Día De Los Muertos & All Saints Day

Día de los Muertos is one of my favorite seldomly celebrated holidays in the US. The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died. Like all saints day it is a day where we remember those who have come before us. Who has impacted your life and moved on to the "other side"?

Walter Fancher- My grandfather. A railroad engineer. A creator of churches and faith communities. Papa taught me that nothing should be wasted because someone out there could need it. I saw him continually provide for his family, his community, and his church.

Juanita Fancher- My Grandmother. Taught me about suffering. From the time she was in her late thirties she suffered from severe rheumatoid arthritis. To move, to function normally, caused her deep pain. A seamstress, lover of high heals, lover of fashion, and family. By the time she was just a bit older than me, she suffered daily. She lost her ability to sew, her ability to work, her ability to wear heals, and her ability to dress in the clothes she loved. Yet in the midst of daily pain she was deeply loving. She was honest, bold, daring, and visionary. She wouldn't allow pain to stop her.

Jessica Sachs- A dear friend. Jessica was a beautiful woman, a dreamer, and a bold apostle for the way of Christ. She taught me how to love God boldly and out in the open. She was strong and straight forward. She knew how to speak her mind and wasn't afraid, impressed, or wowed by my position, She believed deeply.

Thomas Merton OCSO- a saint in his own right. When I was going through my first major depression and could not find a way out Merton showed me beams of light that lit the way to life and healing. It was in reading the journals of Merton that I met a multitude of saints. The reading of merton and his brother and sister saints led me to my graduate school (Weston Jesuit School of Theology), taught me how to think, created a deeper foundation for my life and theology, and continues to lead me to a deeper sense of wonder, and questioning. It was through Merton that I found a way through many of my darkest nights.

Stanley Marrow SJ- A brilliant Iraqi biblical scholar and mentor who taught me to love the Bible again. He taught me how to be a better writer and gave me the opportunity and the power to question. He taught me not to fear being a heretic, but to question and sin boldly.

These are just a few of those I will be remembering. Who would you add to your list?

The Kingdom of God is Like Fine Wine.

Today I have been reflecting on the kingdom of God. The lectio divina I do at sacredspace.ie, asked to what common element in my life would I compare the kingdom of God. Jesus compares the kingdom to a mustard seed and a pinch of yeast. (Luke 13:18-21)

I think I would compare the kingdom of God to a fine wine. Each drink awakens my taste buds. As I drink fine wine it makes the food around it more alive, tasty, it awakens food to a new day. Good wine makes the community we share more alive, more open, free, and uninhibited. The kingdom of God is like this once we taste of its goodness, we see the goodness of everything else around us. As we drink of the Kingdom our community becomes enlivened. Laughter and joy abound. The kingdom creates new freedoms, it breaks down the wall of fear we build up around ourselves. The kingdom becomes intoxicating.

Funeral: A True Expression of Church

I did another funeral this week.

As a pastor, (really as a human being) funerals are difficult. In writing my homily for this funeral I read about 75 sermons of funerals, especially funerals for people who are not considered "believing." (Why I would read these, I do not know). As I read the sermons I got very frustrated and angry. I feel like pastors were capitalizing on peoples grief. I know that is probably an unfair observation but none the less its what I felt. The process of preparing for the service, like every funeral I have done in the last 15 years, has left me in a state of wander. Below is a list of my curiosities:

• Why would we use the passages of Lazarus's resurrection for a funeral... it is not hopeful at all... Lazarus actually rose from the grave. As far as my experience no funeral I have preached has any one risen. Can we not find a more hopeful possible appropriate passage.
• As pastors, why do we spend our time considering who is in and who is out of God's kingdom. Is not a memorial actually more about the people still walking the planet
• Relationally funerals are odd. The real memorial seems to occur at lunch following.
• What do we as pastors really know about the people whose funerals we officiate. Sometimes we know a lot but most often we know very little.
• Why do we think funerals are a great place to share "the plan of salvation." People are mourning and we chose that as a time to tell them why people are "in or out"?
• Is it not similar to the old "hell house" routine?
• I find it interesting that we so rarely share the reality that Jesus experienced a ton of loss. Loss of his father, loss of cousin, loss of one of his best friends Lazarus, and then his personal experience of death.
• Something profound happens as we choose to grieve together. I think this is one of the truest expressions of the church.