culture – Salvaged Faith

Nehemiah: Renewing Our Commitment

Posted on February 5, 2023Leave a comment

Text: Nehemiah 8:5-10; 9:1-3, 38; 10:28-29

Last week, we talked about some of the opposition that the builders and Nehemiah faced while building the wall.

He had to deal with scandal and oppression perpetrated by his own officials…

but he also had to create plans to protect the people from enemies who wanted to attack and destroy their work.

And then suddenly, the work was complete.

It took just fifty-two days to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem.

FIFTY-TWO DAYS!

My drive home takes me down 63rd and they have been working to rebuild the bridges on Highway 28 over the Raccoon River since last summer and are only halfway done.

But these everyday folks rebuilt the walls of the entire city in fifty-two days.

So… what happened next?

Did they throw a party?

No. Nehemiah counts up the people.

He takes a census of all of the Israelites and counts up 42,360 people, an additional 7,337 slaves, 345 singers, 736 horses, 245 mules, 435 camels, and 6,720 donkeys.

And they take up an offering.

You know, like you do.

And then do they throw a party?

Nope.

Because all along this has not been a story about rebuilding a wall.

It has been a story about rebuilding a people.

Rebuilding a community that was centered on God.

As we talked about in the first week of this series, in order to get to the good stuff and address their needs related to belonging and identity, they first had to make sure that they cared for safety and security needs.

But once the walls were built and the gates restored and the officials were brought back in line from oppressive practices… well, the people could breathe.

And they could begin to refocus on their relationship with God.

In fact, rather than Nehemiah initiating the next steps, he writes that the people gathered together and asked the scholar Ezra to bring out the Law of Moses.

Ezra also had a calling… to rebuild the faith of the people, and his story can be found in the first half of the Ezra-Nehemiah saga.

As a priest, he understood that a right relationship with God was the only true source for security for the people.

And he understood that God’s law was the foundation for that “right relationship.”

The people are ready to listen.

So Ezra pulls out the scroll of the Law of Moses.

Many scholars think that this was likely what we know today as the Book of Deuteronomy, or “Second Law.”

And from early in the morning until noon, he reads aloud from the scroll to the people.

But friends… here is just how far away from the faith and their heritage the people were…

Ezra read the words, presumably in Hebrew… but the Levites, the priests, had to translate.

These, after all, were people who had grown up and spent their whole lives in Babylon and Persia.

Or, they were the everyday folks who had been left behind and lived under oppression and they didn’t have priests and schools and institutions in place to continue their traditions.

They were all strangers to their own culture and they didn’t understand their own language

And when they understood what the laws of Moses were asking of them, they wept.

Out of shame.

Out of guilt.

Out of frustration.

This did not feel like a joyful discovery… but rather it only highlighted in their hearts how far away they were from God and who they had been called to be.

At one of our meetings with Global Ministries, we spent some time listening to the stories of Native American United Methodists.

I can’t help but think of how the United States brutally removed indigenous people from their lands, when I think about the time of exile in Babylon for the people of Judah.

And in so many instances, our federal government and the religious partners who helped manage schools, focused on assimilation and removal of native culture, rather than allowing their traditions to flourish.

The same happened to Africans who were captured, sent halfway across the world, and forced into slavery.

As the General Board of Global Ministry, we watched together, “More than a Word,” which explores the use of Native American mascots.

What struck me among the stories were the voices of younger people who grew up either on reservations or even in more traditional white culture, but who were rediscovering their cultural identity.

Their identity had been forgotten. Or even worse, it had been described to them as shameful, something that had to be destroyed.

And it was hard for some to find a safe space to explore what that identity and history meant in their lives.

So part of their weeping was about a loss of that identity.

But the other part of their grief came from knowing just how far they had been from keeping God’s laws.

Suddenly, the rules were laid out for them plain as day, and they didn’t know how they could possibly ever make up for what they had left undone.

But Ezra and Nehemiah don’t see this as a moment to pile on shame.

They urge the people to dry their tears, to end their lament, to let go of their guilt and instead to gather in their homes and feast and give thanks.

Because this is a fresh start!

As one of my favorite hymns reminds us:

This is a day of new beginnings,

Time to remember and move on,

Time to believe what love is bringing,

Laying to rest the pain that’s gone.

This is their chance to let go of the past and put into practice the word of God that they have rediscovered.

What has come before this moment is in the past.

This moment they get a clean slate to start afresh and rededicate themselves to God.

As they continue to hear God’s word read, they rediscover rituals and traditions.

One of these is Festival of Booths that takes place in the seventh month… and lo and behold, they are in the seventh month!

So they follow all of the instructions and for the first time in generations, they honor this week-long holiday.

They also hear once again words that shape their identity as a people.

They remember how they were called together out of slavery in Egypt to be a people, set apart and holy.

That meant things like following a certain diet, refraining from intermarriage, and being dedicated to the Sabbath…

None of which were things that they had been practicing.

So, later that month, they join for a fast of repentance and recommitment.

They rededicate themselves to the law, trusting in the God who has been steadfast and merciful.

All of the officials, priests, and officers, singers, temple staff, gatekeepers and all of the people who were old enough to understand joined together in a binding oath to follow what they read about in Deuteronomy.

They recommitted themselves to the law.

Their focus was on crossing every t and dotting every i.

Keeping the Sabbath.

Refraining from intermarriage.

Practicing Jubilee.

Offering to support the temple.

Dedicating their first fruits.

Bringing in the tithe.

As we think about what it means to rebuild our community, a huge part of what we need to do is remember who we are.

A key difference between us and the people of Judah at this time is that we have a different frame of reference and a different calling.

We are not called to be a people, set apart and holy, isolated, focused on following every letter of the law.

God knows that we will fail if we try… because the people of God failed over and over again.

Last year, we joined together in UMC 101 and we explored together some of OUR foundational beliefs and practices.

We remembered things like:

Our focus on grace and faith put into practice.

The call to reach out and share the love of God with all people.

A charge that makes room for difference and invites us to use our brains and celebrates diversity.

All grounded and centered in the core of Christian tradition… praising the God of all creation who became flesh and lived and died and rose again so that we might truly know life.

In Jesus Christ we have been redeemed and made right… not because we followed the law, but by his grace, and God continues to empower us by the Holy Spirit.

And we remembered that our congregation exists for a purpose.. to help people accept and confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and to live their daily lives in light of their relationship with God.

This is who we are.

A people who love God and accept the grace God offers… and then live out that love and grace in our daily lives.

We are called to be a witness… a light and a leaven in society, a reconciler in a world that is divided, to go into places of pain and show Christ’s hope. (Book of Discipline ¶220)

In just a few minutes, we will be invited to the table.

Just like the people of Judah embraced their traditions and practices, this is a practice that is at the core of our being.

This is a place where we are empowered to start again.

This is a place where we recommit ourselves to God and one another.

This is the place where we find God’s strength and grace for the new beginning that awaits us.

Friends, it doesn’t matter what has come before.

There is no reason to weep or grieve or feel shame for what has been done in the past.

Because here we receive the grace of God that is our new beginning.

So may we, too, come and recommit our hearts to God on this day.

Finding Faith at the Lunch Table

Posted on May 21, 20141 Comment

If I think back to the first moment when faith sunk in deep into my life, it would be sitting around a lunch table at Simpson College.

I wasn’t actually a college student then, but a sophomore in high school participating in our Youth Annual Conference. It was hosted there at the college every year and it was an opportunity for youth leadership to be developed, new friendships to be made, and for us to explore faith in a totally different way.

I had been floating around the periphery of church for a while. I went to Sunday School a few times as a youngster. We went on Christmas Eve with my grandparents. I had been to funerals and weddings. And I had a number of friends who were Christian and often invited me along to church. But their experiences of faith were not my own. I wanted to know more about Jesus, but I never quite felt like I totally fit in with their traditions. Looking back, they were more conservative and evangelical than where I eventually ended up, so perhaps early on I was sensing that wasn’t where I belonged.

I remember vividly in the fall of my sophomore year, however, that my mom realized I had not yet been confirmed and we started going to church as a family. Both sides of our family had been United Methodist, so we went to the biggest church we could find nearby. And I was instantly hooked. I joined the youth choir and the youth bells. I started confirmation. I went to youth group. Because it was a large church, my social circle instantly expanded with students from other area high schools all becoming my new best friends. It was a really amazing time.

And that spring, we went to Youth Annual Conference. We were a small group, even though it was a large church – just my mom; the youth pastor, Todd; another student and myself. It was my first experience of holy conferencing and resolutions and voting on legistation. It was my first experience of a praise band. It was my first chance to really understand what it might mean to be United Methodist.

But it was a conversation around the lunch table that really got me hooked. Others had been debating about whether or not we should listen to pop music, but Todd had just been rapping in the lunch line the whole “Fresh Prince of Bel Aire” song. And when he finally joined in the conversation, he talked about how he had used a Judas Priest song in youth group one night. This was many years ago, but I remember he talked about redeeming rather than rejecting culture. He talked about asking better questions in the face of music and narratives and people we don’t on the surface agree with, finding out what makes them tick and what they are trying to say, so we can speak with them. And I knew, right then, that I could claim that kind of faith.

In his book, Falling Upward, Richard Rohr talks about the two halves of our lives. The time we spend creating the container for our lives (identity, security, relationships) and then the time we spend living in and discovering the life we have built for ourselves. He writes that a type of spiritual awakening or falling apart happens in between the two of them…. when we realize we can’t just keep going on and building that container for ever, we actually have to start exploring what it means to live in this life we have created.

In the life of faith, one way this can be described is the move from law to grace. In the first half of our lives, we need the rules of faith: don’t kill, love God, pray this way. Rules lay the foundations… but the law itself is not the end. Rohr quotes the Dalai Lama here: “Learn and obey the rules very well, so you will know how to break them properly.” Grace is helping the man get his oxen out of a hole on the sabbath. Grace is releasing the adulteress and telling her to go and sin no more. Grace is meeting people out of love rather than judgment.

Because I came to my faith a little bit later in life, my religious experience was never steeped in law and judgment language. That being said, I was one of those “good girls” who tried to always follow the rules. I got straight A’s. I never drank in high school, or smoked, or experimented in any way. I had enough formation in rule following in other aspects of my life.

In fact, I think in many ways, the church I discovered in places like that lunch table helped to break down and expand that initial container I had built for myself. My experiences of Jesus and religion were the catalyst for some big changes in my life. I moved from a desire to be a scientist/meterologist to a religion major. I found myself moving towards people who were all about breaking the rules…. in both healthy and not so healthy ways. But because my initial experiences of church were fairly traditional, I have maintained an ability to see and converse with all sorts of different faith languages. We don’t discard the containers we build in the first half, Rohr says, but they become the stuff we build from.

I am living in a very different sort of faith life than I ever imagined was possible sixteen years ago, when I sat down at that lunch table. I have been an advocate and fundraiser for global health. I have ministered in cities and small towns. I’m about to become the senior pastor of a mid-sized church in the city. But as I continue to live into my relationship with God, the desire to get to know and understand someone or something where it is and start from there is what continues to drive me.

With Careful Intention

Posted on January 9, 20141 Comment

I have a nasty smart phone habit. Every commercial break, every need to stretch, every chance I get, I check my phone. I browse through Facebook posts. I glance at tweets. I absorb a lot and pay little attention to what is happening right here, right now.

I realized that I often do not interact, therefore, with much intentionality. I don’t really take the time I need to engage, because I’m just giving content a skimming glance. By the time I have time to sit and think and reflect and engage… well, something else new and shiny has distracted me.

So I reorganized the apps and widgets on my smart phone so the notifications and alerts and temptation to take a quick glance is less prominent. I put all social media into one folder that isn’t so easy to get to. I have a whole page dedicated now to “self-improvement and edification” that includes writing, prayer, health, finances, etc. I’m trying to take give myself just a little bit more sense of organization, time management, and focus.

What this means, is that I also need to take intentional time each day to truly interact and engage through social media. No more hit and runs but prayerful, thoughtful engagement. That hasn’t been too difficult so far and I’m actually finding I have MORE time because that effort is focused.

I would often check posts as I was stirring at the kitchen stove or walking up stairs or between episodes on Netflix. I have more time to be present in the moment, to breathe, and I think I’ve tripped a few less times.

I’m also a lot less anxious.

When I have constantly been flooding my presence with news and disaster and debates and provocative posts then my senses are on high alert all the time. Before Christmas, with the flood of Duck Dynasty and Schaefer Trial posts I was on edge, all day long, feeling agitated, frustrated, and not sure how to really respond. But to pull back a little bit allows space for engagement and time for processing. I’m not worried about the sinking ship all the time.

Philippians reminds us that fretting and worrying push God out of the center of our hearts. I’m not necessarily only going to focus on the good posts people share and ignore the struggles and trials of life… but being intentional about how I read and respond is giving me the opportunity to transform my engagement into something good, rather than crude and ugly.

Turning the Other Cheek and the American Justice System

Posted on July 11, 2012Leave a comment

Yesterday, the Tuesday morning small group at my church had an interesting conversation. Is it possible or practical to follow the commands of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount in this world? Can we do it? And what barriers do we face if we try?

We were focusing on the verses about turning the other cheek, giving someone the coat off our back, and going the extra mile. All of which are non-violent means of resistance. All of which take incredible strength to practice. All of which encourage you to treat an enemy, an oppressor, a perpetrator with kindness, gentleness, grace and love.

We all extolled these virtues and talked about how we try to practice them in our daily lives… until one gentleman raised a serious question he was currently grappling with. My friend was hit by a truck while riding his motorcycle and he lost the lower half of his right leg. And between doctors and family and lawyers, everyone is trying to figure out how to get him what he deserves in the process. His question to us: If we truly want to live like Jesus calls us to, then shouldn’t we drop all charges and refuse to sue and not focus on what we “deserve?”

How do you even begin to answer that question? Jesus didn’t live in a time of health insurance companies. There are real financial burdens involved with the medical care that he has and will continue to need. My first inclination was to respond that within the system we live in, we need to ask how can I act in the most Christ-like and compassionate manner… but I found myself hesitant to say that we should subvert the process entirely. I realized that we tend to ask fairness and justice questions rather than thinking about mercy questions.

In fact, later in the conversation when asked what we would do if we were robbed, our first responses were to call the police. We instinctively favor what is “right.”

Our society has built into it all sorts of structures that prevent us from living out the Jesus ethic. Yes, they provide stability and a process to follow when we are wronged, but they also immediately seperate us from one another. They incorporate a third party that will act and decide so that we don’t have to deal with the mess of real relationships. That is not to say that life in our system is not messy… because it is. And yet, by using the system, we take ourselves out of the equation. By preventing abuses of revenge and retribution, we also have prevented forgiveness and mercy to have a say.

Perhaps one way to navigate the problem is to try to act as Christ-like as possible in the midst of the structure. Let the insurance company/doctors get the money they need to cover your care, but don’t ask for damages above and beyond. Act with compassion towards the perpetrator. Reach out in love. Overwhelm them with forgiveness. Be a witness to everyone that you refuse to get anything out of it for yourself.

Another option is to simply forgo the system all together. Don’t call the police when you are robbed. Refuse to file the insurance claim when the guy rear-ends your car. In doing so, we can extend grace and compassion… but this in itself can also be lazy discipleship. By not doing anything, we may never get the opportunity to build a relationship with the person who has wronged you. Simply looking the other way is not the same thing as facing someone and turning the other cheek. The ethic Jesus prescribes is active and personal and engaging.

And his ethic is transformative. In each of those verses about how we should respond to oppression, we actually taunt the person who has harmed us to go farther. We don’t just give our coats, but take off our shirts. We don’t simply accept a slap in the face, we force them to hit us with the back of their hand. We don’t simply walk one mile, we continue walking and put their own abuse into a category that becomes problematic for them. We force them to see us not as a faceless victim who can be used, but as a person.

There is something about that response that is not very kind at all. We hold them accountable for their actions by forcing them to take their current line of abuse to an extreme. We make them realize that we are human beings, and in turn, they see themselves in a different light

Perhaps this is where restorative justice can actually play a role if we work within our current systems. Through the building of relationships, through mandating that someone do community service in response to a crime of theft, or work to nurture life in the wake of a murder, we give them the opportunity to be transformed… to become more fully human themselves, while also helping them to see the humanity in other people. And, it gives us an opportunity to be transformed and healed as we navigate our way through anger and frustration to a place of forgiveness and hope.

selling the good silver

Posted on May 14, 2012Leave a comment

Our church hosted a rummage sale as a part of our city-wide garage sales this weekend. We invited congregation members to bring us their items, we sorted and priced them and the church kept the proceeds. About 8 people put in a bunch of work and over two days we made almost $600… not too shabby!

One of our big ticket items was a silver coffee and tea service set from the church. It had been stored under a cabinet for years and then made its way up to a third floor storage room. I’m not sure when it was used last, but I can verify it has been at least five years. Also for sale were silver spoons, forks, and knives from the church – many complete with a “Methodist Episcopal Church” engraving. They could be purchased for 10 cents each.

As we priced out the items and wrung our hands about whether or not to add them to the garage sale, we came to a conclusion… we are not the church of 1950. It is rare for someone to wear a tie in our church. Sports jackets and suits are rarely seen on a Sunday morning and are becoming less common even for funerals. Our congregation is full of casual everyday folks… and silver isn’t for casual everyday use.

Rather than clutter up our cupboards with items we will never use, we can offer them to a good home and use that money for the current ministry of our church. $175 will send two kids to camp, or buy a full years worth of sunday school materials for the nursery class. $175 will nearly purchase two new lighter-weight tables for our fellowship hall or it will pay one months worth of the electric bill this spring. It will do a whole lot of things that a fancy silver set in the storage room will not.

But I think more than the money we received for that set, we also were reminded that our identity has changed.

Marengo is a blue collar town. Marengo is full of older folks on fixed incomes and young folks struggling to raise their children. Our mission field has changed and instead of being stuck in old ways, we are excited and willing to sell off a few of those old contraptions in order to become and live into the church of the 21st century in small-town Iowa.

I heard not one peep of disappointment in our decision to sell the good silver. A few folks picked up a set of silverware for nostalgia. And the coffee/tea set found a good home.

That, I believe, is a good day of ministry.

GC04: The Call to Action for the US Church?

Posted on April 3, 2012Leave a comment

Taylor Burton-Edwards reminded me a few weeks ago that there needs to be a distinction made by the Call to Action and all of the proposals that have been issued forth. It think that it is helpful to see the CtA as a sort of vision that has been cast but that does not necessarily include specific proposals.

In fact, when our Iowa Annual Conference delegation read the Council of Bishop’s statement on the Call to Action, we endorsed the document for conversation because it does challenge us to think in new and creative and transformative ways about what it would mean to be the church in a new time and place. I think that this video put out by the Call to Action team also does this:

We See A New Church from Call to Action on Vimeo.

When I saw the video, I was mostly inspired and felt like I could find agreement with about 95% of what we were being called to live into. The vision put forth here is of United Methodists out in the world, sharing the good news, working for transformative change in our communities, and the call is to do something bold NOW… I agree.

BUT… that doesn’t mean we can’t have serious conversation about whether some of these proposals are the best possible solutions for us to live out that vision. I actually am beginning to worry they aren’t bold enough, that we won’t have the courage to really make changes that will transform our church and the world.

There is also a larger question that I started pondering after seeing this particular video. If we are doing something right globally… if we are making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world in places like Nigeria and Indonesia and Russia… then how will these proposals affect that work? Are we really talking about a problem with the UMC in the USA and parts of Eurpoe? And will a focus on American lackluster Christianity actually harm our global impact as a church?

What I see around me is not necessarily a problem only with United Methodism, but a problem with how American Christianity has been watered down and has lost its ability to truly claim a space in the world. Many young people my age have no interest in the church and do not believe it has any value or meaning for their lives. They can change the world without us. We have not articulated how we have something to offer… we have not connected with people in our country in a way that shares the true transformative power of a relationship with the church and with Jesus Christ. But that doesn’t mean that what we are doing is necessarily wrong for other parts of the world.

Maybe underlying this problem is another question: how can we contextualize the ministry of the church without losing our global unity? How can we continue to resource and support the amazing work we are doing on the African and Asian continents and at the same time make adjustments to our engagement with the American and European dechurched and unchurched? And will our current proposals hold up one at the expense of the other? Will our focus on vital congregations drift us towards congregationalism and isolationism? Or will it inspire us to learn from one another and from what is working in other parts of the world in a way that makes our connectionalism that much stronger?

Postmodern Church and the Farmlands of Iowa… Part 1

Posted on September 8, 20102 Comments

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In our final year at Vanderbilt Divinity School, we work on the crowning glory of our graduate work: our seminar paper. As I sat down three years ago to write this work, I was very interested in how I might take all that I had learned and take it back home to Iowa. I knew I was heading into a rural congregation and I wanted to prepare myself.

During that time at Vandy, my eyes were opened to postmodern culture and theology – particularly manifested in the emerging church movement. I am convinced that this “movement” is not a fad within the church, but a group of individuals and communities who are thoughtfully re-examining their theologies and practices in order to be more faithful to the gospel in their particular place and time. I have begun to be a part of their discussions in small group meetings, conferences, on blogs and through email and every chance that I get to explore what this might mean for the institutional church, especially my United Methodist tradition, invigorates me! I resonate with the ways in which tradition is invited to become organically connected with the present reality of our lives. I find new energy and hope in the emphasis on ritual, community and shared experience. Above all, I have discovered a new framework by which to describe the most meaningful religious experiences of my life.

At the same time, I felt a deep calling to be in ministry in Iowa… which perpetuated a small identity crisis as I tried to figure out how this integration might be possible. Postmodernism was rarely discussed in the churches I grew up in and was often seen more as a threat than a blessing. I am not like the pastors who nurtured my own faith and the “model leaders” who are uplifted and revered by the church culture. I am aware of a deeper, more authentic and communal style of leadership within me and postmodern theology has helped me to claim my own voice and calling as authentic. But the question in the back of my mind was whether the church in Iowa would see it the same way? This seminar conversation began as I asked myself what God wanted me to bring from my own experience that would be beneficial to the church there?

The reality is that the church itself (mainline, United Methodist, Protestant, small churches, you name it) is in danger of becoming irrelevant. More and more young people are seeking their faith outside of the institutional church – not in a rejection of Christianity, but in an attempt to preserve their own best faithfulness. I have in fact been one of those people, and yet cannot escape a call to remain within my tradition.

Which is possibly why this quote by Karl Barth stood out to me:

To the distinctiveness of its calling and commission, and therefore to the form of its existence as the people of God in [the] world…, there does not correspond in the first instance or intrinsically any absolutely distinctive social form [of the church].

If the church is not authentically living out its calling and commission through its present form, then perhaps in light of postmodernism it does need to be reformed.

At the time, I was interested in how I could take my education, my experiences, and the resources I gained in an urban and academic setting and apply it to rural ministry. I have always understood that it is my duty as a pastoral theologian to help the church hold in tension its tradition and its present reality… while at the same time being faithful to the gospel. So now, three years later, I want to return to the paper to see what has changed, what I have learned, and where I still want to wrestle. This conversation is my attempt to point to the intersection of postmodern church and rural United Methodist life I discovered, but now, with three years of ministry under my belt, I want to not only imagine what this faithful living might look like, but share what I have learned on the ground.

In the next few weeks, I’ll share some of the various contexts that are at play, some basic background on postmodernism, and what its like to be a congregation in a small town in Iowa. Then we’ll look at the role of theology and practice on the ground. I hope you’ll join me – and if you have any questions or want to share your own insights – join in!

The New American Religion Behind the Growing American Rage

Posted on August 21, 20091 Comment

The New American Religion Behind the Growing American Rage

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I do sense there is this murky prelude to culture war (or holy war as Richardson calls it) brewing. I sensed it in 2004 when broken crosses were used to spell “God Bless the USA” on our campus lawn in front of the chapel. I sense it today in this anger over health care that is really nothing about health care. Richardson’s interview is interesting and he helps us to relate and empathize with his subject, while at the same time leaving the reader, me at least, with the same sense of forboding that he himself feels.

I agree. There are people who are strongly convicted on both sides. My fear is that a war is brewing, a war that none of us really want to see happen, a deep cultural war that will tear apart our communities. I’m not in the middle on this cultural divide. I know what side I’m on. I know what side family and friends are on. And I’m so tired of family being torn apart that perhaps this struggle just seems like a little too much to handle right now. I don’t even want to think about what will happen if the flood gates really open.

Perhaps it’s always been like this. Perhaps my twenty-seven year old mind is just a little naive to think that we are the first to have these conversations. I know that nothing is new under the sun. I know that Jesus said that we must hate our mother and father, meaning that there are times when we have to let go of those family ties to stand up for what is true. I know these cultural wars surrounded Vietnam, and McCarythism/Red Scare.

But what are the roots of these differences? How can I and my neighbors really be so different? Don’t we have the same internal anatomy? Don’t we all have flesh and blood and hearts and minds? Aren’t we all living in the same world? Hearing the same news? (well, no, actually)

It’s not just generational. It’s not just religious. It’s not even just political – although there is where the line seems to be most clearly drawn. These differences seem to be so deep that when we encounter the same issue, we see completely different things. When we see the same news story presented, we feel different things. When we talk about an issue – we can use the EXACT SAME WORDS and have the EXACT SAME CONCERNS (as was the case in my conference’s debate on the world-wide nature of the church amendments) and vote in the exact opposite way! Because our minds are already made up. The fear and distrust is already there. The lines have already been drawn and we know what side we are on.

I recently found out about outlawpreachers. It’s kind of a nebulous term loosely used to describe a bunch of ministers and christians who preach nothing but the love and grace of God. At least that’s how I am hearing it. That’s what I’m clinging to right now. In the midst of the division and fingerpointing and name-calling, and fear on both sides, I’m clinging to the love and grace of God in Jesus Christ. That’s it. That is the source of all hope and promise. And it may be the ONLY way out of this mess.

(All of this being said – this is the very first post that I have tagged the words hate and religion. That says a lot.)