Recalculating as a Process Theology Metaphor

After a wonderful week of teaching Emotional Intelligence in an experiential learning mode (more on that in the next post), which included a module on process thought as a theological reflection partner for a relational leadership model, I was moved by the sermon I heard Sunday from my favorite preacher. Full disclosure: she's my wife, Rev. Deborah Fortel (shown at left), Interim Pastor at St. John Presbyterian Church in New Albany. Her sermon follows:

"Recalculating…"
Romans 8:29-28
St. John, July 27, 2008

We have a new companion in our car. It’s a Nuvi, a little computer that connects with a global positioning satellite and gives us directions that get us from one place to another. David’s two kids presented him with the Nuvi for Father’s Day, and having it with us when we were driving around San Francisco and northern California on our vacation was a great stress-saver. It’s like having the most skilled map-reader in the world with you, keeping you from getting lost, even if, like me, you are seriously map-and-direction-challenged. Now since David is a very generous man, and because he doesn’t do a lot of driving around for his work, he has let me use the Nuvi. The other day, when I got in the car, going someplace I knew perfectly well how to find, the Nuvi came on. Out of curiosity, I used the screen to direct the Nuvi to take me home, and then went off in a completely different direction…just to see what would happen. I pulled out of the church parking lot, and the Nuvi told me to turn right, but I turned left. Immediately, the computer voice, (a calm pleasant woman’s voice) said, “Recalculating.” And a few seconds later came the instruction to go 200 feet and turn left. But I turned right. And the computer said, “Recalculating.” And again gave me instructions to get me home. Again I went on my own way and again the computer announced that it was “Recalculating.” And again gave me different directions to follow. And so it went. I haven’t tested it out, but I really think that I could go 3,000 miles in the opposite direction and the Nuvi would keep “recalculating” and giving me a new way to get me home.
Now I always want to be careful about what kinds of metaphors I use for God, so I don’t want to push this very far – after all, God is definitely not a computer – although I might argue that God could choose to speak in a woman’s voice! Still, I think that God’s love for us and guidance to us is something like that GPS device. God has an infinite capacity to be patient with our mistakes, foolishness and outright downright sin – and God is always offering us a way to use our wrong turns and mistaken shortcuts to get us back on the path to the place we really want to go, recalculating over and over again on our behalf and for our good.
That is how I hear Paul’s often-quoted words from Romans, “All things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to God’s purposes.” (Romans 8:29) Paul means that God is at work in and through everything that happens to help us bring good from the events of our lives, and to guide us through even the most difficult and challenging times – even the ones we bring on ourselves
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Because it is sometimes easy to misunderstand Paul, I invite you to notice with me some things that Paul is not saying.

1. Paul does not say that everything that happens is good. And that is a relief to me, and probably to you as well. It would be very hard indeed for me to find any way to name as “good” all the hardships and sufferings in our world. Sometimes, of course, suffering and hardship can lead to learning and growth and we see it quickly. But sometimes as far as I can see they are only pain and hardship that may, in fact, sour and harden a person. Sometimes, tragedy is just awful tragedy in which nothing good can be seen – for a long time, if ever.
2. Paul does not claim that everything that happens is caused by God. The floods in Indiana are not the proof that God is utterly disgusted by our friends less than a hundred miles north of us, nor did God single out the children who died in the schools of China at the time of the earthquake and mark them for death. Natural disasters are the consequence of natural forces at work, sometimes worsened by human efforts to control the environment. Exceptionally heavy rains overflow riverbanks, and tectonic plates shift far beneath the surface of the earth. And bad things happen to good people and bad people alike.
3. Paul is certainly not suggesting that God is responsible for human evil. The long-delayed arrest this week of Radovan Karadzic reminds us of the origin of the terrible term “ethnic cleansing.” Karadzic is the man who planned the massacre of 8,000 men and boys in pursuit of “ethnic cleansing” of Bosnian Muslims. He is a horrifying sample of what humankind at our worst can do. Let us be clear that it was not God’s doing – it was human evil in a particularly dreadful form.

Through suffering and tragedy of every kind, God weeps with those who suffer and yearns over us and our world. God loves us persistently and waits for us to find our way back to healthy, peaceful, faithful patterns of life. When Paul says that “all things work for good for those who love God…” he is describing God’s way with us. God never gives up on anyone. And because of God’s great love for us, God is with us, partnering with us as we learn how to be God’s faithful people. And here is the most radical thing I will ever say: I believe that even Radovan Karadzic, even Adolf Hitler, even Osama bin Laden, could, if they only would, be encompassed by the love and mercy of God. No one is excluded from God’s love and mercy except by their own choice to turn away from the love of God.
Paul affirms God at work with us, in the hearts and souls of those who love God. God is involved with us, choosing to be for us and on our side, but choosing, also, to give us the freedom to keep taking wrong turns. God doesn’t wipe out our troubles or manipulate events. Instead, God stays with us. In the joyful times, in the challenging times, in the worst times we will ever experience, God is with us, and if we are able to listen for the voice of divine love, we will discover how even tragedies can become part of the developing pattern of our lives that moves us toward the good that God intends for us.
Some years ago I saw an exhibit of Chinese technology from the thirteenth century. What I remember most clearly is a special loom that was developed for weaving the very finest silk fabrics from silk threads as fine as a human hair. It is a two-person loom, constructed on two levels. One person stands on the upper level of the loom where the design is clearly visible. That person is responsible for knowing all the possible patterns that can be woven from the silk threads. The person who actually does the weaving is seated in front of the loom at the lower level. From the weaver’s vantage point the design is never seen clearly, for the weaver works on the side of the fabric that will become the inside of the garment. The person on the upper level of the loom sees the emerging pattern of the fabric, including not only variations, but also mistakes made by the weaver. The most important part of the task of the weaver’s partner on the upper level is to help the weaver incorporate any mistakes made into the design of the fabric so that new patterns emerge. And when more mistakes are made, yet more creative ways are discovered by the two working as collaborators in the creation of useful beauty.
And this, too, has become a part of the way I understand how God is with us. We do the best we can – and sometimes we do the worst we can – in weaving the fabric of our lives. We can’t see the pattern of the whole because we are in the midst of living. Often we get things wrong. Sometimes we deliberately muddle the pattern of our lives, but still God is with us, gently guiding us, and steadfastly loving us. There is, I trust, an overarching purpose of God at work in and through human lives and human history as a whole, but God is usually subtle and gentle with us. We can so easily close our ears to what God is saying…but no matter how far wrong we go, there is the divine voice saying gently, “Recalculating…” and offering us another way to create of our lives something good and beautiful, another way to find the place we most want to be. God yearns over us, urges us toward wholeness, and loves us into faithfulness. There is no end to God’s love, no mistake too awful to be incorporated into God’s great design, no way for any of us ever to be so lost that God cannot guide us home again.
“All things work for good for those who love God…”

Time for a new Gardiner Spring Resolution?

In the wake of the PC(USA) General Assembly Action to propose to the presbyteries that G-6.0106b, a paragraph of the denomination's constitution explicitly blocking faithful, monogamous lesbian and gay members from serving in church office, the next discussion is about what will happen in the presbyteries. More specifically, the discussion is focusing on whether pastors, members and whole congregations, like the New Wineskins group, who have been talking loudly for the past two years about withdrawing from the denomination will take this action as a prompt to go ahead and leave, or whether some in that group will decided to stay and "fight" this latest move toward a more inclusive and open church.

My own passion on this discussion leads me away from my usual pro-union position--I was a strong supporter of the reunion of the southern and northern streams of our tradition in the 1970's and 1980's. Today I'd like to start a thread of this discussion about whether we should craft a new "Gardiner Spring Resolution" for our presbyteries.

This is a real departure for me, because I'm usually critical of the action of the 1861 General Assembly which adopted the resolution of the Rev. Dr. Spring (shown above, from reformedpersepectives.com), pastor of Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City, requiring commissioners to pledge allegiance to the "integrity" of the United States of America. It seemed to me to be an unnecessary hurdle that led to the split of the north and the south.

Practical theology leads one to reflect on current situations and re-think theological views and political strategies. Thus I'm now moving to a position that would prevent anyone who is planning to withdraw from the denomination from voting in a presbytery's deliberation on the proposed constitutional amendment to remove G-6.0106b. In other words, should we create a resolution that requires a statement of allegiance to the PC(USA) in order to vote on that amendment.

My practical theological reflection includes another piece of history, more recent than Gardiner Spring. In the preparation for Presbyterian reunion in the 1970's and early 1980's, a group of conservative southern Presbyterians were appointed to the Reunion Committee in order to assure that their perspectives were considered in the plan for reunion. Rev. Andy Jumper, pastor of a prominent congregation in St. Louis MO, was part of that group. He used his considerable persuasive power to frame and shape the Plan of Reunion and the proposed new constitution in his image. Then shortly after reunion was enacted, he led his congregation out of the denomination. I still feel the anger of betrayal in that set of actions, and that anger and reflection on that bit of history prompts me to raise this question for discussion.

Not that any of us can ever predict our future actions, but we can be more honest and transparent about our current intentions. If I were planning or hoping to withdraw, I would personally recuse myself from voting on that constitutional amendment. Since I'm not planning on withdrawing, I would be happy to pledge my allegiance to this denomination.

Presbyterian Stated Clerk Heritage--Gradye Parsons

There's a kind of historical joy in seeing a new Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) elected and installed at the recent General Assembly meeting in San Jose. Gradye Parsons has been a very popular member of the staff of the outgoing Stated Clerk, and did a very fine job with the question and answer time on the floor of the assembly.

I'm reflecting on the half-century of memory I bring to this event, starting with the saintly Eugene Carson Blake of the northern stream (shown at bottom). He sort of set the tone for both ecumenical and social justice stances that marked the denomination for the middle part of the 20th century. It was Blake who envisioned the Consultation on Church Union, for example. He was succeeded by William P. Thompson in the northern flank of the family. Jim Andrews (with the white Beard) was clerk of the southern stream at the time of Reunion and Thompson and Andrews jointly oversaw the early years of reunion. Andrews was chosen Stated Clerk afterwards and he retired and was succeeded by Cliff Kirkpatrick. Blake, Thompson and Andrews have all since died.

Although, since reunion, the social justice role has been severely limited, the ecumenical roles have continued. Blake, Thompson and Andrews were all presidents of the National Council of Churches, and Kirkpatrick is president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.

The Stated Clerk is the chief ecclesiastical officer, with oversight of the denomination's constitutional polity, the connectional system of governing bodies, and the national meetings, and serves as primary parliamentarian for the biennial General Assembly. The Clerk is a major public face of the denomination and the kind of personal and spiritual presence that each of these men has represented serves us well.

Welcome to this grand succession of great leaders, Gradye. I offer prayers of intercession for your strength and courage for the days to come!

Welcome to this grand

Gemstones and Lifelong Learners

Listening to Janice Catron lead the last Spring Bible Study session on the Revelation of John, which she calls a "letter," with reflections on the gemstones in Rev. 21:19-21,I went off on my own little rabbit-trail of my own. Henry Ward Beecher, brilliant and controversial preacher of the 19th Century (shown above with his own "mullet" taken from http://www.chi.gospelcom.net/) was said to have been drawn to beautiful jewels. He apparently talked his wealthy benefactors into loaning him beautiful precious gemstones (shown here in an image from euphoriagems) which he carried around in his pockets, and would take them out and admire them and show them around to others. He said, in reference to the Revelation image, that these stones were a foretaste of the good life God intends for God's people.

Now I am not particularly drawn to jewels, but I believe I understand what he was thinking and feeling. I'm more drawn to the depth of beauty of God's people as they grow and allow themselves to be transformed in lifelong learning. Each learner refracts the light of God's creative energies, and shines in infinite variety of colors with the fire of that energy.

So I encourage us all onward toward a summer of reflection and learning with the words of Philippians 1:14-16: "In everything you do, act without grumbling or arguing; prove yourselves innocent and straightforward, children of God beyond reproach, in the midst of a twisted and depraved generation--among which you shine like stars in the sky, while holding fast to the word of life."

What's God Got to Do with It--control and command management style

I'm continually confounded by church organizations that are run according to the old command and control management style. You know the style--it's pyramidal, with control starting from the top and moving down, preventing individual freedom and encouraging homogeneity, saying "no" more than "yes," and generally keeping the lid on creativity. Yes, I'm talking about mainline protestant churches and church organizations that shall remain unnamed in this post. How do you go about loosening them up, encouraging more openness, more transparency, more flat organizational accountabilities, more ability of the people who are doing the work having the authority to made decisions, including financial decisions about their areas. Shall we offer more training, more organization development consulting? I'm afraid these initiatives are doomed to failure.

The aha moment I had recently was that the problem is not practical or managerial but theological. We have created organizational structures to match our perception of God. Those who believe in an "omni" God (omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, who is never changing, perfect and beyond passion, those are the ones who are stuck in an organization that mirrors that construction of God: Controlling, Punishing, rewarding, Demanding, Inaccessible--like the angry god in the picture above.

I think it takes a theological reformation to recognize that God might be primarily: Creative, Relational, Loving, Freeing/empowering, Vulnerable, Changing, Discernible, Transforming. Then we might be able to recognize the ability of an organization to organize itself around the gifts and passions of its people and to be a good steward of its capital resources for the sake of its people and of the environment.

It takes a nod to process and liberationist theology to move an organization forward into a future-thinking mode so that something creative can happen to open up a church or church agency to love and relationality.

My reading of Catherin Keller's new book, On the Mystery (Fortress, 2008) helped me to begin thinking about the connection between theology and management styles. What do you think?

Siblings Wrestling Over Homosexuality

Hearing Margaret Farley, the Grawemeyer Prize winner in religion, talk about sexual ethics, prompted me to ask her what she thinks has made homosexuality the key issue in denominational and cultural battles in the last 30 years. "Why this particular issue at this time?"

She gave her usual calm, clear but well qualified and nuanced response about the loosening of sexual norms in the sixties and early seventies, which led to some people being able to recognize and talk about the fact that they love someone of the same gender. That experience and the co-relative experience of those who have family and friends who are gay and learn to love and except them, led to a deep shaking of the foundations of sexual identity. This shaking, because it is so fundamental, has become extremely threatening to some who "pull the shades" on that topic and insist on holding on to and enforcing the old norms and moralities. This identity crisis makes dialogue about the topic very fraught with difficulties.

I appreciate that Farley's notion of identity crisis is much more generous and graceful than my thinking. I think my thoughts are similar, however, in that I recognize that the acceptance of homosexuality challenges traditional standards of male dominance in which the male is active and the female is passive (also part of Farley's analysis), and the assumption that a man engaged in sexual activity with another male makes one of them "passive," and thus threatening to male identity.

This helps fill out my image for what's happening in the mainline denominations, particularly my own PC(USA). It seems to me that one way of understanding the conflict over homosexuality is that we are having an ongoing fight between siblings, well known in family circles, in which the siblings have engaged in the battle for so long that they cannot imagine either stopping the fight or separating. The background for the two positions could be simplistically put that one side is holding on to traditional moralities due to the threat of gender identity crisis, and the other side is pushing for loosening the traditional moralities due to their experience with persons who are gay or lesbian.

The Biblical story of the sibling rivalry between Jacob and Esau is the model. They struggled within the womb (Gen. 25:22), they were born with Jacob refusing to let go of his brother's heel, and they spent their lives in a wrestling match. It is not accidental that Jacob dreamed of wresting the angel on the night before he met his brother again after many years (Gen 32:22ff).

It's not a pleasant image, and I'd be happy to replace it with a more hopeful story (although the last word on the Esau-Jacob match is that they cooperated in burying their father--Gen. 35:29).

Justice Love and the Grawemeyer Award

http://www.grawemeyer.org/religion/index.html

20 years ago, the Presbyterian Church (USA) considered a study on sexual ethics in which the criterion for good/bad, right/wrong was the concept of "justice love." The General Assembly, the denomination's highest governing body, turned it down--because it did not conform to conventional moral views of a majority of commissioners. I was mighty sorry that happened.

Thus it is with great pleasure that I let you know that Margaret Farley will be on campus this week to receive the Grawemeyer award in religion for her book on sexual ethics. See the link for more information.

Farley is a Roman Catholic, religious, Yale Scholar, well known to several of our faculty, and she takes a very carefully developed stance that justice is the basic issue in sexual ethics! Imagine that. And it is this very Presbyterian seminary that's giving her the award.

• Here's the basic information for you:
  Members of the LPTS community have the opportunity to meet Margaret Farley and hear her speak this Wednesday and Thursday. Margaret is the recipient of the 2008 Grawemeyer Award in Religion, for her book Just Love: A Framework for Sexual Ethics. Other distinguished guests will also be on campus to help celebrate Margaret’s receipt of this prestigious award, including Harold Attridge, Dean of Yale Divinity School, and Frank Oveis, former editor at Continuum (the publisher of Just Love). In addition, our own Kathryn Johnson is returning from Switzerland for the occasion. You should also plan to attend!
  
  Margaret Farley will be lecturing in the chapel at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, preaching in chapel at 10:10 a.m. on Thursday, and speaking in Frances Adeney’s class at 11:00 a.m. on Thursday (in 122 Schlegel—community members welcome).
  

If you've been hankering for a more complex and progressive perspective on sexual ethics, this is for you!