Category: Faith

While we waited in line for our next “experience”, I noticed several people walking around eating giant turkey legs and having their pictures taken with the Roman guards. For a minute there, I was bummed that I settled for a corn dog rather than a turkey leg but then I realized that this wasn’t a Renaissance fair – this was the Holy Land by golly! We have no need for turkey here! What we needed was terrible crackers and grape juice. The HLE delivered.

The Last Supper experience was held inside the “Quram Caves,” a a space that was suppose to be an exact copy of the Upper Room as it was refurbished during the Crusades. At the entrance, we were given a broken cracker and a little chalice made of olive wood supposedly grown in Israel. The room was much darker than my picture shows. The seats at the table were already taken so K and I moved to the side next to some African-American ladies and an Asian family with young kids who kept trying to get onto the table. K noticed that no matter how ridiculous this thing was going to be, the number of different races and ethnicities was amazing. It would be hard to find a church with this much diversity.

The lights dimmed a bit and a woman next to me picked up her cell phone and made a call. Everyone seemed to be attempting a strange balancing act by trying to take pictures with their cameras and hoping to not drop their mini-chalice and cracker. And then the show began with John, wielding a Garth Brook’s microphone, coming out from a side room.

John welcomed us, talked about how great of an experience we’re about to have, and then – for some reason – led us in the Sinner’s prayer. I guess the unbelievers needed to be cleansed before Jesus would arrive. John pointed to the loaves of bread in front of him (that we were not going to share in) and also took the cup and waved it about. There was quite a bit of conviction in his voice and in his mannerisms – a level of conviction that felt overacted. With the last supper explained and our hearts “cleansed”, John stepped to the side and the main man himself walked onto the stage. But could this really be Jesus? It was not the same man who we just saw in the Passion Play!

Jesus, it seemed, had gotten younger and seemed to be very tired. He had an annoying habit of needing to brush his hair from his face every few seconds. While he began his prayers and his chats, I stood to the side clicking away on my camera. The woman who had made a phone call a few minutes earlier kept receiving phone calls (and did not know how to put her phone on silent) but it didn’t seem to bother Jesus. Jesus was in a zone and had a role to play! And John did as well. At appropriate times, he seemed to be there specifically to remind the audience when to praise Jesus, where the dramatic parts of the story were, and when we were suppose to feel the proper forms of reverence. And being the person that I am, the thought running through my mind was that Jesus was “doing it wrong”. Even ignoring my own high sacramental views of the Eucharist, there was no community in the experience. Maybe the folks who were able to sit at the actual table had a level of intimacy with the actor to actually feel something but I felt nothing (short of annoyance). We were, in a sense, being talked at and blessed at. We weren’t participating in this act, either passively, actively, receptively, or in any other way. This was a merely a cheap ride without the 3D glasses. I found it to be quite silly.

The bread was blessed and broken. The grape juice was blessed as well. And we ate, drank, and I tossed my little chalice in my bag to get it out of my hand. And then Jesus did something I didn’t quite expect. He came out from behind the table and squeezed through the small crowd touching everyone on the shoulder. Jesus didn’t say much, just tapped my shoulder, pushed by me, and then moved onto the next person. I hoped he wouldn’t whack into all the DSLR’s hanging from people’s necks or have his eyes poked by the few people who raised their hands in praise. It’s possible that, at this point, John led us in a praise song but I don’t remember. And once everyone was physically touched, Jesus exited from where he had originally come and John told us that the chalice was a “gift” for all of us, a reminder of our time at the HLE. And then we all shuffled our way out into the sunshine and K and I planned our next move – Christian Karaoke.

Right after the Christmas holiday, K and I took a little trip to Orlando. No, we didn’t visit the Harry Potter Experience nor did we visit the temple of Mickey Mouse. Rather, we visited that little “gem” of an amusement park controlled by the Trinity Broadcasting Network, The Holy Land Experience. Oh yes – an Orlando amusement park set in the era of Jesus. When K and I originally had the idea tovisit the park, I had misgivings because why should I give financial support to something that I knew was going to be ridiculous? But my friends at seminary encouraged me to go because they mostly couldn’t believe that such an amusement park existed.

It’s taken me sometime to actually sit down and write about my experience at the “Holy Land” because I’m still trying to wrap my head around the whole thing. It was as cheesy as I expected, historically inaccurate, and pushed every piece of TBN merchandising crap imaginable. And none of this really bothered me all that much because, well, what do you expect for a “ministry” that costs $35 bucks to enter? But there was one section of the park that did really annoy me – but I’ll get to that later.

There were quite a few of these signs around the various prayer gardens filled with ridiculous romanesque statues that were probably bought on sale from a Home and Garden center. I wonder if these signs were put in place for critics like me.

After surviving the epic weirdness that is mid-day traffic in Orlando, we arrived at the Holy Land around noon. The place was packed and we were directed into the overflow parking lots. I noticed that many of the people walking into the park were not exactly who I expected – quite a few were visitors from other countries and there were lots of minorities! I was sure that the target market was “evangelicals” but the racial and ethnic composite of park visitors was more varied than most church services I have been too. K requested that her picture be taken in front of the sign. Not pictured is the main security booth at the entrance to the parking lot that was next to a giant, and poorly done, statue of a Roman legionnaire riding a chariot.

We quickly walked into the ticket office, pasted the first of many prayer boxes that we found, paid our $35 dollars entrance fee, picked up our map and schedule of the days events, and walked into the park. Our first experience of Jesus was in cardboard cutout form.

And yes, that is a crowd release saying that our pictures might be used by the TBN network.

We arrived just in time for 12:30 passion play. The main seating area was already filled so we hung out behind some ropes to the side. The build up to the start of the passion play involved some Roman soldiers milling about and a few “townspeople” walking around. There was also a push by folks telling us to also attend the 5:30 passion play where Jesus’ resurrection is made extra special by showing his battle with Satan using dry ice, fog machines, and fireworks. Once the play started, I couldn’t help but notice how the Roman soldiers and townspeople all shopped at the same sandal shop (and some were wearing socks!). The warmup act to the show involved signing a few really really terrible modern praise songs and a couple of group prayers. I could tell that the play was specifically targeted to the unbeliever demographic though I was curious how many unbelievers actually paid the admission fee to watch subpar church theatre. TBN must have some numbers and statistics that I am not privy too.

After the warmup, we were briefly introduced to Mary, Joseph, and the birth narrative. An angel with unbendable plastic wings told Mary to buck up because she’s gonna have a baby. We then jump 35 years to the beginning of the Passion in the garden. And then the devil showed up.

The devil is a pacific islander it seems. Also, the devil loves serpents….and the same sandals everyone else was wearing.

Jesus prayed for quite a while, shed tears, and seemed very sad as the devil tormented him. Any “evil” thing said by a participant in the play was mouthed by Satan, implying that it was Satan who organized the entire Passion. An older woman next to me started huffing at this point and going “that’s not exactly how it happened!” (as if she had been there) but, by the end of the show, she was a believer in the TBN view of the experience. Judas eventually arrived, kissed Jesus, and Jesus is arrested while the disciples sat around like dopes. After his arrest, Pilate showed up and does everything in his power to wash not have responsibility for the execution which reminded me of early church history and the Acts of Pilate. I noticed that the park tried really hard to walk a fine line in terms of who should be blamed for the death of Jesus. The Jewish religious authorities were there but were downplayed. The political authorities were pushed to the background. The reasons for the execution were never clarified – rather, Jesus just had to be tortured, whipped, and beaten. Fake blood was everywhere. It was obvious that the actor playing Jesus had his skin permanently stained by the twice-daily “killings”. While Jesus is being tortured and crucified, quite a few of his followers and townspeople seemed to be around and sad for the torturing. In fact, there were shouts that Jesus shouldn’t be killed, that he should be let go, and his followers never seemed to desert him. Funny that.

Jesus hangs dead on the cross

Jesus finally died. Prior to this, I noticed that there was a change in the audience. The picture taking had lessened, people were paying attention, and even one hispanic gentlemen had to be approached by security because he had become heavily emotionally invested in the story. Even though the sound effects of the whipping (there was a lot of that) was several seconds off from the acting did not seem to dissuade people from the story. People were eating this stuff up and there was a sense of reverence in the air. I just kept tweeting my reactions and shooting with my camera. It wasn’t the only time in the day when I realized that this park was speaking to a market that I just wasn’t apart of.

A Roman Soldier eventually “converts”, Jesus’ body was taken down and placed in the tomb, and the resurrection aspect of the story began. The women run to the tomb and find that it has been opened by fog machines! And it was at that point that the passion play took a very very strange turn. The MC and Roman centurion came out and began to talk about Jesus, about sins, and about how we should all believe that Jesus was the Son of God. Praise songs began to be played over the sound speakers and the townsfolks began to hum along. K turned to me and said “This is the Tinkerbell summoning!” and she was completely right. We were told that if we really believed in Jesus, that he would come back. And we were then led in the “Sinner’s prayer”, told to believe in Jesus, and then OMG! Jesus came back!

He has a giant set of keys in one of his hands – giant plastic keys because I guess God can’t afford the real thing.

We did it! We brought back Jesus! High fives for everyone! And then we all sang one more praise song, a song that I did not know (but most people seemed familiar with it), and the play ended with another reminder to return at 5:30 to see the extra-special Resurrection. K and I instead decided that we were hungry and that we needed lunch. We ran to the otherside of the park and found a food stand with no line and indulged in a few first century Corn Dogs and Pepsi sodas. While we sat and went over our feelings about how ridiculous and silly the passion play was, we devised a game plan on what we wanted to see next.

Holy Communion with Jesus anyone?

The ELCA has just released a new web product called Living Lutheran. The tagline is “A daily blend of stories, culture, and community.” It seems to be a type of web community with a large number of contributors writing blogs, creating video content, and talking about …wait for it…. living Lutheran. I am curious to see how this plays out but, well, I just subscribed to the feed and the RSS seems disjointed and out of whack.

But as much as I find a lutheran web presence interesting, what I think was even more interesting was the image that was in my synod’s newsletter announcing Living Lutheran.

Luther prefers to type by lantern light.

Let us be honest here – if Luther used a computer, I really doubt it would be a Windows machine. He would definitely be using a Mac – probably the Macbook Air. Its light weight would make it handy while being kidnapped and sent to Wartburg Castle.

It seems that during Christmas service at a church in Long Island, someone involved in the communion service had hepatitis A. The gift jokes are endless. It was discovered that the person has hep A until after the Christmas service so the church is offered free vaccines yesterday and today. All the papers showed up and possible that hundreds took up the offer for the free vaccines. To be honest, I never thought about how to handle the situation when someone involved in the communion has a medical issue and how to react to it. The church seems to be doing a good job handling the situation. I remember when Swine Flu hit and all the hoopla surrounding the common cup. Now hep A might freak out a few folks even though its intinction, not sipping, that is the most unsanitary! One way around that might just be to have terrible tasting wine – it will keep dipping and sipping to the bare minimum.

I can never have enough t-shirts and k’s family knows that. I’m wearing one of them right now – it has Martin Luther on it. I also have socks that say “Here I stand.” I am going to be THAT kind of pastor.

Christmas has been great this year and my stomach aches in happiness after eating my weight in meatballs and garlic bread. At this rate, I am going to need to buy a second ticket for the trip home.

All day, I’ve been pondering what my future Christmases will be like. I’ll be working, writing sermons, meeting all the C&E church members, and also keeping tabs on my extended family. Soon, opening Christmas presents until 11:30 in the morning just won’t be possible So I keep wondering not only WHAT I will be doing on a future Christmas day but also HOW I will be doing it. Last night, I attended candlelight service at a local ELCA church and I noticed myself creating a mental critique of the service while it was going on. I thought the bulletin was nice but I wondered why the music wasn’t included (the lyrics for each hymn were printed however). I pondered the low church elements of the church and wished there were more vestments. I studied the sermon, the pastor’s delivery, the pastor’s dress, and went through what his entire vibe was. The sermon, itself, was a stretch and K summed up the delivery as “swarmy.” Since this was my 3rd visit to the church, I was able to see the teenage choir “grow up” and I figured out who were the divas, who were the young teenage leaders in the church, and who really just wanted to go home and open presents. And I thought about how I wanted to present my future self, what kind of image I wanted to give off, and what my future pastor persona will be.

One of the most “shocking” things for me when I go to an ELCA church outside of New York is how white the churches are. And not only are the churches ethnically white, but they are culturally white (and sometimes completely midwestern white) as well. White might not be the right term to use but I think it gives off the correct feeling. As a hispanic, it is very easy for me to walk into an ELCA church and feel like Mama Mia and Abba are as culturally wild as the congregation gets. There is nothing wrong with a church embracing who it is, where it came from, and for a congregation to reflect who its people are, but does that mean that the church needs to limit itself to only BE that? There is a difference between trying to be culturally expansive and being culturally oppressive by doing someone else’s cultural expressions poorly. Authenticity in love, in worship, and in a willingness to not be stuck in one cultural zone is easy to see no matter how well a cultural tradition is expressed. But there wasn’t even a willingness for the congregation to point out that one of their hymns had a Swedish verse in it. It was only by opening the ELW that I realized where this hymn came from, what it meant, and what type of ethnic and cultural experience it was expressing. Instead, the bulletin only displayed the english lyrics and, although it included the ELW hymn number, there was no encouragement to actually use the ELW. To me, that felt culturally limiting and a little sad.

I wonder how much my feelings in this regard are attached to my own experience as a minority or is my desire for the ELCA churches to be more culturally expansive and to take risks tied to my just being young. Maybe a little of both. But I personally find churches that see themselves as a part of something much larger, and expresses that in their worship, to be the type of churches that I want to be a part of. Will that be a liturgical change that I will need to bring to the future churches that I am called to? Or will I only be called to churches that already have that flavor and spice to them? And, in either case, how can I get them to move forward and actually participate in the body of Christ instead of limiting themselves to seeing themselves as THE body of Christ? And if my assumptions based on the church I went to last night is completely wrong, then why don’t I see that expansive view in their very expression of worship, especially worship tied to a specific event in a culture that is not anywhere near our own?

It seems that, at the moment at least, the ghost of Christmas present is completely influencing my ghost of Christmases yet to be. It would be nice if Gonzo was there to narrate it and if Rizzo could provided some comic relief. I think I’ll munch on a few ginger bread houses and ponder these thoughts will jelly bean and marshmallow dreams.

Christ, by highest, heav’n adored, Christ the every lasting Lord,
late in time behold him come, offspring of a virgin’s womb,
Veiled in flesh teh God-head see! Hail, incarnate deity!
Pleased as man with us to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel!
Hark! The herald angles sing, “Glory to the newborn king!”

St. Mark’s od Dunedin in 2008. I went to their Christmas Candlelight service tonight for the 3rd time in a row!

Is It Christmas? YES! Many blessings to all of you out there in internet land!

This morning, I experienced my first men-only ministry.

My father-in-law invited me to attend the early morning men’s group at his church. The meet weekly at 7 am. I was then told that there would be food. I said “I’ll be there.”

We drove up and I entered into the massive complex of buildings and was directed into a fellowship room. The breakfast was catered by a local restaurant. There was bacon, sausages, biscuits, gravy, eggs, pastries, pancakes, coffee, and orange juice. And it wasn’t half bad. I met a few of the men (I was the youngest guy there I think), sat down, and ate. It seems that the group has been working through a book about being a man but today was all about having some food and some fellowship. The conversation at the table my father-in-law and I sat at circled around food (I feel that some of those men are more weight conscious than me), gentle ribbing at each other’s expense, and when the head pastor sat down, we chatted about feet and minor surgeries. And by “we chatted”, I mean I kinda sat there and listened. I was asked some questions about seminary (they seemed to already know who I was) and I talked about the weather quite a bit. All in all, it was very normal.

After a very very very brief devotional, each table began a prayer circle. People shared prayer requests for healing, and then each man said a brief prayer. Then we ended the breakfast with a chat about Glen Beck and his Mormon faith. My favorite comment was “he seems so well read and researched – you think he would know better.”

It’s interesting finally seeing men’s ministry in action, to some degree. I know that the idea of men’s ministry is trendy right now – it seems quite a few churches are shocked that more women go to church than men and I can see how church traditions that emphasize male leadership would need to get men back into church – and I have never been a church where men’s ministry was actively promoted (again, if the church is androcentric then male ministry is always implicitly promoted). And I can see that this type of male ministry is designed to ground relationships into the community and it probably is working. They told me that it seemed, overnight, they tripled their active members in the group. But I would be curious to see how this male ministry tackles theological issues and questions and how/if the ministry brings the men into worship. Basically, how does this ministry integrate the men into the church community or is it really working on forming the men in their relationship with God? Basically, it would take me many more visits, time, and theological study to figure it out. Why theological study? Because I don’t speak their traditions language.

One thing that I did notice, however, was that – while I did not feel uncomfortable while there – if my father-in-law had not been there, I wouldn’t have know what to do. I never seen a prayer circle like that before. Was it because people just assumed I already spoke the language, was it because people just assumed my father-in-law would fill in that role, or is there a wider issue of connecting new folks into the ministries that already exist in the church? One thing I have learned while at my time is Advent is the power of intentionally including folks, pushing them into new ministries while at the same time not abandoning those people and letting them flail about. And that intentionality is something that is on my mind right now. I am wondering how to create that intentionality, or latch onto it, in a brand new ministry area. This is the type of thing they don’t teach you in Christian History sadly.