A Mighty Woman of God

This week our church honors Frances Perkins.  Public Servant.  Prophetic Witness.  Winner of the 2013 Lent Madness Golden Halo.  A mighty woman. 

Born in Maine in 1880, Frances Perkins studied at Mount Holyoke College and completed a masters degree in economics and sociology at Columbia. While working as a young woman in Chicago, she was drawn to the Episcopal Church and confirmed in 1905. Some time later, while working for the Factory Investigation Commission in New York, she witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, which killed 146 people, primarily young women factory workers. She said later that the New Deal was born for her on that day in 1911. The experience galvanized her advocacy for workers. At a time when few women enjoyed a professional career after marriage and children, Perkins was spurred in her career by the emergence of her husband’s mental illness. As the mother of a young daughter, she came to know on a personal level the importance of work and the urgency of supporting her family. She served in the administration of two New York governors:  first Al Smith, and later, under Governor Franklin Roosevelt, she was named Commissioner of Labor. When he became president in 1932, Roosevelt asked her to serve as Secretary of Labor, and so she was the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet and the longest-serving cabinet member in U.S. history. Roosevelt called her “the cornerstone of his administration” for her tireless work in gaining passage of the Social Security Act, and the Fair Labor Standards of 1938, which established the minimum wage and prohibited child labor in most workplaces. Other New Deal efforts she championed included the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), unemployment insurance, a shorter work week, and worker safety regulations.  She remained active in teaching, social justice advocacy, and in the mission of the Episcopal Church until her death in 1965. 
 

Image (c) Robert Shetterly. The faint writing on the image reads: "Very slowly there evolved...certain basic facts, none of them new, but all of them seen in a new light. It was no new thing for America to refuse to let its people starve, nor was it a new idea that man should live by his own labor, but it had not been generally realized that on the ability of the common man to support himself hung the prosperity of everyone in the country."

God is love, it says in John's first letter--and (in 1 John 4:9): "God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sen his only Son into the world so that we might live through him." So that we might live through love. This God of love is the master of whom Jesus spoke in today's Gospel (John 13:16): "Very truly I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them." 

I find myself at the edge of tears when I read of Frances Perkins’ great gifts to us, and I realize they contain a mix of inspiration and despair. We are at a time, sadly, when our public life seems utterly bereft of love. And when we have reason to be suspicious of those in government who might be called “overtly religious,” which is how Donn Mitchell described Perkins in his biography of her. It was not meant disparagingly--he went on to call her “theologically articulate.” Throughout her 12 years as Secretary of Labor, Perkins took a monthly retreat with the Episcopal order of All Saints’ Sisters of the Poor, with whom she was a lay associate. Her work and her faith were woven together in love—and so her gifts and calling met the great hunger of society—and things were indeed made new.

God is love---and, as William Temple said, “The primary form of love in social organization is justice.” Justice was how God’s love was poured out in the life of Frances Perkins.  Jesus said: “If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.” Frances Perkins knew these things, and she did them—because she was a servant of the God of love, and because she could not unsee injustice, or un-hear the clear call of Christ in the world around her to lift up working people. Indeed she once said, “It is there to be done—and so I do it.” And so must we, who have been blessed by her, be servants and messengers for the God of love in our own time—a time of great hunger and brokenness.

Let us pray.

Loving God, we bless your Name for Frances Perkins, who lived out her belief that the special vocation of the laity is to conduct the secular affairs of society that all may be maintained in health and decency. Help us, following her example, to contend tirelessly for justice and for the protection of all in need, that we may be faithful followers of Jesus Christ; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

--Homily at Cornerstone Community Gathering, Trinity Cathedral, Portland, OR, May 11, 2017. 

Bio material and prayer adapted from Holy Women, Holy Men. 

Read more about Frances Perkins here:

Frances Perkins Center webpage

Robert Shetterly's Americans Who Tell the Truth website

Eloquent Woman blog. 

Lent Madness bio (beneath that of MLK, Jr.) 

Composting Doubt                                                                                                    Sermon, Easter 2 Year A  

I am in awe of people who grow things.  With Earth Day in mind, and inspired by our community garden, I have been thinking about gardening. My gardening friends tell me it is healing to have their hands in the dirt, to nurture life from the ground, as a co-Creator with God. As for me, I am a danger to all plant life. When friends bring plants to my house, it is inviting them into hospice care. I try to make their last days gentle and pain-free, but there is no doubt that death will be the outcome. 

It turns out that right around now in Northern Indiana, farmers are getting ready to plant corn and soybeans. I know this from Brian Scott, who blogs about farming on thefarmerslife.com.  He may start earlier in the Spring, if the weather’s been warm, or wait longer if it’s been cool and wet. But this very day, his seeds went into the ground in 2014, and again in 2012. How does he know when it’s time to plant?  Brian says, “we don’t have a system of numbers or charts to tell us when the soil moisture is right for planting. This is a boots-in-the- field and hands-touching-soil type of operation.” He goes out into the field and looks at the dirt. He’s looking for it to be a bit dry on top, but with no deep cracks. Then he pokes it, feeling for moisture about 2 inches deep—but not wet soil, and definitely not muddy. My brother-in-law Dale, a farmer in Iowa, used to actually taste his soil from time to time--he said he was tasting for acidity. “You want it to taste like good dirt,” he said to me, in all seriousness. He also hung around with farmers at the feed store to find out when they were planting. But Dale never liked to give away too much himself. He wasn’t superstitious, but he had great respect for what was at stake—his entire year’s livelihood--and he approached his work thoughtfully and with a certain reserve.

Doubting Thomas, Mark Tansey

So I was wondering why Thomas wasn’t with the other eleven disciples when they first saw the risen Jesus.  We don’t really know why, but I like to think he was out in his tractor, planting—because the soil told him it was time. Or maybe he was feeding his likestock. These are the kinds of things that don’t pause, even for a resurrection. In any case, when the disciples come to Thomas breathless, and excited and full of the Spirit, I envision him listening with a face like Henry Fonda in the Grapes of Wrath, just taking it in. He pauses for a moment and bites down on his piece of straw and says, “now that’s something I’d like to see for myself.”

And for this, Thomas has been cast as one lacking faith. But I say he is like that farmer. Imagine if the farmer came home from the feed store one day and said, well everybody’s planting, so I guess I will too.  His wife would look at him and say, have you looked at the ground yet? You know he would go put his hands in the dirt. He would see for himself.

Even more than our farmer, Thomas is in uncharted territory. He’s heard the other disciples say they have seen Jesus, but he hasn’t.  Furthermore, the disciples are not really acting any different. They’re sitting with him in a locked room, virtually in the dark. In fear. Even more than they, Thomas must have been wondering—What. Is. Going. On.

And the story continues, that in some mysterious manner, Jesus is now in the room. How did he get there? It’s not clear. That must have been weird. And so, Thomas practices a well-known and evidence-based technique for managing stress, and that is, checking in with this senses.

I follow the poignant blog of a man struggling with mental illness, and he writes, “One thing that can rescue me when I’m adrift and starting to feel separated from reality is confirming my physical reality. That I’m grounded in my body and that my five senses are with me.” It was appropriate for the disciples to question the relationship of this apparition of Jesus to reality, and if it was real, to wonder what it meant. If these doubts threatened to overwhelm Thomas, he responded by seeking to ground himself with the help of his senses.  

Now while John assigns the doubts about the resurrection to Thomas, other Gospels incorporate elements of doubt. In Matthew the disciples went to the mountain in Galilee as Jesus has told them, and “when they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.” In Luke, Mary has told the disciples what she has seen at the tomb. “But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” And the disciples are full of doubt about what it all means. In Luke, they are startled and frightened. In Mark, the women at the tomb said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. Here in John, the others have seen Jesus for a week, but they’ve locked themselves in a room together in fear. It’s not just Thomas who is in doubt.  

So I don’t think John is punishing doubt, in Thomas or his readers. All Gospel writers seem to acknowledge that what the disciples are being asked to take in is mind-blowing. And it has really, really high stakes.

Thomas understands this.  Because once he has seen, Thomas is the one who knows immediately what it means. He says something that none of the disciples said the week before, or say in the other Gospels.  He says, “My Lord and My God!”  He understands Jesus as not just his rabbi, but the crucified God, the Messiah. He is now the believing Thomas, voicing what has been called “the last and best declaration of full-blown faith” in all of the Gospels. 

“My Lord and My God.” This is not an exclamation, like OMG!! Thomas has received the revelation that is the culmination of the entire Fourth Gospel. He has put together the theological puzzle—Jesus is the Word made Flesh.

And did you notice that Thomas does not tell Jesus to show him his body? It is Jesus who offers him that opportunity, without any judgment.  It’s also significant that Jesus has returned to his disciples for this brief time, raised from the dead, but with his hands and feet and side unhealed. The wounds of death remain, like a signature. How was it that Thomas knew that it was those wounds he needed to see to believe that the crucified one was the Lord? He could have said, I need to see his face, or get a look at his halo. 

By demonstration, Jesus says, “behold my body, that of the wounded healer. But now you are my body.” We are his body. We are the community that confesses the risen Christ. Richard Hays wrote that the world says to us, “unless I thrust my hand into the church and find real wounds, no way will I believe.” So we must show to the world what Jesus offered. We must show our own wounds, our own vulnerability, to those who are unswayed by the fake news of cheap salvation, those who have become deadened to simplistic platitudes and easy answers, black and white certainty, the hypocrisy and inconsistency between the words and the example of the church, and its hostility to people who ask questions in their doubt. We who confess Jesus are no better, no more holy, and no different from those who do not. We must embrace and engage our own doubts, for faith and doubt are dynamic things. Frederick Buechner once said, “if there is no room for doubt, there is no room for me.” Amen to that.

Jesus knows we doubt. It's how we're made. When Jesus said, “Bless-ed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe”—he is not rebuking Thomas, for he could show Thomas what he needed. He was talking about us—we who could not see what Thomas saw--who did not walk with Jesus as the first apostles did.

Liturgy is beautiful. Scripture is engaging. Words can illuminate—I hope my words do. Knowledge is helpful--doctrine, maybe less so. But faith is nurtured by experience, especially in community, experience we feel, and touch, and taste, and hear. Faith is a knowing in the heart, assurance of what it is hoped for, as it says in the letter to Hebrews. Jesus showed up for Thomas where he needed this assurance. For Thomas it was seeing the wounds. For the farmer it is feeling the dirt. How do we now show up for others and meet their doubts?  Seeds of faith need water and nourishment, and protection. There is nothing gained in standing over them and demanding them to grow. 

The Gospel is no ghost story--no science fiction about a visitor from another planet. No, it is a personal invitation to come close—and to experience the love of Christ as love and radical hospitality in the world. There is no need to apologize for engaging our bodies and our senses in this walk, for Jesus was the incarnate God, and his ministry was in the world. Now we are given this ministry to the world’s Thomases--to the Thomas in each of us. And so we go forward in love as Christ did, as cultivators of faith. We show up for others in tangible ways-- feeding, hugging, healing, and listening to them; giving furnishings to a refugee family, knitting them a shawl interwoven with prayers; digging our hands into God’s green earth in our garden. We show up with the bodies we are given and with all our wounds, and we meet people where they are--as Jesus did for Thomas in that locked room. As God showed up for humanity in Christ.  

I’ll see you in the garden.

St Gabriel Episcopal Church, Portland OR, Apr 23, 2017 

Good Friday 2017 Sermon - St Gabriel, Portland

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In Matthew’s Gospel, these are Jesus’ last words on the cross. That we hear them tonight in this psalm reminds us that they were a prayer, for the psalms are the Book of Common Prayer for the Jewish people.  If the Jesus in today’s Gospel story is more accepting—“it is finished,” he says—this anguished, confused feeling of forsakenness must have been the inward cry of Jesus’ mother as she watched her son die a tortuous death.

This son of hers, who had shown such promise that the temple elders remarked upon his learnedness even when he was a boy. This son, who healed, and taught, and prayed for others so selflessly. This son who, Mary, like any Jewish mother, probably wished had stayed home more, so that she might have kept him safe and warm, and he could have been a comfort to her in her old age.     

 Do you remember when Gabriel came to Mary about this extraordinary life she was carrying?  Do you suppose she called out to Gabriel:   “Did you forget what you told me?  That he was to have the throne of David? That he was to reign over the house of Jacob forever?  Why did you take him? How will I go on without him?  My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!?!” 

There is no getting around the grief at the heart of the crucifixion. There is no getting around the fact that it is a story of death.  And so when we hear that cry, it is our cry too. Why did Jesus have to die this way? Why did his disciples betray and deny him?  Why did his own people abandon him?  Why. Why. Why.  

 Christ and Artist, Marc Chagall

For that matter, why do we need a holy day to focus on his death?  What is so good about Good Friday?  It is certainly not uncommon in the church to jump directly from Palm Sunday to Easter.  We are Easter people, the argument goes.  Even our burial rite is essentially an Easter liturgy.  And yet a small but mighty band of Christ-followers faithfully revisit the scene of the crime every year. We listen again to the jeers, the insults, the humiliations heaped upon Jesus; we watch the disciples sleeping through his final hours; we envision the flogging, the brutal crucifixion of our savior, and we feel it. We FEEL it.

And it’s not like we don’t know how the story ends. The joke at the time of the movie Titanic was to ask your friends if they had seen it, and if they said no, you would say, “the boat sinks--ha ha, spoiled the ending.” No. We know the ending--we know we are present today at a service in commemoration of the one who rose again, the one who is among us even now, on this Good Friday, in spirit.  We have not forgotten we are Easter people. And yet, we are here.

Thomas Lynch, a poet and undertaker, wrote, “The defining truth of Christianity—an empty tomb—proceeds from the defining truth of our humanity:  we fill tombs. We need a ritual wheel,” he says, “that works the space between the living and the dead—where we must deal with our humanity and our Christianity, our spiritual and natural realities, our flesh, our fears, our faith and hopes, our bodies and our souls.”

This is what Good Friday is about—it is a day of “good grief.” It is the wheel with which we turn over this beautiful paradox of Christ in his divinity and his humanity, in his resurrection, and yet one who died.  And so, even though he rose again, we take the time to work through again the grim truth of his death, remembering that people woke up the next morning and remembered that the one they loved was gone from them.  And they cried out in pain:  “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

One of the great outcomes of the council that produced the Nicene Creed was that it established as doctrine that Jesus was both fully human, and fully divine. That Jesus’ body was not merely a shell—but an actual body—is essential to God’s promise.  He walked as one of us. He experienced mortality and the pangs of death. And yet he also rose again and came to us in Spirit, proof for us, we mere mortals, that he had destroyed death’s power to separate us from the God of love.  And so he gave us something to hope for, and something productive to do with our grief—not to deny the sorrow, but to move through it, allowing the pain of loss to be transformed into gratitude for life of the one we have lost.  This is an enduring love—and it does not die—it is with us forever.  

Two years ago, on Good Friday, I went to a service of prayer and song and reflections on the last words of Jesus at St. David’s. Mother LouAnn was there and offered one of the reflections. It so happens at that time I was working on a class paper. The assignment was to write on reconciliation of the self, and for my topic, I chose the loss of my parents and brother in an accident when I was 14. I have had many years to contemplate this loss. I was not bound up in it. I am a strong person. I have thrived. In fact, I have written and spoken so many words on it, I wondered if there was anything new to say.  But one of the things I brought to that service was the question, why, after all these years, do I still cling to my identity as an orphan?  Even if my parents had not died, I would be long past the time I depended on them. My friends were starting to lose their parents. There is nothing unusual about a woman of my age with no parents. So why do I carry my orphanhood with me?

And as I meditated on the cross that day, I considered also the questions I asked earlier. Why do we sit and stare at the cross? Is it because we haven’t moved beyond Jesus’ death? Why do we still need it, if we believe Jesus has transformed death?  

Through the hours of listening and praying, I realized we need to contemplate the cross, first, because we cannot and must not deny death. There is no doubt that Jesus died—in fact, he was executed—he gave himself over to his executioners. This human death is essential to our faith and to our understanding of the incarnation. But the second is that in his resurrection, Jesus confronted the evil of the world and conquered it by his love. The whole story of Jesus must include both the death AND the resurrection. To take on only Easter is to forget that, where there is resurrection, three days earlier, there had only been death and sorrow.  

The cross is the location of that transformation. In Jesus’ day, crucifixion was the most violent death the state could impose—a symbol only of pain, and terror, and suffering.  But no longer for us-- for us, the cross holds up death transformed.

One of the words which came from the Latin word for cross—crux, the root of the word crucifixion—is the word crucible. Crucible. I have meditated on the meanings of this word. One is, “a ceramic or metal container in which metals or other substances may be melted or subjected to very high temperatures.” Early scientists believed that a kind of alchemy could happen out of the crucible. I thought of the image of the refiner’s fire.  Another definition for crucible is, “a place or occasion of severe test or trial.”  

I think this is where the idea for the word crucible, out of cross, came from:  The shape of the cross is a meeting point, where two things come together and out of their meeting, something new is possible: Death and life, order and chaos, good and evil, all existing in tension with each other.  Richard Rohr talks about the cross holding the middle, where death, or loss, or pain, or violence is not denied, but does not take over.  The cross holds through the test and holds the tension so that growth and life are possible.  At this cross, this crucible, we are tested, and it is strong enough to hold us.

On that Good Friday two years ago, I came to see that orphanhood was my cross.  I did not choose to ascend to it, for it contained my suffering, confusion, loneliness, fear, and sadness. But it was also where I met my strength, and resilience, and memories gathered up of the good gifts my parents had given me, and of my sweet brother; and it was where Christ met me. So I rose again. I rose as someone different, a more whole person, who could love in a deeper and greater way, who could be with people in grief. I now view my orphanhood as a kind of holy privilege. It is a badge of honor I wear for the lives of my parents and brother, a badge of love, tested, and enduring.  It was a crucible forged equally by tears, courage, despair, and strength—forged by that refiner’s fire—and made into love. 

What is your cross?  What is your crucible?  Perhaps it is not the pain of loss by death. Perhaps it is the pain and loss of innocence, or security, safety, of your idealism, or youth. As you approach the cross tonight, bring that with you, and lay it on the cross before God, a God strong enough to hold your pain, and to meet it with God’s transforming love.

Yes, we know how the story ends, for we live in hope of the resurrection. That is why we are here tonight, even in our grief, because we know it is a good grief. For God has not abandoned us, and will never forsake us. Christ is gazing down at us from the cross, and we can hear him through the words of this ancient prayer: 

“I order you, O Sleeper, to awake.
I did not create you to be held a prisoner in hell.
Rise from the dead, for I am the life of the dead.
Rise up, work of my hands, you were created in my image.
Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in me and I am in you.
Together we form only one person and we cannot be separated.”

After we die, what to do with our bodies? A spiritual pondering.

Perhaps because it's All Saints Day, or perhaps because I've been thinking more about death and dying for a church project I'm working on, I've been thinking more about how we commit our bodies after death. It seems most people I know are favoring cremation--it's tidy and neat, it's compact; perhaps the idea of distributing ashes over a place we love is meaningful.  And it avoids embalming, which seems to creep people out.  Cremation has been my preferred method, but lately I've been thinking about a good-old pine box.

In my time spent with Native Americans, I have come to appreciate the greater connection to the earth that is part of their spirituality.  They have a deep sense of kinship and relationship with the earth, an ancient way of understanding what has taken the rest of us thousands of years to grasp:  the  idea of the earth as a single system, and how the decay of our bodies participates in that system and helps it regenerate life.  The excellent and sensitive blog on SevenPonds.com shares some of what we can learn from their perspective:

While beliefs and traditions vary widely from tribe to tribe, like religious practices and death rituals the world over, the similarities are perhaps just as striking.  In most cases the dead would be cleansed or purified in some manner, and whether they were cremated, buried, or interred in a wood or adobe tomb, the dead were handled with respect, and separated form the living.  And one further common thread in American Indian beliefs: an overarching respect for Mother Nature; the earth, the sky, the trees and the animals. An acceptance of our oneness with all that is around us. Indeed, one could say that they kept hold of a form of knowledge that more urbanized peoples tried so hard to forget, and are now perhaps coming to recall: that, like it or not, we humans are a part of nature. We suffer from illness, we adapt to changes in the climate. When we die, our bodies decompose, and we become a part of that which we come from. Our biological material is recycled and re-distributed, and, in a small way, even if we do not believe in an afterlife, we live on as our biological matter, the sum total of our lifetime's experiences, is reabsorbed into the cycle of life.  Perhaps, we can try to find some comfort in this.  

The preparation of Jesus' body for burial is described in John 19:40:  They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews.  Jewish practices reflect an ancient wisdom of knowing the connectedness of humans and creation; it is embedded in Genesis 3:19, which says: By the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.  (Put another way, as this beautiful video affirms and astrophysics now confirms, we are made of stardust.)  Accordingly, in Judaism, there is a tradition of earthen burial, and against cremation or embalming.  Jewish law mandates quick burial in a simple pine box.  Traditions in Islam are much the same.

The Jewish tradition of leaving a stone on a grave is a visual sign of their memory of that person. 

Certainly there are also very old traditions of burning the body. An interesting post from A Grave Interest blog looks at a number of different religious traditions, Buddhism and Hinduism, for example, with a tradition of cremation.

But it's not just what we do, but how we imbue it with sacred meaning.  My post today was inspired by a meditation from one of my favorite Episcopalians, the Right Reverend Steven Charleston, former Bishop of Alaska, on the burial traditions of his people, the Choctaw.  Reflecting on All Saints Day, he shared:

Long ago my people practiced communal burial. We thought it would be a lonely thing to bury a person alone, so we gathered the bones of our loved ones and buried them together. In this way the bonds of love were unbroken. A person was never outside the community. We were born in community, lived in community, and not even death could remove us from our community. Family was the strength of the people, the sacred way of life. Kinship continued forever. This time of year I always remember that. Those we love are never lost to us.  They are here, now, living their lives in a new way. The bonds of love are unbroken.  

For another perspective on natural burial, you might be interested in the Urban Death Project, a Seattle-based group advocating a process which "safely and gently turns our deceased into soil-building material, creating a meaningful, equitable, and ecological urban alternative to existing options for the disposal of the dead."  As they say:

Because death is momentous, miraculous, and mysterious 

Because the cycles of nature help us grieve and heal

Because our bodies are full of life-giving potential

We propose a new option for laying our loved ones to rest. 

My own view is that "the good death" we all so desire is inclusive of a "good" disposition of our body.  It is one more unique opening for considering where we come from, whose we are, and what  is our legacy within a deeply religious and spiritual context.

However we decide to commit our body to earth, practices that shield us from natural decay, disrespect the body, disconnect us from the earth, dis-involve our families and community, and pollute the earth or needlessly abuse its resources, are spiritually deficient.  We should not miss the opportunity to imbue this most important of passages with sacred meaning.

Here, from our Book of Common Prayer is a prayer which captures the spirit of good burial:

In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty God our sister N., and we commend her to the ground; earth to earth; ashes to ashes; dust to dust. The Lord bless her and keep her, the Lord make his face to shine upon her and be gracious unto her, the Lord lift up his countenance upon her and give her peace.  Amen. 

"Mistakes were made" -- thoughts on Mars Hill and the problem of the absolutely free church

I'm not really a big watcher of trends in the evangelical church, not considering myself an evangelical (even though I go to an evangelical seminary--that's another blog post).  But I care about the universal church, and this means dialogue with and about the diversity of the people of God.  And, I am interested in church "innovation" -- what's working in churches in the so-called post-Christian era.

Or, in the case of Mars Hill, whats not working.

Who hasn't heard about the controversy around Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill, the Seattle mega-church? Driscoll was recently asked by the MH board of elders to step down, but his macho "not for sissies" idea of Christianity, and the absolute authority he wields at Mars Hill has been criticized for years, although defended by many congregants there.  I know people up at several Episcopal churches in Seattle who regularly receive "refugees" from Mars Hill:  I have heard some about the damage done by their model and by their theology.  The theology isn't what I want to take up, though.  The question that's been going through my mind is, who decided this guy could lead a church in the first place?

The answer, pretty much, is that he did.  Although no doubt, with the claim that God told him to.

Which leads me to the problem of the absolutely free church.

I like to think of the various denominational and non-denominational churches which proliferate the protestant landscape as on a continuum, from most to least "churchy," churchy meaning adhering to a degree of centralized church structure (sometimes called "polity") with some hierarchy and administration, the expectation of conformity to doctrine, canons or bylaws, a particular governance structure, and the like.  Lacking a Pope and a global leader with any real power, the Episcopal Church is not as churchy as the Roman Catholic church in this regard, but it's a lot churchier than the Baptist church.  To non-denominational evangelicals, the freedom to do their thing is essential to their identity--it's what they think the Reformation was meant to accomplish.  This is why evangelicals tend to have a highly individualistic and entrepreneurial approach to church planting.  If the Spirit moves them, they just do it.  In Mark Driscoll's case, his plant became a mega-church, so successful (at least in numbers and wealth) that it became a virtual franchise, with fifteen locations.

The non-churchiest churches get to say for themselves who is qualified to preach or lead, and they frequently claim to get their authority to discern this directly from God, via the Holy Spirit, with a dose of Scripture to frame their case biblically. Contrast this with the Episcopal church, where the process of being ordained is heavily vetted and structured, involving congregational and diocesan committees, an advanced degree, a criminal background check and psychological exam, an ordination exam, and a chaplaincy and congregational internship. In short, the distance between feeling "called" to be a priest in the Episcopal Church and getting to be one is vast compared to the obstacles in place for a free evangelical.

All these rules and regs can seem onerous to someone from a "free church" background. But they also support standards, quality control, and a system of governance that doesn't allow power to be concentrated in any one place.  It is true that Acts 29 expelled Mars Hill and called for Driscoll's resignation, but the network (which was founded by Driscoll) couldn't make him step down. Indeed, the Acts 29 network seems largely designed to create efficiencies for its members, although it draws a line in the sand on certain matters of Christian doctrine.

It's fair to say that a churchier system isn't perfect--there are definitely bad actors in leadership in more structured churches, and the churches themselves can suffer from slowness, sameness, lack of innovation, and a bloated institutional church dedicated to self-perpetuation. It's also fair to say that plenty of non-denominational pastors are discerning, educated, and well-qualified to lead.

In the business world, entrepreneurial energy is prized, and it's also necessary in the church (we could definitely use more of it in mine.)  But there are also rules and regulations that constrain businesses from abusing market power and harming consumers. Even self-regulated professions like accountancy and medicine have examining boards and qualification standards.  What is the equivalent in these strictures in free, non-denominational churches?  As a self-started and self-regulated entity, what was in place at Mars Hill that could have prevented Mark Driscoll from abusing his power?  And what's in place to keep the next Mark Driscoll from planting another church in God's name?

Christians who idolize guns

Another week, another school shooting--this time closer to my home. It was at Reynolds High in Troutdale, Oregon, and it involved two freshmen--one killed, the other the killer.  There appears to be no connection between the two; the 15-year-old killer simply wanted to kill someone--or many people, judging by the ammunition he was packing.  His victim was just fourteen. Fourteen. This is age of my own sweet nephew, who is a freshman at a high school just a few miles away.

Once again, we say, "how long!!??" Once again, we say, "WHY?"  My Facebook friends erupted in despair and anger and outrage. I am outraged, and saddened, and frustrated. I want to curse and rail against the NRA. I want elected officials who cower under its influence to be brought to their knees. I have had wild flashes of mock shootings of the children of some of these people, to bring home to them the cost of our country's irrational lust and idolatry for guns and violence.

Just how much we love guns is apparent in the chart above, which shows the number of guns per 100 people in the world by country.  It is obscene. It is sinful.  It stares us in the face.  The article explains how it relates to deaths, and it's not a simple correlation.

The bottom line:

The American firearm homicide rate is about 20 times the average among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries (excluding Mexico).

Harvard researchers Daniel Hemenway and Matthew Miller examined 26 developed countries, and checked whether gun ownership correlated with murder rates. They found that "a highly significant positive correlation between total homicide rates and both proxies for gun availability." They also didn't find much evidence that a higher rate of gun murders led to lower rates of other kinds of murder (i.e., stabbings)."

There is indeed something idolatrous about the love for guns in our country, and something very broken about a people who refuse to yield on gun restrictions in spite of their terrible cost.

In my reading I came across this message from  Rev Chuck Currie, a UCC minister who commented on Tuesday's shootings:  "Too many people worship guns instead of God. But God calls us to be people of reconciliation and justice. We are told to turn our weapons into plowshares. Each act of fun violence is another opportunity for all of us - politicians and citizens - to demand a better society. There is too much violence in our society. The dead will not forgive us if we do not seek a more just world for our children." 

I applaud these words.  I agree that the spiritual underpinnings of the gun problem are profound--and yet, surprisingly, some who claim to worship God also worship guns, and that is part of the problem.

In fact, the Second Amendment narrative of many right-wing gun enthusiasts is wrapped up with the idea of our being a "Christian nation."  I so struggle with this juxtaposition of being Christian and loving guns, and worse, of failing to see how the culture of gun idolatry is syncretized with faith.

One day while perusing Etsy, I began to notice there is an extensive category of bullet jewelry.  At first, I wondered if they were made with a redemptive purpose, but the many artists making it seem to be doing so in a completely un-ironic way.  To them, bullets reflect their deep love of gun culture:  they are beautiful, to be celebrated.  The cross motif, in fact, is popular in bullet jewelry.  I found necklaces like the one below, made by Courtney Humes.  Her store, Ricochet Rounds, sells "bullet jewelry with Southern charm." In fact, if you want Courtney to make your jewelry, you can even choose the brand and caliber and bullet you want.

Her bio describes Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. "Two years ago," she writes, "I wouldn't have dreamed that I would be the owner, designer and maker of bullet jewelry…but God's plans for me are so much better than mine!"  Courtney also has three children:  I wonder that she has not connected her craft to the school shootings, where the same bullets she uses in her jewelry are taking the lives of the children of others. I wonder if she has given any of the money she makes from her bullet jewelry to causes which promote gun ownership.

I find this jewelry repellant--it is against everything Christ wants us to be in the world.  There is nothing transformative or redemptive about it.  It tells me that there is a deep need for repentance and healing for so many who, like Courtney, profess to be Christians and yet do not do the will or work of Christ in the world.

In contrast, I remembered that I had once encountered these small crosses, which had been fashioned out of spent shell-cases from the conflict in Liberia.  You could buy them for a few dollars each, as a means to support livelihoods of the people who had crafted them from shells that littered the ground in that war-torn region.

There was something lovely about them; they reflected the power of love and hope and resilience to transform something painful and hellish into something life-giving. How sad that spent bullets are so plentiful that they were a resource. But how poignant to refuse to let them remain instruments of killing. They seemed to be in the spirit of weapons to plowshares of which Reverend Curry spoke.

I pray that all the bullets in the world would be converted to crosses which restore life and livelihood, instead of taking it.  But so much must change. Along with legislation, our culture must change, and our hearts must change--including the hearts of many, many people who claim to be Christian.

P.S. I can't find the Liberian crosses anymore, but I did find necklaces by a Liberian artist made from spent shell cases.  The proceeds go to support the Strongheart Foundation.  Now that's more like it!!