salvagedfaith

Representation

Posted on May 6, 20161 Comment

In various ways, the question of representation is present in our culture and in our conversations at General Conference this year.

In the midst of a contentious election season, the election of delegates to conventions represent the votes of the people often means a skewing of the actual vote tallies. For example: Mr. Donald Trump has only won 37% of the popular vote, but 45% of the overall delegate count. (http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/despite-complaints-delegate-system-has-given-trump-22-percent-bonus-n553801).

I’m not an expert on party politics. I know the Democrats have super delegates that change the dynamics, and I’m not as familiar with the Republican allocation of delegates. Until Tuesday, many were counting on the delegate process to be a positive factor in the “Never Trump” contingent.

And yet, when we get to November, we will find ourselves again reminded that we are not a true democracy where every person has a vote. We are a representative democracy. We have a system (the Electoral College and our division of Congress) that protects the voices and interests of all by using both proportional (House of Representatives) and equal (Senate) representation.

Is it perfect? Probably not.

Is it equal? Nope.

From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States)

But that’s actually the point.

I’m reminded of the graphic that shows the difference between equality and equity/justice.

So, as we approach General Conference, I’m thinking about how to vote on legislation that proposes changes to our own delegate counts.

In a sense, we have tried to strike the same balance as the “Great Compromise” did in the US Congress. There are a minimum of delegates granted to every conference, no matter how small. The rest are divided proportionately. And that means our system shares the same kind of distribution inequality as the electoral college (according to # of people per delegate).

But that’s the point.

Our equitable system tries to protect the voice of our smaller regions. It tries to prevent the domination of the larger regions in our polity so that we can truly be a global church and hear from our neighbors far and wide. But it also creates room for proportionality so that we aren’t disenfranchising the voices of people either.

Maybe it’s a pretty good compromise.

Posted on May 2, 2016Leave a comment

I serve on the Rules of Order Committee for our Iowa Annual Conference. These rules are basically the organizing and structural principles that guide our shared work and life together – both within our 3-4 day conference sessions and for the rest of the year.

We’ve been working hard to clarify and “clean up” the rules. We had stuck a number of standing reports within our Rules of Order at one point that really didn’t belong. And now, we are working to examine which of the rules help us to live effectively into shared ministry together, and which are hindering us from the work before us. A colleague on the committee shared with lament: “it’s like we didn’t know how to trust each other, so we just wrote all of these rules instead.”

Maybe you are familiar with the feeling. An employee leaves under bad circumstances, so you change the job description before hiring someone new… so that all of the previous person’s faults can be avoided. Or one person oversteps an unwritten boundary and the entire system reacts by making a complex set of rules.

Rules are good. They guide and shape our life together. They provide the foundation or the framework upon which our homes and churches grow and flourish. Done well, they provide just enough support and instruction to enable us to be creative and joyfully share in our work together and then they get out of the way.

And I’m also acutely aware of the ability of rules to protect and defend the innocent, the marginalized, and the powerless. Rules can keep us from running amok and forgetting to look around and see who we have neglected to create space for at the table.

But that comment from my colleague keeps sticking with me. Too often, because of distrust, or instead of doing the hard work of learning how to trust or trying to build trust, we just create new rules. We fill our churches, our institutions, our Discipline, with do’s and don’ts.

As I pour over the nearly 1500 pages of legislation brought to the General Conference, that comment keeps ringing out in the back of my mind.

Is this piece of legislation a symptom of our distrust of one another? Or is it a tool that will help us work together towards God’s future?

Over and over, I ask these questions.

Will this addition or deletion help us be more faithful to the witness of God in our world today as the people called United Methodist? Or are we simply adding or deleting a rule because we aren’t happy with what Mr. Smith said at the last Ad Council meeting?

Does this legislation lift up possibility of God calling us in a new way? Or is it filled with fear that holds us back from living out God’s dream?

I don’t believe our work at General Conference 2016 is to legislate trust. We can’t “whereas” and “therefore” our way out of our disagreements. So I pray for the God of hope to fill our proceedings. I pray for a Spirit of direction that will help us to create a framework for ministry that can reach every corner of this globe. I pray that the Living Word would be heard afresh so that God’s vision for today might be heard a new.

Tears, Comfort, and Old Hymns

Posted on May 1, 2016Leave a comment

This morning, our church choir shared some of the great hymns of the faith with our church in a cantata style celebration of music.

Instead of our traditional Easter cantata, we picked some of our favorite hymns, our fearless leader researched their stories, and we presented a morning of lessons, messages and songs.

And tears were abundant.

There was a moment at some point in the process where I had noticed that we hadn’t picked a lot of “cheery” songs. Typically, our Easter Cantata is full of life and energy and joy and pep. But this wasn’t, after all, an Easter cantata. So I let it go. God knew what was in the works.

Each hymn, each song we shared, celebrated the promises of life after death in their own way. Each was filled with hope, even if they were born out of tragedy. Each was a reminder of the power of music to sustain our faith and keep us going even in the hardest moments along the way.

We didn’t need trumpets and fanfares and complicated melodies or driving beats. We simply sang the faith that has formed us and it filled our souls.

Thanks be to God.

Blessed are the Debonair

Posted on April 24, 2016Leave a comment

This morning, we celebrate God’s good creation.

We celebrate the gift of this world… this earth that has been placed in our care.

And I’m sure you are wondering as you heard the scriptures for today and look at that sermon title… what in the world do these things have to do with creation care?

Well, as I prepared for our time of worship today, I spent some time in the works of Lutheran eco-theologian Joseph Sittler.

Rev. Sittler was born in 1904 and in his work began connecting Christian theology and environmental matters as early as the 1950s. He firmly believed that care for the earth and our environment is one of the central concerns of our faith.

He also loved to explore the ways various biblical translations impacted our understanding of what they mean. Robert Saler points to his fascination with a French translation of the Beatitudes – in particularly Matthew 5:5.

We know the verse today as “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

However, “Sittler noticed that the French would often translate this as ‘blessed are the debonair.’ “ (Saler)

Immediately, you probably have an image in your mind of what it means to be debonair. I know, for me, it was almost the opposite of meek.

Yet, as Sittler explains:

… “debonair” in French, in the time of the French Bible of John Calvin, meant a person who is not an idolater, one who hasn’t gotten hooked up in anything worldly, one who is so sophisticated as to know wealth for what it is and that it isn’t everything…

This is a person who has a kind of centeredness that doesn’t let the idols of this world capture it. It’s a kind of debonair in which you sit lightly on the offerings and temptations of this world because you have a vision of something better…

I think about this in the context of our passage from Acts.

Peter has operated under a world view his entire life that divided the world into good and bad, clean and unclean, impure and pure. He was hooked on an understanding of the world that separated him and those like him from others.

There were some things, and some people, as a part of this creation that were outside his concern. Just as he traditionally wouldn’t have been allowed to enter the house of a Gentile, he couldn’t eat certain foods.

But then he has this vision… a vision that opened up his world as never before.

As the Message translation describes that vision in modern language:

Something like a huge blanket, lowered by ropes at its four corners, came down out of heaven and settled on the ground in front of me. Milling around on the blanket were farm animals, wild animals, reptiles, birds—you name it, it was there. Fascinated, I took it all in.

^7-10“Then I heard a voice: ‘Go to it, Peter—kill and eat.’ I said, ‘Oh, no, Master. I’ve never so much as tasted food that wasn’t kosher.’ The voice spoke again: ‘If God says it’s okay, it’s okay.’

There are two things happening here.

Missionally, God is opening Peter and the disciples’ hearts to the possibility of ministry among the Gentiles. God is helping them come to a more sophisticated understanding of their mission that is no longer limited by the old delineations. The Holy Spirit sends Peter to a non-Jewish family who is converted on the spot.

But important for our conversation today, God is helping Peter to understand that all of creation was made by God and it is all a gift. Just as there is no distinction between clean and unclean people, there is no distinction between clean and unclean animals or birds. God has made it all and to God it all belongs… yet it is also being given to Peter, to the people, to us, as a gift… as an inheritance.

In his reflections on the beatitudes, Rev. Sittler considers those debonair who will inherit the earth:

It doesn’t say they shall own the earth, or control the earth…It says they shall inherit the earth.

…The difference is: what you own, you probably earn, or make. An inheritance is something you don’t own. You don’t deserve it. It’s a surprise. You live in the world with a gentle spirit, because the whole of creation is a kind of outrageous surprise, a gift.

Blessed are they of a gentle spirit, because they live in the world not as ones who strut around as if they own the place… Rather, their first feeling for the world is one of tender wonder, gratitude, and amazement.

And Peter does have that sense of awe. The Message translation in particular captures the drama, the wonder of it all, by saying that Peter was fascinated and took it all in. That gentle debonair spirit took over. He realized that the systems of division between clean and unclean he had lived with his entire life were stripped away.

Every little bit of this world was made by God and belongs to God and we are merely granted temporary guardianship and use. Like Adam and Eve were given creation in Genesis to care for, to steward, to use for their needs, so this world is gifted to Peter and to us.

Rev. Sittler describes a moment when he saw that debonair spirit in action:

I went with some college kids on a trip, a big Saturday afternoon walk through the gigantic Douglas-fir forest in the lower slopes of the Cascades. I watched these sophisticated kids . . . . When they walked into the woods, they became quiet, silent. They would reach out and pat the big trees as they went by. The further we got into the woods, the quieter they became.

Then the phrase came to me, “They inherit the world, because they don’t own it.”

They don’t think of it fundamentally as potential two-by-fours, though it’s all right to use it that way wisely; if you love a thing, then you’re prepared to use it wisely.”

Why should we, as people of faith lift up creation care? Why would someone like Joseph Sittler claim that environmental concerns are one of the central issues of Christianity?

Precisely because it is one of the richest gifts and inheritances that God has given us.

As we state in the Social Principles of the United Methodist Church:

All creation is the Lord’s, and we are responsible for the ways we use and abuse it. Water, air, soil, minerals, energy resources, plants, animal life, and space are to be valued and conserved because they are God’s creation and not solely because they are useful to human beings… we should meet these stewardship duties through acts of loving care and respect. (Book of Discipline, ¶160)

And if we truly love God, if we truly love one another, if we truly love this gift of creation, then our love will lead us to use it wisely.

The greatest commandment, after all, is to love. And that love should fill every relationship and every engagement with the world.

And that love also leads us to periodically check ourselves and ask if we have taken this gift for granted. That love calls us to speak up when we see others abusing our common resources. That love demands that we teach our children and ourselves how to walk gently and carefully among this precious planet.

Blessed are the Debonair… for they shall inherit the earth.

We have been given this world as a gift, and we are to make sure future generations are able to inherit it as well.

References:

Robert Saler – “Eco-Justice Commentary on the Common Lectionary Easter 5”

Jospeh Sittler, “His God Story,” in The Eloquence of Grace: Joseph Sittler and the Preaching Life, ed. Richard Lischer and James Childs, Cascade, 2013, 23-24

Untitled

Posted on April 17, 2016Leave a comment

Later this morning/This morning, I’m sharing these words with our Confirmation Class – 10 remarkable young men and women who have worked hard all year long to arrive at this moment. This sermon is in part for them, but it is also a message for all of us and so I hope you are willing to eavesdrop in and hear as well.

My young brothers and sisters being baptized and confirmed today: Sometimes people think of Confirmation as the day you join the Church. After you are baptized and confirmed, you now belong to church.

Well, you have belonged to Immanuel for a long time. You have attended Sunday School with Eunice and Deb. Wendy and Pat have taken care of you in the nursery. You have had lock-ins here. I bet there are places in this building some of you have been in that I haven’t seen yet. You have belonged to Immanuel for a long time, and Immanuel has belonged to you.

Baptism and Confirmation are really about something even more profound than belonging to church or belonging to Immanuel or even the United Methodist Church. Baptism and confirmation are celebrations, ceremonies, that announce to the world that we belong not just to church; they are announcements that we belong to Christ.

My young sisters and brothers being baptized and confirmed today: You belong to Christ. All of us here who have taken Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord and who have decided to be followers and disciples of Jesus, we belong to Christ. We are Christ’s.

And that means that you now have a new role to play in your everyday lives. It means that your job, every day, for the rest of your life, is to represent Jesus Christ to the world. Your job is to love people like Jesus would have loved them. It is to treat them with the respect Jesus would have shown them.

I think this job is harder to do today than ever before.

Because our world wants to divide us up into groups.

The athletes and the musicans.

The smart kids and the popular kids.

Rich and poor.

White and black and brown.

Republicans and Democrats.

United Methodists and Baptists and Catholics.

And sometimes when you find yourselves in one of those groups, you start to think that your group has it all together and has all the answers. And you stop paying attention to the people in other groups. You stop trying to figure out what they think. You might start to judge them for who they are and what they represent.

But here is the thing that I have learned so far… a lesson that is lifted up in our scripture this morning…

We need one another.

Last week, at the confirmation retreat, we took a survey to help us figure out our spiritual gifts – our place in the Body of Christ.

And we learned that some of us are like stomachs: we are teachers who can digest complicated ideas and explain them simply to others. We learned that some are brains: we are organizers and planners and lead others. We learned that some of us are feet: we are willing to go to the places in this world we are needed to love and serve.

We each have a part to play. We are not the same, but we are each essential to the Body of Christ.

A really big part of growing up and belonging to Christ is letting go of all of the ways the world tries to divide us and looking for the unique role we can play in bringing others together.

Paul encourages us to be worthy of that calling to belong in Christ. We are to be humble and gentle and patient with one another. We are to accept each other with love.

Friends, that is not always easy. We are not always going to agree. Sometimes those worldly divisions of money or power or color or preference sneak into the church, too. Sometimes there are fights in churches because we can’t agree about what to do.

And if we are ever having a hard time with that, then Paul tells us we need to remember that this Body of Christ, all of us, are bound together in unity. There are some things that link us together, like ligaments and tendons that hold this whole church together.

We have to remember that we are one body and one spirit. We have one hope that we share. We claim one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God.

Together, as confirmands, you spent some time figuring out what it is that you believe. The creed that we wrote together lifts up that oneness and unity. It describes what we mean that we are one body, together.

One of our founders, John Wesley, had a saying that he used regularly:

In essentials, unity.

In non-essentials, liberty.

In all things charity.

And that means that we are always united by these things you have said together in your creed. They are what bind us together. In all the other details, we might not agree. We might choose different ways. We might not believe exactly the same thing. And that is okay. We have the freedom – the liberty to do so.

But in absolutely everything, we are supposed to love. Because we belong to Christ.

And so in the future… when you are the Ad Council chairperson or the head of Trustees… when you are teaching the preschool class or volunteering in the kitchen… and you get frustrated with one of these church folks, remember this unity.

Remember what holds us together. Remember the core of who we are: we are human beings, created in the image of God, who mess up sometimes, but who are defined by how we have been forgiven and our forgiveness of others. We belong to Christ.

Thoughts on “UMC: Revisiting Human Sexuality”

Today, I saw an article by Rev. Dr. Steve Harper, the former Vice President and Dean of the Florida Campus of Asbury Theological Seminary called “UMC: Revisiting Human Sexuality.” He writes about a topic that has arisen at every General Conference in my lifetime… and will again in May.

My only experience of this discussion at the GC level was that of entrenchment, pain, and grief. Nobody really listened to one another. Everyone stuck to their talking points. And those who are most closely and personally impacted by our current position – LGBTQ persons (lay and clergy and their allies) – felt like they had no choice but to interrupt proceedings in order to be heard. I wrote about that day as it happened and you can read it, if you want, here.

But he brings up four points to bear in mind in May. He claims the terms of the conversation have changed since 1972; there is new information that needs to be heard:

Scholarly work has shown you can be a “biblical Christian” and hold a non-traditional view of the “clobber passages.”
Scientific research has transformed how we understand human sexuality.
the actual witness of LGBTQ Christians – “There is no doubt that gay Christians are living as faithful disciples and serving effectively as clergy.”
Our myopic view on LGBTQ persons has kept us from the conversation we should be having about human sexuality and ethical behavior in general.

Points one and three are probably the ones that have the most impacted my own position on this topic. I simply do not read six verses of scripture the same way some in our church do. But I firmly believe that we are all doing our best to be faithful to the scriptures. And perhaps my reading is impacted by my experience and relationships with LBGTQ persons… in the same way that our understanding of verses like 1 Timothy 2:12 has been impacted by the experience of women actually teaching (umm… like myself….). I can’t read those passages the same way after knowing the couple with three adopted kids who sat on the church board. Or the pastors who have challenged me with the gospel and provided care and comfort in difficult times. Or the friend who turned his back on a promiscuous life, found Jesus Christ, and is now happily married to the man of his dreams.

I think of all Rev. Dr. Harper’s points, maybe the fourth is the most compelling reason to change the conversation. I think of that friend I just mentioned who wasn’t able to separate his sexuality from his behaviors because he thought the church was rejecting all of it… until finally he heard that God loved him as a gay man and he found the ability to make different choices. Or the dinner conversation I just had at Easter about marriage: if the only criteria we use to define marriage is that it is between one man and one woman, then we lose our ability to speak about abuse, covenants, respect, mutual love, and a whole host of other biblical principals… and in fact, we ignore much of what the bible actually says about marriage (some of which, we happily reject).

I pray fervently that we can all truly hear one another at General Conference this year. I hope that the alternative process for these conversations might bear fruit – if we have the courage to vote for and use them on this topic. Above all, I pray that God would guide us and help us to be faithful, honest, and gentle with one another and show us a path forward as a people.

A Different Kind of Proof

Posted on March 28, 2016Leave a comment

A man named Bob Ebeling thought he was a loser.

Mr. Ebeling was an engineer on the Challenger Space Shuttle and discovered that the O-ring seals in the rocket might not hold up in the cold temperatures of the 1986 launch.

He and fellow engineers pleaded with NASA to stop the launch, but they decided to go ahead anyways.

He went home, knowing the shuttle would explode. “And it did, 73 seconds after liftoff. Seven astronauts died.” (NPR 2/25/2016)

In an interview with National Public Radio, Mr. Ebeling shared that for thirty years has been carrying the guilt and the burden of the loss of life on that day.

Lots of people told him that it wasn’t his fault…

That he had done everything he could…

But he couldn’t forgive himself.

He believed one of the mistakes God made was picking him for the job.

And because NASA and the contractor in charge of the launch had never given him confirmation that he had done the right thing, he didn’t believe it.

What fascinates me about this story is that Mr. Ebeling did the right thing. He told the truth. He did everything he could to prevent the launch. And after his story first aired in January of this year, calls and letters poured in to his home. People who had been close to him. People who had worked with him. Complete strangers who had been moved to write and let him know that he wasn’t a loser, but a hero.

And yet, he wouldn’t believe… he couldn’t forgive himself…

Unless there was a specific act of proof – a call or a letter from NASA themselves.

I hear in his story the same kind of need to know and to find proof that I hear in our gospel lesson this morning.

Women trek to the tomb are the break of dawn. And they have no idea what to make of the stone rolled away. The body of their Lord is no longer there. What they are experiencing doesn’t make any sense until the angels appear and remind them what Jesus had told them: that on the third day, he would rise. And they remember.

Can you imagine their amazement?

They rush back to the disciples and tell everyone about what they have discovered. They tell them about the tomb. They tell the crowd: He Is Risen!!!!

And no one believes them.

They need proof.

They need something more concrete.

They need to see it to believe it.

And so Peter runs to the tomb himself, looks inside, and sees nothing but a cloth.

And the scripture says… he returned home, wondering at what had happened

But what I find amazing is that this account leaves out a key detail: It never says he believes.

And I think if I had showed up there, I would have been surprised and amazed, but I’m not sure I would totally understand what had happened.

I think he was unsure.

Filled with doubt and questions.

He didn’t have enough proof to believe that what the ladies had told him was true.

Unless there was a specific act of proof…

Friends, it isn’t easy to believe the story that we share with you this morning.

Resurrection? Yeah, right.

We haven’t seen it or experienced it.

We can’t go back in time and run to the tomb ourselves.

Angels aren’t popping in to worship this morning to tell us how it is.

If even the disciples had a hard time believing, how are we supposed to understand this good news?

Where is the proof? Where is the concrete evidence?

Mr. Ebling wanted a word from specific people in order to forgive himself.

And he got it. He got a call on the phone from one of the vice presidents for the contractor, Thiokol who told Mr. Ebling – you did all that you could do. (NPR)

And George Hardy, a NASA official involved in the Challenger loss wrote to Mr. Ebeling – “You and your colleagues did everything that was expected of you.”

And it started to make a difference.

And then came a statement from NASA itself: “We honor [the Challenger astronauts] not through bearing the burden of their loss, but by constantly reminding each other to remain vigilant… and to listen to those like Mr. Ebeling who have the courage to speak up so that our astronauts can safely carry out their missions.”

That was it. That was the thing he wanted to see and hear. The proof he needed to let go of his burden of guilt.

The disciples wanted to see it with their own eyes… to touch their Rabbi with their own fingers.

And Jesus appeared to them.

He showed them his hands and feet. He ate a piece of fish with them. He personally reminded them of everything he had said – that he was supposed to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.

They got the proof they wanted.

But there is something that those disciples didn’t quite understand…

something that Mr. Ebeling didn’t quite understand…

something that we don’t quite understand whenever we are looking for a specific piece of proof or evidence… something concrete to demonstrate truth.

Yes, Jesus gives them the proof they wanted – he shows them his physical resurrected self – but the proof they needed was still to come.

Jesus isn’t there to show them his body. He is there to send them forth to live out his message.

“A change of heart and life for the forgiveness of sins must be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. Look, I’m sending you to what my Father promised.”

What if we have it all wrong?

We always say, “seeing is believing.”

But what if DOING is believing?

What if in the very act of living out the resurrection and the good news of Jesus Christ we find the proof we are looking for?

What if we are looking for proof instead of living out the proof with our very selves?

You see, Jesus, didn’t ask us to intellectually understand the resurrection.

He didn’t ask us to be able to explain it scientifically.

He doesn’t want us to have a philosophical debate with people about it.

Jesus wants us to live it.

To change our hearts and our lives.

To go out in the world and turn it upside down.

He started a resurrection insurrection and Jesus rebelled against the powers of evil, sin and death… and now he calls us to follow him in turning the forces of destruction on their heads.

It is in the process of living it, that we discover just how true and real the power of the resurrection is.

Over the last few weeks here at church we have been reading this book, Renegade Gospel. And it hasn’t been an easy book. The author has challenged us time and time again to get out there and live our faith!!!

That has been a hard message to swallow, because so many of us feel like we aren’t doing as much as Mike Slaughter asks of us. We feel guilty because we don’t go as far as he asks us to go. We aren’t sure we are ready to give it our all.

But what Slaughter reminds us in the very last chapter is “that an abundance of faith is not necessary.” Jesus told the disciples that faith as small as a mustard seed could change the world. “It’s not about how much faith you have, but how much of what you have that you commit to action.”

You don’t have to believe every single word of the gospel to live out the power of resurrection.

You can have all kinds of doubts and questions and you can still live out the power of the resurrection.

I’m begging you… don’t sit back, waiting for definitive concrete proof before you decide to become a Christian.

I’m not sure it’s there.

But what I do know is that when I live out my teeny tiny little mustard seed faith and trust in the power of resurrection, I find intangible, mysterious, holy truth everywhere.

I find it in this room when I hear the stories of healing in this life and in the celebration of a life that will continue in the next.

I find in in a letter I received from one of you this very morning that describes how you have awakened to a new understanding of faith and discipleship.

I find it at the food pantry in the hope that comes to life on the face of a mom who was desperate.

I find it in the pile of goods and sleeping bags and food that are outside the sanctuary, waiting to be delivered to homeless people through Joppa.

I find it in the discovery on a child’s face when they learn a new word.

Mike Slaughter writes that “the resurrected Jesus revealed himself to his followers in a very personal and real way. But he made clear its impossible to know him apart from the commitment to become intimately involved in his life and mission. Intentional participation in his life and mission is part and parcel of faith. Faith is a verb!!!”

So friends, don’t wait for proof.

Don’t spend thirty years of your life waiting for some kind of external validation.

Just follow Jesus.

Go where he sends us.

Join the incredible movement to transform this world!

Live it out by showing forgiveness and grace to every person you meet.

Live it out by praying for the sick.

Live it out by loving the unloveable.

Live it out by holding the hand of someone who is dying.

And you will find the proof you are looking for…

Because Christ is risen!

Love, apologies, and prayer breakfasts

Posted on March 25, 2016Leave a comment

I sat in a room filled with hundreds of Christians and felt a little bit like an outsider.

This was the second year I’ve attended the Iowa Prayer Breakfast… held every Maundy Thursday in Des Moines. It includes prayers for our state and leaders, music, and a keynote message. On the site, it clearly states that “people from all walks of life come to enjoy this Maundy Thursday celebration.”

I am so grateful for the opportunity to go and be in prayer with so many faithful people and for those who have invited me. And that is because my hope and prayer for this kind of public gathering of people of faith is that the above statement is lived out: that the tent is big enough for all walks of life and all corners of the Christian family to find a place in that room. After all, ALL of our prayers are needed during these difficult times.

Yet, that wasn’t entirely my experience.

I found myself constantly wanting to interject with a “yes, but…” or “what about…” or “that’s not exactly right…”

The lineup of past speakers for this event has been full of Christian apologists and I found myself wanting to apologize for the public theology I was encountering. I looked out on the 1,000+ people in attendance and feared that some might think this was the full scope of Christianity. And while it wasn’t appropriate to stand and lift up counterpoints in the moment, I do have this platform to lift up a different voice.

During the event, more than one speaker lifted up the religious persecution of Christians and Jews. Our governor said, “The lives, the safety, the well-being of Christians and Jews especially in the Middle East is certainly threatened.” Yet, Religious persecution is not limited to these two faiths. In the wake of the attacks in Brussels, I mourn for the loss of life there, and know that Yazidis, Turkmen, and Shia Muslims are daily under attack from ISIS in their homes as well. I inhabit a Christian faith that also weeps with Sikh and Muslim and Buddhist and unbelieving brothers and sisters around the world who fear for their lives because of this kind of persecution.

As Branstad turned his gaze to threats to our religious freedom in the United States, I lift up the words of George Washington in his letter to the Hebrew Congregation:

…happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it [toleration] on all occasions their effectual support… May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants – while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.

The Christian faith does not ask us to abandon our love, care, and concern for brothers and sisters of other faiths. Rather than being “under attack,” I am free to practice my faith every single day without fear and yet I know that Muslim brothers and sisters right here in Des Moines sometimes have to be careful about how they do so. As such, I was moved to tears as Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of Muslim refugees on Maundy Thursday. As a fellow clergywoman, Janie McElwee Smith, wrote:

The truth is this: no matter what else we do, say, or stand for, if we do not follow Christ’s commandment to love all of God’s children as Jesus has loved us, then we have not just missed the point. Nothing else we do will matter ?

What if this Iowa Prayer Breakfast, held on Maundy Thursday, was an extension of the command Jesus gives on this day: to love.

What if we lifted up in our prayers of lament and confession the realities of racism, homelessness, addiction, hunger, and poverty in our state. What if instead of simply naming the evils and wickedness of our nation (and subtly placing the blame on the sinful people out there), we actually turned that same introspection to our own hearts – to the intolerance, the greed, the fears we perpetuate in spite of our proclaimed trust in the Lord. In a room filled with elected leaders, what if together, we repented of our failure to love the last, the least, and the lost. After all, Maundy Thursday reminds us that in spite of the disciples’ failings, fears, and betrayal, Jesus loved them and washed their feet and continued to trust them with the message and mission of the Kingdom of God. This day, above all days, it is appropriate to find ourselves in that crowd of those who turned their backs and to admit our sins. What if the message we heard on this morning was a challenge to a room full of influential leaders to repent and live more faithfully as disciples of Christ in the world?

I am exceptionally curious if this event is as politically partisan as it appeared this time, every year. It felt more like the faith was promoting the elected leadership, rather than the leadership together with the public seeking God’s direction and blessing. If this, truly, was a space where all Christians could pray for Iowa, in spite of our political leanings, then I think there would be much greater room for confession, lament, thanksgiving, and prayers for vision and unity. I think whenever we surround ourselves with a particular perspective, we have a hard time seeing ourselves clearly. Our current republican administration was represented through those elected officials in attendance and I can imagine those who are tasked with organizing the event are careful not to ruffle feathers. I wonder if it felt tilted in the opposite direction during democratic administrations. Or does this gathering represent a more particular lens of Christian tradition? My imagination and hope for this event is that the walls dividing us politically might be leveled as we share a meal with those with which we might not agree. After all, we share a common love for Jesus and this world and that love crosses all boundaries.

Two final words:

download 1) Our speaker, Dr. Alveda King, did hearken back to the original languages in interpreting Romans 13, but then lifted up a cry against using X-mas instead of Christmas… with great applause from the crowd. Note: the X used in this expression is a Christogram, in this case the letter “Chi” and the first letter of Christ in the Greek language, often used alone to represent Christ. It can also be seen in the chi-rho, where the two Greek letters are combined to represent the person of Christ.

2) I have only attended for two years, but I have yet to see a clergywoman speak from the platform and three pastors spoke/prayed each year. I’d be happy to hear it has been otherwise in the past. Also, only four of the speakers listed since 1977 were women, including this year’s keynote. Both years, thankfully, scripture has been shared by a laywoman. One way to intentionally show that “people from all walks of life” are welcome is to include people from all walks of life as speakers.