More than I ask or imagine. . .

New Clothes for Easter: A Sign and Seal of Something More

I wrote this following article for our Newsletter at Lycoming Centre.  After I told my Mom that I got a new suit for Easter, she and Dad came up for Easter as a surprise, but it just shows how much they taught me through even something like clothing.

I remember my brown suit.  I was 4 or 5 and the pictures show me standing proudly in my Easter suit.  In my early childhood, I can remember wearing new suits every Easter and my sister having a bright and beautiful Spring dress.  My parents always dressed us up for church, but on Easter, that was a game changer. We wore bright-colored new clothes that were only fit for weddings or Christmas if we had not grown out of them by then.

Easter, from my earliest memories was about color and newness. I have no idea about the origin of pastel colors and Easter, but my parents entrusted me with a great worldview by communicating the newness and uniqueness of Easter. The greatest central fact of our faith is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from Death on the Cross.  The resurrection is his enthronement celebration where God declares before the watching world that- Yes, He is the Son of God! This is not some random coincidence or aberration in history, but the very beginning of a new history.  All things are being made new now in King Jesus' lordship, and his primary means of that work of newness is you and me.  The Church's calling is to be a New People.  Granted, we are sinners, but the Holy Spirit that raised Jesus that first Easter is raising us in Him as well. We are no longer dead in our sin!

In the first few centuries of the Church, new converts were baptized on Saturday night or Early Sunday morning before Easter.  After the baptism, they would be given new white robes to wear for the Easter service. Easter was celebrated for 7 weeks culminating in Pentecost Sunday. So every Sunday, these newly Baptized believers would remind the Church that they are new people and have a new calling.

This Easter, consider where are you called to bring the newness of Jesus' Kingly New Reign. Where is God calling you to die to your selfishness and pride and to live a resurrection life? How can you, your family and this church show our community that Jesus is renewing all things? Let not just your Easter apparel show that something is special about April 8 this year, but let your conduct, your repentance, your generosity, your forgiveness and your newness of heart be a witness to Christ's resurrection!

This is Your Brain on Stories.... Any questions?

 

I remember those "Partnership for a Drug Free America" commercials, about your brain on drugs.  A powerful metaphor for me watching as a kid.  That may be why I became a Waffle House cook in college, hmm...

But a recent article from the NY Times suggests that metaphors, fiction, and imagination are interpreted as real experiences for those who read them.  Here is an except

The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated. Keith Oatley, an emeritus professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto (and a published novelist), has proposed that reading produces a vivid simulation of reality, one that “runs on minds of readers just as computer simulations run on computers.” Fiction — with its redolent details, imaginative metaphors and attentive descriptions of people and their actions — offers an especially rich replica. Indeed, in one respect novels go beyond simulating reality to give readers an experience unavailable off the page: the opportunity to enter fully into other people’s thoughts and feelings.

This is helpful to show how we are shaped and learn through story.  Metaphor also provides rich texture for our imagination and the shaping and forming us into different people after we have read a story. I have experienced the magical world of Harry Potter and faced evil, so now I can face evil in my own heart with the same bravery.

Several questions and connections rise to the front of my mind, What stories am I giving my sons?  What stories made me who I am? Why are we so rationalistic in our communication of theology instead of imaginative?  Can vast reading help us become more compassionate people? And quickly, this blog could get really really long.

My take away is a question too. A question that I must force upon myself is: Do I teach to encounter people with God's Story?  I hope too. In fact, that is my prayer.  I want sermons and sacraments to not be metaphors for something else, but the real thing, an encounter with Christ.  Sort of like a college student who worked at Waffle House frying eggs as a high because the metaphor got into his bones.

What I Saw in Orlando: The Theology Project #fellowshippres

Below is the Theological Foundation session at the Covenanting conference of the Fellowship of Presbyterians.  I many ways I felt as though I had come home theologically with an emphasis on a Reformed and Sacramental Theology of Mission. The vision of this group is be the church in a new way and committing to foster further theological reflection. They take seriously to be Reformed and always Reforming.  There is also a call to be pastors in a way that takes seriously that endeavor.  The demands of pastoral ministry together with theological reflection and applying it to new frontiers will be draining.  To meet all of these demands, the Church must recover what Eugene Peterson calls the Contemplative Pastor in community.  

I need this type of community to read Scripture deeply and often, to read Historical theology, and to have accountability as we pray for our congregations, traditions, and our families.  This new order is like the orders of old where, like Franciscans, we commit to a way of life to bring renewal to the world-wide body of Presbyterians.  

I hope you get a chance to watch this 40 minute video, but if you cannot please was from minute 30 on to understand this way of life, this new order.

 

Jerry Andrews & Laura Smit: The Theology Project from Fellowship of Presbyterians on Vimeo.

Calvin's Institutes: the Prefatory Week One

Calvin is there reason I am Presbyterian.  I remember reading him in college and thinking that this man was not the cold Scholastic I thought he would be. In fact, reading John Calvin was like drinking Choclate Milk, smooth and sweet showing me beautiful vistas of God's goodness. 

I will be reading a chapter or so a week and finish whenever I finish.  I am not in a rush, I want to understand in a new way what this work is about and how Calvin does theology.  I read the Institutes before seminary 10-12 years ago, now I hope to see new things as a pastor and father. 

What is embarrassing is that I never have read the Prefatory before!  But what a great historical work that is.  Calvin writes this to the King of France as an exile pleading with the King that he and this movement are innocent of the charges being brought against them.   

He addresses briefly the charge of schism and the authority of the Pope.  I find this especially important in our modern world. Unity is prized in many circles, but the fact remains that people are divided in their own churches.   So what then should the unity be based on?  The Word being purely preached and the sacraments rightly practiced.  There is the unity. Of course the follow up questions can be legion: What is the Gospel?  How Pure? what is rightly?  Are they sacraments or ordinances?  However, I get the feeling that all of the Institutes are all about answering all these questions.

So my reading will be guided by that statement of Word and Sacrament and how that guides the Institutes.

A Year with Calvin and Barth: Compare, Contrasting, and Learning

New Year's Resolutions are a time for me to decided my reading for the next year.  I have been trying to decide between reading Calvin's Institutes or Barth Dogmatics.  I have perused Barth's first two volumes as I have followed Daniel Kirk's blog. But when it came down to it, I could not decide. 

So it's both!  It should be a good exercise as I understand what it means to be Presbyterian.  Also, Barth had a tremendous respect for Calvin, here is what Barth said about Calvin in a letter. Also, by starting Barth on the Doctrine of God, I can compare with Calvin as he starts the Institutes with the Doctrine of God.

John Calvin is a cataract, a primeval forest, a demonic power, something directly down from Himalaya, absolutely Chinese, strange, mythological; I lack completely the means, the suction cups, even to assimilate this phenomenon, not to speak of presenting it adequately. What I receive is only a thin little stream and what I can then give out again is only a yet thinner extract of this little stream. I could gladly and profitably set myself down and spend all the rest of my life with just Calvin.

I pray that this year of reading along with my Bible study and reading would shape and form me into a man who loves Christ with my whole life blessing my family, church, and community.  So, I will have to cut the number of novels or sports books that I would like to read, but it will be worth it.

What will you be reading this year?

How Can I Change the World? It begins in the Sanctuary of the Lord.

I have always been a big fan of the idea that you live how your worship.  I firmly believe that worship services train us as God's people to live for him.  Below is an article by Mark Horne on How to Change the World?  Hope you enjoy it.

10 things a church can do to change the world

by Mark Horne

The principle to keep in mind is that we have to change ourselves first.

1. Participate in the Lord’s Supper Every Sunday in Worship
The Kingdom is again and again a feast. The Church is the beachhead of the Kingdom. Does Jesus ever tell a parable comparing the Kingdom to a lecture hall? Does he ever compare the Kingdom to a music concert? Then lets not stop up the Kingdom at the source. Lets get it right. Lets eat and drink.

2. Drink Wine in Church
Duh. How else would you worship a glutton and a drunkard? The Gospel is New Wine that bursts wineskins–not grape juice that sits there inert. You want to know if God can forgive a sinner like you. Get it in a cup and drink it down and you will know. That changes everything.

3. Sing the Psalms
By sing, I mean chant. Don’t remake the Psalms to fit a rhyme scheme. Sing the words that are there according to an accurate translation. What would happen if we did this? For one thing a ton of bad theology would be exorcised.

Arise, O Yahweh
O God, lift up your hand;
forget not the afflicted.
Why does the wicked renounce God
and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”?
But you do see,
for you note mischief and vexation,
that you may take it into your hands;
to you the helpless commits himself;
you have been the helper of the fatherless.
Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer;
call his wickedness to account till you find none.
Yahweh is king forever and ever; the nations perish from his land.

4. Pray the Psalms
Arguably this is redundant with the point above. But I want to stress that God wants us to pray things like:

judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness
and according to the integrity that is in me.
Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end,
and may you establish the righteous—
you who test the minds and hearts,
O righteous God!

There are people and whole churches who claim to be Bible-believing who think this is sinful to pray. You can’t change the world for God if you think He is really a Pharisee unless he has the help of your styleguide by which to edit his prayers.

5. Tell people in church that God has forgiven them.

Don’t preach that God forgives some people somewhere some time. Tell the professing Christians in front of you, and their children, when they confess their sins together, that God has wiped each one of their slates clean. The good news that is going to change the world is not that God forgives someone somewhere at some time.

(Yes, God forgives them at other times, including when they pray apart. But these things are not opposed. Rather, one helps the the other. Those who are trained to believe that God hears and forgives them will be encouraged to trust God for the same at other times and places.)

6. Believe the whole Bible and teach it like God really meant it.

Because saying, “You’re getting too much of your theology from the parables” mostly means, “Jesus was a stupid peasant who told misleading stories that we have to carefully strip down to a single point that we found in Paul’s Epistles”–or rather, “that we found in Westminster Confession” (or, “… the Councils of Trent” or whatever). I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that God isn’t blessing churches who don’t like the Bible.

7. Preach Jesus as King but Avoid Petty Politics

Jesus is Lord and he wants a visible unified entrance to the Kingdom (Church) as a witness to that fact. We have to obey what Jesus says, but we also have to recognize how divisions and arguments actually can undermine the theocratic Faith. So find some highly obvious points in the public square to harp on (i.e. abortion), but try not to get bogged down in minutia (don’t preach Christian libertarianism, socialism, or whatever from the pulpit).

8. Let the Great Commission be your commission

If you think you know what this means, go read it, and ask yourself what this says about being “born again,” “faith,” or “evangelism” compared to what it says about obedience, theocracy, baptism, and ongoing teaching/training of everyone.

9. Worship like the Bible matters

Does it not strike anyone as odd that, if you want to attend a worship service that took you systematically through Scripture, you would be better off in an Episcopal, formal Lutheran, Roman Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox service rather than a Baptists, conservaitve Presbyterian, or “Bible Church” assembly? Is God supposed to speak to us in the Church or not? If not, how are we supposed to see anything change, let alone the world?

10. Live Corporately like Matthew 18 is in the Bible

I mention the whole chapter on purpose, by the way, because it is obviously focused on humility and forgiveness, and in that context gives directions for accountability and purifying the Church. I think that is important because, while not one church in a hundred includes Matthew 18.15-19 in their real canon, some that do can be so zealous (I’m using a euphemism) about it as to reinforce the temptation to neglect it. But it is in the Bible and it is an operating instruction from the Lord Jesus. So obey Him.

Prayer, the Water, and the Cup: Curse turning to Blessing in the Cross

Today, I have been reflecting on prayer, that strange and, yet, very simple, action that we often take for granted.  I reflected on unanswered prayers, and the prayer that seems the most common is about my sin, as I continue to learn repentance.  I so often pray that God would take away my sin, not just forgive it but that I would no longer struggle with it.

The thought came to me, what would life be like then if that prayer was answered.  Ideas of tranquility, serenity, and ease bounced around my mind.  But then, those things look nothing like the Cross of Jesus.  Then as I mentally kick myself for having prayed this silly little prayer. I am reminded of Christ's prayer in the Garden.  "Let this cup pass." In some ways this prayer is largest unanswered prayer in Scripture. The prayer here is the beginning of Jesus Christ becoming a curse for his people.

Whether it is the struggle with sin, disappointment, or even suffering, we find ourselves in the same Garden with Jesus, being baptized in the same way he was baptized on the Cross, drinking the cup of the wrath of God to the dregs. Then, by his power all those things become life, fruit of the Spirit, baptism for the remission of sins, and the cup of blessing and fellowship.

So somehow, these prayers are about finding myself in Christ and shaping me into him so that I become by grace crucified as a living sacrifice. God calls us into his death therefore he will also call us to his glorious life in his victory over death.  So then, my words, my posture, my participation in the sacraments and my story is all wrapped in His Death.  Perseverance then is perseverance into death, so prayer is working life into that deadness.  It is the battle zone in the fight for life.

The Moon Was Claimed for The Glory of God through the Lord's Supper

      I just received an email from The Font and the Table, which is a ministry of the PCUSA for Sacramental Renewal. It describes how on the Sunday closest to July 20 Webster Presbyterian Church celebrates Communion because Buzz Aldrin Celebrated the Lord's Supper on the Moon in 1969. Below is the article.

    No doubt you’re familiar with World Communion Sunday. There’s a congregation southeast of Houston, Texas, that takes it one small step – or is that one giant leap? – further. Each year on the Sunday closest to July 20, Webster Presbyterian Church commemorates the day when Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin, then a ruling elder at Webster Presbyterian Church, received communion on the moon as an act of thanksgiving. Here’s an account from the church’s website, an excerpt from the church’s centennial history by Judith Haley Allton, Patricia M. Brackett, and Dana Ray.

In Aldrin’s own words: “I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine curled slowly and gracefully up the side of the cup. It was interesting to think that the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the first food eaten there, were communion elements. And so, just before I partook of the elements, I read the words which I had chosen to indicate our trust that as man probes into space we are in fact acting in Christ. I sensed especially strongly my unity with our church back home, and with the Church everywhere. I read: 'I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit; for you can do nothing without me.'"

Of course, this was an extraordinary situation. Ordinarily, the proper context for communion is the celebration of the Lord’s Supper on the Lord’s Day in the community of faith. It’s worth noting, though, how careful and intentional Aldrin was to connect this act with the communion of his home congregation – using a chalice provided by the church, consulting with the pastor, and receiving dispensation from the presbytery. (Thanks to Webster Presbyterian Church pastor Mark Cooper for this information.) This wasn’t “private communion,” but, as Aldrin so eloquently put it, an expression of “unity with our church back home, and with the Church everywhere,” through the connection of Christ the true vine. In a way, this extraordinary communion was an extension of what we now know as the Extended Serving of Communion.

Beyond taking the extended serving of communion to new heights, Aldrin’s simple act of gratitude is a stellar illustration of the “great” in the Great Thanksgiving, and of the cosmic scope of eucharistic celebration: giving our thanks and praise to the “Lord our God, creator and ruler of the universe” (Book of Common Worship Great Thanksgiving A). Indeed, as we sing with celestial choirs, “heaven and earth are full” of the glory of God. Hosanna in the highest! Presbyterians (and specifically members of Webster Presbyterian Church) have made other significant contributions to the space program. Many are aware that astronaut and United States Senator John Glenn is a Presbyterian elder; his wife played the organ at the church in Webster. Another Webster Presbyterian Church member, Jerry Carr, was on the crew of the Skylab space station; for the duration of his mission, his family had a sign in their front yard counting the days until his return, with the letters K.O.S.P. (Keep Outer Space Presbyterian). A member of the congregation also made the flag and plaque that mark the site of the first moon landing. (Thanks again to Mark Cooper for sharing these stories.) This year’s Lunar Communion service will take place at Webster Presbyterian Church on July 17. We celebrate with them, as the Church in every place is united at the table of the Lord.

Grace and peace,

David Gambrell, Associate for Worship Office of Theology and Worship, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Knowing and Eating

I enjoy reading Peter Leithart's blog.  He uses the blog to interact with his reading and research.  I find his reflections to be rich and edifying.  I also love his works on literature.  If you want to learn about Shakespeare, then read his book Brightest Heaven of Invention.

Here is his post on Knowing and Eating that provides an antidote to the barrenness of modernism.

Knowing is like tasting and eating.  Where does that get us?

If knowing is like eating, then we know things other by taking them into ourselves.  Knowing is a kind of participation, union, indwelling.  If knowing is seeing, we keep everything at a distance.

If knowing is like eating, what we know becomes part of our bloodstream.

If knowing is like eating, we can’t know and leave the world unchanged.  It will show our teeth marks.

If knowing is like eating, we have to get close enough to take a bite.

If knowing is like eating, then we have a first taste.  We may not like it, even though it may be good for us.

If knowing is like eating, then we can refine our taste.  Over time, we can tell more or less immediately whether something is worthwhile.

If knowing is like eating, we don’t become united with it without chewing, swallowing, digesting.

If knowing is like eating, things we know might poison us.

If knowing is like eating, knowledge is driven by hunger.

If knowing is like eating, the world is a banquet in which we savor what God cooks up for us.