A Word on Roanoke and the Church

My newsletter article changed after talking with a couple of people affected by the events in Roanoke VA today. A word about being church. This is not the only words that need to be said right now about how to be counter-cultural (speaking about violence and how we carry it out should also be forefront, as well as how to help heal a world isolated and divided) but it is A word that God has given me to speak.


There have been other words in this space, but the events of this morning, August 26, have caused me to change the words to fit something that has hit home once again today.

 The world we live in often feels on the edge of chaos. Some events seem to make no sense, and we as a culture are often afraid that this chaos will one day affect us even more directly. Some people even feel so overwhelmed by this that they do things that seem to make no sense to us in attempts to feel in control themselves. This is core it seems to our culture, "I must gain control over the things that are important to me and protect them."

There is value in being smart and measured with the things that matter to you, but when it comes to being a community of faith, the people of God, a church there is a different call.  As I've talked with a few friends this morning who are ministers in the Roanoke, VA area, our conversations about the shock in their community and resources that may help to talking about the events here in Charleston back in June. All of these conversations have included some form of "I get the impression that they've truly forgiven and are moving forward and aren't changing the open door policy that allowed this to happen. I'm not sure we'd trust outsiders so much if it was us."

Interestingly though, a couple of the conversations moved to talking about a crossover point of these two horrible events and church life. What do we do inside the church that helps people see that trying to maintain power and control isn't getting us anywhere near God's intent for us? How do we present the alternative to "protect this house," "seize what's mine," "I/we have to win," etc?

The big question that hit time and again was "What does a community of people who feel they have nothing to protect, but just everything to give, really look like, and how do we help churches become that?" I've never been in a church where everyone was like that, and we pondered if it was possible or if human nature meant that the systemic issues would always just keep coming around and "people being people" would always keep us from ever realizing what it's like to truly be church doing what Jesus asks of us and what Acts says the first church did.

Since then I've been thinking and praying around Jesus' teachings in Luke 6:27-36 and Matthew 5:38-47. In this time, I came to ponder if really requires everyone to create what church is meant to be, or if part of the issue is that thought itself. What if we each tried to be a person who feels (s)he has nothing to protect, just everything to give? What if each of us lived out these teachings and let the chips fall where they may? What if like Abraham, we risked sacrificing everything we love to God, knowing God and trusting God to be Love and to provide perfectly? We may never do it always or perfectly, but what if we tried?

We claim to worship a God who's actions throughout our scripture are based in Manna and Mercy. Can we as the church be the place where those things live? Can we risk our own desires and our own place, so that the Spirit can move freely? Can we be what our culture is not, a place and a people who do not seek vengeance, who do not seek recognition, who do not seek power or control, but exemplify what it means to freely give as God asks?
We're all in this together
"A"

Why I don't vote (a rough sketch)

**Note: This would be much better stated within a RL dialogue.  I don't think anyone should just accept this fully at face value.  This is complex even within my own head.**

Who are you going to vote for? I hate that question mainly because the answer I give usually turns into an argument with whomever may have asked it.  For most people there is a "right" answer to that question, or at the very least an acceptable "wrong" answer, but very few people are willing to even try to dialogue with someone who says: "I'm not voting."  The only response I ever seem to get to that is one of frustration often with a side of anger.  Things are said like "Well then I better never hear you complain about things!" or "You are neglecting your duty!" or "How can you not use the great freedom you have, do you not care?!?"

Yet when I ask them why they feel this way, and to help me see what I might be missing, they tend to speak to the exact things I've thought about time and again as voting seasons come and go each and every year.  Let me first address the 3 big reactionary statements listed above because I feel those are a bigger issue than what I really want to talk about.  

"You don't vote, you don't get to talk" is a bull response.  I don't get to say "I wish we had a different X" or "If Y had just gone the other way."  I'll agree with that.  But can I still say my views on social, family, world, and even government issues? Yes, I'm still welcome in the world of the public square and honestly I'm quite active there, I just don't vote instead choosing to act in other forms.

"You have a duty, You must use your freedoms."  You know what makes things free? They're not your duty and you don't have to do things. There are lots of freedoms that I don't use and there are good reasons why I don't.  For example, I don't bear arms, and there are many who agree with that choice, so why is voting different? Also, do you know what I feel my duty is?  Love others, Love God, Love creation, act as a good steward and servant through faithfully discerned actions.  That (in my case) doesn't include voting. 

Okay, now that all of that is out of the way:  Why don't I vote?  I wish there was a simple way to state this that everyone would understand and not just ignore as if I'm ignorant, but I know my reasons aren't that understandable to most, especially when I tell them that I WANT them to vote.  The simple answer is that in my lifetime of discerning my call from God, voting has never been something I've discerned as an act faithful to my understanding of that call.  

That though is just a reactionary answer.  The deep answer is that I feel very called to certain acts of ministry, certain stances on what it means to act as a Christian, certain things that God has placed before me, and voting could damage that work, and honestly might be seen by some as hypocritical of what I claim.  

I am called to relational work, work with all those who I come in contact with.  I am called to help them in the moments I have with them and try to empower them going forward.  I expect many readers now are thinking: well that's why you vote, to better empower others and to help them, but that's not where I fit in, I feel that I am called not to change the system, but to be change in the world.  

I am called to love all.  The way our political system is set up, to vote is to choose a side, but this is not God choosing the side of the oppressed, this is us choosing an ideology which we then defend, even as it (as all ideologies do) oppresses others.  My love for all is relational, I can only fully love those I know.  I feel my call is weakened when others see me as a label.  

I am called to a world beyond principalities and powers.  This world for me is not some future place, or some other plane of existence  but here and now within the Kingdom of God here in the Creation of God.  I cannot be part of choosing other powers over God's.  I feel I must be willing to do that which I choose to do regardless of its place within society.  I was once asked by someone upset at me not voting why I didn't go to China or Russia where I couldn't be free.  All I could answer was, "I would like to think the legality of my actions will always be secondary to the faithfulness of those actions."  I cannot be sure that I would actually do so, but here and now in the country in which I live, I will render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's as long as I first render unto God that which is God's.  

I have been called by others a "Utopian Anarchist" and I have redefined that term to fit as a compliment.  I do believe in a world where we will do what is right for one another in all cases without a government to "make it so."  I believe I am called to work towards that world.  There is the need for many to vote for whomever they discern to be the faithful choice as they are able to understand it, for me that need is to not vote, to speak through actions to a world possible regardless of what worldly powers exist.  Jesus did not overthrow the government, Jesus changed the world through his individual actions, changes that have influenced so many to do things in their lives faithfully as well.  God's world is not political, and for me that is key to my faith at this time.  

Crimericans and Chrisamericans

I created two portmanteaus a few years ago when trying to explain my frustration with how Americans had mixed what they understood it meaning to be an American with what it meant to be a Christian. I decided to write this blog to explain the terms and the differences in them, and the dangers behind both of them. 

Chrisamericans or ChrisAmericans - This is the group that I think has existed for the longest, is the most logical post-reformation to exist, and is perhaps the least dangerous of the two.  People in this group primarily see Christianity through American lenses. This can be as small as a view on mission as us "taking" something to others, or as big as thinking our version of democracy is God's preferred government.  While these things keep people from seeing God at the complete center of all things, they are typically willing to learn and hear other viewpoints and don't think they have all the answers to everything.  They just want what's best for the world and think their country is as good as it gets.  This is slightly short sighted, but we all have lenses we see the world through that keep us from seeing things clearly.  Thus the name Chris (focused mostly on faith) Americans (focused wholly on country). We all have biases and well this is just another one, at the best someone will realize they see the world this way, at their worst they are easily swung by our second group. 

Chimericans - This is a group that I see and hear more every day recently.  They not only think that America is central to everything, but think there is only one version of America and one version of Christianity and the two and attached in all forms.   This is where it gets dangerous because while ChrisAmericans exist throughout a political, social, and spiritual spectrum, those who fall into the Chrimericans category create an "Us vs Them" dynamic where they blindly ascribe to their ideologies regardless of what others may present as counter arguments to their points.  Chrimericans will even move along a range of thoughts as long as it serves the end of maintaining or gaining power. They convert both Christian and American ideals into some mixture that fits their comfort level.  To argue with those who have done this is a struggle at best, even relationships that show them something different can be less than convincing.  Their name signifies how they choose to short both sides, both American ideals of freedom and Christian ideals of justice to create a comfortable place for them, or at least one that they perceive as being a certain way in the future. 

The soundbites from those in the later category have become so loud, that many of us who do not agree with them have begun to lump these two groups together and in the process begun to create the same "Us vs Them" rhetoric from just a different standpoint.  There are differences between people who have issues seeing the world from outside their experiences but are attempting to do good, and those focused mainly on achieving an end that is at its center self-serving.  Not all who do things we do not agree with are trying to create a world counter to the one we seek and hear God calling us to.  We must be careful who we vilify less we take the same mistake to think we have the full and complete vision of God ourselves and limit what God is doing in this world by our own desires.

"The grace of God is dangerous. It's lavish, excessive, outrageous, and scandalous. God's grace is ridiculously inclusive. Apparently God doesn't care who He loves. He is not very careful about the people He calls His friends or the people He calls His church." -Michael Yakonelli

What makes a good neighbour?

“Which one of these was a neighbour to the man in need?” This question is the conclusion to Jesus' answer to another question “Who is my neighbour?” Note that Jesus doesn't answer the question asked, Jesus doesn't say “Those in need are your neighbor.” Jesus asks who acted as a neighbor, he really answers the question “Why be a neighbor?” with “Be a neighbor because you see ones in need.” Everyone is our neighbor in this world, it honestly may be the best term we can use for others. The Greek term used here literally means “the one nearby” and has the implication of “a person I know of.” We all know people in need, either specific people who we know by name, or people who we know exist even if we don't happen to see them everyday because of how our world is sometimes divided. We can all talk about places where there are struggles and people who are in need, and because of that we should call them neighbor.

One of the ministries we worked with this past summer was the Urban Ministry center in Charlotte. They call all who come to see them neighbors, and often over time by name. They care about the homeless who have need of medical care, food, clothing, shelter, help getting paperwork so that they can be employed, and just love from another person who has the ability to help. Our youth were touched by one of these neighbors, Gary. As Gary told his story, you could see the stories of others we had met over the week flood through the minds and hearts of our youth. They saw someone who they could help and could love, and made a decision that they weren't leaving without finding him again and giving him a gift. This isn't because it was the right thing to do, but because he was a neighbor. One in need.

It doesn't matter who our neighbors are, we will know them when we see them, because the Spirit that lives within us sees others spirits and feels their needs. This is God at work in this world, caring for others and fighting for justice. But more than that it is building a relationship and being that neighbor, a neighbor who doesn't separate from others, whose concern, like the Samaritan in scripture is for the “other” the “neighbor.” There are no walls, no rules, no laws, no expectations that keep him from being a neighbor. Likewise we must question the things that divide us, do they likewise keep us from seeing each other and our needs, from letting the Spirit of God act among us as it wishes, bringing all together in God's love. In The Mending Wall by Robert Frost we see a narrator who questions the walls that are built between neighbors, and a neighbor who seems to the narrator to walk in a sort of darkness, protecting self interest and not sharing love, even as he is unable to understand the need for such a divide and just clings to it because it's always been there. May we be ones who question the walls in our lives and in the world. Thus may we become the neighbors to all that we are called to be.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

The God of America

I spent a good bit of time in my childhood/teens in SBC churches.  I even remember a seminary board member who was part of one of these churches telling me they were always there to make sure I had every opportunity to live up to my potential (at least until I got divorced).  I have a fairly good working knowledge of the conservative christian world because of this I think.  Today's event in Texas and the politicizing of faith is not what I remember anyone in that world really standing for.  The political ideologies played some part in things sure, but what we taught and were taught was all about helping others regardless of the cost.  Now I admit that it often glossed over some of the national social issues, but I remember many nights carrying blankets for the homeless, driving them to shelters, and giving money towards medical missions at home and abroad.  These were the things people talked about and did.  Yes, there was an annoying amount of morality based theology, but the "literal" reading of scripture didn't read like "America the Chosen nation."  It often read very differently than that.

I don't know exactly how this side of Christianity got co-oped by those wanting to create fear and promote nationalism, but it certainly seems to have happened.  Maybe it's because instead of being a community where various ideologies had a voice, all the dissenting views left or were pushed out (and some of both happened).  Without dissenting voices it is much easier to broker fear, without those who push our buttons and make our blood boil that we truly love, it is easier to call them enemies, to push them into a group known as "other."  I say this with a sense of fear of what could still happen in the PC(USA), where the sides divide, glad to let go of struggles and settle into a comfortable place.  I don't think that's what we're called to.  I think we're called to struggle.  To struggle along with those we disagree with vehemently, to struggle about the meaning of scripture, to struggle with questions of power, privilege, equality, and love.  We need to see that none of us have the only way, and that we must go together if we are to do anything good in this world.

Today there are people praying for the economy, for our nation, for moral values, and for other things that I personally find to be misguided prayers.  I would rather us pray for equality of humanity, care for creation, love for all, and continued struggling together, but those praying for these other things can only journey with us if we're willing to treat them as equals and not as others.  I do not agree with the co-opting of God for national, personal, or ideological gain, but I do nothing better if I'm not willing to engage in the conversations and act in love.

That being said, I must say why I am pained by the subjects of these prayers:
1. The Economy - Those who have lost before know that these prayers are ones of protect what I have.  Yet, God is clear that nothing is our own.  Should we lose everything, we gain a freedom that we do not have when we possess things of our own.  We should not pray that God fixes the economy, but that we will learn what many who have been or are homeless know: There is a real difference between want and need.
My prayer: http://youtu.be/a-O88_hZD5o
2. Our Nation - I do not hate the US, but I do not think we deserve any special blessings, or even deserve all we have.  We are truly a nation of privileged and power, and any prayers for our nation should begin with a greater realization of what protecting our own does to damage the rest of the world.  God is not interested in making our nation great, rather God is interested in the greatness of all of creation and that begins with us all realizing our shared humanity, our shared divine spark, and our shared call to be stewards of all of Creation.
3. Morality - I don't think we should go about killing each other or just doing whatever whenever, but really it is not what people do in scripture that makes them faithful or not, why do we think that's the key for us?  The key for those called faithful within our Christian (and by extension Jewish) tradition is a willingness to listen and discern that which God wants from them.  Jonah is reluctant, Moses is both reluctant and immoral, Peter falls far from belief or morality (cutting off ears, easily forgiven?) . . . these are heroes, and they should be because they never stop struggling and discerning.  They are faithful, not moral.  The why is of greater importance than the what.  This also means that we are not to decide for others what is most faithful in any specific instance, but again walk along side them in their journey, for we do not know which paths are narrow or wide while we are on them.

There is much more I could say, but really you've probably read all you want to by now.  Again, I wonder how many others really think that God is America's God?  How many feel that God is more interested in us than any other nation?  How many think that God feels that the things we call important to God are really the things that are important?  How many want a God that is a God that is going to say "You didn't feed me when you saw me on the street corner that one time, you're a goat, go to hell."?  How many think that God just wants you to believe, be fairly moral to those you care about, and ask for lots of forgiveness, all while trying to protect that which you think of as yours? 

Or do we really realize that God created us for something more, for greater works of faithfulness, for an actual relationship with God, each other, and all of creation that calls us to give all of ourselves up and being uncomfortable and struggling, but to do so together in love with one another for there we will find peace?