Shoved by Grace

Today is All Saints' Day, the traditional day upon which Christians remember all the "saints" who have gone before us. And for us, all Christians are saints, maybe not capital S Saints but saints nonetheless. They have held on to this strange faith in a resurrected God for almost 2000 years. So today, of all days, makes me wonder why? In our age of science and reason and over-explanation, why have people hung on to this primitive belief, and more specifically, why do I? We have all heard that there has been a sharp rise in "nones" over the past decade - people who claim no religious faith. Some of these people, atheists,  claim no belief in any supernatural phenomenon, while others are in that nebulous category of "spiritual but not religious." According to Pew Research, these folks make up only about 23% of the American population (much higher in Europe for some reason). So estimating that maybe 10% are the "spiritual" folks instead ...

Let me say at the outset - I mourn for those lost and injured in the Las Vegas shooting on Sunday. I mourn for those targeted in the daily shootings that occur in this country. I cannot minimize or take away the suffering of the victims or their families. But my empathy for the victims of gun violence has led me to, once again, take a look at our society that permits and, yes, encourages these tragedies to happen over and over again. Let me be quite clear and say it quite loudly, in the spirit of the prophets of old - ya got trouble, folks, right here in River City, trouble with a capital I... (OK my parody of old musicals falls flat here)...and that stands for Idolatry. Whether it is the flag or the national anthem or 2nd Amendment or guns themselves, our nation seems to have chosen to revere these "things" over our devotion to God, the Bible, or simple moral decency. In their book, The Altars Where We Worship , Juan Floyd-Thomas, et al., write, "Though we claim to se...

One of my favorite things to do these days is to visit the new wineries that have sprung up like weeds in the Hill Country of Texas. Nothing like sitting out on a patio, enjoying the beautiful countryside, maybe listening to some local musicians, enjoying a new wine. Of course, some of these new wines are pretty dreadful, some our delicious. You never know what you're going to get when it is a "new" wine. Jesus talked about new wine. He warned us about putting new wine in old wineskins, which might burst. He was referring to how new understandings or new teachings cannot fit in our old paradigms. We must shift our paradigms to allow for new understanding. I see his wisdom and agree, but I am also I'm struggling with understanding how something that Jesus said 2000 years ago can still be so "new" to us today. Even in Jesus day, his teachings weren't really new. The prophets, stretching back over a thousand years had been telling the people o...

As I was watching Morning Joe today, a breaking report interrupted the ongoing analysis of the Trump administration and the Russians. Another tragic shooting, just one of many that happen every day in America. But this one made the headlines because members of Congress were intended targets and among the victims. On a baseball field in the middle of a neighborhood in suburban Alexandria, VA, a lone gunman unleashed on a group of Republican congressmen and their staffs as they practiced for a traditional friendly baseball game against the Democrats. One Congressman was among the wounded. The shooter was killed by Capitol police. So familiar. Every time a mass shooting makes the news, we all grieve. Again and again. There is a lot of hand-wringing and yet, no changes are ever regarding one of the leading causes of the problem - the unrestricted accessibility to guns and ammunition in the US. I realize that there are many underlying reasons for gun violence - mental illness, poverty,...

W ell, it's annual conference time again. Annual conference is the yearly (obviously) gathering of representatives, clergy and laity, from all United Methodist churches in regional conclaves called, confusingly, Annual Conferences. The annual conference is a time to celebrate ministry, ordain and commission new pastors, review budgets and do business, and set the direction of the conference for the future. During this time, my Twitter and Facebook feeds are abuzz with tweets and postings from many different conferences around the country. Most are of the self-congratulatory "rah, rah" type - "this worship is soooo inspiring", "wow, our Bishop really understands us", "we are doing such great work in the world." Rarer, however, are comments and reflections on how our church is failing in its mission to love the world, especially by letting down a large and growing percentage of our congregation who are LGBTQ and their allies. It breaks ...

Those of us of a certain age (OK, old-timers) can remember a car commercial from about 20 years ago with the tagline, "This is not your father's Oldsmobile." Apparently, it wasn't anyone's Oldsmobile, as the brand disappeared shortly afterwards. But that phrase kept going through my head for the past 24 hours as I sat and listened to the "rock star" preachers at the Festival of Homiletics in San Antonio. But in my mind, I kept hearing the tagline, "This ain't your Daddy's church." If I could find one theme that bound together the first four speakers that I heard (Rob Bell, Walter Brueggemann, Nadia Bolz-Weber and Amy Butler) it is this: The old paradigm that we have of church and Jesus and Christianity is no longer relevant in today's world. We need to sweep away what is in the past and speak into the future, even if it makes us, or our congregations, uncomfortable. "Do not remember the former things, or consider thing...

I remember my first "sermon". I was 12 years old in St. Joseph, MO and our youth group had decided to do a drama for Youth Sunday. The drama we wrote consisted of three mini-sermons on controversial topics followed by the complaints and comments of fictional congregation members. Then we were going to read the story of Jesus' first recorded public sermon from Luke 4:16-30. We, the young radicals, were going to make the older generation face their own hypocrisy in response to the Gospel. My mini-sermon was on the role of women in ministry. This was 1976 and I had heard that women could be ordained in the United Methodist Church, but I had never seen one in the flesh. The other two mini-sermons were on euthanasia and interfaith dialogue. While I assume that the congregation was kind to our idealistic youthfulness, I do know that I didn't preach again for another 25 years! Standing up in front of a congregation and announcing that you have a word from God can be a ...