Doug and Thelma Wright lived in Doug's grandfather's old farm house up East Road about a mile from the church. They were both born and baptized in our church, and they got married there right after Doug returned from building ships during WWII. They never left after that. They remained until we buried Doug in 2009. They had been married for 63 years. Thelma died last year. They were both in their nineties when they passed. They had been members of the church all their lives.
One of my fondest memories of being as pastor, was walking through the kitchen door into that old farmhouse and smelling their big, wood burning stove. Many wonderful things happened next to that stove. This is one of them:
Afterward, I stood with Doug in the middle of the kitchen next to the stove. I took his hand in mine and prayed for this family and his health. At the end I concluded by looking him in the eyes and making the sign of the cross across the top of his freckled, balded forehead. "You are a pillar of our church," I said. "After 90 years, you are a pillar." I looked down. Thelma was seated in the chair at the table. I turned and crossed her forehead as well. "And you too Thelma."
"Well," Doug said slowly, "we're not as involved as we used to be. Can't come to all the meetings like we used to could."
"I know," I said, "but that's the thing about pillars. They're often hidden; but everything you see depends on them. If they weren't there everything would fall."
Thelma rose up from the chair to her full stature of 4'10'' tall. She was old and frail, but the Spirit was still strong.
"Well, she said, "then I hope we're strong posts."
"You are," I said. "You are."
Monday, February 27, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
(Re)-Emerging Seasons
I promised a second installment on Phyllis Tickle and "The Great Emergence." I do have some thoughts on what "Emergence Christianity" might look like at Second B, and I am going to share those more broadly here next week. But since this Sunday is the first Sunday of Lent I want to offer some reflections on how Emergence Christianity is rediscovering ancient spiritual practices like the liturgical seasons.
In his letter to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul was writing to new Gentile Christian converts who were being taught by some unknown Jewish Christians (yes, Jewish Christians!) that they should follow the Jewish laws, rituals, and feast days as part of following the way of the Messiah Jesus. Paul saw this as a limitation being placed upon the Gospel, and if you know anything about Paul you know he did believe in limitations on God's good news. He wrote, "Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods. Now, however, that you have come to know God . . . how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits? How can you want to be enslaved to them again? You are observing special days, and months, and seasons, and years. I am afraid that my work for you may have been wasted" (Galatians 4:8-10).
The Church for its part has mostly taken what Paul had to say on matters like these with a grain of salt. A liturgical calendar was created which did set aside certain seasons and days as unique. Advent was a time of preparation for the coming of the Christ at Christmas. Lent was seen as a season of reflection and penitence leading up to Easter. The Church has therefore followed a certain rhythmic liturgical calendar of one sort or another for almost all of its history.
With the appearance of Martin Luther's doctrine of Sola Scriptura, this all changed. The invention of the printing press in the 15th century put the Bible in the hands of the masses and they began to read and interpret it for themselves. Emboldened by Luther, many concluded that the Roman Church had misled them in all manners of things — including the Church calendar. So out went Advent and Lent in a lot of Protestant churches — including all Baptist churches. And our Puritan forbears even went one step further. They did away with Christmas and Easter. For 22 years in Boston there was actually a law banning the celebration of Christmas. To borrow a line from C.S. Lewis, it was "always winter, but never Christmas."
But now "The Great Emergence" is happening. We no longer live in small religious enclaves like the ones our Puritan forebears created in Massachusetts. We Protestants have Catholic neighbors, bosses, sons-in-law, and even a former president. And we are beginning to see that just because it is Catholic does not necessarily mean it is suspect. So most Baptists can now admit that Easter and Christmas are church holidays we received from the Catholic liturgical calendar! ("Honey, did you know that?") And Baptists like Second B have even gone so far as to recognize the place for special seasons like Advent and Lent, where we take time to reflect and observe through spiritual disciplines like prayer, fasting, and service.
So what then do we do with the Apostle Paul? I suspect "Emergence Christianity" will take Paul much like the Church has historically taken him — with a grain of salt. We will heed his warnings not to be enslaved to the merely religious. In other words, we need not be slavish about the way we practice Lent. But we will not be bound to the wooden dogmatism of Paul's words when it comes to slaves obeying their masters or women obeying men or special days, months, or seasons.
For as the wisdom of Ecclesiastes says, "To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose."
-Ash Wednesday 2012
In his letter to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul was writing to new Gentile Christian converts who were being taught by some unknown Jewish Christians (yes, Jewish Christians!) that they should follow the Jewish laws, rituals, and feast days as part of following the way of the Messiah Jesus. Paul saw this as a limitation being placed upon the Gospel, and if you know anything about Paul you know he did believe in limitations on God's good news. He wrote, "Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods. Now, however, that you have come to know God . . . how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits? How can you want to be enslaved to them again? You are observing special days, and months, and seasons, and years. I am afraid that my work for you may have been wasted" (Galatians 4:8-10).
The Church for its part has mostly taken what Paul had to say on matters like these with a grain of salt. A liturgical calendar was created which did set aside certain seasons and days as unique. Advent was a time of preparation for the coming of the Christ at Christmas. Lent was seen as a season of reflection and penitence leading up to Easter. The Church has therefore followed a certain rhythmic liturgical calendar of one sort or another for almost all of its history.
With the appearance of Martin Luther's doctrine of Sola Scriptura, this all changed. The invention of the printing press in the 15th century put the Bible in the hands of the masses and they began to read and interpret it for themselves. Emboldened by Luther, many concluded that the Roman Church had misled them in all manners of things — including the Church calendar. So out went Advent and Lent in a lot of Protestant churches — including all Baptist churches. And our Puritan forbears even went one step further. They did away with Christmas and Easter. For 22 years in Boston there was actually a law banning the celebration of Christmas. To borrow a line from C.S. Lewis, it was "always winter, but never Christmas."
But now "The Great Emergence" is happening. We no longer live in small religious enclaves like the ones our Puritan forebears created in Massachusetts. We Protestants have Catholic neighbors, bosses, sons-in-law, and even a former president. And we are beginning to see that just because it is Catholic does not necessarily mean it is suspect. So most Baptists can now admit that Easter and Christmas are church holidays we received from the Catholic liturgical calendar! ("Honey, did you know that?") And Baptists like Second B have even gone so far as to recognize the place for special seasons like Advent and Lent, where we take time to reflect and observe through spiritual disciplines like prayer, fasting, and service.
So what then do we do with the Apostle Paul? I suspect "Emergence Christianity" will take Paul much like the Church has historically taken him — with a grain of salt. We will heed his warnings not to be enslaved to the merely religious. In other words, we need not be slavish about the way we practice Lent. But we will not be bound to the wooden dogmatism of Paul's words when it comes to slaves obeying their masters or women obeying men or special days, months, or seasons.
For as the wisdom of Ecclesiastes says, "To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose."
-Ash Wednesday 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Peter Gomes Requiem
A year after his death, Peter Gomes still inspires. Irie and I saw him preach at Duke in January of 2006, just before we moved to Vermont. While in Vermont, The Good Book gave me the courage to speak my conscience on gays in the church. I wrote him and said so.
In homage, I will borrow a story from Gomes tomorrow in my Ash Wednesday homily.
My favorite quote from this interview: "It's much easier coming out as a homosexual, than it is a conservative."
In homage, I will borrow a story from Gomes tomorrow in my Ash Wednesday homily.
My favorite quote from this interview: "It's much easier coming out as a homosexual, than it is a conservative."
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Manna & Mercy
We had a great time on Wednesday night with our first Manna & Mercy study. If you want to know more about the Bible and what it tells us about how God is mending the entire universe come to Second B at 6:30 on Wednesday. The whole world is invited . . .
The Emergence Church(es)
Well, we have all safely arrived home from our 2012 Adult Retreat in Santa Fe, NM. I want to thank the Adult Retreat Committee, small group leaders, and the many, many others who helped us to have a great time in New Mexico. Special thanks to Stephanie Nash, Scott and Nancy Sharp, and Melanie Davis for the untold number of hours they put into making the weekend a real success. Well done, friends; well done.
And how ‘bout our Adult Retreat leader Phyllis Tickle. Phyllis has keen gifts for perception and analysis and a personality to pass it along. What a mind and what a spirit. Somebody said she is basically Book TV meets Molly Ivins!
For those who didn't go on the retreat, you will probably hear those who did coming back and talking about things like "emergence" or the "Great Emergence." I know this can sound like esoteric, in-the-club speak, but you already know what emergence is. You swim in it. It is the world you live in. And the Great Emergence is simply what the world has come to over the course of the last 150 years. As Phyllis said, the Great Emergence means the world you live in "ain't your great-granddaddy's world" and "there's no going back."
Here's a small sample of signs of emergence Phyllis gave us to consider:
- Technological information is doubling every 9 months 27 days.
- The average person will have five different careers in his or her lifetime.
- We live in a "glocal" world - "When Greece catches a cold the whole world catches pneumonia."
- In 1905, there were 8,000 cars in the US. Today, there are 8,000 in the parking lot. (Ok, that's an exaggeration.)
- When you pull your car into the driveway, you call on your cell phone for someone to help you bring in the groceries. (That's not an exaggeration!)
Again, as Phyllis said, this ain't our great-granddaddy's world. In fact, it's not my granddaddy's. And it may not even be your daddy's.
So, the question Phyllis has us asking is this: What will the "emergence church" look like in order to live in and speak meaningfully to this brave, new world? Perhaps in order to get at that question we might need to talk not about the emergence church, but rather emergence churches. Our great-granddaddy's church had a white steeple out up top, screwed-down pews inside, read from the KJV up front, and set women in the (at best, metaphorical) back. This was true pretty much regardless of whether your great-granddaddy was Baptist or Methodist, black or white, a city or country boy. The churches of the Great Emergence are going to be much more unique, particular, and contextualized.
Jesus said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a net that was thrown into the water and pulled in fish of all different kinds" (Matthew 13:47). The boat has always been a symbol for the Church universal. What we are now learning in this very different world is that the Church universal may actually be better symbolized not by one single boat, but by a multiplicity of different-sized boats, fishing with various sizes of nets, on extremely divergent bodies of water, in order to catch those fish of very different and many kinds.
So the question for Second B isn't so much, "What will the Emergence Church look like?" It is rather, "What is Second B going to look like in this Great Emergence?" In other words, what kind of boat are we going to need to be sailing?
I'll wade out into that water next week.
And how ‘bout our Adult Retreat leader Phyllis Tickle. Phyllis has keen gifts for perception and analysis and a personality to pass it along. What a mind and what a spirit. Somebody said she is basically Book TV meets Molly Ivins!
For those who didn't go on the retreat, you will probably hear those who did coming back and talking about things like "emergence" or the "Great Emergence." I know this can sound like esoteric, in-the-club speak, but you already know what emergence is. You swim in it. It is the world you live in. And the Great Emergence is simply what the world has come to over the course of the last 150 years. As Phyllis said, the Great Emergence means the world you live in "ain't your great-granddaddy's world" and "there's no going back."
Here's a small sample of signs of emergence Phyllis gave us to consider:
- Technological information is doubling every 9 months 27 days.
- The average person will have five different careers in his or her lifetime.
- We live in a "glocal" world - "When Greece catches a cold the whole world catches pneumonia."
- In 1905, there were 8,000 cars in the US. Today, there are 8,000 in the parking lot. (Ok, that's an exaggeration.)
- When you pull your car into the driveway, you call on your cell phone for someone to help you bring in the groceries. (That's not an exaggeration!)
Again, as Phyllis said, this ain't our great-granddaddy's world. In fact, it's not my granddaddy's. And it may not even be your daddy's.
So, the question Phyllis has us asking is this: What will the "emergence church" look like in order to live in and speak meaningfully to this brave, new world? Perhaps in order to get at that question we might need to talk not about the emergence church, but rather emergence churches. Our great-granddaddy's church had a white steeple out up top, screwed-down pews inside, read from the KJV up front, and set women in the (at best, metaphorical) back. This was true pretty much regardless of whether your great-granddaddy was Baptist or Methodist, black or white, a city or country boy. The churches of the Great Emergence are going to be much more unique, particular, and contextualized.
Jesus said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a net that was thrown into the water and pulled in fish of all different kinds" (Matthew 13:47). The boat has always been a symbol for the Church universal. What we are now learning in this very different world is that the Church universal may actually be better symbolized not by one single boat, but by a multiplicity of different-sized boats, fishing with various sizes of nets, on extremely divergent bodies of water, in order to catch those fish of very different and many kinds.
So the question for Second B isn't so much, "What will the Emergence Church look like?" It is rather, "What is Second B going to look like in this Great Emergence?" In other words, what kind of boat are we going to need to be sailing?
I'll wade out into that water next week.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
All Mixed Up
October 15, 2009
Today I bought Gabrielle her first biography on Martin Luther King, Jr., Martin's Big Words by Doreen Rappaport and Bryan Collier. I crawled into bed beside her and broke open the crisp pages.
In 1955 on a cold December day in Montgomery, Alabama Rosa Parks was coming home from work. A white man told her to get up from her seat on the bus so he could sit. She said no, and was arrested. . .
As we laid there sharing a single pillow, I explained to Gabrielle that there was a time in our nation's history when white people like her daddy wouldn't let black people like her mommy sit on the front of the bus. "And that was very mean," I added in a soft but very serious tone. "But Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King changed all that. They made it so that black people could sit at the front of the bus and drink from any water fountain they wished. They made it so that mommy and daddy could get married."
There was silence.
"What's bi-ra-chel," she asked.
"Bi-racial means you are half black like mommy and half white like daddy."
"I like pink," she said. "And white, and blue - and red."
"I like red, white, and blue too," I told her.
"All mixed up," she said.
"Yes, all mixed up," I said.
And then the lyrics of that old Peter, Paul, and Mary tune came dancing through my mind.
I think that this whole world
Soon mama my whole wide world
Soon mama my whole world
Soon gonna be gettin' mixed up
Today I bought Gabrielle her first biography on Martin Luther King, Jr., Martin's Big Words by Doreen Rappaport and Bryan Collier. I crawled into bed beside her and broke open the crisp pages.
In 1955 on a cold December day in Montgomery, Alabama Rosa Parks was coming home from work. A white man told her to get up from her seat on the bus so he could sit. She said no, and was arrested. . .
As we laid there sharing a single pillow, I explained to Gabrielle that there was a time in our nation's history when white people like her daddy wouldn't let black people like her mommy sit on the front of the bus. "And that was very mean," I added in a soft but very serious tone. "But Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King changed all that. They made it so that black people could sit at the front of the bus and drink from any water fountain they wished. They made it so that mommy and daddy could get married."
There was silence.
"What's bi-ra-chel," she asked.
"Bi-racial means you are half black like mommy and half white like daddy."
"I like pink," she said. "And white, and blue - and red."
"I like red, white, and blue too," I told her.
"All mixed up," she said.
"Yes, all mixed up," I said.
And then the lyrics of that old Peter, Paul, and Mary tune came dancing through my mind.
I think that this whole world
Soon mama my whole wide world
Soon mama my whole world
Soon gonna be gettin' mixed up
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
And All That Jazz
Another cross-posting from this week's Second Page article.
What a Sunday! I want to thank Ray Fargason and his friends for blessing us so richly with the joyous sound of jazz in our worship.
The timing couldn't have been better. Last week we said goodbye to three very special congregation members - Randy Juergens, Bill King, and Janelle Bevers. In addition, a number of Second Bers attended another funeral service Stephanie Nash and I officiated on Wednesday. It was a hard and very emotional week. We needed a little jazz to lift our spirits up come Sunday. As the band started in on Amazing Grace, there were faces smiling, feet tapping, then hands clapping, and now the choir processing, and everybody singing praises to God. And the words to that old Psalm filled my mind, "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning."
In our liturgical tradition, every Sunday is supposed to be a "mini-Easter" - a proclamation of resurrection over death. After so many losses, this Sunday was indeed that for me.
But as I have reflected on this past Sunday's worship, I realize it was not only those in mourning who found the worship so powerful. There was a certain quality drawing all people in. It was jazz - yet it was Baptist. It was old and familiar - yet it was new and exciting. It was liturgical - yet it was electric. It was high church - yet it was warm and inviting. It was true to our roots - yet it was branching out. It was what this week's adult retreat leader Phyllis Tickle calls "participatory" worship.
And when Cloud 9 dropped me off at home Sunday afternoon, it occurred to me that in three years we ought not to be saying, "Wow, remember that Sunday way back when? That was a really great Sunday. We ought to do something like that again one of these days."
No, it is my hope that we will be saying, "Remember that worship. That was during the season of Epiphany. And that worship was an epiphany for us. That was when we started down the road. That was when it dawned on us that we were called to have the most unique and life-giving worship service in all of Lubbock week in and week out."
That is my hope.
We are in the early stages of our search for a new pastor of worship and music. Dixie Marcades has just joined the search committee, which already consisted of Ray Fargason (Chair), Kathleen Campbell, Nancy Weiss, and me. As we move forward with our search, we welcome your ideas and input. If you have comments or suggestions about what it is that we ought to be looking for then please write us.
Above all, please be in prayer for us as we seek the Spirit's guidance and look forward to the person with the gifts and graces to bring us a mini-Easter every Sunday morning.
What a Sunday! I want to thank Ray Fargason and his friends for blessing us so richly with the joyous sound of jazz in our worship.
The timing couldn't have been better. Last week we said goodbye to three very special congregation members - Randy Juergens, Bill King, and Janelle Bevers. In addition, a number of Second Bers attended another funeral service Stephanie Nash and I officiated on Wednesday. It was a hard and very emotional week. We needed a little jazz to lift our spirits up come Sunday. As the band started in on Amazing Grace, there were faces smiling, feet tapping, then hands clapping, and now the choir processing, and everybody singing praises to God. And the words to that old Psalm filled my mind, "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning."
In our liturgical tradition, every Sunday is supposed to be a "mini-Easter" - a proclamation of resurrection over death. After so many losses, this Sunday was indeed that for me.
But as I have reflected on this past Sunday's worship, I realize it was not only those in mourning who found the worship so powerful. There was a certain quality drawing all people in. It was jazz - yet it was Baptist. It was old and familiar - yet it was new and exciting. It was liturgical - yet it was electric. It was high church - yet it was warm and inviting. It was true to our roots - yet it was branching out. It was what this week's adult retreat leader Phyllis Tickle calls "participatory" worship.
And when Cloud 9 dropped me off at home Sunday afternoon, it occurred to me that in three years we ought not to be saying, "Wow, remember that Sunday way back when? That was a really great Sunday. We ought to do something like that again one of these days."
No, it is my hope that we will be saying, "Remember that worship. That was during the season of Epiphany. And that worship was an epiphany for us. That was when we started down the road. That was when it dawned on us that we were called to have the most unique and life-giving worship service in all of Lubbock week in and week out."
That is my hope.
We are in the early stages of our search for a new pastor of worship and music. Dixie Marcades has just joined the search committee, which already consisted of Ray Fargason (Chair), Kathleen Campbell, Nancy Weiss, and me. As we move forward with our search, we welcome your ideas and input. If you have comments or suggestions about what it is that we ought to be looking for then please write us.
Above all, please be in prayer for us as we seek the Spirit's guidance and look forward to the person with the gifts and graces to bring us a mini-Easter every Sunday morning.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Holding Each Other Up
This is a cross-post from my reflections last week in the Second Page, our church newsletter. After our wrote this, another one of our beloved members Janelle Bevers passed. Her funeral was on Saturday, and was the fourth funeral our church was a part of last week.
What an incredibly hard, but good week. And what a church.
There is a memorable scene in Exodus 17 where the Israelites are making their way through the wilderness and are suddenly attacked by Amalekites. Moses dispatches Joshua to go out and fight while Moses climbs to the top of a hill from which he has a bird's eye view of the battle. There from the top of the hill Moses' raises his arms, the staff of God held high above his head. "As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning," (Ex. 17:11) Two men, Aaron and Hur, then come to Moses' aid. They take hold of Moses' drooping arms and help him hold them up the rest of the day, all the way to the setting of the sun. And this is the way that Joshua and the Israelites won the battle against the Amalekites.
It seems an unusually large number of Second B families are in the midst of some battle right now. This week we bury two Second B members, Randy Juergens and Bill King. Other members are doing all they can to choose life against the onset of Alzheimer's, cancer, and other debilitating afflictions. Pillars in our church are in the waning days of their lives. Some among us carry that most sorrowful burden of having to watch their own children suffer.
And it is here, in the midst of life's greatest struggles, that I see you visiting one another. I see you cooking for one another. I see you sending prayer cards to one another. I see you holding and hugging one another. Simply put, I see you loving one another.
I want you to know what a tremendous privilege it is to pastor a congregation full of Aarons and Hurs - companions who, when the weight of the world is too much for us to bear, walk up the hill beside us to help carry the load. And you do this all day long, till the setting of the sun, and then even beyond, back down into the night and through the valley of the shadow of death. What faithful friends you are.
Not long ago I stood in the kitchen of one of our dearest members who had just lost her husband, and I heard the words I will no doubt hear hundreds of times over the course of my pastorate at Second B: "If it wasn't for this church I don't know where I would be."
And I thought to myself, "Thank God, we don't have to know."
What an incredibly hard, but good week. And what a church.
There is a memorable scene in Exodus 17 where the Israelites are making their way through the wilderness and are suddenly attacked by Amalekites. Moses dispatches Joshua to go out and fight while Moses climbs to the top of a hill from which he has a bird's eye view of the battle. There from the top of the hill Moses' raises his arms, the staff of God held high above his head. "As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning," (Ex. 17:11) Two men, Aaron and Hur, then come to Moses' aid. They take hold of Moses' drooping arms and help him hold them up the rest of the day, all the way to the setting of the sun. And this is the way that Joshua and the Israelites won the battle against the Amalekites.
It seems an unusually large number of Second B families are in the midst of some battle right now. This week we bury two Second B members, Randy Juergens and Bill King. Other members are doing all they can to choose life against the onset of Alzheimer's, cancer, and other debilitating afflictions. Pillars in our church are in the waning days of their lives. Some among us carry that most sorrowful burden of having to watch their own children suffer.
And it is here, in the midst of life's greatest struggles, that I see you visiting one another. I see you cooking for one another. I see you sending prayer cards to one another. I see you holding and hugging one another. Simply put, I see you loving one another.
I want you to know what a tremendous privilege it is to pastor a congregation full of Aarons and Hurs - companions who, when the weight of the world is too much for us to bear, walk up the hill beside us to help carry the load. And you do this all day long, till the setting of the sun, and then even beyond, back down into the night and through the valley of the shadow of death. What faithful friends you are.
Not long ago I stood in the kitchen of one of our dearest members who had just lost her husband, and I heard the words I will no doubt hear hundreds of times over the course of my pastorate at Second B: "If it wasn't for this church I don't know where I would be."
And I thought to myself, "Thank God, we don't have to know."
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