A Favorite Prayer

Breathe into Me the Courage to Make Something New

by Ted Loder

Thank you for all we forget are gifts, 
        not rights. 
Forgive us for all the grievances 
        we remember too well. 
Save us from the self-pity, 
        the self-seeking,
                the fat-heartedness
                       which is true poverty.
Guide us, if we're willing,
        (drive me if I'm not),
                into the hard ways of sacrifice
                       which are just and loving.
Make us wide-eyed for beauty,
        and for our neighbor's' need and goodness;
wide-willed for peace-making,
        and for the confronting power
                with the call to compassion;
wide-hearted for love
        and for the unloved,
                who are the hardest to touch
                        and need it the most.

Dull the envy in us
        which criticizes and complains life
                into a thousand ugly bits.
Keep us honest and tender enough to heal,
        tough enough to be healed of our hypocrisies.
Match our appetite for privilege
        with the stomach for commitment.
Teach us the great cost of paying attention
        that, naked to the dazzle of your back as you pass,
                 we may know we are always on holy ground.
Breathe into us the restlessness and courage
        to make something new,
                something saving,
                        and something true
that we may understand what it is to rejoice.

 

 

Inaugural Prayers

Before discussing the inaugural prayers of invocation and benediction, I would like to take a moment to thank Rick Warren for his great courage in standing up to the great threat posed to families, kittens, and democracy by homosexuality. Verily, he is a man who knows an abomination when he sees one. In the true spirit of Jesus he has chosen hate over love and intolerance over acceptance. I personally can think of no one I would rather have representing American Christianity to the world than he. 

Furthermore, on behalf of white preachers everywhere, a community long characterized as inarticulate in word and bland in delivery, I would like to thank Mr. Warren for not being at all dull or uninspiring and for using a tone entirely appropriate to the gravitas of the historic moment the inauguration represented. 

That is enough from me - I could go on about how amazing this guy is all day. Without further ado, I present to you Rev. Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in California delivering the prayer of invocation at President Obama's inauguration: 



Little needs to be said about the benediction. The Right Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery is simply not a person of note. Sure, he loitered about with that Martin Luther King Jr. fellow. Sure, he was was a lead orchestrater of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. But seriously, civil rights - so cliche. Who wants justice and compassion when you could be hating on homosexuals? Not I, for one. Also, what's up with his words being all poetic and the cadence of his speech being pleasing to the human ear. Nancy boy. My fellow white preachers, DO NOT TRY TO PRAY LIKE THIS GUY. It will be the end of your career.

Here he is:

One Down, Five to Go

After a good deal of study and an even greater deal of worry, my first semester at Harvard drew to a close this past Wednesday with a 3-hour Japanese test and the handing in of a 15-page paper analyzing the connection between churches' definitions of community their levels of social engagement (it was as interesting as it sounds, I assure you). Although these 6 days off will be relaxing, we jump right back into classes next Wednesday so I've been spending many an hour poring over the course listings. My schedule thus far is shaping up to be pretty packed:

Theories and Methods in the Study of Religion (mandatory)

This course, required of all first-year MDiv students but open to all, serves as an introduction to various approaches to the academic study of religion, from the anthropological and sociological to the philosophical and theological. May only be taken for a letter grade.

Christianity: The Liturgical Year

An introduction to Christianity by way of its liturgical calendar, from Advent through Pentecost and Ordinary Time, including biblical foundations, historical development, and contemporary theological, cultural, and artistic reflection on the annual pattern of Christian life.

The Apostle Paul: His Letters, His Cities, and His Legacy

The course addresses the entire Pauline Corpus. Beginning with the genuine letters of Paul in the New Testament it will demonstrate the developments attested in canonical and apocryphal writings that assumed the mantle of Paul's authority after his death. Archaeological materials will elucidate the cultural and religious world of Paul's cities.

Meaning Making

This course is designed for students currently in a field education setting and focuses on exploring the theological dimensions of students' field education experience.

The Ethical and Religious Thought of Martin Luther King, Jr.

A study of the life, thought, and actions of Martin Luther King, Jr. An ethical analysis of his primary concepts, ideas, and strategies based upon a reading and discussion of his writings and their sources.

Advanced Japanese

Having written that out for the first time I must say it looks more than a little bit daunting. Perhaps I should just altogether give up the hope of having a social life alongside my studies. 

God is good.

The Advent of Hope (Sermon #2)

Good morning, friends. I know, I know, I can’t believe it either. They let me back up here again. Just when you thought it was safe to come back to church. 

But, we gather together this morning on the second Sunday of the Advent season. For us Christians, Advent is a season of great hope. In it’s etymology, the word advent is derived from the Latin adventus, meaning arrival. Each consecutive Sunday brings with it a greater sense of hope than the last as we come nearer and nearer to Christmas day when we commemorate the arrival of our savior 2000 years ago and celebrate in hope his promise to arrive again. And on this morning of the second Sunday of Advent I would like to talk in depth about our conception of hope. It seems to me that with our economy in utter turmoil, with America’s sons and daughters dying on foreign soil in a war that is far from over, and our day to day lives filled with struggles both big and small, hope is something we need to talk about more often. 

 

After 21 months of stump speeches you may be surprised to find that hope is not a thing reserved solely for political campaigns for presidency. You may also be surprised to find, as I know I was, that our beloved President-elect Mr. Barack Obama is not the inventor of the notion of hope. In fact, as a professed Christian in general and a United Church of Christ-er in particular, Mr. Obama is heir to a tradition steeped in hope all the way back to its roots in ancient Israel. If nothing else, we Christians are a hopeful people. 

However, in the course of his campaigning Mr. Obama bandied the word hope about as if it was in need of no further definition. I take issue with this. Hope, if left undefined, can easily become confused and conflated with words like wish, dream, or aspire. Hope, hope is different. It has added dimensions, added layers – it is a good deal more complex. Gustavo Gutierrez, a Peruvian priest and social activist, defines hope as a not-yet-consciousness that seeks to be made manifest in the future through human action in the present. Let me run that by you one more time. Hope is a not-yet-consciousness that seeks to be made manifest in the future though human action in the present.

Let me tell you a story to illustrate what he means by this. There is ship halfway through its journey from Morocco to Miami in the middle on the Atlantic Ocean. The trip is going smoothly, the coast is clear as they say, when all of the sudden a storm system moves in from the west trapping the ship and its crew near the northern edge of the storm. The ship is being tossed about in the brutal fury of the sea. The crew knows that if they don’t do something to get out the storm they will perish beneath the frigid waves of the mid-Atlantic but they are so disoriented they don't know where to begin. Then in a crack in the clouds the captain spies the North Star, and visions of the calm sea beyond the northern edge of the storm fill his mind. What does the captain do? He is the captain so of course he spurs his crew to action by ordering them to batten down the hatches, to man the rudder, and to pump out the bilge and to shiver me timbers, whatever that may mean. The crew springs to life, taking all the actions necessary to propel their ship through the storm and into the safety of the north, where eventually they arrive, shaken, but unscathed.

Now, where was the hope in this situation? According to Gutierrez, the hope is not located in the sighting of the North Star alone, nor in the calm seas it represented. Nor was the hope singularly located in the exertions of crew. Rather, the hope is located in the synergy that occurred when the vision of the calm sea met with the action necessary to get there. That is to say, where the crew’s not-yet consciousness met with the corresponding action necessary to make it happen, there was  hope. In the specifically Christian sense, hope usually arises in recognition of some aspect of God’s goodness not yet fulfilled in our lives. As faithful believers we are called to hopeful action to bring that goodness about. It is just this kind of active, lively get-up-and-do-something, God-inspired hope that we see in today’s scripture reading. Enter John the Baptist. John is introduced to us as an ascetic who lives in the wilderness, who eats only locusts and honey, and who wears only a loincloth of camel hair and a leather belt. Although, I have no personal experience wearing one myself Rev. O’Brien informs me that they chafe a great deal – adding the perfect complement to John’s already uncomfortable lifestyle. Brother John was obviously not one to be concerned with material comfort. Rather, he awaited with great longing the coming of the messiah who had been prophesied about for generations. A messiah that would rescue the Jews from the oppression of the Roman occupation of their lands / and usher in an age of prosperity for the Israelites. John understood with great clarity that waiting was not enough. John, the paragon of hope that he was, realized that his longing for the messiah called for immediate action in the present to make that which was not-yet come to be. And so it was that John cast off all worldly comfort and went out to the Jordan preaching and cleansing the hearts of men, women, and children through water baptism, making straight the path for the coming messiah.

And in talking about John the Baptist’s ministry we encounter one more property of hope that I didn’t bring up before, but deserves mention; that is, to co-opt Mr. Obama’s descriptor, the utter audacity of Christian hope. We often find ourselves surrounded by seemingly insurmountable evils and obstacles in our lives. And even when the deck is seemingly stacked against us, even when nothing in life seems to be going in our favor, we as Christians have the unrelenting audaciousness to envision a future much brighter and much Godlier than our present condition. 

John preached of the coming messiah but he did not know, however, when this messiah would come or what this messiah would even look like. To the best of our knowledge, John didn’t even know who Jesus was. Although the Gospel of Luke asserts that John is in fact Jesus’ cousin, most scholarship indicates that this relationship is, in the words of one, actually kind of pretentious, theologian, “of dubious historicity.” That is to say, John and Jesus were probably not related at all. Moreover, John the Baptist was certainly not aware that he was the “one crying in the wilderness” of whom Isaiah spoke. We know this only because in his gospel Mark has woven these strands of history together for us. Isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing? We know what’s going to happen in verse 9: Jesus is going to show up at the banks of the River Jordan wanting to be baptized by John. But poor John living out verse 8 / didn’t have a clue. John had no visible, no tangible reason to expect that his ministry could actually help pave the way for the coming messiah. The Israelites had lived under Roman rule for over a century and had no reason to expect it to end anytime soon. Rather, John’s ministry sprung forth as a necessary component of an absolutely audacious hope that recognized a goodness not yet fulfilled in the world for which he strived to help bring about. Not knowing if he would even see it in his lifetime. Not knowing if his actions would even be effectual. John the Baptist believed against all logic and rationality that he could overcome his present condition and take action to aid the future fulfillment of a messiah, who, as it would turn out, would provide the world with hope for generations to come. 

But it is often the case nowadays that our hope is maligned by society as naïve, as childish. We live in a world that is critical of religiosity of any sort and wants to hear little of a hope animated by the good that God intends for our lives. There is a famous critique of religion by the philosopher Karl Marx that gets quoted all the time, especially on college campuses / especially toward upstanding young men who come out saying that they want to be preachers / (not that I’m bitter… OK maybe a little). But you’ve all probably heard this quote before: “Religion is the opiate of the masses.” If I understand this quotation correctly, we stand accused of being pacified by our religion even when surrounded by manifold injustice and evil in our lives. If I understand this quotation correctly, we stand accused of being so focused on the otherworldly that we are rendered unable to function in our present reality. If I understand this quotation correctly, I would say that the role of hope in our Christianity is being completely mis-understood. 

Pithy as it may be this quote does not take into account the action that so defines our hope as Christians, action that can be attested to by biblical and also by historical witness. I want to take you back now if you’ll join me. I want to go way back, way back to the captivity of the Jews in ancient Egypt. Slaves to the Egyptians for 430 years, the Israelites were oppressed, mistreated and forced to do labor under pharaoh’s regime. They had very little going for them, nothing really to live for, their day-to-day was filled with pain, sorrow, and punishment. But then God appeared to Moses in a burning bush and told Moses that God had heard the Israelites’ cries, was concerned about their suffering, and would set them free. Upon learning of this goodness that God intended for them, the captive Jews did not sit and wait for their freedom to happen unto them. It was the Jews who hoped for their freedom from Egyptian bondage who got themselves to their feet in the middle of the night and headed for their homeland, trying to make that goodness which was not-yet, come to be. Theirs was not a passive hope, as Marx would like you to think. It was a 600,000 person, mass exodus, Red-Sea parting kind of hope. 

Let’s fast-forward now a few millennia to the 17th century at the beginning of the slave trade in America. After being captured in their homelands Africans were forced into ships with room only to sit, were beaten and were starved for months on end. If they survived the cruelty of the Middle Passage they were put on an auction block and sold into slavery not as humans but as property. And then, after being sold, in an attempt to “civilize” them, and I use the word civilize in the most ironic sense possible, they were forced to convert to Christianity and were preached a most pernicious version of the gospel that quoted over and over Ephesians 6:5, “Slaves obey your earthly masters with respect and fear.” And yet, the stories they heard were not the same ones being preached to them. Because in this Christianity they found a Jesus that gave them hope that their present condition was not as God intended and that God had goodness in store for God’s children. And so theirs was not a passive hope. It was an Underground Railroad kind of hope. It was a Civil War fighting kind of hope. And after much struggle and bloodshed when they eventually gained their freedom only to find themselves confronted with the evils of Jim Crow and segregation their hope did not turn did turn into a docile, whimpering kind of hope it remained a Rosa Parks white-only seat sitting, Montgomery bus-boycotting, nonviolent protest marching kind of hope. 

We continue to engage in this active Christian hope even today. Everyday of our lives we bear witness to people struggling with debt, people in relationships that do not honor their personhood, people fighting drug and alcohol addictions, people fighting evils of all sorts who do not lay down to die but rise to the challenge and effect change in their lives because they hope to move beyond the present into the goodness that God holds for them.

So in short what I’m saying is that religion is NOT the opiate of the masses and most certainly not of the Christian masses. Our hope as Christians is the great motivator of goodness in our lives and our world. As you go forth from this place today, please keep in mind that you are an essential participant in the process of hope that is embodied in this season of Advent and that the goodness that God holds for you is not just to be waited for but is to be acknowledged and to be strived for, trusting that ours is a good God and that we are loved. Amen.

Tom Loves the Little Children

No, you freaking pervert. I do not like little children in the Catholic Priest sense. 

I mean instead that this past Sunday I was bestowed with the  job of giving the children's sermon. After having heard horror story after horror story of the misdeeds of the youngsters as they gather around (read: gang up on) their beloved pastor (read: cursed play toy) during this special time (read: absence of God's love) I have actively avoided doing being saddled with the responsibility by demonstrating great eagerness in doing everything else BUT it. 

I am sad to report, however, that the head pastor's father passed away unexpectedly last week and he consequently had to be out of town and would be unable to give his sermon. SOOOO... the assistant pastor had one day to come up with a sermon on a theologically weighty passage and in order to ease her burden I took on the children's sermon.

The experience went smashingly well, mainly because we did not allow the children to come to the front to abuse me in ways that only small children can. Rather I walked down the center aisle and addressed with the safety of a few feet of wooden pews between us. 

The sermon itself made use of what I call "pastoral fiction." Basically, I made up a story to make a point. Here is text:

This morning I want to tell you about my Aunt Gladys. My Aunt Gladys was a tiny woman, about this big, had big round glasses like this and she always had a big frown on her face. Have you ever seen an iguana? Yeah, she kinda looked like that. Aunt Gladys lived out of state so I didn’t see her much. But EVERY Thanksgiving she came to our house for Thanksgiving dinner. And on the night before EVERY Thanksgiving I used to get down on my knees next to my bed and I would pray. I would say, “God I thank you for my family. I thank you for giving me Thursday and Friday OFF from school. I thank you for all the yummy food I’m going to get to eat tomorrow. Oh, and God, I have a request. Please, please, please don’t let Aunt Gladys sit next to me tomorrow.”

You see Aunt Gladys was like the Grinch who stole Thanksgiving. "Tommy sit up straight. Tommy, straighten your tie. Tommy, don’t eat so fast. Tommy, don’t talk with your mouthful. Tommy, eat your vegetables."

I was thankful for many things, but not for Aunt Gladys. What I didn’t understand was that Aunt Gladys loved me. She loved me soooooo soooooo much that she wanted me to grow up to be polit and have good manners. I'm not sure if she was too successful, though.

Maybe some of you have relatives like my Aunt Gladys and I know it may be very, very, very hard, but lets try to thankful for them this year. This Thanksgiving when we say our prayers, let’s thank God for loving relatives like Aunt Gladys. Wanna practice? Let’s try:

“Dear God. Thanks you so much for our families. Thanks you so much for all the yummy food we are going to get to eat on Thanksgiving. Thank you for giving us Thursday and Friday off from school. That's pretty cool god. And God, thank you also for relatives like Aunt Gladys who love us even though its sometimes hard to see. AMEN.” 

I thought the name Gladys would signal to the non-adolescent members of my church that the story was made up, but the comments I received afterward would indicate otherwise and make me feel like a liar.

I was also informed during the passing of the peace directly after that in this neck of the woods they pronounce it "ont" and not "ant."

I dun reckon these is mighty fancy folk.

Sermon

After many hours of writing, practice, and prayer, I at last had the opportunity to preach my first sermon to the congregation at the church where I'm interning - just a few hours ago in fact. The sermon was a beefed up and sexyified remake of the social gospel sermon I posted about a month ago. What I intended for it to be was an affirmation of the church's social outreach and a call to further action. I am left now only to hope that that's how it went over. All in all I suppose the the delivery and response wasn't too bad – we laughed, we cried, and only one person fell asleep. 

But now thinking it over, how absurd is it that a young preacher (50 years younger than the average parishioner) would pick a verse from one of the most provocative books in the Bible (Isaiah) and more or less tell people they need to get off their arses and do something for other people? Though of course it was not couched in those terms exactly, it is still a fairly audacious thing to do. And I did it and am now have mixed feelings over it. No one seemed outrightly offended. There remains, I guess, the distinct possibility that they weren't listening. 

Time will make their opinion known, I can be sure at very least of that. It usually takes about a week of ringing phones and commentary (a.k.a. gossip)  for a general consensus to be made in any congregation. Come next Sunday, if I am still allowed back, I will know I have a favorable verdict. 

Here's hoping.

Preach it!

My God, my God, my God is good.

This week brought with it the first day in a long long series of days (2,847) where I can truly say I am proud to be an American.

Regardless of your party affiliation, President Obama knows how to give a nice little speech.

Let us observe greatness:



AMEN.