The Parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge

For some reason while I was crawling (traffic on 405 was slow!) into work today the parable of the widow and the unjust judge popped into my mind (Luke 18:1-8).  It’s a parable about prayer, the Kingdom of God, and justice (and I’m sure some other things too).  

Some who believe in a kind of detached, stern God have seen God as the judge in the story.  Those folks believe that we must pray and pray and pray (and get others to pray with us and for us) – constantly – going to God over and over until we’ve finally bothered God enough for some action.   At one time I thought God was like the widow, constantly bothering us people until we listened to God’s small, still voice and acted justly.  But this morning I decided that both images did injustice to the Creator of the Universe who loves all of creation, even you and me.  Why must we make God be human?  What if God is simply God in this parable, and the judge and widow are examples of us?

Apparently Jesus says that the parable is about the need to pray always and not lose heart.  In biblical times a widow must have been practically invisible.  She had no husband to handle legal matters or to provide the income necessary to influence or bribe the judge who feared God nor respected people.  The widow was after justice – someone has wronged her and the judge had the power to make it right.  My guess is that it wasn’t easy for the widow to speak truth to power.   Why didn’t she give up after the first rejection?  What gave her the inspiration, motivation and power to keep trying?    Maybe we’re a middle-school student who needs to ask a teacher about an unjust grade or maybe we’re an employee who needs to challenge their boss about an unjust policy.   Sometimes in life we are that widow and through our prayer life God will give us the inspiration, motivation and power to ask for the justice that we need.

But, on the other hand, are there times when even us followers of Christ act more like the unjust judge than we’d like to admit?  Are there times when our daily activities give no care to God or people we don’t know?   I hate to admit is, but, yes, we all go through life with blinders on.  Imagine how overwhelming life would be if we didn’t.  Prayer then can help us know when to remove those blinders, such as when an injustice has happened.  We may not even act out of a heart of love, but, we can be motivated to act justly because of irritated nerves thanks to God! 

Such is the Kingdom of God in this world.  It’s not yet perfected, but, we get glimpses here and there of the weak standing up to the powerful.  We get glimpses of justice served.  And we get glimpses of God loving us enough to motivate us to change even when we’re only focused on our wants and needs and can see no one else. 

I appreciate this often quoted thought:

God loves us just how we are… but God loves us too much to let us stay that way.

Prayer can change us – so that we act more like God’s people.  Not prayer where we are always doing the talking or asking, but, prayer where we are trying to listen.  Can we give God a few of our minutes today in prayer?

 

How Do We Know We’re Right?

My son started middle school last month and it has been an exciting and sometimes stressful adventure changing from the grade-school to a less nurturing school environment.  On the church-front, there are middle school youth groups all over the area competing for more participants.  Justin has visited 2 other middle school youth groups in our area with friends and plans to try out at least one other.  One mainline youth group received high ratings – lots of kids (about 20 middle schoolers on a regular program night) and the “bible discussion” sounded like something he might hear at Bellevue FUMC.  But, the other youth group (at a non-denominational church) experience was a little disturbing.  They had a real energetic young youth pastor who gave a talk about “Satan.”   Many of us in mainline churches understand evil as much more complex than personified evil.  However, I admit it’s a lot simpler to blame the bad things that happen to us on a force we call “Satan”  and that explanation resonates well with an 11 year old brain.   Keep in mind – this is just my opinion of Satan.  I’m well aware that some say one of Satan’s best tricks is convincing progressive Christians that he doesn’t exist!

“How do we know that we’re right?”  Was the post Satan vs. evil discussion question that my son posed to me that evening.  That’s a question I’m fond of asking myself (a chip off the old block I suppose!).  How do we know when we’re right? 

It’s a question fitting for blogs.  Blogs are great for airing opinions, but, I personally get tired of listening to opinion after opinion over time… there will always be someone out there who will agree with me and someone out there who will disagree.   To quote a very old commercial, “Where’s the Beef?”  How do we have a dialogue that will reach the truth?  (At least the truth for our world today).   

One problem with dialogue is that we get so attached to our own truth that we don’t really want to hear another person’s version of the truth.  I do it, we all do – it’s normal.  The first step might be to ask, how did I arrive at what I consider to be right?  Did someone I trust and respect lead me to believe that way?   Did I have a personal experience that led me to believe something? Or have I listened to many different opinions from different people (throughout written history) and filtered that through my personal life experience to come to truth that way?  And, am I open to changing my opinion with sufficient new information or experience?

The latter two options would be more the way John Wesley taught us to come to believe: faith comes by integrating Scripture, Reason, Tradition, and Experience.  I believe it’s a great model to determine who is right, for instance.  Maybe not “right” 50 years from now, but, “right” for this time and place.

The smaller and less diverse a group is in coming to a belief  the more chance  that belief is prejudiced.   We face this in churches all the time.  When decisions are made by only the people who have been a part of that church for sometime there is high risk that those same decisions will not resonate well with people who are not part of that church. 

Worship is one case.   People who have been coming to a certain worship service for years and years obviously prefer that certain style of worship, or as we know today, they would have left long ago.  So, isn’t it interesting that we often task those same people with developing a new worship service that will attract new people.  That just never works very well because it’s very difficult for any of us to think outside of our own preference zone toward the likes and dislikes of someone different than us.

So, it seems that to best assure we are “right”,  not only for ourselves or a group of common believers, but for a broad spectrum of people, we need to dialogue with a broad spectrum of people.  We need to not only ask the people who are sitting in the meeting, but, we need to ask the people who don’t want to come to our meeting.  We not only need to talk to the people who come to our church, but, we need to talk to the people who don’t go to church at all. 

My son will have to struggle on his own, with Scripture, his God-given reason and ability to sort through what other theologians and scientists say, and with his own life experiences in order to figure out if Satan is a metaphor or personal.  Each of us will also be called to struggle with what is right and what is wrong  as we live each day.

This is why I believe a faith community is important.  It gives us a somewhat diverse group of people where we can struggle together and come up with what is right and what is wrong.  Not to make us good versus bad people, but, to help us live the best life that we can.  To discover more joy and blessings than pain and misery each day.  And to be people who prioritize time to reach out and help others in need – even others who fall outside of  our own family, friends, and relationships.  If  you are willing to give yourself to this kind of lifestyle, please remember to come to church on Sunday.

 

I just heard about a free event that Bellevue First Press is hosting on October 27th.  They are calling it the “Not For Sale” Concert event and it begins at 7pm in their Community Center (First Presbyterian Church of Bellevue is located not far from our church  – their address is:  1717 Bellevue Way, Bellevue, WA  98004).  David Batstone and Brant Christopher will be featured:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7K5q6VjJw4

Become part of the solution…

Become a backyard abolitionist and end slavery now!

If anyone wants to carpool from church – let Carol know.  

 

Youth Group Calendar Change – October 17

Important Calendar Change for youth group (6th – 12th graders):  Our overnighter has been changed to a dinner and bowling outing – this Saturday, October 17th!  Meet at church at 5:30 pm.  We’ll head out for a fun group dinner and and then onto bowling.  Dinner and bowling provided - bring money for extras if you want – and bring a friend!!!   Call or email Carol if you need a ride to or from church.  (Don’t forget permission slips)

 

Rotation Sunday School Leaders Meeting after church – Oct. 18

October 18 from 12:15 – 1:15pm: Meeting for Unit 2 (Jacob) Rotation Sunday School leaders.  If you are leading Rotation Sunday school from October 25 – November 22 there will be a leaders meeting after church on October 18th.  Please be invited to bring a brown bag lunch or snack (or goodies from coffee hour).  Anyone interested in Rotation Sunday School is invited to attend.  But, all signed up to lead during “Jacob” are encouraged to come to share thoughts and ideas with one another before the unit kicks off on the 25th.  Thanks everyone for being an important part of our children’s spiritual journey!!!

 

Polemical Post – Sunday School During Worship

Thank you to everyone who read and responded (either on the blog or to me via email) to the posting about Children in Worship.   I appreciate all comments  – even those who took issue with my point of view.   It’s  great to know people are taking the time to dialogue about Christian worship!  

For those who are not familiar to our worshipping community - while we currently schedule Sunday school to occur during our 11:00 worship service, children are always welcome to skip and worship with their families instead.  We also have an early contemporary service (8:30am) where families may worship together.

It would be great to hear even more comments out there…   If you subscribe to this blog you can be alerted to new postings.  Just look for the gray bar at the top of the page and click on “Blog Info” – a drop down list should pop up with the option to “subscribe.”  (Brent – thanks for that info!)  In our busy world it is hard for groups of people to come together and dialogue about church issues.  Plus – some people are uncomfortable being with others who are engaged in a heated debate!  Hopefully this blog can be a safe space for thoughtful dialogue.

I’d like to close  with the Prayer of St. Francis – in honor of this coming week’s worship service that will include a blessing of the animals (please come and bring your pet – or their picture):

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is unjury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

To be understood as to understand;

To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

- St. Francis of Assisi

 

 

Sunday School children invited to bring b-day treats

Greetings to parents, guardians, and grandparents of FUMC Bellevue Sunday School kids:

Just a reminder that children may bring treats for their birthdays (or half-birthdays if their day falls during the summer) this year.  It would be great to let Carol know in advance, but, if you don’t – just bring the treats downstairs to room S15 (our gathering place) before the 11:00 worship service.  We’ll pass the treats out during our opening session – before going to separate acitivities.

allergy reminder:  It would be great to not bring treats that contain tree nuts or peanuts.  We also have some children with a dairy allergy.  If your treats contain a well known allergin please note it.   And – if your child has an allergy -  make sure he or she knows what to avoid.  We usually have fruit snacks and animal crackers on hand to substitute.

 

Rotation Sunday School info for teachers: 2009 – 2010

Here’s a rundown of the Sunday schedule for Sunday school leaders:

1)  We have two classes this year – one for children in pre-kindergarten through 1st grade and another for 2nd through 5th graders.  Time – 11:10 – 12:15.

2) Rotation Sunday school is divided up into thematic units that last 5 or 6 weeks.  Each unit is divided into different sessions using fun activities to illustrate the biblical theme:  music, cooking, art, science, video, games, or storytelling.

3)  Each leader signs up to teach two sessions – one week to the younger children and another week to the older children (same activity).

4)  After signing up to lead 2 Sundays – get a  copy of the unit background info and your session curriculum from Carol.  The curriculum has lots of ideas for kids of all ages and you won’t have time to do them all.  Pick out activities for each age group that will fill about 45 minutes of time.  Figure out what supplies you’ll need.  Be sure to check the supply room at church to see if we have supplies on hand.  If there are supplies that need to be purchased either:  purchase them yourself, fill out a pink reimbursement slip and leave it in Carol’s mailbox (our budget is not endless this year, so, please use judgment in purchasing supplies), or, email a shopping list to Carol at least a week in advance and she will purchase them for you.  Recommended room usage:  S22 – storytelling, S20 – art and science, S15 – games, downstairs kitchen or fireside room – cooking, fireside room, video or music. 

note on pink reimbursements slips:  Many of you so generously purchase Sunday School supplies and donate them to the church.  Even though it’s extra work it would help out our budget planning if those generous souls would still turn in a reimbursement request and then just drop an extra check in offering the following Sunday.  That way we collect a more accurate record of how much it costs to run our Sunday school program.

5)  On Sunday morning FUMCB children will start out upstairs in worship.  Kids from the Korean congregation will come directly to S15.  After “children’s time” in worship Carol (or another leader) will bring the kids down to S15 for a brief gathering (10 minutes).   During the gathering time leaders are asked to help take attendance (we have sticker charts for each age group).  Then Carol (or another leader) will lead the children in a an opening session first to check to see if any children lost a tooth since last Sunday and then we will sing Happy Birthday to any children with a b-day that week.  If children brought b-day treats, we’ll have them at the gathering.   Each week the curriculum includes a transition into the sessions and we’ll close with that.  Then, leaders will take children off to their sessions.  We ask that the leaders bring the kids back to S15 by 12:15 to meet their parents/ guardians.  Older children who have permission will be allowed to go upstairs to meet parents or guardians once we know church is over.

6) Last, but, most important, Rotation Sunday school is about relationship, relationship, relationship.  Enjoy your preparation time, enjoy getting to know other leaders, and most of all, enjoy spending time with the children.  We are lucky to see these children an hour a week and we want to make sure that the lasting impression we leave as “The Church” is a postitive one.  And – thanks you so much for being a vital part of children’s ministry at FUMC Bellevue!!!

 

Sunday School during Worship

On Saturday a group of us attended a conference training event aimed at children, youth, and young adult ministries.  I personally found the event well done and informative.   The afternoon brought up a big question for me once again that churches have been struggling with for some time now: should we keep kids in worship or send them out to Sunday School after their attention span wanes? 

The argument goes something like this for the side who wants to keep children in worship:  We send children out of adult worship to Sunday school and then act surprised that when they graduate from high school they don’t want to continue being part of a worshipping community.  We should keep children involved in worship beginning at a young age so that they will continue with church when they become adults.

And that argument can make sense.  At one time I  bought into it full heartedly.  But now I must quote one of my seminary professors who pointed out that the church shoulds on people too much!  My life experience has  softened my opinion on the kids in worship debate    For years I would bring my young son to worship -  trying to keep him quiet and ignoring the glares of disapproving worshippers when he sprawled on the floor coloring or played with Matchbox cars too noisily.    I suspect that eventually church came to  feel more like a time of torture for both of us rather than a space to nurture a relationship with God.

In the long run worship is not about duty.  Our task is not to train children to learn how to appreciate age old music and odd rituals.  Our task  is to help children learn how to develop a lifelong relationship with God. 

Some of us can deepen our relationship with God during worship.  That happens when the music, the words, and the rituals of worship touch something deep within us that connects with the Divine. 

Is it possible that we can create a “one size fits all” worship experience – for children and youth and young adults and baby boomers and older adults?  Not to mention for those who connect with formal versus casual.  Those who connect with rock versus Bach.  Those who are visual versus those who are auditory learners.   

Children do not come out of the womb knowing how to have a relationship with others.  We must first learn how to be in relationship with other humans before we can make that leap and understand how to be in relationship with our God who we can’t see or touch or have a normal conversation with. 

We are moving toward that time when God’s Kingdom will come on earth (as it is in heaven), but, we would do good to remember that such a time has not come in completion yet.  We may sing that we are Easter People yet in reality we live and move and breathe in that time of Holy Saturday – a time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday (thank you W. Brueggemann for the reminder).   Good intentioned as we are I’m not convinced that we can create a one-size-fits all worship service for adults let alone one that helps children develop a relationship with God.

That is why we take children out of worship after the first 10 to 15 minutes so that they can participate in Sunday school.   Relationship is the focus of our Rotation Sunday School program.  During Rotation Sunday School children will have the opportunity to form relationships with their leaders.   As they learn how to be in relationship with God’s people hopefully one day they will move to the next step – into a relationship with God through Christ. 

Young people “graduating” from church has much more to do with their relationship with the worshipping community as a whole than it does with any specific programming of the local church.  If you believe as I do – and you desire to see children grow up and continue to be “The Church” then I urge you to sign up to teach at least 2 sessions of Rotation Sunday School this year.   Invest in our children – show them that they are loved and important – whether they spend an hour with you in worship or an hour with you downstairs coloring, singing, laughing, learning, cooking, or listening to stories of our tradition in ways they can understand.

 

Generation Chasm

Life is always changing; there is always a generation gap, they say. A difference between how the young and old see the world will always exist. There are times in history, however, when this gap becomes extreme, amounting to more of a chasm. The move from pre-scientific to modernity was one such time. We remember those people who were killed for their new beliefs. Many believe we are in one of those times now and that the divide that separates many baby boomers and below from their parents and grandparents is wider than we might realize.

This morning I had tea with a friend of mine, a young adult with 2 small children, who has been active in her church for a number of years. She reminded me that her generation was not raised to believe you had to go to church to be a Christian; they think you can go it alone. The younger generations understand that they have choices and they act on them.

What does this mean for a faith community that is trying welcome younger generations into the worshipping community? Let’s say you’re a young family who comes church shopping one Sunday. First, it’s anxiety producing just to visit a new church. Next, during coffee hour the parents must try to meet new people and keep an eye on their kids at the same time – trying to make sure no one takes too many treats or spills their juice or trips the unsteady woman with a cane. When a little boy or girl is corrected or disciplined by a stranger (even a well-meaning church stranger) it can make them feel as if they are bad; a negative feeling will be stored away somewhere in their memories along with the memory of “church.” Years later when they have a choice about coming to church or not, those negative memories could and do deter them. It’s much easier to think about communing with God in nature, especially here in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. But, our triune God made us to live in community; generations worshipping together can grow spiritually in ways that individuals cannot.

Our church is making much progress in welcoming newer generations, but, there is always room for more hospitality. If you can think of some ways we can become more welcoming to parents, young adults, youth, Sunday school kids, preschoolers, toddlers, and infants, please  share them with the community.