Like a Milkpod Bursting

"Like a milkpod bursting" was how Phyllis Tickle described the communities that grew out of a year-long gathering in Kudzu's, a local bar in Memphis. From her description, I would guess a lot of the participants in "Beer and Bible" might have refuted that it was church. Certainly, it didn't look like church if you imagine church as a building with pews and hymnals and offering plates, but, undoubtedly, it was church, the ekklesia: it was local people gathered around the Word of God. 

(Read a little bit more in this 2008 article on Sojourner's website)

What mattered was the people who came and went on those Tuesday nights had questions they wanted to ask about faith, about truth, about the Bible and about God, and they had a space where they could come and ask them. When they ran out of questions, they stopped meeting. A year later they reunited to mark the anniversary of what they had been doing and sometime after that, the milkpod burst and they began meeting in smaller groups.  

Tickle gave the illustration of this emergence community to give us a picture of how church is happening today outside our mainline congregations.

Explaining a cascade of sociological and historical events that have set the stage for “The Great Emergence”, Tickle was challenging those of us “in the business of religion” to listen for and address the hard questions that people ask. The questions aren't meant to tear down the Church we have known; they are to get at which traditions carry something worthwhile – Living Water (John 4:10) – and which ones are like cracked cisterns that need to be thrown out. 

Encouraging leaders to designate a pastoral allowance that lets pastors go where people are – whether that is a neighborhood bar or a coffee shop – Tickle argued that we need to be reminded that our congregations and churches are not the kingdom of God, but we are called to serve the kingdom of God and that means talking to whoever is looking at us, wherever they find us. 

"Take the kingdom out to the people around us."

Say Something

Today as we celebrate Easter and proclaim the hope we receive in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are reminded in the resurrection story in Mark’s Gospel that we are not to be silent about God’s love and forgiveness. The women who saw the empty tomb left and “said nothing to nobody” on their way, but we are called to say something. We cannot remain mute. Each of us proclaims the gospel to the world in which we live and to the people with whom we live, work and play.

When I reflect on what that calling means for me, it’s significant that Martin Luther “understood the preaching office to be responsible for both the liberation of consciences and for raising and commenting upon issues of worldly government….” (Carter Lindberg, The European Reformations, 111) This is where I hear the call to speak out for or stand with my neighbor, to help give voice to the voiceless and to unmask injustices from which we’d rather avert our eyes.

As one pastor said, Jesus’ death and resurrection were the ultimate example of civil disobedience because Rome wanted to kill him and keep him dead permanently but he refused. We are called to speak up even when it makes people uncomfortable, even when it creates a scandal, even when it appears radical and goes against popular or well-reasoned sentiment. We are called to proclaim God’s love and forgiveness in spite of a world that tells people they are not loved, they cannot be forgiven and they are condemned by God.

Martin Luther also believed the Gospel is lived when we enter into the “liturgy after the liturgy, a work of the people flowing from worship, service to others continuing after the formal worship service.” (Lindberg, 109) As we enter into this season of new life, as Easter people, living in the hope of the Gospel, what will that look like?

No Rising Tide?

In No Rising Tide Joerg Rieger challenges the relevance of President John F. Kennedy’s well-known statement that “A rising tide lifts all boats.” (1)  As the Occupy movements have brought to the headlines in recent months, “the gaps between the very wealthy and the rest of the population keep increasing” and “life-and-death struggles are no longer just a matter for the poorest of the poor.” (3) Even New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who Rieger identifies as “a long-time supporter of globalization who [has] great faith in the free market” has said, “We are going to have to learn to live with a lot more uncertainty for a lot longer than our generation has ever experiences.” (2)

Rieger challenges us to evaluate our assumptions about the economy and free markets.  Observing that often we believe “the authority of economics is unquestionable and often even infallible, and in the assumption that the current system is the only one that is viable” he suggests that there are parallels between economics and religion.  He cites theologian and Union Theological Seminary professor Paul Knitter as one who has gone as far as to say that the market is a religion and therefore, should be in conversation with other religions. (6)

What would that discourse look like? What would the questions be? Rieger suggests several: “On which authorities, powers, and energies do we rely? [Are they the right ones?] What is it that gives us ultimate hope, shapes our desires, and provides reasonable levels of stability?” (4)

These questions matter because in this disparate world where we live “power and influence determine who gets to shape the world, who gets recognized, and whose ideas count.”(3)  One example of an explicit theology of economics is pronounced by Michael Novak, an American Enterprise Institute scholar to whom Rieger attributes the idea that “the status quo should not be challenged since this is the way God intends things to be.”(6)  Arguing that often the relationship between economics and theology is more implicit than explicit, Rieger suggests “the principles of mainline economics are mostly taken for granted by religious communities, presupposed as part of the way things are, and virtually never discussed in critical fashion.” (10) Because the principles are embedded, “Hope, even in the midst of the most severe economic crisis, is thus built on the faith that things will eventually get between and that the reign of free-market economics will be reaffirmed.” (7)

Why don’t we talk more about “the alternative approaches to the world of economics”? (11) How can we awaken critical self-reflection of our economic positions, and initiate a movement away from market fundamentalism which promotes adherence without “consideration of changes in context or the real needs and concerns of people?” (14-15) At this point, I am not advocating one position over another; instead what I want to do is to echo Rieger that we have a responsibility to understand more about the world in which we live and the assumptions that are built into the systems and institutions that we live within.

Postscript on Money Matters: Occupy Wall Street

I am still watching the Occupy Wall Street movement and wondering what impact it will have and what role public Christian leaders should be taking. 

Reuters offers its analysis (October 7) arguing that although the majority of Americans are looking at our society through rose-colored glasses and do not recognize the growing division between the haves and have nots.

Kate Sprutta Elliott, editor of Gather, blogged on the Women of the ELCA website and speculated about the timeliness of a Debt Jubilee, an idea taken from Leviticus 25.  Here are more thoughts about the faith factor and the Occupy Wall Street Movement from the writers at Sojourners. They offer a one page congregational discussion guide about the movement if you provide your contact information.

On Saturday, thousands rallied in Times Square in New York City while protests continued to spread to other cities. A local favorite here in western NC, Carolina Chocolate Drops' singer Rhiannon Giddens recorded the following song, "The Bottom 99:"

The movement is gaining support although many are still questioning whether it has leaders who will move it beyond noise-making toward solutions. What is the role of our faith communities?  What is our role as individual people of faith?