Shawna Atteberry

Baker, Writer, Teacher

Short Hops: Churches, Abbeys, and Sexism in Politics

Chuck Warnock has a very through-provoking post up: 10 Marks of the Church-as-Abbey. Here are two of the marks:

Hospitality. The Celtic abbey was open to all who needed its hospitality and help. Monks, even those fasting, would interrupt their discipline to greet and welcome those who came into the abbey’s confines. Welcoming the stranger is a vital part of the abbey’s ministry.

Economics. The abbeys were self-supporting, engaged in cultivating fields, raising livestock, operating public markets, and giving employment opportunities to the community. I read about a church the other day that also operates a farmers’ market, and has been doing so for years. I am exploring the agrarian movement, particularly as it attracts followers of Christ. More on that later.

He also has this post following up on the economics of the church-as-abbey, The Abbey Church and Economics. When I think of the church I want, I think like this. I want a community that is very involved in the larger community. I need to get one of the books he recommends. I already have Thomas Cahill’s How the Irish Saved Civilization (Hinges of History), which I loved (may need to review it). I now need to add George Hunter’s The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity Can Reach the West…Again.

Julie Clawson has a great post up titled Sexism Sells.

It is hard to avoid given the current political situation, but it serves as a sad reminder of how normal sexism is in the daily life of many people. I’ve mentioned that I am not a Hillary supporter, but I am becoming more and more upset at how she is being used as an excuse to trash women. I am sick of hearing news commenters ridiculing Hillary because she is a woman. I’m sick of hearing, “we can’t have a woman president because then other countries wouldn’t respect us.” (do people realize that most other countries are far ahead of us in electing women leaders!!!). It’s not about her it is about women, she is just an excuse to be sexist on national television.

How many years ago was Margaret Thatcher prime minister of England? The German Chancellor is a woman, and Kenya voted in their first female president last year. Oh yes, so many countries that won’t respect us. Have these people never heard of Golda Mieir, Catherine the Great, or Elizabeth I for that matter? Like Julie this bothers me as well. She goes on to say:

No one would dare call a black man lesser, or make fun of his race, or question if he deserves respect (which is good), but it’s okay for that to happen to women. And then people get upset at you for if you get upset by it – they say you are overreacting, or just roll their eyes and mumble “feminist” under their breath.

This reminds me of all the hot water Joe Biden got himself into when he said Barak Obama was articulate and clean. Yet, we hear none of the same thing when announcers basically do the same thing with Hillary. Like Julie, I am not a Hillary fan, but I am tired of all the sexism and female-bashing going on because she is running.

Reviewing a Book

Last week I found out that my blog is getting noticed. I received a pre-publication copy of Susan McLeod-Harrison’s book Saving Women from the Church: How Jesus Amends a Divide from Barclay Press. This is Susan’s first book and will be released on Febuary 20. She looks at traditional myths about women such as women are inferior to men, women’s emotions disqualify them from ministry, and women cannot lead because they are to submit to men. I am very excited about this book. In a lot of ways Susan’s journey has mirrored my own (I’ll get more into that in my review).

This book also came at a very good time. I had just finished reading Carolyn Custis James’ Lost Women of the Bible: Finding Strength & Significance through Their Stories. I had been excited about this book too and that Carolyn showed how women were equal to and ministered beside men to build God’s Kingdom throughout the Bible. Her scholarship is excellent, and she is a great storyteller. Then I hit the last chapter. She made it very clear that she did not think this included leadership positions such as pastor. In a footnote, she says that Choe, Lydia, and Priscilla were “hostesses,” not leaders, of the churches that met in their homes. She also has two or three paragraphs about how women can be a support and help to their pastors. Pastors are always referred to as “he.” No talk of men supporting their female pastors or women coming alongside and helping their female pastors. I was so disaapointed. I need to write a review of it, but I just haven’t wanted to go back to it. It has been a long time since I was this disappointed in a book.

In the promotional material that came with Saving Women from the Church, they asked if I could read the book and put up a review on my blog, which I am now doing. I’m about halfway through the book. Susan’s publicist also wrote that if we wanted to do an interview to email her. I think I’m going to do that too. I’d love interview Susan and put that up on the site as well.

A Break in the Gloom

Living in Chicago in January with Seasonal Affective Disorder is not such a good thing. Most of last week was gray, gloomy, and cold. I can take all the vitamin D and fish oil I want along with staying active. But nothing does a S. A. D.er better than a sunny day in the upper 30s. I went for a walk through Grant Park down to the lake yesterday and soaked up all the sunshine I could. Here are some pictures.

Now back to gray and gloomy, although it’s in the 50s today, so not cold, but very, very windy. Tomorrow afternoon we’re supposed to have blizzard-like conditions. I will be working from home tomorrow, so I will only be watching the blizzard-like conditions (unlike Tracy who will probably be coming  home in those conditions). I like watching the snow (and rain) go up because of the updraft between buildings here. Then we’re back in the freezer. I am very glad that I got out yesterday and enjoyed the sunshine while I could. Now back to vitiamin D, fish oil, and activity, which is much easier said than done when you’re tired all the time from the aforementioned S. A. D. But spring is on its way.

RevGals Friday Five: It's a Winter Friday Five

Singing Owl says: I am so sorry for the lateness of the Friday Five. I’ve had two emergencies this a.m. and now my computer keeps crashing. I hope I can get this posted!

The picture is out a window at my place, complete with screen. 😉

Brrrr! Baby, it’s COLD outside! At least that is the case where I am this morning. We are in a January deep freeze. Have a cup of hot tea and tackle five easy seasonal questions.

1. What is the thermometer reading at your house this morning?

I think it was around -2.

2. Snow—love it or hate it?

Love it–I just hate the extreme cold. I’m 37 years old and still walk down the street trying to catch snowflakes on my tongue. I ignore the looks. People need to learn to have a little fun.

3. What is winter like where you are?

I’m in Chicago, so very cold and very windy, and we do have snow. Although we’re supposed to be in the 30s by tomorrrow. Woot!
4. Do you like winter sports? Any good stories?

Nope, I stay in as much as possible in the winter. Although the two or three times I’ve ice skated, I’ve really enjoyed it.

5. What is your favorite season, and why?

Fall because of the wildness in the change of the season. And Halloween–my second favorite holiday.

Bonus: Share a favorite winter pick-me-up. A recipe, an activity, or whatever.

Good old fashion hot cocoa and cuddling with The Hubby.

And I really liked Singing Owl’s picture, so I swiped it.

Church vs. Community

Mak had this to say over at Swinging from the Vine:

One of the things I’ve discovered in my time in the church world is that church friendships are almost exactly like work relationships, except people see each other even more infrequently. This applies perhaps even more so to leaders – even amongst each other. Which means you’re “friends” or at least “friendly” as long as you go to the church. Leave the church and you can pretty much bet that’s the last you’ll see of anyone at the church. I’m guilty of contributing to this and participating in it as much as any one but it must stop.

This has been a contention of mine for some time with churches I have attended. I see people for a couple of hours on Sunday then don’t see or hear from anyone during the week. Now when I attended Northside, there was a very good reason for this: I had a forty minute commute to church, and I wasn’t the only one. It’s hard to be a part of each other’s lives when everyone is so spread out.

It’s one of the reasons I am planting a church. I want to not only plant a church, but start a community here in the South Loop. I want people who live here to worship and minister in their zip code. I am very parish oriented. I think it comes from growing up in a small town. Even living in cities I attended churches I lived close to. I want to create a worshiping community where people I go to church with, I see in the grocery store or Target, and pass on the street because we live in this area. Living in the same area will also promote organic community. It’s easier for people to get together for dinner or coffee if they don’t have to commute 40 minutes one way first. Forming small groups should happen more naturally as well.

Mak, I also agree with your post about Christians needing friends outside of the church they attend. This is doubly so if you are on staff or the pastor. But that will have to be another post because I need to go get supper on.

Prayer Request: This time for me

I have found a lump under my right armpit. I have had breast cysts before, but this lump is over my ribs. I have an appointment to see my doctor on Feb. 4. Please pray that it is something benign. My mom’s oldest sister had breast cancer, so it does run in the family. And I do not like how close this lump is to lymph nodes. Thank you.

Shawna

P.S. to self: remember to call Mom so she does not read about lump here first. She doesn’t like it when she reads stuff like this and I haven’t called. Can’t blame her. I’d probably be just as aggravated if it were the other way around. Probably nothing–I would be just as aggravated. That is one of the great things about family: parents are always parents and children are always children. Anyway that’s how it is in both my family and Tracy’s family. Oh yeah, probably should let in-laws know as well, so Father-in-law does not read this first before phone call. Okay, end of very long P. S.

Short Hops: MLK, Immigration, and a Poem

Sally has a beautiful, haunting poem about The Samaritan Woman up on her site.

Instead of simply celebrating Martin Luther King Day, Dustin Wax at Lifehack has a list of things we can do to continue making King’s dream a reality in 12 Ways to Make MLK’s Dream a Reality. Here are a couple of them:

Re-examine what you “know”: It turns out our minds are full of racist stereotypes, even among the most saintly people. We act every day on things we “know” are true, without realizing that those “facts” are grounded only in stereotypes, not reality. Consider:

  • The lowest violent crime rates in the US are found in Hispanic neighborhoods.
  • White teens are more likely to use and sell drugs than any other teenagers — even drugs like crack that we associate with minorities.
  • Almost all school shootings have been carried out by white students.

None of these facts conforms to our expectations, which are shaped more by the stereotypes we’ve internalized and the sensationalist media than by actual experience.

Think community: Kant’s Categorical Imperative states: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”. What he meant in a nutshell was that you should act the way you wish everyone would act. Don’t just ask yourself if your behavior is in your own best interest, but if it also makes your community better (which, if you think about it, is also in your best interest).

In The Outrage of Outsiders: Why So Many People Dislike Christians (Hat tip to Gord), Journey with Jesus has an article about a three year study that resulted in David Kinnaman’s book unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity… and Why It Matters. He found that an overwhelming majority of young adults view Christianity with quite a bit of hostility. They see us as judgmental, bigoted, and extremely critical and unaccepting. All I can say is can you blame them? When you have people constantly telling you (or yelling at you) that you’re going to hell for one reason or another, I’d have to say you wouldn’t like them. May be the church (particularly the evangelical church) needs to take its cue from Jesus and the Christians in the New Testament instead of the “hellfire and brimstone” preachers of the 30s and 40s revivials.

Following the example of Jesus, the first Christians broke down social barriers. They disregarded religious taboos that judged people as ritually clean or unclean, worthy or unworthy, respectable or disrespectable. They subverted normal social hierarchies of wealth, ethnicity, religion, and gender in favor of a radical egalitarianism before God and with each other: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

In a word, the first believers were generous. They demonstrated authentic transparency, not moral superiority or ulterior motives. Like their Lord, they exuded compassion rather than condemnation. They lived out of gratitude not fear, and had a reputation for empathy rather than fault-finding. The first followers of Jesus were people of self-sacrifice, not self-interest. They insisted that God was like a tender father, not a vindictive tyrant, and encouraged every person without exception to believe what the psalmist said: “This I know, that God is for me” (Psalm 56:9).

Pastor Dan over at Street Prophets reminds the right-wing, anti-immigration crew that they Can’t Fool the Faithful: Immigration is a Moral Issue, Not a Political Football. American Christians are going to have to decide are we going to be Americans first or Christian?

Pastors and people in the pews know that inhumane raids, deportations, local anti-immigration ordinances, and racist sentiment against various groups of immigrants fly in the face of the Lord’s admonitions to not “oppress the stranger” (Ex. 23:9) or “pervert the judgment of the stranger” (Deut. 24:17). Instead, the Lord taught us to “love the stranger as ourselves” (Lev. 19:34), and “allow the stranger to live among us” (Lev. 25:35). Christ’s teachings in the New Testament reaffirm the Lord’s commandments of inclusion by urging us to welcome the stranger. He promises that as we provide for the stranger (or “alien,” NIV), we are serving Him (Matt. 25:35-40). How many of these politicians really want to deport Jesus?

And may be those anti-immigration people need to remember who the illegal immigrants of 300 years ago were. Bet the Native Americans wished they had built a big, honking wall right after we started showing up. (I saw a great cartoon of this, but I don’t remember where. If you know, leave a link in the comments, and I’ll update this post.)

Jan 20 Sermon: Salvation to the Ends of the Earth

Jesus: Salvation to the Ends of the Earth

Isaiah 49:1-7; John 1:29-42

 

 

“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Is. 49:6) This is what God says to God’s servant in Isaiah 49. It is too light a thing for you only to raise up and restore Israel. That just isn’t enough for my servant: you are going to be a light to the nations: the very nations that destroyed you and now hold you in exile. Yeah to those nations. You’re going to bring my salvation to the ends of the earth–that’s right the ends of the Persian Empire you are a part of, and no it’s not small. It’s not enough that just Israel is restored: you are going to show to the world the kind of God I am, and they will see my light and salvation. Wow, what a job description. And this is after the servant sighs, “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity.” May be he should have stopped there, but no, he goes on, “yet surely my cause is with the LORD, and my reward with my God.”

 

 

This phrase has been going through my mind all week: It is too little of a thing for you just to save your own people, or one people, or just those who are like you and you agree with. That is too little of a thing for the servant of God. In the context of Isaiah, God is telling this to the Jews. The Jews that are in exile. The Jews that are enslaved and indentured by other countries. They’re not at all sure about this whole return to Jerusalem thing anyway. They know what they’re going to find: rubble. They know what they’re going to have to do: rebuild. That’s why the servant thinks they have labored in vain. But oh no, that’s not all God has in store for the Jews. God has a much bigger plan, a much broader agenda. Much bigger than the Jews wanted. And let’s face it, most of the time bigger than we want.

 

 

As we discussed last week, the servant of God began as Israel, then Jesus fulfilled these passages, and as the Body of Christ, we are now the servant. And what does God tell us? It’s too light of a thing to reach out just to our neighbors, just to our friends, just to those who look like us and agree with us. As God expected Jesus, and as God expected Israel, God expects us to bring God’s light to the nations and God’s salvation to the ends of the earth. Admittedly in Chicago, this is a little more palatable since the nations have come to us. But still it is a monstrous call, to say the least. It’s enough to make a pastor freak out. It’s enough to make most churches freak out. What are we going to do with this call?

 

 

Let’s take a look at how Jesus started. This week our Gospel is from John. Right after Jesus’ baptism in John’s Gospel, John is pointing him out to his disciples and yelling everywhere he goes: “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!” John’s disciples start paying attention, but two actually do something about John’s testimony. Two of them started following Jesus. When Jesus ask them what they are seeking, they answer that they want to know where he is staying or abiding. Jesus tells them to come and see, and the two abide with Jesus for the afternoon. The next day the two bring two more to Jesus. Andrew brings his brother, Simon, whom Jesus renames upon meeting, and Phillip brings a sarcastic Nathaniel. In all the gospels Jesus starts the same way, with two to four people. He starts small–he does start with the Jews, and it is only later after his resurrection that his light goes to the nations of the world. And then it takes some doing on God’s part to get the Jewish Christians out of Jerusalem and taking the Gospel to the ends of the Roman Empire.

 

 

God’s call is to take God’s light and salvation everywhere. We do begin in our homes, buildings, and neighborhoods. That is what we are supposed to do. But we are always to keep in mind that is not where we stop. God’s call is still for God’s love, compassion, and salvation to go to the ends of the earth. God’s call is still for us to show God’s light to people that are not like us, to people who don’t agree with us, with people who could be our enemies. Yes, we are small, but so was Jesus and the first disciples. The mission to be light to the ends of the earth always starts small. It grows as we give faithful witness to Jesus and live how he commanded us to live. As more and more of us live this way, people will start asking questions, and then we can say to them “Come and see.” Come and see what this Jesus person is about. Come and see why he makes such a difference in our lives. Come and see why we believe he is the Son of God and Savior of the world. Come and see the light to the nations and the salvation to the ends of the earth. And like John the Baptist that’s what we have to remember. We are not the light. We are only witnesses to the light. And as we live as faithful witnesses to the light of Christ, people will see his light, his love, and his compassion in our lives.

Office hours cancelled for 1/17

Due to a sinus headache, I will not be keeping my office hours at Hi Tea from 2:00–4:00 today. Thank you for your understanding. If you need to talk to me over the weekend or next week, please call or email me.

Shawna