Nostalgia

This week I have desperately been trying to "get in the Advent/Christmas spirit."  It seems like we got a few extra days out of November this year, and our local weather has been a roller coaster of late, and so I have experienced some difficulty finding the mood of gaity that is to accompany this season.  In an effort to get the mood right (which I do believe matters for preparing sermons, writings newsletter articles, etc.) I have been listening to Christmas music in the office, and we have begun decorating and trimming Christmas trees at our house.

I fight a constant tension in this season.  There is the child in me who loves the lights and the presents and wrapping, the Christmas cookies and special movies.  I love the stories of Santa Claus and the festive television advertisements.  At the same time, I realize that these commercial elements of the season really have nothing to do with the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ.  Part of me wants to play the role of the prophet, decrying the unecessary buying, the gluttonous eating, and the self-absorption the holiday can breed.  It seems so contrary to the message of the one born in the stable who proclaimed that we should die to self, sell our possessions, and work to make sure all are fed.

My struggle, however, comes when I reflect on the meaning I have come to associate with those more consumeristic elements of the season.  The Christmas dinner where we overeat is a time where we remember our past celebrations.  It is a holy space.  Yes, buying and wrapping the gifts is not necessary, but there is a long-standing joy in seeing the paper torn and the excited faces of the folks opening their presents.  Yes, it is ridiculous to try and find storage for the artificial tree and ornaments, and it is time-consuming and takes money to replace the outside lights that do not work, but a deep feeling of home resonates in my soul when those decorations are up.

As a pastor I often worry about the church becoming a shrine to nostalgia and sentimentality.  When that occurs you can typcially put an "end date" on the ministry of a community because the means through which we proclaim the Gospel message are particular to specific historical moments.  If we re-create our previous traditions time and again without reflection or without consideration of contemporary circumstances, the church becomes merely a museum of a past way of life.

At the same time, though, there is something good about nostalgia and sentimentality, even in the Church.  Our celebrations and traditions shape who we are and connect us to the saints of the past.  Just as we feel that sense of "home" in our decorated houses, we can feel a sense of "home" when we walk into the sanctuary on Christmas Eve and see the greenery and poinsettias in their usual place.  We walk in and know, "I belong here."

So, maybe nostalgia in moderation is not a bad thing.   In a time when so much in life seems temporary and transitory, nostalgic practices help us connect again to our roots.  These are the trustworthy practices that shape so many of our otherwise chaotic moments.  Now these traditions can become idols if we let them, but we need not, I think, shirk them all together in some effort to create a more "pure" Christmas (and let's not forget that the original Puritans actually outlawed the celebration of Christmas).

I suppose the happy medium might come when our celebrations remain something other than a way of "consuming" Christmas and serve more as a kind of holy connection to the past and the future of life.  When that occurs, maybe we are experiencing a kind of sanctified moment, when the Advent of Jesus into the world meets the second Advent of preparation for his return.  In this, perhaps, is holiness.

Thankful for You

If you're a Facebook user, most likely you have noticed some of your friends taking time each day in November to name something for which they are thankful.  I have enjoyed reading these reflections, and it has led me to do some thankful reflection as well.  Thanksgiving is on November 22 this year, and so I would like to offer twenty-two things about First Presbyterian Church for which I am grateful (these are not in order of importance, just a random numbering).

1.  For a history of outreach and mission that understands the role of the church to be beyond our walls and in the world.

2.  For genuine relationships of support, laughter, and care.  People are encouraged to be themselves at FPC, and I am so grateful for that.

3.  For a committed staff who see their roles as part of the mission of God.  Their dedication, reliability, passion for their work, and cooperative spirit help us worship and service and learn with greater effectiveness.

4.  For the great storytellers who help us remember the stories of our church family.

5.  For a music program that engages all ages and uses a variety of gifts to lift our hearts to the heavens in worship.  Our music truly helps to illumine God's word to us each week.

6.  For members who quietly clean the sanctuary, organize the pencils, gather the sign-in sheets, and ensure our worship space is welcoming week to week.

7.  For Family Night Suppers where I get to indulge in many foods we never eat at our own house because of Rebecca's food preferences.  I particularly enjoy the deviled eggs, baked beans, potato salad, and corn bread!

8.  For a congregation willing to learn new songs, preach to each other during sermons, and easily forgive mishaps in worship!

9.  For the stomping of preschool feet above my head in the church office on Sundays as our children actively engage in God's word

10. For stories of second chances, fresh starts, and lasting forgiveness I have the privilege to listen to

11. For readers and learners who challenge me to keep up with my own study

12. For a session who remains diligent in their work and who seek God's will above all else.  These dedicated disciples are wonderful leaders who continually teach me so much.

13. For congregational mentors who gently keep me in line, who remember that a pastor has as much to learn as to teach

14. For new faces in worship and study and service as our community of faith continues to grow

15. For the "resurrection" stained glass window in the sanctuary above the narthex, that reminds me at the beginning of each worship service of the Good News we gather to celebrate and proclaim

16. For those who make sure our homebound members feel part of our community of faith by taking them recordings of the worship services and visiting them, making them care packages and holiday greetings

17. For the quietly generous who seek to give to God without a desire for recognition and praise.  You humble me and strengthen my faith in the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit.

18. For those who make sure our website is up-to-date and interactive for visitors and members to get and stay connected

19. For the extended families that form among our members.  At this time of year I celebrate the stories I'm hearing of church members who aren't near family getting together with each other to celebrate Thanksgiving.  That's genuine community.

20. For the stories you share about times when you have seen God in your life.  These stories lift my soul and give me great hope.  The ability for some to see God in the midst of trial and suffering is amazingly powerful.

21. For baptisms when we see so clearly the extravagent love and grace of God for us.

22. For funerals (I know that may sound strange) when we sing for joy in the face of death and gather as a community to declare our ultimate hope in Jesus Christ.

Those are some of things I thank God for about First Presbyterian Church.  It can be so easy to miss those little things that give our life meaning and remind us of God's presence.  I hope you find some time to reflect on the blessings of God in your life in this week.  Happy Thanksgiving!

What We Say with Our Eyes Closed

There have been many thoughtful reflections on what exactly happens when we pray.  Theologians have described prayer as both intiated by God (the work of the Spirit moving us to pray), as a holy reverence with God, as a wrestling with God, as a bold crying out, as a listening.  When we try to pray with intention we are often left wondering if God really needs our prayers if God is truly soveriegn.  Do our prayers affect God or are our prayers an intentional opportunity for God to change us?

These are good reflections for which I do not have an answer.  I often wonder what it is that is happening when I pray with members of our church in their homes or in the hospital or at the nursing home.  What exactly are we doing in those moments of lonliness or fear, joy or anxiety?

Words are insufficient, I suppose, for what really happens in prayer (the apostle Paul speaks of prayer as sighs too deep for words), but I can affirm something does happen.  At the very least, I feel that when we pray for one another aloud, we are often willing to place before God those things that we hesitate to name when speaking face to face.  We bow our heads, close our eyes, and open our mouths in an unusual honesty.  It is almost as God serves as an intermediary between those gathered, allowing us to speak the truth of our heart.

Sometimes this honesty comes out in terms of gratitude, as happened at our session meeting on Tuesday night.  To close our meeting we gathered around our outgoing class of elders, laid hands on them and offered to God our thanksgiving for the gifts these women and men have brought to our church over the last year.  Many of the elders shared their gratefulness of the unique gifts of the outgoing class of elders, traits for Christian leadership they had experienced through the ministry of these people, and I wonder if in a face-to-face encounter we would have had the courage offer those thankful words.

Before God, though, we are willing to express our sincere gratitude.

In prayer, do we find a deeper courage to speak the truth that we might gloss over in regular conversation, striving to name a pain or a longing or a hope I have heard in the midst of an encounter or conversation?  When others ask us to pray for them, is there some longing of their heart they desire to articulate but they need another to help name?  Maybe there is.  Maybe it is simply a desire to know they are not alone in the struggle.  Maybe they hope that by sharing and praying they can find a meaning in the midst of chaos.

And with our eyes closed and our hands held, maybe we can name before God the truth of our hearts, which brings us into deeper communion with each other as well.

For All the Saints

I believe, for many of us, we fear death not because of our inability to know what happens beyond the grave but simply because we fear that we will be forgotten, that our lives will have been of no consequence.  If we as individuals do not feel this way, often our immediate families do.  This anxiety often leads us to establish some kind of memorials in the names of ourselves or those we have loved and lost.  We give something in their memory that will bear their name; we establish a fund for a good cause that will guaruntee that they name will not be lost forever; we try and purchase a beautiful headstone with the name deeply engraved to ensure it will mark the place of our loved one through many years.

But when we are our most honest, we come to a realization that unless we are Julius Caesar or King Tut, very few of us will be remembered beyond a couple of generations after our deaths.  Even if we have memorials established in our name, the stories of our lives, the content of our character, will be lost as those who knew us become the past themselves.

I think about this when I walk through our church sanctuary.  Inside the frame of each window in the sanctuary are small gold plaques, naming those for whom each window was given.  Some were honorariums for the living, others were memorials to the dead.  They mark the place of these saints in our community through the ages.

Yet, for many of the names, I know nothing of their story.  A few I have heard about from our current church members, but none of them did I know personally.  I wonder if, in a couple of generations, anyone will remember these saints memorialized in these small gold carvings.

On All Saints Day, which we will celebrate on Sunday, we remember the saints who have died during the last year.  We speak their names aloud to God and ring a bell of remembrance.  Many of these saints remain fresh in our memories and will be spoken of for years to come.  Over time, however, as we grow old, and after our names have been read between the tolling of the bells, these names too will be forgotten.

There is a comfort, though, to be taken in all of this.  While our efforts to memorialize ourselves may always fall short, and while we will most likely not be remembered one hundred years after our deaths, we can remember that our names are remembered before God.  The psalmist sings to God, "You know my inmost parts... Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.  In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed" (Psalm 139:13-16).  Jesus declares that God knows us so intimately and cares for us so fully that even the hairs of our head are numbered (Matthew 10:31).

We remember the saints annually by name, and those who have died in years past remain in our hearts.  But in God's heart are all the saints, those whose names are foreign to us, those whose headstones have weathered away through baking heat and driving rains.  We cannot possibly memorialize and honor all those who have died, but on All Saints Day we celebrate that we are not called to do that.  We are called to honor the God of our life and our death, before whom our names and our lives remain ever-present.  Let us celebrate this God who knows each of us intimately and remembers our names, long after our earthly journey has concluded.

Standing on Shoulders

Coming into ordained ministry I was warned against making a mistake many first-time pastors make.  I was told that frequently new pastors act as though there has been no wisdom or careful work done by a congregation before their arrival.  They neglect the years of faithfulness and care of previous generations and even more so the work of previous pastors. 

When examined psychologically, this may have to do with insecurities about entering ministry and seeing oneself in competition with predecessors.  Hearing about the positive aspects of previous pastors can become interpreted in our small and ego-centric minds that people are really pining for those old leaders and rejecting our ideas and efforts to do ministry now.

While I have not always been successful at fighting these temptations, I have tried in the last year and a quarter to learn about the previous pastors in our congregation and the witness they have shared.  I have tried to learn to appreciate the offerings they left, the lives they touched, the practices they instilled in the congregation.  I have hoped to remain sensitive to the ways previous ministers' legacies are tied to certain traditions in our congregation.  And at the same time I have tried not to judge myself against those who have served here before me.  We are all unique and share unique gifts with this Body of Christ.

As we celebrate Founder's Day this Sunday, I get the opportunity to actually see one of our former pastors in action, the Rev. Dr. Glenda Hollingshead.  Glenda served our congregation faithfully for years before accepting her current call in Colonial Heights, Virginia.  During that time she established a strong ministry of care.  She visited and cared for homebound members, she sought to integrate spiritual practices into the life of our community and into the life of individuals.  She established women's minsitries and the ongoing prayer shawl ministry.  She was a teacher, a confidant, and a trusted voice from the pulpit. 

I spoke with Glenda on the phone during my time of discernment for this call, and it was clear that she had a deep love and admiration for this congregation that helped form her pastoral identity.  She and I had the opportunity to meet face-to-face when I graduated with my M.Div. and she with her D.Min. from Columbia Seminary in 2011.  We spoke only briefly, but she told me that she had been in regular prayer for our congregation and for me, their future pastor.  I have felt those prayers over the last year.

I am delighted to hear her proclaim God's word to us on Sunday.  I am grateful to stand on her shoulders as the pastor of this congregation, and I hope to honor and further the ministries she founded and supported.  In a world where we are often taught to view others in our field as competitors, I am grateful to serve in a vocation where we are called to see each other as brothers and sisters of the one Lord, working in cooperation for the proclamation of the Gospel to the whole world.

Join us this Sunday, and let us celebrate the many gifts of leaders past who have shaped the witness of our community of faith!

Jesus said to them, "My wife..."

If you have been following the news recently, you may have heard about the recently uncovered Coptic text which may indicate a belief in early Christianity that Jesus had a wife.  This fragment of papyrus from the second century, appears to be a sacred text along with similar texts like the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Mary Magdalene, and the Gospel of Thomas that did not make the traditional canon of Christianity but seem to display an alternative interpretation of the life and ministry of Jesus.

There are many questions that have risen as a result of this finding, everything from "who are Coptic Christians?" to what kind of authority this text has.  Some have argued that if Jesus had a wife who was his disciple, this would open up all kinds of possibilities for women in leadership in the church which many denominations have so far denied them. 

I want to outline a little historical perspective on this issue and then offer an alternative opinion, that I believe our obsession with Jesus having a wife actually is an attempt to domesticate Jesus and keep women in a subordinate position to men.  I believe that a celibate Jesus, who calls women and men to discipleship, helps us see a more true equality between genders than a married Jesus would.

Coptic Christians

Who are Coptic Christians?  This question has led me back into my church history textbooks, which has been a healthy intellectual exercise this week.  It is a confusing history, but the emergance of Coptic Christians goes back to the fourth century and a debate in eastern Christianity around the full humanity and full divinity of Jesus.

In the western Church, most Christians affirmed the paradoxical statement of Tertullian, that in Christ there were two natures united in one person.  In the eastern church, however, there was a desire to spell this out a litle more fully.

This resulted in to primary "schools" of thought regarding the humanity and divinity of Jesus.  There were the Alexandrines, who thought a primary emphasis should be on Jesus as a teacher of divine truth.  Because of this emphasis, the divinity of Jesus is the primary lens through which we should understand his person.  Antiochenes, however, felt that in order for Jesus to be the savior, for his death to have significance for our lives, he had to be fully human, fully part of our condition and life.  They felt the Alexandrine diminished this full humanity of Jesus. 

Eutyches

There were several councils and fights about all this, but in relation to Coptic Christianity everything really came to a head in 444, a debate around the teachings of a monk named Eutyches.  Eutyches said really confusing things about the humanity and divinity of Jesus, things like wile the Savior was "of one substance with the Father," he was not "of one substance with us."  He also said that Christ was "from two nature before the union, but in one nature after the union." 

This greatly upset the Patriach of Constantinople, Flavian, who was strongly Antiochene (emphasis on the humanity of Jesus) and thought Eutyches was preaching something close to docetism (a heresy that states that Christ has two natures that do not unite in the one person).  Eutyches was thus condemned as a heretic.

In the end, the eastern church resolved their conflict with the "Definition of faith," that ultimately placed them back in the orthodoxy of the western tradition, that Christ is fully human and fully God, two natures united in one person, distinct yet not separated.

There were dissenters in this movement, however, some of whom wanted to emphasize the unity of Jesus over his two natures.  These became known as "monophysites" (from mono = one and physis = nature).  In the Byzantine Empires, the strongholds fro monophysism were in Egypt and Syria, where the oldest natural Egyptians, the Copts, were oppressed by the empire.  This mix of nationalism and theology came to form the Coptic Church in Egypt, a monophysite tradition.

Today the Coptic Church has between 12 and 18 million members, and ten percent of Egyptian citizens belong to this church.

Where does this scrap of Papyrus come from?

From my research this text is dated back to the fourth century AD and seems to be in a similar tradition to texts we refer to as the Gnostic Gospels.  Gnosticism was an expression of Christianity that arose within the first hundred years of the church and was ultimately rejected.  Gnosticism wanted to focus the faith on a "secret knowledge" that Christ comes to reveal.

There is a large amount of Platonic dualism that separates a pure soul from the wicked body.  Because of this, the bodily death and resurrection of Jesus becomes less important than the wisdom he sought to dispel.  True faith, then, is coming to understand that knowledge.

This expression was rejected because it seemed to minimize the role of the cross and scale back the cost of bodily discipleship that the canonized Gospels profess.

Does Jesus having a wife help women in the church?

Dr. Gail Streete

One of the proposed conclusions from this study of this scrap of papyrus is that if Jesus had a wife, this could show the value he placed in women, thus helping the case for women's leadership in the church.  When I was in college, I took at class called Sex and Gender in the New Testament caught by Dr. Gail Streete.  This was just as  Dan Brown's Davinci Code was coming out, and so this notion of Jesus' sexual life was a major topic of conversation then as it is now.

Dr. Streete made a proposal to our class that I tend to support and believe as well.  Her argument was that it is our modern reading of the scripture that makes us want Jesus to have a wife because we cannot conceive of a full human being not driven by sexual impulse.  We cannot conceive of a man and woman in a mutual relationship without a desire for sex being a primary factor.

Dr. Streete argued that this sexualized interpretation of Jesus actually does more to harm the role of women in the church than to enhance their leadership because it objectifies them as sexual objects.  It is almost as if we cannot comprehend that possibly Jesus called these women (Mary Magdalene, sisters Mary and Martha, etc.) to be disciples alongside the twelve named apostles.  We don't sexualize Jesus' relationship with Peter, James, and John so why do we sexual his relationship with female disciples?

I believe, however, that if we want to raise the role of women to greater equality in discipleship, we have to begin to think of the women in the New Testament as full disciples and not sexual objects.  I know it is sometimes hard to think that maybe Jesus wasn't as obsessed with sex as we are.  I think Jesus' life was a testimony to a new kind of family relationship he was forming in the church, and I believed he called both women and men into the fullness of that mission and ministry.

As a result, I do not put too much stock in this papyrus as some kind of revolutionary discovery for the Christian religion.  I think it is interesting to make note of it.  I believe a thorough study of our past is a good thing.  I just believe this is a more sensational response to this story than might be warranted in the larger picture of the history of Christian thought.

September Eldertorial: Linda Noonkesser

Perhaps it was the title that first resonated with me, inciting a curious peek at an article entitled "Missing Jesus" by Jonathan Martin, or perhaps it was a personal response to the thought of Jesus among us, but unrecognized.

As Martin observes, most of us as believers, while standing firm in the faith, are often a bit disconcerted by the Jesus of Nazareth who makes a practice of appear-ing in the most unexpected and disruptive of places. This Jesus challenges all of us by refusing to be constrained into acting the role of the mascot or symbol, by refusing to be afraid and in need of defense. He challenges us to put Him in the center, not on the edge, serving not only as our Lord, but also as the relevant standard against which all questions and decisions are measured.

Is the active, surprising Jesus of the New Testament being overlooked in our church? I got some answers ra-ther quickly just by attending the August Family Night Supper where our young people so passionately spoke of their encounters with Jesus as they ministered to the needy at Sunset Gap. Also I noticed the loving prepara-tion of food, offered to any and all, by the hard-working volunteer groups who are so faithful in every function. Many of us found Jesus in learning new music for worship, and there were chats, smiles and hugs as Jesus’ love was passed among us.

After the supper and program concluded, I noted the colorful bulletin boards in the hallway which spoke to the many activities for youth, education, evangelism, church maintenance- all supported faithfully by church members and friends. And then there were the dedicated members of the mission committee responding to requests for aid coming from every direction, and doing that task with prayerful care. A tour of the church yard showcased hours of quiet tending providing a lovely setting for medi-tation and a welcoming approach to our building. All an-swering my question-Jesus is not overlooked!

Yet we are challenged anew each day to look for Jesus in those unexplored places, events, opportunities where He is already working- places where compassion and mer-cy are most needed. Jesus "relentlessly" loved people and demonstrated that by standing up for the oppressed (economically or socially), the hurting and those whose wounds were less visible, but only too real.

Phrases of an old hymn come to mind…"Footprints of Jesus that make the pathway glow; We will follow the steps of Jesus wherever they go." Can we as a congregation even more prayerfully follow the steps of an active, caring Jesus?

Flood Waters

"The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord, over mighty waters.  The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.  The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord sits enthroned as king forever.  May the Lord give strenth to his people!  May the Lord bless his people forever!" -Psalm 29: 3-4, 10-11.

Tuesday morning began with a surprise as I found that water had leaked into our basement fellowship hall, covering roughly two thirds of the floor.  This is a problem that has occurred since I arrived, and we have spent time and money attempting to solve the problem, but with five inches of rain in twenty-four hours, even the additional precautions did not hold up. 

As a result I was walking through puddles, surveying the damage to the merchandise for our church mission yard sale scheduled for early October.  It need not be said that this was not how I was predicting I would spend my Tuesday.

At 8:30 I began making phone calls, to the Building and Grounds Committee Chair and to another elder on that committee who works on caulking and waterproofing.  Within twenty minutes they had both arrived with mops and shop vacs, and after a short survey of the damage, they began moving boxes and cleaning up the water.

Within the next thirty minutes, an additional six people arrived, more shop vacs, more available hands.  There was no sense of panic, no chaos, just people with their hands down and hands at work throwing away soaking cardboard, sorting through merchandise that could dry out or needed to be thrown away.  They began moving boxes to the upper floor to protect them from any future flooding issues. 

I realized rather quickly that my schedule for the day was not going to be terribly interrupted because the members of the church had sprung into action to take care of the problem.  Because of their efforts, I was able to continue preparation for Sunday worship, trusting that our water problem would be cared for.

Jokingly I came down into the fellowship hall to check on the progress and read to the volunteers the words of the Psalm posted above.  It was to provide a moment of humor, and also offered me a time to offer thanks for their immediate and thorough response to the need.

I do think, however, that this Psalm reminds us of the ambiguous nature of water.  Water is necessary for life, for cleaning and drinking.  We need it to water crops for food production.  It provides an element of beauty when we sit by a lake, float down a river, or gaze out at the horizon over the vast ocean.

Water can also be destructive, causing flooding that does significantly more damage than our flooded basement, destroying homes and lives.  It destroys family treasures, photographs and artifacts that we have saved from important moments in our lives.  Too much water can drown our crops or our yards. 

Water is a necessary resouce to life but it can also destroy life.

Maybe this Psalm can serve as a reminder that our God is not an ambiguous resource who randomly causes good or evil in life.  Our God actually sits enthroned over the waters, forming the world out of the chaos of the waters, bringing new life through the waters of the Red Sea and the waters of our baptism, and promises a river of life at the end of history where the throne of God will sit.

And so when basements flood, we do not fear that we are at the mercy of a random natural element that can create or destroy life.  We do not inhabit a world only of chaos and random chance. 

We trust in a God who provides through the means of water and who heals when the waters cause destruction.  Therefore, when basements flood, God sends faithful saints to clean out boxes and mop up messes, because God's purposes will not be ultimately thwarted by weather patterns. 

We do not, therefore, seek to interpret weather patterns, floods and droughts, as signs of God's abandonment or blessing.  We know that the rains fall on both the just and the unjust (Matt 5:45).  Instead we place our trust in a God who rules over the waters, who provides both the natural as well as the human resources we need.  This is the God who can create the world out of nothing and who brings life out of death.

I am grateful this day for the saints who witnessed to the power of our God through their humble and tireless service to make sure that God's purposes of mission were able to continue despite natural set backs in our daily routine.

Meet Patrick Harley

As part of a connected denomination, pastors and ruling elders share responsibilities of carrying out the mission of the presbytery.  Our presbytery, composed of sixty-seven congregations in northeast Tennessee, possesses certain functions that congregations alone cannot carry out.  One of these is the preparation for ministry of women and men who have responded to God's call to enter ordained ministry to serve as teaching elders in the Church.

The Committee on Preparation for Ministry walks with these students through their seminary experience, and seek to evaluate their progress and provide mutual discernment for where God is calling them to serve.  I can attest from going through the experience in recent memory, it can feel somewhat tedious and laborious, filling out pages and pages of paperwork, organizing meetings, and traveling to presbytery events, but the work we carry out really is necessary if we believe in a system of mutual support and accountability.

Those seeking to become ordained in ministry must go through a series of steps with the presbytery that takes roughly three years, in addition to completing the Master's of Divinity Degree (which first requires a bacculaurete degree) and passing five denominational Ordination Exams.

Through the experience, the inquirer (the term for someone in discernment ) and later candidate (the stage to which the person moves if she or he indeed feels led to ordained service) is given a liason to accompany them through the journey.

I had a wonderful liason on my presbytery in East Tennessee, when I was in the ordination process.  The Rev. Dave Webster would contact me each quarter with updates on the process and would elicit information from me about my spiritual growth.  When I was beginning to seek a call, he shared with me from his own experience and asked important questions that helped me to listen more carefully to the Holy Spirit at work.

Because of this experience, I wanted to serve on the CPM so that I might have the chance to provide this care for a future candidate for ministry. 

At our last CPM meeting, I was named as the liason for Patrick Harley.  Patrick is from Greeneville, Tennessee where he was raised at the First Presbyterian Church.  He is a graduate of Auburn University where he majored in Philosophy and Religious Studies, was active in campus ministry, and served as the youth leader at FPC Auburn.  He has served as staff and as a member of planning teams for the Montreat Conference Center and just completed a year with the Young Adult Volunteer program of the PC(USA) in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

He met with our committee only days after returning to the States, and it was a joy to hear about what God has been doing in his life over the past several years, from the early rumblings of call to ministry as a teenager, to the willingness to step into a foreign context to listen more carefully to God's call.

Patrick and I had a chance to meet for lunch last week before he heads to Decatur, Georgia to begin his studies at Columbia Theological Seminary.  I have appreciated his honesty, his openness, his attentiveness to the Spirit, and I ask the prayers of our church for Patrick as he continues to strive to deepen his walk with the Lord and respond to the call of Jesus in his life.

From our limited time together I feel very clear that the PC(USA) needs thoughtful, compassionate, and energized leadership that Patrick already exudes.  I look forward to walking with him in this journey and hope we might find ways for him to get to know some more members of our congregation as well.

I think it is helpful to see a face behind the money and time we dedicate to our Presbyterian identity.  Indirectly, our church has supported Patrick through our funds that help to maintain the Holston Presbytery Camp and Retreat Center, through denominational gifts that strengthen the Young Adult Volunteer Program and help to put on Youth and College Conferences at Montreat.  I am grateful that this congregation allows me to serve on a presbytery committee and take time to visit with future leaders in the church.  Let us remember that the Church and Mission of Jesus is far greater than our congregation that gathers each week, and let us continue to look and listen to those God puts in our lives to deepen our knowledge of what it means to be the body of Christ.

Being Present

One of the challenges I found as a theatre performance major in college was the necessity of being "in the moment" when performing in a scene on stage.  This sense of immediate presence is what separates good acting from bad acting, for when performers are "in the moment," the action seems spontaeneous and unplanned to the audience instead of scripted and blocked out (which it obviously is!). 

As a performer, it is easy to become distracted by the audience's response to the play, to be thinking about what is coming next in the show, or in a long run simply to let your mind wander to other concerns, just going through the motions to complete the performance.

I found the challenge of remaining "in the moment" not only a struggle on stage but even in preparation for a show.  With other classes and extracurricular responsibilities, it was often easy to delay scene rehearsal or preparation.  Or even when I would carve out time to rehearse, if I had not cleared off all the other things on my "to do" list first, I would find my mind wandering to those concerns instead of the task at hand.

I think this notion of "being in the moment," of being fully "present," is not only an essential element of good acting but is also an essential element of effective ministry.  We can all think of a time (whether in church or not), when someone took time to really listen to us, to make us feel like we were his or her only concern in the world.  Often we are aware that the person who took that time was busy and could have tried to move us on out the door, but it was the sense of presence, that patient listening, that meant something to us.  It made us feel important; it gave us value.  There was something sacred in the encounter.

I think it isn't mere politeness that requires us to extend this ministry of presence; I think it is theological.  In the incarnation (the fancy word for God becoming human in Jesus) we see God's commitment to being present with us.  We see it in Jesus' willingness to stop his plans to help those who called on him.  We see it in his conversations with outsiders whom others chose to ignore.  The Gospel According to Luke tells us that even on the cross, in extreme agony, Jesus took the time to listen to the thief who wished to repent of his sins.

Admittedly, I struggle to be fully present in ministry with others as I struggled to be "in the moment" in a theatre scene.  Plans and responsibilities often cloud my ability to be present with others, and it is an area in which I hope to grow.  I think the problem of distraction is exacerbated by my smart phone, where at any lull in life I can check e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter, or catch up on the news or send one more text message.  It gets to the point where I wonder if we are losing our ability to really engage each other or if our attention spans operate in only five minute increments.

Growing in presence begins, I believe, in prayer, in a centering on God's word that focuses the mind and heart on God and not on the chores and duties of the day.  It involves trust, that God's will is going to be done whether or not I have it scheduled into my calendar or not!  It involves accountability, holding each other to be true community, which means being together in openness and honesty.  It may even involve turning off the gadget for a while to be in an embodied relationship with another person.

I would encourage you, then, to take a moment today, and center yourself on God, be present with the Lord.  Then find some time with someone you care about to give yourself over to being fully present with him or her.  We may just see Jesus in the middle of it all!

August Eldertorial: Beth Folsom

The following post is the Eldertorial featured in our church newsletter, the Amen Almanac, for July. Each month, one of our Elders (those called by God and the congregation to guide our spiritual life together) writes a reflection on ways they see God at work in the world.

Carson Newman Outreach

As a new school year begins for many of our teachers and students, we are looking at some new programming to reach out to Carson Newman students.  This opportunity was identified partly through information gathered from the “Congregational Check-up”.  I am excited to have the chance to serve on a new Campus Ministry Team tasked to look at outreach to the Carson Newman community.

Between the outreach committee, the session, and conversations with some of our young adults from Carson Newman, several “new ideas” have been identified:

Holy Hot Dogs!  On move in day, August 17, we will be serving hot dogs and popcorn on the lawn to incoming students.  As we have done in previous years, we will also help the students move into their dorms.  We will need lots of hands on this big day!

Post worship study – after worship, Rev. Whaley will lead a session for college students with lunch included.  We would like a few “young at heart” participants in this class to facilitate discussion, but not so many as to outnumber the young adults!  We will also need volunteers to arrange lunches.

Finals study – same as above, except we will provide coffee, drinks, & snacks and stay open on finals week from 9pm – 2am.  Night owls needed (December 6-12)!!

Once a month, an activity will be offered to encourage our college students to get to know each other better, and us.  A trip to Dixie Stampede and a Saturday hike in the mountains are the planned events for the Fall Semester.

Why bother, you may ask.  We have tried to attract students in the past and it did not work.  Through our studies, we have learned that over 50% of adults under 25 have no religious affiliation.  Most young adults are reluctant to participate in “traditional church”.  We were told a story about a couple of students who came to our church by accident one Sunday; they felt trapped because so many people went to greet them after the service!  Good intentions, just overdone. 

The idea is not to appeal to the CN body at large, but rather a select number of students who may be seeking FPC as part of their faith journey.  Last year, we were blessed with having Abby Bruce and Grace Carpenter worship with us and sing in the choir, and they helped us to identify how a church like our could more effectively reach out to students. 

When students come to Sunday worship, if you are sitting in front, behind, or beside them, by all means say good morning and ask them if they are interested in the post worship college study group & lunch, learn where they are from, and let them know that we are glad they have come to worship with them.  Be careful, however, not to overwhelm them so that they are chatting in the sanctuary until dinner time!

If you would like to serve in any of the capacities noted above, please let Janie Gates, Ted Folsom, Linda Noonkesser, Darren Watson, Rev. Whaley, or me know.  A variety of help, talents, and time commitments are needed.   Jesus says that it is more blessed to give than to receive.  We never really know how blessed our lives can be unless we reach out to the world around us with the love of God.

The Olympics and the End of the World

Did you watch the opening cermonies of the Olympics this year in London?  While certainly not the lavish affair of Beijing 2008, I thought the organizers did a nice job representing their country in spectacle on July 27th.  Did you also notice, though, the relgious symbolism in the presentation?  It was not overt, but there was a kind of undercurrent of Christian eschatalogical hope woven into the story the actors, musicians, dancers, and technicians told.

The story began in pastoral England, with children's choirs of the four countries of the United Kingdom singing portions of their national anthems.  Did you notice the words?  From "Jerusalem,"

And did those feet in ancient time
walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy lamb of God
on England's pleasant pastures seen?
And did the countenance divine
shine forth upon those clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
among those dark satanic mills?

There is here an allusion to that theological idea of Jerusalem, that home where God dwells in perfect unity with humankind, where justice and mercy and love create a culture of God's ultimate Shalom.  What a statement to make to open one of the few non-violent gatherings of humankind in our world today!

The medley continues with children singing "Danny Boy" and the "Flower of Scotland" before the Welsh children finished off the tour with "Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer," a hymn we sing in worship in our congregation.  And the chorus of this hymn?

Bread of heaven, bread of heaven
Feed me till I want no more.
Feed me till I want no more.

You hear that, with people of different nationalities, in a variety of dress, and you cannot help but remember the invitation to our Lord's table, "In the kingdom of God people will come from north and south and east and west to sit at table."  Was this moment, hanging in the humid London night air, a foretaste of that gathering?  Maybe?

And if the opening wasn't enough for you, when we came to the parade of nations, we watched as each country entered the arena with their nation's flag, walked it around the track, and then up a manmade hill where they stuck it in the ground, so that all the flags of all the nations were gathered together in one place.  And what stood at the top of the hill?  A tree.

A tree of life perhaps?  "On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves are for the healing of the nations.  Nothing accursed will be found there any more.  But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.  And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever."

A tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.  I believe this theatrical presentation to open two weeks of competition between people of different countries, was pointing us to a unity we cannot understand fully yet, but a unity that we as followers of Jesus Christ must cling to, a hill where we will sit with brothers and sisters from across the globe and across the ages, beneath a tree of healing.  May it be so.

'Til We Reach That Day

Last weekend Rebecca and I had the opportunity to experience the WordPlayers production of Ragtime in Knoxville.  It was the first of two weekends of the performance, and I would highly recommend taking time to get out to the Clayton Center for the Arts at Maryville College to see the production July 27 and 28.

With a cast of talent assembled from throughout east Tennessee, this regional premiere of Ragtime tells the story of a decade of American history leading up to World War I, a time of failing institutions, increased immigration, racial prejudice and tension in families and the broader culture (Read more from the Knoxville News Sentinel).

Leann Dickson, Director

Now I must admit my own prejudice to this musical, as it was directed by my high school drama teacher, Leann Dickson and my former piano teacher Jana Stiles is the lead keyboard player.  With that said, however, I cannot speak highly enough of the talented cast, the clear sense of focus for the production, and the impact it made on the audience.  From the musical performances (and most of the show is sung), to the lighting, costuming, sound quality, and purposeful direction, this show rivaled any other production I have seen.  In a time when we have ritualized standing ovations for almost every kind of performance, people were on there feet here as soon as the final lights faded from the set, a spontaneous outpouring of gratitude for the gift we received as those who attended that evening.

I could highlight the individual performances by a cast of many talented people, but what struck me most about the production was that this show was not about any one person.  Whereas so much of our entertainment industry is about celebrity, the cast and crew of Ragtime displayed their commitment to the message they wanted to make, to tell the story they needed to tell.

The plot follows three families, one an upper class white family in New Rochelle, New York, who become involved in the life of an African-American couple and their young son, and finally a Jewish immigrant from Latvia who is seeking a new start with his daughter.  Intermingled throughout the story are appearances by Henry Ford, Harry Houduini, Booker T. Washington, and Emma Goldman among others.

We see and hear throughout the musical how the world of clear barriers, societal assumptions, and clearly defined family roles is falling apart and being reassembled in new ways, ways some of the cast can accept and in ways others cannot.  The story is inspiring, painful, and full of hope.

Instead of offering a traditional review, however, I want to ponder two questions:
1)  Why is a Christian theatre company putting on this secular play about America in the 1910s?
2)  Why are they doing this play now?

I can only offer my opinions based on what I saw onstage, but I believe there are themes of this story that speak to Christian people.  Primarily the theme of justice stands clearly in the center of the story.  In America, which is supposed to be the land of opportunity, why are immigrants treated as less than human?  African-Americans as second class citizens?  Women as merely silent arm candy for their husbands? 

There are injustices exposed throughout the tale, and its tragic ending alerts the audience that justice is something we are always striving toward, even though it may seem almost impossible to realize.

Much of the Old Testament in our scriptures deals with the theme of justice.  From the establishment of the law of Mt. Sinai, to the days of the kings and prophets, the God of Israel declares himself to be a God of justice.  Before God, all are to be treated equally and wealth or status in the community should not grant someone favoritism others.  The prophets continually call out to leaders of the people who are using their resources for their own gain or abusing their positions of power.

God's justice deals with welcoming the alien, "Any immigrant who lives with you must be treated as if they were one of your citizens. You must love them as yourself, because you were immigrants in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God" (Lev. 19:34, CEB).


God's justice deals with caring for the poor, 
"Is this the kind of fast I choose,
    a day of self-affliction,
    of bending one’s head like a reed
    and of lying down in mourning clothing and ashes?
    Is this what you call a fast,
        a day acceptable to the Lord?

Isn’t this the fast I choose:
    releasing wicked restraints, untying the ropes of a yoke,
    setting free the mistreated,
    and breaking every yoke?  Isn’t it sharing your bread with the hungry
    and bringing the homeless poor into your house,
    covering the naked when you see them,
    and not hiding from your own family?" (Isa. 58:5-7).

And lest we think that only the Hebrew people are to be concerned with justice, Jesus himself declares at the beginning of his ministry, using words from the prophet Isaiah, "The Lord’s Spirit has come to me, because he has chosen me to tell the good news to the poor.  The Lord has sent me to announce freedom for prisoners, to give sight to the blind, to free everyone who suffers, and to say, ‘This is the year the Lord has chosen.’” Jesus closed the book, then handed it back to the man in charge and sat down. Everyone in the meeting place looked straight at Jesus. Then Jesus said to them, “What you have just heard me read has come true today.” (Luke 4:18-21).


Obviously the creative team of the WordPlayers could see the biblical mandate for justice, and they chose to tell this story of a particular time in American history to stir in our hearts what it means to be people who care for justice.


And that leads to my second question: Why do this play now?


I think, similarly to the 1910s, we live in a time of institutional destruction.  We are seeing huge failings in the church, education, family, government, and industry as old ways to doing our business no longer seem to work properly.  We also live in a time of increased immigration, unmatched since the time period in which this musical is set, though our immigrant community tends to be from south of us or India or the Middle East as opposed to eastern Europeans.  We live in a time where many wish to turn inward and respond in anger and fear of the unknown, to stay in the safety of their known group instead of reaching out to touch the stranger, to welcome the new-comer, to admit our own prejudices and seek a new way.


But that's what justice, as people who seek to follow God's written word and God's living Word, is all about.  


The first act of the musical ends in a heart-crushing loss for the main character Coalhouse, and the act concludes with a song, "Till We Reach That Day."  


There's a day of hope
May I live to see,
When our hearts are happy
And our souls are free.
Let the new day dawn,
Oh, Lord, I pray.
We'll never get to heaven
Till we reach that day.

It's a day of peace.
A day of pride.
A day of justice
We have been denied.
Where a man can live,
And a child can play.
We'll never get to heaven
Till we reach that day.

In those words are the very heart of the gospel, and in those words are a timely message for all who would declare that they follow a Lord who died for God's love and justice that the world could not accept.  May we be inspired to "do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly," with our God (Micah 6:8).

July Eldertorial: Jimmy Hodges

The following post is the Eldertorial featured in our church newsletter, the Amen Almanac, for July.  Each month, one of our Elders (those called by God and the congregation to guide our spiritual life together) writes a reflection on ways they see God at work in the world.

Religious Tolerances

Most folks reared in Appalachia in the early and mid-20th century as good and faithful inerrant Protestants had only limited ties to other religious groups. We were mostly of Scot-Irish and German descent and most of us never walked into a Jewish synagogue, a Greek Orthodox Church, or a Catholic cathedral.


For some fortunate quirk of fate, I was one of handful of Protestant children who had the opportunity to grow up in a small neighborhood of Park City in Knoxville where we Protestants were a minority. A breakdown of the various religions of the 22 families in the neighborhood would be 7 Jewish families, 8 Catholic families, 2 Greek Orthodox families, one Baptist family and the remaining few either Presbyterian or Methodists. My grandmother had little formal education, but she was most humble and loving of others, regardless of their ethnicity or religion. She taught me early on that Protestants were a very small minority group in the world and that, while we had faith and assurances that our religious doctrine was correct, we still had to be tolerant of others who also believed their religions ideas were correct. Therefore, my family often went to midnight mass at Christmas time and on occasion attended circumcision rites held in homes of our Jewish neighbors as invited guests.

While we neighbors all helped each other in times of hardships or losses, we also had our moments of conflict which added local color to the neighborhood. My Catholic neighbors could not eat fish on Fridays, and I loved to bring Blue Circle hamburgers to their front porches and boldly sit and wash them down with a small Coke and a Moon Pie, knowing they secretly wished they could partake of my feast. On St. Patrick’s Day the neighborhood would liven up when the Irish retired railroad conductor, Mr. Wellahan, became inebriated and dressed as a Leprechaun, which led Mrs. Busch, the immigrant Russian Jewish lady, to vent in her heavily accented English sprinkled with White Russian about the ills of strong spirits. I grew up listening to Mrs. Busch’s stories of carrying her two sons out of Russia on her back during the 1917 Russian Revolution. Harold Shersky, our Jewish neighbor next door, ran what came to be the famous Harold’s Kosher Deli on Gay Street, and often he would sneak over to our house on a Sunday afternoon when he would smell the pork on the barbeque spit that my grandmother was cooking for her own restaurant. He would beg for a pork sandwich, and out of Christian love my grandmother would slice him a large piece of pork. At times he was nabbed at the scene by his wife Atti who loudly reminded him of the religious laws forbidding such sinful acts. Many times Harold and Atti’s son, Martin Glenn, accompanied me to Vacation Bible School, and he would come walking home singing songs like “Jesus Loves Me” or “Onward Christian Soldiers.” This would cause Atti to launch into a tirade in which she expanded upon what the Rabbi say if he heard such ungodly songs! And lastly our noted Greek lady, Mrs. Regas, was always yelling to the top of her voice about why the Jews and the Catholics were all going to the lower regions because of one thing or the other. Later she would bring her delicious homemade desserts made with her old family’s recipes from Athens to all those she had earlier chastised, bringing peace once again to the diverse neighborhood.


On Sundays we all went our different ways praising God with Bibles in hand, and afterwards came back as neighbors filled with “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and temperance” (Gal. 5:22-23). My grandmother and other matriarchs and patriarchs of the old neighborhood would have agreed with the Episcopal priest, Rev. Lowell Grisham, who said in 2011, “I see Jesus in the Dalia Lama, and were we to meet, I would be honored if the Dalia could see the Buddha nature in me.”

To Graduates: You're Not Special / From Graduates: We Already Knew That

You may have seen the video posted above or read the transcript from David McCullough Jr.'s graduation speech from Wellesely High School this May titled "You Are Not Special."  In it, McCullough speaks against a culture that has coddled children, handed out trophies for participation, taught children to seek accolades over genuinely pursuing their interests.

He challenges the graduates to develop a moral sensibility, to seek the larger goals of life, for in the pursuit of those larger goals one discovers a fulfilled life.  He speaks against serving others or travelling abroad to boost a resume but to do those things out of curiosity to experience something new.  And he challenges the graduates to seek to serve others instead of pursuing their own self-interests.

The speech has received much praise from the broader public, for there is a pervading notion in much of our culture that "young people today" are too entitled, work too little, expect too much respect, believe that each of them is God's gift to the world.  McCullough challenges that notion by placing each person within the larger context of high school graduations around the country, our individual place in a world inhabited by 6.8 billion people, and the fact that our galaxy is merely a part of an ever-expanding universe with no real center.

Yesterday, I was pointed to a response by a young woman named Sierra, a member of the Millenial generation that McCullough is calling to account.  It is certainly a heated response, but in it she outlines some legitimate complaints about Mr. McCullough's argument.

In it, she argues that Millenial young adults recognize that they are not special because they were raised in a hyper-competitive culture where they learned that sometimes hard work is not enough, that jobs do not exist at the end of college, that A's do not necessarily come from a job well-done but from teachers who fear the wrath of parents who will not tolerate their children being referred to as anything but exceptional.

In many ways, Sierra describes an entitled generation that was raised to be such by their parents, were taught that they were individually special.  This was not some conclusion 18 to 25 year-old adults made up for themselves but were told over and over again throughout their childhood and adolescence (with an implication that love depended on their stellar performance). 

In the hyper-competitive culture in which they were raised, these young adults needed resume padding in order to get into the best college. They were taught that sports was more than having fun but was a specialized field wherein they had to excel above the rest. 

In a particularly poignant paragraph Sierra writes (addressing the generation of her parents),

"When you told us that you loved us and that we were smart, beautiful, creative, independent, and destined for greatness, what you implied was that we must be all of those things or that you would cease to love us. That our lives would cease to be worth anything. That we might as well die if we’re not the best.

We are drowsy with medications that we take to calm the fear that if we are anything less than the best, we will fall through the cracks. We spend our days fighting each other, always fearing our invisible duplicate who has everything we have on her resume, plus one. We don’t even know what’s down there in the zone of failure – we just know that our failure scares you so much, we’d better never dare to fall. So we work twice as many hours as you did for half the pay and come home to your taunts about how we’re twenty-six and still can’t afford an apartment.

I believe there is a wisdom in Mr. McCullough's critique of young adults in our culture, and I think Sierra posits an appropriate criticism, that the culture of young adults was not entirely created by them.

But what does this have to do with faith?

What we know is that young adults (think 18 to 35 years old) have been raised in a performance-driven culture.  You are what you achieve, and so if you cannot achieve then you are of little value.  You must be the best in order to have any worth.

If there is ever a time for young adults to hear the Good News of God's grace and unconditional love, it is when they live in a performance-driven culture.  As Christians, we are not what we achieve, nor are our lives defined by the happiness we pursue.  Instead we are children of God, claimed in the saving death of Jesus Christ, and called out of our desire to be the best and into a relationship of acceptance and rest.  Our lives are not defined by what we achieve; they are defined by whose we are.

That is freedom, to know that we are loved beyond measure and do not have to form our lives around impressing others.  Instead, in freedom, we can live for God's purpose in the world.

This is our challenge as the Church in the twenty-first century, to convince a generation of young adults that grace is even possibile, because their life experience has been that it is not.  Young adults have been told they are special only to discover they do not measure up to someone else's expectations.  They have sought to be the best only to discover there is always someone a little bit better.  They have learned from our culture that love is earned by achievement and never freely given. 

The Gospel is just the opposite:

Hear the Good News!
Who is in a position to condemn?
Only Christ.
And Christ died for us.
Christ rose for us.
Christ reigns in power for us.
Christ prays for us.
Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation.
The old life has gone; a new life has begun.

A Theology of Birthday Cards

When I interviewed with the Pastor Nominating Committee of our church, one of the praises the members gave to interim pastor Bob Shurden, was the way he took time to send each congregant a birthday card and anniversary cards to the married members of the congregation.  This was a new practice in the life of the congregation, but not entirely unfamiliar to me, as I had grown up receiving birthday cards from our pastor in Knoxville.  He did not send one to every congregant but did send them to all the children and youth in the church.

Hearing the gratitude of the search committee, and remembering how special I felt receiving a birthday card from my pastor growing up, I decided to continue this tradition in my ministry at FPC.  It has almost been a year since I began here, and to date I have written 228 notes or cards to church members and visitors, regarding everything from notes of thanks to birthday cards to cards for the grieving.

But here is what I have begun to find somehwat tricky about sending cards, especially birthday and anniversary cards, they can become somewhat routine and ingenuine over time.  I don't know your experience, but I receive a birthday card from my dentist, I know others who receive them from their financial planners, and the best one I used to get was from our insurance agent in Dectur whom I had never actually sat down with and met in person.

Card sending has become almost something of a marketing ploy on the part of the service economy, to let customers know they are more than their pocketbook to the people who insure them, manage their money, or clean their teeth. 

That has been my struggle, then, with sending these cards.  Do they seem like a "required" word from the church on your birthday, or can it be something more heartfelt and meaningful than the postcard from the car dealership with the stamped signature of the salesman on the back? 

Over the year, then, I have tried to develop a theology of card sending, and I have come to understand the sending of birthday and anniversary cards as more than an act of caring, but as a theological task.  What does a birthday celebrate but that God has "knit us together in our mother's womb" and that "I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:13-14).  Our birthday is a time to celebrate that we have each been created in the image of God and declared "very good" (Genesis 1:27, 31).  It is also a time to remember that we are a member of the body of Christ, unique in our gifts and talents but bound to one another in the unity of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:12-13).

Because of this understanding as human beings as uniquely made and gifted, bound to one another in Christian love, and crafted in the image of God, I believe it is appropriate to celebrate our brothers and sisters in Christ, and when I send a birthday card to a church member, I try to remember to communicate that truth to them, to let them know that they are a beloved child of God and a beloved part of our community of faith.  It is not out of obligation or the need to meet a pastoral quota, but out of love that I try to send these cards.

I also believe there is a theological reason to send an anniversary card.  In our Book of Common Worship Statement on Marriage that we read at weddings we hear, “God created us male and female, and gave us marriage so that husband and wife may help and comfort each other, living faithfully together in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, throughout all their days.

God gave us marriage for the full expression of the love between a man and a woman.  In marriage a woman and a man belong to each other, and with affection and tenderness freely give themselves to each other.

God gave us marriage as a holy mystery in which a man and a woman are joined together, and become one, just as Christ is one with the church.”

As Christians, marriage is not about “getting my needs met” or “having someone to keep me from being alone.”  Instead, marriage is about covenant and commitment, about faithfulness when times are good and when times are hard.  How we live out our marriages actually witnesses to the world what intimate, inter-dependent living looks like, as two unique people seek to become one just as the church seeks to be one with Christ.

 

Sending an anniversary card, then, is a reminder of the covenant nature of marriage in a world of romantic infatuation and self-gratification.  It is a celebration of the free giving of oneself to another, and also calling to continued faithfulness and support into the future.  Anniversary cards, therefore, are both a celebration and a reminder.

It has taken a year, with many moments sitting at my desk with pen in hand and a blank card in front of me, to begin to answer the question, “Why am I sending these cards?”  What I have shared with you are my reflections on this practice as a theological calling in ministry.  I am sure they will continue to mature and change over time, but I am grateful to have inherited this practice, and look forward to continuing it through another year.

June Eldertoial: Phil Williams

The following post is the Eldertorial featured in our church newsletter, the Amen Almanac, for June.  Each month, one of our Elders (those called by God and the congregation to guide our spiritual life together) writes a reflection on ways they see God at work in the world.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

June sure got here quick did it not? June means the beginning of summer. June is lightning bugs, campouts and cookouts. June is birthday month for my brother, my nephew and my newest oldest daughter Zee. June means the golf courses are all green and give you their best, while you hope you are at yours.  June means time on the boat and June means Fathers' Day.

My most vivid memories of my father are from June.

Chuck Williams traveled the south as a manufacturer’s rep in the auto parts business and orders for heater hoses and the stuff he peddled, slowed down in the summer months. June meant little league baseball, Father's Day and lots of fishin' cause the ol' man was at home.

Chuck Williams died when I was only 14, also in the month of June. I think about him all the time and I am very thankful for the lessons he imparted to me. Before I became a father I would have given all that I had if I could only talk to him in the hopes he would tell me that he was proud of me.

My daughter is 14 and I am so very proud of her. I hope together with a wonderful Godly woman, that I am giving her lessons she will take into parenthood someday.  I hope she has learned that no matter what, her heavenly Father loves her unconditionally, and that gift is given freely. I hope she knows that when she talks to Him, He will listen. And as her earthly father I hope she knows she can tell me anything and I will listen as well.

Two buddies of mine are getting ready to be fathers of baby boys. By the time you read this one will probably already be.  I am excited for both of them, because I know their hearts and I know they will be great fathers. They know that time with family and teaching them to fish or throw or ...."Just do the right thing"...is so very important.  They also know that even in months like June it is important to balance play time with worship time.

J

une is here, Happy Father’s Day...whether it is your first, or just one of many. Oh yeah I almost forgot...the best lesson that Dad taught me...the best Fathers' Day card you can give is a prayer.

Complimentarianism, Egalitarianism, and Presbyterianism

A popular blogger and Christian writer in Dayton, Tennessee, Rachel Held Evans is the author of Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions and A Year of Biblical Womanhood and offers wonderful insight with care and patience around issues of Christian life today.  I enjoy reading her work because she creates a helpful bridge between mainline Protestant circles and more non-denominational Christian evangelicalism. 

The last week was a time of great learning for me in the midst of Rachel Held Evans's blogging as she took on the issue of "complimentarianism" and "egalitarianism" when it came to male and femal relationships and Christian faith.  In her own posts and guest posts throughout the week, she looked at scripture, tradition, and we heard personal stories of experience about gender relations in Christian faith, and while I did not read every post, I found the argument fascinating.

I found it paritcularly fascinating, because in my mainline Presbyterian background words like "complimentarian" and "egalitarian" are foreign to me.  Primarily because the role of women in the Presbyterian Church (USA), while a subject of debate for many years, really moved toward equal understanding eighty years ago when the first women Ruling Elders were ordained (beginning with Elder Sarah E. Dickson on June 2, 1930 in Milwaukee).  Margaret Towner was later ordained as the first PC(USA) pastor in 1956 (Now it was 1965 before the first female pastor was ordained in the southern Presbyterian Church, but that is still over fifty-five years ago).

In my own upbringing, women were always in equal number serving communion in worship, collecting the offering, and reading scripture.  My aunt was a two-term Clerk of Session, my grandmother was the first woman elder ordained in her congregation, and my mother has served as both a deacon and an elder.  When I was in high school, our associate pastor for youth was a woman, and I regularly heard women preach on youth retreat and at conferences.  Women as made equal to men in the image of God and called to all the ministries of the Church was a regular part of my life experience.

Now many of the posts on Mutuality that were on Rachel Held Evans's blog this last week dealt with issues regarding gender and family relationships and church leadership in the Bible.  You see, there are passages where women are told to be silent in church (1 Cor. 14:34-36), and where the office of elder is described as, "above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, respctable, hospitable, an apt teacher" (1 Tim. 3:2).  Many interpret the creation of Eve out of Adam's rib to establish male superiority, and there are also the Household Codes of Ephesians 5.

I was raised to read and know the Bible, so it was not that I was ignorant of these passages growing up, but more importantly it was how I was taught to read and understand the Bible that shaped how I was taught to interpret them.  Presbyterians have for ages believed that the Bible is God's word to us, passed down through the ages to help us to discern how God would have us live as disciples of Jesus Christ.  We have accepted for a long time now, however, that the Bible was composed by sinful human beings who were products of their culture and historical location , whose writings were compiled over time.  There are timeless lessons in the scripture for us all, but there are also cultuarlly specific elements of the scripture that are particular to the time in which the text was written.

And so this is where the great challenge of interpretation arises, what in scripture helps us to encounter the living Word of God that lasts for all time and what elements of the scripture are culturally bound.  Presbyterians have believed for almost eighty years now that when it comes to relationships of men and women, the Bible offers at best a mixed view on gender roles, leaving us to believe that descriptions of women as property or subservient or somehow less human than men are a product of a culture and not the will of God.

We have faithful women leaders raised up in scripture.  Miriam, the sister of Moses, is called a prophet as is the Judge Deborah.  In the New Testament, we must not forget that the first evangelists to tell the Good News were women who went to the tomb.  In Paul's letters, we find him speaking of a Christian leader named Chloe, he sends the Deacon Phoebe with the letter to the Romans, and at the end of the letter he asks the Romans to greet Junia whom he calls an apostle, thus equating her with himself and Peter and John and James in terms of authority in the church.  Then we also must not forget Galatians 3:27-28, "As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus."

Friends, I celebrate that I belong to a church that recognizes that truly equality between women and men means that women and men must serve God equally in our society, in our families, and in our churches.  I am glad to serve in a congregation that has called a woman to be their pastor in the past.  I rejoice that we do not have to try and create cateogries of God's call based on gender differences, but we recognize that our baptism calls us all to serve God with all the gifts we have, in servant leadership to a servant Lord.