Intersections

Something worth rejoicing over

2006-06-21T22:28:00.000-05:00

I'll admit that my tendency is to put a positive spin on most situations of conflict. I know that frustrates some of my friends. They wish I were less pollyanaish, more willing to say "This is wrong!" I hear that. Honestly. And I wrestle with it too. But I also hear the words of the Apostle Paul, spoken to a church that had conflict, at least between two of its members, urging, "If there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things" (Philippians 4:8).

So, let me say first that I understand that my description of the church as "hurting" this morning because of the action of the General Assembly on the Peace Unity and Purity Report would be an understatement for many. All day I've been talking with friends and leaders and reading blogs. Many in the church are genuinely shaken. One friend, from seminary days, came to lunch literally shaking with anger. We hadn't seen each other in at least eight years. His first words to me, after a terse hello was, "My congregation is gone." Others are saying that "everything has changed," "we've reached a point of no return," "the church is beyond reform." I'm hearing profound despair and anger, and it's not just from a few disaffected few.

But with that acknowledgement I want to offer something worthy of praise. This evening at 10:15 p.m. after an already very long day, the General Assembly approved a statement by a large majority - 77% - opposing late term abortions and, the Presbyterian News Service Article puts it, "affirms the lives of unborn babies."

This is a sea change within the public statements of the PC(USA) on abortion! There was debate, of course, but it was clear that the commissioners were moving away from the more ambiguous and more pro-choice stance of the church in previous years. One commissioner, in fact, rose and said, with a halting voice. "I'm pro-choice. But I lost a late term baby. And after seeing that little body, I can't condone any abortion after viability." This is the clearest, strongest pro-life statement the Presbyterian Church has made in recent years, and, and it was only strengthened by other actions the Assembly took on pro-life related overtures, including one that asked "that policies of the church concerning problem pregnancies and abortion be more clearly communicated to the public and to our church members."

For me, at least, these actions, which came so late in the day, when commissioners may have been tempted to rubber stamp recommendations instead of considering them carefully and prayerfully as they did, demonstrates that ears and eyes and hearts are not closed to what God wants to do in our midst. God hasn't given up on the PC(USA) yet. So, to paraphrase Philippians 4:9, let us "keep on doing the things that we have learned and received and heard and seen" from the Lord, "and the God of peace will be with us."

The PUP survived

2006-06-20T16:41:00.000-05:00

It's two days later, and I still say the church is alive, but it is hurting this morning.

I've already mentioned Richard Mouw's comments Monday morning (See the article from the Presbyterian News Office for more detail). Dr. Mouw asked "What does the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) need to be like in order to align itself with what God is doing in the world?" The question is whether or not Tuesday afternoon's action of the Assembly aligned us closer or further from what God is doing. There are many people who feel we've taken a huge wrong and irreversible turn.

After nearly three hours of passionate debate (decently and in order, of course), which included a minority report and motions to amend and refer various parts of the Report of the Peace Unity and Purity Task Force, the Assembly approved by a vote of 57 to 43 percent all 7 recommendations of the Task Force, including the controversial recommendation #5 which doesn't change standards for ordination, but many believe will create a "local option" to enforce standards for ordination, resulting in less peace, unity and purity in the church. The Presbyterian News Service article, "Assembly adopts Theological Task Force report" has an excellent summary of that action and and some reactions to it. (See the TTF Primer for an overview of all 7 recommendations.)

My reaction? I'm not surprised and I'm also not dismayed (even though I don't believe it is God's will for us to allow the ordination of those in homosexual relationships); because I don't believe the matter is settled; because I don't believe the Holy Spirit is done with us. I sense that the kind of renewal and reform (I’d call it missional transformation) that many of us are longing for and working for within the PCUSA is possible and is in fact happening. The PUP report doesn't change that. But it does makes the road ahead for the PC(USA) more uncertain, and ironically, has not taken us closer to peace, unity and purity. At least not yet.

The church is still alive!

2006-06-19T16:09:00.000-05:00

Even at 6:30 a.m. That’s when the Presbyterians for Renewal (PFR) breakfast began. (Note: Throughout the Assembly there are dozens of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners hosted by various groups, caucuses, seminaries, interest groups, etc.) Dr. Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary was the scheduled speaker (more about that in a moment) and the room was packed with about 550 folks – Commissioners (people who get to vote on stuff at the official meeting) and Observers (like me). Just about everywhere I turned, I ran into people I knew (see Russell Smith’s blog on family reunion), including old friends like Gale Watkins, former pastor of Walnut Hills Presbyterian Church, and now in Phoenix.

Halfway through breakfast our new G.A. Moderator, Rev. Joan Gray stopped by to give greetings. She shared her experience when she and the other three Moderator candidates visited various groups on Thursday night (part of the “campaigning” they do), and how moved she was that PFR was the one group that gathered around all four candidates, layed hands on them and prayed for them. She specifically mentioned Elder Nancy Maffett, former President of PFR (who happened to be sitting at my table) who knelt during that prayer. She ended by asking us to embody prayer, by letting our knees actually touch the ground and raising our hands in the air.

After Joan Gray left, a young woman pastor with the wonderful name of Fairlight Collins-Jones came to the podium to recognize PFR’s Lydia Scholar winners, a scholarship program for women who have experienced God’s call to become ordained pastors in the PC(USA) and who have a vision of spiritual renewal within the denomination. I remembered Fairlight from the Moderator’s Conference I attended last fall. She and her husband, Scott are the young co-pastors of Woodland Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, and if I could hand pick someone to take my place at North, I couldn’t make a better choice than Fairlight (and her husband would be okay too!) Then Marian McClure, Exectutive Director of the Worldwide Ministries Division, rose to introduce the winners of the Bell-MacKay award for a lifetime of service in missions. This assembly is celebrating50 years of the ordination to ministry of women, and this breakfast illustrated how much we have to celebrate. Joan, Nancy, Fairlight, Marian – these women are some of the most gifted leaders in our church, and true gifts to our church.

And so are Woody and Barabara Busse, winners of the Bell-MacKay award. The Busse’s spent 48 years in various missionary settings, including 7 years in Cincinnati when Woody co-pastored what was then a new church development – Winton Hills Presbyterian! During that time, they developed a close friendship with a young gospel musician named Todd O’Neal – now Bishop Todd O’Neal, pastor of the House of Joy. Another Cincinnati connection! (Todd has been at North Church several times, most recently leading worship at the Men’s Breakfast we hosted in April.) While Todd was with the Busse’s in Pakistan in 1980, he wrote one of his many beautiful gospel songs, and to our delight, two of the Busse’s daughters joined Barbara on the platform and sang, a capella, ending with

We will bow our heads and pray
Thanking God for all his ways
Look to the hills whence cometh our help
Our help comes from the Lord
Our help comes from the Lord

Once again, I found my eyes brimming with tears. The gifts, the faithfulness, the vital faith. And we hadn’t even gotten to Dr. Mouw’s address on “Renewing Presbyterianism.” Which was great. And funny. And hopeful. And challenged us to renew Presbyterianism through seeking a biblically grounded and pastoral theology of sexuality, through continuing the reform of the church that is coming mainly from evangelical churches, and by aligning ourselves to the worldwide church, not by splitting over differences without our denomination, but by expanding our relationships. It was especially affirming for me to hear that last admonition, because I had already decided that God was calling me to make that a theme of my year as Moderator of Cincnnati Presbtyery.

We ended in prayer, for the days ahead. Great, heartfelt, spontaneous prayer from all over the room. Prayers for God to align us with what God is already doing in the world. And then - tears again - as we sang my favorite hymn, which Dr. Mouw says best describes what distinguishes evangelicals from other expressions of Christian faith,

My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought
My sin, not in part, but the whole!
Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more
Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, Oh my soul!
It is well (it is well) with my soul (with my soul)
It is well, it is well, with my soul!

Believe me when I say, the Presbtyerian Church is alive and well.

Worth writing home about

2006-06-18T22:48:00.000-05:00

It's been a year since my last post. Hey, I had other stuff to do, okay? But I'm at a place that gives me a good excuse to resume my blog, albeit in a somewhat different format.

So the place is Birmingham, Alabama, and I arrived here this evening just in time to check in to my hotel, register as an observer to the 217^th General Assembly, and then head over to the evening worship service. By the time we rose for the opening hymn, I was moved to tears. Don’t let anyone tell you that Presbyterians are God’s “frozen chosen,” that we don’t know how to worship – at least not when we’re all together.

Let me set the scene briefly. We were at the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex, where the Birmingham Steeldogs play arena footbal. The floor of the arena had been carpeted and was mostly open, except for a cross-shaped pattern of tables bedecked with patterned cloth from the Congo and 244 neatly arranged identical communion sets. On a platform on the far side of the arena, similarly decorated, sat the speakers, the orchestra, a choir from the Presbyterian Church of the Congo; behind it, in the stands, was the mass choir representing the three Presbyterian denominations that are sharing the convention center for concurrent Assemblies – ours, (the PCUSA), the Cumberland Presbtyeran Church and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church of America.

As the brass, organ and timpani sounded the opening notes of the hymn, liturgical dancers streamed onto the floor, weaving in and out among the communion tables with silk cloths waving that gave a a visual of the Holy Spirit was filling the arena and sanctifing the elements, the space, our worship, us. And then we began to sing. There’s something about 6000 voices, filled with conviction and hope, rising to sing,

“Praise to the Lord, the Almighty the King of creation!
O my sould praise Him, for He is thy health and salvation!
All ye who hear, No to His temple draw near;
Join me in glad adoration!”

This is one thing we Presbyterians do well – worship in our gatherings of the church. (See Russ Smith's June 17 blog entry for a list of other things we do well.) And this year the worship was made all the more powerful by the presence and participation of 3 sister Presbyterian denominations, and the sermon by the Rev. Dr. Setri Nyomi, General Secretary of the World Allaince of Reformed Churches. It is in settings like this that I get a taste of the heavenly worship described in Revelation 4, and realize that it will be an experience of glory and joy and wonder that we will never want to leave.

I found myself moved to tears again, sitting next to my new friend Mary McKey, the Associate Executive of the Tampa Bay Presbytery, as we joined the choirs in the last stanza of the beautiful communion hymn,

“Then hear, O gracious Savior, accept the love we bring,
that we who know your favor may serve you as our King;
and whether our tomorrows be filled with good or ill,
we’ll triumph through our sorrows and rise to praise you still:
to marvel at your beauty and glor in your ways,
and make a joyful duty our sacrifice of praise.”

Tomorrow begins the hard business of making decisions, and as we left the arena, I ran into my friend Chris Roth, Moderator Elect of Pittsburgh Presbytery (we graduated from the same High School ages ago) who is on the committee charged with dealing with the Peace Unity and Purity report. She was on her way back to her committee meeting, because after three solid days of meeting, they had not come to agreement on what they will recommend to the Assembly. No peace, unity or purity yet. But there’s hope, because we worshipped before the throne of grace together.

God in a Box

2005-06-20T11:23:00.000-05:00

I know its been several weeks since I last wrote something here. Guess what? Sometimes life gets in the way of the best laid plans of mice and ministers! I haven't abandoned my project; and I've been mostly faithful in my daily readings from the daily lectionary, although it hasn't always been easy to discern any sort of intersection between these ancient bucolic stories that take a generation or two to play out and my modern (becoming more postmodern) instant-access, urban-sprawl, global-village world. Okay – sometimes its been impossible to see any intersection. Probably, that's mostly because I was too preoccupied to figure it out.

But this morning's Old Testament text was different. When I read 1 Samuel 5:1-12, I immediately thought of the final scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, when the bad guys finally secure possession of the lost Ark of the Covenant (or so they think). Believing it will give them ultimate power, they ceremoniously open the box, which unleashes thunderbolts and tornadoes of God's awesome wrath and consumes those who foolishly thought they could control divine forces.

In 1 Samuel, the Philistines have gotten hold of the ark of the covenant, and they set it up in the temple of their own half-fish, crop-fertility god Dagon, no doubt thinking they too can control divine forces. The next morning, they discover Dagon “fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord” (v.4). They set him back up, but the next morning, when they entered the temple, they found Dagon on the ground again, this time broken in pieces, with only his fish body intact. (At this point, they must have exclaimed, “Daggone!”) Despite the rocky start, the Philistines were not ready to give up on the god-in-a-box they captured from the Israelites. So they ship it off to another town, where everybody suddenly gets cancer. In a panic, they in turn send it to the next town, whose people are already terrified before it arrives, and try to get rid of it before they all die. But it's too late, God was no longer in his box.

It's always a big mistake to think we can keep God in a box, and having God conveniently in a box, therefore control God, or at least control our interaction with God. Postmodernism is, it seems to me, at least partially about getting God out of the boxes we've put him in. Pretty much everybody under 35 sees that as a very positive and promising development for the church and for the gospel and I'm inclined to agree in most respects. Postmodernism has pulled the rug out from under a very comfortable and compromised institutional Church (at least in America) that is probably God's way of making sure that the church not only survives the 21^st century, but is in any way faithful to its calling. There's tons of great reading and discussion on that front.

But at least part of the postmodern tendency is to set up the god-box of Christianity alongside other gods in the boxes we build for them. As Jill Hudson points out, “One can hold multiple truths, even when they are contradictory. Someone can be a devout Methodist and still participate regularly in Native American spiritual practices; one can attend an Episcopal church and have a Buddhist altar in her home . . . A huge mark of the postmodern world is that one size does not fit all. Multiple stories coexist in the rligious world; all of them may be viewed as having value.” (When Better Isn't Enough: 10). It makes perfect sense for George Lucas to describe himself as a “Buddhist Methodist.” But as the story in 1 Samuel suggests, that may be a problem for the other gods and everybody else in a three city radius. And what if the “box” God is in is of God's own design, like the ark of the covenant? Or the Church?

Seeking the Kingdom with you,

Erwin

On God's Terms

2005-06-03T10:09:00.000-05:00

I was talking to a Professor of Peace yesterday (actually, he's a Professor of Social Work at U.C., but his passion and focus since 9/11 has been peace studies). We were talking about what makes for genuine peace and I made reference to the Paris peace negotions in the 1970s, and the ridiculous months-long debate between North and South Vietnam over the shape of the table where participants would sit. (If you need to refresh your memory about it, go to: Paris Peace Accord.) "That was very important, acually," said the professor. "It determined whether or not the participants would start the negotiations on equal footing."

A light bulb went on for me with that comment about a phrase I've been chewing over in the Old Testament readings for the last few days, and again this morning in Deuternomy 26:1-11.

"The place the Lord your God will choose" (26:2).

Eleven times, until it nearly becomes a refrain, God's people are reminded that when they want to worship God, it must be at "the place the LORD your God will choose" (Deut. 12:5, 11, 18, 21; 14:24f, 16:6f, 11; 17:8; 26:2). "I mean it!" God seems to be saying.

You shall not worship the LORD your God in such ways (with idols, on "mountain heights, hills and under every leafy tree"). But you shall seek the place that the LORD your God will choose out of all your tribes as his habitation to put his name there. You shall go there . . . (Deut. 12:3, 4, 5)

It's clear that God insists on defining the turf and setting the terms for when and where Israel was to meet God to keep pagan influence and ideas from corrupting their own worship practice and relationship with God. But there's another reasonGod makes such a big deal about "the shape of the table" at which we sit down with him.

You shall not act as we are acting here today, all of us according to our own desires. (Deut. 12:8)

Our tendency, no less than the stubborn tribe of Israel, is to try to set our own terms for meeting with God. Decide where we want to worship. Decide what style of worship suits us best. Decide what kind of message we want to hear. Decide what's really practical in the teaching of Jesus. Decide what we want to do, and then ask God to bless it. Consumer mindset toward spirituality was no less a problem in Moses' time than it is in ours.

But here's the problem: We don't negotiate our relationship with God! We don't start off, or end up, on equal footing with God!

Our congregation is about to start a twelve week study called "Experiencing God." Week One, Day One of week begins with the story of the call of Abram - "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land will show you" (Genesis 12:1) - and then asks, "Are you ready to follow God's will that way? Check your response." The responses are:

[] "NO, I don't think God will ever ask me to go anywhere that He doesn't show me ahead of time where I am going."
[] "I'm not sure."
[] "YES, I am willing to follow Him by faith and not by sight."

The gist of the study is this: If we want to experience God, it will be on God's terms, not ours. And that's good news, because it means that our "spiritual journey" is not our search after God, even though our father was "a wandering Aramean" (Deut 26:5); it's us following God where God leads. That's what makes for real peace.

Yearning for the Kingdom with you,
Erwin

Blog Purgatory

2005-05-31T17:25:00.000-05:00

Much of the Christian life is lived between memory and promise, and faithfulness in that near purgatory requires a whole lot of self-discipline. Which is why, maybe, for me, it is a kind of purgatory. I’ve never been very good at self discipline, and, quite honestly, resent the need for it.

I know it’s been over a week since my last post here, and in the meantime, Ruth has been gleaning in Boaz’s field, coming closer and closer to him until one night she crawled under his blanket. And Timothy has been receiving instructions about how to order church life and what to include in his teaching curriculum. Both sets of readings from last week (Ruth 1-4 and 1 Timothy 1 -6) provide a wealth of material to consider what Reinhold Neibhur called “the enduring problem” of Christ and culture; or to expand it somewhat, gospel and culture; or even more, God’s purposes and culture. Just to mention a few examples, besides Ruth’s brazen offering of herself to Boaz, which the story teller takes in stride without a hint of judgment, there is the practice of “kinsman redeemers” (3:13, 4:1-6) and the curious custom of exchanging a sandal to seal a deal (4:7). In Timothy, Paul’s prohibitions and prescriptions, especially around the role of women in the church (2:9-15; 5:3-16) suggest a clash of cultures that was then and is still being negotiated today. Reading these two sets of texts side by side, I’d have a pretty hard time arguing that “no woman is to teach a man” (1 Timothy 2:12) or that only widows over 60 and married once qualify for the church’s pension plan (1 Timothy 5:9-11), is any more a requirement of the gospel than that property cannot be inherited by women or that the nearest male relative has both a right and responsibility to marry a childless widow, as it was in Ruth’s time. And yet somehow, Paul is able to claim that the church (the household or assembly of God) is the “pillar and support of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). That’s the interesting and tricky intersection of gospel and culture that has occupied so much of my thinking over the last few years, and maybe the reason I didn’t write anything about that this past week is that it’s such a huge subject.* That’s my excuse, anyway, and I’m sticking to it. But the fact that I haven’t written daily — a discipline I’m trying to impose on myself — has also been a huge monkey on my back.

This morning’s reading from the Hebrew scriptures ( Deuteronomy 4:9-14) brings me face to face with this business of self-discipline. God’s people are still “beyond the Jordan” (Deut.1:1), close to entering the promised land, but not yet there, and the great events of God’s fiery and thunderous self-revelation are forty years in the past. This place between the remembered experience of God’s presence (“you once stood before the Lord your God at Horeb”) and the not-yet reached fulfillment of God’s promises (“the land you are about to cross into”) is one of great danger, where it is easy to “forget what eyes have seen.” And so, the call to self discipline.

“But take care and watch yourselves closely, so as neither to forget the things that your eyes have seen nor to let them slip from your mind all the days of your life.” (4:9, NRSV).

The discipline that is called for is the maintenance of the memory of what God has done and what God has said, and the continuance of walking in the light and the direction of that revelation, until God is experienced again.

I don’t like watching myself closely. Watching my cholesterol, watching my diet, watching my TV viewing habits, watching my tongue, watching my manners, paying attention to my personal study habits, taking care to get regular exercise and proper sleep — they all seem like such chores to me, and I take no delight in them at all. But I understand they are all threads of a larger and more consequential faithfulness. And that’s why I just spent 4 hours thinking about and writing this blog, such as it is.

Seeking the Kingdom with you,
Erwin

* (Check out the several hundred articles on the Gospel and Our Culture Network site.)

The Next Shot

2005-05-23T08:52:00.000-05:00

The best score I ever got for 9 holes of golf was a 41, but it was on a flat, wide-open course that was so dry, even worm-burners off the tee turned into 230-yard “drives.” The best game I ever played gave me a 46, but it was a score I truly earned on a decent course. I did it by playing a mental game with myself. Before every shot, I convinced myself that the only shot that actually counted was the next one. It didn't matter what I was lying, or whether I'd nailed my last drive or duffed my chip, or if this would end up being the last shot I'd hit all day; the entire game was contained in that next shot – in fact, that next shot was the entire game. How I lined myself up, adjusting for my lie, checking my grip, seeing the swing, imagining the flight path of the ball, keeping my head down, letting the club do the work on this next shot, was all that would count in the end. I convinced myself of that, and I did that for every shot . . . well, for 80% of the shots; I did end up with a 46, after all. But it was the most exciting and satisfying game of golf I ever played.

It's ironic to me that the Old Testament reading for today (Ruth 1:1-18) is a nearly mythical story of the beginning of a genealogy (see the end of Ruth, 4:13-22), and the New Testament reading (1 Timothy 1:1-17) begins with a warning against obsession with “myths and endless genealogies that promote speculations rather than the divine training that is known by faith” (1:4). But both readings seem to point to the priority and importance of present choices that lead to new beginnings and different outcomes.

I'm surprised by the thought that in the case of Ruth, it was not primarily faith in the LORD or a decision for Yahweh that motivated her. She wasn't choosing to “go where you go, lodge where you lodge” with Naomi, to exchange families and change citizenship and convert to a new religion because she was choosing Naomi's God over her own people and gods. (Even Naomi herself seems to assume that one set of gods is as good as another in v. 15.) What seems to have motivated Ruth was love and loyalty to Naomi herself. Perhaps the pathways to faith are sometimes faithfulness to more immediate callings, responsibilities and relationships. Maybe you don't always have to see the forest for the trees. Maybe sometimes, all the matters is the next tree.

From Paul's perspective, the focus on faith and the present grace in which we stand is much more clearly a conscious break from the past. “I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence” (1:13). Paul is much more aware of the hand of God in his life through the “grace of our Lord that overflowed for him with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” (1:14), and of the divine purpose and eternal trajectory of his life. Which is why, it seems to me, Paul is also so interested in “forgetting what lies behind” (Philippians 3:13) and focusing on the next shot.

“Today is the first day of the rest of your life” is one of those clichés that's become so overused that you don't even see it on bumper stickers anymore. But you know what? not all clichés are trite.

It's been a rough week in a number of ways, but all that matters now are the next choices I make; how I line myself up for my next shot at life, which is today.

Seeking the Kingdom with you,
Erwin

Forgetting TV

2005-05-22T11:05:00.000-05:00

I forgot to watch TV yesterday. Its not that I'm addicted to TV or anything (I don't think), but usually, sometime during the day, I sit down and say, "I've got to relax," and usually that means watching TV.

This Saturday I had to get up and get going fairly early, leading a meeting at church for three hours, and then I spent the rest of the afternoon preparing for another meeting next week, in between helping my son learn the U.S. Presidents from McKinnley to "W." (numbers 25 through 43) for his American History final on Monday. It was 7:30 by the time I came to a stopping point and had supper and packed up my laptop for the night. Which is when I would usually say, "time to relax" and go watch some T.V.

But throughout the day yesterday, I felt the urge to go read the daily lectionary reading for the day, and write (or at least think about) my next blog, which is what I did. It being "Eve of Trinity Sunday," I read Ephesians 3:14-21, and with the wonderful words of verse 19, which spoke to me more by their familiarity than by their profundity, I fell asleep.

". . . to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,
so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."

But just before I fell asleep, I realized I had forgotten to watch T.V. all day. Hallelujah! Scripture had intersected mindless vegging right out of my day!

Seeking the Kingdom with you,

Shacks and Cathedrals

2005-05-20T09:45:00.000-05:00

Think about this: the largest cathedral is too small for God and leaves him unimpressed, yet the simplest hovel fits him well, and merits his attention. That's what the first two verses in today's post from God in Isaiah 66:1-6 seems to imply.

This is what the LORD says:
"Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool.
Could you ever build me a temple as good as that?
Could you build a dwelling place for me?
My hands have made both heaven and earth, and they are mine.
I, the LORD, have spoken!
"I will bless those who have humble and contrite hearts,
who tremble at my word. (NLT)

I've had the privilege of visiting a few great cathedrals in Europe and in the U.S. St. Stephan's in Vienna, with its catacombs and 600-year old, 46-story south tower that still dominates the cultural and architectural if not spiritual landscape of the city. The millenium old St. Matthew's in Budapest that survived the Ottoman Turkish occupation and where Hungarian kings were crowned and married. The National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. where presidents worship and are eulogized. And even St. Mary's here in Covington, KY, which has the largest stained glass window of any church in the world.

As impressive as each of these edifices is, as much appreciation and even awe as they inspired in me, I felt the presence of God much more powerfully in a shack I stumbled across on a hike in the woods at the Trappist monostary of Gethsemene (of Thomas Merton fame) in Bardstown, Kentucky. It was tiny, maybe 5' x 6', slapped together out of various bits and pieces of plywood and lumber and sheet metal, like maybe a child’s fort would be. One opening for a door and two plexiglass windows provided all the light. It was furnished with a simple small desk that might have been a telephone stand, and a simple oak wooden bench. The walls were filled with the most amazing stuff — a nylon flag of praying hands on a Bible, pruning shears, a fly swatter, a cheap blue plastic cross that says “with God all things are possible,” ziplock bags filled with pamphlets, a handlettered copy of a prayer by Br. M. Edward Knight who died at 98 in 1983 – “God is looking on” it says – a camp shovel, a photograph of a young man holding a bird, two umbrellas, pictures of the Sacred Heart of Mary and Jesus, various crosses, crucifixes and rosary beads, and even a mud wasp nest. On the desk was a paper cup of pencils, a small frozen bottle of holy water, various religious trinkets, and a wooden basket of spiral bound notebooks with a small hand scribbled note card, laminated, that said “Welcome and Peace to all who come here and pray.” The spiral notebooks were filled with prayers — prayers of gratitude for this place, for the Lord’s love and mercy; prayers for healing, direction, peace and forgiveness; prayers for family members and friends and for the brothers of this Abbey. And it is those prayers that made this a holy place, just as it is prayer that sanctifies our lives which are made up of so many gaudy, rusty, childish things.

Cathedrals used to take centuries and still take decades to build. This shack was probably slapped together in an afternoon. The contrast between the two couldn't be greater.

But this is the one to whom I will look,
to the humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles at my word. (Isa. 66:2)

My Bible calls this passage in Isaiah "The Worship God Demands." I seem to recall a passage from writer Annie Dillard (though I can't find it right now) about the contrast between worship in high churches where the priest "saunters through the liturgy like mohawks on high steel" and a little country church she was attending where the pastor began his pastoral prayer, "O God, we're having a hard time!"

I believe it is important to offer our best in worship, that choirs and liturgy and practice and skilled and thoughtful leadership and beautiful music and buildings and windows all matter -- although saying "Let the Lord be glorified" doesn't gaurantee we won't "be put to shame" (Isa. 66:5). What a powerful and reassuring thought that God is no less present and attentive to our prayers and worship when we sit down in our offices or dens or living rooms or on a log in the woods and "tremble at his word" (Isa. 66:2, 5). That's who God hears.

Seeking the Kingdom with you,
Erwin F. Goedicke

On the Other Hand

2005-05-18T17:45:00.000-05:00

Remember that wonderful scene in "Fiddler on the Roof" where Tevya is caught in an argument between two Rabbis? The first one makes a point. "You're right!" Tevya says. The second Rabbi makes a contradictory point. "You're right!" Tevya says. A third Rabbi, looking on, says, "Wait a minute, they can't both be right." "You know," Tevya says, "you're right too."

I've never mediated a dispute, to my recollection, at least, that didn't have two sides to it. I've done marriage counseling with couples, helped staff and church members work through disagreements and conflicts, been part of special commissions of our Presbytery to resolve church conflict, and even been asked to moderate a contentious meeting of our local community council. There are always two sides (obviously! which is why there is a need to mediate and resolve conflcit). What I mean though, is I've never been in a situation like that where I didn't see some ligitimacy in each of the two sides. I can't remember a situation where I said, "You're completely right and you're completely wrong." I often feel like just like Tevya who is always arguing with himself. "He has a point. On the other hand, he also has a point!"

Maybe I simply don't have the gift of discernment and I see too many shades of gray. But I notice that Scripture often lifts up to apparently contradictory points. In Tuesday's Old Testament reading, Isaiah's side was Deus absconditus - "God, you have hidden yourself from us!" Wednesday and Thursday's reading (Isaiah 65:1-25) gives God's counterpoint.

I was ready to be sought out by those who did not ask,
to be found by those who did not seek me.
I said, "Here I am, here I am," to a nation that did not call on my name.
I held out my hands all day long. . . (Isaiah 65:1-2a)

Can they both be right? God is hidden - God is ready to be found? It's tempting to try to resolve this conflict by taking God's side: "Israel, do you hear what God is saying? God is admitting that he hid himself, but only because you ignored him first. And even in his hiddenness he was ready and able to be found." But I don't think it's that simple. Back in the beginning, Adam and Eve hid themselves from God, after they had sinned, and God went looking for them. But where was God earlier that day when the first couple were having their tete-a-tete with the devil? If he hadn't been absent then, things would have been different.

The Bible is full of antinomies or paradoxes: the sovereignty of God and human free will; God own everything (Ps. 24:1) and God has given us charge of everything (Ps. 8:6); Jesus is fully God and fully human. Trying to resolve those by taking one side or the other has always led to some sort of heresy. Maybe God's hiddenness from us at times, God's absence when we think God should be intervening and God's promised "I will be with you always" is the same: a paradox that is best not resolved, best held on to tightly with both hands, no matter how much that stretches us.

Seeking the Kingdom with you,
Erwin F. Goedicke

Intersecting with Deus Absconditus

2005-05-18T01:35:00.000-05:00

Okay, I'm going to give it a shot. Blogging, I mean. Though I've been journaling for something like 30 years (if somewhat sporadically), blogging is new to me and a little scary. Well, maybe a lot scary! I mean, this is a commitment, right? And a public one at that. But thanks to a friend's encouragement and example, I'm thinking this just might be the forum that provides the intersection for several stirrings in me: the desire to write more and to submit my writing to some sort of public scrutiny, and the need to be more disciplined – not so much about writing in general, though that wouldn't be so bad in itself – but disciplined about reflecting intentionally on another important intersection for me: the vertical line of God's word with the horizontal line of my life, and (hopefully), life in general.

Maybe it seems obvious that God's word --- which, by the way, for me comes through the Christian Scriptures --- would be the vertical line in that intersection. But I don't think that's a given. I think there's a big difference between going along in life and asking, “now what verse can I find to help me deal with this thing?” and reading through the Bible in some disciplined way and asking, “What is God saying to me through this word? How does this word shape how I think about, respond to, and order my day?” Not that God doesn't sometimes speak to us through verses we remember in certain situations, but more often than not, if I'm doing the picking of text and subject, I'm setting the agenda instead of listening and looking for God. The point is that my intention for this undertaking is to reflect --- as often as I can, and I hope it will be every day --- on one of the readings of the Daily Lectionary.

Okay, enough about that, before I get sidetracked in a discussion about lectionaries and so bogged down that I abandon this whole project before I get started. And speaking of abandonment . . . this morning's reading (actually, Tuesday morning's reading) was Isaiah 63:15-64:9. My version of the Bible titles this passage “A Prayer of Penitence,” but it seems more accusatory than penitent to me.

“Where are your zeal and your might?
The yearning of your heart and your
compassion?” (63:15)
“Why, O Lord, do you make us stray from your ways?”
(63:17)
“You have hidden your face from us.” (64:7).

Abandonment is not exactly what Isaiah is charging God with. Deus absconditus is more accurate – the God who is hidden. And the surprising thing is that God is not hidden from us because we have offended God with our sin, but rather, “...because you hid yourself, we transgressed”(64:5)!

Forget about easy explanations. “If-God-seems-far-away-guess-who-moved” (with the implication that it wasn't God!) doesn't work here. Isaiah's implication is precisely that: God moved! God is absent! God has absconded! That's not the same as abandonment, because Isaiah also implies that God has a purpose in his hiddenness:

“Yet, O Lord, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter.”
(64:8).

For Martin Luther, to whom we owe the provocative phrase Deus absconditus, God's hiddenness is in fact a form of self-revelation. If that idea makes your head spin, join the club. My simple explanation of it is that you can't really know God without wrestling with God's hiddenness, God's inscrutability, God's invisibility. Yes, I know that Jesus is the visible “image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). But I haven't exactly seen Jesus either, though I take comfort in the blessing for “those who have not see and yet believe” (John 20:29).

But here's the intersection for me of this strange word and my ordinary life, a life that is often characterized with experiences of God's seeming absence: it's the notion that God's hiddenness has a purpose. And maybe that means that I need to pay more attention to the gaps in my journal and in my life and even in my day today. Maybe that's precisely where God is hiding. In the wilderness. In the meantime. In the gaps.
It's worth looking.

Seeking the Kingdom with you,
Erwin F. Goedicke

PS: Well, that's my first attempt. It's probably too long. It definitely took too long. But I'll welcome any feedback, and guidance from you more experienced bloggers out there.