The Elephant (Gun) in the Room

The horrible reality of the massacre in Aurora, Colorado this past week drives home once again the realization that America can be, and is, a very violent place. We have an unacceptably high number of gun-related deaths, year in, and year out. But there is nary a politician who will so much as hint that we should do more about regulating the purchase of firearms in this country. In the last six months, I have read countless stories in the local and regional news about angry spouses, and ex-spouses, who have shot estranged spouses, lovers and even their own children, to exact some kind of revenge. We are horrified at such occurrences, but we tend to shrug our shoulders, as if such violence is simply a part of our culture, and the price of living in a modern society. If it is the price of living in America today, it is a price we should not be willing to pay. I have several friends, and relatives, who either live abroad, or who grew up in another country before moving here. They tell me that folks in their native, or adopted homelands, such as Canada, England and the Scandinavian countries, perceive Americans as residents of the wild, wild west, where everyone owns guns and carries them everywhere. It's not difficult to figure out from whence such caricatures emerge. Take a look at the films we export and one cannot help but wonder if folks think we are obsessed with violence. But take a look at some of the rhetoric of the leadership of the National Rifle Association, and one can only marvel at how such extremist views became the tail that wags the political dog. I grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania in the foothills of the Alleghenies, and most of my friends and neighbors were hunters. It was a rite of passage to go on one's first hunting excursion when once reached the magical age of twelve. Since my father was not a hunter, I planned to take that initial step into manhood with a kindly neighbor. However, the year before I would have been old enough, the neighbor brought home a deer he had bagged, and I decided that I could not kill a deer, or anything else. I grew up near a pond, and we went fishing almost everyday. I always threw any fish I caught back into the water, and felt guilty for causing it injury or, at the very least, a very sore mouth for a day or two. At Boy Scout camp we shot rifles on a firing range, and I enjoyed it. At a summer-long camp at a military school, I earned a medal in archery. But it never occurred to me to use my skills as a budding archer to bring down wild game. I just don't have it in me to kill animals. But I do not begrudge hunters or fishermen ( and women) who enjoy bringing home freshly caught game. I just don't want to see the quarry, thank you. The NRA used to focus its efforts on helping scouts and others learn how to practice gun safety, teaching us that guns are not toys and that we must always use great care when handling a weapon. Somehow, the NRA has gone from wise instructor to crazy second amendment advocate, holding gun ownership up as the true measure of what it means to be an American. Gun lobbies in some states and municipalities have attempted to force through legislation that requires citizens to carry weapons. Believe it or not, some churches in Texas encourage their members to bring guns with them to church on Sunday morning, because it is legal .The NRA fights against any and every measure that may come up in federal or state legislatures that seeks to impose common-sense limits on how many guns an individual may purchase in a month, or that attempts to remove so-called "cop-killer" bullets from the market. And the NRA is always successful in defeating such measures. Why? Because its leaders have learned that fear is the best recruiting tool, and that appeals to self-interest trumps the common good every time. The oft-repeated refrain they use as their call to arms (pardon the pun) is to simply enforce the laws on the books, not create new ones that will restrict the rights of gun owners. Well, the killer in Colorado bought all of his weapons legally at legitimate dealers. He was able, legally, to assemble an arsenal that enabled him to fire as many rounds as he could before the police could arrive and disarm him. I wonder if the NRA will aid in his legal defense? After all, in assembling his arsenal he was just exercising his second amendment rights as a law abiding American. Right? We have all seen the bumper sticker that states "I'm a Member of the NRA, and I Vote!" Well, guess what: "I Oppose the NRA, and I Vote!"

Not Ready for Less-Than-Primetime!

As things worked out, I had a month's vacation coming to me for the fiscal year just past, so I am using it this month. Thus, I am between jobs, but will collect one more paycheck for my unused vacation. So, it's the longest stretch ever of getting up in the morning and not going to work that I have ever known. People have asked me, probably because of my increasingly white hair, if I will retire at some point. My response is the same as it has always been: I have no role-models for retirement in my family. My father and grandfather both worked up until the days they died. Besides, I like going to work everyday, and always have. Don't get me wrong, I do like time off, when I can get it. One reason I have so much vacation time left from my work at Lafayette is because I cannot take time off when students are on campus. Since we all get off for Christmas and Thanksgiving, etc, I don't use up vacation time there. But I like what I do, and even though it can be very difficult at times, as it was during All College Day this year, the rewards outweigh the deficits. I love talking to students about their ideas about faith, and God and life, in general. I get caught up in faculty discussions about life and meaning and what it means to be educated. I served as a parish pastor for just over seven years, and I still treasure the people we met in those churches dearly. But I would not trade the ride I have had since then for anything. And I get to do it all again, and at a brand new place, where my skills as a preacher and designer of worship will be appreciated so much. Yes, Connie and I are sick of packing and moving, and cannot believe we are doing this yet again. On the other hand, we have found a wonderful new home, and cannot wait to move in and make it ours. Our children are both happy and successful and very good people, who had great college educations and experiences that we could share, because we have both been involved in the academic world for almost all of their lives. So, NO, I am nowhere near ready to retire, and I look forward to making friends in our new community at Bucknell University, while giving thanks for the great friends we have made at Lafayette, and Allegheny, and Ferrum and Delaware. The journey continues, and I hope you will come along for the ride.

End of An Era

This will be my final post from Lafayette college, my professional home for the past eight years. I will leave Lafayette in a few weeks to begin service as University Chaplain at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA. I like to think that I have been a mostly good influence on Lafayette, as it and its people have certainly been a positive influence on me. Though I have worked in ministry in higher education for over twenty-five years, it was at Lafayette that I experienced the greatest amount of growth in my personal and professional life. The atmosphere here lends itself to doing interfaith work in a way that was new to me when I arrived. And that wonderful interfaith spirit only continued to grow during my time here. Students and faculty and staff gave of themselves so that a strong spiritual life community would have a solid foundation. Though the mainline Protestant group here is small, students stuck with the program and made it count, and let themselves be noticed for their progressive spirit. That can be a prophetic action in today's brand of American Christianity. Lafayette also presented me with great challenges, as it has sometimes given off a feeling of "institutional agnosticism" that can serve to discourage students who are trying to feel their way along, spiritually. They felt sometimes that they were denigrated by faculty who questioned why they felt a need for religious beliefs in this day and age. However, I have also heard marvelous testimonies from faculty and staff who have also felt marginalized because of their religious beliefs, and yet, they refused to remain silent about their faith's journey in the face of peer pressure. So, Lafayette has been a spiritual testing ground for many, and that is certainly true for me, as well. I leave having grown in my understanding of the importance of providing safe spaces for people who are seeking a spiritual path, and someone who is willing to walk that path with them. So, thanks be for all I have experienced and learned here. And here's to the next part of the journey for me from whence I will post here in the not-too-distant future.

Trinity Sunday..a Revelation Through the Eyes of a Little boy!

I have written here before about the joys we have found in attending the local Episcopal Cathedral for the past year-and-a-half. Yesterday was another of those amazing times. It was Trinity Sunday, which, in many United Methodist Churches, is just another Sunday. However, not so with the Episcopalians. Trinity Sunday is another opportunity to mix pageantry with teaching and beautiful liturgy. The bishop preached, and likened the operation of the trinity to three men ( and he also added the possibility of women!)dancing merrily. Because I have a longstanding love/hate relationship with the concept of the trinity, I am always happy when someone offers an illustration that gives it life and new avenues of interpretation. Once, I questioned a professor about the need for the trinity. Since he was a Catholic priest, the trinity figured largely in his theology. So, he asked me to think of it as the three manifestations of God in a familial relationship with one another.He said that the trinity can never make sense outside of that relationship and interconnectedness. The other aspect of yesterday's service that made a deep and lasting impression on me was at the baptism of the children. We all love baptisms, as we smile and coo at the babies who are being baptized. Two very little ones were indeed baptized, and the font was located halfway down the aisle, in the middle of the congregation. The children were, quite literally, surrounded by the members of the congregation. The third child baptized was a young boy who looked to be about eight-years-old, and he was dressed snappily in a white shirt and red tie. He had a look of awe and amazement in his eyes, as the priests and bishop made him the center of attention for that moment. I wondered to myself how we can keep that feeling alive for him. After all, parents tend to slack off in taking children to church, and the kids then get out of the habit of attending. But for that brief moment, I did sense the presence of God in that place in a way that was so special and real. So much of the awe and majesty of liturgy has been taken away today, sometimes replaced by vapid praise music with lyrics that focus on the individual and God, and not on the community. The Cathedral has figured out a way to couple majestic and powerful music with a message that touches every individual, and brings the historic message of the church into bold relief. We will be moving soon, and I shall miss that connection that I have made with that congregation. However, I will be leading a university congregation that meets in a majestic facility, and I shall have to work to make the liturgy a living, breathing entity that invites each congregant back, week after week. I will remember the look of wonder in that young lad's eyes, and seek to help convey that in new and exciting ways.

Loss, Life and God's Gentle Ways..Romans 8:26

The most difficult aspect of the life of a college chaplain is working with other members of the campus community when the death of a student occurs. We work daily with young adults who have their entire lives before them. This work is all about assisting young adults in preparing for their futures. And yet, tragically, sometimes we must stand with them as they confront their own mortality because a classmate has died. There is no adequate description of the growing sense of panic that ensues whenever the news of a student's death begins to spread to all corners of the campus, and beyond. News that once took a measurable amount of time to permeate the campus now travels in an instant, thanks to social media. It is impossible to get ahead of the curve, to be there before students get the terrible news. Now, we must scramble to set up support networks as quickly as possible, and to try to identify potential sites where students will gather to console one another. We had one of those terrible events here last Saturday, when so many administrators and faculty were away from campus, enjoying the beginning of that short season we know as end of the semester. On a day that we usually take a deep breath and relax, we were called to attention, and to our posts, as the community was shaken to its core by the death of a beloved student member. Along with a thousand details that must be covered in such an emergency comes the certainty that we must gather the community together, as soon as possible. Not surprisingly, that particular task falls to the chaplain. What do we say, how do we set it up, what if no one wants to get together? One of the gifts that comes with many seasons of doing this work is knowing that, wherever we gather folks, and whatever we do, they will come, and when the community comes together, it is better than if the members cope with their loss while scattered about. And so, we gathered in the chapel at ten o'clock on a Saturday night, on the day that holds the traditional end-of-the-semester celebration. This year, it was that very celebration that contributed to the loss, but that was not the reason for gathering. The community was dealing with shock, disbelief, regret and an overwhelming, palpable sadness. The chapel was filled beyond its capacity, as people migrated there as if on auto-pilot. I am a relatively well-educated person, but no amount of training can fully prepare one to break the painful silence of the hundreds gathered there. There was not a face that was not etched in pain, not a person there who was not touched by this tragedy, if only because he or she is a member of this community. And so it began, and we addressed the reality that such a gathering is the hardest thing that we can do as a community, and yet we must do it. Several folks shared their memories of the beloved student, and no words were more poignant than those of the late student's own parents, who chose to gather with the community in one of the greatest gestures of love and support that many of us have ever witnessed. They sought to comfort the community, even while they were dealing with the most awful reality that parents can ever face. There were hugs and tears, and one-word prayers uttered by anyone who wished to offer them, and the effect was what can only be described as supernatural. From every corner of that cavernous space came words of hope, comfort, tribute, pain, disbelief and even thanks. And then it was over, and we slowly made our way back out into the night. We continue to pick up the pieces during this finals week, and one can still feel the heaviness of the pall that settled over the community. But there is something else, as well. Students, faculty and staff who were in attendance at that late night gathering carry with them a bond that is quietly acknowledged whenever we pass on the sidewalks or see one another in the dining hall. We know that, for a few moments, we were in the presence of a power beyond ourselves that took our burdens and made them....bearable. The Spirit was with us, and it made itself known to those of many, and no, faith traditions. In the horror of that day, little moments of grace permeated our lives. "The Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words."

What Does the Lord Require of Us? Micah 6:1-8

Recently, I had an opportunity to look at a favorite passage of scripture in a new and fresh way. Often, it is true that we take familiar passages for granted and do not re-think them as frequently as we ought to. Micah 6:8 is a wonderful text that admonishes us to "do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God." It sounds so user-friendly and easy to use. That is, until one looks at the whole of chapter 6 a bit more closely. The context of the passage is a trial with YHWH as the prosecuting attorney, the mountains of the earth as the jury, and the cities of Israel as the defendant. The context of the whole affair does have to do with the nature of Israel's worship, but it goes much further than that. The whole concept of Israel's understanding of justice is on trial, and it is found to be wanting. To Micah's way of thinking, and to the ways of thinking of many of the eighth century prophets, justice is, or should be, dictated by the concerns of those for whom justice is denied. It is very difficult for Americans, or for people of any other affluent society to grasp fully this biblical concept of justice, because we have an entrenched understanding of nationalistic justice. America represents 5% of the world's population, but we incarcerate 25% of the world's population of inmates. To our way of understanding, people get what they deserve. After all, justice is blind, signified by the famous statue of the figure with the scales and blindfold. Well, for the prophets, justice was not blind, and God saw, and sees, all injustice. There is nowhere that God's compassionate gaze will not fall; God sees the need in all quarters. So then, this understanding of justice also transforms the understanding of mercy, in this context. Mercy, or hesed in Hebrew, does not translate easily into English. When I was an undergraduate, my OT professor said that it is best translated as "steadfast love." The scholars that I researched would not disagree with that, but some take it a step further and define it as the unbreakable connection that God has with God's people. We are to strive for that same connection with our neighbors. If I was to personalize it, I would say something like, "I will not only love God with the commitment that God first showed me, but I will love you with that same commitment to respect, helpfulness and loving concern." Such an understanding of mercy then paves the way for embodying humility in a way that seeks to take empathy to its furthermost limits. We must be alert to the times when God's hesed, which may cause God's heart to break, also causes our hearts to break with compassion and loving kindness.Though we can never do so fully, we must try to look at the world through God's eyes. This whole attitude must pervade our worship, and carry beyond Sunday morning. As one writer has stated, our Sunday worship does not mean much if it doesn't make a difference in the way we treat people on Monday. In short, Micah 6:8 is a call to stand with every person in every place, everyday. We are called to help to restore God's people, one hand and one heart at a time. No exceptions. Favorite biblical passages can surprise us when we re-visit them. They can cause our faith, and our ability to imagine the breadth and depth of God's community, to expand in ways we do not expect. And the Kingdom moves just a little bit closer.

Another Easter, Another Plea

For as long as I can remember, I have wondered why Easter does not change us more than it does. OK, time for a disclaimer: My interpretation about what is significant about Easter may not be thought of as in the mainstream. Well, that wouldn't be the first time that my thinking fell well shy of orthodoxy. Millions will gather this Sunday, many who do not darken the door of a church for the rest of the year. The choirs will be full, the organ will open up all the way, and most of the pastors will appear to be in really good moods. And when everyone leaves the service, I wonder if they will feel changed somehow. Last Easter, my wife and I attended our first Easter service in our then-new church. The Cathedral was packed, the choir and organist were superb, and I heard one women remark as we were leaving the church, "This is THE place to be today."I would agree that any Christian gathering on Easter is THE place to be, but only if the message approaches being transformative. When I hear an Easter sermon, I want to be amazed by the proclamation of what sets Easter apart. However, what I usually hear has something to do with how the day signifies that we need not fear death, for Christ has conquered death. I do not disagree, though I would like to hear a fuller explanation of what that actually means. But my focus on Easter is not about death, and beyond. I wonder why I don't hear pastors talk about the effect of resurrection on us here and now. I write this on Good Friday, which, in my opinion, is the most sacred day of the Christian year. Too many Christians want to hurry past this day and get on with the fun part of the weekend. Of course, without Friday, Sunday has no real significance. Good Friday shouts to us that Christ was a man of his word, and he did not take the easy way out, though he may have wished that he could have. All of his talk about sacrificial love took on meaning only because he did not turn away from following his talk to its logical and necessary conclusion. Good Friday reminds me that God did more than God had to in order to get my attention. And, for me, that message is not about blood atonement, because, as Marcus Borg has opined, God is God, did God really need to kill his son to redeem the world? No, and Jesus chose to offer up his life because, in light of his teachings, he could do nothing else if his teachings were to be authentic. Thus, Sunday is the day to get everyone's attention and ask why we have not changed our behavior. If God was not above choosing the difficult path, why are we so lazy as people of faith? The majority of professed Christians in the United States do not attend weekly worship. According to Diana Butler Bass, about twenty-four percent of us do. Christian politicians seem to be obsessed about the sexual habits of Americans, and are bold to proclaim their unending concern for the unborn child. Yet, the way they blithely slash social programs seems to indicate that they are not nearly as concerned with a child once he or she is born. We have become a selfish, self-satisfied people who call ourselves Christians. Again, according to Butler-Bass, even the so-called "mega-churches" are in decline, so American Christianity is in trouble. I am not sure that even a radical Easter Sunday wake-up call about THIS world and its problems will serve as a wake up. Walter Brueggemann attributed the inability of the biblical prophets to arouse concern on the part of those who heard their preaching to a numbness that grew from satiation. They were full of the good stuff, they had no need, or ability, apparently, to heed warnings.
My Easter message, if I was to preach one? It's one I have actually preached before: How many more Easter Sundays will it take for Christians to understand that nothing is the same, and the world can be changed for the better? We have to stop looking at the sky and instead turn our gaze to our neighbors. There is a world in need of love and a reason to be hopeful. Why does that task not excite us more? Why are we not more determined to show the life changing message of the gospel in our own lives? This Easter, let's make a determination to begin by welcoming the Stranger, whomever that person may be for each one of us. Radical hospitality makes room for those with whom we differ, and once we get together, we can enrich the lives of one another with our stories. Easter: life does not have to be the same. The work has been done, God has saved the whole world. We just need to show what that change looks like.