Are boomers and young adults all that different, spiritually?

I am fortunate to have a college campus minister in my congregation. She keeps me up on fresh research and perspective. Last week, she shared insights from Lost in Transition, Christian Smith's look at the spirituality of young adults.

One of the author's statements in an interview reveals little difference between young adults and my own baby boom generation:

"Most emerging adults view religion as training in becoming a good person. And they think they are basically good people. To not be a good person, you have to be a horrible person. Therefore, everything's fine."

Compare that with today's Morning Prayer lesson:

And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, as recorded in the books. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and all were judged according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire; and anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
Revelation 20:12-15

Do we believe that the "first death," the "natural death" we must all face is a consequence of humanity's sin and estrangement from God?

Do we believe that Jesus Christ is "taking names" of those who will follow him through this first death into eternal life?

Do we believe that there is a "second death" that is eternal torment hopelessly separated from God's new creation?

Or are we all sold on (and preaching) a therapeutic religion, in which the first death is to be ignored (science or positive thinking will eventually overcome it), and in which eternal joy is an entitlement for all but the "Hitlers" of the world, so there's no "Book of Life" to worry about?

Happy news to share on the family front...

Our older son just got a phone call of acceptance from the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology. His field of interest is Metallurgy, and "Mines" is an excellent school with high quality faculty, low teacher-student ratio, and excellent career placement. They just received a multimillion dollar research grant from the Dept. of the Navy, and have some exciting resources like a lab built into the historic Homestake Mine.

Tim also has applications in with MIT, Penn State and Ohio State. What an exciting time in his life and ours.

Evidently switched at birth and not hobbled by my genetic material, he was elected to Homecoming Court (almost elected King), and just got back from a successful hunt with two good sized wild turkeys. This will be our first Thanksgiving with the game bird on the table (so we are busily gathering cooking advice - these things ain't like the Butterballs from the grocery store).

Anyway, thanks be to God for so many blessings!

Gregory the Great's exhortation to pray for your preachers

Beloved brothers, our Lord and Savior sometimes gives us instruction by words and sometimes by actions. His very deeds are our commands; and whenever he acts silently he is teaching us what we should do. For example, he sends his disciples out to preach two by two, because the precept of charity is twofold - love of God and of one's neighbor.

The Lord sends his disciples out to preach in twos in order to teach us silently that whoever fails in charity toward his neighbor should by no means take upon himself the office of preaching. Rightly is it said that he sent them ahead of him into every city and place where he himself was to go. For the Lord follows after the preachers, because preaching goes ahead to prepare the way, and then when the words of exhortation have gone ahead and established truth in our minds, the Lord comes to live within us. To those who preach Isaiah says: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God. And the psalmist tells them: Make a way for him who rises above the sunset. The Lord rises above the sunset because from that very place where he slept in death, he rose again and manifested a greater glory. He rises above the sunset because in his resurrection he trampled underfoot the death which he endured. Therefore, we make a way for him who rises above the sunset when we preach his glory to you, so that when he himself follows after us, he may illumine you with his love.

Let us listen now to his words as he sends his preachers forth: The harvest is great but the laborers are few. Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into his harvest. That the harvest is good but the laborers are few cannot be said without a heavy heart, for although there are many to hear the good news there are only a few to preach it. Indeed, see how full the world is of priests, but yet in God's harvest a true laborer is rarely to be found; although we have accepted the priestly office we do not fulfill its demands.

Think over, my beloved brothers, think over his words: Pray the Lord of the harvest to send laborers into his harvest. Pray for us so that we may be able to labor worthily on your behalf, that our tongue may not grow weary of exhortation, that after we have taken up the office of preaching our silence may not bring us condemnation from the just judge.

From here. I ran into it this week in John Leinenweber's 1990 collection of readings from Gregory, Be Friends of God.

Religion’s biggest critic…

…has been sounding off on Sundays lately. How rude.

He criticized our clergy and lay pillars of the church:

Teaching in the temple, Jesus said, "Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows' houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation." He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on." Mark 12:38-44

He knocked our splendid buildings, attractive leaders, social justice causes and lucrative end-of-the-world market share:

As Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!" Then Jesus asked him, "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down." When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, "Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?" Then Jesus began to say to them, "Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, `I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs." Mark 13:1-8

As someone paid from widow’s offerings to put on a long robe to sit in an honored place illuminated by stained glass to wield my personality to please people to influence their thoughts and enlist them in causes, I consider my cage duly rattled.

Jesus is religion’s great critic. He shows us again and again that we turn those good things which should point toward God into idols – false substitutes for God; pathetic little “gods” in and of themselves.

Maybe I am having a midlife crisis. Maybe I’m just nuts (a neurotic Episcopal priest? Now really…). Maybe Satan is trying to induce despair. Or maybe there is a loving God, opening the eyes of my faith to see all the unloving falsehood I’ve built up to imprison my soul.

Am I going “secular”? Not in the least. Causes are not God. Nor are the pathetic and inconsequential cultural gods of “My private spirituality” and “I see God everywhere in everything!”

When Jesus summarizes “the law,” he is telling us the essence of religion as a visible, communal expression of shared spiritual life. And what he endorses is not secular do-gooding on the one hand or ritual piety on the other:

Jesus said, "The first commandment is this: Hear, O Israel:
The Lord your God is the only Lord. Love the Lord your
God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your
mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: Love
your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment
greater than these." Mark 12:29-31

Something’s gotta give. I’m failing the basics if strong, thoughtful and heartfelt love is the measure. I've really become one of those sad people dressed up in religion to hide a sick soul.

And my present “religion” is no cover at all. Anglicanism, admits its own Archbishop of Canterbury, is on a trajectory toward "chaos." The Episcopal Church devours widow’s houses to pay for lawsuits to confiscate church buildings paid for from other widow’s estates. Bishops smile and offer the people a choice between heresy (lack of love for God) and schism (lack of love for neighbor). Sick as I am, I can read the words of Jesus and see that I’ve draped myself in a sick, unloving religious system.

My one shred of hope is that the great critic of religion is also the doctor who comes to help the sick:

…Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Mark 2:17

With all of the sin-sick people down through the milennia, I call out, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

Pregnant Pause

Many of us are still getting used to the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL), especially some of the Old Testament selections that set up as didactic lesson plans instead of sermon inspiration, and some instances of tone deafness toward the melodies of the liturgical church year.

But I've liked the Old Testament readings for the last couple of Sundays, which stir up my anticipation for Advent, that great beginning of the liturgical church year and celebration of, well, anticipation. Advent looks back to the long wait for the Savior's birth, and ahead to his coming again. The recent readings about Ruth and Hannah catch themes of seeking, waiting, struggling and finally rejoicing.

Ruth's story is of an outsider who becomes one of God's chosen people, and more than that, the unexpected contributor to a royal bloodline and, from Christian understanding, the fulfillment of God's promises to send the Savior into the world (Matthew 1:5).

Hannah struggles with infertility, derision and misery until God, in answer to her besieging prayer, gives her power to conceive. Her firstborn is the prophet Samuel. Samuel anoints the great King David, pointing ahead to John the Baptist announcing the coming (advent) of the Messiah (anointed one, Christos) and baptizing him to launch his earthly ministry.

I like that the RCL, in place of the usual Psalm, uses Hannah's own song of praise as a response to the lesson. Hannah's song is the obvious inspiration from which young Mary, pregnant with the Son of God, drew her words of praise that we call The Magnificat.

Pregnancy is the fundamental human experience of anticipation. It is prolonged, uncomfortable and disorienting, but at the same time it imparts hope, joy and brings people together in preparation and celebration. Great pain precedes great joy - as Jesus himself would say:

When a woman is in labour, she has pain, because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. (John 16:21-22)

So I like these final lessons of this RCL year - the first intuition that "something's different" before Advent tells us that "the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now" (Romans 8:22). May our groaning give way to joy, as we celebrate the life of Christ at work in us now and preparing us for the new life to come.

Celebrating an Anglican who resisted our "all-consuming interest in self-esteem...self-assertiveness...self-enhancement and self-realization"

No, he wasn't here on the Northern Plains. Charles Simeon, commemorated on the Episcopal Church and other Anglican calendars this week, ministered in the University town of Cambridge, England in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

But a Baptist in Minneapolis (!?!?), John Piper, picked Simeon as his witness for a 1989 exhortation to a gathering of pastors. You can read or listen to this amazing message, "Brothers, We Must Not Mind a Little Suffering," at Piper's Desiring God site.

Simeon stayed in place for decades in the face of sustained hostility and resistance. Piper points out that Simeon grappled with his own personal flaws while ministering to nominal, state-church Christians and University egos who mocked him publicly, locked him out of his own church building, and inflicted various social and academic sanctions on those who agreed with him.

In relating Simeon's life story and key quotes from his sermons and correspondence, Piper makes painfully convicting points for those of us in parish ministry today, through

...the life of a man who was a sinner like you and me, who was a pastor, and who, year after year, in his trials, "grew downward" in humility and upward in his adoration of Christ, and who did not yield to bitterness or to the temptation to leave his charge - for 54 years.

What I have found - and this is what I want to be true for you as well - is that in my pastoral disappointments and discouragements there is a great power for perseverance in keeping before me the life of a man who surmounted great obstacles in obedience to God's call by the power of God's grace. I need very much this inspiration from another age, because I know that I am, in great measure, a child of my times. And one of the pervasive marks of our times is emotional fragility. I feel it as though it hung in the air we breathe. We are easily hurt. We pout and mope easily. We break easily. Our marriages break easily. Our faith breaks easily. Our happiness breaks easily. And our commitment to the church breaks easily. We are easily disheartened, and it seems we have little capacity for surviving and thriving in the face of criticism and opposition.

A typical emotional response to trouble in the church is to think, "If that's the way they feel about me, then they can find themselves another pastor." We see very few models today whose lives spell out in flesh and blood the rugged words, "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various trials" (James 1:3). When historians list the character traits of the last third of twentieth century America, commitment, constancy, tenacity, endurance, patience, resolve and perseverance will not be on the list. The list will begin with an all-consuming interest in self-esteem. It will be followed by the subheadings of self-assertiveness, and self-enhancement, and self-realization. And if you think that you are not at all a child of your times just test yourself to see how you respond in the ministry when people reject your ideas.

We need help here. When you are surrounded by a society of emotionally fragile quitters, and when you see a good bit of this ethos in yourself, you need to spend time with people - whether dead or alive - whose lives prove there is another way to live. Scripture says, "Be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises" (Hebrews 6:12). So I want to hold up for you the faith and the patience of Charles Simeon for your inspiration and imitation.

I do "see a good bit of this self-seeking, fragile quitter ethos" in myself, and so Charles Simeon is an inspiration.

Just in case you're flying over...

Anglican blogs around the U.S. and abroad have been lit up by Pope Benedict's recent "Apostolic Constitution."

To give some idea of the disconnect between coastal/urban and "flyover" Episcopalians, let me just say that not a single parishioner has asked about this. Not a single coffee hour question.

John Tarrant was consecrated as Episcopal Bishop of South Dakota on October 31st (coincidentally my 5th anniversary here at Good Shepherd). Bishop Paul Swain of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls attended. Neither Bishop mentioned Apostolic Constitution or the migration of folks between their churches.

Time for a break

I need to take a break from blogging.

After giving thanks this week for God's provision of some financial relief, I realized how weary I am from four years of struggling with family health and financial burdens, multiple jobs, church stuff (normal and not-so-normal), etc. The death of a parishioner this weekend made the realization more acute.

I have a bunch of "deferred maintenance" needs. I've been taking better care of my health and have lost 20 lbs. over the summer. Feeling much better physically, but there's still just too much stuff that needs my attention.

On the church front, there's this observation from a friend who walked out on the Episcopalian melodrama:

There's really not much to say that people haven't heard; people have chosen their directions and are not changing their minds.

There have been enough words, and plenty of warning. Most ideas are simply recycling now.

Thanks for your prayers - those offered and those to come. God is good. May Christ's peace be with you.

You know what really hurts?

I am still in awe of the quick ruling in favor of my wife's disability claim, and the dawning awareness that four of the hardest, most painful years of my life are about to have a measure of relief.

A few times, I've called these the worst four years of my life. So much stuff all at once. My vibrant wife suffered a terrible decline in health, then became someone I didn't recognize for awhile. Our autistic son suffered his first grand mal seizures. Our finances tanked. Divorce and bankruptcy entered my thinking and our arguments. I worked extra jobs but things got worse. My church denomination plunged into madness and I found myself deep in ugly conflicts.

Looking at that today, I'm amazed - but the litany of calamities doesn't bug me. Instead, Psalm 30:5-6 comes to mind,

For his wrath endures but the twinkling of an eye, his favor for a lifetime.

Weeping may spend the night, but joy comes in the morning.

You know what hurts? As I look back over these last four years, I see the ways that God and kind people reached in to keep us going. I see sacrifices and kindnesses of all kinds. I see extravagant measures of compassion, patience and love poured out all over me, not the least of which was the deepening of our marriage and the resurrection of my wife, at least in personality if not in physical strength. I see both of our kids flourishing here. I see how our parish grew in numbers, resources, knowledge, prayer, service to the community and just about every way a church could experience blessing. I see God changing me in ways I've long desired.

WHAT HURTS SO MUCH is how little I appreciated the blessings while whining about and protesting the hurts. What hurts is that I was so full of myself that I emptied my thinking of Jesus' message: that God loves me and is ever faithful to that love.

It hurts enough that I can finally step back, bow down and really join the guy in Jesus' little story,

"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'"

And in saying that, I know I will be getting up as someone new - not yet complete - but new today and closer to who God wants me to be forever, because He loves me.

God bless you all this weekend.

God is all over things today... email from a parishioner

Earlier today, I posted the news that my wife's disability claim was approved. Just now, I got this email from a parishioner. He and his wife have also struggled with financial and health pressures, and he's been trying to work toward a new career:

"I contacted XXXXX at SD Dept. Of Labor about my test results. She contacted someone at the school administration office, and they both decided there was a space available and they would allow me in because of my overall score averages. But wait, all the money through the WIC program was depleted...... XXXXX informed me that she had put the alloted money aside, just for me. She wanted to see if I was serious about becoming a CNA. She said I proved to her I was and will be. I start school on September 21st. Paid for by the Government of South Dakota. My goal is to help the elderly and special needs children. The adventure begins...........I think God wants me in this field as well. I've thought and prayed for guidance....and for at least a window to open up.

It opened and I'm crawling through. I hope it's not considered breaking and entering. Thank you Father for all your prayers......may God BLESS you and your family, and get you through your hard times. XXXXX and I are here for you........see you at church on Sunday."