First Evangelical Lutheran Church

The two halves of life

Pastor Bill — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:30:41 +0000

Richard Rohr has written a fascinating little book titled Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life. Rohr claims in this work that the first half of life is all about establishing identity, distinctness, production, amassing. The second half, he says is about unity and letting go. For Rohr these two halves are necessarily about chronology. Some who are younger can move into the wiser second half of life. And unfortunately, those who are older can remain stuck in the first half. Those older folks who think that life is all about their ideological perspectives are among those who haven’t moved to the wiser, less-controlled half of life. One of the beautiful things about church communities is that they bring together people from both halves of life. And we have so much to learn from each other.

The two halves of life

Pastor Bill — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 00:16:43 +0000

Advent, Too

admin — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 20:01:58 +0000

I love what former Trinity Seminary professor Don Luck has to say about Advent: “Commenting on the social context for her work, Flannery O’Connor has observed: ‘It is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted’ . . . Similarly, we might say that , even though we hardly live in a world we can describe as God-centered, it is the case that it is God-haunted. Wherever we turn, there are glimmerings and gleamings of a light that is divine and eternal–in the wide expanse of human experience, in the unfolding patterns of the centuries, in the variegated expressions of religion and culture. [The theme of Advent] is that we live out our lives in a God-haunted world. It is a world that points beyond itself to something greater, something richer, something more ultimate than itself. Though God is not seen directly or clearly or without distortion, something of [God's] presence and [God's] claims impact themselves on every human heart, so that it can never be said that any life is ‘God-forsaken’–not any single life, nor any particular generation, nor any individual experience. All around us are glimpses of something greater than we already know.”

Advent

admin — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 19:50:42 +0000

I love the season of Advent. It is such an honest season. It tells the truth about our longings. We are people who long, who wait. Life is in many ways a journey of longing and waiting. I suspect that we would do well to allow this season wash over us. We so quickly want to move from longing to fulfillment. That’s why for the culture Advent really is about showing up early and often at Toys Are Us. It’s not about anticipating, but getting something now that will help us pretend that we don’t have longings. Maybe the latest game system will make us think that we don’t have empty spots. The tradition of the church is much more profound than the practice of the culture.

Freedom

Pastor Bill — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 23:40:15 +0000

After you finish reading this post, you may conclude that Bill is getting old. I had the radio on in the car today, as I usually do. A well-known country song came on that usually talks about having “my toes and a** in the sand.” The song had been dubbed. A** had been removed. At first I thought that it was too bad that the radio people here in West Michigan thought that we couldn’t handle this reference. I was thinking about the role of conservative religion around here. Then I started to reflect on the few seconds of Jersey Shore that I had seen on television earlier in the day. What triviality and what a distortion of freedom! It was as if anything goes. Maybe there is room in life for appropriateness, for watching what we say and what we do. The Apostle Paul tells us that “all things are lawful, but not all things are helpful.” We really have great freedom. But it is not helpful to do and say whatever we want whenever we want it, primarily because this doing anything comes with a price. Others often pay the price. Doing whatever you want whenever you darn well please often is an exercise in egocentricity. Others are harmed by our self centeredness. Truthfully, the song I heard today was quite awkward with the dubbing. The poetry of the song suffered because of it. But this oldster is starting to worry about the old slippery slope. It seems that when some people are given freedom they don’t know how to handle it. Pretty soon we have Jersey Shores and Howard Stern. Just tell me that I am getting old and crotchety.

Facebook

Pastor Bill — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 02:33:49 +0000

Facebook has brought such dramatic change to our society. It is a remarkable way to disseminate information and an amazing way to connect to people from your past. I just finished connecting to a college professor of mine with whom I have not spoken for more than 30 years. My worry about FB has to do with the amount of trivialization that it brings into our lives. It could serve to take us to new heights but seems to serve too often only to let us know where people are and what they have had to eat. I wonder if indeed people “are spending quality time with their family.” If they are, why don’t they just do it. Why must they in the midst of their doing it have to tell us that they are doing it?Just do it, and put the phone down. And what’s more, the sound bites that we receive about political subjects on FB serve only to denigrade the national debate, not take it to a higher level. Tell me more than you think that President Obama is an idiot. Tell me what you don’t like about his policies and what you would suggest apart from political diatribe.

Betty Ford

Pastor Bill — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 03:30:06 +0000

It is sad to me that we are saying goodbye to Betty Ford. She was a very good woman. I have always appreciated the fact that she was not overtaken by the ideological wing of her party. She wouldn’t be forced to think in a certain way. She recognized that life is complex and that its complexity could not be handled by a “party line.” She also was authentic. She was willing to tell the truth about life. Her honesty about her alcoholism and her breast cancer was such a breath of fresh air. She represented a time when political parties could actually deal with each other. Note the close friendship she had with Rosalynn Carter. The current impasse over the debt ceiling begs for the kind of bi-partisanship that Betty demonstrated. Betty, you will be missed. Thanks for what you gave us.

The power of song

Pastor Bill — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 16:12:00 +0000

Ronald Letnus in the recent E-newsletter of the Lutheran Magazine speaks of the “songs that keep him going.” What are those sings for you? I find “Beauty for Brokenness, hope for despair. Lord, in the suffering, this is my prayer” to be words from a song that serve to propel me forward. What about you?

Being countercultural

Pastor Bill — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 02:14:05 +0000

I am convinced that the Christian message is a countercultural message. It certainly doesn’t resonate with the values of the dominant culture. Can I urge you to be countercultural? Start by being committed. Ours is a culture where commitment is less and less evident. Bring your kids week in and week out to worship. Go to another church when you are elsewhere. This type of commitment is rare these days. It isn’t rare when it comes to events and experiences that involve competition–sports and band, for example. But experiences like worship and Christian education that tend to be less about us and our ability to win are not often deemed worthy of our commitment. That’s too bad. Our children’s temporary experience of All Star status won’t provide them a long-term commitment to that which lasts forever, that which connects them to the Eternal.

Book review of Love Wins by Rob Bell

Pastor Bill — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 01:59:28 +0000

Rob Bell, pastor from Mars Hill church in Grandville, Michigan, has created quite a little stir in the
evangelical community with his book Love Wins: A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. Even Time Magazine featured this book on its cover.

The stir, it seems to me, is the threat that Bell poses to the whole evangelical
system that has dominated American religion for such a long time in this
culture. He points out, rightfully I would argue, that evangelicalism’s preoccupation with a “personal relationship
with Jesus” is a preoccupation within Christianity only within the past 100 years. It certainly doesn’t have
Biblical warrant. Bell also challenges many because of his argument that Christianity is not primarily about the next
life and with his claim that the symbols of heaven and hell have as much to do with this life as they to do with what happens after we die.

Bell does not argue that heaven and hell are not real, as some of his critics maintain. What he does is to try to
understand these symbols in a Biblical way. And for the most part, I think he is quite successful. He points out, for example, that hell as a symbol in the New Testament is something applied to insiders, not to those who
are outside of the faith community. He also pictures heaven not as a realm distinct from this life, but rather this
life’s completion, something with which books like Isaiah and Revelation would completely concur.

Bell’s book is good. It is sound. His thought resonates with what we in the ELCA have been talking about for a long time.
There is a bit of an attention deficit character to this book. Bell doesn’t linger with thoughts too long. But this, I am sure, appeals to those of us who are younger. The book is an easy read, although from my perspective Bell is no intellectual slouch.