Recommended Reading

In addition to family and food, my Thanksgiving holiday included reading “Killing Jesus” by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard.  While this might fit more with the Easter season, it is an excellent read.  I deeply appreciate how the authors have given presentation of what the world was like in Jesus’ time, as well as a concise telling of Jesus’ life.  This book stays with the style of their previous books, “Killing Lincoln” and “Killing Kennedy”, by seeking facts and motives.  Both authors are Catholic, and I felt their faith was evident in the treatment of the material.  A warning that this book contains difficult details of life at that time.  With that noted, I highly recommend this book as helpful in our faith journey.

All Saints Day

Who are the saints in your life story / journey?

The biblical tradition provides us with a multitude of images.  From the Old Testament we are given the concept of a new Israel, a community possessed by the holy spirit and representing in the here and now the community we will know in the after life.  From the New Testament have “the holy ones” such as the apostles and members of the early church.

Interestingly, the Bible does not give us strong trends toward individual saints.  Saints are the community or because of relationship to the community of believers.  The idea of a lone ranger saint does not appear in the Bible.

Another change along the way has been the function of saints in our lives.  There was a time when we prayed for the saint to be cared for by God, especially when their service was dangerous or when they were martyred.  More common today is to ask the saint, especially when they are deceased, to pray for us.

How do you relate to the saints?

Sharing faith,

Dr. Brooks

Labor Day Reflections

This morning I prayed at the ribbon cutting for a Walmart.  The stage was in front of the store and framed by two ladder trucks from the local fire departments.  The ladder trucks held a large flag, stars and stripes, over the stage.  The VFW presented the colors as an employee of the store sang the national anthem.  A large gathering of government and business leaders participated.  As I watched and participated in this grand opening, I pondered the impending holiday.

Labor Day Weekend is upon us.  An opportunity for barbecues and other outdoor festivities.  Also, an opportunity to remember the economic and social contributions of workers in America.  

At the grand opening, it was noted the hundreds of jobs provided by the store.  Also noted was the benefit to local government and schools through the increased tax revenue.  I am aware of the charitable donations by our local Walmart that positively impact our local community and the service hours provided by the employees.  My reflection, as I watched the ceremony transpire less about the discussion of big box v. mom / pop shop nor was it much about workers rights.  I marveled that a request had been made for the presence of a clergy person in the ceremony.

At first glance, I was encouraged that I live in a community that values clergy as community leaders.  In my dozen years here, I have appreciated that the local business and government communities have included clergy at the table of discussion.  For me it has been an experience of the best practices of separation of church and state.  Rather than exclusion or control, the relationship is more collaborative and cooperative.

What of our individual part in this story?  Is our labor one of love?  Is our workplace a context to live our faith?  Questions for reflection around the grill this weekend, I hope.

The Larger Church

PurposePoints

Minister’s Musing on Ministry & Misc.

So good to be home!  I want to thank everyone who pitched in during my recent travels.  Special thank you to Jeff Wrigley, our Youth and Children’s Director, who preached his first sermon.  I have heard so many wonderful responses to his sharing of the Good News!

Joseph and I enjoyed the General Assembly of our denomination in Orlando, Florida.  Joseph may not have enjoyed the business sessions that I shared with him as much as he did the evening worship services.  We enjoyed some wonderful singing, preaching and prayer during worship.  My parents joined us for the assembly and succeeded in spoiling Joseph during the event.

I want to commend the larger church to each of you.  Our most frequent and powerful experience of church is typically our congregation.  Church as a gathering of God’s people who love God and serve neighbor is as powerful an experience beyond congregation.  At Area, Regional and General Assemblies, it is profound to gather with Disciples from across the land in thousands to sing the songs of our faith, share at the table of our Lord and to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ.  Through Week of Compassion ministries we serve together with sister congregations to meet the needs of those who suffer locally and globally.   Through the Pentecost special day offering we support the birth of new congregations.  So many are the ways we share ministry beyond the walls and zip codes of our daily lives.  I encourage you to seek ways to engage this experience for it will build your faith in new and exciting ways!

Thank you again for the time and support to attend this year’s General Assembly.  The next General Assembly of our denomination will be in 2015 and in Columbus, Ohio.  Let’ s go together!

New Class

New Class that I am teaching this fall at First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Edwardsville, Illinois

"Theological Imaginings"

taught by Dr. Brooks

Join Dr. Brooks in some safe space to explore some sacred questions.  

We will look a variety of viewpoints and have time for questions and reflections.

Four Thursdays in October

same course twice

10:00am and 7:00pm in the parlor

10/3 - How do we know?

(We will wrestle with issues such as authority of scripture, authentic revelation, value of experience, tradition)

10/10 - Who is God?

(A survey of various perspectives of God from Triune to Gnostic and back again)

10/17 - What is Church?

(What did Jesus intend?  What might be essential and non-essential?)

10/24 - How does salvation work?

(Who gets to be saved and where do they go?)

Creative Choices

A remark on my preaching noted that reconciliation has been a theme or thread through several recent sermons.  The power of reconciliation is an image that I have seen bubble up from the Bible passages that I have engaged in my sermons of late.  Indeed, reconciliation is a profoundly creative and constructive force at our finger tips.

Deconstruction is the easy move.  Oh a child’s laughter as we stack the blocks for them to knock down.  Over and over again we play this game.  The feeling of power to impact our surroundings is often found in deconstruction.  The neatly mowed lawn that is a field of grass stunted by the slicing blades of our mower.   Our freedom of speech more often seen as the right to criticize those who lead and those who live next to us.  How easy it would be to trod down this well worn path of lamenting our deconstructive delights.

While deconstruction has its place in our lives and relationships, construction is a more rewarding challenge.  Watching the corn sprout in neat rows, now about half a foot tall in places.  Our home gardens beginning to reveal what we hope will be a great harvest in a few months.  Graduations and weddings that call for celebration this time of year.  Vacations that create memories for a lifetime.  

Reconciliation is a powerful force of creation, far more than forgiveness alone.  To reconcile is a choice.  A choice to be in relationship by overcoming brokenness and difference.  Through this choice we demonstrate a love akin to that Jesus shows to the many he invited back into community.  

From the woman at the well, the woman about to be stoned, the prodigal son, Zaccheaus, the disciples ... the list is nearly endless.  Jesus continually initiates contact with the outcast, downtrodden, and common to bring them into more meaningful relationship with himself and the larger community.  Jesus initiates relationship not to network and climb the ladder of success.  Rather Jesus is counting success by lifting up the other into a life of abundant joy.

When we sing that they shall know us by our love, we sing of the choice to be a reconciling people.  If you want a challenge that will provide dividends today and for days to come, chose to reconcile.  In small ways or large, it is a choice to construct a better future.  Who did not show up to Thanksgiving dinner last year that you might chose to include this coming fall?  Single Dad with feisty child could be given the sport in front of you in the check-out line.  To engage in road rage or to ignore the distracted driver who just cut you off?  Kudos to you who chose well to share the love already given you.

Fate v Choice

After an invigorating conversation with a dear friend, I want to reflect upon these competing narratives in our lives.

Fate being the vision of life determined.  Choice is our freewill.

Fate is so tempting and tasty.  With fate we have such magic to enjoy.  Romantically our lives sparkle with love predetermined.  Once we discover the “one” for us, we are never asked to change because it was fated that we fall into this relationship.  If the “other” does not live up to our expectations, then they are NOT the one because they do not fit fate.  Fate sets us free of responsibility in romance, career, or well anything.  Of course fate wants the best for us (sarcastically stated).  If it causes us pain, it is ill-fated.  Life is a fairy tale.  If the story does not read correctly, we blame fate or those who have lead us astray.  Maybe, we own that we missed fates call.  Bottom line, fate leaves us powerless to react and weak to enjoy.  Fate is not us created in God’s image.

Choice is truly more free.  While fate frees us from responsibility, choice empowers us to engage.  God has chosen us, as we know best through the life / death / resurrection of Jesus.  Another friend of mine named for me the power of adopted families for they are families of choice.  What if we woke, every day, next to a person that chose us?  No fate, their choice is the demonstration of love that inspires us ... frees us.  Teacher shielding student is choice.  The magic is the choice.  Rather than a static love that never grows, chosen love is like spiritual growth.   Unless a pattern it becomes, our brokenness is merely an opportunity of choice to love us through the healing, transformation, rehabilitation, recovery.  So often in weddings I pray, may they know the blessing of forgiveness undeserved.  Choice is the sparkle given us by the ONE who created us.  

Choice a power so strong to destruct or construct.  

Choice the power so strong we seek to deny it in ourselves and those we love so tempting is fate in our reality.

Relationships are not fated.  Relationships are chosen and maintained.  A mentor once named for me the power of being present.  It is one thing to say we agree or affirm.  It is an even more powerful thing to show up.  

What impact might be if you chose another, daily, for a lifetime?  Could the influence of your choice make better their daily being?  Would not that be worth your investment?

If God created us in God’s image ... If we seek God’s intercession in our lives and the lives of those we love ... if Jesus tells us that all God’s children are our neighbor ... If Jesus tells us to love our neighbor ... what is our choice?