On Unity

How good and pleasant it is
when brothers live together in unity!
It is like precious oil poured on the head,
running down on the beard,
running down on Aaron's beard,
down upon the collar of his robes.
It is as if the dew of Hermon
were falling on Mount Zion.
For there the LORD bestows his blessing,
even life forevermore. (Psalm 133 , NIV)

Psalm 133 describes what life can be like when we delight in our relationships with each other. It’s a blessing I hope that we as a General Assembly and as a denomination can enjoy. If so, we’ve got some work to do. At this point, there seem to be three ways that we view some of our fellow PC(USA)-ers.

RESENTMENT: Some of us are like one of my colleagues, with whom I shared a conversation after a rather contentious presbytery meeting. Referring to another of our colleagues, he said that he wanted nothing to do with her. When I reminded him that God established a covenant relationship between us, he replied, “But I don’t want to be in a covenant with her!” Some of us may share that sentiment, even if we don’t express it so boldly.
TOLERANCE: Others of us may look to some groups in our denomination and consider them to be a presence to be tolerated or endured in our fellowship. We’re willing to put up with them, kind of like the way you put up with an annoying rattle in your car that would cost too much to fix.
ACCEPTANCE: Still others may consider ourselves to be enlightened enough to urge “acceptance” of people with different points of view or goals. We don’t understand what makes them tick, but apparently they’re God’s children, too. So we’ll make room for them.

Psalm 133 goes way beyond resentment, tolerance, and even acceptance. The psalmist describes the sense of blessing, nourishment, and richness of lives united by God’s action. It speaks of an enjoyment, and excitement, and a deep desire to be together. Our differences don’t matter nearly as much as the fact that, through the reconciling work of Christ, we belong together. Rather than resent, tolerate, or accept the covenant relationship we have with each other through God’s call, it’s time for us to celebrate it. Yes, even our unity with people who are very different from us, with whom we’d have no relationship at all if we had it our way. God, in his infinite, compassionate wisdom, has seen fit to bring us together. And he did it for a good reason. We haven’t even started to scratch the surface of the possibilities that come from our God-created relationships with each other. Hopefully the San Jose GA will be a place for us to start.

On Post-Modern Graduations

Lots of people complain these days about the negative influence of “postmodernism:” the concept that there is no objective truth, or even objective reality. Everyone forms their own understanding of the world, and there’s no universal standard to which we must conform our perspectives of the world. This common version of postmodernism, by the way, resembles but is very different from what I’ve examined in my philosophical and literary studies in my PhD program.

In the past month I’ve had the joy of being at two family graduation ceremonies: my stepdaughter’s university commencement and my stepson’s high school ceremony. In both ceremonies, I heard the same exhortation to the graduates that seems to be standard fare at all such ceremonies. It typically sounds something like this: “Hold on to what you know to be true and don’t let anyone tell you that you’re wrong.” Isn’t that, in a nutshell, the sort of postmodernist thinking that many people get so worked up about? I doubt this is what most commencement speakers have in mind, but the message seems to be “This institution has spent years helping you gain knowledge and understanding. Now you can forget all that; do and believe whatever seems good to you.”

I’m uncomfortable with applying the label “postmodern” to this mindset, because it doesn’t do justice to a nuanced philosophical approach. A better term is “moral autonomy.” Or as Burger King puts it, everyone wants to have it their way. We want to decide for ourselves what is right and wrong, good and bad. And we resist anyone’s attempt to correct us or to tell us that maybe we’ve got it wrong. Commencement speakers don’t need to encourage this value, because it’s embedded deep within the human psyche. We’ve had it ever since Adam and Eve wanted to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil: they wanted to decide for themselves what’s right and wrong. And if you’ve ever been around toddlers for very long, you know that it’s not an urge that anyone has to teach you. We all resist efforts to correct or modify our personal agendas.

While there are certainly profound theological differences between Christians and Muslims, here’s at least one thing we agree on. “Islam” literally means “submission:” submitting oneself to God’s will. Scripture passages such as Mark 8:34-38 (“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves…) and Philippians 2:3-11 (“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…”) direct us Christians toward a similar submission of our will to God’s will.

My prayer is that we will not heed the common advice of graduation ceremonies to stick to our convictions, no matter what anyone says to us. Instead, I hope that we will renounce the original sin of moral autonomy that we inherited from Adam and Eve. May we set aside our ideas of “right and wrong,” and submit our hearts and minds to the direction of the Holy Spirit. Even if we don’t like where the Lord leads us, may we follow.

On Cross-Cultural Mission at Home, Part Two

I’m grateful for the many positive comments I received from my previous message about cross-cultural mission at home. So with your indulgence, I’d like to provide a second installment.

Last night I led the pre-game team devotions for the Pittsburgh Passion, a women’s full contact football team. They ended up extending their unbeaten streak to twenty games by dismantling the team from Columbus, 54-6. This is Pittsburgh, after all. Sure, Detroit can take the Stanley Cup away from us, and the Pirates struggle to stay out of the basement of their division. But when it comes to football, we mean business. But who knows? Maybe the players were inspired by my prayer and message with them.

According to the team website, game parking is permitted in a church parking lot beside the stadium. However, my wife and I discovered that this information is out of date. In fact, we were informed of this fact rather sternly by a woman from the church who marched over to our car when we parked. Parking is only for people coming to their church service, we were told. So, with a brief apology, we left.

Now, to this (non-Presbyterian) church’s defense, they are located in a Pittsburgh neighborhood that’s renowned for its lively nightlife. So they’ve probably experienced more than their share of grief at the hands of out-of-control revelers. At the same time, however, I wonder about the effectiveness of their presence in the community, if their response to two strangers pulling into their parking lot, just in time for the Saturday evening service, is to tell them that they’re not welcome. Have they ever considered the opportunities they have for mission, based on the fortune of their location? In addition to the Passion women’s team, Pittsburgh public school football games are played in the same stadium, right next door to their church. Do they do anything to welcome the students and fans before or after the games? Have they thought about how to interact with the people who clog their streets and sidewalks every weekend on their way between the theaters, clubs, bars and restaurants, other than to make sure none of them use their parking lot? Based on what we saw last night, I don’t think so. I wonder how many of our Presbyterian congregations in similar situations do much better.

On Cross-Cultural Mission at Home

I just returned from my first motorcycle funeral. It’s the first time I ever conducted a funeral service in jeans, T-shirt, and boots! Well over a hundred of us gathered at the local VFW to remember and to celebrate the life of a man who was killed on Sunday when a van pulled out in front of the group he was riding with. After the service we rode out to the accident site for a committal service and to erect a memorial cross on the roadside, and then we went back to the VFW hall for a meal. It was obvious that everyone appreciated the fact that, as a biker myself, I could ride with them and share this experience with them. One or two of my church members were part of the event, but many of the people were relatives of members. You know: the people who show up on Christmas and Easter and feel really out of place in the church. Or that renegade daughter or brother that good church-going people worry about. The deceased, in fact, was the son of a World War II generation couple in my church that died several years ago; the only times I met him were at his parents’ funerals. Several strangers came up to me and asked what church I’m from. Hopefully we’ll have a few new guests at worship in the coming weeks. During the meal, someone (the boyfriend of the sister of one of my church’s elders) suggested that we hold a “blessing of the bikes” event in the spring. A few of us talked about it, and it could be an exciting way for our church to connect with a different group in our community. Perhaps one of the good things that can come out of this sad experience is an opportunity for my ministry and my congregation to become relevant to a new segment of our community.

This got me thinking about cross-cultural mission. Fortunately, most of us now realize that “mission” doesn’t have to mean traveling to far-off lands. But for many of us, “cross-cultural” still means “cross-ethnic.” That, of course, is one form of cross-cultural mission. I remember a conversation I had with the pastor of a Presbyterian church in Florida who never even thought of having a Creole Bible study to reach to the growing Haitian community in their neighborhood. But even within an ethnically homogenous community, there are many cultures. As I saw today, even members of the same family can be in different cultures. If we want to participate in Christ’s mission to the world, we need to find ways to break out of our typical patterns. There are a lot of people right at the fringes of our church life who don’t feel comfortable with the typical church culture but are open, and maybe even eager, to expressing and exploring faith. What are we going to do about it?