Pastor on Point

Joy as necessary to being

2012-02-16T09:26:00.000-08:00

I have been accused of seeing the world through rose colored glasses. Okay enough, I suppose. Today I have been challenged - sermon won't come easily, there is stress to deliver and to provide, there is much going on around me that is beyond my control -- and it all stacked up today. Searching around the internet for images of love and joy. I came across this. I have no idea what soulpancake is or is not. I only know that in this staged exercise they captured joy. Notice how it is not limited by age or race or whether one has tatoos or not. Good reminder today for me. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit. And joy is necessary to being.

Future and Fate

2012-02-14T11:36:00.000-08:00

image can be found at dwell.co.uk - numberless clock

One of the persistent themes I keep encountering is the theme of speculation about the future. Some of this speculation is mythical and mystical, where there will be persistent reminders all this year about the ancient Mayan calendar which ends in 2012. Some of this speculation is cultural, as an article in last month’s Wall Street Journal called The New American Divide, by Charles Murray, offers for consideration. Its first sentence: “America is coming apart.” Its conclusion: it will continue to do so unless drastic change is made person by person, family by family. Some of the speculation is naturally political. In an election year this speculation will only become more intense. And some is ecclesiological, meaning some of it is about the church. The outstanding Presbyterian journalist Leslie Scanlon published an article last month called, “It’s True: American Protestant Congregations Continue to Decline.” Citing multiple studies she notes that churches report dwindling financial health and demonstrate an inability to connect with young people: a two-fold prescription for a rocky future. Some of the speculation suggests that we in the West will be locked in unending struggles for civilization’s future with cultures in the Middle and Far East. Predictions everywhere are dire. So we have to ask, are our culture, nation, and church fated for decline? When did realism become pessimism?

One thing lacking from the debates in what I read is genuine theological discourse. Good theological understanding might direct us to think that we are to be good stewards of what we have, including this challenging historical moment. Good theology reminds us that the future is not fated. The future belongs to God, and God alone. We preserve the past through memory, history, record keeping, and nostalgia. We engage the present through prayer, dedication, information, and analysis. But the future? We may make our plans and lay our foundations but it belongs to God. The powerful conclusion of the book of Genesis directs this trust when Joseph tells his brothers, “what you intended for evil, God made good.” Meaning that your plans, your preparations were for hardship, but God held our futures and your plans for evil were subject to God’s desire for something better.

I hope many of you either heard Dean Thompson lecture this past weekend or heard him preach on Sunday morning. His presentation was powerful and convincing. One of his subjects was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor and martyr. While Dean was speaking, I kept being drawn back to a little entry in Bonhoeffer’s Meditations on the Cross. The little sentence is simply a scrap from a letter he wrote from prison. It’s called Fate. He says, “The liberating thing about Good Friday and Easter is that one’s thoughts are swept far beyond one’s own personal fate to the ultimate meaning of all life and suffering, and of whatever occurs, such that one is seized by great hope.”

Lent begins in a week on Ash Wednesday (be sure to join us at Ash Wednesday worship, February 22). Lent is a good time to think about the past and pray about the future. Lent is a good time to focus upon Easter, too. And Easter is an ever present reminder that the future belongs to God. Easter is a call to optimism. In hope, I pray that we’ll answer and answer well.

Winter

2012-01-26T18:34:00.001-08:00

One of the most important books I own is called Let Your Life Speak by Parker J. Palmer. It is a book about vocation, calling, and our adoption as children of God. It is a little book that in its few short pages affirms that God claims us, each of us, in profound and ardent ways. I have given it away countless times and recommended it even more. In the final section of the book, called There is a Season which is about how all phases of life inform who we are and who we are becoming, Palmer writes about winter: “Winter is a season when death’s victory can seem supreme: few creatures stir, plants do not visibly grow, and nature feels like our enemy. And yet the rigors of winter, like the diminishments of autumn, are accompanied by amazing gifts. One gift is beauty: I am not sure that any sight or sound on earth is as exquisite as the hushed descent of a sky full of snow. Another gift is the reminder that times of dormancy and deep rest are essential to all living things. Despite all appearances, of course, nature is not dead in winter – it has gone underground to renew itself and prepare for spring. Winter is a time when we are admonished, and even inclined, to do the same for ourselves. Winter has an even greater gift to give. It comes when the sky is clear, the sun is brilliant, the trees are bare, and first snow is yet to come. It is the gift of utter clarity. In winter, one can walk into woods that had been opaque with summer growth only a few months earlier and see the trees clearly, singly and together, and see the ground they are rooted in.”

I love this insight. It is a reminder that none of us suffers from too much clarity. None of us can be reminded too often that deep rest is necessary to our health as families, communities, churches, or individuals. We cannot be reminded too often that the pieces of renewal have not abandoned us so much as they have gone into dormancy. Could it be that prayer and worship are like riding a bike: that even though we may fall out of practice from time to time, we never really forget the operation of the vehicle, or the enterprise of the exercise itself?

If you’ll allow it, this renewal of the exercise is why events like our Winter Retreat are important (coming up on February 10 – 12). It is why worship like Confirmation Sunday is enriching to our entire congregation, not only those directly involved. It is why coming together as sisters and brothers in faith, as we can this Sunday Night, January 29 (Caring Conversations, 7 PM in Davidson Chapel), to talk and pray about grief and loss is necessary. We retreat, worship, and pray together and, as we do, the woods are not so thick, the winter not so cold, and clarity comes as we see the intertwined forests of faith and life as they really are: rooted deeply by a God who even gives gifts in the winters of our lives.

Resolution(s)

2011-12-29T12:00:00.000-08:00

Is anyone out there big on New Year’s resolutions? Resolutions are about resolve, which is determining a course of action and seeing it through to its end. As in, “This is the year I am going to clean out the garage,” or, “this year I am going to lose the extra pounds,” or even, “this is the year I am going to spend less money and time on frivolous pursuits.” Resolutions are goal oriented, forward thinking, and at their best, hopeful. I have heard of very few circumstances where someone was adversely affected by an abundance of hopefulness.

Isn’t that the best part of a new year? There is hope in a fresh start. Hope in a new calendar of opportunity. Hope in the coming of new days ahead.

Among the challenges of our present time are the dire predictions of impending doom. To be sure, ours is a conflicted age. There are real problems out there. Problems that demand prayerfully guided, well-conceived, and appropriately thoughtful approaches. There is no 30 minute fix. But dire predictions about the end of the nation, the end of the church, the end of the family, or the end of…well any dire predictions as though the future were already determined seem to serve little but the fear that inspired the prediction in the first place. Fear left unchecked by faith, hope, and love only creates more fear. We can become wiser through service; wiser through knowledge; wiser by faith; or wiser by trust. I doubt we ever become wiser through rampant fear.

Yesterday was December 28. My birthday. I’ll not write about my age again or speak of it very often. But I wonder as I look at the calendar: what kind of resolution(s) should I have for the next half of my life? What should I do differently? What should I seek from God through prayer?

The truth is I don’t know what the future will hold. What I believe is that the future belongs to God. And maybe this is the most faithful resolution that I, or we, can make: that we will live into the future as we are called by God. Trusting in God, I resolve to pray that this year to come will be a year of joy and blessings, even in the midst of all that is conflicted and which defies simple resolution. I resolve to trust the angels and our Savior who say consistently throughout the New Testament: “be not afraid.” My resolution is to invest even more of energy and effort into loving God and neighbor. It is the 1^st Letter of John which teaches that “perfect love casts out fear.” And in this way, living beyond my fears, trusting an uncertain future to God, I may begin to acquire the wisdom which I lack.

Brothers and sisters: if we have no confidence in the God who shall rule the days to come, then our efforts today might be null and void because we make our poorest decisions when we are afraid. My prayer is that 2012 will be a year of growth and renewal for you, for our church, and for our community. And may our resolution be to take the faith of this Christmas season into the year to come and beyond.

Christmas Highs and Lows

2011-12-19T13:28:00.000-08:00

(clipart from royalty free clipart)

It's almost Christmas. It's almost here. I had a Christmas high this week when I stumbled upon a gift given to me years ago by a friend named Frances. Her father had been a Presbyterian minister, the Rev. R. E. McClure, and had written a book of Christmas verse called When Christmas Comes. It was a lovely and thoughtful gift. The opening, titular, poem reads like this:

When Christmas comes, my heart's aglow,
With memories sweet of long ago.

When Christmas comes, my heart grows warm,
With knowledge of God's circling arm.

But Christmas brings a touch of gloom,
For those who have for Christ no room.

No room for Christ, in Bethlehem's Inn,
No room for Christ in lives of sin!

No room for Christ on Christmas Day,
No room for Him, the life, the Way!

There's room for Him in hearts whose beat
Is quickened from His mercy's seat.

When Christmas comes, be this my prayer,
"Lord, Help me live to make men care."

When Christmas comes, my voice would say,
"My heart is open Lord, this day."

The poems were written from the 1930's to the 1960's. I am touched that she gave me one of her few remaining copies. Touched by her thoughtful gift. And as I read the above poem again, I am reminded that our hearts should be ready to receive God and God's love wherever they might be found. Sounds a little like the verse from the Christmas carol, O Little Town of Bethlehem, that says:

No ear may hear his coming, but in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him still the dear Christ enters in.

One more thing to mention - before I get too high on my better than deserved Christmas this year, I am reminded of others for whom Christmas is a real stretch this year. I am thinking about those in need, the underemployed and the unemployed. For many Christmas time, because of pressures to buy gifts and presents, is a stressful time. A time to worry about this Christmas and next Christmas - when a job is elusive and the stress is taking a tremendous toll indeed. For some in our church family and in our community, Christmas is a low this year.

A columnist from the News and Observer, Barry Saunders, ran this column today about our Career Transition Support Group at WMPC, a group which meets here every Tuesday. We have great lay people -- Al, John, and Bob who work with CTSG, a truck load of volunteers who give their time, and one of our pastors, Anna Rainey, who works with this valuable group.

You can read the column, here: Holidays Strain Jobless

Take some time to pray this week for somebody who might be in the Christmas lows this year. These folks need all the prayer and help they can get.

Links to make you think....

2011-12-14T14:36:00.000-08:00

or at least chuckle a little today. And then think. This first one should make you chuckle. Be sure to get to the part where the reporter says, "the host on the toast." A better question might be: would you buy one?

The Jesus Toaster

This is also on the CNN religion blogs section. It is about pastor's who do or do not talk about greed. Very interesting read. For whatever it is worth, my Doctoral work was about pastors and how we talk about money and greed. Might be a good Lenten series here or there sometime? This blog suggests that maybe people of faith would rather not hear about money? Maybe, maybe not? My work was all in Luke's gospel. Just for the fun of it, go to an online Bible concordance sometime and look up how many times money, greed, wealthy, etc. appear in the Bible. It is more than you think. I remember as I began my study how surprising it all was.

How do Pastors talk about greed in the great recession?

My good friends Michelle Thomas-Bush and Kerri Hefner have written some tremendous Advent Blogs and devotionals in the past few weeks. You can read what they have written here:

Follow the Star

Weeding and Feeding

And finally, an update on Heath Tuttle from his mother. One of the bravest and most faithful families I know. I hope you'll join Carrie in this sentiment: Thank you for helping to give us the strength to be brave for the past 3 years. Thank you for continuing to pray that our wonderful guy will be brave in midst of all that comes his way. And don't forget, in the craziness of this time of year, to take a few minutes to hug just a little longer, pay a little more attention than you'd probably like to, help a few more who really need it, and to relish in the sacred moments. I don't think you'll regret it.

Baby Heath Updates

Indeed, it is like Tiny Tim says -- God bless us everyone.

Beginnings in Hope

2011-12-08T09:13:00.000-08:00

Photo found on the Massachusettes Bible Society Blog-site

massbible.org

One of the biblical texts we'll be using a lot this year for Advent and Christmas is the beginning of the gospel of John. Sometimes called the preamble of John, or the pre-history of John, this is a powerful and profound section of the Bible. Several years ago I shared as a new year message what I wrote in late December or early January of 2001. As we mark ten years of conflict, recession, and challenges facing our nation, state, and church since 2001, I thought I would share it one last time as our church prepares to hear Christmas music this Sunday and prepares to hear God's word preached from John Chapter 1.

Beginnings in Hope - John 1: 1 - 15

And so, in faith and love, but most especially today, Hope, I stand before you to say that despite all the suffering around us here, all the grief and anxiety, we are hopeful that the days to come will be easier and we are hopeful that God will stand by those who grieve and mend their hearts and renew their lives.

Some undoubtedly are thinking right now that I am crazy. I have a few friends who describe themselves as atheist who immediately say, “how can you believe in a God that allows suffering like that?”

Others accuse us Christians of being Polly-Anna's. Of having rose-colored glasses. Of not seeing things as they really are.

This is because as Christians we see the world differently. We find our very beginnings in hope. Here at the first Chapter of John’s Gospel we find a confession in the Lordship of Christ that stands as one of the great texts of the New Testament. The beginning is not an accident. It is a word, a word of hope. A word of hope that is a light that shines in the darkness. A word of hope that shone so brightly it became flesh in Christ and dwelt among us. We, the people who find our beginnings in hope, are the people of hope. It is how we see the world. It is what we do in the face of tragedy. Our Bible, our Gospel, our Christ, our faith would have it no other way.

For John’s gospel, the beginning is hope. And that in and of itself has changed everything. Hope allows us to see the possibility in someone or something as much as we see his or her or its limitations. Hope allows us to take comfort that a friend suffers no more but rejoices with the angels. Hope allows the woman trapped in addiction the luxury of knowing that something other than her disease is possible for her. We need hope like we need breath.

Unfortunately there have always been detractors – the super intellectual nihilists, the fundamental realists who say that life and being are nothingness and that there is nothing to hope for or really to even hope in. An attorney in New York in the 1890’s once said, “Hope is only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.”

Hope does not lie when we put our hope in God. God can indeed tell us no, but we are never unheard and never ignored. “Hope springs eternal,” wrote the poet Alexander Pope. He’s right. Hope is our strength. Hope is our light that shines in the darkness.

Most Presbyterian ministers are fascinated by Shakespeare in some way – perhaps because the works are so very human, the problems the characters face so very real. I like many, have always been moved by King Lear, the tragedy of a noble and honest king whose daughters kill and fight and drive the king mad with their lust for power. Lord Gloucester is the character I most enjoy, despite his tragedy. He loses a son to power, and a son to shame, and his eyesight at the hand of the king’s daughters. He resolves to kill himself, but his son, Edgar, disguised as a beggar for fear of discovery, stops him in his act of suicide, and in hope tells him, “Stop, for Thy life is a miracle.” Reality would have the son see a father who was blind and almost useless in a ancient world. Hopeless would see a man half bled to death being helped by a beggar. The eyes of hope that see with the light that shines in the darkness saw instead a father who still had much to give.

There is a light that shines in the darkness. If only we’ll let the light of Christ shine upon us richly. We are the people of Hope, and though God does say no sometimes, it is our hope and our belief that God is ever with us.

The Apostle Paul in Romans 5th chapter wrote these famous words --“Suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us because God’s love has been poured into us.”

The light shines in the darkness my friends, and thanks be to God that the darkness does not over come it.

Christmas Music Ringing

2011-12-06T07:27:00.000-08:00

From time to time on Tuesdays, I'll post the newsletter article here on PastoronPoint. That is the first offering this week, only here on the blog it will have live links. Hope you enjoy.

What is your favorite Christmas carol? The last few years I have really enjoyed In Bethlehem A Babe Was BornIn Bethlehem A Babe Was Born (number 34 in our hymnal). My favorite for many years was Once in Royal David's (number 49 in our hymnal) because the tune is easily sung and the hymn itself is a remarkable balance between the humility of Jesus’ human birth and the totality of his cosmic redemption. My favorite Christmas performance piece was written in 1956 by the African-American musician and actor, Jester Hairston – Mary’s Boy Child. Hairston was born in North Carolina and if you have never heard Harry Belafonte, Charlotte Church, - - - Gladys Knight (a calypso version with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir - proof that the internet is incredible), or Andy Williams perform the song then you have missed something indeed (special blog link - click here to see and hear Tom Jones perform it at the Vatican in 2001).

There is one verse of one Christmas carol, however, that has made me pause, caused my eyes to well with tears, and has captured my imagination as no other. Written in 1847 by the Frenchman Adolphe Adam, O Holy Night (Cantique de Noel) has undergone more revisions and endured more poor performances perhaps than any other Christmas carol. But the revisions and the remakes can neither improve upon, nor detract from the power of the song and the depth of its incarnational theology. Near the end of the carol, the text proclaims these words:

Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His Gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother
And in His Name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy Name!
Christ is the Lord! O praise His name forever!

Noel! Noel! O night divine!

For me, those words embody the power of Christmas. They look back into the promises of the prophets and of John the Baptist as they look forward to coming hope, peace, and joy that the Savior shall bring. I never get tired of hearing the promise expressed in that text. Indeed, let all within us praise!

I hope you will find the time to worship with us the remainder of the month. We will share wonderful and powerful music the next two Sundays here at White Memorial. On December 11 we will hear the music of John Rutter in morning worship and sing carols and songs of joy with the children of our church at the Joy Gift service in the afternoon. On December 18 we will share in the service of lessons and carols. It would be hard to have Christmas joy without Christmas song and these weeks coming will find our worship ringing with Christmas music.

I also hope as we prepare to end the year 2011 that you will join me in prayer for our church. Will 2012 be a year for the renewal of your commitment to God, gospel, and our common ministry? Will it be a year when “all within us” praises God for the wonderful things God has done? We trust that it will be. I ask that each member of our church consider the year to come by praying for our ministry, by making a financial commitment to our 2012 budget, and by recommitting to the projects and groups which are held dear. With Christmas music set to ring, that is my prayer this day.

Coming After Me: Mark : 1 - 8

2011-12-01T14:39:00.000-08:00

image of John the Baptist found at www.catholicism.org

Coming after me?

Usually we see “coming after me” and we think of money we owe or a person we have wronged or a loose end left untied and might be coming to find us. He, or she, is “coming after me” often connotes something bad.

But not always.

Sometimes it can suggest forethought, foresight, or even planning. Sometimes it can show concern or trust. As in: “I am less interested in what is happening to me today than I am in what is coming after me.” Or, “not so much for myself, but for my children who are coming after me.”

The former connotes fear.

The later demands faith and devotion.

I have no doubts as to which one is better. (Too vague? Always go with faith over fear. That is a rule which will serve you well!)

The text for this week is the first 8 verses of Mark’s gospel – words that we will read together on Sunday morning. If you read it you’ll see that it begins with an assertion that this testimony is good news, that it is gospel. Then it quotes Isaiah, grounding itself in a tradition, a voice older than itself. Then it introduces us to John the Baptist – he is the messenger of Isaiah’s dreams, he is the one who stands in the Jordan, raising fist and voice against the hypocrisies he perceives to be all around him. Mark tells us that “all of Jerusalem” was coming out to the Jordan to be baptized and to be cleansed: cleansed from sin and sorrow and disappointment.

I wonder – how much did the crowds, the “all of Jerusalem,” praise him? How special did they tell him that he was? How much adoration did they heap upon his head, kisses on his brow, tears rubbed into his lapel (which was made of camel’s hair)? How much did they praise him?

I have always imagined quite a lot.

And then John the Baptist, according to Mark, does the next to impossible. He resists the praise. He downplays the spectacle. He expresses humility, servant hood, and self-denial.

He says, “I am not the one you should be praising. The one coming after me – that is one you should be praising.”

Coming after me.

Not me.

Somebody else.

How many of us, with the crowd chanting our name, hoping we’ll lead the team to victory, the people to freedom – how many of us wouldn’t want the ball? How many of us, just when it was all on the line would tell the fans that the next guy in, like the backup quarterback, is going to be better. “You think I am good, wait ‘til you see the next guy?”

I know you are thinking it, this almost never happens. When the crowd goes wild, humility is nearly always the first causality.

Not so with John the Baptist. John really is the patron saint of Advent. John is the the one who waited and deferred. John is the one who sat uneasy with the praise and passed the mantle to the “one coming after me

What have we passed on? What should we pass on? Do we defer out of fear or expectation? It may be that these questions lie near the heart of Advent faith, and close to unlocking the theological brilliance of John the Baptist.

Coming after us? What is it we want to leave behind, and to who is it that we want those who shall follow us to go?

One more thing…

Be sure to check out the Advent Devotional at www.d365.org and be sure you are following along with WMPC’s Advent Devotional book.

Isaiah 64, Thinking about Peace, and devotional insights....

2011-11-29T07:45:00.000-08:00

Today in our newsletter I wrote about Advent lists. Making a list of people to help, prayers to pray, or outcomes to hope for as Christmas approaches. I tried to "google" Advent list and nothing came back. Maybe it's my first original idea ever? Probably not. Wiser pastors than me long ago passed on that all of preaching and teaching is "borrowing" -- meaning that most of what we do and say has been done and said before. Note this, though: repetition is never a bad thing in and of itself. Our society values the "new and improved" so much that we forget that our hearts and souls need the discipline of repetition from time to time. So we tell once more this year the "old, old story" of Jesus and his birth. We tell it from the mountains, the hills, and everywhere! I do think that amendments, the friendly kind, are good though. And amending our Advent disciplines so that we hear the story in a new key seems a fine practice to me.

One Advent discipline I am following is to read my friend Kerri Hefner's (@k9kerri) blog each day. Kerri is the Presbyterian Campus Minister at ECU and on staff at First Presbyterian Greenville. I think you'll find her perspective refreshing and appreciate her good writing.

Weeding and Feeding Blog

On thought I did have as I was jotting notes down for this blog today is that I am well aware that for some of us the Christmas story and the Advent waiting might feel shop-worn. The repetition more tiresome than comforting. I wonder though: what would happen to us, to our spiritual lives, if Christmas didn't repeat and renew its promise each year?

Thinking about promise, I was moved to tears to read this profile of Fred Craddock on CNN.com yesterday:

Fred Craddock on CNN - November 2011

I am not sure why they did this profile on Fred, I couldn't discover the reason in the piece, but I am glad they did. Be sure to focus on the part about story telling, narrative, and heritage. Read the testimony from his mother, and the way he remembers her, and about the promise she made. As I type this I am so grateful for the prayers of our mothers, our fathers. Academically speaking, Fred Craddock is a titan in the preacher's world. He wouldn't want that title, but he is. Not many people write a magisterial book, a landmark reinterpretation of a field of study. Tom Long's words in the piece are true: Craddock's As One Without Authority (published the year I was born) shook the homiletical world to its foundations. I found a used copy online a few years ago. It sits on my shelf as admiration for the achievement that it was.

I have been thinking about peace a lot this week. It is after all a week to hope for peace as Advent rises and falls around us. I think of that text from Sunday, Isaiah 64: 1 - 9. God allowed me to hear with new ears this week, and I am grateful. Verse 8:

O Lord, you are our Father,

we are the clay, and you are our potter;

we are all the work of your hand.

How lovely. How challenging. If we are to know peace it seems to me that this knowledge comes first from God. How had God brought peace in our lives? How have we made conflict where God desired peace? Is the old hymn right, that if there is to be peace on Earth it has to begin with me?

My prayer then for today is something akin to the prayer in our church-wide Advent devotional for today: that our hearts would be open wide. Open for God to shape our lives. Open for God to mold us.

In "defense" of goats and an interesting question with a great link....

2011-11-22T10:09:00.000-08:00

The Future of the Church...

My colleague Carol Howard Merrit blogs about the future of the church quite often. When she is not blogging she writes about it. Her book The Tribal Church: Ministering to the Missing Generation is a must-read for those yearning for Young Adult ministry. Those who hear me preach often know that I strand convinced that church is changing rapidly. Not so much theological forms, but functional forms, worship forms, polity forms, and structural forms. Which is a way of saying that I think that Reformed Theology, or reformed thinking, or the baseline of our theology as Presbyterians is a cogent and relevant theology for the 21st century. I'd argue that it will be the theology of the next century (even as I readily admit that such an argument is transparently self-serving). What I wonder about is if our forms of theological communication - the way we communicate the gospel and the way we "do" church -- will continue to be relevant. What do you think will become of the church in the next decade? What are your dreams for church?

Here are Carol Howard's thoughts, I'd love to hear yours...

Carol Howard Merritt - 10 Future Church Models

(photo from christiancentury.org - connected to Carol's blog post)

Concerning goats....

Or, should I write, in defense of goats?

The sermon on Sunday concerned Matthew 25 and several folks have said, "you sure were hard on goats," or, "we had a goat once and it was the sweetest animal," or, "you know I am a capricorn," or something similar.

In defense of goats several added that there were terrains in the world that only the goat could master. That the goat had something that the sheep would never have.

All these points are valid even as they are varied.

Let it be noted that I did not create the metaphor, Matthew 25 did. And while I did have some fun at the goats expense, it was only fun in so far as I was able to compare them to sheep. Sheep and goats are very different. Each having their strengths and weaknesses.

The goat for example will eat anything and is frankly too stubborn to die. That is why it masters terrain where few other creatures can survive.

I think the point of the parable, of the sheep and goats and the son of man, the king of glory, though is something akin to the fact that sometimes we can be so stubborn, so set in our ways, that we miss the opportunity to truly live. Too stubborn to let the old life die so the new life God offers becomes who we are. If we do this we play the goat at our own expense.

For the record I am a capricorn, too.

Happy thanksgiving.

Three Links Not to Miss

2011-11-19T05:43:00.000-08:00

First of all - don't miss the new White Memorial Presbyterian Church Website. Thanks to our staff -- BIG THANK YOU to Karen Hanelin -- for your hard work in seeing this web project to a quick conclusion. Be sure to visit and let us know what you think - and remember, we'll keep adding, updating, and expanding as needs arise.

White Memorial Presbyterian Church

I hope you all got to see Penn Holderness' excellent piece on NBC 17 about our Career Transition Support Group at White Memorial. CTSG helps folks who can't seem to find work. It is a wonderful ministry and our great thanks goes to Anna Rainey, Bob Gates, Al Rankin, and John White for the tremendous ministry they are doing with CTSG. Watch the story here:

Penn Holderness on CTSG at White Memorial

Lastly, I was so proud of my college last night, leading at half time on a night of celebration at Duke. Davidson is scrappy and I would not want to play the wildcats come February. Here a link to the Charlotte Observer story on the game:

Duke/Davidson

I'll post some photos somewhere of us at the game.

Hope to see you in worship, in service, in study or in prayer....

Truth in in order to goodness...or marginal thoughts about Penn State

2011-11-17T14:01:00.001-08:00

I shudder to type this. I don’t want to type or write about this. But it is everywhere, all around in the headlines so some comment is required whether I want the requirement or not. There is nothing darker than the suffering of a child. And the suffering suggested in the indictments around Penn State and a former coach, now indicted as a pedophile, is of the worst kind. It shatters lives for years. Shatters institutions, trust, and…well, everything. It appears as though there are victims whose pain we can hardly fathom. And it appears that people of stature, standing, power, and influence turned a myopic eye toward the suffering and pain at expense of the victims themselves. It is a moral failure when (what appears as) incontrovertible evidence is ignored. It is an inference, but one of the implied requirements of Jesus’s “welcome the children, let them come to me, for to these belongs the kingdom of heaven” is that the children be safe enough to feel welcome. While we dare not rush to judgment the call to pray for the families traumatized thus far is one we cannot deny.

I was at Davidson last week at an Alumni Association Board meeting, and the new President, Dr. Carol Quillen, was asked about Penn State. She reported that she was at a meeting of College and University Presidents and Penn State was, understandably, the consuming conversation. Then she said she had the responsibility to continue to ask whether or not all visitors, and especially children, were safe at Davidson. More importantly, she talked about creating an environment where people were not afraid to share bad news, or foul news, or even terrible news. Jesus says that the truth sets us free. The truth is all that protects us from evil, be it the truth in God, the truth in Christ, the truth in Spirit, or the truth about one another. No matter how bad the news, we must first share the truth and then do our best to respond accordingly.

As Presbyterians we share an old part of the Book of Order (part of our constitution) which says that “truth is in order to goodness.” This is a way of saying that there is no goodness without truth. Ever wonder why we confess our sins near the start of our worship? Because in telling the truth about ourselves we are able to hear God’s call because our lives, “made clean,” are renewed in self-truth confessed and in God’s truth professed. When we are not honest we always suffer something. And usually, when we are not honest, other people suffer too. We may be powerless to change the suffering or the circumstances, but we can resolve to observe and tell the truth even when it is bad news that we’d rather not heard or known.

At our Session meeting last weekend, we adopted a new Safe Sanctuary policy. This has long been in the works – long before headlines of recent days. It is an update of a policy we have had for many years that simplifies the rules to ensure child safety here at our church. There is nothing we take more seriously.

There is much more I could write and much more that will be written because the headlines from the past few days will be processed and probed from every imaginable angle. Let us resolve to make our lives and our church safe because we are first committed to the truth, and truth is in order to goodness.

Reformed and Always Reforming

2011-11-17T13:56:00.000-08:00

When I was a young boy, growing up in the Episcopal Church, I never heard the word "reformed" very much. If I did it was attached to school, as in "if you keep behaving that way, you'll end up at reform school." Carrying a negative connotation, I wanted no part of that trouble.

Is it trouble to be reformed? If you break the word down into its parts, really study it in the pages (or on the website) of Mirriam-Webster, a discovery is quickly made. To reform, to be reformed, to be reforming , is a troublesome and complex process. It can mean to improve condition through the removal of faults or abuses (that's hard work!). It can mean to put an end to evil by applying a better method or charting a new course of action (that's even harder work!). Or it can mean to be changed for the better (seems easy but success depends on what is meant by 'the better').

Laws are reformed. Churches are reformed. Sports teams can be reformed. Sometimes people are reformed. Sometimes institutions are reformed.

But just as it is hard to make something, or to form something, it is hard to reform something. It is hard to change. Change threatens as much as it invigorates. Change challenges our assumptions, it can threaten our memories, and it can make us uncomfortable. Almost any time a change is introduced there are camps of equal excitement: one in love with the innovation and in one devoted to nostalgia. Human beings seem caught in a conundrum of sorts: too little change feels like stagnation and too much change feels like instability.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) inherits its theological core from the Reformed Church, a way of being church that grew out of the great Reformation of the 16th Century. In our collective memories are names like Calvin, Knox, Witherspoon. We emphasize a church ordered by representative and elected bodies, deliberate decision making, a theology that is devoted to a sovereign God that elects, or chooses the people of God in the grace of Christ Jesus, and an understanding that the Holy Spirit is energizing compulsion behind all we do to seek the great ends of the church. We proclaim the gospel, nurture the people, work for justice, serve our neighbors, fellowship with one another, and teach the scriptures and the faith not only because it is the right thing for the church to do. We make these witnesses in the world because it is God's will that we do so.

The tension arrives in the fact that reformation was never supposed to stop. We were never supposed to get too comfortable with the way things had become. The past was supposed to ground the future, not define it. The church reformed was supposed to be the church always reforming. And as I wrote above, too little changes feels like stagnation, too much becomes instable.

Three weeks ago we marked Reformation Sunday, when we remembered those brave women and men who took a stand for the faith in some incredibly courageous and inspiring ways. They risked life and limb in order that the church would be true to the gospel of grace. They took stands: some of them difficult, unpopular, and misunderstood. In some ways I think that much of the tension in church and culture today is that greater global awareness, greater economic tension, greater technological abilities, and greater social unrest are causing a conversation which is starting to sound like a "new reformation." Scholars and preachers are starting to discuss this possibility. I think they are right. Change has washed ahore. Now what to do?

Here at White Memorial, as we look towards 2012, we're going to redesign our church website, we are going to revisit the Holy Conversations report, and we going to pray about strategically positioning ourselves for the next decades of ministry in Raleigh and New Hope Presbytery. This might mean reforming a thing or two. May God grant us grace and confidence as we explore what it means to be reformed in the decades to come.

Pastor on Point Begins

2011-08-19T05:50:00.000-07:00

I am no longer going to be DownEastPastor because I am no longer going to be down east in NC. We are moving to Raleigh, where I am to be the new Pastor at White Memorial Presbyterian Church.

You can visit their / our website at www.whitememorial.org .

So, since White Memorial sits at the intersection of McDonald Lane and Oberlin Road, and since the block there is a triangle, and forms a point, I thought - Pastor on Point makes sense.

And, Colleen liked it.

Good enough for me.

So, here it goes....may God bless it, and us, as we strive for a living faith in the living of these days.