Advent: A sermon from Deo Lutheran Church - December 1 2013

October 31
the evening shift starts ---and there she is pushing carts
of orange and black boxes of toothless pumpkin chocolates
from the floor of the seasonal section
to the checkout corridor
half price but still high margin
they should go quick anyway
to bargain shoppers and the trunk of her car because
When she comes back tomorrow morning   
            for her split shift
she’ll buy some for her son who can’t go out tonight because she’s here instead of there.
First morning break she’s ringing up these choices –
     these affordable extravagances
     and she puts them in a plastic bag with her receipt of course and ties a knot
     and sets them on a shelf beneath the till.
And then she gathers the remains: ten more boxes of her favorites
And fifteen of her son's and wheels them out to the back of the store
over to the chute of the trash compactor where she solemnly drops them in one by one.
       
Then it’s off to the loading dock and she comes back with a pallet jack
and a wrapped pallet of chocolates that are virtually the same
just the designs of the boxes have changed.  
Their orange and black exchanged for red and green
and the seasonal shelves she stacks high with
trees and elves and candy canes
as over Muzak Christmas bells
ring out their urgent song:

“Prepare the way of the Lord.”
 

    
The shoppers scoff at her growing display
It’s only November 1st she hears them say
then “Oh, these are really nice” to ornaments and lights inspected
by number 81 –
before a half-world trip on a container ship that a gantry crane would then unload
so by rail and by road these hollow things could find their way
To a beige steel shelf where they’d be sold for $1.99

And spend two months as decoration gaining nods of appreciation at holiday bashes held by fine hosts in those suburban homes
Then two thousand years to shine and glitter buried with the rotting trash,
To endless nods of appreciation from the donkey pumps working through the winter in the manger of the nation.
       
                           
A surprise visitor – in the fire lane: a BMW. It’s the owner.  She sees him hurry down the aisle and forces a narrow smile as he passes while she works faster.
He doesn’t stop to speak to her.  At this she is relieved. 

"Why wasn’t this done last night” - she overhears her supervisor get an earful.
 "The season starts November 1st this year. You know that.  It was in the memo.  In the back - there’s product piling up and every second it stays there is a sin – Now hear me.  You will move more this year than you did last year.  Or rest assured, there will be a reckoning.

The supervisor emerges, wide eyed and tearful.  “You heard that, right?” and lets out a deep shudder as she pulls out her box cutter and works to break down boxes for the seasonal aisle, those red and green chocolates.  Those golden animals - the reindeer that look treacherously like rabbits. And thirty trays of painted plastic things that hang on twisted silver strings.

So that she can be ready for her reckoning when the world’s self-selected Lord returns.

Four weeks later, it is midnight and the three wise men are camping underneath the star.  Two nights have they spent shivering in spite of their North Face parkas and long underwear bought solely for this occasion, as they sit passing a flask between laps of the guard keeping watch over the store by night.

Yesterday they laughed with eagerness and anticipation.  But tonight it is cold and they talk very little except when he needs to confirm that the others will keep vigil over his place when he paces back to the car to see if his phone is finished charging. 
   
Or head under the overpass down to the gas station where he lingers a little long at the magazine rack, at long last finally giving thanks on this day for the warmth in that place and for the fact that at least he had missed the awkward family feast. So that for two nights the three of them might lay reverent on that most sacred square of concrete spotted black with discarded gum. 

Their devotion has bought them a place at the front of the line on good Friday morning.

The line grows long and morning sees a throng of pilgrims shiver, pacing in the cold.  They are festive now, more wide awake than any other day this early in the morning, and eagerly they contemplate tossing down their plastic offerings, planning their route through the stations of the cross knowing

        that there will be no time for thinking once the crowd starts going.
        And no Simon to call for those who might fall
        on this here Via Dolorsa.
       
The chant of loyalty resounding
The acolytes brace in their battlestations, as the high priest at last intones
“Lift up your heads, you gates! Be lifted up, you everlasting doors, that the King of glory may come in”


The wise men see the key-man moving and silently rise along with their pulses in their starting blocks outside on the sidewalk as their minds begin to whir.  “Steady men, clear your eyes and stay awake, for this our advent now begins.”  The key-man nears, the pilgrims roar- the wise men’s gaze fixed through the door on bins stacked high with discount piles of Gold and Frankincense and Myrrh.

  
   
Ten blocks north the day is dawning, traffic dwindling, chaos ending
unlikely autumn sun projecting colors on the chancel floor.
Ancient carpet worn and tearing, nevertheless proudly wearing a story from the faith that had been practiced there some time before.

A tree stands dry, in need of water.  The church is empty as the vicar has returned to selling real estate, a victim of reduced demand for the most holy Gospel.  Some grey-haired saints sometimes appear to keep the dust and cobwebs clear and sometimes even bend to pray and tend the sacred fire of the apostles.

The shaft of light shifts
with the turning of the earth, itself so tired, and yearning for God’s Spirit to deliver.
The long dry font begins to brim with azure light cast by the windows’ scene of John the Baptist calling for repentance at the Jordan river.

A warm draft stirs the air and though the table’s bare, the rainbow dust-motes gleam as if they can remember.  The means of grace once given in this place.  And words that filled the seats from January to December.

The remnant longs for the time that Friday morning’s throngs would come automatically each Sunday sharp of shoe and white of collar.   And many who remain deceive themselves as they would claim that they indeed are pure and free of worship of the dollar. 

For just as Friday’s horde defames the coming of the Lord, the church itself has often been quite shameless.  To stand in judgement or in fear or to suppose that standing here gives one the right to brag that one is blameless.

A beautiful and lovely box, this empty church that sits 10 blocks away from all the blasphemous commotion. 
Its advent mission once seemed clear. 
    It was to bring the people here.
        But now it seems God has another urgent notion.

We know not the day or hour of his coming with great power. 
    Of that the texts are very clear and plain. 
    Nor do we  know which way his Spirit drives his church to go
    although we seek to learn from Jesus God’s intentions’ once again.

This advent fire which hangs once more over our heads
    is not intended merely as a pleasant or a peaceful decoration.
It is the fire we burn that we might stay awake
    that we might witness God bring forth the new creation.

It is none other than the fire God lit at Pentecost -
    a fire brought forth by power of God’s Spirit.

A light God shines through all who once were lost,
    and a heat that cannot help but thaw all who are near it.

A meditation on the contents of the closet in the church basement

When my grandmother died, it was my uncle who was tasked with sorting through her tiny care-home apartment.  "You'll never believe what I found in there," he laughed.  "In the back of one of her closets I found a whole box of carefully ironed and stacked lace doilies..." He paused and his smile widened. "...and under that box? Two more boxes of doilies.  She probably had a hundred of them!"  My uncle and my father then had an argument about who these doilies were going to belong to now.    I recall it being rather brief.  "You take them."  "No, you found them, they're yours!"

I don't know why Grandma had held on to those boxes of doilies for as long as she did. She'd moved twice in years prior, and had downsized significantly both times.  Did she keep them for purely sentimental reasons?  Had they meant something to someone before her?  Did she hold on to them simply because they were in good shape and she was ashamed to throw them out?  Or had she forgotten she had them altogether?

Virtually every church has at least one closet, cabinet, or bookshelf that contains items that belong to the same category as my grandmother's doily collection - things that are in decent shape, things that technically still work, but which haven't been touched in years or decades because they have become unnecessary and/or obsolete.

A rack of choir gowns, a box of filmstrips, a carousel of slides, an overhead projector.  A platoon of cracked faux-leather Bibles in archaic translations. VHS tapes with yellowing labels.  Dusty banners.  40 year old children's books.  Pastel-colored devotional books for teens - published back when I was a teen myself.  A manual typewriter.  Long forgotten props and decorations from Sunday School pageants past. Picture frames containing exceedingly predictable religious artwork.

Once in a while I will find something that is truly fascinating and delightful because of its age, like the time I found a 50 year old box of spiral paper drinking straws in the Sunday school supply cabinet.   Other times I have enjoyed these items because of the sheer horror that they evoke today.  Etiquette manuals for Christian women written in the 1950's are an excellent reminder of how much our culture has changed since then - and how vast the divide must be between the eldest in the church community and the young people that every church says it would very much like to reach.

The church would do well to pay attention to the contents of its closets.   It would do especially well to reflect seriously and honestly about the reasons why it holds on to all these things.   I suspect such reflection would enable the church to draw valuable conclusions about why it is struggling in many sectors to live out the mission given to it by God.

The church should also pay close attention to the items it displays in public areas, as these instantly and powerfully communicate the values of a community - both what it is devoted to, and what it has let slide. Most of our churches are long overdue for a thorough psychological and physical housecleaning.   Great treasures are waiting to be rediscovered under decades of cultural detritus and inattention.  

It is time for our greying congregations to begin to separate the real treasure from the accumulated junk.  If present trends hold it will not be long before someone sorts through our church buildings as my uncle sorted through my grandmother's apartment. These people will not understand our vague and sentimental attachments to these objects or cultural practices. The white doilies and other anachronisms will be discarded with something closer to glee than guilt.

It is therefore extremely important that the church's most ancient and precious heirlooms, the Gospel and the Sacraments, passed down through a hundred generations of hard-fought faithfulness, be clearly and obviously marked so that they are not lost or discarded along with the rest of the adiaphora in the junk pile of Christendom.

Why the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada could really benefit from a new name

 At least once a month I pick up the phone at the church office and the person on the other end says, "Hi, is this the Dee Eee Oh Lutheran Church?" I try to be polite.   I say, "Yes, this is Deo Lutheran church, Pastor Erik speaking."  "Oh, Day-o Lutheran?  Like the banana boat song?" I swear, someday when I've had too much caffeine I will snap back -  "No, Deo Lutheran, like the dative case of the Latin word meaning "to or towards God", as in "Gloria in Excelsis Deo".  I will undoubtedly regret this exceedingly geeky outburst when it finally happens.

The bulk mailings that we receive at the church also underscore that the second part of my church's name is a problem.  I've seen many creative spellings.  Luthern.  Luthrin. Lutheron.   But I graciously forgive these spelling mistakes, even though I was a city champion speller back in grade five (3rd and 4th place, b**ches).  I forgive partly because it is part of my job description to forgive, and partly because there is forensic evidence that the awesome guy who made the main sign out in front of my church building must have sinned LOUDLY when he realized there was no "O" in Lutheran after he had already finished carving all the letters on both sides of the 8'X4' cedar sign.

There is no "O" in Lutheran.

The word "church" in the name isn't without significant challenges either -- but let's save that for a different rant, because I've got another confession I want to make today.

Straight up: I am embarrassed by the name of my denomination.  I am grateful that my denomination's name was way too long to fit on our road sign, and that the acronym initialism "ELCIC" is all that appears there.  Because if our sign maker had had the space, I'd be be forced to explain to passers-by what the HECK the word "Evangelical" is doing there, assuming they hadn't already run away screaming with their hair on fire.

I'm tired of having to give a history lesson every time someone asks me "what does 'ELCIC' mean" in order to avoid losing people's respect the second I utter the word "Evangelical".   Yes, Martin Luther roundly hated the idea that the churches that had been cut off by corrupt mother Rome would be named after him.  He suggested "Evangelical" as a good name for the exiled church, after the greek word "evangelion" meaning "good news", and indeed, the church Luther instigated in Germany is presently called the Evangelische church.  The epithet "Lutheran" that was hurled by the enemies of Luther's movement in its early days was ultimately reappropriated by the church - it became an expression of intra-group siblinghood within the Lutheran subculture in a similar (but way less edgy) fashion to the way the "N-word" gained new usage in the late 20th century.  Hoping that the Lutherans would be motivated by their marginalized status to develop gangsta-hymnody or low-riding  liturgical wear?  Lutha' please!

What I'm trying to get at here is that the meanings of words do not remain static.  This is especially true in the case of words that are used as labels - there is constantly a tug-of-war being fought by people who wish to claim the right to apply them.  In the 16th century, "Lutheran" was a pejorative label, applied with the intent of convincing the reformers that they were foolish to hitch their wagon to an ass like Luther.   Today, it's a term that is spoken with (occasionally justified) pride.   In similar fashion, the "N-word" was a label used to shame and subdue a huge number of people.  Today, it is used by urban youth in a way that subverts the old meaning to such an extent that it is now self-applied by white kids.

As for this other label, "Evangelical" -- I'd argue that outside of academic cloisters and other circles of church geeks -- this word no longer means what it is supposed to mean.  When the general public hears the word "Evangelical", they do not associate it with the Good News that Jesus taught and for which Jesus died.  They are more likely to associate it primarily with the antics of the American Christian Right, whose message is often completely at odds with the Good News, and which seems to spray a new layer of skubala (Philippians 3:8) on the word "Evangelical" every time there is a Republican primary or American general election.    

The "Evangelical" brand name has been irreparably damaged by these associations.  Personally, I think it is time for our church to abandon this label altogether.  I'm also certain that there are many "Evangelicals" (in the new sense of the word) who would similarly be relieved to be no longer associated with us, due to our "liberal theology" that is so crass as to require that we work and advocate for the welfare of the "least of these who are members of [the Lord's] family" by any and all available means.

Let the others have the label.  It was getting awfully smelly anyway.

I leave it to someone else to choose an alternative label for us.  Any number of things could work - but my strong preference would be that it could be easily understood, pronounced, and spelled.  Otherwise, I don't think the label really matters, as long is it is not a barrier to our continuing to be an "Evangelical" church in the original sense of the word, ie. a community that is defined by, motivated by, and committed to the same Gospel that Jesus proclaimed in life, stuck with until death, and added a great many exclamation points to when he was resurrected.

The 20th century: a rift in the cultural continuum.

At its National Convention in July of 2011, the denomination I serve  was asked to consider a drastic restructuring plan. In (very) simplified terms, the plan was to close 40% of the regional offices that support our congregations and make the best of the ones we would have left.

In any other organization, this would be cause for great concern, yet our convention barely raised a collective eyebrow.  Everyone knew this was coming.  They knew it was coming because our church has been steadily and precipitously declining for a generation.  They also knew the reason:

Our church has largely failed to engage its own children and grandchildren.  


As one of those grandchildren who has been trained and ordained, and who presently has 4 years of ministry under his cincture, I feel that I have the responsibility to offer some thoughts and observations on behalf of "my people".

First: I need to make a confession.  Although my father is a Lutheran pastor, and I went to a Lutheran university, then a Lutheran seminary, and at 34, am as much a poster-boy for the ELCIC as anyone else is - the truth is, the church that raised me never quite felt like something that I could fully belong to.  My sense of non-belonging has not come from discomfort with our theology or our heritage. In fact, I'm extremely grateful for both of those things.  My sense of non-belonging also is not about the individual people in my congregation.  They are wonderful, welcoming, faithful, and kind and yes, I'd say this even if I wasn't afraid of offending them with this post.

The reason I barely feel I belong in this church is because the culture of the church is that of my grandparents and (to a lesser degree) my parents.  And their culture is completely different from that of my generation.

Prior to the 20th century, it was unimaginable for a child to have a different culture from their grandparents.  Yes, the generations pecked at one another as children sought to differentiate themselves from their elders, but the variations were still well within the scope of a single unified culture. 

When the 20th century hit that world, it hit like a tsunami -- everything changed and it changed fast.  Consider that:

• At the beginning of the 20th century, most people in the world made their homes in rural settings.  As of 2008, for the first time in all of human history, most people in the world live in cities.
• In the early 20th century, it was rare for women in North America to work outside the home.  Today, it is rarer for them not to do so.
• In the early 20th century, short of sending a very expensive telegram, the only way to send a message across the ocean was by mail, which took weeks if not months to arrive. Today that same message takes milliseconds and costs virtually nothing.
• Prior to the Wright Brothers' flight in 1903, it was assumed that heavier than air human flight was essentially impossible.  A mere 66 years later, Apollo 11 would bring pieces of wood and fabric from the Wright Brothers' Flyer with them as they landed on the surface of the moon in their 16 ton spacecraft.  Commercial air travel, unimaginable in 1900, has become beyond commonplace.  At any given moment 250,000 human beings are cruising overhead.
• Computers, once rare beasts the size of buildings and requiring brilliant engineers to run them, are now several orders of magnitude smaller, cheaper, more powerful, and easier to use.  Fisher Price now makes a baby-proof case for smartphones so that children as young as six months of age can use them.

Most of the people in my congregation are old enough to remember the world as it existed before it was hit by this tsunami of technological and cultural change.  They were formed and shaped in a different world with different norms and opportunities.  They are committed to this culture in the same way an adult child remains committed to their parents.  It's hard to find any fault in this instinct.  It seems like the most natural thing in the world to me.

But here's the thing...

I was born after a great many of these changes were already well entrenched.  I was born into a different culture, one defined not by homogeneity and stability, but by diversity and constant change.  I don't have any memory at all of life on a farm.  I have no experience of war (unless you count the kind fought with an XBOX controller in hand). The social circles that one belonged to when I was in junior high school were far more likely to be determined by the music we listened to or the brands we wore than the colour of our skin or our country of origin.   At least 5 languages were spoken in the halls of the high school from which I graduated.  At the small Lutheran university I attended, I had the privilege of having 4 different friends (all exceptionally wonderful people) confide in me that they were gay, and I'm certain that there were others I didn't know about.

It was a rich and complex environment in which to grow up, and the cultures that emerged in that environment were nuanced and diverse.  My generational cohort came by its culture naturally; I do not recall any point at which we all agreed to jettison our grandparents' culture so that we could adopt a newer and better one.   But both for better and for worse, our culture is definitely different from that of our grandparents.  And it's going to stay that way.
  

The reason why the church is in such a slump compared to the way it was 60 years ago is because there is a huge cultural rift between people who were formed by the culture of the pre-20th century world, and those who are too young to have had any direct experience of that world.  Had these two groups sought common ground rather than wage war with one another, the church might be in a very different position today.   Today, the victors of the worship wars of the 1980's and 1990's are sitting in their shrinking churches wondering where all the young people are. Far too many congregations will soon go to their graves believing that they have been fighting to uphold the sanctity of their faith, when in reality, many of them were not fighting for faith at all -- rather, they were fighting to preserve the monolithic culture of their youth.

This is a shame. 

Christianity is not now, nor has it ever been a faith that is welded to any particular culture.  In his ministry, Jesus was constantly crossing cultural boundaries and transgressing cultural norms so that God's purpose could be fulfilled.  This is a tremendously important part of the good news of who Jesus is.   Similarly, the apostle Paul was far more dedicated to the content of his proclamation than the package in which it was delivered.  He was well aware that getting through to people living in different cultures would require different tactics, and he adjusted his presentation accordingly.   Paul describes this process in 1st Corinthians 9:20-23: 

To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God's law but am under Christ's law) so that I might win those outside the law.  To the weak I became weak, so that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.  I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.

 All of my grandparents are now dead. Their culture will soon be extinct. In order for my grandparents' faith to continue to bring new life to a radically different context, my church needs to stop behaving as if Christian faith and my grandparents' culture were a single, inseparable entity.  It needs to learn from Jesus and Paul how to circumvent barriers and traverse rifts for the sake of the Gospel.  Moreover, this must not be done grudgingly or seen as a compromise made so that the church can merely survive in a diminished form.  Rather, it must be understood as an expression of profound faithfulness and commitment to the calling that the church has been given in every time, every place, and every culture - to convey the Good News by any and all means necessary and in so doing, to share in the Gospel's blessings.

First post, wherein I talk myself into starting a blog

A special welcome to irate parishioners, future call committees, and anyone else who has accidentally stumbled across my little blog here.

When I first arrived in my present congregation in 2007 they didn't even have a computer in the office.  We've come a long way since then.   In 2009 we launched our church website (deolutheran.org) as a way of offering some basic information to people in our community who (let's face it) generally know very little about Christianity.  I've been posting recordings of my sermons there for almost 3 years now.  Last year I finally was persuaded to start with the social media thing -- and have since become adept at reflecting other people's brilliance on our facebook page (facebook.com/deolutheran). Resistance was futile.

While these were both good steps, no church is fully geeked out until its pastor has a blog.  So here goes.   Truth be told I'm a little reluctant to do this, mostly because I spend a lot of time and effort each week writing sermons, and once they are done, the last thing I typically want to do is more writing. I'd much rather be soldering on one of my electronic abominations or learning  a new programming language.  These realities, combined with my hereditary aversion to any more public attention than is absolutely necessary, could easily conspire to block me from putting my thoughts out on display like this...

...but two ideas have emboldened me to publish this blog and (shudder) do so using my real name.

1. That I might potentially have something to say that would be of use to others. (I leave it to the reader to decide whether this is true or not.  It may well be that the reason my ancestors learned to keep a low profile was that they were raging narcissists with little to contribute to society)
2. That unless I accidentally post things that are true enough to make people angry, it is very unlikely that anyone will ever read any of what I post anyway.

So I'm making no promises at the moment.  I may end up being lazy and re-purposing some of my sermons and passing them off as blog posts. Or I might fire a genuine rant off into the ether from time to time.  Hopefully this blog will be read by people other than parishioners hunting heresy or future call committees trying to decide whether to bring me in for an interview.  But if not - screw it.  I am as much a sinner as the next guy -- and anyone who thinks it ought to be otherwise probably doesn't know jack about Lutheranism anyway.