From Pastor Lars

Recently I’ve been thinking about the use the phrase “all are welcome” on church publicity materials and web sites. We do it, as does pretty much every church I know. Even if they don’t say it, they never say something contradictory, like “only some people welcome here” or “interview here first to see if you’re welcome material” Yet it seems that as easy as that phrase is to say, it’s much harder to put into action.

Take, for example, the whole issue of welcoming convicts released from prison. Some may have greater offenses than others, but 98% of all convicts will be freed eventually. And, with almost 5% of the country in prison at any given time, that adds up to a lot of people with a past. Are they welcome? Really? Or are we thinking, in the back of our minds, “I didn’t mean them….”

What about those whose political views are opposite ours? Or those who have a radically different lifestyle, even one we don’t approve of? Or those we don’t even like? I could go on.

It’s not as easy as it sounds to welcome all. That means that we would be just as excited to see at worship (or any ministry) someone who has no money at all as someone with tons. We would invite the homeless family to brunch as willingly as the ones with nicer clothes.

But that is not always how the church works. In the book of James, they have this exact problem:

James 2:1-4 My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? ² For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, ³ and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,”  ⁴ have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?

We can easily scoff at the people in James’ church, but we’re human beings. We live in a world that makes distinctions, and we have mixed motives that sometimes we don’t even understand consciously. The ex-con scares us, the poor person doesn’t have money to give us to pay our bills. But the person with money, that benefits us as a church to get them to join. A few more families like that and we might pay off the mortgage. A few more homeless people and, well, we’ll still have that mortgage for a few more years.

There are many arguments used to justify not welcoming all equally. Some say that there are safety concerns, or that certain churches just aren’t “equipped” to deal with “certain people,” or that discrimination is something we do to ourselves – the whole “birds of a feather” logic that says that people really only want to be with people like themselves – regardless of welcome. We can’t, of course, always tell the back story of a person by clothes and language and outside factors (many very dangerous people look very professional), but it doesn’t mean our minds don’t go there.

And then what do you do when some people say that they just aren’t comfortable being at a church with “those people” – whoever they are – and will just have to go somewhere else if “they” start filling the pews. Now you’re going to lose either way, in effect making a decision that will cause someone to leave: so who has to go? Politically, those already here have the edge over those who are new, so to protect the institution the new people are given a less-than-enthusiastic welcome.

And yet, there’s another side to it that makes things complicated. All people are welcome, but not all behaviors are. You can be of any income, but you can’t run around destroying things or attacking people. In theory, you shouldn’t be able to run around gossiping or forming exclusive power cliques or playing manipulative games, but churches don’t always have the best track record for enforcing that.

So we say that all are welcome, but you’re not welcome to do whatever you want. But this gets tricky too. How do we define this? Egregious crimes, sure. But what about politics, ideology, theology? How much do you have to agree to be welcome as a full member? How much disagreement do we allow? Are you welcome only until you change to become like us? Churches are accused of loving you as you are only for a probationary period, at which point you need to get with the program.  But certainly, the Gospel is transformative, and changes us, so shouldn’t we expect some conformity at some point? But in what ways?

If you look at Jesus’ own ministry, he seemed both very welcoming and very exclusive at the same time. On the one hand, his own followers were a mixed lot, of those who seemed very upright (Nathanael, in whom there is no deceit), those with no money (Mary Magdalene), those with radical political agendas and violent pasts (Judas Iscariot and Simon the Zealot), and those who were loaded with cash (like Matthew the tax collector and Mary and Martha). His followers were a diverse bunch. And yet, many people who came to follow him were flat out turned away and told to go home, while others were given huge conditions to meet first, like the rich man who was told to sell all his possessions and give them to the poor.

I have come to the conclusion that Jesus was perfectly willing to turn away those who were going to try to hijack his ministry, control his agenda, or try to dictate how things would be done. He was comfortable turning away those who were not ready, or who were too attached to worldly things. But, those are behavioral criteria, and they were never permanent. The rich man could have sold his stuff and come back. It was his choice. But he didn’t want to make it.

Which is why we will always need to keep revisiting the question of welcome. We will probably never do it perfectly well, and will inevitably fall back into thinking of welcoming (and evangelism in general) as getting people to support our church institution, rather than a purely selfless act of trying to spread the Gospel for the sake of the kingdom, regardless of the cost/benefit for us. But if we are going to say “all are welcome”, we will need to always stand convicted before those words, re-evaluating and praying and asking again and again for God’s guidance to do as Jesus did. Some may not want to follow Christ, or may not be willing to act in a manner that’s conducive to life in community. There is nothing we can do. We can’t change the Gospel. But we can try to live it like Christ did, and truly, actively, welcome all – not as the world welcomes, but as Jesus did.

Peace,

Pastor Lars

As part of my examples I talked about the RED Campaign, with Bono and Oprah as it’s public faces, with the ever-prevalent problems of diarrhea and water-related diseases in Africa that are very cheaply treated, but which lack the social respectability of celebrities. Who wants to wear a brown ribbon for diarrhea awareness? Speaking for myself, it’s something I’d rather not talk about. But that doesn’t make the suffering it causes any less. So, don’t get me wrong, I applaud Bono and Oprah for raising awareness, and money, for AIDS treatment in Africa, which is a huge problem. But, the kids with dysentery are my neighbors too, even if their disease isn’t allowed to be mentioned at cocktail parties.

Oftentimes, as a preacher, you wonder if anything you say ever gets heard, or really matters, or if anyone actually changes their lives based on what you say (that could be good or bad). But then an individual in the church came up to me, a couple weeks later, and offered to donate $3,000 as a matching funds grant for the church to raise money for clean water projects, primarily in Africa.

Well, it took us a little while to get all our ducks in a row and get the campaign started, but we finally are a go. This Lent (from February 26-April 7) we’re making it a sort of theme. Incorporating change offerings from kids in the Sunday School, special donations from the men’s group at Lord of Grace and others, our plan is to raise another $3,000.00 from our church and write a $6,000 check to Lutheran World Relief this Easter for their clean water projects. The amazing thing is, third world costs being what they are, $500 can supply a whole water system for a village. I don’t think I could even get the permits for a well here for that amount. But it goes to show how much can be done with what to us, in the wealthy West, is not really all that much money.

I’ve preached before on my philosophy of churches that we are at our best when we are looking out for others, and focusing our energies on the good we can do for the world, in the name of Christ, more than the things we forbid and avoid and ban and, in short, don’t do. This is a one-time only project, but, I hope, the beginning of a trend towards thinking and reaching outside ourselves.

Here’s the web site for Lutheran World Relief

Ignatius of Loyola

While not being a Roman Catholic myself, the writings of Ignatius struck a chord with me. For too long I had been struggling with prayer as it had been presented to me. There was either the “extremely heart-felt” prayer, complete with raised hands, squinty eyes, pained expression, improvised words interrupted (repeatedly) with stock phrases (“dear Lord, Jesus Christ, I just, just, just, just pray to you today that you’ll just, just, just, just, just, just, just ……”.), or with the purely scripted prayers, which worked somewhat better, or with the “inspiration devotional” prayers that came with an anecdote from daily life and a picture of a waterfall or scenic-sunset-over-wheat-field-with-red-barn-picture. None of these prayer methods are bad, of course; it’s a matter of what works for each of us best. There is no right or wrong. But I had never been able to connect well with any of these, myself.

Then, of course, there was always silent meditation, finding God in the pure absence. This was a dead end for me. My mind moved too fast, and within minutes I was either talking to myself in my head or falling asleep. I’m not a contemplative.

But Ignatius was none of these. In his Spiritual Exercizes he proposes a simple method for reading through scripture in prayer that’s often called “the imagination of the place”. In it you begin with a time of prayer to focus your thoughts, and you ask the Holy Spirit to guide your heart and mind. Then you read through the scripture passage carefully to make sure you catch all the words, all the details. Then, you step back again and imagine yourself in the place of Bible story. It works best for passages from the Gospels that narrate events – like the birth, or a healing story or the trial and crucifixion. I wouldn’t try imagining yourself in the writings of Paul, as that’s too abstract most of the time. So you picture yourself, for example at the trial of Jesus. You imagine the sanhedrin sitting on their benches with their fine robes, and the chatter among them. You picture the crowds outside, the poor, the rich, the angry, the chaotic mob scene that’s being held in check by Roman guards with their long pole-arms and short swords. Then you imagine yourself seeing Jesus there, being brought in, questioned, while the people sit outside at the barrel warming their hands. And so on ……

You imagine each part of the scene, the sounds, the sights, the smells, and you imagine yourself in them. Then you read through the text again, with all this in your mind, and you watch it come alive. The Spirit can guide our minds, and the scriptures can come alive in ways even we can’t control. It’s very powerful. And it’s great for people who are highly visual like me. You don’t have to put effort into clearing your mind. Instead, you put effort into filling it up. The focus on all the senses is what takes you away from the distractions, and it brings the text alive.

The exercize then concludes by saying the Lord’s Prayer.

This Advent, for mid-week services, I’ve been using the Ignatian imagination of the place in lieu of a written sermon. It isn’t just to make things easier for me in terms of prep time (though that doesn’t hurt), but to provide a way for us to do something different: to engage the scriptures our selves, have them come alive in our own minds and hearts. Worship can be, too often, a sort of spectator event, where you have a liturgy and music and sermon put on for you. Your place is to sing along or read along, take communion when it comes. All good stuff. But that’s only part of the story. The other part has to do with encountering God in a meaningful, personal way – one that isn’t at a safe distance, and that does not allow me to hide behind my carefully crafted self-image or public exterior. But how often do we do that?  My hope for Advent was to open a new door for those, like me, who need more to engage God, not less.

But with our short memories, the past is quickly forgotten. It’s not useful anymore. It’s just history. And, with so much information coming at us so quickly, I have all I can do to keep up with what I have to know, let alone taking time out to remember the dead.

One of my first funerals as a new pastor was for a man named Chuck Graff. He lived in Wilmette, Illinois, and was a marine in WWII. And not just any marine, he stormed Iwo Jima, and made it to the top of the hill with the guys who raised the flag. He showed me his case of medals – tons of them – and well-deserved. Here was a man who lost 1/3 of everyone he knew in the morning by the end of the day. He’s part of the reason our country is still standing. Yet, when I say Iwo Jima today, how many people remember?

But the Marines, being Marines, remember their fellow soldiers. I did a memorial service for Chuck at church, then we went out to the cemetary in interred his ashes in the mausoleum. Outside stood two marines from the Great Lakes Naval Training Base, in full uniform, to pay their respects. I wish they would have had an actual bugle (they used a large boombox), but the sentiment was there. Chuck, in his old age, was no longer going to be fighting our enemies. In his death he would fight nothing. But, that did not mean that his work would be forgotten, or his sacrifices not honored. I’m sure there are other things those marines could have done, than to show up that day. But honoring the dead is a priority, something with value beyond usefulness.

I wish, sometimes, that we in the church would have the same respect for our lost loved ones. It’s not that we aren’t good at supporting one another in grief. I’ve seen the members of Lord of Grace do a phenomenal job of that. It’s in relationship to Christianity at large, as a whole church, that we tend to be so focused on the relevant and the practical and the bottom-line that we forget to honor the dead. The past doesn’t help me today (or so I may think), so let’s forget it. It’s part of why I refuse to give up All Saints Day. I can’t find a ton of practical advice in it, not at least in terms of giving instructions on how to deal with problems. Remembering the saints who’ve died in our Christian faith, many of whom have been brutally killed for it – the martyrs – will not necessarily make my marriage better or help me find a job. But it does help us become better people – teaching us humility and respect on honor and gratitude – things that form character and that make us better people. Maybe that’s the practical value. Maybe that’s why I keep coming back to it, because I want to reinforce those values today.

For the All Saints Day sermon this year I took a look at the painting by Hubert and Jan van Eyck from 1432 in Ghent. It’s a massive altarpiece, that fills the front of the Cathedral, the focal point of one’s attention at worship. It’s an incredible work of art, filled with layers upon layers of symbolism and meaning – some of which is obvious, such as God the Father and the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist in the middle – and some is more esoteric, like why are there only virgin women martyrs in the procession towards the lamb in the upper right corner of the bottom center panel? Why not all the women who’ve brought the faith? And why are Adam and Eve in the top corners? But either way, it comes from Revelation 7:7-19, where John the Evangelist has a vision of the new heaven and the new earth, and in it all the Saints of before are bowing in adoration of The Lamb, which is the symbol for Jesus Christ – the one who was slain for our sins. All these people, both Old Testament prophets and New Testament apostles, all the bishops and saints, and even a hodge-podge of people from all over on the outer panels come marching in to do something completely unpractical – to give adoration to God. They’re coming to give Christ, the Lamb who was slain, the honor and respect he deserves for the sacrifices he has made. It’s an act of total giving, and yet they’re piling on to do it with great joy.

Worship is, fundamentally, just this: giving glory to God for who he is and what he has done. It’s an act of adoration that’s at the center of our faith. And this passage from Revelation has been the passage used for All Saints Day since it was first instituted in 373 AD in Syria.

This whole discussion is, of course, a little uncomfortable for Lutherans historically. We’ve always liked the idea of the Holy Spirit moving us, both as individuals and as a community, but we’ve always preferred to have it move us in ways that were a little more controlled. Partly that’s a liturgical sensibility that likes having worship structured and prayers scripted out (which is a perfectly valid way to connect with the Holy Spirit – don’t get me wrong), and so is suspect of things that seem overly “Pentecostal” or “holy rolling” by nature. But, like so many of our rebellions, there’s an easy danger of throwing the baby out with the bath water, and becoming Spiritually dry in the concern to not be out of control.

And yet this gets to the crux of the problem: trying to keep control and maintain a viable Spiritual life. At their basic level, these are incompatible concepts. If I am insistent on being control, then I am setting the terms for my experience of God, which will limit how God can work in me. On the other hand, if I give up control, and let God send the Spirit as he wishes, then I am open to a whole new world of experience and living.

This is the paradoxical nature of the Spiritual life. It’s a phrase I feel like I beat to death some times, but I can’t seem to get around it. The more we try to control our Spiritual encounters, the more we try to define them ahead of time (what some philosophers would call a priori) the less we will experience. On the other hand, a state of abandonment or surrender or openness, where we strip away our preconceived notions of God and allow the Spirit to be, then we are going to find more.

So, to try to unpack all this, I set up a three-part sermon series to explore the issue, hopefully lay some good groundwork for getting started, or renewing our existing journeys, as individuals and as a church.

Week 1 (October 9) – We Do Not Know Where to Begin; We’re Not Supposed to Know Where to Begin
Romans 8:18-27

Week 2 (October 16) – The Spirit Shows Us
1 Corinthians 2:1-16

Week 3 (October 23) – The Spirit Activates Its Power in Us
1 Corinthians 12:1-13

I also plan to explain some practical ways to get started being Spirit-led, drawing from Spiritual traditions of Christianity over the centuries. Too often the idea of being Spirit-led as a church conjures up images of shaking in the aisles or dancing, both of which are fine – if that’s your gift, but for most of Christianity that has not been the experience. Instead, our encounters with God have been through exercizes and rituals that are more structured and subtle, which open our hearts to the overflowing of joy and amazement at the wonder and glory of God.

Christ Pantokrator - Christ the Ruler of All. Russian Orthodox Icon

I am reminded of the Eastern Orthodox “Jesus Prayer” prayed by millions of Christians throughout the centuries in the Eastern half of Christendom, places like Greece, Byzantium (modern Turkey), Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, and Syria. Here one simply sits back, sometimes in contemplation of an icon, and repeats the words, “Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, have mercy on me, a sinner” over and over. The repetition brings focus, like practicing the chords on an instrument over and over until they become second nature and the mind starts to drift to higher places.

But I am not advocating only an Eastern, contemplative spirituality. It is only one way among many that we need to discover for ourselves on our paths. For those, like me, who are not good contemplatives, and who are more likely to encounter God in the noise and exuberance of worship, or in plunging the depths of the scriptures, Spirituality takes on a more active meaning. For each of us, God has given Spiritual gifts, and the ability to live lives led by the Spirit. It is a question of discovering those and having them “activated” as it says in 1 Corinthians 12:11.

For those who’ve been wondering, the men’s retreat in Pinetop was a great time again. Lord of Grace has the fortune of having an active men’s group that meets weekly for Bible Study (Saturdays at 7am at the IHOP on Cortaro at I-10) as well as doing more active things like service projects and feeding the homeless through the Salvation Army’s Project Hospitality.

This is the fifth year for the retreat, and the second for me. We had great food, Bible study, golf (for those who were interested) and I had time to get in some good hikes in the White Mountains. I couldn’t get up Escudilla because the Forest Service closed it after it got burned in the Wallow Fire. However, the Pinetop-Lakeside-Show Low area has plenty of trails to enjoy that were left untouched.

As always, the pictures are on flickr.

As always there was plenty of fishing, good food, and fellowship. If you went hungry, it was your own fault. Always a good time.

This last Friday we were supposed to watch a movie, but we changed the format to one of exploring insects and bugs. Led by two graduate students in evolutionary biology from the University of Arizona, the kids got a chance to not only see the bugs in cages, but to take them out, hold them, and answer questions about them. By the end of the night, they were outside under the blacklight looking for insects hidden in the dark. My kids came home with several bugs, including my son who had this giant green beetle, which we had to let go because, as cool as it was, we don’t have the right kind of place to take care of it.

My son holding his giant green beetle

The next night we do is going to be a regularly programmed night, running from 6pm-8pm as usual. We’ll have crafts and games and dinner provided. As always, all kids K-6 are welcome to attend. You don’t need to be a member of Lord of Grace to participate.

However, if you’re squeemish about bugs, don’t worry, we will probably not have another bug night again, at least for a long time.

Just got back from Minnesota. Got to spend a lot of time at the lake with the family, go to a 20th high school reunion, and enjoy some cooler air, most of the time.

I also got to visit some different churches, including this one: Bear River Lutheran. It’s literally out in the middle of the woods, right next to The Bear River, about 70 miles from Canada. It’s been there since 1915, and still has a small, but vibrant worshiping community.

The rest of the pictures are on flickr, in a few different sets.

Northern Minnesota

Duluth

McCarthy Beach State Park

Split Rock Lighthouse

We had our annual Fourth of July BBQ and fireworks watching again this year. This is one of the best fellowship events we do over the year. My family and I love it for several reasons. First, the food is awesome. Lutherans do potlucks better than anyone, and last night was no exception. Second, the fellowship team here at church does a great job setting up games and activities for the kids. This year we borrowed a jumping castle again from Catalina Methodist, and, because of the rain that came all afternoon, we decided to put it up inside. You forget how high the ceilings are in the fellowship hall until you blow up a giant 15foot inflatable Noah’s Ark, and you still have plenty of space left over. Outside they had all sorts of water games (and some water balloons, which I stayed away from).

And, by 9pm we got to pull up our chairs in the east end of the parking lot and watch the Marana fireworks. For me it’s the perfect spot, being far enough away to not have your ears blasted, but close enough to see everything clearly. Plus, and this is a big plus, you don’t have to fight the traffic on Silverbell and Cortaro.

I put up my camera on my tripod and took a whole bunch of these really long exposure shots. At least half of them were worthless. There’s a trick to following the firework’s trail as it rises, and then when it’s going to explode, you tighten the screws and fix the camera in one place, while pressing the “shoot” button and letting it take. It’s an imperfect art, but a fun challenge. Then, I cropped a whole bunch of them more like abstract designs. The shots have a lot of neat details that I found way more interesting when zoomed in on.

The whole bunch of fireworks pictures are on flickr.

Most of the pictures from the potluck are on the church Facebook page.

We had a great time there, and all the staff were wonderful hosts. We got tours of the new building, got to look at the equipment (which still looks cool, even when you’re not a kid anymore) and share a great meal. By the end of the evening we were talking about coming out again, maybe quarterly. There’s also talk of starting make some contacts with ways Lord of Grace can be of better service to the Picture Rocks community. Fire departments are one of those local groups that will often see problems on the ground level that the rest of us might not notice just driving through.

The new Picture Rocks Fire Hall on Sandario Road