Almost Back

Turned in my thesis today. So I'm ready to get back to everything else I've been ignoring for the past month, like doing my taxes. Will write more very soon....

What Are They Thinking?

Still frantically working on my thesis (will begin actual writing today), but here is my pastoral letter for this week:

It seems that I’ve been writing a lot about technology lately. Sometimes this is good and sometimes it’s bad. In the past I have refrained from using the phrase “it’s a brave new world,” but I think for this particular letter it may be appropriate. More than a year ago I heard about a disturbing trend amongst tweens and teens called “sexting.” I have had it on my list of issues to write about for the Chronicle, but something else has always come up. Until now.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, “sexting” is when someone uses their phone or other portable device to send out provocative or nude photos of themselves. For those who have not yet heard, this activity has recently been discovered happening amongst some students at Curtis Middle School here in Sudbury. The Sudbury Police Department is still investigating the case. This follows quickly on the heals of a case in Belmont in which an eight-grade girl sent nude photos of herself to her boyfriend, who then sold them for $5 a piece to his friends.

Now we may want to discard these as being isolated incidents which have been hyped by the media. After all, it has several things the media likes to talk about: teens, technology and sex. But, these activities are more prevalent than we might like to believe. According to a study conducted by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, 21% of teen girls and 18% of teen boys report having sent or posted nude pictures of themselves. While this number is still low, the numbers who report having seen these photos is much higher. We have a highly sexualized culture, and this push of sexualization continues to get younger and younger. I am sometimes shocked at the clothes they are selling for four-year-old girls to wear, and I’m not easily shocked. And my concerns about this are not about prudishness. Instead, there are serious consequences as a result of this behavior.

Charges have been filed against teens as a result of “sexting” in Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia. Last year in Ohio and Pennsylvania, teenage girls (ages 14 and 15) were charged with creating and disseminating child pornography, and their boyfriends were charged with possession. In Wisconsin, a 17-year-old teen was charged with possession and distribution after he posted pictures of his ex-girlfriend online. Most of those charged have pled guilty to lesser crimes, but if convicted on child pornography charges, they would be required under “Megan’s Law” to be register as a sex offender for a minimum of ten years. This is not something that would simply disappear when they turned eighteen.

I know that we all think our children would never do such a thing, but let’s not forget the things we did as teenagers that would have shocked our parents if they had ever found out. Even if done innocently, once these pictures leave their hands, they no longer have any control over them and they can be passed around and posted on the internet with ease. I strongly encourage you to talk with your children, your grandchildren, all the children in your life about the dangers of this activity and the fact that it can change their life forever. For more information on these issues and how to talk with your children please visit the Middlesex District Attorney’s office website.

Strike!

My thesis, which is due March 29, is eating up most of my time, including blogging time, and I don't want to put more fluff up like I did last week so I haven't been putting anything up. But, I do want to make mention of this. The unions for 40,000 Stop and Shop workers are set to go on strike.

The Social Principles states the following on collective bargaining:
"We support the right of all public and private employees and to organize for collective bargaining into unions and other groups of their own choosing. Further, we support the right of both parties to protection in so doing and their responsibility to bargain in good faith within the framework of the common interest.... We reject the use of violence by either party during collective bargaining or any labor/management disagreement. We likewise reject the permanent replacement of a worker who engages in a lawful strike." (¶163.B)

If the unions cannot reach an agreement and go out on strike, I strongly encourage you not to cross their picket line. This does affect some members of our congregation who work there, so please be in solidarity with them.

Hockey

I'm not usually a big fan of hockey. I occasionally watch the Stanley Cup but even that is rare. I do watch the Beanpot and when BU plays BC, but that's only if I remember it's on. But, I love hockey in the Olympics and the last two US games have been as good as hockey gets. The NHL has to be praying that they get some carry over, because if these games don't make you interested in watching more hockey then nothing will.

The game against Canada will simply fantastic just as a game, but with all the undercurrents it was even better. It was not the 1980 story, but it was still good.

David McCollum recounts driving home after the 1980 Olympics and hearing a sermon on the radio talking about that game. He says he remembers saying to his wife, “When a Southern preacher uses a hockey illustration in his sermon, it’s something special.”

So if you haven't been watching the games I strongly encourage you to, even if you know nothing about hockey. Tonight the US women take on Canada for the Gold, and the men go at it on Friday for a shot at the gold medal game.

The US team has been using Joshua Sacco, who delivers a great rendition of Herb Brook's speech to the US team before they meet the Russians, for inspiration. If you haven't seen it, here it is:

Cartoons

One of my daily stops is at reverendfun.com. Here are two recent cartoons:

While they're not great all the time, the really good ones make it well worth the visit.

Sports Announcing

So we've been watching a lot of Olympics coverage lately, and of course most of it is of sports I don't regularly pay any attention to. So, my question is, why don't the announcers actually tell us something that makes sense of what's going on?

The snowboard announcers say what the tricks are, but most of them look the same to me. What are the differences? Why not have a snowboarding tricks 101 segment? And curling? Forget about it. It's sort of fun to watch, but all I can figure out is that you want to get your "rock" in the center. And what is important about a toepick? One of the announcers said, just after a skater stopped himself from falling, "thank goodness for toepicks." What does that possibly mean?

I know that now I can just look these things up on the internet, but I honestly don't want to take the time. You have my attention right now, tell me what I need to know! Wouldn't explaining the sport draw more interest? More interest would then mean more viewers and more viewers would mean more ad revenue. It seems really simple.

And let's not just stop with these games, let's move it to all sports. I watch a lot of football but have no idea what the difference is between a nickel or a dime defense. If I don't know you can be sure that casual fans don't have any idea about some of the things the announcers say. So, why not explain it to us? Tell us what is actually going on. Make us better fans.

If you saw my earlier post on the amount of actual action in a football game (about 11 minutes) you know they have the time to fill, so fill it with something useful. The same for hockey, basketball and baseball. Make your public as informed about the game as you possible can, because the more they know, the more involved they will be, and the better fan they will be.

Baseball is the best and the worst at this. If you listen to games on the radio, the announcers, who have to fill time because there are no pictures (although often they act as if you are watching it on TV at the same time), will tell you how the fielders are positioned. But they don't tell you what this means. TV is the absolute worst at this because they don't televise games based on people who are actually interested in the sport. If they did, the pitcher-batter duel would be in the bottom corner and a shot of the rest of the field would be on the main part of the screen. That would allow me to see how all the players are positioned, what the runners are doing, how people are moving after the ball is put into play. In other words it would tell me exactly what I need to know about what is actually going on in the game. When people say that going to baseball games is boring it's because they don't understand the intricacies of the game because it has never been shown or explained to them.

Tell people what they are supposed to know and what they should be paying attention to. The more you know, the more you become involved, the more involved you become the more you watch, and the more you watch the more money broadcasters make. Am I the only one to figure this out?

So how does this apply to church? Well it's simple. We have to do exactly the same thing. We as the church have to recognize the fact that the vast majority of our people (and definitely those who aren't even sitting in our pews) are only casually knowledgeable. When we say something is in the narthex, let alone talk about atonement theory, most people have absolutely no idea what we are talking about. It then becomes language of a special club to which they do not belong.

Let us take the same attitude and explain things to them. Let us not assume knowledge, because usually we are wrong. Even if 99 out of 100 know what we are talking about, let's explain it to the one, because the one might then become a disciple and begin telling others about their faith because now they have the knowledge and the words to use to do so.

p.s. Today in 1913 the first prize was put into a box of Cracker Jacks. Did they do it because they knew baseball season was right around the corner?

Ash Wedneday meditation

I'm sure there is a way to attach PDF files to this blog, but I have yet to figure it out, so here is my Ash Wednesday sermon, which pretty well sums up my ideas about the day and Lent.

Every year that I participate in an Ash Wednesday service I am always struck by the irony of the passage from Matthew that is used. It just doesn’t seem to match. Jesus tells us in Matthew that when we fast, and when we give and when we pray, that we should do this secretly. We shouldn’t do anything to announce the fact that we are undertaking these things. And then shortly after we have heard these words then we all stand up and process forward in order to have a visible mark made on our foreheads which announces to the world the beginning of our Lenten journey. Now don’t get me wrong, I like this passage and I think it’s a very important passage, but it never seems to work for me for what today is supposed to symbolize. I think there are much more appropriate passages, such as the prophet Joel who says “return to [the Lord] with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning,” that seems like an appropriate piece of scripture to read, but then Joel continues “rend your hearts and not your clothing.” And so we end up with the same problem, for it seems that when talking about spiritual disciplines in the scripture, a point is made about not having a public display and so I’m always puzzled about Ash Wednesday activities.

So what are we doing here? Well the obvious thing is that today begins our Lent. Now the word lent has no special religious meaning. In fact it comes from an Old English word that simply means springtime. The history of Lenten practices are also unclear because there is no pure scriptural basis for it or for Ash Wednesday. What is clear is that the church has combined several different practices into one. During the Protestant Reformation the practices were discarded by many Protestants because they didn’t have a true scriptural basis, but with the liturgical renewal movement many Protestant churches have reclaimed some of the things that in the past were discarded. But in our search for meaning and purpose to this time, we have taken on the theology of the season which is heavily rooted in medieval theology, not exactly the high point of the church’s existence. Now if you’ve been attending here for a little while you are probably aware that Pastor Joel and I have differing opinions on Lenten disciplines. While I certainly promote the idea of fasting, Wesley required his ministers to fast twice a week, I personally reject the idea that we take it on for 40 days and then are relieved when we can go back to our normal lives. That, to me is the wrong way to take on a spiritual practice and also to take them on for the wrong reason.

Notice that Jesus assumes that people are practicing the activities he is talking about, and there is not the assumption that these were time limited. They were practiced year round, not just for forty days as a penitential activity, so that we can suffer some in order to remember Christ’s suffering for us. Again, that is rooted in medieval theology. Now in the past I have advocated that instead of giving something up for Lent that we take on a spiritual discipline. That is add something to our lives. I advocate that position with the knowledge that it takes at least 28 days to establish a habit and so I have the hope that the spiritual discipline that we take on will be something that we carry forward with us. If it’s important enough to do for forty days then I would hope it would be important enough to do all the time, and that includes fasting. I hear stories of things people are giving up and great reasons why, but then I always wonder why do you want to stop? Why not keep going? Aren’t the reasons just as good the day after Easter as they are the day before? The social justice commission is asking us to participate in a carbon fast during Lent, which is great and important thing. But why end it? Isn’t God’s creation important enough to keep going in protecting it and limiting our damage to the environment? What Lent should be about is returning ourselves to right relation with God, and if giving something up or taking something on helps us to do that then that is important work, but if the activities are taken on for other reasons then I think we are deluding ourselves and practicing these things for all the wrong reasons, which is what Jesus has just warned us about.

Perhaps the words we should hear at the beginning of lent are a little simpler and more to the point. They are the words that begin Jesus’ ministry in the Gospel according to Mark, “repent for the kingdom of God has come near.” Now repent is also one of those loaded words, but it simply means “turn around.” But in order to be able to turn around we must first recognize that we are going in the wrong direction. Repentance in this context usually refers to sin, and that’s not something we deal with very well, especially in the mainline churches. It is certainly not something I talk about directly. It is certainly something we discuss, but the word “sin” is not used, and there are negative consequences for this. Joel Osteen was once asked why he doesn’t talk about sin, and he said it was because people know they are sinners and so he doesn’t have to address what is already known. But it’s just not that easy. In the church where I did my internship, I had a member come up to me and say that he didn’t like saying the prayer of confession before communion because he thought he was a good person and didn’t think he had done any of the things that he was having to confess to. Now this prayer of confession, which we will say in a few minutes, is extremely broad and so for him to say he had not transgressed against God in these ways would be to claim that he had, in good Wesleyan terminology, been sanctified or perfected in Grace. And, while not judging him, I can honestly say I knew that was not the case.

Sin means a broken relationship with God. Whenever we do something that is not God’s will for us or for the world then we have sinned. It’s really that simple, and while I can’t speak for the rest of you, I know that I sin all the time. I know that my life is not in total alignment with God, no matter how hard I try, and some days are worse then others. That is why we as Methodists claim that we are moving on to perfection, and we don’t say that we are perfected, because to be perfected is to be in total alignment with God. What Lenten practices, when done correctly, seek to do is to help us recognize that we are mortal beings who simply make mistakes, sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally, but all of our actions have consequences. Lent gives us the opportunity to slow down and be intentional about our relationship with God, with our families and with each other. It is a time to turn-around from our normal lives, to repent, and to go in a different direction. But that direction shouldn’t end at Easter. It should continue for the rest of our lives, otherwise we just end up repenting of our repentance and start going the same way again.

Hopefully what lent allows us to do is to become better aligned with God’s will and purpose for us, to put us into a place and location in which we can better hear and listen to what God is saying and asking of us, and giving us a vehicle through which we can try and put God first in our lives, and then carry that through to the rest of our lives. Don’t make this just forty days of reflection, repentance and spiritual practice; instead make it the beginning of the rest of your life in seeking to live in right relation with God. Seek to make this the start of a new way of being in the world. Seek to make it foundation for your life as a disciple of Christ. Seek to make it the introduction to your new way of being Christian. View Lent as an invitation by God to come into a better relationship with God, a relationship which will forever change you forever.

It's Almost Here

I know I should be writing about Ash Wednesday today, but I'm not. Instead I am happy to inform you that pitchers and catchers report today! Let the defense of the title begin!

Now, I personally like the winter. I like the cold and the snow, but man do I miss baseball. But today, today is different. Because today means that real genuine baseball is right around the corner. So come on April 4th I'm waiting for you.

Although theologically maybe this is important. Pitchers and catchers report on Ash Wednesday and opening day is Easter Sunday. Coincidence?

“People ask me what I do in the winter when there's no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.” — Rogers Hornsby

Usury By Any Other Name Still Stinks

First Premier Bank is now offering a credit card with an interest rate of 79.9%. You did not read that incorrectly nor is it a typo. They are offering a card, with a credit line of $300, with the APR of 79.9%. The card also includes an annual fee of $75. This is down from the prior amount of $256 because of the new law passed by congress limiting the amounts of fees. This is the card they issue to subprime people, or in other words, those who can least afford to pay these sorts of fees.

Shockingly there is nothing in either the Social Principles or the Book of Resolutions about usury, credit cards or debt. This is a position where the church needs to take a stand. By any definition this APR is usury, although from a strict biblical interpretation any form of interest is usury.

If you try and put this card into some online credit card calculator it won't work simply because it won't take an interest rate that high. Using the FTC's calculator, if you make the minimum monthly payment on a $300 balance with a 79.9 % APR this is the message you get, and I quote:

based on the information you provided and assumptions that we used
to calculate the time to repay your balance, we estimate that you will
never pay off your credit card balance if you only make the minimum payment
because your payment is less than the interest charged each month.

You will NEVER pay it off! Talk about a trap. Now I know that people who are taking out these cards have culpability in the activities, but let's be honest. 1) This is predatory lending, you know the thing that got us into our current financial situation, 2) the people who are receiving these cards have usually proven in the past that they cannot handle credit, and so they go out and get this, making their situation even worse, and most importantly 3) Our culture and economy are based on buying things now and buying them on credit. Instant gratification is one of the driving forces in this society.

Now, using another calculator, with a $300 balance, paying $20 a month, which is much more than the minimum, it will take 8.666 years (104 payments) and will cost $1774 in interest. That does not include any late fees or the annual fee of $75. Now if you drop the payment to $15 a month, it totally freaks out on the interest paid and you jump to 50 years to pay it off.

I don't honestly believe that congress is ever going to really tackle this issue because there is too much money involved, but they need to. There is a bill currently in the House which would cap interest rates at 16%. I don't know if that is the best amount, but it's at least a start. I know that passing this bill will mean that many people will no longer have access to credit, but it's credit they cannot afford. Hopefully it would also mean that we as a society would have to deal with the fact that we cannot continue to grow our economy through debt financing. It will always come back to get us in the end.

For more information on what's going on legislatively and how to be informed go to Americans for Financial Reform, which is a coalition of groups concerned about these issues. Maxed Out by James Scurlock is also an excellent book on credit card issues.

Irony of Valentine's Day

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's day. The two services at church, especially the joint service with Greenwood and First Haitian, were wonderful. Of course I think many people miss the true irony of Valentine's day in the political scene. Little is known of St. Valentine whose feast day is February 14. It is not even clear if it celebrates one martyr by that name or several. Even at the time that it was added to the church calendar in 496, the pope who instituted it did not have much information.

However, there is a good story about him, even if maybe it is a later developing story. So to get to the point, apparently Valentine was arrested after being caught marrying Christian couples. This was illegal as Christians were being persecuted by the Romans, and they certainly did not want Christians to be reproducing and so they made marrying them illegal. In other words, Valentine was marrying a group of people which the state and the society did not want to get married. Sound familiar? There is no way of knowing, but those in opposition may have even said that Christians could not get married in order to protect the sanctity of marriage.

I happen to live in a state in which gays and lesbians can marry. I see no indication that the institution has been changed in anyway, either positively or negatively, since this took place. But, I also happen to be in a denomination in which I cannot marry these couples, nor can I allow these couples to be married in my church. If I do either I can and will be brought up and charges and be removed not only from my appointment but also have my license (or ordination when I get that far) revoked.

I support the right of the church to make the decisions it wants on this issue. But, I also support the right of the state to make what decision it wants on this as well. When I marry a couple I actually act as an agent of the state. The marriage license is not issued by the church but by the commonwealth. The way to solve all of this debate is to recognize this simple reality and move back to the way Europe does it, and the way the church did it until Luther. Luther was the one who moved marriages inside the church (for a good reason at the time), but there are really two different activities.

There is the state recognition of the marriage and there is the church recognition. The two do not have to meet, and they often don't. I know some clergy who actually refuse to marry people. They require the couple to go to the JP and get married by the state, and then come to them for a blessing and ceremony by the church. It is two separate activities.

Many in the church do not want to do this because they don't want to lose this "power" to the state. But, the simple reality is, this move would end all the debate and it would also give the church more power. Rather than acting as agents of the state, we would then have greater power in emphasizing what marriage vows, as the church sees them, are and give us more leverage in not only not recognizing marriages but also in recognizing marriages. Under this arrangement, we could say to a couple we're glad you're married, but we don't think you understand the vows the way we think you need to and so we're not going to perform a sacred ceremony. And, the church would also have the power to marry people that the state would never recognize as married (and there are lots of reasons to have this arrangement). Both groups could do their own thing without interfering in the rights of the other.

Making this change would take the church back to its historic roots and end the debates about gay and lesbian marriage which serve no purpose and go no where (other than to divide us and scapegoat a class of people). And if we don't want to make this change then let's stop celebrating Valentine's day because I think we are truly missing the point of what Valentine was doing.