Pondering Pastor

For me, preaching is an exercise in “translating” texts into our context. For me, that means looking at what is swirling around me and others at the moment and seeing what scripture, particularly the lectionary texts, have to say in that context. Ann Ward started me thinking about the chasm within the story about Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16:19-31 and readers of this blog will naturally find some of those “chasms” talked about here. The most powerful thing Ann wrote was,

 How big was the gap/distance between the rich man at his table and Lazarus at the gate?  Surely not so great as the eternal divide that existed later.  Yet it was a distance the rich man allowed, or welcomed … until he was on the wrong side of the chasm.

We actually build chasms between people in our society and work to be on the “right side” of those.  Jesus isn’t on that side.

• Race
• Class
• Communities (gated to keep people out)
• Sexualities
• Red/Blue political affiliation

Even churches build those chasms.

It will be interesting to see how this shapes out for Sunday

Pondering Pastor

After all the apology posts on this blog, I’ve found myself very careful about my apologies and especially taking full responsibility for my actions.  What that has meant this week is not giving reasons for my failures.  That is HARD!  I don’t want people to think poorly of me and so I want to give the reasons for my failures.

I failed to complete a report that was due earlier this month and attended a meeting where that report would be reviewed.  I simply said that I had not completed it yet, but would.  My apology consisted of regret for the problems that caused for others who were relying on that report.  I think my tongue still has scars from the attempt to not say more.  It is a challenging exercise to say the least.

Pondering Pastor

Juxtaposition

• This week is the 50th anniversary of the “Little Rock 9″.
• The Jenna 6 demonstrations bring 20,000 to point out continuing racism last week.
• White supremacist groups try to say that it is not about race this week and raise their ugly vision of America.
• I’ve been doing some reading about the stories of lynching in Maryland in the 1930s.
• I’ve had this book commended to me this week.  On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-first Century
• I was invited to a conference to talk about the troubles BRAC will bring to the area, but it was veiled xenophobia and even more veiled racism.
• And on a website where people can post comments about news events related to Annapolis, the following exchange is found:

“Want to end the violence and shootings in Annapolis? Get rid of all Section-8 housing. Get the low income scum and thugs, and all their drugs out of Annapolis. Make Annapolis the city it once was, where only those of us with money can afford to live.”

“I agree, and as if to back up your theory, once again the complaints are coming from a certain area.  as long as the animals are allowed to roam the streets there can be no safe place to live.  There are plenty of empty places in baltimore city that this trash can be moved to. the crime rate there is already so high that a few more animals wont even make a difference.”

I don’t make this up!

Racism remains one of our huge problems, and it seems that we are more comfortable allowing it to simmer and fester rather than to call it out as evil.  I can’t stay silent.

Pondering Pastor