something new

Boy it's been a long time since I've updated anything here...

Two Sunday's ago I preached a sermon that raised some interesting discussion at church. The text was Isaiah 43:18-25 with the key part being: "I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?"

And the topic was what new things I see God doing in the Church. It seems to me there are at least 5 movements of God from

- dogma to relationship (a check list of beliefs will be much less important than the web of relationships that hold us together as a people of faith)

- institution to community (the institutional side of any given church will disappear while its identity as a true community will grow stronger)

- culture to counter-culture (in our history, church was at the center of the culture... we are moving back to the margins where we began and where we can do the work God has called us to do)

- large to small (most/all of the futures I'm envisioning cannot work with numbers that are too large)

- low commitment to high commitment (likewise, high commitment will be needed to be the church in a changing world)

I truly believe that the Church as we know it will not exist in a relatively short time - perhaps a generation - and that God is beginning a reformation as important as any that have come in the past. What do you think?

the system is broken

yeah, I could be talking about any number of different parts of the system but I'm talking about a place that really should be made to work whatever the cost - foster care. An associated press article the other day underscored the disaster that foster care is - 4000 18 year olds leave foster care each year in California. Look at these numbers for them:
50% unemployment rate
22% homeless within one year
10% enroll in college
25% incarcerated within 2 years

The system doesn't work. We've seen it from the inside as we did foster care while we lived in NY and had 6 children come through our home. Church members at the Albany church had had as many as 50 children live with them through the years. We entered the system with the best of intentions as did our friends who kept foster children. I'm also sure that many/most of the case workers and other staff were there because they wanted to make a difference. For a few of the children, the difference was amazing. For far too many, the numbers above tell the story.

oops

sorry about the code in those two posts... I can't see the mistake. I'll keep looking

star trek

I guess I have nothing better to do...
Your results:
You are
Will Riker

Will Riker 65% Deanna Troi 65% Geordi LaForge 60% James T. Kirk (Captain) 55% Worf 55% Uhura 50% Beverly Crusher 50% Mr. Scott 45% Chekov 45% Jean-Luc Picard 40% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 30% Mr. Sulu 30% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 30% Spock 29% Data 24%

At times you are self-centered but you have many friends. You love many women, but the right woman could get you to settle down.

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Test

superhero

hey at least I didn't end up as catwoman!

Your results:
You are
Spider-Man

Spider-Man 75% Superman 60% Green Lantern 60% Supergirl 50% Wonder Woman 50% The Flash 50% Catwoman 50% Robin 45% Iron Man 45% Hulk 35% Batman 30%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero am I?" quiz...

politics

Let me begin with a disclaimer... I have only voted Republican once in my life and I am ashamed to have voted for that person (I'll give you a hint - he resigned in disgrace). I have voted for a number of third party candidates, but usually I have voted for Democrats.

Having made that disclaimer, let me comment on two Republicans. I'll begin with the positive comment to show that I'm only a little partisan.

In George Will's column today he talks about a Republican who [I]could[/I] inspire me to vote for a Republican sometime. Tom Coburn is a representative from Oklahoma. I don't know anything about his politics but I do respect his integrity. He was the one who proposed that the $223 million that was earmarked for Alaska's "bridge to nowhere" be diverted to New Orleans. He has tirelessly worked against pork barrel projects that do nothing to further the interests of the country as a whole. He champions that old fashioned Republican virtue of fiscal conservatism. He is willing to stand up against his own party when he believes they are wrong. We need more folk in government with similar spines.

Will has a great line in the column... "Civilization depends upon the ability to make even majorities blush..." which brings us to the second Republican.

One statement that keeps getting thrown around by those on the right regarding the domestic wire taping has been - "If you don't have something to hide, what are you worried about?" Well, the vice president had something to hide. While hunting for quail, he ignored the training that the NRA proposes and shot a friend. Then the white house took 24 hours to release the information. Now we know why. Cheney had a hunting license but did not have the required stamp to hunt quail. He was hunting illegally. After hiding the information, the administration made light of what happened. It seems to me that the event is a wonderful and terrible metaphor for this administration. He was reckless, careless, broke the law, hid the information, and then made light of the entire event. This administration has no shame. They have no respect for the law, for the people of our country, for traditional Republican policies, or for the constitution. They do not blush.

Extravagance

Extravagance... it is one of my favorite words these days. God is amazingly extravagant! Extravagant love... extravagant beauty... and now extravagant wonder

Scientists have discovered a slew of new species and a few that were thought to be extinct in a remote section of the jungle in Indonesia. One of the species - long-beaked echidnas - at least in this region obviously has no history with human beings and wasn't afraid to allow the scientists to pick it up and carry it back to camp! Amazing

here's a slide show from the expedition including both animals and plants.

extravagant wonder!

his royal highness

Ok... I'm a big Prince fan. The man is a genius and an amazing player. Yeah, there is lots of filler material on most of his records but he still has an amazing body of work and his live performances are supposed to be astounding. I've never seen him live but if the tv performances that I've seen are any indication, there isn't a better show out there. If you didn't catch him on SNL this past Saturday you can see the clip. here!
Compare that performance with the drivel of the Rolling Stones at halftime on the superbowl. my, my, my

a great sermon

Bono spoke at the president's prayer breakfast last week... the following are his words. powerful, powerful stuff.

If you're wondering what I'm doing here, at a prayer breakfast, well, so am I. I'm certainly not here as a man of the cloth, unless that cloth is leather. It's certainly not because I'm a rock star. Which leaves one possible explanation: I'm here because I've got a messianic complex.

Yes, it's true. And for anyone who knows me, it's hardly a revelation.

Well, I'm the first to admit that there's something unnatural...something unseemly...about rock stars mounting the pulpit and preaching at presidents, and then disappearing to their villas in the south of France. Talk about a fish out of water. It was weird enough when Jesse Helms showed up at a U2 concert...but this is really weird, isn't it?

You know, one of the things I love about this country is its separation of church and state. Although I have to say: in inviting me here, both church and state have been separated from something else completely: their mind.

Mr. President, are you sure about this?

It's very humbling and I will try to keep my homily brief. But be warned - I'm Irish.

I'd like to talk about the laws of man, here in this city where those laws are written. And I'd like to talk about higher laws. It would be great to assume that the one serves the other; that the laws of man serve these higher laws...but of course, they don't always. And I presume that, in a sense, is why you're here.

I presume the reason for this gathering is that all of us here - Muslims, Jews, Christians - all are searching our souls for how to better serve our family, our community, our nation, our God.

I know I am. Searching, I mean. And that, I suppose, is what led me here, too.

Yes, it's odd, having a rock star here - but maybe it's odder for me than for you. You see, I avoided religious people most of my life. Maybe it had something to do with having a father who was Protestant and a mother who was Catholic in a country where the line between the two was, quite literally, a battle line. Where the line between church and state was...well, a little blurry, and hard to see.

I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays... and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God.

For me, at least, it got in the way. Seeing what religious people, in the name of God, did to my native land...and in this country, seeing God's second-hand car salesmen on the cable TV channels, offering indulgences for cash...in fact, all over the world, seeing the self-righteousness roll down like a mighty stream from certain corners of the religious establishment...

I must confess, I changed the channel. I wanted my MTV.

Even though I was a believer.

Perhaps because I was a believer.

I was cynical...not about God, but about God's politics. (There you are, Jim.)

Then, in 1997, a couple of eccentric, septuagenarian British Christians went and ruined my shtick - my reproachfulness. They did it by describing the millennium, the year 2000, as a Jubilee year, as an opportunity to cancel the chronic debts of the world's poorest people. They had the audacity to renew the Lord's call - and were joined by Pope John Paul II, who, from an Irish half-Catholic's point of view, may have had a more direct line to the Almighty.

'Jubilee' - why 'Jubilee'?

What was this year of Jubilee, this year of our Lord's favor?

I'd always read the scriptures, even the obscure stuff. There it was in Leviticus (25:35)...

'If your brother becomes poor,' the scriptures say, 'and cannot maintain himself...you shall maintain him.... You shall not lend him your money at interest, not give him your food for profit.'

It is such an important idea, Jubilee, that Jesus begins his ministry with this. Jesus is a young man, he's met with the rabbis, impressed everyone, people are talking. The elders say, he's a clever guy, this Jesus, but he hasn't done much...yet. He hasn't spoken in public before...

When he does, is first words are from Isaiah: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,' he says, 'because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.' And Jesus proclaims the year of the Lord's favour, the year of Jubilee (Luke 4:18).

What he was really talking about was an era of grace - and we're still in it.

So fast-forward 2,000 years. That same thought, grace, was made incarnate - in a movement of all kinds of people. It wasn't a bless-me club... it wasn't a holy huddle. These religious guys were willing to get out in the streets, get their boots dirty, wave the placards, follow their convictions with actions...making it really hard for people like me to keep their distance. It was amazing. I almost started to like these church people.

But then my cynicism got another helping hand.

It was what Colin Powell, a five-star general, called the greatest W.M.D. of them all: a tiny little virus called AIDS. And the religious community, in large part, missed it. The ones that didn't miss it could only see it as divine retribution for bad behaviour. Even on children...even [though the] fastest growing group of HIV infections were married, faithful women.

Aha, there they go again! I thought to myself judgmentalism is back!

But in truth, I was wrong again. The church was slow but the church got busy on this the leprosy of our age.

Love was on the move.

Mercy was on the move.

God was on the move.

Moving people of all kinds to work with others they had never met, never would have cared to meet...conservative church groups hanging out with spokesmen for the gay community, all singing off the same hymn sheet on AIDS...soccer moms and quarterbacks...hip-hop stars and country stars. This is what happens when God gets on the move: crazy stuff happens!

Popes were seen wearing sunglasses!

Jesse Helms was seen with a ghetto blaster!

Crazy stuff. Evidence of the spirit.

It was breathtaking. Literally. It stopped the world in its tracks.

When churches started demonstrating on debt, governments listened - and acted. When churches starting organising, petitioning, and even - that most unholy of acts today, God forbid, lobbying...on AIDS and global health, governments listened - and acted.

I'm here today in all humility to say: you changed minds; you changed policy; you changed the world.

Look, whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He exists, most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place for the poor. In fact, the poor are where God lives.

Check Judaism. Check Islam. Check pretty much anyone.

I mean, God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill. I hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of controversial stuff. Maybe, maybe not. But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor.

God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. "If you remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom with become like midday and the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desire in scorched places."

It's not a coincidence that in the scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It's not an accident. That's a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions. (You know, the only time Christ is judgmental is on the subject of the poor.) 'As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me' (Matthew 25:40). As I say, good news to the poor.

Here's some good news for the president. After 9/11 we were told America would have no time for the world's poor. America would be taken up with its own problems of safety. And it's true these are dangerous times, but America has not drawn the blinds and double-locked the doors.

In fact, you have doubled aid to Africa. You have tripled funding for global health. Mr. President, your emergency plan for AIDS relief and support for the Global Fund - you and Congress - have put 700,000 people onto life-saving anti-retroviral drugs and provided 8 million bed nets to protect children from malaria.

Outstanding human achievements. Counterintuitive. Historic. Be very, very proud.

But here's the bad news. From charity to justice, the good news is yet to come. There is much more to do. There's a gigantic chasm between the scale of the emergency and the scale of the response.

And finally, it's not about charity after all, is it? It's about justice.

Let me repeat that: It's not about charity, it's about justice.

And that's too bad.

Because you're good at charity. Americans, like the Irish, are good at it. We like to give, and we give a lot, even those who can't afford it.

But justice is a higher standard. Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties, it doubts our concern, it questions our commitment.

Sixty-five hundred Africans are still dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs we can buy at any drug store. This is not about charity, this is about justice and equality.

Because there's no way we can look at what's happening in Africa and, if we're honest, conclude that deep down, we really accept that Africans are equal to us. Anywhere else in the world, we wouldn't accept it. Look at what happened in South East Asia with the tsunami. 150,000 lives lost to that misnomer of all misnomers, "mother nature." In Africa, 150,000 lives are lost every month. A tsunami every month. And it's a completely avoidable catastrophe.

It's annoying but justice and equality are mates. Aren't they? Justice always wants to hang out with equality. And equality is a real pain.

You know, think of those Jewish sheep-herders going to meet the Pharaoh, mud on their shoes, and the Pharaoh says, "Equal?" A preposterous idea: rich and poor are equal? And they say, "Yeah, 'equal,' that's what it says here in this book. We're all made in the image of God."

And eventually the Pharaoh says, "OK, I can accept that. I can accept the Jews - but not the blacks."

"Not the women. Not the gays. Not the Irish. No way, man."

So on we go with our journey of equality.

On we go in the pursuit of justice.

We hear that call in the ONE Campaign, a growing movement of more than 2 million Americans...Left and Right together... united in the belief that where you live should no longer determine whether you live.

We hear that call even more powerfully today, as we mourn the loss of Coretta Scott King - mother of a movement for equality, one that changed the world but is only just getting started. These issues are as alive as they ever were; they just change shape and cross the seas.

Preventing the poorest of the poor from selling their products while we sing the virtues of the free market...that's a justice issue. Holding children to ransom for the debts of their grandparents...that's a justice issue. Withholding life-saving medicines out of deference to the Office of Patents...that's a justice issue.

And while the law is what we say it is, God is not silent on the subject.

That's why I say there's the law of the land. And then there is a higher standard. There's the law of the land, and we can hire experts to write them so they benefit us, so the laws say it's OK to protect our agriculture but it's not OK for African farmers to do the same, to earn a living?

As the laws of man are written, that's what they say.

God will not accept that.

Mine won't, at least. Will yours?

I close this morning on...very...thin...ice.

This is a dangerous idea I've put on the table: my God vs. your God, their God vs. our God...vs. no God. It is very easy, in these times, to see religion as a force for division rather than unity.

And this is a town - Washington - that knows something of division.

But the reason I am here, and the reason I keep coming back to Washington, is because this is a town that is proving it can come together on behalf of what the scriptures call the least of these.

This is not a Republican idea. It is not a Democratic idea. It is not even, with all due respect, an American idea. Nor it is unique to any one faith.

'Do to others as you would have them do to you' (Luke 6:30). Jesus says that.

'Righteousness is this: that one should...give away wealth out of love for him to the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer and the beggars and for the emancipation of the captives.' The Koran says that (2.177).

Thus sayeth the Lord: 'Bring the homeless poor into the house, when you see the naked, cover him, then your light will break out like the dawn and your recovery will speedily spring fourth, then your Lord will be your rear guard.' The Jewish scripture says that. Isaiah 58 again.

That is a powerful incentive: 'The Lord will watch your back.' Sounds like a good deal to me, right now.

A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord's blessing. I was saying, you know, I have a new song, look after it. I have a family, please look after them. I have this crazy idea...

And this wise man said: stop.

He said, stop asking God to bless what you're doing.

Get involved in what God is doing - because it's already blessed.

Well, God, as I said, is with the poor. That, I believe, is what God is doing.

And that is what he's calling us to do.

I was amazed when I first got to this country and I learned how much some churchgoers tithe. Up to 10% of the family budget. Well, how does that compare with the federal budget, the budget for the entire American family? How much of that goes to the poorest people in the world? Less than 1%.

Mr. President, Congress, people of faith, people of America:

I want to suggest to you today that you see the flow of effective foreign assistance as tithing.... Which, to be truly meaningful, will mean an additional 1% of the federal budget tithed to the poor.

What is 1%?

1% is not merely a number on a balance sheet.

1% is the girl in Africa who gets to go to school, thanks to you. 1% is the AIDS patient who gets her medicine, thanks to you. 1% is the African entrepreneur who can start a small family business thanks to you. 1% is not redecorating presidential palaces or money flowing down a rat hole. This 1% is digging waterholes to provide clean water.

1% is a new partnership with Africa, not paternalism toward Africa, where increased assistance flows toward improved governance and initiatives with proven track records and away from boondoggles and white elephants of every description.

America gives less than 1% now. We're asking for an extra 1% to change the world. to transform millions of lives - but not just that and I say this to the military men now - to transform the way that they see us.

1% is national security, enlightened economic self-interest, and a better, safer world rolled into one. Sounds to me that in this town of deals and compromises, 1% is the best bargain around.

These goals - clean water for all; school for every child; medicine for the afflicted, an end to extreme and senseless poverty - these are not just any goals; they are the Millennium Development goals, which this country supports. And they are more than that. They are the Beatitudes for a globalised world.

Now, I'm very lucky. I don't have to sit on any budget committees. And I certainly don't have to sit where you do, Mr. President. I don't have to make the tough choices.

But I can tell you this:

To give 1% more is right. It's smart. And it's blessed.

There is a continent - Africa - being consumed by flames.

I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did - or did not to - to put the fire out in Africa.

History, like God, is watching what we do.

Thank you. Thank you, America, and God bless you all.

Go Steelers

This week I realized that I last lived in Pittsburgh in 1973! Why is it that this place that I did not spend he majority of my life have such an impact on who I am? Obviously, I was formed there... and our formation is critical for our entire life.

So what were the pieces? growing up in a blue collar city in a blue collar family... hearing the news about Viet Namn on the news every evening... being faced with the struggle for civil rights in my neighborhood... knowing that the churches - and indirectly, God - cared because they reached out to us kids who very eaily could have been lost to the streets...

So the atmosphere in which we raise our children - the community, the church, our homes - will have an impact that will mark them for their entire lives...

Go Steelers!

so much going on

boy, you don't put a blog up for a few days and the topics are endless. So, here they are in thumbnails:

Alexis is doing well although she does have an infection and has had to go on a different anti-biotic.

The W said pretty much what I expected in the SOTU and I was as unhappy as I expected.

The house voted yesterday to cut about 40 Billion dollars, mostly from programs aimed at the poor. Including 13 B cut from education. I was reminded of a scriture passage this morning where Ezekiel gives the real reason why Sodom was destroyed - Ezekiel 16:49 (NRSV) "This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy."

The Steelers are still picked to win the superbowl... with the point spread running from 3 to about 4.5 I think. One of my congregation members gave me a Steelers AFC Championship t-shirt. I think I'll wear it on Sunday.