Sunday Prayer: October 7, 2012

God of all nations,
We thank you for this day when we join our sisters and brothers around the world to share the feast that declares our oneness with you through Jesus Christ.

We do not process to your table in clouds of incense from richly-worked golden censors
– but other Christians do.

We do not dance around your table, stomping our feet and swaying back and forth
– but other Christians do.

We do not come weak-kneed to your table having stood through hours of worship before receiving bread and wine
– but other Christians do.

We do not offer spices at your table: fragrant sweet wood and glossy nutmeg and sharp cloves
– but other Christians do.

We do not meet in secret at your table, murmuring the words quietly for fear of the guns
– but other Christians do.

Creative and engaging God,
fill us with awe at the intricacies of the church that you are knitting together in love. Teach us to look beyond the familiar and to be captured by your church universal where we shall pray with one voice. Amen.

Dr. Dawn Boelkins is Assistant Professor for Biblical Languages at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. Ordained to the gospel ministry within the Reformed Church in America in 1987, she has ministered in local congregations. She also has taught biblical languages for over 15 years at Western Seminary to those who desire to be pastors themselves. Most recently, Dr. Boelkins served the Second Reformed Church, Zeeland, Michigan, for seven years with her husband, the Rev. Dr. John Schmidt.

Get Off My Lawn, Thou Knave

From Debra Rienstra

By an odd coincidence, the late William Hazlitt has been haunting my steps this week. The old gent showed up by previous arrangement in my creative nonfiction class, as the syllabus called for my students to read his essay titled “On the Pleasure of Hating.” He just happened to appear simultaneously in my Shakespeare class, too, with his intriguing opinion that A Midsummer Night’s Dream oughtn’t ever be performed. Doing so, he thought, only ends up ruining a perfectly wonderful poem with the silly and inevitably disappointing business of the stage. Keep in mind that Hazlitt died in 1830, long before the sort of high-tech marvels modern theaters can pull off.

I have only barely made Mr. Hazlitt’s acquaintance, but this week at least, I have found in this loquacious curmudgeon a sympathetic companion. “On the Pleasure of Hating” is a “classic of spleen,” according to the editors of The Art of the Personal Essay, and I’m dismayed to find how readily I fall in, at least this week, with the dark assertions of this 1823 diatribe.

In the human heart there is a “secret affinity [with], a hankering after, evil in the human mind,” he writes. We take “a perverse, but a fortunate delight in mischief, since it is a never-failing source of satisfaction.” So far this son of a Unitarian minister sounds like your standard total-depravity Calvinist. But these sentiments are hardly followed up with a pious call to repentance. Instead, Hazlitt allows himself to survey this state of affairs with some relish. “Pure good soon grows insipid,” he admits. We love hatred because it’s interesting, exciting, full of energy and drive: “There is no surfeit of gall; nothing keeps so well as a concoction of spleen.”

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Morning Thanks--a sermon

From James C. Schaap

She interrupted my sermon. . .but then, I'm not a preacher. I'm a teacher--or I was a teacher. When I stood before them in that little church last Sunday, I was probably far less a preacher than a teacher, and I honestly think that what I did wasn't even all that much of a sermon.

Mostly, it was a lesson, even something--it's true--of a lecture, a lecture on missions, the history of a mission, a mission in the Zuni pueblo, Zuni, NM, a mission that little tiny church has supported for probably a hundred years, even though they haven't thought about it much for decades. In a way, in this lecture, I was offering them thanks for all that giving, if that makes any sense.

So anyway, I'm preaching or teaching or whatever it was, and, quite naturally, I suppose, she simply raised her hand, as if this was school. Maybe it was. She raised her hand towards the end of this sermon/lecture/lesson because she had something to say, and I called on her, just as I have a thousand times in a classroom. I had to--she'd raised her hand.

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Feast of St. Francis

From Thomas C. Goodhart

There is a legend told in the “Little Flowers of St. Francis”—often referenced by its Italian name, “Fioretti”—of the town of Gubbio in Umbria in Italy and a wolf. As the story goes this wolf was a menace to the community, terrifying to all, going about eating not only the citizen’s flocks and herds, but the citizens themselves. Then one day Francis of Assisi came to this town, had compassion for its people and animals, and took it upon himself to go have a talking to this big bad wolf. The legend tells that the people were so fearful of the wolf that even as Francis and his companions went up into the hills to confront it, the companions were so filled with dread that they abandoned Francis leaving him to encounter the wolf by himself. But when he did encounter the wolf Francis made the sign of the cross and spoke to the wolf, "Brother Wolf, you do much harm in these parts and you have done great evil. All these people accuse you and curse you...But brother wolf, I would like to make peace between you and the people." So Francis and the wolf went to the town and there a covenant was made between the people of the city and the wolf: the wolf would no longer attack its citizens or flocks and the people would in return keep the wolf regularly fed. Francis even blessed the wolf.

Obviously, what is suppose to come across in this story is how cool Francis was. He did become a capital-s Saint after all. But I think it also speaks to—mysterious and complicated as it may be—the genuineness of the wolf.

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Learning how to be Christian...from Drag Queens.

From Jes Kast-Keat

I am always looking for jams to flow through my ear buds when I’m out running. This new beat has been on repeat as my feet hit ground and run:

You need to know that I adore RuPaul.

This week on my facebook newsfeed, my clergy colleague who serves another congregation, put a picture of Sahara Davenport (Antoine Ashley) on his wall expressing how sad he is that his friend, Antoine, has passed away. I watched Sahara Davenport compete on RuPaul’s Drag Race season 2. Even though I was not a friend of his, like my clergy colleague, I am sad to hear about her death.

I have another friend who has shared stories of the 1960’s in New York City when he and his drag queen friends would hang out. He told me about the abuse and the hate crimes and we lamented how there are still too many hate crimes today. My friend shared stories about his drag queen friends who were catalysts in the Stonewall Riots of 1969, which began the LGBTQ liberation movement.

I dig learning about the history of New York City. One of the recent documentaries I watched is called Paris is Burning. This film chronicles the 1980’s African American and Latino transgendered and gay drag ball culture. It is a well-done documentary. Both as a film and a piece of education I highly recommend it to you.

You need to know I adore drag queens.

In fact, I believe some of drag culture embodies so much of what I would hope for any Christian.

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