RCL texts for February 22, 2009

RCL texts for February 22, 2009
Transfiguration Sunday

II Kings 2:1-12

Psalm 50:1-6
II Corinthians 4:3-6
Mark 9:2-9

How tolerant are we?

The various ceremonies surrounding the inauguration of President Obama featured prayers and messages from people of an amazingly broad spectrum of religious traditions – Protestant of almost all stripes (Pentecostal, Evangelical, Liberal main line), Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish. Although there was some flak about the placement of some of these, especially Rick Warren at the inauguratal ceremony, nobody seemed to mind this reflection of American religious diversity and tolerance for others’ beliefs.

Which is one reason that I find this story interesting.

Oklahoma is a place with which I am not familiar, but one would think that people there would want the records of their legislative bodies to be correct, even if they did not all like what happened.

But I guess the matter is not clear cut, after all. According to the web site of the United Church of Christ Rev. Scott Jones, pastor of Cathedral of Hope – Oklahoma City gave an invocation for the Oklahoma House of Representatives.

After Mr. Jones gave the invocation, the House actually debated on whether to include the prayer in the journal and 20 voted against putting it in.

The pastor is gay. The congregation is primarily gay and lesbian. And the church is in the capital city of the state. Surely people knew this before inviting the man. The pastor’s denomination is upset and its leaders are screaming “bigotry.” I think I can safely assume that his congregation is less than happy.

My first thought is that there is a whole lot of unnecessary ugliness here. But after thinking more about it, I am wondering if maybe we should be glad that even though it is a shame how some reacted, that fact that the leadership appreciated religious diversity enough to invite Rev. Mr. Jones in the first place is an encouraging thing.

(In Minnesota Ojibway shamans have given invocations, even being allowed to light the otherwise taboo tobacco in the chambers in preparation. I don’t think that there are any members of the legislature who practice Ojibway religion and almost all of them are clearly anti-tobacco, but they are accepting enough to welcome the shamans.)

link to story

The state is still the state

I am not of the Anabaptist tradition, but have always admired the Mennonite commitment to peace and justice, even as I hedge through life in the main line. And I doubt whether there are any groups who have been as strong on the separation of church and state as they have been.

I recently saw this post on an Anabaptist blog from somebody called DAVIDC which was posted the day after President Obama’s inauguration.

It is a great oversimplification for me to put it this way, but DAVIDC seems to say that, although the inauguration was indeed a turning point, that the state is still the state. He notes with some apprehension that with the changing of the guard that many “will start to put our faith in the ideals of the state and our hope in its progress.”

He sums his own post up with “In this time of celebration, may we not forget that the state is still the state. And we are still called to be the church.”

Link to the article.

Church and State in the UK: Church of England acts against British party

The General Synod of the Church of England has passed a motion that bans clergy and lay staff from being members of a certain British political party.

There are a lot of things about Her Majesty’s politicians and the system in which they work that I neither know nor understand and the British National Party does seem to be a party fueled by racial prejudice, a party which seems inappropriate for Christian people to participate in.

Two observations come to mind immediately:

1. Are there any large American denominations which go so far as to tell their clergy and staffs that there are political parties to which they dare not belong?

2. The Church of England is a state church. Its head is appointed by the Queen and general taxes authorized by the Parliament are used for its support. We Americans do not understand this concept well, but doesn’t it seem just a bit of a conflict of interest for the church to be meddling in politics this way?

More information available at http://www.christiantoday.com/article/cofe.synod.passes.bnp.membership.ban/22484.htm

No Starbucks, no pastor?

Time has an article [Rural Churches Grapple with a Pastor Exodus, by-line Dan Viema; dateline Crookston MN] about the crises rural churches are facing getting and keeping pastors.

A lot of this problem comes from obvious reasons. Small congregations of non-affluent people, often people who are becoming older, have difficulty affording men or women with professional degrees who have come out of theological school with significant debt. Many of these new clergypeople have spouses whose work has helped them get through school and much of this work is of a relatively high professional level and comparable work may not be available in rural or small town areas.

I doubt that there is any simple solution. Combining parishes or sharing clergy may work sometimes. Accepting less than fully educated and credentialed ministers may work sometimes also, but both solutions bring about problems of their own.

But what I find amazing is the article tells us that for the first time a majority of seminarians do not come from rural areas. An expert from Kansas City is quoted as saying “A town without a Starbucks scares them.”

That statement scares me a bit. We have all heard probably for most of our lives about apostles, saints, missionaries, evangelists, pastors, prophets, brothers, priests, and nuns who have undergone real and extensive inconveniences [many not so minor and some fatal] to spread the Gospel and tend to the needs of the faithful.

But no Starbucks?

Please give us a break.

RCL texts for February 15, 2009

RCL texts for February 15, 2009
Epiphany 6B

2 Kings 5:1-14

Psalm 30

I Corinthians 9:24-27

Mark 1:40-45