Monday, March 18, 2024

Looking Ahead to Fall Seminary Classes

When we get to reading week, I start to check to see if the schedule of classes for the following term has been released yet.  Even in the week or two before reading week, I check, although I know that the schedule isn't likely to be released.  Yesterday, I checked to see if the Fall schedule was there, even though it was Sunday.  There it was.

I must have missed the late afternoon posting of the schedule, because when I checked late Friday morning, it wasn't there.  I can't actually register for classes until March 25, so I haven't lost out.  More exciting, there are plenty of classes that will work for me.

In the past year, I haven't had as many classes that I could take.  That's partly a function of having been in the MDiv program for awhile:  a lot of the courses offered are ones I've already taken.  But I've also felt a bit fretful as I've seen fewer classes that are offered for students who have to take classes from a distance.

This fall, I'll be taking a variety of classes:  one is completely online, one meets by way of Zoom Mondays from 6:30 to 9:30, and two meet in person on campus for one week, October 14-18, with the rest of the work online.

If I take one more class, I could be done with the MDiv by December.  But do I want to do that?  Hmm.  One of my favorite professors is teaching a class on the Gospel of Mark, so it's tempting.  That class meets by way of Zoom once a month, and the rest is online.  It could be doable.

You may be saying, "Wait, aren't you about to start a full-time job in the Fall?"  Yes.  Could I handle a heavy teaching load and a heavy seminary class load at the same time?  Yes.  

I will take the four classes regardless, unless something changes radically.  It gets my requirements done, and the classes that I need for the certificate in Theology and the Arts done.  I want to take the classes while they are offered and in a format that works for me.  I can't be sure that it will happen term after term.  Let me seize this opportunity while it's here!

Sunday, March 17, 2024

The Seeds of Saint Patrick's Day

I have never done much celebrating of St. Patrick's Day. I don't drink green beer, and if someone else served me corned beef, I'd eat it, but I don't love it enough to make it for my own homestead. Occasionally I make Irish soda bread, and I wonder why it isn't tastier. I've made a cake with Guinness beer occasionally, and here, too, I wonder why it isn't more delicious. I'm not braving the crowds to go to an Irish pub--I like my pubs deserted.

I may spend some time contemplating Celtic aspects of Christianity, but I might do that any day, whether it's a day that celebrates the life of a famous Irish saint or not.

I am intrigued by the crowds of people who have no connection to Ireland or Christianity or any of the reasons we celebrate today. But I'm not critical. I believe in injecting festivity into daily life in whatever way we can.

Today I will go to church, people may wear green. That's fine.  I am preaching a sermon that thinks about Saint Patrick, the Oscars, the U.S. presidential race, and today's Lectionary text: John 12:  20-33, a text about seeds and the necessity to die so that we may live again.  Many would preach this text as an eternal life text, but I'm encouraging us to look at our current lives.  What bulbs do we need to be planting?  Where are we stuck in the mud of life?

Saint Patrick, before he was a saint, surely felt stuck in the mud, sent to a distant outpost to help solidify Christianity in Ireland in the 500's, when Ireland was a wild and wooly place, when the empire of Rome was in a state of slow collapse.  Yet he used his gifts to transform the community of faith--and one of those gifts was the 6-7 years he spent as a teen enslaved in Ireland before he escaped.

Here's how today's sermon ends:

Our sprouting and blooming will almost surely not look like the success that our larger culture has trained us to value. We’re not likely to win an Oscar or to be a presidential nominee. Even though I’d vote for just about any of you, our system isn’t set up that way. But the life of Saint Patrick reminds us to be of good cheer. Even if we feel like we’re stranded in a distant outpost, we are making a difference just by living our lives in an authentic way, the way that God calls us to live. Even if we feel like we’re stuck in the mud, in truth, we are bulbs in the process of transformation to blooms.

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Intensifying Lent in the Last Week of Lent

It is easy to lose sight of where we are in the liturgical calendar.  We've had a time change, we've had changes in weather, some of us are watching trees and flowers blooming earlier than we're used to.  It's easy to forget that we're about to enter the last week of Lent.

A week from tomorrow we will celebrate Palm Sunday, and Holy Week will begin.  That means that this week is the last week of Lent.

During Advent, I often wish that Advent lasted six weeks, like Lent.  During Lent, I often lose focus and wish that Lent could be more like Advent, no more than four weeks.

This morning, I thought about this last week of Lent.  Unlike many believers, I did not adopt a Lenten discipline.  When we get to the last days of Lent, I often wish I had done more.  This morning, it occurred to me that we could have a last week of intensity.  Whatever we wish we had spent the last five weeks doing, we could do every day.  If we're already doing a Lenten discipline every day, we could still schedule a week of intensity.  What would it happen to do our Lenten discipline twice a day?

It's easy enough if we've resolved to pray daily or to practice a creative discipline.    I say "easy," even as I realize that it's plenty difficult to schedule one daily session, much less two.

If we have been working our way through a daily devotional, we might need to be more creative.  If it's a book written by a single author, we could add more readings.  Or we could go back to the beginning of the book and read the first week of devotions for Lent along with the last week.  It might lead to interesting connections!

I write this post realizing that I'm unlikely to adopt a new Lenten discipline at this point.  But I am going to Quilt Camp, scheduled back in November, not scheduled as a Lenten discipline.  Perhaps I will add some Lenten focus to each day, as I go up the hill to the Faith Center to work on quilts.  Perhaps I will also add some non-fabric quilting focus to some days.  Hmm.  Let me see what happens!

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

More on Infographics

I don't have much writing time this morning.  I need to leave even earlier than usual for a morning of meetings in Spartanburg.  Let me return to the idea of infographics, which I first wrote about in this blog post.  Now that my baptism infographic has been graded, I can share it:



As I was looking at my pictures, I came across the black and white version, which I took in case I messed up the infographic when I added color.  I wouldn't have had a way to undo the color, but I could have turned in the black and white version.  Happily, I liked the color version better.



I still find this concept of an infographic intriguing.  I'm still looking for ways to incorporate it into my writing classes.  Of course, this is the time of year when I find myself yearning for a different way to do the research paper.  Or wishing that I didn't have to do a research paper at all.  

Let me record this here:  as much as I'm enjoying teaching, I do find myself yearning to do more creative things in class and not having to do some of the traditional stuff, like the research essay.  I find myself wishing I could teach less English writing classes and more creativity class.  Not so much creative writing, but a class exploring creativity.

Maybe I just want to play with art supplies.

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, March 17, 2024:

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Psalm 51:1-13 (Psalm 51:1-12 NRSV)

or Psalm 119:9-16

Hebrews 5:5-10

John 12:20-33


This verse is my favorite from the Gospel for this week: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (verse 24). I have a vision of a seed who desperately resists change, who wants life to continue as normal. "Let me have the familiar. Don't force me to change."

But that seed doesn't see that it lives alone in the dark, damp earth. It thinks life is fine, because it has never known anything else. It thinks life is fine, because it doesn't have a vision of anything else. How can it? It lives all alone in the dark, damp earth.

Only by letting go (however painful that might be) of its current life, will that little seed find itself transformed. That seed, in its current form, must die, so that it can be reborn into a much more glorious life. That seed, once it lets go, once it faces death, will break through into a life of sunshine and fresh air and water and smiling faces. That seed, once it lets go, will find much company. It will bear fruit, which means it has fulfilled its biological imperative--it has gotten its genes into the next generation.

The most obvious way of interpreting this passage is to see it as being about death and Heaven. Eventually, we die and break out of our existential loneliness by joining our loved ones in Heaven.

But perhaps this passage gives us a deeper insight.

Certainly, we see a vision of Christ, who is troubled (according to traditional interpretation) by his impending death. That seed represents Christ's death as well as our own. If Christ had just lived quietly into old age, preaching and teaching, it's a pretty safe bet that you and I wouldn't be Christians. It is only by Jesus' death and rebirth that Christianity can flourish.

We might also think about how that seed could represent our current lives. What part of your life do you need to let die, so that you can be transformed into something glorious? Past visions of Christianity stressed the glories we could look forward to in the afterlife, yet Christ comes to live with us to show us how we can live now, how we can make the Kingdom manifest on earth now.

We spend much of our lives in the dark, damp earth--and that earth can be a metaphor for many things--what imprisons us? Is it our tendency towards anger? despair? Does the earth stand for the substances we abuse? Does the dirt represent the behaviors that keep us from fulfilling our true potential as Christians?

Before you plunge into sadness about all the ways you've fallen short, take heart. Remember that the dirt is also a nourishing medium. Seeds won't grow without dirt. All that dirt has gone a long way to protecting you for that time when you're ready to bloom.

God's vision for us is not one that keeps us muffled and buried and alone in the mud. All we have to do is to die to our current lives.

That sounds so harsh. And yet, it is what is required of us. Much of our New Testament stresses that fact. Being a Christian requires that our old life dies. Otherwise, we won't flower and flourish like we should.

In keeping with the seed metaphor, all we have to do is shuck off the husk of our former lives. All we have to do is to have the faith to face transformation. All we have to do is sprout.

Friday, March 8, 2024

International Women's Day and the Church

March is the month designated to celebrate women's history; March 8 is International Women's Day. We might ask ourselves why we still need to set time apart to pay attention to women. Haven't we enacted laws so that women are equal and now we can just go on with our lives?

Sadly, no, that is not the case. If we look at basic statistics, like how much women earn compared to men in the very same jobs, we see that the U.S. has still not achieved equality. Although the Lutheran church has been ordaining women since the 70's, although we have a female bishop in the top position, our local churches are still likely to be led by white men. If we look at violent crime rates across the past 100 years, we discover that most violent crime rates have fallen--except for rape. If we look at representation in local, state, and federal levels, we see that members of government are still mostly white and male.

And that's in a first world country. The picture for women in developing nations is bleak.  And these past few years have reminded us that legal protections can be stripped away, in every country.

Most of us understand why a world where more women have access to equal resources would be a better world for all of us. Many of us have spent years and decades working to make that world a reality. Some of us are lucky enough to have a church that supports the vision of equality that God offers to us as what the Kingdom of God looks like.

Not everyone has that experience. And sadly, many people have experienced discrimination against women coming at them through their churches. That damage may have happened years ago, in churches that no longer resemble the ones we have now--but the damage is done, for those people.

We know that the world can change very quickly, and God calls us to be part of the movement to change the world in ways that are better for all--and particularly for the vulnerable and powerless. We have made great progress on that front. But there is still more to do.

So, today, let us get started, let us continue, let us make progress. And let us pray for all who are with us on the journey.  And let us pray for all of those who need us to make progress at a faster rate for their very lives and the lives of their daughters are at stake.

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, March 10, 2024:

First Reading: Numbers 21:4-9

Psalm: Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

Second Reading: Ephesians 2:1-10

Gospel: John 3:14-21

There are some Bible texts that are so prominent that it's hard to imagine that we could find something new to say about them. This week's Gospel includes one of them, John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."

I spent my childhood and adolescent years in a variety of small, Southern towns, and this text was often used as one to exclude people. Most responses to the text that I've seen zero in on the idea that we must believe in Jesus to have eternal life, and I'm certain that I don't want to wander into that theological muck. I used to be able to spend many hours deliberating whether or not a Hindu could go to Heaven, or an atheist or your beloved pet.

Now I'm much more interested in how we live our lives here--not so that we get into Heaven, but so that we participate in God's visions for us and for the larger world.

Today, let us focus on the text that reminds us that God doesn't enter the world to condemn us--many pop culture preachers forget that. But almost every verse of this week's Gospel reminds us that God comes to us out of love, not judgment. God comes, not to cast us away into the shadows. Most of us spend many hours dwelling in murkiness. God comes to lead us into the light.

Many of us have come from Christian traditions which would find this theology strange. Many of us have been scarred by a theology of a divine judge who finds us wanting. Many of us fear hell.

Many of us have been taught that the purpose of religion is to save us so that we get to go to Heaven not Hell. But the message that Jesus delivers again and again is that God is interested in the life we're living right now, not just the life we'll have or not have after we die. Jesus comes to announce to us that the frayed piece of cloth that we clutch is not the quilt of life that God intends for us to have. Jesus comes to show us new fabrics, new patterns, stronger stitches to hold all the pieces together.

Our world is desperately in need of the message that Christians can tell. We live in a world of rampant Capitalism, which is doing a wide range of harm. The world needs our message of something that is more vital, something that is more important than making money and buying more stuff.

We can be the lighthouses that lead people to safer shores--not the shores of Heaven or Hell, but the shore of a transformed life. We can be part of God's quilting team, reminding people that life is more than the threadbare scraps they see before them. We can be the ones who offer new fabrics and the knowledge of how to stitch the small pieces together into glorious new patterns, a quilt that will keep us all.