Doug McMahon

John Calvin and Facebook

I wasn't going to write about the 500th anniversary of John's Calvin's birth, but, while speaking today to one of the most faithful readers of this blog, I was told, "I'll be looking for your post about John Calvin on your blog tonight."  So, it occurred to me to ask, "What would John Calvin think about our new technology and social networking tools?" 

Yesterday, I drove over to Tampa to participate in a coffee shop discussion about the church and new technology.  It was a very informal gathering and the participants were members of a large Presbyterian Church in Tampa.  The conversation was for anyone who showed up.  I was there with five other people. The moderator of the discussion simply announced that he would be at Panera on Wednesday night and twice on Thursday morning for the next three weeks.  The topic was simply, "what should the church do with all of the new technology and social networking tools that are available to us?"

John Calvin did not enter the discussion except for a brief mention noting that Friday was his birthday. I'm not a historian so I can't really give an informed opinion of Pastor John's possible opinion on the use of Facebook today in the church.  But I remember that he was a reformer.  He did not tolerate the status quo when it stood in the way of what he thought was the authentic church.  I am certain if John Calvin had been notified that he had a Facebook friend request from Michael Servetus, Calvin would have denied the request.

At Panera yesterday, we discussed and debated the value of new technology such as Facebook, Twitter, email, internet resources, and things like the ability to broadcast a worship service to remote sites across town or even across the planet.   One person spoke about church members who were US soldiers in Iraq participating in worship services back in the US through a lap top PC connected to the internet. Others spoke of a church in England that has multiple sites around the world each Sunday where worship participants view a preacher who is live and in person in only one location but is simultaneously leading worship through a live video presentation in many other locations around the world.  This church was trying to figure out how to respond to a baptism request from a participant in New Zealand (or some location) very far from the home church in England.

These examples cause us to ask important questions about ecclesiology (questions about the nature of the church) and mission.  I remember the late Jack Stotts, then President of McCormick Seminary, teaching an ethics class using the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, saying, "just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something."

Then again, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be using new technology.  We sometimes forget that books are a relatively new technology.  The Gutenburg Press was only invented around 1440 CE.  The church has been around for about 2000 years and the printing press (and easily available Bibles) has only been around for a little over 500 years.  Books from a printing press were a relatively new technology in the time of John Calvin.

The conversations and debates about new technology and their use in the church (or the refusal to use new technology) will continue in coffee shops, church committee rooms, and in seminaries from Switzerland to New Zealand to the US.  What questions about the nature of the church are raised for you by the new technology available today?  Does new technology enhance mission efforts or hurt those efforts?  What do you think about the new technology and the church?  If you are not already my Facebook friend, you can find my FB badge on the lower left sidebar of this blog.  ;-)

Faith, Confidence and Courage

Yesterday, I preached at First Presbyterian Church in Dunedin.  Robin and I enjoyed visiting with many good friends there.  I am grateful for their encouragement and support of our new faith community, Transfiguration.  

I preached on the lectionary texts for the Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B).  While I was studying these texts and prayerfully considering them, I was struck by the common theme of living faithfully in the midst of danger.  Whether it was the story of David and Goliath, the Apostle Paul enduring persecution or the disciples in the storm in a near panic, the theme that caught my attention was living with danger.  I preached on faith, confidence and courage as a follower of Jesus.

The verse that really caught my attention was the verse in the gospel lesson in which we hear Jesus asking the disciples to examine their behavior, "Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?"  I have been a follower of Jesus for a long time and I heard those words addressed to me, "Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?"  In ministry and in life in general it is easy to become anxious and afraid.  I heard those questions of Jesus addressed directly to me. 

During the sermon, I reflected on faith, confidence and courage.  I quoted from one of my all time favorite books, Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman.  Thurman recalls a childhood moment when he picked up the anxiety and fear that people were feeling about the threat of Halley's Comet. People were worried the comet would crash to the earth. He writes about his mother's faith and her comforting words.

Young Howard said, "What will happen to us if that comet falls out of the sky?"  His mother said, "Nothing will happen to us, Howard; God will take care of us."  Then Thurman reflects on that moment with his mother.  He wrote, "O Simple hearted mother of mine, in one glorious moment you put your heart on the ultimate affirmation of the human spirit!  Many things have I seen since that night.  Time without number I have learned that life is hard, as hard as crucible steel; but as the years have unfolded, the majestic power of my mother's glowing words has come back again and again, beating out its rhythmic chant in my own spirit.  Here are the faith and awareness that overcome fear and transform it into the power to strive, to achieve and not to yield."  (Page 57)

The Monk Within Us

Earlier this month, Robin and I visited Pittsburgh.  One of the things that I did while I was there was to attend the 2009 Summer Leadership Conference at Pittsburgh Seminary.  One of the presenters that week was Peter Scazzero, author of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.

One of the things that Pete talked about during the three day conference was a new monasticism.  "We may not be called to be monks," writes Pete, "but we can learn many things from them as we seek to follow Christ in the twenty-first century.  We each have, I believe, a solitary, a monk, within us.  This is that part of us that needs rich, creative, and nurturing time alone with ourselves and with God. Emotional health and contemplative spirituality enable the contemplative circle of our lives to grow larger and to balance off the amount of activity in which we are engaged.  This adjustment has the capacity to lead us to an incredible transformation with the love of God in each day."  (Page 56)

I found Pete's discussion of the active life of the missional faith community being in balance with the contemplative practices very helpful.  A few days before leaving for Pittsburgh a good friend  invited me to live my life more like Saint Francis.   His point was that clergy too often model their way of being in the world towards Donald Trump than Saint Francis.  He felt that Saint Francis had more to offer me than Donald Trump.

It seems to me that I heard someone say that Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his Letters and Papers from Prison, was the first to speak of a new monasticism.  In another book, Life Together, Bonhoeffer also wrote about the essential relationship between our time alone with God and our time together with God. Bonhoeffer wrote about finding the balance between the solitary life and the times of being together (mission, worship and other gatherings).  I am reflecting on what it means for me, today, in Saint Petersburg, to live daily my own understanding of this new monasticism.  I invite you to join me in the conversation.

Florida: a Spiritual Geography

Today, I would like to ask you to comment below on the topic of the Spiritual Geography of Florida.  Now I know that you out of state readers are probably laughing and thinking of hanging chads, messed up elections and humidity.  But I am serious about the topic.  Many years ago, I was impressed with Dakota: A Spiritual Geography by Kathleen Norris, therefore, I would like to begin an on-line discussion of Florida.

The sub-title of my blog is "my spiritual journey in St. Petersburg."  While reading the new catalog for Ghost Ranch that recently arrived in my mail box, I thought about the spiritual geography of New Mexico and South Dakota.  And, then, I began thinking about the spiritual geography of the land where I have now lived since 1991, Florida.  What are the connections between the land where we dwell and our spirituality?

What I would like to propose is that you, my readers, write about the land of Florida with brief comments about the spiritual marks of our land. Once a week, I plan on inviting readers to respond to questions like the following:  What comes to mind when you think of Florida and spiritual geography?  Who do you think of when you think of Florida?  Who gets forgotten by most people?  What makes up the spiritual geography of our state?  What is the connection between caring for creation and your spiritual journey?  Whether you are a tourist or a resident, please click "comments" below and participate in the conversation.  Where do you see the Spirit in your journey through this land of Florida? 

Two Faces Have I

Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul, is a new book by an unlikely author, Tony Hendra, a satirist, playwright, and friend of John Cleese and Graham Chapman of Monty Python.  I have not yet read this book but the front and back flaps tell me enough to know that I like Father Joe, who is described as "a gentle, stammering, ungainly Benedictine who never used the words 'wrong' or 'guilt,' who believed that God was in everyone and that 'the only sin was selfishness."

Recently, I have come to believe that selfishness is the best way to speak about sin, whether it is an act of selfishness by individuals towards their loved ones or on a global scale when the community of nations act selfish, which I would also call "injustice."

It seems like a person could more easily understand themselves as "selfish" than as a "sinner."  The church has created so much baggage for itself in the way that the word "sinner" has been used.  I'm not suggesting that we stop using the word "sinner," rather, I am suggesting that in teaching and preaching we might more easily communicate the reality by saying, "I am selfish," rather than "I am a sinner."

Bruce Springsteen speaks of this reality when he sings of "the other man," a personification of his other more selfish side.

At night I get down on my knees and pray
Our love will make that other man go away
But he'll never say goodbye
Two faces have I  (Bruce Springsteen, Tunnel of Love, 1987)

How do we deal with selfishness, whether it is an individual act of selfishness or a person of authority making unjust decisions that favor the rich over the poor, or, the favored over the oppressed?  I want to reclaim the biblical language of "flesh" and "spirit" in my teaching and preaching.  I find that many church people are resistant to the use of these words finding them too "fundamentalist."  In the Bible, the Apostle Paul  writes about a war between the flesh and the spirit. 

As the American economy collapses because of individual and corporate greed, it seems like this conversation about selfishness is timely.  The Apostle Paul writes that those who yield to the Spirit discover the fruit of the Spirit, "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control."  But, we cannot practically yield to the Spirit unless we understand the war between flesh and spirit.  In this same Spirit, we find grace, forgiveness and strength for the living of these days.

What do you think of the words "flesh" and "spirit?"  What issues or misunderstandings might come to mind when we use these words? Please feel free to comment below by clicking "comments."   P.S.  I have added the strikethrough to many of the sentences above because they have caused more confusion rather than bringing more clarity.  I hope to write a new post in the future that better states my thoughts about sin and selfishness.

My Favorite Parable of Jesus, and "Why?"

Ryan Kemp-Pappan  recently wrote about his favorite parable of Jesus on his blog, the parable of the Pearl and treasure, Matthew 13:45-46.  He invited others to post about their favorite parable, also.  I was intrigued by the idea.  What is my favorite parable of Jesus, and why?

A parable is a story.  If you ever attended Sunday School as a child, you may have been given the definition, "a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning."  Jesus was a great story teller.  Presbyterian preachers like me often know how to totally ruin a good story of Jesus.  We will analyze and examine a good story, like one of Jesus' parables, talking for 20 minutes about the parable's importance--to the point that it seems like we're explaining a joke.  At the conclusion of one of these sermon, our listeners often say, "what was that all about?"  I've been there and done that, too often.

I've been reading Jim Walker's book, Dirty Word: The Vulgar Offensive Language of the Kingdom of God. (I plan on reviewing this book next week.)  One of Jim's observations about the church today is that we need to get out of our church buildings and onto the streets.  There on the street, we can meet people who need to hear the stories of Jesus.  This makes me think of the song, "What If God Was One of Us?" by Joan Osbourne.

What if God was one of us
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home

Back to the parable.  My favorite parable is from The Gospel of Matthew, chapter 20. (Read all about it here, if you don't know the story.)  This parable is about laborers who if they were alive today would probably be riding the bus home from work today rather than driving their own car. 

What I find most interesting about this parable (and here I'll warn you that I like this idea of writing about my favorite parable of Jesus so much that I'm going to make this post three parts)... well, what I find most interesting is that many preachers and progressive Bible commentators go on about how this parable is not a "Labor or Union friendly" parable.  Forgetta 'bout it. I grew up in a union family.  My Dad is a retired electrical lineman, IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) in New Jersey.

No union person would take any offense at Jesus' story.  The problem--as I see it-- is that many preachers or commentators identify with the boss in the story, rather than the poor slob on the bus, and, the poor slob in the story who receives this incredible paycheck for only an hours work!  Too many preachers worry about whether the boss in the story is doing the right thing.  The story is about the incredible generosity of God.  It's about this poor guy getting a full day's pay for only one hours work.  God is incredibly generous.  In the four Gospels, that's what Jesus is trying to tell us.  God is good.

Next Time:  Part Two: This Really is My Favorite Parable"