Presby-Musings

I've been doing a lot of thinking and journalling lately around the idea of self-acceptance, which I have to admit has been a challenging exercise.  I also get the feeling that this is an issue that touches all of us, and some of us more than others.   For my part, I feel like I'm constantly doing battle with the hard-to-shake theology that I grew up with, and the message that was ingrained in us that we were sinful wretches, undeserving of grace, and under the watchful eye of a vengeful and angry God.   That kind of belief doesn't lend itself well to thoughts of self-acceptance, in case you were wondering.  And sadly, I feel like that is the very kind of message that is still being perpetuated in churches all over America.   And even in churches where you might hear messages about how God loves you "as you are," you will get all kinds of other messages that seem to negate that.  Or you figure out pretty quickly that "as you are" is a pretty narrow categ

Recently, we celebrated the latest class of Confirmands at my church.   As part of their confirmation, each of the students was asked to write a "statement of faith."  When I read their statements, I was blown away by how honest they were, and I was also warmed by their heartfelt simplicity.   I also knew that whatever they wrote was merely a marker of where they are right now  in their faith journey, and that their words and beliefs would undoubtedly change over time.  As they should.   After we celebrated the Confirmands, I started pondering the whole idea of a statement of faith.  I wondered what we were asking our students to do, exactly. I  also wondered how many of the adults in our congregation could articulate their faith in a paragraph or two.   Then I started thinking about the whole concept of faith, itself... which is where you go with this kind of thing if you are me, and you probably think way too deeply about these kinds of things.   Think about this... Most li

Over the years, I've written a lot here about light and darkness---focusing most often on the way the light of Christ overcomes the darkness of evil in this world.  Or I've written about how that same light shines within each of us, and how sharing that light can change the world around us if we have the courage to let it shine.   The imagery of light shining in the darkness is powerful and indelible.  The light brings things into sharper focus and allows us to see the world more clearly.  The light illuminates the shadowy spaces where injustice often hides.   The light also shows us the way forward when the fog of uncertainty would hide the path from our eyes--something that we all need so badly right now.   But I got to thinking about something today... what if darkness also has a place in the kingdom of God?   And by "darkness" I'm not referring to evil as if it has to be in a yin and yang kind of relationship with the light of "goodness."  There may

One of my favorite TV shows of all time is the J.J. Abrams-produced  Fringe , which only ran for four seasons from 2008-2013 before succumbing to the whims of some feckless studio executive.   I say this with some bitterness because it was an amazing show that deserved more episodes and also a less hurried finale.  Still, I love it.  And one of the many reasons I love it is that a major part of the storyline has to do with alternate universes.  For some reason, the idea of alternative universes, multiple histories and the like really sparks my imagination.   I am intrigued by the idea that there is some version of me in some alternate history that zigged instead of zagged and is a co-owner of a small theater that shows cult movies... or a wealthy adventurer... or a history professor (I almost made that last one happen).   Now listen, I'm not saying that I believe all of this for sure , but I do believe that God's reality is just on the other side of our reality.  There's no

In her most recent book, author Anne Lamott tells an interesting story about a guy who crashed his plane in the frozen tundra of a high mountain range.  The guy wakes up the next day in the hospital with a cast, and he's just as angry as he can be.  The nurse that is caring for him, asks "Why are you angry, it was a miracle that you were saved?"    The guy bitterly replies, "It was no miracle, I  sat there freezing in that wreckage, praying 'God help me!' What a joke. God didn't do anything to help me."  The nurse shoots back, "But you were saved!"   "Yeah," the guy says, "Because some Sherpa came along." I've heard other amusing stories like that before, including a rather famous one about a guy praying for God to save him as he awaited rescue on the roof of his house during a flood.   In that story, the guy seals his fate by refusing to be rescued every time someone shows up to do so, telling them that he doesn'

This week we're continuing the sermon series We > Me: Together We Can Do More, and we're wrestling with the question, "Does the Church still matter?"  Today we're going to take a peek at some letters that were written to some of the earliest Christian churches in the first century, and we're going to learn what it means to be part of a community of faith where the "We" is all about building one another up.   First, let me ask you something.  What letters do we remember the most?  And you can lump emails into these as well because that kind of counts right now.  Or Facebook messages, if you want, or direct messages on Twitter... you get the idea.  So, what letters do you remember the most---the ones that stood out for you?  That you can still recall how it felt to read it?  We want to say that it's the good letters that we remember more easily, right?   And you probably can think of those letters if I give you enough time.  But truth be told, t

One of my favorite lines from my favorite movie The Big Lebowski  is uttered by veteran actor Sam Elliot, who delivers it with a bit of a Texas twang:  "Sometimes you eat the b'ar... and sometimes the b'ar, well he eats you."   Yesterday was one of those days when the "b'ar" (bear) got me real good.  I felt pretty mauled after all was said and done.  Things started devolving pretty early, and kind of kept it up as the day wore on.  What started as a simple addition of an internet phone in my wife's home office, devolved into a full-blown mess with my internet provider inexplicably killing my internet for hours without a promised call-back.   Everyone had to scramble around to get their work done, and the phone never got added because of equipment "incompatibilities."  The people we called to fix the problem asked if we had other people to call to fix the problem---that they basically created.   But what I heard  was: "You really tried

I was talking to a recent Presbyterian seminary graduate the other day, and she related to me how her seminary experienced had changed her.   "I grew up in the Southern Baptist Church," she told me.  "Before I went to seminary, I never knew there was such a thing as female pastors, and then I was studying to become one if I wanted to."   If you are flummoxed by this, let me explain...  The official stance of the Southern Baptist Convention is that women cannot become pastors, and also ought not to "teach a man," according to some of the much-disputed and terribly interpreted words of the Apostle Paul.   To be fair, Southern Baptists don't have a corner on the market when it comes to patriarchal and misogynistic structures, and they sure as heck don't own the title of doing violence to the Scriptures.   There's plenty of that kind of stuff abounding in all kinds of Christian denominations and churches.   Also, I should add that the times they ar

I've been reading and learning a lot about surrender lately, and here's what I'm learning:  Surrender is hard.  And if you're going to follow Jesus' example, it's especially hard.   Following Jesus more fully means that you surrender your own will to God's, you surrender the outcomes of things that you want to control, and you do your best to make decisions and move forward, surrendering all of that, too.   On top of all that, you also have to practice letting go of unhealthy attachments, forgiving slights (both real and imagined), working on being non-reactive to the actions of others, letting yourself feel anger, sadness, loss, and anxiety, but not being controlled by it... the list goes on, my friends.   In short, it sucks to practice surrender, and most of us aren't that good at it.  Also, throwing up your hands and "surrendering" your efforts to surrender, is not surrender.  That's something else, and it's fairly self-destructive. 

  I saw this story the other day about this guy in Russia who for the past twenty-five years or so amassed a following of 10,000 people, all living with him in a remote, woodland village in the middle of nowhere.   The guy convinced these people to sell their belongings, and enter into what appeared to be kind of an idyllic commune.  Ten thousand  people.   How did he do this?  Well, he claimed to be Jesus of course.  At one point, he was an ordinary traffic cop, living an ordinary life near Moscow.  Then one day he woke up and realized he was Jesus.  He grew out his hair, his beard and even took to wearing long white robes.  If you look at all the artist renderings of Jesus where Jesus looks like a white dude, then you'll pretty much have the picture of this guy in your head.   Anyway, the guy was finally arrested and put into jail for stealing from his own followers.  I know this is a shocking conclusion to that story.  Never saw that coming, did you?  At any rate, I got to think

A couple of years ago, I attended a two-day conference hosted by Richard Rohr.  It was two days of incredible wisdom and teaching from one of the greatest teachers of our time, and I took copious notes, writing down everything he said that resonated with me.   But of all the things that he said, there is one thing that has come back to me over and again, and I have never really felt like I've understood it all that well.  This is what he said:  God comes to you disguised as your life.  I've struggled against that bit of wisdom because I want to modify it to say something like, "God comes to you disguised as the best parts of your life." That makes more sense to me.   Because how could all of the worst parts be God, too, am I right?   I was listening to a song by Sean C. Kennedy today entitled, "Let Life Love You," and I found myself beginning to understand what Rohr meant a bit better.  The chorus to the song goes like this:    The meaning of life is to let

There is this scene in Star Wars Episode VI - Return of the Jedi where, as part of his Jedi training, Luke Skywalker enters into a cave where he ultimately confronts his greatest fear.   I was in high school when the movie came out and had not yet really discovered Plato's Allegory of the Cave , nor had I read any of the great literary critic Joseph Campbell's work on the hero cycle.   I just thought it was shocking and pretty deep that when Luke discovers a vision of Darth Vader in the cave and then defeats the dark figure only to discover his own face behind the mask. "Coooool!" I seem to remember exclaiming when I saw it.   Little did I know at that time just how fundamental that very storyline is to the way we come to know and understand ourselves.  It's also a wonderful illustration of how when we finally find the courage to turn and face our fears, we often find our own faces staring back at us. I mentioned the author and literary critic Joseph Campbell a b

I was talking to someone the other day about baptism, which is the kind of conversation that you find yourself talking about with people when you do the kind of work that I do.  I mean, it's possible that more people talk about baptism on the regular, and I just don't know about it.  I guess I'm assuming an awful lot here, but call it a pretty good hunch that kind of topic doesn't make it into a lot of conversations.  So, I'm having this conversation about baptism and the way that some churches insist that you need to be baptized in their church community before you can become a part of it, and how most of those kinds of churches usually insist on "dunking" or immersing you underwater for it to be legit.  Full disclosure: My particular church, which travels in what is often referred to as the "Mainline" lane in Protestant Christianity, accepts into membership anyone who has been baptized--no matter where or when it happened.   And for anyone who

This morning I stepped outside and could hear the birds singing after the rain that had passed in the early hours.  It was a cacophony of sound---as if the birds were all checking on one another to make sure everyone was still there.   And then I heard a little girl singing in the midst of the birdsong.  It was faint at first, but then it grew as she moved from her front porch on the house across the street to her driveway.  I strained to make out the song she was singing, but the sound was coming from too far away.  Still, despite the fact I couldn't hear the words, the melody was plain, beautiful, simple, and absolutely glorious.   I found myself closing my eyes to listen to her song, which was accompanied by the sound of what seemed like a hundred different birds.   I don't know why I'm thinking of that now.  Maybe it's because I've spent the entire day in meetings, in class, talking on the phone--busy with work, worried by a thousand different things, feeling li

  I was in a meeting today, listening to someone share a story about a challenge they were facing.  And then she said something that was so amazing that I wrote it down, and now I'm sharing it with you:  Life is now in session.  There's a number of ways that you could take that line outside of the context of when and how it was said---so let me illuminate it a bit.  When she said it, the woman wasn't complaining, she wasn't bemoaning her fate over the hard thing that she was having to stare down and overcome.  She said it with a determination and confidence that was striking, and inspiring.   It's like she was saying, "This is how it's going to be. I've got to deal with this.  I can't shrink away from it.  I can't back down.  There is no way but forward.  Life is in session."   I can't tell you how much that fired me up.   We've all had our share of hard things to stare down over the past seventeen months (and counting), so it's

At my church, we are finally moving forward to begin in-person, indoor worship, and gatherings after nearly seventeen months of being online-only.   It's been a long process, and there are still many things that need doing before we're ready, but it's close at last.   So naturally, I've been thinking a lot lately about what church will look like in the weeks and months ahead.  In short, the church won't look the same as it did prior to COVID, that much is clear, but beyond that, I'm not at all certain.  Quite a few of my church members have told me how excited they are that we'll be back in person.  They've informed me that all of their friends say they will be there when we open the doors.   I'm excited, too.  I'm probably a little more cautiously optimistic, though.  I've learned to calibrate my expectations over this past year.  But still, the thought of being able to preach with actual people in the room is one that brings me joy. People

Today we are continuing the sermon series, We > Me and we are wrestling with the question, "Does Church Still Matter?"  I'm going to assume that if you are watching today that the answer to that question is probably "Yes!" This is kind of an insider message today to be fair.  I'm going to be addressing those of us who have gathered, or who are watching or maybe even viewing this after it's happened.   And I figure that Church still matters to you at some level, or you might be curious to what I am going to be talking about today--either way, this is directed at a churchier kind of audience.  If you are watching or viewing and you aren't very church-y---don't go anywhere!  You're going to want to hear this.  In fact, this might be the kind of sermon that you have wished for a long time that pastors would preach to their churches.  In 2014 there was a study by Gallup that was commissioned by Group publishing--a study that asked emerging gene