Faith Works 11-5-16

Faith Works 11-5-16

Jeff Gill

 

Put Your Money Where Your Faith Is

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Before we get off on any other topic: it's Time Change. "Fall back" two hours Saturday night before you go to bed, or end up getting to church in time for that pre-service thing you've been avoiding.

 

On the other hand, what a painless way to adjust into joining an adult class or other Sunday fellowship and study opportunity: forget what I said. Change your clocks on Sunday afternoon. See you tomorrow!

 

Sunday, Nov. 6 is also an opportunity to help the Licking County Coalition of Care in their work to help people in need by promoting collaboration and shared action between area churches. Their marquee fundraising event is at the Midland Theatre at 2:00 pm, and you can buy tickets at the door, or in advance.

 

This year they're saying "join us for a fresh & funny salute to Americana" called "The Wonder Bread Years." This is a one-man show, starring Pat Hazell (who is a former Seinfeld writer) which walks the line between stand-up and theater.

 

If you want an opportunity to help a charitable cause that's more participatory, there's the Licking County Coalition for Housing's "Home Run" coming up next Saturday, Nov. 12, at Rotary Park Pavilion on Sharon Valley Road, starting at 9:00 am.

 

It's their fourth 5K event, helping the homeless in Licking County. You can run or just walk (some of us are not so much runners…) but it does offer a timed race with medals for the top finishers overall and in each age group. The cost is an entry fee of $25 by tomorrow, Nov. 6, which goes up to $30 entry fee after this Sunday. There's a t-shirt and goody bag included for all registered participants, plus lunch and door prizes. You can go to www.lcchousing.org for registration.

 

Two coalitions, two collections of programs and congregations and individuals and opportunities working together. They each have their own emphasis, their own strengths, and you might choose to support one, or both, or others.

 

This time of year it's not unusual for me to be approached by church members, friends, or folks like you who read and then reach out by e-mail: which charitable giving is the best? How should I choose and manage my offerings in and around the community?

 

It's a good question, and one I wish I could offer a simple answer to, but there isn't one. Not even "send it all to me!" But under a few short headings, I think I can help.

 

First, do YOU have a budget? Tithing and your own church obligations are one thing, but if you don't know what your income and where your basic expenses are, then anything else you say to me about giving and sharing will be incomplete, even insincere no matter what your intentions. Telling me you tithe, but admitting you don't know your own household budget, makes me suspect we're talking about words, not dollars.

 

I do believe that giving "off the top" is a powerful, positive spiritual discipline. It's a way of saying to yourself, to those around you, and in your relationship with God: I know my own wishes and impulses don't come first. I know it's not all about me. I am blessed, and choose to bless others.

 

So make your budget, which can be painful. In truth, the main reason people don't have budgets is because they're afraid to see it in black and white on paper or up on the screen. But it's gonna be okay.

 

And if you make $30K per year and have expenses totaling $35K, you need to do some other work in managing your outflow before you give off your credit card. That neither honors God nor is it, I will safely say on behalf of every charitable organization, churchly or otherwise, what they want to be receiving.

 

When you know what you have, and you realize that, in fact, you are giving 2%, then fine, you're giving 2% of your income. Work on growing that (even if you're at 10%, I'd suggest growing that number is a healthy practice), and if next year is 2.5%, then that's growth.

 

When you plan your giving, your decisions about where and to whom you'll give become much clearer. I'm very certain about that. When it's out of the remainders and out of guilt, you get confused, muddled, and off the course that will bless you. When you plan, prepare, and put forward your giving before anything else, you'll find a new clarity about what you want those gifts to do.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's a big fan of budgets, and writes a version of this darn column every fall. Tell him about your adventures in budgeting and giving at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

 

Notes From My Knapsack 11-3-16

Notes From My Knapsack 11-3-16

Jeff Gill

 

 

November the Ninth

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The sun will rise.

 

Cloudy or clear, above the cumulus cover or directly to your east and a bit south, the heart of our solar system will heave into view on the morning horizon.

 

Nov. 6 we change our clocks, falling back as we do in the autumn, pretending to have some control over time, but really just adding to the chaos. No matter. Dawn will pull back into a temporary tie with disorientation, and darkness will leap forward into our afternoons, and it will only gain on us -- until Dec. 25^th at any rate.

 

So November 9^th will be a Wednesday with a morning we're still getting used to, no matter how early you went to bed, or how long you stayed up to watch the election returns. You know, state representative, county prosecutor, local developmental disabilities levies, the stuff that matters. It may not be on national cable news or even on the Columbus stations' crawl, but you can click to the Board of Elections website and keep track there directly, or follow the Newark Advocate's feed online and Twitter.

 

Plenty to be interested in, and many around us will be making new plans on Wednesday, win or lose. But most of us will . . . do what we usually do on Wednesday.

 

I'm not sure what I think about the much discussed "right track/wrong track" polling that we hear about, especially going into an election campaign. Does it measure the considered reaction of the electorate, of engaged citizens dispassionately assessing the state of the union and the progress of the economy, or is it more consumer research to inform those who've been working to stir us up and spur our anxieties that their machinations are bearing fruit?

 

How well do we know, en masse, what is a right track towards the light at the end of the tunnel, and when are we getting lulled into complacency, or agitated into insensibility, dashing into the path of an oncoming outcome?

 

I have plenty I'd want to change if I were Grand High Poohbah of all I survey, and I'd probably mess more up than I meant to by so doing. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, Newton tells me, but socio-economically, I'm not sure Milton Friedman or Paul Krugman are able to accurately predict in which direction cultural engineering backfires until it does.

 

On November the Ninth, everything changes, and nothing is any different. We close the chapter of the election of 2016, and begin to write new pages of mutual self-governance in a republican democracy within a federal structure. U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

 

We may or may not know come the dawning exactly who won which office, but beyond a shadow of a doubt we know this: we're still going to have to be better informed citizens, in our voting, our affirmations and condemnations, in our lobbying (yes, common everyday citizens can lobby our legislators, trust me: the problem is that too few of us do, so the pros take up all the space by default), in our ongoing encouragement and decrying of our elected officials in between elections.

 

The work of democracy continues. Put on your gloves, pull on your boots, and grab your shovel. It's November the Ninth, and we have work to do.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about your November the Ninth at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter. 

Faith Works 10-29-16

Faith Works 10-29-16

Jeff Gill

 

Jesus is Lord

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What does it mean to say "Jesus is Lord"? It has a direct relationship to another three word statement: Caesar is Lord.

 

In 30 AD, when a consensus of scholars would say that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified by the Roman Empire under the authority of its "prefect," or "governor" of Judea, Pontius Pilate, the statement "Caesar est Dominus" had been a cultural standard for over 70 years. Julius Caesar was first proclaimed as divine while he still lived, in early 44 BC. His adopted son, Octavian promoted himself as "Divi Filius" or "Son of God" from 29 BC on, and became known as Augustus (an evocation of divinity) in 27 BC, with temples built for his worship not long after.

 

The Julio-Claudian house brought the ancient civic Republic into a new guise as the Roman Empire through the agency of a lineage of human persons who were proclaimed as gods, as divine persons. Their unique relationship to the heavenly realm, as it was understood in the public mind, was part of their claim on power. Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero — they all embraced, with varying degrees of enthusiasm the role of living divinity.

 

So during the time of John the Baptizer's teaching by the Jordan River, and all across the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth from Galilee to Jerusalem, Tiberius was settling into his everyday role as yet another "Divi Filius" or "Son of God." Honoring that "Son of God" put one in a proper relationship with the divine, and with the Roman Empire. That expectation would continue. And increasingly, starting as far back as 49 BC in the east, these Caesars were called "Savior" and "Dominus," the deliverer of the people and lord of the republic.

 

But springing from Jerusalem and Galilee, there were those who proclaimed that not a descendant of Julius, a Caesar, was "Dominus" or "Lord of All," but in fact this Jesus of Nazareth whom the Roman authorities had crucified was the anointed, or "Christos" of God, and in fact was better understood as the true "Son of God" or "Divi Filius" than was any competing claimant of the House of the Caesars. An itinerant rabbi trained as a carpenter from Nazareth, resident in bucolic Capernaum, friend of marginally literate fishermen, was truly worthy of being called God's Son, and more of a Savior than occupants of palaces in Rome.

 

The claim continued: Caesar est Dominus. But more and more the people of the land said to each other: no, God's anointed is Lord. Christos est Dominus. Caesar non est Dominus.

 

This was not so much heresy as it was treason. Caesar non est Dominus? Impossible.

 

After the fall of Rome, this claim looked somewhat different, and over the centuries, the way the Christian churches have presented this reality has changed — to proclaim that "Jesus is Lord" has a different resonance than it did in the days of empire.

 

But it is still a subversive proclamation. Saying that Jesus is Lord is still announcing that other claims to lordship over our lives are moot, void, false.

 

From https://renovare.org/blog/redrawing-the-image - "To look closely at Jesus is to see at last what a real human being looks like." True humanity, the dominant paradigm, the "dominus" for our reality is more like Jesus than a movie star, a character in a TV show, or any political figure. Our model for human flourishing is Jesus, not . . . well, insert your preferred alternative here.

 

Jesus is Lord, and other claimants are not. And make no mistake, our times and our culture make many and various claims on lordship over our lives. But Christians are united, if on nothing else, on this: that Jesus is Lord. If we would see true leadership, real humanity, actual life as it should be at its best, we look to Jesus.

 

Not Caesar, neither Julius nor Octavian; not Brad Pitt nor Tom Cruise; we can't even see the best of our possible selves in . . . you know of whom I speak. There are other candidates for this role. They will fail, and Jesus will rise.

 

Because the heart of our faith is this: "Jesus is Lord."

 

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about who or what you call Lord at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 10-15-16 and 10-22-16 (a two-fer)

Faith Works 10/15/16

Jeff Gill

 

What Johnson Amendment Are You Talking About?
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The truth is, I know what the Johnson Amendment is, where it came from, and what it means.

 

As a pastor of a congregation, it's a piece of the tax code that says we – as a tax-exempt non-profit organization – can't directly endorse candidates for elective office in the US. In theory the IRS could remove our tax-exempt status if it found that on our signboard out front, in our print and email materials, or if I from the pulpit officially announced that I and/or the church wanted our members and friends to vote for a particular candidate.

 

I've never heard if it's a problem for me to speak well of somebody running unopposed.

 

My impression, based on a modicum of internet-based research, is that the IRS tends to issue warnings, and has only exercised this capacity on a couple of egregious and repeat-offender occasions. You could say that it's not a big deal, or you could compare this provision of the law with a large caliber handgun, which has only been fired twice since 1954, but is currently pointed in your general direction.

 

What may or may not sound confusing, and I hope does not because I've said this now more than a few times around my fellow parishioners and friends, is that I really don't care about the Johnson Amendment.

 

That may make me sound like a scoff-law (and perhaps send a few off to look for the phone number of the nearest IRS office), but give me a few more lines here, if you would.

 

As a minister, with pastoral responsibilities for a congregation in my care, I actually think it is ethically questionable for me to endorse specific candidates. Not on the same order of significance, but in a similar manner, I don't think I should get up on Sunday and include in the sermon my belief that strawberry shakes are better than chocolate, or that I believe it is a grievous error to go about making guacamole using peas. It is a matter of personal liberty and individual taste, and while I may be quite certain that I'm right, as I usually am (hashtag irony), it's not an essential.

 

In general, I think choosing a political candidate is much the same sort of thing in the wider context of my faith in God, my hopes for redemption, my understanding of eternity, and the sources I would draw from to explain any of those decisions I've made as a Christian believer.

 

I've voted for candidates that I'm quite certain were not Christian (and I could have been wrong about that); I've voted for candidates whose Christian faith is rooted in beliefs I personally think are incorrect.

 

I truly believe that, in general, it would be an unethical abuse of my position as a spiritual teacher and mentor and preacher to say that I can be certain that voting for one candidate or another in an election is a faith essential. And that's why I don't do it. I'd probably be lying to say that I don't think at all about the fact that the IRS thinks I shouldn't, but that's where the (to me) even trickier other side of the coin comes in.

 

If there was a candidate whose person and profession and election struck me as so entirely destructive to the faith I hold that I thought it was imperative that I say so, I would. If it needed to be a pulpit matter, I would affirm that it is my duty and responsibility to use that position judiciously, but without concern over a worldly matter like tax-exempt status. But while I am pretty sure such an example could exist, I'm hesitant to describe such a hypothetical.

 

And the main reason (aside from space, which I'm running out of) I don't want to get into that description of circumstances is that I've been pressed hard by many this fall to push that button of endorsement, on the basis of claims that the "other" candidate represents a very real threat to truth, decency, law and order, and God's people. As you've no doubt guessed, I've been pitched to press in public for some person by supporters on either side.

 

You're not going to see an endorsement, or a condemnation of a presidential candidate here. I know that disappoints some of you. You won't hear one from my pulpit role, either; that may well disappoint some at my church.

 

But rest assured, my reticence has nothing to do with Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson, his amendment, or any IRS threat. It's because I believe it is the right thing to… not do.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he has some opinions on this election, and if you catch him in a non-pastoral role, you might get him to share them. But make time if you try that… or just email him at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

 

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Faith Works 10/22/16

Jeff Gill

 

If I Had My Druthers

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There's a saying that I heard as a kid, which maybe was from family lore or that area's culture where I grew up. I don't know its derivation or etymology, but it sounds folky and down home: "if I had my druthers, I'd…"

 

I don't know what a druther is. In context and usage, it's pretty clearly about choices and preferences. If I could choose something other than what is, if I had the decision for something other, rather than what's been given me, then I'd… have my druthers.

 

In the national political scene, there are many asking why they can't have another choice, who are saying "if I had my druthers, I'd" be voting one way or for someone not on the ballot. Yet we play the hand we're dealt, we go to war with the army we have, we eat what's set before us: the metaphors are many.

 

If I had my druthers, it might not even be an election year. We could take a pass on the whole thing, and focus elsewhere.

 

If I had my druthers, I'd take a walk more mornings than I do, which is rarely. I'd bake more bread, and cook more meals, and even eat them with my wife. I'd read more than I do, both from my Bible and other works, both spiritual and informational. I'd read (and write) more fiction and poetry.

 

In fact, if I could, I'd love to get up with the dawn and go to bed with full darkness more often than not, but not so compulsively that I'd miss the opportunity to do some stargazing – naked eye, binocular, and telescopic – into some nights.

 

I'd love to go camping more often and backpacking even more, both with Scouting units to help teach and coach and guide the outdoor learning, and also some ventures that were leisurely solo expeditions into not terribly dangerous semi-wilderness-ish places.

 

If I had my druthers, I'd include even more ruminations on the meanings and layers of understanding embedded in the Greek and Hebrew behind our English texts, along with the etymology (that word again!) of the mongrel tongue that is our English in whatever translation. I'm tempted that way because I know how those sorts of reflections feed me, but I shy away from too much of it because I am aware of how it can make the reading of Scripture seem too much a specialist pursuit, a task that only preachers can truly master.

 

In general, my druthers aren't lazy tendencies I fight so much as they are personal preferences I have to balance against the good of others involved. What I like isn't necessarily what's best for me, but even when I have reason to be sure something is, as a husband and father and pastor and co-worker I have an obligation to consider if what I would rather do is really what's best for all concerned.

 

My mornings and evenings would be mostly mine to plot if I didn't go to any early meetings or after-dinner programs, yet in a largely volunteer endeavor, those are the time slots most requested. I could lead my own life, but only by disengaging from common pursuits involving others.

 

As many of you have kindly commented and occasionally inquired, my wife and I are now part of the empty-nest brigade. Given the professional obligations both of us have, and our community commitments in church and beyond, not to mention the fact that our child is at a college not too terribly far away, we're not so much empty nest yet. We weren't home that much the last few years, anyhow!

 

But some realignment and adjustment is in mind, and while neither of us are all that focused on retirement per se, we are looking at setting some . . . well, different boundaries, and re-emphasizing some priorities. In some ways, with our offspring out of the house, we have to work even harder at making sure to set aside time to eat together; we'd like to make sure to attend youth and community arts events without having a student in the house to set the schedule for us through their performances and interests.

 

When it comes to my faith, my druthers would come down to just being able to practice it with an unselfconscious awareness, and I've been blessed recently to have a seminary intern at our church -- which means that for a number of Sundays in a row I've gotten to receive communion rather than presiding at it! It has been a wonderful exercise in finding that balance between serving and being served.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him what your druthers in life and faith would be at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.