Creatio Ex Nihilo

Death by Humiliation - by Pam Heatley

Today, I'm featuring a guest post by Pam Heatley, who founded Vision with me eight years ago and is our Director of Ministry.  She preached this sermon on Sunday.

I was driving in my car a family friend who comes here to church.  She told me (sort of in a half joking way) that since we’ve been doing the 10 Commandments she realizes that so far she broken the first 5 we’ve talked about.   But the consolation for her she said,  “was that we’re getting to Thou Shalt Not Kill soon right?  “At that’s good – because I know I don’t do that one.”

Some of you may be feeling the same way.  How many of you have been arrested for murder lately?  No one.  Whew!  Ok then, finish your coffee and we can all go home!

Oh how I wish I could tell you that.  I wish I could say this is the easy commandment.  The one you can emotionally skip over and tell yourself you don’t have to worry about because there “ain’t no way I’m killing somebody”. Well, don’t relax so fast.   The problem for us is that this commandment is about much more than we think it is.  Even if we stick with the literal meaning of this commandment you’ll find endless debates over what constitutes murder and what is justifiable killing.  For many of us even those things seem far away and removed to many of us.  So I’m not even going to go there today.

I want to talk about the part of this commandment that effects everyone of us, the part of this commandment that’s going to leave everyone of us saying, “Uh oh, I do that one too” because we all do.

Behind every murder is a thought.  A thought that can sometimes lead to the literal murder of someone but more often lead to just plain hurting each other.    You know it’s possible to kill a person in little tiny ways by chipping away at their self-esteem, trust, joy, sense of worth, security and sense of self.

Maybe you’re saying “When have I ever done that?”   We all have times in our lives when we let our anger rule us or when we let those things that emerge from our anger like resentment, jealousy, competition or even our self-centered drive to survive entice us to treat each other without dignity. When we do that, we compromise the chance that the person we hurt can have the abundant life that God wants for them.  In other words, we take a life and we commit murder.

Yes, I am saying that a hand gesture at a car that is annoying you is just as bad as murder, because it comes from the same place, anger.  That does not diminish the act of murder in any way, but it does increase our understanding that everything we do has the potential to chip a way at someone’s soul.   I believe there is a real death that occurs in people whenever we speak unkindly about them, throw thoughtless insults at them.  Or make little digs in our conversations with them, often disguised as humor.

The Sabbath Question - by Bob Scott

Today, I'm featuring a guest post by Bob Scott.  Bob preached this sermon last week while I was away.  He is the Director of Trinity Institute at Trinity Wall Street in New York City, a good friend, and was one of the members of our core team when Vision began.

Did anybody stop off on the way to church this morning? Maybe you went by the grocery store to pick up food for later. Did anybody stop at the liquor store? You don’t need to raise your hands. A few years ago you couldn’t have done that. At one time most stores, and until recently all liquor stores, had to close on Sundays because of Blue Laws. These laws started with the Puritans in the 17^th century. Over the years every state passed blue laws forbidding things like playing baseball or changing wagon wheels on Sunday. In Massachusetts holding hands on Sunday was against the law. In some states you could sell hammers but not nails on the Sabbath.

And there lies the rub. The laws were to protect the Sabbath, specifically the Christian Sabbath, since the Jewish Sabbath is Saturday. In the 20^th century people sued to overturn Blue Laws. The Supreme Court decided they were constitutional, because while they began for religious reasons, they now had other value, such as guaranteeing workers a day off or decreasing public drunkenness. Recently, though, many of the laws have been disappearing, mostly for economic reasons. Why shouldn’t a liquor store owner make money on Sunday? Today a lot of states forbid car sales on Sundays, and people are asking whether we can afford that when car companies are hurting.

Now, since we’re in church and we’re studying the commandment to honor the Sabbath, you might expect a pitch for reinstating the Blue Laws. And in fact, a study by professors at MIT and Notre Dame found that in states where selling liquor on Sundays is legalized, church attendance and giving go down noticeably and use of alcohol and drugs goes up, particularly among youth, and particularly among youth who are religious.

And yet, churches aren’t always big supporters of Blue Laws. In 1920 the New York Times reported that the rector of Trinity Church Wall Street, which as some of you know is where I work, preached a sermon saying that the return of the Puritan Sabbath, which was being advocated by a group called The Lord’s Day Alliance, would “injure religion.” Instead of outlawing sports, he said, pastors should be playing them. Why? Because “God is near in our joys also,” he said. The problem with a legally enforced Sabbath is that it takes the joy out of a day that according to the Jewish Hassidim “should be anticipated like a bride.”

For several weeks we’ve been reading the Ten Commandments. Number four is “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” Sabbath is from the Hebrew “Shabbat,” which means “to cease” or “to rest.” It was understood as a time to stop our labor. That’s what the Blue Laws were getting at – don’t do business, don’t play games. Cease.

Video Highlights of Christianity 21

Here's the highlight video I shot and edited from Christianity 21.  I know it has been posted elsewhere, but I just wanted it to have a home on my blog.  Many thanks to the wonderful speakers, and to Tony and Doug for producing the event.

The Least Generation

Let me tell you about a generation living during a pivotal time in history, a time of change and new ideas.  A time of new technology making the world a smaller more connected planet.  A time of questioning old belief systems, religions and the supernatural.  Financial turmoil.  A rise in socialist ideas about the economy.  New forms of art.  The passing away of old racial divisions.  The blurring of the line between black music and white music.  Rethinking long-held concepts about sexuality, about what constituted a family and parental authority.  A generation living through one of the most important times in human history.

What generation am I describing?  Some of you, especially the teens, may assume I am talking about our children, the Millennial Generation, Gen Y, or whatever term demographic studies call them now.  Some of you, perhaps some Baby Boomers, assume I am describing the 1960’s and all the social upheaval of that era.  Those of you from the WWII era probably thought I was talking about you, what Tom Brokaw termed “The Greatest Generation”. In fact, I was describing the generation that lived through the 1920’s, the generation of my grandparents and great-grandparents.  The time of jazz music, Harry Houdini, Sigmund Freud, Red Scares, and the stock market crash.  

Unless you know history well, or lived through that time, you probably didn’t make those associations.  Instead, you associated the cultural phenomena I described with the experience of your own generation.  That is to be expected since we are all guilty of what Old Testament scholar Walter Bruggemann calls “one generation narcissism” and think nothing important happened in history until we showed up on its stage.  Every generation believes they are living in a time of cultural, technological, artistic and political revolution the likes of which the world has never seen.  In a sense, they are correct.  Each generation does face challenges that are unique and in some way unprecedented.  Each generation’s character is shaped by new influences.  Yet when we wrongly imagine that those who came before us have nothing to teach us, we risk repeating the mistakes of the past.

Last weekend, Pam and I attended the Christianity 21 conference in Minneapolis during which twenty-one women speakers explored faith in the 21st century.  One of them, Diana Butler Bass, a church historian, said, “People who really know history … are people who are not afraid of change…because we’ve seen it all before.”  A connection to those who came before us provides us with the wisdom to deal with the challenges of the present.

How do we have that connection with the past?  Is it soley through watching the History Channel or academic study?  As we have seen these past few weeks, the God of the Ten Commandments is not some abstract concept but a God who acts in history, not in vague generalities but with great specificity.  The God of Mt Sinai comes to people in very personal ways.  So it should come as no surprise that in order connect us with our past, God comes to us through one of the most personal of relationships, that of parent and child.

As we continue our study of the Ten Commandments, we come to this the fifth commandment, “Honor your father and your mother that you may long endure on the land your God gives you.”   Now some of you may have difficulty with this commandment.  Perhaps you have a parent or parents that were neglectful, even abusive.  Some of you have parents who did not and not honor you.  This commandment does not endorse such behavior.   Nevertheless, we can’t be afraid to lift up the values of parenting and family just because so many people have been hurt by their family.  In fact we need to speak up even louder to say that’s not the way  a family is supposed to be.  This commandment invites us to rethink parenting, to be the kind of parents God calls us to be and not shrink back from being so.  How can we do that?

A few things we must note about how this commandment is phrased.  First, we are told to honor our parents.  Not blindly obey, or excuse abusive behavior.  The Hebrew word for honor is a softer gentler word.  Bruggemann describes honor as a more “delicate transactive maneuver whereby both parties grow in dignity through the process.”  Think of God’s family, the Trinity, where the members honor one another without dominating one another.  Honoring our parents is not an excuse for parents to beat down their children either physically or verbally.  Since history teaches us that we have seen it all before, we can surmise ha there were inadequate and abusive parents in ancient Israel.  God was certainly not endorsing that sort of parenting in that time and surely is not endorsing it in our on time. It is not the divinely-ordained endorsement of the old parental rationalization “because I said so.”  Instead it is yielding our wills and sometimes even narcissism to those who came before us.  It is realizing that our parents, whether they were good or bad parents, may have something to teach us.  

Videos of Pam and I @ Christianity 21

Pam and I were interviewed by Sparkhouse while we were at Christianity 21 this past weekend.    We also appeared on the 2nd hour of Doug Pagitt's radio show.

Can You Convince This Guy to Become Methodist?

Recently I had a conversation about ministry with a very creative person.  He was bright and could articulate theology in new and exciting ways.  Within his church, this expression took form both in his preaching, as well as the arts and music. Besides his creative approach, he was also entrepreneurial, having started a church and done quite well.  As we spoke, I shared my background and interests with him, which was very similar.  One main difference between us is that I am a United Methodist pastor and he is non-denominational.

At one point he shared that he had thought of joining a denomination, but wasn’t sure what if any advantages it would afford him.  I suggested he might want to consider the United Methodist denomination.

Then he asked me the big one.  It should have been an easy question for me, but it wasn’t. 

“So Don, why would I want to be Methodist?”

Stumbling a bit, I mentioned some of the institutional benefits like a guaranteed appointment and a pension (neither of which I have, but that’s another story).  In any case, it wasn’t convincing to my friend, since both of us believe tenure often rewards mediocrity.  I explained how Wesleyan theology was very close to his viewpoints, but he wondered why he couldn’t just have that theology on his own. I also resisted giving the standard answer people always gave me, “Oh we could use someone like you.”  I was never that into being used by an institution and neither was my friend. 

“No.  That’s not what mean,” he said.  “I don’t care about all that stuff.  Why would the United Methodist church be a good fit for me?  Why would it be the best place for me to do this ministry?”

I knew what he meant.  Here was this innovative entrepreneurial guy asking if my denomination was the kind of organization that welcomed those qualities.  From my own experience, I knew most UMC people would say they would welcome a creative self-starter.  Yet in actual practice, I have found the pressure to make such a person fit in can far exceed people’s best intentions.

Like me, my friend wanted to be in the place where he could rise to his greatest creative potential and where he could be who God created him to be.  I must admit I had to struggle to explain how the United Methodist Church, or any denomination for that matter, was such a place.   Sure I could have sold him on the institutional perks and explained that with a little skill he could learn to work the system, find back channels, and ways to bend rules so he could do what God called him to do, all the while defending himself from the suspicions and criticisms of his colleagues.  But how appealing is that?  How old and burnt out will he be when he masters those skills? Wouldn’t it just make more sense for him to follow God’s call and do what God is calling him to do?

As you can probably tell, I have mixed feeling on this question myself.  So let me throw this question out to all of you.  Without saying “We could use someone like him,” how would you convince an innovative creative and entrepreneurial person that United Methodism was a good match their personality type?  Or is it more accurate to say that the UMC is a great denomination for those of a certain mindset, just not someone with those traits? Do hierarchies inevitably squelch creativity?  Is the kind of innovation and creativity that works and is needed in our churches compatible with the UMC structure? For those of you in other denominations, is it compatible with your structure?

What in God's Name Are We Doing?

Once there was a man who wanted to host a Super Bowl party.  Unfortunately, he felt inadequate inviting people to his home since he was pixel-deprived. Embarrassed by his 19” screen, he desperately wanted a high definition television.  Occasionally he would drop into his local consumer electronics store to stare at the same football game playing on all the high definition screens, only to leave in disappointment.  Despite all his desire to enter the 16:9 world, his wallet couldn’t swing it.  They were just too expensive.  He would just wait until the price dropped. “After all,” he said,”Look what happened with DVD players. They started out costing over a grand and now you can get one for fifty bucks. ”

One day, as he passed by a usually deserted strip mall, he thought he was in luck.  In what was once an empty storefront hung a banner, “Discount Hi-Def TV’s!”  Immediately he swerved into the parking lot and rushed into the store.  It was as if someone had granted his impossible wishes.  There they were, 52” high-definition screens for under a thousand dollars.  Most surprisingly, they were brand names, Sony, Hitachi, Toshiba.  Giving it little thought, after all this was a no-brainer, he bought the biggest screen Sony TV he could find for under a grand, loaded it into his minivan and brought it home.

Things were fine for a few weeks.  The man enjoyed the his new HD television, watching sports and  movies all in stunning clarity. A few days before the Super Bowl though, things went awry.  One evening after work, this man sat down on the couch, clicked the remote and - nothing.  The screen didn’t come on.  No sound - nothing.  The next day he went back to the strip mall where he bought it, only to find an empty storefront.  The Discount Hi-Def store was gone.

The Super Bowl was approaching fast, so he went home, loaded the TV into his van again and brought it into a consumer electronic chain store.  Of course, they said they only repaired products bought from their store, but the man convinced the service department to take a look at it.  They carted the big screen into the store and a technician put it on a test bench.  

The man said,”I don’t understand.   I just bought it.  It’s a Sony.  They’re usually pretty reliable aren’t they?”

The tech just chuckled as he looked over the TV, “This isn’t a Sony.  It’s a cheap knockoff made in Vietnam.  They just slap a Sony nameplate on it.”

Even though he was disappointed, the man ignored his embarrassment and pleaded, “Can you fix it?  I really need to have a hi-def TV for my Super Bowl party this weekend”

“Hi-def?” the technician laughed. “This isn’t a hi-def unit.  They just take a standard def picture and blow it up to fit the screen.  It’s really a piece of junk.  Where did you buy it?”

The man’s heart sunk.  He knew he had been had.  Desperate to get what he wanted and valued most, he had been fooled by a cheap counterfeit.  He thought he bought a Sony, but it was just a piece of junk with a brand name he never heard of and couldn’t even pronounce.

There are particular qualities we associate with certain brand names.  We all know the quality that a Rolex watch or Gucci handbag represent.  We have all heard stories of people being fooled by cheap knock-offs that don’t live up o the reputation of the real thing.  A dishonest manufacturer puts together something cheap and slaps a brand name on the product in order to give it more perceived value.   A good name is used to fool people into accepting an inferior product.