Sunday, November 27, 2022

Songs of Justice; Songs of Hope

 My Friends, 

 

This weekend marks the beginning of the season of Advent. The word “advent” is the Latin term for “coming” and the Season of Advent is the time that we spend deliberately preparing for the coming of Jesus on Christmas. It is the tradition here and in many Christian churches to spend the four weekends prior to Christmas preparing for our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day celebrations. (We do not typically have worship on Christmas Day, but this year Christmas is on a Sunday, so we will!) 

 

For this season, we will be looking at four “Songs” in Luke’s story about Christmas. Perhaps they are not songs proper, but they are poetic in nature, something you can see visually when you read your Bible and the words are arranged in poetic meter, rather than in prose paragraphs. 

 

The songs that we will read together are Mary’s “Magnificat,” Zechariah’s “Benedictus,” Simeon’s “Nunc Dimittis,” and the angels’ “Gloria.” Generally, I don’t like using Latinate terms because I associate the prevalence of Latin with that part of the church’s past when the radicality of following Jesus was compromised as the church became the official religion of the Roman Empire. (That process, the association of the church’s missionary movements with colonization, and the use of Christianity to support racism in the US are what I consider the three greatest sins of our church history.) But, alas, Latinisms are so tightly bound to the history and language of the church that they cannot always be avoided. So, I use the term “Advent” and these titles for the songs with ambivalence. I appreciate the faithfulness that our tradition has handed down over the last two millennia, and I grieve the brokenness and sinfulness that has always been a part of our tradition.  

 

Mary’s “Magnificat” is so called because when her song – which begins with the words, “My soul magnifies the Lord” – was translated into Latin, “Magnificat” is how the word “magnifies” was translated. Likewise, Zechariah’s “Benedictus” is the Latin translation of his opening word that is translated in English Bibles as “Blessed.” (It’s a different word from the first word of the Beatitudes.) And then there’s Simeon’s song, historically called “Nunc Dimittis” because that’s the Latin for the first words, “Now dismiss.” And finally, the angels sing, “Glory to God in the highest,” the first word of which in Latin is “Gloria.” So, there’s Latin all over this Advent season for us. My two whole weeks of studying Latin in graduate school better pay off! 

 

We are calling this time of preparation, “Songs of Justice; Songs of Hope.” And here I will share a story that I’ve shared before, but it is golden: Soren Kierkegaard once went to a Christmas worship service and noticed that the wealthiest people were there, dressed in finery and seated in their paid seats in the ornate sanctuary. Then, someone began singing Mary’s Magnificat. You can find it in Luke 1:46-56. It speaks of God bringing down the high places, lifting up the low, filling the hungry and sending the rich away empty. Kierkegaard began laughing and expected everyone else to join in. But, as he looked around, nobody was laughing with him and he was perplexed. Surely they must have been hearing Mary’s words as a joke, because if they were serious words the people gathered on that day were hearing of their own demise. No one laughed, but it appeared that no one took Mary’s words seriously either. Is that really what we expect with the coming of the Christ? 

 

Kierkegaard was on to something. Mary’s song is about justice. It is more akin to a protest song from Woody Guthrie, or a spiritual that decries slavery than a beautiful aria that displays vocal prowess. It stirs the imagination, loosens our grip on the status quo of inequality, and equips us to see all persons living without excess or deprivation. So, too, are all the songs in Luke’s story. They are songs of justice and songs of hope. 

May God give us ears to hear, mouths to join the song, and hearts that are ready for the great transformation that Jesus’ birth brings. 

 

Mark of St. Mark

Friday, November 18, 2022

Supporting Our Answer to God's Call

Quick Note: This week I have an essay that was published on a blog called The Politics of Scripture. My essay is “Christ the King and the Challenge of Symbols” and you can find it here. 

St. Mark is a unique church. There is vibrancy and joy in the air when we gather. There is purpose and meaning to our worship experiences. There are children of all ages who know that they are the church. We say, “All are welcome” as an extension of God’s steadfast love, which overcomes all of our barriers and welcomes our differences. We hear God’s call to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly,” so we give generously to local service organizations, refugees, farmworkers, schools, and homeless services locally, while supporting an orphanage and girls’ school in Kenya, as well as medical ministry and community organizing partners in Nicaragua. We walk alongside local service organizations to encourage and empower their work. We take the Scriptures seriously and find in them the “words of life,” not just rules and traditions. We support the arts in many varieties. We pray for those who are grieving or dance with those who are celebrating. We coalesce our voices to make a difference on matters of LGBTQIA rights, honoring Black lives, Indigenous lives, Brown lives, and standing up against Asian American/Pacific Islander hate. We write letters to support the struggle against hunger, gun violence, and the suppression of women’s choices. We work to ensure health care, nutrition, and access to viable food choices no matter where one lives. We support mission partnerships in the Presbyterian Church (USA), as well as with some of our sister churches in Orange County. We make mental health resources available to all ages. We study deep issues of foreign policy and personal issues of mindfulness or relationship-building. Phew! That’s quite a litany.

 

I’m not bragging. I’m certainly not bragging about myself and not even bragging on you (which I like to do!) I am simply presenting the span of topics that our Elders oversee month after month and our Staff empower week after week. But note this: Many churches are vibrant. Many churches are committed to justice. Not many churches are both. That’s a harsh truth. I’m not kidding when I say that St. Mark is truly a unique church. 

 

Your contributions enable us to do all these things and do them well. And in order to be open to where God is taking us in the future, we need three things: A facility that is fully operational; a staff that is fully compensated; and a robust mission budget that reflects our priorities. Those are our three largest budget items and we need all three of them to be fully funded. 

 

So, how can you help that happen? First, please hold the pledge card that you received this week and ask yourself, “How you I ensure that our church remains both vibrant and dedicated to justice?” We need generous folk in order to do our work well. Second, consider the church in any estate planning you may do. Our Finance Commission can guide you if you have any questions. And finally, pray. Pray at the beginning. Pray without ceasing. Pray while listening. Pray with your feet. Pray with your checkbook. Pray with one another. 

 

And may God bless you as you continue being the unique church called St. Mark.

 

Mark of St. Mark

Friday, November 11, 2022

Alternative Christmas Market

 Friends, 

 This weekend will be filled with joyful and meaningful activity at St. Mark. On Saturday, following worship, we have our “Meet Me at Muldoon’s” gathering, which is always full of joy and energy. Then, on Sunday, following worship, we will host our Alternative Christmas Market, live and in person! Both of these events are meaningful parts of our community life here at St. Mark. The gatherings at Muldoon’s offer us a chance to “be the church” offsite, remembering that the church is the people and not the building site itself. Today I want to focus on the Alternative Christmas Market, since it is an annual event that we have not been able to enjoy in all of its in-person glory for too long. 

 

The number of organizations, volunteers, and even children from St. Mark who have been working hard to make this year’s market a success is remarkable. Under the skillful leadership of Diana Light and Denise Christensen, with able assistance from Sue-Ann Wichman and Judith Hug, and a lot of extra effort by Alex Cardenas and Jeremy Smith, in addition to the volunteers, and guest organizations, this event is an “all hands on deck” phenomenon. The beauty of it all is this: All the preparation, activity, and purchases are signs of our commitment to justice. We will have a chance to purchase fair trade products, products that benefit those who do the work more than those who monopolize the industry, and products that are created with the earth’s safekeeping in mind. This Alternative Christmas Market allows us to participate in a new way of being, even if just for a day.

 

There is a large grocery store in Iowa where I know of two different people weeping in the aisle. The first was a guest from El Salvador who was simply overwhelmed with the plethora of choices, meats upon meats, vegetables upon vegetables, processed foods upon processed foods, all stacked neatly, with constantly rotating stock, in shelves, refrigerators, display buffets, and endcaps. The sheer enormity of the choices for someone who’s morning usually began by walking in the dark to get water from a well, was simply too much. So, she wept. 

 

The second person I saw weeping was in the cereal aisle. It’s no small thing that there is a “cereal aisle,” but this person was not weeping due to the overwhelming excess. She was holding a box of a corn-based cereal that cost $3.69 for puffy cereal that actually contained a small amount of corn. As I was trying to be politely present but not interfering, she looked up at me and said, “The difference between what this company pays us for this corn and what they charge for it is just criminal.” 

 

Those two sobering grocery store encounters displayed something about the system of production and sales in our marketplaces that we easily take for granted. And that was before an app could ensure that we can have goods on our doorstep within minutes. The convenience, choices, and ease of the market is admirable, a gift that serves us well in many ways. But it also hides the hands that create, harvest, and prepare the goods we order. It hides the exploitation of those who work with raw materials and the enrichment of those who exploit them. My suspicion is that if either of those two persons who so prophetically wept in the grocery store were to enter our Alternative Christmas Market, they would weep tears of joy. And that’s what I invite you to do this weekend. Come see the faces and hear the stories of those whose products we can purchase. It is a way of doing justice together. 

 

Mark of St. Mark

Friday, October 28, 2022

 A Thriving Church

Last week during worship I mentioned that I had been invited to a gathering of "pastors of thriving churches." While it seems at times that we are busy rebuilding our momentum following COVID, today's missive to the folks at St. Mark presents a compelling vision of a thriving church. Enjoy! 

This weekend is one of those weekends when we will have a lot of everything, so hang on as I take us through the list! 

On Saturday and Sunday, we have worship. That may be obvious, but it is important to put it out there first, because everything we do is fueled by the grace of God, and worship is our opportunity to gather, remember, give thanks, and ground our life together as a debt of gratitude for God’s grace. So, even in a weekend with lots of everything, worship matters. Let’s say that first. 

During worship on Saturday and Sunday, we will observe “All Saints Weekend,” taking the time to name, honor, and remember those who have died this year. Since our lives are bracketed by the delightful promise that “in life and in death, we belong to God,” we will approach this act of remembrance as a celebration of those who have completed their baptismal journeys. We call those who have died “saints,” not because they were flawless in life, but because of God’s grace, which embraces us in our frailties and elevates us as those who are fearfully and wonderfully made.  

One aspect of our celebration of All Saints Weekend is that we are collecting “Prayer Flags,” a tradition that we began last year after a period of so much loss. You can read a brief description here. Some of these flags will name persons in our lives who have died, but we welcome other forms of loss also: The loss of pets, employment, happiness, opportunity, or anything that troubles the spirit. Like every act of prayer, this tradition will enable us to “weep with those who weep,” one of the most powerful acts of community imaginable. Bring your flags on Saturday and Sunday, and during worship on Sunday we will have an opportunity to hang them. 

During worship on Sunday, we will celebrate the baptism of one of our children, declaring God’s act of grace in his life. Having grown up in a tradition that only practiced “believer’s baptism,” I have found that the baptism of infants and children is one of the most powerful demonstrations that our life of faith begins with God’s gracious act of claiming us from the start. And how appropriate that on the weekend we remember those who have completed their baptismal journeys, we celebrate the baptism of a child of the church. 

Also during worship on Sunday our Handbell Ensemble will play our Introit, marking their first performance for this season as part of our very impressive music ministry at St. Mark. 

After worship on Saturday, we will launch Life Together, a time of connecting and building friendships before we all go our separate ways for supper. Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote a book entitled Life Together, where he describes Christian fellowship as “an extraordinary grace.” So, we will meet in the Bonhoeffer Room following worship to live into that beautiful vision. 

On Sunday afternoon we will have our annual Harvest Festival, with the very popular “Trunk or Treat” event outside of the Fellowship Hall. Put on a costume, decorate your vehicle, and bring some nut-free treats to share with the trunk-or-treaters as you enjoy the costume parade. We’ll gather at 4:00, the parade is at 4:20, and the trunk-or-treating begins at 4:30. 

It’s hard to imagine a weekend when we get a better snapshot of what it means to be the church. From birth to death, with joy and sadness, gathering for worship and fellowship, we become the body of Christ, sent out into the world to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly before our God. 

See you in worship this weekend, 

Mark of St. Mark




Friday, September 30, 2022

Beautiful Resilience

 Faithful Friends, 

Last week we read the story of Zechariah, in the temple, lighting the incense, as the faithful were doing their part by standing outside, praying. As I was going through my usual weekly preparation for teaching about that story in our weekly Text Study and preaching about it over the weekend, I couldn’t escape the idea of how Zechariah and those faithful folk were very much like the St. Mark community. We will hear more about this pronouncement this coming weekend, but for now let’s appreciate what Zechariah and those other folks were doing for a moment. 

 

Zechariah was probably at an age when he could have declared himself a “former priest,” or “honorably retired” as we put it in the Presbyterian Church. He could have stepped away and let other people carry the flame for a change. And, when we hear that for many years he and Elizabeth had been praying for a child to no avail, there might be other reasons why Zechariah would walk away – Where is God, anyway, when our prayers go unanswered? Yet Zechariah was there, performing his role, keeping the liturgy going by lighting the flame. It is one of the less appreciated parts of how God’s people have always responded to God’s grace – through what we might call “beautiful resilience.” 

 

We can see it in those folks outside of the temple praying. They easily could have been somewhere else. This temple had not proven to be eternal or magically blessed – having been looted, destroyed, and desecrated time and time again. In no instance did the looter, destroyer, or desecrater die of a divine lightning bolt coming out of the sky. For all of its reputation as a place of divine power, the temple proved often to be just another casualty in power struggles. And even when the king Herod rebuilt the temple into a magnificent structure of beauty, he placed a golden eagle above the entrance gate – a symbol of the Roman God Jupiter and the glory of the Roman Empire. It was an inescapable message to anyone who entered that Rome, and not God, was in charge. When some zealous Jews cut that golden eagle down, they were mercilessly and publicly slaughtered. Those folks who gathered around the temple to pray had every reason to decline and do something else, to be somewhere else. Yet, they were there, praying during the time of incense. Beautiful resilience. 

 

That’s the kind of resilience we see when choir members, Saturday musicians, the kitchen crew, Deacons, Elders, counters, ushers, teachers, advocates, commission members, planners, overseers, cleaners, staff, worship leaders, and others show up, week after week, faithfully, as part of their service to God. Sometimes we see them up front and publicly when the community is gathered. Sometimes they come in when nobody is looking and fill the teeny communion cups, arrange the doughnut holes, or some other invisible service. Sometimes their work involves learning a song at home, writing a prayer to start the meeting, visiting a sick friend, or ordering the other parts of their lives to be available. Everyone who makes that effort has a thousand other things they could be doing instead. But here they are, serving God and serving others out of grateful hearts. Again, beautiful resilience. 

 

I invite you to see yourself and your St. Mark community as the people in the story, keeping the flame of hope alive, keeping the prayers lifted up, when we could easily be doing other things. Thank you for that beautiful resilience. 

 

Mark of St. Mark

Monday, September 26, 2022

Leggo My Ego

 Let Go of My Ego

You may remember a television commercial from yesteryear that began with an waffle popping up on a toaster and two persons at the table grabbing it simultaneously, each of whom glared at the other and said, “Leggo my Eggo!” That inane phrase pops up into my mind very often when I’m praying, because whenever I feel wounded by something that someone has said or done I recognize that part of the woundedness is my ego, that might be bruised or inflated. So, I find myself praying that God will enable me to “leggo my eggo!” or, more accurately, to “Let go of my ego.” 

Letting go of the ego seems like such a proper goal for which to pray, doesn’t it? We commonly think of the ego as something inordinate, such as when we describe someone as ‘egotistical.’ It is akin to what the Scriptures sometimes call “the flesh,” a kind of control center that directs our actions in a selfish manner, as opposed to in a loving manner. Jesus’ call for disciples to “take up your cross and follow me” seems to imply that it is only by dying to our ego that we can live into Christ. And, of course, there is great wisdom and truth to hearing the call to discipleship that way, especially for those of us who have tasted power and privilege in our world, with the presumptions that we are right and our opinions are important. 

However, the Scriptures offer a much more complex approach to the ego than simply a negative one. The word “ego,” for example, is simply a transliteration of the Greek pronoun ἐγὼ, which means “I.” When philosophers use the word “ego,” they tend to use it interchangeably with the word “self.” That is to say, we all have an ego and that is not a criticism. Our ego is the center of our reflective being, from which we perceive the world and act accordingly. Perhaps that is why Jesus describes “the greatest command” with a trilogy of loving God, and loving our neighbor, as we love ourselves. Self-love – perhaps we should say a proper self-love – is a necessary part of being in healthy loving relationships. 

When we listen to the complexity of the Scriptures, the ego appears as more than just a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ thing. Certainly there are insufferable narcissists, so caught up in their reputation and so convinced of their own perspective that they run roughshod over everyone else. That is a form of ‘egoism’ in its worst respect, exactly the kind of ‘self’ that needs to be crucified if one is to be able to form loving relationships and to serve God with humility. At the other extreme are those who have been shamed, browbeaten, silenced, ignored, or otherwise marginalized in life, to where they seem to have lost their ability to stand up for themselves, to speak out when abused, or to expect the kind of dignity and respect on which genuinely loving relationships are built. Both the loss of the ego and an overly inflated ego can result in diminishing life and love. 

Perhaps the Scriptures present a complexity of approaches to tending one’s ego because each of us is different. Some of us seem more disposed toward self-confidence that trends toward conceit, while others seem more disposed toward humility that trends toward self-loathing. Self-confidence and humility can be life-enhancing virtues, while conceit and self-loathing can be life-diminishing vices. I suspect that few of us are simply one extreme or the other, but are constantly in flux. Tension, change, fear, or even success can push us toward extremes, rather than maintaining a healthy balance of self-love and other-love. 

So, how should we pray when we find ourselves feeling wounded? I find my first wave of prayer is precisely a prayer for wisdom to know the difference between inordinate and appropriate self-love. Am I angry because my pride has been wounded, or were someone’s words and actions really inappropriate? Do I love someone well by absorbing their words and actions with quiet grace, or is this an occasion that requires a firm, resolute response? When I feel challenged or wronged, my first impulses are rarely the best response. In those cases, prayer becomes a powerful moment of being re-centered, re-organized, re-ordered in my thoughts and my feelings by intentionally focusing on the trilogy of loving God, neighbor, and self. When it seems that the wound is largely because my pride was inflated, I can move toward an apology, toward change, with the confidence that I am a humbled, but still beloved, child of God. And when it seems that the wound is because someone has not properly respected my gifts, my feelings, my boundaries, or my dignity, I can confront them firmly and lovingly, out of a proper sense of self-love. Sometimes prayer is “Let go of my ego” and sometimes it is “I am God’s work of art.” 

Analytically, it sounds simple. Realistically, this is a long journey of consistent prayer, listening, learning, and loving. May your journeys be filled with grace, patience, and prayer.

Mark of St. Mark

Friday, September 16, 2022

Unity and/or Integrity

 I was gathering with some pastors recently for prayer. That may sound like a typical preacherly thing to do, but this was a challenge. It was clear to me the whole time that what most of them were praying for and what I was praying for were very different. Even when we set out to pray about the same thing – mental health challenges among High School students was one concern someone brought up before we began praying – our prayers were very different. I prayed for students to find wholeness, community, guidance, acceptance, and the ability to live with joy and hope.  Most of them prayed against “the enemy” and one of them prayed with the assumption that the students facing challenges didn’t know Jesus. 

I cannot and do not want to try to read the minds of the other pastors in the room. Nor do I have the ability or warrant to judge their approach to spirituality and faith. But it was an odd experience for me to feel as if much of my unspoken prayer while others were praying aloud was something along the lines of, “Oh, no, God, please do not answer that prayer.” Or, at least, “Gracious God, that is not what I ask of you this day.” So, I took another turn to pray, asking God to forgive the church for the ways that we have stigmatized and marginalized people with mental illness and for greater understanding of how we can love them well. It seemed that the tone of the prayers turned toward a more understanding direction after that. 

It’s not my purpose here, and not my calling in life, to correct others in how they pray (although I have some overly strong opinions on the matter). I do want to raise the question of what “Christian Unity” is supposed to look like in 2022. This was a group of Christian pastors, one of whom – a friend of mine from other circles – invited me. How does a Christian turn down an invitation to pray? How does a pastor turn down an invitation to pray with other pastors? The unity of the church – per Jesus’ prayer in John 17 “that they may be one” – seems to be one of our highest values. We ought to shine as the “light of the world” by our unity and oneness, yes? 

And yet, we also ought to have integrity. Among the other differences I feel when I’m with some other Christian leaders are: I don’t feel that faithful Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, etc. need Jesus or else they are going to hell; I don’t feel that there is a “homosexual agenda” out there that is intent on destroying the gospel; I don’t feel that America is called to be a “Christian nation” – at least not in the way others mean that phrase. In fact, I am rather strongly opposed to these ideas. And here is a hard truth: I feel more at home with Interfaith Leaders who are engaged in pursuing peace and justice than Evangelical Christian leaders who pursue this kind of triumphalistic Christianity. 

Too often it feels that the call to “Christian unity” is at odds with the call to seek justice and practice compassion. And, if push ever comes to shove, I hope to err on the side of justice and compassion. 

Oh, how I would love to evangelize and to be an evangelical! But those terms have become ruined by their association. If people heard the term “evangelism” and thought something like, “sharing the joy and justice of the gospel in word and deed,” then I would use that word all the time. If someone heard “evangelical” and thought something like, “passionate commitment to spreading the love and justice of Christ,” then I would vote to put it on our sign! But what people hear with “evangelism” is a tactic that promises heaven or threatens hell if people don’t believe what I believe. And “evangelical” just seems to name a partisan voting bloc in the US that has coopted Christian branding. It’s terribly disappointing and it is part of what makes “Christian Unity” such a difficult thing to pursue. I have read people whom I respect promoting the phrase “holy disunity.” I get it, but I’m not ready to use that language, because but I think it could very easily be coopted toward problematic ends. For me, the tension between unity and integrity is not easily solvable, perhaps not solvable at all in some cases.  

Of course, this whole presentation of that prayer experience reflects my own perspective. The next step in my reflective journey needs to be to turn the table and wonder how someone, who wants to worship at St. Mark but who disagrees strongly with how we see the world, can be welcomed. Most of you are far better at providing that kind of space than I am, and I continue to learn from you every week. When we find ways to provide space where one can have their integrity – even in disagreements – and yet find unity, then we are the church in the best sense of the term.  

Mark of St. Mark