sixthgen
pastoral publishing in the 21st century
pastoral publishing in the 21st century
 This art is by Anna Henkens, Christmas 2023 You set up the cute nativity scene. A smiley baby. Cuddly animals. Shiny porcelain. Innocent characters lined up neatly in their place. Maybe it’s under your fancy tree. Or in the window sill with cotton balls around it like snow. It’s a perfect little scene.
But you know that’s not how it really was. There were real problems. Caesar trying to keep the empire’s economy going by calling a census and preparing for tax season. Judea was under Roman occupation. There was Herod, a regional king and a tyrant, a pathological liar. Ruthless and willing to crush any rival even if it meant killing a town’s entire population of baby boys. There were real problems. I admit that sometimes my Christmas celebration feels like a Nativity scene. Nice, but mostly untrue. Nostalgic and sentimental, all while there are real problems. Every year we reenact customs and rituals like we’re reenacting a Hallmark movie. Why? I think it makes us feel safe. Our traditions give us some stability in a chaotic world of real problems.  I’ve been praying for my congregation during election season. Here’s my prayer: “God, make them different. In a contentious time in our society, make us abnormal. Unusually composed. Extra-ordinary. Strangely distinct.”
Why does your pastor want you to be different? Because anger and anxiety are normal today. Anger: The rhetoric of rage is normalized. Blame. Villainizing. Neighbors become opponents and fellow citizens become enemies. Anxiety: Fear and worry are normalized. There is hopelessness about the future. Or resignation that nothing will change.  I write this 10 days after an assassination attempt on a former president. We are grateful for former President Trump’s safety and grieve the death of an innocent bystander. I write this two days after a president stepped down from his reelection campaign. We pray for President Biden’s well-being as he completes his term as president, the hardest job in the world.
As the political climate in our country grows more tumultuous, I notice an increase in “messianic” language applied to candidates. Words like “save,” “deliver,” and “chosen one.” In Wisconsin last week I passed dozens of “Save America” signs.  There are things in life that we cannot explain. And the only word we can use is “somehow.” Like this: Your body is made up of 7 billion billion billion atoms. That’s 7 octillion. In and of themselves, atoms are not alive. They are just lifeless matter, mindless particles. But somehow they come together in a fantastic puzzle that constitute a living, breathing, YOU.
As a college student I was tall, skinny, and awkward. I was largely clueless to female attention. And somehow Bobbi found me interesting. Somehow she talked to me. Somehow she said “yes” when I asked her to marry me. Somehow! It’s a word you use when there is no logical explanation. A word that admits mystery and miracle. It’s a word of faith and hope.  This post is the third in a series on the modern pressure to build an identity.
I was speaking about identity at a conference last fall. As an outline, I used Nouwen’s three temptations: “I am what I do, what I have, or what others say about me.” During a break, a young woman in her twenties approached me and said, “That third one is what we struggle with the most.” “We.” She had been sitting in a row of fellow twenty-somethings. Every one of them confessed a struggle with “that third one.” “What others say about me.” We chatted briefly about why Gen Z struggles with this particular temptation. Is it the ubiquitous presence of social media? Or could it be the insecurity of a generation formed by pandemic isolation and political division? Regardless, there is a real temptation to build an identity by gaining approval from others.  Target and Walmart had Christmas displays up before Thanksgiving. Then we had Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. Now there's the rush of the final shopping days before the holiday. Christmas is an economic engine. Gift-giving is big business.
I’ve always found this funny. It’s Jesus’ birthday, and we give each other presents.  “I am what I have.” You think this one doesn’t apply to you. Materialism seems like a juvenile sin. Of course, shiny things can bring you pleasure. In a consumerist society we are tempted to get more and have more. More money, more stuff, more travel, more retirement, more trendy clothes and expensive dinners.
“I am what I have” seems too obvious a temptation. Materialism is easy to identify and even easier to deny. But I think there’s something deeper going on. I continue my series on identity.  I’m working out a thesis that every human being is tempted to construct an identity, a self that we desire to be. In a series of posts, I'll address three ways we seek to build an identity and three historic Christian practices that provide a better answer to the identity question. Henri Nouwen provides the inspiration for self-diagnosis. We’ll begin with the first, “I am what I do.” I am what I do, what I have, or what others say about me.” - Henri Nouwen  Every weed has a root. I contend that under every sin is an identity issue. It's a thesis I’ve been working with for awhile. The worst things about us are often an attempt to justify a self made identity. Greed, ego, self-importance, addiction, sexual conquest. These are symptoms of something deeper. There’s always a root under the stem and leaves.
 A teenager asked me, “Would you ever use Chat GPT to write a sermon?” The controversy around AI generated papers and essays is vigorous. But I hadn’t given much thought to using artificial intelligence to write a sermon.
I must admit I’ve never used Chat GPT. But here’s why I won’t use it for sermons. |
