I Remember
This song is also available as a hymn for group singing, with a piano accompaniment, over in our Free Stuff section.
How to Feel Beautiful
Hello friends! Today I’m feeling hopeful about spring: here in north-central Illinois, we’re having temperatures in the mid fifties. This morning, I saw my first two red-winged blackbirds of the season—and then my first two robins!
I’ve been working on a new project, putting short sermons online for my church, the Open Prairie United Church of Christ in Princeton, IL. Here’s one with a valuable tip: how to feel beautiful. (Because you’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and doggone it, people like you!)
[vimeo id=394788470]
Best blessings!
Call to Change: A Ninefold Repentance
Hello, Merry Mystics! I preached a sermon last Sunday that I’d like to share with you. Our text was Matthew 4:12-23, which is the story of the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry and the calling of his first disciples. That text got me thinking about change: how much I hate it, and how much the church needs it.
The video from the church didn’t turn out so well, so I’ve made a new one for you:
[youtube id=RNil3N5b1Cg]
Here’s that ninefold repentance, in case you’d like to put it up on your door:
- Repent of teaching that Jesus’ life was a sacrificial offering, required to appease an angry God.
- Repent of valuing right belief more than right action, and creeds more than kindness.
- Repent of slandering God as a punisher who sends sinners to an eternity in hell.
- Repent of stubbornly insisting that the world is about to come to an end.
- Repent of our belief that God has a tribal bias—that God is more interested in us than in them.
- Repent of treating our guesses as dogmas, and our words as God’s words.
- Repent of our contempt for spiritual paths and religious traditions other than our own.
- Repent of treating scientific curiosity and skeptical investigation as threats to God.
- Repent of our indifference to the damage humankind has inflicted on the life of the earth.
God Is Not the Punisher
In my church last Sunday morning, our gospel reading was Matthew 3:1-12. It’s one of those Advent eye-openers. It’s not about good tidings of great joy, but about John the Baptizer’s apocalyptic threat: those who do not bear fruit worthy of repentance are about to be burned with unquenchable fire. Damn!
It seems like we always trip over that tension at Advent, which is partly about the delightful anticipation of Christmas, and partly about the terrifying threat of hell. But that tension isn’t unique to Advent; it’s at the core of the melodramatic way we’ve told our Christian story for centuries.
Here’s a short sermon about it. (Sneak preview: I don’t actually think God is going to burn anybody with unquenchable fire.)
[youtube id=UI1xlsuUe38]
Advent Processional
Hello friends!
Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and Advent starts next week. Here’s something I wrote and arranged for my church choir. We’re using this at the start of the service throughout Advent. (The shhh! at the end is meant to be followed by the lighting of the Advent candle.)
I’ve posted it in two pieces:
This is the text:
Searching and seeking, we hear the Spirit speaking. The signs are appearing: the Holy One is nearing. Finding and feeling, the Hidden One revealing, Invoking, inviting, with every candle lighting. Mary is bearing, and Joseph is preparing, The Spirit entwining, and all the stars aligning. All are expecting our God with us connecting, Creation awaiting its holy recreating. Longing and yearning, We keep the fire burning. The time is near, the time is near, The time is near, the time is near. Bells are ringing! Angels singing! Drums are drumming! Christ is coming!
The music is simple and dramatic, with three vocal parts (plus cantor) and a repetitive structure in four-bar phrases. I hope this will be useful to someone out there, and I hope it will help you feel the wild hope of Advent.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Videos for the Inn of God’s Forgiveness
Hello, friends! This month, I’ve been thinking about my book, The Inn of God’s Forgiveness. I have an idea, and I’d like to get your thoughts about it.
It seems to me that The Inn of God’s Forgiveness would be ideal for use in an adult study group in a progressive church. It’s a small book and modestly priced. It presents progressive (and sometimes provocative) theological ideas in a good-humored and accessible way. It’s divided into eight chapters, which would fit a one-chapter-a-week structure quite neatly. And it has a built-in activity for each chapter, because each chapter introduces a new hymn. A study group could look at each hymn, give it a try, and then perhaps decide whether to bring it to the wider church.
What the book hasn’t had, until now, is video content to go with it. My idea is that it would be useful to have a video to go with each chapter, so that a class leader could simply show the video and then lead the discussion (and singing).
I’ve made a draft of a video to go with the first chapter. It’s longer than the usual five-to-ten-minute Merry Mystic missive: it’ll be about forty minutes, including the singing, leaving twenty minutes for discussion in a one-hour class. This draft has a few defects, and the video is grainy in places, but it’ll give you an idea of what I’m suggesting. (And I’m a bit proud of it, in spite of the defects!)
So please: have a look, and let me know your thoughts. Is it useful to you? Would a full video series like this be useful to you, or to others? What would you like to see in the final version? If I make a series like this, how should I deliver it, and how much should I charge for it? (Alas, I don’t think I could give something like this away; just making a draft of the video for the first chapter took a ridiculous number of hours.)
[youtube id=pV-47gb4kRA]
The Center of the Circle
Hello, friends!
This one is by request. Fair warning: it’s a straight-up sermon, it’s serious, and it’s twenty minutes long. As you know, I am the pastor of the Open Prairie United Church of Christ in Princeton, Illinois; this is what I did in church last Sunday. My text was the Good Samaritan parable from the Gospel of Luke.
[youtube id=8NABAFdJiEw]
Come, O People
I write a lot of music, and often, it’s humorous and irreverent. But one can’t be sassy all the time; that would just be annoying.
Today, I have something serious to share with you: some liturgical music I wrote and used in my church during Lent. It’s a processional, arranged for cantor and choir. (The choir part consists of three simple parts, so it’s undemanding—unless the choir also has to stomp and clap as they process!)
[youtube id=BEUKjX8F144]
The sheet music for “Come, O People” is available here, in our Free Stuff area.
The Perfect POTUS
Hello, friends! Today was Trinity Sunday at church, and I did my best with a sermon. Maybe I’ll share it with you, one of these days. I did my best to keep it light. But, damn: it’s still a pretty heavy topic, theologically speaking!
After that, I was in need of an antidote: a little silliness. And here it is: in honor of the forthcoming Democratic presidential debates, an advertisement a la Mary Poppins. Wanted: a president for fifty adorable states…
[youtube id=1DDYudAvuzY]
The Lady Loves Me
I’ve spent most of my life immersed in a received Christian tradition that refers to God as male. It’s almost always “He cometh,” and “bless His name,” and “praise Him;” almost never “She cometh,” and “bless Her name,” and “praise Her.” Intellectually, I don’t want to think of God has having a specific gender. But under the weight of all that gendered language, it’s hard not to.
Here’s my own little contribution to address the imbalance: a song called “The Lady Loves Me.”