Daniel Jepsen: A Season of Nothingness

Daniel blogs at Random Musing on Life, the Universe and Everything

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I will be doing nothing this fall.

 For three full months, I will have no deadlines, to-do lists, phone calls or emails to answer. Nothing. I will be hiking, praying, reading, and spending time with my family. And I will still receive my salary.

 How, you may ask, did I get so lucky? And, you may wonder, won’t I go insane with nothing to do?

 The answer to the first question is that my church has graciously decided to bless me, as their pastor, with a sabbatical. They have done this without my asking for it. I have served here over ten years now, and they feel I would benefit from a break. This is proactive, rather than reactive, on their part. I do not feel burnt out, but they desire to keep me far away from burning out. As another imonk author recently posted, pastors are often depressed and stressed in our culture, and my church does not want me to become statistic.

 The answer to the second question is, no, I don’t think I will go insane. It’s not like I will be locked up in a padded room. Rather, the first month I will be hiking and praying by myself in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and then will return to travel with my family, hike and pray some more, and then travel with my family again.

 So, in one sense, I will not be doing nothing. But according to the world’s judgment, my hiking, praying, reading and such are not productive, because they are not designed to “produce” anything. I am intentionally being non-productive for a season, like ground the farmer lets lie fallow. And this nothing is the most important thing I can do right now.

Continue reading “Daniel Jepsen: A Season of Nothingness”

The Giant David Could Not Kill

We heard earlier this week from guest poster Matthew Redmond on why he is not excited about church. Oh how I echo his feelings. I have been in church, involved in church, serving the church, working for the church, sweeping up after the church for going on 40 years now. I’ve been in the back-room meetings that dictate what happens on the stage. I’ve been in meetings that discuss how to market the product we were selling (the Sunday service) to attract more customers (tithing members).

I have worked with numerous motivational speakers who call themselves pastors, but who do all in their power to avoid ever having to even brush up against a sheep. I have seen lighting schemes in sanctuaries that put some Broadway theaters to shame. Video cameras TV stations would love to be able to afford. I’ve even known churches to rent those hideous spotlights that rotate on the night sky like the Bat Signal.

I go to a church that, for the most part, avoids being a full-blown circus. But even there I’m tired of singing the same emotionally-soaked songs week after week. I don’t need to watch movie clips during the sermon. And I really don’t need a comedian using the pulpit to try out his stand-up routine. Yet still I go—at least, most Sundays.

Continue reading “The Giant David Could Not Kill”

Another Look: The Art Of Doing Nothing

In light of what Chaplain Mike, et al, shared last week about slowing down, I thought we could take another look at this post from 2011. Or maybe it was just that this post talks of snow and it’s 105 here in Oklahoma right now. Or maybe the pictures from Calvin and Hobbes caught my eye. Whatever. Enjoy.

Ok, I suppose 25 inches of snow in a week’s time will get some to slow down. Here in Oklahoma, it will get us to burrow underground not to be awakened until springtime. (And spring in Oklahoma usually starts in about mid-February, so I suppose it will be a short nap.) I wish I could just take a snow day. But I have two big edit projects to be completed. And I am about a month behind in my emails. And the piles of papers and books I keep telling myself I will put away has grown to where the FAA wants me to light it for incoming flights.

Of course there is that little web site called InternetMonk. Not to say that this site takes much of my time, unless you count the fact that I am writing this at midnight after working on other stuff since early morning. Being busy just comes naturally to me, I guess.

And it’s that natural me that gets in the way of the me that God wants me to be. So what do I do? It goes against so much of how I have been raised—by my parents, by the church, by society—to do nothing. Or to even do very little. I have been brought up to believe I am to “do.” Do more, and do it more often.

And isn’t that how the Christian life is presented to us?

  • Get serious with the Lord.
  • Get out and win souls for the Lord.
  • Read your Bible and pray more than you already are, because it’s not enough.
  • Be at church whenever the doors are open.
  • Did I mention small groups?

And then there is Sunday, which we mistakenly call the Sabbath. Whatever it is, we make it the busiest day of the week.

Continue reading “Another Look: The Art Of Doing Nothing”

Summarizing the Gospel (in 7 words)

I saw this the other day and then noticed Scot McKnight had picked up on it on his blog also. Over at The Christian Century, David Heim reports on an invitation the publication gave to their authors. They asked them to come up with a concise summary of the Gospel message in seven words or less, and then to expand upon that in a few sentences.

So, for example, Martin Marty said,

God, through Jesus Christ, welcomes you anyhow.

The gospel begins and ends with God. Jesus makes God’s action good news. But the word “Jesus” alone doesn’t help me; such Jesus is a nice guy, but I need Jesus Christ, God’s anointed. God welcomes (or “accepts,” etc.) you. According to Luther, the words “for you” are the most important in the sacraments (and preaching). “Anyhow”–fill in sin, guilt, pride, the misfires of “spirituality”–implies that you weren’t welcome without this transaction, and that you bring nothing to it.

Then there’s Lammin Sanneh (BTW: I really like this one!):

God was in Christ reconciling the world.

By his atonement, Christ effected our reconciliation with God and invested in us–without counting the cost–so that we may become teeming vessels of witness and service to others. God was in Christ to show that the only acceptable offering we can give God is ourselves. And we give God only the life that is already God’s. Christ showed that self-giving is self-abnegation. In hymn writer Augustus Toplady’s words: “Nothing in my hands I bring/ Simply to the cross I cling.”

You can go to the article and get links to other authors’ and readers’ responses.

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Scot McKnight made these comments:

Not one apostolic sermon in the Book of Acts focuses on the gospel as God’s love for us in spite of who we are. Read the sermons in Acts 2, 3, 4, 10-11, 13, 14, and 17. The focus is on Jesus. The gospel is about Jesus.

The gospel in three words: Jesus is Lord (or King). Five words: Jesus is the expected Messiah (or King, or Lord). Seven words: Jesus is the expected King who redeems.

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My turn. Let me give you a list of twelve seven-word summaries I came up with:

  • Jesus is Israel’s Messiah. All are welcome.
  • Jesus is the Promised King. Repent! Believe!
  • Jesus died and lives again as King.
  • Jesus fulfilled the Scriptures. He is Lord.
  • Jesus has introduced a New Creation. Come!
  • Jesus invites everyone to enter his Kingdom.
  • Jesus the King brought grace and peace.
  • Jesus the King forgives, redeems, and recreates.
  • God sent Jesus to make everything new.
  • Jesus, Messiah of Israel, is everyone’s King.
  • God’s grace comes to everyone in Jesus.
  • God did what he promised, sending Jesus.

You’ll note several emphases that may be brought out in different ways:

  • Israel, Messiah, King, Lord
  • Fulfillment of the promises given in the First Testament
  • Purpose of his coming: new creation, grace and peace, forgiveness, redemption.
  • The response the King calls for: repentance, faith, coming to Jesus
  • Jesus came for everyone, not just Israel

If I could make the broadest possible seven-word summary, I would say:

The Gospel is the story of Jesus.

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Now it’s your turn.

Or, if you like, you could follow the lead of an article by Allen O’Brien and its comments: “What the Gospel is NOT, in seven words or less” and give us some seven-word descriptions of the false or inadequate “gospels” that you hear today.

Quotes from Some of Our Friends…

Tim Gombis shared a statement he heard about what it means to “grow in grace.” This is worth sharing again:

To grow in grace is to learn to love, to hope, to unify, and to trust, and no longer to separate, manipulate, manage, and control. 

It is to move from self-regard and self-protection to other-regard, growing in flexibility in relationships and in openness to others.

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John Frye is contributing a regular column about pastoral ministry at Jesus Creed called, “From the Shepherd’s Nook.” In a recent post, he reflected on the word “pastor” (shepherd) itself:

Here’s my hunch. I could be wrong. When we pick through the rubble of evangelical wrangling about the local church, we find a pearl of great price. Though the word “shepherd” is archaic in this digital age and the imagery very Ancient Near Eastern, not post-modern, still the word reveals energetic dimensions of the heart and actions of God for people that no other word carries. When I read the Gospels and I encounter Jesus the Pastor and when I study the Gospels as pastoral manuals (not just as preserved written strata from which to mine systematic Christology), God help me, I want to be a pastor. Pastor is such a beautiful word.

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Hey! This sounds familiar. I think Karen Spears Zacharias and your humble Chaplain must have been drinking the same water this past week. You go, girl!

Never in all of my borne days have I come to disdain an election season more than I do this one. I am sick-to-death of all of it.

I am sick of Obama.

I am sick of Mitt Romney.

I sleep through Biden’s speeches.

And I don’t even know who Paul Ryan is.

Mama asked me where he was from and I had to Google his bio.

I don’t believe a single word any of them say. Not. One. Single. Word.

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Ryan McLaughlin reminds us that not every important ministry calling is on the front line:

Lately, though, I’ve come to understand that not only is monasticism extremely pragmatic, it’s a vital calling for the life of the Church. Monks and nuns who are called to the contemplative life are devoted to prayer–prayer for the Church, prayer for the world, prayer for the souls in purgatory… and if we truly believe in the power of prayer, then I can’t think of anything that we as Christians on the front-lines of life need more than a squadron of ultra-committed prayer warriors to get our back.

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Finally, Justin Taylor marshals some magnificent quotes to encourage us against becoming preoccupied with introspection in our relationship with God. Here, for example is a wonderful passage from Robert Murray McCheyne:

Learn much of the Lord Jesus.

For every look at yourself take ten looks at Christ.

He is altogether lovely . . . .

Live much in the smiles of God.

Bask in his beams.

Feel his all-seeing eye settled on you in love.

And repose in his almighty arms.

Matthew B. Redmond: I Am Not Excited about Church, but…

Matthew blogs at Echoes and Stars.

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Where’d you get them scars?
How blue is your heart?
Is it sad enough to break?
She said, “It’s sad enough to break.”

– Brian Fallon

The two pastors of the church we have been attending, took me to lunch this past week. We talked about a lot of things – fantasy baseball, Presbytery meetings gone awry, bacon, and what was I thinking about the church.

I’ve known one of these pastors for 16 years. This was not an awkward conversation. I felt like I could be gut level with both of them. So, I told them what I was thinking.

We’ve been visiting since the beginning of summer. And to be honest, we’ve missed almost as many Sundays as we’ve made. It’s our first summer since Seminary where we have not “had” to be there. So, if someone in our family was feeling poorly or the Zoo beckoned, we might have skipped. And we went on vacation once.

Summer is also a time when other church members are not around and guest preachers show up. So I told them we were going to stay in visiting mode for a couple more months before pulling the trigger on anything like membership.

And then I told those two pastors some more.

On the way back from the beach a couple of weeks back, Bethany and I reckoned we had three choices in regards to church. We could stay where we are and join the church we have been visiting. We could go back to the church where we thought we would be forever and ever, amen. Or we could start visiting elsewhere.

We were not excited about any of those choices. And I told them this. Yes, those two pastors. Don’t worry, I explained. And they were nothing but understanding and gracious, modeling what they preach.

I cannot think of any scenario in which we would be excited about a church. This is no slight to any ecclesiastical body and I guess a shot across the bow of them all.

After all we’ve been through in the past few years of ministry, being excited about church is impossible. It’s not even on our radar. “Excitement” about joining, getting involved in a small group, giving money, and being expected to serve others in the context of a church might as well be a lottery for which we refuse to even buy a ticket.

And we are OK with that.

Even if we were not, we would not be able to muster the wherewithal to correct the course we are on.

I find myself not only weary but weary of the excitement people have for church. Or their church. Or THE church. (For the record, there are no advertisements for churches with congregants weeping, they all look excited. And pretty.)

Continue reading “Matthew B. Redmond: I Am Not Excited about Church, but…”

Water, Water Everywhere! The Lutheran Baptismal Liturgy

How can water do such great things?

Answer.
It is not the water indeed that does them, but the word of God which is in and with the water, and faith, which trusts such word of God in the water. For without the word of God the water is simple water and no baptism. But with the word of God it is a baptism, that is, a gracious water of life and a washing of regeneration in the Holy Ghost, as St. Paul says, Titus, chapter three: By the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our Savior, that, being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying.

– Luther, Small Catechism

I am not often a teary guy, but it seems my eyes get moist every time we have a baptism in our church. After years of serving in credo-baptist churches (though never completely persuaded to give up paedo-baptism), and focusing on baptism after conversion (we called it “believer’s baptism”), coming back to the simplicity of the Lutheran baptismal rite awakens a deep joy within me.

Here’s how we do it in our congregation:

The pastor stands at the font and the parents and family bring the child forward.

He addresses questions to them regarding specific responsibilities they have for helping their child grow in the Christian faith and life, which they answer, “With God’s help, we do.”

The pastor then addresses the congregation.

He asks first if we promise to support and pray for the child and his family.

He then calls us all to profess our faith together.

  • Together we renounce the devil and all the forces that deny God, the powers of this world that rebel against God, and the ways of sin that draw us from God.
  • We then say the Apostles’ Creed in three parts, confessing our faith in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

After the pastor greets us and calls us all to give thanks, he utters this prayer:

Holy God, mighty Lord, gracious Father: We give you thanks, for in the beginning your Spirit moved over the waters and you created heaven and earth. By the gift of water you nourish and sustain us and all living things.

By the waters of the flood you condemned the wicked and saved those whom you had chosen, Noah and his family. You led Israel by the pillar of cloud and fire through the sea, out of slavery into the freedom of the promised land. In the waters of the Jordan your Son was baptized by John and anointed with the Spirit. By the baptism of his own death and resurrection your beloved Son has set us free from the bondage to sin and death, and has opened the way to the joy and freedom of everlasting life. He made water a sign of the kingdom and of cleansing and rebirth. In obedience to his command, we make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Pour out your Holy Spirit, so that those who are here baptized may be given new life. Wash away the sin of all those who are cleansed by this water and bring them forth as inheritors of your glorious kingdom.

To you be given praise and honor and worship through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, now and forever. (from the Lutheran Book of Worship)

Water is then poured over the child’s head three times, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

A candle is given to one of the parents, who lights it from the Christ Candle. The pastor says, “Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Our pastor then takes the baby in his arms or takes the child by the hand and walks him/her up the center aisle, encouraging our church family to welcome our new brother or sister in Christ, which we do gladly with applause.

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I love all aspects of this service, but especially the pastor’s thanksgiving prayer, which shows how God has brought life and salvation to his people through water from the first page of the Bible.

Thanks be to God!

Lee Adams: A Dirt Road Defense of Infant Baptism

Lee blogs at Homilies, Prayers, and Bread for the Journey.

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August 23, 2012. This post is written in honor of my baby girls, Addie Lee and Reagan.  At ages 19 months and 10 weeks, respectively, they will both receive the sacrament of baptism this weekend at Gordon’s Chapel United Methodist Church.  The girls will be baptized from a font dedicated to the memory of J.A. and Annie Epps Stone, and will be amongst the fifth generation of  Stone descendants to be a part of this church community.  “Grandpa and Grandma Stone” were both in attendance at the first meeting of a community that became Gordon’s Chapel, held underneath a brush arbor in Sanford, GA.  Undoubtedly, they will also be present at the baptism of my girls, amongst the great cloud of witnesses that are watching as they participate in this first step of faith.

During my years of service in ministry in the evangelical world, I heard many criticisms of churches that were liturgical in nature.  As I’ve grown older (I won’t say more mature…just older),  I’ve come to realize that there’s tons of misunderstanding in the Protestant world about sacramental theology.  I might hear the theology and the frequency of use of the communion table criticized in evangelical circles from time to time, but the hot button topic always seems to be baptism.

Sacramental churches don’t always dunk (or immerse, for those of y’all who need to be more holy-soundin’).

Even worse…They baptize babies.

When I first journeyed outside of the Methodist church, the Baptist body I became a part insisted that my baptism in the UMC at age 11 wasn’t legitimate, because I hadn’t prayed “The Sinner’s Prayer”.  Once I was filled with a sufficient enough amount of doubt to pray that prayer,  I was then told that my method of baptism, sprinkling, was wrong in every way.

As an immature believer, I didn’t mind praying the prayer, even if it was only for my own assurance.  I resisted being re-baptized, though, until the time at which I discerned God’s call on my life for ordained ministry.  At that time, I submitted to my denominational leadership’s request that I be baptized via immersion.

I regretted my choice the moment I entered the water, and have ever since.  I understand the requirement that I adhere to denominational standards, but now I realize that those standards didn’t have a sound base.

Now, you won’t find any argument here that  “believer’s baptism”…baptism which occurs after someone does a profession of faith…is wrong.  My path was different, though.  I was a covenant child.  My parents had taught me about Christ from an early age, and I never remember a time in my life that I wasn’t aware of my sinful state, or that I didn’t realize that Christ had died for my sins.

If I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that not every Christian takes the same path to Christ.  It’s not so much the pathway to faith that matters, as long as the object of your faith is correct.  I’ve grown to believe that  infant baptism is a pure, true, and legitimate expression of what God is doing in a child’s life..  It doesn’t represent salvation, but it does represent the beginning of the work of the Holy Spirit in that individual.  Infant baptism isn’t about how we feel about God;  instead, it’s a rite of adoption, a reflection of the great affection God feels toward us.

Some time ago, I was blessed to hear Bishop Foley Beach of the Anglican Diocese of the South (ACNA) share his thoughts on infant baptism, and I will note that I borrow liberally from his teachings in my own ideas on the matter.  Below are a couple of reasons I believe that infant baptism is legitimate, interspersed with random commentary, and thoughts from that “great cloud of witnesses” I mentioned earlier.

Continue reading “Lee Adams: A Dirt Road Defense of Infant Baptism”

What Some of Our Friends Are Saying…

Note from CM: This will be a “Friend Week” at Internet Monk, featuring posts by some of our fellow travelers and recommendations about what a few of them are saying on their blogs.

Today we feature some excerpts from the Christian blogosphere that we like. You can read the full posts from which these snippets are taken by clicking on the title links.

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Father Ernesto Obregon at OrthoCuban: “On Desert Father Stories”

Desert Father stories tend to belong to a genre of literature called wisdom stories. The purpose of the stories does not tend to be doctrinal, though there are exceptions, but practical. They teach you how to live the Christian life, how to think and behave not only “Christianly” but in a generally ethical manner as well. Like many of Jesus’ parables, the stories of the Desert Fathers force you to think, to puzzle out, to wend your way through the story to get to the nugget of wisdom buried in there. In that sense, they teach you correct thinking patterns because only if your thinking pattern is correct can you find the nugget of wisdom buried there.

…Reading the Desert Fathers is a good antidote for us in our culture. We have intellectualized the faith to the point where the person with the best doctrine is somehow considered to be the closest to God. The Desert Fathers point out that the ones closest to God are those of a humble heart who obey Him. It is a lesson well worth learning. They would have welcomed the knowledge, but been horrified at the thought of someone with much knowledge and little practice, because inevitably that person would not truly understand, which means that he would not truly know as much as he thought he knew.

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Nadia Bolz-Weber at Sarcastic Lutheran: “Sermon about Mary Magdelen, the massacre in our town, and defiant alleluias”

The greatest spiritual practice is just showing up.

And in some ways Mary Magdalen is like, the patron saint of just showing up.

Because showing up means being present to what is real, what is actually happening.  She didn’t necessarily know what to say or what to do or even what to think….but none of that is nearly as important as the fact that she just showed up.  She showed up at the cross where her teacher Jesus became a victim of our violence and terror.  She looked on as the man who had set her free from her own darkness bore the evil and violence of the whole world upon himself and yet still she showed up.

I think St Mary Magdalen, were she your preacher, would be braver that I.  She would not shy away from the dark reality of innocent people slaughtered while it was still night.  She would show up and name the events of 2 days ago exactly what they were: horrific, evil, senseless violence without a shred of anything redemptive about it.

And I think that were Mary Magdalen here she would have very little tolerance for the platitudes and vapid optimism of so much overly-churched Christianity.  Those are simply luxuries of people who’ve never had demons.  But equally would she abohor nihilism or the idea that there is no real meaning in life – ideas present in so much of post-modernity…that too, is a luxury but it is one of those who have never been freed from demons.

I think she would show up and tell us that despite it all despite the violence and fear that it’s still always worth it to love God and to love people and always, always it is worth it to sing alleluia.  For surely the devil hates the sound of it.

Continue reading “What Some of Our Friends Are Saying…”

Psunday Psalms: Psalms 3-18

King David, Chagall

Psunday Psalms
Devotional Thoughts on the Psalms

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But You, O Lord, are a shield about me… (Ps. 3:4)

For you surely bless the righteous man, O Lord,
encompassing him with favor like a shield. (Ps. 5:13)

I look to God to shield me… (Ps. 7:11)

O Lord, my crag, my fortress, my rescuer,
my God, my rock in whom I seek refuge,
my shield, my mighty champion, my haven. (Ps. 18:2)

He is a shield to all who seek refuge in Him. (Ps. 18:30)

You have given me the shield of your protection. (Ps. 18:35)

* * *

The Book of Psalms is a five-part book:

  • Book I (1-41)
  • Book II (42-72)
  • Book III (73-89)
  • Book IV (90-106)
  • Book V (107-150)

Each book ends with a benediction (41:13, 72:18-20, 89:52, 106:48, 145:21), and the book as a whole ends with a group of praise songs (146-150). In general, the whole book moves from lament to praise. Edited and put together during and after the Exile, the Book of Psalms answers questions raised by this calamitous experience and encourages God’s scattered people to put their hope in his promises to David and his faithfulness to all generations.

We have looked at the two introductory psalms; now we move into Book I.

Continue reading “Psunday Psalms: Psalms 3-18”