Greetings from the Land of Abstraction

I am working at the edge of my competency here, so be warned that these thoughts are long and a little half-baked, but here is what’s stewing around my brain these days.

First, a list of ingredients:

1. I am doing a PhD level independent study with Chris Scharen in which we are exploring practical theology – what exactly that means, how the field is defined, how it’s methodically done, etc.
2. I also work with Chris and Eileen Campbell-Reed on the Learning Pastoral Imagination project, and as such, spend increasing amounts of time thinking and learning about phronesis, which is embodied wisdom, knowing how to do the right, wise, prudent thing at the right, wise, prudent time (a skill that can only be learned over time, through apprenticeship and learning from failure and success). As a result of this work I also spend increasing amounts of time thinking about how theological education could/should be different to better equip the development of pastoral imagination.
3. I am also currently taking a PhD level systematics seminar on The Congregation with Pat Keifert. This week I was the presenter on David Kelsey’s book To Understand God Truly: What’s Theological About Theological Schools, which is making a case for how theological education could/should be different that all may understand God more truly.
4. The other night I was talking to my friend Sarah, who works for an ELCA synod. In the course of conversation she shared that a colleague of hers used to be a seminary professor and now works for her synod doing basically the same stuff in terms of teaching community faith formation, but this person enjoys it so much more because they are working with actual pastors and faith communities, whereas their experience of seminarians was that ministry is still entirely an abstraction for them.
5. I am also auditing an MDiv level course on Worship and the Lutheran Confessions where all these just-mentioned streams of thought seem to be coming to a head.

I would say the composition of this MDiv class is half to two-thirds first and second year students, which means they have not been on internship yet. There are also a handful of PhD and MA students, most of whom have had multiple years of parish experience. And then the rest are seniors – they’ve had a taste of ministry on a year-long student internship and are now back for one more year of class before they receive a call, get ordained, and become real live pastors.

So anyway, the class is a mixture of lecture, small and large group discussion, a good way to mix things up in a block schedule. The large group discussion is always at the end, and is always led by a group of students (the leader group rotates from week to week). Thus far the leader groups have come up with what they obviously consider to be “edgy” questions. Like, when discussing baptism, the two big questions were “Should we be reaching out to and baptizing Jews and Muslims?” and “What do you do when a family shows up to get their baby baptized, and the last time you saw them was 4 years ago when they came to get their now-4-year-old baptized?”

At the end of that class, all of us who have actually served as parish pastors were talking to each other as we were packing up and concluded, “Yeah, these are not the questions you ask or are really even interested in once you become a pastor.”

But then last night the topic was Communion, and the questions were: “What is the relation of faith and communion?” “At what age should we begin communing children?” “Should we be practicing an open table where all, even the unbaptized, are welcome?” “How should we dispose of the elements?” “Who should be allowed to preside over communion?” etc

These questions and the discussion have been bothering me ever since, and I’ve been trying to unpack why.

Partially I’m annoyed because again many of these are not the questions you are really worried about once you actually become a pastor.

Partially I’m bothered because, while on the surface these questions were about pastoral practice, in reality they were all meant to go after the theology underlying the practice. Which is not an inherently bad thing – I mean, part of what I’m exploring with Chris is how we understand and talk about practice as embodied theology. But the way the questions were asked and discussed, the real concern and debate was over right doctrine (which everyone seemed pretty rigidly convinced they had) and making sure we had right practices to reflect that right doctrine.

Partially, I’m disturbed because the whole conversation was such on such an abstract level.

Which, ok, you could argue they don’t know any better, they haven’t had any or enough experience to have this conversation on anything more than an abstract level, and there are a number of ways in which both the candidacy and curricular processes of Lutheran seminaries make almost everyone into little Lutheran Nazis (rigidly obsessed with correct doctrine) by the second year, so perhaps this is all understandable.

But at a point in the discussion about whether the table should be open to the unbaptized, I piped up and shared a story from my experience in the parish, about a relative of the congregation who lived far away but was a fairly regular visitor, who never took communion in the five years I knew them. That whole time I just assumed it was because they were a skeptic or had some other reason for not wanting to participate, but I never actually asked them why they never came forward, because I didn’t want to be nosy or make them feel uncomfortable or pressured to take part. Around the same time that I announced I was leaving, this person and I finally had a conversation about it – turned out all this time they had wanted to come forward but didn’t because they weren’t sure if they had been baptized, and they didn’t want to offend the church or me or God by participating in something they weren’t sure they had a right to.

Long story short: my own theology (and what I would argue is good Lutheran theology) is that it’s Jesus’ party and he invites everybody to come, who am I to stand in anybody’s way? It’s an open table and this person was more than welcome to participate. I think the welcome to the table that I speak embodies that theology, but there was a contradiction in the bulletin, a little line in fine print that said this is a meal for the baptized. I hated that line and at various times pulled it out (I wasn’t the one who put it in), but it would pop back up when the secretary would use an old bulletin as a template, I wouldn’t always notice that it reappeared, and I would hope no one actually read the fine print. But this person did, and it kept them from coming forward.

I’m pretty sure now they probably do participate in communion, not only because of our conversation but because the conversation prompted some family research and they discovered they were indeed baptized. And that’s awesome and is hopefully a meaningful change and practice in this person’s life now, but we both lamented that we hadn’t had that conversation five years ago, so that they could have been participating all this time.

So I shared this whole story as a piece of wisdom from my own experience, that this stuff is not just an abstraction or word game about keeping doctrine pure, but it really matters in the messy, in-the-flesh, everyday reality of actual people’s lives. A spoken or unspoken implication of a closed table cuts hungry people off from the grace Christ offers them in his supper.

And the response I got, from a second-career student twenty years my senior (who I suspect was a little pissed that I had played their normal conversational trump card of experience, and had actually trumped their trump by discussing pastoral experience as opposed to general life experience) was, “Well, in five years of wanting to come forward for communion, why didn’t they find a church near where they lived and go talk to that pastor about it?”

In other words, when faced with a concrete, embodied, pastoral reality, when looking at the question of what the wise pastoral move is in the situation, they wanted to throw the responsibility back onto the parishioner and throw the discussion back into the abstract and hypothetical, and speculate on history that at this point can’t be undone. Instead of having the imagination to see what, pastorally and theologically, is really at stake in the sacraments – that they are a means of grace, events in which God promises to meet us, acts that create both a space and a place for the Holy Spirit to work, so why in heaven’s name would you want to box them up or rope them off? – they just wanted to be right in the safe, sterile environment of the seminary classroom.

I think that’s what’s really bothering me, is that they’re not asking the phronetic question, how then shall we live? On the surface it sounds like they are, “Should we practice open table” sounds like a “how then shall we live” kind of question. But they weren’t going after that aspect of the question, they were essentially using the question to practice articulating Lutheran doctrine, and the clear focus was on making sure we get the rules right.

And maybe that’s just where they are at, developmentally. I mean, you’ve got to learn your scales before you can do anything with them. Learning how to articulate doctrine and theology is not a bad thing, it’s rather important, actually. Maybe I just need more patience, especially when I hear them sound a “wrong” note.

At the same time, if theological education is in need of reform (and it seems almost everyone thinks it does), isn’t this a place to start? Isn’t part of the problem that seminary education just teaches the scales and expects students to figure out what to do with them, and what’s at stake in them, on their own? So how do we change that? How do we pull them out of the land of abstraction?

I’m not saying I have any good answers – I warned you at the top that these thoughts are only half-baked. I’m just feeling like the events of the past couple weeks have been clarifying the problem. . .

Et Incarnatus Est

I continue to maintain that children are the best theologians in the church. Case in point:

Last week, being (liturgically) the Baptism of our Lord, my children's sermon was about baptism. The kids and I talked about what happened at Jesus' baptism, and what happened at their baptism, how God named them and claimed them, and how anytime they want to remember they are a child of God and God loves them, they can find some water, make the sign of the cross on their forehead and tell themselves "(Name), child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever." Then we went to the font to try it out.

Today, as 2 year old Jindrah was coming forward for the children's sermon, he stopped right at the font (which is in the aisle, in the midst of the congregation). His older brother grabbed his hand and tried to pull him forward, but he stood right there and started to reach up for the bowl. He wasn't quite tall enough to reach on his own, but an adult sitting nearby realized what he was trying to do, and picked him up so he could stick his hand in the water. When they set him back down, he smiled at me and made the sign of the cross on his forehead, then came forward to join the rest of the kids. I smiled and nodded as he was walking toward us and said "That's exactly right, Jindrah, child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever."

My children's sermon (and adult sermon, for that matter) today was about call, and with the kids I talked about the story of Samuel, and how God calls even young people like them to be servants of God's kingdom. Later in the service, when it was time for communion, Jindrah came running up the aisle, completely excited to help out (we use a common pouring chalice with individual little glasses, and the younger kids hold the trays from which folks take their clean glass and return their used glass). Today was his first time helping, and he just couldn't contain his joy at being a part of it all - he was the theology of my sermon incarnate, I kept thinking to myself, "Would that we all respond to God's call in such a way!"

Plus, he was adorable as all get out - the tray was a little too heavy for him (especially as it was filling with glasses), so his dad came up and helped him to hold it, which he didn't mind at all, he was happy to share the experience.

What's even cooler is that I'm not the only one who noticed all this. As I was greeting people after the service, one of the adults who came through the line (who is normally my biggest fan) said "Pastor, your sermon was excellent as usual, but that little boy is the one who really brought the gospel to me today." I smiled and nodded, because I couldn't agree more.

Wade in the Water

Interesting things going on over at All My Children these days. Bianca (the youngest daughter of the show's diva, Erica Kane) is back in town, and she's engaged and has a new baby. That might not be so interesting in itself, except, you see, Bianca is gay.

Baby Gabrielle was scheduled to be "christened" this past week, and the first pastor scheduled to do the ceremony, who was clearly supposed to be a Catholic priest, refused to perform the baptism once he realized the baby was the child of a gay couple.

I realize such rejection is, sadly, more often the experience homosexuals have with the church than not, so it was good and accurate for it to be part of the story. Still, I found myself furious by what was happening on screen, and thought - were these real people - I would have tracked them down and offered to baptize the baby myself (Pine Valley can only be a couple hours from Lewisburg, at most!).

Turned out my services were not needed :) - by the end of the episode, La Kane had taken care of things and found a woman pastor with a sweet looking portable font who "christened" Gabrielle. I'm a little confused as to what tradition this pastor was supposed to represent - she wore black academic robes like a Methodist, but a banded clerical collar and a white stole like an Episcopalian, and the baptism itself was rather humanist - but what else can one expect from a soap?

In any case, I was curious to see what kind of chatter there was on the official AMC discussion board after all this, and it was very interesting - as may be expected, there were those who lauded abc for showing the discrimination gay people constantly face in the church, as well as those who defended the priest's decision and lambasted abc for picking on the Catholic church.

Even more interesting is how those latter discussions morphed into conversations about baptismal practices in general. One of the defenses of the priest was that, given that nobody in Pine Valley seems to be involved in a faith community on a regular basis, the priest was well within his rights to refuse the baptism (even though it was clear those weren't the grounds of his refusal). Several folks responded with stories of being denied baptism for their own children because they were not members of the church, and their analysis was simply that all the church wants is money, and if you're not willing to join and give it, too bad for you - no baptism.

Now, I can understand how these folks may have come to this conclusion. But let me give you the pastor's perspective on baptism.

And let me start by saying that I have yet to deny anybody a baptism, and I find it unlikely I ever will. I have baptized both children and adults, I have baptized people in families that are very active in my congregation, and I have baptized people whose immediate families are not active at all in the congregation (and who have never darkened the door of the church since).

Here's what baptism is not: eternal fire insurance. I know, lots of people, even highly churched people, treat it as such. And I suspect that's why a lot of people, even highly unchurched people, want to get their kids "done" (as some have called it), because they think baptism is some golden ticket into heaven.

That's not exactly how it works. Baptism, first and foremost, is a covenant. Primarily a covenant between God and the person being baptized. In the act of baptism God names and claims this person as God's own beloved child.

Now, does that mean that if you're not baptized, you're not a child of God? Absolutely not. But baptism is a very public declaration of this relationship with God - in front of witnesses, God makes this covenant with you and promises that you are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever. In other words - no take backs. No matter what happens. And that's a good promise to be able to cling to, especially on those days and in those seasons when your life is a mess, when you feel like you're drowning in mistakes, when your heart is broken, when you're overwhelmed by the darkness, when all others have abandoned you - in all times and places, it's good to know you can trust that God is with you and for you, come what may.

I believe this a promise that God wants to make publicly to everyone, and this aspect of the covenant is why I can't see myself ever denying a baptism, no matter how shady the motivations of the parents or the person themselves. For I hold with the prophet Isaiah that the Word of God never returns to God empty, but always, ultimately, bears fruit; and I feel it is neither my right nor my responsibility, as a member of the clergy, to stand in the Word's way. If anything, my job is to cast the Word out into the world and then do my best to keep myself and others from bungling it up.

All of that being said - the covenant between God and the person being baptized is not the only covenant being made that day. The parents, the godparents, and the whole body of Christ are also making promises to the one being baptized - significant promises to help the baptized learn the old, old story of God's deep love for and engagement with the world, to help them discern their role in this ever-unfolding narrative, and to help them wrestle with the deep questions of faith that will inevitably pop up along the way. We make these promises because we believe you can't do any of this on your own - you need the help and support of a community, and part of these promises are concrete commitments to life together - to worship together, and study together, and talk together.

So when folks who are not already a part of the community, and who, after conversation, clearly have no interest in becoming part of the community, come to me and ask for a baptism, I do stop and wonder why it really even matters to them - I mean, why bother going through this ritual and making promises that you don't intend to keep? That's basically making a mockery of the whole process - which is, you know, kind of irritating to those of us who take these promises seriously and hold this ritual sacred.

But in spite of this rub, one's answer to the question "To baptize, or not to baptize" ultimately comes down to which covenants one feels are most important. I believe, for the sake of the baptized, it is most important to make God's covenant with them a matter of graspable, tangible public record, because God's promises never fail, even when all our human promises fade and whither like the grass. And, as I said, I trust the power and efficacy of God's Word to find its way and bear its fruit in spite of all our attempts to bungle it. So I'd rather err on the side of grace, and consequently have yet to refuse a baptism, and doubt that I ever will.

But I can also understand the frustration of fellow clergy who are tired of trampling on the human covenants being made that day, I can understand their desire to raise the bar and reasonably expect the people making these promises to put a modicum of effort into fulfilling them.

And to those who've encountered such clergy, who have perhaps even been denied a baptism as a result of your unwillingness to meet whatever expectations were laid out by this clergy and/or their congregation - before you get all hot and bothered and start tearing down the church for not asking "How high?" when you said "Jump!," can I ask you to consider this possibility: that it is not so much about them wanting your money, as it is about God wanting your life, and them taking seriously what God has said from the very beginning, that it is not good for you to live that life alone? I mean, I wasn't there, I don't know what shook down, and I know there are clergy and congregations out there who do want to grow their membership just to get more coins in the coffer. So, your take on things may be entirely right. I'm just asking you to consider another side of things, in the off-chance you were wrong.

Whoo - that's probably enough about baptism, at least for today. I trust certain faithful readers and fellow members in the priesthood of all believers will correct me if I've spewed forth any heresy. :) And I welcome any further thoughts or insights on the matter - leave a comment!

Peace,
C.