Category: Culture
Connections
It is called ‘social media.’ Really, it is letters and phone calls woven into the fabric of every day life that only requires an internet connection. Once upon a time, a person had to be intentional about keeping connections with persons from their past, now it’s as easy as searching Facebook, Twitter, or your favorite ‘social media’ platform.
There was a time in life when people would come and go through school, youth group, or jobs and I would most likely loose touch with the persons that I shared significant experiences. It’s part of growing up and defining identity after graduation, or a job change, or when people move away to another community, political or religious place. I often wonder what kind of men the boys of my Boy Scout troop became. For three years the eight of us that made up the Eagle patrol explored the woods of East Texas, learned to cook in a dutch oven, got lost, fought snakes, and helped our Scout Master read a map. This was long before GPS. Our Scout Master often got the troop lost on the way to a weekend camp-out so we became proficient setting up tents by the glow of flashlights. I wrote short stories back then based on those experiences. After we moved from Paris, TX to Beaumont, TX, those hand written stories about boyhood adventures, like the lives of those close friends, are part of distant memories stirred by the smell of a campfire or seeing current Boy Scouts struggle to learn knots.
Here in the 21st century, staying connected is much easier and can happen with less intentionality. People from the past pop up in my newsfeed on Facebook and Twitter alerts me to new members and followers. It is easy to hit the code created “follow” button and observe, or lurk, or troll people. Are we more connected than ever? Yes. Are we more disconnected, more misunderstood, more isolated in opinion, economic status, politic and religion than ever? Yes. It’s easier for the pugilists in our context.
What I like about ‘social media’ is that I get to observe what kind of adults the youth that have been a part of a mission trip, study trip, church camp, leadership team, or youth group have become or are becoming. I also stay connected to the adults that gave their time, life experience, and faith experience in all of those settings. There are many I could cite dating back to 1985. A current example is Colton. He just graduated from Eureka College and is heading to seminary this fall. Colton returned to his home congregation here in Oklahoma after attending our International Affairs Seminar when he was in high school. The study topic for the trip was faith and economics. Colton’s congregation asked him to give the sermon and talk about what he learned on the trip and his experience. He sent me a copy of his words. An eighteen year old stood in the pulpit of his congregation and began, “I’m a 21st century slave owner and so are all of you.” Here are Colton’s thoughts on “Learning to Love” published on [D]mergent.
Learning to Love
Colton Lott | July 3, 2015I know first-hand that it takes everyone of all backgrounds to be the change we wish to see in the world; I was taught to love all of God’s children by my grandmother, who began campaigning in me back in 2004. Click here to read more.
Marriage: More Than Birthing Babies
If polling can be believed, a majority of Christians who attended worship on June 28, 2015, most likely heard words about the demise of our Nation and Western culture because the Supreme Court ruled that persons of the same sex have a right to get married and be recognized as a married couple in all fifty of these United States. Click here to download the brief and read both the majority and dissenting opinion for yourself.
That message, I imagine, was based in some kind of “devil or evil” and the definition of that “evil” is entirely based on the brand of Christian witness preached and practiced. Some may have mentioned, “biblical marriage” without doing the exegesis to note that there is no such thing. The “marriage” relationship in the bible was often between a man and many women. It was a contractual agreement between two men, a father giving, some might even say ‘selling,’ a daughter to another man. Read some European history and you will find that marriage was used to bind two countries together in peace or in commerce as one King or ruling family would give a daughter to another King in marriage or to a male heir to seal the deal. A recognition of this exchange of property prompted me to change the language I use in wedding services when I began providing a spiritual recognition and blessing of a civil contract between two persons choosing to weave their lives together. I ask, “Who blesses the bride and groom in this marriage?” instead of, “Who gives this woman or who brings this woman to marry this man?” Unless you are at a shotgun wedding, which is a completely separate issue, marriage is a choice between consenting adults.
Some argue that the Supreme Court changed the definition of marriage. Well, it did not and it did. It did not make space for multiple persons to marry one another, better known as polyamory, nor will it allow for polygamy to return. I doubt that the ruling will end up letting persons marry their favorite animals or allow girls under the age of consent, which unfortunately varies from state to state, being married off to older men or relatives, or the other situations that those who oppose this ruling warn could and will happen. The ruling does change marriage in one way. Marriage, the civil contract recognized by the state and if desired blessed by a spiritual leader of your choosing, is no longer centered in procreation. The court cites, in the majority ruling and in the verbose descents, that marriage relationships are an important building block of a culture and society. In this ruling the court recognizes that marriage between two persons is a good building block of an evolving culture and society even when children are not a byproduct of that marriage. It affirms the importance of these marriages to culture and society and challenges the notion that marriage is, even in the 21st century, only about having and raising biological offspring. I don’t know about you, but having kids is not why I fell in love with my companion nor why we married 25 years ago. An aside, we are child free by choice, but that is a topic for another post.
Though I don’t serve a congregation I am invited to fill the pulpit from time to time in congregations when their minister is away or when a congregation is seeking to call a minister. I preach about a dozen times a year right now. Yesterday, I offered a few words from a pulpit that were not directly about the SCOTUS ruling. Congregations need to have these conversations. No doubt there were people in the pews yesterday that were grieved and angry at the ruling. It is also true that there were people there not disturbed and maybe even happy about it. Here are a few paragraphs from my sermon yesterday.
The text for the sermon was John 3:14-21
We come to worship with questions. Some questions are birthed from grief and broken hearts that are best answered with hugs of reassurance, and smiles that tell us we are not alone in this journey. Our Nation’s questions about equality for all and justice require citizens to reflect on and alter our behavior, and change our communities. For Christians, we must continually revisit our practice of the way of Jesus who confronts with the greatest of all the commandments, “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.” By the way, he didn’t pull that out of thin air. It was his interpretation, his summation of the Jewish practice and laws he grew up knowing and living.
We all have become adept at talking about issues that are important without talking at any depth; without saying anything, really. It is so much easier and safer to just stay on the surface. Social media has enabled this, but it has been happening for a long time as the press, the journalists well intentioned and those just making a buck, cover news based on ratings, website traffic, ad sells, and even ideological power, rather than being the balancing agent between fact and fiction; power and injustice. Many are fortune tellers instead of truth seekers.
Talking about issues that are important without talking at any depth, without saying anything. It is what happens when community and friendship and governing and religion are treated like a commodity to be traded, owned, bought and sold to the highest bidder, or hoarded. It is what happens when community, governing, and religion are used to oppress. The text today gives us several places where we could sit and visit, like Jesus did with Nicodemus and the others in the room. What topics we could discuss? Here are a few in no particular order that come to mind.
What does it mean to say that God so loved, past tense, the world? Can the good news of God, of which Jesus taught and often spoke of, mean something more than the creedal orthodoxy of John 3:16?
As our nation, and the world, continues to struggle with race and racism, is the language of darkness and light helpful imagery in understanding good, evil, and those who perpetuate both?
Is belief more important than practice? Paul later refers to this as “works v righteousness,” and Christianity has argued over what is the right amount of both for centuries. How much good works is enough? How much righteousness through belief in Christ is enough? Think of it like this, “Can you earn enough ‘righteousness points’ while playing the game of life to enter into the kindom of heaven? Can you earn enough righteousness points to draw a “grace card” from the stack whether you think you need it or not?
A millennia of theology based in scarcity and control has defined eternal life to only mean ‘life after death.’ In the gospel of John, “eternal life” is meant as a metaphor for living now in the unending presence of God. When you follow the way of Jesus it can lead to discovering Truth about yourself and about God; and that capital “T” truth gives life meaning. That Truth it is life giving. The kindom, not the imperial kingdom, the kinship of God is all around us already, but it is also not yet fully revealed in my life nor in yours. Jesus recognized it in his time. Are we who proclaim to be followers of Jesus recognizing it in our time? How are we citizens of that kindom right now?
Welcome as you have been welcomed, and you will be a floodlight of wisdom and grace. You will experience the unending presence of God, now and always.