“Oh…..my…..God!” This has become perhaps the most common exclamation uttered on TV these days. This, or course, assumes you leave out the “premium channels” and those cable channels that bleep words that are not bleeped on the premium channels—the “F” word no doubt the leading contender. OMG is uttered when the home makeover is revealed or the contestant learns he/she has won a new refrigerator. The shocked interviewee on the news will treat us to and OMG as she/he describes the latest good/bad event in the neighborhood, as in “Oh my God! I couldn’t believe it!”
Personally, I’m pretty tired of it. Surely there must be other ways to express surprise and delight or horror, leaving OMG to actually be a prayer.
Is there any chance we can mount a campaign against this profane use of God’s name? I guess not. I mean, OMG, it’s just so ingrained!
Sorry,
Jerry+ PS: the first class went extremely well. A good time was had by all. Stay tuned.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
A New Journey
Tomorrow I begin teaching Intro to Church History at a local seminary. I learned today I have 44 students, which is a huge seminary class. It is a required course offered each semester, but this is my first time to teach it. It will be a mixed bag of mostly first and second year students, most of whom are preparing for ordained ministry.
My guess is the class will be almost entirely second career learners—a difficult group to teach a purely content course. I’d like to think they are eager to learn about the history of the organization in which they practice their faith, but I think most are taking it because they must. Consequently, I feel more challenged than I did when I taught in the 70s through the early 90s in a field about which I knew tons—pastoral counseling. I could call on dozens of counseling stories and illustrations to make what I was dealing with lively and relevant. Students tended to hang on every word. In the early years, I even had an afternoon class that, once a week, adjourned to Ruby Tuesdays for nachos and wine and more discussion after class.
Somehow I imagine most of these students have little or no interest in the past, particularly the dim past. As adult learners, most of whom will be serving in parishes in some capacity, they will be interested in “how will this preach,” or “what’s that got to do with my ministry.” I think that is my biggest challenge. My principal consolation is that when I was most recently in the parish, whenever I taught adult ed classes on some part of Church history, most people were intrigued and very interested. Of course, it was kind of recreational—not unlike watching the History Channel. Still, for many, making a connection with their roots made their present faith life more meaningful.
So, pray for me and for those upon whom I inflict myself over the next 13 weeks. Through our mutual experience, ask that the Spirit be upon us and enrich our lives of faith.
Peace,
Jerry+
My guess is the class will be almost entirely second career learners—a difficult group to teach a purely content course. I’d like to think they are eager to learn about the history of the organization in which they practice their faith, but I think most are taking it because they must. Consequently, I feel more challenged than I did when I taught in the 70s through the early 90s in a field about which I knew tons—pastoral counseling. I could call on dozens of counseling stories and illustrations to make what I was dealing with lively and relevant. Students tended to hang on every word. In the early years, I even had an afternoon class that, once a week, adjourned to Ruby Tuesdays for nachos and wine and more discussion after class.
Somehow I imagine most of these students have little or no interest in the past, particularly the dim past. As adult learners, most of whom will be serving in parishes in some capacity, they will be interested in “how will this preach,” or “what’s that got to do with my ministry.” I think that is my biggest challenge. My principal consolation is that when I was most recently in the parish, whenever I taught adult ed classes on some part of Church history, most people were intrigued and very interested. Of course, it was kind of recreational—not unlike watching the History Channel. Still, for many, making a connection with their roots made their present faith life more meaningful.
So, pray for me and for those upon whom I inflict myself over the next 13 weeks. Through our mutual experience, ask that the Spirit be upon us and enrich our lives of faith.
Peace,
Jerry+
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Doubt
Jack, a parishioner of mine long ago, showed up at my office. I invited him in and before I could say a word, he said, “Judy just had me served with divorce papers, and when I couldn’t reach her on the phone, I ran home. She’s cleaned out all her stuff and she’s gone. She left a note saying she’d call me tonight. This is all my fault.”
Frankly I have to say it has been rare in my experience that anyone really thinks a divorce is their fault, much less all their fault, so I was caught a little off guard. Based on our previous visits and a brief conversation or two I’d had with Judy, I thought I could honestly say there was plenty of fault or responsibility to go around. “Jack, what makes you think that?” His answer was heart-rending. “I’ve prayed and prayed that God would save our marriage and now she’s left. Obviously, I just didn’t have enough faith so God’s letting it fall apart.”
Jack, like so many other people, read Jesus’ remarks to Peter, “Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt,” as he drags Peter up from the water, and applied them to their situation. I believe Jack and others who think they have too little faith is truly a dramatic misunderstanding of the nature of faith and of God. The message from this passage isn’t “if he’d had enough faith he could have walked on the water.” And the message to us isn’t “if we each had enough faith we could overcome our problems in astonishing ways.”
When Jesus uses the phrase, “little faith,” he’s describing a mixture of courage and anxiety. We’ve all felt that, haven’t we? Way back in 1972 when my bishop tapped me for a totally different kind of ministry than I had been doing—moving me from the parish to the campus—I remember feeling excited and sacred. I called my good friend more senior than I with whom I’d worked and asked him if he thought I could “cut it,” that is, do the job and do it well. There was a part of me that was supremely confident. But there was a part of me that was supremely unsure at the same time. Been there?
There’s another point to make. The word “doubt” Jesus uses when asking “why did you doubt,” means “why were you skeptical,” or “why did you vacillate,” not “why didn’t you believe.” The skeptic or vacillator is not an unbeliever. Unbelievers have no doubt or uncertainty—they are sure in their unbelief. It is only the believer who has moments of uncertainty or feel skeptical or wavers. Peter believes, but for a moment, the feel of the strong wind is the dominant experience rather than the feel of the water on the bottom of his feet. He has a kind of “what am I doing here” moment. My clergy friend asked me, “What makes you wonder whether or not you can do this.” Just as Jesus might have said to Peter, “what made you wonder whether or not you could take another step on the water?” I answered my friend with, “I don’t know. Maybe just the fact that I don’t know a single thing about campus ministry.” “Really,” he said, “you don’t know how to care about people?” I was stunned. “Well, when you put it that way.”
Peter’s faith was not demonstrated by his being able to walk on water. Faith is being willing to cry out to Jesus when we are being battered and sinking and expecting his strong hands to comfort and sustain us.
Storms batter and sometimes boats sink. Disease hurts and takes lives. Terrorists bomb subways and buses. Insurgents kill liberators and patriots and innocent bystanders. Wives decide to stop trying and leave marriages. This is the fabric of life. To understand faith as a quantifiable something which if you somehow having enough of will cause God to make spectacular exceptions to the weave of this fabric is problematic, at least. Even Jesus, when asking for the apparently inevitable outcome of his ministry—his painful death—to be set aside by saying, “let this cup pass from me,” he only did that in the context of also praying, “but not my will, but yours.”
God’s permissive will allows bad things to happen as a part of the natural order. But God’s ultimate will is that all things will be reconciled to him. That is the point of the Incarnation and all that followed. I think this story is not about Peter, but about the reality that Jesus is there when we are in need.
What I said to Jack that long ago day doesn’t matter. It did to him, but I think the message today to us is this: our Lord is not continually judging our every action and deciding if our faith is in good shape or not. However, our Lord is aware of our every action and does care whether or not each action is loving, kind, just and merciful. We confess because we know we don’t always demonstrate the faith and hope we have, nor respond to the grace we’ve received. Some times, we slip under the water. When we do, we just need to remember it is not a permanent condition and Jesus himself is there to restore us to wholeness and to enable our faithful witness to resume.
Peace,
Jerry+
Frankly I have to say it has been rare in my experience that anyone really thinks a divorce is their fault, much less all their fault, so I was caught a little off guard. Based on our previous visits and a brief conversation or two I’d had with Judy, I thought I could honestly say there was plenty of fault or responsibility to go around. “Jack, what makes you think that?” His answer was heart-rending. “I’ve prayed and prayed that God would save our marriage and now she’s left. Obviously, I just didn’t have enough faith so God’s letting it fall apart.”
Jack, like so many other people, read Jesus’ remarks to Peter, “Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt,” as he drags Peter up from the water, and applied them to their situation. I believe Jack and others who think they have too little faith is truly a dramatic misunderstanding of the nature of faith and of God. The message from this passage isn’t “if he’d had enough faith he could have walked on the water.” And the message to us isn’t “if we each had enough faith we could overcome our problems in astonishing ways.”
When Jesus uses the phrase, “little faith,” he’s describing a mixture of courage and anxiety. We’ve all felt that, haven’t we? Way back in 1972 when my bishop tapped me for a totally different kind of ministry than I had been doing—moving me from the parish to the campus—I remember feeling excited and sacred. I called my good friend more senior than I with whom I’d worked and asked him if he thought I could “cut it,” that is, do the job and do it well. There was a part of me that was supremely confident. But there was a part of me that was supremely unsure at the same time. Been there?
There’s another point to make. The word “doubt” Jesus uses when asking “why did you doubt,” means “why were you skeptical,” or “why did you vacillate,” not “why didn’t you believe.” The skeptic or vacillator is not an unbeliever. Unbelievers have no doubt or uncertainty—they are sure in their unbelief. It is only the believer who has moments of uncertainty or feel skeptical or wavers. Peter believes, but for a moment, the feel of the strong wind is the dominant experience rather than the feel of the water on the bottom of his feet. He has a kind of “what am I doing here” moment. My clergy friend asked me, “What makes you wonder whether or not you can do this.” Just as Jesus might have said to Peter, “what made you wonder whether or not you could take another step on the water?” I answered my friend with, “I don’t know. Maybe just the fact that I don’t know a single thing about campus ministry.” “Really,” he said, “you don’t know how to care about people?” I was stunned. “Well, when you put it that way.”
Peter’s faith was not demonstrated by his being able to walk on water. Faith is being willing to cry out to Jesus when we are being battered and sinking and expecting his strong hands to comfort and sustain us.
Storms batter and sometimes boats sink. Disease hurts and takes lives. Terrorists bomb subways and buses. Insurgents kill liberators and patriots and innocent bystanders. Wives decide to stop trying and leave marriages. This is the fabric of life. To understand faith as a quantifiable something which if you somehow having enough of will cause God to make spectacular exceptions to the weave of this fabric is problematic, at least. Even Jesus, when asking for the apparently inevitable outcome of his ministry—his painful death—to be set aside by saying, “let this cup pass from me,” he only did that in the context of also praying, “but not my will, but yours.”
God’s permissive will allows bad things to happen as a part of the natural order. But God’s ultimate will is that all things will be reconciled to him. That is the point of the Incarnation and all that followed. I think this story is not about Peter, but about the reality that Jesus is there when we are in need.
What I said to Jack that long ago day doesn’t matter. It did to him, but I think the message today to us is this: our Lord is not continually judging our every action and deciding if our faith is in good shape or not. However, our Lord is aware of our every action and does care whether or not each action is loving, kind, just and merciful. We confess because we know we don’t always demonstrate the faith and hope we have, nor respond to the grace we’ve received. Some times, we slip under the water. When we do, we just need to remember it is not a permanent condition and Jesus himself is there to restore us to wholeness and to enable our faithful witness to resume.
Peace,
Jerry+
Thursday, August 7, 2008
What's Next?
My general position on reality shows is that I don’t watch them. I made an exception a couple of years ago to watch Last Comic Standing for a few of its closing episodes—in search of a laugh, which I found. Last week and this week, I made another exception. I watched America’s Got Talent—poorly named, but an interesting variety show.
AGT apparently works like some of the other “talent” shows. Thousands audition, dozens are given spots on TV and the list slowly narrows. I was genuinely moved by some of the passion and desire of some of the performers. And, I’m happy to say, their talent. But. And this is a big but. The producers allow acts on the show that no one in their right mind would think show any promise. Why? Apparently so the studio audience can boo them, give them the thumbs down, and actually drown them out with shouts of derision. I couldn’t help but think “This must have been what the gladiator audiences were like—rude, bloodthirsty, and boorish.”
In my youth, there was a talent show on TV, The Ted Mack Amateur Hour. Ted would host the performers, some better than others certainly, but no awful acts. And the audience would politely applaud even the not so stellar performers. It wasn’t necessary to hoot and holler and make semi-obscene gestures to make the point that a given act lacked something.
But today we have to humiliate people on national TV. People who probably should realize they are not “star” quality, but apparently don’t. People who should never have been seen has having any talent and allowed to get on that stage to begin with. They have been put there simply to allow America to make fun of them and the studio audience to ridicule them.
What is wrong with us that we think this is entertaining? And don’t get me started about some of the fight shows I’ve seen advertized where anything goes. This is a sport? This is what we’ve come to?
My, my, my.
Jerry+
AGT apparently works like some of the other “talent” shows. Thousands audition, dozens are given spots on TV and the list slowly narrows. I was genuinely moved by some of the passion and desire of some of the performers. And, I’m happy to say, their talent. But. And this is a big but. The producers allow acts on the show that no one in their right mind would think show any promise. Why? Apparently so the studio audience can boo them, give them the thumbs down, and actually drown them out with shouts of derision. I couldn’t help but think “This must have been what the gladiator audiences were like—rude, bloodthirsty, and boorish.”
In my youth, there was a talent show on TV, The Ted Mack Amateur Hour. Ted would host the performers, some better than others certainly, but no awful acts. And the audience would politely applaud even the not so stellar performers. It wasn’t necessary to hoot and holler and make semi-obscene gestures to make the point that a given act lacked something.
But today we have to humiliate people on national TV. People who probably should realize they are not “star” quality, but apparently don’t. People who should never have been seen has having any talent and allowed to get on that stage to begin with. They have been put there simply to allow America to make fun of them and the studio audience to ridicule them.
What is wrong with us that we think this is entertaining? And don’t get me started about some of the fight shows I’ve seen advertized where anything goes. This is a sport? This is what we’ve come to?
My, my, my.
Jerry+
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