Easter 2013

Life is short and some weeks pass far too quickly. The words that follow are an introduction to Easter Day I wrote for a preaching resource published last year.

Only Christmas Eve rivals Easter Day. Worshippers fill every available space, familiar faces present week after week and others we seldom see and hardly recognize. They include folks not familiar with the liturgy, family members present more out of obligation to a loved one than spiritual longing, children on a sugar high from raiding baskets that appeared this morning, and a few baptized long ago who remember that this day is special but perhaps little else. The liturgy also swells. Brass players squeeze between the flowers and choristers, extra music comes from added choirs, and leaders in word and song stretch to rise to the occasion. With such a full sanctuary and liturgy, there seems little room for proclamation. This is Easter Sunday. Some deem it a trial to endure. How can a mere preacher speak credibly to a congregation with such diverse needs and expectations? Others find it an impossible task. When everyone knows the story, how can even the most skilled and faithful proclaim a fresh word?

Yet, the reality this day celebrates and the message it proclaims give us our identity. Today we express our conviction that good triumphs over evil, love defeats hatred, light prevails over darkness, life overcomes death, and God's acts in and through Jesus Christ permanently shape the world. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu eloquently declared, "Easter says to us that despite everything to the contrary, [God's] will for us will prevail, love will prevail over hate, justice over injustice and oppression, peace over exploitation and bitterness." Yes, many worshippers may come for lesser reasons and the pomp and fanfare may seem to overwhelm the spoken word. Nevertheless, all these people have gathered and God sends the news the preacher has to share to them all.

Easter Day is not a trial, but it calls for witness. Today preachers have an opportunity to proclaim not only the story passed down for generations but also how they and the communities they serve have experienced that story. Not only in ancient texts but also in our lives we have seen light shine in the darkness, beginnings spring from endings, and life break forth where death appeared to reign. Those gathered know the story's beginning and end, but may not have seen and certainly need to hear how it continues to shape our lives. Preachers have the opportunity, privilege, and call not to prove that resurrection light shines but to point to it: to name a place where ministry in Jesus' name has sprung forth with new life; to recall a situation in which timid steps taken in hope led to a bold beginning; to tell the story of a light that darkness could not extinguish; to declare where the risen Jesus has appeared. The long-faithful deserve affirmation of the path they walk. The curious and even the bored may unexpectedly have their eyes opened. Easter Sunday calls the preacher to join Mary Magdalene in announcing, "I have seen the Lord" (John 20:18).

            Holy Week Blessings,

            LP

Connecting facts about Bach with the call

This item should arrive on the three hundred and twenty-eighth anniversary of the birth of Johann Sebastian Bach. Not everyone enjoys Baroque music, but anyone whose compositions endure for more than three hundred years deserves respect. The following reflections attempt to connect facts about Bach with the call we receive in baptism (on which we reflect during Lent) and with Holy Week (for which Bach composed no small amount of music).

Bach spent much of his life perfecting the fugue. When he took his first breaths, the church had primary influence on the lives of most Europeans. The discipline and earnestness of the fugue echoed the sway of the church on daily life and cultural norms. By the time Bach entered the Church Triumphant, the varied pursuits of the Enlightenment were changing culture significantly. Almost as soon as Bach died, the form he perfected became passé. That does not, however, diminish his endeavors. Baptism calls us to live our faith here and now and to allow what we believe and whom we follow to affect present individuals and practices. The forms by which we express them vary, but life, love, and faith endure. God does not call us to mimic those who preceded us or to restrict those who follow us. Rather God calls us to build on the foundation we inherited and to lay a foundation for our heirs. Bach did that. How's that going for us?

The stern portraits we view of Bach often make him seem dour and humorless. Yet, many of his contemporaries described the "holy cantor" as a man quick to join in trivial amusements. Those who understand music much better than I note that Bach appears to have had fun as he composed and that his smiles appear often in his music. His first biographer, Johann Nicholas Forkel, described his musical genius as cheerful and even jocose. While squeezing more than eleven hundred compositions, care for his large family, and constant wrestling with congregational dynamics into his sixty-five years, Bach found and made room for joy. Baptism calls us to similar gladness. Although little that we do in faith comes easily and our most important tasks stretch us considerably, we can with Paul "rejoice in the Lord always" because blessings weave and worm their way into everything. Do those around us know us for our gladness?

Even those of us who do not appreciate his music recognize Bach's name and fame as a composer. In the eighteenth century, however, most knew Bach primarily or solely as a performer, a virtuoso on the harpsichord and organ. The compositions of Vivaldi, Telemann, Scarlatti, and Handel drew rave reviews and adulation. Most of what Bach composed did not become known to the public until a century or more after his death. Similarly, we respond to God's call not for the recognition but because doing so makes us more alive and echoes true in our depths. Like many Reformed musicians, Bach wrote the letters S D G at the start and end of his compositions. They stand for the Latin words "Soli Deo Gloria," which means "Glory to God Alone." Surely Bach had as much pride as most of us; but he knew and pointed to his maker. Our tradition declares that we have no purpose higher than to glorify and enjoy God. Most of the celebrities we admire point primarily to themselves. The baptized point to God. How's that going?

As we enter Holy Week and follow Jesus past the palms and the upper room, beyond Gethsemane and Golgotha, and into the tomb, where we await the light in silent stillness, please remember that we find ourselves by losing ourselves in the call that leads to true life.

            Lenten Blessings,

            LP

Who is the leader?

Long before smoke wafted from the Vatican chimney, the faithful heaped ponderous, varied, and incompatible expectations on the next pope. Peter Drucker once noted that effective managers do things right, whereas effective leaders do the right things. Those words settle easily on the ear, but they gnaw in the gut and heart of those privileged and called to lead. Who can identify the "right things"? They vary as often as the "inconstant moon" by which Juliet begged Romeo not to swear. Perhaps in recognition of that and perhaps in ignorance of it, we draft lists of desired attributes in leaders that surpass not only human ability but also definition. 

During a recent meeting outside our congregation, I sat with dedicated church members as we pondered a list of ten characteristics by which to measure a leader during an annual review. We eventually concluded that only the circumstances determine what those characteristics look like. "Effective communication," for example, can mean honest appraisal of errors made, comfort in sorrow, and articulation of a vision for the future. Any given situation can call for all three of those actions. Where we stand determines how effective we consider the leader.

Nearly a decade ago a popular Presbyterian author identified "twelve characteristics for effective twenty-first century ministry." No one could disagree with the desirability of any of the characteristics listed, but no minister could do all of them well. The twelve characteristics ask pastors to lead balanced and healthy lives while overseeing every aspect of a congregation's ministry, being visible enough in the community to draw non-members to discipleship, transforming the congregation with a missional vision of ministry, managing conflict, and building and inspiring leaders and teams. Don't forget budgeting and denominational responsibilities! Forget about applying those characteristics to a single leader. Think about it in terms of groups of congregational leaders. 

Do we truly expect leaders to help each congregation do all things well? Isn't it more realistic and more faithful to expect leaders to discern God's call in a particular situation and to point us in that direction?

What's the point? For me the primary point is that in the church who a leader is ultimately matters more than the specific tasks a leader performs. No leader can do all things well but each leader can be a teacher with a healing presence, a compassionate heart, and a longing for justice, especially for those in need. That describes the leader scripture and the Apostles Creed call Lord. Leaders like that will sometimes fail and sometimes will fail us, but being with them will make us want to be better people and nudge us in that direction.

Our ponderous, varied, and incompatible expectations make us who we are. Let's not deny them. Yet, let's not forget that we want more and want to be more. May those longings give us the patience and the courage to recognize faithful leaders and to support them even as they stumble along the way.

            Lenten Blessings,

            LP