Don’t flay the sheep.

Contest!!!!

Erik and I are grammar nerds. (However, I would appreciate it if you didn’t take this opportunity to critique my grammar because I am not having a very good day.)

Which explains why we were reduced to giggles the other night for a good 10 minutes over the phrase “metaphorically speaking”.

It seems to us that there is RARELY a time when the phrase is necessary. For example, if someone at work says, “The ball’s in your court, metaphorically speaking,” it would seem it’s obvious that this is a metaphor, unless you are, say, Venus Williams’ tennis coach.

So, here’s the contest…in the comments, cite an example of a time when it might be appropriate to use the phrase “metaphorically speaking.” Contest closes at 5:00pm on Monday, December 14. Erik and I will pick a winner and will even try to come up with a great prize to send you. We might pick the most hilarious example, we might pick the most appropriate use of the phrase. We promise not to just pick the person we like the best.

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Advent 9

“O Lord GOD, cease, I beg you!

How can Jacob stand?

He is so small!”

6The LORD relented concerning this;

“This also shall not be,” said the Lord GOD.

Amos 7:5-6

Sometimes I feel this way about the church. Don’t get me wrong: I love the church…so much so that I’ve attached my career to it.

But I worry about it. Once, someone quoted a statistic to me about how many years it would be until the last Presbyterian died off. Based on how quickly the PC(USA) was losing members, they calculated the rate, and it comes out to somewhere conceivably within my lifetime.

Now, one of the more disturbing things about this statistic was that someone had taken the time to do the calculation rather than actually spending that time trying to DO SOMETHING about it.

But I do worry for the church, Church with a big “C”, not just the Presbyterians. So I feel a little bit like Amos, watching the people of God struggle and crying out, “How can the church stand? She is so small.” Against the tide of disbelief, disenchantment, division, injustice and greed and consumerism, individualism and death and…you name it…how can she stand?

One of my colleagues and I were talking about this, and he says I may be more of a pessimist, that maybe we are on the edge of some big change, like the Reformation. Maybe we are.

Oh, I hope we are. Because I really do love this strange gathering of people who make up the church.

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A Reply

I got a nasty comment on the blog today. Regarding Advent 5:

Your careless disrespect for the Word of God is sad. The Bible is only “weird” to those who do not have the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit (I Cor. 2:12, 14). It is God’s love letter to His children. (That’s what you get for reading someone else’s mail!)

It’s from someone I don’t know, and I’m choosing not to publish it in comments or to use identifying information. I thought about just deleting, but I was too mad to let it go. So I wrote the commenter an e-mail and send it.

Now, I’m not 110% sure about the ethics of blogging this, but the commenter did put it on my blog with identifying information and every intention that it would be a public comment. I just don’t want to give the comment air time attached to a name. So, I’ve sent the letter, and I’ve removed any identifying information, and I’m putting the text of it here.

Partly because, as one of those people who has spent her theological career bouncing around between the liberals and the conservatives, it just makes me heartsick to think about the way we Christians treat each other, and the way that looks to people and the way it messes with people’s spiritual lives. I think it makes Jesus cry when we talk nasty to each other.

I’m not doing this because I want people to say nice things to me. I just think it might be a good thing to remember this the next time you walk into some sort of church-y context where you’re going to be with people whose views differ from yours. I’ll include myself in that, and make sure I go back and re-read this myself the next time I’m in one of those situations.

Dear Chris (not the commenters real name),

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Week 2: Advent Day 8

Luke 1:5-80

Stick with me and read through the story…it’s worth it. (But focus on Zechariah.)

It’s a story with layer after layer, question after question. But I’ll stick wiht one thread.

In the middle of all of these remarkable events, over and over, the SPirit comes upon people and they burst forth proclaiming and acclaiming what it is that God is doing.

Look at Zechariah: when he finds his voice back, it is to name, and then to proclaim and prophecy about what is happening.

In the middle of this season of waiting, are we moved by the Spirit to prophesy? (And I mean prophesy in the sense of pointing to what’s going on and explaining and interpreting it from the perspective of the Spirit.) Are we moved to explain what it happening?  Can we tell people what we are waiting for? Are we doing a good job of explaining it to a world that has grown so sick of waiting that it decorates in October, that retailers take over not just the holiday, but words like, “believe” “hope” and even “spirit”?

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Advent Day 7

In that house, Fridsma’s, the mem  would call

into shadows from the little reed organ

crammed in the kitchen, “Children, come–

we will sing some psalms.” It would teach them,

she said, to be unafraid in the dark

before coming through to the cheer of the light

to see by, when it would come.

–from “Frisian Psalms, 1930s” by Rod Jellema, in A Slender Grace

Erik and I went back to our college for the first time in about 8 years, mostly for the Christmas Festival, partly just to get out of town and spend some time together.

We were in the 4th row. I could see the sweat on the conductors. I could hear my first-year womens choir director’s heavy breaths and sighs when she was getting really into it. I could see the violinists smiling at interpersonal jokes, and I got to look into the eyes of my old directors when they turned to direct the congregation to sing.

And, of course, the music was about as perfect as it gets.

For 2 hours, everything was right with the world, and I remembered what it felt like to spend all that time in choir rehearsal, to sing those songs over and over and over again until they were buried so deeply within my muscle memory that, 10 years later, I had to hold my body back from joining in on the songs that were repeats from my college years.

It was hard to drive away, knowing that I don’t have quite good enough a voice, let alone the spare time, to sing in that amazing a choir again right now.

I think I was a more optimistic person in college…optimistic about the state of the world, about where I was going and who would be coming my way, open to more options and possibilities.

But what you sing sinks in deeply. And the memory of it gets you through the dark.

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Advent Day 6

Remember when I said this was not going to be an exercise in perfection? Well, I meant that. And I spent day 6 in the car with Erik trekking up to St. Olaf for Christmas Festival (about which I might write in a later post).

So, no advent musings. It was a true and absolute sabbath.

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Advent Day 5

Two quick thoughts:

First, what the heck does this mean?

I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities,

and lack of bread in all your places…

–from Amos 3

OK, I know…cleanness of teeth, as in nothing eat so your teeth were clean. I guess the cultural context just doesn’t carry over the age of dentists. Sometimes the Bible is just weird.

Second, this is a rather interesting juxtaposition in a passage many f us are familiar with even if we don’t realize it:

Those who go out weeping,

bearing the seed for sowing,

shall come home with shouts of joy,

carrying their sheaves.

–from Psalm 126

Bringing in the sheaves…what a great thought to add to that, that the sowing of seed is backbreaking, and even heartbreaking labor. And then you have to wait for the harvest to find the joy.

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Advent Day 4

How good it is to sing praises to our God;

for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting…

He heals the brokenhearted,

and binds up their wounds.

He determines the number of the stars;

he gives to all of them their names…

His delight is not in the strength of the horse,

nor his pleasure in the speed of a runner;

but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him,

in those who hope in his steadfast love.

From Psalm 147

About 2:30pm this afternoon, it hit with full force: Advent is here, the season of getting ready, and I will have just about no time to spend getting ready because I’ll be getting church stuff ready. And there’s a lot to do. I said to a couple people today, “Advent would be my favorite season…if I weren’t a pastor.”

As if the general insanity of the afternoon and evening weren’t enough, insanity that included, among other things, an emergency errand run involving salad dressing, a bike rack, a children’s book, a warmer sweater, and much-needed coffee, as if that  weren’t enough, my evening has now resulted in what can only be ranked as one of my lower moments as a parent.

With all that in the background, here’s how I hear Psalm 147 right now: I like it that God binds up the brokenhearted in one verse and in the next is numbering and naming the stars. In other words, God is concerned about things as intimate as our heartbreaks, big and small; but also concerned with things that are simply too big for us (astronomy and physics professionals excluded) to comprehend. God can handle the big stuff, but God also cares about my crappy day.

I like it that God takes pleasure not in our accomplishments but in our trust. For myself this evening, I’d like to rewrite those last few quoted lines of the Psalm thus:

His delight is not in perfect parenting,

nor his pleasure in ideal mothering;

but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him,

in those who hope in his steadfast love.

I’m just going to try and sit with those ideas for the few moments left in the day.

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Advent Day 3

For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain.

So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

2 Peter 1:16-22

These paragraphs have a the tang of old-school, hard-core, not always sensitive Peter about them. I am encouraged by Peter’s impulsiveness and imperfection as a disciple…if Jesus could use him, I imagine it might work out for me, too.

Later on, Peter seems to become more temperate and thoughtful, but I like how this passage has some of the old swagger to it. Look, he says, we disciples didn’t make this stuff up. We’re telling you about Jesus like it was, for real, and when you get around to interpreting it, you can’t act like you alone have a corner on the story. Because that’s not how God works. It’s a matter of a group of people with the Spirit working through them.

At the risk of sounding insensitive, I think we need this reminder sometimes. The disciples didn’t make this stuff up. They saw it and lived it and experienced it in all it’s flesh and blood reality. And it was so amazing that they had to tell it like it was.

And now, when we carry that story around in scripture, we have to rely on the fact that the Spirit worked through them and through us, and we have the story as one community, not as a whole bunch of individuals who get to turn and twist it however it works best for us.

That’s one reason we work best…no, scratch that, we ONLY work…in community. Community is messy, and difficult, but we need each other be able to really truly hear the scriptures, hear the story, and be confident that we are figuring out what it means.

Which makes it too bad that the church usually splinters along lines where we wind up hanging out with only those Christians whose interpretation matches ours.

While we are waiting for Jesus, we should probably be waiting together. So, maybe another Advent task is to find the people whose interpretation you disagree with (and, this might mean going outside of your own church!), and spending some time with them.

Because on our own, we are more likely to make the mistake of twisting the story around to suit our own purposes and missing the whole point.

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Advent Day 2

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:

“May they prosper who love you.

Peace be within your walls,

and security within your towers.”

For the sake of my relatives and friends

I will say, “Peace be within you.”

For the sake of the house of the LORD our God,

I will seek your good.

(Psalm 122)

Last spring I was researching Seders for my middle school youth group. This part of Psalm 122 is often used at the end of the Seder. So, in other words, it’s read when the whole family is gathered around the table, in that intimate, candle-lit moment at the end of the meal, where you are stuffed and satiated, both with food, and probably with intense family time, for good or for bad. With that setting, the Psalm takes on the connotation not just of the physical, actual Jerusalem, but extends it to the family. A small part, a small taste of the peace of Jerusalem, is the peace of the family gathered.

Last week was intense family time (I’m going with mostly for good, thanks to the incredible habits of hospitality of the Moes, my mother in law’s family). Intense and good when we spent time at the table, around the TV set (football games, during which I knit since I come from a non-football family), in living rooms and around fireplaces.

But there was also some not so pleasant intensity courtesy of the ever-so-intense 3 year old traveling with us. Who had two of her most dramatic temper tantrums ever. Not her fault…this is what happens when your parents keep you up late, shuttle you between various friends and relatives, take you to kid-stimulating event after kid-stimulating event, and, last but certainly not least, strap you down in a car seat for hours at a time.

I think we were all happy to go back to preschool this morning.

Over our front door is a bronze plaque that Erik’s grandparents bought in Israel: it says, “The Spirit of the Lord rest upon this house.”

Advent leading into Christmas will be intense in our house…work picks up just a smidge for me, and I wonder what it holds this year as Zora gets smarter and smarter to what’s going on around her.

And one prayer to begin with, one vision to commit to might be to invite the Spirit to rest upon this house, so that we can create a little bit of the peace of Jerusalem around here.

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