Reminiscing...

A summer of dreams was spent mostly healing up from surgery on a torn ACL in my left knee, which in turn made my summer quite uneventful.  The hardest part of the summer then became my expectation to work with the ELCA National Youth Gathering and help with their multi-cultural event, which was in New Orleans, Louisiana.  I still had hoped to participate, and waiting to see if I could heal up enough to make the flight, a week or two from the dates in July I had to resign from my post.  A crushing blow, but the right choice.  Coming to Austin in early August, I was greeted with stories of the gathering from my pastor and some youth.  A little bummed out at what sounded like an amazing experience, I decided with the help of some parishioners to be proactive with these experiences.  I went and printed out a bunch of their photos from my pastor and kicked off our youth group with a memories session at the local Taco place down the street.  It helped create conversation of what they wanted to do with their experience as they came back to their normalcy here in Texas.  For me being a person who lived in New Orleans for 6 months, I was so happy just getting a chance to hear their stories and ask questions with knowledge of where they had been.  I was also able to tell them some of the stories and history that I learned while I was there.  New Orleans played such a big role in my story of getting to seminary.  It was the first time that I really understood and felt a definitive call to pastoral ministry. My National Youth Gathering in high school was also in New Orleans and I remember many memories still today that personalized my faith.  I was so happy for the opportunity to reminisce and talk about that experience as well as hear about how different and unique their experience was in the same place.  What a great way to kick off the year and think about all the things we want to do with our youth.  Giving them ownership and a chance to grow out of their experiences.

God's Gumbo

Last night I spent a good hour and a half on the verge of tears. I walked into the Superdome and felt the electric energy of 33,000 youth all excited to listen and praise and dance and share in what it meant to be the physical manifestation of Christ in one place in the city of New Orleans.

I am lucky to know two of last night's speakers personally, the Rev. Yehiel Curry and the Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, and both of them had poignant things to say to our youth (and adults!) who were gathered together.

Rev. Curry is a classmate of mine at LSTC and shared a word of welcome with everyone in the dome. He reminded us of the rich history of Gumbo-a dish of welcome. Gumbo, made of all sorts of meat, veggies and spices looks an awful lot like a giant dome shaped bowl of the Gumbo of God, we were reminded. And he went on to speak to those people who were definitely-abled, republican, democrat, disinterested in politics, black, white, brown haired, blonde haired, black haired, gay, straight, male, female, open minded...reminding us all that we were an important part of God's Gumbo, and without us the entire gathering, and I would say the entire Church, would be lacking.

And then Nadia came on stage, sharing with us that she grew up in a church where "they didn't want her flavor in the gumbo," something that I have experienced too. She was turned off to the church and was perfectly fine with walking down a path of destruction, knowing she would die before she was 30. Fast forward to 2012, and Nadia told us that she did not deserve to speak to us, and that the parents who had doubts were probably right...there's no way a tattooed, recovering alcoholic, who had 20 years before gotten a tattoo in the living room of a junkie, should be able to talk to 33,000 high schoolers. But, in her words, "that's the God we are dealing with, people." Because we are dealing with a God of transformation and new life!

Indeed, we have a God that welcomes all people into the gumbo, knowing that every single child of God is important to enhancing the flavor of the kingdom of heaven on earth. We have a God that is less interested in us climbing some pious spiritual ladder of religiosity and a God that is more interested in climbing down the ladder to where we are. We have a descending God who claims us as God's own because of Christ, who climbed down to earth to dwell among us, the pious and the spiritual junkies alike, to share the love of God.

Our God is a radical God, one who transforms us and blesses us so that we can boldly proclaim the good news of Christ to all people. And we, the crazy Lutherans, can be proud to roll up our sleeves here in NOLA and do God's work with our hands as Citizens With the Saints!

Citizens With The Saints

Today was an early day of training for the Community Life team in New Orleans, we had to be at the convention center at 7am to start our day. After a couple hours of safety lessons, questions, laughs, yawns, and coffee we got a chance to meet up with all the other volunteers to worship together and participate in a commissioning.

I'm always amazed when you get a bunch of Lutherans in a room together, how alive music and worship can be, from singing harmonies (even when there are just words on a screen) to gathering together around one table to be fed and nourished with the Body and Blood of Christ. And I got that opportunity to swallow grace another time today, a couple hours ago, in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome with about 100 volunteers. We sang Holden Evening Prayer, read scripture, passed the peace, and once again shared in the Body of Christ which we were reminded is given for everyone. Not just those people who are super energetic, or who are participants, or who are administrators, but everyone is invited to share that meal together, and everyone is invited to live in the constantly flowing and ever abundant grace of God.

It is that grace, which is given freely from the table, which flows forth from fonts, which brings us to New Orleans this year, and encompasses the theme of the week: Citizens With The Saints. In a world where walls divide us from each other, both physically and psychologically, the word "Citizen" conjures up very specific images to all of us. And that is what is so great about the theme, and the scripture that encompasses the entire Gathering:

Jesus is our peace. In his life and death on the cross, Jesus broke down the dividing walls so that we are no longer strangers and outsiders, but we are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God. The foundation of God's house was built of apostles and prophets, and Jesus, the cornerstone, holds it all together.

Ephesians 2:14-20, Gathering Paraphrase

These words are just as radical now as they were in the first century because division, and the "us vs. them" mindset is not new. Thinking in terms of "we" has never been comfortable, or easy, for any of us. And that is where Christ comes into our lives, in the midst of chaos and strife and walls, Christ IS our peace. Christ is our peace and comes to us in such unlikely ways, in food and drink, and in a bath. It is those times, when Christ is present in our midst through Word and Sacrament, that "us" and "them" simply do not exist. It is only "we". It is only citizenship with all the Saints.

It's good to live in the "we" this week with 36,000 other people!