New Beatitudes for an Old Church

Let’s just stop for a minute. Just stop. Let’s take a break from talking around our denominational tables and clergy circles about the state of declining churches. Let’s pause for a moment from all the pedistalling of pastors who take their churches from 20 to 2000 members. Let’s stop beating ourselves up for somehow failing our forebears and our God by somehow letting the Church in our charge fall into the gutter, heading, we fear, for extinction. Rather than pulling out our hair with frustration and fear…or trying to set bigger and more ambitious goals for ourselves…or trying to do more of things that are not working begin with…let’s just stop and listen to some adapted Good News. Blessed are the empty pews – they make space for angels. Blessed are those who nurse old buildings, they keep the sacred flame in secret spaces. Blessed are the tiny acts of tired people, they are the seeds of revelation. Blessed are the 90-year-old organists – they hold the songs of heaven in their bones. Blessed are the keepers of the kitchen - they tend the holy hearth of God’s kin-dom. Blessed are the tentative treasurers – they dare to dance with the dangerous Spirit. Blessed are the grandmothers who tenaciously attend, sit alone, and grieve their family’s disinterest - their prayers will birth a new age. Blessed are the broken-hearted pastors – they shall see the heart of God long-overlooked. Blessed are the broken-hearted pastors – their tears cut the crusts of false prosperity and pride. Blessed are the broken-hearted pastors – their laments in dark corners are the laboring groans of a new creation.

Freedom...

I always come to July 4 with some ambivalence. I’ve never been a big flag-waver…but seeing a flag waving silently in a poignant moment always brings some tears to my eyes. I have grown up in the first generation of our country’s history (the Baby Boomers) who has been formed and influenced more by shameful actions and motivations of a few leaders, governmental and business institutions, than by pride and confidence in our country. And, I don’t think it’s gotten much better with later generations. However, this is not to say I’ve given up on freedom, and it being the basic inalienable ideal and foundation of our nation. Nor, despite the cynicism, the corruptions, the crumbling effectiveness of our political institutions, have I given up on the foundational values of our nation’s history…but let’s be clear: there’s freedom, and then there’s FREEDOM. There is a self-centered, tantrum-esque type of freedom that says I’m free to do and say whatever I want, whenever I want, however much I want…and to heck with everyone else that doesn’t agree with me or look like me or vote like me. And there is a Freedom that says, we are in this together, you and I…and so we are each free to consider the best for both of us and all of us together. In fact, there is also the Freedom that says, my freedom is directly dependent on not just your freedom, but the freedom and integrity of every other person in the world. But, therein lies the rub, no? How do we comprehend - let alone protect - the Freedom of every other person in the world without some guns and angry words and covert ops involved? God tells us – we start with our own heart. ‘God has told you, O Mortal what is good;what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8 This is what we are free to choose or not. So - my July 4th menu? A little justice, kindness please, and then for desert, a humble walk with God.