28 Mar

Lenten meditation on John 5

Posted by Kerri Hefner in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , .

I wish I were blogging every day for Lent!  But my colleague Carrie Finch started a wonderful daily Scripture meditation for the Lenten season, which is great reading.  Here’s a link to it:  http://finched.tumblr.com/

It seems, though, that my thoughts this Lenten season are especially attuned to death and new life.  My grandmother recently passed away, and some people close to me are dealing with the death of parents and grandparents as well.  In each case, the dying person had been ill for some time, and at some point had ceased to seek healing in a strict clinical sense (through medications, surgeries, etc.)

So I offered these thoughts on healing during our weekly Lenten mediation at First Presbyterian on March 23.  I used John 5:1-9,which was the daily Gospel reading on the PC(USA) lectionary webpage:  http://gamc.pcusa.org/ministries/devotions/

(Since we preach without notes at First Pres, these are notes, not necessarily complete sentences!)

***

During Lent we often focus on themes of sin, cleansing, repentance, making ourselves ready to receive new life.  We give up ice cream or caffeine or whatever as a symbol of our internal process of clearing out everything that stands in the way of new life.  In addition to focusing on repentance, it is also appropriate to consider the issues of death, healing and new life in light of Christ’s journey toward the cross.

There are three ways of dealing with human suffering:

  1. Wallow in it.  Some people have accused the man by the pool of being a malingerer, someone who enjoys being sick and receiving other people’s pity.  They look at his complaint about not being able to get in the pool, and see a whiny person.  I’m not sure if that is the case with him, but it certainly happens with many people.
  2. Deny it.  My husband is a funeral director.  He sees a wide variety of responses to grief.  Certainly there are the families that overdo it and seem to wallow in grief.  But then there are the families that act like nothing happened at all.  And then there are the families trying to cover it all up with happiness.  It seems just as odd to him to bypass grief as to get stuck in it.  Anyway, can you truly wish grief away?
  3. Seek healing.  This is the often the most convoluted way to respond to suffering.  But it has the possibility of truly closing the door on sin, death, and suffering.  This man had lain at the pool for thirty-eight years, longer than Jesus had been alive. He was considered useless, a burden.  No one came to visit him and take him for a dip in the pool.  Sometimes he never even made it in.  Surely a healed, renewed life would be a blessing to him, but also would open a potentially scary wide door of possibilities.  What to do now?  How to make a living?  Go back to family?  He has the chance to take on responsibility — will he jump at the chance or run from it?  Jesus was very perceptive in asking him if he wanted to be healed.

If we wish to receive the new life offered by Christ, we must ask ourselves the same question:  do you want to be healed?  Healing isn’t a quick fix.  It may be a long process.   It may open more doors than we are ready to investigate, and bring up more questions than we are ready to ask.

Yet, in some sense we were born ready.  Although we are mixed up by sin, and taken down the wrong path from time to time, we were made in the image of God.  We were created to get up and walk.  If we allow Christ to dwell within us, then we live in the fullness of being who we were created to be.  That’s the ultimate goal of healing.  When the chance comes for that healing, for that return to our full self, may we say yes!

23 Mar

Don’t Know Much

Posted by Kerri Hefner in Uncategorized. Tagged: , .

When I was taking Russian courses in college (yeah, I know.  And I can’t remember more than three words now!) we used to sing this goofy song called “I Don’t Know.”  It gets stuck in my head all the time.  Here is the English translation:  “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know anything, it’s good, it’s good.”  Trust me, the Russian is more fun.

The song returned with a vengeance a while back as I listened to some guest speakers at our campus ministry meeting.  Some of them were so refreshingly honest about, well, not knowing much.

You see, I had invited the members of one of our church’s young adult groups to speak to the undergraduates.  I specifically invited the folks in the “older-young-adult” category (is there such a thing?):  folks who had several years’ experience with work, relationships, family, and so on.  I invited them to share their faith journey and reflect on the challenges of being a young Christian adult.

I thought they would give a bunch of sage advice to the undergrads, but they gave them something even better.  They reflected on what it’s like to travel the path of not knowing.  They shared experiences of relationships gone sour, job plans not working out, and worries over life’s big questions.

As I sat there listening, I couldn’t help but be a little stunned.  All of the guest speakers were highly educated, eloquent, thoughtful people.  How could they feel that they didn’t know much?

I think part of the answer is that we are all too focused on know-how.  If you’re an average American child or teenager, everyone asks you, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, and they are looking for nouns, not adjectives.  Throughout public school, you take a bunch of career assessments and classes that produce tangible results (i.e., scores on a test.)  Even the most elite among us, whom you’d think could afford not to worry about a career, are obsessed with getting their kids into the top medical schools, law schools, and investment firms.  Everyone worries about knowing how to succeed, how to make an A, how to get results.

But what do we really know?

Even in church we are hampered by the allure of know-how, and cheated out of our quest for knowledge.  One of the guest speakers at our campus ministry night talked about how she couldn’t really get started on a rich journey with God until she joined our church, where she learned it was OK to ask questions.  Apparently, previous churches had taught her all the know-how of getting a ticket into heaven and being a good girl.  Problem was, they stopped there.

Here’s one thing I do know.  If you try to go it alone, this journey toward knowledge is like trudging through a bog.  Our lives are a mixture of independence and interdependence.  No matter how many blogs and books you read, or how many inspirational podcasts and songs are coming though your earbuds, you need some traveling companions to help you find a clear path.  Another guest speaker talked about how he knew he couldn’t do everything on his own, especially after becoming a father.  I wish I could bottle his words and give them to every person who tells me they don’t need any help from anyone else (or from God.)

As I plan for next year’s campus ministry events, the idea of knowledge rattles around in my brain, just like the goofy song.  I hope I can help some students find their traveling companions.  I hope I can help them see past the world of know-how, and into the great mysteries of what it is to know.

25 Jan

Spirituality, Scripture, and the Art of Being Irrelevant

Posted by Kerri Hefner in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , .

Here it goes again.  Someone in my church universe just tossed the word “relevant” into the conversation.

That’s a word I hear pretty often.  The church needs to be relevant, people say.  I’m not exactly sure what folks mean by using that word, but I guess it means not looking old, or never saying something that seems foreign.

News flash:  the church is old!  The church is foreign to every time, place, and culture, because the gospel is a stumbling block to anyone who’s not one hundred per cent connected to God.  If you think about it, something about the church or its holy text has been labeled “irrelevant” somewhere along the road of history.   Consider these:

  • Galatians 3:28?  Irrelevant.  No one cares about females or slaves. (Except Jesus.)
  • Deuteronomy 24:19?  Irrelevant.  No one farms anymore.  (But we still have hungry people, right?)
  • Genesis 3?  Irrelevant.  No one likes to talk about sin.  (But what if I have sinned, and I can’t find anyone to talk to about it?)
  • Classical music?  Irrelevant.  No one finds any meaning in it.  (Except at Christmas.)

You get the point.  Everyone, even if they don’t want to admit it, takes in Scripture and faith and worship through a filter.  My question is, what’s relevant:  the filter or the stuff trying to break through it?

Along the path of spiritual development, particularly Christian spiritual development, one must confront the seemingly irrelevant stuff.  True spiritual development is stunted when we are content to surround ourselves with scriptures, prayers, and experiences that we like.  Somewhere along the way, if I want to grow in faith, I need to ask myself …

  • What does it mean to feed the hungry in 2011? 
  • What does it mean to be free?
  • If I feel connected to God in an expensive environment (plasma screens, poinsettias, orchestras, exquisite guitars) and not in a run-down country church, what is that saying?
  • Why do I sometimes feel that God isn’t there, but other times I feel God all around me?

Perhaps others find answers to these questions in their current cultural/economic/social situation.  Me, I have to go back to the old stuff.  Nothing speaks to me like words I’ve heard a thousand times in church, repeated just one more time for my ears that day.  Nothing brings me out of my bubble like a throwback to some ancient way of doing things.

I think it’s about time for those of us trying to be the church to claim our irrelevance.  Let’s be old, awkward, and weird.  We may just find God that way.

18 Jan

Trust: Part 2

Posted by Kerri Hefner in Uncategorized.

The issue of trust in God has been a huge factor in my faith formation and in my work as an ordained minister.

When I was sixteen, the first Gulf War began.  I had a good friend in high school who had been born in the U.S. to a Pakistani family.  Her entire family was Muslim.  She wore a head scarf every day.  No one ever said anything to her about it until that war began, when random people at the school began yelling “Terrorist!” at her.  She and her family were here in the U.S. to make a better life for themselves, not to participate in terrorist plots.  They renounced all radical forms of their religion, just as Christians have (or should have) renounced the Crusades and other forms of fundamentalist violence.  Walking through the halls of our high school was scary at times (I wondered if a mob would try to attack her), but I walked with her and sat beside her on the bus.  That was the first time I truly understood the mob mentality, as well as the helplessness of one person in the light of world events.  I had to make the decision to trust in God; otherwise, I would have been swallowed up in fear.

When I was twenty-six, with one year of ordination under my belt, we went through 9/11.  Following that, two wars, two recessions, and a decade of hostility almost everywhere.  Sometimes I pout when I pray, asking God why I was led to this time and place.  Why couldn’t I have been a minister back in the 1950s when everything was hunky-dory for average Presbyterians?  (I would have had to be a man, but pouting and feeling sorry for yourself isn’t always logical.)  Sometimes I don’t feel up to the task of ministering to people who are very afraid and depressed.  In fact, sometimes I feel as if I am in an alternate universe.  My peers and I have an abundance of cheap material goods, so much more than our parents or grandparents had in their mid-thirties, and yet we seem much more anxious than they were.  Our creature comforts are not addressing the deep anxieties we have.  I’ll have to admit, it’s hard to address this issue in 15-minute sermons or 2-minute prayers.

So I’ve had to relinquish a lot of worry in the last ten years.  I’ve been pushed to a decision point:  take the foggy-looking door out of a sense of trust, or take the clear-cut door of cynicism and fear.

Taking the trust door isn’t easy.  I can’t see anything past the door frame itself.  On top of that, I know that once I cross the threshold, much will be demanded of me.  If I’m going to live a life of trust, and preach trust to other people, I will need to work hard.  As I mentioned in my last post, I don’t like the “ain’t it awful” game, but it sure is easy to play.  If I’m going to trust, I cannot allow prejudice, hatred, fear, ignorance, or laziness into my sphere.  If I’m going to trust, I will need to train myself to see past all the mess people have created, to see the world as God sees it.

A few years after college graduation, a friend called me in tears.  Turns out he had trusted that his expensive college degree would rocket him right up to the top of the working world.  Yet, he found himself at the bottom, a regular working stiff.  He vented for a while, and then we talked about ways we could find reshape the story.  Now my friend is still in the business world, and I’m in my church world, but we have changed where we look for guidance and trust.  I keep that conversation in mind as I go forward, seeking to deepen a radical trust in the One who is faithful and true.

17 Jan

Trust: Part 1

Posted by Kerri Hefner in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , .

Late last year, someone offered me some unsolicited advice.  “You’d better enjoy life now, and enjoy life with your daughter,” he said.  “When she grows up, she won’t even know what freedom is, because the world’s being taken over by Muslims.”

I wish I could think more quickly in situations like that.  I stood there with my mouth hanging open for a few seconds, and then went on about my business (I was thirty seconds away from officiating a funeral.)

That ridiculous comment has weighed on me for several weeks, and it came back to me early this month.  My mother-in-law has posted some old family photos online, which are a delight to peruse.  Her family came from the Azores (islands belonging to Portugal), and settled in Rhode Island about one hundred years ago.  Here’s a picture of her mother and uncle as teenagers:

Here’s why I thought about the “Muslim” comment as I looked at these photos:  the two people you see here were victims of discrimination.  Not anything approaching the cruelty of Jim Crow laws or the Taliban’s regulations, mind you, but discrimination nonetheless.  Blue-eyed “white” people living in the Northeast used to think of Portuguese people as servants.  No self-respecting Anglo at the time would invite a person of Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, Greek, or any other southern European origin to a civic club or dance or business meeting.  Brown-eyed, olive-skinned people were supposed to live in separate areas of town and silently show up for work with their aprons or coveralls on.

When I look at the photo, I see people who decided that discrimination wasn’t going to get the better of them.  They chose to have a little trust.  Admittedly, I never met these two people.  From the stories I hear, though, it seems that they were tough and determined people.  My husband’s grandmother went on to move to North Carolina, raise a family, own a business, and own a home.  Folks may have looked at her funny down here in N.C. (“Where you from, anyway?”) but she didn’t let it bother her.

I choose to have that same attitude for myself, and for the sake of my little daughter with the Portuguese heritage, for the sake of my Muslim friends, and for just about anyone’s sake.  I refuse to spend my life worrying about bad apples.  I choose to trust that God can overcome.

I choose to trust in a God who can overcome poverty … discrimination … hatred … oppression … misinterpretation of holy words … poor decisions by governments … lack of economic opportunity.  I choose to trust in a God who brings people out of the desert, out of the lion’s den, and out of the grave.

I choose to trust in a God who can show me something new, and help me overcome my own prejudice.  I choose to trust in a God who works through “foreigners,” tax collectors, lepers, prostitutes, widows, orphans, and anyone else whom you might not appreciate if you have blinders on.

I refuse to give in to the twisted comfort of the “ain’t it awful” game.  It’s so easy to sit around and moan about how the world is going to the hot place in a handbasket.  I trust that God will give me a role to play in making the world better!

And you know what?  Even if the world is turned upside down by some hateful people, I trust that God will not abandon us.  Paul didn’t write Romans chapter 8 for fun.  Political power is always temporary, guns run out of ammo at some point, and warmongers meet the sharp side of the sword sooner or later.  God is forever.  I choose to trust in Him.

May the smiles on these two young people’s faces be shared by all, no matter what obstacles are placed in their way.

26 Dec

Sunday after Christmas: Time for a Change

Posted by Kerri Hefner in devotional. Tagged: , .

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered….

Thus begins the Christmas story so many of us are accustomed to hearing.  The story sounds regal and beautiful, and that’s no accident!  It begins with reminding us of the power of the Roman emperors to move people around at will.  It continues along a pattern we see whenever there is a royal wedding or birth.  I remember during the eighties, when I was a kid, seeing the photo spreads in grocery store magazines about the royal weddings and births in Great Britain.  Everything was documented in minute detail–down to the number of hand-embroidered diapers given by visiting diplomats–and made public to remind everyone what a monumental event just happened.

Luke details the birth, the first visitors, the announcement … but it all happened in a rough stable with poor people.  Each detail reminds us of two things:  how important the birth of Christ is, and how much God intends to change things.  (For a great article on this, see this from the Presbyterian Outlook in 2005.)

So as a spiritual practice to close out Advent and Christmas, practice paying attention to details.  Pay attention to where God is at work in every situation, especially the situations that seem the most hopeless.  Think about details, even the most minute, that God may want to change.  Where are you in the details?

24 Dec

Advent Day 27: Worship

Posted by Kerri Hefner in devotional. Tagged: , , , .

Advent Day 27

Young men and women alike, old and young together!  Let them praise the name of the Lord … (from Psalm 148)

Today is a great day to worship.

Yesterday I wrote about becoming part of a community of faith.  Tonight (Christmas Eve) there will be some beautiful opportunities to participate in a community as worshipers celebrate the birth of Christ.

Actually, for me this night is bittersweet.  In becoming a pastor, I’ve had to give up a cherished childhood tradition.  Some of my ancestors were Moravian, and the Moravians host a moving Christmas Eve service called a “lovefeast.”  For years, my family attended these services in the Winston-Salem, NC area.  I don’t live anywhere near a Moravian church and I miss attending those services.  If you live near one, go!

Yet tonight I get to have some fun dressing up as a shepherdess or Mary or some sort of “Bible woman” for our children’s Christmas Eve service.  Instead of robes, the senior pastor and I will wear the funny little bathrobe-type costumes we keep around the church for this occasion, and the children will dress up as people or animals from the Christmas story.

For me the children’s service is a chance to reflect on the meaning of worship.  By dressing down, I feel that I am putting away all my pretenses.  I am humble before the manger, in which lies a King.  I keep this image before me as I worship at other times during the year.

May your worship be humble and glorious tonight, and indeed every time you worship.

Today’s Scripture readings from the PC(USA):  http://gamc.pcusa.org/devotion/daily/2010/12/24/

23 Dec

Advent Day 26: Community

Posted by Kerri Hefner in devotional. Tagged: , , .

Advent Day 26

So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added.   They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  (Acts 2:41-42)

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve!  My last two posts (tomorrow and Christmas Day) will be centered more on Christmas, so today’s post is an attempt to wrap up all the thoughts on spiritual practices that I’ve shared.    In my preparation for this blog, I did a lot of praying and thinking.  Some Christian leaders are criticizing folks’ interest in spirituality, saying it’s too loose and self-centered.  At the same time, Americans’ interest in do-it-yourself spiritual and religious practice continues to grow. 

For me the big question is, what do you do once you realize you’re on a spiritual journey?  It seems to me you have two choices.

One, you can continue the journey on your own.  Thanks to the internet and huge bookstores with religion and inspiration sections, you can keep busy for a long time.

Two, you can throw your lot in with a religious or spiritual community.  In some areas of the world, you have plenty of choices; in others less.  Then again, there are also online religious communities (I haven’t tried that out yet.)

Actually, there’s a third choice:  do both. 

Being a part of a Christian community, in addition to developing my relationship with God on my own, has given me three things: 

  1. a chance to pray with others, for others, and be prayed for.
  2. time to break bread with other people.  I like to talk, and eating together is a great chance to do that.
  3. an opportunity to learn something, to throw out my ideas, and to discuss with other people.

I realize that not all religious communities offer these things.  Some are more about commands, or performance, or squeezing people into a box.  Yet for those of us who want to be Christian, it’s all there in Acts 2.

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed reading about and trying some of the spiritual practices I’ve described for the past several weeks.  As you move on, think and pray about a church/community you could join (or ways you could become more involved in your own community.)  Could sharing your thoughts, prayers, and meals take you to a new level?  Could opening the door to a church open other doors you had no idea existed?  Could it just maybe change your life?

Today’s Scripture reading from the PC(USA):  http://gamc.pcusa.org/devotion/daily/2010/12/23/

22 Dec

Advent Day 25: Leaping for Joy

Posted by Kerri Hefner in devotional. Tagged: , , , .

Advent Day 25

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.  And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?  For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.  And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”  (Luke 1:39-45)

The high school I attended offered plenty of advanced classes:  college-level math, foreign languages no other high school offered, and so on.  I think the best class in the entire school was the one taught on the Vietnam War.   In that class, a veteran-turned-teacher took us out to interview parents whose children had died in that conflict.  I had the privilege of interviewing a couple who had never received their son’s body.  All they had was a photo of medics helping a wounded man whom they believed to be their son.

A few weeks afterwards, I interviewed my uncle, who served in Vietnam, and talked to other family members with military experience.  This subject had never come up before.  Previously, we had only seen one another at family gatherings, where we made small talk.  That uncle attended my graduation from seminary, and I’ll always treasure the interview he granted me.

I wonder what Mary’s cousin Elizabeth was thinking as Mary approached the house.  What we get in Scripture is the happy ending to the story.  Did Elizabeth have doubts about Mary’s mysterious pregnancy?  Did she ever doubt her own?  What was the relationship between the two women like before Mary showed up for this long visit?  Whatever Elizabeth was thinking, she was joyfully interrupted by her own unborn child jumping and dancing in her womb.  Then she knew something spectacular was happening.

Will you attend a family gathering this year, or host one?  What will your reaction be as the guests assemble?  Are you looking forward to getting together with everyone?

If you’re a young adult reading this blog, try this:   get to know another family member better during your holiday gathering.  Chances are you have been sitting at the children’s table for years (literally or symbolically), never involved in adult conversation.  So claim your place!  Be the young Mary who visits her older cousin Elizabeth.  There may be undiscovered joy in this family connection. 

Today’s daily Scripture reading from the PC(USA):  http://gamc.pcusa.org/devotion/daily/2010/12/22/

21 Dec

Advent Day 24: In Your Own Words

Posted by Kerri Hefner in devotional. Tagged: , , , .

Advent Day 24

Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”  (Luke 1:38)

Today’s spiritual practice is another way of reading and studying Scripture:  rewrite a passage in your own words.

Earlier I gave you a study method that works better with narrative passages (like the story of the birth of Jesus), and this re-writing exercise works better with poetry and songs.

Try today’s reading from Isaiah, or Isaiah 9:2-7 (a traditional Christmas Eve reading.)

I love doing this exercise with two types of people:  those who excel at poetry and song-writing, and those who absolutely believe they don’t have that gift.  (I think everyone can use their imagination, and everyone enjoys beauty.)  It’s great to hear what the poets come up with; they can come up with something I’d like to frame and put on the wall.  It’s also beautiful to watch when the scientific, technical people begin to let their imagination out.   Technical folks write beautiful poetry!  They make sure it has rhyme and rhythm, they search for the perfect words, and in general they work really hard to make it right. 

Keep your re-written passage in your pocket or on your computer somewhere in a place where you can look at it from time to time.  Use it as a prayer.

Today’s daily Scripture reading from the PC(USA):  http://gamc.pcusa.org/devotion/daily/2010/12/21/

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