peace

2009-12-06T23:44:00.002-05:00

Today was the second time I preached at PMC. Here's a little glimpse of what I said.

We’re taking a break from the book of Acts sermon series for Advent. Yet we haven’t traveled too far away because the Lectionary puts us in Luke, which has the same author as Acts. Last week John talked about how much fear and foreboding there is in the world and how necessary it is for us to continue living and let God be God. This week, we see the birth of the person of John the Baptist, who is given the task of preparing the way for Jesus.

During advent the church focuses on the idea of waiting for the child to come. In doing so, we focus on the first couple chapters of the gospels where we can read about the miraculous things God does in the conception of some holy babies. (I love that the first image of the savior is a baby…)

It is a little strange that John is first. The first 25 verses don’t really indicate what the lord coming is going to look like. It could easily have been mistaken that Zechariah’s son was going to be the savior. After all, Being fully Jewish, mothers always hoped that their child was going to be the messiah. Even if that’s not true, its obvious that John is an important part of this story.

This importance is shown in his parents:
Zechariah is a righteous person
• He and Elizabeth both descended from Aaron.
• It was a time of high piety for him:
o Served in Temple 2x per year as a priest
o Once in a lifetime occurrence to burn incense in the holy place (chosen by lot)
• The angel says his prayers are answered:
o Old, so probably given up on having a child
o Probably praying for deliverance for his nation instead.
o Makes his doubt seem natural

The story continues: All showing that John is like a mini maglight that points the way to the bright sunshine light that is Jesus:
• After Johns annunciation, comes the annunciation of Jesus to Mary.
o Where Zechariah had doubt, Mary didn’t because she heard what happened with Elizabeth and knew that miraculous conception could happen
• Then the mothers meet up for a little bit.
o Fetus John is animate for the first time, only when Fetus Jesus is in the vicinity.
• Then after the mothers are apart again, John is born. Then Jesus is born. Guess which birth narrative gets more verses…

While I was working on this sermon this week Ken told me to make the story more exciting, so According to the gospel of Ken, “Tony the Italian angel gave Zechariah a pizza for half price then told him to name the baby Juan.”

Seriously, though, the Angle of the Lord told Zechariah to name the kid John, which means, "Jehovah is a gracious giver"

But when everyone was crowded around and asking what the name of the baby was, Elizabeth told them “John,” they didn’t believe her, because that didn’t follow the custom that he should be named after someone in the family.

So in this context, with everyone in disbelief of the chosen name, that they turn to Zechariah, and he writes in the tablet, “His name is John.”

Now that’s obedience. At first he doubted. Then after the miracle baby-making happened, he went against what everyone thought he should do-- against society’s traditions, against the crowd of people, even against his family.

But to the story of Advent, the disobedience to everyone else and the consequent obedience to God is so important.

Zechariah finally understands the reason for importance in The Benedictus (the main scripture of the day).

He can finally speak, and he does so almost prophetically and in song. God has done something amazing! He has “Raised a horn of salvation!” People will be saved!

There’s a blog that I follow on my iGoogle homepage that has a new ‘awesome thing’ every weekday. The dude is working toward a thousand of these awesome things. Naturally, the site is called “1000 Awesome things.” The guy (I think his name is Niel) always describes the situation around the awesome thing with funny, nostalgic language and then puts the exclamation on the end. AWESOME!

This moment, for Zechariah must have been the ultimate “AWESOME!” thing.

And he has big plans for his kid:

“And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
to give his people the knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins,
because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace."

There are two phrases in this pericope that I want to focus on:
1. “prepare the way”
2. “guide our feet into the path of peace”

1. “Prepare the way”
In order to understand the implications of John the Baptist “preparing the way,” I think it necessary for us to understand just what he’s getting people ready for.

I was listening to a podcast by Rob Bell the other day about Jesus probably being dubbed a “mamzer,” which is like the Jewish name for an illegitimate child. Essentially a mamzer is the resulting child of forbidden sexual contact. If a father made love to his daughter, or a brother to his sister, the resulting child would be a mamzer. Also, if someone has sexual relations with someone other than who they are betrothed to, the child is mamzer. Mary was betrothed to Joseph. Joseph wasn’t sexually active with Mary yet. Even if Mary and Joseph knew that there was divine intervention there, even if Elizabeth and Zechariah knew and believed, even if you and I have faith in miraculous conception, Mary being pregnant looked really bad. There’s even lines in the Talmud that claim that the mother of Yeshu was either raped by or voluntarily slept with Pandeira, a Greek or Roman soldier…

Yikes!

And there were HUGE social implications that came along with being a mamzer:
• not allowed to marry someone jewish
• any of their offspring get the same stigma placed on them
• Mamzerim were prohibited from entering the Temple.
• They were not allowed to be taught Torah.
• A mamzer's house and grave were painted white to point him out, even in death.
This is like barely a step up from being a leper.

So in preparing the way (remember that’s what I’m focusing on) for Jesus, John was getting people ready for the world to be saved by a mamzer.

This makes sense, though, right? When Mary and Joseph roll into Bethlehem, the people there- jewish people that pride themselves in hospitality—don’t have any room for the lady that’s already bursting at the seams… Then through his life, Jesus got bad treatment a lot, and he’d always hang out with lepers and whores and other social outcasts.

It’s almost as though Jesus was no longer a human. Jesus wasn’t Jesus. Jesus was mamzer.

This knowledge makes the second part “Guide our feet on the path of peace” so much more intense

2. Jesus will be the rising sun that guides our feet on the path of Peace.

Peace. Tranquility. Harmony. Concord. Shalom—an order of creation where everyone feels valuable and everyone can live together—even the mamzers.

Jesus, who had this incredible social stigma was going to teach the world to live in peace even with the mamzers and the lepers and the whores. Everyone has value.

I know that the world then needed direction in this peace, but I think our world today needs that guiding light just as much.

One way that my fiancée has convicted me lately is in the way that I deal with the issues surrounding the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender community. Andrea is very comfortable saying that she is an ally to the LGBT community and that she will fight for their rights. I’m not so comfortable with that, and when I was talking to her about this very issue, I told her that I’m afraid of being an LGBT ally because I don’t know what people would say about me—society, my church, my friends, my family.

As I was making this confession, she stopped me and said, “Kyle, do you realize what you’re saying sounds like it’s right out of scripture?” My heart sank when I realized she was right. Zechariah went against his family and society to obey God and name the kid John. I’d be too afraid to do that.

I don’t bring up this issue because I want to turn this sermon into a sermon on homosexuality or to start a big argument about what’s right or wrong or sinful or holy or blessed or cursed. In fact I want to do just the opposite. I bring this issue up because I feel like it is a perfect example of how much the world needs God’s guiding light toward peace.

It seems that in this issue both sides frequently have such a strong desire to be “right” that they’re willing to dehumanize their perceived enemies in the argument. If someone is pro gay-rights, they’re no longer George or Henrietta, They’re “liberal.” When someone says that they don’t agree with homosexuality, they’re seen as “Homo-phobe” and no longer as Randy and Katrina. Worst of all, if someone comes out, their identity is instantly associated with their sexual orientation and any value they otherwise had is somehow forgotten.

Where is the love in the name-calling? Where is the peace in telling each other, “You’re wrong!” Where is the reconsiliation in insisting that we’re right no matter the cost of others’ value.

In an essay I had to read for a class at Bluffton, Rowan Williams, the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury, wrote what I think is a simple, but profound way for us to walk in the path of peace.

The essay was about how we make ethical decisions. Often we feel like we can make decisions on our own, much like we decide which cereal to buy at the grocery store. We look for the cereal that will be the healthiest and tastiest or easiest on our budget. Williams talked about how Christian decisions cannot be made in that bubble. Ethical choices are never made alone because the person we are is shaped by the people around us and the people that came before us. For that reason when we make decisions, we need to make sure we're dealing with each other lovingly.

The example he uses is one of wmd’s: He writes about how he believes “it is impossible for a christian to tolerate, let alone bless or defend, the manufacture and retention of weapons of mass destruction by any political authority."

But he says this knowing that there are devout Christians that do indeed support wmd’s: He writes, "But these are the people I met at the Lord's table; I know they hear the scriptures I hear, and I am aware that they offer their discernment as a gift to the Body."

In the end, that's the tricky thing about ecumenical encounters-- staying true to ourselves but being willing to hear the other perspective. Williams says that it requires "staying alongside: which implies that the most profound service we can do for each other is point to Christ; to turn from our confrontation in silence to the Christ we all try to look at; to say to one another, from time to time, hopefully and gently, 'Do you see that? This is how I see him: can you see too?'"

But the only way we’ll ever be able to ‘see it too’ is if we are willing to bend and try to put ourselves in each others’ shoes and look at life from a different angle.

I got this lamp in a gift exchange, and I must say that it’s one of the creepiest things I own because no matter where you’re at in the room, Jesus is making eye contact with you. My fiancée made an observation once that fits so well with Rowan Williams ideas. She said that when there’s more than one person in the room looking at Jesus, they’re both experiencing that creepy eye-contact. Even though they’re looking at Christ from two completely different angles, they’re still looking at the same Christ and having the same connection. But the only way we’ll ever know that we can still have the creepy eye contact is if we walk to where they’re standing.

This is how I see Christ. Can you see too?

Ultimately, we need to deal with each other in love. We need to let Love be Lord.

One of Andrea and I’s favorite hymns is My Life flows on, where we sing, “If love is lord of Heaven and Earth, How can I keep from singing?”

If love is Lord of heaven and Earth, then mamzers would feel valuable.
If Love is Lord of Heaven and Earth, then there would be no “liberals” or “Homo-phobes” or people that are only identified by their sexuality, but brothers and sisters in Christ.
If Love is Lord of Heaven and Earth, then we will walk the path of Peace together.
Because Love is Lord of Heaven and Earth, Zechariah can’t help but sing, “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people!”

A week or two ago John gave a quote that went something like “If the world we imagine is ever going to exist, we must live like the world we imagine already exists.” Do we believe that Love is Lord of Heaven and Earth?

Well if we do, we’d better get ready! God is calling us to walk the path of peace.

The Gift of Sacrifice

2009-11-17T09:53:00.003-05:00

We took communion at church this Sunday. I wanted there to be a sense that we are part of the sacrifice, so we broke a cracker in everyone's hands. That way we could all feel it breaking. Here's how I introduced it:

Frequently in Acts, the apostles make it clear to their audiences: “you killed Jesus” Even the Apostle Stephen here in chapter 8 says boldly, “You stiff-necked people… You have betrayed and murdered him!”

Today we each understand that “Christ died for me. IT was my sins that nailed him to the cross. It was me that killed Jesus.”

But then there is the gift of Communion. Instead of feeling guilty, we are invited to take part in the sacrifice. As Eleanor Krieder puts it, “Abba God calls out to us, ‘Come to me. You are my beloved people. Listen to my great passion. Join me as I work to restore the whole creation into wholeness and peace.’”

“Taking into ourselves the bread and wine—gifts of Christ’s very life—we present ourselves to be transformed.”

“How do we respond? By committing ourselves to self-giving love in the service of brother, sister, neighbor, and enemy.”

“Nourished at the table, we become co-workers in God’s great mission of reconciliation, justice, healing and hope.”

On the night of the Passover, Jesus, knowing he would be betrayed took bread and broke it apart. Giving it to his disciples, he said “This is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” [1]

In the same way, after the supper, Jesus took the cup, and he said “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for me.”[2]

As you come forward, I’ll ask you to come up the two center aisles, and we will serve the elements to you. I’ve asked those serving to break the cracker in your hands. As you feel the cracker break, reflect on Christ’s broken body. Will we allow ourselves to be broken for others?

Then as you take part of that broken cracker and dip it into the juice, remember Christ’s love poured out on the cross. Will we pour out our love for others?

For our children and seekers not yet baptized, we have some grapes and crackers also available if you come through the line.

Finally, for anyone interested, John will be in the back of the sanctuary for anointing prayers of healing and hope.

After communion:

Today we are invited to take part in the sacrifice. It’s not easy, but we know that the resurrection is coming and that we can be a part of God’s redemptive work in the world. Thanks be to God!

[1] All of these quotes come from : Eleanor Krieder’s article, "Communion questions: Communion and mission can go together." The Mennonite17 Feb. 2009. .

[2] Scripture is from Luke. Since we’re looking at acts right now, I wanted to quote the same author.

A Mighty Smiting

2009-11-08T10:00:00.000-05:00

I started writing this a couple weeks ago when John by the story of Ananias and Sapphira found in Acts 5.

¹Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. ²With his wife's full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles' feet.
³Then Peter said, "Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?⁴Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God."
⁵When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. ⁶Then the young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.
⁷About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened.⁸Peter asked her, "Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?"
"Yes," she said, "that is the price."
⁹Peter said to her, "How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord? Look! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also."
¹⁰At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband.¹¹Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events
(NIV)

I hate this story and stories like it. I've noticed that typically this story gets interpreted as "Ananias sinned. God killed him." In the world of Kyle, I want my God to be loving and compassionate and gracious-- Not the "Mighty Smiter" as Bruce Almighty put it...

This interpretation also seems really ironic to me. (Now's when the exegete in me comes out)

The first phrase of this passage: "Now a man named Ananias"

You've got the conjunction, "now,"to separate this story from the one about Barnabas before it, the specifier, "a," showing that its a specific person their talking about, then "man," ...the person is male... "named" -- the same "named" that Jesus got when he was born, the "named" that is meant to evoke emotion and represent so much more than just a word to refer to a person, and finally "Ananias," which means "God is gracious."

So maybe its not the "Mighty Smiter" but the "Gracious Smiter..."

Perhaps, though the way that God has been gracious to Ananias is with material blessings. We at least can gather that he has a beautiful wife. "Sapphira," like a Sapphire, connotes beauty.

Okay, now we know the characters: Beauty and Wealth.

Ananias talks it over with his honey bunny and they decide to sell a possession, just like Barnabas just did with a field that he owned a verse or two back in Chapter 4. From what I gather, selling possessions was not a requirement for Early church members, but was something people did as "loving acts of compassion and generosity" (I really like that phrase. I stole it from Rob Bell and used it in my sermon a couple weeks ago...) so in the story, God wasn't requiring Ananias and Sapphira to give anything-- let alone everything.

Some say that Ananias sin was "stealing" from the Church

With his wife's full knowledge, Ananias "kept back part of the money for himself" There is a sense that Ananias is embezzling this money. The only other place the greek word shows up is in Titus, where the NIV translates it as "steal:" "Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive."

There is that sense looming there that maybe Ananias was intentionally embezzling money for himself, but I do find it interesting that the only other passage where the same word gets used is in a passage that tells slaves not to steal from their masters...

But what the passage doesn't give us any reason to believe that Peter knew Ananias was holding back some money, which makes his immediate accusation seem really heinous to me. Ananias sets down his offering-- the one he didn't have to give and Peter says "HOW IS IT THAT SATAN HAS SO FILLED YOUR HEART?!!?" If that happened to me, I'd probably have a heart attack. No wonder he died!

Then once he's kicked the can, men come in and bury him immediately, almost like they were prepared for this to happen...

Then a few hours later Sapphira comes in and pretty blatantly lies about the ammount thats sitting there, and Peter doles out another heinous accusation and she suffers the same fate as her husband.

I certainly don't want to take this story as an historical account of actual events because that makes everyone look really bad, including God. like I said earlier, this passage typically gets interpreted as Ananias sinned, Peter noticed, and God smote. Ananias looks bad because he's the embezzler-- he probably should look bad-- Peter looks bad because he is pretty quick to Judge Ananias for something he technically didn't have to do-- plus he doesn't even flinch when Ananias croaks which makes you think he almost wanted it to happen-- God looks bad because Ananias gets the death penalty for merely giving less than he could have-- and Sapphira looks bad because she straight up lied-- she should probably look bad for that too. I'd like to think that "the rock" on which Christ built the church is a good guy, and I'd especially like to think that God has a little more grace than that. Otherwise, we should all get a good smiting every once in a while...

I like that Pastor John didn't take that angle. He said that this story shouldn't teach us that God is the nagry smiter, but that greed kills things like christian community and the spirit of generosity, and that Greed should be removed from our lives immediately. That makes a little more sense to me.

So if I were going to look at this story as a story about values rather than about history, I think I'd look back on the metaphors their name represents: Ananias as wealth, and Sapphira as beauty. Wealth and Beauty weren't satisfied with simply being rich and looking good. They wanted to stay that way and gain the great reputation that Barnabas got in the preceding passage.

I think we can learn from this that it is important for us not to hoard stuff for ourselves, because the lust for things like beauty and wealth will eventually lead to bad news-- death by one of the seven deadly sins.

I hope my life looks a little more like the end of acts 4 than the beginning of acts 5.

Any thoughts?

Searching for a Creative Compromise

2009-10-26T10:05:00.004-04:00

I went to a meeting at the church yesterday with only one thing on the agenda... Sharing Time. I guess the Pastoral team had put out a survey this past summer about different parts of the worship service, and the question about sharing time had very split results. I won't go into details, but some people love sharing time, and some people really don't. There wasn't much in the middle.

So how do you make everyone comfortable?

I've heard stories from different churches about people that hog the microphone during sharing time by elaborating on problems like groin rash or in-grown toe-nails... Or, less extreme, there often are trends at churches where you see the same people sharing every week and spending a lot of time doing so.

I also understand that there are very real things that people want to tell the congregation, like this past week when a member of PMC announced that he and his wife are excited to have a third member of their family on the way. People often want to share exciting things or sad things or scary things, and having an accepting congregation rally around those things in prayer can be a very loving gesture.

I understand both sides. Now how do we come to a compromise?

I think part of the problem we face is that the corporate church only comes together once a week. In the past, churches like PMC used to get together on Wednesday or Sunday nights for a prayer meeting where people would share the things happening in their lives and pray for each other. Most of the congregation attended these meetings.

But for better or worse, we don't do that any more, so if we're going to do sharing, we have to squeeze it into the hour on Sunday morning.

I suspect we also get some people through our doors that come from faith backgrounds that put a lot of emphasis on how sacred a time worship is-- not for things like broadcasting groin rash. For instance, I suspect that if you were to walk into a Catholic church, there would never be a sharing time during mass.

I think another part of the problem might be that some people are reminiscent of the very small and intimate past of PMC. Pittsburgh Mennonite Started out as a gathering at a house of a few Mennonites that had moved to Pittsburgh for various reasons. I think some of them even lived together. In that intimate setting, sharing time was probably a lot more natural.

In the meeting we were asked to start thinking of creative ideas of how we could have a venue for people that desire to share their struggles and triumphs but at the same time make worship bearable for those that cringe every time "groin rash lady" is handed the microphone. (please note that the groin rash example is only an example I made up, not something I've actually experienced, even third party...)

Some thoughts people had were that we could use notecards to write down joys and concerns that could then be summarized and read aloud, or we could a separate time before or after the worship service where people could share their hearts out.

My thoughts went to a few things I've seen in the past. I thought of the "Wailing Wall" I saw the few times I've attended New Hope. People could post pictures or newspaper clippings or written prayer concerns that they wanted to share with each other, and this wall represented a "wailing" prayer to God.

I also thought of my time at the Open Door when small groups were emphasized, even in the worship service at times.

I even thought of Mosaic Community Church during my time at the Pittsburgh Project, where every Sunday those celebrating a birthday are told emphatically "When God made you, he was showing off!"

It makes me sad to see congregations so split by such seemingly trivial but obviously emotional issues. I hope we can come to a creative compromise.

Any thoughts that might help?

The Church Under the Influence

2009-10-12T12:30:00.003-04:00

For those of you who don't know, I'm back in Pittsburgh again, this time for a year-long term of service with an organization called PULSE. I have two placements with the PULSE program. one is with an organization called Wireless Neighborhoods. The second is with Pittsburgh Mennonite Church. Pastor John, the pastor at PMC started a series on Acts last week called "The Church: living under the influence." He's in Honduras this week, so I filled in. This is more or less the sermon I gave on Acts 2:

Luke- Author:

Historian: Meticulous

Prove the innocence of Christ
Argue for toleration of Christians

Apologetic: Challenge political and theological issues

Challenge “Caesar is Lord”

Shows Virgin Birth, miracles, and resurrection ßNot New…
Shows that Jesus is true salvation… Not Caesar

Challenge Religious Authority

Inclusion of Gentiles

The book of Acts takes us on an adventure with the apostles through 3 decades of church history.

We start off In Jerusalem in the upper room waiting for the Holy Spirit to come,

then visit places like Judea, Samaria, Syria, Cyprus Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Greece, until the gospel arrives in Rome.

On the journey we will see preaching and miracles, but we will also witness imprisonment and shipwreck and other roadblocks along the way.

All of it however, shows the birth of a church that is living under the influence of a wild but gentile Holy Spirit.

(As a former youth ministry major, that gets me excited! It’s so wild and wonderful!)

…

Last Week Pastor John reminded us of the importance of Waiting for the Holy Spirit to guide us, just as the Apostles waited for the spirit to come in Chapter one of Acts.

This week we see that exactly what they’d been waiting for has come—rather triumphantly.

We all have heard the story of the Pentecost in Acts 2: the great wind, the tongues of fire, the speaking in non-native languages—it’s a really celebrated story in the Christian church. But just in case, Here’s a little refresher: It was the day of Pentecost.

As I understand it, Pentecost is a Jewish festival, held fifty days after the Passover as a celebration of Moses receiving the Law from God on Mount Sinai.

A bunch of believers had gathered for prayer on the day of Pentecost when a violent windstorm seems to appear—this wind- breath- spirit fills the house—tongues of fire split onto the apostles, and they start speaking in languages they don’t know…

Because it was the Pentecost feast, there were a bunch of devout Jews that were in Jerusalem—pilgrims from all over the world. They came running to this house to see where these gale-force winds had come from- and they hear this group from Galilee speaking in their language so they could understand.

This was big for the apostles. The spirit they had been waiting for—that they committed themselves to prayer for, that had seemed so distant and static, this spirit came alive! They could feel the spirit, see the spirit, hear the spirit. God was real and among them!

What I find so intriguing is the response of everyone that came running to see the commotion. Verses 12: “They were all amazed and perplexed…” I can imagine one of them saying to another… did you hear that? He sounds like he’s from Libya…

Some people apparently thought they were drunk, or “filled with new wine” I mean they were at a giant Jewish party…Peter gets up pretty quick to answer with his refutation to this claim… but first I want to focus on this drunkenness.

Perhaps it was the greeks that said they were drunk. Drunkenness was common among the greeks. To the greeks wine gave a feeling of ecstasy and aided in prophetic speech.

Or Perhaps it was Jews from Palestine, where drunkenness was considered obnoxious and sinful. Either way, The actions of this group of disciples was so irrational and unusual to ordinary life that the only way people could explain it was drunkenness. Everyone else was just perplexed.

I wonder if there are things that the Spirit calls us to today that are irrational to everyday life. In a world that tells us to take, we are to give. In a world that tells us to live extravagantly, we live simply, in a world that tells us to be competitive, we are to put others above us. In a world that is violent, the peacemakers are blessed, and in a world that hurts, we are to be a force of love.

…

So now for Peter’s response—a great sermon, one of many that will come in the book of Acts. Peter, who was once the guy that denied Jesus thrice, is now apparently filled with the spirit and speaks boldly, making claims that Joel’s prophesy in scripture is being fulfilled. In Joel’s words, God said that in the last days the spirit would be poured out and the people of God will prophesy. Peter is saying THIS IS WHATS HAPPENING NOW!

And Peter is quick to connect this occurrance with what happened to Jesus. Death has lost its power on Christ, just as king David said: Hades could not hold him. But the Israelites’ Beloved King David is dead never to come out of the grave. Jesus, on the other hand, is ALIVE and moving through their midst in this wild and wonderful moment. God is doing something New and Exciting, and as Peter says in Verse 32: “All of us are witnesses.” … Witness, translated from the greek “martus” the same word from which we get the English word martyr”

…

People’s Response

Finally, my favorite part of the scripture is the people’s response to what has happened and to what they have heard. The scripture tells us that about 3000 people repented from their old ways and were baptized—were washed clean—into this new life as part of the church. They ate together, held everything in common, and sold their possessions so that they could give to each other as there was need. Everyone was loving and generous and compassionate toward each other and life was good for everyone. The Church was born.

This was salvation. This was church. This was the kingdom the people of Israel had been praying for. The spirit of God moving amongst the people inspired them to respond with loving acts of Compassion and generosity. They were being the body of Christ. They were living out the good news to each other. They were the church.

Folks, I feel like the number one thing I learned in college was that I don’t know anything at all, but one thing I am so very confidently certain about as that we are called to be witnesses, and not just the kind of witness that says “Jesus loves you,” but the kind of Witness that is like that of the martyr—that takes on the life of Jesus. The kind of people that know that God is love, and when we are inspired by the spirit of Love himself, we respond with loving acts of Compassion. Church, I hope we find that the confidence to do what is irrational to our neighbors. I hope we are able to find the New and Exciting things God is doing around us. And I hope that we find that we are living out the gospel of Christ and that Christ is alive through us.

Creator God, you are good. Teach us to share your goodness. Create in us a passion to be your force of love and compassion and generosity in the world.

Amen.

Celebrating the blown popsicle stand

2009-05-21T00:45:00.004-04:00

Its a shame that seemingly every time I post I have to make some sort of comment about how long it has been since I have posted last. I won't do that this time...

A lot has happened since February, though. And I won't be able to recap all of it, nor do I really want to attempt such a feat. However, a few highlights should suffice:

I have joined a band called the Anabaptist Bestiary Project that rocks on about creatures. My ethics professor started it last year and had a pretty awesome band, but since some of them graduated, he had to add a few new people to play new songs. It's been a great deal of fun, and we've already had 3 shows with a few more coming up this summer. You can hear some previews of the songs they recorded last year and even buy the CD if you should feel the desire by clicking on this link.

After much drudgery, I made it through the final few months of my undergraduate college career, and I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I am really going to miss the college life. I liked living in the dorm where I could walk down the hall to hang out with my buddies. I liked the deep conversations I would have with friends around the dinner table in the cafeteria, and I liked the mind-stimulating stuff we talked about in the upper-level religion courses. On the other hand, however, I realize that I don't make a great student. While I love learning, I hate grades. They're so artificial. I also don't like reading very much and writing essays isn't really my favorite pastime either... so when graduation time came, I was so very ready to blow that popsicle stand. (where did that phrase come from anyway?) As you can well imagine, Commencement made me pretty happy. I finally got the degree I had been working at for so long! Then to add to that excitement, my family was there, Andie's family was there, and some of my best friends all showed up to give a nice loud "WOOHOO!" when I walked across the stage. It was so awesome to have them all there. The speaker was pretty good too. I really liked the benediction he read. You should probably read it here (Andie's dad liked it so much he put it on his website). I'm not sure how ready I am for whatever is supposed to come after graduation, though. For the next year and a few months I'll be in Pittsburgh, but after that I don't know where I'll be or what I'll be doing when I get there.

Since I had a few weeks between graduation and when I start in Pittsburgh, I decided to take a trip to Florida for a week to visit my Grandparents. I hadn't been on an airplane since I was a baby, so I didn't really know what to expect and consequently I was a little nervous for what seemed like my first flight ever. It was nice to get stuck between two really nice young ladies (I would guess they were in their 50's maybe in their 60's... I'm not a great judge of age, though) because they warned me about all the stuff that might make me feel weird and made fun of me when I tensed up at every shake of the plane when it hit turbulence. It was interesting to get to talk to them because one of them lived in the Orlando area and was returning there after visiting her son in the Y-town area while the other one lived in the Y-town area and was flying south to visit her son in Orlando. Even more interesting was that the one that lives in the Y-town area happened to work at the Allegheny General Hospital which is pretty much right down the hill from the Pittsburgh Project where I lived for a semester my Junior year and where I will be working this Summer. Small world? I'll let you decide.

I made sure I got to go to the beach while I was down there. Though it wasn't for very long. We went out to the New Smyrna beach and walked for a while with our feet in the water. It was nice even if it was short-lived. I did enjoy the little birds that were there. Every time a wave would come they would run really fast to chase it back toward the ocean and peck into the sand, probably looking for food, then they would have to run away again really fast when the next wave would come. They stuck together in groups of like 10 or 15 so it was funny to watch these little groups of birds scrambling toward the ocean then scrambling back a few seconds later.

Most of the rest of my time was spent at my grandparents house hanging out with them and doing odd jobs around their house. On sundays my grandparents go to two churches, so I went along with them to both. The first was a Mormon church where my Grandma has attended for over 20 years now. It was certainly interesting to experience a faith perspective that is pretty different from my own. The second one was a Baptist church and this past sunday happened to be the awards night for the Awana kids program.

For the sake of the sanity of those that read my blog, I'll keep this short and end here, though there is a lot I could write about. As a final note, I've added a new link in my "friends" list that is the Young Anabaptist Radicals. I stumpled upon their blog a few days ago and read some interesting posts, so I thought I'd share the link if you feel bored and want some good controversial Anabaptist reading.

Thanks for stopping by my blog even though I've been absent for a few months.

Scapegoat Mechanism

2009-02-05T20:22:00.003-05:00

I took an exam today in War Peace and Nonviolence in which I had to write an essay about Rene Grirard's work on "the scapegoat mechanism" I think it is a very intriguig account of the reason behind a lot of the violence of our world, present and past. My response looked something like this:

The idea of the scapegoat comes from leviticus 16:20-22, describing a goat that is driven into the wilderness to die during the celebration of Yom Kippur in a ritualistic way of releasing the guilt of sin. (scapegoat is actually a mess up in the translation of what literally means "escape goat" but has since become

Rene Girard claims that the scapegoat concept can be used to explain all of society's love of violence and attempt at order. In order to understand his theory of the scapegoat mechanism, w must first understand Girard's theory of mimetic desire. According to Girard, our desires are not driven by natural, internal forces as we tend to think. Instead, we look around ourselves to see what others are desiring and form our own desires around the others' desires. In other words, we imitate desire (a couple examples would be celebrity worship and pop culture). This mimetic desire causes jealousy and eventually creates a culture of rivalry, conflict, and violence, where we fight each other for what we desire (much like two men fight over the same woman).

Here applies Girard's theory of the “scapegoat mechanism:” to keep the world from exploding in violence, societies have to use a scapegoat, a (usually innocent) victim onto which all violence and emotion get channeled. If people do away with the scapegoat, they get rid of the guilt and violence they had toward each other and can become united in mutual hatred.

An example of the scapegoat mechanism can be found in the death penalty. Though those on death row are often guilty of terrible crimes, execution still has a kind of sacrificial aspect about it. Instead of dealing with the violence we have toward each other, we in the United states channel violence on murderers in an attempt to wipe our hands clean of the violence that pervades our society. We think that if we can only get rid of the “evil people” like those convicted of rape or murder, then our society will be less violent and generally more good. Those we execute become scapegoats for our society.

A second example can be found in the holocaust. Antisemetic Nazis in Germany untied themselves by channeling all of their violence on Jews. Through Genocide, Hitler and the Nazis were attempting to make the “perfect” Aryan race through the expulsion of the “evil” Jewish race. The Jews were scapegoats for the Nazis.

I realize this is a pretty poor explaination of the scapegoat mechanism, but I assure you Girard's work is very interesting. He has a couple books out, so if you happen to be really curious about this subject, you might look him up on amazon.

Peace.

Debatable

2009-01-25T17:31:00.002-05:00

This past week we had a "debate" in my creation class about the creation/evolution continuum. You can find a description of the continuum here.

This was my opening statement:

In his address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on October 22, 1996 entitled “Truth Cannot Contradict Truth” , Pope John Paul II made the statement that:

“new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory.”

He knew very well that that the theory of evolution had evidence to support it and therefore could be regarded as truth. Yet as the highest leader of the Catholic church, some might regard his statement as heretical. However, what the pope was doing was connecting his christian faith in the Bible to science, much like the theory of evolutionary creationism seeks to connect the foundations of Christian faith with the scientific evidence for the theory of evolution.

In the realm of truth , science and religion serve different purposes. Science seeks to provide logical, accurate answers to questions through observation and experiment. Religion seeks to provide truth by pointing to a higher power. by connecting the two, we are able to view the world holistically and in turn we are able to find the whole truth.

Specifically in the study of origins, Science tells us we came about through a long line of genetic changes known as evolution. Archaeological digs reveal fossils that show lines of transition species while animal anatomy dealing with vestigial structures and homologous structures point to common ancestors. It is foolish not to accept the evidence presented by scientists.

Yet evolution falls short is in providing explanations for several questions such as what reality looked like before time and why humans have such a high position in the natural world. Here the Bible fills the gap by explaining that all things were created by a loving God that exists eternally and that humans were created in the image of God. Furthermore, it is difficult to fathom that complexities like the central nervous system in humans can come about without specific design. Therefore, it is important to connect both evolution and creation to get a full account of our origin. In doing so, we find that God reveals through both nature and the Bible.

If I were to stop here, the theory of theistic evolution would suffice. God was the creator that set the natural order in motion. However, that would limit God's effect on creation to one instance of divine action. Yet throughout history, miracles that science cannot account for show that God does indeed intervene in creation. Throughout all of time, God has worked to mould creation into the diverse infrastructure it is today and has been in the past. For instance, the dark skin found on humans in regions that receive a lot of sun offers protection from harmful ultraviolet rays while the light skin of those in the areas that typically receive little sun allows sun rays to penetrate the skin in order to produce vitamin D. Each time a new discovery is made in evolution, we can celebrate the love God has for creation.

Any Thoughts?

Bible reading how-to's

2009-01-13T16:06:00.002-05:00

We received a sheet of common ways of reading the Bible in my New Testament class and we were asked to try to determine which way we think we read the Bible. There are seven views of the Bible listed with a description, example, and typical questions for each. (In order to try and cover my butt legally and avoid failing grades because of Plagiarism, I give the same note that is given on the handout: “This chart is influenced by ideas presented by Barbara Brown Taylor via personal correspondence.” I’m not really sure who exactly corresponded, but Dr. Laura Brenneman is the professor that gave us the handout.) Here's a quick summary:

The first one is a literal reading: God wrote the Bible word for word through humans and it is the sole means of understanding history.

The second is a historical reading. Humans in certain contexts wrote the Bible and it is important to know these historical contexts in order to understand it. The Bible is still authoritative but history also has some authority.

Third is literary-metaphorical. Truth can be found underlying the text. Whether or not something actually happened or not is not as important as getting the idea of the story.

Number four is Allegorical. Most everything in a story has a symbolism that needs to be extracted in order to find a deeper meaning.

Five is the “Midrash” concept where everything gets connected to stories from the past. In order to understand the NT you have to connect it to the story of God’s relationship with Israel.

Six is the reader-response view, where the reader in whatever context he or she is in determines the meaning based on experience or personality.

The last one is reading the Bible as folklore. The stories are ancient myths that are common to many ancient humanities and may not have been from their culture or even about God.

Here are my thoughts:
• I grew up thinking that the Bible was literal because that’s what people in church told me, and I’ve found that such a reading is a general consensus among the churchgoers of my home church and other churches I’ve visited. A while back the current pastor at my church wrote an essay that he submitted to The Mennonite (it's in this issue on page 18.) in which he wrote about how he questions the Bible he loves so much. The people in my church didn’t like that article very much. When I started more seriously studying the Bible, I started to doubt the literal reading, so I would have to go against my church and say that I don’t think everything in the Bible is literally true.
• While I think that knowing the historical context is helpful when reading the Bible, I don’t think I know enough about the history to read through its lens, nor do I think that the Bible was solely written for one group. I like to think that the Bible is living and can be read today as well.
• I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to deny my social location when I’m reading the Bible, so whether I want to or not, I probably have a little bit of reader-response in me. However, I wouldn’t go to the extreme of saying that my context is the only important context. I’ve found that knowing history can make the text so much more interesting.
• I don’t really know what to say about Midrash. I’m just going to skip it.
• Now I don’t think that the Bible is all literally true, but I also don’t believe that every story has some deep meaning that I need to decode in order to understand my life. Some of the Bible is allegory, but some of it can be read as historically accurate.
• The one that I think about sometimes and scares me the most is the idea that the Bible is folklore. Stuff I learned in classes point out that scholars compare stories and place them together from different sources, and then I see how similar some Biblical stories are to other ancient myths and it blows my mind. I’m just not ready to say that the Bible is all myth, though.
• That leaves me with literary-metaphorical. I guess there are just some things that don’t matter in life. History and the bible is probably one of them. I like to think that there is truth in the myth of the Bible, and that’s the truth that I try to live my life by.

So, in forcing a generality onto myself, I choose number three.

any thoughts?

War, Peace, and Nonviolence

2009-01-08T13:04:00.004-05:00

I was just walking to class when Nicole stopped me and informed me that both my 1:00 and 2:30 classes have been canceled because they are taught by the same professor in the same room (yeah I have to sit in one little room with the same professor for 3 hours) so my entire afternoon has just been freed. I thought I'd take the chance to be a bloghead then maybe take a nap to catch up on some Z's.

It's a small world?
My sophomore year when I got here to BU, I needed the HarperCollins Study Bible for one of my classes so I borrowed it from my sister because she had it from a class she took at Mount Union. Unfortunately for both of us, I happened to leave that Bible in my car with the windows rolled down when it rained, so it was less convenient for me to use that book than it was just to use another Bible I had laying around. I had figured out by then that I could get away with my NIV. Pretty much all of my religion classes since then have had that same Bible on their book lists but I refused to buy another Bible when I had so many already. Now however, in my New Testament class Dr. Brenneman wants us to read the introductions to the books from the HarperCollins Bible, so I decided to finally break down and pick up a copy. So I got on eBay's half.com website and found the thing for $15 in very good condition and bought it. About an hour later one of the guys on my floor walked into my room and said "You just bought a book." Thinking he was creepy, I said "yeah. a Bible." Turns out he had sold the Bible to me.
It's a small world after all.

Another class I'm taking right now is called War, Peace, and Nonviolence. (Pretty stereotypical for a Menno University, I know...) In the past I've been in settings where my pacifist convictions have not been popular and I've even gotten into arguments (ironic?) about it. It seems that the debate over Pacifism and Just war (or even crusade for that matter) is an emotional issue. Dr. Sider talked about it like this: Just Warriors can make pacifists feel lazy by saying that pacifists should be more willing to serve their country and cowardly by asking questions about what a pacifist would do when confronted with an armed robber that was pointing a gun to their families head. "would you not defend yourself and your family?" Then pacifists retaliate by making just warriors feel stupid for not being able to read scripture. "Why can't you just be more like Jesus?" It turns out to be a pretty nasty situation.
For today's class we were assigned a reading by Rowan Williams, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury. In his essay, Williams writes about how people make choices. Often we get this sort of "grocery store" mentality when it comes to making ethical decisions. We see a few options and we choose the one that seems best based on rules or preferences, kind of like we choose cereal based on how good it is for our diet or which taste we prefer. Williams talked about how Christian decisions cannot be made in that bubble. Ethical choices are never made alone because the person we are is shaped by the people around us and the people that came before us. For that reason when we make decisions, we need to make sure we're dealing with each other lovingly. I thought this was pretty profound. He was taking about how he believes "it is impossible for a christian to tolerate, let alone bless or defend, the manufacture and retention of weapons of mass destruction by any political authority." He says this knowing that there are Christians that do support WMD's: "But these are the people I met at the Lord's table; I know they hear the scriptures I hear, and I am aware that they offer their discernment as a gift to the Body." In the end, that's the tricky thing about ecumenical encounters-- staying true to ourselves but being willing to hear the other perspective. Williams says that it requires "staying alongside: which implies that the most profound service we can do for each other is point to Christ; to turn from our confrontation in silence to the Christ we all try to look at; to say to one another, from time to time, hopefully and gently, 'Do you see that? This is how I see him: can you see too?'"
I thought that was profound... embracing uncertainty in order to find light we can both agree on. I'm glad I can be a part of communities where I can share my thoughts and the experiences I've had with people that have shaped my worldview. I'm sorry to anyone if I've been hateful in past when defending my pacifist conviction. If you happen to want to read the essay, it's in this book, and you can read most of it here on pages 3-15.

I think its time for a nap. Have a great day :)

Break

2008-12-19T00:33:00.003-05:00

Welcome back to reality.

I got through finals week (barely) alive. It was the most stressful week of finals I've had yet. I had two big papers, journal assignments in two classes, a final project for my graphic design class, and a batch of tests that demanded a good deal of studying all to do in the same week. I only got a couple hours of sleep each night l and wasn't eating very well from the stress. I think I lost about 5 pounds...

But now I'm back to the life I know. I've caught up on sleep and gotten to catch up with friends and family. I spent the last two weekends with Andie's family, which is always a pleasure. I got to jam with Ron, her dad, because he was trying to learn a couple songs for a worship service he played at last Sunday and needed a little help figuring out the chords. He's a pretty awesome piano player. The man's got soul. Then Last week I got to spend with my family here at home and hang out with my friends a little bit. I definitely miss those people when I'm at school. I even got to go to Band of Brothers. They're reading through a book right now called "A deadly misunderstanding" by a former evangelical congressman named Mark Siljander. The books about this guy's quest to bridge the gap between Muslims and Christians, which is pretty important for world politics right now with all of the conflict in Israel/Palestine. If common ground could be found between those two enemies, so much violence and death could be avoided and oppression could be stopped-- and not just by those two parties. This stuff affects the United states because we support Israel, Israel Oppresses Muslims, and Muslims therefore retaliate on the US. It's a mess... and if this book can help me make sense of that mess, then hallelujah!

This past weekend was the Christmas get-together for Andie's mom's side of the family. I helped them get the house ready with decorations and cleaning, etc. I must say the house looked great (All because of me of course) and the food and fellowship was pretty awesome too. I really like Andie's family. They have a passion for serving Christ. Saturday night we were all gathered in the living room after opening gifts that were exchanged and Ron (Andie's dad) wanted have everyone pray together as a family so he gave a nice emotional speech about ho much he appreciated his wife's family and how important it was for them to pray together because so many of them were going through transitional times of life. A few other people talked about what was happening in their life and what they wanted prayer for. Then Andie's Grandpa started crying and said that he wanted everyone to know how blessed he was to have a family that wanted to serve the Lord. It was pretty moving. I think a tear or two may have surfaced in my eye...

I seem to keep getting frustrated with the evangelical church. I heard a pretty moving sermon on Sunday about how the Christmas story meant Salvation for all people, but that salvation required a changed life through a changed heart. The pastor ended it with an Altar call where several people went and knelt down at the front of the sanctuary moved to tears by what they had heard, which is great, right? saving souls is what makes the angels rejoice... The thing that really got me, though was that the pastor, probably trying to make people feel comfortable said things about how he wasn't just trying to get money and that he wasn't even going to expect people to come back every sunday, but he invited people to come forward and change their heart. The whole process seemed pretty stereotypical... mechanical soulsaving. I'm trying not to gossip about the church I was at because there are definitely good things happening there that Andie has told me about. I just couldn't help but notice how different the worldview of the evangelical church is from the things we've been talking about in Band of Brothers and the conversations I've been having with people at school and some of the churches I've been going to.

sorry for my rant.

I guess the last thing I'll mention is that since I'm home for a few weeks and this coming semester will be my last in College and therefore will be the last semester I am under my parents' insurance, I've had several doctor's appointments right in a row. For example, I just went to get my yearly check-up at the dentist this morning. I also decided I would go ahead and let my Mom's Chiropractor take a look at my back since she had so many good things to say about him and he had a christmas offer to get a free consultation. I didn't have any pain, so I assumed he would feel my back, give me a quick adjustment for any subjuxations and send me on my merry way. Turns out I actually have scoliosis. He took an X-ray and showed me there are two curves in my back. So now I have a bunch of stretches to do and I'm supposed to research a chiropractor I can go to while I'm at Bluffton.

Scoliosis. Who knew? Guess it's a good thing I went and got a free consultation.

Well I hope the few people that read this have a Merry Christmas. I know I'm pretty excited to spend the holiday with my parents. I've tried to be less "bah humbug" this year.

Peace.

Organic Fruits, Mansuits, and Stinky Toots

2008-11-10T19:49:00.008-05:00

Today was six months for Andie and I. What better way to celebrate than with a new post on the old blog?

Here's a few updates on my crazy life:

*Tonight was the first night in a while that I felt the relief of getting some projects done. I still have stuff coming up this week, but for now I at least feel like I can breathe again. The two projects I finished were both for the same class but were two different topics. The first assignment was to write an essay on Global healthcare, so I researched medical tourism, where people travel to another country for the purpose of getting medical procedures done, often to developing nations where they can find radically lower prices than what they would pay at hospitals in the US. A lot of people that don't have insurance do it because they can't afford things like a $300,000 transplant in the US but can swallow a $60,000 bill in India a bit more easily. I found the stats for one of the biggest hospitals that takes on foreign patients, a place called Bumrungrad in Bangkok, Thailand. This place is so huge that 50,000 patients went there from the US last year alone... 55% of the patients that come through its doors are foreign, accounting for something like $160 million in profit (I'm writing this stuff out of my memory, so please don't quote me on any of this). I never realized there was such a huge trend. Anyway, it seems like such a great idea, but in the end there's a huge ethical dilemma because people are traveling thousands of miles to get major surgeries done in hospitals that were built with tax money that should have gone to boost the health of the local people and after which if there are complications are unable to take any action because they have to follow the laws of the destination country. And plus, even though the travel agencies that set these trips up do an awful lot to make the experience a vacation, who wants to recover from a hip replacement in a land with weird food and water that very well may give you diarrhea?

The second assignment was to get into a group and act as a "community task force" to tackle an issue that affects our community. our group chose to take on the task of making Bluffton more sustainable in the realm of food consumption. My part of the assignment was to come up with who/what the issue affects, reasons the issue has come about, and what actions could have made the situation different. In the end, our group is proposing that Bluffton University start an Organic Garden to offset dependence on food suppliers and provide a way to compost leftover food, and to buy local produce, meat, vegetables, etc. Perhaps the garden could commit to grow all of the green beans the cafeteria uses in a year... I feel like there are a lot of green beans served at Marbeck Commons...

*I decided that I was going to stop using bottled soaps and start using more bar soaps. for one thing, I think it's cheaper, and for another it uses less packaging. So I bought some bar soap the other day that's called "dial for men" and I looked at the label and read that if you use this soap "Your hair covered, meat powered mansuit will be clean, smooth, and fresh all day."

*Last night was the root beer kegger. The idea was to make an event to make people aware of how dangerous alcohol can be, but it was pretty much just a dance in Bob's Place where there was a keg of root beer and some posters on the wall giving statistics about alcohol. It was a lot of fun just to go hog wild on the dance floor anyway.

*Before the dance, though I was laying in my bed when I rolled over toward the wall and heard a nice pop and saw a pretty bright flash but couldn't really figure out where it had come from. Half of my room was out of power, so I looked at all of the stuff that was plugged in to see if anything noticeably had shorted out. My cell phone charger seemed to be the culprit this time, so I unplugged it and went to get the key for the breaker box in the hall. As I was walking though, I happened to look down at my belt and noticed that the metal end piece was black and had two notches about the same distance apart as prongs on a plug. YIKES! turns out my belt was the thing doing the shorting. I hadn't felt anything, but at that moment I thought to myself " I could have died just a minute ago..."

I took pictures.

The Weapon:

The Victim:
The Evidence:

*Today Andie's sister came to visit so we went out for dinner at the Mexican restaurant in town. chimichanga with rice and beans... great tasting then, not so great smelling right now... later on in the evening Amy cut Andie and I's hair. She did a great job. I really like this length for my hair and Andie's hair looks really cute.

*After seeing Andie's Dad using twitter and finding out how trendy it is at the National Youth Worker's Convention in Pittsburgh I set up an account for myself. It's pretty much just like mini blogs where all you do is say what you're doing. I like it better than blogging because it's so quick and easy when all you want to do is say what you're doing. You should probably check it out here. The weird thing that I found out through experience, though is that whenever I update there is some AIM bot that connects me with someone else that just updated their twitter or livejournal and sends a random message to both people and replaces the screen names with some form of an adjective and a type of fish. The first time it happened to me I got a message from "largestcoho" that said "President Barack Obama" and the second time it was from "fragmentedcoho" (I think its a fluke that it was a coho both times because after the first person explained to me what had happened, I looked it up on wikipedia and the article said that its a random fish type) and the message was simply "Hi." Both times the people were very nice but we didn't get to talk long because it was late at night and time for bed. maybe sometime I'll update and I'll have time to talk and will meet someone really cool. I can only hope.

*Looking forward to Thanksgiving. I love me a good turkey dinner.

Kyle for King

2008-09-08T20:02:00.003-04:00

I started writing a post two weeks ago but got interrupted for some reason and never found the time to finish. Since I had a cup of coffee tonight, I'm wide awake and won't be able to fall asleep for a while and I'm in a very thoughtful mood, so it seems like a fitting time to jot down a thought. (believe it or not, I've never really thought poetry writing was a strength of mine, but I happen to think that's a great rhyme right there)

I had this idea in my head when I wrote my last post that I was gonna start blogging on a regular basis again. Now, about a month and a half later, I've realized just how low of a priority blogging has been yet how much I've missed the opportunity blogging gives me to write down my thoughts and let the world (i.e. the two or three people that happen to still check this thing) add some commentary.

I'm gonna give the excuse that I've been too busy to blog, even though I realize that's probably the lamest excuse I could possibly ever muster... but it is true that I've been very busy the last month.

It started out with RA training: two weeks of back to back meetings ALL DAY, which seems like something I would hate. Ironically though, after going through all of the leadership training and meeting all the important "higher-ups" who told us all about rules and programs and buildings and situations like what to do when somebody vomits in the hallway, I felt important and a lot less reluctant to be in college than I've been feeling for a while. Add that to the fact that my girlfriend lives in the building next to mine rather than an hour away, I might dare to say that I actually started to enjoy being a college student.

My classes have pretty quickly brought back cynicism, though. (Like love, it never seems to fail... is that a bad thing?) For one thing, my classes have been rocking the foundations of my faith to the point that I almost feel guilty writing down the info in my notes. For instance, in my Old Testament (the professor insists it should actually be called "Hebrew Bible") class, we've been wrestling with this idea that a lot of what we read in the Hebrew Bible is "etiological myth," meaning that they're stories that explain the reason or cause of something. Genesis 1-11 are especially thought to be myth, and most scholars dismiss the stories contained therein when trying to put together a history of humanity. Knowing that Adam and Eve and Noah were just stories parents told to get their kids to try to understand their existence doesn't really surprise me that much, though. It's kind of like when my grandma used to tell me that lightening and thunder were just God shining a flashlight and stomping his feet. Grandma obviously knew that lightening wasn't literally caused by some celestial light bulb, but what she was telling me was truth in my head, and that's all that mattered. Perhaps underneath it all she was trying to send a message that God is involved in what happens in the universe. So in that case, etiological myth doesn't seem so bad. It's like primitive science. What really blows my mind, however, is where other scholars feel that historical accounts start in the Bible. Dr. George (my OT professor) claims that history starts with Abraham, but not all scholars agree with him. There was a Rabbi in one of the videos we watched that has a theory that everything from Abraham up to the Babylonian exile is fiction and was only written to justify Israel's occupation of the "promised land." I think the worst part of it all is that there is very little archaeological evidence or texts outside of the biblical texts to support any of the theories, and quite frankly, some of the theories make sense... which means that a big chunk of the Bible I've put my faith in for years could be a big political scam to make everyone believe that Israel was right to kill off a bunch of people and take their land. Sounds pretty barbaric to me...

I think the one moment that kicked my butt the worst was in History of Christianity when Alex told us about all the different messiah stories that were around during Jesus' time that all claimed the same miracles as Jesus, right down to the virgin birth, water into wine, walking on water, and even resurrection. Yikes! What do I do with that, the very foundation of Christian faith? Alex just said that we can't count of history as the tool of our faith. What we really have to count on is the long tradition of zealous people that have found that Christianity is the sole way to find the good life.

On top of the faith crisis, I'm seeing some dissonance between the things I learn in class and the things I experience around campus. For instance, In my capstone course (i forget the official name of it) we read an excerpt from a book about food (something I've been pretty interested in) and how in our culture we rarely question where our food comes from and just go to the grocery store and pay the price they ask for food that we have no idea what process was taken to get there. The author suggests that consumers should do things like prepare their own food, buy locally grown food, even grow their own food. Yet no matter how much I agree with what the author says there, I'm pretty much expected to go to the cafeteria and blindly accept the food that they provide (Bluffton actually requires all residents to buy a meal plan), even though I have a pretty good feeling that the food served there is not very natural, and probably not very healthy.

Another example is in my Spiritual Disciplines class. We read texts from all these people that say that a simple life is best and that we should get rid of all of the things that make life so busy and stressful. Yet college seems like the epitome of busy and stressful... It's really ironic that the spiritual disciplines class has perhaps the most hefty load of reading assignments of all of my classes this semester...

Studying obviously isn't all there is to life and there are other things that add to the ominous stressful feeling of college life. On top of being a student, I'm also expected to be an RA, a friend, a boyfriend, a churchgoer, etc. the list of hats I wear could go on for quite a while. I wrote in a journal entry that I was assigned to write in an email to the spiritual disciplines professor that I find it difficult to make time to practice the spiritual disciplines because I find it very difficult to push away all of the other things that make life so busy. I feel like I can't just tell my professors that I will not be doing their assignments because I need time to deal with a situation on my floor as an RA, and I can't tell the residents that come to my room that I cannot help them deal with their problems because I need to read, and I certainly will not tell Andie that I can't give her affection because I'm too busy... I guess the thing that gets pushed back the most is sleep, and that certainly has its own consequences as I know it affects my health both physically and emotionally.

A lot of the business is good stuff, though. I don't mean to make it sound like my life is just a big vat of crap. I joined a traveling band on campus called "Shining Through" that takes brings together musicians to grow in their faith and minister in churches that we'll go to next semester. I went with the Bluffton University Chapter of Habitat for Humanity to a work sight on Saturday morning where I helped move logs for several hours. I'm pretty sore because they were some pretty hefty logs, but it felt good to be really productive and do physical labor for a change from the humdrum of mental labor. Finally, this afternoon Andie and I went to Canton to get dinner with both of our parents so that they could meet each other and so that we could pick up some things we needed from home. There was good conversation that happened both there and on the drive home that was very refreshing. Ultimately the trip was planned because I will be needing my suit in the near future because I was nominated for homecoming king and will need to be dressed up for the football game in a couple weeks. Kyle for King... there's a political campaign I could get behind!

When I'm king, I'm gonna make life simple again-- like when I was a kid. For now, though, I'll just have to keep relying on the simple things like laughter with my friends over coffee, music from my favorite bands, weekly cards from my grandma, and pecks on the cheek from my girlfriend to keep me sane and remind me that there is such a thing as joy. It's the little things in life...

long live change

2008-08-04T23:56:00.003-04:00

here's to an unplanned summer-long hiatus from blogging...

i think i've mentioned before that i haven't lived in the same place for more than a year ever since i went to akron. sometimes i feel like i'm getting plucked out of one world and set down in another with its own setting and social circle and the whole time i'm trying to maintain relationships from the last world and stay true to myself. since i'm going to be going back to bluffton fairly soon, i thought i'd take some time to update my blog on what my life looks like now.

since i decided not to work at camp this summer, i've been living at home and spending a lot more time with family and friends and Andie. my job at the cafe has been pretty awesome. i'm really starting to get used to everything there (good thing i'm done in a week). i've got all the drinks down, i know my way around the cash register, i can make a pretty mean sandwich or salad, and i even have memorized the orders of some of the regulars that come in often. there's the older gentleman that always gets 2 medium coffees for him and his wife (his wife gets cream. he drinks it black.), the red haired lady that used to only get an iced turtle latte but now gets a smoothie instead, the guy that reminds me of tom hank's character in 'you've got mail' (medium coffee, black. make sure it's hot.) Laura, who gets a large caramel latte with a double shot and whipped cream (sometimes she'll get it iced. depends on her mood i guess.), wanda, who always gets a medium vanilla latte, and then there's the lady that frequently comes in to get two marinated balsamic chicken breasts (not in a sandwich or on a salad. just the chicken breasts). i've loved getting to know some of the people that work there and meeting new friendly people that come in for coffee and reuniting with old friends that had no idea i work there. There's an interesting dynamic to a job when you're able to maintain the human factor.

hanging out with friends at work is cool and all, but hanging out with friends other places is probably cooler, and that's something i've done a lot of this summer. whether its been dinner and a beer at sam and laura's or an adventure in the woods looking at locks on the sandy beaver canal, i always enjoy spending time with those folks. what's been interesting this summer though, is seeing how that group has changed. last summer whenever i was home when i hung out with them it was almost always sam, laura, andrew, lyndsay, brad and i. since andrew and lyndsay are living it up in the twin cities, we've been hanging out with other people. it's been really cool to get to know megan and jonathan and jaiman and emily better and to spend more time with mike and ginny and all the kids. andrew and lyndsay and evan did come home for a while. it was really refreshing to have the whole gang together.

band of brothers has been really good. i've gone every tuesday this summer except for one and i've seen some awesome things happen. we talked about prayer for a while and even took one tuesday night to sit in the basement of steve's building in silence as a way of listening to God. i can't say that i really felt god trying to tell me anything, but i do remember feeling an incredible sense of peace and comfort sitting there praying with all those guys. lately we've been fiddling with some stuff about calling (i could prolly write a whole blog on that...). one pretty sweet part of BOB this summer is the addition of dave scott (he's a pretty sweet dude) and every once in a while grants dad (he seems like a pretty wise guy). i've always loved BOB so i guess that's nothing new. BOB does have a blog now. and dave has one too. i guess i need to update my list of "friends" on the right.

i've also spent a lot more time with my parents since i've been home. i know i take them for granted a lot, but i do love them and i know they love me. i guess thats all you can really ask for. i helped them tear down our old shed earlier this summer and can actually say i had a pretty good time doing so. i found an old toilet that had been stashed away and couldn't help but take pictures.

Andie's house has been like a second home for me. i really like hanging out with her family and i really love her. i think thats good enough reason to drive an hour to see her :) the past couple weeks she's been in south korea, and i've realized i don't know what to do with my spare time when she's not around... usually if i had a day off of work i would drive out to canton. now it might be weird if i showed up at her house since she's not there...

other than work and family and friends, and church on sundays, there's not much left to tell about my summer. i did get dragged to a john mayer concert (Andie loves JM) where i had some pretty nasty heartburn because of a wicked case of road rage earlier that day (it was pretty petty why that happened. we don't need to talk about that...). i also drug Andie with me to visit friends in pittsburgh one afternoon. it was really refreshing to see some people i love, though it made me kinda homesick :( i really wanna live there someday.

all in all, i really have nothing to complain about. soon life is gonna look different though. in a little over a week i'll be in another world. viva el cambio.

a tribute to dadio

2008-06-15T01:30:00.000-04:00

Okay so if the blogosphere had a hole in it like the ozone layer has (or had? I don’t know what they’re telling us these days) then I’m pretty sure my blog would be that gaping flappy hole that lets all the crap through because I’m pretty terrible at keeping up with the jonses (or the sams) when it comes to writing. Regardless, here’s my little ditty for the last month or two of my life.

I’ve been done with school for a while and I was pretty much super pumped that it was over. I ended up walking away from the semester with better grades than I thought I would and even got a b in ethics, which I kinda thought I’d fail (I didn’t really keep up with the jonses when it came to homework either) so I was a pretty happy camper.

Since then, I’ve gotten a job at the Encore Café in Columbiana located adjacent to the newly renovated main street theatre. We sell sandwiches and salads and pastries and of course coffee drinks. It’s a pretty sweet job and is even sweeter because my managers are my good friends laura and brad.

Perhaps the best news of the past month, though, is andie. After all the girl drama of this past semester I seemed to have climbed out on top with a girl that fits me like a glove… or maybe I should say that the relationship climbed up on us because it really just happened. Andie wasn’t the girl that I pursued for a long time. She was just the one that happened. We’d been friends for a while but hadn’t really hung out that much until the end of the year. Then we went on a quasi date or two and I ended up taking her home from Bluffton because it’s on my way and then later that week we were dating. So as of right now (since it’s after midnight), as I write down my word vomit, I can say that we’ve been “official” for a month. Pretty amazing.

And also since it’s after midnight I can say happy fathers day to my old man. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my dad lately because I was asked to say something about my dad at church tomorrow …and just because tomorrow is fathers day. I’ve realized that sometimes I can be a pretty terrible son to my parents and that I don’t appreciate them enough. So I thought I’d write down a few reasons that I do appreciate my dad.

My dad is generous. and not just with money (though he certainly dishes out more for me than I deserve… seriously he always pays when we go somewhere and even buys me gas a lot. And college? Please!) but he’s pretty charitable with his time too. My dad works with heating and air conditioning for a living and so he gets a lot of people asking him to come check out their furnace or heat pump and he almost always does even when its really inconvenient for him. And on top of that, every new house project that habitat for humanity of northern Columbiana county has built in the last ten years (or maybe more… im not real sure) has a heating system that my dad and a few others installed on volunteer time.
My dad is fun. It’s a little weird for me to say that sometimes because it seems like parents aren’t supposed to be friends, but if he were a food, he’d be a mushroom because he’s such a fun-gi… I remember growing up and always wanting to go everywhere with him because he was so cool. Even now, even though I might not hang out with him on the weekends, I can still appreciate that he’s a pretty well established jokester.
My dad is smart. I don’t know where he got his knowledge sometimes because I’ve heard stories about him slacking in high school… but he always knows how to solve problems. In fact we were just talking today about how the tree in our front yard needs cut down and he pretty much had figured out how to cut every branch so that it wouldn’t fall on the house or on the telephone and electric wires that run through it. Dad’s smarts came in pretty handy when I needed help in homework… whether it was how to do long division in 3^rd grade or how to solve for x in a quadratic equation in calculus in college, he always seemed to be able to figure it out… and usually put it in a way that I could go it too.
my dad is wise. I’m pretty sure the fact that my dad grew up Quaker makes him one of the most interesting people to get into a theological debate with. We don’t always agree on stuff, but I have really enjoyed some of the deep conversations we’ve had when he gives me a little insight into his life experience. Dad has pretty cool thoughts about a lot of life’s mysteries.
I think the thing that I really appreciate the most about my dad, though, is simply that my dad loves. I can tell he loves my mom. I can tell he loves the people around him. I can tell he loves me and my sister. The simple fact that my dad and I get along gives me something that a lot of people don’t have at all. It may seem obvious, but I am so thankful that I was born to a father that doesn’t abuse me and that makes sure I have everything I need and more. I know I take advantage of my dad way too much, but I realized this week that a lot of the reason that I can trust God, my heavenly father, is because I can trust Tom, my earthly father, and if I can start to understand why my dad loves me so much, then I feel like I get a little glimpse of God. I don’t think there is anything more amazing than encountering God.

So there it is. My life is good. Good school, good girl, good job, good dad. And so I guess I should be thankful. Thank you, God. Thank you, Dad.

Pooping, Eating, and Singing in the Rain

2008-05-02T02:16:00.006-04:00

There are few things that make me almost poop my pants, but recently I have experienced a couple of such things. The first happened a week or two ago when I was looking at pictures of friends on facebook and saw one that was taken at my house of a bunch of relatives that i'm not even sure how we're related or if we even are. It was definitely a classic, though, and I almost crapped a chicken with excitement when I saw it. The other near-defecation happened yesterday when I got a comment on my blog from Alena about how the crap that comes out on this blog actually inspired her to start her own blog. I'm pretty sure that is the definition of Joy for a blogger. I added her onto my blogroll over there on the right, so you can check out what she has to say.

I've finally reached the end of the craziest semester I've ever spent at college so far. For one thing, it's the most credit hour's I've ever taken (and I'm taking even more next semester) and after coming back from an awesome semester in Pittsburgh, I didn't really want to be here anyway. On top of that I got myself into plenty of drama by breaking up with Brooke and by feeling guilty and frustrated when I started looking for affection elsewhere. Yikes! I hope I can be forgiven.

But now it's over! After two weeks of hell staying up late to finish papers and complete projects and then a week of staying up late studying for finals, I'm done. I took my last final this morning and even got my first grade back (I got an A in Biology!! YEAH!!). So tonight was a celebration night. (And there are plenty of drunk people yelling outside our window to prove it...) A bunch of us went and watched some of our friends do a pretty impressive performance of Singing in the Rain (and I mean impressive!) and then went to the Flying J truck stop for some late night greasy spoon and diner mud coffee. It's a glorious feeling! I'm Happy again!

...and that trip actually brings my mind back to a theme if thoughts that's captivated my brain for a while now. I realized that often when my friends go out it's around a table that we socialize, and so again I started to think about the role food has in life. I reread Sam's recent post about food and the comments people gave about it and really like what a few people had to say about how food is more than just calories. It's something we do together.

I was a little blown away this past sunday evening when I went to church at Journey. Every week at journey, they look at one chapter from scripture, dissecting it and discussing how it fits our lives. The past few weeks we've been looking at the first few chapters of Genesis and I realized something I had never really thought about: a good deal of those stories are about food. When God created man, the first rule he gave was about what he could eat. Then the first sin was Adam and eve eating the wrong food. What was God's punishment then? There's the whole painful childbirth thing for Eve, but then there's also the fact that God made getting food a lot more difficult for Adam. Then when Cain killed Abel, his rage was instigated by a dispute about food that they had sacrificed. I don't actually know what that means for the story, but it made me think a little more about how much food really gets mentioned in the Bible and is a part of the christian tradition.

I also had to answer a few questions about nutrition on my biology exam this morning. It's been interesting to learn what all our food does for us and how our body uses it to make energy. One of the crazy things that I've learned is that our diet can actually cause cancer in our digestive organs if we're not careful. This kinda hit home for me because my grandpa died from colon cancer. Turns out the best way to prevent colon cancer is to eat a diet high in fiber and low in fat, so I've been trying to eat more vegetables and cereal so that hopefully I can start preventing a crappy situation (pun intended).

Sorry if it seems like i'm just blabbing on about the same stuff I've been ranting on, but this is the stuff that's been on my mind, and I think its pretty dag interesting. I'll let you decide that for yourself, though.

More on ethics.

2008-04-19T02:15:00.003-04:00

So life is still crazy. Although its not as stressful as I originally thought it would be. I have had a lot of things to do lately, and it wont be letting up any for this next week, but I'm getting it all done and still getting some sleep...

One of the things that's been keeping me busy is ethics class. (which seems to be all i've blogged about lately) I chose to learn a new skill as part of my grade for class, and so I learned how to crochet hats... (though still not very well) I had to write a 2 page reflection on my experience and relate it to ethics, so I decided that the way it related was that both take practice... and in the end they are both really loopy and have many holes.

The other interesting thing that has happened in ethics was out discussion in class on thursday. I dont remember what the overarching point of the class was right now, but I remember a discussion we had about how disposable our society is right now. It seems like everything we have these days is disposable. The obvious thing of course is the containers our food comes in. Unless you grow your own food or shop at a local market, it's hard to get anything food related without having something plastic or cardboard to throw away. Less obvious, though are things like consumer electronics. Most of the time it ends up being less expensive to just buy a new tv, dvd player, computer, etc than it is to repair or upgrade a current one. Perhaps one of the most prominent "disposable" electronics is cell phones. Who doesn't want a new phone every two years when the offer to give it to you for free? even our cars are disposable in a way. its easier just to buy a new car than it is to rebuild the engine of your old one.

So then we wondered if this kind of consumeristic, disposable lifestyle carries on into our relationships. We certainly see in the corporate world that if someone isn't performing the way they want them too or is costing them too much money, that person is bound to get fired. But even are friendships can be that way. when we no longer need a person, we just stop talking to them and eventually dont seem like friends at all. Someone brought up the point that there are some people we will never get rid of because they are closer to us than others. I brought up the fact that the same thing could be said about our stuff. For instance, you might be less likely to throw out an heirloom china set than you would be a set of corelle brand dishes that you bought at walmart. Is it possible that we have become so infatuated with throwing things away that we have devalued people around us into disposable garbage? If so, then our society blows.

A third interesting thing that has come about lately is the theme of the Eucharist. ever since i've been talking to my friend meghan here at bluffton and heard the catholic persepctive on the eucharist, I've noticed and thought more about the eucharist when i hear it mentioned in class or read about it in a book. One place I didn't expect to hear about the Eucharist was in a chapter of our ethics book on Genetically Modified crops. I had to write a "science and ethics" paper for biology class and decided to write mine on GM crops because that is something that we see a lot of in the farming industry today. I read statistics that something like 70% of alfalfa and soybeans and 35% of corn grown in the US today is genetically modified. I wont get into the details of why this is beneficial or dangerous here because that would need its own post, but I really thought it was interesting how it relates relate to the last supper. GM crops are a recent technology that tries to transform food into something that will transform our lives by making more food or better food. Wells mentioned that in his tradition, God already has a way of transforming food, and that is through the Eucharist, God's body broken for us. So his stance is that our world doesn't need a transformation of food because we already have the transformation that happened on the cross. That seemed to fit with what Trevor said about GM crops when I asked him: "we already produce more than enough food to feed everyone.

we just don't have the will to see that noone is hungry" It seems that the reason most world hunger happens is not a food problem, but a political and social problem. So if transformation is going to happen to fix our food problems, its not more food or better food that is going to help us share food better. It's going to be us sharing food better.

Hope you found those things interesting too. Otherwise this post sucks.

Yikes!

2008-04-14T19:12:00.002-04:00

So things are starting to get crazy up in here. I just might go crazy.

First off, I must say that this week and next are pretty much gonna be terrible. Only counting assignments on the syllabi of my classes, I have 9 papers or projects due sometime this week and next. That doesn't count the stuff that was assigned since I wrote down all my assignments. Yuck! I guess there is light at the end of that tunnel, though. as soon as those two weeks are over, I have one week of finals and then I'm done. Woot!

I applied to be a Resident Advisor for next year. I just got my placement today. I'll be living in 2nd Ramseyer next year. I'm pretty excited about it because Doug, who is a pretty cool guy is the other RA, and My good friend Brendan is the Hall Chaplain. I think I'll get along pretty well with the Hall Director Chad pretty well too. It should be a good year.

The thing I really need to write about right now is Ethics class last Thursday. One of the guys in the class, Ryan, did a presentation on the ethics of putting a wall up between the United States and Mexico. He mentioned that walls represent protection because they keep good things in and keep bad things out and talked about different walls that we have seen through history (i.e. the great wall of china, the Berlin wall. etc.) and what they meant at those times. He had an art piece where he took some cinder blocks and wrote derogatory terms US Americans had for Mexicans, and vice versa on on the other side, with strewn hangers to look like barbed wire invading the countries in both directions. I know Trevor really liked his presentation because it got a lot of people in the class talking.

The whole issue of immigration seems to be emotional to some people. We talked a lot about the economic and social implications of allowing immigration or stopping it (like with a wall). I don't really want to get into all of that, though. We also talked some about how there are laws in place that legally allow immigrants to come to the United states. However, it was also noted that even though those laws are there, that doesn't make it easy for poor people to enter the US to get jobs, and so illegal immigration still happens and businesses still hire illegal immigrants because they can hire a Mexican worker that came here illegally for a lot cheaper than a legal resident because the Mexicans can't say anything to the authorities if they don't want to get caught and deported with a heavy fine.

So I brought up Tony Campolo's policy of the high walls with the wide gate. His policy would require screening of all applicants coming into the US to makes sure they aren't coming in to sell drugs or to commit terrorist acts, but at the same time would let immigrants come in and take the jobs that nobody here is willing to take. For the immigrants who are found here illegally, Tony proposed that an even more hefty fine than what is already in place, but not to deport them. Instead, allow them to stay and work until they can pay off the fine through wage garnishments. Someone said something about how they broke the law and deserve to get deported. After all, if they were denied the right to enter, there must be a reason. I mentioned that sometimes laws need to be broken because they are unethical. A few of the guys in the class seemed to really disagree with me on the fact that our foreign policy is unethical... Yikes! I felt a little attacked.

The thing is, I can't help but wonder why our country is so afraid of immigration. It seems to me like immigration would represent prosperity. Let's not forget that everyone of us, except for the Native Americans were immigrants at one time... immigrants that came here and took over illegally, pushing the natives further and further west and into smaller and smaller areas until no reservations were left. Even though the legal system we take for granted today wasn't in place, it was still "illegal" in the sense that the governing force didn't allow it.

I didn't really like thursday's conversation at times because it seemed to get pretty close to a heated argument at times, but I also think that it's an important topic to talk about in the christian setting. It's important to come up with the method of "over accepting" and finding Jesus' "third way." At the same time, it's important to talk about what causes people to feel the need to immigrate, and start working at resolutions there.

I don't know what's going to happen (or even what I want to happen) but it should be interesting to see what new policies come about with a new administration coming into office next year. No matter what happens, I pray to our creator to grow something new in this hurting world.

Holy Acceptance

2008-03-25T20:37:00.004-04:00

When I first started this blog, it was for the Biblical Worldview class I had to take my first semester here at bluffton. We were supposed to write once a week on our blog in responce to what we were learning in class... It didn't really catch on very well because they only made it worth like 5% of the grade and nobody really cared about it (including me). I was just looking at some of my first posts, though, and saw one I called "Justice" from back in September of my sophomore year that related a little to what we talked about in ethics class today. The post was about a reading we had from Walter Wink called "Jesus' Third Way" that talked about Matthew 5:38-41 and how Jesus' way was neither violent nor submissive, but was the "third way"-- almost a way of outwitting the enemy.

Right now in ethics we're going through a book called Improvisation by Samuel Wells that compares ethics with the dramatic method of improvisation. In the chapter we looked at today, Wells talks about 3 terms involved with improvisation: offer, accept, and block. Anything an actor does or says can be considered as an "offer" a second actor can then "accept" the offer and continue with the dialog or activity, or the second actor can "block" the offer so that the action stops there. The example he uses is one little boy going up to another with two fingers pointing in the shape of a gun and saying, "Bang! You're dead." A second boy could accept the offer by pretending to be dead, by pretending to have some kind of magical shield that bullets bounce off, or even by dying and coming back as a ghost that haunts the first boy. The second boy could also, however, block the offer by saying "I don't play your silly games."

We have the same two options when dealing ethically with situations we are "offered." We can either accept the situation and play along with it, developing it into what you want or allowing it to develop on its own. Or, we can say "I don't do that" to the bad situations and end them right there. Wells pretty much says that we should always be accepting rather than blocking, for this is good Improvisation, and this is good ethics. This is the way that Jesus would have done things. This doesn't always mean compliance, though. Jesus 'third way' would be a way of accepting that doesn't just comply-- like the 'magic shield' from the example wells gave. So perhaps instead of asking what Jesus would do, maybe we should ask "what wouldn't Jesus do?"

Someone asked about what to do when someone offers some pot. what is the ethical thing to do there? I can't imagine Jesus smoking a joint... but if we are always supposed to accept, then there must be a way to accept a joint without hurting anyone and while upholding an ethical code. Trevor jokingly said "perhaps Jesus would smoke without inhaling" but I was trying to thing of a what Jesus would/wouldn't do in that situation.... maybe he would ask for two just to show how dumb getting high is... If you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them. How can we be ethical and still accept sinful offers?

I hope some of that at least makes sense...

Unrelated, tonight I got invited over to the home of a couple that lives in town here. I don't actually know their last name, but Esther and Wendel had 8 people over tonight, something they apparently do pretty frequently. First off, they were incredibly hospitable people. They didn't even know me and they invited me into their home for dinner, and not just any dinner... the food was amazing. They started us off with a homemade southwest bean soup, then brought out some homemade bread, cold marinated carrots, coleslaw with pineapple and almonds, and some casserole w/ ham, sweet potatoes, apples, and a biscuit-like top. Then after all of that, Esther brought out some dessert she made that had angelf00d cake, chocolate pudding, and whipped cream. That with a cup of coffee pretty much was heaven on the palate. I'm pretty sure I ate more tonight than I have in a long while. It was so good, and a blessing that put me in a lot better mood than I was in earlier. Thanks Esther and Wendel for dinner, and Thanks, Jason, for inviting me along as your friend.

Happy spring, everyone.

"I didn't know they could do that!"

2008-03-17T00:17:00.004-04:00

Just a few updates on some goings on in the life of Kyle.

I'll start off with where i left off last time i guess. The rest of spring was kinda nasty weather wise. I think I mentioned before that my car got stuck in the mud because all the snow melted and then it rained another inch on top of that. Anyway, I didn't really like the fact that after being couped up in the house all day I because I had nothing to do, I was suddenly couped in the house all night because i couldn't get out. Turns out that a couple of days later I was stuck in the house again, only this time because we got a foot of snow... Turns out that spring break was hindered because of snow more than Christmas break was... Gotta love Ohio weather...

The snow did eventually start to melt though, and I got to have a snowball fight or two last week before it was all gone, so I suppose its not all for loss. The warm weather was a real mood booster too.

I just realized that I haven't talked about anything but the weather yet... I'll move on.

Ethics class on Tuesday was pretty interesting, we read about some guy who outlined the story of the Bible in 5 stages: Creation, fall, Israel, Christ, and the Church. Wells, the author of the book we're reading (or should be reading anyway) said that the fall should not be separated from the story of creation, but its important to remember the end times. So then the five become: Creation, Israel, Christ, Church, Eschaton. Then Christ is the center. Trevor decided to one-up wells and talked about his theory that Creation and the Eschaton both exist outside of time yet affect all of the other 3 stages within time. (I know this is really deep, weird, hard to understand stuff) He talked about how God created all things and so he created knowledge (which man received during the fall), God created language (which happened after the tower of Babel story), etc. yet all of these things are no doubt a part of the creation story. The end times, then are the story of God redeeming the world, which we see all through scripture. It's also interesting to note that his theory opens up the door for truth in the theory of evolution because it puts creation completely outside of time. I think Trevor probably reads the first part of Genesis metaphorically-- it has truth to be told, but not necessarily historical truth. I don't know if Trevor is right or not, but I'm not going to lose sleep of whether or not the Creation story and the Eschaton are events that happened and are going to happen or not. All I know is that God still has the upper hand, so I'm not really worried about the details. Interesting stuff, though.

On Thursday I had a paper due that I started wednesday night. I got it done, and I think it's pretty solid... at least B-worthy... but I didn't get a lot of sleep that night. Yet Thursday was a great day for me and I never really felt all that tired. (I guess that could have been from the coffee I drank or maybe I just happened to wake up at the right time during the REM cycle...) Anyway, that day in chapel (chapel happens once a week on Thursdays and isn't required, but I usually go anyway) Jonathan Reuel (jrlive.com) was there to play a song or two he had written and talk about his experience in what he calls a "micro church." It seems like they emphasize community and art a lot, so I was pretty interested, and his message was good but it wasn't what really got me the most. After chapel was over, I went up to the front to help my buddy Brendan put his stuff away (he plays guitar in the chapel band) and Jonathan came over to meet me. I know he was probably just making small talk at first asking me stuff about my major and where I'm from and stuff, but then we got to talking about my life and he told me this story about a girl from his church community who was struggling with the same kinds of things I struggle with and I almost wanted to stop him because I felt like he wasn't describing his friend... he was describing me... So i got a little teary-eyed, which can be embarrassing sometimes, especially around people I don't know very well... I gave him a hug though and then went to lunch with Brendan. After we were done eating though, I saws him sitting at one of the tables in Marbeck so I went and sat with him. I ended up talking to him and a friend named Carrie Yoder for an hour and a half, and it was so refreshing to be able to talk about some of the things I've been passionate about. I know God is always around us, but at that moment, I felt like I was really connecting with Jon and I felt like I was encountering God through him... That's a feeling I've been longing for... a feeling I felt at camp and in Pittsburgh.

It seems like lately I've been encountering God in all the wrong places... In the ghetto in Pittsburgh, at Catholic Mass, and in the words of a singer/songwriter from Virginia hardly seem like the right places for a Mennonite from the farmlands to see God moving. Yet it feels good to know that even though I have been struggling to have faith in God, God has never lost any faith in me.

Friday I had to go to Toledo to the 2008 Youth Specialties "the Core" Seminar for my youth ministry class. I don't usually like stuff like that for some reason, but Friday I felt like it was good. The lady talking was one of the youth ministers at Saddleback church in California where she runs a sort of 12 step addiction program for teens. The whole thing was called "Generation Change" and was about making a youth ministry into one that is transformational in ourselves, in our youth, and in the world. Seems like good stuff right? Some of it got me thinking about vocation again because there was a quote by Bill Hybels (I think he's from Willow Creek Church) about finding our "holy discontent"... the one thing that you are so passionate about that when you do something about, you start to think "this is what I was born for..." It makes me think that perhaps one way God communicates to us about vocation is through our own lives if we would only listen. Parker J. Palmer would describe it as "letting your life speak."

Last night I went with some friends to see Horton Hears a Who. I didn't really know what to expect, it being a kids movie and all, but I must say it was pretty hilarious. I think my favorite part though, was when they were showing off whoville, there were some who's playing some sort of tennis game, and I heard a kid in the back of the theater say "WHOA! I didn't know they could do that!" you know... I didn't really know they could do that either...

Tonight I decided to join my roommate, Mark, in his daily run. We went down to the treadmils in Ramseyer hall, and I ran for 2 1/2 miles and walked another 1 1/2 in warming up before and cooling down after. They say that exercise can be a mood booster. I don't doubt it, because I felt pretty good.

Hope everyone has at least a mediocre week... good would be nice, but I suppose mediocre is better than bad.

50 in the books

2008-03-05T01:12:00.002-05:00

So I guess this si my 50th post ever... It took me like two years to get here, but I feel like I should celebrate. Anybody up for baking a cake? we bought some hemp brownie mix at Whole Foods today in Pittsburgh...

I wasn't really sure what to write about in my 50th post. I kinda wanted to do some moving post that made all 3 of my readers want to cry, but then I though to myself, "that's lame."

So this post is probably going to be pretty random.

I woke up early this morning and went and voted with my Mom. I voted for Ron Paul. Poor guy doesn't really stand a chance in the election, but I feel like a conscience vote is never wasted, so I voted anyway. I'm a little sad that Mike Huckabee dropped out, but then again, this also means that Ron Paul is going to get second place in every state from here on out... kudos to Paul for victory by default! Really, the only interesting race is going to be the democratic race now. Obama and Hillary are still pretty close, and if one of them wins the November general election, we've just made history. If McCain wins... well... then McCain wins... same old rich white guy...

Nobody cares about Politics, though... Pittsburgh is where it's at. After we voted, my parents and I left for Pittsburgh to go see the Bodies exhibit at the Carnegie Science center. talk about amazing! who knew that seeing skinless bodies could be so cool? everything was exposed and each different body system had its own room (i.e. skeletal, nervous, digestive, reproductive, circulatory, etc.) mom was pretty pumped about the kidneys because polycystic kidney disease runs through the family and she got to see what both a healthy kidney looks like and what a polycystic kidney looks like... pretty gross

It was really good to be back in Pittsburgh again for a little while. it felt a bit like home. We hit up the natural food stores for my mom and got some weird stuff to try. some kind of tea, a hemp brownie mix, cashew butter, coconut oil... yeah im running out of things that i remember
I also got to see my friends John and BJ over at the Open Door office. we talked for a little while about random stuff... it was like i had never left. man I miss that... I went to Beleza, a coffee shop on the north side, too. I thought maybe Colin would be around, but he had already left... ah well. maybe next time...

I went to BOB (band of brothers) tonight for the first time in a while we had a nice chili dinner at John's house (sorry john, I can't seem to remember your last name at the moment. you're a great host, though.) followed by a little discussion about some of the stuff they're reading in the Irresistible Revolution. There sure is a lot of wisdom that comes from that group of ragamuffin guys...

one of the things thats come up a lot the last few days was my experience at my first Catholic Mass. It's weird because I kind of liked it. I never thought I would be able to experience God so much at the Catholic church, but there was so much reverence and awe about the whole thing that it just made church seem like an amazing experience. Even though I don't really understand a lot of Catholic doctrines and sacraments, I feel like i have a new respect for the Catholic church, and I really want to learn more about it, So I've been asking my catholic friends a lot of questions lately. hopefully they don't get too annoyed.

I'm sorry I've been so cynical. Recently I've tried to take a step back and look at my life from someone else's perspective. I've realized that I'm becoming the stereotypical postmodern-gen-X-whatever-you-want-to-call-it kid that questions everything. We talk about theories of Faith development in principles of Christian Ed, and the stage that John Westerhoff would put me in based on my age would be what he calls a "searching faith" how convenient that my blog is called "searching"... I feel like such a sheep... a cynical, rebellious sheep thats trying to figure out how to be a shepherd but only finding that he has strayed away from the shepherd he so desperately needs... that's depressing... you know what they say though... better sheep than goat (i've never really understood that)

I like to think that spring is just around the corner, especially because this is my spring break, but i'm also kinda afraid of what spring is gonna look like. The only place I can park my car while i'm home is in the yard, and right now my car is stuck in some deep ruts in the mud... hopefully the ground will freeze again soon so that I can drive my car again... poo on gross Ohio weather. I wish i had gone to florida...

I hope you've enjoyed my random post. Happy 50th rant.

the good life

2008-02-17T15:10:00.003-05:00

It's been two weeks. I hope people haven't given up on me...

I'm noticing that the things that I didn't want to happen when I came back to Bluffton are happening... I have been talking to some of my friends lately about how I feel like I'm at a pretty low point in my faith again. I remember this happening to me last year when I came to Bluffton expecting to get spoon-fed a spiritual lifestyle. I just kind of went through the motions, and my prayer life suffered, my personal devotion time was minimized and even eliminated, and I became a student of Religion rather than the follower of Christ I was looking to become. I'm seeing that happen again. I've been having trouble praying... it seems like I get to "Dear God" and then quit... and I haven't really opened my Bible other than for a class or church service. So I start to wonder have I forgotten how to pray? have I forgotten what it is to be in relationship with God?

I think maybe part of the problem is that I've been spending so much time developing thoughts about vocation and salvation and theology that I haven't left any room for God's grace and love in my life. I mentioned in the post about vocation that when I was at camp this past summer I was able to get closer to the immanent Christ I saw in the people around me as well as the transcendent God who became evident all over creation and through the movement of the Holy Spirit. I think maybe I've been focusing a little too much on what I can do for the former and not enough on what the latter can do for me...

There's a Mennonite theologian that we've been studying in one of my classes, Dallas Willard, that talks about gospel on the left and gospel on the right. The leftist gospel focuses on salvation that comes from the good deeds of Christ's followers. Rightist gospel focuses on salvation as coming only from God and not requiring any work from us before or after we receive salvation. I think maybe I've been a little too leftist lately...

I didn't actually intend to write about that, but it's what has been on my mind lately and its something that is important and emotional to me, so there it is... Sometimes I think life would be easier if I just became an orthodox monk...

What I was actually going to write about some of the stuff we've been talking about in ethics class. I finally got to reading the Herbert McCabe book that was assigned for class. One of the things he really stresses in the first few chapters is the importance of politics (in the sense of its root, Polis, Greek for city. Maybe it would be more fitting today to just say "community and culture" instead. then again, maybe I just don't understand what McCabe is saying... ) in ethics. Even the roots of the word 'ethics' (from 'ethos' Greek for 'customs') and 'morals' (from 'mores' Latin for 'customs') show that ethics is rooted in politics. I've always thought of ethics as being more of a personal thing. i.e. I decide if something is good or bad based on my conscience or my logic. Then I realized that my thoughts and values probably came from the different circles of influence that I came from. An example might be the fact that I was raised Mennonite. Recently I have been talking to a friend who was raised catholic, and through our conversations we have both defended some of the things we believe. Both of our arguments were rooted in scripture yet they were different. Perhaps the faith communities we came from influenced how we interpret scripture. I like to think that we can find a pretty clear definition of the good life outlined in scripture, but the truth is that what is clear to me isn't so clear to others. I guess that's not such a bad thing though. God made us all different and with different passions, and if we embrace that diversity, then perhaps together we will have a clear picture of the good life. I guess thats why diversity is so important.

I'll keep that in mind when I'm looking for a monastery to join...

Globetrotting

2008-02-01T10:37:00.001-05:00

I'll try to hold my tongue this time. I don't want to slander anyone...

In high school I used to get really excited about weather like this because school would get canceled. Now that class very rarely gets canceled, it just seems nasty. Last night the weathermen were saying we were supposed to get a ton of snow. This morning all we had was a huge sheet of slush-turned-ice. Seems like maybe we got a 1/4 inch of snow and then got rain the rest of the night, which all preceded to freeze. Snow at least looks pretty. This, however, is just nasty.

Last night I went to a forum discussion on global warming called "focus the nation." professors from different departments came together to talk about how their discipline affects global warming and what kinds of things we can be doing about it. One professor was an economist, one a dietetics, the third was supposed to be my ethics professor, but he was sick which is a bummer because his response was what I was looking forward to the most... He got replaced by a biologist. There was a retired physicist there that talked about how global warming is probably caused by natural phenomenon more than human factors, but it seems to me that even if our CO2 output doesn't cause global warming, it causes many other problems in the world, so I think we definitely need to be conscious of what we are doing to our natural ecosystems. One point that came up though, was that as the population continues to grow, our carbon footprint will continue to grow as well, and the necessity to control it will continue to grow as well. So I asked how big of a problem overpopulation is. One of the professors mentioned a statistic that said that the earth can naturally only sustain the production of food for about 3 Billion people. Our current Earth population is nearing 7 Billion. The only reason we can produce enough food is because we use chemical fertilizers that are made from natural gas and is another contributor to our carbon footprint. Plus, as we continue to deplete the earth of its nutrients, our food continues to get less nutritious. So our overall health is going to get worse. The thing is, we can't just make people stop having kids...

And then I see third world nations that struggle to get food already, and wonder what will happen to them if we continue to abuse all of creation. It seems like indrustrialized western nations would have the technology and resources to fairly easily adapt to climate change-- even drastic climate change-- where poor nations would not, and at the same time, if anybody has the resources to prevent global environmental damage, its those same countries. So don't we have a responsibility here?

thanks for catching my bluff(ton)

2008-01-28T11:32:00.000-05:00

**Edit

I think Randy deserves an apology for my judgmental comments. Randy is an awesome professor and a great pastor. Randy and his wife are able to use their home as a safe place for a daycare that she runs there. Futhermore, I'm sure people could look at the stuff I have and point out that I have a lot more than I really need. I apologize for any offense, and I'll try to work on not making brash decisions to publicly announce unmerited judgmental thoughts that are probably a result of my cynicism toward college.

Sorry, Randy.
**
I haven't posted for a while. I thought I would just write a quick update on the life of Kyle.

I've been back at Bluffton for a few weeks now. It's really bittersweet. I really miss Pittsburgh. I miss the classes there. I miss my internship. I miss all the cool people I met and I miss living in the city. I miss being able to ride the bus everywhere. I miss it all.

I guess there are a few things that are good here though. I'm having a really good day today. My first class ended early so I went and got lunch. It's a lot warmer today than it has been I like the friends I've made here. It's been a blast to share a room with Derick and Mark, playing guitar and guitar hero with Derick and having my first class with Mark everyday so I actually get up (I haven't had to set an alarm for class yet.) He even encourages me to do my homework, which I hate doing homework. It kinda sucks not having Brendan and Ben on my floor anymore. They actually live in a completely different building this year. I still get to eat lunch and dinner with them most days, and we visit each others rooms a lot anyway. We just have to bear the cold and travel one building over... All of those guys are great encouragers that have helped me sort things out and given me some of their wisdom.

Yesterday I gave the message at Sunday Morning worship, an on-campus worship service that meets every other week in the recital hall. I think most of the people there received the message pretty well. I pretty much just gave the same message that I did at Leetonia Mennonite a few weeks ago. Don't tell them that though...

moving on, I was reading the latest relevant magazine and there was an article about this shoe company called buy shoes. save lives. They are shoes made by hand by kurds in northern iraq. all the profits go for heart surgeries for kids that can't afford them. The shoes look pretty cool, but I don't think i could afford them right now at $100 a pair, but i thought it was pretty cool anyway. They mentioned another social action shoe company called TOMS, but i didn't really look them up...

something interesting I learned about the early church today... after they prayed, they saluted each other with a kiss of peace. what ever happened to that tradition? maybe they had to stop it because somebody got a bad case of herpes of the mouth...

Joy to all.

Kyle

On Worship

2008-01-08T16:54:00.000-05:00

I guess its time for a new post.

I talk openly about how I was not excited about coming back to Bluffton. However, after getting throught all my classes, there are probably goign to be some things this semester to get excited about. I can only hope that this semester will strengthen my faith rather than give me a faith crisis like it has in the past.

I started the reading the book (Introduction to Christian Worship by James F. White) for the "Christian Worship" class I'm taking. I am a bit annoyed by the class right now, because there are some huge indications that show that Bluffton is confused about what worship is. The professor and students might have a better grip than it looks, but to me, it looks bad that the class is taught by a music professor in the music building. Professor Sawatzky (not even a doctor of music yet, let alone a doctor of religion [maybe I'm just being cynical]) had us all get in to small groups yesterday to define what worship is to us. Pretty much every group said something along the lines of "most people believe worship is music. We think its more than just music." As i sat there listening to them saying that, I couldn't help but think. "they say that, but do they really mean that?" Even I fall in to the trap of calling the person that leads music on Sunday mornings the "worship leader."

So what is worship? if the small group members in my class were truly sincere in saying that worship is more than music, then what is the more?

The book i started reading defines worship as a ritual and therefore has 3 attributes: It is a behavior, It is repetitive, and it is a social activity.

Martin Luther says worship is a way for God to talk to us through his word and for us to talk to him through prayer and song. John Calvin talks about how worship ceremonies are a way of uniting us to God. Orthodox thinkers might tell you that Worship is a response to God's work in our lives directed in both glory to God and moral uprightness.

Personally I think of Worship as living the way God intended us to live. It's about living in His image. When God created us He said it was good. And if we continue to live the way He created us, then He will see that it is indeed good.

Any thoughts?

A few good links for when you're bored.

2007-12-30T22:33:00.000-05:00

I often enjoy reading Reuter's "Oddly Enough" articles and even have an RSS feed of the articles on my Google homepage so I can link directly to them. It's basically a bunch of weird news from around the globe, and some of the stories can be downright funny. Today they did a sort of "best of 07 article that highlights some of the weirdest stories of this year. You can find it here: Oddly Enough

A week or two ago BJ, the pastor at the Open Door posted a link on his blog that went to an Iraqi blogger. There are some sad stories on there that got me depressed, but I think those are the kind of stories we need to be hearing whether we are for or against the war just so that we can get their side of the story too. Go here: Last of Iraqis

I stumbled upon this blog a couple months ago and found it quite intriguing. People send in their secrets to this guy on one side of a postcard and he scans them and puts them on the blog every sunday. Some of the secrets are pretty heavy, and a lot of the postcards are pretty artsy. Check it Out: Post Secret

I know the site is pretty lame and has gotten especially so recently because of all the spam I keep getting, but I do have a myspace. It used to be one of Google's top search results for Kyle Wetherald, but since I've been competing with another Kyle Wetherald over in Oregon and since I started blogging last year, my myspace has gone down the ranks and doesn't even show up on the first page of results any more. Regarless, I still have the top 3 results on a Google Search of "Kyle Wetherald." Here's my myspace page.

If you're into the "emergent church" stuff, there is a website/blog put on by an organization affiliated with the presbyterian church. There are links to some of the churches connected to the organization (Including the Open Door and Hot Metal Bridge, both from Pittsburgh) and some thought-provoking posts from some great thinkers. The Organization is called Presbymergent

For all you bloggers out there, I found a great way to find out how many people actually read your blog. It provides a lot of other useless information like what browsers people use, what sites readers were referred from, etc. The Ice Rocket site also has a blog search tool for if you are looking for blogs on a certain subject, author, etc. It can be a great way to see if people actually read your blog, or it could be a depressing way to find out if nobody reads it... Just know that while you are reading this, Ice Rocket has counted your visit... Creepy. Ice Rocket

As always, there is a great list of bloggers on the right side of my blog that I keep up with. There is a lot of great wisdom floating around in the blogosphere, especially from that list. I reccommend checking them out.

Hope you find some of these sights interesting. I know I did.

a reason to rejoice

2007-12-29T01:01:00.000-05:00

I just got back from my friends Sam and Laura's house where a bunch of people were together to celebrate the homecoming of some friends. it was great to see some familiar faces that have been missing in my life the last several months.

Tonight was yet another night I got to hang out with friends, which is what most of my Christmas break as been dominated by this year. It's made me think a lot about how important friends are in my life right now.

I know God created me a social being. I need to be with people and I get depressed when I'm not. (though i certainly do need my alone time like we all do, but even then, it is comforting to know that there are people around me that are waiting for me to come back. I used to go to my family to get my people fill, but since I have done the college thing in 3 different places that are not home, I have come to find my people fill with friends more. And its weird to think about how many different social circles I have been a part of, some of which I still keep in touch with and others I haven't seen in several years. I have a church family at Leetonia Mennonite, several; circles of friends from elementary thru high school, friends from camp, friends from Akron, Bluffton, and Pittsburgh, but the two groups that have been the most consistent have been my immediate family and six friends: Sam and Laura, Andrew, Lindsay, Brad and Evan. Those six people have been the people I've been most excited to see when I come back home from being away.

Its not that my parents or any of those other social circles aren't important or that I no longer can get along with them. It's just that I feel a real bond with those people that I certainly cannot deny. It seems like my other social circles change, and when I go back to try to rejoin, it's uncomfortable like I don't fit in any more. But having everybody home at the same time this past few weeks, we were able to hang out again like we were never apart.

And for that I feel incredibly blessed. I talk to a lot of people who haven't even talked to the friends they used to have before they left for college. I was talking to an old friend from camp the other day about how she tried calling all her old friends from high school over break and only one of them called her back. When I got back for break, I called my friends and have spent more time with them than I have with my family or my girlfriend (which actually i haven't gotten to see her since thanksgiving)...

I hope I haven't hurt my parents by doing so. I know that they will read this, and I hope that they understand that I do love them and I do need them and I do appreciate all they do for me, but right now, my friends are most important to me.

Love you guys

"then come, follow me": learning to live the call of christ

2007-12-12T23:31:00.000-05:00

This is an essay I had to write for class here in pittsburgh. I don't know how well it is written, and I know I left a lot out, but it may help people understand where i am at right now.

There’s a story in the gospels that I frequently revisit about a rich guy that chases Jesus down to ask him how to get into heaven. Jesus tells the guy to obey the commandments, and when that answer isn’t good enough (because the gentleman had apparently followed the law), Jesus tells him that the only thing he has left to do is “Go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” As the story goes, the rich young man sulks away because he has a lot of stuff, and then we never hear about him again. I like to think that the man in the story eventually did take Jesus’ advice, and that he sulked away just because he knew what he had to do and it was going to take a great deal of work. I can never know for sure, though because Jesus did not beg the man to change, did not offer alternatives, did not try to keep him there by making life easy or comfortable. Jesus made the call and let the man walk away.

The call Jesus gave to the rich young man is the same call Jesus makes to all people. In thinking about vocation, the call of Christ, I hear the resounding phrase, “Come, follow me.” At first glance, the phrase doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but life and research together have taught me that vocation is about following in Christ’s footsteps, and in doing so involves both death to worldly life and devotion to a Christian life of mission, community, and love. The call Jesus gives may be simple, but it is certainly not easy, and quite possibly messy at times.

Growing up, however, I heard a different, less messy story. I was raised in a Mennonite home and taught to keep an upright moral code. I didn’t drink or smoke or sleep around, I listened to Christian music, learned Bible verses, even volunteered to run the sound system for the Sunday morning worship services at my church. I had what I like to call “good spiritual posture,” and as long as I kept my back straight, I thought I was living out the call of Christ, and would certainly receive salvation. The system in which I lived my life was not necessarily easy, but was definitely comfortable and absolutely logical. In American culture today, it makes sense that the more Iwork—the more good deeds and behaviors I have—the closer to Christ I will be. It was like the call of Christ was this formula I lived out, always hoping it would add up to a gold star and pat on the back at the end of the day.

Shane Claiborne went through a similar experience during his youth. In his book, the Irresistible revolution, he talks about growing up in the Bible belt in Tennessee and went to multiple Youth groups, had annual “born again” experiences where he would lay his sins at the foot of the cross and leave a changed person . What a comfortable lifestyle! Yet Shane realized that there had to be more to Christianity than great youth groups and revival sessions because he laid down his life at the cross many times and had nothing to pick up. That’s why Shane writes two pages later about how Jesus messed his life up: death to being cool. Death is a pill that is never easy to swallow, but it is exactly what Jesus asked of Shane Claiborne, it is exactly what Jesus asked of the rich young man-- to die to his old lifestyle and be reborn as a follower of Christ-- and that’s exactly what God wants from me.

It’s not necessarily a literal death, though. To help understand what that demise looks like, I look to Oswald Chambers, who wrote frequently about submitting to Christ. In the January Eighth devotional from My Utmost for His Highest, Chambers writes about being “living sacrifices.” People often make the mistake “that the ultimate God wants of us is the sacrifice of death. What God Wants is the sacrifice through death which enables us to do what Jesus did, that is, sacrifice our lives.” Jesus said in Matthew 10:39, “If you cling to your life you will lose it; but if you give it up for me, you will find it.” It is no coincidence that when we are baptized, we use the symbolism of water to represent death and then a rebirth in Christ. That’s what God calls us to do. Die.

Death is not the end, though. In fact, it is just the beginning—the means to find true life. A hero of mine, the apostle Paul, had a true sense of what it meant to choose death and find life. After his conversion, he lived in tight communion with Christ, saying:
“…when I tried to keep the law, I realized I could never earn God’s approval. So I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ. I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me. So I live my life in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”

When we completely submit our lives to Christ, we become one with him. Our life becomes His life, and our flesh becomes His flesh. So our lives begin to reflect the life of Jesus Christ, and we must become devoted to that image so that we do not build up our old lifestyles. Therefore, in order to define vocation and discover what that means for my life, I look to the life of Jesus Christ.

The first character trait of Jesus Christ is the trait Christians everywhere celebrate during the advent season, a time when God sent himself down to become flesh: Christ the missionary. There’s a Latin theological term that I find to be a beautiful illustration of God sending himself called Missio Dei, which often seems to be translated “mission of God,” but has so much more of a beautiful meaning than its surface translation. I like to think of it more as the “God of Mission.” It is so important to realize that when God sent his son Jesus to become flesh, he was ultimately humbling himself and becoming a missionary in a profane world. Therefore, if I live out the call to become Christ as flesh, it is imperative that I become a missionary.

One of my favorite public speakers, an Australian missiologist named Michael Frost, has a lot to say about being missional. I was first introduced to Michael’s words when a good friend of mine gave me a copy of a set of recordings from a speaking engagement he had at Kuma, an Australian Christian arts festival, several years ago. The messages really helped me to understand what it means to be a missionary when he told story after story about people that were being missional where they lived, from a shoe salesman that listened to people’s life stories to determine what shoes they should buy to a guy who bought a flannel shirt and remote control race car to minister to a racing club that met across the street from a church to a group of people that bought out a bar and lovingly poured drinks for customers and knew exactly when to cut them off. They were beautiful examples of people going out into the world much like God came into the world through Jesus.

Recently I was watching a YouTube video of Michael speaking at a Presbyterian Global Fellowship Conference. In it, Michael talked about the term “ecclesia”, a term that has been used for church and where it came from. It seems that the Greek “ekklesia” is not a term that Jesus invented. It was actually a term that was used to describe a group of elders that would sit around drinking and being merry at the city gates, and whenever there was a problem in the town, the people would go out to see the ecclesia to get advice. Michael noted that the town benefited from the ecclesia because the men would give advice that kept the city running most efficiently and with the best conditions for all people. If you could go back in time and take away the ecclesia, the town would mourn. He then asked if we took away the ecclesia of the church today, would our towns mourn? Would they function any differently? Being that staple of the community is what being a missional church is all about. It is no wonder Paul liked the term so much.

Mirrored in Paul’s ecclesia, I notice another aspect trait of Christ: that he is a communalist. The doctrine of the trinity is a difficult concept to understand, but it is a great example of Christ in community. Three persons, father, spirit, and son come together to make one God. There is a beautiful orthodox icon representation of the trinity that shows the Holy trinity sitting around a table with some food. As the image shows, God is constantly in community, and calls his followers to be in community as well.

Peter Maurin, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement, was very passionate about communal living. Dorothy Day, a radical Christian and social activist mentions his concept of “agronomic universities” in her writings as places where “workers could become scholars and scholars could become workers,” and where “Society shifts from acquisitive to functional.” At these agronomic universities, everyone would live together in tight community, grow their own food, learn from each other and share with each other. I would say Peter Maurin’s agronomic universities are a powerful example of why community is so important and beneficial.

Shane Claiborne is also a part of a community that is a powerful example of Christian community. His community in Philadelphia, called the Simple Way, is an experiment of love where money is collected into a common pot to make sure everyone’s needs are met, food is shared and love abounds. Nobody is forgotten or left behind living at the Simple Way.
Perhaps the best example of transformative communal life, though, can be found in the early church as described in the book of Acts. Just after the Pentecost when all the believers were gathered at the temple, Acts tells us that:

“…all the believers met together constantly and shared everything they had. They sold their possessions and shared the proceeds with those in need, They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great generosity—All the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all people… “

The believers found a way to take care of each other by sharing everything they owned in community, eating together, praying together, and worshiping together. They were “of one heart and mind” and “there was no poverty among them.” Community was very important in the early church, and It is very important to me. God created me as a social being, and I know I need people around me for encouragement and help when I am in need, and they need me just the same.

If I were forced to put my life onto a timeline and point to the time when I felt closest to Christ, I would point to the two summers I was on staff at Camp Luz. There was something different about camp from the rest of life that made God’s presence so imminent yet transcendent at the same time. There are many things that indeed are different about camp, but I think one of the biggest differences is that we were walking together on a journey to live out Christ’s call and build his call. We ate, slept, played, prayed, cried, laughed, loved, and worshiped together every step of the way. Not one of us would let a brother or sister fall without being helped up. Ultimately, we were being the immanent Christ to each other.

It’s with the genuine love of camp staffers, Simple Way dwellers, and all followers of Christ that we are able to live out the crazy call Christ places on our lives. Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is love and that we are to love each other just like he loves us. Love is the force that bridges the gap between races, breaks down barriers between enemies, and brings us close to Christ. God is love, and if I am going to live a holy life just as He is holy, I had better do a lot of loving.

When I think about what vocation means specifically in my life, the call seems to get a bit blurrier. However, I have a few ideas of what following Christ might mean in my life. I believe that dieing to my old life means giving up things I have held on to all my life. Whether the call is money, possessions, or even friends and family, I do not know, and I will let God continue to show me through life. Recent thoughts have led me to believe that God wants me to live in what Dorothy Day calls “volunteer poverty.” I have been frustrated with the way that churches have spent so much money paying pastors and feel that as I consider going into ministry as a profession, I must consider doing so for no pay, which would mean giving up some luxuries I have taken advantage of in the past.

The rich young ruler knew all too well that giving up life to follow Christ is not an easy task. However, following Christ as a missionary, communalist, and lover is the vocation I have sensed and cannot ignore. I may fall short at times and will continue to do so, and I know that I have left out important parts of the story of my vocation. “Then come, follow me,” however, is a long journey that I am only beginning. Abraham Peterson, a friend of mine and the Open Door’s gave me the advice he received from a monk on a recent monastic sojourn: “It doesn’t matter where you are on the journey, only that you are on the journey,” and on that messy journey I will continue to trek.

The End

2007-12-09T21:48:00.000-05:00

Tonight was the last worship gathering for me at the Open Door for this semester. I'm seriously gonna miss this place a ton. I got to end the semester of Worship gatherings with a bang, though. Tonight was our big event for the advent season called flip the script. Not only did we have our potluck communion like we do every month on the second week, but we had Stephanie Thiel, a friend of the open door, and others come and perform her interprative dance of Invisible Children (a documentary on the children experiencing genocide in uganda http://www.invisiblechildren.com) called Flip the Script. On top of that, we had the art opening for the visual art display that John and I have been putting together all semester where we commission a couple of local artists to make an art piece that reflects Mary's song (or the magnificat) which is found in luke 1. The pictures here are what I put together as a postcard that we used to advertise the event, and I must say everything about the night was amazing, especially that postcard... (only kidding of course). The dance, video, music, art, food... even the amount of people that showed up was beautiful. It was a great way to end my semester long adventure with the Open Door.I feel like I should add the disclaimer here... We at the open door rent space from the Union Project, which is a great organization with a mission of community outreach. They want people to know though, that the views expressed by tenants like us are our own, and not necessarily the views of the Union Project. So if you have a problem with the Advent of Justice, or Flip the Script, don't call the union project to complain. Call the Open Door. Better Yet, just call me, and we'll have a debate. It will be great fun.

Happy Blogging, friends

For your viewing pleasure

2007-11-16T01:48:00.000-05:00

As you can see, I got a little bored. Hope you get kick out of it.

Pittsburgh on Parade

2007-11-12T23:55:00.001-05:00

The last article I read got me fired up, so I'm taking a break from the reading to write a reflection... And I have one due tomorrow anyway...

If I had to pick a mood for this past week, i would have to say it was happy. A lot of good things happened.

Class this week was purely presentations. It may have been a little frustrating trying to get my thoughts together into a comprehensible presentation that conveyed my passion, but at the same time, it gave me joy to be given an opportunity to show whats on my heart. THe other presentations were very interesting as well. For the most part they were pretty well done and on topics that were pretty interesting.

MUG has been a pretty good experience as well. A couple weeks ago we watched a documentary on hip-hop music. It talked about how hip-hop has become mostly just ganster rap where sex, drugs, and violence are put on pedestals, and has seemed to define black culture today. Men receive the message Masculinity can be found in owning a gun, and women find that they arent worth anything unless they open their legs. Oddly enough the time that hip-hop started to become dominated by ganster rap was when the major record labels started to buy out the smaller labels. Who makes the decisions about what music gets played at those major record companies? White guys in suits...

This past week we talked abotu school discrepencies in the pittsburgh school system. It was pretty clear that the districts that have poorer families living in them do worse on test scores, graduation rates, etc. The money flow into them all looked the same though... because they're all pittsburgh schools. Yet there is no doubt in my mind that a teacher in squirrel hill gets paid more than at oliver high school here in perry south. That sucks if you ask me. The beauty in the conversation, though, is that we're showing these kids that it doesnt have to be this way, and encouraging them not to conform to the patterns of oppression and racism of this world, but to transform themsleves by the renewing of their minds. we're at least making them think, shich is great.

my internship has been mostly dominated by doing graphic stuff for a new non profit and partner of the open door thats starting up in the Garfield/East Liberty area called Open Hand that refurbs old blighted houses and turns them into affordable housing for underpriveleged people in the area. John and I put together a flier, business card, and letterhead on wednesday, and have changed and revised them several times since. I like doing that kind of stuff, so it was a good domination.

This weekend Brooke came in to town with mark's parents. It was really good to see her. I got to talk to her about what had been on my mind, so I was really glad she came.

today we had the monthly missional pastors cohort meeting at the union project. BJ was goign to lead it on being intentionally multi-cultural, but since he stepped on a nail sunday night, he skipped out to go to the doctor. I was actually the only one there when he did it too. He walked in from taking out the trash and said he had stepped on a nail. When he took his shoe off, his sock was pretty quickly soaking up blood, so I bandaged him up while he laid down because he was starting to feel light headed. Ouch...

We still talked about race issues in the church at the cohort meeting, and I must say it was a rather engaging conversation. They always are though.

The steelers won on sunday. I'm not really sure what to think about that. I've never been a die-hard fan of any football team, so when It comes to rooting for pittsburgh or cleveland, I never really know who to root for. It was a really good game to watch either way.

What a great week to live in Pittsburgh

Return of a thriller II

2007-11-09T15:07:00.000-05:00

As promised, I'm continuing yesterday's post.

The topic of the paid pastor seems especially relevant for me. a few years ago I sensed that God was calling me into ministry. My limited view of what that meant made me assume that I was supposed to be a full time pastor working at a mennonite church, basically becoming the next pastor Bob or pastor Tom.

But something inside me says "no" to the idea of taking tithe money to make my living. Perhaps it is because I do not feel worthy of the title of "reverend" or perhaps its because i've had recent conversations about the concept of not paying pastors.

So i guess its time to get to the nitty gritty of the subject; time to get dirty trying to resolve a dilemma.

first there are the stats that make me so uncomfortable. I've alredy mentioned the fact that the open door gives 61% of its money to john and BJ, and only 23% of the money goes directly to missions. This kind of spending is awful trendy, though. I found a stat from some guy that researched this kind of stuff that siad that on average, 85% of church activity and funds is directed inwardly. It's kind of like the donuts they talk about in the video at thechurchyouknow.com. broken down, 49% o budgets usually goes to staff personell. Average compensation for pastors in the Presbyterian church is $78,000. On the lower end of the spectrum are baptist pastors, who average $67,000. Take away that pay, and the church suddenly has 78,000 dollars to use toward spreading God's justice in the world.

One sickening piece of info in one of the reports i read was that the vocation of the pastor has become more of a career than a calling. "Good" pastors will often move on to bigger churches as a form of "promotion" where they will make more money and have a bigger congregation.

there are plenty of examples that show us that churches didnt always feel the need to pay pastors. The amish don't have paid pastors, and neither do the quakers. It wasn't until 50 years ago that the mennonite church had paid positions. Pastors were farmers, or carpenters, or bankers during the week, and just took off to preach on sundays and perform funerals or weddings whenever they came up. To quote pastor Time on this,

" I do not feel that a more educated and wealthier clergy has ensured a greatly measurable advance in quality of ministry. And for that matter, the ministers who were not full-time years ago—the Mennonite “bishops,” for instance, were perhaps more respected and revered than the clergy of today. There is also an advantage of pastors working in the “real world” and being closer to where their parishioners are.

There are passages in the Bible that seem to support paying pastors. The ones I used in my presentation were Mathhew 10, where Jesus send out his disciples and tells them not to take anything with them, because "the worker is worthy his keep." (vs 10); 1 Tim. 5, where elders that direct church affairs are supposed to get "double honor, especially those whose work is teaching and preaching." and then quotes deuteronomy in saying "Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain," and "The Worker deserves his wages." The third passage i used was 1 corinthians 9, where paul argues that he deserves to get paid in full.

Yet despite these verses that say pastors deserve payment, Paul, and others in the early church denied pay. Paul was a tentmaker. He didnt take pay so that he wouldnt burden churches that couldnt really afford to pay him anyway, so people wouldnt think he was only in it for the money, and so that he could constantly give to those in need. He even describes the model for a teacher/elder in Acts 20 as someone who doesnt covet material things, meets people needs by working with their hands, and realizes that it is better to give than receive.

In one of the conversations I had while researching this topic, someone asked me why money is such an issue. Isn't it more important that people be able to come to church and get 're-energized" so that thhey can go out into the world and minister to the poor people so that they can be saved spiritually. My response to that was that in the Bible when people cried out to god for salvation, it was because they literally wanted saved from some sort of oopression. "save us from this army" "save us from this drought" "save us from exile"
Creation today groans for salvation. I talk alot about poverty and oppression, and If the church can't do something about it, then God's hands and feet aren't really doing their job. Why should someone have faith in a God whose church turns its head away from oppression?

So after saying all of this, I had to come up with some resolutions. So if i ever become a pastor, I can do several things 1. I can just go with the flow and do the full time paid pastor thing. This is the way that things have been for many years, and It has worked well. This is the church that I grew up in, and the pastors i grew up with are great guys. A second option would be to be a part time, bi-vocational pastor. I wouldnt have to get paid as much, but then i wouldnt have as much time to do the stuff that a full time pastor would. A third option, would be to completely get rid of the pastor's position. Others in the church would have to do more work, taking on the role of the pastor together. that way everybody could have full time job oustide the church, and no one person would get stuck with the be-all postition of the pastor. Perhaps we would rely more on elders to preach and teach.

I'll leave with another quote Pastor Tim gave me. After coming to the conclusion that It is a good thing that pastors are paid, Tim wrote this in an email:

"Having said all this, I sort of wish that, if it could have been done all over, church would be more basic and simple. But then, that would greatly affect my income In other words, eliminate the “professional clergy” altogether and meet in simple places, even rented space, two or three churches sharing space, and giving most of the income to outreach. Get rid of seminaries and have teaching happen locally and “in house.” Have multiple eldership, with shared leadership. But then everyone would have to work outside, and hospital visits might go unheeded, and sermons might seem a little unprepared, and so on. Perhaps the biggest reason pastors are salaried is because people like it that way."

I'd love to hear peoples thoughts on this. Its a new idea for me, but its something I've thought about a lot.
Thanks for reading.

Return of a thriller

2007-11-08T23:56:00.000-05:00

I realized today while I was figuring out what classes to take next semester that there are only 5 weeks left of this adventure in the big city, and that is incredibly depressing to me. In January im going to have to return to the humdrum of traditional academia and the pressure of a 17 credit-hour course schedule. In the last few years I have come to loathe college classes, and i've become so cynical about them. They seem so impractical and irrelevant and dare i say boring. The Pittsburgh semester is different, though. Michael has shown that there is a different way to play the learning game, and I like it. I've finally found a curriculum that I have been truly engaged by, an environment where I have been truly stimulated, and a program that effectively teaches me about both life and vocation. Who in their right mind would want to leave that?

Thats actually not what I wanted to talk about though. I actually wanted to revisit a thread of posts Sam wrote back in january about whether pastors should be paid or not. Michael assigned a project where we had to do a presentation that highlights a moral dilemma from out internships and explore possible resolutions. Pastor compensation has been something I've thought a lot about since I read Sam's posts, so money was the natural topic of dilemma for me.

The struggle I have specifically when I look at the open door, is that John's and BJ's total compensation accounts for 61% of the church budget. Before you start to think that John and BJ are rolling in the dough an living the high life, though, I should say that compared to many other full time pastors, John and BJ get paid very little. In fact, John makes the minimum salary allowed by PCUSA (PC = Presbyterian church) for an ordained pastor, and BJ makes only slightly over the minimum.

I feel like I should stop and say a little bit about the church. The Open Door is a church plant that intentionally strives to be missional. (I love how "missional" isn't actually a word yet gets thrown around a ton in emergent conversations.) It started out as something like a "second service" at Bellefield Presbyterian Chruch in Oakland, Pittsburgh's Universityville. Now the church rents space at the Union Project, which I would describe as a breathing building, both in the sense that it was birthed out of a vision for community outreach, and because its an old church building, and the stained glass lets in a ton of cold air... seriously I froze my cheeks off on wednesday because the office was frigid. (I digress.) Its a young church (4 years old) that caters to a young, creative generation (we really embrace art) and tries to live out the Christ-like ideals presented in the thinking of the emergent church movement. I realize this brief description doesn't do the Open Door justice, but I hope I have portrayed an accurate depiction of what the Open Door is and wants to be.

I would say most of what the church does reflects its mission, except for the budget. the "ministry" section of the budget is allotted 23% of the money that comes in. (amd that, intersetingly enough, the OD can't provide on its own.) Building costs are kept down because the space is rented from an organization that wants them there, but I can't help but wonder if the 61% going to the pastors could be better spent to better reflect the mission of the church.

So thats why I did my presentation on pastoral compensation. I can't really say it was a great presentation because I had diffuculty getting my thoughts together from all of the articles I read and all of the conversations I had with friends both pastors and not. however, I think I at least got my piers to contemplate the idea of an alternative to the full-time pastor career path.

I have a lot to say on this topic, but right now I am awfully tired, so I'll post this for now and perhaps write some more tomorrow.

Head-O-Jesus

2007-10-29T15:56:00.000-04:00

my last post was a bit depressing, so I thought I'd write something on a lighter note.

Im starting to love living in this city. There are just certain quirks about it that you can't find elsewhere. For instance, there is the popular "Pittsburgh Left" rule. If you're the first at a red light and there is someone goingthe other way that wants to turn left, you let them go first when the light turns green. There have been several times where I've been the one turning left and realized that the other guy was waiting for me to turn. I've even been honked at for not turning. Weird.

I know I've probably mentioned it before, but I seriouslt love how connected everybody is here. This weekend Colin, Nick, and I went down to the Beleza coffee shop to hang out for a while. We met a girl named Julie Ann there who had just gotten back from a semester or two in Japan learning the language. I don't remember everything we talked about, but it struck me how many people she knew that I knew. Its a small city after all. I was talking to Colin about this later that day, and how so many people have connections because of one church, Memorial Park Presbyterian, which is actually in a suburb in the east. My supervisor John grew up there and was in a ska band with Mark, the guy who leads Monday Undergroud (MUG), the youth group I volunteer with, and Saleem, the Guy who started the pittsburgh project was their youth leader along with the lady that is Colin's supervisor over at World Vision in Sewickly. Then we can't forget about the Pittsburgh Youth Network that connects most of teh churches in the city's youth workers. The connections go beyond the Christian Realm too, though. Nick has gotten himself connected into a network of DJs across the city because he mixes house music. I could go on forever about the connections I see here, but to save time I'll just say that I love telling people I meet around the City where I live and work because I almost Always get a big smile and "Oh! Do you know John?" (or whoever it happens to be that they know).

The classes Michael has been teaching have been great as well. The class we are in right now is called "The Search for Meaning" And right now we are reading a selection from a book called Material Christianity that explores the role of Religious Objects and traditions the different meanings that get associated with them both by clergy and lay people. I Often thought of religious iconography and sacrament as a strictly Orthodox or Catholic thing, until the author started to talk about Protestant religous objects and I realized that there is a print of Sallman's "Head of Christ" hanging in the hallway beside my bedroom door at home and remembering how it used to be such a comforting thing knowing that Jesus was right outside my bedroom. It's amazing how much power symbols have in our lives.

I've realized lately that I haven't done a very good job keeping up with friends and family that aren't immidiately around me (Or my Girlfriend). I kinda feel bad for that and apologize. Perhaps I'll start using my free time to write letters or make phone calls. You might hear from me soon. Until then, here's a little Jesus for you to enjoy.

dammit.

2007-10-12T00:46:00.000-04:00

Forgive the title. I'm not one to use crude language, but right now, that's the best way I can sum up what I'm feeling.

It has been a while since I've felt emotion so deeply that I cry. Maybe its because I've been trying to be masculine and conform to society's standards of what that means, maybe its just because I've been complacent with where I am and haven't done anything that makes me feel... anything.

Tonight I revisited a post that I wrote back in April that I called "Pittsburgh here I come." I was curious about what I had written in anticipation of this semester. I had completely forgotten about the post, about the passion and raw emotion I felt at that time.

I read the Post. In the book of Kyle verse 11:35: "Kyle Wept."

I read the comments. In the book of 2 Kyle 11:35: "ditto."

It's more than just remembering how i felt then, though. It's witnessing the present, too that brought on the tears. It's the plight of my fellow man that has brought on the plight of my dry eyes. It's the words of my God that come through this theme of plight. It's me not wanting to listen.

The theme that I saw in the April post was poverty. Oppression. Injustice. And God hasn't stopped letting me know.

This summer I read "The Irresistible Revolution" by Shane Claiborne (He's the one that wrote the "how Jesus wrecked my life" article I talked about in the other post). The book convicted my pants off, and my friends and family can attest. I came home from camp talking about selling everything I own and giving it to the poor. I was ready to, too. Never did though. Don't know where I'd be if i had... anyway, Shane talks an awful lot about sharing with the poor in his neighborhood. I recommend reading the book, but only if you're ready to feel a convincing kick in the pants.

I don't think its a coincidence that this book was assigned as reading later this semester.

Camp Luz didn't really help me avoid the theme either. Director Deb preached several times out of a book by Walter Brueggemann called "A Prophetic Imagination." Walter writes about God's justice as freedom for the oppressed, and how it shows up everywhere in the OT and continues through the story into Jesus life and the NT. It all seemed to come together. God doesn't like it when his children suffer.

I also do not think it coincidence that Michael talked out of this book today in class.

Ever since I've come to Pittsburgh, the theme of poverty and oppression has been slapping me in the face. African Americans getting a raw deal after moving here from slavery. Nasty Ghettos where crime rates soar and buildings blight. Homelessness. I hate it.

Last night I finished reading a book for class called "Brothers and Keepers" by John Edgar Wideman about his brother Robby who was convicted and given a life sentence for murder 1, a crime he was only an accomplice to. It talked about how dehumanizing prison was. He felt like he was an animal placed in a cage, referred to by a number, not a name, forced to eat, sleep, work, exist at the command of his guards.

A guest speaker that had done time with Robby put it even more clearly into perspective. He talked about the jobs everybody in prison had (and still have). They get paid $36 a month if they're lucky (thats livin large) to make license plates, furniture, clothes, you name it. To me that spells out slavery... Go figure that a good deal of those inmates are black and poor, dragged by society into a life of drugs and violence to try to make money just so that they can feed the hunger of the consumerist american dream.

Tonight we all were invited to the local rescue mission for a tour and pizza. While we were touring, we went through the room where homeless men can come in to sleep. There was a guy there named Scott who was actually afraid of us at first because he has been attacked and picked on on the streets so much. All of the possessions he owned were there with him. As we walked past, he said "God bless you."

God Bless ME?!? Me who has everything he could ever need? me who complains about the slow internet here and only getting $240 a month for food? "God Bless You" coming from a guy who sleeps under a bridge 300 days a year? It seems I should be telling God to bless him, not the other way around... I wish I had what that guy had... I wish I had his child-like faith. He's grasped onto something I don't have.

All of this crap that I've been witnessing lately all speaks to the justice that God clearly wants me to work for. I just don't want to. I would be so much more comfortable leaving Pittsburgh behind me when I go back to Bluffton in January. It would be so much easier to get a job and live my sinful, consumeristic life. It seems like it would feel so much better to do these things than to give-- no, whole-heartedly submit-- my life to Christ and his work for justice. That's why Kyle wept.

dammit.

Urban Fusion

2007-09-26T08:57:00.000-04:00

I'm sitting in the Urban Fusion Coffee Shop here at the Union Project waiting for John. I thought I would utilize the free wireless while I can.

Now that I’ve been in Pittsburgh for several weeks, I’m feeling more and more at home, but at the same time I’m still learning and witnessing new and exciting things about this city every day. This past weekend my parents came out to Pittsburgh to visit and made a little mini vacation out of it. We ate at new restaurants, saw some new sights, and got to experience our (or at least mine) first all-black church service.

One thing that is really sweet about living in the city is that you don’t have to go very far to find food. My parents and I tried out several restaurants this weekend, but my favorite was definitely Joe Mama’s. It’s in the heart of Pitt country in Oakland and serves some fantastic Italian food. The atmosphere was fun and comfortable, and the food was great. I ordered spaghetti and meatball, and got just that… a pile of spaghetti and a half-pound ball of meat. I loved it. (Sorry, Sam, no balls for you…)

We got to walk along the rivers for a while and saw some interesting things. For one thing there was some cool graffiti on the wall that led up to the highway. Urban art is always cool if you ask me. My favorite thing had to be the blood coming out of a drain spout.

We walked past a family that was living under a bridge. They were just sitting around talking and smoking cigarettes when we walked past. Seemed like a decent place to live right now… riverfront! I wouldn’t want to be there come winter, though. Nasty cold. There was another nook under a bridge that you could tell someone had been living under, but they weren’t home at the time.

The church we went to Sunday was Mount Ararat Baptist Church. Huge church, huge choir, huge energy all marked this… extravaganza. There wasn’t a quiet soul in the building… or a sitting one for most of the time…

All in all the weekend was pretty sweet. Hopefully my parents enjoyed it as much as I did. I took some pictures. Maybe I’ll put some of them up soon.

This week in class we’re talking about Judaism as a celebration of Pittsburgh’s religious diversity and the large Jewish population Pittsburgh contains. Admittedly, Judaism is not something I noted as prominent in Pittsburgh at first because it’s not very prominent here on the North Side. Go to squirrel hill, however, and you’ll feel like you just walked into little Israel.

We read a book called “Holy Days” by Lis Harris that told the story of a Hasidic Jewish family in Brooklyn. It got me thinking.

I realize that Jews are missing out on some pretty important things (namely the saving grace of Jesus Christ…), but there are some really cool things that these Orthodox Jews do that Christianity and mainstream culture could really learn from. For instance, Hasidic Jews strictly follow Torah Law about the Sabbath. (They strictly follow the torah laws of everything actually, but the Sabbath is pretty important to them.) They treat it like a vacation and don’t do anything that remotely resembles labor, even cooking so that they can have a day completely devoted to God. When they quit working, quit making things out of wood, clay, or wool, quit altering nature, they make a huge statement acknowledging that this world is God’s and not ours. They take ritual baths, which kind of remind me personal “baptisms” to make themselves ceremonially clean. They do painstaking preparations to make sure they won’t be stuck with doing labor. All of this is done every week.

When is the last time you saw a Christian put this much devotion into a Sabbath?

Another interesting thing I found about the Hasidic Jews is that they are all about arranged marriages. Jews look to their family, friends, and rabbi’s to show them who would be a good match for them and even though they are welcome to accept or reject the rabbi’s suggestion, they rely heavily on their wisdom in finding a life partner that will complete them. The divorce rate is incredibly low in Jewish communities…

Yet another cool thing was their view of women. Lis talked about how men and women are viewed as equal in God’s eyes, so they are equal in their own eyes as well, but this doesn’t look like the feminist movements of mainstream society. Men and women have completely different roles in a Jewish marriage. Both are equally important, but not the same. Intimacy is important in marriage, but is not to be shown in public, and is not to be physical on Sabbath. What’s really cool about intimacy on the Sabbath is that the men always recite Proverbs 31 to their wives to remind them that they are more valuable than rubies. How beautiful is that?

I don’t agree with a lot of Judiasm, but I certainly have a new respect for their beliefs and think that we can learn a lot from them about how to be counter-cultural yet see God in the world around us, how to be staples in the community yet devoted to God. I wish I had half the passion and devotion that the family in the book has.

I never expected to be this excited about learning. I wish everybody could go through a program like Pittsburgh Semester. I think that would be the end of War, hunger, and poverty....

Update XY

2007-09-11T00:39:00.000-04:00

I’m supposed to be writing once-a-week reflections on my experience in Pittsburgh as part of my grade for the class. We can really choose whatever medium we want to reflect, so I thought my blog might be a good way to write down my thoughts and let people know what’s going on here.

One of the big themes we’ve been discussing here is race and mostly has been focused on the relationships between blacks and whites. The issue, I must admit, is somewhat new to me because I grew up in rural Columbiana County in Ohio where 98% of the population is white, but now that I’m in Pittsburgh, I can see why there is such a pressing need for racial healing. My mentor and supervisor at the Open Door, John Creasy, mentioned how racist Pittsburgh really looks because it is so staunchly segregated between Neighborhoods. It’s almost as if walking from one neighborhood to the next is walking to a completely different city with a completely different culture.

Let me give a few examples. I live at the Pittsburgh Project here on the North Side of Pittsburgh in the Perry South neighborhood. This area is predominately black and poor (though it is one of the more diverse neighborhoods in the city) and reflects its demographic. The houses here on Charles Street are run down, abandoned, vacant homes and blighted properties with tall weeds and broken glass litter the street. The park (which is now being taken over and will soon be renovated by the Pittsburgh Project and a really cool volunteer organization called Kaboom!) looks sad with weeds growing up through what were once tennis courts and gaping holes through the roof of a pavilion that has suffered a fire. There are few businesses still open in South Perry despite its once being a vibrant and wealthy community. Though I feel safe here, I have to remember to watch my back and avoid the corner of Charles and Perrysville at night. Welcome to ghetto paradise where the litter lined street is the only “third place” people can meet.

Lets move on to a neighborhood in the east end near the Union project, the former catholic church building turned local art hub that houses the Open Door where I intern. Lawerenceville is a community dominated by young to middle-aged whites. Homes here are old (Lawerenceville has an early history in the steel industry) but well kept and nice. Butler Street is booming with a variety of restaurants, bars, coffee shops, hair salons, stores, banks, and other businesses. There is a nice park with a nice pool in it that has tennis courts that you can actually use (they even still have nets). There is a tremendous art scene in Lawerenceville, much like a lot of the east end where young people continue to move into the city. Here there is a local crime watch and pride in the neighborhood makes it successful at maintaining a safe community. Welcome to the small town in the big city, where you can engage your neighbors in a clean environment.

Can you see the difference? The white neighborhood is rich, and the black one is poor. There’s an economic discrepancy there that I can’t explain. It’s kind of sad.

In keeping with the sad theme, the history of Pittsburgh is another topic we’re exploring in class. What a rich history in steel! What a sad history that became when steel manufacturing left America and Pittsburgh’s dominant economy pooped out unemployment. The city went from a place of opportunity to a place of depression. People left. The economy is still trying to catch up by shifting to medical and service industries and tearing down history one steel mill at a time. God Bless America…

In the midst of all this crap, though, there is so much opportunity for love and learning. God is working in people’s lives here, and there are organizations working here to get people to notice and accept this phenomenon.

One such organization is the Open Door. The Open Door is an emergent church involved with the Pittsburgh Presbytery that meets in the Union Project on the east side. Corporate worship happens weekly on Sunday nights at 6 with music, art, poetry, and of course a good dose of scripture. However, worship happens daily over conversations in the Union’s own coffee shop, as well as the various community houses that have been planted in the area. I’ve loved the conversations I’ve been a part of about things like new monasticism and holistic faith. Today I went to a meeting of a local cohort of pastors (and an abbot of an intentional community) that serves as kind of an underground monthly recharge of missionally minded community leaders. It really was an amazing group of people. We talked about Celtic Christianity over lunch at the café. The sense I got from the group: How can we be relevant in our communities while sticking to the faith of an ancient tradition of Christianity.

After that meeting, I followed John to a meeting at the church he grew up in over in the Suburbia of the north hills. The Church is huge and has around 2000 members that come to four services. John is going to be preaching at the Saturday evening service this weekend. The meeting was also with a group of pastors, but they were all from the same church (and probably made a lot more money). They gathered to discuss the week’s scripture (Acts 15) and to get a sense of direction for the sermons that are going to be preached this Sunday. It was a very intelligent group of People who used a lot of big "churchy" words I didn’t understand. The sense I got here: how can we as a group of clergy be relevant to our congregation while sticking to our seminary degrees and the beliefs of the Presbyterian Church USA. It was quite and overwhelming contrast. Not for me.

I guess the only other thing I can reflect on right now is the service project I started tonight. There is a youth group that meets at the Pittsburgh Project on Monday nights called Monday Night Underground (it meets in the basement of the church) that I am helping out with. I think it will be a good experience, but if I’m honest, my first reaction to the experience is to be overwhelmed. To refer back to the race conversation, the entire youth group consists of Black teens who live in a different culture than I do. I realize that since I have had little exposure to people with different skin in my life, there is a lot of “racial healing” that needs to be done so that I can finally be comfortable with and fully understand what is going on around me. I want to be comfortable, it seems like I’m supposed to be comfortable, but I couldn’t help but notice tension when I tried to engage the kids tonight. I don’t like that.

Urban life is a new experience for me and has been rewarding so far. I can definitely say that my life will not be the same when I leave the burgh, and I can probably say that it will be for the better. I thank God daily for putting me here.

Update X

2007-09-06T20:16:00.000-04:00

Its been so long since I’ve put my mark on the blogosphere. I feel so out of place. Regardless, I have a lot to tell you about. Possibly more than I should fit into one blog. We shall se how this goes.

My summer at Camp Luz ended alongside august with the final bang being the first annual celebration of Luz Fest. It was pretty much a blast with outdoor Christian music, Schlonegers Homemade Ice Cream, and what is definitely the most powerful sound system I’ve ever helped set up and run (we ran like 9600 watts total and didn’t even touch the bigger amps we had…)

I met an amazing girl at camp this summer named Brooke. I admit I have been scared to get into a relationship ever since I dated Anna, but can’t help but love Brooke. This may sound incredibly cliché, but I can honestly say I believe God brought us together and that God is in the center of our relationship. I don’t know if I should say this or not since we’ve only known each other for a little over 4 months, but I could see in Brooke a spiritually mature woman that would make a great life partner.

Now I’m in Pittsburgh living in a ghetto paradise. I absolutely love it here. The people are welcoming, the city is beautiful, the classes are intriguing, and the internship I’m doing seems like exactly what I was looking for. Seriously… Ghetto Paradise.

Orientation was pretty sweet. Michael took us to some of the city’s hot spots like Mount Washington (which provides an absolutely gorgeous view of the lit up downtown at night), Carson street (on the south side with some of the coolest stores you’ll ever see… and more bars than you can count…), Downtown (can anybody say tall buildings?), the strip district (more ethnic food stores than my stomach can handle), and Oakland (which is pretty much dominated by the University of Pittsburgh. We ate Cambodian and Indian, we gawked about Chihuly’s glass sculpture at the Phipps conservatory, we rode the bus system until nobody was confused about it (oh wait… we’re still waiting on that one…), and we walked around this ghetto learning about what a dump Perry south has become since the death of Pittsburgh’s industrial Era.

I figure I’ll probably write about what we’re talking about in class, but right now I’m tired of writing, so Im going to shut up and publish. Goodbye, and goodnight.

frustration?

2007-07-12T23:07:00.001-04:00

Pastor Tim shared an article in his "Weekly Jottings" email newsletter that i found somewhat interesting. It is by Betsy Hart, and what I've found about her is that shes a radio talk show host from Chicago that talks a lot about parenting. anyway, her article is about church hopping and how it is an "insidious cultural trend" that the church needs to "stand as a bulwark against." you can read the article here on her blog.

I have a bunch of thoughts roaming around in my head. I'll try to put them together so they make sense...

The woman does have a point. Church hopping does break down the community that the church so desperately needs to be.

But silly old me can't help but think there's got to be more to this crazy phenomenon than cultural trend... I think this article screams out that there is something wrong with the way we "do church." i wrote once about how it seems like church has become like a "freak show" where people are spoon-fed their weekly dose of hymns and a sermon. I think this spoon feeding has led the christian church right into religious numbness-- we're okay with the complacency of hiding in our church on sunday mornings. It's no wonder people so freely want to leave their church... everybody's numb. Church isn't any different than a seminar on managing your finances or writing best sellers. Hoppers continue to be unsatisfied everywhere they go because they keep running into finance seminars.

I think in order to be a bulwark against this "cultural trend" the church is going to need to step it up and be different-- to shine like a city on a hill. no more of this numbness. Its time to start preaching the gospel and living it out, not offering the fuzzy watered down version we are so comfortable with. you know... the kind where we can make up excuses for living an extravagant lifestyle as long as we tithe and do our duty in church (after all everyone has gifts... some of us are gifted as Sunday school teachers and others are gifted as trustees. We all need to pray about what gifts God has given us so that we can use our gifts for Him. God forbid we use our gifts to further his kingdom)

I guess I feel like I can say these things because I have experienced something different. I've lived in a community where people constantly lift each other up. We dine together, we play, together, we worship, pray, laugh and cry together. Camp Luz has shown me a lifestyle that is different than the rest of the world. It's a joyful thing... but certainly not a cake walk. (hey, kind of like the gospel!)

Craig, one of the guys that works at camp spoke at his church a couple weeks ago about how there is no holiness apart from social holiness. I can't say it like he did, but I know he emphasized the concept of the church as a community-- how the children bring such vibrant, youthful energy into the congregation while the elderly bring such experience and knowledge. All age groups have an important part in the community... yet what do we do? we ship our kids off to the nursery while our grandparents hang out in their 50 and over Sunday school class. where's the community there? and as if to make matters worse, after church, everybody goes "back to their lives" never hearing from each other for the rest of the week. Now that's what I call tight knit.

I recently read Shane Claiborne's book the Irresistible Revolution. In it Shane talks about how he has seen Jesus in the margins. He went to Calcutta, India and lived in a leper colony for a while and was just astounded by how much love the people in that community showed to each other. everybody shared and nobody was left fending for themselves with nothing. THats kind of the way the early church was. If someone ever didn't have food, the entire community would fast until there was enough for everyone. Sounds more like tight knit to me.

Yes, Betsy, the church is called to be a bulwark against crappy things that break down community, but there's no way youre ever going to make people stay at your church. Show those people something different, and they'll join. Show them a church that strives to be more than a staple in the community, but is the community. Don't just invite them back for the next seminar.

I don't even know if any of this makes sense...

A game of tag

2007-07-09T17:10:00.000-04:00

I don't normally do these tag games, but since Sam likes them so much, I'll write down some random facts about myself

1. I rolled a car less than six months after I got my license

2. I was salutatorian of crestview High school class of 2005

3. I have this weird fear of getting paper cuts on my eye balls... ugh.

4. I don't like roller coasters, but i sometimes ride them anyway

5. My bedroom is in the basement of my house

6. I had never eaten tapioca until last week. I still don't really know what it is

7. My birthday is on the same day as hugh hefner's 61 years apart

8. I was in 4H for two years. I raised chickens.

Sorry Sam... I'm not gonna tag anyone else. Your game ends here... along with World Hunger

I wish

Help!

2007-06-03T22:24:00.000-04:00

I'm running off to start working at camp tomorrow. I don't know that I'm really ready. I have been having a faith struggle for some time now. When I went to Bluffton U, I kinda expected faith to come easy. I guess I expected scripture to exude from the dorm halls, to have every person on campus be Jesus, and to meet professors that would spoon-feed me spirituality in daily Bible studies and engaging prayers. It turns out Bluffton isn't a babysitter after all. I have to own my own faith if I want to be faithful, and I was just too lazy or stupid to do that, so I just lived and studied (sometimes) and let my relationship with God slip away like a raft floating off to sea.

Recently its been more of a weird faith struggle where I question everything. I like to think that it's because I'm maturing in my faith, but I really don;t know. I really want to go beyond a believing faith and move on to a doing faith. I want to learn to love and have the kind of faith that moves mountains and isn't afraid to do something crazy like selling everything for the poor. I just haven't been able to get there because sin and weak faith keep getting in the way. There are certain idols in my life that I need to give up. I like money and I like stuff. I like living in the safe places I'm used to like here at home. I'm afraid to ask God what to do because following Him might make me go somewhere else...

blah.

So now that I'm going to camp (or for me right now more like cramp), I'm afraid I'm going to do something detrimental to the camp ministry. The Bible talks about satan and his many demons, and they always talk about spiritual warfare at camp and how much Satan tries to break down ministry wherever it happens. I'm sure satan grabs on to weak people when he sees them. I can imagine a lion or wolf looking through a herd looking for a sheep with a broken leg. I'm really afraid I'm the sheep with the broken leg and I'm going to be the one that gets eaten.

Prayer would be a great help and a great comfort as well. It's time for me to swim out and find my raft before I drown and bring my friends down with me...

God bless the rustbelt

2007-05-25T00:12:00.001-04:00

Yesterday Andrew and I took a little road trip down to Pittsburgh to visit the place I’ll be staying. We had a great time, and now I’m really excited about living there in the fall. There just seems to be something about visiting the place that you are going to go and seeing it firsthand that makes it more real and more exciting.

We got there about an hour early and were going to find a place to eat, but we decided that we didn’t want to go to a sit down restaurant and risk being late, so we just sat in the shade for a while until 1:30 when I called Michael (the guy who was going to show me around). He didn’t answer at first, so we walked around the neighborhood for a bit to see what was close by.

Michael walked around the building after about a half hour and started our tour. There are three buildings that the Pittsburgh project owns. The first is an old abandoned catholic church. Since Pittsburgh is right in the middle of the rust belt and even holds the name of “steel city,” when all the steel production started going overseas, people moved out of Pittsburgh and a whole bunch of catholic churches across the city closed up. The Pittsburgh project just happened to get their hands on one of these churches. They renovated the inside of the church, taking out the pews, redoing the stage, etc. I must say it looks amazing now and would be a sweet place to have a wedding and/or reception. Now they have a coffee shop in there as well as a cafeteria, and some classrooms for the after school program the project runs (those rooms also double as Sunday school rooms for the church that meets there on Sundays). Outside the church one of the workers started an organic garden where they hope to grow some of the food for the summer groups that come through, which Andrew and I both thought were really cool.

The second building used to be a catholic school right next to the church. It too is a neat old building and is being remodeled as well. There are a lot of classrooms that they use for the after school program and offices for all of the workers. One thing that I thought was cool was the set of maps they had set up in the school lobby. One map was a US map that had pins in all the places that volunteer groups had come from for service projects. A good majority of the pins were poked into the surrounding states, but there were a few from a good distance away. There was even one group from one of the western states (I can’t remember which one, though. New Mexico maybe?) The other map shows the locations of all the homes they have helped out at. It was amazing to see how much work one organization can do.

The third building was absolutely sweet and just so happens to be the one I’m staying in. First of all, the building is hardcore environmentally friendly. There’s solar panels on the roof (which they got for free from Carnegie melon university) to heat all the water for the building, rain basins on the roof to flush toilets, and motion sensors for every light in the building to save on electricity. The look of the building is pretty sweet too. It has a very modern look like a warehouse, and in the third floor suite-style dorm rooms where I will be living, the roof trusses and heating ducts are showing, giving the room an expensive loft apartment feel. Our rooms are definitely carpeted too. On the first floor of the building there is a huge room with ping-pong and foosball tables, couches, and the biggest LCD TV I have ever seen. Apparently when Katrina hit, a bunch of people moved to Pittsburgh, so the Pittsburgh project let people stay there until they found jobs and a place to stay. Sony found out what they were doing and said, “we will give you this TV that you can keep or let you loan an even bigger one until the Katrina victims leave” naturally they took the smaller unit, which has a good 4 foot diagonal on it anyway. There’s also a kitchen on the floor where we will make all the meals we buy with the stipend we get for food.

The project also runs the park across the street where there is a huge pool and plans to build a new playground and eventually a new gymnasium. I may get to help build the playground.

After the grand tour of ye olde Pittsburgh project, Andrew and I got directions to a nearby coffee shop where we got some amazing “southwestern” vegetarian wraps and Jones soda. The experience could accurately be described as an orgasm to the taste buds.

We somehow found our way to Carson Street on the south side and walked through some pretty sweet stores. I’ll definitely be hitting up Carson street when I live there in the fall.

Going to Pittsburgh was obviously a good time, but what I was most impressed with was the great love and passion for the community the Pittsburgh project so freely emanates. I’m so glad I get to be a part of it next fall.

in response...

2007-04-25T14:10:00.000-04:00

I was going to post this as a comment on Sam's blog, but decided it was too big for just a comment, so I decided to post it here, so this will probably make more sense if you read Sam's post here first.

alright I haven't really gotten a complete thought on this yet, but I have had several incomplete ones, so I'll write them down.

Songs that tell stories have been an essential part of my learning experience. Songs make everything easy to remember, so learning bible stories was easy because of songs like "Joshua fought the battle of Jericho" and the one about Daniel and the lions den. I do agree, however, that there needs to be time set apart for that "upward" worshipful, praising song. My theology professor talked about singing one time and said that when you sing a prayer, you pray twice, which made me really think about some of the things I sing about in church sometimes. Are they really sincere prayers?

On the other hand, I can't help but think that story songs also make God feel good and give Him praise. Its kind of like when a speaker is introduced or an award is given out, they say all the accomplishments they've done. ("Please welcome two-time Emmy award winning actor...") Story songs kind of say "You have done some awesome things, God. I am truly amazed!" I guess what I'm trying to say is that story telling can be one on one conversation with God. ("Remember that one time you sent your son?")

To be honest, I sometimes don't even think about what I sing. As a worship leader at LMC, I often just sang songs because thats what you do. There always has to be praise songs, so my Aunt and I would just pick out songs that sound good together just to make sure there are songs sung. It kinda feels funny when I think about it. Its almost like I'm dictating what people sing. you know, what if someone doesn't feel very thankful and we're singing "I will enter his gates with thanksgiving in my heart, I will enter his courts with praise. I will say this is the day that the lord has made. I will rejoice for he has made me glad." I imagine i wouldn't feel very glad if I were arrested for assault, had to go to prison for six months and sell my house to pay for a $60,000 fine (Sound familiar, Sam? lol) In that situation I would probably rather sing about Jesus calming the storm than being glad...

Like I said, I don't really have a complete thought about whether we should sing story songs, but I do think we need to consider what we are singing and not just sing hollow songs just because thats what we've always done.

End of rant,
Kyle

Pittsburgh here I come

2007-04-23T01:29:00.000-04:00

There are a lot of times when I feel like God never communicates with me. I feel like my prayers just float around in space for a while until they finally fade out of my memory. However there are certain times that I get a strong sense that God is trying to tell me something. One time I think of was when I began sensing a call to ministry. The thought crossed my mind on many occassions, friends told me that i would make a good pastor, and random people mentioned it to me as well. I pretty much couldnt get away from the call so I finally had to give in.

I'm kinda starting to get that vibe right now. In my last post I wrote about a guy i saw on the sidewalk walking back from the game. The next day my parents called me and my dad mentioned the post and asked me if I was ever going to try and go back and meet the guy again. To be honest the thought had never occurred to me. I felt so sorry for this guy yet never really thought I could do anything for him specifically...

Today I went to jOURney, the church i have been a part of since January. We talked about john 21, part of the passage about the day after the resurrection. Peter got a "reinstated" with the three "do you love me's" and told about the hard times he was going to face because of it (i.e. the arms spread wide was an allusion to crucifiction). It was then that Jesus said "follow me." Peter was being called to ministry even though it was going to be difficult and it certainly wasnt going to end pretty (although I guess it depends on who you ask if martyrdom is pretty). In trying to think of what God could possible want me to face, I walked over to the table that has all the free magazines and stuff on it and picked up an article called "How Jesus wrecked my life." It looked interesting so I took it. It was about this guy who was on track to become a doctor but started hanging out with homeless people instead. He eventually ends up meeting Mother Theresa and buying a house in a Philly neighborhood with a bunch of friends where they have a store that sells sofas for a dollar to people that need them and hands out food to others...

I took a class this semester called "understanding social welfare" that talks a lot about poverty and ways of dealing with it. I won't lie, I often found the class boring and sometimes I've found my head nodding off, but at the same time, it has been an eye-opening experience to learn some of the statistics of life here and abroad. There's a lot of hungry people out there, and its not just people that don't want to get jobs. Poverty is a real problem and most of the time its not their fault.

It's just weird how this theme of poverty and homelessness keeps coming into my life. I really think it might be God trying to tell me something. It's scary when you get that feeling yet really exciting. I just hope that my ears are open enough to hear the right things.

I'm really excited about going to Pittsburgh...

hungry?

2007-04-21T01:47:00.000-04:00

I went with a bunch of guys from my floor to the reds game tonight. It was quite an exciting game where they came back from 1 nothing in the bottom of the ninth and won the game in the tenth. I can't say I wanted either the reds or Phillies to win, but it was exciting to hear the crowd roar when the winning run came in. (the Indians won tonight too. I did want them to win. I guess its a good night to live in Ohio.)

While we were walking back to the cars, we walked past this guy that was sitting against a light pole with a sign that said "homeless and hungry. Anything helps." and a cup that had a few pennies thrown in and around it.

I've encountered beggars plenty of times in my life. When I was at Akron, you couldn't walk a block away from campus without being heckled for cash. I've always been reluctant to open my wallet though. What if they just want to buy booze and cigarettes. There always seemed to be somebody who "lived in cleveland" and needed money to get a bus ticket back there. I usually didn't give them any money because I always thought "if you live in Cleveland and dont have money to get there, then what on earth are you doing in Akron? I especially didnt buy that story after one time a guy asked me to use my cell phone after i told him i couldnt spare any change and called his buddy to come pick him up...

But this guy seemed different. For one thing we was very thin, he wore dirty clothes, and despite the crowd rushing past him, he never lifted his head. It was almost as if he were ashamed or embarassed. I didnt want to lose my friends, so I just grabbed a quarter out of my pocket and tossed it in his cup. Then he lifted his head and said thanks and grabbed my hand to hold it for a moment.

I almost felt like a jerk. All i gave him was a quarter, yet he was so grateful. Right now I'm writing a blog on the iBook i just bought sitting in the deluxe microsuede executive chair i got for my birthday in a warm room with a comfortable bed and food sitting in a drawer next to me. Right now that guy is probably under an overpass or in a dumpster trying to sleep over the sound of his rumbling stomach. What did i do to deserve what i have? What did he do?

Since I'm going to be in Pittsburgh for an entire semester nest fall, I want to make it my goal to befriend at least one homeless person. If nothing else, maybe I can at lest give him or her a good meal and show them that they are loved. Poverty is a real phenomenon that nobody should ever experience because of the way God meant society to be. Yet as a Christian, I have done little to fight poverty.

Should I have stopped and talked to that man? Should I have emptied my wallet for him? I don't know. I do know that I felt bad for him, and that my pity doesn't really help him at all.

photoshop fun

2007-04-20T14:12:00.000-04:00

I thought that since I haven't posted in a while I would just put up a few pictures of myself that I did in Photoshop. Hope you get a kick out of them.

the blues

Finding myself

In Pieces

Colorful Personality

Psych!!

Lean on me

Ooh la la

Preach it

head punt

Welcome to the freak show

2007-03-10T02:22:00.000-05:00

Last night i went over to Sam and Laura's house to interview Sam for my congregational analysis paper for Youth ministry I. We got to talking about a lot of things (Sam is just cool like that. you get him started and theres just no stoping him... and i didnt help much) which really made me think about a lot of things. Since i had to interview him about a church, we naturally started talking about the church in general...

I feel like I should stop here and say that my thoughts do not necessarily represent the opinions of Leetonia Mennonite Church (I know my blog has been linked on the website) and I dont have anything against LMC or any of its leaders or members. these are just thoughts going through my mind as i try to make sense of life around me.

Anyway, last sunday I played guitar for the music time at church. It was going grand, and I was trying to pour my heart out into the song to give God my humble offering of praise, but I couldnt help but notice that some people were just watching me... maybe they didnt know any of my songs, maybe they didnt like the songs we were singing... maybe we were just too contemporary for their tastes, but it was almost as if it were the Kyle and Mary Kay Show (starring Michelle) which, after a commercial interuption of a skit for Lent, moved right on into the Pastor Tim Show... Welcome to reality television: Mennos Gone Wild.

I cant blame them though... We were just spoonfeeding them their weekly Dose of Jesus. I mean we spend so much time getting ready for the service, making sure every detail is covered and that everything runs perfectly smooth. How dare there be a missed note on the piano or a hymn sang before the scripture reading when it was supposed to be after-- and God forbid what if the sound system suddenly got some feedback... all the work, all the toil, all the trouble... for what? the quick answer is that we are giving God our best. but are we? or are we doing all of it to impress the other members of the church and say to the community "look at our church. we're perfect and better than that other church. you should probably come here."

What if church wasn't the pastor Tim show? What if Church was more like the Bible study on wednesday night (which is very sparcely attended) where people were actually engaged in their spiritual journey and not just going to church on sunday because thats what you do...

What if it was okay if someone missed Corporate Worship one week because they were living a Christ centered life and offering love to their neighgor in need?

What if we were actually able to see that We dont go to church to meet God? God was there before too. God is in the parking lot. God is in the bars. God is in the workplace. What if we were able to connect our spiritual life with our physical life because thats where church was?

What if? What if? What if?

I could go on all night.

...thats why I really wish I could start a church and I get incredibly excited when I hear about others starting new churches-- people taking initiative to live out the Life God has called them to.

I just feel like im not mature enough for that. I'm still just wild-at-heart kid that makes the same mistakes over and over again. I'm ready to (this sounds so cliche) move on. I think I truely realize what Andrew wrote about in his blog a few months ago. I think I'm there. I'm ready to mature. I'm ready to see the Bible as more than a text book and fall in love with יהוה (thats YHWH for those that dont know hebrew [thatd be me]).

It's certainly going to be a crazy journey.
care to join?