Blogs I'm Reading

If you haven't looked, I've been updating blogs that I've begun reading with some frequency. Be sure to check out what others are doing!

A Wee Blether- This is the blog of fellow student Adam Copeland. Thoughts on seminary, church life, etc.

BiteYourTeeth- This is the blog of Dan Price, fellow Rhodes grad and Woolsock. He's now living and working in Memphis. Interesting thoughts on technology, literature, art (particularly photography), and other good quips about life.

Kruse Kronicle- Michael Kruse is the vice-chair of the denominational board of the PC(USA). Good insights into church, particularly the adjustments of the church to a post-modern, post-western world.

Let Your Light Shine- This is the blog of Linda Valentine, the director of the General Assembly Council of Churches in the PC(USA). Good reflections on a life of ministry.

An Exercise to Exorcise

This post is a culmination of several things I have been pondering lately, including previous posts, books I'm reading for classes, conversations with my peers, etc. What sparked my idea for this post, however, was an article e-mailed to my by my grandmother. It's by Terry Mattingly and it discusses the comment made on the House floor by Steve Cohen (a Memphis democrat representative) that "Barak Obama was a community organizer like Jesus...Pontius Pilate was a governor." (click on the quote to watch video of Cohen making the remark).

Now this statement obviously upset many people, comparing Obama to Jesus and VP candidate Sarah Palin to Pontius Pilate. I recognize that it was insensitive in that issue, but I must say first that when listening to Palin's first speeches, I did not particularly appreciate the belittling of Obama's previous occupation as though it was something that doesn't matter, than we could live without. That's flat out meanness.

Instead of going on about presidential political theatre (you can find PLENTY of blogs that will reiterate what smarter people say each day), however, I wanted to do a little more thinking about Jesus as a "community organizer." I think this is a very appropriate term to describe Jesus. Unlike many community organizers today, however, Jesus didn't go into an impoverished pre-established community to help build it up. Instead, he took various outcasts and low class people from all over his Galilean ministry to form a new kind of community.

The community Jesus organizes doesn't resemble political systems we have, either totalitarianism, democracy, various forms of republics, Democrats or Republicans. This community does not maintain the social norms that our worldly communities do. All are equal at the banquet that Christ sets. Jesus doesn't even recognize our worldly ideas on time, as he breaks into our neatly patterend world to declare that the Kingdom of God has arrived and continues to arrive wherever his communities seek to follow him.

We often call Jesus' organized community the church. We operate in the world but strive to maintain and further that Kingdom that Jesus brought and organized to his own peril. His death shows us that his exercise in community challenges the established order of our world. This is primarily because the church, when it is at its best, exorcises the demon on which almost all human decisions are made, Self-Interest.

In a time when we see the peril of our economy that stems from self-interested homebuyers and self-interested investment banks, when recognize great leaders for their ability to promote themselves and their personal achievements to us, it is important to recongize that the church does not work in this way. Our excerise in the community of Jesus is intended to exorcise our self-interest. This is enacted by seeking out those that the world ignores and helping them. This is done through living joyfully in all circumstances, knowing that all our gifts come from God and that we possess to "right" to anything we own. I'm sure you can think of plenty of other examples.

I use the words exercise and exorcise to acknowledge, though, that the church is an ongoing and growing development. We will never fully, no matter how hard we participate in the exercise of a Jesus community exorcise our self-interest. Giving will still hurt, sacrifice will still be hard, saying no to our whims will cause frustration. But we see the cross before us, that symbol of Jesus' love for his broken world; the cross is the response of the broken world to his exercise in community. With that cross before us, Christians seek to exorcise that self-interest/pride/demon/Satan (choose your description) in ourselves through exercising in the community of Christ in the world, striving daily to bring about his kingdom.

New Questions in a New Semester

I must apologize for disappearing for a month, but it has taken a while to adjust to the whole "semester" thing again after only having one class to deal with in the summer. School has taken off at a break-neck pace with lots of reading and papers (due this week). New classes raise new questions, and some of those I hope to explore here over the next few posts.

My first question deals with a discussion I had with my mother this weekend on a visit home to Knoxville (for the UT vs. Florida game....sad,sad....). She teaches the middle school Sunday school at our church, First Presbyterian, and currently the middle schoolers are not receiving as much pastoral attention as years past. New youth directors with responsibilities for children and adult Christian Education and the like. I'm not interesting in figuring out how the system is broken, or blaming anyone for a lack of attention to this area of church life. Instead, I wish to think about something that has been raised by a student in her class.

One of the middle schoolers in this class is currently struggling with where he fits in the life of our church. This particular student lives in the suburbs, and First Presbyterian is a downtown congregation; it isn't your neighborhood suburban church. In his area, there is a particularly large and influential Southern Baptist congregation where many of his school friends attend. He is reaching an age where her and his friends are beginning to have theological discussions about the nature of salvation and the like.

In addition to this, they have a VERY active youth program that does lots of exciting things like trips and retreats and mission projects and fun games at youth group and lock-ins and all those things. Now we can debate how appropriate ski trips and beach trip vacations are for church life, but that isn't going to convince a 6th or 7th grader that it is better to attend the church where his parents have always taken him instead of going to a church that is "Bible-based," full of friends from school, and is always offering exciting programs.

My question is, then, what is the relevance of the Presbyterian Church (USA) to a thirteen-year-old? I think the answer to this question might also give us insight into the relevance of our church in the broader Christian sphere in general, but I am currently interested in how our denomination- its theology, polity, worship, mission, and education- make us unique or relevant to a 6th or 7th grader. This is in line with the questions the moderator of our church has been requesting Presbyterians ask on blogs, facebook, etc.

Unfortunately, I am not going to offer how it is so, for I have yet to figure out a good way to articulate anything about it since I began pondering the question. I would love any comments or thoughts others who happen on this post might have.