Follow My Blog At It's New Home

Faithful followers, avid readers, sympathetic family members, and international community,

As of Sunday, April 17th I am no longer serving as Associate Pastor of Boulevard Presbyterian Church. Therefore I have moved my blogging to a new site I am very proud of.

Please visit & follow my new blog at:

pastorbrettswanson.com

This new site will feature articles, blog posts, featured content, and new section entitled "Live at Gobbler's Knob" which will feature observations and dispatches from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania - my new home. I hope you will check back often.

Peace,
Brett Swanson

www.twitter.com/bjswanson74

It's Official

Yesterday, April 10th I was officially voted in/accepted/etc. as the next Pastor of The Presbyterian Church of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania - home of Groundhog Day. It was an exciting, terrifying, incredible, humbling experience that left me without words (something of a rarity).

While Boulevard Presbyterian Church has known about my departure for sometime, I have waited to make it "Facebook Official" until this one hurdle has passed. I am thankful now to share this joy with all who will hear.

My last Sunday here at Boulevard Presbyterian Church will be this approaching Sunday, April 17th aka. Palm Sunday. At that point, I will stop blogging under the Boulevard Presbyterian Church blog where you are currently reading this. When a new online home is settled, I will make sure to let you know.

Peace and thank you for the support.

Finding New Favorites

If you are not familiar with West Virginia Public Radio's Mountain Stage then you should be. For the cost of a pizza I saw the Indigo Girls (the partial subject of an earlier blog post entitled Rowdy Ladies & Live Music ), and last Sunday I sat 7 rows back from the stage for Dar Williams, David Wax Museum, Raul Malo, and three of the greatest living musicians, Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer, and Zakir Hussain playing as a trio. All in all, I am not sure there is a better "more for your money" concert experience than Mountain Stage.

When I bought these tickets for my wife's birthday, it was all about Dar Williams and Bela Fleck. Williams, with her incredible voice and wonderful lyrics, and Fleck, easily the most accomplished banjo player living. With these two on the same ticket, it was easy money & when we arrived at the venue I started thinking, "I hope she plays..."

Dar Williams, with her beautiful voice, didn't sing a single song I wanted her to play. While I am no super-fan and am certainly not familiar with her extensive catalog in a way that would have been happy to hear any of her works, I thought I would get at least one tune from my personal wish list. Alas there was nothing. Hopes were dashed when the final song closed. No encore. No The Christians and Pagans. No The Babysitter's Here. She closed with Hudson, a song I was hearing for the first time.

Normally, I would have said I was disappointed. Having an opportunity to get exactly what you want and not getting it seems to be a fair definition of disappointing. It was possible, she could have sung my songs. Not out of malice or an attempt to ruin my evening, Dar just didn't. Concert goers know what this is like. Yet, as it turns out, I wasn't too disappointed. Sure, I didn't get my songs but something else happened.

There is this band called David Wax Museum. They opened the show, and they are awesome. I didn't know much about them when I picked up the tickets. They, like a lot of acts on Mountain Stage, are the green beans to the pork chop that is the headliner. Well, as it turns out, I really like green beans, and when the pork chop isn't exactly to your liking, the side dishes are that much better. David Wax Museum made a fan out of me with their upbeat, original music, and the shear love they had for what they did. I bought their two albums yesterday.

Life never 100% of the time gives you what you want. You don't get everything all the time. This fact can make people bitter; hating the fortune of some while lamenting the disappointment in their own lives. When your best laid plans fall short, and your proverbial pork chop is dry, you can't help but be disappointed. There is no cure for failed expectations other than have no expectations to begin with, and that seems impossible.

What my concert experience re-confirmed for me is that expectations cannot crowd out an openness to what life, God, and others have in store. While Dar Williams didn't give me exactly what I want, David Wax Museum gave me something I didn't think I would find: a new favorite band. Being open, flexible, and willing to learn something new is the only way I know how to combat the disappointments of life. I will still hope I hear the songs I like. I will still hope that my favorite food is still on the menu, the book I want to read is at the library, and the exhibit is still at the art museum but in the event that the food, the book, and the art is gone, I will do my best to try something new, and be open to finding new favorites.

Sermon for March 27th - Christian Identity: Accepted

The following sermon was delivered on Sunday, March 27th and is a reflection on John 8:1-11. Footnotes and citations have been left out for purposes of blog publishing.

In college I was instructed to read Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Thankfully it wasn’t the thousand page tome but an abridged version. I fell in love with the book, and read it in a weekend. Being that our scripture today carries with it so much silence, my mind fills the gap with Les Miserables. Like the woman caught in adultery, Jean Valjean is red handed and expecting swift judgment. He, similarly, stands silently before a servant of God, in our case a Bishop, who rejects the law of the land in favor of an abounding & mystifying grace. Hugo writes of the moment when the Bishop “buys” Jean Valjean, buys him from the imprisonment and hardship he is to endure as someone who stole silver from all places but a House of God, penning, “Jean Valjean opened his eyes & looked at the Bishop with an expression which no human tongue could describe.” I re-read those words and instantly attribute them to John the author of the Gospel, serving as narrator. I hear, “the woman who was brought before the crowd for judgment, opened her eyes and looked up at Jesus with an expression no human tongue could describe.” Like Valjean, our unnamed woman comes face to face with a sort of love that is an affront to the status-quo, and the law that would order and guide our days. This is a love that, I still stand silently before, like many of you.

I am a sinner from the soles of my feet to the top of my head, and while the Apostle Paul writes in First Timothy that he is “the worst” of all sinners, I think that I can give him a run for his money. Left to my own devices, I fear the good and turn to the easy. Amazing Grace has got me dead to rights, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” I can say this now but it acknowledging the actual state of things wasn’t always easy. I have, from time to time, been like the guy who came up to me after his aunt or mother’s funeral (I can’t quite remember) and complained that singing Amazing Grace was offensive because the dearly departed was certainly no wretch.

I spent a great deal of my life trying to be perfect, not in the way the scripture tells us to be perfect as God is perfect , but perfect in the eyes of others. Applying for college, I coveted letters of reference from my Pastor that said I was a “good Christian”, from my coaches that said they were impressed with my commitment, from teachers that said I was a skilled student, and from anyone who could write that I was a wonderful human being. During my time in college and beyond I kept those letters in a binder and just about any stroll down memory lane included the affirmation those letters contained. I tied my worth to my ability to be a good friend, to always do what is right, and when others gave up, I selfishly pressed forward hoping to be like Sally Field and proclaim “you like me, right now, you like me!” Yet, as we all know, Sally’s moment fades away.

I have recently come across a poem To An Athlete Dying Young, that described it all eerily well. “The time you won your town the race, we chaired you through the market-place; Man and boy stood cheering by, And home we brought you shoulder-high. Today, the road all runners come, Shoulder high we bring you home, And set you at your threshold down, Townsman of a stiller town.” The poem continues, “Smart lad, to slip betimes away from fields where glory does not stay, And early though the laurel grows, It withers quicker than the rose.”

The unnamed woman brought before Jesus is a beloved child of God. She is a sinner, standing accused for a crime caught red handed, and according to the law she (along with the absent male) was to be taken outside the city gate and before all who gathered, the victim of her infidelity was to throw the first stone. If her intention was to be perfect, she failed. If her intention was to escape the consequences of her sin, she failed at that too. Jesus does not condone this woman’s sin nor ours because we cannot be relieved of the consequences of our sins. We must live with the fruits of what we have sown yet, in Christ’s love we can be relieved of the consequences of being sinners. Christ embraces this woman sins and all. Will her marriage be harmed? Most likely. Will she face scorn on the part of the community? Probably. Will her sins keep her from experiencing God’s love? Absolutely not.

The truth is, God is a sucker for screw-ups like me. Where the world withholds its love and acceptance for those deemed worthy and valuable, finding precious few to love, God does not seek value; God creates value through love. “It is not because we have value that God loves us; it’s because God loves us that we have value.” Sinners unite! We are the beloved children of God; accepted not only for who we are but what we are – the beloved children of a God who loves us, accepts us.

Allow me to close with a thought about stones. Symbolically the stoning of the accused was about rejection, ostracizing the sinner from your community, and literally the throwing of stones chased the life right out of a few. If you find yourself with a rock in your hand, you have a choice: do I use it as a tool of separation, judgment, and punishment, or can it be a building block? Stones large enough to deal deadly blows usually are large enough to have been included in walls and buildings during ancient times, and today we have the same opportunity. The energy and zeal spent all the world throwing stones and hating others that we are so convinced are different, sinful, or otherwise is a poor use of time and materials that could be used for good, and for building. Sinners loved by God, we can build together. We can take our stones and united, use them to build rather than kill. Our own church stands as a testament. Stone upon stone built a House of God for everyone to hear of a love above all others. What else can we do when we use our stones to build up rather than tear down?

Effective Not Efficient Dialogue

Maybe it is because I like getting my money's worth out of those blood pressure meds, or maybe it is because I, like many Ohioans, enjoy rubbernecking, but I have been reading Facebook wall posts/discussions. Perhaps name calling should have been given up for Lent.

I should clarify. Unlike the usually captivating banter surrounding what someone had for lunch or what their dog is up to that usually suck me in, the reason for this particular season was disagreement of a fundamental kind. Strongly held beliefs, over-the-top black and white comments, and the like are something akin to currency on Facebook and Twitter. Where friends and followers are tallied in their respective platform's corner, what you say & how often you say it can often mean more people to hear it (read it). The stronger, funnier, well-crafted update or comment can engender comments on your comments; replies and retweets pile up when you skin the proverbial smokewagon & fire off a round or two into an issue/controversy/etc. This is percisely what happened.

Disagreement is a building block of community. Like my favorite television President, I am a life long holder of minority opinions. Chances are we don't agree on many foundational elements of life, faith, politics, etc. That is the way it should be. In my limited understanding, disagreement has the opportunity to carve out a spaces for dialogue; an opportunity to "argue it out" as the book of Isaiah puts it. Facebook and Twitter are pretty good at aranging the meeting of important issues and strongly held beliefs. Folks seem to be braver digitally, and the comments testify to that fact. What might have been a civil dialogue regarding the ins-and-outs of our denomination, or what is/is not being said/done about this/that can quickly become a battle of complimentary skills: loud rhetoric + fast typing. Add free time and a decent internet connection and quickly you are the Nelson Muntz to our Martin Prince.

Effective not efficient dialogue is what the world, the denomination, the faith needs and deserves. Whereas efficiency is great for a myriad of things, exploring the relationship between the faithful and their community is not one of them. Effective dialogue means voices don't just weigh in but they are heard, and respected when they reciprocate. For this reason, the shouts of ideological bullies can never be conversation partners producing effective dialogue; they neither hear nor respect their oppositional counterparts. Sometimes the most important voices come from the smallest places & do not have historic traditions to claim and corresponding vocabulary to wield to ensure their voice is heard. Therefore, if we are to indeed "argue it out", then we must bring respect to the table first and foremost, and recognize efficiency at work when the loudest shouts, and those who possess superior words per minute hold court.

Ash Wednesday on a Rainy Day

Today is Ash Wednesday, and Boulevard's service begins in less than 30 minutes. Not the best time to be blogging.

In my short pastoral memory, this appears to be the first time it has rained on Ash Wednesday. The imagery is striking for me. Within the hour, many people will join us for worship and, at a certain point, have an ashen cross scrawled on their foreheads. I will say "remember you are dust, and to dust you will return"; one of our strongest statements in the Christian church. What my meager words convey is hopefully a sense that we are temporary, and the ashen cross serves as a reminder of such. As a people we don't think of ourselves as temporary very often; Ash Wednesday is one of the few days that it is made plain.

What strikes me about our rainy Ash Wednesday is how quickly the ashen cross will be washed away; how quickly a reminder of our temporal selves will be forgotten.

A Grey Day in Columbus