This past weekend, The Emerging Church of Springfield, MO. hosted a conference on the Future of Progressive Christianity at which Bishop John Shelby Spong spoke, as only Jack can, on the history of Christianity’s “wrongful diagnosis of what it means to be human” and pointed to a new vision for Christianity’s future. Many thanks to Dr. Roger Ray and the good people of the Community Christian Church for organizing and sharing this conference!!!
Looking over the readings for this coming Sunday and the subject of faith jumps out from the Hebrews reading (Hebrews 11:1-16) which begs questions about doubt. I recently read and blogged about Richard Holloway’s “Faith and Doubt” and Lesley Hazleton’s insistence that “Doubt is Essential to Faith” and both posts provide an interesting jumping off point. This little video of Richard Holloway on “Why doubt is a good thing” drives my thoughts toward preaching on doubt as the foundation of faith???
I am indebted to Bishop John Shelby Spong for his insights into the Book of the Prophet Hosea. Without Jack’s thoughtful portrayal of Gomer, I would not have recognized her as the Leanne Battersby of her time. Also, thanks to Marcus Borg for his definition of the verb “believe”!
Listen to the sermon:
For those unfamiliar with Corrie, here’s a sample of the first 50 years:
Here’s a sermon I preached a few years ago on this Sunday’s reading from the Book of the Prophet Hosea. Just as the people of Israel’s images of God changed over time, my own images of the Divine have changed since I preached this sermon. However, I still resonate with ways in which the Book of Hosea seeks to broaden the reader’s understanding of God away from traditional notions of anger and wrath toward images of steadfast love, for I too have had to broaden my own understanding of the Divine many times over the years. I suspect that I am only just beginning to imagine the contours of the steadfast Love that God Is.
Tommy was one of those kids that, no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t stay out of trouble. I was never quite sure whether or not Tommy was rotten or whether trouble just followed him wherever he went. Whatever the reason, Tommy managed to live up to the reputation of the typical middle child. His older brother seemed to be perfect in every way, the model child and his younger sister was the cute and adorable baby of the family, leaving the field wide open for Tommy to become the black sheep of the family. And as black sheep go, Tommy was a doosey. Tommy was also the son of my friends and so even though, I would have rather not have been part of this kid’s life, the fact that he was the Karen’s beloved son, meant that I had to learn to deal with him.
I can still remember an afternoon, long ago, when Tommy was barely three years old. A bunch of us had gathered to celebrate Karen’s birthday. Tommy was in a foul mood. I decided that he just didn’t like the fact that on this particular day he wasn’t the center of attention. He seemed to do whatever he could to upset his mother.
Her patience with him was beginning to get on my nerves and I was relieved when Karen announced that it was time for Tommy to take his nap. After a very long and loud temper tantrum, Tommy was eventually quiet in his room; a little too quiet, it seems. It wasn’t until I got into my car to leave and happened to glance up toward Tommy’s bedroom window that I realized just why he had been so quiet. Hanging outside of Tommy’s bedroom window was the evidence of this little boy’s stubborn streak. Somehow, to this day I still don’t know how he managed to do it, but somehow little Tommy had managed to stuff the mattress from his bed out the window.
On the lawn below the window were Tommy’s pillows, sheets, stuffed animals and quilt. Three quarters of the mattress hung below the window and I am sure that given enough time Tommy would have managed to push the remainder of his bed out onto the front lawn. I dashed back into the house, grabbed Karen and headed up to his room. When we got there we discovered dear sweet little Tommy, shaking the contents of a big container of baby powder all over his room. Tommy’s himself was covered in talcum and when he caught sight of his mother and I he gave us a wicked little grin and said, “I don’t need to take any more naps!”
Driving home that day, I gave Tommy a nickname. It’s a name that I have never uttered in his mother’s presence, but a name that has stuck with me. On that day, the dear sweet little son of one of my dearest friends was forever labeled, Tommy the Terrible; TT for short.
Now the exploits of a cute three-year-old are one thing, and we can all laugh at the site of a mischievous little boy, who manages to out fox his mother. But TT’s activities went far beyond the laughable exploits of a mischievous little boy. It didn’t take Tommy very long to become skilled in the art of tormenting adults. His mischievous behavior gave way to rudeness, disobedience, cheating, and more often than not down right meanness. Of all the adults who were subjected to the torments that Tommy dished out, none suffered more than his mother did. No matter how hard she tried, Karen could never get Tommy to behave himself. Nor was Karen ever able to understand why Tommy did the things he did. Tommy had everything a boy could ever want or need. He had two parents who loved him dearly. He had a wonderful older brother and a delightful little sister. He lived in a beautiful house by the ocean. He attended the best school in the area. He had more toys than he could ever find the time to play with. There were lots of great kids living in the neighborhood to play with and all sorts of interesting and interested adults in his life. Tommy was a bright and intelligent kid who had everything going for him. There was no earthly reason that this child should behave so badly. Karen has never been able to explain why she has two perfectly wonderful children and one child who has been breaking her heart since he was old enough to speak. Continue reading
Regular visitors to this blog will not be surprised to read that Richard Holloway has become one of my favourite theologians. I have blogged about his writings several times. In this video Holloway moves beyond spiritual autobiography and into the realm of evolutionary theology to explore the big questions about what it means to be human.
As they did last Sunday, this Sunday’s readings include a section from the Book of the Prophet Hosea. To say that this is a strange little book is an understatement. However, I’m tempted try my hand at writing a sermon on this ancient soap opera. For those colleagues who are considering doing the same these short videos provide images to get you in the mood. Of course you could just tune into a modern soap opera to get your creative juices flowing.
Today the church celebrates the feast day of Martha and Mary. Two disciples whom Jesus loved, who went on to become Apostles. On this day, I am mindful of the plight of women in the church. I present this lecture by Catherine Keller, a brilliant theologian, as my way of celebrating the role of women in theology. Keller’s work in process theology has enlightened my own theology in ways that continue to challenge my own way of approaching Mystery and I highly recommend “On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process.
On the Drew Theological School’s website Catherine Keller is described as: “Professor of Constructive Theology at the Theological School of Drew University. In her teaching, lecturing and writing, she develops the relational potential of a theology of becoming. Her books reconfigure ancient symbols of divinity for the sake of a planetary conviviality—a life together, across vast webs of difference. Thriving in the interplay of ecological and gender politics, of process cosmology, poststructuralist philosophy and religious pluralism, her work is both deconstructive and constructive in strategy. She is currently finishing Cloud of the Impossible: Theological Entanglements, which explores the relation of mystical unknowing, material indeterminacy and ontological interdependence.”
As I continue to work on this Sunday’s sermon, (see earlier posts here and here) Jesus’ teaching on prayer in the gospel text Luke 11:1-13 begs the question: “To Whom Shall We Go?” Liberated from perceptions that reduce images of God to those of a cosmic superhero who abides up or out there ready to manipulate events here in the world at the request of those who pray, the activity of prayer takes on a whole new meaning and shape. Our images of who, where and what God is will direct our prayers in ways that impact our expectations of prayer. Who do we pray to and what we expect of the One who hears our prayers will shape how and why we pray.
Before we can even begin to understand what so much of the Christian tradition means when it talks about praying to God, we need to take a step back and look at what we mean when we say the word “god.” Throughout the Jewish and Christian traditions you can trace two very distinct ways of understanding and talking about God. Continue reading
This Sunday’s gospel text (Luke11:1-13) will no doubt send preachers scurrying to review what we might say with regard to prayer. In this splendid little video Laurence Freeman reviews Jesus’ teaching and points to prayer as Jesus’ focus. Well worth watching before you begin to write or indeed listen to Sunday’s sermon.
Dom Laurence Freeman OSB is a monk of the Olivetan Benedictine Congregation of Monte Oliveto Maggiore and Director of The World Community for Christian Meditation. Fr Laurence was born in England in 1951 where he was educated by the Benedictines and studied English Literature at Oxford University.
Before entering monastic life he had experience with the United Nations, banking and journalism. In the monastery his spiritual teacher was John Main with whom he studied and whom he helped in the establishment of the first Christian Meditation Centre in London.
Morning Prayer Liturgy from Casa del Sol, Ghost Ranch. Led by John Philip Newell, Ali Newell, David E. Poole, Winona Poole. Chants from “Chanting For Peace, Praying with the Earth”
In this coming Sunday’s gospel reading Luke 11:1-13, Jesus’ disciples ask him to teach them to pray. As a pastor I have been asked to teach people to pray. Each time I have been asked to teach someone to pray I have cringed inside because I do not feel up to the task. For some reason the old hymn “I Come to the Garden Alone” keeps playing in my mind. I keep telling it to, “Shush!” so that I might hear the “bath qol” but the daughter of a sound eludes me. Below is a portion of a sermon I preached a couple of years ago on the subject of prayer. If nothing else, it reminds me to shush!
I began this sermon by asking the congregation to sing from memory the old hymn: I Come to the Garden Along. Feel free to sing it to yourself!
I think my earliest memory of prayer is a distant memory I have of skipping along the sidewalk chanting a familiar refrain: “Don’t step on a crack or you’ll break your mother’s back.” Most of us can remember a moment from our childhood when a superstition was instilled in us that caused us to perform some ritual in order to placate the unseen power that could determine our fate. Whether it was avoiding cracks, or walking under ladders or black cats, we were trained from an early age to believe that there were powers out there that could determine our future. Continue reading
Scripture Readings: Genesis 18:1-15 and Luke 10:38-42
Worship Bulletin pdf here (to be printed double-sided and folded into a booklet)
Listen to the sermon here
This week I have been preparing to preach on the story in the Gospel According to Luke about Jesus’ encounter with Martha and Mary and I’ve been exploring the tradition of the contemplative life as well as the modern fascination with the many types of meditation. So much of the popular offerings that seek to define meditation seem to cater to our culture’s desire to consume what we like from a particular discipline while failing to appreciate the discipline part of that which we seek. In the course of my research I came across this splendid little video in which Laurence Freeman offerers, from a Christian perspective, his introduction to meditation.
While on sabbatical last summer, I took on the daunting task of reading Teilhard de Chardin. (sabbatical post on Chardin) I did so because so many of the progressive Christian scholars that I admire and have learned so much from, site Teilhard de Chardin and I thought that it was long past time for me to become familiar with these important primary texts. Well my ambition far outweighed my capacity for understanding and I found myself weighed down in Chardin’s seminal work The Phenomenon of Man. I was hopelessly lost until I discovered the work of the renowned Teilhard de Chardin scholar Ursula King. (King pointed me in the direction of a superior translation of Chardin’s work by Sarah Appleton-Weber: The Human Phenomenon).
In this video, Ursula King explores the impact of the discovery of evolution has and is having on religion, society and consciousness. As an expert on de Chardin, King brings a unique perspective to the emergence of synergies between various ways of knowing. (the interview by Krista Trippett mentioned in the video can be found here)
Pentecost 8C – Sunday July 14 2013
Listen to the sermon here
T’is a glorious summer weekend and so it is a perfect time to get yourself an ice cold glass of your favourite beverage, find some shade and sit back and listen to the wisdom of one of my favourite humanoids John 0″Donohue. I have been eating up his writings for the past few months and delighting in his Irish lilting way with words. From Anam Cara, to Beauty, through Eternal Echos and now lingering over Benedictus I have come to love this kindred spirit! Sláinte!
Music opens us to all that lies within ourselves. I have always been fascinated by the powers of music in ritual. Of late I have been exploring the transformative powers of lament; a worship form that has fallen out of use. Alerted by a colleague to the music of Olivier Messiaen, I was immediately both disturbed and intrigued by his brilliant musical exploration of evil. I was relieved to find this video of Scottish theologian Richard Holloway’s thoughts on Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time. Haunting, severe, beautiful, unnerving, and sublime the piece echo’s the horror perpetrated in the camps while shouting what Holloway calls the “nevertheless of faith”.
Preaching ideas for this week’s sermon on Luke 10:25-37
I was just 10 years old when the Gideon Society came into my classroom to present us with small pocket editions of The New Testament and Psalms. I was in grade five when this little book was given to me. Its imitation leather has held up well over the years. After I carefully wrote my name on the presentation page, I tucked it into my school bag. Several weeks later, a thunderstorm knocked out the electricity and I was caught without a book to read, so I dug out this little red book from my school bag. By candlelight, I read the Gospel of Matthew. Over the course of the next two weeks, I read Mark, Luke and John. I stopped reading somewhere in the book of Acts.
Over the course of the next few years, in the privacy of my room, I would return to this little red book and escape into the desert towns where Jesus travelled. In those days I didn’t know what a parable was, but I loved the stories that Jesus told. The stories that Jesus told have a timeless quality to them. The parables that Jesus told defy simple explanations. Each of the parables is layered with meaning. The varied meanings of each parable can take a lifetime to uncover as the stories weave in and out of our own lives. The parable about the Good Samaritan is probably one of the most familiar of all of Jesus’ parables.
I believe that the timeless quality of this story comes as a result of the way in which the reader or the hearer can identify with all of the characters in the story. While most of us would like to see ourselves as good Samaritans, I dare say that over the years each of us have managed to play all of the roles in this story.
Over the years I have often played the role of the lawyer, trying to get Jesus to explain the secrets of life as over and over again I have questioned and questioned what I must do to inherit eternal life. Continue reading
Keynote address to the Joint Assembly of the ELCIC & ACC – Ottawa July 3, 2013
South Indian theologian the Rev. Dr. Christopher Duraisingh challenged the delegates at the Joint Assembly to think of our them “Together for the Love of the World” not as an invitation to “grow bigger and better” and not as a project, but as “a major calling to nurture and nourish an alternative consciousness,” one that would involve, like Jesus, “a solidarity plunge into the anguish, hopes and aspirations of his people.” Jesus’ baptism was “not for the forgiveness of sin…not sin management,” but rather “an identification with the world, with the hopes and aspirations of the poor and the oppressed.”
pastordawn 