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Wrestling with uncertainty
by Michael Hiller
I can remember the effect those plain brown envelopes had. They meant that my father had just received a call from another congregation. Once an envelope arrived, my mother would inject an air of uncertainty into our family life. From that point on, until he had made a decision about the call, all things would be on hold.
That's the way it used to be in the church, at least in the church in which I grew up. Interviews, mobility papers, profiles, periods of interim ministry were all unknown. Three parties were acknowledged in the process: the calling congregation, the candidate, and the Holy Spirit. Which brings me to the subject of this brief article—vocation.
Luther had a vision of vocation. Actually, he had several. At one point he was studying law, with the intention of becoming a lawyer. In the midst of a particularly frightening thunderstorm, a terror-struck Luther vowed to Saint Anne that, should he survive the storm, he would become a monk. His father, Hans, was not too pleased. He didn't want Luther to follow in his vocation—mining—but definitely had a different vision for his son. Even in the monastery, however, Luther still didn't have the vocation for which he yearned. Upon his ordination, and at his first mass, he trembled with the vocational responsibility of consecrating the Holy Eucharist. To hold the creator of the world in his hands seemed to him a terrible and awesome responsibility.
In Luther's world, vocation was a notion tied largely to religious life. The concept of vocation was limited to priests, monks, and nuns; the notion of other individuals seeking a vocation was a new thing. When Luther discovered that the source of his call and vocation was baptism, he realized something new. In baptism he discovered a common ground for every woman and man who had been brought to the font. Baptism was a fundamental call from which could grow a lifetime of meaning and value. This insight would cause him and countless others to rethink the whole notion of religious vocation, and to begin to see it as the reality of every Christian man and woman.
In our day and age we operate with totally different notions of vocation. Our fathers and mothers are more than likely to have worked at a single vocation most of their lives. With the technological revolution that eliminated whole ranges of jobs, and with the economic revolution that saw older technologies moving to other shores, people of the last three decades have had to discover new calls, new vocations, new opportunities. Think about your own vocation—what are the several things you have been called to do in your lifetime? How many disciplines have you learned? How many specialized languages have you used? In how many different professional communities have you been a member? While sons and daughters still follow the vocation or profession of the fathers or mothers, it is no longer the prevalent pattern. Not only has a purely religious concept of vocation been rejected and abandoned, even the notion of following the "spirit" of the parents is no longer realistic.
I have seen this in my own life. I know that I entered ministry because I was in awe of my father's vocation. As a boy of three, I would go over to the church with my father and watch him set up for the coming Sunday's services. I have vivid visual memories of his doing so. Later in life, I expected him to be proud of my following him in his profession.
But it was only later, when I had begun to work in the Credit Union industry, and had some modest success there, that my father finally said, "I'm proud of you." He was proud of my survival, of my being able to take care of myself as an individual. It was unfortunate that church politics had intervened to drive a wedge between his Missouri Synod ministry and my extra-Missouri ministry. We shared a vocation, but rarely talked about it. It was our vocation as human beings that interested him.
It was for reasons of vocation that I resigned my call as a pastor at St. Francis. I need distance and time to determine if I really want to continue in ministry. Recently, I interviewed at another congregation for a position as pastor. When it became more and more likely that I was a serious candidate for this position, I began to realize that I had another vocation as well – my position and career at the credit union was not so easily dismissed. My banking vocation involved service, relationships, value, and meaning, just as my religious ministry does. I saw that I was on the horns of a dilemma.
I think that it is time to return to that forgotten third party, and to that forgotten status. The third party is the Holy Spirit and her guidings. The status is that of being a baptized and forgiven man living in God's grace. Given those fundamental points, I or anyone can be called to so many things. There is a place for holiness in whatever you or I might do. There is a call from God to be (in terms of our very living) and to be for (in terms of what we do for others). Even though our world of economy and professional life has veered sharply toward the practical and the needful, there is still space for these considerations of holiness and value.
This is a helpful exercise for me right now, as I wrestle with what I can be in addition to what God has already granted me. I know that many of you have wrestled with this as well, with the burst of the tech industry bubble and the disappearance of many jobs and vocations. Discernment is not just a religious buzzword, but a real-life contest that many of you have already had. I am grateful that, as I wrestle with this question, I am joining in that struggle along with you and others who have gone before me.
Pr. Michael Hiller has been Associate Pastor for Worship and Community Life at St. Francis since 1984.
A tribute to Michael Hiller
by James DeLange
I remember where he sat, I remember what he wore. It was the summer of 1982 and I had only been at St. Francis for a few months when Michael Hiller came to worship for the very first time.
Joining about 40 other people in church that Sunday, he soon spotted Betty Kretzmann, a woman he had known from St. Luke's in Chicago where he had served his internship. "Michael Hiller, what are you doing in my church?" Betty asked. It was the beginning of a conversation that was to last for the next 17 years, until Betty's death in June, 1999.
My first conversations with Michael began later that week when I made a trip to Burlingame, where he was working as a teller at a credit union. Over lunch, he told me about his journey of ministry, struggle with the Missouri Synod, divorce, coming out, then resigning from his New Jersey parish to come west to be near his parents and sisters. He was at loose ends, not knowing what to do, he said, but needed this banking job to make a living.
Much of his story paralleled mine, except I knew what I was going to do. I wanted to build a ministry at St. Francis and it was clear that our future lay in reaching out to the gay and lesbian community. To do that, I needed Michael's help. A few weeks later, I asked Michael if he would like to do something. "What are you interested in?" I asked.
"I like to teach, and I like to plan liturgy."
"Well, why don't you try teaching the Sunday morning Bible class?" I offered. And that was the beginning of what was to become a twenty year tenure in the conference room on Sunday mornings. Soon Michael was joining in on our fledgling worship committee meetings. We held those meetings at Betty Kretzmann's house on Cumberland St. We usually made good progress until Betty brought the wine out (served with cookies!) and then it was pretty much the end of the meeting. We soon figured out that was Betty's way of telling us we had gone on long enough.
About a year later, I asked Michael if he was interested in a call as assistant pastor at St. Francis under the same arrangement we had with Jim Lokken, whom we had called a year earlier as a part-time, non-stipendiary pastor. Michael was interested, but we went through quite a few hurdles to get his call approved. Tthe rules for pastors serving part time had recently been changed, making it more difficult to get approval. But thanks to the advocacy of Bishop Nelson Trout of the ALC's South Pacific District, Michael's part-time call was approved, and St. Francis issued his call at the annual meeting in 1984.
So began sixteen years of our working together, through the transformation of the congregation's membership, ever evolving liturgical forms, several music directors, the AIDS epidemic, an earthquake, the creation of Lutheran Lesbian and Gay Ministries and the calls to Ruth Frost and Phyllis Zillhart, the renovation of the sanctuary, and the reorganization of our pastoral staff in 1994. Through it all, Pastor Michael Hiller has continued to teach that Sunday morning Bible Class, continued to work with the Worship Committee, been part and parcel of every major ministry decision, and baptized, married, buried, preached and presided, all while developing a parallel and very successful career in the credit union industry.
Over the years, we have argued, laughed, strategized, prayed and worshiped together. I learned much from Michael over the years. Not only about liturgy, music and art. But about what it means to remain faithful to a call to ministry when the church and society tells you that you are not worthy of such a calling. Then to carry on that ministry with integrity and without bitterness—motivated only by the desire to be a faithful pastor.
I owe a debt of gratitude to Pastor Michael Hiller. So does St. Francis. We will miss him and his daily contributions to the life of our community. But the legacy of his ministry in our congregation will live on for a very long time.
James DeLange retired in 1999 after 18 years as senior pastor of St. Francis. He currently serves on the board of Lutheran Lesbian and Gay Ministries.
Faith and hope vs. poverty
by Robin Ressler
When I first arrived in Berkeley from the East Coast in 1998, I struck up a friendship with a very well-educated man who exhibited a lively interest in just about everything. Learning that I had been a social worker, he asked my opinion on what was needed to eradicate poverty.
I was not able to give him a simple answer to his question, but I hope that I was able to convey to him my sense that poverty is not just one thing. His question, however, is a good one, and worth considering. Poverty is not just lack of money. It is not just lack of education or even lack of access to education. Poverty is a complex of problems and situations.
Some obvious factors are ill health (mental or physical), alcohol and drug addiction, and old age. But these factors do not, by themselves, cause someone to slide into poverty. We all know people with mental illness who not only keep themselves together but contribute to their communities; others find themselves on the street or on the receiving end of our Sunday morning hospitality hour. Many of us know people who suffer from drug and alcohol addictions while denying they have a problem, while at the same time, it seems that every few weeks another member of our community celebrates another year of sobriety.
Clearly, there is no clear line of causality between even these obvious factors and poverty. Yet there are other factors as well.
Racism continues to be a factor in poverty, as is the racialization of our society and its institutions. Despite hard-won political victories and numerous educational initiatives, hatred and inequality of opportunity in all aspects of life continue nearly unabated.
This became obvious to me when I realized that I have met more black folk downstairs at hospitality hour than I have upstairs at St. Francis and at the Graduate Theological Union combined (including international students). But I still cannot draw a direct line from color to poverty. One of my most beloved mentors at the GTU is an African-American with a number of academic and professional degrees who holds an endowed chair at the Pacific School of Religion.
Sexism and sexual abuse are factors in poverty as well. We have to look no further than the church to see the glass ceiling under which female religious labor and to hear the newfound voices of victims of sexual predators. We know that sexual abuse profoundly affects the self-image as well as the functioning and capacity for relationship (intimate and other) of its victims. While some survivors have found a way to deal with or work around their psychological and spiritual scars, others find themselves among the most vilified of the poor: the chronically unemployed "able-bodied" men.
Do we even want to look at current labor practices in the United States that include historically low union membership and a proliferation of part-time jobs without benefits? What about the lack of insurance for some forty million Americans -- how does paying all one's medical bills out of one's own pocket or simply not receiving medical care affect one's physical health, one's economic and psychological functioning? What does it do to family life, when parents cannot afford the care their children need? How about heterosexism -- what is the economic in addition to the psychological, spiritual and social toll on out and unsupported sexual minority persons? The out and openly vilified? The closeted?
As a Christian, I see, at the root of all these problems, a perverse and persistent spiritual ill-health.
What are sexism, racism and homophobia but manifestations of the rupture of relationship between human beings that mirrors the rupture of relationship with God which together are presented in scripture as humanity's primal sin? Here the rupture plays itself out in a dynamic in which one person or group of persons identifies another individual or group as "other" and seeks to dominate, control, or destroy them.
What is the reluctance to pay a living wage and to provide health care for all members in our society if it is not greed? Is it not a loveless, Godless, self-centered fear that rationalizes not sharing with others as the way to insure one's own well-being?
What is addiction if not a disease of the spirit as well as that of the body and the mind?
Why do we blame homelessness on the homeless and hate them? Could it be the same reason we avoid visiting the old, the imprisoned, the chronically mentally ill and the below-standard facilities in which so many of them are housed? Is it because we are afraid that the One whose praises we sing on Sunday morning will abandon us as God has apparently abandoned them, and we do not want to upset our optimistic spirituality with such a gloomy possibility? Or is it because we think that we are each, individually, responsible for our own fate and we feel that we have fared better because we are better?
Responses to poverty
What is the answer to poverty? I say it is complex. A tiny essay like this can only begin to invite us to think about what a very complex issue poverty is; how no simple theory can explain it; and how no one individual social factor is an absolute predictor for or against one's long-term economic viability in America today. (And don't forget, as many choose to do, America is not detached from the rest of the world.).
As Christians, what can we do about poverty?
First, and most important, if poverty is intimately connected with the spiritual health of both those of us who are poor and those of us who inflict poverty upon others, then we can and need to attend to our spiritual health and to that of those in our lives. We can pray. We can make priorities of loving God, loving our neighbor as ourselves, and loving and praying for our enemies. Our enemies are those we disdain, those we vilify, be they George W. Bush, an obnoxious neighbor, or the woman sprawled on the sidewalk whom we have to walk around in order to get to the car. And we can ask God to forgive those whom we cannot forgive until we are able to forgive them ourselves.
This is basic Christian stuff -- though it is stuff we all too quickly forget to do. If we do this, we are attending to the spiritual health of those around us, as well.
The love that Jesus models and demands is sacrificial love. This doesn't mean you always have to give money. It means you have to be patient, you have to give up preconceptions and prejudices, and you have to move outside your emotional comfort zone. It means sometimes you have to do things you are afraid to do.
We can and need to practice hospitality, which is an expression of our love. Not only must we show hospitality to visitors to our church, but we need to express hospitality in all our dealings with other human beings.
We can and need to discern our vocations in the world. How does our work at our jobs, in our families and in our communities express the Gospel of Jesus Christ? How does what we do contribute to diminishing the welfare of others? Is it okay at work to play by the rules of competition? Is it okay at home to take care of our own first? What does Jesus say about these things?
We can and need to talk to and get to know people who are different from us. I think this is key. And I think this is something we church folk tend not to do well. I have seen in my own life -- as someone who does not identify as a sexual minority person -- that becoming part of the St. Francis community has increased my appreciation of and sensitivity to issues pertinent to sexual minority people -- especially gays and lesbians -- in a way I never could have by simply reading books, watching movies, or by associating with a few lesbians and gays in primarily straight, secular contexts.
I have come to believe that those of us here at St. Francis have a distinct advantage when it comes to learning about the poor, about the "different" and those who have been disenfranchised and marginalized: We have experienced hatred, vilification and marginalization, no less by the church than by the wider society.
But we know the love of God in Christ, and this has made all the difference.
Reaching out
Some things to ponder:
Our faith in God has allowed us to claim our wholeness; consider the difference this has made to us. In a world in which sexual minority people suffer from self-loathing, alienation from others, high rates of (especially teen) suicide, high rates of alcohol and drug addiction, despair over HIV infection and AIDS, harassment and violence, we at St. Francis know self-acceptance, fellowship, life, high rates of recovery from alcohol and drug adduction, hope dealing with HIV and AIDS, and a fair amount of peace. We cherish and continue to cultivate these, in gratitude to God.
And ponder this: When St. Francis was expelled from the ELCA, the expectation was that we would fail. Because of Christ, we have not.
When we see a homeless person, a drug addict, a poor old woman, or a raving madman or woman on the street, we really don't expect much will ever come of him or her. Yet, with Christ, are not all things possible?
As we at St. Francis continue to envision our future, we return again and again to questions and concerns about both evangelism and community service. I believe that these are of a piece. I believe that as a community that has both suffered and prospered because of our love and nurture in Christ of sexual minority people, we are uniquely equipped to reach out to others similarly hated and wounded.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying religious faith alone provides a magic cure. I also have a world of respect for social work services, especially when they are based on good research and compassionately administered (as opposed to being merely politically expedient). But somehow it seems to me that if we only offer up our time and our resources to feed the poor and to entertain the old (and of course this is not all we are doing, but please bear with me, I'm trying to make a point!) and perhaps embellish our programs for them with a few social services, we are withholding from them the greatest of our treasures.
I invite you to ponder these things and to pray about them as we dream and envision a future in Jesus Christ for St. Francis Lutheran Church and for all the children of God.
Robin Ressler is a mother, a licensed social worker in New York, a former ELCA missionary to Slovakia and a seminarian who aspires to ordained Christian ministry in a Lutheran church.
Winds of change blow at synod assembly
by Jeff Johnson
In this article, Jeff Johnson reports on some surprising actions at the annual assembly of the Sierra Pacific Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the national church body from which St. Francis was expelled in 1995. Expelled with St. Francis nine years ago was First United Lutheran Church of San Francisco, where Johnson was Senior Pastor at the time. Johnson is presently Lutheran Campus Pastor at University Lutheran Chapel in Berkeley. -- Ed.
This year's (Sierra Pacific) Synod Assembly, held May 13-15 in Reno, was refreshing, especially given the past couple of Assembly experiences, which were little more than bad pep rallies for Jesus, with modest, if any, discussion about issues of consequence.
Last year's legislative agenda was trivial. When representatives of University Lutheran Chapel tried to bring an anti-war resolution, it was deemed "out of order" and "untimely" and failed the two-thirds necessary to get to the floor. Even though the U.S. had just invaded Iraq.
In my post-Assembly report last year, I complained about the synod's silence on issues of substance to people living in the real world. "Contentless Christianity" was the way I described the faceless, lifeless, body of Christ in Assembly; unable to utter a single public word about what was happening in our world.
Instead of wrestling with our diversity, we talked about talking about our diversity. Instead of encountering the living, breathing, body of Christ, we talked about engaging in holy (and disembodied) conversation. Jesus had become an abstraction about whom we were encouraged to talk with our neighbors. But Jesus had little to do with the actual bodies we encountered in our neighbors around us.
It was discouraging; but hardly surprising -- especially to those of us who were dismissed by the synod almost fifteen years ago for our public witness against the policy of discrimination.
In my judgment, the Assembly failed last year to exercise its public voice on the most important issues of our time. We failed to proclaim that being a part of the living body of Christ has everything to do with being a part of the real lives of our neighbors, especially those most in need, and those enduring the ravages of war, poverty, and oppression. The synod had slammed shut the window to the outside world. Things inside were stale and musty.
After the 2003 Assembly, delegates from University Lutheran Chapel committed ourselves to set resolutions for this year that would address some of the concerns in our world and in our church. We prepared seven resolutions and submitted them for consideration.
The Chapel's primary purpose in submitting these resolutions was to stimulate discussion and to put a face on the body of Christ. We wanted to stir things up a bit. So, as we wrote these resolutions, we asked for what we wanted, not for what we thought was possible. We decided that we would measure success by the healthy discussion we stimulated.
First, we resolved the creation of an official and visible list of ECP pastors (1) under ELCA call as well as the annual recognition at ELCA synod assemblies of these pastors' anniversaries, ordination dates, etc. Next, we declared the war in Iraq unjust and called for President George W. Bush and his cabinet to repent. We called the synod to support civil marriage for LGBT couples and families. We urged the restoration to membership in the ELCA of St. Francis & First United. We called upon the Assembly to get behind the effort to make the priority of AIDS eradication a theme of the upcoming president election.
Healthy conversation was our goal. Perhaps we would be even more fortunate and two or three resolutions would muster enough votes to pass.
Right off the bat, some at the Assembly maneuvered to link the three resolutions dealing with LGBT people and to have them placed together en bloc, with the intention being to end the discussion by tabling the bloc until after next year's Churchwide Assembly. (2) But the effort to combine the resolutions failed.
Thereafter we dealt with the civil marriage resolution. A window had opened, and some of us could even feel the gentle breeze of the spirit. A window had opened, and some of us could even feel the gentle breeze of the spirit.
The floor debate was moving, fiery and passionate. We altered the original resolution to clarify that we were addressing civil marriage and not mandatory liturgical celebrations. The resolution passed, with the synod Assembly affirming "the right of every American to marry, including gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender couples," and supported "efforts to make civil marriage for LGBT couples a reality in our country," and opposed "any attempts to discriminate against LGBT couples and individuals."
We were all a bit stunned by this victory. A window had opened, and some of us could even feel the gentle breeze of the spirit. Refreshing!
Next on the agenda was the resolution in support of ECP pastors under call to ELCA congregations. Our intention here was visibility. During the floor debate, people spoke eloquently about the pastors on the ECP roster serving ministries throughout our synod in ELCA and independent Lutheran parishes. Dr. Wally Stuhr of the ECP Board spoke powerfully about the extraordinary people on the ECP roster and the important work we do.
Opponents of the resolution spoke about the difficulty in recognizing pastors not in compliance with official church policy. "Isn't this like honoring someone who has committed adultery or another form of misconduct?" one pastor argued.
Again a vote, and the resolution to support ECP pastors also passed.
Then we considered the resolution opposing the illegal invasion of Iraq. Two amendments were introduced, one removing language calling the President and his cabinet to repent and another adding language in support of those most affected by the war, especially the young men and women sent to fight. Again, the synod raised its public voice alongside all of those against this unjust and illegal war.
The resolution calling upon presidential candidates to make AIDS a priority in their administrations failed initially. After reworking the language, we resubmitted it, and it passed the following day. Additionally, the Assembly unanimously resolved to honor Bread for the World on its 30th anniversary.
Finally, it came time for a discussion of the proposed invitation to invite St. Francis and First United back into membership in the synod. A number of years ago the synod passed a feeble "goodwill resolution" just after our expulsion, suggesting the ELCA find creative ways to "maintain the bonds of fellowship" with our two expelled congregations. This year's resolution called upon the synod take a next step.
We wanted to test the "sense" of the Assembly and to provide a context in which the Bishop and/or Synod Council could act. Additionally, we wanted to demonstrate the existing double standard. Currently there are nine other ELCA entities (parishes as well as the synod council) who have issued calls to non-compliant ECP pastors without facing substantial (or, in some cases, any) discipline. We wanted to test the Assembly's will, desire and spirit, and to demonstrate support for extending an invitation to two non-compliant congregations.
The St. Francis/First United resolution prevailed. Especially stunning was the overwhelming lack of support for an amendment that would have stipulated these congregations be in compliance with the constitution prior to their readmission. The assembled delegates literally groaned and then sent the amendment down to defeat.
Of course passage of this resolution doesn't mean that an invitation is automatic. In fact, it seems apparent to me, as of this writing, that the Bishop and/or the Synod Council are looking for a way not to act on the Assembly's intention.
Justice never proceeds in a straight line. Neither is it easy or automatic. And it always must be claimed. This is but one step along the journey to the liberation of LGBT people from the forces of oppression in our church and world. One step. One very small, visible, uncompromising step.
The passage of each of these resolutions helps to put a face back on the body of Christ; to enflesh Christ in the people and struggles of the world community, and to situate our witness and resistance at the center and bottom of that struggle.
Thanks be to God!
Pastor Jeff R. Johnson, ordained extraordinem on January 20, 1990 with Ruth Frost and Phyllis Zillhart, served as pastor of First United Lutheran Church until 1999 when he was called by University Lutheran Chapel to be the Lutheran Campus Pastor at the University of California, Berkeley. Jeff currently serves as President of the Extraordinary Candidacy Project.
Notes
note 1 The Extraordinary Candidacy Project (ECP) is an effort to approve the credentials of, and offer for call to Lutheran churches and institutions, lesbian and gay pastors whose refusal to agree to ELCA celibacy requirements makes them unacceptable to the official ELCA rostering process. return to article
note 2 The ELCA has Churchwide Assemblies every four years in which delegates from churches from every region gather to vote on church policy. The next Churchwide Assembly will be in August, 2005. return to article
For further reading
Texts of resolutions passed at the Synod Assembly in Reno are on the Sierra Pacific Synod website at http://www.spselca.org/News/2000_assembly_report.htm.
Erring on the side of grace
by David Kalke
In March, Central City Lutheran Mission of San Bernardino, Calif. called Dr. Jenny Mason, a lesbian rostered through the Extraordinary Candidacy Project, to serve as an assistant pastor. Mason was installed in April. After the Pacifica Synod (the governing Lutheran body in Southern California) threatened disciplinary proceedings against CCLM, Executive Director David Kalke wrote this open letter to Lutheran clergy. -- Ed.
"...and I think Central City Lutheran Mission is about Lutherans being bold -- bold in pursuit of justice, bold in standing with the poor, bold in standing with those who are HIV/AIDS victims, bold in providing housing for the homeless, bold in creating partnerships. This is what I hope and expect this Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to become."
-- Presiding ELCA Bishop Mark Hanson, in remarks delivered Dec. 3, 2002, in San Bernardino.
Three conversations were held throughout our Synod the last week of April under the theme "Let's Talk…a number of hot buttons" facing the church. One of the "hot buttons" was Central City Lutheran Mission (CCLM) and the way in which it has chosen to be church in San Bernardino. Not having been invited to participate in all three of the conversations, please permit me to share some information about the recent installation of The Rev. Dr. Jenny Mason -- a former ELCA pastor now rostered by the Extraordinary Candidacy Project -- as Associate Pastor at Central City Lutheran Mission. I also shared this information with attendees at one of the "Let's Talk" meetings.
Central City Lutheran Mission remains committed to sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ in a context that is challenging, cutting edge and enables the ELCA to evangelize in an urban sector among the hard to reach and most vulnerable populations. From youth to HIV+ homeless to homeless adult males, CCLM has discovered unique ways for taking "God's Grace to the streets." Through a network of community trained leaders, delegates of the word and pastoral agents, our work has reduced violence, supported the downtrodden and broken spirited, and invited unchurched persons to share in the sacraments.
Faithful to our position in the ELCA as a Division for Outreach supported site serving the poor with the right to celebrate the sacraments, CCLM staff has worked long and hard hours to develop a pastoral project that has become internationally known for its culturally appropriate ways for reaching the poor and oppressed and making public witness on their behalf -- a mandate in our ELCA Constitution for all clergy and congregations. Faithful to our responsibility as a social ministry organization in affiliation with the Lutheran Services in America, CCLM has made every effort to provide quality care and services to the people with whom we minister.
Bilingual skills and cultural competency are key criteria in our area for developing trust and for ensuring quality care. In August 2002 CCLM met with Bishop Finck to request assistance in identifying an appropriate candidate to serve as Associate Pastor at CCLM. We suggested that our efforts to find a bilingual and culturally competent pastor with experience in neighborhood health organizing would be a challenge. We encouraged the bishop and his staff to even look outside of the USA and use the resources of the Lutheran World Federation and Scandinavian Lutheran churches in his search.
We were given two candidates. Neither spoke Spanish. Neither had neighborhood health organizing experience.
When Dr. Mason appeared at our doorstop -- following eleven years of missionary work in Chile, extensive training in neighborhood health care organizing and a doctorate from LSTC in preaching -- she was the answer to our prayers. In one short year, Pastor Mason has won the love and support of all whom she has come in contact with. She is clearly the person for the job that needs to be done at CCLM as we open a new clinic and develop a deeper health care ministry around H Street Clinic.
In April, 2003, Pr. Mason joined the Central City Lutheran Mission staff as the Program Director of the Kinship Care Center. With this extra staff person and expense, we informed the Pacifica Synod that we had ended our search for an Associate Pastor.
There has been no communication since that date from the Synod concerning our pastoral needs. As significant moments in our ministry approached, including the dedication of Wartburg Hall and the dedication of the H Street Clinic, the Pacifica Synod and its staff persons were strangely absent. The opening of the H Street Clinic -- a significant instrument for health care ministry in our Synod in a year when the social statement on Health was passed by the ELCA -- went by unannounced in any of the Synod publications.
In September of last year, our Executive Committee and Board of Directors took up the question once again of calling an Associate Pastor, given the increasing pastoral needs that our ministry was responding to. In December of 2003 following a lengthy discussion the Executive Committee without a dissenting vote decided to call Dr. Mason. The decision of the Executive Committee was reported to the full Board of Directors at our annual meeting in January, 2004 -- a meeting attended by the Bishop of Pacifica Synod. In February the decision to call her was communicated to the synod's person responsible for candidacy and mobility. In March the decision to call The Rev. Dr. Jenny Mason was communicated to the Big Bear Conference, with a synodical staff person present.
During these seven months of process for calling an associate pastor, CCLM was never approached by any representative of the Pacifica Synod to assist us in the process or to be critical of our decisions. There was no effort on CCLM's part to "fly beneath the radar." The Synod was informed at key moments of our decision. Yet the Synod waited until April 2 to call our Board President threatening a variety of actions and waited until April 12th to meet with me and representatives of our Board, six days before the installation of Dr. Jenny Mason. We now enter the phase of consultation committee meetings and dialogue.
When it comes to church authority for the implementation of discipline, there are many "may" clauses in the church's constitution. These are not "must" clauses and give much possibility for interpretation of the law which can best benefit the proclamation of the Gospel. The authors of the Constitution created wiggle room so the Gospel can be preached.
Perhaps the lesson here is that it is better to err on the side of Grace rather than the side of the Law. We trust the Spirit to guide us through a process of reconciliation with integrity enabling Central City Lutheran Mission and the Pacifica Synod to strengthen our partnership.
At its full board meeting on April 19th -- one day following the installation of Pastor Mason -- the call to Pastor Mason was reaffirmed by a vote of 10 to 0. Pastor Mason has assumed her new tasks. The work of Central City Lutheran Mission continues. The H Street Clinic has opened and Wartburg Hall has begun to house students from undergraduate and graduate programs from around the world who want to be part of a teaching and mentoring community in an urban context. Children continue to be fed. The homeless continue to receive shelter and counseling. HIV/AIDS homeless persons continue to be integrated into a therapeutic community where healing and wholeness abound.
We welcome ways to continue conversation about ways in which the Pacifica Synod would seek to partner with us in our ministry. Central City Lutheran Mission continues to be a church taking bold steps for the proclamation of the Gospel to the poor and oppressed.
Pr. David Kalke is Executive Director of Central City Lutheran Mission. This spring he received a $100,000 award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for his work in San Bernardino. CCLM was profiled in the April, 2002 issue of the ELCA's national magazine The Lutheran.
For further reading
The Lutheran published an article on CCLM in April 2002.
CCLM's website is at http://www.cclm.org/.
The Gnostic-ish mysteries of Dan Brown
By Martha Ellen Stortz
The Da Vinci Code
by Dan Brown. New York: Doubleday, 2003.
Angels & Demons
by Dan Brown. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.
Plane travel has its pleasures. After soldiering through airport security and the anxieties of take-off, I like nothing better than curling up with some good fiction. Miles above the earth and miles away from e-mail, phone, or computer, I lose myself in the world upon the page. At such times, I gulp novels like a deep-sea diver coming up for air. My latest adventures in fiction include two of Dan Brown's novels, The Da Vinci Code and its predecessor, Angels & Demons.
I almost didn't: The Da Vinci Code has an almost cult following, prompting cries of delight on one hand and disdain on the other. Readers are taken in by the novel's pacing and imagination. "I was afraid I'd miss something if I stopped reading," said one devotee. She feared the action would go on without her. "I couldn't put it down," confessed an investment banker, who added that he'd lost a weekend to reading the book.
Meanwhile, scholars of religion and art scoff at the book's research -- or lack thereof. Secretly, I suspect, they are stunned -- and a little envious -- that a book treating religion could be so popular. After all, religion is supposed to be passe. Everyone wants to be "spiritual" instead. I pledge allegiance to both camps. I devoured the book greedily: it was an intellectual romp through cities and churches and controversies I knew well. Besides, I love a good mystery, and both books qualify on that count. But I also winced at a few fictional liberties I feared people would take as fact, like the assertion that Mary Magdalene was the same Mary identified as the sister of Lazarus. And I am simply tired of arguments that uncritically celebrate a heretical tradition over the more "orthodox" presentation.
But I want to stand back a moment and ask a question that is slightly different from those I've seen so hotly debated on websites and news magazines, largely questions about what the books tell us about Jesus, the Masons, Da Vinci, Bernini, Opus Dei, etc. Rather the question I want to worry about is what The Da Vinci Code and its popularity tell us about ourselves in terms of our cultural longing and religious yearning at this beginning of a new millennium.
Cultural longing
A good friend, in addition to being a practicing Catholic and member of a religious community, ranks as an accomplished biblical scholar and an occasional mystery writer. I was anxious to hear her critical assessment. Judging a book that gives the Roman Catholic church such a hard time, she was remarkably sanguine: "I thought it was a great read -- I just longed for more character development. And that it all just didn't have to happen in a mere twenty-four hours! It made me dizzy." She's on to something; in fact, she's on to several things. Her observations are astute, and I want to unpack them and add a few of my own because I think the book unmasks some ingrained cultural longings.
Twentieth century author James Joyce put well the euphoric effect of speed: "Rapid motion through space elates one." Indeed, a lot of readers I spoke with were buzzing, high on the combination of plot and pacing. Both The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons feature short chapters which roll out at a fast clip. The author foreshadows the plot to come in pithy, action-packed sentences: "He never suspected that later that night, in a country hundreds of miles away, the information would save his life." The night in question comes a mere twelve hours -- and a hefty five hundred pages! -- later. In both novels Brown creates the verbal equivalent of an action movie's special effects. Character develops as the principals act and react to the events unraveling around them. There's conversation to be sure, and it's clipped and credible, but without much introspection. Everything is happening too quickly, and the characters themselves spend a lot of time catching their breath.
The hero of both novels is Harvard symbologist and art historian Robert Langdon. He's the last gasp of the Boomers, older than his female protagonists, policewoman and code-breaker Sophie Neveu in The Da Vinci Code and Vittoria Vettra in Angels & Demons. I was happy to run into Langdon again. He's an appealing figure, less decisive, more reflective, even more intuitive than his female counterparts, who seem more aggressive and confident than he by contrast. Langdon is happy to hang in the background in terms of action, though he never relinquishes the role of having the superior intellect in either novel. All in all, Langdon presents a winsome, postmodern knight in shining armor to these gutsy women. Both novels feature a scene in which he saves the fair damsel, but not by brute force. Sheer physical violence, and the ability to manipulate fear and trust feature as weapons of the enemy, which in both novels are secret brotherhoods of ancient origin with vague modern-day connections to the Masons. Langdon conquers evil with wit, intuition, and an uncanny ability to crack visual codes.
It is this final trait that bears further scrutiny: Langdon's training in religious symbology. At this dawning of a new millennium, Brown has caught an important resonance with centuries past. Once again, the image reigns supreme, and yet we lack a finely-honed faculty to assess the visual images that assault our eyes. Literature claims the field of literary criticism, which explores the criteria for what qualifies as a "classic" as opposed to a period piece; what counts as a great poem, not merely a mediocre one. But we possess no analogous field of criticism for the many images that stream out of our computers, televisions, and movie screens.
Langdon's expertise represents a longing for such wisdom. Our hero's ready recall of classical and medieval art and the range of meanings embedded therein is no coincidence. These were periods in Western history when the ability to read was restricted to the privileged few. While only the wealthy could read, everyone could see, and they learned through images in art, architecture, and statuary. Indeed, the lessons of power and obedience, of awe and wonder, were visually promulgated, constructed in edifices of stone and mortar, sketched onto walls, sculpted in plaster and iron. Langdon knows how to read these -- and Brown taps a deep longing to be as wise as he is, to possess the knowledge he has.
A love of speed and special effects both verbal and visual, a conviction that character most authentically emerges in action, a desire to maintain gender difference while mixing traditionally gendered traits, and a longing for visual sophistication and wisdom: author Dan Brown taps all these cultural longings in his novels. His novels stand as a sharp mirror of the times and the people who devour them, reflecting back to them their needs and desires. But what of the religious dimensions Brown presents?
Religious yearnings
The religious aspects of Brown's novels have drawn the most attention. The Da Vinci Code proceeds on the hypothesis that Jesus turns out to have married Mary Magdalene, whose identity is collapsed into Mary the sister of Lazarus. After the crucifixion, Mary Magdalene withdrew to Spain, where she bore their child, Sarah, and found shelter with a Jewish sect. An underground brotherhood, the Priory of Zion, guards the secret of her tomb. In an effort to crack a secret Da Vinci guarded, Langdon and his consort, French policewoman Sophie Neveu, delve into the Gnostic gospels, legends of the Holy Grail, tales of the Knights Templar, and the paintings of Leonardo himself. It's a wonderful romp, but the author frequently trespasses the lines between fact and fiction easily and without signal to the reader.
The plot of Angels & Demons takes place in Rome on the eve of a papal conclave. The old pope has died in circumstances that prove to be mysterious; his personal assistant and a senior member of the college of cardinals are in the midst of elaborate arrangements to elect a new head of the church -- and an ancient brotherhood, the Illuminati, reveals that it has hidden a canister of anti-matter with untold powers of destruction somewhere in the Vatican City scheduled to explode or implode -- no one is quite certain how the destruction will unfold -- within twenty-four hours. The artist in question in this novel is Bernini, sixteenth century sculptor for the papacy, but more interesting is the portrait Brown draws of the papacy itself. He does not ignore corruption and lust for power that mark the worst of the leaders in Roman Catholicism -- or in any major world religion. But Brown refuses to believe that power always corrupts. He leaves readers with two popes who use it well, judiciously, and for the sake of others, one caught between the calling to be celibate and a longing to be a father and another who finds a creative balance between truth and secrecy, between power and servanthood.
I find it significant that both books surface the longing for a spirituality that embraces not just sexuality, but a kind of marital spirituality. After all, Jesus does not simply have an affair with Mary Magdalene; he marries her, and Brown suggests that Da Vinci's painting of the Last Supper is really a portrait of their wedding feast. In various ways, both novels showcase relationships between men and women that must endure hardship, distance, and duties to greater goods and higher causes. These relationships last because a gracious fidelity sustains them. As real-life churches debate homosexuality, the blessing of same-sex unions, and clerical sexual abuse, Brown speaks positively of a calling that most Christians would long to see discussed with wit, wisdom, and seriousness: marriage. The churches should be at least as concerned about this calling as Brown is. I suspect that part of his popularity reflects a deep yearning for a sustained theological treatment of marriage.
Many have found Brown's suggestion that Jesus was married to be offensive, and I wonder if this outrage does not mask another religious yearning. We long for a Jesus who shares our humanity. We confess this in our creeds; we read it in our scriptures, but somehow the Jesus worshiped in our churches is the Christ of faith, removed from the Jesus of history. The picture of Jesus that emerges in Brown's novels is startlingly human, as are the leaders of the churches that follow him. Jesus and several of the religious leaders have bodies; they have conflicting desires; they have missions to fulfill, missions that wrench them away from the comforts of family.
My puzzlement is that Brown uses the Gnostic gospels to reach to this kinder, gentler, more human Jesus. And I'd warn readers against a quick, uncritical embrace of the Gnostic Christ. In general, the Gnostic gospels present Christ as so other-worldly he seems to float two feet off the ground, avoiding confrontation with the body, the earth, even the female. One gospel presents Christ laughing in the heavens above the cross, as the Romans crucify someone else in his place. Another has Christ telling Mary Magdalene in secret that she will "become male" to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
And throughout the Gnostic gospels all Christ manages is "walking and talking," a prototype for "The West Wing's" chatty principals. He doesn't heal; he doesn't do miracles; he's never hungry. In short, the Gnostic Christ avoids bodies, because bodies don't count. All the Gnostic Christ does is talk, imparting secret information to a privileged few. He doesn't necessarily always make sense, because he's deliberately trying to withhold information from those who are not smart enough to hear it. It's an elite, abstract, secretive, body-denying Christ whom we encounter in the Gnostic gospels. In contrast to bustling, multi-talented Jesus of the canonical gospels, the Gnostic gospels are boring.
I'm not sure how Brown reconciles his quest for the humanity of Jesus with the Gnostic Christ. However, I do know that part of Brown's popularity has to do with the fact that the Jesus he presents experienced the human struggles, tensions, and desires that we do. So do the people who follow him. The audience Brown's books have created yearn for the human Jesus. By extension, they yearn for leaders who are human and who can lead without having to hide their humanity.
All this makes me think it's time for a hard look at the canonical stories of Jesus, where Jesus weeps, dines, feels thirsty. With their healings and exorcisms and miraculous feedings, the canonical gospels are stories of life in the body, bodies broken and made whole, bodies suffering and redeemed. We are still a people that longs for wonder, and we want that wonder packaged in the bodily forms that we know so well.
It might be worth unmasking the real Gnostic in the novels: Robert Langdon himself. He seems to possess a secret knowledge that leads to enlightenment. He manages to keep thinking lucidly in situations of severe physical deprivation. We find him repeatedly without air, without food, without adequate sleep -- even at one point without gravity. There are no sex scenes in either novel: Langdon seems to be able to resist even this key feature of embodiment. If these two novels are any measure, Langdon will keep appearing like a Gnostic emanation from the Apocryphon of John paired with a powerful female consort. Jesus may be all too human in Brown's novels, but Robert Langdon is not!
There's even the Gnostic ambiguity in regard to women, pace Elaine Pagels. Despite the alleged Gnostic recognition of the "equality of the sexes" -- which Pagels argues passionately but unconvincingly in my reading of the texts -- the secret brotherhood featured in The Da Vinci Code chose men as its Grand Masters for centuries, denying women the highest leadership role.
Finally, I think both novels tap a deep suspicion of power and the powerful, a tendency to read everything in terms of power, and a penchant for conspiracy theories. We are truly the heirs of Lord Acton, who programmed an entire culture to believe that "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." We've extended Acton's axiom to claim that everyone who has power must by definition be corrupt. We communicate this rabid suspicion of power and authority to our youth. Leadership is the last thing they want to exercise. And we will wind up old, wizened, and not much wiser pondering mediocrity and incompetence in the leadership we see around us. Our suspicion of power and authority creates a vacuum that is very much like the canister of anti-matter in Angels & Demons -- and with equally destructive potential.
In both novels, the abuse of power in the hands of religious and anti-religious leaders borders on the satanic. I hope these portraits do not overwhelm the quiet power and authority of two popes who are not corrupt but let justice mentor their authority. These two lone figures see the world in terms of how they can help it, and they use power as a vehicle for service. To be sure, they are minor figures in the narrative, almost lost in Brown's breathless pacing. Nonetheless, they deserve notice. More than notice, I suggest we follow their example. In the troubled years ahead, we will need bold leaders, who know how to use power with equity, grace, and wisdom.
Martha Ellen Stortz is Professor of Historical Theology and Ethics at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, Calif. This article is reprinted by permission from their website.
News and upcoming events
Michael Hiller retirement events
In early February, Pr. Michael Hiller announced his upcoming resignation for purposes of spiritual discernment. Pr. Hiller preaches his final sermon on staff at St. Francis May 23, and will preside at worship on Pentecost, May 30th, his parting Sunday.
To honor his ministry at and through St. Francis for more than twenty years, a dinner will be held in his honor on Monday, May 31 at the Hotel Argent on Third St. in downtown San Francisco. We will thank him for his faithful work among us as teacher, preacher, priest, counselor and more. We will invoke God's blessing on him and us as we embrace a hope-filled future.
A reservation is required for the dinner. You may still contact Pr. Phyllis Zillhart for details on available scholarships.
Upcoming changes in worship at St. Francis
Pr. Michael Hiller led worship planning during his tenure at St. Francis, and also devoted hundreds of hours a year to the production of worship materials. Getting along without him will be challenging.
A group of clergy and lay members has been meeting for several weeks to plan the transition.
Worship services during the summer will feature the new music for worship written last year by Pr. Phyllis Zillhart during her sabbatical. The new worship materials will combine the regular order of service with all the music and readings for the day, removing the necessity of shifting from the worship folder to a music insert.
Committed to the established quality in our liturgical life, congregational feedback will be sought during this process as we assess these changes over the summer. The Worship Planning Group seeks your good will and patience.
Over $23K raised to benefit Child Care Center
At its annual Spring Fling event in May, the Friends of St. Francis Child Care Center raised over $23,000 to benefit the center's programs.
The Friends of St. Francis Child Care Center was founded in 1977 by St. Francis members. It offers day care to families with preschool-aged children, many of whom are low-income. It operates as a separate nonprofit corporation and its programs are non-religious. St. Francis Church supports the center through donations.
If you would like more information about the child care center's programs and how to support them, call Executive Director Sally Large at (415) 861-1818.
Stewardship of time and talent: Sign up to lead and support worship
Bring your calendar again on Sunday, June 13, as we sign folks up to serve as ushers, coffee hosts, lectors, assisting ministers and altar flower providers. You may also sign up early on sheets located in the Parish Hall. Check with Grant Burger if you have any questions.
March with St. Francis to celebrate LGBT Pride
Sunday, June 27 is -- to quote its full title -- the annual San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride Parade and Celebration.
Aside from the fun of marching, St. Francis members take part in a valuable outreach activity. A number of our members say they first heard of St. Francis when they saw us marching in the parade.
We march every year, along with other Lutherans and hundreds of other people of faith. Usually we're way back there toward the end. The upside of this is that you usually have time to attend church at the usual time, then catch the subway downtown and join our contingent while it's still waiting to step off.
Please join us! It's most fun with lots of people!
Team forms for 2004 AIDS Walk
St. Francis will launch its 9th team in the 2004 San Francisco AIDS Walk on Sunday, July 18.
All members of the 2003 team were registered via "fast track" for the 2004 team; team member packets should be arriving at your homes soon.
Team leader and perennial organizer Max Kirkeberg will be seeking out new team members before and after church.
He warns, "Do not try to avoid me, because it will not work." Or he might have put it: Resistance is futile.
Last year, St. Francis team members raised $55,359, placing fifth in fundraising out of more than 900 teams, including teams from large local organizations such as the Gap, Bank of America, Macy's, Levi-Strauss, Oracle and SBC/Pacific Bell.
instrument
a newsletter of St. Francis Lutheran Church
Editor:
Mark Pritchard
This
Pentecost 2004 issue was completed on 22 May 2004 and posted on the web on
26 May 2004.
Produced
on something like a quarterly schedule. Submissions in MS Word format to
mark94110 at yahoo.com, or on paper to Mark c/o the church office, 152 Church
St., San Francisco, Calif. 94114. Submissions may be on any topic related to
spirituality or the work of the people.
Opinions
expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily of St. Francis
Church, its staff or members.
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