Where my girls at?

It’s a topic I’ve been chewing on for a while, and I’d like to get a little perspective from my fellow blogstresses. Marissa belongs to a denomination that ordains women (obviously), I belong to the very last denomination that will ever, ever ordain women (a cold day in Hell), and Bethany goes to a church somewhere between the two (I think?).

Anyway, here’s the topic: Why is women’s ministry so lame?

Maybe you think it’s not. This blog post is not for you.

Are all those wrong people gone now?? Ok, let’s move on.

I got a phone call a little while ago from a woman at my church asking if I wanted to be involved in a women’s bible study that’s starting up this fall. Bible it up with my fellow chicas? Heck yes! Aaaaaand then she asked the question that cut me into pieces: “oh wait, do you still work?”

Never mind.

Men’s bible studies are traditionally early Saturday mornings. Women’s are held at 9:30 am on a weekday. Sorry, I’ll have been at work for an hour and half before you’re even finished with the Danishes.

Don’t get me wrong, I love our church. They have been an enormous blessing to our family in ways they probably don’t even know. And they give us the opportunity to be a blessing to others. They have all the resources of a big church with the community and unity of a small church. For us, it feels like home.

Which is kind of my point – even in my amazing, well-led, Spirit-filled church, women’s ministry is lame. Even worse, it’s completely unavailable to anyone who isn’t a housewife.

WHY??????????

I also would like to connect with God in real and meaningful ways. Don’t shut me out because I have a job.

While we work through that problem, let’s move on to the next facet of lameness. I went to a big event last year and they had a “women’s luncheon.” The theme was Find Your Inner Beauty or some such nonsense. I’m sorry but has there ever, in the history of all things, been a men’s event about Finding Your Inner Handsomeness? No. ‘Cause that’s asinine. Men learn about Leadership and Blowing Up Toilets and women are given fluff devoid of content. What is the message here? Ladies, sit there and look pretty while the menfolk go and do the heavy lifting for the Lord.

I haven’t worn makeup in three weeks, I don’t need to find out what personality type I am, and I don’t give a flying chili fart about making a bejeweled prayer journal. I need to be equipped and supported in doing the work for which my Father created me to do. I do not feel absolved from responsibility to Do Good in this world simply because I have been taught that women were only created to help men.

I also would like to serve God in real and meaningful ways. Don’t shut me out because I have lady bits.

Well ladies, what do you think?

A Tale of Two Easters

"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." - Revelation 21:4

The Bad
Easter was a rough day for our family. Actually all of Holy Week was rough for our family. We kept our kids out too late. We fed them bad food. We were very busy preparing for Holy Week services and things like bedtimes and meals got left behind.

Oh yeah. And I decided to choose this week to try to put both kids in the same room for sleeping. All four of us lost a lot of sleep with that transition.

I think the low point came on Friday morning when Amos threw up the pound of Craisins we had given him the day before (so that he would stop interrupting us saying, "B'ries? B'ries?") And also the brownie that a well-meaning sixth grader gave him for dessert Thursday night. And then after he threw up, we took him to daycare anyway. Not our best parenting moment.

Or maybe the low point was when our church decorator quit. Asking a seventy-five year old (and her eighty-year-old best friend) to set up for a Seder Meal on Thursday night, a Good Friday service on Friday, and then redecorate the entire sanctuary on Saturday for Easter Sunday may have been too much. She informed us that she would be resigning not only from her position as church decorator, but would also be taking some time off from attending church to focus on her health. Not our best pastoral moment.

This ham would have made a great Easter dinner...

And our Easter dinner. I had it all planned. We bought a ham. I had everything I needed for sides. And then as we were greeting people after the service on Sunday, somebody asked what we were doing for lunch. It was at that point that I realized that the ham was still sitting in the refrigerator waiting to be cooked, and we had nothing to eat. No problem--we all just ate Easter chocolate and called it good. Another not so great parenting moment.

And while I was greeting people after the service, our sweet baby girl made some very distinct noises, and I looked down in time to see a mustard-colored spot forming on her clothes around her diaper. I finished greeting people, holding her awkwardly at arms' length to keep her from spreading her gift any further.

Today, as I type this, both kids have fevers. The dishes aren't done. The general disarray left over from a very busy week is staring me in the face, reminding me that while the old order of things may have passed away, the new order isn't quite here yet.

As G.K. Chesterton so picturesquely put it, "There comes an hour in the afternoon when the child is tired of 'pretending'; when he is weary of being a robber or a cowboy. It is then that he torments the cat... The effect of this staleness is everywhere."

Yes, on Easter Sunday, we celebrate the resurrection, Almighty God's decisive victory over the forces of sin and death. But then on Monday, we wake up in the same world, where sickness, pain, and death remain. Where tears still fall and grief still weighs us down. We take off our fancy Easter suits and dresses and put back on our everyday work clothes. Even on Easter Sunday, we can't escape the reality of an imperfect world.

The Good
On Thursday night we had a Christian Seder Meal at our church. We read Scripture together and sang. And then we ate. We had a wonderful roast lamb (thanks to Costco's excellent cooks), homemade charoset and unleavened bread, and a full meal of all kinds of good food. One of our congregants posted this on Facebook:

"Last night's Seder Meal was awesome! I think it gives me just a glimpse of what it will be like one day when I'll be sitting with Jesus and all the past saints who have gone before. Now THAT will be an awesome meal!" 

"Jesus is laid in the tomb"

Our Good Friday service was a group effort. Almost every person there participated in some way. We divided up the traditional stations of the cross. One man brought in a hundred pounds worth of dog food attached to a backpack, so we could feel what it would have been like for Jesus to carry his cross. One man brought some wine that had fermented so we could taste bitter wine. A woman researched Jesus' words to the women of Jerusalem and shared her findings. Two of our teens played their instruments in front of our church for the first time. A man combined two of the Gospel accounts to create a dramatic reading. Another of our teens wrote words of gratitude that we used on Easter Sunday as a responsive reading. It was an informal service, but so much more impactful than if Mike or I had just done all the research ourselves. Members of our congregation now know more about the stations of the cross than their pastors!

I love being part of a church that is small enough for everyone to be involved. And that is full of people who are eager to be involved, who will put time and effort into researching and thinking creatively (and will overcome their fears of public speaking!) I loved the enthusiasm surrounding our services, and I'm excited for next year. I loved seeing people use their gifts in the service of the church in ways that blessed all of us.

The Gospel
All week, I agonized over writing my first Easter sermon. For one thing, there are all kinds of venues for hearing the Gospel at Christmas (A Charlie Brown Christmas, for example), but at Easter, it's pretty much up to us church people. Popular culture hasn't really jumped on the crucifixion/resurrection bandwagon. Easter bunnies, egg hunts, and brunch seem to be the order for the day outside the church (and--let's be honest--in the church too). All that to say, I was feeling the pressure to say something profound!

Here's what really got me down, though. I had a rough week. Not sleeping, sick kids, lots of preparations and busyness. I was exhausted and discouraged all week.

It turns out that it was good to write a sermon in the midst of that. It forced me to ask if the resurrection really matters. Sure it matters on Easter Sunday when we sing lots of songs and dress our kids up in cute clothes. But does it matter when we're exhausted and overwhelmed? Does it matter when depression sets in? Or illness? Does it matter when hundreds of schoolchildren are massacred for their faith?

One of the many things we didn't do...

When we came home from church to a messy house with no food and exhausted, sick kids, I realized that I actually believed what I was preaching. The resurrection actually does matter. I was surprised to find that I wasn't even upset about our failure to observe Easter in all the Facebook/Pinterest ways.

I discovered that the joy of reading words written by one of our teens as part of our worship service, of hearing our congregants share what they learned about the crucifixion in our Good Friday service, of eating together and leading a Christian Seder, and of getting the opportunity to proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God dwelt way more deeply within me than my expectations of a nice meal or some time off.

Praise be to God.

Christ is risen!

We managed to find time to take some pictures!

Hercules in the Garden of Eden

“This is the story of a time long ago – a time of myth and legend. When the ancient gods were petty and cruel, and they plagued mankind with suffering, only one man dared to challenge their power: Hercules.”  -Hercules, the Legendary Journeys

Ok, I admit it, I totally watched Kevin Sorbo flex his well-oiled muscles every Saturday on the TV show, Hercules – the Legendary Journeys. It was awesomely bad, the perfect mix of Greek Mythology (well, –ish…) and Hollywood cheese.

I actually have a point here, besides just reminding you how very dorky I am. Or maybe not a point, but at least a question to explore, and it goes like this: what’s the big deal about the devil?

Maybe I’m cynical, or naïve, or ignorant, but I must confess, I just don’t get it. Why are Christians so concerned about Satan?

This question popped up again last December when our church started reading Genesis together. The first thing that happens is God speaks and everything spins in to motion and becomes. The second thing that happens is God plays in the sandbox and makes some people. And then the third thing happens where those first humans totally screw the pooch (I may be paraphrasing) because…because…’cause why? I’m willing to wager 95% of Christians will tell you it’s because the devil tempted Eve.

Yup, there’s that devil being all devil-y right from the off!

Except, I kind of don’t think so. Mostly because that’s not what it says. The Bible says snake. Sure, it’s a little weird that the snake is talking and apparently walking around like it’s no big thang. But really, is that any weirder than a lady made of rib bone? You can’t just make stuff up because the story gets unusual!

No, Liz, several people insisted, the snake is the devil.

Why? Why does the story need a celestial antagonist? Why does so much of our tradition and ritual center around fighting off Satan and his minions?

Maybe a clear-cut bad guy help us make sense of a very complicated and nuanced story. It’s why we like movies about WWII better than WWI. WWI was a much more important war, historically speaking, but also much more confusing. There are no good villains, just a bunch of countries trying to do what’s in their own best interest. It’s not the stuff of high drama or even good popcorn munching. Where’s the white knight rescuing Europe from Hitler?

Maybe the Bible is too much like the WWI narrative – vast and snarled in a net of human complexities and historical realities that take time and careful study to understand. We do it a great disservice when we boil the biblical narrative of God’s relationship with humanity down to a Wild West Showdown at the OK Corral.

Or maybe it’s just nice to have a scapegoat. Something goes wrong; Satan’s fault. I do something bad; Devil made me do it. From the very first sin, the man blames the woman, the woman blames the snake – humanity is always looking to deflect responsibility.

When we ascribe to the devil all the power of evil in the world, we create a false narrative in which we are helpless little humans just trying to get by while the gods fight their petty battles. Does that narrative maybe sound familiar? Like maybe we’ve co-opted Greek Mythology and pasted it over the biblical story?

I like the Hercules show, I like mythology, but I don’t want fairy tales mixed with church. Satan is not the ultimate enemy. Now, before you burn me for a heretic, please turn with me to 1 Corinthians 15:26. “The last enemy to be defeated is death.”

Death. Not the devil. What went wrong in the Garden? They knew the difference between good and evil; they knew what sin was; they started to die. Sin pays you back with death (Romans 6:23). James teaches that our own lusts and desires tempt us and trap us, then that desire gives birth to sin, which grows up to give us death (James 1:14-15).

We don’t have a devil problem, we have a death problem. It’s killing everything and everyone around us. If you’re looking for a villain in the story of humanity, it’s us. We’re selfish, greedy, judgmental, sources of death. God came to us, walked among us, and in our fear and rage we brutally murdered him.

But.

But.

God wins. He takes the worst we have to throw at him and kicks death right in the teeth. And then he changes the whole story. The hero no longer charges in and slays the dragon, our God charges in and forgives the dragon. He heals us, redeems us, and takes away our death. He came to give us life, all the life. His spirit is always with us, breathing life into our comatose souls, allowing us to speak life into the creation around us.

Isn’t that a better story?

An Advent Baby

Bethany and Liz,
If you were here in person, I would just talk to you instead of writing a blog. But you're not here, so I'm processing my thoughts in writing (which is why I had to rope you into writing a blog in the first place!)

I'm trying to write a sermon for the fourth Sunday of Advent, but it's weird because I just had a baby. I can't seem to separate my own experience from how I read the biblical account.

For example, for the last month or so of my pregnancy, basically all I did was sit on the couch. Mary rode a DONKEY. To Bethlehem. And had the baby in a STABLE. On HAY.

When I got pregnant with Amos, I was married, finishing up grad school--basically as stable and normal as possible. Mary got pregnant before she was married, and she lived in a WAY less tolerant society. Even with my highly predictable life, I was terrified to have a baby. I can't imagine how scared Mary must have been. When she said, "I am the Lord's servant. May it be to me as you have said," I wonder how she said it. Was her voice small and quivering? Mine would have been!

If Herod went on a toddler-killing spree now, my sweet, beautiful Amos would be among the victims. I can't help but cry when I read the words in Matthew 2:

"A voice is heard in Ramah,
  weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
  and refusing to be comforted,
  because they are no more."

All those precious little baby boys. Dead. Gone. No more. All that was left behind were the tears of their mothers, never ending.

What was God thinking, coming as a baby into this world?

One of the first few night's of Eva's life, she decided to try to pull an all-nighter. I was sitting up in bed around midnight, holding her, amazed at how healthy and perfect she was. It was all "Silent Night" in there until I heard a round of gunshots coming from somewhere in the neighborhood to the south of us. While I was holding my brand new baby, some other mother might very well have just lost hers in that same moment. An hour or so later, I heard sirens suddenly ring out from all around us, and I started thinking about women praying for their husbands and sons and daughters to come home from overnight police shifts in dangerous neighborhoods. Suddenly, I felt so small, and my healthy baby girl seemed so vulnerable. How could I possibly expect to keep her safe in such a big dangerous world?

How could the Son of God be born as a tiny baby into this violent and heartless world? A world where lives are suddenly cut short all the time? Where people shoot each other in the middle of the night?

I suddenly can't read about Mary without worrying! What was her health like? Was she able to carry a baby full-term? Would he arrive in good health? And how would she make out after the birth? Would she heal properly or would she have some sort of complication that cut her life short? And then to raise the Son of God in a world of paranoid kings and oppressive foreign governments, not to mention everyday risks like pneumonia and food poisoning.

As I held my baby in my arms, listening to gunshots and sirens, I wondered what Mary heard in the stable in Bethlehem. Nativity scenes never show the world beyond the walls of the stable. Did she hear Roman soldiers patrolling at night? Did she hear drunken fights and domestic violence? Did every sound make her jump as she carefully held the Son of God in her arms wondering what she was supposed to do next?

There is some comfort in all of this.

While I was in labor, I was kneeling on the floor of the hospital bathroom, moaning in agony, when suddenly the verse from Romans popped into my head (yes, I am definitely meant to be a pastor):

"We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time."

In my somewhat hazy brain, I thought, How many people really understand that verse? I mean, like, really understand it. Obviously men don't. (Sorry, guys.) And really, we women have these nice hormones that help us forget a lot of what happens during labor.

But in that moment, I KNEW. All of creation is in majorly intense pain. Groaning. Crying out. Praying for relief. The pains of childbirth are no joke!

And that's right where Jesus showed up.

Right in the middle of all of that. At the end of nine months of increasing discomfort and fear that culminated in the agony of labor and delivery. Into a world where innocent toddlers were murdered by a cruel king. A world where mothers wept and could not be comforted because their children were no more. A risky world. A heartless and violent world.

He walked right into the middle of it. So much so that it killed him. The manger scenes don't show that either. In the manger scenes, Mary and Joseph look so peaceful and angelic. Their hair isn't gray from worry. Their faces aren't lined with the wrinkles of age and hard lives. They don't have bags under their eyes from sleepless nights and long days. They don't have that haunted look from watching their son head towards certain death.

And Jesus is still fresh and squishy. He's wrapped in his swaddling cloths. He's all curled up in the manger. He doesn't yet have the weight of the world's pain and heartbreak weighing him down. Later, he will weep for the death of his friend Lazarus. Later, he will go head to head with the teachers he one time looked up to and learned from. Later, he will be betrayed by a kiss from one of his closest friends. Later, he will pray so fervently that his sweat will be drops of blood. But none of that shows up in the manger scene.

But the story didn't end at the manger.

The other words that have never been far from my mind now through two pregnancies are Jesus' own:

"This is my body, broken for you. This is my blood, shed for you."

Especially during my first pregnancy, I was terrified. There is no easy way to have a baby, even with all of our modern medicine. It's painful, messy, scary, risky. Having a baby means pretty literally allowing your body to be broken for the sake of another person.

In the weeks leading up to the inevitable end of my first pregnancy, I clung to those words. "The body of Christ, broken for you. The blood of Christ, shed for you." I knew that no matter what happened to me, Jesus was there beside me. He had allowed his body to be broken for me and his blood to be shed for me, and even if no one else could feel my fear or my pain, Jesus understood.

The theme of the fourth Sunday of Advent is love.

I'm pretty sure there's something about love in all of this. Something about a God who stepped right into the messiness and riskiness of humanity. Who allowed himself to experience the very worst of human cruelty. Who knew pain and heartbreak, who suffered.

And somehow that love changes everything. It means that when I allow my body to be broken for the sake of someone else, I'm not doing something new; I'm just following the path to the cross. When I see heartache and loss around me, I can remember Rachel's lament and know that sometimes there is no comfort. But, like Jesus, I can choose to be present anyway. I can know that in the midst of pain, I am not alone, but also, creation is still groaning, in agony, praying for relief, for the moment when all pain suddenly ceases because Jesus has been there, and he knows this isn't good enough. That all this pain and violence needs to end once and for all.

So yeah. Those are my thoughts. I'm not quite sure how to preach this. How much can you really talk about labor and childbirth from the pulpit? And yet, it just doesn't seem right to skip over all of that and move right to the sweet, squishy baby part. Because as both of you have so eloquently pointed out, that's not really where most of us live, most of the time.

Did Jesus ever look like this?

Merry Christmas Meat Sacks!

Seriously you guys, I finished all my Christmas prep over a week before the 25^th! All is ready and wrapped and twinkling and now I get to lazily browse for delicious Christmas dinner recipes and pick out which Christmas Eve service(s) we want to go to. Boom Bam Baby, I just Christmased like a boss.

I will now share with you the secret of getting through your Christmas to-do list quickly and efficiently: don’t put much on it.

That’s it.

Some of the simplification of our Christmas came about organically – it didn’t take too long to decorate the house because we don’t actually have that many decorations. Gift shopping also didn’t last more than a few hours because we decided we could do other things with our meager funds than just buy each other a bunch of crap. A few select people got one thing each (or a group thing) and I am militantly unrepentant. It’s Jesus’ birthday, not yours.

So wrong, it's right.

Other simplifications happened more intentionally. I just refused to do stuff. We got invited to a lot of parties and while they sounded like fun, we turned them down and just enjoyed being together. And it was brilliant!

Christmas gets out of hand so easily and so quickly. It becomes this enormous burden of cookie baking, office parties, ugly sweater parties, white elephant exchanges, cookie exchanges, Christmas programs, Christmas program practices, and fa la la la la until you pass out on the floor.

Brace yourselves people, I’m about to lay some super cheesy Christmas wisdom on you: it’s not about presents, it’s about presence. (*gag*) But really, it is.

God Incarnate is here.

Incarnation is such a great word. It comes from the Latin for “flesh” but in the happy little dialect of Latin that I happen to know (Spanish), the word “carne” is far more often translated “meat.”

God be-meat-ified has come to us. The Lord of Hosts put on skin and bones and muscle like an ugly Christmas sweater and hung out with us – one with the talking meat sacks. Yeah, I know, that’s not a very romanticized way to speak of the Nativity story but really, how romantic is your real life? If it’s anything like mine, it’s a lot less holy serene people with softly glowing halos and more sweat and chaos and tired bags under your eyes. That’s kind of the point; Jesus is for your real life, not whatever perfect version you wish it could be.

So be of good courage my fellow meat sacks! When someone tries to rope you into volunteering for something or guilt you into buying more than you can afford or whatever extra holiday activity appears to stress you out, say no! Do the things you love that are meaningful for you and your family and let the rest go.

Just be. Be with your loved ones and your God, because God is with us.

Emmanuel.

Pleased as Man with Men to Dwell

We have this cheesy clock in our kitchen at Christmas time.  It has snowmen on the face, and on the hour, it serenades us with a carol.  We love it.  Even my over-efficient, get-rid-of-everything-cheesy-and-sentimental husband loves it.  And the littles get super excited. Every. Single. Time.  It's great.

Usually, as it's just a music box melody, I don't even register what song is playing.  But, often, I will find myself singing or humming the song as I go about my business.  That's what happened today.  11 o'clock sped by as it so often does.  Music played.  Two little voices said, "I hear music!" And then, I started vacuuming, and singing.  Yeah, those two don't go together, especially since there were two toddlers screaming, as they like to do whenever I vacuum.  (The decibels in our house might have been a little out of control.)

And then, I started crying.  Not because of the noise and confusion (read: chaos).  Not even, I propose, because I'm 7 months pregnant.  Because of these old words:

Mild He lays His glory by

Born that man no more may die

Born to raise the sons of earth

Born to give them second birth

Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see

Hail the incarnate Deity

Pleased as man with men to dwell

Jesus, our Immanuel

That's it, isn't it?  In poetry more beautiful than I could ever pen, the whole reason for the season.  Not family, or giving, certainly not trees or new toys or food.   Born to raise the sons of earth.  Born to give them second birth.  

Not bad for clock.

Words from Hosea

“And Jacob fled into the county of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep. And by a prophet the LORD brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet he was preserved.” Hosea 12:12-13

Last week’s Sunday school lesson was on Hosea 12. The teacher compared the verse where Israel the guy tries to take care of his own problem (wifelessness), which doesn't work out so well (Laben cheated him with the ol’ daughter switcheroo), with Israel the nation having their problem (freedomlessness) solved by God (and Charlton Heston). Pastor B went on to say that the whole America ideal of self-reliance and pull yourself up by the boot straps is really the antithesis of faith.

But, argued a good American in the class, does that mean we should just sit on our butts and wait around for God to solve all of our problems? Of course not, Pastor B explained. Do what is in your capacity to do but leave the impossible to God.

That has stuck with me this week as I watched both of our cars break down, warranting expensive repairs, and Eli's hours being severely cut back. A host of other small crises made life feel as heavy as the sullen grey sky that has persisted stubbornly for weeks. Sometimes this magical journey of life is more of a slog.

About a month ago, I was standing in a ballroom praying for rain. I traveled to Southern California for my company's annual fall conference and all 600 or so attendees gathered together on Sunday morning for worship. The president of the district delivered a powerful sermon and at the end mentioned the terrible drought in the area and together we all prayed that some much needed relief would fall from the heavens.

I didn't think another thing about it until I opened my news feed yesterday and read an article about power outages in California due to the torrential rains they are experiencing. It gave me the shivers. I remembered that God really does hear us when we cry out to him.

Not ten minutes later my boss called me into his office and thanked me for some extra work I had taken on recently and gave me a bonus. More than enough to cover all those mechanic’s bills.

Again I stopped, amazed. And remembered that God really does hear the quiet whimpery sound I make from underneath a crushing pile of life.

I don't know what you carry that is too heavy, or the problems you face that sucked the life from your bones till you feel dryer than the California desert. But I do know who has your back. And when it comes to total clusterfart crap storms (you know what I mean), He is kind of a specialist.  

Do what you can do and leave the impossible to God.