No Apology Required

As a new church pastor, I get to have lots of fun doing Bible study with people who haven't done it all their lives. We're doing a study of Paul's letter to the Romans this fall, and several participants are new to the process. I'm always amused when people feel the need to apologize when they begin a new thing like that. I've tried to assure them that an apology is not at all required. Most of my experience with Bible study in established congregations has amounted to people swapping the same understandings they've always had and expect everyone else to have too. While we are fortunate to have some folks in our new congregation here with solid and mature understandings of Scripture, we are also fortunate to have folks without those gifts who want to know more about what the Bible says and how it says it. Our study is enriched by both groups. It's fun to see people who had decided they couldn't understand Scripture make meaningful contributions that help all of us understand more about what God has to say to us and how Scripture helps say it. It's especially fun when people new to the process have no reservations about asking questions or for clarification. We may not always (or ever) agree as a group, but we surely do learn from one another!

The Real Issue is Language

I read somewhere this week that a popular version of Scripture is going through another revision. It seems the NIV is going to tackle contemporary and inclusive language again. As soon as that announcement was made, the critics started lining up, claiming it was all an effort to be politically correct instead of textually sound and vowing to thwart the process. I'm as interested in textual accuracy in Scripture as anybody. I spent as much time in Scripture as most pastors do, and, even though the NIV is not my preferred translation, I know it is the one many people, including members of my own congregation, use. So I agree that it is important to preserve the purest form of the text we can render. But a real issue in rendering texts in English is one no one ever talks about--a fundamental shortcoming of our language lies in the way we deal with gender. I grew up and learned grammar in the day when the masculine gender for pronouns was always the one we used when we didn't know the gender or when we were referring to both. Those days are gone, and they're not coming back. The problem is that English pronouns are gender-based. I fail to see what harm gets done when we render what everyone used to agree was intended to men both men and women in a way that doesn't alienate some. I know that Scripture comes from cultures that were much less gender-inclusive than ours. But I also know that our goal as sharers of faith is to share faith with real people who live today, not people who lived hundreds or thousands of years ago. So if we can say brothers and sisters, when the text just really says something masculine, who gets hurt? The pronouns cause another whole set of problems, but there are ways around those issues, too, if we think about them. I rant all the time about language not being important enough to the communication process anymore, but I don't mean that language or even text is a god we ought to worship. Language is a tool to help us to communicate God's gracious inclination toward us. Some who know me will be surprised that I know anything about tools. (I'm reminded of Ryne Mantooth, a VBS participant twenty years ago who asked his mom who I was trying to kid when he saw me coming up the hall with the janitor's toolbox after VBS one day!) The first electric drill I ever owned had an orange cord dangling off it. It couldn't do half as much as the ones I see in Lowe's these days. Tools have a way of changing and adapting to serve the purpose for which they exist. If language is a tool, why can't we let it do the same thing? Whatever we can do to make the promises of Scripture more accessible to everyone is a good thing, right?
I won't be sitting in any of the editorial meetings that produce whatever the new NIV turns out to be. I hope those who will be will remember how important their work is and not be deterred by folks who have another whole agenda.

Twenty Five Years Ago Today

Today's a special day at our house. Kyle, our younger son, turns 25 today. Like most parents, I guess, I remember twenty-five years ago today in minute detail. Neither of our boys made coming into the world easy. Kyle's entrance was particularly troublesome. His brother, Blake, was six and had had his own problems getting here. We had lost a child between the two of them and thought we had lost Kyle a couple of times before he finally got here. As he arrival came closer, Deanna was in and out of the hospital a couple of times. On the third trip, we finally convinced her doctor to go get him instead of sending us home again. After several tests and lots of wide-eyed wonder, the doctor finally schedule a C-section, and off to surgery we went. I remember that "Ghostbusters" was playing on the OR's sound system and that the doctor sang along as he did the Section. I remember the Pakistani anesthesiologist who kept telling Deanna, "If you have pain, I have drugs!" We convinced her when she came by to visit a day or two later that that probably wasn't something she wanted to say outside the OR. I remember that Kyle was black from anoxia when the doctor lifted him out. About that time, I remember asking that anesthesiologist if she had any drugs for me. (She had already put Deanna under.) She didn't. So I remember watching that little boy pink up when the nurse held the oxygen mask over his face and then turn gray again when she pulled it away. I remember the days when I tried to be three places at once: in the nursery with that gray and pink little boy, in Deanna's room with her (convincing her that he was OK because she couldn't go see him), and at home with Blake (convincing him that no, we were not going to name his new brother Jabba the Hut). I am grateful for a good friend who came that weekend to reassure Deanna in ways no one else could. By the end of the day twenty five years ago today, we knew we had some rough times ahead.
We have friends in Arkansas going through the same experience with their newborn this week. We've tried to reassure them without scaring them to death--we know they can do that for themselves.
Obviously, our story had a good outcome. At twenty five, Kyle is healthy, active, and a joy to share life with. Sure, there's still school to finish, a career to choose, relationships to figure out, and all the other things that lie ahead. But just as surely as God was with us twenty-five years ago today (and would have been regardless of how that day turned out) God is in the midst of our joy as we celebrate a quarter century of life with Kyle. Happy Birthday, son. I love you.

The Yacht Club?

This post is primarily for friends who think we've moved off to Florida and become something different than we were before. We have a new weekly newspaper for the Yulee community (the area between the Island and the interstate where our church is). I'm writing a column for it. The first issue appeared today. My article is in there. I don't think it's online yet--that's coming--or I'd figure out how to link to it. The big feature article in this first issue, though, is not mine, but a story about a Yacht Club. The Redneck Yacht Club is a bar between our area and Jacksonville that is caught up in a conflict about when they can start selling liquor on Sundays. Yes, I said the Redneck Yacht Club. No I have not been there. Even Kyle and his friends are afraid to go.
So for all my friends in Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky: rest assured we haven't progressed very far up the social ladder. We're still near the beach, though. Eat your hearts out!
I'm not sure what I'll write for next week's paper. I'll let you know.

Summer Series

I've never done much series preaching until this summer. I usually follow the lectionary and have always been amazed at how it fits the life and work of the church--a testament to those who work so hard to plan it. This summer, though, I decided to try something different. I asked folks at the new church I serve to submit questions about the church, its ministry, their faith, pretty much whatever was on their minds and promised that I'd plan summer worship around them. Almost immediately after sending out the request for questions, I wondered what I had done. What if they ask about _____? (Fill in the blank with your worst fear, and you'll be where I was several weeks ago!) What if they don't ask anything? No real problem there, I suppose. The lectionary didn't go away, I just chose not to use it this summer. This little experiment has worked out better than I had thought it might. I got enough questions to plan worship for five Sundays in July and August. Someone wanted to know about banners and art in worship. Someone else wanted to know about children and their role in the life of the church. This week, I'm having fun. Someone had heard me say several times that I don't understand why everyone doesn't want to be a Presbyterian. Makes sense to me! The questioner asked me to talk about what that means and why I think the Presbyterian version of faith ought to be attractive to others. Next week we'll talk about times when our faith changes relationships, and we'll finish the series (unless additional questions come in for August) with end time issues. It's been a fun series so far. I'm looking ahead to what the lectionary offers for late August and beyond, so I'll be back in my comfort zone before long. Hopefully, there is Gospel to proclaim in all of it. I'm sure someone will let me know.

Typist or Calligrapher?

I know almost nothing about music from India. But I heard an interview with someone who does on NPR this morning that included a statement I've thought about all day. Some Indian musician died recently (don't mean to be disrespectful--I told you I didn't know much about it), and the NPR piece was about him. Near the end of the piece, the narrator talked about the musician/teacher who had died. He told a tale of a time when the teacher had told a voice student that he his singing was way too much like typing--that he needed to learn to sing more like handwriting. Then this afternoon, Deanna was here at the church giving a piano lesson, and I heard her tell her student that it was time for her (an adult) to start feeling some of the music instead of just playing it from the page. I'm as suspicious of feeling in religion as a Presbyterian is supposed to be, but I do think there is something about the thinking of the NPR guy and Deanna the piano teacher that can be helpful to us. Paul talks about the Law being our guide while we need one. That doesn't mean we can abandon the Law, but I hope it mean we can eventually get to a point at which we're not so worried about dotting i's and crossing t's and can spend more of our time and energy listening for and responding to God's call. I offer neither my penmanship nor my practice of the faith as a model for others, but I do think we'd all be helped if we lived and believed more like handwriting than typewriters.

A New Understanding of Covenant

We're doing Vacation Bible School this week. Like most everything else about new church work, Vacation Bible School requires a lot of flexibility. This year we're focusing on the story of Joseph from the Book of Genesis, and our plan is to equip the kids to tell Joseph's story in music and drama at the end of the week. Our first exercise in flexibility came when we wound up with a bunch of preschool and elementary aged girls and one little boy. OK, so we won't be the first drama troupe to use females in male roles. The fact that music is not the primary gift of some of those little girls is something we figured we'd deal with. At the risk of sounding sexist, what they lack in musical ability, they more than compensate for in drama queen-ness! In the midst of music and drama, we're injecting a little Bible study (we're funny that way) into the schedule. Last night, we talked about covenant and how Joseph and his family were descendants of Abraham and, thus, in the same covenant relationship with God as Abraham and us. I thought covenant was one of those theological concepts I understood reasonably well. I studied under Hubert Morrow in seminary, so I have lived with covenant theology for years. His book, A Covenant of Grace, is just one reminder of what I learned from him. So for Bible study last night, I had made up a handout with a list of things in one column that God promises to do for us: to be our God, to love us, to forgive us, to be with us always...). Of course, each promise came with a citation from Scripture which we dutifully looked up and read. The other column of the handout had space for group members to write or draw something about promises they were ready to make to God. We talked about those promises. We prayed about those promises. We gave time for them to write or draw about their promises. Some were predictable given their ages: to pray, to come to church, to read the Bible, to be good to their siblings (unlike Joseph's slave-trading brothers), to be helpful at home. All good promises. One particularly precocious girl had another thought. After looking again at God's promises and considering hers, she said, "How 'bout if I just write, 'Right back atcha, God!'" I'm not sure what Dean Morrow might think about her covenant theology, but I think she's onto something.