Sad Slice of Cherry Pie: Are we Scapegoating MYP & Lifelong Formation

Cherries.  Gorgeous, lovely, yummy and really quite good for you. Camp Cross has several fine cherry trees that produce amazing fresh fruit.  You can just walk along and grab a cherry and eat it.  Some of them we need ladders to harvest, and some are so far out on high branches that they will be food for the birds.

A friend suggested that the disturbing cuts to the 2nd Mark of Mission in the Episcopal Church's triennial draft budget were just a puppet show.  He thinks that we would never cut down the cherry tree; that this is all just showmanship.  Yet we were here last time around too.  I know that time after time the Christian education parish staff are the first to go when budgets fail to ripen.

If he is right, if this is just a show, it is a sour cherry.  This is the area where trees are planted and watered and debugged, and their fruit harvested so it can feed the rest of the mission.  This is the area with the people who have the least voice, even when we suddenly take offense that someone might insult their voice and service.

The thing about that showmanship theory is that it needs to draw a crowd.  And I don't see it.  I see a flurry of slogan-ing (and some listening and forgiveness) regarding the sloppy commentary of a grouchy tweeter.  I don't see nearly enough people, nearly enough delegates or bishops storming the gates about the massive cuts to the budget of the 2nd Mark of Mission.  That puppet show isn't a very good one if it is one.

Instead I feel that Girardian thing.  Scapegoat the precious.  We don't know what to do about reimagining or restructuring or Pew studies or Jesus word counts or any of the myriad of issues that make the people of the church anxious.  So we cut the one who is like us, but not like us.  We love them but we don't really get them.  We scapegoat those who we are called to teach, love and nurture.

I want to agree with the friend who thinks we would never cut down the cherry trees; but I lack that boyband glee.  I think this is a real thing; I think this is a scapegoat thing.  I wonder if that tweet was the short version of the scapegoat story that the budget tells in digits.  Demanding a song and dance for a good sized cherry is grouchy and grumpy and deeply sad.

#fundformation #gc78 #pb&f
#scapegoat?  #dontjustclap

Learn more about the cuts to lifelong formation at http://episcoforma.org/gc78/.

Let the Special BE Special: A075 #fundformation

Virtual Elevator Speech for A075: Develop Awareness of Online Christian Formation Resources

Approve the creation and curation of a central digital hub of Christian formation and education resources through DFMS/Episcopal Church Website.  This action will

• serve the questions and needs of the local mission of the church in all dioceses,
• cease needless and wasteful repetition of identical cataloging,
• empower and share the best resources for the Episcopal Church’s mission of discipleship.

The position paper from FORMA can be found here.

For a more interesting exploration of the topic, keep reading.  This might make more sense if you have seen the Lego Movie.  Which if you are interested enough in the Trinity and formation to read this, then you should SEE THE LEGO MOVIE.  And #fundformation.

Subsidiarity.  Let the local folks do what they do best, and let the judicatory levels do what they do best is the Unikitty definition. One could characterize it as anti-federalist.  In its more prophetic construction, you could interpret it as grassroots organizing.  Subsidiarity came up frequently in the Anglican Covenant episode, which also suggests it has shades of' keep your hands on your side of the car!'  

“Matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority”. What does smallest mean here?  Can it mean most efficient?  What is not always mentioned when discussing subsidiarity is that the concept does have a role for a central organizing body.  This central organization should handle missions that are the same everywhere, and particularly those that support the local mission yet are broadly neglected by the grassroots level.

The internet is about as close as we come to something that is the same everywhere.  I realize there is a dark-net thing that I know nothing about; and I realize that not everyone has equal access to these resources (nor translation capabilities), however this is evolving rapidly.   The resources cataloged by Ogden in Bluebonnet diocese will be basically the same as those curated by Harper in Peanutville province.  The central organization is best equipped to organize things that are (or we want to be) the same everywhere, and those that are crucial but frequently left lying in the things left undone pile.

Right now there is an empty website framework for formation and education resources for my diocese. It is just sitting there in cyberspace, like the housing division where the roads were paved but the houses have yet to be built.  I already keep a measly assortment of Pinterest pages of interesting resources I find for curriculum and seasons.  Yet it barely skims the surface of what is available.  Every week an interesting and usable 'curriculum' floats past my line of sight. Sometimes I manage to pin it; usually I do not.   10 years ago the pickings were slim and it was hard to learn about the options that were effective, cost efficient and didn't activate my progressive orthodoxy gag reflex.  Right now there are amazing new offerings all the time, many of which are inexpensive and downloadable.  For example the day when a holy geek posted that the Messy Church book was free on Kindle that day only.  Awesome.  Where there is yummy wild fruit there is also just as much free and downloadable chaff.  Yet there it sits in the pile of things left unsorted.

That incomplete subdivision of a formation site, there is plenty to fill it.  And my plan is that once I find the time,  I am going to digitally cut and paste from a Bluebonnet diocese and a Yankee diocese and the Peanut Ministry Center and the Master Builder vault.  My plan is to spend a significant amount of time making digital Xerox copies.  My plan is to be an unmodern monk, wandering the digital highway and hand copying a missal when 3-d printers are a thing!! DIY! (Blech emoticon!) This is time and talent that could be spent visiting and calling (and driving) and offering in-person support and guidance.  Time that hasn't been found because I am engaged in the local part of our church-wide ministry, the serving and visiting and human part.

78th General Convention Resolution A075 directs the communication office and formation office to create a central resource and information hub at the DFMS level to curate and freely share the wide array of resources that can help congregations teach, tend, and transform.  Approve this.  Fund this.  It is not something to cement and make permanent, it is a foundation to build and will need ongoing leadership to maintain.  This is an example of one of the best ways that the DFMS Formation office is most valuable.  

The local level is best equipped with a legion of disciples seeking the reign of God.  The central level leadership is the most efficient site for a digital resource hub.  Because the internet is basically the same everywhere.  Furthermore, the DFMS leadership is particularly called to keep the weakest and smallest among us equipped for our common mission.  The churchwide level office for lifelong formation, properly funded,  is the best zone from which to curate resources and offer this central hub. Multiple dioceses repeating the same material and posting the same material on their various sites that are accessible to everyone is wasteful when, as I have already suggested, the internet is basically the same everywhere.  A075 needs to be passed because it is a wise and efficient use of our talents and resources.  It offers these resources to the whole church, regardless of the wealth or shoestrings of the diocese you serve in.  

Approve A075 to direct the building and continual nurture of a central digital hub of Christian formation and education resources through DFMS/Episcopal Church Website.  This action will

• serve the questions and needs of the local mission of the church in all dioceses,
• cease the talent wasteful repetition of identical online cataloging,
• empower and share the most amazing resources for the Episcopal Church’s mission of awesome discipleship.

FORMA advocacy group member

Digital resource part-time curator

Local lifelong minister

Diocesan missioner

Provincial connector

Computer literate, and ok master builder, since 1979

Church of Baseball and Why Affirm Confirmation as Formation #gc78 A080

Elevator Speech on A080: Confirm the Call to Confirmation as Formation

Affirm Confirmation as an Adult Affirmation of faith promised in Baptism: 

• Maintain the call to continue the theological and practical work we have done regarding Baptism with similar exploration of Confirmation.
• Support the call to gather a broad spectrum of experts and practitioners to prepare materials that can strengthen our best practices of preparing for and leading out of the sacrament of Confirmation.

And for something more interesting...

Walla Walla Sweets (Summer College League)

Why affirm Confirmation as Formation?  It is a hard question to even start writing on.  It isn't quite like asking why I like baseball, something so of habit and life drenching daily-ness (most of the year) that I cannot quite conceive of the fine people who say wretched things like 'I don't get why people like baseball'.  I once had a professional scout and former MLB player say that to me.  Now replay that statement in the context of the church/confirmation.  Oh goodness.

Confirmation is to some expert minds a sacrament without a theology.  For the parents of young people it can be a balm for anxious hearts, but it isn't really intended to be a balm.  It can also function as a weak rite of passage, once again that bit of balm that this is not.  Rites of passage have a particular sociology and anthropology that this secondary sacrament is not really intended to meet.  The roots of confirmation are a bit like a due diligence check after the fact.  Reverend Rogers baptized Daniel Tiger, and now King Friday is going to affirm that he has no other knowledge of this person being of ill repute.  The first sacrament, the primary sacrament, baptism was crossing home plate.  You scored the home run, and umpires in New York are confirming the call.  

I have led hundreds of folks, younger and older, through Confirmation/Reception/Reaffirmation classes.  Some games have been a bit of going through the rule book motions, others have been like wandering into the field of dreams.  We, the Episcopal Church,  have spent most of my lifetime affirming that Baptism is full and complete membership in the body of Christ. Game over.  Champagne celebration in the locker room.

ABQ Isotopes mascot chasing down a fan.

Yet we still have a valid need to continually learn and play and act in faith.  We need to follow up the time we spent on Baptism with a season of discernment regarding Confirmation.  We need to think and pray and learn about how important it is to us, how we use this gift and how it is a sacrament that unveils God's reign in our life together.  We need resources and guidance so that the journies toward confirmation have formative shape that lead all persons into Christian discipleship, prayer and service.

I support the standing commission on Ministry Developments's call for us to examine how confirmation is a distinct and valuable piece of lifelong formation.  We need a season and a gathering of experts and practitioners to explore how we actually practice this process and sacrament, and to share with the church best practices for the Christian religious education and formation that can culminate in an 'adult affirmation of faith' confirmed by a bishop.  Let's find that field of dreams.

Affirm Confirmation as an Adult Affirmation of faith promised in Baptism: 

• Maintain the call to continue the theological and practical work we have done regarding Baptism with similar exploration of Confirmation.
• Support the call to gather a broad spectrum of experts and practitioners to prepare materials that can strengthen our best practices of preparing for and leading out of the sacrament of Confirmation.

The FORMA position paper on A080 is here. 

Baseball fan.
FORMA member.
Avid Confirmer.

Dehydrate? Why Funding in the Second Mark of Mission is Food for Everyone #gc78

Elevator Speech regarding tbe Draft Budget Decimations in Lifelong Formation

The draft Budget offered to the 78th General Convention makes significant cuts to the second mark of ministry TEACH.  This area of mission is the life-giving nurture for all the areas of mission.  Changes need to be made to appropriate healthy funding for both the DFMS office and FORMA.  Approve needed funding for:

• Youth and Young Adult Events such as EYE,
• Lifelong Formation office of DFMS,
• FORMA grant from some place in the budget OTHER THAN THE LIFELONG FORMATION OFFICE BUDGET.

Five marks.  Nourishment. Focus. Ideals. Hopes. Practices.  We organize our budget priorities based on the Five Marks of Mission.  Tell, Teach Tend Treasure Transform.  In the preliminary draft budget of The Episcopal Church, the only mark with an overall reduction is 2, Teach.  Formation, education, young people, children, youth, young adults, which if we are honest are quite active living all 5 Marks of Mission.  This is food and water for the gardens we are trying to grow.  More than just filling a pail, area 2 is ongoing and lifelong hydration for the other four marks.  You know that fine wine you are trying to make?  Dry creek beds and no snow pack are going to be a problem.  Maybe not this year, but here in Washington state and elsewhere, yeah...it is a problem this year. 

I used to live in a mile-high city.   (Actually, I have lived in two.) I have this friend.  A smart, kind, generous and world traveling fella who had moved away, he came back to visit.  After less than 12 hours he had a headache and wasn't feeling so terrific.  I asked him if he was hydrating.  He made a sheepish face and said, um, no.  No hydration, no wellness.  It is true at any elevation, but especially true on high.  I hope the folks who are headed to Salt Lake City remember to hydrate.

The church-wide work of lifelong formation and education that is supported by the DFMS office is outrageously effective ministry on a shoestring, and this ministry directly supports the church-wide local work of ministry to tell, teach, tend, treasure and transform.  This life-giving ministry supports transformational opportunities that no congregation and no diocese and no province could do on their own (EYE for example).  The people who are making hard choices about budget and direction are smart and generous and on a mission.  Yet I have to wonder if they have forgotten that to complete this mission, we all need to hydrate.

Storms equal no train today.
Calling the leadership for help getting to EYE14.

EYE.  The Episcopal Youth Event.  Every three years a Christ-centered lifegiving mission-focused Episco-palooza.  The most recent event in Philadelphia cost over $1 million, with around half those costs come from registration fees, which are paid by persons and congregations and dioceses. This most recent event was celebrated on a much smaller budget than in the past. Furthermore, that is only one of the four events (including the Young Adult festival) that line item 68 is intended to cover. Check that number. 

The sales pitch that  “Full funding retained for youth, young adults, Episcopal Youth Event and campus ministries” can be contradicted by a child with 4th-grade math skills. Church-wide celebrations of discipleship and mission with and for and by young people will not continue to happen without liquid assets, and if higher costs are passed on to the participants, then we will see a drying up of the diverse and church-wide participation. 

In the draft budget, there is a first time $100k grant to FORMA.  The FORMA board is currently all volunteer led, relying on the generosity of dioceses and parishes with full-time staff.  This FORMA grant is intended to allow us to hire leadership who can take us to the next level of professionalism and self-sufficiency so that we might continue to nurture all this TELL, TEACH, TRANSFORM, TEND AND TREASURing.   Formation and discipleship is the hydration for of all the rest of Christ's mission.  Want to climb every mountain, or ford every stream?  You are going to need hydration.  All the time and all over the place. FORMA does this, and we can do more with an infusion.  

I am greatly in favor of this funding with a mile-high exception.  It is currently coming directly out of the Lifelong Formation office budget, significantly reducing the funding for that office when we already have a stretched and slashed staff.  I am not in favor of the FORMA line item coming from the Lifelong Formation office section of the budget.  It is robbing Peter to pay Paul.  It is actually doing that, doing it more so than any other time someone has used that idiom. Yetin this specific situation, Peter and Paul are 'hydration buddies' ; worker bees in the same hive, colleagues and like family;  and we are already doing amazing work together.  Dream visions of water-wise gardens?  Install drip irrigation and then disconnect the water company (and the rain barrels)?  Wait, what??!? The FORMA grant is intended to water and seed this grass-roots organization so that we can become an even better partner with the DFMS office. 

Lifelong formation is a primary vocation of Christian discipleship.  The Episcopal Church is best enabled to support lifelong formation when we have a healthy balance of both an executive office accountable to church center leadership AND a grassroots mutuality-based organization; and that both these factors serve the needs of the church best when they can work together with BOTH having ADEQUATE funding and staff.  I desire sufficient liquid assets for both and I wonder if the innovative funding for FORMA can be taken from another area. Perhaps it could come from the innovative ministry grants.

Reunion of OYP12 at EYE14.

I have bushels of time and talent invested in this one.  I am a member of FORMA, the grassroots network and training organization for everything from youth workers to Sunday School directors, to parish priests and more.  I am also a Youth Ministry Liaison with the TEC Lifelong Formation office,and have been an Official Youth Presence mentor, and I have other involvement as well.  I am a local and diocesan youth, and family and formation minister and I have been serving in these zones for quite some time.  I serve in all five marks of mission because I have been nurtured by the professional support of the DFMS office and FORMA.  

I have to wonder.  Why the cuts, why here? I replay commentary such as  'glad it is you and not me' and 'is that (lifelong formation ministry) a professional thing?'  In some ways, this feels like it is a deeper cultural issue played out in the lines of numbers of the draft budget.  In the wider world I hear fermenting angst about cultural decline, but then I see that funding for arts and music is burned, and then I am asked where the creative commitment to each other has gone.  In this Episco vineyard we simultaneously throw millions at a pipe dreams, but ask the people who minister with young people scrape by with pennies on the dollar, and then have the nerve to make toasts about how young people are the 'future of the church.' 

As a formation leader both locally and regionally, I need BOTH an incredible grassroots network like FORMA that is doing amazing work that the church center office cannot, and I need a healthy Lifelong Formation Office of the church center to attend to areas that FORMA cannot.   FORMA and the Lifelong formation office will best help us live into our Baptismal promises when we have the networked grass roots of FORMA and TEC employed expert leadership that is accountable to the evolving structures.  Investing in drip irrigation technology and just dropping it off in a fragile container is the hardest possible way to grow good fruit in a dry land.  Training, equipping and ongoing support need to go hand in hand with the tending of the gardens and collecting the rains. No hydration, no bees, no juice.

The draft Budget offered to the 78th General Convention makes significant cuts to the second mark of ministry TEACH.  This area of mission is the life-giving nurture for all the areas of mission.  Changes need to be made so that healthy funding similar to the budgets (that I presume were) requested is restored.  Approve needed levels of funding for:

• Youth and Young Adult Events such as EYE,
• Lifelong Formation office of DFMS,
• FORMA grant from some place in the budget OTHER THAN THE LIFELONG FORMATION OFFICE BUDGET.

The link below gives a complete explanation of the details of FORMA's recommendations about the draft budget.   I would be glad to answer any questions you might have about this budget item. 

http://episcoforma.org/2015/06/11/formas-second-response-to-the-draft-budget/

#fund2ndmarklikeyoumeanit

Safe Serving: A073 & A074 #GC78

Safeguarding Virtual Elevator Speech:

• Approve the updates to prevention of misconduct Model Policies in A073, 
• Approve the updates to the training materials in A074, 
• Make sure that both the Policies and the Training Materials have input of the people on the ground doing this work, 
• Make sure that they both deal with social media/technology and establishing gracious methods to minister with our LGBTQ friends and colleagues. 

The FORMA position paper about the legislation can be found here.  And here.

Now for a much more interesting musing about these two pieces of critical legislation...

Spring training for wine.

I am now a certified mixologist.  I didn’t go to bartending school (but I am thinking about it), and I haven’t stood behind a bar yet.  However, I can legally pull beer taps and pour wine publicly in the state of Washington.  Here in the best wine country in the world, having your serving permit is what 'everybody does.'  Getting this MAST permit required about three hours of online coursework and a short online test.  The training materials were a mix of slideshows with cheezy stock photography and 80’s health class videos.   Anyways…several pieces of the training had me in fits of laughter.  Not because the topic was funny (third-party liability) but because of how it was almost exactly the same as the Safeguarding God’s Children training materials.   De ja vu.

I have been a trainer since well before the current Model Policies were adopted, using the previous generation of videotapes from Episcopal and Faith Trust.  I have led the training so many times I can almost repeat the videos word for word.  These alcohol servers’ videos had different names and different faces, but it felt like only the nouns had changed.   I guess I already knew that there is a whole industry that produces workplace safety training materials; and I guess it was silly to assume that someone took the time to write fresh script for each different type of liability.  Yet the dejavu was startling.  I had to quit giggling, and had to rewind so that I too can pour wine.

This 78th General Convention has two pieces legislation that are addressing how we strive to prevent misconduct and harm in our ministries.  The first, A073 is calling for an update to the Model Policies.  The current model polices were adopted in 2003, which in church time is brand new, but in lived time quite old.   Facebook was launched in 2004.  In 2003 less than 45% of teenagers had cell phones, and the texting revolution was just getting started.  Today only 12% of American teenagers report NOT having a mobile phone, and 92% being online daily (with 24% being constantly online).  I do not know many ministers, and certainly no youth or young adult ministers, who can serve without using multiple platforms of tech and communication.  

In my earliest youth ministry years I remember RENTING BRICK SIZE cell phones for a long road trip.  I only knew a few people who had cell phones at that point in the late 90's.  Now I text and message most of the young people I work with, I rely on multiple platforms and like those 24%, I am  almost constantly online.  These new technologies have enabled amazing and rapid communication, but also opened terrible doors for misconduct and abuse.  Revised and updated model policies need to include a specific directive to address technology and social media.  The real challenge here is that the landscape of social media and communication technology is changing and evolving so rapidly that platform specific policies would be less useful than broader guidelines that can evolve with the technology. 

Neighborhood cat just wants to be included.

One of the continuing issues with the Model Policies is that they are deeply focused on age and gender binaries more than they are focused on power and dignity.  In these circumstances power is the beast we are trying to manage, and dignity is the road we are trying to walk.  We are a church that openly welcomes and ordains LGBTQ persons, however our current policies regarding sleeping spaces and restrooms and chaperones seem to assume hetero-sexuality, and certainly assume a male-female gender binary. Where does a transgender teen sleep and shower when the choices are boys side and girls side?   It has been suggested that this an issue for the urban and coastal churches; however I have encountered these issues in every continental time zone. An informal survey suggested that while not everyone is currently dealing with this issue, plenty across the Church are.  Right now I serve in a mostly rural diocese and I encounter complications at every youth event and every camp session where the policies do not meet the lived reality of LGBTQ participants and leaders.  

The second piece of legislation, A074, calls for updating and supplementing of the training materials in the Safeguarding God’s Children/People to match the revised Model Policies.  Which is the logical extension of the previous resolution.  SGC/P is the most widely used training material for meeting our duty to prevent misconduct and harm.  It is the most widely used because the online version is basically free.  There are of course costs for the CPG and the fact is the office that supervises this is not large.  In person training, which I believe to be incredibly important, is certainly more costly in time and resources, yet overall it is inexpensive and approved and official.   

Yet for someone who has the in-person training almost memorized, it is clear that the training materials need the input of people on the ground doing this work, and it needs input from experts who know how people learn, and it needs input from pastoral minds that can communicate this info without scaring the crud out of our volunteers.  That servers permit training I completed certainly wanted me to know how to be a responsible server and understand the consequences, but it didn’t leave me scared to serve. 

We need new Model Policies and Training Materials that have the input of the people who are having to negotiate and safeguard on a daily basis, which is recommended in A073, BUT NOT A074.  High-minded and well-intentioned trainings with guidance that is unenforceable or contrary to human dignity are of no use.  There are hundreds of us in the trenches, striving and proclaiming and we want to preserve and protect.  Many of us have found makeshift ways to negotiate these issues, however sound policy and empowering training is far better than freestyle when it comes to preventing misconduct.  This feedback has its costs, but so to does not updating these policies and materials with relevant expertise!

Birds at our lovely,
but under renovation
Aviary.

Luckily, this work won’t have to happen ex-nihlo. Several dioceses have already made strides to establish model policies that address the issues that are unaddressed in the 2003 legislation.  Nothing in these two resolutions will make headlines, but it is the follow through from these resolutions that can prevent them.   

Approve the updates to policies, approve the updates to the training materials, make sure they have input of the people on the ground doing this work, and make sure they deal with social media/technology and establishing gracious methods to proclaim Good News with our LGBTQ friends and colleagues. 

FORMA advocacy group member.

Safe church trainer.

Local youth worker.

Provincial formation leader.

Diocesan missioner.

Wine server.

Jane Alice Gober

Walla Walla, Washington

Scrooged: The Problems with Royal Plans

Scrooge is a name that lives in infamy.  It is onomatopoeia-ic.  You have to scrunch your nose and lips to say it, you cannot smile easily and say it. Scrooge.  It has become a descriptive word.  Most of us know what it means if it is said that someone is being a Scrooge.  The holiday mirth that floats through the title of a Christmas Carol sugar coats a story of weariness that looks both backwards and forwards.  Dickens’ tale is a haunting mixture of hope and desperate fear about the way ahead.  We all have ghosts from a past we many not remember, and we all walk with ghosts of a future we have not yet lived.

Specter’s haunt these readings today, especially 1 Samuel.  David who may not even have been born yet, he is there, floating beyond this demand of a free people for a king.  Pharaoh is there, it doesn’t really matter which one,  you can still see the outline of that large headdress and feel his stubborn greedy grasp on power & wealth. These are not silly ghosts like Nearly Headless Nick.  These ghosts are lives and lessons learned and hopes and dreams, these ghosts are bitter tears of should-a-been-s and could-a-been-s.  The witness of lives and chaos behind us and before us, a cloud of could have been-s and should have been-s.

This story of Samuel, God and a crowd of bourgeois Hebrews, it is more holy morality tale than it is history.  When the raven stole fire from the sun, or when Adam and Eve tried that forbidden fruit in the garden.  For the holy writer of this tale (likely a Deuteronomist) it is very much the choice between good and evil.  This system of kings did begin somewhere, and the desires were probably much like what is offered here.  You can see the royal and blessed (and flawed) David coming over the horizon.  Yet the trappings of majesty are just sugar coating, they are sparkles over layers that know how God loves us and the strange truth that God lets us make rotten choices. 

Parents and counselors and teachers and pastors all do this thing that God does in 1 Samuel.  You, darling children, you want to make a choice that we are certain will not lead to good things.  Or it is simply not the way we would have chosen.  Yet we love you enough to let you be free.  Sometimes things we don’t think will work out do.  And we also know that sometimes, the only way you learn not to jump on the bed, is to bump your head.  The most beleaguered character of the whole Bible is probably not Job, it is probably God.  Can you hear the resigned divine Storyteller?  The One Lord who desires for all of us safety, satisfaction and salvation.  One God who has offered us the way of a compassionate community in the Torah, offered us the way of forgiveness in Christ Jesus.  He has shown us the way and called us home, but he will not live it for us.  Yet there it is, our request.  Can we do it our way?

We are a bit distant from this monarchy idea.  Most royalty that we can easily name either have limited governmental power or are fictitious. Rolly polly ding a-ling Disney kings are less helpful here.  Emperor Palpatine is closer to the darkness that is chosen (but you might notice he is now listed in the Disney Kings!) .  It isn’t about titles, but about centralization of power and wealth and property.  It is about what happens to the people on the bottom, when everything feeds into the top.  The books of Samuel and the books of Kings are telling about the rise of the Kingdom, but it is also telling us a Scrooge story, one haunted by slavery past, and exile future.  It is dense with concerns about political influence, public pressures, dangers from other powers, the accumulation of wealth, the struggle for land that produces fruit, milk and, honey.   Wait. Are those not our worries and challenges?

These texts are haunted by the deepest tensions in ancient Israel,  fraught by this pivotal invitation for a King. It is quite unusual to let someone else decide who you will be and where you will go.  This dialogue between God and Samuel is perhaps the harshest critique of monarchy in the Old Testament.  Who does this choice benefit he asks us.  Who does it crush?  What realities will it bring and why is Samuel so opposed?  Kingdom making is a very human way of trying to manage the chaos.  It will never ultimately create a just community, because it always relies on expelling someone, or being over  someone or against someone.  It is built on being a scrooge.  It will make it harder to live in God’s way, and harder to find our way home to him.

I am not a pleasant person in the morning, especially if the dreams were strange like Scrooge.  Maybe you are as well.  Yet we are not a people who were created to stumble through life, half awake, just trying not to growl at the sun.  We are full of creativity and the same freedom that chose a system of grab, take: this same gift can wake up and choose God’s desire.  We can solve complex problems, or at least I sure hope so, and just because we made a wrong turn does not mean that this is a dead end. Roads go both ways! 

How do we make new dreams, how do we learn from ghosts past, present and future to follow God’s desire for us?   What is this divine desire, this system of governance?  Healing, love, community, compassion.  Service, simplicity, deep thoughts.   These dreams are not for forgetting, but a call to be the up and awake Scrooge at the end of story.  To become a generous peacemaking bundle of love, about whom the neighbors might have thought he went mad.

I sort of dislike the idea that God has a plan for us.  Desire, yes.  Intention, yes.  Roadmap, yes. I guess that is a plan, if you want to call it a plan.  'Plan' just seems to me to be another very human way to try and control the chaos.  (Can we be like other nations, can we have a king? How about an agenda?)  Though the Lord be high, he cares for the lowly.  He perceives the haughty from afar.  The ghosts of empires past and present, we must be honest about.  The ghosts of devastation future, we have a choice about that.  Does God have for us a desire, yes.  Intention, yes.  Roadmap, yes.  GPS, yes. Sadness when we get turned around, yes.  Forgiveness of our getting turned around and seeking after false kingdoms?  Yes.   Amen.

St. Paul's Episcopal Church

Walla Walla, Washington

June 7, 2015

RCL Pentecost 3B

(No audio, because my tired brain could only handle one audio malfunction at once).

(Should go in the invisible category of sermons that started in the Whedonverse and then had that unusual element removed. Check out the show Dollhouse and think about what it means to give up your mind, but keep your heart.)

(Same sermon, two postings, because one would not share right on fb.  this one has no hyperlinks.  hmm.)

Scrooged! Ghosts, Monarchy and the Path of God

Scrooge is a name that lives in infamy.  It is onomatopoeia-ic.  You have to scrunch your nose and lips to say it, you cannot smile easily and say it. Scrooge.  It has become a descriptive word.  Most of us know what it means if it is said that someone is being a Scrooge.  The holiday mirth that floats through the title of a Christmas Carol sugar coats a story of weariness that looks both backwards and forwards.  Dicken's tale is a haunting mixture of hope and desperate fear about the way ahead.  We all have ghosts from a past we many not remember, and we all walk with ghosts of a future we have not yet lived. 

Specter’s haunt these readings today, especially 1 Samuel.  David who may not even have been born yet, he is there, floating beyond this demand of a free people for a king.  Pharaoh is there, it doesn’t really matter which one,  you can still see the outline of that large headdress and feel his stubborn greedy grasp on power & wealth. These are not silly ghosts like Nearly Headless Nick.  These ghosts are lives and lessons learned and hopes and dreams, these ghosts are bitter tears of should-a-been-s and could-a-been-s.  The witness of lives and chaos behind us and before us, a cloud of could have been-s and should have been-s.

This story of Samuel, God and a crowd of bourgeois Hebrews, it is more holy morality tale than it is history.  When the raven stole fire from the sun, or when Adam and Eve tried that forbidden fruit in the garden.  For the holy writer of this tale (likely a Deuteronomist) it is very much the choice between good and evil.  This system of kings did begin somewhere, and the desires were probably much like what is offered here.  You can see the royal and blessed (and flawed) David coming over the horizon.  Yet the trappings of majesty are just sugar coating, they are sparkles over layers that know how God loves us and the strange truth that God lets us make rotten choices.  

Parents and counselors and teachers and pastors all do this thing that God does in 1 Samuel.  You, darling children, you want to make a choice that we are certain will not lead to good things.  Or it is simply not the way we would have chosen.  Yet we love you enough to let you be free.  Sometimes things we don’t think will work out do.  And we also know that sometimes, the only way you learn not to jump on the bed, is to bump your head.  The most beleaguered character of the whole Bible is probably not Job, it is probably God.  Can you hear the resigned divine Storyteller?  The One Lord who desires for all of us safety, satisfaction and salvation.  One God who has offered us the way of a compassionate community in the Torah, offered us the way of forgiveness in Christ Jesus.  He has shown us the way and called us home, but he will not live it for us.  Yet there it is, our request.  Can we do it our way?

Mouse king?

We are a bit distant from this monarchy idea.  Most royalty that we can easily name either have limited governmental power or are fictitious. Rolly polly ding a-ling Disney kings are less helpful here.  Emperor Palpatine is closer to the darkness that is chosen (but you might notice he is now listed in the Disney Kings!) .  It isn’t about titles, but about centralization of power and wealth and property.  It is about what happens to the people on the bottom, when everything feeds into the top.  The books of Samuel and the books of Kings are telling about the rise of the Kingdom, but it is also telling us a Scrooge story, one haunted by slavery past, and exile future.  It is dense with concerns about political influence, public pressures, dangers from other powers, the accumulation of wealth, the struggle for land that produces fruit, milk and, honey.   Wait. Are those not our worries and challenges?

These texts are haunted by the deepest tensions in ancient Israel,  fraught by this pivotal invitation for a King. It is quite unusual to let someone else decide who you will be and where you will go.  This dialogue between God and Samuel is perhaps the harshest critique of monarchy in the Old Testament.  Who does this choice benefit he asks us.  Who does it crush?  What realities will it bring and why is Samuel so opposed?  Kingdom making is a very human way of trying to manage the chaos.  It will never ultimately create a just community, because it always relies on expelling someone, or being over  someone or against someone.  It is built on being a scrooge.  It will make it harder to live in God’s way, and harder to find our way home to him.

I am not a pleasant person in the morning, especially if the dreams were strange like Scrooge.  We are not a people who were created to stumble through life, half awake, just trying not to growl at the sun.  We are full of creativity and the same freedom that chose a system of grab, take: this same gift can wake up and choose God’s desire.  We can solve complex problems, or at least I sure hope so, and just because we made a wrong turn does not mean that this is a dead end. Roads go both ways!  

How do we make new dreams, how do we learn from ghosts past, present and future to follow God’s desire for us?   What is this divine desire, this system of governance?  Healing, love, community, compassion.  Service, simplicity, deep thoughts.   These dreams are not for forgetting, but a call to be the up and awake Scrooge at the end of story.  To become a generous peacemaking bundle of love, about whom the neighbors might have thought he went mad. 

I sort of dislike the idea that God has a plan for us.  Desire, yes.  Intention, yes.  Roadmap, yes. I guess that is a plan, if you want to call it a plan.  'Plan' just seems to me to be another very human way to try and control the chaos.  (Can we be like other nations, can we have a king? How about an agenda?)  Though the Lord be high, he cares for the lowly.  He perceives the haughty from afar.  The ghosts of empires past and present, we must be honest about.  The ghosts of devastation future, we have a choice about that.  Does God have for us a desire, yes.  Intention, yes.  Roadmap, yes.  GPS, yes. Sadness when we get turned around, yes.  Forgiveness of our getting turned around and seeking after false kingdoms?  Yes.   Amen.

St. Paul's Episcopal Church

Walla Walla, Washington

June 7, 2015

RCL Pentecost 3B

(No audio, because my tired brain could only handle one audio malfunction at once).
(Should go in the invisible category of sermons that started in the Whedonverse and then had that unusual element removed. Check out the show Dollhouse and think about what it means to give up your mind, but keep your soul.)