Whenever I see these ads, I have the same reaction to them as I did when I saw Devry commercials on tv when I was at Cornell. I’m just waiting for Gmail to start showing me Lutheran divinity degree mills. Then I will finally believe that Gmail fully understands me in ways that few computers do.
LTSP’s Board of Directors are in town. I’m excited. Can you tell that I am excited? I am excited.
I woke up early this morning, prettied myself up, and headed to breakfast early. When I arrived, a breakfast buffet was before me. Bacon! Sausage! Pancakes! Eggs! Fruit! EVERYTHING! When the board is in town, the food at the refectory improves. The lawn is cleaned up. The President tells all the students to behave. LTSP beautifies itself. The sun seems brighter, the clouds puffier, the sky bluer (except when it’s raining like today).
It is a good time to be on campus.
I know, I know – a common complaint is that the Seminary is not being honest with itself to the board. Should it not keep everything the same? Should the food options be as limited as normal? NO. Heh. The thing is, the board knows. They expect the place to be prettied. They expect the Seminary to put its best face forward. The Board is very good at talking to students to find out what is really going on and quite a few of them went to seminary at some point in their lives. One board member already discovered that none of the computers in the dorm, nor the communal tv, work and that the students used all the desks that are currently being stored there to build a fort. The Board understands.
It’s how I imagine the Seminary might be if financial resources were endless or if we all won megamillions twice a week for the next three years. But I think what’s really neat is that during the twice-yearly visits by the board, the education doesn’t get better. My classes aren’t more enjoyable. The professors don’t get smarter. The quality of the education is still really good. It’s just the things on the side that get nicer and I’m fine with the things on the side only being really nice a couple times of years. As long as the coffee is hot and good (which isn’t always true but hey, there’s WaWa), I’m pretty easy to please.
Yesterday, I preached for the first time at my field education site. Once I can figure out how to get a publicly accessible video online (it’s too long for youtube), I’ll make sure to share it with all of you. My sermon is, however, posted on Facebook so if we’re friends, please go and watch. I was told I did a good job but it always takes me a few days to get the nerve to actually watch myself on video. I need the distance that only time can give.
Now, I won’t lie, I was a tad nervous about preaching but I wasn’t nervous about standing in front of the congregation. That doesn’t seem to bother me. What was throwing me, however, was the actual content of my sermon. This was only my the third time standing in a pulpit so I struggle over several weeks with exactly what I was going to say. I sometimes woke up early in the morning to find my brain already awake, working on the problem. The text was John 9.1-41 which is a fun story but, good Lord, it’s a lot of text. What exactly was I going to say? What did the Holy Spirit want shared? What would the community respond to? And how do I make it so I don’t sound like a complete ass?
I have a feeling that these will be the standard questions of my preaching career.
It wasn’t until Saturday before it all came together. I sat on my bed, with my dog sitting by my side, with Britney Spears’ new album as my soundtrack, and I cranked it out. I spoke it out loud a few times, threw in extra line breaks, and timed myself. It came out under 12 minutes which I felt was pretty good (the 9 am service has a time limit). Before bed, I polished my shoes, picked out what I was going to wear, and used a lint roller to remove all the stray cat hairs. I felt ready.
There was, however, one thing that I wasn’t prepared for while I stood in the pulpit during the second (11 am) service. In my sermon, I peppered in a few elements of humor (I like to make people laugh – it’s a vice). Several of the jokes I stole from preachers I had seen during the week (I’ll source them later, I promise). Some I came up with myself. I thought they were pretty good. My message was an attempt at a quick law & gospel sermon – it was gonna be a tad heavy and I like the juxtaposition that humor can add in a sermon. At the 9 am service, my jokes got laughs. I heard some snarfles. People got into it. Sure, it might just have been one person (a fellow seminarian about to head to her first call) but still! It worked. So when I stood in the pulpit a second time, I was a little cocky. My first joke worked – a little laugh. But by the second one, nothing. By the third one, I got a little worried. As I read my manuscript, a thought popped in my head “had I fallen flat? Is the mic on? Do I need to try something else?”
When I told this story earlier today, a classmate of mine remarked “That’s just like a standup comic I bet.” She’s right. For a moment, I thought I lost the room. I thought people were rolling my eyes. I thought, for a moment, that maybe everyone in the audience were having their eyes glazed over, that they would start checking their watches, and that it was over and done – and there’s still 10 minutes to go!
When I finished the service and greeted people at the door, the positive comments from folks were pretty fantastic. People really really liked it. They loved my imagery and the half-dozen retired pastors in the 11 am service all said I did a good job. Not to toot my own horn but I think I did well (even when I subtract the standard niceness given to pastors after their sermons). And I really enjoyed the process of creating the sermon and seeing what the Holy Spirit had in store. But the next time the funny in my sermon seems to fall flat, I’ll try not to freak out inside. Or maybe I’ll make signs. I have a professor who has a few – they seem to work.
Next Sunday, I will be preaching at my internship site for the first time. I’m not nervous about it …. yet … but I will probably feel more comfortable once I actually compose a manuscript. The problem with preaching in Year A, for me at least, is the fact that the gospel reading is 40 verses long. There’s a lot there that I could focus on. I have a few ideas but I’m trying to follow the advise one of my supervisors told me: don’t do too much. At the moment, I’m leaning towards talking about purity but that just might be due to all my old testament classes that I have taken this year.
I do find it interesting, however, that my most recent visual experience of watching someone being nervous at the front of a church came from my pastoral care class during a viewing of Six Feet Under. I forget the character’s name but the semi-in-the-closet gay undertaker is standing by the lectern in his conservative Episcopal parish and is being installed as a deacon. As he stands up there, he blink. When he opens his eyes, the pews have changed from being filled with upper crust WASPs to being filled with well-built, hairless, topless young men. And near the back, a dead female porn star, with deep red lips, winks at him while she blows him a kiss. I don’t think this experience will happen to me but I find it at least a tad more entertaining than imagining everyone in their underwear. It’s probably more likely that I’ll see a room full of Iron Man Mark 2s and Pepper Potts will be saying that only I can save the day.
And speaking of Iron Man, who else is excited about the Captain America movie? Stark’s dad making an appearance makes me happy.
Last week, the Urban Theological Institute at LTSP held its annual Preaching with Power series. Several African-American pastors, from a variety of denominational backgrounds, preached at several venues in the Mount Airy area. Due to my schedule, and my lack of mobility, I attended only three of the events, including the headliner. I saw Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. preach at Grace Baptist of Germantown.
The service began at 7. For the first hour, the service was fairly standard. The place was packed with clergy and some seminary students. The president of LTSP, several professors, and the head of the UTI program were in attendance. There were a few speeches, a very strange and blunt stewardship message (“Those who are going to give fifty dollars or more, please stand up so we can recognize you”), and both men and women choirs sung. I took a few pictures but I was really waiting for the main event. I wanted to see what Rev. Wright Jr. was going to say. I wanted less average church worship and more fire and brimstone.
Rev. Wright Jr. took the podium and read some scripture off a blackberry. The messages picked involved Philip. Rev. Wright opened his notebook and began to preach. The text was on Philip and the eunuch which led into a sermon about deacons, discipleship, and what preaching with power means in the light of what the NT tells us about Philip. It started off slow but slowly snowballed. I could tell that he was trying to build momentum to his climatic message. He took a few potshots at Sarah Palin, mentioned reparations, and attacked homophobia. And then, out of nowhere, he reached his fiery climax and conclusion. The sermon was over much sooner than I had anticipated. In fact, I expected more. I found it slightly underwhelming, a tad dull, and short. One of my classes was canceled for this event and I wanted it to be worth it.
With the service over (and an unfilled altar call seeming to stretch for days), people began to leave. In the education hall, a Q&A session with Rev. Wright Jr. was going to be held. Some classmates and I sauntered downstairs, picked up a few cookies from the refreshment table, and discovered that Rev. Wright Jr. had beaten us to the place. He was already at the podium, talking. For the twenty minutes we were there, he didn’t pause once.
He was talking about African music beats and rhythms that are not taught in public schools. He’s obviously a brilliant man but I was waiting for questions but all I heard was an answer to a question I did not hear asked. My classmates and I left to the sound of South African work songs. The general consensus among my pals was that the sermon could have been better. Or maybe we all just hyped him up after what happened during Obama’s campaign two and a half years ago. Ah well.
Wednesday, March 2nd, was LTSP’s Mardi Gras party. Yes, we were six days early, and we didn’t call it Mardi Gras but Fastnacht; we had to change the date for scheduling reasons. The celebration consisted of piles of donuts and the members of the LTSP participating in a variety show, of a sort.
Each class put on a skit, one person lead the group in a singalong, two guys and a gal gave fake seminary news, and the LTSP Luther Bowl football tame was promoted. From what I was told, the turn out from faculty members and members of the community was the highest its ever been. Six professors and staff showed up. My friend D. was the MC. He opened up with a Top Ten list about seminary life. My favorite was that Exegesis was not a stage direction for Jesus and that it’s very hard to pun M. Div.
The junior class (that’s what they call first years – juniors) performed first. And we did a pretty great job, if I do say so myself. The Junior Class’ job is to make fun of the professors in some way. A few weeks ago, a couple of folks had the idea that we should turn each of the professors into professors from Harry Potter. The idea was genius and we ran with it. Two students organized it and got it written. I was asked to play a part and I said sure. Even before the skit was written or organized, I was told I should play Dr. Hoffmeyer as Hagrid. And why? Because he’s 6’5″ and I’m 5″5. I enthusiastically agreed and gave the group the chance to write my part – I was game for anything.
What I didn’t realize, of course, would be that I would have to ACT like him for a few moments in the skit. Now, I’ve never had him as a professor and our on-campus interactions can be counted on two fingers. I spent a few days before Wednesday asking for tips on how to act like him and what to exaggerate. I borrowed a tie and a rain coat. During dress rehearsal, some more tips were given and then it was game time. I was ready.
I was near the end of the skit and tried to stand in the back and try not to laugh – but I broke character quite a bit. It was finally time for me to get on stage. I walked up to the lectern, and began to act. The three people playing students came up and couldn’t see me as Hoffmeyer-Hagrid. They asked me if I was. I stroked my chin for several moments, went “well” , had a long pause, and then answered “yes”. I then spoke my three lines and walked off stage. I didn’t get a lot of laughs but I did get a lot of wows. And afterwards, professors and upper level students came up to me and said I did a fantastic job and that I nailed the professor exactly.
I rewarded myself by eating two donuts. I earned it.
One of my classes this semester is Lutheran Confessions with Dr. Wengert. He is one of the academic heavy weights at the seminary and was one of the editors of the most recent edition of the “Book of Concord.” He’s been teaching at the seminary for over twenty years, has been involved in quite a few agreements between different church bodies, is currently working on a Lutheran-Catholic commentary on the 95 thesis to be published before 2017 (500th anniversary), and has gotten quite a bit of flack recently for the “bound conscience” idea that is in the 2009 church wide human sexuality statement. He also really enjoys what he teaches, has great stories, and answers every question with “Why do you ask that question?” I sit in the very front row, right next to where he stands to lecture, and I’m usually involved in all of his lecture illustrations. Last week, I drowned in wine. It was very sad.
Anyways, part of the class requirements is to write five short essays. Each essay is two to three pages in length. We are given eight topics and are to chose five. I’ve so far done three out of the four assigned so far. Another one is due on Thursday. Dr. Wengert does not care what we think about the topic but is asking us to break through early Lutheran documents in the Book of Concord and explain what Luther, Melanchthon, and other early Lutheran reformers thought. I will admit that I was nervous when I first entered the class. I wrote a paper for him last year that was pretty embarrassing and so I didn’t know what to expect. My first paper was okay but my second paper (the one I felt very weak on), I did really well. I am use to Dr. Wengert to write complete essays in the margins of my essay or at the very end. He is very good at telling a person what he disagrees with, what they should focus more on, and what problems the person could run into. So that’s what I was looking for but I didn’t get that. Instead, I received a half a dozen one word margin notes and a one line response at the very end. Sometimes, less is more.
I have yet to receive back my third paper on “Why does the Lord appear in the Lord’s Supper?” I found it ridiculously hard to expand that answer into two pages without resorting to size 13 font or 1.25 inch margins. I was able to but it was a stretch. And it’s possible that the 2nd paper made me a little cocky – let’s see if the third paper brings me back down to earth.
Last Tuesday, the bishop of the New Jersey Synod delivered the Tuesday convocation at LTSP. His one hour long presentation was centered on the question of what the church expects of its seminarians and especially of its seminarian graduates. The senior class at LTSP had learned the week before which region of the country they had been assigned to and they did make up the majority of the audience. They were followed in numbers by the first years, a handful of second years, and then the professors. The bishop packed the house.
The bishop began by discussing a book he had recently read while on a three month sabbatical, “American Grace.” I haven’t read it but, from my understanding, it is mostly a book of sociologist statistics and analysis about the religious like in the United over the last fifty years. The bishop focused primarily on two things: the rise of those who consider themselves spiritual but not religious (they are now 17% of the US population and are called the “nons”) and the discrepancy between the religious principles between the clergy and the laity. Some of this information was enlightening though I noticed that several questions I would have asked were not answered in the presentation (specifically what lay members expect their clergy to believe). The audience seemed to enjoy the vast gulf of doctrines held by LC-MS clergy and LC-MS lay members.
The last third of the presentation was devoted to a survey that the bishop sent to his clergy and lay leaders. He then compiled the results and shared them with the audience. The general conclusion seemed to be that graduates should be better trained in learning how to train leaders in the congregation, to continue learning church history and confessions to educate lay members (education that lay members were asking for their professors to teach them), and help in understanding the use of technology and social networks. There was also a fourth point made but I, sadly, forgot it. There was also one set of questions shared with the audience where the beginning of each question was “Can we expect a masters-educated graduate to…” This was probably the most poignant, and over-dramatic, part of the presentation and the phrase “can we expect a masters-educated graduate to…” will become one of my many seminary related in-jokes.
But by the end of the presentation, I was very annoyed though I couldn’t put it in words at the time. There was just a tone to the presentation that irked me – though maybe my lack of sleep due to a paper I wrote the night before that turned into a rant against online-media church consultants had me on edge. Anyways, it took several days for it to stew in my brain and it wasn’t until I was actually at my internship church today that it finally hit me. The problem was that, half-way through the presentation, I knew that the presentation had nothing to do with me. Rather, it was ABOUT me – in the sense that part of the solutions/rhetorical questions were directed to what the bishop called “counter-cultural.” Me. The bishop was talking about me.
I know that I can’t fully adequately explain what it was in the presentation that made me feel off-putted – I just got a sense that by me being my very self, I was somehow a problem that the church was now struggling to deal with. And I wish I could write it better – and pinpoint where that happened – but I can’t. And I find that frustrating too. It just felt very strange feeling like I was being talked about, dissected, diagnosed, and identified as a “problem” that the church, and the graduating seminarians, are going to have to fix. There must be a better way to talk about the changing church.
