A Forty Day Lenten Reading Plan

The season of Lent is a time of deepening our Christian discipleship.  If a Christian wishes to enhance the life of faith, one of the practices that we undertake must surely be reading our Bibles.  John Wesley called it "Searching the Scriptures."  We can crack our Bibles open randomly and read a couple of verses, to be sure.  But that hardly qualifies as "searching."  Searching implies intentionality.  It also strongly suggests an organized approach to the task.

For the season of Lent, our churches are offering a "Forty Day Lenten Reading Plan."  During this season, this resource directs us to daily readings from the Gospel of Matthew.  Over the course of these forty days, the Reading Plan will move us through the entire book in manageable increments.

Besides helping us read the entire gospel, as our congregations use this resource we will be entering into this discipline together.  There is power in understanding that, as we read a section of scripture on a given day, that our family, friends, neighbors and fellow church-members will be centering their thoughts on the same passage.

I hope that you will make use of this offering, and that it is a blessing for you.  The Reading Plan will be available in your worship bulletins on Ash Wednesday, on Sunday, February 26 and here.

I pray that this will be a blessing for us all.

The peace of the Lord be with you.

It means "to ascribe worth"

Back when I was in seminary – and admittedly, that was so long ago that everything was in Latin – the North American church in general and The United Methodist church in particular were entering a time of change in the way we approached worship.  The worship renewal movement was an exciting period in our history.  Names like James F. White, Lawrence Hull Stookey and the Dean of worship voices in the UMC Hoyt Hickman were all publishing prolifically and producing resources that helped to change our liturgical landscape.

 It was a time of the emergence of the Common Lectionary.  That document has gone through several revisions, but the root work remains the bedrock of much of our worship practice to this day. 

 In those post-Vatican II days we moved altars out from the wall of the sanctuary, had the presider stand behind the Communion Table and face the congregation in a gesture of inclusion. 

 The hodgepodge of worship elements that stood as “Suggested Orders of Worship” in our Hymnal and Book of Worship gained reconsideration.  The General Conference of the church announced plans for a new Hymnal in its 1988 session and a new Book of Worship at its 1992 gathering.  The church quickly produced both of these volumes soon after each received approval.

 I believed in those days that we were living on the cutting edge of a movement that would truly transform The United Methodist Church and the Body of Christ for years to come.  It was an exciting, exhilarating, wonderful time.  I couldn’t wait to see what was coming next.

 I’m still waiting.

 Somewhere around the turn of the millennium, someone stomped on the brakes.  There have been few significant books or resources regarding United Methodist Worship – or worship in general – that I have been able to find in a good many years.  We accept as a given that worship must fall into one of three categories: traditional, contemporary, or blended.  Let’s be clear, in the face of liturgical renewal, the latter two groupings are more performance-driven than participatory for the “person in the pew” (or the auditorium seat).  Contemporary worship tends to mean choruses that contain between seven and nine words repeated over and over and over…

Everyone wears jeans and golf shirts.  Coffee from the expresso bar sits in the hand of many of the worshipers. And there is lots – LOTS – of emphasis on “feelings.”  (And if I hear one more prayer that repeats the phrase “we just” more than twice in a given prayer, I may go screaming into the night.)

 Blended worship tends toward the contemporary format but without the jeans and the cappuccino.  It is neither fish nor fowl, and the format frequently changes from week to week.  I don’t see this as a bad thing inherently, but moving from empty fluff to another version of empty fluff doesn’t reflect a lot of power.

If you go to our denominational bookstore website (Cokesbury) and enter "worship" in the search the whole first page consists of bulletins, hymnals, candles, ashes and then finally a couple of different versions of our official Book of Worship.  There are a lot of reprints and re-hashes of books that originate in the last century and one (1) serious volume that has a publishing date within the last two years.

I am not a curmudgeon who has lived too long, sitting in the corner and grumbling about the good ol’ days.  And, I don’t pretend to have sat in every single sanctuary/worship space in the country in order to experience each congregation’s worship first-hand.  What I do lament is the loss of focus by our church.  I am not going to spend time on the things that currently confuse the UMC.  I’ll do that some other day.  What I do want to observe upon is that I believe that our confusion and our lack of emphasis on quality worship have their beginnings in similar points in time.  When we lost our worship vision, we lost our way.

 A lot of people, when speaking about the work of the church, are quick to quote our United Methodist Mission Statement: "The mission of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world." (⁋120, Book of Discipline) That is well and good.  That is our mission.  That is what we do.  But it does not say who we are.  We leave that task to the UMC’s Articles of Religion.  These Articles, which date back to John Wesley, include Article XIII — Of the Church

The visible church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men (sic) in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments duly administered according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.

Do you want to know who we say we are?  We are a worshiping community.  All that we are and all that we do grows out of our identity as worshipers of the One True God.  When we lose sight of this, when we cease to meditate and consider and debate and improve upon our worship lives, we quickly stagnate.  What follows is division, disruption and irrelevance. 

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of      his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they   covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to        another and said:

'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory!'

The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. And I said: ‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’

Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: ‘Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.’

-- Isaiah 6

I believe that is where we start.

The Reverend Autura Eason-Williams

 

The Reverend Autura Eason-Williams was murdered in the driveway of her home July 18 while attempting to prevent a car theft.  Autura was the Superintendent of the Metro District of the Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference of The United Methodist Church.  She was endorsed for the episcopacy by the former Memphis Conference in anticipation of the 2020 General Conference of The United Methodist Church.

She had a lot of church involvement at al levels of organization. She was effective in all that she undertook.  She was an asset to the UMC.

She was also my friend.  We had served together in a variety of settings at the district and conference level.  She was a supporter of the campus ministry in which I was involved for nine years.  And, she made me laugh.  She was quick to see the humor in things around her.  She never made sport of other people, but saw the amusement in a squeaky door or a balky piece of technology.

I am angry about the circumstances of her death.  I am angry that folks thought that her car was more valuable than her life.  I am inexpressibly angry that these cowards could obtain a handgun as easily as they could buy a soft drink.  I want to see them held accountable.  I don't seek vengeance.  But I don't want to see brutes walk away from such activity without having to face up to it.  I don't want to see them walk away from this without seeing the consequences of their criminality.

I was in a meeting Monday in which Autura was a Zoom participant.  We weren't able to do much more than greet one another.  The meeting was over at three.  A little after four, she was gone.  I am still numb from the shock.

Autura leaves behind a family, friends, a ministry and a community that desperately need her.  

"We grieve, but not as those who have no hope."                                                                                                              --  1 Thessalonians 4:13

Searching the scriptures

I have, for a long, long time now, participated in a weekly Bible study with other ministers with an aim toward enhancing our work as preachers.  I have been in groups that have met in various towns and in a number of churches.  In recent years I have been the convener of such a group.  We initially met in person, but of necessity moved to the Zoom platform, and that method of gathering continues to this day.

 The format of the various incarnations of this study has not varied much through the years.  We use the Revised Common Lectionary as a rule.  While we are open to studying any of the four lections before us, we usually gravitate toward the Gospel Lesson for the day.  We work a week out from our meeting day, so when we gather, we do not consider the readings for the upcoming Sunday, but rather we examine the lessons for the Sunday following.

 The intent is that we approach our designated reading “cold.”  This is the first reading of the text as we prepare to preach.  It is what Fred Craddock called “the first naïve encounter with the text.”  We ask questions, make speculations, and bounce ideas off one another.  I have found this practice to be tremendously helpful in preparing for my weekly journey into the pulpit.  More often than not, my sermon introduction grows out of this give-and-take with other pulpiteers.

 Sometimes, though, one (or more) of our participants will say something like, “Well, I was looking at this study Bible or that commentary, and this resource says…”  This always amuses me.  And I think it is representative not only of ministers, but of students of the Bible who function at any level of sophistication.

 What I mean by that is that frequently we hurry to sources, to “authorities” or “experts” and entreat them to tell us what the bible means.  We are timid in making our own approach.  If we pass the task of interpretation off to someone else, we never fully answer the question, “What does this reading say to me?”

 Now, don’t hear me saying that commentaries and lexicons and study Bibles and Bible atlases don’t have their place.  I would be lost without my books!  But I believe that pulling a volume off the shelf has its place in our process of “Searching the Scriptures.”  Do it too early, and the personal element gets lost.  Do it too late, and we can fall in love with our own impressions, even if they are at odds with the intent of the scriptures.

 When we engage the Bible for our own benefit and spiritual growth, I encourage everyone to read the selection.  Read it out loud.  Read it from more than one translation (and let me emphasize “translation” here).  Ask questions.  Go through the process of what I call “Slamming the doors and kicking the tires.”  This is the Word of God; it can stand up to that.  And it is not irreverent to say, “I am not sure about that!  But, how about…?  So, does that really mean that…?”  The closer we draw to the text the more it lives in us.  Then, if we wish to consult someone who has spent much more time than we in the examination of the text, we do not slavishly bend ourselves to the words of some published author.  Instead, we use that person’s expertise as another tool in our toolbox. 

 Then, THEN, we appropriate scriptural truth as our own.

Deep, deep space

 Photograph: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI

 

I am sure you have seen some of the publicity regarding the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).  NASA has just released the first batch of photos taken by the JWST and they are astounding.  Their clarity far outstrips anything we have seen before.  The above image is of a cluster of galaxies that number over a thousand.  

Just think, each one of these bright dots is a galaxy comparable to our own Milky Way.  Our galaxy itself contains one hundred billion (100,000,000!) stars.  The galaxies in the photo range in size from some systems that are enormous compared to our home star cluster.  Others are small in comparison.  But, each one is a complex system of stars, planets, comets, asteroids and all the other bodies that make up a galaxy.

This is just a small window into the depths of space.  It covers about 1.5 degrees of our overall view.  The objects in the photo average 4.6 billion light years removed from Earth.  If we could travel at the speed of light, it would take us over four and a half billion years to get there.

What an amazing image.

And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, ¹⁵and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.’ And it was so. God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.   -- Genesis 1:14-18

 

The Lord God made them all...
 

It is better t light a single candle

 No, I have not fallen off the planet.

Thanks for asking.

I haven’t posted on this blog since Lent. I wish I had a more interesting or urgent reason. But the truth of the matter is that it has been a matter of malaise. Pick a sphere of interest -- international news, domestic politics, state and local total absence of governmental leadership, the absolute abandonment of reason or decorum in the United Methodist Church at any level, the heat – it’s like doing the breaststroke in molasses. The word for the day on an ongoing basis seems to be, “Blah!”

Really articulate, huh?

One of my favorite cartoons from Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” has Charlie Brown approaching Linus at night. Linus is carrying a lone lighted candle. Charlie Brown asks, “What’s this?” Linus replies “I have heard that it is better t light a single candle than to curse the darkness.” As they depart, Charlie Brown remarks “That’s true…although there will always be those who will disagree with you.” Cut to the ever-crabby Lucy. “You stupid darkness!” She exclaims.

I have spent six-score weeks cursing the darkness. This is my feeble attempt to light a candle.

You see, I am an optimist by nature. That is not to say that I do not fall into deep gloom from time to time. But I eventually – eventually – shake it off and move on.

I am fond of Maltbie Davenport Babcock’s hymn, “This is My Father’s World.” The third stanza of that work begins,

This is my Father's world.
O let me ne'er forget
that though the wrong seems oft so strong,
God is the ruler yet.

So, trusting in that sentiment, today I put match to candle.

And try to swim against a tide of molasses.

A different way of getting ready for Easter

 The emphases of a season like Lent naturally change over time.   Practices come and go.  Traditions evolve due to necessity or convenience.  Lent as we know it is in some ways very different from the way in which the church ordered its practice in times past.

One of elements for this season in the early church was that it took the days of Lent to give “final instructions” to those who were in the process of becoming full members of the church.  The church called these learners catechumens.  These inquirers underwent a three-year instructional period in preparation for becoming a part of the fellowship.  In Lent those who were nearing the end of their training would enter a time of intense concluding instruction.  Then during the triduum – the last hours of Lent, beginning the evening of Maundy Thursday and lasting until sunrise on Easter Sunday – the church would teach these people elements like The Lord’s Prayer and an affirmation of faith like The Apostles’ Creed.  They kept vigil all during this time.   (If the catechumen fell asleep at any point during these hours, they were welcome to begin another three-year instruction and undergo all the process again.)

On Easter morning the church baptized these folks and welcomed them to their first Holy Communion.  At this point the church counted them as full members of the fellowship. 

For individuals who were not full members of the church, they participated in the first part of a worship service.  They joined in some of the prayers and sang hymns.  But the church dismissed them (to a time of sharing preparatory information) before the church joined in scripture and Eucharist.  Imagine going through a three-year process to join the church when seekers had never been a part of the principal worship activity of the group.  And yet, the church flourished.

It is cause for some lamentation that in our day many churches welcome new members who present themselves on the spot.  There is no preparation, no instruction at all.  I have seen people who have hardly ever been inside a church building before in their lives come to the chancel at the conclusion of a worship service.  They declare that they “have been saved.”  At that point the enthusiastic clergy baptizes and confirms them on the spot.  I am sad to say that the vast majority of these instantly-received people fall away from the church within a year.

The wisdom of the ages had a procedure and it served the church well.  Three years may be a bit much in the modern day.  Offering a sixty-hour vigil to potential twenty-first century seekers might not be a strong selling point.  But a real sense of intentionality might help cement the bond between seeker and church.  It might also help eliminate the “anything goes” attitude that emerges in church folk from time to time.  Adding more time is not the answer.  Including more substance might make the difference.