Smuggling Grace

Last week, I had the very lovely opportunity to visit Pasadena, California. Ian and I lived there from 2010-2013, and over those three years, we built a wonderful sense of community, particularly at Pasadena Presbyterian Church where I was a pastor. It was very meaningful to visit and connect with this community again.

We traveled to Pasadena last week in order to attend the memorial service of Bob Thomas. Bob was a wonderful friend and colleague who died at the beginning of May. He had been undergoing cancer treatments for about a year, but he had just turned a major corner, so news of his death still felt very unexpected. This was certainly a sad occasion, and yet, it felt so filling to be present. It was good gift to honor Bob.

Bob Thomas is a person who wore many hats. For many years, he was classical music critic and columnist for the Pasadena Star-News. Likewise, he was an avid chorister himself. For most of his working years, he was the communications aficionado of the Southern California Golf Association, known most influentially as the publisher and editor of FORE Magazine. A very committed, life-long Presbyterian, Bob served as an elder and an administrator at Pasadena Presbyterian Church; then later, after completing years of training, he became a Commissioned Ruling Elder. (For those who don’t speak formal Presbyterian terminology, that means he served as a pastoral leader).

On Sunday, we heard more about his life at his memorial service, a service designed by Bob himself with beautiful pairings of readings and choral anthems. I could write a whole other post about how wonderful that was.

After Bob’s memorial service, I greeted Nikki Thomas, Bob’s wife, and I was grateful to connect with her. After chatting a bit, she said, “I have something for you.” I wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe a card of some kind? She went to get it, and when she returned, she handed me two of Bob’s stoles.

“I want you to have these,” she said. I was so touched to receive this gift.

Bob and I both served on a team of people that created a new community in Pasadena around a Sunday evening worship service. Five years later, the Evening Worship Community is going strong and has grown in some incredible ways. Among the other gifts of traveling to Pasadena, I was grateful to be invited to speak to this community on Sunday night. Other people from that original team were there too, including my very good friend Adrian, who had flown down from Sacramento. We talk often, but we haven’t seen each other in about four years. This was a tremendous reunion.

In the midst of it, I asked if Adrian and I could celebrate communion together, something that happens weekly in this community. Everyone agreed that this would be meaningful. So when it was time to share in this meal together, Adrian and I walked over to the table. And as a first act to honor Bob, we each draped one of his stoles over the other. That was so special. Adrian led the prayers, and I had broke the bread and poured the cup for the community. I think Bob would have loved to see the two of us sharing all of this with the people. I think he would have loved to see his stoles worn at Pasadena Presbyterian Church again.

The New Testament word for ‘remember’ — including Jesus’ words, “Do this in remembrance of me” — has greater meaning than simply recalling a past event. It means, “to make present.”

I think we’re going to find ways to make Bob present for a long time. These stoles will be just one, present reminder.

–Renee Roederer

 

Every morning, I receive daily email meditations from Richard Rohr. I love them, and I recommend them to people all the time.

Yesterday, Richard Rohr sent a piece about collaborative leadership, juxtaposing it with the kind of leadership that dominates and determines decisions alone. He lifted up what is possible when leaders and entire communities begin to create cultures of collaboration. I like his list, so I’m going to share it today:

“Here are some insights into what every good, servant-hearted, nondual leader knows and practices, whether in community, in the workplace, or in the classroom. Creative leaders:

• are seers of alternatives.
• move forward by influencing events and inspiring people more than by ordering or demanding.
• know that every one-sided solution is doomed to failure. It is never a lasting solution but only a postponement of the problem.
• learn to study, discern, and search together with others for solutions.
• know that total dilemmas are very few. We create many dilemmas because we are internally stuck, attached, fearful, over-identified with our position, needy of winning the case, or unable to entertain even the partial truth that the other opinion might be offering.
• know that wisdom is ‘the art of the possible.’ The key question is no longer ‘How can I problem solve now and get this off my plate?” It is “How can this situation achieve good for the largest number and for future generations?’
• continue finding and sharing new data and possibilities until they can work toward consensus from all sides.
• want to increase both freedom and ownership among the group—not subservience, which will ultimately sabotage the work anyway.
• emphasize the why of a decision and show how it is consistent with the group’s values.”

We can cultivate this kind of leadership. The challenge, of course, is learning how to organize communities in these ways when there are so many cultural pulls to keep organizing ourselves in top-down models. But new ways are always possible. They lead to an empowered community.

And sometimes, a community has to become empowered enough to say, “We want that.” When this happens, the community itself is the leader.

–Renee Roederer

 

What would feel like to take heart just a little bit more today?

To remind yourself that you’re worth loving?

To remind yourself that people are indeed working for good in the world, even in the midst of pain?

To remind yourself that you’ve been surprised at other times, so why not be surprised by goodness again?

To remind yourself that taking heart, while vulnerable, is really giving heart by allowing ourselves to have hope and trust, and that this can actually lean into the creation of goodness in the world?

You’re worth that risk.

Your neighbor is worth that risk.

–Renee Roederer

When I was much younger, in my days of being a fundamentalist (Did you know this about me? Yep, started out that way) it was clear to me that sin was serious, and if you didn’t interact with it just right, there could be consequences of eternal punishment and separation.

I still think that sin – that is, harm to ourselves, our neighbors, and our planet — is serious. It has real impacts right here. It is a distortion of who God calls us to be and how God calls us to live. I also think the God who brings us into life is above all loving, and always lifegiving, calling us more and more to the same.

But back to that fundamentalist mindset for a bit. I remember feeling concerned, even afraid, of potentially participating in someone’s ‘sin,’ in a way that might displease God and implicate me as well. So a scenario where you are invited to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding…? If you did that, wouldn’t it seem that you are condoning this kind of marriage? Wouldn’t that displease God? Wouldn’t that implicate you?

For a long while now, I have been affirming of same-gender relationships and marriage. I believe this is faithfulness, care, and companionship, not mortal sin. I also know how much harm – sin – has been done to the LGBTQ community by this mindset of scapegoating, exclusion, and stigma.

But back then, I confess that I used to think and fear in these ways.In the wake of yesterday’s SCOTUS decision, and ongoing efforts to scapegoat, exclude, and stigmatize, I found myself pondering this:

When I (and others I know) made new friendships, asked new questions, and began to change our perspectives on same-sex relationships and marriage, I remember hearing a particular question. “Aren’t you just giving into the culture?” That is, giving into a culture that was becoming more accepting and affirming – a culture that was ultimately ‘Un-Biblical’?

The question was implying that I was being more shaped by the culture around me than the convictions that should be guiding me.

Then, years later, I thought in response… do you think that you (that is fundamentalists) are not being influenced by a culture, including one you are creating, when you focus upon somewhere between 4-6 verses of scripture about same gender sex and relationships (and sometimes out of context) deciding that this is the ‘sin’ that must constantly be focused upon and spotlighted as dangerous, while ignoring hundreds and thousands of verses in other directions?

If you don’t think this is so, why do you not show the same worry about participating in systems that tangibly harm the poor and indeed make people poor? Are there any cake bakers out there who are refusing to provide cakes for CEOs who make 400 times more than their fellow employees – those who are fully employed but on food stamps?

Are there Christian fundamentalists out there who are gut-wrenched about children being separated from their parents at the southern border, who are afraid of participating in this sin? I mean, if you vote in a particular way (or do nothing to hold accountable people you voted for) wouldn’t it seem you are condoning this kind of separation?

I don’t see the same concern.

I don’t believe Fundamentalists are somehow unaffected by culture. Many are indeed pushing for a kind of culture that punishes some and disregards the pain of others.

–Renee Roederer

As of today, Ian and I have been married thirteen years. Our marriage is a teenager! And… I’m still absolutely head over heels for this human.  (Ian, I know you’re reading, and #SorryNotSorry for the Schmaltz).

We celebrate our wedding anniversary as a wonderful marker, of course. But in all honesty, between the two of us, we tend to make a bigger deal of our dating anniversary. It’s the larger marker of how long we’ve been together, and next year, we will have reached twenty years. This feels remarkable.

The dating anniversary in October tends to be the larger marker for us as a couple. So when our wedding anniversary comes around, I find myself thinking of Ian and giving thanks (obvi!) but I also find myself thinking about the communities that have surrounded us during the last thirteen years. When Ian and I said yes to each other, we said yes to every home, every community, every chapter. He and I have shared all of these communities in common.

Today, I’d like to spotlight just one — the one at the beginning. I’d like to mention St. John United Presbyterian Church in New Albany, Indiana, the congregation that threw our wedding.

When I say that a church community threw our wedding, I mean so much more than saying they hosted it, or that we used their sanctuary. I mean that they threw the wedding. Honestly, every part of it, and in great love for us.

With love and care, people from that church community decorated the spaces for the service and the reception. They officiated. They played the music. They made the food. They took the photos. When the reception was over, they even did all the dishes!

On June 4, when Ian and I made commitments to one another, I had the sense that the people in that sanctuary were making commitments to us too, and that those commitments were born of many commitments over many years, because we belonged very deeply with one another. That was a real gift. It still is a real gift.

I found myself thinking about all of this again because I told stories about this congregation and this wedding in a sermon yesterday. (Remember that Kinship Series I’m doing all summer? If you’d like a copy of this sermon, just email me at revannarbor@gmail.com).

I’ll be honest. Made of human beings, I have seen Church thrive, and I have seen Church fall wildly short of its own vision and calling. But this — this big sense of belonging and commitment over time — is one of the reasons I’m still hold out hope for this thing called Church. This is some of the best of what that vision can be.

–Renee Roederer

I woke up feeling disheartened this morning.

I was pondering a number of troubling news stories that we’ve heard in more depth over the last few weeks. And of course, they’re troubling because these are always more than news stories. These stories represent real people — real, human lives, upended. It’s crucial at times to feel our sadness, anger, and confusion in relationship to these things. We have human connections with people who are suffering. And right alongside those feelings, it’s just as vital to feel resolve, so that we are empowered to act in different directions.

But sometimes, we just feel disheartened.
This happens, and it’s okay.

And this is also true:

Every single day, a host of wonderful things happen which never make it on the news. I know this to be true. You probably do too. I don’t bring this up to negate the realities of suffering that we know and hear about, or to lessen the impacts of them, including inside ourselves. We need to feel that. It’s just that at the same time, every single day, there are moments of collective action, solidarity, bravery, wonder, meaning, kindness, compassion, protection, and transformation. These are happening. They can hearten us, and they can help us with the resolve and empowerment we need.

On Tuesday, I sat in the balcony of the Michigan Capitol alongside many people from the Poor People’s Campaign, and from there, we watched the Michigan House of Representatives do business. Until. . . we didn’t. Some people started singing,

Somebody’s hurting poor people,
and it’s gone on far too long,
gone on far too long,
gone on far too long.

Somebody’s hurting poor people,
and it’s gone on far too long,
and we won’t be silent anymore.

Everyone chimed in and added their voices to the singing, and collectively, we shut down business as usual. The Michigan House of Representatives had to adjourn. Can you imagine? The body that is voting in the direction of adding work requirements to Medicaid is stopped by folks singing about the hurt being done to poor people.

It’s wonderful. Do you know that this barely made a blip on the news?

Today, a number of people I know — many of them connected to the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship — are starting to walk on foot from Louisville, Kentucky to St. Louis, Missouri, where leaders from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will soon meet for their biannual General Assembly. These leaders are calling attention to ecological devastation and advocating for the PC(USA) to divest from fossil fuels. These folks wrote the overtures, they got people in Presbyteries around the country to sign onto this hope, and now, they are walking 260+ miles with their bodies to call attention to it.

It’s wonderful. I hope this will become more than a blip on the news. But I’m sure it will have great impact upon this vote to divest.

We have to feel our feelings, yes, and we need empowerment to act.

Pain is abundant at times, and it needs our attention. But change is still possible.

–Renee Roederer

I think my relationship with productivity is changing.

We all have a relationship to work, work culture, and productivity. What motivates us to work? What do we enjoy about it, and what feels draining? How does our work impact our relationships? How does our sense of vocation impact our work? Do we feel free in that work, or do we feel weighed down by the demands of others? Does it seem that our work is in alignment with who we are, or not? Do we have time for rest, or do we feel as though the work never ends? Do we have the material resources we need to do the work we feel called to do, or is that a challenge in some way? How does our work affect larger communities?

In an American context, it is virtually impossible to avoid being influenced by such questions, whether they are expressed consciously or unconsciously. Above all, it is virtually impossible to avoid being influenced by the culture of American capitalism itself. The drive of this system often indicates that productivity and human worth are linked: The more you produce, the more worth and value you have as a person. But of course, this is a lie. It can even be a dangerous lie. It puts stigma on some. It may cause us to question ourselves.

In a context where all of these questions swirl around culturally, I don’t think we ever fully arrive in any particular relationship to work. We are always asking such questions. We are always being shaped by such questions.

So, in the midst of this, I think my relationship with productivity is changing. I’ve been especially productive over the last two weeks or so. (For the record, this doesn’t make me any more worthwhile than other weeks I’ve experienced.)

And here’s what I notice: I don’t feel like my productivity is about busyness. I don’t feel like I’m working in order to keep anyone’s criticism at bay. I don’t feel like the goal of my work is to conform to a great deal of others’ expectations (There is immense privilege in this statement, by the way — that is, to rejoice in directing your own work, rather than being directed by others. There’s also some limitation too. In order to do it, I have no salary support. Working on that!)

No, instead, the shift is simply this: I have been especially productive lately because I am really and truly enjoying the act of creating. I am enjoying the creation of new possibilities, and some of those other cultural influences are fading. I’ve gotten into more flow.

This isn’t an arrival point, again because all of these things are in flux. But I am enjoying this, and I am grateful for such a shift. Productivity is feeling fun and meaningful, rather than stressful or coerced. This is a gift.

What about you? How are you feeling in your relationship to work?

–Renee Roederer

 

Sometimes, movements move in directions you don’t necessarily expect. When I traveled to Lansing yesterday to participate in the Poor People’s Campaign, I didn’t expect to witness people shutting down the Michigan State House with singing. In fact, I don’t think any of us expected that.

It just happened rather spontaneously after we had spent a bit more than an hour outside, listening to personal stories from people directly impacted by poverty and the war economy:

-The United States spends about ten times more on the military weaponry than any nation considered an ally or any nation considered a threat. This money could instead go to education, healthcare, infrastructure, and innovation.

-The branches of the armed services recruit in high schools among students who live in poverty. These young people are offered signing bonuses which seem particularly enticing because the money can aid their poor families. I support the needs of people who have made the choice to enlist, and I believe they should have care and opportunity after they leave the military. At the same time, people in poverty should not feel as though military enlistment is their only choice for a viable future. We know that across the board (not only those in poverty) veterans do not always receive the care, support, and opportunity they need. This means that some never escape poverty after all. And some veterans return with financial and emotional needs so great that they end up on the street. There is an economy profiting off of all of this. Veterans deserve our care. Young people deserve our care. This is wrong.

Please listen to a portion of a mother’s testimony in Michigan who shared about these dynamics. Here, she talks about her two sons who fought in the Iraq War.

-When military equipment and weaponry is no longer used within the armed forces, it often moves into militarized police departments around the country. And we know that this equipment is used in physically and emotionally violent ways, especially in poor communities and particularly among Black residents and residents of color.

-There is also an economy that is profiting off of gun sales, and without having adequate checks in place, wealthy people profit by putting more weapons onto the streets and into the hands of people who will use them violently.

The Poor People’s Campaign stands against all of this.

Yesterday, we heard powerful testimonies in front of the Michigan Capitol, and then, we walked inside the building. We walked to the top balcony where we could observe the business of the Michigan House of Representatives. That’s when some people started singing spontaneously. Then, joining them, the entire balcony started singing too. This went on for a long time.

Somebody’s hurting poor people,
and it’s gone on far too long,
gone on far too long,
gone on far too long.

Somebody’s hurting poor people,
and it’s gone on far to long,
and we won’t be silent anymore.

Here’s the song if you’d like to hear it.

When the representatives below couldn’t silence the singing, they adjourned. Quite spontaneously, the Poor People’s Campaign shut down the Michigan House of Representatives, all in the necessity of making voices heard. This was not only true of singing itself, but in the lifting up of voices, perspectives, and needs we heard in testimony outside.

The Poor People’s Campaign is a powerful force for moral change.

We gather again in Lansing on Monday, June 4.

–Renee Roederer

All photos and videos above are used with permission.

Last Saturday, the Michigan Nones and Dones community had its 80th gathering.

I was grateful for it too. Since it was Memorial Day weekend, I thought we might not have enough people to move forward with the event, but in the end, we had a wonderful group around a table, sharing in conversation and eating tacos. (Sidenote: tacos equals #blessed 🙂 In fact, half of the group included people who were new to us. It was wonderful to welcome them.

Michigan Nones and Dones is a community that has been meeting in Southeast Michigan for the last two and a half years in coffee shops, restaurants, parks, and homes to talk about spirituality and make meaning together as friends. This community includes people who are religiously unaffiliated (Nones), people who have a faith tradition but have departed from traditional, institutional religious communities (Dones), and people who remain connected to faith communities to some degree but find themselves wanting to question or reform the vision of how those communities function.

We say that Michigan Nones and Dones is a community for people who are “spiritually curious but institutionally suspicious.” It’s amazing how people with many various backgrounds and perspectives can gather together under the umbrella of that description. The community includes,

-people who are agnostic and interested in spirituality and forming friendships of meaning (i.e. by this, I mean talking about life — gifts, challenges, what’s going on in the world, what really matters)

-de-affiliated Christians — folks who identify as Christian, but feel disappointed in and/or ostracized by traditional churches,

-people who are atheists who want to uplift the morality of humanism,

-people who might call themselves inter-spiritual, as they grew up with more than one faith tradition,

-people who say, “I’m secular,” or “spiritual but not religious,”

-people who are religiously unaffiliated and unsure about particular, theological beliefs, but who say, “I believe in a Higher Power of some kind,”

-people who say, “I don’t like labels. I just want to have good conversation,”

-people who are connected with traditional faith communities but frustrated with unethical behavior they see happening there, longing for a better vision,

-people who practice spiritual traditions that might fall under the New Age umbrella.

Michigan Nones and Dones is first and foremost a community, but I realize it is also an incredible platform for conversation. How rare is it to sit around a table with all of these backgrounds, find commonality of experience, and uplift different perspectives in ways that enrich all those who are gathered together? We all learn from one another.

It is a wonderful gift to get together at least twice per month to have these conversations (we meet on 2nd Tuesdays from 6:30-8pm and 4th Saturdays from 11am-12:30pm). These connections matter. These relationships matter, as people are welcomed and heard, invited to share insights, and brought into friendships they might not have made otherwise.

I am grateful, grateful.

You can follow Michigan Nones and Dones here on Facebook.

–Renee Roederer

A Story

“I’M A THEOLOGIAN!!!”

Of all the things I’ve ever blurted out — and quite loudly, so I’m told — this is probably the silliest one.

In 2007, I had a very dramatic skiing accident in Colorado. I fell hard and slid straight into a tree. It’s amazing that I didn’t end up with a concussion. I did, however, end up with a badly broken shoulder.

But before we got to the hospital, we didn’t know any of that. I was just being rushed down a mountain dramatically in an ambulance. I barely remember anything from that day, including that ride, so I rely on the memory of others — namely, Ben Johnston-Krase who was in the ambulance with me.

The paramedic in the ambulance was trying to keep me awake, so he kept asking me questions. I yelled all my answers in response. “On a scale of 1 to 10, Renee, how much does it hurt?” “THREE!!!!” I screamed. “A reminder that 1 is the lowest, and 10 is the highest,” he said to me. “OKAY! FIVE!!!!” (I… might downplay pain sometimes… but hey, at least I gave him what he expected — numbers).

Then he asked me another question: “So Renee, what do you do?”

“I’M A THEOLOGIAN!!!!” I blurted out at full lung capacity.

He wasn’t expecting that one at all. The paramedic looked at Ben with surprise. Then Ben kind of shrugged and nodded. “Well, yeah, that’s kind of true,” he said. I was 25 and in seminary. I liked to speak and write words about God, so I suppose that was indeed, kind of true.

Last week, I thought about this memory all over again when someone referred to me on Facebook as “a theologian.” I smiled, and all these years later, I thought, “Well, yeah, I guess that’s kind of true.”

I do like to speak and write words about God.
I do like to speak and write words about human connections in relationships.
I do like to speak and write words about our world and our callings within it.

And by the way, my definition for theologian is very broad and inclusive. When you do these things, you are also a theologian. We live this calling together. So let me blurt it out for you today: “YOU’RE A THEOLOGIAN!!!” It’s true.

An Announcement

So, in that spirit, a theologian among theologians, I want to share some news today. I think I’m going to blurt out something else entirely.  I say it with excitement, trembling, and humility at once (after all, this is an attempt, and I can’t fully control the outcome, you know, like if someone will publish me…) Here it is:

I am going to write a book.

I’m a theologian, and I’m going to write a book.

Or in concert with this post so far, “I’M A THEOLOGIAN, AND I’M GOING TO WRITE A BOOK!”

Specifically,

I am going to write a theological book about kinship —

How do we understand our human relationships with one another, that we are more deeply connected than we often let ourselves imagine?

How might we open some theological frameworks for naming a reality as powerful and life-giving as Family-of-Choice? — Expanding our visions for family and close connections? Queering family? (Thanks here to our LGBTQ siblings) Lifting up awareness that scripture is abundantly full of stories where people deeply choose one another?

How might this shape a vision for Church?

And to begin to move in this direction — that is, to begin to write in this direction — I am first going to speak. I am so grateful for an opportunity this summer.

A Series

My wonderful friend and colleague, Rev. Brooke Pickrell, is going on a well-deserved Sabbatical this summer. She’s the pastor of Northside Presbyterian Church here in Ann Arbor. This congregation is so wonderful. It’s filled with people who have richly chosen one another and people who have lived with great advocacy and choice of their neighbors too.

I’m going to be leading worship there on Sunday mornings throughout the summer, and I’m going to initiate a sermon series in these same directions. There is much I want to lift up and celebrate in this congregation. And I’m hoping that the series is a great launching pad for lifting up the themes of kinship, ultimately to begin a larger writing project as well.

Here is the outline for the summer:

I. Family-of-Choice: A Theology (June)

How might we open some theological frameworks to consider and celebrate Family-of-Choice?

June 3 “I Will Go Where You Go”
Isaiah 43:18-21
Ruth 1:1-18 (Ruth and Naomi)

June 18 “Ide!” – The Gift of One Another
Isaiah 49:8-23
John 19:16b-27 (Mary and John)

June 25 “I Do Choose”
Isaiah 55:1-9
Mark 1:40-45 (Jesus and the Unnamed Leper)

II. Belonging: The Kin-dom of God (July)

In part two, I uplift Kingdom of God sayings from Jesus and consider how they might speak to us about belonging. Then I invite us to explore stories about five women in the New Testament who illustrate these sayings and expand belonging in new ways.

“The Kin-dom of God is like. . .

July 1 “. . . a mustard seed”
Matthew 13:31-32
Luke 1:26-56 (Mary and the Magnificat)

July 8 “. . . yeast that a woman took and mixed”
Matthew 13:33
Luke 7:36-50 (The Woman at Simon’s House)

July 15 “. . . treasure hidden in a field”
Matthew 13:44
Matthew 15:21-28 (The Syrophoenician Woman)

July 22 “. . . a merchant in search of pearls”
Matthew 13:44-45
John 4:1-42 (The Samaritan Woman)

July 29 “. . .the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old”
Matthew 13:51-53
John 20:1-18 (Mary Magdalene and the Resurrection)

III. The Household: Church as Kinship (August)

The early Church was often called ‘the household.’ How might these themes of kinship impact our vision for Church?

August 5 “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people”
1 Peter 2:1-10
Acts 10:1-48 (Peter and Cornelius)

August 12 “You have become very dear to us”
1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
1 Timothy 1:1-2, 12-19a; 2: 14-16 (Paul and Timothy)

IV. The Fullness of Belonging

What if we allowed ourselves — really and truly — to recognize that we are deeply chosen for a life full of expansive belonging and calling?

September 2 “That you may comprehend the breadth and length, and height, and depth”
Ephesians 3:14-21
Luke 5:1-11 (Jesus and the Calling of the Disciples)

If you are a blog subscriber or perhaps a personal friend reading this post, and you’d like weekly recordings/manuscripts of these sermons, feel free to email me at revannarbor@gmail.com. I won’t be publishing them here directly, but I am pleased to send them out.

Thanks for going on this journey with me.

“I’M A THEOLOGIAN!”
Here goes.

–Renee Roederer