For Sunday, January 3rd, 2010
Lectionary Reading - John 1:(1-9),10-18
“Blah, blah, blah,” or “That’s just talk,” – those are expressions that many of us have heard in one form or another at some time or another. It’s also a criticism often leveled at the Christian church by many post-moderns in developed countries especially when reading words like those from this week’s lectionary reading in the Gospel of John. For them, the words lack relevancy and or the ability to make a connection with their lives. So in response to post-moderns, we now have faith leaders who in unique and strange ways try to break through such a barrier. Their words and accompanying actions can leave some of us scratching our heads or leave us astonished.
For instance, today’s men apparently need to ratchet up their masculinity according to Pastor Pat Driscoll of the Mars Hill Church is Seattle, Washington. Our best examples for that are the disciples who hung out with Jesus. By Driscoll’s account, those guys were so tough they had teeth missing. He doesn’t say how he knows that but last year at one of the many pastor conferences Driscoll does annually, he got pretty passionate about the issue. At that conference, according to Jesse Benjamin at www.wittenburgdoor.com, Driscoll railed about pastors being too wimpy and failing to be the kick-butt type leaders that God and people need today. To prove his point, Driscoll singled out five pastors in the conference audience and brought them on stage. He then put his hands behind his back, stuck out his chin and told each one to take their best swing. He also promised that he wouldn’t hit back.
When none of the five pastors would indulge Driscoll, he had them escorted off stage and out of the building. My guess is that Driscoll expelled them from the conference. Then followed the interesting part, Driscoll proceeded to strike himself five times in the face in front of the audience. Benjamin ended up titling the bout at www.wittenburgdoor.com as, “Driscoll Kicks His Own Ass!” For me, the last time I witnessed such an event a mentally ill man was in my director’s office at our mental health clinic. The fellow sat there punching his own face back and forth in front of the boss, I and another clinician called the police while filling out psychiatric commitment papers. The individual then spent the next three days in the hospital until he got over the urge to hit himself. Hopefully no teeth went missing.
There are faith leaders my friends who eat up Driscoll’s stuff and let’s not mince words here; Driscoll’s church in Seattle is quite successful and well attended. Apparently one of his followers, John Kinston, is an urban church planter in Louisville, Kentucky, who attends 37 Pat Driscoll conferences a year. Kinston shares that “…numbers aren’t important, but we’ve grown 81.7% a year since our launch date and I still can’t get the guys to step up and be warriors. We want to love our city and we can’t do that with a bunch of pansies that would rather play video games than go to a monster truck rally or tattoo their faces like Mike Tyson.” (Wait a minute, did I hear that right? Going to a monster truck rally and getting tats is how one shows love for their city?)
Continuing on and apparently live blogging at Driscoll’s conference, Kinston then shared, “At last year’s Converging Conference, Driscoll talked about standing up when you … [urinate]… and I got really excited. We started a men’s-only Bible Accountability Group. It was a combination of scripture study and Muy Thai Stick Fighting. It was great for a few weeks, until my worship pastor lost an eye. I had to make a tough call then and there: no more Muy Thai Stick Fighting at Kiona Community without protective face gear. I still think it might have been a spiritual compromise.”
When I read or hear the above kind of stuff as being some contemporary expression of the message, ministry, mission and vision of Jesus and God’s Peaceable Kingdom, I say to myself, “What kind of nonsense is this? Good Lord, how is wearing protective face gear a spiritual compromise at a Muy Thai Stick Church Fight? Kinston, I hope you asked the guy who lost his eye whether or not he felt that protective gear would have been a spiritual compromise.”
I never quite know what to make of stuff like Driscoll’s and Kinston’s, especially when I contrast it against a lectionary passage like the one for this week from the Gospel of John. I can see how such a passage might seem like just words or “blah, blah, blah” to a post modern individual and perhaps it does need to be dressed up to make some kind of impact, but Muy Thai Stick Fights? Perhaps I’m too ensconced in traditional ways or simply too wimpy or just another talking head adding to the noise of life, yet the words of John continue to generate awe in me even after 52 years of life.
If such words are simply lost on post-moderns or worse yet -- numbing to them, perhaps the shock factor of Driscoll’s and Kinston’s ministry is necessary for helping the scriptures seem real. In this over-stimulated world where everything is over-sensationalized so much of the time and therefore numbing people in so many different ways, maybe Driscoll and Kinston have hit on something. Who’s to say or judge that I guess. In one sense, all of it reminds me of a psychiatric symptom where people cut on themselves so they can at least feel something since they’ve lost the ability to feel much of anything. Perhaps the shock and awe of Driscoll’s and Kinston’s ministry is a spiritual or societal equivalent for a culture that’s become numb to all it’s exposed to and therefore it takes such efforts like Driscoll’s and Kinston’s to break through. My only hope is that faith leaders like Driscoll and Kinston prove that they are as equally passionate and demonstrative in their acts of compassion, pursuit of justice and peace-making, alleviating poverty, protesting unjust war, promoting universal healthcare, and advocating the worth and happiness of all persons as they are with their shock and awe approach to growing their congregations.
For as one friend put it to me, “I would like to go to a Muy Thai stick fighting bible study, it sounds fun. Seriously. I don't know what it is but I would like to watch at the very least. Those people sound fun.” Yet my friend also points out one very important distinction that’s close to my heart and which I think ministries like Driscoll’s and Kinston’s need to pay attention to, which is that, “If churches could do a better job of taking away the pain that we feel, pews would be full. If I could go to church and actually feel relief from the voices and compulsions in my head don't you think I would be there?” My friend has an excellent point and again it’s one very dear to my heart, for in any faith community where relief from pain occurs and the compulsions and ugly voices within are silenced and healed, then surely there resides in that community the power to become children of God. And friends, that applies whether your faith community is Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu or whatever faith tradition it is that draws people together to heal and help the world be whole.
Have a great New Years everyone, and may the Peace of God be with you!
Brad
Personal note to my readers:
This week marks my 12th posting which means that I have been at this blog for about three months. To give you a little history as to how and why it got started, it’s basically a continuation of an email and snail-mail ministry that I provided on a weekly basis during much of the past five years while serving as pastor of a congregation in Portland, Oregon (U.S.A.). The congregation, like many in its denomination, has a tradition of a shared pulpit which means that a different lay person or lay minister preaches each Sunday. While this tradition can provide a wonderful variety of thought for a congregation, it constitutes a tremendous challenge for the pastor who’s typically expected to provide leadership and continuity for the congregation’s mission, vision, and message. I found however that sharing a written weekly message with my congregation based on the lectionary and coupled with our leadership team’s sense of where God was trying to lead us, made the challenge easier to manage. The weekly endeavor helped the congregation to know where I was in my thinking and leadership. In turn, their responses provided me an understanding of their feelings, needs, and desires. As luck would have it, our paths diverged this past April when my denominational authority requested that I join our “Funding for Mission” team to assist with planned giving. I have missed my former congregation yet I wish them all the best as they endeavor to complete discernment regarding their future.
While I am definitely enjoying my new job, I have discovered since leaving the pastoral role that I miss the weekly writing routine of my “e-sermons” as some folks called them. Furthermore, I felt a compelling need to continue my writing as part of the advocacy I feel so passionately for the cause of God’s Peaceable Kingdom, especially from the peace and justice perspective that drives and defines my life. I also learned in my new job that it was likely I would be preaching more often given the frequent travel that would be required. At the same time, I heard from some of my previous congregants and fellow disciples that they also missed my email messages. I spent a few months puzzling over these things while in the midst of learning a new job and tried to discern a means for knitting it all together in some kind of workable and useful venture. After a while, a light went on in my brain one morning and with it came a very clear inspiration, “Start a blog.” Obviously, that notion should have occurred to me earlier than it did, but I can be a little thick in the head sometimes. Just ask my wife.
So from that point to the present, there have been over 1,100 visitors to this blog from around the world. Visitors have come from the United States and Canada as well as from Brazil, Mexico, Australia, India, Germany, Latvia, Greece, Denmark, Chile, Netherlands, Spain, Singapore, Argentina, Thailand, Indonesia, Pakistan, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Sweden, Sudan, Venezuela, Belgium, Norway, Israel, South Africa, Romania, Morocco, France, Bosnia And Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Philippines, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and Poland.
Not in my wildest dreams would I have ever thought or anticipated that the readership for this blog would reach as far and wide as it has in only 13 weeks. As I shared with one friend, “I write simply because I must.” On sharing my surprise with another friend regarding the blog’s developments, he said, “Why should it surprise you, you’re a thoughtful writer.” One of my Canadian friends said it even more pointedly, “Get your head out of your butt, your message has substance. Sometimes I read your post five or six times.”
Those comments plus many others have been humbling for me. Your sharing and responses to blog postings have filled me with gratitude for you as we arrive to the end of 2009. So I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continuing interest. Your comments and reflections, whether communicated via the blog or by email or in person or by phone, have been helpful and encouraging. My writing and your sharing have been insightful and enlightening to me for my own spiritual journey just as my Buddhist sister-in-law said it would be. I hope you’ll continue to share your thoughts with me and share this blog with others as we seek together for what I call “God’s Day of Peace for every living soul upon the Earth.” Once again, thanks for visiting and thanks for sharing.
Brad
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