Missio Dei

Many will see, and fear and put their trust in the Lord. -Psalm 40: 3b

I am putting together an order of service for my installation as the Teaching Elder at Good Samaritan Presbyterian Church.  It is my second installation.  The first was almost ten years ago in Plumville, but that seems like a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.  It is more difficult this time around, which is weird, because things like this usually get easier, but being a Pastor is a peculiar thing.  I know a lot more about what I am getting into this time around, but that actually makes picking the pieces of the service more difficult.

Fresh out of seminary, ministry was a great unknown, and I had visions of the great call stories of the Hebrew Scriptures: Abraham, Moses, David and Isaiah.  I felt the call of the Disciples and Saul's encounter on the Damascus road resonating in my soul, but as I really considered the rich variety of scripture to use in the service on March 10, 2013, I realized that none of that has very much to do with what I am really about as a Pastor.

What I have come to realize over the past ten years is that very little of this calling has to do with voices from heaven, burning bushes and visions of seraphim.  Mostly it involves confronting your own brokenness and still having the audacity to get up and preach the Word to the congregation.  Mostly it involves the constant awareness of how much God can do with the little bit that you can actually give.  Mostly it involves looking down fully expecting to see a miry pit and seeing instead a solid rock.

So, yeah, Psalm 40 is going to be the first scripture reading, I'm not sticking it off in the corner like we do with Psalms so often, I'm giving it the place it deserves.  It's going to be there instead of Moses, Elijah or Isaiah, it's going to be the prelude to the Gospel, because it is the story of my life and my ministry.

Psalm 40 was the first scripture I read after my own Damascus road encounter.  Why? Simple, because U2 sang it as a rock song (no pun intended).  I would like to tell you that my journey of faith is always intentional and well organized, but most of the time it's not.  Most of the time I just stub my toe on what God is trying to do and then do my best to act like I meant to do it.  It started with reading a Psalm, not because I was so in tune to the Spirit that I knew just where to turn, but because I thought U2 was awesome and I remembered that they sang 40 on Under a Blood Red Sky.  Deep spirituality right there.

But as it turns out, Psalm 40 is a pretty good description of my journey, my ministry and my life.  It acknowledges that I am nowhere without the Lord.  In this dance with the Spirit that we call ordained ministry, I mostly just try not to trip over my own feet.

Heavy is the Head that wears the Mitre

So Benedict XVI is going back to being just plain old Joseph Ratzinger.  The Bishop of Rome is resigning, which hasn't happened much and hasn't happened at all in a very long time.  I don't know why, as a protestant, I care about this, but I do.
Maybe it's because I'm a Church history geek.  Maybe it's because no matter whether we are Catholic, Orthodox or protestant, Calvinist, Anabaptist or Arminian, we are all part of the Body of Christ.  Maybe it's just because I hate to see a pastor get burnt out, no matter how big his hat is.
Benedict was filling some big shoes.  John Paul II was a beloved figure, even as a protestant, I liked him.  He preached and worked for justice in the world, and he walked the walk, he forgave a man who shot him.  Karol Wojtyla faithfully occupied the Holy See until he went to be part of the church triumphant.
It seemed to me that Ratzinger was a substantial change in direction from his predecessor.  He was known as a conservative, a rigorous theologian and defender of the faith.  Even physically he did not appear as benevolent as JPII.
It is interesting that this man, who had a reputation for being carved out of rock, is the first Pope to resign in over half a millennium.  Reading his statement, I think he's doing the right thing.  He's doing something that takes guts: walking away because you know you can't cut it.  Knowing your weaknesses is a sign of a really mature personality.  For someone with the drive and determination to climb the hierarchy and become the successor of St. Peter, walking away can't have been easy.
It seems to me that Benedict's biggest problem, other than not being cute and cuddly like JPII, was that he is a symbol of a way of being church that has long since passed and gone.  The Roman Catholic church still moves vitally in the world, but it doesn't seem to be because of the institution with it's pomp and circumstance.  Rather, it seems that the grass roots of the church are managing to go on into the future, despite the aging, gold encrusted white males that come and go as Bishops, Cardinals and Pope.
We protestants, particularly American Protestants should take heed.  We have become a little too dependent on figureheads of late, whether it is Billy Graham or Rick Warren, Jerry Falwell or Rob Bell, Christianity does not thrive well with anyone at the head other than Christ himself.
Benedict was far less of a cult of personality than his predecessor, but maybe that is a fairly good legacy to leave with.  Maybe he clears the way for the Church to recover it's mission and do something really radical, like pick a non-European or maybe even someone who isn't going to be ready for a nursing home in five years.  Big dreams, I know.
All the same best wishes and prayers go out to @pontifex, for the ministry he did with the time he was given.

Settling in

And you may say to yourself "Well, how did I get here?"

The Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime

I am sitting in my new office. My first sermon for Good Samaritan Presbyterian Church is written and ready for tomorrow.  I am slowly getting my life in the new place put in order.

But it's still a little hard to wrap my mind around.

Less than a week ago I was in Pennsylvania, where I had lived and worked for ten years.

No matter how good and right your reasons are, moving still puts something out of joint.

One of my long term goals is to establish healthy patterns in life and so I'm trying to start out that way.

This whole week has been like watching one of those computer animated sequences where something flies apart and then snaps back together.  I don't know when the feeling of being whirled around is going to stop for more than a few moments, but this is one of those moments.
It's a breezy, sunny Saturday morning in Southern Maryland.  I know that somewhere to the north people are digging out after a big old blizzard, but the world of snow and ice seems rather far removed, but it wouldn't have last Saturday, and I guess that's what's strange, that so much has changed in such a short time.  It's not just the weather either, it's a whole different feeling to life.
It's been rather a long time since I did something new, because mostly, I don't like new.
New things can bedazzle you with their shininess, but they haven't stood the test of time.  I think of all the things we threw away in the process of moving.  All the junk we had accumulated, all the stuff that weighed us down, that we really didn't need.
Life gets like that sometimes, you just start to take on baggage, whether you want to or not, and before too long you start to feel smothered.  But you're comfortable with your baggage, you're attached to your stuff, it seems rather hard to let go.  Then you land in a new world and it's got some challenges to be sure, and maybe they're not that different than the old challenges, but you've left some baggage behind, you've gotten rid of some of the clutter and you feel different.
For any of the Plumville/Atwood folks who might read this, you are not the clutter or the baggage, what I'm talking about here is a spiritual condition that crept up on me.  It was my fault, and it probably made me less effective as your Pastor.  It has actually taken the move for me to see it clearly.
Here's to new beginnings.