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And nothing was thrown

Posted on August 22, 2013 by megancastellan

I’ve been in Kansas City for just shy of two weeks now. Everyone keeps asking how I’m settling in (quite well, but where’s Target again?) how the unpacking’s going (also well, but they should invent boxes that vaporize the minute they are emptied), and how I’m finding my way around (not so well, but that won’t ever change, and that’s why God gave me Google Maps and a grid system. Amen.)

So far, school has started, daily chapel has started, I’ve celebrated all Sunday services, and I’ve preached all Sunday services. Everyone also asks me how all this has gone, and truthfully?

One of the odd, somewhat difficult, things about ministry is that there’s no reliable yardstick for something going well vs something going poorly. There are extremes, of course, and those are fairly easy to spot. When someone stands up and demands an immediate retraction of your most recent sermon, that’s a sign of…something. When the congregation breaks into applause, post-sermon, again, that’s a sign of something.

(Though you could argue that a good sermon will sometimes get walkouts, and a sermon that advocates atrocious theology will get applause if it’s couched right, so–the problem still remains.)

I think everything has been going fantastic, or at least, I’ve been having a blast. Everyone has been so friendly and welcoming and outgoing and amusing. But I can hardly say that every time someone asks me how it’s going.

So I usually point out that so far, no one’s thrown anything at me. A good sign.

Here’s what I said on Sunday.

August 18, 2013
Ordinary Time, Proper 15, Year C
Luke 12: 49-56

One of my hobbies? I guess you could call it, is social media. Things like Facebook, and Twitter, and all the different and new ways we have found in recent years to communicate.

So I was fascinated to read a few weeks ago, that the rise in social media has led to a psychological state that scientists have dubbed “Fear of missing out.” It’s the worry that whatever you are doing right now is fine, but someone else is doing something much more fun somewhere else, and you’re missing it. (It’s like the idea of the grass always being greener on the other side of the fence, but now, since you can see EVERYONE’S fence, it’s tempting to believe that EVERYONE’s grass is greener than yours is. And because you can see everyone’s life, all the time, via Facebook, all their triumphs and achievements, it’s really tempting to believe that everyone’s life is 100x better than yours is.)

And the end result of all this comparison can be, according to the social scientists who study this sort of thing, an increasing inability to make decisions. Apparently, we want so badly to make the correct decision, the coolest, the best, the greenest-grass decision, that we don’t make any decision at all. We just choose neutrality, inaction time and again.

And there are times when that is fine. Sometimes we need more information before we make a decision. Sometimes deciding feels premature.

But sometimes, we read this gospel.

This is not a neutral-type gospel.To say the least.

This is a gospel in which Jesus has some definite…OPINIONS.

Jesus has been preaching and teaching and healing and doing his work for a while now, and still getting the same responses from the crowds. A lot of people are listening to him, but not really doing much, not engaging. Throughout the gospels, there’s this persistent dividing line between those the writers describe as the crowds and those called followers of Jesus: people like Peter, Andrew, Mary Magdalene, Martha, and others.

And while the followers of Jesus, y’know, follow him around, the crowd basically has been trailing him and asking questions, but then not doing anything. They witness healings, they hear him teach, but it doesn’t really seem like much is sinking in.

Now it’s not that they don’t like him! The crowd really likes him a lot–if they didn’t like him, they wouldn’t be trailing his every move through Galilee. They like his miracles and his feedings and his healings, each time he performs a new healing, he is mobbed by the crowd once again. And they acclaim him, and they marvel at his wisdom and authority. It’s not that Jesus isn’t popular with the crowd.

It’s that the crowd hasn’t decided anything. Or they have, but they don’t want to commit, one way or another. They’re sort of one foot in, one foot out. First century FOMO, in a way.

But the problem is, belief in Jesus requires commitment of some kind. It requires action. That’s what belief is, real belief requires action. Belief in the biblical sense, means giving your heart to something–not so much the intellectual assent to a fact. Facts don’t need belief, they’re standing fine on their own, they don’t need you to sign off.. People need belief, relationships do, ideas do. You need to believe in your spouse, in your kids, in your friends, in your ideals.

And that belief, that way that you put your trust and your faith in them, changes how you live your life in a very real way. It requires you to act in certain ways–you show your trust and faith in certain ways, through certain behaviors towards your spouse and your kids. And you show your ideals through things like not stealing, not killing people, not cheating, things like that. (Hopefully.). Belief means action.

So when we say we believe in Jesus, what we are also saying is that we are committing ourselves to act in certain ways, because that belief has to change our life. That belief has to move us from one of the crowd to one of Jesus’ followers. That belief has to shape and mold our lives so that we begin to pattern our behavior on what Jesus lived and taught.

Believing in Jesus means we actually need to commit to some things. We need to feed the hungry, and take care of the sick and the poor, and care about what happens to people halfway around the world, and people the next street over, and what happens to this earth God made for us. We need to work to see the image of God in each and every person, and honor it.

And all that is a lot to take on. The nagging problem about committing to things, be it a party invitation or a religious proposition, is that something could go wrong, and then where are you?
Inevitably, in our walk of faith, as we try to do as Jesus did, as we commit to belief and following Christ and all it entails, we are going to mess up. We are going to fall short. And head in the wrong direction, and make the wrong choice, and figure it out too late, and then feel awful about it.

But that is not a reason not to try. That is only a reason to try again. Because as often as we get it wrong, God forgives us and gives us another chance. As often as we miss our chance, God gives us yet another one.
The same God who calls us to a committed life, also holds us up and gives us an endless opportunity to try again. The God who calls us all to form our lives on the pattern of Christ also supports us when we give it a shot.

God always picks us up, dusts us off, and asks us to try again. God calls to live committed lives. Lives of abundance. That are full of risk, yes, and ups and downs, and twists and turns.

But God never calls us to something and then abandons us. God calls us to an abundant life in Christ.

There’s nothing neutral about that, and there’s nothing more exciting.

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Yes, and….Part 2

Posted on August 3, 2013 by megancastellan

If you’re just joining us, you can read Part 1 here. You can read Rachel Held Evans’ original post here.
And now, there’s more!

3. There are Millennials who like to go to church.

Sweet 7lb, 9oz baby Jesus.
There actually are young adults in our churches. We are not Bigfoot.
But, honestly, it does, on occasion, become exhausting to go to a church (even one where you are, say, the supply priest for the week) only to hear how “You really should be out having fun, not being in boring old church! You’re way too young for this!”
Or “Wow. I only expect to see folks like you here after they get married and have kids! How old are you anyway?”
Look:
I like church. I’ve always liked church, ever since I was a baby. Seriously. There are colorful things to look at, there are pretty songs to sing. There is incense sometimes. Sometimes, there’s stuff to light on fire.
Church is how I learned to read, and it’s how I learned to read music. It’s how I learned that people other than my parents liked me. It’s where I got lollipops every week when I was a kid. It’s where I learned to speak in public, and read aloud, and not gag on wine.
This is not counting the mystery, transcendence, and magic, and beauty, and transformation, and awe and wonder.
So, please, do me a favor. Next time you see someone you don’t expect at church, someone who surprises you….just tell them that you’re happy that they’re there. And assume that they’re there to enjoy the same experience of God as you.

4. Millennials do stay. We should find out why.

This was wisely pointed out by Meghan Florian who points out that most young adults are in the church now because someone invited them in: asked them to join the Altar Guild, or teach a class, or help with something, or run for vestry. (She doesn’t say it, but this would be where programs like Young Adult Service Corps and Episcopal Service Internship become vital.)

But also, it should be stated, it starts before that.
I stayed in the church because when I was eight, I decided, in my childhood wisdom, a.) that my church needed a Christmas pageant and b) the reason we didn’t have one was that no one had written one yet. (My logic had some holes.)
Therefore, I took it upon myself that summer to write one, on my parents’ typewriter.
For whatever reason, I decided it needed to be a modern interpretation. Mary and Joseph were teenagers, who wore very ugly clothing, which prompted their removal from several chain hotels, before finally giving birth in the parking garage of a Doubletree Inn. Then, “they wrapped him in oily rags, and laid him in a hubcap.” (It goes on from there.) (There may be rapping involved. It was the early 90s.)
Not knowing what to do with me, my mother told me to show our rector my story. To his eternal credit, Fr. Ted did not immediately expel me to the outer darkness where dwell those who mock the Glorious Birth of Our Dear Savior. Instead, he laughed really hard, and said, “Oh great! Now we have a Christmas pageant!” He threw the weight of the church behind it, and we performed it that year. (And Fr. Ted went on to be bishop in Kentucky.)

As a result, in later years, when I was told that I was too young to have written a newsletter article, or I was too young to consider ordination, I didn’t hear it as the church telling me No. I heard it as evidence that the church was momentarily broken, so I should hold out for a bit, or else, fix it. Because the church wasn’t really like that. And sure enough, I eventually found a church community that thought me plenty qualified to write and seek ordination and do pretty much whatever else.

Moral is: when you welcome people (ALL PEOPLE. Even, and especially kids.) and treat them like they’re important and valued members of your community, then they will generally come to love and value your community in return.

And isn’t that what Jesus would do?

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Yes, and…Part 1

Posted on August 3, 2013 by megancastellan

Rachel Held Evans, whom I read like it’s my job, wrote a piece for CNN that now has everyone discussing Millennials and The Church in even more ponderous tones than is normal for this discussion.

If you haven’t read it yet, you should. It’s great, and points out some important dynamics at play right now (I.e. authenticity and depth are important, put not your faith in praise bands or skinny jeans, etc.)
Basically, she says clearly, concisely, and calmly, what any college chaplain or young adult in the Episcopal Church has been saying for YEARS. (With loud voices and emphatic hand gestures, but that may have just been me.)

And now, us here in the Interwebz must add on to the conversation, for that is what we here in the Interwebz do.

So then, a few things I feel should be said:

1. No, this isn’t just Millennials.

Lots of people are leaving the church, and have been leaving the church.
Silent generation folks, GenXers, GenZers (because that’s a thing now, too), even Baby Boomers are leaving.
And all for different stated reasons, and all for different personal triggers, but I think it’s safe to say that a trend is emerging right now that unites a lot of people. The status-quo church is not embodying the spirit of Christ as effectively as it should. So it’s experienced as hypocritical, and, accordingly, people are leaving. That’s not new.
What’s new is two things: now the slow drip of loss is enough to affect our status as “established and privileged” and, by dint of being the largest generation since the Baby Boomers, Millennials just leave a bigger footprint than GenX did when they did they exact same thing.

2. And also, we talk about it.

Arguably, one of the markers of the Millennial generation is a major shift in the divide between what is seen as public and what is seen as private.
A silly example would be Facebook statuses; a more serious one would be the current push towards transparency in government and the Arab Spring.
I’m not kidding. At the national training for IAF, it was this public/personal discussion that split my small group along generational lines, with the younger organizers arguing vehemently that it was dishonest and disingenuous to work with people and claim to represent them if you couldn’t be at least somewhat honest about who you were and what you believed. This was authenticity, we maintained. There was some buy-in, but for the most part, the older folks in the room thought we had lost our minds, and were overexposed, trying to live in our own TV show. Too much Internet, the trainer diagnosed.

My point is this– the gift of the Millennial generation may well be that we are, as a classmate ahead of me in seminary put it, “whiny and confrontational” but in the best way. We name things!

If we feel unfulfilled in church, if we feel like there is something missing, we won’t just let it lie. We won’t just continue to attend in silence. Or church-shop continuously, in a slow round of disappointment. We will take to the blogs, the Internet, Twitter, etc. Because this is a generation raised to talk it out (ad nauseum, occasionally.) What everyone else has been feeling for a while, we will actually name. We shall talk until we reach some conclusion.

And we don’t consider it a taboo subject any longer.

I have more to say about this, but I’m in the middle of moving right now. So come back tomorrow, and behold!
There shall yet be more on this topic.

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Have Red Shoes, Will Move to the Midwest

Posted on July 16, 2013 by megancastellan

By now, it’s become social-media official:  as of August 1, I am leaving Flagstaff for the flatlands of the mid-Midwest, and a new call in Kansas City, Missouri.  I will be the Assistant Rector, and Day School Chaplain at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Kansas City.

 
I am excited about this, I really am.  The new parish is awesome.  They announced my birthday on Facebook with a math riddle.  They think my social media habits are amusing, and not terrifying.  When I shrieked like a toddler over discovering that the start of the Oregon Trail video game was actually in Kansas City, which meant that MY OXEN TEAM WAS NOT DEAD YET, OH MY GOSH, they did not count this against my obvious maturity and ability to be a functioning ordained person in God’s one, holy, and apostolic church.  (Gold star. Seriously.)  And they also have an amazing commitment to outreach and social justice, and sense of humor, and I can’t wait to work with them.  
 Image
But while I’m thrilled to start this new chapter, this also means I have to leave.  And I do not care for leaving.  Leaving means goodbyes, goodbyes imply loss.  
 
Leaving is never pleasant.  
For one thing, because moving requires me to truly come to grips with how many shoes and books I own, and reveal that information to unsympathetic movers.  (When I moved to Flagstaff, the mover made me promise to never move to a walkup higher than first floor again.  Or else sell every single book I owned, “because, lady, this is excessive”)
 
But most especially because leaving a place that I have liked as much as this one is never easy. 
The quirky, sweet parishes, the supportive and wise ministry colleagues, and the amazing, inspiring students, who have all conspired to make this job a joy-filled one each day, and who have taught me so much about persistence and bravery, faith and community.
 
I have been blessed beyond words to have been the chaplain here in Northern Arizona for the past few years, and part of the story of this place.  Now the story of the chaplaincy here moves on, and my own story moves on.  
But the wonder of stories like this is that they never end, not truly, and nothing is really lost.  As God spins out our stories, they carry forward all the fragments of who and where we were before, into the future that God envisions.   
So the imprints of the people we meet, the experiences we have are never far–even as we move on.  It always gets woven in to the next chapter, and the next and the next after that.
  
Whatever exactly comes next, it will be an adventure.  But I also know that this adventure will be accompanied by the mischievous love of God, which is nothing if not adventurous, and possessed of a better sense of humor than I ever will be.  
 
So here I go!

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The Danger of Bible Covers

Posted on July 2, 2013 by megancastellan

I have a whole backlog of sermons that I haven’t gotten around to posting here. (And a backlog of half finished posts on other things.) Being at camp for two weeks, plus two out-of -town conferences, plus supply work in Phoenix just adds up.

But I promised someone in the congregation on Sunday that I would post this one, so post it I shall.

I should also add that I got one of the biggest compliments EVER after church this week. A teenaged boy walked up to me, no adult in sight, and introduced himself. He then volunteered that he liked my sermon and found it interesting.

I can retire now.

Here’s what I said.

June 30, 2013
Ordinary Time, Proper 8
Luke 9: 51-62

As a child, my best friend was Southern Baptist, and we would attend each other’s church events regularly. I have a lot of memories of going to First Southern Baptist of Newport News, but one thing I remember was having a great, all consuming envy of everyone’s Bible cover. Everyone had a very elaborate Bible, number one. Suited to who and what sort of person they were. Young girl, tween, boy, old person, large print, small print, sports themed, princess themed, truck themed, you name it, there was a Bible for you. Then, to top it off, you got to choose a Bible cover of your choice! Patriotic, or floral print, or Veggie Tales, or with an inspiring verse (taken entirely out of context, but I was ten, I didn’t know that.) or your favorite cartoon characters.

The merchandising was fantastic!! Being an Episcopalian, in comparison, did not have near enough stuff to go along with it, to my mind. For my friend and her Southern Evangelical culture, you had all these readily available outward-and-visible-material signs to show the world just how much of a Jesus fan you were. The bumper stickers alone were overwhelming.

The trappings of faith are fun. All the stuff we can point to in and say, “See how much I love Jesus?”
And lest you think this is only a Baptist thing, let me tell you just how many hours Episcopal clergy devote to pouring over vestment catalogues. There are entire blogs.

That’s all the fun stuff. That’s the easy stuff. Someone gave my dog an Episcopal shield collar and leash when I was ordained, which he now sports happily, looking like a reject from JCrew. And each time I take him for a walk, it’s a great point of conversation for the people we run into.

But when you rely too heavily on just the outward stuff, you can run into trouble.

The disciples, bless their hearts, take a long time to figure this out. They go to a town of Samaria that doesn’t turn out to be really friendly to them, and so James and John, who, incidentally, are called “Sons of Thunder” when they appear elsewhere in the gospels. Suggest to Jesus that he call down fire from the sky to consume it! Because that would be great! That would show them.

Fascinatingly, Jesus’s response is not recorded, but I have a few guesses of either what Jesus’ face looked like when he conveyed the wrongheadedness of this plan, or what choice words he used with his disciples to convey the same message.

And then the travelling band runs into two folks who want to join up– thinks this Jesus thing sounds great on the surface, but then….well, not so much. What do you mean, you’re homeless? What do you mean, my relationship with my family, my friends has to change?

In each case, James and John, the two prospective disciples, everyone thinks the surface stuff sounds great! It’s fantastic to talk about Jesus all the time, to say you’re a Christian, to worship Jesus, to buy all the Jesus stuff, and even to hold your relationship with Jesus over other people, to correct them, and feel better than them. That part feels great.

But that stuff is surface. That stuff isn’t a relationship, it’s a spectator sport.

What James and John, and those two that they run into wanted, was for their lives to continue on as they had before, before they ever actually interacted with Jesus. They wanted to keep their homes, they wanted to keep their family and friends stable and James and John wanted to stay just as combative as they had before.

But relationships, real relationships don’t work that way. Whenever we have a real relationship with someone, we change. We are affected. And we can’t just pick and choose how that happens.

When we open ourselves up to a relationship with the living Christ, we will be changed. We will be affected. And we can’t expect our lives to be the same as they were before.

Jesus doesn’t want us to be spectators of faith, he doesn’t want us to stand to the side and watch. He wants us to participate in faith. He wants us to follow him, not just worship him. He wants us to be transformed into disciples who can live out his message in the world.

Our very lives have to breathe the message of Christ, not just our bumper stickers, or our bibles. Our actions, our words and deeds have to speak of God’s love for the world, God’s peace, and God’s justice. Our commitment, our faith has to run deeper than the material trappings of faith. We can’t just talk about how much we like Jesus; we have to actually live lives that reflect our commitment to his example. We have to actually feed the hungry, care for the poor and the sick, give voice to the voiceless, love our enemies.

Otherwise, all we’re doing is buying more stuff. And stuff won’t change the world. Stuff won’t transform lives. Stuff won’t bring healing to what is broken, or bring light into the darkness, or cause justice to flow like water, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream.

Only God can do that. Stuff can’t. All that surface stuff can’t.

Only the real, transformative power of God can do all that. Can recreate the world into the original good God made. Can transform us, to transform the world.

And that transformation, that relationship, is what we are called to.
Amen.

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