New Ministry - The Well

I see that I haven't posted anything since January 24. That's a long time. Too long. But, the length of my time away doesn't reflect the amount of activity that has had me captured. One might say that the quieter I am here then the more active I am out in the physical world. What has kept me at bay? A new ministry. The Well.

"The Well, a gathering place for conversation" is a new ministry that will take place at Queen Anne United Methodist Church in Seattle. Geared to provide an intimate space for big conversation, "The Well" will bring scholars, teachers, activists, poets, dreamers, and all the rest of us together to delve into those things that touch our souls, minds, bodies, and communities.

Meeting weekly, at its simplest, The Well offers people an opportunity to go deep about issues affecting them, to ask questions about life and faith, and to enter into dialogue about these things. When does The Well meet? That will vary, depending upon the speaker, the topic, and the format. In general, meetings will take place on Thursdays from 6:30-8:30 in the church's sanctuary. Sometimes we will head out for a beer or a coffee. Sometimes we will meet on different days altogether. You will have to keep abreast of our calendar (still emerging).

Why The Well? In our highly partisan country, real discourse is becoming all too rare. In our churches, going deep is often difficult to do. The goal of The Well is to offer people who want to genuinely go deep in exploring matters of faith and life the opportunity, frame, and space to do so. The Well seeks to offer clergy a space to come and find community. It seeks to reach people who have left church because they have experienced sentiments that are anti-science, anti-question, anti-love, anti-inclusion. The Well is the opposite of all of those "antis." It is the perfect place to bring questions, loves, dreams, hopes, and concerns.

The Well is always open to the public. No expectation will be placed on anyone coming to The Well other than for them to honor their neighbor in conversation.

This is what we have lined up so far. The calendar will continue to evolve.

Schedule:

• March 1, 8, 15, 22 – 7-9 PM. Wes Howard-Brook and Sue Ferguson Johnson. Topic:“Coming Out of Empire, Moving into Christ”

March 1: “It was necessary to go through Samaria” (John 4)

March 8: “All I know, is I was blind and now I see” (John 9)
March 15: “Come out!” (John 11)
March 22: “I have given you an example” (John 13-17)
Wes Howard-Brook has an article in the Tikkun Daily that discusses his own Jewish-Christian experience.

• April 18 - Robert V Taylor. Topic: "A New Way to Be Human" Time TBA.
• May 12 – 3:30 PM and 7:30 PM. Grammy winning Singer/Songwritier Carrie Newcomer. Topic: Afternoon conversation on "Life as Sacred Story." Evening Concert.
• May 26-27 -- John Dominic Crossan. Topic: "The Lord's Prayer."
• June 6. Kathleen Norris. Topic: "Acedia."
• June 10 -- Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. Topic: "The Wisdom of Stability in a Mobile World."
• Summer - Jan Richardson.
• October 22 - Alexander McCall Smith.
• March 14, 2013 - Phyllis Tickle.

More to be announced soon. Not every week will be a conference or a structured workshop. Sometimes, we will just gather, pray, and talk. A website is being formed. Keep your eyes open. Send recommendations of topics and facilitators my way! I hope you enjoy this new ministry.

Reformation Sermon: The Giant Rummage Sale

Joshua 3:7-17, Matthew 23:1-12

A lot of people sat on the edges of their seats when game 6 of the World Series went 11 innings. It ended in an upset with the Cardinals scoring in the bottom to take it 10-9. The Cards followed up in a much less interesting seventh game to win their 11th title. But, even as many in the country had their eyes on baseball this weekend, another professional sport has held the attention of others: the NBA. Embroiled in a lockout, players and owners remain in a standoff, both sides hoping that the other will flinch first. In the center of the conflict is how to divide the league’s revenues: the owners want a 50-50 split. The players want a 52.5 take. At their last collective bargaining agreement, players were guaranteed 57 percent. According to NBA players, going down from their 57% to 53%, would transfer $1.1 billion from them to owners over six years. The difference between 50 percent and 52.5 percent totals about $100 million. We are talking huge sums of money, even if the percentage points are not very wide. Because the two sides can’t come to an agreement, games have been canceled for November creating a loss of $350 million, twice the amount of the difference between what the owners and players want.

We seem to live in a world in which immense sums of money are tossed around all the time. Whether it’s Congress discussing the deficit, tax rates and breaks, infrastructure costs, energy costs, foreclosure costs, unemployment costs, war costs, or sports costs, regular people - people like you and me - (we) talk about hundreds of millions of dollars, even billions of dollars as though we can in any way conceive of what this really means. People have become used to having little while moving in a world with a great deal of money.

We live in a time of deep conflict - I don’t mean Conservative-Liberal conflict. I mean, we live in a time when we are constantly told conflicting messages: to be afraid because there isn’t enough to go around and then to live immersed in excess. Too little. Too much. Too little money. Money everywhere. Not enough food. Too much food. Food insecurity. Gas too high to buy, but still too many cars on the roads. Too many people on the planet (7 billion now, I hear). All around us are messages of too little and too much. Because we focus on the too little, we forget that excess is everywhere; it takes force to resist it, to try to live humbly and simply. Sometimes that force comes from the outside in unexpected and unpleasant ways. We are forced to live more humbly because we don’t have enough money. We sell our car. We sell our house (or we try to). We let go off cable. We don’t have a microwave. We make the decisions because circumstances dictate that they are necessary. Yet, sometimes external forces aren’t enough; despite not having enough, we still spend and spend, whether out of wants or due to needs. That is how many of us wind up in deep debt. Other times, we yearn for a more simple and humble life. We try through the force of will to live in ways that deeply resist a culture that continually promotes “more, more, more.” Choosing no cable. Growing our own food. Eating simple, whole foods. Living in smaller houses or condos. Shopping at Goodwill. Using the library. Investing in a local economy. Tying ourselves to a neighborhood. Whether or not we personally choose simplicity, our culture is steeped in a cycle of boom and bust, excess and deprivation. All around us is too little and too much.

This is not new. Throughout history, too much and too little have resided next to each other. When they rub up against each other too much and the friction grows too hot, change occurs. Excess gives way to reformation. Prophets rise. The people revolt. New worlds are made. Jesus ushered in one such time. With his life, death, and resurrection, a whole new way of living in the world was introduced. Author and teacher Phyllis Tickle says that every 500 years, the world and the Church have a giant rummage sale. We let go of conventions, traditions, and institutions that have been the backbone of our world. We get rid of the stuff we no longer need, we keep the stuff that works, and we make something new. Five hundred years after Jesus was born, the Roman Empire fell (at least the Western part did) and a new world order was established. in 1054, the Church split into Eastern Orthodox and Western Roman Catholicism, and political and social structures in those regions reflected that split. Five hundred years later, the Byzantine Empire fell and the Protestant Reformation occurred. We are now 500 years after that. We are living during one of the world’s giant rummage sale, and our culture is feeling the shocks of change. That is why our cycles of boom and bust and our lifestyles of excess and deprivation are being felt so acutely right now. The little is way to little, and the too much is way too much. They can no longer exist in any form of harmony together. Something must give way.

Today is Reformation Sunday on the Church calendar. On October 31, - on the eve of All Saints Day - in 1517 in Wittenburg, Germany, a priest by the name of Martin Luther nailed what has become known as the Ninety-five Theses to the door of Castle Church. While the specifics of his complaint centered around the selling of indulgences - or pardons for sins - Luther’s larger complaint concerned what he believed to be a gross perversion of the gospel as a whole. A gospel of grace had become a mockery. God’s free gift of grace was being peddled by the very institution set aside to safeguard the gospel. Pope Leo X in Rome had mired the church in an outlandishly expensive renovation of St Peter’s Basilica, and pressure filtered down to various regions to put in their share of money to pay for it. This resulted in widespread corruption, the buying and selling of high rank within the church, and the selling of indulgences - letters of forgiveness - for sins. Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses is now considered the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. This act changed history. We have been the beneficiaries of this change for 500 years.

For 500 years, the Protestant Church has grown and expanded. In the United States, Protestantism has become the civil religion of the country. As our country prospered, so did Protestantism. But, no longer. This rummage sale in which we live has us tossing out long held traditions and ways of doing things. This has been necessitated by a rising tide of complaints that the Church has become staid, hypocritical, hyper-critical, and irrelevant. We could just as easily hear today Jesus’ complaints of his own religious world. Just as Jesus castigated the religiously pious for their public displays, the same is happening today. Regularly on television we see televangelists in large megachurches decrying the immorality of others while they lead their own corrupt lives. Mainline denominations have become torn apart over sexual ethics while not protecting the laity from sexual predation from many clergy. We have become ensconced in debates about peripheral issues while neglecting the poor, the vulnerable, and the marginalized - whom the prophets and Jesus called widows and orphans. We are more preoccupied with church structure than with spreading the gospel and bringing people into the presence of the Divine. The Roman Catholic Church continues to make moral pronouncements and denouncements about others without getting its own priesthood in order. Local congregations that for so long existed because they maintained the de facto way of live have found themselves floundering as more and more Americans don’t live the same way - don’t celebrate the birth of Jesus at Christmas or his Resurrection at Easter, that don’t care about Pentecost or the Trinity or the Resurrection. Because we haven’t had to know our story - it simply was a part of the fabric of our culture - we now don’t know how to live it in this increasingly secular and diverse world.

Jesus, though, tells us how to live through this rummage sale. Martin Luther understood how. John Wesley, Methodism's founder, did as well. Be humble. Be humble. Be less preoccupied with your own status and your own well being and your own self and your kind and your own way of living than you are about the least of these. For those who are the least among us, hear these words as comforting ones God. God sees your plight. God knows the wealthy and the powerful, including the Church, do not honor you well. But, God does. Jesus says that the Church will not find its power and its authority in large basilicas. It will not find its redemption is renovated worship spaces. Christians do not find salvation in public acts of religious piety, of shouting “peace, peace, when there is no peace” (Jer 6:14) or “Lord, Lord with malice in their hearts.” Christians find redemption because God gives it. It is that simple. God saves us. The Church finds its power in living the gospel, in returning to the Word so powerful that the ark of covenant stopped the waters of the Jordan. When Jesus decries the use of larger phylactaries, he, in essence, is telling us to live out the wrapping of ourselves in the Law, not simply to do the ritual act. That is where we find our power, by wrapping ourselves in God's saving instruction and to have it inscribed in and on all that we and all that we are. This same instruction stops the waters of the Jordan. This same instruction will change the forces of our world today. Our Old Testament and our gospel lesson tell us that no sum of money, no matter how large, can compare to the vastness and the power of our God. Both scriptures tell us that God’s glory is magnificent and that our proper response to it is humility and service. God claims us. That is good news. But, when God claims us, God puts a claim on us. God forgives. God redeems. God loves. God also sends us to be servants in a broken world. To be voices of peace when there is no peace. To show by our lives and not through empty words that we follow the Lord. To seek not places of honor at banquets, but to eat with the poor in solidarity and in love. Hear these words one more time, “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themsleves will be exalted.” This is the Gospel of our Lord. Thanks be to God.

Rhythms of Life: Sabbath Begins on September 18 @ 11:45 AM

On Sunday, September 18, about 30 minutes after worship ends, Queen Anne UMC will begin a 7-part series on the spiritual practice of Sabbath-keeping. Each class will last about 1 hour. Bring your own lunch and a little food to share with your neighbor, and come ready to be challenged to live your life with a new rhythm.

We live in a fragmented world. We work too hard. We live far from our families. We move too frequently. And, we struggle to find balance. As a practice, Sabbath reminds us that we are called to center our lives not on the fragmentation of our own making, but on the integrity of our God. Sabbath disrupts the routines of our creation, and it reminds us of God’s holy creation. Many people think of Sabbath as a solitary retreat – getting away from life, but it isn’t that at all. Still others shrink from the idea of Sabbath because they hold old memories of dour and joyless Sabbaths – days when nothing was permitted. Yet, Sabbath is an immersion into life lived in the fullness of God, in the midst of community, and with joy. Sabbath is an entering into God’s rest for the sake of all of creation. It celebrates creation. It creates a standard of justice. And, it reminds us to live in the midst of God the other six days of the week.

This curriculum is a video-based curriculum and features people like Brian McLaren, Majora Carter, Bill McKibben, Amy-Jill Levine, Jack Sasson, Ellen Davis, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Norman Wirzba, Lauren Winner, M Douglas Meeks, Robin Jensen, and Phyllis Tickle. These are some of the most sought after speakers in our country. They are scholars, practitioners, new monastics, environmentalists, community builders, and dreamers. Come and join the conversation. Come and taste the Sabbath.

Please send inquiries to office@qaumc.org.

Queen Anne United Methodist Church

1606 5th Ave W

Seattle, WA 98119

206-282-4307

Progress on "Rhythms of Life: Sabbath" - a Video Curriculum

Yesterday, I showed the first session of my new video curriculum on Sabbath-keeping. It's a great resource for congregations that features Phyllis Tickle, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Amy-Jill Levine, Ched Myers, Robin Jensen, Norman Wirzba, Ellen Davis, Walter Brueggemann, Lauren Winner, Brian McLaren, Dorothy Bass, Majora Carter, Bill McKibben, and Jack Sasson. Each session is about 15-20 minutes long and comes with discussion questions and a handout with defined terms and other relevant information.

I am deeply grateful for all of the people who have appeared on this video. I am still in process of editing all of the sessions. Each presentation will be a bit different as I receive feedback and input from each focus group that sees it. I will be scheduling full viewings of the entire curriculum this August.

I want to thank Bill McKibben for sitting down with me when he was in Seattle this week. And, I also thank Yes! Magazine for allowing me some of Bill's time while he was here to speak for their event.

This is my first attempt at video making. My hope is to build a whole series of curricula on spiritual practices called "Rhythms of Life." If you are interested in partnering with me on this venture, give me a shout!

Phyllis Tickle - Spiritual Disciplines Video

Advent is wholly concerned with time - the beginning of new time and the ending of old time. Throughout Advent, Christians prepare their hearts for the coming of the Christ-child and for the second coming of Christ the judge, who comes to right the injustices of this world and to redeem the brokenhearted and downtrodden. This season is often confusing for many lay people. When the apocalyptic stories from both the Old and New Testaments are read, people are left wondering why such strange stories are being told during this season of waiting for "Sweet Little Jesus Boy." Yet, to be a faithful Christian is to learn to live in a different time - time that ushers in an end to the pain and injustice of this world in order to make way for the fullness of time lived completely in God. So, while there is much joy in Advent and Christmas, much hope, much light, and much to sing about, there is little "sweet" about these seasons that bear witness to God's light of peace piercing the darkness of our world. One only need read the Magnificat or the Benedictus to learn the core meaning of this most precious season.

Christians - faithful Christians - discipline their lives for living in different time. From prayer to special holy days to rituals that bind us to the past while making room for the future, it is our holy and sacred duty to continually place ourselves in a receptive posture to receive the gift of God's holy time.

Here is an excerpt from an interview with Phyllis Tickle, in which she talks about the power of spiritual disciplines to bring us into God's time. I hope you enjoy. As I continue to work on my doctoral project about Sabbath, I will post more and more videos from those who have gifted me with their wisdom. I thank Phyllis more than she can ever know for spending this day with me and for sharing in laughter, in story, and in life. From one Southerner to another, I can say honestly that "she's good people." Thank you, Phyllis.

The question I ask tonight is, "How is Advent helping you reshape time?" Or, perhaps, "How is the time of Advent reshaping you?"