The Two Systems

April 16, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

Our Wednesday studies engage a wide diversity of people who are not (yet?) members of our congregation, but who find their spiritual centering in our midst. This week we were discussing this passage at the end of John 3.

31 The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks about earthly things. The one who comes from heaven is above all. ³² He testifies to what he has seen and heard, yet no one accepts his testimony. ³³ Whoever has accepted his testimony has certified this, that God is true. ³⁴ He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. ³⁵ The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. ³⁶ Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the Son will not see life, but must endure God’s wrath.

We have talked in the study many times about the overarching power of grace, and the danger of “works righteousness.” Some people “get it,” and others don’t, because they seem to have a great deal invested in their own sense of personal righteousness as dutiful, believing Christians. As I try to probe with them what it is they are “hanging on to” this explanation began to unfold itself for me.

It seems there are basically two rules or systems which may govern our relationship with God and one another. The one is the rule of rewards and punishments. The other is the rule of grace. In the Bible, of course, we find language that is descriptive of both, and so it takes enormous discernment to give weight to each of these and to decide by which rule we will live.Under the rule of rewards and punishments, we will always strive for reward and try to avoid punishment. We will measure our achievement and calculate our relationship both to God and to other human beings on the basis of how we can gain rewards and what we might lose or suffer. The bottom line is that we will expect our behavior and good works (or our abstaining from bad things) counts for something, and that in the end—the judgment day—we will receive the ultimate rewards of eternal bliss, a heavenly mansion, a heavenly banquet, a crown, etc.

But under that rule of rewards and punishments, we become more like Muslims than different from them, for they too hope to receive entrance to Paradise on the judgment day, except of course that their doctrine affords them no advance certainty that God will grant to them the eternal reward.

The rule of grace, on the other hand, cares little about rewards or punishment. We stop measuring our performance against a standard which is impossible. We simply live under grace, honest in the knowledge that we do not deserve it yet confident that we have already received it without measure. Under grace, we are not ultimately terrified about damnation, for the scripture assures us that we may draw near to the throne of grace with confidence.

Moral theology, especially under the definition of the medieval Catholic system, would attempt to marry these two rules together, but in fact that results in a tragic, upended mishmash in which grace must be subordinated to law. When Lutherans insist— relying on where St. Paul tells us that all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory, and that all are justified by God’s grace apart from the law— we do not mean that grace is merely the strength we need from beyond ourselves to perform all the required works and deeds and abstinences of moral law. Rather we mean that we are wholly and completely justified —not by any effort on our part nor by refraining from anything, nor even confessing to our sinful nature and our manifold iniquities—only and totally as a free and undeserved gift from God for Christ’s sake.

If it is not the melding of these two rules, which I think is destructive at best, here is the bottom line: It is left to each of us to choose under which rule we will order our lives—whether under the rule of rewards and punishments, or under the rule of grace. If we voluntarily choose the system of rewards and punishments, we may be caught up in a giddy hopefulness for an exclusive parcel of eternal real estate, but in this life we will be preoccupied with fear of punishment and with being given credit for each correct moral choice we make and the sum of our accomplishments.

But if we voluntarily choose the rule of grace, all those things pale before the wonder-filled knowledge of God’s generous love and forgiveness, whereby gratitude for God’s gifts of grace so overwhelms our hearts that our life itself overflows with generosity and compassion.

This topic will be more fully explored on my other web site Gay Catechism. 

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Doctrine, Gay Catechism, Bible & Interpretation, Ecumenical Issues, Living by Grace, Fundamentalism, Spirituality | Print | No Comments »

Prayer in the heart of Hollywood.

March 25, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

The music of Taizé has been around for a generation or more, but continues to grow in popularity, in part because of those who come from around the world to pray in this southern French town are met with simple and direct piety in an amazing blend of experiences.

Taizé was founded by Brother Roger during World War II, quickly became a refuge for Jews escaping the Nazi slaughter, and today draws as many as 7,000 visitors per week.

We have begun to pattern our prayer life on the piety and music of Taizé here in Hollywood. It has begun as a Lenten experiment, will continue on Maundy Thursday next week, and hopefully in the weeks after Easter.

There is no doubt that the experience is monastic — it provides a temporary retreat from the world into pure contemplation. There a re few words, time for silence and easily repetitive prayer. But when monasticism gently opens its arms to the outside world, it is grace.

Better yet, the brothers of Taizé welcome imitation all over the world. Their simple ecumenism fits our emerging church sensibility that the only way to be post-denominational as Christians is to start living like Christians with no prefixes or suffixes.

Even more amazing, doctrine and official dogma clearly are in the back seat or not present at all. The texts give voice to the words of Scripture alone, and interpretation is simply left to the Spirit to bring to each heart. The worship style of Taizé takes seriously the prophetic words of Jeremiah 31, “This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD.”

In our experience, the role of the leader is unimportant, and formality is forgotten. Some sit on the floor or on cushions. Different people simply rise to read or to offer pray from the heart.

What is gratifying to many is that this kind of faith and spiritual expression is attracting young people. The music is singable, not complex, not packed with theology, and the mood enhanced by things as un-high tech as candles allows each person to bring what she or he has to offer and place it before God with honesty and simplicity. In our house of worship, each week different people have been close to tears. I hope we can continue this in the future to welcome people who don’t feel they belong in a church on a Sunday morning.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Doctrine, Catholic matters, Bible & Interpretation, Ecumenical Issues, PRAYERS, Faith, Spirituality | Print | No Comments »

Enveloped on the mountaintop.

February 14, 2010 by Pastor Dan.

Today being the feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, it deserves some comment. I had to preach on it this morning.

It’s a difficult thing no matter whether you’re a cynic or deeply pious. As the story is told it’s too supernatural–ranks right up there with the Ascension on the list of things no one really believes as narrated.

Yet the narrative tries to convey something intensely mystical and meaningful. In the midst of his public ministry, Jesus seemed profoundly different to his disciples. Something happened that allowed/permitted/forced them to see him in a new and blinding light.

Typically we call that a “mountaintop experience,” and it must have been for Peter James and John, the “inner three” who get lot of attention in the Gospel stories but we are never fully told why. As told in Luke 9, the three of them were “weighed down with sleep” (and you will remember that in Matthew and Mark, the same three disciples are with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and, yup, there they fell asleep too).

Just like the other nine disciples, these guys were not perfect. They had feet of clay. They were as flawed as any human being alive right now—but: the witness of these disciples is that a veil was ripped away, and they saw Christ Jesus as God sees him. They were overshadowed and enveloped by a Cloud— a glory they could not understand and could hardly describe— but the Jesus who came out of the transfiguring Cloud with them was not One to be afraid of, or One to hide from, but One who was to lay down his life for them.

I cannot guarantee you a mountaintop experience. You will find your own mountain, and it probably won’t be a pretty picture in the piney woods with postcard views from the top. For some of us, it may be the mountain of our own failures, or sorrows, or mistakes, or addictions, pain or internalized homophobia. But if we climb the mountains we have heaped up in our lives, there, at the top of these heaps of human experience, we encounter the Cross. And it is not a trigger for terror. It is the revelation of the One True God of grace, forgiveness, compassion and lovingkindness. It may be Law which drives us up the mountain of despair, but it is pure Gospel to find the love of Jesus Christ awaiting us at the top.

— Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Homophobia, Gay Catechism, Doctrine, Bible & Interpretation, Living by Grace, LGBT Christian, Spirituality | Print | No Comments »

Lasting Peace: the Unsplit Life

October 23, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

On the train to Riverside today I finally picked up a book I had set aside last July: the anthology “Wrestling with the Angel” [Brian Bouldrey, ed.; New York: Riverhead Books, 1995]. Today I came to Andrew Holleran’s chapter in which he wrestles with Catholic guilt more than any angel.

Holleran (Eric Garber) is a gay novelist and essayist roughly my contemporary in age but far more advanced in finding his voice as an activist. You can Google for a lot about his life and work if you like.

So much of what he writes about religion parallels my own awareness if not experience, and I can’t help wondering if it is more because he was Catholic and I Lutheran that he left most of the faith behind and I never did. Holleran identifies, at least he did in 1995 in “The Sense of Sin” as a “cafeteria Catholic,” taking what he wants from the religious smorgasbord and leaving the rest behind. But his chief insight in his brief autobiography of confession reveals that he could neither abandon his childhood and adolescent Catholic faith nor fully embrace it.

“The sense of Sin is, of course, missing in some people, keen, more keen, keenest in others. When I drew up a list of my own one evening, I was surprised to see that all of mine amounted to sins that did not include homosexual acts themselves but the consequences of hiding them from people who loved and expected more out of me, perhaps than I’d given the world. In other words, I suspected myself of shame, withdrawal, and finally that most classic of Catholic sins, despair. Still, none of them seemed correctable; I hadn’t any more faith in homosexuality’s virtues, really, than I did in the existence of God—though the latter was no something I could bring myself to entirely disbelieve, either.”For me, this no-man’s land, this love-hate experience is what happens when one has absorbed the Religion of Christianity without ever finding a manner in which to live out the Christian Faith. Guilt truly is the gift that goes on giving, and we have good reason to jokingly insist that the Lutheran persuasion is “Catholic Lite: one third less guilt.”As a young writer and preacher I was always more than a bit brash, but taking the longer view now in mid-life and mature years I notice with enormous gratitude that I did not pick up much guilt about sex and sexuality in childhood and adolescence. Lutheran preachers were far too conventional and inhibited even to mention that sexuality exists. There were no warnings or scoldings from Sunday School teachers. Luther’s Small Catechism sticks to the basics of the Christian faith —faith in God and Christ and the Spirit and the Sacraments— rather than building moral fences and trying to provide guidelines to control our daily impulses. So to this day I insist that attitudes about human sexuality and homosexuality cannot, in and of themselves “split the church.” Opening our minds about gay and lesbian people and relationships is not an “abandonment of the historic faith” because, the Lutherans would insist, the true Christian faith does not contain doctrines about sex in the first place.

Holleran’s dilemma is that he cannot live with the dire ultimatums which either Catholicism or fundamentalism presents to him, but he realizes at mid-life that homosexuality and sexual liberalism are not a substitute faith, either. Even as a fallen child of his Church, he sees his sexuality in Catholic vocabulary: “a cross one had to bear.”

“That one kept thinking in Catholic phrases was, of course, part of the legacy of a Catholic childhood. The gay Catholic operates on two levels, I suspect; on the one hand, he believes it is quite moral to act on his sexual orientation, to form a sexual bond, of whatever duration, with another man; that the antihomosexual tenets of Christianity are parochial, culture-bound, and heterosexual; that the active gay man has acquired, and provided others, a human dimension available uniquely in erotic intimacy; that kindness, beauty, tenderness, love can be experienced only through the medium of another person. On the other, he suspects that he has turned sex into a form of fast-food junk, that he is trapped in a way of life from which there is no escape and no real chance of finding any lasting peace of mind. In other words, this was cognitive dissonance as a way of life.”All that I can counter is that I do not suffer that dissonance and I preach to dismantle its power over others. But my understanding is not to trivialize the core message of Jesus nor to re-Puritanize sexual expression. That I have remained not celibate but monogamous is not because I have struck some self-devised compromise with God or have internalized homophobic guilt about having casual or anonymous sexual experiences. It is because I have experienced the greatest personal and spiritual growth in relationships (one man, one Lord) which are long-lasting and able to grapple with the tension most human beings live with between the superficiality of the flesh and the overwhelming depth of the soul.If all of that is really a cross one has to bear, it is the cross I have chosen not because of a bifurcated life (hiding my sexuality from the church and hiding my faith from the boys at the gay bar), but because of my awareness that I live only one life and will struggle to keep it integrated. If I can live without splitting my life, then maybe the Church can live without splitting itself apart.—Pastor Dan Hooper

Posted in Sex, Gay Catechism, Catholic matters, Doctrine, Ecumenical Issues, Faith, LGBT Christian, Fundamentalism, Spirituality | Print | No Comments »

Praying for those who have no faith.

September 3, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

Recently I read about an Episcopal Church here in Los Angeles that welcomes people of faith and people with no faith. That contrast has stayed in mind for days. Our parish attracts an amazing diversity of people. some of them are still very much living in a fundamentalist world, and others are in recovery from fundamentalism, from Catholic guilt, from heavy parental piety and moral control, and from total burnout.

This is not the first time I have wrestled with these issues. I am struggling again with how to talk to people who have no faith, but who are at least open to spiritual experience that will lead them to respond in faith. As I am planning for an alternative, evening worship service–which may possible take the form of a Taizé worship experience– I started to jot down what elements belong in it, or what “ingredients” I would use to cook one up.

If we were to offer a brand new service or gathering without using traditional liturgy (complex, busy, unintelligible, boring) as a model, but drawing seekers and believers into a new experience of Jesus, what would this event include?

For one, it cannot use a traditional creedal statement, even the Apostles Creed. The formulas of the historic Christian Creeds were built on several generations of theological reflection about the significance of Jesus.

I no longer assume any such experience or penchant for reflection on the part of new seekers. Many people who wander back into a church had left as teenagers, not young adults. However long ago that was, they were operating on simple Sunday School thinking, and didn’t do much reflection on spirituality and life experiences before they walked.

Think of Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome” only “high school” is “Sunday School”:

When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school
It’s a wonder I can think at all
And though my lack of education hasn’t hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall

The ancients (priests and prophets, disciples and apostles of Jesus) were steeped in a tradition of seeking and knowing the power of God. And they had powerful experiences in their lives to confirm their faithful sense. People today seem not to have these experiences, possibly because we have cut too many ties to our own inner spiritual selves, as if spiritual stimuli are disconnected from the nerve pathways that could bring them into our consciousness. And we are numbed by the over-stimulation of stuff, of action films, instant gratification, and 24/7 virtual hook-ups.

Suddenly I found myself praying a prayer for faith without dogma. Is this un-Christian, non-Christian, pre-Christian? Or post-Christian? It is at least a prayer for “openness to faith”.

Great One,
I do not so much seek You as to open myself to be found.
I, who am finite, open myself to the infinite.
I, who am contemporary, open myself to the Ancient One and the Future One.
I, who am limited, open myself to the one who is unlimited.

Present One,
May I become transparent to your color, your strength, your Spirit.
May I have an ear ready to hear your Voice.
May I have legs to follow where You lead.
May I have a life ready to live in You.

Holy One,
Let Your Life infuse my life.
Let Your heart be the beat within my heart.
Let Your Light illuminate wherever I have darkness,
and Your Joy replenish my emptiness.
Let your compassion shape my compassion,
your power be my own power,
your grace become my graciousness,
your love awaken love within me,
and your forgiveness teach me to forgive others.

Let these things be so! Amen!

—Pastor Dan Hooper

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The arts and the sacraments of community.

June 5, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

One of my other hats in the community is as an organizer of new ventures in spirituality and the arts. This being Hollywood, involvement in the arts is almost required. Every week I meet more people involved in film, music, theatre, design and visual arts.

Deacon Roberta Morris came to me more than a year ago and proposed that we launch a new organization for spirituality and the arts. It is still in formation now and will incorporate shortly as a non-profit. But in the meantime, we launched the Los Feliz Art Walk, one of a growing number of grassroots neighborhood arts enterprises to allow emerging artists to exhibit their work, and some of the surrounding galleries, studios and public art spaces to reach new audiences.

Tonight was our monthly First Friday Art Walk. The informal center of the cluster of galleries and stores is our church’s work in progress—Courtyard Studio & Arts— which is being created out of junk classroom space and a back playground now filled with grass and a bubbling fountain. It is amazing what space, light and water can bring together. Since last September, we’ve had the Courtyard open for art exhibits, and the number of talented but unknown neighborhood artists who want to exhibit keeps growing. Three artists brought their work for tonight’s exhibit, two accomplished plein air painters and a sculptor.

Our hope is to eventually capture some modest grant money to pursue spirituality and the arts in many forms, including performance, film, music and other media. You can see some of our proposals as www.LosFelizArtWalk.org.

In these ten months, the most gratifying part of the Art Walks has been conversations with people who admit they are not religious but are trying to express or find (or both) their native spirituality in a way which is graciously received by others.

Without the formal structures of religion, spirituality is comfortable with all the arts, probably because it is not concerned to present, impose or enforce specific content or message. The arts speak with their own voice. So far that has included decorative work, crafts, sculptural nudes, both art and documentary photography, documentary film and spontaneous unscheduled music. For World AIDS Day , in conjunction with Hollywood Remembers, we also exhibited huge panels from the AIDS Memorial Quilt, the largest work of folk art in the world.

So far I have not drawn people directly into the church but I’ve had many conversations with total strangers who enjoyed our wine and cheese receptions, who were much more open to talking about faith, love, hopefulness in an age of cynicism, the spiritual search, and the spiritual lessons of life experiences with an openly religious parish priest. Most of these people were churched people at one time, but no longer. Some were wounded. Most became bored. Many were shown the door, made to be unwelcome at some point in their lives, yet felt happy to be able to be honest about their wounds, their boredom or their distance with a “man of the cloth.”

Of course, both because of people Roberta and I know, and because this is Hollywood after all, many of the artists and the public who come to see their work, are gay or lesbian or transgender. For them, being this near to a church can have an element of surprise or uncertainty. I try to put them at ease, both with my art and my faith and life experience.

To me, these chance encounters with lapsed Christians, non-practicing Jews and others, have almost been sacramental. The arts are sacraments, in one sense. Conversations can be confession and absolution. Simply for me to be present to unchurched people and to speak easily and openly about my own faith and life—including creativity, spontaneity, and hopefulness—is a genuine proclamation of the word. When I read Acts of the Apostles and some of Paul’s writings I realize that for every formal sermon he may have delivered to a gathered audience, he probably had a hundred informal one-to-one conversations first.

Maybe the biggest reason that the church as a whole fails so much to engage its culture and its neighborhood is that typically its doors are open only for the religion business, rather than for art, spirituality, community service and simple conversation. While we are growing only modestly, I have every confidence our trend will continue because of our creative ventures and our straightforward openness to people we don’t know. We will all learn from one another, and I suspect the Holy Spirit of God will find ways to be heard in those settings.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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The parable of a reconciling community.

May 12, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

I am exploring the idea of a Taizé style of contemplative worship as an alternative serviceion cooperation with Deacon Roberta Morris of the American Catholic Church.

Taizé is a small village in France near Cluny. The ecumenical community of Taizé was founded in 1940 by a Swiss man, Brother Roger, who was of Lutheran and Catholic roots; his father was a pastor. During World War II, with the help of his sister and other friends, they practiced a ministry of hospitality for anyone fleeing the terrors of war. Taizé was very near the demarcation line which divided France under Nazi power. Before long, friends in Lyon were simply giving the address of Taizé to all who needed refuge.

According to the Taize website, “their desire was to create a community of hospitality and trust for people from all over the world, and particularly a place of refuge for those from Eastern Europe.” Taizé is truly ecumenical and European because it has refused to be limited by the labels of the past. Brother Roger thought that Taizé’s mission or vocation was to be a “parable of community,” a small but visible sign of reconciliation.

I am mindful that this is how our own congregation is growing. Whether we realize it or not, we are a small community near the demarcation lines of various conflicts, struggles and even culture war. We are practicing a ministry of hospitality and trust. We are a Reconciling in Christ congregation. And —although we are a Lutheran church— in another sense we are neither Evangelical nor Catholic but a little of both. We offer compassion, food, spiritual nourishment, refuge, and a place where anyone seeking God may be at peace.

As a community, we are neither black nor white, gay nor straight; not rich or poor, although our community has individuals who fit those labels. Our purpose is to reflect the will of God and the mission of Jesus for whoever comes here.

Brother Roger continued to serve as the prior or abbot of the community from 1944 for six decades until his death in 2005 as a martyr. At the age of 90, he was murdered by a mentally ill woman who attacked him with a knife. Brother Roger wrote some 14 books, and co-authored three more with Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Today, May 12, is the birthday of Brother Roger, who was born in 1915.

The Taizé Community today has more than 100 brothers from Catholic and Protestant backgrounds and from more than 25 countries, who live in community. Since the 1950’s, young people have been visiting Taizé from all over the world. Some weeks, there are as many as 7,000 gathered from 70 nations. Taizé has become a model of ecumenical spirit, Christian renewal, prayerful contemplation and service. All over the world, churches of different denominations hold Taizé prayer services including silent meditation and its simple music.

Prayer by Brother Alois. On Easter 2009, Brother Alois offered this prayer in the Church of Reconciliation in the presence of the brothers and thousands of visitors.

Risen Jesus, like Mary of Magdala, who on Easter morning stayed close to the tomb, we say to God our expectations, our unresolved questions, and sometimes our helplessness. You, the Risen One, you come towards us humbly and call us by our own name.

To each one of us you say, “Go towards those who have been entrusted to you. Tell them that I am risen. Pass on my love by your life.”

And as we communicate the mystery of your resurrection, we understand it more and more; it can transform our lives.

So I believe that if we move with commitment toward those who are given to us—entrusted to us—it will transform our community life. We must not just talk about faith and love. We must model what we believe God is working in us. We must be the change we believe God asks of us—not only the change within each of us by repentance and faith, but the change within our shared life as love, welcome, hospitality and reconciliation. The stronger our parish community becomes, the more we model Christ’s love within the larger church: not drawing sharp demarcation lines, never turning people away, never tiring of showing compassion and hospitality.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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That would be a switch!

May 10, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

A few weeks ago, the results of another of those polls was published that revealed and extraordinary level of religion-swapping in America. This summary is from USA Today:

Survey: Half of U.S. adults have switched religionsKey findings:

• The reasons people give for changing their religion — or leaving religion altogether — differ widely: 71% of Catholics and nearly 60% of Protestants who switched didn’t think their spiritual needs were being met, liked another faith more or changed their religious or moral beliefs.

• Most switched early, committing to one faith by age 36. Americans switch religions “often, early and for many different reasons,” says John Green, a Pew senior fellow.

• Catholicism has suffered the greatest net loss in the process of religious change: The 10% of U.S. adults who have quit the church vastly outnumber the 2.6% who are incoming Catholics. Two in three who became unaffiliated — and half of those who became Protestant — say they left the Catholic Church because they “stopped believing its teachings.” The sexual abuse scandal was a factor for fewer than three in 10 former Catholics.

• Life circumstances, not religious doctrinal differences, prompt most Protestants who switch denominations (Baptist to Methodist, for example). Moving to a new town or marrying someone of a different tradition are the most often-cited reasons, but 36% attributed changes to “likes and dislikes about religious institutions, practices and people.”

• Many people who left a religion and now are “unaffiliated” say they did so in part because they see religious people as hypocritical or judgmental, because religious organizations focus too much on rules, or because religious leaders focus too much on power and money.

• Among the 16% of Americans who say they’re now not affiliated with any religion, most are former Protestants and Catholics who say they didn’t quit in a huff or get lured away by science or by atheist philosophy: About 70% say “they just gradually drifted away” from their childhood religion.

• About 9% return to their childhood religion, saying they tried another religion or two but then went back. Religious education or youth group participation seemed to make no dent, although people who say they participated frequently in worship services or Mass were less likely to switch.

Of course, I want to make a few evaluative comments (what else are blogs for?):

• If people switch because their spiritual needs aren’t being met, isn’t that a wake-up call for America’s churches? Why aren’t we meeting people’s spiritual needs — to offer strength, compassion, understanding and acceptance, in short to offer the same patient love as Christ did? Is there any other reason a church should exist?
• People switch early in life. Translation: while many people remain in the faith tradition in which they are raised, it’s not a slam-dunk. Young people are restless. That’s a given. When it comes to LGBT youth, it is not necessarily adolescence but the 20’s which are the greatest period of self-discovery. If 70% of those who remain “unaffiliated” just say that they “drifted away,” it could be that there is just not enough substance in “Christian Lite” way of life to keep people engaged. If love is no deeper than a pleasant feeling, and discipleship is no more demanding than church attendance, is that supposed to be a compelling reason for people to remain faithful?
• A lot of Catholics desert their faith, but hasn’t that been going on for generations? is this news, or just statistical evidence that huge religious systems don’t always speak to everybody. And the relative anonymity of large Catholic parishes makes it pretty easy to disappear. The Catholic church could ask itself, like Protestants have for years, what do we offer that will help keep those who nurtured as children? Why would they want to stay? Do we have a faith and a message and a spiritual way of life for adults.
• This study find that, as a factor in religion-switching or religion abandoning, the clergy sex abuse scandal has not done that much damage. People cite many other reasons besides that scandal for leaving the Catholic church. To me, here is the “smoking gun”: “Two in three who became unaffiliated — and half of those who became Protestant — say they left the Catholic Church because they “stopped believing its teachings.” Did they stop believing in Christ, in the power of God, in the love, forgiveness and renewal in the Gospel? Or did people stop believing or reject “teachings” that are in stark contrast to actual behavior and the real world? If teachings are hypocritically put out there (”don’t do as I do, do as I say”), isn’t it logical that people will reject the teachings as phony?
• Unfortunately— and this is not just a “Catholic problem” —the teachings I think many people don’t buy any more are the sexual control and narrow-mindedness. Included are teachings about birth control, abortion, homosexuality, divorce, abstinence before marriage, the evil of masturbation, guilt or shame over sexual feelings or an ordinary sex drive. This is not strictly a Catholic issue, but at least some non-Roman Catholic churches do a better job of grounding their ethical teachings in the Scriptures None of those strict, narrow teachings are well grounded in the Bible—certainly not birth control, homosexuality, abstinence before marriage, masturbation, guilt and shame. Vast parts of the Christian church have made sexual purity the ultimate measure of faithfulness, even though Jesus never did so. Is it any wonder people don’t believe those teachings any more?
• That life circumstances prod many to change affiliations is no surprise. If the churches are to nurture people in spirituality and faith are not responsive to real people’s life circumstances, they are clearly irrelevant. In our society, few people remain with anything in our lives simply out of a sense of loyalty or because of inertia. If a job, a marriage, a hobby, a political party, or a religion do not mesh with our sense of purpose and fulfillment, then “we’re outta here”–we’ll make a switch to something that does fit, or a switch to nothing at all. In that regard, LGBT people may have different life circumstances than others such as divorcees or whatever, but we’re going to have a similar reaction: if my church is out of touch with my life experiences and does not respond to my life circumstances with understanding and compassion, I will move on or at least move out.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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Left, right and Spirit.

April 29, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

I am not the only Lutheran parish pastor to blog. (And yes, I admit that I am more of an essayist than a blogger. But when I get started on something, I have to give it a fair run in my mind.) But when I happen to run into blogs being written by other Lutheran clergy – and there are a lot – I am discouraged and annoyed at what I find.

They all seem to be on the religious right-wing. They tend to rant or wring their hands about what’s becoming of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, or the loosey-goosey thinking of the Left. I guess I should spend more time just searching for Lutheran blogs, because I can’t believe that I am the most Left-Leaning Liberal Lutheran bLogger out there. (There, the “L word” over and over, without mentioning Lesbian.)

I did come across a Lutheran blog a couple of years ago that had some valid points on other issues, but seemed to be “stuck” on sexuality issues. It was inviting other bloggers to identify themselves and get listed on a bigger blogroll. So I wrote in and asked to be listed as another Lutheran blogger. Never heard from those folks again, so I guess I was on their “lunatic fringe.”

It reminds me of a student at PLTS years ago who was from the (then LCA) Indiana Kentucky Synod. Why he picked Berkeley was beyond me, but we would tease with him a lot about his position on social issues. And back then the issues were drugs, free speech, the war (Vietnam not Iraq even though it seems as if the Iraq war has been going on for generations already), etc. He was courteous about those of us with more liberal attitudes, but was honestly afraid that if he leaned any further toward the center (from the Right) he would be perceived back home as a Commie Pinko (yes, if you are reading this, you might be a Commie Pinko!). And never get a call.

Religion Facts:  A classmate of mine, actually.

(For those of you who are not genetically Lutheran, a Lutheran seminary graduate, no matter how qualified, likeable, intelligent or even straight, will never be ordained if s/he doesn’t receive an actual Letter of Call from a congregation. The Lutherans do not ordain candidates to ministry in general, or without portfolio, but ordain only candidates who are formally called to a real ministry. No play priests here.)

As a consequence of this particular ecclesiology, we tend to come down on the conservative side compared to some other Protestant denominations where you graduate, get ordained and can spout off from any bully pulpit or soap box you can find. Lutheran pastors serve, for the most part, Lutheran congregations. There is a comparatively tiny percentage in specialized ministries and even then typically only after having served in a parish setting for a minimum of three years.

Why I bring that up is because I myself am a pretty conservative Lutheran pastor, no matter how much I may seem to be on the Left Coast of the ELCA. In conscience I truly struggle with issues of public policy and pop culture and constantly try to fit them into my understanding of church tradition, biblical theology, and congregational community life.

There are hundreds, thousands, of subjects I just would never bring up in a sermon, for example. And I suppose this Indwelling Spirit blog is my one outlet otherwise (kind of a “safe harbor on the Left Coast”), even though members of the church are entirely welcome to read what I write.

If I haven’t mentioned this before, the name Indwelling Spirit came to me while in seminary as a name for a collection of liturgical renewal pieces which a group of students were drafting and collecting for daily chapel services. Ever since, it has stuck in me as a reflection on the Early Church’s process of reckoning what to do with controversy and change when individual apostles or deacons simply marched into uncharted territory. The final test was whether or not those who were drawn to the faith had received the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 5:32, 10:44–48)

The premier text on this experience, which I claim in faith and make it my own is this from Acts 15:8–11, in a speech by the apostle Peter in the Church’s first general Council meeting:

“And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us; and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us. Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

My point is that, like my friend from Kentucky years ago, I am “fringy” only in contrast to reactionary clergy of the Religious Right, who rant about the presence of lesbian/gay people in the church of Christ (but seldom does bisexuality, transgenderism and other sexual minority issues even blip on their radar). To the people I meet in the community around me, and in the LGBT circles of Hollywood, I am orthodox to the point of boredom.

But when I read the scriptures from the fringes, rather than from a position of power and entitlement, I read them differently. The Scriptures are the word of God to me like they are for the conservative Christian, except that the Scriptures radicalize me because they speak to me on the fringe.

In the passage above, who are the “they” of whom Peter speaks? The Gentiles—the outsiders whom the insiders wagged their heads about and ranted that admitting them unconditionally was a slippery slope for the church! The insiders (the New Testament will identify them as “Judaizers”) believed that Gentiles were sinners and that the Law of God could not be relaxed just to accommodate outsiders. This seems amazingly parallel to our experience as [gay and lesbian people]:

“And God, who knows the human heart, testified to gays and lesbians by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us; and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us. Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

You Tube:  The shocking truth about the gay lifestyle.

My right-wing blogger friends would scoff at such a comparison, if not be entirely outraged. After all they would insist gay people choose that lifestyle. But in the great Jew/Gentile debates which wrenched the earliest Christian community, being a Gentile was a matter of “lifestyle.” They were thought to be sinners who should simply quit doing all the disgusting things that Gentiles do, and come under the Law and obey God and get circumcised. It always seems to come down to that particular male anatomical appendage, doesn’t it? And the right wing of the church today never learned what the New Testament teaches about this, so they continue to insist that we need to cut it off in order to please God.

Acts 15: The Brick Testament’s “Great Penis Debate”

And because I see the Scriptures from the margins, from the view of the marginalized, I am considered a lunatic of the left? The Spirit that dwells within me tells me not to trust their view, but to trust my own conscience and to keep reading the Scriptures … and to keep blogging.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Sex, Gay Catechism, Bible & Interpretation, LGBT Christian, Spirituality, Faith, ELCA | Print | No Comments »

Pacific Lutheran seminary approves RIC “Welcome.”

April 28, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

After a 5-month process, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, California appears poised to become the first Reconciling in Christ seminary in the Lutheran church in the United States.

On Sunday, April 26, the Board of Directors released notice of its vote (PLTS Reaffirms Welcoming Statement) to seek designation as an RIC Seminary and implement a “welcoming” resolution that includes sexual minorities. The Statement said in part:

We eagerly learn from and welcome one another’s diversity, including, but not limited to, theological perspective, race, ethnicity, nationality, gender identity, relationship status, age, physical ability, social and economic status and sexual orientation.The Board did its homework, gathering input from a variety of sources, including faculty and staff, student and alumni. And at its March 26 meeting the Executive Committee paced the April action by providing for discussion over two days.

The decision was not precipitous. The previous Board meeting last November heard reports of the Community Life and Academic Affairs Committee, which asked the board “to begin preliminary conversation” about PLTS becoming an RIC community.

More than 350 local Lutheran congregations have joined the RIC Program, which is sponsored by Lutherans Concerned/North America, by adopting an “affirmation of welcome” that specifically invites lesbian/gay, bisexual and transgender persons to participate fully in the life of the local church. The procedures and requirements are somewhat different for educational institutions of the church, and must include a non-discrimination policy for hiring employees and for degree requirements.

Apparently the PLTS Board has found a way to meet these requirements, even though acceptance into the Master of Divinity program includes approval by a separate synodical candidacy committee, indicating that the individual, in addition to being educated, is also psychologically and spiritually prepared to serve in the ordained ministry of the Lutheran church. In recent years, background checks have also become a standard part of this process.

This coming summer, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America biennial Assembly will again have opportunity to change its current ordination standard which precludes sexually-active gay and lesbian candidates from entering the ordained ministry. (A distinct action was taken by the ELCA’s Assembly in 2007 to allow individual bishops not to enforce that standard.)

But this gate-keeping function of the denomination need not prevent potential students who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender from enrolling in the M. Div. program, if PLTS is admitted to the Reconciling in Christ program.

Several individual regional jurisdictions or Synods of what is now the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America founded the seminary nearly 60 years ago and continue to fund it. At least two, the Sierra Pacific Synod and the Southwest California Synod, have also joined the Reconciling in Christ program, indicating their unqualified support for ministry with and on behalf of sexual minorities.

In 1996 the Council of Bishops of the ELCA declared that all persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are welcome in the national church, although that is not always a reality at the local level. The Bishops’ letter echoed earlier supportive and hospitable actions: 

We also call attention to the action of the 1991 Churchwide Assembly that declared “gay and lesbian people, as individuals created by God, are welcome to participate fully in the life of the congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.” At the 1993 assembly, that declaration was extended to express “strong opposition to all forms of verbal or physical harassment or assault of persons because of their sexual orientation,” and support for the civil rights of all persons, regardless of their sexual orientation.”

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in LGBT Christian, Doctrine, History, Spirituality, Ministry, ELCA | Print | No Comments »

Walking alongside, walking wounded.

April 20, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

A few days ago I began thinking more seriously about how to walk alongside those who are either wounded, disaffected, or keeping their distance from the faith in which they once made a home. In my ministry, most often this is the Catholic church. Will they ever again find a home in which Christian discipleship can be lived out.

This is especially true for LGBT people who are often brutally harmed by the Christian church. But they are not the only ones. I meet a large number of other people, for a variety of issues and reasons— divorce and remarriage, abortion, abuse of church authority, refusal to ordain women, or too many questions with condescending or absolutist answers— have felt estranged from the church. Later, some feel drawn to find a faith expression, a spiritual home, but are at a loss. Complex social studies and entire books deal with this. But as a pastor in a local church, “book learning” about the disaffected usually is not really helpful to me.

I have learned simply to listen— and hopefully to listen well, so that what I have to offer neither offends or frightens those who are drawn by the spirit of God. And most often, people need to be heard, more than to be told the perfect word or ideal teaching or doctrine or even word of welcome. They have life experiences which have shaped both their spirituality and their sense of alienation or estrangement, but traditional religious structures have not always made room, or opened up, or offered to listen. Because I care, when I hear these stories, I try to walk with or walk alongside those who are at a distance, or outside of the faith community which I serve.

Servant of God Archbishop Oscar Romero, “San Romero” to the people of El Salvador.  The process of beatification was begun for him in 1997.

Lately I have found a word from another church context— “accompaniment,” which probably dates back to Archbishop Oscar Romero in El Salvador. (See, for example, this article by Jim Barnett, O.P.) In accompanying, especially disaffected Catholics (or other Christians— fundamentalist or Missouri Synod Lutheran or Jehovah’s Witnesses or whatever) I learned quickly that I cannot erase the pain or dissolve the hypocrisy, straighten the contorted view, or re-work the hierarchical logic that has been imposed on people’s real lives and contributed to their alienation. I cannot make the Catholic church whole and well anymore than I can fix what is wrong with the Lutheran Church. And in my own heart I too hurt because these Christian communities, in particular, are not one church community, but many. When it comes to Lutheran and Catholic— although progress has been made, these two world communions have “dinked around” almost my entire adult life trying to find delicate and respectful ways to talk to each other. They have affixed important signatures to well-written and carefully nuanced documents.

But in Jesus’ high priestly prayer of John 17, he prays that his followers will be one. He didn’t say “Take a thousand years to get pissed with one another, and the next thousand years to consider kissing and making up.” What part of be one don’t we get?

So my accompaniment is to walk alongside those who express to me that they are wounded by their experiences, and if appropriate, to welcome them into the temporary sanctuary of an evangelical catholic community which believes itself to be “involuntarily and only temporarily separated” from the one universal church (“Evangelical Catholic?” April 14).

Regardless of the snail’s progress of Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue, or Lutheran-Anything Dialogue, the truth of one’s spiritual system comes down to how we accompany one another at the community and personal level, not at scholarly international conferences. I make no claim to be an ecumenical expert or an important theologian, but I think that the contribution of my ministry is every bit as important as that of the greater minds appointed by councils or a church magisterium to represent formal positions and historic points of view.

What comes to mind is the Gospel reading for the Third Sunday of Easter, April 26, taken from Luke 24:

^{13 Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, 16 but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. . . . [The appointed passage continues through v.35.]}

Classic scene of the road to Emmaus by Robert Zund

This text amazes me. It is beautifully composed to help the reader see Jesus in the Eucharist – that sign of oneness in Christ and in one another that is really only a reality at the local community level. But I also find something quite personal in this passage which scholars don’t tend to notice: One of these two disciples is named Cleopas. He and his companion invited Jesus to stay with them for the night in the village of Emmaus to which they were walking, and he agreed.

Emmaus by Velasquez

The scriptures give us no other information about the identity of Cleopas (he was not one of The Twelve). Since it appears that Cleopas and the other man shared a home, to which they were returning when they met Jesus on the way, and where they shared a common table and would both spend the night, I cannot help wondering if, well, … you know. Were they “a couple”?

 

Another interpretation of the Emmaus moment.

But would the Apostles back in Jerusalem have approved of this? Did they even know? Would the presence of Cleopas and his friend in the community of disciples have caused a huge controversy, a “split”? Would the Apostles have called an entire collegial assembly to decide whether it was okay for two disciples to share a home, or spend a night together under one roof?

Luke’s treatment here, and throughout the Acts of the Apostles, seems to indicate that the earliest church did not hold its members back until an official council could vote on things. Individual believers just moved forward (like “street prophets“?), and after the fact, the Apostles and the church as a whole didn’t vote these movements up or down. What they did was recognize the presence and power of the Holy Spirit as active in the situation, and on that basis gave their blessing and assent.

Why must we be so constrained by the magisterium, the structure and institution (can it ever really be “infallible”?), that individual Christians feel they must move out of one household and into another to be prophetic or just nurtured or to live out discipleship? Or feel they must leave all faith behind for good? Why must any of us suffer the spiritual catastrophe of being a “recovering” Christian of any label? Or ex-Christians for life?

It is a cliché that “the Church is the only army that shoots its own wounded.” But who is walking with the wounded?

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Ecumenical Issues, Doctrine, Catholic matters, LGBT Christian, Faith, Spirituality, Living by Grace, Ministry | Print | No Comments »

A day of reckoning.

April 19, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

I have been dialoguing off-blog with my new Catholic friend Sarah about this “evangelical catholic” thing and the dynamics of Lutherans and Catholics finding a home somewhere. She is wonderfully respectful of her Lutheran friends, and especially of a dear gay friend, who is exploring what it means to leave the Roman priesthood behind and enter the Lutheran ministry as a member of the Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries roster.

Sarah writes for other blogs and web sites with insight and power. This entry, for example, is from Street Prophets “A C/catholic Response to Prop 8″ (but her article actually tackles questions far beyond that):

“In the Catholic tradition, the priest . . . is acting not as the person of Christ, but as the representative of the community itself. We are an intensely communal people. We are Catholic - universal. Or, in the words of James Joyce, ‘Here comes everybody!’

“Except, it seems, for the queers. [Emphasis added] The Church has never been able to figure out quite what to do with us, other than to engage in more and more contorted explanations that defy logic or common sense about who we ‘homosexuals’ are, and what pastoral responses are appropriate if one might show up in your Church. ‘Please join us, but don’t tell anyone you are here!’ is the current party line. It makes sense to no one, of course.”

It made no sense either to Father Geoff Farrow, who outed himself and resigned his pastorate in Fresno last September over the Catholic Church’s support of Proposition 8. And I think this is where my “un-met” new Catholic friend was coming from in the phone call the other day. He is pained enough by the “don’t tell anyone you are here” contorted view of his life, his existence, his faith-reality, that he feels he cannot go home to the church in which he was raised unless he buys into the pretense.

Clearly, I feel like I am nudging up against questions too big for me to resolve. For a very long time, I have agonized about how best to be pastorally open to, and walk with, wounded Christians from non-Lutheran traditions who even now are wakening to their longing for something deeply spiritual, deeply experiential, deeply personal, yet because of life circumstances have felt (or actually are) cut off from their roots.

Do we remember Steven Fales, author and protagonist of “Confessions of a Mormon Boy” who was excommunicated? And “recovering” Catholics, Baptists-in-exile, and disfellowshipped Jehovah’s Witnesses?

Or, for that matter, poor Ted Haggard, who seems to have turned denial into a new career path?

 

There is undeniable evidence that the rigidity of our spiritual systems continues to wound, harm, and abuse sisters and brothers in Christ who as a result may never return to any “fold” but bitterly denounce all spiritual insight. Yet even with a body of such evidence, the fix, the solution, the way out, the path to walk with them in their pain, often remains clouded and unclear. “Absolutism means never having to say you’re sorry” was the tag line of Rosa Brooks’ article “The Dark Side of Faith” (Zion’s Herald in 2006).

Yet reckoning will come, and I don’t mean the final Day of Judgment. I mean the day when a critical mass of people decide they must move on from the wounded condition of their faithfulness and badly-eroded integrity, and search for a spirituality which genuinely nourishes them. Hopefully, I will be invited to walk with some of them.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Gay Catechism, Catholic matters, Ecumenical Issues, Fundamentalism, Spirituality, LGBT Christian, Coming Out | Print | No Comments »

The next church.

April 15, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

I am still muttering internally about what to think about “Evangelical Catholic.” Is there a convergence there, if you take those terms as group names? We certainly saw at least an opportunisitic convergence last fall with the convergence of Rev. Rick Warren’s flavor of church-ianity being “in sync” with the Catholic bishops, all trying to defend traditional matrimony.

At the time I thought that Mormons, the traditional African-American churches, and Catholics each had something in their own dark past they wanted to play down by claiming the high moral ground about marriage (”Why Yes Won“).  In countless discussions since then with other marriage equality people, I have more reason to believe I was right on that. True “family” values, as experienced in those sectors, are not morally high values. Everything from polygamy to broken homes to child molestation is found there. Of course, those were not ideals, and not even the majority of families in those faith traditions, but I believe each of them wanted to play down their own sad failings/scandals by noisily carrying the flag for traditional marriage.

Everybody, it seems, is carrying different flags now. Faith experiences are shifting. We’ve juggled what emergent churches mean for everyone else, what conversion might be in the 21^st century, and why the larger world still admires Jesus and despises his followers. Every day I see new “Religion” headlines in print and on the net, and most of what makes the news in the world of religion either saddens me or makes me wince.

What is becoming of the Christian church I knew and loved and respected?  Is it now only a shrill, homophobic, legalistic finger wagging at America to return to “traditional values” that it has already left behind and even helped to undermine? Is the mega-church going to be the prevailing symbol of the Christian church in its last chapter of history?—a feel-good, prosperity club mesmerized by flashing lights and pop/rock Christian love songs? Is it strident allegiance to traditional bigotries, even while realignment with Nigerian or Sudanese bishops triggers lawsuits over the ownership of pricey upper-class properties? Is it televangelists owning private jets, buying diamond mines in South Africa, and operating ecologically offensive power plants in Southern California, in order to pay for “family programming” on TV?

In digging around more on the internet to see what “Evangelical Catholic” might really mean, in addition to some enlightening and thoughtful articles I also found a lot of smaller outfits —too small to be called “denominations”—which describe themselves as “evangelical catholic.” Some of them resemble “Old Catholics” or other off-brand splinters from the Roman Catholic Church: denominational side-shows. Others have clearly invented themselves out of thin air with the name of a single bishop who traces his consecration to somebody somewhere that could be thought of as legitimate.

Some of these groups are also rigid, inflexible, strident and legalistic, even while they think they can claim the moral high ground. Some of them are stridently anti-feminine and anti-women’s-ordination while still lauding Mother Mary as Queen of Heaven.

Clearly, the House of the Church needs a thorough Spring cleaning. Some realignment is probably good, because many of these communities, large or small, seem to have lost their way and floated into religious back-waters.

“What is truth?” asked Pontius Pilate. Jesus could have answered that question but it’s clear many of his people today cannot. I don’t like being negative, but I feel like I know what “the truth” is not. It is not fighting over church real estate, yanking congregations out of church bodies over single-issue disputes, denouncing lesbian or gay couples in order to puff oneself up. It is not shopping through a whole cafeteria of ecclesial orders, “communions” and episcopates in order to find a bishop one is comfortable with. It is not turning the call to discipleship into the name of a rock band, or reducing the Gospel to a sound byte or a bumper sticker.

Clearly I don’t have the answer as to what the Christian faith should come to be in the 21^st century, but I know whom it should resemble. What is truth, when it comes to faithfulness to the way of Jesus? It is the process, the search, the walk of those who carry his cross even if they haven’t yet discerned where that cross will be planted or how much blood will be shed. Maundy Thursday is still on my mind, with its call to obedience in love. We are not called to govern one another, to rise above one another, to criticize one another, or to compete against one another. We are called to love one another and keep following Jesus into the places of this world where our own egos will be forgotten and God’s mercy and love and grace can be lifted up.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in Doctrine, Lesbian/Gay Marriage, Catholic matters, Ecumenical Issues, Fundamentalism, History, Faith, LGBT Christian, Spirituality | Print | No Comments »

A Personal Resurrection Experience

April 12, 2009 by Dan Hooper.

Alleluia! Christ is risen.

He is risen indeed. Alleluia, alleluia!

I don’t usually dwell on personal issues, but this is a brief follow-up from last week about Carl. Thanks to the intransigence of insurance plans, he was sent home on Easter Sunday right as we began our morning festival worship service. We are still working out the details of home health care and logistics.

I am so grateful to God that he walks, he talks, he is able to ambulate and feed himself, and his body is functioning somewhat normally ~except of course for the fact that he wears the steel, plastic and velcro equivalent of a body cast from his hips to his chin, and will live with those indignities and discomforts for probably 8 more weeks.

The discomforts are from no less than six broken bones, and as I peruse the lengthy print-out of his treatment record, I am finding more and more things from the analysis of his MRI that could mean additional fractures have occurred.

But he is living! And we shall always remember Easter as God’s sign that our own resurrection is in God’s hands!

And I am dazed again by the power of the blog! It was from reading my April 5 blog that a dear friend in Oregon learned about Carl, and contacted mutual friends that I had not yet been able to tell. Thank you, Sarah. And thank all of you who have lifted Carl’s spirits, fed him before he could feed himself, and brought entire florist’s and card shops to his side, and offered entire prayer books of faith on his behalf. God bless you all.

— Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

Posted in PRAYERS, Spirituality, Recovery | Print | 1 Comment »

Holy Week: About Jesus.

April 9, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

This being Holy Week, I am in a refelctive mode about the very core of our faith and our ability to proclaim good news.  Below is an article I wrote more than a year ago, and put it on our pamphlet rack.  Of all the materials put there, this one disappears most frequently. Maybe we should stop promoting ourselves and our programs, and just tell people About Jesus.

About Jesus and Our Faith in Him

We are not ashamed to tell you the real reason we’re here: Jesus Christ — who is the One for whom this and all Christian churches and communities exist. We want everyone to know some things about Jesus that many web sites and many churches neglect to say:  Jesus is God’s gift to humanity. The Holy Scriptures reassure us that Jesus came into this world for one purpose – to give his life for our sake – and to call us to come home to God, whom he vividly portrayed as our heavenly Father. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him may not be lost but have eternal life.” —John 3:16This congregation is an open, affirming, welcoming, reconciling church, not because of liberal tendencies and wishy-washy beliefs, but because Jesus was open, affirming, welcoming and reconciling in his life and ministry. He, too, was criticized for not being strict enough, or religious enough, or pure enough. In every case, he brushed aside that criticism because it misses the point.

  We proclaim and teach God’s grace, for Jesus’ sake. Yes, there are many strict, dour and condemn-ing words found in the Bible. But we are convinced by the Gospel (which means “Good News”) that God’s most important message in those inspired and ancient pages is the message of unconditional love and grace. God’s Word for us is always an invitation, not an ultimatum. Jesus is God’s Word in the flesh, the one who came to seek those who are lost, not to condemn them. For nearly 500 years Lutheran Christians have taught this based on the clear testimony of the Scriptures: that we and all human beings are justified in God’s sight, not because of our good deeds or best intentions, but because of God’s grace which we receive simply through faith in Jesus. No one earns God’s love. No one’s strict behavior or most diligent abstinence impresses God.

   We read and study the Bible, so we know about God’s wrath—repeated over and over in the law and the prophets. But, for Jesus’ sake, we do not need to run from God. Jesus encourages us to draw near to God’s “throne of grace.” We do not need to live in shame or fear of eternal damnation. One word often paired with “wrath” is “saved.” Christians like to talk about being saved from God’s wrath! Some Christians like to rely on good deeds (like silver stars pasted on a chart in heaven) to save them from wrath. They claim their good works like achievements, so they look down on others as under-achievers! But we know that the whole world was saved from God’s wrath by one single event: when Jesus gave his life for all upon the cross. He put a “stop” to the wrath, the suffering, the threat of eternal punishment, and the folly of religious “good works” with his own blood. Our blood and tears mean nothing, because his blood and tears were everything.So the full and true Gospel of Jesus is one of grace, not of condemnation. We claim the unconditional love of God, and try to live in a manner which is appropriate as God’s beloved people. We know it is not necessary to spend our whole lifetime worrying about whether God loves us, for Jesus clearly said so.  The message of grace is this: if we humbly recognize that we have wandered away from God’s love (and yes, every human being has sinned in ways which are big and small), all we need to do is to wake up to this: God still loves us; God has not abandoned us; God is seeking us, and wants us to come home. In this waking, seeking, returning and coming home, God’s grace awaits us in full measure. All is forgiven, because of the Cross of Jesus Christ.God hates no one! The love of God is not cancelled or erased because of human foolish-ness, excesses or willful errors. The church of Jesus Christ is a community of recovering sinners – we are not “saints” in the sense of “perfect people.” We are just those who know our need of grace, and have found the One whom God sent to announce love, reconciliation and peace to the world.How do you imagine Jesus? Although every artist for thousands of years have portrayed him, there are no photographs of Jesus. Every disciple, mystic, saint and believer has used his or her imagination. Yet through the testimony of many Christians —beginning with the letters and narrative stories in the New Testament itself—we have an enduring portrait of this amazing person. Jesus forgave, healed, taught, served, embraced, wept and bled for others.  Even more important than how we see Jesus is how he sees us! He saw the world upside down from the way people usually see it, with the hungry well fed, and the poor and oppressed liberated. He didn’t condemn those whoseexcesses and errors caused them shame. He stood between an adulteress and her would-be executioners. He pleaded with his followers to show mercy, to provide for the least important people, and to forgive everyone—even hundreds of times—and to do greater things than he was doing. In his last hour, he forgave those whose “duty” was to put him to death.   So, if Jesus is so gracious, loving, non- judgmental and accepting —whom the Scriptures tell us is the very image and presence of God Almighty in the flesh—then why is it that Christians are often so angry and threatening? Why are Christians “at each other’s throats” with criticism and condem-nation? Why are churches so competitive? Why does the general public have a positive view of Jesus but a negative view of “church people”? Given the huge difference between Jesus and his followers, does anybody think it is Jesus’ fault that he doesn’t resemble us more closely? Sadly, no, it is we who do not resemble him! Human beings are the victims of our own excesses, and this is certainly true when spirituality is dominated by religiosity.  Who is the real Jesus?At its worst, the medieval church was obsessed with sinfulness and guilt (which, it taught, sent Jesus to the Cross) it expected people to live with lifelong guilt, shame and sorrow, and to avoid every possible thing that might lead to committing a sin. The high morality of the earliest Christians quickly changed from being a self-discipline to a whole system of laws, sanctions, penalties and penitence—ultimately leading to capital punishment for sins.  Now the church in our times is getting lost in its own enthusiasm for marketing and “selling” Jesus the way products are sold. Jesus has become the most over-advertised and over-exposed individual in history! He is being re-made in our cultural image! Hundreds of “feel good” mega-churches have followed marketing consultants and produce a television show worship event featuring praise, optimism, glory and self-congratulation, mixed with American patriotism.Their testimony is often all “about us and How Great We Are for believing” rather than “about Jesus and how changed we are by his grace and forgiveness.” This modern “church” seems to have forgotten the call to discipleship, the call to “take up your cross and follow” the Jesus who humbled himself and accepted death to redeem the world.

Like medieval times, “successful” churches today seem to be all about puffing themselves up and building an empire of wealth, influence, and public respectability. So we need to ask ourselves, as a Christian community, whether we are following Christ closely enough to notice those for whom he stopped and stooped: the poor, those without hope, “sinners” who were rejected by others, strangers, foreigners and outsiders, prisoners, widows, the sick and dying. There is no “glory,” wealth, empire or self-congratulation that comes from this.

  But if we are really moved by and impressed by Jesus, then to serve God faithfully and to follow Jesus faithfully means to serve the people whom Jesus always puts in our path. “For I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” —Matthew 25:40The “bottom line” for a Christian congre-gation is that we are seeking out the lost and the least, with humility, as we try to be disciples who follow Jesus.God bless you as you seek to follow Jesus!

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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