A Public Confession

I saw this picture on Facebook the other day:


http://cheezburger.com/1460518144

It made me giggle. I clicked 'like,' and resumed scrolling down my news feed... when all of the sudden, I felt heat in my cheeks. My stomach turned over. I stopped scrolling and paid attention. Something was wrong; I was feeling shame. As I paid attention, I dreaded learning what I suspected was coming.

I went back to the picture. What made me laugh? The comment about inappropriate touching is clearly out of context. The surprise of it made me giggle, sure. But why is it funny?

• It's funny if I believe that men don't ever mind being touched by other men.
• It's funny if I believe that inappropriate touching doesn't happen between men.
• It's funny if I believe that inappropriate touching is OK between men.
• It's funny if I believe that the sexual harassment training provided in workplaces isn't important.
• It's funny if I believe that it's fundamentally OK to laugh about sexual harassment.
• It's funny if I believe that it's OK to make jokes about men or homosexuals or sexual violence.

But I don't believe that. I don't believe any of that. And in fact, if in this picture Spock had been a woman, I would have been incensed. I would have been angry. I would be fuming, not giggling.

I feel grateful that my moral conscience kicked in even after I was no longer paying attention to this picture. The reality is, sexual violence happens to men and women every day, and that isn't funny. RAINN estimates that someone is assaulted in the United States every 2 minutes. In one study, 52% of the 500 respondents (both men and women) had been a victim of some kind of workplace violence, and according to the California Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's 2006 study, workplace sexual harassment reported by men had nearly tripled in recent years. Furthermore, in one university study, gay men had experienced an average of 1.6 sexual assaults. (These stats provided by the University of Oregon; references there). These statistics indicate that sexual violence toward men happens all too often. My response to the photo indicates part of why sexual violence still occurs: because secretly, we still think it's funny.

• Maybe we think it's funny because we believe it doesn't really happen.
• Maybe we think it's funny because we believe it won't ever happen to us or someone we love.
• Maybe we think it's funny because we believe it doesn't matter if it happens.
• Maybe we think it's funny because we believe if we laugh about it, we don't have to do something about it.

But again, none of those things are true. Sexual violence destroys lives. It is estimated that 13% of rape victims attempt suicide, sometimes years after the assault. Even workplace violence that doesn't lead to rape causes emotional distress, poor performance, the need to change jobs, and other difficult life situations.

I know these statistics. I know too many stories about how sexual violence has damaged lives. I have my own stories about how sexual violence has affected mine. I have been 40-hour trained in the state of Illinois to be a crisis advocate for survivors of sexual assault. People I love and care for have shared their very real concerns for their lives because of their sexual orientation. I have learned about and studied workplace bullying. And still, even I can giggle, and 'like' and move on.

But I can't move too far. Because that conscience inside of me picked up on the disconnect, and brought me face to face with my own hypocrisy. Today, I'll call it the (uncomfortable) movement of the Spirit within me. God forgives hypocrisy. She doesn't expect perfection, only confession & repentance.

So here, I confess.

And as for repentance (meaning 'turning around' or 'turning away from'):
I "unliked" the photo in my news feed. I said a prayer for forgiveness and renewal of mind and spirit. And I committed to thinking this through, and writing it down, and sharing it with you, in the hope that the next time something like this slides in front of my face, I can respond with God's grace and love and righteous indignation, and be the advocate for the suffering whom God has called me to be.

The Confessing Church

As Reformation Day (the Sunday we remember/memorialize/celebrate Martin Luther's act of nailing his 95 theses to the door of the church -- a conversation for another post) suddenly looms large, I've been seeking a confession for the church. Turning up empty in searches through my print resources, I turned to Google. I found many pages on Catholic confession, why to confess, the necessity (or lack thereof) of confession. I found a few on The Confessing Church. I have yet to find a resource that helps us, as church, confess our sins. That is, a confession of our sins as church. As such, I will do my best to create something holy. Use in worship as appropriate to your context, with credit given, please.

Blessed be the holy Trinity, + one God,
Who, in loving, inspires life,
Who, in serving, inspires healing,
Who, in breathing, inspires peace.
Amen.


As a church inspired by God but built by humans, we at times preach and teach wrongly, cast God's children aside, claim infallibility for ourselves, and become complacent in our routines. Let us examine both ourselves and the Church, that we might continually repent of our sin and open ourselves to be re-formed in the image of God.

Silence for reflection.

God who judges with mercy, to you we make our confession:

For believing ourselves to be right and judging others, we confess.
For teaching through words or actions that your love is conditional, we confess.
For using your Word to crush instead of build up our brothers and sisters, we confess.
For forgetting our own humanness and fallibility, we confess.
For our insensitivity and thoughtlessness, we confess.
For failing to stand up for the rights of all people, we confess.
For our lack of courage to be your prophetic church, we confess.
For our apathy and refusal to be your manifestation in the world, we confess.
For our unwillingness to share the good news of your grace with all of your children, we confess.

God of mercy,  
humble your Church. Remind us again that we are stewards of your good news. Build us up to truly manifest your healing grace extended to all the world. Grant us the courage to speak your Word, and the humility to do so with care. Re-form us in your image, and send us out with peace in our hearts and joy in our spirit. We pray with confidence in the Triune Name of God, Amen.

We are reconciled to God through Christ,
and reformed through the movement of the Spirit.
With mercy and love, God + forgives our sin and draws us into one,
a holy and healing community of grace,
that we might find freedom and peace for the journey.
Amen.

God, and grief, and suffering

As I look forward to the imminent arrival of a new baby, the loss of my second pregnancy weighs on me. Even as I look forward to this life with hopes and dreams, I still grieve that life, those hopes, those dreams. I very much want this baby, but I wanted that baby, too. I deeply love this baby, and still I deeply love that baby. Some days, my heart becomes heavy with grief.

Even so, while the loss of that life is sad, it was not tragic. Not tragic in the way that Trayvon Martin's death was tragic. Not tragic in the way that the deaths of 19 fire fighters in service was tragic. Not tragic in the way that the deaths of an estimated 1,570 children from abuse or neglect in the US in 2011, or that the deaths of an estimated 25,000 people every day worldwide of hunger-related causes are tragic. We all know stories of less-public tragedies also: the woman who became pregnant after years of trying, only to lose the baby to SIDS. The children whose parents were both killed when a drunk driver hit their car head-on. The family for whom a job loss leads to home loss and illness and the inability to pay for medical care. The child who just happened to be standing in the "wrong place," shot and killed in gang cross-fire. These are true tragedies. Some days, my heart feels as though it will break with grief.

It seems to me that life should be more fair than this. That karma or the universe or God should make it so that only one bad thing can happen in a person's life, or can happen at any given time. As so many of us do, I wonder, "Where is God in all of this? What is God doing? Why doesn't God stop these things?" Much theological and Biblical study has led me to an understanding of God that goes deeper than simply 'free will' or 'chaos' or 'sin and evil.' I believe that we want God to be capable of stopping the world and fixing everything, but I don't believe that is what the Biblical witness of God's character actually teaches us. Rather, I believe God continuously creates, continuously cares, continuously draws us and all of creation toward the good, but rather than coercing certain behaviors or belief empowers us to live into the image of the Divine in whom we were made. Thus, I had come to the conclusion that when tragedy comes, or even just our own personal griefs overtake us, that God suffers with us. God comes to us, stays with us, cries with us. Even when hidden, God is present in our suffering, our tragedies, our grief.

God certainly suffers. Through Jesus, we know that God has felt inside a body the grief of a friend dying. We know that Jesus experienced his own suffering of mind and body through the tragic miscarriage of justice that led to his death. We know that Jesus' soul suffered when he begged of God, "Why have you abandoned me?" The Bible also reminds us that God constantly labors, as she brings new life and creativity into the world. Through constant creation, God labors painfully, just as any woman does - with hope and excitement and expectation and anxiety. She must wonder, 'will this child live into my hopes for her?' 'Will this earth that has grown in my womb survive?' 'Will this insect that I have so carefully designed find a mate before he dies?' I do not believe that labor pains are suffering, but they are not easy, either. Yet God continues to choose this pain, this anxiety, this unknowing, in order to bring life into the world.

As anyone who loves a child knows, after children are birthed, you have so little control over them. As you love a child, you continue to hope for the best you can imagine for him. Sometimes you get to watch him fly, and other times you watch him sink. Poor grades, a friend's death, the trap of drug addiction, a mental illness that overtakes him, a poor decision that ends up in a prison term. Surely God must watch her creation with all these sames hopes and anxieties -- which parts will fly, which  will sink, which will live to be redeemed? God, too, must experience the pain of watching those she loves sink away from their own light and into something almost unrecognizable. And still, God chooses this pain. She chooses to suffer because she chooses to create, and to love.

And yet, in the midst of deep grief, it now feels inadequate that God suffers with us. Aware of the many ways that I and others and creation itself fail to live up to the divine image in which we were made, it is not enough that God knows of this and walks beside me in it. On the one hand, it feels good to have someone "on my side," to hope for a resurrection and redemption that I know God can somehow manage. But in the midst of this kind of grief, that simply is not enough. In Night, Elie Weisel remembers a child who has been hanged, and when someone asks, "Where is God in this?" the response was: "God is there, hanging on the gallows." The fact that God was with that child in that horror was not enough to bring resurrection. God's simple presence was not enough to bring redemption.

Yet the Bible witnesses again and again that grace, resurrection, and redemption are who God is. God's very being lives into those continual labor pains, bringing about creativity and new life, mending brokenness and calming chaos. How can we hold this paradox: that God's being cannot help but create and redeem, and yet so much in the world or even our lives feels un-redeemable? What do we say when God's simple presence in our grieving is not enough?


I am beginning now to wonder if it isn't God who suffers with us, but we who suffer with God. Perhaps suffering is not a part of our human condition, but instead a part of the Divine within. Perhaps we, like God, choose to suffer -- because we choose to create life, to care, to love, to watch and listen and live -- and in doing those things we live into who God has created us to be, in God's very own image. We too become sufferers on account of a broken, sinful world. A world which continuously allows evil to break in. Maybe the very image of God within us invites us not only into the joy of being, but into the grief of loving.

Perhaps that is where the redemption happens. Not that God alone coerces events into some way of being "better," but that through our work with God and each other, we empower more creativity and new life. Maybe we, too, become aware of the little births that happen each day in creation -- a smile, a flower, a budding relationship. Perhaps past events themselves don't become redeemed, but we do. In pulling together, in crying out for justice, in motivating our neighborhoods to care for creation, in caring for people who have lost those they love, in continuously creating small spaces where God's creative, resurrecting, redeeming love brings new birth within. Perhaps we choose this, too, when we choose to suffer. As we live into the divine within us, opening space for her to shine through, we open a space for redemption for our suffering. A place where we meet grief and God and know this grieving is our work, too. Where it is not only God's job to comfort us, but perhaps that we and God sit together in our grief and tears, holding hands and saying nothing and waiting for that divine spark to create between us a new space of healing grace. And sometimes, perhaps it is we who put our arms around God herself and hold her while she cries tears from the deepest part of herself for all that she, too, has loved, and lost, and waits to be redeemed.

Memorial Day Invocation/Litany

Reposting, A Memorial Day Invocation

We gather together this morning to celebrate.

We celebrate a country of promised freedom, and the continuing   commitment to ensure that all people might call themselves free. 

We celebrate the many men and women who have served in the military at our behest.

We celebrate the courage and commitment of thousands of service people who have given their all in service to their country.

           

We gather this morning to honor.

We honor all who have left behind family, friends, and community to serve in the military.

We honor those who have loved these United States enough to risk everything for her prosperity.

We honor men and women throughout the years who have dedicated their lives to our freedom and our rights.

We gather this morning to lament. 

We lament the state of a world where war seems the only or most expedient answer to our nation’s problems. 

We lament the state of our nation which welcomes men and women back from war zones with silence and refusal to hear the stories of war. 

We lament the state of our souls, ready to send others to do what we would dare not – and then refusing to recognize our own culpability in what they have done.

We gather this morning to mourn.

We mourn for all those who have given their lives in wars they believed in.
We mourn for all who have sacrificed their lives in wars they didn’t believe in.
We mourn for all who survived war zones, only to lose their lives in the fight against mental illness.

But most of all, we gather this morning to remember.
We remember the service personnel we have loved and lost.

We remember the sacrifices of so many in the service of their country. 

And we remember our God, who redeems the unredeemable; forgives the unforgivable; and encourages that we love – both our neighbor and our enemy.

So, this morning let us celebrate, honor, lament, mourn and remember. And, as President Abraham Lincoln concluded his second inaugural address:
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Please feel welcome to use in worship and/or reprint. I'd appreciate a citation where appropriate. :)

Carrying Holy Week

It was Thursday night, after Maundy Thursday services. I listened to a voicemail from my best friend, who is also a pastor. “I don’t need anything, really. I just wanted to talk. I’m just feeling… something. I don’t know what it is.” 

‘Ah,’ I thought, ‘I know what it is. It is the weight of Holy Week.’ 

It is not exactly sadness or depression or grief or fear. It is not exactly exhaustion or stress or overwhelmed-ness or tension. It is some of all of these things. And, it is more. 

As pastor, I experience Holy Week in a different way than I ever experienced it as ‘simply’ participant. Even when I was assisting minister or intern, the Three Days were about me and God and God’s transforming work. Only as pastor did I become aware of the weight, the honor, the responsibility, the burden of carrying a congregation through these days. God calls us to stare death in the face and carry our congregations directly to that place. These people we love, we cherish, for whom we have great responsibility, we take to the edge of death and plunge into it with them.

This is heavy. It is burdensome. Not burdensome in a way I wish to cast off and be rid of – but in the way of an honored animal who has been entrusted to keep an entire family’s possessions secure as they cross a raging river. Carrying those we deeply love, we step into the waters of death; hoping, praying, trusting for a miracle. Hoping, praying, trusting that we will make it through the danger and come out on the other side, resurrected. 

We need no more faith in the story than we had before we were pastors. We need no more guidance than the story itself. We need no more promise than that which we already have received. But perhaps we need more courage. 

Because as pastors, when we step into these waters of death, we do not do so alone. We take our entire communities with us. And we pray, and we hope, and we trust that God will not only meet us there, but bring us through to the other side, where in the end we might raise up our voices in a triumphant shout: God has overcome!! 

But today, our Alleluias wait. Today, our lips move in silent, fervent prayer. Today, our hearts tremble. And today, we carry this weight as we walk, together with Christ, into death.

I just can't remember...

We spend the first half of our lives celebrating as we reach new milestones, learn more information, find ourselves able to do more things. We laugh with joy when a child says a new word. We throw a party when a young adult graduates from high school. We give a clap on the back and a "well done" when an adult secures a new job.

And we grow older.

As we grow older, we discover we can't do the things we used to do. We grieve as our sight worsens. We often feel useless when we must hire someone to do our laundry or our cleaning. We complain, "My mind must be going... I just can't remember things like I used to."

I am somewhere in the middle -- still able to reach milestones, learn more, do new things -- and yet also recognizing and grieving that there are some things that I will never do, some I may never do again. [I suspect that we never move beyond this 'middle space,' the liminal place between what I could do or think before and can't now, and what I can do and think in the future.]

We recognize that through Jesus, God has experienced the human life. Jesus really knows what it is to grow up, to be an infant and then a child saying first words and then a young adult setting out to do a job. Jesus knows what it feels like to age, and Jesus knows what it is like to suffer physically and to die. But Jesus didn't get to live to be 80 or 90 or 100. What, do you suppose, Jesus knows about that?

We might imagine that before coming to earth, Jesus (being one with God) knew what God knew, communing with God in an intimate way we can but imagine. And then, Jesus became bound by humanity: a human body, a human mind. Speaking about the last hours, when God's kin-dom will be made manifest on earth, Jesus told his disciples: "But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." (Mark 13:32, NRSV)

I wonder, was Jesus experiencing one of those moments? One of those "...I know I know the answer to that question... and now I just can't remember" moments. One of those "My mind must be going, I can't remember anything like I used to" moments. I wonder if Jesus' mind pricked with an ancient knowledge that he just couldn't bring into his human mind in that very human moment.

There is a grief process associated with memory loss. Frustration at being unable to remember, perhaps anger at the way things are and are becoming, perhaps depression that we know we won't be able to return to a better memory, and perhaps finally acceptance. In my stage of life, I still hear "If it's important, it will come to me later" a lot. That's not always true. As we age, it becomes less true: there are many important things that we forget, can't remember, and may never remember until God's eternal kin-dom comes.

And so, perhaps this is one more way that Jesus comes to be with us. Perhaps this is one more way that Jesus understands us. Perhaps this is one more place that we can lean on Jesus. Perhaps Jesus, too, knew what it was like to forget, forget what is so very important -- vital, even -- and to learn to trust that it's enough that God knows, and will always know, and we can be blessed in that.