It seems sometimes that everything is closing in around us, like everything is falling apart, like there is simply no hope for things to improve.
Shiloh has been under a cloud for the first several months of 2014. The weather has been awful. It has kept many away, both from worship and from activities in the life of the church. When people do not come, everything in the life of the congregation suffers, from morale to money.
As always, Shiloh has been a very busy place, where we work tirelessly to "Live the Word by Serving the World." The February concentration on Black History Month was meaningful and energizing, as was the celebration on March 2-3. Bible @ Boston's has been going strongly enough, especially through that celebration and into Lent. Weekly Bible studies are sparsely attended but very meaningful for those who have been attending. The dedication concert for Shiloh's organ console was well attended and a tremendous success, despite the fact that the antiphonal, which worked just that morning, ceased to function.
The staff has been decimated by illness and injury. One member of the staff has had knee replacement surgery and is not yet back to the office. Another faces triple bypass surgery later this week, and faces at least eight weeks off of work. A third has just been hospitalized with pneumonia. A fourth has been affected by flu-like symptoms, and has missed some activities. A fifth staff member is on vacation this week, while the rest of us are walking and driving very carefully. We simply can't afford another staff member off work and maintain anything like the level of activity to which Shiloh has become accustomed.
It has felt recently as though, like Milne's Eeyore, a dark cloud has settled over us. We do excellent ministry, but it seems more and more difficult to accomplish the things that we had, in the past, taken for granted.
Perhaps it is appropriate at this point in the season of Lent to feel the oppression of the surrounding darkness. Maybe it is right for us to feel a sense of dark depression, to recognize the impending doom of both Jesus' Crucifixion and our own faithful response. It may be the case that we are unable to genuinely experience the light of Resurrection without first passing through the darkness of death.
As we heard during Shiloh's Black History Month celebration, maybe these are times that we can but "watch and pray," waiting for the light of new life to break into the gathering gloom. Pray for Ken and Sid and Martha and Aaron. Pray for one another, as we take this journey together.
Watch and pray!
Monday, March 31, 2014
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
The Power of Gethsemane
In preparation for Shiloh's Bible @ Boston's series, I am comparing the Gospel Crucifixion narratives, beginning with the Passover meal and Jesus' establishment of a new religious ritual. Several events occur during that fateful meal that portend the danger that is to come for Jesus and his followers. After the meal, the troupe heads out together for the Garden of Gethsemane. It is what happens there that speaks loudest to me this Lenten season of Jesus' profound faith and willingness to pursue God's will, at all costs.
After the meal, the disciples sing a hymn with Jesus and go out to the Mount of Olives, to a garden there, as was Jesus' custom, according to Luke's account. At Gethsemane, Jesus asks his disciples to wait and to watch. He takes with him Peter and James and John, and they depart from the others. Jesus encourages his closest disciples to pray, "that they might not enter into temptation." Jesus removes himself a short distance and prays.
He prays something like this: Father, if it is possible, I pray that you remove this cup from me. Let this hour pass. Yet, let not just what I will to be done. But let what you will be done.
Years ago, I read a great, insightful novel about the plight that Jesus, and we, face. It was entitled "The Last Temptation of Christ," by Nikos Kazantzakis. In the final moments of the narrative, Jesus hangs, in agony, on the Cross. He whispers the pathos of the moment, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" In the moment that follows, Kazantzakis writes Jesus envisioning a life that might have been, a life that could have been, a life of human contentment and practical pleasures. At the same time, Jesus realizes that his act of sacrifice is not being accomplished for himself, but for the benefit of every person who has, does and will live. It is about them. It is not about Jesus. In the next instant, Jesus sees the wonderful value of his ministry and gives voice to his acceptance of that mission by stating, "It is finished." Jesus breathes his last and dies.
No one, it seems to me, desires suffering and death. If a person exhibits any form of sanity, his or her first impulse is to remain alive and well. In his Gethsemane prayer, Jesus articulates for faithful people throughout time the mantra of sacrificial ministry. "Please, Lord, do not ask me to do this. It's very painful. Yet, if it be your will, then I will do as you ask."
Can we feel the depth of Jesus' struggle? Do we simply write off his suffering as being somehow covered up in his divinity? Do we ignore the pain and the emptiness of Jesus' calling because we call him The Son of Man?
It is sad, I think, that we do. For, if we were to feel Jesus' struggle, we might much better be able to understand our calling. See now, the point of Lent is not just Jesus. It is not just about his journey to the sacrifice of the Cross. It is also about ours. It is about human tendency to turn away from the sacrifice, to a life of human need and desire, to human benefits and practical applications, to longevity and selfishness. Lent encompasses each and every calling, highlighting for each the cost of discipleship and apostleship.
Lent is a spiritual discipline, to pray in order that we not enter into the temptation that lies between "Why have you forsaken me" and "It is finished." Three times there in the garden, Jesus returns to his disciples, only to find them sleeping. "Could you not remain awake for even one hour?" he asks them. "Nevertheless, rise, my betrayer is at hand." He says. "So the Son of Man is placed into the hands of sinners."
We weep for the arrested Jesus because we feel our own faithfulness being tested. The disciples, we are told, scattered, like sheep whose shepherd is struck. They would not enter into Jesus' suffering and death. They remained safe and secure, though frightened. We stand, with them, on the periphery of Jesus' sacrificial ministry. We stand, isolated from our own.
Lord, even if it costs us everything, do your will in us and through us.
See you at Bible @ Boston's, each Wednesday in Lent, 6:00 - 7:00 p.m. at Boston's Bistro and Pub.
After the meal, the disciples sing a hymn with Jesus and go out to the Mount of Olives, to a garden there, as was Jesus' custom, according to Luke's account. At Gethsemane, Jesus asks his disciples to wait and to watch. He takes with him Peter and James and John, and they depart from the others. Jesus encourages his closest disciples to pray, "that they might not enter into temptation." Jesus removes himself a short distance and prays.
He prays something like this: Father, if it is possible, I pray that you remove this cup from me. Let this hour pass. Yet, let not just what I will to be done. But let what you will be done.
Years ago, I read a great, insightful novel about the plight that Jesus, and we, face. It was entitled "The Last Temptation of Christ," by Nikos Kazantzakis. In the final moments of the narrative, Jesus hangs, in agony, on the Cross. He whispers the pathos of the moment, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" In the moment that follows, Kazantzakis writes Jesus envisioning a life that might have been, a life that could have been, a life of human contentment and practical pleasures. At the same time, Jesus realizes that his act of sacrifice is not being accomplished for himself, but for the benefit of every person who has, does and will live. It is about them. It is not about Jesus. In the next instant, Jesus sees the wonderful value of his ministry and gives voice to his acceptance of that mission by stating, "It is finished." Jesus breathes his last and dies.
No one, it seems to me, desires suffering and death. If a person exhibits any form of sanity, his or her first impulse is to remain alive and well. In his Gethsemane prayer, Jesus articulates for faithful people throughout time the mantra of sacrificial ministry. "Please, Lord, do not ask me to do this. It's very painful. Yet, if it be your will, then I will do as you ask."
Can we feel the depth of Jesus' struggle? Do we simply write off his suffering as being somehow covered up in his divinity? Do we ignore the pain and the emptiness of Jesus' calling because we call him The Son of Man?
It is sad, I think, that we do. For, if we were to feel Jesus' struggle, we might much better be able to understand our calling. See now, the point of Lent is not just Jesus. It is not just about his journey to the sacrifice of the Cross. It is also about ours. It is about human tendency to turn away from the sacrifice, to a life of human need and desire, to human benefits and practical applications, to longevity and selfishness. Lent encompasses each and every calling, highlighting for each the cost of discipleship and apostleship.
Lent is a spiritual discipline, to pray in order that we not enter into the temptation that lies between "Why have you forsaken me" and "It is finished." Three times there in the garden, Jesus returns to his disciples, only to find them sleeping. "Could you not remain awake for even one hour?" he asks them. "Nevertheless, rise, my betrayer is at hand." He says. "So the Son of Man is placed into the hands of sinners."
We weep for the arrested Jesus because we feel our own faithfulness being tested. The disciples, we are told, scattered, like sheep whose shepherd is struck. They would not enter into Jesus' suffering and death. They remained safe and secure, though frightened. We stand, with them, on the periphery of Jesus' sacrificial ministry. We stand, isolated from our own.
Lord, even if it costs us everything, do your will in us and through us.
See you at Bible @ Boston's, each Wednesday in Lent, 6:00 - 7:00 p.m. at Boston's Bistro and Pub.
Monday, March 17, 2014
Money in the Church
One might suspect that the chief issues of division in the modern Christian Church are equal marriage rights, ordination or acceptance of homosexuals, social service ministries, or a lack thereof, abortion, contraception, lyrics in popular music, or the evolution/creation debate. While each may have its claim on the spotlight, I firmly hold that it is none of these. I think that there are two, twin issues that divide the present Church of Jesus Christ. They are: Money and its use and control.
Money divides us into haves and have-nots. It divides us by gender, by social strata, by economic power, by position and advantage, by age, by those who belong and those who remain on the outside, forever looking in. In the Church, money, and control over it, is a destructive and divisive matter of justice, equality and faithful stewardship.
Most congregations struggle with money these days. The great majority of those communities of faith claim that, since aggregate contributions have declined in direct proportion to the decades-long decline in membership and participation, dollars have become rarer and less available for the funding of ministries. As dollars have diminished, so have church staffs, church ministries, functional judicatories, support of denominations, benevolences, hands-on ministries and missions, and impact on communities and neighborhoods. Congregations have tended to close in on themselves financially, saving whatever money might me available for the inevitable "rainy day."
Ministry in and through congregations has diminished with the decreasing availability of dollars. Dollars have become rarer, in direct proportion to the decline in population. Money, and control of its use in congregations, has become a powerful means of division, argument, conflict and narrow-mindedness. Most churches have been affected. Some have fallen apart because of the tension. Many have argued over conflicting points of view.
What is the poor Church to do?
One cannot deny the patterns of the past fifty years. If those patterns continue, congregations will continue to shrink. Fewer and fewer people will be coming and participating. Fewer and fewer dollars will be available to fund the mission and ministry of the Church of Jesus Christ. The Church will become more and more irrelevant to and within culture.
As is nearly always the case, however, it is precisely where the greatest challenge is found that the Church finds the greatest potential and promise for change. If the Church of Jesus Christ is to stem the tide of social irrelevance, if it is to reverse the trend of shrinking dollars, diminishing membership and participation, disappearing ministries and missions, then it has got to begin by changing its mind about the use and control of money.
Money will not guarantee continuation of the Church of Jesus Christ. Endowments will not promise longevity. They may simply delay the inevitable. Unless, that is, if congregations invest dollars differently. Until a time when churches see the funds entrusted to them as God's call to expanded ministries and missions, until churches use whatever dollars may be available for community and neighborhood ministries and missions, until churches risk, become vulnerable, dare to lay out their last cents, the tide of decline will continue to roll.
When churches learn the challenging lessons of excellence in stewardship, when they unlearn the worldly tendency of fear and worry, then the Church begins to invest in God's calling, in God's ministry, in God's ongoing mission.
Money, then, is both the church's greatest challenge today and its most promising potential. If the church is to work its way through decline and disappearance, then it is going to have to invest its dollars in a different way of being the Church of Jesus Christ. If organizational longevity and continuation remain the goal of the use and control of congregational monies, churches will continue to decline and disappear. The risk is amazingly difficult in congregations. The call to faithful stewardship is challenging. Upon that risky call, however, rests the very future of the Church of Jesus Christ.
Money divides us into haves and have-nots. It divides us by gender, by social strata, by economic power, by position and advantage, by age, by those who belong and those who remain on the outside, forever looking in. In the Church, money, and control over it, is a destructive and divisive matter of justice, equality and faithful stewardship.
Most congregations struggle with money these days. The great majority of those communities of faith claim that, since aggregate contributions have declined in direct proportion to the decades-long decline in membership and participation, dollars have become rarer and less available for the funding of ministries. As dollars have diminished, so have church staffs, church ministries, functional judicatories, support of denominations, benevolences, hands-on ministries and missions, and impact on communities and neighborhoods. Congregations have tended to close in on themselves financially, saving whatever money might me available for the inevitable "rainy day."
Ministry in and through congregations has diminished with the decreasing availability of dollars. Dollars have become rarer, in direct proportion to the decline in population. Money, and control of its use in congregations, has become a powerful means of division, argument, conflict and narrow-mindedness. Most churches have been affected. Some have fallen apart because of the tension. Many have argued over conflicting points of view.
What is the poor Church to do?
One cannot deny the patterns of the past fifty years. If those patterns continue, congregations will continue to shrink. Fewer and fewer people will be coming and participating. Fewer and fewer dollars will be available to fund the mission and ministry of the Church of Jesus Christ. The Church will become more and more irrelevant to and within culture.
As is nearly always the case, however, it is precisely where the greatest challenge is found that the Church finds the greatest potential and promise for change. If the Church of Jesus Christ is to stem the tide of social irrelevance, if it is to reverse the trend of shrinking dollars, diminishing membership and participation, disappearing ministries and missions, then it has got to begin by changing its mind about the use and control of money.
Money will not guarantee continuation of the Church of Jesus Christ. Endowments will not promise longevity. They may simply delay the inevitable. Unless, that is, if congregations invest dollars differently. Until a time when churches see the funds entrusted to them as God's call to expanded ministries and missions, until churches use whatever dollars may be available for community and neighborhood ministries and missions, until churches risk, become vulnerable, dare to lay out their last cents, the tide of decline will continue to roll.
When churches learn the challenging lessons of excellence in stewardship, when they unlearn the worldly tendency of fear and worry, then the Church begins to invest in God's calling, in God's ministry, in God's ongoing mission.
Money, then, is both the church's greatest challenge today and its most promising potential. If the church is to work its way through decline and disappearance, then it is going to have to invest its dollars in a different way of being the Church of Jesus Christ. If organizational longevity and continuation remain the goal of the use and control of congregational monies, churches will continue to decline and disappear. The risk is amazingly difficult in congregations. The call to faithful stewardship is challenging. Upon that risky call, however, rests the very future of the Church of Jesus Christ.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Spiritual Evolution
I stand by the notion that cultural evolution spawns spiritual, if not necessarily religious, evolution. Readers will discern immediately that I am identifying a disconnect between a spiritual evolution and that which takes place in the religious institutions of a given epoch. Events like the Great Schism and the Great Reformation take place in an atmosphere of significant cultural upheaval, and give rise to amazing spiritual changes. These spiritual changes eventually lead to religious transformation.
The crucial point here may well be that I consider the seismic advances of culture to be evolutionary. More concretely put, I believe that the Church of Jesus Christ finds itself today in the midst of just such a seismic culture shift, characterized, as usual, in new forms of communication, new definitions of personhood, and new paths of religious faithfulness. The cultural shift is already well advanced, having begun at some point in the mid- to late-1960's. The spiritual shift, that which might define the communal ethos or communally shared values, is also well advanced. It is characterized by acceptance of diversity, importance of persons over systems, demands for equality and justice, and invites institutions that create, maintain and protect these virtues.
The Church has, throughout the process of religious evolution, dragged its feet. More honestly phrased, some factions within the Church have sought to pull culture back from the precipice of evolutionary change to a perceived "safer" time, a mythical idyllic age, when people knew their proper place in society and Church and would never dare push for personal or individual rights that are foundational to systemic life. Some religious institutions have simply wanted people to "get back into line," each in his or her "proper place." This tendency is easier for us to perceive in the lives of others, especially the right wing, Taliban-like movements in the Middle East and beyond. But the hesitance can be perceived in our own religious institutions.
Let me go a step further.
I find cultural, spiritual and religious evolution to be a good thing. As steeped as I am in the way that the church used to be, I am even more excited about the possibilities of what the Church of Jesus Christ might become. If we are able to move from control mechanism and ritually based piety, perhaps the Church can be an instrument for peace and reconciliation, for individual and group rights, for personal development and inspirational spiritual calling. I think that this is the work to which Christ calls us.
I am thankful for a culture that has led us here. I am grateful for a new spiritual environment, which requires different systemic and institutional responses. And I am hopeful that the Church of Jesus Christ will stop the attempt at pulling people back into ignorance and begin to function as Christ is now calling it to work.
Shiloh is a place where we continually work at religious and spiritual evolution, community and social relevancy, personal transformation and individual empowerment and calling. I hope that you are excited as I am about the future of this congregation and the evolving Church of Jesus Christ.
The crucial point here may well be that I consider the seismic advances of culture to be evolutionary. More concretely put, I believe that the Church of Jesus Christ finds itself today in the midst of just such a seismic culture shift, characterized, as usual, in new forms of communication, new definitions of personhood, and new paths of religious faithfulness. The cultural shift is already well advanced, having begun at some point in the mid- to late-1960's. The spiritual shift, that which might define the communal ethos or communally shared values, is also well advanced. It is characterized by acceptance of diversity, importance of persons over systems, demands for equality and justice, and invites institutions that create, maintain and protect these virtues.
The Church has, throughout the process of religious evolution, dragged its feet. More honestly phrased, some factions within the Church have sought to pull culture back from the precipice of evolutionary change to a perceived "safer" time, a mythical idyllic age, when people knew their proper place in society and Church and would never dare push for personal or individual rights that are foundational to systemic life. Some religious institutions have simply wanted people to "get back into line," each in his or her "proper place." This tendency is easier for us to perceive in the lives of others, especially the right wing, Taliban-like movements in the Middle East and beyond. But the hesitance can be perceived in our own religious institutions.
Let me go a step further.
I find cultural, spiritual and religious evolution to be a good thing. As steeped as I am in the way that the church used to be, I am even more excited about the possibilities of what the Church of Jesus Christ might become. If we are able to move from control mechanism and ritually based piety, perhaps the Church can be an instrument for peace and reconciliation, for individual and group rights, for personal development and inspirational spiritual calling. I think that this is the work to which Christ calls us.
I am thankful for a culture that has led us here. I am grateful for a new spiritual environment, which requires different systemic and institutional responses. And I am hopeful that the Church of Jesus Christ will stop the attempt at pulling people back into ignorance and begin to function as Christ is now calling it to work.
Shiloh is a place where we continually work at religious and spiritual evolution, community and social relevancy, personal transformation and individual empowerment and calling. I hope that you are excited as I am about the future of this congregation and the evolving Church of Jesus Christ.
Tuesday, March 04, 2014
Service to Others
I was developing a slide show presentation, which was to be used as part of Shiloh's Black History Month celebration, when I ran across a quotation from one of my favorite civil rights activists and scholars, Cornell West. He is quoted as saying, "The benchmark of greatness is finding love and joy in serving others."
Among others pictured in the slide show presentation were Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, Shirley Chisholm, Frederick Douglas, Andrew Young, Thurgood Marshall, Condoleezza Rice, Harriet Tubman, Fannie Lou Hamer, Martin Luther King, Jr, Coretta Scott King, and Barack Obama. It occurs to me that all one may need to know to verify the truth of Cornell West's words are the stories of those mentioned here. In every case, greatness has been determined by the love and joy that each found in service to others, even if that service was at great expense.
I happen to wholeheartedly believe that West's words are lived out in the heroes of every culture, whenever men and women stand in defense of those who are, as Bob Jones put it in his message at Shiloh this past week, "the sheep and the lambs." Whenever human beings, of whatever ethnicity, stand in defense of the victimized, the oppressed, the helpless and the hopeless, love and joy springs from such service. Even if that service renders one a "radical," leading to recrimination, of whatever kind, that person, and the entire human community, experiences love and joy.
So I say to those who are depressed, fatigued, put-upon, tired (and tired of it), find the love and joy of life in serving others.
It is a grand irony, I suppose, to discover that the best elixir for one's sorrows, real or imagined, is not serving one's self, not locating some new self-help strategy, not the next diet fad or the newest nutritional supplement. One best serves one's self by reaching out still further in service to others. Perhaps the magic of selflessness lies in forgetting one's sorrows in the exercise of removing sorrow from the lives of those around us. Perhaps we lift ourselves as enter into the sacrifice and cost of lifting others. Maybe it's as simply as feeling a deep sense of personal satisfaction in doing what we all know to be, a priori, right and good.
I want to thank all those who took part in Shiloh's celebration of Black History Month. I learned again the core lessons of life and faith. Whether those lessons came from the books I read throughout the month - and they did - or if they came through the personal effort of those who dedicated their time, energy and talent to making our celebration a tremendous success - and it has - I genuinely treasure the simple fact that we are all in this life together. We all find benefit in the witness of those who go out of their way to serve.
"The benchmark of greatness is finding love and joy in serving others." Shiloh is doing great ministry! Thanks for all your efforts.
Among others pictured in the slide show presentation were Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, Shirley Chisholm, Frederick Douglas, Andrew Young, Thurgood Marshall, Condoleezza Rice, Harriet Tubman, Fannie Lou Hamer, Martin Luther King, Jr, Coretta Scott King, and Barack Obama. It occurs to me that all one may need to know to verify the truth of Cornell West's words are the stories of those mentioned here. In every case, greatness has been determined by the love and joy that each found in service to others, even if that service was at great expense.
I happen to wholeheartedly believe that West's words are lived out in the heroes of every culture, whenever men and women stand in defense of those who are, as Bob Jones put it in his message at Shiloh this past week, "the sheep and the lambs." Whenever human beings, of whatever ethnicity, stand in defense of the victimized, the oppressed, the helpless and the hopeless, love and joy springs from such service. Even if that service renders one a "radical," leading to recrimination, of whatever kind, that person, and the entire human community, experiences love and joy.
So I say to those who are depressed, fatigued, put-upon, tired (and tired of it), find the love and joy of life in serving others.
It is a grand irony, I suppose, to discover that the best elixir for one's sorrows, real or imagined, is not serving one's self, not locating some new self-help strategy, not the next diet fad or the newest nutritional supplement. One best serves one's self by reaching out still further in service to others. Perhaps the magic of selflessness lies in forgetting one's sorrows in the exercise of removing sorrow from the lives of those around us. Perhaps we lift ourselves as enter into the sacrifice and cost of lifting others. Maybe it's as simply as feeling a deep sense of personal satisfaction in doing what we all know to be, a priori, right and good.
I want to thank all those who took part in Shiloh's celebration of Black History Month. I learned again the core lessons of life and faith. Whether those lessons came from the books I read throughout the month - and they did - or if they came through the personal effort of those who dedicated their time, energy and talent to making our celebration a tremendous success - and it has - I genuinely treasure the simple fact that we are all in this life together. We all find benefit in the witness of those who go out of their way to serve.
"The benchmark of greatness is finding love and joy in serving others." Shiloh is doing great ministry! Thanks for all your efforts.
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