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UCCLM Presents “Tapestry of Light” - A Celtic Christmas Celebration

The Chancel Choir of the United Church of Christ of La Mesa (UCCLM) invites you to rejoice with them in the music of Christmas – traditional carols from the British Isles, angelic acclamations and delicate lullabies woven together with the scriptures and stories of the season into the wondrous “Tapestry of Light,” a cantata by Joseph M. Martin.  A Celtic consort of flute, violin, cello, percussion and piano will accompany the vocal ensemble. 

“Tapestry” will be presented at the 11:00am service on Sunday, December 18, 2011.  All are welcome.  UCCLM, an Open and Affirming Congregation, is located at 5940 Kelton Avenue, La Mesa, CA 91942 (619-464-1519, www.ucclm.org).

Pacific Men’s Chorale Presents Christmas Concert at UCCLM

“Jubilate Deo…Shout with joy to God.”  Heeding the opening charge of Psalm 65, the celebrated songsters of the Pacific Men’s Chorale will share the glorious music of Christmas in a concert in the sanctuary of the United Church of Christ of La Mesa (UCCLM) at 7:00pm on December 9, 2011.  Directed by Christopher Allen and accompanied by Valerie Victor, they will sing such beloved favorites as “Adeste Fideles,” “Bring a Torch, Jeanette Isabella,” “Enatus Est Emmanuel,” “On This Shining Night,” “Silver Bells,” “Still, Still, Still” and “Some Children See Him.”

Come, celebrate the season with them.    Bring your family, neighbors and friends.  The church is located at 5940 Kelton Avenue, La Mesa, CA 91942 (619-464-1519, www.ucclm.org).  A freewill offering will be collected.

Fair Trade Holiday Sale at UCCLM

Mark your calendars!  The youth of the United Church of Christ of La Mesa (UCCLM) are once again hosting a Fair Trade Holiday Sale in the church’s Friendship Hall.  Handmade gifts - jewelry, kitchen and decorative items, accessories, food, etc. - from around the world will be featured, along with crafts and food items offered by church members and, special this year, the Hmong crafts of “Mama” Houa.  And, if we don’t have exactly what you want, a SERRV catalog will be available to use.  A marvelous opportunity to shop for gifts that give back to our community and the world, the sale will be held Saturday, November 19, 2011 from 10am to 4pm and Sunday the 20^th between church services (visitors are welcome to attend the 9am contemporary service and/or the 11am traditional one).

UCCLM is located at 5940 Kelton Avenue, La Mesa, CA 91942 (619-464-1519, www.ucclm.org).

UCCLM Celebrates World Communion Sunday

On Sunday, October 2, 2011, the people of the United Church of Christ of La Mesa (UCCLM) will join with Christians throughout the world in remembering with bread and cup that they are part of a whole - a global community of faith.  You are invited to celebrate with us.  We are an Open and Affirming congregation - all are welcome!  9am Contemporary Service; 11am Traditional Service.  5940 Kelton Avenue, La Mesa, CA 91942 (619-464-1519, www.ucclm.org).

Charley Brown Fall Festival

Bring your little ones to the Charley Brown Children’s Center’s Annual Fall Festival for a ghoulish good time!  Featuring a costume parade, door prizes and children’s games and activities, the festival will run from 6:00 to 7:30pm (parade at 7:15), Friday, October 28, 2011.    There’s something for everyone and fun for all – and no charge for participation!  Pizza, drinks, popcorn and baked goods will be offered for sale.  A community service of the United Church of Christ of La Mesa, the Center is located at 5921 Jackson Drive, La Mesa, CA 91942.

UCCLM E-Waste Recycling Program

Got E-Waste?  Obsolete computers, monitors, laptops, TVs, printers, cell phones, faxes, VCR & DVD players, stereos, cameras, etc. (working or not) cluttering your closets?  Taking your car’s rightful place in the garage?   Here’s your chance to “clean house!”

Load ‘em up!  Bring to the parking lot of the United Church of Christ of La Mesa (UCCLM), 5940 Kelton Avenue, La Mesa, CA 91942 between 10am and 4pm, Saturday, October 8, 2011.  No drop-off fee. Proceeds benefit the church and Mother Earth!

                                                                                  by Mary Domb Mikkelson

 I’ve been thinking about our vital church and how we can succeed in this changing world...

One of my favorite Christmas presents this past year was a pair of memory foam pillows.  They’re funny looking things, rather like rippled potato chips with ridges for the neck and hollows for the head.  Attired in pillow cases they resemble youngsters togged out in ungainly hand-me-downs.  But, oh, one night on one (make that five minutes) and their true beauty is revealed.  They FIT you, molding themselves gently to your contours, changing with you as, enjoying their comfort and support, you settle in for the night.  Come morning and they mushroom into refreshed fullness, ready to meet new needs at the end of day.

As I thought on this my writer’s imagination took flight, picturing a memory foam church, a revitalized church flexible and supportive enough to embrace the needs of all who enter – or can be enticed to enter; one caring enough to give tradition an honorable retirement and open its heart, its doors and its arms to the searcher, the spiritually hungry, the unchurched, the outsider.

And, in the process, save itself from the trauma of finding a “Church for Sale” sign outside those doors.   Think it can’t happen?  I’ve attended five churches in my 57 years in San Diego.  Two of them are now closed, one quite recently.   These aren’t oddities, unfortunately. As reported in 2003 in “Twentysomethings Struggle to Find Their Place in Christian Churches” (http://www.barna.org),  3500 – 4000 churches close their doors each year.  Pretty scary statistic, especially when coupled with two others conveyed in the same report:  1) half of all churches last year did not add one new member through conversion growth and 2) churches lose an estimated 2,765,000 people each year to nominalism and secularism. 

I, for one, don’t want find myself turning out the lights – or posting the for sale sign - when my church closes its doors.  I want it to be there long after I am, alive and kicking, loving and serving – filled to overflowing with people of all ages, interests and backgrounds, meeting ever-changing and ever more challenging needs.  I want it, in the words of Lutheran Bishop Mike Reinhart, “to care as much about those outside the church as it does those inside…to embrace relevance and let go of survival.”  “Let go of survival:” a contradiction in terms?  Not when “survival” means desperately clinging to a picture perfect past that, quite possibly, never really existed.

Might a memory foam church be the answer? 

If I read Bishop Reinhart correctly, it just might.  At least it’s an intriguing option to consider, a 

thought-provoking concept on which to base discussion and change.  Postulating that “the world…is desperately in need of a church that offers a Way of peace, truth, compassion and hope” and “leaders willing to risk comfort, status and economic security for the life of the world and the outreach potential of the church (a church that looks less like the Pharisees’ religion and more like Jesus’ ministry),” he concludes that “It needs a church that is willing to sacrifice everything for those outside: buildings, budgets, sacred cows, traditions, structures. It needs a church that so loves the world, that she’d be willing to die for it.”    And that, he continues, would involve making “every decision, every single decision made by staff, council and every committee…on behalf of those not yet here; every sermon choice, every hymn, song and musical choice, every building and grounds choice, every spending choice…with outsiders in mind.”

Big order…frightening in its comprehensiveness, inspiring in the breadth of its potential.  Bringing us back to memory foam.

 Memory foam, developed under contract by NASA’s Ames Research Center, softens in reaction to body heat, allowing it to quickly mold to a warm body - without destroying its physical integrity (think of those memory foam mattress commercials).  That – molding itself to those seeking its comfort – seems a worthwhile goal for an evolving church.

Picture it, envision an outwardly oriented, always outreaching church.  Picture multiple services, manifold programs, age and youth joined in service and faith.  Imagine new, different, daring, even in-your-face agendas and promotion…music that speaks to today’s generation and evolves to attract tomorrow’s…classes that bring biblical living to life…food, clothing, shelter and aid to those in need (yes, right there in the church!)…religion that puts on its grubbies and boots and goes to work...religion that isn’t afraid of the big E word.

In other words, picture a church with the motto, “Carpe diem.”  Think of it in memory foam terms – responding to and with the warmth of humanity, shaping itself to need, cushioning all who come with God’s love, following the teachings of the Christ.

Isaiah 2

Climb God's Mountain

The Message Isaiah got regarding Judah and Jerusalem:

There's a  day coming when the mountain of God's House will be The Mountain— solid, towering over all mountains.

All nations will river toward it, people from all over set out for it.

They'll say, "Come,  let's climb God's Mountain,  go to the House of the God of Jacob.

He'll show us the way he works so we can live the way we're made."

Zion's the source of the revelation.  God's Message comes from Jerusalem.

He'll settle things fairly between nations.  He'll make things right between many peoples.

They'll turn their swords into shovels,  their spears into hoes.

No more will nation fight nation; they won't play war anymore.

Come, family of Jacob, let's live in the light of God.

Continuing the Conversation

“God called us into being with a word and chose to continue the conversation.”

That sentence, from my minister daughter’s Statement of Faith couldn’t have annexed my attention at a worse time:  I was packing for vacation, for Pete’s sake, primed for relaxation rather than rumination.  Nor, for that matter, I was forced to concede, could it have appeared at a better time:  January loomed and the two “guiding star” words I had drawn on Epiphany Sunday last were demanding an accounting.   What had I done about “Prayer” and “Respect,” other than attach them to my file cabinet with magnets?

At the time of the blind drawing one star had made me cringe while the other seemed rather a dubious choice.  Further reflection led me to the glum conclusion that discomfort and doubt were excellent starting places – and that maybe that was the whole idea.  Okay, so be it.

I put “Respect” on a back burner after a friend griped that I got off easy by being charged to achieve something “you’re already good at.”  It refused to stay there.  “Prayer,” on the other hand, I knew to be a weakness, at least as conventionally defined and practiced.  The problem with that proviso, it turned out, is that it festers merrily away in the deep recesses of the mind, “stirring the pot” until it bubbles over - God continuing the conversation.

Karen (the Rev. Dr. Karen Sue Hybertsen)’s  Statement continued by describing God as “both incomprehensible mystery and a voice in the night seeking us out even when we turn away.  We struggle with this call,” she explains, “turning from those who are different, refusing to respect each person for what God made them to be…(letting) fear drive us to exclude what we do not understand.  And yet God remains, calling us to turn, in the words of the Shaker hymn, ‘until we come round right and see each one as they are seen in God’s sight.’”

Respect for those of different backgrounds, different beliefs, different orientations is one thing;  recognize that God is God by whatever name can make “made in God’s image” a given.  But when the differences are of outlook and manner?  When another’s  wishes threaten your dream?  When personalities or values clash?  When others’ certainties disallow your own?  When you are confronted?  Scorned? What then?

Surely, God, you didn’t make THEM that way, didn’t call them to use words as bludgeons or, worse, as, in Rudyard Kipling’s words, humankind’s “most powerful drug.”

What’s that, God?   Your children?  As they are?  Even as I am?  Okay…okay…alright, already…I’ll work on it!  Keep talking to me – and them, please; we need all the help we can get.

Which brings me to “Prayer” which, I suspect, those last words were!  I’m not on my knees (well, at least physically), my eyes are open but not fixed on the rood, my words aren’t formulaic – or humble and I’m feeling anything but spiritual.  But…

Once, during pastoral counseling soon after my husband died, I was offered carte blanche to yell at my pastor (and God).  I didn’t take him up on it, that not being “me,” but, like another Mary, I “kept those things in my heart and pondered them.”   And, gradually, began to come to terms with my unorthodox prayer life.  If yelling at God, á la the psalmists, is “okay” then perhaps so are those odd times and places internal conversations that know no set schedule or pattern, meet no recognized guidelines.  Not very scriptural, I’ve been told.  No?  What about going into one’s closet to pray?  Need the closet be corporeal?

And, for that matter, I found myself thinking, need the conversation be verbal?  On my part?  On God’s part?  I was nearing the heart of the matter, crossing a Rubicon in the process.   While definitely taking me past a point of no return, my crossing, unlike that of Julius Caesar’s army, was not an act of insurrection.  It was, rather, the recognition that God was and is a nudger par excellence, coming to us in the silence of our souls, opening paths, urging us forward – and that my conversations with God, however shaped, however experienced, are indeed prayer.   

Back to those stars – and where they led me.  Robert Frost spoke of “how way leads on to way” and concluded upon taking the less traveled road that “I doubted if I should ever come back.”  That’s how I feel about my faith and the lessons – “Respect” and “Prayer,” for example - God whispers in the silence.  The road taken “has made all the difference.”  I’m in for the long haul; no turning back.

We’ll be receiving new stars soon, will be starting down new roads of self-discovery…wonder where mine will take me! 

Worship...Does Close Count?

Thanks, Rev. Bill…I think.  That “homework assignment” you handed out at Bible study has my brain whirling and Google working overtime.

It sounded easy enough – “define worship.”  No sweat, right?  After all, we attend worship services regularly.  Worship is second nature to us.  Sure, folks!

Start at the beginning – the etymology of the word, I thought.  Good idea, confusing can of worms.  In “The Meaning of Worship” (http://www.christianlibrary.org/authors/Grady_Scott/meaningof worship.htm) I learned that the primary Hebrew word for worship is shachah – “to prostrate (in homage), bow, crouch, fall flat, beseech, make obeisance, do reverence.”    The Greek of the New Testament uses proskuneo, which means “to kiss, like a dog licking his master’s hand.” sebomai – “to reverence, hold in awe” and latreuo – “to render religious service of homage.”  That “like a dog licking his master’s hand” bit didn’t help a bit.  Somewhere else I read that “grovel” is the literal interpretation of the words above (suspect that was on a dissenter’s website)!

Other commentaries called for continuous praise and adoration of God and condemned “worshiper centered” worship (loosely defined, it seemed to me, as anything which the worshiper enjoys) as “bowing to the altar of the social gospel.”   Frequent harangues pointed out the fallacy of considering certain hymns as worship:  “How Great Thou Art,” yes; “Serve and Obey, no.”  Rejection of others’ worship styles and practices, were, in fact, the essence of far too many of the “What is Worship?” articles I researched.   The Muslims’ five-times-a-day prayers and pilgrimage to Mecca were, for example, acknowledged as “practiced with sincerity”¹but “misguided and erroneous,” as was “the erection of totem poles by Native Americans,”² an interesting inclusion as totems were not objects of worship (except in the eyes of Christian missionaries).   That which was different was negated as departing from the central truths of the Scriptures and therefore without merit.

Far more compelling was an article introduction by Lee Campbell, PhD, in which he states, “If it were not for the traditional use of the word 'worship' amongst Christians, substantial arguments could be raised against its continued use.  For one thing, the denotative meaning of 'worship' is different from the related Greek and Hebrew terms. For another, the connotative meaning of 'worship' in the Christian community is substantially different from the biblical teaching on the topic.” Following an examination of biblical words used in reference to worship, he suggests that “serve,” “service” and “minister” would be more accurate translations, as would “walking in love” (Ephesians 5:2).  Or, as another writer contended, “In worship we come to do and give, not receive.”

C.S. Lewis opined that “The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.  And yet…I wonder if awareness and enjoyment of, say, the music (sacred, praise, Sister Act, whatever), inspires, comforts or otherwise brings you closer to God, doesn’t “receiving” lead to “doing and giving.”

 “Doing and giving…” a theme was emerging, one not unlike that of early Christianity when “Christian assemblies looked…more like philosophical associations than religious fellowships” and Jesus, when asked what must be done to inherit eternal life, shared the parable of the Good Samaritan and  said “Go and do likewise” (Luke 10:25-37).

Back to Rev. Bill’s question…to personalizing it.  What does worship mean to me?  What has led and now leads me to God, then sends me, in God, out to “do likewise?”  The list is long…and idiosyncratic, composed of moments – “thin spaces,” memorable words and events, etc. – and surprising flashes of revelation and self-discovery.  It includes:

· hymns that transport – the “golden oldies” sung with passion, spirit and rhythm; gospel songs sung in exultation and lively modern ones, sung to a different beat (and instruments).  In other words, songs that make me want to dance through the church, clapping and swaying, make me “want to be ready to walk in Jerusalem, just like John!”

· sermons and discussions and studies that acknowledge my ability and right to think, inspire me, challenge me and impel me outside my comfort zone

· talking with God - not necessarily prayer

· quiet times when the very silence is a prayer

· becoming “okay with” sharing my faith and my faith journey with others

· putting faith to work to do together what we cannot do alone (now that’s “community!” )

· and, especially, exploring and rejoicing in new paths, new ways to know God, new ways to worship (which for me translates into a special love for our contemporary service)

I came to UCCLM with quite the checkered religious background (Jewish-Methodist heritage, Sunday school at the nearest church (everything from DOC to New Thought), LDS, 30 years of non-attendance and Presbyterian) - and found amidst its progressive liberality (which I share) a deep personal faith – and a previously unplumbed capacity for worship – worship defined not in the oft-quoted words of Bob Gilliam as “the humble response of regenerate men to the self-disclosure of the Most High God” but as “walking in love” with God and God’s people.

Don’t know if I’ll ever get it all right – or if we as a congregation will.  But I – we – can try…and try…and keep on trying.  As in horseshoes, close counts…as long as we keep trying to get even closer!

__________

¹Bob Deffinbaugh, “Worship (Part 1), www.bible.org

²ibid

³Larry W. Hurtado.  At the Origins of Christian Worship:  The Context and Character of Earliest Christian Devotion (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmans, 1999),25.

Doing Together...

You are alone…invisible… indistinguishable from the trash pile into which you’ve burrowed for warmth.

You are alone…shunned…a drug mule wanted only for your body cavities

You are alone…illegal… a stranger in a strange new world.

You are alone…homeless …amidst faded memories

You are alone…helpless…an unwanted infant tossed into the trash.

You are alone…a surly recluse with neither family nor friends.

You are alone…and now, unnoticed, you are dead.

Alone forever, your story unknown, untold.

Unless you died in Amsterdam.

Every year up to 20 people die completely alone in Amsterdam.

Completely alone and, yet, not finally alone, thanks to a civil servant, Ger Frits, and a poet, Frank Starik, who make sure these lonely souls receive respectful and personal burial (chapel, flowers, three pieces of music, four pall-bearers and a poem).  Frits brings the flowers, selects the music and sees each to his or her final resting place.  Starik eulogizes them.  “One of man’s essential qualities is the need for a story,” he explains.  “Our job is to return to people their stories that have somehow been lost along the way.”

People, Frits explains, are, essentially, “story machines…making and remaking their stories.”  Reconnecting those he buries with their stories is an act of respect.  “It’s their time at Heaven’s gate:  someone should put in a good word for them” - a concept deeply rooted in Dutch values, the belief that all are the same in death.   Hence Frank Starik’s poems, respectful words of farewell in which the stories of the deceased are wrapped.

But how?  What stories?

Local officials know to “look for clues,” fragments of personality and personal history.  An example:  a man found dead on a makeshift pallet on the floor of a barren room had a single treasure, a beautiful picture torn from a magazine, suggesting a need for and love of beauty.   Pink Floyd records (presumed favorite music which was played at the funeral)…a neighbor’s observations (“she loved cats” or “He’s lived there for forty years!”)…Chinese food cartons…all grist for Starik’s story mill.

“The need for a story…”  That, it seems to me, applies not only to people but to communities, perhaps especially communities of faith.  In them, and in “the naked city” of the world surrounding them, there are a thousand stories to be told…to be shared…to be cherished...to be acted upon…to restore.

Stories such as those we of UCCLM have been sharing as we move from past to future, from comfort to challenge, from stasis to change.  We as a congregation have scribed a myriad of stories through the years and have evolved and are evolving, in the process – a progression, as I read it, reminiscent of the change wrought by Jesus as he cut a swath through the customs and mores of his day.

Christ kicked off the new program early on, quoting Isaiah (“good news to the poor… release to the captives…recovery of sight to the blind…freedom for the oppressed”) and declaring that “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”   Or, as my daughter Karen² translates it, “Your story has changed, right here, right now.”  Not that this sat well with his neighbors who, in effect, ran him out of town on a rail.

“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on…”³   Which is exactly what Jesus did, moving on to attract disciples, heal, teach, raise hopes and raise the dead…bringing the “today” he proclaimed with him.

About that raising the dead bit…resurrection?  Resuscitation?  Or, simply and powerfully, the proclamation of a new story…a glimpse into the realm of God?

As I read  and re-read the familiar tales – the Magnificat, the paralytic who gets up from his bed and walks, the leper cleansed, the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the words of the angel at Jesus’ tomb, I encounter that new story, that promise of something beyond, something more, time and time again.  They challenge me even as I draw hope from them.  As, I believe, they challenge and sustain us as a community of faith.

Time and again Jesus was moved first to compassion – intense, gut-wrenching compassion – then to action.  As should we be.

Time and time again Jesus butted heads with the status quo.  As should we.

Time and time again Jesus reunited people with their stories.  As do Ger Frits and Frank Starick.  As should we.

The question is how.  Outside our doors the answer is time-honored – you know, that thing about food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty and welcome for the stranger.  Inside brings interesting new possibilities as new people and new stories become part of UCCLM’s fabric, part of our story.  What can we offer in terms of “food,” “drink” and welcome, especially at this time when attendance at mainline churches is at a depressing low.  How do we reunite those who have wandered away with their faith stories, how unite those who have never had one?  In first service yesterday (10/9/11), when the discussion turned to reconciliation, Josepha pondered the impact of “going where they are,” showing the church’s support for – and openness to – the concerns and contributions of others.  Sharing dreams, works and ways - what a great to way to say “welcome,” to build a future.

As Senior Editor of Connecting Voices magazine, I offer guidelines to writers – “tricks of the trade” to bring stories to life.  A couple of them would, I believe, work well for churches – 1) “attention-grabbing ‘hooks’ – enticing programs to make potential members curious and wanting to know more and 2) palpable enthusiasm – daring to celebrate the crossing of new thresholds.  In other words, “doing together what we cannot do alone” – building the church and the future.

Celebrating the Blessed Metaphor

Bigger than life - or legend, Neptune, the Roman god of the seas, dominated the suburban living room with his fierce eyes and (rumor has it) actor Brent Spiner’s¹ menacing voice.  Commanding his image be left on the wall, he mesmerized the youthful man of the house into compliance.  Armed only with a roller and a can of Glidden, the man’s wife soon put an end to that, vanquishing old Nep with the latest in one-coat-covers-all paint.

Would that it were that easy to eradicate from our tribal consciousness the jealous, judgmental, interfering God of the Old Testament scribes or, for that matter, the ones we – or our parents or pastors – create in humanity’s image.  Would, too, it were easy to “fine-tune” our understanding of God; to recognize how God, newly envisaged, works in and with us; to, ultimately, find and celebrate the God at the very center of our lives.

Though, perhaps, were it simple, we’d miss the challenge, the excitement of discovery; might never explore what could be, might settle for pap and never taste nectar.

What of that OT God?

Richard Dawkins, in Dwindling in Unbelief:  An Unbeliever’s Thoughts about the Bible, Quran, and Book of Mormon, offers this:

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

Well, o-kay… at least as Yahweh was all too often portrayed.  Those early scribes, it would seem, slanted their stories to confirm the people of Israel as God’s Chosen, excuse enough apparently for their deity to take sides, meddle capriciously, make and break promises and kill off innocents by the score - even animals, as in “He gave over their cattle to the hail, their livestock to bolts of lightning“(Psalm 78:48). 

And thus they shaped humanity’s view of God.  Not a pretty picture, it shortchanges both the “compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness” writers from Exodus to Joel, Deuteronomy to Psalms occasionally glimpsed and, sadly, the God revealed through Jesus.

So there you have it:  wrathful God; loving God, wrathful and loving God (with the wrath rationalized as evidence of love); fiction or truth.  “You pays your money and takes your chances.”  Or you take another look.

The Bible presents God in a variety of guises… three men walking and talking with Abraham, an angel wrestling with Jacob on the bank of the Nabbok, a burning bush, a pillar of fire or clouds, silence or thunder, the gentle Jesus.

God in many persons, blessed metaphor.

So how do you envision God?  A bearded old bolt-thrower on a throne?

Father?  Mother?  Spirit?  Maybe as light?  The Quakers make a good case for that one, seeing the light of God in every person.  As a force…of nature or life, perhaps?   As a creative force?

As creativity itself?  As any of a myriad of other possibilities?  (a mere drop in the bucket if you add in those from other religious traditions!)

And does it matter?  Or, as I was once counseled about my unorthodox prayer life, is it a matter of “if it works for you, it’s good?”

Upon reflection, I’d amend that to read, “if it means you are receptive to God working in you, it’s good.”

A prayer I recently read – “God, bless each one of us with a sense of responsibility for the part we play in your drama and the comforting knowledge that the show’s success does not depend on us.  Amen” – provides food for thought.   The author, Rev. Lillian Daniel², had been reflecting on The Message version of Mark 1: 4-8:

“As [John the Baptist] preached he said, “The real action comes next:  The star in this drama, to whom I’m a mere stagehand, will change your life.  I’m baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life.  His baptism – a holy baptism by the Holy Spirit – will change you from the inside out.”

“…will change you from the inside out.”    Speaking of challenges!  For God as well as for us.  If God is, indeed, within us – as, perhaps, that creative force, AND has given us, as I believe, free choice…oh, wow!  Picture it.  God puts forth a good idea, a subtle suggestion, a marvelous possibility.  We opt out, choose a different path.  God sticks around to try again…and again…and again. 

Careful…that way lies process theology.

Process theology…another stepping-stone on my road to faith? 

I could almost hope not, finding the primer material more stumbling block than springboard.     The trouble is, I have tangible experience of God’s creative work in my life.   I know where the God-inspired paths I’ve chosen to follow have led.  One can’t simply bookmark that page to return to at some later date, can’t deny that call from the God within.  Oh, one can ignore it…but God doesn’t go away.

Recently I found an “in a nutshell” definition that helped.  In a discussion of Religion and Faith at www.wondercafe.ca, a blogger described Process Theology:

“It holds a few key principles: the basic building blocks of the universe are not discrete entities, but unfolding processes that interact through time. God is present in the unfolding of these processes at the most basic level.  God sees the enormity of the past and the potential of the future, and calls each element of creation toward the best possible future.”

I’m one of those elements God is calling toward the best possible future, as are you and you and you.  As is everyone, yes, EVERYONE.  Gives new meaning to being God’s chosen people, doesn’t it.

Don’t know where it’s heading…

Should be a great trip, though, one to last through the years - like that party Kool & the Gang sang about.

It’s a celebration!

__________

¹Data in StarTrek:  The Next Generation

²Senior Minister, First Congregational Church, UCC, Glen Ellyn, IL

What’s it all about, Alfie?

Talk about breaking all the rules!  In Luke 10:38-42 Mary and Martha give Jesus a run for his money – and, remember, he had lots of experience at it, consorting as he did with the untouchables of his day.  Think about it!  He conversed with women in public, “violated” the Sabbath by healing folks and (horrors!) even allowed his disciples to pick grain on it.  Perhaps most revealing was the time he shocked Peter with that famous discourse on “clean” and “unclean” food. Fulfilling the law, his stated purpose for being (Matthew 5:17), had, it seems, little to do with keeping things the way they had always been.

All of which casts an interesting light on the story of Mary and Martha.  With a houseful of visitors, all needing their feet washed and their bellies filled, Mary plopped herself down at Jesus’ feet, not to wash them but to learn – hardly a woman’s place in the culture of the day.  It was as though she’d said, “the laws of hospitality be damned.”  Martha, on the other hand, was stuck in the kitchen, preparing a meal for Jesus and his followers—a mere 73 people.  She was playing by the rules (well, up to a point).  Being far from a happy camper, she had the audacity to complain, to interrupt the rabbinical discussion to demand her sister be ordered to help.  (Editorial aside:  any self-respecting 21^st Century Martha would probably tell the men to get up off their butts and stir a few pots.)  In response to Martha, Jesus DID stir one, telling her to chill.  “Martha, Martha,” he chided, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.  Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Something’s not exactly Kosher here.  In the words of a hit 1966 song, “What’s it all about when you sort it out, Alfie?”

There was an urgency to Jesus’ words, perhaps reflecting a growing impatience with the way his followers so often missed the point of them. Is there a clue here – in his words and the urgency underlying them?

Our Tuesday night Bible study group examined several.  It was noted first, with interest, that this story followed that of the Good Samaritan.  Martha, it was posited, was, like the Levite and the priest, pietistic; Mary, spiritual.  Martha exemplified, as Ken Notltie said in his sermon, “The Kitchen Table,” the following Sunday,   “action, good works and helping others;” Mary, “contemplation, prayer and devotion.” In other words, the ages-old poser of faith vs. works.

This, in turn, brought up the subject of balance, a topic ably addressed in Stephanie Frey’s article, “Living with Martha” in the July 13, 2004 issue of The Christian Century.  Referencing Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of the Bible, The Message, in which “what is better” is rendered as “the main course,” she conjectures that “Thinking of God’s word as the ‘main course’ in the feast of life…doesn’t give that immediate sense that listening is better than doing.  Rather, it places these activities in balance.”  Jesus’ message, she further points out, commands us “both to sit and listen, and to go and do.”  Summarizing the discussion, she says, “Living this side of Easter, we know what Mary and Martha could not know:  that hearing and doing are finally in the realm not of law, but of gospel – because the host of the banquet has himself become the main course.” 

This essential balance was emphasized neatly in

Felix Carrion’s recent Stillspeaking Devotional, “Don’t Just Do Something.”    The “sit there” that followed ended with a prayer, “O God, grant us the wisdom to know when we are to ‘do something’ and when we are to ‘sit still.”  Either way, you are at work in and through us.  Amen.”

Jane Carol Redmont, in “The Martha-Mary Double-Bind,” shares her ambivalence about the Lukan text.  “Every time I read or hear the story, I think: ‘This is a bad re

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