Why I'm an agrarian (sort of) and what that means

I remember the first hiking trip I ever went on. Actually, it was the second if you count the trip my parents took to the Boundary Waters a few months before I was born, but for some reason that doesn't count. Post-natal, my first hiking trip wasn't until I was in eighth grade and my family went with my aunt, uncle and cousins to the Beartooth Mountains of southern Montana.

I was smitten.

I've always loved the outdoors--fishing, skiing, swimming; all the things that kids do. When I was introduced to camping overnight in a remote, lightly traveled wilderness... well... the rest was history. I found myself in love with nature, and it's a love I carry forward today in many of the same hobbies: fishing, backpacking, canoeing, cycling, running, swimming, and just enjoying the views wherever they may come.

This love of the outdoors led naturally into a passion for what we might term "environmental causes." In college this was a huge thing for me. I worked for Lutherhaven Ministries one summer as a camp counselor and then came back as an off-site trip leader, which was a fantastic synthesis of my passions for God and  the outdoors. Camp reenforced many of my ideologies, and I returned to school passionate for several causes. Like any good environmentalist I despised all the things that led to global warming and I was into organic stuff and all sorts of things. I listened to statistics and became interested in things like the "world hunger problem." I had made the seamless transition from outdoor-lover to environmentalist and I assumed that's where I'd stay.

But I didn't. In fact, I really didn't stay in that camp very long at all, because one day not long after college I came across agrarianism care of Wendell Berry. When I found Berry I realized the nascent doubts I had about these causes. It's not that I felt lied to (full disclosure: I still think global warming, fossil fuel dependency, and world hunger are problems), but I realized that what environmentalism lacked was a coherent vision for improving the situation that didn't involve legislation and buying green foods--both of which felt like cop outs to me. This is because environmentalism is an "-ism" and as such it is concerned with solving for form rather than dealing with the particulars of a local environment. I'll let Berry explain:

Photo credit: Dan Carraco

A typical example of industrial heroism is to found in the present rush of experts to "solve the problem of world hunger"--which is rarely defined except as a "world problem" known, in industrial heroic jargon, as "the world food problematique." As is characteristic of industrial heroism, the professed intention here is entirely salutary: nobody should starve. The trouble is that "world hunger" is not a problem that can be solved by a "world solution." Except in a very limited sense, it is not an industrial problem, and industrial attempts to solve it--such as the "Green Revolution" and "Food for Peace"--have often had grotesque and destructive results. "The problem with world hunger" cannot be solved until it is understood and dealt with by local people as a multitude of local problems of ecology, agriculture, and culture. (Wendell Berry, "The Gift of Good Land")

John 3:16 and the virtue of humility

Scripture: John 3:1-21

            I’ve pondered at some point of my life going to a pro or college football game, standing in the end zone, and holding a sign that says, “John 3:14” or “John 3:17” or something along those lines, but since this would require going to a football game that’s probably not going to happen.

            If you stop and think about it, John 3:16 is probably only one of a handful of verses that can be considered widely known in the general public. I can think of only the 23^rd Psalm and maybe the first verse of Genesis as other examples of this. “For God so loved the word that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.” That’s great and true and very worthy of sharing, but it is kind of arbitrary that this is the verse held so highly in public esteem. Why not John 3:14 and 15? “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” It’s very, very similar. Or then there’s John 3:17, “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” Again, very similar.

            Or, going a step further, why don’t we make a big deal of the light and darkness imagery, or the condemnation and salvation language that is everywhere in John? What is it that John 3:16 does that really works for us?

            This week when I read John 3 again for the first time in awhile I wrote down the first thing that came to my mind: “Oy, John’s Gospel… oy, oy, oy.” This is not a good sign for a pastor when that is the right at the top of your notes. Seriously, if you think preaching is hard when the scripture doesn’t seem to say anything important try preaching when the scripture says so much that I am going to need you to free up your schedules for the rest of the week to get to it all.

God's economy versus the money economy

Scripture: John 2:13-25

            This is a sermon about economics (more frightening words may never before have been uttered here). Consider yourself warned—that’s all I’m saying.

There was something going around the internet awhile back and, since it’s the internet it’s still going around somewhere out there, which said, “When someone asks you ‘What would Jesus do?’ remind them that freaking out and flipping tables is a viable option.” I might add: whipping people and animals and driving them out of the temple.

            Now, this is a Jesus we can get behind--beat those moneychangers! whip those cows!--but it’s also a case of Jesus making a statement about economic priorities. There were certainly other cases of abuse that Jesus witnessed in his ministry, but it is this scene of moneychangers and merchants in the outer wings of the temple that really sets him off. Jesus seemed to understand the kind of things that we hold in our hearts to be most important. He understood how naïve we are about the idea of economies. And in the outer wings of the temple two very distinct economies were clashing.

            The word “economy” comes from two Greek words: “oikos” and “nomos.” Oikos means “house” or “household” and nomos means “custom” or “law.” So, in essence an economy is the “law (or custom) of the household,” which means two things: 1. all economies are built from the small-scale of the individual household, and 2. any large-scale economy that does not take into account the customs of households has been corrupted. This becomes real for Jesus when he visits the temple, because the customs of the temple should have been distinct from the customs of the marketplace. To exchange money in the temple was to send the dangerous message that, like the marketplace, God’s economy trades in money. Jesus was not against economies—in fact, the temple participated in a kind of economy that I’ll get to in a minute—but he was very much against the wrong economy in the wrong place. To trade in money in God’s house was to engage in the wrong kind of commerce for the location. It is too easy to ally ourselves with money; too easy to make of it an idol.

Fun things make Lutherans anxious: Miracles, enjoyment, and the purpose that holds it all together

 Scripture: John 2:1-11

            The wedding at Cana is something that Lutherans don’t much care for, because it is something that sounds potentially fun, and we are nothing if not deeply suspicious about anything that might be fun.

            I figured that was a nice, stereotypical half-truth to get your attention, so I’ll get back to that in a minute, but first I’m going to take a detour to confirmation class last Wednesday. Our discussion topic with the 9^th graders was miracles.
            I asked, "What is a miracle?" But I didn’t anticipate at all what they were going to say. Their answers were very interesting. They said a miracle is something “meaningful”; something with a “purpose” behind it; something “good.” I was expecting a definition of miracles that had something to do with impossibility—that they would say that miracles are things that cannot be explained or things that violate the laws of nature. But, whether they knew it or not, they actually saw through the question to the part that really matters. It’s not the possibility or impossibility of miracles that makes them significant but the meaning behind them. This gives me a good deal of hope, because when Jesus does something miraculous in John’s Gospel it is not called a miracle. Every healing and raising of the dead, every feeding or walking on water are just called “signs”—semeion is the word in Greek. They are events that point to something greater.

            A miracle is a thing with a purpose behind it, something meaningful, and good. It’s unlikelihood (or impossibility) is really only something that magnifies the meaning of it. What matters is the purpose.

Why this pastor does not like to be asked to pray in public

This is going to sound crass, so I'll just go ahead and apologize ahead of time, but here's the honest truth: I'd rather you didn't ask me to pray at public functions.

I had better explain that before the angry mail pours in. It's not because I don't think prayer is effective (in fact, I think the opposite), and it's also not because I don't like public prayer or think it is not the "right" kind of prayer (as if there is such a thing). 

Instead, I don't like being asked to pray in public because public prayer has become the realm of the pastor to the exclusion of most other people in the church, which is a problem because public prayer also happens to be one of the easiest ways to be introduced into a life of prayer. When we act as if the pastor is the only one qualified to pray publicly we suggest that there is a threshold where lay prayer ends and ordained prayer begins, and that the pastor prays because he/she know all the right words and the rest of us can only be prayerful up to a point. Worse still, we suggest that there is a right way to pray aloud and a wrong way.

All of this is just wrong.

"What are we looking for?" Turns out it's probably Jesus

Scripture: John 1:35-51

            Last week I spent some time on John’s use of questions, specifically the question “What is truth?” Today, we get another completely loaded question—this was kind of John’s thing—and that question is “What are you looking for?”

            Isn’t this a question we could ask any one of us? What are we looking for? We all have expectations about what we’re getting when we go to church. Maybe we come to be spiritually fed; maybe we come out of a sense of duty; maybe we come because our parents make us; and maybe we come because it’s 30 degrees below zero and it seems like a warm place to be. I suppose there are probably as many reasons why we come as there are people in the church. All of us are looking for something slightly different.

            But there are even more people not here—people who have other things happening on Sunday mornings, people with work, who have busy lives, people who want nothing to do with organized religion; or, on days like today, people who have a little more sense than most of you. What are they looking for?