The Book of Confessions, Keepin' it Real for 2000 Years!

Every year it's the same thing. Newly elected ruling elders and deacons gather on Tuesday nights at University Presbyterian Church to be trained by their pastor (me) and Christian educator in preparation for ordination. This group of people, many of whom have not been Presbyterian for long, give me a kind of bug-eyed look when I hand them a shiny new blue Book of Confessions and ask them to dive into it throughout the week. They look at me like they are not sure they will come out on the other side!

Then they get curious --most of them--and decide to read more than we have asked them, taking notes and wondering where these ideas came from. They are amazed at the wisdom of the confessions, confused by the vitriol, and surprised by the words of grace. They ask for help understanding and they look for permission to argue and they find reasons to celebrate a history they had not paid attention to before.

Which always reminds ME of the great stuff that can be found in the confessions of the church. (If you are not Presbyterian and are listening in jealously, you can download a free copy of the Book of Confessions on the pcusa.org website).

Here is something challenging and inspiring from each of the confessions......

1. The Nicene Creed (4th century)
We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.  
Do we look for the dead to rise? Or do we expect what is severed, broken, lost, unreconciled, to stay that way? Perhaps hope is always being on the lookout for resurrection.

2. The Apostles' Creed (2nd through 8th centuries)
 I believe.......in the forgiveness of sins....
I'm working on this one. Some days I can't shake the fact that I am part of the hurt that others experience in the world. Other days I am crushed by the heartlessness that others display around me.

3. The Scots Confession (16th century)
This confession speaks of "good works" as two kinds: One is done to honor God, the other for the profit of our neighbor......To honor father, mother, princes, rulers, and superior powers; to love them, to support them, to obey their orders if they are not contrary to the commands of God, to save the lives of the innocent, to repress tyranny, to defend the oppressed, to keep our bodies clean and holy, to live in soberness and temperance, to deal justly with all [people] in word and deed, and finally, to repress any desire to harm our neighbor, are the  good works of the second kind.

In other words, the world, our bodies, our relationships, are all the realm of the work of the Spirit. Words matter, but only inasmuch as they express themselves in how we live.

4. The Heidelberg Catechism (16th century)
Under the heading "Thankfulness" this confession goes through the 10 Commandments and suggest deep and wide meaning for each of them. Here's a great example:
Q. What does God forbid in the eighth commandment [You shall not steal.]?
A. He forbids not only the theft and robbery which civil authorities punish, but God also labels as theft all wicked tricks and schemes by which we seek to get for ourselves our neighbor's goods, whether by force or under the pretext of right, such as false weights and measures, deceptive advertising or merchandising, counterfeit money, exorbitant interest, or any other means forbidden by God. He also forbids all greed and misuse and waste of his gifts.

Lots of 21st century relevance here! Ouch. Think about credit card interest and payday lending!

A thank you to Jacob the college business professor who chairs our Stewardship and Finance committee:

Yesterday evening I wandered a few minutes late into the Stewardship and Finance committee meeting of University Presbyterian Church, where I get to be the pastor.  The group was not pouring over budgets or scrutinizing the latest expenditure of the Director of Christian Education.  They were discussing the following quote:

“If you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to LONG for the endless immensity of the sea (Antoine de Saint-Exupery).”  

I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem like the average Presbyterian finance committee thing to do: to reflect on cultivating longing in others for something beautiful and immense, before launching into conversation about whether to move $10,000 from the capital improvements fund or put PayPal on the church website.

But those few minutes were a great gift to me in these ways…….

1.       The quote is a beautiful statement about leadership, and a wonderful guide for leadership in the church.  It will give me lots to ponder in the days ahead.

2.       The chair of the committee was taking his role as a spiritual and visionary leader seriously in the most mundane of circumstances –a meeting about money in the church. He knows it’s not just the pastor’s job to lead and envision. It is the calling of the people of God.  This is a thrilling revelation to any pastor.

3.       The tone set in a church meeting by opening with a reflection on scripture, leadership or some form of spiritual formation can, over time, form a community of leaders that see each gathering “at” the church as a gathering “of” the church.  It’s easy to be the church in worship, but the true challenge is allowing ourselves to be formed into the Body of Christ in facilities meetings,  session meetings, presbytery meetings.  This takes leaders with eyes focused on the immense beauty of the sea and…………… God.

 

 

Lessons I learned from being a foster parent

My husband John and I were foster parents almost nonstop for about 12 years, beginning within our first year of marriage. Somewhere in there we also had Clare, our biological daughter. Our son David, whom we adopted through the state of Missouri, came to live with us in March of 2003.
14 children from 4 days old to 16 years old came into and out of our home, and stayed as little time as 24 hours and as long as 5 years. Our oldest foster son is in his mid 30s now.

What did foster-parenting teach me? Here are 10 things.........

1. There is no more wonderful way to spend time that to read a child a bedtime story, sing a song, say a prayer and tuck them into a safe bed at night.  Every child, every age, loved this ritual, which would always bring beauty to the day, no matter how difficult.

2. You can't fix people. And most importantly, don't try to fix people to avoid your own embarrassment (think tantrums in grocery stores).  People are wounded and wacky, fearful and mysterious. You might be a part of their story of healing, but there are lots of parts to their story.

3. It's lonely on a pedestal. Foster parenting is one of those things that make people look at you and say "Oh my goodness, I could NEVER do anything like that! I don't know HOW you do it!" This is maybe meant to be a compliment, but just makes you feel lonely (and crazy). There are so many kids who need foster parents, and so many foster parents who need support, we gotta stop seeing it as an impossible thing, and realize that most things we say we could never do, we probably just don't want to do.

4. Sadness is part of the deal. Saying goodbye to a foster child is probably the most excruciating experience I've ever had. But sadness is not an enemy, and the sadness I have endured as a foster parent has no comparison to the sadness the children have endured, and the sadness their parents have endured, no matter how flawed they are. I lead a Bible study in a detention facility, and the women whose children are in foster care love their children as much as any other parent.

5. Say what you need. Someone will probably give it to you. I have had toys and beds and books and strollers and babysitters and clothes and birthday presents and counseling and car seats emerge seemingly out of nowhere just by saying the word. Generosity abounds when you don't struggle in silence. This reality may stem primarily from .........

6. A faithful church community can save a family. When you are the preacher and you have 4 children in tow on a Sunday morning, neither you nor the church members have any choice but to start taking kids by the hand and finding crayons and cheerios and children's Bibles and patient words and smiling encouragement. We never asked, it just happened.  Some churches, thank God, have reached out to foster parents in their communities to offer such support proactively. I'm telling you, saving grace indeed!

7. We spend too much time punishing, rather than treating, people with drug addictions. A cynical social worker can see a mom whose children are in foster care as a waste of time and space. We spend a lot more on incarcerating people with drug problems than we do treating them. Let's change this.

8.  Don't make a big deal about Mother's Day at church, unless you plan to acknowledge all the wounds associated with our relationships with mothers. Some mothers have really let their children down, brutalizing or humiliating them relentlessly. Some  people long to be mothers and have never had the chance. Others have mothers who have died. I'm not opposed at all to making people sad in church. I'm opposed to behaving as if everyone has an uncomplicated mother-child relationship to be celebrated with a smile and a cute poem.

9. Give up on perfect. It will get you every time. I was not a perfect parent to foster children, nor am I a perfect parent to the children who have my name on their birth certificate. I've discovered that striving for perfection as a parent, a spouse, a colleague, a housekeeper, whatever, leaves damage in your wake. At minimum it just makes everyone around you nervous.

10. It's not important. It's amazing how you can be doing something REALLY important, but when someone calls you and says, "Can you go to the hospital and pick up a 4 day old baby girl who needs a home?" you almost can't even remember what you were doing that was so gosh darn "important." There are some great reasons to rearrange priorities. And believe me, you don't need that perfect pastel yellow paint with the smiling Noah's ark animals painted on the walls or the 400$ crib to welcome a child .............or anyone else, into your life.

Reflections on marriage

I presented these thoughts last July to a clergy group that I am a member of in San Antonio. The group was brought together by our presbytery executive and was a consciously planned gathering of clergy in favor and opposed to the ordination of LGBT folks and differing opinions on same gender marriage. We have become a support group for one another and have spent time in deep conversation on many issues. The whole group encouraged me to share this piece............

It seems only fair to start a reflection on marriage with my own marriage.  Starting here is just as important to me as the content of what I share. When it comes to all matters of faith and life, I believe we need to start with ourselves. Otherwise we subject others to judgment, scrutiny, or standards that we may safely avoid in our own lives. I fear we easily justify our own behavior while disparaging similar behavior by others.

So here’s my story about marriage.  My husband John and I will be celebrating our 25^th wedding anniversary in a few days. We have been together 30 years.  These numbers astound me, as when we began our journey together I couldn’t imagine 25 years.  When we were young and in love, it was impossible to imagine the deeper dimensions love could have, and definitely impossible to imagine how a couple in a nursing home could possibly need a “do not disturb” sign.

If the Biblical image of marriage is that we become “one flesh” I can see the truth of this after all this time as I look back. We continue to be very different people with distinct vocations and identities, that sometimes clash, but we do experience life as “one unit” in many ways.  There is an almost unconscious familiarity with each other’s thought patterns, habits, bodies, tastes, that my spouse can almost feel like a part of myself.  The “we-ness” becomes as second nature as the “I-ness” of things. I love this about marriage.  But I also know it comes with a caution –make sure the “we” is an equal measure of you and I –not just “I” writ large.  Someone recently pointed out to me how John and I seem to operate almost seamlessly as a unit, especially as we deal with children, household chores, day to day life. I guess I hadn’t really appreciated how wonderful this is. How much implicit trust there is as we move through the days, how much steadfast reliance we demonstrate with each other, how much we rely on each other’s small sacrifices to make our own lives better.  How much our children see us as a “them” –not just individuals to relate to separately.

I’m pausing in this moment realizing that I am more able now to be grateful for this long and steady relationship than I have been at some points along the trajectory. At any given moment there might be a surge of anger, a disappointment in not being heard, a feeling of being taken for granted. But when those moments  (maybe even seasons)  are blended in with the long, slow, pulse of a relationship that has constituted more than half my life,  I am able to see that marriage is indeed a gift of God  for  the “well-being of the entire human family (W-4.9001).”  It really is in the context of this life-entwining relationship that we can experience the “full expression of love” between a man and a woman (as the Book of Common Worship beautifully puts it). In some ways it is only time and the wear and tear of life that gives partners the opportunities to experience this full expression of love. 

In our love of labels for each other and ourselves, we may miss how our own and others’ lives defy the very labels we seem to love.  I am basically very prudish and conservative when it comes to sexuality and marriage in my own life, while serving a congregation known for its “liberal” bent.  I married fairly young, have remained faithful throughout the 25 years and my husband is the only person with whom I have had sex.  I admit that we did have sex before we were married, but it was after a year together and a strong sense that our commitment was a lifelong one.  Even the most conservative among us these days has toned down the rhetoric against “fornicators destined for hell” but, though I know I am a sinner, I honestly don’t think my relationship is what Paul or other New Testament writers had in mind when they used the term. 

To my knowledge I have only done one wedding for a couple that had not had intercourse before the ceremony. Even for that couple, it was clear to me that only one of them was a virgin.  While I wish people in our culture would slow things down and actually date before hopping into bed with each other, my biggest concern is not when people begin having sex relative to the state or church sanction of their relationship, but what their sexual relationship means in the larger context of a loving partnership.  Though I bristle at how sexualized our culture is, I am glad we seem to have set aside the focus on (especially female) virginity. It is possible, I understand, to have “hymen repair” surgery in some places in the world who seem to have held onto, or even revived this obsession with female purity.

Thankfully marriage has changed for the better since the days of the ancient Israelites and the first century in the Roman Empire. 

Speaking to San Antonio City Council Feb 12 urging council to pass a Tip Integrity Act, so that hospitality workers can keep the tips people leave for them.

Good evening Mayor Castro and members of the City Council, My name is Kelly Allen, pastor of University Presbyterian Church and I stand with a large group of supporters of the Tip Integrity Act.

People in our community of San Antonio who rely on tips to make a decent living, are some of the hardest working folks we know.  They work long hours in jobs that require lots of physical effort and spirits that are resilient, and are expected to greet even hostile customers with cheerfulness.  Their extra efforts to make our meals and parties celebrative, our hotel stays pleasant are appreciated. 

To leave a sufficient –or even a generous tip, is a way to demonstrate this appreciation directly to the person who has served you.  It is a way of honoring this short, but important interaction of people. It gives the conduct of business a personal aspect. In an age of the remote, the automated, the virtual.    Even to sometimes be charged a predetermined service charge is an agreement that good service means something, and fairness to those who serve is important. 

So to find out that someone who has gracefully placed a beautiful plate of food in front of you, who noticed the moment your water needed refilling or your coffee was getting cold, or who shared a moment of friendship with the cranky kid who was dragged to a restaurant they didn’t choose, --does not receive the tip you personally calculated for him or her to receive, feels like a betrayal of something very basic. It feels like we are being robbed of an opportunity to express our decency and appreciation to important people. It feels like another way workers are being asked to settle for less and customers are asked to settle for yet another ambiguous “surcharge” on a business transaction.

When members of my congregation began to learn that they couldn’t assume that service charges and tips would go directly to the people who had provided service to them, many were shocked. 

Atheists, Pastor John Hagee, and me: forever connected

A few weeks ago a small group of staff and church members gathered around a table to talk about how we might promote a conversation about the use, for good and ill, of technology and especially social media by our children. We decided that, over the course of 2014 we would like to engage people in the congregation as well as the broader community in thinking about how these things affect our lives. What is good and faithful and ethical about our connecting with others through social media, and what is destructive and harmful about it.

This Sunday, as we explore the Gospel of John, chapter 1 --"The Word became flesh and dwelled among us..... full of grace and truth," I hope to help us begin this conversation.

One thing I am realizing as I read and reflect in preparation for Sunday, is that we have become, in this world of internet, "networked" people. We don't see ourselves in the kind of atomistic way that has been so characteristic of Western society until the quantum and computer age came along. For good and ill we are seeing ourselves in more connected ways.

Dwight J. Friesen, in a good book called "Thy Kingdom Connected: What the Church can learn from Facebook, the Internet and other networks" suggests that understanding ourselves as "networked people" my help us be agents of reconciliation. Here is how he talks about it:

"A networked person embraces conflict with the faith that hidden inside every conflict is an opportunity for the reconciling gospel to be made visible; the greater the conflict, the greater the opportunity for the gospel to be manifest. If reconciliation is the gospel in action, then every time a networked person encounters an 'enemy,' they see an opportunity for grace to transform a relationship. In God's networked kingdom, reconciliation is the eschatological hope embedded within enmity.

"The networked person embraces their need for others, including their enemies..... Relationships with other people who differ in profound ways provide a unique opportunity for the networked person to reflect, forgive, repent, or differentiate in hope of encountering the other. In many ways, the transformational process of being formed in the image of God as seen in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit happens best when we have the privilege of being in relationship with those who differ from us or even those who consider us their enemies (p.70-71)."

In San Antonio last week, my brother in faith and fellow clergyman Pastor John Hagee preached a sermon in which he suggested that atheists should just hop the next flight to somewhere else and leave the good ol' USA to those of us people of faith who understand and appreciate that this nation was founded ON faith.

Turning back and moving forward

The New Year always seems to put me in a quandary. Is the arrival of a new year a time for looking back at the year that has concluded, or is it a time to make new commitments for a year that is beginning to unfold? I am sure it is both, and equally sure one is of no use without the other.

To look back is an important act of contemplation. The pace of life often distracts us from valuable remembering. The events of our lives shape us and if we do not take time to remember them we will be shaped but we may not know what our shape is. To remember is also to savor --to taste again what was beautiful about a moment, a conversation, a learning, a deepening relationship, an accomplishment, a surprise. This savoring is to remember what God has done for us in the many facets of our lives.

To remember may sometimes mean to regret. As people of faith, we can experience regret, even guilt without fear that it will control or dominate our existence. This is because the One who continues to arrive in our midst, is a bearer of forgiveness and a healer of our deepest wounds.

To remember may also be to grieve. Our year may have had loss --of a loved one, of a job or an ability, of a cherished idea or dream. To grieve is to honor the important place something or someone has had in our lives. It is to give time to the recognition that life has been shaped by what has been, as well as recognition that life is now changed forever. To ignore, suppress or dismiss this grief is to pretend that life goes on unchanged, unaffected--to present a false self to the world.

The Righteousness of Joseph

Matthew 1:18-25
The version of the birth story of Jesus that is told in the gospel of Matthew has a tender depiction of the person of Joseph as he wrestles with how to respond to Mary's unexpected pregnancy. With numerous options of how to respond, on a spectrum from brutal to kind, he chooses the kindest option he can think of: to separate himself from her. But it turns out even the most righteous option in Joseph's mind at that moment is not the most righteous option in the mind of God. The Holy Spirit is working in this whole story, bringing Joseph to a place where what it means to be righteous is something he could not have imagined. Righteousness as the story unfolds is for Joseph to embrace this child as his adoptive father, as he reconciles with Mary, the child's mother, and to become the one who will bring the child Jesus and Mary into safety in Egypt. This new righteousness comes to Joseph in his dreams, even as it did to the Joseph of Genesis.

As an adoptive parent, this year upon reflection on this tiny story that begins the gospel, I am particularly moved by the fact that Joseph and I share this same calling- to embrace, nurture and support a child who came into my (our) life through means other than my/our DNA.

Christmas blessings,

A Reflection On Matthew 24:36-44 for Advent

Ready or not, hear I come!
Ready?
Am I ready?
What am I ready for?
For my room to be inspected?
For my children to go out into the world?
For my professor to grade my paper?
For God to find me?

Would God recognize that I have been sorting through, sorting out,
or would it look to God like I had been piling up ideas and courses of action like a pile of newspaper clippings and pages torn out of magazines –ready for some future use?
Is that recipe for a redwhiteandblue jello mold even relevant any more?
Is that 1970s advice column on parenting toddlers of use to me in the world now?

Can what is needed of me from God merge with this moment now?