MercyWork

Traveling

I am bound for the promise land, I am bound for the promise land; O who will come and go with me? I am bound for the promised land.

We are called to a pilgrim traveling identity. The language of pilgrimage runs deep through our literature and we have rich images of being "strangers and pilgrims on the earth" we are seeking a homeland, a better country. But...we must travel in community. Following Jesus is not done in isolation. Wherever Jesus went he formed communities. It only makes sense that if we are on a journey then it plays out in particular places. For many of us it is here in Lewiston/Auburn. (or Central Maine) In that context we are asked by the Lord to be his incarnational community. Everywhere. Darrell Guder says it well in his book Missional Church. "Mission is the result of God's initiative, rooted in God's purposes to restore and heal creation. Mission means 'sending' and it is the cnetral bibilical theme describing the purpose of God's action in human history." Jesus said it well "As the Father sent me, I am sending you" As God sent the Son into the world, so we are sent. With a traveling identity. Together. In our community. 

One on Tuesday

Greenday released there single remake of Lennons "Working Class Hero" which was released on Itunes at the beginning of the month. The May 25th release by Amnesty International will  help those suffering in Darfur. It's interesting that an old song about life in Liverpool written over 35 years ago remains relevant. I've struggled with Lennons "legacy" as I do with most mythical nostalgia but, I recognize his brilliant contribution to music. His early songs Help, Paperback Writer and others show a young man way ahead of his time. Typically, he was marginalized and deified depending on which side you were standing. Interesting enough, GreenDay preformed the song on "American Idol" recently. I wonder if the lyrics to the song are somehow lost in a setting where American consumerism and worship merge. Imagine (some pun intended) millions of Americans gazing at a box to hear who will be the next winner, with a break to hear GreenDay sing a song about the loss of dignity in the factories of Liverpool. Imagine, this song intended to highlight the plight of the lost ones in Darfur in the midst of the wealthest companies in the world paying for advertising, so they can sell their products, which are made in the poorest countries of the world, designed for us the wealthest in the world. I'm saddened by this seemingly odd and perhaps diabolical marriage. Any thoughts?

Lyrics by John Lennon

As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so ..... crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and class less and free
But you're still .... peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
If you want to be a hero well just follow me

In his hands

I am graven on the palms of His hands. I am never out of His mind. All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me. I know Him, because He first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, One who loves me; and there is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted for me, and no moment, therefore, when His care falters.

J. I. Packer

Story

My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but becuase if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours...It is precisely through these stories in all their particularity, as I have long believed and often said, that God makes himself known to each of us most powerfully and personally. If this is true, it means that to lose track of our stories is to be profoundly impoverished not only humanly but also spiritually.

-Frederick Buechner, Tellling Stories

I 

Tuesdays

I thought I'd highlight some music on tuesdays. I was talking with Aaron Strout today about The Clash and London Calling. That lead to a general discussion about music. Gee pulled up The Police and their new tour. That lead to You Tube and Lonnie Frisbee and early Jesus Freak music. Next thing you know about 8 of us are gathered around the computer listening to vintage 2nd Chapter of Acts singing The Easter Song...then Keith Green...Lonnie giving his testimony....Larry Norman singing I am a Servant. 

Ran aground in a harbor town,
Lost the taste for being free..
Thank God you sent some gull chased ship
To carry me to sea..

Like a pearl in a sea of liquid jade
His ship comes shining..
Like a crystal swan in a sky of suns
His ship comes shining…

Bruce Cockburn-

Life Short / Call Now CD

Beautiful Christian Poetry

A reflection from Walter Brueggemann..

“.. On our own we conclude:
that there is not enough to go around
we are going to run short.

of money
of love
of grades
of publications
of sex
of beer
of members
of years
of life

we should seize the day…
seize the goods..
seize our neighbor’s goods
because there is not enough to go around
and in the midst of our perceived deficit;

You come
You come giving bread in the wilderness
You come giving homes to the exiles
You come giving futures to the shut-down
You come giving Easter joy to the dead.
You come.. fleshed.. in Jesus.

And we watch while
the blind receive their sight
the lame walk
the lepers are clenased
the deaf hear
the dead are raised
the poor dance and sing.

We watch.. and we take..

food we did not grow and

Life we did not invent and
future that is gift and gift and gift and
families and neighbors who sustain us
when we do not deserve it.

It dawns on us, late rather than soon, that
You give foodin due season
you open your hand
and satisfy the desire of every living thing.
By your giving,
break our cycles of imagined scarcity
override our presumed deficits
quiet our anxieties of lack
transform our perceptual field to see
the abundance.. mercy upon mercy
blessing upon blessing.
Sink your generosity deep into our lives
that your much-ness may expose our false lack
that endlessly receiving, we may endlessly give.

so that the world may be made Easter new,
without greedy lack, but only wonder
without coercive need, but only love
without destructive greed, but only praise
without aggression and evasiveness..
all things Easter new..

all around us, toward us and by us
all things Easter new.

Finish your creation..
in wonder, love and praise. Amen.

Day of Prayer

May 17-27 mark out ten days of global prayer. Each day is oriented toward a specific need in the kingdom, from generally seeking the kingdom on May 17, to repentance on May 20, to lifting up those who are persecuted and suffer injustice on May 24, and finally extending the blessing of Christ on May 26. Pentecost Sunday, May 27, completes the movement. Visit the Global Day of Prayer website for more information.

Neighborhood Meal

Our first monday evening meal was wonderful. It was great to see single moms with their kids join us. Stories of hope and despair were discussed around several well decortated tables. It was interesting to see the team leaders sit and interact with our guests. Jamie Brunell and I had a long talk with "The Preacher" who is a neighborhood icon. A white haired african-american in his early 70's. The folks in the community stop by his car at any time of the the day or evening for advise or to just have someone to hear them. I'm going to film this guy in the near future.  He tells a powerful story of visiting the auction block his grandfather was sold off of in the days of slavery. We also heard the story of a young mother who's sister died two years ago and she adopted her son. Lot's for gardens had two young ladies join us at the meal. They are doing great work in several locations across the city. They have a good sense of nutrition and are looking forward to working with us on some projects. We cleaned the block as well. I forgot how many cig butts can accumulate over a short period of time. Fairly nasty little things!...Praise God for rich evenings like tonight. The wonderful color of africans in there flowing robes, the occasional blast of rap and the murmur of kids playing and drunks singing. What a joy! 

Meal in the Mile

Our first meal in our downtown neighborhood began on the 7th of May with 35 volunteers enjoying a meal together. Mercy Kitchen Theatre is a collaborative effort with Sisters of Charity and The Vineyard. We have 4 teams assigned and they will rotate between the meal and our new neighborhood clean up. Both will be on Monday evenings. We hope to begin feeding 25-30 people with the opportunity to expand to 60 or so as we get our bearings. Clean up work has already begun and plans are in the works for summer concerts, skateboarding events and childrens movies. All of which is a missional response to God's heart for our community. If your up for volunteering in any way let us know.

Challenges facing the church

The Barna Group has been tracking for a number of years. The latest update shows that at least 100 million people in the U.S. are considered unchurched. To put that figure in context it would be the 11th largest country in the world.

It is significant that the results of the Barna group coincide with a book released by Tyndale House Publishers, entitled Jim and Casper Go to Church. It tells the story of a pastor's interviews with an avowed atheist after they visited a dozen significant churches together. They visited places like Willow Creek, Saddleback, Lakewood and The Potter's House to gain insights into what it is like for an outsider to attend. Some of the findings from these visits and subsequent conversations are critical to a missional conversation about the challenges facing the church in our culture. Several of challenges they raise are:

1. The relative indifference of most churched Christians to unchurched people.
The visits revealed, despite planned attempts to behave differently, that there was a significant level of indifference to the other coming as a stranger. A missional understanding that is grounded in the relation of God and world challenges local churches to break through sociological tendencies to be "social clubs" with exclusive characteristics and to shape theological identity beyond the culmination of like-minded people.

2. An emphasis on the personal rather than communal faith journey.
The missional conversation takes seriously the Trinitarian nature of God as a basic framework for understanding the Church as communal. An aspect of the challenge facing churches today is how to engage an ecclesiological understanding in which community, communion and relationship play an essential role within a modern culture that puts the emphasis on an almost unbridled individualism.

3. A tendency to perform rituals and exercise talents rather than an invitation to and experience of the presence of God.
Some argue that the statistics on "unchurched" people should not be mistaken as a reflection of a secularism that has no place for the spiritual, and that the emergence of a post-modern world opens up new possibilities for a reclaiming of spiritual roots.

4. The absence of a compelling enough call to action. The tendency to emphasize the satisfaction of needs might also be one of the main causes of a church culture that lacks the dynamics of action. A missional ecclesiology has as part of its interest a need for integrating spiritual discernment with intentional and strategic action to embody the missional vocation of the Church.

5. The failure to listen to dissident voices.
In his book on Communion and Otherness, the Orthodox theologian, John Zizioulas, argues for an ecclesiology that takes seriously how otherness constitutes communion. Unfortunately, ours is a culture in which otherness is seen as a threat rather than a gift and our churches reflect this way of life.