public theology – Salvaged Faith

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.

I just spent the last couple of days in Washington, D.C. exploring what it means to be a public theologian.

Over the last year, I have been part of the Lewis Center’s Community Leadership Fellows Program. We have gathered for three day sessions together at Wesley’s downtown campus in order to reflect upon the role of the church, and in particular the role of the pastor, in the life of the community.

As Rick Elgendy help us define the phrase, we engage in public theology whenever we are reflecting upon the actions of the church in the public (our common life together). Public theology helps us to refine and renew our commitments. It pushes us onward towards perfection. It challenges us to do and say and be more. Above all, it reminds us that the Kingdom of God is intimately tied up with the life of the world around us.

In the scope of our readings and preparation this week, one article really pushed me to think about what it means to be a pastor and a public theologian and how I am called to embody that role.

As Robinson writes in “The Church in the Public Square”:

In the mainline church the pastoral care tradition has so taken over that the one strong traditions of the teaching pastor and the teaching minister have been eclipsed. We no longer seem to have “preachers,” only “pastors.” We have often neglected a serious teaching ministry in favor of construing the ordained mainly as members of the so-called helping professions…

The message has too often seemed more like “let us take care of you” than asking that people “grow and grow up in Christ.” It is largely up to the clergy to communicate a different understanding of their calling, and thus of the purpose of the church itself: our purpose is not to be caring or to be “like my family” ; rather, it is to grow Christians, followers of Jesus Christ, and to engage the culture as people who are accountable to the gospel…

if people in congregations are to be equipped for a vital role in the public world, such a shift in emphasis and priority is essential.

When I first felt the call to ministry, it was a yearning to help the people of the church better live out their faith in the world. It was a call to take seriously what was happening all around us: from war and violence, to care for the earth and our hungry neighbors. I probably didn’t fully understand at the time that the church does not always function according to the purpose articulated by Robinson above.

And I have to be completely honest. I have been honored and blessed to sit at the bedsides of folks and pray with them as they took their final breath. I never imagined the holy weight and privilege of placing a hand on the casket as it is lowered into the earth. Holding on to the hand of someone who is sick or struggling and praying with them is part of my calling I am so proud to live out.

There are so many different functions of a minister that it is not surprising that one or another sneaks up and takes over the rest at various times. Whether administrative functions, pastoral care, connectional responsibilities…

But the paragraphs from Robinson reminded me that my first calling was not to be a helper or care-giver, but to be a pastor that discipled people. My call was to help get the church out of the building so they can live their faith. And a large part of that discipling happens when through teaching and theological reflection about what we are or are not doing out in the world.

One of our guides this week was Rev. Dr. Joe Daniels. He lifted up how important it is to form people in the word in the process of sending them out. We have to teach people what the Kingdom of God looks like. We have to constantly reflect together about what is going on in our common life and invite the Spirit to guide us into action. I try to do that in my preaching, but I have been neglecting this very blog as a place where that kind of wrestling and reflection can occur.

I’ve been neglecting this blog a lot in general.

And perhaps it is because I had lost a focus for what I was trying to accomplish here.

Perhaps it is because I’ve become so busy with the other functions of ministry that it felt selfish to spend time writing and reflecting.

What I realized this week is that the sentence above is perfectly rediculous.

My calling is to be a public theologian.

My calling is to help the church think and reflect about how we are engaging with the world and what our faith has to say about our life in the world.

My calling is to model what it means to act in the world and be held accountable to the gospel through precisely this sort of writing.

If this blog can help do me live out that calling… well, you’ll be seeing me here a bit more often.

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