So that nothing may be lost....

7/29

the Chapel

It's summer. So worship at Good Shepherd faith will be in the air conditioned chapel. As I arrive, my friend John and two other volunteer choir members are rehearsing harmonies for an anthem. As part of their summer tradition, the hymns will be "congregational favorites." After the reading of the gospel, John 6: 1-21, I share my reflection, or "prompting" as they call it here. 

It's funny how certain Bible passages bring memories. This gospel passage, for example, always takes me back to my senior year of Divinity  School. I was part of a special urban ministry project. There were 12 of us. Each of us had to have a minimum 12 hour a week job in an urban church. Because there was no Presbyterian Church in downtown New Haven I was assigned to St Paul's Episcopal Church in the Wooster Square neighborhood. An historic WASP neighborhood had a wave of Italians...and thus the claim to the first pizza parlor in the US...followed by African Americans and then Puerto Ricans. The congregation reflected all those changes. 

We would meet every Monday for four hours. There would be a paper presented on a selected reading. Then a case study from one of our placements. Then group process and finally worship. We would pray for each other and then share Eucharist from our own tradition. And afterwords, one of our co-leaders, Michael Allen (who actually was caricatured in Doonesbury) would say, "Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost." And we would share the leftover communion bread until all was gone.

That  class set me on a course for urban ministry. And here was my greatest learning:  at the beginning, there were some people in that group I simply did not like. Rubbed me the wrong way, turned me off. And after six months of praying for them every week, you know what, I still didn't like them, but I had learned to love them. ...so that nothing may be lost....that's my theme for the day...

This is a rare story that appears in all 4 gospels That suggests something like this must have happened. And in each of the other 3 Gospels, Jesus has a direct command: You feed them.  In this gospel, Jesus messes with them a little.  Asks them what they should do. The answers are instructive...Philip says "6 months wages wouldn't be enough." Andrew says "there's a boy here with 5 loaves and 2 fishes." And there we have it...urban ministry in a nutshell...

In my first training, we were taught to do "needs assessments." And eventually we learned that all they ultimately do is leave people depressed. Ala Philip. The other way to begin is with capacity. We have a boy here who has...Jesus says, let's start there...And they wind up with 12 baskets of leftovers...so that nothing may be lost...(John is the only one who shares that concern...)

There's a lot of hunger out there..
1.2 million New Yorkers...42% of our citizens don't have enough to meet basic needs...(how are you doin?)
41 million Americans
769 million world wide (Feeding America/New York Times)

At the same time, each of us are estimated to waste between 300 and 360 pounds of food a year, that's 165 billion pounds...(Christian Science Monitor) that nothing may be lost...

So that's actual literal hunger.  But there's lots of other hungers around the world as well...

And lots in danger of being lost...

So what are we to do?
Nadia Bolz-Weber is one of my favorite pastors, she came to West Park last year for a live performance of the NPR Moth story show. She is a master story teller. But a better pastor. For example, she rightly observes that the most important task of the church is to preach the forgiveness of sins. From her perspective as an urban pastor, most of us are not able to forgive ourselves even when we can forgive others. (Yeah, that's my hand going up too..)

But more than that, I have heard her say, what if I told you your church had 5 years and only 5 years to live, how would you live differently? If you could stop worrying about survival, would you give it all away? 

And her ultimate point is, if we lived like we'd be gone in 5 years, we'd last longer than that because our spirit, our passion, our zeal, would be so great we would become attractive to others. 

A lot of our New York City Presbytery has been fragmented. Lots of pieces lying around. It's time to start them up so "THAT NOTHING BE LOST."

My question to you Good Shepherd Faith, is not what you don't have,I mean look around... but what do you have? What gifts has God given you that re not being used? How many loaves, how many fishes do you have? 

In the end, this is not a miracle of production, it's a miracle of distribution...

And it's not surprising that this story is followed by Jesus walking on the water...I mean start using those untapped resources, no telling what might happen...

Let those 
with ears to hear, hear....

The congregation, as it does, responds back with its own refection. Especially about thinking about what they already have. As one person . said, if we just came in today and took this as a place to start, it's pretty good. And how starting the day by thinking about all we have to be thankful for changes how we take the day. 

I decided to use this Ephesians passage as my benediction:
14For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. 16I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, 17and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. 18I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

20Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.

And then back into the warmth of the summer day...














Gospel John 6:1-21

1After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. 2A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. 3Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. 4Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. 5When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming towards him, Jesus said to Philip, "Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?" 6He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. 7Philip answered him, "Six months' wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little." 8One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, 9"There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?" 10Jesus said, "Make the people sit down." Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. 11Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. 12When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, "Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost." 13So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. 14When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, "This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world."

15When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

16When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, 17got into a boat, and started across the lake to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. 18The lake became rough because a strong wind was blowing. 19When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the lake and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. 20But he said to them, "It is I; do not be afraid." 21Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land towards which they were going.

Wild Goose 2: What if we only had 5 years?

7/14

Rev. Barber wakes us up

Wild Goose:2

From inside my tent I hear the wake up music from the main stage. It’s the unmistakable bluesy growl and rolling keyboard line of The Rev. Vince Anderson.

Rev. Vince Anderson

(More about Vince later.)

I get up, go to the Desanka tent to grab an oatmeal and coffee  and then to the main stage.

There to wake us up in more ways than one is the Rev. William Barber from North Carolina. Founder of the Moral Mondays movement and now Repairers of the Breach (http://www.breachrepairers.org/) and planning a new Poor People’s Campaign. Barber as always is in his red and black clerics, complete with a red stole (usually signifying the presence of the Holy Spirit) as if to proclaim every public prophetic witness is a liturgical event.

It seems to be Barber’s moment now as commentators compare him to Martin  Luther King, Jr. much to the concern of some of his friends. It’s a heavy—and dangerous — mantle to carry. We don’t need another King, they say. A Barber is enough. 

Today he wants to tell us what time it is. But before he gets there, he’s got a litany of what time it is not….

To name a few:

• It’s not the time of Trump. We were facing the evils of white privilege and racism; police violence, mass incarceration and gentrification long before Trump.
• It’s not the time of Russia. Our elections were hacked by acts of voter suppression and race based gerrymandering to deny black votes long before Russia hacked in.
• It’s not the time  of white working class deplorables. The majority of Trump voters were upper income , those who benefit from his policies. The white working class are victims of economic exploitation as well with whiteness used a means of dividing natural allies and diverting class struggle.

SO what time is it?  The voice echoes and booms…it’s movement time! It’s moment time!  It’s movement time!

……

Barber also reported a visit by African American pastors to try and find common ground with Franklin Graham, who makes his father Billy look like a flaming liberal. Of course he served us fried chicken and watermelon, he said. 

….… 

Jim Wallis of Sojourners is next up. He’s currently been portrayed by the New York Times as the godfather of the progressive Christian movement and it’s “inside man.” (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/10/us/politics/politics-religion-liberal-william-barber.html) More than anything Wallis has served as bridge between the evangelical world and the world of mainline liberal protestantism. The Times article didn’t seem to get that many of the “liberals” they were lifting up are actually progressive prophetic evangelicals. Wallis is very clear that the single most important issue for us to be working in right now is white privilege. 

….

What followed was an all star panel of Nadia Bolz-Weber, Michael Waters and Doug Pagitt. 

Round table conversation

Last night Nadia had described a t-shirt that proclaimed   " Radical protestants: nailing shit to church doors since 1517.” She had described repentance as the “freedom from thinking the same over and over and over again.” That our sense of sin keeps us in shame. To which she says, remorse, yes, shame no. Our jagged edges connect us to each other and to God. 

Today Nadia reminds us that its the work of pastors to preach the gospel, administer the sacraments and proclaim the forgiveness of sins. She refers to David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and asks us to think about what it would be like if our churches only had 5 years to live.

We could give it all away. 

We could be free people 

Christ came to set us free. 

Free people are forgiven people.

Forgiveness of sins is REAL.

Free to speak truth to stupid.

What if we only had 5years?

……

I go to catch Rev. Vince Anderson’s set in the Cafe. 

Russ Jennings and Rev. Vince

I first encounters him when I was on the Great Open Mic Tour of 2015 and we landed at Pete’s Candy Store in Brooklyn. (https://www.facebook.com/Rev-Vince-Anderson-and-his-Love-Choir-74494194069/) Are you here for church? they asked. I looked in. Saw this bear of a man in a Hawaiian shirt and white Panama hat. Turns out it was Rev. Vince and his Barstool Tabernacle. Which I learned was the successor to Jay Bakker’s Revolution church.  (Vince’s Barstool has now been folded into the Bushwick Abbey (https://bushwickabbey.wordpress.com/) where he directs music) You hear traces of Tom Waits in his music well as a bit of Randy Newman and Dr. John but his style of dirty gospel is all his own.  He shares with us music from his new psalms project. After his set, Kristen Leigh and I spend some time talking with him. Maybe we could put together a whole tent next year?

Robert Brashear and Rev. Vince

………..

Podcast guru Tripp Fuller leads a conversation at the Seminary Happy Hour asking us to ask ourselves three questions about our seminary education:

1. 1. What was our ‘Oh shit!” (or 'Oh Schnikies”) moments when we realized everything we knew was about too come undone. 
2. 2. What was the “MMMMM yes, but not quite enough” moment..and
3. What was the “I may not know for sure but I'm putting my stake in the ground here” moment?

………..

The Goosecast tent hosts an everchanging eclectic collection of podcasts. Like Matt Inman’s “Ineffciency” (http://www.inefficiencypodcast.com/)  celebrating the value and importance of inefficiency in experiences and relationships and use of time.

"Inefficiencies"

Or Carla Ewart of Holy Writ(https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/holy-writ-podcast/id1205352786?mt=2) interviewing Tina Schermer Sellers author of Sex and the Conservative Church.

Tina Schermer Sellers and Carla Ewart

In their conversation, the two women explored the damage done by the (so-called) Purity Movement and Ms. Sellers’ work bringing a Biblically based sex positive perspective to evangelicals.

The day ended with the Brew Theology crew:Ryan Miller, Janel Apps Ramsey, Shane Oram and Andy Millman. (https://brewtheology.podbean.com/ ) They shared their stories and how Brew theology works, meaningful conversations…and beer. The casual relationship with beer, so much a part of this scene, i snot without deeper implications. Janel, for example, speaks of being seventh generation Nazarene and deciding to leave the denomination rather than live hypocritically. Each person’s journey has its own unique marks. 

The Brew Theology crew

……

An important discovery  is the Desanka Diner tent.  Taking its name from an African word meaning Joy, Contentment and Pleasure, the Desanka community provides an invaluable service by providing simple free food every day for Goose volunteers and everyone else. A simple act of hospitality that makes thew Goose possible for many and opens tables for unexpected conversations. So a hearty thanks to Desanka (http://www.desankaspirit.net/blog)…..

My favorite concert of the festival is Friday night with David Wimbish and the Collection.

David Wimbish and the Collection

They have a special place in my heart since the band spent a night at West Parka couple of years  back following a concert at the Rockwood Music Hall celebrating their Ars Moriendi album. Th next day, they had vehicle issues so they spent the day hanging out and playing music in different configurations throughout our church. I was impressed that so many musoicians would come together to help bring David's music to life. Their music is carries the indie vibe of Mumford, Sufjan Stevens, Fleet Foxes etc. with its own unique orchestral flourishes. The music is also driving and infectious and explores issues of mortality, spirituality and young adult angst. When I first saw them there were at least a dozen musicians with multiple horns and other instruments.  Tonight’s Collection includes in addition to the standard rock lineup a  harmonium and one horn player. With a larger stage and fewer musicians, the players jump around the stage with a punk sensibility. Although as Kristen Leigh says, in North Carolina, genre boundaries are more fluid. Songs from  the new album “Listen to the River”are featured and the music satisfies, intelligent, creative and catchy. (https://thecollection.bandcamp.com/) 

After show conversation

The Collection

David and his new partner join us at our table and we talk about music and intentional communities. “How great thou art” resounds form the Beer and Hymns tent….

Wild Goose 1: "What if I could believe it was true?"

7/14

Wild Goose 1

Nadia Bolz-Weber gathers the Goose

The Wild Goose Festival has been described as a progressive Christian Woodstock….with showers…and like something between Burning Man and church camp. What’s clear is the gathering of some 3000 plus people, camping out for the most part, in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Pisgah National Park. Most trying to figure out what’s next while trying to live out that next now. There is a bottom line commitment to a world based on love being made real through peace and justice and Jesus is somehow central to all this. After that, everything else is pretty much up for grabs. It feels like the largest number of Goose participants are post evangelical (to some degree or another) but to anyone raided in mid century mainline protestantism, the prevailing culture and ethos of the Goose remains evangelical, even as the theology evolves. 

It is a world with its own stars, unofficial hierarchy and occasional annoying self congratulatory vibe. But for the most part the searching feels sincere. And passionate.  And that’s what brought me back for a second visit. 

The Goose is a  bit like an immersive theatre experience. You can sit in one place and watch the scenes evolve and change. Or follow one character around the festival. Or take the adhd approach and bounce around the festival checking in here and there for bits and pieces that capture your imagination.  Any option is rich.

My reports, however, will be like postcards and tweets, not fully capturing any presentation but giving a feel of being there.  

So Goose 17, part 1

.....

While I’m still uncertain about the wisdom of making this trip current lifewise, driving north from  Asheville through the winding Blue Ridge mountain roads, Asheville outlaw country on the radio, it feels good……’

This year, I’ve hooked up with Dana’s Outdoor Adventures and there’s tent waiting for me at a campsite down by the river. And I’m met by the friendly face of Tracy. Over twenty years ago, curing a particularly bad stretch of my life, she led me back to my music. We put together a band, played a couple of shows for our churches. The next summer, we’d do a workshop together at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico. I haven't seen her since. But that time was healing.  Good to see her again. The Goose is like that.

..;…

Dinner with my friend and Goosecast host Russ at a downtown Hot Springs restaurant hanging over the river, I’m not sure if anywhere else the main street of town is actually part of the Appalachian Trail. 

……

In the dark, finding your tent can be a real adventure. Thanks to the volunteers who gave me a ride on a golf cart after an hour of wandering…

……..

Throughout the afternoon, I’m checking out the sound check on the main stage. A kind of all star jam band is playing with Melissa Greene handling vocals and Alyssa Clark playing a mean lead guitar. A down and dirty “Come Together” echoes over the campground. 

…….

Nadia Bolz-Weber has the job of Gathering the Goose on the first night…I knew her from her appearance on NPR’s the Moth story show when it broadcast from West Park. Nadia is an imposing figure: tall and tattooed and commanding presence. On the Moth she had been poetically obscene with a style like a contemporary hip stand up artist.That was what I was expecting. But what I got this night was something else.

Nadia spoke to the ultimate radical importance of the pastoral.  Raising the question if we asked our community members what they  really thought an felt about themselves, what would they say? And of course, what most of us have to say about ourselves is negative. Judgmental. Non forgiving. It’s the voice of the accuser, ha Satan, calling us out to ourselves. And of course, for most of us, its easier to forgive almost anyone other than ourselves. She speaks of the radical importance of the forgiveness of sins. I realize that I have tended to soften prayers of confession  due to that deep sense of guilt. Nadia is leading me to consider  a different approach that names and acknowledges our inability to love ourselves and the proclamation of forgiveness and acceptance. Now. As we are. Who we are. And i hear a voice inside of my head  saying, What if I could really believe it was  true? What if I could really believe it was true? 

…..

I find Russ at what will become his office at a picnic table near the  craft beer tent. He’s joined by his new co host Kristen Leigh. We enjoy Melissa’s set but things are running late and it takes some coaxing to get Big Al to come out and join his Chicago’s Most Wanted band in their blues set. 

……..

As the main stage goes dark, in the next tent the voices of a few hundred people singing old hymns in four part harmony in Beer and Hymns fills the night. It would bring joy to Luther, I’m sure. And the sound fills me, too. 

Later I’ll walk down to the Cafe tent and listen in on Brother Bear’s acoustigoose jam session/hootenanny before making my way home. 

The Goose is open.

What if I could really believe it?