relics

museum, hospital, or ? [pt. 2]

The church is not a museum for saints but a hospital for sinners.

In the first part, I expressed my dislike of both the museum of saints and the hospital for sinners analogies.

so what are some alternatives?

The other "place-oriented" alternatives that come to mind are personal ones. This means that they might work for me, but you may have a very different experience of the same kind of place and thus, it may mean nothing to you or in fact have negative connotations.

These often depend on a personal experience that might mean the world to the person who experienced it, and very little to others, as it is especially hard to capture and describe those magical things that make the experience what it is.

Consider a night with friends at the pub. Some only associate this with excessive drinking. Others think of hanging out with friends to watch the game. For me, it meant spending time with others in a context of acceptance, honesty and trust, regardless of what we talked about.

Many churches have small groups, and these can be amazing for some, boring for others, and downright toxic for a few. The same could be said for most other place-oriented analogies. So what else is there?

museum, hospital, or ? [pt. 1]

The church is not a museum for saints but a hospital for sinners.

The church is not a museum for saints but a hospital for sinners.

After hearing this saying in a recent sermon, I realized I don't like "hospital for sinners" anymore than I like "museum for saints".

But first, here's what the point of this saying seems to be: Rather than the church being for those who are perfect and do not need to change anymore, the church is for those who need God and His healing.

As Fr. Peter Daly said, "A broken world needs a place to bring its spiritual injuries. We need an emergency room more than a courtroom. We want healing more than judgment."

More on this perspective from the National Catholic Reporter.

I get that. That makes sense. So what's there not to like?

For starters, I don't like hospitals.

In fact, I don't think most people like hospitals.

And I'm not sure if people who are not part of a church culture think of themselves as sinners. (Do those who are in a church culture think of themselves as sinners? Or are sinners "the people out there?")

But more than that, while all analogies break down at some point, this one breaks down very quickly. Here's a little destruction for your day:

A hospital is run by professionals.
Professionals are not sick like you.
Professionals know what's best for you.
They prescribe medications and treatments.
They focus on the problem, not the person.
They usually don't care about the rest of your life.
There is no personal relationship between you and them.
The other patients are simply that, other patients.
There is little or no relationship between you and the other patients, unless you are in long-term care.
Once you are better, you leave, hoping not to have to come back.

And then there are bigger words, like power and privilege.

Hospitals are built on them.
And therefore, hospitals are othering.

No thanks.

---

[part 2]

[if people can learn to hate...]

[enemies are our neighbours]

Jesus said,

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:43-45 NIV

"Opus Prize and UN Nansen Award winner Marguerite Barankitse, known as "Maggy," witnessed the murder of over 70 people in Ruyigi, during the civil war between Hutu and Tutsi tribes in Burundi. Maggy responded by founding Maison Shalom (House of Peace), “I am a tutsi woman. Before the war began I already had seven adopted children, four hutu and three tutsi." (more...).

In this short video and several others at Works of the People, she shares about loving others, particularly those who have committed horrible crimes....

Watch more at Works of the People.

loving strangers

"I used to think that the greatest command in the Bible was "You shall love your neighbour as yourself." I was wrong. Only in one place does the Bible ask us to love our neighbour. In more than thirty places it commands us to love the stranger. Don't oppress the stranger because you know what it feels like to be a stranger--you were once strangers in the land of Egypt. It isn't hard to love our neighbours because by and large our neighbours are people like us. What's tough is to love the stranger, the person who isn't like us, who has a different skin colour, or a different faith, or a different background. That's the real challenge. It was in ancient times. It still is today."

Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks (quoted on pp 101-102 of Just Hospitality).

In Jesus day, weren't strangers simply people you were not acquainted with? In the Jewish towns and villages, there would have been the people you knew, and the people you didn't know. And for the most part, while the latter were strangers, they weren't particularly strange. There would have been exceptions, of course. Some lepers may have seemed pretty strange as a result of deformation and loss of limbs. Those possessed by demons would have been strange. But generally, most strangers looked fairly normal.

In one famous story, Jesus tells of a despised foreigner -- a Samaritan -- helping a stranger who had been robbed and left to die at the road side. There were significant religious differences between them, but otherwise, not that much was strange about the stranger. Jesus told this story of loving a stranger, in response to someone asking, "who is my neighbour that I'm to love?"

Fast forward to today. For the conservative person, there's a whole world of strangeness out there. Goths and punks, transgender people and drag queens, and much more.

But one thing hasn't changed: God's love for everyone, no matter how strange someone might seem to us.

Read True Biblical Hospitality: Loving Immigrants, Strangers, and Enemies at sojo.net.

[pastrix by nadia bolz-weber]

Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint

"Nadia Bolz-Weber takes no prisoners as she reclaims the term "pastrix"(pronounced "pas-triks," a term used by some Christians who refuse to recognize female pastors) in her messy, beautiful, prayer-and-profanity laden narrative about an unconventional life of faith.

Heavily tattooed and loud-mouthed, Nadia, a former stand-up comic, sure as hell didn't consider herself to be religious leader material-until the day she ended up leading a friend's funeral in a smoky downtown comedy club. Surrounded by fellow alcoholics, depressives, and cynics, she realized: These were her people. Maybe she was meant to be their pastor.

Using life stories-from living in a hopeful-but-haggard commune of slackers to surviving the wobbly chairs and war stories of a group for recovering alcoholics, from her unusual but undeniable spiritual calling to pastoring a notorious con artist-Nadia uses stunning narrative and poignant honesty to portray a woman who is both deeply faithful and deeply flawed, giving hope to the rest of us along the way.

Wildly entertaining and deeply resonant, this is the book for people who hunger for a bit of hope that doesn't come from vapid consumerism or navel-gazing; for women who talk too loud, and guys who love chick flicks; for the gay man who loves Jesus, and won't allow himself to be shunned by the church. In short, this book is for every thinking misfit suspicious of institutionalized religion, but who is still seeking transcendence and mystery."

Description from amazon.ca

Read Rachel Held Evan's review of Pastrix.
Read Richard Beck's review of Pastrix.

Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint
Nadia Bolz-Weber
(Jericho Books, 2013)

[the cross in the closet]

"Timothy Kurek, raised within the confines of a strict, conservative Christian denomination in the Bible Belt, Nashville, Tennessee, was taught the gospel of separation from a young age. But it wasn't long before Timothy's path and the outside world converged when a friend came out as a lesbian, and revealed she had been excommunicated by her family. Distraught and overcome with questions and doubts about his religious upbringing, Timothy decided the only way to empathize and understand her pain was to walk in the shoes of very people he had been taught to shun. He decided to come out as a gay man to everyone in his life, and to see for himself how the label of gay would impact his life. In the tradition of Black Like Me, The Cross in the Closet is a story about people, a story about faith, and about one man's "abominable" quest to find Jesus in the margins."

(from the back cover)

This book was a fascinating read, and is enlightening in terms of how a person is able to not only gain a deeper understanding of others and to make a space in his or her heart for them, but to have love where before there was hatred and rejection. Definitely recommended.

Online preview available.
BlueHead Publishing (October 11, 2012)

p.s. Summer has given more opportunities to read, so I've been recommending books lately. In the next months, I plan to share quotes from Thurman's Jesus and the Disinherited along with more new cartoons.

[single stories]

There often seems to be an aversion to hearing the stories of others. I'm not referring to hearing the stories of a poor widow in the Sudan, of a homeless family in Toronto, of our friend's weekend camping adventure. No, our aversion is to the stories of those whom we dislike and whom we often despise, those whom we see as being sinful and out of line, those whom we see as being beyond hope or unregenerate.

We like to hear one side of the story. It keeps things nice and tidy for us; it avoids disrupting our world.

But it is narrow and limited. And it negatively impacts those whose stories are not being told.

Richard Beck, in his review of Michael McRay's Letters from Apartheid Street, refers to these single stories and how hearing the other stories – or, to put it differently, the stories of others – counters the effects of the single story:

Reversing the dynamics of dehumanization, Michael describes this as a process of rehumanization (pp. 25-26):

...the danger of the single story. Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie warns of the danger of single stories--that is, stories which depict only one side to a person or event. Such stories, when repeated often, convince the audience that the description within the story is the whole truth...

 ...I must confess...I have a single story of soldiers...

 ...I want to take seriously Jesus's call to love my enemies...[But without] another story to add to the original, though, I cannot create a fabric of humanity in which to clothe them. I have needed a story to re-humanize the Israeli soldiers occupying this land...

Michael finds this second story in conversations he seeks out and recounts with some of the Israeli soldiers. It's a wonderful example of how you, practically, go about learning to love your enemies.

From http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.ca/2013/06/letters-from-apartheid-street.html, (quoting from Letters from Apartheid Street: A Christian Peacemaker in Occupied Palestine by Michael McRay. Emphasis added.)

[jesus freak: feeding, healing, raising the dead]

"I came late to Christianity," writes Sara Miles, "knocked upside down by a mid-life conversion centered around eating a literal chunk of bread. I hadn't decided to profess an article of doctrine, but discovered a force blowing uncontrollably through the world."

In this new book, Sara Miles tells what happened when she decided to follow the flesh and blood Jesus by doing something real. For everyone afraid to feed hungry strangers, love the unlovable, or go to dark places to bless and heal, she offers hope. She holds out the promise of a God who gave a bunch of housewives and fishermen authority to forgive sins and raise the dead, and who continues to call us to action. And she tells, in vivid, heartbreakingly honest stories, how the ordinary people around her are transformed by taking up God's work in the world.
Sara Miles offers a fresh, fully embodied faith that sweeps away the anxious formulas of religion to reveal the scandalous power of eating with sinners, embracing the unclean, and loving the wrong people. Jesus Freak: Feeding Healing Raising the Dead is her inspiring book for undomesticated Christians who still believe, as she writes, "that Jesus has given us the power to be Jesus."

(description from Amazon)

This book by Sara Miles has been a fascinating read, full of real people and experiences, and I recommend it to you. It's an easy read and challenging at the same time.

Here are three quotes that are samples of what Sara is teaching us through what God has done in her life and the lives of those around them. The bulk of the book, however, is about real life experiences:

In stories that still have the power to scare us, Jesus tells his disciples to live by the upside-down values of God's kingdom, rather than the fear-driven values of human society. He shows how family, tribe, money, violence, and religion--the powers of the world--cannot stand against the love of God. And he tells us that we, too, are called to follow him in breaking down all worldly divisions that get in the way of carrying out his instructions. Sure, it's impossible to feed five thousand people, make a deaf man hear, bring a dead girl to life, as long as you obey human rules. So do it God's way instead, Jesus teaches. Say yes. Jump right in. Come and see. Embrace the wrong people. Don't idolize religion. Have mercy. Jesus' tips cast a light forward, steering us through the dark.

(p. 3)

The truth is that suffering can become the foundation of faith, if we're not scared to touch the sore places with love. If we don't hide ourselves away in fear, but get close enough to others to feel God's breath on our skin. Everything that hurts the body of Christ can let us know, past doubt, that new life is possible--not by forgetting evil, but through, in terms that are both religious and secular, truth and reconciliation.

(pp. 122-123)

Yet all religions, at one point or another in their evolution, tries to proclaim their single, inerrant consistency. All religions, even the most liberal, were  tempted by the reactionary impulse to freeze faith in place. Because, as Jesus teaches, it's easy to be threatened by the reality of the complicated, messy, syncretic, God-bearing truth that becomes incarnate among us and makes things new. We'd rather have a dead religion than a loving God.

(p. 137)

jesus freak: feeding, healing, raising the dead by sara miles

(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010)

[jesus and the disinherited, by howard thurman]

"First published in 1949, Jesus and the Disinherited is a brilliant and compassionate look at God's work in our lives. As we struggle today with issues of poverty, racism, and spiritual disengagement, Howard Thurman's discerning reading of the message of renewal through self-love as exemplified in the life of Jesus resonates powerfully again.

Challenging our submersion into individual and social isolation, Thurman suggests a reading of the Gospel that recovers a manual of resistance for the poor and disenfranchised. He argues that within Jesus' life of suffering, pain, and overwhelming love is the solution that will prevent our descent into moral nihilism. For although scorned and forced to live outside society, Jesus advocated a love of self and others that defeats fear and the hatred that decays our souls and the world around us."

(from the back cover)

Howard Thurman was at college with Martin Luther King Sr., and it is said that Martin Luther King Jr. carried this book around with him. That along with the title is what caught my eye about this book. In a little over 100 pages, he says so much about this topic and discusses it in ways that I have not come across before. I will be reading it again, as soon as it is available from the library. Definitely recommended!

Jesus and the Disinherited
Howard Thurman
(Beacon Press, 1981).

flavour of the church

What kind of place is your church? What does it feel like? What words come to mind when you think about it? And what do you hope that it will be?

I've been giving this some thought in regard to what I hope my own church will be like. Here's what I came up with:

p.s. I made this image using www.wordle.net. You can make your own there very easily, for free.

beacon of love

St. Paul's, the church we attend, is at a new point in its life as a parish. Various conversations have been taking place regarding our future. However, it seems that a lot of the discussion that has transpired so far has resulted in many good ideas about what we might do. What I'm more interested in—what I think needs to happen first, and what this video is all about—is an exploration of who we want to be and who we want to become.

This presentation shares some of my thoughts, ideas and questions as to what the next part of our journey together might look like. The presentation is done "pecha kucha" style -- 20 images with 20 seconds to talk about each one. As a lot of the images are cartoons from this blog, I recommend that you view the video full screen in order to be able to see them properly.

I invite you to share your comments and feedback with me. More importantly, if you are part of St. Paul's, take time to pray, think and dream about what kind of a church we should be and become. Make your own video, draw pictures, make a list on a sheet of paper — record your thoughts and dreams somehow or other, and share them with the church leadership.




View full-screen for best results.

[four key suggestions from Gandhi]

E. Stanley Jones, a missionary to India, tells of this conversation he had with Gandhi. While it is in the context of reaching out to the Indian people, it is equally applicable to reaching out to our friends, neighbours and colleagues here at home.

In conversation with [Mahatma Gandhi] one day I said, “Mahatma Gandhi, I am very anxious to see Christianity naturalized in India, so that it shall be no longer a foreign thing identified with a foreign people and a foreign government, but a part of the national life of India and contributing its power to India’s uplift and redemption. What would you suggest that we do make that possible?”

He very gravely and thoughtfully replied: “I would suggest, first, that all of you Christians, missionaries and all, must begin to live more like Jesus Christ.”

He needn’t have said anything more—that was quite enough. I knew that looking through his eyes were the three hundred millions of India, and speaking through his voice were the dumb millions of the East saying to me, a representative of the West, and through me to that very West itself, “If you will come to us in the spirit of your Master, we cannot resist you.” Never was there a greater challenge to the West than that, and never was it more sincerely given.

no book burning this time

This past week, Rob Bell said the following at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco:

"I am for marriage. I am for fidelity. I am for love, whether it’s a man and woman, a woman and a woman, a man and a man. I think the ship has sailed and I think the church needs — I think this is the world we are living in and we need to affirm people wherever they are.”

And he has also endorsed a book called Does Jesus Really Love Me?: A Gay Christian’s Pilgrimage in Search of God in America. From the back of the dust jacket:

“In telling these stories–chief among them his own–Jeff has done an extraordinary thing, showing us all to the God who is big enough and loving enough and true enough to meet all of us exactly where we’re at. This book is moving, inspiring, and much needed.” (Rob Bell, author of What We Talk About When We Talk About God and Love Wins)

Quite astounding, but not surprising. And the reactions cover the full range from agreement and delight to disagreement and rejection (with some "kicking him out of evangelicalism" yet again). Rob Bell is the first high profile North American evangelical leader to be public about such views (Britain's Steven Chalke came out with a similar perspective earlier this year).

---

Hear Rob Bell speak for himself

Read more about what Bell said at Grace Cathedral, including his comments about a dying subculture: Greg Carey at HuffPo

About the cartoon: simply poking fun at the idea of being "progressive" because of recycling paper instead of burning it while at the same time suppressing differences and not being willing to engage in dialogue on important matters.

[Why did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha and Mohammed...]

Brian D. McLaren has written an excellent book Why did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? Christian Identity in a Multi-Faith World, which I highly recommend.

From the Amazon.ca review:

When four religious leaders walk across the road, it's not the beginning of a joke. It's the start of one of the most important conversations in today's world.

Can you be a committed Christian without having to condemn or convert people of other faiths? Is it possible to affirm other religious traditions without watering down your own?

In his most important book yet, widely acclaimed author and speaker Brian McLaren proposes a new faith alternative, one built on "benevolence and solidarity rather than rivalry and hostility." This way of being Christian is strong but doesn't strong-arm anyone, going beyond mere tolerance to vigorous hospitality toward, interest in, and collaboration with the other.

Blending history, narrative, and brilliant insight, McLaren shows readers step-by-step how to reclaim this strong-benevolent faith, challenging us to stop creating barriers in the name of God and learn how affirming other religions can strengthen our commitment to our own. And in doing so, he invites Christians to become more Christ-like than ever before.

I will be quoting occasionally from this book in future posts. Buy it or borrow it from your local library!

Info: Brian D. McLaren (New York, Jericho Books: 2012)

word search

It may surprise some of you who attend churches where the creeds are said as part of the liturgy, that a key word is missing:

Nothing is said about "God so loved the world," or "love your neighbour as yourself" or anything else related to love. Pretty sad, eh? And perhaps contributing to the difficulty some churchgoers have loving others....

Time for a rewrite?

---

Hugh and friends at Love Wins, Raleigh, NC, add the following to the regular creed:
"Lived obediently to God. Lived and taught peace, love, and forgiveness. Healed the sick, cast out demons, forgave sins, raised the dead, confounded the powers that be. "

---

From the Maasai prayer book:

We believe in the one High God, who out of love created the beautiful world and everything good in it. He created Man and wanted Man to be happy in the world. God loves the world and every nation and tribe on the Earth. We have known this High God in darkness, and now we know Him in the light. God promised in the book of His word, the Bible, that He would save the world and all the nations and tribes.

We believe that God made good His promise by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, a man in the flesh, a Jew by tribe, born poor in a little village, who left His home and was always on safari doing good, curing people by the power of God, teaching about God and man, showing the meaning of religion is love. He was rejected by his people, tortured and nailed hands and feet to a cross, and died. He lay buried in the grave, but the hyenas did not touch him, and on the third day, He rose from the grave. He ascended to the skies. He is the Lord.

We believe that all our sins are forgiven through Him. All who have faith in Him must be sorry for their sins, be baptised in the Holy Spirit of God, live the rules of love and share the bread together in love, to announce the Good News to others until Jesus comes again. We are waiting for Him. He is alive. He lives. This we believe. Amen.

The Maasai Creed was composed in 1960 by the Maasai people of East Africa in collaboration with missionaries from the Congregation of the Holy Ghost. The creed attempts to express the essentials of the Christian faith within the Maasai culture.

Updated July 2, 2013

slippery slope (2)

Slippery slopes seem to be of much concern in the Christian community. Here I'm giving the usual idea a twist... suggesting that it's a problem for Christians because they would subsequently need to learn how to love more people.

For the record, I do believe that as the body of Christ we need to figure out how to love people who are sex offenders. No idea how to do this, but they are possibly the least of the least of these...

What do you think? Whom have you found it a challenge to love?

what I wish our churches taught us...

From reactive to proactive. Where does your church land on this scale? When it comes to controversial matters like abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, and hell, many tend to be reactive, which means most of the time they ignore such matters. And then when there’s a pressing reason like proposed changes to legislation, an adult club renting the building next door, or a Rob Bell asking questions about heaven and hell, they marshal their resources, preach sermons, picket and boycott, and tweet tweets which they sometimes later regret.

A current example of this is the response churches are giving to the legalization of same-sex marriage in the U.S. or the granting of same-sex blessings in Canada, where gay marriage is already legal.

Take my church, for example.

 At its recent meeting, our diocese held a vote to allow the bishop to give permission to priests who want to provide a blessing to same-sex couples who are in civil marriages. To say it another way, if a legally married same-sex couple asks the priest to give them a blessing, the priest must first ask for the bishop’s permission. Note that this resolution does not oblige any priests to provide such blessings; it simply gives the bishop permission to say “yes” if a priest asks. Now, the church we attend officially has a conservative view on marriage and was not pleased that the vote passed, in fact by a significant margin. In response to this, the leadership discussed the matter at the church’s semi-annual meeting, and will have a task group consider what response to make.

They also discussed it with the youth. And when our children came home from a youth day, one of them expressed that they didn’t know why the church was making such a big deal about blessing people who love each other when there’s more important things like KONY2012 happening in the world.

Some people might suggest that the leadership needs to do a better job of explaining how this really is a significant issue, and that the church should have been proactive in teaching its beliefs more clearly before a resolution like this one came up.

I would suggest that there’s a bigger picture that’s being missed here. And while it involves being proactive, it’s not about clarifying “what’s right and what’s wrong” before it becomes critical. It’s about perspective, respect for others, and God’s heart for people.

Here are four things that I wish pastors and others in church  leadership were teaching, with some recommendations for each point:


1.  The reality that God loves gay and lesbian people

Of course we are told in church that God loves everyone. When said generally like this, it is easier to forget this reality when we encounter people we don’t like or who are different from us. But when it is said with a specific people group in mind, it has more impact and is harder to ignore.

• State clearly that God loves lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. Repeat on a regular basis.
• Affirm that Jesus gave his life for gay people and straight people and transgender people and everyone else.
• Emphasize that loving our neighbours includes loving LGBT neighbours, relatives, and colleagues. Give a similar emphasis to other particular neighbours depending on current events, your city or neighbourhood, etc. For example, emphasizing God’s love for Muslim neighbours would be particularly helpful after 9/11. The goal is not to single out a people group, but to emphasize God’s love for people whom we might find it easier to ignore or hate.

Related to this is the concept that the self of the other person matters more than my truth. As Miroslav Volf says, “I may not sacrifice the other at the altar of my truth. Jesus, who claimed to be the Truth, refused to use violence to ‘persuade’ those who did not recognize his truth.” (Exclusion and Embrace, page 272).

closets