Sharp About Your Prayers

the challenges, absurdities, and joys of an urban faith

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Go and Do Likewise…

July 29th, 2010 · Faith and the City

These are interesting (even challenging) times to be a disciple.  We swim in a culture in which people are less and less sure what it means to be a Christian.  We live in a city where many doubt that a person with a vigorous mind would (or could) also have an active faith.

What’s more, our society no longer seems inclined to hand the Christian faith complimentary servings of good will.  Did you know that a recent survey in this country (of young people between the ages of 16 and 29) found that the primary words that this demographic would use to describe Christians are “judgmental” and “hypocritical”?ª

Certainly, a good bit of our bad press has been deserved.  Christian institutions and Christian figures have produced more than our fair share of scandals, mean-spiritedness, and just plain loopiness.

Still, people continue to follow.  Across the world, Christianity continues to grow.  Why?  Well, perhaps the Christian faith really is more than a laundry list of our most prominent mess-ups.  Much more.

When you get past cultural motives for being a Christian (“I was born and bred a Presbyterian.  What other choice do I have?”); I think the primary reason that most of us have stayed within the faith is an appreciation for the basics.

When Jesus summoned disciples, he asked them to follow.  Then, he traveled around and did stuff.  He healed.  He taught.  He forgave.  From time to time, he would turn to the motley crew who was tagging along behind him and say, “Go and do likewise.”

Maybe it’s that simple.  Maybe life, the Christian life, depends on this basic protocol.  Tag along behind Jesus.  Try to do likewise.

Right now, I am preparing a fall sermon series.  The ten week series will focus on ten verbs, ten things that Jesus either did or commanded the disciples to do.  Here are some of the verbs that I am considering:

knock

feast

visit

love

What would you add to the list?  What verbs signify following Jesus to you?

ª The Barna Group, UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity, 2007.

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Summer Reading

June 18th, 2010 · Faith and the City

June 18, 2010

One of my favorite things about the summer is reading.  Over the course of the year, a stack of books grows in my office.  I add to the pile when I get recommendations from you, or when I come across a good review in The Christian Century, or when an email from a former student hits my inbox saying, “Have you read this…?”

Every summer, even before Amy and I were married, we spend some time in Duluth, Minnesota.  Duluth lies at the western-most tip of Lake Superior.  It is an active port—a place where wheat and iron ore still gets loaded on massive ships bound for all parts of the globe.  Duluth was home to Amy’s grandparents, and their small, immaculate house is still owned by her family.

If you haven’t had the pleasure, I must tell you that Lake Superior is cold—even in July.  A little breeze off the water and Duluth quickly earns its title: “The Air Conditioned City.”

So…

  • Duluth air
  • a large glass of iced tea (with lemon, no sugar)
  • a stack of books (mostly novels)

That is summer!

This summer, among other things in the stack, I will be rereading Marilynne Robinson’s book, Gilead.  Ms. Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize for this novel, and I am very excited to announce that she will be at the church on Sunday, October 31, 2010 (Halloween to many, but to geeks like me ”Reformation Sunday”), to address the topic: “Calvin, Literature and the American Church.”

Throughout the fall, book groups in the congregation will be reading Gilead to prepare for Ms. Robinson’s visit.  I am envisioning our whole community reading the book together.  Sort of like what happened when all of Chicago read “To Kill A Mockingbird” at the same time, only on a mini-donut scale.

Here’s a little teaser, the first sentence of the book:

I told you last night that I might be gone sometime, and you said, Where, and I said, To be with the Good Lord, and you said, Why, and I said, Because I’m old, and you said, I don’t think you’re old.

What else is in my stack?  Well, here are a few:

  • The Clearing by Tim Gautreaux
  • Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
  • Crossing Mandelbaum Gate by Kai Bird

What will you be reading this summer?  Tell me if you like it; I’ll add it to my stack!

My posting is going to slow a bit for the summer.  I wish you all Traveler’s Mercies.  Here’s hoping that a cold lemonade and a hammock in the shade are somewhere in your very near future…

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Reaching Out

June 6th, 2010 · Faith and the City

I recently stumbled on an interesting conversation surrounding the fresco, “The Creation of Adam.”

The standard interpretation of Michelangelo’s masterpiece goes like this: As God reaches out to Adam (instilling him with life); Adam reaches back toward God in faith.

Not all art historians agree.

When studying the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, some claim (using complicated diagrams and vectors) that Adam is not actually looking at God.  Instead, these scholars suggest, Adam is gazing at the striking beauty nestled in the crook of God’s left arm.

Who is this woman?

It is the not-yet-created Eve.

Perhaps, these scholars suggest, Adam is not reaching out toward God in faith.  Perhaps Adam is looking past God.  Yearning for companionship, could it be that Adam is looking at and reaching out for Eve?

Now I must admit, when it comes to analyzing Michelangelo’s masterpiece, I am the sort of guy who gets stuck pondering why the Master gave the first human a bellybutton.  In other words, my interpretation of this work is undoubtedly suspect.

Nevertheless, here it is.

Rarely are our attempts to reach out to God pristine.  Never are they pure.  And the good news is this whole debate is this:  No matter what Adam’s motivations, no matter what the first human is reaching toward, it is absolutely clear that God is reaching out toward him!

What do you think?

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The Navy Hymn

May 28th, 2010 · Faith and the City

This Sunday is Trinity Sunday—a day set aside to reflect on the three persons of God who live together in perfect community.  This Sunday, as you know, also falls in the middle of Memorial Day weekend. 

To capture both the themes of Trinity Sunday and Memorial Day, we will be singing “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” as our opening hymn at church.  

Or as many know it, “The Navy Hymn.”

The original words of “The Navy Hymn” were written by a school teacher and clergy person in the Church of England, the Rev. William Whiting.  Rev. Whiting (1825-1878) resided on the English coast near the ocean and once survived a furious storm in the Mediterranean Sea. His experiences inspired him to pen the poem that begins with this verse:

Eternal Father, Strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bid’st the mighty Ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
O hear us when we cry to thee,
for those in peril on the sea.

In the following year, 1861, the words were adapted to music by another English clergyman, the Rev. John B. Dykes (1823-1876).  Rev. Dykes’ was the composer of music for other well-known hymns, including “Holy, Holy, Holy” and “Nearer, My God to Thee.”

“Eternal Father, Strong to Save” grew in popularity.  In 1879, Rear Admiral Charles Jackson Train, an 1865 graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, was stationed at the Academy in charge of the Midshipman Choir.  Train inaugurated the practice (which persists to this day) of concluding each Sunday’s worship service at the Academy with the singing of the first verse of this hymn.  And so, it became known as “The Navy Hymn.”

My own father was an Army man.  My father-in-law is a Navy man.  When it comes time for that important football game between the academies each fall, I am torn.  On this issue, I am not.  I love the hymn, and the sentiments it expresses so well in its final verse—a verse about the Trinity.

O Trinity of love and power!
Our brethren shield in danger’s hour;
From rock and tempest, fire and foe,
Protect them wheresoe’er they go;
Thus evermore shall rise to Thee,
Glad hymns of praise from land and sea.

Amen.

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What’s That Smell?

May 24th, 2010 · Faith and the City

I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce. But you came and defiled my land and made my inheritance detestable. Jeremiah 2:7

Today, Amy and I went for a walk through Central Park. After a while, we both began sniffing the air. What’s that aroma? Is it cookies? No. Is it cinnamon? No. It’s Christmas. It smells like our apartment when, sometime in early December, the kids stick cloves in an orange and hang it from a ribbon. Yes. That’s it! Cloves.

Were we crazy? I Phone in hand, Amy googled “Cloves in Central Park.” Sure enough, there were other people smelling spices on the breeze. Then, we found an explanation. There were official signs. To control pests, the Park Service had sprayed “a non-synthetic pesticide containing the active ingredient clove oil” on foliage north of 72nd Street.

With so much bad environmental news in our heads, we breathed deeply. It was aromatherapy at its best. Cloves—the scent of a sensible approach to caring for our planet.

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Red

May 21st, 2010 · Faith and the City

Break out your Red. Red ties, red jackets, red dresses, Nantucket red slacks, Crimson Tide jerseys.  It is Pentecost this Sunday.  Go ahead, wear your Red.

In Great Britain, they call the Sunday that falls fifty days after Easter, Whitsun (or White Sunday). They wear white on Pentecost because that is the day in England when confirmands join the church.

Here, however, and throughout most of the rest of the Christian world, we pull out the Red.

Red is the color that Christians associate with the Spirit—that mischievous presence that set the disciples afire and tossed them onto the street to have an early morning block party.  Red is the tint that we use to paint the third person of the Trinity—the freewheeling, blows-where-it-will gust of God.  The Holy Ghost.

For those who like their religion less predictable, less buttoned down, more risky (Where is God going to take us now?), Pentecost promises a commotion—a ruckus.

This Sunday, the ruckus we have planned involves prayers in different languages, officers falling down on their knees, and children with pinwheels.  The maintenance crew has even promised us tongues of fire. The Spirit will be stirring. So, come with an open heart.  Oh yes, and wear your Red!

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Protestants and the Court

May 14th, 2010 · Faith and the City

This week, Elena Kagan, former dean of Harvard Law School and Solicitor General, was chosen by President Obama to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court.  In the coming month, the debate surrounding Ms. Kagan’s confirmation will address her educational background, her intellectual abilities, her knowledge of the law, and (especially) her perspectives on interpreting and upholding the U.S. Constitution.

That is how it should be.

Still, as this important examination goes on, I will be thinking about something else. If and when Ms. Kagan is confirmed, it will be the first time in American history that our country’s highest court will not have at least one Protestant Christian sitting on the bench.

I find this troubling.

Don’t get me wrong.  I do not have an axe to grind with Ms. Kagan.  I wish her good luck and God’s blessings on this journey.  I firmly believe that she should be evaluated according to Constitutional standards, and (separation of Church and State being what it is) not according to some religious or political calculus.  I value the contributions of the six Roman Catholic and three Jewish jurists who may soon be ruling on the law of our land.  In the end, I am not suggesting that any religious constituency (including Protestants) “deserves” representation on the bench.

Maybe, just maybe, something has been lost in recent years.

Maybe we have lost a tie to our history.  The people who crafted the Constitution—people concerned with freedom of religion and the interaction between the Church and the State—were, by and large, Protestants.  True, some of them were nominal church-participants.  Yet, their world-view was (without question) shaped by Protestant concerns and Protestant values.  These values included: a belief that all human systems are prone to corruption and therefore checks and balances were essential; a high regard for public education; an emphasis on a individual’s freedom to chart a path through life, to choose a vocation, and to make decisions before God, without excessive constraint from “higher” authorities in the government or the church.  These values were the foundational building blocks of our Constitution and shaped our republican form of government.

Maybe we have lost a tie to a once-radical theological perspective.  The Pilgrims came to this country to escape persecution—to escape being brutalized for their beliefs in a feudalist society that did not tolerate outliers.  They came from a world in which royalty held absolute power—power that could prescribe what people should or should not believe about their Creator.  Arriving in this land, these Calvinists declared their freedom from these shackles by trumpeting the Reformers’ belief that “God alone is Sovereign.”  No king, no political figure, no ideological stance, and no bishop or pope, could take the place of an individual’s freedom of conscience before God.

Or, maybe we haven’t lost a tie at all.  After all, over half of U.S. Senators are Protestant (15 Presbyterians).  The President belongs to a Protestant denomination (The United Church of Christ).  At the same time, I have to admit that it is no longer clear that a focused Protestant world-view exists “in the wild” anymore.  If you take all the major issues that will confront the courts in coming years, there is a vast diversity of opinion among Protestants as to what it means to “do the right thing.”  Maybe we lost our tie to a distinctive world-view a long time ago.

Still, pardon me for a moment; for I must mourn the passing of an era.

Now, tell me what you think…  No big deal?  Important shift?  Something different altogether?

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Money and Morals

May 7th, 2010 · Faith and the City

I am on the train on the way back from New Haven, Connecticut.  For the past two days, I have been part of a conference, “Money and Morals after the Crash,” at Yale Divinity School.  This conference has tossed together economists, ethicists and pastors.  Against the backdrop of wild gyrations in the markets, violent demonstrations in Greece, and ongoing financial uncertainty, the conversations here (the big public ones and the quiet in-the-corner ones) have been challenging, serious and (at times) even hopeful.

One of the things that I find most interesting at these conferences are the questions people ask.  My new friend, Steve Peterson, a former Wall Street guy who is on the Yale Divinity Board of Advisors with me, has compiled a wonderful list of these questions.

Here are a few that I found especially provocative:

  • Can financial regulation ever adequately protect against the treachery of the human heart?
  • Has Max Weber’s Protestant ethic of hard work and self-restraint been replaced by a lotto culture and flamboyant consumption?
  • In a society fueled by hysteria and confusion—where vast numbers of people believe in ghosts and UFOs and few understand compound interest or Adjustable Rate Mortgages—is anybody listening to theologians and economists?
  • Is there more superstition in churches or on Wall Street?
  • Is humility a financial as well as a spiritual virtue?
  • How do we measure economic justice?
  • Is “truthiness”—Stephen Colbert’s word—more common in investment brochures or in the pulpit?
  • Does everyone in our country need to repent?

If you have questions that would like to add (or any answers!) , post away!!!

As you “post away,” I want to leave you with a provocative image that another friend, Steve Bauman, pastor at Christ Church Methodist pointed out to me.

To the right is a picture of people praying for the economy next to the Wall Street bull in October of 2008.  More than a few sharp bloggers out there have remarked on the similarity between this image, and what Moses saw when he descended from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, only to find the people prostrating themselves before a golden calf.  

Do you remember Charlton Heston’s response?

What do we pray for?  What do we pray to?

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Fix My Life

April 26th, 2010 · Sermon Bin

“Fix My Life”
Job 19: 13-27
Fourth Sunday in Easter
Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church
©Scott Black Johnston

Job 19:13-27 13 “He has put my family far from me, and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.  14 My relatives and my close friends have failed me;  15 the guests in my house have forgotten me; my serving girls count me as a stranger; I have become an alien in their eyes.  16 I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer; I must myself plead with him.  17 My breath is repulsive to my wife; I am loathsome to my own family.  18 Even young children despise me; when I rise, they talk against me.  19 All my intimate friends abhor me, and those whom I loved have turned against me.  20 My bones cling to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.  21 Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me!  22 Why do you, like God, pursue me, never satisfied with my flesh?  23 “O that my words were written down! O that they were inscribed in a book!  24 O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock forever!  25 For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;  26 and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God,  27 whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!”

Three weeks ago, on Easter Sunday, after the 11:00 service, I stood on the steps of the church greeting people.  It was a gorgeous afternoon.  Blue skies.  Sweet, cool air.  People parading along Fifth Avenue in flowered hats.  The triumphant notes of Widor’s Tocatta bursting from our sanctuary, proclaiming to the world: “Christ is Risen!  Halleluiah!”

I was exhausted, but happy.  Too little sleep.  Too much adrenaline.  Now, it was over, and it had been a good day.  Our sanctuary was full to bursting.  Our choir was amazing.  We had done it; we had completed the marathon of Holy Week with trumpet peals and grace.

Shaking hands, I looked forward to an afternoon nap and a walk in the Park with Amy and the kids.  Talk about “Halleluiah!”

Then it happened. [Read more →]

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What Pews?

April 10th, 2010 · Faith and the City

Christ is Risen! Halleluiah!

Did you know that Easter is not only a day, but it is actually a season?  It is a seven-week-long Christian celebration that begins with the trumpet peals on Easter morning, but that continues until our next big festival, Pentecost.

Now, here’s a bit of Christian trivia that I find quite interesting….

The early church used to stand throughout their worship services during the season of Easter!  That’s right, no easing back into the pews (if they even had pews).  No rising for the opening hymn, and then (“Phew!”) taking a load off while “the long parts” play out: the sermon, the prayers of the people, the anthem.  No kneeling or lying prostrate on the floor, as worshippers did during Lent.

No.  None of that.  During Easter, the early Christians stood.  Why?

Well, first off, they stood to acknowledge that their Lord was standing.  He is Risen!   Jesus was not prone in the tomb, but is “on the loose” in the world.  He is Risen indeed!

They also stood because the good news of the resurrection sets you on the balls of your feet.  It makes your mind churn with hopefulness.  We are not dead!  We too are risen (we are standing) with Christ.  This posture conveys readiness, eagerness, and excitement for carrying the news of the empty tomb to the world.

How will you stand this Easter?

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