Pastors' Prayer at Clergy Session

Holy God, You've cast your net and drawn us in to this mess of fish, You've touched our lips with the fire of your love and it burns in our bones, You've called our names as friends and as servants of your church and your world. Our eyes, ears and hearts are catapulted into awareness. Forgive us for times we keep our own nets rolled up, or go too often to our favorite fishing spot, or think we're the ones in charge of sorting the catch. Forgive us for words spoken without conviction, for easy truisms, for times we forget the love that made us, drew us in, called us and kindled gifts within us. Forgive us for the times we don't show up as servant-leaders, when we dial it in, when we draw the world small instead of wide and full of your surprising glory. This call to ordained ministry is marvelous and awful--in the best sense of both words. By your grace, which offers more than we could ever ask or imagine, renew our hearts, restore our spirits, turn us each day to you. For these we receive into our fellowship today, we pray that you will bring strength in weakness, the necessary word in writer's block, light in darkness, clarity in confusion, joy in dailiness, community and love in new places, assurance for doubt, and faithfulness in all things. As the body of Christ, we pray. Amen.

Secret Millionaire

For some reason about a week ago, there were repeated promos for a show called Secret Millionaire. I was knitting while watching TV so was trying to ignore the commercials in general. After the fifth preview of the upcoming show I couldn't take it anymore. In case you missed that night on whatever channel, the premise is that a millionaire goes undercover and slums it among the rest of us with $34 in walking around money for a week. In some ways it's like Undercover Boss I think. At the end there's a big reveal and people like us are thrilled to have been in the presence of a millionaire, and so impressed by her or his humanitarian impulse to leave behind the privileges of wealth. The promo had a soundbite about some millionaire giving $150,000 to a community program...and o-o-oh, what a difference that was going to make. As a pastor and fan of the non-profit world I'm all in favor of charitable giving. But what is it about making so much money via our system of unequal access, privilege and loopholes for the wealthy that gives those with the money the right to determine which needs are valid? This is heightened when it comes to the whole tax-sheltered foundation charitable industrial complex. (Please help with a better name for it!) Putting money into a foundation shelters it from any tax liability, meaning that taxes from that wealth don't flow into the government coffers which provide for the common good (social safety net, education, public safety, environmental regulation, diplomacy, etc., etc.). Instead, having deprived the public of choosing funding via the democratic electoral process, wealthy individuals and families can decide which causes they think are worthy. No one elected them to run programs for the public good! This dynamic is present in the US and around the world. The Gates Foundation is addressing some huge needs in Africa, for example: malaria, HIV, women's education. There's some attention to infrastructure, but very little I'm assuming to equalizing the playing field in developmental innovation for those countries. It's the exceptionalism that concerns me, and how that's fostered by shows like Secret Millionaire and Undercover Boss. Those shows are small potatoes compared to the non-elected rule exercised by multi-national corporations, their CEOs and the foundations that keep wealth under their control.

Cypress Watch

Even though we humans get caught time after time with 20/20 hindsight, it's hard to move from short-term to long-term thinking. This happens to me when I make a plan to get up early and go to the Y three times a week for the future goal of being fitness-ready for biking, and then more immediate thoughts of sleeping in for another half hour take precedence. Or, that container of chocolate chip cookie dough looks good now, and I forget my one sugar treat a week goal. I smile now as I resolve one more time to be loving and encouraging of myself even if I feel like a middle-aged matron! When the circle of long-term avoidance goes global it's more of a concern. The consequences are vast. Each spring I see mountains of cypress mulch and am reminded of how actions separated from consequences can be destructive. When Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast some of the damage came from the loss of cypress forests protecting coastal areas. A study tells us that a cypress grove reduces the force of a storm surge by 90%. And yet, logging is taking that protection away. No human-made levees can take the place of what nature has put in place. There is no way the market value of bags of mulch at your local hardware store or garden center can compensate for what is lost in the long term. Look for another option for your gardens and love our home well.

Poetry Sampler


Birch 10.12.2010


Sere, curling
A shiver and three
leaves fall
Gold leafing the lawn
Flick and flash
chickadee flight
to feed and cache
one more seed
Earth, tree and wing
bear morning light.


Cats 10.17.2010


A flip of the tongue
Roll and breathe
Out utterance
Has devolved
Into purrs
And raspy meows
On my part
Intertwined with morning news
And inquiries
"More food?"


Blank Page 4.6.11
An entry in St. Paul's sidewalk poetry contest--wasn't chosen


Let this page blow
into the chain link fence
lose shape
in sun and rain
darkly curl, disassemble
into dust


Oriole Wish  4.12.11


O tangerine
and arc of coal
sweet dusk
of grape
jelled
on outstretched
perch
calling and waiting
for you

Light for the Nations

8-2-2009

© Donna J. Martinson

A light for the nations

Light, irrepressible light

One flash, one blink, a moment of light

Just one second

and the light in particle energy

packets

wavelengths of light

has flown away

Three hundred hundred-meter dashes

laid end to end

run in one second – illumined

transected by a beam of light

How far can we see in this light?

Light, refracted and reflected

Light, broken for you

into colors so you may see

how various, how splendid, how interesting is this world

an indigo bunting wing has no color but the light

bent through feather into iridescent blue

and how blue . . . or green,

grey or brown,

are the eyes of the peoples

of the nations

Light for the nations

see the shimmering of youth

see the translucence of age

see the hues of skin and sky

metropolis and village

Salvation to the ends of the earth

And now we know the ends

from National Geographic and Nova

sometimes, it is not salvation we bring

oh, Lord, hear our prayer

Salvation

Wholeness

Shalom

Healing

Forgiveness

Good news

Freedom from oppression, from want, from fear, from death

Light in which to see everyone as sister, brother, aunt, uncle, grandfather, grandmother, cousin, neighbor

for now we know the ends of the earth…

Oh, Lord, hear our prayer for salvation

We are to be a light for the nations

Hear the word of the Lord.

God said, “Let there be light and there was light. And God saw that the light was good” (Genesis 1).

The Lord led them with a pillar of fire by night, to give them light (Exodus).

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness---on them light has shined (Isaiah 9:2).

Arise, shine, for your light has come (Isaiah 60:1).

You are the light of the world.

A city built on a hill cannot hide. Don’t hide your light under a basket. Let your light shine so others may see your good works and give glory to God (Matthew 5:14-16).

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it (John 1:5).

God is light and in God there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5).

Light, irrepressible light

Invisible yet visible fuel

for the growth of plant life on land and in the sea

photosynthesis!

Enough light if solar panels could power us and warm us

with energy to spare

Speed of light

measures greatness of the universe

Light overflowing from sun and stars

Light for us - light in us

light through us

Praise the word of the Lord

Communion and the Priesthood of All Believers

Maybe some of you have been in that awkward place with communion that I've known a few times. When I was in my local church internship during seminary, the pastor was going to be on vacation on a communion Sunday. I was ordained as a probationary elder at the time, but not appointed to that church. The pastor wanted me to serve communion, and just to be sure it was going to be right he blessed the elements the day before. I wish I remembered the details of our conversation now, after 15 years, but my brain doesn't work that way.

When I was a church camp counselor in college we learned all about Love Feasts since we couldn't have communion without a pastor there. I didn't question that rule then. Now that I am an elder in the United Methodist Church--ordained to Word, Order and Sacrament (the addition of Service was after 2001)--I wonder about the wall around the table. In reading some Roman Catholic church history dealing with the development of Eucharistic theology and practice, I began to see how our practice as United Methodists is not representing our theology. How we preside at the table, how we offer the bread and cup, who says what and where, communicates powerfully about what is taking place in the Lord's Supper, and these do so in ways we need to change. Our current dominant practice is enshrined in our Book of Worship, where the rubrics for communion repeat: "the pastor says," "the pastor takes," "the pastor says."

When I asked a United Methodist systematic theologian, and then a friend who wrote great ordination papers, whether we believed that the pastor saying the Great Thanksgiving, words of institution and epiklesis was necessary for efficacy, they both said no. Our job in ordering the life of the church and sacramental authority is exercised in presence and not in incantational power. Then why is the BOW written as it is? And what do people take away from the image and function as it stands? Wouldn't congregants assume a necessary link between the function of the pastor and the grace of the Eucharist?

If you would like a copy of the whole bit let me know. Please use this space for comments, ideas, questions. Thanks!