A couple of nuts and bolts

I mentioned Grace & Peace Fellowship in a previous post. Here's a link to their homepage. I was there at the beginning, in Ted and Gladys Smith's living room on Washington Street, back in the days when one had to walk up to a stranger's door on Sunday morning and simply open it (because the talk and noise inside was too much to allow people to hear door knocks) to attend Sunday worship.

I've added a label, "church food" to the bottom of my church food posts (duh!). Click that and you can ignore all the rants about electronic banking, etc.

Next Step for Queen Mary

That whole "everything is a sacrament" idea came from reading Robert Farrar Capon's books, for example Supper of the Lamb. It really does change the way I look at such disparate things as marauding deer and encroaching weeds.

One of my enduring memories of Grace & Peace Fellowship, the church in St. Louis where we had 52 potluck dinners every year, was that nothing was fake. We had real china dishes, not paper plates. Squeeze margarine was forbidden. Bread was the genuine stuff. Dinner was more than a way to get fed after church; it was a theological decision to share our lives and express our understanding of the Kingdom of God. And "potluck" really meant potluck. There was no arranging. Nobody assigned main dishes, etc. Whatever people brought we ate.

One problem we had, which is similar to a problem in Mansfield, was quantity. People like to think of a potluck as a free meal. More than once at our local church, I've seen a family of four show up for dinner with a two-cup portion of green beans (or sometimes two cans of beans still in the can!) as their potluck contribution. It would be interesting to see what supper is like in that house. Do the four people somehow get by on the equivalent of two cups of beans? Or do they eat something else? Perhaps more.

Next question

Let's assume we've got the idea that God actually likes the natural creation and likes the idea of people sharing food. What's next?

Perhaps I've been unjust in accusing national radio personages of preaching isolation, but the message came from somewhere. One of my friends tells me that a church elder approached him at his wedding reception (this was a decade ago or more) and said, "Now it's time for you to dump your friends and concentrate on your wife." My dear friend W was a frequent companion for coffee, evenings of TV, and hikes in the park. Then he found a wife and I never heard from him again. And anyone who has been to a GFC potluck remembers the whole idea of "family tables," particularly if you have been told that you can't sit with someone because they are trying to reserve a table for their own family.

Now the threatening question: does an emphasis on hospitality split and endanger families?

It is really difficult to have a rational discussion on this one, particularly because the conservative side of the USA spends a lot of attention on paranoid, hysterical rhetoric. It seems that absolutely everyone who isn't on my Form 1040 is an enemy. Everyone is aiming at undermining the core of MY family. Nobody is on my side. I need to be very bristly and keep everyone on the other side of the door. Maybe with a gun.

Nothing could be much further from the spirit of the New Testament. The New Testament believers seem to have been open, friendly people who would share their belongings with others, people whose lifestyles were so attractive that nonbelievers were attracted even before the theology and tracts began. Apparently, they actually thought God would take care of them when they spent their money and time on strangers.

Or consider the example of Jesus. He had close friends and was such a frequent dinner guest that the more "proper" religious folks were scandalized. It wasn't just the preaching. Religious authorities objected to his social life. He acutally liked being with people, even the less clean ones.

OK—now the real next step

Few of us actually know anyone. Even among fellow church members, a dinner invitation would be a frightening matter of picking a random name from the church directory. So we need something a little less intimidating, something that doesn't seem to challenge the encapsulated nuclear family structure. The next step must:

• not make me feel like I'm going to be judged
• not raise the defenses of those who are afraid that everyone wants to invade their family space
• feel natural—at least to some extent
• somehow build on existing relationships
• somehow be an on-ramp to something more.

The one-shot "dinner with a stranger" thing last summer was a pretty good idea, but it only happened once. How about something continuing—perhaps as simple as having coffee after church in a place where people can actually sit down? Maybe even with generous cupcakes and muffins?

Turning the Queen Mary

One friend responded to my post about church hospitality and said it would be like "turning the Queen Mary." I hope the comparison isn't too close because the Queen Mary has been immobile since 1967. If a ship isn't going anywhere, it can't be turned.

I can think of a lot of places to begin, but one is a change in our attitude toward the meaning of stuff.

What, exactly, does the physical universe mean?

A lot of Christian answers have been proposed, many focusing on the Christian's task of avoiding "the world, the flesh, and the devil."

Neo-Amish Abhorrence
Some of us have taken the attitude that asceticism is the way out of the world-flesh-devil trap. White bread is always better than chocolate cake—on a moral level. Doing anything just for the fun of doing it is to be avoided because, at root, a Christian must avoid all frivolity. I don't know what it would be like to get an invitation to this sort of household for dinner because dinner parties are, by definition, fun, and to be avoided.

Didacticism
Everything is here to "teach us a lesson." A trillium isn't just a beautiful flower, The point of its structure is to give us something to use in teaching people about the Trinity. Dinner with this crowd is like a Seder service. Everything has a meaning, which must be exhaustively (and exhaustingly) explained.

Recruitment ploy
The only point of life is to bring people into the Kingdom, so everything is part of a great advertising come-on. It's all very similar to those Ponzi organizations like Amway. We're only interested in getting you in. God's only interested in getting you in. Dinner with these people is wonderful, but once you sign on the dotted line, you're pointless. No more dinners. (Note: Does this sound like the way churches use the "Alpha Course"?)

It's all burning soon
In some people's view, the entire physical universe is some sort of short-term experiment on God's part. It's pointless to worry about global warming because the world won't even be here in another five years. So drive your Ford Expedition. It's God's will for us to dominate and use up the natural creation. I suspect that dinner with these folks would have an enormous abundance—even waste—but there's not a great deal of respect for stuff in this view. This one doesn't seem to see God's love for his creation, and easily goes to Wal-Mart and craft show accumulation. Dinner? Pre-packaged mixes.

Everything's a sacrament
Christians over the ages have battled about the number of sacraments. Seven? You're Roman Catholic. Two? A Protestant. Dozens and dozens? Perhaps you're an Episcopalian. Saint Augustine defined a Christian sacrament as "a visible sign of an invisible reality." If we really follow that one up, coffee, brownies, and a friend is some sort of sacrament, a sign of God's love and provision. And if we get off the theology that sees God as a grim, nasty preacher and begin to see him as he really is—a lover—we've got something. His first words after creating the earth were "Mazel tov!" ("Good luck has occurred.") And, being Jewish, the next obvious thing to do would be to pour a glass of wine to celebrate.

Shifting from Episcopalian to Presbyterian, the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism is "What is the chief end of man?" The answer: "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever." I like the "enjoy" part of that, and surely part of the "glorifying" is to love what God loves. To be really blunt, God loves wine and bread and a good dinner and friendship.

Moment of Revelation

Christmastide is here, and along with it all the great music. One that I love listening to is Sir John Tavener's "The Lamb." Spooky, haunting choral music. The versions I have are included in collections that have a lot of Latin, so I never did listen closely until this morning. It's William Blake's poem, "The Lamb."

Another "Oh My Gosh!" moment.

(Yes, yes, I know. You all knew all of this already.)

Terrorism vandalism

At the risk of overdoing things, I share my thoughts on terrorism.

Apparently (though I don't want to add to the jump-the-gun hysteria) that Army doctor is guilty of killing 13 at Fort Hood. And according to some witnesses, he shouted a Muslim slogan as he began his attack.

I began wondering about terrorism just after the September 11 attacks, and I asked myself just what they were attempting to prove. Classic warfare, for example the US attacking German positions during WWII, focuses on taking out military targets to achieve military objectives. We blow up bridges so troops and equipment can't come to fight us. More recently, and more problematically, we use rocket attacks to attempt to kill the leaders of guerilla armies.

But what was the September 11 attack trying to achieve? What would the Army doctor's attack accomplish? Nearly 3000 people died on September 11, but there were certainly a lot of New Yorkers (and Americans) left. My internet connection faltered slightly because Web had a major hub in the World Trade Center. Discover Card gave a grace period of about a month to cardholders because so many records were screwed up. That's about it. The USA was nowhere near being brought to its knees. Fort Hood, one of the largest military installations in the world, has more than 33,000 people. Killing a couple of dozen, none of whom were exactly key to the operation, didn't cause a hiccup in the ongoing military operations.

The closest analogy I can come up with is schoolyard vandalism. To the twelve-year-old mind, the best response to a teacher who is giving a bad grade is to let the air out of her tires. That's certain to deal with the child's problem in spelling. And of course, it will deal a death blow to the entire educational enterprise and the child will have peace. Nope. And the child is probably smart enough not to claim credit for the tire vandalism because he knows he'll simply be sent to the office.

Yes, Muslims in the Middle East are victims of terrible privation, some of it at the hands of Israelis and Americans (and lots of it at the hands of fellow Muslims who differ only slightly in some theological fine point). And yes, the concept of tribal warfare is high on their list, so any member of their tribe has a right to kill any member of our tribe and it's somehow a fair transaction.

But ultimately, this bloodletting is about as reasonable as breaking the school's windows because the child can't learn the multiplication tables.

The beat goes on

Yesterday was payday at Ashland University, so I asked a colleague how they tell us about our direct deposits. Easy. They send an e-mail a couple of days before the actual payday. The problem was that I didn't get an e-mail.

So off I went to the business office, and there was my check, waiting for me.

Enemies and hospitality

I've been thinking deeply about hospitality and the lack thereof in the Mansfield church.

When I moved here from St. Louis, way back in 1977, I was coming from a tradition where hospitality was one of the treasured characteristics of the local congregation. We had a potluck dinner every Sunday, 52 times a year. Parties were common. People would go to each others' houses for dinners, for dessert, for an evening of board games, or for an evening watching TV together.

None of that happens in Mansfield. I doubt if, throughout the congregation, more than six shared dinners happen in any month. Maybe there's one potluck a year. Maybe we miss a year. (We do use congregational meals as fundraisers: big pots of generic spaghetti for $5 per person.) To be perfectly fair, there's a congregational dinner in March (catered) and many years a Christmas and/or "Halloween" party. But often those don't happen.

Why so little action?

Some would say it's because people are too busy, and I can believe that. Nearly everyone home schools or has kids at the private Christian school, and both are extremely time-consuming, but I don't think that excuse covers those whose kids are out of school.

Dr. Dobson and some local leaders have pushed the idea that family is so primary that absolutely any outside activity is wrong (and of course, having a friend over for dinner is a deduction from the intense one-on-one time of the family).

Some say that entertaining is too expensive—though the price tag for a pot of coffee and a plate of brownies from a mix isn't that high.

And of course, there's the pietistic thread in the local church, saying that no human activity is worthwhile unless it's specifically (and didactically) religious. Thus we have all those past barbecues that turned into hymn-singing evenings and the New Year's party that's just a prelude to a prayer meeting. And to tell the truth, there are just so many of those meetings that a person can stand in a month.

But I think there's a more basic reason we avoid hospitality.

I think it's fear.

We've been soaked in the idea that outsiders are a threat, and we've bought it. Of course, there's the threat that if one were to invite a Jew or a Muslim for tea and cakes, somehow there would be a theological battle or perhaps the Christian faith would be shown up as false or something. So of course the Jew and Muslim are off the guest list. And if we invite the nonreligious neighbor in, he might do something nonreligious—might tell an inappropriate story or something. And if our kids got to know that Jews, Muslims, and the nonreligious can occasionally be interesting people, our kids' faith would be weakened. They wouldn't see the Christian faith as the only lifeboat in a sea of terrible people.

But that's not what I want to talk about.

We're afraid of other Christians. Not just the demon Catholics or the accursed Presbyterians or the heathen Lutherans. Our very own kind.

I've been told that people are afraid to come to my place because it's an apartment (which means "tenement" which means "housing project" which means you'll get knifed in the hallway). One of my few visitors asked to see the expiration dates on the food I was offering. I've never had enough money for a cleaning lady, so my carpet is needing shampoo right now.

And of course, almost every fellow church member I can name has some sort of food allergy, food fad, or some other food fetish going. One can't be anywhere near anything artificially scented. Another must never eat anything containing any form of sugar. Yet another exists entirely on mangosteen juice. And of course, there's an implied judgment (you put SUGAR in your cake???). It doesn't take much of this stuff before a person simply locks the front door.

I know others have suffered similar insults. Chapters such as Romans 14 and I Corinthians 8 really don't carry much weight around here. It's sad, really. "Keeping oneself unstained from the world" by avoiding all human contact outside the nuclear family is kind of boring.