Formation -- Part 2

Before I began my time as a student at The Virginia Theological Seminary (http://www.vts.edu/), I had to sign a pledge indicating my commitment to do three things as a member of that community:

1. Go to chapel.
2. Go to class.
3. Go to lunch.

These three commitments signified the sort of community I was entering as a seminarian -- a community that was characterized by worship, learning and relationships.

Attending worship wasn't primarily about "being fed" or getting my needs met...it was a disciplined rhythm of daily prayer, daily listening to the words of scripture, frequent sermons and eucharistic celebrations. Did I enjoy every sermon? No. Was I moved by every hymn sung? No. Was every liturgy a transcendant experience? No.

But there were sermons that provided just the word I needed to hear when I needed to hear it. There were enough hymns that set my heart singing on days that I didn't think I would be able to muster even a quarter-note of joy. There were enough liturgies that encapsulated elegance and beauty in ways that drew me closer to the Holy for having attended.

Attending class, reading for class, writing all manner of papers (even the ones I grumbled about!) and talking with my classmates -- before, during and after classes -- instilled in me a sense that the call of all disciples is to be ready to give an answer for the hope within us (cf. 1 Peter 3:15). To be a part of a learning community meant that when we gathered for a discussion with a professor, he or she often participated as a fellow-learner -- prepared to learn from the students present as well as to share the benefit of her/his academic work.

Eating a daily meal together fostered a sense of connection throughout the seminary community as faculty, staff and students shared the stuff of life -- the joys and concerns, the trials and triumphs, agreements and disagreements and everything in between.

This process of being shaped through worship, learning and relationship is, I believe, at the heart of formation. "And they continued in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers," describes the early community of believers in Acts. Whatever else we may do as a local congregation, these practices provide our touchstones as a Christian community. We do not attend to these practices to add numbers to our parish lists, rather we do them to root ourselves into a particular Christian community -- in a peculiarly Christian fashion.

The ways of worship, learning and relationship are not flashy -- sometimes these ways are the very embodiment of the mundane. Yet, these are the ways the "church is the church". If we are attending to our worship, our learning and our relationships, then maybe we'll set down the sort of spiritual roots that will nourish our souls for the rest of our lives -- like trees planted by the water (Psalm 1).

Formation -- Part 1

This past Sunday, we "interrupted our regularly scheduled sermon" at Trinity Church in order to have a congregational conversation about the time devoted in our weekly schedule for something we call "Christian Formation".

Specifically, our discussion centered upon how our parish as a whole is attending to the baptismal promise of supporting our children and young people in their life in Christ.

Part of the challenge before us, I think, is reimagining what "formation" is. So often, no matter what the nomenclature, we find ourselves repeatedly revisiting the "Sunday School" model -- worrying about curriculum, staffing, attendance and such.

In the aftermath of our "Town Hall Meeting", I'm thinking that an opportunity exists to more intentionally articulate what it means to be a community of disciples -- to give voice to the notion that "formation happens" when we are present with and to one another -- in all of our activities and interactions.

Babbling as Vocation

The first reading assigned for today was from Acts 17. This particular story recounts the Apostle Paul's visit to Athens and his audience before the intelligensia at Mars' Hill. Paul had been in the city for a few days by the time of this conversation. He had argued with the Jewish religious leaders in the local synagogue and engaged the Epicureans and Stoics in some spirited philosophical debate. The monologue detailed in Acts 17:22-31 is Paul's parting address to anyone who happened to be present that day at the prestigious public forum.

But today's lesson omitted the way in which the locals described Paul to one another. They called him a "babbler". Imagine that! The person who arguably has had more influence on the interpretation of the Gospel than anyone else in the New Testament, the person who stands tall in the pantheon of early Christian "greats", is derogatorily described as a babbler.

Not much has changed. North American preachers routinely stand to give voice to their understanding of the Gospel. They are (for the most part) given a polite hearing by polite people. These preachers use the peculiar language of the Christian faith -- language that is not intended to be relevant, because it's subversive.

Then everyone moves on to the next thing. And the preacher goes back to stand before the texts assigned for the following week. I think all preachers pray that something we say will make some sense to someone along the way. In the meantime, we babble on.

A Bit of T. S. Eliot for Monday

The following excerpt from Eliot's poem, Choruses from "The Rock" possesses a relevance that belies its original date of composition. It speaks to me in my own context as a rector-in-the-burbs. I know that I will see only a smattering of the community of faith named Trinity Church,Wauwatosa over the next few days. When we spend so much time separated from our faith community through the week, there's little wonder that Sundays carry such a burden of expectation -- for clergy and parishioners alike.

We are all on the move, me included-- talking, texting, e-mailing (and blogging!). We are equipped with the latest gadgets to squeeze every ounce of productivity out of every portion of every day. We are entirely too familiar with movement. Less acquainted with the profound connection that exists in the stillness of settling in with ourselves, our community and our God.

What life have you if you have not life together?
There is no life that is not in community,
And no community not lived in praise of God.
Even the anchorite who meditates alone,
Prays for the Church, the Body of Christ incarnate.
And now you live dispersed on ribbon roads,
And no man knows or cares who is his neighbour
Unless his neighbour makes too much disturbance,
But all dash to and fro in motor cars,
Familiar with roads and settled nowhere.

4039

On the Second Sunday of Easter (March 30), we added a specific intercession to the Prayers of the People relating to the continuing war in Iraq.

As a part of this petition, we are reading, in chronological order, the casualty list of U.S. service personnel, fifteen names per week. On the day we began this practice, I noted to the congregation that at the rate of 15 names per week, we would finish reading all the names in late May 2013. Over the past four Sundays, we have read 60 names. During that same period of time, there have been another 30 U.S. casualties. Hence, the number at the top of this post.

In addition, nearly 800 coalition service members (494 from the U.S.) have died since the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) in 2001.

We are also praying for the nameless victims of war everywhere. Currently the number of civilian casualties in Iraq -- noncombatants killed as a byproduct of U.S. military action and those who have died as a result of the civil upheaval since -- vary widely, somewhere between 82,000 and 91,000 according to one source.

The total of all of those casualties represent almost two times the population of Wauwatosa.

Pray (and work!) for peace.

Don't go to church!

"Going to church.", "Attending church." and "Leaving church."

These are shorthand phrases. They mean more than they say, but I wonder how these sentences, at their basic level, indicate an objectification of "church" as an address, a building or an event. If church is an address, we can choose to bypass it on our way to another destination. If church is a building, we can opt not to enter. If church is an event, we can decide that our calendars are too crowded to "do church" on a particular day.

The Eastertide lessons from the Acts of the Apostles have had me thinking about church. The early church wasn't a property, it was a people. The early church didn't have programs to address "felt needs", it simply behaved as a community devoted to the "apostles' teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers." Worship wasn't an end in itself, but prepared these early disciples for their ministry and mission in their daily lives outside the eucharistic community.

The church in Acts wasn't idyllic. There were folks who grumbled about this or that. There were significant theological disagreements. The Jerusalem church's early experiment with communal living was less than a success. Some of the early leaders figured out the best way to work together was to walk apart.

The early church had no coordinated program of outreach (unless you count street preaching). There was an occasional offering taken, but there was no comprehensive budget (or any economic stability for that matter). For the most part, the church in Acts is a hodgepodge gathering of people whose only bond seems to have been that they had received the message of Jesus as crucified and risen Lord -- and that seemed to be enough. There was no real coordination of missional efforts -- so I'm sure there was duplication and confusion. The addition of followers to this living Way was uneven and unpredictable (from 3000 souls on the Day of Pentecost in Jerusalem to 1 Ethiopian eunuch in a chariot near Samaria).

Most of the leadership was uneducated and uncooth. They kept getting thrown in jail -- their crime? Preaching this Jesus movement. One of them, Stephen, got himself stoned to death because of his testimony before the court when he was on trial (on trial!!!) for being a follower of Jesus. And what happened after Stephen's execution? Did this pitiful band of ragtag, improperly organized folks go into hiding and rethink their mission or modify their message so that it would attract less attention on the part of the authorities?

Nope...they simply kept talking about the Gospel -- and not only to each other over the first century equivalent of coffee and kringle...but to the people they interacted with as they went about their lives.

At the risk of sounding simplistic -- they weren't people who went to church...they were the church that went to people.

And the result? At one point in the book of Acts someone says of this underimpressive but indefatigable group, "They have turned the world upside down."

Turning the world upside down...that sounds a heck of a lot more exciting than going to church.

Overheard Yesterday

"Some churches preach so much Gospel, people are confused --
all they seem to know about is grace, grace, grace.

I'm sick of all the grace-talk,"
the person at the neighboring table lamented to his breakfast companion.

I had never heard the word "grace"
angrily growled through gritted teeth
before yesterday.

I had never thought of the preaching
of the Good News of God's grace
as a possible source of confusion.

But then again, God's grace is confusing...

And the clearest evidence
that we are confused about grace is...
our unceasing attempts to demonstrate
to God and one another that...

We are capable of earning it, or
that we inherently deserve it.

Book Group, Anyone???

One of my favorite authors, Will Willimon, has released a new book entitled, Who will be Saved?

Here's a portion of the product description from the Amazon.com page:

"Who will be saved?" is almost always a question about them, and rarely about us. Thinking itself wrapped securely in the everlasting arms, the church has spent much of its history speculating on whether God will allow anyone else to join the party. One of today's most respected theologians contends that the church should stop asking "Who will be saved?" and ask instead "How is God calling me to participate in the redemption of the world?"

I know that Willimon has a way of needling the reader by his folksy style and clear way of arguing a thesis. He tends to challenge conventional Mainline Protestant squishiness by bringing us face to face with our robust theological (and biblical!) heritage.

So...I'm going to place the order for my own copy a bit later today. I'd love to read the book with some folks...any takers out there among my "readership" (all three of you!)?

Here's the link to the book:

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Will-Saved-William-Willimon/dp/0687651190/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208256626&sr=1-2

Thoughts from Good Shepherd Sunday

I was away from Tosa this weekend, attending a continuing education event in Chicago. This was the third of three weekend trainings designed to (among other things) assist me in sharpening my listening skills. Intentional listening is a particularly scarce commodity in a culture that seems to blather on incessantly and indiscriminately.

In the six years since my graduation from seminary, I've engaged in my fair share of "blathering on". I've preached hundreds of sermons (some hopefully better than others); taught scores of classes and written dozens of mostly unmemorable memos, letters and articles. I've had literally thousands of conversations -- in which I attempted to share some insight or opinion about one thing or another. All of this ecclesiastical yakking is compelling evidence that my seminary education instilled in me the value of "telling" as a primary aspect of a priest's work (even this blog is an example of the compulsion!).

But almost none of my work in preparation for ordained ministry actually involved listening as a spiritual practice. For this I had to go to a "secular" workshop! And yes, the workshop actually used the term "spiritual practice" as a means of describing a particular in-depth listening process.

This all causes me to wonder if most of the "telling" we clergy do has reached a point of diminishing returns. What if, for all of the good intentions, our words are simply more noise vying for a hearing from already overtaxed ears?

Before my workshop began yesterday, I spent some time reflecting on the collect for The Fourth Sunday of Easter. This collect highlights themes from the 10th chapter of John (the one in which Jesus names himself as "The Good Shepherd") -- particularly the themes of calling and hearing:

O God, whose Son Jesus is the good shepherd of your people: Grant that when we hear his voice we may know him who calls us each by name, and follow where he leads; who, with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

I think today is a good time to begin restraining the impulse to constantly "tell". Reducing my contribution to the noise in other people's ears would be a good thing. Reducing the noise in my own ears, even better. Who knows? In the sound of silence, I might hear Someone calling my name.

Diary of a Church Mouse
by John Betjeman

I receive transcripts of The Writer's Almanac (a radio program hosted by Garrison Keillor of A Prairie Home Companion fame). Last Saturday, the poem read on that broadcast concerned an Anglican church mouse...who usually has the run of the place until the celebration of the annual Harvest Festival.

You can read the poem here (or listen to Keillor read it if you choose):

http://www.elabs7.com/functions/message_view.html?mid=431208&mlid=499&siteid=20130&uid=15c0acb9e6

I haven't seen evidence in the Trinity Church sacristy that we have any church mice here in the almost-thawed-tundra...perhaps that's because we suburban Episcopalians don't do Harvest Festivals. But because we're a Wisconsin parish, there's usually cheese on hand.

A Prayer for Today

One of my favorite theologians is Stanley Hauerwas, a professor at Duke University in North Carolina. I'm particularly fond of a small volume entitled, Prayers Plainly Spoken. Anyone who has read (or heard) Hauwerwas would readily agree that he is, at times, painfully plainspoken. He challenges the squishiness that is so often a part of Mainline North American Protestantism. He has little truck with "political correctness", yet he is overtly political (not to be confused with partisan).

Anyway, I've been leafing through Prayers lately. As I have reaquainted myself with some of Hauerwas' words to the Almighty, I'm both strengthened in my efforts at prayer, and I am challenged by how often I can drift toward the whirlpool of verbiage that leaves me saying very little of substance -- to others, to myself or to God.

Here's an offering from Prayers by Hauerwas that I've been living with today:

Free Us from Self-Fascination

Lord Almighty, we say we want to serve you, we say we want to help others less fortunate than ourselves, we say we want justice. But the truth is, we want power and status because we so desperately need to be loved. Free us from our self-fascination and the anxious activity it breeds, so that we might be what we say we want to be --loved by you and thus capable of unselfish service. Amen.
(p. 49)

Earlier today, I came across the following talk by religion scholar, Karen Armstrong:

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/234

The talk discusses the "Golden Rule" as the "charter of compassion", which, if engaged forthrighly, could serve as a foundational principle for interreligious dialogue. What Armstrong proposes is far from some intellectually anemic and sentimental liberalism. Rather she recognizes the challenge of such dialogue all too well. The sort of engagement she advocates moves beyond any simplistic understanding of the complexities that exist between differing religions (and the Abrahamic religions in particular).

To begin thr process of truly engaging the other (whether of our own race, religion or nationality or another), is to begin to seriously live under the Rule that is more valuable than gold.

Does worship leave a mark?
On our attitudes?
Our thoughts?
Our behaviors?

Do our hearts burn with an awareness of the Holy One?
Or at least get warm?
Or maybe smolder a bit?
Or has the fire of faith gone cold?

Is the Eucharist the Real Presence of the Risen Lord?
Or nourishment for our souls?
Or energy for service in Christ's name?
Or a piety snack?

When does the memory of worship fade?
With the first handshake in the narthex?
Or the first sip of coffee in the parish hall?
Or the first thing Monday morning?

Some say that worship is the primary act of the people of God.
Others say that worship helps us remember our identity as children of God.
Still others say that worship is a political moment that reminds the world of God's presence.
I like to think that worship is all of those things and more...

Yet we are habituated to the language of liturgy;
Comfortable with predictability.
We breezily confess unspecified "sins";
Our responses automatic.
We invoke God's Name with a frightening familiarity.

We stride out of church,
Marching purposefully toward our next task; our next destination.
Maybe we "enjoyed" worship.
Maybe we "endured" it.

The question remains,
Did worship leave a mark?

James Lloyd Breck, a nineteenth century Episcopal clergyperson, was a missionary with the constitution of a pioneer. When places like Wisconsin and Minnesota were the "northwest territories", Breck set out from the East Coast with two of his seminary classmates on a mission to spread the Gospel. He was instrumental in founding two seminaries for the Episcopal Church -- Nashotah House in Wisconsin (1842) and Seabury in Minnesota (1858). Breck worked for a time among the Ojibwa (one of the largest of the Native American nations). Eventually, he made his way to California and worked toward the establishment of two schools there before his death in 1876. Today is the day when the Episcopal Church commemorates the life and ministry of this pioneering priest.

(Visit http://www.seabury.edu/worship/sermon_james-lloyd-breck-commemoration.php for a wonderful sermon about Breck.)

My guess is that Breck could have probably found a comfortable life as a rector of a parish in a city or town back East. He could have busied himself with the day in, day out routines of congregational life -- the joyous and the mundane. He could have preached to the well-heeled establishment in exchange for a rectory and a stipend. He could have been a valued citizen, lending an air of religiosity to civic life. But Breck chose a different path.

Maybe that path didn't seem so courageous at the time. Maybe he simply followed what he felt to be a call from his Lord. Maybe he had his doubts, too. Maybe there were times he wondered "what would have been" if he had simply cultivated a more civilized mission field -- one with some creature comforts.

Breck's frontier of southern Wisconsin is now overlaid by Interstate 94. The forests that became farmlands around Nashotah House are sprouting new crops these days -- the large, single family homes of the exburbs. I am one of those "settled" parish priests (of the East Coast variety right here in the Midwest) -- complete with rectory and stipend. My 21st century working environment is even more luxurious than the sorts of comforts Breck left behind when he traveled out here to the "northwest" back in the 19th century.

The Epistle reading for today is one of my favorites. Paul writes to the Corinthians that there are workers in God's field who "plant". There are some who "water". But God is always responsible for the growth. (1 Corinthians 3:4-11). That lesson reminds me that, like Breck, I'm simply passing through. There were workers in the field before me. There will be workers who follow. And while I may be (God forbid!) a "settled rector", I hope I never settle for thinking that maintaining the status quo constitutes the mission of God in the world.

Teach your Church, O Lord, we pray, to value and support pioneering and courageous missionaries, whom you call, as you called your servant James Lloyd Breck, to preach, and teach, and plant your Church on new frontiers; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Spring is ever-elusive in this portion of the Midwest.

Yesterday was all-too-typical of a Milwaukee spring day. The temperature hovered stubbornly in the upper 30's. The color was a steady, dark gray -- punctuated by periods of chilly rain. For the final several hours of the daylight "saved" by an early return to CDT, we were wrapped in a thick, damp blanket of fog. The only blooms visible in my corner of the world are of the "forced" variety -- perched atop the potted lilies, tulips and hydrangeas that remain in residence around the Trinity altar from the Easter Day festivities.

But...in spite of spring's timidity, there was a tangible sign yesterday of the recalcitrant season's sure and certain return (even if it is delayed until July 4!):

Opening Day Baseball! Go Brewers!

My adopted home team won the season opener "away" in an extra inning contest with the venerable Chicago Cubs.

Could this season be the breakout year for the "Brew Crew"?
Do they have a shot at making the playoffs (for the first time since 1982)?
And if they got to the playoffs, what then?
Is it too early to dream of a World Series?

On Opening Day, anything seems possible -- even springtime in Wisconsin.