Triptych Chaplains, or, Some Parts of BCT Didn't Suck

Two years is a long time.

Or, on the other hand, it can pass in the blink of an eye and you realize that you haven’t updated your blog with anything that resembles consistency. The latter is true for me, dear readers. There have been so many changes in my life recently and my wife and I are still getting ready for more. So many changes that change seems to be our new normal.

There are probably too many changes to describe in a single post. Probably too many changes to update you in a series of blog posts. So I’m not going to do that. The name of this blog is based on the story from the book of Ezekiel where the prophet watches the Lord reanimate his people. So the blog itself is supposed to be telling the story of resurrection that I witness. Therefor, I’m going to do my best with that by just jumping in.

Be a Lover, Not a Hater

This isn't my image. It's the cover photo from
Rev. Simmons' blog post

I've long wanted to write a piece describing why I think the phrase "hate the sin, love the sinner," is not as loving of a response as people want it to be. But lo and behold, I have been beaten to the punch. After the mass shooting perpetrated at the nightclub in Orlando last week, the Rev. David Simmons wrote a great piece that connected that tragedy with how we, as Christians, cannot keep using that phrase as justification to denounce someone's "lifestyle choices" while continuing to "love at" a particular group of people.

That being said, please read his post. But nevertheless, I have a few things that I want to say, too...

What Has Tom Been Up to Lately? Or, We've Missed You on the Blogosphere

I've not been writing for a while. And while I think it's understandable, given everything that's been going on lately, I still would like to share a little of the why I've not been writing for the past month.

Baseball and Scripture Are #Twinning

I'm often asked whether I'm named after the Apostle Thomas. To which I respond, no, I'm not. I'm named after Tom Kelly, manager for the Minnesota Twins baseball club during their 1987 and 1991 World Series wins.

I then usually launch into the story that my parents have told me, about how I was supposed to be named after my grandfather, Juel Adrian Monson. They were going to give me the name "Monson" and call me "Muns," as my grandfather was. But as soon as I came out, both of my parents agreed that I wasn't a "Monson," I was a "Tom." My father will usually give an addendum and say that it wasn't until well after I had been born that he decided I was indeed named after Tom Kelly.

So names are strange, interesting things. For example, the Apostle Thomas (who we recently heard about in the Gospel reading for the Second Sunday of Easter) is said to be called the Twin. Why was he "the Twin?" Well, biblical scholars tend to agree that his given name was Judas, so he was called the Twin in order to distinguish him from the other Judas, son of Simon Iscariot.

But at any rate, it's actually true that the name we have today, "Thomas" is a transcription, through New Testament Greek, of the Aramaic name תאומא (te'oma), which means "twin" (and makes me think that maybe all managers of the Minnesota Twins should be named Tom or Thomas). But this particular apostle is also called "Doubting Thomas." Which is, I think, a custom that causes grief for people who may tend to act like he does in this story of Jesus' posthumous appearance. I mean, I should know; I think I'm one of them.

The Lord is Risen! Or, What Is This Madness? This Is An Empty Tomb!

My wife, Amanda, took this picture
as we kept vigil last night.

I'm a Vigil-goer, so as I write now on Easter morning, I have done my waiting and said my prayers by candlelight. I have renewed the vows of my baptism and I have heard the story of the empty tomb, where Jesus could not be found. But then, of course, I did find him in the Eucharist. After the strange, awkward day of Good Friday, the day we could not make Eucharist, the day that we had to share the leftovers from the Last Supper on Thursday (I'm only now realizing the irony in that), Jesus could not be found among the dead because he was among the living!

In the past few years, the idea that has fascinated me about the Easter story is that the women found an empty tomb on Sunday morning. Which means that, if they were being diligent and went to the tomb at first light, Jesus must have risen sometime during the night. While everything was still shrouded in darkness and there was no clarity, Jesus rose and made his way out. Today, especially, I feel connected to story because I woke up early and could not get back to sleep (I must have too much joy this morning!). So I want to take a closer look and walk with those women on their way to the tomb...

"Hello My Name Is..." or, Can You Hang On? I'm Getting a Call

I need to give credit to nametag.me for the generator

In a sense, this is the post where I get to act like Yoda, since he gave warning about giving into this particular set of feelings. If Yoda is any kind of reliable source, there are only bad things that come from giving into one's anger.

If you like this, it's a free download at FBCoverStreet

What Is the Gospel News? or, Stuff I Will Be Blogging About in 2015

Here is my first post for 2015! That's very exciting, just simply out of a child-like glee for new and shiny things. However, this post is not going to be my "5 predictions for the Church in 2015," or "Here, before all my dearest readers, I resolve to do thusly..." The only thing that I'm going to resolve to do in 2015 is try to consistently write a "5," rather than a "4" in the year.

Although, that being said, I do want my first blog post for 2015 to set and reset the tone of my blog for the year. You all know, dear readers, that my blog is pretty churchy. I am guilty of these charges. And while I would not say that I am preparing to make a major tone shift, I think that there are repercussions that I want to embrace. What I'm talking about is being conscious and focussed on the gospel news in regard to what's on this blog.

Things, They Are a-Changing at Church, or, Moving from Problems to Possibilities

I don't think that I've mentioned this on my blog before, but this month marks the beginning of my formation to become a deacon in the Episcopal Church!

What that means is that my time in discernment is over (so all those posts I made about grappling with the process and feeling impatient don't need to be continued) and now I have a two-year track ahead of me in the School for Formation that is organized by the Episcopal Church in Minnesota.

The Episcopal Church in Minnesota's Academy for Discipleship and Mission

I know that the School for Formation will be taking up a lot of my time, but I do not want that to keep me from posting here on my blog. But that, of course, poses a problem when I usually sink a decent chunk of time into my blog. I can't continue to do that if I want to also have the time to write lesson plans for my job as well as be successful in my learning and formation.

So the conclusion that I've come to is that you, dear readers, will benefit from some of the work and reflection that I will be doing in formation.

Like Dorothy Chasing after the Wizard's Balloon, or, Ascension Sunday

I am, seemingly, behind the ball this week. Last weekend I wrote a brief post that served as part two of the post I had written the weekend before that. I felt that it was called for, so I went for it. However, I still want to write about the readings for Ascension Sunday (also last Sunday). I feel that, also, is called for. So I'm going for it, even though it is now the day before Pentecost... I blame my present state of needing to catch up on the end of the school year, which just happening this past week. But since it is the end of the school year and I've been a little punchy, here is a snapshot of what I was thinking about with the title of this post:

Is likening Ascension Sunday to The Wizard of Oz slightly heretical?
I don't think so...

And since I'm doing something abnormal with my the timing of my post, here is something I do normally; provide a humorous meme related to the topic:

Included thanks to Episcopal Church Memes

Part 2 of "The Atheists who are Better at Christianity..."

I've been thinking over what I wrote last week, regarding what I'm looking for and the people that I see. I'm realizing that there very well could be clarification.

There is a goal that I am working toward and I must admit that it has been informed by my Christian upbringing. It is an ideal that was set forth by Christ at the Last Supper. He said simply "Love each other." It is a simple thing that proves to be very difficult to live into, which is why I call it an ideal, rather than a mandate.

In my last post, I said that "I am trying to find the people who are willing to be honest. I am trying to find the people who will whole heartedly show who they are..." What I believe is that honest people, whole hearted people, will naturally make efforts to enter into relationship with others. And once they've entered into relationship with others, the whole hearted ones will offer support and compassion and generally demonstrate a concern for the well being of the person with whom they are now related. In this, I see the ideal that Christ gave.

So I say that I am looking for people who are willing to be honest and whole hearted. I think that gathering these people together can become a force for good change; that the world could become a more humane place and less violent. However, here is where I must add the clarification that I don't think I stated explicitly in my last post: I don't care what has informed someone's drive to enter into loving relationship with others in the world. 

I admit that my sense of this drive has been informed by the stories of Christ, handed down through my religious tradition. But as whole hearted and honest people gather together, I will not refuse to work with another whole hearted person just because their sense of this was informed by secular humanist principals, or by Buddhist tradition, or formed in reaction to atrocities that the person has seen. I will not refuse to work with someone just because their path leading up to this point is different than mine. If I am to work with someone, all I demand is that this person has a concern for others and that they take action as a result of that concern.

So what makes me sad or angry is when I encounter people who set things up to the exclusion of others. It's like saying "We're going to do this good thing, but you can't help us do good because you haven't been a part of our club, so therefor you're bad and you can't do good." That's a really small minded, depressing thing to hear. I think that good is an objective value of something, so the objective Goodness of something is there, no matter the reasons why someone is doing it.

This is intended to be a short blog (which I don't know whether I've accomplished) because I only sought to clarify what I wrote last week (also not sure whether I've accomplished that). My point is that, as I seek to live in the light of the Risen Christ, I feel that that drives me to seek and serve others. And as I do that, I feel that it is important to join with others who are also seeking to serve, regardless of whether or not they are Christians. Goodness is good, regardless of who is doing it. And I think the world just needs more Goodness.

The Grocery Store Question

I'm still entertaining this question about how we, as Easter People, should live in the light of the Risen Christ. It's a perfect time of year, since we're in the season of Easter. And I'm excited to keep looking into this as we approach the celebration of Pentecost and the season that follows that. I'm also realizing that there was a lot of fodder for my question that I came across during the Three Holy Days. Some of it I saved and documented (some of it I didn't, unfortunately) but the following blog is based on one of those pieces.

So this tweet from Jim Naughton (and my response) went out on Good Friday:

@JimNaught it's like, all those dark times you say "I wish I could die," Christ takes all that shit and says "I'll do it because I love you"

— Tom Lutes (@lutes_thomasp) April 18, 2014

Do Penguins Go To Church?

Recently in my blog posts, I said that I wanted to explore the ways that we can live in the light of the Risen Christ during this Easter season (and beyond, for the record). As a matter of tradition, baptisms are most appropriate during Eastertide (or at the Easter Vigil or on Easter Sunday, if it works out that way), as are confirmations. These are both sacramental traditions that give an outward and visible sign to the inward and spiritual grace that we Christians can live into as Easter people.

So, yesterday was the day for confirmation in the Episcopal Church in Minnesota's East Metro Mission Area and also day one for the Mission Area Gathering. I'm not going to explain that whole phrase, just look here. The point is that individual Episcopal faith communities around the East Metro brought people to be confirmed, received and reaffirmed in the Episcopal Church and I was asked to serve at the altar. That meant that I got to sit up in the front of the sanctuary, facing everyone assembled. Which meant I could see who was paying attention, who was "listening with their eyes closed," and which kids really wanted to be doing something else on a Saturday.

For those of you wondering about the purpose of this ritual, it is essentially the renewal and confirmation of baptismal vows. Since we have a tradition of infant baptism in the Episcopal Church, the baptismal vows are (most often) made on our behalf by parents and godparents. If the individual was an infant when the vows were made, it is then up to each individual to make those vows on their own later in life. Well... it's supposed to be up to the individual. Many teenagers do it at the time that their parents or youth director think is best. And by "think is best" I mean that many programs think the end of 9th or 10th grade is a great time for teenagers to analyze, accept and confirm their baptismal vows. BUT this is not a post commenting on this facet of the tradition and I digress...

We're Living in Christ's Life After Death, Right?

This has little to nothing doing with what I'm about to write... it's awfully celebratory, though, yes?

ALLELUIA! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen, indeed! ALLELUIA!

It's good to be able to use our Alleluias again. We dusted them off last week and now we're nearly into the second week of Easter. I think this season is pretty cool, since we get to celebrate this one for 50 days, whereas Lent was 40. Lent was a season of fasting and prayer, where this is a season of feasting and rejoicing. We're just making up for lost party time, right?

But the question that I asked in my Easter Sunday post was 'How do we live in the light of the Risen Christ?' It seems like a vague and churchy thing to ask, which is intentional. I want to entertain this question for a while, so being vague helps. The first thing I have to say about it, though, is really anti-climactic. Because nothing outside of church has changed.

See, in church, we may be celebrating for 50 days, but Easter in the secular world has kinda gone the way of Christmas. People know it's coming, they know it's coming and then it arrives! And then it goes away after everyone finds their Easter baskets and pigs out on the chocolate. Nevermind that, in the case of Christmas, there is a 12 day feast, ending when the Magi arrive in Bethlehem; never mind that, in the case of Easter, there is a 50 day celebration, ending when the Apostles are given the gift of speaking in tongues by the Holy Spirit. Nevermind all of that. The world outside the Christian Church doesn't care about our celebration. For that matter, I don't know how many people inside the Christian Church care about our season of celebration. Like I said, anti-climactic.

For my part, I was working so hard to make it to Easter that it was hardly time to go to bed on Easter Sunday when I started going under the weather. I felt like crap and all I wanted to do was stay in bed and sleep. I didn't let myself (which probably prolonged my time of sickness) but I did what I did and now I look back on the first week of Easter and my life and all I see is a trail of tissues, water bottles and vitamin C boosters. Epic anti-climax.

So in spite of these things, I go back to my original question: How do we live in the light of the Risen Christ?

Truth be told, I don't have an answer to this and I think it would be too presumptuous of me to offer one. I don't even think there is one single answer. If any of you reading were hoping that I would give you your silver bullet here, I think you think too much of me.

That being said, here are a couple of reflections on the topic that are bouncing around in my head:

• My mother, the priest, is fond of saying that we, as Christians, are Easter people. I know others who say this as well and I tend to agree with them. Saying that we are Easter people means that we live in the truth of Christ's resurrection, his victory over death; it means that death is not the end of the story anymore and that love wins. These are things that I believe in.
• But what does belief in the Risen Christ get me? I mean, I know that belief in Christ gets me salvation, but it doesn't feel right just to stop there. It's like telling someone "I'm saved. What about you?" Which in my mind is as good as saying "I found my Jesus doll behind the sofa. Have you even been looking for yours?"
• There's a hymn that I like very much and the refrain says "They will know we are Christians by our love/ by our love/ yes, they will know we are Christians by our love." If this is the metric that is supposed to be used to identify us as Christian, how many of us would even register on the scale? If showing love and compassion for others identifies us as being Christian, I think that there are many others who are better Christians that most Christians are (and I plan to write another whole post on this topic in the future).

Truth be told, asking how to live in the light of the Risen Christ is a question that I do not expect to resolve on my own. I know that trying to understand what Christ did in the nighttime before Easter is what all of Christianity has been trying to figure out since it happened. I also know that trying to live in the light of the Risen Christ is something that I will be able to do better in community, so I will be and have been looking for insight on this from those around me (which is kinda the point of having a church in the first place, right?)

Like I said, I don't want anyone to think that I have a silver bullet. I don't think I even want a silver bullet for this question. I have a lot of reflections and I'm honest when I say that I want to explore this in community. You, dear reader, are a part of my online community. I want to know about your reflections if you'll share them in the comments below.

Alleluia. The Lord is risen...

Out of Lent and into Easter!

Yesterday was Easter Sunday and Saturday night was the Great Vigil of Easter. My wife and I opted to go to the Vigil, reason being that there's a lot more liturgical stuff that happens at the Vigil.

In the Episcopal Church, if you take a look at what the Book of Common Prayer prescribes, there are four parts to the liturgy. One of them is Baptism, which can get really long, depending on how many people you're baptizing. Point is that my faith community only did three of the four parts and we only renewed our Baptismal Covenant; we didn't have any new baptisms. Nonetheless, it was still a long liturgy.

The second of the four parts is the Service of Lessons. There is a huge list of lessons that faith communities can choose from (and I know some congregations that do all of them). Saturday night, my wife and I were helping the youth group to enact the Exodus story; Moses led the Children of Israel out of Egypt, and then the Children got mad at him because they got stuck at the Red Sea and Pharaoh and his army had decided to come and get them to bring them back into slavery in Egypt. It was quite a process to take that text and enact it in such a way that it was both moving and engaging, but neither hokey nor campy. It was tough.

In the end, we made it through; the Vigil happened. We, the youth group, did not bring anything to a standstill (go us!) but as the Vigil went on, I noticed something (and this is the point of my blog today): this Easter Eve mass is both the culmination of Lent and the beginning of season when all is made new. Sunday morning after the Vigil, Christ has risen and there is an overall feeling of resolution. Friday (and even Saturday during the daylight hours) is still firmly entrenched in the Lenten penitence mode. But the Vigil is the point at which these two seasons collide and we churchgoers are thrown in the midst of it all. This may seem obvious but I say it because, last night, I could feel that statement.

Lent has been long and ponderous this year. Yes, I know, Lent is always the same length, but it felt much longer this year. And I could feel that length stretching into the Service of Lessons at the beginning of the Vigil last night. The Service of Lessons happens in a half-dark church with an aura of candlelight. As a church, we tell ourselves these stories about our tradition and heritage. We hear them echoing from somewhere in this space, somewhere in the half-light. It has been a long time that we've been in the desert these 40 days. Moreover, things feel dramatically more barren, now that the man we thought was our Saviour is dead. But I think everyone can feel that something new is about to break out.

Even though my faith community did not have any baptisms last night, it is good to remember that, after we've told ourselves these stories from Genesis and Exodus and after we've heard the words from some of the prophets, those we have nurtured in their study and prayer for the past 40 days stand up, curse the darkness and then are immersed in the water; they die with Christ and are ready to rise to new life on the eve of this season when all is made new. All the rest of us gathered also remember that we have cursed the darkness; we repeat the vows we've taken that bind us to this life, directed by Christ.

Once we've done this; once we've renounced all these things, the new thing breaks out! We find the empty tomb and nothing is the same!

But in my experience of this last night, as we began our Easter celebration, I could feel that everyone was still reeling from this desert time in Lent.

We unleashed our Alleluias! They (literally) floated up to the ceiling (attached to balloons). We proclaimed that He is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia! But this word has been shut away for so long that it felt awkward on our lips.

For my part, I wanted to sing at the top of my lungs, but I was so accustomed to those minor key songs and chants that the new keys felt awkward.

And really, I think all of this was okay. The Lord is risen, but who in the world expected a dead man to rise? Nobody really knows what to do with an empty tomb. An empty tomb is a frightening thing. In the Gospel reading, it says twice that we should not be afraid (which is, of course, easier said than done) but even if we disregard our fear, we still find ourselves coping with this strange and wonderful mystery; Jesus the Nazarene was killed, brutally, by the Romans and now that same man is up walking around and talking with his old friends.

I have a couple take-aways. The first I shamelessly take from my priest. He pointed out the question that is asked of the women who go to Jesus' tomb, "What are you looking for?" In Matthew's version, the angel says, "I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here." But no matter how you respond to the women, all you need to do is put yourself in their shoes. When you come up onto the tomb on Easter morning, the question that is still posed to you is "What are you looking for?" For all of Lent, we could have answered "I am looking in the desert for the presence of God." But now, if we look anyplace that we expect Christ to be, we will not find him. The truth is that the Lord has risen! Sometime during the night, he got up and now he is out there in the world.

Which kinda takes me to the second take-away: the uncertainty of the whole thing. Those reading closely will recognize that we've seen all this before, whether it's Lazarus rising from the dead or talking to the women first or just being unexpected... but I don't think any of those stories include the "what comes next?" question. As a disciple of Christ, we can celebrate that our savior is not dead, but nonetheless, we are still left with the aching uncertainty. We are still left asking "what are we to do next?"

In all honesty, I do think there is a lot of joy in the potential answers to that question as well as all the uncertainty in them. And I don't think there are any simple ways to answer what we are to do next. But for my part, I'm going to spend some time meditating on that and posting some blogs in an attempt to explore this question: "How are we to live in the light of the Risen Christ?"

I hope you'll join me on this journey. I hope you'll feel comfortable commenting now or in the near future to share your own reflections on where this path is leading.

Alleluia! The Lord is risen!