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.

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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.

Midwives

For a celibate, single man suscpicious of marriage customs, the Apostle Paul often utlized birth imagery when writing to his congregations.  In 1 Thessalonians 2:7, he writes, "But we were gentle among you, like a nurse caring for her own children," and later in 5:3 he describes the sudden and unexpected arrival of the new creation to come like the sudden rush of "labor pains."  In 1 Corinthians 3:1-2, he writes to that troubled congregation, "I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.  I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food."  He also uses the language of labor pains to describe the new creation in Romans 8:22 and in Galatians 4:19, going so far as to describe himself being in labor pains for Christ to be born in them.

Most of the time, however, when Paul utilizes birthing imagery it is to describe something happening outside of himself that he is aiding to come into being.  These images describe for us what we might traditionally call a midwife, a woman who assists in the birth of a child for the sake of a mother and baby that are not her own.  This harkens back to the midwives in Exodus, who saved the Hebrew babies from destruction by the decree of the pharaoh (Exodus 1:15-22).

Like all images and metaphors in scripture, they come to mean something to us only when we have experiences with the reality of the image the author utilizes.  When Rebecca and I went to Morristown-Hamblen Hospital almost two weeks ago for the birth of our son, my eyes were opened to the powerful biblical image of the midwife.

Now we did not utilize a professional "midwife" by today's description, but caring and attentive nurses came to check on Rebecca and care for her throughout the night, through the delivery, and on to the days of recovery.  And I was struck over and over again how these women would listen to us, offer any assistance they could, never seemed pestered when buzzed over and over again.

And their job is far from glamorous.  While the doctor gets to race in for the high drama of delivery and then whisks away to another assignment, the nurses remain present, utlizing their medical training, but also having to take part in the grimy, less thrilling portions of their work. 

It was in those mundane tasks, though, that we really saw the care and concern of these women.  Refilling cups with ice chips, allowing extra time for the epidural to wear off, assisting with bathroom help, changing sheets, patiently talking us through new baby care.  You would have thought this baby was related to them based on the care and dedication they put into the task of helping Simon to be born and to thrive in his first days of life.

When Paul describes the world groaning in labor pains or describes himself as a nurse caring for God's people, these images remind us that God's new creation is not something that we can bring into the world thorugh our acts of kindess, love, generosity, social programs, and worship practices.  God is birthing the new creation, and God is helping us all to be born anew. 

In the birth of that new creation, however, we have a role to play, for we are given a chance to serve as a midwife.  Holding another's hand during exruciating pain, wiping the sweat, and putting fresh linens on the bed.  The birth of the new creation may not exactly look like a holy city descending on the clouds in the midst of a regal trumpet fanfare.  Instead, the birthing of the new creation may involve a lowering of ourselves, to care for the hurting and poor, to remain focused on the Good News of God's love in the midst of the possible distractions of life, to come to worship, to serve on the committee, to chaperone the youth trip. 

These are not glamorous tasks than earn us praise or set us above others.  They are instead often a putting aside of our ego for the sake of something greater than ourselves to be born.  Birth is messy and painful, filled with uncertainty, excitement, nervousness, and great anticipation.  The same is true with the birthing of God's will into the world.  So let us follow the example of the real midwives in our world, and find how we, in our lives as disciples, may lower ourselves to assist with the birth of the new heaven and new earth God is creating.