This is the same liturgy written for the Southeast Wisconsin UCC Annual Meeting last weekend and posted below. But since it's built on the readings for Easter 5C - and nobody needing liturgy for that week is going to search for "Annual Meeting Liturgy," I thought I'd put up a new post with the proper label.
Enjoy.
“Twermon” On The Boston Marathon Bombing
Occasionally,
I pontificate on Twitter. Here’s one example from last night, slightly edited.
(N.B.: I don’t usually write so punchy, but, you know, Twitter.)
In the coming days, you are going to
hear a lot of bullshit.
We must do ___ to be safe. No, we must
do ____! If only ____ had ____ or the ____'s weren't so ____, this kind of
thing wouldn't happen. When will there be closure? When will there be healing?
When it all be back to normal again?
Just keep your nose to the grindstone,
it will all be all right. Go to the mall. Get back to your smartphone or your
Mac. It'll be okay. With enough gun control or enough security checkpoints or
enough mental health treatment, things like this won't happen. Just be a good
person, be nice to people, it'll all be okay.
Resist all of this.
Safety is an illusion. It cannot be
provided in any ultimate sense by militaries or police officers. Good health
only lasts so long. You won't live forever. Engineering or policy won't solve
every problem, and let me tell you, all those gadgets you got won't save your
soul.
The only thing that lasts in the end
is love, which means openness to the fear, the pain, the weakness and the loss
that go along with life.
Love is the willingness to stand (and
sit) with those who experience these things, without having to be right, without
having to be smart, without having to be one of the in crowd, without having to
be in any kind of control.
Just sit, just stand, and allow your
heart to be broken along with theirs. Better: admit that your heart, too, is
broken.
And...that's it. That's all there is
to it. This is how the kingdom of God begins to appear in the present world.
And when you hear the smooth pundits
and opinion-makers on TV, the movers and shakers speaking confidently about
What Must Be Done, ask yourself, What is the promise being made here? That I
can be safe? That I can be happy? That I can have it all, if only ___?
It's all bullshit. None of those
promises can be kept. The last time we went down that hole, we wound up with
torture, the loss of civil liberties, shopping to keep America safe, and
two-trillion-dollar wars that have left up to a million people dead.
The system promises to keep you safe
and keep you happy, and those promises cannot be kept.
The only promises that can be kept are: you will have just
enough to get by. You won't be able to Have It All, but there will always be
enough to share. You will suffer, but you will not be alone. Your problems won't
all go away. Some may never be fixed, but there will always be a tomorrow,
somehow.
You are going to hear in the next few
days from any number of people who will want to increase security. They will
tell you that the world is a dangerous place, that there are objectively
evildoers out there, and we must protect ourselves from them at all costs. The
inevitable result will be that we close ourselves off from one another, afraid
to be near our neighbors.
Those people are aligned with others
who want security of a different kind: financial. They will say our society has
no money for anything but security, for cops and soldiers and bomb-sniffing dogs.
They will say that the business of America is business, and we should all tend
to our bottom line and ignore the distractions like what happened in Boston.
Don't listen to these people. They're
living a lie. The biggest bullshit of all is to think you can't live without security,
financial or otherwise.
In fact, the opposite is very nearly
true: you can't live with security,
because you can't love with security. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have cops,
or social safety nets. But you can't hug someone if you're afraid they have a
gun on you. You can't share your life if you're worried those you love will
drag you down financially. That's not real openness.
Love requires risk, as does an open
society. Resist the lure of safety. Freedom is the power to live up to your
commitments to those around you.
As for happiness, well. We can't
always be happy, but we can have hope, and joy. Hope, I would ordinarily say,
is the belief that things can be meaningfully different. But hope is not a
quick fix, not the belief that a single person or a series of policy changes
can quickly make the world a better place. That’s optimism. Hope is the quiet, confident, realistic expectation
that in the fullness of time, God's promises will be fulfilled - and the living
into those promises, resisting and tearing down the barriers to their
fulfillment. Optimism believes that the demons of human nature will always be
overcome by our better angels, that darkness cannot extinguish the light. Hope
knows only the deep yearning for a world in which eight-year-olds are not
murdered, and trusts that in God’s promises to provide a future in which that
reality will be at hand.
Hope can only be known over and
against the easiness of cynicism. Before too long, fingers will be pointed in
this and any other tragedy. Within a week, stories will start to appear
wondering who has the political advantage on this issue. Eventually, the
violence and the suffering will be melted down into just another chapter in
interminable partisan wrangling, because we are too afraid to admit the death
that gnaws at us from within.
Hope, likewise, can only be seen
against despair. Before too long, we will hear from the scolds who will shake
their heads sadly and ask what is wrong with our society. They will tut-tut and
mourn for a lost world when such things never happened. They may blame video
games or the internet or the coarsening of culture or the loss of the common
good, but they will never entertain the idea that a different world is possible, that things can be better. Such is the fallen world
and the fallen nature of humanity, they will say, that we can never get back to
the garden.
When It Snows, It Pours, Pt. II [Job Update] [Personal]
Or, "When It Freezing-Rains, It Pours" I guess? Because there is a fine layer of ice over all the poor trees today, and we're promised up to two more inches of rain and some snow also, too, over the next couple of days. Apparently this is the fault of some stupid high-pressure system stuck over Greenland, which has led Mrs Pastor to spend her mornings cursing polar bears, rightly or wrongly.
Anyway. After complaining bitterly the other day about the one church showing any interest in me summarily dropping my profile and going with another candidate, several people offers words of condolence and support, for which I was very grateful.
I thought they—and you—might be happy to hear that this week I've heard from not one, but two congregations wanting to interview me. One's a small rural congregation, the other's a larger city church, one's an interim gig, the other's for settled ministry. I have no idea if either one of them will work out, I'm just happy to have interviews. Funny story: the first request came in on Monday, and I said to Mrs Pastor, "Just watch. The way these things work, now that I've got interest from one group, I'll get some more and have to make a hard decision." And but so! The next day, I heard from the other folks. It'd be nice to get three days in a row, but I'm not holding my breath.
My profile's out with a few other churches, at least one of which asked to look at some of my sermons, and I've put my hat in the ring for a couple of jobs outside the world of the local church, and that's all I really should say about that. In the meantime, I've got a couple of articles done and awaiting publication, and I'm doing interviews for at least another couple. Right about the time spring arrives in Wisconsin I should have a job and/or some more publications to tell you about.
So yes, in other words, in July, maybe?
Annual Meeting Liturgy
I was asked to write the liturgy for the Southeast Wisconsin Association annual meeting once again this year. (I think this is the third or fourth time I've done it?)
Below, you'll find links to said liturgy, in both .pdf and .doc format. I wanted to make sure to post it because, at the suggest of Bridget Flad, it incorporates readings from the 5th Sunday in Easter. That means it can be profitably stolen - ahem, recycled - for use in local churches, particularly if they want to feel joined with the Association in worship. (See below for permissions.)
A few notes:
Below, you'll find links to said liturgy, in both .pdf and .doc format. I wanted to make sure to post it because, at the suggest of Bridget Flad, it incorporates readings from the 5th Sunday in Easter. That means it can be profitably stolen - ahem, recycled - for use in local churches, particularly if they want to feel joined with the Association in worship. (See below for permissions.)
A few notes:
- NO PEEKING if you're coming to the Annual Meeting itself. I don't want to spoil any surprises.
- I've provided a fairly traditional order for a liturgy. The order of worship for the meeting itself will be a bit different, to suit the particular needs of the occasion.
- Again to suit the particular needs of the meeting, this liturgy begins with a reading not from the lectionary. Don't be afraid to replace it with another reading in order to bring out other themes. The reading from Acts for the day might emphasize inclusivity and welcome, for example, or the Psalm could be used to emphasize creation.
- Both the intercessions and the communion service are designed to be read by multiple voices if so desired.
- As with any liturgy found on these pages, permission is given for any non-commercial use. Feel free to copy or adapt it to suit your needs. You don't even need to give me credit. I only ask that again you not use it for commercial purposes, and that you not represent it as your own.
And with that, here's the pdf version and the doc version.
The Word For The Week - April 7, 2012
I'm preaching tomorrow at Immanuel UCC in West Bend. Stop by and say hello - but be warned: the 10:30 show gets a little blue! (This is not true.)
Let me begin by giving you some surprising information about this text, some of it important, some of it just interesting.
- First, most translations say that "the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews." That's an implication. The word is actually "closed."
- Likewise, when it says Jesus showed them his "hands," that word can actually mean "forearms" as well, where nails were often driven during a crucifixion.
- Speaking of nails, this passage is the only place in any of the gospels where that word is used! The rest of them simply say that Jesus was "crucified."
- "Doubting Thomas" is never called that in this or any other gospel, and "Thomas" isn't even his given name. It's a nickname that means "twin." According to at least one source, he was really called "Judas," which was a fairly common name at that time. This makes sense: if you have two Judases in your gang, you give one a nickname to keep them straight—or if you have two Simons, you call one of them "Peter" for the same reason.
- This isn't the only mention of doubts after Easter. Matthew and Mark have brief mentions of the disciples' skepticism, while Luke has the long story of two disciples encountering Jesus on the road to Emmaus and a subsequent appearance at a dinner where he says to all the disciples, "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself."
- But Jesus never actually scolds Thomas for his doubt. And for good reason: Thomas has been away for some unspecified reason when Jesus first appears to the disciples, nor was he present when Mary Magdalene first came to tell them that she had seen Jesus at the tomb. So in a sense, he's not stubbornly refusing to believe. He's still stuck before dawn on Easter, and he only wants the same kind of evidence everybody else has received.
- It is true, on the other hand, that he wants to "put his finger in the mark of the nails and his hand in Jesus' side." As one of my commentaries puts it, this is very vigorous language. He wants to thrust his hand in there and understand it for himself.
- Jesus offers to let him do just that, but we're not told that Thomas actually takes him up on the offer. The point here isn't about Thomas' standards for proof, it's that Jesus is willing to offer the proof, if that's what Thomas needs in order to believe. And when he does, Thomas reacts accordingly, declaring, "My Lord and my God!" with all the awe he can muster.
Now that we know all of this, we can start to make sense of this story.
Let's do it like this: way back in the 1980's, when I was in high school, we read Jean-Paul Sartre's play No Exit in French class. If you haven't heard of Sartre, I don't blame you. He was an Existentialist philosopher, best known for his work after World War II emphasizing the consequences of human choice. So the plot of No Exit goes like this: three people wake up in a room in what they soon figure out is Hell. There's a heterosexual man, a lesbian, and another woman who seems to be torn between them. So they go around and around, fussing and fighting and sniping at one another. And at the end of the play, they look over and discover that the door to their room is slightly ajar. They could get up and walk away at any point, yet they realize in that instant that none of them will ever make that choice. This is where the expression "Hell is other people" comes from, and little wonder.
You see where I'm going with this? You can forgive the disciples for having their doors closed up tight on Easter evening, even after hearing what Mary Magdalene has to tell them. The death of Jesus is big blow, and they're trying as hard as they can first to figure out what comes next, and second to figure out if they're in danger of being killed for being his associates. Of course they're scared.
But then Jesus comes to them—walks right through that closed door—and he appears to them. He says, "Peace be with you," and breathes on them to give them the gift of the Holy Spirit.
After all that, after all that reassurance and miraculous presence with them, eight days later, they still have the door shut in fear. They have seen their Lord and their God risen from the grave, they have seen him walk through doors and appear to them in mystery, and they're worried about what the neighbors will think. That door's not locked at all, they've simply chosen to keep it shut.
In a sense, Thomas isn't lagging behind them at all. He's ready to go out and meet Jesus. They're cowering behind closed doors.
And in that sense, Jesus' words to Thomas take on a completely different meaning. Because what the scholars will tell you is that "Do not doubt but believe" isn't a very good translation. What he says is something more like, "Do not become an unbeliever, but a believer." In other words, don't give up the belief you currently have, but develop into someone who really, truly, deeply believes in the good news.
That gives us the key to understanding this story as a whole. You see, what's going on here is John is trying to wrap up his gospel, which has this constant theme of the tension between believing and not believing, between seeing and seeing without understanding. But John is also sharply aware that not everyone has been able to see and meet Jesus firsthand. So how are they supposed to believe if they can't see for themselves? Well, they can read the book that John wrote for them:
Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.
But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
Get it? Here's what the people who were there saw and heard. Now that we've passed it on to you, you can believe for yourself!
We're turning a couple of corners here. The first corner is from the original disciples to those who have only heard about Jesus second- and third- and fourth-hand. That's us. Unlike Thomas and the other disciples, we couldn't be there to see Jesus for ourselves, but still, we ought to believe, because of the teaching that John has given us.
But we're also turning the corner from Easter into its aftermath. We, like the disciples, are called after Easter to come out from behind our closed doors and engage the world. Christ's resurrection makes a new world possible, and the gift of his peace and his Spirit make it possible for us to meet that world, whether or not Christ is present to us in the same way he was present to the disciples.
In other words, do not doubt, but believe, whether you've seen Jesus or not, and do not doubt but act like you believe, whether you've seen Jesus or not.
Or to put it another way again, scripture gives us everything we need to believe in Christ Jesus our risen Savior. Which means, scripture gives us everything we need to act upon those beliefs.
I mean, let's not kid ourselves: we—all Christians—are more comfortable behind the closed door than we are opening the damn thing up and walking out into the sun and the heat and the dust of life outside the upper room. We'd all like to linger there just a little longer, rejoicing in Christ's presence and feeling peace-filled with him there in front of us. But he doesn't stay there, and neither should we.
Now, it's not my place to tell you how your church lives behind closed doors. But I can and do challenge you to take that out and look at it for yourself. Cardinal Bergoglio put it very well, I think, when he spoke to the enclave that elected him Pope Francis. He told the cardinals that the church is
called to come out of herself and to go to the peripheries, not only geographically, but also the existential peripheries: the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and indifference to religion, of intellectual currents, and of all misery.
Typically, at this point, I'd issue some challenge to do ministry here, or, this being the United Church of Christ, I'd push you to a greater commitment to the work of social justice. But while ministry and social transformation are certainly part of what Pope Francis had in mind, there's more to what he's saying, more to this story of Jesus' reassuring appearance to Thomas.
What I mean to say is that we are called to be with one another in the same radical way that Jesus was with the disciples in those days after Easter. His love for his friends was so great that not even death could separate him from them. Obviously we can't just walk away from our graves in the same way, but we can imitate the kind of radical love that expresses itself in solidarity. In fact, I want to suggest to you that that kind of love is what Jesus has in mind when he tells Thomas not to doubt, but to believe. He doesn't want Thomas to think a certain way, he wants him to act a certain way, to choose to act a certain way.
Thomas has it within his power to make that choice, and so do we.
When we choose to stand with our brother or our sister when they've made a mess of their lives, when we choose to nudge them gently back onto the right path after they have done wrong, when we choose to stand with them when everyone around them has given them up as a sinner and a reprobate, we do not doubt, but believe.
When we choose to sit with friends in the hospital, or who live with a chronic illness, when we listen to someone who has lost a job, or lost someone to death or divorce, to someone for whom parenting is an agony, for whom sobriety is a daily struggle, for whom mental health or independent living is forever in danger of being lost, when we choose to sit and listen even after everyone says "That was so long ago, they should be over it by now," we do not doubt, but believe.
When we choose to challenge what is wrong, when we choose not simply to bind up the wounds of the world but address what causes those wounds, we do not doubt, but believe.
When we choose to listen patiently to the questions and concerns—and yes, the doubts—of those outside the church, when we offer them reassurance and teaching without judgment or a desire to steer them to where we want them to go, when we welcome them into our community without demanding that they accept This Is The Way We Have Always Done It or that Newcomers Should Learn Our Ways, when we greet children as our equals, we do not doubt, but believe.
When we choose not to give into easy cynicism and despair, when we choose to say quietly and humbly that the world could in fact be a better place, we do not doubt, but believe.
When we choose to be with those who suffer for whatever reason, we do not doubt but believe, for by our actions and our choices, we demonstrate that we trust in the power of the resurrection. We become Easter People, whether or not we were around for that first Easter so long ago.
None of the things that I have mentioned are terribly difficult to do, and none of them require large programs or huge investments of time or money. They are simple, everyday ways of life that take the gospel out into the world around us, rather than leaving it closed up in this sanctuary from Sunday to Sunday. They only require us to make the choice to live them out day by day, moment by moment. They require us, in other words, to open the door and cross the threshold. Having received Christ's peace and empowered by his Holy Spirit, let us go forth to do just that. Amen.
When It Snows, It Pours [Personal]
So I've had a pretty good day, if I do say so myself. Some of you will have seen this already via Twitter or Facebook, but I know there are a fair number of you who won't, and those include some of the people who would be most proud, so.
I've been trying to do some writing lately, partly to have something to do, and partly to have something to do that makes money, rather than costs it. It's finally starting to pay off.
Over the weekend, I caught a Scott Simon interview with an—ahem—very orthodox Catholic about what causes churches to thrive or decline. I reacted to the piece at Religion Dispatches, and they ran it this afternoon.
No sooner had it gone up than I got word that a longer-term project had come to fruition: The Christian Century is running a reported piece that I wrote on faith-based gun control activism. This is my first article for The Christian Century, and my first publication in a traditional magazine (with Wendell Berry, no less!), so you can imagine, this is a big deal.
Hopefully, there's more of this to come. I have a couple of stories in the pipeline, a couple more I'm working on, and a few that I need to start developing. With any luck, you'll be seeing more of my byline before too long.
And it did snow today, about 3". We've had enough winter, thank you. It's time for spring. Now, please.
Ash Wednesday Liturgy
This is a rough draft of the liturgy I hope to use for a Protestant service in the St. Agnes chapel at Marian University on Ash Wednesday. We'll see.
Greeting
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, + the steadfast love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. And also with you.
Hymn
Introduction
On Ash Wednesday, Christians gather to confess their sins, resolve to do better, and to hear God's reassurance. We draw near to God in word and worship to learn what we must do to be rebuilt as the people of God, and to hear once again God's promise of new life.
God gives us the rituals of this holy day not to burden us with laws we cannot keep, but to remove from us our grief, renew the branches of Christ Jesus, and to cause us to hear and see one another, so that we may restore the vital imagination of our faith put into action.
Gospel Reading: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
"Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.
"So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.
But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
"And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.
But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
"And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.
But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face,
so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal;
but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Remarks
Prayer of Confession
The prophet Isaiah records the people of his time wondering why God no longer seemed to hear them when they prayed in the temple. The answer came swiftly:
"You serve your own needs," said God, "when you gather for worship."
Then you leave and you oppress the people who work for you."
May the Lord have mercy on us if we do anything like this.
Lord have mercy on us.
God continued: "You fast and pray to make yourselves better people, but then you quarrel and fight and even resort to violence!"
May Christ have mercy on us if we do anything like this.
Christ have mercy on us.
God had one more thing to say. "You worship only to make yourself known to me, to get me to notice how good you are, but I will not hear false prayers."
May the Lord have mercy on us if we do anything like this.
Lord have mercy on us.
By the grace of God, the Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
As a father has compassion for his children,
so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.
For God knows how we were made;
and remembers that we are dust. (Psalm 103:8, 14)
Our sins are forgiven us.
Let us be renewed. Amen.
Prayers of Intercession
Let us pray now for our needs, and the needs of others.
When we keep alive injustice and lay unfair burdens on other people, make us aware of what we are doing, and free us to free others and change the world where we can. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.
When we are afraid that we will not have enough money for our lives, widen our hearts to share our bread with the hungry. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.
When we are afraid that we will have no place to live or no space at our table, grant us the grace of generosity that we might shelter the homeless and welcome them into our lives. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.
When we are saddened and depressed by the figures we see in the mirror, cause us to remember those who shiver without a winter coat, the poor of the world who stand in tatters, and to treat them as if they were our very own brothers and sisters. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.
When we are tempted to judge one another, when we are tempted to say mean or thoughtless things of others, turn our minds instead to lifting their burdens.
Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Strengthen our resolve to act concretely: to take food to the hungry, to care for the sick, to stand with those in any need. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.
Lord, hear our prayer, for we pray to you as Christ our Savior taught us, saying,
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those
who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial
and deliver us from evil,
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours,
now and forever. Amen.
Hymn
Release of sins and shortcomings and imposition of ashes
Dear friends in Christ, I invite you to come forward, when you are ready, and deposit those sins, shortcomings, and failures that have been bothering you in the wastebasket, where they belong. When you have released your burden, you may come a little closer and receive the sign of ashes to signal your penitence and your determination to be remade in Lent. When we have all received the sign, we have a short prayer, and then conclude this afternoon's service. Come, as you are ready.
When all are done:
Gracious God, make us into the people we ought to be. In this Lenten season, heal our hearts and make us steadfast and true. Through true fasting, teach us to be fair to one another and to live together the right way. In our prayers, help us not to seek for ourselves, but to see one another and imagine what must be done. In acts of generosity, allow us to rebuild our community, your kingdom. Grant us above all else humility, and bring us home from the loneliness of exile to stand together with you and all our brothers and sisters, as one reconciled people. Amen.
Song
Blessing and Sending
The Lord bless you and keep you.
The Lord's face shine on you with grace and mercy.
The Lord look upon you with favor and + give you peace.
Amen.
You are marked with the Sign + of the Cross of Christ.
Go forth in penitence and a sincere desire to do what is right, and the peace of God be with you unto life eternal. Amen. Thanks be to God.
A somewhat nicer-looking version of this liturgy can be found here.