Lenten Disciplines

I see I've broken my weekly discipline of getting a blog entry in by my usual deadline. A very bad discipline to begin the Lenten season.

So...that's my very brief topic for a very brief blog entry this week. Discipline.

As you may know, it is related to the word "disciple." At the heart of that word is the question: to what are you devoted? To what have you given your heart? This is a good question for Lent.

Here are some ideas for developing a Lenten spiritual discipline - but I'd mostly be interested in your own - if there are any out there so inclined.

A few ideas:

1) I really really like this online devotional; try it out: www.d365.org

2) Or, why not create your own daily devotional time. Find a Bible. Start with just seven minutes a day. Read for a minute. Note what comes to you. Pray (and some find it useful to pray with a question). Offer your day up to God.

3) Some find meditation to be a good Lenten discipline. Perhaps you could try taking 10 minutes to do centering prayer. Centering prayer is taking time to follow your breath while praying a word or phrase, like "Love", or "Peace", or "Jesus, Son of God, have mercy". If your mind wanders, gently call it back to the phrase you have been praying. Sit in a comfortable, straight-backed chair, with your back as erect as possible.

4) Why not try a "screen fast" - take one day without any screens: TV, iPhone, Blackberry, computer. An electron free day. See what it's like. (and if you have a family - make it a family affair). If it goes well - make it a tradition.

5) I've also done the very traditional way of fasting - for example, giving up sweets, or television, or my nightly glass of wine. Sometimes such disciplines give you a very different sense of yourself and what's around you: how you use food, how you use time.

6) Instead of fasting from, fasting can also mean adding something that clears a path to God. Do service once a week at a local soup kitchen; take an hour a week to clean up a park; clean a neighbor's yard. Or, you can also combine approaches here - fast one meal a day and give the savings to your favorite charity.

7) (Got to end on a Biblical number) Here's a radical idea: commit to worshipping each Sunday in Lent. Can't hurt!

Lastly - I am not preaching this week - one of our four interns, Caroline Wood, will be proclaiming, on the traditional text for the First Sunday in Lent, the story of Jesus temptations in the wilderness. (Note the plural). Study up!

Again - love to hear any responses from you about what you do for Lenten disciplines.

Peace,

Jeff

Why Love?

I am thinking about a question that Will, my now-nine year old, asked to me when he was about, oh, four or so: “Dad, where does love come from?”

Perhaps that’s a good start for my sermonizing on Sunday – keeping it on the simple, four-year-old level. Because it can get so complex, philosophical, abstract when talking about love, no?

When it boils down to this: love comes from somewhere. Where?

Maybe it’s cheating to bring in scripture here, but gosh darn, it is the Word of God. So, here goes. The text for Sunday is 1 John 4:7-21. Study up on it, if you’re so inclined. Absolutely one of my favorite bits of scripture (especially if we can overlook the polemical context in the rest of 1 John). It’s my go-to text for all wedding services I do – that is, if the couple doesn’t prefer the standard 1 Corinthians 13 (wonderful text, but been done). Alas, I digress.

1 John 4 gives a very simple answer about where love comes from. So simple, it’s perhaps obvious. God. The one who is the progenitor of love, and indeed whose very essence is love. That’s where love comes from. (OK, grammar police: from where love comes...).

Here’s the very simple answer about why we love: because we’ve known love from somewhere, namely God. “We love, because God first loved us.”

But, though simple, that too can be rather abstract. How do we know this love? We can’t touch, smell, see God. Surely, we can know that we are loved on a sort of numinous, existential level – somewhere in my soma, my guts, my spirit, I know I’m loved. (One of my favorite quotes, by the way: Victor Hugo: - “The greatest happiness in life is the conviction you are loved.”)

The only way we can know the love of God is through human love. “No one has ever seen God…but if we love…God abides in us.” Perhaps that’s the theme of this whole series about the nature of love. You want to have fulfilling human relationships – mature erotic/romantic ones? Deeply fulfilling friendships? Then, we have to know this primary kind of love, whose source is none other than the divine.

It also works in reverse. You want a taste of divine love? Love another person. That’s the mystery and the paradox.

So, this Sunday’s sermon is on a particular variety of love – a very different kind than the ones we’ve been speaking about, because this kind of love – Agape – does not depend on the desirability of the object. Eros, Philia – though certainly desiring the well-being of the other, still depend on the other somehow being desireable.

Agape on the other hand loves no matter what, no matter how desirable, or schlocky, sinful, ugly the "object" - the person being loved. (Better click on that 1 Corinthians 13 text now for the full definition). This is how God loves. And this is why humans are able to love – because we know somehow this mysterious source from which love comes.

So here’s a question to end on: how have you felt loved? Who imparted that to you? How?

See you Sunday.

I Love You, Man

Have you ever said, “I love you” to a friend? Someone not a spouse, girlfriend or boyfriend; not someone within Cupid’s target zone for you?

I myself can’t recall doing that – perhaps partly because I live in fear, professionally, of blurring boundaries, of someone misinterpreting my words – though have heard them spoken a time or two. And, let’s face it: our stinginess in using those words with friends is due to the fact that we live in such a highly sexualized, amorized society. (Amortized society?)

In our culture, the meaning of “love” in that three-word phrase “I love you” is almost exclusively limited to that of Eros. One heterosexual guy telling another, “I love you.” Whoa. You must be gay.

Perhaps it’s an obvious point then: that our culture has in many ways lost the art of friendship. And here I also need to make a distinction based on gender. It’s my observation (and thus certainly open to critique) that men often find it much more difficult to find friendship with other men, than is the case among females in their search for friendship.

Why is that? It’s striking that in the ancient world – the world of the Bible, and especially the ancient Greek-speaking world – the opposite was really the case. In the ancient world, love, the highest and most beautiful form, was that shared between men.

On Sunday, we will reflect on the kind of love denoted by the word Philia, or friendship-love. Philia is a love between equals, love that seeks the well-being of the other, love that seeks the excellence in the other, brings out the best in the other.

Have you ever been with someone in whose presence you feel all those qualities in yourself you think to be most valuable? When I’m with, let’s say, Jim, or Sally – I feel smart, and funny, and at ease; I feel most myself. This is the experience of Philia. And we clearly know its opposite too – those in whose presence you feel inadequate, dumb, cut to size and worse-than.

Philia is valuable to knowing who we are; toward becoming who we are meant to be. The ancient Greeks especially knew the value of this kind of friendship love. On Sunday, I’ll speak a bit about Aristotle, and his book the Nicomachean Ethics, in which he writes about how friendship is a means toward attaining virtue.

And of course, Sunday’s sermon will be a scriptural exploration about the topic: how do we see our need for friendship in light of the friendship of Christ: the God-man, come down to us, who doesn’t demand to be called master, but wants us to call him friend.

Are we hungry for this kind of friendship? Is there a gender difference? Has anyone ever said “I love you” to you – not as a lover, but a friend? Love to hear your reflections on this. And would love some good material for the sermon.

Jeff

PS – Some other stuff to check out if you are interested in the subject – in particular, movies. Judd Apatow has now created his own genre of movies, and a new “term” for them: “bromance.” Check out Superbad, or his more recent I Love You Man. (I’ve seen the former but not the latter). Also, the previously-featured Big Kahuna is really about Philia. You must see it if you have not….

What Are You Looking For?

First, I want to say that I have not “moved on” from what is still preoccupying my mind – and I imagine the mental space of so many of us: Haiti. As I said on Sunday, we should not, we cannot forget. It would be moral cowardice to do so. In the strange workings of the spirit, we realize that the life and work of our church is now even more intertwined with their life, their pain, their rebirth.

But so much of life consists of holding things in tension; the paradox of suffering in Haiti. The paradox of the infinite God become human, to suffer on a cross.

And so we hold life in such tension. And we move on to other subjects…for now.

This Sunday I begin a new sermon series on the theme of love, called “Love by Any Other Name.” I will be reflecting on the three words in ancient Greek for love: Eros (romantic love); Philia (friendship love); and Agape (self-giving love).

Having an understanding of love helps us to practice it. And learning to love is like learning to play the violin: you need to understand the dynamics and theory of music to play that – or any – instrument.

In this case, your life is the instrument. Love is the music to express that song that has been placed inside of you – and in every human – whose expression represents our highest desire and purpose. And as the writer of 1 John says, when we love, "God abides in us." God takes expression in and through us.

This Sunday we begin by exploring a certain kind of love: Eros. Too often maligned, we will begin to appreciate that Eros is a gift of God to humans—a God who has created us to desire each other. And desire, even erotic desire, is the beginning of all love, whose true object, whether we realize it or not, is God.

So, this Sunday we will explore the question: what does it mean to “fall in love”? And what does this experience have to do with Christian life?

Our text is John 1:35-39. Please read it, and think about the question Jesus asks in verse 38 (“…What are you looking for?”). Note: The Greek word Zeteo can be understood as “seek” or “desire”. How would you answer this question?

And finally – you can help me out by responding to this question here: If you have fallen in love at least once in your life - how would you describe your experience? Did it make you behave in a way you would not otherwise? I know some will email - but post here if you can....

Thanks – and see you Sunday.

Jeff

Why? Or What Next?

This week's blog entry - I'm double dipping. I offer here what I am writing in our church newsletter for next month. Been another kooky week, but for us, dust is settling, even as we continue to pray for the people of Haiti.

Why? Or…What Next?

As I sit here to write this reflection, I can’t help but to think about what I know so many of you have been thinking of these past days: Haiti.

My mind is filled with images that both bespeak hope, and despair. I remember this past Sunday (January 17), seeing the Easter-sized crowd gathered in the Meetinghouse for worship, after our group of returnees got back (rather late) from a spirit-filled service at Shiloh Baptist. What hope I felt from the spirit’s tender care in that service—the spirit that helped us rejoice in the amazing providence represented by the safe return of every one our people. I will savor that worship service; I will never forget it.

And I think of the stories I’ve heard of the Haitian people, many of whom are still living in fields, filling their evenings with hymn-singing, waking to the glow of the sun and beginning another desperate day with worship.

And yet, my mind is still filled—as I’m sure is yours—with disturbing images, troubling thoughts. I cannot forget the images I’ve seen on the television of a country that was already in a state of disaster when the earthquake struck…images of dead bodies on the streets, mangled limbs, desperate survivors. I think about how members of our group themselves saw such things; heard the moans of dying people, carried the bodies of the dead.

And I think of how unfair it is that, in the words of Brian Williams, “some children are born into poverty and struggle only to die young and in great pain—while my children lead such fortunate lives.” Why? Why so much suffering for a people already so desperate?

I think of all of that, and it makes me want to break something. (I know, I’m letting down my pastoral mask just a bit). But I contend that it is something we do well to be angry about. Because, anger—if it doesn’t ossify into resentment, grievance or despair—can motivate us. Did you know that anger is an aspect of how we understand God’s love? Anger at what’s wrong with us and the world?

What echoes in my mind too is the wonderful sound bite that Louise Johnson offered in her words on Sunday: “It may be that right now the most important question to ask is not ‘Why’…but ‘What next?’” And what’s next is to “do the work of the one who sent” us, while it is day (John 9:4)—while there is urgent work to be done.

What is so heartening to me is to hear so many of the members of our now-returned Haiti delegation say, “I want to go back.” To hear in their voices a passion not to forget what they experienced, and to make meaning of it by redoubling our effort to help rebuild Haiti. We are in a unique position to do that, through our twenty-plus years of partnership with Pastor Luc and his ministry. That work is more important now than ever.

In the weeks ahead, we will be working with Pastor Luc to do just that. This week—right after they returned—Bruce McGraw and Joan Semenuk are busy at work organizing the consortium of churches who have been supporting Pastor Luc, so we can coordinate our funding and our help for Pastor Luc. The work is already beginning—and we all will need to step up to the proverbial plate, by generously offering what we have to give, so that people who have so little can survive.

Now it is day. And the work begins, through the one who is our hope, our help, and our Redeemer.

Jeff Vamos

A Pastoral Letter

I don't have time for a blog entry this week - but thought I'd use this space simply to share the letter I wrote to the congregation.

Perhaps the best question to reflect upon this week: Now that we know the folks from our church are safe, how do we continue our help and partnership with the people of Haiti, who seem to need that help now more than ever?

A PASTORAL LETTER CONCERNING RECENT EVENTS IN HAITI.

Dear Members and Friends:

This has been quite a week for us all - and for the people of Haiti, for whom we care so deeply. Some of us have been more directly affected than others, but we all have felt the human toll wrought by this most recent tragedy, in a country for whom tragedy has become far too frequent.

I've been so proud of the response of our staff and members. In a strange way, it's in a circumstance like this when we experience most fully what "church" means. So many people--members and strangers and friends--have been so caring and gracious and helpful, as we all pulled together to do what we needed to do.

We are still getting reports on the activities of our group in Haiti - that they are all fine; they helped over 300 people in Thoman and are now doing a medical clinic there in the US Embassy; they haven't slept or eaten much in this time; and they are also soon to be headed back home, via the Dominican Republic. We hope they will arrive tomorrow or Saturday. To quote one text I just received from a group member, "We have been able to help so many."

While we are jubilant at the news of our group's safety, that is tempered by the news that there may be those in Pastor Luc's church who did not fare so well; and of course by the fact that thousands in Haiti are hurt and have died.

Many have asked - What now? How shall we respond? Here are some exhortations, for now, on that score.

Pray, and worship. This Sunday is a Sunday to come to church; we need you, as an integral member of the community, to give your presence through prayer and worship. We will give thanks for good news, and we will lament the tragedy, as we affirm our ultimate hope in Christ, and pray for all the people in and of Haiti. We plan to have our usual Levi Sunday service - what more appropriate thing than to be reminded of the importance of our service to the world as Christians.

Give. This Sunday, we will be taking up a special offering for immediate disaster relief through Presbyterian Disaster Assistance. Our longstanding work in Haiti is more important now than ever. The recovery effort will take years. We are in a unique position to support that effort because of our longstanding mission relationship to Pastor Luc and Haiti--for whose work we will take up another offering in February. What you can do now is give. Money is the most effective form of help. And this Sunday we are also collecting items that the City of Trenton will distribute. Click this page on our website for more details.

Lastly - know that we're working with family members of our group in Haiti, to prepare for their return and care for their needs. Hope you will continue to pray for them, for Pastor Luc and his churches, and for those who are suffering so deeply in Haiti.

Such events often "bend" and challenge our Christian faith; it will take time and grace for some of us to make sense of it. For now, let us hear Paul's words - God's words he heard during a weak moment: "My grace is sufficient for you."

In Christ,

Jeff Vamos

The Big Kahuna and the Stink of Love

Very few words this week; I'm beginning a DMin program at Wesley Seminary in Washington, DC, and have once again entered this strange landscape of mental (and spiritual) exploration. A landscape that includes the trashy dorm room I've been assigned -- and a roommate who must be the son of Oscar Madison. What a delight!

This Sunday is Baptism of the Lord Sunday, when we will reaffirm our baptism and baptismal covenant.

Is it possible that we understand the mystery of our baptism -- the spiritual cleansing represented therein -- only as we know the dirt of our human life -- fully experience it? As James Baldwin asserts, we worship not an alabaster Christ, but one acquainted with "the stink of love."

Homework for anyone wishing to have it (or if there are those reading these words wanting a five minute exercise in procrastination) - your assignment: watch this clip from the movie The Big Kahuna. The context is clear enough: the Danny Divito and Peter Facinelli characters (the latter a born again Christian) are salemen of industrial lubricants - along with Kevin Spacey (not pictured in the clip).

What is character? And how might the character of baptism be known only in realizing "the things we regret?"

Can you relate to Phil's (Danny DeVito's) definition of character?

See you Sunday!

Jeff

PS - if you've never seen the movie, The Big Kahuna is well worth the watch - invite some friends over to see it and discuss!