Faith Works 10-28-17

Faith Works 10-28-17
Jeff Gill

The other Luther
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Katharina von Bora is not going to get as much mention as I'd like to see her get tomorrow.

Not in my Sunday sermon for Reformation Sunday, not in many others, I'll guess. October 31 is the 500th anniversary of the publication of Martin Luther's 95 theses, his list of statements in dispute of certain doctrines of the Christian church of his day, so from 1517 to 2017 we have a significant event in the history not just of Western Christendom, but of world civilization.

Martin Luther began his protest of central authority and closely-held belief systems five centuries ago, and in the half-millennium since we've seen Western thought shift to a more individualistic, privacy-oriented, personal way of looking at thought and faith and responsibility. Some might even argue we've gone too far down that road, and I'm sure there will be a few sermons on that subject tomorrow.

But when this Augustinian monk and theology professor started asking questions about repentance, penance, and forgiveness . . . and turning on his own authority to the Bible to read passages like "the just shall live by faith" in a new light, he opened up a path for individual believers "to work out your salvation with fear and trembling."

Luther changed how Christians read their Bibles, aided by the new technology of printing which made Bibles more available to everyday people, and with his translation of the scriptures into German he inspired English translators like Wycliffe and Coverdale, leading to the King James version in our own language.

For more about all of this, check out the comprehensive website www.luther2017.de/en where you can get lost for hours (trust me).

What you have to hunt around to find, though, is more about Katharina von Bora. A well-born young girl sent to a convent for an education, who chose to become a nun, but who caught the fervor of the growing Protestant Reformation around her and married Martin Luther at the age of 26.

They had twenty years together, and six children; she cooked his food, brewed his beer, started businesses like a fish hatchery that helped pay the bills during the tumult of the times as her husband wrote and preached and led his growing movement — but he also respected her opinion, her thoughts, her mind. He called her his "My Lord Katie" without irony, and turned to her as a collaborator in his household, his work, and his writing.

Scholars are still slowly putting more pieces together of how Lord Kathy inspired her husband: almost all we know of her is from what Luther wrote, and how his students would occasionally note her asides in their recording of the master's "Table Talk."

When Luther died, he made Katharina his sole beneficiary and guardian of their children. Today, that sounds utterly normal; that itself is one small sign of how her role and their marriage has influenced Western norms in the centuries since. Suffice it to say that Luther's will was unusual in its day, and much remarked upon, as was the nature of his marriage during his life.

The Protestant Reformation changed not just religion, but how we think and relate to each other in the world that grew from those changes 500 years ago. Katie von Bora played her own significant role in those transformations, and is well worth honoring today, along with that fellow she chose to marry.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's not Lutheran himself, but he speaks Lutheran fairly well for a non-native. Tell him your tales of Reformation at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes from my Knapsack - undated

Notes from my Knapsack – Granville Sentinel

Jeff Gill

 

Living in a Dodgeball World

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Today, I'm tall, but years ago, I wasn't.

 

What I remember vividly is being that kid in grade school who did not get the President's patch for physical fitness, couldn't do a single sit up, and was quite clumsy in the gym.

 

I dreaded the gym through elementary school. When it was the auditorium, and we learned songs there and put on shows for parents or of an evening there was a book fair inside it, I loved the space as I loved much of Northview Elementary -- but when it was "the gym" I did not love it at all. Mostly, because of dodgeball.

 

Ah ha, I can hear some of you say. One of those kids. Yep, that was me. And that me is still in here, nudging me today when the right occasion wakes that kid up.

 

There was the agonizing process of getting picked. Certain fine young specimens always got tapped for team captain, and they were the ones you would try to think "do I want to be on their team, so they aren't taking aim at me?" You'd curry favor in those futile juvenile ways, and at times it would work and then the gym teacher would announce a switch and the humiliation was all for naught.

 

Some of you may have fond recollections of catching a ball on the bounce, easily swiveling and flinging a well-aimed ball on the turn, neatly tagging out some opposing player. God bless your happy memories. I recall strategizing to skulk along a wall, skittering along the baseline, sliding behind protruding radiators that gave a narrow angle of protection, trying to hide behind other fellow victims, knowing you were just putting off the stinging moment of reckoning when your side was down to a few and the well aimed shot would take you off your feet.

 

I hated dodgeball. It seemed like we played it at least once a week for years. Pain and humiliation, carefully inflicted shot by shot.

 

Now, I'm well over six feet, have been hit and hit back, enlisted in the Marines and ministered in the inner city and have faced carjackings and stick-ups and pool cue waving drunks in vacant lots and lived through it. But I still hate the memory of dodgeball most of all.

 

I don't want to live in Dodgeball World. I loathe the idea that our public discourse is becoming an arena of the carefully aimed shot, the intentionally targeted smack of inflicted pain, dismissing an opponent to their bench with a gleeful chortle. We're retreating back to a grade school level of picking off the "other" team one thrown red-hot ball after another.

 

I don't want us to be a Dodgeball Village. Picking sides is rarely a community building experience to start with, and working together is surely not one of the morals of dodgeball, whatever beknighted lessons our gym teacher thought he was imparting. Picking off the slow, then the awkward, then focusing down to eliminating your most agile opposition: there are fields of endeavor where those are useful skills, but building the Beloved Community is not one of them.

 

Just remember, when someone on the other side is in your sights, and you feel precisely positioned and ideally prepared to throw a stinging barb to hit them right where it hurts, that there is pain that passes but there is hurt that lasts a long, long time. Some shots aren't worth taking, and some games need a new set of rules to even be worth playing.

 

And some games aren't worth winning. I can't even tell you who won at dodgeball all those years ago in gym, but I remember the hurt, and the pleasure others took in inflicting it, all too well.

 

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County, and he's been at a few public forums recently that felt like dodgeball games. Tell him about the games that taught you how to live a better life at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 10-21-17

Faith Works 10-21-17

Jeff Gill

 

Donor fatigue is real, and an illusion (it's both)

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Have you gotten one of those letters in the mail?

 

Did you find a message in your email with links to videos, images, and a "how to donate" button?

 

Are you watching television or scrolling online and brought to a halt by some appeal or pitch or program about a cause you believe in, or think you should believe in a little bit more than you do?

 

It's that time of the year.

 

Heading into that grand stretch of months called "the holidays," from All Hallow's Eve to Thanksgiving to Christmas and New Year's, there's a mix of the end of the calendar year feelings with seasonal good will to make every non-profit and charitable cause and, in many cases, faith-based programs (including churches) to take the opportunity to reach out, and ask for your contributions.

 

On top of this annual custom, the recent string of natural disasters in the South and Caribbean has resulted in some extra telethons and text-based donation drives, which we've almost all been exposed to. Repeatedly!

 

Which then leads to a phenomenon known as "donor fatigue." It has some grounding in precedent and fact, where you can track the declining rate of giving and how repeated requests for aid can push those curves down more sharply.

 

Truth be told, though, this is a very generous country. It's how we roll. Some $380 BILLION in the last year's tally of charitable giving, individual gifts the overwhelming majority of those dollars, though foundations and grants total billions themselves.

 

What I think some of us get weary of is our own self-doubt, our own questioning of where we are and to whom we should be giving of our blessings. And I'd take that a step farther, and push us all to think about whether we're tired of thinking about where our gifts should go, or if it's repeated circuits around that track without ever quite passing a finish line that wear us down.

 

The requests, in a practical sense, will never end. But if we come to some settled conclusions about a) WHY we give, and b) how we want to give, and yes, c) how much we're going to give, we can reach a point of relative peace. Yes, the requests will still come in, but we won't wear ourselves out in second-guessing what we haven't quite gotten around to doing . . . and that's where I think the fatigue comes in.

 

I wish I could give more in some cases, to some places. But my wife and I have long had a practice of thinking through, planning for, and working out our giving patterns, starting with our basic commitment to our faith community (and yes, there's a template for that, which is a different column topic sometime again soon). Then we try to allocate what we can do with our time and talents, and there are certain purposes in the community we prioritize beyond that, and there we are.

 

It doesn't mean my heart strings are never tugged, or that we don't make financial gifts beyond what we planned at the start of a year, but there's a kind of whipsawing I see and hear in people's discussions about charitable giving that we just don't feel. Because we've thought through why we should give, how much we're going to commit to up front, and when and where we add to that as the year and its blessings pass in review.

 

To be perfectly blunt: what I fear triggers "donor fatigue" is actually "guilt fatigue." Guilt can spur a certain amount of generosity, but we all reach a point where we say "enough already." Guilt is no basis for giving.

 

Gratitude, on the other hand, often multiplies itself. Gratitude is nearly inexhaustible, and giving that is the result of grace (grace being a gift one receives undeserved, but still freely given regardless of whether we had it coming or not) is the visible form of the all-too-often invisible gratitude we want to feel, but so often can't quite put into words.

 

Giving speaks our gratitude in a language the universe can understand, that we can hear echo back and that might just catch the ears and attentions of others. When you know what it is you're thankful for, and why you want to respond, your giving becomes fairly straightforward.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County. Tell him what causes or purposes you give to support at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

 

Faith Works 10-14-17

Faith Works 10-14-17

Jeff Gill

 

Things I Am Upset About

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Large amounts of indignation are being flung around these days about all manner of things, and grave objections raised to what other people are or aren't doing. Let me put my own pet peeves forward, to join the swelling chorus.

 

Yes, I am indignant. What's going on in the world makes an impact on me, in my thoughts and feelings, such that I find myself forced to a certain sort of indignation, such as:

 

I am indignant that I so rarely stop to wonder how things look from the perspective of others. I have to work at it; it does not come naturally or easily. Compassion is not an automatic response for me, it takes effort.

 

I am indignant that my respect for others or regard for those around me usually takes a back seat to my bemusement and even resentment over their poor choices -- in clothing, body ink, hygiene, facial expressions, choice of t-shirt slogans or buttons with quips on them. I have trouble getting past all that without conscious intent.

 

I am indignant that love of country and community is generally something I get to after I've tended to my own comfort and concerns. There are opportunities for service that come my way every day, and while I can't do them all, I tend to size them up first by how involvement suits my own interests first.

 

I am indignant that my own practice of religious faith, as a committed Christian believer, is still such a fragmentary and occasional part of my sense of self, requiring the external reinforcements of calendar reminders and weekly worship and personal disciplines I skip more than I fulfill.

 

I am indignant that what other people are doing tends to occupy more space in my personal and prayerful reflections than what I have done, and should be, myself.

 

Yes, this is all a bit of a contrived way of putting things for the purpose of a newspaper column, but it is also, at the same time, utterly sincere. I'd rather be a better person myself than spend so much time irritated that others are worse than they could be. Yet I worry about what people around me are thinking and saying and doing, when what I actually can control are my own thoughts and words and acts.

 

I wish I were doing a better job of living up to the goals and aspirations I hold dear in my better moments. But when I let myself get peevish and resentful and unhappy about life in general, and people around me in particular, there are many things that trigger my dissatisfactions. What those impressions do, however, is make me more aware of my own shortcomings as a compassionate, forgiving, and welcoming servant of a holy and loving Lord God.

 

Gilbert Keith Chesterton is said to have been asked by "The Daily Telegraph" in 1908, as part of a special feature, to join other secular and sacred writers in responding to the question "What's Wrong With the World." He's reputed to have offered the shortest response, by writing back simply "I am. Sincerely yours, G.K. Chesterton."

 

That is a very Christian response, I'd argue. Not to abase or humiliate oneself, but to admit that in the process of redemption, the core question is what are we going to do about our own sinfulness, and not what's to be done about yours. Or – excuse me! – someone else's. Our own sin and separation from God's will is what most needs attention, and what we can most credibly address. What needs healing in this world? "I do. Sincerely yours, Jeff Gill."

 

Do you need healing and wholeness? I suspect the answer is yes, but that's not my concern. I should help you find the gates of righteousness, the doors of hope and forgiveness, but it's not up to me to shove you through them. I should make sure you know how to find them, and then it's up to you to decide whether to pass through, or move along.

 

Oh, and flags left out 24/7 without direct lighting, left up in the rain when there's a halyard and cleat so that anyone in the house or business could come out and take it down, for pity's sake . . . yeah, that's a pet peeve, too. Oh, I've got opinions!

 

That's part of what I need to repent . . .

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County. Tell him about what you abhor about yourself at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

 

Faith Works 10-7-17

Faith Works 10-7-17

Jeff Gill

 

Reform, renewal, and restoration

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Western Christianity has a very significant commemoration coming up at the end of October… but first, a few more immediate notes of interest for our local faith communities.

 

Tomorrow, on Sunday afternoon Oct. 8 just as many worship services are concluding, there's a chili cook-off at the Canal Market District from Noon to 3 pm, which is also serving as a fundraiser for Citizens for Children Services. Pay $10 and you get a chance to sample a variety of chili recipes; kids 10 and under are free, and there's special food ready for them. Lots more going on (cider, face painting, silent auction), and worth a stop on your way home from church.

 

In a bit more than three weeks, we will mark the 500^th anniversary of an event that didn't really happen the way we tend to think of it. Sigh. So many of these, but the historic reality is worth our consideration.

 

Traditionally, it has been said that on the eve of All Saints' Day, October 31, 1517, Martin Luther went to the castle church of Wittenberg and nailed his "95 theses" (or arguments or assertions) about repentance and forgiveness in the sight of God to the door. It makes a great visual, and both religious art and modern cinema have tried to evoke that dramatic act, a now former monk boldly putting his defiance under a mallet and nail to place it right where it confronts the churchly powers he sought to reform.

 

And indeed, the Protestant Reformation dates itself to that day. What we don't know for sure is if Luther finished writing them on that day, or handed them off to a courier, or if they were copied off and posted on that day by a sexton, a church custodian who would have nailed the notice up. What makes it both more and less dramatic is that the church door was the internet of its day, the municipal message board, the public display area for all manner of official acts. Posting upcoming weddings, announcing festivals and holy days, declaring new laws or ordinances: they all went up on the church door. Being nailed there was not defiance itself, but a declaration to any and everyone that this is what you wanted known, what you were associating yourself with.

 

The 95 Theses, in English translation, are easy to find online, and worth a read. Making some allowances for the language of the day, and understanding a bit of the theological backstory involved, you can still step up to that door and read for yourself on what grounds this preacher and teacher was seeking to upend the traditional order of things. I recommend that activity to anyone, regardless of their denominational affiliation or religious interest, for the posting of the 95 Theses was a watershed moment in intellectual as well as religious history for the Western world.

 

If you promise to read them in full on your own, I will say this: the 95 Theses assert that the processes of forgiveness and reconciliation through the church on earth had come to do violence to God's intention, and needed to be reformed. Martin Luther didn't argue, as one can start to think looking backwards through the telescope, that all of the understanding and interpretation of grace and redemption can take place merely between any one believer on their own and God. His Protestantism was not the modern consumeristic model of hyper-individualism, but the church Luther envisioned was more catholic (if not Catholic) than many tend to assume. Luther was social and communal and ecclesial in ways we are still, 500 years later, trying to come to grips with. We need each other, that learned and anguished monk knew, wrestling with his demons in Wartburg Castle and seeking forgiveness in private prayer, in our hymn singing and sermon hearing and acts of prayer and praise in community.

 

My own favorite of the theses is the 62^nd, where Martin Luther reminds his readers at the church door: "The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God." Not the built-up treasury of the saints saved up for the church hierarchy to spend as they will, but as a legacy held in trust together, for all humankind.

 

There are both Catholic and Lutheran congregations marking what we've learned, and where we still fall short, each year around "Reformation Sunday." Many different Christian bodies look back to Luther and marvel at his courage and clarity. May we all do that this year as we approach Oct. 31^st.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about your hopes for reform and renewal of the church at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.