Orlando Vigil

As a clergywoman, I was honored to help with the Vigil for Orlando victims organized by Creede Rep which finished out Creede's Gay Pride Day (although word on the street is that they're at Tommyknocker's now finishing the evening). My brief words were accompanied a testimony by Chris (an Orlando native), a poem read by Mehry Eslaminia, songs by Ryan Prince, and impromptu words by others in attendance.

After much celebration (and inevitable libations), we gather as a community to honor the victims of Orlando’s hate crime two weeks ago, and also to celebrate those 49 lives.

As we begin the vigil, here is a poem that appeared in my inbox today titled "For My Young Friends Who Are Afraid" by William Stafford. 

There is a country to cross you will

find in the corner of your eye, in

the quick slip of your foot—air far

down, a snap that might have caught.

And maybe for you, for me, a high, passing

voice that finds its way by being

afraid. That country is there, for us,

carried as it is crossed. What you fear

will not go away: it will take you into

yourself and bless you and keep you.

That’s the world, and we all live there.

Please pray with me.

God, it’s a really scary world out there. I would like to use a lot of words to describe how I feel about the exclusivity and bigotry that seems to infiltrate every dark corner in America right now. But those words will have to be set aside, scribbled only in my journal, or cried only to my husband before brushing my teeth or while I’m slicing tomato. Those words are not for public consumption. But neither is the hatred that permeates our culture. And so tonight God, we gather in love. We gather in peace. We gather in hope. Tonight come to honor the souls who danced until their last moment. We gaze at the stars - at the great cloud of witnesses above us, and we call out the names of those who have gone before us. And we say thanks be to God.

Our Town Letters

“I never told you about that letter Jane Crofut got from her minister when she was sick. He wrote Jane a letter and on the envelope the address was like this: It said: Jane Crofut; The Crofut Farm; Grover's Corners; Sutton County; New Hampshire; United States of America. Continent of North America; Western Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the Mind of God...that's what it said on the envelope. And the postman brought it just the same.”

Our Town, produced by Trinity Street Players running May 13-24 upstairs in First Austin’s Black Box Theatre is an American classic written by Thornton Wilder. But it’s more than that. 

It’s a story about people in Grover’s Corners. And it’s a story that could easily be about people in Austin, Texas. But it’s more than that too.

Our Town is a a prayer.

Grasshoppers, Gravity, and a Really Great Story

Listen here!

Isaiah 40:21-31 (NRSV)
Mark 1:29-39  (NRSV)

Welcome to the fifth Sunday of Epiphany, the second to last Sunday before Lent. In the tradition of epiphany, we have read yet another story from Mark about the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.

It’s a whopper of a text. Chock full of demon possession and deadly diseases and even a Christ who goes AWOL. The Old Testament text from Isaiah is a little easier to swallow except that the God who once called us the cream of the crop, humanity: the pinnacle of creation (in Genesis 1) is now reminding us that it is God who takes down the rulers of the earth and we, God’s creation, are like little grasshoppers in comparison. :)

Literature is the best. So many ways of communicating how we feel or how we feel God feels, or whatever.

I wonder if it was this passage from Isaiah that inspired Mary Oliver to pen “The Summer Day.”

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Hard to make much of your life when you’re lying in bed dying from a fever though. This, of course, was the predicament of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law in the Mark passage.

Aside from the dying part, this is a great story. We learn that Simon Peter has a family - he’s one of the few disciples who was married. And he brings his new friends and new messiah to his house, to stay with his family. As such, it is in Simon Peter’s home that Jesus performs his first healing miracle. It’s the second miracle and the first healing the disciples witness after having left everything - jobs, girls, family, their favorite spot to watch the sun set - to follow Jesus on this crazy vagabond adventure.

Mother's Day Turns 100... and a blind eye.

I don't want to come across as a hater. And Lord knows I love my mother (and am the spittin' image of her). But I do not like Mother's Day.

And I'm not the only one.

In 1923, nine years after Anna Jarvis talked President Woodrow Wilson into establishing a national "Mother's Day," Ms. Jarvis turned around and began protesting it.

On facebook today, fourteen months after the death of his mother, Jason Nethercut describes Mother's Day as "prominent, glaring and threatening."

And for five years when I served at First Baptist Church in Austin, TX, I could be counted on to cry (hopefully non-conspicuously) at one service every year: Mother's Day.

Why don't we like it?

Well, Anna Jarvis hated how commercial it became in just nine years (oh Lord, she'd HATE it now). You see, she didn't start the movement to create a national holiday for "we the people" to give our moms flowers, and candy and cheesy greeting cards. She petitioned for this national holiday because her own mother organized "Mother's Work Days" to improve sanitary conditions and try to lower infant mortality, to tend to soldiers who had been injured in the Civil War.  Anna's mother's contemporary, Julia Ward Howe (who composed "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"), issued a widely read "Mother's Day Proclamation" in 1870, calling for women to take an active political role in promoting peace.

Mother's Day, for Anna, was to recognize extraordinary women, and specifically the one she was the closest to: her mother.

In other words, "Mother's Day was born in the aftermath of the Civil War, as a rallying cry for women worldwide to oppose war and fight for social justice." It wasn't actually about mothers being good moms, it was about women being good people.

Mother's Day was a cry to action. It was a call from the feminist and Christian communities for women to live to their fullest potential as God's children... and to protect God's other children.

Happy 100th Birthday, Mother's Day. You have forgotten who you are.

Transition: Something Just Broke

The movement into Holy Week starts off strong and exciting - like any good religious festival. From Sunday's palm branch waving and animal joyriding to tomorrow night's dinner with friends, things seem to be going well for Jesus and the Disciples.

But today, Holy Wednesday is traditionally the day that Judas is said to have gone to the High Priests... "What will you give me if I betray him?" Thirty pieces of silver later, and our story takes a swift turn for the worse. Way beyond foreshadowing, the climax builds as things fall apart.

At the passover dinner, Jesus hints that one will deny him, another betray him, and a party guest leaves in a huff.

Bread is broken and eaten, wine is poured and drunk, but the symbolism isn't traditional, and the disciples wonder what these mixed up metaphors might mean.

After dinner, Jesus excuses himself up to the garden to pray, taking with him his three closest friends. He asks them to wait and keep watch, while he begs God: let there be another way.

But God says no, and when Jesus returns, more disappointment awaits him. He finds his comrades snoozing, the passover hangover already upon them.

Heading back down the hill, things go from bad to worse as the one who ran away comes running back with guards in tow, a kiss of death upon his lips.

Peter draws his sword and the fight escalates when he cuts off a slave's ear. But Jesus, usually the peacemaker, knows that violence must wait a day and it certainly won't come from an army of angry revolutionaries.

But as Jesus returns the ear to the poor servant's head, his friends begin to panic. Everyone takes flight now, one fleeing so fast that when a guard grabs his cloak the disciple wriggles free and runs naked all the way home.

Jesus, on the other hand, is restrained, imprisoned, and left to await trial and potential capital punishment.

And we move from Holy Wednesday to Maundy Thursday.

Sleepy stewards, double-crossing kisses, and then... something just broke.

The Backhanded Sermon

Yesterday at First Austin, Rev. Dr. Roger Paynter preached on Leviticus 19 and Matthew 5... the turn the other cheek story. He said that while being told to turn the other cheek is often used by Christians to "baptize our masochism," it can also be a chance for us to allow for a "courageous assertion of ourselves."

I preached on this very text eleven years ago. It's a sermon on one of the best things I learned in seminary (I think). And since apparently University Baptist Waco has been on my mind lately (I threw on an old UBC shirt to run errands in on Saturday and then low and behold, Kyle Lake, visited me in a dream that night right before I headed to church to hear a text I once preached. So I got out the old scrapbooks, and I got out my old book of sermons (those files don't exist electronically anymore). And on my little iPad last night, I smiled and cringed and smiled some more and typed out that sermon to share with y'all. 

And of course I've included pictures. Because this text is tricky, and it required a full on demonstration from the stage that morning. Pre-blog apologies to Big Phil and Lance. And Kyle, it was nice to see you the other night. Thanks for visiting...

And now, we welcome to the blog 25-year-old Ann Pittman 
from UBC Waco 2003...

A Whirlwind of Change - 3 Years Later

A Whirlwind of Change

Texts: 2 Kings 2:1-14 and Hebrews 13:6-8

This is the third time I've delivered a version of this sermon. The first was at Lakeshore Baptist in Waco, Texas in 2004, the second was at Sanctuary in Tarrytown in 2010 and the third was last Sunday at First Baptist of Austin, the church I worked at from September 2005-October 2010. You may listen to the spoken words at First Austin's Website - "2013-10-27" will get you there, but be fair warned, I was a little weepy. While this is an impassioned sermon about change and loss, I did not expect to be as affected as I was. I attribute this to several realities in my life some of which I share in the sermon and others that remain hidden in my heart. Plus, this was my first time "back" at First Austin in a pastoral capacity. While I have helped with weddings and funerals since I left my position there, and performed with Trinity Street Players in Blood Brothers last year, this was my first time back to the pulpit. It was an honor to be asked back by my former boss and my former congregation, and a testimony to my journey these past three years that I was able to say yes. I've wrestled with calling... from the stage to the pulpit to the microphone to the computer - who am I? What should I do with my one wild and precious life? This fall has proved a ministerial season for me: four weddings and a funeral (yep, it's true), three lectures at UBC in Austin and finally preaching last Sunday at First Austin. No theatre this fall for Ann Catherine... no Les Mis, no Man of La Mancha, no Falsettos - too many performance conflicts. So unbeknownst to me, a season of ministry began in September and is now winding down. And amidst the winds of change in my own life, I preached this sermon about a man and a mentor and the great wind that blew over him. 

Enjoy (italics is sung). 

What can I do with my obsession?

With the things I cannot see?

Is there madness in my being?

Is it the wind that moves the trees?

Sometimes you’re further than the moon

Sometimes you’re closer than my skin

And you surround me like a winter fog

You come and burn me with a kiss

And my heart burns for you

And my heart burns

Elisha was obsessed, and Elijah (his master) had only three trips left to make before the Lord would take him away. Gilgal, Jericho and the Jordan all needed some final work done before he left. Elijah had anointed Elisha, and had just a few ends to tie up before he knew God would call him home.

We don’t know why he didn’t want Elisha to accompany him. Perhaps he wanted to finish those last three visits by himself. Perhaps he needed time to think or reflect before he left the earth. Maybe he worried about his disciple Elisha, and thought the trips and the whirlwind would be too much for him in these last few days. Or maybe he was tired of always being followed around by an obsessive student. But whatever the reason, three times Elijah told Elisha, “No, don’t come with me,” and three times Elisha replied, “Not gonna happen; I will not leave you.”

It’s almost humorous reading the text, for in each scenario the same thing happens. “Don’t come with me Elisha.” “Too late,” Elisha replies. Elisha’s obsession about staying with Elijah reminds me of the beginning of the book of Ruth when she refuses to return to her own county but vows to stay with Naomi instead.  It reminds me of Sam’s allegiance to Frodo, Sandy's following of the Little Orphan Annie, or of C3PO to R2D2.           

I Spoke Too Soon...

I know I keep posting that I've seen over the past week, some of the most beautiful and awesome places in America (please pronounce that with a Presidential accent), but our final destination outside of Denver, CO, could not go without mention either.  The magnificence of Mt. Evans could not have been a more fitting end to the Reverse Oregon Trail because we viewed it's majesty on America's (are you keeping up with your accent?) Independence Day.

So. Amazing.

We drove... and drove... and drove... to get to Denver where we checked into a super rad hotel that is both dog-friendly and LGBT-friendly, so we knew we were guaranteed supurb service and excellent decor.  Indeed, they had the freaking fuzziest cow blankets  strewn across the ends of the beds which perfectly complimented the twenty-foot tall curtains accenting the subtleties of the carpet pattern.  Lord.

He Is Risen! He Is Risen, Indeed!

When Tessla (my nanny charge) and I were on a walk earlier this month, we passed by a colorful driveway. And while we often get the free viewing of chalk art by the children and grandchildren in this Cedar Park neighborhood, I couldn't help but pull out my phone and snap a picture of this driveway.

As the chalk drawing admonishes, Happy Easter! And please, pay no mind to the spaceship further up the driveway. I'm sure that was not intended to be a commentary on the validity of Jesus' resurrection or his later ascension. Although since the FBI released information this month regarding the circular disks and alien bodies found in Roswell, NM, who knows?! Maybe after leaving the Milky Way Galaxy, Jesus stopped by the Pinwheel Galaxy. I guess that'll just have to be one of those questions we ask God when we finally meet Her. (It'll be right after I ask Her about mosquitoes and red fire ants. I mean really. What was She thinking?)

Anyway, Happy Easter. He is risen. He is risen, indeed.

Palm Sunday Reflections

I don't go to church anymore.

This is not a lifetime commitment... to no longer attend church... I intend to attend church again someday. It's just that I currently am not attending church.

"So what?" some of you say, "Sinner!" others may chide. And still some, "Seriously, Ann?" which are the comments that sting the most.

I'm not attending church in part because I exhausted myself attending church, creating church, doing church and being church for the five years I spent at my last job, and the 27 years before that (four days a week in college, three days a week in high school...). The way I figure it, I've gone to more church services than your average church-going sixty-five year old man. And I'm only 32.

So I'm taking a break.

But fatigue from church-going (you'll note I didn't say from church-being, which I try to still do every day to my friends and family and the people whose paths I cross) isn't the only reason I'm not currently attending church.

The other reason is Palm Sunday.

I used to love Palm Sunday. It's the sixth Sunday in Lent, kicking off Holy week. It remembers the day Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the donkey when the people lined up in the streets waving palms (because it was the Jewish Passover), heralding in who they believed to be the Messiah.

At FBC, the kids always start off this Sunday morning service by running down the center aisle waving Palm branches above their heads. I love that... the joy, the simple faith, the praise symbol, the welcoming of the Messiah.

But the other part about Palm Sunday is that, as I said before, it leads us into Holy Week, a week of betrayal, abandonment and death. A week of missing the point. The irony is that all those waving the palms in exaltation on Sunday turn to waving their fists on Friday demanding the release of Barabbas, and the crucifixion of the innocent man.

And that's the other reason I'm not attending church right now.

It's ironic in more ways than one. Whenever people would argue that they'd be happy to attend church if it weren't for all the Christians, I used to argue that that was the very reason I loved church. It is not for the healthy, Christ says, but the wounded. I loved that church was messy, filled with hypocritical, trying-to-find-their-way-and-missing-it-half-the-time people on a journey to be church and follow Christ.

I don't feel like that any more.

Palm Sunday is painful because right now I want to escape somewhere and feel loved, not beaten up. And the house I want to go to is God's. But God's house isn't always welcoming.

My boyfriend is a music director at a church and tonight he's at a parishioners home building crosses: three of them, for the "Last Words" musical they'll be doing at his church this upcoming Holy Week and Easter Weekend.

Nailing together crosses that will symbolize (for some) God's ultimate sacrifice of himself for the people, an act of the incarnation that says, "Yes, I will even take this so far as to die to help you understand"... Nailing together crosses that serve as a constant reminder of the death of a Messiah at the hands of the empire, the death of a Savior at the hands of evil, the death of a man at the hands of those who loved him...

I called my boyfriend after I got out of rehearsal tonight and heard the crosses being nailed together on the other end of the line. "I have tomorrow off," I said. "I don't have to go to work. I could come up there now if you want. And if you're not done with the crosses, I could come to the house and help out."

"But -----'s here." he replied. That's his ex-girlfriend's mother. And despite the waving of the palms and the confession that Christ is the Messiah, despite the ashes on our heads reminding us that we are not, despite the resurrection of Jesus that will come on Sunday and represent the resurrection we practice every day in our life, my phone conversation with my boyfriend ended with, "Fine, I won't come up there."

Because I'm not welcome at his church.

And that's the second reason I'm not attending church right now.

Not only am I not welcome in the church building, at the church services, but I can't even help build the crosses for the Sunday morning play because his ex-girlfriend's mother will be building crosses too.

And that is the embodiment of the irony of Palm Sunday: that the church often does a really shitty job of being church. And while I used to love that about church - I loved that the genealogy of Jesus included Tamar who slept with her father-in-law and Rahab the prostitute - I don't anymore.

I just don't.

At this point in my journey I can't handle any more paradox. No more irony. No more grotesque beauty. I just want God, and I just want peace. And like the Israelites when they were carted off to Babylon, I too am now learning that God doesn't reside in a Temple (or a church) but in my heart. So I'm finding God there.

And sometimes in a dressing room. And sometimes in a hotub. And sometimes on Facebook. And sometimes on my yoga mat. And sometimes on my couch snuggled up under some blankets with my best friend.

You may judge me for not going to church, or you may applaud me, or you may not give a damn either way (and if so you probably didn't make it this far in the blog), but what I really want is a little compassion. Keep your condemnation, applause or indifference. I want compassion.

And eventually...

I want to be welcomed back to church.

A Protest Sign

Dear "Christians" against Obama, get your facts straight.

Tabitha House

We entered Guatemala and checked into a hotel with wi-fi. Thank God. Finally, a chance to reconnect with civilization. I hadn't been on Facebook in three days; I only checked my email for a few minutes on a friend's computer I borrowed. My phone had no service.

I snuggled under the down comforter on one of two queen sized beds in my room. Fourteen pillows for one person seemed excessive, but as I was the only woman on the trip, I didn't have to share!

The next day we would wake up, go visit a ministry of a woman who helped organize the trip and then off to Antigua to sight-see.

Truth be told, I wasn't too hip on going to visit the Tabitha House. We'd been conferencing with pastors in Guatemala for two days straight. Hours upon hours of church talk. I was exhausted, the other pastor's seemed to be wearing down too and quite frankly too much God-talk can make one resent God. Or at least the one talking.

But Carol was nice and I wanted to seem supportive of her (she was the only other actively ministering woman on the trip - i.e. she ran her own ministry instead of being the wife of someone in the ministry).

Edwin, our driver, picked us up at the hotel (30 minutes late, of course), and we began the drive to the Tabitha House. "There's the aqua duct that the Mayans built. Of course, we don't use it now."

"Of course, right." The boys had let me have the front seat either out of chivalry or because I get carsick. Their motives could have been mixed.

"And there's the zoo."

"Aw man! I could have gone to the zoo today?!" I lamented not having received this information earlier so I could have taxied to the zoo and return by the half-an-hour later leave time we had scheduled.

And then the traffic died down and the streets got smaller and we turned onto roads more like alleys than anything. Lined with vendors selling fruits and deodorant and scarves. All things colorful and Guatemalan. And then we approached the dump. It had a huge fence around it. And there were areas of the fence that were black where they'd been burning things. Then outside lining the walls of the dump or across the street were vendors who had recovered things from the dump and were reselling them. There were trucks, like good Texans drive, except twenty years older and white with rust on them piled high with bags of trash or recycling. Like in America, where we save our coke cans to give to the janitor of the church where we're employed, if you can dig through the trash and pick out the right things, you can make a little extra money.


Except for these people it's their only income.

They live across from the dump and you could see the shanties were just scraps of metal leaned up against each other like card house only not as precise or angular.

The dump is situated on top of a marsh. Unstable ground. It's fine for an adult. But for the women and men who go out there with their infants or kids, it can be a dangerous place. Trash piles shift, grounds are sludge, and children, well, they sink.

And that's just one reason why Tabitha House exists.

We walked up to the conspicuous un-labeled door and Edwin knocked. The silent woman slid back the peep box and upon seeing us, opened the door. About twenty kids were seated around small kid tables. "Bienvenidos!" They said in unison. We must have been a sight to behold. I affectionately called our group, "Three Giants and a Ginger." The three men I travelled with were all over six feet tall and this in a county where I at five foot one towered over the people. As we further ventured into the room, the teacher (was she the teacher?) didn't say anything, but sat in a chair next to a bookshelf of papers and crayons. One child got up and came to me, throwing his arms around my legs. At that, several of the kids lept to their feet and began hugging and jumping on the men I was with. They were live living jungle gyms to these kids who I discovered didn't leave this 10x40 foot room. One child next to me had already unzipped my purse and pulled out my camera. Wow. Okay sweetheart, give it back! We left Esteban, our translator, with the children on that floor and ventured upstairs. I felt cramped on the cement staircase. And while I didn't have to turn my shoulders to get up it, I could have. It was very narrow. At the top of the stairs we found another room, much smaller, with two tables and about 10 two and three year olds sitting silently at it. One child ran into the bathroom behind it upon seeing us (children here are taught to fear photographers as they often kidnap children). We doted over them briefly while they stared at us and then went up another staircase to the four and five year old room. These little darlings demanded to be held and studied my bracelets and earrings (I had overdressed for this part of the day) as their snotty noses dripped tangled in my hair.


The Tabitha House houses only sixty children (used to hold 80, but they were low on funding and had to cut back) whose mothers are prostitutes, drug-addicts or just plain poor. While the mothers go out to look for work, or dig in the dump (remember the children can be lost in the dump), Four or five women oversee sixty children who often haven't eaten since the last time they were at Tabitha house.

Most of the children are sexually abused by strung out parents or guardians. Carol describes changing diapers and finding blood everywhere. The abuser often holds glue to the child's nose so they don't know what's happening and, high themselves, neither do they realize what they are doing. One little boy (oddly enough, named Jesus) attached three of the four men with us, boxing them in the groin before climbing onto their backs. "It's his only defense against men," Carol explained. "He expects men to hurt him so he keeps them away pre-emptively. And he's actually much better now. When we first got him, he was uncontrollable." Jesus now lives with a couple who care for eleven children... six of their own and five foster. When Jesus arrived at Tabitha house, they found a hole in his skull where he'd been beaten. They got him medical treatment, but his relatives (guardians) were selling the medicine for money. Jesus never got better and after figuring out why, Tabitha House got him in with the amazing couple that now cares for him and ten other children they call their own.


When "Maria" (I don't know her real name) arrived at Tabitha House, Carol discovered her toes had been eaten off by rats. In the shanties, the rats are huge and children and adults often have to fight the rats for food. When they took her to the doctor, they said she'd never walk. She now runs.

Tabitha House has limited resources, but it uses them well. One or two of the women who watch the children in the house are mothers who originally dropped their kids off at Tabitha House, but have now broken the cycle of poverty, drugs and abuse and are on their way out, or at least up. You see, Tabitha House works with the mothers too - getting them proper documentation for themselves and their children, so they can apply for jobs, have rights. They teach the women life skills - how to cook and sew. And now, the garments the women make are sold for a profit that goes into Tabitha House funds.

And many of the women are changed. They get out of prostitution, off drugs. "But we don't save them," Carol is careful to note. "Only God can change them."

As we pried our legs and arms free from the children (we had returned to the first floor to find Esteban covered in kids), we returned to the car and I longed to wash my hands. Leave it to me to see all that poverty and abuse and wants to wash my hands of it. But the disease the children are exposed to... it is awful. Where they live there are no bathrooms, no showers.



We spent three hours that night after returning from an afternoon of shopping, eating and cathedral-ruin-visiting in Antigua speaking with Carol about Tabitha House. Her fiance and son were with her. And with wide eyes her husband, a neurologist, confessed, "She's a powerful woman. I just watch."

And she is. Imagine what she is up against. Not only the poverty and violence of the streets, but even "missionaries" who have come to help have used her. She spoke of three "missionaries" who raised funds among parishioners in American churches for "the work they were doing at the Tabitha House," but when someone came to visit them and see their ministry Carol had to reply, "I don't know who you're talking about. They don't work here!" And within her denomination (Baptist) they've already had to make cut-backs. They used to feed and help over 80 kids. So many children need help, but to the ones she is given, Carol applies the most gentle care. She uses the resources she has to provide for the children, help the mothers, and allows God to do the rest. "Only God can change people, I cannot," she shakes her head and raises her eyebrows at the misery of the world and the mystery of God.

I raise my eyebrows at her.

Amazing.

I've found a new place to give my tithe during my time off from the local church right now. And if you want to give to Tabitha House as well (and ensure that the funds arrive there!), I can make that happen. You have my word. And so do Jesus and Maria. Two of the pastors I travelled with will be returning next money. Money can be donated through their organizations (tax-deductible) and will go straight to the hands of Carol at Tabitha House. Last time, they brought shoes for the children as well, which was a huge help. But money can go straight to the budget which Carol can use for snacks, supplies, sewing materials, whatever.

Thanks be to God for Carol and for Tabitha House. And may I never take for granted a hotel room or a shower or food in a fridge again.

In the Gulch Part II

To read Part One of The Gulch Story, click here or simply scroll down this blogspot...

Jimmy appeared to have been the spearhead of the operation. He had unlocked the three gates along the long windy "road" that led us down into the gulch. So at lunch after perusing the plants and then hiking deeper into the gulch, conversations with Jimmy and the others began.

It was then that I began to discover that while Jimmy may have written the grants, it was Gladys and Kawika whose passion for the land and the people were driving this project. After much discussion (and after spending half an hour drinking water and napping in the car to fight off dehydration after the hike) I returned to conversation between Kawika and Jim, my Aunt's boyfriend. Jim is a networker, so I wasn't surprised to find him hard as work selling his next project to the workers of Lana'i. But as it turned out, he and Kawika actually knew one another from a project they'd both worked on 20 years earlier on Oahu.

Kawika has a worker's hands, covered in callouses and dirt, similar to his feet which were bare. Additionally, his face is sun-worn and there is a tattoo or perhaps a tattoo covered by another tattoo next to his right eye. I guess for this reason I had dismissed him as a sort of contract laborer instead of the passion behind the project that I came to discover.

Kawika and Gladys work with troubled children on both Oahu and Lana'i. The teenager, I eventually learned, was one such student who, having been taking under Gladys and Kawika's wing, had met this community of people and found them to be family. That's how mama and dad got their names. I can't remember their given names but mama and dad was the name the teenager had given them. They with their three chiuauas worked hard on the land alongside Jimmy, Kawika and Glenda.

In addition to their work with under-priviledged students, Kawika and Gladys devoted their time to rescuing this gulch, to re-claiming it for the Hawaiian people. Gladys teaches hula (fun!) and even goes to Mexico several times a year to teach workshops there. In addition she speaks the native Hawaiin language, or rather dialect, of the people who lived in the gulch.

These people were amazing. They were not rich financially, but they were rich in vision, in compassion and in devotion. They saw a need and they sought to meet it. My dad said if he'd had the money he would have written them a check on the spot. I began envisioning a mission trip here. Learn about the ancient hawaiian civilization... plant crops... talk with these amazing people... work with students...

People joked while members of my staff and I were gone about "suffering for Jesus in Hawaii" and while we weren't on a mission trip (rather attending an inspirational conference called the Baptist World Alliance), there is work to be done even in beautiful, magnificent places. Want to know the number one missionaries to the Hawaiian islands? Mormons. 2/3 people I met on Lana'i were Mormons. Mormons run the island's stable and horse farm. Mormons walk to church on Saturday (when mom and i were trying to find a yoga class) and even Jimmy's wife (who arrived later) was a Baptist who converted to Mormonism and now teaches at the BYU extension campus on Hawaii.

After spending a day with these people, with Jimmy, Kawika and Gladys, the teenager, Mama and Dad (in addition to myself, my mom and dad, aunt glo and jim), we gathered in a circle and having learned that day that I was a minister, they asked me to pray a blessing over them. So I did. And out of all the times I was asked to pray in Hawaii (mostly by people nervous about us being baptists and wanting to be polite so as not to offend us), this was the one time I was happy to comply. I prayed for them and over them and I blessed them in the best way I knew how and as the prayer closed as we began hugging one another and saying goodbye, I saw that the teenager was crying.

Maybe there is need for Mission in Hawaii... maybe we need only join in.

Don't Ask...

A Recap of Chile in Don't Ask sentences...

Don't ask if i wore long underwear to bed and also fuzzy socks and a hat and gloves. Because you know I did.

Don't ask if Chile has central air/heat because you know it doesn't.

Don't ask if the apartment I stayed in had hot water, because as luck would have it, it didn't.

Don't ask if I showered. Just thank God I'm a pseudo-hippie.

Don't ask if I just HAD to wash my hair at some point, and stood (after dragging the heater into the small bathroom), naked in the bathtub and washed my hair under the faucet, sucking in my breath, as I felt brain freeze (like one you get from eating ice cream too fast) - brain freeze, from the outside in and all over my head.

Don't ask how much weight I gained since all they eat in Chile is sugar, tea and bread because you know there were no veggies or fruit offered the whole time I was there.

Don't ask if I flew on more airplanes (4) than actual days I spent in Chile (2).

Don't ask if the people there believe women can be ministers and pastors.

However...

You may ask the following questions... Did the pastor accept you finally, after you preached your first sermon? Ask if he prayed for me and thanked God for me and even admitted to eating his own words as this female pastor who made such a sacrifice to come to Chile brought to them a word from God.

You may ask if the Holy Spirit communicated to the people even though I spoke in English and Raquel, my translator, spoke in Spanish. You may ask if as we spoke on top of one another, the people understood us anyway to the point that one woman came up afterwards and hadn't even realized I (the North American) hadn't been speaking Spanish.

You may ask if as the pastor (who doesn't believe woman should be pastors) prayed for me, if someone behind me put their hand on my shoulder and if in laying hands, he or she brought the Spirit of Peace upon me. You may ask if it called to mind every other time I've felt the Spirit of Peace come upon me through the hand of a compassionate soul.

You may ask if people came up to speak to me afterwards in fluent Spanish, chattering along as if I could understand even though I said, "no comprendo," over and over again. Likewise you may ask if some Chilean woman thought I was a youth that Raquel had brought in to preach and if she tried to hook me up with her teenage son. And you may ask if I unknowingly agreed to come preach at a youth conference for a church when the man was going on and on in Spanish despite my no comprendo smile and empty eyes.

You may ask if it was a blessing. You may ask if God went with me. And you may ask if I'd do it again.

And I would answer... "In a heartbeat."

Galatians 5 Sermon: On Freedom

Beresheth Experiential Worship: Tonight's Sermon. Text: Galatians 5:1, 13-25

Oh Galatians, you are a tricky, tricky text.

We read you and we want to run out into the streets dancing naked, chinking our beer mugs together with one another over and over again, toasting and singing of freedom while we kiss the people around us as our love overflows from our hearts and often from our loins and we revel in our freedom in Christ.

Or maybe that’s just what the Irish do when facing freedom from the British.

I’m not sure.

It happens, upon occasion, that Christians (often teenagers or maybe seminary students) speak of freedom in Christ as they get obliterated on Bud Light or their parents old bottle of vodka that they found in the back of the glass cabinet, stowed away for that special occasion that never came.

“Freedom in Christ” kids say as they head off to college to really live the life they always wanted but never had, oppressed for 18 years in their parents loving homes: sex, beer, frat parties, bad mouthing professors and skipping class. Don’t hold me back, I’ve got freedom in Christ!

I’m exaggerating of course. Most of the college kids I know have more sense than to screw a bunch of people, get an STD and flunk out of school.

Still, you know the sentiment I’m talking about. We’ve all been there. Our God is a forgiving God and temptation towards the ways of this world are, well, tempting, and it’s not like its easy to be good and model humility and live simply all the time.

Gossiping is fun
Vulgarity is funny
Pride is a right
Gluttony is cultural
Judging others is easy
Hating them is even easier

I actually know very few Christians superficial enough to actually adhere to the mantra, “if we know we’re going to be forgiven anyway then why not…?” It’s infantile reasoning that makes God out to be a bi-partisan forgiver, roped into a covenant of forgiveness that She can’t get out of.

Rather, the more mature Christian response to God’s abundant forgiveness and the freedom we receive in Christ often concerns questions of balance. If everything God made is good, and if alcohol is good, and if it is only our abuse of alcohol that wreaks havoc on the world, then how do we maintain a healthy balance of delighting in the goodness of God’s beer made by the Monks in Belgium while keeping ourselves and others healthy and safe? If sex is a spiritual intimacy given to us by God, how do we participate in something that is good and fun, and keep ourselves in check that we are not using others or objectifying the people around us? If our land guarantees everyone certain inalienable rights, how does that affect the way we vote?

Ugh. I hate this sermon. I hate talking about things like alcohol and sex and cursing and all the other token things that the church has confiscated to judge the world and even it’s own Christians. I hate talking about the law and freedom because the church has corrupted these issues, using them as a litmus test for whether or not people are actually Christians. The church in the last thirty years has begun to use what we do or don’t do as an abacus to calculate who’s “in” and who’s “out.” I hate the legalism of it. I hate the fundamentalism of it. I just hate it. And such methodologies is why the world hates the church.

And rightfully so.

“You whitewashed tombs!,” Jesus screamed at the pharisees. How dare you judge a woman for getting an abortion and yet you don’t adopt children, you don’t foster parent, you don’t sponsor kids through international agencies, nor do you volunteer in orphanages overseas. You don’t vote for universal healthcare for children, and you don’t write your representatives advocating better education standards and textbooks in our schools. Shame on you, you whitewashed tombs! You appear so pious and righteous and clean and noble on the outside, but on the inside you are dead and rotting because nothing has changed!

We adopt superficial standards for how we should behave as Christians and fail to allow ourselves to really be changed by Christ… which takes time!

Almost all the great (and terrible) theologians would say sanctification takes time. But when we submit ourselves to Christ’s way that asks us to be resurrected daily to new life, to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, to love our God by loving our neighbor, then the fruit of the Spirit - the repercussions of allowing the Holy Spirit of God to teach us, begin to inform the decisions we make, the lives we lead and communities we serve. And that fruit is as apparent to the people around us as the big red apples growing in an orchard of trees.

Who cares if we smoke, or drink, or have sex before we’re married, or dance, or play cards, or work on Sunday, or vote Democrat, or fill in the blank…?

Wanna know if you’re free to drink as a follower of Christ? Well, does drinking give birth to love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? Or, wanna know if you should cut back on drinking? Use the same criteria. Wanna know if it’s “okay” to vote democrat or vote republican as a faithful Christian? Well, do the platforms for the issues promote love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? Wanna know if you should date a certain person? Well, does that person inspire you to live life more abundantly in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control?

Jesus speaks often of the Kingdom of God which, I believe, He asks us to help usher in here and now. God lives in us right here and right now making us residents of God’s Kingdom here on earth. Creating the kingdom means creating a world birthed out of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And if that language is too flowery for you, let me put it another way.

There’s no “kingdom of God” in objectifying others, so no matter what our sexual inclinations, we must make sure above all that respect, love, kindness and faithfulness guide our love lives. There’s no “kingdom of God” in oppressing the people around us - immigrants or citizens, aliens or residents - so make sure acceptance and peace and generosity define our hospitality. There’s no “kingdom of God” in spending every Saturday trying to remember what happened the night before while our day is sacrificed to the toilet and a bottle of Gatorade, so let us take care that self-awareness, joy, and self-control define how much is too much. There’s no “kingdom of God” in buying and buying and buying more and more things and gadgets and toys so that our families suffer from our overindulgence. Rather, our communities should benefit from our generosity and self-control.

If you’re coping or compensating or creating an exaggerated world to replace the one you actually live in then you can be sure you’re not living in freedom. Freedom isn’t a tangled web of lies that forces us to remember who we’ve told what to and worry if the truth will come out. That’s too complicated to be freedom. Freedom isn’t taking advantage of everyone around you because, by God, it’s your right to be happy and successful and in charge of your life and your future. Freedom isn’t infringing on the rights of others so you can enjoy your own. Freedom isn’t hiding, or worse yet, forging who you are because you are afraid the world won’t accept you. Freedom isn’t hurting yourself and everyone else along the way because you’ve got parents who will always bail you out or a God who will always be with you.

I don’t care how much alcohol you drink or how much sex you have or if you vote Republican (well, maybe I do care just a little). But what I really care about is what Jesus Christ advocated: that your inside matches your outside, that the love and mercy God shows you you will show yourself and others, that the freedom you intellectualize is the freedom you feel. All the rest will fall into place when freedom reigns.

We must allow our fruit to demonstrate our freedom and we must free ourselves to live fully and abundantly in the Spirit.

And who knows, maybe in the process of freeing ourselves, we’ll free God too…

A Prayer

God, it’s morning again….the light rises & fills this room….streaks of color adorning the nets, purging the darkness, probing relentlessly into the most resistant corners of our souls. I wonder if a single beam of light will curl into our hearts this time, chasing away shadows left over from too many demanding yesterdays or restless nights.

We watch for You, wondering if there will be one clear, no-mistaking word, addressed to us alone, compelling us beyond any compromise, certain beyond any doubting, assuring beyond any confusion.

There are many out there who are so very sure and there are many here who want to be sure, but not all of us are so sure. We are blessed, yes, beyond all telling…beyond all thanking…beyond all deserving…but still….we wonder why? Why us and not some others who seem to need it so much more? Why us, when we can give you a thousand reasons why we don’t deserve the goodness that has come. Ah, sometimes we are just so weary of ourselves.

Another day comes yet wisps of yesterday still clutter….being there for whoever asks…mouthing more wisdom than is in our heart…offering more encouragement than we truly feel..giving more answers than honest truth allows….Yet, you work miracles with it all, turning the little loaves & fishes that we all are into food for others. Maybe that’s the clearest sign of You…and maybe that is enough.

Is it Father’s Day all over the world? Or just here? In some cultures, Father’s are revered…in others, tolerated…in all places, relationships with fathers are mixed…Some fathers’ bless, some wound, most of us aren’t sure how to do this job…we all want to do it better….somehow mother’s know better how to be mothers than many of us know how to be fathers….but we love our children…we seek to do the best for them…& if we are wise, we will look to You, the One we call Father, for guidance. So hear as we pray the prayer given by Your Son….Our Father….

Our Father who art in heaven
Hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors
And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil
For thine is the kingdom
And the power
And the glory forever
Amen.

Rev. Dr. Roger A. Paynter
June 20, 2010

Just a Little Sermon on the Trinity...

When I heard that Ragan has been taking you through the lectionary in his preaching series, I have to admit that in my cosy office with one wall of windows and one wall of books, I shuddered. I knew what was coming up on the church calendar. I knew what the lectionary would read before I even looked at it.

Trinity Sunday. The trinity. I have to preach on the Trinity. O God.

This is a problem for me you see because I remember once in seminary raising my hand and inquiring of my professor in a studious, inquisitive tone, not even in a smart alecy or an obnoxious I’m-gonna-challenge-you-tone of voice the such that young seminarians are often heard spouting off at professors or other students whom they find less enlightened than they, but just out of curiosity, out of a desire to know my place in the world, I asked, “What if we don’t really believe in the Trinity?”

“Then you’re a heretic,” my teacher replied.

Super. Three classes into seminary and I’m a heretic. Should have quit then while I was ahead.

Ten years later, and while I wouldn’t confess to not believing in the Trinity, neither would I admit that the concept has become any easier for me to understand.

I rather envy our predecessors, Bishop Alexander, those attending the council at Nicea, and the Capodocian fathers whom you may remember from your history classes, fought off heretics with their lavish sermons and verbose apologetics. They shut down Arianism (the idea that Jesus was created by God and therefore was subordinate to God) and Saballianism (the idea that God just takes on different modes, sometimes He’s the Father, sometimes He’s the Son and sometimes She’s the Spirit) and all sorts of other “isms” that sadly enough usually appeared as a suffix on the name of some Christian who was trying to explain God. But, other Christians had other ideas about God and as a result, after about 200 years of theologizing about the substance of God, the begotten-ness of Jesus Christ and where in the world the Holy Ghost fit into all that, we ended up with the doctrine of the Trinity: God, as one divine nature, is a unity of three persons, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Not only that, but we have two sub categories of Trinity: “economic Trinity refers to the manifestations of the three persons of the Trinity in relationship to the world,” i.e. to us and all creation while the “immanent Trinity is a term used to explore and, to an inadequate degree, explain the internal workings and relationships among the three persons of the Trinity.”

This is where in my seminary class I would start to get antsy and uncomfortable, worried that somewhere along the line I had bought into a polytheistic religion, and that my Hindu friends were right about Christianity all along: we worship three Gods. I’d sit there, shifting in my seat, trying to decide whether I should ask the professor to explain it one more time or if I should just let it go. I mean, it’s only the Trinity, only what some would call the crux of our faith. Three in one: the Father revealed through the Son who sends forth the Spirit. “Like water,” some Sunday School teacher tried to explain to me when I was a child. “Sometimes it’s ice cubes sitting in your freezer, sometimes if you leave the ice trey out it melts into water, and sometimes if your air conditioner is broken, the water evaporates into the air, it’s all God, see?”

“That’s a terrible metaphor,” our professor told us when someone brought it up in class and he shook his head at our primitive theology. That’s Saballiansim.

Great.

And the metaphor we’d been taught as children just got dumped down the sink and new, cleaner, filtered water filled up the trey and it went back into the icebox. According to our forefathers who wrestled with who God is, who Jesus was and how we experience the Holy Spirit, the Trinity is an issue of salvation, and they feared that the ideas their contemporaries were bringing forth challenged the ability of God to save the world.

And since God is in the business of redemption, I guess that would make the doctrine of the Trinity a pretty big deal.

In other words, you can’t worship the creator God, the father of the earth who got his hands dirty making creation come to life and pretend like Jesus and the Holy Spirit don’t exist. You can’t hold Jesus up as a Moral Exemplar, the perfect man after whom we should all pattern our lives and judge our ethics while writing off God as that angry guy in the Old Testament and the Spirit as something western rationalism has rendered irrelevant. Neither can you worship the Holy Spirit and chase after her wisdom (as if you could catch the wind) and in the same breath call God unknowable and Jesus just a really nice guy.

We can’t have one without the other two. Otherwise, we’re missing out on the great mystery that is God.

But I do think that we can relate to those three persons of the Trinity without having ever heard of the word Trinity.

As we heard read earlier, in John 16:12-15 Jesus consoles the disciples by reminding them that when he leaves they would not lose a friend or mentor because “the Spirit will guide you into all the truth.” My therapist told me this week that I should listen to myself, listen to what I hear being said to me, inside me. “You know,” she told me, “It’s been said that humans are the only animals who ignore their instinct.” And often that instinct is the Spirit, leading us to Truth, wailing to the Father on our behalf, warning us against what will harm us.

All of us, when we feel the Spirit, can explain Her as nothing other than, “I just knew.” Or “Something told me,” or an inexplicable sensation of joy or peace. “I just couldn’t explain it,” people say of a brush with the Spirit who is moving around us all the time. She’s like a cat who slips in and around and through our legs, winding her head, her body and her tail so sometimes you can’t tell where the cat begins or ends. She is God’s loved poured out on us, Romans 5 reads, covering us in God’s love.

Likewise, we relate to Jesus, especially to the human side of Jesus. The Jesus who needed a break from the crowds, the Jesus who thought there should have been a little more wine at that last wedding, the Jesus who cried when his friends died. We get that. Not to mention that we want that. We want the dependence on God, the trust that Jesus knew he couldn’t live without. We want the beatitudes. We don’t want to get divorced or even look at women lustfully. We don’t want to be fixated on war, but want to be blessed peacemakers. We want to forgive our enemies, and be strong, beautiful people even though we know we never will. And Christ gives us that. He gives us someone to give up to. We give up because He gave in. He gave in and became a part of our world: the hay bales and the fishing boats and the tax offices and the dinner parties. And he redeemed it all with his love.

And then there’s God the Creator. We know God the Creator too. If we go back just a few chapters earlier in Romans 1 it says that that people can’t help but notice God’s revelation through the created world. It is God the Father we turn to when we want protection, God the Mother we turn to when we need affection. Stereotypical, I know, so reverse them if you want. A mother’s fierce protection is not something to test when it involves the safety of her children, and a Father’s affection, to be seen by one who bears the burdens of the world and still has time for us… We know this God too. And we love this God too even though it is this God that we often blame, shun or deny the existence of because the Creator God’s person is tied so tightly to the baggage we carry with the words, Mother and Father.

I love the book that came out a few years ago and made quite a stirring among Christian circles, The Shack. It’s an allegory of a man who wrestles with the idea of God and becomes so embittered by the sadness in his life that he cringes when his wife calls God, “papa,” her favorite name for God. In the book after telling the story of how he became so unhappy, he mysteriously receives a note from “papa” to meet him at the Shack, the very location associated with much of the main character, Mack’s, pain. So he goes to the shack to take on whoever had played this cruel joke on him, sending him a note with the name, “papa” in it. But instead of a trickster fiend, he finds… well, let me read it to you…

…a large black woman put her arm around Mack’s shoulders, drew him to her and said, “Okay, we know who you are, but we should probably introduce ourselves to you. I,” she waved her hands with a flourish, “am the housekeeper and cook.”… She crossed her harms and put one hand under her chin as if thinking especially hard, “you can call me what [your wife] does.”
“What? You don’t mean…” Now Mack was surprised and even more confused. Surely this was not the Papa who sent the note? “I mean, are you saying, Papa?”
“Yes,” she responded and smiled…
“And I,” interrupted the man, who looked to be about in his thirties and stood a little shorter than Mack himself. “I try to keep things fixed up around here. I enjoy working with my hands although, as these two will tell you, I take pleasure in cooking and gardening as much as they do.”
“You look as if you’re from the Middle East, maybe Arab?” Mack guessed.
“Actually, I’m a stepbrother of that great family. I am Hebrew, to be exact, from the house of Judah.”
“Then…” Mack was suddenly staggered by his own realization. “Then you are…”
“Jesus? Yes. And you may call me that if you like. After all, it has become my common name. My mother called me Yeshua, but I have also been known to respond to Joshua or even Jesse.”
Mack stood dumbfounded and mute. What he was looking at and listening to simply would not compute. It was all so impossible… but here he was, or was he really here at all? Suddenly, he felt faint. Emotion swept over him as his mind attempted desperately to catch up with all the information. Just as he was about to crumple to his knees, the Asain woman stepped closer and deflected his attention.
“And I am Sarayu,” she said as she tilted her head in a slight bow and smiled. “Keeper of the gardens, among other things.”
Thoughts tumbled over each other as Mack struggled to figure out what to do. Was one of these people God? What if they were hallucinations or angels, or God was coming later? That could be embarrassing. Since there were three of them, maybe this was a Trinity sort of thing. But two women and a man and none of them white? Then again, why had he naturally assumed that God would be white? He knew his mind was rambling, so he focused on the one question he most wanted answered.
“Then,” Mack struggled to ask, “which one of you is God?”
“I am,” said all three in unison. Mack looked from one to the next, and even though he couldn’t begin to grasp what he was seeing and hearing, he somehow believed them.

You see, I don’t think the Trinity has much to do with doctrine at all. Rather, I think believing in the Trinity is an act of imagination.

I love to go dancing. Often on Friday nights, I can be found at the Spoke, dancing to some old honky tonk music. But I don’t love to dance because it’s exercise, though it is. And I don’t like to dance because it’s what my friends like to do, though it is. I like to dance because with each song, different steps are required. And as the band plays the slow waltz, the music enters my body which moves to the familiar steps I don’t even have to count and one, two, three, down, up, up, I am imagining myself in a beautiful ball gown dancing around the great castles in Britain or maybe dressed in Jewish wedding wear dancing in Fiddler’s “Sunrise, Sunset.” And then the music changes and I am back in my cowgirl boots two-stepping to “Your Cheatin’ Heart” by Hank Williams, wondering how in the world this girl from Missouri who swore she’d never live in Texas now calls Texas home. And then the band plays the perfect song for swing and as my feet playfully dance the one, two, rock-and, I’m back in St. Joseph, Missouri, at the Senior Citizen’s Center with my grandparents, hanging onto their hands and looking up into their faces as they taught their grand-daughter how to dance.

Dancing is a delight because it is an act of imagination for me. The trinity is beautiful, not because I understand it, but because it too is like a dance, sometimes intricate and sometimes so very simple we wonder why we never picked it up before.

The Creator, Son and Spirit dance together sometimes in a line and sometimes switching partners as they move about the crowded Texas dance hall or the empty green field, or the disco-ball-sparkling teenage gymnasium in whatever dance they feel appropriate to penetrate the souls and minds of those sitting on the side, their dance cards as empty as their hearts.

Methodist George M. Ricker writes, “The doctrine [of the Trinity] really says more about human experience than it does about God. Christians did and do experience the Creator God (Father and Mother), God revealed in the life and ministry of Jesus, and a continuing Presence.”

It’s true, we do. So what’s your experience of God? What about the mystery of God stirs up your imagination?

What about God makes you wanna dance?

Early church Father, Turtullian penned in only the 2nd century the following image of God as Trinity. “When a ray is projected from the sun it is a portion of the whole sun; but the sun will be in the ray because it is a ray of the sun; the substance is not separated but extended. So from spirit comes spirit and God from God, as light is kindled from light…. This ray of God… glided down into a virgin, in her womb was fashioned as flesh, is born as a man mixed up with God. The flesh was built up by the spirit, was nourished, grew up, spoke, taught, worked, and was Christ.

Who is God?

“I am the one who was and is and who is to come,” God replies.

I am.

I am.

I am.

Amen.

Trinity Sunday Sermon
By Ann Pittman
Sanctuary Church, Austin, TX
May 30, 2010

* * *

Here is more information on the doctrine of the Trinity and how it came to be...

When did we get the “official” doctrine of the Trinity?

Council of Nicea 325C.E. presided over by Emperor Constantine in response to the theological and ecclesiastical war between Arius and Bishop Alexander.

Arius feared Sabellianism or Modelism, the idea that God is three modes or vehicles and felt Alexander treaded too close to the heresy that said sometimes God is Father, other times God is Son and finally, God is Spirit. He was influenced by Origin though who those that Jesus was subordinate to the Father. He, like Alexander was also influenced by Greek philosophy that assumed that “divinity is ontologically perfect in such a way that any change at all is impossible for it and improper to attribute to it.” Arius believe that God the Father was “eternal and immutable” whereas Jesus, the Logos, “was created before the world and therefore was capable of changing and suffering.” Alexander accused Arius the heresy of Paul of Samosata of adoptionism, the idea that Jesus was adopted by God the Father as God the Son. Think Jehovah’s Witness theology of today. Alexander also subtly suggested that if Arius was right, then God “changed” when he created the Son, because it was only after the Son was created that God became God the Father. Consequentially, they both feared that each other’s thoughts challenged the ability of God to save the world.

Arius and his followers, the Arians, were considered heretics and the Council of Nicea affirmed again that the Trinity is made up of three divine beings, all of whom are equally God. It affirmed that Jesus and God the Father are homoousios or consubstantial, of one substance and one being. And it emphasized the word “begotten” (as opposed to “made”) which it borrowed from the Bible itself.

To correct the impression that the Nicene Trinitarian orthodoxy implied three Gods, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa in the Council of Constantinople of 381 affirmed God as three hypostases or three persons instead of just one substance.

The Council of Constantinople rewrote the Nicene Creed in 381 which has been accepted in this final form as orthodoxy for most Christian traditions.

Nicene Creed
We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

In 589 the Western church added the clause “and the Son” to the Nicene Creed regarding the Holy Spirit, namely that She proceeds from the Father and the Son. And in 850, The Eastern church argued that was a subordination of the Spirit and rejected this addition as Sabellianism or modelism (ironically what Arius feared centuries earlier). This became known as the filioque controversy and contributed to the Great Schism which created The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church.

John Wesley: “I dare not insist upon anyone’s using the word ‘Trinity’ or ‘Person.’ I use them myself without any scruple.. but if any man [sic] has any scruple concerning them, who can constrain him to use them? I cannot.”

Emerging Synchroblog

In response to a request for an Emerging Synchroblog that all bloggers involved in church life (whether conversants in the Emergant Village or not) write about the question, "What is Emerging in the Church?" here I go...

I think what is emerging in the church is inclusivity. I say that not because it is what I hope for (though I do), but I say that because finally the church and believers as a whole are generally moving towards a more inclusive theology of God.

Like Jonah before them, many Christians are digging in their heels and even swimming out to sea to avoid sharing a pew with a black man, a pulpit with a woman or communion bread with a homosexual, but it's happening.

While women were leaders and preachers in the early church, somewhere along we way, we as Christians lost our bearing. Even early abbesses were ordained in the 2nd century whereas now they're only blessed. But, in 1974, the church I'm in began ordaining women as deacons. In 2006, I became the 6th or 7th female they'd ordained to the ministry (with three more coming after me). A few months ago I was the "token woman's resume" in a Dallas church's search for a senior pastor. And while that royally pissed me off (I found out later they'd already chosen their candidate but needed to say they'd "looked at" a woman's resume), my current pastor and mentor reminded me that I could be the "token female" for future generations of women. He's right. And one day we'll see women priests in the Catholic church and we won't think twice about whether or not to hire a woman pastor for our church...

In 1948 Carlyle Marney began the difficult task of integrating the church i currently attend and also fighting 13 racist bills in the Texas Legislature. In 1963 my church passed a resolution about membership not being exclusive or determined by race. In 1967 they ordained their first "black" deacon. Now, color isn't a consideration when we invite people to be deacons or preach from our pulpit. (And maybe one day we'll have a black senior pastor in addition to a female senior pastor).

In 1976, the Episcopal church affirmed that gay men and women were children of God deserving acceptance and pastoral care. In 1992 an American Baptist church in Minnesota called a gay pastor to be their minister and a Southern Baptist church in North Carolina ordained a gay seminary student. Someday it will be okay to be a Christian who is gay and be a member of a congregation. Someday it will be okay to be a deacon who is gay, and someday it will be okay to be a pastor who is gay.

Each of these "issues" I've named (being a woman, being a minority, being gay) began by being labeled as a "sin" or "sub-human" or "not holy enough to matter" by a people group in the majority and in control. And each of these types of people, through the grace of God, has been seen for what they really are - a unique expression of the diversity of God - and their oppressors exposed in their own judgmental sin.

And Jonah went to Nineveh. And Nineveh was invited into covenant with God.

Inclusivism: God's all inclusive love. God's reckless adoration for all of humanity regardless of race or gender or sexual orientation or you fill in the blank. This is where God is leading us and this is how I think the church is slowing emerging. The church is emerging from a worldview of exclusive "God only loves people who look and act and think like me" to God loves everyone and maybe even has planned for me to learn and grow from these people that I once considered "other."

Thanks be to God...

(P.S. If you want to read what other people think is emerging in the Church, a full list of participants in this write-off can be found at One Hand Clapping.)

Easter... Welcome.

I stood up to give the following welcome on Easter morning at FBC Austin...

"It’s rainy. But we’re here. A perfect day for a book and a blanket, but we’re dressed to the nines in all colors and patterns and instead of any old rainy day book, we’ve chosen to read the Good book this morning.

Why?

Because 2000 years ago something miraculous happened. Something that would change the world entirely. Not for a moment, not for a day, not even for a generation… but forever. God became flesh and dwelt among us and cried and laughed and was crucified for loving us so much. The world can only handle so much love…

But apparently the grave can only handle so much love as well and three days later, God resurrected from the grave and offered hope that we too may all die to ourselves and live in the life that is Christ.

So welcome this morning. Welcome to First Baptist Church. The women have brought the good news, the men have gone running back to the tomb to see for themselves and the cowards have locked themselves in the upper rooms, afraid to believe that indeed, we can live in freedom.

So wherever you are, whoever you are, arise, the Light has come. The darkness does not triumph. And Christ is risen indeed!"

However, part way through the second paragraph as I scanned the congregation, I saw someone I haven't seen at church in over two years: Scott Walker.

Scott was one reason 2008 was such a challenging year. He was a junior in High School that spring with a promising future, but Scott tried to take his life and was almost successful. His mother found him and revived him and ever since then Scott has been in and out of neuro-hospitals receiving multiple treatments and undergoing many surgeries.

But there he was in church, on resurrection Sunday, sitting in his wheelchair with a huge gaping grin on his face. While his motor skills are limited, I could tell he recognized me - my voice, and I could tell he was loving being there. And I began to weep.

You should warn a girl if something as momentous as Scott Walker returning to church two laborious years after that Sunday afternoon when everything changed is going to happen. If a girl has to stand up and talk in front of 800 people, someone should warn her.

I suppose everyone thought I was crying about Jesus. But I wasn't. And yet, in a way I was. While Scott will never be the same, never be the Scott we knew, he is a new Scott now and God has surrounded his family with love and joy, despite their tragedy. Only God got them through that moment, those minutes, those few hours, those weeks, those months, those years, and only God will continue to.

After my welcome, I crossed back behind the organ pipes, took off my robe, and re-entered by the choir loft to lead the congregation in singing, Come Awake by David Crowder Band. This too, could not have been more perfect for Easter morning. Not only are the lyrics amazing, but that was the song we sang to comfort ourselves after Scott's tragedy. Over and over we sang it... "Come awake from sleep, arise. You were dead, become alive..." In some ways he did and in some ways he didn't.

But there he was on Easter, Resurrection Sunday and there we were singing Come Awake.

Come Awake.

For lunch I joined my FBC "parents" the Nethercuts, for an amazing meal at the UT Club. Hoity toity and delicious. Rich people sure know how to eat. And the company was good and it was nice to feel a part of a family.

Come Awake.

That afternoon, after the sun came out, I went to the park with my dog and laid on a blanket in the sun and read and read. It was amazing. Perfect weather where you don't feel hot but neither do you feel cold. Just warm and content all over.

Come Awake.

That evening, I went to a friends house for a BBQ and drank and drank and laughed and laughed and shouted, "He Is Risen!" in my slightly inebriated state.

Come Awake.

I was awake. And I was happy. What a perfect Easter. Beautiful, meaningful and rich. "I overindulged at church (on thankfulness) and at lunch (on food)!" I wrote for my facebook update.

Come Awake... Welcome, Easter. Welcome back.

And He's Gone

I think the "Good" is ironic...



Jurgen Moltmann said that when Christ called out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?) God became both the oppressor and the oppressed. I'm still internalizing what this means... for Christianity, for Judaism, for faith, for freedom, for salvation, for God... and for Christ... Emmanuel, God With Us.

(this video was made for our Good Friday service last year by my co-worker Joe Bumbulis).