Drink Upstream

Monday Morning Exegesis

Yesterday morning, Blair (pastor at Preston Hollow PC) preached a nice little sermon that centered on the following verses from the first chapter of Luke:

³⁴Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin? ³⁵The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born^*36And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. ³⁷For nothing will be impossible with God.’ will be holy; he will be called Son of God.

You all know this stuff....very Christmasy.  Blair really honed in on the "For nothing will be impossible with God" bit, a message that lots of folks need to hear. 

I was sitting there yesterday listening to the sermon, and I thought "I wonder what my Super-Bible* has to say about that 37th verse?"  I taught Sunday School yesterday, so I happened to have by SB with me, so I pulled it out, and it referred me back to Genesis 18:14

"¹⁴Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.’ "

The connection is clear, but I think there's something more interesting going on here.  Look at the two passages right next to one another:

Genesis 18:14:  Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?

Luke 1:37:  For nothing is impossible with God.

See the difference? 

It's really all about the prepositions.  The Genesis passage uses the preposition "for", meaning God can do whatever God wants to do, but Luke chooses a different word.  He uses "with"; somehow implying a joint venture, a companionship with God that is clearly not implied by the Genesis passage.  The difference is subtle, but I think really highlights the very special essence of the Christmas story.

Here in a couple of days many of us will be celebrating the bizzare mystery of a God of partnership and "with-ness" who came down here amongst us in as a little baby in a trough in the desert.  Pretty cool stuff don't ya think?

* Super-Bible is a term of endearment that our Wednesday night young adult Bible study has bestowed upon the Harper-Collins study Bible that has wonderful footnotes, cross-references, and even some fun maps.  It's aided in many a discussion....

An Abiding Sense of Wrongness

Here are some completely disconnected stories.

For the last few weeks, those of us on this blog have been involved in a conversation with a bunch of other Presbyterians.  That conversation centers around what I can only categorize as a deep and abiding sense of wrongness.  No matter where we fall in the discussion, we're involved in it because of a deep sense that the Church - and the world that the Church finds itself in - is just not right.

Whether we get that sense from falling attendance numbers, lower giving, loss of status, or the church's perceived inability to cause significant change in creation doesn't really matter - we get this deep and abiding sense that things just are not the way they're supposed to be.

Denominational Leadership in the PC(USA)

As I write this, Jared and I are in the middle of a discussion of denominational leadership in the PC(USA). And I want to invite others to join. Here's where we are:

Bill: I can't get behind the TSP thing, and it'll take a lot to convince me. I think of it as the same argument as Republicans kept throwing at Obama, "executive" experience proves leadership potential. I don't buy it.

Jared: When I think of excellent "executive" leadership in the church, I think of Rick Carus. He's a guy who can inspire, embolden, and empower people to get things done with a purpose. Rick is not Grace Presbytery's youth pastor - he is Grace Presbytery's Youth Executive. If you look at the list of ways that the programs he works on make the world more like God wants it to be, it's a huge list, with lots of impressive stuff on it.

Jared: And the list is much longer than anything Rick Carus himself could accomplish.

Jared: I am very willing to consider that TSP is not a good indicator of denominational leadership performance - you don't need to convince me. But we do need to figure out what might be.

Bill: What makes for good denominational leadership performance? How do we define that?

Jared: That would be controversial. I would say that a good denominational leader is one that can motivate, inspire, enable, and empower the church to make the world more like God wants it to be.

Choose your own adventure. If you want to help define denominational leadership, click Add Comment. If you want to continue the Beau Weston discussion, go to the previous entry. If you don't want to have anything to do with these church nerds, go read another blog.

Rebuilding the Presbyterian Establishment....and deviled eggs too!

For those not in the know, there's a pretty hot-button essay entitled "Rebuilding the Presbyterian Establishment" that's been floating around for awhile.  I think it's been around for a good bit, but it has re-gained some momentum of late as Mr. Moderator himself (Bruce Reyes-Chow), made it the focus of his most recent online townhall/vidcast.

I'll freely admit that I've not watched the townhall yet, but I did read the essay yesterday, and there's no question that it is worthy of discussion.  BUT!  I managed to get myself ill yesterday (some nasty Peruvian gut bug or some other such intestinal nonsense), so I punted to Jared, Bill, and Stacy.  Jared responded first, so he gets the honor of a blog-post-by-proxy:

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Our reality, your creation

Cleaning up the files today, I ran across this prayer that I used for The Prayers of the People recently (when the preacher was teaching on "Hope.")  I'm sure I stole much of it from Brueggeman, but I don't have the source that inspired me (if you don't have it, his Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth is incredible.)  Tonight, sitting around a warm fire and pondering the uncertainty and fear that surrounds us today, it seemed like an appropriate time to post this.

Our Reality and Your Creation

Our reality and your creation...

A place and time
    where our hunger, want and greed exhausts and pollutes your world
    where our struggles to be on top push others so far down that food and shelter and clothing just might escape their grasp
    where our struggles to be on top isolate us
        from listening to your call
        from discerning your will
        from acting on your desires.

Our reality and your creation...

A place where locked doors and strong walls separate
    your people
    your families
    and your church.
A place designed by us to
    insulate
    protect
    and defend
        rather than
        build
        and share
        and love.

This is our reality and your creation...

A place and time
        where the scientists give us weapons of mass destruction
        and religious leaders of all stripes drum up emotion and discord sufficient that they just might get used

This is our reality and your creation...

And yet, you speak words like
    grace
    faith
    and somehow even hope.

A hope built on resurrection.

A hope built on the stories of your people
    A people who have known
        tragedy
        pain
        and despair.
    A people who have known
        aimless wandering
        deep divisions
        impatient discernment
        and impetulent disobedience.
    But, a people who, despite all of that, have for generations
        acknowledged your presence
        sought your will
        filled your temple with praises
        and who, for generations, have been accompanied by your spirit.

This is our reality, and your creation.

Like the best of those faithful generations who came before us,
    may we place our trust not in the scientists or the religious institutions
    may we place our trust not in wealth or power or our own achievement
    may we place our trust not in a world of our own design

but may we place our hope in a living, loving, trustworthy, re-creating and resurrecting God
    who came and walked among us in Jesus the Christ.

And may that hope bring with it practices of
    justice
    mercy
    faith
    ...and yes, even more hope.

Through your hope,
    may our tears be more than pain and suffering
        may they be struggle and journey
    may our sweat be more than aimless toil
        may it bring hope to the hopeless
    and may our faith be more than intellectual assent
        may it be a life-giving way of being and doing

And may hope abound, here and now, tomorrow and forever.

Alleluia. Amen.

Trust the Process

As many readers of this blog know (all five or six of you), I continue to travel a long road through the Presbyterian ordination process. The Committee on Perspective Ministry in Grace Presbytery has many candidates before them, and through the four years of seminary and three years after, I have wandered weak and weary, while their only request has been that my paperwork be done on time and that my meetings occur at the appropriate intervals. Four assigned liaisons have worked with me in the past six years, although, I use the word "worked" very casually; I only speak with or hear from my liaison when it is time for another Annual Consultation, when my paperwork is delayed, or when their time on the committee has ended.

I hunger for a process of discernment, where paperwork and review meetings are not the signposts on this journey. I hunger for a process of nurture and support, of discussion and debate and new understandings. This committee will recommend my ordination by the wider church, so why shouldn't there be a give and take and mutual development? Why can't there be an exploration on both our parts, discovering what it means for individuals to be called to ministry and for Presbyteries, not local congregations, to ordain them? Shouldn't we grow together--meaning both closer and concurrently?

Bruce Reyes-Chow recently posted an interview with a San Francisco Seminary student named Jenny Warner, who, when asked to describe her own journey with San Francisco Presbytery, called the process, "better than I thought... And, um, very discerning, and very caring, and nurturing." Almost to the word what I feel has been missing from my own journey. Bruce then presses her on to the future of the Presbyterian Church, and you can hear the rhythms of hope in what follows.