A more expansive view: a blog about encounters with Presbyterians and seminaries

Undying Christmas Hope

"Hope is a word we should never quit using." Singer/songwriter Danny Flanigan wrote and sang this lyric over and over as a theme and chorus at the opening of a Christmas Eve service I attended with my family at Covenant Community Church just two days ago.

As the children and the families gathered chaotically the commotion of the day in everyone's life and the confusion of this day in the church year was palpable. Danny’s song calmed those fears and the crowd and inspired all who were gathered. "Hope is a word we should never quit using. … It’s light at the end of a tunnel of confusion."

I witnessed a change as we were all bathed in the literal light of candles throughout the sanctuary, the glow of this song, and the illumination of the Christmas Pageant proclamation from the evening before. Attitudes began to shift and the demeanor of those who had come to welcome the Christ child into the world once again changed for the better.

Birth, not death, was in this hope, in this light, in this liturgy, in this song, in the proclamation that "Jesus Christ is Born;" undying hope, light, life.

Frances Taylor Gench, a New Testament Professor at Union-PSCE, talks about her hope for the church. She tells the story of pessimistic people of faith wondering out loud about the future of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the larger Church of Jesus Christ. She does not share their concerns because, she says, she gets to teach in a seminary regularly where she encounters gifted and dedicated persons of faith that are preparing to lead the Church in the years to come. If only, she muses, everyone were to see what she witnesses daily in the classroom, they too would join her in hope.

PC (USA) seminary professors and presidents, staff and colleagues share their stories with me that, more often than not, mirror Frances’ story. They are stories of promise, of light at the end of the tunnel, of birth in Jesus Christ … of undying love and hope that will never quit.

Rumors of doom and gloom have been, are, and probably will continue to be passed around our world about the future of the Church and/or the PC (USA). The numbers are framed as a scarcity of dollars and members, etc. Sure these may be real figures, but there is a reality in a hope that is beyond those numbers. The celebration of the incarnation of that hope is Christian reality at the center of Christmas. It is a reality that changes lives, calms fears, sends messengers to the far reaches of the earth, and inspires a response by all shepherds and wise ones, leaders and leading thinkers.

I join Danny in singing in this holy season, "Hope is a word we should never quit using. … It’s light at the end of a tunnel of confusion. … It’s a simple change of heart to spark a revolution." I hope you will listen this song and join the hopeful chorus.

Merry, Merry, Merry Christmas!

Lee

P.S. Thanks for the "Hope," Danny!

Advent Meditation: A Prepared Way Journey

Luke just turned thirteen, and the church with whom I worship celebrated this passage.  No longer is Luke merely child, he is an emerging adult in our emerging church.  Just five years ago, Covenant Community Church was given birth in two sermons, by two people with one vision, a church that is, not a church that you go to.  Put simply, church is made up of people on a journey.  You know these churches. Yours may even be one!  I hope so.

To mark Luke’s passage we gathered for a ritual and prayer together as a faith community.  We did not gather in a building, but secretly in a circle at the foot of a steep hill at the end of a trail through a forest on a cold November day in Louisville’s Cherokee Park.

When Luke’s father brought him to the trailhead, Luke did not know what was in store.  There they met his mother holding a lit candle, she shared with him that this ritual was to mark a new stage in life for him.  The path that stood before them represented his journey through life.  Along it, she explained, he would be invited to remember those who had formed him and helped make him who he is today.

Two of the first people he met were his twin brothers, Zeke and Eli.  There he remembered how families, including siblings, shape a person.  At that point on the path his mother, Tricia opened a letter from the pastor who baptized each of the three boys.  Now stricken with cancer and living in Nashville, this pastor wrote how those who gathered at his baptism celebrated him as a gift of God, called by God, loved by God, and to be loved by all of God’s children.

As they proceeded up the trail Luke met again his preschool teacher, a best friend from kindergarten, his third grade teacher, friends who had moved out of town who drove three hours to come to this ritual, his drum instructor, extended family, and his friends and their family who introduced him and his whole family to Covenant Community.   The light grew as each person or group held another candle and lit the path for Luke as they moved forward together.  Each shared how they tried to awaken his talents, gifts, and loves of certain things in his life, things like writing, reading, music, God and even more.

Finally, they all emerged from the trail where Covenant Community, standing in a circle of lit candles, welcomed him.  Words of encouragement were read by various members of the community, prayers were prayed for Luke, and then he was invited to lead us up the hill to a time of celebration.  As it was explained and he was invited to remember, his choices and his leadership impact us and others.

I spoke with Tricia today.  She talked about the outpouring of love that both Luke and their family felt.  Hers were words of gratitude, awe, and joy.  Their family debriefed the experience afterwards and talked with Luke about how now he has many choices in his future about who and how he will be formed as a person and a person of faith.

For me this ritual provides a profound lens for advent, a practice for the welcoming of a child into our life, a rite for the honoring of a person’s call, a remembrance for the role of a community that is on a journey of faith.  On a basic level, it is a story about how the church forms leaders.

I believe theological education does not begin in seminary; it begins much earlier.  It begins when people are invited to recognize their call by God grounded in their baptism.  That call is nurtured by those who surround them daily.  It is a process of discernment that the church does as it lives out baptismal vows.  It is led by creative leaders like Jud Hendrix and Liz Kaznak, organizing pastors of Covenant Community and graduates of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

I love Brian Blount’s recent meditation entitled, "Looney Toon".  Brian will be inaugurated as president of Union Theological Seminary and the Presbyterian School of Christian Education in May in Richmond, Virginia.  He talks about how loony going to seminary is; how counter-cultural it is.  Who would believe that people would spend three years of their life preparing for ministry and paying graduate school tuition to go out into a vocation with little promise of reaping financial rewards?  It reminded me how loony our call by God is to serve the least of these, to give expecting nothing in return, to baptize a person, to stand out I the cold for over an hour waiting for a thirteen year old, and to worship a child born in an out of the way place to an out of luck couple.  It is truly loony!

Looney enough for us to pray that God will continue to be born anew in us and us anew in God.  Looney enough that we would dare to invite gifted persons into ministry of Word and Sacrament.  So loony that the PC (USA) invites congregations to give to the mission today and the mission emerging tomorrow that will be led by our emerging leaders by giving to the Theological Education Fund and the Theological Schools Endowment Fund.

Maybe your Advent journey will be lit by others.  But maybe it will a journey you help light.  I invite you and encourage you on that journey.  Give thanks, I pray, for the prophets and for the child.  Give thanks, I pray, for those with prophetic names, Zeke and Eli and for one named for the only Gospel that tells of the story of our savior’s birth, an emerging adult in Louisville, Kentucky named Luke.  May he and they and we feel the outpouring of love that is the call of church.

May it be.
Lee
(Third week in Advent, 2007 - Louisville, KY)

A More Expansive View

Renaissance thinkers said that the eyes were a reflection of the soul. There is something about what you see when you look deeply into the eyes of another.  When I look into the eyes of a child, especially my own child, I see a world that is both small and large at the same time.  I see a curiosity and a hope that goes beyond the present moment to a promised and promising future.... a future I believe God is unfolding before us.  In inquisitive eyes I see a view that goes beyond that individual and includes a whole community... even an entire world. It's a more expansive view than our eyes can see even when we look to the horizon from a pinnacle place.

Catching a glimpse of this longer view; this larger perspective; this more expansive view is what I hope to capture in this place.  A view of theological education, of church leadership, and vocational discernment that takes into account the people and places, the minds and the hearts of some exciting Presbyterians in and related to seminaries in a variety of ways.  As we see the world and the church through their eyes, I am hopeful that our own vision will expand and we might be invited to see the world in a way that is pleasing to God.

Louisville, KY