Calvin Institute for Worship

This weekend I'll be attending the Calvin Institute for Worship Symposium in Grand Rapids, MI with my mom, a fellow worship renewal enthusiast.  If you are interested, I'll be posting some daily highlights and pictures as a way of journaling for myself and the Columbia Theological Seminary community.   

You can also experience the worship first hand by watching some of the services on live streaming(click here).  This is one of the joys of us living in a technological world.  Here we are, going to an international conference with 1400 people from all over the world and our worship services will be broadcast all around the world.  

 Over the course of the next three days we will have a "feast" of eight worship services, fellowship with people from over 40 countries and representing a diverse array of denominations, attend seminars focusing on preaching and worship renewal, and discover new ways to look at worship and particularly the letter to the Philippians, all while trudging through snow with the promise of enjoying the Hotel's waterpark at the end of the day;)(Oh, the glories of the Northern Midwest!)  Other than that, I'm not sure what to expect, so stay tuned!

iHope?

Disclaimer: This blog has never been overtly religious, with a point to include my friends who are not Christians.  Although, I've taken a more religious front lately, I still feel like I'm simply commenting on culture in general and I hope that you will continue to enjoy this blog with reflection on your own religious affiliation.

This morning I read an incredibly intriguing article which applauds and critiques Steve Job's insistence on providing technological hope despite the struggling economy and even in the midst of human falleness, flaunting the bitten apple as a logo(something which had never even occurred to me).

"But the genius of Steve Jobs has been to persuade us, at least for a little while, that cold comfort is enough. The world—at least the part of the world in our laptop bags and our pockets, the devices that display our unique lives to others and reflect them to ourselves—will get better. This is the sense in which the tired old cliché of "the Apple faithful" and the "cult of the Mac" is true. It is a religion of hope in a hopeless world, hope that your ordinary and mortal life can be elegant and meaningful, even if it will soon be dated, dusty, and discarded like a 2001 iPod." Andy Crouch at Christianity Today, "The Gospel of Steve Jobs"

I have to admit, that even though I refuse to think that my iphone gives me "hope", it does make me feel like I have a grasp on my existence(my calendar and email), connection to my family and any information in the palm of my hand.  Andy goes on to say, "A friend of mine says that human beings can live for forty days without food, four days without water, and four minutes without air. But we cannot live for four seconds without hope." Ironically, how long can we live without our devices?  What senses of false securities do we allow ourselves to take out of our laptops and smart-phones?  When was the last time we took comfort in knowing that God has control over our calenders and connects us with others?  When was the last time we hoped in God's promise to save us from a fallen world?  When was the last time we rested in the knowledge that God continues to reveal that which we could never find on the internet or in our email?  

Picture: my iphone placed on my snuggie, another one of my cherished false comforts.  Yes, a snuggie is merely a backwards robe, but when I wear this one, I feel like a snuggly little kitten. 

Science Fiction as a tool for social justice

I love sci-fi and today as I was reading a book for class, I began to realize why I like some sci-fi films and abhor others.  Parker Palmer referred to one of humanities deepest fears as "having a live encounter with alien 'otherness'."  The other authors reflected on how some films encourage this fear of otherness, like Alien and Independence Day, while other films encourage playful and transformational encounters with alien-like beings, like Star Wars, ET and I would also suggest Battlestar Gallactica(my favorite sci-fi series:).  I think this would even shed some light onto the culture of the "Con" community(those who attend events such as Dragoncon and Comicon, etc.), which find a home in the freedom to express yourself in a diversity of ways and play with different roles in a world which exists within our own.   I just had to giggle at the complexity of how this approach to sci-fi seeks to destabilize the norms in our society of what it means to be human.  Do we fight against that which is alien to us? Or will we seek to discover each other's gifts and live together in community?  Thought for the day...

Why I love Jesus

Read this paragraph this morning in a book of Prayers for the Common Good, ed. By A Jean Lesher.  THIS is why I love Jesus, put to prose.  The passage focuses on gender, but I think it applies to all of humanity.  Jesus treats us like no other and helps us to find who we are without making us become someone else.  We don't forget ourselves as we follow Jesus, we remember our true selves, who we were created and formed to be. 

"Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross.  They had never known a man like this Man--there never has been such another.  A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronized; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them either as 'The women, God help us!' or  'The ladies, God bless them!'; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unselfconscious.  There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words and deed of Jesus that there was anything "funny" about woman's nature.

But we might easily deduce it from His contemporaries, and from His prophets before Him, and from His Church to this day…"

--Dorothy Sayers, 1890-1957

Mercy in the Flesh

Tonight I saw justice in the flesh and felt the streams of mercy flowing over and rushing up inside of me.  I went to visit Mercy Church in downtown Atlanta.  It's a community church of people varied in culture, social status and even faith.  They come together as family at this church.  For them being together is worship.  I spoke with a blind Jewish man about justice and faith, and he told me that at Mercy he experienced Christ's love.  He said he didn't believe Jesus was God, but he believes in what Jesus said about grace and love for our neighbors.  When I looked around everyone's gifts were being shared.  I thought I was coming to feed the homeless.  But here at Mercy, everyone comes to give and receive.  The joy is immeasurable in that place.  I watched one woman teaching another how to crochet in circles(I was mystified by the way).  I saw another man offer a gift to one of the volunteers.  He had found this Christmas ornament in a box laying by the side of the road.  He held onto it for a few weeks waiting for someone to give it to.  Tonight, he gave it to this friend.   The gift wasn't offered as repayment for anything, just as a sign to say, "I value you." 

I have grown to hate the power imbalances involved with many social programs where one group is always giving and the other group is always receiving.  It merely reinforces the gaps between those with power and those without power.  This church empowers the homeless as moral agents as they care for one another. I went expecting to serve soup, but instead I was served alongside others. Everyone had their role: washing dishes, singing, serving soup, or just being there.  The only sense of status is found in our common identity as children of God. One guy makes the coffee every time the church is open(he's done this since they started the church) and he made sure to find me a clean mug so I could try it. Nice and strong like I like it.  Strong like the rush of joy I still feel in my blood, just from being with these people and seeing mercy in the flesh.  And I got all this from just hanging out there...didn't get to experience the actual worship service.  They invited me for Sunday's service, and I can't wait!

Beginning Again

Over the last few years, I've tried different formats and attempted to start other blogs. Lately I've been looking back over this blog and wanting to get back to my favorite time in blogging. It occurred to me that I still feel like I'm constantly encountering other cultures and new places, just like when I was traveling in Europe. So, the Blog has gone from Expedition English Camp, to Expedition Enigma: Trial by Seminary, and now will change to Expedition Life.

For it's in the everyday life that we encounter those sacred moments that turn our heads, make us think and change how we see the world.  When Moses walked past that burning bush it was probably the most normal day of his life.  Finally he had settled into a routine, taken on a normal existence, without worrying about political struggles or survival, just taking care of the sheep.  Then he took notice of a bush that was not so normal. When Moses took that step to notice the peculiarity of the bush that burned without getting burnt, he didn't know what he was getting into. He just saw something amazing and paused to see what he could learn from the tree. What if he had just gone on by? What if he had said, "Strange," and just kept tending the flock? What if I had just let the tree pass from my attention? Well, who's to say what God would have still used to deliver a message to us. And, yet, a life full of this kind of noticing the peculiar sacred moments, heightens our awareness to the voice of God and awakens us to the presence of God in our midst.

So join me in this journey, noticing life and taking notes on the peculiarities of ordinary life: Expedition LIFE

Exodus of the first year of Seminary

 

One more week to go for my first year of Seminary! It's been so exciting, full of inspiration, confusion, joy, disappointment, but most of all exegesis, the study of scripture. I spent a lot of time wrestling with scripture for each class and out-side of class,writing sermons and doing research. Each class has called us to look at te Bible in a new way, whether it means to look at the effect of literary form or the theology expressed by the scribe/author. One of our final assignments for my class on the book of Exodus seemed to sum up a bit of this experience for me. We were reflecting over how the content of the book changed for us over the course of the class. So, I'll leave you with the reflection followed by a summary of what the book is about. Have a great day!(Pictures are from a trip up Stone Mountain just outside of Atlanta.)

 

When I first approached this text in English, the story of Exodus seemed like a fairytale-like story telling of the mysterious God who wants to be in relationship with the people of Israel. After digging into the scriptures with the help of the Hebrew text and getting to fully know the record of the events that took place, the acts of the LORD became more real for me. As I now witnessed the striking visual images, I also felt and imagined how the Israelites experienced this interaction with the LORD not just through prayer and sermons, but through fire, water, and blood. The people act like children in their eagerness to be in relationship with God and their stubborn complaints when everything go their way. When I read about the Israelites complaining that they had no food or water in the desert at the same time they complain about the food they do have, I saw myself, complaining about what I did not have amidst the many blessings that God has given me, despite my circumstances. Often his people ignore the miracles that the LORD does for them, just in the way that we continually forget how impossible the many blessings in our lives would be without God. After thoroughly going through the text, I began to see how valuable this book could be for a people who had lost all hope and could not see the LORD in the world around them. The book of Exodus calls to us as well as the many generations that came before us and will come after us, to read and hear of the mighty acts of the LORD so that we will know the real existing and present LORD, obey the LORD’s commands, and come into relationship with the redeeming LORD our God.

The book of Exodus serves as a physical transport through time into the history and lives of the Israelites who were delivered out of slavery in Egypt. The narrative accounts of the events that took place between the land of Egypt and the community’s approach to the Promised Land pass down through the tradition of Israel and remind the people of the relationship that exists between their nation and the one true God, YHWH. Throughout the canon of the Hebrew Scriptures, prophets, psalmist and scribes describe YHWH as the one who brought the Israelites out of Egypt. Since the LORD forbids the people to create and worship graven images, the book of Exodus was forged so that the Israelites might have sensory images of the LORD and know Him through His acts of creation and blessing.
The LORD displays His physical power in the instantaneous creation of the plagues, clouds and fire, and judgment. When the LORD first appears to Moses, He provides not just a visual distraction to get Moses’ attention, but a bush that burns with fire, expelling heat and surely sounds of cracking (Exod 3: 2). This tactile and aural visual of fire appears even so much in a huge pillar of fire and cloud which protect the Israelites from the Egyptians (Exod. 14:20) and leads them through the desert by day and night (Exod: 13:21). From the stench of a bloody Nile (Exod 7:18) to the deathly hail falling from the sky and striking the land, people and livestock (Exod 9:19), the plagues against Egypt demonstrate God’s wrath with all five senses. Finally, when the people claim that they want to see God present in an image and they create a golden calf, their judgment comes not only in harsh words from Moses, but it also comes in the blow of a sword from their fellow Hebrews(Exod 32:27) and a plague of illness from the LORD their God(Exod 32:35). The people cannot say that they have never seen the works of God.
Nevertheless the Israelites doubt the power of the Lord throughout the story, amidst the ever present signs that the LORD continually plans for the blessing of His people. When their cry rose up to God as they were slaves (Exod 2:23), the LORD provided a living soul, Moses, to come and lead them out of Egypt. When the LORD provides water in the desert, he does not just provide water out of the blue, but instead He orders Moses to strike a rock creating a visual, aural and tactile experience of God’s providence(Exod: 17:6). When they officially commit to a relationship with the LORD, Moses dashed the blood of the covenant over the people, so that they heard and felt it hit themselves and their neighbors, seeing and smelling the evidences of their agreement(Exod 24:8). Moses brings the laws to the people not just in speech but also carved onto tablets by the very finger of the LORD (Exod 31:18). Almost in response to the people’s ever present need for a physical presence of God that they can see and take with them, the LORD gives Moses the plans for the construction of the Tabernacle, which provides a mobile place for the LORD to dwell and be ever present with the people. The Lord provides for the people to construct the Tabernacle with their own bare hands and gifted talents (Exod 36:13).
Although these people never make it to the Promised Land, they fully experienced the acts and the presence of God. God was not just something they heard about from their leaders, but someone who took vivid action in the presence of their enemies and in their needs for physical nourishment. God was not just some mysterious god who controlled the weather and their luck, but someone who provided sudden destruction, sudden gifts, and drastic miracles for redemption. The generations that followed may have felt like God abandoned them, but the book of Exodus reminds them that the LORD exists and plans for the blessing of His people and not their destruction.