different and still the same

We hosted an open time for folks to drop by on Tuesday to view and hear the inauguration via our large screen and good sound system in the sanctuary at Fairlawn West.

I was teary eyed and pumped.

Now time is the same again. The news reports have the same voices on the same topics with different policies implemented, but the world has not changed!

The election of Obama is the culmination of wider change. Oh, maybe not the culmination, but a major accomplishment on the road. But the world has not changed.

These are the times when I am confronted by and reminded that true change comes from God and it is a change that happens from the inside out of all of us. Barack Obama is no more a change agent than the rest of us. Right now he is a great gift of a vessel used by God to show us on what God can do with each of us. And all of us as a human family. And many have allowed God's work in them to change them which has led to where we stand today with the son of an immigrant from Africa (we've had lots of European immigrant children become president).

However the election, new policies and directives, a Democratic controlled Congress and White House...these in and of themselves do not indicate true change. Whether we are joyed by this reality in Washington or are cynical and critical of it, we all need to be changed...from above. Day by day. Step by step. Breath by breath. And this is what Jesus Christ has done and is doing as God's change agent. Thanks be to God for servants like Barack Obama who accept this change from above as the guide of their life. There are more like him. They may be much more anonymous than him. But no less vital in God's action in human history. And they aren't all overtly "Christian." Yet they are no less followers of Jesus Christ than those who are overtly Christian. In truth many who follow Jesus and aren't overtly Christian are more true to God than a number who claim the title "Christian" for themselves. That's a sign of how God is in charge and we aren't!

Here's the link for a great, short youtube video by Brian McLaren on what it means to follow Jesus today...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NtgjNLNpao

media and truth

I remember over 30 years ago hearing Marshall Rosenberg talk about not accepting the truth as coming from the "mind-numbing media." I wonder if we have expected too much from it in the recent life of the United Church of Christ. And now we feel betrayed by it with the brouhaha over Barack Obama and the former pastor of his home church (Trinity UCC in Chicago), Jeremiah Wright. I think the media is what it is. It numbs the mind into expecting it will get it right or get it the way we want it to be. Its almost if we live by the "sword" we will be attacked by the sword.

I was struck on this past Thursday which was Maundy Thursday of Holy Week the reading from the Gospel of John of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples in the lowest rung of the social ladder role of a servant, on the night of his betrayal. And then telling them there is a new Great Commandment. The 10 Commandments and the Golden Rule don't even measure up any more to this singular great one - to love one another as HE has loved us. I wonder how the UCC would be perceived if all of us who claim its identity would have spent the last few weeks washing the feet (or similar action) of other people around us?

Back on Jeremiah Wright - he is being portrayed as a inflammatory demagogue. Even aside from whatever is the reality of decades of his sermons, let along pastoral leadership, I was struck by his successor, whom he personally selected and mentored at Trinity for the past few years - Otis Moss III. I heard Moss on "All Things Considered" of National Public Radio this week. He is a very measured and thoughtful man. He spoke with a good listening of the interviewer AND he conveyed the Gospel in the midst of it. He talked about his wish that out of this whole thing people would know the living Christ and the saving grace of God. Powerful! And the wild-eyed Wright got him as his successor. hmm. Crafty as a fox he is!

Ohio primary election

I voted for Obama. My daughter Kate in her first election to vote voted for a woman for president, Clinton!!!! My younger daughter Molly who is a freshman in high school has been pushing for Obama since May of 2007. Thank you God!!! We have a ways to go, but you surely have guided the world to a place where my daughters are able to truly advocate for issues and ideas rather than gender and race. We pray for the day when sexual orientation and other human "categories" are not limiting factors to be able to consider the spectrum of human possibility in electing our political/governmental/legislative leadership.

United Church of Christ headlines

I get news headlines and blog headlines related to a variety of topics. One of those is "United Church of Christ." The variety under that title is interesting. I get a lot of obits from churches in Wisconsin...doesn't seem that UCC churches in other states or funeral services are that newsworthy. A lot of bazaars and swiss steak dinner announcements from all over. A lot of blog entries on Barak Obama and gay & lesbian folks in the UCC.

Now that's just a quick recollection from over a year of getting these daily notices. I wonder what the techno archaeologists in the future will discern from these.