Category Archives: Ministry

by

Why We Need to Stop Requiring Churches to Interview a Woman

Really? I have to choose?

Really fun, interesting, passionate discussion going on, despite my not-very-thought-out post. You rise to the occasion, Blue Room readers.

So how do we solve the gender gap in ministry? With women outnumbering men in seminaries today, how we do break that stained glass ceiling?

Our current approach in the Presbyterian Church is to require churches, when looking for a pastor, to interview at least one female candidate. The thinking is, of the final three or four candidates, there would be a woman in the mix, and perhaps even churches with an unspoken default of pastor=male might be sufficiently moved to think outside the box. Not that every church will follow that up with a call to that woman, of course. This is mysterious Holy Spirit stuff, not to mention that there are women pastors who aren’t all that. But churches should at least look.

Do you think this helps? Have you seen this approach be helpful?

[Insert standard disclaimer about how people are complicated and are more than their gender.]

I was talking to some friends last week who were questioning this approach. And here’s the piece I found interesting. People have done studies about how we make decisions, and we do a much better job evaluating when we can compare two relatively similar things to one another. My friend told me about a study (I think I’ve got this right) in which they showed three pictures. Two pictures were of handsome/beautiful celebrities and the third was an image of one of those celebrities, but with the face badly distorted.

So for example, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and George Clooney with big jowls and an enlarged forehead.

Subjects were asked to choose the most handsome/beautiful face. The study showed that people overwhelmingly chose the face that had its own distorted image to compare it to. These images were so much better looking than their distorted image that they ended up coming out on top most of the time. So in the example, George Clooney over Brad Pitt.

OK that might be a bad example. The Clooney always beats Brad.

Anyway.

If this study is accurate, a lone woman among a final four of candidates will not get a fair look-see because there is no basis for good comparison. She becomes a non-sequitur.

So maybe we shouldn’t require churches to interview a woman candidate. Maybe we should require them to interview more than one!

What do you think?

by

In Which I Get a Little Testy over the Gender Gap

Context: There is a stained glass ceiling in ministry. Granted it has holes in it, but the number of women who serve as heads of staff of large congregations is…small.

Context, Part the Second: This is a rant. A vent. Treat it accordingly.

Yesterday morning I posted a note on FB about having to juggle work stuff and writing stuff with James in tow—his day care provider needed the day off. Within the hour I got three responses from other pastors who were having similar issues that very day: teacher inservice + working on the sermon, well baby visit + writing a presentation, etc.

These folks are all super talented, and I found myself asking “Wow, imagine how far we’d go if we weren’t all doing 2-3 jobs at once!”

Imagine, indeed.

I don’t have to tell you the gender of all four of these pastors, do I.

DO I.

Honestly, I don’t know what I’m testy about. And it’s probably foolish to allow one’s anger to roam, free-range; it’s liable to wander into the wrong person’s yard and start pooping on stuff.

I should probably apologize right now and get it over with.

Because hey, it’s possible that there is some large cadre of clergymen out there wondering how to get the funeral meditation done in between carpool and the lacrosse practice.

But I doubt it.

It’s also possible that all of us minister-moms like our current career trajectory just fine. I certainly hope so. I like where I am, and I’m not just saying that to calm down any member of Tiny who might read this. Solo pastor ministry is fun. Varied. And yes, flexible: James and I had a great day together. I really do love being the default caregiver during the week. If life imitates the Simpsons, and we need to evacuate earth and my kids only get to choose one parent, well…sorry Robert.

But there’s no way that every woman who juggles kids and a call wants it that way. They are limited geographically. Or related, they’ve made a financial calculation that their spouse will be the primary breadwinner.

And that’s all fine. Except that in 2012 we have a gender gap in ministry at the highest levels. That’s a justice issue. An economic issue. A question of power. And our male colleagues may be sensitive new age guys, but they are only too happy to take the big positions and the big salaries while we juggle the pediatrician and PowerPoint.

Somebody talk me down here.

by

What To Expect… Grandparents’ Edition

My video on “What to Expect When Your Church is Expecting” has hit 4,000 views/pages and counting. I’m humbled and honored by the attention.

It also makes me cringe since I hate watching myself on video.

A few folks have countered that there are places in which the church is not pregnant, but really and truly dying. I agree. One person rightly pointed out that the symptoms for pregnancy that I named are not unlike the symptoms of a cancer patient. Also true. As I’ve said, this video/post offers a metaphor. To the extent that the metaphor helps, great. If it gets in the way of the hard work of dying that must take place in many specific places, disregard.

May my words be faithful or may they slip harmlessly away.

The inimitable Jan Edmiston riffed on the metaphor in a wonderful way today. The church is graying. So what is our responsibility as grandparents to this new church that is coming into being?

It occurs to me that those in my and older generations need to keep something in the forefront of our minds as the church we love is pregnant:

The Next Church Will Not Be Our Baby.

We will have great ideas for how to care for it and treasure it.  We might even be able to help pay for its nurture and its future.  But it’s not our baby.

 This is not to say we will not be ideal grandparents.  But it’s possible that we could overstep our bounds.  We could chuckle at the disciplines the younger generations have chosen to follow. We might want to talk incessantly about the way we did it.  But let’s not.

She ends by saying that the church of the future will be a lot browner than it is now. That’s also true. And yet the Presbyterian Church is very white. So what’s going on there? Adoption is another metaphor that might help us. I wonder if there’s someone out there that might riff on that in some creative ways. Susan? Alex?

Let’s all keep dreaming and spinning generative metaphors.

by

Sabbath in the City: Register Today!

I am very excited and honored to be leading “Sabbath in the City,” the Young Clergy Women’s Conference this summer in beautiful Chicago. The Young Clergy Women Project was the brainchild of Susan Olson, who sought to create a space where this small-ish demographic of pastors could support and encourage one another in ministry. That was some five years ago and the YCWs are going strong, which is a testament to Susan’s empowering style of leadership as well as the need for and benefit of such a group. Hats off to these fabulous women!

By the way: Some people react very strongly against the idea of a group for YCWs. Sometimes they scoff, or pout that they wish they had a group themselves. I’m not sure what to say to that. The group was formed because many young women leave the ministry after a few years. We all need encouragement, regardless of our gender, age or life situation. When I encounter this resistance, I usually quote Maya Angelou, who would read her poem “Phenomenal Woman” to groups and preface it by saying, Some people think that this poem excludes men. It doesn’t. But I want to tell the men out there, honey, you’ve got to write your own poem!

Anyway, the conference begins the afternoon of Monday, July 30 and ends midday on Thursday August 3. Here are the topics we’ll be covering:

Monday Night: Kabbalat Shabbat: Setting the Table, Setting the Stage

The traditional Jewish Sabbath begins in the evening with prayers, blessings, readings and food. Our opening time together will riff on these elements, as we greet old friends, meet new ones, and settle into the space.

Tuesday Morning: Do As I Say, Not as I (Don’t) Do: Sabbath Challenges for Clergy Women

Abraham Joshua Heschel called Sabbath “a cathedral in time.” Too bad our cathedrals are cluttered with old worship bulletins, dust bunnies, and a Mt. Everest of laundry. On Tuesday morning we play with the biblical and theological grounds for Sabbath, and talk about why it’s so outrageously difficult to practice.

Tuesday Afternoon: World Cafe and Open Space

Back by popular demand, Tuesday afternoon will provide open-source opportunities for us to share resources and get to know one another better. MaryAnn will facilitate, but the content and shape of these gatherings are driven by the participants themselves.

Wednesday Morning: Looney Tunes, Kite Strings, and Itty-Bitty Sleeping Bags: Practical Tips and Approaches

The theoretical becomes practical as we think about how Sabbath really can fit into our messy, imperfect, overstuffed lives.

Thursday Morning: Embracing Scarcity

Our conference comes to an end as we explore this weirdly comforting affirmation: there isn’t enough time.

~

Registration info for the conference is here; please be so kind as to send the information to a young clergy woman you know, or register yourself if you haven’t yet aged out of the group—as I have…

by

What to Expect When Your Church Is Expecting

A few months ago I recorded a video for Bruce Reyes-Chow’s We Are Presbyterian project. It was fun, and I learned a lot in the process.

In the video I suggest that the Presbyterian Church (USA) is not “gravely ill,” as some have suggested.

Instead we are… well… take it away Barbie:

We’re not terminal. We’re just pregnant.

Apparently the video has hopped the Presbyterian fence and is wandering around other backyards, specifically Lutheran and Episcopal ones. It’s been fun to hear from friends and colleagues who’ve spotted it. I’m glad it resonates with others too… is there a baby boom happening in the mainline?

The video appears at the end of this post, but for those who prefer to read, here is essentially what I said:

~

Recently a group of pastors wrote a letter to the PCUSA, expressing concern about where we’re headed as a denomination. According to the letter, we are “deathly ill”.

The group has facts and figures to back up this–lots of numbers related to membership loss, the declining number of baptisms we do, and so forth.

Well look… the numbers are what they are.
I can’t argue with the statistics.
I only argue with the diagnosis.

We are not deathly ill. We’re…
well…
we’re pregnant.

That’s right folks.
We’re Pregnant!
Expecting!
On the nest!
Knocked up!
Preggers!
With child!
Bun in the oven!

The symptoms are there, if you know what you’re looking for.

First, there’s the fatigue. I see a lot of tired people out there, trying to keep life going, keep ministries going, keep the sermons coming, the nursery staffed, the money flowing in, the furnace in good repair… often with fewer people–less energy–than before. It’s tiring!

I see some bad queasiness too: morning sickness, which folks will tell you doesn’t just come in the morning, but sometimes round the clock. There’s a sense that the world has changed right out from under our feet, and we don’t quite know how to deal with it. What is this “emergent” stuff? How do we deal with the internet and social media? What about this younger generation? How do we respond to the culture without being coopted by it? Not to mention our new Form of Government, the passage of amendment 10A, and on and on. It’s to be expected that we’d be feeling a little woozy, a little green, a little sick.

And there’s a lot of anxiety too… that question every prospective parent asks: Can we do this? Are we ready? Do we have what it takes to step into this new chapter of life?

So here’s a bit of motherly wisdom, a guide, if you will: “what to expect when your church is expecting.”

I offer these reflections knowing that the metaphor is complicated. Not everyone who’s pregnant wants to be pregnant. And there are many who struggle to become pregnant, or who grieve the loss of a child. So I just acknowledge that and tread as lightly as I can.

But here’s what pregnancy offers us that “deathly ill” doesn’t.

1. It’s deeply biblical. Scripture is full of images of pregnancy. The whole creation groans in labor pains, Paul writes in Romans 8, and he uses the image again in I Thess 5. Even Jesus couldn’t resist using the metaphor: “When a woman is in labour, she has pain. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy.”

(That’s not true, by the way.)

The Bible is also full of women that society had written off as barren, women who thought their time had passed. And similarly, some say this whole PCUSA thing doesn’t have much life left in it. And that may even be true on some level. Maybe we are in our declining years. But guess what? Sarah and Elizabeth were in their declining years too, and yet God used both of them to grow new life and give birth to a whole new world.

2. Another way pregnancy connects with our church right now: Pregnancy ain’t pretty. As much as we talk about women glowing, it is not a glamorous time. Your face breaks out. Your joints go slack. You get gas. You can’t sleep at night. You have to pee every 10 minutes. And let’s not even talk about the dreaded “cankles”:

It’s a bit of a freak show, to be honest.

And yeah, this period we’re in right now as a church? It ain’t pretty. We’re cranky and itching for a fight with one another. We used to be young and fresh, the belle of the ball. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, we were thriving. People were flocking to our doors. But we’re not there anymore.

Now we’re in tremendous upheaval as a denomination. It seems like almost everything is on the table–our practices, our polity, our way of worshiping, our music, our structure…
But what’s not on the table for us is whether God is working.
What’s not on the table is what kind of God we serve: a living God, an incarnate God.
God is capable of doing a new thing: it springs forth, now, in nine months, in nine years, over a lifetime.
New life is what it’s all about. It’s the business we’re in.

3. Your sense of time is all messed up in pregnancy. On the one hand, it’s a quiet, slow, lumbering time. The nine months pass slowly. You can’t move as fast as you did. I had sciatica that would act up whenever I was walking too quickly; I finally decided it was God saying, “Slow down! Don’t go through this time at a breakneck pace. Stop, look, listen and feel.”

Even mental processes seem to slow down. Nouns and verbs come more slowly: “Honey bring me that, that… what is that? That thing! Beside the doohickey?” And maybe we as a church need to move beyond words for a while. Maybe we need to just be silent for a while, stop making so many pronouncements about the church. Sure, Mary sang, but she also pondered in her heart. Maybe it’s OK to shut up and let God do what God’s gonna do.

The time goes slowly… but it’s also an incredibly busy time. There’s a lot to learn, and pregnancy is a great time to do research. Hospital or birth center? Epidural? C-section? Breast or bottle? Stroller or sling? Pacifiers or thumb-sucking, cloth diapers or disposable? Television: harmless, or idiot box that will keep your kid out of Stanford?

And we’re doing the same research in the church. Every week I hear about a new group that’s meeting, a new conference to attend, a new website to keep track of. And the books! Oh, the books! Each one promising to give you that just-right approach to ministry, promising to grow your church, keep session meetings joyful and productive, and so on and so forth.

And any parent will tell you, that research is all well and good. But then the child is born. And it all comes down to that child’s personality, that child’s gifts, what that child needs. The books, ultimately, don’t tell you what you need to know. Your child does. So we in the PCUSA need to learn flexibility. We need to learn to respond to this thing being birthed, whatever it might be, instead of some idealized notion of what it might be. Is it a bunch of new churches? Ministries beyond the traditional church? Who knows, but as any parent will tell you, our kids are not carbon copies of us. They are their own people and they deserve to be treated as such. What is being born in the PCUSA is going to look different everywhere. We’re not all going to win beautiful baby contests. We are not birthing many 1950s Presbyterian churches anymore. No more perfect Gerber babies.

5. The final and, I think, most important parallel is this: Pregnancy, labor and parenthood are all embodied experiences–blood, sweat, tears, vomit… and poop. Once that labor starts, you can’t think your way out of it. You don’t do the work up in your head. You’ve got to participate in it with every bit of your being.

And that’s what this new phase of our Church is going to require too. It’s not enough to think about stuff. It’s not enough to talk about mission. It’s not enough to claim to value diversity. It’s not enough to give lip service to evangelism. We’re going to have to practice these things that we believe. To jump in, body and soul.

But I think the best thing pregnancy offers us as a metaphor is this: it’s hopeful. It’s a great big crazy leap into the unknown. It’s a vision for the future. It’s something you grow into. Nobody’s “ready.”

The question is, what are we going to do during this time of gestation?

Thanks for listening, and a special thanks to my friend and colleague Elizabeth Goodrich for the pregnancy metaphor.

We Are Presbyterian 2011 — A New “Diagnosis” for the Church from MaryAnn McKibben Dana on Vimeo.

by

Unless I See

Postage stamp from India honoring the apostle Thomas

I don’t make a regular habit of posting sermons… but I posted the Easter one, and I kinda think that the two sermons are a matched set.

MaryAnn McKibben Dana
Idylwood Presbyterian Church
April 15, 2012
Second Sunday of Easter
John 20:19-31

“Unless I See”

Poor Thomas, or should I say, “Doubting Thomas”… for indeed that is the name we hear more often. I saw a cartoon this week that features Thomas, hands on hips, saying, “It’s just not fair. It’s not like people go around calling him ‘Denying Peter.’”

It’s a dreadful mislabeling of the man, if you ask me. Thomas only wants what everyone else has already received—a glimpse of Jesus, resurrected. In fact, the word “doubt” does not appear anywhere in this passage if you go back to the original text. The New Revised Standard Version renders Jesus’ words, “Do not doubt but believe.” But Jesus doesn’t say not to doubt. He says, “Do not be unbelieving.”

Doubt, after all, is an element of faith, not a sign of unbelief. And I don’t think Jesus need have worried about Thomas being an unbeliever. Because if Thomas were an unbeliever, he’d be off living his life. He wouldn’t be sitting up there with the rest of the disciples, hoping Jesus might show up again. He is there because this was the place where Jesus was last seen. He’s up there, waiting, wanting to see evidence of this amazing thing that has taken place. Those aren’t the actions of an unbeliever. That’s someone who’s still engaged with the push and pull of his faith. Who’s willing to struggle and wait and watch and hope.

Thomas means the Twin, and as my friend Deryl likes to say when he preaches this text, he’s your twin, if you want him. And I know he is the twin of many of you, because you have told me your struggles and your questions…  and yes, your doubts.

He’s a twin that folks would be blessed to have. I’d certainly like to write him into my family tree. Rather than trying to diminish him as many have done with the “Doubting” moniker, today I suggest that Thomas has the most robust faith of any of the disciples. He doesn’t grandstand like Peter: Watch me walk on water! Jesus, you will never wash my feet! Nor does he jockey for position like James and John, who elbow each other out of the way to see who might sit at Jesus’ right hand.

Consider the places we meet Thomas in the gospel of John. We see him in the story of Lazarus (ch. 11), whom Jesus loved, and who is ill, and later dies. Lazarus’s sisters have called for Jesus, who is game to go to Judea, but the disciples say, No, don’t go there, the Jewish authorities want to stone you. That’s the last place we want to be. But Thomas, notably, does not join the chorus of people eager to save Jesus’ skin, and their own. He says, Let’s go, so that we may die too.

We meet Thomas again a few chapters later (ch. 14). Jesus is teaching about God’s house, which has many rooms. “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” he says. “I go to prepare a place for you… You know the way to the place where I am going.”

And Thomas answers, Umm, actually, we don’t know the way.

We might ding Thomas for interrupting what is one of the more eloquent discourses of Jesus, except that his question is vital if you actually care about following the man.

You don’t ask that question unless you intend to go where Jesus wants to you to go.

So. That’s Thomas in chapters 11 and 14, and then we have chapter 20 to round out our character sketch. We just heard that the first time Jesus appears post-resurrection, Thomas is off somewhere. I preached two years ago that Thomas is the patron saint of the day late and the dollar short crowd. They all get to see Jesus, while he’s off buying Cheetos and Mountain Dew at the 7-11.

But that’s not right, either. Where is Thomas? What is he doing? It seems obvious, doesn’t it? He’s not on a beer run; he’s looking for Jesus. Mary Magdalene said he’s risen, so Thomas is going to find him. He’s certainly not going to cower behind a locked door, quivering with the other disciples for fear of the religious authorities. Thomas is the only one brave enough to be on the outside. So let’s call him Courageous Thomas, not Doubting Thomas.

In the years to come, after Jesus is no longer with them, the disciples will go on to spread the good news and found churches. Thomas has a special distinction: he is the only one of the disciples to have ventured beyond the Roman Empire to spread Christianity. The tradition tells us he established churches in southern India, for heaven’s sake!

Thomas is a man of movement:
“Let’s go to Judea, even if it means our death.”
“I don’t know the Way, Jesus, but I want to know, so tell me.”
“I’m not going to sit up here in the upper room with the door bolted. If Jesus is alive I’m going to go find him and I’m not going to be afraid.”
That search takes him all the way to India, further than any disciple was willing to go.

*          *          *

You may have heard the story this week about the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, Cory Booker. Booker was coming home the other night and saw his neighbor’s house engulfed in flames. A woman standing nearby screamed that her daughter was still inside, and so without thinking, Cory ran into the house. He and members of his security detail were able to save the woman and others. Cory threw her over his shoulders, sack-of-potatoes style, and ran through the flames. He suffered smoke inhalation and a few second-degree burns, but he and the others are OK.

Now as often happens on the Internet, people decided to have some fun with this and inflate this government bureaucrat into a butt-kicking hero. A twitter feed sprang up on Friday called Cory Booker stories, and they are the 21st century equivalent of the tall tale:
“When Batman needs help, he turns on the Cory Booker signal.”
“When Chuck Norris gets nightmares, Cory Booker turns on the light and brings him warm milk until he calms down.”
“Smoke was treated for Cory Booker exposure.”

Those are fun, aren’t they? But the detail that made me sit up and take notice was from an interview Booker gave the next day, in which he said that the decision to go in was a “come to Jesus moment.”

Now, he probably means “come to Jesus” as in a moment of decision. That’s how we normally think about “come to Jesus.” But think about what the phrase means literally. Come. To. Jesus. He went toward a person in grave danger and called it a come to Jesus moment. I hear strains of Matthew 25 in that: For I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was perishing in a burning building and you dove in and saved me. That which you did to the most vulnerable and imperiled, you did to me.

Thomas, our disciple with the robust faith, would approve. He was a Come To Jesus kind of person.

*          *          *

This morning, several of my friends are preaching from the book of Acts, one of the other assigned texts for this day. A few of us were puzzling about how to connect Thomas with this snippet from the early church:

4:32 Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common….
4:34 There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold.
4:35 They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

Sometimes we press this text into arguments about communism and socialism, and I think that misses the point. The point is this: the church helped create an alternate system in which everyone’s needs were taken care of. Nobody had too much; everyone had enough. Everyone.

It is the church’s job to lift up an alternate vision in which that is possible. It takes a robust faith to do so…

And if Thomas is our twin then we have no choice. Notice he does not say, “Unless I see Jesus walking around in a perfect body with a halo…”

He says,
Unless I see the puncture wounds in his hands… unless I see the split in his side.
Unless I see that Jesus is a Jesus who suffered the depths of human pain and lived,
then what’s the point.
Unless I see that Jesus is the one who goes right to the heart of human suffering, taking it on…
then I have no use for him.

That’s the Jesus worthy of Thomas’s faith. And ours.

by

Conflict Kitchen — A Template for Churches?

This weekend I listened to a Splendid Table episode featuring artist Jon Rubin. Rubin co-founded Conflict Kitchen, which is a storefront take-out place in Pittsburgh that rotates its menu every six months to highlight the cuisine of a country with which the United States is in conflict. From their website:

Our current Iranian version [of the restaurant] introduces our customers to the food, culture, and thoughts of people living in Iran during a time of increased calls for military intervention by the U.S.. Developed in collaboration with members of the Iranian community, our food comes packaged in custom-designed wrappers that include interviews with Iranians both in Iran and the United States on subjects ranging from street food and popular culture to the current political turmoil.

Rubin talked about using food as an entry point for people to engage with issues and topics that they might normally avoid. Staff are trained in the art of conversation, which is as important as serving up orders and running the cash register. They are educated on the issues, but are not experts. They are equipped to help customers come to a deeper appreciation of the intricacies of the conflict. And of course, consuming the food of a people with whom we are in conflict breaks down the walls a little. This kind of eating cannot help but change us. Whatever happens between our two countries, with every bite, we ingest a bit of empathy.

So friends. Help me think about this as a template for the Lord’s Supper.

Many of us celebrate World Communion Sunday in October by using different types of bread from around the world. That’s lovely. But a Conflict Kitchen-inspired Eucharist would go deeper and be potentially more transformative. I imagine that the tablecloth, furnishings, blessings and prayers would be indigenous to a specific part of the world, bearing something of the complexity of the situation. How poignant it would be to have the table set with these items that bespeak of conflict, and then to share bread and wine at that table. Such eating is a liturgical act of hope, a leaning into a future that is not yet here—a future of peace.

Final thought: our denomination’s (PCUSA) General Assembly will be in Pittsburgh. How about a field trip?

Image: a recent iteration of Conflict Kitchen, highlighting Venezuela.

by

Why Pastors Need to Listen to “Manager Tools”

See how this generic business graphic looks like a stained glass window? Hmmm...

Robert turned me on to Manager Tools, a free podcast about managing people and projects. I’ve started jumping around, listening to topics that interest me, and have heard enough to recommend it here for church pastors. Not everything applies to the ministry, but enough does to make it worth your while to poke around the site.

I don’t have a lot of patience for people who pooh-pooh the whole “church as business” thing. No, we are not, strictly speaking, a business. And yes, we care about more than “success” or the profit motive. Yes, subsisting solely on business and leadership books is pretty thin gruel for the pastor. But get over yourself. A business is a group of people who have a mission and are trying to meet it together. Movin’ on.

Yesterday while running I listened to a podcast called And Not But Meeting Ground Rule. Pretty clunky title, but the idea is that in meetings, you should encourage people to expunge the word “but” from their vocabulary: “Dave thinks we have the money to do this, but I disagree.”  ”We should have completed this task by the deadline, but nobody stepped up to do it.” “Sarah , BUT we already tried that.”

“But” drives a wedge and highlights conflict where there may be no conflict, just simple disagreement. And disagreement is OK, even healthy. The Manager Tools guys suggest “and” instead. The two contrasting views are still perfectly clear, and you’ve managed to diffuse any antagonism that might arise.

Here’s a situation in which the manager tools are especially well suited for a church context. The Bible is full of and-not-but. Sure, there’s that section where Jesus says, “You have heard it said… BUT I say to you.” But in general, (and in general!), the Bible is filled with disparate and sometimes even contradictory statements that sit side by side.

John 3:16: you must believe in order to be saved
AND Matthew 25: you must behave ethically in order to be saved

Just to name one example. There’s no “but” there. Is John right or Matthew? Yes, depending on context and situation.

The podcast quotes F. Scott Fitzgerald: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” Indeed.

One note. Some of the podcasts are meatier than others. This particular episode conveys a very simple idea that’s easy to grasp in just a few minutes, but I find the guys entertaining enough that I listened to the whole thing.

Pastors, do you borrow from the business world? What are you liking these days?

by

A Religion of Unachievement

 

MaryAnn McKibben Dana
Idylwood Presbyterian Church
March 25, 2012
Easter Sunday
Mark 16:1-8

“A Religion of Unachievement”

The ending of the gospel of Mark is surprising. As you will see if you are reading along in the pew Bible, there is a shorter ending and then a longer ending that come after this. But those were added later. Centuries later. The very best manuscripts we have of the gospel of Mark has it ending at verse 8, which is what I will be reading.

Listen to this:

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’ When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.’ So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

~

That’s it.

That’s the whole resurrection story according to Mark, the earliest gospel. Matthew and Luke came 10-15 years later, which means that for a decade or more, this was the final word on Jesus’ resurrection:

They went out and fled from the tomb. Terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Ah, but then come the shorter and longer endings, to rescue us from paralysis and get our heroes moving again! Yes, of course. But as I read those new endings, I’m reminded of the Harry Potter world. The great wizard Professor Dumbledore had a wonderful device in his office called a pensieve. A pensieve stored memories, that you could view like a video recording and the memories would be as vivid as the day they happened. The problem is that people can tamper with those memories when they want to forget or cover up what really happened. You can tell a memory has been altered because they are a little fuzzier, a bit more vague. They don’t have that clarity or authenticity.

Now, there is a kernel of truth in Mark’s supplemental endings. Obviously the disciples did go and tell somebody, eventually, otherwise we wouldn’t be here two thousand years later. But I read those tacked on endings and they seem a little fuzzy, a little hastily composed, a little too willing to zoom past the fear and amazement and go right to the triumph of those brave disciples who shared the good news with the whole wide world, God love ‘em!

No… I want to stay with the original ending for a while. Because that ending feels very real and true to me. Of all four gospel accounts of the resurrection, this one might just be the one for us.

If you’ve ever wanted to keep your faith a secret because of embarrassment at what other people might think, this version will suit you quite well.
If you’ve ever chosen the comfort of the life you love over a life lived in risky faith to a wandering revolutionary, this is your story.
If you’ve ever asked yourself WWJD and known the answer but still not done it, welcome to Mark 16:8. There’s a lot of us who’ve taken up residence in this verse, stiff with fear, shuffling around scared and muttering to ourselves.

Meanwhile we croon to one another on a beautiful spring day: Christ is risen! I do it too—it’s such a nerdy church thing, but I love the singsong response, He is risen indeed. It’s comfortable and familiar.

And then I remember.

“He is not here,” says the messenger. Jesus is OUT! What was dead is now alive again, and everything we know about endings and beginnings is for naught, and nothing will ever be the same, neither you nor I.

Darn right they were afraid.

Brian Blount says, “Fear is a natural reaction to discipleship whose content is the way of the cross. If you’re not afraid, you don’t understand.”

If he’s dead in the tomb, we can follow his teachings, and they’re beautiful and they make the world a lovelier place. But if he is alive… then there is a power that’s loose in the world that shatters the rules—a power we cannot explain, control, or understand.

And that’s scary.

The preacher Tony Campolo has talked about fear and failure. It’s his story, but it’s one we’ve heard all too often lately.

When I was in High School there was a kid who was gay.  We made fun of him.  You would say we bullied him, but we didn’t push him or hit him, we just made fun of him. Well, we did bully him.

Friday afternoons we had Phys Ed. and when we’d all go in to the showers he was afraid to go.  And when he did go in all by himself, we waited with our wet towels and when he came out we whipped him with our towels and stung his naked body.

I wasn’t there the Friday when they grabbed little Roger and dragged him into the shower room and shoved him into the corner, and as he doubled over in the fetal position, five guys urinated all over him.  He went home and he went to bed at about 10:00, his parents said.  It was about 2:00 in the morning when he got up and went into the basement of his house and he hanged himself.

It was at that point that I knew I was not a Christian.  Oh, I believed the Bible.  I believed the Apostle’s Creed word for word.  I was sound, I was solid, I was orthodox.  But if I were a Christian, I would have been Roger’s friend.

And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

*          *          *

It’s happened again like clockwork: another magazine article published the week of Easter, something designed to capitalize on people’s religious curiosity in order to sell magazines. These articles usually deal with some archaeological discovery; last year it was a set of nails that may have been those used on the cross of Christ. This year, it’s Christianity itself that is the fossil.

Newsweek’s cover article is called “Christianity in Crisis: Why we should ignore politicians, priests, and get-rich evangelists, and just follow him.” According to the author, a Catholic named Andrew Sullivan, Christianity is on the ropes: fewer people are attending church or professing faith. People claiming no religious affiliation is at an all-time high, and growing year by year.

Meanwhile the message of Christ has been coopted by political leaders: “On one side, the Republican base is made up of evangelical Protestants who believe that religion must consume and influence every aspect of public life. On the other side, the last Democratic primary had candidates profess their faith in public forums, and more recently President Obama appeared at the National Prayer Breakfast, invoking Jesus to defend his plan for universal health care.”

In contrast to these Christian power-grabs, Sullivan lifts up the example of St. Francis of Assisi, a man whose faith and gentleness are legendary. Francis “insisted on living utterly without power over others. As stories of his strangeness and holiness spread, more joined him and he faced a real dilemma: how to lead a group of men, and also some women, in an organization… And it tormented, wracked, and almost killed him. He had to be last, not first. He wanted to be always the ‘lesser brother,’ not the founder of an order. And so he would often go on pilgrimages and ask others to run things. Or he would sit at the feet of his brothers at communal meetings and if an issue could not be resolved without his say-so, he would whisper in the leader’s ear.”

This is the kind of humble discipleship we see in the gospel of Mark, through the lives of the women who were unwavering in their devotion to Jesus. They go to the tomb to anoint the body of their friend, and one question is on their lips: “Who will roll away the stone?”

As they gather up their spices… “Who will roll away the stone?”
As they tie their coverings on their heads… “Who will roll away the stone?”
As they make their way through the deserted early-morning streets, with the sunrise in their faces: “Who will roll away the stone?”

They don’t figure out ahead of time how they’ll manage it.
They don’t say “Eh, that stone’s too heavy,” and decide not to go.
They just gather up their supplies and trundle down the road, shoulder to shoulder.
They do that one small thing they’re able to do.
They go right up to the limits of their own ability.
They go, knowing that they may be thwarted by a big immovable object.
They go, knowing it may be a fool’s errand for them to go. But go they must. Because the anointing is theirs to do—a small, beautiful thing.
They go in hope and possibility that even though they are too weak to move that stone, maybe something might budge it.

And behold… the Way opens up for them. And it’s astounding.

Andrew Sullivan concludes his article by talking about the saints of our faith.

[They] became known as saints not because of their success in fighting political battles, or winning a few news cycles, or funding an anti-abortion super PAC.

[Their] Christianity comes not from the head or the gut, but from the soul. It is as meek as it is quietly liberating. It doesn’t seek worldly recognition, or success, and it flees from power and wealth. It is the religion of unachievement.

The religion of unachievement creeps up on the moment, spices in hand, because that is what love requires.
The religion of unachievement stands alongside the gay teenager and says, “That’s enough. Stop.”
The religion of unachievement is in the whispering of St. Francis, or in a Birmingham jail with Dr. King, or in the church that’s opened itself to the day laborers who congregate near their building, or in a million other places where people may be afraid, but they are not fearful—afraid, but not full-of-fear.

Where will we live out this religion of unachievement? We, who crow “Christ is risen… he is risen indeed”? Because if Mark is our resurrection story, then we have to write the next section. Thanks to a quirk in the original Greek, the gospel of Mark ends with the word “for.” It is a conjunction: that bit of grammar that connects two thoughts together. The story ends in a fragment. What will the next section be?

At home this week we were talking about Easter, and my four year old said, “Jesus died on the cross because people were mad at him.”
I asked, “Then what happened, James?”
He said, “Jesus is alive again.”
And I said, “What an amazing story.”
And he said, “And it’s still not over.”

No James. No, it’s not over.

Thanks be to God.

 

~

Image: Easter Morning, He Qi

by

This Is the Story I’m Preaching Tonight

Andrew Solomon on The Moth: “Depression and the Cambodian Death Camps.”

MP3 file, about 15 minutes.

A slight, unassuming Cambodian woman works with women who’ve been brutalized by the Khmer Rouge. She teaches them to do the work that will save their lives and the life of the world.

It is the work to which Jesus calls us this evening.