What Does Conversion Look Like?

In Damascus there was a certain disciple named Ananias. The Lord spoke to him in a vision, “Ananias!”He answered, “Yes, Lord.”The Lord instructed him, “Go to Judas’ house on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul. He is praying. In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias enter and put his hands on him to restore his sight.”Ananias countered, “Lord, I have heard many reports about this man. People say he has done horrible things to your holy people in Jerusalem.  He’s here with authority from the chief priests to arrest everyone who calls on your name.”The Lord replied, “Go! This man is the agent I have chosen to carry my name before Gentiles, kings, and Israelites.  I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”Ananias went to the house. He placed his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord sent me—Jesus, who appeared to you on the way as you were coming here. He sent me so that you could see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Instantly, flakes fell from Saul’s eyes and he could see again. He got up and was baptized. After eating, he regained his strength.He stayed with the disciples in Damascus for several days. - Acts 9:10-19 (Common English Bible) 

If your experience of Christianity is anything like mine, then you have likely been taught to think about Saul/Paul as the follower of Jesus with the ultimate conversion story. Even if you've been led to understand that he remained Jewish (in ethnic practices), his faith in Christ and Christ's salvific purposes gave his life a very specific direction following Saul's experience on the road to Damascus (Acts 9). 

I've always accepted this. Over the years, I've thought about this story to discuss the significance of other vocations, since Paul wasn't making his own clothes or planting and tending crops. While he matters for the spread of the gospel, the work of other believers' daily lives also made that evangelism possible. 

Lately, however, I have been rethinking that story. Is Saul's change of heart really the greatest change in Acts 9? Is the Road to Damascus experience really the conversions experience to which all new Christians (or all Christians period) are meant to aspire? 

As I look at the chapter afresh, I am struck by what is required of Ananias. He believes in Jesus, but now Jesus asks him to welcome a man into his home. This man was known to Ananais to be a threat to his family, his friends, and himself. This man has harmed or witnessed the killing of people whom Ananais knew, maybe loved. Prior to Jesus' request, at best Ananais would have crossed to the other side of the market if he saw Saul, if not actually hide away until Saul left town. 

Now, Jesus is expecting something of Ananais for Saul. Ananias does not want to do it. He would like to say no. He tries to explain to Jesus what's happening. Jesus doesn't change his tune. 

So Ananias must experience his own conversion, his own continued growth in faith, a further step in sanctification, a greater yielding to the Holy Spirit. He must prepare to welcome Saul into his home and he's going to have to tell other people that he's doing it. 

It's not like he's going to be able to keep Saul a secret. It seems likely that Ananias has some kind of household. How will they respond to his revelation: "Jesus told me we need to bring that guy we were all just panicking about into the house." 

If conversion represents a change of heart, a change of behavior, a change of attitude, an application of ethics in the midst of stress and strain, then Ananias is the conversion story we should have been paying attention to all along. 

Most Christians, especially life-long Christians, have very little to do with Saul of Tarsus, but we have a lot in common with Ananias. Instead of assuming or expecting a road to Damascus experience, we are called to be on the look out for a stranger in Damascus experience. And we are meant to be the ones to welcome that stranger for Christ's own sake. 

We are meant to open our homes to someone whose life experience is not like ours. 

We are meant to show hospitality to someone whose history is frightening to us. 

We are meant to welcome the one who differs from us greatly and yet whom Christ loves and for whom Christ died. 

I am not saying that we are meant to knowingly endanger ourselves or our families, but we are meant to take some risks for the sake of the gospel. We are meant to be open to people are different. We are meant to have conversion experiences in our life, again and again. These experiences are the ones in which Jesus speaks to us, moves us, compels us to do the thing that surprises us and yet is absolutely necessary for the sake of the world. 

It's what Ananias did. It's his conversion story from which we are meant to learn how to be followers of the Way of Christ. 

To adapt the verse of There is a Balm in Gilead, "If you cannot preach like Peter, if you cannot pray like Paul... Like Ananias, you can show grace to all." 

Midnight Sun Invocation

I was asked to give an invocation at the Midnight Sun Holiday Lunch on Friday, Dec. 16, 2016. The honored guest was Senator Lisa Murkowski. Senator Dan Sullivan and Representative Don Young were also in attendance. Giving an invocation is tricky because you're talking to God, but people can hear you.

I wrote out the prayer because I wanted to remember to cover everything that was important to me and I wanted to be sure to stay in my allotted time. I am sharing this with you because it might inspire your own prayers. 

Dear God, Holy Parent of all,
We gather today in this beautiful state, in a wonderfully diverse city, and we know that surely you are present here. Not only because you have promised to be where two or more or gathered, but we because we trust that there is a soft spot in the Divine Heart for Alaska as one of the best parts of your creation. 
We give you thanks for the opportunity to gather, to see old friends and to meet new ones. We look around and we remember those who are no longer with us and we commend them to you in their eternal rest in light. We rejoice for the ongoing work and community that comes out of this event. Bless us as we continue that work today and tomorrow and into another year.

Holy God, you already know the prayers of our hearts and minds, yet we lift them to you. We cannot stay silent in the face of war and threats of war around the world. The images of children, grieving families, beseeching refugees, and so much destruction are burned into our minds. We watch and we weep and we wonder where you are in all of this and what we can do in your name. Be with all who are working in war-torn regions- those who are offering medicine, shelter, education, those who are working for peace, for hope, for justice, those who donating, praying, and welcoming. Let your holy light shine into all these dark places and let us see that the darkness will not and cannot overcome it.

On our home front, we ask that your life light would bring healing to the divisions in our country, our state, our city, and our homes. Strengthen us to speak the truth and to hear it. Grant us to know, deep in our bones, like an unquenchable fire, what it means to stand with and for those who have been stripped of their voice, their power, their history, their choices, and their freedoms. Help us to remember that in the gospel according to John, Jesus spoke of having sheep in other folds. All people are our brothers and sisters in you. Grant that we may see them as such and work with them toward the healing and renewal of the earth, her people, and her resources.

We pray for those in power, especially those in elected positions who are tasked with the hard work of defending our Constitution, all Americans, and the resources of our great nation. We pray for those who do that task in the uniforms of the Armed Services, especially those who are away from the families and communities in this season.

Lastly, O God, you have told us to pray without ceasing, but people want to eat- so our prayers continue- with the power of the Holy Spirit- rising to you. Prayers for those in need. Prayers for our families and friends. Prayers about health and finances and homes and community. Prayers of joy and prayers of fear.

We lift all these to you and we trust that you hear them and that even now you are working in response, working for healing and restoration. We place all our hope and trust in your great faithfulness. Amen.

Slaughter of the Innocents

The appointed gospel reading for 12/28: Matthew 2:13-18

13Now after [the wise men] had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”
  16When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. 17Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
 18“A voice was heard in Ramah,
  wailing and loud lamentation,
 Rachel weeping for her children;
  she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”


Where were the wise men to tell Tamir Rice's mother to flee, to move, to run? 

Where was the dream that told his family to gather him close and escape with him? 

Where was the truth-teller who would dare to say, "You can't give him a toy gun. The police don't stop to look for the orange tips when all they see is black skin"? 

Where those who will refuse to be consoled about Tamir, about Bettie, about Quintonio?


The greatest lie in print in our country at this time is thus:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. (The Declaration of Independence)

Clearly, these truths are not self-evident. 

They have been massaged and rebranded and covered over by the lies of generations who will not let them go. Who will not allows the mistakes of the past to be properly understood as mistakes. Who will not grieve what might have been if Freddie had lived and been treated as an equal or Sandra or Michael. 

It is a slaughter of innocents when the boulders are coming down a greatly tilted playing field and when the shots come from those who have sworn to serve and protect. 

Where are the wise men and women? The angels? The Josephs?


All I can see is Herod after Herod after Herod.

Difficult Questions: Hell

Difficult Questions: Hell

20 September 2015

Texts: Isaiah 14:12-20; Psalm 139:1-18; Revelation 6:1-8; Luke 12:1-12

The Top 10 Things to Know about Hell

10. About 99% of the images in your head of hell- the red demon with a pointed tail, the levels of suffering, the pit of fire, the presence of those who never knew Christ, the darkness, AND the eternal wailing and torment (plus the image of Judas in hell)- are all from Dante’s The Divine Comedy (or The Inferno). His writing was a piece of political literature that condemned powers of his day that he didn’t like. It also was Dante’s way of confirming himself as a poet for the ages by using the poet Virgil, who lived and died before Jesus, as his guide. Additionally, Dante’s work was a distillation of Greek and Roman mythology, some alleged gospels from the second, third, and fourth centuries, and one other work that had serious influence in Dante’s lifetime. The majority of the artwork about hell is not from Biblical interpretation, but is based on The Inferno- which takes very little from actual Holy Scripture.

9. What was the influential work that circulated in Dante’s life? It was a work that had been translated

into Latin and was very popular in upper class Italian household in the thirteenth century. Even if Dante hadn’t read this work, he would have been familiar with its descriptions of a fiery hell, divided into seven levels, and particularly populated by people who did not believe in God. What was this book? The Koran.

8. Isaiah 14, when it mentions Lucifer, is not talking about Satan. It is a prophetic statement against the then present-day Babylonian leader who brought suffering upon God’s people. The punishment for the shining leader would be an ignoble death and then to be completely forgotten. The prophecy also turned about to be prediction as no one is quite sure to which king this passage refers. Dante, as well as John Milton in Paradise Lost, expounded upon medieval Christian ideas of the ruler of the underworld being an eternal force that opposed God and was cast down. What force, anywhere, would have the temerity to attempt to oppose an eternal God? Also God has no eternal counterparts. Only God, as the Holy Parent, Holy Word, and Holy Spirit, exists outside of time.

7. The four horsemen in Revelation are not signs of the apocalypse. Apocalypse means disclosure. The four horsemen, as the images in Revelation 6 are called, are signs of apocalyptic literature. They help the reader to know that they are dealing with a story that seems to be about the future, but is really dealing with present realities. The four horses and their riders are the gospel, war, poverty, and death. These things struggle together, but only one will triumph. Those who are believers must remember to place their trust in what is truly permanent and act accordingly.

6. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the dead are dead. Period. Sheol is a place where the dead may be gathered and perhaps they are shades, or shadows of their former selves in that place. Ancient Israelites did not engage in ancestor worship, unlike most of the other regional religions of the time. Furthermore, an attempt to contact the dead (as Saul did when he used a fortuneteller to contact Samuel) is a sign of failure to trust in God as the one who holds the future and in whom one should place all confidence. Sheol is sometimes perceived to be a pit where one might descend spiritually- like the psalmist or the prophets Jonah or Jeremiah. Yet the fear is of being forgotten and God does not forget God’s children. Even in the deepest depths, God still knows the intimacies of creation.

5. Satan is an adversary in the Hebrew Scripture, but not an eternal being. When Satan’s name is used in the New Testament, it is either a pseudonym for powers and principalities or how the presence of evil, within one’s own heart or outside of one’s self, is named. When contemporary religionists empower the name of Satan by attributing works to him or giving him characteristics that are not biblical, they are engaged in a form of idolatry. Idolatry is not only worshipping the wrong god. It is also idolatrous to be afraid of the wrong power. The idea that there is a force equal to God with evil intent and the power to lure us into eternal separation and that we would be motivated by the fear of that being… Nope. That is not the essence of the Gospel, which is about the good news of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ.

4. When Jesus talks about hell and says, “hell”, he is referring to an actual geographical location outside of Jerusalem. There, outside the city, was a horrible trash pit that burned constantly. The place was called Gehenna and it is the word that we have translated in the gospels as “hell”. Gehenna had once been the site of child sacrifices, the very sacrifices that were forbidden to Jews, but were practiced by other religions to appease their gods. It eventually became the place of the very worst trash and it was where Roman soldiers would dump the bodies of people who were crucified. It was this horrible place- a place of ignominy, terror, and avoidance- that Jesus urged people to avoid by encouraging them to care for one another, to tend to the sick and the dying, and to practice a radical kind of welcome. The Way of Christ would have meant being a community that saved one another, and the outcasts of society, from being burned with trash and forgotten.

3. Some strands of Christianity hold these truth to be self-evident: “Baptism, praying in the name of Jesus, and the King James Version of the Bible are all magical talismans against suffering in hell. Not drinking, dancing, swearing, or getting caught wanting to are also important.” If “I will draw all people to myself” (John 12) AND “Nothing can separate us from the love of God” (Romans 8) and “I have seen the Lord” (John 20) are true, then which of God’s children will be cast into an eternal separation from the presence of grace? We are not all traveling up the same mountain. We are not all feeling different parts of the same elephant. But if God is God AND God is love AND God has been revealed in the person of Jesus AND the Spirit intercedes for us in a variety of ways, then we cannot confidently make predictions about anything that comes after what we know, except to say, “God will still be God and, therefore, in charge.” Is it in keeping with how God has revealed God’s own character to the world to punish people for an infinite amount of time for bad decisions made during a finite period of time?

2. He descended to the dead. Everything from Acts to 1 Peter to the Gospel of Nicodemus to The Inferno written about Holy Saturday- the day between Good Friday (when Jesus was crucified) and Easter (when he was known to be raised from the dead)- everything written about Holy Saturday is an attempt to answer the question, “Where the hell was he?” Truth: no one knows. We are comforted by the idea that Jesus took the message of his triumph over death to the spirits of those who had died and brought them (or those who believed) to heaven. It makes great artwork. We don’t know. Theologian Yvette Flunder says, “Religion is violent because we insist on making the uncertain certain.”  Trying to create a definite answer for what happens on Holy Saturday is, essentially, an attempt to nail Jesus down. Again. So that we don’t have to live with a little mystery.  

1. Hell is not a geographical location. It’s not even a spiritually geographical location. Hell, if it is anything, is a perception of the absence of God. A perception that is patently false, but that appears when our own experiences, ideas, certainties, or doubts attempt to make gods of themselves through confidence or through fear. That perception is transformed through our acceptance, with Christ’s help, of the height and depth and breadth of grace. People need hell to exist as a reality because they don’t trust that there’s enough of God’s love, grace, or mercy to go around. If there’s not, they want to be sure they’re on the receiving end of it.

When we open ourselves to the hopeful truth that God’s grace overflows- in terms of time, space, context, materiality, and spiritual revelation- we then become more rooted in the joy of our salvation and the good news of freedom in Christ. Rejecting hell as something that must exist removes the scales from our eyes so that we can see how the kingdom of God is at hand.

Living faithfully, through God’s grace, means separating what we have ingested culturally through literature, art, theater, movies, and television and actually examining the written Word and the revelation that can come from tradition, reason, and experience. Anything else leads us away from the grace that is amazing, transformative, salvific, and eternal. And you know what? Resurrection grace says, “To hell with that.”

Amen. 

Tragedy and Truth

Today, I saw the worst thing that I ever hope to see.

A tiny coffin with a three-month old little boy inside. 

I heard the grieving of a mother who barely lived a trimester with her son outside her womb. 

I touched a smooth, cold, small forehead and marked it with the cross of Christ. 

I tasted the mucus that came with the tears I tried not to shed as I prayed and preached. 

I felt a sharp, damp breeze as I walked behind the casket- carried by the mother of the baby, his grandfather, grandmother, and great-grandfather. 

I offered no words of welcome in introducing myself. A funeral for a three-month old is not a celebration of life. It is a cacophony in the attempt of death to win a battle in a war it already lost. 

Child, family, friends, all gathered were all unknown to me, but not to God. 

I lit a baptismal candle and said, with a steady voice, "Baptism is never about us or what we do. It is about, all about, God's grace and love. In life, T--- was baptized by kisses and in death, he has been baptized by tears. From the beginning, though, and through forever, he has been cradled in God's hands." 

I need this to be true. 

I believe it is true. 

Believing doesn't always answer need. Need does not always create belief. 

I've heard cynics all my life who discuss religion as a panacea to help people who are afraid of death.  

The hope of reunion with one whose life was far too short is not a denial of death. The trust in resurrection today didn't mean not acknowledging the real horribleness of what was real and tangible in a small, white box in that room. 

Speaking for God today, being the representative for faith, daring to step forward for the church of Christ and by his authority, wasn't about false comfort, but about underscoring the reality that God's love is greater. 

Greater than the forces that oppose it. Greater than the brokenness of the world. Greater than whatever tragedies converge that result in the death of a life only just begun. 

In the light of a sputtering, melting baptismal candle, there is no such thing as false comfort. Such a thing is quickly exposed for what it is. It cannot stand the heat of such painful tempering.

"Baptism is never about us or what we do. It is about, all about, God's grace and love. In life, T--- was baptized by kisses and in death, he has been baptized by tears. From the beginning, though, and through forever, he has been cradled in God's hands." 

God is Love. Only Love. 

Cry, the Beloved Creation

Death stalks your beloved creation.

How long, O Lord?

Brown and black-skinned children are not valued, are afraid.

How long, O Lord?

Mothers and fathers wail in grief over fallen bodies. 

How long, O Lord?

False wars are declared, arming brothers and cousins against one another. 

How long, O Lord?

Lives trickle by, potential yet undreamed, never to be reached. 

How long, O Lord?

How long until we dare to dream something different? 

How long until we say, “Enough”? 

How long until we refuse to feed Death’s insatiable hunger, Fear’s unending drive? 

How long until we stop the machinery that allows the bodies of black Americans to be the grist that feeds money machines?

We pray for a new heaven and a new earth where righteousness and peace are at home. 

The tools, Your tools, for that are in our hands. 

Let us recognize them. Let us employ them. 

Let me join into the chorus, the drumbeat, the dance that answers, “How long?” with “No more!”

Reblogged from RevGalBlogPals.org

The Boundaries of Grace

5 Easter

Narrative Lectionary, Year C

Acts 15:1-17

            The disciples are determining the purpose of their congregation. Is it to make Gentiles (Greek, Roman, any non-Jewish believer) into Jews? Or is it to take people of all stripes who are prepared to act in the name of Jesus and to move forward and out in faith? The purpose might seem clear to us, but it was as fraught a discussion as we occasionally find in congregations and in denominations today. This is the first synod assembly (so to speak) recorded in the early church and they have real issues on their hands.

            They have to determine the boundaries of God’s grace and the marks of the recipients of that grace. They are trying to respect the traditions and history of those gathered, history that is part of how God’s work and presence in the world has been revealed.  The disciples are also trying to understand the exponential pace at which the Spirit is bringing people into faith.            

            In this critical time, they are trying to determine how to tell who is included and what is required of those who say they believe? Should they be brought into the community of faith via circumcision, the sign of one of God’s earlier covenants with Israel? Are there dietary restrictions or certain worship rites? How will the new believers show their dedication to the Way of Jesus?

            How do we know who has received God’s grace? If there are no visible physical markers, perhaps there are markers in one’s life. Surely a person who is especially blessed has received God’s grace. After all, we hear that phrase, “There, but for the grace of God, go I” applied to people for whom we have sympathy, who are struggling in some way. When the nuance of that phrase is unpacked, it reveals that if God’s grace has kept us from a certain circumstance, then any unfortunate suffering soul is clearly without God’s grace. There, but for the grace of God… implies that there are places and people that are without God’s grace. And we can tell because of how they are suffering.

            The family that can’t receive food stamps (SNAP) because they are a few dollars over the income limit… The woman or man who makes the choice to sell sex because it seems easier than other options… The person who gets hurt or killed on a trail you’ve hiked many times… The person who gets caught in a bad spot that you went through only minutes before… The person who took the flight that crashed, but you just missed… The person who dies from suicide, a desperation you’ve felt before… The person who dies from complications of a surgery that you sailed through…

            There, but for the grace of God… except were any of these people without God’s grace? Would we dare, would we presume to say that God did not care about these people? That God’s Spirit was withdrawn from them? That they were forsaken? Either the grace of God is open and expansive and all-encompassing… or God is capricious and malevolent and extends mercy to a select few (who can live into very exacting standards).

            We want to believe the former- in a gracious God. And yet we live in a world that acts on the latter premise- that God’s favor is spotty. If it was expansive, why would there be suffering in the world? And then the worst of both beliefs- that God’s grace is for all, but you have to reach a state by pulling yourself to it.

This is precisely the problem that Peter points out in Acts, “My brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the message of the good news and become believers.  And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us; and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us. Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

            We are specifically warned against testing God’s grace through judging our neighbors circumstances. Specifically warned against believing that a person’s struggling, suffering, pain, or despair is reflective of God’s opinion of them. There is only one way to show that we are not testing the grace of God. We trust in grace and so we act upon it. God’s work in our hands… God’s grace in our actions… God’s mercy in our words and deeds.

            By trusting in God’s faithfulness, as revealed in Jesus, we are brought into the same river of faithful action that swept up the first disciples. The grace of God extends to all, Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female. In the community of the Way of Jesus, here and elsewhere, we preach the love of God for all and we practice it with one another. Then we carry it out to the world that wants to believe that physical health, financial well-being, and mental stability are the obvious markers of God’s grace, when any of these things may fail. There, but for the grace of God… goes no one. Surely a God who would go to the lengths of coming into the world as person to teach and to heal and then to be resurrected… surely that God desires that all people should experience the light of grace.

            The purpose of this assembly is steep ourselves in the faithfulness of God, to absorb trust and hope and then to stride out- refreshed by Word and water, community and communion. Strengthened, we set to the work of revealing that no one is outside of God’s grace. We feed, we clothe, we advocate, we listen, we invite, we pray.

            If we are not doing these things, then we are testing God. We are testing whether God’s grace is sufficient for all people. We are hoarding the gifts we have received and waiting to see what the Lord will do. God does not fail tests. God will not fail our neighbor, but we can shortchange ourselves in responding to God’s invitation and being frontline witnesses to the way that God’s grace makes all things new.

            The purpose of the church is to bring people together into the Way of Jesus and then to live that Way in the world. The inclusion of Gentiles, as they were, into the community of the faithful was a revolution we cannot comprehend. The Spirit does not stop its work of reformation and renewal, of provocation and invitation. The grace of God is on the move and disciples, then and now, are called to be at the frontlines of the work of boundary expansion.

Amen.

Unity in Silos

I've been slowly introducing the idea of the Narrative Lectionary (NL) to my congregation. The NL is a fairly quickly paced romp through the arc of Scripture from Abraham and Sarah to Acts (September to late May). Each Sunday, the congregation focuses on one scripture passage that reveals the work God has done. Through the lens of that story, in its Scriptural setting, we move to more fully comprehend the work God is doing now.

In order to use the NL, we will have to drop out of formal use of the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) for about nine months. It is my hope that during this time our congregation will labor together and come to a better understanding of the narrative thread of what we believe. How are the Hebrew Scriptures connected to our understanding of Jesus? How do we see ourselves as children of Abraham? What are the lessons of the Exile?

These are important themes and stories that don't quite make into the heart of the RCL. Arguably, they could be covered through Faith Formation activities, like Christian Education, Confirmation, Bible study... etc. However, I have to be realistic about the habits of my congregation. The majority of people are here on Sunday morning. Some can't, some don't and some won't come to other things during the week. So I have to take seriously the teaching portion of my call and bring the mountain to Mohammed, or something like that.

In this month's newsletter, I published the proposed schedule of the NL and asked for comments or questions. I received my first today from a clergy colleague in the Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod. I consider this pastor a friend and an inspiration and I know he was somewhat teasing in his email, yet some portions of it really hit home. We discussed it on the phone, but I'd like to stir the pot a little with his comments.

He noted that by using the Narrative Lectionary, one could see the ELCA as moving either farther away from the Church catholic and, possibly, from its Lutheran roots.

Holy revelation, Batman!

Have we come so far that a desire to cover more Bible makes me less orthodox and, yea verily, less Lutheran? Say it isn't so.

First, the use of the Narrative Lectionary is a choice and is neither endorsed or encouraged by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. (It isn't discouraged either.) One might consider the Book of Faith initiative to be an encouragement into deeper Biblical work, but that's a different post/rant/exploration. Bringing broader and deeper biblical understanding to people in pews (and streets) is, last time I checked, at the heart of Lutheran self-understanding. It's right up there with Christ and him crucified. (It is, in part, how we know about Christ and him crucified.)

My pastor friend pointed out that the RCL or even a standard three-year rotation gives pastors of a variety of stripes some common ground to discuss our sermon preparation, to share ideas and from which to wade into deeper theological matters.

True enough, the RCL puts me on same pulpit plane, so to speak, with the majority of United Methodists, American Baptists, Episcopalians, LC-MS, WELS, Roman Catholics and many others on any given Sunday. Since our table fellowship and ordination practices are often dividers, the Common Lectionary can be a tie that binds our hearts in Christian love.

Ah, but there in lies my problem. I fail to see how a deeper understanding of Scripture is going to lead the congregation of Lutheran Church of Hope away from the Church catholic. I would think (!) it could only help. (Said the young ELCA pastor with optimism.)

Besides, I don't think it is my proposed nine months in the NL that is causing an ideological divide between some of my LC-MS brethren (and sistren), WELS, Romans Catholics and some Orthodox.

If we decide to explore the Narrative Lectionary, we will still:

Affirm our faith using the Apostle's Creed (except when we use the Nicene)
Baptize in the name of Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) 
Believe in Scripture as the inspired, written Word of God
Believe in the saints, alive and gone before as our cloud of witnesses
Trust in the Real Presence of Christ in Holy Communion
Understand God as having acted on behalf of creation, continuing to do so and planning to do so until the end of time

If we can't be united to the Church catholic through our faith in God's work of salvation in Jesus the Christ and through the things above, it doesn't matter how we study the Bible.

If we can't define ourselves, in the positive, by some unity in these things, then we are about as useful as the fig tree (Mark 11:12-14). Where is our fruit?

My hope in using the Narrative Lectionary (which has its own flaws) is to begin to deepen and build on the biblical foundation of the majority of my congregants. I hope that they will be energized by new hearing, new discussion and new understanding. In general, I think this is what all pastors work toward and pray for- across the Church catholic.