August 18, 2016

Living Love, Growing Justice, Welcoming Everyone

Our congregation has recently been working together to come up with a motto that expresses the song of our hearts that we’ll include with our new name “Daniels Run Peace Church.” Several things became apparent. We want to be a welcoming fellowship epitomized by our love; we seek to be a diverse church that’s growing in equality and justice. And all of this begins in the shared life of our fellowship as followers of Jesus but we seek to extend such winsome love and justice to our neighbors and our world in ways that are healing and empowering.

Love and justice walk hand in hand. Together, they’re what peace looks like. The prophet Isaiah envisioned Israel (God’s people) as a choice vineyard lovingly nurtured by our Creator. God had expected Israel to be a loving community where justice prevailed but instead saw bloodshed and heard a cry (Isaiah 5: 1-7). We imagine violent, cutthroat elites oppressing poor people and fighting among themselves to gain power. I’ve been around the block enough times, however, to realize that these were most likely pious people who had convinced themselves they were doing the right thing.

We’re all involved in social structures that oppress and ignore the neediest. Sure, poor people often contribute to their own problems but when we learn to know them we discover that there’s always a backstory. Poor kids get caught in violent neighborhoods, racial prejudice, an abusive foster-care system, poor schools, and a skewed criminal justice system. I imagine God looking at our country and saying, “I expected justice but saw bloodshed and heard a cry.”

Jesus chided his listeners and called them hypocrites because they were blind to such things. He told them that they were good at interpreting signs for the weather but incapable of reading the signs of the times (Luke 12: 54-56). How do we interpret the signs of the times in our world? They are those places overcome by spiritual brokenness and social injustice. We will also want to discern where and how the reign of God is penetrating our world, bringing healing, and social and spiritual transformation.

What does that look like? I was recently talking with a friend who is the pastor of another emerging church here in Fairfax. We share the goal of forming diverse, multi-cultural congregations. We also share the free-church conviction that dynamic expressions of God’s kingdom always emerge on the margins. Giving up our compulsion to be in charge is very liberating. It gives us the freedom to be different in ways that matter.

That’s what makes experimenting with different mottos for our church so much fun. I especially like the sentence one of our church members came up with, “A loving, multicultural congregation with a passion for peace and justice, following the path of Jesus Christ.” We eventually agreed on a shortened version that we will put on church sign by the road. Under our new name “Daniels Run Peace Church” will be the motto “Living Love, Growing Justice, Welcoming Everyone.”

July 26, 2016

Building an Inclusive Church

The raw fear can be overwhelming. Last week we saw images of a big truck ramming through the crowds in Nice as people ran for their lives. There have been so many mass shootings in our own country creating a fear of others. Then there are all those video clips of black men being killed by policemen and now of police being targeted by lone shooters.

Matthew Boulton, the president of Christian Theological Seminary, expresses our angst, “As the sound of gunfire continues to echo in our neighborhoods — from Baton Rouge to St. Paul, Dallas to Charleston, Newtown to Orlando — so many of us are angry, exhausted, heartbroken, devastated, lost. Violence like this strikes at the heart of who we are, and threatens again and again to divide us, segregate us, polarize us, turn us against our brothers, our sisters, our neighbors, ourselves.”

We need to confess that our country was born in violence as we destroyed native American populations, enslaved Africans to work our fields, and fought a revolutionary war against Great Britain. Later there was racial and religious violence against Jews, Catholics, and Asian immigrants. Still, we have been inspired and energized by greater ideals that are enshrined in our constitution: equality under the law, justice for all, religious freedom, a free press, and the right of assembly.

We have always lived with the tension between these two realities. Racism and the oppression of minorities are the original sins of our country. At the same time, many of our ancestors migrated here because they were fleeing persecution and poverty in the lands they came from. They brought with them the hope of religious freedom, justice, and equal opportunity for all.

Recent events have brought our racial and economic divides to the surface. They emerged at a recent Fairfax County Board of Supervisors meeting as they deliberated about creating an outside civilian review panel for police abuse investigations. Some activists attended to meeting to bring attention to the recent report showing that more than 40 percent of use-of-force cases in Fairfax County last year involved African Americans, who account for about 8 percent of Fairfax’s population.

A related incident people have been protesting is the death of Natasha, a mentally ill black woman who died in detention. She was in shackles and handcuffs and was still Tasered four times with a stun gun while surrounded by six deputies. An internal investigation concluded that they had followed protocol and no charges were filed.

We dare not focus our blame exclusively on the police. Many serve with integrity and devote their lives to keeping our community safe. I commend progressive policing initiatives here in Fairfax such as instituting restorative justice processes and a Diversion First program where mentally ill people who create a disturbance are taken to a medical facility rather than to the county jail. Prejudice permeates our society and none are immune. Too often our churches participate in this racism. It has often been noted that Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America.

That’s why I’m so thankful for the diversity we have in our small church. We’re learning how to worship and serve together across our differences including ethnic and racial divides. My dream is that we will slowly, laboriously keep building an inclusive church one brick at a time here in the City of Fairfax. It can be hard work. It’s much easier to tear down than to build up. But we have a good start and my prayer is that by God’s grace we will grow more and more into the kind of faith fellowship that crosses the divides in our community.

June 27, 2016

Being a Peace Church

We’re in the process of changing the name of our church from “Northern Virginia Mennonite Church” to “Daniels Run Peace Church.” What does being a peace church look like? Our Mennonite tradition has a long heritage of saying no to war because we can’t reconcile Jesus’ command to love our enemies with killing them. Along with the Quakers, the Church of the Brethren, and many other conscientious objectors we insist that war is never the answer. A personal example is that I registered as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War and served our country as an orderly in a mental hospital.

Refusing to go to war is a powerful witness to God’s love but it’s not enough. We need to also actively promote peace in our community. One way in which our church does that is through supporting the Fairfax County Student Peace Awards program, which awards high school seniors selected by their school for their peace and justice initiatives. We also support the organization Heeding God’s Call to End Gun Violence. Each year we place a “Memorial to the Lost” on our church lawn remembering all those killed by gun violence in the metro DC area.

There are many ways to be a peace church. For instance, our church garden, caring for Daniels Run, and restoring our woods are all kinds of peace efforts. One of the biggest challenges to being a people of peace is to know how to respond when we have personally been harmed. Being in that gay nightclub in Orlando or loving one of those who was killed would mean having to live with a nightmare for the rest of your life.

This mass shooting happened almost one year after Dylan Roof, a troubled young man filled with white supremacist ideology, killed nine people during a Bible study at the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. Among those killed was their beloved pastor Clementa Pinckney. Shortly after this horrific tragedy some church members and relatives of those murdered surprised lots of people when they said that it was their Christian duty to forgive Dylan.

Jeffery Brown from PBS recently interviewed pastor Betty Deas, the new pastor of Mother Emanuel. Betty is such a warm person with a wonderful smile. Jeffery asked her how the congregation was doing and she responded that they are slowly progressing but still grieving. She said it’s so good when people can start laughing again.

Jeffery then asked her about those expressions of forgiveness. Her response is a wonderful example of the gospel in action. She told Jeffery that forgiveness is more than an emotion, it’s a choice. We choose to not respond in kind or to try to get even. Sure, our emotions are still raw and it’s okay to be angry and to want to withdraw for a while. If she ever has the opportunity to meet Dylan Roof she will tell him that Jesus loves him and that there is forgiveness and life beyond the horrible thing he did.

A woman recently came to talk with her about what happened. The woman seemed withdrawn and Betty reached out to hug her. The woman responded, “Before you hug me, I need to tell you that I’m Dylan Roof’s aunt.” Betty, responded, “You still need a hug don’t you?” They hugged and then they talked.

Betty said that Charleston still has a long way to go in race relations but they have already come so far. She talked about the wonderful way in which all kinds of people responded to the shooting with an outpouring of sympathy and love. It brought the whole community together across racial divides.

That’s the power of love and forgiveness—a power much stronger than fear and hate. This is our identity. It’s who we are as followers of Jesus who obey his command to love our enemies. And that’s what a peace church looks like.

May 23, 2016

Finding Hope in a Briar Patch of Troubles

A thicket of greenbriar and multiflora rose in our church woods

Proverbs chapter eight is a delightful ode to creation. It transports us back to the very beginning in the mists of time where Wisdom is personified as a woman telling us the story. She and God delight in each other as they toil together to create everything that exists. Wisdom says she “was rejoicing in the inhabited world and delighting in the human race.”

The world as we know it today is broken and painted with darker colors. The Apostle Paul characterizes it as the human race and all of creation groaning together in labor pains as we wait for our redemption and for a new world to be born. Old Testament professor Safwat Marzouk aptly describes this groaning:

Communities around the world are suffering climate change, civil war, terrorism, forced migration, and much more. Churches are weary of polarization and division, and many now lack the ability or desire to have fellowship with people who are different from them. Individuals struggles with cancer and migraines and aching bones, or walk with loved ones who do (The Christian Century, May 11, 2016: 22).

The American Dream insist that our standard of living should keep getting better for each generation. We believe this is our American birthright and try to remain oblivious to all the painful realities around us. Others of us have lost hope in a better future as we see our former standard of living slipping away. As a consequence, there has been an alarming increase in alcoholism, drug dependency, obesity, and suicide in working class communities.

The past several decades have been especially difficult for churches. Denominational institutions have had to continually cut staff and programs as their budgets slowly dried up. Church membership has been declining for decades but then more rapidly since the beginning of this century. We remain deeply divided over things like abortion, same-sex marriage, and racial and cultural differences.

Our denomination is experiencing a major schism as various conferences and congregations decide to leave because of such differences. A recent church news article breaks my heart. Several conferences recently voted to leave Mennonite Church USA. This has created a dilemma for many congregations because they now need to make a painful choice between their conference and their denominational affiliation. This ongoing struggle is a constant drip, drip, drip that erodes our faith and hope.

It gets so discouraging! I try to ignore such struggles and put my passion and energy into the life and mission of our church here in Northern Virginia. There’s wisdom in not getting wrapped up in larger church conflicts to the detriment of the local church. Still, like it or not, denominational matters affect us and we can’t just stick our heads in the sand and ignore them.

The challenge is to have our lives formed by a hope that’s grounded in the creative and redeeming work of God. When we do that we’re capable of confronting these kinds of difficulties with grace. Paul’s letter to the Romans gives us some handles on how to do that. He says that we have been made righteous through Christ’s faithfulness combined with our faith. This confidence and faith gives us peace with God. We have an audacious hope.

We boast of this hope. It’s not something to keep under wraps or to be modest about. Then Paul takes an unexpected turn when he exclaims, “We even take pride in our problems, because we know that trouble produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Romans 5: 3-4). The path to a new humanity winds its way through a briar patch of troubles.

I find it hard to gracefully accept troubles. They make me despondent and ashamed of myself and my church. A voice inside me laments that we could do so much better. We certainly could! What I fail to recognize is how we get there. We don’t insist on black and white answers and we don’t just throw up our hands and walk away.

We, instead, persevere and develop character in the process. And as we develop character our faith and hope increase. I love the way Paul concludes, “This hope doesn’t put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” (Romans 5: 5).

April 20, 2016

Spiritual Wisdom from a Garden

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Spring turns my attention to gardening. The cool weather crops of lettuce, kale, carrots, peas, broccoli, cabbage and chard that I planted several weeks ago are thriving—they even seemed to enjoy the recent cold snap. I’ve been browsing gardening magazines for my bedtime reading. Cynthia Woods wrote in the Virginia Gardener about an ancient oak tree that came crashing down in her garden on Christmas eve.

Cynthia says that after she recovered from the shock and horror of smashed Camellia and azaleas, an enormous hole in the ground, and more muck and mire than she cares to describe, she began to ponder what to do about the situation. She had worked on the garden for over 20 years and had recently rather smugly decided that she had it where she wanted it.

She says she should have known better. “A garden is never, ever finished. Any experienced gardener knows that even entertaining such heretical thoughts is just plain foolish.” She began to look at the desolation each day and walked around it to try to see and hear what the new, radically altered landscape was telling her.

Plants that thrived in the shade of an oak tree will not be happy in the bright sunlight that emerges when it falls to the ground. After she finished sulking, Cynthia began to contemplate the possibilities for the new, open space in her garden, perhaps an interesting Japanese maple and some low growing conifers that she could train to grow over large rocks.

Even under the best of circumstances, things are never finished. Cynthia concludes, “It’s best to accept the lessons of patience, watchfulness, and resilience that our gardens offer. Slow gardening—it’s the way to go. Breathe deeply, observe closely, and enjoy everything, even the imperfections. There is beauty in everything.”

The same wisdom applies to faith communities. Together we’re God’s garden. Our church is located in a particular spiritual micro-climate here by Daniels Run in the City of Fairfax. This environment supports what will grow in our garden. I’m not sure what the equivalent of an ancient oak tree toppling over might be but the wisdom we can gain from this is that even disasters open up new possibilities—that is if we have eyes to see and ears to hear what our new landscape is telling us.

Like Cynthia walking around in her garden, I spent considerable time getting familiar with this new space when I first became the pastor of our church. I occasionally walk downtown for lunch to absorb the ambience of our city. I have joined the local Clergy and Leadership Council to get a better feel for what other faith communities are doing and to explore ways of working together. I find ways to build relationships with church members.

I love puttering around in our church garden. My gardener and pastoral avocations flow together as I dream of ways to keep developing who we are and what we have. Our Fairfax community is part of the old South. This was a slaveholding community and a Civil War site. How does our presence, and the life of our peace oriented church fit into God’s purposes for our community?

The apostle Paul says we’re co-workers linked together as one. (1 Corinthians 3: 9) The Greek word he uses is synergoi from which we get the word synergy—diverse people working together to achieve a common purpose. Skilled garden landscapers strive to weave a common thread through a garden that ties things together but it’s the contrasts of shape, texture, and color that make it interesting. Monocultures are boring; furthermore, they’re more perceptible to pests and disease. So we mix it up. Inviting, resilient, and thriving churches have the same characteristics.

March 24, 2016

Gardening by Daniels Run

Gorgeous spring weather has arrived and I’m squeezing as much time as possible from my other pastoral duties to work in our church garden by Daniels Run. I expanded our garden a bit by creating two new beds. I planted early spring crops of spinach, lettuce, chard, radishes, and snow peas. All these plants are starting to poke their heads out of the soil but you have to look close to see them. In a few more weeks they will develop into vigorous plants.

This is the promise of gardening. It’s also the promising of pastoring our smaller church here in Fairfax, Virginia. Our adult Sunday school class has been studying the book The Indispensable Guide for Smaller Churches written by David Ray. He says that worship is where the life of a smaller church begins and comes together. He also reminds us that the church exists by mission. To paraphrase the prophet Jeremiah, “We seek the welfare of the city where we live, for in its welfare we will find our welfare (29:7).

Our church is fortunate to own a three-acre property in the middle of our city, with the small stream called Daniels Run flowing through it. One of the ways we seek the welfare of our city is by caring for this environment and developing it into an inviting space for our neighborhood. Last summer an Eagle Scout troop helped us create a picnic area and nature trail winding its way from our church garden down to Daniels Run. Now we’re gradually developing the trail through the two-acre woods on the other side of the stream.

We’re also renovating our church building and worship space to make it handicap accessible and more inviting. One feature will be a large window in our sanctuary looking out over the woods and our church garden. Another aspect of healthy church life is raising morale and elevating our spirit. A big part of that is focusing on the unique strengths and resources of our small congregation rather than thinking we need to be a large, program oriented church to be successful.

We are a church in the Anabaptist spiritual tradition that emphasizes the communal life of our church and things like simple living, service, peace, and justice. We’re also deeply rooted in the soil of our past history of farm life and bi-vocational farmer preachers. Perhaps that’s why I thoroughly enjoy combining gardening with my other pastoral work. In keeping with this spirituality, our church is considering changing our name to “Daniels Run Peace Church.” That will help to root us in our environment and to grow our garden here beside Daniels Run.

February 18, 2016

We Care

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A slogan on our church sign by the road proclaims that we are, “A Caring Christian Community.” It expresses our desire and hope for the kind of community we want to be. Yet the word “caring” begs to be filled out. I did some research and found three different quotes about caring:

This one especially grabbed my attention. “Some people care too much; I think it’s called love”—Winnie the Pooh.
Another reminds me of something my former spiritual director would say. “A smile is the light in your window that tells others that there’s a caring, sharing person inside”—Denis Waitley.
Yet another is especially appropriate for smaller churches. “Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world, for, indeed, that’s all who ever have”—Margaret Mead.

In what ways are we caring and how is that put into action? Pastor and small church advocate David Ray says there are good reasons why smaller churches are the right size to be caring communities. People come to small churches because they want to be with others rather than to worship in isolation (The Indispensable Guide for Smaller Churches, 154).

Smaller churches can take time to care because we don’t need to be fully occupied with keeping the institution running, as is true in larger organizations. If the way we think about our ministry and the way we structure our church life are more relational, we as a people will be more relational. We then have a greater capacity to care for others and to meet the needs of people.

February 5, 2016

All Are Empowered

In his international bestselling book Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine, and What Matters in the End, Atul Gawande argues that we’ve been wrong about what our job is in medicine. He writes “We think our job is to ensure health and survival. But really it is larger than that. It is to enable well-being. And well-being is about the reasons one wishes to be alive. Those reasons matter not just at the end of life, or when debility comes, but all along the way” (259).

It’s not only that our goal is misguided; the way doctors relate to their patients is equally problematic. He describes three different kinds of relationships. One is “paternalistic.” This is the old-school method of telling people what to do. Take the red pill or the blue pill. The doctor is authoritative, self-certain, and busy with things to do.

Another common way today is “informative.” Here the doctor is the expert who gives the patient the facts and figures and the rest is up to you. In this approach the patient is a consumer and doctors know less and less about their patients and more and more about their science. He says this is his own default way of relating to patients, which he’s trying to overcome.

Neither way is quite what people need. Sure, we need a doctor with information and a degree of control but we also need guidance, which requires a frank and honest discussion that honors the humanity and the wishes of the patient. This third way is known as an “interpretative” approach. Doctors who use this approach ask their patients, “What is most important to you? What are your worries?” (201).

The goals and doctor-patient relationships that Dr. Gawande strives for are also relevant in creating a life-giving Christian fellowship. I find it easy to become moralistic and self-righteous about things like social equality. Preaching is easy, but how do we create a community that listens to each other and endeavors to actually relate to each one of us in ways that are authentic?

One of the most revolutionary aspects of the life of the early churches was the conviction that all are empowered by the Spirit of God. Putting this conviction into practice was especially radical in the midst of a hierarchical and paternalistic society. They insisted that even those with no legal rights were to be equally included as sisters and brothers in their fellowship.

An example of how this was put into practice is when Paul sent the slave Onesimus back to his former master Philemon. We don’t know the circumstances but it appears that Onesimus ran away after a conflict and then somehow met up with Paul in prison. All three are now followers of Jesus and this makes all the difference. Paul sends Onesimus back with a letter to Philemon instructing him to receive Onesimus “no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother.” It’s a powerful example of how following the way of Jesus turns social relationships upside down and empowers even the least among us.

December 22, 2015

A Joy That Leaps Within Us

Christmas lights at Brookgreen Gardens, South Carolina

We’re especially drawn by the tender joy and companionship in that part of the Christmas story where Mary visits her older relative Elizabeth and is greeted with these words, “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the child you are carrying.” Elizabeth adds, “As soon as I heard you greeting, the baby in my womb leaped for joy” (Luke 1: 41-44). We know so well the story of their shared lives—of how Elizabeth’s child John would eventually pave the way for the coming of Mary’s child Jesus who would be proclaimed as the Messiah.

Mennonite pastor Isaac Villegas writes, “The Christmas story begins with joy—visceral joy, ecstatic joy, a joy that moves through the characters’ bodies, drawing their lives together.” But it doesn’t stop there. He reminds us that we’re included in the story. “This is also our story, of you and me and the life we share. We’ve been brought together because of the joy of the gospel—a joy that leaps within us, stretching us toward one another, the ecstasy of shared life, fellowship through Christ, community in the Holy Spirit” (The Mennonite, Dec. 2015: 8).

Elizabeth’s heartwarming greeting elicits Mary’s song praising God and reveling in the way God is turning our world upside down. Lauren Winner says she once read Mary’s song on a park bench at a jazz festival and this prompted the recognition that it’s like jazz. A jazz “musician takes what she knows of scales and modes and the melodic theme and creates something new—in response to what the other members of the band are doing, or even in response to some random ambient noise” (The Christian Century, Dec. 9, 2015: 21).

The genius of jazz lies in improvisation. As Mary responds to what God is doing she latches onto the example of Hannah’s response to God’s gift-pregnancy of the child who would become the prophet Samuel. We can easily recognize how Mary improvises Hannah’s song. “My heart exults in the Lord,” Hannah sings. She also rejoices in how God inverts the social order, “He raises up the poor from the dust; He lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes” (I Samuel 2: 1-10).

But Hannah isn’t making up her song on the spot either. She’s drawing on the yet older song that Moses’ sister Miriam sang after God provided a way for the former Hebrew slaves and to cross the Red Sea and delivered them from Pharaoh’s powerful pursuing army.

Jazz moves, swings, and improvises by working with a common theme in response to a new situation. That’s what these three women in the Bible are doing. We can draw inspiration from them and do likewise in response to the challenges and opportunities of our time. As a people of faith, how do we improvise and swing in our present, ever-changing American social and spiritual landscape?

Lauren Winner writes, “In response to these changes, the thing to do is not to despair; nor is it to invent from whole cloth. The things to do, rather is to invent from the cords we have. Pianist Frank Barrett says that ‘the best jazz is always on the verge of falling apart.’ This is true of churches, too. The best church is always on the verge of falling apart—and life with God has always involved making new combinations from the essential practices of our faith” (The Christian Century, Dec. 9, 2015: 21).

December 9, 2015

Advent as a Pregnant Time

Given that I’m male it’s a little audacious for me to talk about being pregnant. My closest experience has been living with my wife during her pregnancies with our three children—I certainly can’t claim any firsthand knowledge. Nevertheless, from those memories, I can characterize it as being filled with anticipation, of feeling awkward, and finally a desire to just have it end.

The first Advent season was a pregnant time. Both Mary and Elizabeth with expecting babies. Their husbands, Zechariah and Joseph were, we could say, a bit clueless. The women were much more aware of what was happening. But to be fair, their husbands eventually caught on and certainly supported their wives. It was all a bit awkward. New life was gestating. Tummies were getting big and it was a little hard to keep one’s balance. Things were moving, taking shape, growing. It involved so many hopes and dreams of what God was doing in their world.

This may sound a little sacrilegious but I like to think that God was pregnant. I know it’s a stretch to imagine God with a big extended tummy, walking awkwardly and slightly off balance. But isn’t that much better than imagining God as a stern judge in his chambers keeping track of our sins or as a fierce warrior on the battlefield slaying his enemies?

Speaking of God as a pregnant mother isn’t new. The prophet Isaiah spoke of God as being in labor bringing new life (44:14) and as a mother comforting her children (66:13). The medieval Christian mystic Julian of Norwich is known for her female images of God. Her words have been made into a poem by Jean Janzen and put to music by Janet Peachy. It’s now in our church hymnal, “Mothering God, you gave me birth in the bright morning of this world. Creator, source of every breath, you are my rain, my wind, my sun.”

Just as in the first century, our world is also pregnant and we wait in anticipation of the new life taking form in and among us. In this Advent season, we will want to be especially aware of some of the awkward, hopeful, pregnant possibilities in our personal lives, in our church, and in our world.

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