Presby-Musings

The other day my youngest son and I were about the watch an NFL football game that included a team that is our chosen teams' most reviled rival.  It's so rough in our house that to say this teams' name aloud is akin to uttering a vile curse word.   But as my son and I were watching the pre-game show, the network included a story it had done on one of the players on [That Team] and the work he was doing in his community.  Because he'd had a hard time when he was growing up and struggled to do well in school while under the stress of a chaotic family life, this player decided to do everything he could to give at-risk kids an opportunity to change their stars.  He formed a foundation to support his efforts and created a lab for kids to learn science, develop skills in engineering, auto repair, art, graphic design and so much more.  As he was relating why it was so important for him to do all of this, the player got choked up and began to cry, and I found mysel...

  I read an incredible quote about Creativity from the late author Madeline L'Engle that I  wrote down, and have been pondering for some time.  Here's the quote:  If I affirm that the universe was created by a power of love and that all creation is good, I  am not proclaiming safety.  Safety was never part of the promise.  Creativity, yes; safety no.  All creativity is dangerous.  First, I have to say that there's so much to love about this quote, including the very first line about affirming that the "universe was created by a power of love and that all creation is good..."   Honestly, if that's where we begin our conversations about God, faith, the universe, and everything---we're starting off on the right foot.  The story begins with love, and goodness because that's how God intended it.  But for far too many people who claim to be Christian, the story doesn't start with that line, it starts with something like this:...

Grace and peace to you all on this Thanksgiving Day!  Did you know that Thanksgiving wasn't declared a national holiday until 1863, during the height of the Civil War, when President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation that it be celebrated on the final Thursday of November?  This would be changed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 when he moved the holiday up a week during the Great Depression in order to boost retail sales.  Eventually, after a lot of pressure, he moved it to the fourth Thursday in November in 1941.  Funny--back then people were actually outraged that the holiday would be used as a precursor to shopping.  Alas.  As I was reading through Lincoln's original proclamation for the celebration of Thanksgiving, I found the following plea that he made to all Americans (Northerners and Southerners alike), imploring them to ask God:   “...commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers...

For centuries, those of us who call ourselves Christians have tried to make sense of all of the tragedies and tribulations of each successive age by basically blaming God for them.   To put it another way, generation after generation of Christians have affirmed the notion that God either directly or indirectly sends tragedies and tribulations our way as punishment of some kind for faithlessness, or as a way to test us or prove our worthiness.  On the surface, there is a simplistic kind of logic to these assertions.  If as Christians we affirm (rightly so) that God is sovereign or "over all things," then God would have to be the source of even our worst tribulations. This particular moment in history is no exception to these kinds of assertions.   The global pandemic has spawned scores of so-called prophets, who preach and teach that the trials of our day amount to a litmus test for the faithful, which can only be passed if they put their trust in Jesus, pr...

Several years ago, I was teaching a class on the basics of Christian theology, which included a session on the theology of the Cross.   Not to get too deep into the weeds, but my teaching that day was heavily influenced by Jurgen Moltmann's The Crucified God, which is one of the very best books I have read on the subject.  Moltmann's entire premise is grounded in Trinitarian theology, which means that through Jesus (embodying the eternal, universal Christ, the second "person" of the Trinity) God is crucified on the Cross.   This simply means that God suffers. God experiences the loss of God.  God feels the unimaginable pain and loss of betrayal.  And yes, God dies.  All because it is God (in Christ) hanging on the Cross, taking on the worst the world has to offer.  When I shared this with my class, there was stunned silence as they took it all in.  And then someone quietly said in the stillness, "This changes everything for me." ...

I was saddened and horrified yesterday to see the news from Waukesha, Wisconsin of an SUV barreling through a holiday parade filled with high school marching bands, a children's dance team, and many others.  The reports this morning indicated that five people lost their lives, and at least 20 others were seriously injured.  A suspect has been taken into custody, but there's no indication as of yet why he did what he did.  My heart is hurting today as I think about how something as sweet and wonderful as a small-town holiday parade could have become the scene of such tragedy and loss.  There's so much that's wrong with our world right now.  It's enough to shake anyone's faith.   As I write this, I can't stop thinking about a quote from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar:  “The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.” It feels that way sometimes doesn't it?  It feels as though evil just keeps scoring victories, an...

Today is Christ The King Sunday, or as it is also known, Reign of Christ Sunday--pretty exciting, right?    This is a historic feast day in the Church that teaches us about the true nature of the Kingdom of God and the purpose for the Incarnation---the theology of God becoming one of us in order to rescue all of us.   This feast day comes right before the beginning of Advent, and the Gospel reading comes to us from the Gospel of John chapter 18 where Jesus and Pilate have an interesting conversation about the nature of God's kingdom.   Here's the thing, this Sunday also reminds us that the Church proclaims something that isn't entirely self-evident.  The Church proclaims that Jesus is Lord and that God's kingdom is breaking through all around us.  Yet, we still ask: Who is Jesus? and Where is the kingdom of God?  The reason why we ask these questions is that the world is not as it should be.  Which leads most of us to seek the answers to...

  Caitlin Abrams, known on Tik Tok as @manicpixiemom has 1.9 million followers, which is an impressive number by any metric that you might use.  She doesn't do zany or risque videos, either, which makes the number of followers she's accrued even more remarkable.   Caitlin simply creates videos of her cleaning some of the oldest gravestones that she discovers throughout New England by first scraping them of moss and debris, and then using steel brushes, cleaning solution, and old-fashioned elbow grease.   As she cleans the tombstones, Caitlin tells the story of the person buried beneath them after painstakingly researching their history.   Like  t he story of Rachel Burton...  Rachel died of tuberculosis in 1790, and was suspected by local townsfolk of being a vampire and cursing her widow’s new wife with the same disease. They exhumed Rachel's body, burned her organs, and her husband’s current wife breathed in the smoke to undo the curse...

It's been no secret that church attendance in the U.S. has been on the decline for the past few decades---up to a 3% decrease every year for at least the last 30 years.   As a pastor, I can attest to this fact and the statements that people would make to me as to why they no longer attended a church.  They would say things like:  "I've given up on church." "The Church is full of hypocrites."  "I don't need a church to experience God."  "Church is irrelevant." Honestly, those of us who lead in the Church grew used to those reasons and shaped our worship, ministries, and missions to respond to them.   But after a global pandemic rocked the world, the decline in church attendance and engagement has been accelerated dramatically, and there don't seem to be a lot of answers readily available.  The Wall Street Journal recently reported that most congregations are experiencing a 30-50% decline in attendance and involvement from church me...

There's a story that appears in each of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) that has always intrigued me.  It's the story of Jesus calming a storm on the Sea of Galilee, and completely freaking out his disciples.  Here's the text from Mark's Gospel:  35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” 39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.  40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”  41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind...

A couple of years ago, if you had asked how confident I was in my ability to make quick decisions, I would have responded with something cocky and sure like:  Not only am I confident in my ability to make quick decisions, I feel I am also pretty darned good at knowing the right decision to make, too.  Try me! Now after a global pandemic messed up just about everything, and with all of the division and political strife, social pressures, and the like, I have had to walk that statement back a bit.  Now, it sounds more like this:    Well, I need to think about it a bit more, maybe.  Maybe Google some stuff.  Don't want to move too quickly, you never know what might happen.  Also, I'm not sure which way to go on this---no one wants to choose poorly, right?  I have had more than a few occasions when I thought I could trust my judgement as usual and then realized that I couldn't.  The anxiety of our circumstances kept my head spinning a lot, w...

I recently read Walt Whitman's poem "O Me! O Life!" and this particular line really stood out for me, so I jotted it down:  The question, O me! so sad, recurring--What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer.  That you are here--that life exists, and identity; That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.  The way I see this, the poet speaks to himself in this bit of the poem---the deepest part of him, in fact.  He levels questions to his mind/ego (O Me) and his soul (O life). "What good amid these...?" the poet asks as he searches for answers to his questions about his ultimate purpose.  He seeks meaning amid the chaos of the world around him, and in his own life perhaps.  The answer comes back to him in a beautiful affirmation and exhortation.  The poet's purpose is that he exists and has an identity, which means he is known if not by others, then by God.    And the poet is also told that he can find meaning in the fact tha...

Thirty-four years ago this week the band R.E.M. released one of their biggest hits, "It's The End of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)."  That might make some of you feel old.  It did me.   Let's do a sing-along for a moment... here's the chorus:  … It's the end of the world as we know it It's the end of the world as we know it It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine I know that lots of people have pointed out that these past two years have felt a lot like the end of the world as we know it.  So is it?   I need to say that we're not studying the book of Revelation today---that series will come in January and February.  But we are going to be talking about another passage from the Bible that addresses "end times" theology.   And it includes one of the most difficult sayings of Jesus to understand.   Intrigued?  Good.  But first, we need to talk about Prophets---the self-proclaimed type....

I was watching a TED talk that Brene Brown did not too long ago on the differences between Guilt and Shame.  Brown essentially stated that guilt can be a productive thing whereas shame is not.   In fact, shame is so counterproductive that it often leads us to believe things about ourselves and the world that are not only untrue but also incredibly destructive to ourselves and others.   So how is guilt productive? I think that guilt can offer us a choice whereas shame tends to paralyze us and rob us of the ability to make choices.  The choice that guilt offers us is most often between these two diametrically opposed actions:   Empowerment and Self-obsession.    No matter whether we feel guilt over something we have done, or something someone either did or said to us, we have the chance to make those two choices when the guilt falls on us.   Melody Beattie wrote beautifully about this very thing when she said:  Choose a way ...

One of the many things that I get asked as a pastor is, "Do you believe that all the things in the Bible happened exactly as they are written?"   Now let me tell you, that kind of a question is not easy to answer, especially if the person who is asking the question is someone who is a skeptic or is actually antagonistic toward the Bible.  It can also be a tough question to try to answer if the person asking is someone who is just trying to start an argument, or who is trying to "Ah-ha!" me as a false prophet, who doesn't "believe the Bible."   It's the equivalent of trying to answer a question like, "Does this dress make me look fat?"  When you hear a question like that, you kind of freeze, and your mind begins racing through all of the available answers that won't get you into trouble, or cause an argument, or turn you into some kind of heel.  It's in those moments that I wish that a bunch of the stories in the Bible weren't ...