Worship that Rocks Us

He sings, preaches, uses the F-word on national television, raises money to fight poverty, acts supremely cool. But when he called worship leadership "the highest of all art forms" he inspired me.

Do we hear this preachers? Liturgists? Music leaders?
Calling people into the presence of God is an awesome thing.


Check it out:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week923/exclusive.html

Ordinary Preachers

M. preached on Sunday -- an ordinary person sharing an extraordinary story. (But isn't that what always happens on Sunday morning from pulpits all over?)

She didn't "hold forth." She didn't give us the big preacher voice. She didn't share three points and a poem. She didn't choose a pithy sermon title that would "get people off the bus" assuming there is a both a bus stop and a lighted church sign in front of your church building. She didn't exegete Greek verbs. She didn't quote Buechner or Bruggemann or BBT.

She is (simply?) an elder, educator, poet, cello player, mom, friend. She plays in the bell choir and walks the dog.

M. simply told her story on an ordinary day in light of an extraordinary story (the Transfiguration). She is living life with cancer in a time frame that only God knows for sure while brilliant physicians offer their scientific wisdom and best guesses. She is an extraordinary person who seems kind of ordinary.

Who gets to preach in our pulpits? Do we need pulpits? Are stools and Hawaiian shirts in our future? (Please God, no.) We who have "credentials" and colorful stoles stand up there most Sundays and proclaim the Gospel. But the best preachers are real and ordinary regardless of degrees and the number of people out there in the pews. They have tales to tell in light of The Story. Today the story was ordinary and amazing..

Good to be Back

(It was nice while it lasted.)
I am "back" in a couple of ways. Had lost my blog-editing capabilities for some still mysterious reason and now for just as mysterious a reason, I got my dashboard back. I thought I'd never get to post again.

And I'm back from study leave after several lovely days on Amelia Island with the Roundtable. And now for the Rev Gal Friday Five:


NAME FIVE FRIENDS WHO HAVE BEEN THERE
WHEN YOU NEEDED THEM
(I'm blessed with more than five, but these were on my mind today.)

MM who changed the course of history with these words spoken while driving on our seminary campus long, long ago: You know, it's like you have all the burdens of marriage with none of the joys of marriage, and you aren't even married. You could just leave.

LM who drove for five hours to eat key lime pie with me one really rough weekend.

LB for being a hero the day C. died.

SET/the BSE who makes sweet tea like mom and keeps the home fires burning.

FCL who dropped in at exactly the right time.

It's good to be home and writing.

Roundtable

I won't be writing for a couple of days because I'll be away on study leave with my Preaching Roundtable -- several clergywomen from North and South Carolina, Virginia, Texas, Georgia, New York, and Scotland. We bring sermons and resources to share, drink a little wine, and talk about things that matter.
We are very lucky.

We are lucky to be called to ministry ("blessed by God's providence" would be the more theologically correct way to put it, but I'm sticking with "lucky" for now). We could be the poster children for Carol Gilligan's In a Different Voice.

Calls have been accepted based on relationships, mental health quotients, and proximity to decent bookstores and Tex-Mex Restaurants. Some of us have "moved for our husbands." Some of our husbands have "moved for us." One has never had to worry about that, which of course brings different issues.

We are lucky to have each other. In this world of "Mean Girls" who -- for one generation --will shred your reputation if you don't wear Hollister or Abercrombie & Fitch, and for another generation would simply ignore you for not being called to a 1000 member church, we are women who preach well and serve with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love whether "our people" are sitting in pews under a big steeple or not. In fact we are awesome preachers which most "large churches" will never head hunt for their Head of Staff opening. Not to worry.

There is a bizarre satisfaction in knowing that here and there, in congregations from Edinburgh to Austin, there are glimpses of Christ seen on a regular basis because God has allowed us to serve. We are lucky. And blessed.

We'll miss you A., E., L, and D. See you in Edinburgh next February?

Islam's John Calvin?

After an ordinary morning of ministry -- your basic email correspondence and a wonderful pastoral visit -- I was blessed with one of those "this doesn't happen every day" moments: I ate meatballs, noodle soup and "Noah's Pudding" with Turkish Muslims. They presented me with a Whirling Dervish music box that indeed whirls. Actually, it's more like a slow spin.


For the record, "Noah's Pudding is tasty." Recipe at:http://www.turkishcook.com/turkishfood-recipes/Noahs_Pudding_asure_.shtml

Lovely Turkish Muslims have joined us for worship almost every Sunday since last summer from the Rumi Forum, named for the Sufi poet. The group was founded by one of countless famous Muslims most of us Westerners have never heard of: Fethullah Gulen.

According to the Young Turks, Gulen has not created a new branch of (very liberal) Islam; he is simply trying to return to the True Islam. He is trying to reform the faith.

Sound familiar in any way? "He is the Muslim John Calvin," we are told.

We have been taught to be suspicious of such characters. Perhaps the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses at our doors have made us believe that everybody wants to convert us. The Rumi Forum only wants to sit and talk about how we are more similar than different, how not all Muslims want to burn down the KFC in Lahore.

So this Sunday we are serving "Noah's Pudding" during coffee hour, courtesy of our Turkish friends from the Rumi Forum. In these days of Hamas victories and insurgency attacks and burning Danish flags, this seems like a good way to begin to try to work things out. You can't go wrong with pudding.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Carson McCullers wrote a wonderful book at the age of 23. This blog is not about that book.

On Valentine's Day -- my very favorite semi-secular holiday, I think of hearts hunting for love. There are so many. Especially in the church, the search for love is an ongoing pastoral concern. Among the highlights:

- The extremely shy man who dated one woman his entire life. He showed up at my study one evening and asked me for "Jill's" hand in marriage because he couldn't travel to ask her parents.

Wow. I love this job.

- The potential fiance who dropped by to show me what he was planning to give his girlfriend for V-Day. Very excited, he told me he was going to drop by the church on his way to pick her up for a romantic "very special" dinner. He wanted to show me what he was presenting for her after the main course. Standing at my church study door, he glowed while showing me a black velvet ring box. "Are you sure you want me to see this first?" I asked. (Thank Almighty God he did.) It was a bracelet. A very nice bracelet, but a bracelet all the same. In a ring box. "Dear God," I said to long-time-boyfriend-of-sweet-unsuspecting-church-member. "Please tell me you are not giving her this bracelet in this black velvet box." We switched the ring box for a bracelet box. She still broke up with him.

- Got a call at lunchtime on a normal Tuesday. "What are you doing?" church-member-engaged-to-be-married-in-a-couple-of-months asked. "Regular church stuff," I said. "Can you meet me at the Masonic Lodge at noon for a wedding?" he asked. "Whose wedding?" I asked. Actually it was his. He and fiancee couldn't take the pressure any longer and decided to get married secretly on the top floor of the George Washington Masonic Lodge (home of the replica of King Solomon's throne) on an average Tuesday. "Sure," I said. So there we were and they married in the dark. (Turning on the lights also turned on the muzak and it was a little creepy.)


I'm tempted to write something about hunting and our VPOTUS and other ridiculous things, but I'll just stick with favorite church memories. We all hunt for love. But the thing is:
it just happens, often when we stop hunting.

(This blog is dedicated to SGW who searched for love for a long time and then suddenly . . .
a miracle occurred. )

Cartoons & T-Shirts

We were going to wear these shirts for last year's Christmas picture but had second thoughts and went with your basic Casual Friday attire.

Actually one of my sons wears his "What Wouldn't Jesus Do?" t-shirt to rave reviews by hip teachers and pomo youth leaders. I can't bring myself to wear "Mary" even to the gym. Being a lifelong weeny, I do not even own the RevGal favorite: "Does This Pulpit Make My Butt Look Big?" (thankfully without cartoon depiction.) But it can be yours at: http://www.cafepress.com/blogpals.26660223

My concern: that I might offend someone.

I wonder, frankly, if the fact that I'm not offended makes me a Philistine. But this week when people have died because of a couple of cartoons depicting Muhammed at all -- much less on a hang glider -- I realize that this is serious business for many. Not serious enough to kill people over it, in my opinion, but serious nevertheless.

It's not easy to live in a tolerant society.

LIFE AS ART: A Series Ends

I haven't watched West Wing lately but know the series ends this spring. Just like in real life there will be an orderly transition from one administration to another. Martin Sheen's second term will end and the next president will apparently be either Jimmy Smits or Alan Alda. Something like that.

Toward the end there have been shocks ("Leo McGarry" died) and bumps (poorer ratings). But how great for a show to be able to tie up all loose ends and clean up the untidy corners. I have long regretted that this didn't happen for Gilligan's Island.

We should all be so lucky, which brings me back to Life As Art . . .

Very few of us get to prepare neatly for death to the point that every loose end is tied up. Even a semi-definite prognosis ("You have 3-6 months") is only semi-definite. We could tie up all the loose ends by month 3 and find we are still around a year later with new loose ends. It's kind of a fascinating process, but not very comforting if you obsessively dot your "i"s.

We are inspired by those whose lives have been Works of Art or even Tidy Series. We admire those who have prepared for An Orderly Transition, which is possible even if life ends abruptly. There will be never be a Vice President McGarry, apparently, but what a great -- albeit fictional -- life.

You'd think we were well into Lent the way I'm going on about death, but I spent the morning, reading through some old letters from people long gone. I was reminded of the occasional untidiness. But there was quite a bit of beauty as well. Maybe that's the goal -- more beauty than random smudges, more art than empty space. I'm still calling for examples of artfully lived lives -- still being lived. Any more ideas?

LIFE AS ART: Crime, Punishment, Luck

My favorite book of all time is Crime and Punishment. I read it while living in London where we were "the poor American girls" living five to a one bedroom flat and eating McVitties for dinner. I worked as a social worker -- woefully underqualified but hired to liven up the summer. ("Let's give this case to The Colonist.") Margaret Thatcher had just become PM which might explain why my duties included taking free phones and televisions from the elderly. For the record, I was terrible at this job.

But I digress.
I read Crime and Punishment at the bus stop every day and in that glorious moment when I finished it, it so blew me away that I couldn't just stand there and wait for my bus another minute. I walked the whole 8 miles -- or perhaps I should say the whole 12.872 k -- home.

In Woody Allen's Match Point (based in beautiful London) Chris, the main character is reading Crime and Punishment in an early scene and it's no accident. We observe crimes committed and characters punished. But Luck plays a key role as well. Chris-- a tennis pro -- opens the movie with these words:

The man who said "I'd rather be lucky than good" saw deeply into life. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net and for a split second it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck it goes forward and you win. Or maybe it doesn't and you lose.

So, on this unseasonably warm Friday night in February , I'm thinking some semi-big thoughts. That's what I get for thinking about Dostoyevski after a long week and several doses of cold medicine.

We all see lives lived and choices made that create a bit of a mess. And not just in Woody Allen movies. Life should be a work of art, but there are too few masterpieces. One of the reasons I believe in God is because I also occasionally see messes redeemed into masterpieces.

There would be more if we were willing.

So . . . who do you know whose life is a work of art? More later.