Theological and other musings from Fr. Neo. You might call it ‘Mere Christianity with an edge.’ Vade retro Satana! Nunquam suade mihi vana! Sunt mala quae libas. Ipse venena bibas!
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Posted on May 29th, 2008 by fatherneo.
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I took an opportunity to visit with Denver’s ‘Jazz Theologian.’ His blog is
http://www.jazztheologian.typepad.com
and he has a book coming out in February of 2009. What follows is our discussion.
Neo: What is your passion?
JT: Discovering and being the Body of Christ.
Neo: What is unique about the Body of Christ?
JT: We are the only people with the potential to honor but not allow distinctions of race, class and denomination to keep us from being ‘one’ as Jesus describes in John 17.
Neo: What does that look like?
JT: A jazz ensemble. Distinct instruments, playing the same song with room for improv. Call and response; playing in concert with and for each other.
Neo: I see Obama calling for Americans to move away from our polarization to embrace our unity, to look at what unites rather than divides us. Is this a realistic goal?
JT: ‘E pluribus Unim,’ from the one, many. This is the fundamental challenge of our country–how do we make the many one? It seems to be an elusive goal. I believe the church, however, can be the vehicle that brings it about. The Spirit can bring it about. Look at Pentecost…unity without uniformity. Obama is echoing what many desire–what Dr. King desired–but Obama hasn’t necessarily pointed to the answer.
Neo: What is your opinion of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright?
JT: One’s response to Rev. Wright reflects your awareness of the prophet he is named after-Jeremiah. If you have read Jeremiah from the Old Testament, then Rev. Wright is no big deal. Rev. Wright got himself in trouble when he called America to be damned when, as Christians, we should be calling for mercy. We must have room in our ensemble for people to improvise with solos we do not necessarily like. Don’t forget what Billy Graham said, ‘If God does not judge America, then he will have to personally apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.’ That’s tough stuff.
Neo: The Immigration debate is often characterized by more heat than light. How does the Body of Christ respond?
JT: The question of national security, borders and immigration are public policy issues that I do not have any easy answers to. What I do know, is that whenever God allows mass movements of people, he seems to be up to something. Whether it is the Israelites migrating from Egypt and then in the wilderness for 40 years, or the massive number of people who had to migrate in Herod’s time for a census. It is clear that God is willing to move massive amounts of people, just to have one baby born in the right city!
Posted on May 14th, 2008 by fatherneo.
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We had our memorial for Daniel last Saturday. I have to say that, despite the great pain, it was the most profound worship experience I have ever had. It is ironic to say that about a memorial service for a young man who died way too soon.
We found that while we were digging in the cave of darkness and grief, that we were actually mining gold in God’s eternal country. Sometime during that service we went from earth to the eternal realm of glory.
I am not one to exaggerate. The Spirit of God really descended on 780 grievers on the eve of Pentecost 2008 at Christ Episcopal Church in Denver.
The cynic in me wonders where He was while we were praying desperately for Daniel to recover, but I have to say that I was moved to my core at His palpable presence among us last Saturday.
Christ is risen. I didn’t think I would feel that as powerfully amidst the reality of death. I did not think my song would be ‘Alleluia’ looking at mourners.
Somehow, eternity was not that far away and I am still feeling its effects.
Posted on May 5th, 2008 by fatherneo.
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This Saturday we say goodbye to one of our young parishioners, Daniel Burtness, who was killed as a result of a car accident last weekend. Dan was attending Whitworth and was in his first year. Dan–only 18, was a faithful, called, wonderful Christian young man. His call to ministry was obvious.
From my perspective, this is the most difficult situations I have ever been a part of. I have had a hard time keeping my tears away and my emotions in check. I have been involved in funerals of young kids who died, but almost always, there was some kind of irresponsibility, or an alcohol related accident or mishap.
Not so in Dan’s case. It was just a good kid in a car accident.
The Sunday before he died, the entire church held hands and prayed for a miracle. That night, his Young Life leader and I also prayed for a miracle and, I admit, I felt a great sense of hope that God would pull of the impossible.
It was not to be. The Lord did not answer our prayers.
This was perhaps the most frustrated I have ever been with God. “Has [God’s] loving-kindness come to an end for ever? Has his promise failed for evermore? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he…withheld his compassion? And I said, ‘My grief is this: the right hand of the Most High has lost its power’” (Psalm 77:8-10).
The ‘whys’ can never be sufficiently answered. Even if we saw the script from the hand of God, there would be little consolation.
The only consolation I have was expressed by one of Dan’s classmates: ‘Dan is exactly where he wants to be, in the presence of Christ. ‘ Daniel was wired for God in a way that was unusual. He was the budding youth leader who was full of joy and was becoming quite the prankster. He was the gentle warrior, quiet, yet full of unusual depth.
His call has now become a call to the presence of the Lord. While we mourn and grieve, he fulfills his desires and destiny, to walk directly in the Light of Christ.
And the Lord says, “Come, Daniel, you blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.” Grant this, O merciful Father, through Jesus Christ, our Mediator and Redeemer.
Posted on April 15th, 2008 by fatherneo.
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I live in the East side of Denver. I went to the movies last Friday with my wife. Monday I went to Denver Health with our Sudanese guy and his mom, and later went to Wal Mart. I distinctively remember that in each of these three places, nary a word of English was spoken. I heard French (from Africans), Arabic, and Russian, but mostly Spanish.
For me, it is rich to hear ‘divers of tongues’ in my own nation. I know for others to hear other languages, especially Spanish, it is a huge threat. Sheer numbers have brought the Hispanic language and culture to a neighborhood near you.
I’ll let you decide as a citizen how you feel about a wall around the southern border of the U.S. What does it say? What does it not say?
I’ll also let you decide why the Northern border is no threat to Homeland Security.
There are deeper questions to consider, though, if you are a Christian. The people of God have always been told that they were once sojourners and aliens (Exodus 22:21; 1 Peter 2:10), therefore they ought to treat the “stranger” with mercy and even to give them a share in the blessings of the covenant. Yet are Christians willing to do this in their own church communities?
The deeper question might pertain not to the wall around the Rio Grande, but to the wall around all of our hearts. It is trite, but you know what hour of the week is the most segregated in churches in the U.S. The movie theater, the mall, the restaurant, the marketplace, Starbucks, all of these places are more representative of Acts 2 and Revelation 5, than the Christian community.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. The Bible is a dangerous and radical document–if we would just let it speak. We have an opportunity to see the massive immigration to the U.S. as a huge test for the church, but also a huge blessing. Millions of God-fearing, hard-working ‘family values’ folks, just a neighborhood away. The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few–at least the ones with papers.
Posted on March 31st, 2008 by fatherneo.
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Sider’s work was one of my Lenten books. Daniel Clendinin writes in sum of the book:
Drawing upon scientific polling from groups like Gallup and Barna, Sider takes the measure of American evangelicals on five data points: divorce, care for the poor, sexual infidelity, racism, and physical abuse in marriage. He is appalled. People who claim to be born again divorce at a slightly higher rate than the general population. Evangelicals give a meager 4% from their income. The most likely people to object to neighbors of a different race are white evangelicals. Sexual promiscuity among evangelical kids is rampant. Is it any wonder that “a mere 22% of people have a positive view of evangelicals” (p. 28)? Sider contrasts these findings from Chapter 1 with an overview in Chapter 2 of the Biblical vision of what God’s kingdom on earth ought to look like, with successive paragraphs full of Scripture quotations from the Gospels, the book of Acts and the Epistles. In stark contrast to our current reputation, Sider notes that the early Christians had a well-known and well-deserved reputation for integrity and care for the weak. Tertullian (AD 155–220), for example, wrote, “Our care for the derelict and our active love have become our distinctive sign before the enemy…See, they say, how they love one another and how ready they are to die for each other.” Even the pagan emperor Julian the Apostate (ruled AD 361–363) acknowledged the radically counter cultural life of the early Christians: “The godless Galileans feed not only their poor but ours” (p. 52).
I was reared in evangelicalism and still consider myself evangelical, so this was not a ‘point the finger’ read for me. The book made me wonder what progress has been made by creating a ‘Religious Right’ and a ‘Dittohead’ culture over the last couple of decades if we cannot get our own house in order. Are we ‘gaining the world’ at the expense of our souls?
I long for a ‘third way’ in the way the church can engage culture, perhaps it is being the kind of polis that the Scripture describes–a holy and loving people. A people who love God, neighbor, and each other. A people who are attractive to the culture because of their holiness, wholeness, and love.
Posted on March 23rd, 2008 by fatherneo.
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NT scholar Marcus Borg says,
“I think of the great Easter hymn, “Christ the Lord is Risen Today,” with all its soaring hallelujahs. And I see that hymn as profoundly true even though I don’t think its truth depends upon the tomb having been empty or something happening to the corpse of Jesus.”
I’m not exactly sure what he means. Without going into the ‘proofs’ for the resurrection, Borg’s perspective is a pretty boring take on the whole thing. Last night at our Easter Vigil, 12 Burundians were baptized. Amidst the clouds of incense and the ringing of bells, a group of them sang in thankful celebration to Jesus for what he had done 2000 years ago and what he did among us.
All of the Burundian children baptized last night were born in refugee camps. The living Lord Jesus has been their companion and has brought us to our parish. Should I tell them that the empty tomb is ‘irrelevant’ (as Borg says elsewhere) and that the corpse of Jesus may be lying around somewhere? If Christ is not risen, I pity us all for the sham we are a part of!
Posted on March 17th, 2008 by fatherneo.
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Stealing from my boy Chris Martin,
http://chrismartinsblog.com/2008/02/19/the-celtic-way-of-evangelism-george-hunter/
who is the real St. Patrick and when did St. Paddy’s become an excuse to drink ’till you puke? George Hunter provides an exceptional work in which he says that Patrick’s ‘way of evangelism’ is possible to imitate even and especially in our day.
What was Patrick’s ‘way?’
Patrick took a group of men (and women), clergy, seminarians and others to live among the ‘barbarian’ Celts (who had previously enslaved Patrick years earlier) to plant ‘holy communities.’ In these communities, Patrick’s folks would live in community to pray and work together, as well as to invite the locals to participate–to ‘come and see’ what Christians were all about. They built churches, prayed, partook of the sacraments, fed the hungry and healed the sick. These so called barbarians discovered that Patrick’s communities were ‘thin places,’ holy places where the presence of God penetrated space and time in an unusual, palpable way.
The Celts found their own experience of the world, with its violence, fear, and degradation, could not hold a candle to Patrick’s holy and peaceable communities. Violence, killing and idolatry ceased wherever Patrick’s communities took hold.
Perhaps people use March 17th as an excuse to drink themselves senseless because Patrick’s story has never been told by his spiritual descendants. Perhaps they don’t know that Christ can actually change people en masse, transform people groups and neighborhoods and that Kingdom living is possible to find–if you look in the right places.
Posted on March 9th, 2008 by fatherneo.
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We got a new puppy named Coconut. I don’t think there is anything more fun to watch than a boy and his dog. My little ‘Jedi Knight’ loves to roughhouse with his new puppy and it’s as if they’ve known each other for years already. Of course they like to chill together.
Posted on February 28th, 2008 by fatherneo.
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OK so I’m still working on a Lenten Rule and, well, Lent is over half way over. Clean Monday starts for the Orthodox in March and I know they’ve got this Lent thing figured out, but by the time they can give me advice, we’ll be done.
I’ve always been attracted to Benedict and his Rule (That’s him and sis), and my wife and I were married on the Feast of Benedict (July 11), so I have hoped for an Idyllic Benedictine household. But, alas, even the Rector’s home is filled with unmet expectations. What are some elements of our readers’ Rules of Life? Any good Anglicans or Catholics out there keeping a holy Lent? There’s still time! A little help here!
Posted on February 16th, 2008 by fatherneo.
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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams argued recently for a ‘modified’ Sharia law for Muslims in Great Britain.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3328024.ece
What does he mean exactly? On the surface it puts everyone’s knickers in a knot, but it leads the way to other kinds of questions. How does anyone in the West consistently follow their religion in a culture of pluralism? The Archbishop is not foolish enough to think that Britain is a Christian nation (despite what is ‘on the books’), and it is certainly not a Muslim nation–so what is it? A secular nation.
In the West, how does a Muslim follow the Koran, how does a Jew follow the Torah, how does a Christian follow the Gospel without all kinds of state and cultural interference? I think this is what Rowan is wrestling with, he is not trying to make Britain an Islamic state.