With Norm Parker and now O’Keefe… is it a coaching rebuild year for Iowa? It will be interesting to see how the dynamic of the entire team changes with out their offensive and defensive coordinators. I’m hoping for less “safe” plays and more pizazz.
Posts Tagged with iowa
Salt and Light
This morning, we seem an awfully long ways from the Kingdom of God.
Yesterday – eight years to the day since we sent forces to Iraq, we began bombing in Libya.
Unrest in Bahrain, Yemen, and other countries in the middle east is being showed on our airwaves.
Earthquakes.
Tsunamis
Nuclear reactors having problems.
Where is the Kingdom of God?!
It doesn’t matter if they are man-made problems, or natural disasters… it is hard to look outside and not tremble a little.
So, what do we do on a morning like this?
What is the church’s role?
This morning we look at the second section of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount.
In “The Message” translation, Eugene Peterson, starts off these verses with these words:
Let me tell you why you are here…
You see, this whole sermon is full of instructions for the people of God. It reminds us of the attitudes we are supposed to carry with us into the world, like Charlotte shared with us last week. And it tells us what we are supposed to do – how we are supposed to live.
Today’s passage is all about our witness in the world.
We are here – the church is here – to season this world… to be salt.
I know that some of us here can’t always have salt, because of dietary restrictions, and perhaps you know better than all the rest of us about how useful salt is!
When you sprinkle salt on watermelon or on tomatoes – the flavor of those fruits become brighter and more crisp! When salt is added to soup, it becomes rich and deep. When we sprinkle salt onto roasted vegetables, or French fries…. Mmmm…
Salt takes what is already there and it brings out the flavors. It helps us to taste what was hidden.
That is our job as the church. We are supposed to point to the hidden work of God in this world and bring it out. We are supposed to help the world see and taste and experience God – even though they can’t always see him.
So, with all of the difficult and troubling things happening in our world today – how can we, as the church, help people to experience God?
First, we can point to the good news in each of these situations. We can lift up the stories of hope and life.
This morning, for example, two people were pulled out of the rubble in Japan. An 80 year old woman and her 16 year old grandson had been trapped under her house for nine days following the earthquake and tsunami. According to CNN, the boy had crawled through portions of the rubble and made it on to the roof where rescuers finally saw him.
Nine days they had been trapped… but they survived. That is a story of life in the midst of destruction. And remembering those stories, pointing to those stories, telling those stories to our friends and our neighbors help us to remember that there is hope even in desperate situations. And as we tell that story, we can share the source of our hope – Jesus Christ.
Second, salt only works if it is actually being used… if it makes contact with its food… and so as people of faith, we need to be out in the world, helping folks, praying with them, listening to their stories.In Japan, United Methodists had eight missionaries, six full-time mission volunteers and several retired missionaries on the ground when the earthquake first struck. But our United Methodist Committee on Relief also was quick to the scene to provide health kits, food, shelter and other necessities. The Wesley Center, affiliated with the United Methodist Women, is housing fifty displaced people in its guest rooms and meeting rooms.
All of that on the ground work there is possible only because we take seriously our call to be out in the world.
But it doesn’t just happen half way across the world through the work of missionaries. It also happens in our backyard. Every time you attend a youth sporting event or concert… Every time you mow your neighbors lawn, every time you sit down and have coffee with someone in town, you are like salt, bringing out the God flavor in this community. You are letting people know they are important, that they matter, and that you – and God – are there.
Jesus continues on in his sermon by putting this message another way – you are here in this world to be light – to help the world see God. This faith of ours is not a secret to be kept locked up – its meant to be made public – its meant to shine out wide and far.
So the third thing we need to do is to point to God not just in our personal and private relationships, but in public as well.
We can’t keep the good news hidden away. We can’t keep the power of God’s transformative love under a basket. We have to let it shine.
Sometimes, that light shines in the darkness and we help the world to see where people are broken and hurting. When we do this, we are public prophets, reminding people of God’s intention for our lives together.
A deacon in our United Methodist Church has heard this calling and uses music to raise awareness about the realities of human trafficking and slavery in our modern times. Carl Thomas Gladstone’s Abolitionist Hymnal helps to shed light on some very dark realities in our world. Through music, the light of Christ is shining so that others might be moved to action.
Sometimes, we are bring words of hope and comfort on a much larger scale, like when people gather together in a prayer vigil – their candles lighting up the darkness.
And sometimes that happens in political advocacy as well. This week, Utah passed some rather startling immigration reform. Although Utah is a conservative state, they have passed a law that creates a new guest-worker program. Anyone who has worked in Utah and their immediate family can receive documents if they pass a background check and pay a fine for entering the country illegally. But this law would never have passed if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did not speak up. There are a large number of mormons in Utah, and as they have done missions work, they believed there was another way to respond to strangers and foreigners in our midst. Another way that was biblical and based in love. As one state senator said – “If the church had been silent, the bill wouldn’t have passed.”
Protesting, bumper stickers, the clothes you wear, the places you visit, the types of people you eat with in public… all of these things tell the world something about you… AND the God who you claim to follow.
Lastly, this whole message about salt and light is a reminder that we need to stand together as people of faith and be a witness in this world.
A few Sundays ago, we had a translation lesson. I reminded all of you about how poorly the English language handles second person plural words.
Well, that same problem comes up again today in the sermon on the mount.
Jesus isn’t just talking to you… or you… or you. Jesus is talking to all of us together.
Ya’ll are the salt of the earth. Ya’ll are the light of the world.
You together, all of you, working with one another, standing with one another, Ya’ll are my witness.
Whether it is on the streets of Libya or the countrysides in Japan, the alleys in Marengo or the farmland by Kostza… we are called to be salt and light. We are called to point to God.
It doesn’t matter if everything in the world is alright or everything is falling to pieces… that is our calling.
To pray, to work, to serve, to love, to listen, to speak… out there… in the world… on behalf of God.
May we be salt. May we be light.
Amen.
rights of workers
Recently, we have wrestled in various states surrounding Iowa, and now in our own state with the rights of workers. I watched the situation unfolding in Wisconsin over the last month and was appalled at how it has all turned out.
The United Methodist Church has had a long history of supporting labor reforms and the labor movement. From advocating against child labor to supporting the improvement of working conditions for laborers to advocating passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act and the National Labor Relations Act, we have been at the forefront of this issue from the very beginning.
Part of our support for all working people includes support for collective barganining. This is our current position:
¶ 163 B) Collective Bargaining—We support the right of all public and private employees and employers to organize for collective bargaining into unions and other groups of their own choosing. Further, we support the right of both parties to protection in so doing and their responsibility to bargain in good faith within the framework of the public interest.
In order that the rights of all members of the society may be maintained and promoted, we support innovative bargaining procedures that include representatives of the public interest in negotiation and settlement of labor-management contracts, including some that may lead to forms of judicial resolution of issues.
We reject the use of violence by either party during collective bargaining or any labor/management disagreement. We likewise reject the permanent replacement of a worker who engages in a lawful strike. From The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church – 2008. Copyright 2008 by The United Methodist Publishing House. Used by permission.
Biblically, we come at our views of labor through a number of scriptures… beginning in the beginning. The creation of the Sabbath and the command to respect and honor the Sabbath was radical for its day – it was a counter to other nations that forced their laborers to work 7 days a week. Time and space for rest, renewal and our spiritual relationships is a fundamental part of God’s intention for creation and the people of God.
On Ash Wednesday last week, we read from Isaiah and remember that:
they also complain, ‘Why do we fast and you don’t look our way? Why do we humble ourselves and you don’t even notice?’
“Well, here’s why: “The bottom line on your ‘fast days’ is profit. You drive your employees much too hard. You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight. You fast, but you swing a mean fist. The kind of fasting you do won’t get your prayers off the ground. Do you think this is the kind of fast day I’m after: a day to show off humility? To put on a pious long face and parade around solemnly in black? Do you call that fasting, a fast day that I, God, would like?
“This is the kind of fast day I’m after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts. Isaiah 58:3-6, The Message
We have a parable where all people are paid what they need to survive that day, no matter how long or hard they have worked (Matthew 20:1-16) and we have numerous prophets and epistles and proverbs that talk about the relationship between the worker and their employer (1 Cor. 9:7-11, James 5:4, Deut. 24:14-15)
But there are also verses and sayings directed at the worker. They must work hard, honestly, respecting those they work for and the task at hand (2 Thess. 3:10, Col. 3:23, Prov 12:11).So how do we look at this situation in light of our tradition and our scriptures?
I think my first response is that at times, workers have abused the system. Sometimes workers have pushed to get more of what they want, rather than what they need. Yet, if we look at numbers and statistics being thrown around in Wisconsin…. well, there are so many numbers from so many sides that I don’t even know what to believe. Some talk about the burden on the tax payers, others talk about how all of the money that goes into the pensions and health benefits comes from the workers themselves in a salary deferrment agreement, and so it is actually budget neutral.
Whatever the case, the public employee unions were in the end willing to compromise, lower their expectations, take the cuts to their benefits… but it didn’t matter. The collective bargaining was what the government wanted to strip. And it did. As United Methodists, we clearly and unconditionally support the right of workers to organize and to bargain in good faith. That is now gone in the state of Wisconsin.
In Iowa, this issue is also before us. It has come up both in Governor Brandstad’s Executive Order 69 which prohibits project labor agreements and in the House bill which limits the power of unions in layoff decisions. These are slightly different ways of handling the problems of imbalance between the government and workers, but as we talk to our own legislators, and as we pray and think about these issues, keep the scriptures and our tradition in mind. There are positive and negative implications for workers and for our lived reality together in both of these bills.
At the core, we need to be mindful of the public interest, our debt load and budget – but balance that alongside the needs of the actual workers. If the PLA’s cause our building projects inflate the costs, that is one thing, but if they ensure fair and good wages for the ones who are doing the work, that is another. Should they be mandated? Should they be prohibited? Should they be an option? This is a conversation we need to have. Those who work, whether in the public or private sector, whether unionized or not, all contribute to our wellbeing. Good wages help support the economy by putting more money in consumer’s pockets. This is a balancing game… and our scriptures and tradition have some good advice about how we find the right balance.
Pray, read, and if you feel led, call your state representantive. As a citizen of this state, you have a voice… as a person of faith, you have something to say.
Postmodern Church and the Farmlands of Iowa… Part 1
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!
I’m being ordained!!!
For two and a half years, I have been serving a congregation faithfully as a provisional elder in the United Methodist Church. And on June 6, I will be ordained at our Iowa Annual Conference and I will become an elder in full connection.
This whole process started back in 2002, when I was a junior in college. The process is fairly long, with a lot of hoops to jump through, but each one of them are designed to help provide me and other candidates with encouragement and to help us to clarify our calling.
When I began the process, for example, I felt I was being called to ministry as an ordained deacon. Deacons are focused more on servant ministry and while sometimes they are found in churches (as Christian Educators or Music Ministers), they are often found in places other than the church. They can be teachers or doctors or nurses or lawyers or therapists – their calling is to connect the church with the world. So I went through the “red book” and was assigned a mentor. And together we sorted our way through the “blue book” – a spiral bound monster of a book that talks about biblical history, asks you to examine your family and your culture.. When I completed that study I became an inquiring candidate for ministry.
Then came the “purple book.” My mentor and I continued to discern and refine my calling and I knew that seminary was in my future. So I became a certified candidate for ministry, approved by the Pastor-Parish Relations committee of my home church, and headed off to Nashville in 2004.
For those who want to be ordained, a masters degree in divinity (or theological studies for deacons) is a requirement. At Vanderbilt Divinity School, I still planned on becoming a deacon and was trying to figure out what that might look like. But my experiences serving a church and especially participating in the sacraments led me to realize that my true calling was to be ordained as an elder.
The next step in the process was to be commissioned. I submitted a written exam, a bible study that I had prepared and video taped sermons that I had presented in Nashville. And then I had an interview with a team from the Board of Ordained Ministry here in Iowa. In 2007, I was commissioned as a provisional elder in the United Methodist Church and when I graduated that December from seminary, I came here to Marengo!
According to our Discipline, I must be in residency for at least two years before I can be fully ordained as an elder. So that is what these past two and a half years have been for me. I have learned so much from you and I couldn’t have asked for a better placement. This past December I submitted again a written exam and examples of my preaching and teaching (which totaled 40 pages!) and on April 8th I was approved for ordination.
So what comes next? What changes now that I am being ordained?
Nothing! Absolutely nothing. God willing, I will remain serving my church in the same capacity that I have been. There are a few things that I will get to do, like serving the sacraments outside of my congregational context, but for the most part, I will continue doing what I have been all along.
And I am so excited to jump through that last hoop =)
YAY IOWA!
Today, the Iowa Supreme Court declared that a ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional!
I am really impressed by the fact that the decision was unanimous and took seriously the fact that marriage – as far as the state is concerned – has nothing to do with religion.
And as far as “tradition” goes – traditions need to be living, and need to be able to be flexible and change as we learn and grow, otherwise they are dead. That is true in the church and that is true in society also. If we had stuck with the traditions of marriage from the very beginning, women would be property, we would have polygamous relationships, and interracial couples wouldn’t have a chance. Traditions are LIVING!
I now pray that as a church, we too might find ways to value committed mutually-self-giving relationships between our gay and lesbian parishoners.
To be honest, I never even considered the possibility that it might be legal for gays and lesbians to marry in my state before my church would allow it. I have been thinking so much about the United Methodist perspective and have been working for reform there and if this decision holds, then I have a very difficult choice ahead of me. Do I continue to follow church discipline? Do I refuse to marry any couples until I can marry all? It may not even be an issue in my community, but I pray for God’s grace and God’s guidance so that when the question comes, when someone approaches me, I may have the heart to respond.
glued to the tv
so, for the last two weeks I’ve spent time watching the olympics and now I’m glued to the television watching the democratic national convention. This isn’t a pulpit, so i’m going to take the liberty to share some of my political views =)
i was amazed tonight to see Senator Harkin and former Representative Leech from Iowa standing up there together. I grew up in a family that was full of Republicans, it was all I really knew. And they always talked about Leech – how he was the good guy and Harkin was the bad guy (that’s oversimplifying, but when your 12 that’s how you understand it).
Since then, I changed my own views as I grew up and started to think for myself. I came home and didn’t feel like I could really express myself, at least around my family. I’ve been a big fan of Obama since I first began to hear him speak years ago. And I was very excited by his decision to run for president, mostly because of the values that he is talking about as he talks about change: hope – the belief that dreams can come true, that change can really happen; unity – that we have to work together and listen to one another in order to make things happen; and a grassroots sensibility – that it takes all of us, each and every single one of us to be the kind of country that we dream of.
I was so excited to see those two congressmen stand up there and say that this is not a red or blue issue, but a red, white and blue issue – what is best for our country. It has been great to hear all sorts of ordinary people speaking tonight about how they found the ability to dream again, they found hope again, and as a Christian, I don’t believe that hope is a trite thing.
btw… Michelle Obama’s speech was amazing.
Are we surrounded by hate, or by love?
Stand Strong Against Hate – a map of hate groups in the country… along with the ability to stand against hate and see how many others are standing with you in your area