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A Minister’s Empathy: A Perplexing Tool to Bring to a Combat Theater

[Editor’s note: Rev. Owen Chandler, the Senior Minister of Saguaro Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Tucson, was deployed earlier this year from the Army Reserve and serves as Battalion Chaplain of the 336th CCSB in Iraq. He frequently writes letters to his home church, and is graciously open to sharing them here on the SWC Blog. This is his July letter.]

Beloved Saguaro,

My prayers and these words travel to meet you with the speed of God’s love. I miss you so. We are nearing the halfway mark and my affection for you remains unchanged. I am grateful for your continued prayers, letters, and packages. I am thankful you continue to grow stronger in your fulfillment of the vision that God placed on your hearts. That strength is contagious. It helps me when I have days here that leave me questioning the nature of my Call and the power of God’s peace.

The last few weeks were challenging in ways needed, unfortunate, and unwelcome. I spent most of the time traveling to a distant outpost. We have soldiers there that help with the supply and sustainment functions of the war effort. Nestled just behind the front lines of Fallujah, I experienced my first combat landing! This is where the plane does a corkscrew maneuver to land – and to think i was sad because I didn’t think I was going to get to ride any roller coasters this summer!

Amazingly, there in one of the austere environments we operate, I met another DOC [Disciples of Christ] chaplain, CH (MAJ) Fisher. I am biased, but i think the DOC develops some of the best ministers. After a week with CH Fisher, I am further convinced that we produce some of the best chaplains. The week I spent with him was like drinking from the font of military chaplaincy wisdom. The guy is the real deal. The soldiers there knew it, too. I watched him engage with the lowest private to the highest colonel. Each soldier left feeling affirmed by the grace of our Lord. I pray that one day I can operate with such skill.

It was fortunate that CH Fisher was there. I was able to process with him one of my most difficult moments of the deployment. As I stated, this outpost held close proximity to Fallujah, during the last days of the battle to retake the city. Each morning I awoke to the sound of cannons firing on the city. I guess you get used to them after a while, but not after only a week. Each day the sounds of war acted as the soundtrack to life on the post. At night, you could see the outskirts of the city due to the distant flashes of bombs and tracer rounds. Day after day, one would read about the desperation of the civilian population being used as shields by ISIS. I saw the faces of Saguaro in those trapped in Fallujah. They were the normal people without the means and connections to escape. My adrenaline pumped with the rage I felt at the evil of ISIS. How could one group be so depraved?

During my time there, the news stated that the battle was over. ISIS was defeated. One night, I was playing basketball with the Navy Seal team located there. In between games, they indicated the last remnants of the opposition were attempting to flee by a large caravan. The Iraqi Army had blocked their exit and there was this weird stalemate occurring just a few short miles from where I was playing. That night I stood on the flight line trying to talk my way onto a flight back to Taji. I was unsuccessful. There, under a darkened night sky, I looked to my left. Where there were once just stars, the sky illuminated, and the bowels of American military might were dropped onto the stalled ISIS fighters. And just like that, it was over; hundreds of lives gone.

It is a strange mix of emotions watching a scene like that. A minister’s empathy is a perplexing tool to bring to a combat theater. To be sure, I find assurance that those ISIS fighters are gone. I don’t understand the evil that drives them. As I told Emily before leaving for this deployment, I do not want my children to have to fight this battle. The effort to retake Fallujah is one more step closer to that reality. The event left me struggling with two issues. To start, I am uncomfortable with the anger I felt towards our enemy. Christ’s words to love our enemies stand before me like a test that I know I just failed. I guess the other thing that gets me is how complete, effective, and devastating our tools of war are in this world. We have spent so much money, intellectual effort, and time perfecting war. I wonder what would happen if we spent equal amounts of such trying to understand peace. Would our efforts be as complete, effective, and uplifting? These are the questions I spent the next few days discussing with CH Fisher. I am thankful for the honesty of these conversations and questions. I imagine I will be discussing these things within my soul for some time to come.

These may be thoughts born of war, but my news feed tells me that maybe they are questions which we should be entertaining back stateside, too. I wish I had something profound to tell you. I am sure that the wisdom of Bill Robey has been a steadying presence in your times of worship as of late. I only have this prayer I wrote in my journal which is growing out of this war:

[with respect to war, fear, and rage] We don’t accept it. We don’t lose heart. We act in love and love alone. We are created in God’s image and this means something. The resurrection is a shared reality that our hands and feet help recreate each day. That is our job. That is our calling. War may surround us. Death may try to overtake us. Revenge and rage may try to seduce us, but these don’t strengthen our souls. Live and pray with courage. If we don’t do it, then who will?

I apologize for the heaviness of this letter. I am fine. I am safe. I am loved. I’ve attached photos to try to show you that I’m still smiling and bringing smiles to the hearts of others.

Until we meet again,

Owen

taji combat cigar club patch — The Australians welcomed me into their special club. I tell them funny stories about roadrunners and coyotes, and they tell me similar stories about kangaroos and Tasmanian devils.

fire engine — I got a new coffee pot. Fifteen minutes later I got to meet the fire department. Luckily I have experience with small kitchen fires.

Owen Chandler with Jonathan Fisher — I was honored to meet and learn from another DOC chaplain. Our denomination represents maybe 2% of military chaplaincy, yet in OIR we make up about 30%!

shrapnel extracted from soldiers — The surgeons of one of our outpost showed me some of the shrapnel he extracted from soldiers over the last month.

drone tour — I am being given a tour of the drones (UVA). I tried to get them to let me fly it but they kept droning on about cost and liability.

Kat Perkins with Owen Chandler — Kat Perkins (finalist on the Voice) was great. She asked if I knew her. I told her, “Unless you were on Daniel Tiger or some other cartoon, there’s a good chance I have no clue who you are. I have kids!”

Finally, here is a link to the story I referenced in my letter. Thought you might be interested.

Inside look at US-led coalition’s deadliest single attack on Islamic State

Fourth of July

by Amos Smith

Having grown up overseas, I remember going to school one day in Bolivia, seeing tanks rolling through the streets and twelve-year olds brandishing AK-47s. There had been a coup attempt, so the military was much more visible than usual.

Many people take for granted the political and military stability of the United States. They have never seen the other side. One of the great blessings of growing up overseas is that I witnessed the unstable governments, the curfews due to gang violence, the sea of shanties, and the swollen stomachs from malnutrition. Those experiences are seared into my memory and as a result of those experiences, I will never take my American freedoms for granted.

As the Fourth of July nears, I give thanks for colorful figures in our past like Ben Franklin. If it hadn’t been for his diplomacy in France, the war for independence would not have been funded and we would probably be learning British history in schools, among other things. On this Fourth of July I also remember our veterans through the centuries, many of whom paid the ultimate price to preserve our civil society and our democracy.

Happy birthday America!

To Seek With Heart and Soul

by Talitha Arnold

“They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their ancestors, with all their heart and with all their soul.” – 2 Chronicles 15: 1-15

This May 22 at the church I serve, we celebrate the “Rite of Initiation and Confirmation” with six young people from the congregation. The service marks the end of a two-year journey for the young adolescents and also the beginning of their adult lives, or the “initiation to adulthood,” as we call it.

Right now the Youth Confirmands are working on their Statements of Faith to present to the congregation that Sunday. Each young person will share what they believe about God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Church. Some of their answers are long, others quite brief. A youth once wrote about the Holy Spirit: “I don’t know what it is or what it’s supposed to do. Do you?”

Whether their answers are long or short, and whether or not they choose to confirm their faith and join the church, the Youth Confirmands are living into the kind of covenant with God that the Book of Chronicles records the people of Israel made centuries ago—a covenant not to obey God or follow God or even love God. It is, instead, to seek God, “with all their heart and with all their soul.”

United’s Youth Confirmands may not be ready, even after two years, to confirm their faith this May. That’s okay. What we truly hope is that they will continue to seek God, with heart and soul.

In so doing, may they know something of God’s presence and grace. As the Greek author Nikos Kazantakis wrote in his book, St. Francis, “What is God but the search for God?”

Prayer

Thank you, God, for the journey and for the questions. Amen.

UCC releases faith-based tools aimed at ending gun violence

Written by Connie Larkman

The United Church of Christ is urging churches around the country to get involved in gun violence prevention, releasing a very personal video message from a local congregation that lived through a horrific mass shooting in their small community. “A Gun Changed My Beautiful Town,” from the people of Newtown Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, is a series of heartfelt reflections, based on their experience when a troubled young man took the lives of 20 children and six of their teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December of 2012, and how that changed their lives, and their viewpoint on guns in America forever.

“The witness of the Newtown Congregational United Church of Christ is that fear need not have the upper hand, even in the midst of the most profound tragedy,” said the Rev. Jim Moos, a UCC national officer and executive minister of Wider Church Ministries. “One way church members have courageously worked through grief is with faith-based action to address gun violence. We believe that the video and the Faith vs. Fear study and worship material will empower people in our churches to engage in faith-based action as well so that, together, we will overcome the gun violence that has descended on our communities like a plague.”

The UCC, which has worked for more than 20 years to end the plague of gun violence in America – the General Synod advocating for sensible, responsible gun policies and legislation in three resolutions passed in July of 1995 — is also releasing a 5-part Bible study, Faith vs. Fear, as a faithful response to curb violence in our cities and towns.

These resources, and several others, are now available on ucc.org at ‘End Gun Violence’ and are intended to spark discussion and encourage advocacy in congregations across the country.

“We simply cannot accept the toll of gun violence as the norm in our nation. This is a moral imperative,” said Sandy Sorensen, director of the UCC Washington D.C. office. “Our culture has a heavy investment in death; isn’t it time we invested in life and hope? This is our faith call.”

originally posted on the UCC website

The Angel’s Story

by Karen Richter

Note to readers: I don’t often write fiction or imaginative essays (perhaps after reading this, you’ll see why!), but this was an attempt at capturing the spirit of Easter in a non-literal way. Fans of Madeleine L’Engle’s novels will recognize the idea of ‘Naming the stars’ as one task done by angels, which I borrow with much respect and gratitude.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God… in the tomb. Cold and dark and smelling of Death. The whole world was sad and yet waiting. Well, maybe the waiting was just me. It was my job to wait there and keep watch. My fellows didn’t want this task. It was so much the better to go on Naming the stars. I couldn’t blame them for their reluctance to visit this shadowed place.

And so it was I who was there when the stone began to roll. I didn’t push it and I don’t know who did. It began slowly, almost imperceptibly – before gaining speed like all wondrous things do, crunching across tiny stones and mosses. Then, LIGHT.

Light and singing and shaking rocks and warmth and then stories began to pour forth from the opening of the tomb. Stories? Yes, I could see in the early morning shimmer, the energy of human words and stories rushing out into the world. Somehow something someone someplace sometime.

Yes, there would be stories. Stories of walking on the road with a stranger; stories of breakfast on the lakeshore; stories of rushing wind and locked doors; stories of doubt and belief and impossibility; stories of friendship renewed; stories of fish caught and sheep fed. As the humans caught the energy of hope and renewal, their stories took shape and form, each unique and beautiful.

That one day seemed to last for years. The stories passed around, gathered and dispersed. And as many as took the words into their hearts were changed. The turning of the world changed that day. Not faster or slower or anything that can be measured. I can’t explain this. It’s just the way if you ask my brethren the Name of a particular star, they will tell you. But how many stars are there? The numbers and the measuring and the thinking only gets one so far. I can’t tell you the number of stars, but I Know them and God Knows them. The Naming and the Knowing are what’s important. So when I tell you that everything changed that day – everything! – it’s something that you have to grasp with the heart, all at once.

And those stories, the stories of that incredibly long day, have remained, lodged gently in the hearts of women and men, told and re-told and experienced and re-experienced. But that morning, my watching done, the stone rolled away, the light dancing back into the world… it was time for me to move on.

Look Back in Wonder

by Talitha Arnold

“For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth.” – Psalm 71:1-6

A few years ago, I did a solo hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, spent two nights at Phantom Ranch, and then trekked back to the top. It was the fourth time I’ve done the hike, the first being when I was in college, the last ten years before. Not surprisingly it took me a bit longer to get back up this time.

Hiking the Grand Canyon is hiking a mountain in reverse. The hard part comes when you’re already tired and the rim is a mile from the bottom as the crow flies, except you’re not a crow and the trail up is nine miles long.

I have to admit that there were a couple times on the way up that I thought to myself, “This is truly the dumbest thing you have ever done.” Of course I think that at mid-point in every major hike. But as before, the journey was worth it. When you hike the Grand Canyon, you’re walking through literally billions of years of time and almost every eco-system on the planet, down to the center of the earth and back.

When I made it up to the top, I sat on the rim for a long time. I wanted to give my calves a rest and also simply look back down on the trail I’d just hiked. I was filled with a sense of wonder at both the Canyon’s deep beauty and the fact I’d made it down and up once again, proving once again that God loves fools.

“For you, O Lord, are my hope,” writes today’s Psalmist. She or he looks back on their life and knows that God has been “my trust, O Lord, from my youth.”

With the wisdom of the Psalmist, the old Gospel song proclaims, “My soul looks back in wonder at how I got over.” It’s a good thing do every once in a while along the way, whether you’re sitting on the rim of the Grand Canyon or in your living room. Look back in wonder at your journey and the One who’s been with you every step of the way.

Prayer

Thank you, God, for walking with us and for the wonder of it all.

Life Led From an Inner Space

by Amanda Peterson

I love spending time watching videos when I am supposed to be doing something productive as much as the next person. It is rare that a video comes along and really speaks to the issue of life led from an inner space; life lived for the passion that will not go away or necessarily make sense to others. Yet the video at the end of this article speaks to this in a way I could never do with words alone.

Why is this inner life, this passion, so important? It’s because we live in a time where the external circumstances scream so loud we can hardly hear or believe this still small and mighty voice. It’s an individual with a notion to do or be a certain way in the world, or an organization, like a church, being called to move into the unknown and mysterious in a world that is telling them the sky is falling and church is dead.

This voice is deep and compelling. This inner drive that we sense is the voice of the Divine calling us to the bigness of life. Even if we follow that voice, the external voices will dictate what success looks like. Such as more people in the pews, a business that makes $1,000,000, etc. Yet the success is in the just showing up whether the outcome is seen or not. The success is trusting this beautiful small voice and living from that place regardless of what it looks like or even if it makes sense. That also means not controlling what God will do with it. This woman plays her cello in the middle of nowhere to no one but herself, yet I can’t help wondering how the beauty of that music affects the trees, rocks, and life around her. Or how that sound might travel to someone’s ears and cause a major shift in their lives. She isn’t doing it for those reasons, yet even on her hike up the mountain, her single act has a community effect. In fact just my knowing she is doing this encourages me in my journey. She doesn’t even know who I am. Following that voice, no matter how scary, crazy or inconsistent it may seem, allows the power of God to move in ways it might not have before.

For myself, Pathways of Grace was born of listening to the still small voice and following where the voice has led me. It hasn’t been easy at times and like this woman climbing the mountain with the cello on her back there was plenty of time to wonder and decide to keep going. Not for the sake of the end of the trail, but for the sake of the inner spark that draws me closer to God.

Everyone has that spark. As we journey in Lent, learning what it means to walk with Jesus, we are learning to listen, acknowledge, and trust that voice. We get to practice living from that space and not the external voices that try to define and lead us. Whether that spark is to spend more time in prayer, start a business, or let go of a building in favor of community, the “what” is not as important as the willingness to act.

May this video inspire you to follow Christ this Lent from that space deep within yourself.

Andante‘There’s not a ticket stub, there’s just a memory.’Andante (a musical term meaning ‘at walking pace’) follows the cellist Ruth Boden as she climbs 10,000 feet to a peak in Oregon’s Wallowa Mountains for a deeply personal, yet breathtakingly public solo performance. An Aeon Video editor’s pick: http://ow.ly/XXE9r

Posted by Aeon on Saturday, February 6, 2016

Restacking the Stones: one prophet’s lessons for revitalization

by Rev. Dr. William M. Lyons, Designated Conference Minister

Preached February 14, 2016 at Congregational Church of the Valley, Scottsdale, AZ

“On the tenth of Tevet, 425 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar [King of Babylon] began the siege of Jerusalem.

“Thirty months later, in the month of Tammuz, after a long siege during which hunger and epidemics ravaged the city, the city walls were breached.

“On the seventh day of Av, the chief of Nebuchadnezzar’s army, Nebuzaradan, began the destruction of Jerusalem. The walls of the city were torn down, and the royal palace and other structures in the city were set on fire.

“On the ninth day of Av, toward evening, the Holy Temple was set on fire and destroyed. The fire burned for 24 hours.

[Jewish] “Sages taught: When the first Holy Temple was destroyed, groups of young priests gathered with the keys to the Sanctuary in their hands. They ascended the roof and declared: “Master of the World! Since we have not merited to be trustworthy custodians, let the keys be given back to You.” They then threw the keys toward Heaven. A hand emerged and received them, and the priests threw themselves into the fire (Talmud, Ta’anit 29b).

Everything of gold and silver that still remained was carried off as loot by the Babylonian soldiers. All the beautiful works of art with which King Solomon had once decorated and ornamented the holy edifice … [t]he holy vessels of the Temple that could be found… The high priest Seraiah and many other high officials and priests were executed. … Many thousands of the people that had escaped the sword were taken prisoner and led into captivity in Babylon, where some of their best had already preceded them. Only the poorest of the residents of Jerusalem were permitted to stay on to plant the vineyards and work in the fields.

“Jeremiah, [who prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem], also promised that the Jewish people would return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple.”

Today’s reading from Ezra 1:1-4, 3:1-4, 10-13 is the beginning of that story.

²“Thus says King Cyrus of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem in Judah. ³Any of those among you who are of his people—may their God be with them!—are now permitted to go up to Jerusalem in Judah, and rebuild

God works in and through people not like me.

I notice first in today’s text that God speaks to people of different political and religious and ethnic and cultural heritages than the ones described in Scripture as Israel. God’s speaking isn’t limited to me, or people like me, or my religion, or my country, or my friends.

God has a long history of transforming people once enemies into friends. God has a long history of speaking through people and nations that appear on the list of ‘not God’s people,’ people we may have placed on the list of ‘not friends’ or even ‘enemies.’ God is at work in people not like me, in nations, cultures, and religions not our own, in circumstances apart from the expected!

Ezra 2:59ff tells the story of a group of people who wanted to go with the Jews to Jerusalem – people whose spirit God had stirred for the endeavor – but who could not prove that they were Jewish. These people, too, became part of the most important resource in accomplishing God’s tasks: people. Think of it, the all-powerful God who spoke into being the universe, the earth and everything in her, repeatedly chooses to work through people to accomplish the divine will rather than to speak it into being. And God was willing that any person who responded to the Spirit’s stirring should be included in the work of rebuilding the Temple.

What a powerful lesson for us in today’s world! In this time of hate and discrimination disguised as religious freedom, in this time of anti-Muslim vitriol, God’s speaking isn’t limited to us – to Christians, to evangelical Christians, to Americans.

In Ezra’s day, God proved that God is not limited to the religion or the followers of the religion revealed in the Judeo-Christian sacred texts. What would have happened if Ezra had taken the position that God could only speak through him, or people like him, or people of his cultural, religious, or national heritage? God’s activity in the world to bring us Jesus, divine activity that we celebrate this Advent season would have been halted in its tracks!

Essentials need immediate tending; everything else can wait awhile.

⁸In the second year after their arrival at the house of God at Jerusalem, …¹⁰When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord,

In the second year, not the first, not immediately. Later. After a time for adjustment. Lesson #2: Essentials need tending to immediately. Everything else can wait awhile. Sacrifices burned on the altar from the very beginning; in fact, sacrifices by ones who remained in Jerusalem probably never stopped. But the extras, like maintaining the building that was the Temple itself, could wait. 70 years it waited. And 2 more years it waited. Finally, after folks had established themselves in the new land, the new culture, the new religion, in their homes with their families, then they began work on the structure that was the Temple.

The first thing the returned exiles [did was] rebuild their own lives. They [did] not go straight to the task at hand. This is significant because it implies that God is interested in re-establishing people’s homes before God’s own temple. The priority is not to focus on the bricks and mortar of our faith, but in the re-establishing of right relationships with each other. [Families and the] community come first.

There is always a debate in doing mission work as to whether to fix people’s relationships with each other, with the land, with health or with justice before doing any work reconnecting people with God and faith. This story of Ezra seems to suggest that grounding ourselves in good relationships with each other comes before whatever the task at hand might be.^{^[1]}

The future isn’t supposed to be like the past.

The future cannot be like the past; it’s not supposed to be. Most of the people who had been taken into exile by the Babylonians had long died. Their children had children. And those children had children. While some of the exiles returning had seen Jerusalem in its last days, the majority of the people returning with Ezra were one or two-generations-removed from the Jerusalem and the Temple they were hoping to rebuild. Most of them had never lived in Jerusalem or sacrificed at the Temple or even seen the house of God they were commissioned to rebuild! It had been 70 years!! In terms of the Exodus story, that’s twice as long as it took the generation whom Moses led out of Egypt to die in the wilderness.

In that 70 years, without access to the Temple or the Altar, the Israelites had become the Jews. New traditions that weren’t in their Bible had developed. New theology and interpretations of Scripture had arisen. Judaism had been conceived. Of course the future was going to be different.

But that didn’t stop some people from grieving a past they couldn’t recreate instead of celebrating the future that they had the chance to birth.

¹⁰When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments were stationed to praise the Lord with trumpets, and the Levites…with cymbals, …¹¹and they sang responsively, “For [God] is good, for [God’s] steadfast love endures forever toward Israel.”

And all the people responded with a great shout when they praised the Lord, ¹²But many of the priests and Levites and heads of families, old people who had seen the first house on its foundations, wept with a loud voice when they saw this house, though many shouted aloud for joy, ¹³so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping, for the people shouted so loudly that the sound was heard far away.

Ones who were grieving their inability to return to the past forgot that rebuilding is never about returning things to exactly the way they were. Rebuilding is about being sure the best of how it was shapes how it will be. And in our text the author says the ability to make that distinction is what separates ‘old people’ from ones who remain ‘young at heart’ forever.

The Jews in Ezra’s day were called to determine what it meant to live into a new future that God was actively creating in their midst. But what that future would look like was only beginning to emerge when the exiles returned, and with mixed results. The former glory of God’s presence and of the temple was lacking in this new iteration of the temple according to some. The new temple, moreover, was to be under the patronage of a foreign ruler (Cyrus), not an autochthonous ruler like Solomon or David. And finally, whereas Solomon’s temple was built while his kingdom was militarily strong (2 Chronicles 1:14-17), the new altar was established while this small band of Jews was still under threat (Ezra 3:3). The future, indeed, would not be the past. What gives continuity to the past, present, and future, however, is the faithfulness of God.

To be vital, to be faithful to the person and work of God, Ezra and the exiles had to see themselves and the events in their lives as God at work in their midst for their day.

Rebuilding is resource-intensive.

Rebuilding is a resource-demanding endeavor. Vv. 2-3 list people as the most important of those resources; v. 4 reminds us that rebuilding takes money and goods. Cyrus’s decree is honest about the investment rebuilding requires:

⁴and let all survivors, in whatever place they reside, be assisted by the people of their place with silver and gold, with goods and with animals, besides freewill offerings for the house of God in Jerusalem.”

⁵…everyone whose spirit God had stirred—got ready to go up and rebuild the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. ⁶All their neighbors aided them with silver vessels, with gold, with goods, with animals, and with valuable gifts, besides all that was freely offered. ⁷King Cyrus himself brought out the vessels of the house of the Lord that Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and placed in the house of his gods. ⁸King Cyrus of Persia had them released into the charge of Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar …All these Sheshbazzar brought up, when the exiles were brought up from Babylonia to Jerusalem.

Churches evolve over time. People who are a church mature and die, and join as new members and move away. Children grow up. Pastors leave and pastors arrive. With those events, the ways in which a congregation relates to one another and relates to God evolve too. And every so often a decree comes forth, a door open for a church, in a big way, to be reconsidered, revalued, repurposed, reorganized, revitalized, re-resourced, rebuilt, and yes, sometimes even reposed. Every so often God stirs spirits for a new work. People are called to make choices about how they will, or if they will, participate in the make-over. Choices need to be made with intention and with prayerful discernment about what parts of the past and its traditions are so important they will be carried into the new future, and what parts of the past are ready to be laid to rest in order to realize that new future. The question, then, is if and how you will be a resource for what God is actively doing among you.

God is at work in people not like me, in nations, cultures, and religions not our own, and in circumstances apart from the expected!

Essentials need immediate tending; everything else can wait awhile.

The future cannot be like the past; it’s not supposed to be.

Rebuilding is a resource-demanding; it takes everything all of us bring to the table.

How are these lessons from Ezra playing out in your life? In the life of your church? How can these lessons empower us to do new ministry that leads people to life-transforming experiences? Will you be a contributor or a complication to the rebuilding effort? Amen.

[1] Spill the Beans. Issue 17, p. 23

Stories That Happen

by Tyler Connolley

As a pastor, I always disliked Christmas. It wasn’t the exhaustion at having so many duties on top of family obligations (although that’s a thing, and we should all be kind to our pastors during the holidays, because they really are exhausted). The hard thing about Christmas for me was trying to find something to say about stories that I and many in my church didn’t believe happened. The date of Christmas, the annunciation, the census, the star, the Magi — the fact is that none of these stories has any historical corroboration. As a result, many of us feel like we’re playing a grownup game of Santa Claus at Christmas. We’re pretending to believe in something we learned was a lie a long time ago, because we don’t want to burst the bubble of our younger brother who still believes.

Here’s the thing though, there is practically no extra-biblical evidence for any of the Jesus story. One of my friends who is an atheist likes to tweak people by telling them he doesn’t believe Jesus existed. I do believe Jesus was a real person, and at first I tried to argue with my friend. “It seems preposterous that the earliest Christians would create Jesus out of whole cloth,” I said. “There must be some kernel of historical fact in his story, even if it’s embellished.”

He just grinned at me, and responded, “You can’t prove it. I don’t believe it.” He’s right, and I’ve come to realize it doesn’t matter.

The power of Jesus, his life and his teachings, is not in his historicity, but in the stories themselves. I don’t need to know who wrote the Magnificat for it to strike me to my core as a beautiful poem of hope for the oppressed of the world. The fact that the story says it was sung by a young pregnant girl whose life had just been turned upside down adds to the poignancy. I know of many young people who need the truth of that song, and it inspires me to work toward a day when the powerful are brought down from their thrones and the hungry are filled with good things.

When we stop worrying about the historicity of these stories, we begin to realize they are stories that happened, that happen, and that continue to happen. The stories mean even more when I let them step outside of their first-century trappings, and reimagine them in my own time, as Everett Patterson did in this amazing print. Then I find myself asking, “How I should live my life differently, knowing there are Josés and Marias in the world?”

Today is Epiphany, the last day of the Twelve Days of Christmas, on which we celebrate the visit of the Magi to the baby in Bethlehem. For many of us who are bound by ideas of fact and Truth (always capitalized), this is one of the hardest stories to swallow. Today, however, I invite you to read the story and see what truths you can find in it.

Don’t worry about the historicity. Read it like a parable, because I think that’s how it was intended. What does it tell you about the nature of the world? How does it inspire you to imagine a world that doesn’t yet exist? How is it a story that happened, that happens, and that continues to happen? Let it happen to you. Read it for what it is, an encounter with Jesus that has the power to change you.

The Force is with us

by Ken McIntosh

This year, the world is celebrating a very special season, in a very special way. Evidence of the unique meaning of this time is a phrase that we hear repeated, in some cases daily.

“May the Force be with you!”

It really is very appropriate for this season, when many of the world’s religions celebrate the battle between the dark side and the light…the winter solstice could perhaps be regarded as one epic lightsaber duel… the annual return of the Jedi. For Christ-followers, it is the time of the year when we choose to celebrate the Force coming to live among us.

John’s Gospel begins with a word of enormous importance…a somewhat mysterious word…and that word is… ‘the Word.’ “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” That’s some ‘Word!’

Oceans of ink have been poured out trying to explain and understand ‘the Word.’ In Greek the word is ‘Logos.’ It has survived and transmuted into our language today whenever we speak of a brand ‘logo.’ The Word ‘Logos’ was used outside of the Bible—used a lot, in fact, for centuries. It had meaning for Jews, Greeks and Romans. And it was still somewhat mysterious.

Jews associated the Divine Logos with the Hebrew word ‘Amar,’ = “to speak, to utter”…as in Genesis 1, “In the Beginning… God spoke, saying let there be…and there was…and it was good.” The first words of John’s Gospel echoes Genesis, “In the Beginning was the Word…”

The Greeks also spoke much of the Word. The Logos was the ordering principle, or the cosmic pattern, that underlay all things. Heraclitus spoke of the Word as the rational and divine intelligence that controlled the universe. In fact, for the Greeks the Word was what made the universe the UNIverse (as opposed to a disordered omni-verse); the Word was the single unifying factor shared by a vast number of diverse phenomenon in the cosmos.

I am sure that if ancient sages could speak to us at the end of 2015 they would readily affirm—“In the beginning was the Force!” Remember Obi Wan’s first description of the force, from the original 1977 Star Wars? “The Force is what gives a Jedi his power… It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.” That sounds an awful lot like the Greek philosopher Heraclitus!

So the thinkers and mystics of the ancient world knew the Word the same way that people now know the Force. They could protest, like Han Solo protests in the first movie “There’s no mystical energy field controls my destiny!” Or give benedictions like a Jedi “May the Force be with you!”

But there are things they could not know about the Word…not until “the Word became flesh and made his home among us.”

They could not know that the Word would look at humanity through eyes filled with compassion.

They could not know that the Word would challenge a lynch mob telling them “Whoever is without sin, let them cast the first stone,” and then assure a shamed woman, “Neither do I condemn you.”

They could not know that the Word would weep, shedding tears at the death of a friend.

They could not know that the Word would shed tears again, thinking about the coming destruction of Jerusalem, and say to the women of Palestine “I have longed to gather you, like a hen gathering her chicks under her wings.”

They could not possibly imagine that the Word would rasp out a phrase, over and over, from the cross, “Abba, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.” “Abba, forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.”

The Force was strong in that One.

Christians have gotten their theology backward, over the centuries. They have sometimes proclaimed “Jesus is like God…Jesus does what God does.” But in fact it’s the reverse. In fact, “God is like Jesus…God does what Jesus does.”

Yes, the Force was in Jesus of Nazareth… and the Force is with us still. Not just a fact of history, but a reality today.

We can feel the Force within us, and…the Force is still speaking.

And that’s Good News for 2016, because the power of the Dark Side still entices us.

In 2016 we need to heed well the words of that ancient prophet of the Word, Master Yoda. “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”

Fear-talk abounds: be afraid of terrorism, be afraid of refugees, be afraid of people with darker skin, be afraid of people who follow other religions, be afraid of your neighbor, be afraid of the future…be afraid, leading to anger, leading to hate, leading to suffering.”

Jesus still speaks, saying “In this world you will have many troubles, but do not give in to fear, for I have overcome the world!”

God is love.

The Force is love.

Be strong in the Force, and may the Force be with you.

Amen.