Community of Hope Blog

I have created a new blog solely for Community of Hope. If you want to follow the life of this ministry, go to http://cofhope.wordpress.com/.

I will continue to post reflections of theological readings on this page.

Thanks,
Greg

Community of Hope First Sunday: The Planting of a Seed

All photos courtesy of Berin Kinsman

Under an unseasonably warm January sun, the prayer response “Lord, Hear our Prayer,” echoed among a diverse group of people. Names were spoken, known only to those who called them out--“Lord, Hear our Prayer,” A man suffering with addiction asked for strength--“Lord, Hear our Prayer,”.  A group of people who may not have found themselves together in any other social circumstance (Black, White, Hispanic, Native, Homeless, Wealthy, and Marginalized) united together in prayer, lunch, song, worship, conversation, communion, and community--“Lord, Hear our Prayer"

A man named Freddie read scripture. Although nervous behind a microphone, Freddie eloquently talked about the importance of home. As he looked into the eyes of the congregation, he said that this is the beginning of home, a place where people of all backgrounds come together to worship God.

After the service, Michael shared the difficulty he has had in finding a church--his journey of looking for a place he could consider home.

Karen Navarro, Client Advocate at St Martin’s Hospitality Center, noted the comfortable feel of Community of Hope. She talked about how people sat together around café style tables and shared lunch and worshiped God in what Karen described as "a gathering".

Unlike many ministries that worship first and serve food after, Community of Hope shared a lunch first and then taught the word of God. Approximately 150 people shared a meal of chili, bread, and fruit. Nearly half of them stayed to worship around the open able of communion.

However, perhaps the greatest moment came after the last amen was spoken. While most church services end with a sudden exit of the congregation, the people of Community of Hope remained for a half hour after the service ended. People who had little in common before the service, continued conversation after worship. The seeds of genuine community have been sown.

Altar with materials made by ArtStreet

Community of Hope Congregation

Sharing the love of God at Communty of Hope

Sharing Lunch

Contemplative Prayer

Although I preach grace, I often really want works.

When I train for a marathon, I know that if I put in the miles, I will make it across the finish line. I want to be able to achieve the same level of spiritual strength by my own works.

However, in his book “Contemplative Prayer,” Thomas Merton writes:

From these texts we see that in meditation we should not look for a “method” or “system,” but cultivate an “attitude,” an “outlook”: faith, openness, attention, reverence, expectation, supplication, trust, joy.

This is what I want, but it is much harder.

I want to do, when I need to be.

I want to achieve, when I need to rest.

I want to speak, when I need to silence.

I want to have the spiritual maturity of an 80 year old man, when I only have four decades of experience.  

May God grant me the grace of "attitude" and "outlook" so I might more fully rest in joy.

Love Your Enemies

Love your Enemies

Last week I began reading the sermons of Dr Martin Luther King Jr as a way of honoring his holiday. Now I can’t stop. Not only am I struck by his eloquence, depth, and richness, but by the fact that these sermons sound so contemporary. The proclamation stands as if it could be preached today, not half a century ago.

This morning I read the sermon, “Loving your Enemies” that King delivered to Dexter Avenue Baptist Church on November 17, 1957. In this sermon King takes on one of the truly “hard teachings” of Jesus. Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount, “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

King not only gives the theological and psychological background for the necessity of this command, but also gives practical instructions on the redemptive power of love:





Love Your Enemies

Here’s the person who is a neighbor, and this person is doing something wrong to you and all of that. Just keep being friendly to that person. Keep loving them. Don’t do anything to embarrass them. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with bitterness because they’re mad because you love them like that. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies

For King, the belief in the redemptive power of love was not merely the instruction of a pastor to a congregation. Rather, Jesus’ words became the ground of King’s ethic of nonviolence. In this same sermon, he went on to point to redemptive love as the means to change:

It seems to me that this is the only way as our eyes look to the future. As we look out across the years and across the generations, let us develop and move right here. We must discover the power of love, the power, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that we will be able to make of this old world a new world. We will be able to make men better. Love is the only way.

Let us all recapture the hope of Dr. King and center ourselves on the teaching of Jesus who calls us to love our enemies so that we might be changed, they might be changed, and our old world might become a new world.

MLK Rediscovering Lost Values

Today, many people remember the words of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Mostly, these observances focus on the transformational, but well-known, words of “I Have a Dream” or “I Have Been to the Mountain Top”.

Now that I have the world’s library on my fingertips, through my kindle, I decided to read the sermons of Dr King.

I am humbled all over again.

The first sermon I read is the oldest known recorded sermon of Dr. King’s, “Rediscovering Lost Values”. This sermon was delivered to Second Baptist Church in Detroit when King was 25 years old and a graduate student at Boston University. While commentators note that this was one of King’s early sermons before he fully developed his prophetic voice and oratory style, this is a sermon of great substance.

The subject of this sermon is strikingly modern. In this sermon, King notes the incredible advances of modern sciences, technology, and communications that took place from the industrial revolution to the middle of the 20th century. However, King calls people to not put their faith in modern technology, but to return to living by a moral ethic. King notes that despite incredible advances, moral truths remain constant:

But I’m here to say to you this morning that some things are right and some things are wrong. Eternally so, absolutely so. It’s wrong to hate. It always has been wrong and it always will be wrong. It’s wrong in America, it’s wrong in Germany, it’s wrong in Russia, it’s wrong in China. It was wrong in 2000 B.C., and it’s wrong in 1954 A.D.

Not only does King advocate for a moral ethic, but he warns that the inherent danger in placing our trust in new technologies is that in doing so God is left behind. King unequivocally lays out his conviction that his life will be grounded upon absolute moral truths over the accumulation of possessions.

And I say to you this morning in conclusion that I’m not going to put my ultimate faith in things. I’m not going to put my ultimate faith in gadgets and contrivances. As a young man with most of my life ahead of me, I decided early to give my life to something eternal and absolute. Not to these little gods that are here today and gone tomorrow, but to God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

King’s words echo boldly today. Our dependence on technology has grown exponentially, our faith in things is beyond what he imagined, and our capacity to hate remains unchecked. On this day, may we hear King's words anew and dedicate ourselves to God’s work of justice, mercy, and compassion.

On the Incarnation

One of the few books that appeared on both the Renovare Top 25 list and the listpeople submitted is Athanasius’ “On the Incarnation”. I don’t plan on reading and blogging about every book on these lists. However, I found it hard to resist a book called “On the Incarnation” less than a week before Christmas. What better time to consider the incarnation?
 

There is a great contrast between how Athanasius considers the incarnation and how we will celebrate it this week. For a book on the incarnation, there is almost no mention of what we consider the “Christmas story”. In roughly 90 pages, Athanasius never mentions shepherds or angels, he never talks about a snarky innkeeper or a Messiah-holding manger. It is not that Athanasius does not believe in the veracity of these historic events. In fact, the one element he does talk about several times is the virgin birth. Athanasius does not focus on the dramatic events of the Bethlehem night; instead he focuses on why God came in flesh. Athanasius writes, “The Lord did not come to make a display. He came to heal and to teach suffering men. For one who wanted to make a display the thing would have been just to appear and dazzle the beholders. But for Him Who came to heal and to teach the way was not merely to dwell here, but to put Himself at the disposal of those who needed Him.”

Instead of focusing on the displays and events of a singular starry night, Athanasius understands the incarnation through the resurrection and the crucifixion. The significance of incarnation manifests itself in God’s love for humanity that results in God making God’s self known through the life, teaching, and miracles of Jesus, so that all people might be saved.

During this Christmas season, may we not be overcome by the dazzle and the displays, but remember the bigger picture of who Jesus is and what Jesus came to do.

My Own Personal Top 25

In my previous post I listed the 25 books that people sent in as the most transformative in their Christian journeys. After the last post some late submissions came in: Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time by Marcus Borg, An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor, A Theology of Liberation by Gustavo Guitierrez, Walking the Bible by Bruce Feller, and Money, Possessions, and Eternity by Randy Alcorn.

Now that I have heard all of your great submissions, here is the list of 25 books that have most significantly shaped by understanding of God, myself, and others. I am not saying that these are the 25 best Christian books of all time, just the ones that have shaped my faith the most.



Soren Kierkegaard

My own personal top 25
in alphabetical order

1. A Plain Account of Christian Perfection by John Wesley
2. Celebration of Discipline by Richard J. Foster
3. Church Dogmatics by Karl Barth
4. Come Be My Light by Mother Teresa
5. Dark Night of the Soul by John of the Cross
6. I See Satan Fall Like Lightning by Rene  Girard
7. In God’s Presence by Marjorie Suchocki
8. Jesus of the Disinherited by Howard Thurman
9. John Wesley's Sermons by John Wesley
10. Letter from the Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King
11. Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
12. Martin Luther's Large & Small Catechism by Martin Luther
13. On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent by Gustavo Gutierrez
14. Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year by Anne Lamott
15. Origen: The Song of Songs, Commentary and Homilies by Origen
16. Overcoming Life's Disappointments by Harold S. Kushner
17. Preaching by Fred Craddock
18. Silence by Shusaku Endo
19. Struggling with Scripture by Walter Bruegemann
20. Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion by Sara Miles
21. Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion by Gregory Boyle
22. Teaching the Dead Bird to Sing by W. Paul Jones
23. The Divine Hours by Phyllis Tickle
24. The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium by Walter Wink
25. Works of Love by Soren Kierkegaard