Easter!

Intro to Tom Wright's Easter sermon yesterday titled, "Resurrection & Rock'n'roll.":

The taxi driver looked back at me in his mirror. His face was a mixture of amusement and sympathy. We were stuck in traffic and he’d asked me, as they do, what I did for a living.

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘you Church of England people’ (having told me he was a Roman Catholic himself). ‘You’re still having all that trouble about women bishops, aren’t you?’

I had to admit that that was indeed the case.

‘The way I look at it,’ he said, ‘is this: if God raised Jesus Christ from the dead, all the rest is basically rock’n’roll.’

Rob Bell's (dynamic, as always) new work, "Resurrection":

Resurrection: Rob Bell from The Work of Rob Bell on Vimeo.

What's The Deal With St. Patty?

After a long day of widespread celebration and Danny Boy singing, one is left to wonder in typical Seinfeldian fashion, “What is the deal with Saint Patrick?”

I ran across an online article that put it pretty accurately: this mythical Saint Patrick had become all things to everyone.

The scarcity of facts about St. Patrick's life has made him a dress-up doll: Anyone can create his own St. Patrick. Ireland's Catholics and Protestants, who have long feuded over him, each have built a St. Patrick in their own image…Outside Ireland, too, Patrick has been freely reinterpreted. Evangelical Protestants claim him as one of their own. After all, he read his Bible, and his faith came to him in visions. Biblical inspiration and personal revelation are Protestant hallmarks. Utah newspapers emphasize that Patrick was a missionary sent overseas to convert the ungodly, an image that resonates in Mormon country. New Age Christians revere Patrick as a virtual patron saint. Patrick co-opted Druid symbols in order to undermine the rival religion, fusing nature and magic with Christian practice. The Irish placed a sun at the center of their cross. "St. Patrick's Breastplate," Patrick's famous prayer (which he certainly did not write) invokes the power of the sun, moon, rocks, and wind, as well as God.

Not included in the article, but perhaps most revealing and forgotten come from Patrick’s own words in his Confession (testimony):

“But this much I know for sure.  Before I was humbled I was like a stone lying in the deep mud.  Then He who is mighty came and, in His mercy, he not only pulled me out but lifted me up and placed me at the very top of the wall.  I must, therefore, speak publicly in order to repay the Lord for such wonderful gifts, gifts for the present and for eternity which the human mind cannot measure.”

The beauty of this testimony of confession, repentance, mercy, and praise is precisely Patrick’s willingness to be a “dress-up doll.”  He is clothed not in Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Mormon, New Age or Druid garb, but rather in and by Christ (Galatians 3:26-27).  This “Humpty Dumpty” tale tells of the Lord’s mercy and grace, faithfulness and generosity.  Patrick is concerned with wearing this on his sleeve, speaking publicly about it, and wrapping his head around the crazy thing that God has done in his life and homeland.

I pray that my life be this transparent.  That I put on Christ, not creating and re-creating myself, but being clothed and formed by Jesus.

View original post: allgather.org.

Priests? Really?

Mark has asked me to start posting on the church blog each Thursday. Here is the first go:

I’ve been thinking a lot about becoming a priest lately.

Not in a crisis-of-identity sort of way. After all, my mom always thought I would be a Catholic priest. When someone tells you that, it can be construed as a sort of backhanded complement: you’re pious and sweet, but you may be neither marriable or employable. I’ve proven to be both (somewhat). So that’s settled.

Since Sunday, when Mark challenged us with our identity as God’s priests in the world (1 Peter 2:9; podcast), I’ve been trying to consider what that looks like. No, I don’t mean how weird it might look during our potluck to have everyone wearing clerical collars, but what it might feel like and take to be such a priest.

I think back to my Catholic childhood, full of good priests and not-so-good ones. I try to remember what I thought of in my encounters with the good ones. I think of vows they take: poverty, chastity, & stability. Each of these represent their self-giving and devotion. At their best they present a brilliant witness to both Christ’s way and the life of Christian discipleship. I think of the parish priest who is always available. Who welcomes the outsider. Who is so for people that they understand that God too is for them. I think of the relentless monks at the Abbey where my brother went to school, praying and singing at all hours. I remember the joy and contentment of these set-apart fellows. I remember the grace and appreciation shown to me, the husky, irreverent altar boy, ringing the bells at the wrong times and always forgetting my dress shoes. All these things made these priests accessible, and by extension, made God accessible to me.

Consider with me, in this time leading up to Easter, what it might mean to take up this mantle as priests. What if the Gathering Church continued to grow into a community of priests, being present to both God and our neighbors? Connecting people to God by revealing God’s “rare relentless grace.” What might it look like in our city, if the Good News was proclaimed in and by a handful of holy lives pointing wholly to Christ?

Link to original post: http://www.allgather.org/2010/02/25/priests-really/

preaching: To Be A Good Note-taker (Rev 10)

Here is my first sermon for preaching class. It is Lenten-themed and inspired by my study in Revelation this semester and enjoyment of Eugene Peterson's insights (Reversed Thunder, Eat This Book). I would appreciate any comments, feedback, and constructive criticism as I seek to hone this daunting and beautiful craft of preaching.

To Be A Good Note-taker (Rev 10) by cebreslin

On the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi

St Francis once was living at the Convent of the Portiuncula, with Brother Masseo of Marignano, a man of great sanctity and great discernment, who held frequent converse with God; for which reason St Francis loved him much. One day, as St Francis was returning from the forest, where he had been in prayer, the said Brother Masseo, wishing to test the humility of the saint, went forth to meet him exclaiming: “Why after thee? Why after thee?” To which St Francis made answer: “What is this? What meanest thou?” Brother Masseo answered: “I mean, why is it that all the world goeth after thee; why do all men wish to see thee, to hear thee, and to obey thy word? For thou art neither comely nor learned, nor art thou of noble birth. How is it, then, that all the world goeth after thee?” St Francis, hearing these words, rejoiced greatly in spirit, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, remained for a long space with his mind rapt in God; then, coming to himself, he knelt down, returning thanks to God with great fervour of spirit, and addressing Brother Messeo, said to him: “Wouldst thou know why all men come after me? Know that it is because the Lord, who is in heaven, who sees the evil and the good in all places - because, I say, his holy eyes have found among men no one more wicked, more imperfect, or a greater sinner than I am; and to accomplish the wonderful work which he intends to do, he has found no creature more vile than I am on earth; for which reason he has chosen me, to confound all strength, beauty, greatness, noble birth, and all the science of the world, that men may learn that every virtue and every good gift cometh from him, and not from any creature, that none may glory before him; but if any one glory, let him glory in the Lord, to whom belongeth all glory in eternity.” Then Brother Masseo, at such a humble answer, given with so much fervour, was greatly impressed, and learned of a certainty that St Francis was well grounded in humility.

-Chapter X from the Little Flowers of Saint Francis of Assisi

praying: on the Feast of St. Michael and all Angels (from the BCP)

The Collect.

O EVERLASTING God, who hast ordained and constituted the services of Angels and men in a wonderful order; Mercifully grant that, as thy holy Angels always do thee service in heaven, so, by thy appointment, they may succour and defend us on earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

For the Epistle. Revelation xii. 7.

THERE was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.

The Gospel. St. Matthew xviii. 1.

AT the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh! Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell-fire. Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.

praying: St. Thomas Aquinas' Student's Prayer

Creator of all things,
true source of light and wisdom,
origin of all being,
graciously let a ray of your light penetrate
the darkness of my understanding.

Take from me the double darkness
in which I have been born,
an obscurity of sin and ignorance.

Give me a keen understanding,
a retentive memory, and
the ability to grasp things
correctly and fundamentally.

Grant me the talent
of being exact in my explanations
and the ability to express myself
with thoroughness and charm.

Point out the beginning,
direct the progress,
and help in the completion.

I ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

*These are the 3/4 of the books for this fall.

praying: Teresa of Avila- Christ Has No Body

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands,
Yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes,
You are his body.

Christ has no body now but ours,

No hands, no feet on earth but ours,

Ours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world.

Ours are the feet with which he walks to do good,

Ours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.

Ours are the hands,
Ours are the feet,

Ours are the eyes.
We are his body.

processing: Summer Reading: Part II

No Country For Old Men- Cormac McCarthy

If you can believe it, McCarthy's writing is more haunting than the on-screen portrayal by Javier Bardem. Per usual, his writing is grim, violent, graphic. We are left to ponder the futility of our 'good fight'. Is there even such a thing? The protagonist drifts into the territory of moral ambiguity and we are left feeling disoriented when we realize that the serial killing bounty hunter possesses a singularity and ethic not found in the so-called 'good guy'. Through all this, the narrator, Sheriff Bell seems to be the only one willing to acknowledge the worlds (and his own) decline. Along with, The Road, this book should be on everyone's required reading.

Our Endangered Values- Jimmy Carter

Former President Carter seems to have uniquely improved his legacy more with his post-White House career and tireless advocacy than by anything he did as president. This account is an interesting combination of what else- politics and religion- the two things not to bring up. Knowing both President Carter's devotion to peacemaking and justice (through Atlanta's Carter Center) and his ongoing mediation in Baptist life (New Baptist Covenant & CBF), it is nice to get a firsthand account of his motivations and presuppositions. While I don't agree with him on everything, I admire his courage, incredible endurance, and unwavering posture of engagement and dialogue.

Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World- A.J. Jacobs

I came across this one because I had read his A Year of Living Biblically and curiously enough picked it up at the same time as my friend Nick from church (and disc golf) was getting through it. Jacobs essentially chronicles his quest by picking out and occasionally revisiting the oddest, most profound, and down-right wackiest entries in the EB. What makes it interesting is his wit, candor, and occasional vulnerability when discussing insights from material as varied as Ecclesiastes and aquatic mating rituals. With Esquire-esque humour and agility, Jacobs manages to deftly weave his threads of familial relations, his wife and his struggle for fertility (and subsequent fatherhood), epistemology into a funny and reflective yearlong tapestry.

Jesus and Community- Gerhard Lohfink

Here are a couple insightful excerpts:
“If we ask Paul what significance the existence of the church has for pagan society in his writings...He says that God in Christ has reconciled the world to himself and that the church is now the place where reconciliation, which has already occurred in principle, is to be realized concretely. God has therefore charged the church with the service of reconciliation. The church is the place where, in a new creation, God has inaugurated reconciled society (pg 141).”

“Only in this gift of reconciliation, in the miracle of life newly won against all expectation, does what is here termed a contrast-society flourish. What is meant is not a church without guilt, but a church in which infinite hope emerges from forgiven guilt. What is meant is not a church in which there are no divisions, but a church which finds reconciliation despite all gulfs. What is meant is not a church without conflicts, but a church in which conflicts are settled in ways different from the rest of society. What is meant, finally, is not a church without the cross and without passion narratives, but a church always able to celebrate Easter because it both dies and rises with Christ (pg 147).”

unChristian:What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity...and Why it Matters- David Kinnaman & Gabe Lyons

I must say my favorite parts of this book were some of the first-hand insights from contributors at the end of each chapter. These contributors were as diverse as Jim Wallis, Rick Warren, John Stott, Rick McKinley, Churck Colson, Andy Stanley, Andy Crouch, & Shane Claiborne. A wide variety of evangelical voices and a great representation of the polyphony and variance under the umbrella of evangelicism. I remember, however, while reading, being both thankful and disheartened. Thankful that this research was done and that this book was written and pushed through a channel whereby it gets received by the largest possible needed audience. Disheartened that money and time was spent researching and writing to let us, evangelicals, those supposedly most concerned with and incarnate in the "outside, secular world," understand that we have a bad reputation and that reputation is built more on "our" hypocrisy, imperialism, prejudice, sheltered disconnect, & politics rather than "Christ and Him crucified."

Perhaps the most telling statistic was the results from a poll that revealed the disconnect between how the church's hospitality is received by pastors, regular born-again attenders, sporadic attenders, and the un-churched outsider:

Christian churches accept and love people unconditionally, regardless of how people look or what they do. (% who strongly agree)
pastors: 76%
born-again Christians: 47%
Christian churchgoers: 41%
outsiders (all ages): 20%
(pg185)

Blessed Are the Peacemakers- Wendell Berry

This short work pulls out key peacemaking passages (most prominently Matthew's Sermon on the Mount) dealing with living peaceably. Finally there is an essay, previously published in the Christian Century, titled, "The Burden of the Gospels," that seeks to synthesize these passages.

Here are a couple excerpts:
"When Jesus speaks of having life more abundantly, this, I think, is the life he means: a life that is not reducible by division, category or degree, but is one thing, heavenly and earthly, spiritual and material, divided only insofar as it is embodied in distinct creatures. He is talking about a finite world that is infinitely holy, a world of time that is filled with life that is eternal. His offer of more abundant life, then, is not an invitation to declare ourselves as certified "Christians," but rather to become conscious, consenting and responsible participants in the one great life, a fulfillment hardly institutional at all."

"If we take the Gospels seriously, we are left, in our dire predicament, facing an utterly humbling question: How must we live and work so as not to be estranged from God’s presence in his work and in all his creatures? The answer, we may say, is given in Jesus’ teaching about love. But that answer raises another question that plunges us into the abyss of our ignorance, which is both human and peculiarly modern: How are we to make of that love an economic practice?"

God Has a Dream- Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Like No Future Without Forgiveness only much, much lighter. Archbishop Tutu elaborates on the theology that roots his reconciliation efforts in South Africa over the past several decades. This theology enlists the African concept of Ubuntu, a shared humanity, the recognition of the image of God in the other. Endearing and self-deprecating at times, he begins each chapter, "Dear Child of God..." From then on you are engaged and edified by this wise, gentle, and incredibly experienced man. Catching a vision for "Hope in our Time," seems like a worthy pursuit, Tutu's contribution is helpful.

The Sacredness of Questioning Everything- David Dark

I really enjoyed this one. A pleasure: well-written, witty, and penultimately relevant for current popular Christian discourse. Something like a Christian Chuck Klosterman. This is kind of a grown-up Blue Like Jazz, the book that you might loan to someone only peripherally interested in God and spirituality, but culturally, academically aware. From his detailed exegesis of Arcade Fire songs, to his unswerving devotion to Steven Colbert's prophetic truthiness, Dark manages to produce a work both religiously and culturally discerning, and at times critical. Dark bridges the gulfs of his current Vanderbilt PhD pursuit (and talks the talk quite nicely) and his gig teaching English at a conservative Nashville Presbyterian high school. What you get is an account that asks the right questions, provides only some of the answers, lets you do the work and prayer to come up with the rest, and hails the process of loving the Lord with our heart, soul, mind, strength, and questions.

Portrait of Calvin- T.H.L. Parker

[available for free digital download at Desiring God.]
I read this biography to celebrate JC's (the less famous/divine one) 500th birthday this month. I also thought it might be nice to get someone else's than Steinmetz' account of Calvin, after all the good Doctor is an unabashed Luther man. The most striking and personal note struck came in the first few pages in regard to Calvin's choice of education. It seemed obvious for him to go to Paris to study Theology at what was considered the orthodox and best option. Instead he chose to study law elsewhere. "...the intricacies and niceties of the law was gained which he could never have won from the University of Paris. At Orleans and Bourges, the intellectual atmosphere was more free. New ideas were not bogies, but food for interesting speculation. The classics...now seemed most desirable- calling, not to danger, but to delights." This portion both particularly resonates with me and the path I've taken in my graduate studies, and strikes me with a certain sad irony that Calvin's delight came in the freedom and curiosity not as widely afforded in some modern institutions that hail his thought.

Related: SUMMER READING: PART I.

Above All, Trust in the Slow Work of God.

Poem by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown,
something new.
Yet it is the law of all progress that is made
by passing through some stages of instability
and that may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.
Let them shape themselves without undue haste.
Do not try to force them on
as though you could be today what time
-- that is to say, grace --
and circumstances
acting on your own good will
will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new Spirit
gradually forming in you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God,
our loving vine-dresser.

Amen.

processing: Teresa of Avila- The Interior Castle

The first thing I admire about Teresa after reading this overly verbose mystical classic, is the question posed to us by our preceptor concerning the author, "In the midst of the Catholic Counter-reformation, was Teresa a Good Catholic or a Good Protestant?" Exploring this question yielded no easy answer and no decisive conclusion. I like this about Teresa. I like that the Catholic Church (then, and by extension, the "Church" now) was big enough for her differing methods, eccentricity, and faithful dissent. I also admire the "reforms" she and the rest of her Spanish contemporaries enacted (Ignatius, St. John of the Cross...). Most of these had less to do with published treatises and more with creative and passionate pursuit of God. We can't all necessarily agree on every point of her theology, but there is no denying the humility, experience and discernment present in her life with God.

"Let nothing trouble you
Let nothing make you afraid.
All things pass away. God never changes.
Patience obtains everything. God alone suffices."
Solo Dios Basta

For My Ashes...

For my ashes You give me beauty

For my mourning You give me joy

For my tears, Lord, You give me kisses

Oh, yeah, that`s how good You are


Gracious and Compassionate

You are so good, You are so good

Slow to anger, rich in love

You are so good, You are so good

These words are comforting, knowing and living in the Easter-tide hope and expectation that my ashes will be exchanged for kisses and joy. Today, though, is about living in the ashes. Living in the repentant despair of one born from dust, to return to dust. Today is Ecclesiastes' vanity so that we really enjoy the hope of Easter. In the presence of God's mercy, I am to be humbled to mere ash and disciplined by fasting and mourning. It is through this darkness that the dawn shall come.

Amen.

Father Richard John Neuhaus

I just received this month's First Things Magazine (a fine Catholic monthly). Their long-time leader and editor, Richard John Neuhaus recently died after battling with cancer. Neuhaus was a Lutheran who then became a Catholic priest. He was greatly involved, and remained so to his dying day, in civil rights and advocacy. On the last page of the magazine is a brief reflection written by Neuhaus shortly before he died. It shows the grace, depth, and humour he exhibited throughout his life and public career. How beautiful and challenging to us all as we inevitably face our mortality.As of this writing, I am contending with a cancer, presently of the unknown origin. I am, I am given to believe, under the expert medical care of the Sloan-Kettering clinic here in New York. I am grateful beyond measure for your prayers storming the gates of heaven. Be assured that I neither fear to die nor refuse to live. If it is to die, all that has been is but a slight intimation of what is to be. If it is to live, there is must that I hope to do in the interim. After the last round with cancer fifteen years ago, I wrote a little book, As I Lay Dying (titled after William Faulkner after John Donne), in which I said much of what I had to say about the package deal that is mortality. I did not know that I had so much more to learn. And yes, the question has occurred to me that, if I have but a little time to live, should I be spending it writing this column. I have heard it attributed to figures such as Brother Lawrence and Martin Luther- when asked what they would do if they knew they were going to die tomorrow, they answered that they would plant a tree and say their prayers. (Luther is supposed to have added that he would quaff his favored beer.) Maybe I have, at least metaphorically, planted a few trees, and certainly I am saying my prayers. who knew that at this point in life I would be understanding,as if for the first time, the words of Paul, "When I am weak, then I am strong"? This is not a farewell. Please God, we will be pondering together the follies and splendors of the Church and the world for years to come. But maybe not. In any event, when there is an unidentified agent in your body aggressively attacking the good things your body is intended to do, it does concentrate the mind. The entirety of our prayer is "You will be done"- not as a note of resignation but of desire beyond expression. To that end, I comment myself to your intercession, and that of all the saints and angels who accompany us each step through time toward home. (02/09)