Tuesday, October 30, 2012

October 28 Worship: "He Went Thataway"

Our worship on Sunday morning was filled with good spirit -- likely because it was such a bright, beautiful Fall morning.  We continued our celebration of Month of the Ministry by focusing on our "named" ministers, Renee, Chuck, and yours truly, and then we went into our annual congregational meeting, handling the important responsibilities of electing new officers and approving the 2013 budget.

I also began our four week series, "Jonah: Lone Wolf Prophet of God."  As I said, more than once, I believe that we can learn a lot from Jonah because his reaction to God's leading is similar to how we sometimes react to God -- with reluctance, fear, or the impulse to flee.  The story of Jonah is a story that highlights missed opportunities, and I hope we keep that in mind and imagine how we can avoid missing opportunities in our own lives of faith.

If you missed Sunday's sermon, if you'd like to listen to it again, or if you'd like to share it with someone else, you can find an audio recording here.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Pray for Mission in Syria

This week we pray for the ongoing mission to Syria, where the ongoing unrest is creating dangerous situations and encouraging refugees to seek safety in other countries.

You can read more here about the current chaos in Syria, a situation which has elicited emergency aid from Week of Compassion and other relief agencies.

There are Christian missionaries serving on our behalf in 70 countries around the world.  Each week, Global Missions highlights one of these missions and asks the wider church to pray for its continued vitality in spreading the Gospel.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Coming Up Sunday, October 28

This Sunday, we will conclude our October celebration of the Month of the Ministry by celebrating several people who have worked hard on Eastgate's behalf -- in addition to celebrating our titular ministers (Minister of Music, Minister for Youth and Young Adults, and me), we will also pay tribute to our board officers -- given that unforeseen technical difficulties prevented the video message I had recorded from being played in worship.

We also will begin our next sermon series, "Jonah: Lone Wolf Prophet of God."  Over four weeks we will study the entirety of the 4-chapter book about Jonah, who seemed stumble as a prophet because he sometimes tried to impose his own decisions in place of the prophecy given by God for him to share.  (Does that sound like something you and I also try to do?)  This week, we will focus on the first chapter, where Jonah receives God's call and immediately runs away -- which is both an understandable and a laughable response, when you think about it.

Also, the annual congregational meeting will be held after worship this Sunday to elect officers and approve the 2013 budget.  Our Nominating Committee and Stewardship/Finance Committee have done much good work to prepare these things for the congregation's consideration.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

October 14 Worship: "A Living Sacrifice"

On Sunday, we enjoyed a special celebration of Eastgate's ministry over the past year as part of October's Month of the Ministry.  In addition to publicly thanking the service of the deacons and the ministry chairpersons, a key part of the sermon focused on a presentation of many of the ways that Eastgate has tried to live out its Christian service in the past year.

As we concluded our sermon series "If We Are the Body...", based on Paul's image of the church as the body of Christ, we considered how Paul may have believed that such a description was not merely metaphorical.  Drawing upon his introduction to the image in Romans 12, I suggested that Paul might have imagined that Christians could in some ways physically represent the crucified/resurrected Jesus Christ.  While this may take the argument too far (or might also be an over-reading of Paul), it does encourage us to imagine what we can do if we pool our God-given talents and passions together.

With that in mind, I shared many of the activities of Eastgate over the past months, relating them to our vision of "Seeking God, Sharing Christ, Serving Others."  The compiled list is impressive, describing the life of an active and generous congregation, and one that is particularly concerned about giving in support of worthwhile ministries and social services in our community and beyond.  It is a reminder of the opportunities we have, even with our limitations, to help others (and even ourselves) by actively engaging with God and striving to be faithful.

If you missed Sunday's sermon, if you'd like to listen to it again, or if you'd like to share it with someone, you can find an audio recording here.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Pray for Mission in Guadeloupe and Martinique

This week we pray for Tim Rose, our missionary to the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique.  Tim serves the Protestant Reformed Church as a Pastoral Assistant for Diaconate Ministries and a Prison Chaplain.

You can read more about the mission to Guadeloupe and Martinique here, including the challenges faced by youth on the island due to significant economic challenges.

There are Christian missionaries serving on our behalf in 70 countries around the world.  Each week, Global Missions highlights one of these missions and asks the wider church to pray for its continued vitality in spreading the Gospel.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Coming Up Sunday, October 14

On Sunday we will celebrate Eastgate's ministry over the past year, as part of the Month of the Ministry.  We will consider some of the ways that we have tried to live out our vision of "Seeking God, Sharing Christ, and Serving Others."  We will also acknowledge the many people who have guided our efforts in specific ministries.

In addition, we will conclude our current sermon series, "If We Are the Body...", which has looked at the metaphor for the church as the body of Christ.  Having explored the image from many angles, including the meaning of Christ's resurrected body and the bread of communion shared as the body of Christ, we will now consider how our bodies are a part of the body of Christ.  Taken from Romans 12, we will see how our bodies are each "A Living Sacrifice" that mirrors Christ's physical sacrifice through our service to others.

Following the worship service, we will share a fellowship dinner as part of our celebration.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

October 7 Worship: "My Body, Broken"

On Sunday, we celebrated World Communion Sunday by considering the roots of the Lord's Supper in the Passover Seder meal.  We enjoyed wonderful music from the choir, including two solos and another duet, and we honored the service of our elders as part of our Month of the Ministry celebration.

The sermon on Sunday was a reflection of the meaning of Christ's words at the Last Supper -- "This is my body" -- in conjunction with the metaphor of the church as the body of Christ.  A big part of the reflection of the sermon, entitled "My Body, Broken," is drawing out some meanings for communion through its roots in the Jewish Passover celebration.  In particular, it is important to understand that this relationship implies that Jesus imagined a day when followers in many places would celebrate Communion as a sign of unity, despite the distances of space and time.  This is an important piece of the "re-membering" of Communion, the way in which it tries to take the different parts of the church -- you, me, and all other Christian believers -- a put us together into one entity, one body.

If you missed Sunday's sermon, if you'd like to listen to it again, or if you'd like to share it with someone, you can find an audio recording here.

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Pray for Mission in Kenya

This week we pray for Phyllis Bird, who serves as a missionary in Kenya.  Phyllis serves as the director of Just Communities Program for the Organization of Africa Instituted Churches and coordinates young adult volunteers for the Presbyterian Church and short-term volunteers for Global Missions.

You can read more about the mission to Kenya here, including a prayer for protecting the children of the country.

There are Christian missionaries serving on our behalf in 70 countries around the world.  Each week, Global Missions highlights one of these missions and asks the wider church to pray for its continued vitality in spreading the Gospel.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Coming Up Sunday, October 7

On Sunday, we will celebrate World Communion Sunday, an ecumenical date when several churches covenant to share the Lord's Supper on the same day.  Given that we gather at the Lord's Table every time we worship, we will make our celebration special in different ways, including by using different types of bread.

Sunday is also the beginning of our Month of the Ministry celebration, which will last throughout October.  This week, we will show appreciation for our elders and their ministry.

The current sermon series, "If We Are the Body..." will continue with a focus on Christ's description of communion as a sharing in his body and his blood.  In previous sermons, we have focused on the wholeness of the body, as in last week's "Scarred, Not Broken."  This week, we will explore the importance of Christ's words to his disciples at the Last Supper in "My Body, Broken."  As I prepare, I believe that the most important word is "my."  But we'll consider that on Sunday.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Movie Review: "The Master" (2012)

The Master; (2012), directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams.

Each year as a pastor, I preach on religious themes in four or five summer movies as a way of highlighting the overlapping of theology, ethics, and popular culture. Though such themes are common in movies because they are a common part of the cultural fabric, it is unusual for a film to depict these themes explicitly in a faith context.

“The Master,” the latest work by writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, brazenly steps into these controversial waters, offering a glimpse into one man’s encounter with the charismatic leader of a new religious movement, impeccably played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. While religious themes have influenced Anderson’s other films, especially the dramatic Biblical plague at the climax of “Magnolia,” the new movie seems to be a stylistic meditation on the nature of faith itself.

To be sure, some can argue the film merely serves as a cautionary tale about the danger of Scientology or other recent movements commonly regarded as cults.  On the surface, there are strong similarities between L. Ron Hubbard’s Scientology and “The Cause” of Lancaster Dodd (Hoffman), often referred to as “The Master” in the movie.  Dodd’s claims to be an author, scientist, and moral philosopher, and the psychological processing techniques depicted in the film, along with the discussion of aliens and “a billion year” time-frame, seem reminiscent of descriptions of Scientology. (There likely are other parallels to Scientology, but these are outside the knowledge of those who have little interest in Hubbard’s movement.)

The magnetism of Dodd is experienced by Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix, returning to form after the bizarre “I’m Still Here” experiment), a recent World War II veteran still looking for direction in the postwar years. The trauma of war seems to have taken a significant toll on Quell, leaving him with a hair-trigger temper and an insatiable taste for low-quality home-mixed hooch and sex with random women. After losing his job following a spectacular blow-up and getting suitably sloshed, Quell crashes a party on a docked boat. Rather than be evicted, the stowaway is invited by the intrigued Dodd to travel with the group on the long voyage from California to New York.

During this trip, Quell becomes part of the group surrounding the charismatic leader, including Dodd’s wife Peggy (Amy Adams) and two adult children. While Quell undergoes his first taste of psychological processing, he also is privy to the peculiar dynamics of those closest to The Master. Dodd’s son is part of the team, but has little interest in accepting his father’s teaching; at one point, he bluntly says of his father, “he’s making this up as he goes along.” Dodd’s daughter seems willing to shape her views and behavior in ways to please her father.

Peggy, though, is more strong-willed and influential. Rather than simply being the encouraging presence behind the great man, she is at various times the promoter, defender, and even prompter of her husband. She is the first to raise doubts about Quell’s presence on the boat, wondering if he is a plant whose purpose is to spy and undermine the movement. Intriguingly, though, at one point she seems to be dictating part of Dodd’s second book as her husband furiously types away during the long voyage.

By the time the group arrives on the East Coast, though, Quell has become the self-appointed protection detail for Dodd. This leads him to track down a man who belittles Dodd’s movement at a New York dinner party, knocking on his apartment door in the middle of the night and beating him. It also leads to an altercation with police in Philadelphia, when they arrive to arrest Dodd on charges of fraud.

The middle section of the movie exposes the dangers of charismatic movements, where different people revolve around the central leader. Quell’s violent outbursts are unnerving to the intellectuals who generally are attracted to Dodd’s teachings and methods, but these people are unable to remove Quell from the group because he has The Master’s favor. This dynamic leads to subtle power plays by those seeking to influence the central leader, and it also highlights the tenuous relationships for everyone in the movement with Dodd, which are subject to change at the leader’s whim – as is discovered by a true believer who has the temerity to question one word change between Dodd’s first and second books, prompting an immediate and ugly response.

It would be easy for someone who values faith to see this movie simply as a cautionary tale about cults at the fringes of religious practice. The film certainly does this, especially in a wrenching scene where Quell is forced to continue a public processing exercise to his breaking point. However, the impact of The Cause on Quell, demonstrated by the movie’s final section, suggests a direct challenge to the practice of faith in any form.

At the end of “The Master,” one is left with a significant question: How has Quell’s life changed in any essential way? The process of identifying some of his self-delusions – a process that lies at the heart of most religions, including Christianity, and was elegantly stated by Plato in The Republic with his Allegory of the Cave – seems to allow Quell a moment of self-actualization to break free of The Master and The Cause.  It also helps him cope, in a more socially acceptable way, with the unresolved feelings stemming from a relationship before he shipped off to war.

Quell’s experience does not, though, fundamentally change his nature. At the end of “The Master,” he is still without much direction in his life, except in his appetites for alcohol and sex. The only difference after his exposure to Dodd’s methods is that he behaves in a slightly more civilized way in pursuing his taste for liquor and women. This conclusion seems supported by the echoes of a previous scene with both Dodd and Quell, where Dodd’s temper is controlled in a gentlemanly manner until it is suddenly unleashed rather brutally.

This offers a direct challenge to people of faith. Does personal involvement with religion fundamentally change perceptions and behaviors or does it simply smooth the hard edges? Does faith transform people beyond their self-delusions or does it simply teach them to live out those self-delusions in more genteel and socially acceptable ways? And how can you prove it either way?

These provocative questions were firmly before me after watching “The Master,” a movie that offers many more questions than answers. Only Quell has any semblance of a narrative arc from beginning to end; ambiguity hovers over much of the story and its characters.  Some viewers will find the lack of typical story and straight-forward character development off-putting, as will those offended by strong language, graphic sexuality and nudity, and violence. But the well-scripted and well-crafted film, filled with excellent performances, offers those not easily swayed tantalizing ideas and unsettling questions.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

September 30 Worship: "Scarred, Not Broken"

On Sunday, we gathered for a warm worship service featuring a special song from the Bell Choir.  We also geared up for what will be a busy October, learning about the Disciples Women's next service project to collect Christmas gifts for children to be distributed through Community Services League.

During the sermon, we continued our exploration of Paul's metaphor of the church as the body of Christ by considering the resurrected body of Jesus, most famously described in the encounter between Thomas and Jesus.  In "Scarred, Not Broken," we considered what the church could learn by admitting the scars that it bears from past sins.  The church has grown by admitting its mistakes, including recent ones involving such things as child abuse and theft, into an organization better able to prevent such betrayals of trust.

During the sermon, we watched a brief video offered by the Fund for Theological Education, which appeals to young people to consider being more active in the church despite its institutional shortcomings and previous sins.  That video is posted below the sermon link.

If you missed Sunday's sermon, if you'd like to listen to it again, or if you would like to share it with someone, you can listen to a recording here.