Praise

Father Abraham, had many sons; and many sons, Moses did not.

/ Paul Burkhart / 6 Comments

Rothko-9-White-Black-Wine-1958So…I had my mind blown this past week.

I’m taking this class on the idea of “worship” in all its dimensions, and we read a few pieces that gave me an entirely new framework to understand the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, and how God works in those stories. And no, I’m not exaggerating.

In Genesis 15, God makes a covenant with Abraham, and it’s a little weird, mainly because it’s entirely on God. He promises that he will be Abraham’s God. He promises he will give him many descendants. He promises to make those descendants a blessing to the world. And, most importantly, he takes all of the potential negative consequences of breaking the covenant on Himself. In essence, he makes this covenant with Himself on Abraham’s behalf.

What’s Abraham’s part in this whole thing? “He believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness”, the text says (and he’s supposed to circumcise his kids as a visible mark of his belief). This is one of the earliest and clearest depictions of the unconditional grace-driven nature of God’s relationship to humanity and the world–a relationship that would later be called “The Gospel”. In fact, the Apostle Paul would look at this moment in Genesis and say:

Just as Abraham “believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” so, you see, those who believe are the descendants of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, declared the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the Gentiles shall be blessed in you.” For this reason, those who believe are blessed with Abraham who believed.

Okay….so what?
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The Church: Being in Becoming (a Sunday pre-game)

/ Paul Burkhart / 6 Comments

church-philly-bw-cross-market-eastFor my Gospel, Culture, and Church course this past week, we had to read the opening chapter of this book on the Church as mission, rather than seeing the Church as something that does mission. We also had to read some mind-blowing pages from Hans Kung’s epic work The Church. It got me thinking a lot about what precisely the “church” is and how it is that thing. I just wanted to share some disjointed thoughts today.

Throughout the readings, the (perhaps over-used) term “Being in Becoming” kept coming to mind. (For my more philosophically-trained friends, forgive me if I’m simplifying this term too much; My main exposure to this has been cursory, in the context of the Trinitarian theology of Karl Barth and how he describes God).

In others words, the Church’s very Being is in its efforts to more faithfully “Become” what it is. It is not and cannot become a static entity into which we invite people. As we are caught up in the missional plan of the missional God, it propels forward into places where the old notions of Christendom and privilege are not relevant and are shown to be the anemic frameworks they are.
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Catholics Aren’t Crazy: On Praying to Saints (Happy All Saints’ Day!)

/ Paul Burkhart / 19 Comments

This is a post in an on-going series called Catholic Aren’t Crazy exploring misconceptions Protestants have about Catholicism and lessons we can learn from them.

UPDATE: I responded to some critiques and gave some clarifications.

UPDATE II: Here’s the story of the Saint I pray to, Catherine of Siena.

Yesterday was Halloween. That makes today All Saints’ Day (read more about the history of these holidays in yesterday’s post).

All Saint’s Day has taken on different meanings for different groups of Christians. What seems to stay consistent, though, is that it is a celebration of the victory attained by those faithful Christians who have died. They are no longer pilgrims, as we are, but are the triumphant ones, having finished their race well and been brought into their peace with God. We celebrate Christ’s effectual victory over sin and death and that this has been granted to those that have gone before us.

The hope and encouragement in this holiday is not simply that we “remember” these saints, or meditate on their example. Instead (and this is important), there has been a long-held belief in the Christian Church that we still have a mystical communion and relationship with those saints that have already died. When Christians throughout Church history (and the Bible) have referred to “The Church”, they don’t simply mean those still around today, but all the saints who have ever lived (even in the Old Testament!). We are all the Church.

So we can truly celebrate those that have gone before us because we are truly still connected to them in a very real and vibrant way.
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some hopefully not weird Christian thoughts on Halloween.

/ Paul Burkhart / 5 Comments

73497_813635955116_1310185_nA friend emailed me yesterday asking if I had ever written a post on Halloween and how Christians should relate to it. This was my reply to him. Also, in honor of Halloween, I’m posting this picture of the best Halloween costume I ever had. Can’t figure it out? The answer is at the bottom of the post:

Sorry to be anti-climactic, but I don’t really have any strong opinions on the matter either way. I’ll probably stay home Halloween, work on school work, and hand out candy to kids.

I really think it’s up to the individual Christian’s conscience, though there are obvious things that might be “unwise”. For one, don’t get wrapped in the sexuality that seems to have pervaded Halloween. Second, if you do a costume, try not to be exploitative (grown-ups dressing like little kid-sort of things and sexualizing them, acting gay as a joke, mocking others, or I heard of one couple of white friends who went as a dead Trayvon Martin and a George Zimmermamn, with the Trayvon guy wearing black-face).

Importantly, though, I don’t encourage myself or other Christians to be “weird” about it.
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A letter from & to a friend on the occasion of her Baptism

/ Paul Burkhart / 9 Comments

baptism-foot-waterThis weekend, I received this wonderful note from a good friend, inviting me and others to her Re-Baptism in one of the rivers of Philadelphia. With her permission, I’m posting her letter and my reply to it below. No matter your precise theological views on second baptisms, I hope you find this exchange to be encouraging to your soul.

* * * * * * * *

Hello dear friends,

As many of you know, I grew up in a church for much of my childhood and adolescence, and was even baptized around age ten into the covenant family of the Presbyterian church I attended. While I respect this baptism as a symbol of the faith tradition I was born into and grew up with, at ten, I had never struggled with any doubts or questions that have been such a part of my adult faith journey.

In my life, I have found it so easy to get hung up on theology and technicalities (What does it mean if I don’t believe in penal substitution? What exactly does the divinity of Jesus mean?) and my despair at the state of our world (Why does God let horrible evil things happen?). I’ve spent a long ten years questioning and doubting and not knowing. To be honest, not much has changed. I still despair over the evil I see and I still haven’t figured out how how everything works. But I’ve come to believe that that’s just what it is to be human–to be me. It doesn’t somehow cancel out my faith.
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So, some women were ordained last week and…it wasn’t that exciting.

/ Paul Burkhart / 5 Comments

female-woman-bishop-anglican-communion

This is a post in our on-going series on Women in the Church.

The past week of my life was filled pretty heavily with church stuff. First, my church hosted our denominational meeting for those churches in our church family that are in cities. They talked about new developments in my seminary program, gave updates on the health of current church plants, adopted the 2014 budget, and ordained and commissioned new pastors to serve in churches across the country. It was a day and half filled with theology jokes, family talks, overdue introductions, and post-meeting sessions of cocktails and cigars on the front steps of the church.

Second, as I mentioned last week, my church spent yesterday celebrating it’s maturation from a “church plant” (a church that still relies on other churches for most of its support and leadership) to a full-blown self-sustaining, self-leading church. My parents came in town, the music was loud, the sermon was great, and we had a large block party after the service with a moon bounce, chili cook-off, and homebrew contest (the bourbon barrel stout won, by the way. It was called “The Nord’s Wrath”).

It was great, and it will be a block of days I will not soon forget.

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This weekend, I’m being ordained as a Deacon. And I can’t wait.

/ Paul Burkhart / 3 Comments

paul-philly-skyline-2

I noticed that I could see the slowly turning fan blades above us in the reflection of his freshly shaven head. His blue eyes and silver goatee turned up to me quickly, recovering from almost choking on his salad.

“What did you say?”

I had just told him that I felt I had a sense of where God wanted my spiritual life to go next. I was a 20 year-old college student, the president of my campus ministry, and I hung out with my pastors all the time. More importantly, though, was the fact that I was crushing really hard on this girl that wouldn’t date me. Only later would I realize that this was a bigger factor in what I said than anything God had said.

“I want to become an elder at our church.”

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The Best Communion Prayer my Church has ever had

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

eucharist-bw-waferFather, your table proclaims to us your undying love for us. This table tells us that you do not simply endure our presence. This table tells us that you delight in being with us. You have invited us to feast in your presence.

So we have come to eat and drink deeply of your love for us. May we interpret our lives through this table. May we understand that we are a people with whom you are well pleased. May this reality energize us as we move into our world. May we live out our lives as your deeply loved, anointed children. Fill us with joy as’we labor for you in this world. Amen.

—Liberti Church, 10/20/13

Karl Barth: Our Freedom, Our Home, & God’s Directing [AMAZING QUOTES]

/ Paul Burkhart / 4 Comments

karl_barth crop

I’m writing this long paper on the ancient Christian Practice of Discernment. In my research, I pulled out some Karl Barth, my favorite theologian (hands down), and got to soak in the beauty of these words, and I wanted to share them. Now, for people that don’t read “real” and “proper” theology, this is it. It’s circular, it repeats itself, and it’s unnecessarily complicated and unclear. I know. I get that. But I promise, if you can spend a few minutes, quiet yourself, and focus, I promise the pay-off is huge. This guy stands as a tower over all of modern theology and deserves more attention than he gets. I’ve done slight edits to some of the wording and paragraph breaks for clarity. Enjoy.

* * * * * * * *

God’s direction is an all-powerful decision, His own divine act of lordship. By this means, too, God vindicates His honor and maintains His glory. By this means, too, He exercises authority….

God’s direction is the directing of humans into the freedom of His children. It is this which has taken place in Jesus Christ no less uniquely than the once-for-all fulfillment of the divine sentence on all humanity. In suffering in our stead the death of the old nature, and bringing in by His resurrection the life of the new, He has made room for the being of all humanity to be at peace with God.

On the basis of what we are and is not by virtue of the divine sentence passed and revealed in Jesus Christ… we have no other place but this—the kingdom in which God can be at peace with us and us at peace with God. Jesus Christ…is the all-powerful direction of God to us to occupy this place, to live in this kingdom. If we are told in Him who we are and are not, we are also told in Him where we belong, where we have to be and live.

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Good Morning (prayer)! [photo sermon]

/ Paul Burkhart / 6 Comments

ultimo-coffee-cortado

Each week, WordPress has a Weekly Photo Challenge, where they give a theme and invite people to highlight photography representing that theme, accompanied by a few meditations on it. Occasionally, I try and write a “photo sermon” or meditation based on those themes, accompanied by a photo of mine . This week’s theme is “Good Morning“.

* * * * *

In one of those oddities of tire human condition, I love sleep, and yet I avoid it like the plague. I have a terrible sleep schedule. My sleep pattern is a microcosm of my lack of discipline in many parts of life, and maybe even an extremely low level of self-harm, where my body and heart wouldn’t really know what to do if it were consistently well-rested. There’s something about a constant weight of tiredness that—maybe—makes one feel “productive”, even as it steals productivity away from you.

This is a lie. I know. I’m working on it in therapy.

In some Christian circles, people claim “life verses” for themselves; bits of the Bible that they feel speak to them so deeply that the words amount to a blanket summary, call, encouragement, guiding principle, or telos to their life. People usually pick a “life verse” that speaks to what they want their life to be or how they want God to work in their lives.

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“Coffee Crucifix” (a sonnet for National Coffee Day)

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Coffee Crucifix

Crescent ring under porcelain smooth
___stain the wood-stained finish.
______(It is finished.)
___Marked with muddy water;
___mark the merry day; to
___marry the murdered man.

Floral notes in blackened waves
___crash the shore of trembled lips.
Choral bright, in darkest night,
___wake the tone of trebled kiss.

Younger tastes left open-wide; older eyes made
satisfied.

Mark the wood: complex simplicity.
Pierce my heart: storied infinity.

[read my other Holy Week poetry here]

all writings licensed: Creative Commons License

What is Discipleship? A Definition.

/ Paul Burkhart / 3 Comments

discipleship-silhouette

For one of my spiritual formation classes, I had the privilege of reading Deitrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together and Henri Nouwen’s In the Name of Jesus—two incredible books. Last night, after having read these books, we were then asked to offer our own one sentence definition of Discipleship, and then spend some time expounding on the definition. Here was my contribution. Feel free to add your own definitions below.

______________________________

Discipleship: The cultivation of an inner and outer life–with both ourselves and others–that is marked by a humble reliance on the work, words, life, and leading of Christ and His Spirit.

The thing that struck me most about these readings as it pertains to discipleship was the weird paradox of one’s inner- and outer-lives. In both Nouwen and Bonhoeffer, there is such an emphasis that our hearts’ goal should be nothing less than the heart of Christ Himself and our reliance upon it. And yet, the primary access point to this Heart is found in the simple, mundane bodily actions we take upon ourselves with regularity.

The way in is from without, I suppose.

Especially for those of us in seminary and who minister in a Church context, isolation in these endeavors can be such an easy temptation. I don’t even pastor a church, and yet as a deacon leading a home group or class or the Sunday liturgy, I feel that damnable desire just to be liked, and not be seen for who I really am.
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Sacred Autumn [GUEST POST]

/ austinricketts4 / 3 Comments

autumn-western-pa2

This is another piece by my good friend Austin, who has written here before. You can also read my own, similar meditation from last year on what Autumn can tell us about our world and our God.

This month, we’ll witness the change of seasons. These liminal times, these times between the times, always put me in a mood of reflection. The approaching season is my favorite. It’s appropriate that it, unlike the other seasons, should be honored with two names—Fall and Autumn. And what about that?

Autumn is a noun, meaning cold. The word is anything but. It’s a beautiful word to look at, beautifully spelled. It’s a nice word to say. Think about how your mouth moves when you articulate it. Isn’t it like offering a kiss to something, someone? And didn’t Saint Paul say to greet the brethren with a holy kiss? That’s how I plan to greet the coming season.
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